Amagerbro is an area in the northern part of the island Amager and a district in Copenhagen. The area is known as a working class area, and has approximately 20,000 inhabitants. The district has two metro stations, Amagerbro station and Lergravsparken station. Amagerbrogade, a main shopping street, runs through it.

The district is bordered by the Amager Fælled nature reserve, the Christianhavn Ramparts and Kløvermarken, the industrial area near Amager Boulevard and Øresundsvej. The main shopping and business area is Amagerbrogade and its sidestreets. Establishments in Amagerbro include Kofoeds School offering assistance to people with social problems, the Sundholm Activity Centre accommodating the homeless for short periods, and The Royal School of Library and Information Science with some 800 students.

References

Geography of Copenhagen
Amager

Amagerbro


The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv is the most famous orchestra in Israel.  It is usually called the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, or abbreviated IPO.  In Hebrew it is written: , pronounced: ha-Tizmoret ha-Filharmonit ha-Yisre'elit. It was started in 1936 by the violinist Bronisław Huberman when it was known as the Palestine Orchestra. At this time the Nazis were in power in Germany and Jews were being persecuted.  Many European orchestras were getting rid of their Jewish musicians.  The orchestra gave their first concert in Tel Aviv on 26 December 1936, and was conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

The orchestra tours to many parts of the world.  In 1971 they visited Germany.  Some of the world's greatest conductors have conducted the orchestra.  Leonard Bernstein and Zubin Mehta in particular have had a close relationship with them.  They did not have a main conductor until 1977 when Mehta was made Music Director.

The IPO have made many recordings with Mehta, and also with Bernstein.

After 1938 the orchestra have refused to play the music of Richard Wagner because he was anti-Jewish.

Musical Advisors/Music Directors
Until 1977 the orchestra had no Music Directors. The conductors most closely associated with the orchestra were called musical advisors.
 Zubin Mehta (1968–) (Musical Advisor 1968–1977; Music Director thereafter)
 Jean Martinon (1957–1959)
 Bernardino Molinari
 Paul Paray (1949–1951)
 Leonard Bernstein (1947–1949; Laureate Conductor 1947-1990)
 William Steinberg (1936–1938)

Other websites
 Israel Philharmonic Orchestra official website

Israeli music
Orchestras

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra


Tactical voting happens when a person votes for someone other than their favorite candidate in a way to either help their favorite or achieve some other goal. This may happen in national or local elections, or even in elections for clubs and homeowner associations.

Examples

Say 5 people are running as candidates for board members, but only 3 will be elected. For the following situations except the last, let's say you get 1 vote.

 Your favorite is almost guaranteed to win a seat on the board, so you may choose to vote for your second favorite candidate to help him out. That gives your two favorites a better chance of winning.

 Your favorite is almost guaranteed to lose, so you may choose to vote for your second favorite candidate to help him out. That gives your second choice a chance of winning even though your favorite may lose.

 Your favorite is uncertain to win, so you may choose to vote for a stronger candidate, rather than see someone else win.
You don't have a favorite, but hate the current leading candidate, but you may choose to vote for somebody with less votes to even out the results between them.

 Say you get to vote for 3 candidates and your favorite is in the middle of the pack. You may choose to vote only for your favorite and not use your other 2 votes so that your favorite faces less competition.

Another common situation happens in primary elections, where members of one party may temporarily 'cross over' to the other party to support a candidate who is getting fewer votes, hoping their favorite will face weak competition in the main election. This type of negative voting is popular but often considered unethical.

Ethics

Many experts question tactical voting in that it can undermine a democratic outcome. That is, ethical voters may believe it more important how a candidate wins than who wins. Others feel the end justifies the means. Most researchers tend to frown on tactical voting.

Resources

 Svensson, Lars-Gunnar (1999). The Proof of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem Revisited
 The Science of Elections, Brams, Herschbach Science Online (2001). Abstract

Other websites

 Tactical Voting Can Be a Weak Strategy -- Article on tactical voting within larger strategic considerations [archived]
 VotePair.org  VotePair is a banding together of the people who started tactical voting online in the 2000 US elections
 Voting methods page  Includes extensive discussion of strategic voting in a wide range of real and theoretical voting systems

Voting

Tactical voting


Herbert Benjamin Edwardes KCB, KCSI (1819-1868) was an English administrator, soldier and statesman of British India. He served mostly in the Punjab and the Punjab Frontier (later renamed the North-West Frontier Province, and today the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan). His name lives on there in the Edwardes College, Peshawar.

1819 births
1868 deaths
British military people
Colonial officials of British India

Herbert Benjamin Edwardes


Sir Anthony Richard Wagner (6 September, 1908–5 May 1995) was an officer of arms from England. Wagner wrote many books about heraldry. He became Portcullis Pursuivant in 1931 and then served in the Army during World War II. He became Garter King of Arms in 1961 and served until 1978. Wagner was made a knight in 1961. Even though he was blind when he was older, he still served at the College of Arms until he died in 1995.

1908 births
1995 deaths
English writers
Heraldry

Anthony Wagner


Kid Millions is a 1934 American musical film directed by Roy Del Ruth, produced by Samuel Goldwyn Productions, and starring Eddie Cantor. Its elaborate "Ice Cream Fantasy Finale" production number was filmed in three-strip Technicolor, one of the earliest uses of that process in a feature-length film.

Plot
In New York City, 1934, jazz singer Dot Clark and her shady gangster boyfriend, Louie The Lug ("An Earful of Music"), are introduced. After having an affair with the deceased Professor Edward Wilson, Dot is now technically his common-law wife and heiress to $77 million. She has to go to Egypt to claim the money, and sets off with Louie in hopes of getting the cash. Former assistant to Edward Wilson, Gerald Lane, informs the law offices of Benton, Loring, and Slade of Professor Wilson's death and the fact that Edward's son, Eddie Wilson, Jr, is the rightful heir to the money. Mr. Slade, the lawyer, goes to a barge in Brooklyn where Eddie is living with his adopted father, Pops, an old stevedore, and his three sons, Oscar, Adolph, and Herman, who roughhouse Eddie. However, Eddie is managing to live a nice life nonetheless, with his girlfriend, Nora 'Toots', and his care for all the kids on the barge. He dreams of the day when he will have enough money to live his own life outside of the dirty barge ("When My Ship Comes In"). Moments later, Eddie is informed that he has inherited the $77 million and boards a ship bound for Egypt to claim the money. Aboard the ship is Colonel Henry Larrabee, a gentleman from Virginia who sponsored Eddie, Sr's exploration endeavors and wants a share of the money, as well. Eddie befriends his beautiful niece, Joan, and Dot and Louie realize that they are not the only ones traveling to Egypt. In an elaborate scheme to trick Eddie into signing over the inheritance, Dot disguises herself as Eddie's mother and almost succeeds in duping him, but Louie ruins the plan at the last minute. Meanwhile, Gerald Lane has boarded the ship and he is revealed to be in love with Joan Larrabee.

In the ship's bar, the Colonel, Gerald, and Louie realize they are all traveling for the same reason, and Gerald calls Colonel Larrabee a liar. Joan overhears and becomes angry with him, much to Jerry's dismay. Louie tries to get Eddie to hand over the cash by trying to bump him off by pushing him off the ship's deck in a wheelchair. The duo thinks they have succeeded in getting rid of Eddie, but they are foiled again. Eddie tries to help Jerry win back Joan, and suggests they rehearse a number for the ship's concert the next evening. They rehearse ("Your Head On My Shoulder"), but Joan is still frosty toward him. At the ship's concert, Jerry, Eddie, Dot, Joan, and members of the chorus perform a big minstrel show number featuring a specialty tap by the Nicholas Brothers ("Mandy N' Me"). The ship lands in Alexandria, Egypt, and Joan is still angry with Jerry. Eddie, still convinced that Dot is his mother and Louie is his uncle, wants to see a magician performing at the ship's port. When the magician taunts Louie and calls him a coward, Louie gets in the magic basket and ends up getting beaten by Egyptian slaves. Eddie chases a little dog running through the marketplace and lands literally in the lap of the sheikh's daughter, Princess Fanya, who falls instantly in love with Eddie. She forces him to come with her back to the palace, where Eddie meets her father, Sheikh Mulhulla, and her fiancé, Ben Ali, who is extremely jealous. Fanya hyperbolizes the encounter with the dog, saying that Eddie saved her from a lion's attack instead of a puppy.

Eddie then is invited to stay at the palace, much to Fanya's delight. However, soon Sheikh Mulhulla learns of the Americans being in Egypt who have come to take the $77 million treasure that he believes is rightfully his. He tells Eddie about this and Eddie begins to worry about his mother and his uncle, along with the others. In a comical scene, the sheikh and Eddie smoke a hookah pipe and the sheikh tells him of the affair he is having with a famous dancer who lives in the village. The harem women try to seduce Eddie, but he is steadfast to remain faithful to Nora 'Toots' ("Okay Toots"). Princess Fanya has a plot to get Eddie to marry her, and she tells her father that Eddie kissed her on the camel when they first met. The sheikh then decrees that Eddie must marry Fanya or die, and has him suspended over a large bowl of soup. Eddie then agrees to marry Fanya, and is kept in a room on a dog collar until the next morning, when Ben Ali comes in with a gun in a jealous rage. Eddie convinces Ben Ali that he does not want to marry Fanya, and Ben Ali is convinced and lets him go. However, Joan, Jerry, the Colonel, Dot, and Louie arrive at the palace and are immediately accosted by the guards. In the tomb, Eddie and the men disguise themselves as the spirits of the sheikh's ancestors and tell him to let the Americans go free. The sheikh is so scared by the prophecies, he agrees to let them go on one condition: Eddie will never be able to see Fanya ever again. He agrees and boards a plane home to New York City, where he uses the inheritance to open a free ice cream factory with Toots, thus realizing their lifelong dream ("Ice Cream Fantasy Finale").

Cast
Eddie Cantor as Eddie Wilson Jr., the deceased Professor Edward Wilson's son and the now heir
Ann Sothern as Joan Larabee, niece to Colonel Larrabee who is in love with Jerry Lane
Ethel Merman as Dot Clark, a jazz singer and con artist out to get the Wilson fortune
George Murphy as Jerry Lane, assistant to the deceased Professor Edward Wilson who befriends Eddie Wilson Jr. and is in love with Joan Larrabee
Berton Churchill as Col. Harrison Larabee, uncle to Joan Larrabee, a Southern gentleman from Virginia who funded one of Professor Wilson's expeditions
Warren Hymer as Louie the Lug, Dot Clark's dim-witted gangster boyfriend and manager who travels with her to get the Wilson fortune
Paul Harvey as Sheik Mulhulla, an Egyptian sheik whose daughter, Princess Fanya, falls in love with Eddie Wilson
Jesse Block as Ben Ali, Princess Fanya's jealous fiancé who believes that Eddie is out to steal Fanya from him
Eve Sully as Princess Fanya, the sheik's daffy daughter who falls in love with Eddie after he saves her from a small dog
Otto Hoffman as Khoot, Sheikh Mulhulla's head advisor
Stanley Fields as Oscar, one of Eddie's stepbrothers who lives on the barge
Edgar Kennedy as Herman, one of Eddie's stepbrothers who lives on the barge
Jack Kennedy as Pop Wilson, Eddie's adopted father, an old stevedore who lives on the barge with his three sons
John Kelly as Adolph, one of Eddie's stepbrothers who lives on the barge
Doris Davenport as Nora 'Toots', Eddie's girlfriend who lives on the barge and dreams of marrying him when he gets his money
The Nicholas Brothers
Tommy Bond as Tommy, one of Eddie's kid friends who lives on the barge
Donald Haines as Kid Band Member (uncredited)
Sam McDaniel as Ship's Steward (uncredited)

Production notes
The film's "ice cream fantasy sequence" was Goldwyn's first attempt at film with three-strip Technicolor. The cast of Our Gang appears among the children in this sequence.
Cantor originally introduced the song "Mandy", with Marilyn Miller, in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1919.
Among the Goldwyn Girls in this film are Lucille Ball, Paulette Goddard, Lynne Carver, Helen Wood and Barbara Pepper.

Reception
The film was very successful at the box office.

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in 2006: AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals – nominated

See also
 List of American films of 1934
 List of early color feature films

References

External links

1934 films
1934 musical comedy films
1930s color films
American musical comedy films
Films directed by Roy Del Ruth
Films scored by Alfred Newman
Films set in 1934
Films set in Egypt
Films set in New York City
Samuel Goldwyn Productions films
United Artists films
Early color films
1930s English-language films
1930s American films
English-language musical comedy films

Kid Millions


The backgammon chouette is a variant of backgammon for three or more players. Traditionally played in person, today, the internet allows this form of backgammon to be played across different countries and various platforms. The chouette is a fast-paced game, featuring frequent use of the doubling cube, discussion and dispute of possible moves, and shifting rivalries among players.

General play
One player—the box—plays against a team consisting of all other participants. One member of the team is designated as the captain. The box and the rotation order are generally determined by the roll of dice.

The game is played on a single backgammon board according to standard rules. The captain makes the final decision on all checker plays for the team, although help from team-mates can be requested in some situations. Usually, all members of the team have their own doubling cube vs. the box, and can double regardless of what other team-mates do, and they can accept or refuse a double independently of the other players. The result is that, although they are using a single backgammon set, each member on the team is playing a separate game against the box.

A chouette is generally played in the same way as backgammon money play. There is no "match score"; one game is played, scores are tabulated, and another game begins. The positions of the players are rotated after each game. In general, if the box wins, this player remains the box. If the captain wins, the captain becomes the box for the next round. The loser goes to the bottom of the order and all other players move up one spot. In one variation, team members who successfully accepted or declined a double progress ahead of those who made the wrong decision.

Each player maintains a running score, corresponding to the number of points won or lost in each game, adjusted for gammons, backgammons, and the value of the doubling cube.

See also

World Backgammon Federation

References

External links

 ABA chouette Rules,  Backgammon Galore!. Retrieved on December 18, 2015.
 Chouette Rules,  Club Chouette Rules. Retrieved on June 8, 2006.

Backgammon
Game variants

Backgammon chouette


Forward-looking infrared (FLIR) cameras, typically used on military and civilian aircraft, use a thermographic camera that senses infrared radiation.

The sensors installed in forward-looking infrared cameras, as well as those of other thermal imaging cameras, use detection of infrared radiation, typically emitted from a heat source (thermal radiation), to create an image assembled for video output.

They can be used to help pilots and drivers steer their vehicles at night and in fog, or to detect warm objects against a cooler background. The wavelength of infrared that thermal imaging cameras detect is 3 to 12 μm and differs significantly from that of night vision, which operates in the visible light and near-infrared ranges (0.4 to 1.0  μm).

Design

Infrared light falls into two basic ranges: long-wave and medium-wave. Long-wave infrared (LWIR) cameras, sometimes called "far-infrared", operate at 8 to 12 μm and can see heat sources, such as hot engine parts or human body heat, several kilometers away. Longer-distance viewing is made more difficult with LWIR because the infrared light is absorbed, scattered, and refracted by air and by water vapor.

Some long-wave cameras require their detector to be cryogenically cooled, typically for several minutes before use, although some moderately sensitive infrared cameras do not require this. Many thermal imagers, including some forward-looking infrared cameras (such as some LWIR enhanced vision systems (EVS)) are also uncooled.

Medium-wave (MWIR) cameras operate in the 3–5 μm range. These can see almost as well, since those frequencies are less affected by water-vapor absorption, but generally require a more expensive sensor array, along with cryogenic cooling.

Many camera systems use digital image processing to improve the image quality. Infrared imaging sensor arrays often have wildly inconsistent sensitivities from pixel to pixel, due to limitations in the manufacturing process. To remedy this, the response of each pixel is measured at the factory, and a transform, most often linear, maps the measured input signal to an output level.

Some companies offer advanced "fusion" technologies that blend a visible-spectrum image with an infrared-spectrum image to produce better results than a single-spectrum image alone.

Properties
Thermal imaging cameras such as the Raytheon AN/AAQ-26 are used in a variety of applications, including naval vessels, fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, armored fighting vehicles, and military-grade smartphones.

In warfare, they have three distinct advantages over other imaging technologies:
 The imager itself is nearly impossible to detect for the enemy, as it detects energy emitted from the target rather than sending out energy that is reflected from the target, as with radar or sonar.
 It sees radiation in the infrared spectrum, which is difficult to camouflage.
 These camera systems can see through smoke, fog, haze, and other atmospheric obscurants better than a visible light camera can.

Etymology
The term "forward-looking" is used to distinguish fixed forward-looking thermal imaging systems from sideways-tracking infrared systems, also known as "push broom" imagers, and other thermal imaging systems such as gimbal-mounted imaging systems, handheld imaging systems and the like. Pushbroom systems typically have been used on aircraft and satellites.

Sideways-tracking imagers normally involve a one-dimensional (1D) array of pixels, which uses the motion of the aircraft or satellite to move the view of the 1D array across the ground to build up a 2D image over time. Such systems cannot be used for real-time imaging and must look perpendicular to the direction of travel.

History
In 1956, Texas Instruments began research on infrared technology that led to several line scanner contracts and, with the addition of a second scan mirror, the invention of the first forward-looking infrared camera in 1963, with production beginning in 1966. In 1972, TI invented the Common Module concept, greatly reducing cost and allowing reuse of common components.

Uses

Traffic video detection and monitoring
Surveillance and/or capture of mammals
e.g. Detection of illegal immigrants hidden in lorries/trucks
Warning drivers about sudden road obstructions caused by deer
Location through smoke and/or haze
Search and rescue operations for missing persons especially in wooded areas or water
Target acquisition and tracking by military or civil aircraft
Drainage basin temperature monitoring and monitoring wild game habitats
Detection of energy loss or consumption, or insulation defects
e.g. insulation level mapping (pipes, walls, joints etc.) in order to reduce HVAC energy consumption
Quality control for especially electrical installations (a picture can reveal if loads are higher than expected, or show bad and potentially failing joints)
Search for drug labs and/or indoor cannabis producers (especially at night)
Piloting of aircraft in low visibility (IMC) conditions
Pinpoint sources of ignition during firefighting operations
Monitoring active volcanoes
Detecting faulty or overheating electrical joints, connections and components
Night driving
Identification or visual acquirement of hostile armour in tanks

Cost

The cost of thermal imaging equipment in general has fallen dramatically after inexpensive portable and fixed infrared detectors and systems based on microelectromechanical technology were designed and manufactured for commercial, industrial and military application. Also, older camera designs used rotating mirrors to scan the image to a small sensor. More modern cameras no longer use this method; the simplification helps reduce cost. Uncooled technology available in many EVS products have reduced the costs to fractions of the price of older cooled technology, with similar performance. EVS is rapidly becoming mainstream on many fixed wing and rotary wing operators from Cirrus and Cessna aircraft to large business jets.

Police actions
In 2001, the United States Supreme Court decided in Kyllo v. United States that performing surveillance of private property (ostensibly to detect high emission grow lights used in clandestine cannabis farming) using thermal imaging cameras without a search warrant by law enforcement violates the Fourth Amendment's protection from unreasonable searches and seizures.

In the 2004 R. v. Tessling judgment, the Supreme Court of Canada determined that the use of airborne FLIR in surveillance by police was permitted without requiring a search warrant. The Court determined that the general nature of the data gathered by FLIR did not reveal personal information of the occupants and therefore was not in violation of Tessling's Section 8 rights afforded under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). Ian Binnie distinguished the Canadian law with respect to the Kyllo judgment, by agreeing with the Kyllo minority that public officials should not have to avert their senses or their equipment from detecting emissions in the public domain such as excessive heat, traces of smoke, suspicious odors, odorless gases, airborne particulates, or radioactive emissions, any of which could identify hazards to the community.

In June 2014, the Canadian National Aerial Surveillance Program DHC-8M-100 aircraft mounted with infrared sensors was instrumental in the search for Justin Bourque, a fugitive who had killed three Royal Canadian Mounted Police members in Moncton. The plane's crew used its advanced heat-sensing camera to discover Bourque's heat signature in the deep brushwoods at midnight.

During 2015 Baltimore protests, the FBI conducted 10 aerial surveillance missions between April 29 and May 3, which included "infrared and day color, full-motion FLIR video evidence" collection, according to FBI spokesman Christopher Allen. A FLIR Talon multi-sensor camera system equipped with an infrared laser pointer (which is invisible to casual observers) for illumination purposes was used to gather data at night. The American Civil Liberties Union raised concerns over the fact that new surveillance technology is implemented without judicial guidance and public discussion. According to Nathan Wessler, an ACLU attorney, "this is a dynamic we see again and again when it comes to advances in surveillance. By the time details leak out, programs are firmly entrenched, and it's all but impossible to roll them back – and very hard to put in place restrictions and oversight."

See also
 Automotive night vision
 Electro-optical targeting system
 Infra-red search and track

References

External links

 Electro-Optical Systems
 Thermal Imaging Sensors (Defence Today)
 Comparison Chart

Film and video technology
Infrared imaging
Military electronics
Night flying
Night vision devices
Targeting (warfare)
Texas Instruments

Forward-looking infrared


The Diamir District is a first-order administrative division of the Pakistani-controlled territory known as the Northern Areas and is the district in which the Karakoram Highway enters that territory from Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The capital of the Diamir District is Chilas. In 2004, the Diamir District was reduced in size as a result of the creation of the new Astore District from Diamir's easternmost tehsil. (See map.)

The Diamir District is bounded by the Astore District in the east, Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the southwest (separated by the Babusar Pass or Babusar Top), Neelum District of Azad Kashmir in the south, the Ghizar District in the north and northwest, and the Gilgit District in the north and northeast.

Before the Karakoram Highway was opened in 1978, the only road reaching Gilgit town from the south was a rough track north from Balakot to Babusar Pass (via Kaghan, Naran, Besal, and Gittidas) and farther north through Babusar Gah to Chilas. The road up to Besal is now in better condition, but from Besal to Babusar Pass, the road is still a rough track.

Tehsils
 Chilas Tehsil
 Darel Tehsil
 Tangir Tehsil
 Babu Sar Tehsil

Districts of Gilgit-Baltistan

Diamir District


Construction is the process of erection or assembly of any building or infrastructure on a site. In general, there are three types of construction:

 Building construction
 Heavy/civil construction
 Industrial construction

Building construction is the process of adding structure to real property. Industrial construction, though a relatively small part of the entire construction industry, is a very important component.

History
The first buildings were huts and shelters, constructed by hand or with simple tools. As cities grew during the Bronze Age, a class of professional craftsmen appeared. Occasionally, slaves were used for construction work. In the Middle Ages, these were organized into guilds. In the 19th century, steam-powered machinery appeared, and later diesel- and electric powered vehicles such as cranes, excavators and bulldozers.

Modern construction is consistently made of materials such as glass, steel, concrete and bricks. So it is easy to build simple forms like simple cubic forms. The new style of architecture is based on the economic basic principle:
 Social economics: The need to build houses results in having  too many houses to build and to create fewer special houses. Decorations and ornaments were not important.
 Constructive economics: The reduction of needing points and areas allows new possibilities. That results in more free forms with the same work.
 Stylistic economics: The houses represent universality and objectivity and they are a product of art.

Related pages
 Architecture
 Building code
 Project management
 Civil Engineering

Construction


Lords of Madness is an official supplement for the 3.5 edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game.

Contents
The book includes new content for aberrations including new aberration monsters and monsters related to them, and information on how to hunt aberrations. It is split into the following chapters:

 "What Is an Aberration?": Defines what characteristics make a creature an aberration, and how these creatures originated.  Also provides details on how to run a campaign based on aberrations.
 "The Deep Masters": Provides information on the aboleth, including their anatomy, variant creatures, a prestige class called the Savant, feats, and magic.
 "The Eye Tyrants": Provides information on the beholder, including their anatomy, variant creatures, a prestige class called the Beholder Mage, feats, and magic.
 "The Mind Flayers": Provides information on the illithid, including their anatomy, variant creatures, and magic.
 "The Slave Takers": Provides information on the neogi, including different types of neogi, their anatomy, and magic.
 "The Eaters": Provides information on the grell, including their anatomy, society, and magic.
 "The Wearers of Flesh": Provides information on the tsochar, including their anatomy, variant creatures, society, and magic.
 "New Monsters": Provides statistics and information on the beholderkin, cildabrin, shadowcloak elder cloaker, elder brain, elder eidolon, gas spore, gibbering mouther, half-farspawn, hound of the gloom, illithidae, mind flayer variants, pseudonatural creature template, psurlon, shaboath, shadow creature template, silthilar, urophion, and zeugalak.
 "The Aberration Hunter": Provides information for characters that hunt aberrations, including new feats, magic, spells, and magic items, and the new prestige classes Abolisher, Darkrunner, Fleshwarper, Keeper of the Cerulean Sign, Sanctified Mind, and Topaz Guardian.

Publication history
Lords of Madness was written by Rich Baker, James Jacobs, and Steve Winter, and was published in May 2005. Wayne England and Ed Cox drew the cover art, and the interior art was by Steve Belledin, Mitch Cotie, Ed Cox, Dennis Crabapple McClain, Steve Ellis, Wayne England, Colin Fix, Dana Knutson, Doug Kovacs, Chuck Lukacs, Jim Nelson, Michael Phillippi, Wayne Reynolds, Richard Sardinha, Dan Scott, and Ron Spencer.

This book is part of a series of books regarding specific monster types, which includes the Draconomicon and Libris Mortis.

Rich Baker explains how the book's designers chose the creatures with which they worked: "The best master aberrations we identified were the aboleths, beholders, and mind flayers. They're highly intelligent, they enslave other monsters, and they're particularly inimical to human life and society. Beyond those three major races, we found a couple of others that shared some similar characteristics but were not as iconic to the game -- the neogi and the grell. Finally, we created a new aberration just for this book, the tsochari. As the lead designer, I divvied up the book into assignments for Steve and James. Steve got mind flayers and neogi, James got beholders and aboleths. I took the grell and the new race, the tsochari. A fair amount of that decision-making was driven by the physics of carving up a book for three designers to work on, but I did decide to hog the new race for myself. I wanted to take a shot at 'em."

Reception

Reviews

References

External links
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11917.phtml

Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks
Role-playing game supplements introduced in 2005

Lords of Madness


Frunzenskaya () is a Metro station on the Sokolnicheskaya Line in Moscow, Russia. The station was opened on 1 May 1957 as the first stage of the extension of the Frunzenskiy radius. As the radius follows the bend of the Moskva river, the whole segment had to be built very deep (42 metres/138 ft for Frunzenskaya).

The station closed on 2 January 2016 for renovation, which was expected to last 14 months. The renovations were completed ahead of schedule with the station reopening on December 29, 2016. The renovations included the installation of four new escalators to replace the three that had been in place. Metro authorities projected that the new escalators would reduce energy consumption by 40% and increase the capacity by one-third.

Architecture
The station is also symbolic as being one of the last in Moscow to be fully built in Stalinist style which dominated the Metro Architecture since the mid-1940s, afterwards the station designs show evidence of more vivid decorations that were meant to be installed yet designs were simplified (examples include the station VDNKh and Alexeyevskaya).
Frunzenskaya still stands out and architects Robert Pogrebnoi and Yuriy Zenkivich applied a pylon design with cream marbled vaults and tops of pylons, decorated with metallic shields containing a five-sided star. The bottom of Pylons are a form of a thicker red marble base. Suspended from the ceiling are massive eight-horned chandeliers. The floor is covered with black and red granite on floors and the walls are faced with white ceramic tiles. In the far end of the station, in front of a red-marbled semicircle is a bust to Mikhail Frunze (work of sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich), a famous military commander in the Russian Civil War for whom the station is named.
The station's massive vestibule (architects Nadia Bykova, Ivan Taranov, I.G. Cherepanov, I.G.Gokhar-Kharmandaryan, N.I.Demchinskiy and T.A.Ilina) is situated on the Komsomolskiy Avenue and Kholzunov side-street was partially demolished and built into the Moscow's Palace of Youth building in the 1984, presently receives a daily passenger traffic of 47,410. Also behind the station is a junction for a branch to the Koltsevaya Line used for transfers.

Photos

References

Moscow Metro stations
Railway stations in Russia opened in 1957
Sokolnicheskaya Line
Railway stations located underground in Russia
Khamovniki District

Frunzenskaya (Moscow Metro)


The Temple of Zeus is a Doric temple in the sanctuary at Olympia, Greece. Olympia was the site of the ancient Olympic Games. The temple is a ruin. It was dedicated to Zeus, the principal god of the Ancient Greeks. This temple was the most important and most impressive structure at Olympia.

The temple was built between 470 BC and 456 BC. Local limestone was the chief material used. The roof tiles, the gargoyles, and the sculptures were made of marble. The temple measured 64.12 meters by 27.66 meters. It was 20.25 meters high. The temple had six columns at the ends and thirteen columns along both sides. The height of each column was 10.45 meters.

A ramp at the eastern end led to the prodomos. The table holding the Olympic wreaths stood to the right. The crowning of the victors took place on the last day at this spot.

The sculptures of the east pediment depicted the story of Pelops and Hippodameia. This story is about the first chariot races. The sculptures of the west pediment depicted the story of the Centaurs and the Lapiths. This story is about the contest between barbarity and civilization. There were six metopes over the front porch and six over the back porch. They depicted the Labors of Heracles.

The temple once contained Phidias' Statue of Zeus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The fate of the statue is unknown. It may have been taken to Constantinople where it was probably destroyed in the fire of 475 AD. Or, it may have been destroyed in the fire at Olympia in 426 AD. Phidias' workshop was discovered at Olympia in 1954.

Statue bases cover the area around the temple. These bases held statues of gods, heroes, and Olympic victors. They were dedicated by individuals and cities. The sacred olive from which the Olympic wreaths were cut stood on the west side of the temple. Emperor Theodosius II ordered the temple burned to the ground in 426 AD. Earthquakes destroyed it in 522 AD and in 551.

Reading list

Zeus at Olympia
Greek mythology
Buildings and structures in Olympia
5th-century BC buildings and structures

Temple of Zeus at Olympia


Sylvester Stallone (born July 6, 1946), is an American actor, director, movie producer, body-builder, and screenwriter. Stallone has been in many action movies. He has played two famous movie characters: Rocky Balboa, the boxer who overcame challenges to fight for love and glory, and John Rambo, a brave soldier who did violent missions.

Stallone is the only actor in the history of U.S. cinema to have been in a successful box office movie for six decades in a row.

Early life
Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone was born on July 6, 1946 in New York City, and he is the son of Frank Stallone Sr. (1919 – 2011), a hairdresser, and Jackie Stallone (1921 – 2020), an astrologer, former dancer, and supporter of wrestling for women. During his birth, doctors used , an instrument that looks like a pair of pincers or tongs, that damaged a nerve and caused paralysis in parts of Stallone's face. The paralysis caused his well known  speech and drooping lower lip.

Stallone's grandfather, Silvestro Staglione, was an immigrant from Gioia del Colle, in the province of Bari (Apulia, Italy). Stallone's mother was born in Washington, D.C., and she was the daughter of a Parisian socialite. When Stallone was between the ages of two and five he boarded in Queens, and he only saw his parents on the weekends. In 1951 he went back to live with his parents in Maryland where they owned beauty salons. In 1960s he  attended Abraham Lincoln High School (living in the Tacony section of Philadelphia  which inspired the Rocky stories) after being rejected for the Catholic High School Father Judge and after that he went to beauty school.

In the 1960s, Stallone stopped going to beauty school after he won a scholarship for the American College of Switzerland in Leysin. There, he studied drama and was well received in school productions. When he went back to America he went to the Theater Arts Department at University of Miami Florida for three years. He came within a few credit hours of graduation before he decided to drop out and try a career at writing screenplays under the pen names Q. Moonblood and J.J. Deadlock. At the same time he started acting in small parts in movies.

Later, Stallone asked that his acting and life experiences be accepted in exchange for his remaining credits, and the President of the University of Miami gave him a Bachelors of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in 1999.

Career

Italian Stallion and Score
Stallone had his first role in the softcore pornography movie Party at Kitty and Stud's (1970), which was later re-released as Italian Stallion. He was paid US$200 for two days work. An "uncut" version of the movie was released in 2007, and it claimed to show actual hardcore footage of Stallone. However, trade journal AVN, said that Stallone was not in the hardcore scenes. In 2008, a DVD was released of White Fire (1976), a dubbed, German edit of 'Party at Kitty and Stud's', which was alleged to include hardcore footage of Stallone.

Stallone also starred in the  play called Score which had 23 performances at the Martinique Theatre from October 28 - November 15, 1971. It was later made into a movie by Radley Metzger.

Early movie roles, 1971–1975
Stallone's other first few movie roles were small, and he did brief appearances that he did not get credit for in Woody Allen's Bananas (1971) as a subway thug, in the thriller Klute (1971) as an extra dancing in a club, and with Jack Lemmon inThe Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), as a young person. In the Lemmon movie, Jack Lemmon chases, tackles and  Stallone, thinking that Stallone's character is a thief. He also starred in the  hit The Lords of Flatbush (1974). In 1975, he played supporting roles in Farewell, My Lovely, Capone and, another  hit, Death Race 2000. He also made guest appearances on the TV series Police Story and Kojak.

Success with Rocky, 1976

Stallone was not very well known by a lot of people until his role in Rocky (1976). On March 24, 1975, he saw the Muhammed Ali–Chuck Wepner fight which gave him the idea for Rocky. That night Stallone went home, and in three days he had written the script for Rocky. After that, he tried to sell the script with the intent of playing the lead role. Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler both  liked the script (which Stallone submitted to them after a casting), and planned on having a star like Burt Reynolds or James Caan to play the lead character. Rocky was nominated for ten Academy Awards, this included Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay nominations for Stallone.

Rocky, Rambo and new movie roles, 1978–1989

The second movie Rocky II which Stallone had also written and directed was released in 1979 and also became a huge success. The money it made was over US$200 million.

Apart from the Rocky movies, Stallone did many other movies in the late 1970s and early 1980s which were critically acclaimed but were not successful at the box office. He received critical praise for movies such as F.I.S.T. (1978), a social, narrative styled drama where he plays a warehouse worker who becomes involved in the labor union leadership. In Paradise Alley (1978), he plays one of three brothers who is a con artist and who helps his other brother who is involved in wrestling.

In the early 1980s, he starred in a movie with the British veteran Michael Caine in Escape to Victory (1981), a sports drama where he plays a prisoner of war involved in a Nazi propaganda fußball (soccer) tournament. Stallone then created the action thriller movie Nighthawks (1981), in which he plays a New York city cop who plays a cat and mouse game with a foreign terrorist.

Stallone had another major success when he played as a Vietnam veteran named John Rambo in the action adventure movie First Blood (1982). The first chapter of Rambo was both a critical and box office success. The critics praised Stallone's performance, saying he made Rambo seem human despite the way he is described in the book of the same name, First Blood and in the other movies. Two other Rambo movies Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Rambo III (1988) followed (and another, Rambo, in 2008). Although box office hits, the movies were given much less critical praise than the original. He also continued his box office success with the Rocky franchise and wrote, directed and starred in two more movies to the series: Rocky III (1982) and Rocky IV (1985).

Stallone also unsuccessfully attempted roles in different genres. He wrote and starred in the comedy movie Rhinestone (1984) where he played a wannabe country music singer and the drama movie Over the Top (1987) where he played a truck driver who enters an arm wrestling competition to impress his estranged son.  For the Rhinestone soundtrack, he performed a song.  These movies did not do well at the box office and were not well received by critics. It was around 1985 that Stallone was signed to a remake of the 1939 James Cagney classic Angels With Dirty Faces. The movie would form part of his multi-picture deal with Cannon Pictures and he was to co-star with Christopher Reeve. It was going to be directed by Menahem Golan. The re-making of such a very much liked classic was given disapproval by Variety Magazine and horror by top critic Roger Ebert.  So, Cannon decided to make Cobra instead. Cobra (1986) and Tango and Cash (1989) did solid business domestically but overseas they did blockbuster business making over $100 million in foreign markets and over $160 million worldwide. The Rocky and Rambo franchises at the end of the decade were billion dollar franchises internationally.

1990–2002
With the recent success of Lock Up and Tango & Cash, at the start of the 1990s Stallone starred in the fifth installment of the Rocky series Rocky V which was considered a box office disappointment and was also disliked by fans because it seemed like an unnecessary movie to the series. It was supposed to have been the last installment in the franchise at the time.

After starring in poorly received Oscar (1991) and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) during the early 90s, he made a big comeback in 1993 with the movie Cliffhanger which became an really successful movie making over US$255 million worldwide. Later that year he enjoyed another hit with the futuristic action movie Demolition Man which made over $158 million worldwide. His come back success continued with 1994's The Specialist (over $170 million worldwide).

In 1995, he played the comic book based character Judge Dredd who was taken from the well known British comic book 2000 AD in the movie of the same name. The money he made from foregin countries saved the domestic box office disappointment of Judge Dredd with a worldwide tally of $113 million. He also appeared in the thriller Assassins (1995) with the other stars Julianne Moore and Antonio Banderas. In 1996, he starred in the disaster movie Daylight which made only $33 million in the U.S but was a major hit overseas making $126 million, totaling $159,212,469 worldwide.

That same year Stallone, along with an all-star cast of celebrities, appeared in the Trey Parker and Matt Stone short comedy movie Your Studio and You commissioned by the Seagram Company for a party celebrating their earning of Universal Studios and the MCA Corporation. Stallone speaks in his Rocky Balboa voice with subtitles translating what he was saying. At one point, Stallone starts yelling about how can they use his Balboa character, that he left it in the past; the narrator calms him with a wine cooler and calls him a "brainiac". In response, Stallone says, "Thank you very much." He then looks at the wine cooler and exclaims, "Fucking cheap studio!"

Following his amazing performance in Rocky, critic Roger Ebert had once said Stallone could become the next Marlon Brando, although he never received the same critical praise achieved with Rocky. Stallone did, however, go on to receive much approval for his role in the crime drama Cop Land (1997) in which he starred alongside Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta. The movie was only a small success at the box office. His performance led him to win the Stockholm International movie Festival Best Actor Award. In 1998 he did voice-over work for the computer-animated movie Antz, which made over $90 million domestically.

Stallone starred in the thriller Get Carter — a remake of the 1971 British Michael Caine movie of the same name—but the movie was not very well received by both critics and audiences. Stallone's career declined a lot after the movies Driven (2001), Avenging Angelo (2002) and D-Tox (2002).

In 2000, Stallone received a "Worst Actor of the Century" Razzie award, citing "95% of Everything He's Ever Done" rather than one movie. By 2000, Stallone had been awarded four Worst Actor Razzie awards for individual movies. These include a "Worst Screen Couple" Razzie, and a "Worst Actor of the Decade" Razzie for the 1980s. He had been nominated for the Worst Actor award for nine different years from 1984 to 1992.

2003–2005
In 2003, he played as a villain in the third movie of the Spy Kids trilogy Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over which was a huge box office success (almost $200 million worldwide). Stallone also had a small appearance in the 2003 French movie Taxi 3 as a passenger.

Following several poorly reviewed box office flops, Stallone started to regain fame for his role in the crime drama Shade (2003) which was a box office failure but was praised by critics. He was also supposed to star and direct a movie about the murder of rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, entitled  Notorious, but the movie was not made due to legal issues presented by the 2009 movie of the same name.

In 2005, he was the co-presenter alongside Sugar Ray Leonard of the NBC Reality television boxing series The Contender. That same year he also made a guest appearance in two episodes of the television series Las Vegas. In 2005, Stallone also inducted wrestling icon Hulk Hogan, who appeared in Rocky III as a wrestler named Thunderlips, into the WWE Hall of Fame; Stallone was also the person who offered Hogan the small part in Rocky III.

Revisiting Rocky and Rambo, 2006–2008
After taking a break from making movies, Stallone made a comeback in 2006 with the sixth and final installment of his successful Rocky series; Rocky Balboa, which was both a critical and commercial hit. After the critical and box office failure of the previous and presumed last movie Rocky V, Stallone had decided to end the series with a sixth movie which would be a more appropriate ending to the series. The total domestic box office came to $70.3 million (and $155.3 million worldwide). The budget of the movie was only $24 million. His performance in Rocky Balboa has been praised by mostly positive reviews.

When he was asked in February 2008 about which of the icons he would want to be remembered for, Stallone said "it's a tough one, but Rocky is my first baby, so Rocky."

Recent movies
Stallone worked on The Expendables, starring, writing, and directing.

He has said that he wants to adapt the Nelson DeMille novel, The Lion's Game. He wants to direct a movie on Edgar Allan Poe's life, a script that he has been preparing for years. It has also been been confirmed that he will be making a fifth Rambo movie after the success of the fourth one in 2008.

Filmography

Other movie work
Stallone's first work as a director came in 1978 with Paradise Alley, which he wrote and starred in. He also directed Staying Alive (the sequel to Saturday Night Fever), along with Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky Balboa, and Rambo.  Stallone wrote all six Rocky films, He also wrote Cobra, Driven and Rambo. He has co-written several other movies, such as F.I.S.T., Rhinestone, Over the Top and the first three Rambo movies. His last major success as a co-writer was with 1993's Cliffhanger.

Competition with Arnold Schwarzenegger
Stallone has always been considered a opponent to Arnold Schwarzenegger as an action hero actor. Hints to this have been made in both of their movies. In Schwarzenegger's Last Action Hero, Stallone is seen as playing the Terminator in a video advertisement in the film's  real life. In Stallone's Demolition Man, there is a futuristic reference to the Arnold Schwarzenegger Presidential Library. Also in the movie Twins, Arnold Schwarzenegger walks by a giant movie poster for Rambo III. He glances at the size of Stallone's biceps on the poster, and then he feels his own and laughs at how much smaller Stallone's are. According to both Stallone and Schwarzenegger, despite their on camera "rivalry", they are both very close friends. While promoting the movies Rocky Balboa and Rambo on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Stallone revealed that in the 1980s he and Schwarzenegger looked at each other as "Cain and Abel." Stallone then said that, in the 1990s, he and Arnold became the friends they are today. They became one time business partners in Planet Hollywood.

Personal life

Stallone has been married three times. At age 28, on December 28, 1974, he married Sasha Czack. The couple had two sons, Sage Moonblood (May 5, 1976 - July 13, 2012) and Seargeoh (b. 1979). His younger son was diagnosed with autism at an early age. The couple divorced on February 14, 1985. The same year his divorce finalized, he married model/actress, Brigitte Nielsen, on December 15, 1985, in Beverly Hills, California. His second marriage lasted two years. In May 1997, Stallone married Jennifer Flavin; he has  three daughters with her: Sophia Rose (b. 27 August 1996), Sistine Rose (b. 27 June 1998), and Scarlet Rose (b. 25 May 2002).

Political views
Although Stallone is a Republican, he has donated $44,000 to Democratic Party candidates over the years, including $30,000 to the Democratic National Committee, as well as to the campaigns of Bill Bradley and Joe Biden. However, he has also donated over $33,000 to Republicans over the years and publicly supported John McCain for president in 2008.

In 1994, Stallone endorsed the campaign of then-Congressman Rick Santorum, then running for the Pennsylvania Senate, with $1,000.

Stallone did not endorse any candidate in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, yet spoke fondly of presumptive candidate Donald Trump, describing him as a "Dickensian character" and "larger-than-life."

In December 2016, Stallone was offered to become Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts by President Trump. Citing a desire to work on issues relating to veterans, he declined.

Although he holds conservative political positions on most issues, Stallone is a known advocate of gun-control, having been described as "the most anti-gun person working in Hollywood today."

References

Other websites

 Official website

Golden Globe Award winning actors
Actors from New York City
American movie producers
American screenwriters
Writers from New York City
Republicans (United States)
Living people
1946 births
American movie actors
American movie directors
American television actors

Sylvester Stallone


The Old Town Hall (German Altes Rathaus), until 1874 the domicile  of the municipality, serves today as a building for representative purposes for the city council in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. The Old Town Hall bounds the central square Marienplatz on its east side.

Architecture
The building, documented for the first time in 1310, had its Grand Hall (Großer Saal) constructed in 1392/1394. The former Talburg Gate (Talburgtor) of the first city wall serves as spire. The Old Town Hall was re-designed in late-gothic style by Jörg von Halsbach 1470–1480. The Grand Hall was decorated by the Morris dancers, created by Erasmus Grasser. After alterations of the facade during the Renaissance and again in the Baroque the building was restored in neo-gothic style 1861–1864. In 1874 the municipality moved to the New Town Hall.

For the passage of increased road traffic the Old Town Hall was tunneled in 1877 with a drive-through and a separate pedestrian's passage, as well as once again in 1934/35, this time finally destroying the original ground floor. During World War II the building was severely damaged and the spire was reconstructed in 1971–1974. Parts of the neo-Gothic elements, especially the statues of Ludwig the Bavarian (west facade) and Henry the Lion (east facade) and the gable design are preserved.

The Grand Hall was the venue for the speech of Joseph Goebbels on November 9, 1938 which is known as the prelude for the Kristallnacht.

Culture in Munich
Buildings and structures in Munich
Gothic architecture in Munich
Tourist attractions in Munich
City and town halls in Germany

Old Town Hall, Munich


Sappho (; Attic Greek  , Aeolic Greek , Psappho ) wis a Greek leeric poet, born on the island o Lesbos. The Alexandrians includit her in the leet o nine lyric poets. Her birth wis sometime atween 630 an 612 BC, an it is said that she died aroond 570 BC, but little is kent for certain aboot her life. The bulk o her poetry, which wis well-kent an greatly admired through much o antiquity, haes been lost, but her immense reputation haes endured through survivin fragments.

7t-century BC births
570 BC daiths
7t-century BC weemen
6t-century BC Greek fowk
6t-century BC poets
6t-century BC weemen
6t-century BC weemen writers
Aeolic Greek poets
Auncient Eresians
Auncient Greek erotic poets
Auncient Greek weemen poets
Bisexual writers
LGBT history in Greece
Pre-19t-century LGBT fowk
LGBT writers frae Greece
Muses
Nine leeric poets
Fowk frae Lesbos
Poets frae Auncient Lesbos
Female componers
Bisexual weemen
LGBT poets

Sappho


Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 – August 14, 1963) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. In the mid-1930s, he was widely seen as the potential successor to Nobel Prize–winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, as O'Neill began to withdraw from Broadway's commercial pressures and increasing critical backlash. From January 1935, Odets's socially relevant dramas were extremely influential, particularly for the remainder of the Great Depression. His works inspired the next several generations of playwrights, including Arthur Miller, Paddy Chayefsky, Neil Simon, and David Mamet. After the production of his play Clash by Night in the 1941–42 season, Odets focused his energies primarily on film projects, remaining in Hollywood for the next seven years. He returned to New York in 1948 for five and a half years, during which time he produced three more Broadway plays, only one of which was a success. His prominence was eventually eclipsed by Miller, Tennessee Williams, and in the early- to mid-1950s, William Inge.

Early life
Odets was born in Philadelphia to Louis J. Odets (born Leib Gorodetsky) and Pearl Geisinger, Russian- and Romanian-Jewish immigrants, and was raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high school after two years to become an actor and a writer.

Career

Theatre
Odets pursued acting with great passion and ingenuity. At the age of 19 he struck out on his own, billing himself as "The Rover Reciter." Under this moniker he participated in talent contests and procured bookings as a radio elocutionist. He appeared in several plays with Harry Kemp's Poet's Theatre on the Lower East Side. Odets was among America's first real disc jockeys at about this time, at radio station WBNY and others in Manhattan, where he would play records and ad lib commentary. He also functioned as a drama critic, allowing him free entry to Broadway and downtown shows. In this capacity he saw the 1926 Broadway production of Seán O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock. O'Casey's work proved to be a powerful influence on Odets.

In the early 1920s, Odets spent four summers as a dramatics counselor at Jewish camps in the Catskills and the Poconos. He toured extensively with stock companies, in particular Philadelphia's popular Mae Desmond Company, playing a large variety of character roles at their theater in Chester, Pennsylvania. His first Broadway break came in 1929 when he was cast in two small roles and as understudy to the young Spencer Tracy in Conflict by Warren F. Lawrence. Odets landed his first job with the prestigious Theatre Guild in the fall of 1929 as an extra. He acted in small roles in a number of Theatre Guild productions between 1929 and 1931. It was at the Guild that he befriended the casting director Cheryl Crawford. Crawford suggested that Harold Clurman, then a play reader for the Guild, invite Odets to a meeting to discuss new theater concepts they were developing with Lee Strasberg. Though initially bewildered by the concept of acting as an art, Odets was nonetheless mesmerized by Clurman's talks and became the last actor chosen for the Group Theatre's first summer of rehearsals in June 1931 at Brookfield Center in Connecticut, thus becoming a founding member of the company.

The Group Theatre proved to be one of the most influential companies in the history of the American stage. It was the first to base its work on an acting technique new to the United States, devised by the Russian actor and director Constantin Stanislavski. It was further developed by Group Theatre director Lee Strasberg and became known as The Method or Method Acting.

From the start, Odets was relegated to small roles and understudying his Group colleagues. He understudied lead actor Luther Adler in the Group's production of John Howard Lawson's Success Story during the 1932–33 season. Much to Odets's frustration, Adler never missed a performance, but he gained much knowledge of the playwriting craft by standing in the wings and listening to the play. Odets credited Lawson with giving him an understanding of the potential theatrical power of colloquial language. With time on his hands and at Clurman's urging he began to try his own hand at writing plays.

Odets's earliest plays were an autobiographical piece, 910 Eden Street, and one about his hero, Beethoven, with the working title Victory. Clurman dismissed both as juvenilia but encouraged Odets to continue writing, while steering him toward familiar milieus. In late 1932, Odets began writing a play about a middle-class Jewish family in the Bronx, initially called I Got the Blues. He worked diligently on this play, sharing drafts of it with Clurman and promising parts to his fellow actors—often the same parts. While at Green Mansions, its 1933 summer rehearsal venue in Warrensburg, New York, the Group performed Act II of the play, soon to be retitled Awake and Sing!, for other camp residents. The audience was enthusiastic but the Group's leadership, Strasberg in particular, still opposed producing it.

Until his debut as a playwright, Odets continued to train as an actor with the Group at its various summer rehearsal headquarters in the Connecticut countryside and upstate New York. In addition to Brookfield Center and Green Mansions, these venues included Dover Furnace in Dutchess County (1932) and a large house in the Catskill village of Ellenville (1934). The Group spent the summer of 1936 at Pine Brook Country Club in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Its final summer retreat was at Lake Grove, in Smithtown, New York, in 1939. Odets's Group training under Strasberg's tutelage was essential to his development as a playwright. He said in an interview late in life, "My chief influence as a playwright was the Group Theatre acting company, and being a member of that company ... And you can see the Group Theatre acting technique crept right into the plays."

Odets became the first Method-trained playwright with his first produced play, the one-act Waiting for Lefty, on January 6, 1935, at the former Civic Repertory Theatre on Fourteenth Street in New York City. The occasion was a benefit performance for New Theatre Magazine. Like Lawson, a member of the Communist Party, Odets was by this time influenced by Marxism and his plays became increasingly political. Waiting for Lefty was inspired by the 1934 New York City taxi strike and is written in the format of a minstrel show. A one-act play, it is composed of interconnected scenes depicting social and economic dilemmas of workers in various fields. The focus alternates between a union meeting of taxi drivers and vignettes from the workers' difficult and oppressed lives. A young medical intern falls victim to anti-Semitism; a laboratory assistant's job is threatened if he refuses to comply with orders to spy on a colleague; couples are thwarted in marriage and torn apart by the hopelessness of economic conditions caused by the Depression. The climax is a defiant call for the taxi drivers' union to strike, which brought the entire opening night audience to its feet. The play does not require a proscenium stage and can be performed in any acting space, including union meeting halls and on the street. Waiting for Lefty'''s unexpectedly wild success brought Odets international fame, though its strong pro-union bent caused it to be banned in many U.S. towns and cities. It was produced by a number of left-wing theaters in Britain, Australia, and other English-speaking countries, and has been widely translated.Awake and Sing!, finally produced by the Group Theatre in February 1935 after the success of Waiting for Lefty, is generally regarded as Odets's masterpiece. It has been cited as "the earliest quintessential Jewish play outside the Yiddish theatre." The play concerns the Berger family, who struggle to maintain some respectability and self-esteem in the Longwood section of the Bronx while grappling with the anxiety produced by economic collapse. Odets's choice to open the play in medias res, his dialogue style, its blatant bias towards the working class, and the fact that it was the first play on Broadway to focus entirely on a Jewish family distinguish Awake and Sing! from other full-length plays produced on Broadway during this time.

Odets became the Group's signature playwright with the debuts of Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing! and his reputation is inextricably connected with the Group Theatre.

The two 1935 one-acts Waiting for Lefty and the anti-Nazi Till the Day I Die, along with a number of other works by various playwrights produced by the Group Theatre, are harsh criticisms of profiteers and exploitative economic systems during the Great Depression. They have been dismissed by some critics as left-wing propaganda. But Waiting for Lefty is more commonly considered iconic in the agitprop genre, is widely translated and anthologized, and continues to be popular. Odets asserted that all of his plays deal with the human spirit persevering in the face of any opponent, whether or not the characters are depicted as struggling with the capitalist system. The highly successful Golden Boy (1937) portrays a young man torn between artistic and material fulfillment. Ironically, it was the Group Theatre's biggest commercial success. From Golden Boy on, Odets's work focused more on the dynamics of interpersonal relationships as affected by the moral dilemmas of individual characters. In 1938 the Group presented Rocket to the Moon, a psychological play that explores the failure of human beings to fulfill their creative potential. Leftist critics rebuked Odets for abandoning his formerly overt political stance and the play was only modestly successful. The playwright George S. Kaufman and others asked, "Odets, where is thy sting?" Nonetheless, Rocket to the Moon garnered enough attention to place Odets on the cover of Time in December 1938.Rocket to the Moon was followed by Night Music (1940) and Clash by Night (1941), neither of which was successful. Except for his adaptation of Konstantin Simonov's play The Russian People in the 1942–43 season, Odets did not have another Broadway production until 1949. The Big Knife is an allegory about the damaging effects of fame and money on the character of the artist; it also alludes indirectly to the politics of the early Cold War period. The play's harsh critique of Hollywood mores was interpreted as ingratitude on the part of Odets, who had by this time made a significant amount of money writing films. It ran only three months and lost money at the box office.

Odets's 1950 play The Country Girl focuses on the effects of alcohol abuse on creativity and marital relations. It was a critical and box-office success and later adapted for a film starring Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly. Both actors earned Academy Award nominations for their performances. Kelly won Best Actress for her work in the film, and screenwriter George Seaton received an Oscar for his adaptation. Odets's last play was produced on Broadway in 1954. The Flowering Peach was the preferred choice of the Pulitzer Prize jury in 1955, but under pressure from Joseph Pulitzer Jr., the prize instead was given to Tennessee Williams for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which the jury had considered the weakest of the five shortlisted nominees.

 Hollywood

The immediate success of Odets's early plays attracted the attention of Hollywood producers. He first went to Hollywood in early 1936 to write for the screen as well as the stage. From this point on he spent most of his life in Hollywood. His initial intention was to make money to help subsidize the Group Theatre's run of his 1935 play Paradise Lost over which the critics were divided, and to help him fulfill his own financial obligations. His first screenplay was produced by Paramount and directed by Lewis Milestone. Starring Gary Cooper and Madeleine Carroll, The General Died at Dawn (1936) received some positive reviews, though Frank Nugent of the New York Times headed his review, "Odets, Where Is thy Sting?"—a phrase that dogged Odets for the rest of his life

Like most screenwriters of the time, Odets worked within the studio system until the advent of independent production in the 1950s. Thus he often wrote drafts for films such as Rhapsody in Blue and It's a Wonderful Life that were handed off to another screenwriter or team for further development. Odets declined to be credited for many of the films on which he worked, but did accept full credit as both screenwriter and director for None but the Lonely Heart (1944), adapted from the novel by Richard Llewellyn and produced by RKO. The film starred Cary Grant, Ethel Barrymore (who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress), Barry Fitzgerald, and Jane Wyatt.

Odets wrote the 1957 screenplay for Sweet Smell of Success, based on the novelette and a first draft by Ernest Lehman and produced by the independent company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster. Starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, this film noir depicts the underbelly of the newspaper world. The character of J.J. Hunsecker, played by Lancaster, was voted the 35th most despicable villain in 100 years of film by the American Film Institute. Odets directed one other film, for which he also wrote the screenplay, The Story on Page One (1959).

Four of Odets's plays—Golden Boy, Clash by Night, The Big Knife and The Country Girl—have been made into films, though Odets did not write the screenplays.

 Style
Odets's dramatic style is distinguished by a kind of poetic, metaphor-laden street talk. Arthur Miller observed that, with Odets's first plays, "For the very first time in America, language itself ... marked a playwright as unique." Odets's use of local urban speech patterns reflects the influence of Seán O'Casey, another socialist playwright with proletarian concerns. Other hallmarks of Odets's style are his humanistic point of view, and his way of dropping the audience right into the conflict with little or no introduction. Often character is more important than plot, reflecting the influence of Anton Chekhov.

 House Committee on Un-American Activities
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA; more commonly, HUAC) initiated its Hollywood Investigation in October 1947. The House Committee was investigating possible subversive communist influences in Hollywood and inevitably subpoenaed Odets in April 1952. He first testified in executive session, and on May 19 and 20 he again testified, this time in public hearing.

Odets had belonged to the Communist Party for less than a year, between 1934 and 1935, but continued to sponsor many left-wing, progressive groups, some of which were suspected communist fronts. He cooperated with HUAC to the extent that he responded to their questions and reiterated names of Communist Party members who had been previously cited by his friend and former Group colleague Elia Kazan. Before Kazan's final testimony in April 1952, they agreed to name each other. Odets thereby avoided overt blacklisting though the Committee did not thank him for his testimony, an omission generally construed as signifying their displeasure. He also found it increasingly difficult to garner film assignments. The negative reactions to his testimony confused him as he did not consider himself a cooperative witness. A partial transcript of Odets's testimony can be found in Eric Bentley's Thirty Years of Treason.

Odets was tormented by public reaction to his testimony for the rest of his life. In his autobiography, Kazan recalls incidents of Odets being accosted in New York City streets and snubbed in Hollywood restaurants after his HUAC appearance. His productivity markedly declined after the event; he finished only one play and, while he advised other filmmakers such as his friend Nicholas Ray and was sporadically hired as a script-doctor, he managed to produce only one entire screenplay of his own, along with his rewrite of Ernest Lehman's Sweet Smell of Success for the production team of Hecht-Hill-Lancaster.

 Later years
In the early 1960s, Odets contracted to write four of a proposed total of 13 teleplays for The Richard Boone Show, NBC's new dramatic anthology born of a plan for televised repertory theater. He also acted as script supervisor. Two of Odets's finished scripts were aired posthumously: "Big Mitch" (December 10, 1963), and "The Mafia Man" (January 7, 1964). Odets also worked on the libretto for a projected musical version of Golden Boy. He died before the project came to fruition. Playwright William Gibson, a former student of Odets' when he taught at the Actors Studio, completed the play's book.

Though many obituaries lamented his work in Hollywood and considered him someone who had not lived up to his promise, Kazan understood it differently. "The tragedy of our times in the theatre is the tragedy of Clifford Odets," Kazan began, before defending him against the accusations of failure that had appeared in his obituaries. "His plan, he said, was to . . . come back to New York and get [some new] plays on. They'd be, he assured me, the best plays of his life. . . .Cliff wasn't 'shot.' . . . The mind and talent were alive in the man."

 Personal life

Odets married actress Luise Rainer in January 1937, just months before she won her first of two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actress. They divorced in May 1940. He married actress Bette Grayson in 1943, and the couple had two children: Nora (born in 1945) and Walt (born in 1947). Odets and Grayson divorced in 1951. Nora Odets died at Long Beach, Long Island in 2008; Walt Odets became a clinical psychologist, author, and photographer residing in Berkeley, California.

Odets also had relationships with actresses Frances Farmer, Kim Stanley, and Fay Wray.Odets, Clifford. The Time Is Ripe: The 1940 Journal of Clifford Odets. New York: Grove Press, 1988. pp. 28, 204 et al.

 Death
Odets had long suffered from gastrointestinal distress and on July 23, 1963, was admitted to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles to undergo treatment for stomach ulcers. During surgery, doctors discovered that he had metastatic stomach cancer. He received bedside visits from such movie and theater friends as Marlon Brando, Lee Strasberg and Paula Strasberg, Jean Renoir and his wife Dido, Elia Kazan, Harold Clurman, Shirley MacLaine, and Danny Kaye. Renoir dedicated a chapter of his autobiography to his close friendship with Odets. On August 14, 1963, Odets died of stomach cancer at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital at the age of 57.

Odets's ashes were interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale in Glendale, California.

 Legacy
Odets is regarded as one of the American theater's most important playwrights. According to Arthur Miller, "An Odets play was awaited like news hot off the press, as though through him we would know what to think of ourselves and our prospects." Marian Seldes wrote that "Paddy Chayefsky, who felt competitive with Odets, told an interviewer 'There isn't a writer of my generation, especially a New York writer, who doesn't owe his very breath—his entire attitude toward theatre—to Odets.'"Golden Boy was made into a 1939 film and became the basis for a 1964 musical of the same name. The Flowering Peach became the basis for the 1970 Broadway musical Two by Two, which starred Danny Kaye. Odets's screenplay for Sweet Smell of Success became the basis for the 2002 musical of the same name starring John Lithgow.

Lincoln Center celebrated the centennial of Odets's birth with their 2006 production of Awake and Sing!, directed by Bartlett Sher. It won that year's Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play and sparked an ongoing revival of interest in Odets's work. Another centennial production, Rocket to the Moon, directed by Daniel Fish, was produced by Long Wharf Theater. American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts produced Paradise Lost in 2010, also directed by Daniel Fish. Golden Boy was produced by Lincoln Center with Bartlett Sher again directing. It opened on December 5, 2012, to enthusiastic reviews, subsequently garnering 8 Tony Award nominations. John Lahr declared "In this distinguished, almost symphonic production, Sher and Lincoln Center have done a great thing: they have put Odets finally and forever in the pantheon, where he belongs."

Odets's early, more left-wing plays, such as Waiting for Lefty, Awake and Sing!, and Paradise Lost, have enjoyed numerous revivals since the 2008 economic crash. The Roundabout Theatre Company presented the first revival of Odets's 1949 play The Big Knife in 2013 at the American Airlines Theatre in New York, with Doug Hughes directing Bobby Cannavale in the lead role of Charlie Castle. The role was originated by Odets's former Group Theatre colleague John Garfield. The National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO) mounted a highly acclaimed production of Awake and Sing! in 2013 with an all-Asian cast. Performed in a small downtown theatre space in New York's Soho area, the limited run played to sold-out houses. According to New York Times reviewer Anita Gates, "the production easily makes the point that ethnicity is transcended by the humanity of frightened, imperfect people facing unpleasant realities." NAATCO was invited by the Public Theater to revive the production under its auspices in 2015.

Joel and Ethan Coen's 1990 film Barton Fink contains a number of indirect visual and historical references to Odets's personal appearance, background and career. A minor character in the 1982 film Diner speaks only lines from Odets's screenplay for Sweet Smell of Success. The Odets character was played by Jeffrey DeMunn in the film Frances, and by John Heard in the 1983 biography Will There Be A Morning?, both about Frances Farmer.

Odets is mentioned in an episode of the television series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, "The Wrap Party." The episode's subplot dealt with The Hollywood Ten.

Odets is a character in Names, Mark Kemble's play about former Group Theatre members' struggles in the blacklist era.

Odets was the subject of a psycho-biography by psychoanalyst Margaret Brenman-Gibson: Clifford Odets – American Playwright – The Years from 1906–1940. It was one component of an umbrella project Brenman-Gibson undertook on the subject of creativity. The biography was intended to be a three-volume work, with the second and third volumes to cover the final 23 years of Odets's life. Brenman-Gibson died in 2004, leaving the project unfinished. A full-length biography of Odets is in progress with the cooperation of the Odets Estate, to be published by Random House Doubleday Knopf.

Apart from Brenman-Gibson's work, six critical biographies have appeared: by R. Baird Shuman (1962); Edward Murray (1968); Michael Mendelsohn (1969); Gerald Weales (1971); Harold Cantor (1978); and Christopher J. Herr (2003).

Odets was named a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.

 Stage

 Actor
 Midnight (1930)
 Night Over Taos (1931)
 1931– (1931)
 Big Night (1933)
 They All Come to Moscow (1933)
 Men in White (1933)
 Gold Eagle Guy (1934)
 Waiting for Lefty (1935)

 Playwright
 Waiting for Lefty (1935)
 Awake and Sing! (1935)
 Till the Day I Die (1935)
 Paradise Lost (1935)
 I Can't Sleep (1935, monologue)
 Sarah Bernhardt (1936, radio play)
 The Silent Partner (1936, unproduced)
 Golden Boy (1937)
 Rocket to the Moon (1938)
 Night Music (1940)
 Clash by Night (1941)
 The Russian People (1942, adaptation)
 The Big Knife (1949)
 Golden Boy (1950)
 The Country Girl (1950) The Flowering Peach (1954)

 Director
 The Country Girl (1950, original Broadway production)
 Golden Boy (1952, revival)
 The Flowering Peach (1954, original Broadway production)

 Filmography
 Screenwriter
 The General Died at Dawn (1936)
 None but the Lonely Heart (1944)
 Humoresque (1946, screenplay adaptation, with Zachary Gold)
 Notorious (1946, dialogue: love scenes; uncredited)
 Deadline at Dawn (1946)
 Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
 The Story on Page One (1959)
 Wild in the Country (1961)

 Director
 None but the Lonely Heart (1944)
 The Story on Page One (1959)

 Actor
 The General Died at Dawn (1936) – Minor Role (uncredited)
 Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – Man Outside Theatre (uncredited) (final film role)

 Bibliography
 Introduction to Modern Library edition of Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls'' (1936)

See also
 List of Jewish American playwrights

References

External links

Archival collections
Guide to the Clifford Odets Theatrical Materials. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
 Finding aid to Clifford Odets papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
 Clifford Odets Papers, 1926–1963 held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
 Clifford Odets at Online Archive of California

Other

 Almedia Projects: Awake and Sing! by Clifford Odets

1906 births
1963 deaths
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
Jewish American male actors
20th-century American male actors
American male dramatists and playwrights
American male screenwriters
American people of Romanian-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
American theatre directors
American theatre managers and producers
Broadway theatre directors
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from stomach cancer
Hollywood blacklist
Jewish American dramatists and playwrights
Jewish socialists

American Marxist writers
Writers from Greenwich Village
Actors from Greenwich Village
People from the Bronx

Screenwriters from New York City
Writers from Philadelphia
Screenwriters from California
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters

Clifford Odets


Aarau is the capital of the northern Swiss canton of Aargau. The city is also the capital of the district of Aarau.  Most of the people in the municipality speak German.  To the west of Aarau is the canton of Solothurn.  It is the third-largest city in Aargau after Wettingen and Baden.

Geography and Geology

The old city of Aarau lies on a rocky cliff where the Aar river valley narrows at the southern foot of the Jura mountains.  Newer parts of the city can be found farther south of the river valley.
The neighboring municipalities are Küttigen to the north, Rohr and Buchs to the east, Suhr to the south-east, Unterentfelden to the south, and Eppenberg-Wöschnau and Erlinsbach to the west.
Aarau and the other municipalities have merged over the years.  The only exceptions are Unterentfelden and Eppenberg-Wöschnau to the south, whose places are divided from Aarau by the large forests of Gönhard and Zelgli.

History

Prehistory

A few artifacts from the Neolithic period were found in Aarau.  Near the location of the present train station, the ruins of a settlement from the Bronze Age (about 1000 BC) have been excavated.  The Roman road between Salodurum (Solothurn) and Vindonissa passed through the area, along the route now covered by the Bahnhofstrasse.  In 1976 divers in the Aar found part of a seven-meter wide wooden bridge from the late Roman times.

Middle Ages
Aarau was founded around 1240 A.D. by the counts of Kyburg. The first certain reference to the city dates to 1256.  The town was ruled from the "Rore" tower, which has been incorporated into the modern city hall.

In 1273 the counts of Kyburg died out.  Agnes of Kyburg, who had no male relations, sold the family's lands to King Rudolf I von Habsburg.  He granted Aarau its city rights in 1283.  In the 14th Century the city was expanded in two stages, and a second defesive wall was constructed. A deep ditch separated the city from its "suburb;" its location is today marked by a wide street named "Graben" (meaning Ditch).

In 1415 Bern invaded lower Aargau with the help of Solothurn.  Aarau capitulated after a short resistance, and was forced to swear allegiance to the new rulers.  In the 16th Century, the rights of the lower classes were abolished.
In March 1528 the citizens of Aarau allowed the introduction of Protestantism at the urging of the Bernese.  A growth in population during the 16th Century led to taller buildings and more dense construction methods.  Early forms of industry developed at this time; however, unlike in other cities, no guilds were formed in Aarau.

Starting in the early 18th century, the textile industry was established in Aarau.  German immigration contributed to the city's favorable conditions, in that they introduced the cotton and silk factories.  These highly educated immigrants were also responsible for education reform and the enlightened, revolutionary spirit that developed in Aarau.

1798: Capital of the Helvetic Republic
On December 27, 1797, the last Tagsatzung of the Old Swiss Confederacy was held in Aarau.  Two weeks later a French envoy continued to foment the revolutionary opinions of the city.  The contrast between a high level of education and a low level of political rights was particarly great in Aarau, and the city refused to send troops to defend the Bernese border.  By Mid-March 1798 Aarau was occupied by French troops.

On March 22, 1798 Aarau was declared the capital of the Helvetic Republic.  It is therefore the first capital of a unified Switzerland.  Parliament met in the city hall.  On September 20, the capital was moved to Lucerne.

Aarau as canton capital
In 1803, Napoleon ordered the fusion of the cantons of Aargau, Baden and Fricktal.  Aarau was declared the capital of the new, enlarged canton of Aargau.  In 1820 the city wall was torn down, with exception of the individual towers and gates, and the defensive ditches were filled in.

The wooden bridge, dating from the Middle Ages, across the Aar was destroyed by floods three times in thirty years, and was replaced with a steel suspension bridge in 1851.  This was replaced by a concrete bridge in 1952.  The city connected to the Swiss Central Railroad in 1856.

The textile industry in Aarau broke down in about 1850 because of the protectionist tariff policies of neighboring states.  Other industries had developed by that time to replace it, including the production of mathematical instruments, shoes and cement.  Beginning in 1900, numerous electrical enterprises developed.  By the 1960s, more citizens worked in service industries or for the canton-level government than in manufacturing.  During the 1980s many of the industries left Aarau completely.

In 1802 the Canton School was established; it was the first non-parochial high school in Switzerland. It developed a good reputation, and was home to Nobel Prize winners Albert Einstein, Paul Karrer, and Werner Arber, as well as several Swiss politicians and authors.

The purchase of a manuscript collection in 1803 laid the foundation for what would become the Cantonal Library, which contains a Bible annotated by Huldrych Zwingli.  More newspapers developed in the city, maintaining the revolutionary atmosphere of Aarau.  Beginning in 1820, Aarau has been a refuge for political refugees.

The urban educational and cultural opportunities of Aarau have been extended through numerous new institutions.  A Theater and Concert Hall was constructed in 1883, which was renovated and expanded in 1995-96.  The Aargau Nature Museum opened in 1922.  A former cloth warehouse was transformed into a small theater in 1974, and the alternative culture center KIFF (Culture in the fodder factory) was established in a former animal fodder factory.

Origin of the name
The earliest use of the place name was in 1248 (in the form Arowe), and probably referred to the settlement in the area before the founding of the city.  It comes, along with the name of the River Aar (which was called Arula, Arola, and Araris in early times), from the German Au, meaning floodplain.

Old city

The historic old city forms an irregular square, consisting of four parts (called Stoecke).  To the south lies the "suburb", that is, the part of the town formerly outside the city wall.  One special characteristic of the city is its painted gables, for which Aarau is sometimes called the "City of beautiful Gables".

The buildings in the old city originate, on the whole, from building projects during the 16th century, when nearly all the Middle Age period buildings were replaced or expanded.  The architectural development of the city ended in the 18th century, when the city began to expand beyond its (still existing) wall.  Most of the buildings in the "suburb" date from this time.

The "Schlössli" (small Castle), Rore Tower and the upper gate tower have remained nearly unchanged since the 13th century.  The "Schlössli" is the oldest building in the city.  It was already founded at the time of the establishment of the city shortly after 1200; the exact date is not known.  City hall was built around Rore Tower in 1515.

The upper gate tower stands beside the southern gate in the city wall, along the road to Lucerne and Bern.  The jail has been housed in it since the Middle Ages.  A Carillon was erected in the tower in the middle of the 20th century, the bells for which were provided by the centuries-old bell manufacturers of Aarau.

The town church was built between 1471 and 1478.  During the Reformation, in 1528, its twelve altars and accompanying pictures were destroyed.  The "Justice fountain" (Gerechtskeitbrunnen) was built in 1634, and is made of French limestone; it includes a statue of Lady Justice made of sandstone, hence the name.  It was originally in the street in front of city hall, but was moved to its present location in front of the town church in 1905 due to increased traffic.

Economy
The people that give the most jobs in Aarau is the canton government; most of their offices can be found throughout the city.

One of the two head offices of the Aargauer Zeitung, Switzerland's fifth largest newspaper, can be found in Aarau.

Kern & Co., founded in 1819, was an internationally known geodetic instrument manufacturer based in Aarau.  However, it was taken over by Wild Leitz in 1988, and was closed in 1991.

More than half of the workers in Aarau live in the city's suburbs, or on the outskirts of the city.  Aarau gets some jams of cars and buses sometimes during rush hour (the time of day when everyone leaves work to get home).

Things made in Aarau are: bells, mathematical instruments, electrical goods, cotton textiles, chemicals, shoes, and other products.

Notable residents
 Johann Kaspar Riesbeck (1754-1786), author and actor
 Johann Rudolf Dolder (1753-1807), politician
 Sebastian Fahrländer (1768-1841), politician, physician
 Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke (1771-1848), writer
 Ignaz Paul Vitalis Troxler (1780-1866), physician, politician, philosopher
 Carl Feer-Herzog (1820-1880), politician
 Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
 Charles Tschopp (1899-1982), writer
 Born in Aarau:
 Eugen Bircher (1882-1956), politician
 Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, (1770-1843), first director of the United States Coast Survey.
 Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner
 Urs Faes, author
 Friedrich Frey-Herosé (1801-1873), member of the Swiss Federal Council
 Hans Herzog (1819-1894), general
 Paul Hubschmid, actor
 Klaus Merz, author

Related pages
 Lenzburg (boasts a historical museum)

References

Other websites
 http://www.aarau.ch

Aarau


Jenůfa is a three-act opera of realism with words and music by Leoš Janáček. It is based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. The opera was first performed in 21 January 1904 in Brno, (now in the Czech Republic). It was a great success when it was performed in Prague in 1916. The opera is about the murder of a baby (this is called infanticide).

1900s operas
Compositions by Leoš Janáček
1904 works

Jenůfa


Ernest Henry Lamb, 1st Baron Rochester, CMG (4 September 1876 – 13 January 1955) was a British Liberal and National Labour politician who served as Paymaster General from 1931 to 1935 in the National Government of Ramsay MacDonald.

The eldest son of Benjamin Lamb of Yorkshire, Ernest was educated at Dulwich College and Wycliffe College before training as an electrical engineer. He specialised in the new technology of telephony, travelling extensively in Europe in this twenties. He returned to England and formed the New System Private Telephone Company, and was also chairman of the family firm of transport contractors, Lamb Sons and Company.

He entered public life when he was elected to the common council of the City of London, later becoming a deputy alderman and lieutenant of the city. He subsequently became a member of the Port of London Authority and chairman of the Chatham and District Water Board.

He then turned to national politics and was elected to parliament for Rochester in 1906 as a Liberal. He lost his seat in the January 1910 general election, but regained the seat in the December 1910 general election. He continued to hold this seat until the constituency was abolished in 1918.

Lamb was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1907, and was knighted in 1914.

Lamb joined the Labour Party in 1929. On 23 January 1931 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Rochester, of Rochester in the County of Kent. He was a supporter of Ramsay MacDonald after the latter formed the National Government in August 1931 and his subsequent expulsion from the Labour Party, and became a member of the National Labour Organisation, founded the same year by supporters of MacDonald. In November 1931 MacDonald appointed him Paymaster General in the National Government. He continued to hold this post until 1935, and during the same period also represented the Ministry of Labour in the House of Lords.

After 1935 he took little further part in politics, devoting himself to religious and philanthropic activities. A Methodist, Rochester had acted as lay preacher since the nineteenth century. in 1941 he was elected vice president of the Methodist Conference. He served for many years on the board of the National Children's Home and Orphanage, was secretary of the Wesleyan Temperance and Social Welfare Department and vice president of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

He married Rosa Dorothea Hurst, daughter of William John Hurst of Drumaness, County Down, in 1913, and they had six children. He died at his home in Croydon, Surrey, in January 1955, aged 78, and was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son Foster Charles Lowry Lamb.

References

1876 births
1955 deaths
Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
Lamb, Ernest
Labour Party (UK) hereditary peers
Lamb, Ernest
UK MPs who were granted peerages
People educated at Dulwich College
People educated at Wycliffe College, Gloucestershire
British electrical engineers
National Labour (UK) politicians
Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George
Barons created by George V

Ernest Lamb, 1st Baron Rochester