The Last Policeman is a 2012 American science fiction mystery novel by Ben H. Winters. It follows a police detective in New Hampshire as he investigates a suicide he believes was really a murder. His efforts are complicated by the social, political and economic effects of preparations for, and anticipation of, an asteroid impact six months in the future.

Winters describes the work as an "existential detective novel", turning on the question of why people do things in spite of their long-term unimportance. He consulted with experts not only in astronomy and police techniques but psychology and economics. The book was well received by critics, and won the 2012 Edgar Award in the category Best Paperback Original. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura has optioned it for a possible television series. It is the first in a trilogy; Winters published Countdown City, the second volume,  in mid-2013. World of Trouble, the final Last Policeman novel, was released in July 2014.

Plot
The novel is divided into four parts—"Hanger Town", "Non-Negligible Probabilities", "Wishful Thinking", and "Soon, They Will"—each containing five chapters, and an epilogue. Each part has an introductory graphic giving the date, and the asteroid's right ascension, declination, elongation and delta, or distance from Earth, in astronomical units. The first part is dated March 20; the epilogue, April 11.

Background
In April 2011, astronomers discover a new asteroid, 2011GV. Analysis of its unusual orbit shows that it may come very close to Earth soon. By August, not only is that likely, the probability of an impact reaches five percent, triggering an economic panic that results in the bankruptcy of prominent corporations including McDonald's, 7-Eleven, Dunkin' Donuts, and Starbucks. Panera persists but their founders have undergone a cult-like religious rebirth and staffed them with people who share their beliefs.

As the asteroid, now popularly named Maia, approaches, its diameter is measured at , large enough to cause serious planetwide effects and the likely end of civilization should it strike the Earth. The probability of impact is regularly revised upward, peaking at 53 percent before Maia goes in conjunction with the sun and is unable to be seen for four months. In the face of increasing instability caused by the anticipation, governments enact strict emergency laws. The U.S. Congress passes the Impact Preparation Security and Stabilization Act (IPSSA), banning trade and production of firearms, imposing wage and price controls, and legalizing marijuana while toughening penalties for the possession or distribution of other drugs.

In January 2012 Maia emerges from conjunction with the sun and astronomers are able to determine whether the chances are 100 percent or zero. A tearful NASA astronomer announces to the largest television audience in history that Maia will indeed collide with the planet on October 3, 2012. It is determined that this will be impossible to prevent. Social and economic order begins to collapse as people leave their jobs to do things they will never have a chance to again (known in the book as "Bucket Listers"), and many commit suicide. Oil imports cease and the U.S. is limited to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. After commercial supplies run out, only the police and military have fuel supplies, and civilians respond by converting their vehicles to run on biodiesel.

Synopsis
In late March 2012, Henry Palace, a young detective with the Concord, New Hampshire police, is called to a crime scene: a man named Peter Zell has apparently hanged himself in the men's room of a former McDonald's. The case seems clear-cut, but Palace wonders about the bruises on Zell's head and the fact that he was wearing a cheap suit but used an expensive belt to hang himself. Palace decides to consider the death a possible murder, and to investigate despite the limited resources available and peer pressure not to waste them.

His investigation finds several odd loose ends. Zell was an actuary who worked at an insurance company; the previous year he stopped showing up to work for several weeks before returning with no explanation, and his boss recalls an out-of-character angry incident at the office Halloween party. His secretary, Naomi Eddes, says she wasn't close to Zell, although Palace saw her in the parking lot outside the McDonald's. Zell's co-workers say he left that night with a man in a biodiesel-operated pickup truck. At Zell's apartment, Palace finds a stack of newspaper clippings about Maia, with extensive mathematical calculations in the margin, and the unexplained label "12.375". Zell had begun writing a note to his sister, Sophia Littlejohn, a midwife, but had stopped after addressing it. At Sophia's house, her husband Erik tells Palace that Zell was lately very depressed, but lies about his wife's whereabouts. The coroner refuses to do more than the absolute minimum when autopsying Zell's body, but Palace takes a vial of Zell's blood to the toxicology lab anyway.

Meanwhile, Palace must also deal with his sister Nico, who asks him to try to find her worthless husband Derek, who has gone missing. Eventually Palace learns that Derek was arrested for driving an ATV onto closed military property. He is able to visit Derek in detention, but Derek will not speak to him and Palace cannot secure his release.

Palace finds the driver of the pickup truck, a friend of Zell's named J.T. Toussaint, but his story that Zell left his house later that evening after the two saw a movie and drank some beers checks out. A patrol cop from the crime scene has been following the trail of Zell's cell phone, which was stolen from his body, and recovered it. Palace finds that Zell called Naomi Eddes every night, proof that she was lying to Palace earlier. When he confronts her, she explains that Zell was addicted to morphine and needed her help getting clean. Palace conjectures that the "12.375" on Zell's box is a percentage—that is, the threshold at which the chance of Maia destroying the Earth became high enough that it would be worth attempting a risky thing he'd always wanted to do: experimenting with drugs.

When a computer check finds that Toussaint is the son of a onetime major local drug dealer, Palace returns to question him. Toussaint admits to helping Zell use drugs but not to supplying them; Zell brought his own morphine sulfate to Toussaint's house, and Toussaint insists he doesn't know where it came from. When threatened with arrest, Toussaint tries to escape, injuring Palace's eye, and is then fatally shot by one of the other detectives. While his injury is being treated, Palace learns that midwives can write prescriptions, and realizes that Zell must have stolen his sister Sophia's prescription pad. He confirms this in a meeting with Sophia. She discovered the theft and got her prescription pad back from her brother in October, which accounts for Zell's strange behavior at that time: he was having withdrawal symptoms. Sophia admits that she hadn't told Palace about it because her husband wanted it kept quiet.

On behalf of his sister, Palace reaches out to Alison Koechner, a former high school girlfriend who now works with the Justice Department. Palace travels to Boston to see her, and from what she says Palace realizes that Derek believes in a conspiracy theory that claims the government is hiding information about the asteroid and some measures it has taken to ensure the survival of certain elites. Palace finds people's denial of the coming catastrophe more depressing than the catastrophe itself. Alison suggests that there was no good reason for Toussaint to attempt a risky escape unless there was something else in his house. Palace searches Toussaint's house and finds a large stash of drugs, guns, and cash hidden in the doghouse; while he is there he hears someone else flee the scene.

Naomi Eddes calls Palace with an idea: with no actuarial work left to do, Zell, like everyone else at his company, was investigating life insurance claims. Someone who had collected on a false insurance claim would have a motive for murder (in order to avoid spending all the time left before the world ends in prison). Palace and Eddes have dinner and she spends the night at his apartment, then leaves early in the morning. The toxicology screen on Zell's blood comes back and finally proves that Palace was right to suspect murder: prior to his death, he had been drugged with GHB. Nico calls and quickly tells her brother she will be leaving for a long time but that she will see him again, then hangs up. Palace drives to the military base where Derek was detained, but the soldiers deny that Derek was ever there. Just after that, Palace learns that Naomi has been found in her office, shot dead, apparently while searching for a file she promised to get him.

Palace calls Naomi's father to deliver the news, but as soon as he identifies himself as a police officer, the father hangs up. From the father's behavior Palace guesses that Naomi has a history of trouble with the law, and he has a toxicology screen run on her blood: it reveals morphine sulfate. Naomi was an addict herself, which is why Zell came to her for help with his own withdrawal. From this Palace puts it together: Naomi had started using drugs again when the news about the asteroid was confirmed; she got her drugs from Toussaint, having learned about him from Zell. The insurance-fraud suggestion was a red herring. Zell and Eddes were both killed by Toussaint's supplier: Sophia's husband, Erik Littlejohn, who has been stealing the pain medications from the hospital where his wife works. Palace arrests Littlejohn and takes him to the station house, where the detectives are told that the department has been federalized and is being shut down.

In the epilogue, Palace, who has now been granted early retirement, bicycles to the New Hampshire shore. Since the case was closed it has been announced that Maia will hit Indonesia, far away from the U.S. With the chances of post-impact survival a little higher, at least in the short term, the public mood is less gloomy. At the beach, he tidies up one loose end from the case, then returns home, where he finds his sister waiting for him. She confesses that she used both Palace and Derek to help a group she was part of determine whether the military facility her husband was held in was in fact the one where they believe the government is working on its plans for a lunar habitat, and then leaves.

Characters

Concord police
Det. Hank Palace, the protagonist of the novel. He decided to become a police officer in his pre-teens, after his mother, a long time civilian employee of the Concord police, was killed in a robbery and his grief-stricken father, a professor of English Literature at St. Anselm College, hanged himself. After 16 months as a patrolman, during which the build up to Maia began having social and economic effects, he was promoted to detective.
Ritchie Michelson, a uniformed officer recently hired under streamlined training procedures. He enjoys goading Palace, whom he calls "Stretch."
Trish McDonnell, one of the few uniformed officers Palace still has respect for. She is a friend and helps him solve the Zell murder.
Det. Culverson, one of the remaining detectives and the only African-American left on the force thus his nickname "the only black man in Concord." In his earlier years he became friends with Palace when Culverson investigated Palace's mother's murder.
Det. McGully, a jokester who does not take Palace's theories seriously. He has begun to dress very casually at work and sometimes smokes marijuana to dull his anxieties, especially after he kills J.T. Toussaint.
Det. Andreas, an older detective who commits suicide after the Toussaint shooting.
Denny Dotseth, an assistant state attorney general, whose responsibility it would be to prosecute the murder.

Other investigators
Dr. Alice Fenton, the forensic pathologist at Concord Hospital who autopsies Zell's body. At first she is irritated with Palace for forcing her to miss one of her daughter's remaining piano recitals, but then when she finds proof that Zell was murdered in the blood toxicology report she goes as far as to help Palace arrest the murderer.
Alison Koechner, high-school girlfriend of Palace's who now works in an unspecified federal law enforcement capacity "several orders of magnitude" above him.

Civilians
Nico Palace, Hank's sister. Hastily married on the day after the impact date was announced, she was adversely affected by her parents' death and has had a troubled life since then. Hank has often had to help her out of her difficulties.
Derek, Nico's husband. He is arrested for trespassing onto a New Hampshire National Guard post and then, after Palace visits him in jail, disappears. He is presumed dead.
Naomi Eddes. A co-worker of Zell, she has shaved her head bald to avoid having to take care of her hair in the remaining months. She had resumed a long time drug habit when the asteroid impact date was announced. She has a brief fling with Palace. Late in the novel she is found shot to death in her office.
Theodore Gompers, manager of the insurance company's regional office.
Sophia Littlejohn, Zell's sister, a midwife.
Erik Littlejohn, Sophia's husband, Concord Hospital's director of spiritual services.
J.T. Toussaint, a local man who turned to odd jobs and then, at Zell's prompt, dealing drugs like his father when he was laid off from the local quarry. He is shot dead during a police confrontation.
Victor France, a local drug dealer Palace uses as an informant.

Themes

Winters describes The Last Policeman as an "existential detective novel." In a Wired interview with Ethan Gilsdorf, he responded to a question about why he had written it with "Why does anybody do anything? (Hey, what do you know? That's the theme of the book!)" Publicity material for the book put the question in more specific terms: "What's the point in solving murders if we're all going to die?" In a prepublication interview with a British website, Winters elaborated on the book's themes: "Moral behavior. The inevitability of death, and what to do about it. How true character is revealed through adverse circumstances."

Rahul Kanakia, reviewing the novel for Strange Horizons, says the novel's major theme changes as the reader learns midway through the book that there is a chance at least some people will survive the immediate impact and perhaps live long enough through the aftermath to begin repropagating humanity and rebuilding civilization. "Suddenly, we're dealing with a familiar disaster theme: the story of mankind's indomitable will to survive," he writes. "[Palace']s struggle is not absurd; it is purposeful. In holding civilization together, he is increasing the chance that something will survive the catastrophe."

History
For a long time, Winters had wanted to take on the challenge of writing a detective story. "The great books of that genre have some levels to them, some resonances beyond the X to Y to Z of clue tracking," he told Gilsdorf. To give his story that depth, "it occurred to me to give my hero the challenge of solving his case in the midst of some earth-shaking calamity, and from there it was a short trip to the end of the world."

He undertook extensive research to make the pending impact event scenario realistic. Since he and his family were living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the time, it was easy for him to get in touch with asteroid expert Timothy Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. When Winters outlined his scenario, the astrophysicist responded "Oh, sure. I can get you your asteroid."

He further consulted with experts in police procedure and forensics, as well as economists and psychologists, to create a realistic model of a "world on the brink." However, one expert he spoke with was not enthusiastic about the proposed novel. Former NASA astronaut Rusty Schweickart, now chair emeritus of the B612 Foundation, which raises awareness of the threat posed by asteroid impacts and plans ways to prevent them, urged Winters to consider instead building his novel around what Schweickart said was the more likely scenario of a sub-apocalyptic impact. However, "I needed my detective, and the world around him, to be dealing with the impending death of all and everything." Winters apologized to Schweickart in the acknowledgements at the end of the book and urged readers to visit B612's website.

Originally, Winters was going to set the story in Brooklyn, which he knew well. "[B]ut something about a New York City crime novel seemed wrong for this idea." He decided instead that his hero would be a cop in a smaller city, but still one large enough that the social dimensions of an impending apocalypse would be apparent. His brother had lived in nearby New Hampshire for years, and he found his city there. "Concord's population is well under 100,000, but it still houses the state government, it still has a decent-sized downtown, it still has a spread of neighborhoods and industries and economic classes. Just felt perfect."

Having chosen his setting, it was important to Winters that he be able to describe it realistically. "It was important to me that this not be a Concord of my imagination, first of all because I love road-map novels, books where you feel like you could read it and know your way around the world where it's set." So he drove to Concord from Cambridge many times to get a feel for the city. "I think I got things mostly right, although I do mention a dive bar called The Green Martini, which has apparently burned down."

Early drafts of the novel were in the third person, in the past tense. But Winters soon realized this was not working, given the underlying premise of the story. "What I realized is that when you're writing a series that builds up to most of mankind being destroyed, the whole convention, the literariness of the past tense becomes really glaring. I kept wondering, who is telling this story? And when?" So he changed to the first person and the present tense, which also increased the suspense since the reader only knows what Hank knows. That change, and Winters' request for more time to complete the book, coincided with the birth of his daughter, a break which helped him understand the character better.

Promotion

To accompany the book's release, publisher Quirk Books included two unusual promotional techniques on its website. One was a video trailer for the book, with a variety of speakers focusing on the question of what they would do in such a situation. Elsewhere on the site, various other writers, including Gilsdorf and Steve Hockensmith, provided their responses to the same question.

Possible television series

Shortly after the book's publication, Deadline Hollywood reported that Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer of the Transformers movies, had optioned The Last Policeman for development as a TV series. An editor at Quirk was tapped to serve as a producer of the series. Winters said this posed an interesting challenge for any writer since a television series would necessarily have a limited timeframe for episodes to take place.

Around the same time, My Book, The Movie, a blog at which authors are asked to say whom they would imagine playing characters in their works, asked Winters whom he saw playing the parts in The Last Policeman. While Winters didn't imagine a sensible movie producer trying to waste a lot of time finding a tall, gangly young actor to play Hank, in his mind he saw Jim True-Frost in the part, based on his performance as Prez in The Wire. "[H]e plays like I imagine Palace—thin, wiry, hunched, interesting[-]looking, inward, unconventionally handsome."

Winters imagined another actor from The Wire, Wendell Pierce, as Culverson and Rose Byrne as Nico. "She's got this kind of angular toughness that emerges in Nico towards the end of the novel." As stunt casting, he envisioned Tom Waits playing the police chief, who has only two short scenes in the book, "[b]ut only because I'd really, really like to meet [him]."

A pilot was optioned by NBC in September 2016. The pilot is to be produced by Neal Moritz and written by Winters.

In July 2021, it was announced Fox had given a pilot order to The Last Police based on the novel and considered for the 2021–22 television season, with Kyle Killen to make the pilot. In January 2022, Fox passed the project.

Reception

Most reviews of The Last Policeman were favorable. Many focused as much on the story's setting rather than the mystery. "What's more interesting than the mystery surrounding Zell's death is Winters' vision of a pre-apocalyptic world, one where laws are both absolute and irrelevant and even minor players have major control over what could be a new future," wrote Kirkus Reviews. At Slate, Dan Kois was effusive. "Winters' plotting is sure-footed and surprising," he wrote. "[He] reveals himself as a novelist with an eye for the well-drawn detail."

At Strange Horizons, months after publication, Kanakia took a more measured view, calling it "more of a premise than a novel" but admitting he was intrigued enough by that. The background scenario was an "inspired juxtaposition" against stock crime-novel characters. But, he regretted, it makes use of that "just barely enough." While he said Winters' exploration of how people might continue on with the things they've always been doing in the face of imminent doom "adds a few hills to the psychogeography of the planet-busting asteroid trope," the rest of the book undercut its themes, especially as it starts to become apparent that Maia's impact may not be the end, after all. Nonetheless, the story was still "a fun and competent police procedural story. The working-out of the murder offers enough twists to make the book an enjoyable experience." He particularly praised the novelist for setting the story in a smaller city.

The Concord Monitor'''s reviewer liked the book and verified that Winters had "done his homework" in his depiction of the city.

Awards and recognitionThe Last Policeman won the 2013 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in the category Best Paperback Original.

SequelsThe Last Policeman is the first book in a trilogy. Some reviewers, aware of this, appropriately noted that the Nico plotline is unresolved at the end of the novel, and her last appearance shows there might be more to her character than the story had previously suggested. Winters  published the second volume, Countdown City,  in July 2013.

Originally titled Incoming, it was later changed to Disasterland. However, in February 2013 Quirk found that title had already been used, and they, Winters and his editor settled on Countdown City. "[W]e ... all decided we liked [it] better anyway."Countdown City is set in June, midway between the events of the first book and Maia's impact. Hank, unemployed since the Concord police were federalized at the end of The Last Policeman, is asked by his former babysitter to search for her husband, who has abandoned her. The case appears impossible given the large numbers of people abandoning their lives as the asteroid looms, but Hank is dogged in his attempts to track the man down. It is set along the East Coast, where the breakdown of society has continued, and armed vigilante groups attempt to prevent immigrants fleeing the Indonesian impact zone from coming ashore. The same themes will be explored further.

Winters announced on his blog on January 10, 2014 that the title of the third book in the series would be called World of Trouble. He did not initially announce an expected date for  publication, although it was later disclosed as  July 2014. " Winters said that World of Trouble'' would have plot and thematic content in common with the two earlier books in the trilogy. As the apocalypse nears, US society has almost completely disintegrated, apart from a few orderly intact and self-sufficient rural communities. "[It] will have at its center a crime that Palace is trying to solve," he said. "But, also like this one, each will be at least equally interested in the details of the disintegrating world, and in plumbing the psyche of this lawman."

References

External links
Book website

Novels about impact events
Police procedurals
Novels set in New Hampshire
Existentialist novels
American science fiction novels
2012 American novels
Quirk Books books

The Last Policeman


László Nagy (2 September 1921 – 18 December 2009; ) was the Secretary General of the World Organization of the Scout Movement from 1 May 1968 to 31 October 1988. A Swiss citizen of Hungarian origin, he was a sociologist, a historian, a Doctor of Political Science, a former journalist and the author of a number of books on politics.

Biography
Nagy was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1921, discovered Scouting and went on to become an assistant Scoutmaster. He attended the 4th World Scout Jamboree held in Gödöllő, Hungary in 1933.

Nagy received a Masters in sociology and law, and a PhD in political science. He was a graduate of the business administration School at the University of Geneva. He studied for many years under the direction of child psychologist Jean Piaget. Later, he became the Director of Study and Head of the Department of Research and Documentation at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.

Nagy was also a journalist and author. He was Foreign Editor of the Gazette de Lausanne. Internationally he was recognised as an authority on the problems of Eastern Europe and of Sub-Saharan Africa. The books he authored included Imre Nagy, Katanga, Lenin and History of People's Democracies.

In 1965, he undertook a two-year critical study of the world Scouting movement around the world, sponsored by the Ford Foundation and appointed by the Graduate Institute of International Studies. Nagy published the Report on World Scouting in June 1967. In the course of the study, much data was compiled for the first time about worldwide Scouting, with many international trips made and countless interviews held. In the report, Nagy analysed and defined both the problems and strengths of World Scouting.

The 1967 World Scout Conference accepted the Nagy Report with its many recommendations for the improvement of World Scouting and its reorganisation. In 1968, WOSM invited him to put his recommendations into practice and appointed him to his WOSM post, for a three-year term that eventually lasted 20 years.

Nagy was awarded the Bronze Wolf, the only distinction of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, awarded by the World Scout Committee for exceptional services to world Scouting, in 1977. In 1987 he also received the highest distinction of the Scout Association of Japan, the Golden Pheasant Award.

Nagy was married to the former Monique Cuendet, a Genovese artist, and had two sons, Antoine (born in 1958) and Laurent (born in 1960) and a daughter, Anns Valerie (born in 1962).

Books published

See also

 List of recipients of the Bronze Wolf Award

References

External links
 Bio on Nagy on the Scouting website

1921 births
2009 deaths
Recipients of the Bronze Wolf Award
Hungarian sociologists
Hungarian activists
Writers from Budapest
Scouting pioneers
Swiss activists
Hungarian emigrants to Switzerland
World Scout Committee members
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies alumni

László Nagy (Scouting)


Ice hockey is a sport that is played by two teams on ice. The players wear ice skates on their feet and can skate across the ice at very high speeds.  They hold hockey sticks, which they use to push, shoot or pass a puck around the ice.  The players score by shooting the puck into a net; the goaltenders try to stop them.  Six players on each team play at once, but a whole team has over 20 players. Each team has 2 defenders, 3 forwards, and a goalie on the ice at a time. When a player breaks a rule, a referee calls a penalty, and the player has to sit in a penalty box for 2–4 minutes. While the player sits in the penalty box, their team has to play without them, and will have fewer players on the ice until the penalty is over.

Ice hockey is very well-known and well-liked in Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, the United States, Latvia and Slovakia.  Most of the best players in the world play in the National Hockey League (NHL), which has 32 teams in the United States and Canada. These teams are divided 2 conferences and 4 divisions. In the regular season, they play 82 games. Each team faces each other about 3 times. They try to win the Stanley Cup at the end of the year.  Another popular hockey league is the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), which has teams in Russia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Belarus, Slovakia, China and  Croatia. In North America, women play in the Canadian Women's Hockey League and the Western Women's Hockey League.  In North America and Europe, men's hockey is much more popular than women's hockey.  Hockey is played by both men and women at the Olympic games, and at world championships. Ice hockey began in Canada in the 19th century. There are two types of penalty: The major and the minor. The minor is the main one the referee will call during a game and the players have to go in the penalty box for two minutes. The major is when players fight with each other or when someone did something very dangerous. Most of time players are kicked out of the games but in a fight they only get 5 minutes in the penalty box. In the National Hockey League (NHL) there are four referees. Two lineman and two head referee. Only head referees can call the penalty. They can be recognized by the orange armband on their arm. In the major league, the game is separated into three periods of 20 minutes.  For the minor league, the time can be different for each category. Each period starts after the face-off. A face-off is when two teams are in position around the face-off circle.  Then, the referee drops the puck between the players who play center. There are 6 different positions: center, right wing, left wing, right defense, left defense and goalie. The play is over after a whistle of any referee.  After a whistle-blow, the time stops running. Each team can have a maximum of 20 players, including two goaltenders who have a zone to defend. Each team has one captain and two or three assistant captains. The ice is separated into three zones. Each zone is marked by lines. The center zone is between two blue lines and team zones are between one blue line and the end of the ice. The lineman can whistle for two reasons: icing and offside. An icing is when a player throws the puck into the zone before he crosses the red line (center line) and an offside is when a player enters the zone before the one who has the puck enters with it.

Other websites

 International Olympic Committee
 http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=27011}

Hockey
Ice hockey
Hockey
Skating
Team sports
Winter Olympic sports
Winter sports

Ice hockey


The Hameau de la Reine (, The Queen's Hamlet) is a group of houses and farm structures in the park of the Palace of Versailles in France. The hamlet was designed in 1783 by Richard Mique and Hubert Robert as a play space for Queen Marie Antoinette. It was here that she played the simple country girl in a straw hat and plain dress with her friends. About twelve structures form the hamlet. Some were working farm structures and some were structures for the Queen's amusement and use such as the mill. The hamlet fell into neglect after the French Revolution. Restoration was undertaken in the 1990s, and the hamlet is now open to the public.

Design and construction
Picturesque hamlets such as Le Hameau de la Reine were not unknown in 18th century France. The Prince de Condé had one at Chantilly and there was a village at Méréveille. The creation of these villages was influenced by the natural philosophy extolled by Rousseau and the country life genre paintings of painters Greuze, Le Nain, and Chardin. Le Hameau was designed for Queen Marie Antoinette by her favorite architect Richard Mique and the painter Hubert Robert. The painters Tolède and Dardignac painted thousands of little cracks and false half-timbering in the structures to suggest picturesque humbleness, poverty, and age. All the structures in the hamlet were more or less modelled upon similar structures in Normandy and Flanders. Construction on the hamlet started in 1783 and was completed in four or five years.

Structures at the hamlet
The purpose of the hamlet was to give the Queen a place to play at the simple life, far from the busy French court. The hamlet is set among meadows at the edge of a lake created by waters channeled from Marly. The structures are divided into two groups. One group was used by the Queen for her pleasure and amusement. The other group was used for farm work. The farm produced milk and eggs for the Queen. Cheeses were made in the dairy. The Queen tasted this produce in a marble room.

The structures are:
 The Queen's House is joined by a wooden gallery to a billiard room and upstairs apartment. The Queen's house has a dining room and a games room on the first floor. The second floor has a large and a small living room, and a Chinese room.
 The Queen's Boudoir is a living room and wardrobe for the Queen's use.
 The Marlborough Tower (The Fishery Tower) is a lighthouse used for sending signals to the Palace of Versailles. Boating parties set off from this tower and fishing equipment was stored here.
 The Mill was used to grind grain. It had a laundry.
 The Kitchen and Bakery (the Warming Room) was at the rear of the Queen's House. It was used to make the Queen's meals.
 The Dairies.
 The Farmhouse. This was set apart from the hamlet because it was a functioning struucture, rather than a play house. The farmer appointed by the Queen to run the farm and dairy was Valy Bussard who arrived 14 June 1785 from Touraine. His family joined him in December.
 The Dovecote. The dovecote and pigeon coops were near the lake. Roosters and hens of different species were brought from the west of France and settled in the aviary in 1785.
 The Housekeeper's Cottage. This house is located at the water's edge. Its first occupant, the Swiss Jean Bersy, lived there with his family.
 The Barn. Used as a ball room. Burned during the French Revolution, and totally destroyed in the First Empire.
 The Temple of Love.
 The Belvedere.

Life in the hamlet
The Queen loved the simple life. It was a break from the stiffness of the court. She played at being a peasant girl in the hamlet. She wore plain muslin dresses and a straw hat. She ate the produce from the farm. Only her dearest friends were allowed into the hamlet. There was a ball room (a room for holding dances) and a billiards room. She wanted her children to experience real animals and kept two cows at the hamlet, Blondie and Brownie. Both were washed and brushed before a visit from the Queen. Ducks, geese, and sheep were kept at the hamlet as well as a billygoat from Switzerland.

Decline and restoration
The French people believed the Queen was selfishly amusing herself at a time when France was nearing a national crisis. After the French Revolution, the hamlet was deserted and fell into neglect. Restoration was conducted in the 1990s. The Queen's Hamlet is now open to the public.

Gallery

Other websites

 Official Versailles site
 Photos of the Hamlet
 Ancient Places TV: HD Video of The Queen's Hamlet at the Petit Trianon

Palace of Versailles
1780s establishments in Europe
18th-century establishments in France

Hameau de la Reine (Versailles)


World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). It was made by Blizzard Entertainment. The game setting is the same for other games using the name "Warcraft". It has seven expansions, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, World of Warcraft: Legion and World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth.

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans was a real-time strategy game. The same for Warcraft 2 and its add-on, Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness and Warcraft 3 and its add-on, Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. World of Warcraft is different than the other games because it is a MMORPG. This means that many people from around the world may play together in the online world.

Gameplay
Players move or advance through the game by gaining experience from killing enemies and finishing quests that are given throughout the game. If a player has enough experience, they will gain a level. The maximum level that a player can reach is currently 60.

Each level is made higher by each expansion by 10 or 5. At the highest level, players can still get stronger by obtaining items from instances and raids, which are dungeons that require 10 to 25 players to work together to take down bosses and enemies. World of Warcraft has developed a community of 'raiding guilds' that compete with each other for in these raid instances.

Players are allowed to choose from a number of races and classes.

Races

Alliance
 Human
Humans look similar to human beings. Humans may choose from the following classes: warrior, rogue, hunter, paladin, mage, warlock, priest, and death knight.

Humans : Increased stealth detection, increased spirit, bonus reputation gain, good use of swords and maces, escape ability from trapping effects (Every Man for Himself).

 Dwarf
Dwarves are short, scruffy, and enjoy their liquor. Dwarves may choose from the following classes: warrior, rogue, paladin, priest, hunter, warlock, mage, shaman

Dwarves : Stone form ability, higher critical strike rate with guns, higher frost resistance, treasure finding ability, good use of maces.

 Gnome
Gnomes are very short and mischievous and enjoy explosions and dangerous tools, their hair color may be pink or green or other colors. Gnomes may choose from the following classes: warrior, rogue, warlock, mage, and death knight.

Gnome : Escape ability from trapping effects (Escape Artist), increased intelligence, higher arcance resistance, bonus to engineering skill.

 Night Elf
Night elves are tall and muscular. Their skin can be colored purple to pale white. Night elves may choose from the following classes: warrior, rogue, druid, priest, hunter, and death knight.

Night Elf : Ability to fade into the shadows (Shadowmeld), harder to hit, move faster while dead, higher nature resistance.

 Draenei (Requires account upgrade to the Burning Crusade Expansion)
Draenei are tall blue creatures from the planet Draenor. Draenei may choose from the following classes: warrior, shaman, paladin, mage, priest, hunter, death knight.

Draenei : Bonus to jewelcrafting skill, may heal self or others over time (Gift of the Naru), bonus chance to hit, higher shadow resistance.

 Worgen (Requires account upgrade to the Cataclysm Expansion)
Worgen are werewolves that used to be humans. Worgen may choose from the following classes: Mage, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior, Druid, Hunter, and Death Knight.

Worgen : Bonus to skinning skill, may skin without skinning knife, increased shadow and nature resistance, bonus critical chance, may move faster for a short period of time (Darkflight).

Horde
 Orc
Orcs are muscular, hairy, and green. Orcs may choose from the following classes: Warrior, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Hunter, and Death Knight.

Orc : Have the ability to enrage increasing damage output, resistant to stun effects, pet damage increased, good with axes and fist weapons.

 Tauren
Tauren are very tall, nature-loving cows that walk on two feet. Tauren may choose from the following classes: Warrior, Shaman, Druid, Hunter, and Death Knight.

Tauren : Have the ability to stomp stunning nearby enemies, bonus heath increase, herb gathering skill bonus, increased nature resistance.

 Troll
Trolls are tall and can have large tusks, ranging from blue to green skin, with very colorful hair. Trolls may choose from the following classes: Warrior, Rogue, Shaman, Mage, Priest, Hunter, and Death Knight.

Troll : Ability to go berserk increasing attack speed, health regeneration bonus, increased damage against beasts, higher critical strike chance with bows and thrown weapons, slowing effects reduced.

 Undead
Undead of the Forsaken faction are fairly short and pale with stringy hair, and their bones show through their clothing. Undead may choose from the following classes: Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Warlock, Priest, and Death Knight.

Undead : Ability to remove fear, sleep and charm effects, eat corpses to regenerate heath, underwater breathing increased, higher shadow resistance.

 Blood Elf (Requires account upgrade to the Burning Crusade Expansion)
Blood Elves are of medium height and very thin, ranging in color from brown to pink to white. They have green eyes and long eyebrows. Blood elves may choose from the following classes: Warrior, Rogue, Paladin, Mage, Warlock, Priest, Hunter, and Death Knight.

Blood Elf : Ability to silence nearby opponents and restore energy, rage, mana and runic power, enchanting skill bonus, higher magic resistance.

 Goblins (Requires account upgrade to the Cataclysm Expansion)
Goblins are short, ugly, and green. They are very greedy and like to destroy things. Goblins may choose from the following classes: Mage, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior, Shaman, Hunter, and Death Knight.

Classes
In the game, there are classes.  Once a player has made a character, the character's class cannot be changed, but the character can be deleted. Players can have up to 50 characters on each account they pay for, and up to 10 characters per realm.

Note : There are three key roles in a raid / party group
The Tank. This person / people will be the focus of the bosses attention and will be taking large amounts of damage.
The DPS.(Damage per Second) These people will be in charge of dealing large amounts of damage to try and kill the enemy. It important that they do not cause too much attention as to pull creatures away from the tank.
The Healer. This person / people will look after the group. Healing the tank, and any DPS who get targeted by an Area of Effect spell. (AoE)
Below is a list of classes available in World of Warcraft:

 Mage
Mages cast spells using arcane, frost, or fire magic. Mages wear cloth armor and are very vulnerable to melee damage. They have access to massive ranged spell damage and area of effect capabilities.

Roles : DPS.

 Rogue
Rogues have a large number of escape tools to get away from battles they do not want to fight. Rogues can stealth (turn invisible) and stun their enemies in melee range, holding one weapon in each hand. Rogues use an energy bar

Roles : DPS.

 Warrior
Warriors can use nearly any one or two-handed weapon in the game, and may use shields. Warriors get angry (gaining "rage" when attacking enemies) and attack their enemies in melee range.

Roles : Tank, DPS.

 Paladin
Paladins may use 1 handed weapons and shields, or 2 handed weapons, they cannot dual wield. Paladins use holy magic via seal and judgment spells to attack in melee range, or they can be healers.

Roles : Tank, DPS, Healer.

 Shaman
Shamans wield the elements of nature and fire (and sometimes frost) spells. Shamans can use shields and can dual wield 1 handed weapons or use 2 handed weapons, and may fight in melee range, may cast from range, or may be healers.

Roles : DPS, Healer.

 Warlock
Warlocks cast shadow and fire magic spells. Warlocks wear cloth armor and are vulnerable to melee damage. Warlocks also summon demonic minions (pets) to help them in battle.

Roles : DPS.

 Druid
Druids use arcane and nature spells, or may choose talents to be more of a melee fighter. Druids can shift into forms of animals like bear, cat, walrus, and cheetah. Healing druids can turn into a tree form, and the druid caster form is known as Moonkin.

Roles : Tank (Bear or Dire Bear Forms), DPS (Moonkin or Cat Forms), Healer (Tree Form).

 Priest
Priests wear cloth and are vulnerable to melee damage. Priests can either heal with holy and discipline spells or do damage with shadow spells.

Roles : DPS, Healer.

 Hunter
Hunters attack with a bow, crossbow or guns from range while their pets attack and keep an enemy's hate in melee range. Hunters can tame many kinds of pets including spiders, bears, worms, wasps, and many more.

Roles : DPS.

 Death Knight (Requires a level 55 character on account upgraded to the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.)
Death Knights use runes and runic power to attack their enemies in melee range. Death Knights also have a number of ranged abilities to keep their targets from running away in battle.

Roles : Tank, DPS.

Talents
When a player gets to level 10, each level up afterward earns one talent point to be put into one of three class-specific talent trees. Different classes have different types of talents that are divided into three "talent trees", which are DPS (Damage Per Second), tanking (taking damage), and healing (healing damage). Putting points into the DPS tree may make them do more damage to enemies, putting points into the tanking tree may make them take less damage, while putting points into the healing tree may make them heal for more damage. However, a talent may not affect it directly.
For example, if a priest character wants to do more damage to enemies, the priest would put talent points into the "Shadow" talent tree. If a priest wants to heal groupmates, the priest would put talent points into the "Holy" talent tree.

In Game Statistics

Base Statistics
Agility - This effects the characters dodge, critical strike and attack power (Although this is only true for certain classes).

Intellect - This determines spell critical strike, and how much damage your spells does.

Spirit - This increases the regeneration of health and mana.

Stamina - Increases the total amount of health you have.

Strength - Increases attack power and block value for a shield.

Armor - Reduces physical damage taken by a percentage.

Melee

Attack Power - Attack power increases the characters melee damage output.

Hit Rating - This increases the chance to it an enemy. This is capped at 14%.

Ignore Armour Rating - This enables the melee damage you cause to ignore a percentage of the opponents armor.

Critical Strike Rating - This effects your chance to cause additional damage on any melee attack.

Expertise Rating - Reduces the chance to be dodged or parried.

Ranged

Attack Power - Attack power increases the characters Ranged damage output.

Hit Rating - This increases the chance to it an enemy. This is capped at 14%.

Ignore Armour Rating - This enables the Ranged damage you cause to ignore a percentage of the opponents armor.

Critical Strike Rating - This effects your chance to cause additional damage on any Ranged attack.

Spell

Hit Rating - This increases the chance to it an enemy. This is capped at 8% (So do not go overboard and get 21% like I did, it is a waste of gold).

Spell Penetration - This enables the Spell / Magic damage you cause to ignore magical resistance equal to the amount of spell penetration you have.

Critical Strike Rating - This effects your chance to cause additional damage on any Spell / Magic attack.

Speed Rating - Causes the cast time of your spells to be reduced. This is useless once it gets to one second, because of a global cooldown on all your spells.

Mana Regeneration - Increases your mana regeneration out of combat and while casting. This is very important for healers so that they do not OOM part way through a fight.

Bonus Damage / Bonus Healing - Some items specifically give you 'spell power' which is similar to attack power. Except it is separated into healing and damage. This is because some items give just these. Example: I help to kill a strong Boss, and I get a new robe. +23 spell power +30 healing power. (I am a DPS so I would give this to the groups healer instead.)

Defense

Defense Rating - Increases your likely hood to dodge, block and parry. This is very important for tanks to have. (With cata Changes now does not exist in game.)

Dodge - The ability to dodge an attack and suffer no damage. This is expressed as a percentage.

Parry - The ability to deflect an oncoming attack with your weapon. This is expressed as a percentage.

 Block(Requires Shields) - The ability to block an attack with your shield reducing the damage you suffer from it.

Resilience - Reduces the damage players, and their pets cause you.

In Game Terms

PvE - Stands for Player versus environment. Generally refers to all content in the game that is played against AI controlled units. This typically refers to raids and dungeons.

PvP - Stands for Player versus Player. Refers to all content in the game that is played with / against other human controlled units. Typically refers to Battlegrounds (rated and non-rated), Arenas and City Raids.

Mobs/Adds - A mob or add is a creature that is not player controlled. They are generally used in kill or collection quests. In Dungeons / Raids they can be used to swarm at your group, or to make the game a little bit more challenging. They do not often give very good loot, or experience.

Boss - A Boss is a creature that is not player controlled. They are mainly found inside Dungeons / Raids and are often very difficult to kill. Each Boss is a different fight and requires a large amount of skill and awareness to kill. Bosses give higher than average items, these can range from gear, to mounts and tokens.

Raid - A Raid is a specific area of the game, that is mostly cut off from the main world. The original World of Warcraft allowed up to 40 man Raids. Lately this has been reduced down to 10 mans and 25 mans. A Raid is a place to test your characters skills and interact with other players around the world. In each Raid there are Bosses and Mobs.

Dungeon - A Dungeon is smaller than a raid only being 5 man. Dungeons are designed to take people who have just reached the top level and give them better gear, so that they can start Raiding. Dungeons are also open to people who are still leveling. So that people can get better gear to make leveling faster, Or to complete quests that are inside Dungeons.

Threat - Threat is what causes a creature to attack a target. The Tank needs to generate enough threat to keep the Mobs / Boss attacking him. DPS also need to make sure they do not exceed the Tanks threat on the target. Example: I am a DPS, who is new. I cast lots of high threat spells during a Boss fight. The Boss turns around and kills me because I had more threat than the Tank. Since no one else had more Threat than the Tank the Boss re-focuses of him again. And I have to sit down and watch everyone fighting because I am dead.

Aggro - Aggro is when a Mob / Boss is focused on you. Example: The Tank losses aggro, because you were generating to much threat.

Tank - A person who protects the group by taking most of the damage and keeping the enemies attention. The Tanks generally need a specific amount of Defense, Dodge, and Parry to be allowed to tank higher levels of Raids. These people are always in demand.

DPS - Stands for Damage Per Second. These people are important for any Raid / Dungeon they are specialized in dealing high amounts of damage. DPS must not however cause too threat that they pull the Boss away from the Tank. This can prove fatal. DPS are never in demand because it is something all classes have the option to be.

Healers - A person who heals your Tank and your Party / Raid. These people are always in demand.

LOM/OOM - LOM means Low on Mana, this is not a very common phrase. OOM means Out of Mana, this is a lot more widely used in game. Energy has a fast regeneration and has a limit of 110 (with talents) 100 without. Rage and Runic power are also from a 0 - 100 scale, performing abilities and dealing damage grants more allowing more abilities to be used. Mana has no capped amount, the more Intellect your character has the more mana you have to play with.

CC - Stands for Crowd Control. Refers to all spells / abilities in the game that cause the target to be unable to perform certain tasks. Most commonly used in PvP but also widely used in PvE. Examples of CCs include: Stuns, Fears, Silences, Polymorphs, Cyclones etc.

LoS - Stands for Line of Sight. When there is an object or obstacle between the player in question and the target. Most commonly used in PvP as both a defensive tool (preventing spells to land and thus reducing damage and/or CCs) or an offensive tool (kiting an opposing player behind an obstacle and killing while preventing the opposing team's healer from being able to heal the target).

bio - Stands for Biology Break (i.e. bathroom break). Typically used in conjunction with "brb" (be right back) to inform the people in the party / raid that you will be right back after going to the bathroom.

References

Other websites
 The Official World of Warcraft Website
 WoWInsider: A World of Warcraft blog
 WowHead: A site that contains a lot of information about World of Warcraft
The Official Site of WoW Classic(Gold)

2004 video games
Blizzard video games
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games
Windows games

World of Warcraft


A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases in a galaxy.

The Persian astronomer, Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, mentioned a true nebula for the first time in his book, Book of Fixed Stars (964). He said that there was a "little cloud" near the Andromeda galaxy.

Origin
A nebula is usually made up of hydrogen gas and plasma. It may be the first stage of a star's cycle, but it may also be one of the last stages.

Many nebulae or stars form from the gravitational collapse of gas in the interstellar medium or ISM. As the material contracts, massive stars may form in the center, and their ultraviolet radiation ionises the surrounding gas, making it visible at optical wavelengths.

The size of these nebulae, known as H II regions, varies depending on the size of the original cloud of gas.  These are sites where star formation occurs.  The formed stars are sometimes known as a young, loose cluster.

Some nebulae are formed as the result of supernova explosions, the death throes of massive, short-lived stars.  The materials thrown off from the supernova explosion are ionized by the energy and the compact object that it can produce.  One of the best examples of this is the Crab nebula, in Taurus.  The supernova event was recorded in the year 1054 and is labelled SN 1054.  The compact object that was created after the explosion lies in the center of the Crab Nebula and is a neutron star.

Other nebulae may form as planetary nebulae. This is the final stage of a low-mass star's life, like Earth's Sun. Stars with a mass up to 8-10 solar masses evolve into red giants and slowly lose their outer layers during pulsations in their atmospheres.  When a star has lost enough material, its temperature increases and the ultraviolet radiation it emits can ionize the surrounding nebula that it has thrown off.  The nebula is 97% Hydrogen and 3% Helium with trace materials.

In the past galaxies and star clusters were also called 'nebulae', but no longer. Nebulae can be sorted by what they look like and why we can see them.

Star-forming regions and diffuse nebulae

Large regions of ionised hydrogen gas are produced by star-forming regions. Nebulae are often star-forming regions, such as in the Orion complex. In these regions gravitation pulls together gas and dust. Material clumps together to form larger masses, which attract further matter. Eventually this become massive enough to form stars. The material left over may form planets and other planetary system objects.

Emission nebulae / H II regions
Emission nebulae make their own light. They are often called H II regions, because it is the ionized hydrogen which makes them glow. Usually the gases in an emission nebula are ionized. This makes them emit light and infra-red radiation.

Reflection nebulae
Reflection nebulae reflect light from nearby stars.

Dark nebulae
Dark nebulae do not emit light or reflect light.  They block the light from stars that are far away.

Planetary nebulae
Planetary nebulae are quite common, because they are produced by red giant stars late in their lives. These stars usually become white dwarfs, leaving behind an expanding ball of ionized gas, which we see as a roughly circular bright nebula.

Supernova remnants
A supernova occurs when a high-mass star reaches the end of its life.  When nuclear fusion in the core of the star stops, the star collapses and explodes .  The expanding shell of gas forms a supernova remnant. The Crab nebula is a supernova remnant which probably exploded in 1054 AD. Light and X-ray emission from supernova remnants comes from ionized gas. There is a huge amount of radio emission called synchrotron emission. This emission originates from high-velocity electrons oscillating in magnetic fields.

References

Other websites

Nebula


A divergent boundary, also known as a constructive boundary, is two or more plates that move apart from each other because of plate tectonics. When they move apart either water or magma fills the space. If it is magma, when it has cooled it then creates a new plate which then creates new land. Earthquakes along this plate boundary are relatively small

Geology

Divergent boundary


Charlotte's Web is a 1973 animated movie, based on the book from 1952 with the same name by E. B. White. It was made into an animated musical movie by Hanna Barbera Productions and Sagittarius Productions in 1973. The movie, sent to theaters by Paramount Pictures on March 1, 1973, is the first of only three Hanna Barbera movies not based upon one of their famous television cartoons. The song score of music and lyrics was written by the Sherman Brothers.

The movie has stayed popular over the years because of television and VHS; in 1994 the movie became one of the best selling movies of the year, 21 years after its first premiere. No other non-Disney musical animated movie has become so popular again later. This new popularity helped to create a direct-to-video sequel, Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure, which Paramount released in the US on March 18, 2003 (Universal released the movie internationally), followed by a live-action movie version of E. B. White's original story, which was released on December 15, 2006. The movie was presented by Pulitzer Prize in 1985, the year in which author E. B. White died. E. B. White himself wrote about it.

The story
A litter of 11 piglets are born to a mother pig on a farm owned by the Arable family. The 11th of the 11 baby pigs, named Wilbur, is a very small and the mother pig can't feed him. So John Arable decides to "do away" with Wilbur. However, when his daughter, Fern Arable, hears of the pig's fate she rescues him and tells her father it is unfair to kill Wilbur since he is smaller than the others. John agrees and Fern is allowed to keep the little piglet as a pet. Fern and Wilbur loved each other. Fern takes Wilbur around in a baby carriage and gives him a bath. However, after only six weeks of raising him, John Arable tells Fern that it is time for him to be sold. Wilbur was no longer a baby piglet but a full grown boar. Fern sadly says good-bye as Wilbur is sold down the street to her uncle, Homer Zuckerman. When Wilbur wants to play with a lamb, the lamb's father says that sheep do not play with pigs because it is only a matter of time before they are turned into smoked bacon and ham. Wilbur starts crying saying that he does not want to die, but a voice from above tells him to "chin up". Wilbur goes to sleep feeling better.

The next day the voice sings a song about "chinning up", and reveals herself to be a spider named Charlotte. Charlotte saves Wilbur by writing messages in her web, which is why the movie is called "Charlotte's Web." She starts to write messages in her web, calling him "terrific" and "some pig." The messages get a lot of attention from the media and other neighbors to the fair. Wilbur is such a media hit that this convinces the Arables, Zuckermans and Fussys to keep him and not kill him. Charlotte eventually lays her eggs and dies. When the baby spiders are born (514), most of them leave. Three of them stay, and for a number of years a few of Charlotte's kids stay around the farm and keep Wilbur company. But as much as Wilbur loves them, they will never replace the memory of his friend Charlotte.

Voice cast

Release
The movie was released to theaters on March 1, 1973 by Paramount Pictures in the United States. It was released on February 22, 1973 in New York City in less theaters, and also released in West Germany on March 30, 1973, as well as August 11 in Sweden, and August 25 in Japan.

Reception

Critical reception
Rotten Tomatoes says that the movie has a 74% "fresh" rating based on 19 reviews, with a score of 6.6. The RT community gave the movie an 86% approval rating, with a score of 7/10.
Craig Butler of All-Movie Guide criticized the animation and the musical score, but said it was close to the book. He said that, "no attempt has been made to soften the existential sadness at the story's core" (no one tried to soften the major sad parts of the story, like when Charlotte dies at the end). Dan Jardine criticized the songs and the "Saturday morning cartoon quality" of the animation, but also says that Hamner kept just enough of White's prose to keep the movie from being only an experiment that did not work out. Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com said that the animation is sometimes "downright bad, but E. B. White's classic fable needs little to make it come to life". He later went on to say that the movie is "a must-own for anyone with children, and a must-see for everyone else." He rated it four out of five stars. When it was reissued on DVD the movie was awarded an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Award.

E.B. White's Reaction
According to Gene Deitch, a director of animation and friend of E. B. White, the author's wife wrote the following words in a 1977 letter: "We have never ceased to regret that your version of "Charlotte's Web" never got made. The Hanna-Barberra version has never pleased either of us... a travesty..." E.B. White himself wrote of the film: "The story is interrupted every few minutes so that somebody can sing a jolly song. I do not care much for jolly songs. The Blue Hill Fair, which I tried to report faithfully in the book, has become a Disney World, with 76 trombones. But that's what you get for getting embroiled in Hollywood."

Songs
 "Chin Up"
 "I Can Talk!"
 "Zuckerman's Famous Pig"
 "A Veritable Smorgasbord"
 "We've Got Lots In Common"
 "Mother Earth and Father Time"
 "There Must Be Something More"
 "Deep In The Dark/Charlotte's Web"

"Chin Up" is sung by Charlotte the spider when she first meets Wilbur the pig in the barnyard. She convinces him to look on the bright side.

"I Can Talk!" is sung by Wilbur the pig who had previously been unable to utter words. The Goose realizes as she is sitting on her eggs that her new neighbor in the pen beside her, Wilbur the pig, has not been eating his food, and that he seems to be sad. She offers him an ear if he will come over to her and talk since she cannot get off of her eggs. But soon she realizes that Wilbur cannot talk. She encourages him to try... And with a couple grunts, and a "Wa... Wa... Wa" "Wi... Wi... Will...bur.. WILBUR!" Suddenly, with the Goose's help, Wilbur realizes he can talk and say all the things he wants. Wilbur sings a song about his new talking skills, while waking up some of the other farm animals with his excitement.

"A Veritable Smorgasbord" is introduced and sung in the story by the Goose, sung again by the Goose and Templeton. It is sung another time, this time at a "double time" tempo sung solo by Templeton.

"Zuckerman's Famous Pig" is the title given to Wilbur the pig hero which saves him from being killed in the story, and the theme of the finale song in the movie. The song was composed and arranged in a barbershop quartet style by the Sherman Brothers, in keeping with the time and place of the story. It was covered by the Brady Kids and was chosen for release on their first single taken from The Brady Bunch Phonographic Album by producer Jackie Mills.

"We've Got Lots in Common" is sung by Wilbur to the new gosling (baby goose), Jeffery, who, like Wilbur, is a runt. Wilbur passes on one of the lessons which Charlotte has taught him. The other barnyard animals sing along as well. In the advertisement for suppliers of the movie, a rare piece of footage of the Sherman Brothers singing "We've Got Lots In Common" can be seen. In this part, Richard Sherman plays piano while Robert Sherman stands over his brother's shoulder and sings along. The song was filmed in an unnamed recording studio in Los Angeles in 1972.

"Mother Earth and Father Time" is introduced in the story by Charlotte and sang a second time in the movie as Charlotte is dying. According to The Annotated Charlotte's Web by Peter F. Neumeyer, some fans of the book are not in favor of the song's placement in the movie because it ruins E. B. White's strong words from the book, "...And she didn't move again." which many people find extremely moving. The Sherman Brothers' father, songwriter Al Sherman, believed the Charlotte's Web song score, and "Mother Earth and Father Time" in particular, to be the brothers' finest work. The lyric addresses the idea of thinking about one's life. In the storyline the song is sung by Charlotte at the end of her life. Ironically, Al Sherman died shortly after the movie was released.

"There Must Be Something More" is introduced in the story when Fern is learning about love from a little runt she saved from an "untimely death", when her father was about to "do away with it". Fern found it to be an injustice, and relates herself, saying to her father if she had been small, would he have killed her too? Her father gives in and lets her raise the pig she names Wilbur. Fern learns about love and life through Wilbur, and sings a song to tell Wilbur just how much she loves him. The song goes through the first two weeks of Wilbur's life with Fern. The song is sung by Fern to a baby Wilbur in a motherly way. The song is then sang again briefly by Wilbur when Fern gets a bit older begins to show an interest in young "Henry Fussy". Suddenly Wilbur is no longer so important in Fern's life. Charlotte explains to Wilbur that this is the nature of the world.

"Charlotte's Web" is the title song of the movie. In the movie the song is sung back-to-back with "Deep in the Dark". The title song was covered by The Brady Bunch among others. In the movie, Charlotte tells Wilbur to go to sleep, and she would see him in the morning, and she sings a song called "Deep In the Dark" to put the barnyard to sleep.

The title song was covered (when an artist sings a song that is not their own) by The Brady Bunch among others: The Brady Bunch Phonographic Album features three Sherman Brothers songs including "River Song" from Tom Sawyer, "Zuckerman's Famous Pig" and "Charlotte's Web". Their cover of the song is also featured on their "Greatest hits" album It's a Sunshine Day: The Best of The Brady Bunch.

References

Other websites

American animated movies
American family movies
1970s American musical movies
Movies about spiders
Movies based on books
Pulitzer Prize winners
1970s English-language movies
1973 comedy-drama movies
1973 fantasy movies
1970s American adventure movies
American comedy-drama movies
American musical fantasy movies
1970s animated movies
American buddy comedy movies
Coming-of-age movies
Hanna-Barbera
Paramount movies

Charlotte's Web (1973 movie)


A wave-cut platform, shore platform, coastal bench, or wave-cut cliff  is the narrow flat area often found at the base of a sea cliff or along the shoreline of a lake, bay, or sea that was created by erosion. Wave-cut platforms are often most obvious at low tide when they become visible as huge areas of flat rock. Sometimes the landward side of the platform is covered by sand, forming the beach, and then the platform can only be identified at low tides or when storms move the sand.

Formation

Wave-cut platforms form when destructive waves hit against the cliff face, causing an undercut between the high and low water marks, mainly as a result of abrasion, corrosion and hydraulic action, creating a wave-cut notch. This notch then enlarges into a cave. The waves undermine this portion until the roof of the cave cannot hold due to the pressure and freeze-thaw or biological weathering acting on it, and collapses, resulting in the cliff retreating landward. The base of the cave forms the wave-cut platform as attrition causes the collapsed material to be broken down into smaller pieces, while some cliff material may be washed into the sea. This may be deposited at the end of the platform, forming an off-shore beach.

Because of the continual wave action, a wave-cut platform represents an extremely hostile environment and only certain organisms can utilize such a niche.

Use of ancient examples
Ancient wave-cut platforms provide evidence of past sea and lake levels. Raised and abandoned platforms, sometimes found behind modern beaches, are evidence of higher sea levels in the geological past, and have been used to identify areas of isostatic adjustment. By using scientific dating methods, or examination of marine fossils found on the platform, it is possible to work out when the platform was formed, thus giving geographers and geologists information about sea levels at known times in the past. This has been used in the United Kingdom and other previously glaciated areas to calculate the rate at which land is rising now that it is no longer covered in ice.

Where the coastline itself is changing due to seismic action, there may be a series of platforms showing earlier sea levels and indicating the amount of uplift caused by various earthquakes.

Usage of term 'wave-cut'
According to Trenhaile, Sunamura, and Massalink and Hughes, the term 'wave-cut platform' should no longer be used as it assumes that shore platforms are the result of wave action, which is not always true. Shore platforms, like comparable river and lake platforms, are erosional features that develop when removal of saprock and other debris by waves and currents leaves behind a bedrock surface below the water table.

See also
Beach
Bench (geology)
Machair
Marine terrace
Paleoshoreline
Raised beach
Raised shorelines
Strandflat
Terrace (geology)

References

Coastal geography
Coastal and oceanic landforms

Wave-cut platform


Frugality is a quality of spending money very carefully and in limited amounts. This decision can be made for various reasons. Some are: to save money, make costs smaller and get the most possible value from purchases.

Examples
Some ways of attempting to be frugal could be to make less waste, stop doing things (such as travel or entertainment) with high costs and having control over spending desires. Also, being careful to get all the use out of an item before replacing it and not agreeing with customs that have high costs. More ways could be using zero cost choices, using barter (trading without money), and having a good knowledge of prices.

Some people will use a discount store to find low cost things. Some will buy things used by other people in thrift stores, garage sales, flea markets, or from classified advertising in a newspaper or on the internet from a site similar to Craigslist.

Philosophy
Frugality in some philosophies is when a person does not agree with experts who say they know what is good for everybody. This is a special use of the word for philosophers.

Many religions think frugality is important and good. The Quakers and Puritans are two examples of Christian religions that put high value on frugality. The base of this idea is that people should store money to use when any person (not only friends) needs help.

Environmentalists think that being frugal is good. They think because ancient humans did not need many things and were able to get happiness from nature it is more natural to be frugal than to agree with the customs of modern living.

Philosophy
Economics
Virtues

Frugality


British Railways 10100 was an unusual experimental diesel locomotive known informally as The Fell Diesel Locomotive (after Lt. Col. L.F.R. Fell, who was one of the designers). It was the joint production of Davey Paxman & Co, Shell Refining & Marketing Co and Lt-Col L.F.R. Fell, built for them by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway at Derby. Sir Harry Ricardo was also involved. By the time it emerged in 1950, nationalisation had taken place and it carried British Railways livery. The locomotive had six diesel engines, four of them used for traction.  The auxiliary engines drove the pressure-chargers for the main engines and the purpose of this arrangement was to enable the main engines to deliver very high torque at low crankshaft speed.

 10800
Individual locomotives

British Rail 10100


A chinook is a warm westerly wind that sometimes flows over Canada's Rocky Mountains in the winter. It can raise temperatures in southern Alberta by twenty or thirty degrees in an hour. A chinook is caused when air flowing off the Pacific Ocean is raised by the mountains and heated as the water vapor in the air condenses. Then it is warmed more as it flows down the other side of the mountains and is compressed. It flows out over the prairie, and may travel as far as the eastern border of Alberta if it is especially strong. The chinook is also called "snow eater", because it can melt snow so quickly.

Winds

ml:കാറ്റ്#ചിനൂക്ക്

Chinook


The pre-Columbian era means the history and prehistory of the Americas before there were important European influences on the American continent.

The word pre-Columbian refers to the era before Christopher Columbus, but sometimes it can include the history of American indigenous cultures as they continued to develop after the Christopher Columbus' first landing in 1492, until they were conquered or influenced by Europeans, even if this happened decades or even centuries after the arrival of Columbus.

Pre-Columbian can also mean cultures of any one of the great native civilizations of the Americas, such as those of Mesoamerica (the Aztec and Maya) and of the Andes (Inca, Moche and Chibcha).

Related pages
Native American
Columbian Exchange

References
Sorenson, John L. and Johannessen, Carl L. (2006) "Biological Evidence for Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Voyages." In: Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World. Ed. Victor H. Mair. University of Hawai'i Press. pp. 238–297.

Other websites
 Central Andes Prehistoric Sequence

Native Americans
Periods and ages in history

Pre-Columbian era


Jiwani port is along the Arabian Sea in Gwadar District, Balochistan, Pakistan. It is near the Iranian border. 25,000 people live there. It is expected to become a major commercial center in concert with the development of the port of Gwadar nearly  to the east.

Jiwani is at the eastern end of Gwadar Bay, which is shared between Iran and Pakistan. The area around the bay includes a mangrove forest extending across the international border, and is an important habitat for a wide variety of wildlife, especially the endangered Olive Ridley and Green turtles. Plans to grant fishing concessions and offshore drilling rights are potentially a threat to the wildlife of the area.

Jiwani holds strategic importance in the region, because it is next to the shipping lanes to and from the Persian Gulf. This is the main reason that the town hosts a small naval base and an airport with a 5,500-foot runway.

Tehsils of Gwadar District

Jiwani


Preschool is a term for early childhood education. It is education for very young children between the ages of three and six, before the start of compulsory education at elementary school/primary school. There are theories of child development which influence preschool activities, with the ideas of Jean Piaget that categorise this age group as a "preoperational" stage of development being the most influential.

In Europe the terms 'nursery' and 'kindergarten' are used to describe preschooling.

Learning
Early childhood education usually encourages children to learn by playing. But basic topics like counting or the alphabet may start to be taught.
Childhood
Education

Preschool


Martha Jean "The Queen" Steinberg (September 9, 1930 – January 29, 2000) was an influential African-American radio broadcaster and later was also the pastor of her own church.

She was born Martha Jean Jones in Memphis, Tennessee. Her first radio job was on Memphis's WDIA starting in 1954. There, she was one of the first female disc jockeys in the United States, with a program that included the latest R&B hits along with the typical "household hints" programming that was de rigueur at the time for female radio personalities.

In 1963 she moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she was heard on WCHB and then throughout the late 1960s and 1970s on WJLB. On July 23, 1967, Steinberg convinced WJLB to cancel its normal evening programming and she did an on-air program calling for people to calm down and stop rioting. It has been suggested that this prevented the 1967 Detroit Riot from being worse than it was. During her time at WJLB, she led the station's on-air staff in protest of the fact that the station at the time had no African-American employees outside of the air staff.

In 1980, WJLB converted from AM to the FM dial (where it remains to this day), and Steinberg's show was dropped in the process.  The former WJLB-AM became WMZK with an ethnic format.  In 1982, Steinberg purchased WMZK-AM and changed the call letters to WQBH in order to offer more gospel music oriented programming. Steinberg remained on the air at WQBH (1400 on the AM dial) until her death. WQBH is now WDTK.

She had a cameo role as a television show host in the 1973 film Detroit 9000. In 2017 she was inducted into Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.

She is buried in Detroit's Elmwood Cemetery.

She is featured in an episode of Little America on AppleTV.

See also
Michigan Women's Hall of Fame
WDTK

References

Further reading
Detroit African-American History Project
Paley Center for Media

1930 births
2000 deaths
Burials at Elmwood Cemetery (Detroit)
Radio personalities from Detroit
Radio personalities from Memphis, Tennessee

Martha Jean Steinberg


Dmitry Aleksandrovich Grave (; September 6, 1863 – December 19, 1939) was a Russian and Soviet mathematician.

Naum Akhiezer, Nikolai Chebotaryov, Mikhail Kravchuk, and Boris Delaunay were among his students.

Brief history
Dmitry Grave was educated at the University of St Petersburg where he studied under Chebyshev and his pupils Korkin, Zolotarev and Markov. Grave began research while a student, graduating with his doctorate in 1896. He had obtained his master's degree in 1889 and, in that year, began teaching at the University of St Petersburg.

For his master's degree Grave studied Jacobi's methods for the three-body problem, a topic suggested by Korkin. His doctorate was on map projections, again a topic proposed by Korkin, the degree being awarded in 1896. The work, on equal area plane projections of the sphere, built on ideas of Euler, Joseph Louis Lagrange and Chebyshev.

Grave became professor at Kharkov in 1897 and, from 1902, he was appointed professor at the University of Kyiv, where he remained for the rest of his life. Grave is considered as the founder of the Kyiv school of algebra which was to become the centre for algebra in the USSR.

At Kyiv Grave studied algebra and number theory. In particular he worked on Galois theory, ideals and equations of the fifth degree. Among his pupils were O J Schmidt, N G Chebotaryov, B N Delone and A M Ostrowski.

The Revolution of 1917 had some major effects on the development of mathematics in Russia and Ukraine. One effect was that mathematics in Ukraine was required to be more practical and algebra did not fit into this applied mathematics and technology dominated scene. Grave had to discontinue his famous Kyiv algebra seminar in the 1920s, give up teaching and research in algebra, and move to applied mathematics topics. It would not be before the 1950s, well after Grave's death, that Kyiv would again play a major role in algebra research.

Grave chaired the Applied Mathematics Commission of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in the 1920s. After Grave stopped work on algebra, he began to study mechanics and applied mathematics, but he never completely gave up algebra.

During the 1930s there were further changes to the Soviet educational system, and there was a fair amount of reorganisation. The Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences was founded in Kyiv in 1934 and Grave served as the first director of the Institute from its foundation until his death in 1939. His work at the Institute of Mathematics was in addition to his chair at Kyiv University which he continued to hold.

Among the many books that Grave wrote were Theory of Finite Groups (1910) and A Course in Algebraic Analysis (1932). He also studied the history of algebraic analysis.

Among the honours that were given to him was election to the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 1919, election to the Shevchenko Scientific Society in 1923 and election to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1929.

References
McTutor biography

External links

1863 births
1939 deaths
Mathematicians from the Russian Empire
Soviet mathematicians
People from Kirillovsky District
People from Kirillovsky Uyezd
Ukrainian mathematicians
Members of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
NASU Institute of Mathematics
Academic staff of the National University of Kharkiv
Academic staff of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
Burials at Lukianivka Cemetery

Dmitry Grave


Thringarth is a hamlet in Lunedale, in the Pennines of England. It is traditionally located in the North Riding of Yorkshire but along with the rest of the former Startforth Rural District it was transferred to County Durham for administrative and ceremonial purposes on 1 April 1974, under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972.

External links

Villages in County Durham

Thringarth


Traditional African religions are the traditions of the religious groups in Africa. After Christianity and Islam, they are the third-biggest religious group in Africa. These religions still stick to their traditions. They are folk religions, and combine different beliefs. In general, people in the cities confess to either Christianity or Islam. The people outside the cities believe in the traditional religions. These religions are omnipresent in everyday life. All that happens has a supernatural cause, rooted in religion. People are born with a certain religion. Normally conversions from one belief system to another do not take place. There is a central belief in a life force which links everyday life with the metaphysical. Generally, such religions are full of life, and have a low esteem for an ascetic lifestyle. There is also the fear of spirits, the dead, and of magic, which influence everyday life.

African traditional religion


In folklore, Krampus is a horned, anthropomorphic figure. It is described as being half-goat and half-demon. During the Christmas season, Krampus punishes children who have misbehaved. The is the opposite of Saint Nicholas, who rewards the well-behaved with gifts. Krampus is one of the companions of Saint Nicholas in several regions including Austria, Bavaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, South Tyrol and parts of Northern Italy. The origin of Krampus is not known, but some folklorists and anthropologists believe it has pre-Christian origins.

Christmas
Legendary creatures

Krampus


The Duchy of Greater Poland was a district principality in Greater Poland that was a fiefdom of the Kingdom of Poland. It was formed in 1138 from the territories of the Kingdom of Poland, following its fragmentation started by the testament of Bolesław III Wrymouth. In 1177, the state broke had separated into the duchies of Poznań, Gniezno and Kalisz, and united again in 1279, lasting in that form until 1320, when it was incorporated back into the Kingdom of Poland. Its capital was Poznań.

History

Upon the death of Polish Piast duke Bolesław III Wrymouth in 1138, his country was divided by his will into 4-5 hereditary provinces distributed among his sons. The late duke had also established the Seniorate Province of Kraków for the eldest Władysław II, designated high duke of whole Poland.

Mieszko the Old
As one of these provinces, Greater Poland was given to Mieszko III the Old, the third son of late Duke Bolesław.
Duke Mieszko III the Old at first ruled over the western part of the Greater Polish lands at Poznań. His dominion bordered on the Polish Duchy of Silesia in the south, on the Seniorate Province in the east and on the Pomeranian lands in the north. In the west the Greater Polish lands stretched up to Lubusz Land on the western Polish border, where in 1157 the Ascanian count Albert the Bear established the Imperial Margraviate of Brandenburg.

After the death of his Mieszko's brother Bolesław IV the Curly in 1173, he also became High Duke of Poland according to the principle of agnatic seniority as laid down in Bolesław's testament. However, he soon had to face a rebellion at Kraków instigated by Lesser Polish magnates led by his younger brother Casimir II the Just with the support of Mieszko's own son Odon fearing for his heritage. Casimir assumed the high ducal title, while in 1179 Odon even expelled his father from the Greater Polish lands. Mieszko fled to the Duchy of Pomerania at the court of Duke Bogislaw I, husband of his daughter Anastasia.

With support by Pomeranian forces, Mieszko in 1181 was able to return to his duchy and also to conquer the adjacent lands of Gniezno and Kalisz, formerly part of the Seniorate Province. Odon was forced to leave Poznań and only retained a small strip of land south of the Obra river. While Mieszko's subsequent attempts to regain the high ducal title failed, in 1186 he was able to further expand his duchy by the adjacent lands of Kuyavia up to the Vistula in the east, which had been ruled by his deceased nephew Duke Leszek of Masovia. He gave Kuyavia to his son Bolesław, nevertheless after Bolesław's death in 1195, the lands were again separated from Greater Poland, when Mieszko had to cede Kuyavia to Casimir's son Duke Konrad of Masovia in 1199.

In 1191 Mieszko had finally reconquered Kraków, nevertheless his decision to entrust the rule over Lesser Poland to his son Mieszko the Younger proved to be a failure: Casimir soon regained the Polish throne and Mieszko the Younger fled to his father, who installed him as a duke at Kalisz. When Mieszko the Younger died in 1193, his father reconciled with his eldest son Odon and gave the Duchy of Kalisz to him. Upon the death of Odon in the following year, all Greater Polish lands were re-united under the rule of Mieszko the Old; he ceded late Odon's territories south of the Obra river to his only surviving son Władysław III Spindleshanks. By 1994 Mieszko the Old had outlived his brothers. However, Casimir's son Leszek I the White, like his father, would not acknowledge his rule at Kraków. Upon Mieszko's death in 1202, his son Władysław soon was confronted with the rivaling claims raised by his cousin.

Władysław Spindleshanks and Władysław Odonic

In 1206 Władysław Spindleshanks finally lost the high ducal title to Leszek and furthermore had to deal with his rebellious nephew Władysław Odonic, son of his late brother Odon. Władysław Odonic claimed the lands of Kalisz, which his father had held in 1193/94 and was able to gain the support by the Archbishop of Gniezno, nevertheless his attempts to depose his uncle failed. At least he received Kalisz, backed by the Silesian duke Henry I the Bearded and from 1216 also ruled over the Greater Polish lands south of the Obra, which his father had held until his death in 1994.

In 1217 the conflict again erupted, when Władysław Spindleshanks reconciled with Leszek and Henry and received free rein to expel Władysław Odonic, who fled to the court of Duke Swietopelk II of Pomerelia. However, even with the help of the Pomerelian duke, Władysław Odonic only was able to conquer the Greater Polish lands of Ujście in 1223. In 1227 Swietopelk raided a ducal assembly (wiec) at Gąsawa, whereby High Duke Leszek was killed and Duke Henry the Bearded seriously wounded. Władysław Spindleshanks did not attend the meeting, which probably saved his life. Furthermore, he got rid of his long-time rival Leszek, whom he now could succeed as high duke. Władysław Odonic, accused of involvement in the assault, retired to the Duchy of Masovia, where he forged another alliance with Duke Konrad I. With both Pomerelian and Masovian support he was enabled to take the whole Duchy of Greater Poland from Władysław Spindleshanks in 1229.

Władysław Spindleshanks fled to Silesia and died without issue two years later, whereafter his nephew became the sole heir of the Greater Polish line. Nevertheless, he was confronted by claims raised by the Silesian duke Henry I the Bearded, also Polish high duke from 1232, who from 1234 onwards conquered most of his territories. When Henry I was succeeded by his son Henry II the Pious in 1238, Władysław Odonic was confined to the lands around Ujście. He died in the following year, whereafter High Duke Henry II ruled over all of Greater Poland until he himself was killed at the 1241 Battle of Legnica.

Przemysł I and Bolesław the Pious

The Greater Polish line of the Piasts was continued by the sons of Władysław Odonic, Przemysł I and his minor brother Bolesław the Pious, who first had to reconquer their heritage from the Silesian successors of Henry the Pious. Soon after a conflict arose between the brothers: in 1247 Bolesław openly rebelled against his elder brother with the help of local nobles and the lands were formally divided, whereby the younger received the smaller district of Kalisz. The quarrels continued, as dissatisfied Bolesław also claimed the lands of Gniezno. Przemysł had him deposed and arrested in 1250, and not until 1253, by the agency of the Archbishop of Gniezno, was Bolesław re-installed as Duke of Kalisz and Gniezno.

Przemysł had to deal with the expansionist policies of the Brandenburg margraves John I and Otto III, who had acquired Lubusz Land at the western border of his duchy from the Silesian duke Bolesław II Rogatka in 1248. When he died in 1257, his brother Bolesław became sole ruler over all Greater Poland. In 1264 Bolesław the Pious passed the Statute of Kalisz which extended Jewish rights in his duchy.

Przemysł II
Greater Poland was once again re-united under the rule of Przemysł's son Przemysł II at Poznań in 1279. In the west, the Brandenburg margraves had made Lubusz Land the nucleus of the New March, where they established the town of Landsberg (present-day Gorzów Wielkopolski) in 1257. Przemysł II was able to encounter the Brandenburg expansion by allying with their opponent Duke Bogislaw IV of Pomerania. He briefly controlled Cracov after the death of Henry IV Probus but soon sold it to the king of Bohemia Wenceslaus II , he also inherited the Pomerelian lands due to a succession agreement with the previous duke Mestwin II and even was crowned King of whole Poland in 1295. However, the Greater Polish line finally became extinct when he was abducted and killed in the following year. His succession was claimed by his Kuyavian cousin Władysław I the Elbow-high, who had to deal with his rivaling Silesian relative Duke Henry III of Głogów due to the fact that Przemysl II made a succession agreement with both of them, while the Brandenburgers finally conquered the strategically important fortress of Santok on the Warta River. In 1300 both Piasts had to renounce in favour of mighty King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia.

Upon the death of King Wenceslaus in 1305, the rivalry continued and after a short period of rule by dukes from various branches of the Piast dynasty, the province finally fell to Władysław, who was crowned King of re-united Poland 1320. The duchy was turned into the Poznań Voivodship and Kalisz Voivodship under the united Polish Crown.

Dukes of Greater Poland

Rulers of all Greater Poland
 1194-1202 Mieszko III the Old, Polish high duke from 1198
 1202–1207 Władysław III Spindleshanks, Polish high duke until 1206 and 1227–1229
 1229–1234 Władysław Odonic
 1238–1241 Henry II the Pious of Silesia, Polish high duke
 1241–1247 Przemysł I and Bolesław the Pious
 1250–1253 Przemysł I
 1257–1277 Bolesław the Pious
 1279–1296 Przemysł II, Polish high duke 1290–1291, King of Poland from 1295
 1296–1300 Władysław I the Elbow-high
 1300–1305 King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia
 1305–1309 Henry III of Głogów
 1309–1312 Przemko II of Głogów, Henry IV the Faithful, John of Ścinawa, Bolesław of Oleśnica, Konrad I of Oleśnica
 from 1314 Władysław I the Elbow-high, King of Poland from 1320.
Turned into the Greater Poland province of the united Kingdom of Poland, divided into the Poznań Voivodship and Kalisz Voivodship.

See also
History of Poland during the Piast dynasty
List of Polish monarchs
Piast Dynasty
History of Poznań

Notes

References

Further reading
 Zygmunt Boras, Książęta piastowscy Wielkopolski, Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, Poznań 1983,
 Oskar Balzer, Genealogia Piastów, Kraków 1895
 K. Dworzaczek, Geneaalogia, part 1–2, Warszawa 1959
Wojciech Górczyk,"Ślady recepcji legend arturiańskich w heraldyce Piastów czerskich i kronikach polskich", Kultura i Historia, Uniwersytet Marii Curie Skłodowskiej w Lublinie,17/2010 ISSN 1642-9826
 Wojciech Górczyk, "Półksiężyc, orzeł, lew i smok. Uwagi o godłach napieczętnych Piastów"
 Poczet książąt i królów polskich, Warszawa 1978
  Kronika wielkopolska, przeł. Kazimierz Abgarowicz, wstęp i komentarze oprac. Brygida Kürbisówna, PWN, Warszawa 1965, wyd. 2, Kraków 2010,

Former countries in Europe
Former monarchies of Europe
Duchies of Poland
History of Poland during the Piast dynasty
12th-century establishments in Poland
14th-century disestablishments in Poland
History of Greater Poland
States and territories established in 1138
States and territories disestablished in 1177
States and territories established in 1279
States and territories disestablished in 1295
States and territories established in 1296
States and territories disestablished in 1320
Fiefdoms of Poland

Duchy of Greater Poland


A piano duet is a piece of music written for two people to play at one piano. It is often called Piano 4 hands.

To play piano duets the two players sit with one person on the right (playing the high notes) and the other person on the left (playing the low notes). The person on the right is called "Primo" ("First") and the person on the left is called "Secondo" ("Second").

Piano duet music is usually printed with the Secondo part on the left-hand page and the Primo part on the right-hand page. Occasionally it is printed with the two parts underneath one another.

Playing piano duets is great fun and an excellent way to become a better musician. Like all group music making, each player has to learn to listen and adapt to what is going on in the other part. Sometimes one player will have to take away his or her hand quickly so that the other player can play the same note immediately afterwards. Sometimes the players have to cross their hands (secondo's right hand crosses with primo's left hand).

A lot of the time the primo's part may have both hands written in the treble clef and the secondo's part may have both hands written in the bass clef. This can sometimes be confusing at first.

The pedalling is usually done by the secondo player. This is because pedalling is very much about keeping chords going ("sustaining"), and it is the secondo who usually has the chords which give the harmony because these are in the lower part.

Repertoire

There are lots of piano duets available for people to play. Some of these are simple ones written for beginner pianists. Some are written by the great composers.

Some pieces that are really supposed to be played by an orchestra have been arranged for piano duet. In some cases the composer himself made this arrangement. Examples from famous composers include Stravinsky's Rite of Spring which is extremely hard to play, and Maurice Ravel's suite Ma Mère l'Oie.

Some very famous piano duets which were originally written in this form include several sonatas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, several pieces by Franz Schubert including a Fantasia in f minor, Gabriel Fauré's Dolly Suite, Debussy's Petite Suite and Georges Bizet's Jeux d'Enfants (which he also arranged for orchestra).

Piano Duos

Some works are written for two people to play together using two pianos. These are usually called piano duos. Examples include Mozart's Sonata in D major K448. The Sonata op 34 by Johannes Brahms started as a string quintet but he changed it to a piano concerto, then a piano duo, and eventually a piano quintet. The Suite op 17 by Rachmaninoff is another. Most piano duos are very hard to play and need very good pianists. Piano concertos can be played on two pianos, with one player playing the solo part and the other playing the orchestra's music.

Piano Six Hands

There is also a small repertoire of pieces for three people to play at one piano. This is called Piano six hands.  These pieces are often fun pieces which are not too hard to play, although there are examples of serious pieces.  The three people need to be good friends, because it is a bit of a squash.  The player at the bottom ought to do the pedalling but it may be easier for the middle player to do it.

Musical forms
Piano

Piano duet