Novosibirsk (Russian: Новосиби́рск, pronounced ) is Russia's third largest city, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast. It is also the largest city in Siberia and the administrative center of Siberian Federal District. It is in the southwest of this district.

History
It was founded in 1893 as the future site of the Trans-Siberian railway bridge crossing the great Siberian river Ob. Its importance further increased early in the 20th century with the completion of the Turkestan-Siberia Railway connecting Novosibirsk to Central Asia and the Caspian Sea.

The settlement became city in 1903. City name may be translated as New Siberian. From 1893 until 1925 Novosibirsk was called Novonikolayevsk.
During the Great Patriotic war of the Soviet Union a lot of factories from the west parts of the country were evacuated here.

In 1986 Novosibirsk became the first city in Siberia having a metro system.

The city lies along the Ob River in the West Siberian Plain. To the south is the Ukok Plateau part of  the UNESCO World Heritage Site entitled Golden Mountains of Altai.

Climate
The climate is sharply continental, with very severe, cold and snowy winters and hot and dry summers. Temperatures in summer range from 10 to 30 °C (50...85 °F), in winter -5 to -25 °C (20...-10 °F), but can reach -45 °C (-50 °F) in winter and 35 °C (95 °F) in summer. The difference between the highest and the lowest temperature is 83 °C (181 °F). Most of the time the weather is sunny, with an average of 2880 hours of sunshine per year.

Economy
Industries include machine manufacturing and metallurgy. It is the home of one of Novosibirsk State University (in nearby Akademgorodok), a number of institutes and a scientific research center. Novosibirsk has opera and ballet companies, several theaters, museums, and art galleries, and numerous sports facilities.

Transportation
West Siberian railway control organization is located in the city, on the Vokzalnaya magistral street beginning near Novosibirsk Glavny rail terminal.

In 1986 Novosibirsk metro started its working. It became the first subway system in Siberia.

Also, the city has tram, trolley and bus systems.

Tolmachevo international airport is located in Novosibirsk area.

Related pages
List of cities and other settlements in Russia

References

Capitals of oblasts of Russia

Novosibirsk


Tricky (born Adrian Nicholas Matthews Thaws, 27 January 1968) is an English musician and actor. As a producer and a musician, he is noted for a dark, rich and layered sound and a whispering lyrical style. Culturally, Tricky encourages a togetherness of societies, particularly in his musical ensemble of rock and hip hop, high art and pop culture. His debut album Maxinquaye was nominated for the Mercury Prize and voted Album of the Year by NME Magazine.

Early life
Tricky was born in Knowle West, Bristol, England. His father left the family before he was born and his mother, Maxine Quaye, committed suicide when he was only four. He named his solo album after her - Maxinquaye - and once said that though he hardly knew her, he feels like she's speaking through him with his words.

He spent his childhood and teen years in the care of his grandmother, who often let him watch old horror movies instead of going to school. At 15 he began to write lyrics ("I like to rock, I like to dance, I like pretty girls taking down their pants" MixMag 1996) At 17, he spent some time in prison because he bought forged £50 notes from a friend, who later told the police. In an interview, Tricky said: "Prison was really good. I'm never going back" (NME 1995).

Albums
 Maxinquaye (1995) #3 UK
 Nearly God (1996) #10 UK
 Pre-Millennium Tension (1996) #30 UK, #140 US
 Angels with Dirty Faces (1998) #23 UK, #84 US
 Juxtapose (1999) (with DJ Muggs and Dame Grease) #22 UK, #182 US
 Blowback (2001) #34 UK, #138 US
 Vulnerable (2003) #88 UK
 Knowle West Boy (2008) #63 UK, #147 US
 Mixed Race (2010) #118 UK
 False Idols (2013) #66 UK, #149 US

References

Trip hop musicians
1968 births
English singers
Living people

Tricky


Karl Augustus Menninger (July 22, 1893 – July 18, 1990) was an American psychiatrist and a member of the Menninger family of psychiatrists who founded the Menninger Foundation and the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas.

Biography
Menninger was born on July 22, 1893, in Topeka, Kansas, the son of Florence Vesta (Kinsley) and Charles Frederick Menninger. In addition to studying at Washburn University, Indiana University and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he also studied medicine at Harvard Medical School. He graduated from the school cum laude in 1917. While at Washburn, he was a member of the Alpha Delta Fraternity, a local group. In 1960 he was inducted into the school's Sagamore Honor Society.

Beginning with an internship in Kansas City, Menninger worked at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital and taught at Harvard Medical School. In 1919, he returned to Topeka where, together with his father, he founded the Menninger Clinic. By 1925, they had attracted enough investors, including brother William C. Menninger, to build the Menninger Sanitarium. His book, The Human Mind, which explained the science of psychiatry, was published in 1930.

The Menninger Foundation was established in 1941. After World War II, Karl Menninger was instrumental in founding the Winter Veterans Administration Hospital, in Topeka. It became the largest psychiatric training center in the world. He was among the first members of the Society for General Systems Research.

In 1946 he founded the Menninger School of Psychiatry. It was renamed in his honor in 1985 as the Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry and Mental Health Science. In 1952, Karl Targownik, who would become one of his closest friends, joined the Clinic.

Personal life

Menninger married Grace Gaines in 1916, with whom he had three children: Martha, Julia and Robert. The couple divorced in February 1941. Menninger remarried on September 9, 1941, taking Jeanette Lyle as his wife. Together they adopted a daughter named Rosemary in 1948. He died of abdominal cancer July 18, 1990, four days before his 97th birthday.

In popular culture

Author Chaim Potok quoted Menninger on the dedication page of his novel, The Chosen (1967).
Renee Richards quoted Menninger on the dedication page of her memoir, Second Serve (1983).
In the 1995 biographical film Killer: A Journal Of Murder, Menninger is portrayed by John Bedford Lloyd, as the psychiatrist in charge of testing the sanity of serial killer Carl Panzram.
Karl Menninger figures in the French film (in the English language) Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian (2013), portrayed by Larry Pine.

Work
During his career, Menninger wrote a number of influential books. In his first book, The Human Mind, Menninger argued that psychiatry was a science and that the mentally ill were only slightly different from healthy individuals. In The Crime of Punishment, Menninger argued that crime was preventable through psychiatric treatment; punishment was a brutal and inefficient relic of the past. He advocated treating offenders like the mentally ill.

His subsequent books include The Vital Balance, Man Against Himself and Love Against Hate.

Honors
In 1981, Menninger was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.
In 1985, the Menninger School of Psychiatry was named for him.

Letter to Thomas Szasz
On October 6, 1988, less than two years before his death, Karl Menninger wrote a letter to Thomas Szasz, author of The Myth of Mental Illness.

In the letter, Menninger said that he has just read Szasz's book Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences. Menninger wrote that neither of them liked the situation in which insanity separates men from men and free will is forgotten. After recounting the lack of scientific method in psychology over the years, Menninger expressed his regret that he did not come over to a dialogue with Szasz.

See also
 Malan triangles
 Menninger Foundation
 Reinisch Rose Garden and Doran Rock Garden

Publications
Menninger wrote several books and articles. A selection:
 1930. The Human Mind. Garden City, NY: Garden City Pub. Co.
 1931. From Sin to Psychiatry, an Interview on the Way to Mental Health with Dr. Karl A. Menninger [by] L. M. Birkhead. Little Blue Books Series #1585. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Press.
 1938. Man Against Himself. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
 1942. Love Against Hate
 1950. Guide to Psychiatric Books; with a Suggested Basic Reading List. New York: Grune & Stratton.
 1952. Manual for Psychiatric Case Study. New York: Grune & Stratton.
 1958. Theory of Psychoanalytic Technique. New York: Basic Books.
 1959. A Psychiatrist's World: Selected Papers. New York: Viking Press.
 1963. The Vital Balance: The Life Process in Mental Health and Illness. New York: Viking Penguin.
 1968. Das Leben als Balance; seelische Gesundheit und Krankheit im Lebensprozess. München: R. Piper.
 1968. The Crime of Punishment. New York: Penguin Books.
 1972. A Guide to Psychiatric Books in English [by] Karl Menninger. New York: Grune & Stratton.
 1973. Whatever Became of Sin?. New York: Hawthorn Books.
 1978. The Human Mind Revisited: Essays in Honor of Karl A. Menninger. Edited by Sydney Smith. New York: International Universities Press.
 1985. Conversations with Dr. Karl Menninger (sound recording)

References

External links

Bartleby article on Karl Menninger
Scottish Rite Journal Obituary
Search on Karl Menninger in Menninger Foundation Archives Database from Kansas State Historical Society
 Access Karl Menninger photographs and documents on Kansas Memory, the Kansas State Historical Society's digital portal
Correspondence with Thomas Szasz

1893 births
1990 deaths
American psychiatrists
Analysands of Franz Alexander
Analysands of Ruth Mack Brunswick
Harvard Medical School alumni
History of psychiatry
Physicians from Kansas
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Scientists from Kansas
Washburn University alumni
Writers from Topeka, Kansas
University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
Deaths from cancer in Kansas
Deaths from stomach cancer
20th-century American physicians

Karl Menninger


Frank Barsalona (March 31, 1938 – November 22, 2012) was an American talent agent and founder of the first major rock and roll booking agency in the United States.

Career
Barsalona started out in the mail room at GAC, a New York-based talent agency, and became the company's youngest agent. In 1964, Barsalona founded Premier Talent Agency (sold to William Morris Agency in 2002) which was the first booking agency to focus on rock performers. At Premier, Barsalona encouraged young, enthusiastic promoters around the country to present emerging artists at their local venues which created the foundation of the modern-day concert touring business. The promoters Barsalona mentored and worked with became some of the most powerful promoters in the industry, and still are today. The roster of artists at Premier Talent numbered in the hundreds and included Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, U2, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Yardbirds, Jimi Hendrix, Bon Jovi, Santana, Jethro Tull, Peter Frampton, Humble Pie, Van Halen, Herman's Hermits, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The J. Geils Band, Black Sabbath, Yes, Van Halen, Talking Heads, The B-52's, Eurythmics, The Pretenders, Cyndi Lauper, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, Sex Pistols, Skid Row, Journey, Earth, Wind & Fire, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Foghat, Traffic, Fleetwood Mac, and Grand Funk Railroad, among many others. Barsalona was also a part owner in various radio stations in the Northeast, and part owner and president of the Philadelphia Fury soccer team (1977–1980).

Rock journalist Dave Marsh wrote, "Frank Barsalona had a vision: acts and promoters and record companies working in coordination to build careers. Rock performers now had an economic base outside of the record companies, they had the time and money and facilities to upgrade the quality of their shows."

Barsalona was a founding member and board member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in the Non-Performer category in 2005 and received the Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the only agent to have been inducted into the Hall of Fame to date. Among other industry and humanitarian awards, Frank received the Billboard Legend of Live Award for lifetime achievement, Performance Touring Hall of Fame Award, and the Nordoff-Robbins Foundation Silver Clef Award which was presented to him by Bono and Bruce Springsteen, with Pete Townshend congratulating his old friend and telling stories via video.

After Barsolona's death, his daughter Nicole hosted a memorial celebration to honor his life on April 25, 2013, in New York, bringing together music industry leaders from around the world. Billboard magazine's exclusive coverage described the event: "The room was packed with legends, among them famed E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt, Team Springsteen players Barry Bell and Barbara Carr, and a wealth of promoters, signifying Barsalona's influence in bringing order and legitimacy to that sector. Promoters in the house included Seth Hurwitz (I.M.P.), Gregg Perloff (Another Planet), Jules Belkin (Belkin Productions), Danny Zelisko (DZP), John Scher (Metropolitan Talent), Debra Rathwell (AEG Live) and leading Japanese promoter Mr. Udo, Udo Artists. Among those offering up stories on Barsalona were music journalist Dave Marsh, famed Philadelphia promoter Larry Magid, U2 manager Paul McGuinness, CAA managing partner Rob Light, British manager Peter Rudge, legendary New York promoter Ron Delsener, Canadian promoter Donald K. Donald, Joel Peresman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Boston promoter Don Law, artists Bono and Pete Townshend (via video)."

Personal life
Born and raised on Staten Island, Barsalona began supporting his family at age nine by traveling around the country yodeling with a country and western act known as Rosalie Allen's Touring All-Stars. He attended and put himself through Wagner College and St. John's University.

Known for his honesty, integrity, and warmth, Barsalona was once told by British agent Harold Davison that he wouldn't survive in the industry because he was too honest. Proving him wrong, Barsalona became known as one of the most honest and successful professionals in the industry to date.

His wife, June Barsalona (maiden name Harris), worked as a features and news editor within the London Daily Mirror Group and conducted the first interview in the UK with The Beatles for Disc magazine. June acted as an American correspondent for all of the London Daily Mirror Group's music publications and conducted interviews with The Who, The Rolling Stones, Dick Clark, Nat King Cole, Roy Orbison, and many others. In 1968, June went to work for Atlantic Records to launch the debut Led Zeppelin campaign. June stayed on to handle international public relations for Atlantic where she worked with artists like Cream, The Rascals, and others. Frank and June met through their work in the industry and were married for 46 years. Frank was survived by June and their only daughter, Nicole Barsalona.

References

Further reading

External links

The Frank Barsalona Fund, Inc.

American talent agents
American music managers
1938 births
2012 deaths
Neurological disease deaths in the United States
Deaths from Alzheimer's disease

Frank Barsalona


Joseph Maria Olbrich (22 December 1867 – 8 August 1908) was an Austrian architect and one of the Vienna Secession founders.

Early life
Olbrich was born in Troppau, Austrian Silesia (modern day Opava, Czech Republic), the third child of Edmund and Aloisia Olbrich. He had two sisters, who died before he was born, and two younger brothers, John and Edmund. His father was a prosperous confectioner and wax manufacturer who also owned a brick works, where Olbrich's interest in the construction industry has its early origin.

Career
Olbrich studied architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Wiener Staatsgewerbeschule) and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he won several prizes. These included the Prix de Rome, for which he traveled to Italy and North Africa.  In 1893, he started working for Otto Wagner, the Austrian architect, and probably did the detailed construction for most of Wagner's Wiener Stadtbahn (Metropolitan Railway) buildings.

In 1897, Gustav Klimt, Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser founded the Vienna Secession artistic group. Olbrich designed their exhibition building, the famous Secession Hall, which became the movement's landmark. In 1899, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, founded the Darmstadt Artists' Colony, for which Olbrich designed many houses (including his own) and several exhibition buildings. Olbrich gained Hessian citizenship in 1900 and was appointed to a professorship by the Grand Duke. In 1903, he married Claire Morawe.

In the following years, Olbrich executed diverse architectural commissions and experimented in applied arts and design. He designed pottery, furniture, book bindings, and musical instruments. His courtyard and interiors at the St. Louis World's Fair won the highest prize at the exhibition. At the time, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote of his pavilion, "The interior decorators of the United States are now talking about the Olbrich Pavilion. It is already indicated as one of the things at the World's Fair which will leave a permanent mark upon American life."  He was subsequently appointed corresponding member of the American Institute of Architects. His architectural works, especially his exhibition buildings for the Vienna and Darmstadt Secessions, had a strong influence on the development of the Art Nouveau style.

Shortly after his daughter Marianne's birth on 19 July 1908, Olbrich died from leukemia in Düsseldorf on 8 August, aged 40.

Works
 The Secession hall, Vienna
 Residence for Hermann Bahr, Vienna
  and other buildings at Darmstadt Artists' Colony, Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt
Department store for Leonhard Tietz, Düsseldorf
 Villa for Josef Feinhals, Cologne, built 1908 and destroyed in World War II

Gallery

References

Additional references

Joseph Maria Olbrich on Architectuul

1867 births
1908 deaths
Austrian architects
People from Austrian Silesia
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna alumni
Vienna Secession architects
People from Opava
Architects from Austria-Hungary

Joseph Maria Olbrich


Fiction Records is a record label that was founded in 1976 by Chris Parry as a home for The Cure. Other notable acts to release on Fiction around this time were the Purple Hearts, Back To Zero, Associates, Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias and Eat (band). The label's first #1 record was Wish by The Cure in 1991, going #1 in the United Kingdom. The band left the record label in 2001, signing to Geffen at the end of the year.

After a period of several years, the label was then re-started in 2002 by Joe Munns, Paul Smernicki and Jim Chancellor as a Polydor imprint. The first release of this record label was a single by Snow Patrol.

Related pages
 List of record labels

Other websites
Fiction Records Official Website

Indie music record labels
1976 establishments

Fiction Records


Willem Mengelberg (born Utrecht, 28 March 1871; died Zuort, Switzerland, 22 March 1951) was a Dutch conductor.  He is famous for conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam for fifty years, making them one of the world's finest orchestras.

Life
Willem Mengelberg studied music in Utrecht, Netherlands and at Cologne Conservatory.  He had four years of experience conducting an orchestra in Lucerne.  Then, in 1895, he was given the job which was to last him the rest of his working life: conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra.  He took over this job from Willem Kes who had started the orchestra five years earlier.  At Kes's farewell concert on 25 October 1895 Mengelberg performed as solo pianist.

Mengelberg soon made it into a great orchestra.  He was particularly good at conducting the music of Richard Strauss and Mahler.  He took the orchestra on tours to many countries, including Norway, Belgium, France, Germany, England and Switzerland.  He celebrated his 25th year of conductor of the orchestra by performing all the orchestral works of Mahler.

He also conducted other orchestras abroad, including the Royal Philharmonic Society in London and, in the 1920s, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mengelberg also conducted other groups in the Netherlands, including Maatschappij Caecilia and the Amsterdam Toonkunst Choir.

Mengelberg worked hard to get good discipline in his orchestra.  He worked to introduce his audiences to good music and to make them listen quietly to the music.  He did a lot to help the musicians get better working conditions and he conducted a lot of music by Dutch composers, helping them to become better known.

During World War II he accepted invitations by the Nazis to conduct in Germany.  After the war people in Holland were very cross that he had done this, and he was forbidden to conduct in Holland for six years.  He said that he had only conducted in Germany for the sake of the musicians.

Mengelberg was very sad and went to live in Switzerland.  He died just before his six year ban would have come to an end.

References
New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie; 1980;
Encyclopedie van de Muziek; Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1957

1871 births
1951 deaths
Dutch conductors
Musicians from Utrecht (province)
People from Utrecht (city)

Willem Mengelberg


Demchok or "New Demchok" is a small village and military encampment in the Indian-administered part of the disputed Demchok sector south of Aksai Chin, in the Ladakh district of Kashmir. The Line of Actual Control (LAC) passes along the southeast side of the village, following a wadi just upstream from the nearby Indus River.  Across the wadi, less than a kilometer away, is the Chinese-administered village, called Dêmqog, in the Ngari Prefecture within Tibet. This village was on an old route linking Ladakh and Tibet, currently closed. The village lies 36.5 km east of Ukdungle.

Though the Kailash Mansarovar is 300 km away, the route there is mostly through plains  and there is demand to improve and open a road linking China and Northern Pakistan through Demchok. Islamabad says that this is part of China, however India rejects this and claims the territory to be part of New Delhi's administration.

References

Kashmir
Territorial disputes of India
Territorial disputes of China

Demchok


Lenders mortgage insurance (LMI), also known as private mortgage insurance (PMI) in the US, is a type of insurance payable to a lender or to a trustee for a pool of securities that may be required when taking out a mortgage loan. Its purpose is to offset losses in the case where a mortgagor is not able to repay the loan and the lender is not able to recover its costs after foreclosure and sale of the mortgaged property.

Mortgage insurance in the US
The annual cost of PMI varies and is expressed in terms of the total loan value in most cases, depending on the loan term, loan type, proportion of the total home value that is financed, the coverage amount, and the frequency of premium payments (monthly, annual, or single). The PMI may be payable up front, or it may be capitalized onto the loan in the case of single premium product. This type of insurance is usually only required if the downpayment is 20% or less of the sales price or appraised value (in other words, if the loan-to-value ratio (LTV) is 80% or more). Once the principal is reduced to 80% of value, the PMI is often no longer required on conventional loans. This can occur via the principal being paid down, via home value appreciation, or both. FHA loans often require refinancing to remove PMI, even after the LTV drops below 80%. The effective interest savings from paying off PMI can be substantial. In the case of lender-paid MI, the term of the policy can vary based upon the type of coverage provided (either primary insurance, or some sort of pool insurance policy). Borrowers typically have no knowledge of any lender-paid MI, in fact most "No MI Required" loans actually have lender-paid MI, which is funded through a higher interest rate that the borrower pays.

Sometimes lenders will require that mortgage insurance be paid for a fixed period (for example, 2 or 3 years), even if the principal reaches 80% sooner than that. Legally, there is no obligation to allow the cancellation of MI until the loan has amortized to a 78% LTV ratio based on the original purchase price. The cancellation request must come from the servicer of the mortgage to the PMI company who issued the insurance. Often the servicer will require a new appraisal to determine the LTV.

If borrowers have less than the 20% downpayment needed to avoid a mortgage insurance requirement, they might be able to make use of a second mortgage (sometimes referred to as a "piggy-back loan") to make up the difference. Two popular versions of this lending technique are the so-called 80/10/10 and 80/15/5 arrangements. Both involve obtaining a primary mortgage for 80% LTV. An 80/10/10 program uses a 10% LTV second mortgage with a 10% downpayment, and an 80/15/5 program uses a 15% LTV second mortgage with a 5% downpayment. Other combinations of second mortgage and downpayment amounts might also be available. One advantage of using these arrangements is that under United States tax law, mortgage interest payments may be deductible on the borrower's income taxes, whereas mortgage insurance premiums were not until 2007. In some situations, the all-in cost of borrowing may be cheaper using a piggy-back than by going with a single loan that includes borrower-paid or lender-paid MI.

LMI/PMI tax deduction
Mortgage insurance became tax-deductible in 2007 in the US. For some homeowners, the new law made it cheaper to get mortgage insurance than to get a 'piggyback' loan. The MI tax deductibility provision passed in 2006 provides for an itemized deduction for the cost of private mortgage insurance for homeowners earning up to $109,000 annually.

The original law was extended in 2007 to provide for a three-year deduction, effective for mortgage contracts issued after December 31, 2006, and before January 1, 2010. It does not apply to mortgage insurance contracts that were in existence prior to passage of the legislation.

As of 2023, PMI was tax deductible for all years from 2007 until 2021. The IRS does not allow the PMI to be deducted for 2022.

Mortgage insurance in Australia
The two main mortgage insurers in Australia are Genworth Financial and QBE LMI. Mortgage insurance is payable if the loan-to-value ratio (LTV, or LVR in Australia) is above 80%, or above 60% for low document loans. Some non-bank lenders obtain mortgage insurance for every loan irrespective of the LVR, however it is paid for by the lender if the loan is below 80% LVR.

LMI premiums are calculated using a sliding scale based on the loan amount and LVR. State government stamp duty may be payable on the premium. The premium is often capitalised on top of the loan amount. Unlike in other countries, the LMI premium is a one-off fee in Australia.

Mortgage insurance in Canada
The Bank Act which governs banks as well as provincial laws governing credit unions and caisse populaires prohibit most regulated lending institutions from providing mortgages without insurance if the LTV is greater than 80%. The typical premium rates provided by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation are between 1% (for 80% LTV) and 2.75% (for 95% LTV) of the loan principal.

See also
Mortgage insurance
Credit default swap

References

Mortgage insurance
Mortgage industry of the United States
Mortgage industry of Australia

Lenders mortgage insurance


The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was a major German attack near the end of World War II, in Belgium, France and Luxembourg. The attack surprised Allied forces. It was the worst battle in terms of casualties for the United States. It also used up huge amounts of Germany's war-making resources.

The press made up "Battle of the Bulge" to describe the way the Allied front line bulged inward on wartime news maps and became the best known name for the battle.

The German attack was supported by several other operations. Germany's goal was to split the British and American Allied line in half, capture Antwerp, and then encircle and destroy four Allied armies. They hoped this would force the Allies to make a peace treaty with Germany. If they did this, Hitler could focus on the eastern front of the war.

The attack was planned in secret. Germany moved troops and equipment in the dark. United States intelligence staff predicted a major German attack, but this still surprised them. The Allied forces were overconfident and too focused on their own attack plans, and they also did not have good aerial reconnaissance.

The Germans attacked a weakly defended section of the Allied line. They attacked while there was bad weather. This was because the Allies could not use planes if the weather was bad. Violent resistance blocked German access to important roads. The thick forests helped the defenders. This slowed down the German advance and allowed the Allies to add new troops. Better weather conditions permitted air attacks on German forces, which led to the failure of the attack.

After the defeat, many experienced German units lacked men and equipment. The battle involved about 610,000 American men, of whom some 89,000 were casualties, including 19,000 killed.   It was the largest and most deadly battle fought by the United States in World War II.

Background

After moving from Normandy at the end of July 1944 and landing in southern France on 15 August 1944, the Allies advanced toward Germany more quickly than expected.

Allied troops were tired from weeks of continuous fighting and supplies were very low. While the supply situation improved in October, the lack of troops was still a major problem.

General Eisenhower and his staff chose the Ardennes region, held by the First United States Army, as an area that could be held by as few troops as possible. The Ardennes were chosen because the terrain offered good defence and there were not many roads.

The speed of the Allied advance and a lack of deep-water ports made it hard for the Allies to supply their troops. Beach supply operations using the Normandy landing areas could not supply enough provisions. The only port the Allies had captured was Cherbourg, near the original invasion beaches, but the Germans had wrecked and mined it.

It took the Allies many months to build up their ability to move cargo. The Allies captured the port of Antwerp, Belgium, fully intact, in the first days of September, but it was not working until 28 November. The Scheldt River had to be cleared of both German troops and naval mines.

The limitations led to disagreements between General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery over whether Montgomery or American General Omar Bradley in the south would get access to supplies.

German forces remained in control of several major ports on the English Channel coast until May 1945. The destruction of the French railway system prior to D-Day made it hard for the Germans to respond to the invasion. It was also a problem for the Allies, as it took time to repair the tracks and bridges.

A trucking system brought supplies to front-line troops, but transportation took huge amounts of fuel to reach the front line near the Belgian border. By early October the Allies stopped major attacks to improve their supply lines.

Montgomery and Bradley both asked for delivery of supplies to their armies so they could continue to attack the Germans. Gen. Eisenhower wanted Montgomery's northern forces to open the port of Antwerp and capture the Ruhr area, the industrial part of Germany.

With the Allies paused, German Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt was able to reorganize the German armies into an organized defense.

Field Marshal Montgomery's Operation Market Garden only achieved some of its goals. Its gains in territory left the Allied supply situation worse than before. In October the Canadian First Army fought the Battle of the Scheldt, opening the port of Antwerp to shipping. As a result, by the end of October the supply situation got better.

Despite a pause in fighting after the Scheldt battles, the Germans had serious problems. While operations continued in the autumn, notably the Lorraine Campaign, the Battle of Aachen and fighting in the Hürtgen Forest, the situation in the west changed little.

The Allies were slowly pushing towards Germany, but they did not get there. The Western Allies already had 96 divisions at or near the front, with ten more divisions coming from the United Kingdom. Additional Allied airborne units remained in England. The Germans had a total of 55 divisions.

Adolf Hitler promised his generals 18 infantry and 12 armored or mechanized divisions. The plan was to use 13 infantry divisions, two parachute divisions and six panzer divisions from reserves. On the Eastern Front the Soviets' Operation Bagration during the summer had destroyed much of Germany's Army Group Center.

The operation ended only when the advancing Red Army forces ran out of supplies. By November, Soviet forces were preparing for a winter attack.

Meanwhile, the Allied air attacks of early 1944 had made the German Air Force unable to fly. This meant that the German Army had little battlefield intelligence and no way to stop Allied supplies. The daytime movement of German forces was easily noticed and stopping supplies combined with the bombing of the Romanian oil fields meant Germany had no oil and gasoline.

One of the few advantages held by the German forces in November 1944 was that they were no longer defending all of Western Europe. Their front lines in the west had been shortened and were much closer to the German borders. This reduced their supply problems despite Allied control of the air.

Additionally, their telephone and telegraph network meant that radios were no longer necessary for communications, which lessened the effectiveness of Allied Ultra code breaking. Nevertheless, some 40—50 coded messages were sent per day by ULTRA. They recorded the quadrupling of German fighter forces and noticed that an attack was planned. ULTRA also picked up information about a lot of rail and road movements in the region.

Drafting the offensive
German leader Adolf Hitler felt that his mobile reserves allowed him to do one major attack. Although he realised nothing could be accomplished in the Eastern Front, he still believed an offensive against the Western Allies could succeed.

Hitler believed he could split the Allied forces and make the Americans and British to settle for a separate peace, independent of the Soviet Union.

Success in the west would give the Germans time to design and produce more advanced weapons (such as jet aircraft, new U-boat designs and super-heavy tanks) and permit the build-up of forces in the east.

Given the reduced manpower of their land forces, the Germans believed that it was better to attack in the West against the smaller Allied forces rather than against the vast Soviet armies. Even the destruction of entire Soviet armies would still have left the Soviets with more soldiers.

Several senior German military officers, such as Field Marshal Walter Model did not think the attack would work. They offered different plans, but Hitler would not listen. The plan needed bad weather, including heavy fog and low-lying clouds, which would make it hard for Allied planes to fly. Hitler originally set the attack for late November, before the start of the Russian winter offensive.

In the west supply problems began slowing down Allied operations, even though the opening of the port of Antwerp in late November improved the situation. The positions of the Allied armies stretched from southern France all the way north to the Netherlands. The Germans wanted to attack the thin line of Allied forces. They thought this would stop Allied advances on the Western Front.

Several plans for major Western attacks were prepared. A first plan was for an attack on the U.S. forces around Aachen, to encircle the U.S. Ninth Army. A second plan was for a blitzkrieg attack through the weakly defended Ardennes Mountains. This aimed at splitting the armies along the U.S.—British lines and capturing Antwerp.

Hitler chose the second plan. He liked the idea of splitting the Anglo-American armies. There were many disputes between Montgomery and Patton. Hitler hoped he could make use of these disagreements. If the attack captured Antwerp, four complete armies would be trapped without supplies behind German lines.

Both plans aimed at on attacks against the American forces. Hitler believed the Americans were not able to fight well. He thought that the American people would lose hope upon hearing of an American loss.

Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) Walther Model and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt were ordered to lead the attacks.

Model and von Rundstedt both believed aiming for Antwerp was too difficult, given Germany's lack of resources in late 1944. At the same time they felt that being just defensive would only delay defeat.  They developed plans that did not aim to cross the Meuse River; Model's being Unternehmen Herbstnebel (Operation Autumn Mist) and von Rundstedt's Fall Martin ("Plan Martin").

The two field marshals showed their plans to Hitler, who rejected them in favor of his "big solution".

Operation names
The phrase "Battle of the Bulge" was  made up by contemporary press to describe the way the Allied front line bulged inward on wartime news maps.

After the war ended, the U.S. Army issued the Ardennes-Alsace medal to units that took part in operations in northwest Europe. The medal covered the Ardennes sector where the battle took place and units further south in the Alsace sector.

Planning

OKW decided by mid-September, on Hitler's orders, that the attack would be started in the Ardennes, as was done in 1940. Many German generals objected, but the attack was planned and carried out. In 1940 German forces had passed through the Ardennes in three days before attacking the enemy, but the 1944 plan called for battle in the forest. The main forces were to advance westward to the Meuse River, then turn northwest for Antwerp and Brussels.

The thick forests of the Ardennes would make movement difficult. There was open ground beyond the Meuse where the Germans could move quickly to the coast.

Four armies were selected for the operation. First was the Sixth Panzer Army, under SS General Sepp Dietrich—newly created on 26 October 1944, it used the most senior and the most experienced Waffen-SS: the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler as well as the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. The 6th Panzer Army was the northernmost attack force. It was ordered to capture Antwerp.

The Fifth Panzer Army under General Hasso von Manteuffel was ordered to capture Brussels.

The Seventh Army, under General Erich Brandenberger, was ordered to the southernmost attack. This Army was made up of only four infantry divisions, with no armoured groups. As a result, they made little progress throughout the battle.

Also participating in a secondary role was the Fifteenth Army, under General Gustav-Adolf von Zangen. It was located on the far north of the Ardennes battlefield. It was ordered to hold U.S. forces in place. It could also attack if conditions were right.

For the attack to be successful, four elements were needed: the attack had to be a complete surprise; the weather conditions had to be poor to stop Allied air superiority; the progress had to be rapid. Allied fuel supplies would have to be captured because the Wehrmacht was short on fuel. The General Staff estimated they only had enough fuel to cover one-third to one-half of the ground to Antwerp.

The plan originally called for just under 45 divisions, including a dozen panzer and panzergrenadier divisions forming the armored spearhead and various infantry units to form a defensive line. By this time, however, the German Army suffered from a manpower shortage and the force had been reduced to around 30 divisions.

Although it retained most of its armor, there were not enough infantry units because of the defensive needs in the East. These 30 newly rebuilt divisions used some of the last reserves of the German Army. Among them were Volksgrenadier units formed from a mix of veterans and recruits formerly regarded as too young or too old to fight. Training time, equipment and supplies were inadequate during the preparations. German fuel supplies were inadequate. Materials and supplies that could not be transported by rail had to be horse-drawn to conserve fuel. The mechanized and panzer divisions would depend heavily on captured fuel. As a result, the start of the attack was delayed from 27 November to 16 December.

Before the offensive the Allies were not aware of German troop movement. During the liberation of France, the French resistance had provided information about German movements. Once they reached the German border, this information was not available. In France, orders had been relayed within the German army using radio messages coded by the Enigma machine.  These could be picked up and decoded by Allied code-breakers  at Bletchley Park, to give the intelligence known as ULTRA.

In Germany such orders were typically transmitted using telephone and teleprinter, and a special radio silence order was made on all communications about the attack. The major crackdown in the Wehrmacht after the 20 July plot to kill Hitler resulted in much tighter security and fewer information  leaks. The foggy autumn weather also prevented Allied reconnaissance aircraft from seeing the Germans on the ground.

German units in the area were given charcoal instead of wood for cooking fires to cut down on smoke and reduce chances of Allied observers realizing a troop build up was underway.

Allied High Command considered the Ardennes a quiet sector. Allied intelligence services said that the Germans were unable to launch any major attacks this late in the war. The Allies thought that the Germans were getting ready for defence. The Allies thought that a new defensive army was being formed around Düsseldorf in the northern Rhine. The Germans tricked the Allies by increasing the number of flak batteries in the area and making more radio transmissions in the area.

The attack, when it came, completely surprised the Allied forces. The U.S. Third Army intelligence chief, Colonel Oscar Koch, the U.S. First Army intelligence chief and the SHAEF intelligence officer had warned that the Germans might attack the U.S. VIII Corps area. These warnings were ignored by the U.S. 12th Army Group.

Because the Ardennes was considered a quiet sector, the Allies used it as a training ground for new units and a rest area. The U.S. units deployed in the Ardennes thus were a mixture of inexperienced troops (such as the U.S. 99th and 106th "Golden Lions" Divisions), and veteran troops sent to that sector to rest (the 28th Infantry Division).

Two major special operations were planned for the attack. By October it was decided that Otto Skorzeny, the German commando was to lead a task force of English-speaking German soldiers. These soldiers were to be dressed in American and British uniforms. They would go behind American lines and change signposts, misdirect traffic, cause disruption and seize bridges across the Meuse River between Liège and Namur.

By late November, another special operation was added: Col. Friedrich August von der Heydte was to lead a Fallschirmjäger (paratrooper) Kampfgruppe in Operation Stösser, a night-time paratroop drop behind the Allied lines aimed at capturing an important road near Malmedy.

German intelligence had set 20 December as the expected date for the start of the upcoming Soviet attack.

After the 20 July plot attempt to kill Hitler's life, and the advance of the Red Army, Hitler and his staff left the Wolfsschanze headquarters in East Prussia. After a brief visit to Berlin, Hitler travelled on his Führersonderzug (train) to Giessen on 11 December, taking up residence in the Adlerhorst command complex at Kransberg Castle.

Von Rundstedt set up his operational headquarters near Limburg, close enough for the generals and Panzer Corps commanders who were to lead the attack to visit Alderhost.

In a personal conversation on 13 December between Walther Model and Friedrich von der Heydte, who was put in charge of Operation Stösser, von der Heydte gave Operation Stösser less than a 10% chance of succeeding. Model told him it was necessary to make the attempt.

Initial German assault

On 16 December 1944, at 5:30 am, the Germans began the attack with a 90-minute artillery attack using 1,600 artillery pieces. The Americans thought was that this was an attack resulting from the Allies' recent attack in the Wahlerscheid sector to the north.

In the northern sector Dietrich's 6th Panzer Army was held up for almost 24 hours by a single platoon and four U.S. Forward Artillery Observers. They then attacked Losheim Gap and Elsenborn Ridge to get through to Liège and Antwerp.

Heavy snowstorms occurred in the Ardennes area. This kept the Allied aircraft grounded, but it also slowed the German advance. There were massive traffic jams and fuel shortages.

von Manteuffel's Fifth Panzer Army attacked towards Bastogne and St. Vith. In the south, Brandenberger's Seventh Army moved towards Luxembourg.

Only one month before 250 members of the Waffen-SS had tried to recapture the town of Vianden from the Luxembourgish resistance during the Battle of Vianden. The SS lost.

Attack on the northern shoulder

The battle for Elsenborn Ridge was an important part of the Battle of the Bulge. The attack was led by one of the best equipped German divisions on the western front, the 1st SS Panzer Division (LSSAH).

The division made up the lead unit for the entire German 6th Panzer Army. SS Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper led Kampfgruppe Peiper, consisting of 4,800 men and 600 vehicles.

The attacks by the Sixth Panzer Army's infantry units in the north did badly because of strong resistance by the U.S. 2nd and 99th Infantry Divisions.

On the first day, a German battalion of 500 men was held up for 10 hours. The infantry of the 9th Fallschirmjaeger Regiment, 3rd Fallschirmjaeger Division had been ordered to attack the village first.

A single 18-man platoon from the 99th Infantry Division and four Forward Air Controllers held up the battalion of about 500 German paratroopers until sunset causing 92 casualties among the Germans.

This stopped the German advance. Kampfgruppe Peiper, at the head of the SS Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich's Sixth Panzer Army had been ordered to take the Losheim-Losheimergraben road. Peiper did not begin his advance until nearly 4:00 pm, more than 16 hours behind schedule.

Kampfgruppe Peiper reached Bucholz Station in the early morning of 17 December and captured portions of the 3rd Battalion of the 394th Infantry Regiment. They seized a U.S. fuel depot at Büllingen, where they refuelled before continuing westward.

To the north, the 277th Volksgrenadier Division attempted to break through the U.S. 99th Infantry Division and positions of 2nd Infantry Division.

The 12th SS Panzer Division, reinforced by additional infantry (Panzergrenadier and Volksgenadier) divisions, took Losheimergraben and attacked the villages of Rocherath and Krinkelt.

Their intention was to control the villages of Rocherath-Krinkelt which would clear a path to Elsenborn Ridge. This would give the Germans control of the roads to the south and west and ensure supply to Kampfgruppe Peiper's armored force.

The American defense prevented the Germans from reaching the supplies near the Belgian cities of Liège and Spa. After more than ten days of battle, they pushed the Americans out of the villages, but were unable to move them from the ridge. The V Corps of the First U.S. Army prevented the German forces from reaching the roads to their west.

The 99th Infantry Division was outnumbered but it caused a lot of German dead and wounded. The division lost about 20% of its strength, including 465 killed and 2,524 evacuated due to wounds, injuries or fatigue. German losses were much higher. In the northern sector, this included more than 4,000 deaths and the destruction of sixty tanks and big guns. Historian John S.D. Eisenhower wrote, "... the action of the 2nd and 99th Divisions on the northern shoulder could be considered the most decisive of the Ardennes campaign."

Kampfgruppe Peiper drives west
Kampfgruppe Peiper entered Honsfield, one of the 99th Division's rest centres. They killed many, destroyed a number of American armored units and vehicles, and took several dozen prisoners who were murdered. Peiper easily captured the town and  of fuel for his vehicles. Peiper then advanced north-west towards Büllingen. Peiper turned south to detour around Hünningen.

Malmedy massacre

At 12:30 on 17 December, Kampfgruppe Peiper was near the hamlet of Baugnez when he met the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, U.S. 7th Armored Division. After a battle the Americans surrendered. They were sent to stand in a field. The SS troopers suddenly opened fire on the prisoners. A few survived, and news of the killings of prisoners of war was sent through Allied lines. Following the end of the war, soldiers and officers of Kampfgruppe Peiper, including Joachim Peiper and SS general Sepp Dietrich, were put on trial at the Malmedy massacre trial.

Chenogne massacre

Following the Malmedy massacre, on New Year's Day 1945, after having previously received orders to take no prisoners, American soldiers shot sixty German prisoners of war near the Belgian village of Chenogne (8 km from Bastogne).

Germans advance west
By the evening the Germans had pushed north to fight the U.S. 99th Infantry Division. Peiper's forces were late because of the American resistance and because when the Americans fell back, they blew up bridges and emptied fuel storaged.

Peiper's unit was delayed and his vehicles needed fuel. They took 36 hours to advance from Eifel to Stavelot.

Kampfgruppe Peiper attacked Stavelot on 18 December but was unable to capture the town before the Americans emptied a large fuel depot. Three tanks attempted to take the bridge, but the lead tank was disabled by a mine. 60 grenadiers advanced forward but were stopped by American fire. After a tank battle the next day, the Germans entered the village when

Peiper rushed toward the bridge at Trois-Ponts, leaving the most of his force in Stavelot. When they reached it at 1130 on 18 December, retreating U.S. engineers blew it up.

Peiper went north. At Cheneux, he was attacked by American fighter-bombers, destroying two tanks and five halftracks. The group got moving at dusk at 1600. Of the two bridges now remaining between Kampfgruppe Peiper and the Meuse, the bridge over the Lienne was blown by the Americans as the Germans approached.

Peiper turned north and stopped his forces in the woods between La Gleize and Stoumont. He learned that Stoumont was strongly held and that the Americans were bringing up new troops from Spa.

To Peiper's south, the advance of Kampfgruppe Hansen had stopped. SS Sturmbannführer Knittel crossed the bridge at Stavelot, but the Americans recaptured Stavelot. Peiper and Knittel both were at risk of being cut off.

German advance halted
At dawn on 19 December, Peiper attacked the American defenders of Stoumont. He sent infantry from the 2nd SS Panzergrenadier Regiment in an attack and a company of Fallschirmjäger. He followed this with a Panzer attack, gaining the eastern edge of the town.

An American tank battalion arrived but Peiper finally captured Stoumont at 1030. Knittel joined up with Peiper and reported the Americans had recaptured Stavelot to their east. Peiper ordered Knittel to retake Stavelot.

He thought Kampfgruppe did not have enough fuel to cross the bridge west of Stoumont. On the same evening the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division under Maj. Gen. James Gavin arrived at La Gleize.

Kampfgruppe Sandig, which had been ordered to take Stavelot, launched another attack without success. Sixth Panzer Army commander SS-Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich ordered Hermann Prieß, commanding officer of the I SS Panzer Corps, to help Peiper's Kampfgruppe, but Prieß was unable to break through.

Small units of the U.S. 2nd Battalion of the 119th Regiment attacked the Kampfgruppe Peiper during the morning of 21 December. They were pushed back and a number captured, including their battalion commander, Maj. Hal McCown.

Attempting to withdraw from Cheneux, American paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division engaged the Germans in violent fighting. The Americans shelled Kampfgruppe Peiper on 22 December.

Although the Germans had run out of food and had no fuel, they continued to fight. A Luftwaffe resupply mission went badly, parachuting supplies to American troops in Stoumont.

In La Gleize, Peiper set up defences. He decided to break through back to the German lines on 23 December. The men of the Kampfgruppe abandoned their vehicles and heavy equipment.

Operation Stösser

Operation Stösser was a paratroop drop into the American rear in the High Fens (; ; ) area. The goal was the "Baraque Michel" crossroads.

It was the German paratroopers' only nighttime drop during World War II. The II Parachute Corps sent 100 men from each of its regiments. They had little time to train together.

The parachute drop was a failure. Von der Heydte ended up with around 300 troops. Their force was too small and too weak to counter the Allies. They withdrew towards Germany and attacked the rear of the American lines. Only about 100 of his tired men finally reached the German rear.

Wereth 11

Another, much smaller massacre was committed in Wereth, Belgium, on 17 December 1944. Eleven black American soldiers, after surrendering, were tortured and then shot by men of the 1st SS Panzer Division, belonging to Kampfgruppe Knittel. Men from Third Company of the Reconnaissance Battalion were responsible.

Attack in the center

The Germans did better when the Fifth Panzer Army attacked positions held by the U.S. 28th and 106th Infantry Divisions. The Germans lacked the strength that they had in the north, but they still had more troops and weapons than the 28th and 106th divisions. They surrounded two regiments (422nd and 423rd) of the 106th Division and forced their surrender.

The official U.S. Army history states: "At least seven thousand [men] were lost here and the figure probably is closer to eight or nine thousand."

Battle for St. Vith
In St. Vith, it was hard for von Manteuffel's and Dietrich's forces. The defenders resisted the German attacks. This slowed down the German advance.

Montgomery ordered St. Vith to be evacuated on 21 December. U.S. troops got into trenches, which made the German advance hard. By 23 December, U.S. troops were ordered to retreat west of the Salm River. Since the German plan called for the capture of St. Vith by 18:00 on 17 December, they were behind schedule.

Meuse River bridges

To protect the river crossings on the Meuse, Montgomery ordered units to hold the bridges on 19 December.

The German advance in the center was the most successful. Fifth Panzer Army was led by the 2nd Panzer Division while Panzer Lehr Division came up from the south. The Ourthe River was passed at Ourtheville on 21 December.

Lack of fuel held up the advance for one day, but on 23 December the attack continued towards the towns of Hargimont and Marche.

Hargimont was captured the same day, but Marche was defended by the American 84th Division. Gen. Lüttwitz, commander of the XXXXVII Panzer Corps, ordered the Division to turn west towards Dinant and the Meuse. 2nd Panzer Division was still advancing quickly.

On 22/23 December the woods of Foy-Notre-Dame were reached, near Dinant. On 24 December the furthest point was reached. Panzer Lehr Division took the town of Celles. Farther north, parts of 2nd Panzer Division were close to the Meuse.

An Allied force prevented the German forces from approaching the Dinant bridge. By late Christmas Eve the advance in this sector was stopped by Allied forces.

Operation Greif and Operation Währung

For Operation Greif, Otto Skorzeny got English-speaking Germans in American uniforms behind the Allied lines. Although they failed to take the bridges over the Meuse, they caused confusion  and rumors spread quickly. Even General George Patton was worried and described the situation to General Dwight Eisenhower.

Checkpoints were set up all over the Allied rear, greatly slowing the movement of soldiers and equipment. American MPs at these checkpoints asked troops about things that every American was expected to know.

The tightened security made things very hard for the German soldiers to move about, and a number of them were captured. Even during interrogation, they spread lies. when asked about their mission, some of them claimed they had been told to go to Paris to either kill or capture General Dwight Eisenhower.

Security around the general was greatly increased, and Eisenhower was kept in his headquarters.

Because Skorzeny's men were captured in American uniforms, they were executed as spies. This was the standard practice of every army at the time. Skorzeny said that he was told by German legal experts that as long he doesn't order his men to fight in combat while wearing American uniforms, such a tactic was a legitimate trick.

Skorzeny and his men wore their German uniforms underneath their American ones in case of capture. Skorzeny was tried by an American military tribunal in 1947 at the Dachau Trials for violating the laws of war from his leadership of Operation Greif, but was acquitted.

In Operation Währung, a small number of German agents went behind Allied lines in American uniforms. They tried to bribe rail and port workers to cause problems with Allied supply operations. However, this operation was a failure.

Attack in the south

Further south attacking divisions crossed the River Our. The 112th Infantry Regiment kept German troops from using the Our River bridges around Ouren for two days, before withdrawing.

The 109th and 110th Regiments of the 28th Division did badly. They had so few troops that the Germans got around their positions. Both resisted and slowed down the German schedule by several days. Panzer groups captured villages and advanced near Bastogne within four days.

The battles for the villages and American strongpoints, and transport confusion on the German side, slowed the attack down. This allowed the 101st Airborne Division to reach Bastogne on 19 December. The defense of Bastogne made it impossible for the Germans to take the town. The panzers went past on either side, cutting off Bastogne on 20 December.

In the south, Brandenberger's three infantry divisions were stopped by divisions of the U.S. VIII Corps. Only the 5th Parachute Division of Brandenberger's command was able to move forward.

Eisenhower and his commanders realized by 17 December that the fighting in the Ardennes was a major offensive and not a small attack, and they ordered many new troops to the area.

Within a week 250,000 troops had been sent. Gen. Gavin of the 82nd Airborne Division ordered the 101st to hold Bastogne. The 82nd had to battle the SS Panzer Divisions.

Siege of Bastogne

By the time the senior Allied commanders met on 19 December, the town of Bastogne and its 11 roads had been held by the Germans for several days.

Two separate westbound German columns got stopped by defensive positions up to ten miles from the town.

Gen. Eisenhower realized that the Allies could destroy German forces much more easily when they were out in the open. Patton had ordered his staff to prepare three plans for a northward turn.

On 20 December, Eisenhower removed the First and Ninth U.S. Armies from Gen. Bradley's 12th Army Group and placed them under Montgomery's 21st Army Group.

By 21 December the Germans had surrounded Bastogne, which was defended by the 101st Airborne Division and Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division. Conditions inside the town were tough. Food was scarce, and by 22 December artillery ammunition was restricted to 10 rounds per gun per day.

The weather cleared the next day, however, and supplies (ammunition) were dropped over four of the next five days.

Despite German attacks, the town held. The German commander, Lt. Gen. Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz, requested Bastogne's surrender. When Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe was told of the Nazi demand that he surrender, he refused.

Both 2nd Panzer and Panzer Lehr moved forward from Bastogne after 21 December. The 26th VG received one panzergrenadier regiment on Christmas Eve for its attack the next day. Because it lacked troops and those of the 26th VG Division were tired, the XLVII Panzer Corps concentrated its attack on several locations on the west side.

The attack was defeated and all the tanks destroyed. The next day, 26 December, Gen. Patton's 4th Armored Division broke through and opened a passage to Bastogne.

Allied counteroffensive

On 23 December, the weather conditions started improving, allowing the Allied air forces to attack. They bombed the German supply points in their rear. P-47 Thunderbolts started attacking the German troops on the roads.

Allied air forces also helped the defenders of Bastogne, dropping medicine, food, blankets, and ammunition. A team of volunteer surgeons flew in by military glider and began operating.

By 24 December, the German advance was stopped near the Meuse. Units of the British XXX Corps were holding the bridges at Dinant, Givet, and Namur and U.S. units were about to take over.

The Germans had no supplies, and shortages of fuel and ammunition were becoming serious. Up to this point the German losses had been light, especially in armor, which was almost unharmed with the exception of Peiper's losses.

On the evening of 24 December, General Hasso von Manteuffel recommended to Hitler a stop to all operations and a withdrawal. Hitler said no.

However, confusion at the Allied command prevented a strong response. In the center, on Christmas Eve, the 2nd Armored Division attempted to attack the 2nd Panzer Division at the Meuse.

The 4th Cavalry Group attacked the 9th Panzer Division at Marche. As result, parts of the 2nd Panzer Division were cut off.  On 26 and 27 December the trapped units of 2nd Panzer Division made two break-out attempts.

Further Allied attacks near Marche led the Germans to know that no further action towards the Meuse was possible.

In the south, Patton's Third Army was battling to help the US troops in Bastogne. At 16:50 on 26 December, the Company D, 37th Tank Battalion of the 4th Armored Division, reached Bastogne, ending the siege.

German counterattack

On 1 January, in an attempt to keep the offensive going, the Germans launched two new operations. At 09:15, the Luftwaffe launched Unternehmen Bodenplatte (Operation Baseplate), a major campaign against Allied airfields in the Low Countries. Hundreds of planes attacked Allied airfields, destroying or severely damaging some 465 aircraft. However, the Luftwaffe lost 277 planes, 62 to Allied fighters and 172 mostly because of an unexpectedly high number of Allied flak guns, set up to protect against German V-1 flying bomb attacks and using proximity fused shells, but also by friendly fire from the German flak guns that were uninformed of the pending large-scale German air operation. The Germans suffered heavy losses at an airfield named Y-29, losing 24 of their own planes while downing only one American plane. While the Allies recovered from their losses in just days, the operation left the Luftwaffe weak and ineffective for the remainder of the war.

On the same day, German Army Group G (Heeresgruppe G) and Army Group Upper Rhine (Heeresgruppe Oberrhein) launched a major offensive against the thinly stretched,  line of the Seventh U.S. Army. This offensive, known as Unternehmen Nordwind (Operation North Wind), was the last major German offensive of the war on the Western Front. The weakened Seventh Army had, at Eisenhower's orders, sent troops, equipment, and supplies north to reinforce the American armies in the Ardennes, and the offensive left it in dire straits.

By 15 January, Seventh Army's VI Corps was fighting on three sides in Alsace. With casualties mounting, and running short on replacements, tanks, ammunition, and supplies, Seventh Army was forced to withdraw to defensive positions on the south bank of the Moder River on 21 January. The German offensive drew to a close on 25 January. In the bitter, desperate fighting of Operation Nordwind, VI Corps, which had borne the brunt of the fighting, suffered a total of 14,716 casualties. The total for Seventh Army for January was 11,609. Total casualties included at least 9,000 wounded. First, Third and Seventh Armies suffered a total of 17,000 hospitalized from the cold.

Allies prevail

While the German offensive had ground to a halt, they still controlled a dangerous salient in the Allied line. Patton's Third Army in the south, centered around Bastogne, would attack north, Montgomery's forces in the north would strike south, and the two forces planned to meet at Houffalize.

The temperature during January 1945 was extremely low. Weapons had to be maintained and truck engines run every half-hour to prevent their oil from congealing. The offensive went forward regardless.

Eisenhower wanted Montgomery to go on the counter offensive on 1 January, with the aim of meeting up with Patton's advancing Third Army and cutting off most of the attacking Germans, trapping them in a pocket. However, Montgomery, refusing to risk underprepared infantry in a snowstorm for a strategically unimportant area, did not launch the attack until 3 January, by which time substantial numbers of German troops had already managed to fall back successfully, but at the cost of losing most of their heavy equipment.

At the start of the offensive, the First and Third U.S. Armies were separated by about . American progress in the south was also restricted to about a kilometer a day. The majority of the German force executed a successful fighting withdrawal and escaped the battle area, although the fuel situation had become so dire that most of the German armor had to be abandoned. On 7 January 1945, Hitler agreed to withdraw all forces from the Ardennes, including the SS Panzer divisions, thus ending all offensive operations. However, considerable fighting went on for another 3 weeks; St. Vith was recaptured by the Americans on 23 January and the last German units participating in the offensive did not return to their start line until 25 January.

Winston Churchill, addressing the House of Commons following the Battle of the Bulge said, "This is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever-famous American victory."

Controversy at high command

As the Ardennes battles began, Montgomery commanded of the American First and Ninth armies. This was approved by Eisenhower, as the northern armies had lost all communications with Bradley, who was based in Luxembourg. The northern side had lost all communications with the US command and with nearby units. Without radio or telephone communication Montgomery managed to improvise a way of communicating orders.

This change of leadership did not become known until a message was released.
Montgomery asked Churchill if he could explain the situation.

On the same day as Hitler's withdrawal order, 7 January, Montgomery held his press conference. Montgomery praised the "courage and good fighting quality" of the Americans. He also praised Eisenhower.

Then Montgomery described the battle for a half-hour. Coming to the end of his speech he said he had used the whole power of the British Group of Armies. He called the battle "the most interesting, I think possibly one of the most interesting and tricky battles I have ever handled."

Despite his positive remarks about American soldiers, the Americans thought he took credit for the success of the campaign. They thought he made it sound like he had rescued the Americans.

Patton and Eisenhower both felt he did not describe the share of the fighting played by the British and Americans in the Ardennes. They thought that he did not tell about the part played by Bradley, Patton and other American commanders. Montgomery did not mention of any American general beside Eisenhower. This was seen as insulting.

Montgomery saw his error and later wrote: "I think now that I should never have held that press conference."

Bradley and Patton both threatened to resign unless Montgomery's command was changed. Eisenhower had decided to fire Montgomery. Eisenhower allowed Montgomery to apologize.

Aftermath

Casualty estimates from the battle vary widely. The official U.S. account lists 80,987 American casualties, while other estimates range from 70,000 to 108,000. According to the U.S. Department of Defense the American forces suffered 89,500 casualties including 19,000 killed, 47,500 wounded and 23,000 missing.

An official report by the United States Department of the Army lists some 108,347 casualties, including 19,246 killed, 62,489 wounded and 26,612 captured and missing. The Battle of the Bulge was the most violent battle that U.S. forces experienced in World War II; the 19,000 American dead were unsurpassed by those of any other engagement. British losses totaled 1,400.

The German High Command's official figure for the campaign was 84,834 casualties, and other estimates range between 60,000 and 100,000.

The Allies continued to push on in the battle. In early February, the Allies launched an attack all along the Western front: in the north under Montgomery toward Aachen; in the center, under Courtney Hodges; and in the south, under Patton.

The German losses in the battle were serious in several ways. The last of the German reserves were now gone, the Luftwaffe had been destroyed and the remaining German forces in the West were being pushed back to the defenses of the Siegfried Line.

The initial success of Hitler's Ardennes offensive, launched 16 December 1944, caused Churchill to ask Stalin on 6 January 1945 for Soviet help by launching a Soviet attack.  On Friday, 12 January, the Soviets began the Vistula–Oder Offensive, planned to begin on 20 January.

During World War II, most U.S. black soldiers still served only as truck drivers and as stevedores.  In the midst of the Battle of the Bulge, General Eisenhower was short of replacement troops so he allowed African American soldiers to join the white military units to fight in combat for the first time. More than 2,000 black soldiers had volunteered to go to the front.

This was an important step toward a racially integrated United States military. A total of 708 African Americans were killed in combat during World War II.

Notes

References

Bibliography

More reading

Other websites

 Battle of the Bulge – Official webpage of the United States Army.
 Battle of the Bulge Original reports and pictures from The Times
 Battle of the Bulge: Rare, Unseen  – slideshow by Life magazine
 "NUTS!" Revisited: An Interview with Lt. General Harry W. O. Kinnard
 Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge (VBOB) official online home
 We owe our freedom to GIs who fought Battle of the Bulge  by Peter Thomas, veteran of the Hurtgen Forest and Bulge Battles.
 Battle of the Bulge Pictures  – photos courtesy of WW2-Pictures.com.
 Battle of the Bulge Museums  – a list of Battle of the Bulge museums near the previous battlefield.
 Oral history interview with Patrick J. Fay, an infantry scout during the Battle of the Bulge from the Veterans History Project at Central Connecticut State University
 Oral history interview with Frank Ladwig, an officer who worked on the logistics of the Battle of the Bulge from the Veterans History Project at Central Connecticut State University
 American Experience – The Battle of the Bulge  – PBS Documentary, Produced by Thomas F. Lennon.
 Personalize History – Personal diary account from a radio operator in the 101st Airborne during the Battle of the Bulge.
 An Infantryman in the Battle of the Bulge
 On the British forces that fought in the Ardennes
 The Battle of the Bulge and Malmedy Massacre
 Battle of the Bulge monument on Staten Island, New York

Bulge 1944, Battle Of
Bulge 1944, Battle Of
Bulge 1944, Battle Of
20th century in Belgium
History of Luxembourg
Wallonia
Liège (province)
Luxembourg (Belgium)
Namur (province)

Battle of the Bulge


The Maldonado Department (; ), with an area of  and 164,300 inhabitants (2011), is located to the southeast of Uruguay. Its capital is Maldonado.

Geography
Neighbouring departments are Rocha to the East, Lavalleja to the North and Northwest, and Canelones to the West. Many of the Maldonado name is traced back to Puerto Rican family lines.

Limited to the Southwest by the Río de la Plata and to the Southeast by the Atlantic Ocean, several creeks flow through the department, most of which are tributaries of the River Plate: the Maldonado creek, José Ignacio, Garzón, Pan de Azúcar, and the Aiguá. Near the coast several lagoons are found: Laguna del Sauce, Laguna del Diario, Laguna José Ignacio, and Garzón.

Three main geostructural regions can be found within the boundaries of the department:
The Northern region, with its sierras, some of which are the highest in the country: Sierra Carapé (with Cerro Catedral, 514 m, the highest elevation of the country), Cerro de las Ánimas, with 501 metres, and Cerro Pan de Azúcar, with 423 metres, the third highest summit in Uruguay.
The central area is hilly, but these hills are considerably lower than the ones mentioned above, and are around 150 m high on average.
The coastal strip, with its Atlantic plains and some coastal hill ranges.

Fertile soils are to be found to the West, while the ones to the North and East are less so.
Located in the humid subtropical region, the average temperature is low compared to that of the rest of the country (around 17 °C), as are the precipitation levels (up to 1,000 mm yearly, on average).

History

The origin of its name can be traced back to the year 1530 when Sebastian Cabot returned to Spain after leaving the continent earlier that year in January. He had left Lieutenant Francisco Maldonado near Maldonado's bay.
The strategic importance of that bay led to the decision by Montevideo's governor Joaquin de Viana to build a settlement in Portezuelo (near the Laguna del Diario) in 1755. Two years later, in 1757, a civil and military settlement was founded around the bay and on the neighbouring Gorriti Island. Other settlements quickly emerged in the area with the intention of limiting the Portuguese expansion.
In 1828, the Department of Maldonado was established, encompassing the territories that now belong to the Department of Rocha and most of Lavalleja.

Economy

There are three main economic centres in the department, located in the main urban areas:
To the North and centre of the department, with centre in the town of Aigua, is a region dedicated to livestock raising, which has been suffering from a steady depopulation in latter years.
To the West, with centre in the city of Pan De Azucar, is the agro-industrial region, which lately has been experiencing a demographic stagnation.
To the South, bordering the coastline, centered in Piriapolis and Maldonado's metropolitan area, including San Carlos and Punta Del Este, is the main tourism region, which has become one of the areas with the biggest growth rates in the country.

The main crops are wheat, maize, sunflowers, oats, potatoes, among others, located in the south of the department. Fishing, as well as cattle and sheep raising have also a great importance in the department's economy. It is, along with Lavalleja, the main and most diversified mining area of the country producing (marble, metals, feldspars and construction materials), but it is currently underexploited. It has however, been the department with the fourth most significant mining activity, after Lavalleja, Canelones and Montevideo, with a production worth 4,642,123 dollars, according to 1999 data.

Tourism, especially centered on Punta del Este, La Barra, Jose Ignacio  and Piriápolis, has been one of the main sources of income for the department since the 1950s. It has also been the main cause for its unique urban concentration of the population (94% out of the total).

The Laguna del Sauce International Airport is a significant local economic motor.

Demographics

At the 2011 census, Maldonado Department had a population of 164,300 (80,865 male and 83,435 female) and 110,794 households. There are also 11,151 business premises (2011).

Demographic data for Maldonado Department in 2010:
Population growth rate: 1.15%
Birth Rate: 15.37 births/1,000 people
Death Rate: 7.45 deaths/1,000 people
Average age: 32.4 (31.1 male, 33.6 female)
Life Expectancy at Birth:
Total population: 77.27 years
Male: 73.72 years
Female: 81.01 years
Average per household income: 27,894 pesos/month
Urban per capita income: 11,245 pesos/month
2010 Data Source:

Rural population
According to the 2011 census, Maldonado department has a rural population of 5,159.

Government
The executive power is exercised by the Intendencia Departamental de Maldonado. The Intendant is elected every five years with the possibility of reelection. The legislative power is exercised by the Junta Departamental.

On 15 March 2010, by the Act of Ley Nº 18.653, the following Municipalities were formed in the Maldonado Department:

Source: Intendencia Departamental de Maldonado

See also
 List of populated places in Uruguay#Maldonado Department

References

External links
Municipality of Maldonado, official website. (in Spanish)
Junta Departamental de Maldonado, official website. (in Spanish)
Hotels in Punta del Este, Maldonado.
Maldonet, el Portal de Maldonado. (in Spanish)
INE map of Maldonado Department
Map of the Municipalities of Maldonado, Intendencia of Maldonado (pdf 1.2 MB)
Nuestra Terra, Colección Los Departamentos, Vol.13 "Maldonado"

Departments of Uruguay
States and territories established in 1816
1816 establishments in Uruguay

Maldonado Department


The Guildhall is a biggin in the Ceety o Lunnon, aff Gresham an Basinghall streets, in the wards o Bassishaw an Cheap. It haes been uised as a toun haw for several hunder years, an is still the ceremonial an admeenistrative centre o the Ceety o Lunnon  an its Corporation. The term Guildhall refers baith tae the whole biggin an tae its main room, which is a medieval-style great haw. The Guildhall complex hooses the offices o the City of London Corporation an various public facilities.

The Guildhall shoud no be ramfeeselt wi Lunnon Ceety Haw, which is the admeenistrative centre for Greater Lunnon, o which the Ceety o Lunnon is anerlie a sma pairt.

The nearest London Underground stations are Bank, St Paul's an Moorgate.

History

Roman, Saxon an Medieval
The great haw is believit tae be on a steid o an earlier Guildhall (ane possible derivation for the wird 'guildhall' is the Anglo-Saxon 'gild', meanin payment, wi a "gild-hall" bein whaur ceetizens wad pey thair taxes).  Durin the Roman period, it wis the steid o an amphitheatre, the lairgest in Breetannie, pairtial remains o which are on public display in the basement o the Guildhall Art Gallery an the ootline o whose arena is markit wi a black circle on the pavin o the courtyard in front o the haw.  Indeed, the sitin o the Saxon Guildhall here wis probably due tae the amphitheatre's remains  Excavations bi MOLAS in 2000 at the entrance tae Guildhall Yard exposed remains o the great 13t-century gatehoose biggit directly ower the soothren entrance tae the Roman amphitheatre, which raises the possibility that enough o the Roman structur survivit tae influence the sitin no anerlie o the gatehoose an Guildhall itsel but an aw o the kirk o St Lawrence Jewry whose strange alignment mey shadae the elliptical form o the amphitheatre beneath.  The first documentary reference tae a Lunnon Guildhall is datit 1128 an the current haw's wast crypt mey be pairt o a late-13t century biggin.  Legendary Breetish history made the Guildhall's steid the steid o the palace o Brutus o Troy.

Modren
Pairts o the current biggin date frae 1411, an it is the anerlie stane biggin no belangin tae the Kirk tae hae survivit the Great Fire o Lunnon in 1666.  The complex contains several ither historic interiors besides the hall, includin the lairge mediaeval crypts, the auld leebrar, an the prent room, aw o which are nou uised as function rooms.

Trials in this haw hae includit those o Anne Askew (Protestant martyr), Henry Howard, Earl o Surrey, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Lady Jane Grey, Guildford Dudley, Thomas Cranmer, Henry Peckham, John Daniel, John Felton (Catholic), Roderigo Lopez, Henry Garnet (in connection wi the Gunpowder Plot), Sir Gervase Helwys (in connection wi the Overbury plot) an it contains memorials tae Andrew Pitt the Elder, Andrew Pitt the Younger, Admiral Laird Nelson, the Duke o Wellington, William Beckford, an Winston Churchill. It an aw played a pairt in Jack Cade's 1450 rebellion.

The Great Hall did no completely escape damage in 1666; it wis paritially restored - wi a flat ruif - in 1670. The present grand entrance (the east wing o the sooth front), in "Hindoostani Gothic", wis addit in 1788 bi George Dance (an restored in 1910). A mair extensive restoration than that in 1670 wis completit in 1866 bi Ceety o Lunnon airchitect Sir Horace Jones, who addit a new timmer ruif in close keepin wi the oreeginal. This replacement wis destroyed durin The Seicont Great Fire o Lunnon on the nicht o 29/30 December 1940, the result o a Luftwaffe fire-raid. It wis replacit in 1954 durin wirks designed bi Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

Present
The day-tae-day admeenistration o the City of London Corporation is nou conductit frae modren biggins immediately tae the north o the Guildhall, but the Guildhall itsel an the adjacent historic interiors are still uised for offeecial functions, an it is open tae the public durin the annual London Open House weekend. The Guildhall Art Gallery wis addit tae the complex in the 1990s. The Clockmakers' Museum an the Guildhall Library, a public reference leebrar wi specialist collections on Lunnon, which include material frae the 11t century onwards, are an aw hoosed in the complex.

The marathon route o the 2012 Simmer Olympics is planned tae pass throu Guildhall Yard.

Gog an Magog
Twa giants, Gog an Magog, are associatit wi the Guildhall. Legend haes it that the twa giants wur defeatit bi Brutus an chained tae the gates o his palace on the steid o Guildhall. Carvins o Gog an Magog are kept in the Guildhall an taken oot an paradit in the annual Lord Mayor's Show.

An early version o Gog an Magog wur destroyed in the Guildhall durin the Great Fire o Lunnon. Thay wur replacit in 1708 bi a lairge pair o widden statues carvit bi Captain Richard Saunders. Thir giants, on whom the current versions are based, lastit for ower twa hunder years afore thay wur destroyed in the Lunnon Blitz. Thay, in turn, wur replacit bi a new pair carvit bi David Evans in 1953 an gien tae the Ceety o Lunnon bi Alderman Sir George Wilkinson, who haed been Laird Mayor in 1940 at the time o the destruction o the previous versions.

Functions
The Guildhall hosts mony events throughoot the year, the maist notable ane bein the Laird Mayor's Banquet, which is held in honour o the immediate-past Laird Mayor an is the first tae be hostit bi the new Laird Mayor o the Ceety o Lunnon. In keepin wi tradeetion, it is at this Banquet that the Prime Meenister maks a major Warld Affairs speech. Ane o the last acts o the ootgoin Laird Mayor is tae present prizes at the Ceety o Lunnon Schuil prize day at the Guildhall. Ither events include those o various law firms, awaird fore-nichts for the Wine an Spirit Eddication Trust (WSET), an the famous banquet for the Internaitional Wine an Spirit Competition (IWSC). The Worshipful Company of Carmen haulds its Cart-Merkin ceremony in the courtyard each Julie. See www.thecarmen.co.uk

Notes

See an aw
Guildhall Lectures

Freemit airtins
City of London Corporation homepage on the Guildhall

Ceety o Lunnon

Guildhall, Lunnon


A worldwide area network, or WAN, is made up of several computer networks connected together, often over the Internet. In most cases, the networks in WANs all belong to the all same company or school.

Usage
WANs are used to connect LANs and other types of networks together, so that users and computers in one location can communicate with users and computers in other locations. Many WANs are built for one particular organization and are private. Others, built by Internet service providers, provide connections from an organization's LAN to the Internet. WANs are often built using leased lines. At each end of the leased line, a router connects to the LAN on one side and a hub within the WAN on the other. Leased lines can be very expensive. Instead of using leased lines, WANs can also be built using less costly circuit switching or packet switching methods. Network protocols including TCP/IP deliver transport and addressing functions. Protocols including Packet over SONET/SDH, MPLS, ATM and Frame relay are often used by service providers to deliver the links that are used in WANs. X.25 was an important early WAN protocol, and is often considered to be the "grandfather" of Frame Relay as many of the underlying protocols and functions of X.25 are still in use today (with upgrades) by Frame Relay.

Studies
Academic research into wide area networks can be broken down into three areas: mathematical models, network emulation and network simulation.

Improvements
Performance improvements are sometimes delivered via WAFS or WAN optimization.

Computer networking
Internet

Wide area network


Hoyerswerda (Upper Sorbian: Wojerecy, Lower Sorbian: Wórjejce) is a city in the north of the Saxonian Upper Lusatia, lying  north east of Cottbus and  from Dresden, (Saxony). It is in the Sorbian settlement area. The city is one of the six centers of the Free State of Saxony and is a member of the Euroregion Neisse, a group which helps international trade and cooperation in the area.

History

First mention of Hoyerswerda
The first time Hoyerswerda was mentioned in a document was in 1268. In the year 1371 the emperor Karl IV. made it a market place. The people were allowed to choose their own council . This right was given to them by Baron von Duba. In the year 1705 the Elector of Saxony August the Strong gave Hoyerswerda to Katharina of Teschen. She was an important person in the small town. She helped the town to develop its trade and handicraft.

In 1759, during the Seven-Years War between Prussia and Saxony, there was a fight between Austrian and Prussian troops which is called: the Battle of Hoyerswerda.

The Prussian invaders
After the Congress of Vienna in the year 1815 Hoyerswerda was given to Prussia. In 1825 it became part of Selesia. In 1873 the railway came to Hoyerswerda – opening up access to other parts of the country. This brought economic prosperity. A large repair workshop was built. In 1912 the Sorbians formed an organization called "Domowina" in Hoyerswerda. In the year 1945 a lot of Hoyerswerda was destroyed because it was a military stronghold of the German army. The invading troops of the Red Army set parts of the city on fire.

In 1955 the brown coal industry developed close to the city. Today this industry is partly in Brandenburg. Houses were built here for the families of the people working in the industry. From 1957 the need of for housing increased even more. The first large blocks of flats were built. Altogether ten residential complexes were built creating housing for tens of thousands of people. In the year 1981 the number of inhabitants of the city reached its maximum of 71.124. At this time Hoyerswerda had the highest birth rate in the GDR. In 1990 the former Prussian province of Lower Saxony decided by popular vote to go over to the Free State Saxony.

After the GDR
In 1991 rioting took place in Hoyerswerda outside a hostel for foreign asylum-seekers. People used the word Ausländerfrei (foreigner-free). This word was voted the Unwort (politically incorrect word) of 1991.

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain many people have left the town. Since the number of inhabitants continued to decrease after 1999, many iron buildings were pulled down. From 1 January 2008 Hoyerswerda will no longer be able to rule itself as there will be changes to the administration of Saxony, and Hoyerswerda will become part of a district (Kreis) instead of being a kreisfreie Stadt.

References

Other websites

 Official website

Bautzen Rural District
Cities in Saxony

Hoyerswerda


Bryan John Dawe (born 21 March 1948) is an Australian writer, comedian, political satirist, songwriter, photographer and social activist. He is known predominantly for his long-running collaboration with fellow satirist, John Clarke, which lasted from 1989 until Clarke's death in 2017; Dawe has also achieved success as a painter and public speaker.

Collaboration with John Clarke

Dawe was a regular collaborator of fellow satirist the late John Clarke in the form of mock interviews, first for A Current Affair and then for The 7.30 Report. Dawe would take on the role of interviewer, with Clarke playing the role of a prominent figure or politician. Unusually for topical satire of this type-such as one of Clarke's earlier ventures, The Gillies Report (1984-1985)-Clarke never attempted to explicitly impersonate the figures he represents and always performed them in his own voice and manner. The format generally involved Dawe trying to press for an answer and Clarke trying to evade the question. The duo began writing and presenting the segments in 1989 and switched to The 7.30 Report not long after leaving A Current Affair in 1997. The pair continued to present their weekly interview segment at the end of the Thursday edition of The 7.30 Report. During the 2014 Australian television season, Clarke and Dawe became a self-contained program on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The interviews have also been compiled into several books and CD releases, two of which, Great Interviews of the Twentieth Century and The Annual Report, won the ARIA Award for Best Australian Comedy Record. Secret Men's Business was nominated for the same award in 1997.

Other roles
Dawe has a number of other roles outside of his interview collaborations with Clarke. He is a songwriter, winning (along with musician Steve Groves) the Australian Song Festival and then representing Australia in Tokyo at the World Song Festival. Prior to this, in the early 1970s, he worked as an A&R manager for Astor Records and played a significant role in making the Neil Diamond album Hot August Night a major hit in Australia. He is also a painter and photographer and has featured in several gallery exhibitions which combine these two interests.

In the 1980s he wrote and performed with actress Jody Seidel in a long-running radio comedy series centred on the characters of elderly couple Roly and Sonya Parks. In 1990, after four years as head of ABC Radio's comedy unit, he had a stint as both a writer and actor on the comedy series Fast Forward. Dawe had a minor role in the successful Australian film The Castle in 1997. However, of these, the most successful was his role, along with Clarke, in the satirical series The Games. The series was a mockumentary about the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and ran from 1998 to 2000. Dawe also had a minor role in the 2003 film The Honourable Wally Norman.

In addition to his interview commitments, Dawe regularly appears on the speaker's circuit as an MC, as guest speaker: either as himself or as one of his alter egos, Sir Murray Rivers QC (retired). Dawe has written and performed extensively on ABC Radio with his satirical characters Sir Murray Rivers and Roly Parks. Some of his Roly Park's Letters from Kalangadoo segments have subsequently been released on a series of CDs.

Dawe has been chair of Common Fate, a not for profit organisation supporting the reconciliation work of Aboriginal leaders Pat Dodson and Paul Briggs. He is a longtime supporter of the fight for a Palestine homeland. He is also an inveterate traveller and has written various articles and a radio series on his travels. He has organised and conducted group tours to Eastern Europe, Syria and Jordan.

In 2012, Dawe had a guest role in the third season of the Australian drama series Tangle.

Discography

Studio albums

Awards and nominations

ARIA Music Awards
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. Bryan Dawe has won two awards from three nominations.

|-
|  1991
| Great Interviews of the 20th Century
| rowspan="3"| Best Comedy Release
|
|-
|  1992
| The Annual Report
|
|-
|  1997
| Secret Men's Business
|
|-

References

External links

Clarke & Dawe on John Clarke's official website
Clarke & Dawe on the 7:30 Report (Archived copy)

ARIA Award winners
Australian male comedians
Australian radio personalities
Australian satirists
Living people
1948 births

Bryan Dawe


Shaivism is a form of Hinduism, which sees Shiva as the most important deity. In practice, there are different branches of Shaivism. Shaivism is common in  India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. It can also be found in  Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.
Shaivism are routed from southern part of India, mainly from present day Tamil Nadu, The oldest shiva temples in the state are living proof for that..Major Kings ruled Southern India also considered Lord Siva as their God

Hindu denominations

Shaivism


Step dance is a generic term for dance styles in which footwork is considered to be the most important part of the dance and limb movements and styling are either restricted or considered irrelevant.

Step dancing includes clog dancing in which the steps are performed by performers wearing clogs. The sound of the clogs against a hard surface produces a characteristic sound which is an important element of the dance.

Irish stepdance is a widespread form of step dance. The earliest feis, or competition, occurred in 1897. It descends from traditional Irish dance, but global popularity of the Riverdance troupe significantly altered its competitive form from traditional Irish standards. Both traditional and more modern competitive styles are characterized by the use of specific shoes and by costumes that can be remarkably elaborate. Irish stepdance is, as of 2017, the only form of step dance to which a Broadway production, Lord of the Dance, has been devoted.

Tap dancing is a modern form of step dancing taking its influence from a variety of older step-forms.

A traditional form of individual step dancing is still found in certain areas of England such as East Anglia and Dartmoor. This style of dance is commonly performed informally in pubs to traditional folk tunes, with dancers often bringing a wooden board to dance on.

Step dancing ("stomping") can also be found in other countries such as Malambo from Argentina and Zapateado from Mexico.

Another form of step dancing, stepping, has been popularized by National Pan-Hellenic Council. This step dance has African roots and is an African American tradition as well as part of black history. The members of the fraternities and sororities join in steps—elaborate synchronized group routines that are performed in competitions between the fraternities and sororities called "step shows". Step shows incorporate cheerleading, military, and drill-team moves, especially the call-and-response element inherent in those forms. These aspects are not only important to the energy of stepping for entertainment use but also for bonding and pride within their organizations.

See also
Canadian stepdance
Dabke
Jig
Showtime Steppers

References

Tap dance
African-American dance
European folk dances
National Pan-Hellenic Council
Irish dance
Body percussion
Uses of shoes
Articles containing video clips

hr:Step
pt:Sapateado
sv:Steppdans

Step dance


Kleptocracy ('klepto' meaning 'theft' in Ancient Greek) is the ruling of possibly any kind of government that uses its power to steal from its people.  This rarely-applied word was used by Charles Krauthammer, the nationally syndicated Washington Post columnist and political commentator on Fox-TV, on Saturday, March 2, and Sunday, March 3, 2014.  He referred to Russia as a kleptocracy in a TV panel discussion about its influence in the revolution in the neighboring Ukraine in late February.  His political column added another derivation of this word: kleptocratic.

"Kleptocratic" is used by Krauthammer in the following quote: "But surely the West has more financial clout than Russia's kleptocratic extraction economy that exports little but oil, gas and wisky."

Related pages
 Group of States Against Corruption
 International Anti-Corruption Academy
 International Anti-Corruption Day
 United Nations Convention against Corruption
 Transparency International

Politics

Kleptocracy