The National Museums of Kenya (NMK) is a state corporation that manages museums, sites and monuments in Kenya. It carries out heritage research, and has expertise in subjects ranging from palaeontology, archeology, ethnography and biodiversity research and conservation. Its headquarters and the National Museum (Nairobi National Museum) are located on Museum Hill, near Uhuru Highway between Central Business District and Westlands in Nairobi. The National Museum of Kenya was founded by the East Africa Natural History Society (E.A.N.H.S.) in 1910; the society's main goal has always been to conduct an ongoing critical scientific examination of the natural attributes of the East African habitat. The museum houses collections, and temporary and permanent exhibits. Today the National Museum of Kenya manages over 22 regional museums, many sites, and monuments across the country.

Nairobi National Museum of Kenya

Natural History Museum of Kenya

The East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society was founded in 1910–11 by persons with an interest in nature in British East Africa. The group included two canons of the Church Missionary Society: The Rev. Harry Leakey (father of Louis Leakey) and The Rev. Kenneth St. Aubyn Rogers; some government officials: C. W. Hobley and John Ainsworth, doctors, dentists, big-game hunters and plantation owners. In 1911 they established the Natural History Museum and library with an honorary curator. Aladina Visram put up the money for a one-story, two-room building.

In 1914 they could afford a paid curator. They brought in Arthur Loveridge, a herpetologist, who arrived in March 1914. Loveridge concentrated on collections, with the members volunteering to contribute specimens, labour and funds. They also ran the museum while Loveridge fought for the British in German East Africa. He returned for a brief stay after the war, only to go to America, where he eventually became a Harvard University professor.

Coryndon Museum
The next curator was A. F. J. Gedye. The museum moved to a new building at the corner of Government Road and Kirk Road. Among the new volunteers for the society were Sir Robert Coryndon, Governor of Kenya. At his unexpected death in 1925, Lady Coryndon established the Coryndon Memorial Fund to build a better museum for the society in memory of her husband. The government offered matching funds for public donations and in 1928 construction began.

The building was ready in 1929. Unfortunately no workrooms or storage space had been provided and therefore the Natural History Society declined to move in. The government then bought the old museum and the society used the money to add three rooms, gave its collections to the museum trustees, but retained the library. Everything was moved to the museum. Lady Coryndon donated Sir Robert's books to it.

The museum was officially opened on 22 September 1930, as Coryndon Museum, with Victor Gurney Logan Van Someren, a member, as curator. He was given a house on the grounds. In 1930 Evelyn Molony, née Napier was appointed the museum's first botanist after a grant was given to the museum by Ernest Carr to fund her employment. During her tenure she established within the museum a herbarium on East African plants as well as publishing a series of scientific papers on East African flora.

The relationship between the museum trustees and the society became problematic, and as a result the two organisations appointed a committee including Sir Charles Belcher, a Kenyan jurist, to stabilise it. The committee turned everything over to the museum except for the library in exchange for annual payments for 15 years to the society.

The museum now had a staff. Mary Leakey became part of it and then Louis Leakey, as unpaid curator, in 1941. He stepped in when Dr. van Someren resigned after the board (including Louis) refused to dismiss Peter Bally in a personality conflict. The museum was a center for Leakey operations. In 1945 Louis was hired as paid curator with a new house, as the old one had become run-down. He built up the exhibitions and opened them to Africans and Asians by lowering the admission fee. Until then the museum had been "for whites only."

The museum was a base for Leakey operations until 1961, when Louis founded the Centre for Prehistory and Paleontology on the grounds nearby and moved himself and his collections to it. He resigned in favour of the next director, Robert Carcasson.

National Museum
Kenya became independent in 1963. The Coryndon Museum was renamed "National Museum" in 1964 and was included in a new system, the "National Museums of Kenya." In 1967 Richard Leakey was having irreconcilable differences with Louis Leakey, his employer in the centre, and decided to improve the National Museum. His main objection was that it had not been Kenyanized. He and supporters formed the Kenya Museum Associates, which obtained an observer's seat for Richard on the board from Carcasson in exchange for a 5000-pound contribution. Richard did not do much observing, as he departed for the first Omo expedition.

The Kenya Museum Associates included Joel Ojal, the museum overseer in the government. On his return from Omo Richard gave his ideas for improvement directly to Joel, who asked the chairman, Sir Ferdinand Cavendish-Bentinck, to place Richard in a senior position and begin replacing the board with Kenyans of Kenyan extraction, as there were only two out of 16 in that category. The penalty for inaction would be removal of government funding.

Richard was at first offered a part-time executive position, which he turned down. Over the next few months much of the board was replaced and in May 1968 the new board offered Richard a permanent post as administrative director, with Carcasson to be retained as scientific director. However, Carcasson resigned and Richard became director.

Gallery of Kenyan Ethnic Communities
This gallery contains artwork by Joy Adamson featuring various Kenyan communities in traditional attire.

Modern events and facilities
On 15 October 2005 Nairobi Museum Galleries closed until December 2007 for an extensive rebuilding program. This was the first major renovation of Nairobi Museum since 1930. A new administration block and commercial center were built, and NMK's physical planning was improved.

The museum re-opened in June 2008. It houses both temporary and permanent exhibitions.

Within the grounds are also the Nairobi Snake Park and the Botanic Garden and nature trail. The museum's commercial wing has restaurants and shops.

Notable people

 Freda Nkirote, former Head of Cultural Heritage.

Other museums

Other museums, sites and monuments operated by the NMK, including eco-tourist attractions are:

Nairobi Gallery, Nairobi
Uhuru Gardens, Nairobi
 Institute of Primate Research, Nairobi
Fort Jesus, Mombasa
Gedi ruins, Gedi, near Malindi
Hyrax Hill Prehistoric site and Museum, near Nakuru
Jumba la Mtwana, Mtwapa, near Mombasa
Kabarnet Museum, Kabarnet
Kakapel Rockshelter, Mt. Elgon
Karen Blixen Museum, Nairobi
Kapenguria Museum, Kapenguria
Kariandusi Museum, near Gilgil
Kisumu Museum, Kisumu
Kitale Museum, Kitale
Koobi Fora, at Sibiloi National Park
Lamu Museum, Lamu
Meru Museum, Meru
Nyeri Museum, Nyeri
Malindi Museum, Malindi
Mnarani ruins, Kilifi
Narok Museum, Narok
Olorgesailie, near Magadi
Siyu Fort, Pate Island
Takwa ruins, Manda Island
Thimlich Ohinga, 45 km west of Migori

See also
 List of museums in Kenya
 List of sites and monuments in Kenya

Notes

External links

Museums in Kenya
Natural history museums
Kenya
Tourist attractions in Nairobi

National Museums of Kenya


Philip Geoffrey Alston  is an Australian international law scholar and human rights practitioner. He is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, and co-chair of the law school's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. In human rights law, Alston has held a range of senior UN appointments for over two decades, including United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, a position he held from August 2004 to July 2010, and UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights from 2014-2020.

Background
Alston graduated from the University of Melbourne with an LL.B.(Hons.) in 1972 and from the University of California, Berkeley with an LL.M. in 1976  and a JSD (Doctor of Juridical Science) in 1980.

His brother is the former Australian federal Cabinet minister and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Richard Alston.

Career
Alston's first academic appointments were at Tufts University (1985–89) and Harvard Law School (1984–89). Alston was then professor at the Australian National University (1990–95), and also director of its Center for International and Public Law. He was then professor at the European University Institute (1996–2001), before moving to New York University School of Law, where he is the John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law and co-chair of the law school's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. He became a faculty instructor in the NYU Law Institute for Executive Education, which was launched in 2015.

United Nations
In human rights law, Alston has held a range of senior UN appointments for over two decades. From 1986 to 1991 he was the first Rapporteur for the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; he then chaired the committee from 1991 to 1998.

At the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights he was elected to chair the first meeting of the presidents and Chairs of all of the international human rights courts and committees (including the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Human Rights Court, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, and the UN Human Rights Committee).

He was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General in 1988 to suggest reforms to make the United Nations human rights treaty monitoring system more effective. His major reports in 1989, 1993, and 1997 provided the impetus for continuing efforts by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Council to streamline and improve the rather unwieldy monitoring system.

His other United Nations appointments include Special Adviser to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Millennium Development Goals. He was appointed to that post by Sergio Vieira de Mello, and has continued to advise successor High Commissioners, including Louise Arbour and Navanethem Pillay.

UNICEF
He has been involved in the field of children's rights and the legal adviser to UNICEF throughout the period of the drafting of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. He participated in the UNICEF delegation to the drafting sessions of the convention and continued to advise UNICEF for several years after the convention's adoption in 1989, especially in relation to promoting the ratification of the convention by countries around the world.  He published two studies for UNICEF on children's rights. The first was The Best Interests of the Child: Reconciling Culture and Human Rights (1994), and the second, with John Tobin, was Laying the Foundations for Children's Rights, published in 2005 by UNICEF.

Special Rapporteur
On extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
From August 2004 – July 2010 he was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. In that capacity he reported to the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly. As Special Rapporteur, Alston visited Nigeria, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Guatemala, Lebanon, Israel, The Central African Republic, Brazil, Afghanistan, the USA, Kenya, Ecuador, and Colombia, and issued a report in each case to the relevant government and to the United Nations.

Alston's reports to the UN relating to extrajudicial executions also dealt with broad thematic issues that arose in many countries, such as witchcraft and vigilante killings, national-level commissions of inquiry dealing with unlawful killings, the problem of prisoners running prisons, the importance of witness protection programs, the problem of governmental reprisals against individuals or groups who have cooperated with a UN human rights inquiry, the need to regulate the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers, shoot-to-kill policies, the relationship between human rights law and international humanitarian law, mercy killings in times of armed conflict, and the need to make military justice systems compatible with human rights. With respect to the death penalty, Alston's reports discussed the need for transparency, the unacceptability of the mandatory death penalty under international law, the definition of the 'most serious crimes' for which the death penalty may be imposed, the right to seek pardon or commutation of a death sentence, and the juvenile death penalty.

On extreme poverty and human rights
In 2014, Alston was appointed UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. In 1998, the OHCHR established the mandate on extreme poverty. In June 2006 the Human Rights Council took over its mandate. Its goals include providing "greater prominence to the plight of those living in extreme poverty and to highlight the human rights consequences of the systematic neglect to which they are all too often subjected."

In May 2015, Alston submitted his first report to the Human Rights Council in his capacity as Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. In it, he focused on the "relationship between extreme poverty and extreme inequality and argues that a human rights framework is critical in addressing extreme inequality." He provided "an overview of the widening economic and social inequalities around the world; illustrates how such inequalities stifle equal opportunity, lead to laws, regulations and institutions that favour the powerful, and perpetuate discrimination against certain groups, such as women; and further discusses the negative effects of economic inequalities on a range of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights...[He proposed] an agenda for the future for tackling inequality, including: committing to reduce extreme inequality; giving economic, social and cultural rights the same prominence and priority as are given to civil and political rights; recognizing the right to social protection; implementing fiscal policies specifically aimed at reducing inequality; revitalizing and giving substance to the right to equality; and putting questions of resource redistribution at the centre of human rights debates."

In late October 2016, Alston released a scathing report to the UN General Assembly, calling the UN's refusal to accept responsibility for the devastating 2010 Haiti cholera outbreak a "disgrace." The "deadly cholera bacterium" was imported to Haiti in 2010 by infected UN peacekeepers "who were relocated from Nepal" without first being "screened for the illness". The screening would have cost "as little as $2,000." The report criticized the "flawed and unfounded" advice given by the UN's Office of Legal Affairs (OLA), that he blames for preventing the UN from accepting responsibility for the outbreak. According to Alston, "The UN's explicit and unqualified denial of anything other than a moral responsibility is a disgrace. If the United Nations bluntly refuses to hold itself accountable for human rights violations, it makes a mockery of its efforts to hold governments and others to account." Alston said that the UN appeared to have been pressed by United States, the "main contributor to the UN's peacekeeping budget", to "adopt the position frequently taken by lawyers in the US that responsibility should never be accepted voluntarily, since it could complicate future litigation." Alston explained that "this rationale is completely inapplicable to the UN", which unlike the justice system in the United States, "enjoys absolute immunity from suit in national courts and whose reputation depends almost entirely on being seen to act with integrity." Alston expressed concern that the "$400m financial package being put together by the UN" might face funding hurdles. "If you deny responsibility then it's much harder to raise money, to mobilise resources because it becomes just another general development problem... And I think the UN has actually exacerbated the problem significantly through its denials for many years." In his opening and closing statements, Alston called on advocacy groups like the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) and the Haiti-based  (BAI) to continue their work, and to keep up pressure on UN Member States.

In 2017 the United Nations undertook an investigation on the effects of systemic poverty in the United States. In a 29 November 2017 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) statement, Alston observed, "Some might ask why a UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights would visit a country as rich as the United States. But despite great wealth in the US, there also exists great poverty and inequality...[He will] focus on how poverty affects the civil and political rights of people living within the US, given the United States' consistent emphasis on the importance it attaches to these rights in its foreign policy...[He will investigate] the "criminal justice system, welfare and healthcare, barriers to political participation, homelessness, and basic social rights such as the right to social protection, housing, water and sanitation." In November 2017, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) published a report on an outbreak of hookworm in Alabama, which is a disease of extreme poverty. Hookworm, an intestinal parasite, an endemic tropical disease, is listed as a neglected tropical disease. It was thought to have been "slowly eradicated" in the United States starting in the 1930s. It is found in areas that have "[i]nadequate public health services and a general lack of basic citizen knowledge of health and hygiene" and reflects a "weak public education system." The UN investigation includes areas in California, Alabama, Georgia, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. In December 2017, Alston reported that in "a community in Butler County, Alabama he found raw sewage flowing "from homes through exposed PVC pipes and into open trenches and pits." Alston was given a tour of Skid Row by General Dogon-"50 blocks of concentrated human humiliation"—in the center of downtown Los Angeles. According to The Guardian, there was a surge in the cost of housing following the "tech boom for the 0.001%". In the early 2010s, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, YouTube and startups Hulu, Demand Media, Snapchat opened offices in Los Angeles' neighbourhoods, Santa Monica Venice, and Playa del Rey tech boom for the 0.001%, Los Angeles has the largest population of homeless people in the United States. By December 2017, their numbers increased 25% to 55,000.

In autumn 2018, Alston did a two-week fact-finding tour of the United Kingdom where he met with people living in poverty, spoke with civil society front line workers, work coaches, and local, devolved and UK governments, "and visited community organisations, social housing, a Jobcentre, a food bank, an advice center, a library, and a primary school." He met with politicians from all major political parties, Welsh and central government ministers and Scotland's First Minister. In a statement released on 16 November he said for almost half of the nation's children to be poor today is "not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster, all rolled into one", the government's approach to poverty is not guided by economics but "a commitment to achieving radical social re-engineering", and the government should adopt policies that ensure the poor do not have to shoulder the largest share of the ongoing financial burden to the nation arising from Brexit.

Alston said the UK government caused "great misery" with "punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous" austerity measures, and roughly 14 million people, one in five of the UK population, experience poverty and 1.5 million are destitute, cannot pay for basic essentials. He cited statistics from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and noted particularly predictions that child poverty could increase by 7% between 2015 and 2022, possibly reaching 40%. He said, "It is patently unjust and contrary to British values that so many people are living in poverty," and added that compassion had been given up during nearly a decade of austerity so severe that key parts of the postwar social contract, William Beveridge worked out over 70 years ago, had been lost. Alston visited towns and cities including London, Oxford, Cardiff, Newcastle, Glasgow and Belfast, then Alston said "obvious to anyone who opens their eyes to see the immense growth in food banks and the queues waiting outside them, the people sleeping rough in the streets, the growth of homelessness, the sense of deep despair that leads even the government to appoint a minister for suicide prevention and civil society to report in depth on unheard-of levels of loneliness and isolation". A government spokesperson stated that average household incomes were at a record high, income inequality had fallen and that universal credit, which Alston attacked as "Orwellian" and "fast falling into universal discredit", was supporting people into work faster.

As special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, he received support from the New York University School of law which received to this end several grants from the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundation.

Other
Alston also directed a project funded by the European Commission, which resulted in the publication of a Human Rights Agenda for the European Union for the Year 2000 and a 1999 volume of essays (The European Union and Human Rights). Many of its recommendations were subsequently implemented by the European Commission and the European Council. He also is one of 29 signatories to the Yogyakarta Principles.

Alston was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for "distinguished service to the law, particularly in the area of international human rights, and to legal education" in the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours.

Publications
Alston has written on issues such as economic, social and cultural rights, United Nations institutions and procedures, labour rights, the role of non-state actors in relation to human rights, comparative bills of rights, the use of force, and human rights and development policies. He is also one of the authors of a textbook in the field entitled International Human Rights in Context, Law, Politics, Morals, published by Oxford University Press. A third edition was published in 2007.

In a 2017 article in the  Journal of Human Rights Practice, faced with the rise of populism, Alston called for a reframing of "economic and social rights as human rights rather than as welfare or development objectives." He also called on academics, those who are anti- and pro- human rights, to pay attention to the "unintended consequences of their scholarship."

His 2019 article with Bassam Khawaja and Rebecca Riddell, "Much Ado About Poverty," provided a behind the scenes account of the role of a UN Special Rapporteur, "in investigating and evaluating the situation of people in poverty in a wide range of countries."

References

External links
Philip Alston: Record AfPak Drone Attacks Under Obama May Violate International Law – video report by Democracy Now!
Project on Extrajudicial Executions, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York University School of Law
NYU Law launches Institute for Executive Education, NYU Law Institute for Executive Education, New York University School of Law
Q&A: U.N.'s poverty and human rights special rapporteur finds U.S. policies reward wealthy, punish poor. Interview in the Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2018.
Philip Alston - Contributor profile, EJIL: Talk!

Australian legal scholars
Academic staff of the Australian National University
Academic staff of the European University Institute
Harvard Law School faculty
International law scholars
Living people
Melbourne Law School alumni
Officers of the Order of Australia
Tufts University faculty
UNICEF people
United Nations special rapporteurs
UC Berkeley School of Law alumni
New York University School of Law faculty
Australian officials of the United Nations
Year of birth missing (living people)

Philip Alston


David Robert Jones OAL (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known professionally by his stage name David Bowie, was an English rock musician and actor.

Early life
Bowie was born on 8 January 1947 in 40 Stansfield Road, Brixton, London.He grew up in Bromley, Kent. He played the saxophone. He was a singer in London blues bands. He used the alias David Bowie because David Jones sounded too much like Davy Jones (of The Monkees). He took the name Bowie from Jim Bowie, who invented the Bowie knife.

Bowie became known to the public with the 1969 song "Space Oddity". This single was released when man first landed on the moon. The song's title is based on the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick. In 1970, Bowie won an Ivor Novello Award for "Space Oddity".

Career

Ziggy Stardust
Bowie's album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was released in 1972. It is one of his best-known albums. As a result of his performance, Bowie became a leader of glam rock.

Ziggy Stardust became Bowie's second personality (alter ego). For a press conference, he would show up as Ziggy. Bowie let Ziggy Stardust come to an end during a live concert in the Hammersmith Odeon theatre on 3 July 1973. In 1983, this show was released as movie and soundtrack (Ziggy Stardust – The Motion Picture). Bowie also produced Lou Reed's "Transformer". He released "Aladdin Sane" (his first number one album in the United Kingdom).

Los Angeles and Berlin
In 1974, after releasing the album "Diamond Dogs", Bowie settled in Los Angeles. He experimented with drugs, especially cocaine. In 1975, "Fame" (from the Young Americans album) a song co-written with John Lennon, was number 1 on the United States charts. Bowie played an alien in the movie The Man Who Fell To Earth. A new second personality was The Thin White Duke. This was introduced on the Station to Station album in 1976. The song "Golden Years" scored high in the pop charts. In 2003, the album was ranked number 323 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

After releasing Station to Station, Bowie moved to Berlin. He was interested in German music. He wanted to end his drug abuse. In Berlin, he started to work with producer Tony Visconti and with Brian Eno, the "king of oblique strategies". Bowie was a producer for Iggy Pop too. The Berlin Trilogy Albums are Low (1977), Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979), although only Heroes was recorded entirely in Berlin.

1980s
Bowie left Berlin in 1980. In 1980 he recorded and released the album Scary Monsters And Super Creeps, featuring the United Kingdom number 1 single "Ashes To Ashes". In 1981, he had a big hit with "Under Pressure", together with Queen: it peaked at number 1 on United Kingdom charts. In 1983, Bowie released Let's Dance, his biggest selling album. The title track peaked at number 1 in the United Kingdom and the United States Of America.

In 1984, Bowie won a Brit Award as Best Male Artist. In 1985, he won a Grammy Award for Best Video (Short Form). Yet in 1985, David Bowie and Mick Jagger released the charity single "Dancing In The Street". In 1986, Bowie released the hit-single "Absolute Beginners".

Tin Machine
In 1989, Bowie formed the band Tin Machine. This was his first real band since the 1970s. With this band, Bowie recorded three albums: Tin Machine (1989), Tin Machine II (1991) and Oy Vey, Baby (1992).

1990s–2010s
By the 1990s, Bowie had become more interested in soul, jazz and hip hop. This was first noticed on the album Black Tie, White Noise.

Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 17 January 1996.

In 2013, after a ten years hiatus, Bowie released his twenty-fourth album, The Next Day. In 2014, he was nominated for Best Rock Album at the Grammy Awards  and won a Brit Award for Best Male Artist.

His last album, Blackstar, was released on 8 January 2016. That was his 69th birthday and two days before his death. After Bowie's death, Blackstar reached number one in the United Kingdom and in the United States: it was the only Bowie album to peak at number one in the United States. In 2017 "Blackstar" won 5 Grammy Awards. "Blackstar" also won a Brit Award for the Best Album and David Bowie also won a Brit Award for Best Male Artist.

Personal life
Bowie married Mary Angela Barnett in 1970. Their son, Duncan Jones was born in 1971. The couple divorced in 1980. Bowie married Iman in 1992. The couple's daughter, Alexandria Jones, was born in 2000.

Death
On 10 January 2016 after an 18-month battle with liver cancer, Bowie died in Manhattan, New York City, two days after his 69th birthday. His remains were later cremated on 14 January in a private ceremony in New York.

Genres
Bowie covered many genres, including art rock, hard rock, glam rock, alternative rock, krautrock, protopunk, post-punk, electronica, Blue-eyed soul, new wave, industrial, techno, jazz, dance music, funk, disco, experimental rock, folk, instrumental, ambient and house.

Studio albums

 David Bowie (1967)
 David Bowie (also released as Man of Words, Man of Music in Usa and as Space Oddity' in 1972') (1969)
 The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
 Hunky Dory (1971)
 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
 Aladdin Sane (1973)
 Pin Ups (1973)
 Diamond Dogs (1974)
 Young Americans (1975)
 Station to Station (1976)
 Low (1977)
 "Heroes" (1977)
 Lodger (1979)
 Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (1980)
 Let's Dance (1983)
 Tonight (1984)
 Never Let Me Down (1987)
 Tin Machine (1989) (with Tin Machine)
 Tin Machine II (1991) (with Tin Machine)
 Black Tie White Noise (1993)
 The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
 Outside (1995)
 Earthling (1997)
 'Hours...' (1999)
 Heathen (2002)
 Reality (2003)
 The Next Day (2013)
 Blackstar (2016)

Filmography (selection)The Image (1969)The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) - Thomas Jerome NewtonJust a Gigolo (1979) - PaulMerry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) - Maj. Jack 'Strafer' CelliersLabyrinth (movie) (1986) - Jareth, the Goblin KingThe Last Temptation of Christ (1988) - Pontius Pilate
"Basquiat" (1996)- Andy Warhol    Mr. Rice's Secret'' (2000) - Mr. Rice

References

1947 births
2016 deaths
Actors from London
Cancer deaths in New York City

Deaths from liver cancer
English movie actors
English rock singers
Musicians from London
Webby Award winners
Synth-pop singers

David Bowie


Maria Felisa H. Batacan is a Filipino journalist and a writer of crime and mystery fiction. Her work has been published in the Philippines and abroad under the name F.H. Batacan.

Biography
She was a fellow at the 1996 Dumaguete National Writers' Workshop.

Batacan worked in the Philippine intelligence community and then became a broadcast journalist. She attended the University of the Philippines Diliman, where she pursued a master's degree in Arts Studies.  In 1999 her manuscript, Smaller and Smaller Circles, won the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature Grand Prize for the English Novel. This novel was published in 2002 by the University of the Philippines Press.  Although most Filipino English-language fiction works garner a single print run of only 1,000 copies, Smaller and Smaller Circles had been reprinted four times by the year 2006, for a total of 6,000 copies.  The novel was one of the first Filipino works of crime fiction.

The novel also won the 2002 Manila Critics' Circle National Book Award and the Madrigal-Gonzales Best First Book Award in 2003.

In 2008, she won 1st prize in the English short story category  of the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards.

In 2015, a new, expanded edition of the novel was published by Soho Press, New York.

References

Sources

External links
Soho Press book page
Soho Press backgrounder
Article on expanded edition
Author interview
Review

Living people
Filipino women novelists
Filipino novelists
Year of birth missing (living people)

Felisa Batacan


Llywelyn ap Dafydd (c.1267–1287), potential claimant to the title Prince of Gwynedd, was the eldest son of Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the last free ruler of Gwynedd, and his wife Elizabeth Ferrers.

Nothing is known of his early life, though it is thought he was probably born some time around 1267. It is likely he accompanied his father during periods of exile in England in the 1270s. Following the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd on 11 December 1282 the governance of Gwynedd was placed in the hands of Llywelyn's successor, his brother, Dafydd ap Gruffudd. Dafydd and his son Owain were captured together at Nanhysglain near to Bera Mawr in the uplands above Abergwyngregyn on 21 June 1283.

King Edward I of England then issued orders for the apprehension of the primogeniture of Dafydd ap Gruffudd. On 29 June, Llywelyn ap Dafydd was arrested and taken to Rhuddlan to be imprisoned alongside his brother. A force of cavalry and infantry were deployed to escort Llywelyn and Owain out of Gwynedd via Acton Burnell in Shropshire to Bristol before the end of July 1283. After his father was executed for high treason in October 1283, he became the de jure Prince of Gwynedd.

The only senior members of the Welsh royal family who retained their liberty were Llywelyn ap Dafydd's uncle Rhodri ap Gruffudd and cousin Thomas ap Rhodri, who had formally renounced their rights to the Principality.

Llywelyn ap Dafydd died at Bristol Castle in 1287 and was buried in the nearby Dominican church (now known as Quakers Friars). His burial was paid for by King Edward I. His brother Owain would "succeed" him but would remain a prisoner until the end of his life.

Further reading
 J. Beverley Smith, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales (Cardiff, 1998), p. 579
 Accounts of Bristol Castle, 17, 26-7
 Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1281–92, 71 and 1307–1313
 Hagnaby Chronicle

References

1260 births
1287 deaths
Llywelyn
Welsh people who died in prison custody
Prisoners who died in England and Wales detention

Llywelyn ap Dafydd


Perbromate is an ion. Its chemical formula is BrO4-. It contains bromine in its +7 oxidation state. It is a strong oxidizing agent. It is very unstable and turns into bromate and oxygen easily. It was first made by decay of a radioactive selenate. Later it was gotten by electrolysis of a bromate. It can also be made by oxidation of bromate with fluorine or xenon difluoride.

Related pages
Bromite
Hypobromite

Bromine compounds
Ions

Perbromate


The wildlife of Myanmar includes its flora and fauna and their natural habitats.

Flora

Like all Southeastern Asian forests, the forests of Myanmar can be divided into two categories: monsoon forest and rainforest. Monsoon forest is dry at least three months a year, and is dominated by deciduous trees. Rainforest has a rainy season of at least nine months, and are dominated by broadleaf evergreen.

In the region north of the Tropic of Cancer, in the Himalayan region, subtropical broadleaf evergreen dominates to an elevation of 2000 m, and from 2000 m to 3000 m, semi-deciduous broadleaf dominates, and above 3000 m, evergreen conifers and subalpine forest are the primary fauna until the alpine scrubland.

The area from Yangon to Myitkyina is mostly monsoon forest, while peninsular Malaysia south of Mawlamyine is primarily rainforest, with some overlap between the two. Along the coasts of Rakhine State and Tanintharyi Division, tidal forests occur in estuaries, lagoons, tidal creeks, and low islands. These forests are host to the much-depleted Myanmar Coast mangroves habitat of mangrove and other trees that grow in mud and are resistant to sea water. Forests along the beaches consist of palm trees, hibiscus, casuarinas, and other trees resistant to storms.

Fauna
Myanmar is home to nearly 300 known mammal species, 300 reptile species, and about 1000 bird species. There are also many non-marine molluscs in Myanmar.

See also
 Deforestation in Myanmar

References

Sources

Myanmar
Biota of Myanmar

Wildlife of Myanmar


Angara is a family of rockets which are being developed in Russia. The family contains many different rockets. For example, there is a rocket for lifting small payloads and a rocket for lifting heavy payloads. The rockets are designed by a company called Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center. The first rocket is expected to be ready in 2012.

Purpose
Angara is being developed using money given by the Russian government. The government decided to finance Angara because they wanted to make sure that Russia has independent access to space. Many of Russia's current rockets can only be launched from Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakshtan. Many of them also use foreign technology. However, Angara is better since it does not use any foreign technology (it is 100% Russian) and can be launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, located in Russian territory. Another reason why it was decided to build Angara is because Russia needed a rocket which does not use toxic fuels, like some current rockets do.

Description
The first part of all Angara rockets consists of an engine called Universal Rocket Module (in short: URM). The small version, Angara 1.1 has only one URM, while the heavier Angara 5 has 5 URMs. For this reason, Angara 5 can lift heavier payloads. The second part (called the second stage) of Angara 1.1 is called Briz-KM and the second stage of Angara 5 is called Block I.

The rockets are meant for launching unmanned payloads such as satellites. However, Khrunichev has also suggested building a version that could launch humans into space: Angara 5P.

All Angara versions can be launched from a single launch pad.

The first flight of Angara is expected to take place in 2012 from Plesetsk Cosmodrome. In the future, the flights on Angara rockets will be sold to other companies, who want to get their satellites into space. The price for an Angara 1.1 flight is expected to be about 20 million dollars.

References

Rockets

Angara (rocket family)


Bergelmir or Saturn XXXVIII (provisional designation S/2004 S 15) is a moon of Saturn. Its discovery was announced by Scott S. Sheppard, David C. Jewitt, Jan Kleyna, and Brian G. Marsden on May 4, 2005, from observations taken between December 12, 2004, and March 9, 2005.

Bergelmir is about 6 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 19,372,000 km in 1006.659 days, at an inclination of 157° to the ecliptic (134° to Saturn's equator), with an eccentricity of 0.152.

It was named in April 2007 after Bergelmir, a giant from Norse mythology and the grandson of Ymir, the primordial giant. Bergelmir and his wife alone among their kind were the only survivors of the enormous deluge of blood from Ymir's wounds when he was killed by Odin and his brothers at the dawn of time. Bergelmir then became the progenitor of a new race of giants.

References
 Institute for Astronomy Saturn Satellite Data
 Jewitt's New Satellites of Saturn page
 IAUC 8523: New Satellites of Saturn May 4, 2005 (discovery)
 MPEC 2005-J13: Twelve New Satellites of Saturn May 3, 2005 (discovery and ephemeris)
 IAUC 8826: Satellites of Jupiter and Saturn (subscription-only) 2007 April 5 (naming the moon)

Saturn's moons

Bergelmir (moon)


was a Japanese painter of the Kanō school. One of the foremost Kanō painters, many of the best known Kanō works today are by Tan'yū.

Biography
His original given name was Morinobu; he was the eldest son of Kanō Takanobu and grandson of Kanō Eitoku.

In 1617, Tan'yū was appointed by the Tokugawa shogunate to become the shogunate's first official painter. Over the following years, he was given many highly prestigious commissions. Over the 1620s and 1630s, he created a number of large-scale works for Edo Castle, Nijō Castle, Osaka Castle, Nagoya Castle, and Nikkō Tōshō-gū.

Prolific in a variety of painting styles, Tan'yū's most famous works are probably those he produced for these large-scale commissions. They are screens and panels, prime examples of the Momoyama style, depicting natural subjects such as tigers, birds and plants, in bright colors and with extensive use of gold leaf. The gold, often used to represent clouds, water, or other background elements, would reflect what little light was available indoors, brightening a castle's dark rooms.

Tan'yū was also accomplished, however, in monochrome ink painting based on the prototypical style of the Muromachi period, yamato-e compositions in a style similar to that of the Tosa school, and Chinese style scrolls. His most famous yamato-e work is a narrative handscroll depicting the life of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shōgun and major figure in Japanese history. It was after this commission, in 1640, that the artist first took on the "artist name" of Tan'yū.

In addition to being a highly honored and respected painter in his own right, Tan'yū was known as a collector and connoisseur of Chinese paintings. He made sketches and kept records of many of the paintings that passed through his studio, brought to him for authentication.

He died in 1674 at the age of 72.

See also
Kusumi Morikage

References

Kaputa, Catherine (1985). "Kanō Tan'yū." Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, Tokyo: Kodansha Ltd.

External links
Brief Biography of Kano Tanyu - Jyuluck-Do Corporation
Works in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

1602 births
1674 deaths
17th-century Japanese painters
Kanō school

Kanō Tan'yū


A stick is a long, slender piece of wood, usually a branch from a tree without the leaves.

Stick may mean:
Chopsticks, an eating utensil
Rod, cane, or hickory stick, disciplinary implements
Pointing stick, an indicator
Swagger stick, a formal attribute
Club (weapon) or staff (stick), weapons
Tally sticks, a marking medium
Walking stick, a mobility aid
Fire stick, a stick for making fire

In objects of similar shape:
A stick of dynamite
Joystick, a computer game controller
Prayer stick
Polo stick, hockey stick, lacrosse stick, etc. in sports
Memory stick, a device for storing digital information
Stick shift, automobile transmission

Stick may also mean:
 Stick (unit), an ancient unit of length (2 inch ≈ 5 cm), cfr. in yard
 Silver Stick and Gold Stick, certain functions named after a ceremonial attribute
 Stick (comics), a character in Marvel Comics, predominantly Daredevil
 Stick-Eastlake, a type of Victorian architecture
 Stick (film), a movie featuring Burt Reynolds and music by Anne Murray

In nicknames:
 Sticks for the Led Zeppelin album Led Zeppelin IV
 Sticks for Stephen Kernahan, former Australian rules football champion with the Carlton Football Club
 Stick for Gene Michael, former baseball infielder and manager
 Candlestick Park, the home stadium of the San Francisco 49ers, now known as Monster Park

In music:
 Clapstick, a musical instrument that traditionally accompanies the didgeridoo
 Chapman Stick, a musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s

Related pages
 Pogo Stick, pole with a spring up its botttom
 Poohsticks, a game
 Styx (band) and Styx (album), an American rock group and their debut album
 Stick insect or "walking stick", an insect
 Stick figure, also known as a stick man

Stick


Women in the Garden (French: Femmes au jardin) is an oil painting begun in 1866 by French artist Claude Monet when he was 26. It is a large work painted en plein air; the size of the canvas necessitated Monet painting its upper half with the canvas lowered into a trench he had dug, so that he could maintain a single point of view for the entire work. The setting is the garden of a property he was renting. His companion and future wife Camille Doncieux posed for the figures. Monet finished the work indoors, and used magazine illustrations to render fashionable clothing.

Monet at this time was early in his career, experimenting with method and subject matter. His earlier paintings were successful at Paris Salons, but Women in the Garden was rejected in 1867 on the grounds of subject and narrative weakness. The Salon was also troubled by Monet's heavy brushstrokes, a style which would, of course, become one of the hallmarks of Impressionism. A judge commented, "Too many young people think of nothing but continuing in this abominable direction. It is high time to protect them and save art!"  The painting was purchased by fellow artist Frédéric Bazille to help support Monet at a time when he had no money.

Although the Musée d'Orsay, the painting's owner, comments that "Monet has skilfully rendered the white of the dresses, anchoring them firmly in the structure of the composition", Christoph Heinrich, author of a Monet biography, notes how posterity has found the painting lacking. In this view, the figures appear poorly integrated into the scene, with the woman at right "gliding across the ground as if she had a trolley concealed beneath her dress". The painting's treatment of light and shadow is lauded, however, and in this respect the work may have shown Monet where his artistic path lay.

See also
 List of paintings by Claude Monet

References

Further reading
Turner, Jane (2000). The Grove Dictionary of Art: From Renaissance to Impressionism. Macmillan. p. 163. .

External links
Impressionism: a centenary exhibition, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on this painting (p. 135-139)

Paintings by Claude Monet
1866 paintings
Paintings in the Musée d'Orsay
Paintings of women

Women in the Garden


For a wider discussion see sexual reproduction. For more information, see female reproductive system and male reproductive system.

The reproductive system is the part of an organism that makes them able to sexually reproduce. Humans and other animals use their reproductive systems to have sexual intercourse as well as reproduce. The reproductive system is one of the human organ systems.

The illustrations here show only human reproductive systems. Other mammals have similar reproductive systems.

Human reproductive system


FC Twente is a football club from Enschede in the Netherlands. They play in the Eredivisie and also in the UEFA Champions League.

Twente plays its games in the Grolsch Veste (a capacity of 30 000).

FC Twente currently holds the national cup and the Johan Cruijff Schaal. In season 2010/11 they ended second in the league.

History
FC Twente was founded on 1 July 1965 as a combination of Sportclub Enschede and Enschedes Boys. The two professional football teams in Enschede at that time (Sportclub Enschede and Enschedese Boys) had both money problems and were forced to merge. FC Twente started in the Eredivisie (highest Dutch league) and within a few years they were part of the top of Dutch football. Between 1970 and 1980 they came close to several prizes, but they always lost the final. In 1974 the ended second in the Eredivisie and in 1975 the lost the Dutch cup final as well as the UEFA Cup final (after beating Juventus in the semi-final). Only in 1978 they won the Dutch Cup (by beating PEC Zwolle in the final with 3-0). In the next decade (1980-1990) the club went down hill, with the relegation to the Eerste Divisie (second tier of Dutch football) in 1983 as all-time low. Twente was back in the Eredivisie within a year however. In the nineties Twente played a modest role in Dutch football, usually ending around the 5th place in the Eredivisie.
In the first decade of the 21st century the golden era started. In 2001 FC Twente won the Dutch cup by beating PSV Eindhoven in the final with a penalty shootout. This victory caused huge celebrations in the eastern part of the Netherlands. This showed the popularity of the club in the region, eventhough FC Twente almost never wins a prize. In 2003 the club almost went bankrupt and Joop Munsterman took over as chairman. He understood the potential of this club and developed a plan to increase the sportive, economic and social capacity of Twente. In 2008 the stadium size was increased from 13,500 to 24,000 seats. In 2011 the stadium was further increased to 30,000 seats. FC Twente again played on the top of the Dutch league, resulting in their first national title in 2010. Also the Intertoto Cup was won in 2006, the Johan Cruijff Schaal was won in 2010 and 2011 and the Dutch cup in 2011. In these years FC Twente also started a social programm to help unemployed people to find a job, encourage handicaped people to do sports and to give away free seats in the stadium to people that cannot afford a ticket.

Trophies
 Champion of the Netherlands (1)
 2009-10
 (runner up (4): 1973-74, 2007-08, 2008-09, 2010-11)
 Dutch Cup (3)
 1978, 2001, 2011
 (runner up (4): 1975, 1979, 2003, 2009)
 Dutch Super cup (2)
 2010, 2011
 (runner up (1): 2001)
 UEFA Cup
 (runner up (1): 1975)
 Intertoto Cup (1)
 2006

Current squad

For recent transfers, see List of Dutch football transfers winter 2011–12 and List of Dutch football transfers summer 2012.

Out on loan

Dutch football clubs
Enschede

FC Twente


The Via Egnatia was a road constructed by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. It crossed Illyricum, Macedonia, and Thracia, running through territory that is now part of modern Albania, North Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey as a continuation of the Via Appia.

Starting at Dyrrachium (now Durrës) on the Adriatic Sea, the road followed a difficult route along the river Genusus (Shkumbin), over the Candaviae (Jablanica) mountains and thence to the highlands around Lake Ohrid. It then turned by parts south, following several high mountain passes to reach the northern coastline of the Aegean Sea at Thessalonica. From there it ran through Thrace to the city of Byzantium (later Constantinople, now Istanbul). It covered a total distance of about 1,120 km (696 miles/746 Roman miles). Like other major Roman roads, it was about six metres (19.6 ft) wide, paved with large polygonal stone slabs or covered with a hard layer of sand.

Construction and usage
The main literary sources for the construction of the road are Strabo's Geographica and a number of milestones found along the route's length, marking the road for a length of 860 kilometres as far as the border between Macedonia and Thrace. Bilingual inscriptions on the milestones record that Gnaeus Egnatius, proconsul of Macedonia, ordered its construction, though the exact date is uncertain; the road presumably took its name from its builder. It may have succeeded an earlier military road from Illyria to Byzantium, as described by Polybius and Cicero, which the Romans apparently built over and/or improved.

The Via Egnatia was constructed in order to link a chain of Roman colonies stretching from the Adriatic Sea to the Bosphorus. The termini of the Via Egnatia and the Via Appia, leading from Rome itself, were almost directly opposite each other on the east and west shores of the Adriatic Sea. The route, thus gave the colonies of the southern Balkans a direct connection to Rome. It was also a vital link to Roman territories further to the east; until a more northerly route across Illyria was opened under Augustus it was Rome's main link with her empire in the eastern Mediterranean. It was repaired and expanded several times but experienced lengthy periods of neglect due to Rome's civil wars.

The road was used by the Apostle Paul on his second missionary journey as he traveled from Philippi to Thessalonica (Acts 16–17). It also played a vital role in several key moments in Roman history: the armies of Julius Caesar and Pompey marched along the Via Egnatia during Caesar's civil war, and during the Liberators' civil war Mark Antony and Octavian pursued Cassius and Brutus along the Via Egnatia to their fateful meeting at the Battle of Philippi. Surviving milestones record that the emperor Trajan undertook extensive repairs of the road prior to his campaign of 113 against the Parthians. However, by the 5th century AD the road had largely fallen into disuse as a result of violent instability in the region. A 5th-century historian noted that the western sections of the Via Egnatia were in such a poor state that travellers could barely pass along it.

In later years, the Via Egnatia was revived as a key road of the Eastern Roman Empire; Procopius records repairs made by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I during the 6th century, though even then the dilapidated road was said to be virtually unusable during wet weather. Almost all Byzantine overland trade with western Europe traveled along the Via Egnatia. During the Crusades, armies traveling to the east by land followed the road to Constantinople before crossing into Asia Minor. In the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, control of the road was vital for the survival of the Latin Empire as well as the Byzantine successor states the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate of Epirus.

Post-Roman usage
During the first European conquests of Ottoman Turks sol kol (lit. left arm) was following the Via Egnatia.

Today's modern highway, Egnatia Odos, runs in parallel to the Via Egnatia between Thessaloniki and the Turkish border on the Evros river. Its name means "Via Egnatia" in Greek, alluding to its ancient counterpart.

The Via Egnatia is known as  ("The Big Road") by the Aromanians in their native Aromanian language.

Key towns along the Via Egnatia
Listed from west to east:

References

Further reading
 1994. "94/692/EC: Commission Decision of 17 May 1994 Concerning the Grant of Assistance from the Cohesion Financial Instrument to the Stage of Project Concerning the Construction of Via Egnatia - Igoumenitsa-Pedini Section - Subsection Vrosina (Psilorachi)-Pedini in Greece". Official Journal of the European Communities. Legislation. 37, no. 277: 66.
 Amore, M G, L Bejko, Y Cerova, and I Gjipali. 2005. "Archaeological Reports and Notes - Via Egnatia (Albania) Project: Results of Fieldwork 2002". Journal of Roman Archaeology. 18: 336.
 Attekum, Marietta van, and Holger de Bruin. Via Egnatia on Foot: A Journey into History. Driebergen: Via Egnatia Foundation, 2014.
 Collart, Paul. 1935. "Une réfection de la « Via Egnatia » sous Trajan". Bulletin De Correspondence Hellénique. 59, no. 1: 395–415. .
 Michele Fasolo: La via Egnatia I. Da Apollonia e Dyrrachium ad Herakleia Lynkestidos, Istituto Grafico Editoriale Romano, 2nd ed., Roma 2005. (See also http://www.viaegnatia.net  )
 Gunaropulu, Lukrētia, and Miltiadēs B. Chatzopulos. Les milliaires de la voie égnatienne entre Héraclée des Lyncestes et Thessalonique. 1985. Modern Greek. Series: Meletēmata / Kentron Hellēnikēs kai Rōmaïkēs Archaiotētos, 1. OCLC: 159882150.
 Heywood, Colin, and Elizabeth Zachariadou. The Via Egnatia in the Ottoman Period: The Menzilhānes of the Ṣol Ḳol in the Late 17th/Early 18th Century. Rethymnon: Crete University Press, 1996.
 Kazazaki, Zoe. Monasteries of the Via Egnatia. [Heraklion Crete (Greece)]: [Greek Ministry of Culture], 1999.  (v.1);  (v.1).
 Kollaros, G. A., E. G. Varagouli-Xidaki, A. G. Athanasopoulou-Kollarou, and G. S. Xidakis. 1988. "Via Egnatia: A Modern Engineering Approach to an Ancient Highway". The Engineering Geology of Ancient Works, Monuments and Historical Sites, Rotterdam, 1988. 3: 1705–1713.
 Lolos, Yannis. 2007. "Via Egnatia after Egnatius: Imperial Policy and Inter-regional Contacts". Mediterranean Historical Review. 22, no. 2: 273–293. . Abstract: The Via Egnatia, which linked Dyrrachium to Kypsela and ultimately to Byzantium/Constantinople, was the first Roman highway to be built east of the Adriatic. The studies published so far on this important road are devoted almost exclusively to its military importance, particularly during the Roman Republic. This author's goal instead was to assess the importance of the Egnatia at a political, social, and cultural level, by examining written sources (literary and epigraphical) and material remains. The article looks into the policy of Roman emperors regarding the Egnatia, and the role of the Via as a factor of commercial, social, and cultural interaction between the Italian peninsula and the Greek world, as well as among the cities and regions that it crossed. It also shows the contribution of the Egnatia to the spectacular development of certain cities and the parallel weakening of others, together with its impact upon the rural landscape.
 O'Sullivan, Firmin. The Egnatian Way. Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1972. 264 pages.
 Romiopoulou, Catherine. 1974. "Un nouveau milliaire de la Via Egnatia". Bulletin De Correspondence Hellénique. 98, no. 2: 813–816.
 Samsaris, Dim.  Δ. Κ. Σαμσάρης, Pennana, Ένας ρωμαϊκός σταθμός (mutatio) της Εγνατίας οδού, Dodona 15 (1986), 1, σ. 69–84.
 Sande, Siri. 2004. "The Petropigi Fortress: A Late Byzantine and Early Ottoman "Statio" on the Via Egnatia". Interaction and Isolation in Late Byzantine Culture / Ed. by Jan Olof Rosenqvist. 89–99. .
 Tafel, Gottlieb Lukas Friedrich. De via Romanorum militari Egnatia qua Illyricum Macedonia et Thracia iungebantur: diss. geographica. 1837.
 Votýpka-Pecha, Josef, and Ladislav Vidman. 1959. "VIA EGNATIA MEZI ELBASANEM A OCHRIDSKÝM JEZEREM". Listy Filologické / Folia Philologica. 82, no. 2: 187–196. . Language: Czech. Abstract: Cette étude est l'œuvre de deux auteurs don't l'un (J. Votýpka-Pecha), en tant que médecin de l'expédition géologique tchécoslovaque en Albanie en 1957,  eu l'occasion de prospecter le terrain sur place. La première partie présente un bref compte-rendu de sa part, tandis que les deux auteurs répondent en commun de la partie suivante dans laquelle ces observations sont appréciées et confrontées avec la littérature. Il s'agit de l'établissement du tracé de la route romaine Via Egnatia et de l'identification des stations mantionnées dans différents itinéraires, entre l'actuel Elbasan et le Lac d'Okhrida, donc dans un secteur en bien des endroits d'accès difficile, qui pour cela avait été jusqu'ici peu prospecté. D'Elbasan (l'antique Scampa) la route longeait tout d'abord la rive droite du Shkumbin jusqu'au pont appelé aujourd'hui Ura e Haxhi Bëgarit (eventuellement Beqarit; station Genesis flumen, eventuellement mutatio Treiecto). De là, elle poursuivait le long de la rive gauche du fleuve, à travers le massif Polis, jusqu'à la commune de Qukës, où elle rencontrait à nouveau le Shkumbin; elle le franchissait sur un pont dont les vestiges sont encore visibles. C'est à peu près au point culminant du passage à travers le massif Polis, près de la commune de Babjë, que se trouvait la station Ad Dianam (mansio Grandavia). Près du pont de Qukës se trouvait la station In Candavia (mutatio in Tabernas, Tres Tabernas). A propos de l'identification de ces stations et du tracé de la route d'Elbasan jusqu'à Qukës il ne peut y avoir de doute, et dans l'ensemble, les auteurs s'accordent à ce sujet avec Miller (Itineraria Romana) ainsi qu'avec les études du chercheur albanais Adam de 1953. Mais ils diffèrent foncièrement dans l'établissement du tracé du secteur suivant; ils estiment que la route ne passait par par l'affluent de rive droite du Shkumbin (Perroj i Lingajce), mais qu'aussitôt après le pont elle grimpait sur le massif, traversait le territoire des communes de Skroskë, Pishkash et Rajcë, après quoi elle ne rejoignait la route actuelle que sur les crêtes dominant le lac (Karakoll). C'est pourquoi ils situent la station Pons Servili vers le passage de la rivière dans la commune de Rajcë. Ils s'appuient ce faisant sur les trouvailles antiques de ce tracé (un fragment de statue de Skroskë, des pièces de monnaie au pied du Pishkash) ainsi que sur les traditions locales, mais avant tout sur les vestiges conservés de la route antique entre les communes de Pishkash et de Rajcë. — Sur le premier plan, la Via Egnatia est indiquée par une ligne interrompue (.—), sur le second, dessiné d'après une vue aérienne, son tracé est indiqué au pied du mont Pishkash.
 Walbank, Frank W. 2005. "The Via Egnatia: Its Role in Roman Strategy". Da Apollonia E Dyrracgium Ad Herakleia Lynkestidos. OCLC:  887098540.
 Werner, Louis. 2015. "Via Egnatia: To Rome and Byzantium. Saudi Aramco World. July/August 2015. Pages 20–31.
 XEIDAKIS, G. S., and E. G. VARAGOULI. 1997. "Design and Construction of Roman Roads: The Case of Via Egnatia in the Aegean Thrace, Northern Greece". Environmental & Engineering Geoscience. III, no. 1: 123–132. Abstract: Romans, the first real road designers, designed and constructed the first organized road system in Europe. This system was in use for almost 2,000 years with some parts still in use as secondary roads. Via Egnatia, the first highway to cross the Balkan Peninsula, was the first road built by Romans outside Italy. It was constructed in the second century B.C. The road began in Dyrrachium (modern Durrës), by the Adriatic sea, and passed through Serbia, Macedonia (Thessaliniki) and Thrace terminating at Cypsela (east of Evros river) and later extended up to Konstantinoupolis. The total length of the road from Dirrachium to Cypsela was about 750 km. From the study of sections of the road surviving in the Thrace region, Greece, it appears that the design and the construction of the road (in the area under discussion) was based on well-known specifications. Specifically, the road was always adapted to local topography, geomorphology and ground conditions. Thus the road avoided the difficult and unstable ground, the close curves and the steep grades. The thickness and the layering of the pavement varied according to the foundation conditions. In stable, rocky ground, the pavement consisted of only one layer of well-fitted cobble stones; whereas, in soft and unstable ground the soft soil was excavated and replaced by several layers of cobbles, gravels and rubbles held together with compacted sandy soil or lime mortar. Up to four stone layers have been found in an archaeological excavation in the road pavement in the Thrace area. Some layers were made waterproof by well-compacted clay soil. The thickness of the pavement varied from 25 cm to more than 150 cm. The materials used were mainly of local origin. The width of the road ranged from 4 m to 8 m, depending on the ground conditions and the traffic demand. In cities its width reached up to 20 m to accommodate the increased traffic. The horizontal curvature (curves) of the road was usually more than 100 m (R>100 m). Only in a few cases in mountainous areas curvatures of R = 10–20 m were found. The grade of the pavement normally was 1 to 2 percent, but in mountain regions gradients of 16 to 18 percent were observed. Gradients up to 20 percent were measured in a stretch of the road 2 km west of Kavala. The cross section of the pavement was convex, with grades perpendicular to its axis from 5 to 10 percent, for rapid drainage. Large rock blocks were placed at the sides of the pavement, raised above the surface, to prevent lateral spreading of the pavement and deterring carts and wagons from sliding off the road. A series of elongated rock blocks were constructed in the middle of the pavement, possibly for separating the opposite traffic. It is suggested that the remnants of this Roman road be preserved not only for their historic value, but also for their engineering significance.
 Zachariadou, Elizabeth A. The Via Egnatia under Ottoman rule (1380–1699). Rethymnon: Crete University Press, 1996.

External links

2nd-century BC establishments in the Roman Republic
2nd-century BC establishments
Albania in the Roman era
Ancient Roman buildings and structures in Greece
Byzantine Empire
History of Epirus
Roman fortifications in Greece
Macedonia (Roman province)
Egnatia, Via
Roman sites in Albania
Roman sites in Greece
Roman sites in North Macedonia
Roman roads in Turkey
Roman Thrace

Via Egnatia


Juozas Naujalis (9 April 1869 in Raudondvaris – 9 September 1934 in Kaunas) was a Lithuanian composer, organist and choir conductor. He is acclaimed as Lithuanian music patriarch.

Biography
Naujalis studied Warsaw Institute of Music and in Regensburg. In 1898, he founded the Lithuanian Society of Singers Daina and was one of the founder of St. Gregor's Society of Lithuanian Organists in Kaunas. He was excellent Master and Rector of his founded School of Organists (1913) and Music School (1919) in Kaunas. Was the conductor of the Cathedral Choir in Kaunas and from 1933 was the professor and Conductor of Organ Music in the Conservatory of Kaunas. Composed masses, motets, organ works and music for choir, symphonic poem The Autumn.

Works and style
Juozas Naujalis' music was mostly connected to the main areas of his work – church music, choral songs, music for organ. He upheld classical traditions, classical harmony, and did not accept innovations in the music language. His choral music holds an important place in his creative legacy, which includes 27 original songs for choir, 17 harmonizations of the folk songs, as well as large portion of church music: 13 masses, 23 motets, hymns, psalms, and other religious pieces – more than 150 compositions in all. His instrumental works include 45 compositions for organ, piano, and orchestra.

References

External links

1869 births
1934 deaths
People from Kaunas District Municipality
People from Kovno Governorate
Lithuanian composers
Lithuanian organists
Male organists
Chopin University of Music alumni

Juozas Naujalis


Congolese history in the 2000s has primarily revolved around the Second Congo War (1998–2003) and the empowerment of a transitional government.

2000 to 2003

Joseph Kabila became the head of state in 2001 when his father, President Laurent Kabila, was assassinated. In October 2002 Kabila negotiated the withdrawal of Rwandan forces occupying eastern Congo. Two months later, the Pretoria Accord was signed by all remaining warring parties to end the fighting and establish a government of national unity. The transitional period came to end with the completion of the 2006 general election and the swearing in of Kabila as President on December 6, 2006.

On December 17, 2002 the Congolese parties of the Inter Congolese Dialogue, namely: the national government, the MLC, the RCD, the RCD-ML, the RCD-N, the domestic political opposition, representatives of civil society and the Mai Mai, signed the Global and All-Inclusive Agreement.  The Agreement obliges the parties to a plan to reunify the country, disarm and integrate the warring parties and hold elections.  There have been numerous problems, resulting in continued instability in much of the country and a delay in the scheduled national elections from June 2005 to March 2006, later pushed back again to 30 July 2006.

This agreement marked the formal end of the Second Congo War.  Three rebel groups supported by Uganda, the MLC, RCD-N and RCD-ML, signed a ceasefire, the Gbadolite Agreement, on December 31, 2002. This obliged them to immediately stop all fighting in the Isiro-Bafwasende-Beni-Watsa quadrangle and to accept United Nations military observers in the area. It also contained guarantees of the freedom of movement of the civilian population and humanitarian organizations from one area to another.  This treaty was violated numerous times.

2003
A transitional government was set up in July 2003; Joseph Kabila remains as president and now has four vice presidents representing the former government, former rebel groups, and the political opposition.

Despite the formal end of hostilities the conflict continued.  During January and February 2003, MONUC observed numerous hostile troop movements, mainly between Uganda, Rwanda and their respective proxies. On May 1, 2003 Uganda withdrew its regular forces from Bunia and Ituri in-line with the Luanda Agreement. Fighting erupted between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups between 7 May and 16 May in Bunia.

On 30 June a transitional government composed of the various groups of the Inter Congolese Dialogue was formed. Over the course of September, a reinforced MONUC presence carried out the "Bunia, weapon-free zone" operation to demilitarize the province. They were partially successful, though a low-grade conflict continues to permeate the region.

In September 2004 between 20,000 and 150,000 people fled unrest in the eastern Kivu province caused by an advance of government troops against breakaway national army soldiers. On October 1, 2004, the UN Security Council decided to deploy 5,900 more soldiers to the MONUC mission in Congo, although UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had asked for some 12,000.

In this period the International Rescue Committee reported that the conflict was killing 1,000 people a day, and called the international response "abysmal". Comparing the war with Iraq, it said that during 2004 Iraq received aid worth the equivalent of $138 per person, whilst the Congo received $3 per person.

2004
In late November 2004 Rwandan president Paul Kagame declared that Rwanda retained the option of sending troops into Congo to fight Hutu militants, in particular the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) that has not yet been disarmed as promised in the 2002 Pretoria Agreement. As of mid-December 2004 there were many reports that Rwandan forces had crossed the border. MONUC chief M'Hand Djalouzi, commenting on the reports, said on December 1, "Infiltration is nothing new but this is something else, it has the appearance of an invasion."  It remains unclear whether the Rwandan military is holding territory or carrying out temporary operations.  The UN has promised to investigate.

On December 16, the BBC reported that 20,000 civilians had fled fighting in the North Kivu town of Kanyaboyonga, 100 miles north of Goma.  Antigovernment forces led by a Captain Kabakuli Kennedy, who has stated that he is fighting to defend the Banyamulenge, has routed loyalist government forces and holds the town and the surrounding mountains.  The government sent a mediation team to investigate and accused Rwanda of supporting another insurgency.  Rwanda has denied any involvement in the fighting.

The International Crisis Group released a report on 17 December warning that the Rwandan intervention threatened to roll back the progress made in years of peace talks.  They further noted that the two recent wars both began in similar circumstances to that existing presently in the Kivus and that another regional war was entirely possible if diplomatic efforts were not made.

Later in 2004, Nkunda's forces began clashing with the DRC army in Sud-Kivu and by May 2004, occupied Bukavu where he was accused of committing war crimes. Nkunda claimed he was attempting to prevent genocide against Tutsis in the region, a claim rejected by MONUC, and denied the claim that he was following orders from Rwanda. Following UN negotiations which secured the withdrawal of Nkunda's troops from Bukuvu back to the Masisi forests, part of his army split, and led by Colonel Jules Mutebusi left for Rwanda. About 150,000 Kinyarwanda-speaking people (Nkunda's own language) were reported to have fled from Sud-Kivu to Nord-Kivu in fear of reprisal attacks by DRC army.

2005
On January 25, 2005 the UN reported that Uganda and Rwanda were continuing to arm insurgent groups in eastern Congo, in violation of a United Nations arms embargo in the region. Both nations denied any wrongdoing, and the UPDF spokesman suggested that MONUC was useless and should be disbanded.     Meanwhile, a meeting of African leaders in Abuja agreed to send more peacekeepers to the Congo and tasked with disarming the mainly Hutu rebel forces in an attempt to stem the escalating tensions.  In response, a spokesman of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda stated on 2 February that the FDLR would resist with force any attempt to disarm it.  The same day US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice welcomed senior officials from the DRC, Uganda and Rwanda to Washington, DC for talks aimed at easing tensions in the region.

On February 25, the resilience of the Ituri conflict was demonstrated when nine Bangladeshi MONUC peacekeepers were ambushed and killed by unidentified gunmen while patrolling an internally displaced persons camp in Kafe in Ituri Province.  This was the largest single loss of peacekeeper life since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Floribert Ndjabu, the leader of the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) militia operating in northeastern Ituri was arrested, while three other militia leaders were questioned.  MONUC forces assaulted an FNI stronghold and killed fifty militia members, in what the Secretary-General referred to as "self-defense."

On March 31 the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) stated that it was giving up the armed struggle and returning to Rwanda to form a political party.  This announcement followed talks mediated by Sant'Egidio in Rome with Congolese government representatives.  If carried out by the various FDLR commanders, a return would remove one of the major sources of tensions in the region.  The Rwandan government stated that any returnee who participated in the Rwandan genocide would face justice.

In December 2005 UN and Congolese troops launched an operation in the Ituri district in order to restore peace and drive out the Ugandan-backed rebels.

2006

The constitution of the DRC was formally adopted on 19 February 2006 after it was approved in a popular referendum in December. A new national flag was adopted.

With UN assistance, on July 30, 2006 free first multi-party elections were held since independence in 1960. After this Joseph Kabila took 45% of the votes and his opponent Jean-Pierre Bemba took 20%. That was the origin of a fight between the two parts from August 20–22, 2006 in the streets of the capital, Kinshasa. Sixteen people died before policemen and UN mission MONUC took control of the city. A run-off election was held on 29 October 2006. On November 11, with 65% of the votes counted and Kabila holding the lead with 61% to Bemba's 39%, and with some of Bemba's supporters claiming election fraud, fighting again broke out in the streets of Kinshasa between soldiers supporting each candidate, killing two civilians.

2007

Tutsi-majority army brigades fought with the Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) throughout 2007. More than 165,000 people fled the fighting. The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo and human rights activists accused the army of targeting civilian centers sympathetic to the FDLR. The Bravo Brigade allegedly murdered 15 civilians in Buramba village in March. General Gabriel Amisi temporarily halted operations against the FDLR in August, saying operations would resume when ethnically mixed brigades would replace the current Tutsi-majority forces.

See also
Transitional Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Transitional National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

References

External links
International Center for Transitional Justice, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Global and Inclusive Agreement on Transition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, signed in Pretoria, South Africa on 16 December 2002
CIA World Factbook
MONUC website
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Ripples of Genocide: Journey through Eastern Congo, testimonials from foreign visitors from 2002 and 2003

Democratic Republic of the Congo
Congo

2000s in the Democratic Republic of the Congo


The Texas Veterans Land Board, also known as VLB, is part of the Texas General Land Office. Created by the Texas Legislature in 1946, the board was established to make land available to veterans returning from World War II.

Today, the organization finances land, home loans and home improvement loans for Texas veterans and active military members who are eligible under VLB requirements.

The board is composed of a chairman, who is the commissioner of the GLO (currently Commissioner George P. Bush), plus two citizens — one specializing in veterans' affairs and one in finances. The citizen members are appointed by the Governor of Texas.

VLB also owns and manages four Texas State Veterans Cemeteries and the Texas State Veterans Home Program. The veterans home program provides skilled long-term care to veterans and their spouses in eight veterans homes across Texas.

History

In 1954, a newspaper reporter discovered that many veterans, in exchange for money, were tricked into signing loans to purchase land in several South Texas counties. Subsequent investigation of the General Land Office resulted in a major scandal. Texas Land Commissioner Bascom Giles went to prison for conspiracy to commit theft, becoming the first Texas state official to go to prison for a crime committed in office.

Land loan program

The basic requirements for an applicant to participate in the Veterans Land Program are as follows:
 At least 18 years of age
 A bona fide and legal resident of Texas on the date of application and meet one of the following service criteria:
 An active duty military member
 A member of the Texas National Guard
 A reserve component military member having completed 20 qualifying years for retirement
 Served at least 90 days of active duty days unless discharged sooner due to service-connected disability and not discharged dishonorably
 A surviving spouse of a Veteran listed as missing in action or whose death was service-connected

Eligible Veterans may finance up to $150,000 of land for tracts that are  or greater. A minimum 5% down payment is required in addition to application and appraisal fees. The interest rate for land loans as of February 2017 is 7.25%.

Disabled veterans and surviving spouses may qualify for additional interest rate deductions for housing and home improvement loans.

Other programs
In 1983, the Texas Veterans Housing Assistance Program was created to offer up to $417,000 in home loan financing to Texas veterans.

In 1986, the Texas Veterans Home Improvement Program was introduced to offer Texas veterans up to $50,000 in home improvement loans. Interest rates for VLB housing and home improvement loans are posted online weekly.

Disabled veterans and surviving spouses may qualify for additional interest rate deductions for veteran home loans and home improvement loans.

The Texas Voices of Veterans Oral History Program was begun in 2008 as a means of recording and saving veterans interviews for posterity.

References

External links
Texas Veterans Land Board official site

Agriculture
Veterans' affairs in the United States
State departments of veterans affairs in the United States
Organizations based in Austin, Texas
1946 establishments in Texas
Government agencies established in 1946
Veterans' settlement schemes

Texas Veterans Land Board


A cuvette is a kind of laboratory glassware, usually a small tube of circular or square cross shape, closed at one end and open at the other, made of plastic, glass, or optical grade quartz and made to hold samples for spectroscopic experiments.  The best cuvettes are as clear as possible, without impurities that might affect a spectroscopic reading.  Like a test tube, a cuvette may be open to the air on top or have a glass or other material to close it.

Laboratory equipment

Cuvette


The Festivals of Thessaloniki are a group of festivals held throughout the year in Thessaloniki, Greece.

International Trade Fair

The Thessaloniki International Fair has a venerable modern history dating to 1926. Hosted every September for 10 days at the 180,000 m² Thessaloniki International Exhibition Center, in the heart of the city, the fair is organised by HELEXPO, which also organises themed exhibitions and congresses throughout the year. The International Trade Fair is inaugurated by the Prime Minister and attended by more than 300,000 visitors every year.

International Film Festival

The Thessaloniki International Film Festival has become the primary showcase in Southeastern Europe for the work of new and emerging filmmakers, as well as the leading film festival of the region. The event features an International Section, its Panorama of Greek Film, the New Horizons program, the Balkan Survey, and numerous retrospectives and tributes to leading figures in the world of film. Since 1993, a succession of leading lights of international cinema, including Francis Ford Coppola, Faye Dunaway, Catherine Deneuve and Irene Papas, have visited the Festival.

Documentary Festival
The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival was  launched in March 1999, inspired by Dimitri Elpides and benefiting from the local public's enthusiastic response, alongside extensive coverage in the local and international press. In 2005, 22,000 admissions were registered. The main programme focuses on documentaries that explore global social and cultural developments, and also now introduces a number of new side sections and events based on important works by new documentarists. Films from the main programme will be candidates for the FIPRESCI and also the Audience Awards.

The festival attracts a filmgoing public which rediscovers, year after year, images of the new century, new film ecritures, new directors, new technologies, but also representatives of the film world who find in it a reliable organisation appropriate for promoting their work. The event revolves around a sequence of unchanging sections: stories to tell, views of the world, the recording of memory, and portraits, but each year's programme is also supplemented with several others.

The Festival aims to the offer the filmgoing public annually gathering in Thessaloniki an exploration of the common images of the early 21st century, and to explore its human landscape through documentary.

International Festival of Photography

The Thessaloniki International Festival of Photography (Photosynkyria) takes place in Thessaloniki from February to mid-April of every year, attracting the interest of both the photographic world and the wider public, while also functioning as a meeting point for the Greek and the international photographic scene. Photosynkyria exhibitions and events are hosted in a variety of venues around Thessaloniki, including museums, heritage landmarks, galleries, bookshops and cafes.

Photosynkyria was launched in 1988 by photographer Aris Georgiou, and over the past five years has been organized  by the Museum of Photography, which annually appoints the artistic director of the festival.

Thessaloniki International Book Fair

The TIBF began in 2003 and has grown is the leading cultural event for books in Greece, as well as to become a focal point for the book world in Greece and the wider Balkan and Mediterranean region.

Dimitria

This three-month-long festival of cultural events has been held every September–December since 1966. Named after Agios Dimitrios (St. Demetrius), the patron saint of the city, it has become something of an institution for the city and very popular with the local population. It includes musical, theatrical, dance events, street happenings and exhibitions, and is organised and overseen by the Municipality of Thessaloniki, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2015.

Video Dance Festival

The Video Dance Festival started in 2000 at Thessaloniki as an international dance film festival, but soon widened to include additional experimental forms incorporating movement and the moving image.

DMC DJ Championship
The Greek DMC DJ Championship is hosted in Thessaloniki at the International Trade Fair Of Thessaloniki.

DMC's World DJ Championships, sponsored internationally by Technics and Ortofon, has grown over the years and the formats of its competitions have developed along with demand. Originally intended to be a DJ mixing battle, DJ Cheese introduced scratching in his routine in 1986, changing the course of future DMC battles.

The only equipment permitted in Technics' DJ Championships worldwide are Technics SL1200 turntables and the Technics EX-DJ1200 mixer; the DJs are allowed a period of exactly six minutes to perform.

Thessaloniki Hip Hop Festival (THHF)
THHF (Thessaloniki Hip Hop Festival) is Greece's biggest HipHop & Underground Rap festivals and it's organised and promoted by Zoltan Tribe.
THHF was foundered in 2003 and since then it has hosted world-famous artists as RA The Rugged Man (USA), DJ Vadim & Yarah Bravo (UK), Afu-Ra (USA), Foreign Beggars (UK), Lowkey (UK), Da Shogunz (NL), Snowgoons Soundsystem (DE), Freestyle (The Arsonists), Lerroy of the Saian Supa Crew (France), Wax Tailor (France), DJ Flip (ITF world), Zion I (USA), Zontanoi Nekroi, FF.C, Razastarr, Eisvoleas, Voreia Asteria, Ladose, Apexeis, Phase 3, Orthologistes, Psychodrama07, RNS, Sifu VERSUS, Sugahspank!, Professional Sinnerz, Rodes and many more.

See also
List of hip hop music festivals
Hip hop culture

External links
The official city of Thessaloniki Tourism Organization
Thessaloniki International Festival of Photography
Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
Thessaloniki International Book Fair
Thessaloniki Hip Hop Festival
Thessaloniki Extreme Sports Festival

Thessaloniki (regional unit)
Annual events in Thessaloniki
Tourist attractions in Thessaloniki
Culture in Thessaloniki
Electronic music festivals in Greece
Music festivals established in 2003

Festivals of Thessaloniki


The First Baptist Church of Hammond (or FBCHammond) is a fundamental Independent Baptist church in Hammond, Indiana.  It is the largest church in the state of Indiana and one of the largest churches in the United States. It was founded in 1887. It was under Jack Hyles' leadership from 1959-2001 that it became a megachurch, one of the first in the United States, with a steady weekly attendance of around 20,000. It also operates Hyles-Anderson College and two K-12 schools, named City Baptist Schools (for children of the bus route of the church) and Hammond Baptist Schools (for children of the members of the church). Jack Schaap, Hyles' son-in-law, succeeded as pastor after Hyles' death for 11 years until he was fired in 2012 for having sex with a 16 year old girl.

History

First Baptist Church was founded in November 1887 by Allen Hill of Jennings County, Indiana. Its first meeting was on 14 November 1887 with 12 members on the 28th.  However, it originally met in the Morton House Hotel which stood on what is currently the 100 block of Willow Court. Allen Hill's was their pastor for around 4 months.

By April 1888, B.P. Hewitt became the church's permanent pastor and Allen Hill went on to start several other churches. Needing more room, Hewitt moved the church's meeting place to the Hohman Opera House at the corner of State and Hohman streets. In 1889, the church erected its own structure for $2,358 when Marcus Towle, Hammond's first mayor and a member of FBC, donated land on Sibley Street to the church.

On January 3, 1901, Pastor E.T. Carter proposed a new building, and the first service was held on 14 April 1901. On 27 November of that same year, Pastor Carter announced his resignation for a job at the Central Baptist Orphanage in Michigan.

Church leaders

Dr. Jack Schaap
Dr. Jack Schaap (born October 1, 1957), was the Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana until July of 2012. Following the death of the former pastor Dr. Jack Hyles, he became the pastor of the largest church in Indiana, and with their average weekly attendance of more than 20,000, it has become one of the largest churches in America.  Schaap was fired for having a sexual relationship with a 16 year old girl.  This affair happened in multiple states and is being investigated by local and national authorities.

He was also the chancellor of Hyles-Anderson College. On June 1, 1979, he married Mrs. Cindy Schaap. Dr. and Mrs. Schaap have been married for 28 years and now have two children, Jaclynn and Kenny.

Dr. Jack Hyles

Jack Frasure Hyles (September 25, 1926 – February 6, 2001) was a leading person in the Independent Baptist movement. He was pastor of the church from 1959 until his death in 2001.

References

Other websites
Jack Schaap Website
Church Website

Baptist churches
Churches in the United States
Buildings and structures in Indiana
1887 establishments in the United States
19th-century establishments in Indiana

First Baptist Church of Hammond


Crescent Beach is a beachside community within the South Surrey town centre of Surrey, British Columbia, Canada next to Boundary Bay and Mud Bay, across from Delta, British Columbia. It is home to 1,200 residents, mostly in single-family homes.

History
Crescent Beach has been a summer destination for centuries.
In pre-colonial times, it was the location of a significant temporary summer camp for area aboriginals. The tidal mudflats were a good clam digging area. Wild berries, especially cranberries, and a weir site were located at nearby Nicomekl River and Serpentine River areas. The area was part of Snokomish territory until a smallpox epidemic in 1850 forced the survivors and their lands to be amalgamated into the Semiahmoo First Nation. Musqueam bands also travelled to use the lands seasonally.

Artifacts such as arrowheads and jade have been found on the beach in the modern era. First Nations' burial sites were uncovered in 1970 by sewer excavation.

The Semiahmoo First Nation attributes three to five metres depth of the land base to archaeological deposits of clams, charcoal and fire-cracked rocks without which the area would largely just be a sandspit. Modern excavations in some parts have also uncovered more than 700 human remains.

The first Europeans to chart the area were Spanish sailors. Captain Galiano titled it San Rafael Point on his map.

After the creation of British Columbia, the first owner of Crescent Beach area was John Musselwaite of Royal Engineers in 1871.

In 1909, the development of the Great Northern Railway from Blaine, Washington to New Westminster provided easier access to the beach for Vancouver-area residents. In 1913, permanent dikes (now serving as the waterfront walkway) were established to permit subdivision development. 1912 saw a development of pier and the Crescent Beach Development Company promoted Crescent Beach as a resort area. Notable Vancouverites began building summer homes in the neighbourhood. That year, Captain Watkin Williams also opened the Crescent Beach Hotel, a 21-room building with a restaurant, store and post office. The hotel burned down in February 1950.

Oyster imported from Japan seeded a thriving business for some decades until the Crescent Oyster Company was closed in 1961 due to river pollution and contemporary concerns about shellfish paralytic poisoning.

Recreation

Crescent Beach is home to Alexandra Neighbourhood House, the Wickson Pier and Blackie Spit Park, all local landmarks. Crescent Beach is the home of the "Crescent Beach Swim Club", a local club that offers swimming, sailing, tennis, water polo, volleyball, and triathlon lessons to children.

On the southern end of Crescent Beach near the bottom of 101 steps staircase at 24 Avenue is the 120 tonne Crescent Rock boulder. Crescent Rock Beach is the 6.5 km. long rugged strip of shoreline from this large rock to White Rock at the base of the Ocean Park bluffs that is utilized by naturists and nudists for nude sunbathing and skinny-dipping. The City of Surrey refuses to endorse its clothing-optional use as it is outside their jurisdiction but the RCMP have acknowledged that nude use on this area out of sight from the marine parks at Crescent Beach and White Rock is legal under Canadian case law.

The beach area has showers to wash feet and legs to prevent swimmer's itch, a short-term immune reaction caused by waterborne parasites seeking freshwater snails.

Blackie Spit birdwatching

The northernmost portion of Crescent Beach is Blackie Spit, named after a settler and known as a birdwatching site beside Mud Bay and near Nicomekl River. The City of Surrey created Blackie Spit Park in 1996.

The park is an annual migration rest stop for the Pacific Flyway for 300 species of birds including 10,000 ducks and geese. It is the only area in Boundary Bay where purple martins nest. The eelgrass meadows, mud flats and tidal marsh serve as bird habitats year-round. Shorebirds feed off biofilms, a paper-thin mucus, that consist of bacteria, diatoms (microscopic plants) and organic detritus.

Transportation
Crescent Beach has two accesses by road to the rest of Surrey (Crescent Road and McBride Avenue) which both cross the BNSF Railway. Implications for emergency access and the impact of noise and coal dust from the trains are long-time concerns for residents. From 2002 to 2014, the number of trains quadrupled from five to 20 a day.

Public transportation is provided by TransLink bus route 350. The commuter bus service connects Crescent Beach to White Rock Centre.

The  Crescent Road corridor connects the beach area to King George Boulevard near Nicomekl River. The road is registered with the city and national historic place registries because it enabled transport to pioneer locations (such as Historic Stewart Farm) due to its first construction in 1882 shortly after incorporation of the City of Surrey.

Beecher Street, known as the Marine Drive of Crescent Beach, is home to bistros, ice cream cafes and small stores.

Boats are also stored at Crescent Beach Marina at the tip of Nicomekl River.

Arts & culture
A 2008 teen novel Reading the Bones by Gina McMurchy-Barber featured 12-year-old heroine Peggy Henderson uncovering an archaeological skull in her uncle's backyard in Crescent Beach.

Scenes from the 2010 film Tron: Legacy were filmed along the waterfront at Crescent Beach, with one of the houses there functioning as the home of Kevin and Sam Flynn.

In 2012, Beach House Theatre began annual production of Shakespeare plays in August in open-ended tents similar to Vancouver's Bard on the Beach festival.  In 2015, Beach House Theatre began performing plays outside of Shakespeare, starting with Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

A season two episode of Better Things was filmed at Crescent Beach in June 2017 near the main swimming area.

See also
Ocean Park (Surrey)
Sunnyside (Surrey)
White Rock, British Columbia

References

External links
 Crescent Beach - City of Surrey
 Blackie Spit Park - City of Surrey

Surrounding neighbourhoods

Beaches of British Columbia
Neighbourhoods in Surrey, British Columbia
Nude beaches

Crescent Beach, Surrey


Genesis could mean:

Gaming
 Sega Genesis, a gaming console
 X-COM: Genesis, a computer game

Transportation

Vehicles
 Bertone Genesis, a concept car
 GE Genesis, a locomotive
 Genesis class, a class of Royal Caribbean cruise ships
 Hyundai Genesis and Hyundai Genesis Coupe

Spacecraft
 Genesis (spacecraft), a NASA probe that collected solar wind samples
 Genesis I, a private spacecraft produced by Bigelow Aerospace
 Genesis II, the twin spacecraft to Genesis I

Music
 Genesis (band), an English band
 Genesis (album)
 Genesis (Busta Rhymes album)
 Genesis (Colombian rock band)
 Genesis (Job for a Cowboy album)
 Genesis (Rotting Christ album)
 Genesis (Talisman album)
 Genesis (The Gods album)
 The Genesis, a 2002 album by Yngwie J. Malmsteen
 Genesis, a 2000 album by Coprofago

Literature
 Book of Genesis, the first book of Jewish and Christian Bibles
 Genesis (DC Comics), a major 1997 crossover of DC Comics
 Genesis (comics), a Marvel Comics villain
 Genesis (Final Fantasy), a character in Final Fantasy VII
 GENESIS (science fiction), a fictional laser in the Gundam metaseries
 Genesis Planet, a fictional planet in the Star Trek universe
 Genesis, a fictional comics character who possesses Jesse Custer
 Genesis, a novel by Paul Chafe
 "Genesis" (story), a 1951 story by H. Beam Piper
 "Genesis", a 1995 story by Poul Anderson
 Genesis (novel), a 2000 expansion by Anderson of the 1995 story

Television
 "Genesis" (Heroes), the pilot episode of Heroes
 "Genesis" (Quantum Leap episode)
 "Genesis" (Sliders), an episode of Sliders
 "Gensis" (Survivors), an episode of Survivors
 "Genesis" (TNG episode), an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation
 Genesis Awards, some television awards
 Genesis Entertainment, a News Corporation subsidiary
 Genesis Television Network, an American religious network
 TNA Genesis, a professional wrestling pay-per-view program
 Zoids: Genesis, the fifth anime installment of the Zoids franchise
 Genesis (Air Gear), a fictional Air Trek team in Air Gear

Film
 Genesis (film), a 2004 documentary film
 Genesis (1986 film) a Hindi film by Mrinal Sen

Software
 GENESIS (software), GEneral NEural SImulation System
 Genesis3D, a software library
 Genesis LPMud, the original LPMud
 !Genesis multimedia application creator by Oak Solutions.

Other
 -genesis, a suffix that denotes creation
 Genesis (magazine), a pornographic magazine
 Genesis (Panavision), a high-definition camera by Panavision
 Genesis Rock, a sample of lunar crust retrieved by Apollo 15 astronauts
 Genesis Energy, a solar company

Related pages
 Project Genesis (disambiguation)
 Genesis II (film), a 1973 science fiction TV movie created and produced by Gene Roddenberry
 "Yenesis", a song performed by Michalis Hadjiyiannis (Cyprus) in the Eurovision Song Contest 1998
 "genesis of next", a 2001 song by globe

Genesis (disambiguation)


The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai-Tibetan (Qingzang) Plateau, is a vast, high plateau in Central Asia. It covers most of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the Qinghai Province in China, and Ladakh in Kashmir, India.

The Tibetan Plateau occupies an area of around 1,000 by 2,500 kilometers, and has an average elevation of over 4,500 meters. It is the highest and largest plateau in the world.

It was formed by the same forces which formed the Himalayas, namely, the movement of the Indian continental plate into Asia. The Plateau has an great effect on climate, and is the main cause of the monsoon rains.

Geography of China
Plateaus

Tibetan Plateau