Robert C. Morgan (born 1943) is an American art critic, art historian, curator, poet, and artist.

Biography
Robert C. Morgan received his M.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1975 and his Ph.D. in art education from New York University in 1978. Professor Morgan has had an extensive academic career. He has taught at New York University, Wichita State University, the University of Rochester, the School of Visual Arts, Barnard College, and Columbia University. From 1981- 2001, he was Professor of the History and Theory of Art at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is currently an adjunct professor of Fine Arts in the Graduate School of Fine Arts at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

Morgan has worked extensively as an independent curator. He has organized museum retrospectives of Allan Kaprow (1979) and Komar and Melamid (1980), both at the Ulrich Museum of Art in Kansas. In 1990, he curated Concept -- Decoratif in conjunction with the Holly Solomon Gallery in New York. From 1989 to 1990, he directed a gallery in SoHo (New York) where he curated a dozen exhibitions of both emerging and established artists, including Carolee Schneemann, Nancy Grossman, Hung Liu, Hong-Wen Lin, Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Mel Bochner, Antoni Muntadas, and Max Ernst. In 1994, he co-organized the exhibition Logo Non Logo with French critic Pierre Restany at the Thread Waxing Space in New York, which later traveled to the Art Museum of the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida.

Morgan has authored numerous books, catalogs and monographs on contemporary artists in various countries. His book on the American conceptualist Robert Barry was published by Karl Kerber Press in Bielefeld, Germany (1986). Haim Steinbach was published by the Musee d'Art Contemporain, Bordeaux (1988). Duchamp, Androgyny, Etc., (on Marcel Duchamp) was published by Editions Antoine Candau in Paris (1990). A Hans Bellmer Miscellany was published by Baum/Malmburg in Malmö, Sweden in 1993. His Turkish Bath installation at Artists Space in 1976 has been recognized an early example of post-conceptual art.

Morgan frequently writes art criticism for the Brooklyn Rail. His books and collected critical essays published include commentaries on conceptual art, post-conceptual art and the new media arts (Umbrella Associates, 1992). He has published the following books in the United States: After the Deluge: Essays on the Art of the Nineties, (Red Bass Publications, 1993), Conceptual Art: An American Perspective (McFarland, 1994); Art into Ideas: Essays on Conceptual Art (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Between Modernism and Conceptual Art (McFarland, 1997): and The End of the Art World (Allworth Press, 1998).

His critical anthologies on Gary Hill (2000) and Bruce Nauman (2002) were published by Johns Hopkins University Press. An edited volume of the late writings by the critic Clement Greenberg was published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2003. In 1995, he traveled to Korea on a Fulbright Fellowship.

Books
Commentaries on the New Media Arts Pasadena, CA: Umbrella Associates, 1992
After the Deluge: Essays for Art in the Nineties. New York: Red Bass, 1993
Conceptual Art: An American Perspective. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland, 1994. Introduction by Michael Kirby
Art Into Ideas: Essays on Conceptual Art. London:Cambridge University Press, 1996
Between Modernism and Conceptual Art. Jefferson, North Carolina and London: McFarland, 1997
The End of the Art World New York: Allworth Press (in collaboration with the School of Visual Arts), 1998. Introduction by Bill Beckley
The enigmatic world of Dmitri Strizhov. Author. Global Curiosity, 1st edition. 1998
Gary Hill, editor. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000
Bruce Nauman, editor. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002
Clement Greenberg: Late Writings, editor. University of Minnesota Press. 2003
Vasarely. New York: George Braziller, 2004
Wild Dogs in Bali: The Art of Made Wianta. Singapore: SNP Editions, 2005

Anthologies and monographs
"Asparagus and Chrysanthemums = Sentimentality and Power," in Muntadas and D'Agostino, eds., The Un/Necessary Image, New York: Tanam Press and Cambridge, Committee on the Visual Arts, MIT, 1983
"The Delta of Modernism" Re-Dact, Edited by Peter Frank. New York: Willis, Locker, and Owens, 1984. Revised and reprinted in Kostelanetz, ed., Esthetics Contemporary, 2nd Edition, (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1989 ( Spanish Translation appeared in Revista Esthetica (CAYC, Buenos Aires), Fall 1991. Revised in The End of the Art World, New York: Allworth Press, 1998.
"Systemic Books by Artists" in Joan Lyons, ed., Artists' Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook, Peregrine Smith Books and Visual Studies Workshop Press, Rochester, N.Y., 1985.
Haim Steinbach: Monograph of an Exhibition, Bordeaux: capc Musee d'art contemporain, 1990 (French)
Joseph Nechvatal: Laminations of the Soul in Joseph Nechvatal. Paris: Antoine Candau Editions, 1990 (English and French) (Online)
"La Situacion del Arte Conceptual Desde "January Show" Hasta Nuestros Dias" in Juan Vicente Aliaga and José Miguel G. Cortés, editors, Arte Conceptual Revisado, Universidad Poletechnica de Valencia, 1990 (Spanish and English
"Entretien avec Robert C. Morgan" en Richard Serra: Ecrits et Entretiens, 1970-89 (Daniel Lelong Editeur, 1990). English Edition, Chicago University Press, 1993
Colin Naylor, ed .Contemporary Masterworks (London: St. James Press, 1992) Entries include critical discussions of works by Isamu Noguchi, Gordon Bunschaft, and Josep Renau.
Oscar de Mejo:The Naive Surrealist, Essay by Robert C. Morgan. New York: Abrams, 1992
Marcel Delmotte. Essay by Robert C. Morgan. Nahan Galleries (in collaboration with Galerie Isy Brachot, Bruxelles), 1991
"The Miralda Honeymoon Celebration in Las Vegas", Nevada State Council on the Arts, 1992
"Hans Bellmer:The Infestation of Eros" in A Hans Bellmer Miscellany, Anders Malmburg, Malmö and Timothy Baum, New York, 1993
"Dorothea Tanning's Sculptural Interlude" in Dorothea Tanning (New York: George Braziller, 1995)
"Philip Glass: The Photographer" (1984, revised 1996), Writings on Glass: Essays, Interviews, Criticism. Edited by Richard Kostelanetz and Robert Flemming. (New York: Schirmer Books, 1997)
"The Language of Eros" in Noritoshi Hirakawa, Matters, 1988–1997. New York: Deitch Projects and Antwerp: Zeno X Gallery, 1998
"A Sign of Beauty" in Bill Beckley and David Shapiro, Uncontrollable Beauty. New York: Allworth Press, 1998.
"Touch Sanitation: Mierle Laderman Ukeles" in Linda Frye Burnham and Steven Durland, editors. The Citizen Artist: 20 Years of Art in the Public Arena. Critical Press. The Gunk Foundation, 1998
"The End of the Art World" (excerpt) in Patricia Hills, Modern Art in the USA: Issues and Controversies of the 20th Centuries" Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2000

Film appearance
 Ciria, (Pronounced Thiria) (2013), directed by Artur Balder

See also
 Conceptual art
 Post-conceptual art
 Institutional Critique
 Postmodern art
 Computer art
 Electronic art
 Systems art
 New media art
 Generative art

Notes and references

External links

Official site for Robert C. Morgan
Robert C. Morgan in Conversation with Phong Bui (July-August 2009)
Gallery site for Proyectos Monclova

American art critics
American art historians
Living people
American art curators
Cultural historians
Artists from New York (state)
American conceptual artists
Rochester Institute of Technology faculty
American male poets
1943 births
Post-conceptual artists
Pratt Institute faculty

Robert C. Morgan


A wax tablet is what the Roman schools used instead of paper. They used a stylus to write with. The wax melted when warm, but was quite smooth when it set. Wax tablets could also be used for messages, but ink on wood was more permanent (see Vindolanda). The Romans also used ink on manuscripts, and could stitch the manuscripts together to make a codex.

The earliest surviving example of a writing tablet dates to the later Bronze Age, 1400 BC. A boxwood writing tablet with an ivory hinge was found in 1986, in the remains of a shipwreck, the Uluburun Shipwreck, near Kaş, Turkey.

References

Ancient Rome

Wax tablet


Michael Shurtleff (July 3, 1920, in Oak Park, Illinois – January 28, 2007, in Los Angeles, California) was a major force in casting on Broadway during the 1960s and 1970s. He wrote Audition, a book for actors on the audition process. He also wrote numerous one-act and full-length plays.

Early life
Charles Gordon Shurtleff was born in Oak Park, Illinois and attended Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin and the Yale School of Drama, where he received his MFA in playwriting in 1952. He moved to New York City after graduation and changed his first name to Michael. He has two brothers, John and Roger.

Career
Shurtleff was the major casting director for producer David Merrick. During the casting process he would bring in to audition for the play's director such new names as Elliott Gould, Barbra Streisand, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Bette Midler and Jerry Orbach. Shurtleff worked with Bob Fosse on Pippin and Chicago, and Andrew Lloyd Webber on Jesus Christ Superstar.

Shurtleff went on to form his own casting service, Casting Consultants, in 1962. Among the Broadway productions on which he acted as casting director were  the original productions of 1776, The Apple Tree and Chicago. He served as casting director on such films as The Graduate and The Sound of Music. In his book Audition, he addressed common problems for actors during the audition process, problems he had witnessed many times over in his casting sessions. The book has become somewhat of a "bible for aspiring actors."

Shurtleff wrote the play Call Me By My Rightful Name. He had plays published in The Best Short Plays Series, of which the 1979 edition includes his popular "Sailing."

Death
Shurtleff died of lung cancer, aged 86, at his home in Los Angeles, California.

References

1920 births
2007 deaths
Writers from Oak Park, Illinois
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
American casting directors
Deaths from lung cancer in California
Lawrence University alumni
David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University alumni

Michael Shurtleff


Lund is a city in Scania, in the south of Sweden. About 80,000 people live there, which makes it the eleventh biggest city in Sweden. It is close to Malmö. The municipality has about 105,000 people.

Lund is known for its university, Lund University (founded in 1666). It is the largest university in Scandinavia. The city is also known for its cathedral, Lund Cathedral (Lunds domkyrka).

Lund is an old city. It was probably founded around the year 990, when Scania belonged to Denmark.

Lund


Derby Silk Mill, formerly known as Derby Industrial Museum, is a museum of industry in Derby, England. The museum is housed in a historic former silk mill which is part of Derwent Valley Mills. Between 1717 and 1721 George Sorocold built Britain's first mill beside the River Derwent. This mill was built to produce silk threads using machines powered by a water wheel. The museum re-opened with the new name, the Museum of Making on 21 May 2021.

John Lombe copied the design for the machines used for spinning large quantities of silk, when he was working within the Italian Silk Industry. This may be the first example of industrial espionage.

Traditionally the spinning wheel had been used for producing small quantities of silk thread at the homes of local spinsters. But these new, large machines were able to produce far greater quantities of silk and came to compete with the Italians. However, these machines required large buildings and a huge power source. An undershot water wheel turned by the mill fleam on the west side of the new Silk Mill drove these large spinning machines.

John Lombe unnaturally died in 1722. It was believed that he was killed with poison by an Italian as the revenge for stealing trade secrets. His half brother, Sir Thomas Lombe Knt., died on 2 June 1739 leaving his estate to his widow and their two daughters.

Dame Elizabeth advertised the lease of the building and machinery in 1739, and the remaining 64 years of the lease were assigned to Richard Wilson junior of Leeds for £2,800.

Richard Wilson stayed in Leeds and took a proportion of the profits. The mill was conducted by William and Samuel Lloyd (both London merchants) and Thomas Bennet as salaried manager.

A description of the mill by William Wilson dating from sometime between 1739 and 1753 is left as follows:

These circular spinning machines (also known as 'throwing machines'), were the most progressive feature of the factory. Also, they used the single source of power (water), and employed many organized workers (200-400, according to recent sources). Due to these total process of production from raw silk to fine quality thread, the Lombes' silk mill is regarded as the first successful use of the factory system in Britain.

The Silk Mill was visited by many tourists. For example, Boswell visited there in September 1777. Not all visitors thought that the mill was in good condition. Torrington commented on the "heat, stinks and noise". In 1835, Fairholt was shocked at unhealthy poor children. Foreign visitors also visited the mill during their trips.

William Hutton was once the employees and he later recalled the long hours, low wages and beatings. Work only stopped in time of extreme dryness or frost, or lack of silk supply. But in August 1748, unofficial holidays were taken during elections and Derby races.

The partnership of Wilson and Lloyd ended in 1753 due to quarrel and legal suits. Lloyd remained in possession of the building and machinery.

In 1765 Thomas Bennet bought the mill from Lloyd subject to a mortgage to the Wilson family but the mill was neglected for years, because other mills in Derby and Cheshire had grown to become competitor, and silk trade itself had declined.

Lamech Swift became the sub-tenant in 1780. He paid £7 to the Corporation and £170 to Thomas Wilson (brother of Richard and William) per year respectively. He conflicted with the corporation on repairs to dams in 1781, he remained in occupation until the lease expired in 1803.

The Corporation advertised the lease in 1803 to run for 60 years. The advertisement said that the "Italian works" was still used for throwing silk.

In November 1833, labor movements began in Derby which led to the formation of the Grand National Trades Union in February 1834. Several months later, Tolpuddle Martyrs occurred. The Silk Mill was not at the centre of the movements, Taylor (the mill's lessee at this time) was one of the employers who agreed not to employ any worker who was a union member. By the middle of April 1834 Taylor reported that two-thirds of his machinery was working and many of his former workers were applying for reinstatement. According to "The Derby Mercury" some of the former unionists were never able to find next employment in Derby. This event is commemorated by a march organized by the Derby Trades Union Council every year on the weekend before MayDay.

The Taylor family remained in occupation of the mill but in 1865 they ruined and were forced to sell their machinery and lease. "The Derby Mercury" advertised many silk mills for sale that year, and it were obvious that a general depression was hitting the industry. This took place four years before the Cobden Treaty with France which is said to have effectively destroyed the British silk industry.

The long connection with silk production ended in about 1908 when F.W. Hampshire and Company, the Chemists, moved into the buildings to make fly papers and cough medicines. On 5 December 1910 at 5.00 am, fire broke out in the near flour mill of Sowter Bothers and soon the flame spread to the Silk Mill. The mill's east wall fell into the river and the whole building was burnt up. Great efforts were made by the Borough Fire Brigade and the Midland Railway Company who saved the shell of the tower and the outline of the doorways leading into the original five floors. These can still be seen today on the tower staircase. The building was rebuilt at the same height but with three stories instead of five and remains that way today.

During the 1920s the building passed ownership to the Electricity Authority. They used it partly as stores, workshops and a canteen. Hidden from the road by the power station, the mill's existence was largely forgotten by the general public until the power station was removed in 1970. It was then converted into Industrial Museum which Derby had proposed for a long time. The museum opened on 29 November 1974.

Closure and mothballing in 2011
Derby City Council closed the museum on 3 April 2011 in order to free funds for the redevelopment of the Silk Mill museum and other museums in the city. The Report of the Strategic Director of Neighbourhoods (Item 7 put before the Council Cabinet meeting held on the 26 October 2010) indicated that 8.6 full time jobs would be lost but on the contrary £197,000 would be saved to offset the loss of "Renaissance Programme" funding. No date for the re-opening of the museum is given in the report, although a period of two years has been reported.

Sources

Sources of information:
 Derby Industrial Museum, Derby Evening Telegraph and Derby Library Service. (1999)
 The Derby Lock-Out and the origins of the labour movement Bill Whitehead (2001)
 Struck out! Derby in Crisis: the Silk Mill Lock-Out 1833-4, Derby, H. E. Butterton (1997)

Other websites

Grade II listed buildings
Museums in Derby
1974 establishments in England

Derby Industrial Museum


James Edward Gordon (UK, 1913–1998) was one of the founders of materials science and biomechanics, and a well-known author of three books on structures and materials, which have been translated in many languages and are still widely used in schools and universities.

Biography

Gordon graduated in naval architecture at Glasgow University. During World War II he worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE); here he studied composite materials, wooden aircraft, plastics and new materials of many types. He designed the rescue dinghies for most bomber aircraft used in the war, and studied the strength and behaviour of reinforcement fibres made of glass, carbon, boron and other materials.

After the war he worked at Tube Investments (TI) at the Group Research Laboratory, Hinxton Hall, near Cambridge.

From 1962 he was head of a new branch at the Explosives Research and Development Establishment (ERDE), Waltham Abbey dealing with completely new structural materials. Some of his discoveries are still applied in the construction of fibre-reinforced parts for aircraft and rockets.

Titles and awards

Industrial Fellow Commoner at Churchill College, Cambridge.
Professor of Materials Technology at the University of Reading.
British Silver Medal of the Royal Aeronautical Society
Griffith Medal of the Materials Science Club

Works
The New Science of Strong Materials or Why You Don't Fall Through the Floor - Pelican Books, 1968 -
Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down - Pelican Books, 1978 -
The Science of Structures and Materials - Scientific American Library, 1988 -

References
 J.E.Gordon's profile on Penguin site.
 Jeronimedis & Gordon's work with wood toughness
 Introduction, by Philip Ball, from J.E. Gordon's "The New Science of Strong Materials"
 Article - Nature as an Engineer" New Scientist 17 Feb 1972 on Googlebooks

British materials scientists
1998 deaths
1913 births
Alumni of the University of Glasgow

J. E. Gordon


For the toy, see marbles
Marble is a metamorphic rock that developed from limestone. Most of the material is calcite (a crystalline form of calcium carbonate, CaCO3) and dolomite. It is often used for sculpture, as a building material, and for many other purposes.

The word 'marble' is also used for other stones that can be polished well and for ball shaped objects used for child games.

'Faux marble' is a wall painting technique that imitates the color patterns of real marble (not to be confused with paper marbling). Marble dust can be combined with cement or synthetic resins to make reconstituted or cultured marble.

Marble has been used in construction for thousands of years. It was widely used by Greek and Roman sculptors and architects. Places named after the stone include Marble Arch, London; the Sea of Marmara; India's Marble Rocks; and the towns of Marble, Minnesota; Marble, Colorado; and Marble Hill, Manhattan, New York. The Elgin Marbles are marble sculptures from the Parthenon that are on display in the British Museum.  They were brought to Britain by the Earl of Elgin.

Construction marble

In the construction trade, the term "marble" is used for any massive, crystalline calcitic rock (and some non-calcitic rocks) useful as building stone.

Examples
Purbeck marble is a fossiliferous limestone found in the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula in south-east Dorset, England. It has been quarried since at least Roman times as a decorative building stone. The industry is no longer active.

Tennessee marble is really a massive, highly fossiliferous gray to pink to maroon Ordovician dolostone, known as the Holston Formation by geologists.  "Tennessee marble" is not true marble.  Its crystalline nature gives it a resemblance to marble, especially when polished.

Carrara marble is a genuine marble. It is white or blue-grey and of high quality, popular for use in sculpture and building decor. It is quarried at the city of Carrara in the Lunigiana, the northernmost tip of modern-day Tuscany, Italy. The illustration shows the Pietà, which is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture by Michelangelo. It is in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, and is the only piece Michelangelo ever signed.

Industrial use of marble
Colorless marbles are a very pure source of calcium carbonate, which is used in a wide variety of industries.  Finely ground marble powder is a component in paint, toothpaste, and plastics; calcium carbonate can also be reduced under high heat to calcium oxide (also known as "quicklime"), which has many uses including being a primary component of most cements.

Related pages
list of minerals
limestone
granite
sandstone

Other websites

Inlaid marble
Tips for cleaning marble
Learning to carve by Marc Levoy.

References

Metamorphic rocks
Building materials
Carbonate rocks

Marble


Roy Lee Johnson (born December 31, 1938) is an American R&B and soul songwriter, singer and guitarist. He is best known for his composition "Mr. Moonlight", which has been covered by many artists, including The Beatles. Johnson is recognized as an influence on the bands that made up the British Invasion.

He was born in Centralhatchee, Georgia, and began playing guitar as a child.  Around 1955, he joined his first band, The Brassettes, who included Robert Ward and who played local dances in and around Hogansville.  After the band won a talent contest in Atlanta, they recorded Johnson's song, "Nobody Does Something For Nothing", for the small Stat label. In the late 1950s, Johnson moved to Ohio, joining Ward in the Ohio Untouchables.  However, by 1961 he had returned to Atlanta, and began playing in Piano Red's band, the Interns.  His song "Mister Moonlight", which he had written in high school, was first recorded by Piano Red, credited as "Dr. Feelgood and the Interns", and released in 1962 as the b-side of "Doctor Feel-Good" on OKeh 4-7144.

Johnson left the Interns in about 1963, and released his first solo record, "Too Many Tears", on OKeh that year.  Neither it nor its follow-up, a reworked "Nobody Does Something For Nothing", were successful.   However, in 1964 the Beatles covered "Mr. Moonlight" on the album Beatles for Sale (on Beatles '65 in the US), the success of which allowed Johnson to form his own band.  He recorded three singles for Columbia Records in 1966-67, including "My Best Just Ain't Good Enough", and another single for the Josie label. Otis Redding, for whom he had previously been a support act, then introduced him to Phil Walden, who recorded three singles with him in 1968 at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, featuring the studio rhythm section.  The singles included "Cheer Up, Daddy's Coming Home" and "Take Me Back And Try Me", but again were not hits.   He then formed a new band, Roy Lee Johnson & The Villagers, who recorded a self-titled album for Stax Records in 1973, influenced by the funk style of James Brown.  However, the band broke up after the sudden death of 21-year-old bass player Michael James.

He continued to release occasional singles in the late 1970s and 1980s, setting up his own studio and continue to perform with various bands.  In the early 1990s, tracks he had recorded were released in England as the album All Night Long (Howzat LBW1).  He released another album, When a Guitar Plays the Blues, in 1998.

References

1938 births
Living people
People from Heard County, Georgia
African-American male singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American rhythm and blues singers
American soul singers
American rock songwriters
Stax Records artists
Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state)
20th-century American guitarists
African-American guitarists
20th-century African-American male singers
Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)

Roy Lee Johnson


The Cave is a puzzle-platform, adventure game developed by Double Fine Productions and published by Sega in January 2013 on the PlayStation Network, Nintendo eShop and Xbox Live Arcade storefronts via the PlayStation 3, Wii U and Xbox 360 consoles and on Steam for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux. It was later released on October 3, 2013 on iOS devices and Android. On December 2, 2013 it was also released on the Ouya. The game has been delisted from console storefronts as of April 2, 2018, making it a Steam exclusive until 2023.

The game was created by Ron Gilbert, building on an idea that he has had for nearly twenty years about a cave that lures people into it to explore their darker personality traits.  The game is rated "teen" for blood and violence.  The game borrows concepts from his earlier 1987 game, Maniac Mansion, such as the player initially selecting three different characters from a cast of seven to explore the Cave. Many of the game's puzzles require the three characters to work in coordination to complete, while some puzzles are specific to the unique abilities of a character; in this manner the Cave can only be fully explored through multiple play-throughs.

Gameplay
The Caves story is based on a magical talking cave (voiced by Stephen Stanton) with a labyrinthine set of tunnels within it. Seven characters, drawn from across time and space and harboring dark secrets, have come to the Cave, believing they can "learn something about themselves and who they might become", as stated by Gilbert. In one example, a knight character goes to a princess for her amulet, which is the key to unlocking the pulling of the sword, who tells him to bring the treasure the dragon is guarding. The knight then succeeds, but forgets to close the gate to the dragon's den, in turn causing the dragon to eat the princess and coughing up the amulet. The knight then goes to the king with the amulet and is allowed to pull the sword, which was impossible at first due to the many rocks beneath it - however, our characters overcome it by blowing it with dynamite. He then pulls out the sword, and the king "ran off to congratulate his favorite daughter", but then gets eaten by the dragon as well. At the start of the game, the player selects three of the seven characters, which they are then locked to for the remainder of the game; players can restart a new game to select a different trio of characters. The characters are based on stereotypical figures, such as a hillbilly, a pair of twins (acting as one character), and a scientist.

As the player controls the trio to explore the Cave, they collect objects and interact with the environment in a manner similar to an adventure game. The exploration of the game is based on 2D platformer elements, though the game is presented with 3D graphics. Exploration is described as being "Metroidvania"-like, where more of the Cave's tunnels and chambers become accessible as players collect objects in a manner similar to Metroid or Castlevania. The player will need to work with all three characters, switching between them typically to activate multiple parts of a puzzle; one example shown in early press demonstrations was to use one character to ring a bell to distract a monster, a second character to repair a hot dog vending machine so to provide bait, and a third to operate a giant claw machine to pick up the monster to clear their path. Each character has a unique ability to aid in maneuvering the cave tunnels, leaving some areas inaccessible if the appropriate characters aren't chosen at the start; for example, the adventurer is able to swing herself across gaps with a rope, while the time traveler can phase shift a short distance, passing through closed gates. In addition, some areas of the Cave are accessible only to one of the specific characters; such as the knight finding a castle or the scientist discovering a laboratory; these areas represent the deep desires and dark aspects of a character that lured him or her to the Cave in the first place. While there are hazards that can kill a character, the character respawns shortly afterwards nearby, allowing the player to reattempt the move. Throughout the game will be iconographs for each of the three characters, which the player will need to get near to activate; these provide one of several still art images that reveal the character's back-story.

The game is primarily a single-player game, but up to three players can participate cooperatively on the same computer or console, each controlling one of the three selected characters.

Development
Ron Gilbert has been working with adventure games since his days at LucasArts, including several collaborations with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman; together, they developed games like Maniac Mansion, its sequel Day of the Tentacle, and the first games in the Monkey Island series. Gilbert left LucasArts in 1992, initially creating his own development studio Humongous Entertainment, but then moving on to other games, including contributing to Telltale Games' episodic series, Tales of Monkey Island based on the LucasArts series. Meanwhile, Schafer would stay with LucasArts until the adventure game market fell in the late 1990s, and created his own studio, Double Fine Productions, with several of the former LucasArts developers. Though Double Fine struggled with well-received but financially unsuccessful titles Psychonauts and Brütal Legend, it became successful in marketing four smaller games developed during an "Amnesia Fortnight" period in Brütal Legends development between 2010 and 2011.

Gilbert has stated that the idea of The Cave has been one he has had for a long time; he said, of his idea, "People have really dark secrets, and going into a cave which is really dark and deep… that metaphor really resonated with me". While still at LucasArts, Gilbert had drawn out parts of a labyrinthine cave complex on paper, but the idea never expanded beyond that at that point. Prior to Gilbert's employment at Double Fine, he and Schafer continued to discuss game development and ideas; Gilbert had mentioned this cave idea, prompting Schafer to suggest him coming to work at his company to develop the idea. By September 2010, Gilbert was officially part of Double Fine to work on The Cave; at the time, Gilbert had stated that the yet-named title was "an entirely new concept" and that "fans of those old adventure games will like it". The timing of larger development of The Cave coincided with the resurgence in adventure games such as those produced by Telltale Games, and the success of the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter. Gilbert also considered that with casual games becoming more mainstream and acceptable, the market can handle niche games such as adventure games which do not require fast reflexes. Despite the market potential, Gilbert found that pitching the game to publishers was still a challenge, as they did not perceive that a market would exist for such games. Through the act of pitching the game to publishers for the first time in his career, Gilbert had to move away from the free-form design he had used on previous titles and set out plans for the game as a whole, which he found as a benefit; the need to present information to potential publishers required him to think about the game as a whole while still allowing smaller elements to be added in at a later date as they saw fit.

The Caves gameplay development was based on three defining factors in Gilbert's mind: having the player select three of a number of characters to explore the cave, to offer a "light" platforming element to offer other challenges outside of puzzles, and to avoid the use of an inventory system. Gilbert's earlier Maniac Mansion influenced him to revisit the concept of having several playable characters that the player can switch between. Gilbert noted that within Maniac Mansion, several of the characters have minimal use within the game, and sought to correct that within The Cave by giving equal weight to each of the seven playable characters. Gilbert recognized that with seven characters the player would need to play the game three times to see all the character-specific content in the game, but felt this was still a good number to use. He recognized that from Maniac Mansion, players would tend to gravitate towards or away from certain characters, and may always want to play with one specific character in the game. Gilbert maintained the same count in The Cave for this reason. While other aspects of Maniac Mansion may have influenced other design decisions within The Cave, Gilbert considered these less likely to have been conscious decisions on his part. The structure of the Cave within the game was designed to give each character a large unique area to explore, as to avoid the scenario where "you play it again and 95 percent is the same".

While the game is part platformer, Gilbert's intent was not to make it a challenge to traverse the Cave noting that it is nearly impossible to die by missing a jump. Instead, the platforming elements were added as to add variety to moving about the Cave, recalling that in the development of the Monkey Island games, players would become bored walking the same area over and over again. Gilbert's aim for the game's puzzles was to keep them less demanding to allow the game's story and visuals to be the main focus of the player's attention, comparing this to similar methods used in the game Limbo. Gilbert did not want to penalize players for cheap or permanent character deaths, feeling that the death-and-respawn approach would be taken as "a minor set-back".

Similarly to reduce the game's complexity, he did not include a typical inventory system as with most adventure games; each character can carry a single object, which is shown being carried on screen, aiding as visual aids for puzzle solving instead of having to sort through multiple inventory screens.  Gilbert wanted the game to be playable by several people, recounting his youth experience of playing the text-based Colossal Cave Adventure with several of his friends, working together to solve puzzles. Similarly, Gilbert took into account that his older games were designed for a different audience, where developers "needed to provide 40 hours of gameplay, because that was the standard" while players "wanted to be bashing their heads against the screen for days on end" to solve comparatively hard puzzles; instead, The Cave was designed to be "more forgiving" and "more accommodating" to the modern audiences.

Gilbert compared the development of the world, characters, and puzzles similar to his past LucasArts adventure games. For example, Gilbert identified the mansion as the "genesis" for the rest of Maniac Mansion; in a similar manner, the team for The Cave first created the environs of the Cave, leading to the development of characters that would likely inhabit or visit the Cave, fleshing their individual roles out into a larger story and eventually into designing key puzzle elements for the game. Gilbert had started with more ideas for playable characters, up to 20 or 30 based on common stereotypes including an opera singer and a CIA agent, but discarded these when he could not flesh out their reasons for wanting to go to the Cave, and keeping others that he considered his favorites. Gilbert also sought to provide an equal number of characters of each gender, using the twins – a boy and girl – to satisfy this requirement.

The Cave is a sentient character in the game, following on Gilbert's idea that the Cave has witnessed all of human evolution over time and mankind's fascination with caves, and thus would be an interesting character within the story. This made it a challenge in writing the story, as the Cave acts as a narrator alongside other voiced non-player characters, but the main playable ones will remain silent. This also allowed Gilbert to keep a sense of mystery about the playable characters; if they were voiced, the dialog would have likely explicitly spelled out their reasons for being in the Cave, while their ultimate goals remain shrouded if they were silent. A cartoon-ish art style, with the characters having larger-than-normal heads and more exaggerated movements, was chosen to allow the characters to still express themselves in a manner that can easily be seen by the player.

Two months after the release of The Cave, Gilbert announced he was leaving Double Fine after setting out to complete the game he wanted, and was time to "move on" and "plot my next move". The departure was on completely amiable terms with the company, according to Gilbert. Gilbert further clarified that his employment at Double Fine had always been  specifically to develop The Cave with no firm plans beyond that; further collaborative efforts with Double Fine remain a possibility in the future. He stated that he considers himself a "nomad" in game development, preferring smaller teams, and was already working with a former collaborator from Deathspank towards a new mobile game.

Release
Work on the game had been progressing for about a year at Double Fine prior to the game's announcement; Gilbert stated that the six months prior to that period from when he was hired into the studio was used to start developing the ideas for them, with more earnest work by a larger team starting when they identified Sega as their publisher.

As the game's full announcement neared, Gilbert used his blog to tease parts of the game's artwork done in collaboration with Double Fine's art team. Double Fine would later trademark the name "The Cave", affirming this was unrelated to the Double Fine Adventure game that was funded through Kickstarter. Just prior to its announcement, Gilbert provided more artwork which some noted fit perfect within an image published by Sega on their blog, suggesting that the project would be published by the latter. The game was formally announced as The Cave on May 24, 2012, with Sega as Double Fine's publisher for the downloadable title. Schafer participated as creative director for the title. Sega opted to publish the title as part of its growth into downloadable titles; Hakuri Satomi, Sega's Vice President for digital business, called out to the game's originality and valued the experienced and creativity of Gilbert and the Double Fine team. The game was initially set for release on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and Xbox 360 consoles, but Gilbert has stated they are looking into an iOS version and other touch-based platforms, though have not committed yet; specifically they have encountered a technical limitation in iOS that may prevent them from bringing the game there. Double Fine has announced that they will also develop a version for the Android-based Ouya console.

Technically, the game is being developed with the Microsoft Windows platform as the core, as Gilbert did not want this version to feel like a console port; Gilbert also attests that he is "primarily a [personal computer] gamer" and wanted to stay true to the platform. Windows users pre-ordering the title on Steam also obtained themed items for Team Fortress 2 based on the Hillbilly character's outfit. The Mac OS X version was announced alongside the release date, with Windows and Mac OS X users able to take advantage of Steam Play to use the title within either operating system. The versions for other platforms will be virtually identical to each other, with Gilbert stating that they "did work really hard to ensure that visually everything you're seeing is identical" between the console versions. The Wii U version will use the Wii U GamePad as a character selection device as well as to shift focus to the character on the screen, but otherwise will add no new features.

From IOS 11 The Cave will no longer be supported and will not be available to buy from the app store.

In 2023, the rights of the game reverted back to Double Fine Productions and Xbox Game Studios and the game was released to Xbox Game Pass and GOG.com on July 18, 2023.

Reception

The Cave was met with mixed reviews. Aggregating review website Metacritic gave the Xbox 360 version 70/100, the PlayStation 3 version 72/100, the PC version 68/100, and the Wii U version 72/100. Several journalists acknowledged the wit and humor of Gilbert and Double Fine, but found puzzles to be too simple and require too much tedious traversing of non-dangerous areas of the cave.

References

Notes

External links

2013 video games
Adventure games
Android (operating system) games
Double Fine games
IOS games
Linux games
MacOS games
Ouya games
PlayStation 3 games
PlayStation Network games
Sega video games
Video games developed in the United States
Wii U eShop games
Windows games
Xbox 360 Live Arcade games
Platformers

The Cave (video game)


T-Mobile is a mobile (cell phone) network operator headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It was founded in 1990 and is a part of Deutsche Telekom and belongs to the FreeMove alliance.

T-Mobile is a group of mobile phone companies (all owned by Deutsche Telekom) that operate GSM and UMTS networks in Europe and the United States. The "T" stands for "Telekom". Most subsidiaries (companies) of Deutsche Telekom have names beginning with "T-" like T-Home and T-Online. T-Mobile also owns parts of mobile operators in Eastern Europe. Globally, T-Mobile has 101 million subscribers, making it the world's sixth-largest mobile phone service provider by subscribers and the third-largest multinational after the United Kingdom's Vodafone and Spain's Telefonica.

T-Mobile International has a large presence in eleven European countries: Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, North Macedonia, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and the United Kingdom as well as in the United States.

Deutsche Telekom recently tried to buy rival mobile network operator O2, but it was eventually bought by Spain's Telefonica.

As well as football kit sponsors for FC Bayern Munich, Ferencvárosi TC, The Blues City and Borehamwood, T-Mobile is also a sponsor of several sports events, some of which carry the company name. For example, it sponsors its own cycling team, the T-Mobile Team, and the Austrian first division football competition, the T-Mobile Bundesliga. It was also the official global mobile phone carrier for the 2006 FIFA World Cup (football) in Germany.

References

1990 establishments in Germany
Telephone companies of Europe
Mobile phones
Bonn
Technology companies of Germany

T-Mobile


Gustav Behrend (10 January 1847 – 1925) was a German dermatologist who was a native of Neustettin (today- Szczecinek, Poland).

In 1870 he received his medical doctorate at the University of Berlin, and during the Franco-Prussian War, he served as an assistant at the Reserve Lazareth in Berlin. In 1882 he became a lecturer at Berlin, and in 1891 was appointed chief physician at the Municipal Dispensary for Sexual Diseases. In 1897 he received the title of professor.

Behrend specialized in the fields of dermatology and syphilology, also dealing with the subject of prostitution. He was the author of numerous publications, including a well-regarded textbook on skin diseases, titled Lehrbuch der Hautkrankheiten (1883). He also contributed a number of articles to Albert Eulenburg's Real-Encyclopädie der gesamten Heilkunde.

Selected written works
 Ueber Erythema Exsudativum Multiforme Universale, (1877) - On erythema exudativum multiforme.
 Pemphigus, Syphilis Hæmorrhagica etc., (1879) - Pemphigus, syphilis hemorrhagica.
 Ueber Pityriasis, zur Lehre von der Vererbung der Syphilis etc., (1881) - On pityriasis.
 Über vaccinale Hauteruptionen (1881) - On vaccinal skin eruptions.
 Lehrbuch der Hautkrankheiten, (1883) - Textbook of skin diseases.
 Ueber Komplikation von Impetigo Contagiosa und Herpes Tonsurans, (1884) - On impetigo contagiosa and herpes tonsurans.
 Wirkung des Lanolin bei Hautkrankheiten etc., (1886) - Effects of lanolin for skin diseases.
 Ueber Anthrarobin, (1888) - On anthrarobin.
 Nervenläsion und Haarausfall, (1889) - Nerve damage and hair loss.
 Ueber die Gonorrhoebehandlung Prostituirter, (1898) - Treatment of gonorrhea in prostitution.

References
 Pagel: Biographical Dictionary outstanding physicians of the nineteenth century. Berlin, Vienna, 1901, M. 124–125.

1847 births
1925 deaths
People from Szczecinek
Physicians from the Province of Pomerania
German dermatologists
Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin

Gustav Behrend


The Southern United States (also known as the Southern States or The South among Americans) is a term for the Southeastern part of the United States. All Confederate states were in the South, but not all Southern states joined the Confederacy; those that did not join were called border states. The States farthest to the south are called the "Deep South". Even though Arizona, New Mexico and southern California are  geographically southern parts of United States, they are usually classified as the Southwestern United States and not the South (the climate, culture and ethnic makeup of the Southwest are also different from the South).

Most of the South is a land of long, hot summers. Winters are mostly short and cool. There is much rainfall. This combination gives the South a long growing season. Important crops include cotton, tobacco, peanuts, and peaches.

The cuisine of the Southern United States is distinct from other regions.

As defined by the United States Census Bureau, the states that make up "The South" are:
 Alabama
 Arkansas
 Delaware
 Florida
 Georgia
 Kentucky
 Louisiana
 Maryland
 Mississippi
 North Carolina
 Oklahoma
 South Carolina
 Tennessee
 Texas
 Virginia
 Washington, D.C. (although not a state)
 West Virginia

The border state Missouri is also sometimes considered Southern, although the Census classifies it as a Midwestern state.

Demographics
Except for Florida and Texas, most of the South did not have as many immigrants arriving from other countries as the rest of the United States did, in the late 19th and 20th centuries.  Most of the people in the South are of English, Scottish, or Irish ancestry, or the descendants of African-American slaves. Some Southerners identify themselves as being of "American" ancestry.

Census Regions of the United States

Southern United States


Coal is a hard rock which can be burned as a fossil fuel. It is mostly carbon but also contains hydrogen, sulphur, oxygen and nitrogen. It is a sedimentary rock formed from peat, by the pressure of rocks laid down later on top.

Peat, and therefore coal, is formed from the remains of plants which lived millions of years ago in tropical wetlands  (coal swamps), such as those of the late Carboniferous period (the Pennsylvanian).  Charcoal is made by wood heated in an airless space.

Coal can be burned for energy or heat. About two-thirds of the coal mined today is burned in power stations to make electricity. Like oil, when coal is burned its carbon joins with oxygen in the air and makes a lot of carbon dioxide, which causes climate change. Many people die early because of illnesses from air pollution from coal. Most countries are turning to other sources of energy, such as solar power and wind power. But new coal power plants are still being built in some parts of the world, such as China.

Coal can be roasted (heated very hot in a place where there is no oxygen) to produce coke. Coke can be used in smelting to reduce metals from their ores.

History

Coal was the most important fuel of the Industrial Revolution. Coal was an important part of rail freight in the UK in the 20th century, forming the greater part of several companies' freight volume.  Early in the 21st century most coal fired power stations in the United Kingdom and several other countries were closed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Types of coal

Under suitable conditions, plant material is transformed step by step into
 Peat is not yet coal.
 Lignite (brown coal) is the dirtiest coal, is about 60%-70% carbon, and is used as fuel for electric power generation. Jet is a compact form of lignite that is sometimes polished and has long been used as an ornamental stone.
 Sub-bituminous coal is used as fuel for steam-electric power generation. Also, it is a source of light aromatic hydrocarbons for the chemical synthesis industry.
 Bituminous coal is a dense rock, black but sometimes dark brown. It is a relatively soft coal that breaks and burns readily and quickly.  It used as fuel in power stations, and for heat and power applications in manufacturing, for blacksmithing; and to make coke to make steel.
 Anthracite is a harder, glossy, black coal.  It is longer burning, and used mainly for residential and commercial space heating.
 Graphite is difficult to burn and is not so commonly used as fuel. It is still used in pencils, mixed with clay. When powdered, it can be used as a lubricant.

Diamond is commonly believed to be the result of this process, but this is not true. Diamond is carbon but is not formed from coal.

Coal contains impurities. The particular impurities determine the use. Coking coal has little ash or sulfur or phosphorus. Those would spoil the iron made by the blast furnace.

Environmental problems

Coal, when burnt, gives off almost a third more carbon dioxide per unit of energy than oil, and 80% more than natural gas. Almost half of the carbon dioxide from people is because of burning coal so it is the biggest single cause of global warming. Coal contributes to acid rain and smog, especially when burned without scrubbers. Burning coal releases toxic chemicals, including soot, mercury, and carbon monoxide, which contribute to diseases such as cancer and asthma in both humans and wild animals. Coal mining, especially mountaintop removal mining, can damage large areas of land and destroy natural habitats. Higher grades of coal burn more cleanly than lower grades, although they still pollute more than other fuels. In addition to air pollution, burning coal produces toxic coal ash, which can cause water pollution if it is accidentally released into the environment. There are several underground mine fires burning throughout the world. These underground fires release toxic smoke into the air, and can also cause the ground above to collapse. The city of Centralia, Pennsylvania was evacuated and is now abandoned due to an underground coal mine fire.

Deaths and illness from pollution
Because of coal every year more than one hundred thousand people die early and millions of people get ill. Coal miners often get pneumoconiosis (black lung disease) from exposure to coal dust.

Protests against coal

Opposition to coal pollution was one of the main reasons the modern environmental movement started in the 19th century.

Peak coal

Peak coal means the year in which most coal is mined or burned. Many countries have already passed their peak coal years, for example Germany in 1985 and the United States in 2008. Now those countries are mining and burning less coal. But China still mines a lot of coal. The peak coal year for the world may have passed.

Energy
Compared to other non-renewable sources of energy, coal is inefficient and produces high amounts of greenhouse gases. Coal is commonly found and cheap.

Coal provides about a quarter of the world's heating.

Electricity
Coal-fired power stations produce 37% of the world's electricity.

Industry
Almost 70% of world steel production depends on burning coal.

Countries
The world's top coal producer is China, which produces about four billion tonnes each year. India, the United States, Australia, Indonesia and Russia also produce coal, less than a billion tonnes a year each. The largest exporter by far is Australia and the largest importers are China, India and Japan.

Related pages

 Coal mining
 Coal forests

References

Other websites
 Electricity Map countries where more coal is burned are usually darker brown on map
 National Coal Mining Museum for England

Basic English 850 words
Fossil fuels
Sedimentary rocks
Environmental issues
Hydrocarbons

Coal


Tabby cat, also known as grey tiger, or simply tabby is the name for domestic cats with fur coats of stripes, dots, lines or swirling patterns. These cats often have a mark that looks like the letter "M" on their foreheads. Tabbies are not a cat breed. Tabby cats are very common. About two-thirds of the world's cat population are tabbies.

The tabby pattern is in many pure breeds of cats, as well as in mixed breeds. The tabby pattern happens naturally because of cats' closest ancestor, the African Wildcat. It has the same colors and patterns.

Tabby patterns

There are four tabby patterns that are genetically different: mackerel, classic, spotted, and ticked.

There is also a fifth pattern that includes tabby as part of another basic color pattern.  The "patched" tabby is a calico or tortoiseshell cat with tabby patches (also known as "caliby" and "torbie").

 Mackerel tabby:
Mackerel is the original pattern and is by far the most common tabby pattern. The legs and tail have dark bars as do the cat's cheeks. A "mackerel tabby" has narrow stripes that run in parallel down its sides. This is what some people refer to as a "tiger."  An "M" shape appears on the forehead along with dark lines across the cat's cheeks to the corners of its eyes. Mackerels are also called 'Fishbone tabbies' probably because of the mackerel fish. A mackerel tabby pattern is the only striped coat pattern seen in domestic cats.

 Classic tabby:
The classic tabby cat (also known as "blotched" or "marbled") has a pattern usually in the colors of dark brown, ochre, and black; but sometimes grey.  Classic tabbies have the "M" pattern on their foreheads too. The body is marked with a whirled or swirled pattern (often called a "bullseye") on the cat's sides.  There is also a light colored "butterfly" pattern on the shoulders and three thin stripes (the center stripe is dark) running along its spine. Classic tabbies have dark stripes on their legs, tail, and cheeks. Classic tabby is a recessive trait, so these cats are not as common as mackerel tabbies.

 Ticked tabby:
A ticked tabby pattern makes a grizzly color of fur of dark and light bands or bars. These break up the tabby pattern into a "salt-and-pepper" look. Some stripes or bars can often be seen on the lower legs, face and belly and sometimes at the end of the cat's tail.

 Spotted tabby:
The spotted tabby has a gene that breaks up the mackerel tabby pattern so that the stripes appear as spots.  Sometimes, the stripes of a classic tabby's pattern may be broken into larger spots. Both large spot and small spot patterns can be seen in the Australian Mist, Bengal, Egyptian Mau, Maine Coon, and Ocicat breeds.

Colors
Tabbies may be brown, grey, orange, or calico, including dilute versions of these colors. The most common tabby color is brown. All orange cats are tabbies, and the orange portion of calico cats will always show tabby patterns. Since the orange gene is on the X chromosome, about 80% of orange tabby cats are male, and nearly all calico cats are female. Colorpoint cats (Siamese, Himalayan, etc) that are tabbies are referred to as lynx point. As with solid-color cats, tabbies may also be partly white, such as tuxedo or van patterns. The tabby pattern is not visible at all in the white portion.

History
The mackerel tabby pattern was the first tabby pattern in domestic cats. It is believed to have come from the African Wildcat and the European Wildcat. Both of these wild cats have a pale, striped tabby pattern. But when those breeds mixed, it made a more distinct mackerel tabby coat.  At first, the mackerel tabby was common in all domestic cats. But later, other tabby patterns happened because of mutations and selective breeding of the mackerel tabby. All domestic cats have the tabby gene. But the genes of some cat breeds hide the tabby appearance.

Related pages
 Brindle

References

Other websites

 Cat Coats and Genes: Closer to the origin of Tabby cats' stripes

Cats

Tabby cat


Hercules is a hero in Roman mythology. He is a mortal son of Alcmene and Zeus. Hercules is known for his great strength. In Greek mythology he is named Herakles, but he has some different stories.

Etymology
The name Hercules (Latin Herculēs) comes from the Etruscan Hercle. He was an Etruscan hero who was the equivalent to the Greek hero Herakles.

The twelve
In one of the more well known stories of Hercules, he had to complete twelve tasks. These tasks were:
Kill the Nemean Lion and bring back its fur. (Leo)
Kill the Lernaean Hydra.
Capture the Ceryneian Hind.
Capture the Erymanthian Boar.
Clean the Augean stables in a single day.
Kill the Stymphalian Birds.
Capture the Cretan Bull.
Steal the Mares of Diomedes.
Get the Girdle of Hippolyte.
Get the Cows of Geryon.
Steal the Apples of the Hesperides.
Capture Cerberus, the guardian dog of The Underworld and bring him back.

Other versions of the title Hercules
Hercules is also a character in Marvel Comics. He was an ally of the mighty Thor. He is the leader and a founding member of the super team the Champions. He was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1962.

Hercules also appears in the 1997 Disney movie of the same name, in which he is voiced by Tate Donovan.

Other websites

Roman mythology

Hercules


Cigarettes can be any dried leaf that people roll in thin paper to smoke, but the word is most often used to refer ones with dried tobacco leaves. The nicotine in the tobacco can be addictive to people. The nicotine from cigarettes makes people want to smoke more, even if they do not like the taste or its other effects.

The smoke also has other things that are bad for people's health. Many countries have laws saying who can smoke tobacco cigarettes and where they can smoke them. They can cause lung cancer, heart disease and many other diseases. Most packs of cigarettes have warning labels on them. Until the mid-1950s, cigarettes were advertised as being healthy or at least not harmful. Tobacco companies used images of doctors smoking in their advertisements to falsely convince the public that cigarettes were safe. Cigarettes were advertised as a remedy for throat irritation, the common cold, obesity, indigestion, and even asthma. Today, all of the major tobacco companies admit that cigarettes are harmful to health.

Dangers
Smokers have symptoms such as frequent coughing, chest pain, and breathlessness. Doctors say that people should not smoke, as it can harm almost every organ in the body.

Cigarette smoke contains many harmful substances. Among them are nicotine, tar, carcinogens and carbon monoxide.
 Nicotine is a drug that is addictive. It damages brain tissue.
 Tar is a sticky substance that kills cells and causes lung cancer.
 Carcinogens are substances that cause cancer.
 Carbon monoxide is a colourless and poisonous gas that stops hemoglobin from taking oxygen around the body.
 Filtered, light, ultra-light, menthol, natural, nicotine-free, and electronic cigarettes are just as harmful as regular cigarettes.
 Nicotine in cigarettes is as addictive as cocaine and heroin.
 Other tobacco products, such as cigars and chewing tobacco, are not a safe alternative to cigarettes.
 Improperly extinguished cigarettes are a common cause of house fires.
 Smoking near fuel or flammable chemicals can cause a fire or explosion.

Notable brands
 Marlboro
 Camel
 Lucky Strike
 Kool
 Pall Mall

References

Smoking

Cigarette


The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior members of the Nazi German government. It was held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The conference was to tell leaders of government departments that dealt with Jews, that Adolf Eichmann had been put in charge of the "Final Solution to the Jewish question" (in German: 'die Endlösung der Judenfrage'). They were expected to give the plan their full support. Heydrich presented a plan for removing the Jewish population of Europe and French North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) to German-occupied areas in eastern Europe. Those people that were fit, would be put to work on road building projects. It was expected that they would be worked to death. The survivors would be executed when the projects were finished. The plan was never carried out as planned, as it was based on the continued German occupation of Polish and Soviet lands. Instead, as the Soviet army gradually pushed back the German lines, most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe were sent to concentration or death camps, or killed where they lived. Because of the effort of historian Joseph Wulf, the Wannsee House, where the conference was held, is now a Holocaust Memorial.

Nazism
The Holocaust

Wannsee Conference


Ernest "Ernie" "Big Hoss" Warlick (July 21, 1932 – November 24, 2012) was a tight end from North Carolina Central University who played American collegiate and Professional Football as well as Canadian Professional Football.

Warlick was born in Hickory, North Carolina. After starring at Ridgeview High School and then North Carolina Central, he played 4 seasons with the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League.  He then joined the American Football League's Buffalo Bills in 1962.  He had an average of 17.2 yds/catch with the Bills, while the team earned three straight Eastern Division titles and two American Football League championships, and a 20.8 yds/catch average in 1964.  In 1964, he helped the Bills win their first AFL championship game against the San Diego Chargers, 20-7, when he caught two passes for 41 yards.  In the 1965 AFL championship game, when offensive linemen Billy Shaw and Dave Behrman were injured, Warlick helped bolster the Bills' offensive blocking in a double tight end offense. In that game, he also scored the first touchdown in the Bills' 23-0 victory over the Chargers, on an 18-yard pass from quarterback Jack Kemp.

He was selected to the American Football League All-Star Team every year he was in the league, in 1962, '63, '64, and '65.  He was the first African-American sportscaster on Buffalo television, was elected to the Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame in 1998, and received the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Distinguished Service Award in 2000.  In 2005, Warlick was inducted to North Carolina's Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Hall of Fame, honoring his basketball and football accomplishments at North Carolina Central.

See also
Other American Football League players

References

External links
Just Sports Stats

1932 births
2012 deaths
American football tight ends
Calgary Stampeders players
Buffalo Bills players
American Football League All-Star players
North Carolina Central Eagles football players
Sportspeople from Washington, D.C.
African-American players of American football
African-American players of Canadian football
American Football League players
20th-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American people

Ernie Warlick


This is a list of deserts.  It is sorted by the region of the world where the desert is at.

Africa
 Algerian Desert – part of the Sahara located in Algeria
Blue Desert – a desert in Egypt
Kalahari Desert – a desert covering much of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa
Karoo – a semi-desert region in South Africa
Libyan Desert – part of the Sahara located in Libya
Namib Desert – a desert in present day Namibia
Nubian Desert – a desert in present day Sudan
Owami Desert – a desert in Nigeria
Sahara Desert – the world's largest hot desert covering most of Northern Africa

Asia
 Cholistan – a desert in Pakistan
  Dasht-i-Margo SW Afghanistan
 Gobi – a desert in Mongolia and China
 Indus Valley Desert – a desert in Pakistan
 Kara Kum – a large Central Asian desert
 Kharan desert – a desert in Pakistan
 Kyzyl Kum – a desert in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
 Lop Desert – a desert in China
 Ordos – a desert in northern China
 Rub' al Khali – a desert  in Saudi Arabia
 Taklamakan – a desert in China
 Thal Desert – a desert in Pakistan
 Thar Desert – a desert in Pakistan and India
 Arabian Desert – a vast desert complex on the Arabian Peninsula comprising the Al-Dahna Desert, Empty Quarter, Nefud Desert and other deserts
 Dasht-e Kavir – a desert in central Iran
 Dasht-e Lut – a large salt desert in southeastern Iran
 Judean Desert – a desert in eastern Israel and the West Bank
 Maranjab Desert – a desert in central Iran
 Negev – a desert in southern Israel
 Ramlat al-Sab`atayn – a sandy desert in central & northeastern Yemen, part of the Empty Quarter
 Sinai Desert – a desert on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt
 Syrian Desert
 Wahiba Sands – a desert in Oman

Europe
 Accona Desert – a semi-desert in central Italy
 Bardenas Reales – a semi-desert in Navarre, Spain (455 km²)
 Błędowska Desert – a desert in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland (32 km²)
 Deliblatska Peščara – a desert Vojvodina, Serbia (300 km²)
 Highlands of Iceland – the interior plateau of Iceland; not a desert by climate, but one because precipitation goes into the volcanic soil so quickly that it is unavailable to plants
 Monegros Desert – a semi-desert in Aragón, Spain
 Oleshky Sands – a desert in Ukraine near Askania-Nova biosphere reserve (15 km in diameter)
 Oltenian Sahara – a desert about 80,000 hectares or 800 km² in the Romanian historical province of Oltenia
 Piscinas – a desert in southwest Sardinia, Italy (5 km²)
 Ryn Desert – a desert in western Kazakhstan and southeastern Russia, north of the Caspian Sea and southeast of the Volga Upland. It is the largest sandy desert in Europe
 Stranja Sahara - a desert in southeastern Bulgaria near the city of Burgas. It is about 80,000 hectares. It is near the borders of Turkey and northwestern Greece
 Tabernas Desert – a desert in Almería, Spain (280 km²)
 Pumas Desert - a desert in Spain (province)

North America
 Central Valley of California (which is divided into the Sacramento Valley in the north, and the San Joaquin Valley in the south) – this area has largely been changed, due to irrigation canals, to an agricultural area. It is technically a semi-arid climate
 Chihuahuan Desert
 Colorado Desert
 Mojave Desert
 Sonoran Desert

Oceania
 Central Desert – a central Australian desert
 Gibson Desert – a central Australian desert
 Great Sandy Desert – a northwestern Australian desert
 Great Victoria Desert – the biggest desert in Australia
 Little Sandy Desert – a western Australian desert
 Rangipo Desert – a barren desert-like plateau (with 1.5-2.5 m/yr rainfall) on the North Island Volcanic Plateau in New Zealand
 Simpson Desert – a central Australian desert
 Strzelecki Desert – a south-central Australian desert
 Tanami Desert – a northern Australian desert

South America
 Atacama – a desert in Chile and Peru, the driest place on Earth
 La Guajira Desert – a desert in northern Colombia and Venezuela
 Monte Desert – in Argentina, a smaller desert above the Patagonian Desert
 Patagonian Desert – the largest desert in the Americas, located in Argentina and Chile
 Sechura Desert – a desert located south of the Piura Region of Peru

Polar Regions
 Antarctica Desert – the largest desert in the world
 Arctic Desert – the second largest desert in the world
 North American Arctic – a large tundra in North America
 Russian Arctic – a large tundra in Russia

References

Geography-related lists

List of deserts


William III (1224 – 6 June 1251) was the lord of Dampierre from 1231 and count of Flanders from 1247 until his death. He was the son of William II of Dampierre and Margaret II of Flanders.

Margaret inherited Flanders and Hainault in 1244 and immediately the War of the Succession of Flanders and Hainault began between William and his brothers, the Dampierre claimants, and the children of Margaret's first marriage to Bouchard of Avesnes. Margaret favoured William and declared him her heir. In 1246, Louis IX of France intervened to arbitrate the conflict and declared Flanders to William and Hainault to John I of Avesnes. Margaret officially invested William as count in 1247.

In November of that year, William married Beatrice of Brabant, daughter of Henry II, Duke of Brabant and Marie of Hohenstaufen. They had no children. Meanwhile, the fight continued over Namur between the Dampierres and the Avesnes. On 19 May 1250, peace was signed. On 6 June the next year, William died at a tournament in Trazegnies. The war began anew with Guy, William's younger brother, taking up Flanders and the Dampierre claim.

Notes

References

Sources

William III
Counts of Flanders
1224 births
1251 deaths
13th-century peers of France
13th-century people from the county of Flanders
Christians of the Sixth Crusade
13th-century counts in Europe

William II, Count of Flanders


Carlos Alberto Ferreira Braga (March 29, 1907 – December 24, 2006), commonly known as Braguinha ("Little Braga") or João de Barro ("the Hornero"), was a Brazilian songwriter and occasional singer.

Life
He was born in Rio de Janeiro, where he lived all his life. Braga studied architecture in his youth, and, when he started to write songs, he adopted the pseudonym "João de Barro" (the name of a bird that builds elaborate mud nests), as his father wouldn't approve of seeing the family name associated with the world of samba and popular music, then on the fringes of society.

Braguinha is most famous for his Carnaval marchinhas (a genre of light-hearted songs related rhythmically to the military march). Many of those, some composed as early as the 1930s, have become standards of Brazilian popular music, being sung by revellers year after year during Carnaval celebrations. His marchinhas have been recorded by some of the best-known Carnaval singers of the 20th century, such as Carmen Miranda.

In 1937, Braguinha wrote the lyrics to "Carinhoso", composed by Pixinguinha twenty years earlier. The sophisticated samba-choro would become one of the most recorded songs in Brazilian musical history. Another beloved classic, the lyrical "Pastorinhas", was written in collaboration with legendary samba composer Noel Rosa.

He died on December 24, 2006, at the age of 99; the official cause of death was described as multiple organ failure caused by a general infection.

Selected discography
  (1929) Parlophon 78
 "Desengano"/"Assombração" (1929) Parlophon 78
 "Salada" (1929) Parlophon" 78
 "Não quero amor nem carinho" (1930) Parlophon 78
 "Dona Antonha" (1930) Parlophon 78
 "Minha cabrocha"/"A mulher e a carroça" (1930) Parlophon 78
 "Quebranto" (1930) Parlophon 78
 "Mulata" (1931) Parlophon 78
 "Cor de prata"/"Nega" (1931) Parlophon 78
 "Tu juraste... eu jurei"/"Vou à Penha rasgado" (1931) Parlophon 78
 "Samba da boa vontade"/"Picilone" (1931) 13.344 78
 "O amor é um bichinho"/"Lua cheia" (1932) Parlophon 78
 "João de Barro" (1972) RCA Victor LP
 "Viva Braguinha" (1985) LP
 "João de Barro e Coisas Nossas" (1983) Funarte LP
 "Yes, nós temos Braguinha" (1998) Funarte/Atração CD
 "João de Barro (Braguinha) — Nasce um compositor" (1999) Revivendo CD
 "João de Barro – A música do século, por seus autores e intérpretes" (2000) Sesc São Paulo CD

External links
Official page celebrating Braguinha's 90th birthday
Braguinha (João de Barro)
Carlos Alberto Ferreira Braga

1907 births
2006 deaths
Deaths from multiple organ failure
Musicians from Rio de Janeiro (city)
Brazilian male songwriters
Samba musicians

Braguinha (composer)


Henry Lee "Shot" Williams (May 21, 1938 – November 25, 2011) was an American blues singer. He got the nickname "Shot" from his mother at a young age, owing to his fondness for wearing suits and dressing up as a "big shot."

Biography
Williams grew up in the country close to his cousin and fellow blues man, Little Smokey Smothers. "Shot" moved to Detroit in 1954 and to Chicago in 1958. He joined Smothers there and began singing with Smokey's band in 1960 and a few years later joined Magic Sam's band as a vocalist. In 1962, Williams recorded his first singles for Chicago's Foxy label, "Hello Baby" and "I'm Trying". He recorded a series of singles for other labels, including King/Federal, Palos, Gamma, Shama and Tchula. His 1964 recording "Welcome to the Club" was a hit in Chicago, and was later covered by Little Milton for Checker Records in 1965. Another regional hit, "I Like Your Style", came out in 1969 and was covered by Junior Parker. Several more singles followed including the popular "Drop Your Laundry Baby". His first album under his own name, Country Disco, was released on the Roots label in 1977. In the 1980s, Williams released a slew of singles on labels including Tchula, 4-Way, True & Dis-Muke. He released an album on cassette with many of these cuts called I Like Your Style. In 1994, the Japanese label Vivid Sound released an album called, A Shot of Rhythm and Blues,  containing tracks Williams recorded in Memphis apparently for (but not released by) Quinton Claunch's SoulTrax imprint. The Black Magic label decided to give Lee a "Shot" behind his own band. The result, Cold Shot was released in 1995 and was voted the Best Blues Album of 1995 (New Recording - Soul/Blues) by Living Blues readers' poll.

His debut for Ecko Records, Hot Shot, brought Williams home to the "Southern Soul Blues" world with the hit "I'll Take The Risk".  In 2000, Williams scored another hit with She Made A Freak Out Of Me, followed by Somebody's After My Freak. Williams left the label again and recorded one disc for Charles Wilson's label called Let The Good Times Roll before returning to Ecko for four more albums.

In 2008, Williams signed with CDS Records. His first CD for the label was released in 2008 and produced the hits "It's Friday (Time To Get Paid)" and "Wrong Bed". Two more albums were released by CDS Records, I'm The Man For The Job and The First Rule of Cheating (2010).

Death
Williams died on November 25, 2011, aged 73, from undisclosed causes.

Discography
 Country Disco (Roots/TK 1977)
 A Shot Of Rhythm & Blues (Vivid Sound/Soul Trax 1994)
 Cold Shot (Black Magic 1995)
 Hot Shot (Ecko 1996)
 You Turn Me On (Diamond Lady 1999)
 She Made A Freak Out Of Me (Ecko 2000)
 Somebody's After My Freak (Ecko 2001)
 Let The Good Times Roll (Wilson 2002)
 Before The Honeymoon (Hot Spot 2002)
 Chicago Blues & Deep Soul Legend (Famous Grooves 2003)
 Get Down Tonight (Ecko 2004)
 Nibble Man (Ecko 2005)
 Starts With A P (Ecko 2006)
 Meat Man (Ecko 2006)
 Shot From The Soul (CDS 2008)
 The Best Of (Ecko 2009)
 I'm The Man For The Job (CDS 2010)
 The First Rule Of Cheating (CDS 2010)

References

1938 births
2011 deaths
American soul singers
American male singers
Soul-blues musicians
Singers from Mississippi
Place of death missing

Lee "Shot" Williams


Mark-Anthony Turnage (born Grays, Essex, 10 June 1960) is an English composer.  He is one of the most original composers in his country today.

Turnage studied at the Royal College of Music and won all the major prizes.  He became famous when he wrote an opera called Greek.  It is typical of his musical style: quite lyrical but also very dramatic and aggressive.  His music is often inspired by jazz.  Other works include Kai, Rockaby, Blood on the Floor, Dispelling the Fears, Drowned Out and Three Screaming Popes.  He has written music for the English National Opera, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Other websites

1960 births
Living people

20th-century English composers
21st-century English composers

Mark-Anthony Turnage


Carisbrooke Castle is the Isle of Wight's only remaining medieval castle. It was built on a Roman site. The castle earthworks were begun in 1070.
The shell keep was built on the site some 70 years later.  None of the Norman domestic buildings now remain.  The gatehouse with its drum towers dates from the 14th and 15th centuries.

In 1377 the French landed on the island but the castle was not attacked.

During Elizabethan times the threat of a Spanish invasion was avoided when the Spanish Armada was turned away at a nearby battle.  However, the castle was considerably altered to resist the new artillery.  Outer lines of defence were built enclosing the old castle.  The curtain walls, bastions, and bulwarks remain in good condition to this day.

Charles I was held as prisoner at the castle in 1647. An attempt to escape failed when he got stuck in the bars.

Later the castle was the occasional residence of the governor of the Isle of Wight and it became home to Princess Beatrice, youngest daughter of Queen Victoria, when she was governor.

Buildings and structures in the Isle of Wight
Castles in England
11th-century buildings and structures

Carisbrooke Castle


Flannel is a soft woven fabric, of various fineness. It usually does not have a nap, and instead gains its softness through the loosely spun yarn it is woven from. It is commonly used to make clothing, bed sheets, and sleepwear.

Flannel was originally made from carded wool or worsted yarn, but is now often made from either wool and cotton, or wool and synthetic fibre.

Flannelette

Flannelette is a light, napped cotton fabric imitating the texture of flannel. The weft is generally coarser than the warp. The flannel-like appearance is created by creating a nap from the weft; scratching it and raising it up. Flannelette can either have long or short nap, and can be napped on only one or two sides. It comes in many colours, both solid and patterned.

Weave

Flannel, flannelette and cotton flannel can be woven in either a twill weave or plain weave. The weave is often hidden by napping on one or both sides. After weaving, it is napped once, then bleached, dyed, or otherwise treated, and then napped a second time.

References

Woven fabrics

Flannel


George Lippard (April 10, 1822February 9, 1854) was a 19th-century American novelist, journalist, playwright, social activist, and labor organizer. He was a popular author in antebellum America.

A friend of Edgar Allan Poe, Lippard advocated a socialist political philosophy and sought justice for the working class in his writings. He founded a secret benevolent society, Brotherhood of the Union, investing in it all the trappings of a religion; the society, a precursor to labor organizations, survived until 1994. He authored two principal kinds of stories: Gothic tales about the immorality, horror, vice, and debauchery of large cities, such as The Monks of Monk Hall (1844), reprinted as The Quaker City (1844); and historical fiction of a type called romances, such as Blanche of Brandywine (1846), Legends of Mexico (1847), and the popular Legends of the Revolution (1847). Both kinds of stories, sensational and immensely popular when written, are mostly forgotten today. Lippard died at the age of 31 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 9, 1854.

Life and work

Early life
George Lippard was born on April 10, 1822, near Yellow Springs, in West Nantmeal Township, Pennsylvania, on the farm of his father, Daniel B. Lippard. The family moved to Philadelphia two years later, shortly after his father was injured in a farming accident. Young Lippard grew up in Philadelphia, in Germantown (presently part of the city of Philadelphia), and Rhinebeck, New York (where he attended the Classical Academy). After considering a career in the Methodist religious ministry and rejecting it because of a "contradiction between theory and practice" of Christianity, he began the study of law, which he also abandoned, as it was incompatible with his beliefs about human justice.  Following the death of his father in 1837, Lippard spent some time living like a homeless bohemian, working odd jobs and living in abandoned buildings and studios.  Life on Philadelphia's streets gave him firsthand knowledge of the effects the Panic of 1837 had on the urban poor.  Distressed by the misery he witnessed, "Lippard decided to become a writer for the masses."

Early writing career

Lippard then commenced employment with the Philadelphia daily newspaper Spirit of the Times. His lively sketches and police court reporting drew readers and increased the paper's circulation. He was but twenty when The Saturday Evening Post published his first story, a "legend" called "Philippe de Agramont."

Lippard wrote what he called "historical fictions and legends", which he defined as "history in its details and delicate tints, with the bloom and dew yet fresh upon it, yet told to us, in the language of passion, of poetry, of home!" These works, then, were not so much about what happened, as what Lippard believed ought to have happened. Some of his legendary romances include: The Ladye Annabel (1842); 'Bel of Prairie Eden (1848); Blanche of Brandywine (1846); The Nazarene (1846); Legends of Mexico (1847); and Legends of the Revolution (1847). One of the particular Legends of the Revolution was called "The Fourth of July, 1776," though it has come down to us under the name "Ring, Grandfather, Ring". The story was first published on January 2, 1847, in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier before being collected in Washington and His Generals. The story introduced "a tall slender man... dressed in a dark robe", left unidentified, whose stirring speech inspired the faint-hearted members of the Second Continental Congress to sign the Declaration of Independence. After the document was signed, Lippard claimed, independence was announced to the people by the ringing of the Liberty Bell on the 4th of July, causing its fabled crack, though this event did not happen. Another of Lippard's legends misrepresents somewhat the beliefs of Johannes Kelpius and his community of followers along the Wissahickon Creek; John Greenleaf Whittier relied on Lippard's legend about Kelpius for his long poem Pennsylvania Pilgrim. Another of Lippard's legends, "The Dark Eagle," about Benedict Arnold, was received uncritically by later readers, though few of its contemporary readers would have done the same. Many of the legends were republished in the Saturday Courier; another edition Legends of the Revolution was published 22 years after his death in 1876.

The Quaker City
George Lippard's most notorious story, The Quaker City, or The Monks of Monk Hall (1845) is a lurid and thickly plotted exposé of city life in antebellum Philadelphia. Highly anti-capitalistic in its message, Lippard aimed to expose the hypocrisy of the Philadelphia elite, as well as the darker underside of American capitalism and urbanization. Lippard's Philadelphia is populated with parsimonious bankers, foppish drunkards, adulterers, sadistic murderers, reverend rakes, and confidence men, all of whom the author depicts as potential threats to the Republic. Considered the first muckraking novel, it was the best-selling novel in America before Uncle Tom's Cabin. When it appeared in print in 1845, it sold 60,000 copies in its first year and at least 10,000 copies throughout the next decade.<ref>Reynolds, David. Introduction to The Quaker City; or The Monks of Monk Hall," Amerhest, MA, The University of Massachusetts Press, 1970: vii.</ref> Its success made Lippard one of the highest-paid American writers of the 1840s, earning $3,000 to $4,000 a year.The Quaker City is partly based on the March 1843 New Jersey trial of Singleton Mercer. Mercer was accused of the murder of Mahlon Hutchinson Heberton aboard the Philadelphia-Camden ferry vessel John Finch on February 10, 1843. Heberton had seduced (or raped - sources differ upon this point), Mercer's sixteen-year-old sister. Mercer entered a plea of insanity and was found not guilty. The trial took place only two months after Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart," a story based on other murder trials employing the insanity defense; Mercer's defense attorney openly acknowledged the "object of ridicule" which an insanity defense had become. Nonetheless, a verdict of not-guilty was rendered after less than an hour of jury deliberation, and the family and the lawyer of young Mercer were greeted by a cheering crowd while disembarking from the same Philadelphia-Camden ferry line on which the killing took place.  Lippard employed the seduction aspect of the trial as a metaphor for the oppression of the helpless. The Monks of Monk Hall outraged some  readers with its lingering descriptions of "heaving bosoms" but such descriptions also drew readers and he sold many books. A stage version was prepared but banned in Philadelphia for fear of riots. Though many were offended by the story's lurid elements, the book also prompted social and legal reform and may have led to New York's 1849 enactment of an anti-seduction law.

Lippard took advantage of the popularity of his novel The Quaker City to establish his own weekly periodical, also named The Quaker City. He advertised it as "A Popular Journal, devoted to such matters of Literature and news as will interest the great mass of readers". Its first issue was published December 30, 1848.

Social reformer
In 1850 Lippard founded the Brotherhood of the Union (later the Brotherhood of America), a secret benevolent society aiming to eliminate poverty and crime by removing the social ills causing them. His own title in the organization was "Supreme Washington". His legend-like vision was that such an organization would establish a means for men to sincerely follow a living religion. The organization grew and achieved a membership of 30,000 by 1917, but declined some time thereafter, ceasing to exist in 1994.

He was a popular lecturer, journalist, and dramatist, renowned for both the stories he wrote and for his relentless advocacy of social justice. He was a participant in the National Reform Congress (1848) and the Eighth National Industrial Congress (1853), and in 1850 founded the Brotherhood of the Union. He was not, however, immune from some of the particular prejudices of his day. The Monks of Monk Hall (also published as Quaker City) portrays a malevolent hump-backed Jewish character, Gabriel Van Gelt, one who forges, swindles, blackmails, and commits murder for money. Lippard's portrayal of blacks also reflects some of the stereotypes of his day; this is certainly hinted at in the lengthy full title of one of his sensational crime novels: The killers: A narrative of real life in Philadelphia: in which the deeds of the killers, and the great riot of election night, October 10, 1849, are minutely described : Also, the adventures of three notorious individuals, who took part in that riot, to wit: Cromwell D. Z. Hicks, the leader of the Killers; Don Jorge, one of the leaders of the Cuban expedition; and "The Bulgine," the celebrated Negro Desperado of Moyamensing. A bulgine is a derisive term for a nautical steam engine or a small dockside locomotive; the term is recalled in several folk songs, including the capstan shanty "Eliza Lee", also known as "Clear the Track, Let the Bulgine Run".

Unlike many labor reformers of his time, Lippard was an enthusiastic supporter of the Mexican–American War. In an 1848 speech, he argued that Western expansion could provide working-class Americans with an opportunity to establish themselves as landholders, and thus to escape the oppressive conditions of urban factories. His novels Legends of Mexico: The Battles of Taylor (1847) and  'Bel of Prairie Eden (1848) used Gothic conventions to represent the war as a heroic fulfillment of the American Revolution's egalitarian promise. Later in his career, Lippard seemed to grow more ambivalent about the war, and in 1851 he published a sketch called "A Sequel to the Legends of Mexico" in which he expressed a concern that the way he depicted the conflict in his novels might "lead young hearts into an appetite for blood-shedding".

Literary life
Many of his stories dealt with the early leaders of the United States, including George Washington and Benedict Arnold. Lippard particularly admired Washington and devoted more pages to him than any other writer of fiction up to that time, though his stories are often sensationalized and immersed in Gothic elements.  In one of his later stories Lippard relates that George Washington rises from his tomb at Mount Vernon to take pilgrimage of nineteenth-century America accompanied by an immortal Roman named Adonai. The pair travel to Valley Forge where they see a strange, huge building and hear chaotic, frightening noises. The building turns out to be a factory.

George Lippard married Rose Newman on May 15, 1847. In an unconventional ceremony they were married outdoors in the evening of a new moon while standing on Mom Rinker's Rock above the Wissahickon Creek. That year, Lippard moved to 965 North Sixth Street, a home in which Poe had used as his final home in Philadelphia before moving to New York.

His friendship with Edgar Allan Poe is notable. Poe gave Lippard credit for rescuing him from the streets on several occasions. He was more reserved about Lippard's artistic merits; possibly Poe's own artistic standards were too high to admit praise of Lippard's writing. This is ironic, because everything we generally associate with Poe was even more intense in Lippard's style. Lippard wrote an effusive obituary after Poe's death.

Final years
George Lippard's wife died on May 21, 1851, shortly after the March death of their infant son. Their daughter had died in 1850 at the age of 18 months.  In 1852, Lippard spoke in Philadelphia on the 115th birthday of Thomas Paine, attempting to redeem his political legacy and reputation, which had faltered somewhat due to his book The Age of Reason. In his version of Paine's life, Paine was responsible for convincing John Adams, Benjamin Rush, and Benjamin Franklin to seek American independence. He was also caught in a controversy with Philadelphia publisher, who incorrectly claimed that Lippard had agreed to publish exclusively with him. Other distributors suffered as a result and Lippard referred to Peterson as a "mercenary creature" who had "made his thousands of dollars off of me".

Death
Always frail, Lippard suffered from tuberculosis for the last years of his life.  Confined to his house with the disease, Lippard spent the final months of his life writing a newspaper story protesting against the Fugitive Slave Law.  He died on February 9, 1854, at his home, then 1509 Lawrence Street, shortly before attaining the age of 32. His last words were to his physician: "Is this death?" He was buried at Odd Fellows Cemetery at 24th and Diamond Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but his remains and an impressive  burial monument  were years later removed along with many other graves from this cemetery to Lawnview Memorial Park, an Odd Fellows Cemetery in Rockledge, Pennsylvania. His current monument was added by the Brotherhood of the Union.

Writing style and response

Lippard achieved substantial commercial success in his lifetime by purposely targeting a young working-class readership by using sensationalism, violence, and social criticism. Lippard acknowledged the influence of Charles Brockden Brown (1771–1810) on his writing and dedicated several books to him.

Lippard's writing has occasional glimmers of style, but his words are more memorable for quantity than for quality, and his writing for its financial success than for its literary style. He proved that one could make a living by wordsmithing. If he is remembered at all today, it is more for his social thinking, which was progressive, than for his language and literary style. One contemporary reviewer noted Lippard's efforts as a social critic: "It was his business to attack social wrongs, to drag away purple garments, and expose to our shivering gaze the rottenness of vice—to take tyranny by the throat and strangle it to death."

Nonetheless, the year before Lippard's death, Mark Twain mentioned him in a letter to home. During the short time Twain spent in Philadelphia working for The Philadelphia Inquirer, he wrote: "Unlike New York, I like this Philadelphia amazingly, and the people in it . . . . I saw small steamboats, with their signs up--'For Wissahickon and Manayunk 25 cents.' Geo. Lippard, in his Legends of Washington and his Generals, has rendered the Wissahickon sacred in my eyes, and I shall make that trip, as well as one to Germantown, soon . . . ."

Many of Lippard's fictions were received as historical fact. Probably the most famous person to quote a historical romance by George Lippard as though it were actual history is the late President Ronald Reagan, in a commencement address at Eureka College on June 7, 1957. Reagan quoted from George Lippard's "Speech of the Unknown" in Washington and His Generals: or, Legends of the Revolution (1847), which relates how a speech by an anonymous delegate was the final motivation that spurred delegates to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

After Lippard became successful as a novelist, he tried to use popular literature as a vehicle for social reform.

Works
 Philippe de Agramont (1842 July in Saturday Evening Post)
 Adrian, the Neophyte (1843)
 The Battle-Day of Germantown (1843)
 Herbert Tracy; or, The Legend of the Black Rangers. A Romance of the Battle-field of Germantown (1844)
 The Ladye Annabel; or, The Doom of the Poisoner. A Romance by an Unknown Author (1844)
 The Quaker City; or, The Monks of Monk Hall (anon., 1844) (full text page images at openlibrary.org)
 Blanche of Brandywine (1846) ( on-line text at Google Book Search)
 The Nazarene; or, The Last of Washington (1846)
 The Rose of Wissahikon; or, The Fourth of July, 1776. A Romance, Embracing the Secret History of the Declaration of Independence (1847)
 Washington and His Generals; or, Legends of the Revolution (1847) (on-line text at Google Book Search)
 Legends of Mexico (1847)
 Bel of Prairie Eden: A Romance of Mexico (1848)
 Paul Ardenheim, the Monk of Wissahikon (1848)
 Memoirs of a Preacher: A Revelation of the Church and the Home (1849)
 The Man with the Mask: A Sequel to the Memoirs of a Preacher. A Revelation of the Church and the Home (1849)
 Washington and His Men: A New Series of Legends of the Revolution (1850)
 The Killers: A Narrative of Real Life in Philadelphia By a Member of the Philadelphia Bar (1850)
 The Author Hero of the American Revolution (n.d.)
 The Bank Director's Son (1851)
 Adonai, the Pilgrim of Eternity (1851)
 Mysteries of the Pulpit; or, A Revelation of the Church and the Home (1851)
 Thomas Paine, Author-Soldier of the American Revolution (1852)
 The Midnight Queen; or Leaves from New York Life (1853) (online page images at Wright American Fiction)
 The Empire City; or, New York by night (1853)
 New York: Its Upper Ten and Lower Million (1854) (online page images at Wright American Fiction & on-line text at Google Book Search)
 Eleanor; or, Slave catching in Philadelphia (1854)
 The Life and Choice Writings of George Lippard (1855)
 The Legends of the American Revolution "1776" (1876) ()

Works
 "Rider of the Black Horse" by George Lippard
   "A Case of Starvation" by George Lippard in The Gallows, the Prison, and the Poor-house: A Plea for Humanity by George Washington Quinby at Google Book Search

See also

 Gothic fiction
 Antebellum South

References

External links

 George Lippard at Literary Gothic
 Open Library e-facsimile of Quaker City Partial e-text version of Quaker City "Monks, Devils and Quakers The lurid life and times of George Lippard, Philadelphia's original bestselling novelist" by Edward Pettit in the Philadelphia City Paper, March 22, 2007.
 "Poe's Devoted Democrat, George Lippard" by Emilio De Grazia in Poe Studies'', June 1973

1822 births
1854 deaths
19th-century American novelists
American male novelists
American socialists
Writers from Chester County, Pennsylvania
Romanticism
Novelists from Philadelphia
19th-century American dramatists and playwrights
19th-century American journalists
American male journalists
American male dramatists and playwrights
19th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis deaths in Pennsylvania
Burials at Lawnview Memorial Park

George Lippard