Wu Qi (, 440–381 BC) was a Chinese military general, philosopher, and politician during the Warring States period.

Biography
Born in the State of Wey (), he was skilled in leading armies and military strategy. He had served in the states of Lu and Wei (魏, not to be confused with Wèi, currently spelled as Wey as in previous note). In the state of Wei he commanded many great battles and was appointed Xihe Shou (Mayor of Xihe county). Xihe was the area between the Yellow and Luo Rivers that Wei had just taken from Qin. Later, after he became estranged from the lord of Wei and was forced into exile, Wu Qi went to the State of Chu where he was appointed Prime minister by King Dao of Chu (). His reforms made Chu a strong state at that time. The reforms he instituted enraged the old nobility of Chu and he was killed after the death of King Dao.

Wu's reforms, which started around 389 BC, were generally aimed at changing the corrupt and inefficient government. The nobility and officialdom were terribly corrupt and the government was burdened with the costs of paying them and a horde of other minor officials. Wu first lowered the annual salary of Chu officials, then dismissed officials who were useless or incompetent. He also eliminated hereditary privileges after three generations. The money saved by cutting costs was used to create and train a more professional army.

Another of Wu's actions was to move all the nobles to the borders on the frontier, away from the capital, in order to reduce their power and at the same time populate those areas, making them more useful to the state government. He is also credited with devising a set of building codes in Ying, in order to make the city look less "barbaric", and more in line with 'civilized' Chinese architectural aesthetics.

Although his reforms soon started to make Chu a powerful country, the nobles and Daoists of Chu hated him. Nobles accused him of trying to change the old ways, and even managed to find fault with the building codes. Daoists accused him of being a "warmonger" and an "admirer of force and weaponry", even going as far as to say that he was "a threat to humanity". He was accused of not returning for the mourning period of his mother's death and for murdering his own wife (who was the daughter of a noble from the rival state of Qi) in order to gain trust from the ruler of the state of Lu.  There is no definitive evidence to the truth of these accusations, and it is possible  they were manufactured by Wu Qi's political enemies to slander him.

In the wake of Wu Qi's reforms, Chu's prowess was quickly manifest: Chu defeated the Yue state in the south and the Wei in the north, dealing with each in quick succession. However, King Dao died that same year. The old nobles plotted to assassinate Wu Qi at King Dao's funeral, where he would be separated from the army. Wu Qi spotted the assassins armed with bows, and rushed to the side of King Dao's body. He was killed, but many arrows struck the dead King. The new King Su (), furious at his father's body being mutilated, ordered all nobles involved to be executed, along with their families.

Wei Liaozi

According to the Wei Liaozi, a treatise on military matters dating from the late 4th or early 3rd century BC, the general Wu Qi was once offered a sword by his subordinates on the eve of battle. However Wu Qi refused to accept the weapon on the basis that banners and drums, the tools to lead and command, were the only instruments a general required. In his words, "to command the troops and direct their blades, this is the role of a commander. To wield a single sword is not his role." The point here is to highlight the idea that the general was the brain of the army, whereas the soldiers were to behave as the limbs. Heroic individual actions were disincentivized in preference to complete obedience and perfect coordination as a unit, a concept which the Wei Liaozi elucidates upon in another parable concerning Wu Qi: Prior to the beginning of a battle, one of Wu's soldiers broke from his ranks in his enthusiasm and charged the enemy line, slaying two men, and trotted back to his former position along with their heads as trophies. Wu immediately ordered the man to be put to death. When his officers protested that he was a fine warrior, Wu Qi answered, "He is indeed a fine warrior, but he disobeyed my orders." As with Sun Tzu and his Art of War, Wu Qi emphasized discipline and obedience before bravery as the most important traits in soldiery.

Popular culture
He and Sun Zi are often mentioned in the same sentence (Sun-Wu, 孙吴) as great military strategists of similar if not equal importance.

His military treatise, the Wuzi, is included as one of the Seven Military Classics. It is said there were two books on the art of war by Wu Qi, but one was lost, hence leaving the Wuzi as the only existing book carrying Wu Qi's military thoughts.

Wu Qi is one of the 32 historical figures who appear as special characters in the video game series Romance of the Three Kingdoms (video game) by Koei.

See also
 Wuqi County

Footnotes

References

 Wu, Rongzeng, "Wu Qi". Encyclopedia of China (Chinese History Edition), 1st ed.
 Zhang, Lirong, "Wu Qi". Encyclopedia of China (Military Edition), 1st ed.

External links

380s BC deaths
5th-century BC Chinese philosophers
4th-century BC Chinese philosophers
Ancient Chinese military writers
Chinese chancellors
Chinese reformers
Generals from Shandong
Legalism (Chinese philosophy)
Lingyin of Chu
Philosophers from Shandong
Philosophers of law
Politicians from Heze
Writers from Heze
Year of birth unknown
Zhou dynasty generals
Zhou dynasty government officials
Zhou dynasty philosophers

Wu Qi


Maurice Joseph "Mickey" McDermott Jr. (April 29, 1929 – August 7, 2003) was an American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball.

Pre-professional career
Mickey McDermott was the third son of Maurice McDermott Sr., a police officer and former minor league baseball player. Maurice, replaced at first base on the Hartford Senators in the Eastern League by Lou Gehrig, had determined one of his three sons would grow up to be a baseball player and fulfill his dream, though his first-born son, Jimmy, died at the age of seven and his second son, Billy, was born with deformed legs.

McDermott started playing first base, his father's position, until his coach at St. Mary's Grammar School noticed that his ball had a natural curve when thrown. By the time he was playing in the parochial school league for St. Patrick's High, he was averaging twenty strikeouts per game. McDermott played for the semi-pro Ferrara Trucking Company at the age of 13 against adults and some major league baseball players moonlighting to pick up some extra money. He went to his first tryout, also at the age of 13, with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Mule Haas, a scout for the Dodgers, said that he wanted to sign McDermott, but because of his age it was illegal. At the age of 15, his father changed his birth certificate to make it appear as though Mickey was 18 years old. Joe Cronin, general manager of the Red Sox, did some research and found out McDermott was only 15. Cronin and McDermott's father worked it out so that McDermott's father got a $5,000 signing bonus and two truck loads of Ballantine Beer for McDermott.

Professional career

Minor leagues
McDermott was assigned to the Red Sox' Double A affiliate, the Scranton Red Sox of the Eastern League. He ended the season with a 16–6 record and a 3.29 ERA, with 136 strikeouts in 175 innings. On July 14, 1946, at the age of 17, McDermott threw a no-hitter against the Albany Senators, making him possibly the youngest pitcher to throw a no-hit game in the high minors.

The following season, McDermott was promoted to Boston's Triple-A affiliate, the Louisville Colonels, where he struggled with his control. Subsequently, he was sent back to Scranton to work on his mechanics. In Scranton, he discovered his form, going 12–4 with four shutouts for the rest of the season, averaging almost one strikeout per inning. During the playoffs, McDermott, threw his second minor league no-hitter. Playing at home against the Utica Blue Sox, McDermott walked Richie Ashburn in the ninth inning. Ashburn took second on a fielders's choice and reached third on a sacrifice fly. With two outs, the catcher called for a curve, but McDermott missed the sign and threw a fastball. The catcher, expecting a curve, failed to catch the ball as it went sailing past him. Ashburn scored the only run of the game to give Utica the victory and McDermott the no-hit loss.

Major leagues

McDermott made it onto the Red Sox roster for the beginning of the 1948 season, appearing in seven games during the first two months of the season, mostly in lopsided losses. In 23 innings, he had 16 strikeouts and 35 walks, thus was returned to Scranton for more seasoning. After the minor league season ended, he was recalled when the major league roster expanded for the playoff run. While with Scranton, McDermott threw his third career minor league no-hitter.

After 1949 spring training, McDermott was assigned to the Louisville Colonels. On May 24, he struck out 20 St. Paul Saints to set a new American Association record that was never broken (the American Association folded in 1962). Over the next four games after his 20 strikeout performance, he struck out 19, 18, 17 and 19 to set a record for the most strikeouts over a five-game period, 93. Under pressure from sports writers, Boston, which was already eleven games out of first place, brought up McDermott to help their ailing pitching staff.

McDermott got his first big league win after Ellis Kinder left the game in the first inning. McDermott pitched eight innings of shutout baseball before being lifted for a reliever. He finished the season with a 5–4 record and two shutouts.

On May 29, 1952, McDermott faced 27 batters and fired a one-hitter to beat the Washington Senators, 1–0, at Fenway Park. Mel Hoderlein's fourth-inning single was the only Washington hit and he was thrown out while trying to stretch the hit into a double. His finest season came in 1953 when he went 18–10. The following year, he was traded to the Senators for Jackie Jensen. He finished his career with a 69–69 record playing for several different teams. After he refused to sign with the Tigers for the 1959 season, the Tigers sold his contract to the Dallas Eagles of the Texas League, with whom he also refused to sign. Then Bill Veeck, owner of the triple A Miami Marlins of the International League, signed him to pitch on the same staff as Satchel Paige and Virgil Trucks.

While playing winter ball in Cuba in 1959, McDermott's team was at bat when Fidel Castro led the 26th of July Movement that overthrew the regime of Fulgencio Batista. Several people on the field and in the stands were shot, including McDermott's teammate and future Cincinnati Reds shortstop Leo Cárdenas.

McDermott was an excellent hitting pitcher in his 12-year major league career, posting a .252 batting average (156-for-619) with 71 runs, 9 home runs, 74 RBI and 52 bases on balls. He hit .364 for the Red Sox in 1950 and .301 in 1953. He recorded 12 RBI in 1950 and 13 RBI in 1953 and 10 RBI with the Senators in 1955.

Before 1961, Detroit gave McDermott his unconditional release. He signed with the St. Louis Cardinals as a free agent. After divorcing his first wife, McDermott met Linda Biggio, who would become his second wife. After being out late one night, he invited Linda to his room. The hotel detective saw her dressed in a Hawaiian muumuu and said, "You can't bring that hooker into your room!" McDermott punched the detective in the mouth and was subsequently released by the Cardinals.

Post-playing career
As McDermott's baseball career started winding down, he began to drink more. Eventually, he was drinking every night even when he was scheduled to pitch the next day. After pitching in the minor leagues for a while and taking odd jobs to make ends meet, McDermott's second wife, fed up with his alcoholic ways, divorced him. McDermott was hired by the California Angels in 1967 as an assistant pitching coach and batting practice pitcher. He was let go, with the rest of the coaching staff, after the 1968 season. McDermott was eventually hired by Billy Martin, his former teammate, as a scout for the Oakland A's. McDermott turned in the first A's report on Mark McGwire, who eventually signed with them. McDermott was fired, along with the rest of the coaching staff, when Martin was fired after the 1982 season.

McDermott, along with business partner Tino Barzie, started representing baseball players as agents. McDermott would recruit the players, and Barzie would negotiate the contracts. They ended up representing Tony Armas, Mario Guerrero, Alejandro Peña, Candy Maldonado and Marty Barrett. Barzie finally had to end his business relationship with McDermott due to the latter's heavy drinking. McDermott became close friends and drinking companions with Paul Gleason and Jack Kerouac.

In 1991, after getting into a car wreck and being sentenced to 60 days in jail for numerous DWI's, McDermott became sober. He gave up drinking in 1991 when he and his wife won $7 million in the Arizona Lottery. Five years later, his wife, Betty, died of breast cancer. McDermott's health was not much better, as he went on to have a defibrillator and pacemaker surgically installed. He wrote a memoir of his playing (and non-playing) days called A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Cooperstown, in which he blamed his health problems on his heavy drinking. McDermott lived long enough to see his book published. It was released in April 2003, and he died on August 7, in Phoenix, from congestive heart failure and colon cancer.

Note
   p. 178

References

External links
 or Venezuelan Professional Baseball League statistics

1929 births
2003 deaths
Baseball players from New York (state)
Boston Red Sox players
California Angels coaches
Deaths from cancer in Arizona
Deaths from colorectal cancer
Detroit Tigers players
Hawaii Islanders players
Kansas City Athletics players
Leones del Caracas players
American expatriate baseball players in Venezuela
Major League Baseball pitchers
New York Yankees players
Oakland Athletics scouts
Sportspeople from Poughkeepsie, New York
St. Louis Cardinals players
Salt Lake City Bees players
Washington Senators (1901–1960) players
Scranton Miners players
Scranton Red Sox players
Louisville Colonels (minor league) players
Miami Marlins (International League) players
Little Rock Travelers players
Tri-City Angels players

Mickey McDermott


The Pulitzer Prize is an American prize given to journalism and literature.  The prize is considered a very high prize.  It is also given for musical composition of very high standard. Joseph Pulitzer started it. Columbia University in New York City awards the prize.

Prizes are given in twenty-one categories. The winner gets $10,000 cash award and a certificate.  One of the twenty-one prizes is the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Pulitzer Prize


Sándor Petőfi ( []; né Petrovics; ; ; 1 January 1823 – most likely 31 July 1849) was a Hungarian poet and liberal revolutionary. He is considered Hungary's national poet, and was one of the key figures of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. He is the author of the Nemzeti dal (National Song), which is said to have inspired the revolution in the Kingdom of Hungary that grew into a war for independence from the Austrian Empire. It is most likely that he died in the Battle of Segesvár, one of the last battles of the war.

Early life

Petőfi was born on the New Year's morning of 1823, in the town of Kiskőrös, Kingdom of Hungary. The population of Kiskőrös was predominantly of Slovak origin as a consequence of the Habsburgs' reconstruction policy designed to settle, where possible, non-Hungarians in areas devastated during the Turkish wars. His birth certificate, in Latin, gives his name as "Alexander Petrovics", where "Alexander" is the Latin equivalent of the Hungarian "Sándor". His father,  () , was a village butcher, innkeeper and he was a second-generation Slovak immigrant to the Great Hungarian Plain. In his book Petőfi adattár, József Kiss (1923-1992) dealt in detail with the ancestry of Petőfi. According to him, the results of Lajos Jakus' research prove the Slovak origin of the branches of both parents until 1685. This disproved the widespread misbelief that Petofi's father, Štefan (István) Petrovics, was automatically Serbian because his name was Petrovics. Petöfi's Slovak origins are also confirmed by the fact that his parents belonged to the Lutheran Church (Serbs tend to be Orthodox). Mária Hrúz, Petőfi's mother, was a servant and laundress before her marriage. She spoke Hungarian with something of an accent. Petőfi's parents first met in Maglód, married in Aszód and moved to Kiskőrös a year before the birth of the poet.

The family lived for some time in Szabadszállás, where his father owned a slaughterhouse. Within two years, the family moved to Kiskunfélegyháza, and Petőfi always viewed the city as his true home. His father tried to give his son the best possible education and sent him to a lyceum, but when Sándor was 15, the family went through a financially difficult period, due to the Danube floods of 1838 and the bankruptcy of a relative. Sándor had to leave the lyceum which he was attending in Selmecbánya (today Banská Štiavnica in Slovakia). He held small jobs in various theatres in Pest, worked as a teacher in Ostffyasszonyfa, and spent some months as a soldier in Sopron.

After a restless period of travelling, Petőfi attended college at Pápa, where he met Mór Jókai. A year later in 1842, his poem "A borozó" (The Wine Drinker) was first published in the literary magazine Athenaeum under the name Sándor Petrovics. On 3 November the same year, he published the poem under the surname "Petőfi" for the first time.

Petőfi was more interested in the theatre. In 1842 he joined a travelling theatre, but had to leave it to earn money. He wrote for a newspaper, but could not make enough from it. Malnourished and sick, he went to Debrecen, where his friends helped him to get back on his feet.

In 1844 he walked from Debrecen to Pest to find a publisher for his poems and he succeeded. His poems were becoming increasingly popular. He relied on folkloric elements and popular, traditional song-like verses.

Among his longer works is the epic "János Vitéz" (John the Valiant; 1845). The poem is a fairy-tale notable for its length, 370 quatrains divided into 27 chapters, and for its clever wordplay. It has gained immense popularity in Hungary, however, Petőfi felt influenced by his editor, Imre Vahot, to continue writing folklore-style poems, while he wanted to use his Western-oriented education and write about growing revolutionary passions. (The government's censorship would have made such works difficult to publish.)

Marriage and family

In 1846, he met Júlia Szendrey in Transylvania. They married the next year, despite the opposition of her father, and spent their honeymoon at the castle of Count ), the only aristocrat among Petőfi's friends. Their only son Zoltán was born on 15 December 1848.

Political career
Petőfi became more possessed by thoughts of a global revolution. He and Júlia moved to Pest, where he joined a group of like-minded students and intellectuals who regularly met at . They worked on promoting Hungarian as the language of literature and theatre, formerly based on German. The first permanent Hungarian theatre (Pesti Magyar Színház), which later became the National Theater, was opened in that time (1837).

Hungarian Revolution of 1848
Among the various young leaders of the revolution, called Márciusi Ifjak (Youths of March), Petőfi was the key in starting the revolution in Pest. He was co-author and author, respectively, of the two most important written documents: the 12 Pont (12 Points, demands to the Habsburg Governor-General) and the "Nemzeti Dal", his revolutionary poem.

When the news of the revolution in Vienna reached them on the 15th, Petőfi and his friends decided to change the date of the "National Assembly" (a rally in which a petition to the Hungarian noblemen's assembly would be approved by the people) from 19 March to the 15 March. On the morning of the 15th, Petőfi and the revolutionaries began to march around the city of Pest, reading his poem and the "12 Points" to the growing crowd, which attracted thousands. Visiting printers, they declared an end to censorship and printed the poem and "12 Points".

Crowds forced the mayor to sign the "12 Points" and later held a mass demonstration in front of the newly built National Museum, then crossed to Buda on the other bank of the Danube. When the crowd rallied in front of the Imperial governing council, the representatives of Emperor Ferdinand felt they had to sign the "12 Points". As one of the points was freedom for political prisoners, the crowd moved to greet the newly freed revolutionary poet Mihály Táncsics.

Petőfi's popularity waned as the memory of the glorious day faded, and the revolution went the way of high politics to the leadership of the nobles. Those in the noblemen's Assembly in Pozsony, (today Bratislava) had been pushing for slower reforms at the same time, which they delivered to the Emperor on the 13th, but events had overtaken them briefly. Petőfi disagreed with the Assembly and criticised their view of the goals and methods of the Revolution. (His colleague Táncsics was imprisoned again by the new government.) In the general election, Petőfi ran in his native area but did not win a seat. At this time, he wrote his most serious poem, Az Apostol (The Apostle). It was an epic about a fictional revolutionary who, after much suffering, attempts to assassinate a fictitious king.

Petőfi joined the Hungarian Revolutionary Army and fought under the Polish Liberal General Józef Bem, in the Transylvanian army. The army was initially successful against Habsburg troops, but after Tsar Nicholas I of Russia intervened to support the Habsburgs, it was defeated. Petőfi was last seen alive in the Battle of Segesvár on 31 July 1849.

Death
Petőfi is believed to have been killed in action during the battle of Segesvár by the Imperial Russian Army. A Russian military doctor recorded an account of Petőfi's death in his diary. As his body was never officially found, rumours of Petőfi's survival persisted. In his autobiographical roman a clef Political Fashions (Politikai divatok, 1862), Mór Jókai imagined his late friend's "resurrection". In the novel Petőfi (the character named Pusztafi) returns ten years later as a shabby, déclassé figure who has lost his faith in everything, including poetry.

Although for many years his death at Segesvár had been assumed, in the late 1980s Soviet investigators found archives that revealed that after the battle about 1,800 Hungarian prisoners of war were marched to Siberia. Alternative theories suggest that he was one of them and died of tuberculosis in 1856. In 1990, an expedition was organised to Barguzin, Buryatia, Siberia, where archaeologists claimed to have unearthed Petőfi's skeleton. Furthermore, in Hungary they have a saying after him: "Eltűnt, mint Petőfi a ködben" (Disappeared, like Petőfi in the fog).

Poetry
Petőfi started his career as a poet with "popular situation songs", a genre to which his first published poem, A borozó ("The Wine Drinker", 1842), belongs. It is the song of a drinker praising the healing power of wine to drive away all troubles. This kind of pseudo-folk song was not unusual in Hungarian poetry of the 1840s, but Petőfi soon developed an original and fresh voice which made him stand out. He wrote many folk song-like poems on the subjects of wine, love, romantic robbers etc. Many of these early poems have become classics, for example the love poem A virágnak megtiltani nem lehet ("You Cannot Forbid the Flower", 1843), or Befordultam a konyhára ("I Turned into the Kitchen", 1843) which uses the ancient metaphor of love and fire in a playful and somewhat provocative way.

The influence of folk poetry and 19th-century populism is very significant in Petőfi's work, but other influences are also present: Petőfi drew on sources such as topoi of contemporary almanac-poetry in an inventive way, and was familiar with the works of major literary figures of his day, including Percy Bysshe Shelley, Pierre-Jean de Béranger and Heinrich Heine.

Petőfi's early poetry was often interpreted as some kind of role-playing, due to the broad range of situations and voices he created and used. Recent interpretations however call attention to the fact that in some sense all lyrical poetry can be understood as role-playing, which makes the category of "role-poems" (coined especially for Petőfi) superfluous. While using a variety of voices, Petőfi created a well-formed persona for himself: a jaunty, stubborn loner who loves wine, hates all kinds of limits and boundaries and is passionate in all he feels. In poems such as Jövendölés ("Prophecy", 1843) he imagines himself as someone who will die young after doing great things. This motif recurs in the revolutionary poetry of his later years.

The influence of contemporary almanac-poetry can be best seen in the poem cycle Cipruslombok Etelke sírjára ("Branches of Cypress for Etelke's Tomb", 1845). These sentimental poems, which are about death, grief, love, memory and loneliness were written after a love interest of Petőfi's, Etelke Csapó, died.

In the years 1844–1845, Petőfi's poetry became increasingly subtle and mature. New subjects appeared, such as landscape. His most influential landscape poem is Az Alföld ("The Plains"), in which he says that his homeland, the Hungarian plains are more beautiful and much dearer than the Carpathian mountains; it was to become the foundation of a long-lived fashion: that of the plains as the typical Hungarian landscape.

Petőfi's poetic skills solidified and broadened. He became a master of using different kinds of voices, for example his poem A régi, jó Gvadányi ("The Good Old Gvadányi") imitates the style of , a Hungarian poet who lived at the end of the 18th century.

Petőfi maintained a lifelong friendship with János Arany, another significant poet of the time. Arany was the godfather of Petőfi's son .

Honours and memorials

After the Revolution was crushed, Petőfi's writing became immensely popular, while his rebelliousness served as a role model ever since for Hungarian revolutionaries and would-be revolutionaries of every political colour.

Hungarian composer and contemporary Franz Liszt composed the piano piece Dem Andenken Petőfis (In Petőfi's Memory) in his honour. Liszt has also set several of Petőfi's poems to music.

In 1911, a statue of Sándor Petőfi was erected in Pressburg (Pozsony, present-day Bratislava), on the Main Square. In 1918, after the army of the newly independent First Czechoslovak Republic occupied the city, the statue was dynamited. After this sculpture was boarded over round temporarily until its removal, and replaced with a statue of Slovak poet Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav. Today, there is a statue of Petőfi in the Medic Garden (Medická záhrada).

During the late 1940s, Boris Pasternak produced acclaimed translations of Petőfi's poems into the Russian language.

Today, schools, streets and squares are named after him throughout Hungary and Hungarian-speaking regions of neighbouring states; in Budapest alone, there are 11 Petőfi streets and 4 Petőfi squares, see: Public place names of Budapest. A national radio station (Radio Petőfi), a bridge in Budapest and a street in Sofia, Bulgaria also bear his name, as well as the asteroid 4483 Petöfi, a member of the Hungaria family. Every Hungarian primary school child learns some of his poems by heart .

The Hungarian 10 Forint banknote valid between 1947 and 1992 depicted Sándor Petőfi on the obverse.

Petőfi has a larger than life terra cotta statue near the Pest end of Erzsébet Bridge, sculpted by Miklós Izsó and . Similar Petőfi statues were established in many other cities, as well, during the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.

Hugó Meltzl was who made well known the works of Sándor Petőfi in abroad.

In Uzhhorod, Ukraine, there is a city square named after Sándor Petőfi, in Oradea, Romania, a street and a park, and in Tarnów, Poland a Petőfi Memorial Square with a hand-carved Székely gate leading to Petőfi's bust.

Postage stamps issued by Hungary:
Two issued on 12 June 1919 in his honour
Five on 13 January 1923 on the centenary of his birth
One on 16 October 1948 in the Poets and Writers series
Three on 31 July 1949 for the death centenary
One on 15 March 1952 in the series Heroes of the 1848 Revolution
Three on 30 December 1972 commemorating the 150th anniversary of his birth

In popular culture
Since 29 June 2021, Petőfi has appeared as a recurring historical character living in modern-day England in The Family Histories Podcast series. He is voiced by the Hungarian children's author and illustrator, John Spike. His presence is explained by the host Andrew Martin as due to a "simple miscalculated accident with his kitchen" – a reference to Petőfi's 1843 poem "Befordultam a konyhára" (I turned into the kitchen), and the time machine used at the end of each podcast episode.

See also
List of people who disappeared

Notes

References

External links

Sándor Petőfi on a Hungarian banknote from 1957
Complete works (in Hungarian)
Morvai's expedition (in Slovak)

1823 births
1840s missing person cases
1849 deaths
19th-century Hungarian male writers
19th-century Hungarian poets
Epic poets
Hungarian Lutherans
Hungarian male poets
Slovak poets
Hungarian people of Serbian descent
Hungarian people of Slovak descent
People of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848
Lutheran poets
Missing person cases in Romania
People from Kiskőrös

Sándor Petőfi


Niagara Falls is the collective, name of three big waterfalls on the Niagara River in eastern North America, on the border between the United States and Canada. The three waterfalls are: the Horseshoe Falls, sometimes called the Canadian Falls, the American Falls, and the smaller Bridal Veil Falls. The American Falls and the Horseshoe Falls are separated with Goat Island, and the Bridal Veil Falls separated from the other waterfalls with Luna Island. Niagara falls is very well known for both its beauty and hydroelectric power. It has been a tourist attraction, commercial site and hydroelectricity source since the 19th century.

It is located near Niagara Falls, New York in the United States and Niagara Falls, Ontario in Canada.The volume of water approaching the falls during peak flow season may sometimes be as much as 225,000 cubic feet (6,400 m3) per second. The cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, and Niagara Falls, New York, United States, are connected by two international bridges.

Niagara Falls were formed when glaciers receded at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation (the last ice age). Water from the newly formed Great Lakes carved a path through the Niagara Escarpment en route from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario and the Atlantic Ocean. The Escarpment has hard limestone on top and soft shale below.

Although not very high, Niagara Falls is very wide, and is probably the most popular waterfall in the world. The Horseshoe Falls are the largest out of the three falls. It is named the Horseshoe Falls because it looks like a horse shoe.

Niagara Falls is a very popular tourist destination and many people visit it on holiday in Canada.

Gallery

Related pages

 Iguaçu Falls

Waterfalls
Bodies of water of North America
Bodies of water of the United States
Geography of Ontario

Niagara Falls


The Howard M. Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse is a historic courthouse and post office building located on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Its west side faces Public Square and its north side faces The Mall. It was formerly the Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse and also known as Old Federal Building and Post Office.

Building history

The Howard M. Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse, also known as the Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, is a monumental anchor to Cleveland's Civic Mall. Fronting the Mall and Public Square, it was the first building erected under Cleveland's 1903 Group Plan, which illustrates the urban planning ideals of the City Beautiful movement.

New York Architect Arnold W. Brunner (1857–1925) designed this imposing building under the direction of Supervising Architect of the Treasury James Knox Taylor (1857–1929). It is one of 35 buildings constructed during Taylor's tenure (1883–1912) that were designed by independent architects commissioned by the U.S. Treasury Department under the Tarsney Act. The 1893 Act authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to use private architects, selected through competitions, to design Federal buildings. As a process, it manifested the growing demand for greater architectural standards for public buildings and opened the way for additional appropriations to maintain those standards.

As the first building erected under the Group Plan, the federal building was the model for later structures. The Group Plan proposed that local and federal government buildings be placed around a grand Mall. Embraced from the late 19th century into the first decades of the 20th century, the City Beautiful movement had its beginnings with the monumental planning and predominately classical architectural style of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Celebrated architect Daniel Burnham, who was instrumental in promoting the nationwide adoption of City Beautiful Movement principles, served as a member of the design team that produced the Group Plan. Arnold W. Brunner, working as an independent architect, and John Merven Carrère, of the prominent New York firm of Carrère and Hastings, also served on the team. The Federal Building formed one half of the Mall's termination at Superior Avenue. Cleveland's Public Library (1925), forming the other half of this terminus, emulates the Federal Building in scale, mass, and general overall appearance.

The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. On May 27, 1998, the building was officially renamed in honor of U.S. Senator Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio.

Architecture

The Howard M. Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse is one of Cleveland's great monumental public buildings, skillfully illustrating the strong, classical characteristics of Beaux-Arts architecture. The five-story, granite-faced building was constructed between 1903 and 1910. The building covers the entire city block bounded by Rockwell Avenue on the north, Superior Avenue on the south, East Third Street on the east, and Public Square on the west.

Inspiration for the design of this Beaux Arts building came from the Place de la Concorde in Paris as well as the work of French architect and theorist Francois Blondel. The resulting design presents a rusticated first floor and  Corinthian order columns and pilasters on each elevation. These massive columns and pilasters define the sequence of window bays on the second, third, and fourth stories. Rusticated stone-arched windows with carved keystones adorn the first story. The more ornate second-story windows are capped with classically inspired pediments and balustraded sills. The third- and fourth-story window openings have molded surrounds and bracketed sills. Screening the fifth floor is an expansive entablature capped by a balustraded parapet that rises nine feet. A low-hipped, standing-seam copper roof crowns the building with attic dormer windows facing the interior light court. The parapets are adorned with shields and carved stone eagles at the building's corners.

The main entrance to the building is centered on the Superior Avenue facade. Granite steps lead to three rusticated stone arches once fitted with cast bronze doors and ornate bronze lanterns hang from cast bronze brackets. The original doors have been replaced.

Flanking the primary entrance are two important sculptures executed by the famed sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850–1931). Jurisprudence is located on the Public Square corner, while Commerce sits at the corner of East Third Street and Superior Avenue. Jurisprudence is personified by a mother figure clasping her baby while a criminal crouches in chains. Commerce is depicted as a female figure holding a model ship in one hand while her other arm rests on a globe representing the opportunity for world trade. At her right is Electricity, symbolized by a female figure holding a magnet catching electrical sparks. Steam, located to her left, is represented by a male figure grasping a wheel.

On the interior, the grand main lobby dominates the first floor as it runs east to west across the entire length of the building. The floors, walls, and vaulted ceiling of the lobby are surfaced with marble. Original chandeliers illuminate the space. The postal service windows are located along the lobby's north wall. Marble stairs wrap around three sides of the elevator shafts, located at the east and west ends of the public lobby. Cast-bronze, spread-wing eagles standing on globes appear over each pair of elevator doors. Corner offices in the upper floors are adorned with impressive murals depicting significant events in the history of Cleveland. Among the magnificent artworks are City of Cleveland Welcomes the Arts by Will Hicok Low (1853–1932), and the Battle of Lake Erie by Rufus Fairchild Zogbaum (1849–1925). Murals in the ceremonial courtrooms on the third floor are The Common Law by Henry Siddons Mowbray (1858–1928), and The Law by Edwin Howland Blashfield (1848–1936).

A major renovation project to restore public spaces and modernize the mechanical systems was initiated in 2002. Although the primary activities of the U.S. District Court system have moved to the new Carl B. Stokes Federal Court House Building a few blocks west, the ceremonial courtrooms in the Metzenbaum Courthouse will continue to be used for public hearings and proceedings. New client agencies moving into the renovated building will include the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the Office of the U.S. Trustee, and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Significant events

1893: Passage of the Tarsney Act permits the Federal Government to hire private architects through competitions.
1902: The 1858 federal building is demolished to allow for the construction of a new U.S. Post Office, Custom House, and Courthouse building.
1903: The Cleveland Group Plan is presented; construction of the new federal building begins under direction of New York architect Arnold W. Brunner.
1905: May 20, 1905 - cornerstone is laid
1910: Construction is completed.
1911: Building is dedicated
1934: The main U.S. Post Office moves out of the building.
1939: Building is cleaned
1950: The U.S. General Services Administration initiates alterations and construction of additional courtrooms.
1966: Air conditioning is installed, building is cleaned
1974: The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
1998: The building is renamed in honor of U.S. Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum of Ohio.
2002: Extensive rehabilitation and modernization of the building to better serve new client agencies.

Building facts

Architect: Arnold W. Brunner
Construction Dates: 1903-1910
Landmark Status: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places
Location: 201 Superior Avenue, NE
Architectural Style: Beaux Arts
Primary Materials: Gray granite
Prominent Features: Exterior sculptures "Jurisprudence" and "Commerce" by Daniel Chester French; Ceremonial Courtrooms

See also
List of United States federal courthouses

References

External links

 Howard M. Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse , uscourts.gov
 Howard M. Metzenbaum US Courthouse // U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)

Attribution

Federal buildings in the United States
Government buildings completed in 1910
Beaux-Arts architecture in Ohio
Buildings and structures in Cleveland
Courthouses in Ohio
Federal courthouses in the United States
Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio
Post office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio
National Register of Historic Places in Cleveland, Ohio
Sculptures by Daniel Chester French
Downtown Cleveland

Howard M. Metzenbaum United States Courthouse


I Am the Avalanche is an American punk rock band from Brooklyn, New York. The group's name comes from a lyric written by Vinnie Caruana for a song which was later discarded. The phrase also appears in the poem "Oh, Immobility, Death's Vast Associate" by Stephen Dobyns; however, Caruana maintains that this is a coincidence, and that he was not aware of the poem until after naming the band.

History
I Am the Avalanche was formed by vocalist Vinnie Caruana after the break-up of his previous band The Movielife, and followed his short stint playing in Head Automatica. The band also comprises drummer Brett "The Ratt" Romnes (who also produces the albums), and guitarist Brandon Swanson (former fill-in for Further Seems Forever), guitarist Michael Ireland and Kellen Robson, the former bassist of Long Island band Scraps and Heart Attacks are also members. Aside from handling vocal duties, Caruana sometimes plays guitar on certain songs such as "This Is Dungeon Music," giving the band a three-guitar attack. He has also been seen playing guitar on "My Second Restraining Order." These are in line with the band's heavier, slower sound compared to the members' previous efforts.

The band toured the United Kingdom before they played America, playing 2 shows over the Halloween weekend in October 2004. Soon after this, on September 27, 2005, they released their self-titled debut album, produced by drummer Barrett Jones on Drive-Thru Records. The album received significant press coverage and mostly good reviews.

I Am The Avalanche have played the Vans' Warped Tour, The Bamboozle Festival, and have also toured with Bleeding Through, Bayside, The Sleeping, No Use for a Name, Halifax, The Fully Down, Senses Fail, The Forecast, Bouncing Souls, The Loved Ones and, most recently, Saves the Day and Brand New, and in October 2008, they headed out on a month-long tour with Four Year Strong and This is Hell.

The band played shows all over Australia in February 2009 as part of the annual Soundwave Festival. During their set on the Sydney leg, they played three demo tracks - "Winter Summer", "Brooklyn Dodgers" and "You've Got Spiders" (the latter two of which appeared on their second album Avalanche United) - and Vinnie Caruana also gave word of new album being released in the near future.

In 2009, Set Your Goals released the title track off their second studio album titled This Will Be the Death of Us through Myspace, which featured Vinnie on vocals, furthering recent rumors that they were going to be doing a side-project together.

On March 6, 2011, I Am The Avalanche opened for Paramore during a concert in Puerto Rico, where they played several songs from their upcoming album. Avalanche United was then released on October 11, 2011, to incredibly positive reviews. In a review of the album, rock music magazine 'The 1st Five' acknowledged the long wait between the band's first and second records, and also the growth it had afforded them; "Yes, six years was a long time to wait for a new I Am The Avalanche record. But if they can make another leap like the one between their self-titled debut and Avalanche United I'll wait as long as they like." I Am The Avalanche then played a stint on The Vans Warped Tour from June 16 - July 3, 2012, in support of the record, and also went on to play as part of that year's Soundwave Festival in Australia.

In September 2013, it was announced that I Am The Avalanche had entered The Barber Shop Studios to begin tracking their third full length, and shortly afterwards, guitarist Mike Ireland announced his departure from the group.  On January 8, 2014, the band announced via their Facebook page that their third full-length album, titled Wolverines, would be released on March 17 of that year on I Surrender Records. They wrote, 'WOLVERINES is an album that's been a serious labor of love for us and one that we're incredibly proud of. The Ratt, our super-talented drummer, produced the record and the great Will Yip mixed it.'. At the same time, they streamed the first single from the album, 'The Shape I'm In', on Esquire Magazine's website.

On November 20, 2020, I Am The Avalanche released their fourth full-length album, DIVE, which saw Ireland return to the group.

Discography

Studio albums
 I Am the Avalanche (September 27, 2005)
 Avalanche United (#9 on Heatseekers) (October 11, 2011)
 Wolverines (Billboard 200 #108) (March 17, 2014)
 Dive (November 20, 2020)

EPs
 The Early November/I Am the Avalanche (July 26, 2005)
 Bayside/I Am the Avalanche (Summer 2007)
 Bayside/Saves the Day/I Am the Avalanche/Transit (November 2011)

Music videos
 Brooklyn Dodgers (2011)
 The Shape I'm In (2014)

Band members
Current members
 Vinnie Caruana – lead vocals (2004–present)
 Brett "The Rat" Romnes – drums (2004–present)
 Michael Ireland – guitars (2004–2013, 2020-present)
 Kellen Robson – bass (2004–present)
 Brandon Swanson – guitars (2004–present)

References

External links
 I Am the Avalanche's profile at Facebook
 I Am the Avalanche's profile at MySpace
 I Am the Avalanche bio at MTV
 I Am the Avalanche Interview (Jun 2008)

American post-hardcore musical groups
Indie rock musical groups from New York (state)
Musical groups from Long Island
Musical groups established in 2004
Drive-Thru Records artists

I Am the Avalanche


James Leija (born July 8, 1966), best known as Jesse James Leija, is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 2005. He held the WBC super featherweight title in 1994, and challenged twice each for world titles at lightweight and light welterweight.

Amateur career
Leija had an amateur career that spanned three years, going 23-5 during this time. He won the San Antonio Golden Gloves in 1988. Later that year he lost in the first rounds of the Olympic Trials to Kelcie Banks.

Professional career
Jesse James Leija began his professional boxing career on October 2, 1988, beating Oscar Davis by knockout in round one, in Leija's native San Antonio. When he turned professional he took the name "Jesse James" in honor of his father, Jesse Leija, who trained him.

On January 21, 1989, he defeated Joe Mitchell by a decision in four at the Trump Plaza hotel in New Jersey. This marked Leija's debut outside Texas. On his fourth fight, Leija beat Manuel Gomez in San Antonio by decision in four, on April 10.

During the early 1990s, Leija won his first fifteen fights, ten by knockout. His first blemish came on October 8, 1990, when he and Edward Parker fought to a ten-round draw in San Antonio, TX.

Leija won his next three bouts, and then, he had an upgrade in opposition quality when he met the experienced Miguel Arrozal, on May 31, 1991. He beat Arrozal by an eighth-round disqualification. On October 18, he met Steve McCrory in Houston, beating McCrory by a ten-round decision.

Leija got his first championship try on the fight that proceeded his win over McCrory. On March 3, 1992. He met Jose Luis Martinez for the North American Boxing Federation bantamweight championship. This fight was held in San Antonio, and it resulted in a nine-round technical decision.

Leija proceeded to win three bouts, two of them against former world champions. Having defeated Jesus Poll by a decision in twelve rounds and Troy Dorsey by a knockout in six, he was matched, on March 23, 1993, with Louie Espinoza, a former two-time world featherweight champion. Leija won this fight by a twelve-round decision, and with this, the NABF title and the right to challenge for the world title for the first time.

Title fights against Nelson
On September 10, 1993, Leija participated at one of the Alamodome's first ever events, when he challenged Azumah Nelson for the WBC super featherweight title. After twelve rounds, Nelson had been announced as the winner by a split decision, only to find out twenty minutes later that a judge had miscalculated his scoring card, and the fight was really a draw.

On May 7, he got a rematch with Nelson. Leija became the WBC super featherweight champion when he defeated Nelson by a twelve-round unanimous decision in Las Vegas.

Losing the title and afterwards

On September 17, he defended his title against Gabriel Ruelas, once again, in Las Vegas. Leija lost his world title when he lost to Ruelas by a twelve-round unanimous decision.

Leija rebounded with two wins, including one over Jeff Mayweather, and then, on December 15, 1995, he received a chance at becoming world champion for the second time, when he challenged Oscar De La Hoya for De La Hoya's WBO lightweight title, at Madison Square Garden. He lost by second-round knockout.

On June 1, 1996, Leija challenged Nelson, who had regained the WBC super featherweight title. Leija lost by a tech. knockout in six.

After a string of wins against relatively insignificant competition, Leija won the NABF lightweight title, defeating Joel Perez by a decision in twelve rounds on January 20, 1998.

After a second-round knockout victory over Troy Crain, Leija fought Nelson for the fourth time. In what was supposed to be Nelson's final career bout, Leija defeated Nelson by a twelve-round unanimous decision on July 11, 1998 (Nelson would later have a one-fight comeback against Jeff Fenech).

On November 14, Leija had a shot at the IBF lightweight title when he faced Shane Mosley. Leija was dropped in rounds six, eight and nine before the fight was stopped, with Mosley retaining the world title by a ninth-round knockout win.

Leija's next significant bout came on August 5, 2000, when he fought Juan Lazcano. Although no world championship was involved in this bout, it created general interest among Hispanic boxing fans, as Lazcano, nicknamed "The Hispanic Causing Panic," had become a popular boxer among Latinos. Leija lost an unpopular dec. in a ten-round split decision (scores of 94–96, 93-97 and a favorable 96-94) to Lazcano in Uncasville, Connecticut.

Next followed another HBO televised fight, when Leija fought Ivan Robinson, who had twice beaten Arturo Gatti, on November 11 at Las Vegas. Leija beat Robinson by a ten-round unanimous decision.

After a victory over Fred Ladd, Leija faced Hector Camacho Jr. in Long Island, July 7, 2001. This would prove to be a very controversial fight: after an accidental headbutt, Camacho Jr. was injured and he could not fight on. Camacho Jr. was initially announced as the winner by a technical decision, but the Leija team formally protested the result with the New York State Athletic Commission. The athletic commission decided to declare the fight a five-round no contest.

Micky Ward was being considered for a fight with WBC, WBA and IBF world light welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu. On January 5, 2002, Leija and Ward faced off at San Antonio. Once again, the fight was stopped as a consequence of a headbutt, but this time, it was Leija who was injured. Leija won the fight by a five-round technical decision, and became the number-one challenger to Tszyu.

Leija then proceeded to move to Australia for six months, to get acquainted with the country and its climate before his challenge of Tszyu, scheduled for January 19, 2003. Tszyu retained the title when he beat Leija by a six-round knockout.

After three wins, Leija faced young prospect Francisco Bojado. Leija and Bojado fought on July 24, 2004, in Atlantic City. Leija produced what some viewed as a minor upset by beating his much younger rival by a ten-round split decision.

Final bout
On January 29, 2005, Leija fought Arturo Gatti for Gatti's WBC light welterweight title. Fighting once again in Atlantic City, Leija lost to Gatti by a fifth-round knockout. Leija retired after the loss.

Professional boxing record

References

External links

American boxers of Mexican descent
Sportspeople from San Antonio
Harlandale High School alumni
1966 births
Living people
World super-featherweight boxing champions
American male boxers
World Boxing Council champions

Jesse James Leija


The words sacred or holy are sometimes used interchangeably and are often misunderstood to mean "important" or "special"  instead of "set apart" and "pure."

According to Websters 1828 Dictionary (the more accurate definition given the spiritual context- Christian and beyond), sacred means "...separated from that which is common, vulgar, polluted, or open... or Holy." Holy, means "Properly, whole, entire or perfect, in a moral sense. Hence, pure in heart, temper or dispositions; free from sin and sinful affections. Applied to the Supreme Being, holy signifies perfectly pure, immaculate and complete in moral character..."

Most religions have sacred books that provide teachings or doctrines associated with the religion. These books are "set apart," from other books published and associated with the religion. There is a deeper connection to these books over the others.

For Christians this book is called the Bible.  Muslim peoples have another book, they call the Qur'an. Jews call their book the Torah. Similarly, the Book of Mormon is also considered as a sacred book in Mormonism.

Some religious people deem specific places sacred because of their mention in the sacred books. Jerusalem is seen as sacred by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Mecca is sacred in Islam, and Ise Grand Shrine in Mie Prefecture is sacred in Japanese Shinto. In Hinduism the river Ganges is seen as holy.

Related pages
Pilgrimage
Icon

Other websites
Holiness in the Bible

Religious terminology

Sacred


Band Waggon is a 1940 British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch and Moore Marriott. It was based on the BBC radio show Band Waggon.

Plot
Arthur Askey and Stinker Murdoch, two out-of-work performers, are living on the roof of the Broadcasting House in Central London. After being called in for an audition with the BBC three months before, they were forgotten about and settled down to live there waiting for their big chance. One day an item from their clothes line falls and hits Claude Pilkington, a senior figure at the BBC, who has them evicted. They are forced to pack up all their belongings and leave.

While driving home that evening one of the tyres on Pilkington's car gets a puncture from broken glass lying on the road. It has been put there by the owners of the Jack-in-the-Box restaurant, who hope their cabaret act will be given a contract with the BBC and have so far failed to gain an audition. Pilkington sits unwittingly through their act, including singers Jack Hylton and Patricia Kirkwood, barely noticing it while he reads the newspaper. When he discovers that they have caused his puncture, he storms off in anger.

Meanwhile, Askey and Murdoch have found themselves in the countryside. Needing somewhere to live they go to a local estate agent hoping to pick up a cheap cottage. Instead they are offered a castle for £3 rent, which the owner is trying to get off his hands as it is haunted. After they settle down in the castle they begin a sequence of sinister happenings occur despite the estate agent's insistence that there is a "perfectly natural explanation for everything". When they encounter Jasper Blackfang, a ghost who claims to haunt the place, they flee and take shelter at the nearby Jack-in-the Box restaurant.

Emboldened by the realization that the ghost is in fact the caretaker of the castle, who has been living there rent free, they return along with Hylton and Kirkwood. They discover a television studio inside the castle, which the caretaker claims is being used by a pirate commercial station. In fact it is being used by Nazi agents in Britain, but the caretaker is unaware of this.

Frustrated by their failure to secure an audition at the BBC, they decide to use the studios to broadcast their own show. Arthur Askey does a performance on the same wavelength as the BBC television station, interrupting a programme by Pilkington himself, who has to be faded out. Pilkington is furious by the interruption, but the pirate show generates huge interest amongst the general public. Pilkington, meanwhile, gets Scotland Yard to hunt down the pirate station. Their determination to find the station is boosted by the realisation that the castle contains plans of British planes stolen by the Nazi agents, and Askey unwittingly holds up the plans during his broadcast.

Askey has organised a major hour-long performance which ends in a finale with where the police, BBC officials and Nazi agents all converge on the castle, while a time bomb is ominously ticking down. The programme is such a roaring success that the BBC eventually agree to Askey, Murdoch and their associates having their own show.

Cast

Arthur Askey as Arthur Askey
Richard Murdoch as Stinker Murdoch
Patricia Kirkwood as Pat
Moore Marriott as Jasper
Freddy Schweitzer as himself (accordion player)
Bruce Trent as himself
Michael Standing as himself
C.H. Middleton as himself

Jasmine Bligh as herself
Jonah Barrington as himself
Peter Gawthorne as Claude Pilkington
Donald Calthrop as Hobday
Wally Patch as Commissionaire
Jack Hylton and His Band as band
Jack Hylton as himself (bandleader)
The Sherman Fisher Girls as dancers

Soundtrack
 "The Melody Maker" – by Noel Gay and Frank Eyton – performed by Jack Hylton, Patricia Kirkwood and Chorus with Jack Hylton and His Band and The Sherman Fisher Girls
"The Only One Who's Difficult Is You" – by Noel Gay and Clifford Grey – performed by Richard Murdoch, Patricia Kirkwood and Arthur Askey with Jack Hylton and His Band
"After Dark" – by Noel Gay
"Heaven Will Be Heavenly" – by Harry Parr Davies and Roma Campbell Hunter – performed by Patricia Kirkwood and chorus
"A Pretty Bird" – by Kenneth Blane – performed by Arthur Askey
"Boomps-A-Daisy" – by Annette Mills – performed by Patricia Kirkwood, Richard Murdoch, Jack Hylton and Arthur Askey
"Band Waggon (theme song)" – by Harry S. Pepper – performed by the chorus during the opening credits and reprised at the end by Jack Hylton and His Band
"Big Hearted Arthur" – by Robert Rutherford and Frank Wilcock – performed by Arthur Askey
"Old King Cole" (traditional nursery song) – performed by Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch and the trio of Charlie Forsythe, Addie Seamon and Eleanor Farrell

References
Notes

External links

1940 films
1940 musical comedy films
British musical comedy films
British black-and-white films
Films set in London
Films set in England
Films based on radio series
Gainsborough Pictures films
Films directed by Marcel Varnel
Films with screenplays by Marriott Edgar
1940s English-language films
1940s British films

Band Waggon (film)


The Armistice of Erzincan (also spelled Erzindzhan or Erzinjan) was an agreement to suspend hostilities during World War I signed by the Ottoman Empire and Transcaucasian Commissariat in Erzincan on 18 December 1917 (5 December O.S.). The armistice brought temporary peace to the Caucasian and Persian Fronts until 12 February, when the fighting was resumed.

The status of the Transcaucasian Commissariat was unclear at the time: the Ottomans regarded it as an independent entity, a legal successor of the Russian Empire, while the Commissariat still considered itself a part of the Russian Republic. The Ottoman Empire was already party to the Brest-Litovsk armistice with Russia (15 December) that covered the Caucasian and Persian Fronts. After receiving a ceasefire proposal from Vehib Pasha, commander of the Ottoman Third Army, the Commissariat authorised the commander of the Russian Caucasus Front, General Przhevalski, to negotiate an armistice with his Ottoman opposite. The result was the Erzincan Armistice, after which the Russian troops began to withdraw, leaving the Transcaucasian Commissariat completely undefended.

A supplement to the armistice was signed on the same day, demarcating the line of occupation between the two sides. On 12 February, Ottoman forces began advancing across the line in defiance of the armistice, having rejected the Transcaucasian Commissariat's authority to sign it and accused the Armenians of massacring Muslims behind the Ottoman line on 15–16 January. On 24 February the Brest-Litovsk armistice was broken by Germany and became of no effect. Both armistices were superseded by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Russia, signed on 3 March 1918, and the Treaty of Batum with the successor states of the Transcaucasian Commissariat, signed 4 June.

References

Treaties concluded in 1917
Treaties entered into force in 1917
Erzincan
1917 in the Ottoman Empire
World War I treaties
History of Erzincan
Soviet Union–Turkey relations
December 1917 events
Ottoman Empire in World War I
Treaties of the Ottoman Empire

Armistice of Erzincan


The Achilleid () is an unfinished epic poem by Publius Papinius Statius that was intended to present the life of Achilles from his youth to his death at Troy. Only about one and a half books (1,127 dactylic hexameters) were completed before the poet's death. What remains is an account of the hero's early life with the centaur Chiron, and an episode in which his mother, Thetis, disguised him as a girl on the island of Scyros,  before he joined the Greek expedition against Troy.

Composition
Based upon three references to the poem in the Silvae, the Achilleid seems to have been composed between 94 and 96 CE. At Silvae 4. 7. 21–24, Statius complains that he lacks the motivation to make progress upon his "Achilles" without the company of his friend C. Vibius Maximus who was travelling in Dalmatia (and to whom poem is addressed).
Statius apparently overcame this self-described writer's block, for in a poem from the posthumously published fifth book of the Silvae he refers to an upcoming recitation of a section from the Achilleid. This reference is believed to date from the summer of 95, and Statius presumably died later that year or early in the next, leaving the Achilleid unfinished.

Poetic models
Statius' primary models are Homer and the poems of the epic cycle which touch on the life of Achilles. In the opening of the Achilleid, Statius asks that his poem not stop with the death of Hector (nec in Hectore tracto sistere 1.6) as the Iliad does but that it continue through the whole Trojan cycle, invoking these two important models. His style in the Achilleid has been seen as far more reminiscent of Ovid than Virgil, his major influence in the composition of the Thebaid. Statius tried to revise the image of the Homeric Achilles with the Achilleid, just as Ovid did for the Virgilian Aeneas. While doing this, they also exploited the tension between the accepted epic narrative and competing traditions pertaining to the heroes' lives.

On account of its unfinished state, the Achilleid is often referred to as a "fragment", but this is a misleading label. Fragments are typically pieces of writing that have become seriously destroyed in the process of being transmitted to its audience. Statius' Achilleid is a work that is partially completed that had already been polished and presented to the world in his lifetime. The structure of the narrative is deliberate and balanced. The first words of the poem are the pseudo-Homeric patronymic that introduces Achilles through his father's father, while the last word of the poem is mother. Achilles' childhood experiences are then told in the space left vacant by his two absentee parents.

Contents

Book 1
Lines 1–13. The introduction states the goals and scope of the epic, including the intention to cover the entire life of Achilles, not simply up to Hector's death as was done in the Iliad.

The Achilleid opens with a traditional epic invocation of the Muses and Apollo, requesting inspiration for the poet's work and outlining the content of the poem to follow. The Muses are the first to be addressed (Ach. 1.1–7):

As in Vergil's Aeneid and Statius' own Thebaid, the very first words present the poem's primary topic, expanded with a clause joined by the Latin enclitic conjunction -que. While the structure of the first line puts the Achilleid within the Vergilian tradition of martial epic, Philip Hardie sees the last line quoted above as an indication of Statius' debt to Ovid. Specifically, the choice of the verb deducere, "to lead down", evokes the invocation in the Metamorphoses in which Ovid asks the gods to lead down (deducite) to his own time a "perpetual song" (perpetuum carmen), with which Hardie also compares Statius' "Troy's whole story" (tota Troia, literally: "all of Troy").

Lines 14–19. Statius praises Domitian and dedicates the epic to this emperor.

Lines 20–94. Thetis, worrying that the Greek troops preparing to head to Troy will soon come to recruit her son and thus greatly endanger his life (for he is fated to die if he goes to Troy), asks Neptune if he will sink the Trojan fleet carrying Paris and Helen. Neptune denies this request, stating that the war is fated.

Lines 95–197. Thetis goes to Thessaly, where the centaur Chiron has been raising and tutoring Achilles. She tells Chiron that she wants to take her son back and then enjoys a night of eating, singing, and drinking with them in his cave.

Lines 198–282. Thetis decides that she must hide Achilles on Lycomedes' island of Scyros and takes him there while he sleeps. Once he wakes, she tries to convince him to hide himself there disguised as a girl. He refuses to accept this plan despite her promises that no one else will ever find out.

Lines 283–396. Achilles is finally convinced to follow his mother's advice when he witnesses the daughters of King Lycomedes performing a dance at a festival of Pallas. Achilles is immediately struck by the outstanding beauty of one of these women, Deidamia, and so agrees to disguise himself as a woman and live among the king's daughters in order to be near her. Thetis dresses her son in women's clothing and teaches him how to act feminine, then presents her "daughter" to King Lycomedes and asks for him to care for and protect her among his own daughters. The king agrees to her request.

One of the main themes up through this section, and as an undercurrent for the rest of the book, is that of maternal anxiety on the part of Thetis. Some authors have made note of the strong emphasis on and significance of Thetis and her concern here, especially as compared to in other Classical works.

Konstan points out that many scholars have interpreted the depiction of Achilles disguised as a girl as symbolizing his maturation from a child living among women to an adult. Konstan believes that Statius in fact focuses more on the humorous aspects of the story, thus providing a comedic contrast to the serious tones of war by "delight[ing] in the naughty humor of the situation and the deflation of epic pretentiousness."

Lines 397–466. The Argives (Greeks) in various regions prepare for the Trojan War.

Lines 467–559. The Greeks muster their forces at Aulis but notice that Achilles is missing. The prophet Calchas sees in a trance that Achilles has been hidden on Scyros, and Ulysses and Diomedes depart to fetch him.

Lines 560–674. Achilles continues to fall in love with Deidamia, who has by now discovered his true identity and is helping him to maintain his disguise. Achilles rapes Deidamia in a sacred grove and she makes the conscious decision to forgive him for this indiscretion and keep it a secret. She becomes pregnant and gives birth to their child (Neoptolemus, although he is never referred to by name in the Achilleid).

Lines 675–818. Ulysses and Diomedes arrive at Scyros, are entertained by Lycomedes, and set out gifts for his daughters. When Achilles alone is attracted by the shield and helmet and not the more womanly items, his identity is revealed, as Ulysses had intended. Achilles, now convinced to follow the Greek heroes to war, explains for the first time his relationship with Deidamia and their baby son and persuades Lycomedes to allow him to officially marry his daughter.

Lines 927–60. Deidamia sees the future and recites a speech of despair, expressing her hope that Achilles will one day return to her.

Book 2

Lines 1–22. After praying to his mother for forgiveness, Achilles sets sail from Scyros with Ulysses and Diomedes.

Lines 23–48. Deidamia and Achilles each grieve, separately, for the loss of the other. Ulysses tries to take Achilles' mind off his wife.

Lines 49–85. Ulysses tells the story of the events leading up to the war on which they are about to embark and expresses his indignation at Paris' reckless abduction of Helen and the threat that he feels toward society as a whole as a result.

Lines 86–167. Per Diomedes' request, Achilles tells of his youth, his hunting exploits, and the teachings of Chiron. The poem ends with the closure of Achilles' narrative.

Influence of and critical responses to the Achilleid

The Achilleid has generally received far more positive criticism than the Thebaid. One branch of this focuses on comparisons between the two poems; many scholars see a drastic difference between the "serious" and "Iliadic" Thebaid and the playful "Ovidian" Achilleid. Some have seen the Achilleid as Statius' attempt to write an entirely new multi-generic type of epic as a challenge to the Virgilian model. Others have noted the importance of female emotions and feminine characteristics in the poem. Finally, some have interpreted the character of Achilles as a subversive foil for Domitian.

Critics have also said that the Achilleid was a failure because Statius wrote it as an attempt to constitute an alternative epic tradition, which he was unsuccessful in doing. However, it has also been argued that Statius' alternative epic tradition has influenced some of his successors. Claudian's De raptu Proserpinae emulated Statius' alternative epic tradition, leaving his work seemingly unfinished. Claudian believed that the inevitability of Homeric and Virgilian narrative was the cause of Statius' inability to proceed. Other writers such as Dante Alighieri borrowed from Statius and thought highly of his style; Giovanni Boccaccio was inspired by him; and Geoffrey Chaucer studied and imitated Statius. The influences of Statius and the Achilleid are also clearly seen in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, especially in one Canto of Book III.

Statius' Achilleid also had a great impact in the realm of opera in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries across Europe. These operas raised the issues of transvestitism, biological sex, and social gender. When a woman played the character of Achilles, the audience saw a woman playing the role of a man pretending to be a woman. When a castrato played Achilles, the unveiling of the "girl" forced the observation of a contrast between the fictional character who sheds his false gender identity on Scyros and the singer who cannot. Some directors such as Giulio Strozzi, Ippolito Bentivoglio, and Carlo Capece, chose to embody the spirit of Carnival: the greatest hero of antiquity puts on a female disguise to pursue his love and sexual desires. For later writers such as Pietro Metastasio and Paolo Rolli, the myth teaches that gender is essential, in that the masculinity of Achilles is a primal force of nature that cannot be hidden, and it is a crucial component of his heroism. The first treatment of the "Achilleid" for the operatic stage was La finta pazza, "the woman feigning madness," performed in Venice in 1641. Following that was the opera, Achille in Sciro, first performed in Ferrara in 1663.

Women in the Achilleid

In ancient epic, women have been portrayed through various roles that help, hinder, and protect characters from disaster. Greek poets, such as Homer, have generally illustrated women as victims of conflict, the cause of conflict, negotiators among combatant men, and mourners of the dead. Roman poets, like Virgil, describe women in a similar light, but they also tend to complicate the portrayal of women, often depicting them as hindering a hero's destiny and stirring conflict among men.

In the Achilleid, classicist P. J. Heslin argues that Statius upholds the Roman trend of portraying women as "heroic blockers" with the development of Thetis' character. In the Achilleid, Thetis is a prophet, protector, and hinderer to Achilles. She desperately tries to protect Achilles from going off to fight the Trojan War, knowing that he will die in battle if he goes. Thetis's initial reaction of anger to this knowledge (inspiring her idea to sink Paris's fleet) imitates the classic anger of the goddess Juno. However, her surge in anger does not help her protect Achilles. Thetis's supplication of Neptune mirrors Venus's supplication of Neptune in the Aeneid, except Thetis's attempt fails whereas Venus's succeeds. Thetis's maternal instinct to protect her child from danger fulfills one of the typical roles women play in ancient epic. She also hinders the course of Achilles' fate by trying to change his destiny, which is to become one of the most glorified heroes in Greek history.

The other major female character in the Achilleid is Deidamia. Heslin argues that Achilles rapes Deidamia in order to assert his masculinity because dressing and acting like a woman makes him feel belittled. Deidamia's rape is just another example from epic tales that shows women as property, ultimately in the control of men. Her obedience to Achilles is further exemplified by her silence after the rape. After marrying Achilles, Deidamia then fulfills the role of the faithful wife waiting for her husband to return home from war.

Heslin illuminates how the expectations for the behavior of Roman women during Statius's life can also be seen in the Achilleid through Thetis's instructions on how Achilles should act on Scyros. Thetis criticizes his "masculine" mannerisms and leaves him on Scyros to learn more about how to act in a womanly fashion. Hence, this instruction on "womanliness" can be interpreted as insight into Rome's feminine world during Statius's lifetime.

Manuscripts
There are only a few manuscripts of the Achilleid:

 Trivulziano 792, 1391-1410, Milan, Archivio storico civico e Biblioteca Trivulziana
 A 5 inf., 1401-1500, Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana
 H 166 inf, 1401-1450, Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana
 AE._XII.52, 1413, Milan, Biblioteca nazionale Braidense
 It.173/15=alfa.K.3.29, 1401-1650, Modena, Biblioteca Estense
 Lat.211=alfa.P.6.14, 1401-1500, Modena, Biblioteca Estense
 Lat.939=alfa.M,9.22, 1401-1500, Modena, Biblioteca Estense
 Ms.Pal.0069, 1401-1450, Parma, Biblioteca Palatina
 Manoscritti, 98,1401-1500, Poppi, Biblioteca comunale Riliana
 Ms.1721, 1401-1500, Rome, Biblioteca Angelica
 Ms.B 30/1-2, Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana
 Ms.C 95, Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana

Notes

Bibliography
Editions, translations, Commentaries
 Shackleton Bailey, D.R. (2003a) Statius II. Thebaid, Books 1–7. Achilleid, Loeb Classical Library no. 207 (Cambridge, MA) .
 Shackleton Bailey, D.R. (2003b) Statius III. Thebaid, Books 8–12. Achilleid, Loeb Classical Library no. 495 (Cambridge, MA) .
Discussions
 Coleman, K.M. (1988) Statius: Silvae IV (Oxford) .
 Coleman, K.M. (2003) "Recent Scholarship on the Epics" in: Shackleton Bailey (2003a) 9–37.
 Cowan, R. (2005) Introduction to the Bristol reprint of Dilke, Statius: Achilleid (Exeter) .
 Davis, P.J. (2006) "Allusion to Ovid and others in Statius' Achilleid", Ramus 35: 129–43.
 Dilke, O.A.W. (1954) Statius: Achilleid (Cambridge).
 Fantham, E. (1979) "Statius' Achilles and his Trojan model", Classical Quarterly 29: 457–62.
 Feeney, D. (2004) "Tenui ... Latens Discrimine: Spotting the Differences in Statius' Achilleid", Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici 52: 85–105.
 Foley, P. Helene (2005) A Companion To Ancient Epic: Women in Ancient Epic .
 Hardie, P. (1993) The Epic Successors of Virgil: A Study in the Dynamics of a Tradition (Cambridge) .
 Heslin, P.J. (2005) The Transvestite Achilles: Gender and Genre in Statius' Achilleid (Cambridge) .
 McNelis, C. (2009) "In the Wake of Latona: Thetis at Statius, Achilleid 1.198–216", "Classical Quarterly" 59: 238–46.
 Mendelsohn, D. (1990) "Empty Nest, Abandoned Cave: Maternal Anxiety in Achilleid 1", Classical Antiquity 9: 295–308.
 Newlands, C. (2004) "Statius and Ovid: Transforming the Landscape", TAPA 134: 133–55.
 Parkes, R. (2008) "The Return of the Seven: Allusion to the Thebaid in Statius' Achilleid", American Journal of Philology 129: 381–402.
 Sanna, S. (2007) "Achilles, the Wise Lover and His Seductive Strategies (Statius, Achilleid 1.560–92)", Classical Quarterly 57: 207–15.

 Slavitt, David (1997) Broken Columns: Two Roman Epic Fragments (Philadelphia) .
 Vessey, D.W.T.C. (1982) "Flavian Epic", in: E.J. Kenney & W.V. Claussen (eds.) The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, II: Latin Literature (Cambridge) at 558–96. .

External links
 Lat.211=alfa.P.6.14, 1401-1500, Modena, Biblioteca Estense.

1st-century Latin books
Poetry by Statius
Unfinished poems
Epic poems in Latin
Trojan War literature
Cultural depictions of Achilles
Poetry based on the Iliad
Thetis
Cross-dressing in literature
Skyros

Achilleid


High-level and low-level, as technical terms, are used to classify, describe and point to specific goals of a systematic operation; and are applied in a wide range of contexts, such as, for instance, in domains as widely varied as computer science and business administration.

High-level describe those operations that are more abstract and general in nature; wherein the overall goals and systemic features are typically more concerned with the wider, macro system as a whole.

Low-level describes more specific individual components of a systematic operation, focusing on the details of rudimentary micro functions rather than macro, complex processes. Low-level classification is typically more concerned with individual components within the system and how they operate.

Features which emerge only at a high level of description are known as epiphenomena.

Differences
Due to the nature of complex systems, the high-level description will often be completely different from the low-level one; and, therefore, the (different) descriptions that each deliver are consequent upon the level at which each (differently) direct their study. For example,
 there are features of an ant colony that are not features of any individual ant;
 there are features of the human mind that are not known to be descriptive of individual neurons in the brain;
 there are features of oceans which are not features of any individual water molecule; and
 there are features of a human personality that are not features of any cell in a body.

Uses
 In computer science, software is typically divided into two types: high-level end-user applications software (such as word processors, databases, video games, etc.), and low-level systems software (such as operating systems, hardware drivers, etc.).As such, high-level applications typically rely on low-level applications to function.In terms of programming, a high-level programming language is one which has a relatively high level of abstraction, and manipulates conceptual functions in a structured manner.A low-level programming language is one like assembly language that contains commands closer to processor instructions.
 In formal methods, a high-level formal specification can be related to a low-level executable implementation (e.g., formally by mathematical proof using formal verification techniques).
 In sociology and social anthropology, high-level descriptions would be terms like economy and political structure, and low level descriptions would be individual peoples' motivations and work.
 In neuroscience, low-level would relate to the functioning of a cell (or part of a cell, or molecule) and high level to the overall function or activity of a neural system.
 In documentation, a high-level document contains the executive summary, the low-level documents the technical specifications.
 In business, corporate strategy is a high-level description, a list of who does what jobs is a low level description.

Examples
 Climate is a high-level description of the actions of the atmosphere and oceans. Physics of water and gas molecules is a low-level description of the same system.
 The instruction "write a creative poem on love" is a high-level instruction. The instruction "tighten the tendons in the dominant wrist to grip the pen" is a low-level description of an activity within that.
 "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" is a high-level description compared to "Wikipedia is a collection of textual articles on many topics". The former reflects a higher level view of organization, purpose, concept and structure, but does not explain what Wikipedia physically is. The latter is more detailed as to what exactly Wikipedia contains and how it's made up, but doesn't explain what its overall purpose and goals are. These are typical features of high-level and low-level descriptions.
 As a more general matter, encyclopedias, such as Wikipedia, can be considered a more high-level source of information on a particular topic than one might find in, for example, a trade magazine or a scientific journal.

See also

 Complex systems
 Complexity
 Cybernetics
 Granularity
 Dennett's three stances
 Levels of analysis
 Meta-systems
 Self-organization
 Systems thinking

References

Systems theory
Complex systems theory
Cybernetics
Formal methods

High- and low-level


Robert Frampton (26 February 1622 – 25 May 1708) was Bishop of Gloucester in England from 1681 to 1691 and later a Non-juror.

Life

Frampton was born in Dorset in February 1622, to Robert and Elizabeth Frampton. He studied at Corpus Christi College and Christ Church, Oxford, where he received his B.A. in 1641. (He was later awarded the D.D., in 1673).

During the English Civil War, during which he attempted to remain neutral, he served as master of the free school at Gillingham, Dorset, and was privately ordained by Robert Skinner, bishop of Oxford. He then served as minister at Gillingham and later as chaplain to the Earl of Elgin in Bedfordshire. From there he took a position as chaplain to the Levant Company at Aleppo, Syria, in 1655.

Following his return from the Middle East in 1666, he married Mary Canning of Warwickshire in 1667. He returned to Aleppo soon after his marriage and stayed there until 1670. Returning to London in 1671, he was appointed Preacher of the Rolls Chapel and chaplain to the Lord Keeper. He was made a prebendary of Gloucester and Salisbury in 1672 and rector of Okeford Fitzpaine in Dorset.

In 1673 he was made Dean of Gloucester and in 1681 Bishop of Gloucester. During his years as bishop he preached at Whitehall for James II. His preaching against Roman Catholicism incurred the king's displeasure, as did Frampton's decision not to instal the candidate of the Catholic President of Magdalen College, Oxford, to the living of Slimbridge. An opponent of James's Declaration of Indulgence in 1688, Frampton was to join Archbishop William Sancroft's delegation that petitioned the king to revoke the Indulgence, but a delay in travel prevented him from being numbered among the Seven Bishops imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Despite his opposition to James II's Catholic policies, he refused the oaths to William III and Mary II and suffered deprival in 1691. A moderate Non-juror, he joined Thomas Ken in strongly opposing the continuance of the Nonjuring schism through the consecration of George Hickes and Thomas Wagstaffe as bishops of a new nonjuring line. In his retirement he continued officiating at the parish church at Standish, Gloucestershire.

He died at his home at Standish on 25 May 1708, being buried on the north side of the altar in the parish church.

References
T. Evans The Life of Robert Frampton, bishop of Gloucester, (1876) and Robert Cornwall, "Robert Frampton," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004).

1622 births
1708 deaths
People from Gillingham, Dorset
Bishops of Gloucester
English nonjuror clergy
Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford
17th-century Church of England bishops

Robert Frampton


Hormogonia are motile filaments of cells formed by some cyanobacteria in the order Nostocales and  Stigonematales. They are formed during vegetative reproduction in unicellular, filamentous cyanobacteria, and some may contain heterocysts and akinetes.

Cyanobacteria differentiate into hormogonia when exposed to an environmental stress or when placed in new media.

Hormogonium differentiation is crucial for the development of nitrogen-fixing plant cyanobacteria symbioses, in particular that between cyanobacteria of the genus Nostoc and their hosts. In response to a hormogonium-inducing factor (HIF) secreted by plant hosts, cyanobacterial symbionts differentiate into hormogonia and then dedifferentiate back into vegetative cells after about 96 hours. Hopefully, they have managed to reach the plant host by this time. The bacteria then differentiate specialized nitrogen-fixing cells called heterocysts and enter into a working symbiosis with the plant.

Depending on species, Hormogonia can be many hundreds of micrometers in length and can travel as fast as 11 μm/s. They move via gliding motility, requiring a wettable surface or a viscous substrate, such as agar for motion.

Cell anatomy
Cyanobacteria

Hormogonium


London Stansted Airport  is a large passenger airport in the Uttlesford District of the English county of Essex about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of London. It is about  outside Bishop's Stortford and  outside Harlow.

Stansted is a hub for a number of major European low-cost carriers. It is the fourth busiest airport in the United Kingdom and is the third largest airport serving the London area after Heathrow and Gatwick; and is one of London's five international airports along with Luton and London City Airports. Stansted is owned and operated by Manchester Airports Group, which also owns and operates three other UK airports, including Manchester and Bournemouth.

The airport had to abandon plans for a second runway after the campaign Stop Stansted Expansion succeeded.

References

Stansted
Uttlesford

London Stansted Airport


A meow or miaow is a noise made by cats. There are different types of meows, such as ones that mean the same thing as "hello," ones that ask for food, or ones that let people know when they are annoyed, among other things.

The meow is used by kittens to their mother. It is a plea for attention, and experts think pet cats use it because they often need owners to do things for them. Adult cats do not meow to other cats.

Different languages have different ways of spelling "meow." For example, English has been using the meow spelling since 1842 and before that, it used the miaow, miau, or meaw spellings. Spanish and German still use the miau spelling while French uses the miaou spelling.

Cats in Ancient Egypt were called "Mau".

References

Cats

Meow


A ramekin or  is a small glazed ceramic or glass serving bowl used for preparating and serving various food dishes. The word is from French (as ramequin), and before that Middle Dutch and Middle Low German.

Details

Ramekins usually have a volume of , and are dishes commonly used for serving a variety of dishes such as crème brûlée, French onion soup, Molten chocolate cake, moimoi, cheese or egg dishes, poi, potted shrimps, ice cream, soufflé, baked "cocottes", crumbles, or scallops or used to serve side garnishes and condiments alongside an entree.

Traditionally circular with a fluted exterior, ramekins can also be found in novelty shapes, such as flowers, hearts or stars.

Ramekins are built to withstand high temperatures, as they are often used in ovens, or in the case of crème brûlée, exposed to the flame of a cooking torch.

References

Cookware and bakeware

Ramekin


Lorentz's law is a law discovered by the Dutch physicist Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. Lorentz's law defines force that acts on moving charged particles in an electromagnetic field. Force consists of magnetic force and electric force.

F = qE (electric force)
If the charge is positive, the direction of the electric force is equal to direction of electric field.
F = qv*B (magnetic force)
The direction of the magnetic force is given by the right hand rule.

If charged particles move with velocity v in an electric field E and a magnetic field B

F = qE + qv*B
F : force (vector)
q : charge (scalar)
E : electric field (vector)
v : velocity of particle (vector)
B : magnetic field (vector)
* is vector cross product.

Using this law, J.J. Thomson measured mass-to-charge ratio.

Electromagnetism

Lorentz force


In control theory the settling time of a dynamical system such as an amplifier or other output device is the time elapsed from the application of an ideal instantaneous step input to the time at which the amplifier output has entered and remained within a specified error band.

Settling time includes a propagation delay, plus the time required for the output to slew to the vicinity of the final value, recover from the overload condition associated with slew, and finally settle to within the specified error.

Systems with energy storage cannot respond instantaneously and will exhibit transient responses when they are subjected to inputs or disturbances.

Definition

Tay, Mareels and Moore (1998) defined settling time as "the time required for the response curve to reach and stay within a range of certain percentage (usually 5% or 2%) of the final value."

Mathematical detail

Settling time depends on the system response and natural frequency.

The settling time for a second order, underdamped system responding to a step response can be approximated if the damping ratio  by

A general form is

Thus, if the damping ratio , settling time to within 2% = 0.02 is:

See also
 Rise time
 Time constant

References

External links

 Second-Order System Example
 Op Amp Settling Time
 Graphical tutorial of Settling time and Risetime
 MATLAB function for computing settling time, rise time, and other step response characteristics
 Settling Time Calculator

Transient response characteristics
Systems_theory

Settling time


Ashigaru is a type of Japanese soldier that began during the Heian Period (794-1185). Their origin is serving as bodyguards to government officials during this period.  They became more active over hundreds of years and ended up serving as foot-soldiers for samurai and shogun.  Ashigaru became masterless warriors after the beginning of the Edo Period (1603-1868). After the Edo Period, many became police.

Fighting style and armor
Ashigaru are noted for using surprise attacks and group tactics.  They wore metal armor, a gauntlet, and a Japanese half-length coat.  The armor also had leather and Japanese rice paper.  Their weapon was a sword, spear, gun, or bow.  Ashigaru also carried a water bottle, tissue paper, and rice.

The Ōnin Rebellion
In the Ōnin War (1467-1477), the ashigaru robbed and looted Kyoto.  This gave ashigaru a reputation as bad troops.

History of Japan
Samurai

Ashigaru


Giaches de Wert (pronounce: JYA-kes de VERT) (born Flanders, 1535;  died Mantua,  6 May  1596) was a Flemish composer who lived and worked in Italy. He was one of the most important composers of madrigals in the Renaissance period.

Life
We know very little about his childhood.  Even some of the things about his adult life we are not sure about.  He was born in Flanders, possibly in Ghent.  When he was a boy he was taken to Italy and he stayed there for the rest of his life.

As a boy he was a singer in the household of Maria di Cardona, Marchesa of Padulla, near Naples.  As a young man he lived in Novellara.  He married there, and he had at least six children.

Later he went to live in Milan where he had the job of maestro di capella (music director).  He stayed there until 1565.  Some letters he wrote during that time have survived.  They describe life at the court where he worked.

In 1565 he went to work for the Gonzaga in Mantua and became choir master at the ducal chapel of S. Barbara where he stayed until 1592.  A lot of people were jealous of his good job, especially a man called Bonvicino who made life difficult for him.  It was then found that Bonvicino was having a love affair with de Wert's wife, so she had to go back to live in Novellara.

De Wert was becoming a very well known composer.  He was offered a job at the emperor's palace in Prague, but he did not take it.  He travelled to work in various places such as Parma and Novellara.  In Novellara his wife was found to have been plotting against the Gonzaga of Novellara.  She was put in prison where she later died.  There were long arguments in the law court about who should have her property.  In the end, de Wert was given a third of her possessions, and he was given the right to let his children inherit the money.

He worked in Ferrara where he had a love affair with a lady who was of aristocratic birth.  Since he was only a musician he was only a servant, so the lady was sent away from the court.

In his later years he worked for the court at Mantua where the music had become very good because the new ruler, Vincenzo Gonzaga, was very interested in music.  De Wert composed music for the theatre.  His health became poor.  He suffered from malaria during the early 1580s.  He died in Mantua and was buried in the crypt at S Barbara.

Music and influence
De Wert wrote over 230 madrigals and other secular works.  These were later published in 16 volumes.  He also wrote over 150 sacred pieces (motets, hymns etc.) which showed how well he could write counterpoint.

His madrigals were very modern for their time.  The music was very daring in the way it described the words.  He sometimes used small groups of singers to contrast with one another like a musical conversation.   He was a great influence on later madrigal composers such as  Monteverdi and Gesualdo.

References and further reading
 Groves Music Online
 Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance.  New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954.  ISBN 0-393-09530-4

1535 births
1596 deaths

Renaissance composers
Franco-Flemish composers
Belgian composers

Giaches de Wert


Optimism is a philosophy and a way of life. Optimists believe that the world is generally a positive place to be in. In the view of an optimist, people and things are good. Many liberal optimists do not believe in original sin.

Optimism basically looks on the positive side, believing things will work out in the end. When a person is optimistic, it doesn't mean that they never doubt themselves. They might have a bad day or two. They recognize that they can make things better; there is a lesson to be learned from this, and they will move on.

The opposing theory is called pessimism. Gottfried Leibnitz was a famous optimist. Arthur Schopenhauer is often considered to be a famous pessimist.

Optimism is associated with the idea of a glass looking "half full", instead of looking "Half empty". Optimism is also a habit of looking on the bright side of a situation

Refrences

Philosophical movements and positions

Optimism