Jane Maria Eliza Cazneau (née McManus, widowed Storm; April 6, 1807 – December 12, 1878) was an Irish-American journalist, lobbyist, and publicist who advocated the annexation of all of Mexico during the Mexican–American War.

Education and early career
Cazneau was born on April 6, 1807, in Brunswick, Rensselaer County, New York, the daughter of Congressman William McManus and Catharine (Coons) McManus. She attended Troy Female Seminary, one of the earliest colleges for women, but did not graduate. On August 22, 1825, she married Allen B. Storm. They separated in 1831, and Allen Storm died 1838 in New York City. Their son, William Mont Storm (b. August 2, 1826), became an inventor whose first invention was patented on Feb. 4, 1851 for an "Improved method of obtaining motive power". He had at least 33 patents to his name, with most in firearms, but many other devices as well.

In 1832, Jane's father ventured into land speculation, and was one of the founders of the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company, and Jane and her brother Robert traveled to Texas, which was then still part of Mexico, to buy land. The next year, Jane, her father, her brother Robert and a company of German settlers set out to take possession of the land, but the scheme failed when the German settlers refused to go beyond Matagorda. She returned home with her father to Brunswick, NY. Her brother Robert remained in Texas and eventually became a wealthy planter.

Also at this time, Eliza Jumel named her as co-respondent in her divorce suit with Aaron Burr, alleging an affair in addition to his ruinous attempt at land speculation.

Writing
Cazneau later turned to journalism, working for Horace Greeley's New-York Tribune, and Moses Yale Beach's New York Sun and the Democratic Review, strongly advocating manifest destiny. Storm embraced this with enthusiasm, and was to go on to be a firm believer in the expansion of the South and of slavery into Central America and the Caribbean. In Mistress of Manifest Destiny (2001), Linda S. Hudson argued that it was Storm who actually wrote the "Annexation" editorial, and thus coined the phrase "Manifest Destiny". Since many editorials in John L. O'Sullivan's publications were unsigned, Hudson used computer-aided "textual analysis" to support her argument. O'Sullivan biographer Robert D. Sampson disputes Hudson's claim for a variety of reasons.

Mexican–American War and peace
Cazneau was sent by President Polk on a secret peace mission to Mexico in 1845; she rode there on horseback. With the outbreak of the Mexican–American War, she went to the front, where she witnessed Winfield Scott's capture of the fortress of Vera Cruz in March 1847. She was the first female war correspondent in American history, and used the pseudonym  "Cora Montgomery" in her writing about the war. She helped negotiate the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848), which included guarantees of property rights to both male and female nonresident landowners. While in Mexico, she worked on canal-building expeditions and banking projects. At the end of the Mexican–American War she turned her attention to Cuba, and the potential it represented, advocating for its annexation and denouncing its Spanish colonial overlords. She later settled at Eagle Pass, a frontier village three hundred miles up the Rio Grande from the Gulf of Mexico, and got to know many of the local Indian chiefs.

Caribbean
In 1849, she married William Leslie Cazneau. They moved to the Dominican Republic in 1855. Despite her earlier sympathies for southern expansionism she disapproved of secession, and was hired by William H. Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, to write denunciations of the Confederacy.  To her, the war was a serious interruption to further prospects of American expansion in the Caribbean.

In 1878, she drowned on her way to Santo Domingo, after the steamer Emily B. Souder on which she was travelling was caught in a storm. Only two men survived the shipwreck.

References

 Hudson, Linda S. Mistress of Manifest Destiny: A Biography of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, 1807–1878. Texas State Historical Association, 2001. .
 The Handbook of Texas Online: Jane McManus Cazneau
 CAZNEAU, Jane Maria Eliza McManus Storms in Notable American Women by Edward T. James & Janet Wilson James (pages 315ff)

External links
 Brief summary of Storm's life

1807 births
1878 deaths
People from Brunswick, New York
American people of the Mexican–American War
Women in warfare in North America
American women war correspondents
Deaths due to shipwreck at sea
19th-century American newspaper people
19th-century American women journalists
Women in 19th-century warfare
19th-century American journalists
People from Eagle Pass, Texas

Jane Cazneau


The Phoenix Metropolitan Area – also the Valley of the Sun, the Salt River Valley, or Phoenix Metro (known by most locals simply as "the Valley") – is the largest metropolitan area in the Southwestern United States, centered on the city of Phoenix, that includes much of the central part of Arizona. The United States Office of Management and Budget designates the area as the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), defining it as Maricopa and Pinal counties. As of the 2020 census, Metro Phoenix had 4,845,832 residents, making it the 11th largest metropolitan area in the nation by population.  The gross domestic product of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area was $255 billion in 2018, 16th largest amongst metro areas in the United States.

Phoenix, Arizona
Metropolitan areas of the United States

Phoenix metropolitan area


Abe Jack Beck (May 24, 1914 – July 2, 2006) was an American air force major general who was commander of Warner Robins Air Materiel Area, Air Force Logistics Command, with headquarters at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia.

Beck was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1914, where he received his basic education. He graduated with a bachelor of laws degree from Southern Methodist University, Dallas School of Law in 1939. After a year of private law practice, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet and in August 1941 was awarded his pilot wings and commission as second lieutenant at Luke Field, Arizona.

He remained at Luke Field as an instructor pilot, engineering officer, and aide-de-camp to Lieutenant General Ennis C. Whitehead. During World War II in June 1942 he was ordered to duty in the Southwest Pacific Theater of Operations where he served three years, principally as an air operations officer at group, wing and Air Force level. During the campaigns in New Guinea, Netherlands East Indies and the Philippines, Beck flew 133 combat missions in bomber, fighter, and troop carrier aircraft. While piloting a P-38 Lightning fighter, he shot down one enemy aircraft.

Beck returned from overseas in May 1945 to enter the Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He graduated from the course in August and was assigned to Headquarters Fourth Air Force in San Francisco, California. He served there until his release from active military duty in August 1946.

In July 1947 Beck returned to active duty at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas, with Headquarters Eighth Air Force. This was the beginning of a pioneering series of key staff and command assignments in the Strategic Air Command spanning a 19-year period. In August 1948 he was transferred to Headquarters Strategic Air Command at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, as judge advocate; and in November 1948, he moved with the headquarters to Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, still serving as judge advocate. From January 1952 to July 1954, he was deputy commander and then commander of the 3902d Air Base Wing at Offutt Air Force Base.

The next three years he was at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, as commander of SAC's 340th Bombardment Wing, a B-47 organization. In July 1957 Beck was assigned as commander, 4082d Strategic Wing at Goose Air Base, Labrador; and in July 1959 he became chief of staff for Headquarters Eighth Air Force at Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts. In July 1961 he moved to Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire, as commander of the 817th Air Division.

In August 1963 Beck was assigned to Headquarters SAC as inspector general, and in August 1964 he became director of materiel. He assumed duties in September 1966 as senior Air Force member, Military Studies and Liaison Division, Weapons Systems Evaluation Group, Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Beck was assigned in July 1968 as commander of the Warner Robins Air Materiel Area at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia.

His military decorations include the Legion of Merit with three oak leaf clusters, Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters, Army Commendation Medal, Presidential Unit Citation Emblem with three oak leaf clusters, and British Military Cross.

He was promoted to the temporary grade of major general effective October 1, 1963, with date of rank May 3, 1959. He retired January 8, 1972.

References

1914 births
2006 deaths
United States Air Force generals
Military personnel from Dallas
Recipients of the Legion of Merit
Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)
Recipients of the Air Medal
Recipients of the Military Cross
Southern Methodist University alumni

A. J. Beck


Sargasso Sea Stories are a group of short stories written by English author William Hope Hodgson that are set around the Sargasso Sea. They have been featured in various short story collections, including The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" and Other Nautical Adventures: The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson, Volume 1. In his introduction to this volume, the editor Jeremy Lassen writes:

[These stories] are the kind of stories that helped Hodgson achieve commercial success. These stories were often published in the highest paying fiction markets of his day, and demonstrate his wide-ranging narrative talent... Today's readers of Hodgson may be more familiar with his stunningly original novels of cosmic vision, such as The House on the Borderland or The Night Land, but it is his narratives of the sea that first captured the attention of the reading public. Most importantly, however, it was in the weed-choked Sargasso Sea where Hodgson first began to explore unreality, and the borderlands of human existence.

"From the Tideless Sea Part One"
This story was first published in the United States in April 1906 in The Monthly Story and first published in England in May 1907 in The London Magazine.

This story contains several similarities to Hodgson's novel The Boats of the "Glen Carrig". Both concern a vessel trapped in the Sargasso Sea, which builds a superstructure against attacking creatures; the trapped ship in the novel is the Seabird, while the ship in this story is called the Homebird. The story can be thought of as a shorter but similar tale told from the perspective of a character trapped aboard such a ship.

Plot summary
A sailing ship happens to fall upon a floating water-cask, well-sealed with pitch and containing a manuscript. The cask is opened and the manuscript is read aloud.

It is the story of the ship Homebird. A terrible storm at sea heavily damages the ship, breaking away all three masts and severely injuring the captain, and leaving it at the mercy of the winds and tides until it is caught in the "cemetery of the oceans", the Sargasso Sea. A group of crew members attempts to free the Homebird but are taken by a giant octopus. The remaining crewmen are also killed, leaving only the narrator, the injured captain, and the captain's daughter. As the captain's health fails, the narrator constructs a superstructure out of wood and pitch-hardened canvas to protect the vessel from the predator. The captain realizes that he will soon die, leaving the narrator alone with his daughter. To protect her honor, the narrator agrees to marry the young woman.

"'Do you -- do you love her?'
"His tone was keenly wistful, and a sense of trouble lurked in his eyes.
"'She will be my wife,' I said, simply; and he nodded.
"'God has dealt strangely with us,' he murmured, presently, as though to himself.
"Abruptly, he bade me tell her to come in.
"And then he married us.
"Three days later, he was dead, and we were alone.

The narrator continues to fortify the ship's defenses, and soon finds that his new wife is pregnant. He takes stock of the ship's stores of food and finds that sufficient provisions exist to keep them alive for fifteen to seventeen years.

The narrator of the story within a story concludes by describing his plans to enclose the manuscript in the water-cask and attach it to a balloon, so that the wind will carry it to open water. The narrative returns from the story-within-a-story to describe the present captain's reaction to the story:

"Seventeen years pervisions," he muttered thoughtfully. "An' this 'ere were written sumthin' like twenty-nine years ago!" He nodded his head several times. "Poor creetures!" he exclaimed. "It'd be er long while, Jock -- a long while!"

"From the Tideless Sea Part Two: Further News of the Homebird"

"The Mystery of the Derelict"

"The Thing in the Weeds"

"The Finding of the Graiken"
A man abuses his friend's trust by taking over his ship and sailing on a mission to the Sargasso Sea to rescue his girlfriend.

"The Call in the Dawn"

British short story collections
Short stories by William Hope Hodgson
Short stories set in the Atlantic Ocean

Sargasso Sea Stories


Malara Broadcast Group of Sarasota, Florida, a Delaware corporation, also known as Malara Broadcasting, was a broadcasting holding company. Malara Broadcasting was founded in 2004 by Tony Malara, former president of affiliate relations for CBS.  Malara owned two television stations: KDLH in Duluth, Minnesota and WPTA in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

History
On April 23, 2004, Malara Broadcast Group entered into agreements to purchase KDLH and WPTA. This marked Malara's first action as a company. These purchases were completed in early March 2005.

On March 8, 2005, Malara Broadcast Group entered into a credit agreement with Granite Broadcasting. This agreement gave Malara Broadcasting $48.5 million and a revolving credit line of $5 million, which it used to purchase KDLH (from former owner New Vision Television) and WPTA, from Granite. In addition to this agreement, Malara also entered into a second agreement with Granite, under which Granite would operate, promote, and sell advertising for the two Malara stations. This is known as a local marketing agreement.

The future of Malara Broadcasting was in doubt given several occurrences stemming from the death of group founder Tony Malara from leukemia and a heart attack on August 24, 2006, as well as financial woes of partner Granite Broadcasting which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on December 11, 2006. Both the future of the Granite group and any rulings on who would get control of Malara could have led to massive changes with the company. Granite emerged from bankruptcy in mid-2007 under the control of the Connecticut-based private equity firm Silver Point Capital, who also controlled Communications Corporation of America, White Knight Broadcasting and selected Spanish-language stations acquired from Equity Media Holdings.

Malara Broadcasting filed its financial results to the SEC jointly with Granite, leading many to believe that it was simply a shell corporation for Granite.  If this were true, Granite and Malara would have been in violation of the FCC's rules on duopolies.  FCC regulations do not allow duopolies between two of the four highest-rated stations in a market.  Additionally, neither Fort Wayne and Duluth have enough full-power stations to legally permit a duopoly in any case.  Fort Wayne and Duluth have only six full-power stations each, and FCC regulations require a market to have eight unique station owners once a duopoly is formed—effectively restricting duopolies to markets with at least nine full-power stations.  Similar allegations surround Cunningham Broadcasting, which many believe is simply a shell for Sinclair Broadcast Group.

On February 11, 2014, it was announced that, as part of Quincy Newspapers' purchase of several Granite stations, Malara would sell WPTA to Quincy and KDLH to SagamoreHill Broadcasting. As a result of the deal, Quincy, which is acquiring KBJR-TV from Granite in the deal, was to provide services to KDLH, while WPTA was to provide services to WISE-TV, which Granite planned to sell to SagamoreHill (currently, WPTA receives services from WISE). SagamoreHill was dropped from the transaction in a November 2014 restructuring of the deal; as a result, Malara would have retained WPTA and KDLH and Quincy would have acquired WISE. Quincy would have continued to provide services to the Malara stations. In July 2015, the deal was reworked again, reverting to the original structure of Quincy acquiring WPTA and KBJR and SagamoreHill acquiring WISE and KDLH. However, the agreements between Quincy and SagamoreHill would be wound down within nine months of the deal's consummation, after which WISE's and KDLH's existing Big Three network affiliations would be moved to subchannels of WPTA and KBJR, respectively, and WISE and KDLH would begin operating independently of WPTA and KBJR as solely The CW Plus affiliates. The deal was completed on November 2, 2015; the affiliation switches and the termination of the sharing agreements took effect on August 1, 2016. Quincy would acquire the two CW stations outright in 2018, reuniting them with their former LMA partners.

References

External links
SEC Info - Granite Broadcasting
Fort Wayne TV Takeover
Fort Wayne TV Takeover - The Sequel

Defunct television broadcasting companies of the United States
Mass media companies established in 2004
Companies based in Sarasota, Florida
2004 establishments in Florida

Malara Broadcast Group


East Indiaman was a general name for any sailing ship operating under charter or licence to any of the East India trading companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. The term is used to refer to vessels belonging to the Austrian, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese or Swedish companies.

Some of the East Indiamen chartered by the British East India Company were known as "tea clippers".

In Britain, the East India Company held a monopoly granted to it by Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1600 for all English trade between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. This grant was progressively restricted during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, until the monopoly was lost in 1834. English (later British) East Indiamen usually ran between England, the Cape of Good Hope and India, where their primary destinations were the ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The Indiamen often continued on to China before returning to England via the Cape of Good Hope and Saint Helena. When the company lost its monopoly, the ships of this design were sold off. A smaller, faster ship known as a Blackwall Frigate was built for the trade as the need to carry heavy armaments declined.

Description of the sailing vessels and the trade

East Indiamen vessels carried both passengers and goods, and were armed to defend themselves against pirates. Initially, the East Indiamen were built to carry as much cargo as possible, rather than for speed of sailing. The British East India Company had a monopoly on trade with India and China, supporting that design.

East Indiamen were the largest merchant ships regularly built during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, generally measuring between 1100 and 1400 tons burthen (bm). Two of the largest were the Earl of Mansfield and Lascelles being built at Deptford in 1795. The Royal Navy purchased both, converted them to 56-gun fourth rates, and renamed them Weymouth and Madras respectively.  They measured 1426 tons (bm) on dimensions of approximately 175 feet overall length of hull, 144 feet keel, 43 feet beam, 17 feet draft.

In England, Queen Elizabeth I granted an exclusive right to the trade to the East India Company in 1600, a monopoly which lasted until 1834. The company grew to encompass more than the trade between England and India, but the ships described in this article are the type used in the 17th to the early 19th centuries to carry the trade.

During the wars with France
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars they were often painted to resemble warships; an attacker could not be sure if gunports were real or merely paint, and some Indiamen carried sizable armaments. The Royal Navy acquired several East Indiamen, turning them into fourth rates (e.g., HMS Weymouth and HMS Madras, described above), maintaining the confusion for military ships seeking merchant ships as prizes of war. In some cases the East Indiamen successfully fought off attacks by the French. One of the most celebrated of these incidents occurred in 1804, when a fleet of East Indiamen and other merchant vessels under Commodore Nathaniel Dance successfully fought off a marauding squadron commanded by Admiral Linois in the Indian Ocean in the Battle of Pulo Aura.

Due to the need to carry heavy cannon, the hull of the East Indiamen – in common with most warships of the time – was much wider at the waterline than at the upper deck, so that guns carried on the upper deck were closer to the centre-line to aid stability. This is known as tumblehome. The ships normally had two complete decks for accommodation within the hull and a raised poop deck. The poop deck and the deck below it were lit with square-windowed galleries at the stern. To support the weight of the galleries, the hull lines towards the stern were full. Later ships built without this feature tended to sail faster, which put the East Indiamen at a commercial disadvantage once the need for heavy armament passed.

Ships for the India-China trade

According to historian Fernand Braudel, some of the finest and largest Indiamen of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were built in India, making use of Indian shipbuilding techniques and crewed by Indians, their hulls of Indian teak being especially suitable for local waters. These ships were used for the China run. Until the coming of steamships, these Indian-built ships were relied upon almost exclusively by the British in the eastern seas. Many hundreds of Indian-built Indiamen were built for the British, along with other ships, including warships. Notable among them were Surat Castle (1791), a 1,000-ton (bm) ship with a crew of 150, Lowjee Family, of 800 tons (bm) and a crew of 125, and Shampinder (1802), of 1,300 tons (bm).

Notable ships

Another significant East Indiaman in this period was the 1176-ton (bm) Warley that John Perry built at his Blackwall Yard in 1788, and which the Royal Navy bought in 1795 and renamed . In 1803 she was employed as a transport to establish a settlement at Port Phillip in Australia, later shifted to the site of current-day Hobart, Tasmania by an accompanying ship, the Ocean. French forces captured Calcutta in 1805 off the Isles of Scilly. She grounded at the Battle of the Basque Roads in 1809, and was burned by a British boarding party after her French crew had abandoned her.

The 1200-ton (bm) Arniston was likewise employed by the Royal Navy as a troop transport between England and Ceylon. In 1815, she was wrecked near Cape Agulhas with the loss of 372 lives after a navigation error that was caused by inaccurate dead reckoning and the lack of a marine chronometer with which to calculate her longitude.

End of the era

With the progressive restriction of the monopoly of the British East India Company the desire to build such large armed ships for commercial use waned, and during the late 1830s a smaller, faster ship known as a Blackwall Frigate was built for the premium end of the India and China trades. The last of the East Indiamen was reputed to be the Java (1813–1939) that became a coal hulk, then was broken up.

A ship named Lalla Rookh, involved in an incident in November 1850 off Worthing, West Sussex, in which many local men died after their rescue boat capsized, was described as an East Indiaman bringing sugar and rum from Pernambuco, Brazil.

In literature
The Battle of Pulo Aura is featured in Patrick O'Brian's novel HMS Surprise, with French Admiral Linois in pursuit of a large fleet of East Indiamen. In the novel, HMS Surprise under Captain Aubrey organizes the merchantmen to defeat Linois and his squadron. In history, all the ships that defeated the French squadron were merchantmen.

The Black Pearl in the movie series Pirates of the Caribbean is based on the East Indiaman

In the Aubrey–Maturin series, East Indiamen are involved in many of the novels, including the second set in the Peace of Amiens, where some of the sailors took positions on East Indiamen. In other of the novels, Aubrey intercepts enemy vessels that interfere with the merchant ships, earning their gratitude.

Stuart Turton's 2020 novel The Devil and the Dark Water is mostly set on a Dutch Indiaman in 1634.

Selected examples

Sailing replicas
Several East Indiamen have been reconstructed in recent decades. Some of these are (semi) permanently moored and can be visited as part of a museum collection.

In other media
The 2018 video game Return of the Obra Dinn features an East Indiaman as the fictional title vessel, with gameplay requiring players to thoroughly explore a 3D model of the ship and observe the crew's activities.

Empire: Total War features Indiaman as the primary Trading Ship for the European, Indian as well as the United States faction in game. Players move one or several of these ships to "trade nodes" in West or East Africa, Brazil or the East Indies to gain significant trade profit.

See also
Armed merchantman
Chinaman (ship), a ship used to transport colonial goods from China
Guineaman, a ship used to transport slaves from the region of Guinea
West Indiaman, a ship used to transport colonial goods from the West Indies

References

External links

The East India Company
The East Indiaman Gotheborg project
The East Indiaman Project Gutenberg

Ship types
Age of Sail
Merchant ships
Tall ships

East Indiaman


Marwan ibn Muhammad ibn Marwan ibn al-Hakam (; – 6 August 750), commonly known as Marwan II, was the fourteenth and last caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 744 until his death. His reign was dominated by a civil war, and he was the last Umayyad ruler to rule the united Caliphate before the Abbasid Revolution toppled the Umayyad dynasty.

Birth and background
Marwan ibn Muhammad was a member of the Marwanid household of the Umayyad Caliphate. His grandmother was named Zaynab. Marwan's father was Muhammad ibn Marwan, who was the son of the fourth Umayyad Caliph Marwan I (), and hence half-brother to fifth Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ().

His mother was a woman who's mostly unnamed, however sometimes is called Rayya or Tarubah, and is likely of non-Arab origin (a Kurd according to most accounts). Some have referenced that his mother was already pregnant with Marwan before his legal father, Muhammad, bed her, thus making the child not his. A couple sources report that Muhammad had taken her captive during the suppression of Ibn al-Zubayr's revolt, prior to her capture she was either Ibn al-Zubayr's slave or his cook, Zumri. These two men were believed to be Marwan's real biological father by Umayyad contenders. There is much doubt and dispute on his mother's name but she was most commonly known as Umm Marwan (meaning "Mother of Marwan").

Early life
In 732–733, Caliph Hisham appointed Marwan governor of Armenia. In 735–736, Marwan invaded Georgia, devastated it and then took three fortresses of the Alans and made peace with Tumanshah. In 739–740, he launched further raids and obtained tribute.

In 744–745, on hearing news of the plot to overthrow al-Walid II, Marwan wrote to his relatives from Armenia strongly discouraging this. He urged them to harmoniously preserve the stability and well-being of the Umayyad house, however, this was disregarded and many armed men moved into Damascus. Yazid slipped into Damascus and deposed al-Walid in a coup, following this up with a disbursement of funds from the treasury.

Reportedly, Marwan II, who for several years had supervised the campaigns against the Byzantines and the Khazars on the Caliphate's northwestern frontiers, had considered claiming the caliphate at the death of al-Walid II, but a Kalbi rebellion had forced him to wait. Instead, Yazid III appointed him governor to Upper Mesopotamia and he took up residence in the Qays-dominated city of Harran. Throughout Yazid III's Caliphate Marwan remained a governor and he didn't claim the throne for himself.

Reign
When Yazid III persisted in overthrowing al-Walid II, Marwan at first opposed him, then rendered allegiance to him. On Yazid's early death (Yazid named his brother Ibrahim as his successor. Yazid fell ill of a brain tumour), Marwan renewed his ambitions, ignored Yazid's named successor Ibrahim, and became caliph. Ibrahim initially hid, then requested Marwan give him assurances of personal safety. This Marwan granted and Ibrahim even accompanied the new caliph to Hisham's residence of Rusafah.

Marwan named his two sons Ubaydallah and Abdullah heirs. He appointed governors and proceeded to assert his authority by force. However, the anti-Umayyad feeling was very prevalent, especially in Iran and Iraq. The Abbasids had gained much support. As such, Marwan's reign as caliph was almost entirely devoted to trying to keep the Umayyad empire together.

Marwan took Emesa (Homs) after a bitter ten-month siege. Al-Dahhak ibn Qays al-Shaybani led a Kharijite rebellion. He defeated the Syrian forces and took Kufa. Sulayman ibn Hisham turned against Marwan, but suffered a severe defeat. The Kharijites advanced on Mosul and were defeated. Sulayman joined them. Al-Dahhak's successor al-Khaybari was initially successful in pushing back Marwan's center and even took the caliph's camp and sat on his carpet. However, he and those with him fell into fighting in the camp. Shayban succeeded him. Marwan pursued him and Sulayman to Mosul and besieged them there for six months. Then, reinforced, the caliph drove them out. Shayban fled to Bahrayn where he was killed; Sulayman sailed to India.

In Khurasan there was internal discord, with the Umayyad governor Nasr ibn Sayyar facing opposition from al-Harith and al-Kirmani. They also fought each other. In addition, Abbasid envoys arrived. There had long been religious fervor and a kind of messianic expectation of Abbasid ascendency. During Ramadan of 747 (16 May – 14 June), the Abbasids unfurled the standards of their revolt. Nasr sent his retainer Yazid against them. Yazid, however, was bested, taken, and held captive. He was impressed by the Abbasids and when released told Nasr he wanted to join them, but his obligations to Nasr brought him back.

Fighting continued throughout Khurasan with the Abbasids gaining increasing ascendency. Finally, Nasr fell sick and died at Rayy on 9 November 748 at the age of eighty-five.

Marwan campaigned in Egypt in 749 to quell the Bashmuric Revolt and secure his rear, but his campaign was a failure. The Abbasids, meanwhile, achieved success in the Hijaz. Marwan suffered a decisive defeat by Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah on the banks of the Great Zab, called Battle of the Zab. At this battle alone, over 300 members of the Umayyad family died. Marwan fled, leaving Damascus, Jordan and Palestine and reaching Egypt, where he was caught and killed on 6 August 750. His heirs Ubaydallah and Abdallah escaped to modern Eritrea. Abdallah died in fighting there.

Marwan's death signaled the end of Umayyad fortunes in the East and was followed by the mass killing of Umayyads by the Abbasids. Almost the entire Umayyad dynasty was killed, except for the prince Abd ar-Rahman who escaped to Spain and founded an Umayyad dynasty there. In Egypt, Marwan's tongue was fed to a cat.

Physical description
Marwan was known to be of a fair complexion, with blue eyes, a big beard, big headed and of medium height. He did not dye his beard with Henna and left it white.

See also
 Marwan ibn Muhammad's invasion of Georgia
 Battle of the Zab
 Muhammad ibn Marwan

References

Bibliography

Sir John Glubb, "The Empire of the Arabs", Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1963
Syed Ameer Ali, "A Short History of the Saracens", Macmillan and co., London, 1912

691 births
750 deaths
8th-century Umayyad caliphs
8th-century monarchs in Asia
8th-century monarchs in Africa
8th-century monarchs in Europe
Executed monarchs
8th-century executions by the Abbasid Caliphate
Arab generals
Generals of the Umayyad Caliphate
Umayyad people of the Arab–Khazar wars
People of the Third Fitna
People of the Abbasid Revolution
Umayyad governors of Arminiya
Umayyad governors of Mosul
Monarchs killed in action

Marwan II


Igo Gruden (18 April 1893 – 29 November 1948) was a Slovene poet and translator.

He was born as Ignacij Gruden in the small fishing village of Aurisina near Trieste, then part of the Austro-Hungarian County of Gorizia and Gradisca (now in Italy) as first of ten children of Franc Gruden and Justina Košuta. He attended high schools in Trieste and Gorizia, and then studied law in Vienna and Graz. During World War I, he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army and fought in the Battles of the Isonzo, where he was seriously injured. After the war, he continued his studies in Prague, graduating in 1921. The same year, he moved to Ljubljana, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, where he practiced law.

In the 1920s and 1930s, he was active in spreading the anti-Fascist sentiment among Slovene intellectuals. In 1922, he was arrested by the Italian authorities while visiting his native village, which was then under Italian jurisdiction. He was released after the intervention of the Yugoslav authorities. In Ljubljana, Gruden soon became part of the local left liberal intellectual circles. He collaborated with renowned journals such as Ljubljanski zvon and Sodobnost, and frequented authors such as Josip Vidmar, Juš Kozak, Ferdo Kozak, Fran Albreht, Stanko Leben, Lojze Ude and Anton Vodnik.

During World War II, he collaborated with the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation, and was interned by the Italian occupation forces to the Rab concentration camp. After the Italian armistice, he joined the Partisan resistance. After the war, he worked at the Slovenian section of the Yugoslav Radio in Belgrade, together with Matej Bor and Anton Ingolič. He died in Ljubljana and was buried in the Žale cemetery.

Gruden's poetry was influenced mostly by the Slovene Modern (), particularly Oton Župančič and Dragotin Kette. He was also heavily influenced by Gabriele D'Annunzio and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Initially, he followed the vitalist trend, but later moved to more reflexive poetry. During World War II, he published many poems describing the daily life in concentration camps.

See also
 Slovene literature

References
 Janko Kos, Slovenska književnost (Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 1982), 102–103.

External links

 Slovenski pesnik – IGO GRUDEN at users.volja.net (page is in Slovene)

1893 births
1948 deaths
People from Duino-Aurisina
Italian Slovenes
Slovenian poets
Slovenian male poets
Slovenian translators
Italian–Slovene translators
Norwegian–Slovene translators
Prešeren Award laureates
20th-century Slovenian lawyers
Yugoslav Partisans members
Charles University alumni
20th-century translators
Yugoslav lawyers

Igo Gruden