Sources.

The source of the Sutlej is west of catchment area of the Lake Rakshastal in Tibet, as springs in an ephemeral stream. Lake Rakshastal used to be part of the Sutlej river basin long ago and separated from the Sutlej due to tectonic activity. The nascent river flows at first west-northwest for about under the Tibetan name "Langqên Zangbo" ("Elephant River" or "Elephant Spring") to the Shipki La pass, entering India in Himachal Pradesh state. It then turns slightly, heading west-southwest for about to meet the Beas River near Makhu, Firozpur district, Punjab state. Ropar Wetland in Punjab state is located on the Sutlej river basin. Evidence suggests Indus Valley Civilisation also flourished here. Ungti Chu and Pare Chu rivers which drain southeastern part of Jammu and Kashmir state are tributaries of Sutlej river.  Continuing west-southwest, the Sutlej enters Pakistan about east of Bhedian Kalan, Kasur District, Punjab province, continuing southwest to water the ancient and historical former Bahawalpur princely state. Few centuries ago, Sutlej river was merging with the Ghaggar river to discharge in to the Arabian sea. In 1797 the course of the Sutlej river moved towards north to join the Beas river.  About north of Uch Sharif, the Sutlej unites with the Chenab River, forming the Panjnad River, which finally flows into the Indus river about west of the city of Bahawalpur. The area to the southeast on the Pakistani side of the Indian border is called the Cholistan Desert and, on the Indian side, the Thar Desert.  The Indus then flows through a gorge near Sukkur and the fertile plains region of Sindh, forming a large delta region between the border of Gujarat, India and Pakistan, finally terminating in the Arabian Sea near the port city of Karachi, Pakistan. During floods, Indus river water flows in to Indian part of Great Rann of Kutch. Thus Gujarat state of India is also a riparian state of Indus river as Rann of Kutch area lying west of Kori Creek in the state is part of the Indus River Delta.

Langqên Zangbo.

"Langqên Zangbo" (; ) is a river in Ngari, Tibet, China. The name "Langqên", Tibetan for "elephant", is because of a valley that resembles an elephant trunk. This river is the main source of the Sutlej, a tributary of Indus River. It enters India at Shipki La pass. The source is south of Gangdise Range, in Ngari Prefecture. Its course is mainly in the Zanda County. The river drains an area of 22,760 km, and covers a length of 309 km. The drop in height is 3,256 m. Historically, the river was the centre of the Zhangzhung Kingdom until its fall in the 8th century AD.

Geology.

The Sutlej, along with all of the Punjab rivers, is thought to have drained east into the Ganges prior to 5 mya.  There is substantial geologic evidence to indicate that prior to 1700 BC, and perhaps much earlier, the Sutlej was an important tributary of the Ghaggar-Hakra River (thought to be the legendary Sarasvati River) rather than the Indus, with various authors putting the redirection from 2500 to 2000 BC, from 5000 to 3000 BC, or before 8000 BC. Geologists believe that tectonic activity created elevation changes which redirected the flow of Sutlej from the southeast to the southwest. If the diversion of the river occurred recently (about 4000 years ago), it may have been responsible for the Ghaggar-Hakra (Saraswati) drying up, causing desertification of Cholistan and the eastern part of the modern state of Sindh, and the abandonment of Harappan settlements along the Ghaggar. However, the Sutlej may have already been captured by the Indus thousands of years earlier.  There is some evidence that the high rate of erosion caused by the modern Sutlej River has influenced the local faulting and rapidly exhumed rocks above Rampur. This would be similar to, but on a much smaller scale than, the exhumation of rocks by the Indus River in Nanga Parbat, Pakistan. The Sutlej River also exposes a doubled inverted metamorphic gradient.

Sutlej-Yamuna Link.

There has been a proposal to build a long heavy freight and irrigation canal, to be known as the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) to connect the Sutlej and Yamuna rivers. The project is intended to connect the Ganges, which flows to the east coast of the subcontinent, with points west, via Pakistan. When completed, the SYL would enable inland shipping from India's east coast to its west coast (on the Arabian sea) without having to round the southern tip of India by sea, vastly shortening shipping distances, alleviating pressures on seaports, avoiding sea hazards, creating business opportunities along the route, raising real estate values, raising tax revenue, and establishing important commercial links and providing jobs for north-central India's large population. However, the proposal has met with obstacles and has been referred to the Supreme Court of India. To augment nearly 100 tmcft water availability for the needs of this link canal, Tso Moriri lake/Lingdi Nadi (a tributary of Tso Moriri lake) waters can be diverted to the Sutlej basin by digging a 10 km long gravity canal to connect to the Ungti Chu river.

History.

The Upper Sutlej Valley, called Langqên Zangbo in Tibet, was once known as the Garuda Valley by the Zhangzhung, the ancient civilization of western Tibet. The Garuda Valley was the centre of their empire, which stretched many miles into the nearby Himalayas. The Zhangzhung built a towering palace in the Upper Sutlej Valley called Kyunglung, the ruins of which still exist today near the village of Moincêr, southwest of Mount Kailash (Mount Ti-se). Eventually, the Zhangzhung were conquered by the Tibetan Empire.  Today, the Sutlej Valley is inhabited by nomadic descendants of the Zhangzhung, who live in tiny villages of yak herders.  The Sutlej was the main medium of transportation for the kings of that time. In the early 18th century, it was used to transport devdar woods for Bilaspur district, Hamirpur district, and other places along the Sutlej's banks.  Of four rivers (Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra and Karnali/Ganges) mythically flowing out of holy Lake Manasarovar, the Sutlej is actually connected by channels that are dry most of the time. Earlier the river was also called as Shutudri or Zaradros river.

The Sutlej River (alternatively spelled as "Satluj" River) (Sanskrit: शतद्रु नदी "Shatadru nadee"; Hindi: सतलज नदी "satalaj nadee"; ; Satluj nadi; ; "darya-e-sutlej") is the longest of the five rivers that flow through the historic crossroads region of Punjab in northern India and Pakistan. The Sutlej River is also known as Satadree. It is the easternmost tributary of the Indus River.


Account given in the "Heimskringla".

"Heimskringla" describes Sigrid as the beautiful but vengeful daughter of Skogul-Tosti, a powerful Swedish nobleman. As widow of Eric the Victorious, she held many great estates, and was living with her son Olav the Swede, when her foster-brother Harald Grenske, a king in Vestfold, sought her hand. She had him and another royal wooer, Vissavald of Gardarik, burned to death in a great hall following a feast to discourage other suitors. This episode earned her her byname.  Her hand was next sought by Olaf Tryggvasson, the king of Norway, but he would have required that she convert to Christianity. She told him to his face, "I will not part from the faith which my forefathers have kept before me". In a rage, Olaf struck her with a glove, and Sigrid calmly told him, "This may some day be thy death". Sigrid then proceeded to create a coalition of his enemies to bring about his downfall. She allied Sweden with Denmark, marrying the widower Sweyn Forkbeard who had already been feuding with Olaf. Sweyn had sent his sister Tyri to marry the Wendish king Burislav, who had been the father of Sweyn's first wife, Gunhild. Tyri fled and married Olaf, goading him into conflict with her brother, while Sigrid inflamed Sweyn against her former suitor. This shared animosity would lead to the Battle of Swold, in which Olaf fell. Snorri also claims that Estrid Svendsdatter was a paternal sister of Cnut the Great, and as a daughter of Sigrid was maternal sister to Olav the Swede, but in another place says that Estrid was a daughter of Gunhild of Wenden.  The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus would repeat this information, writing that Eric the Victorious' widow Syritha had married Sweyn Forkbeard after having spurned Olaf Trygvasson.  One further point that has been cited in favor of Sigrid's historical existence is that the holdings of the Danish kings in medieval Sweden were known as "Syghridslef" - 'the legacy of Sigrid'.

Contemporary chroniclers.

There is scant material in medieval chronicles to provide details regarding the marriages of Sweyn of Denmark and Erik of Sweden:  During this time, marriages between Nordic monarchs and Vendic nobles was reoccurring for political reasons. For instance, Tove of the Obotrites, daughter of the Vendic lord Mistivoj, married King Harald Bluetooth of Denmark in the 960s.

Modern reconstructions.

These data have been used for alternative reconstructions. One would interpret the saga account of Sigrid as a confused rendering of a princess, Świętosława, daughter of first duke of the Polans Mieszko I, who married in succession Erik and Sweyn, being mother of Olaf (by Erik), Harald and Cnut (both by Sweyn). "Sigrid" would be either a contemporary name adopted by the Princess to conform to her new linguistic context, or else simply a name invented by saga writers who did not know or could not comprehend her Slavic name. This solution may further make her identical to Sweyn's first queen in the saga, 'Gunhild', daughter of Burislav, suggested to be a confused rendering of the same historical marriage to the sister of Boleslav of Poland. Alternatively, the attributed Polish marriages of Sweyn and Eric may have been to different women, with Gunhild being the daughter of Mieszko, while Eric's widow, a distinct princess and the model for Sigrid, married Sweyn after her. Finally, some consider "Sigrid" to be a fantasy created by Scandinavian saga writers.

Archaeology.

Further confusion has been introduced by dated interpretations of an archaeological discovery. In 1835, the Haraldskær Woman was discovered in a peat bog in Jutland. This body of a woman was dated to the 11th century, and it was identified with Sigrid (or Gunhild). Radiocarbon dating later proved this dating incorrect, that the remains are much older. However, the erroneous dating became intertwined with numerous episodes of Scandinavian intrigue, as the theory was elaborated to serve a variety of agendas of kings and nobles prior to its redating.

In literature.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow composed a poem with the title "Queen Sigrid the Haughty" of which this is the first verse:  Karen Blixen, in the short story "The Deluge at Norderney" in "Seven Gothic Tales", refers to Sigrid, claiming that she invited all her suitors to her house and burned them in order to discourage other suitors.  The story of Sigrid's life, loosely based on the Saga materials, is the focus of two novels by the Swedish writer and journalist, Johanne Hildebrandt: "Sigrid" (2014) and its sequel "Estrid" (2016).  There are three novels about the life and times of Sigrid the Haughty (treating her as identical to Świętosława):

Sigrid the Haughty, also known as Sigríð Storråda ("Sigrid Storråda" in Swedish), is a queen appearing in Norse sagas as wife, first of Eric the Victorious of Sweden, then Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark. Sigrid appears in many sagas composed generations after the events they describe, but there is no reliable evidence as to her existence as they describe her. The figure of Sigrid appears mainly in late Icelandic sagas, while more contemporary sources such as Thietmar of Merseburg and Adam of Bremen instead claim that Sweyn was married to a Polish princess, identified as Świętosława. Snorri Sturluson gives conflicting information and in one place says that Sweyn was married to Sigrid and in another that he was married to a Gunhild of Wenden.


History.

Silesia.

On 8 May 1242, the monastery at Grüssau in Lower Silesia was founded by Anna of Bohemia, widow of the Piast Duke Henry II the Pious, who had been killed at the Battle of Legnica. It was settled with Benedictine monks descending from the abbey of Opatovice in Bohemia. In 1289 Anna's grandson Duke Bolko I of Świdnica again acquired the abbey's lands and gave them to the Cistercians at Heinrichau (Henryków), who consecrated the new Assumption of Mary Monastery Church in 1292. In 1392 the Silesian Duchy of Schweidnitz/Świdnica was incorporated into the Kingdom of Bohemia, an electorate of H.R.E. Germany.  Grüssau Abbey was destroyed during the Hussite Wars and again during the Thirty Years' War, and rebuilt on both occasions. It was particularly connected with the Silesian mystic Angelus Silesius. From 1728 on the abbey church was rebuilt in a Baroque style, including several sculptures by Ferdinand Brokoff as well as paintings by Petr Brandl and Michael Willmann. With most of Silesia, Grüssau was conquered by King Frederick II of Prussia in 1742 and finally secularised in 1810 during the Napoleonic Wars. The church became a parish church and the remaining premises were used for various governmental purposes within the Prussian Province of Silesia.  When after World War I the German monks of the Prague Emaus Abbey in Czechoslovakia were obliged to leave the city, they resettled in 1919 in the empty monastery buildings at Grüssau, then part of Weimar Germany. It was again raised to an abbey by Pope Pius XI in 1924, the monastery was however suspended by the Nazi government in 1940 and the buildings seized as a detention camp. During the bombing of Berlin from 1942 on, large parts of the Berlin State Library collection were outhoused at Grüssau Abbey. Those documents include some of the earliest known species illustrations by European naturalists including, among others, Georg Marcgrave (Marcgraf) and botanist Ferdinand Bauer. This collection was stored at the abbey during World War II, and remained missing for over 30 years.  The territory was placed under Polish administration according to the 1945 Potsdam Agreement. Although the monastery was returned to the monks after the end of World War II, as ethnic Germans they were expelled from Silesia by the Polish government shortly afterwards on 12 May 1946. In 1946 a mysterious convoy called at the monastery and loaded thousands of manuscripts — autographed scores of Mozart (1⁄4 of his known music), Beethoven, Bach and other composers — and disappeared. Several volumes were restored to East Germany in 1965, the remaining "Berlinka" collection at the Cracow Jagiellonian University and its status as "looted art" is still a matter of dispute.  In 1947 Krzeszów Abbey was resettled by Polish Benedictine nuns expelled from Lviv (Lwów).

Baden-Württemberg.

In 1947 the expelled community under Abbot Albert Schmitt purchased the former "Ritterstift" (collegiate foundation or canonry) around the Gothic monastery church of Saint Peter in Bad Wimpfen, that had been abandoned since its secularisation in 1803, and became known as Kloster Bad Wimpfen. The last abbot, Laurentius Hoheisel, resigned in 1997. As the membership of the community had declined too far for it to be legally independent, it has been directed since 2001 by the abbot of Neuburg Abbey near Heidelberg.  By the autumn of 2006 no monks remained, the last having moved to Neuburg, although Kloster Bad Wimpfen still remains nominally a Benedictine monastery and is still a member of the Beuron Congregation within the Benedictine Confederation. A small community (consisting at the end of 2006 of a priest and a layman) maintain the facilities as a Benedictine guest house and venue for retreats, under the management of Neuburg Abbey.

Krzeszów Abbey, formerly known as Grüssau Abbey (, ) refers to a historical Cistercian monastery in Grüssau, Lower Silesia, after 1945 Krzeszów, Poland. The name Grüssau Abbey, founded in 1947, refers to a house of the Benedictine Order in the town of Bad Wimpfen in Baden-Württemberg, where the German Grüssau (Krzeszów) community found refuge, after their "Kloster Grüssau" was taken over by Poland.


Life.

Robert was the son of Philip of Artois, Lord of Conches-en-Ouche, and Blanche of Brittany, daughter of Duke John II, Duke of Brittany, both descended in male line from the Capetian dynasty.  He was only eleven when his father died in September 1298 from wounds he received at the Battle of Furnes on 20 August 1297 against the Flemish people. The early death of his father was an indirect cause of the dispute over the succession to the County of Artois. After the death of his grandfather, Robert II, Count of Artois, in the Battle of Courtrai in 1302, the latter's daughter, Mahaut, inherited the County of Artois in accordance with custom. Because of his age, Robert III could not object to his aunt and assert the rights which he inherited from his father. He would do so later. The rancor and intrigues between Mahaut (sometimes called Mathilde) and Robert occurred within a period of strife between France and England, before the Hundred Years' War.  Robert played an important role in the succession of Philip VI of France (his wife's half-brother) to the throne, and was his trusted adviser for some time. From this he drew a certain influence in the royal council which he used to try to wrest from Mahaut what he considered his county. At Mahaut's death in 1329, the claim passed to her daughter Joan II, Countess of Burgundy. Building on the example of the estate of the County of Flanders, he again raised the matter of succession. Artois was put under the custody of the King of France. However, in 1331, he used a forgery created by Jeanne de Divion attesting to the will of his father. This deception was discovered, and Robert lost any hope of acquiring Artois. The forger Divion was condemned at the stake. Robert's property was confiscated by Philip in 1331, and his wife and his sons John and Charles imprisoned. Robert fled France in 1332 to escape arrest and execution, and took refuge with his nephew John II, Marquis of Namur. Philip requested that the Bishop of Liège attack Namur. Accordingly, Robert fled again to John III, Duke of Brabant, his nephew-in-law. Again, the influence of Philip stirred up a war against Brabant, and Robert was exiled again, this time to England. There he joined Edward III and urged Edward–whose wife Philippa of Hainault also descended from Charles of Valois–to start a war to reclaim the Kingdom of France. While in England, he became a member of Edward's royal council and provided extensive information on the French court to the English king. Numerous contemporary chroniclers relate how Robert's influence led directly to the start of the Hundred Years War, specifically because Philip VI cited Edward's unwillingness to expel Robert as the reason for confiscating the Duchy of Aquitaine in May 1337. A vowing poem called the "Voeux du héron" ("Vow of the Heron") circulated in France and England in the late 1340s that depicted Edward's invasion of France as the fulfilment of a chivalric oath made to Robert that he would take the French throne, as was his dynastic right.  Robert followed Edward in his campaigns thereafter, including command of the Anglo-Flemish army at the Battle of Saint-Omer in 1340. He ultimately succumbed to dysentery after being wounded while retreating from the city of Vannes in November 1342, during the War of the Breton Succession. He was originally buried in the Blackfriars church, in London, though his grave is now in St. Paul's Cathedral.

Family.

Around 1320 Robert married Joan, daughter of Charles of Valois and his second wife Catherine I of Courtenay. They had six children:

In fiction.

Robert III of Artois is a major character in "Les Rois maudits" ("The Accursed Kings"), a series of French historical novels by Maurice Druon in which many of these events are retold. He was played by Jean Piat in the 1972 French miniseries adaptation of the series, and by Philippe Torreton in the 2005 adaptation.

Robert III of Artois (1287 – between 6 October & 20 November 1342) was Lord of Conches-en-Ouche, of Domfront, and of Mehun-sur-Yèvre, and in 1309 he received as appanage the county of Beaumont-le-Roger in restitution for the County of Artois, which he claimed. He was also briefly Earl of Richmond in 1341 after the death of John III, Duke of Brittany.


Development.

Development work began in 1949, using a swept wing from the start rather than adapting a straight-winged design as was done with the Grumman F9F Panther. A competing contract was also awarded for the delta wing Douglas F4D Skyray. The Skyray, with a top speed of, would become the Navy's first fighter to fly supersonic in level flight, while the Demon would never reach that level of performance. The original design work was based at its predecessor, the F2H Banshee. However, departing from its tradition of using two engines, the Demon would result in McDonnell's only single-engined carrier-based fighter, adopting under some Navy pressure, the Westinghouse J40 engine. That engine was being promoted by the Navy for its next generation of aircraft, and was to have thrust of over 11,000 lbf (49 kN)—three times that of the engines in the F2H Banshee. It was the first swept-wing design produced by McDonnell and among the first U.S. aircraft to have missile armament.  The Navy desperately needed a high performance fighter to meet the challenge of the swept-wing MiG-15 encountered over Korea. Production of the F3H-1N was hastily ordered even before the first flight of the XF3H-1 prototype on 7 August 1951 by test pilot Robert Edholm. The first test flights of the operational design did not occur until January 1953, by which time the Korean War was winding down.  The F3H Demon was originally designed around Navy's ambitious new Westinghouse J40 which was to offer enough power to use just one engine in a number of new aircraft designs. But the engine would ultimately fail to produce the promised thrust or run reliably. The engine was a major disappointment, producing only half of the expected power. Worse, it was temperamental and unreliable. Of 35 F3H-1N aircraft flown with the J40 engine, eight were involved in major accidents. The first production Demons were grounded after the loss of six aircraft and four pilots. "Time" magazine called the Navy's grounding of all Westinghouse-powered F3H-1 Demons a "fiasco", with 21 unflyable planes that could be used only for Navy ground training at a loss of $200 million. One high point of the J40 was the 1955 setting of an unofficial time-to-climb record, in a Demon, of in 71 seconds. The proposed F3H-1P reconnaissance version was never built. The J40 program was terminated sometime in 1955.  All the aircraft it was to power were either canceled or redesigned to use other engines, notably the J57 and the J71. The F4D Skyray had been designed to accept larger engines in case the J40 did not work out, and was eventually powered by the Pratt & Whitney J57. But no other engine could simply be fitted into the old Demons, as both the wings and fuselage would have to be redesigned and enlarged. The best alternative turned out to be the Allison J71 engine which was also used in the Douglas B-66 Destroyer. Subsequent F3Hs with this powerplant were designated the F3H-2N. In service, the J71 proved problematic, providing insufficient power for an aircraft of the Demon's size. The engine also suffered from frequent flameouts and compressor stalls. The first Demon with a J71 flew in October 1954. Another significant problem was the reliability of the ejection seats: initial versions were found to be unreliable and were eventually replaced with Martin-Baker ejection seats that were becoming the standard Navy seat of choice due to their higher performance at low altitude and better reliability.  Despite the problems, the Navy ordered 239 F3H-2s, and the first were deployed in March 1956. 519 Demons were built up to the end of production in November 1959. It was not the Navy's first all-weather interceptor with radar (the AN/APG-51 air interception set was used first on the F2H-4 Banshee). The F3H-2 Demon had the AN/APG-51A, later upgraded to the 51-B version with a tunable magnetron then on to 51-C with better counter-measures in the receiver.  The F3H-2N's standard armament was four 20 mm (.79 in) Colt Mk 12 cannons. In later years, the upper two cannons were often omitted to save weight. Later models, redesignated F3H-2M, were equipped to fire the Raytheon AAM-N-2 Sparrow and later the Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. Deployed aircraft carried both types of missiles, the Sparrow on the inboard rails and the Sidewinder outboard. Cannons were not used in carrier air defense applications, but they were installed and armed when situations (such as the Cuban Missile Crisis) dictated, and where the aircraft might be deployed against surface targets.  A reconnaissance version, the F3H-2P, was proposed, but never built. It remained the Navy's front-line fighter until 1962, when it was succeeded by the F-4 Phantom II (which was a development of a proposed "Super Demon", a larger and much heavier version of the F3H). Developed during the Korean War to counter the MiG-15, it did not claim any aerial victories with missiles or dogfights, although it flew over Lebanon and Quemoy in 1958.  In 1962, the F3H was redesignated F-3. The F3H-2N became the F-3C, the F3H-2M became MF-3B, and the F3H-2 changed to F-3B.  The last Demon-equipped squadron, VF-161 'Chargers', traded their F-3s for F-4 Phantom IIs in September 1964.  Due to excellent visibility from the cockpit, the Demon earned the nickname "The Chair". Demon pilots were known colloquially as "Demon Drivers" and those who worked on the aircraft were known as "Demon Doctors". The unfavorable power-to-weight ratio gave rise to the less flattering nickname "lead sled", sometimes shortened to "sled".

The McDonnell F3H Demon is a subsonic swept-wing United States Navy carrier-based jet fighter aircraft. The successor to the F2H Banshee, the Demon was originally designed to use the Westinghouse J40 engine, but had to be redesigned to accept the Allison J71 after the J40 suffered severe problems and was ultimately abandoned. Though it lacked sufficient power for supersonic performance, it complemented daylight dogfighters such as the Vought F8U Crusader and Grumman F11F Tiger as an all-weather, missile-armed interceptor until 1964.


Name.

Vitry-sur-Seine was originally called simply Vitry. The name Vitry comes from Medieval Latin "Vitriacum", and before that "Victoriacum", meaning "estate of Victorius", a Gallo-Roman landowner. In 1897 the name of the commune officially became Vitry-sur-Seine (meaning "Vitry upon Seine"), in order to distinguish it from other communes of France also called Vitry.

Culture.

For some years, Vitry-sur-Seine operated a cultural policy of bringing art to all. For this reason, the commune contains over 100 contemporary sculptures, notably in establishments of public education (schools, secondary schools and High Schools).  Vitry hosts the Musée d'Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne (Val-de-Marne's Museum of Contemporary Art). Opened on 18 November 2005, this museum offers in addition to the workshops of plastic arts, an auditorium and a cinema for art and experimental film.  Vitry is one of the cities that contributed to the development of the Hip hop movement in France. Consequentially, urban art has a very important place in the city

Transport.

Vitry-sur-Seine is served by two stations on Paris RER line C: Vitry-sur-Seine and Les Ardoines.  Orly Airport is located near Vitry-sur-Seine.

Demographics.

The city can be separated into three distinct parts: the center containing numerous "cités HLM" (Housing projects), peripheral neighborhoods belonging to the middle class, and a large industrial area along the Seine river.  The bordering towns are Ivry-sur-Seine, Villejuif, Chevilly-Larue, Thiais, Choisy-le-Roi, Alfortville.  In 2008 the population of the city was estimated at 82,500 inhabitants. The rate of unemployment is 26.5%, while national average is under 10% Vitry-sur-Seine is the fiftieth most populated city of France and the tenth of Île-de-France.

Immigration.

As of circa 1998 Ivry-sur-Seine and Vitry had a combined Asian population of 3,600. That year about 250 Asians from those communes worked in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, and the overall demographics of Ivry and Vitry Asians were similar to those in the 13th arrondissement.

Administration.

Vitry is divided into two cantons (districts):

Education.

the commune has 23 preschools ("maternelles"), and 21 elementary schools, with a combined total of 9,000 students.  Paris 12 Val de Marne University is the area university.

International relations.

Twin towns – Sister cities.

Vitry-sur-Seine is twinned with:

Vitry-sur-Seine () is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris.


History.

The only extant near-contemporary source for BWV 565 is an undated copy by Johannes Ringk. A broad estimate is that the manuscript was written somewhere in the period from ten years before Bach's death in 1750 to ten years after it. Ringk produced his first copy of a Bach score in 1730 when he was 12. Taking into consideration the evolution of Ringk's handwriting, one can infer that his copy of BWV 565 was written soon after his first copy of a Bach composition, which would narrow the date of his BWV 565 manuscript to between 1730 and 1735, when Ringk was around 15. At the time Ringk was a student of Bach's former student Johann Peter Kellner at Gräfenroda, and probably faithfully copied what his teacher put before him. There are some errors in the score such as note values not adding up to fill a measure correctly. Such defects show a carelessness deemed typical of Kellner, who left over 60 copies of works by Bach.  The title page of Ringk's manuscript writes the title of the work in Italian as "Toccata con Fuga", names Johann Sebastian Bach as the composer of the piece, and indicates its tonality as "ex. d. #.", which is usually seen as the key signature being D minor. However, in Ringk's manuscript the staves have no accidental at the key (which would be the usual way to write down a piece in D minor). In this sense, in Ringk's manuscript, the piece is written down in D Dorian mode. Another piece listed as Bach's was also known as Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and was equally entitled to the "Dorian" qualification. It was that piece, BWV 538, that received the "Dorian" nickname, that qualifier being effectively used to distinguish it from BWV 565. Most score editions of BWV

Structure.

BWV 565 exhibits a typical simplified north German structure with a free opening (toccata), a fugal section (fugue), and a short free closing section.

Toccata.

The Toccata begins with a single-voice flourish in the upper ranges of the keyboard, doubled at the octave. It then spirals toward the bottom, where a diminished seventh chord appears (which actually implies a dominant chord with a minor 9th against a tonic pedal), built one note at a time. This resolves into a D major chord:  Three short passages follow, each reiterating a short

Fugue.

The subject of the four-voice fugue is made up entirely of sixteenth notes, with an implied pedal point set against a brief melodic subject that first falls, then rises. Such violinistic figures are frequently encountered in Baroque music and that of Bach, both as fugue subjects and as material in non-imitative pieces. Unusually, the answer is in

Coda.

A multi-sectional coda follows, marked "Recitativo". Although only 17 bars long, it progresses

Performance.

The performance time of the piece is usually around nine minutes, but shorter performance times (e.g. 8:15) and execution times of over 10:30 exist. The first section of the piece, the Toccata, takes

Reception.

In the first century of its existence the entire reception history of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor consists of being saved from oblivion by maybe not more than a single manuscript copy. Then it took about a century from its first publication as a little known organ composition by Johann Sebastian Bach to becoming one of the signature pieces of the composer. The composition's third century took it from Bach's most often recorded organ piece to a composition with an unclear origin. Despite Mendelssohn's opinion that it was "at the same time learned and something for the people", followed by a fairly successful piano transcription in the second half of the 19th century, it was not until the 20th century that it rose above the average notability of an organ piece by Bach. Leopold Stokowski's orchestration, featured in the 1940 Walt Disney film "Fantasia", appears to have been instrumental in assuring its status as an evergreen by the 1980s, around which time scholars started to seriously doubt its attribution to Bach.  The composition has been deemed as both "particularly suited to the organ", and as "strikingly unorganistic". It has been seen as united by a single ground-thought, but also as containing "passages which have no connection whatever with the chief idea". It has been called "entirely a thing of virtuosity" yet also described as being "not so difficult as it sounds". It has been described as some sort of program music depicting a storm, but also as abstract music, quite the opposite of program music depicting a storm. It has been presented as an emanation of the galant style, yet too dramatic to be anything near that style. Its period of origin has been assumed to have been as early as around 1704, and as late as the 1750s. Its defining characteristics have been associated with extant compositions by Bach (BWV 531, 549a, 578, 911, 914, 922 and several of the solo violin sonatas and partitas), and by others (including Nicolaus Bruhns and Johann Heinrich Buttstett), as well as with untraceable earlier versions for other instruments and/or by other composers. It has been deemed too simplistic for it to have been written down by Bach, and too much a stroke of genius to have been composed by anyone else but Bach.  What remains is "the most famous organ work in existence", that in its rise to fame was helped by various arrangements, including bombastic piano settings, versions for full symphonic orchestra, and alternative settings for more modest solo instruments.

References.

References consisting of a last name and

External links.

Sheet music  Recordings  Mixed media (sheet music and recordings)

The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is a piece of organ music written, according to its oldest extant sources, by Johann Sebastian Bach. The piece opens with a toccata section, followed by a fugue that ends in a coda. It is one of the most famous works in the organ repertoire.


SS career.

Kappler was born to a middle-class family in Stuttgart in the German Empire. Herbert Kappler joined the Nazi Party on 1 August 1931. He joined the SS in 1933. In January 1936, he was assigned to duty at the Gestapo main office of Stuttgart. In 1937, Kappler graduated from the "Führerschule der Sicherheitspolizei" (Leadership School of the Security Police) in Berlin as a "Kriminalkommissar" (criminal commissioner). In 1938, during the Anschluss, he supervised the mass deportations of Austria's Jews to concentration camps.  Kappler was posted to Rome as head of the "Sicherheitsdienst" (SD) and throughout the war years he cooperated closely with the Fascist police. Following the Armistice between Italy and the Allied Forces on 8 September 1943, Kappler acquired considerable power as German forces took control of the Italian capital.

Chief of Police in occupied Rome.

Following the armistice between Italy and the Allies on 8 September 1943, the German military occupied Rome and Kappler was appointed as Chief of the Security Police and Security Service ("Oberbefehlshaber des Sicherheitspolizei und SD") for all SS and Order Police ("Ordnungspolizei") units deployed in Rome.  Kappler was in charge of Jewish roundups for deportations to Auschwitz; in his first action, 1,023 Italian Jews were deported with only 16 surviving, and Kappler would later arrange the deportation of a further 993 Roman Jews, nearly all of whom would eventually die in Nazi gas chambers. During this action, he demanded 50 kilograms of gold (110 lbs.) from the Jewish community in Rome, which he later claimed was an attempt to prevent the round-up and the deportations.  By early 1944, Kappler was the highest representative of the Reich Main Security Office in Rome and answered directly to both the military governorship, under Luftwaffe General Kurt Mälzer, as well as the SS chain of command under the Higher SS and Police Leader of Italy, SS-"Obergruppenführer" Karl Wolff.  Kappler came into direct conflict with the Vatican, as the Germans had strong suspicions that it was harbouring Allied fugitives and escaped prisoners, even though the Vatican under Pope Pius XII was technically neutral. A particular adversary of Kappler's in this respect was Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, whose activities helping Jewish fugitives and Allied prisoners escape from Rome led to Kappler having him targeted for assassination. Paradoxically, after the war Kappler and O'Flaherty would become friends of sorts.  Kappler organised the Ardeatine massacre where 335 Italian civilians were killed on 24 March 1944 as a reprisal for an attack by resistance fighters resulting in the deaths of 33 men of the SS Police garrison in Rome.

Criminal conviction.

Kappler was arrested by British authorities in 1945 and later turned over to the Italian government in 1947 and tried the following year. Kappler's second in command in Rome, SS-Captain Erich Priebke, managed to escape and it was not until 1996 that Priebke would face justice.  In 1948, Kappler was tried by an Italian military tribunal and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Gaeta military prison. Kappler and his first wife divorced while he was serving his sentence. He later married Anneliese Kappler, a nurse who had carried on a lengthy correspondence with him, before marrying him at a prison ceremony in 1972. By this time, Kappler had also converted to Catholicism, partly due to the influence of his war-time enemy, the Vatican diplomat Hugh O'Flaherty, who often visited him in prison, discussing literature and religion with him.  By 1975, at the age of sixty-eight, Kappler was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he was moved to a military hospital in Rome in 1976. Appeals by both his wife and the West German government to release him were denied by Italian authorities. Because of Kappler's deteriorating condition and his wife's nursing skills, Anneliese Kappler had been allowed almost unlimited access to him during his time in the Italian hospital. On a prison visit in August 1977, Kappler's wife carried him out in a large suitcase (Kappler weighed about 47 kg at the time) and escaped to West Germany, assisted by apparently unwitting carabinieri. The Italians unsuccessfully demanded that Kappler be returned, but the West Germany authorities refused to extradite him and did not prosecute Kappler for any further war crimes, reportedly owing to ill-health.  Six months after his escape, Kappler died at home in Soltau, on 9 February 1978, aged 70.

In film and drama.

In the 1973 feature film "Massacre in Rome", which deals with the Ardeatine massacre, Kappler was portrayed by actor Richard Burton.  Kappler was also portrayed by Christopher Plummer in the 1983 TV film "The Scarlet and The Black", which detailed Kappler's first meeting with Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty.  Kappler's post-war time seeking asylum in the Vatican, and his resultant friendship with his former enemy Monsignor O'Flaherty, was dramatised in the radio play "The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican" by Robin Glendinning. The radio play was first broadcast on 30 November 2006 on UK BBC Radio 4.

Herbert Kappler (23 September 1907 – 9 February 1978) was a key German SS functionary and war criminal during the Nazi era. He served as head of German police and security services ("Sicherheitspolizei" and SD) in Rome during the Second World War and was responsible for the Ardeatine massacre. Following the end of the war, Kappler stood trial in Italy and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He escaped from prison shortly before his death in West Germany in 1978.


History.

In 2000 the railway company RAIL4CHEM was founded as a joint venture among three German companies: BASF AG (Ludwigshafen), and (both located in Hamburg) and one Swiss firm Bertschi AG; headquartered in Dürrenäsch. Hoyer merged its rail freight subsidiary ("Hoyer Railserv", formed 2000 from "RSE Cargo".) into the company in 2002.  Initially the company was set up as a rail freight service for chemical companies, the organisation serves both national and international freight movements within Europe.  Amongst the first workings were the movement of chemicals from the works at BASF Ludwigshafen to Aachen to be moved further by the Belgian state railway SNCB / NMBS.  Later the company took on non-chemical industry freight work.  In 2004 the company gained a safety certificate to operate in the Netherlands, and in Switzerland. In 2005 the founder companies increased the capital of the company by €4 million to €5 million to enable the purchase of multi-system electric locomotives. Safety certificate for operations in Belgium was acquired (by the subsidiary Rail4chem Benelux BV) in January 2006, and for operations in France in February 2006,  On 20 February 2008 it was announced that the business was to be sold to the French company Veolia Cargo for an undisclosed sum. Veolia Cargo was acquired by SNCF (and Eurotunnel), with Rail4chem becoming part of SNCF; it was reorganised into the Captrain railfreight operation division of SNCF. The business underperformed during the difficult market conditions following the late-2000s financial crisis and was absorbed into the Captrain deutschland division in 2010.  "RAIL4CHEM" was a founder member of the European Bulls Rail Freight Alliance, a European consortium of European rail freight operating companies.

Subsidiaries.

In late 2004, "RAIL4CHEM" established a new subsidiary company: "Rail4Chem Benelux NV", after the acquiring and taking over the activities of Dutch private rail carrier.  "Rail4Chem Benelux's" main business was the transportation of containers from the Port of Rotterdam to Germany but also operated international tank trains to DSM in Geleen as well as intermodal trains via Amsterdam and cereal trains via Europoort.

Operations.

"RAIL4CHEM" was certified to operate in Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and France.  The trains known as'mobile pipelines' are operated between the BASF operations in Antwerp and Ludwigshafen.  Up till the opening of the Betuweroute only diesel locomotives were used in the Netherlands.

Rolling stock.

In 2005 the electric locomotive fleet of "RAIL4CHEM" consisted of 14 locomotives of TRAXX type, and predecessors; the Adtranz built DBAG Class 145 (for work in Germany), and the Bombardier Transportation built DBAG Class 185 (for work in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.). Other locomotives such as the Siemens EuroSprinter ES 64 U2 have been used based on requirements, as well as older locomotives have also been used in Switzerland.. The company leased Re 4/4I (Re 416 626), which had previously belonged to MThB and SBB to operate fuel trains on Swiss rails, as can be seen here:  For non-electrified lines in Germany, Netherlands and Belgium, locomotives of the diesel types EMD JT42CWR (Class 66), as well as Vossloh locomotives, primarily Vossloh G 2000 BB and MaK G 1206 types were used.

RAIL4CHEM was a German rail freight transport company, and the parent company of a number of European subsidiary rail freight transport companies including rail4chem Benelux B.V. (Rotterdam), the rail4chem transalpin AG (Basel) and Fer Polska S.A. (Warsaw).


Concept.

Mies and Reich were offered the commission of this building in 1928 after his successful administration of the 1927 Werkbund exhibition in Stuttgart. The German Republic entrusted Mies with the artistic management and erection of not only the Barcelona Pavilion, but for the buildings for all the German sections at the 1929 International Exhibition. However, Mies had severe time constraints—he had to design the Barcelona Pavilion in less than a year—and was also dealing with uncertain economic conditions.  In the years following World War I, Germany started to turn around. The economy started to recover after the 1924 Dawes Plan. The pavilion for the International Exhibition was supposed to represent the new Weimar Germany: democratic, culturally progressive, prospering, and thoroughly pacifist; a self-portrait through architecture. The Commissioner, Georg von Schnitzler said it should give "voice to the spirit of a new era". This concept was carried out with the realization of the "Free plan" and the "Floating roof".

Building.

Mies's response to the proposal by von Schnitzler was radical. After rejecting the original site for aesthetic reasons, Mies agreed to a quiet site at the narrow side of a wide, diagonal axis, where the pavilion would still offer viewpoints and a route leading to one of the exhibition's main attractions, the Poble Espanyol.  The pavilion was to be bare, with no exhibits, leaving only the structure accompanying a single sculpture and specially-designed furniture (the Barcelona Chair). This lack of accommodation enabled Mies to treat the Pavilion as a continuous space; blurring inside and outside. "The design was predicated on an absolute distinction between structure and enclosure—a regular grid of cruciform steel columns interspersed by freely spaced planes". However, the structure was more of a hybrid style, some of these planes also acted as supports. The floor plan is very simple. The entire building rests on a plinth of travertine. A southern U-shaped enclosure, also of travertine, helps form a service annex and a large water basin. The floor slabs of the pavilion project out and over the pool—once again connecting inside and out. Another U-shaped wall on the opposite side of the site also forms a smaller water basin. This is where the statue by Georg Kolbe sits. The roof plates, relatively small, are supported by the chrome-clad, cruciform columns. This gives the impression of a hovering roof. Robin Evans said that the reflective columns appear to be struggling to hold the "floating" roof plane down, not to be bearing its weight.  Mies wanted this building to become "an ideal zone of tranquillity" for the weary visitor, who should be invited into the pavilion on the way to the next attraction. Since the pavilion lacked a real exhibition space, the building itself was to become the exhibit. The pavilion was designed to "block" any passage through the site, rather, one would have to go through the building. Visitors would enter by going up a few stairs, and due to the slightly sloped site, would leave at ground level in the direction of the Poble Espanyol. The visitors were not meant to be led in a straight line through the building, but to take continuous turnabouts. The walls not only created space, but also directed visitor's movements. This was achieved by wall surfaces being displaced against each other, running past each other, and creating a space that became narrower or wider.  Another unique feature of this building is the exotic materials Mies chooses to use. Plates of high-grade stone materials like veneers of Tinos verde antico marble and golden onyx as well as tinted glass of grey, green, white, as well as translucent glass, perform exclusively as spatial dividers.  Because this was planned as an exhibition pavilion, it was intended to exist only temporarily. The building was torn down in early 1930, not even a year after it was completed. However, thanks to black-and-white photos and original plans, a group of Catalan architects reconstructed the pavilion permanently between 1983 and 1986.

Sculpture.

The Pavilion was not only a pioneer for construction forms with a fresh, disciplined understanding of space, but also for modelling new opportunities for an association of free art and architecture. Mies placed Georg Kolbe's "Alba" ("Dawn") in the small water basin, leaving the larger one all the more empty. The sculpture also ties into the highly reflective materials Mies used—he chose the place where these optical effects would have the strongest impact; the building offers multiple views of "Alba". "From now on, in the sense of equality for juxtaposing building and visual work, sculptures were no longer to be applied retrospectively to the building, but rather to be a part of the spatial design, to help define and interpret it. To the day, one of the most notable examples is the Barcelona Pavilion".

Interventions programme.

Since the Pavilion's reconstruction in the 1980s, the Mies van der Rohe Foundation has invited leading artists and architects to temporarily alter the Pavilion. These installations and alterations, called "interventions", have kept the pavilion as a node of debate on architectural ideas and practices. The list of invited people includes architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa who added spiral acrylic interior walls, artist Ai Weiwei who refilled two pools with coffee and milk, Andrés Jaque who revealed the pavilion's so far disregarded basement and its role in hiding the daily making of the site's experience, Enric Miralles, Antoni Muntadas who brought to the pavilion the smell of the MoMA archives where its memory is preserved and Jordi Bernadó who removed the pavilion's glass doors.

The Barcelona Pavilion (; ; "German Pavilion"), designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich, was the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain. This building was used for the official opening of the German section of the exhibition. It is an important building in the history of modern architecture, known for its simple form and its spectacular use of extravagant materials, such as marble, red onyx and travertine. The same features of minimalism and spectacular can be applied to the prestigious furniture specifically designed for the building, including the iconic Barcelona chair. It has inspired many important modernist buildings.


Background.

Born in the west Ukrainian town of Stanislav (since 1962 Ivano-Frankivsk) to a Belarusian father and a Ukrainian mother, Svetlana Alexievich grew up in Belarus. After finishing school she worked as a reporter in several local newspapers before graduating from Belarusian State University (1972) and becoming a correspondent for the literary magazine "Nyoman" in Minsk (1976).  During her career in journalism, Alexievich specialised in crafting narratives based on witness testimonies. In the process, she wrote oral histories of several dramatic events in Soviet history: the Second World War, the Afghan War, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the Chernobyl disaster. After political persecution by the Lukashenko administration, she left Belarus in 2000. The International Cities of Refuge Network offered her sanctuary and during the following decade she lived in Paris, Gothenburg and Berlin. In 2011, Alexievich moved back to Minsk.

Literary work.

Alexievich's books trace the emotional history of the Soviet and post-Soviet individual through carefully constructed collages of interviews. According to Russian writer and critic Dmitry Bykov, her books owe much to the ideas of Belarusian writer Ales Adamovich, who felt that the best way to describe the horrors of the 20th century was not by creating fiction but through recording the testimonies of witnesses. Belarusian poet Uladzimir Nyaklyayew called Adamovich "her literary godfather". He also named the documentary novel "I'm From Fire Village" () by Ales Adamovich, Janka Bryl and Uladzimir Kalesnik, about the villages burned by the German troops during the occupation of Belarus, as the main single book that has influenced Alexievich's attitude to literature. Alexievich has confirmed the influence of Adamovich and Belarusian writer Vasil Bykaŭ, among others. She regards Varlam Shalamov as the best writer of the 20th century.  Her most notable works in English translation include a collection of first-hand accounts from the war in Afghanistan ("Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from a Forgotten War") and an oral history of the Chernobyl disaster ("Chernobyl Prayer / Voices from Chernobyl"). Alexievich describes the theme of her works this way:  Her first book, "War's Unwomanly Face", came out in 1985. It was repeatedly reprinted and sold more than two million copies. The book was finished in 1983 and published (in short edition) in "Oktyabr", a Soviet monthly literary magazine, in February 1984. In 1985, the book was published by several publishers, and the number of printed copies reached 2,000,000 in the next five years. This novel is made up of monologues of women in the war speaking about the aspects of World War II that had never been related before. Another book, "The Last Witnesses: the Book of Unchildlike Stories", describes personal memories of children during wartime. The war seen through women's and children's eyes revealed a new world of feelings. In 1993, she published "Enchanted with Death", a book about attempted and completed suicides due to the downfall of the Soviet Union. Many people felt inseparable from the Communist ideology and unable to accept the new order surely and the newly interpreted history.  Her books were not published by Belarusian state-owned publishing houses after 1993, while private publishers in Belarus have only published two of her books: "Chernobyl Prayer" in 1999 and "Second-hand Time" in 2013, both translated into Belarusian. As a result, Alexievich has been better known in the rest of world than in Belarus.  She has been described as the first journalist to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. She herself rejects the notion that she is a journalist, and, in fact, Alexievich’s chosen genre is sometimes called “documentary literature”: an artistic rendering of real events, with a degree of poetic license. In her own words:  26 October 2019 Alexievich was elected chairman of the Belarusian PEN Center.

Awards and honours.

Alexievich has received many awards, including:  Alexievich is a member of the advisory committee of the Lettre Ulysses Award. She will give the inaugeral Anna Politkovskaya Memorial Lecture at the British Library on 9 October 2019. The lecture is an international platform to amplify the voices of women journalists and human rights defenders working in war and conflict zones.

Svetlana Alexandrovna Alexievich (born 31 May 1948 in Ivano-Frankivsk) is a Belarusian investigative journalist, essayist and oral historian who writes in Russian. She was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time". She is the first writer from Belarus to receive the award.


Club career.

Early career.

Boumsong was born in Douala, Cameroon, and started his career with French team Le Havre before joining Auxerre. He notably scored the 89th-minute winning goal in Auxerre's 2–1 win in the 2003 French Cup Final against Paris Saint-Germain.  A long-time target for then Liverpool manager Gérard Houllier, the press speculated that it was only a matter of time before Boumsong signed for Liverpool. However, as Boumsong was a free agent, his agent, the Monaco based Scot Willie McKay negotiated the best sign-on fee to the player for Boumsong from Scottish Premier League club Rangers.

Rangers.

As a result, Boumsong joined Alex McLeish at Rangers in 2004 and signed a five-year contract. Boumsong quickly adapted to the Scottish game and showed his skill as a centre back, leading to rumours that his stay in Glasgow may be shorter than expected. Halfway through the 2004–05 season, Newcastle under new manager Graeme Souness, made an £8 million bid for him, which Rangers accepted in a deal that was finalized once the January 2005 transfer window opened. However, as Boumsong had played the requisite number of games for Rangers that season, he still received a Scottish Premiership Winners Medal, despite having been a Newcastle player for around five months by the time Rangers won the title.

Newcastle.

Boumsong signed a 51⁄2-year contract with the Magpies.  The £8 million transfer fee raised eyebrows, as the player, being out of contract, had joined Rangers for free just months before, at which point Newcastle showed no interest in signing him. This transfer is one of those about which the Stevens inquiry report in June 2007 expressed concerns:  ""There remains inconsistencies in evidence provided by Graeme Souness – a former manager of the club – and Freddy Shepherd – apparently acting in an undefined role but not as a club official – as to their respective roles in transfer negotiations.""  ""The inquiry is still awaiting clarification from agent Willie McKay"".  However the Stevens enquiry later issued two clarifications. It said of Souness, "We wish to make it clear that inconsistencies did not exist within the evidence given by Graeme Souness to Quest concerning his role in transfers covered by the Inquiry during his time as manager of Newcastle United F.C. and neither the Premier League nor do Quest have any concerns in this regard". As regards McKay it stated: "Further to the key findings from the final Quest report published on 15 June 2007 by the Premier League, Quest would like to emphasise that, in that report, it was clear that no evidence of irregular payments was found in the transfers in the inquiry period which involved the agent Willie McKay. Quest would also like to thank Mr McKay for his cooperation with the inquiry."  He had a mixed time during his stay on Tyneside in regards to his form. During his first season at Newcastle he was praised for his defensive abilities and partnership with Titus Bramble. His popularity led to fans shouting the first syllable of his name, elongating the sound in a similar way to Arsenal fans chanting Nwankwo Kanu's name.  His second season at Newcastle however was less well received. Boumsong's defensive abilities began to lapse and was often blamed for the conceding of several goals. He blamed this lapse in form on his girlfriend's illness and other personal problems.

Juventus.

On 22 August 2006, Boumsong joined the recently Serie B relegated Juventus for a fee of £3.3m, with future incentives promised to Newcastle relating to Juventus' future performance. In September 2006, Boumsong scored his first Juventus goal in a game against Crotone where Juventus won 3–0. Valeri Bojinov scored the other two goals. In Boumsong's final match with Juventus, he scored a key equaliser in their Coppa Italia match against rivals Internazionale on 23 January 2008.

Lyon.

On 24 January 2008, Boumsong moved to French club Olympique Lyonnais on a three-and-a-half-year contract. Boumsong has stated he made this move in order to increase his chances to make Raymond Domenech's EURO 2008 squad.  He made his debut for the club in 4–1 win over Sochaux at Stade de Gerland on 8 February 2008. In the 2008–09 season, he scored his first Lyon's goal against Le Mans on 4 April 2009.

Panathinaikos.

On 30 July 2010, Boumsong transferred from Olympique Lyonnais to Superleague Greece champions Panathinaikos F.C. for a fee that could rise up to €750,000. He signed a three-year contract with the Greek, earning €1.9 million annually. Although he started the season roughly, he gradually improved his performance and gained the fans' trust. He scored his first goal in a 2–0 win against Panserraikos F.C..  In 2012, Boumsong signed a two-year contract with the club, extending his stay at Panathinaikos until 2014. During the summer, Boumsong was declared vice-captain of the club for the 2012–2013 season. He scored the opening goal in a 2–0 win against Motherwell F.C. in the first leg of the third qualifying round of the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League.

International career.

Boumsong made his France debut against Japan on 20 June 2003 and went with the squad for Euro 2004, although he only made a brief appearance coming on as a substitute in one game.  He established himself as a regular starter in the national team in the 2006 World Cup qualifiers, and was called up to the squad for the 2006 World Cup, but did not see any game action during the competition because of Lillian Thuram's return to the team. Boumsong was also named in the France squad for Euro 2008.  Boumsong appeared on only one game during Euro 2008, when during the group match between France and Italy he substituted Samir Nasri. Nasri himself entered the field only 16 minutes earlier, when he replaced the injured Franck Ribéry, however when central defender Eric Abidal was sent off, French coach Raymond Domenech decided to pull off the midfielder Nasri from the field for the defender Boumsong. Four years earlier during the Euro 2004, Boumsong had been already sent to the field once as a substitute's substitute, when he replaced William Gallas during a match against Switzerland, thus he is the first player in European Championship history to achieve this feat twice.

Coaching career.

After retiring, Boumsong started working as a consultant for the global TV station beIN Sports. On 5 September 2018 it was confirmed, that Boumsong had been appointed assistant manager of newly hired manager Clarence Seedorf for the Cameroon national football team alongside Patrick Kluivert and Joël Epalle. He was fired in September 2019.

Personal life.

Boumsong's younger brother, Yannick Boumsong, is also a professional footballer. He is the older cousin of David N'Gog, who plays for Budapest Honved.  Boumsong is a convert to Islam and travelled to Mecca to perform the Islamic ritual of hajj in 2014.

Honours.

Club.

Auxerre  Rangers  Juventus  Lyon

Jean-Alain Boumsong Somkong (born 14 December 1979) is a former professional football defender, including French international. He is known for his physical strength, pace and reading of the game.


Early life.

Renner was born in Modesto, California, to mother Valerie Cearley (née Tague) and father Lee Renner, who managed McHenry Bowl, a Modesto bowling alley, in the 1980s. His parents married as teenagers and divorced when he was ten. He is the oldest of seven siblings. His ancestry includes German, English, Scottish, Swedish, Irish and Panamanian.  Renner graduated from Fred C. Beyer High School in Modesto in 1989. He attended Modesto Junior College, where he studied computer science and criminology, before he took a drama class as an elective and decided to pursue acting.

Career.

Early work.

Renner's made his film debut as an underachieving student in the 1995 comedy "National Lampoon's Senior Trip". Although the film was critically panned, he went on to guest star on two television shows, "Deadly Games" and "Strange Luck", and had a minor role in the television film "A Friend's Betrayal" as the friend of Paul Hewitt (Brian Austin Green). Over the next few years, Renner had guest roles in "Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane" (1999), "The Net" (1999), "The Time of Your Life" (1999), and "Angel" (2000). Renner had a small role in an episode of "" in 2001. Renner worked as a makeup artist during this period to help make ends meet.

Early success: 2002–2008.

In 2002, Renner starred in "Dahmer" as the eponymous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. He found the non-fiction role a challenge to cope with after he had finished shooting the film, knowing that Dahmer murdered seventeen victims. His performance was well received, and he gained a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male. He also appeared in Pink's 2003 music video for her song "Trouble" as a Bad Boy Sheriff. Renner went on to appear in "S.W.A.T." as the former police partner of Colin Farrell's character in 2003 and "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things" in 2004.  In 2005, Renner starred with Julia Stiles and Forest Whitaker in "A Little Trip to Heaven", with roles in "North Country" and "12 and Holding". He next starred as a neo-Nazi skinhead who is admitted into a psychiatric hospital in "Neo Ned" with Gabrielle Union. The film won awards at multiple film festivals, including the Palm Beach International Film Festival Award for Best Actor. Renner also had a small (though uncredited) role in skateboard film "Lords of Dogtown" as the manager of Emile Hirsch's character. In 2006, he starred with Ginnifer Goodwin in "Love Comes to the Executioner".  Renner had supporting roles in 2007 in the critically acclaimed "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" as Wood Hite, the cousin of outlaw Jesse James (portrayed by Brad Pitt), and as Sergeant Doyle in "28 Weeks Later". He starred with Minnie Driver in "Take" and guest starred as a patient in an episode of "House" as a reckless rock musician. Renner had a role in the pilot of "The Oaks" but the series was not picked up.

2009–present.

After starring with Dallas Roberts in the comedy-drama "Ingenious" and starring in the short-lived television series "The Unusuals", Renner went on to achieve critical success for his portrayal of bomb disposal expert, Sergeant William James in the 2009 Iraq war thriller "The Hurt Locker" (directed by Kathryn Bigelow). The role earned him several awards in the Best Actor category and his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor as well a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. In 2010, Renner's performance in Ben Affleck's "The Town" alongside Jon Hamm, Blake Lively, Slaine and Michael Yebba garnered him rave reviews and his second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also gained his first Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor and his second Screen Actors Guild nomination. "The Hollywood Reporter" named Renner as one of the young male actors who are "pushing – or being pushed" into taking over Hollywood as the new "A-List".  In 2011, Renner had an uncredited cameo appearance as Hawkeye in "Thor" for familiarity with his character for "The Avengers", which was released in May 2012. The same year, he also starred in the fourth film in the "Bourne" franchise, "The Bourne Legacy", which was written and directed by Tony Gilroy. Renner played a new lead character, Aaron Cross, in place of Jason Bourne, who was played by Matt Damon in the first three films. Renner has expressed interest in doing a "Bourne" film with Damon in the future, stating that "[it] would be kick-ass. I love Matt". Renner starred in the action horror film "" (released in January 2013), in which he and Gemma Arterton played Hansel and Gretel, respectively. The 3-D film was set 15 years after Hansel and Gretel killed the witch who kidnapped them. Renner was also featured in the ensemble cast of David O. Russell's dramedy "American Hustle" based on the controversial FBI ABSCAM operation of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The film, which was released in December 2013, also starred Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence in principal roles. The film earned much critical acclaim, including the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In October 2014, Renner starred as journalist Gary Webb in the Focus Features film "Kill the Messenger", based on Webb's book Dark Alliance. Renner also co-produced the film. In December 2014, Crackle aired "The Throwaways", a film for which he served as executive producer.  In 2015, Renner reprised his role as Hawkeye in "", the sequel to "The Avengers". He returned to the "Mission: Impossible" franchise in "", released in July 2015. In 2016, Renner played Hawkeye again in the summer blockbuster film "", and starred with Amy Adams in the sci-fi film "Arrival". Renner is a producer of the 2016 film "The Founder" starring Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc, the man who turned McDonald's into one of the world's largest restaurant chains.  In 2016, History announced their historical drama "Knightfall", executive produced by Renner, who is expected to guest star. In 2017, while working on the film "Tag" (2018), Renner fractured his right elbow and his left wrist. He also appeared in the film "Wind River" with his MCU co-star Elizabeth Olsen.  Renner filmed scenes as Hawkeye for "" and "". Despite this, he did not appear in "Infinity War". Because of resulting scheduling conflicts, he was unable to reprise the role of William Brandt in "" (2018). In July, Jeremy Renner was announced to play Twitch Williams in Todd McFarlane's "Spawn" reboot.

Music.

Renner is also a singer-songwriter, guitarist, keyboardist, and drummer. Early in his acting career, he performed in the Sons of Ben. He has performed songs on several film soundtracks: "I Drink Alone" for "North Country," "American Pie" for "Love Comes to the Executioner", and "Good Ole Rebel" for "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." He also appeared in music videos for "Trouble" by P!nk and "Scenes on Sunset" by Brother Sal. He was featured in Sam Feldt's 2018 single, "Heaven (Don't Have a Name)".  He released his first extended play, "The Medicine" in March 2020.

Personal life.

Renner married Canadian model Sonni Pacheco on January 13, 2014. Renner and Pacheco have a daughter, Ava Berlin (born March 28, 2013).<ref

Jeremy Lee Renner (born January 7, 1971) is an American actor, musician and songwriter. He began his career by appearing in independent films such as "Dahmer" (2002) and "Neo Ned" (2005). Renner earned supporting roles in bigger films, such as "S.W.A.T." (2003) and "28 Weeks Later" (2007). Renner was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in "The Hurt Locker" (2008) and for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in "The Town" (2010). His films have grossed over $3.5 billion in North America and over $9.8 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing box-office stars of all time.


Properties.

Tautomerism.

The keto and enol tautomers of acetylacetone coexist in solution. The enol form has C symmetry, meaning the hydrogen atom is shared equally between the two oxygen atoms. In the gas phase, the equilibrium constant, "K", is 11.7, favoring the enol form. The two tautomeric forms can be distinguished by NMR spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy and other methods. The equilibrium constant tends to be high in nonpolar solvents; the keto form becomes more favorable in polar, hydrogen-bonding solvents, such as water. The enol form is a vinylogous analogue of a carboxylic acid.

Acid–base properties.

Acetylacetone is a weak acid: IUPAC recommended p"K" values for this equilibrium in aqueous solution at 25 °C are 8.99 ± 0.04 ("I" = 0), 8.83 ± 0.02 ("I" = 0.1 M NaClO) and 9.00 ± 0.03 ("I" = 1.0 M NaClO; "I" = Ionic strength). Values for mixed solvents are available. Very strong bases, such as organolithium compounds, will deprotonate acetylacetone twice. The resulting dilithio species can then be alkylated at C-1.

Preparation.

Acetylacetone is prepared industrially by the thermal rearrangement of isopropenyl acetate.  Laboratory routes to acetylacetone begin also with acetone. Acetone and acetic anhydride upon the addition of boron trifluoride (BF) catalyst:  A second synthesis involves the base-catalyzed condensation of acetone and ethyl acetate, followed by acidification:  Because of the ease of these syntheses, many analogues of acetylacetonates are known. Some examples include CHC(O)CHC(O)CH (dbaH) and (CH)CC(O)CHC(O)CC(CH). Hexafluoroacetylacetonate is also widely used to generate volatile metal complexes.

Reactions.

Condensations.

Acetylacetone is a versatile bifunctional precursor to heterocycles because both keto groups undergo condensation. Hydrazine reacts to produce pyrazoles. Urea gives pyrimidines. Condensation with two aryl- and alkylamines to gives NacNacs, wherein the oxygen atoms in acetylacetone are replaced by NR (R = aryl, alkyl).

Coordination chemistry.

The acetylacetonate anion, acac, forms complexes with many transition metal ions. A general method of synthesis is to treat a metal salt with acetylacetone in the presence of a base: Both oxygen atoms bind to the metal to form a six-membered chelate ring. In some cases the chelate effect is so strong that no added base is needed to form the complex.

Biodegradation.

Enzymatic breakdown: The enzyme acetylacetone dioxygenase cleaves the carbon-carbon bond of acetylacetone, producing acetate and 2-oxopropanal. The enzyme is iron(II)-dependent, but it has been proven to bind to zinc as well. Acetylacetone degradation has been characterized in the bacterium "Acinetobacter johnsonii".

Acetylacetone is an organic compound with the formula CHCOCHCOCH. It is a colorless liquid, classified as a 1,3-diketone. It exists in equilibrium with a tautomer CHC(O)CH=C(OH)CH. These tautomers interconvert so rapidly under most conditions that they are treated as a single compound in most applications. It is a colorless liquid that is a precursor to acetylacetonate anion (commonly abbreviated acac), a bidentate ligand. It is also a building block for the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds.


History.

Early years.

Prior to forming Flogging Molly, Dublin-born Dave King was the lead singer for heavy metal band Fastway featuring guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke of Motörhead and bassist Pete Way of UFO in the early to mid '80s. He later fronted a hard rock band called Katmandu (1991), featuring Mandy Meyer of Krokus on guitars. Afterwards, Dave King retained a record deal with Epic Records and began to work on a solo album, but began to reconsider his record deal when the label opposed his idea of bringing in traditional Irish instruments. King negotiated out of his record deal to go his own way musically soon after.  In 1993, King met guitarist Ted Hutt, bassist Jeff Peters, drummer Paul Crowder and violin player Bridget Regan and put together a rock band with a Celtic feel. They began to play a mix of Irish traditional and rock. Putting Dave's poetic lyrics to rocking melodies, they played at a Los Angeles pub called Molly Malone's weekly, building a small but loyal following. Together, they wrote songs such as "Black Friday Rule" and "Selfish Man", which was the beginning of Flogging Molly's sound. Ted and Jeff then left Flogging Molly because an earlier band of theirs, Reacharound, received a record deal. Dave and Bridget began to find new members and the current band was formed.  They continued a routine of playing every Monday night at Molly Malone's. They put out a live album, "Alive Behind the Green Door" in 1997. In an interview with "Kerrang!" magazine, King stated that the band's name comes from the bar (Molly Malone's) that faithfully supported the band from the very beginning, "We used to play there every Monday night and we felt like we were flogging it to death, so we called the band Flogging Molly." They were signed onto SideOneDummy Records after a show when the record company's owners attended a concert and noted their intensity.

Career.

Flogging Molly has released an independent (26f Records) live album titled "Alive Behind the Green Door", as well as six studio albums: "Swagger", "Drunken Lullabies", "Within a Mile of Home", "Float", "Speed of Darkness", and "Life Is Good"; and an acoustic/live DVD/cd combo "Whiskey on a Sunday", which has gone platinum. They have toured with the Warped Tour, Larry Kirwan's American Fléadh Festival and contributed to the Rock Against Bush project. They have sold in excess of a million and a half copies of recorded output as of December 6, 2006.  In March 2007, the band released an exclusive EP through iTunes entitled "Complete Control Sessions". The EP includes two new tracks, as well as acoustic versions of previously released songs. A year later Flogging Molly released "Float", an album dubbed "one of the most important CDs of the year, if not the decade" by Alternative Press. Flogging Molly also recognized the album as influential to their career as their first album recorded in Ireland (though mixed in California) by producer Ryan Hewitt. Fans met the release with great anticipation and enthusiasm, landing it at No. 4 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart. The album includes the band's first two chart singles, "Requiem for a Dying Song" (which hit No. 35 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts) and "Float" (which hit No. 40). Another accolade came to the band in June 2009 when their album "Drunken Lullabies" went gold.  While touring to support Float, Dave and Bridget were married in a private ceremony in Tokyo, Japan. Flogging Molly released a live DVD/CD set called "Live at the Greek Theater" in March 2010. The 3-disc set (double CD + full-length DVD) captures Flogging Molly's performance at the Greek Theatre on September 12, 2009, and includes content spanning the band's entire catalog. The band appeared in the 2011 season premiere of Austin City Limits. On March 10, 2016, the band released their first new material in 5 years, a single entitled "The Hand of John L. Sullivan," honoring the Irish-American boxer of the same name. It is also the first studio recording with new drummer Mike Alonso.  Flogging Molly's new album "Life Is Good" is out now via Vanguard Records. Recorded in Ireland, Life is Good marks Flogging Molly's first studio album in six years since 2011's Speed of Darkness.

Salty Dog Cruises (2015–present).

From March 13 to 16, 2015, Flogging Molly began hosting a yearly Caribbean cruise. The 2015 Salty Dog Cruise Cruise featured shows by the band and many others, over three days leaving from Miami to Nassau and Great Stirrup Cay on the "Norwegian Sky". All bands performed two times on the stages throughout the ship or on the special stage set on Norwegian's private island of Great Stirrup Cay.  In 2016, from March 18 to 21, the second yearly cruise took the same itinerary on the same ship and hosted, among others, Rancid, Fishbone, Frank Turner, Street Dogs and The Tossers.  In 2017, the "Enchantment of the Seas" hosted the third annual cruise that left on March 10 to Coco Cay and Nassau, until coming back to Miami on March 13. The guests invited by the band were NOFX, DeVotchKa, Less Than Jake, The English Beat, The Skatalites, The Bouncing Souls, Dylan Walshe and many others.  On August 21, 2017, the band announced that the 2018 cruise will take place April 20–23, leaving from Miami, sailing to Key West and to Great Stirrup Cay. Originally, the cruise was supposed to take place on the "Enchantment of the Seas" as in 2017; however, the ship was changed and the Norwegian Sky has been announced. The line-up includes The Offspring, Buzzcocks, The Vandals, Lagwagon, and Mad Caddies, among others.

Musical style.

Flogging Molly's music is influenced by various artists, such as The Dubliners, The Pogues, Horslips, Johnny Cash, The Clash. The album "Within a Mile of Home" is dedicated to the memories of Cash and The Clash frontman Joe Strummer.  Their music ranges from boisterous Celtic punk, like the pirate-themed "Salty Dog", "Cruel Mistress", and "Seven Deadly Sins" or the defiant "What's Left of the Flag", "Drunken Lullabies", and "Rebels of the Sacred Heart" to more somber songs like "Far Away Boys", "The Son Never Shines (On Closed Doors)", "Life in a Tenement Square" and "Float." Lyrics typically touch on subjects such as Ireland and its history, drinking, poverty, politics, love, and death and include several references to the Catholic Church. "What's Left of the Flag" and "The Likes of You Again" were written as tributes to Dave King's father, who died when King was a child.

Flogging Molly is an Irish–American seven-piece Celtic punk band formed in Dublin in 1997. Led by Irish vocalist Dave King, formerly of the hard rock band Fastway. They are signed to their own record label, Borstal Beat Records.


Early life.

Below was born on the estate of Jargelin near Anklam in the Province of Pomerania. He was a member of the German aristocracy.

Service.

He trained as a pilot in 1929 at the "Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule" (DVS—German Air Transport School). From 1929 to 1933 he served with the "Reichsheer" 12th Infantry Regiment. Below then joined the German Air Force and served with Jagdgeschwader 132 "Richthofen" and then transferred to Jagdgeschwader 26. Below became German dictator Adolf Hitler's Air Force ("Luftwaffe") military adjutant in 1937. Below's task was to be the link between Hitler and the air force leadership. Hitler generally disliked and was suspicious of soldiers with aristocratic backgrounds. This was particularly true as the tide of World War II turned against Germany. But Below, with the rank of colonel, was one of the few members of Hitler's entourage to continually serve in a close capacity for so many years.  During the time between the Christmas and New Year's holiday of 1944, Hitler told Below: "I know the war is lost, the enemy's superiority is far too great." But Hitler, still dwelling on the 20 July Plot to kill him, placed the blame on traitors. He then told Below: "We will never surrender, we may go down, but we will take a world with us."

Berlin 1945.

Hitler, presiding over a rapidly disintegrating Third Reich, retreated to his "Führerbunker" in Berlin on 16 January 1945. As his long serving Luftwaffe adjutant, Below traveled with Hitler back to Berlin. Early on, Hitler continued to utilize the undamaged wing of the Reich Chancellery, where he held afternoon military conferences in his large study. However, that practice ended and all the military briefing conferences were moved down into the "Führerbunker". By April, to the Nazi leadership, it was clear that the Battle for Berlin would be the final battle of the war. On 12 April 1945, Below was a guest of Albert Speer to see the last performance of the Berlin Philharmonic before the city was captured by the Red Army. He later wrote: "The concert took us back to another world."  On 15 April, Eva Braun was moved into the room next to the room Hitler occupied in the "Führerbunker". Below wrote the following of her: "She was charming and obliging and showed no weakness right up to the last moment."  By 27 April, Below was part of a very small group which were present for the military briefings. General Krebs was the only senior military officer still present and Reich propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who had moved into the bunker complex with his family, now also was present. On 29 April, after the wedding of Hitler and Braun, Below was a witness to the last will and testament of Adolf Hitler. He did not sign the Political Testament but added his signature to the Private Testament of the document. Thereafter, Below asked Hitler if he could leave the "Führerbunker" and attempt to make it out of Berlin to the west. Hitler granted him permission to leave. On 30 April, Below left Berlin carrying a letter from Hitler to Field marshal Wilhelm Keitel explaining the recent events of betrayal and extolling the sacrifices of the German people.

Post-war.

He was arrested by the British in 1946 and held until 1948. After the war, Below wrote a memoir of his experiences as an adjutant to Hitler from 1937 to 1945, "At Hitler's Side" (2001) (). He died on 24 July 1983 in Detmold, West Germany.

Nicolaus von Below (20 September 1907 – 24 July 1983) was an officer in the German "Luftwaffe" and an adjutant to Adolf Hitler.


Publication history.

The novel was completed in 1892. It was serialized in the "Magasin d'éducation et de récréation", from January 1 to December 15, 1894. It was then published in book form by Verne's regular publisher Hetzel. It was translated into English in 1895.

Plot.

1799: The French campaign in Egypt and Syria. At Jaffa, General Napoléon Bonaparte ruthlessly orders the killing of 4,500 Turkish prisoners of war. A Breton sea captain attached to the French force notices a still living young Turkish soldier among the piled bodies, and saves his life. The Turk, who would later rise to great wealth and prominence in Cairo, will not forget his saviour.  1831: The wealthy Egyptian Kamylk-Pasha buries his treasures in the rock of an unknown islet, to save them from the greed of his family.  1862: In Saint-Malo, Pierre Antifer, an impulsive and gruff Breton sea captain, meditates on a document bequeathed by his father – a latter sent by Kamylk-Pasha, whose life the father had saved. This document mentions the latitude of the island where the treasure is hidden, with the longitude to be communicated to Antifer once upon a time. Antifer's nephew, Juhel, thinks only of his coming marriage with his beloved Enogate and fears the consequences of a possible trip.  The Egyptian notary Ben-Omar – accompanied by Saouk, the last heir of the Pasha – arrives at Saint-Malo and reveals to Master Antifer the long desired longitude. The impulsive seaman immediately embarks, drawing with him his friend Gildas Tregomain and poor Juhel, whose marriage was put off indefinitely. The islet is located in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Muscat in Oman.  Alas! Instead of the expected treasure, the travelers discover a second parchment, indicating a new longitude, and referring them to the Maltese banker Zambuco, who once helped Kamylk-Pasha and thus deserves a share of the hidden treasure. Zambuco has the latitude, and the new location turns out to be another islet – off the African coast, in the Gulf of Guinea.  There, they find a new message, including a small diamond to defray their mounting travelling costs, a new longitude and the name of a new treasure-colleague residing in Scotland. However, when arriving in Edinburgh, they find that the Reverend Tyrcomel is an advocate of the complete abolition of wealth: he has no interest in finding the treasure himself nor in helping others get it, and obstinately refuses to hand over the latitude in his possession.  Saouk, violent and unscrupulous, resorts to brute force: coming back in the night, undressing and tying up the unfortunate Tyrcomel – and discovering the required information tattooed on the Scotsman's body, put there by his late father who had once traveled to the Orient and helped Kamylk-Pasha. The brigand would not benefit from his violent deed – Saouk ends up in a British prison, but the rest of the treasure hunters know where to head to next.  Antifer, equipped with the new latitude, charters a ship for Spitzbergen, where a third islet is located. He discovers only a half-illegible document, and is unable to identify the final location of the jackpot. Sick and tired with frustration, he returns to Saint-Malo and Juhel can finally marry Enogate.  Unintentionally, it is the young woman who will provide her husband (and his uncle) with the solution of the enigma, enabling him to interpret the recalcitrant parchment: the treasure is hidden off Sicily, at the exact center of a circle described by the three divergent islets which they visited. Everybody hurries there – to find only an empty sea. Julia Island, of volcanic origin, had emerged from the depths of the sea in 1831 and was used to bury the treasure – but unfortunately, it returned to the depths shortly after its emergence. Adieu, then, to Kamylk-Pacha's gold and precious stones!  Antifer, cured permanently of his dreams of opulence, is able to laugh off his misadventures – to the great relief of his family.

Julia Island.

Julia Island (also known as Graham Island) which figures in the book's dramatic conclusion, is historical and did indeed appear in 1831 and disappear in 1832, creating a considerable international stir at the time. As of 2016, there are indications that it might reappear just as predicted in the book – though far too late for Captain Antifer and his companions (also predicted).

Captain Antifer (, literally "The Wonderful Adventures of Captain Antifer", 1894) is an adventure novel written by Jules Verne. The novel tells of a treasure hunt, where the clues – arriving in bits and pieces – lead the seaman Pierre Antife of Saint-Malo and various others of diverse nationalities and backgrounds on a complicated route – from Tunisia to the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Guinea, and then to Edinburgh, Spitzbergen, and finally to the Mediterranean off Sicily.


Life and career.

Vasil Bykaŭ was born in the village Byčki, not far from Viciebsk in 1924. In 1941 he was in Ukraine when Germany attacked the USSR. At first seventeen-year-old Bykaŭ dug trenches – then he volunteered for the Red Army. He was arrested and almost shot as a German spy. For years after the war he continued to serve, returning to the USSR only in the mid-1950s. There he started to work as a journalist for the Hrodna Pravda newspaper. In that same decade his first novellas began to come out, of which the most famous are "Sotnikaŭ", "The Obelisk", "To Go and Not Return", and "To Live Till Sunrise". "Sotnikaŭ" ("The Ordeal") inspired director Larisa Shepitko's film "The Ascent", released in 1977 and winner of the Golden Bear award at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival. During and after the Perestroika, he participated in pro-reform movement (e.g. Popular Front of Belarus). In October 1993, he signed the Letter of Forty-Two.  Bykaŭ's literary achievement lies in his sternly realistic, albeit touched by lyricism, depictions of World War II battles, typically with a small number of characters. In the ferociousness of encounter they face moral dilemmas both vis-a-vis their enemies and within their own Soviet world burdened by ideological and political constraints. This approach brought vicious accusations of "false humanism" from some Red Army generals and the Communist Party press. Other reviews praised the uncompromising writing. "Vasil Bykov is a very courageous and uncompromising writer, rather of the Solzhenitsyn stamp," wrote Michael Glenny in Partisan Review in 1972. Bykaŭ was one of the most admired writers in the Soviet Union. In 1980 he was awarded the honorific title of People's Writer of the Belarusian SSR.  Outside of his native country, Vasil Bykaŭ is one of the most widely read Belarusian writers. During the Soviet period, his works were translated into most major languages of the world. Several of Bykaŭ's novellas are available in English, such as "The Dead Feel No Pain" (1965), "The Ordeal" (1970), "Wolf Pack" (1975) and "Sign of Misfortune". However, most of the translations were done on the basis of Russian rendering. Bykaŭ wrote all of his works in his native Belarusian language, and translated several of them into Russian by himself. Vasil Bykaŭ's stature in the life of his country remains enormous. An opponent of Alexander Lukashenko's regime and a supporter of the Belarusian People's Front, he lived abroad for several years (first in Finland, then in Germany and the Czech Republic), but returned to his homeland just a month before his death. The memory of his turbulent life and uncompromising stance on the war have only enhanced his reputation at home and abroad ever since.

Vasíl Uładzímiravič Býkaŭ (often spelled Vasil Bykov,, ) (19 June 1924 – 22 June 2003) was a prolific author of novels and novellas about World War II and a significant figure in soviet and Belarusian literature and civic thought. His work earned him endorsements for the Nobel Prize nomination from, among others, Nobel Prize laureates Joseph Brodsky and Czesław Miłosz.


Taxonomy and evolution.

The American lion was designated by American paleontologist Joseph Leidy as "Felis atrox" in 1853. Hemmer proposed the trinomen "Panthera leo atrox" in 1974, which was later supported by Kurten in 1985.  The American lion was initially considered a distinct species of Pantherinae, and designated as "Panthera atrox", which means "cruel" or "fearsome panther" in Latin. Some paleontologists accepted this view, but others considered it to be a type of lion closely related to the modern lion ("Panthera" "leo") and its extinct relative, the Eurasian cave lion ("Panthera leo spelaea" or "P. spelaea"). It was later assigned as a subspecies of "P. leo" ("P. leo atrox") rather than as a separate species. Most recently, both "spelaea" and "atrox" have been treated as full species.  Cladistic studies using morphological characteristics have been unable to resolve the phylogenetic position of the American lion. One study considered the American lion, along with the cave lion, to be most closely related to the tiger ("Panthera tigris)", citing a comparison of the skull; the braincase, in particular, appears to be especially similar to the braincase of a tiger. Another study suggested that the American lion and the Eurasian cave lion were successive offshoots of a lineage leading to a leopard-extant lion clade. A more recent study comparing the skull and jaw of the American lion with other pantherines concluded that it was not a lion but a distinct species. It was proposed that it arose from pantherines that migrated to North America during the mid-Pleistocene and gave rise to American lions and jaguars ("Panthera onca"). Another study grouped the American lion with "P. leo" and "P. tigris", and ascribed morphological similarities to "P. onca" to convergent evolution, rather than phylogenetic affinity.  However, mitochondrial DNA sequence data from fossil remains suggests that the American lion ("P. atrox") represents a sister lineage to the Eurasian cave lion ("P. spelaea"), and likely arose when an early cave lion population became isolated south of the North American continental ice sheet about 340,000 years ago. The most recent common ancestor of the "P. atrox" lineage is estimated to have lived about 200,000 (118,000 to 346,000) years ago. This implies that it became genetically isolated from "P. spelaea" before the start of the Illinoian glaciation; a "spelaea" population is known to have been present in eastern Beringia by that time, where it persisted until at least 11,925 ± 70 years ago. This separation was maintained during the interstadials of the Illinoian and following Wisconsin glaciations as well as during the Sangamonian interglacial between them. Boreal forests may have contributed to the separation during warmer intervals; alternatively, a reproductive barrier may have existed.  The study also indicates that the modern lion is the closest living relative of "P. atrox" and "P. spelaea". The lineages leading to extant lions and "atrox"/"spelaea" were thought to have diverged about 1.9 million years ago, before a whole genome-wide sequence of lions from Africa and Asia by Marc de Manuel et al. showed that the lineage of the cave lion diverged from that of the modern lion around 392,000 – 529,000 years ago.

Description.

The American lion is estimated to have measured from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail and stood at the shoulder. Thus, it was smaller than its contemporary competitor, the giant short-faced bear, which was the largest carnivoran of North America at the time, and larger than the saber-toothed cat, "Smilodon fatalis", which may have weighed up to. In 2008, the American lion was estimated to weigh up to. A study in 2009 showed an average weight of for males and for the largest specimen analyzed. A study in 2012 estimated a range of for males and for females, which suggests that the lion was heavier than "Smilodon".  About 80 American lion individuals have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, so their morphology is well known. Their features strongly resemble those of modern lions, but they were considerably larger, similar to "P. spelaea" and the Pleistocene Natodomeri lion of eastern Africa.  Preserved skin remains found with skeletal material thought by its describers to be from the American lion in caves in the Argentine Patagonia indicate that the animal was reddish in color. Cave paintings from El Ceibo in the Santa Cruz Province of Argentina seem to confirm this, and reduce the possibility of confusion with fossil jaguars, as similar cave paintings accurately depict the jaguar as yellow in color.

Distribution.

The earliest lions known in the Americas south of Alaska are from the Sangamonian Stage – the last interglacial period – following which, the American lion spread from Alberta to Maryland, reaching as far south as Chiapas, Mexico. It was generally not found in the same areas as the jaguar, which favored forests over open habitats. It was absent from eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, perhaps due to the presence of dense boreal forests in the region. The American lion was formerly believed to have colonized northwestern South America as part of the Great American Interchange. However, the fossil remains found in the tar pits of Talara, Peru actually belong to an unusually large jaguar. On the other hand, fossils of a large felid from late Pleistocene localities in southern Chile and Argentina traditionally identified as an extinct subspecies of jaguar, "Panthera onca mesembrina", have been reported to be remains of the American lion.

Habitat.

The American lion inhabited savannas and grasslands like the modern lion. In some areas of their range, American lions lived under cold climatic conditions. They probably used caves for shelter from the cold weather in those areas, and might have lined their dens with grass or leaves, as the modern Siberian tiger does.  The remains of American lions are not as abundant as those of other predators like "Smilodon fatalis" or dire wolves ("Canis dirus") at the La Brea Tar Pits, which suggests that they were better at evading entrapment, possibly due to greater intelligence. American lions likely preyed on deer, horses, camels, tapirs, American bison, mammoths, and other large ungulates (hoofed mammals). Evidence for predation of bison by American lions is particularly strong as a mummified carcass nicknamed "Blue Babe" was discovered in Alaska with clear bite and claw marks from lions. Based on the largely intact nature of the carcass, it probably froze before the lions could devour it. The American lion went extinct along with most of the Pleistocene megafauna during the Quaternary extinction event. The most recent fossil, from Edmonton, dates to 11,355 ± 55 years ago. American lion bones have been found in the trash heaps of Paleolithic Native Americans, suggesting that human predation contributed to its extinction.  A replica of the jaw of the first American lion specimen to be discovered can be seen in the hand of a statue of famous paleontologist Joseph Leidy, currently standing outside the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.

The American lion ("Panthera atrox"), also known as the "North American lion", or "American cave lion", is an extinct pantherine cat that lived in North America during the Pleistocene epoch about 340,000 to 11,000 years ago. Its fossils have been excavated from Alaska to Mexico. Genetic analysis has shown that the American lion and the Late Pleistocene Eurasian cave lion ("Panthera spelaea") are sister lineages. It was about 25% larger than the modern lion, making it one of the largest known felids.