The Volkswagen Type 181 is a two-wheel drive, four-door, convertible, manufactured and marketed by Volkswagen from 1968 until 1983. Originally developed for the West German Army, the Type 181 also entered the civilian market as the Kurierwagen ("courier car") in West Germany, the Trekker (RHD Type 182) in the United Kingdom, the Thing in the United States (1973–74), the Safari in Mexico and South America, and Pescaccia in Italy.  Civilian sales ended after model year 1980.

Manufactured in Wolfsburg, West Germany (1968–74), Hannover, West Germany (1974–75), Emden, West Germany (1975–78), Puebla, Mexico (1970–80), and Jakarta, Indonesia (1972–80), the Type 181 shared its mechanicals with Volkswagen's Type 1 (Beetle) and the pre-1968 Volkswagen Microbus, its floor pan with the Type 1 Karmann Ghia, and its concept with the company's Kübelwagen, which had been used by the German military during World War II.

All four doors were removable and interchangeable, the windshield folded flat, and the convertible roof could be removed for al fresco driving. The spartan interior featured vinyl covered bucket seats, painted sheet metal, drain holes and perforated rubber mats. A
fiberglass hardtop and trunk-mounted auxiliary heater were offered as individual options.

History

During the 1960s, several European governments began cooperating on development of a vehicle known as the Europa Jeep, a lightweight, amphibious four-wheel drive vehicle that could be mass-produced for use by various national military and government groups.
Development of the vehicle proved time-consuming, however, and the West German government was in need of a limited number of light, inexpensive, durable transport vehicles that could fulfill their basic needs while the Europa Jeep was being developed and put into production.

Although Volkswagen had been approached during the 1950s about building such a vehicle, and had subsequently passed on the proposition, the then-current management of the company saw the project as having some amount of potential as a consumer vehicle; Mexican customers were asking for something that could handle rural roads better than the Type 1, which was a large seller in Mexico at the time, and the popularity of VW-based dune buggies within the U.S. made executives think that a durable, fun, off-road-capable vehicle would become attractive to many buyers.
VW could keep cost to a minimum and thus maximize profitability by using existing parts.

Like the World War II era Type 82 Kübelwagen, the Type 181 used mechanical parts and a rear-engine platform, manual transmission and a flat-4 engine derived from that of the Type 1.

The floorpans came from the Type 1 Karmann Ghia, which had a wider floorpan than the Beetle.
Rear swing axle suspension with reduction gearing from the discontinued split-screen Volkswagen Transporter was used until 1973, when it was replaced with double-jointed axles used by Porsche and IRS semi-trailing arm setup as used on the 1303 and US-spec Beetles.

Civilian sales began in mainland Europe and Mexico during 1971; in the U.S. in 1972; and briefly in Britain in 1975, where it failed to sell well and was dropped fairly quickly.

The model was dropped from the American lineup for 1975 as it failed to meet new, stricter US safety standards. The Type 181 was reclassified as a passenger vehicle, and thus subject to stricter safety standards. The Windshield Intrusion Rule of the 1975 DOT standard called for a greater distance between the front seat occupants and the front window glass.

The Europa Jeep was the result of a NATO plan to have a vehicle whereby each European NATO makers all combined to build a light-duty patrol vehicle.

The Volkswagen 181 was only supposed to a fill in until the time that the Europa Jeep was ready. From 1968 until 1979, over 50,000 Type 181s were delivered to the NATO forces.
By 1979 the Europa Jeep project had fallen apart completely and was abandoned, and the West German government began supplementing its consumption of 181s with the new front-engined Type 183 Iltis.

Despite the West German government's switch to the Type 183, European and Mexican sales of the civilian 181 continued through 1980, and several organizations, including NATO, continued to purchase military-spec Type 181 units through 1983, finding their reliability and low purchase and maintenance costs attractive.

Technology and performance

Military 181s attain a higher ride height and lower effective gearing by using reduction boxes, a form of portal axles.  181s without reduction boxes feature a transmission similar to the Beetle but with a slower gearing by use of different ring and pinion gears and have stronger, more flexible CV axles. Most mechanical parts are interchangeable with those of other VW models. Optional dual oil bath air cleaners increased filtering ability in dusty environments, and low noise ignition systems were fitted to military cars to be used for radio communication.

The engine is a 4-cylinder rear mounted petrol engine.

See also
Citroën Méhari
BMC Mini Moke
Volkswagen Iltis
Fiat Ghia Jolly

References

Further reading
Schreier, Konrad F. Jr., ed. VW Kubelwagen Military Portfolio 1940–1990.

External links

Type 181 toys from 1972 until 2009
 181 facts and figures
VW Thing Sales Brochures Retrieved from www.dastank.com on 23 June 2009

181
Rear-engined vehicles
Cars powered by boxer engines
Cold War military vehicles of Germany
Military vehicles introduced in the 1960s

Volkswagen Type 181


Daniel Louis Castellaneta ( ; born October 29, 1957) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is best known for voicing Homer Simpson on the animated series The Simpsons (as well as other characters on the show such as Abraham "Grampa" Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Sideshow Mel, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, and Hans Moleman). Castellaneta is also known for voicing Grandpa in Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold!, and has had voice roles in several other programs, including Futurama, Sibs, Darkwing Duck, The Adventures of Dynamo Duck, The Batman, Back to the Future: The Animated Series, Aladdin, Earthworm Jim, and Taz-Mania.

In 1999, he appeared in the Christmas special Olive, the Other Reindeer and won an Annie Award for his portrayal of the Postman. Castellaneta released a comedy album I Am Not Homer, and wrote and starred in a one-person show titled Where Did Vincent van Gogh?

Early life
Daniel Louis Castellaneta was born on October 29, 1957, at Roseland Community Hospital on Chicago's south side and was raised in River Forest and Oak Park, Illinois. He is of Italian descent, born to Elsie (; 1926–2008) and Louis Castellaneta (1915–2014), an amateur actor who worked for a printing company.

Castellaneta became adept at impressions at a young age and his mother enrolled him in an acting class when he was 16 years old. He would listen to his father's comedy records and do impressions of the artists. He was a "devotee" of the works of many performers, including Alan Arkin and Barbara Harris and directors Mike Nichols and Elaine May. He attended Oak Park and River Forest High School and upon graduation, started attending Northern Illinois University (NIU) in the fall of 1975.

Castellaneta studied art education, with the goal of becoming an art teacher. He became a student teacher and would entertain his students with his impressions. Castellaneta was a regular participant in The Ron Petke and His Dead Uncle Show, a radio show at NIU. The show helped Castellaneta hone his skills as a voice-over actor. He recalled "We did parodies and sketches, we would double up on, so you learned to switch between voices. I got my feet wet doing a voiceover. The show was just barely audible, but we didn't care. It was that we got a chance to do it and write our own material." He took a play-writing class and auditioned for an improvisational show. A classmate first thought Castellaneta would "fall on his face with improvisation" but soon "was churning out material faster than [they] could make it work."

Career

Early career
Castellaneta began his acting career after his graduation from Northern Illinois University in 1979. He decided that if his career went nowhere he would still have a chance to try something else. He began taking improvisation classes, where he met his future wife Deb Lacusta. He started to work at The Second City, an improvisational theatre in Chicago, in 1983 and continued to work there until 1987. During this period, he did voice-over work with his wife for various radio stations.

He auditioned for a role in The Tracey Ullman Show and his first meeting underwhelmed Tracey Ullman and the other producers. Ullman decided to fly to Chicago to watch Castellaneta perform. His performance that night was about a blind man who tries to become a comedian and Ullman later recalled that although there were flashier performances that night, Castellaneta made her cry. She was impressed and Castellaneta was hired.

The Simpsons
Castellaneta is most famous for his roles on the longest-running American animated television show The Simpsons, most notably as Homer Simpson. The Tracey Ullman Show included a series of animated shorts about a dysfunctional family. Voices were needed for the shorts, so the producers decided to ask Castellaneta and fellow cast member Julie Kavner to voice Homer and Marge Simpson respectively, rather than hire more actors. Homer's voice began as a loose impression of Walter Matthau, but Castellaneta could not "get enough power behind that voice" and could not sustain his Matthau impression for the nine- to ten-hour long recording sessions.

He tried to find something easier, so he "dropped the voice down", and developed it into a more versatile and humorous voice during the second and third season of the half-hour show. Castellaneta's normal speaking voice has no similarity to Homer's. To perform Homer's voice, Castellaneta lowers his chin to his chest, and is said to "let his IQ go."

Castellaneta likes to stay in character during recording sessions, and tries to visualize a scene in his mind so that he can give the proper voice to it. Despite Homer's fame, Castellaneta claims he is rarely recognized in public, "except, maybe, by a die-hard fan."

Castellaneta also provides the voices for numerous other characters, including Grampa Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, Hans Moleman, Sideshow Mel, Itchy, Kodos, Arnie Pye, the Squeaky Voiced Teen and Gil Gunderson. Krusty's voice is based on Chicago television's Bob Bell, who had a very raspy voice and portrayed WGN-TV's Bozo the Clown from 1960 to 1984. During early recording sessions, he recorded a new version of Barney's loud trademark belch for every episode but discovered that it was not easy for him to belch each time a script called for it. Castellaneta chose a recording of what he believed was his best belch and told the producers to make that the standard.

Groundskeeper Willie's first appearance was in the season two episode "Principal Charming". The character was written as an angry janitor and Castellaneta was assigned to perform the voice. He did not know what voice to use and Sam Simon, who was directing at the time, suggested he use an accent. Castellaneta first tried using Hispanic voicing, which Simon felt was too clichéd. He then tried a "big dumb Swede", which was also rejected. For his third try, he used the voice of a grumpy Scotsman, which was deemed appropriate enough and was used in the episode. The voice was based partially on Angus Crock, a kilt-wearing chef from the sketch comedy show Second City Television, who was portrayed by Dave Thomas.

Mayor Quimby, who first appeared in "Bart Gets an 'F', is a parody of various members of the Kennedy family. The episode script did not call for Quimby to be a parody of them, and Castellaneta improvised the accent. Sideshow Mel's voice is Castellaneta's impression of Kelsey Grammer, the voice of Sideshow Bob. Hapless Gil Gunderson is a spoof of actor Jack Lemmon's portrayal of Shelley Levene in the 1992 film adaptation of the play Glengarry Glen Ross. Showrunner Mike Scully thought that Gil would be "a one-shot thing" but "Dan Castellaneta was so funny at the table read doing the character, we kept making up excuses in subsequent episodes to put him in." The Blue-Haired Lawyer's voice, as well as his demeanor, is based on lawyer Roy Cohn.

Castellaneta has won several awards for voicing Homer, including four Primetime Emmy Awards for "Outstanding Voice-Over Performance" in 1992 for "Lisa's Pony", 1993 for "Mr. Plow", 2004 for voicing several characters in "Today I Am a Clown", and 2009 for voicing Homer in "Father Knows Worst".

In 1993, Castellaneta was given a special Annie Award, "Outstanding Individual Achievement in the Field of Animation", for his work as Homer on The Simpsons.

In 2004, Castellaneta and Julie Kavner (the voice of Marge) won a Young Artist Award for "Most Popular Mom & Dad in a TV Series". Homer was placed second on TV Guides 2002 Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters, and in 2000, Homer and the rest of the Simpson family were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard.

Until 1998, Castellaneta was paid $30,000 per episode. During a pay dispute in 1998, Fox threatened to replace the six main voice actors with new actors, going as far as preparing for casting of new voices. The dispute was soon resolved and he received $125,000 per episode until 2004 when the voice actors demanded that they be paid $360,000 an episode. The issue was resolved a month later, and Castellaneta earned $250,000 per episode.

Following salary re-negotiations in 2008, the voice actors received approximately $400,000 per episode. Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, Castellaneta and the other cast members accepted a 25 percent pay cut, down to over $300,000 per episode.

In the early 1990s, Castellaneta and Deb Lacusta wrote a script for an episode in which Barney becomes sober. They pitched their idea to showrunner Al Jean. Jean liked the story, but turned it down because he felt that it was too similar to "Duffless", an episode that the writers were already working on. They waited several years and offered their script, which they updated, to then-show runner Mike Scully, who liked it and had them make a few changes. Their script became the eleventh season episode "Days of Wine and D'oh'ses", which first aired April 9, 2000. Castellaneta and his wife have also written the episodes "Gump Roast", "The Ziff Who Came to Dinner", "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore", and "The Fight Before Christmas". In 2007, they were nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for the episode "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore". Castellaneta is also credited as a consulting producer.

Further career
Castellaneta has been a regular cast member in several other television series. In 1991, he played Warren Morris in the short-lived ABC live-action sitcom Sibs. Heide Perlman, creator of Sibs, wrote the part with Castellaneta in mind.

He provided the voice of the eponymous character in The Adventures of Dynamo Duck, Megavolt in Darkwing Duck, "Doc" Emmett Brown in Back to the Future: The Animated Series, the lead character in Earthworm Jim and several characters, including Grandpa Phil and the Jolly Olly Man, the mentally unstable ice cream truck driver, on Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold!. He guest starred as The Robot Devil in five episodes of Futurama, as well as the Futurama film The Beast with a Billion Backs.

Castellaneta has also made guest appearances in a number of television series episodes. In 1992, he guest-starred in an episode of the legal drama L.A. Law, as a Homer Simpson meetable character at a California amusement park who is dismissed for inappropriate behavior while in costume.
In 1996, he made a guest appearance as a Zoo Keeper in Season 2, Episode 12 "The One After the Superbowl" in Friends.
In 2005, he appeared in the episode "Sword of Destiny" in Arrested Development as Dr. Stein, a deadpan incompetent doctor.

In 2005, Castellaneta guest-starred as Joe Spencer in the Stargate SG-1 season eight episode "Citizen Joe". He also appeared in episodes of ALF, Campus Ladies, Castle, Entourage, Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier, Friends, Greek, How I Met Your Mother, Mad About You, Married... with Children, Murphy Brown, NYPD Blue, Parks and Recreation, Reba, Reno 911!, That '70s Show, Veronica Mars, Hot in Cleveland, Yes, Dear, and Desperate Housewives.

He appeared as the Genie in the Aladdin sequel The Return of Jafar and on the 1994 Aladdin television series. The Genie had been voiced by Robin Williams in Aladdin, and Castellaneta described replacing him as "sort of like stepping into Hamlet after Laurence Olivier did it, how can you win?" He also provided Genie's voice in the Kingdom Hearts video game series for both Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II (with archived audio used for Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and its remake as well as for the later HD collections Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix and Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix). Castellaneta portrayed Aaron Spelling in the 2004 NBC film Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels, which followed the true story of how Spelling created the show. Other films in which Castellaneta has appeared include Nothing in Common, Say Anything..., Super Mario Bros., The Client, Space Jam, My Giant, The Simpsons Movie, Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, Recess: School's Out, Hey Arnold!: The Movie, The Cat in the Hat and The Pursuit of Happyness.

In 2000, he won an Annie Award for his portrayal of the Postman in the animated Christmas television special Olive, the Other Reindeer. In 2006, he appeared in Jeff Garlin's independent film I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With along with several other Second City alumni.

On February 22, 2000, his first music CD Two Lips was published. It was followed on April 23, 2002, by his first comedy CD, I Am Not Homer, in which he and his wife perform several comedy skits. The majority of the sketches had been written and performed before the CD was recorded, and Castellaneta thought that it would be a good idea to preserve them "since [he and Lacusta] don't perform them much anymore."

Some came from their sketch series on a local radio station in Chicago and had to be lengthened from the "two-minute bits" that they were original, while several others were stage sketches performed in a comedy club in Santa Monica. Additionally, "Citizen Kane", a sketch in which two people discuss the film Citizen Kane with different meanings, was something the pair had performed at an art gallery. Castellaneta noted that "we already knew that these skits were funny, [but] some of them we polished and tightened." The skits were principally written by improvising from a basic point, transcribing the results, and then editing them to the finished scene. Castellaneta chose the title I Am Not Homer as a parody of Leonard Nimoy's famous first autobiography I Am Not Spock, as well as to show that most of the comedy featured "is not the typical Homer comedy."

Alongside his television and film work, Castellaneta has appeared in a number of theatrical productions. In 1992, he starred in Deb & Dan's Show alongside his wife. In 1995, Castellaneta started writing Where Did Vincent van Gogh?, a one man play in which he portrays a dozen different characters, including artist Vincent van Gogh. He first officially performed the play at the ACME Comedy Theatre in Los Angeles in 1999. In 2007, he appeared in The Bicycle Men at King's Head Theatre in London.

Castellaneta hosted the final of New York comedy show Thrills and Spills on December 31, 2015. The final was held in Montgomery, Alabama.

Personal life
Castellaneta and his wife Deb Lacusta divide their time between the Californian cities of Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. The couple first met at an improvisational comedy class in Chicago, Illinois.

Castellaneta is a vegetarian and a teetotaller. He also exercises regularly and practices tai chi.

Filmography

Discography

Also featured in:
 The Simpsons Sing the Blues (1990)
 Songs in the Key of Springfield (1997)
 The Yellow Album (1998)
 Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons (1999)
 The Simpsons: Testify (2007)

Awards and nominations

References

External links

1957 births
Living people
20th-century American comedians
21st-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Actors from Oak Park, Illinois
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American male television writers
American male video game actors
American male voice actors
American Roman Catholics
American television writers
American writers of Italian descent
Annie Award winners
California Democrats
Illinois Democrats
Male actors from Chicago
Northern Illinois University alumni
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Screenwriters from Illinois

Dan Castellaneta


Filbert's Old Time is a beverage company based in Chicago, Illinois. Since 1926, it has bottled and distributed soft drinks as well as non-carbonated beverages.

History
Known best for its namesake root beer, Filbert's also produces 24 flavors of soda. The company started at the turn of the century when George Filbert and family delivered milk, ice, and coal to homes in the Bridgeport neighborhood by horse-drawn wagon. The family added root beer in 1926, when it became popular during Prohibition. It was manufactured in half barrels and supplied mostly to taverns across five nearby states. Still a family business, Filbert's is run by Ronald Filbert.

Flavors
Banana Soda
Black Cherry Soda
Blue Raspberry Soda
Blueberry Soda
Cherry Soda
Cola
Cream Soda
Diet Root Beer
Fruit Punch Soda
Ginger Ale
Ginger Beer
Grape Soda
Grapefruit Soda
Green Apple Soda
Lime Soda
Mr. Newport Lemon-Lime Soda
Orange Soda
Pineapple Soda
Peach Soda
Red Raspberry Soda
Root Beer
Sparkling Water
Strawberry Soda
Tonic
Watermelon Soda

References

External links
http://www.filbertsrootbeer.com [Official Website]
http://www.glassbottlesoda.org/bottlers/filberts.shtml GlassBottleSoda.org - [Filbert's Old Time Root Beer page]

Root beer
American soft drinks

Filbert's


Danny Way (born 15 Aprile 1974 in Portland, Oregon) is an American professional skeitchbuirder. In 2005 he ran as the first skeitchbuirder athoot motorized aid ower the Great Waw o Cheenae.

Life
At age 16, he wis awready sponsored bi H-Way Street, which he suin left. Although he briefly readoptit that sponsor, he left a year later tae wirk wi H-Street Co-foonder Mike Ternasky tae form a separate company cried Plan B. Way wis the 1991 Skater of the Year in Thrasher magazine. A series o videos wur producit till he wis in a surfin accident brake his neck.

In 1995 he came back tae the sport an wan the Tampa Pro Vert Competition, twa years later he brak the warld record for the heichest jump on a skatebuird. Atween 1999 an 2002 he haed tae unnergo several surgeries (five knee an twa shoulder operations), which ran aw but successful. He then constructit the first Megaramp in which he set anither record at a hicht o 5.6 m.

On 19 Juin 2003 he exhibitit at the seicont reconstruction o the ramp tae ither records, includin heichest Christ Air, heichest McTwist an heichest Fast Plant. The video fuitage appeared on the best-sellin DC Video. In the saxt Transworld Skateboarding Awards, he wan the title for best athletes in the Vert-style. In 2004 he wan the first Big Air Contest at X Games in Los Angeles, whaur he an aw brak records again (new distance record). In the same year he wis namit Skater of the Year for the seicont time this year bi Thrasher magazine.

On 9 June 2005, he became the first man tae jump athoot motorized assistance, uisin anerlie his skatebuird on the Great Waw o Cheenae. A year later he wan gowd again at the X-Games in the Big Air discipline by jumping over a pit 70 feet long (Gap), the maneuver was rounded off with a backflip.

In the 14t X-Games in 2008, Way injurt baith shins on the edge o the quairterpipe. Although he coud anerlie hobble wi the help o the ramp, he jumped a few minutes later, the plannit trick, feenishin in seicont place.

Way haes lang been sponsored bi DC Shoes, which wis co-foondit bi his brither. Therefore, amaist ivery year he gets his awn pro model, which is sauld warldwide.

He is featurt in EA Black Box gemmes Skate, Skate 2 an Skate 3.

Freemit airtins

 Danny Way Offeecial Steid
 Videos frae 2008's X Games

American skeitchbuirders
X-Games athletes
1974 births
Livin fowk
Fowk frae Portland, Oregon

Danny Way


Otto von Knobelsdorff (31 March 1886 – 21 October 1966) was a German general during World War II who led the 19th Panzer Division and then held a series of higher commands. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.

Biography
Born in Berlin in 1886 to a noble family, Knobelsdorff joined the army of Imperial Germany in 1905 as a Fahnen-junker (officer cadet) and served in the infantry. Twice awarded the Iron Cross during World War I, he later served in the Heer (Army) branch of the Wehrmacht. He was chief of staff of Corps Command XXXIII at the time of the outbreak of World War II. A generalmajor, he was given command of the 19th Infantry Division on 1 February 1940 and led it through the Battle of France and during subsequent occupation duty. In October, the division was withdrawn to Germany for conversion to armour. It was re-designated the 19th Panzer Division and Knobelsdorff, promoted to Generalleutnant in late 1940, oversaw his command's transition from infantry to tanks.

With Knobelsdorff still in command, the division was sent to Russia as part of Operation Barbarossa and fought through to the outskirts of Moscow. In early 1942, he was acting commander of X Army Corps and fulfilled the same role for II Army Corps in mid-1942, when it was involved in the Demyansk Salient. He then commanded XXIV Panzer Corps, still as acting commander, before being given a permanent role leading XXXXVIII Panzer Corps from late 1942 to late 1943, although he spent three months out of the lines during this time. Now a General der Panzertruppe (General of Panzer Troops), during this period he was awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross that he had been awarded in 1941 while leading the 19th Panzer Division and the German Cross in gold.

Competent as a leader of armoured formations, Knobelsdorff was given command of 1st Army in September 1944, serving in France at the time. Although awarded the Swords to his Knight's Cross the same month, he proved less adept at this level and was ultimately relieved in November 1944 for resisting Adolf Hitler's efforts to transfer 1st Army's tanks away in support of the Ardennes offensive. He ended the war without another command. In later life, he wrote Geschichte der niedersaechsischen 19. Panzer-Division, a history of the 19th Panzer Division which was published in 1958. He died in Hannover in 1966.

Awards
 Iron Cross (1914) 2nd Class & 1st Class
 Iron Cross (1939) 2nd Class & 1st Class
 German Cross in Gold on 16 February 1943 as General der Panzertruppe in the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps
 Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 17 September 1941 as Generalleutnant and commander of the 19th Panzer Division
 Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves on 12 November 1943 as General der Panzertruppe and commanding general of the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps
 Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords on 21 September 1944 as General der Panzertruppe and commanding general of the XXXX Panzer Corps

Notes
Footnotes

Citations

References

1886 births
1966 deaths
Military personnel from Berlin
Military personnel from the Province of Brandenburg
Generals of Panzer Troops
Recipients of the Gold German Cross
Recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords

Recipients of the clasp to the Iron Cross, 1st class
German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United States
Reichswehr personnel
German Army personnel of World War I

Otto von Knobelsdorff


Alan John Villiers, DSC (23 September 1903 – 3 March 1982) was a writer, adventurer, photographer and mariner.

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Villiers first went to sea at age 15 and sailed on board traditionally rigged vessels, including the full-rigged ship Joseph Conrad. He commanded square-rigged ships for films, including Moby Dick and Billy Budd. He also commanded the Mayflower II on its voyage from the United Kingdom to the United States.

Villiers wrote 44 books, and served as the Chairman (1960–70) and President (1970-74) of the Society for Nautical Research, a Trustee of the National Maritime Museum, and Governor of the Cutty Sark Preservation Society. He was awarded the British Distinguished Service Cross as a Commander in the Royal Naval Reserve during the Second World War.

Early history

Alan John Villiers was the second son of Australian poet and union leader Leon Joseph Villiers. The young Villiers grew up on the docks watching the merchant ships come in and out of the Port of Melbourne. Leaving home at the age of 15, he joined the barque Rothesay Bay as an apprentice. The Rothesay Bay operated in the Tasman Sea, trading between Australia and New Zealand.

An accident on board the barque Lawhill beached Villiers in 1922, by then a seasoned Able seaman. He sought employment as a journalist at the Hobart Mercury newspaper in Tasmania while he recovered from his wounds.

Writer and adventurer

Soon Villiers was back at sea when the great explorer and whaler Carl Anton Larsen and his whaling factory ship, the Sir James Clark Ross came to port with five whale chasers in tow in late 1923. His accounts of the trip were published as Whaling in the Frozen South. Named for the Antarctica explorer James Clark Ross, the Ross was the largest whale factory ship in the world, weighing in at 12,000 tons.  She was headed for the southern Ross Sea, the last whale stronghold left. Villiers writes: "We had caught 228, most of them blues, the biggest over 100 feet long. These yielded 17,000 barrels of oil; we had hoped for at least 40,000, with luck 60,000."

Villiers' passage on board the Herzogin Cecilie in 1927 would result in his publication of Falmouth for Orders. Through it he met Captain Ruben de Cloux, who later became his partner in the barque Parma.

He wrote By Way of Cape Horn after his experiences crewing the full-rigged Grace Harwar from Australia to Ireland in 1929.  Villiers had a desire to document the great sailing ships before it was too late, and Grace Harwar was one of the last working full-riggers. With a small ill-paid crew and no need for coal, such vessels undercut steam ships, and maybe 20 ships were still involved in the trade. As Villiers first stood on the dock looking at Grace Harwar, a wharf laborer warned "Don't ship out in her! She's a killer." Villiers' friend Ronald Walker was lost on the journey. More than 40 years old at the time, the ship had barnacles and algae growing along her waterline. The voyage took 138 days and was filmed as The Cape Horn Road; Villiers took photographs, serving as a record of that period in full-rigged working ships.

Ship owner and circumnavigator

Villiers reunited with Ruben de Cloux in 1931, becoming a partner with him in the four-masted barque Parma. With de Cloux as captain, Parma won the unofficial "grain race" between the ships of the trade in 1932, arriving in 103 days despite broaching in a gale. In 1933, the ship won in 83 days. Villiers sailed as a passenger on both voyages.

After selling his shares back to de Cloux, Villiers purchased the Georg Stage in 1934. A full-rigged sailing ship of 400 tons, originally built in 1882 by Burmeister & Wain in Copenhagen, Denmark, she was employed as a sailing school ship by Stiftelsen Georg Stages Minde.  Saving her from the scrapyard, Villiers renamed her the Joseph Conrad, after the writer and seaman Joseph Conrad.

A sail training pioneer, Villiers circumnavigated the globe with an amateur crew.  He used the environment of the sea to build character and discipline in his young crew and, with his contemporaries Irving and Exy Johnson, he helped form the modern concept of sail training.

Returning almost two years later, Villiers sold the Joseph Conrad to George Huntington Hartford.  He published two books of his adventures, Cruise of the "Conrad" and Stormalong. The Joseph Conrad is maintained and operated as a museum ship at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, USA.

In 1938, Alan Villiers embarked as a passenger on an Arab dhow for a round trip from Oman to the Rufiji Delta, and depicted the way of life of Arab sailors and their navigation techniques in a book called Sons of Sindbad, illustrated with his own photographs.

World War II

With the outbreak of World War II, Villiers was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve in 1940. He was assigned to a convoy of 24 LCI(L)'s, or Landing craft, Infantry (Large). Ordered to deliver them across the Atlantic, with a 40 percent loss rate expected, Villiers got all but one safely across. He commanded "flights" of LCI(L)s on D-Day in the Battle of Normandy, the Invasion of Sicily, and the Burma Campaign in the Far East. By the end of the War, Villiers had been promoted to Commander and awarded the British Distinguished Service Cross.

Later years

Married in 1940 to his second wife Nancie, Villiers settled in Oxford, England, and continued to be active in sailing and writing. He was the Captain of the Mayflower II in her 1957 maiden voyage across the Atlantic, 337 years after the original Mayflower, and beating her predecessor's time of 67 days by 13 days. From 1963 to 1967 he was involved in an unsuccessful attempt to build a replica of HM Bark Endeavour. He advised on the 1962 MGM movie Mutiny on the Bounty. Villiers was a regular contributor to the National Geographic Magazine throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

Villiers produced a travel lecture film, Last of the Great Sea Dogs, which ran at the Dorothy Chandler pavilion in 1976. The film contains 16mm color, filmography of his adventures.  There is a digital restored master of the performance with an audio track, narrated by Villiers.

In 1951, the Portuguese Ambassador to the United States, Pedro Teotónio Pereira, a sailing enthusiast and later a friend of Villiers, invited him to sail on the schooner Argus, a cod fishing four-masted schooner, and to record the last commercial activity ever to make use of sails in ocean-crossings. Villiers wrote The Quest Of The Schooner Argus: A voyage to the Grand Banks and Greenland on a modern four masted fishing schooner. The book was a success in North America and Europe and was later published in sixteen languages. The voyage made news on the BBC, in the main London newspapers, the National Geographic Magazine, and the New York Times, and the Portuguese government made Villiers a Commander of the Portuguese Order of St. James of the Sword for outstanding services to literature in March 1951.

In 1978, Villiers weighed in that Francis Drake landed at New Albion at Point Reyes in Marin County, California.

In 2010, the Society for Nautical Research, the Naval Review, and the Britannia Naval Research Association jointly established the annual Alan Villiers Memorial Lecture at St Edmund Hall, Oxford.

In popular culture

Civilization VI includes a quote from Villiers: "There is little man has made that approaches anything in nature, but a sailing ship does."

Bibliography

Books

Whaling In The Frozen South (1925 The Bobbs-Merrill co.)
The Wind Ship (1928 Hurst & Blackett, Ltd.)
Falmouth for Orders (1929 Henry Holt and Company)
By way of Cape Horn (1930 Henry Holt and Co); illustrated with photographs taken by Ronald Gregory Walker and the author
Sea Dogs of Today (1931 Henry Holt & Company)
Vanished Fleets (1931 Charles Scribner's Sons, )
The Sea in Ships (1932 G. Routledge and Sons Ltd.)
Voyage of the "Parma"; The Great Grain Race of 1932 (1933 G. Bles)
Grain Race (1933 Charles Scribner's Sons)
Last of the Wind Ships, with over 200 photographs by the author (1934 William Morrow and Co)
The Sea in Ships (1932 Routledge)
Whalers of the Midnight Sun, illustrated by Charles Pont (1935 Charles Schribners Son's)
Cruise of the Conrad (1937 Charles Scribner's Sons)
Stormalong (1937 Charles Scribner's Sons)
Modern Mariners (1937 Garden City)
The Making of a Sailor (1938 William Morrow and Co)
Joey Goes To Sea, Illustrated by Victor J. Dowling (1939 Charles Scribner's Sons)
Sons of Sinbad (1940 Charles Scribner's Sons)
Whalers of the Midnight Sun, Illustrated with woodcuts by Charles Pont (1947 Charles Scribner's Sons)
The Set of the Sails; The Story of a Cape Horn Seaman (1949 Hodder and Stoughton)
The Coral Sea (1949 Museum Press)
The Quest of the Schooner Argus (1951 Charles Scribner's Sons)
The Indian Ocean (1952 Museum Press)
Monsoon Seas (1952 McGraw Hill)
And Not To Yield; A Story of the Outward Bound School of Adventure, Illustrated by Jean Main and David Cobb (1953 Scribner)
The Cutty Sark; Last of A Glorious Era, Introduction by the Duke of Edinburgh (1953 Hodder and Stoughton)
The Way of a Ship (1953 Charles Scribner's Sons)
Sailing Eagle (1955 Charles Scribner's Sons)
Pioneers of the Seven Seas (1956 Routledge & Paul)
Posted Missing (1956 Charles Scribner's Sons, )
Wild Ocean (1957 McGraw Hill)
The New Mayflower (1958 Scribner)
The Windjammer Story (1958 TAB)
Give Me a Ship to Sail (1959 Charles Scribner's Sons)
Of Ships and Men, a Personal Anthology (1962 Newnes)
The Ocean; Man's Conquest of the Sea (1963 Dutton)
Oceans of the World; Man's Conquest of the Sea (1963 Museum Press Ltd.)
Pilot Pete (1963 Angus)
The Battle of Trafalgar (1965 Macmillan)
Captain Cook (1967 Scribner)
The Deep Sea Fishermen (1970 Hodder and Stoughton)
The War with Cape Horn (1971 Pan Books Ltd., )
My Favourite Sea Stories, Drawings by Mark Myers (1972 Lutterworth Press)
The Bounty Ships of France, Alan Villiers and Henri Picard (1972 Charles Scribner's Sons, )
Men Ships and the Sea, Foreword by Melville Bell Grosvenor  (1973 National Geographic Society, )
Voyaging With The Wind: An Introduction to Sailing Large Square Rigged Ships (1975 H.M. Stationery Office)

Articles

References

External links

National Maritime Museum archive of Centenary exhibit and bio
papers and oral history interview of Alan Villiers in the National Library of Australia
Archives & Collections Society  List of books published by Alan Villiers
Rounding Cape Horn in a Windjammer by Alan Villiers, National Geographic Magazine, February 1931
Alan Villiers Resource Page Villiers writings and more.
 Marshall, Tony (2012) "Villiers, Alan John (1903-1982)" in Australian Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 18, (MUP), 2012

1903 births
1982 deaths
Australian emigrants to England
Australian expatriates in England
Australian sailors
Australian memoirists
Writers from Melbourne
Maritime writers
20th-century Australian journalists
20th-century Australian historians
Australian maritime historians
British maritime historians
Australian people in whaling
Australian travel writers
20th-century memoirists
Australian recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom)
Royal Navy officers of World War II
The Mercury (Hobart) people
Royal Naval Reserve personnel

Alan Villiers


A submachine gun is a type of gun that shoots many bullets, usually pistol bullets, when one holds down the trigger. A submachine gun is smaller than a machine gun and can easily be carried by one person. They are often used where people need to defend themselves in small areas, or people need to fire many bullets quickly. The first submachine guns were invented in the early 1900s. They are often used by the police and counter-terrorism units .

History
In the early 20th century, experiments were made by converting  pistols from semi to fully automatic firearms. Automatic weapons with gunstock and firing pistol rounds were developed around the same time during World War I, by Italy, Germany, and the United States. The first dedicated designs were developed in the latter stages of World War I both as improvements on earlier stocked pistols, and to offer an advantage in trench warfare.

They were popularized in the 1920s and '30s as weapon of choice of American gangsters and police, in the form of the famous Thompson submachine gun, commonly referred to as the "Tommy Gun". Submachine guns rose to prominence as a frontline close-quarters combat weapon and commando firearm during World War II. They are now widely used by police SWAT, military commando, paramilitary, and counter-terror team members for a variety of situations.

Submachine guns are highly effective in close quarters; their lower-powered pistol cartridges make them generally more controllable in fully-automatic fire compared to assault rifles, while their small size and light weight grant maneuverability.  However, pistol bullets often are stopped by body armor or cover, and are short-ranged compared to intermediate and rifle cartridges.

World War II developments
World War II developments were many and interesting. In Germany the development of machine carbines (Maschinenkarabiner) was notable.  From 1939 onwards the German Army analyzed combat conditions and developed new tactics and equipment requirements. The existing 7.92x57mm rifle cartridge was more powerful and long ranged than needed. Most combat took place at ranges less than 400 m (440 yards). A less powerful round (bullet) could be used. This meant a soldier could carry more ammunition, the weapon could be shorter, lighter and with less recoil. The gun could be an automatic.

Achieving this took time. Work in 1941 and 1942 led at last to a reliable weapon, the StG 44 (Sturmgewehr 44) "assault rifle 44". This was then produced in large numbers (over 600,000). It came too late to effect the Second World War, but was later adapted as the Soviet AK 47.

References

Other websites
 WW2-era Small Arms
 Submachine gun -Citizendium

Submachine gun


Landfall is when a tropical cyclone or waterspout moves from being over water to being over land. When a tornadic waterspout makes landfall it can be called a tornado, and can cause damage to buildings and other things made by people. When a fair weather waterspout makes landfall it quickly spreads out and loses its energy; the water falls as rain.

A tropical cyclone is said to make landfall when its center moves over land; in tropical cyclones this can be when the eye moves over land. This is where most of the damage occurs because when the storm is over water there is a little chance of damage, except if the parts of the storm that are raining are over land, which can cause severe flooding especially when the system is moving slowly or not at all. The effects of landfall are:
 the storm surge peaks
 the core of strong winds comes on shore
 and heavy flooding rains move over land.

Together with the high surf, these can cause a lot of beach erosion. In low lying areas the storm surge can stay inland for a long time and mix with chemicals already in the area to create a toxic mess. When a tropical cyclone makes landfall, the eye "closes", surf gets less, and winds get less as the cyclone spreads out, losing energy. Damage inland may include flooding rains, gusty winds, and severe weather associated with the cyclone's remnant thunderstorms.

A "landfall" should not be confused with a "direct hit", which happens when the core of high winds (or eyewall) comes over the land but the center of the storm stays over water. The effects of this are similar but storm surges can be much less. These effects are:
 high surf
 heavy flooding rains
 water building up along the coast
 minor storm surges
 beach erosion
 high winds
 possibly severe weather.

Tropical cyclones

Landfall (meteorology)


The haka (; plural haka, in both Māori and English) is a ritual dance of the Maori, the native people of New Zealand. Sometimes, a haka is performed to excite friends and to scare enemies. In peace time, a haka is performed as a challenge.

A haka can include:
voice (chanting)
feet (stamping and leaping)
hand (slapping, waving and clapping)
eyes (rolling)
tongue (poking out)

There are many different haka. Each tells a story. The most famous haka is Ka Mate. The Ka Mate haka is performed by many New Zealand sports teams before games. Another famous haka is 'Kapo O Pango' which is performed by New Zealand's rugby union team. This team is called the All Blacks.

Women are not usually allowed to perform haka. Instead, they sing and chant in support.

References

New Zealand culture

Haka


A kite shield is a Middle Age shield in the shape of a kite. The kite shield was used by many knights and people for protection, but was given up for two-handed weapons and more mobility.
The efficiency of the kite shields shields shape came into action when cavalry combat occurred, useful to protect most of the body from the shoulders down to the feet, giving the knight more options in combat.

Armour

Kite shield


Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. Located on a barrier island in east-central Palm Beach County, the town is separated from West Palm Beach and Lake Worth Beach by the Intracoastal Waterway to its west and a small section of the Intracoastal Waterway and South Palm Beach to its south. It is part of the South Florida metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, Palm Beach had a year-round population of 9,245.

The Jaega arrived on the modern-day island of Palm Beach approximately 3,000 years ago. Between 1816 and 1858, most of the Native Americans were expelled from the area. White Americans began to inhabit the area as early as 1872, and opened a post office about five years later. Elisha Newton "Cap" Dimick, later the town's first mayor, established Palm Beach's first hotel, the Cocoanut Grove House, in 1880, but Standard Oil tycoon Henry Flagler became instrumental in transforming the island of jungles and swamps into a winter resort for the wealthy. Flagler and his workers constructed the Royal Poinciana Hotel in 1894, The Breakers in 1896, and Whitehall in 1902; extended the Florida East Coast Railway southward to the area by 1894; and developed a separate city to house the hotel workers and other laborers, which later became West Palm Beach. The town of Palm Beach incorporated on April 17, 1911. Addison Mizner also contributed significantly to the town's history, designing 67 structures between 1919 and 1924, including El Mirasol, the Everglades Club, La Querida, the William Gray Warden House, and Via Mizner, which is a section of Worth Avenue.

Forbes reported in 2017 that Palm Beach had at least 30 billionaires, with the town ranking as the 27th-wealthiest place in the United States in 2016 according to Bloomberg News. Many famous and wealthy individuals have resided in the town, including United States presidents John F. Kennedy and Donald Trump. Palm Beach is known for upscale shopping districts, such as Worth Avenue, Royal Poinciana Plaza, and the Royal Poinciana Way Historic District.

History

Native beginnings
Native Americans previously inhabited the island of Palm Beach, with the Jaegas arriving at least 3,000 years ago. Evidence for their inhabitation of the island are three pre-Columbian archaeological complexes. These complexes include a burial mound, six unmarked Native American cemeteries, and a more recent burial site which suggested interaction between indigenous people and Europeans.

1872–1900
Settlers began arriving in modern-day Palm Beach by 1872. Hiram F. Hammon made the first homestead claim in 1873 along Lake Worth. At the time, the lake area had fewer than 12 people. By 1877, the Tustenegee Post Office was established in modern-day Palm Beach, becoming the lake area's first post office. Along the coast of Palm Beach, the Providencia wrecked in 1878 with a cargo of 20,000 coconuts, which were quickly planted. In 1880, Elisha Newton "Cap" Dimick converted his private residence to a hotel known as the Cocoanut Grove House. At the time of its opening, the Cocoanut Grove House was the only hotel along Florida's east coast between Titusville and Key West. A fire destroyed the hotel in October 1893. The Star Route, also known as the Barefoot Mailman route, began serving the area in 1885. Carriers delivered mail by foot or boat from Palm Beach and other nearby communities to as far south as Miami, a round trip of . The first schoolhouse in southeast Florida (also known as the Little Red Schoolhouse) opened in Palm Beach in 1886.

Henry Flagler, a Standard Oil tycoon, made his first visit to Palm Beach in 1893, and described the area as a "veritable paradise". That same year, Flagler hired George W. Potter to plot 48 blocks for West Palm Beach, a city to house workers at his hotels, and construction began on the Royal Poinciana Hotel. The Royal Poinciana Hotel opened for business on February 11, 1894. Flagler, also the owner of the Florida East Coast Railway, extended the railroad southward to West Palm Beach by the following month. In 1896, Flagler opened a second hotel originally known as Wayside Inn, before being renamed Palm Beach Inn, and later becoming The Breakers. Fires later burned down the hotel in 1903 and 1925, but it was rebuilt twice. The Palm Beach Daily News began publication in 1897 originally under the name Daily Lake Worth News.

1900–1940
The first pedestrian bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway opened near the modern-day Flagler Bridge in 1901, replacing the original railroad spur. Flagler's house lots were bought by the beneficiaries of the Gilded Age, and in 1902, Flagler himself built a Beaux-Arts mansion, Whitehall, designed by the New York-based firm Carrère and Hastings and helped establish the Palm Beach "winter season". Telephone service was established in Palm Beach in 1908, with 18 customers initially. Prior to the 1910s, many African Americans in the area lived in a segregated section of Palm Beach called the "Styx", with an estimated population of 2,000 at its peak. Between 1910 and 1912, though, African Americans were evicted from the Styx. Most of the displaced residents relocated to the northern West Palm Beach neighborhoods of Freshwater, Northwest, and Pleasant City.

In January 1911, it became known West Palm Beach intended to annex the island of Palm Beach in the upcoming Florida legislative session. Residents objected and hired an attorney from Miami to officially become incorporated. Dimick, Louis Semple Clarke, and 31 other male property owners met at Clarke's house and signed a charter to officially incorporate the town of Palm Beach on April 17, 1911. Dimick became the first mayor, John McKenna became town clerk, and Joseph Borman became town marshal, while J. B. Donnelly, William Fremd, John Doe, Enoch Root, and J.J. Ryman served as the first council members. Also in 1911, Dimick built the Royal Park Bridge, with its first incarnation being a wooden structure. Passage from West Palm Beach to Palm Beach on the bridge originally required a toll – 25 cents per vehicle and 5 cents per pedestrian.

Between 1919 and 1924, American resort architect Addison Mizner designed 67 structures in Palm Beach. Some of Mizner's clients included Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr., Paul Moore Sr., Gurnee Munn, John Shaffer Phipps, Edward Shearson, Eva Stotesbury, Rodman Wanamaker, and Barclay Harding Warburton II. His designed works included the Costa Bella, El Mirasol, Everglades Club (in collaboration with Paris Singer), El Solano, La Bellucia, La Querida, Via Mizner, Villa Flora, and William Gray Warden House. Via Mizner was the first shopping complex along Worth Avenue, which was then a mostly residential street.

In February 1924, the town council allotted $100,000 to construct a new municipal building. Harvey and Clarke architectural firm designed the building, while Newlon and Stephens built the structure after bidding $160,200 for the contract. The Palm Beach Town Hall opened on December 18, 1925, and is still used for town council meetings. Before its completion, the council meetings took place in a one-story wooden building on Royal Poinciana Way. Also in 1925, citywide construction revenue reached $14 million, attributed to the Florida land boom.

The 1928 Okeechobee hurricane made landfall in the town of Palm Beach, with sustained winds of 145 mph (235 km/h). High winds and storm surge damaged 610 businesses, 60 homes, and 10 hotels, as well as to the Public Service Corporation and Ocean Boulevard. Damage in 1928 dollars totaled $10 million in Palm Beach.

1940–1960
Palm Beach's population grew from 1,707 in 1930 to 3,747 in 1940, a 119.5% increase. The Royal Poinciana Hotel, damaged heavily in the 1928 hurricane, also suffered greatly during the Great Depression, and was demolished in 1935. Around 4,000 people purchased the salvageable remains of the hotel. The Palm Beach-Post Times estimated some 500 homes could be built from the scraps of the hotel. Residents of Palm Beach established the Society of the Four Arts on January 14, 1936, with Hugh Dillman as the first president. The 1930s decade also saw the construction of the Flagler Memorial Bridge, the northernmost bridge linking Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, completed on July 1, 1938. Palm Beach mayor James M. Owens acted as master of ceremonies for the bridge's opening, while then–U.S. senator Charles O. Andrews and former U.S. senator Scott Loftin gave speeches during the event.

Early in World War II, the United States Army established a Ranger camp at the northern tip of the island, which could accommodate 200 men. The Palm Beach Civilian Defense Council ordered blackouts in Palm Beach beginning on April 11, 1942. Throughout the war, German U-boats sank 24 ships off Florida, with eight capsized off Palm Beach County between February and May 1942. The Army converted The Breakers into the Ream General Army Hospital, while the Navy converted the Palm Beach Biltmore Hotel into a U.S. Naval Special Hospital. The Biltmore Hotel would also become a training school for SPARS, the United States Coast Guard Women's Reserve.

On September 15, 1950, the Southern Boulevard Bridge opened, the third and southernmost bridge linking Palm Beach and West Palm Beach. Palm Beach residents elected Claude Dimick Reese (son of former mayor T.T. Reese and grandson of Dimick) as mayor in 1953. He became the only native-born mayor of Palm Beach in its history. In the 1950s, the town's population grew around 56%, from 3,866 in 1950 to 6,055 in 1960.

1960–1990
John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States in 1960, and selected as his Winter White House La Querida, which his father bought in 1933. In December 1960, police in Palm Beach averted a retired postal worker's attempt to assassinate then president-elect Kennedy. The president also spent the last weekend of his life in Palm Beach, several days before his assassination in November 1963. Yvelyne "Deedy" Marix became the first woman elected to the town council in February 1970, and later became the first woman elected mayor of Palm Beach in 1983. Between 1971 and 1977, Earl E.T. Smith served as mayor of Palm Beach. He was previously an Ambassador of the United States to Cuba.

Preservationist Barbara Hoffstot published a book titled Landmark Architecture in Palm Beach in 1974. She personally photographed and summarized many older buildings in the town. The book also called for more awareness of and improvements to a system for protecting historic landmarks. The town council responded in 1979 by approving an ordinance establishing the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which identifies and works to protect historic structures.

General Foods and Post Cereals heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post bequeathed Mar-a-Lago to the United States upon her death in 1973, hoping it would be used as a Winter White House. The residence was returned to the Post family in 1981, before being purchased by Donald Trump in 1985 for roughly $10 million. He converted the estate into a club by 1995 and would later use Mar-a-Lago as a Winter White House during his presidency from 2017 to 2021. A nor'easter in November 1984 caused the Mercedes I to crash into the seawall of Mollie Wilmot's estate. Wilmot's staff served the 10 sailors sandwiches and freshly brewed coffee in her gazebo and offered martinis to journalists reporting on the incident.

1990–2010
On October 31, 1991, the Perfect Storm produced waves  in height in Palm Beach. About  of seawall at Worth Avenue were destroyed, while some parts of the town experienced coastal flooding, especially along Ocean Boulevard. By that afternoon, police allowed only residents to enter the town. The trial of William Kennedy Smith, a member of the Kennedy family, drew international media attention in 1991. Smith had been accused of committing rape at La Querida, but a trial at the Palm Beach County Court resulted in his acquittal on December 11, 1991. Another notable mayor, Paul Ilyinsky, son of Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia and heiress Audrey Emery, was elected to the office in February 1993. The town's population peaked at 10,468 people in the 2000 census. In March 2005, the Palm Beach Police Department – under the guidance of Police Chief Michael Reiter – began the first inquiry into the crimes committed by sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, leading to his arrest and indictment in July 2006. Despite an FBI investigation discovering at least 40 victims, the state attorney of Palm Beach County only charged Epstein with soliciting a prostitute and soliciting a minor for prostitution in June 2008. He pleaded guilty on both counts and received a controversial plea deal.

2010–present
The town had a population of 8,348 people in 2010, a decrease of 20.3% from the previous census. Palm Beach celebrated its centennial on April 17, 2011. About 1,200 people attended a parade that began at the Flagler Museum (Whitehall). Between February and December 2015, the Town Square, which includes the Addison Mizner Memorial Fountain and the town hall, underwent a $5.7 million restoration. The fountain's restoration was named "project of the year" by the American Public Works Association's Florida chapter.

The FBI conducted a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, approved by Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart after a criminal referral by the National Archives and Records Administration relating to classified documents. Although former President Trump surrendered 235 classified documents by June 2022, the search at Mar-a-Lago yielded another 102 such documents. This discovery, along with allegations that Trump transported documents to his golf club in New Jersey and showed them to some guests there, led a grand jury at the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida to indict him on 37 felony counts relating to the mishandling of classified documents on June 8, 2023.

Name

The January 1878 wreck of the Providencia is credited with giving Palm Beach its name. The Providencia was traveling from Havana to Cádiz, Spain, with a cargo of coconuts harvested in the Crown Colony of Trinidad and Tobago in the British West Indies, when the ship wrecked near Palm Beach. Many of the coconuts naturalized or were planted along the Palm Beach coast. A lush grove of palm trees soon grew on what was later named Palm Beach.

Geography

Palm Beach is one of the easternmost towns in Florida, though the state's easternmost point is in Palm Beach Shores, just north of Lake Worth Inlet. The town is on an  long barrier island between the Intracoastal Waterway (locally known as the Lake Worth Lagoon) on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. At no point is the island wider than three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km), and in places it is only 500 feet (150 m) wide. The northern boundary of Palm Beach is the Lake Worth Inlet, though it adjoined with Singer Island until the permanent dredging of the inlet in 1918. To the south, a section of Lake Worth Beach occupies the island in the vicinity of State Road 802, though an exclave of Palm Beach extends farther southward until the northern limits of South Palm Beach. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the town has an area of , with land accounting for  and water covering the remaining . The average elevation of the town is ; the highest point is  above sea level on the golf course at the Palm Beach Country Club.

Geologically, the island is a sand-covered ridge of coquina rock. Before settlement, the island was a pronounced coastal ridge bordering the Atlantic Ocean. The Intracoastal Waterway coast was primarily low-lying and swampy; marshy sloughs generally lay between the two features, though an oolitic limestone ridge stood along some parts of the island's westward side. Since 1883, the environment has been significantly altered by developing land, the filling of the sloughs, and a receding coastline due to erosion, but the Atlantic ridge is still the dominating topographical feature of the island and acts as a seaward barrier. The former slough areas are flood-prone.

The town and entire barrier island are within Evacuation Zone B, and evacuations are often ordered if a hurricane is forecast to impact the area, most recently in anticipation of Hurricane Dorian in 2019. Palm Beach town officials may deploy law enforcement officers to strategically place roadblocks to limit access to the island during unsafe conditions.

As of 2016, land use of the town is 60% residential, 13% rights-of-way, 10% private group uses, 3% recreational, 3% commercial, 2% public uses, 1% hotels (not including The Breakers), and less than 1% conservation, while The Breakers is a planned unit development accounting for 6% of land use. The remaining 2% of land was vacant. Palm Beach does not have any land dedicated to agricultural or industrial purposes. The town is essentially built out and cannot extend its boundaries.

Conservation is mainly confined to Bingham Island, Fishermen's Island, and Hunter's Island. Functioning as bird sanctuaries and rookeries, the islands are leased by the National Audubon Society, though state trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund and the Blossom Estate hold the titles to the islands. A part of Blossom Estate Subdivision just south of Southern Boulevard is also designated a conservation area.

Climate

According to the Köppen climate classification, Palm Beach has a tropical rainforest climate with hot, humid summers and warm, slightly drier winters. The annual average precipitation is , most of which occurs from May through October. In the wet summer season, short-lived heavy afternoon thunderstorms are common. Palm Beach reports more than 2,900 hours of sunshine annually. Although tropical cyclones can impact Palm Beach, strikes are rare, with the last direct hit in 1928.

The wet season is from May to October, when convective thunderstorms and downpours are common. Average high temperatures in Palm Beach are  with lows of , though low temperatures at or above  are not uncommon. During this period, more than half of the summer days bring occasional afternoon thunderstorms and seabreezes that somewhat cool the rest of the day. The winter brings dryer, sunny, and much less humid weather. Between December and February, average high temperatures range from  and low temperatures average between . High temperatures occasionally drop below , while at other times highs occasionally reach  in mid-winter. The highest recorded temperature, , occurred on July 21, 1941, while the lowest observed temperature, , occurred on December 29, 1894. In some years, the dry season can become quite dry, and water restrictions are imposed.

Demographics

The town's population peaked at 10,468 people in the 2000 census but fell by 20.3% to 8,348 people in 2010. However, during the "winter season", defined as November through April, the population of Palm Beach swells to around 25,000. The town's affluence and its recreational facilities, shops, restaurants, social scene, and "community-oriented sensibility" were cited when it was selected in June 2003 as America's "Best Place to Live" by Robb Report magazine.

Palm Beach ranked as the 27th-wealthiest place in the United States in 2016 according to Bloomberg News. In the following year, Forbes reported the town had 30-plus billionaires.

Palm Beach had the 40th-highest percentage of Russian residents in the United States in 2000, with 10.30% of the populace – tied with Pomona, New York, and the township of Lower Merion, Pennsylvania. It also had the 26th highest percentage of Austrian residents in the United States, at 2.10% of the town's population, tied with 19 other municipalities in the United States.

In 2000, the town's household income was $109,219. Males had a median income of $71,685 versus $42,875 for females; 5.3% of the population and 2.4% of families were below the poverty line. About 4.6% of those under the age of 18 and 2.9% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line. Palm Beach had a median household income of $124,562 and a median family income of $137,867.

Economy

In 2018, the town of Palm Beach had an estimated labor force of 2,788 people. Palm Beach had an unemployment rate of just 2.3%, although 66% of the town's population was not in the labor force. The most common professions among the town's labor force are finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing (24.1%); professional, scientific, management, administrative, and waste management services (23.6%); retail (12.2%); and educational services, health care, and social assistance (10.5%). However, as of 2017, only 4.1% of jobs in Palm Beach were held by residents of the town, with the most common other home destinations being West Palm Beach (15.4%), Palm Beach Gardens (3.9%), Lake Worth Beach (3.7%), Wellington (3.3%), and Greenacres (3.1%).

Tourism is a major industry in the town, bringing in around $5 billion in annual revenue. Palm Beach has several historical and luxurious hotels and lodgings, most notably The Brazilian Court, The Breakers, the Palm Beach Hotel (now the Palm Beach Hotel Condominium), the Tideline Ocean Resort & Spa, and the Vineta Hotel. The Breakers alone employs more than 2,200 people from around the world. The town of Palm Beach also contains Worth Avenue, an upscale shopping and dining district. Known for selling high-quality merchandise since the 1920s, Worth Avenue includes about 250 high-end shops, boutiques, restaurants, and art galleries. Other commercial districts of note include Royal Poinciana Plaza and Royal Poinciana Way Historic District, with the latter being listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015 due to its status as "the town's original Main Street", as noted by the Palm Beach Daily News.

Arts and events

The Society of the Four Arts is a nonprofit charity organization established in 1936. Located on the north side of Royal Palm Way near the Royal Park Bridge, the Four Arts Plaza has an art gallery, a concert hall auditorium, two libraries, a botanical garden, and a sculpture garden. The two libraries serve as public libraries for the town of Palm Beach, one a children's library and the other a general public library. Officially named the Gioconda and Joseph King Library, the town's general public library has more than 70,000 items, including books, audiobooks, DVDs, and periodicals. The Dixon Education Building features art studio and classrooms, as well as an apartment for an artist visiting the Society of the Four Arts.

Royal Poinciana Playhouse, near Cocoanut Row and Royal Poinciana Way, formerly hosted ballets, Broadway plays, opera, and other cultural events. Although the venue has been closed since 2004, it remains structurally sound. Up Markets acquired control of the playhouse in 2014 via a long-term lease. In December 2022, extensive renovations began on the building's interior, which will have a capacity of about 400 people upon its expected completion in 2024.

Worth Avenue and its vicinity also has several art galleries, including DTR Modern Galleries, Evey Fine Art Gallery, Galeria of Sculpture, Gallerie Y, and the John H. Surovek Gallery. Additionally, the Norton Museum of Art and its sculpture gardens are just across the Intracoastal Waterway in West Palm Beach.

The Hope for Depression Research Foundation hosts an annual 5K run/walk known as the Race of Hope to Defeat Depression. In 2020, the event raised about $400,000 for depression research. The Palm Beach International Film Festival had been hosted in the town in the months of March and April since 1996. However, the festival has been on hiatus since 2018, following the resignation of CEO Jeff Davis. Various events are hosted on Worth Avenue, including historical walking tours held year-round. Once a year, the Palm Beach Charity Register magazine publishes a guide to charitable events held in the town and other nearby localities. The magazine promoted 186 charity galas, luncheons, and parties scheduled between the fall of 2019 and summer of 2020.

Attractions

Whitehall reopened as the Flagler Museum on February 6, 1960, after Henry Flagler's granddaughter, Jean Flagler Matthews, purchased the property in 1959 to prevent its demolition. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and the National Historic Landmark list in 2000, the museum replicates the original appearance of the house and has exhibits about Flagler himself, Flagler's personal railcar (built in 1886), the Florida East Coast Railway, life in the Gilded Age, and the early history of Palm Beach. Almost 100,000 people visit the museum annually. Adjacent to the Flagler Museum and behind the Royal Poinciana Chapel is a giant, almost 200-year old kapok tree, which also attracts visitors.

The Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach established Pan's Garden in 1994 along Hibiscus Avenue between Chilean Avenue and Peruvian Avenue. The garden has a statue of Pan (originally designed in 1890 by Frederick William MacMonnies), the ancient Greek god who protects and guards flocks. Another significant feature is the Casa Apava wall, a 1920s tile wall from the remnants of the Casa Apava estate. Encompassing approximately , the garden also features many endangered species of native vegetation.

Bethesda-by-the-Sea, originally a mostly wooden structure built from lumber from the beach in April 1889, is the oldest church in Palm Beach. The church opened at its current location by Christmas 1926. Bethesda-by-the-Sea has hosted the weddings of a few notable individuals, including Donald and Melania Trump in 2005 and Michael Jordan and Yvette Prieto in 2013.

Other points of interest

The Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce identifies several other points of interest in the town, including:
Major Alley - Located on Peruvian Avenue just one block north of the western terminus of Worth Avenue, Major Alley (named after architect Howard Major) has six Georgian revival-style cottages built in the 1920s.
Royal Poinciana Chapel - Built in 1897 by Henry Flagler, he intended for the interdenominational chapel to be used by guests at his hotels. The chapel expanded to 400 seats about a year later. It is adjacent to the Whitehall property.
Seagull Cottage - Situated between the Royal Poinciana Chapel and Whitehall, Seagull Cottage is the oldest surviving home in the Palm Beach, constructed in 1886 by R.R. McCormick, a railroad and land developer from Denver. Flagler purchased Seagull Cottage from McCormick in 1893 for $75,000, and it remained his winter residence until 1902, when Whitehall was completed.
Phipps Plaza Historic District - Described by the Palm Beach Daily News as a "picturesque ensemble" of buildings, the Phipps Plaza Historic District is a tight ring of structures built between the 1920s and the 1940s. Located just north of the intersection of Royal Palm Way and South County Road, the buildings at Phipps Plaza were mostly constructed by the Palm Beach Company, with the assistance of Addison Mizner and Marion Sims Wyeth.
The Colony Hotel Palm Beach - A British Colonial-style hotel at South County Road and Hammond Avenue, just one block south of Worth Avenue. Opened in 1947, the six floor hotel has eighty-nine rooms and three penthouses.
Addison Mizner Memorial Fountain - Erected by Mizner himself in 1929, the fountain is in the middle of South County Road directly north of the town hall and to the west of the police department headquarters. The fountain is constructed of double-bowl cast stone. In 2017, the restoration of the fountain was named the project of the year by the American Public Works Association's Florida chapter.

Parks and recreation

The Recreation Department of Palm Beach oversees several public recreation facilities, including the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center, Palm Beach Docks, Par 3 Golf Course, and many tennis centers. The only public marina in the town, the Palm Beach Docks opened in the 1940s and is along the Intracoastal Waterway between the Royal Palm Bridge and Worth Avenue. Palm Beach Docks has three main docks and eighty-eight boat slips, along with many accommodations for boaters.

There are three public beaches in the town, the Palm Beach Municipal Beach, Phipps Ocean Park, and R. G. Kreusler Park. The former, also known as Midtown Beach, has metered parking spots along South Ocean Boulevard from Royal Palm Way southward to Hammon Avenue. Phipps Ocean Park includes the Little Red Schoolhouse, the first school building in southeast Florida (built in 1886), restored and moved from its original location near where the Flagler Memorial Bridge stands today. The town also has many private beaches, while R. G. Kreusler Park (owned and operated by Palm Beach County) lies directly north of the Lake Worth Municipal Beach. In addition to Pan's Garden, the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach also owns the Ambassador Earl T. Smith Memorial Park and Fountain, a small, 0.24 acre (0.097 ha) park near the town hall.

The town has three bicycling and pedestrian paths. The Lake Trail is a 4.7 mile (7.6 km) path along the Intracoastal Waterway from Worth Avenue to near the Lake Worth Inlet. Another trail, the County Road Pedestrian Path/Bicycle Lane is around  in length from Kawama Lane to Bahama Lane along North County Road. The third path is the Southern Pedestrian/Bicycle Path, running from Sloan's Curve to the town's southern boundaries along State Road A1A, a distance of roughly .

Palm Beach has several social and golf clubs, most notably the Everglades Club and Mar-a-Lago. The former, built by Addison Mizner and Paris Singer in 1918, had the original purpose of being a hospital for soldiers injured in World War I. However, the war soon ended and the facilities were restructured into a private club which opened in January 1919. Some of the amenities include a golf course, tennis courts, and reception halls. Everglades Club has nearly 1,000 members. The club, which is very exclusive, does not have a website and prohibits cellphones. Mar-a-Lago is 126-room, 62,500-square-foot (5,810 m2) mansion that features many hotel-style amenities. Built between 1924 and 1927, General Foods and Post Cereals heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post originally owned the estate, but willed it to the United States government prior to her death in 1973 in hopes the residence would be used as a Winter White House. Mar-a-Lago was returned to the Post family in 1981, before being sold to future United States president Donald Trump in 1985 for approximately $10 million.

Government

Palm Beach operates under a council–manager form of government. The town's legislative body, the town council, is composed of five members, who serve two-year terms and seek office in staggered, at-large, non-partisan elections. Once a month, the town council meets at the Palm Beach Town Hall, though special meetings may be conducted as needed. The mayor, also elected to two year terms, acts as ombudsman and an intergovernmental figure. Danielle Moore, a former three-term member of the town council, has served as mayor since April 13, 2021. Additionally, a town manager has the authority to appoint and supervise the senior management team, including the deputy town manager and department directors. The officeholder of town manager is appointed annually by the town council. Kirk Blouin, a former Palm Beach chief of police and later Director of Public Safety, has served as town manager since February 13, 2018.

Palm Beach is part of Florida's 22nd congressional district, which has been represented by Democrat Lois Frankel since 2023. The town at the state level is part of the 89th district of the Florida House of Representatives, which covers many of the immediate coastal cities in Palm Beach County from Palm Beach Shores southward. Palm Beach is also part of the 30th district of the Florida Senate, which includes northeastern and some of east-central Palm Beach County. Two districts represent the town at the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners. The town north of Worth Avenue is part of the 1st district, while the 7th district covers areas south of Worth Avenue. Palm Beach is a generally Republican town. In 2016, Donald Trump received 3,231 votes and Hillary Clinton received 2,612 votes.

Education

The School District of Palm Beach County operates one school in the town, Palm Beach Public Elementary School, on Cocoanut Row between Seaview Avenue and Royal Palm Beach and directly east of the Society of the Four Arts. Opened in 1929, Palm Beach Public Elementary School has a school grade of A and an attendance of 362. Palm Beach Day Academy is a private school in the area. It was formed in 2006 from a merger between Palm Beach Day School and the Academy of the Palm Beaches. The school has one campus in Palm Beach and another in West Palm Beach. Most public middle school students attend Conniston Community Middle School in West Palm Beach, while students who live in the southern portions of the town attend Lake Worth Middle School. Public high school students in northern Palm Beach attend Palm Beach Gardens Community High School and students residing elsewhere in the town attend Forest Hill Community High School. Palm Beach is also near Dreyfoos School of the Arts, though that school has no attendance boundaries.

There are no colleges or universities in Palm Beach. However, the nearby cities of Lake Worth Beach and West Palm Beach have a few public and private higher education institutes, including Keiser University, Palm Beach Atlantic University, and Palm Beach State College.

Media

The town is served by the Palm Beach Daily News, with a daily circulation of approximately 4,500. The Palm Beach Daily News began publishing in 1897 under the name Daily Lake Worth News. Between 1925 and 1974, the newspaper was published in a building that has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1985. Owned by Cox Enterprises since 1969, GateHouse Media purchased the newspaper and The Palm Beach Post in May 2018. The Palm Beach Daily News is also known as "The Shiny Sheet" due to its former heavy, slick newsprint stock.

Residents of the town are also served by The Palm Beach Post, which is actually published in West Palm Beach. The Palm Beach Post had the 5th largest circulation for a newspaper in Florida as of November 2017 and is served to subscribers throughout Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.

Palm Beach is part of the West Palm Beach–Fort Pierce television market, ranked as the 38th largest in the United States by Nielsen Media Research. The market is served by stations affiliated with major American networks including WPTV-TV/5 (NBC), WPEC/12 (CBS), WPBF/25 (ABC), WFLX/29 (FOX), WTVX/34 (CW), WXEL-TV/42 (PBS), WTCN-CD/43 (MYTV), WWHB-CD/48 (Azteca), WHDT/59 (Court TV), WFGC/61 (CTN), WPXP-TV/67 (ION), as well as local channel WBWP-LD/57 (Ind.). Since 2017, the Palm Beach Civic Association has produced weekly video newscasts, known as Palm Beach TV, which have a weekly viewership of approximately 12,000.

Many radio stations are within range of the town. Radio stations WRMF (97.9 FM) and WPBV-LP (98.3 FM) are both based in the town of Palm Beach.

Historic preservation

The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), established by an ordinance approved by the town council in 1979, studies and protects historic structures in Palm Beach. The LPC has a list of 328 properties, sites, and vistas it works to protect under the 1979 ordinance. Similarly, the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach is "dedicated to preserving the architectural and cultural heritage and the unique scenic quality of the Town of Palm Beach", according to its mission statement. The town of Palm Beach also conducts historic sites surveys in collaboration with preservation organizations, historians, and local officials, with the most recent survey completed in December 2020. The 2010 survey identified 50 structures that had been demolished since the previous survey in 2004 and others that had been altered significantly.

Federally, thirteen structures and one historic district have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. However, two of the designated buildings have since been destroyed. A fire and subsequent burglaries at the Bingham-Blossom House likely contributed to the owner's decision to have it demolished in 1974, while construction crews razed the Brelsford House in 1975 after trustees at the Royal Poinciana Chapel (the property where the building was located) believed "the aging structure was more of a liability than an asset" and also cited its high costs of renovation for public use, according to The Palm Beach Post.

Infrastructure

Transportation

Three bridges traverse the Intracoastal Waterway, linking Palm Beach and West Palm Beach by roadway. The northernmost bridge, the Flagler Memorial Bridge, is along State Road A1A, which is locally known as Royal Poinciana Way in Palm Beach and Quadrille Boulevard in West Palm Beach. First opening in 1938, the bridge underwent a 5-year reconstruction and renovation between 2012 and 2017 at a cost of $106 million. State Road 704, also known as Royal Palm Way in Palm Beach and Lakeview Avenue and Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach is the location of the middle bridge. Named the Royal Park Bridge, it first opened in 1911 and was most recently replaced in 2005. The Southern Boulevard Bridge at the conjunction of U.S. Route 98 and State Road 80 (locally known as Southern Boulevard) is the southernmost bridge. First completed in 1950, the bridge underwent a $97 million replacement project between April 2017 and September 2022.

State Road A1A also runs northward through much of Palm Beach, beginning at the southern limits of the town as South Ocean Boulevard until being redirected onto South County Road, which later becomes North County Road. At Royal Poinciana Way, A1A turns westward onto that road and across the Flagler Memorial Bridge. State Roads 80 and 704 and U.S. Route 98 all terminate shortly after entering the town after intersecting with A1A. The town has no interstate highways, though Interstate 95 passes through the nearby city of West Palm Beach. Private vehicles and taxis are the predominant means of transport in Palm Beach. Incidents of profiling of lower-cost cars and minorities have occurred, sometimes resulting in tense relations between visitors and the town.

The nearby city of West Palm Beach has two train stations. Tri-Rail and Amtrak serve the Tamarind Avenue station, while the higher speed Brightline serves the Evernia Street station. Palm Beach is about  east of the Palm Beach International Airport. The northern and central portions of Palm Beach are served by Palm Tran Route 41, which travels to places in the town such as the Lake Worth Inlet, North County Road and Wells Road, Publix (Bradley Place and Sunrise Avenue), Royal Palm Way (State Road 704) and South County Road (State Road A1A), and various points between. The route returns to the Intermodal Transit Center in West Palm Beach, which connects to several other bus routes and is adjacent to the train station on Tamarind Avenue.

Police

The town has its own police department, established on October 17, 1922. Prior to then, town marshal Joseph Borman served in the capacity of chief law enforcer as outlined in the 1911 charter. The department employed 61 officers in 2018. With a population of 8,295 people in 2018 according to the Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research, this translated to 7.35 officers per 1,000 people, compared to the Florida average of 2.49 officers per 1,000 people. In the same year, the department made 2,039 arrests – equal to about 24,581 arrests per 100,000 people, the highest arrest rate in Florida and over sevenfold the state average. However, many arrests were in relation to non-violent crimes, such as those involving auto theft, criminal traffic citations, fraud, and scams. The police department reported no rapes or homicides in Palm Beach in 2018.

Firefighting

In its early days, the town of Palm Beach depended heavily on the city of West Palm Beach for firefighting efforts. The Flagler Alerts, a volunteer firefighting group which later became the West Palm Beach Fire Department, responded to fires in Palm Beach by traversing the Intracoastal Waterway via ferry or railroad. Delayed response times and high insurance rates eventually led Palm Beach to establish its own fire-rescue department in December 1921. Today, the Palm Beach Fire Rescue has three stations, retains 82 employees – 75 full-time and 7 part-time, and annually responds to approximately 2,600 calls.

Utilities

Florida Power & Light (FPL) provides electricity to the town of Palm Beach, along with much of the state's east coast. As of December 31, 2019, FPL serves 5 million customers statewide, which is approximately 10 million people. Much of the electricity supplied by FPL is sourced from natural gas, followed by nuclear energy. The nearest FPL power plant is in Riviera Beach, while the closest nuclear power station is the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant, on Hutchinson Island. Palm Beach officials have considered undergrounding at least since commissioning a 2006 study on the burial of electrical lines. In the subsequent years, undergrounding projects were initially performed by neighborhood on a "as requested" basis. However, following a 2014 town council meeting with FPL workers and a related voter-approved ballot question in 2016, it was decided a town-wide undergrounding project would be undertaken at a cost of approximately $90 million. The project is ongoing as of March 2020.

The town government provides and oversees sewage systems and wastewater treatment. Sewage is collected via  of mainline pipes at the more than 40 pumping stations, which are capable of transporting over  of water each minute. The sewage is then pumped into a regional wastewater treatment facility in West Palm Beach. Tap water has been supplied by the city of West Palm Beach since 1955, when the city purchased Palm Beach's water system, then owned by the Flagler Water Company. West Palm Beach provided tap water services to the town at no cost until the beginning of 1995.

Recycling and garbage collection services are also provided by the town of Palm Beach. The former is taken to a transfer station, where the Palm Beach County Solid Waste Authority transports the garbage to a landfill in West Palm Beach. Vegetative yard trash is taken to two different sites in West Palm Beach.

Notable people

The town of Palm Beach is also known for its many famous part-time and full-time residents. Prior to the arrival of Henry Flagler in the 1890s, a few wealthy or otherwise notable people already resided in Palm Beach, including businessman and Autocar Company founder Louis Semple Clarke and scientist Thomas Adams, a pioneer of the chewing gum industry. Earl E. T. Smith and Paul Ilyinsky, both of whom formerly held the office of Mayor of Palm Beach, were notable for other reasons. Smith previously served as an Ambassador of the United States to Cuba, while Ilyinsky was the son of Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia and heiress Audrey Emery.

Two United States Presidents have been part-time residents, John F. Kennedy and Donald Trump, with both designating their respective Palm Beach properties as a Winter White House. Kennedy's Winter White House, La Querida, was built by Addison Mizner in 1923 and previously owned by department store magnate Rodman Wanamaker of Philadelphia before Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. purchased the property in 1933. Trump has owned Mar-a-Lago since 1985, purchasing the property from the family of the late Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress of Post cereal. In October 2019, Trump and first lady Melania Trump filed to switch their primary domicile from New York City to Mar-a-Lago, officially establishing residency in Palm Beach. Since the conclusion of his presidency in January 2021, Donald and Melania Trump are residing at Mar-a-Lago amidst a dispute from some neighbors about the legality of them taking up permanent residence at the club. Additionally, former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney has been a resident of Palm Beach at least since 2003.

In popular culture
In Dr. Seuss's classic children's book Horton Hatches the Egg, Palm Beach is the vacation destination for Mayzie the bird.

Notes

References

External links

Towns in Palm Beach County, Florida
Populated coastal places in Florida on the Atlantic Ocean
Seaside resorts in Florida
Populated places established in 1911
1911 establishments in Florida
Russian communities in the United States
Towns in Florida
Addison Mizner

Palm Beach, Florida


Philippe-Antoine Merlin, known as Merlin de Douai (, 30 October 1754 – 26 December 1838) was a French politician and lawyer.

Early life
Merlin de Douai was born at Arleux, Nord, and was called to the Flemish bar association in 1775. He collaborated in the Répertoire de jurisprudence, the later editions of which appeared under Merlin's superintendence, and contributed to other important legal compilations. In 1782 he purchased a position as royal secretary at the chancellery of the Flanders parlement. His reputation spread to Paris and he was consulted by leading magistrates. The Duke of Orléans selected him to be a member of his privy council.

As an elected member of the States-General for the Third Estate in Douai, he was one of the chief of those who applied the principles of liberty and equality embodied in the National Constituent Assembly's Tennis Court Oath of 20 June 1789.

Career
On behalf of the committee, appointed to deal with the Ancien Régime's nobility rights, Merlin de Douai presented to the Assembly reports on manorialism and the subjects of redistribution with compensation, and topics associated with them (hunting and fishing rights, forestry etc.). He carried legislation for the abolition of primogeniture and secured equality of inheritance between relatives of the same degree and between men and women. He also prepared the report for the Assembly that argued that no compensation should be paid to the German princes whose lands in Alsace were forfeit when France incorporated them.

His numerous reports were supplemented by popular exposition of current legislation in the Journal de legislation. On the dissolution of the Assembly, he became judge of the criminal court at Douai.

National Convention
Although not always an advocate of violent measures, as a deputy to the National Convention in The Mountain, Merlin de Douai voted for the execution of King Louis XVI. Later, as a member of the council of legislation, he presented to the Convention the Law of Suspects (17 September 1793), permitting the detention of suspects, (a document backed by Georges Couthon and Maximilien Robespierre). He exercised missions in his native region and accused General Charles François Dumouriez of having betrayed the country during the Campaign of the Low Countries (after the Battle of Neerwinden).

Merlin de Douai was closely allied with his namesake Merlin of Thionville and, after the start of the Thermidorian Reaction, which brought about the fall of Robespierre in 1794, became president of the Convention and a member of the Committee of Public Safety. His efforts were primarily directed to the prevention of any new gathering of powers by the Jacobin Club, the Commune and the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Merlin de Douai convinced the Committee of Public Safety to agree with the closing of the Jacobin Club on the ground that it was an administrative, rather than a legislative, measure. Merlin de Douai recommended the readmission of the survivors of the Girondin party to the Convention and drew up a law limiting the right of insurrection. He had also a considerable share in the foreign policy of the French Republic.

Merlin de Douai had been commissioned in April 1794 to report on the civil and criminal legislation of France, and, after eighteen months work, he produced the Rapport et projet de code des délits et des peines (10 Vendémiaire, an IV). Merlin's code abolished confiscation, branding and life imprisonment and was based chiefly on the penal code that had been drawn up in September 1791.

Directory
He was made Minister of Justice (30 October 1795) and later Minister of the General Police (2 January 1796) under the Directory, before moving back to the Justice Ministry (3 April 1796) keeping tight surveillance of the Royalist émigrés. After the coup d'état known as 18 Fructidor, he became one of the five Directors on 5 September 1797. He was accused of the bankruptcy and various other failures of the government and was forced to retire into private life during the Coup of 30 Prairial VII on 18 June 1799.

Consulate and Empire
Merlin de Douai had no share in Napoleon Bonaparte's 18 Brumaire coup. Under the Consulate, Merlin de Douai accepted a minor position in the Cour de cassation, where he soon became procureur-général (Attorney General). Although he had no share in drawing up the Napoleonic Code, he was very involved in matters regarding its application. He became a member of the Conseil d'État, Count of the Empire, and Grand Officier de la Légion d'honneur.

Exile and July Monarchy
Having resumed his functions during the Hundred Days, he was one of those banished on the Second Bourbon Restoration.

The years of his exile were devoted to his Répertoire de jurisprudence (5th ed., 18 vols., Paris, 1827–1828) and to his Recueil alphabétique des questions de droit (4th ed., 8 vols., Paris, 1827–1828). At the 1830 July Revolution, he returned to France and re-entered the Institut de France, of which he had been an original member. He was admitted to the Academy of Political and Moral Sciences by the July Monarchy. He died in Paris.

Personal life
Merlin de Douai's son, Antoine François Eugène Merlin (1778–1854), was a well-known general in the French Revolutionary Army and served in most of the Napoleonic Wars.

See also
Pierre Marie François Ogé Sculptor of bust

Notes

References
 In turn, it gives the following reference:
François Auguste Alexis Mignet, Portraits et notices historiques (1852), vol. I

External links
Bio at the Académie française

1754 births
1838 deaths
People from Nord (French department)
Counts Merlin
Deputies to the French National Convention
Directeurs of the First French Republic
French jurists
17th-century French lawyers
Members of the Académie Française
Members of the Council of Ancients
Knights of the First French Empire
Grand Officers of the Legion of Honour
Members of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques
Expelled members of the Académie Française
People on the Committee of Public Safety
University of Douai alumni
Représentants en mission
Presidents of the National Convention
State ministers of France
Members of the Chamber of Representatives (France)

Philippe-Antoine Merlin de Douai


Martin Kellogg (March 15, 1828 – August 26, 1903) was born in Vernon, Connecticut, to Allyn Kellogg and Eliza Kellogg née White. He graduated from Yale as valedictorian of the Class of 1850. He was ordained as a missionary in the Congregational Church and served as a pastor in Shasta, California, in 1855, then in Grass Valley, California, from 1857 to 1860, and then in Oakland, California, starting in 1861.

Kellogg became the first member of the Academic Senate of the University of California on September 1, 1868. He served as acting president from 1890 to 1893, and was named the Seventh President of the University of California in 1893.

He served on the Board of Education in Berkeley and twice as Moderator of the General Association of California.

He served as a trustee of the First Congregational Church of Berkeley.

He died on August 26, 1903. He was preceded in death by his adopted daughter, Annie Day Kellogg, who committed suicide earlier that year on April 25, 1903.

References
 Inaugural Address--Our University a Public Trust, by Martin Kellogg
 University of California History--Digital Archives
 University Chronicle--University of California, Berkeley, Vol. 6
 Lives of the Dead: Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland
 The Year Book of the Congregational Christian Churches of the United States
 California Digital Newspaper Collection
 Martin Kellogg Fellowships

External links

 Portrait of Martin Kellogg from the Lick Observatory Records Digital Archive, UC Santa Cruz Library's Digital Collections

People from Berkeley, California
Leaders of the University of California, Berkeley
1828 births
1903 deaths
People from Vernon, Connecticut
Yale University alumni

Martin Kellogg