Early life.

David II was the eldest and only surviving son of Robert I of Scotland and his second wife, Elizabeth de Burgh. He was born on 5 March 1324 at Dunfermline Abbey, Fife. His mother died in 1327, when he was 3 years old. In accordance with the Treaty of Northampton's terms, on 17 July 1328, when he was 4, David was married to 7 year old Joan of the Tower, at Berwick-upon-Tweed. She was the daughter of Edward II of England and Isabella of France. They had no issue.

Reign.

David became King of Scots upon the death of his father on 7 June 1329, aged 5 years, 3 months, and 3 days. David and his wife were crowned at Scone on 24 November 1331.  During David's minority, Sir Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray was appointed Guardian of Scotland by the Act of Settlement of 1318. After Moray's death, on 20 July 1332, he was replaced by Donald, Earl of Mar, elected by an assembly of the magnates of Scotland at Perth, 2 August 1332. Only ten days later Mar fell at the Battle of Dupplin Moor. Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell, who was married to Christian (or Christina), the sister of King Robert I, was chosen as the new Guardian. He was taken prisoner by the English at Roxburgh in April 1333 and was thence replaced as Guardian by Archibald Douglas (the Tyneman), who fell at Halidon Hill that July.  Meanwhile, on 24 September 1332, following the Scots' defeat at Dupplin, Edward Balliol, a protégé of Edward III of England, and a pretender to the throne of Scotland, was crowned by the English and his Scots adherents. By December, however, Balliol was forced to flee to England, although he returned the following year as part of an invasion force led by the English king.

Exile in France.

Following the English victory at the Battle of Halidon Hill in July 1333, David and his wife were sent for safety into France, reaching Boulogne on 14 May 1334. They were received very graciously by King Philip VI. Little is known about the life of the Scottish king in France, except that Château Gaillard was given to him for a residence, and that he was present at the bloodless meeting of the English and French armies in October 1339 at Vironfosse, now known as Buironfosse, in the Arrondissement of Vervins.  By 1341, David's representatives had once again obtained the upper hand in Scotland. David was able to return to his kingdom, landing at Inverbervie in Kincardineshire on 2 June 1341. He took the reins of government into his own hands, at the age of 17.

Captivity in England.

In 1346, under the terms of the Auld Alliance, David invaded England in the interests of the French, who were at war with the English in Normandy. After initial success at Hexham, David was wounded, and his army soundly defeated at the Battle of Neville's Cross on 17 October 1346. David was captured and taken prisoner by Sir John de Coupland, who imprisoned him in the Tower of London. David was transferred to Windsor Castle in Berkshire upon the return of Edward III from France. The depiction of David being presented to King Edward III in the play "The Reign of King Edward the Third" is fictitious. David and his household were later moved to Odiham Castle in Hampshire. His imprisonment was not reputed to be a rigorous one, although he remained captive in England for eleven years.  On 3 October 1357, after several protracted negotiations with the Scots' regency council, a treaty was signed at Berwick-upon-Tweed under which Scotland's nobility agreed to pay 100,000 marks, at the rate of 10,000 marks per year, as a ransom for their king. This was ratified by the Scottish Parliament at Scone on 6 November 1357.

Return to Scotland.

David returned at once to Scotland, bringing with him a mistress, Katherine Mortimer, of whom little is known. This was an unpopular move, and Katherine was murdered in 1360. After six years, owing to the poverty of the kingdom, it was found impossible to raise the ransom instalment of 1363. David then made for London and sought to get rid of the liability by offering to bequeath Scotland to Edward III, or one of his sons, in return for a cancellation of the ransom. David did this with the full awareness that the Scots would never accept such an arrangement. In 1364, the Scottish parliament indignantly rejected a proposal to make Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the next king. Over the next few years, David strung out secret negotiations with Edward III, which apparently appeased the matter.  His wife, Queen Joan, died on 7 September 1362 (aged 41) at Hertford Castle, Hertfordshire, possibly a victim of the Black Death. He remarried, on about 20 February 1364, Margaret Drummond, widow of Sir John Logie, and daughter of Sir Malcolm Drummond. He divorced her on about 20 March 1370. They had no children. Margaret, however, travelled to Avignon, and made a successful appeal to the Pope Urban V to reverse the sentence of divorce which had been pronounced against her in Scotland. She was still alive in January 1375, four years after David died.  From 1364, David governed actively, dealing firmly with recalcitrant nobles, and a wider baronial revolt, led by his prospective successor, the future Robert II. David continued to pursue the goal of a final peace with England. At the time of his death, the Scottish monarchy was stronger, and the kingdom and the royal finances more prosperous than might have seemed possible.

Death.

David II died unexpectedly, and at the height of his power, in Edinburgh Castle on 22 February 1371. He was buried in Holyrood Abbey. The funeral was overseen by Abbot Thomas.  At the time of his death, he was planning to marry his mistress, Agnes Dunbar, the niece of Agnes Randolph, who was known as "Black Agnes of Dunbar". He left no children and was succeeded by his nephew, Robert II, the son of David's half-sister Marjorie Bruce. He was the last male of the House of Bruce.

Fictional portrayals.

David II has been depicted in historical novels. They include  David II also appears as a character in the Elizabethan play "Edward III". And also in 2012 grand strategy game Crusader Kings II as the monarch of Scotland in 1336

David II (5 March 132422 February 1371) was King of Scotland for nearly 42 years, from 1329 until his death in 1371. He was the last male of the House of Bruce. Although David spent long periods in exile or captivity, he managed to ensure the survival of his kingdom and left the Scottish monarchy in a strong position.


Biography.

The Count of Egmont was at the head of one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the Low Countries. Paternally, a branch of the Egmonts ruled the sovereign duchy of Guelders until 1538. Lamoral was born in La Hamaide near Ellezelles. His father was John IV of Egmont, knight in the Order of the Golden Fleece. His mother belonged to a cadet branch of the House of Luxembourg, and through her he inherited the title "prince de Gavere". During his youth, he received a military education in Spain. In 1542, he inherited the estates of his elder brother Charles in Holland. His family's stature increased further in 1544 when, at Spires, in the presence of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and of the Archduke Ferdinand I, he married the Countess Palatine Sabine of Simmern, whose brother became the Elector Palatine Frederick III. By appointment, he was Captain General of the Lowlands under Charles V, knight of the Golden Fleece from 1546, and Imperial Chamberlain. In the service of the Spanish army, he defeated the French in the battles of Saint-Quentin (1557) and Gravelines (1558). Egmont was appointed stadtholder of Flanders and Artois in 1559, aged only 37. As a leading Netherlandic nobleman, Egmont was a member of King Philip II of Spain's official Council of State for Flanders and Artois. Together with William, Prince of Orange and the Count of Horn, he protested against the introduction of the inquisition in Flanders by the cardinal Antoine Perrenot Granvelle, bishop of Arras. Egmont even threatened to resign, but after Granvelle left, there was a reconciliation with the king. In 1565, running short of funds as he had continued the representation of the Low Countries entirely from his own pocket, Egmont went to Madrid to beseech Philip II, the king of Spain, for a change of policy in the Netherlands, but met with little more than courtesy.  Soon thereafter, the 'Beeldenstorm' started, the massive iconoclasm of Catholic churches in the Netherlands, and resistance against the Spanish rule in the Netherlands increased. As a devout Catholic, Egmont deplored the iconoclasm, and remained faithful to the Spanish king.  After Philip II sent the Duke of Alba to the Netherlands, William of Orange decided to flee Brussels. Having always declined to do anything that smacked of "lèse majesté", Egmont refused to heed Orange's warning; thus he and Horn decided to stay in the city. Upon arrival, Alba almost immediately had the counts of Egmont and Horn arrested on charges of heresy, and imprisoned them in a castle in Ghent, prompting Egmont's wife and their eleven surviving children (from the thirteen they had together) to seek refuge in a convent. Pleas for amnesty came to the Spanish king from throughout Europe, including from many reigning sovereigns, the Order of the Golden Fleece (both being knights of the Order, and thereby theoretically immune from trial by any but their peers of the Order), and the king's kinsman the Emperor Maximilian II, all to no avail.

Execution and destruction of Castle Egmond.

On 4 June Egmont and Horn were condemned to death, and lodged that night in the "maison du roi". On 5 June 1568 both men were beheaded in the "Grand Place" in Brussels, Egmont's uncomplaining dignity on the occasion being widely noted. Their deaths led to public protests throughout the Netherlands, and contributed to the resistance against the Spaniards. The Count of Egmont lies buried in a crypt in Zottegem, a Belgian city in which Egmont is remembered by his two statues, his museum and his castle. His castle in Egmond aan den Hoef was destroyed in 1573 and a statue in his memory is erected on the site of the ruins.  A statue erected on the Petit Sablon / Kleine Zavel Square in Brussels commemorates the Counts of Egmont and Horn, in historical overview usually mentioned together as ""Egmond en Hoorne"" and hailed as the first leaders of the Dutch revolt, as the predecessors of William of Orange, who grew to importance and obtained the leadership after their execution, and who was assassinated in 1584 in Delft, having succeeded in liberating parts of The Netherlands in the early years of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648).  Egmont's offices and vast estates were forfeited upon his execution, escheating to the Prince-Bishop of Liège. By inheritance he had been count of Egmont (or Egmond), prince de Gavre and van Steenhuysen, baron de Fiennes, Gaesbeke and La Hamaide, seigneur de Purmerent, Hoogwoude, Aertswoude, Beyerland, Sottenghien, Dondes, Auxy and Baer. Some of these lands were eventually returned to his heirs by the Bishop, principally in 1600. Despite the taint of treason and the family's impoverishment, his niece Louise of Lorraine-Mercœur, was chosen to become the Queen consort of Henry III of France in 1575.

Literary treatments.

The Count of Egmont is the main character in a play by Goethe, "Egmont". In 1810 Ludwig van Beethoven composed the Egmont Overture an overture and incidental music for a revival of the play.

Lamoral, Count of Egmont, Prince of Gavere (18 November 1522 – 5 June 1568) was a general and statesman in the Spanish Netherlands just before the start of the Eighty Years' War, whose execution helped spark the national uprising that eventually led to the independence of the Netherlands.


Creation.

The script is derived from Roman half uncial and the insular scripts that were being used in Irish and English monasteries. The strong influence of Irish literati on the script can be seen in the distinctively cló-Gaelach (Irish style) forms of the letters, especially a, e, d, g, s, and t.  Carolingian minuscule was created partly under the patronage of the Emperor Charlemagne (hence Carolingian). Charlemagne had a keen interest in learning, according to his biographer Einhard (here with apices):  Temptábat et scríbere, tabulásque et códicellós ad hoc in lectó sub cervícálibus circumferre solébat, ut, cum vacuum tempus esset, manum litterís effigiendís adsuésceret, sed parum successit labor praeposterus ac séró incohátus.  As a part of Charlemagne's educational and religious reforms, he decreed that every church and monastery should have a copy of Jerome's Vulgate Bible. Charlemagne wanted to make the Vulgate Bible more readable for preachers and easier to copy for scribes. Thus, Marcia Colish explains,  Charlemagne looked first to Anglo-Saxon England for a scholar to head his court school, finding him in Alcuin (). He assigned to Alcuin the correction of the Vulgate. In conjunction with this project, and later in his career when he became abbot of Tours, Alcuin invented a new style of handwriting, the Caroline minuscule. This script was far more legible than earlier medieval hands and an improvement on Roman book hands, since it provided spaces between the words, more extensive punctuation, and a hierarchy of hands, with capitals used for titles, a mix of capitals and lower-case letters for subtitles or chapter headings, and lower case for the body of the text. With the newly corrected Bible, pastors would be able to base their teaching and preaching on what it actually said.  Although Charlemagne was never fully literate, he understood the value of literacy and a uniform script in running his empire. Charlemagne sent for the English scholar Alcuin of York to run his palace school and scriptorium at his capital, Aachen. Efforts to supplant Gallo-Roman and Germanic scripts had been under way before Alcuin arrived at Aachen, where he was master from 782 to 796, with a two-year break. The new minuscule was disseminated first from Aachen, of which the Ada Gospels provided classic models, and later from the influential scriptorium at Marmoutier Abbey (Tours), where Alcuin withdrew from court service as an abbot in 796 and restructured the scriptorium.

Characteristics.

Carolingian minuscule was uniform, with rounded shapes in clearly distinguishable glyphs, disciplined and above all, legible. Clear capital letters and spaces between words became standard in Carolingian minuscule, which was one result of a campaign to achieve a culturally unifying standardization across the Carolingian Empire.  Traditional charters, however, continued to be written in a Merovingian "chancery hand" long after manuscripts of Scripture and classical literature were being produced in the minuscule hand. Documents written in a local language, like Gothic or Anglo-Saxon rather than Latin, tended to be expressed in traditional local script.  Carolingian script generally has fewer ligatures than other contemporary scripts, although the "et" ("&"), "æ", "rt", "st", and "ct" ligatures are common. The letter "d" often appears in an uncial form with an ascender slanting to the left, but the letter "g" is essentially the same as the modern minuscule letter, rather than the previously common uncial "ᵹ". Ascenders are usually "clubbed" – they become thicker near the top.  The early period of the script, during Charlemagne's reign in the late 8th century and early 9th, still has widely varying letter forms in different regions. The uncial form of the letter "a", similar to a double "c" ("cc"), is still used in manuscripts from this period. There is also use of punctuation such as the question mark, as in Beneventan script of the same period. The script flourished during the 9th century, when regional hands developed into an international standard, with less variation of letter forms. Modern glyphs, such as "s" and "v", began to appear (as opposed to the "long "s"" "s" and "u"), and ascenders, after thickening at the top, were finished with a three-cornered wedge. The script began to evolve slowly after the 9th century. In the 10th and 11th centuries, ligatures were rare and ascenders began to slant to the right and were finished with a fork. The letter "w" also began to appear. By the 12th century, Carolingian letters had become more angular and were written closer together, less legibly than in previous centuries; at the same time, the modern dotted "i" appeared.

Spread.

The new script spread through Western Europe most widely where Carolingian influence was strongest. In luxuriously produced lectionaries that now began to be produced for princely patronage of abbots and bishops, legibility was essential. It reached far afield: the 10th century Freising manuscripts, which contain the oldest Slovene language, the first Roman-script record of any Slavic language, are written in Carolingian minuscule. In Switzerland, Carolingian was used in the Rhaetian and Alemannic minuscule types. Manuscripts written in Rhaetian minuscule tend to have slender letters, resembling Insular script, with the letters and, and ligatures such as, showing similar to Visigothic and Beneventan. Alemannic minuscule, used for a short time in the early 9th century, is usually larger and broader, very vertical compared to the slanting Rhaetian type. In Austria, Salzburg was the major centre of Carolingian script, while Fulda, Mainz, and Würzburg were the major centres in Germany. German minuscule tends to be oval-shaped, very slender, and slants to the right. It has uncial features as well, such as the ascender of the letter slanting to the left, and vertical initial strokes of and.  In northern Italy, the monastery at Bobbio used Carolingian minuscule beginning in the 9th century. Outside the sphere of influence of Charlemagne and his successors, however, the new legible hand was resisted by the Roman Curia; nevertheless the Romanesca type was developed in Rome after the 10th century. The script was not taken up in England and Ireland until ecclesiastic reforms in the middle of the 10th century; in Spain a traditionalist Visigothic hand survived; and in southern Italy a 'Beneventan minuscule' survived in the lands of the Lombard duchy of Benevento through the 13th century, although Romanesca eventually also appeared in southern Italy.

Role in cultural transmission.

Scholars during the Carolingian Renaissance sought out and copied in the new legible standardized hand many Roman texts that had been wholly forgotten. Most of our knowledge of classical literature now derives from copies made in the scriptoria of Charlemagne. Over 7000 manuscripts written in Carolingian script survive from the 8th and 9th centuries alone.  Though the Carolingian minuscule was superseded by Gothic blackletter hands, it later seemed so thoroughly 'classic' to the humanists of the early Renaissance that they took these old Carolingian manuscripts to be ancient Roman originals and modelled their Renaissance hand, the humanist minuscule, on the Carolingian one. From there the script passed to the 15th- and 16th-century printers of books, such as Aldus Manutius of Venice. In this way it forms the basis of our modern lowercase typefaces. Indeed, 'Carolingian minuscule' is a style of typeface, which approximates this historical hand, eliminating the nuances of size of capitals, long descenders, and so on.

Carolingian minuscule or Caroline minuscule is a script which developed as a calligraphic standard in Europe so that the Latin alphabet of Jerome's Vulgate Bible could be easily recognized by the literate class from one region to another. It was developed for the first time, circa AD 780, by a Benedictine monk of Corbie Abbey (about north of Paris), Alcuin of York. However, not all sources agree with the latter. Alcuin might not have been involved in the creation of the script. He was most likely responsible for copying and preserving the manuscripts and upkeeping of the script. It was used in the Holy Roman Empire between approximately 800 and 1200. Codices, pagan and Christian texts, and educational material were written in Carolingian minuscule throughout the Carolingian Renaissance.


Early life and reign.

As the eldest son of Queen Maria II and King Ferdinand II, Peter was a member of the House of Braganza. As heir apparent to the throne he was styled Prince Royal (Portuguese: "Príncipe Real"), and was also the 19th Duke of Braganza ("Duque de Bragança").  Peter was a conscientious and hard-working monarch who, under the guidance of his father, sought radical modernisation of the Portuguese state and infrastructure. Under his reign, roads, telegraphs, and railways were constructed and improvements in public health advanced. His popularity increased when, during the cholera outbreak of 1853–1856, he visited hospitals handing out gifts and comforting the sick.  Pedro V, along with his brothers Fernando and João and other royal family members, succumbed to typhoid fever or cholera in 1861.

Marriage.

Peter married Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, eldest daughter of Karl Anton, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and Princess Josephine of Baden, by proxy in Berlin on 29 April 1858 and then in person in Lisbon on 18 May 1858. It was a happy marriage until Queen Stephanie died a year later from diphtheria. As Peter and Stephanie's marriage was childless, the Portuguese throne passed to his brother Luís.

Titles, styles and honours.

Titles and styles.

Pedro V's official styling as King of Portugal: "By the Grace of God and by the Constitution of the Monarchy, Peter V, King of Portugal and the Algarves, of either side of the sea in Africa, Lord of Guinea and of Conquest, Navigation, and Commerce of Ethiopia, South Africa, Arabia, Persia and India, etc."  As heir apparent to the Portuguese crown, Peter held the following titles:

Peter V ( ; 16 September 1837 – 11 November 1861), nicknamed "the Hopeful" (), was King of Portugal from 1853 to 1861.


Lexicology.

The term "alien" is derived from the Latin "alienus", meaning stranger, foreign, etym. "belonging (somewhere) else". Similar terms to "alien" in this context include "foreigner" and "lander".

Categories.

Different countries around the world use varying terms for aliens. The following are several types of aliens:

Common law jurisdictions.

An "alien" in English law denoted any person born outside of the monarch's dominions and who did not owe allegiance to the monarch. Aliens were not allowed to own land and were subject to different taxes to subjects. This idea was passed on in the Commonwealth to other common law jurisdictions.

Australia.

In Australia, citizenship is defined in the Australian nationality law. Non-citizens in Australia are either permanent residents; temporary residents; or illegal residents (technically called "unlawful non-citizens"). Most non-citizens (including those who lack citizenship documents) traveling to Australia must obtain a visa prior to travel. The only exceptions to this rule are holders of New Zealand passports and citizenship, who may apply for a visa on arrival according to the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement.  In 2020, in "Love v Commonwealth", the High Court of Australia ruled that Aboriginal Australians (as defined in "Mabo v Queensland (No 2)") cannot be considered aliens under the Constitution of Australia, regardless of whether they were born in Australia or hold Australian citizenship.

Canada.

In Canada, the term "alien" is not used in federal statues. Instead, the term "foreign national" serves as its equivalent and is found in legal documents. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act defines "foreign national" as "a person who is not a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident, and includes a stateless person."

United Kingdom.

In the United Kingdom, the British Nationality Act of 1981 defines an alien as a person who is not a British citizen, a citizen of Ireland, a Commonwealth citizen, or a British protected person. The Aliens Act of 1905, the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act of 1914 and the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act of 1919 were all products of the turbulence in the early part of the 20th century.

United States.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of the United States, "[t]he term 'alien' means any person not a citizen or national of the United States."  The usage of the term "alien" dates back to 1798, when it was used in the Alien and Sedition Acts. Although the INA provides no overarching explicit definition of the term "illegal alien", it is mentioned in a number of provisions under title 8. Several provisions even mention the term "unauthorized alien". According to PolitiFact, the term "illegal alien" occurs in federal law, but does so scarcely. PolitiFact opines that, "where the term does appear, it’s undefined or part of an introductory title or limited to apply to certain individuals convicted of felonies."  Because the U.S. law says that a corporation is a person, the term alien is not limited to natural humans because what are colloquially called foreign corporations are technically called alien corporations. Because corporations are creations of local state law, a foreign corporation is an out-of-state corporation.  There are a multitude of unique and highly complex U.S. domestic tax laws and regulations affecting the U.S. tax residency of foreign nationals, both nonresident aliens and resident aliens, in addition to income tax and social security tax treaties and Totalization Agreements.  "Alienage," i.e., citizenship status, has been prohibited since 1989 in New York City from being considered for employment, under that town's Human Rights legislation.

Other jurisdictions.

Arab states.

In the Arab states of the Persian Gulf (United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, etc.), many non-natives (foreigners) have lived in the region since birth or since independence. However, these Arab states of the Persian Gulf do not easily grant citizenship to the non-natives.

Latvia.

On Latvian passports, the mark "nepilsoņi" (alien) refers to non-citizens or former citizens of the Soviet Union (USSR) who do not have voting rights for the parliament of Latvia but have rights and privileges under Latvian law and international bilateral treaties, such as the right to travel without visas to both the European Union and Russia, where latter is not possible for Latvian citizens.

In law, an alien is a person who is not a citizen or national of a given country, though definitions and terminology differ to some degree depending on the continent or region of the world. The term "alien" is synonymous to "foreign national".


Description.

"Tilia platyphyllos" is a narrowly domed tree with a moderate growth rate, and can eventually attain a height of 40 m. The reddish-brown young stems later develop dark grey bark with fine fissures and furrows. The branches spread upwards at wide angles. The twigs are reddish-green and slightly pubescent. The foliage consists of simple, alternately arranged leaves. As indicated by its common name, this tree has larger leaves than the related "Tilia cordata" (small-leaved lime), 6 to 9 cm (exceptionally 15 cm). They are ovate to cordate, mid to dark green above and below, with white downy hair on the underside, particularly along the veins, tapering into a mucronate tip. The margin is sharply serrate, and the base cordate; the venation is palmate along a midrib. The pubescent petiole is usually 3–4 cm long, but can vary between 1.5–5 cm. The autumn foliage is yellow-green to yellow.  The small, fragrant, yellowish-white flowers are arranged in drooping, cymose clusters in groups of 3 to 4. Their whitish-green, leaf-like bracts have an oblong-obovate shape. The geniculate peduncles are between 1.5–3 cm long. The hermaphroditic flowers have 5 sepals and 5 tepals, numerous stamens, but no staminodes. The superior ovary is 2–10 locular with one smooth style. The flowers are pollinated by butts. The fruit is a fat, round, tomentose, cream-colored nutlet with a diameter of 1 cm or less. It has a woody shell with 3–5 ridges.

Cultivation.

"Tilia platyphyllos" is widely planted throughout the temperate world as an ornamental tree in parks and city streets. Numerous cultivars are available, including 'Aurea', (golden leafed), 'Fastigiata', 'Laciniata' (seemingly torn leaves), 'Örebro' (columnar), 'Princes Street' (narrow crown), 'Rubra' (red twigged), 'Tortuosa' (twisted branches), and 'Tiltstone Filigree' (upswept branches).  The cultivar 'Rubra' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

Hybrids.

"Tilia platyphyllos" readily hybridises with "Tilia cordata", the hybrid being the Common Lime "T." × "europaea" (syn. "T." × "vulgaris").

Fossil record.

Fossils of "Tilia platyphyllos" have been described from the fossil flora of Kızılcahamam district in Turkey, which is of early Pliocene age.

Use.

"Tilia" wood is used for carving, and almost all parts of the tree can be used for fodder, ropes or firewood. Bast and honey, which were historically the main products of "Tilia", may have been an important factor in the spread of the species and its status as a typical agroforestry tree in the Middle Ages. "Tilia spp". are also important for amenity use, shelterbelts and game plantings in the open landscape, in urban areas and recreational forestry.

Traditional medicine.

The plant also contains tannins that can act as an astringent. The wood is burned to charcoal and ingested for intestinal disorders and used topically for edema or infection, such as cellulitis or of the lower leg.

Tilia platyphyllos (large-leaved lime or large-leaved linden) is a species of flowering plant in the family Malvaceae (Tiliaceae). It is a deciduous tree, native to much of Europe, including locally in southwestern Great Britain, growing on lime-rich soils. The common names largeleaf linden and large-leaved linden are in standard use throughout the English-speaking world except in the British Isles, where it is known as large-leaved lime. The name "lime", possibly a corruption of "line" originally from "lind", has been in use for centuries and also attaches to other species of "Tilia". It is not, however, closely related to the lime fruit tree, a species of citrus.


Life.

Born in Lisbon, Henry was the fifth son of King Manuel I of Portugal and Maria of Aragon.

Cardinal.

As the younger brother of King John III of Portugal and a younger son in the Royal Family, Henry was not expected to succeed to the Portuguese throne. Early in his life, Henry took Holy Orders to promote Portuguese interests within the Catholic Church, then dominated by Spain. He rose fast through the Church hierarchy, becoming in quick succession Archbishop of Braga, Archbishop of Évora and Grand Inquisitor before receiving a galero in 1545, along with the "Titulus Ss. Quattuor Coronatorum". From 1564 to 1570 he was Archbishop of Lisbon. Henry, more than anyone, endeavoured to bring the Jesuits to Portugal to employ them in the colonial empire.

Reign.

Henry served as regent for his great-nephew King Sebastian, replacing his sister-in-law and Sebastian's grandmother Queen dowager Catherine, following her resignation from the role in 1562. King Sebastian died without an heir in the disastrous Battle of Alcácer Quibir that took place in 1578, and the elderly cardinal was proclaimed king soon after. Henry sought to be released from his ecclesiastical vows so he could take a bride and pursue the continuation of the Aviz dynasty, but Pope Gregory XIII, not wanting to antagonize Philip II of Spain, did not grant him that release.

Death and succession.

The Cardinal-King died in Almeirim, on his 68th birthday, without having appointed a successor, leaving only a regency to care for the kingdom. One of the closest dynastic claimants was King Philip II of Spain who, in November 1580, sent the Duke of Alba to claim Portugal by force. Lisbon soon fell, and Philip was elected king of Portugal at the Portuguese Cortes of Tomar in 1581—on the condition that the kingdom and its overseas territories would not become Spanish provinces.

Henry ( ; 31 January 1512 – 31 January 1580) was king of Portugal and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He ruled Portugal between 1578 and 1580 and was known as Henry the Chaste (Portuguese: "Henrique o Casto") and the Cardinal-King. As a clergyman, he was bound to chastity, and as such, had no children to succeed him, and thus put an end to the House of Aviz. His death led to the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580 and ultimately to the 60-year Iberian Union that saw Portugal share a monarch with that of Spain. The next independent monarch of Portugal would be John IV, who took the throne after 60 years of Spanish rule.


Early life.

Born in Lisbon, the son of King Afonso V of Portugal by his wife, Isabella of Coimbra, John II succeeded his father as ruler of Portugal in 1477, when the king retired to a monastery, but only became king in 1481, after the death of his father and predecessor.  As a prince, John II accompanied his father in the campaigns in northern Africa and was made a knight after the victory in the Conquest of Arzila in 1471. In 1473, he married Leonor of Viseu, an infanta of Portugal and his first cousin.  Even at a young age, John was not popular among the peers of the kingdom since he was immune to external influence and appeared to despise intrigue. The nobles (including particularly his half second cousin Ferdinand II, the Duke of Braganza) were afraid of his future policies as king.

Consolidation of power.

accession to the throne in 1481, John II took a series of measures to curtail the power of the Portuguese aristocracy and concentrate power in himself. As one of example of the measure he took, he deprived the nobles of their right to administer justice on their estates. Immediately, the nobles started to conspire. Letters of complaint and pleas to intervene were exchanged between the Duke of Braganza and Queen Isabella I of Castile.  King John took the precaution of renegotiating the "Tercerias de Moura" agreement to insure that his son Afonso was living safely back at court before he would move against Braganza, the most powerful noble in the realm (the original agreement called for Afonso to live in Moura, Portugal, with his intended Spanish bride, Isabella, Princess of Asturias, as children before their marriage). In 1483, additional correspondence was intercepted by royal spies. The House of Braganza was outlawed, their lands confiscated and the duke executed in Évora. The Duke's widow, Isabella of Viseu, John's cousin and sister-in-law, fled with her children to Castile.  In the following year, the Duke of Viseu, John's cousin and brother-in-law, was summoned to the palace and stabbed to death by the king himself for suspicion of a new conspiracy. Many other people were executed, murdered, or exiled to Castile, including the Bishop of Évora, who was poisoned in prison. Following the crackdown, no one in the country dared to defy the king and John saw no further conspiracies during his reign. A great confiscation of estates followed and enriched the crown, which now became the dominant power of the realm.

Economy.

Facing a bankrupt kingdom, John II showed the initiative to solve the situation by creating a regime in which a Council of Scholars took a vital role. The king conducted a search of the population and selected members for the Council on the basis of their abilities, talents and credentials ( Meritocracy ). John's exploration policies (see below) also paid great dividends. Such was the profit coming from John II's investments in the overseas explorations and expansion that the Portuguese currency had become the soundest in Europe. The kingdom could finally collect taxes for its own use rather than to pay debts, mainly thanks to its main gold source at that time, the coast of Guinea.

Exploration.

John II famously restored the policies of Atlantic exploration, reviving the work of his great-uncle, Henry the Navigator. The Portuguese explorations were his main priority in government. Portuguese explorers pushed south along the known coast of Africa with the purpose of discovering the maritime route to India and breaking into the spice trade. During his reign, the following achievements were realized:  The true extent of Portuguese explorations has been the subject of academic debate. According to one theory, some navigations were kept secret for fear of competition by neighbouring Castile. The archives of this period were mainly destroyed in the fire after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, and what was not destroyed during the earthquake was either stolen or destroyed during the Peninsular War or otherwise lost.

Conflict with Castile.

When Columbus returned from his first voyage early in 1493, he first stopped in Lisbon to claim his victory in front of King John II. King John II's only response to this was that under the Treaty of Alcáçovas previously signed with Spain, Columbus's discoveries lay within Portugal's sphere of influence. Before Columbus even reached Isabella I of Castile, John II had already sent a letter to them threatening to send a fleet to claim it for Portugal. Spain quickly hastened to the negotiating table, which took place in a small Spanish town named Tordesillas. A papal representative was present to act as mediator. The result of this meeting would be the famous Treaty of Tordesillas, which sought to divide all newly discovered lands in the New World between Spain and Portugal.

Legacy.

John II died at Alvor at age 40 without legitimate children. Despite his attempts to have his son Jorge, Duke of Coimbra, succeed him, he was succeeded by his first cousin Manuel I.  The nickname "the Perfect Prince" is a posthumous appellation that is intended to refer to Niccolò Machiavelli's work "The Prince". John II is considered to have lived his life exactly according to the writer's idea of a perfect prince. Nevertheless, he was admired as one of the greatest European monarchs of his time. Isabella I of Castile usually referred to him as "El Hombre" ("The Man").  The Italian scholar Poliziano wrote a letter to John II that paid him a profound homage:  Indeed, Poliziano considered his achievements to be more meritorious than those of Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. He offered to write an epic work giving an account of John II accomplishments in navigation and conquests. The king replied in a positive manner in a letter of 23 October 1491, but delayed the commission.

John II (; ; 3 March 1455 – 25 October 1495), called the Perfect Prince (), was King of Portugal from 1481 until his death in 1495, and also for a brief time in 1477. He is known for re-establishing the power of the Portuguese monarchy, reinvigorating the Portuguese economy, and renewing his country's exploration of Africa and the Orient.


Early life.

Afonso was born in Sintra, the second son of King Edward of Portugal by his wife Eleanor of Aragon. Following the death of his older brother, Infante João (1429-1433), Afonso acceded to the position of heir apparent and was made the first Prince of Portugal by his father, who sought to emulate the English Court's custom of a dynastic title that distinguished the heir apparent from the other children of the monarch. He was only six years old when he succeeded his father in 1438.  During his minority, Afonso V was placed under the regency of his mother in accordance with a will of his late father. As both a foreigner and a woman, the queen was not a popular choice for regent. Opposition rose and without any important ally among the Portuguese aristocracy other than Afonso, Count of Barcelos, the illegitimate half brother of King Edward, the queen's position was untenable. In 1439, the Portuguese Cortes (assembly of the kingdom) decided to replace the queen with Peter, Duke of Coimbra (Dom Pedro), the young king's oldest uncle.  Peter's main policies were concerned with restricting the political power of the great noble houses and expanding the powers of the crown. The country prospered under his rule, but not peacefully, as his laws interfered with the ambition of powerful nobles. The count of Barcelos, a personal enemy of the Duke of Coimbra (despite being half-brothers) eventually became the king's favourite uncle and began a constant struggle for power. In 1442, the king made Afonso the first Duke of Braganza. With this title and its lands, he became the most powerful man in Portugal and one of the richest men in Europe. To secure his position as regent, Peter had Afonso marry his daughter, Isabella of Coimbra, in 1445.  But on 9 June 1448, when the king came of age, Peter had to surrender his power to Afonso V. The years of conspiracy by the Duke of Braganza finally came to a head. On 15 September of the same year, Afonso V nullified all the laws and edicts approved under the regency. In the following year, led by what were later discovered to be false accusations, Afonso declared Peter a rebel and defeated his army in the Battle of Alfarrobeira, in which his uncle (and father-in-law) was killed. After this battle and the loss of one of Portugal's most remarkable infantes, the Duke of Braganza became the "de facto" ruler of the country.

Invasion of Morocco.

Afonso V then turned his attentions to North Africa. In the reign of his grandfather John I, Ceuta had been conquered from the king of Morocco, and now the new king wanted to expand the conquests. The king's army conquered Alcácer Ceguer in 1458 and Arzila in 1471. Tangiers, on the other hand, was won and lost several times between 1460 and 1464. These achievements granted the king the nickname of "the African" or "Africano". The king also supported the exploration of the Atlantic Ocean led by prince Henry the Navigator but after Henry's death in 1460, he did nothing to continue Henry's work. Administratively, Afonso V was a passive king. He chose not to pursue the revision of laws or development of commerce, preferring instead to preserve the legacy of his father Edward and grandfather John I.  In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull "Dum Diversas", which granted Afonso V the right to reduce "Saracens, pagans and any other unbelievers" to hereditary slavery. This was reaffirmed and extended in the Romanus Pontifex bull of 1455 (also by Nicholas V). These papal bulls came to be seen by some as a justification for the subsequent era of slave trade and European colonialism.

Castile.

When the campaigns in Africa were over, Afonso V found new grounds for battle in neighboring Castile. On December 11, 1474 King Henry IV of Castile died without a male heir, leaving just one daughter, Joanna la Beltraneja. However, her paternity was questioned; it was rumored that his wife, Queen Joan of Portugal had an affair with a nobleman named Beltrán de La Cueva. The death of Henry ignited a war of succession with one faction supporting Joanna and the other supporting Isabella, Henry's half-sister. Afonso V was persuaded to intervene on behalf of Joanna, his niece. He betrothed himself to her, proclaimed himself king of Castile and led troops into the kingdom. Because of their close blood-relationship, a formal marriage had to wait for papal dispensation.  On May 12, 1475, Afonso entered Castile with an army of 5,600 cavalry and 14,000 foot soldiers. In March, 1476, after several skirmishes and much maneuvering, the 8, 000 men of Afonso and Prince João, faced a Castilian force of similar size in the battle of Toro. The Castilians were led by Isabella's husband, Prince Ferdinand II of Aragon, Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba. The fight was fierce and confusing but the result was a stalemate: While the forces of Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba won over their opponents led by the Portuguese King –who left the battlefield to take refuge in Castronuño, the troops commanded by Prince Joao defeated and persecuted the troops of the Castilian right wing, recovered the Portuguese royal standard, remaining ordered in the battlefield where they collected the fugitives of Afonso. Both sides claimed victory but Afonso's prospects for obtaining the Castilian crown were severely damaged.  After the battle, Afonso sailed to France hoping to obtain the assistance of King Louis XI in his fight against Castile. But finding himself deceived by the French monarch, he returned to Portugal in 1477. Disillusioned, he abdicated for a few days in November 1477 in favor of his son John II, then after returning to the throne, he retired to a monastery in Sintra, where he died in 1481.

Marriages and descendants.

Afonso married firstly, in 1447, Isabella of Coimbra, with whom he had three children:  Afonso married secondly, in 1475, his niece Joanna of Castile, known as "La Beltraneja".

Bibliography.

Articles Books

Afonso V () (15 January 1432 – 28 August 1481), known by the sobriquet the African (), was King of Portugal. His sobriquet refers to his conquests in Northern Africa.


Description.

Silverfish are nocturnal insects typically long. Their abdomens taper at the end, giving them a fish-like appearance. The newly hatched are whitish, but develop a greyish hue and metallic shine as they get older. They have two long cerci and one terminal filament at the tip of the abdomen between the cerci. They also have two small compound eyes, despite other members of Zygentoma being completely eyeless, such as the family Nicoletiidae.  Like other species in Apterygota, silverfish are completely wingless. They have long antennae, and move in a wiggling motion that resembles the movement of a fish. This, coupled with their appearance and silvery scales, inspires their common name. Silverfish typically live for two to eight years. Silverfish are agile runners and can outrun most of their predators (including wandering spiders and centipedes). However, such running is possible only on horizontal surfaces, as they lack any additional appendages, and therefore are not fast enough to climb walls at the same speed. They also avoid light.

Distribution.

Silverfish are a cosmopolitan species, found in Africa, the Americas, Australia, Eurasia, and other parts of the Pacific. They inhabit moist areas, requiring a relative humidity between 75% and 95%. In urban areas, they can be found in attics, basements, bathtubs, sinks, kitchens, old books, classrooms, and showers.

Reproduction and life cycle.

Before silverfish reproduce, they carry out a ritual involving three phases, which may last over half an hour. In the first phase, the male and female stand face to face, their quivering antennae touching, then repeatedly back off and return to this position. In the second phase, the male runs away and the female chases him. In the third phase, the male and female stand side by side and head to tail, with the male vibrating his tail against the female. Finally, the male lays a spermatophore, a sperm capsule covered in gossamer, which the female takes into her body via her ovipositor to fertilize her eggs. The female lays groups of fewer than 60 eggs at once, deposited in small crevices. The eggs are oval-shaped, whitish, about long, and take between two weeks and two months to hatch. A silverfish usually lays fewer than 100 eggs in her lifetime.  When the nymphs hatch, they are whitish in colour, and look like smaller adults. As they moult, young silverfish develop a greyish appearance and a metallic shine, eventually becoming adults after three months to three years. They may go through 17 to 66 moults in their lifetimes, sometimes 30 in a single year—many more than most insects. Silverfish are among the few types of insect that continue to moult after reaching adulthood.

Ecology.

Silverfish consume matter that contains polysaccharides, such as starches and dextrin in adhesives. These include book bindings, carpet, clothing, coffee, dandruff, glue, hair, some paints, paper, photos, plaster, and sugar. They will damage wallpaper in order to consume the paste. Silverfish can also cause damage to tapestries. Other substances they may eat include cotton, dead insects, linen, silk, leftover crumbs, or even their own exuvia (moulted exoskeleton). During famine, a silverfish may even consume leatherware and synthetic fabrics. Silverfish can live for a year or more without eating if water is available.  Silverfish are considered household pests, due to their consumption and destruction of property. However, although they are responsible for the contamination of food and other types of damage, they do not transmit disease. Earwigs, house centipedes, and spiders such as the spitting spider "Scytodes thoracica" are known to be predators of silverfish.  The essential oil of the Japanese cedar "Cryptomeria japonica" has been investigated as a repellent and insecticide against "L. saccharina", with promising results: filter paper impregnated with a concentration of 0.01mg/cm of essential oil repelled 80% of silverfish, and an exposure to vapours of 0.16mg/cm for 10 hours caused a 100% mortality rate.

Etymology.

The scientific name for the species is "Lepisma saccharina", due to its tendency to eat starchy foods high in carbohydrates and protein, such as dextrin. However, the insect's more common name comes from its distinctive metallic appearance and fish-like shape. While the scientific name was established by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of "Systema Naturae", the common name has been in use since at least 1855.

Evolution.

Together with jumping bristletails, the predecessors of silverfish are considered the earliest, most primitive insects. They evolved at the latest in mid-Devonian and possibly as early as late Silurian more than 400 million years ago. Some fossilized arthropod trackways from the Paleozoic Era, known as "Stiaria intermedia" and often attributed to jumping bristletails, may have been produced by silverfish.

Similar species.

Other similar insect species are also known as silverfish. Two other silverfish are common in North America, "Ctenolepisma longicaudata" and "Ctenolepisma quadriseriata". "Ctenolepisma urbana" is known as the urban silverfish. The Australian species most commonly referred to as silverfish is a different lepismatid, "Acrotelsella devriesiana". The firebrat ("Thermobia domestica") is like a silverfish, but with a mottled gray and brown body.

A silverfish ("Lepisma saccharina") is a small, primitive, wingless insect in the order Zygentoma (formerly Thysanura). Its common name derives from the animal's silvery light grey colour, combined with the fish-like appearance of its movements. The scientific name ("L. saccharina") indicates that the silverfish's diet consists of carbohydrates such as sugar or starches.


Geography.

Position.

The locality is situated in the middle of its borough. It borders Wilhelmstadt in the south, Staaken and Falkenhagener Feld in the west, Hakenfelde in the north as well as Haselhorst, Siemensstadt and Westend (in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district) in the east.

Subdivision.

Spandau proper is subdivided into four historic ("Ortslagen"):

History.

The city was founded at the confluence of the rivers Spree and Havel. The settlement of the area can be traced back to the 6th century when the eastern territories of the Elbe river were populated by several Slavic tribes. The history of Spandau begins in the 7th or 8th century, when the Slav Hevelli settled in the area and later built a fortress there. It was conquered in 928 by the German King Henry I, but returned to Slavic rule after the rebellion of 983. In 1156, the Ascanian count Albert the Bear took possession of the region and is believed to have established a fortress here, from which the name Spandau originated. It was around this fortress that the city of Spandow developed, becoming the centre of the entire region.  It was first mentioned as "Spandowe" in 1197 in a deed of Otto II, Margrave of Brandenburg – 40 years earlier than the Cölln part of medieval Berlin. Spandau was given city rights in 1232.  During the Ascanian Rule the construction of the Spandau Citadel began, which was completed between 1559 and 1594 by Joachim II of Brandenburg. In 1558 the village of Gatow became part of Spandau. During the Thirty Years' War Spandau was surrendered to the Swedes in 1634.  In 1806, after the Battle of Jena and Auerstedt, French troops under Napoleon took possession of the city and stayed there until 1807. In 1812, Napoleon returned and the Spandau Citadel was besieged in 1813 by Prussian and Russian troops.  The poet and revolutionary Gottfried Kinkel was an inmate of the Spandau town prison from 1849, until he was freed by his friend Carl Schurz on the night of November 6, 1850.  Before World War I, Spandau was a seat of large, government, cannon foundries, factories for making gunpowder, and other munitions of war making, it a centre of the arms industry in the German Empire. It was also a garrison town with numerous barracks, home of the 5th Guards Infantry Brigade and the 5th Foot Guards of the German Army. In 1920, the independent city of Spandau (whose name had been changed from "Spandow" in 1878) was incorporated into Greater Berlin as a borough.  After World War II until 1990, when Berlin was divided into four sections administered by the victorious Allies, Spandau was part of the British Occupation Sector in West Berlin. The Spandau Prison, built in 1876, was used to house Nazi war criminals who were sentenced to imprisonment at the Nuremberg Trials. After the death of its last inmate, Rudolf Hess in 1987, Spandau Prison was completely demolished by the Allied powers and later replaced by a shopping mall.

Transportation.

Spandau is served by the Berliner S-Bahn lines S3 and S9 and by the U-Bahn line U7. The main railway station is Berlin Spandau, one of the most important of the city.

Spandau is a locality ("Ortsteil") of Berlin in the homonymous borough ("Bezirk") of Spandau. The historic city is situated, for the most part, on the western banks of the Havel river. As of 2008 the estimated population of Spandau was 33,433.


Early life.

Buhl was born in Innsbruck, the youngest of four children. After the death of his mother, he spent years in an orphanage. Before Scouting was banned in Austria, Hermann Buhl was a Cub Scout in Innsbruck. In the 1930s, as a sensitive (and not very healthy) teenager, he began to climb the Austrian Alps. In 1939, he joined the Innsbruck chapter of the Deutscher Alpenverein (the German Alpine association) and soon mastered climbs up to category 6. He was a member of the Mountain rescue team in Innsbruck ("Bergrettung Innsbruck").  World War II interrupted his commercial studies, and he joined the Alpine troops, mostly on the Monte Cassino. After being taken prisoner by American troops, he returned to Innsbruck and earned his living doing odd jobs. At the end of the 1940s, he finally completed his training as a mountain guide.

Himalayas.

Nanga Parbat.

Before his successful Nanga Parbat expedition, 31 people had died trying to make the first ascent.  Buhl is the only mountaineer to have made the first ascent of an eight-thousander solo. His climbing partner, Otto Kempter, was too slow in joining the ascent, so Buhl struck off alone. He returned 41 hours later, having barely survived the arduous climb to the summit, 6.5 km (4 miles) distant from, and 1.2 km (4,000 feet) higher than, camp V.  Experienced climbers, upon hearing later of Buhl's near-death climb, faulted him for making the attempt solo. Regardless, his monumental efforts, along with spending the night standing on a tiny pedestal too small to squat upon, untethered, on the edge of a 60-degree ice slope, have become mountaineering legend.

Broad Peak.

The first ascent of Broad Peak was made between June 8 and 9, 1957, by Fritz Wintersteller, Marcus Schmuck, Kurt Diemberger, and Buhl of an Austrian expedition led by Schmuck. A first attempt by the team had been made on May 29, when Fritz Wintersteller and Kurt Diemberger reached the forepeak (8030 m). This was also accomplished without the aid of supplemental oxygen, high-altitude porters or base camp support.

Chogolisa.

Just a few weeks after the successful first ascent of Broad Peak, Buhl and Diemberger made an attempt on nearby, unclimbed Chogolisa (7665 m) in Alpine style. Buhl lost his way in an unexpected snow storm and walked over a huge cornice on the south-east ridge, near the summit of Chogolisa II (7654 m; also known as Bride Peak), subsequently triggering an avalanche that hurled him down 900 m over Chogolisa's north face. His body could not be recovered and remains in the ice.

Legacy.

Hermann Buhl is still considered by alpinists and mountaineering historians to be the most complete and advanced mountaineer of his time. His ascents on rock and snow, solo and as a rope leader, his attitude towards the mountain and his physical elegance have been assessed by such contemporary luminaries as Kurt Diemberger, Marcus Schmuck, Heinrich Harrer, Walter Bonatti and Gaston Rébuffat. He was also an idol and hero of climbers of younger generations, such as Reinhold Messner, Peter Habeler and Hansjörg Auer.  Buhl can be considered a pioneer of Alpine style mountaineering in the Himalayas, a style defined by light-weight expedition gear, little to no fixed ropes and the relinquishing of bottled oxygen.  His expedition to Nanga Parbat was dramatized by Donald Shebib in the 1986 film "The Climb", based in part on Buhl's own writings about the expedition and starring Bruce Greenwood as Buhl.

Hermann Buhl (21 September 1924 – 27 June 1957) was an Austrian mountaineer and is considered one of the best climbers of all time. He was particularly innovative in applying Alpine style to Himalayan climbing. His accomplishments include:


History.

Origin.

The flag of Estonia fundamentally grew out of the flag of the German Order of the Cross, the black cross on a white field. This flag later resurfaced several other times, it was used as the flag of the United Baltic Duchy.  In the era of the crusades, the particular geographic domain of the contemporary Estonia's location (the Eastern Baltic shores) was proclaimed to be "Land of Mary", the Land of the Virgin Mary, "Terra Mariana" in Latin. (The region more to the South, the then-Prussia, was named the Land of St Peter). When creating its flag, the generic Teutonic banner was adapted so as to include the colors of the flag of St Mary. Mary being the "Virgin/Queen of Heaven", her flag consists of blue representing the heaven/sky, and white, the color of purity. The "Marian flag" itself, the flag of St Mary (St Maria), has two fields, white over blue. This original flag is still to be found in the flag of the Baltic Germans, and the flag of Pomerania (Province of Pomerania (1815–1945)). The Marian flag is still popular in Poland. It is also the flag of the Cathedral of St Mary in Luxembourg. This flag is also taken for the background in the San Marino (St Marinus) banner.  The merging of the Teutonic cross with the Marian colors resulted in the Terra mariana pattern. The pattern is today used in the coat of arms of the Jungingen family (Ulrich von Jungingen, notably, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order active in the Baltic domain). It is also used in the coat of arms of the German town of Jungingen.  The State of the German Order of the Cross ceased to exist in 1561.  In 1860 the students of the Baltic-Prussian extraction studying in Germany (in Danzig, in Karlsruhe) established a society, the Baltica-Borussia (Prussia) student organisation ("corporation"). The coat of arms of that corporation was based on the known pattern of colours and their arrangement associated with the region and its German past (the coat of arms also incorporated the German eagle). The corporation also adopted a flag. As the idea behind the French revolutionary tricolours demanded that flags be composed of three fields of equal width (representing the equality of the citizens), so was the old Terra Mariana flag transformed into a tricolour (technically, a triband).  In 1881 the Society of Estonian Students at the University of Tartu (Estonia) was formed, a similar tricolour was constructed. Yet by that time the selection of the particular colours was also attributed to the Finnish flag, and the colours were ascribed symbolic meanings.  The Estonian flag was therefore officially adopted first as a student organisation flag on 17 September 1881 by the constituent assembly of the first Estonian national student Corps "Vironia" (modern Estonian Students Society) in the city of Tartu. The colours and the pattern eventually became the national flag.

Independence.

The flag became associated with Estonian nationalism and was used as the national flag ("riigilipp") when the Estonian Declaration of Independence was issued on 24 February 1918. The flag was formally adopted on 21 November 1918. 12 December 1918 was the first time the flag was raised as the national symbol atop of the Pikk Hermann Tower in Tallinn.

Soviet occupation.

The invasion by the Soviet Union in June 1940 led to the flag's ban. It was taken down from the most symbolic location, the tower of Pikk Hermann in Tallinn, on 21 June 1940, when Estonia was still formally independent. On the next day, 22 June, it was hoisted along with the red flag. The tricolour disappeared completely from the tower on 27 July 1940, and was replaced by the flag of the Estonian SSR.

German occupation.

During the German occupation from 1941 until 1944, the flag was accepted as the ethnic flag of Estonians but not the national flag. After the German retreat from Tallinn in September 1944, the Estonian flag was hoisted once again.

Second Soviet occupation.

When the Red Army arrived on 22 September 1944, the red flag was just added at first. Soon afterwards, however, the blue-black-white flag disappeared. In its place from February 1953, the Estonian SSR flag was redesigned to include the six blue spiked waves on the bottom with the hammer and sickle with the red star on top. The blue-black-white flag remained illegal until the days of perestroika in the late 1980s. 21 October 1987 was the first time when Soviet forces did not take down the flag at a public event. 24 February 1989 the blue-black-white flag was again flown from the Pikk Hermann tower in Tallinn. It was formally re-declared as the national flag on 7 August 1990, little over a year before Estonia regained full independence.

Symbolism.

A symbolism-interpretation made popular by the poetry of Martin Lipp says the blue is for the vaulted blue sky above the native land, the black for attachment to the soil of the homeland as well as the fate of Estonians — for centuries black with worries, and white for purity, hard work, and commitment.

Colours.

The shade of blue is defined in the Estonian flag law as follows:

Selections from the Estonian Flag Act.

The most recent Estonian Flag Act was passed 23 March 2005 and came into force on 1 January 2006. It has been amended several times since then. The Act specifies the colours in Pantone and CMYK formats, as well as specifying when it can be hoisted and how it can be used and by whom. The Act specifies that the flag is "the ethnic and the national flag".  More specifically, the Flag Act specifies that the flag be hoisted on the Pikk Hermann tower in Tallinn every day at sunrise, but not earlier than 7.00 am, and is lowered at sunset". The lawful flag days are as follows:

Nordic flag proposals.

In 2001, politician Kaarel Tarand suggested that the flag be changed from a tricolour to a Scandinavian-style cross design with the same colours. Supporters of this design claim that a tricolour gives Estonia the image of a post-Soviet or Eastern European country, while a cross design would symbolise the country's links with Nordic countries. Several Nordic cross designs were proposed already in 1919, when the state flag was officially adopted, three of which are shown here. As the tricolour is considered an important national symbol, the proposal did not achieve the popularity needed to modify the national flag.  Advocates for a Nordic flag state that Estonians consider themselves a Nordic nation rather than Baltic, based on their cultural and historical ties with Sweden, Denmark, and particularly Finland. In December 1999 Estonian foreign minister—later the Estonian president from 2006 to 2016—Toomas Hendrik Ilves delivered a speech entitled "Estonia as a Nordic Country" to the Swedish Institute for International Affairs. Diplomat Eerik-Niiles Kross also suggested changing the country's official name in English and several other foreign languages from "Estonia" to "Estland" (which is the country's name in Danish, Dutch, German, Swedish, Norwegian and many other Germanic languages).

The national flag of Estonia () is a tricolour featuring three equal horizontal bands of blue (top), black, and white. The normal size is. In Estonian it is colloquially called the ""sinimustvalge"" (), after the colours of the bands.


Origin and history.

The flag of the Kingdom of Libya was adopted when Libya gained full independence in 1951. It consisted of a white star and crescent on a triband red-black-green design, with the central black band being twice the width of the outer bands. The design was based on the banner of the Senussi dynasty from Cyrenaica, which consisted of a black field and star and crescent design, and was later used as the flag of the region.  Omar Faiek Shennib, Chief of the Royal Diwans, Vice President of the National Assembly and Minister of Defense under King Idris Al Senussi is credited in the memoirs of Adrian Pelt, UN commissioner for Libya (1949 to 1951) for the design of the original flag of Libya. According to Pelt: "during deliberations of the Libyan National Constitutional Convention, a paper drawing of a proposed national flag was presented to the convention by Omar Faiek Shennib [distinguished member of the delegation from Cyrenaica]. The design was composed of three colors; red, black and green, with a white Crescent and Star centered in the middle black stripe. Mr. Shennib informed the delegates that this design had met the approval of His Highness Emir of Cyrenaica, King Idris Al Senussi [later to become King of Libya]. The assembly subsequently approved that design."  This flag represented Libya from its independence in 1951 until the 1969 Libyan coup d'état. The symbolism of the star and crescent in the flag of the Kingdom of Libya was explained in an English language booklet, "The Libyan Flag & The National Anthem", issued by the Ministry of Information and Guidance of the Kingdom of Libya (year unknown) as follows: "The crescent is symbolic of the beginning of the lunar month according to the Muslim calendar. It brings back to our minds the story of Hijra [migration] of our Prophet Mohammed from his home in order to spread Islam and teach the principles of right and virtue. The Star represents our smiling hope, the beauty of aim and object and the light of our belief in God, in our country, its dignity and honour which illuminate our way and puts an end to darkness."  In 2011, interviews with Ibtisam Shennib and Amal Omar Shennib, Omar Faeik Shennib's only two remaining children, were cited as confirming Pelt's account of the origin of the flag. Ibtisam Shennib recalled the morning her father brought a draft of the flag to the breakfast table and showed it to her and her siblings, explaining the original intent behind the selection of the flag's colours and symbols. According to Omar Faiek Shennib, "red was selected for the blood sacrificed for the freedom of Libya, black to remember the dark days that Libyans lived under the occupation of the Italians and green to represent its primary wealth, agriculture, [Libya once being referred to as the 'agricultural basket' or 'breadbasket' of the Ottoman Empire] and the future prosperity of the country. The star and crescent were placed within the black central strip of the flag as a reference to the Senussi flag and the role of King Idris in leading the country to independence".  During the Libyan Civil War against the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, the 1951–69 flag — as well as various makeshift versions without the crescent and star symbol, or without the green stripe — came back into use in areas held by the Libyan opposition and by protesters at several Libyan diplomatic missions abroad. The National Transitional Council, formed on 27 February 2011, adopted the flag previously used in the Kingdom of Libya between 1951 and 1969 as the "emblem of the Libyan Republic". The flag was officially defined in article three of the Libyan Draft Constitutional Charter for the Transitional Stage:  The national flag shall have the following shape and dimensions:  Its length shall be double its width, its shall be divided into three parallel coloured stripes, the uppermost being red, the centre black and lowest green, the black stripe shall be equal in area to the other two stripes together and shall bear in its centre a white crescent, between the two extremities of which there shall be a five-pointed white star. On 10 March 2011, France was the first country to recognise the council as the official government of Libya, as well as the first to allow the Libyan embassy staff to raise the flag. On 21 March, the flag was flown by the Permanent Mission of Libya to the United Nations and appeared on their official website, and thereafter in late August by the Arab League and by Libya's own telecommunications authority, the Libya Telecom & Technology, on its own website. In the following months many other Libyan embassies replaced the green flag of Gaddafi with the tricolour flag.  This original flag of Libya is now the only flag used by the United Nations to represent Libya, according to the following UN statement: "Following the adoption by the General Assembly of resolution 66/1, the Permanent Mission of Libya to the United Nations formally notified the United Nations of a Declaration by the National Transitional Council of 3 August 2011 changing the official name of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to 'Libya' as well as a decision to change Libya's national flag to the original." All Libyan diplomatic posts, such as embassies and consulates, use the original flag of Libya.

Legal basis and construction.

The flag of Libya is described in Article 7 of the Constitution of 7 October 1951. It was officially adopted on 24 December 1951. The passage from the constitution reads:  Both the precise shade and legal construction is described in a booklet issued by the Ministry of Information and Guidance of the Kingdom of Libya in 1951. The passage reads:

The flag of Libya was originally introduced in 1951, following the creation of the Kingdom of Libya. It was designed by Omar Faiek Shennib and approved by King Idris Al Senussi who comprised the UN delegation representing the three regions of Cyrenaica, Fezzan, and Tripolitania at UN unification discussions.


Description.

Samovars are typically crafted out of plain iron, copper, polished brass, bronze, silver, gold, tin, or nickel. A typical samovar consists of a body, base and chimney, cover and steam vent, handles, tap and key, crown and ring, chimney extension and cap, drip-bowl, and teapot. The body shape can be an urn, krater, barrel, cylinder, or sphere. Sizes and designs vary, from large, "40-pail" ones holding to those of a modest size.  A traditional samovar consists of a large metal container with a tap near the bottom and a metal pipe running vertically through the middle. The pipe is filled with solid fuel which is ignited to heat the water in the surrounding container. A small (6 to 8 inch) smoke-stack is put on the top to ensure draft. After the water boils and the fire is extinguished, the smoke-stack can be removed and a teapot placed on top to be heated by the rising hot air. The teapot is used to brew a strong concentrate of tea known as "заварка" ("zavarka"). The tea is served by diluting this concentrate with "кипяток" ("kipyatok") (boiled water) from the main container, usually at a water-to-tea ratio of 10-to-1, although tastes vary.

Prehistory.

The predecessor of the modern samovar is unknown; it could have originated from Russia or Central Asia.  Samovar-like pottery was found in Shaki, Azerbaijan in 1989. It was estimated to be at least 3,600 years old. While it differed from modern samovars in many respects, it contained the distinguishing functional feature of an inner cylindrical tube that increased the area available for heating the water. Unlike modern samovars, the tube was not closed from below, and so the device relied on an external fire (i.e. by placing it above the flame) instead of carrying its fuel and fire internally.

History.

The invention and cultural development of samovar in Russia was probably influenced by Byzantine and Asian cultures. Conversely, Russian culture also influenced Asian, Western Europe and Byzantine cultures. Cultural connections exist to a similar Greek water-heater of classical antiquity, the autepsa, a vase with a central tube for coal. The first historically recorded samovar-makers were the Russian Lisitsyn brothers, Ivan Fyodorovich and Nazar Fyodorovich. From their childhood they were engaged in metalworking at the brass factory of their father, Fyodor Ivanovich Lisitsyn. In 1778 they made a samovar, and the same year Nazar Lisitsyn registered the first samovar-making factory in Russia. They may not have been the inventors of the samovar, but they were the first documented samovar-makers, and their various and beautiful samovar designs became very influential throughout the later history of samovar-making. These and other early producers lived in Tula, a city known for its metalworkers and arms-makers. Since the 18th century Tula has been also the main center of Russian samovar production, with "tul'sky samovar" being the brand mark of the city. A Russian saying equivalent to "carrying coal to Newcastle" is "to travel to Tula with one's own samovar". Although Central Russia and Ural region were among the first Samovar producers, over time several samovar producers emerged all over Russia, which gave the somovar its different local characteristics. By the 19th century samovars were already a common feature of Russian tea culture. They were produced in large numbers and exported to Central Asia and other regions. The samovar was an important attribute of Russian households and taverns to tea-drinking. It was used by all classes, from the poorest peasants up to the most well-suited people. The Russian expression "to have a sit by the samovar" means to have a leisurely talk while drinking tea from a samovar. In everyday use samovars were an economical permanent source of hot water in older times. Various slow-burning items could be used for fuel, such as charcoal or dry pinecones. When not in use, the fire in the samovar pipe faintly smouldered. As needed it could be quickly rekindled with the help of bellows. Although a Russian jackboot "сапог" ("sapog") could be used for this purpose, bellows were manufactured specifically for use on samovars. Today samovars are popular souvenirs among tourists in Russia.

Cultural extension outside of Russia.

Iran.

Samovar culture has an analog in Iran and is maintained by expatriates around the world. In Iran, samovars have been used for at least two centuries (roughly since the era of close political and ethnic contact between Russia and Iran started), and electrical, oil-burning or natural gas-consuming samovars are still common. Samovar is pronounced "samăvar" in Persian. Iranian craftsmen used Persian art motifs in their samovar production. The Iranian city of Borujerd has been the main centre of samovar production and a few workshops still produce hand-made samovars. Borujerd's samovars are often made with German silver, in keeping with the famous Varsho-Sazi artistic style. The art samovars of Borujerd are often displayed in Iranian and Western museums as illustrations of Iranian art and handicraft.

Kashmir, India.

A samovar () is a traditional Kashmiri kettle used to brew, boil and serve Kashmiri salted tea (Noon Chai) and kahwa. Kashmiri samovars are made of copper with engraved or embossed calligraphic motifs. In fact in Kashmir, there were two variants of samovar. The copper samovar was used by Muslims and that of brass was used by local Hindus called Kashmiri Pandit. The brass samovars were nickel-plated inside. Inside a samovar there is a fire-container in which charcoal and live coals are placed. Around the fire-container there is a space for water to boil. Green tea leaves, salt, cardamom, and cinnamon are put into the water.

Turkey.

Although Turkish samovars are popular souvenirs among tourists, and charcoal burning samovars are still popular in the fields, it has in the modern homes of cities been replaced with Çaydanlık, a metal teapot with a smaller teapot on top taking the place of the cap of the lower one.

A samovar (, ; literally "self-brewer") is a metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water in Russia. Additionally, the samovar is well known outside of Russia and spread through the Russian culture to Eastern Europe, South-Eastern Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, the Kashmir region of India, the Middle East, Vietnam, and is also known in some parts of Central Europe. Since the heated water is typically used to make tea, many samovars have a ring-shaped attachment (, ) around the chimney to hold and heat a teapot filled with tea concentrate. Though traditionally heated with coal or kindling, many newer samovars use electricity to heat water in a manner similar to an electric water boiler. Antique samovars are often prized for their beautiful workmanship.


Biography.

Gerhard (Gershom) Scholem was born in Berlin to Arthur Scholem and Betty Hirsch Scholem. His father was a printer. He studied Hebrew and Talmud with an Orthodox rabbi.  Scholem met Walter Benjamin in Munich in 1915, when the former was seventeen years old and the latter was twenty-three. They began a lifelong friendship that ended when Benjamin committed suicide in 1940 in the wake of Nazi persecution. Scholem dedicated his book "Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism" ("Die jüdische Mystik in ihren Hauptströmungen"), based on lectures 1938–1957, to Benjamin. In 1915 Scholem enrolled at the Frederick William University in Berlin (today, Humboldt University), where he studied mathematics, philosophy, and Hebrew. There he met Martin Buber, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Ahad Ha'am, and Zalman Shazar.  In Berlin, Scholem befriended Leo Strauss and corresponded with him throughout his life. He studied mathematical logic at the University of Jena under Gottlob Frege. He was in Bern in 1918 with Benjamin when he met Elsa (Escha) Burchhard, who became his first wife. Scholem returned to Germany in 1919, where he received a degree in semitic languages at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Together with Benjamin he established a fictitious school - the University of Muri.  Scholem wrote his doctoral thesis on the oldest known kabbalistic text, "Sefer ha-Bahir".  Drawn to Zionism and influenced by Buber, he immigrated in 1923 to the British Mandate of Palestine. He became a librarian, and eventually head of the Department of Hebrew and Judaica at the National Library. Scholem's brother Werner was a member of the ultra-left "Fischer-Maslow Group" and the youngest ever member of the Reichstag, representing the Communist Party (KPD) in the German parliament. He was expelled from the party and later murdered by the Nazis during the Third Reich. Gershom Scholem, unlike his brother, was vehemently opposed to both Communism and Marxism. In 1936, he married his second wife, Fania Freud.  Scholem died in Jerusalem, where he is buried next to his wife in the Sanhedria Cemetery. Jürgen Habermas delivered the eulogy.

Academic career.

He became a lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Scholem taught the Kabbalah and mysticism from a scientific point of view and became the first professor of Jewish mysticism at the university in 1933, working in this post until his retirement in 1965, when he became an emeritus professor. Scholem directly contrasted his historiographical approach on the study of Jewish mysticism with the approach of the 19th-century school of the "Wissenschaft des Judentums" ("Science of Judaism"), which sought to submit the study of Judaism to the discipline of subjects such as history, philology, and philosophy. According to Jeremy Adler, Scholem's thinking was "both recognizably Jewish and deeply German," and "changed the course of twentieth-century European thought."  Jewish mysticism was seen as Judaism's weakest scholarly link. Scholem told the story of his early research when he was directed to a prominent rabbi who was an expert on Kabbalah. Seeing the rabbi's many books on the subject, Scholem asked about them, only to be told: "This trash? Why would I waste my time reading nonsense like this?" (Robinson 2000, p. 396)  The analysis of Judaism carried out by the "Wissenschaft" school was flawed in two ways, according to Scholem: It studied Judaism as a dead object rather than as a living organism; and it did not consider the proper "foundations" of Judaism, the non-rational force that, in Scholem's view, made the religion a living thing.  In Scholem's opinion, the mythical and mystical components were at least as important as the rational ones, and he thought that they, rather than the minutiae of Halakha, were the truly living core of Judaism. In particular, he disagreed with what he considered to be Martin Buber's personalization of Kabbalistic concepts as well as what he argued was an inadequate approach to Jewish history, Hebrew language, and the land of Israel.  In the "Weltanschauung" of Scholem, the research of Jewish mysticism could not be separated from its historical context. Starting from something similar to the "Gegengeschichte" of Friedrich Nietzsche he ended up including less normative aspects of Judaism in the public history.  Specifically, Scholem thought that Jewish history could be divided into three periods:  The notion of the three periods, with its interactions between rational and irrational elements in Judaism, led Scholem to put forward some controversial arguments. He thought that the 17th century messianic movement, known as Sabbatianism, was developed from the Lurianic Kabbalah. In order to neutralize Sabbatianism, Hasidism had emerged as a Hegelian synthesis. Many of those who joined the Hasidic movement, because they had seen in it an Orthodox congregation, considered it scandalous that their community should be associated with a heretical movement.  In the same way, Scholem produced the hypothesis that the source of the 13th century Kabbalah was a Jewish gnosticism that preceded Christian gnosticism.  The historiographical approach of Scholem also involved a linguistic theory. In contrast to Buber, Scholem believed in the power of the language to invoke supernatural phenomena. In contrast to Walter Benjamin, he put the Hebrew language in a privileged position with respect to other languages, as the only language capable of revealing the divine truth. Scholem considered the Kabbalists as interpreters of a pre-existent linguistic revelation.

Debate with Hannah Arendt.

In the aftermath of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, Scholem sharply criticised Hannah Arendt's book, "" and decried her lack of "ahavath Yisrael" (solidarity with the Jewish people). Arendt responded that she never loved any collective group, and that she does not love the Jewish people but was only part of them. The bitter fight, which was exchanged in various articles, made Scholem break off ties with Arendt and refuse to forgive her. Scholem wrote to Hans Paeschke that he "knew Hannah Arendt when she was a socialist or half-communist and...when she was a Zionist. I am astounded by her ability to pronounce upon movements in which she was once so deeply engaged, in terms of a distance measured in light years and from such sovereign heights.”  Various other Israeli and Jewish academics also broke off ties with Arendt, claiming that her lack of solidarity with the Jewish people in their time of need was appalling, along with her victimization of various Nazis. Before the Eichmann trial, Scholem also opposed Arendt's interpretation (in letters and the introduction to "Illuminations") of Walter Benjamin as a Marxist thinker who predated the New Left. For Scholem, Benjamin had been an essentially religious thinker, whose turn to Marxism had been merely an unfortunate, but inessential and superficial, expedient.

Literary influence.

Various stories and essays of the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges were inspired or influenced by Scholem's books. He has also influenced ideas of Umberto Eco, Jacques Derrida, Harold Bloom, Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, and George Steiner. American author Michael Chabon cites Scholem's essay, "The Idea of the Golem", as having assisted him in conceiving the Pulitzer-Prize winning book "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay".

Gershom Scholem () (December 5, 1897 – February 21, 1982), was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. He is widely regarded as the founder of the modern, academic study of Kabbalah. He was the first professor of Jewish Mysticism at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His close friends included Walter Benjamin and Leo Strauss, and selected letters from his correspondence with those philosophers have been published.


Description.

The river source is near the Reschen Pass () close to the borders with Austria and Switzerland above the Inn valley. It flows through the artificial alpine Lake Reschen. The lake is known for the church tower that marks the site of the former village of Alt Graun ("Old Graun"); it was evacuated and flooded in 1953 after the dam was finished. Near Glurns, the Rom river joins from the Swiss Val Müstair.  The Adige runs eastward through the Vinschgau to Merano, where it is met by the Passer river from the north. The section between Merano and Bolzano is called Etschtal, meaning Adige Valley. South of Bolzano, the river is joined by the Eisack and turns south through a valley which has always been one of the major routes through the Alps, connecting the Reschen and the Brenner passes, at considered the easiest of the main Alpine passes.  The "Chiusa di Salorno" narrows at Salorno mark the southernmost part of the predominantly German-speaking province of South Tyrol. The Adige was mentioned in the "Lied der Deutschen" of 1841 as the southern border of the German language area. As of 2011 62% of Salorno speaks Italian and 37% speaks German. In 1922 Germany adopted the song as its national anthem, although by that time Italy had taken control of all of the Adige.  Near Trento, the Avisio, Noce, and Fersina rivers join. The Adige crosses Trentino and later Veneto, flowing past the town of Rovereto, the Lagarina Valley, the cities of Verona and Adria and the north-eastern part of the Po Plain into the Adriatic Sea. The Adige and the Po run parallel in the river delta without properly joining.  The Adige is connected to Lake Garda by the Mori-Torbole tunnel, an artificial underground canal built for flood prevention.

Tributaries.

The following rivers are tributaries to the river Adige (from source to mouth):

Ecology.

Fauna.

The Adige is a home to the marble trout ("Salmo marmoratus"), but at far lower populations than in the past. Fish stocking is one of the most significant causes of the sharp reduction in the original (indigenous) fish population of this subspecies. It will spawn with and interbreed with brown trout, which are regularly stocked in the river and its tributaries.

The Adige (; ; ; ; ; ;, or, "Átagis") is the second-longest river in Italy, after the Po, rises in the Alps in the province of South Tyrol, near the Italian border with Austria and Switzerland, and flows through most of northeastern Italy to the Adriatic Sea.


Beginnings.

In the Northern Italian city of Trent in 1943, in the climate of violence and hatred of the Second World War, the young elementary school teacher Chiara Lubich saw God's love as the only antidote when civil life was crumbling around her. With Bible in hand in the shelters during air raids, she felt deeply Jesus' desire "that they all may be one." A group sharing her vision joined in helping those in the shelters and in the poorest parts of town, and numbers grew. In 1948, the journalist Igino Giordani, a member of Parliament and pioneer of ecumenism, joined the group, bringing his ideal of social unity. Another cofounder was Fr. Pasquale Foresi with his theological background, and founder of New City Press in 1964.  Focolare initially spread in Italy and Europe, then worldwide: South America (1958), North America (1961), Africa (1963), Asia (1966), and Australia (1967).

Focolare towns.

After 1949, summer vacations together in Fiera di Primiero in the Dolomite Mountains led to the desire to share – materially, culturally, and spiritually. Numbers increased for these retreats, including priests and religious with a variety of spiritualities, and by 1955 this gathering took on the name "Mariapolis", a model of peace for the world under Mother Mary's patronage. In 1962 Chiara's visit to the Benedictine Einsiedeln Abbey in Switzerland made her dream of permanent towns of brother/sisterhood, "simple houses, work places, schools – just like an ordinary town." In 1964 Loppiano, the first permanent Mariapolis, was built on land donated by Vincenzo Folonari, near Florence. It has grown to include 900 people of worldwide origins and diverse occupations, married and single, priests and religious, who work and study together and strive to live in exemplary Christian charity. Each year an average of 40,000 visitors pass through Loppiano.  Twentyfour other such towns have sprung up worldwide. Some have specific emphases: "ecumenism" (Ottmaring, Germany; Welwyn Garden City, Great Britain); "ecology" (Rotselaar, Belgium); "interreligious dialogue" (Tagaytay, Philippines); "multi-ethnic harmony" (Luminosa, New York; Križevci, Croatia); or "inculturation" (Fontem, Cameroon; Kenya; Ivory Coast). In these towns religious and cultural differences are respected, to exemplify Jesus' dream: "Father, may they all be one, as you and I are one."

Development.

The president of the Focolare movement, who is always a lay woman, is Maria Voce, first elected in 2008. The chief goals of the movement are: to cooperate in the consolidation of unity in the Christian world, with individuals and groups, movements, and associations; to contribute to full communion with Christians of different churches; and to work towards universal brother/sisterhood of all peoples, regardless of religious beliefs.  The movement has branched out to address a variety of groups including families, youth, and different religions. Special projects have sprung up within the movement, such as the "Abba" school, "Young People for a United World" (now Youth for a United World), Teens4unity, Economy of Communion (involving 800 companies), evangelism within small cities, social work, the Igino Giordani Centre, and 27 publishing houses. Pope Francis in praising Economy of Communion called on it to change “the rules of the game of the socio-economic system.” John L. Allen Jr. has observed that it is hard to "pick a fight with a "focolarino"....They tend to be open, ego-free, and just relentlessly nice."  Focolare has 140,440 members in more than 180 countries. People more broadly involved in the movement are estimated by the Vatican at 4.5 million.

Renewal.

At a reorganizational meeting in 2014 newly elected council members had an average age 16 years younger than that of the previous council, and the 30 council members came from 20 different countries. In Pope Francis' address to the reorganizational meeting he said: "The Work of Mary, that everyone knows as the Focolare movement, was a little seed in the Catholic Church’s womb, that in the course of the years has brought to life a tree which now extends its branches in all the expressions of the Christian family and also among members of different religions and among many who cultivate justice and solidarity together with the search for truth." Francis went on to describe elements of the movement as contemplation, going out to engage in dialogue, and formation of youth. Of contemplation he said: “We need to contemplate God and the beauty of his love,” keeping in mind that “to contemplate means to live together with brothers and sisters, breaking with them the bread of communion and fraternity,” since “contemplation that leaves people outside is a lie, it is narcissism.”

Publications.

New City Press, established in 1964, is the official publishing house for the Focolare movement, publishing books, periodicals, and e-books. Among its publications are the "Spirituality of Unity" series, featuring the works of founder Chiara Lubich, and "Understanding the Scriptures", Bible commentaries by scholars such as Daniel J. Harrington, Dianne Bergant, Robert Karris, and Ronald Witherup. NCP publications include: the academic journal "Sophia" twice a year; three quarterlies – "Gen's" on ecclesial commitment as well as "New Humanity," and "Unity and Charisms"; the bimonthly "Teens" for children; and the monthly periodicals "Città Nuova" (published in 38 different national or regional formats; known as "New City" in the UK, and as "Living City" in the US) with opinion and dialogue, "Big Smart Kids" including inserts for educators, and "Gospel of the Day."  Focolare also produces "Economy of Communion" quarterly and website.  2001

The Focolare Movement is an international organization that promotes the ideals of unity and universal brotherhood. Founded in Trent, northern Italy, in 1943 by Chiara Lubich as a Catholic movement, it remains largely Roman Catholic but has strong links to the major Christian denominations and other religions, or in some cases with the non-religious.