Opeth is a heavy metal band from Stockholm, Sweden. The band name came from the word Opet, which was the name of a city in the Wilbur Smith novel Sunbird. Opeth play progressive death metal (which comes from combining progressive rock and death metal). Opeth are also influenced by progressive rock, blues rock and jazz, and their songs often have both electric and acoustic parts. Opeth went on their first world tour after the release of their album Blackwater Park. The band's members have changed many times since Opeth started in 1990, but band member Mikael Åkerfeldt has always been present. Although he did not start the band, Åkerfeldt is the only band member to perform in every album. Opeth has released seven studio albums, two live albums, two box-sets, and two DVDs.

History

Formation (1990-1993)
Opeth was formed in 1990 by David Isberg. Isberg asked Mikael Åkerfeldt to play bass guitar for Opeth without telling any of the other Opeth band members. When Åkerfeldt showed up to play with the band the next day, the band members refused to throw out their bass player for Åkerfeldt and all band members but Isberg and Åkerfeldt left to form a new band. Lots of new band members joined and left the band. Anders Nordin joined Opeth to play drums, Nick Döring to play bass guitar and Andreas Dimeo to play electric guitar. Döring and Dimeo left the band after one show and were replaced by Kim Pettersson on electric guitar and Johan DeFarfalla on bass guitar. DeFarfalla and Pettersson left Opeth after their next two shows and Peter Lindgren joined to play electric guitar.

Isberg quit in 1992 and joined the band Liars in Wait. Now, Opeth only had Åkerfeldt singing, Nordin on bass guitar and Lindgren on electric guitar. These three members began writing new songs sounding less like typical death metal, and started using acoustic guitars and guitar harmonies, making Opeth a more progressive death metal band. Johan DeFarfalla began playing bass guitar again for Opeth and these four members recorded their first album, Orchid.

Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms, Your Hearse (1994–1998)
After touring the United Kingdom Opeth began to record their second album, Morningrise. The album had only five songs but was 66 minutes long. Morningrise was a big success, and the band toured the UK and Scandinavia playing songs from both albums. They signed a contract with Century Media, who re-released these two albums again in 1997. After the tour, Åkerfeldt and Lindgren fired DeFarfalla for personal reasons, which made Nordin, who was on a vacation in Brazil, leave the band and stay in Brazil. Martin Lopez, who played for Amon Amarth, joined Opeth in 1997 as well as bassist Martin Mendez just before recording their third album, My Arms, Your Hearse. However, Åkerfeldt had to play bass on some songs from My Arms, Your Hearse. The album was released on August 18, 1998, and was another big success. The album focused less on guitar harmonies and more on progressive metal riffs.

Still Life and Blackwater Park (1999-2001)
In 1999, Opeth signed with UK label Peaceville Records in Europe, which was distributed by Music For Nations. Opeth began work on their next album, but because of delays, the band was only able to rehearse twice before recording the album. Eventually, Still Life was released on October 18, 1999 (not in the United States until February 2001)). Still Life was the first album recorded with Mendez, and was also the first Opeth album to have the band's logo on the front cover. Still Life is a concept album, and Åkerfeldt explains that the album is about someone who "is kind of banished from his hometown because he hasn't got the same faith as the rest of the inhabitants there. The album pretty much starts off when he is returning after several years to hook up with his old 'babe'. The big bosses of the town know that he's back... A lot of bad things start happening."

After a few live shows in Europe, Opeth returned to work on their next album, with Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson producing. "This time it was tough", Åkerfeldt said, "I feel pleasantly blown away by the immense result, though. It was indeed worth the effort." Wilson also pushed the band to use new sounds and production techniques. "Steve guided us into the realms of 'strange' noises for guitars and voice", Åkerfeldt said. Opeth released its fifth studio album, Blackwater Park, on February 21, 2001. This release encouraged Opeth to go on their first world tour, headlined Europe and playing to a crowd of 60,000 at the 2001 Wacken Open Air festival in Germany.

Deliverance and Damnation (2002-2004)
After touring in support of Blackwater Park, Opeth returned home and began writing for the next album, but Åkerfeldt had trouble coming up with new material: "I wanted to write something heavier than we'd ever done, still I had all these great mellow parts and arrangements which I didn't want to go to waste." Jonas Renkse of Katatonia, a long-time friend of Åkerfeldt, suggested writing music for two separate albums—one heavy and one soft. Excited about the idea, Åkerfeldt agreed without asking his bandmates or record label. While his bandmates liked the idea of recording two separate albums, Åkerfeldt had to convince the label: "I had to lie somewhat... saying that we could do this recording very soon, it won't cost more than a regular single album". With most of the material written, the band rehearsed just once before entering the studio, again with producer Steven Wilson in Studio Fredman. Under pressure to complete both albums at the same time, Åkerfeldt said the recording process was "the toughest test of our history." After recording basic tracks, the band moved production to England to mix the heavy album, Deliverance, with Andy Sneap at Backstage Studios. "Deliverance was so badly recorded, without any organisation whatsoever," Åkerfeldt claimed, that Sneap "is credited as a 'saviour' in the sleeve, as he surely saved much of the recording."

Deliverance was released on November 4, 2002, and debuted at number 19 on the US Top Independent Albums chart, marking the band's first US chart appearance. Allmusic stated, "Deliverance is altogether more subtle than any of its predecessors, approaching listeners with haunting nuances and masterful dynamics rather than overwhelming them with sheer mass and complexity." Opeth played a single concert in Stockholm, then returned to the UK to finish recording vocals for the second of the two albums, Damnation, at Steve Wilson's No Man's Land Studios. Although Åkerfeldt first believed the band could not finish both albums, Opeth completed Deliverance and Damnation in just seven weeks of studio time, which was the same amount spent on Blackwater Park alone. Damnation was released on April 14, 2003, and gained the band its first appearance on the US Billboard 200 at number 192. The album also won the band a 2003 Swedish Grammy Award for "Best Hard Rock Performance". The band launched its biggest tour yet, playing nearly 200 shows in 2003 and 2004. Opeth performed three special shows in Europe with two song lists each—one acoustic set and one heavy set. The band recorded its first DVD, Lamentations: Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire 2003, at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London. The DVD featured a two-hour performance, including the entire Damnation album, as well as several songs from Deliverance and Blackwater Park, and a one-hour documentary about the recording of Deliverance and Damnation. The DVD was certified Gold in Canada.

Opeth was scheduled to perform in Jordan in late 2003 without a crew due to the fear of terrorist attacks in the Middle East. Opeth's tour manager distributed 6,000 tickets for the concert, but before the band left for Jordan, Lopez called Åkerfeldt saying he was having an anxiety attack and could not perform, forcing the band to cancel the show. In early 2004, Lopez was sent home from Canada after more anxiety attacks on tour. Opeth decided not to cancel the rest of the tour, and Lopez's drum tech filled in for two concerts. Opeth asked drummer Gene Hoglan of Strapping Young Lad to fill in. Lopez eventually returned to Opeth for the Seattle show on the final leg of the Deliverance and Damnation tour. Per Wiberg also joined the band on keyboards, and after more than a year on tour, Opeth went back home to start writing more new songs in 2004.

Ghost Reveries (2005-2007)
Opeth's European label, Music for Nations, closed its doors in 2005 and the band signed with Roadrunner Records. After writing material for their eighth album in late 2004, the band rehearsed for three weeks before entering the studio, the first time they rehearsed since the 1998 album, My Arms, Your Hearse. Opeth recorded at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden, from March 18 to June 1, 2005, and released the album Ghost Reveries on August 30, 2005, again to critical and commercial success. The album debuted at number 64 in the US, and number nine in Sweden, higher than any other Opeth release. Keith Bergman of Blabbermouth.net gave the album 10 out of 10, one of only 17 albums to achieve a perfect rating from the site.

On May 12, 2006, Martin Lopez announced that he had officially parted ways with Opeth due to health problems, and he was replaced by Martin Axenrot. Opeth toured on the main stage of Gigantour in 2006, alongside Megadeth. Ghost Reveries was re-released on October 31, 2006, with a bonus cover version of Deep Purple's "Soldier of Fortune" and a DVD of the making of the album. A recording of Opeth's live performance at the Camden Roundhouse, in London, on November 9, 2006, was later released as the double live album The Roundhouse Tapes. On May 17, 2007, Peter Lindgren stated he was leaving Opeth after 16 years. "The decision has been the toughest I've ever made but it is the right one to make at this point in my life," Lindgren said. "I feel that I simply have lost some of the enthusiasm and inspiration needed to participate in a band that has grown from a few guys playing the music we love to a worldwide industry." Ex-Arch Enemy guitarist Fredrik Åkesson replaced Lindgren, as Åkerfeldt explained, "Fredrik was the only name that popped up thinking about a replacement for Peter. In my opinion he's one of the top three guitar players out of Sweden. We all get along great as we've known each other for maybe four years and he already has the experience to take on the circus-like lifestyle we lead as members of Opeth."

Watershed (2008-Present)
In November 2007, after nearly 200 performances in support of Ghost Reveries, Opeth entered Fascination Street Studios with Åkerfeldt producing. By January 2008, Opeth had recorded 13 songs, including three cover songs. The finished album, Watershed, was released on June 3, 2008, and has seven tracks with cover songs included as bonus tracks on some versions. The album has since debuted at number 23 on the US Billboard 200, making it their highest-charting album yet. It enjoyed success in many other countries as well, entering the Australian ARIA album charts at number seven, while debuting at number one on Finland's official album chart. Opeth planned extensive touring in support of Watershed, but some shows in Europe had to be cancelled because of some music festival cancellations and Åkerfeldt coming down with chicken pox. On January 25, 2009, Opeth played their first show in India at IIT Madras's cultural festival Saarang. On March 06, 2009 the band played in the Middle East at the annual Dubai Desert Rock Festival in Dubai. On March 26, 2009 it was announced that Opeth would take part in the first European Progressive Nation tour with bands Dream Theater, Bigelf and Unexpect. On April 24, 2009, Opeth headlined the first day of Metal Hammer Magazine's first UK metal music festival HammerFest.

Heritage
Mikael Åkerfeldt began writing for Opeth's tenth studio album sometime of September 2010 along with Fredrik Åkesson (who co-wrote one song). The band recorded the album titled "Heritage" between 31 January-21 February 2011 and released on 14 September 2011 in Japan, following other release dates in various parts of the world.

Musical styles and influences
Although he was not the founder of the band, Mikael Åkerfeldt is the only member to appear on every release. He is Opeth's main songwriter and lyricist and has defined much of the band's sound. Åkerfeldt was influenced at a young age by heavy metal bands such as Slayer, Death, Black Sabbath, Celtic Frost, King Diamond and Morbid Angel. Åkerfeldt was later influenced by progressive rock and folk music, both of which had a strong impact on the sound of the band. Opeth's distinct sound combines elements of heavy metal with acoustic passages and elements of progressive metal and progressive rock. Åkerfeldt commented on the diversity of Opeth's music:

I don't see the point of playing in a band and going just one way when you can do everything. It would be impossible for us to play just death metal; that is our roots, but we are now a mishmash of everything, and not purists to any form of music. It's impossible for us to do that, and quite frankly I would think of it as boring to be in a band that plays just metal music. We're not afraid to experiment, or to be caught with our pants down, so to speak. That's what keeps us going.

Opeth's earlier works often made use of twin-guitar harmonies, but they were abandoned in the band's later work. "I got tired of it, the whole harmony guitar thing", Åkerfeldt said. "It got out of hand in the mid-90s. Every band was doing that thing." Most of the band's songs exceed 10 minutes in length, which Aaron Burgess of Alternative Press magazine criticized, stating, "you can't really be a casual Opeth fan. It takes enough as a listener just to get past the band's epic song lengths." Vocally, Åkerfeldt shifts between growling death metal vocals for heavy sections, and clean, sometimes whispered vocals over acoustic passages. While death growls were dominant on the early albums, later releases used more clean vocals, such the 2003 release Damnation which had only clean singing. The band's lyrics often reflect a bleak outlook on life, with subjects such as failed relationships, nature, death, and depression. Some of the band's albums also have a consistent theme or concept throughout, such as Still Life and My Arms, Your Hearse. The songs were put together as one continual piece, with the last word or phrase of each song becoming the title of the next.

Members

Current members
 Mikael Åkerfeldt: lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitars, bass (1990–present)
 Martin Mendez: bass (1997–present)
 Martin "Axe" Axenrot: drums, percussion (2006–present)
 Fredrik Åkesson: rhythm and lead guitars (2007–present)
 Joakim Svalberg: keyboards, mellotron, backing vocals (2011–present)

Former members
 Nick Döring: bass (1991)
 Andreas Dimeo: rhythm guitars (1990)
 Kim Pettersson: rhythm guitars (1990)
 David Isberg: lead vocals (1990–1992)
 Mattias Ander: bass (1992)
 Stefan Guteklint: bass (1992–1993)
 Johan DeFarfalla: bass, backing vocals (1990, 1994–1996)
 Anders Nordin: drums, percussion (1990–1997)
 Martin Lopez: drums, percussion (1997–2006)
 Peter Lindgren: bass at first live performance, lead and rhythm guitars (1991–2007)
 Per Wiberg: keyboards (2005-2011) session member (2003-2004)

Discography

Studio albums
 Orchid (1995)
 Morningrise (1996)
 My Arms, Your Hearse (1998)
 Still Life (1999)
 Blackwater Park (2001)
 Deliverance (2002)
 Damnation (2003)
 Ghost Reveries (2005)
 Watershed (2008)
 Heritage (2011)
 Pale Communion (2014)
 Sorceress (2016)
 In Cauda Venenum (2019)

Live albums
 Lamentations: Live at Shepherd Bush Empire 2003 (2006)
 The Roundhouse Tapes (2007)
 The Devil's Orchard (Live At Rock Hard Festival 2009) (2011)
 Lamentations Live At Shepherd's Bush Empire (2016)
 Garden of the Titans: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre (2018)

DVDs
 Lamentations: Live at Shepherd's Bush (2003)
 The Roundhouse Tapes (2008)
 In Live Concert At The Royal Albert Hall (2010)
 Live at Enmore Theatre Sidney Australia (2011)

Music videos
 "Windowpane" (2003)
 "The Grand Conjuration" (2005)
 "Bleak" (2008)
 "Porcelain Heart" (2008)
 "Burden" (2008)
 "Sorceress"(2016)

Boxed sets
 Opeth Box Set (2006)
 The Candlelight Years (2008)
 The Wooden Box (2009)
 The Collection (2014)
 Deliverance & Damnation (2014)

References

Other websites

 Official website
 Opeth at MySpace
 Opeth at Allmusic

Heavy metal bands
Progressive rock bands
Roadrunner Records

Opeth


The National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa (or simply Czestochowa), known also as the American Czestochowa is a Polish-American Roman Catholic shrine near Doylestown, Pennsylvania, founded in 1953. It houses a reproduction of the Black Madonna icon of Częstochowa, Poland.  The heart of Poland's third prime minister, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, is also preserved there.

History

In 1953 a Polish Pauline monk, Father Michael M. Zembrzuski, purchased a tract of land near Doylestown with the intention of building a chapel dedicated to the Black Madonna of Częstochowa at Jasna Góra Monastery, Poland's most important religious icon, to reconnect Polish-Americans with their Polish Catholic roots. Archbishop John Francis O'Hara of Philadelphia granted permission for the erection of a shrine, and a barn was converted into the first chapel; it was moved to a new site and dedicated on June 26, 1955.

The chapel was reorganized as a shrine to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the Polish nation in 1966. It was dedicated on October 16, 1966, by Archbishop (later Cardinal) John Krol, with President Lyndon B. Johnson and members of his family as honored guests. The centerpiece of the new shrine was a church building designed by the Polish-American architect George Szeptycki housing the replica of the Black Madonna painting.

Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, visited twice: first in 1969 and then in 1976, while attending the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia.

In subsequent years other facilities have been added to the site, including a Polish-American cemetery (including monuments to Poland's third prime minister Ignacy Paderewski, the Polish-Lithuanian hussars, and the victims of the Katyń massacres), a monastery, and a visitor center. The cemetery also includes the graves of members of the Polish Veterans of World War II. The lower church interior was remodeled to resemble the interior of the Jasna Góra shrine in Poland housing the original painting. There is also an outdoor pathway with the Stations of the Cross.

Activities
One of the largest celebrations is the annual feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa on August 26, followed by an annual Polish Festival held every Labor Day weekend. Since 1988, there has been an annual pilgrimage from the Church of Ss. Peter and Paul in Great Meadows, New Jersey. Thousands take part in an outdoor Rosary candlelight procession on October 7, Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. The shrine is under the direction of the Pauline Fathers and Brothers who also administer the Shrine in Poland.

See also
Black Madonna Shrine, Missouri
List of shrines#United States

References

External links
Official site
Article describing the shrine

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia
Roman Catholic churches in Pennsylvania
Roman Catholic national shrines in the United States
Churches in Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Tourist attractions in Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Black Madonna of Częstochowa
Częstochowa
Paintings of the Madonna and Child
Katyn massacre memorials
Pauline Order
Polish-American culture in Pennsylvania


Last of the Conquerors is a 1948 novel by African-American novelist William Gardner Smith. It concerns African-American GI's serving in United States occupied Germany after World War II. The protagonist, Hayes Dawkins, has an affair with Ilse, a white German woman. He and Ilse fight against racist Army officers and policies to sustain a relationship that some white soldiers condemn (although there are also many friendly whites who help them).

Last of the Conquerors shows post-Nazi Germany as more racially tolerant than the United States. While this  may or may not be correct, Smith's novel gives an opinion of the Marshall Plan claiming that American society should be a model for the world, while African-Americans continued to deal with racism.

The novel begins on  a homecoming US troopship, as the Statue of Liberty comes into view, the reaction from the US troops is somber and wary,  resigned, but not at all glad to be home from the war. Why? They are "colored" troops. After experiencing life in a society (recently liberated Germany), where racial prejudice was not a big factor, they steel themselves for dealing with a still very divided America. An eyeopening look inside a (now hopefully past) society and its impact on those forced to deal with  the unremitting pressure of distrust and hate. A profound reading experience.

1948 books

Last Of The Conquerors


A biosphere reserve is an ecosystem with plants and animals of unusual scientific and natural interest. It is a label given by the UNESCO to help protect the sites. The plan is to promote management, research and education in ecosystem conservation. This includes the 'sustainable use of natural resources'. If, for example, fish or trees are taken for human use, this is done in ways which least damage the ecosystem.

A biosphere reserve consists of three zones:
i) Core zone: No human activity is permitted in this zone.
ii) Buffer zone: It surrounds the core area, where a limited access permits to local people for the gathering of resources.
iii) Free zones: It is the outermost zone, which is open to human settlements and resource gathering.

The program is run by UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Program. It has started a World Network of Biosphere Reserves. The MAB program has built up the World Network of Biosphere Reserves since 1971. Biosphere reserves, exchange knowledge and experiences on new ideas for sustainable development. They are areas used to develop new ways of doing things, test these ways and share the results. The objective is to get a balanced relationship between mankind and nature. The biosphere is very important to humans.

References

Biosphere reserve


A musician is a person who plays a musical instrument like a guitar or a piano or a person that sings.

A musician is also someone who writes music, even if they write it for other people to play. People who write music are called composers.

Musicians can also make a group together to play songs.

Lists of musicians
Some famous composers and musicians
Johann Sebastian Bach (Composer)
Ludwig van Beethoven (Composer)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Composer)
Duke Ellington (Composer, plays the piano)
Bob Marley (Plays the electric guitar, also sings)
Paul McCartney (Singer, plays the bass and the guitar)
Michael Jackson (Singer)
Jimi Hendrix (Plays the electric guitar, also sings)
Cat Stevens (Singer)

Some famous bands
The Beatles
Jefferson Airplane
U2
Led Zeppelin

Some famous orchestras
The London Symphony Orchestra, The United Kingdom
The New York Philharmonic Orchestra, USA
The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Germany
The Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, Serbia
The Cleveland Orchestra, USA

References

Entertainment occupations

Musician


In glassblowing, cane refers to rods of glass with color; these rods can be simple, containing a single color, or they can be complex and contain strands of one or several colors in pattern.
Caneworking refers to the process of making cane, and also to the use of  pieces of cane, lengthwise, in the blowing process to add intricate, often spiral, patterns and stripes to vessels or other blown glass objects.  Cane is also used to make murrine (singular murrina, sometimes called mosaic glass), thin discs cut from the cane in cross-section that are also added to blown or hot-worked objects.  A particular form of murrine glasswork is millefiori ("thousand flowers"), in which many murrine with a flower-like or star-shaped cross-section are included in a blown glass piece.

Caneworking is an ancient technique, first invented in southern Italy in the second half of the third century BC, and elaborately developed centuries later on the Italian island of Murano.

Making cane
There are several different methods of making cane.  In each, the fundamental technique is the same: a lump of glass, often containing some pattern of colored and clear glass, is heated in a furnace (glory hole) and then pulled, by means of a long metal rod (punty) attached at each end.  As the glass is stretched out, it retains whatever cross-sectional pattern was in the original lump, but narrows quite uniformly along its length (due to the skill of the glassblowers doing the pulling, aided by the fact that if the glass becomes narrower at some point along the length, it cools more there and thus becomes stiffer).  Cane is usually pulled until it reaches roughly the diameter of a pencil,  when, depending on the size of the original lump, it may be anywhere from one to fifty feet in length.  After cooling, it is broken into sections usually from four to six inches long, which can then be used in making more complex canes or in other glassblowing techniques.

The simplest cane, called vetro a fili  (glass with threads) is clear glass with one or more threads of colored (often white) glass running its length.  It is commonly made by heating and shaping a chunk of clear, white, or colored glass on the end of a punty, and then gathering molten clear glass over the color by dipping the punty in a furnace containing the clear glass.  After the desired amount of clear glass is surrounding the color, this cylinder of hot glass is then shaped, cooled and heated until uniform in shape and temperature.  Simultaneously an assistant prepares a 'post' which is another punty with a small platform of clear glass on the end.  The post is pressed against the end of the hot cylinder of glass to connect them, and the glassblower (or 'gaffer')  and assistant walk away from each other with the punties, until the cane is stretched to the desired length and diameter.  The cane cools within minutes and is cut into small sections.

Variations in cane making

A simple single-thread cane can then be used to make more complex canes.  A small bundle of single-thread canes can be heated until they fuse, or heated canes, laid parallel, can be picked up on the circumference of a hot cylinder of clear or colored glass.  This bundle, treated just as the chunk of  color in the description above, is cased in clear glass and pulled out, forming a vetro a fili  cane with multiple threads and perhaps a clear or solid color core.  If the cane is twisted as it is pulled, the threads take a spiral shape called vetro a retorti  (twisted glass) or zanfirico.

Ballotini is a cane technique in which several vetro a fili canes are picked up while laid side-by-side rather than a bundle, with a clear glass gather over them.  This gather is shaped into a cylinder with the canes directed along the axis, so that the canes form a sort of "fence" across the diameter of the cylinder.  When this is simultaneously twisted and pulled, the resulting cane has a helix of threads across its thickness.

Another technique for forming cane is to use optic molds to make more complex cross sections.  An optic mold is an open-ended cone-shaped mold with some sort of lobed or star shape around its inside circumference.  When a gather or partially blown bubble is forced into the mold, its outside takes the shape of the mold.  Canes with complicated, multi-colored patterns are formed by placing layers of different or alternating colors over a solid-color core, using various optic molds on the layers as they are built.  Because the outer layers are hotter than those inside when the molds are used, the mold shape is impressed into the outer color without deforming the inner shapes. Canes made in this way are used in making millefiori. Discs from eight different canes have been used to make the pendant in the photo.

Finally, flameworkers sometimes make cane by building up the cross-section using ordinary flameworking or bead making techniques.  This permits very subtle gradations of color and shading, and is the way murrine portraits are usually made.

Cane use
The generic term for blown glass made using canes in the lengthwise direction is filigrano (filigree glass), as contrasted with murrine when the canes are sliced and used in cross-section.  (An older term is latticino, which has fallen into disuse).

One way glassblowers incorporate cane into their work is to line up canes on a steel or ceramic plate and heat them slowly to avoid cracking.  When the surfaces of the canes just begin to melt, the canes adhere to each other.  The tip of a glassblowing pipe (blowpipe) is covered with a 'collar' of clear molten glass, and touched to one corner of the aligned canes.  The tip of the blowpipe is then rolled along the bottom of the canes, which stick to the collar, aligned cylindrically around the edge of the blowpipe.  They are heated further until soft enough to shape.  The cylinder of canes is sealed at the bottom with jacks and tweezers, to form the beginning of a bubble.  The bubble is then blown using traditional glassblowing techniques.

Cane can also be incorporated in larger blown glass work by picking it up on a bubble of molten clear glass.  This technique involves the gaffer  creating a bubble from molten clear glass while an assistant heats the pattern of cane.  When the cane design is fused and at the correct temperature and the bubble is exactly the correct size and temperature, the bubble is rolled over the cane pattern, which sticks to the hot glass.  The bubble must be the right size and temperature for the pattern to cover it fully without any gaps or trapping air.  Once the canes have been picked up, the bubble can be further heated, blown, and smoothed and shaped on the marver to give whatever final shape the glassblower wishes, with an embedded lacy pattern from the canes.  Twisting the object as it is being shaped imparts a spiral shape to the overall pattern.

The classical reticello pattern is a small uniform mesh of white threads in clear glass, with a tiny air bubble in every mesh rectangle.  To make an object in this pattern, the glassblower first uses white single-thread vetro a fili  canes to blow a cylindrical cup shape, twisting as he forms it so the canes are in a spiral, and using care not to totally smooth the inside ribbing that remains from the canes.  Setting this cup aside (usually keeping it warm in a furnace, below its softening point), he then makes another closed cylinder in the same pattern, but twisted in the opposite direction, and retaining some of the ribbing on the cylinder's outside.   When this cylinder is the right size, the glassblower plunges it into the warm cup, without touching any of the sides until it is inserted all the way.  Air is trapped in the spaces between the ribs of the two pieces, forming the uniformly spaced air bubbles.  The piece may then be blown out and shaped as desired.  The term reticello is often loosely applied to any criss-cross pattern, whether vetro a fili  or vetro a retorti , white or colored, and with or without air bubbles.

See Murrine and Millefiori for information about these techniques.

Additional canework images

See also
Glass art
Studio glass

Notes

References

Glass art
Glass production
Crafts

Caneworking


Reginald Bathurst Birch (May 2, 1856 – June 17, 1943) was an English-American artist and illustrator. He was best known for his depiction of the titular hero of Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1886 novel Little Lord Fauntleroy, which started a craze in juvenile fashion. While his illustrated corpus has eclipsed his other work, he was also an accomplished painter of portraits and landscapes.

Life and family
Birch was born May 2, 1856, in London, England, the son of British army officer William Alexander Birch and Isabella (Hoggins) Birch. During his childhood he lived for a time with his paternal grandfather on the Isle of Jersey while his father was in India.

He moved to San Francisco, California, with his parents in 1870. Afterward he was naturalized as a citizen of the United States.

Birch married twice and had two children, a son and a daughter. The son, Rodney Bathurst Birch, was an early film actor.

Birch died at the age of eighty-seven of congestive heart failure at the Home for Incurables in the Bronx, New York. His body was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York.

Birch's artistic talent first emerged in San Francisco, where he helped his father prepare wood-block theatrical posters. He soon attracted a patron in painter Toby Edward Rosenthal, who allowed him to use his studio and helped further his artistic education. From 1873 to 1881 Birch studied and worked in Europe, attending the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and illustrating various publications in Vienna, Paris, and Rome.

Career
On his return to the United States, Birch took up residence in New York City, where he became a magazine illustrator. His work appeared in St. Nicholas, the Century, Harper's, Life, and The Youth's Companion, among other publications. He also became a founding member of the Society of Illustrators in New York.

His first great success was his illustration of Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's book Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), whose young protagonist's long, curly hair and velvet and lace suit were widely imitated by mothers as a pattern of dress for their little boys. Birch's name was indelibly associated with Burnett's protagonist forever after, rather to the illustrator's irritation. During the period of his initial popularity he illustrated over forty books, many of which, along with his drawings, had initially seen publication in serial form. These included more of Burnett's children's books, notably Sara Crewe (1888).

Demand for Birch's work faded after 1914, and by the 1930s he was living in poverty. His career was revived in 1933 by his illustrations for Louis Untermeyer's The Last Pirate, and he went on to illustrate about twenty additional books before being retired by failing eyesight about 1941. Reginald Birch—His Book, a retrospective collection of works he illustrated by various authors, was published in 1939 by Harcourt, Brace and Company.

Bibliography of books illustrated
The story of Roland / by James Baldwin (1883)
Historic boys : their endeavors, their achievements and their times / by Elbridge Streeter Brooks (1886)
Little Lord Fauntleroy / by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1886)
Chivalric days : stories of courtesy and courage in olden times / by Elbridge Streeter Brooks (1888)
Sara Crewe; or, What happened at Miss Minchin's / by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1888)
Another flock of girls / by Nora Perry (1890)
In my nursery / by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards (1890)
Little Saint Elizabeth, and other stories / by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1890)
Lady Jane / by Cecilia Viets Jamison (1891)
Marjorie and her papa : how they wrote a story and made pictures for it / by Robert Howe Fletcher (1891)
The Admiral's Caravan / by Charles E. Carryl (1892)
Giovanni and the other; children who have made stories / by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1892)
My odd little folk : rhymes and verses about them : with some others / by Malcolm Douglas (1893)
The one I knew the best of all / by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1893)
Imaginotions; Truthless Tales / by Tudor Jenks (1894)
Piccino, and other child stories / by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1894)
Child-sketches from George Eliot : glimpses at the boys and girls in the romances of the great novelist / by Julia Magruder (1895)
Master Skylark / by John Bennett (1896)
Field Flowers : a small bunch of the most fragrant of blossoms gathered from the broad acres of Eugene Field's farm of love" / by Eugene Field (1896)Two little pilgrims' progress; a story of the city beautiful / by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1897)Down Durley lane and other ballads / by Virginia Woodward Cloud (1898)The sole survivors / by G A Henty (1899)The vizier of the two-horned Alexander / by Frank Richard Stockton (1899)The "Little Women" play; a two-act, forty-five-minute play, adapted from Louisa May Alcott's famous story / by Elizabeth Lincoln Gould (1900)Little men : life at Plumfield with Jo's boys : a sequel to "Little Women" / by Louisa M. Alcott (1901)The Wouldbegoods / by E Nesbit (1901)The circle / by Katherine Cecil Thurston (1903)Red Head / by John Uri Lloyd (1903)A little rough rider / by Tudor Jenks (1904)Outdoorland : stories for children / by Robert W. Chambers (1902)Orchard-Land / by Robert W. Chambers (1903)Tales from Dickens / by Hallie Erminie Rives (1905)The breaking in of a yachtsman's wife / by Mary Heaton Vorse (1908)Farming it / by Henry A. Shute (1909)Betty's happy year / by Carolyn Wells (1910)The Christmas angel / by Abbie Farwell Brown (1910)The siege of the seven suitors / by Meredith Nicholson (1910)Miss Santa Claus of the Pullman / by Annie Fellows Johnson (1913)Pippin / by Evelyn Van Buren (1913)The turning of Griggsby; being a story of keeping up with Dan'l Webster / by Irving Bacheller (1913)Diane of the Green Van / by Leona Dalrymple (1914)Bonnie May / by Louis Dodge (1916)Master Skylark : or, Will Shakespeare's ward ; a dramatization from the story of the same name by John Bennett in five acts / by Edgar White Burrill (1916)Waitful watching, or, Uncle Sam and the fight in Dame Europa's school / by James L. Ford (1916)The youth Plupy, or, The lad with a downy chin / by Henry A. Shute (1917)The Old Tobacco Shop: A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure / by William Bowen (1922)Will Shakespeare's little lad / by Imogen Clark (1925)The last pirate; tales from the Gilbert and Sullivan operas / by Louis Untermeyer (1934)Soldier Rigdale : how he sailed in the "May-flower" and how he served Miles Standish / by Beulah Marie Dix (1934)Rainbow in the sky / collected and edited by Louis Untermeyer (1935)The bad parents' garden of verse / by Ogden Nash (1936)The reformed pirate; stories from The floating prince, Ting-a-ling tales & The queen's museum / by Frank R. Stockton (1936)Harry in England : being the true adventures of H.R. in the year 1857 / by Laura E. Richards (1937)Moonshine in Candle Street / by Constance Savery (1937)The Night Before Christmas / by Clement Clarke Moore (1937)I have a song to sing you, still more rhymes / by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards (1938)A Little Princess / by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1938, new edition with new b/w illustrations and colour frontispiece, published by Scribner's)The Miniature's Secret / by Hildegarde Hawthorne (1938)Five Christmas Novels / by Charles Dickens (1939)The mystery of the silver chain / by Gladys Blake (1939)Reginald Birch—his book; a selection of stories and poems with reproductions of the original illustrations made from 1886 to 1938 by Reginald Birch / edited by Elisabeth B. Hamilton (1939)Terrence O'Hara / by Thomas Burns (1939)

References
GeneralBiography Index: a cumulative index to biographical material in books and magazines. Vol. 2: August, 1949-August, 1952. Vol. 3: September, 1952-August, 1955. Vol. 5: September, 1958-August, 1961. Vol. 12: September, 1979-August, 1982. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1953, 1956, 1962, 1983.
Carpenter, Humphrey, and Prichard, Mari. The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1984.Current Biography Yearbook. 1943 ed. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1943.
Dawdy, Doris Ostrander. Artists of the American West: a biographical dictionary. Vol. I. Chicago: Sage Books/Swallow Press, 1974.Dictionary of American Biography. Suppl. 3. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973.
Falk, Peter Hastings, ed. Who Was Who in American Art: compiled from the original thirty-four volumes of American Art Annual: Who's Who in Art, Biographies of American Artists Active from 1898-1947. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1985.
Falk, Peter Hastings, ed. Who Was Who in American Art. 400 years of artists in America. 2nd ed. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999
Kunitz, Stanley J., and Haycraft, Howard., eds. The Junior Book of Authors. 2nd ed., rev. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1951.
Mahoney, Bertha E., and Whitney, Elinor. Contemporary Illustrators of Children's Books. Boston: Bookshop for Boys and Girls, 1930.The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. 11. New York: James T. White & Co., 1901.
Reed, Walt. The Illustrator in America, 1900-1960's. New York: Reinhold Publishing Corp., 1966.
Reed, Walt, and Reed, Roger. The Illustrator in America, 1880-1980: a century of illustration. New York: Madison Square Press, 1984.
Shaw, John Mackay. Childhood in Poetry: a catalogue, with biographical and critical annotations, of the books of English and American poets comprising the Shaw Childhood in Poetry Collection in the Library of the Florida State University. 1st ed. 1st suppl. 2nd suppl. Detroit: Gale Research, 1967, 1972, 1976.Something about the Author: facts and pictures about authors and illustrators of books for young people. Vol. 19. Detroit: Gale Research, 1980.Who Was Who in America: a companion biographical reference work to Who's Who in America''. Vol. 2, 1943-1950. Chicago: A.N. Marquis Co., 1963.

Specific

External links

1856 births
1943 deaths
English emigrants to the United States
English illustrators
American children's book illustrators
British children's book illustrators

Reginald Bathurst Birch


Toy Story 3 (also known as Toy Story 3: The Great Escape) is a 2010 American 3-D computer-animated movie. It was released by Pixar Animation Studios on June 18, 2010. It is a sequel to Toy Story and Toy Story 2. In 2019, a sequel titled Toy Story 4 was released.

Plot
A 17-year old Andy is packing for college and his toys, who have not been played with in a long time, feel forgotten and abandoned. Andy decides to take Woody with him to college and intends to store the other toys in the attic. A misunderstanding with Andy's slightly aged mother results in the other toys being thrown away, making them think they are no longer wanted; they escape and decide to climb in a box to be donated to a daycare center called Sunnyside, along with Woody.

Andy's toys are welcomed by the numerous toys at Sunnyside, and given a tour of the seemingly perfect play-setting by Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear (aka "Lotso"), Lotso's chief enforcer Big Baby, and the smooth-talking Ken, the last of which Barbie falls in love with. All of the toys are quickly enamored with their new home, leaving Woody to try to return to Andy on his own. However, Woody is picked up outside the school by a little girl named Bonnie Anderson. She takes him home and plays with him along with her other toys, who are well treated, happy, and readily welcome Woody. Woody is elated until he hears about Lotso from Chuckles the Clown. Lotso, along with Big Baby and Chuckles, were once accidentally lost by their original owner, Daisy. The three found their way back to their owner's home. However, Lotso saw that he had been replaced. Even though Chuckles realized the truth, an embittered Lotso convinced Big Baby that they were abandoned. They used Big Baby's size to help him take control of the toys at Sunnyside in the fashion of organized crime. Worried for his friends, Woody hurries back to the daycare and finds that they have been put on task to be played with the rambunctious, toy-abusing youngest toddlers. They are also kept under guard at night by Buzz who Lotso has reverted to a demonstration state to destroy his memories, restoring his original "Space Ranger" persona and allying with him.

Woody rejoins his friends and they work out an escape plan involving the garbage dumpster. In the process, Buzz is accidentally reset into a Spanish-speaking mode during an attempt to restore him to normal. The toys reach the dumpster, but are headed off by Lotso and his evil henchmen. As a garbage truck approaches, Woody explains to Big Baby that Lotso has lied to him and that his owner still loved him, whereupon Big Baby, Ken and the other Sunnyside toys turn on Lotso and push him into the dumpster. However, Lotso manages to pull Woody in with him just as the garbage truck collects the dumpster. Woody's friends board the truck to rescue him, during which Buzz is hit by a falling television while saving Jessie, finally returning to his old self. The toys find themselves at the local landfill. They are soon pulled onto a conveyor belt leading to an incinerator. They help Lotso to reach an emergency stop button. Instead, he escapes and leaves them to be burned. Believing they are at their final moments, the toys join hands. They are rescued just in time by the squeeze toy aliens using a giant crane. The toys return to Andy's home, while Lotso is found by a garbage truck driver and is tied to its front grille as a decoration.

At Andy's house, Woody climbs back into the box with Andy's college supplies while the other toys resign themselves to the attic. Woody has a last minute inspiration. He leaves a note to Andy on the toys' box. Andy, mistaking it for a note from his mom, takes the box to Bonnie's home, introduces his old toys to Bonnie and gives her the toys to play with. In the end, Bonnie recognizes Woody, laying at the bottom of the box, to Andy's surprise. Andy is initially reluctant to give him to her. He eventually does so and then spends some time playing with her before he departs. Woody watches Andy's car while it disappears into the distance and quietly says a last "so long, partner." Woody and the other toys find themselves wanted and played with again. They learn through notes passed in Bonnie's backpack that Barbie, Ken, and Big Baby have turned around the life of all the toys at Sunnyside for the better.

Cast
 Tom Hanks as Woody
 Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear
 Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head
 Estelle Harris as Mrs. Potato Head
 Wallace Shawn as Rex
 John Ratzenberger as Hamm
 Blake Clark as Slinky Dog
 Jodi Benson as Barbie
 Jeff Pidgeon as Aliens
 R. Lee Ermey as Sarge
 John Morris as Andy Davis
 Beatrice Miller as Molly Davis
 Laurie Metcalf as Ms. Davis / Young Ms. Davis
 Emily Hahn as Bonnie Anderson
 Lori Alan as Bonnie's Mom
 Ned Beatty as Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear
 Michael Keaton as Ken
 John Cygan as Twitch
 Jack Angel as Chunk
 Jan Rabson as Sparks
 Whoopi Goldberg as Stretch
 Richard Kind as Bookworm
 Timothy Dalton as Mr. Pricklepants
 Jeff Garlin as Buttercup
 Bonnie Hunt as Dolly
 Charlie Bright as Peatey / Young Andy
 Amber Kroner as Peatrice
 Brianna Maiwand as Peanelope
 Jack Willis as Frog
 Erik von Detten as Sid Phillips (Garbageman)
 Lee Unkrich as Jack-in-the-Box / Additional voices (uncredited)
 Frank Welker as Bullseye / Buster (uncredited)
 Carlos Alazraqui as Additional voice
 Constantino Bravos as Additional children's voices
 Matt Broughton as Army Man #1 (UK version & Bill Wise in the US version)
 Teresa Ganzel as Additional voice
 Jess Harnell as Additional voice
 Taiana Huff as Additional children's voices
 Adam Joshua Jastro as Additional children's voices
 Leo Jergovic as Additional children's voices
 Theodore F. Kayser as Additional children's voices
 Danny Mann as Additional voice
 Mickie McGowan as Additional voice
 Gia Michailidis as Additional children's voices
 Nikolas Michailidis as Additional children's voices
 Laraine Newman as Additional voice
 Colleen O'Shaughnessey as Additional voice
 Bob Peterson as Janitor
 Jerome Ranft as Additional voice
 Aramé Scott as Additional children's voices
 Sam Tobias as Little Boy #2
 James Kevin Ward as Additional voice
 Colette Whitaker as Additional voice

Premieres

References

Other websites

2010s family movies
2010 comedy movies
2010 animated movies
2010 3D movies
Academy Award winning movies
American comedy movies
American sequel movies
Buddy movies
Computer-animated movies
Disney animated movies
Golden Globe Award winning movies
Movies composed by Randy Newman
Movies that won the Best Animated Feature Academy Award
Movies that won the Best Original Song Academy Award
Pixar movies
Toy Story
2010s computer-animated movies

Toy Story 3


Embryology is the study of embryos and their development. The study of embryology starts with the fertilisation of an egg, and continues until the foetus stage. A broader term, developmental biology, covers the whole period of growth from the egg to adult life.

In mammals (and some other animals) embryos develop inside the mother, in the mother's womb. Otherwise it takes place after the egg is laid. It most animals, there are various stages between the egg and the adult animal. If the stages are well-defined the process is called metamorphosis.

Developmental biology

Embryology


Bureaucratic collectivism is a theory of class society. It is used by some Trotskyists to describe the nature of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and other similar states in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere (such as North Korea).

Theory
A bureaucratic collectivist state owns the means of production, while the surplus or profit is distributed among an elite party bureaucracy (nomenklatura), rather than among the working class. Also, most importantly, it is the bureaucracy—not the workers, or the people in general—which controls the economy and the state. Thus, the system is not truly socialist, but it is not capitalist either. In Trotskyist theory, it is a new form of class society which exploits workers through new mechanisms. Theorists, such as Yvan Craipeau, who hold this view believe that bureaucratic collectivism does not represent progress beyond capitalism—that is, that it is no closer to being a workers' state than a capitalist state would be, and is considerably less efficient. Some social democrats even believe that certain kinds of capitalism, such as social democratic capitalism, are more progressive than a bureaucratic collectivist society.

George Orwell's famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four describes a fictional society of "oligarchical collectivism". Orwell was familiar with the works of James Burnham, having reviewed Burnham's The Managerial Revolution prior to writing Nineteen Eighty-Four. Oligarchical collectivism was a fictionalized conceptualization of bureaucratic collectivism, where Big Brother and the Inner Party form the nucleus of a hierarchical organization of society professing itself as "English socialism" because of its revolutionary origins, but afterwards only concerned with total domination by the Party.

The idea has also been applied to Western countries outside the Eastern Bloc, as a regime necessary to institute in order to maintain capitalism and keep it from disintegrating in the post-war era. This different form of bureaucratic collectivism is supposed to integrate various sectors of society, such as labor unions, corporations, and government organizations, in order to keep contradictions in the economy from developing into a general meltdown. This form is supposedly embodied in the welfare state, which organizes workers into a government network subsumed under capitalist relations.

Theoretical origins
"Bureaucratic collectivism" was first used as a term to describe a theory originating in England, shortly before the First World War, about a possible future social organisation. After the war, the Russian Revolution, and the rise to power of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, Hugo Urbahns and Lucien Laurat both began to critique the nature of the Soviet state in a similar manner.

This theory was first taken up within Trotskyism by a small group in France around Craipeau. It was also taken up by Bruno Rizzi, who believed that the Soviet, German, and Italian bureaucracies were progressive and celebrated "the class which has the courage to make itself master of the state". It was with Rizzi that Leon Trotsky debated in the late 1930s. Trotsky held that the Soviet Union was a degenerated workers state and that if it did not undergo a new workers' political revolution, it could move towards a new form of society, such as bureaucratic collectivism. However, Trotsky doubted that a state of pure bureaucratic collectivism would ever be reached; he believed that, in the absence of a proletarian revolution to return the Soviet Union to socialism, a comprehensive counter-revolution would return the nation to capitalism instead.

Soon after the Workers Party in the United States (later the Independent Socialist League), led by Max Shachtman, split from the Fourth International, it adopted the theory of bureaucratic collectivism and developed it. As a result, it is often associated with Left Shachtmanism and the Third Camp. Its version had much in common with Craipeau's, as developed by James Burnham and Joseph Carter, but little with Rizzi's.

Criticism
In 1948, Tony Cliff argued that it is difficult to make a critique of bureaucratic collectivism because authors such as Shachtman never actually published a developed account of the theory. He asserted that the theoretical poverty of the theory of bureaucratic collectivism is not accidental and tried to show that the theory is only negative; empty, abstract, and therefore arbitrary. Cliff proposed state capitalism as an alternative theory that more accurately describes the nature of the Soviet Union under Stalinism.

In a 1979 Monthly Review essay, Ernest Mandel argued that the hypothesis that the Soviet bureaucracy is a new class does not correspond to a serious analysis of the real development and the real contradictions of Soviet economy and society in the last fifty years. He asserted that conflict of interest turns bureaucracy into a cancer on a society in transition between capitalism and socialism. Accordingly, bureaucratic management is not only increasingly wasteful but it also prevents the system of a planned economy based upon socialized property from operating effectively. Mandel concluded that this undeniable fact is in itself incompatible with the characterization of the bureaucracy as a ruling class and with the USSR as a new "exploitative mode of production" whose "laws of motion" have never been specified.

A related concept is a "command administrative" system within what sociologist Michael Kennedy called "Communist-governed state socialism". In Has Socialism Failed, the late South African Communist Party leader Joe Slovo referred to the problems associated with a party having "administrative command", stating "post-apartheid state power must clearly vest in the elected representatives of the people and not, directly or indirectly, in the administrative command of a party."

See also
Deformed workers' state
Degenerated workers' state
Kleptocracy
New class
Oligarchy
State capitalism
State socialism

References

External links
 Leon Trotsky "The USSR in War" (1939)
 Max Shachtman, "The Soviet Union and the World War" (1940)
 Leon Trotsky, "Balance Sheet of the Finnish Events" (1940)
 Tony Cliff, "Marxism and the theory of bureaucratic collectivism" (1948)
 Pierre Frank, "Under Pressure of the Coming War, Imperialism Beckons 'Third Camp'" (1951)
 Ernest Mandel, "Why The Soviet Bureaucracy is not a New Ruling Class" (1979)

Collectivism
Political science theories
Sociological theories
Trotskyism

Bureaucratic collectivism


Fulacht fiadh (;  or fulacht fian; plural: fulachtaí fia or, in older texts, fulachta fiadh) is the name given to one of many burned mounds, dating from the Bronze Age, found in Ireland. Most surviving examples consist of a low horseshoe-shaped mound of charcoal-enriched soil, and heat shattered stone, with a cooking pit located in a slight depression at its centre. In ploughed fields, they are apparent as black spreads of earth interspersed with small sharp stones.

There are multiple examples of fulacht fiadh Ireland. The majority were constructed during the mid to late Bronze Age (c.1500- c. 500 BC), though some Neolithic and a few medieval examples are known.
In Great Britain and the Isle of Man they are known as burnt mounds, and similar objects are found in Sweden. Permanent structures are rarely found near to fulachtaí fiadh, but small hut sites are common and it is unknown whether early sites were built by permanent settlements or nomadic hunters.

Etymology

Many historians suggest that the Irish word "fulacht" denotes a cooking pit. In modern Irish, it is one word for a barbecue. "Fiadh" in Old Irish meant something like "wild", often relating to animals such as deer. However, all acknowledge the difficulties in deriving a genuine etymology for the word "fulacht". As some historical texts clearly use the term  "fulacht" to describe a cooking spit, a close reading of these accounts suggests that the term actually derives from a word meaning support and probably carries a deliberate reference to the Irish words for blood (fuil) and meat (feoil).

Siting

Fulachtaí fiadh are usually found close to water sources, such as springs, rivers and streams, or waterlogged ground. They were also sited close to sources of suitable stone where it could be obtained close to the surface. They required a source of fuel, so would have been close to woodland. They would also have to be in proximity to whatever was being processed by boiling in the trough. Once these conditions were met a fulacht fiadh could be constructed. Once the use of a fulacht fiadh had ended it was common for people to continue to make use of the local landscape, therefore fulachtaí fiadh tend to be found in groups strung out along water courses.

Construction

Fulachtaí fiadh generally consist of three main elements: a mound of stones, a hearth used to heat the stones, and a trough, often lined with wood or stone, which was filled with water and into which the heated stones were placed to warm the water. Troughs may be cut into subsoil or, more rarely, into bedrock. The site may contain the remains of structures such as stone enclosures or even small buildings, and sometimes multiple hearths and additional, smaller pits. They are almost always found near running water, or in marshy areas where a hole dug into the ground would quickly fill with water.

A number of the fulachtaí fiadh pits are approximately a metre wide by 2 metres long and maybe half a metre or more in depth. However, size can vary a great deal from site to site, from rather small pits lined with stones to pools conceivably large enough for people to bathe in.

Function

It is postulated that these pits were filled with water and heated stones thrown in to create a pool of boiling water in which meat was cooked. This is because when excavated, fulachtaí fiadh are found with associated charred, scorched and broken rocks. The Ballyvourney reconstruction also included successful attempts at heating the water and cooking meat in this manner.

Other theories suggest that the sites may have been used for bathing, the washing and dyeing of cloth, and leather working. Supporters of these theories point to the fact that no remains of foodstuffs have been found at the fulacht fiadh sites. Some researchers believe the fulachtaí fiadh were multi-purpose and could have, at least in some cases, been used for all of these activities - cooking, bathing, dyeing, or anything involving hot water. Some fulacht fiadh reconstructions, such as the one at Ballyvourney, include circular, hut-type structures based on the post holes found at the sites; some believe these small buildings were used for the storing and preparation of foodstuffs. Another theory is that the small buildings on site were used for enclosing heat and steam in a manner similar to the Tigh 'n Alluis Gaelic sweat-houses (which were built of stone), however, this theory does not take into account the fact that the hot water trough is located outside the buildings (when a building is even present at all).

In August 2007 two Galway based archaeologists suggested that fulachtaí fiadh were used primarily for the brewing of beer, and experimented by filling a large wooden trough with water and adding heated stones. Once the water had reached approximately 65 degrees Celsius they added barley and after 45 minutes transferred it to separate vessels to ferment, first adding wild plant flavourings and yeast. Some days later they discovered that it had transformed into a drinkable light ale. This way of brewing with hot stones is also attested in Norway.

References

Sources
 Higgins, Jim, 1991, A new group of fulachta fiad in Co. Mayo, in Cathair na Mart 11, pp. 31–34, 1991
O'Kelley, Michael J., 1989. Early Ireland – An Introduction to Irish Prehistory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. pp. 223–227
Harbison, Peter, 1988. Pre-Christian Ireland – From the First Settlers to the Early Celts. Thames and Hudson, New York. pp. 8, 110–112, and plate 65.
Murphy, Cornelius. The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Beara Peninsula, Co. Cork. Department of Archaeology, University College Cork, 1997

External links
Clew Bay Archaeological Trail - Sli Seandálaíochta Chuan Módh, clewbaytrail.com

Types of monuments and memorials
Irish words and phrases
Bronze Age Ireland

Fulacht fiadh


Travertine is a terrestrial sedimentary rock. It is a natural chemical precipitate of carbonate minerals; aragonite or calcite. This happens from solution in ground and surface waters, and/or  geothermally heated hot-springs. Similar (but extremely porous) deposits formed from ambient-temperature water are known as tufa.

The Colosseum built by the Romans, was made of travertine.

References

Carbonate rocks

Travertine


Psamtik III (Ancient Egyptian: , pronounced ), known by the Graeco-Romans as Psammetichus or Psammeticus (Ancient Greek: ), or Psammenitus (Ancient Greek: ), was the last Pharaoh of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt from 526 BC to 525 BC. Most of what is known about his reign and life was documented by the Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century BC. Herodotus states that Psamtik had ruled Egypt for only six months before he was confronted by a Persian invasion of his country led by King Cambyses II of Persia. Psamtik was subsequently defeated at the Battle of Pelusium, and fled to Memphis where he was captured. The deposed pharaoh was carried off to Susa in chains, and later committed suicide.

Family

Psamtik III was the son of the pharaoh Amasis II and one of his wives, Queen Tentkheta. He succeeded his father as pharaoh in 526 BC, when Amasis died after a long and prosperous reign of some 44 years. According to Herodotus, he had a son named Amasis and a wife and daughter, both unnamed in historical documents.

Defeat and imprisonment

Psamtik ruled Egypt for no more than six months. A few days after his coronation, rain fell at Thebes, which was a rare event that frightened some Egyptians, who interpreted this as a bad omen. The young and inexperienced pharaoh was no match for the invading Persians. After the Persians under Cambyses had crossed the Sinai desert with the aid of the Arabians, a bitter battle was fought near Pelusium, a city on Egypt's eastern frontier, in the spring of 525 BC. The Egyptians were defeated at Pelusium and Psamtik was betrayed by one of his allies, Phanes of Halicarnassus. Consequently, Psamtik and his army were compelled to withdraw to Memphis. The Persians captured the city after a long siege, and captured Psamtik after its fall. Shortly thereafter, Cambyses ordered the public execution of two thousand of the principal citizens, including (it is said) a son of the fallen king.

Captivity and suicide

Psamtik's captivity and subsequent execution are described in The Histories by Herodotus, Book III, sections 14 and 15. Psamtik's daughter and the daughters of all the Egyptian noblemen were enslaved. Psamtik's son and two thousand other sons of noblemen were sentenced to death, in retaliation for the murder of the Persian ambassador and the two hundred crew of his boat. An "old man who had once been the king's friend" was reduced to beggary. All these people were brought before Psamtik to test his reaction, and he only became upset after seeing the state of the beggar.

Psamtik's compassion for the beggar caused him to be spared, but his son had already been executed. The deposed pharaoh was then raised up to live in the entourage of the Persian King. After a while, however, Psamtik attempted to raise a rebellion among the Egyptians. When Cambyses learned of this, Psamtik is reported by Herodotus to have drunk bull's blood and immediately died.

References

External links
Cartouche of Psammetichus
Herodotus histories

6th-century BC Pharaohs
Pharaohs of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt
Year of birth unknown
525 BC deaths
Dethroned monarchs
Heads of state who committed suicide

Psamtik III


Lesbianism has been performed in visual arts since the times of ancient Rome. For much of history of cinema and television, lesbianism was regarded as taboo. But since the 1960s, it has increasingly become a theme within its own right. It was first used in softcore movies and erotic thrillers during the 1980s. Acts of lovemaking between women first happened during several movies in the late 1960s: The Killing of Sister George, Therese and Isabelle and The Fox. Lesbian scenes during movies are always subject to controversy. Many people say that the MPAA has been harsh on movies with homosexual themes. One notable example of this regards the movie When Night Is Falling, which was given an NC-17. The movie, though, was released unrated.

LGBT

Lesbianism in erotica


Pellet drums, or rattle drums, are a class of membranophone, or drum, characterized by their construction and manner of playing. They have two heads (either a single double-headed drum or two hemispherical single-headed drums joined together with the heads facing outward), and two pellets, each connected by a cord to the drum. The damaru, which is used in Tibet, Mongolia, and India, is an hourglass drum that is grasped by its waist with the hand twisting back and forth, causing the pellets to strike the heads in a rhythmic fashion.photo In China, Korea, and Japan, pellet drums are affixed to or pierced by a vertical rod or pole, and, depending on the instrument's size, the rod or pole is rotated back and forth along its axis either with one or both hands or between the palms, causing the pellets to strike the heads in a similar manner.

Pellet drums may be either hourglass shaped or barrel shaped. In some cases, multiple drums are mounted on a single rod.photo

Although pellet drums are often used in religious ritual (particularly Tibet, Mongolia, India, and Taiwan), small versions are also used in East Asia as children's toys or as noisemakers by street vendors. Such small versions are sometimes also referred to as rattle drums.

Varieties

Damru (also spelled damaru) - used in Tibet, Mongolia, and India
Den-den daiko (でんでん太鼓) - used as a children's toy in Japan
Do (hangul: 도; hanja; 鼗) - a single barrel drum pierced by a pole; used in Koreaphoto
Glong banthoh (กลองบัณเฑาะว์) - an hourglass drum used in Thailand with a pole on top, onto which a single string and pellet is tied, used in royal ceremonies.
Nodo (hangul: 노도; hanja: 路鼗) - two barrel drums pierced by a pole; used in Koreaphoto
Noedo (hangul: 뇌도; hanja: 雷鼗) - three barrel drums pierced by a pole; used in Koreaphoto
Tao (鼗; pinyin: táo) or taogu (鼗鼓) or bolanggu (拨浪鼓) - used in Chinese ritual music and as a children's toy or noisemaker used by street vendors
Yeongdo (hangul: 영도; hanja: 靈鼗) - four barrel drums pierced by a pole; used in Koreaphoto

Drums
Shaken membranophones
Traditional toys
Toy instruments and noisemakers

Pellet drum


Hoimar von Ditfurth (15 October 1921, Berlin – 1 November 1989, Freiburg im Breisgau) was a German physician and scientific journalist.
He was the father of Christian von Ditfurth, a historian, and Jutta Ditfurth, a writer and journalist.

Ditfurth won many awards during his long career, including the Adolf Grimme Awards in 1968, the Bambi Prize in 1972, and the Kalinga Prize in 1978.

Biography
Hoimar Gerhard Friedrich Ernst von Ditfurth was a German physician, academic, and scientific journalist, best known as a television presenter and as a writer of popular books on science.

Ditfurth was born in Berlin on 15 October 1921, into the family of the classical philologist Hans-Otto von Ditfurth, a national conservative Prussian cavalry captain. In 1939 he gained his school-leaving Abitur at the Viktoria-Gymnasium in Potsdam (today the Helmholtz-Gymnasium), then studied medical science, psychology, and philosophy at the universities of Berlin and Hamburg, receiving his doctoral degree in 1946.

From 1948 to 1960 Ditfurth worked at the university hospital of Würzburg, rising to the position of an assistant medical director. In 1959 he was habilitated at the University of Würzburg and became a private lecturer in psychiatry and neurology. In 1967 he was promoted to associate professor in the medical faculty at the same university, and from 1968 held the same position at the University of Heidelberg.

1960 Ditfurth took a job in the pharmaceutical company C.F. Boehringer of Mannheim, where he was the leader of the so-called "Psycho Lab", being responsible for the development and clinical testing of psychotropic drugs (Chlorpromazine). From 1964 until 1971 he was editor of the journal N+M ("Naturwissenschaft und Medizin"). From 1972, the publication was renamed Mannheimer Forum and was published by Ditfurth until his death.
In 1969 he refused the position of manager, commenting "I don't want to sacrifice my intellectual independence", and instead began a new career as a freelance lecturer, publisher, and scientific journalist.

Hoimar von Ditfurth was successful as an author of popular science books and as a television presenter on the WDR, SFB, SR, and ZDF networks. Courageously, he tried to bridge the gap between natural sciences and humanities. One focus of his work was to fight against pseudoscience, creationism, and anthropocentrism.

In 1949 Hoimar von Ditfurth married Heilwig von Raven. Together they had four children: Jutta (born 1951), Wolf-Christian (born 1953), Donata-Friederike (born 1956) und York-Alexander (born 1957). In 1971 he became well-known to a wider audience by making the ZDF series "Querschnitt" (later "Querschnitte") together with Volker Arzt. In the late 1970s he increasingly turned his hand to ecological subjects and became a critic of the western world's belief in progress and economical growth. At the beginning of the 1980s he supported "Alliance '90/The Greens" in its election campaign.

Ditfurth was a member of the German PEN-Zentrum. In his book The Origins of Life: Evolution as Creation (1982), he wrote that science and theology are compatible and argued that evolution is a process brought into being through a divine agency and that creation was not a single event but is instead the long-term process of evolution. The book opposed religious creationism and was described as similar to the theistic evolutionism of Asa Gray.

His daughter Jutta Ditfurth became a politician, while his son Christian von Ditfurth became important as a historian, journalist and writer.

On 1 November 1989 Ditfurth died of thyroid cancer in Freiburg im Breisgau and was buried in Staufen.

Books
 "Die endogene Depression", 1960
 "Kinder des Weltalls", 1970 ("Children of the Universe")
 "Im Anfang war der Wasserstoff", 1972
 "Zusammenhänge", 1974
 "Dimensionen des Lebens", 1974 (together with Volker Arzt)
 "Der Geist fiel nicht vom Himmel", 1976
 "Die Großen - Leben und Leistung der sechshundert bedeutendsten Persönlichkeiten unserer Welt", herausgegeben von Kurt Fassmann unter Mitwirkung von Max Bill, Hoimar von Ditfurth u.a., Kindler Verlag, Zürich 1977
 "Querschnitt – Dimensionen des Lebens II", 1978 (together with Volker Arzt)
 "Wir sind nicht nur von dieser Welt", 1981 ("The Origins of Life-Evolution as Creation")
 "So laßt uns denn ein Apfelbäumchen pflanzen", 1985
 "Unbegreifliche Realität", 1987
 "Innenansichten eines Artgenossen", 1989
 "Das Gespräch", 1992 (Interviewer: Dieter Zilligen),
 "Das Erbe des Neandertalers", 1992 (posthumous)
 "Die Sterne leuchten, auch wenn wir sie nicht sehen", 1994 (posthumous)
 "Die Wirklichkeit des Homo sapiens", 1995 (posthumous)

References

 Die Frau an seiner Seite – Gespräche mit Frauen berühmter Männer, hrsg. v. Helga Märthesheimer. Lübbe Verlag, Bergisch-Gladbach 1988.  (Gespräch von Carola Benninghoven mit Heilwig von Ditfurth. S. 31-55)
 Der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid - Evolutionstheorie und Glaube. Franz Kreuzer im Gespräch mit Hoimar von Ditfurth, Kardinal Franz König und Arnold Keyserling. Deuticke Verlag 1982.
 Eckart Löhr: Hoimar von Ditfurth - Aspekte seines Denkens. Eine kritische Einführung in das Denken des Mediziners, Wissenschaftlers und Wissenschaftsjournalisten anlässlich seines 20. Todesjahres. Grin Verlag 2009.

External links
 Hoimar-von-Ditfurth.de
 Hoimar von Ditfurth in the German National Library

1921 births
1989 deaths
Writers from Berlin
German male journalists
German psychiatrists
German male writers
ZDF people
20th-century German journalists
Kalinga Prize recipients

Hoimar von Ditfurth


Charles Smith ("C.S.") Hyman,  (August 31, 1854 – October 8, 1926) was a Canadian businessman, and notable politician and sportsman. He was a popular tennis player and won a record five Canadian Opens until broken by Ivan Lendl with six titles.

Early life and business
Born in London, Canada West, the son of Ellis Walton Hyman, a tanner and entrepreneur, and Annie Maria Niles, he was educated at Hellmuth Academy in London and then started a shoe factory with his father in 1874. In 1876, he married Elizabeth Birrell, and two years they had Idlewyld mansion built, which is now an inn.  Hyman was president of the London Board of Trade from 1881 to 1882.  In 1916 he built a summer estate in Port Stanley Ontario on the shore of Lake Erie.  He was also a tannery owner.

Politics
Hyman was elected to London city council in 1882 and was mayor in 1884. He first ran as a Liberal candidate against John Carling for the House of Commons of Canada in the 1887 election for the riding of London and was defeated.

Hyman ran again in 1891 and was elected but the election was declared void and he was defeated in the resulting 1892 by-election. After losing again in 1896, he was elected in 1900 and was re-elected in 1904. From 1904 to 1905, he was a Minister without Portfolio. From 1905 to 1907, he was the Minister of Public Works. He resigned in 1907. He died in 1926 and was buried at Woodland Cemetery in London.

Sports
Hyman was an early Canadian tennis champion, capturing the national tennis championship (which has since evolved into the current Rogers Cup) 5 times in singles – for 1884, and for each year from 1886 through 1889.  (Only Ivan Lendl surpassed this winning 6 titles from 1980 to 1989.) Hyman also captured two doubles titles, the 1886 final partnering I.F. Hellmuth, and the 1889 final playing alongside R.S. Wood.  (No one has ever won a total of seven titles.)

Hyman was also an early captain of the Canada national cricket team, quite possibly when on its 1887 England Tour.

Hyman is said to have introduced the game bridge to Canada.

References

External links

 The Canadian parliamentary companion, 1891, JA Gemmill

19th-century Canadian people (post-Confederation)
19th-century male tennis players
19th-century Canadian politicians
Businesspeople from London, Ontario
Canadian Anglicans
Canadian male tennis players
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Mayors of London, Ontario
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Members of the King's Privy Council for Canada
Sportspeople from London, Ontario
1854 births
1926 deaths
Cricketers from Ontario
19th-century Canadian businesspeople

C. S. Hyman


The Middle Ages were a period of about 1000 years in European history that started around the year 476 , when the Western Roman Empire ended, and continued until around the time that Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492. Sometimes, 1453 is used instead for the end since the Byzantine Empire fell that year. The period of time is called the "Middle Ages" because it took place between the fall of Rome and early modern Europe, and it is often separated into the Early Middle Ages, the High Middle Ages, and the Late Middle Ages.

People also use other names like the "Medieval Age" to describe the Middle Ages. Another term is "the Age of Faith" because Christianity and Islam then became much more popular. The early Middle Ages have also been called the "Dark Ages" because past scholars wrongly believed that there was very little culture, good literature, art or progress during the period.

Very few people in the Middle Ages could read and so there are not many records from the period. Historians, therefore, do not know as much about the Middle Ages as about other times.

During the Middle Ages, many people's lives were short, difficult and poor.  The fall of the Western Roman Empire and the invasions of barbarian tribes devastated Europe.  The Romans had made progress in science, technology, engineering, medicine and literature, but during the Middle Ages, much of their knowledge was lost.  There were mass migrations, wars and plagues.  For around 300 years, there was continuous violence. Then, the development of feudalism decreased some of the violence.

In 800, Charlemagne became Emperor of the Romans. He promoted order, education, and civilization. Slowly, Europe began to regain what it had lost. Still, the Late Middle Ages were a difficult time. Wars and the bubonic plague killed millions of people in Europe and Asia.

Europe changed a lot during the Middle Ages. Independent unified nation-states formed across the old Western Roman Empire. The new nations included England, Scotland, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Lithuania, Denmark, Norway and France (the last which evolved from the realm of the Franks).

Eastern Roman Empire

In 330 AD, Roman Emperor Constantine created the Eastern Roman Empire (later called the Byzantine Empire).  He made its capital city Constantinople (now Istanbul). The Byzantine Empire controlled Asia Minor and Northern Africa and briefly southern Spain and southern Italy. However, its lands were slowly eaten away by enemies like the Ottomans and the Franks.

The Byzantine Empire survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire and lasted until 1453. Constantinople was a walled city on a peninsula, which made it difficult for invaders to take over. Finally, that year, the Ottoman Empire captured Constantinople and called it Istanbul. That was the end of the Byzantine Empire.

The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks is sometimes called the end of the Middle Ages.

Islamic Golden Age
The Islamic prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the early 7th century. Soon after his death in 632, Islam split into two main branches: the Sunni Muslims and the Shi'a. Most Muslims (about 85%) are now Sunni. Shi'a live mostly in Iran and Iraq. The Sunni-Shi'a split has been compared to the later East-West Schism of 1054 or the Protestant Reformation within the Western Christianity starting in 1517.

After Muhammad's death, Arab Muslims began to take over many Christian territories and convert them to Islam. Over time, they took control of what is now Iraq, Syria, Egypt, North Africa and Spain. (France and other European countries stayed under Christian rule.) Eventually, the Muslim Ottomans Empire conquered parts of Eastern Europe too. Many Muslim states held of vast areas of land, which made them superpowers of the Middle Ages.  Islam spread along the major trade routes of the Old World.  Many traders and travelers became Muslim.

The Middle Ages were a golden age of knowledge in Muslim territories. Europe was struggling greatly, but the Islamic world was making great progress in the arts, agriculture, economics, industry, law, literature, navigation, philosophy, sciences and technology.  Many Muslim caliphs and Sultans gathered the ancient texts of great classical empires. (For example, the caliphs of Andalusia, based in Cordoba, gathered ancient Roman texts, and the Anatolian Seljuk Sultans gathered ancient Greek texts.). During the Islamic Golden Age, Al-Khwarizmi, a Persian Muslim mathematician, helped to develop algebra.

The Golden Age of Islam ended with the Mongol invasions in the mid-13th century.

Asian Trade and the Bubonic Plague
During the Middle Ages, trade between countries became much more common. Most trade ran along the Silk Road, a trade route that connected Europe to the Middle East and East Asia. Arab traders brought things back and forth between Europe and East Asia along the Silk Road.

Items that were light, easy to carry and valuable traveled the furthest distances. During the High Middle Ages, wealth began to return, and consumers began to demand luxuries again. Traders brought silk, porcelain, spices, incense, gold and gems thousands of miles across deserts, mountains and plains to reach Europe. They also brought glass from Europe to Asia.

Not all items traveled along the entire Silk Road. Traders carrying heavier or less valuable items would travel shorter distances. Food, for example, would usually travel only within a few villages.

Trade was greatly interrupted several times during the Crusades (1095-1291), Mongol invasions, wars between Muslims and Christians and the Black Plague. Histories think the Mongols brought the plague with them from Asia. The disease devastated the world population from 1347 to 1351 and  killed almost a third of the world's population although the Americas were not affected.

Buddhism
Buddhism is a non-theistic religion; its followers do not believe in a god.  It is based on philosophy and began in India. However, Muslim invaders drove Buddhism out of India, which forced it to flee east. There are very few Buddhists in India today, but Buddhism eventually took up strong roots in China.

The Mongolian Empire and Chinese Exploration
During the Middle Ages, the Mongols created the world's largest-ever contiguous empire. Under the leadership of Genghis Khan, the Mongols took over territories in much of Asia, the Middle East, and far Eastern Europe.  Because the Mongol Empire was so large and powerful, there was little war within the empire. This is now called the Pax Mongolica (Latin for "Mongolian peace").  Like the earlier Pax Romana ("Roman Peace"), the Pax Mongolica was a time of relative peace and stability. That made it possible for trade, technologies and ideas to travel safely throughout Eurasia.  International trade and diplomacy along the Silk Road expanded greatly.

Around the time of his death in 1227, Genghis Khan's empire had gotten too large to survive. It collapsed under its own size like Alexander the Great's had in Ancient Greece. The former Mongol Empire was split four ways, which allowed the Chinese to become the dominant power in the Far East once again. Later, under the Yuan dynasty, the Chinese also retook control of northern China.

Around 1405, a Chinese admiral, Zheng He, went to explore the world. His fleet of 300 treasure ships explored great areas of the Eastern world. The ships were many times larger than anything the Europeans had built. A Zheng He treasure ship was wider than Columbus' ship Santa Maria was long.

Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages were the last two centuries of the Middle Ages, from around 1291, when the Crusades ended, to 1492, when Columbus traveled to the New World. The gun was invented, and changed the way that wars were fought.  Aristocracy and feudalism became less important.

Before the Late Middle Ages, armies were formed only when there was a war, but states began to found standing armies, which are permanent. Technology, economy and science developed. New cities were founded, and existing cities grew larger and richer.

During the late Middle Ages, France and England fought the Hundred Years' War. China regained its independence from the Mongol Empire. The Grand Duchy of Moscow, which became the most important state in Eastern Europe, also became independent from the Mongols and later became called "Russia."

In 1453, the Ottoman Empire conquered the Byzantine Empire. That cut off the Silk Road and so Europeans had to find new trade routes. That triggered the Age of Discovery during the Renaissance.  In turn, the Christian states drove the Muslims out of Spain.

References

Other websites
 Student resources
 History.com - Middle Ages Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts
 Middle Ages - Citizendium
 Middle Ages - Vikidia

Periods and ages in history

Middle Ages


Skirbeck Wapentake was an administrative unit in the Parts of Holland Lincolnshire, England from the early eleventh century at the latest, until the wapentakes were abolished by the Local Government Act of 1888.

In most of England, the corresponding unit was the hundred, which was in principle, a grouping of a hundred households. Around a thousand years ago, it was important as a unit for gathering taxes and raising men for the 'citizen' army of the time, known as the Fyrd. The idea of the hundred goes back at least to the time of Tacitus but the version called the wapentake belongs to the Danish-influenced part of England. It therefore dates in that country, from the tenth or very early eleventh century.

In 1882, White's Directory for Lincolnshire (page 94) described the wapentakes as "now of little practical value". Their potential functions had been taken over piecemeal by other units such as electoral districts, Poor-Law unions and so on.

South Holland, Lincolnshire
Wapentakes of Holland

Skirbeck Wapentake


The Brittle Books Program is an initiative carried out by the National Endowment for the Humanities at the request of the United States Congress. The initiative began officially between 1988 and 1989 with the intention to involve the eventual microfilming of over 3 million endangered volumes.

Purpose
In the beginning half of the 20th century it became apparent that the use of acidic wood-pulp paper, common since the 1850s, was causing paper materials to slowly burn. This has been referred to as the slow fire. A statement submitted to the House of Representatives estimated that there were 80 million brittle books in North American libraries, 12 million of which were unique titles. As mass deacidification efforts proved costly and inconsistent, librarians and archivists began looking for more practical ways to preserve the intellectual content of the decaying material. Microfilm, one of the most stable and durable mediums around at the time, was decided to be the most reasonable alternative.

Timeline
1987 - A subcommittee of the House of Representatives during the 100th Congress (1st session) addressed the problem of "brittle books in our nation's libraries."
March 17, 1988 - Patricia Battin, president of the Commission on Preservation and Access (CPA), testified before the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies (Committee on Appropriations).  She proposed a collaborative approach to the preservation of the nation's brittle books and asked the House to increase federal funding for preservation microfilming.
October, 1988 - An appropriations bill for fiscal year 1989 gave the National Endowment for the Humanities $12.5 million. Eight million dollars of that sum went to instituting a twenty-year program for the microfilming of endangered volumes.
1995 - The program was assessed to be on schedule and 25% complete.
Roughly 50,000 brittle and endangered volumes are microfilmed each year.

Important figures
William Barrow was a pioneer conservator in the library science field. He connected the paper strength or lack thereof (brittle paper) to the acidity of the groundwood used to make wood pulp after the 1850s.
With his own observations of his collection and tests conducted, he announced to the library community that acid deterioration begins to show signs after 20,40 and 80 years.

Structure
As with other National Endowment for the Humanities programs, the Brittle Books Program is a partnership program, meaning that qualifying institutions must apply for grants in order to participate. Should the institution be accepted, they are required to share at least 33% of the program's costs. Unlike other National Endowment for the Humanities preservation funding initiatives, the Brittle Books program does require that an institution in each state must be awarded a grant. The projects are largely run at the state level with the National Endowment for the Humanities providing methodologies, assuring a standard level of quality, and connecting the efforts of the various institutions. To be awarded a grant as part of the Brittle Books Program, institutions were required to abide by five basic conditions:
1. That they abide by the national standard
2. That they create three copies of all material: a master negative, a print negative, and a service copy
3. That a record adhering to national standards be entered into a national bibliographic database
4. That interlibrary loan copies be readily available
5. That storage conditions meet that of the national standard

Preservation issues

Deacidification
While there is a deacidification method that can successfully lower the acidity in brittle books, many public libraries do not have the funding to implement standard programs to halt the deterioration taking place in these institutions.  Some repositories have the resources to send books for a deacidification wash in stages.

Deacidification washes are usually a viable option for most repositories as books can be sent in bulk; however, only books of excellent physical quality may be sent.  The wash process is rather aggressive and any deformities in a book may cause damage to already brittle specimens.  Therefore, libraries would have to first repair those books in less than desirable condition - specifically elements of the binding, leaf attachments, and text attachments - before deacidification.  These extra conservation efforts would increase the costs of deacidification.

Paper splitting
Another option to preserve brittle books is to perform paper splitting. This process dissects a book by its leaf and text attachment and treats each sheet of paper individually.  Supervised by a book conservator, a paper conservator, and a conservation specialist, pages are literally pulled apart - fronts from backs - and a piece of alkaline paper is placed in between.  The acid pages are then sandwiched back together with a non-acid buffer between them to slow the deterioration process.  However, only ZFB (the Zentrum für Bucherhaltung) offers this procedure (also called mechanical paper splitting).  They claim the process is so refined, they have successfully split cigarette paper. Washes will de-acidify the paper though they will remain brittle; but paper splitting increases the strength and flexibility of the paper via the extra new sheet of buffered paper and the ZFB process includes de-acidification washes.

Microform
Microform is a reasonable option for Brittle Book preservation mainly because microfilm can be usable for 500 years, so long as it is stored in proper conditions and a microfilm reader is accessible.  Even microfiche is easier to store than microfilm, provided organizational practices prevent the divestment of sheets from their filing system. Despite its proven record of durability, microform is no longer a preferred method of digitization because it lacks the accessibility that modern electronic digitization provides.

Digitization
Digital conversion of physical items is the preferred method, despite an estimated five-year longevity for most computer files.  As proper archival-quality digitization requires use of large, uncompressed TIFF files, storage can be a significant cost, especially for public libraries. Moreover, copyright law restrains the ability to digitize all brittle books. While the library is authorized to make a copy of a book it cannot obtain through reasonable means, having a digital copy offers the possibility of unauthorized distribution if circulated in this format.

Photocopies
Many repositories, such as the University of Kansas, opt for preservation-quality photocopies.  A list-serv is utilized for the posting of titles so a consortium of libraries can benefit from a reduced cost in replication so they may maintain their circulating collections.  Maintained by OCLC, the submissions are processed at the OCLC Preservation Service Center and OCLC retains the digital copies produced as to defer any copyright issues away from the repositories subscribing to the service.

Future
As libraries move into the digital era, preservation practices attempt to move with them. Current and future projects in preserving brittle volumes are more likely to involve scanning and digitization than microfilming. A recent example of such a program is the Digitizing America's Imprints project at the Library of Congress which received a $2 million grant in 2007.

Further information
Slow Fires: On the Preservation of the Human Record, a film by Terry Sanders
Turning to Dust
Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, a book by Nicholson Baker

References

Book promotion
Preservation (library and archival science)

Brittle Books Program


Mirza ( or ; ) is a title and name of Persian origin. It is used as a surname or prefix to identify patriarchal lineage.

It is derived from a historical  Title role of Persian origin (Mīrzā), denoting the rank of a royal  prince , high nobleman , or a military commander equivalent to a nobleman. It is usually defined in English as Prince of the blood.

Specifically, it was used as a title by and today signifies patriarchal lineage to the various Persian Empires, the Ottoman Empire, the Shirvanshahs and Circassians of the Caucasus, Mughal Empire or Muslim Rajputs of the Indian Subcontinent.[2] It was also a title bestowed upon members of the highest aristocracies in Tatar states, such as the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan.

Etymology
The word Mīrzā is derived from the Persian term 'Amīrzāde which literally means "Son of the Amīr" or "child of the ruler".[3] 'Amīrzād in turn consists of the Arabic title 'Amīr (english: Emir), meaning "commander" and "Prince", and the Persian suffix -zād, meaning "birth" or "lineage". Due to vowel harmony in Turkic languages, the alternative pronunciation Mortar (weapon) (plural morzalar; derived from the Persian word) is also used. The word Mirza means royalty in almost every old version of Persian, Arab, Caucasian, Turkish and Indian languages.

Variant spellings in English include mirzya, miriza, mirize, mirze, morsey, mursay, murse, meirsa, mirzey, mursi, murze, murza, mirza, myrza, meerza .

Royal title
The titles themselves were given by the King, Sultan and Emperor (equivalent to the western Fount of honour) to their sons and grandsons, or even distant kins. Noblemen loyal to the kings also received this Title.
The title itself is derived from the title Emir. Emir, meaning "commander" or "Prince", is derived from the Semitic root "Amr", meaning "command". Originally it simply meant "commander" or "leader", usually in reference to a group of people. It came to be used as a title of governors or rulers, typically in smaller states, and usually renders the English word "Prince." The word entered English in 1595, from the French émir. It is also used in Pakistan and North India by Muslim Rajputs.

References

Other websites
 "Mirza Definition". Collins Dictionary. n.d
 mirza. CollinsDictionary.com. Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 11th Edition.

Titles
Surnames
Noble families

Mirza


Beverly Hills, 90210 is an American primetime television drama series that aired from October 4, 1990, to May 17, 2000 on FOX in the United States and subsequently on various networks around the world. The show followed the lives of a group of teenagers living in the upscale, star-studded community of Beverly Hills, California and attending the fictitious West Beverly Hills High School and then-fictitious California University. The show was created by Darren Star and produced by Aaron Spelling and Spelling Television. The "90210" in the title refers to one of the suburb's postal ZIP codes.

The original premise of the show was based around the adjustment and culture shock that twins Brandon (played by Jason Priestley) and Brenda Walsh (played by Shannen Doherty) had after they and their parents, Jim and Cindy moved from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Beverly Hills. The show addressed several topical issues, including: date rape, alcoholism, domestic violence, gay rights, drug abuse, teenage suicide, AIDS, and teenage pregnancy.

The show gained popularity during the summer of 1991, when FOX aired a special "summer season" of the show while most other series were in reruns. The series became one of FOX's top shows when it began its next season that fall. Viewership increased dramatically and the cast members, particularly Jason Priestley and Luke Perry, became teen idols, while the series would make actresses Shannen Doherty, Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling household names.

Other websites

1990 American television series debuts
2000 American television series endings
1990s American television series
2000s American television series
American drama television series
American teen television series
Beverly Hills, California in fiction
Fox television series
Television series set in Los Angeles County, California
English-language television programs

Beverly Hills, 90210


A secret society is an organisation run in secrecy. There would be little or no physical evidence to prove that the society exists. An example of a large secret society is the Illuminati, which stopped existing in 1785 but is believed by some to still exist and be in control of large businesses, banks and individuals, but there is no evidence of this.

Secret society


Sparkling wine is the name for a number of wines which have a lot of carbon dioxide in them. This will make the wine fizzy. The carbon dioxide may be the result of the fermentation process, or it may have been added later. One of the best-known examples is probably Champagne, but there are many other such wines. In Spain such wines are called Cava, in Italy Asti or Spumante and in German Sekt. In French the terms "Mousseux" or "Crémant" are used for such wines, as well, especially for those which are not produced in the Champagne. Crémant d'Alsace, Blanquette de Limoux and Clairette de Die are  examples of sparkling wines made in France outside the Champagne region.

Most sparkling wines are made from white wine or rosé.

Wine

Sparkling wine