Offa (died 29 July 796 AD) was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 757 until his death. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æthelbald. Offa defeated the other claimant, Beornred. In the early years of Offa's reign, it is likely that he consolidated his control of Midland peoples such as the Hwicce and the Magonsæte. Taking advantage of instability in the kingdom of Kent to establish himself as overlord, Offa also controlled Sussex by 771, though his authority did not remain unchallenged in either territory. In the 780s he extended Mercian Supremacy over most of southern England, allying with Beorhtric of Wessex, who married Offa's daughter Eadburh, and regained complete control of the southeast. He also became the overlord of East Anglia and had King Æthelberht II of East Anglia beheaded in 794, perhaps for rebelling against him.

Offa was a Christian king who came into conflict with the Church, particularly with Jænberht, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Offa persuaded Pope Adrian I to divide the archdiocese of Canterbury in two, creating a new archdiocese of Lichfield. This reduction in the power of Canterbury may have been motivated by Offa's desire to have an archbishop consecrate his son Ecgfrith as king, since it is possible Jænberht refused to perform the ceremony, which took place in 787. Offa had a dispute with the Bishop of Worcester, which was settled at the Council of Brentford in 781.

Many surviving coins from Offa's reign carry elegant depictions of him, and the artistic quality of these images exceeds that of the contemporary Frankish coinage. Some of his coins carry images of his wife, Cynethryth—the only Anglo-Saxon queen ever depicted on a coin. Only three gold coins of Offa's have survived: one is a copy of an Abbasid dinar of 774 and carries Arabic text on one side, with "Offa Rex" on the other. The gold coins are of uncertain use but may have been struck to be used as alms or for gifts to Rome.

Many historians regard Offa as the most powerful Anglo-Saxon king before Alfred the Great. His dominance never extended to Northumbria, though he gave his daughter Ælfflæd in marriage to the Northumbrian king Æthelred I in 792. Historians once saw his reign as part of a process leading to a unified England, but this is no longer the majority view: in the words of historian Simon Keynes, "Offa was driven by a lust for power, not a vision of English unity; and what he left was a reputation, not a legacy." His son Ecgfrith succeeded him after his death, but reigned for less than five months before Coenwulf of Mercia became king.

Background and sources

In the first half of the 8th century, the dominant Anglo-Saxon ruler was King Æthelbald of Mercia, who by 731 had become the overlord of all the provinces south of the River Humber. Æthelbald was one of a number of strong Mercian kings who ruled from the mid-7th century to the early 9th, and it was not until the reign of Egbert of Wessex in the 9th century that Mercian power began to wane.

The power and prestige that Offa attained made him one of the most significant rulers in Early Medieval Britain, though no contemporary biography of him survives. A key source for the period is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of annals in Old English narrating the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The Chronicle was a West Saxon production, however, and is sometimes thought to be biased in favour of Wessex; hence it may not accurately convey the extent of power achieved by Offa, a Mercian. That power can be seen at work in charters dating from Offa's reign. Charters were documents which granted land to followers or to churchmen and were witnessed by the kings who had the authority to grant the land. A charter might record the names of both a subject king and his overlord on the witness list appended to the grant. Such a witness list can be seen on the Ismere Diploma, for example, where Æthelric, son of king Oshere of the Hwicce, is described as a "subregulus", or subking, of Æthelbald's. The eighth-century monk and chronicler the Venerable Bede wrote a history of the English church called Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum; the history only covers events up to 731, but as one of the major sources for Anglo-Saxon history it provides important background information for Offa's reign.

Offa's Dyke, most of which was probably built in his reign, is a testimony to the extensive resources Offa had at his command and his ability to organise them. Other surviving sources include a problematic document known as the Tribal Hidage, which may provide further evidence of Offa's scope as a ruler, though its attribution to his reign is disputed. A significant corpus of letters dates from the period, especially from Alcuin, an English deacon and scholar who spent over a decade at Charlemagne's court as one of his chief advisors, and corresponded with kings, nobles and ecclesiastics throughout England. These letters in particular reveal Offa's relations with the continent, as does his coinage, which was based on Carolingian examples.

Ancestry and family

Offa's ancestry is given in the Anglian collection, a set of genealogies that include lines of descent for four Mercian kings. All four lines descend from Pybba, who ruled Mercia early in the 7th century. Offa's line descends through Pybba's son Eowa and then through three more generations: Osmod, Eanwulf and Offa's father, Thingfrith. Æthelbald, who ruled Mercia for most of the forty years before Offa, was also descended from Eowa according to the genealogies: Offa's grandfather, Eanwulf, was Æthelbald's first cousin. Æthelbald granted land to Eanwulf in the territory of the Hwicce, and it is possible that Offa and Æthelbald were from the same branch of the family. In one charter Offa refers to Æthelbald as his kinsman, and Headbert, Æthelbald's brother, continued to witness charters after Offa rose to power.

Offa's wife was Cynethryth, whose ancestry is unknown. The couple had a son, Ecgfrith, and at least three daughters: Ælfflæd, Eadburh and Æthelburh. It has been speculated that Æthelburh was the abbess who was a kinswoman of King Ealdred of the Hwicce, but there are other prominent women named Æthelburh during that period.

Early reign, the midland territories and the Middle and East Saxons
Æthelbald, who had ruled Mercia since 716, was assassinated in 757. According to a later continuation of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica (written anonymously after Bede's death) the king was "treacherously murdered at night by his own bodyguards", though the reason why is unrecorded. Æthelbald was initially succeeded by Beornred, about whom little is known. The continuation of Bede comments that Beornred "ruled for a little while, and unhappily", and adds that "the same year, Offa, having put Beornred to flight, sought to gain the kingdom of the Mercians by bloodshed." It is possible that Offa did not gain the throne until 758, however, since a charter of 789 describes Offa as being in the thirty-first year of his reign.

The conflict over the succession suggests that Offa needed to re-establish control over Mercia's traditional dependencies, such as the Hwicce and the Magonsæte. Charters dating from the first two years of Offa's reign show the Hwiccan kings as reguli, or kinglets, under his authority; and it is likely that he was also quick to gain control over the Magonsæte, for whom there is no record of an independent ruler after 740. Offa was probably able to exert control over the kingdom of Lindsey at an early date, as it appears that the independent dynasty of Lindsey had disappeared by this time.

Little is known about the history of the East Saxons during the 8th century, but what evidence there is indicates that both London and Middlesex, which had been part of the kingdom of Essex, were finally brought under Mercian control during the reign of Æthelbald. Both Æthelbald and Offa granted land in Middlesex and London as they wished; in 767 a charter of Offa's disposed of land in Harrow without a local ruler as witness. It is likely that both London and Middlesex were quickly under Offa's control at the start of his reign. The East Saxon royal house survived the 8th century, so it is probable that the kingdom of Essex retained its native rulers, but under strong Mercian influence, for most or all of the 8th century.

It is unlikely that Offa had significant influence in the early years of his reign outside the traditional Mercian heartland. The overlordship of the southern English which had been exerted by Æthelbald appears to have collapsed during the civil strife over the succession, and it is not until 764, when evidence emerges of Offa's influence in Kent, that Mercian power can be seen expanding again.

Kent and Sussex

Offa appears to have exploited an unstable situation in Kent after 762. Kent had a long tradition of joint kingship, with east and west Kent under separate kings, though one king was typically dominant. Prior to 762 Kent was ruled by Æthelberht II and Eadberht I; Eadberht's son Eardwulf is also recorded as a king. Æthelberht died in 762, and Eadberht and Eardwulf are last mentioned in that same year. Charters from the next two years mention other kings of Kent, including Sigered, Eanmund and Heahberht. In 764, Offa granted land at Rochester in his own name, with Heahberht on the witness list as king of Kent. Another king of Kent, Ecgberht, appears on a charter in 765 along with Heahberht; the charter was subsequently confirmed by Offa. Offa's influence in Kent at this time is clear, and it has been suggested that Heahberht was installed by Offa as his client. There is less agreement among historians on whether Offa had general overlordship of Kent thereafter. He is known to have revoked a charter of Ecgberht's on the grounds that "it was wrong that his thegn should have presumed to give land allotted to him by his lord into the power of another without his witness", but the date of Ecgberht's original grant is unknown, as is the date of Offa's revocation of it. It may be that Offa was the effective overlord of Kent from 764 until at least 776. The limited evidence for Offa's direct involvement in the kingdom between 765 and 776 includes two charters of 774 in which he grants land in Kent; but there are doubts about their authenticity, so Offa's intervention in Kent prior to 776 may have been limited to the years 764–65.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that "the Mercians and the inhabitants of Kent fought at Otford" in 776, but does not give the outcome of the battle. It has traditionally been interpreted as a Mercian victory, but there is no evidence for Offa's authority over Kent until 785: a charter from 784 mentions only a Kentish king named Ealhmund, which may indicate that the Mercians were in fact defeated at Otford. The cause of the conflict is also unknown: if Offa was ruling Kent before 776, the battle of Otford was probably a rebellion against Mercian control. However, Ealhmund does not appear again in the historical record, and a sequence of charters by Offa from the years 785–89 makes his authority clear. During these years he treated Kent "as an ordinary province of the Mercian kingdom", and his actions have been seen as going beyond the normal relation of overlordship and extending to the annexation of Kent and the elimination of a local royal line. After 785, in the words of one historian, "Offa was the rival, not the overlord, of Kentish kings". Mercian control lasted until 796, the year of Offa's death, when Eadberht Præn was temporarily successful in regaining Kentish independence.

Ealhmund was probably the father of Egbert of Wessex, and it is possible that Offa's interventions in Kent in the mid-780s are connected to the subsequent exile of Egbert to Francia. The Chronicle claims that when Egbert invaded Kent in 825, the men of the southeast turned to him "because earlier they were wrongly forced away from his relatives". This is likely to be an allusion to Ealhmund, and may imply that Ealhmund had a local overlordship of the southeastern kingdoms. If so, Offa's intervention was probably intended to gain control of this relationship and take over the dominance of the associated kingdoms.

The evidence for Offa's involvement in the kingdom of Sussex comes from charters, and as with Kent there is no clear consensus among historians on the course of events. What little evidence survives that bears on Sussex's kings indicates that several kings ruled at once, and it may never have formed a single kingdom. It has been argued that Offa's authority was recognised early in his reign by local kings in western Sussex, but that eastern Sussex (the area around Hastings) submitted to him less readily. Symeon of Durham, a twelfth-century chronicler, records that in 771 Offa defeated "the people of Hastings", which may record the extension of Offa's dominion over the entire kingdom. However, doubts have been expressed about the authenticity of the charters which support this version of events, and it is possible that Offa's direct involvement in Sussex was limited to a short period around 770–71. After 772, there is no further evidence of Mercian involvement in Sussex until c. 790, and it may be that Offa gained control of Sussex in the late 780s, as he did in Kent.

East Anglia, Wessex and Northumbria

In East Anglia, Beonna probably became king in about 758. Beonna's first coinage predates Offa's own, and implies independence from Mercia. Subsequent East Anglian history is quite obscure, but in 779 Æthelberht II became king, and was independent long enough to issue coins of his own. In 794, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "King Offa ordered King Æthelberht's head to be struck off". Offa minted pennies in East Anglia in the early 790s, so it is likely that Æthelberht rebelled against Offa and was beheaded as a result. Accounts of the event have survived in which Aethelberht is killed through the machinations of Offa's wife Cynethryth, but the earliest manuscripts in which these possibly legendary accounts are found date from the 11th and 12th centuries, and recent historians do not regard them with confidence. The legend also claims that Æthelberht was killed at Sutton St. Michael and buried  to the south at Hereford, where his cult flourished, becoming at one time second only to Canterbury as a pilgrimage destination.

To the south of Mercia, Cynewulf came to the throne of Wessex in 757 and recovered much of the border territory that Æthelbald had conquered from the West Saxons. Offa won an important victory over Cynewulf at the Battle of Bensington (in Oxfordshire) in 779, reconquering some of the land along the Thames. No indisputably authentic charters from before this date show Cynewulf in Offa's entourage, and there is no evidence that Offa ever became Cynewulf's overlord. In 786, after the murder of Cynewulf, Offa may have intervened to place Beorhtric on the West Saxon throne. Even if Offa did not assist Beorhtric's claim, it seems likely that Beorhtric to some extent recognised Offa as his overlord shortly thereafter. Offa's currency was used across the West Saxon kingdom, and Beorhtric had his own coins minted only after Offa's death. In 789, Beorhtric married Eadburh, a daughter of Offa; the Chronicle records that the two kings combined to exile Egbert to Francia for "three years", adding that "Beorhtric helped Offa because he had his daughter as his queen". Some historians believe that the Chronicles "three years" is an error, and should read "thirteen years", which would mean Egbert's exile lasted from 789 to 802, but this reading is disputed. Eadburh is mentioned by Asser, a 9th-century monk who wrote a biography of Alfred the Great: Asser says that Eadburh had "power throughout almost the entire kingdom", and that she "began to behave like a tyrant after the manner of her father". Whatever power she had in Wessex was no doubt connected with her father's overlordship.

If Offa did not gain the advantage in Wessex until defeating Cynewulf in 779, it may be that his successes south of the river were a necessary prerequisite to his interventions in the south-east. In this view, Egbert of Kent's death in about 784 and Cynewulf's death in 786 were the events that allowed Offa to gain control of Kent and bring Beorhtric into his sphere of influence. This version of events also assumes that Offa did not have control of Kent after 764–65, as some historians believe.

Offa's marital alliances extended to Northumbria when his daughter Ælfflæd married Æthelred I of Northumbria at Catterick in 792. However, there is no evidence that Northumbria was ever under Mercian control during Offa's reign.

Wales and Offa's Dyke

Offa was frequently in conflict with the various Welsh kingdoms. There was a battle between the Mercians and the Welsh at Hereford in 760, and Offa is recorded as campaigning against the Welsh in 778, 784 and 796 in the tenth-century Annales Cambriae.

The best known relic associated with Offa's time is Offa's Dyke, a great earthen barrier that runs approximately along the border between England and Wales. It is mentioned by the monk Asser in his biography of Alfred the Great: "a certain vigorous king called Offa ... had a great dyke built between Wales and Mercia from sea to sea". The dyke has not been dated by archaeological methods, but most historians find no reason to doubt Asser's attribution. Early names for the dyke in both Welsh and English also support the attribution to Offa. Despite Asser's comment that the dyke ran "from sea to sea", it is now thought that the original structure only covered about two-thirds of the length of the border: in the north it ends near Llanfynydd, less than  from the coast, while in the south it stops at Rushock Hill, near Kington in Herefordshire, less than  from the Bristol Channel. The total length of this section is about . Other earthworks exist along the Welsh border, of which Wat's Dyke is one of the largest, but it is not possible to date them relative to each other and so it cannot be determined whether Offa's Dyke was a copy of or the inspiration for Wat's Dyke.

The construction of the dyke suggests that it was built to create an effective barrier and to command views into Wales. This implies that the Mercians who built it were free to choose the best location for the dyke. There are settlements to the west of the dyke that have names that imply they were English by the 8th century, so it may be that in choosing the location of the barrier the Mercians were consciously surrendering some territory to the native Britons. Alternatively it may be that these settlements had already been retaken by the Welsh, implying a defensive role for the barrier. The effort and expense that must have gone into building the dyke are impressive, and suggest that the king who had it built (whether Offa or someone else) had considerable resources at his disposal. Other substantial construction projects of a similar date do exist, however, such as Wat's Dyke and Danevirke, in what is now Germany as well as such sites as Stonehenge from millennia earlier. The dyke can be regarded in the light of these counterparts as the largest and most recent great construction of the preliterate inhabitants of Britain.

Church
Offa ruled as a Christian king, but despite being praised by Charlemagne's advisor, Alcuin, for his piety and efforts to "instruct [his people] in the precepts of God", he came into conflict with Jænberht, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Jænberht had been a supporter of Ecgberht II of Kent, which may have led to conflict in the 760s when Offa is known to have intervened in Kent. Offa rescinded grants made to Canterbury by Egbert, and it is also known that Jænberht claimed the monastery of Cookham, which was in Offa's possession.

In 786 Pope Adrian I sent papal legates to England to assess the state of the church and provide canons (ecclesiastical decrees) for the guidance of the English kings, nobles and clergy. This was the first papal mission to England since Augustine had been sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 597 to convert the Anglo-Saxons. The legates were Bishop George of Ostia, and Theophylact, the bishop of Todi. They visited Canterbury first, and then were received by Offa at his court. Both Offa and Cynewulf, king of the West Saxons, attended a council where the goals of the mission were discussed. George then went to Northumbria, while Theophylact visited Mercia and "parts of Britain". A report on the mission, sent by the legates to Pope Adrian, gives details of a council held by George in Northumbria, and the canons issued there, but little detail survives of Theophylact's mission. After the northern council George returned to the south and another council was held, attended by both Offa and Jænberht, at which further canons were issued.

In 787, Offa succeeded in reducing the power of Canterbury through the establishment of a rival archdiocese at Lichfield. The issue must have been discussed with the papal legates in 786, although it is not mentioned in the accounts that have survived. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports a "contentious synod" in 787 at Chelsea, which approved the creation of the new archbishopric. It has been suggested that this synod was the same gathering as the second council held by the legates, but historians are divided on this issue. Hygeberht, already Bishop of Lichfield, became the new archdiocese's first and only archbishop, and by the end of 788 he received the pallium, a symbol of his authority, from Rome. The new archdiocese included the sees of Worcester, Hereford, Leicester, Lindsey, Dommoc and Elmham; these were essentially the midland Anglian territories. Canterbury retained the sees in the south and southeast.

The few accounts of the creation of the new archbishopric date from after the end of Offa's reign. Two versions of the events appear in the form of an exchange of letters between Coenwulf, who became king of Mercia shortly after Offa's death, and Pope Leo III, in 798. Coenwulf asserts in his letter that Offa wanted the new archdiocese created out of enmity for Jænberht; but Leo responds that the only reason the papacy agreed to the creation was because of the size of the kingdom of Mercia. Both Coenwulf and Leo had their own reasons for representing the situation as they did: Coenwulf was entreating Leo to make London the sole southern archdiocese, while Leo was concerned to avoid the appearance of complicity with the unworthy motives Coenwulf imputed to Offa. These are therefore partisan comments. However, both the size of Offa's territory and his relationship with Jænberht and Kent are indeed likely to have been factors in Offa's request for the creation of the new archdiocese. Coenwulf's version has independent support, with a letter from Alcuin to Archbishop Æthelheard giving his opinion that Canterbury's archdiocese had been divided "not, as it seems, by reasonable consideration, but by a certain desire for power". Æthelheard himself later said that the award of a pallium to Lichfield depended on "deception and misleading suggestion".

Another possible reason for the creation of an archbishopric at Lichfield relates to Offa's son, Ecgfrith of Mercia. After Hygeberht became archbishop, he consecrated Ecgfrith as king; the ceremony took place within a year of Hygeberht's elevation. It is possible that Jænberht refused to perform the ceremony, and that Offa needed an alternative archbishop for that purpose. The ceremony itself is noteworthy for two reasons: it is the first recorded consecration of any English king, and it is unusual in that it asserted Ecgfrith's royal status while his father was still alive. Offa would have been aware that Charlemagne's sons, Pippin and Louis, had been consecrated as kings by Pope Adrian, and probably wished to emulate the impressive dignity of the Frankish court. Other precedents did exist: Æthelred of Mercia is said to have nominated his son Coenred as king during his lifetime, and Offa may have known of Byzantine examples of royal consecration.

Despite the creation of the new archdiocese, Jænberht retained his position as the senior cleric in the land, with Hygeberht conceding his precedence. When Jænberht died in 792, he was replaced by Æthelheard, who was consecrated by Hygeberht, now senior in his turn. Subsequently, Æthelheard appears as a witness on charters and presides at synods without Hygeberht, so it appears that Offa continued to respect Canterbury's authority.

A letter from Pope Adrian to Charlemagne survives which makes reference to Offa, but the date is uncertain; it may be as early as 784 or as late as 791. In it Adrian recounts a rumour that had reached him: Offa had reportedly proposed to Charlemagne that Adrian should be deposed, and replaced by a Frankish pope. Adrian disclaims all belief in the rumour, but it is clear it had been a concern to him. The enemies of Offa and Charlemagne, described by Adrian as the source of the rumour, are not named. It is unclear whether this letter is related to the legatine mission of 786; if it predates it, then the mission might have been partly one of reconciliation, but the letter might well have been written after the mission.

Offa was a generous patron of the church, founding several churches and monasteries, often dedicated to St Peter. Among these was St Albans Abbey, which he probably founded in the early 790s. He also promised a yearly gift of 365 mancuses to Rome; a mancus was a term of account equivalent to thirty silver pennies, derived from Abbasid gold coins that were circulating in Francia at the time.<ref name=Stenton_223>Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 223.</ref> Control of religious houses was one way in which a ruler of the day could provide for his family, and to this end Offa ensured (by acquiring papal privileges) that many of them would remain the property of his wife or children after his death. This policy of treating religious houses as worldly possessions represents a change from the early 8th century, when many charters showed the foundation and endowment of small minsters, rather than the assignment of those lands to laypeople. In the 770s, an abbess named Æthelburh (who may have been the same person as Offa's daughter of that name) held multiple leases on religious houses in the territory of the Hwicce; her acquisitions have been described as looking "like a speculator assembling a portfolio". Æthelburh's possession of these lands foreshadows Cynethryth's control of religious lands, and the pattern was continued in the early 9th century by Cwoenthryth, the daughter of King Coenwulf.

Either Offa or Ine of Wessex is traditionally supposed to have founded the Schola Saxonum in Rome, in what is today the Roman rione, or district, of Borgo. The Schola Saxonum took its name from the militias of Saxons who served in Rome, but it eventually developed into a hostelry for English visitors to the city.

European connections
Offa's diplomatic relations with Europe are well documented, but appear to belong only to the last dozen years of his reign. In letters dating from the late 780s or early 790s, Alcuin congratulates Offa for encouraging education and greets Offa's wife and son, Cynethryth and Ecgfrith.Whitelock, English Historical Documents, 195, pp. 779–780. In about 789, or shortly before, Charlemagne proposed that his son Charles marry one of Offa's daughters, most likely Ælfflæd. Offa countered with a request that his son Ecgfrith should also marry Charlemagne's daughter Bertha: Charlemagne was outraged by the request, and broke off contact with Britain, forbidding English ships from landing in his ports. Alcuin's letters make it clear that by the end of 790 the dispute was still not resolved, and that Alcuin was hoping to be sent to help make peace. In the end diplomatic relations were restored, at least partly by the agency of Gervold, the abbot of St Wandrille.Whitelock, English Historical Documents, 20, p. 313.

Charlemagne sought support from the English church at the council of Frankfurt in 794, where the canons passed in 787 at the Second Council of Nicaea were repudiated, and the heresies of two Spanish bishops, Felix and Elipandus, were condemned. In 796 Charlemagne wrote to Offa; the letter survives and refers to a previous letter of Offa's to Charlemagne. This correspondence between the two kings produced the first surviving documents in English diplomatic history. The letter is primarily concerned with the status of English pilgrims on the continent and with diplomatic gifts, but it reveals much about the relations between the English and the Franks. Charlemagne refers to Offa as his "brother", and mentions trade in black stones, sent from the continent to England, and cloaks (or possibly cloths), traded from England to the Franks. Charlemagne's letter also refers to exiles from England, naming Odberht, who was almost certainly the same person as Eadberht Praen, among them. Egbert of Wessex was another refugee from Offa who took shelter at the Frankish court. It is clear that Charlemagne's policy included support for elements opposed to Offa; in addition to sheltering Egbert and Eadberht he also sent gifts to Æthelred I of Northumbria.

Events in southern Britain to 796 have sometimes been portrayed as a struggle between Offa and Charlemagne, but the disparity in their power was enormous. By 796 Charlemagne had become master of an empire which stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Hungarian Plain, and Offa and then Coenwulf were clearly minor figures by comparison.

Government
The nature of Mercian kingship is not clear from the limited surviving sources. There are two main theories regarding the ancestry of Mercian kings of this period. One is that descendants of different lines of the royal family competed for the throne. In the mid-7th century, for example, Penda had placed royal kinsmen in control of conquered provinces. Alternatively, it may be that a number of kin-groups with local power-bases may have competed for the succession. The sub-kingdoms of the Hwicce, the Tomsæte and the unidentified Gaini are examples of such power-bases. Marriage alliances could also have played a part. Competing magnates, those called in charters "dux" or "princeps" (that is, leaders), may have brought the kings to power. In this model, the Mercian kings are little more than leading noblemen. Offa seems to have attempted to increase the stability of Mercian kingship, both by the elimination of dynastic rivals to his son Ecgfrith, and the reduction in status of his subject kings, sometimes to the rank of ealdorman. He was ultimately unsuccessful, however; Ecgfrith only survived in power for a few months, and 9th century Mercia continued to draw its kings from multiple dynastic lines.

There is evidence that Offa constructed a series of defensive burhs, or fortified towns; the locations are not generally agreed on but may include Bedford, Hereford, Northampton, Oxford and Stamford. In addition to their defensive uses, these burhs are thought to have been administrative centres, serving as regional markets and indicating a transformation of the Mercian economy away from its origins as a grouping of midland peoples. The burhs are forerunners of the defensive network successfully implemented by Alfred the Great a century later to deal with the Danish invasions.Alan Vince, "Market Centres and Towns in the Mercian Hegemony", in Brown & Farr, Mercia, p. 192. However, Offa did not necessarily understand the economic changes that came with the burhs, so it is not safe to assume he envisioned all their benefits. In 749, Æthelbald of Mercia had issued a charter that freed ecclesiastical lands from all obligations except the requirement to build forts and bridges – obligations which lay upon everyone, as part of the trinoda necessitas.Campbell, The Anglo-Saxons, p. 100. Offa's Kentish charters show him laying these same burdens on the recipients of his grants there, and this may be a sign that the obligations were being spread outside Mercia.Gareth Williams, "Military Institutions", in Brown & Farr, Mercia, p. 297. These burdens were part of Offa's response to the threat of "the pagan seaman".

Offa issued laws in his name, but no details of them have survived. They are known only from a mention by Alfred the Great, in the preface to Alfred's own law code. Alfred says that he has included in his code those laws of Offa, Ine of Wessex and Æthelberht of Kent which he found "most just". The laws may have been an independent lawcode, but it is also possible that Alfred is referring to the report of the legatine mission in 786, which issued statutes that the Mercians undertook to obey.

Coinage

At the start of the 8th century, sceattas were the primary circulating coinage. These were small silver pennies, which often did not bear the name of either the moneyer or the king for whom they were produced. To contemporaries these were probably known as pennies, and are the coins referred to in the laws of Ine of Wessex.A transcription of Ine's laws can be read at  This light coinage (in contrast to the heavier coins minted later in Offa's reign) can probably be dated to the late 760s and early 770s. A second, medium-weight coinage can be identified before the early 790s. These new medium-weight coins were heavier, broader and thinner than the pennies they replaced, and were prompted by the contemporary Carolingian currency reforms. The new pennies almost invariably carried both Offa's name and the name of the moneyer from whose mint the coins came. The reform in the coinage appears to have extended beyond Offa's own mints: the kings of East Anglia, Kent and Wessex all produced coins of the new heavier weight in this period.

Some coins from Offa's reign bear the names of the archbishops of Canterbury, Jænberht and, after 792, Æthelheard. Jænberht's coins all belong to the light coinage, rather than the later medium coinage. There is also evidence that coins were issued by Eadberht, who was Bishop of London in the 780s and possibly before. Offa's dispute with Jænberht may have led him to allow Eadberht coining rights, which may then have been revoked when the see of Lichfield was elevated to an archbishopric.

The medium-weight coins often carry designs of high artistic quality, exceeding that of the contemporary Frankish currency. Coin portraits of Offa have been described as "showing a delicacy of execution which is unique in the whole history of the Anglo-Saxon coinage". The depictions of Offa on the coins include a "striking and elegant" portrait showing him with his hair in voluminous curls, and another where he wears a fringe and tight curls. Some coins show him wearing a necklace with a pendant. The variety of these depictions implies that Offa's die-cutters were able to draw on varied artistic sources for their inspiration.

Offa's wife Cynethryth was the only Anglo-Saxon queen ever named or portrayed on coinage, in a remarkable series of pennies struck by the moneyer Eoba. These were probably derived from contemporary coins from the reign of the Byzantine emperor Constantine VI, who minted a series showing a portrait of his mother, the later Empress Irene, though the Byzantine coins show a frontal bust of Irene rather than a profile, and so cannot have been a direct model.

Around the time of Jænberht's death and replacement with Æthelheard in 792–93, the silver currency was reformed a second time: in this "heavy coinage" the weight of the pennies was increased again, and a standardised non-portrait design was introduced at all mints. None of Jænberht's or Cynethryth's coins occur in this coinage, whereas all of Æthelheard's coins are of the new, heavier weight.

There are also surviving gold coins from Offa's reign. One is a copy of an Abbasid dinar struck in 774 by Caliph Al-Mansur, with "Offa Rex" centred on the reverse. It is clear that the moneyer had no understanding of Arabic as the Arabic text contains many errors. The coin may have been produced to trade with Islamic Spain; or it may be part of the annual payment of 365 mancuses that Offa promised to Rome. There are other Western copies of Abbasid dinars of the period, but it is not known whether they are English or Frankish. Two other English gold coins of the period survive, from two moneyers, Pendraed and Ciolheard: the former is thought to be from Offa's reign but the latter may belong either to Offa's reign or to that of Coenwulf, who came to the throne in 796. Nothing definite is known about their use, but they may have been struck to be used as alms.Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 223–224.

Although many of the coins bear the name of a moneyer, there is no indication of the mint where each coin was struck. As a result, the number and location of mints used by Offa is uncertain. Current opinion is that there were four mints, in Canterbury, Rochester, East Anglia and London.

Stature
The title Offa used on most of his charters was "rex Merciorium", or "king of the Mercians", though this was occasionally extended to "king of the Mercians and surrounding nations". Some of his charters use the title "Rex Anglorum," or "King of the English," and this has been seen as a sweeping statement of his power. There is debate on this point, however, as several of the charters in which Offa is named "Rex Anglorum" are of doubtful authenticity. They may represent later forgeries of the 10th century, when this title was standard for kings of England. The best evidence for Offa's use of this title comes from coins, not charters: there are some pennies with  inscribed, but it is not regarded as definite that this stood for "Offa Rex Anglorum."

In Anglo-Saxon England, Stenton argued that Offa was perhaps the greatest king of the English kingdoms, commenting that "no other Anglo-Saxon king ever regarded the world at large with so ... acute a political sense". Many historians regard Offa's achievements as second only to Alfred the Great among the Anglo-Saxon kings. Offa's reign has sometimes been regarded as a key stage in the transition to a unified England, but this is no longer the general view among historians in the field. In the words of Simon Keynes, "Offa was driven by a lust for power, not a vision of English unity; and what he left was a reputation, not a legacy." It is now believed that Offa thought of himself as "King of the Mercians," and that his military successes were part of the transformation of Mercia from an overlordship of midland peoples into a powerful and aggressive kingdom.Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 114.

Death and succession
Offa died on 29 July 796,Brown & Farr, Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom In Europe, p. 310 and may be buried in Bedford, though it is not clear that the "Bedeford" named in that charter was actually modern Bedford.Simon Keynes, "Cynethryth", in Lapidge, Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 133. He was succeeded by his son, Ecgfrith of Mercia, but according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Ecgfrith died after a reign of only 141 days. A letter written by Alcuin in 797 to a Mercian ealdorman named Osbert makes it apparent that Offa had gone to great lengths to ensure that his son Ecgfrith would succeed him. Alcuin's opinion is that Ecgfrith "has not died for his own sins; but the vengeance for the blood his father shed to secure the kingdom has reached the son. For you know very well how much blood his father shed to secure the kingdom on his son." It is apparent that in addition to Ecgfrith's consecration in 787, Offa had eliminated dynastic rivals. This seems to have backfired, from the dynastic point of view, as no close male relatives of Offa or Ecgfrith are recorded, and Coenwulf, Ecgfrith's successor, was only distantly related to Offa's line.

See also
 Offacolus Vitae duorum OffarumReferences

Sources
Primary sources

Secondary sources
 Abels, Richard, "Trinoda Necessitas", in
 Blackburn, Mark & Grierson, Philip, Medieval European Coinage.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, reprinted with corrections 2006.

 Featherstone, Peter, "The Tribal Hidage and the Ealdormen of Mercia", in

 Keynes, Simon, "Cynethryth", in
 idem, "Mercia", in
 idem, "Offa", in
 idem, "Mercia and Wessex in the Ninth Century", in

 Lapidge, Michael, "Alcuin of York", in

 Nelson, Janet, "Carolingian Contacts", in
 Stafford, Pauline, "Political Women in Mercia, Eighth to Early Tenth Centuries", in

 Williams, Gareth, "Mercian Coinage and Authority", in
 idem, "Military Institutions and Royal Power", in
 Wormald, Patrick, "The Age of Offa and Alcuin", in

 Worthington, Margaret, "Offa's Dyke", in
 eadem, "Wat's Dyke", in

External links

8th-century births
796 deaths
8th-century English monarchs
Anglo-Saxon warriors
East Anglian monarchs
Mercian monarchs
Iclingas

Offa of Mercia


A confier cone (or pine cone) is an organ on plants in the division Pinophyta (conifers) that contains the reproductive structures. It is the part of a tree that lets the tree reproduce. Its formal name in botany is strobilus, plural strobili.

The familiar woody cone is the female cone, which produces seeds. The male cones, which produce pollen, are usually smaller and much less conspicuous even at full maturity. The individual plates of a cone are known as scales.

The male cone (microstrobilus or pollen cone) is structurally similar across all conifers, differing only in small ways (mostly in scale arrangement) from species to species. Extending out from a central axis are microsporophylls (modified leaves). Under each microsporophyll is one or several microsporangia (pollen sacs).

Conifer cones and their seeds have been used for lots of different purposes. They are often used for decorations. Some seeds, for example, the seeds of pinyon pines, are used in prepared foods and baking.

Most mature cones are closed when wet and open when dry. In a few species, it takes fire to open the cones.

References

Conifers

Conifer cone


Paul Jacques de Lamerie (9 April 1688 – 1 August 1751) was a London-based silversmith. The Victoria and Albert Museum describes him as the "greatest silversmith working in England in the 18th century". He was being referred to as the "King's silversmith" in 1717. Though his mark raises the market value of silver, his output was large and not all his pieces are outstanding. The volume of work bearing de Lamerie's mark makes it almost certain that he subcontracted orders to other London silversmiths before applying his own mark.

Early and private life
De Lamerie was born in 's-Hertogenbosch in the United Provinces (now the Netherlands). He was the son of a minor French nobleman, Paul Souchay de la Merie, a Huguenot who left France following the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685. His father became an officer in the army of William III of Orange and moved to London in 1689 during the Glorious Revolution, but died a pauper in 1735.

He married Louisa Juliott on 11 February 1717. They had two sons and four daughters together; three daughters survived.

Paul de Lamerie died in London and was buried at St Anne's Church, Soho. There is a memorial plaque at the site of his workshop, 40 Gerrard Street, which was unveiled on 16 January 1992.

Career

In August 1703, de Lamerie became the apprentice to a London goldsmith of Huguenot origin, Pierre Platel (1659–1739). De Lamerie opened his own workshop in 1713 and was appointed goldsmith to George I in 1716. He worked in partnership with Ellis Gamble - formerly apprentice to Master William Hogarth - between 1723 and 1728. His early work is in the simple Queen Anne-styles, following classical French models, but de Lamerie is noted for his elaborate Rococo style of the 1730s, particularly the richly decorated works of an unidentified craftsman, the Maynard Master.

Leaving his first premises in Great Windmill Street he moved to 40 Gerrard Street in 1738. Here he lived and probably had his shop, his workshops being in one of the 48 properties he owned in the area.

His customers included Tsarinas Anna and Catherine, Count Aleksey Bobrinsky, Sir Robert Walpole, the Earl of Ilchester, the Earl of Thanet, Viscount Tyrconnel, the Duke of Bedford, and other members of the English aristocracy.  He also worked for King John V of Portugal before losing favour to the Germains of Paris. One of his productions to the Portuguese Court was a huge solid silver bath tub lost in the great 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

He served on Goldsmiths' Company committees although never became Prime Warden.  He also served as Captain and then Major in the Westminster Volunteers.

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has the Treby toilet service (29 pieces, London, 1724–1725).

A two-handled silver cup and cover by Paul de Lamerie, dated 1720, was among the wedding gifts of Queen Elizabeth II.

Lawsuit

Famously, in 1722 a chimney sweep's boy sued de Lamerie after he found a jewel and took it to de Lamerie's shop to have it valued. When the boy asked for the jewel back, de Lamerie's apprentice only returned the socket of the jewel and not the stones. The King's Bench held that even though the boy did not have absolute ownership of the jewel, the boy had the right to keep it against all but the rightful owner. De Lamerie was ordered to return the jewel or pay the boy its value. His name was misspelled by the court reporter.

See also
 Harache family

References

Bibliography
Philippa Glanville, "Lamerie, Paul Jacques de (1688–1751)", rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed
Ellenor Alcorn, Beyond the Maker's Mark: Paul de Lamerie Silver in the Cahn Collection, Cambridge: John Adamson 2006  .
John F. Hayward, Huguenot Silver in England, 1688—1727. London 1959.
P.A.S. Phillips, Paul de Lamerie, London 1935.

External links

Paul de Lamerie
http://www.christies.com/features/2010-may-the-greatest-goldsmith-732-1.aspx
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/the-four-georges-notes-on-english-domestic-silver/

1688 births
1751 deaths
Burials at St Anne's Church, Soho
English goldsmiths
English silversmiths
Huguenots

Paul de Lamerie


Relient K is an American band from Ohio. Their music has been considered Pop punk and Christian rock. They have released five studio albums and several EPs. Their album "The Bird and the Bee Sides" was released in July 2 2008.

There has been criticism about whether the band are in the Christian music genre. Not all the songs mention God or focus on Christian faith. Matt Thiessen has said "we really don't care, you can call us rock 'n roll or Christian rock or whatever, and we can tour with this band or that band, but at the end of the day, we're doing what we want, and writing from our hearts".

Formation and other information
Relient K formed as a four member band back in 1998. At the time they were still attending high school. The members have changed a little since then, but the two Matthews are still there.

The song "Hoopes I did It Again", from their third album, may remind one of Britney Spears, but it's referring to Matt Hoopes' last name. In the song, during the first verse, the two Matts sing back to each other as if in a phone conversation.

For their fourth album, titled "Mmhmm", they added instruments like a banjo and another guitar player, because they wanted more piano in their music, and the addition of another guitar player made this possible for Matt. It can be pronounced different ways, and can also be written as "MMHMM" or "MmHmm".

Sense of humor
Relient K is known for their brand of tongue-in cheek humor. Tongue-in-cheek meaning when words are said only half seriously. They used this in many of their earlier songs such as "Marilyn Manson Ate My Girlfriend" "Nancy Drew" (a song about the fictional character) and "May the Horse Be With You" (which clearly plays on the popular Star Wars phrase).

Their second album was indeed titled "The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek" although you could argue the third album used more humor.

Albums
 Relient K - 2000
 The Anatomy of Tongue in Cheek - 2001
 Two Lefts Don't Make a Right, but Three Do - 2003
 Mmhmm - 2004
 Five Score and Seven Years Ago - 2007
 The Bird and the Bee Sides - 2008
 Forget and Not Slow Down - 2009

EP
 2000 A.DD - 2000
 The Creepy EP - 2001
 Employee of the Month - 2002
 Apathetic EP - 2005

Other albums
 The Bird and the Bee Sides - 2008

American rock bands
American punk bands
Pop punk bands
Christian rock bands
Musical groups from Ohio
People from Canton, Ohio
2000s American music groups

Relient K


A computer is a device that can be instructit tae cairy oot arbitrar sequences o arithmetic or logical operations automatically. The abeelity o computers tae follae generalised sets o operations, cried programs, enables them tae perform an extremely wide range o tasks.

Sic computers are used as control seestems for a verra wide variety o industrial an consumer devices. This includes semple special purpose devices lik microwave uivens an remote controls, factory devices sic as industrial robots an computer assistit design, but an aa in general purpose devices lik personal computers an mobile devices sic as smairtphones. The Internet is run on computers an it connects millions o ither computers.

Syne auncient times, semple manual devices lik the abacus aidit fowk in daein calculations. Early in the Industrial Revolution, some mechanical devices war biggit tae automate lang tedisome tasks, sic as guidin paiterns for luims. Mair sophisticatit electrical machines did specialised analogue calculations in the early 20t century. The first deegital electronic calculatin machines war developed in Warld War II. The speed, pouer, an versatility o computers haes increased conteenuously an dramatically syne then.

Conventionally, a modren computer consists o at least ane processin element, teepically a central processin unit (CPU), an some form o memory. The processin element cairies out arithmetic an logical operations, an a sequencin an control unit can chynge the order o operations in response tae stored information. Peripheral devices include input devices (keybuirds, mice, joystick, etc.), ootput devices (monitor screens, prenters, etc.), an input/ootput devices that perform baith functions (e.g., the 2000s-era titchscreen). Peripheral devices allou information tae be retrieved frae a freemit soorce an thay enable the result o operations tae be saufit an retrieved.

Computer


The Sudans (also known as the two Sudans or just Sudan) is a region in Northeast Africa comprising the sovereign countries of Sudan and South Sudan. Until 2011, the region was united under a state known as the Republic of the Sudan.

Geography

The Sudans are situated in northern/northeastern Africa, with a  coastline bordering the Red Sea. Possessing an area of , the two countries, if taken together, would be the largest country in Africa (a status they lost to Algeria when South Sudan became independent on 9 July 2011) and the fifteenth largest in the world. The Sudans lie mostly between latitudes 3° and 22°N (the Wadi Halfa Salient and disputed Hala'ib triangle are north of 22°), and longitudes 21° and 39°E.

The terrain is generally flat plains, broken by several mountain ranges; in the west the Jebel Marra is the highest range; in the south is the highest mountain, Mount Kinyeti Imatong (), near the border with Uganda; in the east are the Red Sea Hills.

The Blue and White Nile rivers meet in Khartoum to form the River Nile, which flows northwards through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea. The Blue Nile's course through the Sudans is nearly  long and is joined by the Dinder and Rahad Rivers between Sennar and Khartoum. The White Nile within the Sudans has no significant tributaries.

The amount of rainfall increases towards the south. In the north there is the very dry Nubian Desert; in the south there are grasslands and tropical savanna. The Sudans' rainy season lasts for about four months (June to September) in the north, and up to six months (May to October) in the south. The dry regions are plagued by sandstorms, known as haboob, which can completely block out the Sun. In the northern and western semi-desert areas, people rely on the scant rainfall for basic agriculture and many are nomadic, travelling with their herds of sheep and camels. Nearer the River Nile, there are well-irrigated farms growing cash crops.

There are several dams on the Blue and White Niles. Among them are the Sennar and Roseires Dams on the Blue Nile, and the Jebel Aulia Dam on the White Nile. There is also Lake Nubia on the Sudanese-Egyptian border.

Rich mineral resources are available in the Sudans including:

Asbestos
Chromite
Cobalt
Copper
Gold
Granite
Gypsum
Iron
Kaolin
Lead
Manganese
Mica
Natural Gas
Nickel
Petroleum
Silver
Tin
Uranium
Zinc

Desertification is a serious problem in the Sudans. There is also concern over soil erosion. Agricultural expansion, both public and private, has proceeded without conservation measures. The consequences have manifested themselves in the form of deforestation, soil desiccation, and the lowering of soil fertility and the water table.

The nation's wildlife is threatened by hunting. As of 2001, twenty-one mammal species and nine bird species are endangered, as well as two species of plants. endangered species include: the waldrapp, northern white rhinoceros, tora hartebeest, slender-horned gazelle, and hawksbill turtle. The Sahara oryx has become extinct in the wild.

In May 2007, it was announced that hundreds of wild elephants had been located on a previously unknown, treeless island in the Sudd swampland region of (then) southern Sudan. The exact location was being kept secret to protect the animals from poachers.

See also
South Sudan–Sudan relations

References

Geography of South Sudan
Geography of Sudan

The Sudans


SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash is a series of SNK Playmore games between 1999 and 2006 for hand-held consoles. It is a digital collectible card game, spun off from the popular series of fighting games by SNK and Capcom, and also including references to many other kinds of games from both companies. The game uses cards based on Capcom and SNK characters from a variety of earlier games. The first two versions of this game were released for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, and a new version for the Nintendo DS was released in 2007.

SVC: Card Fighters' Clash

The first game in the series, released in 1999 for the Neo Geo Pocket Color handheld console, was the first crossover between SNK and Capcom. Characters in the game are illustrated in the super deformed art style. There are two complementary versions of the game: the SNK version and the Capcom version. Each version of the game has a different starting deck and different exclusive cards that can be obtained, but the gameplay remains the same, with card battles resembling a somewhat simplified version of Magic: The Gathering, in which a maximum of three "creatures" (i.e. fighters) are allowed in each player's field at any given moment and there is no mana to be spent to place them in the field (there are, however, Special Points, SP for short, which are gained as fighters are placed in the field and spent as the players use Action Cards—this game's equivalent of Enchantments—or combined attacks). Both versions were later re-released as part of Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2 in 2022.

SVC: Card Fighters 2 Expand Edition

This Japan-only sequel to SVC: Card Fighters' Clash was released in 2001 for the Neo Geo Pocket Color after Capcom vs. SNK 2. In addition to the 240 character and 60 action cards from the first game, 124 new cards are added, adding cast from Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Samurai Shodown: Warriors Rage, The King of Fighters '99 and 2000 for SNK, and Project Justice, Mega Man Legends, Dino Crisis and Onimusha for Capcom, while also including 40 Reaction cards that can be used during the opponent's attack. Another new feature is special character cards with alternate versions of various characters depicted with regular artwork instead of the super deformed style. Instead of being released as two versions (SNK and Capcom), this game was released as a single version that lets the players decide to either start with a SNK deck or a Capcom deck. It was the last game to be released for the Neo Geo Pocket Color in Japan.  A fan translation for the game exists.

SVC: Card Fighters DS

Release
This Nintendo DS game was released on December 14, 2006, in Japan and was released on April 24, 2007, in the United States. In addition, there are key features:
ADK characters were added to the SNK side, from games like Aggressors of Dark Kombat, Ninja Master's -Haoh-Ninpo-Cho- and the World Heroes series.
 Many newcomers have been added from recent games produced by both companies, such as Capcom's Dante and Phoenix Wright as well as SNK's Yuki and Nagase.
 Power Stone characters are absent from the game.

Game-breaking bug
Almost immediately after the American NDS version was released, an unavoidable bug was discovered in the game. The bug occurs on the ninth floor of the tower, during the second play through. The game crashes after talking to an opponent named Jon, who has to be defeated in order to finish the game. On June 6, SNK announced that the replacement cartridge would be available in stores on June 25 and began the process of implementing a recall. These cartridges have been sent by mail along with a package of five King of Fighters trading cards. The recall ended in January 2008. Fixed versions of the game features a black and white graphic behind the title font on the cartridge's label, while bugged versions feature the label in full color. The other versions of the game did not contain the above-mentioned glitch.

Reception

The game was mostly poorly received. Eurogamer said it was "broken in the literal sense of not working as sold and, as such, must be scored appropriately. That the game underneath the bodged localisation is also, figuratively, a broken shell of what it once was and absolutely nowhere near as good as it should have been, is more than anything, deeply, deeply sad." IGN said it was "Without a doubt one of the biggest letdowns thus far on DS." Game Revolution said that the game "takes everything I remember about playing tradable card games, highlights the bad parts, and then breaks." Famicom Tsūshin scored the game a 25 out of 40.

References

Further reading

External links
Archive of the Snk vs Capcom: Card Fighters official website
Archive of the Snk vs Capcom: Card Fighters 2 Expand Edition official website
SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash DS official website
Card Fighters Project website
SNK Vs. Capcom Card Fighters' Clash 2 Expand Edition English translation

1999 video games
Capcom franchises
SNK vs. Capcom
Neo Geo Pocket Color games
Nintendo DS games
Nintendo DS-only games
SNK franchises
SNK games
SNK Playmore games
Video game franchises
Crossover video games
Digital collectible card games
Video games developed in Japan

SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash


Trier was one of the three Regierungsbezirke of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, located in the west of the state.

The region was created in 1815 as part of the Prussian Rhineland. Until 1920 the bulk of what then became the Territory of Saar Basin was part of the Trier Region. Only the east of the Saar Territory, today's Saar-Palatinate district, formerly the western fringes of the then Bavarian Rhenish Palatinate, was previously no part of the Trier Region. In April 1937 the St. Wendel-Baumholder district, formed in 1920 from those parts of the St. Wendel district that had not been seceded to the Saar Territory, was dissected from the Trier Region and merged in the new Birkenfeld district within the Koblenz Region.

After the Second World War the French military government several times extended the Saar area before forming the Saar Protectorate, also including additional 109 municipalities belonging until July 1946 to the Trier Region and some to the Koblenz Region. Koblenz Region's former areas make up part of today's St. Wendel district in the Saarland. In December 1946, when a new customs boundary dissected the Saar Protectorate (later becoming the Saarland) from the area under the Allied Control Council over Allied-occupied Germany, the Trier Region with its then remaining territory had become one of the then five regions forming the new state of Rhineland-Palatinate, founded in August 1946. Later, the French occupation government again redeployed some municipalities – some returned to Allied-occupied Germany, some newly annexed to the protectorate – between the Saar area and the new state of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1947 and 1949, before the border was finally fixed.

Since 2000, the employees and assets of the Bezirksregierungen (i.e. regional administrations) form the Aufsichts- und Dienstleistungsdirektion Trier (ADD; Supervisory and Service Directorate Trier) and the Struktur- und Genehmigungsdirektionen (SGD; Structural and Approval Directorates) Nord in Koblenz and Süd in Neustadt (Weinstraße). These administrations execute their authority over the whole state, i. e. the ADD Trier oversees all schools.

Kreise(districts)
 Bernkastel-Wittlich
 Bitburg-Prüm
 Vulkaneifel
 Trier-Saarburg

''Kreisfreie Städte''(district-free towns)
 Trier

Geography of Rhineland-Palatinate
Former states and territories of Rhineland-Palatinate
Government regions of Prussia
History of Saarland
States and territories disestablished in 2000
States and territories established in 1815
History of the Rhineland
1815 establishments in Prussia
Former government regions of Germany

Trier (region)


Jim Earl is a stage and radio comedian, comedy writer, musician and cartoonist from California.

Earl received a degree in Art History from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1984, and then he began his comedy career in the stand-up comedy team of "Lank and Earl" with his high-school friend Barry Lank. He later became a writer for The Daily Show, winning the 2001 Emmy Award for "Outstanding Writing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Program" and a 2000 Peabody award. After leaving the show, he wrote and performed for a number of Air America Radio's radio shows: The Randi Rhodes Show, Unfiltered with Lizz Winstead, The Rachel Maddow Radio Show, and Morning Sedition, where he performed his regular bits: "War on Brains", "Rapture Watch", "Morning Remembrance", "Sammy the Stem Cell", "Todd Brad: Policy Analyst", and "The 5 W's Plus 3 of Journalism." His comedy for the former show is now available for download on his own site, jimearl.com. Upon returning to California, Earl reunited with a former Morning Sedition host, Marc Maron, on The Marc Maron Show, which premiered on Air America Radio on February 28, 2006, and had its last show on July 14, 2006.

In December 2006, Earl went on to become head writer for the Friday ITch, a "comedy-news program for nerds", broadcast on Techweb.com. In 2007, Jim also became a staff writer for "Talkshow with Spike Feresten" on Fox TV.

Jim is currently a featured performer on both Marc Maron's podcast, WTF, and David Feldman's podcast David Feldman Show, where he regularly performs with his band, The Clutter Family. Their eponymous debut was released in April 2010.

References

External links
Jim Earl's personal web site, jimearl.com

American cartoonists
American male comedians
21st-century American comedians
Place of birth missing (living people)
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Peabody Award winners
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Writers from California
American male television writers
American television writers
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
American comedy writers

Jim Earl


Arnold Rothstein (January 17, 1882 – November 6, 1928), nicknamed "The Brain", was an American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler who became a kingpin of the Jewish mob in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletics, including conspiring to fix the 1919 World Series. He was also a mentor of future crime bosses Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Bugsy Siegel and numerous others.

Rothstein "transformed organized crime from a thuggish activity by hoodlums into a big business run like a corporation", and gained notoriety as the person who first realized that Prohibition was a business opportunity, a means to enormous wealth, who "understood the truths of early 20th century capitalism (giving people what they want) and came to dominate them". His notoriety inspired several fictional characters based on his life, portrayed in contemporary and later short stories, novels, musical theater productions, television shows and films, including the character Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby.

Rothstein refused to pay a large debt resulting from a fixed poker game and was murdered in 1928. His illegal empire was broken up and distributed among a number of other underworld organizations and led in part to the downfall of Tammany Hall and the rise of reformer Fiorello La Guardia. Ten years after his death, his brother declared Rothstein's estate was insolvent.

Early life and education
Arnold Rothstein was born into a comfortable life in Manhattan, the son of an affluent Ashkenazi Jewish businessman, Abraham Rothstein, and his wife, Esther. His father was a man of upright character, who had acquired the nickname "Abe the Just". Arnold was highly skilled at mathematics, but was otherwise uninterested in school. His older brother studied to become a rabbi.

Rothstein was known to be a difficult child, and he harbored a deep envy of his older brother, Harry. Rothstein's father believed that his son always craved to be the center of attention and would often get frustrated when he was not.

As a child, Rothstein began to indulge in gambling, but no matter how often his father scolded him for shooting dice, Rothstein would not stop. In 1921, Rothstein was asked how he became a gambler, "I always gambled. I can't remember when I didn't. Maybe I gambled just to show my father he couldn't tell me what to do, but I don't think so.  I think I gambled because I loved the excitement. When I gambled, nothing else mattered."

Illegitimate career

By 1910, Rothstein, at age 28, had moved to the Tenderloin section of Manhattan, where he established an important casino. He also invested in a horse racing track at Havre de Grace, Maryland, where he was reputed to have fixed many of the races that he won.

Rothstein had a wide network of informants, very deep pockets from some among his father's banking community associates, and the willingness to pay a premium for good information, regardless of the source. His successes made him a millionaire by age 30.

1919 World Series

There is a great deal of evidence both for and against Rothstein being involved in the 1919 World Series fix. In 1919, Rothstein's agents allegedly paid members of the Chicago White Sox to "throw", (i.e. intentionally lose), the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. He bet against them and made a significant profit in what was called the "Black Sox Scandal".

He was summoned to Chicago to testify before a grand jury investigation of the incident; Rothstein said that he was an innocent businessman, intent on clearing his name and his reputation. Prosecutors could find no evidence linking Rothstein to the affair, and he was never indicted. Rothstein testified:

In another version of the story, Rothstein was first approached by Joseph "Sport" Sullivan, a gambler, who suggested Rothstein help fix the World Series. Rothstein supposedly refused Sullivan's proposal but when he received Attell's offer, Rothstein reconsidered Sullivan's first offer. He figured that the competition to fix the game made it worth the risk to get involved and still be able to conceal his involvement. David Pietrusza's biography of Rothstein suggested that the gangster worked both ends of the fix with Sullivan and Attell. Michael Alexander concluded that Attell fixed the Series "probably without Arnold Rothstein's approval", which "did not prevent Rothstein from betting on the Series with inside knowledge".

Leo Katcher said that "all the records and minutes of the Grand Jury disappeared. So, too, did the signed confessions of Cicotte, Williams and Jackson.... The state, virtually all of its evidence gone, sought to get the players to repeat their confession on the stand. This they refused to do, citing the Fifth Amendment." Eventually, the judge had no choice but to dismiss the case. Katcher went on, "Thus, on the official record and on the basis of [State Attorney Maclay] Hoyne's statement, Rothstein was never involved in the fixing of the Series. Also, on the official record, it was never proved that the Series had been fixed." Despite the legal case against the ballplayer defendants being dismissed, all eight White Sox players named as trial defendants were permanently  banned from playing or participating as coaches in Major League Baseball (MLB) by the newly named first Commissioner of Major League Baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Despite all his denials, though, Katcher noted that "while Rothstein won the Series, he won a small sum. He always maintained it was less than $100,000. It actually was about $350,000. It could have been much – very much – more. It wasn't because Rothstein chickened out. A World Series fix was too good to be true – even if it was true."

1921 Travers Stakes
Under the pseudonym "Redstone Stable", Rothstein owned a racehorse named Sporting Blood, which won the 1921 Travers Stakes under suspicious circumstances. Rothstein allegedly conspired with a leading trainer, Sam Hildreth, to drive up the odds on Sporting Blood. Hildreth entered an outstanding three-year-old, Grey Lag, on the morning of the race, causing the odds on Sporting Blood, to rise to 3–1. Rothstein bet $150,000 through bookmakers, allegedly having been informed that the second favorite, Prudery, was off her feed. Just before post time and without explanation, Hildreth scratched Grey Lag from the starting list. Rothstein collected over $500,000 in bets plus the purse, but a conspiracy was never proven.

Prohibition and organized crime
With the advent of Prohibition, Rothstein saw the opportunities for business; he diversified into bootlegging and narcotics. Liquor was brought in by smuggling along the Hudson River, as well as from Canada across the Great Lakes and into upstate New York. Rothstein also purchased holdings in a number of speakeasies. Later he became the first to illegally import Scotch whisky in his own fleet of trans-Atlantic freighters. He knew that high-end booze would be the "chic thing to have."

With his banking support and high-level political connections, Rothstein soon managed to end-run Tammany Hall to the street gangs. Subsequently, his criminal organization included such underworld notables as Meyer Lansky, Jack "Legs" Diamond, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, and Dutch Schultz, whose combined gangs and double-dealing with their own respective bosses subverted the entire late 19th-century form of political gangsterism. Rothstein's various nicknames were Mr. Big, The Fixer, The Man Uptown, The Big Bankroll, and The Brain.

Rothstein frequently mediated disputes among the New York gangs and reportedly charged a hefty fee for his services. His favorite "office" was Lindy's, at Broadway and 49th Street in Manhattan. He often stood on the corner surrounded by his bodyguards and did business on the street. Rothstein made bets and collected debts from those who had lost the previous day. Meanwhile, he exploited his role as mediator with the city's legitimate business world and soon forced Tammany Hall to recognize him as a necessary ally in its administration of the city. Many historians credit him as the first successful modern drug dealer.

By 1925, Rothstein was one of the most powerful criminals in the country and had forged a large criminal empire. For a time he was the largest bootlegger in the nation, until the rise of George Remus. With a reported wealth of over $10 million (equivalent to $150 million in 2019) Rothstein was one of the wealthiest gangsters in US history, and is widely considered to be one of the founding fathers of organized crime in the United States.

Death
On November 4, 1928, Rothstein was shot and wounded during a business meeting at Manhattan's Park Central Hotel at Seventh Avenue near 55th Street. He died two days later at the New York Polyclinic Hospital in Manhattan.

The shooting was reportedly linked to debts owed from a three-day-long, high-stakes poker game in October, for which Rothstein owed $320,000 (equivalent to $ million in ). He claimed the game was fixed and refused to pay. The murder was intended to punish Rothstein for failing to pay his debt. Gambler George "Hump" McManus was arrested for homicide, but later acquitted for lack of evidence.

According to Kevin Cook, author of Titanic Thompson, the poker game was fixed by gambler Titanic Thompson (born Alvin Clarence Thomas) and his associate, Nate Raymond. Due to some complicated side bets, by the end Rothstein owed $319,000 to Raymond (much of which Raymond, by secret agreement, was to pass on to Thompson); $30,000 to Thompson; and about $200,000 to the other gamblers present. McManus owed Rothstein $51,000. Rothstein stalled for time, saying that he would not be able to pay until after the elections of November 1928, when he expected to win $550,000 for successfully backing Herbert Hoover for president and Franklin D. Roosevelt for governor. Thompson testified at McManus' trial, describing him as "a swell loser" who would never have shot Rothstein. According to Cook, Thompson later told some of his acquaintances that the killer had not been McManus, but rather his "bag man", Hyman Biller, who fled to Cuba shortly afterwards.Ironically had Rothstein lived he would have won his last bet as Hoover and FDR did win the 1928 elections.

In his book Kill the Dutchman!, a biography of Dutch Schultz published in 1971, the crime reporter Paul Sann suggested that Schultz murdered Rothstein. He says this was in retaliation for the murder of Schultz's friend and associate Joey Noe by Rothstein's protégé Jack "Legs" Diamond.

On his deathbed, Rothstein refused to identify his shooter, answering police inquiries with "You stick to your trade. I'll stick to mine", and "Me mudder (my mother) did it." Rothstein was buried at Ridgewood's Union Field Cemetery.

Break-up of empire
At the time of Rothstein's death, Prohibition was in full swing, various street gangs were battling for control of the liquor distribution and the carefully constructed political boss structure of the late 19th century was in total collapse. Frank Erickson, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel and other former associates split up Rothstein's various "enterprises" after his death. With Rothstein's death, the corrupt and already-weakened Tammany Hall was critically wounded because it had relied on Rothstein to control the street gangs. With Tammany Hall's fall, reformer Fiorello La Guardia rose in prominence and was elected Mayor of New York City in 1933.

Ten years after his death, Harry Rothstein, Arnold's brother, declared Rothstein's estate insolvent and Arnold's wealth disappeared.

In popular culture

Theater
 In 1930, Rothstein's girlfriend, Inez Norton, to whom he had left a substantial sum in his will, appeared in the Broadway play, "Room 349," by Mark Lindner, which claimed to represent the actual circumstances surrounding his murder.

Literature
 Rothstein is referred to as "The Brain" in several of Damon Runyon's short stories, including a fictional version of his death in "The Brain Goes Home". As a newspaper reporter, Runyon came to know Rothstein personally and later covered the trial of his alleged killer. According to historian David Pietrusza, Rothstein was also the inspiration for the character Nathan Detroit, who appears in the short story "Blood Pressure" as well as the musical Guys and Dolls.
 In the novel The Great Gatsby, Meyer Wolfsheim is a Jewish friend and mentor of Jay Gatsby, described as a gambler who fixed the World Series. The character is commonly assumed to be an allusion to Rothstein.

Film and television
 In the 1930 film Street of Chance, William Powell played a gambler who is shot after cheating in a poker game. The film was widely recognized as being based on the murder of Arnold Rothstein.
 With the fictional name of Murray Golden, he was portrayed by Spencer Tracy in the 1934 film Now I'll Tell, loosely based on the autobiography of wife and widow Carolyn Green Rothstein (or "Mrs. Arnold Rothstein," as the film's title card reads).
 He was portrayed in the 1960 film The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond by actor Robert Lowery.
 In the 1961 film The Big Bankroll (a.k.a. King of the Roaring Twenties: The Story of Arnold Rothstein) by David Janssen.
 In a deleted scene from the 1974 Academy Award for Best Picture winner The Godfather Part II, supporting character Hyman Roth is introduced to Vito Corleone, who suggests that he change his name, which was originally Hyman Suchowsky. When Vito asks him whom he admires, Suchowsky says Arnold Rothstein, for having fixed the 1919 World Series; accordingly, he changes his last name to Roth.
 In the 1981 film Gangster Wars and series The Gangster Chronicles by George DiCenzo.
 In the 1988 sports drama film Eight Men Out by Michael Lerner.
 In the 1991 film Mobsters by F. Murray Abraham.
 In the 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino the protagonist, Sam "Ace" Rothstein, was named for Arnold Rothstein but modeled on real-life sports bettor and fixer Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal.
 In the 1999 biopic Lansky by Stanley DeSantis.
 In the HBO series Boardwalk Empire by Michael Stuhlbarg.

Associates
 Waxey Gordon – worked as a rum-runner for Rothstein during the first years of Prohibition.
 Harry "Nig" Rosen – involved in narcotics with Rothstein during the mid-1920s.
Lucky Luciano – viewed to have been mentored by Rothstein, who supported him early on in his career as a racketeer and taught him how to be a full-fledged kingpin. They are both among New York's most notorious gangster kingpins, and both are directly responsible for the modernization and subsequent public obsession with American organized crime.
Meyer Lansky – along with partner Luciano, he was somewhat mentored by Rothstein during Prohibition. Both Jewish Mafia members, they were instrumental in the rise and glorification of modern American organized crime.
Alfred Loewenstein, Belgian financier, with whom Rothstein allegedly had a deal to supply America with European made heroin.
Enoch "Nucky" Johnson – business partners during the bootlegging boom of the Roaring Twenties.

See also
Fuller case
Hofstadter Committee
List of unsolved murders (1900–1979)

References

Sources

Further reading
 Alexander, Michael (2003). Jazz Age Jews, Princeton University Press,
 Cohen, Rich (1999). Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams, London: Vintage
 Henderson Clarke, Donald (1929). In the Reign of Rothstein, New York: The Vanguard Press.
 Katcher, Leo (1959/1994). The Big Bankroll. The Life and Times of Arnold Rothstein, New York: Da Capo Press
 Pietrusza, David (2003). Rothstein: The Life, Times and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series, New York: Carroll & Graf.
 Rothstein, Carolyn (with Donald Henderson Clarke) (1934), Now I'll Tell, New York: Vantage Press.
 Tosches, Nick (2005). King of the Jews. The Arnold Rothstein Story, London: Hamish Hamilton

External links

 Victoria Vanderveer, "Arnold Rothstein and the 1919 World Series Fix"
 "Arnold Rothstein", Biography Jewish Virtual Library
 Daniel A. Nathan, "The Big Fix: Arnold Rothstein rigged the 1919 World Series. Or did he?", Legal Affairs, March – April 2004
 Arnold Rothstein Death
  Review of David Pietrusza, Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series, Jewish Daily Forward, October 31, 2003

 Edward Dean Sullivan, "The Real Truth about Rothstein!" True Detective Mysteries, (October 1930) pp. 20–26, 76–80.

1882 births
1928 deaths
1928 murders in the United States
American crime bosses
Jewish American gangsters
Prohibition-era gangsters
Male murder victims
Murdered Jewish American gangsters
Criminals from New York City
Match fixers
People murdered in New York City
Deaths by firearm in Manhattan
Burials in Queens, New York, by place
Unsolved murders in the United States
Criminals from Manhattan
American Ashkenazi Jews

Arnold Rothstein


Bleaker Island () is one of the Falkland Islands, lying off south east Lafonia (the southern peninsula of East Falkland). The name is a corruption of "Breaker Island" due to the waves that break on it. It was also known as "Long Island" at one point.

Geography
Bleaker Island is long, narrow and low-lying and the southern tip of the Island is separated from Lafonia by a thin stretch of water named 'The Jump'.  It has an area of  and is  long.  The island is no wider than   at any point and tapers to several thin necks of land at various points down its length.  The highest point is Semaphore Hill, at .  The western shores of Bleaker Island are low-lying and fringed by shallow stone beaches.  The east coast of the island is characterised by low cliffs, interspersed with sand and pebble beaches and gulches and is directly exposed to the Atlantic Ocean.  The island has several large ponds and the most impressive beach is the  'Sandy Bay'.

History
Bleaker Island has been a sheep farm for over a hundred years. The island was managed by Arthur Cobb, a locally well-known agriculturalist and amateur naturalist, in the early 20th century who wrote a book on the subject, containing forty six of his own black and white photographs.

The low aspect of the Island resulted in many ship-wrecks off the Island in the 19th and 20th centuries.  There were five ship-wrecks on Bleaker Island in the first quarter of the 20th century.  The most famous of these was the French tall ship 'Cassard' wrecked on the southern tip of the Island carrying a cargo of coal in May 1906.

The Island has been run as an organic sheep and cattle farm by Mike and Phyll Rendell since 1999, and has the small Bleaker Island Settlement located on an isthmus in the centre of its length. They built a self-catering cottage, "Cobb's Cottage", and a house there in 2000 called "The Outlook", and in 2011 they added a new house, called "Cassard House". They employ a farming couple who live there.

Wildlife
The northern half of Bleaker Island is a National Nature Reserve – being designated in 1967.  A total of 79 species of flowering plant have been identified on Bleaker Island.  Flora includes the yellow and dog orchid, and lady's slipper.  A stretch of several kilometres of the east coast is vegetated by stands of tussac grass.  The island is home to a wide variety of wildlife including southern sea lions with some visiting southern elephant seals.

Norway rats were accidentally introduced to the island in the 1980s. They have now spread throughout the island and onto First, Second and Third Islands. Overgrazing was a problem but reduced grazing pressure is helping the slow regeneration of tussac and native flowering plants.

Birds
The Bleaker Island group has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area.  A survey identified 49 bird species on the islands, 37 of which were confirmed as breeding there.  Breeding species include rockhopper, Magellanic and gentoo penguins, king and rock cormorants, many small bird species and several birds of prey, including striated and crested caracaras.

References

External links
Survey of Bleaker Island birds
Pictures from Bleaker Island
Bleaker Island website

Islands of the Falkland Islands
Important Bird Areas of the Falkland Islands

Bleaker Island


In Christianity, one way people think of God is as a being that made everything and lives forever. The Christian Bible speaks of God as one who is, who speaks, who sees, hears, acts, and loves. Christians believe that God has a will and is a kind, all powerful being.

Some Christians believe God to be immanent (with and inside all things). Others believe he will be immanent later. Most believe he is also transcendent (outside space and time, so he is unable to be changed by forces inside the universe).

Trinitarians see the Christian God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They say that God is one being that lives forever, who is inside and beyond nature. All Christian denominations say that God is personal to humans and to himself. Most of the Christians believe that God is a spirit.

Names for God

In the Bible, God has the personal name Yahweh (or YHWH).

God seen by people

God is not seen often by people in the Bible.

God is seen:

By Adam and Eve to give them rules
By Adam and Eve to punish them for breaking the rules
By Moses as a burning bush
By Moses as a pillar of flames

Referencing

Christian theology

God in Christianity


An iteration is a step where some action is repeated again and again. In everyday life, an iteration is simply a repeated action, for example when someone says, "Do I have to reiterate myself?". In this case, the reiteration is what the person said and might say again. In computer science, an iteration is one run through a block of code that is repeated multiple times. In fractal geometry, an iteration is one application of the set of rules of the fractal to create another stage of the fractal. it is also used in computer programming.

Related pages
Recursion

Computer programming

Iteration


Qualitative analysis is a field of analytical chemistry.  It uses chemical reactions to find out what an unknown chemical substance is.  Qualitative chemistry is used in many jobs.  It is very useful for testing for drugs and poisons.

Many reactions are used in qualitative chemistry.  For example, fire can be used to learn what metals are in the compound.  The scientist would know what metal was in an unknown compound by the color of the flame.

Qualitative chemistry is in contrast with Quantitative chemistry.  "Qualitative" refers to what is present, while "quantitative" refers to how much is present.

Analytical chemistry

Qualitative analysis


The Chishtī Order  or Chishtiyya 'is a Sufi order or school within the mystic tradition of Islam. It began in Chisht, a small town near Herat, Afghanistan in  about 930 AD. The Order is known for its emphasis on love, tolerance, and openness.

The order was founded by Abu Ishaq Shami ("the Syrian") who taught Sufism in the town of Chisht, some 95 miles east of Herat in present-day western Afghanistan.

The Chishti Order is mostly followed in Afghanistan and South Asia. It was the first of the four main Sufi orders (Chishti, Qadiriyya, Suhrawardiyya and Naqshbandi) to be established in this region. Moin-ud-din Chishti was a medieval saint who first introduced the Chishti Order in Lahore (Punjab) and Ajmer (Rajasthan),  in the early or middle of the 12th century AD. From these places it spread out throughout medieval India. There are now several branches of the order, which has been the most prominent South Asian Sufi brotherhood since that time. Chapters and branches are also found as far as Europe, North America and Australia, introduced there by immigrants from present India and Pakistan.

References

Sufic orders

Chishti


Sēo Gandis Ēa (Ganga on Indiscum sprǣcum) is fyrst ēa in norðernum Indie. Heo aginneþ sƿa Bhagirathi ēa fram the Gangotri Glacier in the Uttaranchal Caucasus and joins the Alaknanda nēah Deoprayag to form Gandis. Then on, Gandis flēoƿeþ ofer Norþernan Indie miclan ƿangum (þāra Gandisƿangum) and empties in Bengal Byhte æfter dividing up into many distributaries. One of them is the Hoogli Ēa nēah Caligardamana, another major distributary being the Padma Ēa seo flēoƿeþ in Bangladesc. Seo Ēa langness is ymbe 1,570 mīla. The region encompassing the delta near the Bengal Byht healf is known as the Sunderbans (Beorhtan Ƿealdas) – a region of thick mangrove ƿeald, and ān þæs Cynelic Bengal tigres mægena eardena.

The Geamuna Ēa — seo is self miclu ēa, and nearly as sacred — is an brōcrīþ þǣre Gandis, and hiere mōtung is nēah what is the site of the traditional holy Hindu ceaster Prayag, seo man nū hēt Allahabad.

Man mæg tƿa cynn mereswīn in Gandis ēa sēon; þæt Gandis Ēa Mereswīn and þæt Irraƿaddy Meresƿīn. Ēac is Gandis notable in that it contains a rare species of freshwater shark, Glyphis gangeticus about which little is known.

Gandis in Hinduisme

The Ganga is personified in Hinduism sƿa gyden: Ma (Mother) Ganga, Karttikeya mōdor, be Agni.

Several places sacred to Hindus lie along the banks of the river Ganga, including Haridwar and Varanasi. It is believed that taking a dip in the river will wash away one's sins, and that having one's ashes disposed off in the Ganga after death may improve one's next life or even allow Moksha to be attained sooner. Devout Hindus make pilgrimages to bathe in the Ganga and to meditate on its banks.

Æfter þǣre mythologicalan gesegene, Brahma collected the sweat of Vishnu's feet and created Ganga. Being touched by two members of the Trimurthi, Ganga became very holy.

Several years later, a king named Sagar magically acquired sixty thousand sons. One day, King Sagar performed a ritual of worship for the good of the Kingdom. One of the integral parts of the ritual was eoh, which was stolen by the jealous Indra. Sagar sent all his sons all geond eall Middangeard to search for the horse. They found it in the Underworld next to a penitent sage. Believing that the sage had stolen the horse, they hurled insults at him and caused his penance to be disturbed. The sage opened his eyes for the first time in several years, and looked at the sons of Sagar. With this glance, all sixty thousand were burnt to death.

Þā sāƿla þāra suna Sagares wandered as gāstas forþǣm þe hiera endmestan rites had not been performed. When Bhagiratha, one of the descendants of Sagar by a second wife, learnt of this fate, he vowed to bring Ganga down to Earth so that she could sweep away the ashes to heaven.

Bhagiratha prayed to Brahma that Ganga come down to Earth. Brahma agreed, and he ordered Ganga to come down to the Earth and then on to the Underworld so that the souls of Bhagiratha's ancestors would be able to go to Heaven. The vain Ganga felt that this was insulting and decided to sweep the whole Earth away as she fell from the Heavens. Alarmed, Bhagiratha prayed to Shiva that he break up Ganga's descent.

Ganga arrogantly fell on Shiva's head. But Shiva calmly trapped her in his hair and let her out in small streams. The touch of Shiva further sanctified Ganga. As Ganga travelled to the Underworld, she created a different stream to remain on Earth to help purify unfortunate souls there.

Sēo ēac
 Gandis Delta
 Gandis Fūlness
 Ganges Casino
 Bollywood Casino

Ēa
Indea
Indisca ēa
Hinduism

Gandis


Heterosexism is the belief that only men and women should have sex, or that only men and women should love each other as more than a friend or family member. It is also the belief that sex and love between men and women is better than other types of sex and love. Heterosexism is not just something a single person can believe but is taught by society and culture. Heterosexist beliefs can cause people to act unfairly towards people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or asexual.

Heterosexism is related to homophobia and biphobia in the same way that sexism is related to misogyny and transphobia.

Related pages
 Adam and Steve (anti-gay slogan)
 Heteronormativity
Cissexism
Monosexism

Discrimination
Heterosexuality

Heterosexism


Named after the Dutch mathematician Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, the Van der Waerden test is a statistical test that k population distribution functions are equal. The Van der Waerden test converts the ranks from a standard Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance to quantiles of the standard normal distribution (details given below). These are called normal scores and the test is computed from these normal scores.

The k population version of the test is an extension of the test for two populations published by Van der Waerden (1952,1953).

Background
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is a data analysis technique for examining the significance of the factors (independent variables) in a multi-factor model. The one factor model can be thought of as a generalization of the two sample t-test. That is, the two sample t-test is a test of the hypothesis that two population means are equal. The one factor ANOVA tests the hypothesis that k population means are equal. The standard ANOVA assumes that the errors (i.e., residuals) are normally distributed. If this normality assumption is not valid, an alternative is to use a non-parametric test.

Test definition
Let nj (j = 1, 2, ..., k) represent the sample sizes for each of the k groups (i.e., samples) in the data. Let N denote the sample size for all groups. Let Xij represent the ith value in the jth group. The normal scores are computed as

where R(Xij) denotes the rank of observation Xij and where Φ−1 denotes the normal quantile function. The average of the normal scores for each sample can then be computed as

The variance of the normal scores can be computed as

The Van der Waerden test can then be defined as follows:
H0: All of the k population distribution functions tend to yield the same observation
Ha: At least one of the populations tends to yield larger observations than at least one of the other populations

The test statistic is

For significance level α, the critical region is

where Χα,k − 12 is the α-quantile of the chi-squared distribution with k − 1 degrees of freedom. The null hypothesis is rejected if the test statistic is in the critical region. If the hypothesis of identical distributions is rejected, one can perform a multiple comparisons procedure to determine which pairs of populations tend to differ. The populations j1 and j2 seem to be different if the following inequality is satisfied:

with t1 − α/2 the (1 − α/2)-quantile of the t-distribution.

Comparison with the Kruskal-Wallis test
The most common non-parametric test for the one-factor model is the Kruskal-Wallis test. The Kruskal-Wallis test is based on the ranks of the data. The advantage of the Van Der Waerden test is that it provides the high efficiency of the standard ANOVA analysis when the normality assumptions are in fact satisfied, but it also provides the robustness of the Kruskal-Wallis test when the normality assumptions are not satisfied.

References

van der Waerden, B.L. (1952). "Order tests for the two-sample problem and their power", Indagationes Mathematicae, 14, 453–458.
van der Waerden, B.L. (1953). "Order tests for the two-sample problem. II, III", Proceedings of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Serie A, 564, 303–310, 311–316.

Statistical tests
Nonparametric statistics

Van der Waerden test