Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia (born Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine; 1 November 1864– 18 July 1918) was a German Hessian and Rhenish princess of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt, and the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, the fifth son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine.

A granddaughter of Queen Victoria and an older sister of Alexandra, the last Russian Empress, Elisabeth became famous in Russian society for her dignified beauty and charitable works among the poor. After the Socialist Revolutionary Party's Combat Organization assassinated her husband with a bomb in 1905, Elisabeth publicly forgave Sergei's murderer, Ivan Kalyayev, and campaigned without success for him to be pardoned. She then departed the Imperial Court and became a nun, founding the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent dedicated to helping the downtrodden of Moscow. In 1918, she was arrested and ultimately killed by Bolsheviks. In 1981, she was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and in 1992 by the Moscow Patriarchate.

Princess of Hesse

Elisabeth was born on 1 November 1864 as the second child of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria. Though she came from one of the oldest and most noble houses in Germany, Elisabeth and her family lived a rather modest life by royal standards. The children swept the floors and cleaned their own rooms, while their mother sewed dresses herself for the children. During the Austro-Prussian War, Princess Alice often took Elisabeth with her while visiting wounded soldiers in a nearby hospital. In this relatively happy and secure environment, Elisabeth grew up surrounded by English domestic habits, and English became her first language. Later in life, she would tell a friend that, within her family, she and her siblings spoke English to their mother and German to their father.

In the autumn of 1878, diphtheria swept through the Hesse household, killing Elisabeth's youngest sister, Marie, on 16 November, as well as her mother Alice on 14 December. Elisabeth had been sent away to her paternal grandmother's home at the beginning of the outbreak and she was the only member of her family to remain unaffected. When she was finally allowed to return home, she described the meeting as "terribly sad" and said that everything was "like a horrible dream".

Admirers and suitors

Charming and with a very accommodating personality, Elisabeth was considered by many historians and contemporaries to be one of the most beautiful women in Europe at that time. Her cousin Princess Marie of Edinburgh wrote that "one could never take one's eyes off [Ella]" and that Ella's features were "exquisite beyond words, it almost brought tears to your eyes". Her older cousin Prince Wilhelm of Prussia called her "exceedingly beautiful, in fact she is the most beautiful girl I ever saw". Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, her sister's lady-in-waiting, reflected that she was "a very pretty girl, tall and fair, with regular features".

When Elisabeth was a young woman her cousin, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, fell in love with her. In April 1875, the 16-year-old Wilhelm visited Darmstadt to celebrate Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine's 12th birthday and first expressed interest in the 11-year-old Elisabeth. He wrote in a letter to his mother that "if God grants that I may live till then I shall make her my bride once if you allow it". When he was a student at Bonn University, he often visited his Aunt Alice and his Hessian relatives on the weekends. During these frequent visits, he fell in love with Elisabeth, writing numerous love poems and regularly sending them to her. He proposed to Elisabeth in 1878, but she rejected him.

Lord Charles Montagu, the second son of the 7th Duke of Manchester courted her unsuccessfully.

Henry Wilson, later a distinguished soldier, vied unsuccessfully for Elisabeth's hand.

The future Frederick II, Grand Duke of Baden, Wilhelm's first cousin, proposed to Elisabeth. Queen Victoria described him as "so good and steady", with "such a safe and happy position", that when Elisabeth declined to marry him the Queen "deeply regretted it". Frederick's grandmother, the Empress Augusta, was so furious at Elisabeth's rejection of Frederick that it took some time for her to forgive Elisabeth.

Other admirers included:

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia (the poet KR), who wrote a poem about her first arrival in Russia and the general impression she made to all the people present at the time.
As a young girl, Queen Marie of Romania was very fascinated with her cousin Ella. In her memoirs, she wrote that "her beauty and sweetness was a thing of dreams".
The French Ambassador to the Russian court, Maurice Paleologue, wrote in his memoirs how Elisabeth was capable of arousing what he described as "profane passions".

Ultimately, it was a grand duke of Russia who would win Elisabeth's heart; Elisabeth's great-aunt, Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, was a frequent visitor to Hesse. During these visits, she was usually accompanied by her youngest sons, Sergei and Paul. Elisabeth had known them since they were children, and she initially viewed them as haughty and reserved. Sergei, especially, was a very serious young man, intensely religious, and he found himself attracted to Elisabeth after seeing her as a young woman for the first time in several years.

At first, Sergei made little impression on Elisabeth. But after the death of both of his parents within a year of each other, Elisabeth sympathised with Sergei because she had felt this same grief after the death of her mother. Their other similarities (both were artistic and religious) drew them closer together. It was said that Sergei was especially attached to Elisabeth because she had the same character as his beloved mother. So when Sergei proposed to her in the spring of 1883, she accepted—much to the chagrin of her grandmother Queen Victoria, who tried to persuade Elisabeth to end the engagement. But when Sergei proposed again later in the same year, she accepted him once more, and arrangements for their wedding went ahead.

Grand Duchess of Russia

Sergei and Elisabeth married on 15 (3) June 1884, at the Chapel of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg; upon her conversion to Russian Orthodoxy, she took the name Elizaveta Feodorovna. It was at the wedding that Sergei's 16-year-old nephew, Tsarevich Nicholas, first met his future wife, Elisabeth's youngest surviving sister Alix.

Elisabeth was not legally required to convert to Russian Orthodoxy from her native Lutheran religion, but she voluntarily chose to do so in 1891. Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Elisabeth's Lutheran sister-in-law who had not converted to Russian Orthodoxy, insisted that it was "a disgrace for a German Protestant princess to go over to the Orthodox faith". Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had once been in love with her, declared that she converted because of "an inordinate pursuit of popularity, a desire to improve her position at court, a great lack of intelligence, and also a want of true religiousness".

The new Grand Duchess made a good first impression on her husband's family and the Russian people. "Everyone fell in love with her from the moment she came to Russia from her beloved Darmstadt", wrote one of Sergei's cousins, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia (the poet KR). The French Ambassador to the Russian court, Maurice Paleologue, wrote in his memoirs how Elisabeth was capable of arousing what he described as "profane passions". The couple settled in the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace in St. Petersburg; after Sergei was appointed Governor-General of Moscow by his elder brother, Tsar Alexander III, in 1892, they resided in one of the Kremlin palaces. During the summer, they stayed at Ilyinskoe, an estate outside Moscow that Sergei had inherited from his mother.

The couple never had children of their own, but their Ilyinskoe estate was usually filled with parties that Elisabeth organized especially for children. They eventually became the foster parents of Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, Sergei's niece and nephew. Prince Felix Yusupov considered Elisabeth a second mother, and stated in his memoirs that she helped him greatly during the most difficult moments of his life.

Elisabeth was instrumental in the marriage of her nephew-by-marriage, Tsar Nicholas II, to her youngest sister Alix. Much to the dismay of Queen Victoria, Elisabeth had been encouraging Nicholas, then tsarevich, in his pursuit of Alix. When Nicholas did propose to Alix in 1894, and Alix rejected him on the basis of her refusal to convert to Orthodoxy, it was Elisabeth who spoke with Alix and encouraged her to convert. When Nicholas proposed to her again, a few days later, Alix then accepted.

On 17 February 1905, Sergei was assassinated in the Kremlin by the Socialist-Revolutionary Ivan Kalyayev. The event came as a terrible shock to Elisabeth, but she never lost her calm. It was as if her prophecy had come true that "God will punish us severely", which she made after the Grand Duke expelled 20,000 Jews from Moscow, by simply surrounding thousands of families' houses with soldiers and expelling the Jews without any notice overnight out of their homes and the city. Her niece Marie later recalled that her aunt's face was "pale and stricken rigid" and she would never forget her expression of infinite sadness. In her rooms, said Marie, Elisabeth "let herself fall weakly into an armchair...her eyes dry and with the same peculiar fixity of gaze, she looked straight into space, and said nothing". As visitors came and went, she looked without ever seeming to see them. Throughout the day of her husband's assassination, Elisabeth refused to cry. But Marie recalled how her aunt slowly abandoned her rigid self-control, finally breaking down into sobs. Many of her family and friends feared that she would suffer a nervous breakdown, but she quickly recovered her equanimity.

According to Edvard Radzinsky,

Elizabeth spent all the days before the burial in ceaseless prayer. On her husband's tombstone she wrote: 'Father, release them, they know not what they do.' She understood the words of the Gospels heart and soul, and on the eve of the funeral she demanded to be taken to the prison where Kalyayev was being held. Brought into his cell, she asked, 'Why did you kill my husband?' 'I killed Sergei Alexandrovich because he was a weapon of tyranny. I was taking revenge for the people.' She replied, 'Do not listen to your pride. Repent... and I will beg the Sovereign to give you your life. I will ask him for you. I myself have already forgiven you.' On the eve of revolution, she had already found a way out; forgiveness! Forgive through the impossible pain and blood -- and thereby stop it then, at the beginning, this bloody wheel. By her example, poor Ella appealed to society, calling upon the people to live in Christian faith. 'No!" replied Kalyayev. 'I do not repent. I must die for my deed and I will... My death will be more useful to my cause than Sergei Alexandrovich's death.' Kalyayev was sentenced to death. 'I am pleased with your sentence,' he told the judges. 'I hope that you will carry it out just as openly and publicly as I carried out the sentence of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Learn to look the advancing revolution right in the face.'

Kalyayev was hanged on 23 May 1905.

In 1915, the All-Russian Zemstvo Union was organised under Elisabeth's auspices to provide support for sick and injured soldiers during the First World War.

Religious life

After Sergei's death, Elisabeth wore mourning clothes and became a vegetarian. In 1909, she sold off her magnificent collection of jewels and other luxurious possessions; even her wedding ring was not spared. With the proceeds, she opened the Convent of Saints Martha and Mary and became its abbess. She soon opened a hospital, chapel, pharmacy and orphanage on its grounds.

Elisabeth and her fellow nuns worked tirelessly among the poor and the sick of Moscow. She often visited Moscow's worst slums and did all she could to help alleviate the suffering of the poor. For many years, her institution helped the poor and the orphans in Moscow by fostering the prayer and charity of devout women.

In 1916, Elisabeth had what was to be her final meeting with her sister Alexandra, the tsarina, at Tsarskoye Selo. While the meeting took place in private, the tutor to the tsar's children apparently recalled that the discussion included Elisabeth expressing her concerns over the influence that Grigori Rasputin had over Alexandra and the imperial court, and begging her to heed the warnings of both herself and other members of the imperial family.

In 2010, a historian claimed that Elisabeth may have been aware that the murder of Rasputin was to take place and secondly, she knew who was going to commit it when she wrote a letter and sent it to the Tsar and two telegrams to Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and her friend Zinaida Yusupova. The telegrams, which were written the night of the murder, reveal that Elisabeth was aware of who the murderers were before that information had been released to the public, and she stated that she felt that the killing was a "patriotic act".

Death
In 1918, Vladimir Lenin ordered the Cheka to arrest Elisabeth. They then exiled her first to Perm, then to Yekaterinburg, where she spent a few days and was joined by others: the Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich; Princes John Konstantinovich, Konstantin Konstantinovich, Igor Konstantinovich and Vladimir Pavlovich Paley; Grand Duke Sergei's secretary, Fyodor Remez; and Varvara Yakovleva, a sister from the Grand Duchess's convent. They were all taken to Alapayevsk on 20 May 1918, where they were housed in the Napolnaya School on the outskirts of the town.

At noon on 17 July, Cheka officer Pyotr Startsev and a few Bolshevik workers came to the school. They took from the prisoners whatever money they had left and announced that they would be transferred that night to the Upper Siniachikhensky factory compound. The Red Army guards were told to leave and Cheka men replaced them. That night the prisoners were awakened and driven in carts on a road leading to the village of Siniachikha, some  from Alapayevsk where there was an abandoned iron mine with a pit  deep. Here they halted. The Cheka beat all the prisoners before throwing their victims into this pit, Elisabeth being the first. Hand grenades were then hurled down the shaft, but only one victim, Fyodor Remez, died as a result of the grenades.

According to the personal account of Vasily Ryabov, one of the executioners, Elisabeth and the others survived the initial fall into the mine, prompting Ryabov to toss in a grenade after them. Following the explosion, he claimed to have heard Elisabeth and the others singing an Orthodox hymn from the bottom of the shaft. Unnerved, Ryabov threw down a second grenade, but the singing continued. Finally a large quantity of brushwood was shoved into the opening and set alight, upon which Ryabov posted a guard over the site and departed.

Early on 18 July 1918, the leader of the Alapayevsk Cheka, Abramov, and the head of the Yekaterinburg Regional Soviet, Beloborodov, who had been involved in the execution of the Imperial Family, exchanged a number of telegrams in a pre-arranged plan saying that the school had been attacked by an "unidentified gang". A month later, Alapayevsk fell to the White Army of Admiral Alexander Kolchak. Lenin welcomed Elisabeth's death, remarking that "virtue with the crown on it is a greater enemy to the world revolution than a hundred tyrant tsars".

New research, based on the original documents of the preliminary investigation in 1918 by investigator Nikolai Alekseevich Sokolov, asserts that Elizabeth was already dead when she was thrown down the mine shaft. Her body was found "vertical, her arms folded over her body...both hands...tightly clenched, fingers bent, her nails sunk into the skin...head, eyes and nose were tied with a handkerchief folded in four layers."

Legacy

Fate of the remains
On 8 October 1918, White Army soldiers discovered the remains of Elisabeth and her companions, still within the shaft where they had been killed. Despite having lain there for almost three months, the bodies were in relatively good condition. Most were thought to have died slowly from injuries or starvation, rather than the subsequent fire. Elisabeth had died of wounds sustained in her fall into the mine, but before her death had still found strength to bandage the head of the dying Prince John with her wimple.  With the Red Army approaching, their remains were removed further east and buried in the cemetery of the Russian Orthodox Mission in Peking (now Beijing), China.  In 1921, the bodies of Elisabeth and of Sister Barbara (Varvara Yakovleva), one of her nuns, were taken to Jerusalem, where they were laid to rest in the Church of Mary Magdalene at Gethsemane.  The Russian Orthodox Mission in Beijing was demolished in 1957 and its cemetery paved over as a parking lot in 1986.

Canonisation
Elisabeth was canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in 1981, and in 1992 by the Moscow Patriarchate as Holy Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna. Her principal shrines are the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent she founded in Moscow, and the Saint Mary Magdalene Convent on the Mount of Olives, which she and her husband helped build, and where her relics (along with those of Nun Barbara (Varvara Yakovleva, her former maid) are enshrined.

Commemoration
Saint Elizabeth the New Martyr is commemorated on three days in the liturgical year of the Russian Orthodox Church: on the feast of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russian Church (Sunday nearest 25 January (O.S.)/ 7 February (N.S.)), on the anniversary of her martyrdom (5/18 July) and on the anniversary of the transfer of her relics to Jerusalem (17/30 January).

She is one of the ten 20th-century martyrs from across the world who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey, London, England, and she is also represented in the restored nave screen installed at St Albans Cathedral in April 2015.

A statue of Elisabeth was erected in the garden of her convent in Moscow after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Its inscription reads: "To the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna: With Repentance".

Rehabilitation
On 8 June 2009, the Prosecutor General of Russia officially posthumously rehabilitated Elizabeth Feodorovna, along with other Romanovs: Mikhail Alexandrovich, Sergei Mikhailovich, John Konstantinovich, Konstantin Konstantinovich, and Igor Konstantinovich. "All of these people were subjected to repression in the form of arrest, deportation and being held by the Cheka without charge", said a representative of the office.

Honours
 : Dame of the Order of the Golden Lion, 1 January 1883
 : Dame Grand Cross of the Order of St. Catherine, 1884
 :
 Queen Victoria Golden Jubilee Medal, 1887
 Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, 2nd Class

Ancestry

See also
Canonization of the Romanovs

Notes

Further reading
 Paleologue, Maurice. An Ambassador's Memoirs, 1922
 Grand Duchess Marie of Russia. Education of a Princess, 1931
 Queen Marie of Romania. The Story of My Life, 1934
 Almedingen, E.M. An Unbroken Unity, 1964
 Duff, David. Hessian Tapestry, 1967
 Millar, Lubov, Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia, US edition, Redding, California., 1991,
 Mager, Hugo. Elizabeth, Grand Duchess of Russia, 1998,
 Zeepvat, Charlotte. Romanov Autumn, 2000,
 Belyakova, Zoia. The Romanovs: the Way It Was, 2000,
 Warwick, Christopher Ella: Princess, Saint and Martyr, 2007,  Croft, Christina Most Beautiful Princess — A Novel Based on the Life of Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia'', 2008,

External links

Orthodox sources
Life of the Holy New Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth, by Metropolitan Anastassy
Pilgrimage to Alapaevsk
Photo Library of Saint Elizabeth
OrthodoxWiki:Elizabeth the New Martyr

Orthodox hymns to Saint Elizabeth
Akathist to the New Martyr Elizabeth
Canon to the Holy and Righteous Nun-Martyrs Elizabeth and Barbara New Martyrs of Russia

Secular sources
Murder of the Romanovs at Alapayevsk
American Reporter Interviews Elisabeth in 1917
HIH Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna by Countess Alexandra Olsoufieff

1864 births
1918 deaths
Russian grand duchesses by marriage
House of Hesse-Darmstadt
House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
Russian nuns
20th-century German nuns
Eastern Orthodox abbesses
Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy from Lutheranism
Christian female saints of the Late Modern era
Russian Empire saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church
Eastern Orthodox royal saints
19th-century Christian saints
20th-century Christian saints
19th-century venerated Christians
20th-century venerated Christians
German emigrants to the Russian Empire
19th-century German women
20th-century German women
Murdered Russian royalty
Executed royalty
Executed Russian women
Extrajudicial killings
Victims of Red Terror in Soviet Russia
People murdered in the Soviet Union
20th-century murders in Russia
Executed German women
German people murdered abroad
German people executed abroad
Executed people from Hesse
Female murder victims
1918 murders in Europe
Burials at the Church of Mary Magdalene
Princesses in Germany
Daughters of monarchs
Emigrants from the German Empire to the Russian Empire


Argyll and Bute is a council area of Scotland, UK, is one of 32 unitary authority council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy area. The administrative centre for the council area is in Lochgilphead.

Argyll and Bute covers the second-largest administrative area of any Scottish council. The council area adjoins those of Highland, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire. Its border runs through Loch Lomond.

The present council area was created in 1996, when it was carved out of the Strathclyde region, which was a two-tier local government region of 19 districts, created in 1975. Argyll and Bute merged the existing Argyll and Bute district and one ward of the Dumbarton district. The Dumbarton ward, called 'Helensburgh and Lomond', included the burgh of Helensburgh and consisted of an area to the west of Loch Lomond, north of the Firth of Clyde and mostly east of Loch Long.

Argyll and Bute


Rainiero d'Elci (7 March 1670 – 22 June 1761) was an Italian Cardinal.

Biography
He was born in Florence and was ordained in 1699. He entered papal service in the following year and held several offices both in Roman Curia and in the papal territorial administration. He was Inquisitor of Malta from 1711 until 1716.

He was consecrated titular archbishop of Rodi at the end of 1730. He served as apostolic nuncio in France 1731–1738. Pope Clement XII created him Cardinal on 20 December 1737 but did not publish it before the following June.  In the same year he became archbishop of Ferrara, an office he held until 1740; he was then legate in that city.

He became bishop of Sabina (10 April 1747), then bishop of Porto e Santa Rufina (9 April 1753). He became Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals at the death of Pietro Luigi Carafa on 15 December 1755, and as such he was transferred to the see of Ostia e Velletri (proper of the Dean) on 12 January 1756.

He presided over the Papal conclave, 1758. In spite of his advanced age, he received several votes during its celebration. He died in Rome and is buried in his titular church of S. Sabina.

References

External links
Rainiero d'Elci biography

1670 births
1761 deaths
Clergy from Florence
17th-century Italian cardinals
Cardinal-bishops of Ostia
Cardinal-bishops of Porto
Cardinal-bishops of Sabina
Deans of the College of Cardinals
Rainiero
Inquisitors of Malta

Rainiero d'Elci


The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (in Dutch: Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest) is an orchestra in the Netherlands.  The orchestra is based in Amsterdam.  "Concertgebouw" (pronounced: "Con-SERT-ghe-bouw") is the Dutch word for "concert hall".  For nearly a century the orchestra were just called "Concertgebouw Orchestra", but in 1988 the Queen Beatrix gave them the "Royal" title.

History
The concert hall, called the Concertgebouw, was opened on 11 April 1888. The orchestra was formed later that year and gave its first performance on 3 November 1888 under Willem Kes, who was to be their conductor for seven years.

In 1895, Willem Mengelberg became chief conductor.  He was to be their conductor for fifty years.  He made them into a world-class orchestra.  He is particularly remembered for his conducting of the music of Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss whose music was new in those days.

As well as their chief conductor, the orchestra had assistant conductor positions called "first conductor" and "second conductor".  During Mengelberg's time the "first conductors"  included  Karl Muck (1921-1925), Pierre Monteux (1924-1934), Bruno Walter (1934-1939), and Eugen Jochum (1941-1943), and the second conductors included the composer Cornelis Dopper, Evert Cornelis and Eduard van Beinum.

In 1945, after World War II had ended, Mengelberg was not allowed to conduct the orchestra because he had played to the Nazis.  He was banned for six years from conducting them, but he died in 1951 just before the six years came to an end.

From 1945 to 1959, the orchestra's main conductor was Eduard van Beinum, who had sometimes conducted the orchestra since 1929.  He was especially fond of the symphonies of Anton Bruckner, and he made recordings of Bruckner's Eighth and Ninth Symphonies for the Philips Records.  Van Beinum conducted the orchestra until April 1959 when he suddenly had a heart attack and died during a rehearsal.
.
Bernard Haitink first conducted the Concertgebouw Orchestra on 7 November 1956.  After van Beinum's death, Haitink became the orchestra's first conductor in September 1959.  From 1961 to 1963, Haitink and Eugen Jochum shared the post of chief conductor of the orchestra.  Haitink became the only chief conductor in 1963, and continued in this post until 1988. He had "assistant conductors", including Edo de Waart and Hans Vonk.

Haitink made many recordings with the orchestra.  In the early 1980s, the Dutch government was going to reduce the amount of money that the orchestra would get.  This would mean that 23 musicians would have to lose their job.  Haitink said he would resign if they did that.  Fortunately the government changed their mind.

Riccardo Chailly became chief conductor of the orchestra in 1985.  He recorded many symphonies with them including symphonies by Mahler, Bruckner and Shostakovich.  When he left in 2004 Mariss Jansons became chief conductor.

In the December 2008 issue of Gramophone Magazine the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra was ranked as the best symphony orchestra in the world.

Chief conductors of the (Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra
1888-1895 Willem Kes
1895-1945 Willem Mengelberg
1945-1959 Eduard van Beinum
1961-1988 Bernard Haitink
1988-2004 Riccardo Chailly
2004-2015 Mariss Jansons
2016- Daniele Gatti

Other websites
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra official website

Orchestras
Dutch music
Amsterdam

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra


Vernon and Irene Castle were a husband-and-wife team of ballroom dancers of the early 20th century. They were famous for developing and promoting dancing in the period of the First World War.

Vernon Castle (2 May 1887 – 15 February 1918) was born William Vernon Blyth in Norwich, Norfolk, England. Irene Castle (17 April 1893 – 25 January 1969) was born Irene Foote, the daughter of a prominent physician in New Rochelle, New York.

Vernon chose 'Castle' as a stage name when he first performed as a comic, because his sister (also on the stage) already used the family name, Blyth. He had already taken the name before Irene met him in 1910.p33

Rise to fame
Vernon was initially trained to become a civil engineer. He moved to New York in 1906. There he became established as a comic actor and conjuror.

Irene studied dancing and performed in several amateur theatricals before meeting Vernon in 1910. The next year, over her father's objections, the two were married. The English-born Vernon had already established himself as a dancer in comedic roles. His specialty was playing a gentleman drunk, who elegantly fell about the stage while trying to hide his condition.

After their marriage, Irene joined Vernon in The Hen-Pecks (1911), a production in which he was a featured player. The two then travelled together to Paris to perform in a dance revue. The show closed quickly, but the couple were hired as a dance act by the Café de Paris. Performing the latest American dances, the Castles were soon the rage of Parisian society. They introduced American ragtime dances, such as the Turkey Trot and the Grizzly Bear.

When the Castles returned to the U.S. in 1912, their success was repeated on a far wider scale. Making their New York debut at a branch of the Cafe de Paris, the duo were soon in demand on stage, in vaudeville and in motion pictures. In 1914, the couple opened a dancing school in New York called Castle House, a nightclub called Castles by the Sea on the Boardwalk in Long Beach New York, and a restaurant, the Sans Souci.

Film and fashion
In addition to cabaret, the Castles also became staples of Broadway. The Castles' greatest success was on Broadway, in Irving Berlin's debut musical Watch Your Step (1914). In this extravaganza, the couple refined and popularized the Foxtrot, which vaudeville comedian Harry Fox may have invented. After its New York run, Watch Your Step toured through 1916.

The Castles helped remove the stigma of vulgarity from close dancing. The Castles' performances, often set to ragtime and jazz rhythms, also popularized African-American music among well-heeled whites. Irene's fashion sense, too, started national trends. Her elegant, yet simple, flowing gowns were often featured in fashion magazines. She also introduced American women to the bob—the short hairstyle favored by flappers in the 1920s (see also Louise Brooks).

The Castles appeared in a newsreel called Social and Theatrical Dancing in 1914 and wrote a bestselling instructional book, Modern Dancing, later the same year. The pair also starred in a feature film called The Whirl of Life (1915), which was well-received by critics and public alike. As the couple's celebrity increased in the mid-1910s, Irene Castle became a major fashion trendsetter, with her bobbed hair and shorter skirts. Her chic wardrobe was supplied almost exclusively by the couturière 'Lucile', (Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon) but Irene also designed some of her clothes herself.

The slim, elegant Castles were trendsetters in many ways: they travelled with a black orchestra, had an openly lesbian manager, and were animal rights advocates long before it became a public issue.

The Castles endorsed Victor Records and Victrolas. They issued records by the Castle House Orchestra, led by James Reese Europe –– a pioneering figure in Black music. They also lent their names to advertising for other products, from cigars and cosmetics to shoes and hats. They were, in short, personalities of the modern kind, who had a gift for self-publicity. They were as famous as any film stars of the day.

World War I: Vernon's death
Vernon returned to the UK to become a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. Flying over the Western Front he shot down two aircraft and was awarded the French Croix de Guerre in 1917. He was posted to Canada to train new pilots, and then promoted to Captain and posted to the US to train American pilots.

While flying at Benbrook Field, near Fort Worth, Texas, he took emergency action shortly after take off to avoid another aircraft. His plane stalled, and he was unable to recover control. Vernon was the only casualty. Fatally injured, he died soon after the crash, on . Irene paid tribute to Vernon in her memoir My Husband, 1919.

Life without Vernon
Irene starred solo in about a dozen silent movies between 1917 and 1924 and appeared in several stage productions before retiring from show business. She married three more times –– to Robert Treman, Frederic McLaughlin, and George Enzinger.

In 1939, her life with Vernon was turned into a movie, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, produced by RKO and starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Irene served as a technical advisor on the movie, but clashed with Rogers, who refused to short bob or darken her hair. Irene also objected to white actor Walter Brennan playing their servant: "Walter was BLACK".

For the rest of her life, Irene was a staunch animal-rights activist, ultimately founding the Illinois animal shelter "Orphans of the Storm", which is still active.

Irene died . Vernon and Irene Castle are interred together in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York. There is a large monument to Vernon Castle near the site of his crash in Benbrook, Texas.

Fashion gallery

Associated dances
Bunny hug
Castle Walk
Foxtrot
Grizzly Bear
Hesitation Waltz
Maxixe
Tango
Turkey Trot

Notes

Other websites

Irene Castle at the TCM Movie Database

Radio Nostalgia Network - "Radio Journeys" , Episode 17, including "The Life of Irene Castle"
United States Library of Congress; American Memory. Dance Instruction Manuals: Modern Dancing By Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Castle
Orphans of the Storm animal shelter founded by Irene Castle

People from Norwich
English dancers
English entertainers
People from New Rochelle, New York
Models from New York (state)
American dancers
American entertainers
Vaudeville performers
1887 births
1918 deaths
1893 births
1969 deaths

Vernon and Irene Castle


A musical transcription is musical notation for an existing piece of music that had been previously unnotated. Musicians often disagree about what should be called a "transcription" and what is an "arrangement". Usually transcriptions are a direct notation of the source, whereas a musician who makes an arrangement may insert new interpretations into the music (i.e. changing the instrumentation, reharmonization, or even new sectionalization of the piece as with cover songs). A transcription, as Klapuri writes, would require that the pitch, timing, and instrumentation of all sound events to be resolved; difficult as this may be for some cases, this goal is usually redefined such that a transcription constitutes the notation of as many of the constituent sounds as possible or some well-defined part of the music signal (i.e. the dominant melody or the most prominent drum sounds).

Transcriptions can be created for all kinds of music in order to help the performer to learn the piece. Transcriptions are common for music such as jazz (which usually consists of improvisation) and folk, which traditionally is taught from one generation to another by listening and imitating. In the early 20th century, some composers became interested in writing down the traditional folk songs of their countries. Béla Bartók and Zoltan Kodaly in Hungary as well as Cecil Sharpe and Ralph Vaughan Williams in England notably transcribed various folk songs they heard being sung in the villages of their respective countries.

Adaptation
Sometimes transcriptions are made for practical reasons. Mozart made transcriptions of some music from his own operas, arranging them for small groups of instruments so that they could play it for popular entertainment.  Stravinsky transcribed some of his ballet music for piano, e.g. The Rite of Spring for piano duet and some dances from Petrouchka for piano solo. These types of transcriptions are often referred to as a "reduction": the simplification of a large work to be performed by a smaller ensemble or a soloist.

Related pages
OrchestrationReferences

Musical notation

Transcription (music)


Liza's at the Palace.... was a concert presented by Liza Minnelli at the Palace Theatre on Broadway from December 3, 2008 through January 4, 2009. It was produced by John Scher and Metropolitan Talent Presents.

It was directed and choreographed by Ron Lewis, with vocal arrangements by Kay Thompson and Billy Stritch. Minnelli performed with four dancer-singers: Cortes Alexander, Jim Caruso, Tiger Martina, and Johnny Rodgers. The concert contained songs written by Kander and Ebb, among others.

The first act included a revised version of a vaudeville tribute her mother once performed at the Palace. The second act included a "re-creation of [Kay] Thompson's celebrated nightclub act with the four Williams brothers".

Critical response

Stephen Holden of The New York Times said, "From the moment Ms. Minnelli joins forces with a male singing and dancing quartet to resurrect parts of a famous nightclub act Thompson created in the late 1940s and early '50s with the Williams Brothers, the Palace Theater blasts off into orbit. There it remains, deliriously spinning until the end of a 2-hour-20-minute show (with intermission) that leaves the star in a state of breathless exaltation. The end of the opening-night show on Wednesday found Ms. Minnelli panting, drenched in sweat, her hair matted, as if she had just finished running the New York marathon, which in a sense she had... I would love to report that Ms. Minnelli's voice and physical agility have been magically restored to their former glory, but those days seem to be gone. On Wednesday night her voice was in tatters, her diction unsteady. When she belted, her wide vibrato wobbled to the breaking point. Most of her s's were slurred sh's. Frequently short of breath, she swallowed phrases. Many of her highest notes were dry, piercing caws. But there were still occasional moments of beautifully focused dramatic singing... As for movement, there were no kicks or even half-kicks, although Ms. Minnelli can still strut stealthily and sprawl across a director's chair in sensual abandon... Once the show began to soar, though, Ms. Minnelli's force of will became a triumph of spirit over flesh. As she insisted on doing what she can no longer do, her audacity was inspiring: her message was you do the best you can, and if you have to, fake it. She trusted the listener's imagination to fill in the blanks."

In Variety, David Rooney observed, "In her return to Broadway after nearly 10 years' absence, Minnelli had the opening-night audience in the palm of her hand from her first moment onstage - striking that signature, one-arm-pointed-skyward pose, appropriately framed by a giant pink triangle of light... [W]hat makes Minnelli a great entertainer when she's firing on all cylinders is how hard she works for the audience's love. And how much she clearly thrives on it. In an age in which so many female concert performers are overproduced automatons, deigning to be worshipped by their fans, Minnelli's emotional give-and-take makes her a disarming relic... Sure, the voice is frayed and husky, the control wavers, many of the lyrics are slurred and the big belt at times hides behind the orchestra's ample brass section to disguise the effort. But nobody who would buy a ticket to this show in the first place is going to care a whit. Minnelli's charisma is undiminished and her vocals still have power, warmth and a startling ability to make every song personal."

Brian Scott Lipton of Theatermania.com stated, "To get the big questions out of the way, Minnelli's voice isn't what it was many years ago, but it's strong and powerful and mostly gets the job done, and she moves rather than really dances. But her skills as a performer, honed over five decades, and her genuineness and vulnerability make these shortcomings seem relatively unimportant."

Awards and nominations
Minnelli won the 2009 Independent Theatre Reviewers Association Award for Best Female Theatrical Performance and a Drama Desk Award "Special Award" for a "beloved American musical theater icon, for her enduring career of sustained excellence, and her glorious performance in Liza's at The Palace." The show also won the Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event.

The production was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical and the Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Musical.

Recording
A 2-CD set with liner notes by Michael Feinstein was released on February 3, 2009 on Hybrid Recordings. It debuted at #42 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart and at #3 on the Top Cast Albums chart, but failed to chart on the Billboard 200.  The album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album on December 2, 2009.

Musical numbers

ACT I
"Teach Me Tonight" – Lyrics by Sammy Cahn; Music by Gene DePaul
"I Would Never Leave You" – Music and lyrics by Billy Stritch, Johnny Rodgers, and Brian Lane Green
"If You Hadn't, But You Did" – Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green; Music by Jule Styne
"What Makes a Man a Man?" – Music and lyrics by Charles Aznavour
"My Own Best Friend" – Lyrics by Fred Ebb; Music by John Kander
"Maybe This Time" – Lyrics by Fred Ebb; Music by John Kander
"He's Funny That Way" – Lyrics by Richard Whiting; Music by Neil Moret
"Palace Medley" – New introduction by David Zippel, John Kander and Billy Stritch; original song by Roger Edens
"Cabaret" – Lyrics by Fred Ebb; Music by John Kander

ACT II
"But the World Goes 'Round" – Lyrics by Fred Ebb; Music by John Kander
"Hello, Hello" – Music and lyrics by Kay Thompson
"Jubilee Time" – Music and lyrics by Kay Thompson
"Basin Street Blues" – Music by Spencer Williams, special lyric by Kay Thompson
"Clap Yo' Hands" – Lyrics by Ira Gershwin; Music by George Gershwin
"Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away)" – Lyrics by Ira Gershwin and Gus Kahn; Music by George Gershwin
"I Love a Violin" – Music and lyrics by Thompson
"My Mammy" – Lyrics by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young; Music by Walter Donaldson
"Theme from New York, New York" – Lyrics by Fred Ebb; Music by John Kander
"I'll Be Seeing You" – Lyrics by Irving Kahal; Music by Sammy Fain

Public television special
Celebrating the one year anniversary of Liza's at the Palace...., American Public Television (APT) distributed the special to public television stations nationwide beginning in November 2009. Filmed in the Hollywood Theatre at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on September 30 and October 1, 2009, the program featured material performed during the New York engagement.

The concert premiered on the cable network HDNet and was shown three times: November 15, 16 and 22, 2009.

References

External links
Official concert website

Official Liza Minnelli website

Liza Minnelli albums
2009 albums
Hybrid Recordings albums
Liza Minnelli live albums
2008 concert residencies
2009 concert residencies
Liza Minnelli concert residencies
Concert residencies on Broadway

Liza's at The Palace....


Captain George K. H. Coussmaker (1782) is an oil painting by Joshua Reynolds. Coussmaker was born in London in 1759 to Evert and Mary Coussmaker. He entered the military in 1776. He was promoted several times. He never saw active service. He retired in 1795. He married Catherine Southwell in 1790. They had two children, George and Sophia (later, the Baroness de Clifford). He died in 1801.

Coussmaker sat for Reynolds 21 times and his horse 8 times between February 9 and April 16. Reynolds was paid 205 pounds. Another 10 guineas was paid for the frame. The portrait remained with Coussmaker and his descendants until 1884. It was then sold to William K. Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1920. Museum curators describe the picture as "an exceptionally fine work ... The composition is complex and the whole vigorously painted."

References
The Met: Captain George K. H. Coussmaker

1780s paintings
Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Paintings by Joshua Reynolds
1782

Captain George K. H. Coussmaker


The Digital Living Network Alliance is a trade-association, which was established by Sony in 2003. As of 2011, over 250 companies are part of this organization. The idea of the association is to develop standards and technologies that make it possible that several devices at home interact, so that the consumer has a better feeling. An example might be a television, that can be used to play a film on a computer, or to show photos stored on a mobile phone.

Technology organizations

Digital Living Network Alliance


The prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a Roman Catholic devotion. A devotion is something that people do or say to show their love for God and Jesus. Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque wrote the prayer. When Roman Catholics pray to the Sacred Heart of Jesus they are praying for a part of Jesus that they believe is divine. The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus  is also popular among some Anglo-Catholic Anglicans (Anglicans who use many of the same practices as Catholics).

Early devotion
Early Christians, for example John the Evangelist and Paul of Tarsus, wrote the first devotions or prayers to the love of God. The earliest devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus were from the Benedictine or Cistercian monasteries. St. Bernard of Clairveaux from the Cistercian religious order was the first person to write a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but some people believe that the first person was St. Anselm.

The devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus started to be more popular between the 13th century and the 16th century. Some religious orders, for example the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Carthusians practised the devotion. But, the devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was most common with individual Christians. For many the devotion was a mystical devotion - similar to an experience in mysticism.

In the sixteenth century, there was a change in the way people practised the devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  The devotion started to be part of Christian Asceticism and stopped being part of Christian Mysticism. In the sixteenth century, the devotion also started to use special written prayers and exercises. For example, the devotion used the writings of Lanspergius (d. 1539) of the Carthusians of Cologne and of Louis of Blois (Blosius; 1566), who was a Benedictine and Abbot of Liessies in Hainaut. The devotion also used or followed the writing of John of Avila (d. 1569) and St. Francis de Sales, who lived in the 17th century.

In the 17th century, writers who followed Christian Asceticism wrote about the devotion of the "Sacred Heart of Christian Jesus".  For example, Ascetic writers from the Society of Jesus wrote about the devotion many times. The image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus became very common. It was popular because many people used the image in the Franciscan devotion to the "Five Wounds" (explanation needed). The image also became popular because many Jesuits - members of the Society of Jesus- put the image on the first page of their books and on the walls of their churches.

But, the devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus continued to be a private and mostly individual devotion. Jean Eudes (1602-1680) made it a public devotion, gave it a religious Office (needs explanation), and created a Feast for it. Père Eudes was the apostle of the Heart of Mary; but in his devotion to the Immaculate Heart there was a share for the Heart of Jesus. Little by little, the devotion to the Sacred Heart became a separate one, and on August 31, 1670, the first feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated in the Grand Seminary of Rennes. Coutances followed suit on October 20, a day with which the Eudist feast was from then on to be connected. The feast soon spread to other dioceses, and the devotion adopted in various religious communities. It gradually came into contact with the devotion begun at Paray, and resulting in a fusion of the two.

Visions of St. Margaret Mary
The most significant source for the devotion to the Sacred Heart in the form it is known today was a nun of the religious congregation of the Visitation of Mary Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), who claimed to have received visions of Jesus Christ. There is nothing to indicate that she had known the devotion prior to the revelations, or at least that she had paid any attention to it. These alleged revelations were numerous, and the following apparitions are especially remarkable:

On December 27, probably 1673, the feast of St. John, Margaret Mary reported that Jesus permitted her, as he had formerly allowed St. Gertrude, to rest her head upon his heart. He then disclosed to her the wonders of his love, telling her that wanted them known to all mankind and to spread the treasures of his goodness, and that he had chosen her for this work.

In probably June or July, 1674, Margaret Mary claimed that Jesus requested to be honored under the figure of his heart of flesh, also claiming that, when he appeared radiant with love, he asked for a devotion of expiatory love: frequent reception of Communion, especially Communion on the First Friday of the month, and the observance of the Holy Hour.

During the octave of Corpus Christi, 1675, probably on June 16, the vision known as the "great apparition" reportedly took place, where Jesus said, "Behold the Heart that has so loved men ... instead of gratitude I receive from the greater part (of mankind) only ingratitude ...", and asked Margaret Mary for a feast of reparation of the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, bidding her consult Father de la Colombière, then superior of the small Jesuit house at Paray. Solemn homage was asked on the part of the king, and the mission of propagating the new devotion was especially confided to the religious of the Visitation and to the priests of the Society of Jesus.

A few days after the "great apparition", Margaret Mary reported everything she saw to Father de la Colombière, and he acknowledging the vision as an action of the spirit of God, consecrated himself to the Sacred Heart and directed her to write an account of the apparition. He also made use of every available opportunity to circulate this account, discreetly, through France and England.

At his death, February 15, 1682, there was found in his journal of spiritual retreats a copy in his own handwriting of the account that he had requested of Margaret Mary, together with a few reflections on the usefulness of the devotion. This journal, including the account and an "offering" to the Sacred Heart, in which the devotion was well explained, was published at Lyons in 1684. The little book was widely read, even at Paray.

Margaret Mary reported feeling "dreadful confusion" over the book's contents, but resolved to make the best of it, approving of the book for the spreading of her cherished devotion. Outside of the Visitandines, priests, religious, and laymen espoused the devotion, particularly a Capuchin, Margaret Mary's two brothers, and some Jesuits, among the latter being Fathers Croiset and Gallifet, who promoted the devotion.

The death of Margaret Mary, October 17, 1690, did not dampen the zeal of those interested; on the contrary, a short account of her life published by Father Croiset in 1691, as an appendix to his book "De la Dévotion au Sacré Cœur", served only to increase it. In spite of all sorts of obstacles, and of the slowness of the Holy See, which in 1693 imparted indulgences to the Confraternities of the Sacred Heart and, in 1697, granted the feast to the Visitandines with the Mass of the Five Wounds, but refused a feast common to all, with special Mass and Office.

The devotion spread, particularly in religious communities. The Marseilles plague, 1720, furnished perhaps the first occasion for a solemn consecration and public worship outside of religious communities. Other cities of the South followed the example of Marseilles, and thus the devotion became a popular one. In 1726 it was deemed advisable once more to importune Rome for a feast with a Mass and Office of its own, but, in 1729, Rome again refused. However, in 1765, it finally yielded and that same year, at the request of the queen, the feast was received quasi-officially by the episcopate of France. On all sides it was asked for and obtained, and finally, in 1856, at the urgent entreaties of the French bishops, Pope Pius IX extended the feast to the Catholic Church under the rite of double major. In 1889 it was raised by the Catholic Church to the double rite of first class.

On May 15, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI sent a letter to FatherPeter Hans Kolvenbach, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, on the 50th Anniversary of the encyclical "Haurietis Aquas", about the Sacred Heart, by Pope Pius XII. In the letter, the Pope reaffirmed the importance of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Worship and devotion
The Catholic acts of consecration, reparation and devotion were introduced when the feast of the Sacred Heart was declared. In his Papal Bull "Auctorem Fidei", Pope Pius VI praised devotion to the Sacred Heart. Finally, by order of Leo XIII, in his encyclical "Annum Sacrum" (May 25, 1899), as well as on June 11, he consecrated every human to the Sacred Heart. The idea of this act, which Leo XIII called "the great act" of his pontificate, had been proposed to him by a religious woman of the Good Shepherd from Oporto (Portugal) who said that she had supernaturally received it from Jesus. Since c. 1850, groups, congregations, and States have consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart.

Peter Coudrin of France founded the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary on Dec 24, 1800. A religious order of the Roman Catholic Church, the order is best known for its missionary work in Hawaii.

Worship of the Sacred Heart mainly consists of several hymns, the Salutation of the Sacred Heart, and the Litany of the Sacred Heart. It is common in Roman Catholic services and occasionally is to be found in Anglican services.

The Feast of the Sacred Heart is a holy day in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, and is celebrated 19 days after Pentecost. As Pentecost is always celebrated on Sunday, the Feast of the Sacred Heart always falls on a Friday.

The Enthronement of the Sacred Heart is a Catholic ceremony in which a priest or head of a household consecrates the members of the household to the Sacred Heart. A blessed image of the Sacred Heart, either a statue or a picture, is then "enthroned" in the home to serve as a constant reminder to those who dwell in the house of their consecration to the Sacred Heart. The practice of the Enthronement is based upon Pope Pius XII's declaration that devotion to the Sacred of Jesus is "the foundation on which to build the kingdom of God in the hearts of individuals, families, and nations..."[4]

Institution names
Sacred Heart is still a widely used name for many Catholic institutions, including schools, colleges, and hospitals in many countries around the world. It is also the name of many Catholic parishes, religious orders, and stores selling Catholic goods.

Sacred Heart imagery
Religious imagery depicting the Sacred Heart is frequently featured in Catholic, and sometimes Anglican homes. Sometimes images display beneath them a list of family members, indicating that the entire family is entrusted to the protection of Jesus in the Sacred Heart, from whom blessings on the home and the family members are sought. The prayer "O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in Thee" is often used. One particular image has been used as part of a set, along with an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In that image, Mary too was shown pointing to her Immaculate Heart, expressing her love for the human race and for her Son, Jesus Christ. The mirror images reflect an eternal binding of the two hearts.

Folklore
Many members of the Carlist military forces of the 19th and 20th centuries in Spain wore detentes or amulets with an image of the Sacred Heart. These Catholic monarchists believed the image would protect them against wounding by the enemy firearms.

Criticism
Some non-Catholics, including Charismatic Protestants, have criticized devotion to the Sacred Heart as idolatry in that worship is directed towards a body part. The response of Catholics is to contend that the Sacred Heart is a traditional symbol depicting Christ's holy blood as a fountain. Some Catholics have been critical of the overly sentimental nature of such devotion,[5] but most of these critics concede that the images essentially reflect the core Christian tenet of love.

Vatican endorsement
Dates for the Feast of the Sacred Heart, 2002-2020
 Year Date
 2002 June 7
 2003 June 27
 2004 June 18
 2005 June 3
 2006 June 23
 2007 June 15
 2008 May 30
 2009 June 19
 2010 June 11
 2011 July 1
 2012 June 15
 2013 June 7
 2014 June 27
 2015 June 12
 2016 June 3
 2017 June 23
 2018 June 8
 2019 June 28
 2020 June 19

Other websites
 Catholic Encyclopedia

Christian prayers

Sacred Heart


In chemistry terms, cracking is a process in which complicated organic molecules (such as kerogens or heavy hydrocarbons) are broken down into simpler molecules (e.g. light hydrocarbons) by breaking their carbon-carbon bonds. How fast the cracking process is and how long it takes for the end products to form are very dependent on the temperature and any existing catalysts. Cracking, also referred to as pyrolysis, is the breakdown of a large alkane into smaller, more useful alkanes and an alkene.

Cracking is used in petroleum to form "light" products such as LPG and gasoline.

It usually produces a short chain alkane and a long chain alkene.
Hydrocarbons are compounds that only contain carbon and hydrogen atoms.

Chemical processes
Organic reactions

Cracking (chemistry)


The Missouri State Penitentiary was a prison in Jefferson City, Missouri, that operated from 1836 to 2004. Part of the Missouri Department of Corrections, it served as the state of Missouri's primary maximum security institution. Before it closed, it was the oldest operating penal facility west of the Mississippi River. It was replaced by the Jefferson City Correctional Center, which opened on September 15, 2004.

Early history
The Missouri State Penitentiary was designed by John Haviland and constructed in the early 1830s to serve the newly admitted (1821) state of Missouri. Jefferson City had been designated the state capital in 1822, and Governor John Miller suggested that the state's main prison be constructed there to help the city maintain its somewhat tenuous status against other towns trying to obtain the capitol for themselves. James Dunnica, a master stonemason who built the first Capitol building in Jefferson City in 1826, was appointed to oversee construction of the new prison, and $25,000 was allotted by the legislature for expenses. The facility opened for business in March 1836, the same month as the fall of the Alamo in Texas.

Prisoners were employed during the 1830s in making bricks; the initial prison population consisted of one guard, one warden, fifteen prisoners, and a foreman for the brick-making operation with an assistant. Eleven of the fifteen prisoners were from St. Louis, and all were incarcerated for larceny except for one, who was imprisoned for stabbing a man during a drunken brawl.

A-Hall

In 1868, A-Hall, also known as Housing Unit A and Housing Unit 4, was finished. The building was constructed of stone quarried on site and built mainly by inmates. Warden Horace Swift was the architect of the structure. It is still standing today, and housed inmates until the day the prison was closed......

Notable inmates
Robert Berdella – Serial killer, torturer and rapist, sentenced to life imprisonment without the right to parole in December 1988, deceased in October 1992.
Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd – Was incarcerated on December 18, 1925, for a robbery. Died after being shot by police in 1934.
Emma Goldman – Anarchist incarcerated in 1917 to 1919 for conspiracy to "induce persons not to register" for the draft. Died from a stroke in 1940.
Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Heady – The duo who abducted and brutally murdered a boy named Bobby Greenlease. A week later they were arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. They were both incarcerated here until their execution by gas chamber in 1953.
Charles Ray Hatcher – Serial killer who murdered 16 victims within a 12-year span; committed suicide in the penitentiary by hanging himself in 1984.
Charles "Sonny" Liston – A boxer incarcerated in 1950 for a number of charges, including armed robbery. He learned to box in prison and was paroled in 1953. He became World Heavyweight Champion in 1962, only losing 2 years later to Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali). Died under strange circumstances in 1970.
Kate Richards O'Hare – Was incarcerated on April 19, 1919 to serve a five-year sentence for an anti-war speech she had given in Bowman, North Dakota, some months earlier. Kate O'Hare's prison sentence was commuted by President Woodrow Wilson in May 1920. Later she was given a full pardon by President Calvin Coolidge. Died in 1948.
Robert Earl O'Neal – White supremacist who murdered black inmate Arthur Dade while incarcerated at the penitentiary. Executed in 1995 at the Potosi Correctional Center.
James Earl Ray – The assassin who killed Martin Luther King Jr., Ray was admitted to the penitentiary on March 17, 1960. On April 23, 1967, prisoner #00416J escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in a bread box that was supposed to contain loaves of bread that were being transported from M.S.P. to the Renz prison. Somewhere during the trip, Ray escaped. Ray was later convicted for the assassination in 1968. Died of Hepatitis C in 1998.
Lee Shelton – Better known as "Stagger Lee", "Stack-O-Lee" or simply "Stagolee", American criminal who became a folk icon after he killed Billy Lyons on Christmas in 1895.

Riots
In its daily "Times Past" column, the Irish Times ran the following column in 1990 and 2000:

{{Quote|Tired of Irish StewJefferson City, Missouri.

Some five hundred more convicts at the Missouri State Penitentiary mutinied to-day. Seven hundred and fifty prisoners in the same institution struck yesterday, following on the refusal of their demand for grilled meat instead of the continual Irish stew, and refused to leave the dining hall, though they were subsequently persuaded to disperse peaceably by the Governor.

The prisoners to-day, who demand better food and better working conditions, downed tools at all the prison factories. They were quickly marched back to their cells.

The Governor announced tonight that he had discovered an organised plot among the convicts responsible for to-day's riots to set fire to the prison factories and make their escape.The Irish Times, March 28th, 1930.}}

On the evening of September 22, 1954, there was a major riot at the Missouri State Penitentiary. It started when two inmates faked illness to attract two guards. Once the guards arrived, inmates ambushed them and took their keys. The inmates then ran down cell blocks and corridors, releasing other inmates in the process. During the incident The Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Missouri National Guard, and police departments from Jefferson City, St. Louis, and Kansas City were called in to help quell the riot. When it was all over, four inmates had been killed, 29 had been injured, and one attempted suicide. Four guards were seriously injured. Several buildings were burned, with damages estimated at $5 million. No inmates were able to escape during the incident. Burned buildings and other damage from the riot would remain visible for the next ten years.

In the summer of 1996, the Missouri State Penitentiary was experiencing a lot of tension between officers and convicts. The Superintendent and Major Eberle reinstated the Search and Response Team. The team managed to ease the tension and help slow the contraband coming into the penitentiary.

Staff

In 1974, Lillian Bonds became the first female correctional officer to work in a male correctional facility.  This was also the year that the official job classification for custody staff was changed from "guard" to "correctional officer".

Wardens

Warden Donald "D.W." Wyrick was the youngest, longest tenured, and last "official" warden of the Missouri State Penitentiary. He was the only warden to work his way up through the ranks. In less than fifteen years after beginning as a guard, he became warden of the Missouri State Penitentiary during the most turbulent time in its history. Warden Wyrick was credited on many occasions for keeping the old  penitentiary under control when events brought the penitentiary to a boiling point. His extensive knowledge of prisons and extraordinary ability to communicate with convicts led to the capture of escaped convicts, contraband weapons being found, and prevented escapes. He was sought after by many states to oversee their penal systems. Two books have been published about Warden Wyrick: Man of the Big House, Missouri State Penitentiary, A Warden's Warden and If Only the Old Walls Could Talk, The Legend of Warden Wyrick.

Escapes

On October 22, 2003, a murder/escape attempt occurred at Missouri State Penitentiary. Inmate Toby Viles was murdered by two offenders that worked with him in the prison's ice plant. Inmate Shannon Phillips pled guilty of the murder. Inmate Christopher Sims was also present in the Ice Plant during the time of the murder, but has yet to stand trial.  Inmate Phillips and Sims were found four days later in a room that the inmates had prepared for an extended stay.  The room was concealed from corrections staff until a staff member accidentally hit a hole into the peg board that covered the wall where the small entrance to the room was. The offenders were planning to wait until the closure of M.S.P. to escape.

Death row

From 1938 to 1965, thirty-nine prisoners were executed in the penitentiary's gas chamber.

On January 6, 1989, inmate George "Tiny" Mercer was executed. It was the last execution to take place at the Missouri State Penitentiary and the first execution by means of lethal injection. The execution took place in the facility's disused gas chamber.

Before April 1989, the State of Missouri's male death row was located at the Missouri State Penitentiary. Death row inmates were held in a below-ground unit and were isolated from other inmates. Death row inmates did not leave their special death row facility, and all services were brought into the unit. Each death row inmate was allowed one hour of exercise per day in a fenced area next to the death row facility. Missouri Department of Corrections said, "With restrictions on movement and limited access to programs, conditions of confinement for death row inmates mirrored those found in other states," and, "As with other states using prison facilities constructed before the turn of the [20th] century, conditions at Missouri State Penitentiary were less than favorable for both death row inmates and staff." After a legal challenge, the Missouri Department of Corrections began to use an internal death row classification system with privileges awarded by behavior, changed the medical services delivery procedures, and provided a "privacy room" where death row inmates could attend religious services.

The Potosi Correctional Center (PCC) opened in 1989. In April 1989, the state transferred its 70 death row inmates from M.S.P. to Potosi.

Closure

In 1991, the name Missouri State Penitentiary was changed to the Jefferson City Correctional Center. In 2003, it was changed back to Missouri State Penitentiary so that there would be no confusion between the old prison and the new one that was being built.

The Missouri State Penitentiary was closed on October 14, 2004, and the new Jefferson City Correctional Center was opened.

Missouri State Penitentiary Museum
The Missouri State Penitentiary Museum is located in the Col. Darwin W. Marmaduke House across Capitol Avenue from the Prison. It features artifacts, photos, and displays about the prison, including a replica cell. The museum also offers guided tours of the historic former prison.

In popular culture
The Travel Channel's television show Destination Fear filmed at the location for the second episode of their third season. It was also featured in Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures'' to investigate the penitentiary's paranormal claims.

References

External links
 Missouri State Penitentiary - Tours and Museum
 Jefferson City Correctional Center. Missouri Department of Corrections. (Archive)

Prisons in Missouri
Buildings and structures in Jefferson City, Missouri
Capital punishment in Missouri
Museums in Jefferson City, Missouri
Prison museums in the United States
1836 establishments in Missouri
2004 disestablishments in Missouri

Missouri State Penitentiary


Vithoba is a Hindu god worshipped mainly in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. He is also known as Vitthala and Panduranga. He is generally considered a form of the Hindu god Vishnu or Krishna. In stone images and pictures, he is shown as a dark young boy. He stands on a brick with his hands on his waist. His wife Rukmini or Rakhumai stands with him.

Vithoba's main temple is at Pandharpur in Maharashtra. It is close to its border with Karnataka. Two Hindu sects, the Varkari sect of Maharashtra and Haridasa sect of Karnataka worship Vithoba as their main god. The Varkari poet-saints have written devotional poems called abhangas in praise of god Vithoba. The abhangas are written in the language Marathi. The Haridasa poets have also written poems, devoted to Vithoba in the Kannada language. The two most important festivals associated with Vithoba are Shayani Ekadashi in the Hindu month of Ashadha, and Prabodini Ekadashi in the Hindu month of Kartik.

Hindu gods and goddesses

Vithoba


A metropolitan area is a city and its surrounding suburbs.  The word "metropolitan" comes from two Greek language words meaning "mother" and "city". A metropolitan area may be much larger than its inner city, and its suburbs may be smaller towns and villages which are now connected to the larger city as suburbanization has spread. The biggest such metropolitan area is that of Tokyo. 8.5 million people live in Tokyo itself, 36.5 million live in the metropolitan area.

A metropolitan area is a large urban area.  The inner city may look little different from the surrounding area of buildings and lights. The entire built-up area is the metropolitan area.  The inner city may be near the middle, or to one side.  Some urban areas have more than one inner city.

Some places, such as in Australia, have metropolitan government. The entire metropolitan area is included as a part of the city, and the population of the suburban area is considered to be part of the city's population.

Sydney,  for example, has a population of approx. 4.5 million people, which includes the population of the suburbs, although there are some places which are part of the Greater Sydney Area, whose population does not count toward the population of Sydney.

Related pages
List of largest cities (includes a list of metropolitan areas)
Metropolis

References

Political subdivisions

Metropolitan area


Lolland-Falster is a common term for the two islands Lolland and Falster. The islands are only separated by the narrow strait Guldborgsund, and as such have traditionally been grouped together.

Both the Gedser-Rostock and Rødby-Puttgarden ferry lines are on Lolland-Falster. The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, due to open in 2021, will connect Rødby in Lolland with Puttgarden in Germany, thereby providing a direct link between Germany and Sweden through Lolland-Falster.

External links
 Visit Lolland-Falster

Islands of Denmark

Lolland-Falster


Ba is one of the five parts of the spirit in Egyptian mythology. Ba is considered to be the soul. Ba is believed to have a unique personality based on the person who has it. The Ba was pictured as a bird that flew from the body to join with the Ka at death. A Ba was said to return to the sarcophagus if it was properly stored. In some stories, Bas sometimes act as guardians in the underworld.

Egyptian mythology

lt:Siela egiptiečių mitologijoje#Ba
fi:Egyptiläinen sielu#Ba

Ba


Francesco Traini was an Italian painter who was documented as working from 1321 to ca 1365 in Pisa and Bologna.

He appears to have been a follower of Andrea Orcagna to judge by only one work known to be by Traini: in 1345 he signed and dated a polyptych of the Pisan church of S. Caterina, showing Saint Dominic and a predella showing eight hagiographic scenes from the saint's life, now in the Museo Nazionale, Pisa. Most scholars attribute many of the huge frescoes of the Camposanto Monumentale in Pisa to Traini, including the Last Judgement, Inferno, Legends of the Hermits and, the famous Il Trionfo della Morte (the Triumph of Death).

There are Traini paintings at the Princeton University Art Museum, Ackland Art Museum, and an Allegorical Representation of Crucifixion with Saints Andrew and Paul at the Carnegie Art Museum.

Triumph of Death
Though other scholars attribute it to Buonamico Buffalmacco, the Trionfo della Morte was used by the art historian Millard Meiss in 1951 as a fundamental example (the other being Andrea Orcagna's "Strozzi Altarpiece") to prove his theory on the influence of the Black Death on contemporary spirituality. He believed the painting, which displays the merciless omnipresence of death, to be a reaction to the horrors of the black death of 1348, as was the contemporaneous  Totentanz ("Dance of Death") paintings in Germany. However, this fresco cycle was re-dated by Polzer to 1333-36 because of French contemporary paintings inspired by these ones and because of its Guelph political meaning, and Pisa was only Guelph for a short period in the mid 1330s; this meant, of course, that the frescoes cannot be an example of post-Black Death art as Meiss had originally suggested. In fact, since the painting was originally on the exterior wall of the town cemetery in Pisa, its function was just that of reminding the viewer of the certainty of death and the need for salvation through the church. The imagery is not, then, influenced by recent suffering and death caused by the plague but by mortality. Designed by a member of the Dominican College at Pisa, the fresco reflects the ideals of the order and its emphasis on judgement and the need for people to turn away from the temptations of the world; it promotes Mendicant poverty and cautions against earthly pleasure. It articulates a view of society, put forward by the Dominican Order in which sinfulness is the cause of suffering.

The background space is not treated naturalistically but establishes divisions between the different, symbolic groups of figures. Each spatial zone refers to a different idea being communicated such as temptation, judgment, death, and suffering. The landscape is treated symbolically. The rocky area represents the hermit's asceticism while the fertile area earthly pleasures.

American historian Barbara Tuchman examined the Traini fresco and described it thus: "A scroll warns that 'no shield of wisdom or riches, nobility or prowess' can protect them from the blows of the Approaching One. 'They have taken more pleasure in the world than in things of God.' In a heap of corpses nearby lie crowned rulers, a Pope in tiara, a knight, tumbled together with the bodies of the poor, while angels and devils in the sky contend for the miniature naked figures that represent their souls."

The frescoes of the Camposanto were unfortunately either severely damaged or destroyed by Allied air raids in World War II.

References

John White: Art and Architecture in Italy 1250-1400. Pelican History of Art 1993

External links
The Triumph of Death Page about historian Barbara Tuchman's analysis of the Traini fresco

14th-century Italian painters
Italian male painters
Painters from Tuscany
Artists from Pisa
Italian Renaissance painters

Francesco Traini


Ján Cikker (29 July 1911 – 21 December 1989) was a Slovak composer, a leading exponent of modern Slovak classical music. He was awarded the title National Artist in Slovakia, the Herder Prize (1966) and the IMC-UNESCO International Music Prize (1979).

Life
Cikker was born in former Austria-Hungary, today Slovakia, in Banská Bystrica.  His first music teachers were his mother, Mária Psotková, and Viliam Figuš-Bystrý. After he graduated from high school, he studied at the Prague Conservatory from 1930 to 1935, where he attended courses of composition of  Jaroslav Křička, of conducting and organ. He then studied at the Master's School of the Prague Conservatory from 1935 to 1936, where he was a student of Vítězslav Novák. Later on, he moved to Vienna, where he studied with Felix Weingartner from 1936-1937.

From 1939 to 1949, he taught at the Bratislava Conservatory. At the same time he was a repertory advisor of the opera of the Slovak National Theatre from 1945 to 1948. He was forced to leave this post after the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. Finally, he worked as professor for composition at the Bratislava Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (VŠMÚ), where he was the teacher of many Slovak composers. He died in  Bratislava, where a museum in his name has opened.

Characteristics
His pronounced style is characterized by a typical richness of contrasting moods and characters (dance, expressive, lyrical pronunciation), and by the emphasis on humane and ethical conduct. His first creative works were nearly always instrumental, but from the 1950s onward he increasingly devoted himself to composing operas.

Major works
cycle of symphonic poems O živote – Leto, Vojak a matka, Ráno (About life – Summer, Soldier and Mother, Morning; 1941-1946)
operas:
 Juro Jánošík (1950-1953, libretto by Štefan Hoza),
 Beg Bajazid (1955-1956, libretto by Štefan Hoza),
 Mister Scrooge (1958-1959, alternative name Tiene /Shadows/, after Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol),
 Vzkriesenie (1960; Resurrection, after Tolstoy's novel),
 Hra o láske a smrti (Play of Love and Death, after Romain Rolland),
 Coriolanus (1970–72; after Shakespeare's play),
 Obliehanie Bystrice (1969-1971; The Siege of Bystrica after Kálmán Mikszáth),
 Zo života hmyzu (1983–86; after Karel Čapek's and Josef Čapek's play Pictures from the Insects' Life),
 Antigona (1987–89, unfinished; after Sophocles' play)

chamber and orchestral pieces:
String quartet no. 1 op. 13 (1935)
String quartet no. 2 op. 14 (1936)
Spring Symphony (1937)
Symfonietta Op.16 (1937, dedicated to his teacher Jaroslav Křička)
Concertino for piano and orchestra Op.20 (1942)
Slovenská suita (1943; Slovak suite)
Spomienky (1947; Memories)
Meditácie na Schützovu tému (1964; Meditations on a theme by Schütz)
Štúdie k činohre (1944; Studies for a theatre play, referred sometimes as "Fyzici")

choral works
Óda na radosť (1982, Ode to Joy; oratorio for speaker, soloists, choir and orchestra on words by Milan Rúfus. Written for the bicentennial of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig).

piano music: Sonatina op. 12, no. 1 (1933), Tatra brooks (1954), Piano Variations on a Slovak Folksong (1973)
song cycle: O mamičke (1940; About Dear Mum)
adaptations of folk songs
theatre and film music (Varúj!)
music for folk dance groups, e.g. for SĽUK (Slovak Folk Art Collective), Lúčnica and VÚS.

Sources
Oxford Music Online, Cikker, Ján

References

1911 births
1989 deaths
Musicians from Banská Bystrica
Slovak composers
Male composers
Slovak opera composers
20th-century classical composers
Male classical composers
Herder Prize recipients
20th-century male musicians
Slovak male musicians
Prague Conservatory alumni

Ján Cikker


Muslim occasions mainly celebrate events of the life of the Muslim prophet, Muhammad.

Festivals

Eid ul-Fitr
Eid ul-Fitr begins the day after Ramadan is over and lasts three days. As soon as the Sun sets from the last day of Ramadan, Eid ul-Fitr starts and the Muslims feast. Muslims also say a special prayer called the Eid prayer and food and drink are passed around in Mosques.

Eid Al-Adha
Eid Al-Adha means "The Feast of Sacrifice" and is to celebrate when a prophet called Abraham had to sacrifice his son to show that he was loyal to God. At the last moment, God said to Abraham that this was simply a test, and he did not have to sacrifice his son to Him. Muslims in this holiday sacrifice a goat or cow in His honour to show their gratitude for God saving Abraham's son's life.
The meat of the sacrificed animal is split up into three portions. One for the man who sacrificed the animal, one for the man's poor relatives and one for poor people in general, whatever their race or religion is.

Religious festive day

Friday (Jumu'ah)
Muslims believe that on any Friday, at the end of the week, a good deed is worth more than if you did that same good deed on a different day. Muslims go to the Mosque to pray on that day, for they believe that it was on this day that Adam was created. They reject the idea that God rested after creating the world ("And on the seventh day, God rested", Genesis 2:2) and so this day should not be related to a Sabbath.

Ashura
Ashura in Arabic means ten and is celebrated on the ninth and tenth day of Muharram. Muslims can choose to fast on this day (see fasting above).
This is also the day when Muhammad's grandson, called Husayn ibn Ali, was killed.

Mawlid an-Nabi
Mawlid an-Nabi means "The Birth of the Prophet" in Arabic, and celebrated the Prophet Muhammad's birthday on the twelfth day of the month of Rabi Al-Awwal. Poetry and prayer to both God and Muhammed are chanted on this day.

Laylat ul Isra and Miraj

Laylat ul Isra and Miraj means "The Night of Power and Ascension". It is when Muhammad was taken to "the farthest Mosque" (it was in Jerusalem) and was taken to see God. It was here that Muhammad and God talked about how many prayers should be said a day. God said there should be fifty prayers a day, but Moses and Muhammad asked for less, since fifty was hard to do every day. Eventually, fifty was lowered to five prayers a day. If the prayers were done well, they were worth fifty prayers.

Laylat al-Qadr
Laylat al-Qadr means "The night of Power" in Arabic and is celebrated near the end of Ramadan. It is a sacred and important holiday since it is when the Qur'an was first shown to the population.

Laylat ul Bara'ah
Laylat ul Bara'ah means "The Night of Freedom from Fire" and is celebrated on the 14th and 15th of the month of Sha'ban. Here, Muslims pray and read the Qur'an all night.

Jumu'ah-tul-Wida
Jumu'ah-tul-Wida is just before Eid ul-Fitr at the end of Ramadan and Muslims say special prayers.

Eid al-Ghadeer
Eid al-Ghadeer is celebrated by Shi'a Muslims and is when Muhammad gave his last sermon at Ghadir Khumm during the month of Dhul-Hijjah.
It is also to celebrate Ali ibn Abi Talib taking over from Muhammad when Muhammad died.

Cultural festive day

The New Year
The first day of Muharram is the new year for Islam. It is not an official Islamic event but most Muslims have a ritual or celebration of some kind for it this is one of their favourite holidays

Open mosque day
Some mosques are organizing "Open mosque days" with special program, Muslim culture, video show, discussion and finger foods for the visitors. In many western cities this is becoming a cultural social event.

Religious practice

Fasting
Ramadan is celebrated in the month of Ramadan (the 9th month in the Islam calendar). Prayers are chanted all day and Muslims are forbidden to eat or drink after the sun has risen. When the sun goes down in the evenings they are allowed to eat and drink again. This is called fasting and breakfast comes from this word (break-fast or breaking your fast). This holiday is to teach Muslims patience.

The month of Ramadan changes every year because the Muslims follow the lunar calendar rather than the Christians' solar calendar.

Pilgrimage (in Makkah mecca)

Hajj
Hajj is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is currently the largest annual pilgrimage in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam. A religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so. The Hajj is a demonstration of the solidarity of the Muslim people, and their submission to Allah.

Umrah
Umrah is a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, performed by Muslims that can be undertaken at any time of the year. In Arabic Umrah means "to visit a populated place". It is sometimes called the 'minor pilgrimage' or 'lesser pilgrimage', the Hajj being the 'major' pilgrimage and which is compulsory for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it. The Umrah is not compulsory but highly recommended.

Example Calendar
Here is an example calendar taken from the Islamic lunar calendar and put into a solar calendar. In this case it is from 2000 to 2001 in years of the Christian era.
Certain events (such as Ramadan) happen at different times each year.

Other websites
More information on the Muslim Holidays

Islamic festivals

Muslim occasions


A sodium vapor lamp is a kind of gas discharge lamp. Streetlights are a major use. There are two types; the high pressure lamp and the low pressure lamp. The older low pressure one gives yellow light. It is still used where the ability to show different colors is not very important. The newer high pressure sodium vapor light emits a broader spectrum, often appearing orange but letting people see different colors.

These lights contain sodium metal in them. They operate by a spark through a tube that contains the sodium. The sodium emits a yellow color, which produces the light. Because the lamp contains highly flammable sodium as well as toxic mercury, it should not be placed in the trash and must be disposed of properly at the end of its life.

Related pages
 Mercury-vapor lamp

Lamps

Sodium vapor lamp


Cherine Tanya Anderson (born 25 September 1984, Rockfort, East Kingston, Jamaica) is a Jamaican dancehall/reggae vocalist and actress.

Biography

Anderson's acting career began in the film Dancehall Queen (1997), as Marcia's pressured, teenage daughter Tanya; she is also known for playing the character Serena in the 2003 Jamaican film, One Love.

Anderson has worked and performed with Sly and Robbie, Sting, Wyclef Jean, Bootsy Collins, Jimmy Cliff, Michael Franti and others. She contributed to several Independent Online Distribution Alliance compilation releases prior to the success of her January 2006 single, "Good Love", which appeared on a compilation showcasing the riddim of Jimmy Riley's "Love & Devotion". "Good Love" appeared on the 2008 Grammy nominated album, Anniversary, by Sly and Robbie and the Taxi Gang.

In 2006, Anderson collaborated with Chuck Fenda on the single, "Coming Over", which rose to #1 on the Jamaican charts, and remained on the Top 30 for 26 weeks. She also collaborated with Britney Spears on the Sly and Robbie remix of "Piece of Me".

Anderson made her directorial debut in 2007 when she directed the music video for "Kingston State of Mind". The song would eventually top the Caribbean video charts and remained in the Top 10 for 4 months. Wyclef Jean is featured on the remix to "Kingston State of Mind"

Anderson opened for Wyclef Jean in Tortola, British Virgin Islands in 2007, and she was a featured vocalist on Sly and Robbie and the Taxi Gang's United States/Canada tour the same year.

In late 2007, Anderson collaborated with Michael Franti and Spearhead on their All Rebel Rockers album. She was also featured on the single "Say Hey (I Love You)", as well as the tracks "Sound System" and "Little Bit of Riddem". In 2008 through 2009, Anderson toured extensively with Franti and Spearhead as their opening act in North America, Australia and Europe.

Anderson is the first Jamaican female artist to hit the Billboard Rock charts featured on the song "Say Hey, I Love You" with Michael Franti & Spearhead. The song simultaneously peaked six Billboard charts and was placed on the soundtrack of numerous films and TV commercials including the EA 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Music Soundtrack. She dominated both local and international reggae charts with her single "Shine on Jamaica" from her EP The Introduction-Dubstyle EP. "Shine On Jamaica" peaked at number 1 for four weeks on both the NY Reggae charts and South Florida reggae charts. The EP also produced reggae hits such as "Talk If Yuh Talking" and "Kingston State of Mind". "Shine On Jamaica" was also featured on the 2011 Grammy-nominated album for Sly & Robbie "One Pop Reggae". As a result, she was honored with the award for Best Female Vocalist of the year 2010 at the Jamaica Excellence In Music Awards as well as Female Vocalist of Year at Stone Love Awards. Cherine continues to dominate Jamaican radio and stays relevant in the dancehall with the smash hit "Haffi Come Back" as well as the collaboration "Rebel" with D.I.

She has toured with artists such as John Mayer (Battle Studies North American Tour (2010)), Counting Crows, Slightly Stoopid, Sly & Robbie, Augustana among others. Cherine has performed at festivals such as
 Coachella - USA (2009)
 Bluesfest - Australia (2009)
 Rototom Festival- Italy (2009)
Summer Jam- Germany (2009)
Arras Main Square Fest- France (2009)
Your World Festival- Holland (2009)
Rock-Zottegem Festival- Belgium (2009)
Sierra Nevada world Music Festival- USA (2009)(2012)
Mountain Jam Festival- USA (2009)
UCLA Jazz & Reggae Festival - USA (2009, 2006)
Earthdance-USA (2009)
Rebel Salute - Jamaica (2009)
Ragga Muffins Festival - USA (2008)
Hollywood Bowl KCRW Series- USA (2008)
Hollywood Bowl Reggae Series- USA (2007)
Reggae Rising- USA (2007)
Big Day Out – British Columbia (2007)
BVI Festival- Virgin Island (British) (2007)
Reggae Sumfest –Jamaica (2007, 2006)
STING-Jamaica (2007,2009)
Reggae on the River –USA (2006)
International Reggae Day- Jamaica (2006)

She performed at three events (The Green Ball, The Inaugural Peace Ball, Rock The Vote/Calvin Klein Inaugural Party) to commemorate President Barack Obama's inauguration.

Anderson's first official product, The Introduction-Dubstyle EP, was released in March 2009. The EP included reggae chart toppers such as "Shine On Jamaica", "Talk If Yuh Talking", "Kingston State of Mind", "Shine on Jamaica" and "Coming Over Tonight".

Coupled with the success of dominating both dancehall and reggae charts, she has also been tapped for an array of A-list philanthropic projects. Cherine updated her spokesperson repertoire by agreeing to lend her star power to Yoplait and Jamaica Cancer Society's Breast Cancer Campaign since 2010, which raised over $3.5 million JMD to benefit breast cancer victims. Anderson was also aligned with the United Nations-backed "Way Out Project," an initiative to end violence and endorse gender equality, which is run jointly by the UN and the Bureau of Women's Affairs. Additionally, her Reach One Child "R.O.C" Foundation, which she founded in 2004, remains committed to providing mentorship and motivational talks as well as need based scholarships to youths in Jamaica. In the spring of 2012 Cherine and a team of Reach One Child volunteers embarked on the R.O.C Jamaica School Tour, with a mission to engage teens in inner-city communities in discussions on topics such as teen pregnancy, violence, violence against women as well as making education their priority, in order to secure a better future. In 2013 she launched the ROC Scholarship Program to support scholastic excellence and encourage community building among public school 6th grade students with financial need, as they move into secondary school. In October of the same year the R.O.C Foundation joined forces with CherineTV to launch the Save Our Girls campaign to support the Jamaica Cancer Society's breast cancer research efforts.

She is in the final stages of completing her new album with producers Sly & Robbie and David Norland. The album was scheduled to be released in 2015.

References

External links
 Official website –
 Reverbnation – http://www.reverbnation.com/cherinetv

 Yahoo! Movies Filmography – https://web.archive.org/web/20080220043945/http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800290512
 Profile at PeppaPot MagaZeen – https://web.archive.org/web/20071017071218/http://peppapot.com/getartist/Cherine%20Anderson
 Bio from BVI Music Festival 2007 – https://web.archive.org/web/20071210213814/http://bvimusicfest.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=26
 Interview at Jamaicans.com – http://www.jamaicans.com/music/interviews/cherineandersoninterview2007.shtml

1984 births
Living people
Musicians from Kingston, Jamaica
21st-century Jamaican women singers
Jamaican reggae singers
Reggae fusion artists
Jamaican film actresses
Middlebury College alumni
Dancehall singers

Cherine Anderson


The Curtiss P-36 Hawk is a US single-engine fighter aircraft. It was used in World War II by the Royal Air Force and the French Air Force. Before that, it was used by the US Army Air Corps. Its first flight was in 1935. It was the basis of the P-40 Warhawk.

World War II American aircraft
United States military aircraft

Curtiss P-36 Hawk


In Islam, Eid is the name of two Islamic festivals:
 Eid ul-Fitr, after fasting the month of Ramadan, on the first day of Shawwal.
 Eid ul-Adha, remembering Prophet Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son to Allah, on the tenth day of Dhu al-Hijjah, for those not on pilgrimage.

The Eids are celebrated by Muslims all around the world.

Other websites
Are the two Eids pagan? Quranaloneislam.org

Islamic festivals

Eid festival