Portland Head Light is a historic lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. The light station sits on a head of land at the entrance of the primary shipping channel into Portland Harbor, which is within Casco Bay in the Gulf of Maine. Completed in 1791, it is the oldest lighthouse in Maine. The light station is automated, and the tower, beacon, and foghorn are maintained by the United States Coast Guard, while the former lighthouse keepers' house is a maritime museum within Fort Williams Park.

History
Construction began in 1787 at the directive of George Washington and was completed on January 10, 1791, using a fund of $1,500, established by him. Whale oil lamps were originally used for illumination. In 1855, following the formation of the Lighthouse Board, a fourth-order Fresnel lens was installed; that lens was replaced by a second-order Fresnel lens, which was replaced later by an aerobeacon in 1958. That lens was replaced with a DCB-224 aerobeacon in 1991. The DCB-224 aerobeacon is still in use.

In 1787, while Maine was still part of the state of Massachusetts, George Washington engaged two masons from the town of Falmouth (modern-day Portland), Jonathan Bryant and John Nichols, and instructed them to take charge of the construction of a lighthouse on Portland Head. Washington reminded them that the early government was poor, and said that the materials used to build the lighthouse should be taken from the fields and shores, materials which could be handled nicely when hauled by oxen on a drag. The original plans called for the tower to be 58 feet tall. When the masons completed this task, they climbed to the top of the tower and realized that it would not be visible beyond the headlands to the south, so it was raised another 20 feet.

The tower was built of rubblestone, and Washington gave the masons four years to build it. While it was under construction in 1789, the federal government was being formed, and for a while, it looked as though the lighthouse would not be finished. Following passage of their ninth law, the first congress made an appropriation and authorized the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, to inform the mechanics that they could go on with the completion of the tower. On August 10, 1790, the second session of Congress appropriated a sum not to exceed $1500, and under the direction of the President, "to cause the said lighthouse to be finished and completed accordingly."  The tower was completed in 1790 and first lit on January 10, 1791.

During the American Civil War, raids on shipping in and out of Portland Harbor became commonplace, and because of the necessity for ships at sea to sight Portland Head Light as soon as possible, the tower was raised 20 more feet. The current keepers' house was built in 1891. When Halfway Rock Light was built, Portland Head Light was considered less important, and in 1883, the tower was shortened  and a weaker fourth-order Fresnel lens was added. Following the mariners' complaints, the former height and second-order Fresnel lens were restored in 1885.

The station has changed little except for rebuilding the whistle house in 1975 due to its having been badly damaged in a storm. Today, Portland Head Light stands  above ground and  above water, its white conical tower is connected to a dwelling. The grounds and keeper's house are owned by the town of Cape Elizabeth, while the beacon and fog signal is owned and maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard as a current aid to navigation. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Portland Head light (sic) on April 24, 1973, reference number 73000121. The lighthouse was designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the  American Society of Civil Engineers in 2002.

Keepers
• Joseph K. Greenleaf (1791–1795) As a patriot, he was appointed by George Washington.
• David Duncan (1796)
• Barzillai Delano (1796–1820)
• Joshua Freeman (1820–1840)
• Richard Lee (1840–1849)
• John F. Watts (1849–1853)
• John W. Coolidge (1853–1854)
• James S. Williams (1854)
• James Delano (1854–1861)
• Elder M. Jordan (1861–1869)
• Joshua F. Strout (1869–1904)
• Joseph W. Strout (1904–1928)
• John W. Cameron (assistant 1904–1928, principal keeper 1928–1929)
• Frank O. Hilt (1929–1944)
• Robert Thayer Sterling (assistant 1928–1944, principal keeper 1944–1946)
• Archie McLaughlin (Coast Guard, c. 1946)
• William L. Lockhart (Coast Guard 1946–1950)
• William T. Burns (Coast Guard, 1950–1956?)
• Earle E. Benson (Coast Guard, 1952–?)
• Edward Frank (Coast Guard 1956–?)
• Weston B. Gamage Jr. (Coast Guard, )
• James R Wilson (Coast Guard, 1962 – 1964)
• Armand Houde(Coast Guard officer in charge, c. 1963–1965)
• Thomas Reed (Coast Guard, 1966–1967)
• Robert Allen (Coast Guard, c. 1972)
• Kenneth A. Perry (Coast Guard,1973–1975)
• Roy Cavanaugh (Coast Guard, c. 1971–1977)
• Jerry Poliskey (Coast Guard, c. 1977)
• Ray Barbar (Coast Guard Officer-in-Charge 1978–1982)
• Marion Danna (Coast Guard Assist. Light keeper 1980–1983)
• Michael Cook (Coast Guard Officer-in-Charge 1982–1986)
• Davis Simpson (Coast Guard, ?–1989)
• Nathan Wasserstrom (Coast Guard, ?–1989)
• Cameron Ayres

Gallery

In art and popular culture
 Edward Hopper painted the lighthouse in 1927. His watercolor resides at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.
 A snowy Portland Head Light was featured in the 1999 drama Snow Falling on Cedars, which was filmed during the Ice storm of 1998.
 The lighthouse was featured in the fifth, sixth, and seventh season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Described as being on the shores of Lake Ontario in the show, the building housed an underground facility used by S.H.I.E.L.D. as their covert base of operations.
It was also featured on a postcard in the opening credits of National Lampoon's Vacation.

See also
 Annie C. Maguire shipwreck
 Port of Portland, ME
 National Register of Historic Places listings in Cumberland County, Maine

References

External links

 Portland Head Light - official site
 Portland Head Light - United States Lighthouses

Lighthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine
Lighthouses completed in 1791
Houses completed in 1791
Towers completed in 1791
Lighthouse museums in Maine
Museums in Cumberland County, Maine
Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks
Cape Elizabeth, Maine
Lighthouses in Cumberland County, Maine
National Register of Historic Places in Cumberland County, Maine
1791 establishments in Maine

Portland Head Light


The Eau Rouge is a small,  stream in the Belgian province of Liège. It is a  right tributary of the Amblève.

It starts in the Hautes Fagnes ("High Fens") and ends in Challes, near Stavelot in the river Amblève. The French words  mean "red water", and the river gets its name from the reddish coloration of the stones and riverbed due to the presence of iron-oxide deposits. The Eau Rouge is particularly geomorphologically interesting, as it appears to be using the old Warche river stream bed.

The Eau Rouge has been a border river for several periods in its existence, including an administrative boundary under the Roman Empire between Cologne and Tongeren, and the state border between the Netherlands and Prussia from 1815 to 1839 and then between Belgium and Prussia from 1839 to 1919.

Eau Rouge and the F1 circuit
The Eau Rouge has lent its name to the Eau Rouge corner, one of the best-known corners in Formula One race tracks in the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps motor racing circuit, at the point where the track crosses it for the first time.

References

Rivers of the Ardennes (Belgium)
Rivers of Belgium
Rivers of Liège Province
Malmedy
Stavelot

Eau Rouge


The Topps Company has created a number of different baseball card products during its existence. They originally started as a chewing gum company, using the baseball cards as a sales gimmick to make the gum more popular, but today it is primarily a baseball card company.

Topps brands

Factory sets
Topps remains the only baseball card company today to still offer factory sets of their base brand. Their first factory set was offered in 1974 exclusively in the J.C. Penney catalog, but Topps would not begin releasing factory sets again until 1982. The 1982 Topps Factory Set is rare due to J.C. Penney's failure to sell them. J.C. Penney factory sets were available in 1982 in a color box and 1983 (SKU 672–1203), 1984 (SKU 672–1641), and 1985 (SKU 672–2029) in brown boxes. From 1986 to 1992, Topps factory sets came in two designs, Retail (or Christmas) and Hobby dealer.  Retail factory sets were in very colorful boxes and were typically released near Christmas time (and for that reason are sometimes called Christmas sets).  Hobby dealer sets were in much plainer boxes until 1993.  Topps continues to this day to offer not only retail, hobby, and Christmas sets, but also team themed factory sets (starting in 2004) with bonus cards exclusive to each one.

Tiffany sets
From 1984 to 1991, Topps released a limited edition version of both their regular and traded sets called "Tiffany" sets.  These sets were released in hobby dealer exclusive factory set format only and are identical to the regular cards, but these were printed in Ireland with white cardboard (instead of the then-standard gray cardboard) with a glossy finish on the front.  The color of the inner boxes the Tiffany sets came in as well as the estimated number of sets produced (according to the annual Beckett price guide) are:

1984: Red (0000)
1985: Blue (5,000)
1986: Maroon (5,000)
1987: Violet (30,000)
1988: Green (25,000)
1989: Blue (15,000)
1990: Red (15,000)
1991: Navy (unknown, but believed to be the lowest print run of all, so <5,000)

Bowman

Bowman was Topps' main competitor from 1951 until Topps bought out Bowman after the 1955 season. Almost 35 years later, in 1989, Topps resurrected the Bowman brand and created a new annual baseball card set which was unique in two ways. First, the 1989 Bowman cards were 2.5" x 3.75" instead of the standard 2.5" x 3.5" card size (they went back to standard size from 1990 onwards however) and second, its main focus was on upcoming minor league players who Topps believed had a good chance of making it to the majors someday, which continues to be the focus of the Bowman set today. Although the Bowman sets were not very popular in its first three years, that changed in 1992 when Bowman was upgraded to a premium quality set (with UV coating on both sides and a special subset with bronze foil borders), and very limited production. Since then, Bowman has become more and more oriented towards prospects and rookies. New sets from several sister brands, as well as the core Bowman brand itself, continue to be released each year.

Since the mid-1990s the vast majority of the MLB's top stars were featured on a Bowman card prior to appearing in any other set. The incredible sustained level of success enjoyed by the Bowman brand has spurred a number of spin-off products, including Bowman Chrome, Bowman Sterling, Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects, Bowman's Best, Bowman Originals, and most recently, Bowman Platinum. The key to the brand's success lies in the fact that Bowman and Bowman Chrome rookie cards are typically the most valuable and sought after of all rookie cards. This is especially true for its baseball card releases.

Stadium Club
Topps released their first "premium" set in 1991 called Stadium Club.  This was the very first major baseball card set to feature glossy UV coating on both sides of the card as well as gold foil stamping on the front and a borderless (or "full-bleed") Kodak photo on the front.  The back of the card also featured an image of the player's first Topps card. This set was a major hit at the time with packs costing $5 or more. In 1992, Topps released three different series of Stadium Club cards. There was also a factory set from 1992 in which cards were packed in a reproduction dome stadium, made of plastic, but this was not the same as the regular 1992 Stadium Club set.

Topps Finest
Topps released their first "super premium" set in 1993 called Topps Finest (or just Finest for short).  These were issued in six card packs with 18 packs in a box and 12 boxes per case, and only 4,000 cases were produced.  This set was also a major hit with packs costing around $25 at the time.  Many hobbyists, however, frowned upon such an expensive set thinking that it was driving the hobby away from younger collectors.  Topps also included a Finest All-Star jumbo card (limited to about 1455 of each) in each box (a 4" x 6" version of the All-Star subset) and randomly inserted (1 in 18 packs) a Refractor insert card which was exactly like the regular card but with a rainbow sheen on the front with some of them worth over $1000 at that time.  Only 241 of each Refractor were produced and continue to this day to be highly sought after.

Topps Heritage / Bowman Heritage / Allen & Ginter

In 2001, Topps (for its fiftieth anniversary) released two new retro themed brands, Topps Heritage and Bowman Heritage, as part of its baseball, football and hockey card product lines. The novelty was that the brands had modern players with designs from past years. The baseball cards had the design from 1952 for its 2001 selection of Heritage baseball cards, 1953 design for 2002, 1954 design for 2003, and so on. Bowman Heritage was also started in 2001 and used the following throwback designs:
2001: 1948 Bowman
2002: 1954 Bowman
2003: proposed 1956 Bowman design (original 1956 set was not issued due to Topps' buyout of Bowman after 1955)
2004: 1955 Bowman
2005: 1951 Bowman
2006: 1949 Bowman

The Bowman Heritage brand was retired after the 2007 release, replaced by the much more popular and emerging Allen & Ginter brand that captivated collectors with its 2006 debut. In 2019, Bowman Heritage returned as an online-only exclusive product using the 1953 Bowman design. Topps Heritage became a baseball exclusive brand in 2007 where it is still an active brand to this day. It is widely considered to be one of the most popular perennial preseason baseball card release.

Topps T206
The T206 name (originally issued in 1909-11 by the American Tobacco Company) has been revived by Topps (under the "Topps 206" brand) a total three times, the first in 2002 with a second revival in 2010. Again in 2020, the company released a new collection divided into five different series, with the first (50 cards) being released in May 2020. The collection, named "Topps 206", include players from both, Major and Minor League. The 5th series was released in September 2020.

The T206 Honus Wagner card was reissued by Topps in 2002, with variations on its background color. The card was printed with the original orange color of 1909 (#179), and also in blue (#307) and red (#456). In 2020, a new Honus Wagner card was issued by the company (#45) as part of the second wave (of 5) released that year.

Topps Project 2020
In 2020 Topps released Project 2020, a 400 card online exclusive set which featured 20 artists rendition of 20 iconic Topps Cards.

Topps baseball cards outside the United States
A Canadian licensed version of the Topps set was produced by candy company O-Pee-Chee from 1965 until 1992. From 1970 onward, the cards were bilingual in order to comply with Canadian language laws. There were also licensed version Topps sets issued in Venezuela from 1959 to 1977, with some changes and the addition of winter league players. In the late 1980s, Topps issued two sets for the United Kingdom market of American baseball players, complete with explanations of key baseball terms on the cards.

Products by year
Each year, Topps faced the challenge of designing new cards to distinguish them from the year before. The 1952 - 56 sets were varied in presentation, but each were the same size, 2 5/8" x 3 3/4". The '52, '53 and '54 sets were vertical, the '55 and '56 sets horizontal. In 1957, the 2 1/2 x 3 1/2" size card became standard. Also, the design changed dramatically and was now a photograph of the player and not a painting (particularly 1953). The 1957 set is one of the most sought after by hobbyists due to the photographic quality and simple card design. The 1957 set is almost borderless, and the player name, team name, and position are printed in small letters so the photograph of the player is the dominant feature. More colorful designs and larger borders resumed again until the highly popular 1961 set, which again has smaller borders and less obtrusive team names, player names, and positions.

Until 1964, the colors of the borders, print, letters, etc. was random. Starting with the '64 set, Topps began a trend where each team had their own color scheme. For example, every Dodger card in the 1964 set featured the team name "Dodgers" in red across the top of the card, with the player name and position written in a powder blue field along the bottom of the card. Topps generally had 10 different color scheme designs per year, one for each team in their respective league (National and American). Thus, one team in each league shared the same color scheme with one team in the other league.

Starting in 1966, Topps assigned a color scheme to each team that would repeat itself in the 1968 and 1969 sets. The schemes were as follows:
Yellow printing on a red background: Dodgers & Yankees
Yellow printing in a green background: Giants & Senators
White printing on a violet background: Pirates & Red Sox
White Printing on a blue background: Reds & Twins
White printing on a lavender background: Braves & Angels
Red printing on a gray background: Phillies & Indians
Red printing on a yellow background: Cardinals & Tigers
White printing on an orange background: Cubs & White Sox
Black printing on a lime green background: Astros & Orioles
Yellow printing on a purple background: Mets & Athletics

The 1969 set introduced two new color schemes to accommodate the expansion teams that began play in that year:
Black printing on a pink background: Expos & Royals
Yellow printing on a brown background: Padres & Pilots

Player depictions
Players generally gave multiple poses for Topps, and Topps chose which one to put on a card. Among these were head shots of the player with no cap, in case he was traded or the team moved. In 1966, the Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta, so every card of a Braves player in the early series of cards is a head shot with no cap, or the cap logo is obstructed or hidden in some way (profile or cap tilted up). Only in the later series are there cards with Braves players wearing the new cap with the letter "A". The same is true for the Angels, whose move from Los Angeles to Anaheim caused a change in their cap logo from and "LA" to a "CA" as they switched from being called the Los Angeles Angels to the California Angels.  In later years, Topps developed an airbrush technique where the cap logo would be manually altered or blacked out. For example, the 1968 Athletics, after moving from Kansas City to Oakland, are pictured wearing blacked out caps with green bills.

Topps generally put the biggest stars on card numbers ending in x00 or x50. For example, in the 1966 set, Mickey Mantle is card #50 and Sandy Koufax is card #100. In 1965, Willie Mays is card #250. Other star players were put on card numbers ending in zero (10, 20, 140, 270, etc.) and minor stars were put on cards ending in "5".  Topps continues this numbering system (at least to a degree) today.

References

External links
 Cards and collectibles on Topps
 Topps Sports Cards on CardboardConnection
 Topps baseball cards on DiamondCards

Chewing gum
Baseball cards
Trading cards

Topps baseball card products


"Alias the Spider" is a superhero feature from the Golden Age of Comic Books that appeared in Quality Comics' Crack Comics for nearly three years, starting with issue #1 in 1940. He was created by writer-artist Paul Gustavson.

The original Golden Age version of the character is in the public domain, but the rights to all subsequent versions are currently owned by DC Comics.

Publication history
Only one adventure of the Spider has ever been reprinted by DC Comics, which acquired the Quality Comics stable of characters when that company went out of business in 1956: the story from Crack Comics #25, in Detective Comics #441.

The Spider later made sporadic cameo appearances in All-Star Squadron and The Young All-Stars. As a Quality Comics character, he was one of the heroes who went with Uncle Sam to protect Earth-X during World War II, becoming part of the Freedom Fighters. This was the fulfillment of a storyline that began in Justice League of America #107-108, which introduced most of Quality Comics' characters to the DC Universe. Previously only Plastic Man and Blackhawk had been used.

Fictional character biography

Tom Hallaway
The Spider is playboy Tom Hallaway, who had tired of seeing criminals have their own way harassing and murdering honest citizens, so he adopts the guise of the Spider to settle the score. The Spider fights crime in a yellow shirt and blue shorts. He is armed with a bow and arrows, a special car known as the Black Widow, and the assistance of his valet Chuck (who helps Hallaway in both of his identities without anyone making any sort of connection). Hallaway uses a special arrow called the "Spider's Seal", which has a flat disc on the end; he shoots it at thugs' hands to disarm them.

According to Jess Nevins' Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes, the Spider "fights enemies like the Crow, the pirate Falcon, Iggie the Yogi, and the Yellow Peril Yellow Scorpion".

In the continuity that followed DC Comics' "Crisis on Infinite Earths" company-crossover storyline, the Spider is not heroic. Now given the full name Tom Ludlow Hallaway, he did not become the Spider out of an altruistic motive, but rather because he was a smuggler, kidnapper and murderer who used the guise of a superhero as a cover to help him eliminate the competition. Though originally based in St. Louis, Missouri, he is a member of the Ludlow clan from New England. The family inadvertently ran up against the Shade, a near-immortal sometime-villain introduced during the 1930s-1940s Golden Age of Comic Books. The family had a history of ill-gotten gains, having originally amassed its vast wealth by killing their partners in a business enterprise.

Instead of working with the Freedom Fighters, this revised Spider is a member of the Seven Soldiers of Victory (also known as the Law's Legionnaires). Crisis on Infinite Earths had erased the Golden Age Green Arrow and Speedy from existence, and the Spider helped fill the void in the team. Shining Knight, the Vigilante and his partner Stuff, the original Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, and the Crimson Avenger were on board with the Spider. As depicted in Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #9, during the final case of the Seven Soldiers, the Spider betrays them to their old enemy, the Iron Hand (who had created the cosmic menace known as the Nebula Man). The Spider kills the Vigilante's friend Billy Gunn, but is stopped by the Crimson Avenger's partner Wing, who stops the Nebula Man (though at the cost of his own life).

With the only people who knew him to be a criminal dead, the Spider continues his heroic facade. He becomes the hero-in-residence of Keystone City after the Flash retired in 1950, but his Ludlow heritage catches up with him, as does the Shade. The Spider had been planning to face the Shade for quite a while. He had saved fragments of the Shade's shadow substance, intending to plant them at the scene of a double murder, that of Jay Garrick (the Golden Age Flash) and his wife Joan. The Spider hoped to lessen the Shade's power by keeping him captive near a roaring fireplace, but the added light only increased the shadows. The Shade creates arrow-casting monsters that shoot the Spider with black arrows. The Shade is able to prevent the Garricks' murders, but convinces his old enemy the Flash not to publicize his role.

Lucas Ludlow-Dalt
The Spider's son, Lucas Ludlow-Dalt, takes up the bow and arrow (and his original yellow and blue costume) in the pages of Starman, helping Culp, the Mist, the Rag Doll, Doctor Phosphorus, Solomon Grundy and several other villains lay siege to Opal City during the "Grand Guignol" storyline. This Spider had trained all his life for revenge on the Shade, and comes close to getting it. Matt O'Dare prevents the Spider from killing the Shade, and he is chased off to parts unknown. Lucas later attempts to kill Jack Knight in the final issue of Starman (and nearly kills Mason O'Dare, if not for the timely intervention of the spirit of the deceased magician Zatara). The Shade tells Jack Knight he is going to bring him in, since he is a Ludlow.

Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #9 also depicted the beginning of vengeful activity for another Spider, though this may be the same Spider that was depicted in Starman.

The Spider takes up his bow again in the pages of the most recent Hawkman series, facing off against Hawkman, Hawkgirl and Green Arrow. The Green Arrow shoots the Spider in his aiming eye with an arrow, hoping to end the criminal's career by maiming him. The Spider manages to re-learn archery from a new perspective (and far quicker than is usual for any normal human).

I, Spyder
Seven Soldiers #0 featured the advent of yet another Spider, although he spelled the name "I, Spyder". This character, named Thomas Ludlow Dalt, was one of the five heroes brought together by the Vigilante to form a new incarnation of the Seven Soldiers of Victory. Prior to this, he was abducted by the Seven Unknown Men of Slaughter Swamp after accepting a contract to kill them at their home base in the aforementioned bog. It was revealed that the Seven had hired him in order to lure him into their headquarters so they could hopefully prepare him to defeat the Sheeda (though one character criticised recruiting 'another schmuck with a bow and arrows'). Thomas was given several augmentations in terms of his abilities and gear which included new clothes, a jet-black helicopter with a black widow hourglass symbol on its base as well as 'cold blood and perfect aim'. This Spyder is also the son of Thomas Hallaway, and the brother of Lucas, who usurps the identity by killing his brother. His glory is short lived however, as he is killed by the evil Sheeda and resurrected as their agent.

This Spyder was not actually villainous like his father. After a failed assassination attempt on Bulleteer's life, Spyder was greeted by the ghost of Greg Saunders, the original Vigilante. What occurred during their confrontation is not shown but in Seven Soldiers #1, Spyder shoots the Sheeda queen Gloriana Tenebrae, knocking her from her floating castle, and she is hit and killed by a car driven by the Bulleteer.

References

External links
 Spider I Profile
 DCU Guide: Spider
 DCU Guide: Spider
 DCU Guide: I, Spyder
 "Alias the Spider" at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on April 4, 2012.

DC Comics superheroes
DC Comics supervillains
Fictional archers
Golden Age superheroes
Quality Comics superheroes
Comics characters introduced in 1940
Comics characters introduced in 1998
Comics characters introduced in 2005
Public domain comics
Characters created by Grant Morrison
Characters created by James Robinson
Characters created by Geoff Johns

Spider (DC Comics)


Norfolk County is a city in Ontario, Canada that is largely agricultural. It has many primary schools and high schools and the majority of citizens are Christian. Its communities include:
 Simcoe
 Delhi
 Port Dover
 Pine Grove
 Gilbertville
 Waterford

The current mayor is Charlie Luke who was elected on November 13, 2014.

Cities in Ontario

Norfolk County, Ontario


Hijam Irabot (30 September 1896 – 26 September 1951), also known as Jana Neta Hijam Irabot, was a politician and leader of Communist party of India and revolutionary social activist from Manipur. He fought against the social evils of the society. He later was jailed for supporting the second Nupi Lan, 1939. In the June/July 1948 election to the Manipur Assembly, Irabot won from the Utlou Constituency.

Early life
Irabot was born to Hijam Ibungohal Singh and Chongtham Ningol Thambalngambi at Hijam Leikai. After his father's death, he moved with his mother to stay with his aunt at Moirangkhom Sawaijam leikai. He studied at Johnstone Higher Secondary School, Imphal, Manipur (still existing, located at western side of Kangla Fort), till Class 7 and founded two student bodies, Bal Sangha and Chatra Sanmelan. In 1913, he went to Dhaka with his cousin, Sawaijam Somorendro and was admitted to Pugoj High School to study till Class 9. In 1915, he dropped out due to insufficient funds and went to Agartala.

Later that year, when he came back to Manipur, he found that his mother had died. He stayed with a friend in Wangkhei Ningthem Pukhri Mapal called (Maibam Iboton Singh) ,a renowned Polo player whose father Maibam Samden Singh  worked in the Manipur State Durbar of Meidingngu Churachand as Additional Darbar Member.It was then that he came in good relations with the royal family. He married the king's elder brother's daughter Khomdonsana. He was then appointed a member of the Sadar panchayat.

Political life, 1934–1938

Originally known as the Nikhil Manipuri Hindu Mahasabha, the Nikhil Manipuri Mahasabha was founded under the patronage of Maharaja Churachand Singh who was the president of the organisation. All works were carried out by Hijam Irabot who was the vice-president. Under Irabot's guidance, four sessions were held. In the last one at Chinga, during Maharaja Churachand's absence, Irabot changed the name of the sabha by dropping Hindu off the original name. He transformed it into a political party. Maharaja Churachand sent a warning to Irabot on the events taking place in his absence.

Irabot and Elangbam Tompok, a clerk at the revenue department resigned from the Sadar Panchayat. They outlined a legislature which was submitted to the king and the Manipur State Durbar. It was rejected.

Political life, 1939–1951
This phase could be termed as the socio-reformer phase. In 1939, when the 2nd Nupi lan broke out in Manipur, a section of the NMM called the Praja Sanmelani split off the original party to join the struggle. Irabot headed this party and gave a speech at the Police lane in 1940. He was arrested and deported to the Silhet Jail (Sylhet, in Bangladesh present days).

At the jail, he met Indian communist leaders like Hemanga Biswas and Jyotirmoy Nandi. He was greatly influenced by them.
Irabot was released from the Sylhet jail on 20 March 1943. But he was not permitted to enter Manipur. He stayed in Cachar district to work among the Manipuri peasants and also among the non-Manipuri ex tea garden workers. There he joined the Kisan movements. He kept in touch with the communist leaders and attended the first Party congress of the Communist party of India that was held at Bombay from 23 May to 1 June 1943 as a special invitee from Cachar. In Cachar he organised cultural squads known as Swadesh Ganer Dal, which was later on incorporated in the Indian People's Theatre Association. He led a delegation from Cachar to the All India Kisan Sabha session held at Netra Kona in Mymensingh District of Bengal. In March 1944, he went to Bejwada (Katakual Village) to join the Kisan Conference and stayed for sometime at the Bengal Communist Party office. The same year he went to Sylhet to join the annual session of the Surma valley provisional Kisan Sabha.

Irabot was detained as a security prisoner in the Silchar District jail with effect from 15 September 1944 on the charge that he was a communist. He was released on 10 January 1945. After more than 5 years of political exile, Irabot was given permission to stay in Manipur for a week (from 2 to 10 September 1945). His request for an extension of his stay in Manipur was denied.

He came back to Cachar and carried out peasants' movement. He was appointed General Secretary of the Cachar District Kishan Sabha and President of the Surma Valley Kishan Sabha. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Assam Kisha Sabha, the CPI Assam Provincial Committee, and the Assam Students' Federation. He contested in the 1946 election to the Assam Provincial Legislatures Assembly from the Silchar constituency as a CPI candidate, but lost by a narrow margin.

Irabot was finally permitted to enter Manipur in March 1946. In Manipur he organised a new party called the Manipur Praja Mandal in April 1946. He attended two sessions of the Nikhil Manipuri Mahasabha before he was expelled from the membership of the Working Committee of the Mahasabha on the charge of being a member of the Communist Party of India. He attended the second congress of the CPI held at Calcutta from 28 Feb to 6 March 1948.
The first Communist Party of Manipur was formed on 23 August 1948. In the June/ July 1948 election to the Manipur Assembly, Irabot contested and won under from the Utlou Constituency as a Krishak Sabha candidate. Before the inauguration of the Assembly, Irabot on behalf of the Manipur Praja Sangha and Manipur Krishak sabha called a meeting at the M.D.U Hall on 21 September 1948, to protest against the formation of Purbachal Pradesh, composed of Manipur, Tripura, Cachar and Lushai Hills.

A scuffle took place at Pungdongbam when the Manipur State Police prevented a group of citizens who came to attend the meeting in which a police officer was killed on the spot. The Manipur state council declared the Manipur Praja Sangha and Manipur Krishak Sabha unlawful. The state officials declined to constitute an Enquiry Committee to investigate the Pungdongbam incident.

Irabot could not attend the first meeting of the Manipur Legislative Assembly held on 18 October 1948 because of the warrant against him. Irabot formed an underground Communist Party of Manipur on 29 October 1948 and carried out armed struggle against the government. He died on 26 September 1951 at the foothills of the Anggo Hills.

References

1896 births
1951 deaths
Communist Party of India politicians from Manipur

Hijam Irabot


Decibel è una rivista mensile heavy metal fondata nel 2004 negli Stati Uniti da Albert Mudrian che tratta di musica extreme metal.

Decibel Hall of Fame

2004
 Slayer "Reign in Blood" (November)

2005
 At the Gates "Slaughter of the Soul" (March)
 Sepultura "Roots" (April)
 Life of Agony "River Runs Red" (May)
 Paradise Lost "Gothic" (June)
 Anthrax "Among the Living" (July)
 Entombed "Left Hand Path" (August)
 Carcass "Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious" (September)
 Atheist "Unquestionable Presence" (October)
 Botch "We Are the Romans" (November)
 Emperor "In the Nightside Eclipse" (December)

2006
 Cathedral "Forest of Equilibrium" (February)
 Sleep "Jerusalem" (March)
 Morbid Angel "Altars of Madness" (April)
 My Dying Bride "Turn Loose the Swans" (May)
 Eyehategod "Take as Needed for Pain" (June)
 Deadguy "Fixation on a Coworker" (July)
 Brutal Truth "Need to Control" (August)
 Rollins Band "The End of Silence" (September)
 Monster Magnet "Dopes to Infinity" (October)
 Meshuggah "Destroy Erase Improve" (November)
 The Dillinger Escape Plan "Calculating Infinity" (December)

2007
 Only Living Witness "Prone Mortal Form" (January)
 Celtic Frost "Morbid Tales" (February)
 Darkthrone "A Blaze in the Northern Sky" (March)
 Cryptic Slaughter "Money Talks" (April)
 Obituary "Cause of Death" (May)
 Quicksand "Slip" (June)
 Cave In "Until Your Heart Stops" (July)
 Bad Brains "Bad Brains" (August)
 Electric Wizard "Dopethrone" (September)
 Immortal "At the Heart of Winter" (October)
 Katatonia "Brave Murder Day" (November)
 Diamond Head "Lightning to the Nations" (December)

2008
 Converge "Jane Doe" (January)
 Opeth "Orchid" (February)
 Coalesce "0:12 Revolution in Just Listening" (March)
 Mastodon "Remission" (April)
 Napalm Death "Scum" (May)
 Cannibal Corpse "Tomb of the Mutilated" (June)
 Down "NOLA" (July)
 Repulsion "Horrified" (August)
 Black Sabbath "Heaven and Hell" (September)
 Testament "The Legacy" (October)
 Kyuss "Welcome to Sky Valley" (November)
 Metallica "...And Justice for All" (December)

2009
 Candlemass "Nightfall" (January)
 Incantation "Onward to Golgotha" (February)
 Discordance Axis "The Inalienable Dreamless" (March)
 Autopsy "Mental Funeral" (April)
 Suffocation "Effigy of the Forgotten" (May)
 Nile "Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka" (June)
 Stormtroopers of Death "Speak English or Die" (July)
 Judge "Bringin' It Down" (August)
 D.R.I. "Dealing with It!" (September)
 Cynic "Focus" (October)
 Accept "Restless and Wild" (November)
 Trouble "Psalm 9" (December)

2010
 Watchtower "Control and Resistance" (January)
 Enslaved "Frost" (February)
 Saint Vitus "Born Too Late" (March)
 Dark Tranquillity "The Gallery" (April)
 Motörhead "Ace of Spades" (May)
 Pentagram "Relentless" (June)
 Type O Negative "Bloody Kisses" (July)
 Dismember "Like an Ever Flowing Stream" (August)
 Refused "The Shape of Punk to Come" (September)
 Amorphis "Tales from the Thousand Lakes" (October)

Collegamenti esterni

Riviste di musica statunitensi

Decibel (rivista)


Aigues-Mortes (French for "dead waters") is a city in the south of France. It is in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It was originally founded by the Romans in the year 102 BC. The first records mentioning it under its current name date from the 10th century. Louis IX of France rebuilt the port in the 13th century. It was the only French port of the Mediterranean at that time. The city is laid out as a bastide. It was the starting point for the Seventh Crusade (1248) and Eighth Crusade (1270). Due to changes of the coastline, the city is several miles from the sea. It is linked to the sea through a canal, nowadays. It has well-preserved city walls. In 1999, about 6.000 people lived there. Aigues-Mortes is about 35 km from Nîmes.

Bastides
Communes in Gard

Aigues-Mortes


Gungnir, full title , is a tactical role-playing game for the PlayStation Portable, developed by Sting Entertainment and published by Atlus. It is Episode IX of the Dept. Heaven series, and was released in Japan on May 19, 2011 after two years of development.

Gameplay

Gungnir is divided between event scenes, battles, and breaks between each stage in which the player may buy new equipment and change the equipment of party characters. The game display is isometric, with hand-drawn character sprites and environments rendered in 3D. The game uses a time system with a mechanic known as the "Tactics Gauge."

Gungnir features an optional support mode for players struggling with the system and difficulty level. Both multiple routes and Easy Mode were later confirmed.

The gauge displayed on the left side of the screen is known as the Tactics Gauge, and the Tactics Points used to fill the gauge can be employed for various functions. The more Tactics Points are in the gauge, the stronger the party's attacks will be, but these points may also be used for the Scramble function, which interrupts the natural turn order and allows the player to mobilize his or her army any time they please. Tactics Points are primarily gained by obtaining control over key locations of each battlefield.

Two extra methods of attack that rely on cooperation between allies. Beat involves up to four extra allies joining in to attack the targeted enemy as long as they are within the plus-shaped target locus; Boost involves allies on a similar locus extending from the initiator lending their strength for a single powerful attack. How many squares these loci extend depends on how many key locations the player controls.

Once the player has obtained Gungnir itself in the story, Julio can use it to summon great demons called  or "gods of war" to produce various field-wide effects. Doing so costs Tactics Points. There are five in all, and they are all named after figures in Norse mythology. The first to join the player is Einherjar, the god of rebellious spirit, which deals damage. The second is Midgardsormr, a monstrous beast that destroys equipment. The third is Vánargandr, which both inflicts status effects and deals damage. The fourth is Lífþrasir, who bears a resemblance to series mainstay character Marietta, and heals status effects, damage, and vitality. The last is Fimbultyr, which bestows the Brave status effect. Whether or not the Inferno other than Einherjar awaken and become usable depends on how much Quality Gungnir has.

The game features nine decision points during cutscenes, which determine both the general path of the game and the contents of each ending. Certain scenes vary based on the player's choices and thus Giulio's behavior.

Story
Gungnir begins in the year 983 and takes place in the empire of Gargandia, a country populated by two races: the upper-class Daltania and the peasant Leonica. The Leonica race is regarded as "cursed" for yet unknown reasons, and is subjected to harsh class discrimination.

Because of this and incidents such as the "Espada Massacre" that occurred over fifteen years ago, a group of Leonicans aided by Daltania sympathizers has formed a resistance army called Esperanza. Their resistance is, however, badly outmatched and struggling.

One day, a young platoon leader in Esperanza named Giulio comes upon a slave trader taking a kidnapped Daltania girl out of the country, and he and his men rescue her. He welcomes the girl, Alissa, into Esperanza, although she worries what response this will bring from the Daltania military.

Shortly after this, during a desperate battle that appears as though it may cost Giulio's life, a powerful demonic weapon appears before him. Identifying it as the demon lance Gungnir, he decides to take it up, and uses it to seize victory from the jaws of defeat, striking terror into the hearts of many. Giulio and Esperanza come to believe that Gungnir will give them the power they need to win the war with the ruling class, but this acquisition causes Giulio's destiny to begin moving.

Characters

The protagonist of the story, a fifteen-year-old Leonica youth born and raised in the poor district of Espada. He has been a part of Esperanza since he was very young, and has taken part in countless battles while growing up. Julio idolizes his father, who is considered to be a hero by those who live in Espada, and wants to grow up to be just like him. He values his friends and family very highly. While he always works as hard as he can, this is actually because he has something of an inferiority complex, especially when he is compared to Ragnus.

Julio dresses mostly in blue; he has wavy brown hair and green eyes that are depicted as almost completely lightless in Satoko Kiyuduki's official artwork. Although he is capable of using Gungnir, as a Fencer-class unit, his primary weapon is the sword.

The main heroine of the story. Alissa is a timid sixteen-year-old Daltania girl who is rescued by Giulio from slave traffickers wishing to sell her in another country. Her exact lineage is shrouded in mystery, but she is implied to be nobility of some sort; Alissa herself prefers not to draw attention to her heritage. She begins the story as a non-player character, but eventually gains the will to fight, and is said to be hard-headed when it comes to doing what she believes is right.

Alissa is blonde and has green eyes; she wears a lacy gown and a red hooded cape. Official artwork depicts her wielding a massive lance with a pink flower motif; her unit class is Royal and her secondary weapon is the staff.

Despite being Daltania, Ragnus came to live in Espada with the Leonica when he was a very young boy. More than fifteen years ago, he saw his adoptive father brutally murdered by Imperial soldiers in the Espada Massacre, an event that traumatized him badly and left him with a deep desire for revenge. Since that time, he has devoted himself to Esperanza, and currently holds the rank of a captain. Julio is his adoptive brother. Ragnus tries to make decisions coolly in order to be a good leader, he is actually an extremely emotional person.

Ragnus has unevenly cut dark brown hair and eyes of the same color; he wears darkly colored clothing and a striped scarf. Despite having a delicate constitution, he wields an immense battleaxe. His unit class is Gladiator, and swords are his secondary weapon. He is also a Daltan and might be the astral heir.

A mysterious girl who claims to be from Asgard. She speaks of , and while very concerned with Gungnir and Julio, she has interest in little else. Elise participates in battle only in order to assist Julio. Her unit class is Valkyrie, and she can use bows and rapiers; she has blue eyes and hair and her brightly colored clothes are decorated with many pairs of white wings.

Her development name was Ecrile.

A prodigy fencer who received her first medal at the age of fourteen. She has an overly serious personality, and is very honest, believing strongly in swordsmanship and learning. She plans to revolt against the Gargandian faction attempting to establish dictatorship.

Natalia has very long hair worn in a ponytail and wears red armor over a white dress and pink cape reminiscent of Mellia's attire, and wields a red rapier similar to Aegina's sword Red Crimson. Her character class is Duelist, and she can use rapiers and swords.

One of the founders of Esperanza, a former magister at the Gargandian court who was exiled to Espada after a certain incident. While he ordinarily behaves as a genial old man, he has an authoritative position in Esperanza and serves as a surrogate parent to the three orphaned Raguel children. He is seen as the "village elder" of Esperanza. Paulo is wiry and bespectacled with flyaway white hair and a mustache. He wields rods and grimoires, and has healing powers; his class is Alchemist.

A Daltania woman who became a target of the Imperial Army for political reasons. She seeks to revive the republican political faction, and joins up with Esperanza despite being a different race from most of its members. While she originally had no knowledge of how to fight, she studies the art of the crossbow in order to get revenge for her exile.

Valery has red hair braided into a bun and purple eyes. Her class is Rebel, and she can use bowguns and claws.

Julio's blood-related older sister. She was born and raised in Espada, and is fiercely protective of her family due to the loss of her parents. While cheerful, she is even firmer in her beliefs than her brother. Fiona wears blue clothing and appears to work as a bartender, and has the same hair and eye color as her brother. She wears her hair in a ponytail at the side of her head. Unlike the other characters announced thus far, she is an NPC.

Fiona's development name was Sofia; she likes to cook using hard-to-come-by ingredients and does not like to tell lies.

The current sovereign of the Gargandia Empire. He is known for his policies of strict racial segregation, and is called  by some for his aggressive personality. He is currently bedridden, and it is all he can do to even sit on the throne.

The chief knight of the Empire, who has fought through many battlefields at the Emperor's side. However, he is opposed to the depth of the racial discrimination in Gargandia. He wields a giant lance, and is Natalia's adoptive father. His unit class is General, and he is also capable of wielding grimoires.

A mysterious prophet belonging to the indigenous star-based religion of Gargandia. She sometimes offers Julio and his party prophecies or advice. Her class is Teller, and she wields grimoires.

A paraplegic man who serves as Wolfgang's chief adviser. Now that Wolfgang is ill, it is essentially Zaird who now rules the country. He holds many opposing beliefs to Robertus, and the relations between the two of them are very bad. Zaird's unit class is Chariot, and he is capable of wielding maces and rods.

A young girl who practices necromancy. She serves as one of Zaird's subordinates and is called "Corpse Eater" for her skills. No one knows what her true motives are. Isabeli has glasses and brown eyes, and wears her long royal blue hair in a ponytail. Her character class is Necromancer, and she wields scrolls and rods.

The Dept. Heaven series mascot, a mysterious dancing witch who came from a land far away from Gargandia. She calls her special technique "The Great Pamela's Super Magic". Pamela appears in the same pink and purple costume as in the rest of the series, and wields brooms. Her class is Mystic.

Leader of a band of mountain bandits. He has no interest in anything but money and alcohol, but for some reason hates Esperanza desperately whilst he is from Esperanza. He wields a gigantic axe, and his class is Bandit. He lives on a mountain in the snow in a cabin.

Griselda
Assistant of Rodriguez. Second in command of the mountain bandits.

Development

Details about Gungnir and its development first emerged in JaJa's blog as early as May 2009, where it was referred to by the code name "9th". However, while 34 entries were posted over the course of May and June of that year featuring development talk and occasional postings of concept artwork, JaJa's blog went silent after that time. While Sting initially projected that the game would be released in late 2010, no more was said about it during the development of Yggdra Unisons DS remake, Hexyz Force, the PSP version of Knights in the Nightmare, and Blaze Union, which were developed and released from late 2009 to mid-2010.

The project resurfaced in February 2011 with an announcement in Famitsu magazine, followed by the appearance of a teaser site maintained by Sting and hosted on Atlus' domain. On February 24, JaJa uploaded his first post in two years, confirming Gungnir as Dept. Heaven Episode IX. According to JaJa, part of the reason he had not updated his blog during this time was because Sting received a great deal of help on Gungnir from people outside the company itself, and he was worried about causing trouble if he mentioned things that weren't supposed to be revealed yet. Attached to the post in question is a sketch by Satoko Kiyuduki featuring the four main characters of the game backstage at the Famitsu announcement, complaining about their two-year wait.

JaJa remarked in his production blog that "This time we're not going for the 'What the heck is this?!' mysterious approach of Knights in the Nightmare... I think it'll be the type of thing where people will look at the game screen and wonder, 'Is it this type of game then?' And at first, that guess will be right on. However, as you play the game, parts that make you go 'Huh? What's this??' will pop up all over the place if we can get the finishing touches right".

According to a post by Kiyuduki in the staff blog, the game's visuals originally had a much more super-deformed feel to them before changes were made based on Asai's script and Ito's orders for retakes. The opening movie, which was completed fairly early into production, retains the softer and more baby-faced versions of the characters from that time.

Atlus USA announced that the English version of the game would be released on June 12, 2012.

Merchandise
A demo build of the game was made available for download from the Japanese PSN starting on 14 April 2011. It includes the first three stages of the game and the first scene of the fourth, as well as all branches created by choices up to that point.

In addition, a prerelease mini-album was made available for download through iTunes, distributed by Atlus. This release contains the three tracks that play randomly on the Gungnir homepage: The title track , battle theme , and  (Paulo's theme).

Preorders of the game from certain online stores (Messe Sanon, Medialand, Imagine, Softmap, and WonderGOO) come with a phone card featuring special illustrations of certain characters (Fiona, Natalia, Alyssa, and Elise respectively).

The game's strategy guide, Gungnir -Inferno of the Demon Lance and the War of Heroes- Official Complete Guide, was produced by Softbank Creative and sold starting on June 3, 2011. The 2-disc official soundtrack was released under the SMD itaku label on June 22. An official art, documents, and settings book was released on August 3, also by Softbank Creative.

Reception

Gungnir has received mixed reviews. Tech-Gaming found the game's battle system to offer a nice variation on strategy role-playing formula and lauded the game's charming graphical style which consistently offers a plethora of information but bemoaned the game's plodding introduction.

References

External links

2011 video games
Atlus games
PlayStation Portable games
PlayStation Portable-only games
Sting Entertainment games
Tactical role-playing video games
Video games based on Norse mythology
Video games developed in Japan
Single-player video games

Gungnir (video game)


Ferdinand Lassalle (11 April 1825 — 31 August 1864) was a German jurist and socialist politician.

Lassalle was born in Breslau. His father sent him to a business school in Leipzig. Lassalle changed to the University of Breslau. He later studied in Berlin.
He studied Philosophy, Philology (Latin and Ancient Greek) and Law.

Lassalle took part in the revolutions of 1848-49. He was put into prison and later banned from Berlin. He lived in Düsseldorf that time. In 1859, Lassalle returned to Berlin.

Lassalle was a liberal politician in the early 1860s. The liberals had some struggles with Otto von Bismarck. Lassalle thought about the living conditions of the working class. He found that the idea of self-help would not help the working class people. This led him to become a member of the Communist league. There he was in opposition to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Lassalle founded the Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein (General German Workers' Association, ADAV) in 1863. This party later became the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

Lassalle was killed in a duel.

1825 births
1864 deaths
German politicians
German prisoners
People from former German territories
People from Wrocław

Ferdinand Lassalle


Crash Bandicoot is a series of platform video games developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment. The Crash Bandicoot games were first made by the video game company Naughty Dog. Since then, the series has been given to many different companies before it was kept at Radical Entertainment. The games happen in the fictional Wumpa Islands in the south of Australia. There were 15 Crash Bandicoot games in 2007, which have sold 40 million copies.

The main character in the Crash Bandicoot games, is also called Crash Bandicoot.

Games

Naughty Dog games
Crash Bandicoot was created by Naughty Dog in 1996. It out in a platform game  called Crash Bandicoot, where Crash has to save his girlfriend Tawna from the evil doctor Neo Cortex.

After Crash Bandicoot, Naughty Dog made a sequel (another video game), Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, where Crash saves the world from Cortex for a second time.

In the third game of the series, Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, Crash again defeats Cortex and his friend Uka Uka, who tries to conquer the world with the help of Nefarious Tropy and his time machine. Released on playstation.

The fourth and last game made by Naughty Dog with Crash and company was Crash Team Racing, a racing game where Nitrous Oxide, an alien, challenged the Earth inhabitants to a cart race.

Games after Naughty Dog
After Naughty Dog, other companies made many more games in the Crash Bandicoot series, and not only for PlayStation.

List of Crash Bandicoot games from other companies:
Crash Bash (US - NTSC & EU - PAL) / Crash Bandicoot Carnival (Giappone) (PlayStation - 2000)
Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox - 2001)
Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure (US - NTSC) / Crash Bandicoot XS (EU - PAL) (Game Boy Advance - 2002)
Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced (US - NTSC & EU - PAL) (Game Boy Advance - 2003)
Crash Nitro Kart (PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, N-Gage - 2003)
Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage (US - NTSC) / Crash Bandicoot Fusion (EU - PAL) (Game Boy Advance, 2004)
Crash Twinsanity (PlayStation 2, Xbox - 2004)
Crash Tag Team Racing (PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, PlayStation Portable - 2005)
Crash Boom Bang! (Nintendo DS - 2006)
Crash of the Titans (PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance - 2007)
Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant (PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS - 2008)
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch)
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch)

References

Other websites
Available:
Vivendi Universal's Official Crash Bandicoot Site
No longer available:
Naughty Dog's Official Crash Bandicoot Site
Playstation One's Official Crash Bandicoot Site
Playstation One's Official Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back Site
Playstation One's Official Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped Site
Playstation One's Official Crash Team Racing Site
Playstation One's Official Crash Bash Site
Sierra's Official Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex Site *
Vivendi Universal's Official Crash Twinsanity Site
Sierra's Official Crash Tag Team Racing Site
Sierra's Official Crash of the Titans Site
*No longer under official ownership. Beware of possible malicious intentions.
3D platform games

Crash Bandicoot (series)


The University of Tennessee Athletic Council, chaired by Professor Nathan Dougherty, officially suspended varsity football during the World War I years of 1917 and 1918 because the majority of the players were called into military service. In addition, Coach John R. Bender was enlisted as an instructor at Camp John Sevier in Greenville, South Carolina.

During this period without varsity football, two unofficial teams were formed from Army recruits and students. One team represented a training unit called the Fighting Mechanics and the other represented the Student Army Training Corps (SATC).

Schedule

References

Tennessee
Tennessee Volunteers football seasons
Tennessee (SATC) football

1917 Tennessee (SATC) football team


A family tree is a chart showing family relationships in a  tree structure form. The more detailed family trees used in medicine, genealogy, and social work are known as genograms.

As normally showed, a family tree "grows" down from the top, from the oldest generations at the top to the newer generations at the bottom. A tree showing the descendants of an individual (illustration right) will more closely look like a tree in shape; one showing the ancestors of an individual (illustration below in "The Family Tree of Sigmund") will be wider at the top than the bottom. When looking at the closer to the bottom of the tree, it will show more recent generations, and when looking farther up, there will be older generations.
the oldest family members go on the right maybe the  left.

Related pages

Ancestor table
Genogram

Genealogy

Family tree


Harry Surtees Altham  (30 November 1888 – 11 March 1965) was an English cricketer who became an important figure in the game as an administrator, historian and coach. His Wisden obituary described him as "among the best known personalities in the world of cricket". He died of a heart attack just after he had given an address to a cricket society.

Altham was educated at Repton School and Trinity College, Oxford, and served in the British Army during World War I as a major with the 60th Rifles. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and the Military Cross (MC), and was mentioned in despatches on three occasions. He was a schoolmaster and a cricket coach at Winchester College, a position that he held for thirty years, and was also the housemaster of Chernocke House.

Altham's son, Richard, played in two first-class matches for Oxford University in 1947.

Playing career
Harry Altham was a right-handed batsman. The Repton side which he captained in 1908 has been described as possibly the strongest school eleven of all time. His first-class career lasted from 1908 to 1923. He played for Surrey from 1908 to 1912 and also for Oxford University, obtaining a Blue in 1911 and 1912. On joining the staff at Winchester College, he moved from Surrey to Hampshire and played for Hampshire from 1919 to 1923. Altham played in 55 first-class matches in all, scoring 1,537 runs at an average of 19.70. He made one century, a score of 141 against Kent at Canterbury in 1921.

Administration
Altham served on the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) Committee from 1941 until his death in 1965. He was Treasurer from 1949 until 1963 and President in 1959. He was a member of the Hampshire Committee for over forty years and the President of the club from 1946 until his death. He was also Chairman of the English Test selectors in 1954.

Historian
Altham's celebrated History of Cricket began as a serial in The Cricketer magazine and first appeared in book-form in 1926. Revised editions appeared in 1938, this time in collaboration with E.W. Swanton, and then in 1947 and 1948, both with Swanton and in 1948 including an introduction by Pelham Warner. A further revised edition (now in two volumes, the first by Altham covering the period until 1914 and the second by Swanton covering from 1914 onwards) appeared in 1962 and is listed below, along with his histories of Lord's and the MCC, and of Hampshire:

Hampshire County Cricket: The official history of Hampshire County Cricket Club (Phoenix House, 1957).
A History of Cricket with EW Swanton (two volumes, Allen & Unwin, 1962, ). A paperback edition appeared in 1968.
Lord's and the MCC with John Arlott (Pitkin, 1967, ).

Swanton himself clarified the nature of Altham's contribution to A History of Cricket. "In the obituary written in the factual, anonymous vein generally adopted by Wisden," he wrote, "I notice for the first time what can only be described as a howler. The second paragraph of the piece begins: 'Altham collaborated with E. W. Swanton in a book, The History of Cricket...' ... The first edition of A History of Cricket (note the indefinite article) was written by Harry when I was a boy. It was twelve years later, in 1938, that he honoured me by asking me to collaborate with him, in a Second Edition. This I did, and so continued with three subsequent editions, as the junior and subservient partner, until the last appeared in two volumes some three years before his death."

The ever-modest Altham, however, provided his own verdict (in the book's fourth edition in 1948): "This not-inconsiderable labour I could not have undertaken by myself, but I was fortunate enough to secure the collaboration of Mr. E. W. Swanton whose broad shoulders readily sustained by far the greater part of the burden."

Writing in 1956, A. A. Thomson said of the History of Cricket that it was "a massive record of the game from first beginnings out to the undiscovered ends, written with authority and affection, accuracy and charm".

A collection of Altham's writing, edited and revised by Hubert Doggart, was published after his death, namely The Heart of Cricket: A memoir of H.S. Altham (Hutchinson 'The Cricketer', 1967).

Coaching
As well as coaching at Winchester for many years, Altham was Chairman of the MCC Youth Cricket Association and President of the English Schools Cricket Association. He was appointed Chairman of a Special Committee to inquire into the future welfare of English cricket in 1949, saying, "If only we can get enough boys playing this game in England, and playing it right, it is quite certain that from the mass will be thrown up in some year or another a new Compton, a new Tate, a new Jack Hobbs, and, when that happens, we need not worry anymore about our meetings with Australia." Perhaps most important of all, Altham was the author of the first edition of the MCC Cricket Coaching Book, published in 1952.

Honours
He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1957.

References
ALTHAM, Harry Surtees, Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2016 (online edition, Oxford University Press, 2014)

Bibliography
 Altham, H.S.; Swanton, E.W.: A History of Cricket (George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1948).
 Barclay's World of Cricket – 2nd Edition, 1980, Collins Publishers, , p50, p135.
 E. W. Swanton, Cricket from All Angles, Michael Joseph Ltd, 1968, , pp261–263. (An obituary that originally appeared in the Daily Telegraph.)

External links

1888 births
1965 deaths
Cricket historians and writers
English cricket administrators
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Harry Altham


Black House is a horror novel by American writers Stephen King and Peter Straub. Published in 2001, it is the sequel to The Talisman.
This is one of King's numerous novels, which also include Hearts in Atlantis and Insomnia, that tie in with the Dark Tower series. Black House was nominated to the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel.

The novel is set in Straub's homeland of  Wisconsin, rather than in King's frequently used backdrop of Maine. The town of "French Landing" is a fictionalized version of Trempealeau, Wisconsin. Many nearby areas are mentioned, such as Onalaska, Sparta, and Madison; or fictionalized, such as La Riviere for La Crosse, Arden for Arcadia, and Centralia, named for nearby Centerville, located at the intersection of Hwy 93 and Hwy 35.

A chapter of the book is written around Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven".

Plot summary

A series of murders has begun to plague the town of French Landing, Wisconsin. The murderer is dubbed "The Fisherman", due to a conscious effort by the killer to emulate the methods of serial killer Albert Fish. Like Fish, French Landing's killer targets children and indulges in cannibalism of the bodies. Two victims have already been discovered as the story opens, with a third awaiting discovery. The nature of the crimes, and the local police's inability to capture the killer, have led people all over the region to become more anxious with each passing day, and certain elements of the local media exacerbate the situation with inflammatory and provocative coverage.

After the events of The Talisman, Jack Sawyer has repressed the memories of his adventures in The Territories and his hunt for the Talisman as a twelve-year-old boy, though the residue of these events has served to subtly affect his life even after he has forgotten them. Jack grew up to become a lieutenant in the Los Angeles Police Department, where his professionalism and uncanny talent have helped him establish a nearly legendary reputation.  When a series of murders in Los Angeles are traced to a farm insurance salesman from French Landing, Wisconsin, Jack cooperates with the French Landing police to capture the killer. While in Wisconsin, Jack is irresistibly enraptured by the natural beauty of the Coulee Country, echoing his reaction to The Territories as a child.  When he later intrudes upon a homicide investigation in Santa Monica, certain aspects of the crime scene threaten to revive his repressed memories. He subsequently resigns from the LAPD, moving to French Landing to enjoy his early retirement.

When the Fisherman begins to terrorize French Landing, the police all but beg "Hollywood" Jack Sawyer for his assistance and are surprised when he flatly refuses. Memories of the Santa Monica event threaten to overwhelm Jack, and he fears that involving himself in the investigation may break his sanity. When a fourth child is taken by the Fisherman, events no longer allow Jack to remain aloof. It quickly becomes apparent to him that the Fisherman is much more than a serial killer. In fact, he is an agent of the Crimson King, and his task is to find children with the potential to serve as Breakers. The fourth victim, Tyler Marshall, is one of the most powerful Breakers there has ever been, and he may be all the Crimson King needs to break the remaining beams of the Dark Tower and bring an end to all worlds. As the Fisherman also proves capable of "flipping" into The Territories, Jack Sawyer is the only hope of not just French Landing, but all existence.

Terms
 Abbalah: The Crimson King.
 Coppiceman: A word that Jack uses to refer to policemen, most notably himself. The word was taken from Wolf's erroneous pronunciation of policeman in the previous book, The Talisman.
 D'Yamba: A magic word Jack uses that invokes the power of good.
 Opopanax: Jack is almost haunted by the word opopanax at the beginning of the story. Its meaning is given as: "describing a word that cannot be found in the dictionary." It is also the name of the feather in Wolves of the Calla that is used to summon the Calla folken to a palaver - and also passed to anyone desiring to speak during the palaver.
Twinner: A twinner is a person's counterpart or double in another world.  In the language of the Territories, "twinner" translates as "harp," which in Jack's mind conjures the image of two strings "a finger touch away".

References

2000s horror novels
2001 American novels
American horror novels
American thriller novels
Novels about cannibalism
Collaborative novels
Novels about parallel universes
Novels by Peter Straub
Novels by Stephen King
Novels set in Santa Monica, California
Novels set in Wisconsin
Sequel novels

Black House (novel)


Count Corfits Ulfeldt (10 July 1606 – 20 February 1664) was a Danish statesman, and considered one of the most notorious traitors in Danish history.

Early life
Ulfeldt was the son of the chancellor Jacob Ulfeldt. He was educated abroad, concluding with one year under Cesare Cremonini at Padua. He returned to Denmark in 1629.

Rise to power

Upon his return to Denmark, Ulfeldt quickly won the favor of King Christian IV. In 1634 he was made a Knight of the Order of the Elephant, in 1636 became Councillor of State, in 1637 Governor of Copenhagen, and in 1643 Steward of the Realm.

In 1637 Ulfeldt married Leonora Christina (1621–1698) who was the daughter of the King. She had been betrothed to him since her ninth year. Ulfeldt was the most striking personality at the Danish court in all superficial accomplishments, but his character was marked by ambition, avarice and absolute lack of honor or conscience. He was largely responsible for the disasters of the Swedish war of 1643-45, and when the Treaty of Brömsebro was signed there was a violent scene between him and the King, though Ulfeldt's resignation was not accepted.

In December 1646 he was sent as ambassador extraordinary to the Hague, but the results of his embassy by no means corresponded to its costliness, and when he returned to Denmark in July 1647 he found the king profoundly irritated. Ulfeldt, supported by the Rigsråd and the nobility, who objected to Christian's fiscal policy, resisted his father-in-law, and triumphed completely. As Steward of the Realm he was the virtual ruler of Denmark during the two months which elapsed between the death of Christian IV and the election of Frederick III (6 July 1648); but the new king was by no means disposed to tolerate the outrageous usurpations of Ulfeldt and his wife, and this antagonism was still further complicated by allegations of a plot (ultimately proved to be false, but believed at the time to be true) on the part of Dina Vinhofvers, a former mistress of Ulfeldt, to poison the royal family. Dina was convicted of perjury and executed, but Ulfeldt no longer felt secure at Copenhagen, and on the day after the execution he secretly left Denmark (14 July 1651) with his family.

Treason
After living for a time in concealment at Amsterdam, Ulfeldt moved to Stralsund in Swedish Pomerania. In the Dano-Swedish War of 1657 and 1658, King Charles X Gustav of Sweden invaded Denmark, Sweden's deadliest foe at the time. In July 1657, Ulfeldt responded to the King's invitation to enter his service. Ulfeldt's purpose was twofold: humiliate his monarch and secure a personal fortune. During Charles X's march across the Belts, Ulfeldt persuaded the commandant of Nakskov (a strategically crucial fortress) to surrender to the Swedish king's forces, and did his best to convince his countrymen that resistance was useless. He even loaned the Swedish king a fortune to finance the war with money that, it is believed, was embezzled from the Danish state. Finally, as one of the Swedish negotiators at the Treaty of Taastrup, he was instrumental in assuring the humiliation of his native land.

Ulfeldt's treason was rewarded by Charles X of Sweden with ennoblement as the Count of Sölvesborg in Blekinge; however a discontented Ulfeldt instead began intriguing against his new master. He was soon discovered, and in May 1659 was sentenced to death.  On 7 July the Swedish regents amnestied him, and he returned to Copenhagen to try to make his peace with his lawful sovereign, who promptly imprisoned him and his wife. In the summer of 1660 they were conveyed to Hammershus in Bornholm, as prisoners of state.

Later life

Their captivity was severe to brutal and they were released in September 1661 in the most degrading conditions. The fallen magnate henceforth dreamed of nothing but revenge, and in the course of 1662, during his residence at Bruges, he offered the Danish-Norwegian crown to the Frederick William I, Elector of Brandenburg, proposing to raise a rebellion in Denmark for that purpose. Frederick William betrayed Ulfeldt's treason to Frederick III, and the Danish government at once impeached the traitor; on 24 July 1663, he and his children were degraded, his property was confiscated, and he was condemned to be beheaded and quartered.

He escaped from the country, but the sentence was actually carried out on his effigy; and a pillory was erected on the ruins of his mansion at Copenhagen. During a new flight, he died in February 1664 in a boat on the Rhine not far from Basel. The circumstances of his death and his final resting place are not known.

Legacy
To posterity Corfits Ulfeldt has stood as the prototype of a traitor in Danish history. In addition, modern historians have been liable to view him as a highly mentally unstable man whose lust for power ended in megalomania and insanity.

In contrast his wife Leonora Christina has been admired because of her long time as a prisoner after his death. She spent twenty-one years in confinement in the royal dungeon, Blåtårn, prior to her release during 1685.
Jammers Minde  is an autobiography completed in 1674 by Leonora Christina. It was first published in 1869 and translated into English as Memoirs of Leonora Christina.

References

Other sources
 Steffen Heiberg (1993)  Enhjørningen Corfitz Ulfeldt  (Copenhagen: Gyldendal)

Related  reading

1606 births
1664 deaths
17th-century Danish politicians
17th-century Danish diplomats
Corfitz, 16006

Corfitz Ulfeldt


Robert John Hughes (28 April 1930 – 14 December 2022) was a British-born American journalist, a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Indonesia and the Overseas Press Club Award for an investigation into the international narcotics traffic. He served as editor of The Christian Science Monitor and The Deseret News and  is a former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Hughes has written two books and for years wrote a nationally syndicated column for The Christian Science Monitor.

Biography

Childhood
Hughes was born on 28 April 1930 in Neath, Wales, the only child of Evan and Dellis May Hughes. He was raised in London and attended the Ancient Literary Company Trade School. During World War II, both of Hughes' parents contributed to the war effort – his father was drafted into the British Army and served in North Africa for three years. His mother was conscripted into the Government Post Office during that time as well. Following the war, the entire family moved to South Africa.

Education, early career, and Pulitzer
At the age of 16, Hughes started his first job as a reporter at Natal Mercury. Alex Hammond, his first editor, sent him to business school to learn shorthand. Hughes then worked as a reporter for three years before returning to London, where he worked on Fleet Street at a news agency. He eventually was hired by the London-based The Daily Mirror. Shortly after accepting that position, The Natal Mercury contacted Hughes and asked him to come back to be the Chief of the State Capital Bureau. He accepted. He later became a stringer and a freelance writer for a number of papers in London and The Christian Science Monitor in Boston.

In 1955, at the age of 25, Hughes moved to United States and began working in Boston for The Christian Science Monitor. About 18 months later he was sent back to South Africa as a correspondent for The Monitor. He filled that position for six years. Hughes was named the Nieman Fellow at Harvard University the following year. He then worked as an assistant foreign editor in Boston. His next assignment from The Monitor sent him to be a foreign correspondent in Asia for six years. It was during this time that he won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1967 for his thorough reporting of the attempted Communist coup in Indonesia in 1965 and the violent purge of communists that followed in 1965–66.

His achievements were readily recognized by The Christian Science Monitor, and he was promoted to Managing Editor, a position which he held for nine years from 1970 to 1979, until he was promoted to Editor and Manager. During his three-year stint as Editor and Manager, Hughes became interested in owning his own newspaper.

Newspaper ownership and political involvement
His initial purchase was a weekly paper in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, called the Cape Cod Oracle, based in Orleans. Hughes Newspapers, Inc. eventually included five weekly newspapers. The company purchased the Cape Cod News in Hyannis from Frank Fallaci and founded the Yarmouth Sun and Dennis Bulletin in the towns of Dennis and Yarmouth. Hughes Newspapers also published the Lower Cape Shoppers Guide. Hughes sold the newspapers to the G.W. Prescott Publishing Co. in Quincy, in the mid-1980s. The new organization became known as MPG Cape Newspapers, and was operated by MPG Communications in Plymouth. Later MPG Cape Newspapers became Cape Cod Newspapers.

Shortly before Ronald Reagan was elected president, Hughes received a call from one of Reagan's advisors, asking him what Reagan should say in his acceptance speech, should he be elected. Hughes offered some ideas, which were remembered and used. Shortly after Reagan was elected, Hughes was asked to move to Washington D.C. to serve in Reagan's administration from 1981 to 1985.

Hughes initially served as the Associate Director of the United States Information Agency, and was later appointed the director of the Voice of America. While serving in that capacity, he received a phone call from George Shultz inviting Hughes to be the spokesman for the State Department and Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. Back in Orleans, the joke among editors and reporters in the Cape Cod Oracle newsroom was, "poor John Hughes: he can't hold down a job for more than six months," according to Dwight Shepard, who Hughes tapped to be the editor of his weeklies while he was in Washington. Needless to say, each of these changes were promotions.

Following four years in Washington D.C., Hughes returned to Massachusetts where his newspapers were flourishing. He resumed his control of the companies, but eventually sold them when neither of his children wanted to fill his position.

Hughes was then asked by The Christian Science Monitor to be in charge of a shortwave radio international program. He did this for a few years and then bought a newspaper in Maine with a friend of his who worked at The Washington Post. The partnership was unsuccessful and short-lived, resulting in the paper being resold, which enabled Hughes to accept further administrative appointments.

In 1991, he was asked to chair President George H. W. Bush's bipartisan Task Force on the future of US government international broadcasting. In 1992 he was appointed Chairman of a joint Presidential-Congressional Commission on Broadcasting to the People's Republic of China. In 1993, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting appointed Hughes to its Advisory Commission on Public Broadcasting to the World.

Hughes then accepted an offer from Brigham Young University (BYU) to begin the International Media Study Program. In 1995, Boutros Boutros Ghali, the Secretary General of the United Nations, requested that Hughes meet with him. During the meeting, Ghali asked if Hughes would be willing to do some work for the United Nations during the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations. BYU granted Hughes a year leave of absence, and he became an Assistant Secretary General and Director of Communications at the United Nations.

In 1996, Neal A. Maxwell called Hughes with concerns about the Deseret News, a secular newspaper owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Maxwell solicited his advice on improving the paper's circulation. When Hughes returned from the United Nations he began work as a consultant for the Deseret News. Following his counsel, the paper switched its distribution to morning rather than afternoon, which improved circulation. Following the success of this change, the board of directors asked Hughes to be the editor of the newspaper. Hughes accepted the position, and became the first non-Mormon editor of the Deseret News. He filled that position for 10 years, until 2007, at which point he returned to BYU as a Professor in the Communications Department.

Later years
Hughes went to South Africa in 2007 to make a presentation to local media organizations. In 2011 he received the National Council for International Visitors' Citizen Diplomat Media Award. As of 2012 he continued to write a column for the Christian Science Monitor. In 2014, he published an autobiography, Paper Boy to Pulitzer, which he said he wrote for his children and grandchildren, and because "I thought I had a love story in me, and it's about journalism. The greatest profession in the world."

Personal life and death
Hughes and his wife Peggy, a BYU alumnus, had a child, Evan. He had two other children, Mark and Wendy, through an earlier marriage to the late Libby Hughes. He had six grandchildren.

Hughes died on 14 December 2022, at the age of 92.

Writings
The New Face of Africa, 1961
Indonesian Upheaval, 1967
 The End of Sukarno – A Coup that Misfired: A Purge that Ran Wild, 2002, Archipelago Press,
Paper Boy to Pulitzer, 2014,

References

"Department Welcomes John Hughes to Faculty." Comms Alumni Magazine. Brigham Young University. 2007:31.
Article on Hughes being Assistant Secretary General of the UN
BYU School of Communications wiki

Citations

1930 births
2022 deaths
People from Neath
Welsh journalists
Brigham Young University faculty
Nieman Fellows
Harvard University faculty
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
The Christian Science Monitor people
American officials of the United Nations
Deseret News people
United States Department of State spokespeople
United States Assistant Secretaries of State
Journalists from London
Presidents of the American Society of News Editors

John Hughes (editor)


Władysław Stanisław Reymont, born as Stanisław Władysław Rejment, (May 7, 1867 in Kobielce Wielkie, Poland – December 5, 1925 in Warsaw, Poland) was a well-known Polish writer, who won the Nobel Prize in 1924 for his four-volume epic novel "Chłopi" (The Peasants). This novel was about life of this part of the society. He also wrote "Ziemia obiecana" (The Promised Land), about industrial capitalism in 19th century Łódź.

Many people say he is one of the greatest and most prominent Polish writers of all time and one of the greatest in 20th century.

Biography
Reymont was born in the family of the organist. His father, Józef Rejment, a well-read man, had a musical education and in tuszyńskiej performed the parish duties of the organist, and also carried on Civil Status Registers and the correspondence of the parish priest with Russian authorities. Mother, Antonia from Kupczyńskich, had talent for a story. She came from the impoverished Cracow gentry; in mature years the writer has often emphasized this fact.

1867 births
1925 deaths
Polish Nobel Prize winners
Polish novelists

Władysław Reymont


Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling is the second novel (published in 1998) in the Harry Potter series of books. A movie of the book was released in 2002.

About the story

The story begins as Harry, orphaned, spends summer with an aunt, uncle and cousin who do not love him. Harry is visited by Dobby, a house-elf, who is forced to serve the Malfoy family. Dobby warns Harry not to go back to Hogwarts, the magical school that Harry went to the year before, saying that terrible things will happen there. Harry doesn't listen to the warning, so Dobby causes a mess to make Harry's aunt and uncle angry. They lock Harry in his room for the rest of the summer. Harry is rescued by his best friend Ron Weasley in a flying car. He spends the rest of the summer at the Weasley home, called "The Burrow". The reader is introduced to the Weasley family, including Ron's sister Ginny, who is just starting at Hogwarts.

Mr Weasley works for the Department of Magic. He is fascinated by "Muggles" (ordinary people) and the way that they manage to live without magic. It is his job to prevent wizards from illegally enchanting Muggle objects. But he does not always do his job in the way the department would like. In fact, he drives his family to catch the school train in a magical Ford Anglia. The magical train leaves Paddington station in London from Platform 9. But because of strange happenings, Harry and Ron miss the train to school.

Harry and Ron go to school, very late, and in disgrace. Harry has not been back at school very long before it becomes clear that everybody inside the school is in danger. One by one students, and even the caretaker's cat, are affected by a strange and frightening spell. As everyone becomes more and more frightened, they start to be suspicious of other people.

Important ideas in this book
 One of the "themes" or ideas in this book is "suspicion". The author shows that when people are frightened, sometimes they can act in a very nasty way. If they see a person who acts a little bit differently to everyone else, they become "suspicious". They decide that maybe that person is the cause of the problem, not because they seem evil, but just because they seem different.
 In this book, there are five very different people who are lonely and sad. Each one of them acts foolishly, because of their loneliness. Harry Potter suffers a great deal of unhappiness and loneliness, because he has a special talent that very few wizards have. The author has already told the reader about this talent in the first book, even though it did not seem very important at the time. Harry's talent makes most of the other students suspicious of him.
 Another theme in this book is that some people think that they are "special". A person might think that they are special because they are rich, handsome, clever, from a noble family or even because they think that though their life has been hard, they are secretly more important than everyone else. Whatever the cause is, these people act in a way that shows no respect for others. These people act as if everyone else in the world owes them something and everyone else is beneath them. There are three of these people in this book, and their selfish attitudes are dangerous.

1998 books
Harry Potter books

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets