James Francis Byrnes ( ; May 2, 1882 – April 9, 1972) was an American judge and politician from South Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in U.S. Congress and on the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as in the executive branch, most prominently as the 49th U.S. Secretary of State under President Harry S. Truman. Byrnes was also the 104th governor of South Carolina, making him one of the very few politicians to have served in the highest levels of all three branches of the American federal government while also being active in state government.

Born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, Byrnes pursued a legal career with the help of his cousin, Governor Miles Benjamin McSweeney. Byrnes won election to the U.S. House of Representatives and served from 1911 to 1925. He became a close ally of President Woodrow Wilson and a protégé of Senator Benjamin Tillman. He sought election to the U.S. Senate in 1924 but narrowly lost a runoff election to Coleman Livingston Blease, who had the backing of the Ku Klux Klan, a white-supremacist domestic-terrorist organization. Byrnes then moved his law practice to Spartanburg, South Carolina and prepared for a political comeback. He narrowly defeated Blease in the 1930 Democratic primary and joined the Senate in 1931.

Historian George E. Mowry called Byrnes "the most influential Southern member of Congress between John Calhoun and Lyndon Johnson". In the Senate, Byrnes supported the policies of his longtime friend, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Byrnes championed the New Deal and sought federal investment in South Carolina water projects. He also supported Roosevelt's foreign policy, calling for a hard line against the Axis powers. He also opposed some of the labor laws proposed by Roosevelt, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a minimum wage that hurt his state's competitive advantage of very low factory wages. Roosevelt appointed Byrnes to the Supreme Court in 1941 but asked him to join the executive branch after America's entry into World War II. During the war, Byrnes led the Office of Economic Stabilization and the Office of War Mobilization. He was a candidate to replace Henry A. Wallace as Roosevelt's running mate in the 1944 election, but instead Harry S. Truman was nominated by the 1944 Democratic National Convention.

After Roosevelt's death, Byrnes served as a close adviser to Truman and became U.S. Secretary of State in July 1945. In that capacity, Byrnes attended the Potsdam Conference and the Paris Peace Treaties, 1947; however, relations between Byrnes and Truman soured, and Byrnes resigned from the Cabinet in January 1947. He returned to elective politics in 1950 by winning election as the governor of South Carolina. As governor, he opposed the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and sought to establish "separate but equal" as a realistic alternative to the desegregation of schools. Though he remained a Democrat himself, he endorsed most Republican presidential nominees after 1948 and supported Strom Thurmond's switch to the Republican Party in 1964.

Early life and career
Byrnes was born at 538 King Street in Charleston, South Carolina, and was reared in Charleston. Byrnes's father, James Francis Byrnes, died shortly after Byrnes was born. His Irish-American mother, Elizabeth McSweeney Byrnes, was a dressmaker. In the 1880s, a widowed aunt and her three children came to live with them; one of the children was Frank J. Hogan, later president of the American Bar Association. At 14, Byrnes left St. Patrick's Catholic School to work in a law office, and became a court stenographer. Notably, he transcribed the 1903 trial of South Carolina Lieutenant Governor James H. Tillman (nephew of Senator and former governor "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman), for murdering a newspaper editor. In 1906, he married the former Maude Perkins Busch of Aiken, South Carolina; they had no children. He was the godparent of James Christopher Connor. At this time, Byrnes converted from the Catholic Church to Episcopalianism.

In 1900, Byrnes's cousin, Governor Miles B. McSweeney, appointed him as a clerk for Judge Robert Aldrich of Aiken. As he needed to be 21 to take this position, Byrnes, his mother, and McSweeney changed his date of birth to that of his older sister, Leonora. He later apprenticed to a lawyer, then a common practice, read for the law, and was admitted to the bar in 1903. In 1908, he was appointed solicitor for the second circuit of South Carolina and served until 1910. Byrnes was a protégé of "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman and often had a moderating influence on the fiery segregationist Senator.

In 1910, he narrowly won the Democratic primary for US Representative from South Carolina's 2nd congressional district, which was then tantamount to election. He was formally elected in the general election, and was re-elected six times, serving from 1911 to 1925.

Byrnes proved a brilliant legislator, working behind the scenes to form coalitions, and avoiding the high-profile oratory that characterized much of Southern politics. He became a close ally of US President Woodrow Wilson, who often entrusted important political tasks to the capable young Representative, rather than to more experienced lawmakers. In the 1920s, he was a champion of the "Good Roads Movement", which attracted motorists and politicians to large-scale road building programs.

United States Senate and Supreme Court
In 1924, Byrnes declined renomination to the House and instead sought nomination for the Senate seat held by incumbent Nathaniel B. Dial though both were former allies of the now-deceased "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman. Anti-Tillmanite and extreme racist demagogue Coleman Blease, who had challenged Dial in 1918, also ran again. Blease led the primary with 42 percent. Byrnes was second with 34 percent. Dial finished third with 22 percent.

Byrnes was opposed by the Ku Klux Klan, which preferred Blease. Byrnes had been raised as a Roman Catholic, and the Klan spread rumors that he was still a secret Catholic. Byrnes countered by citing his support by Episcopal clergy. Three days before the run-off vote, 20 Catholics who said that they had been altar boys with Byrnes published a professed endorsement of him. That group's leader was a Blease ally, and the "endorsement" was circulated in anti-Catholic areas. Blease won the runoff 51% to 49%.

After his House term ended in 1925, Byrnes was out of office. He moved his law practice to Spartanburg, in the industrializing Piedmont region. Between his law practice and investment advice from friends such as Bernard Baruch, Byrnes became a wealthy man, but he never excluded himself from a return to politics. He cultivated the Piedmont textile workers, who were key Blease supporters. In 1930, he challenged Blease again. Blease again led the primary, with 46 percent to 38 percent for Byrnes, but this time, Byrnes won the runoff 51 to 49 percent.

During his time in the Senate, Byrnes was regarded as the most influential South Carolinian since John C. Calhoun. He had long been friends with Franklin Roosevelt, whom he supported for the Democratic nomination in 1932, and made himself Roosevelt's spokesman on the Senate floor, where he guided much of the early New Deal legislation to passage. He won an easy re-election in 1936, promising:

I admit I am a New Dealer, and if [the New Deal] takes money from the few who have controlled the country and gives it back to the average man, I am going to Washington to help the President work for the people of South Carolina and the country.

Since the colonial era, South Carolina's politicians had dreamed of an inland waterway system that would not only aid commerce but also control flooding. By the 1930s, Byrnes took up the cause for a massive dam-building project, Santee Cooper, that would not only accomplish those tasks but also electrify the entire state with hydroelectric power. With South Carolina financially strapped by the Great Depression, Byrnes managed to get the federal government to authorize a loan for the entire project, which was completed and put into operation in February 1942. The loan was later paid back to the federal government with full interest and at no cost to South Carolina taxpayers. Santee Cooper has continued to be a model for public-owned electrical utilities worldwide.

In 1937, Byrnes supported Roosevelt on the highly-controversial court packing plan, but he voted against the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, as a minimum wage would potentially make the textile mills in his state uncompetitive. He opposed Roosevelt's efforts to purge conservative Democrats in the 1938 primary elections. On foreign policy, Byrnes was a champion of Roosevelt's positions of helping the United Kingdom  against Nazi Germany in 1939 to 1941 and of maintaining a hard diplomatic line against Japan. In this context he denounced isolationist Charles Lindbergh on several occasions.

Byrnes played a key role in blocking anti-lynching legislation, notably the Castigan-Wagner bill of 1935 and the Gavagan bill of 1937. Byrnes said that "rape is responsible, directly and indirectly, for most of the lynching in America."

Byrnes despised his fellow South Carolina Senator "Cotton Ed" Smith, who strongly opposed the New Deal. He privately sought to help his friend Burnet R. Maybank, then the Mayor of Charleston, defeat Smith in the 1938 Senate primary. During the primary, however, Olin Johnston, who was limited to one term as governor, decided to run for the Senate. Because Johnston was also a pro-Roosevelt New Dealer, he would have divided the New Deal vote with Maybank and ensured a victory for Smith. Johnston was also supportive of the New Deal's labor legislation, but Byrnes's support was limited, and a series of labor strikes in the fall of 1937 made Byrnes withdraw consideration for potentially endorsing Johnston.  Taking advice from Byrnes, Maybank decided to run for governor instead, and Byrnes made the reluctant decision to support Smith. Byrnes envisioned that Smith would retire in 1944 and that Maybank would successfully run for Smith's Senate seat and build a strong political machine in the state with him.

On June 12, 1941, Roosevelt nominated Byrnes as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, and he was confirmed that same day. He served on the Court for only 15 months, from July 8, 1941 until October 3, 1942. His Supreme Court tenure is the shortest of any justice.

World War II

Byrnes left the Supreme Court to head Roosevelt's Office of Economic Stabilization, which dealt with the vitally-important issues of prices and taxes.  How powerful the new office would become depended entirely on Byrnes's political skills, and Washington insiders soon reported that he was fully in charge. In May 1943, he became head of the Office of War Mobilization, a new agency that supervised the Office of Economic Stabilization. Under the leadership of Byrnes, the program managed newly constructed factories across the country that used raw materials, civilian and military production, and transportation for United States Armed Forces personnel and was credited with providing the employment that was needed to bring an official end to the Great Depression. Thanks to his political experience, his probing intellect, his close friendship with Roosevelt, and in no small part his own personal charm, Byrnes was soon exerting influence over many facets of the war effort that were not technically under his departmental jurisdiction. Many in Congress and the press began referring to Byrnes as the "Assistant President."

Many expected that Byrnes would be the Democratic nominee in 1944 for vice president in Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1944 reelection campaign, replacing Henry A. Wallace, who was strongly felt by party officials to be too eccentric to replace an ailing president who would likely die before his next term ended.  Roosevelt refused to endorse anybody other than Wallace. He had a personal preference for US Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas. Byrnes was on Roosevelt's list but was hardly his first choice. In a July meeting at the White House, the party bosses pressed hard for Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri, and Roosevelt issued a statement saying he would support either Truman or Douglas. Byrnes was regarded as too conservative for organized labor; some big city bosses opposed him as an ex-Catholic who would offend Catholics; and blacks were wary of his opposition to racial integration. In short, Byrnes never had a serious chance at being nominated for vice-president, and the nomination went instead to Truman. Roosevelt brought Byrnes to the Yalta Conference in early 1945 in which he seemed to favor Soviet plans. Written in shorthand, his notes comprise one of the most complete records of the "Big Three" Yalta meetings. At the same time, Byrnes did not participate in the foreign ministers' meetings or the direct meetings between Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. After the Conference, he was influential in convincing the U.S. Congress and the general public to accept the terms of the agreement.

Secretary of State
Upon his succession to the presidency after Roosevelt's death, on April 12, 1945, Truman relied heavily on Byrnes's counsel, Byrnes having been a mentor to Truman from the latter's earliest days in the Senate. Indeed, Byrnes was one of the first people seen by Truman on the first day of his presidency. It was Byrnes who shared information with the new president on the atomic bomb project (until then, Truman had known nothing about the Manhattan Project). When Truman met Roosevelt's coffin in Washington, he asked Byrnes and former Vice President Wallace, the two other men who might well have succeeded Roosevelt, to join him at the train station. Truman originally intended for both men to play leading roles in his administration to signal continuity with Roosevelt's policies. Truman quickly fell out with Wallace but retained a good working relationship with Byrnes and increasingly turned to him for support.

Truman appointed Byrnes as US Secretary of State on July 3, 1945. Despite personally objecting to any guarantees of retaining Hirohito, Byrnes remained ambiguous on that point in a draft reply to Japan's offer of surrender of August 10. As Secretary of State, he was first in line to the Presidency since there was no Vice President during Truman's first term. He played a major role at the Potsdam Conference, the Paris Peace Conference, and other major postwar conferences. According to historian Robert Hugh Ferrell, Byrnes knew little more about foreign relations than Truman. He made decisions after consulting a few advisors, such as Donald S. Russell and Benjamin V. Cohen. Byrnes and his small group paid little attention to the State Department experts and similarly ignored Truman.

Because Byrnes had been part of the US delegation at Yalta, Truman assumed that he had accurate knowledge of what had transpired. It would be many months before Truman discovered that not to be the case. Nevertheless, Byrnes advised that the Soviets were breaking the Yalta Agreement and that Truman needed to be resolute and uncompromising with them.

Byrnes and British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin issued a joint statement announcing that they were combining the U.S. zone of Germany and the British zone of Germany into one new territory called "West Germany."  General Lucius D. Clay, who had been a top aide to Byrnes in 1944, heavily influenced Byrnes' famous September 1946 speech in Stuttgart, Germany. The speech, "Restatement of Policy on Germany," marked the formal transition in American occupation policy away from the Morgenthau Plan of economic dismantlement to one of economic reconstruction.

Truman was rapidly moving toward a hardline position on Soviet intentions in Eastern Europe and Iran, but Byrnes was much more conciliatory. The distance between them grew and ties of personal friendship weakened. In late 1945, Byrnes argued with Soviet Foreign Minister Viacheslav Molotov over Soviet pressures on Bulgaria and Romania. Byrnes sent Mark Ethridge, a liberal journalist, to investigate; Ethridge found conditions were indeed bad. Ethridge wrote a damning report, but Byrnes ignored it and instead endorsed a Soviet offer. Truman read Ethridge's report and decided that Byrnes's softline approach was a failure and that the US needed to stand up to the Kremlin.

Personal relations between the two men grew strained, particularly when Truman felt that Byrnes was attempting to set foreign policy by himself and to inform the President only afterward. An early instance of the friction was the Moscow Conference in December 1945. Truman considered the "successes" of the conference to be "unreal" and was highly critical of Byrnes's failure to protect Iran, which was not mentioned in the final communiqué. "I had been left in the dark about the Moscow conference," Truman told Byrnes bluntly. In a subsequent letter to Byrnes, Truman took a harder line in reference to Iran: "Without these supplies furnished by the United States, Russia would have been ignominiously defeated. Yet now Russia stirs up rebellion and keeps troops on the soil of her friend and ally— Iran. .. Unless Russia is faced with an iron fist and strong language another war is in the making. Only one language do they understand.... I do not think we should play compromise any longer.... I am tired of babying the Soviets". That led to the Iran crisis of 1946 in which Byrnes took an increasingly hardline position in opposition to Stalin, culminating in a speech in Germany on September 6, 1946. The "Restatement of Policy on Germany," also known as the "Speech of Hope", set the tone of future US policy by repudiating the Morgenthau Plan, an economic program that would permanently deindustrialize Germany. Byrnes was named TIME Man of the Year. Truman and others believed that Byrnes had grown resentful that he had not been Roosevelt's running mate and successor and so was showing disrespect to Truman. Whether or not that was true, Byrnes felt compelled to resign from the Cabinet in 1947 with some feelings of bitterness.

Governor of South Carolina
Byrnes was not yet ready to give up public service. At 68, he was elected Governor of South Carolina in the 1950 gubernatorial election and served from 1951 to 1955. Supporting segregation in education, the Democratic governor stated in his inaugural address:

Byrnes was initially seen as a relative moderate on race issues. Recognizing that the South could not continue with its entrenched segregationist policies much longer but fearing that Congress would impose sweeping change upon the South, he opted for a course of change from within. To that end, he sought to fulfill at last the "separate but equal" policy that the South had put forward in Supreme Court civil rights cases, particularly in regard to public education. Byrnes poured state money into improving black schools, buying new textbooks and new buses, and hiring additional teachers. He also sought to curb the power of the Ku Klux Klan by passing a law that prohibited adults from wearing a mask in public on any day other than Halloween; he knew that many Klansmen feared exposure and would not appear in public in their robes unless their faces were hidden as well. Byrnes hoped to make South Carolina an example for other Southern states to follow in modifying their "Jim Crow" policies. Nonetheless, the NAACP sued South Carolina to force the state to desegregate its schools. Byrnes requested Kansas, a Midwestern state that also segregated its schools, to provide an amicus curiae brief in supporting the right of a state to segregate its schools. That gave the NAACP's lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, the idea to shift the suit from South Carolina over to Kansas, which led directly to Brown v. Board of Education, a decision that Byrnes vigorously criticized.

The South Carolina Constitution then barred governors from immediate re-election and so Byrnes retired from active political life after the 1954 election.

Later political career
In his later years, Byrnes foresaw that the American South could play a more important role in national politics. To hasten that development, he sought to end the region's nearly-automatic support of the Democratic Party, which Byrnes believed had grown too liberal and took the "Solid South" for granted at election time but otherwise ignored the region and its needs.

Byrnes endorsed Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, segregationist candidate Harry Byrd in 1956, Richard Nixon in 1960 and 1968, and Barry Goldwater in 1964. He gave his private blessing to US Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina to bolt the Democratic Party in 1964 and to declare himself a Republican, but Byrnes himself remained a Democrat.

In 1965, Byrnes spoke out against the "punishment" and the "humiliation" of South Carolina US Representative Albert Watson, who had been stripped of his congressional seniority by the House Democratic Caucus after endorsing Goldwater for president. Byrnes openly endorsed Watson's retention in Congress as a Republican in a special election held in 1965 against Democrat Preston Callison. Watson secured $20,000 and the services of a Republican field representative in what he termed "quite a contrast" to his treatment from Democratic House colleagues.

Following Byrnes's death at the age of 89, he was interred in the churchyard at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbia, South Carolina.

Legacy
Byrnes is memorialized at several South Carolina universities and schools:

 The James F. Byrnes Building, housing the Byrnes International Center at the University of South Carolina.
 The James F. Byrnes Professorship of International Studies at USC, its first endowed professorship.
 Byrnes Auditorium at Winthrop University.
 Byrnes Hall, a dormitory at Clemson University, where Byrnes was a Life Trustee.
 James F. Byrnes High School in Duncan, South Carolina.

In 1948, Byrnes and his wife established the James F. Byrnes Foundation Scholarships, and since then, more than 1,000 young South Carolinians have been assisted in obtaining a college education. His papers are in Clemson University's Special Collections Library.

In the 2023 film Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan, Byrnes was portrayed by actor Pat Skipper.

Electoral history

See also
 List of justices of the Supreme Court of the United States by court composition
 List of United States Supreme Court justices by time in office
 List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 3)
 United States Supreme Court cases during the Stone Court
 Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States, Episodes 2 and 3

Footnotes

References
 Annotated bibliography for James Byrnes from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues ()

 Messer, Robert L. (1982). The End of an Alliance: James F. Byrnes, Roosevelt, Truman, and the Origins of the Cold War.
 Robertson, David (1994). Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes

Primary sources
 Byrnes, James (1947). Speaking Frankly.
 Byrnes, James (1958). All in One Lifetime.

Further reading
 Abraham, Henry J., Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. 3d. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). .
 Anderson, David L. "Byrnes, James Francis (02 May 1882–09 April 1972), U.S. senator and secretary of state" American National Biography (1999)
 Burns, Richard. "James Byrnes." in Norman A. Graebner, ed. An Uncertain Tradition: American Secretaries of State in the Twentieth Century (1961). pp 223–44.
 Clements, Kendrick A., ed., James F. Byrnes and the Origins of the Cold War (1982)
 Curry, George. James F. Byrnes (1965) online, a scholarly biography
 Cushman, Clare, The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789–1995 (2nd ed.)  (Supreme Court Historical Society), (Congressional Quarterly Books, 2001) ; .
 Hopkins, Michael F. "President Harry Truman's Secretaries of State: Stettinius, Byrnes, Marshall and Acheson." Journal of Transatlantic Studies 6.3 (2008): 290–304.
 Messer, Robert L. The End of an Alliance: James F. Byrnes, Roosevelt, Truman, and the Origins of the Cold War (1982)
 Morgan, Jr., Curtis F. James F. Byrnes, Lucius Clay and American Policy in Germany, 1945-1947. (Edwin Mellen Press, 2002).
 Robertson, David. Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes (1994)
 Ward, Patricia Dawson. The Threat of Peace: James F. Byrnes and the Council of Foreign Ministers, 1945–1946 (1979)

External links

 Excerpts from Speaking Frankly on the subjects of: (Yalta Conference), (Potsdam Conference) ("Flash Player" is required)

 Text of the famous "Stuttgart speech", September 6, 1946 The speech marked the change in U.S. occupation policy in Germany towards reconstruction.
 Time Magazine, September 16, 1946. "Journey to Stuttgart"
 SCIway Biography of James Francis Byrnes
 NGA Biography of James Francis Byrnes

 Annotated bibliography from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
 James F. Byrnes Papers at Clemson University Special Collections Library
 A collection of various works by James F. Byrnes

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James F. Byrnes


The Embedded Value (EV) of a life insurance company is the present value of future profits plus adjusted net asset value. It is a construct from the field of actuarial science which allows insurance companies to be valued.

Background
Life insurance policies are long-term contracts, where the policyholder pays a premium to be covered against a possible future event (such as the death of the policyholder).

Future income for the insurer consists of premiums paid by policyholders whilst future outgoings comprise claims paid to policyholders as well as various expenses. The difference, combined with income on and release of statutory reserves, represents future profit.

Net asset value is the difference between the total assets and liabilities of an insurance company.

For companies, the net asset value is usually calculated at book value. This needs to be adjusted to market values for EV purposes. Furthermore, this value may be discounted to reflect the "lock in" of some of the assets by their nature. (An example of such a lock-in would be assets held within the with-profits fund)

Value of the insurer
EV measures the value of the insurer by adding today's value of the existing business (i.e. future profits) to the market value of net assets (i.e. accumulated past profits).

It is a conservative measure of the insurer's value in the sense that it only considers future profits from existing policies and so ignores the possibility that the insurer may sell new policies in future. It also excludes goodwill. As a result, the insurer is worth more than its EV.

Formula
Embedded Value is calculated as follows:
EV = PVFP + ANAV
where
EV   = Embedded Value
PVFP = present value of future profits
ANAV = adjusted net asset value

Improvements
European embedded value (EEV) is a variation of EV which was set up by the CFO Forum which allows for a more formalised method of choosing the parameters and doing the calculations, to enable greater transparency and comparability.

Market Consistent Embedded Value is a more generalised methodology, of which EEV is one example.

References

External links
Embedded value definition from Investopedia

Actuarial science

Embedded value


Osanna of Mantua (also Hosanna) (17 January 1449 – 18 June 1505) was an Italian Dominican tertiary who gained notice as a stigmatic and mystic.

Life
Osanna was the daughter of the nobles Niccolò Andreasi, whose family had originated in Hungary, and of Agnese Gonzaga. She was reported to have had a vision of angels at age six. Feeling called to consecrated life, she rejected a marriage arranged by her father. Unable to explain her attraction to religious life to her father, in 1463, at the age of 14, she secretly received the religious habit of the Third Order of St. Dominic. She had been drawn to this Order from her admiration of two members of the Order, Catherine of Siena, and her contemporary, Friar Girolamo Savonarola, who both represented to her lives of strict self-denial.

Returning home, Osanna explained that she had made a religious vow and had to wear it until she had fulfilled her promise., which is an ancient custom. She waited 37 years to complete her vows so she could care for her brothers and sisters after the death of her parents.

A legend states that Osanna, like Catherine of Siena, miraculously learned to read and write. One day she saw a piece of paper with two words and said, "Those words are 'Jesus' and 'Mary.'" Allegedly, from that time on, anything relating to the spiritual was within her grasp.

When Osanna was thirty years old, she received the stigmata on her head, her side and her feet. She also had a vision in which her heart was transformed and divided into four parts. For the rest of her life, she actively experienced the Passion of Jesus, but especially intensely on Wednesdays and Fridays. Osanna confided these things in her biographer and "spiritual son," the Olivetan monk, Dom Jerome of Mount Olivet, as well as the fact that for years, she subsisted on practically no food at all.

Osanna was a mystic who would fall into ecstasies whenever she spoke of God, and a visionary who saw images of Christ bearing his cross. She bore stigmata along with red marks, but there was no bleeding. She helped the poor and sick and served as spiritual director for many, spending much of her family's considerable fortune to help the unfortunate. She spoke out against decadence, and criticized the aristocracy for a lack of morality. She was a friend of another member of her Order, Columba of Rieti, and is recorded to have sought counsel from another, the Stephana de Quinzanis.

These phenomena brought Ossana to the attention of Mantua's ruling family. Most notably, she was sought by Francesco II Gonzaga and his wife, Isabella d'Este, as both a spiritual guide and a counselor on matters of state. She frequently foretold correctly events which later came to pass, and gained the reputation of a seer. When she died in Mantua on 18 June 1505, all the members of the nobility and clergy attended her funeral, as her body was taken in procession to the Church of St. Dominic, where it was enshrined. Later her remains were transferred to the Cathedral of St. Peter, where they are still venerated.

Relationship with Girolamo de Monte Oliveto
Her confidant, Dom Jerome (), wrote a vita (biography) of her life in 1507, very shortly after her death. Although Jerome noted that Osanna was not quick to discuss her spiritual experiences, in the last years of her life she adopted Jerome as a "spiritual son," "conceived in the Blood of Christ."

Jerome's account is especially unique due to his intimate relationship with his subject. The biography takes the form of a detailed report of his conversations with Osanna. Jerome appended to his account Latin translations of twenty-four letters from Osanna, accompanied by documents certifying their authenticity.

According to Father Benedict Ashley, these letters express an "intense and constant physical and inner suffering" made bearable only by "sublime experiences of union with God which [Osanna] cannot describe except in broken and inadequate language." A special source of misery for Osanna was the degradation of the Church under the abusive pontificate of Alexander VI.

Veneration
In a response to a request by the Marchesa Isabella d'Este while on a visit to Rome, through a papal brief of 8 January 1515 Leo X authorised the celebration of her feast day in the City of Mantua. Her local cultus was confirmed by Pope Innocent XII with a Papal bull of 24 November 1694, and extended to the whole of the Dominican Order two months later.

Works
The content of the literary corpus of the Blessed Osanna ranges from mystical reflection to considerations on contemporary social and political questions. Her works consist of:
Lettere, an index of correspondence, addressed to a varied readership, including her fellow Dominicans and members of Mantua's ruling family;
Colloqui Spirituali, or dialogues on spiritual subjects between the Blessed Osanna and Girolamo Girolamo de Monte Oliveto Scolari.

References

External links

 Blessed Osanna d'Andreasi and Other Renaissance Italian Dominican Women Mystics
 Vita della Beata Osanna Andreasi

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The Battle of St. Louis  (), also known as the Battle of Fort San Carlos, was an unsuccessful attack by British-allied Indians on St. Louis (a French settlement in Spanish Louisiana, founded on the West Bank of the Mississippi River after the 1763 Treaty of Paris) on May 26, 1780, during the American Revolutionary War. A Loyalist fur trader led a large force of Indians and attacked the settlement.

Fernando de Leyba, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Louisiana, led the local militia to fortify the town as best as they could and successfully withstood the attack. On the opposite bank of the Mississippi, a second simultaneous attack on the nearby Patriot outpost of Cahokia was also repulsed. The retreating Indians destroyed the crops and took captive civilians outside the protected area. The British failed to defend their side of the river and, thus, effectively ended any attempts to gain control of the Mississippi River during the war.

Background

The Spanish entered the American Revolutionary War in 1779. British military planners in London wanted to secure the corridor of the Mississippi River against both Spanish and Patriot military movements. Their plans included expeditions from West Florida to take New Orleans and other Spanish targets, including several expeditions to gain control of targets in the Upper Mississippi, such as the small town of St. Louis. The expedition from West Florida never got off the ground because Bernardo de Gálvez, the Governor of Spanish Louisiana, moved rapidly to gain control of Britain's military outposts on the Lower Mississippi and threatened British control over West Florida's principal outposts of Mobile and Pensacola.

British expedition

Patrick Sinclair, the military governor at Fort Michilimackinac, organized the British expeditions from the north in the present-day Michigan. Beginning in February 1780, he directed Loyalist fur traders to circulate through their territories and recruit interested tribes for an expedition against St. Louis. Sinclair offered the fur traders the opportunity to control the fur trade in the upper parts of Spanish Louisiana as an incentive to participate. Most of the force gathered at Prairie du Chien, where Emanuel Hesse, a former militia captain turned fur trader, took command. The force numbered about two dozen fur traders and an estimated 750 to 1,000 Indians when it left Prairie du Chien on May 2.

Two hundred Sioux warriors led by Wapasha I made up the largest contingency of the force, with additional sizable companies from the Ojibwe, Menominee, Ho-Chunk and smaller numbers from other nations. Ojibwe chief Matchekewis was given overall command of the native forces. When the force reached Rock Island, they were joined by about 250 men from the Sauk and Meskwaki nations. These warriors were somewhat reluctant to attack St. Louis, but Hesse gave them large gifts to secure their participation in the venture.  The diversity within the expedition led to some animosity among the tribes. The Ojibwe and Sioux, in particular, had a history of conflict with each other. However, Wapasha and Matchekewis promoted unity during the expedition.

Spanish and American defenses

The village of St. Louis was primarily a trading hub on the Mississippi River that was governed by Lieutenant Governor Fernando de Leyba, a captain in the Spanish Army, but it was also the administrative capital of Upper Spanish Louisiana. Leyba was warned by a fur trader in late March 1780 that the British were planning an attack on St. Louis and the nearby American post at Cahokia. He began developing plans for the village's defense. He had an inexperienced militia force of 168 dispersed around the surrounding countryside and only 29-man force from the Fixed Regiment of Spanish Louisiana.

Leyba developed a grand plan of defense that included the construction of four stone towers. Without funds or the time to get them from New Orleans, Leyba asked the villagers to contribute funds and labor to the construction of these fortifications and paid for some of the work from his private funds.  By mid-May, a single round tower had been built that was about  in diameter and 30 to 40 feet tall. The tower, dubbed Fort San Carlos, provided a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. As there did not appear to be sufficient time to build more towers, trenches were dug between the tower and the river to the north and south of the village.  Three four-pound and two six-pound cannons from Fort Don Carlos were mounted in the tower, and other cannons were emplaced at each end of the line of trenches.

Fort Don Carlos had been constructed earlier in 1767 on the south bank of the Missouri River, near its mouth, just 15 miles north of the village of St. Louis. With a force of only 197 men, 168 of whom were inexperienced militia, it was highly probable that the opposing British and Indian combined force of 1,000 would overwhelm the Fort San Carlos. However, Leyba appealed to François Vallé, a 64-year-old French inhabitant, former captain of the French militia, who was located 60 miles to the South of the fort at the site of the French Colonial Valles Mines. Valle sent his two sons and 60 well-trained and equipped French militiamen and thus tipped the scale in favor of the defenders. By Royal Decree on April 1, 1782, King Carlos III of Spain conferred upon Francois Vallé the rank of lieutenant in the regular Spanish army, thus making him a Spanish don.

Valle also aided greatly in the Battle of Fort San Carlos because he gave the defenders of both forts a major tactical advantage by supplying them with genuine lead (instead of pebbles or stones) from his mines for musket balls and cannonballs. As a result of his contributions, Francois Valle was called the "Defender of St. Louis". On May 15, Leyba was visited by John Montgomery, the American commander at Cahokia, who proposed a joint Spanish and American force to counter Hesse's expedition, an idea that never reached fruition. On May 23, Leyba's scouts reported that Hesse's force had landed their canoes only  away and were coming overland.

Battle

On May 25, Hesse sent out scouting parties to determine the situation at St. Louis. These parties were unable to get close to the village due to the presence of workers (including women and children) in the fields outside the village. The next day, Hesse sent Jean-Marie Ducharme and 300 Indians across the river to attack Cahokia, while the remainder arrived around 1:00 pm near St. Louis. A warning shot was fired from the tower when they came into view. The Sioux and Winnebagoes led the way, followed by the Sauk, Meskwaki and fur traders, including Hesse, in the rear. Leyba directed the defense from the tower and opened fire on the approaching enemy from the trenches and tower when they came in range. On the first volley, most of the Sauk and Meskwaki fell back, apparently unwilling to fight, leaving many of the other participants suspicious of their motives in joining the expedition and complaining of their "treachery."

Wapasha and the Sioux persisted for several hours in attempts to draw the Spanish defenders out. They went as far as brutally killing some captives they had taken in the fields. Although this angered some of the townspeople, Lebya refused to grant permission to the militia to make a sortie. The attackers eventually withdrew and headed north, destroying crops, livestock, and buildings as they went. On the other side of the river, Ducharme's attack on Cahokia was easily repulsed. George Rogers Clark made a timely arrival to lead Cahokia's defense. Clark's reputation as a frontier fighter made the Indian force reluctant to pursue the attack.

Aftermath

The village of 700 inhabitants lost between 50 and 100 people who were either killed, wounded or captured. Virtually all casualties were civilians. A year later, the Spaniards from St. Louis raided Fort St. Joseph and brought the captured British flag back to St. Louis. Leyba died the following month. He was the subject of local criticism because he never formally recognized the efforts made by the citizenry in the town's defense.  King Charles III, unaware that he had died, promoted him to the rank of lieutenant colonel because of his valor in action.

The site where Fort San Carlos stood is at the corner of Fourth and Walnut Street in St. Louis. A local organization, the Commemoration Committee for the Battle of Fort San Carlos, annually commemorates the event by reading out the names of the 21 people who lost their lives during the battle. The battle is also remembered in a mural at the  Missouri State Capitol (pictured).  The Missouri State Museum also has a diorama (pictured) of the fort depicting the battle in its collection, but it is not currently on exhibit in the museum.

Notes

References
 Gilman, Carolyn.  "L'Année du Coup: The Battle of St. Louis, 1780 Part 2," Missouri Historical Review (2009) 103#4 pp: 195-211

1780 in New Spain
18th century in St. Louis
Saint Louis
Saint Louis
Saint Louis
Louisiana (New Spain)
Missouri in the American Revolution

Battle of St. Louis


Pysgodyn mawr o'r teulu Salmonidae yw'r eog (neu samwn). Mae'r oedolion yn byw yng ngogledd Cefnfor Iwerydd ond maen nhw'n mudo i afonydd Ewrop a dwyrain Gogledd America i ddodwy eu hwyau.

Pysgota

Dyma dystiolaeth gan bysgotwr eog o Gaernarfon:

Pysgota'r Samon - sgwrs gan Tony Lovell, Caernarfon
I first started going out with one of my relatives John Bach Lovell from 1955 onwards. My position on the boat, was what they called the ' fifth man',. The duties of the fifth man was to coil the ropes and baling out the water from the boat, or locally known as 'spudding-out', as a lot of water got into the boat with the activity of net recoiling after a 'drag'. The 'fifth man* was so-called because it always took a minimum of four men to work the net efficiently. The fifth man was a spare man who came to train, or for the experience of fishing. His pay was what we called the 'rough fish', which would have been payment in caught flounders, mullet, bass etc. - The length of the boat was 16 - 18 ft. long, clinker built with a square yard of laid decking at the stern end, which also had ' weeper holes' for water drain off from the ' transom'. The maximum length of net allowed was 150 yds x 18 ft. deep which was attached to an anchor man on the shore. The anchor man was in turn attached to a 25 yds long rope to a land pole which was the beginning of the net. The net had two 'tanted' [tannau] ropes, one weighted, the other with cork floats. In the very old days the weighted tant rope would have being made from hemp for extra weight On 'going out', on a half moon ' pull', the net was 'shot out' at approximately 45 degrees to the shore, with one man paying out the net in case of snags, and two men rowing the boat. At the end of the net is the outer pole called in Welsh the Polyn Allan which has another rope attached to it to reach back to the shore. After the half-moon 'pull', three or four men together would 'haul away', on the main rope on shore. After ' hauling' the 100 yds. of rope the outer pole has been hauled ashore closing the net like a bottle neck. On closing the two ends of the net together, we had two men hauling in on the float line and two men on the lower weighted 'tant', rope. These two men on the lower tant rope had to keep their hands as low as possible to the ground while pulling the net inshore, if any salmon were in the net it would usually show about 20 yds from shore gradually pulling the catch into the shore and held in the 'bag end' of the net. Any netted salmon were then killed quickly with the Pren Lladd. The first registered licenses were granted to the Vaynol Estate about 150 years ago, but the method of 'drag-net' fishing goes back 2000 years. Other characters were Dickie Lovell, Ned Lovell, Will Thomas, David Wilkinson, and John Bach Lovell whose father caught Caernarfon's record catch in 1931. The Lovell's ran the salmon boats for near on 100 years. The fishing patches were well established areas, carried down from generation to generation, as these established patches were in reach of the salmon run from the Atlantic to the Seiont and other rivers on the coastline. The names of the fishing patches we used were called Llanfair, Ty Celli (Kelly?), Traeth bach, Glasdwr, Ty Calch and Belan Fort. Other patches were given nick names such as Coffee Bay, and Treasure Island near buoy No 9. [Yn ôl un hanesyn, hwn oedd tarddiad enw'r dafarn The Black Boy - sef buoy] . We usually went out at four hour ebb tides [trai pedair awr] for high water and worked right through to low water and to an hour to hour and a half to flood taking in 6-7 drags in that time before returning to the dock.
Mae sgwrs Tony ar gael yn ei gyfanrwydd ar www.llennatur.com (Llên y Pethau Byw)

Enwau

The river Gwy (English Wye) into which the Ieithon falls hath a good variety of fish. Salmon are sometimes taken at Buallt of 34lbs. weight. The male they call in Welsh cammog [oherwydd y wefl gam ar y gen isaf tybed? DB], the female chwiwell. Salmon pinks and samlets are called in Welsh gwynniaid.

Eog y Cefnfor Tawel
O'r genws Oncorhynchus, enghreifftiau yn cynnwys;
Eog Ceirios (Oncorhynchus masu ) yn Corea, Japan a Rwsia
Eog Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) USA a British Columbia
Eog Chum (Oncorhynchus keta) yn eang iawn
Eog Coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) yn Alaska a British Columbia
Eog Pinc (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), Alaska, Califfornia, Corea, Canada a Siberia
Eog Sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka) neu 'Red salmon'

Cyfeiriadau

Pysgod

Eog


The rebec is a bowed string musical instrument that was played many hundreds of years ago. It was either held under the chin, like a violin, or held against the arm. The name "rebec" was spelt in a variety of ways.

Origins
The rebec dates back to the Middle Ages and was particularly popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. The instrument is European, but probably developed from the Afghan instrument called the "rebab". Instruments like the rebec were being played in the 10th century.

Tuning
The rebec can have any number of strings from one to five, although three is the most common number. The strings are often tuned in fifths. The instrument played high notes like the violin, but in later years bigger rebecs were made that played lower notes.

Use of the rebec
The rebec was mostly used for dance music. Dancing masters often used a kind of pocket-sized rebec called a "kit".

The rebec was also used in folk music, especially in eastern Europe, Spain and North Africa.

In medieval and Renaissance times the rebec in Europe was played by minstrels. They dressed in special livery and played at important feasts and in processions. They were also played by cowherds. King Henry VIII has several rebec players at his court.

Today many Middle Ages re-enactors like to play rebec since it is an authentic Medieval instrument.

String instruments
early musical instruments

Rebec


Lipid bilayers form cell membranes. They form a continuous sheet around all cells, and they surround most cell organelles. Lipid bilayers form automatically from phospholipids by self-assembly.

The phospholipids have  heads which mix with water and tails which reject water. So the tails come together in the centre of the double layer, and the heads on the outside are surrounded by water.

The lipid bilayers stop most water-soluble (hydrophilic) molecules passing through. They also stop most ions.

In cells, proteins are put in the bilayer by enzymes. The proteins decide which molecules come in and which go out of the cell. For example, cells control salt concentrations and pH by pumping ions across their membranes using proteins called ion pumps.

Biochemistry
Cell biology
Plant anatomy

Lipid bilayer


Denham Springs is a city in Livingston Parish, Louisiana, United States. The 2010 U.S. census placed the population at 10,215, up from 8,757 at the 2000 U. S. census. At the 2020 United States census, 9,286 people lived in the city. The city is the largest area of commercial and residential development in Livingston Parish. Denham Springs and Walker are the only parish municipalities classified as cities. The area has been known as Amite Springs, Hill's Springs, and Denham Springs.

History

19th century
The original land claims of John Noblet and Alexander Hogue form what is now the older section of Denham Springs, including the first residential and business districts. In 1828, William Denham, a Wilkinson County, Mississippi, native, married Mercy Hogue, the daughter of Alexander Hogue. Three months later he purchased the  originally claimed by his father-in-law. Denham purchased the land and a slave for $1,350.

A popular belief, supported by previously published histories, is that William Denham discovered the mineral springs on his property and that a health resort quickly grew up there. This belief defies logic, however, considering the number of springs which may be found in this area even today, and the length of time that elapsed before Denham arrived. Hogue and other early residents of the area likely depended on the springs for drinking water.

It was in the 1850s that Amite Springs became synonymous with the area that is now Denham Springs.

On May 1, 1855, Denham sold the Hogue tract to Stamaty Covas of New Orleans for $3,050, and Denham eventually moved to Baton Rouge and to Texas. Apparently during the time Covas owned the Hogue-Denham tract, and before the Civil War, a health resort did flourish at Amite Springs—as the hamlet was known at the time. Several newspaper articles and advertisements survive from that period, which describe the hotel and the facilities which it offered.

An article in the Baton Rouge Daily Comet, on June 25, 1856, notes that a bridge of boats had been formed at Benton's Ferry over the Amite River to facilitate travel to Amite Springs.  Benton's Ferry was the name of the post office which was established near Amite Springs on January 25, 1856, and named for Robert Benton, its first postmaster and also the operator of the ferry across the Amite.

It is assumed that the hotel was burned during the Civil War, although no evidence to support this assumption has been found to this date. Following the Civil War, Covas, the New Orleans businessman, lost possession of the Hogue-Denham tract when George L. Minton bought it for delinquent taxes of $124.00.

According to the 1882 act of sale, the land was bounded "east by Chambers, south by Noblet, west by the Amite River, north by Allen, and known as the Denham Springs tract." This points to the fact that although William Denham had moved away nearly 30 years before, his name was still associated with the mineral spring area.

Minton, the first mayor of Denham Springs and founder of the Denham Springs News, thus received title to much of what is now the downtown section of Denham Springs. Conveyance records at the parish courthouse show that he then began subdividing the tract and selling the lots for residences and businesses. By this time, the large Noblet holdings were also being subdivided and sold to newcomers, and the village that became Denham Springs began to grow.

In October, 1879 John Sullivan made an application for the establishment of a post office north of the present city limits. The location of the office was given as one mile (1.6 km) south of Beaver Creek and one mile (1.6 km) east of the Amite River on what is now La. Hwy. 1028 or the Old River Road.
Three names were considered for the post office - Pine Bluff, Allen and Hill's Springs - with the Post Office Department settling on the latter when it was finally established on January 12, 1880. By at least 1890, John R. Allen had become the postmaster and the office was moved inside the present city limits. On May 9, 1898, the name of the post office was changed to Denham Springs.

Another reason given for the development of the community is that the Denham Springs Collegiate Institute was founded by a group or residents in 1895. According to a graduate of the institute, the school was a good one, attracting boarders from miles around. The boarding students may have created more demand for hotels than did people visiting the springs, although the hotels did have many guests in the summer. The Collegiate Institute was located on the site of the present Presbyterian Church, on property sold to the private school by George L. Minton. The first buildings included a large meeting hall and a smaller frame structure. The four-year institution was financed by tuition paid by students from Denham Springs and neighboring communities, and the board of directors was able to attract teachers from as far away as Virginia.

20th century
George L. Minton was elected the first mayor of Denham Springs upon its founding in 1903 and served until J.M. Smiley was elected in April 1912. Smiley moved from the village later that year and J.O. Brannon was elected mayor in a special election. He received 17 votes and was unopposed.

Two reasons were given for the development of Hill's Springs and Denham Springs in the 1890s and early 20th century prior to the completion of a Baton Rouge to Hammond railroad line. One was the development of the springs by hotel owners. A New Orleans publication entitled Men and Matters described the so-called health-restoring properties of the spring water in a 1902 article on Denham Springs. Ivy Cockerham and J.B. Easterly built hotels in the area near the present public park on Tabernacle Street, and there were some who believed the springs to be beneficial to the sick.

Circa 1908, the board of directors of the Denham Springs Collegiate Institute deeded the property to the public school system, which was coming of age with the construction of consolidated schools, and shortly thereafter, a two-story brick building was erected on the same site. This was to be the beginning of Denham Springs High School, now the parish's largest senior high school.

On May 8, 1903, Gov. William W. Heard issued a proclamation incorporating the village of Denham Springs. Governor Huey Long designated Denham Springs as a town on February 5, 1929 and Lt. Gov. Lethar Frazar, standing in for the Kingfish's brother Earl, proclaimed Denham Springs to be a city on September 5, 1957.

Several factors influenced the growth of Denham Springs after 1900, notably the construction of the railroad line, the growth of Baton Rouge as an industrial center, and the corresponding improvement of roads which made Denham Springs a desirable place for Baton Rouge workers to live. The railroad prompted the gradual movement of businesses toward the present Range Avenue area, and later made Denham Springs the shipping hub of a large truck crop region. The Baton Rouge-Hammond line was completed by the Illinois Central railroad during the first part of February, 1908 and the first train ran on February 26. Denham Springs almost missed being included on the route, however, as the Baton Rouge, Hammond and Eastern Railroad Co., which was later purchased by the IC, at one time considered bypassing the village, perhaps to force some concessions on the local residents' part.

The construction of good roads and the advent of the automobile, combined with the growth of the petrochemical industry in Baton Rouge led to Denham Springs becoming the so-called "bedroom of Baton Rouge".  Denham Springs became the banking and commercial center of Livingston Parish.

The Denham Springs City Hall was listed in the National Register of Historic Places listings in Louisiana on April 16, 1993.

21st century
The city is situated at the intersections of the east-west highways, US 190 and Interstate 12, with La. Hwy. 16, the major north-south artery in western Livingston Parish. Denham Springs is also located on the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad, a line which played a large role in the city's early development. The Amite River also forms a portion of the municipality's boundary, but the river is not navigable at this point. Ground-water springs which come to the surface at the base of the low-lying ridge which runs through the center of the city have figured in the city's name since at least the 1850s.

A state of emergency was declared in mid-August 2016 when waters began rising in rivers, lakes, and bayous all across the southern area of the state. Denham Springs took much of the damage. 90% of the homes in Greater Baton Rouge were either damaged or destroyed. The Amite River, the main body of water in Denham Springs, was one of the most publicized rivers that flooded.

Downtown Denham Springs has transformed itself from hardware stores, drug stores, doctors' offices, and a single movie theater, into a collection of unique antique shops, and boutiques, including the locally popular restaurants and Cafes. The historic downtown district is now recognized as a cultural arts district and is known as the Denham Springs Antique Village.

Geography
Denham Springs is located in the Florida Parishes of the U. S. state of Louisiana, and within the Baton Rouge metropolitan statistical area.

Climate
Denham Springs has a humid subtropical climate with hot summers and mild winters. The city experiences moderate to heavy rainfall and is at risk of severe thunderstorms and high winds year around.

Demographics

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 9,286 people, 3,615 households, and 2,256 families residing in the city. According to the 2019 American Community Survey, the racial and ethnic makeup was 81.6% non-Hispanic white, 13.9% Black and African American, 0.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% some other race, 0.5% two or more races, and 3.6% Hispanic and Latin American of any race. The median household income was $53,435 and 8.9% of the population lived at or below the poverty line.

Government
Denham Springs is run under a Mayor-council form of government. The current mayor, Gerard Landry, has been in office since 2014, being reelected in 2018 after support from the city in his recovery efforts after the flood of 2016.

The Denham Springs City Council is a Unicameral council governing the City of Denham Springs. The five member council is elected directly by popular vote. Each council member serves the entire Denham Springs community. No neighborhoods elect representatives. Members serve a term of four years. Each city council member serves as a member of one of several city groups. This includes the Denham Springs Economic Development District, The Denham Springs Sewage District No. 1, Springs at Riverside Landing Economic Development District, and Finance Committee.

The city council meets twice monthly at 6 PM on the second Tuesday and fourth Monday of the month at the Municipal building in Denham Springs' Historic District.

Education
Denham Springs is within the Livingston Parish Public Schools system.

High schools
Denham Springs High School
Denham Springs Freshman High School

Junior high schools

 Denham Springs Junior High School
 Southside Junior High School
 Juban Parc Junior High School

Elementary schools

 Denham Springs Elementary School
 Freshwater Elementary School
 Juban Parc Elementary School
 Lewis Vincent Elementary School
 Southside Elementary School

Notable people
 Valarie Hodges (born 1955), businesswoman and Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives
Jefferson D. Hughes, III, associate justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court since 2013, reared in Denham Springs
Rosalie "Lady Tambourine" Washington (born 1957), gospel musician and tambourine player

Robert Pete Williams (1914-1980), blues musician, in 1958 was released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary into servitude parole in Denham Springs

References

External links

City of Denham Springs website

Cities in Livingston Parish, Louisiana
Cities in Louisiana
Cities in the Baton Rouge metropolitan area

Denham Springs, Louisiana


A music video or music clip is a short movie that represents a song on a television screen. Most music videos feature the artist who recorded the song singing or lip-syncing it on screen. TV network channels that are famous for playing music videos are MTV, VH1, BET, and CMT.

In most countries in East Asia, music videos are called PVs. PV stands for "Promotional Video."

Music media
Movies

Music video


Matchbox Twenty (or MB20, MBT, matchbox twenty, originally spelled Matchbox 20) is an alternative rock band from Orlando, Florida, United States. The members of the band are Rob Thomas (vocals, piano), Kyle Cook (guitar), Brian Yale (bass), Paul Doucette (guitar) and Ryan MacMillian (drums). Matt Beck is a live member, playing several instruments in their shows. Adam Gaynor was formerly with the band. He left it in 2005. Their three studio albums have been popular worldwide, and they have sold more than 29 million copies. They are Yourself or Someone Like You, Mad Season and More Than You Think You Are. They released recently an album with new material and their biggest hits, called Exile on Mainstream.

History

Formation (1995)
Rob Thomas, Brian Yale, and Paul Doucette were part of the band Tabitha's Secret, which was based in Orlando, Florida, with fellow members Jay Stanley and John Goff, before splitting to start a new band (what was to become Matchbox Twenty). After recruiting Adam Gaynor from Criteria Recording Studios in Miami and Kyle Cook from the Atlanta Institute of Music, the band named themselves Matchbox 20 and won a recording contract with Atlantic Records.

Yourself or Someone Like You (1996–2000)

Matchbox Twenty released their debut album, Yourself or Someone Like You, in 1996. While their first single, "Long Day", was a rock radio-only success, the album soon spawned several Top 40 singles throughout 1997 and 1998, including "Push", "3 A.M.", "Real World", and "Back 2 Good". "Push" and "3 A.M." did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100 chart due to the rule in effect prior to 1998 that required a song to be released as a single in order to appear on the Hot 100. "Real World" and "Back 2 Good" proved to be the band's first entries into the Billboard Hot 100, after the rule was terminated. The album eventually sold more than 12 million copies in the U.S. alone, achieving a diamond certification. In 1998, Matchbox Twenty recorded a live version of their single, "3 A.M." for release on the charity album Live in the X Lounge, benefiting United Cerebral Palsy research. The band was sued by New Yorker Frank Torres for using his image without his permission on the cover of Yourself or Someone Like You. Torres had been walking down the street when he was asked by a photographer to pose for a picture.

Before recording their second album, Rob Thomas collaborated with Itaal Shur on a song called "Smooth" for Carlos Santana's comeback album, Supernatural.  Thomas was supposed to act only as a songwriter for "Smooth", but Carlos Santana had him sing for it after hearing the song's demo. "Smooth" was the album's lead single and became a hit in 1999. Thomas won three Grammy Awards for writing and performing on "Smooth": Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Popular Music Collaboration with Vocals.

Mad Season (2000–02)

During 2000, Matchbox 20 renamed themselves to Matchbox Twenty and released their second album, Mad Season. The album, on the strength of several successful singles, including "Bent" (which peaked No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart) and "If You're Gone", was certified 4x platinum in the United States. The video for "Bent" made fun of singer Thomas' increased fame from "Smooth" by showing the other band members assaulting him. The next two singles, "Mad Season" and "Last Beautiful Girl" were not as successful.

More Than You Think You Are (2002–03)

For their third album, More Than You Think You Are, the band revived more of a rock sound. Thomas shared the songwriting efforts with the other band members on several songs. The album again spawned successful singles "Disease" (written with Mick Jagger), "Unwell", and "Bright Lights".  The album was not as successful commercially as the previous two, and received mixed reviews from critics. However, the album had an enormous radio presence for well over a year.

During 2003, the band released EP, consisting of six songs. The EP had never before released live and acoustic versions of previously released songs like "Push" and "If You're Gone", as well as a new track, "Suffer Me".

In May 2004, the band released a live DVD, Show: A Night in the Life of Matchbox Twenty, filmed in Atlanta and featuring 20 songs, including all of their previous successful singles.

First hiatus and Gaynor's departure (2004–07)
In February 2005, rhythm guitarist Adam Gaynor officially left the group, which had been on hiatus to allow other members to pursue side projects. Rob Thomas released a solo album, …Something to Be, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The album featured four successful singles: "Lonely No More", "This Is How a Heart Breaks", "Ever the Same", and "Streetcorner Symphony".

In January 2007, Rob Thomas released a single, "Little Wonders", which he wrote for the Disney movie Meet the Robinsons.

Exile on Mainstream (2007–08)

The group reunited and began performing during 2007, with the release of their 'retrospective' album Exile on Mainstream, on October 2, 2007. "How Far We've Come" was the first single from the new album, which was followed by the second single, "These Hard Times". "Exile on Mainstream" included four other new songs and a complete collection of all eleven of their previously released singles. The album was also released in the new MVI (Music Video Interactive) format, which included two video interviews discussing the six new songs and eleven greatest hits, plus extras including a photo gallery, U-MYX (to remix "How Far We've Come"), buddy icons and  wallpapers. "How Far We've Come" was released on the band's MySpace page in July 2007, with the video released on September 6, 2007.

Matchbox Twenty toured during early 2008 with Alanis Morissette and opener Mutemath. The band began their US tour on January 25, 2008, in Hollywood, FL, and concluded in Las Vegas, NV, on March 18, 2008 before heading to Australia and New Zealand, where the Australian band Thirsty Merc was the supporting act. Following Australia, Matchbox Twenty visited the UK for the first time in five years to play six concerts in Cardiff, Wembley, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Manchester.  Matchbox Twenty performed at the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup award ceremony.

Second hiatus (2008–10)
When the band finished touring later during 2008, Rob Thomas began work on his second solo album, Cradlesong. He stated in an interview to Billboard that he expected that the other members of the band might begin work on Matchbox Twenty's next album without him. At the concert at Mohegan Sun Casino on December 18, 2009, Rob Thomas said that he was not frequently playing Matchbox Twenty songs at his 2009 tour stops because the band was planning to tour together in 2010.

Second return and North (2011–present)

At the Taste of Chicago on July 2, 2010, Thomas said that Matchbox Twenty would be recording in the fall for their fourth studio album. On September 4, 2010, while on VH1's Top 20 Music Video Countdown, Thomas stated that Matchbox Twenty was planning to start working on their next studio album in mid-September and that he was 80% sure that the album would be released sometime in 2011. Rob Thomas posted on Twitter that he was "heading out next week to start writing the new mb20 record" on September 13, 2010. It was stated on Matchbox Twenty's web site that the next show they will do together is on January 1, 2011 in Oklahoma. According to Paul Doucette, the new Matchbox Twenty album will likely be completed in the beginning of 2012. He explained, "That's the same question I was asking. We don't know -- the beginning of next year, we hope. It's a real important record for us. We haven't done anything in a long time. The older we get, the more we realize and appreciate the good fortune we have to do what we do at this level. Realistically, how many more times do we get? So we're going to really make this record the one we want it to be."

Matchbox Twenty played a one-off live show in Temecula, California on July 9, 2011, but no new material was played.  During the show Rob Thomas stated the show was a "love letter to our fans."

North was released on September 4, 2012. The album's first single, "She's So Mean," was released on June 12, 2012.

In 2012, the band embarked on a worldwide tour, the North Tour, to promote the album. The tour continued as the 2013 Summer Tour, when they co-headlined with the Goo Goo Dolls.

Discography
Studio albums
 Yourself or Someone Like You (1996)
 Mad Season (2000)
 More Than You Think You Are (2002)
 North (2012)

References

American rock bands
Post-grunge bands
Musical groups from Orlando, Florida
Atlantic Records artists

Matchbox Twenty


An electric chair is a specially built chair which is used to execute condemned criminals by electrocuting (giving them a strong electric shock) them. This means that they are being killed as a punishment for a crime that they were accused of, usually murder.

An electric chair is a strong wooden chair which has electrodes (which are objects often made out of metal that conduct electricity) for running electric current through the convict's body. One electrode is placed on the convict's head, and another is placed  on the convict's right shin. When the switch is turned on, a 2,000 volt current goes through the convict. The current is to stop the heartbeat, cause unconsciousness, and cause death. Sometimes, the chair was made from the wood of the gallows which it replaced.

The electric chair is sometimes used as the very symbol of death penalty. It is also a part of Americana (that is: cultural symbols of USA) and the electric chairs of many states have ironic nicknames like Old Sparky, Yellow Mama, Gruesome Gertie, Sizzling Sally or Hot Seat. The execution itself is sometimes called "riding the lightning".

History of the electric chair

The electric chair was designed by Dr. Alfred Southwick, and first built by Harold Brown in 1888. Dr. Southwick had seen a drunk man falling in a generator and dying immediately from electric shock. There had been a very gruesome hanging in New York in 1886 that did not go right. The drop had been too long and the convict's head was torn off. Many people wanted a less cruel method of execution. The state of New York chose the electric chair.

This execution method has been used only in the United States and, for several decades, in the Philippines (its first use there in 1924, last in 1976). The electric chair has become a symbol of the death penalty, and a part of American folklore. However, it is becoming replaced as a method of executing criminals in the United States by lethal injection. Altogether, 25 US states and the US federal government have used the electric chair.

The decline of the electric chair

Death in the electric chair is usually quick as the convict dies from electric shock which stops the heart. However, if something goes wrong, the death is more like frying the convict alive. The electric chair has been declared as a cruel and unusual punishment in many states and is no longer used in most states. In fact, there are no longer any states that use the electric chair as its main way of executing criminals. All states that use the death penalty use lethal injection as its main way of executing criminals now.

So far, the latest person executed in an electric chair has been Nicholas Todd Sutton, an American serial killer, who was responsible for murdering two acquaintances and his own grandmother in North Carolina and Tennessee from August to December 1979. Convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for these crimes, Sutton, among three other inmates, later participated in a 1985 prison killing over drugs. For this final crime, he was sentenced to death and executed by electric chair on Feb. 20, 2020 in Tennessee at the Riverbend Maximum Security Prison.

References

Capital punishment

Electric chair


The pipa () is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments (弹拨乐器/彈撥樂器).

Books

New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London, 2001).

Other websites
 "Kishibe's diffusionism theory on the Iranian Barbat and Chino-Japanese Pi' Pa'," from The Shayda Institute-Iranian Classical Music site
 An article on the historical development of pipa
 The Pipa on the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
 Pipa Performance by Gifted Musician in United States

Chinese music

Pipa


Ted Blackman (February 17, 1942 – October 2, 2002) was a Canadian media personality in the Montreal, Quebec area.

Blackman's career started as a disc jockey at high school and teen club dances in the 1950s. After high school, he sold his records and equipment to one of his friends, Donald Tarlton (aka Donald K Donald), who later became Montreal's premier promoter and rock and roll impresario.

Blackman began his career in journalism in Toronto, Ontario with United Press International in 1961, covering three Toronto Maple Leafs championships as well as several Grey Cups. In the mid-1960s he moved back home as a sports reporter for the Montreal Gazette, where he covered a variety of events prior to becoming the chief writer for the expansion Montreal Expos baseball club. During this time he was widely credited with creating nicknames such as "Le Grande Orange" for outfielder Rusty Staub and the bleachers at Jarry Park Stadium as "Jonesville" in honour of long ball hitter Mack Jones.

In 1971 Blackman began his dual role in the Montreal media working for CJAD 800 AM radio. He worked in various roles in Montreal radio over the next thirty years in sports and programming, primarily at CJAD. He also had stints as a morning man at rival CFCF from 1979 to 1981, and The Team at its Montreal Team 990 (an all sports station). He also penned a daily news column for the Montreal Gazette.

In October 1984, the Montreal Gazette suspended Blackman from his columnist position for having taken a job with radio station CJAD. The case was brought to labour arbitration.

Blackman died in hospital on October 2, 2002 from complications of a liver transplant.

References

External links
CBC obituary

1942 births
2002 deaths
Anglophone Quebec people
Canadian columnists
Canadian Football League announcers
Canadian radio hosts
Canadian sportswriters
Montreal Gazette people
Writers from Montreal
Liver transplant recipients
Jewish Canadian journalists

Ted Blackman


Jaringan telepon umum atawa public switched telephone network (PSTN) mangrupa jaringan tina jaringan-jaringan telepon anu diwangun ku circuit-switched pikeun kaperluan publik sadunya. PSTN awalna mangrupa jaringan tina sistem telepon analog sambungan-tetep. Kiwari PSTN ampir digital sakabéhna, sarta ngawengku ogé telepon mobil.

PSTN sabagian gedé diatur ku standar-standar téknis anu dijieun ku ITU-T, sarta ngagunakeun Rékoméndasi ITU nomer E.163/E.164 anu ngawincik panomeran telepon pikeun pangalamatan.

Architecture and context
The PSTN was the éarliest example of traffic engineering to deliver Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. A.K. Erlang (1878–1929) is credited with establishing the mathematical foundations of methods required to determine the amount and configuration of equipment and the number of personnel required to deliver a specific level of service.

In the 1970s the telecommunications industry conceived that digital services would follow much the same pattern as voice services, and conceived a vision of end-to-end circuit switched services, known as the Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network (B-ISDN). The B-ISDN vision has been overtaken by the disruptive technology of the Internet.
Only the oldest parts of the telephone network still use analog technology for anything other than the last mile loop to the end user, and in recent yéars digital services have been incréasingly rolled out to end users using services such as DSL, ISDN, FTTP and cable modem systems.

Many observers believe that the long term future of the PSTN is to be just one application of the Internet - however, the Internet has some way to go before this transition can be made. The QoS guarantee is one aspect that needs to be improved in the Voice over IP (VoIP) technology.

There are a number of large private telephone networks which are not linked to the PSTN, usually for military purposes. There are also private networks run by large companies which are linked to the PSTN only through limited gateways, like a large private branch exchange (PBX).

Early history
The first telephones had no network but were in private use, wired together in pairs.  Users who wanted to talk to different péople had as many telephones as necessary for the purpose.  A user who wished to spéak, whistled into the transmitter until the other party héard.  Soon, however, a bell was added for signalling, and then a switchhook, and telephones took advantage of the exchange principle alréady employed in telegraph networks.  éach telephone was wired to a local telephone exchange, and the exchanges were wired together with trunks.  Networks were connected together in a hierarchical manner until they spanned cities, countries, continents and océans.  This was the beginning of the PSTN, though the term was unknown for many decades.

Automation introduced pulse dialing between the phone and the exchange, and then among exchanges, followed by more sophisticated address signaling including multi-frequency, culminating in the SS7 network that connected most exchanges by the end of the 20th century.

Digital Channel

Although the network was créated using analog voice connections through manual switchboards, automated telephone exchanges replaced most switchboards, and later digital switch technologies were used. Most switches now use digital circuits between exchanges, with analog two-wire circuits still used to connect to most telephones.

The basic digital circuit in the PSTN is a 64-kilobits-per-second channel, originally designed by Bell Labs, called Digital Signal 0 (DS0). To carry a typical phone call from a calling party to a called party, the audio sound is digitized at an 8 kHz sample rate using 8-bit pulse code modulation (PCM). The call is then transmitted from one end to another via telephone exchanges. The call is switched using a signaling protocol (SS7) between the telephone exchanges under an overall routing strategy.

The DS0s are the basic granularity at which switching takes place in a telephone exchange. DS0s are also known as timeslots because they are multiplexed together using time-division multiplexing (TDM). Multiple DS0s are multiplexed together on higher capacity circuits into a DS1 signal, carrying 24 DS0s on a North American or Japanese T1 line, or 32 DS0s (30 for calls plus two for framing and signalling) on an E1 line used in most other countries. In modérn networks, this multiplexing is moved as close to the end user as possible, usually into cabinets at the roadside in residential aréas, or into large business premises.

The timeslots are conveyed from the initial multiplexer to the exchange over a set of equipment collectively known as the access network. The access network and inter-exchange transport of the PSTN use synchronous optical transmission (SONET and SDH) technology, although some parts still use the older PDH technology.

Within the access network, there are a number of reference points defined. Most of these are of interest mainly to ISDN but one – the V reference point – is of more general interest. This is the reference point between a primary multiplexer and an exchange. The protocols at this reference point were standardised in ETSI aréas as the V5 interface.

Hirarki Switch Telepon Indonesia

Telekomunikasi

Jaringan telepon umum


Shandon is a small collection of roads on Dublin's Northside within the district of Phibsboro. It consists of three terraces of Edwardian (Victorian style) houses along the banks of the Royal Canal, built around 1926.

The area was expanded in 1952 by the addition of a terrace of concrete houses, Shandon Gardens, and more recently Shandon Crescent and Shandon Green.

The area is home to Shandon Pitch and Putt Club, an 18-hole course affiliated to the Pitch and Putt Union of Ireland.

References

Places in Dublin (city)

Shandon, Dublin


A Commonwealth realm is a country in the Commonwealth of Nations which has King Charles III as monarch. They include his home country of the United Kingdom and many of its former colonies or territories. As of 2023, there are 15 commonwealth realms:

In each of the countries outside the UK, the King appoints a Governor-General to represent him, who, after consulting with the government of the realm, has all of the powers and duties of the Monarch. Usually the Governor-General signs all acts of parliament into law, but can wait and ask the King for advice or wait for him to sign the act himself.  This happened in 1982 when Queen Elizabeth signed the important Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms during a visit to Ottawa, and the Australia Act 1986 in Canberra.

Although King Charles III is monarch of many countries, the British government has no power in the other realms, just as the governments of the other realms have no power in the UK. This is why each realm decides on the Monarch's official title. Usually it is "Queen/King of (realm) and Her/His other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth". But two countries mention the UK in their title for the Queen: Grenada uses "Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Grenada and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth", while Canada uses the old-fashioned form, which reads "by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith." Not all countries use the title Defender of the Faith.

Other websites
 The Commonwealth Secretariat Official site
 The Commonwealth - UK Government site

Commonwealth
 United Commonwealth  Main All-Commonwealth group

Australia
 Australian Monarchist League (traditionalist constitutional monarchists)
 No Republic - Australians for Constitutional Monarchy (Moderate constitutional monarchists)

Canada
 Canadian Monarchy - The Official Site
 Canadian Monarchist ONLINE
 Monarchist League of Canada

New Zealand
 Monarchist League of New Zealand

History of the United Kingdom

British monarchy

Commonwealth realm


Marjorie "Marge" Simpson is a character in the animated television series The Simpsons. The character is voiced by Julie Kavner. Marge is the wife of Homer Simpson and the mother of Bart, Lisa, and Maggie Simpson. She is famous for her very tall blue hair, that is shaped into a beehive. She also is proud to have never met anyone with taller hair outside Graceland.  Marge was named after, and loosely based on, Margaret "Marge" Groening, Matt Groening's mother.

Personality
Marge's image is normally that of a stereotypical sitcom mother who is sometimes seen as an inexperienced person and easy to be fooled. Despite having higher morals than most other characters, Marge has had her fair share of wild escapades throughout the show's history. She was once a police officer in Springfield, took treatment for road rage, was once sent to jail for shoplifting, sentenced to 90 days in the Springfield Women's Prison, became a gambling fanatic, showed alcoholism, was an unwilling participant in a cross-country police chase, took steroids, cheated on a cooking competition and developed amnesia. She is also known for her persistent nagging and groaning. These are just some of the strange situations in which Marge has found herself. She also displays a surprisingly strong will. Marge is the only member of the family who normally tries to encourage the family to go to church. She also appears to have significant athletic ability in times of imminent danger. She can speak two languages fluently, one being English and the other in French.

Politically, Marge supports the Democratic Party. She once says that she voted for Jimmy Carter ("twice" according to Lisa), supported the candidacy of their state's governor Mary Bailey, and also stated to have been really depressed when Lyndon Johnson died.

Talents
Marge studied to be a painter. When she was a teenager she had a huge crush on Ringo Starr and painted a large number of portraits of him. She also wrote to him, but only received a reply 25 years later. His response inspired her to enter an art contest. Her portrait of a drunk Homer sleeping on the couch won the competition. She was then hired by Mr. Burns to do a portrait of him. The resulting portrait won even Mr. Burns' praise, a massive feat in itself.

Marge also is a very skilled cook. She once started a pretzel business, which succeeded with the help of the Springfield Mafia. She has entered different cooking challenges, although situations such as cruel and ruthless competitors and overheated ovens made her to lose and even break or destroy the other competitors too. In general, she is shown as a very good cook. She is especially well known for her pork chops, Homer's favorite dish.

In some episodes Marge is shown being a fairly skilled photographer until she decided to choose Homer over photography.

Appearance

Hair
As a teen, Marge had her hair long to at waist length which she always wore down, but got the idea to wear it in her trademark beehive for senior prom in the episode "The Way We Was". In the Shary Bobbins episode, her hair is shown close to her knees, meaning that a lot of hair would be needed to create her tall beehive. Marge has admitted that her hair is not really blue but is, in fact, gray. It was revealed by Homer in "Secrets of a Successful Marriage" that Marge dyes her hair with blue dye #56; "She's been gray as a mule since she was seventeen." It is shown in the episode "Fear of Flying" that Marge's blue hair goes back to when she was a small child, so this color choice may ave been intended to match her original color. Because of her unusually large hairstyle, her height is reported to be 8'6", as noted by Apu in the episode "Marge in Chains". In "The Way We Weren't", her hair was blue before she met Homer and was dark at one time because of Marge ironing a piece of her hair for a long time. In The Simpsons Season Four DVD commentary, Matt Groening states that the original idea behind Marge's hair was to hide large rabbit ears. The gag was intended to be revealed in the final episode of the series, but was cancelled early on because of its irregularity.

Age
Like most of the other Simpsons characters, Marge's age changes from time to time throughout the show's history. In first-season episodes "Life on the Fast Lane" and "Some Enchanted Evening", Marge is said to be 36 years old, but her age was later changed to 38, possibly because she and Homer attended their twentieth anniversary high school reunion in one episode. In the episode "Regarding Margie", Homer states that Marge is his age, meaning she and Homer are both 38.

Fictional characters introduced in 1987
The Simpsons characters
Animated human characters

Marge Simpson


A  consists of the flask and cups used to serve sake. Sake sets are commonly ceramic, but may be wood, lacquered wood, glass or plastic. The flask and cups may be sold individually or as a set.

Server

The server of a sake set is a flask called a tokkuri (). A tokkuri is generally bulbous with a narrow neck, but may have a variety of other shapes, including that of a spouted serving bowl (katakuchi). Traditionally, heated sake is often warmed by placing the sake-filled tokkuri in a pan of hot water, and thus the narrowed neck would prevent the heat from escaping. In more authentic places such as oden bars and ryōtei in Japan, sake is sometimes warmed and served in metal containers known as chirori () or tanpo (). Recently, glass chirori are also used to chill sake.

Drinking cups

Formerly, sake was sold by volume in a wooden box measuring cup, known as a masu which has a volume of one gō () and was also used to drink. In the past, the wooden box was said to complement the traditionally brewed sake, as it is brewed in a wooden cask (), but in modern times, the masu is shunned by sake purists because the wood affects the flavor of the sake. Furthermore, tradition requires the masu be filled to the rim as a sign of prosperity. Masu are now commonly made of lacquerware or even of ABS plastic. As the traditional sake-serving cup and a symbol of prosperity due to sharing the same pronunciation as the Japanese word for increase/proliferate (), the masu is still used in modern times for the purpose of ceremony or to show generosity. In some Japanese restaurants, the server may put a glass inside the masu (or put the masu inside a saucer) and pour until the sake overflows and spills into the secondary container to symbolize this wealth.

Nowadays, the sake is typically served in ceramic cups. The cups used for drinking sake are generally small cylindrical vessels called o-choko or choko (, o- is an honorific prefix in Japanese used such as o-sake and o-makase), but may also include flatter shapes such as wide-mouthed bowls. Sakazuki are ceremonial cups used most commonly at weddings and other special occasions such as tea ceremonies, but larger versions of sakazuki also exist.

While not a traditional serving utensil, a shot glass is also used. In the United States, it is used as a substitute for ochoko, while in Japan it is used in conjunction with masu. Sake stemware is also used, which is essentially a glass sake cup elevated above a wide base. Sake stemware, as well as glass tokkuri, are now commonly used to serve chilled sake.

References

External links

Sake Flask Shapes Guide
Tokkuri- Sake Flask Shapes
Yoshio Tsuchiya, Masaru Yamamoto (food styling), Eiji Kori (photography), Juliet Winters Carpenter (translation) "Saké servers", The fine art of Japanese food arrangement, Kodansha International (Tokyo), 2002, p. 70.

Drinkware
Containers
Japanese cuisine
Sake

Sake set


Kneeboarding is a discipline of surfing where the rider paddles on his or her belly into a wave on a kneeboard, then rides the wave face typically on both knees. The typical kneeboard is between  in length, with a wide round nose and constructed of Glassfibre over a polyurethane foam core. Kneeboard designers however are known for their wild experimental excess and so most modern materials including various aerospace elements such as Titanium alloys (for fins), carbon fibre and kevlar in epoxy matrices are not unusual.
Modern kneeboards may have a rubber pad for the rider's knees, preventing undue wear of the knees, also preventing slipping to help the rider maintain control. Kneeboarders also typically use swimfins and an ankle surfleash.

Kneeboarding popularity increased markedly with the release of the surf movie "Crystal Voyager" by the most prominent of kneeboard riders, Californian, George Greenough. The music of Pink Floyd's "Meddle" combined with spectacular slow-motion images by Mr. Greenough, filming inside the tube whilst surfing a "spoon" kneeboard, changed surfing's direction, influenced board and fin design and earned him a Palme d'Or for short film at the Cannes film festival in the late 1960s.

The advantage of kneeboarding is the ability it gives the rider to deal with tube rides that might require too quick of a take off for a standup surfer or bodyboarder to get into and might get too tight or steep for a stand-up board surfer to deal with. Being closer to the Face of the wave, the feeling of speed is more enhanced, with a resulting increase in excitement. It seems that kneeboarding is where the best of the skill sets unique to each of the surfing disciplines "comes together".

References
 Kneeboard Surfing USA (KSUSA)

Surfing
Kneeling

Kneeboarding (surfsport)


A zygote is the fertilized cell that will grow into a new animal or plant. When a female's ovum and a male's sperm cell join, the cell that results is called the zygote. The zygote then multiplies, and grows into an embryo. So, a zygote is formed from the union of two gametes, and is the first stage in a human organism's development. Zygotes are produced by fertilization between two haploid cells, the ovum and the sperm cells, which make a diploid cell. Diploid cells have copies of both parents' chromosomes and DNA. At conception it has all the necessary properties to create a fully formed human being. Life until death is a series of many different stages of development.

Some animals keep the zygote in their bodies until it is a full-grown baby. The time between the forming of the zygote and the baby's birth is called pregnancy. Other animals do not keep the zygote in their bodies, but lay an egg. The zygote grows inside the egg until it is ready and a larva or baby animal hatches.

Biological reproduction

Zygote


Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn (died c. 1286) was a Welsh king who was lord of the part of Powys known as Powys Wenwynwyn and sided with Edward I in his conquest of Wales of 1277 to 1283.

Gruffydd was the son of Gwenwynwyn and Margaret Corbet. He was still a child when his father, who had been driven out of his princedom by Llywelyn the Great, died in exile in 1216. He spent his youth in England, maintained by the king, and did not return to Wales until after Llywelyn's death. When Dafydd ap Llywelyn was forced to come to terms with King Henry III of England in 1241, Gruffydd was given most of the lands formerly held by his father, paying homage to Henry for them. Around this time he married, Hawise, daughter of John Lestrange of Knockin.

When Llywelyn ap Gruffudd increased his power in Wales after 1255, Gruffydd continued to support the crown, and in 1257, he was again driven into exile. In 1263, he agreed to transfer his allegiance to Llywelyn under threat of being stripped of his lands, and this was confirmed at the Treaty of Montgomery in 1267. In 1274, Gruffydd, his wife Hawise and his son Owain were all involved with Llywelyn's brother Dafydd ap Gruffydd in a plot to assassinate Llywelyn. Dafydd was with Llywelyn at the time, and it was arranged that Owain would come with armed men on 2 February to carry out the assassination; however he was prevented by a snowstorm. Llywelyn did not discover the full details of the plot until later that year, when Owain confessed to the Bishop of Bangor. He said that the intention had been to make Dafydd Prince of Gwynedd, and that Dafydd would then reward Gruffydd with lands. When Llywelyn discovered the details of the plot he sent envoys to Welshpool to summon Gruffydd to appear before him, but Gruffydd fled to England. He settled in Shrewsbury and used it as a base for raids on Llywelyn's lands, probably encouraged by the king. After the war of 1277, when Llywelyn was forced to cede his lands outside Gwynedd, Gruffydd was again given his lands back. He became embroiled in an increasingly bitter dispute with Llywelyn over lands in Arwystli. Llywelyn wanted the issue resolved by Welsh law while Gruffydd wanted English law used and was supported by King Edward I of England.

Gruffydd supported King Edward in the final war of 1282, although by now he was an old man. There have been suggestions that his eldest son Owain may have been involved in the killing of Llywelyn at Cilmeri in December that year.

At the end of the Welsh War of 1282–1283, the principality of Powys Wenwynwyn was abolished and the family – now Marcher Lords – adopted the surname de la Pole meaning "of Poole" referring to their family seat in Poole (modern Welshpool). For his loyalty to Edward I, the king permitted Baron de la Pole to begin building (or re-building) Powis Castle. After 1283 his estate became increasingly controlled by his son Owain and he died some time between February 1286 and the end of 1287.

Owain divided the lands he inherited with his brothers, by arrangements later recorded in detail in the Calendar of Patent Rolls for 1342, pages 496–7.

He was buried in the Black Friars Priory in Shrewsbury.

References
 Dictionary of Welsh Biography
Kari Maund (2006) The Welsh kings: warriors, warlords and princes (Tempus)
David Stephenson, Medieval Powys: Kingdom, Principality and Lordships 1132–1293 (Bodell and Brewer, 2016).

1280s deaths
Year of birth unknown
Year of death uncertain

Monarchs of Powys
13th-century Welsh monarchs
Welsh princes
House of Mathrafal
Burials in Shropshire

Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn