Major General Sir Edward Northey  (28 May 1868 – 25 December 1953) was a senior British Army officer of the First World War who commanded a brigade on the Western Front until wounded in 1915. Returning to service in 1916, Northey took command of a colonial force in Nyasaland in the East African campaign, later becoming Governor of Kenya. He later served as a general of Territorial forces and retired in 1926.

Birth and early career
Edward Northey was born in 1868 at Cockerham, Lancashire, and educated at Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, being commissioned into the King's Royal Rifle Corps as a second lieutenant on 7 March 1888. He was promoted to lieutenant on 7 May 1890, and served in expeditions to Hazara and the Miranzai Valley in 1891 and one to Isazai the following year. Promotion to captain followed on 1 July 1895. From late 1899, Northey took part in the Second Boer War, remaining in South Africa until 1902.

On his return, he was appointed adjutant of a volunteer battalion, the 1st Middlesex Rifles (Victoria and St. George′s).

First World War
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Northey was a lieutenant colonel in the King's Royal Rifle Corps and served with the regiment, commanding the regiment's 1st Battalion, on the Western Front during the first year of the war. In March 1915, Northey was promoted to brigadier-general and took over the 15th Infantry Brigade but was seriously wounded during the Second Battle of Ypres. The date is unclear, but Northey was reportedly surveying the site of a new communication trench when he was struck in the thigh by shrapnel.

Returning to the army in 1916 after recovering from his wound, Northey was posted to Nyasaland in command of the Nyasa-Rhodesia Field Force, operating against Lettow-Vorbeck's indigenous and German forces in the East African Campaign.
Northey was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1917 and was appointed Knight of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1918 for his war service, the same year he was promoted to major-general. He was elevated Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George.

Governor of the British East Africa Protectorate
At the war's end Northey was appointed Governor of the British East Africa Protectorate, which became known as Kenya in 1920.

On 16 October 1919 The Times newspaper reported that Sir Edward Northey had met with an accident, while playing polo, which required the removal of his right eye. The accident occurred in British East Africa.

In 1919, Northey issued a circular which instructed government officials to coerce African labour to work on European-owned farms and estates, despite earlier Colonial Office objections to this plan. The scandal generated by the Northey proposal caused the Colonial Office to make clear in 1921 that compulsory paid labour by local Africans could only be used on government projects, not to direct labour to European estates, and then only if absolutely necessary and with Colonial Office approval.

In 1922, Northey was transferred to the lesser post of High Commissioner of Zanzibar, returning to Britain in 1924 to return to military service.

Late career
On his return, Northey was placed in command of the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division, a Territorial Army formation. This responsibility was shared with command of the South West Area of Britain, and Northey performed well at both duties until his retirement from military service in 1926. Northey died on 25 December 1953 after a peaceful retirement.

References

Bibliography

1868 births
1953 deaths
British Army major generals
Military personnel from Lancashire
Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst
King's Royal Rifle Corps officers
British Army personnel of the Second Boer War
British Army generals of World War I
Companions of the Order of the Bath
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
Colonial governors and administrators of Kenya
Nyasaland in World War I
British Kenya people

Edward Northey (British Army officer)


Kush civilization had its center in the region of Nubia. This was in northern Sudan of today. We know about it through the Egyptians who moved south around 2500 BC. When the Middle Kingdom of Egypt ended, an independent kingdom of Kush developed. About 1500 BC Egyptians moved southwards again, but this time met organized resistance. Historians are not sure whether this resistance came from many city states or a single unified empire. The Egyptians won, and the region became a colony of Egypt under the control of Thutmose I. The region supplied Egypt with resources.

In the eleventh century BC internal disputes in Egypt caused colonial rule to collapse and an independent kingdom arose based at Napata in Nubia. This kingdom was ruled by locals who overthrew the colonial regime. But Kush had many beliefs and gods in common with Egypt.

In the Bible
The name given to this civilization comes from the Old Testament where Cush (Hebrew: כוש) was one of the sons of Ham (Son of Noah) who settled in Northeast Africa. The Bible refers to Cush on a number of occasions. Moses wife, Tzipporah, is described as a Kushite in the book of Numbers.

Related pages
 Meroe

References

Jean Leclant. "The empire of Kush: Napata and Meroe"  UNESCO General History of Africa
A. Hakem with I. Hrbek and J. Vercoutter. "The civilization of Napata and Meroe" UNESCO General History of Africa
P.L. Shinnie. "The Nilotic Sudan and Ethiopia c. 660 BC to c. AD 600" Cambridge History of Africa - Volume 2 Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Other websites
Ancient Gold Center Discovered on the Nile
On Kush
  Voyage au pays des pharaons noirs Travel in Sudan : pictures and notes on the nubian history
Scholars Race to Recover a Lost Kingdom on the Nile from the New York Times.

History of Sudan
2nd millennium BC in Egypt
Former monarchies of Africa

Kingdom of Kush


Neil McKenty (December 31, 1924 – May 12, 2012) was an English-Canadian radio and television broadcaster and author.

Personal life

The son of a hardware store owner, McKenty was raised in Hastings, Ontario, near Peterborough. He was schooled at a Jesuit boarding school in Kingston, Ontario.

He was educated at the University of Toronto, where he earned a bachelor's degree in Canadian history, and the University of Michigan, achieving a master's in communications.

For fifteen years, he was a teacher and ordained priest with the Jesuit order. He was on the editorial staff of the Jesuit weekly  America and wrote a much-acclaimed biography of former Ontario Premier Mitch Hepburn. In 1970, McKenty left the Jesuits and accepted a position doing public relations with the Special Olympics. He met his wife, Catharine, on the dance floor and married her just ten days later.

McKenty died at Montreal General Hospital on May 12, 2012, at the age of 87, after a short illness. A former colleague eulogized him as "one of the most complicated and interesting men who ever lived."

Broadcasting career

In October 1972, he moved from Toronto to Montreal to work as a talk show host for CJAD AM radio. Initially working as the station's editorialist, he later co-hosted a 60-minute phone-in show with Helen Gougeon.

In 1977 he began working solo, and his two-hour morning show Exchange almost immediately became the city's top-rated phone-in program. He described Exchange as a radio "town meeting" and "people talking over their clotheslines in the backyard." His signature line was "the lines are blazing." The show achieved its peak ratings—about 75,000 regular listeners—in 1985 when he decided to leave and write books instead. He returned to broadcasting when his television phone-in talk show, McKenty Live, on CFCF-TV, debuted in September 1987; it ran for three seasons until 1990, when he decided to focus on writing once again.

He interviewed many Canadian political leaders.

At the time of the passage of Bill 101 making French the only official language of Quebec, McKenty declined to denounce the law entirely. He claimed that the purported aim of the bill, more respect for French-speaking Quebecers, was just. He is credited with being a voice of moderation who sought to build linguistic bridges during a time when Quebec separatism was at its peak.

In 2008, he started a blog on current affairs at www.neilmckenty.com. After his death, friends decided to maintain the blog and add archival radio and television clips to it.

Bibliography

He left radio broadcasting in 1985 to write In the Stillness Dancing: The Journey of John Main, a biography of Benedictine monk John Main, published in 1986. It received mostly a positive response from critics. He went on to write a biography of Toronto mayor R. J. Fleming.

Together with his wife Catharine, McKenty (née Fleming) wrote Skiing Legends and the Laurentian Lodge Club (2001), an historical account of a social and skiing club in the Laurentian Mountains.

In all, McKenty wrote five titles, both non-fiction (the two biographies, a well-regarded memoir (The Inside Story: Journey of a Former Jesuit Priest and Talkshow Host Towards Self-Discovery), the skiing club history) and fiction (a murder mystery, The Other Key: An Inspector Julian Main Mystery).

Quebec Canada Committee
In 1992, he toured Canada as co-founder (with businessman John Hallward) of the Quebec Canada Committee to promote the idea of a unified Canada, building bridges between French and English Canada during the lead-up to the Charlottetown Accord constitution amendment proposals.

References

1924 births
2012 deaths
Canadian radio personalities
Canadian television personalities
Canadian male biographers
Canadian male novelists
People from Northumberland County, Ontario
Anglophone Quebec people
University of Toronto alumni
University of Michigan alumni
20th-century Canadian novelists
20th-century Canadian biographers
20th-century Canadian male writers

Neil McKenty


Chronos (Ancient Greek: , "time", also written as Khronos or Chronus) is the Greek God of time. He is the personification of time in philosophy before Socrates, and in later literature. Chronos controls the past, present, and future of everything. Without Chronos, the other Greek Gods would have never existed.

In the Orphic cosmogony, Chronos never ages. He gives birth to Aether and Chaos, and made a silvery egg in the divine Aether. It produced the god Phanes, who is a hermaphrodite. Phanes gave birth to the first generation of gods and is the creator of the cosmos.

Greek gods and goddesses

Chronos


Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe (23 June 1940 – 10 April 1962) was an early member of the English band The Beatles. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and raised in Liverpool, England. He was the band's original bassist, but left before they became famous. He wanted to be an artist, and he returned to art school, which he had quit to join the Beatles.

Sutcliffe died in 1962, at the age of 21, in Hamburg, Germany from a brain hemorrhage. It was long thought that the hemorrhage was from a fight with locals after a concert in 1961, but it is now believed he may have been born with a medical condition which caused it.

1940 births
1962 deaths
Deaths from cerebral hemorrhage
English painters
The Beatles members

Stuart Sutcliffe


Eustress is positive or good stress. It is the opposite of distress. Eustress is the positive stress that a person gets from riding a roller coaster, or a high speed bike, or singing in front of an audience. People may feel very good afterwards if they experience eustress.

People often have the same physical reactions (sweating, trembling, shivering, etc.) for both eustress and distress.

Health

Eustress


A monster movie (also called a creature feature or giant monster movie) is a movie with humans trying to stay alive in attacks by very large monsters. Monster movies can fit in the horror, fantasy, or science fiction genres. In Japan, large monsters are called kaiju.

In many monster movies, the monster is created by humans because of something such as a bad experiment, the effects of radiation, or the destruction of habitat. Since the 1953 movie The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, many monster movies have shown the monster being created by nuclear warfare. One of the most well-known movie monsters, Godzilla, was created by a nuclear weapon. Godzilla has appeared in 28 movies and has become a cultural icon in Japan.

References

Movie genres

Monster movie


Kirby's Pinball Land is a pinball video game that was developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo in 1993. It is for the Game Boy game console. It is the first spin-off game in the Kirby series. It was later released for the Virtual Console service on the Nintendo 3DS in 2012.

The game features three pinball tables. Each table has three floors. The player earns points by bouncing off of walls and bumpers, and by defeating enemies. Players can also earn Maxim Tomatoes, which stops the player from losing a ball for a short amount of time. On the middle and top floors is a Warp Star. If the player takes the Warp Star on the middle floor, the player can play a minigame to earn extra points and multipliers. The Warp Star on the top floor takes the player to the boss of the table. After defeating a boss, the player can earn another life by spelling out the word "Extra" with the letters that appear on the table selection screen. After the player plays all three tables, they face against King Dedede. Defeating King Dedede allows the player to play the tables again for a higher score.

Kirby
Pinball video games
Game Boy games
1993 video games
Virtual Console games
Video game spin-offs

Kirby's Pinball Land


Westphalia () is a region in Germany. The cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Bochum, Detmold, Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen, Hagen, Minden and Münster are in  its centre. In 1946, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia was created, which includes part of the historical region.

Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, north and south of the Ruhr River. During the course of history, different places and regions were called "Westphalia", the borders of the region can therefore not be defined exactly, as they depend on the entity and time talked about. For the same reason, there are different specifications of its area and number of people. They range between  in land area, and between 4.3 million and 8 million people. There is a consensus that Münster, Bielefeld and Dortmund are part of Westphalia.

A linguistic definition of Westphalia (see Westphalian language) includes the former Prussian Province of Westphalia (except Siegen-Wittgenstein), Lippe, the region around Osnabrück and the greater area of the Emsland. Present-day common use, however, often restricts the notion to the present part of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Westphalia is known for the 1648 Peace of Westphalia which ended the Thirty Years' War, as the two treaties were signed in Münster and Osnabrück.

Geography of North Rhine-Westphalia
Regions of Germany

Westphalia


Elaine Hamilton-O'Neal (October 13, 1920 – March 15, 2010), professionally known as Elaine Hamilton, was an internationally known American abstract painter and muralist born near Catonsville, Maryland. She was professionally admired by the influential French critic Michel Tapié de Céleyran and exhibited internationally in solo and multiple-artist exhibits in the United States, Mexico, South Asia, Japan, and throughout Europe. She showed twice in the Venice Biennale and won first prize at the 1968 Biennale de Menton in France. She is known for the work of her final stylistic phase, known as action painting.

Hamilton is also a high mountain climber with over 30 years experience climbing the Himalayas. She had climbed K2, which is part of the Karakoram Range and known as the Savage Mountain due to the difficulty of ascent, with the second highest fatality rate among those who attempt to climb it. For every four people who have reached the summit, one has died trying. Over the years, Hamilton made nine different trips to different mountains of the Himalayas. She also visited the former kingdom of Sikkim as a guest of Tashi Namgyal, the ruling Chogyal (King) of Sikkim and the royal family.

For three decades, Hamilton traveled throughout India, Pakistan, the former kingdom of Sikkim (annexed by India in 1975) and Japan. In Pakistan in 1959, she was asked to produce work for an exhibition that was administered by the foreign minister of Pakistan. The ministries of Pakistan also gave her permission to make her first K2 expedition. This expedition resulted in the welcome realization of her individual artistic vision and the creation of her first completely abstract work, Burst Beyond the Image.

Early years

Elaine Hamilton was born on October 13, 1920, to a middle-class family in Paradise, near Catonsville, Maryland. She was the daughter of Robert Bruce and Lee (née Wood) Hamilton. Paradise was home to her maternal grandparents, William and Caroline Wood. Hamilton was raised at Emerald Hill, the family estate in Daniels, along the Patapsco River, just north of Ellicott City.

Hamilton spent a portion of her childhood growing up near Orange Grove in the Patapsco Valley State Park. Orange Grove is a mill town that supported the flour mill on the Baltimore County side of the river. It is known as one of the most scenic areas of Patapsco. During the 1920s, for four or five months during the summer, the Hamilton family would set up camp in the area, which was a fashionable vacation spot for wealthy families at the time. The state park service encouraged middle class and working families to camp there for extended periods, "roughing it pleasantly" for their spiritual and physical refreshment.

Her experience at the park was a blend of rugged outdoor living complemented with the trappings of the modern middle-class lifestyle. The family slept on straw mattress cots under a canvas shelter and made several trips a day down to the local spring for fresh water, and yet, they cooked their meals on a modern oil stove, wired electric power in from Bloede's Dam, and brought their piano to the campsite to enjoy music played in their "living room" tent. They also walked over a mile once a week to nearby Orange Grove to buy their weekly groceries and supplies. By carving out a place to live in the wilderness, Hamilton asserted that she was able to develop self-confidence and a sense of adventure, and she "learned to be creative and inventive."

At the park, Hamilton discovered how to paint and swim, and she developed an acute hearing ability and "a strong sense of smell." She learned to identify animal and bird sounds and how to avoid copperhead snakes. With only a few other children around, Hamilton developed a stronger relationship with her older brothers, Robert Jr. and Doug.

Summers at the park played a critical role in her eventual status as a Fulbright Scholar and career as an artist. In this sense, Hamilton's experience at Patapsco exemplified the white middle-class desire to identify with the rugged experience of the working classes while attaining the intellectual and cultural standards typified by the upper classes. Hamilton's experience at Patapsco State Park was both rugged and refined.

In her later years, Hamilton would often state that the one place throughout her life that most defined her, was the platform tent where her family lived each summer when she was a child.

Marriage
In 1942, Hamilton met William O'Neal. They were married, soon after being introduced at a black-tie dinner at the Baltimore Country Club. O'Neal was not present for most of his wife's exploits, instead supporting her "morally and physically," from afar, she says, while he worked in the aerospace industry in Alabama.

Throughout their marriage, the O'Neals mostly lived apart, and they had no children. "We discussed these things before we were married," says Hamilton. "We laid out our lives. We understood each other. Neither one of us wanted to be 50 percent in our work and 50 percent parents. We wanted to be 100 percent of whatever we were."

In 1952, Hamilton and her husband, Bill O'Neal, purchased the Old Shades Creek Mill in Mountain Brook, Alabama. However, international exhibits continued to take Hamilton from one city to the next. Hamilton described her relationship with O'Neal in her last interview in the Baltimore Magazine. While Hamilton was on world tours, O'Neal "was working to put the first man on the moon," says Hamilton. He was initially based in Baltimore, employed by the Glenn L. Martin Company (now Lockheed Martin), though he traveled frequently and finally ended up in Birmingham.

In the early 1960s, Hamilton moved to Paris. In 1971, Hamilton purchased a chateau in France, where she lived and worked for the next 30 years. In the meantime, O'Neal continued to maintain the home at the Old Mill, which meandered alongside the edge of Shades Creek in Mountain Brook. Built in 1926, the Old Mill remains a symbol of the City of Mountain Brook and is depicted in the city's official seal.

Despite the geographic distance, Hamilton says they were close. Hamilton lived in her chateau in France, dropping everything, she says, "when my husband and his cronies would fly over for a French holiday. I'd cook and entertain them, and then they'd fly back." In turn, Hamilton would fly to Birmingham, where her husband had settled to work at Hayes Aircraft as vice president of engineering. Hamilton enjoy her trips back to Mountain Brook, where she would gracefully act as hostess, entertaining some of the most prominent scientists in early aerospace engineering.

Educational background

In 1945, Hamilton graduated from Maryland Institute (now MICA) and went on to study for two years with Robert Brackman in New York as a member of the Art Students League.

In 1949, Hamilton continued her education at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City. She studied under the mentorship the muralist Diego Rivera. While there, she received a commission of her own and began working on a 47-foot mural she painted for the privately owned Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende.

Hamilton dismisses any comparisons to her contemporaries or artists who worked in the first half of the 1900s. She was not interested in Picasso, she says, and while she admired the work of José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera, she mainly wanted to learn the techniques required for outdoor murals.

By the time Hamilton went to Mexico in 1949, she'd been married for seven years. In 1951, Hamilton returned to Baltimore, to present a solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art. In 1952, she traveled to Italy on a Fulbright Scholarship to study painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy. In 1953, when the Fulbright grant was extended for another year, she chose to remain in Italy for seven more years. After exhibiting in Rome, Milan, and at the Venice Bienniale, she found herself drawn to the Himalayas.

Himalayas

The Himalayas are a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. By extension, it is also the name of a massive mountain system that includes the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush, and smaller ranges that extend out from the Pamir Knot. Together, the Himalayan mountain system is home to the world's highest peaks, which include Mount Everest and K2, which is part of the Karakoram Range.

The mountains have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia; many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. K2 is known as the Savage Mountain due to the difficulty of ascent, with the second highest fatality rate among those who attempt to climb it. For every four people who have reached the summit, one has died trying. Unlike Annapurna, the mountain with the highest fatality rate, K2 has never been climbed in winter.

Hamilton explained her draw to the high mountain country in Pakistan in no uncertain terms. "I wanted to see where the earth and the sky touched," she said. Over the years, she made nine different trips to different mountains of the Himalayas. She also visited the former kingdom of Sikkim as a guest of Tashi Namgyal, the ruling Chogyal (King) of Sikkim and the royal family.

Namgyal was the 11th ruler of the Namgyal dynasty of Sikkim. He was born in Tibet and crowned by the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, he was a strong advocate for closer links with India. On his death in 1963, he was succeeded as Chogyal by his son Palden Thondup Namgyal, with whom Hamilton maintained close ties. Legend has it that the Buddhist saint Guru Rinpoche visited Sikkim in the 9th century, introduced Buddhism and foretold the era of the monarchy. It was here, in Sikkim, where Hamilton was introduced to Buddhism. She maintained a close fondness for the country and its people, choosing to return every year for 30 years.

Of her expeditions over the years to K2 and Everest, she writes, "I often return to the 'Abode of the Snows' for it seems there my thoughts crystallize into forms that find their way into the movements, rhythms, pulsating in and out of my canvases."

During these years, Hamilton was exposed to and influenced by early Sienese and later Renaissance painting, especially Giotto's use of space that inspired her move toward abstraction. Hamilton lived in Florence with her paintings displayed in Rome, Venice, Milan, and Florence. While she would return to Maryland almost annually for visits and exhibitions of her work, she remained in Europe and ended up spending the rest of her career abroad.

Professional background

Stylistically, Hamilton passed through a number of stages. Her work evolved from realistic portraiture in the 1940s to pure abstraction in the 1960s and thereafter. Having won the prize for portrait painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1945, it was natural that she went on to study in New York with Robert Brackman, who is a master of realistic portraitures and other figurative painting.

In the late 1940s to early 1950s, the influence of Diego Rivera is evident in the earthy textures and colors, as well as in the heavy, sculpted, quasi-cubist forms of her increasingly abstract paintings (see right). Meanwhile, the scale of her work increased, also as a result of her study with Rivera.

In the early 1950s there are other canvases that show nightmarish, contorted, bloody-looking images suggestive of slaughter, but unidentifiable bodies or body parts, somewhat in the manner of Francis Bacon. One painting shows a man with massive hands folded on his knees. Others, in a transitional stage of her work, are broken into planes, cubist-style. A painting from Mexico, which she says is the dead child of her maid, is a shadowy face, surrounded by leaves and swirls in deep shades of crimson.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Hamilton exhibited her paintings throughout Italy at the Venice Biennale, Rome, and Milan, as well as the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. She also exhibited at the Pakistan Arts Council in Karachi. Seven years later, she found herself drawn to the Himalayas. In 1956 and again in 1958, Hamilton was an invited exhibitor at the Venice Biennale. During her extensive travels in the 1950s, she remained prominent in the Baltimore contemporary art scene, winning the Popular Prize in the Baltimore Museum of Art's Maryland Artists Exhibition in 1952 and again in 1959.

Hamilton had solo exhibitions of her work in major galleries and museums all over the world. The various cities that exhibited her work includes Rome; Milan; Turin, Italy; Florence, Italy; Mexico City; Osaka; Tokyo; and Karachi, Pakistan. She was featured in numerous multi-artist exhibitions in these cities as well as in Paris, the Whitney Museum in New York City, and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC.

Around 1960, she took up a personal approach to action painting and it is for her paintings in this later, abstract expressionist manner that she is probably best known. She is sometimes classed as a lyrical abstractionist. In 1968, she won first prize in the Biennale de Menton in France.

As Hamilton's presence in the art world continued to grow, visual art students looked to her for inspiration. Her influence extends across Europe and around the world. One individual in particular was a young Pakistani artist, named Ismail Gulgee (or Guljee, as it is sometimes spelled). Partha Mitter wrote of Hamilton's influence in her book, Indian Art, published by the Oxford University Press. "Impressed by the visiting American painter Elaine Hamilton, Guljee enthusiastically plunged into action painting..." Jane Turner also wrote of Hamilton's influence on Gulgee in The Dictionary of Art. "In 1960, Ismail Gulgee, known for his portraiture, began experimenting with non-objective painting (in the manner of Jackson Pollock) after working with visiting American artist, Elaine Hamilton."
According to David L. Craven, Distinguished Professor of Art History at the University of New Mexico, Hamilton became something of an ambassador in South Asia: "Abstract expressionism was promoted as a universal style in Pakistan during the 1950s by a U.S. artist named Elaine Hamilton."

While Hamilton was living in France, she gained the professional admiration and support of Michel Tapié de Céleyran, who was a highly influential French critic and respected painter. Tapié was an early advocate of European Abstraction Lyrique, also known as tachisme, which is generally regarded as the European equivalent of abstract expressionism. He was descended from an old, aristocratic French family; notably, he was the second cousin of the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Tapié was a generous critic, championing the works of young and upcoming artists. He organized and curated scores of exhibitions of new and modern art in major cities all over the world. In 1952, Tapié was the curator of Jackson Pollock's solo exhibition in Paris, which took place at the Studio Paul Facchetti.

The French lyrical abstractionist or tachiste, Georges Mathieu was another artist of whom Tapié was an early champion. In 1952, Tapié curated Mathieu's exhibit at the Stable Gallery in New York. Mathieu studied literature and philosophy before switching to art at the age of twenty-one. After painting realistic landscapes and portraits, he developed a highly distinctive Abstract Expressionist personal style, which grew out of an emotionally driven, improvised and intuitive act of painting. He was often compared to Pollock and said of the artist, that he considered him to be the "greatest living American painter."

Tapié co-founded the International Center of Aesthetic Research in Turin, Italy in 1960, with architect Luigi Moretti. The Center was a facility for the study and exhibition of art, as well as for the publication and dissemination of critical, investigative, or theoretical works on art. The institution lasted until 1987, ending upon the death of Tapié.

In 1960, Hamilton created her first purely oil on canvas abstract painting, entitled Burst Beyond the Image, after an expedition to K2 in Pakistan. This painting was Hamilton's foray into the abstract world of action painting, which dramatically records the gestural action of painting itself. Today, the painting remains in Hamilton's personal collection.

In late 1960, full of inspiration after her most recent Himalayan adventure, upon her return to France, she quickly created many more of these huge "action" canvases in preparation for solo and group exhibitions in Japan. About this time, Hamilton caught the attention of Tapié and became the benefactor of his generosity when he exhibited her paintings at the Fujikawa Gallery in Osaka, Japan. The exhibit took place from April 12–18, 1961 and was presented in collaboration with the Gutai Group, which was an association of avant-garde artists representative of Japan's post-war art world. A second showing curated by Tapié was presented at the International Center of Aesthetic Research in Turin, Italy.

The 2006, Benezit Dictionary of Artists is emphatic in its praise, stating the following of Hamilton. "A globetrotter who has scaled the heights of the Himalayas, Hamilton makes profoundly serious work. Clearly part of the movement known as 'lyrical gestural abstraction', her painting is full of verve and invention and manifests an extraordinary gift for colour and substance."

Touring her home in 2009, Martha Thomas, writer with the Baltimore Magazine, was able to view Hamilton's many works within the artist's private collection. Rather than hanging on the walls, Hamilton's earlier paintings were found resting safely stacked against them.

Most of the paintings on display in Hamilton's lower level gallery were her later works: bright and energetic splashes of color with swirls, drips, and slashes of paint on canvases measuring six feet long and four or five feet high. A few of the canvases were round. Hamilton stated that she wanted to challenge herself and "get out of the square thing." In some, color bursts from the center like a supernova against a dark background. In others, the fury of colorful strokes completely covers the canvas.

Her work has been described as abstract expressionism and "action painting," but Hamilton says the Buddhist monks she knew in Tibet described it best: "It's meditation in action," she says. "That's not a contradiction. When you meditate, it doesn't mean empty. It's making space for things to come in."

Hamilton sustained and developed the abstract approach to painting for the rest of her life. Today, her work is represented in the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama. Her oil on canvas work entitled, Silent Space, which was completed c. 1969 is part of the collection belonging to Sarfaraz Aziz, who is the director of the brokerage firm of Aziz Fidahuesin & Company in London. Other pieces remain in public and private collections in Austria, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Pakistan, Switzerland and the United States.

Retirement years
In a November 2009 article written by Martha Thomas of the Baltimore Magazine, Hamilton shared her life stories and generously offered a tour of her home, personal collection of artwork, artifacts and souvenirs of a life well lived.

Throughout her life, Hamilton called a variety of places "home". At one time while in France, she owned a 42-room chateau, filled with fine art and antiques. She eventually downsized to the warmth of a quaint French chateau with just 18 rooms.

Hamilton lived in apartments in Florence and New York, in a tent at the Mount Everest base camp, and when she was in Mexico City, she was housed by the Rotary Club of Houston, Texas. After returning to America, Hamilton and her husband lived together in an historic, converted grist mill in Mountain Brook, southwest of Birmingham, Alabama.

In 2002, the couple decided to sell the Old Mill and move to Maryland, where they would live together after so many years. On the day after their 60th wedding anniversary, as the couple prepared to move, Bill went to the doctor to have his ears checked. Upon further examination, he was transferred to the hospital emergency room. He died of heart failure that day.

Hamilton continued on to Maryland, as planned, to live close to her family. She described her brothers as wonderful friends, and she also had strong bonds with her nieces and nephews. "I had always told them that if they ever wanted to run away, they could run to me," says the aunt. "I was far away, and safe." She also had space for guests. "Sometimes too much space," she laughed.

In 2009, Hamilton got by with just one guest room, decorated in shades of green: painted twin beds with tasseled silk spreads she had made in France, with olive green Tibetan rugs on the hardwood floors. The walls carefully held relief rubbings from tombs in Pakistan. Her travels are in the past. But evidence of a remarkable life is all around.

At the end of her life, Hamilton was content living in Granite, near her childhood home. To Hamilton, her eight-room home felt like a piece of France, scooped up and replanted in the Emerald Hill countryside. The home had a brick façade, with Palladian windows, and a gravel drive leading up to the front door. It was expansive with noble proportions and high, stepped tray ceilings that she designed herself in the wide, one-story "Chartreuse" style, common in southern France.

A tour of her three-year-old home is a testament to a lifetime of adventure. "It's filled with souvenirs," she said. "It's a vagabond's house." She emitted a hearty bit of laughter from her small frame, her eyes sparkled behind thick glasses.

Her Louis XV sofas dated back to 1800 century and were adorned with hand-embroidered pillows from Pakistan. The Regency fireplace mantel—heavy marble carved in scrolls, which Hamilton shipped from France—displayed a bronze cat by the sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye, antique toys from India, and a pair of cloisonné vases (exported from Tibet on the back of a yak). Her dining room furniture dates to the Renaissance, the table embellished with a pair of sturdy brass candlesticks from the same period, which she bought for $200 as an art student in Florence. "They are the real thing," she notes. "A lot of people have sat in front of those."

Everywhere, there are rugs, many of them brightly colored in traditional Tibetan motifs and thick knotted-wool patterns of dragons, tigers, and flowers. In addition to rugs, skins from leopards and tigers—with heads intact—are draped over seats along the wall and low tables in Hamilton's meditation room, a sanctuary off the library. The room is dominated by a gilded, wood altar, running from floor to ceiling, with nooks holding various representations of the Buddha. The walls are painted according to tradition: the deep earth red around the base, moving through horizontal bands of orange and gold representing various stages of clarity, and finally a blue ceiling, signifying nirvana. "I've had this identical room in every house I've owned for the last 40 years," Hamilton says. "Everything in Buddhism is symbolic and has definite meaning." She warns: "Don't use the word décor."

Whether or not they can be classified as décor, photographs seem to be a fundamental feature in Hamilton's effects. If the furniture, paintings, objets d'art—and even her sacred space—are not enough evidence of her adventures, there are plenty of photos to round out the story. There is a shot of her mother, a 1920s beauty with a feather boa-trimmed neckline and thick hair piled on her head; a photo of Hamilton making her way up an icy ledge in Pakistan's Karakoram range; and a picture of a Tibetan friend who is now a nurse in Pennsylvania thanks in part to Hamilton's largesse.

Hamilton rushes through each story, knowing that there are so many more to tell. Perhaps suspecting a visitor's disbelief—or in most cases, awe—she flutters her hands toward the library or her bedroom and says, "Oh, I have photos of all that," promising to provide proof that her wondrous tales really happened.

In the gallery, which she had constructed with high ceilings and recessed lighting to showcase her large canvases, Hamilton sifts through scrapbooks and locates a spread from the May 13, 1951, edition of The Baltimore Sun Magazine, its edges yellowed and brittle. Hamilton appears on the cover, swirling a voluminous cape with the headline, "Baltimore's Lady Bullfighter." She explains: "I saw the bullfights [in Mexico] and was traumatized. They gave me migraines." Her solution? "I had to find out what it was all about," so she trained to enter the ring.

At first, she explains, bullfighters swing the cape in wide circles, but "then begin to bring the bull closer and closer," shortening the span of the red cloth. She describes the contest as a mythic challenge between strength and intellect that "equalizes life and death." Hamilton notes that she did not actually kill the bull, but she did emerge from the encounter sore and covered with bruises. "You don't even realize you're getting grazed at the time," she says, "but you come out all black and blue."

Returning to her scrapbook, she points out a program from a 1951 solo show at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and a magazine photo of her standing on scaffolding in Mexico City, working on a 47-foot mural she painted at the art institute in San Miguel de Allende, after assisting the muralist Diego Rivera.

On Monday, March 15, 2010, Elaine Hamilton O'Neal died in Woodstock, Maryland due to unknown causes. She stopped painting around 2004, due to eye problems, but otherwise remained in good health. In her latter years, she was involved in her community, through her membership in the Great Patapsco Community Association, as well as the local art museum. She was a regular supporter of Baltimore's Walters Art Museum, where her brother Douglas serves as Vice-President of the 2009–2010 Board of Trustees. The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland is one of the finest small, privately formed art collections open to the public in the United States.

Solo exhibitions

Multiple-Artist Exhibitions

Awards

References

External links

 Elaine Hamilton, "Sans titre," oil on canvas, 1960, signed
 Elaine Hamilton, Abstract Figure, oil on canvas, signed "Hamilton" lr, 34 × 78 in., framed.
 Auction record, May 2006, Paris, includes a color image

1920 births
Abstract expressionist artists
American Buddhists
American mountain climbers
American women painters
American contemporary painters
American muralists
Art Students League of New York alumni
Instituto Allende alumni
People from Catonsville, Maryland
2010 deaths
Art Informel and Tachisme painters
Painters from Maryland
20th-century American painters
20th-century American women artists
American women muralists
American female climbers
American expatriates in Mexico
21st-century American women
Fulbright alumni

Elaine Hamilton-O'Neal


The Camp David Accords were a pair of political agreements signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on 17 September 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David, the country retreat of the President of the United States in Maryland.

The two framework agreements were signed at the White House and were witnessed by President Jimmy Carter. The second of these frameworks (A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel) led directly to the 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty.

Due to the agreement, Sadat and Begin received the shared 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. The first framework (A Framework for Peace in the Middle East), which dealt with the Palestinian territories, was written without participation of the Palestinians and was condemned by the United Nations.

References

1978 in the United States
Jimmy Carter

Camp David Accords


Tungkillo (, postcode 5236, altitude 299m) is a town in South Australia, located approximately  south of Mount Pleasant. It sits on Adelaide-Mannum Road,  north-east of the state capital, Adelaide and  north-west of Mannum. At the , Tungkillo had a population of 360.

Tungkillo was originally the name of a mine located south of Palmer, which opened in 1847. In 1848, a town was surveyed at the mine, The present-day town was settled by Samuel Patten in 1861, who called it South Petherton (after the Somerset town of South Petherton from which his family originated). The name of South Petherton was officially altered on 24 January 1906 to Tungkillo, although the two names were used interchangeably as late as 1936.

Tungkillo is a corruption of tainkila, a Peramangk Aboriginal word meaning ghost moth grubs.

The historic former Terlinga Station Shearing Shed in Hoads Woolshed Road and a former grain threshing floor in Loxton Road are listed on the South Australian Heritage Register.

Tungkillo is in the Mid Murray Council local government area, the South Australian House of Assembly electoral district of Schubert and the Australian House of Representatives Division of Barker.

References

External links
 Map of Tungkillo (Mid Murray Council)

Towns in South Australia
1861 establishments in Australia

Tungkillo, South Australia


Yosemite Valley ( ) is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of Central California. The valley is about 7.5 miles (12 km) long and about 3000–3500 feet deep.

Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in North America, and is a big attraction especially in the spring when the water flow is at its peak.

The Valley is the main attraction in the park for the majority of visitors. Yosemite Valley is located on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, 150 miles (240 km) due east of San Francisco.

Other websites
 The Geologic Story of Yosemite Valley by N. King Huber (USGS, 1987) authoritative and up-to-date summary of Yosemite's geology
 Origin of Yosemite Valley, Chapter 4, "Glaciers of California", by Bill Guyton
 Historic Yosemite Indian Chiefs – with photos
 Daily updating time-lapse movies of Yosemite Valley
 Yosemite Extreme Panoramic Imaging Project aiming at stitching 10,000 high resolution images

Valleys of California
Mariposa County, California

Yosemite Valley


Jean Auguste Barre (25 September 1811 – 5 February 1896) was a French sculptor and medalist. Born in Paris, he was trained by his father Jean-Jacques Barre (1793–1855), a medalist. Barre studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Jean-Pierre Cortot, and he is mainly known as a portrait sculptor.

Exhibiting at the French Salon from 1831 to 1886, his first showings were of medallions and medals. Barre is known to be one of the first sculptors to make miniatures of famous contemporaries, such as Napoleon III, Queen Victoria, dancers Marie Taglioni and Emma Livry, and Susan B. Anthony. His bronze works are on display in such places as the Louvre and the Cleveland Art Museum.

One of his stone works is found in the cemetery of Père Lachaise Cemetery, where he did a bust for the tomb of his friend Alfred de Musset.

He died in Paris in 1896.

Bibliography
 Davenport's 2001-02 Art Reference & Price Guide
 1999 Benezit, Vol. 1
 Berman's Bronzes, Vol. 2
 Web site of the Louvre

External links

 www.insecula.com

References

1811 births
1896 deaths
French medallists
Artists from Paris
19th-century French sculptors
French male sculptors

19th-century French male artists

Jean-Auguste Barre


Buena Vista Social Club is a 1999 documentary film directed by Wim Wenders about the music of Cuba. It is named for a danzón that became the title piece of the album Buena Vista Social Club. The film is an international co-production of Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Cuba.

In 2020, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

Content
The film documents how Ry Cooder, long-time friend of Wenders, brought together the ensemble of legendary Cuban musicians to record an album (also called Buena Vista Social Club) and to perform two times with a full line-up: in April 1998 in Amsterdam (two nights) and the 1st of July 1998 in the United States (at the Carnegie Hall, New York City). Although they are geographically close, travel between Cuba and the United States is restricted due to the political tension between the two countries, so many of the artists were travelling there for the first time. The film shows their reactions to this experience, as well as including footage of the resultant sell-out concert. It also includes interviews with each of the main performers.

Musicians
 Francisco Repilado, aka Compay Segundo (vocals and tres)
 Eliades Ochoa (vocals and guitar)
 Ry Cooder (slide guitar)
 Joachim Cooder, Ry's son (percussion)
 Ibrahim Ferrer (vocals, congas, claves, bongos)
 Omara Portuondo (vocals)
 Rubén González (piano)
 Orlando "Cachaito" López (Double bass)
 Amadito Valdés
 Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal (trumpet)
 Barbarito Torres  (laúd)
 Pío Leyva
 Manuel "Puntillita" Licea (vocals)
 Juan de Marcos González (güiro)

Songs
 "Chan Chan" (Francisco Repilado)
 "Silencio" (Rafael Hernandez)
 "Chattanooga Choo Choo" (Harry Warren and Mack Gordon)
 "Dos Gardenias" (Isolina Carillo)
 "Veinte Años" (María Teresa Vera)
 "Y Tu Que Has Hecho?" (Eusebio Delfin)
 "Black Bottom" (Ray Henderson, Lew Brown and B. G. De Sylva)
 "Canto Siboney" (Ernesto Lecuona Casado)
 "El Carretero" (Jose "Guillermo Portabales" Quesada del Castillo)
 "Cienfuegos (tiene su guaguanco)" (Victor Lay)
 "Begin the Beguine" (Cole Porter)
 "Buena Vista Social Club" (Orestes Lopez, inventor of the mambo in 1937)
 "Mandinga" (also known as "Bilongo", Guillermo Rodriguez Fiffe)
 "Candela" (Faustino Oramas),
 "Chanchullo" (Israel "Cachao" Lopez, the father of Cachaito)
 "El Cuarto de Tula" (son/descarga, Sergio Siaba)
 "Guateque Campesino" (Celia Romero "Guateque")
 "Nuestra Ultima Cita" (Forero Esther)
 "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás" (bolero by Oswaldo Farres)

Release

Critical reception
Buena Vista Social Club received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 92% "Certified Fresh" score based on 48 reviews, with an average rating of 7.52/10. Metacritic reports an 81 out of 100 rating based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Accolades
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2000. It won as best documentary in the European Film Awards as well as many others. The album Buena Vista Social Club features studio versions of the music heard in the film.

Influence
The film helped the musicians, some of them already in their nineties, become known to a worldwide audience, with some going on to release popular solo albums. These included Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo, Rubén González and Elíades Ochoa. The latter went on to support younger musicians making the same style of music beyond 2010 under the name "Buena Vista Social Club".

See also
 List of Cuban films
 Buena Vista Social Club: Adios

References

External links

Buena Vista Social Club: A City in Time an essay by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro at the Criterion Collection

Buena Vista Social Club
1999 films
1990s English-language films
English-language German films
English-language French films
1990s Spanish-language films
1999 documentary films
German documentary films
French documentary films
Cuban documentary films
American musical documentary films
Documentary films about Cuba
European Film Awards winners (films)
Films directed by Wim Wenders
Buena Vista International films
Films distributed by Disney
Films shot in Amsterdam
Films shot in Cuba
Films shot in New York City
Films shot in the Netherlands
United States National Film Registry films
1990s American films
1990s British films
1990s French films
1990s German films
British musical documentary films

Buena Vista Social Club (film)


A Christmas gift or Christmas present is a gift given in celebration of Christmas. Christmas gifts are often exchanged on Christmas Eve (December 24), Christmas Day itself (December 25) or on the last day of the twelve-day Christmas season, Twelfth Night (January 5). The practice of giving gifts during Christmastide, according to Christian tradition, is symbolic of the presentation of the gifts by the Three Wise Men to the infant Jesus.

History

Gift-giving in general is an ancient tradition that came to be associated with the Christian feast of Christmas.

In ancient Rome, gift giving might have occurred near the winter solstice in December which was celebrated during the Saturnalia holiday.

As Christianity became increasingly widespread in the Roman lands, the custom of gift-giving occurred on New Year's Day. Around 336 CE, the date December 25 appears to have become established as the day of Jesus's birth, and the tradition of gift-giving was tied to the story of the Biblical Magi giving gifts to baby Jesus; together with another story, that of Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century Christian bishop and gift-giver, it slowly became a part of Christmas celebrations in countries such as the United Kingdom; in other Christian countries, the practice of gift-giving occurs early in Advent, on Saint Nicholas Day.

Some early Christian rulers, however, interpreted this story as indications that it should be their subjects who should give gifts to their superiors, and insisted on tributes and tithes during that period. This changed around the turn of the millennium following the popularity of the Good King Wenceslas story based on the life of another historical person claimed to be a gift-giver, Saint Wenceslaus. Christmas gift-giving to superiors became less common, and around the time of the Protestant Reformation, customs of gift-giving to children became increasingly widespread in Europe. The custom spread to the United States in the 19th century. This also coincided with the desire of some elites to reduce the rowdiness of adult Christmas celebrations, which in some places were tied to begging, as "bands of young men, often rowdy, would wassail from home to home and demand handouts from the gentry". Another related aspect was the growing desire by parents to keep children at home, away from the corrupting influence of the urban streets.

Another relatively recent change concerned the time of Christmas gift-giving. For many centuries, gift-giving took place on December 6 around Saint Nicholas Day or in early January after New Year's Eve. The popularity of this custom grew after the positive reception of the 1823 poem The Night Before Christmas and the 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. By the end of the 19th century, Christmas Eve replaced early December or January dates as the most common date for gift-giving in the Western culture.

With the Christmas season lasting twelve days according to the liturgical calendars of many Christian Churches, a gift is given for each of the twelve days of Christmastide in some cultures, while in other Christian households, gifts are only given on Christmas Day or Twelfth Night, the first and last days of the Christmas season, respectively.

Economic impact

The tradition was also embraced by retailers, for whom the weeks and, eventually, the entire month before Christmas became a very profitable period. Around the turn of the 20th century retailers started directing marketing efforts at children in the hopes that they would entice the parents to buy more goods.

It can divide the gifts given by parents into involvement in parental Christmas gift giving and giving branded items as gifts. Up to the 1970s, those six weeks before Christmas accounted for 80% of the toy industry's sales. RetailMeNot research found that UK households expect to splurge an average of £473.83 on presents, making far more profligate than European. It was normal to spend as much as £300 per child. Retailers predicted £1.1bn would be spent on toys during Christmastime 2020, with an average of £105 spent on younger children. The relationship between involvement in giving gifts and giving branded items as gifts was investigated using Pearson's correlation coefficient.  A composite mean for involvement in gift giving was calculated at 5.81 with a standard deviation of 1.32. A calculated composite mean for involvement in brands as gifts was 1.74 and a standard deviation of 1.09. However, if parents' assuming it was normal for children to receive a lot of gifts, note that we also made a point to shop for other kids for donations. Besides, if parents plan to give no gifts, it is because they don't want children only live in this society of consumption. They will look for other things that bring more joy to the family.

In the early 2000s it was estimated that shoppers in the U.S. alone spend over $4 billion each day during the Christmas shopping season, with an average individual spending over $1,000 on gifts.

There are concerns that gift-giving during Christmas is too commercial. Seventy percent of respondents to an online survey of 13,576 people in 14 European countries in 2016 said that too much attention is put on spending during the Christmas period, 42% said they felt forced to spend more at Christmas, and 10% borrowed money to be able to afford the gifts.

Economist Joel Waldfogel noted that because of the mismatch between what the giftee values the gift and the value paid for by the giver, the gifts lose between one-tenth and one-third of their value; he calls it the "deadweight loss of Christmas". This leads to gifts often being returned, sold, or re-gifted. In the 2016 European online survey, 15% of respondents were unhappy about their gifts and 10% could not remember what they had received. Twenty-five percent of respondents said they had re-gifted their presents to someone else, 14% sold the items, 10% tried to return them to the store, and 5% returned the gift to the giver. Seniors were more likely to send their unwanted presents to charity, while those aged 25 to 34 "simply threw them away". Gifts that are least likely to be appreciated rely on personal tastes, and include items like perfumes and cosmetics, ornaments, and clothing.

Wrapping
According to researchers from the University of Nevada, poorly-wrapped gifts get a preferable reaction because "presents that are neatly wrapped increase a recipient's expectations."

Further reading

See also
Christmas gift-bringer
Christmas Wrapping
St Nicholas Day

References

External links

Giving
Gift
Gift

Christmas gift


Rajendra Singh (born 6 August 1959) is an Indian water conservationist and environmentalist from Alwar district, Rajasthan in India. Also known as "waterman of India", he won the Magsaysay Award in 2001 and Stockholm Water Prize in 2015. He runs an NGO called 'Tarun Bharat Sangh' (TBS), which was founded in 1975. The NGO based in village hori-Bhikampura in Thanagazi tehsil, near Sariska Tiger Reserve, has been instrumental in fighting the slow bureaucracy, mining lobby and has helped villagers take charge of water management in their semi-arid area as it lies close to Thar Desert, through the use of johad, rainwater storage tanks, check dams and other time-tested as well as path-breaking techniques. Starting from a single village in 1985, over the years TBS helped build over 8,600 johads and other water conservation structures to collect rainwater for the dry seasons, has brought water back to over 1,000 villages and revived five rivers in Rajasthan, Arvari, Ruparel, Sarsa, Bhagani and Jahajwali.
He is one of the members of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) which was set up in 2009, by the Government of India as an empowered planning, financing, monitoring and coordinating authority for the Ganges (Ganga), in exercise of the powers conferred under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. In the UK he is a founder member of an NGO called the Flow Partnership which aims to counter the negative effects of soil erosion and flooding.

Early life
Rajendra Singh was born at village Daula in Bagpat district in Uttar Pradesh near Meerut. He was the eldest of seven siblings. His father was an agriculturist and looked over their 60 acres of land in the village and where Rajendra did his early schooling.

An important event in his life came in 1974, when he was still in high school, Ramesh Sharma, a member of Gandhi Peace Foundation visited their family home in Meerut, this opened up young Rajendra's mind, to issues of village improvement, as Sharma went about cleaning the village, opened a vachnalaya (library) and even got involved in settling local conflicts; soon he involved Rajendra in an alcoholism eradication program. Another important influence was an English language teacher in school, Pratap Singh, who started discussing politics and social issues with his students after class. At this time Emergency was imposed in 1975, making him aware about the issues of democracy and formulate independent views. After finishing high school education. He enrolled for post graduation in Hindi literature, at another college in Baraut, affiliated with Allahabad University. He became the leader of a local chapter of Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Vahini, a student activism organisation founded by Jaiprakash Narayan (Magsaysay Award, 1965), though after Jaiprakash fell ill, the internal power politics disillusioned him. Dr. Singh is a BAMS doctor by education.

Career
After completing his studies, he joined government service in 1980, and started his career as a National Service Volunteer for education in Jaipur, from where he was appointed to oversee adult education schools in Dausa district in Rajasthan. Meanwhile, he joined Tarun Bharat Sangha (Young India Association) or TBS, an organization formed by officer and students of Jaipur University to aid victims of a campus fire. Subsequently, after three years when he became General Secretary of the organisation, he questioned the organisation, which had been dabbling with various issues, for its inadequacy in having a substantial impact. Finally in 1984 the entire board resigned leaving the organization to him. One of the first tasks he took up was working with a group of nomad blacksmiths, who though traveled from village to village had little support from anyone. This exposure inspired him to work closely with people. However back at work, he was feeling increasingly frustrated by the apathy of his superiors towards developmental issues and his own inability to have a larger impact, he left his job in 1984. He sold all his household goods for Rs 23,000 and took a bus ticket for the last stop, on boarded bus going into interior of Rajasthan, along with him were four friends from Tarun Bharat Sangha. The last stop turned out to be  Kishori village in Thanagazi tehsil in Alwar district, and the day was 2 October 1985. After initial skepticism, the villagers of neighboring village Bhikampura accepted him, and here they found a place to stay. Soon, he started a small Ayurvedic medicine practice in nearby village Gopalpura, while his colleagues went out about promoting education in the villages.

Alwar district, which once had a grain market, was at the time largely dry and barren, as years of deforestation and mining had led to a dwindling water table, minimal rainfall followed by floods. Another reason was the slow abandoning of traditional water conservation techniques, like building check dams, or johad, instead villagers started relying on "modern" bore wells, which simply sucked the groundwater up. But consistent use meant that these bored wells had to be dug deeper and deeper within a few years, pushing underground water table further down each time, till they went dry in ecologically fragile Aravalis. At this point he met a village elder, Mangu Lal Meena, who argued "water was a bigger issue to address in rural Rajasthan than education". He chided him to work with his hands rather than behaving like "educated" city folks who came, studied and then went back; later encouraged him to work on a johad, earthen check dams, which have been traditionally used to store rainwater and recharge groundwater, a technique which had been abandoned in previous decades. As a result, the area had no ground water since previous five years and was officially declared a "dark zone". Though Rajendra wanted to learn the traditional techniques from local farmers about water conservation, his other city friends were reluctant to work manually and parted ways. Eventually with the help of a few local youths he started desilting the Gopalpura johad, lying neglected after years of disuse. When the monsoon arrived that year, the johad filled up and soon wells which had been dry for years had water. Villagers pitched in and in the next  three years, it made it 15 feet deep.

These facilitated a rise in the groundwater levels and helped turn the area into a "white zone". So much so that the Forest Department invited the NGO to take an active part in the park's management.

Tarun Ashram in Kishori-Bhikampura in Thanagazi tehsil bordering the Sariska sanctuary, became the headquarters of Tarun Bharat Sangha. He started on his first padayatra (walkathon) through the villages of the area in 1986, educating to rebuild villages' old check dams. Yet their bigger success was yet to come, as inspired by the walkathon and success at Gopalpura, 20 km away, in 1986, people of Bhanota-Kolyala village with through shramdaan (voluntary labour) and with the help of TBS volunteers, constructed a johad at the source of a dried Arvari River, following this villages that lay in its catchment area, and along it also built tiny earthen dams, with largest being a 244-meter-long and 7-meter-high concrete dam in the Aravalli hills; eventually when the number of dams reached 375, the river started to flow again in 1990, after remaining dry for over 60 years. Yet the battle was far from over, even after constructing johads, the water level in the ponds and lakes around Sariska didn't go up as expected, that it went they discovered that missing water got evaporated from mining pits left unfilled by the miners after their operations in the area. A legal battle ensued, they filed public interest petition in the Supreme Court, which in 1991 banned mining in the Aravallis. Then in May 1992, Ministry of Environment and Forests notification banned mining in the Aravalli hill system all together, and 470 mines operating within the Sariska sanctuary buffer area and periphery were closed. Gradually TBS built 115 earthen and concrete structures within the sanctuary and 600 other structures in the buffer and peripheral zones. The efforts soon paid off, by 1995 Aravri became a perennial river. The river was awarded the `International River Prize', and in  March 2000, then President, K. R. Narayanan visited the area to present the "Down to Earth — Joseph. C. John Award" to the villagers. In the coming years, rivers like Ruparel, Sarsa, Bhagani and Jahajwali were revived after remaining dry for decades. Abandoned villages in the areas got populated and farming activities could be resumed once again, in hundreds of drought-prone villages in neighbouring districts of Jaipur, Dausa, Sawai Madhopur, Bharatpur and Karauli, where work of TBS gradually spread.

By 2001, TBS had spread over an area of 6,500 km2, also  including  parts of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. It had built 4,500 earthen check dams, or johads, to collect rainwater in 850 villages in 11 districts of Rajasthan, and he was awarded the Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in the same year. Reforestation has been taken up by numerous village communities, and Gram sabha have been set up especially to look after community resources. A notable example is the Bhairondev Lok Vanyajeev Abhyaranya (people's sanctuary), spread over 12 km2 near Bhanota-Kolyala village at the head of Arvari. He has also been organizing Pani Pachayat or Water Parliament in distant villages in Rajasthan to make people aware of the traditional water conservation wisdom, the urgency of groundwater recharge for maintaining underground aquifers and advocating community control over natural resources. In 2005, he was awarded the Jamnalal Bajaj Award.

He also played a pivotal role in stopping the controversial Loharinag Pala Hydro Power Project over river Bhagirathi, the headstream of the Ganges River in 2006, even as G. D. Agrawal, environmentalist from IIT Kanpur went on a hunger strike.

In 2009, he led a pada yatra (walkathon), a march of a group of environmentalists and NGOs, through Mumbai city along the endangered Mithi river. On Jan 2014, he did a parikrama along the banks of Godavari river, from Trimbakeshwar to Paithan to urge people to make the river pollution free. Recently he gave lecture on water and its conservation and values of water at Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Mumbai.

The struggle for the life and devoted water conservation efforts of Rajendra Singh is being produced by the film producer and director Ravindra Chauhan under the name of the documentary Jal Purush Ki Kahani.

Awards and honours
 In 2001, Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2001 for his  pioneering work in community-based efforts in water harvesting and water management.
 In 2005, Jamnalal Bajaj Award for Application of Science and Technology for Rural Development.
 In 2008, The Guardian named him amongst its list of "50 people who could save the planet".
 In 2015, he won the Stockholm Water Prize, an award known as "the Nobel Prize for water".
 In 2016, he was bestowed with Ahimsa Award by Institute of Jainology based in UK.

References

External links

 Rajendra Singh, Profile at Tarun Bharat Sangh
 Water man of Rajasthan
 Rajendra-singh-waterman-of-india
Interviews
 Why "Gandhi of Water" Rajendra Singh Is Traveling the Length of the Ganges River at TreeHugger
 An Interview with Rajendra Singh
 Hindi-language 15-minute video interview with Rajendra Singh on the Ganga Action Plan: part 1, part 2

Activists from Rajasthan
Rajasthani people
1959 births
Living people
People from Bagpat district
University of Allahabad alumni
Indian conservationists
Water conservation in India
Ramon Magsaysay Award winners
People from Alwar district
Educators from Rajasthan
20th-century Indian educational theorists
21st-century Indian educational theorists

Rajendra Singh


A hydrometer is an instrument used to measure the specific gravity (or relative density) of liquids; that is, the ratio of the density of the liquid to the density of water it is used as water

A hydrometer is usually made of glass and consists of a cylindrical stem and a bulb weighted with mercury or lead shot to make it float upright. The liquid to be tested is poured into a tall container, often a graduated cylinder, and the hydrometer is gently lowered into the liquid until it floats freely. The point at which the surface of the liquid touches the stem of the hydrometer is noted. Hydrometers usually contain a scale inside the stem, so that the specific gravity can be read directly. A variety of scales exist, and are used depending on the context.

Hydrometers may be calibrated for different uses, such as a lactometer for measuring the density (creaminess) of milk, a saccharometer for measuring the density of sugars in a liquid, or an alcoholometer for measuring higher levels of alcohol in spirits.

Measuring tools

Hydrometer


Different people have tried to classify countries into different groups. This is usually done either by looking at how rich people are, on average, in different countries. Most of the time there are two groups, namely developing countries and developed ones. Sometimes there are three groups, in which case the third group is between developing and developed countries, and is usually called emerging countries.

These definitions are problematic, because a high standard of living does not just mean that people make a lot of money. The main problem is that things cost different amounts in different countries.  Just because people earn more money in one country does not necessarily mean they are better-off; they might earn more simply because the cost of living is higher. This means they need to spend more money just to buy those things they need every day.

For this reason, there are different definitions of developing countries. The level of economic development also changes a lot from one developing countries to another. There are developing countries that have a high standard of living.

Many of these countries have a lot of natural resources but not the Industrialization that would use them, so the resources are sold to the countries which can use them.

Words used to describe these countries
There have been many other names used to describe these countries, including:
 Third World: this name is because the members of NATO and their allies, which mostly had democracy and capitalist systems, counted themselves as the "First World"; communism (led by the USSR) was considered the "Second World"; and the countries which did not take sides in this way were counted as a "Third World" category.
 Developing Countries and Less Developed Countries (LDCs) are now often used because it seems less insulting than the name "Third World".

References

Related pages
Foreign aid
Least developed country
Third World

Country classifications
Economic geography
Development

Developing country


The Order of the Dragon (, literally "Society of the Dragonists") was a monarchical chivalric order only for selected higher aristocracy and monarchs, founded in 1408 by Sigismund of Luxembourg, who was then King of Hungary and Croatia (r. 1387–1437) and later became Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1433–1437). It was fashioned after the military orders of the Crusades, requiring its initiates to defend the cross and fight the enemies of Christianity, particularly the Ottoman Empire.

The Order flourished during the first half of the 15th century, primarily in Germany and Italy. After Sigismund's death in 1437, its importance declined in Western Europe. However, after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, it continued to play a role in Hungary,  Serbia and Romania, which bore the brunt of the Ottoman incursions. The Prince of Wallachia Vlad II Dracul, the father of Vlad the Impaler, took his name from the Order of the Dragon.

Historical background

Sigismund faced fierce struggles for power leading up to the foundation of the order in 1408. In 1387, the Bohemian royal son Sigismund of Luxembourg was elected King of Hungary and Croatia, a title which he owed chiefly to his marriage to Queen Mary of Hungary in 1385. During the next decade, he constantly sought support or employed ruthless methods to strengthen his unsteady hold on the throne. His rule was weakened in 1395 when Mary, who was pregnant, died in a horse riding accident. In 1389, the Ottoman Sultan Murad I fought Lazar, Prince of Serbia at the Battle of Kosovo Polje, in which both leaders died, leading to an uncertain outcome of the battle. Two years later, the Turks had taken the Bulgarian fortress of Nicopolis.

In 1396, Pope Boniface IX proclaimed a crusade against the Ottomans, and a campaign was organised to liberate Bulgaria from the Turks, save Constantinople, and put a halt to the Ottoman expansion. Sigismund was nominally in charge; however, in the 1396 Battle of Nicopolis the French leader, John of Nevers, commanded the French half of the forces and ignored Sigismund's entreaties by charging the Turks. About 12,000 crusaders died with only a few leaders, including Sigismund, escaping. Sigismund returned to Hungary in 1401 and, facing a number of revolts, gradually resumed control and re-asserted himself as the King of Hungary. This was achieved by allying himself with the political party of Stibor of Stiboricz, Nicholas II Garay, and Hermann II of Celje, in return for their military support, which enabled him to fight off domestic rivals. Sigismund campaigned against the Croatian nobility in Slavonia, but the brunt of the campaign was directed at Bosnians and their nobility south of the Sava which culminated in 1408 with the Battle of Dobor in Usora. In the aftermath of this battle, and events unfolding in what is known as the Bloody Sabor of Križevci, 171 members of Bosnian nobility were also massacred. His pact with Hermann II was secured in 1408, when Sigismund married Herman II's daughter Barbara.

Foundation and purpose
On December 12, 1408 Sigismund and his queen, Barbara von Cilli, founded the league known today as the Order of the Dragon. Its statutes, written in Latin, call it a society (societas) whose members carry the signum draconis (see below), but assign no name to it. Contemporary records, however, refer to the order by a variety of similar if unofficial names, such as Gesellschaft mit dem Drachen, Divisa seu Societas Draconica, Societas Draconica seu Draconistarum, and Fraternitas Draconum. It was to some extent modelled after the earlier Hungarian monarchical order, the Order of St. George (Societas militae Sancti Georgii), founded by King Charles I of Hungary in 1318, the grandfather of Sigismund's first wife Mary. The order adopted Saint George as its patron saint, whose legendary defeat of a dragon was used as a symbol for the military and religious ethos of the order.

The aim of the order was to fight the Ottoman Empire, defend the Hungarian monarchy from foreign and domestic enemies, and the Catholic Church from heretics and pagans. It also included foreigners (and non-Catholics), such as the Orthodox Serbian ruler Stefan Lazarević and the Wallachian rulers.

The primary representatives of "the perfidious Enemy" remained the Ottoman Turks, who continued to be a problem for Sigismund's successors. The Order's outward focus on foreign threats was also aimed at achieving a level of domestic cohesion. The statutes go on to describe the order's symbols of the ouroboros and the red cross, which were worn by its members and gave the order its corporate identity (see below). They also list the mutual obligations of the king and his nobles. The members were to swear loyalty to the king, queen, and their future sons and to protect the royal interests. Boulton argues that "the Society of the Dragon was clearly intended to serve [...] as the institutional embodiment of the royal faction its founder had created". In return for their services, the nobles could expect to enjoy royal protection, honors, and offices.

The creation of the order was an instance within a larger fashion of founding chivalric orders during the 14th and early 15th centuries, not infrequently dedicated to organizing "crusades", especially after the disaster of the Battle of Nicopolis (1396). Sigismund's order was particularly inspired from the Order of Saint George of 1326. Another influential model may have been the Sicilian Order of the Ship, founded in 1381.

The statute of the Order, which was expanded by Bishop Eberhard of Nagyvárad, chancellor of Sigismund's court, survives only in a copy made in 1707, which was published in an edition in 1841. The prologue to these statutes of 1408 reports that the society was created:

in company with the prelates, barons, and magnates of our kingdom, whom we invite to participate with us in this party, by reason of the sign and effigy of our pure inclination and intention to crush the pernicious deeds of the same perfidious Enemy, and of the followers of the ancient Dragon, and (as one would expect) of the pagan knights, schismatics, and other nations of the Orthodox faith, and those envious of the Cross of Christ, and of our kingdoms, and of his holy and saving religion of faith, under the banner of the triumphant Cross of Christ...

Symbol and other artifacts

The edict of 1408 describes two insignia to be worn by members of the Order:

...we and the faithful barons and magnates of our kingdom shall bear and have, and do choose and agree to wear and bear, in the manner of society, the sign or effigy of the Dragon incurved into the form of a circle, its tail winding around its neck, divided through the middle of its back along its length from the top of its head right to the tip of its tail, with blood [forming] a red cross flowing out into the interior of the cleft by a white crack, untouched by blood, just as and in the same way that those who fight under the banner of the glorious martyr St George are accustomed to bear a red cross on a white field...

The dragon described here, with its tail coiled around its neck, bears comparison to the ouroboros. On the back of the dragon, from the base of the neck to the tail, is the Red Cross of Saint George, with the entire image on an argent field. The Order's dragon emblem has not survived in any original form, but it has been referenced on coins, art, and in writing. An embroidered badge from c.1430 is found at the Bavarian National Museum.

A University of Bucharest annotation to the original edict reads "O Quam Misericors est Deus, Pius et Justus" (O how merciful is God, faithful and just), which may have been officially part of the emblem. The various classes of the order had a slight variation of the dragon symbol. Common changes included the addition of inscriptions like O Quam Misericors est Deus ("Oh, how merciful is God") and "Justus et Paciens" ("Just and patient"). One of the highest classes may have worn a necklace with a seal, while a period painting of Oswald von Wolkenstein depicts another type of class variation.

Few historical artifacts of the Order now remain. A copy, dating to 1707, of the statutes of 1408 is the oldest known literary artifact of the society. Today, known materials are archived within the University of Budapest.

Membership

Members of the order are referred to in the statutes as barons (barones, occasionally socii). They were mostly Sigismund's political allies and supporters, who were at first largely confined to the political factions of Stefan Lazarević, Nicholas II Garai, and Hermann II of Celje, including such magnates as Stibor of Stiboricz and Pippo Spano. The initial group of inductees for Sigismund's Order numbered 21 men, which extended to about 24 in 1418.

After some time, Sigismund chose to expand the ranks of the Order. A second group of inductees was initiated between 1431 and 1437. As membership grew, the Order of the Dragon came to have two degrees. There was a superior class, which between 1408 and 1418 wore both the dragon and the cross as the Order's emblem and a more elaborate version afterwards. The second degree had a large number of members, and its symbol was only the dragon.

Following Sigismund's death in 1437, the Order lost prominence. However, the prestigious emblem of the Order was retained on the coat of arms of several Hungarian noble families, including Báthory, Bocskai, Bethlen, Szathmáry, Benyovszky, Kende and Rákóczi.

Founding members
The 21 original members of the Order of the Dragon were enumerated in the 1408 founding charters. These were, in original order and Latin description:

 Stephanus despoth, dominus Serbiae, item
Stefan Lazarević (1374–1427), Serbian Prince (1389–1402) and Despot (1402–1427).
 Hermannus comes Cily et Zagoriae,
Hermann II (1360s–1435), Count of Celje, Styrian prince and magnate, father of the Hungarian Queen consort Barbara of Cilli, most notable as the faithful supporter and father-in-law of the Hungarian king Sigismund of Luxembourg, Ban of Croatia and Ban of Slavonia (1406–1407).
 comes Fredericus, filius eiusdem,
Frederick II (1379–1454), Count of Celje, son of Hermann II.
 Nicolaus de gara, regni Hungariae palatinus,
Nicholas II Garai (c. 1367–1433), Hungarian baron, Ban of Croatia (1395–1397), Ban of Slavonia (1397–1401), Palatine of Hungary (1402–1433).
 Stiborius de Stiboricz alias vaiuoda Transyluanus,
Stibor of Stiboricz of Ostoja (c. 1348–1414), aristocrat of Polish origin in the Kingdom of Hungary, Voivode of Transylvania (1395–1401, 1409–1414), also ispán of Arad and Szolnok Counties (1395–1401), ispán of Szolnok County (1409–1414), Nyitra and Trencsén Counties, Lord of all Váh.
 Joannes filius Henrici de Thamassy et
John Tamási, Hungarian nobleman, Voivode of Transylvania (1403–1409), Master of the doorkeepers (1409–1416), also ispán of Szolnok County (1403–1409).
 Jacobus Laczk de Zantho, vaiuodae Transyluani,
James Lack of Szántó, Hungarian nobleman, Voivode of Transylvania (1403–1409).
 Joannes de Maroth Machouiensis,
John Maróti (c. 1366–1434), Hungarian nobleman, Ban of Macsó (1397, 1398–1402, 1402–1410, 1427–1248), Count of the Székelys (1397–1398), also ispán of Bács, Baranya, Bodrog, Syrmia, Tolna and Valkó Counties.
 Pipo de Ozora Zewreniensis, bani;
Pippo Spano (1369–1426), Italian magnate, general, strategist and confidant of King Sigismund of Hungary, Ban of Severin, also ispán of Temes, Csanád, Arad, Krassó, Keve Counties (1404–1426), Csongrád and Fejér Counties (1407–1426), also ispán of the chamber of salt (1400–1426), Royal treasurer (1407–1408).
 Nicolaus de Zeech magister tauernicorum regalium,
Nicholas II Szécsi, Hungarian nobleman from the influential House of Szécsi, Royal treasurer (1397), also ispán of Zala County (1402), secular gubernator of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Veszprém (1403–1405), master of the doorkeepers for the Queen (1406–1409), Master of the treasury (1408–1410), also ispán of Vas County (1406–1419), Sopron County (1406–1410).
 comes Karolus de Corbauia, supremus thesaurarius regius,
Charles, Count of Krbava, Croatian nobleman, Ban of Croatia (1408–1409), Royal treasurer (1408–1409), castellan of Visegrád (1403–1409).
 Symon filius condam Konye bani de Zecheen, janitorum,
Simon Szécsényi, Hungarian baron and military leader from the influential Szécsényi family, a staunch supporter of King Sigismund of Hungary since the 1380s, Master of the doorkeepers (1403–1409), Judge royal (1395–1412), also ispán of Sáros (1403–1405), Szepes (1404), Borsod (1404–1405) and Heves (1405) Counties.
 comes Joannes de Corbauia, dapiferorum,
John, Count of Krbava, Croatian nobleman, Master of the stewards (1406–1419).
 Joannes filius Georgii de Alsaan pincernarum,
John Alsáni, Master of the cupbearers.
 Petrus Cheh de Lewa aganzonum regalium magistri,
Peter Cseh de Léva, Master of the horse, Voivode of Transylvania (1436–1438), also ispán of Bács, Baranya, Bars, Bodrog, Syrmia, Tolna and Valkó Counties.
 Nicolaus de Chak, alias vaiuoda Transyluanus,
Nicolaus Csáki, Hungarian nobleman, Voivode of Transylvania (1402–1403, 1415–1426), also ispán of Békés, Bihar, Csanád, Csongrád, Keve, Krassó, Szolnok, Temes, and Zaránd Counties (1402–1403), ispán of Békés, Bihar, and Szolnok Counties (1415–1426).
 Paulus Byssenus, alter Paulus de Peth, pridem Dalmatiae, Croatiae et totius Sclauoniae regnorum bani,
Paul Besenyő and Paul Pécsi, Hungarian noblemen, Ban of Dalmatia, Ban of Croatia, Ban of Slavonia (1404–1406).
 Michael, filius Salamonis de Nadasd comes siculorum regalium,
Michael Nádasdi, Hungarian nobleman, Count of the Székelys (1405–1422).
 Petrus de Peren, alias siculorum nunc vero maramorossensis comes,
Peter Perényi, Hungarian nobleman, Count of the Székelys (1397–1401), Ban of Macsó (1397, 1400–1401), Judge royal (1415–1423), also ispán of Ung (1398–1423), Máramaros (1404–1412), Szatmár and Ugocsa (1406–1419) Counties.
 Emericus de eadem Pern secretarius cancellarius regius
Emeric Perényi, Hungarian nobleman, important diplomat King Sigismund of Hungary, Secret chancellor, also ispán of Abaúj and Borsod.
 et Joannes filius condam domini Nicolai de Gara palatini.
John Garai, nobleman from the Hungarian-Croatian Garai family, son of Nicholas I Garai, and brother of Nicholas II Garai, the Palatine branch of the family.

Members

 Stibor de Beckov or Stibor II, son of Stibor of Stiboricz
 Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić (ca. 1350-1416), Grand Duke of Bosnia
 Vuk Lazarević, brother of Despot Stefan Lazarević, received the title from Sigismund.
 Fruzhin, bulgarian prince, son of Tsar Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria.
 Vlad II Dracul (d. 1447), then Prince of Wallachia
 Alfonso V of Aragon
 Gjergj Arianiti (1383-1462) father in law of Skanderbeg
 Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg (1405-1468), commander and leader
 Ferdinand I of Naples.
 Benjamin de Benyó, Voivod of Liptov.
 Oswald von Wolkenstein (d. 1445)
 Vladislas II of Bohemia and Hungary (1456–1516)
 Foreign allies, who did not swear an oath of loyalty:
 King Ladislaus II of Poland, Sigismund's former brother-in-law />
 Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania,
 King Henry V of England
 members of Italian families, such as the Carrara, della Scala, Useppi, and leaders of Venezia, Padova and Verona

See also
 Order of the Four Emperors

References

Secondary sources
 Boulton, D'A. J. D. The Knights of the Crown: The Monarchical Orders of Knighthood in Later Medieval Europe, 1325–1520. Boydell Press, 2000. 348 ff.
 Fine, John V. A. The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1987.
 Florescu, Radu and Raymond McNally, Dracula: Prince of Many Faces. His Life and His Times. Boston: Little Brown, 1989. .
 Rezachevici, Constantin. "From the Order of the Dragon to Dracula". Journal of Dracula Studies 1 (1999): pp 3–7. Transcriptions available online: (RTF-document), Barcelona-Esoterismo-Esoterisme-Magia.

Further reading

Primary sources
 Statutes of the society, promulgated on 13 December 1408, ed. György Fejér, Codex diplomaticus Hungariae X.4. No. CCCXVII. Buda, 1841. 682–94; earlier edition by J. F.  Miller, "Monumenta diplomatica nunc primum ex autographis edita". In Acta Literaria Musei Nationalis Hungarici 1. Buda, 1818. 167–90.
 Sigismund's charters, ed. J. F. Böhmer, Regesta Imperii XI: Die Urkunden Kaiser Sigismunds 1410/11–1437. 2 vols. Innsbruck, 1896–1900.
 Documenta Romaniae Historica. Bucharest, 1977.
 Calatori straini despre tarile romane. Bucharest, 1970.
 Cronici turcesti privind tarile romana. Bucharest 1966.

Secondary sources
 Bogyay, Thomas von. "Drachenorden". In: Lexikon des Mittelalters 3. Munich, 1986. p. 1346.
 Devries, Dickie, Dougherty, Jestice, Jorgensen, and Pavkovic. Battles of the Crusades 1097–1444. Barnes & Noble, 2007. pp. 188–195.
 Hupchick, D.P. and Cox, H.E. The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Eastern Europe. Palgrave Press, 2001, Map 22.
 Kuzdrzal-Kicki, Wladyslaw. Der Drachenorden: Genese, Gründung und Entartung. Dokumentation und Schlußfolgerungen. Vol. 1. Munich, 1978.
 Lendvai, P. The Hungarians Princeton University Press, 2003. pp 70–72.
 McNally, Raymond T. "In Search of the Lesbian Vampire: Barbara von Cilli, Le Fanu's 'Carmilla' and the Dragon Order". Journal of Dracula Studies 3 (2001)
 Sugar, P.F. and Hanak, P. and Frank, T. A History of Hungary. Indiana University Press, 1994. pp. 54–62.
 Timon, Akos. Ungarische Verfassung- und Rechtsgeschichte. Berlin, 1904.
 Baslack, Andreas. Abbildung und Beschreibung aller Ritterorden in Europa. Reprintauflage der Ausgabe von 1792. Holzminden, 1980 and 1999. . From the original: G. Eichler, Abbildungen und Beschreibung aller hoher Geistlichen, Weltlichen und Frauenzimmer Ritter-Orden in Europa. Augsburg: Bürgien, 1792.
 Wheatcroft, A. The Enemy at the Gate. Basic Books, 2008. pp 4–6.

External links

 Regesta Imperii

1408 establishments in Europe
Dynastic orders
Orders of chivalry of Hungary
Religious organizations established in the 1400s

Order of the Dragon


A still is a tool used to clean a liquid. It does this by first boiling the liquid and turning it into a gas. This gas is then cooled, changing it back into liquid. Stills get their name from the word distillation. Distillation is the process of boiling and cooling a liquid to purify it. Stills are most often used to create alcohol, but they can also be used with any liquid. Some examples are medicines and perfumes.

There are two main types of stills: pot stills and reflux stills. In a pot still, the pot (like a large kettle) holding the liquid is heated. The hot gas is cooled in a simple neck, or tube, and collected. Pot stills are used for making alcohol like whisky. A reflux still is much more complex. It works with a continual flow of liquid going into the boiler, and a continual flow of distilled liquid coming out. The distilled liquid can also be put through the process several times, which is why it is called a reflux still. This allows for a more pure product, and the person working the still can control the level of purity. Reflux stills are used in the chemical and petroleum industries.

References

Tools

Still


The American Party, commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party, was an American nativist political party that operated in the mid-1850s. It was originally anti-Catholic, prejudiced against other nationalities, and against immigration. The movement was briefly a major political party in the form of the American Party. Followers of the movement were to reply "I know nothing" when asked about its specifics by outsiders, thus providing the group with its most common name.

The Know-Nothings believed a "Romanist" conspiracy was in progress, trying to undermine the power and authority of civil and religious liberty in the United States and wanted to politically organize native-born Protestants in a defense of their traditional religious and political values. It is remembered for this theme because of fears by Protestants that Catholic priests and bishops would control a large amount of voters. In most places, Know-Nothingism lasted only a year or two before disintegrating because of weak local leaders, few publicly declared national leaders and a deep split over the issue of slavery. In the South, the party did not focus on anti-Catholicism, but was the main alternative to the dominant Democratic Party.

The collapse of the Whig Party after the Kansas–Nebraska Act passed left an opening for a new major party in to oppose the Democrats. The Know-Nothings elected congressman Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts and many others in the 1854 elections and created a new party known as the American Party. Particularly in the South, the American Party served as a party for politicians who disagreed with the Democratic Party. Many also hoped that it would seek a middle ground between the pro-slavery positions of many Democratic politicians and the anti-slavery positions of the emerging Republican Party. The American Party nominated former President Millard Fillmore in the 1856 presidential election, although he kept quiet about his membership. Fillmore received 21.5% of the popular vote in the 1856 presidential election, finishing behind the Democratic and Republican nominees.

The party quickly declined after the 1856 election. The 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision further aroused opposition to slavery in the North, where many Know Nothings joined the Republicans. Most of the remaining members of the party supported the Constitutional Union Party in the 1860 presidential election.

Political parties in the United States

Know-Nothing Party


"Homer's Night Out" is the tenth episode of the first season of The Simpsons. It was first shown on March 25, 1990. It was written by Jon Vitti and directed by Rich Moore. In this episode, Bart orders a mail-order spy camera, which he uses, without Homer knowing, take a photograph of Homer dancing with a belly dancer. Marge makes Homer say he's sorry to the dancer to teach Bart that women are not objects. Sam McMurray guest stars in the episode as Gulliver Dark, the man that shows Homer to the crowd at the burlesque show.

The episode was well liked by people and it was the second highest rated show on the Fox network the week it first started. This episode, along with three other episodes of the show, is featured on The Simpsons Gone Wild DVD released in 2004.

Other websites

1990 television episodes
The Simpsons (season 1) episodes

Homer's Night Out