Description in lay terms.

Imagine a car moving along a curved road on a vast flat plane. Suddenly, at one point along the road, the steering wheel locks in its present position. Thereafter, the car moves in a circle that "kisses" the road at the point of locking. The curvature of the circle is equal to that of the road at that point. That circle is the osculating circle of the road curve at that point.

Mathematical description.

Let formula_1("s") be a regular parametric plane curve, where "s" is the arc length (the natural parameter). This determines the "unit tangent vector" T("s"), the "unit normal vector" N("s"), the signed curvature "k(s") and the "radius of curvature" "R(s") at each point for which "s" is composed:  Suppose that "P" is a point on "γ" where "k" ≠ 0. The corresponding center of curvature is the point "Q" at distance "R" along "N", in the same direction if "k" is positive and in the opposite direction if "k" is negative. The circle with center at "Q" and with radius "R" is called the osculating circle to the curve "γ" at the point "P".  If "C" is a regular space curve then the osculating circle is defined in a similar way, using the principal normal vector "N". It lies in the "osculating plane", the plane spanned by the tangent and principal normal vectors "T" and "N" at the point "P".  The plane curve can also be given in a different regular parametrization  formula_3  where regular means that formula_4 for all formula_5. Then the formulas for the signed curvature "k"("t"), the normal unit vector "N"("t"), the radius of curvature "R"("t"), and the center "Q"("t") of the osculating circle are

Cartesian coordinates.

We can obtain the center of the osculating circle in Cartesian coordinates if we substitute formula_8 and formula_9 for some f function. If we do the calculations the results for the X and Y coordinates of the center of the osculating circle are:

Properties.

For a curve "C" given by a sufficiently smooth parametric equations (twice continuously differentiable), the osculating circle may be obtained by a limiting procedure: it is the limit of the circles passing through three distinct points on "C" as these points approach "P". This is entirely analogous to the construction of the tangent to a curve as a limit of the secant lines through pairs of distinct points on "C" approaching "P".  The osculating circle "S" to a plane curve "C" at a regular point "P" can be characterized by the following properties: This is usually expressed as "the curve and its osculating circle have the second or higher order contact" at "P". Loosely speaking, the vector functions representing "C" and "S" agree together with their first and second derivatives at "P".  If the derivative of the curvature with respect to "s" is nonzero at "P" then the osculating circle crosses the curve "C" at "P". Points "P" at which the derivative of the curvature is zero are called vertices. If "P" is a vertex then "C" and its osculating circle have contact of order at least three. If, moreover, the curvature has a non-zero local maximum or minimum at "P" then the osculating circle touches the curve "C" at "P" but does not cross it.  The curve "C" may be obtained as the envelope of the one-parameter family of its osculating circles. Their centers, i.e. the centers of curvature, form another curve, called the "evolute" of "C". Vertices of "C" correspond to singular points on its evolute.  Within any arc of a curve "C" within which the curvature is monotonic (that is, away from any vertex of the curve), the osculating circles are all disjoint and nested within each other. This result is known as the Tait-Kneser theorem.

Examples.

Parabola.

For the parabola the radius of curvature is At the vertex formula_13 the radius of curvature equals "R(0)=0.5" (see figure). The parabola has fourth order contact with its osculating circle there. For large "t" the radius of curvature increases ~ "t", that is, the curve straightens more and more.

Lissajous curve.

A Lissajous curve with ratio of frequencies (3:2) can be parametrized as follows  It has signed curvature "k"("t"), normal unit vector "N"("t") and radius of curvature "R"("t") given by  and  See the figure for an animation. There the "acceleration vector" is the second derivative formula_18 with respect to the arc length formula_19.

Cycloid.

A cycloid with radius of r can be parametrized as follows:  Its curvature is given by the following formula:  which gives:

Further reading.

For some historical notes on the study of curvature, see For application to maneuvering vehicles see

In differential geometry of curves, the osculating circle of a sufficiently smooth plane curve at a given point "p" on the curve has been traditionally defined as the circle passing through "p" and a pair of additional points on the curve infinitesimally close to "p". Its center lies on the inner normal line, and its curvature defines the curvature of the given curve at that point. This circle, which is the one among all tangent circles at the given point that approaches the curve most tightly, was named "circulus osculans" (Latin for "kissing circle") by Leibniz.


Geology.

Ol Doinyo Lengai is unique among active volcanoes in that it produces natrocarbonatite lava, a unique occurrence of volcanic carbonatite. A few older extinct carbonatite volcanoes are located nearby, including Homa Mountain.

Lava.

Whereas most lavas are rich in silicate minerals, the lava of Ol Doinyo Lengai is a carbonatite. It is rich in the rare sodium and potassium carbonates, nyerereite and gregoryite. Due to this unusual composition, the lava erupts at relatively low temperatures of approximately. This temperature is so low that the molten lava appears black in sunlight, rather than having the red glow common to most lavas. It is also much more fluid than silicate lavas, often less viscous than water. The sodium and potassium carbonate minerals of the lavas erupted at Ol Doinyo Lengai are unstable at the Earth's surface and susceptible to rapid weathering, quickly turning from black to grey in colour. The resulting volcanic landscape is different from any other in the world.

Ecology.

The carbonatite ash spread over the surrounding grasslands leads to a uniquely succulent, enriched pasture. This makes the area a vital stage on the annual wildebeest migration, where it becomes the nursery for the birth of several thousand calves.

Eruptive activity.

1883-1915.

The record of eruptions on the mountain dates to 1883. Flows were recorded between 1904 and 1910 and between 1913 and 1915.

1917.

A major eruption in June 1917 deposited volcanic ash up to away.

1926.

An eruption took place for several months in 1926.

1940.

An eruption between July and December 1940 deposited ash as far as Loliondo, away.

1950s.

Several minor eruptions of lava were observed in 1954, 1955, and 1958.

1960s.

Minor eruptions of lava were observed in the early 1960s.  A major eruption occurred on 14 August 1966. Geologists J. B. Dawson and G. C. Clark visited the crater a week later and reported seeing "a thick column of black ash" that rose for approximately above the volcano and drifted away northwards towards Lake Natron. When they climbed the cone-shaped vent, they reported seeing a continuous discharge of gas and whitish-grey ash and dust from the centre of the pit.

2007.

Volcanic activity in the mountain caused daily earth tremors in Kenya and Tanzania from 12 July 2007 until 18 July 2007 at 8.30pm in Nairobi. The strongest tremor measured 6.0 on the Richter scale. Geologists suspected that the sudden increase of tremors was indicative of the movement of magma through the Ol Doinyo Lengai. The volcano erupted on 4 September 2007, sending a plume of ash and steam at least downwind and covering the north and west flanks in fresh lava flows.

2008.

The 2007 eruption continued intermittently into 2008. At the end of February it was reported to be gathering strength, with a major outburst taking place on 5 March. Periods of inactivity were followed by eruptions on 8 and 17 April. Eruptive activity continued until late August 2008. A visit to the summit in September 2008 discovered that lava emission had resumed from two vents in the floor of the new crater. Visits to the crater in March/April 2009 showed that this activity appeared to have ceased.

2010.

In October 2010, two separate lava flows and a small lava lake were photographed in an overflight.

2013.

The volcano resumed natrocarbonatite lava flow which started to fill the large crater from the 2007-2008 eruption. As of July 2013, there is a large active hornito on the western edge of the crater floor. During June, residents near the volcano reported several earthquakes. The new crater is inaccessible and climbers have only occasionally glimpsed into it.

Ol Doinyo Lengai (Oldoinyo Lengai), "Mountain of God" in the Maasai language, is an active volcano located in the Gregory Rift, south of Lake Natron within the Arusha Region of Tanzania, Africa. Part of the volcanic system of the East African Rift, it uniquely produces natrocarbonatite lava. The 1960 eruption of Ol Doinyo Lengai led to geological investigations that finally confirmed the view that carbonatite rock is derived from magma.


History.

The title was created by Emperor Alexios I Komnenos () to honour his elder brother Isaac Komnenos. According to Anna Komnene, Alexios did this to raise Isaac above the rank of "Caesar", which he had already promised to his brother-in-law, Nikephoros Melissenos. Anna Komnene compares the rank of "sebastokratōr" to "a second emperor", and also records that along with the "Caesar" a "sebastokratōr" was granted the right to wear a crown (but not the imperial diadem). During the Komnenian dynasty (1081–1185), the title continued to be the highest below that of Emperor until 1163, when Emperor Manuel I created the title of "despotes". During that period, it was given exclusively to members of the imperial family, chiefly younger sons of the emperor.  After the dismemberment of the Byzantine Empire by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the title was adopted in the Latin Empire, the Empire of Nicaea, and the Bulgarian Empire. In Nicaea and the post-1261 restored Byzantine Empire, the title remained one of the highest court dignities, and was almost always restricted to members of the imperial family. The last known holder of the title was Demetrios Kantakouzenos, a ruler in the Peloponnese in the late 14th century.  According to the sources, the distinctive colour associated with the title was blue: the "sebastokratōr"′s ceremonial costume included blue stockings and blue boots. In circa 1260, according to George Akropolites, the "sebastokratores" who were members of the imperial family were distinguished from those who were not by having embroidered golden eagles on their shoes. By the time of pseudo-Kodinos in the mid-14th century, the insignia associated with the rank were a "skiadion" hat in red and gold, decorated with gold-wire embroideries, with a veil bearing the wearer's name and pendants identical to those of the "despotēs". He wore a red tunic ("rouchon") similar to the emperor's, but without the "rizai" decorations and the insignia of military power. His mantle ("tamparion") was no longer known, but the stockings were blue; under John VI Kantakouzenos (), however, when the emperor raised his brothers-in-law Manuel and John Asanes to the rank, he permitted them to wear "tamparia" and stockings like those of the "despotēs". The "sebastokratōr"s shoes and stockings were blue, with gold-embroidered eagles on red background; and his horse tack was also of blue, his saddle blanket featuring furthermore four red-embroidered eagles. His tent was white with blue decorations. The form of the domed "skaranikon", on the other hand, for the "sebastokratōr" was unknown to pseudo-Kodinos. The "sebastokratōr" also had the prerogative of signing documents with a special blue ink.

Bulgaria.

Kaloyan inherited the title possibly from his father Aleksandar (d. after 1232), a son of Ivan Asen I of Bulgaria ().

Serbia.

This title was also adopted in the court of medieval Serbia, under the Nemanjić dynasty, the Serbian Kings and Emperors (1217–1346; 1346–1371).

Sebastokrator (, "sebastokrátor"; Bulgarian and Serbian Cyrillic: севастократор; both pronounced "sevastokrator"), was a senior court title in the late Byzantine Empire. It was also used by other rulers whose states bordered the Empire or were within its sphere of influence (Bulgarian Empire, Serbian Empire). The word is a compound of ""sebastos"" ("venerable", the Greek equivalent of the Latin "Augustus") and ""krátor"" ("ruler", the same element as is found in ""autokrator"", "emperor"). The wife of a "Sebastokrator" was named sebastokratorissa (σεβαστοκρατόρισσα, "sevastokratórissa") in Greek or sevastokratitsa (севастократица) in Bulgarian and sevastokratica (севастократица) in Serbian.


Early life and career.

Mittal was born in a Baniya Family. He studied at Shri Daulatram Nopany Vidyalaya, Calcutta from 1957 to 1964. He graduated from St. Xavier's College, affiliated to the University of Calcutta, with a B.Com degree in the first class. His father, Mohanlal Mittal, ran a steel business, Nippon Denro Ispat.  In 1976, due to the curb of steel production by the Indian government, the 26-year-old Mittal opened his first steel factory PT Ispat Indo in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia. Until the 1990s, the family's main assets in India were a cold-rolling mill for sheet steels in Nagpur and an alloy steels plant near Pune. Today, the family business, including a large integrated steel plant near Mumbai, is run by his younger brothers Pramod Mittal and Vinod Mittal, but Lakshmi has no connection with it.

Social work.

Sports.

After witnessing India win only one medal, bronze, in the 2000 Summer Olympics, and one medal, silver, at the 2004 Summer Olympics, Mittal decided to set up the Mittal Champions Trust with $9 million to support ten Indian athletes with world-beating potential. In 2008, Mittal awarded Abhinav Bindra with Rs. 1.5 Crore (Rs. 15 million), for getting India its first individual Olympic gold medal in shooting. ArcelorMittal also provided steel for the construction of the ArcelorMittal Orbit for the 2012 Summer Olympics.  For Comic Relief he matched the money raised (~£1 million) on the celebrity special BBC programme, "The Apprentice".

Education.

In 2003, the Lakshmi Niwas Mittal and Usha Mittal Foundation and the Government of Rajasthan partnered together to establish a university, the LNM Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT) in Jaipur as an autonomous non-profit organisation.  In 2009, the Foundation along with Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan founded the Usha Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management in New Delhi.  SNDT Women's University renamed the Institute of Technology for Women (ITW) as Usha Mittal Institute of Technology after a large donation from the Lakshmi Niwas Mittal Foundation.  He completed his Primary and Secondary school from Nopany High formerly known as Shri Daulatram Nopany Vidyalaya.

Medical.

In 2008 the Mittals made a donation of £15 million to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, the largest private contribution the hospital had ever received. The donation was used to help fund their new facility, the Mittal Children's Medical Centre.

COVID-19 pandemic.

He made a donation of ₹100 crores to PM cares fund during the COVID-19 pandemic in India in 2020.

Criticism and allegations.

PHS.

Mittal successfully employed Marek Dochnal's consultancy to influence Polish officials in the privatisation of PHS steel group, which was Poland's largest. Dochnal was later arrested for bribing Polish officials on behalf of Russian agents in a separate affair.  In 2007, the Polish government said it wanted to renegotiate the 2004 sale to ArcelorMittal.

Slave-labour allegations and questionable safety records.

Employees of Mittal have accused him of allowing "slave labour" conditions after multiple fatalities in his mines. During December 2004, twenty-three miners died in explosions in his mines in Kazakhstan caused by faulty gas detectors.

The Mittal Affair: "Cash for Influence".

In 2002 Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price obtained a letter written by Tony Blair to the Romanian Government in support of Mittal's LNM steel company, which was in the process of bidding to buy Romania's state-owned steel industry. This revelation caused controversy, because Mittal had given £125,000 to the British Labour Party the previous year. Although Blair defended his letter as simply "celebrating the success" of a British company, he was criticised because LNM was registered in the Dutch Antilles and employed less than 1% of its workforce in the UK. LNM was a "major global competitor of Britain's own struggling steel industry".  Blair's letter hinted that the privatisation of the firm and sale to Mittal might help smooth the way for Romania's entry into the European Union. It also had a passage, removed just prior to Blair's signing of it, describing Mittal as "a friend".

Queens Park Rangers.

Mittal had emerged as a leading contender to buy and sell Barclays Premiership clubs Wigan and Everton. However, on 20 December 2007 it was announced that the Mittal family had purchased a 20 per cent shareholding in Queens Park Rangers football club joining Flavio Briatore and Mittal's friend Bernie Ecclestone. As part of the investment Mittal's son-in-law, Amit Bhatia, took a place on the board of directors. The combined investment in the struggling club sparked suggestions that Mittal might be looking to join the growing ranks of wealthy individuals investing heavily in English football and emulating similar benefactors such as Roman Abramovich.  On 19 February 2010, Briatore resigned as QPR chairman, and sold further shares in the club to Ecclestone, making Ecclestone the single largest shareholder.

Environmental damage.

Mittal purchased the Irish Steel plant based in Cork, Ireland, from the government for a nominal fee of £1 million. Three years later, in 2001, it was closed, leaving 400 people redundant. Subsequent environmental issues at the site have been a cause for criticism. The government tried to sue in the High Court to have him pay for the clean-up of Cork Harbour but failed. The clean up was expected to cost €70 million.

Personal life.

Mittal was born on 15 June 1950 in Rajasthani marwari family in Sadulpur, Rajasthan. He is married to Usha Mittal. They have a son Aditya Mittal and a daughter Vanisha Mittal.  Lakshmi Mittal has two brothers, Pramod Mittal and Vinod Mittal, and a sister, Seema Lohia, who married Indonesian businessman, Sri Prakash Lohia. His residence at 18–19 Kensington Palace Gardens—which was purchased from Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone in 2004 for £67 million (US$128 million)—made it the world's most expensive house at the time. The house is decorated with marble taken from the same quarry that supplied the Taj Mahal. The extravagant show of wealth has been referred to as the "Taj Mittal". It has 12 bedrooms, an indoor pool, Turkish baths and parking for 20 cars. He is a lacto-vegetarian.  Mittal bought No. 9A Palace Greens, Kensington Gardens, formerly the Philippines Embassy, for £70 million in 2008 for his daughter Vanisha Mittal who is married to Amit Bhatia, a businessman and philanthropist. Mittal threw a lavish "vegetarian reception" for Vanisha in the Palace of Versailles, France.  In 2005, he also bought a colonial bungalow for $30 million at No. 22, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road, New Delhi, one of the most exclusive streets in India, occupied by embassies and billionaires, and rebuilt it as a house.  In December 2013, Mittal's niece Shrishti Mittal got married in a three-day celebration that is said to have brought Barcelona to a standstill and cost up to £50 million. Some 200 butlers, cooks and secretaries were reportedly flown into Spain from India and Thailand while the 500 guests were made to sign confidentiality agreements.

Personal wealth.

According to the "Sunday Times Rich List 2016", Mittal and his family had an estimated personal net worth of 7.12 billion, a decrease of $2.08 billion on the previous year. Meanwhile, in 2016 "Forbes" magazine's annual billionaires list assessed estimated Mittal's wealth in 2016 at as the 135th-wealthiest billionaire with a net worth of 8.4 billion. Mittal's net worth peaked in 2008, assessed by "The Sunday Times" at £27.70 billion, and by "Forbes" at 45.0 billion, and rated as the fourth-wealthiest individual in the world.

Lakshmi Niwas Mittal (; born 15 June 1950) is an Indian steel magnate, based in the United Kingdom. He is the chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaking company. Mittal owns 38% of ArcelorMittal and holds an 20% stake in Queens Park Rangers F.C..


Design and development.

Origins.

The aircraft was first conceived by Ilyushin in 1967 to meet a requirement for a freighter able to carry a payload of 40 tons (88,000 lb) over a range of 5,000 km (2,700 nmi; 3,100 mi) in less than six hours, able to operate from short and unprepared airstrips, and capable of coping with the worst weather conditions likely to be experienced in Siberia and the Soviet Union's Arctic regions. It was intended to replace the Antonov An-12. Another intended version was a double-decked 250-passenger airliner but that project was cancelled. The Il-76 first flew in.  Production of Il-76s was allocated to the Tashkent Aviation Production Association in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, then a republic of the Soviet Union. Some 860 of the basic transport variants were manufactured. In the 1990s, modernized variants also equipped with Soloviev D-30 turbofan engines were developed (MF, TF), with a cargo compartment long by wide by tall; these larger variants were not produced in significant quantity due to the financial difficulties being experienced by the Russian Air Force, which was the primary operator of the type. The prototype of the Il-76MF, conducted its first flight on 1 August 1995.

Further development.

From 2004 onwards, a number of aircraft in commercial service were modernized to the Il-76TD-90VD version; this involved the adoption of the newly developed PS-90 engine to comply with European noise limitations. In 2005, the People's Republic of China placed an order for 34 new Il-76MDs and four Il-78 tankers. In June 2013, Russian military export agency Rosoboronexport announced an order by China for 12 Il-76MD aircraft. The Il-76 has also been modified into an airborne refuelling tanker, designated the Il-78, around 50 aircraft having been produced. A variant of the Il-76 also serves as a firefighting waterbomber. Its airframe was used as a base for the Beriev A-50 'Mainstay' AEW&C (airborne early warning and control) aircraft; around 25 aircraft were made. Another application for the type was found in Antarctic support flights and for conducting simulated weightlessness training for cosmonauts (akin to the "Vomit Comet" used by NASA). Beriev and NPO Almaz also developed an airborne laser flying laboratory designated A-60, of which two were built, much of this project's details remaining classified.

Il-76MD-90A.

It was announced in 2010 that the production of a modernized Il-76, the Il-76MD-90A (also known as "project Il-476" during the design stage), would begin; a proposed new production line would be located in Aviastar's facility in Ulyanovsk, Russia, and be operated in cooperation with the Tashkent works. At that point, the construction of two Il-76MD-90A prototypes had begun at the Ulyanovsk facility. The 1st Il-76MD-90A was rolled out at Aviastar's Ulyanovsk plant on 16 June 2014. On 29 April 2015, it was reported that the Russian Air Force received the first Il-76MD-90A built at the Ulyanovsk plant "Aviastar-SP" from the 2012 contract for 39 aircraft. The Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) received its first serial production Ilyushin Il-76MD-90A airlifter on 2 April 2019.

Operational history.

First aircraft were delivered to the Soviet Air Force in June 1974. Next it became the main Soviet strategic transport aircraft. From 1976 it was operated by Aeroflot.  Between 1979 and 1991, the Soviet Air Force Il-76s made 14,700 flights into Afghanistan, transporting 786,200 servicemen, and 315,800 tons of freight. The Il-76 carried 89% of Soviet troops and 74% of the freight that was airlifted. As Afghan rebels were unable to shoot down high-flying Il-76s, their tactics were to try and damage it on takeoff or landing. Il-76s were often hit by shoulder-launched Stinger and Strela heat-seeking missiles and large-calibre machine gun fire, but because the strong airframes were able to take substantial damage and still remain operational, the aircraft had a remarkably low attrition rate during this period of conflict. Building on that experience, the bulk of the Canadian Forces equipment into Afghanistan was flown in using civilian Il-76s. In 2006, the Russian Air Force had about 200 Il-76s. Civilian users in Russia have 108.  On August 3, 1995, an Il-76 piloted by a Russian crew was forced down by a Taliban fighter plane sparking the Airstan incident. In 2004, a Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Il-76 carried out a flight mission in Afghanistan, and later in 2011, PLAAF Il-76s were sent to Libya to evacuate Chinese citizens. The two missions were the reported first steps of PLAAF developing long-range transportation capability.  On 23 March 2007, a Transaviaexport Il-76 was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile while taking off from Mogadishu, Somalia. Everybody on board, seven crew and four passengers, was killed.  Syrian Air Force Il-76s, operating as civil Syrianair aircraft, have been reportedly used to ship weapons, money, and other cargo from Russia and Iran to Syria, according to a defected Syrian military pilot. Since the start of the war, in April 2011 (and up to July 2012), around 20 military flights have been conducted to and from Tehran, via Iraqi airspace. Further information exposes that since around 2012, Syrian Il-76s have regularly flown to Moscow's Vnukovo Airport to fetch shipments of Syrian banknotes that have been useful to Bashar al-Assad's government to survive Western sanctions.  On 14 June 2014, a Ukrainian Air Force Il-76 was shot down by ground fire from pro-Russian separatists while on approach to landing at Luhansk, resulting in the deaths of 40 soldiers and nine crew members on board.  On 30 January 2017, an IL-76 firebomber of the Russian EMERCOM agency was deployed to Chile to assist firefighters. This assignment took 39 days.  All Il-76 transport aircraft in service with the RF Aerospace Forces will receive anti-missile systems. The aircraft reconfiguration started in the spring of 2019.

Operators.

Military and civil operators in 38 countries have operated 850+ Il-76 in large numbers. While Russia is the largest military operator of the Il-76, followed by Ukraine and India, Belarus' TransAVIAexport Airlines is the largest civilian operator.

Accidents.

As of April 2018 a total of 80 Il-76 series aircraft have been written off in crashes and other incidents, including the following:

The Ilyushin Il-76 (; NATO reporting name: Candid) is a multi-purpose four-engine turbofan strategic airlifter designed by the Soviet Union's Ilyushin design bureau. It was first planned as a commercial freighter in 1967, as a replacement for the Antonov An-12. It was designed to deliver heavy machinery to remote, poorly served areas. Military versions of the Il-76 have been widely used in Europe, Asia and Africa, including use as an aerial refueling tanker or command center.


History.

Buttons and button-like objects used as ornaments or seals rather than fasteners have been discovered in the Indus Valley Civilization during its Kot Diji phase (c. 2800–2600 BC) as well as Bronze Age sites in China (c. 2000–1500 BC) and Ancient Rome.  Buttons made from seashell were used in the Indus Valley Civilization for ornamental purposes by 2000 BC. Some buttons were carved into geometric shapes and had holes pierced into them so that they could be attached to clothing with thread. Ian McNeil (1990) holds that "the button, in fact, was originally used more as an ornament than as a fastening, the earliest known being found at Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley. It is made of a curved shell and about 5000 years old."  Functional buttons with buttonholes for fastening or closing clothes appeared first in Germany in the 13th century. They soon became widespread with the rise of snug-fitting garments in 13th- and 14th-century Europe.

As containers.

Since at least the seventeenth century, when box-like metal buttons were constructed especially for the purpose, buttons have been one of the items in which drug smugglers have attempted to hide and transport illegal substances. At least one modern smuggler has tried to use this method.  Also making use of the storage possibilities of metal buttons, during the World Wars, British and U.S. military locket buttons were made, containing miniature working compasses.

Materials and manufacture.

Because buttons have been manufactured from almost every possible material, both natural and synthetic, and combinations of both, the history of the material composition of buttons reflects the timeline of materials technology.  Buttons can be individually crafted by artisans, craftspeople or artists from raw materials or found objects (for example fossils), or a combination of both. Alternatively, they can be the product of low-tech cottage industry or can be mass-produced in high-tech factories. Buttons made by artists are art objects, known to button collectors as "studio buttons" (or simply "studios", from studio craft).  In 1918, the US government made an extensive survey of the international button market, which listed buttons made of vegetable ivory, metal, glass, galalith, silk, linen, cotton-covered crochet, lead, snap fasteners, enamel, rubber, buckhorn, wood, horn, bone, leather, paper, pressed cardboard, mother-of-pearl, celluloid, porcelain, composition, tin, zinc, xylonite, stone, cloth-covered wooden forms, and papier-mâché. Vegetable ivory was said to be the most popular for suits and shirts, and papier-mâché far and away the commonest sort of shoe button.  Nowadays, hard plastic, seashell, metals, and wood are the most common materials used in button-making; the others tending to be used only in premium or antique apparel, or found in collections.  Over 60% of the world's button supply comes from Qiaotou, Yongjia County, China.

Decoration and coating techniques.

Historically, fashions in buttons have also reflected trends in applied aesthetics and the applied visual arts, with buttonmakers using techniques from jewellery making, ceramics, sculpture, painting, printmaking, metalworking, weaving and others. The following are just a few of the construction and decoration techniques that have been used in button-making:

Button sizes.

The size of the button depends on its use. Shirt buttons are generally small, and spaced close together, whereas coat buttons are larger and spaced further apart. Buttons are commonly measured in lignes (also called "lines" and abbreviated "L"), with 40 lignes equal to 1 inch. For example, some standard sizes of buttons are 16 lignes (10.16 mm, standard button of men's shirts) and 32 lignes (20.32 mm, typical button on suit jackets).  The American National Button Society (NBS) has its own button sizing system which divides button sizes into'small','medium' and 'large'.

In museums and galleries.

Some museums and art galleries hold culturally, historically, politically, and/or artistically significant buttons in their collections. The Victoria & Albert Museum has many buttons, particularly in its jewellery collection, as does the Smithsonian Institution.  Hammond Turner & Sons, a button-making company in Birmingham, hosts an online museum with an image gallery and historical button-related articles, including an 1852 article on button-making by Charles Dickens. In the US, large button collections are on public display at the Waterbury Button Museum of Waterbury, Connecticut, the Keep Homestead Museum of Monson, Massachusetts, which also hosts an extensive button archive, and in Gurnee, Illinois at The Button Room.

In politics.

The mainly American tradition of politically significant clothing buttons appears to have begun with the first presidential inauguration of George Washington in 1789. Known to collectors as "Washington Inaugurals", they were made of copper, brass or Sheffield plate, in large sizes for coats and smaller sizes for breeches. Made in twenty-two patterns and hand-stamped, they are now extremely valuable cultural artifacts.  Between about 1840 and 1916, clothing buttons were used in American political campaigns, and still exist in collections today. Initially, these buttons were predominantly made of brass (though horn and rubber buttons with stamped or moulded designs also exist) and had loop shanks. Around 1860 the badge or pin-back style of construction, which replaced the shanks with long pins, probably for use on lapels and ties, began to appear.  One common practice that survived until recent times on campaign buttons and badges was to include the image of George Washington with that of the candidate in question.  Some of the most famous campaign buttons are those made for Abraham Lincoln. Memorial buttons commemorating Lincoln's inaugurations and other life events, including his birth and death, were also made, and are also considered highly collectible.

Phobia.

Koumpounophobia, the fear of buttons, is a surprisingly common phobia. Sufferers frequently report being repulsed by the sight of buttons, even on other people, and being unable to wear clothing with them. Sufferers also report buttons being dirty and smelling. The phobia may bear some passing resemblance to trypophobia and obsessive–compulsive disorder, but is separate and distinct.

In modern clothing and fashion design, a button is a small fastener, now most commonly made of plastic but also may be made of metal, wood, or seashell, that joins two pieces of fabric together. In archaeology, a button can be a significant artifact. In the applied arts and in craft, a button can be an example of folk art, studio craft, or even a miniature work of art.


Background.

There were various arguments for the change:  However, the change was unpopular; in a 1955 referendum, 83 percent voted to keep driving on the left. Nevertheless, the Swedish Parliament approved Prime Minister Tage Erlander's proposal on 10 May 1963 of right hand traffic beginning in 1967, as the number of cars on the road tripled from 500,000 to 1.5 million and was expected to reach 2.8 million by 1975. The "Statens Högertrafikkommission" (HTK) ("the state right-hand traffic commission") was established to oversee the change. It also began implementing a four-year education programme on the advice of psychologists.  The campaign included displaying the "Dagen H" logo on various commemorative items, including milk cartons and underwear. Swedish television held a contest for songs about the change, and the winning entry was "Håll dig till höger, Svensson" ('Keep to the right, Svensson') written by "Expressen" journalist Peter Himmelstrand and performed by The Telstars.  As "Dagen H" neared, every intersection was equipped with an extra set of poles and traffic signals wrapped in black plastic. Workers roamed the streets early in the morning on "Dagen H" to remove the plastic. A parallel set of lines was painted on the roads with white paint, then covered with black tape. Before "Dagen H", Swedish roads had used yellow lines. Approximately 350,000 signs had to be removed or replaced, 20,000 in Stockholm alone.

The switch.

On "Dagen H", Sunday, 3 September, all non-essential traffic was banned from the roads from 01:00 to 06:00. Any vehicles on the roads during that time had to follow special rules. All vehicles had to come to a complete stop at 04:50, then carefully change to the right-hand side of the road and stop again (to give others time to switch sides of the road and avoid a head-on collision) before being allowed to proceed at 05:00. In Stockholm and Malmö, however, the ban was longerfrom 10:00 on Saturday until 15:00 on Sundayto allow work crews to reconfigure intersections. Certain other towns also saw an extended ban, from 15:00 on Saturday until 15:00 on Sunday.  One-way streets presented unique problems. Bus stops had to be constructed on the other side of the street. Intersections had to be reshaped to allow traffic to merge.

Results.

The relatively smooth changeover saw a temporary reduction in the number of accidents. On the day of the change, only 157 minor accidents were reported, of which only 32 involved personal injuries, with only a handful serious. On the Monday following "Dagen H", there were 125 reported traffic accidents, compared to a range of 130 to 198 for previous Mondays, none of them fatal. Experts suggested that changing to driving on the right reduced accidents while overtaking, as people already drove left-hand drive vehicles, thereby having a better view of the road ahead; additionally, the change made a marked surge in perceived risk that exceeded the target level and thus was followed by very cautious behaviour that caused a major decrease in road fatalities. Indeed, fatal car-to-car and car-to-pedestrian accidents dropped sharply as a result, and the number of motor insurance claims went down by 40%.  These initial improvements did not last, however. The number of motor insurance claims returned to 'normal' over the next six weeks and, by 1969, the accident rates were back to the levels seen before the change.  Trams in central Stockholm, in Helsingborg and most lines in Malmö were withdrawn and replaced by buses, and over one thousand new buses were purchased with doors on the right-hand side. Some 8,000 older buses were retrofitted to provide doors on both sides, while Gothenburg and Malmö exported their right-hand drive (RHD) buses to Pakistan and Kenya. The modification of buses, paid by the state, was the largest cost of the change.  Although all road traffic in Sweden became right handed, metro and railways did not switch to new rules and continue to drive on the left, with the exception of tram systems. Additionally, many of them were abandoned as a result of "Dagen H"; only the trams in Norrköping and Gothenburg and three suburban lines in the Stockholm area (Nockebybanan and Lidingöbanan) survived. Gothenburg had high cost for rebuilding trams, while Stockholm had cost only for bus purchasing, since the remaining lines had bidirectional trams with doors on both sides. In any event, most trams in Stockholm were replaced by the metro, a decision made long before the Dagen H decision.  Fellow Nordic country Iceland changed to driving on the right in May 1968, on a day known as H-dagurinn.

Dagen H (H day), today usually called "Högertrafikomläggningen" ("The right-hand traffic diversion"), was the day on 3 September 1967, in which the traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right. The "H" stands for ""Högertrafik"", the Swedish word for "right traffic". It was by far the largest logistical event in Sweden's history.


Geography.

Yacyreta is located southeast of Asunción. It is located in the region of a city called Ayolas, downstream from Encarnación and away from the rapids of Apipé. The main dam is near the islands Jasyretâ and Talavera.

Chronology.

The initial protocol to determine the use of the waterfalls was signed on February 1, 1925 in the United States. However, it was not until January 1958 that the Technical Argentine-Paraguayan Commission was created to undertake technical studies of uses of the river. The studies were presented on December 3, 1973 in Asunción and the Treaty of Yasyreta was signed; both countries compromised to embark together in the construction. For that the Bi-National Organization Yasyreta was founded. Each state would share jurisdiction and responsibility for executing studies and projects related to the dam.  The construction started on December 3, 1983; on April 26, 1989, agreements were signed that defined the definitive plans for the protection of the valleys and streams to the right side of the river (Paraguay). In June of the same year the main branch of the river was closed and on May 19, the other branch, Aña Kuá, was also closed. On June 1, 1993 the navigational ship lock was opened, and on September 2, 1994 the first hydroelectric Kaplan turbine began operation. The 20 programmed units functioned for the first time together on July 7, 1998.

Construction.

In addition to the dam, a barrage of materials long closes both arms of the river divided by the island Jasyretâ; the hydroelectric dam is in part located over this. Both extremes are settled in the Argentine coast, in the locality of Rincón Santa María and in the Paraguayan coast, near the city of San Cosme y Damián. The artificial lake formed by the dam rises above the original level and covers.  Each branch has a slope. The turbines are in the main branch, in a slope with eighteen gates that allow a maximum flow of 55,000 cubic meters per second. The other branch of the river has sixteen more gates with a capacity for another 40,000 cubic meters per second.  A ship lock excavated in the basaltic layer allows passage of boats with draft up to 12 feet (3.6 m). A fish ladder, designed after the ecological studies proved that the presence of the dam inhibited the reproduction of certain migratory species of the Paraná River, especially the dorado and surubí, allows fish that swim upstream to cover the 25-meter difference to spawn in the Alto Paraná.  The machine house is 70 meters high. The waterfall, currently 15 meters high, has an average volume of 8,000 cubic meters per second that pass through the turbines and produce energy continuously. For comparison, the falls of Iguazú are 70 meters high, with a volume of 1,750 cubic meters per second.

Population and ecological impact.

The lake created by the dam displaced 40,000 people. The elevation of the water level also affected the road infrastructure and sewage of the region in a way that many studies undertaken prior to construction of the dam did not take into account ; independent research later confirmed that the census of INDEC in 1990 was altered to reduce the amount of money the Yacyreta Organization would have to pay to compensate the people displaced.  Ecologically, the construction of the dam most greatly affected the environment of the region in three ways. Firstly, it altered aquatic habitats via the elevation of the water level and the flooding of previously dry areas, which produced chemical changes in the water, including a drop in water oxygen levels. Besides, the alteration of the streams of water affected the dynamics of the floating vegetation that in the system Iberá is the habitat of many endemic species. The more calm water behind the dam has also allowed the spread of waterborne diseases and disease vectors, such as schistosomiasis, dengue fever and malaria.  The structure and composition of the productive activities of the primary sector, that in addition to the direct flooding also modifies the level of humidity of thousand of hectares destined to agriculture and the exploit of wood, thousands of cattle were lost in the process of formation of the lake.  Destruction of the habitat submerged by the dam could cause great loss of biodiversity. Numerous protected species have been affected in one of the few spaces in which they survive in Argentina and Paraguay, including pampas deer, capybara, certain water birds and yacare caiman. The consequences for the fish population of Paraná have been very severe, causing a large drop in the volume of some species, especially when the dam was first constructed. Aquatic invertebrates also declined. For example, among four "Aylacostoma" aquatic snails restricted to the area, two became extinct, one extinct in the wild, and the final is seriously threatened. The construction of the system of elevators helped reduce this effect.

Current state.

Before February 2011, the water level was above sea level, less than planned. This caused the hydroelectric component of the dam to operate at only 60% of its capacity. The water level was raised, bringing it to above sea level and covering another of land surface, affecting more than 50,000 people. This brought the installed capacity to its final design of 3,100 MW and the annual generation to about 20,000 GWh.  The plan to finish the Yacyretá project included:

Navigation.

To ease navigation a ship lock was built in the locality of Santa María in the Argentine side. This has a length of 270 meters, and width of 27 meters and a depth of 5 meters, which allows the passage of 12-foot draft boats.

Tourism.

The area has an abundant fauna and there are areas for fishing. Fishing is regulated to protect and maintain fish populations, requiring fishing permits that can be obtained in the regional Office of Fishing.  Even though the hydroelectric power station produces a relatively low amount of contaminants, the Bi-National Organization has set aside areas for the preservation and recuperation of the local flora and fauna, trying to reduce the consequences of the construction. From flooding, 11,000 animals from 110 different species were relocated. Currently, the Organization has a protected area of about 58,000 hectares, with plans for an eventual increase to 187,000 hectares. There is a centre for visitors and a track of 2,500 meters called "Akuti po’i" that serves to take guided tours. There are several hotels to stay in when visiting the place, such as the Hotel Nacional de Turismo and the Jasyretâ Apart Hotel.

The Yacyretá Dam or Jasyretâ-Apipé Hydroelectric Power Station (from Guaraní "jasy retã", "land of the moon") is a dam and hydroelectric power plant built over the waterfalls of Jasyretâ-Apipé in the Paraná River, between the Argentine Province of Corrientes and the Paraguayan City of Ayolas. The dam is named for Yacyretá Island just upstream, much of which the dam submerged. The word "Yacyreta" is the Hispanicized spelling of the original Guaraní term Jasyretâ.


History.

Early handheld games used simple mechanisms to interact with players, often limited to illuminated buttons and sound effects. Notable early handheld games included Mattel Auto Race (1976), and Mattel Electronic Football (1977), which featured very simple red-LED displays; gameplay involved the player pressing buttons to move his car or quarterback icon (represented by a bright dot) to avoid obstacles (represented by less bright dots). In 1978 the Milton Bradley Company entered the handheld market with Simon, a simple color-and-sound-matching game. Simon had no dedicated display, but featured four colored, lighted buttons; the original version was large enough to be used as a tabletop game or a handheld; later versions became increasingly smaller. The same year, Parker Brothers also released Merlin, a more sophisticated handheld which could play six different games using an array of 11 buttons with integrated LEDs. Despite their relative simplicity, each of these early games was highly successful.  The initial success of Mattel and Parker Brothers' entries spawned a wave of similar handheld devices which were released through the early 1980s. Notable among these were a series of popular 2-player "head-to-head" games from Coleco. Other games were miniaturized versions of popular arcade video games.  In 1979, Gunpei Yokoi, traveling on a bullet train, saw a bored businessman playing with an LCD calculator by pressing the buttons. Yokoi then thought of an idea for a watch that doubled as a miniature game machine for killing time. Starting in 1980, Nintendo began to release a series of electronic games designed by Yokoi called the Game & Watch games. Taking advantage of the technology used in the credit-card-sized calculators that had appeared on the market, Yokoi designed the series of LCD-based games to include a digital time display in the corner of the screen. For later, more complicated Game & Watch games, Yokoi invented a cross shaped directional pad or "D-pad" for control of on-screen characters. Yokoi also included his directional pad on the Famicom game console's controllers, and the cross-shaped thumb controller soon became standard on game console controllers and ubiquitous across the video game industry as a replacement for the joystick.  During the 1980s, LCDs became inexpensive and largely replaced LED displays in handheld games. The use of custom images in LCD and VFD games allows them to have greater detail and avoid the blocky, pixellated look of console screens, but not without drawbacks. All graphics are fixed in place, so every possible location and state of game objects has to be preset (and are usually visible when resetting a game), with no overlap. Illusion of movement is created by sequentially flashing objects between their possible states. Backgrounds for these games are static drawings, layered behind the "moving" graphics which are transparent when not in use. Partly due to these limitations, the gameplay of early LCD games was often even more crude than for their LED antecedents.  Some of the more well-known handheld games of the LCD era are the Game & Watch series by Nintendo and the games by Tiger Electronics, and many titles from other companies were also popular, especially conversions of arcade games. New games are still being made, but most are based on relatively simple card and board games.  In 1982, the Bandai LCD Solarpower series were the first solar-powered gaming devices. Some of its games, such as the horror-themed game "Terror House", featured two LCD panels, one stacked on the other, for an early 3D effect. In 1983, Takara Tomy's Tomytronic 3D series simulated 3D by having two LED panels that were lit by external light through a window on top of the device, making it the first dedicated home video 3D hardware.  Other handheld games were built as flipcases and had two or even three LCDs with different foreground and background scenes, offering some variety in the gameplay.

Handhelds today.

Despite the increasing sophistication of handheld consoles such as the Nintendo Switch, dedicated handhelds continue to find a niche. Among technophilic gamer subcultures like Akiba-kei, unique control schemes like that of the 2008 Tuttuki Bako have been proven salable due to novelty, however dedicated handhelds such as this are uncommon.  Adult fads such as blackjack, poker, and Sudoku also spawn dozens of original and knockoff handheld games. Devices like Brick Game (E-Star E-23) include games using the block grid as a crude, low resolution dot matrix screen. Such devices often have many variations of Tetris and sometimes even other kinds of games like racing or even space shooters, such as "Space Invaders", where one box projects boxes at the enemy boxes. The most advanced of these designs can easily have more than 20 distinct games implemented and feature multi-channel sound, voice synthesis or digital sounds samples, and internal CMOS memory which can save the current game progress and high scores when the system is turned off. Many of these handhelds with a dozen such games are marketed as having hundreds or even thousands of games, though the vast majority are just different speed and difficulty settings. The most basic can now be sold for less than the cost of a glossy magazine.  At the lowest end of handheld game sophistication, there is also the "avoid/catch the falling objects" game. These games are controlled with 2 movement buttons, and sport a screen with a column of player positions, and rows of projectiles to animate towards the player. The player and projectiles could be any picture, from tanks dodging missiles to a dog catching sausages.

Handheld electronic games are very small, portable devices for playing interactive electronic games, often miniaturized versions of video games. The controls, display and speakers are all part of a single unit. Rather than a general-purpose screen made up of a grid of small pixels, they usually have custom displays designed to play one game. This simplicity means they can be made as small as a smartwatch, and sometimes are. The visual output of these games can range from a few small light bulbs or LED lights to calculator-like alphanumerical screens; later these were mostly displaced by liquid crystal and vacuum fluorescent display screens with detailed images and in the case of VFD games, color. Handhelds were at their most popular from the late 1970s into the early 1990s. They are the precursors to the handheld game console.


Tournament and match results.

At the Paris 1867 tournament held at the Café de la Régence, his first international tournament, Winawer finished in second place, tied with Wilhelm Steinitz behind Ignatz Von Kolisch. He remained one of the world's best players for the next 15 years.  At Warsaw 1868 Winawer won the first chess tournament conducted in Poland. He won an 1875 match in Saint Petersburg against Russian master Ilya Shumov, 5–2. At Paris 1878 Winawer tied for first place (+14−3=5) with Johannes Zukertort, ahead of Joseph Henry Blackburne and George Henry Mackenzie, but took second prize after the play-off. At Berlin 1881 he finished =3rd with Mikhail Chigorin. Winawer's best result was a first place tie with Steinitz at Vienna 1882, in what was the strongest chess tournament in history up to that time. At London 1883 he failed to place for the first time, but later that year at Nuremberg (3rd German Congress) he finished first, defeating Blackburne who took second place.  After a long absence Winawer returned to chess in the 1890s, but by then he had been surpassed by younger players including Siegbert Tarrasch and Emanuel Lasker. At Dresden 1892 and Budapest 1896 he placed sixth. He lost an 1896 match to Dawid Janowski 2–5. He turned 63 during his final international tournament, Monte Carlo 1901, and did not place among the prizewinners. Winawer continued to play competitive chess into his 60s, and in his career he faced all of the top players from the last third of the 19th century, from Adolf Anderssen to Lasker. His rivalry with Blackburne stretched from 1870 to 1901, and they met in competitive games in five consecutive decades. Winawer died in Warsaw on November 29, 1919.

Legacy.

Winawer has several opening variations named for him. The most popular is the Winawer Variation of the French Defence (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4). His name is also associated with the Winawer Attack in the Ruy Lopez. At Monte Carlo 1901, Winawer's last international tournament, he introduced the Winawer Countergambit in the Slav Defense in a game against Frank Marshall.

Sample game.

In one of his best known games, he beat Steinitz in Nuremberg in 1896: 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Qxd4 Nc6 4.Qe3 Nf6 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.Bd2 O-O 7.O-O-O Re8 8.Bc4 Bxc3 9.Bxc3 Nxe4 10.Qf4 Nf6 11.Nf3 d6 12.Ng5 Be6 13.Bd3 h6 14.h4 Nd5 15.Bh7+ Kh8 16.Rxd5 Bxd5 17.Be4 f6 18.Bxd5 fxg5 19.hxg5 Ne5 20.g6 1–0

Szymon Abramowicz Winawer (Warsaw, March 6, 1838 – Warsaw, November 29, 1919) was a leading Polish chess player who won the German Chess Championship in 1883.


From birth to the 1918 armistice.

Fieseler was born in Glesch. He joined the Air Service of the German Army in 1915. Despite a crash during training hospitalizing him until February 1916, he was assigned as an observation pilot by October 1916, flying first with FFA 243, then with FFA 41. In 1917, he qualified as a fighter pilot and was posted on 12 July to the Macedonian front, initially flying a Roland D.II with Jasta 25. Fieseler scored his first aerial victory on 20 August 1917. A serious illness removed him from active duty from 21 September until 5 November 1917.  Fieseler would not score his second success until 30 January 1918. He was eventually credited with nineteen confirmed aerial victories, with three others unconfirmed. Commissioned in October 1918, he was the highest-scoring German ace on the Eastern Front to survive World War I. He was awarded the Golden Military Merit Cross and the Iron Cross, first and second class.

Between the World Wars.

Following the war, he returned to printing, but yearned to return to flying. In 1926, he closed his print shop in Eschweiler and became a flight instructor with the Raab-Katzenstein aircraft company in Kassel and continued to hone his flying skills, becoming an accomplished stunt pilot. In 1927, he performed a particularly daring routine in Zürich and started to command increasingly high fees for appearances. In 1928, he designed his own stunt plane, the Fieseler F1, built by Raab-Katzenstein. He also designed Raab-Katzenstein RK-26 Tigerschwalbe aircraft in the end of the 1920s which was offered and sold to a Swedish company called AB Svenska Järnvägverkstäderna (ASJ), which built 25 of the type for Swedish Air Force in the beginning of the 1930s.  In 1930, Raab-Katzenstien was bankrupt, and Fieseler decided to strike out on his own. Using money he had been saving from his aerobatics, he bought the Segelflugzeugbau Kassel sailplane factory and renamed it Fieseler Flugzeugbau. Although he continued with some sailplane manufacturing, from 1932, he set up to start manufacturing sports planes of his own design. In one of these aircraft, he went on to win the inaugural World Aerobatic Championship in Paris in 1934, taking home a FF 100,000 prize, which he invested into the company.  A NSDAP member, Fieseler won contracts to licence-build military aircraft for the new Luftwaffe in 1935. Real success would come the following year, when his firm won a design contract against entries from Messerschmitt and Siebel for a STOL liaison/observation plane, that his firm then went on to produce as the Fieseler Fi 156 "Storch".

World War II.

"Gerhard Fieseler Werke" produced aircraft for the German military throughout World War II.

Post World War II.

Following the war, Fieseler spent some time in US custody. When he was released, he re-opened part of this factory and spent some years building automotive components. He also published an autobiography, "Meine Bahn am Himmel (My Road in the Sky)".  Fieseler died in Kassel, aged 91.  The aerobatic manoeuvre Fieseler is named after him.

Gerhard Fieseler (April 15, 1896 – September 1, 1987) was a German World War I flying ace, aerobatics champion, and aircraft designer and manufacturer.


Description.

A cemetery and rubble from earlier settlements are located near the middle of the west coast, where the boat landing area is located. There are no ports or harbors, with anchorage prohibited offshore. The narrow fringing reef surrounding the island can be a maritime hazard, so there is a day beacon near the old village site. Baker's abandoned World War II runway, long, is completely covered with vegetation and is unserviceable.  The United States claims an exclusive economic zone of and territorial sea of around Baker Island.  During a 1935–1942 colonization attempt, the island was most likely on Hawaii time, which was then 10.5 hours behind UTC. Since it is uninhabited the island's time zone is unspecified, but it lies within a nautical time zone 12 hours behind UTC ().

History.

Baker was discovered in 1818 by Captain Elisha Folger of the Nantucket whaling ship "Equator", who called the island "New Nantucket". In August 1825 Baker was sighted by Captain Obed Starbuck of the "Loper", also a Nantucket whaler. The island is named for Michael Baker, who visited the island in 1834. Other references state that he visited in 1832, and again on August 14, 1839, in the whaler "Gideon Howland", to bury an American seaman. Captain Baker claimed the island in 1855, then he sold his interest to a group who later formed the American Guano Company.  The United States took possession of the island in 1857, claiming it under the Guano Islands Act of 1856. Its guano deposits were mined by the American Guano Company from 1859 to 1878. As an example of the scale of the guano mining and its destination the following ship movements were reported in late 1868.  On February 27, 1869 the British ship "Shaftsbury" under Captain John Davies, which had arrived at Baker's Island on 5 February from Montevideo, was wrecked after being driven onto the reef by a sudden wind shift and squall from the northwest, dragging her moorings with her. American ship "Robin Hood" was destroyed by fire while loading on 30 August 1869. On 7 December 1886, the American Guano Company sold all its rights to the British firm John T. Arundel and Company, which made the island its headquarters for guano digging operations in the Pacific from 1886 to 1891. Arundel applied in 1897 to the British Colonial Office for a licence to work the island on the presumption that the U.S. had abandoned their claim. The United Kingdom then considered Baker Island to be a British territory, although they never formally annexed it. The United States raised the question at the beginning of the 1920s and after some diplomatic exchanges, they launched in 1935 the American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project and issued on May 1936 Executive Order 7358 to clarify their sovereignty.  This short-lived attempt at colonization, via the American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project, began when American colonists arrived aboard the USCGC "Itasca", the same vessel that brought colonists to neighboring Howland Island, on April 3, 1935. They built a lighthouse and substantial dwellings, and they attempted to grow various plants. The settlement was named Meyerton, after Captain H.A. Meyer of the United States Army, who helped establish the camps in 1935. One sad-looking clump of coconut palms was jokingly called King–Doyle Park after two well-known citizens of Hawaii who visited on the "Taney" in 1938. This clump was the best on the island, planted near a water seep, but the dry climate and seabirds, eager for anything upon which to perch, did not give the trees or shrubs much of a chance to survive. King–Doyle Park was later adopted as a geographic name by the United States Geological Survey. Its population was four American civilians, all of whom were evacuated in 1942 after Japanese air and naval attacks. During World War II it was occupied by the U.S. military.

Airfield.

On August 11, 1943, a US Army defense force arrived on Baker Island as part of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign. In September 1943 a airfield was opened and was subsequently used as a staging base by Seventh Air Force B-24 Liberator bombers for attacks on Mili Atoll. The 45th Fighter Squadron operating P-40 fighters operated from the airfield from September 1 - November 27, 1943. By January 1, 1944 the airfield was abandoned.

LORAN Station Baker.

LORAN radio navigation station Baker was a radio operations base in operation from September 1944 to July 1946. The station unit number was 91 and the radio call sign was NRN-1.

Flora and fauna.

Baker has no natural fresh water sources. It is treeless, with sparse vegetation consisting of four kinds of grass, prostrate vines and low-growing shrubs. The island is primarily a nesting, roosting, and foraging habitat for seabirds, shorebirds, and marine wildlife.  Several varieties of shorebirds and other species inhabit the island and nearby waters, some considered endangered. The ruddy turnstone, bar-tailed godwit, sanderling and Pacific golden plover are considered species of least concern. The bristle-thighed curlew is considered vulnerable on the national conservation priority scheme. Green turtles and hawksbill turtles, both critically endangered, can be found along the reef.  Seabird species such as the lesser frigatebird, brown noddy and sooty tern use the island for nesting and roosting. The island is also believed to be a rest stop for arctic-breeding shorebirds.

National Wildlife Refuge.

On June 27, 1974, Secretary of the Interior Rogers Morton created Baker Island National Wildlife Refuge which was expanded in 2009 to add submerged lands within of the island. The refuge now includes of land and of water. Baker, along with six other islands, was administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Pacific Remote Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex. In January 2009, that entity was redesignated the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument by President George W. Bush.  Environmental challenges include abandoned military debris from World War II and illegal fishing offshore. Invasive exotics introduced by human activity, including cockroaches and coconut palms, have also displaced native wildlife. Feral cats, first introduced in 1937, were eradicated in 1965.  Public entry to the island is only by special use permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and it is generally restricted to scientists and educators. Representatives from the agency visit the island on average once every two years, usually coordinating transportation with an NOAA vessel.

Ruins and artifacts.

Debris from past human occupation is scattered throughout the island and in offshore waters. Most is from the U.S. military occupation of the island from 1942 to 1946. The most noticeable remnant is the airstrip. It is completely overgrown with vegetation and unusable. In the northeast section, apparently the main camp area, are the remains of several buildings and heavy equipment. Five wooden antenna poles about in height remain standing in the camp. Debris from several crashed airplanes and large equipment such as bulldozers is scattered around the island. Numerous bulldozer excavations containing the remnants of metal, fuel and water drums are scattered about the north central portion and northern edge of the island. The Navy reported the loss of 11 landing craft in the surf during World War II.

Baker Island (previously New Nantucket) is an uninhabited atoll located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean about southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbor is Howland Island, to the north-northwest; both have been claimed as territories of the United States since 1857, though the United Kingdom considered them part of the British Empire between 1897 and 1936.


Life.

After the death of his eldest brother Duke Rudolph III in 1307 and the assassination of King Albert in 1308, Leopold became head of the Habsburg dynasty and administrator of the Swabian home territories, where he started a retaliation campaign against his father's murderers. The energetic man converged with the royal House of Luxembourg and accompanied King Henry VII on his Italian campaign. In 1311 he helped to suppress a Guelph revolt at Milan under Guido della Torre and to lay siege to the city of Brescia.  Upon Emperor Henry's death, he strongly supported his brother Frederick in the 1314 election as King of the Romans. Despite all efforts (and bribes), the Habsburgs only gained the votes of four Prince-electors, while Louis IV of Wittelsbach, with support of the Luxembourgs, was elected by five. In the following armed conflict between the rivals, the forces of Leopold were supportive of his brother's claims. In his ancestral homeland however, he incurred a decisive defeat by the Swiss Confederacy at the 1315 Battle of Morgarten.  When Frederick and their younger brother Henry had been captured at the Battle of Mühldorf in 1322, Leopold struggled for their release. He entered into negotiations with King Louis IV and even surrendered the Imperial Regalia he had kept at Kyburg castle. The parleys failed and Leopold continued to attack the Bavarian forces of Louis, who unsuccessfully laid siege to the Swabian town of Burgau in 1324. After the king had failed to reach the approval of his election by Pope John XXII and was even banned, he released Frederick in 1325. The captive however had to promise to swear his brother to acknowledge Louis as his suzerain, which Leopold refused. Frederick as a man of honour voluntarily returned to the Bavarian court, where he and Louis finally agreed upon a joint rule.  Leopold died in Straßburg shortly afterwards, aged 35. His remains were buried at Königsfelden Monastery in the Swiss town of Windisch in the Aargau.

Marriage and issue.

In 1315, Leopold married Catherine of Savoy (1284–1336), daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy by his second wife, Marie of Brabant. They had two daughters:

Leopold I (4 August 1290 – 28 February 1326) from the House of Habsburg was Duke of Austria and Styria – as co-ruler with his elder brother Frederick the Fair – from 1308 until his death. Born at Vienna, he was the third son of King Albert I of Germany and Elisabeth of Gorizia-Tyrol, a scion of the Meinhardiner dynasty.


History.

In 18th-century Japan, a traveler could pay for a tour guide or consult guide books such as Kaibara Ekken's "Keijō Shōran" (The Excellent Views of Kyoto).

Description.

The CEN (European Committee for Standardization) definition for "tourist guide" – part of the work by CEN on definitions for terminology within the tourism industry – is a "person who guides visitors in the language of their choice and interprets the cultural and natural heritage of an area, which person normally possesses an area-specific qualification usually issued and/or recognized by the appropriate authority". CEN also defines a "tour manager" as a "person who manages and supervises the itinerary on behalf of the tour operator, ensuring the programme is carried out as described in the tour operator's literature and sold to the traveller/consumer and who gives local practical information".  In Europe, tourist guides are represented by FEG, the European Federation of Tourist Guide Associations. In Europe, the tourist guiding qualification is specific to each and every country; in some cases the qualification is national, in some cases it is broken up into regions. In all cases it is embedded in the educational and training ethic of that country. EN15565 is a European Standard for the Training and Qualification of Tourist Guides.  In Australia, tour guides are qualified to a minimum of Certificate III Guiding.]. They belong to a couple of organisations, notably the "Professional Tour Guide Association of Australia" [PTGAA] and "Guides of Australia" [GOA].  In Japan, tour guides are required to pass a certification exam by the Commissioner of the Japan Tourism Agency and register with the relevant prefectures. Non-licensed guides caught performing guide-interpreter activities can face a fine up to 500,000 Yen  In India its mandatory to own the license approved by the Ministry of Tourism (India) to work officially as a tourist guide. The government provides the license to regional level tour guide and also runs a Regional Level Guide Training Program (RLGTP). These programs and training sessions are conducted under the guidance of Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management (IITTM) or other government recognized institutes.  In South Africa tourist guides are required to register in terms of the Tourism Act 3, 2014. Training must be done through a trainer accredited by the Culture, Arts, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Sector Education and Training Authority.

References.

Notes

A tour guide (U.S.) or a tourist guide (European) is a person who provides assistance, information on cultural, historical and contemporary heritage to people on organized tours and individual clients at educational establishments, religious and historical sites, museums, and at venues of other significant interest, attractions sites.


Origin and history.

As with many recipes, the origins of the dish and its name are obscure, however, most sources trace its origin to the region of Lazio.  The dish forms part of a family of dishes involving pasta with bacon, cheese and pepper, one of which is "pasta alla gricia". Indeed, it is very similar to "pasta cacio e uova", a dish dressed with melted lard and a mixture of eggs and cheese, which is documented as long ago as 1839, and, according to some researchers and older Italians, may have been the pre-Second World War name of carbonara.  There are many theories for the origin of the name "carbonara", which is likely more recent than the dish itself. Since the name is derived from "carbonaro" (the Italian word for 'charcoal burner'), some believe the dish was first made as a hearty meal for Italian charcoal workers. In parts of the United States, this etymology gave rise to the term "coal miner's spaghetti". It has even been suggested that it was created as a tribute to the "Carbonari" ('charcoalmen') secret society prominent in the early, repressed stages of Italian unification in the early 19th century. It seems more likely that it is an "urban dish" from Rome, perhaps popularized by the Roman restaurant of the same name.  The names "pasta alla carbonara" and "spaghetti alla carbonara" are unrecorded before the Second World War; notably, it is absent from Ada Boni's 1930 "La Cucina Romana" ('Roman cuisine'). The "carbonara" name is first attested in 1950, when it was described in the Italian newspaper "La Stampa" as a dish sought by the American officers after the Allied liberation of Rome in 1944. It was described as a "Roman dish" at a time when many Italians were eating eggs and bacon supplied by troops from the United States. In 1954, it was included in Elizabeth David's "Italian Food", an English-language cookbook published in Great Britain.

Preparation.

The pasta is cooked in moderately salted boiling water. The guanciale is briefly fried in a pan in its own fat. A mixture of raw eggs (or yolks), grated Pecorino (or a mixture with Parmesan), and a liberal amount of ground black pepper is combined with the hot pasta either in the pasta pot or in a serving dish, but away from direct heat, to avoid curdling the egg. The fried guanciale is then added, and the mixture is tossed, creating a rich, creamy sauce with bits of meat spread throughout. Although various shapes of pasta can be used, the raw egg can only cook properly with a shape that has a sufficiently large ratio of surface area to volume, such as the long, thin types fettucine, linguine, or spaghetti.  Guanciale is the most commonly used meat for the dish in Italy, but pancetta and smoked pancetta affumicata are also used, and in English-speaking countries, bacon is often used as a substitute. The usual cheese is Pecorino Romano; occasionally Parmesan. Recipes differ as to how eggs are used—some use the whole egg, some others only the yolk, and still others a mixture.

Variations.

Some preparations have more sauce and therefore use tubular-shaped pasta, such as penne, which is better suited to holding sauce.  Cream is not used in most Italian recipes, though there are exceptions; it is often employed elsewhere. Similarly, garlic is found in some recipes, mostly outside Italy.  Outside Italy, variations on carbonara may include green peas, broccoli, broccolini, leeks, onions, other vegetables, and/or mushrooms, and may substitute a meat like ham or "coppa" for the fattier guanciale or pancetta.

Carbonara sauce.

Carbonara sauce is often sold as a ready-to-eat convenience food in grocery stores in many countries. Unlike the original preparation, which is inseparable from its dish as its creamy texture is created on the pasta itself, the commercial versions of carbonara are prepared sauces to be applied onto separately cooked pasta. They may be thickened with cream and sometimes food starch, while often using bacon or cubed pancetta slices as its meat of choice instead of guanciale.

Carbonara () is an Italian pasta dish from Rome made with egg, hard cheese, cured pork, and black pepper. The dish arrived at its modern form, with its current name, in the middle of the 20th century.


Personal life.

Karolos Papoulias was born in Ioannina and is the son of Major general Gregorios Papoulias. He obtained a Law degree from the University of Athens, a master's degree in Public International Law and International Relations from the University of Milan, and a doctorate in Private International Law from the University of Cologne. He is an associate of the Munich Institute for Southeast Europe. Apart from his native Greek, he also speaks French, German and Italian. A former pole-vault and volleyball champion, Papoulias has been chairman of the National Sports Association since 1985. He is also a founding member and until recently president of the Association for the Greek Linguistic Heritage.  He was active in the left-wing EPON youth as a young man.  Karolos Papoulias is married to Mary Panou and has three daughters.

Role in PASOK, parliamentary and government offices.

Papoulias was a founding member of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and a close associate of its leader Andreas Papandreou. Since December 1974 he was continually elected to the PASOK Central Committee. He was also member of the Coordination Council, the Executive Bureau and the Political Secretariat, as well as Secretary of the PASOK International Relations Committee from April 1975 to 1985. For a number of years he was also a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Socialist and Progressive Parties of the Mediterranean.  He was first elected to the Greek Parliament in 1977 for Ioannina, and held his seat continuously through the subsequent legislative elections until his 2004 election as President of the Republic. He held several high offices during the PASOK cabinets:

Papoulias as Minister for Foreign Affairs.

In the 1980s, Papoulias played a key role in trying to reach a solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He mediated a safe departure of trapped Palestinian militants and Yasser Arafat from Lebanon on board Greek vessels in 1983.  He created diplomatic relations with the Arab world and achieved, among other things, the normalization of relations between Greece and Egypt and the establishment of tripartite cooperation between Iran, Armenia and Greece. He held talks with a total of 12 Turkish Foreign Ministers to normalize Greco-Turkish relations. This resulted in the signing of the Papoulias-Yılmaz memorandum in 1988.  He supported Turkey's European aspirations conditional on their respect for international law and European Union values.  In the period 1993–1996 and particularly at the crucial Essen Summit he played an important role in starting accession talks between the Republic of Cyprus and the European Union.  As president-in-office of the European Union and member of the contact group for the former Yugoslavia he worked to bring about a resolution of the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He signed the Interim Agreement with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, aiming at the establishment of better relations between that country and Greece.  He was very interested in relations between Greece and the Balkan states and it was upon his initiative that the first meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the Balkans was organized in Belgrade in 1988. There, he began talks with Bulgaria and the then Soviet Union on the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline.  He was responsible for the signing of the protocol of mutual civil and military assistance with Bulgaria in the 1980s. He restored friendly and neighbourly relations with Albania by ending the state of war between that country and Greece.  Papoulias has been supportive of any step towards détente, peace and disarmament e.g. the "Initiative of the Six" for peace and disarmament, the participation of Greece in the Conference on Disarmament and Peace in Europe and in the Conference for the Abolition of Chemical Weapons, his proposals to create a nuclear-free zone in the Balkans and the promotion of the idea of making the Mediterranean a sea of peace and cooperation. The JANNINA 1 tripartite cooperation conference, between Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, was his idea and he was a strong supporter of the Black Sea Conference, which he also chaired.  With his visit to Washington in 1985 and the return visit of Secretary of State George Shultz, he revitalized Greek-American relations which had gone through a delicate phase during the previous years.

Election to the Presidency.

On 12 December 2004, Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis, leader of the governing New Democracy party, and George Papandreou, leader of the PASOK opposition, nominated Papoulias for the presidency, which is chosen by the Parliament. On 8 February 2005, he was elected by 279 of 300 votes to a five-year term. He was sworn in as the 6th President of the Third Hellenic Republic on 12 March 2005, succeeding Konstantinos Stephanopoulos. After securing the support of the two major political parties, he was re-elected to a second and final term on 3 February 2010 with a parliamentary majority of 266 votes. His presidential term ended in March 2015 and was replaced by Prokopis Pavlopoulos, who was elected Greece’s new president in a parliamentary vote in February 2015.

References.

Karolos Papoulias ( ; born 4 June 1929) is a Greek politician who served as President of Greece from 2005 to 2015. A member of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), he previously was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1985 to 1989 and again from 1993 until 1996.


Early life.

Ferrer was born at a dance club in San Luis, near the city of Santiago de Cuba. His mother died when he was 12, leaving him orphaned and forcing him to sing on the streets (busk) to earn money.  The following year, Ferrer joined his first ever musical group—a duet with his cousin—called Jovenes del Son (). They performed at private functions and the two youths managed to scrape together enough money to live.

Career.

Over the next few years, Ferrer would perform with many musical groups, including Conjunto Sorpresa and Chepín y su Orquesta Oriental. As lead singer of the latter, Ferrer recorded in 1956 his biggest hit: "El platanal de Bartolo". In 1961, he also sang lead for Mario Patterson y su Orquesta Oriental on "Cariño falso", a standard of the guaracha repertoire.

Los Bocucos.

In 1953, Ferrer began performing with Pacho Alonso's group in Santiago, Cuba. In 1959, the group moved permanently to Havana, renaming themselves Los Bocucos, after a type of drum widely used in Santiago, the "bocú". With Alonso, Ferrer primarily performed sones, guarachas and other up-tempo songs. However, he yearned to sing boleros.  Ferrer remained a member of Los Bocucos until his retirement in 1991. Starting in 1967, Los Bocucos became an independent group, since Pacho Alonso started a new band, Los Pachucos. Since then, Ferrer began to sing lead more often, instead of performing as a backing singer. The group released several LPs in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1998, Cuban label EGREM released on CD "Tierra caliente", a compilation of tracks recorded by Los Bocucos between 1970 and 1988, featuring Ferrer as lead singer. The songs were directed and arranged by Roberto Correra, the group's lead trumpeter.

Career revival.

In 1996, Ferrer took part in Nick Gold’s World Circuit sessions, when it was announced that an old-style bolero singer would be required. He first participated in the recording of the album "A Toda Cuba le Gusta" with the Afro-Cuban All Stars, which was nominated for a Grammy Award. This project was immediately followed by the recording of Ry Cooder's Grammy Award winning "Buena Vista Social Club" album, which showcased Ferrer's talent as a bolero singer and made him widely known outside Cuba.  In 1999, Ry Cooder recorded Ferrer's first solo album. In 2000, Ferrer, at the age of 72, received a Latin Grammy for Best New Artist.  In 2001, he appeared on the track "Latin Simone (¿Qué Pasa Contigo?)" on the self-titled debut album of virtual band Gorillaz. Following Ferrer's death, Gorillaz played the song live as a tribute to him at concerts in 2005 and 2006, and again in 2018.  In 2004, Ferrer won a Grammy, but was denied permission by the U.S. government to enter the U.S. to receive his award" as a result of extremely restrictive visa laws enacted in the wake of 9/11.  Ferrer released his second solo recording, "Buenos Hermanos", in 2003 and continued touring in Europe into 2005. Ferrer's contributed in 2005 to the APE Vision Artists Project Earth album Rhythms Del Mundo: Cuba, a collaboration with artists Coldplay, U2, Sting, Dido, Faithless, Jack Johnson, Maroon 5 and others. Ferrer's last recording was "Mi sueño", an album devoted to the bolero. It was released posthumously in 2006.  Ferrer was posthumously featured in the Gorillaz documentary films "Bananaz" and "Reject False Icons" in 2008 and 2019, respectively.

Death.

Ibrahim Ferrer died at age 78 of multiple organ failure on August 6, 2005 at CIMEQ hospital in Havana, Cuba after returning from a European tour. He was buried in the Colón Cemetery, Havana.

Personal life.

Ferrer was an adherent of the Santería faith, a blending of traditional African religions and Catholicism.

Ibrahim Ferrer (February 20, 1927 – August 6, 2005) was a Cuban singer who played with Los Bocucos for nearly forty years. He also performed with Conjunto Sorpresa, Chepín y su Orquesta Oriental and Mario Patterson. After his retirement in 1991, he was brought back in the studio to record with the Afro-Cuban All Stars and Buena Vista Social Club in March 1996. He then toured internationally with these revival groups and recorded several solo albums for World Circuit before his death in 2005.


Early life.

Bilson was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of Janice Stango, a sex therapist, and Danny Bilson, a writer, director, and producer. She has an older brother and two younger half-sisters, Rosemary and Hattie. Her father is Jewish; her mother is Italian-American.  Bilson's father comes from a show business family: her paternal grandfather is producer-director Bruce Bilson. Her great-grandfather George Bilson, born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, UK, worked for RKO Pictures, where he headed the movie trailer department, and her great-grandmother Hattie Bilson was a screenwriter whose credits include "Pal, Canine Detective" (1950). Bilson's classmates at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California, included actress Kirsten Dunst, actor Rami Malek, and "American Idol" runner-up singer Katharine McPhee.

Career.

Bilson attended Grossmont College, a community college in a suburb of San Diego, taking her father's advice to pursue a professional acting career. She then made several appearances in commercials, including advertisements for Subway restaurants, Raisin Bran and Pepto-Bismol.  She made her screen acting debut in early 2003, appearing in one episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter". Bilson was subsequently cast in "The O.C.", which debuted in August 2003. Her character, Summer Roberts, was initially intended to appear in only a few episodes but became a series regular after a successful run, as Bilson's on-screen romance with Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) became a noted aspect of the series.  At the 2005 Teen Choice Awards, she collected three awards: "Choice Hottie Female," "Choice TV Actress (Drama)" and "Best Onscreen TV Chemistry" (jointly won with Adam Brody). In 2005, "Maxim" magazine named her sixth in their annual "Hot 100 List"; in 2006, the publication awarded her #14.  The UK edition of FHM Magazine named her 28th in the 2006 100 Sexiest Women in the World list, while the US Edition Ranked her 77th in 2005. Bilson was also named one of "People" magazine's "World's Most Beautiful People" in 2006. Before appearing in "Maxim", Bilson had turned down requests to appear seminude in men's magazines, specifying that she feels that her body "is sacred" and "not there for the whole world to see."  Bilson's first film role was in "The Last Kiss", a romantic comedy-drama also starring Zach Braff in 2006. She played a college student who seduces Braff's character. One review of the film noted that Bilson played the role with "surprising depth," although another critic described her role as "Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction" as an airhead valley girl with a hot bod."  In late 2006, Bilson was cast in the film Doug Liman's thriller "Jumper", as the replacement for actress Teresa Palmer; the film was released on February 14, 2008. She appeared in a two-episode arc on "The O.C." creator Josh Schwartz's NBC comedy, "Chuck", and in the film "New York, I Love You". She appeared in the 100th episode of "How I Met Your Mother" ("Girls Versus Suits") as Ted Mosby's latest love interest and the Mother's roommate.  In September 2008, she started shooting the indie romantic film "Waiting for Forever", directed by James Keach. In September 2009 Rachel appeared as a celebrity guest judge in the third episode of "Project Runway" (season 6). Bilson starred in the 2011 indie film "L!fe Happens". In 2011, Bilson began starring in The CW series "Hart of Dixie", executive produced by "The O.C." creator Josh Schwartz. On May 7, 2015, the CW officially canceled the show after four seasons. In 2017, Bilson joined the cast of CMT's "Nashville" which reunites her with her former "The O.C." co-star Chris Carmack.  Bilson starred in the ABC drama series "Take Two" which premiered in June 2018; however, on November 21, 2018, ABC cancelled the series after one season.

Fashion design.

Bilson has been recognized by several media sources as being a "fashion junkie". She has described herself as having a "vintage" sense of style and has noted Kate Moss and Diane Keaton as inspirations.  Bilson approached DKNY Jeans in late 2007 with a view to design a clothing line with the fashion brand. Together they created Edie Rose. The collection was launched in September 2008. Her idea was to keep fashionable items accessible to young women by keeping the prices of each piece under $100. An advertising image was released in July 2008 which featured Bilson modelling her Edie Rose collection.  Bilson stated that she wanted to keep her fashion line "as separate as possible from Rachel Bilson, the actress. I'm hoping people will appreciate it for the clothes, not the person behind them." Much of her fashion collection was lost when her home was burglarized in May 2009. Bilson's fashions and sense of style made her the unwitting target of the Bling Ring, who burglarized her home on several occasions.  In 2011, Bilson collaborated with her personal stylist Nicole Chavez, and shoe industry leader Steve Madden, to launch the footwear destination, ShoeMint, an "online customized shoe shopping experience."  In 2013, Bilson designed a shirt for Invisible Children.

Personal life.

Bilson and Adam Brody, her co-star on "The O.C.", dated for three years.  After she and Brody broke up, Bilson began a relationship with actor Hayden Christensen, with whom she co-starred on the film "Jumper". By January 2008, the pair had been seen and photographed together around Los Angeles for almost a year, without confirming a relationship. In February 2009, Bilson appeared publicly with what seemed to be an engagement ring, though no official announcement was made. In August 2010, Bilson's representative confirmed there had been an engagement that had since been called off, giving no other details. The two reconciled three months afterward, and had a daughter in October 2014. Bilson and Christensen separated in September 2017.  Bilson and Christensen were both supporters of the coalition No Kids Policy, which seeks to prevent children of celebrities from being photographed without parental consent.

Rachel Bilson (born August 25, 1981) is an American actress. Born to a California show business family, Bilson made her television debut in 2003, and then landed the role of Summer Roberts on the prime-time drama series "The O.C." Bilson made her movie debut in "The Last Kiss" (2006) and starred in the science-fiction-action film "Jumper" (2008). From 2011 to 2015, she starred as Dr. Zoe Hart on The CW series "Hart of Dixie".


Early life.

Willem Janszoon (Willem Jansz) was born around 1570, but nothing is known of his early life nor of his parents.  Janszoon is first recorded as entering into the service of the "Oude compagnie", one of the predecessors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in 1598 as a mate aboard the "Hollandia", part of the second fleet under Jacob Cornelisz. van Neck, dispatched by the Dutch to the Dutch East Indies. On 5 May 1601, he again sailed for the East Indies as master of the "Lam", one of three ships in the fleet of Joris van Spilbergen.  Janszoon sailed from the Netherlands for the East Indies for the third time on 18 December 1603, as captain of the (or "Duijfken", meaning "Little Dove"), one of twelve ships of the great fleet of Steven van der Hagen. When the other ships left Java, Janszoon was sent to search for other outlets of trade, particularly in "the great land of New Guinea and other East and Southlands".

Exploration and discovery.

First voyage to Australia.

On 18 November 1605, the "Duyfken" sailed from Bantam to the coast of western New Guinea. After that, Janszoon crossed the eastern end of the Arafura Sea into the Gulf of Carpentaria, without being aware of the existence of Torres Strait. The "Duyfken" was actually in Torres Strait in February 1606, a few months before Spanish explorer Luís Vaz de Torres sailed through it. On 26 February 1606, Janzoon made landfall at the Pennefather River on the western shore of Cape York in Queensland, near what is now the town of Weipa. This is the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent. Janszoon proceeded to chart some of the coastline, which he thought was a southerly extension of New Guinea.  Finding the land swampy and the people inhospitable (ten of his men were killed on various shore expeditions), Janszoon decided to return at a place he named Cape Keerweer ("Turnabout"), south of Albatross Bay, and arrived back at Bantam in June 1606. He called the land he had discovered "Nieu Zeland", after the Dutch province of Zeeland, but the name was not adopted, and was later used by Dutch cartographers for New Zealand.  In 1607, Admiral Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge sent Janzoon to Ambon and Banda. In 1611, Janzoon returned to the Netherlands, believing that the south coast of New Guinea was joined to the land along which he had sailed, and Dutch maps reproduced that error for many years. Though there have been suggestions that earlier navigators from China, France or Portugal may have discovered parts of Australia earlier, the "Duyfken" is the first European vessel definitely known to have done so.

Second voyage to Australia.

Janszoon reported that on 31 July 1618, he had landed on an island at 22° South with a length of 22 miles and 240 miles SSE of the Sunda Strait. This is generally interpreted as a description of the peninsula from Point Cloates () to North West Cape () on the Western Australian coast, which Janszoon presumed was an island, without fully circumnavigating it.

Political life.

Around 1617/18 he was back in the Netherlands and was appointed as a member of the Council of the Indies. He served as admiral of the Dutch Defence fleet. Janszoon was awarded a gold chain worth 1,000 guilders in 1619 for his part in capturing four ships of the British East India Company near Tiku on West Sumatra, which had aided the Javanese in their defence of the town of Jakarta against the Dutch. In 1620 he was one of the negotiators with the English. In a combined fleet they sailed to Manila to prevent Chinese merchants dealing with the Spanish. Janszoon became vice-admiral, and the year later admiral. Near the end of his life, Janszoon served as governor of Banda (16231627). He returned to Batavia in June 1627 and soon afterwards, as admiral of a fleet of eight vessels, went on a diplomatic mission to India. On 4 December 1628, he sailed for Holland and on 16 July 1629, reported on the state of the Indies at The Hague. He was now probably about sixty years old and ready to retire from his strenuous and successful career in the service of his country. Nothing is known of his last days, but he is thought to have died in 1630.

Records.

The original journal and log made during Janszoon’s 1606 voyage have been lost. The Duyfken chart, which shows the location of the first landfall in Australia by the "Duyfken", had a better fate. It was still in existence in Amsterdam when Hessel Gerritszoon made his Map of the Pacific in 1622, and placed the Duyfken geography upon it, thus providing us with the first map to contain any part of Australia. The chart was still in existence around 1670, when a copy was made. This eventually went to the Imperial Library in Vienna and remained forgotten for two hundred years. The map is part of the "Atlas Blaeu Van der Hem", brought to Vienna in 1730 by Prince Eugene of Savoy. The information from his charts was included in the marble and copper maps of the hemispheres on the floor of The Citizens’ Hall of the Royal Palace in Amsterdam.

Willem Janszoon (; ), sometimes abbreviated to Willem Jansz., was a Dutch navigator and colonial governor. Janszoon served in the Netherlands East Indies in the periods 16031611 and 16121616, including as governor of Fort Henricus on the island of Solor. He is the first European known to have seen the coast of Australia during his voyage of 16051606.