Viktor Korchnoi  (23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a professional chess grandmaster. He was born in Leningrad, USSR (Saint Petersburg). In 1976 he defected to the Netherlands. He  lived in Switzerland for many years, and became a Swiss citizen. Towards the end of his life, he was the oldest active grandmaster on the regular tournament circuit. Viktor was at or near the top in chess for half a century.

In all, Korchnoi was a candidate for the World Championship on ten occasions (1962, 1968, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1988 and 1991). Korchnoi was also a four-time USSR chess champion, a five-time member of Soviet teams that won the European championship, and a six-time member of Soviet teams that won the Chess Olympiad.

Matches against Karpov
Korchnoi played three matches against Anatoly Karpov, the latter two for the World Chess Championship. In 1974, he lost the Candidates final to Karpov by the narrowest margin: 11.5–12.5. Karpov was declared world champion in 1975 when Bobby Fischer failed to defend his title. Then, after defecting from the Soviet Union in 1976, Korchnoi won two Candidates cycles to qualify for World Championship matches with Karpov in 1978 and 1981.

1978 match
The 1978 Karpov–Korchnoi World Championship match was held in Baguio, Philippines. It was one of those events where the struggle took place off as well as on the board. Korchnoi's status as a defector and stateless person was exploited to the full by the Soviet delegation. Karpov's team was a dozen strong, and only three of them were chess players. They included Dr Zukhar, Karpov's personal psychiatrist/psychologist, whom (it was claimed) attempted to hypnotise Korchnoi during play.

There was constant controversy off the board, with X-raying of chairs, protests about the flags used on the board, hypnotism complaints and the mirror glasses used by Korchnoi. When Karpov's team sent him a blueberry yogurt during a game without any request for one by Karpov, the Korchnoi team protested, claiming it could be some kind of code. They later said this was intended as a parody of earlier protests, but it was taken seriously at the time. The story of these off-the-board struggles has been reported in detail, from the Korchnoi point of view.

As a sporting contest, it had an exciting climax. The match would go to the first player to win six games, draws not counting. After 17 games, Karpov had an imposing 4–1 lead. Korchnoi won game 21, but Karpov won game 27, putting him on the brink of victory with a 5–2 lead. Korchnoi fought back, scoring three wins and one draw in the next four games, to equalise the match at 5–5 after 31 games. However, Karpov won the next game, and the match, by 6–5 with 21 draws. For the second time, Karpov had won by the narrowest possible margin.

1981 match
Korchnoi won the next Candidates' cycle to again earn the right to challenge Karpov in 1981. The match, held in Merano, Italy, was held in an atmosphere of political tension. Korchnoi's wife and son were still in the Soviet Union. His son was promised that he would be allowed to join his father, if he gave up his passport. When he did so, he was promptly drafted into the Soviet army. In spite of protests, Korchnoi's son was arrested for evading army service, sentenced to two and a half years in labour camp, and served the full sentence. After the release, he was again refused permission to leave the USSR. In 1982, six years after Korchnoi's defection, his son finally succeeded in leaving the country.

In what was dubbed the 'Massacre in Merano', Karpov defeated Korchnoi convincingly by 6 wins to 2, with ten draws.

Later career

1984 Korchnoi–Kasparov match
Korchnoi was due to play the young Soviet Garry Kasparov in the next (1984) Candidates' cycle. He seemed to have great fondness for Garry Kasparov – possibly because he recognized the situation Kasparov was in – a prominent talent blocked by the Soviet bureaucracy.

The match was to be held in Pasadena, California, but the Soviet Chess Federation protested. Possibly this was because Korchnoi was a defector and the match was in the cold-war enemy's backyard, and because of the soon-to-be-announced Soviet decision to boycott the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles). At any rate, Kasparov was not allowed to fly there to play the match. This defaulted the match to Korchnoi.

However, after a remarkable series of events, spearheaded by the British Grandmaster Raymond Keene, Korchnoi agreed to play the match in London. This was a gracious gesture by Korchnoi, since technically he had already won by default. After a good start, Korchnoi was overcome by Kasparov's attacking play and remarkable maturity.

Later life
Viktor continued to play in Europe, living in his adopted country of Switzerland. He represented their Olympiad team on top board. Korchnoi first played for Switzerland at the 1978 Olympiad, held in Buenos Aires, where he took the individual gold medal for best performance on board one.

On the January 2007 FIDE rating list, Korchnoi was ranked number 85 in the world at age 75, by far the oldest player ever to be ranked in the FIDE top 100. The second-oldest player on the January 2007 list was Alexander Beliavsky, 22 years younger than Korchnoi.

In September 2006, Korchnoi won the 16th World Senior Chess Championship, held in Italy, with a 9–2 score. Korchnoi scored 7.5–0.5 in his first eight games, then drew his last three games. This is the first world title Korchnoi had won. Viktor achieved another mark by winning the 2009 Swiss championship in Grächen. He scored 7/9 at the open tournament.

Viktor's style of play was total commitment. He almost always played for a win if at all possible, and rarely took short draws. He was often seen in complex, double-edged positions, where it is difficult to see what is going on.

Death
Korchnoi died at the age of 85 in Wohlen, Switzerland from complications of a stroke on 6 June 2016.

Books

References

Soviet chess players
Swiss sportspeople
1931 births
2016 deaths
Chess grandmasters

Viktor Korchnoi


Pennsylvania State University is a college in the state of Pennsylvania.  The main campus is in the city of State College, Pennsylvania and it has branch campuses around the state. It was founded in 1855. In 1863, the Pennsylvania state legislature picked the school to be the state's only land grant college.  Its purpose is to do teaching, research, and public service.  It teaches undergraduate, graduate, professional and continuing education students both in classrooms and online.

Penn State University Park is ranked among the top-fifteen public universities in the United States.  Annual enrollment at the main campus totals more than 44,000 graduate and undergraduate students, making it one of the largest universities in the United States. It has the world's largest dues-paying alumni association.

The university's total enrollment in 2009–10 was approximately 94,300 across its 24 campuses and online through its World Campus. The university offers more than 160 majors among all its campuses Penn State has a US$1.52 billion (as of April 30, 2010) endowment. The university's research budget was more than $765 million for the 2009-2009 fiscal year. In fiscal year 2008, the National Science Foundation ranked Penn State 11th among U.S. universities in research income.

Penn State is a school known for its football team.  Penn State is a member of the Big Ten Conference.

Organization and administration
Penn State is a "state-related" university, part of Pennsylvania's Commonwealth System of Higher Education. It receives money from the Commonwealth. The state appoints 10 out of 32 people on its board of trustees. Penn State is  independent and not subject to the state's direct control. For the 2006–2007 fiscal year, the university received 9.7 percent of its budget from state appropriations, the lowest of the four state-related institutions in Pennsylvania. As Pennsylvania's land grant college, the state and federal governments provide matching funds for research and cooperative extension in agriculture, home economics and related fields.

The board of trustees selects a president of the University. The president controls the university, including day-to-day management. In practice, the president gives power to other departments of the administration, to the faculty, and to the student body. Provost Rodney Erickson became interim President on November 9, 2011, after President Graham Spanier was fired.

The executive vice president and provost is the chief academic officer of the University. As of 2011, the provost is Rodney Erickson, and the Associate Vice President and Senior Associate Dean For Undergraduate Education is Jeremy Cohen.

Scandal
The football team was led by coach Joe Paterno for 45 years. He was fired in 2011 along with the University President because they failed to report child abuse by a former assistant football coach. Former coach Jerry Sandusky was arrested on child abuse charges for the period 1994 to 2009. Both the Athletic Director and the vice president for business and finance were charged with perjury and resigned. The next day about 2,000 students rioted in protest, supporting coach Paterno.  On November 11, the school staged a vigil to show support for the victims of child abuse.

The Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that colleges and universities have "a legal and moral responsibility to protect children", and that Penn State's failure to report the alleged abuse would be a "tragedy". The NCAA is considering sanctions against Penn State. Moody's Investors Service is reviewing Penn State's bond ratings for a possible downgrade. On November 14, 2011, the Big Ten Conference announced that its Championship football trophy will no longer be named for Paterno.  On November 13, 2011, President Barack Obama said, "It's a good time for us to do some soul searching – every institution, not just Penn State – about what our priorities are, and making sure that we understand that our first priority is protecting our kids."

Sandusky has denied all charges against him, although he was convicted of all charges in October 2012 and sentenced to 30–60 years in prison.

Sports
Penn State's sports teams are nicknamed Nittany Lions, except for the women's basketball team, which is known as the Lady Lions. Almost all teams play in the Big Ten Conference. Two teams in sports that the Big Ten does not sponsor play elsewhere. The women's ice hockey team plays in College Hockey America and the men's volleyball team in the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.

References

Association of American Universities
American Lacrosse Conference
Big Ten Conference
College Hockey America
Colleges and universities in Pennsylvania
1855 establishments in the United States
1850s establishments in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania State University


The Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, formerly the Transvaal Museum, is a natural history museum situated in Pretoria, South Africa. It is located on Paul Kruger Street, between Visagie and Minnaar Streets, opposite the Pretoria City Hall. The museum was established in 1895 by the former South African Republic, also known as the Transvaal. In 2010 it was one of the founding museums of Ditsong Museums of South Africa.

Collections
The museum curates large collections of Plio-Pleistocene fossils, including hominids from Sterkfontein, Swartkrans and Kromdraai in the UNESCO World Heritage Site; the Cradle of Humankind, as well as late Permian therapsids (proto-mammals from the Karoo). The most complete skull of an Australopithecus africanus specimen, Mrs Ples, is on display in the museum. In addition, the Transvaal museum houses extensive collections of mammals, birds, reptiles, and invertebrates.

History

It was founded as the Staatsmuseum (Afrikaans for "State Museum") of the ZAR on 1 December 1892, and J. W. B. Gunning was appointed as its first director. For the first two years after it was founded, the museum was located in the Ou Raadsaal parliament building.

The Transvaal Museum was amalgamated with the Pretoria-based National Cultural History Museum (also called the African Window) and the South African National Museum of Military History (situated in Johannesburg) on 1 April 1999 to form the Northern Flagship Institution. The NFI was officially renamed Ditsong Museums of South Africa in April 2010. The Transvaal Museum was renamed Ditsong National Museum of Natural History on the same date. Ditsong is managed by a chief executive officer and a board, which replaced the three separate previous museum boards.

References

External links
Official website
360 degree Virtual Tour of the Transvaal Museum

Natural history museums in South Africa
Museums in Pretoria
History of Pretoria


Hoàng Tứ Duy (also known as Duy "Dan" Hoang) is a Vietnamese-born American democracy activist. He is currently the executive director for Viet Tan, an unsanctioned pro-democracy political movement in Vietnam. Before becoming a full-time democracy activist, he worked as an investment banker for over 10 years. He has testified before US Congressional committees on human rights issues and written for the Wall Street Journal, Asia Times Online and leading Vietnamese-language publications.

He currently lives in Washington, D.C.

Early life and career
Born in Saigon, he left Vietnam in April 1975 at the age of three. He holds a B.A. from the University of California, Davis and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

He was a principal financial officer at the International Finance Corporation, the private-sector arm of the World Bank, where he was responsible for IFC's local currency financing programs in Asia and Eastern Europe. He was hired to head Deutsche Bank's investment banking activities in Vietnam in 2007. However, he was reportedly denied entry by government authorities.

He has a long history of organizing for the Vietnamese community, actively serving as board member and organizer.

He is a co-founder and former National Co-chair for the Vietnamese American National Gala (VANG), a national annual celebration of Vietnamese heritage and pride.

He is a co-founder of VOICE, a non-profit organization that focuses on advocacy for the protection of Vietnamese refugees, as well as addressing other issues confronting the conscience of our community.

He also served on the board of Vietnamese-American Public Affairs Committee, a grassroots organization aiming to empower Vietnamese Americans through civic engagement. As a VPAC member, he testified before the House Committee on Ways and Means about US-Vietnam trade relations.

Pro-democracy activism
Duy quit his career as an investment banker to join Viet Tan full-time in 2007. He has been a member of the leadership since 2001, currently serving as the spokesperson.

He is active on raising awareness about the dangers of bauxite mining in the Central Highlands in Vietnam. He has testified before US Congressional committees on human rights issues, calling on the international community to support democratic reforms in Vietnam.

As the number of Internet users reached critical mass in Vietnam and the government ramps up its crackdown on bloggers and digital activists, Viet Tan launched the Internet Freedom Campaign, with Duy being an outspoken advocate for Vietnamese netizens to access the net. He testified before a Congressional Briefing on Internet Freedom in Vietnam and spoken to conferences on strategies to promote access.

Publications
May Vietnam Follow South Africa, Chicago Tribune, May 20, 1994.
A Damaged Brand, Wall Street Journal, November 15, 2007.
South China Seizure, Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2008.
Uncomfortable anniversary in Vietnam, Asia Times Online, September 10, 2008.
Mr. Obama, Set Vietnam Free, Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2009.
Vietnam bauxite plan opens pit of concern, Asia Times Online, March 17, 2009.
China rift opens in Vietnam, Asia Times Online, January 14, 2009.
Vietnam teeters towards a currency crisis, Asia Times Online, September 22, 2009.
Hanoi's Problems Run Deeper Than The Dong, Wall Street Journal, February 11, 2010.
A Rights Agenda for Vietnam, Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2010.
A sinking ship in Vietnam, Asia Times Online, April 6, 2012.
Vietnam to target social media, The Diplomat, April 25, 2012.
Rights before weapons for Vietnam, Asia Times Online, August 20, 2014.

See also
Đỗ Hoàng Điềm
Việt Tân

Notes

External links
Papers
Duy Hoang, Angelina Huynh, and Cuong Nguyen. Vietnam's blogger movement: A virtual civil society in the midst of government repression. Viet Tan, April 1, 2009.
Michel Tran Duc and Duy Hoang. Denial of Service: Cyberattacks by the Vietnamese Government. Viet Tan, April 27, 2010.
Duy Hoang and Angelina Huynh. Rule by Law: How Communist Vietnam Suppresses Political Opposition. Viet Tan, November 18, 2010.
Duy Hoang and Trinh Nguyen. Facebook and Civil Disobedience in Vietnam. Viet Tan, March 4, 2011.
Presentations
Speech at The 2006 Rafto Symposium – Bergen, Norway. November 3, 2006.
Congressional Briefing on Internet Freedom in Vietnam - Washington, D.C.. October 14, 2009.
USIP/ICNC 2010 Course, Democracy Promoters, Diasporas, and Diplomats - Washington, D.C.. November 23, 2010.
Wired for Change: Hacking Our Way Back to Democracy - New York City, February 16, 2011.
Keynote at the 6th International Vietnamese Youth Conference - Manila, Philippines. August 16, 2011.

1971 births
Living people
American bankers
University of California, Davis alumni
University of Chicago Booth School of Business alumni
Vietnamese anti-communists
Vietnamese democracy activists
Vietnamese emigrants to the United States
World Bank Group people

Hoang Tu Duy


Peter II Alexeyevich (23 October 1715  30 January 1730) was Emperor of Russia from 1727 until 1730, when he died at the age of 14. He was the only son of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich and Charlotte Christine of Brunswick-Lüneburg. After Catherine I's death, Alexander Menshikov controlled Peter II, but was thwarted by his opponents and exiled by Peter. Peter was also influenced by favorites like Prince Aleksey Dolgorukov, leading to a neglect of state affairs and the tightening of serfdom. Peter's reign was marked by disengagement, disorder, and indulgence. He was engaged to Ekaterina Dolgorukova, but died suddenly of smallpox before the marriage, thus making him the last male agnatic member of the House of Romanov.

Early life

Peter was born in Saint Petersburg on 23 (O.S. 12) October 1715. His father was the only living son of Peter the Great. His mother was well-connected to European royalty, and through her, Peter was a first cousin of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria.

Peter's mother died when he was only ten days old. His father, the tsarevich Alexei, accused of treason by his own father, Peter the Great, died in prison in 1718. So three-year-old Peter and his four-year-old sister, Natalya, became orphans. Their grandfather showed no interest in their upbringing or education: the Tsar had disliked their father and even their grandmother, his own first wife, and young Peter in particular reminded him of his only son Alexei, whom the Tsar suspected of treachery. Therefore, from his childhood, the young and orphaned Peter was kept in the strictest seclusion. His earliest governesses were the wives of a tailor and a vintner from the Dutch settlement, while a sailor named Norman taught him the rudiments of navigation. When he grew older, however, Peter was placed under the care of a Hungarian noble, Janos (Ivan) Zeikin (Zékány), who seems to have been a conscientious teacher.

Peter the Great died in 1725 and was succeeded by his second wife, Catherine I, a woman of low birth. The powerful minister Aleksander Danilovich Menshikov, who had aided in Catherine's accession, replaced the boy's teachers with the vice-chancellor, Count Ostermann. The program of education that Ostermann compiled included history, geography, mathematics, and foreign languages, but the overall education of the future emperor remained shallow and left much to be desired. Peter himself did not display much interest in study; his favorite occupations were hunting and feasting.

By the time Catherine I died in 1727, it had become clear to those in power that the only grandson of Peter the Great could not be kept from his inheritance much longer. The majority of Russians and three-quarters of the nobility (especially the old-established nobility) were on his side, while the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI (the husband of Peter's mother's elder sister, Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel) persistently urged Peter's claims through the imperial ambassador at Saint Petersburg. Through the efforts of Menshikov, the court named Peter as Catherine's heir apparent, even though Catherine had two daughters of her own. The relevant documentation also specified the betrothal of Peter to Menshikov's daughter Maria.

Reign

After Catherine's death in May 1727 and the proclamation of the 11-year-old Peter II as emperor, Menshikov took the young autocrat into his own house on Vasilievsky Island and had full control over all of his actions. For a few months in the summer of 1727, "[n]ot even Peter the Great was so feared or so obeyed", according to the Saxon ambassador. Menshikov became arrogant and domineering. He issued orders to the Emperor himself and then removed a silver plate that Peter had just given as a gift to his sister Natalya. To which the Emperor replied, "We shall see who is emperor, you or I." Soon, however, Menshikov became sick, and his opponents took advantage of his illness. Under the influence of Ostermann and the Dolgorukovs, Peter – long sick of Menshikov's wardship – stripped him of his rank (September 1727)  and exiled him to Siberia. The Emperor also dissolved his engagement with Menshikov's daughter.

The senate, the privy council and the guards took the oath of allegiance forthwith. At this time, German mathematician Christian Goldbach was appointed tutor to the young Peter II to take over from Andrey Osterman, whom Menshikov had appointed.

Peter II was quick-witted, but apparently a stubborn and wayward boy, much like his grandfather. Despite these similarities, the emperor had no desire to learn to rule, unlike Peter the Great. His young age meant that he could not adequately manage public affairs, and he almost never appeared at the Supreme Privy Council. This led to frustration among his subjects and in the imperial administration – officials did not dare to assume responsibility for important decisions. The Russian fleet became neglected, but Peter II showed no interest in the matter. Peter tightened serfdom by banning serfs from volunteering for military service and thus escaping their status.

With the fall of Menshikov and related court intrigues, the Emperor's main favorites became Prince Aleksey Dolgorukov and his son Ivan, who maintained great influence over the Emperor's decisions. According to contemporaries, Ivan Dolgorukov lived a reckless and profligate lifestyle, leading Peter II to spend much time feasting, playing cards and enjoying the company of women. He soon became addicted to alcohol.

The coronation of Peter II took place in Moscow on 9 January 1728, with the Emperor and a huge entourage. Still, he was disengaged from the affairs of state. Foreign witnesses proclaimed: "All of Russia is in terrible disorder ... money is not paid to anyone. God knows what will happen with finances. Everyone steals, as much as he can." Moving the court and several other institutions from St. Petersburg back to Moscow (1728) was painful for the "Northern Capital", as well as for the nobility forced to move with it, as Peter the Great had put much effort into developing St. Petersburg into a large and lively city.

Peter II returned to St. Petersburg from time to time, but continued to lead an aimless life full of entertainment and distraction. He gradually fell under the thorough-going influence of the Dolgorukovs, and became smitten with the 18-year-old beauty Ekaterina Alekseyevna Dolgorukova. The Dolgorukov family schemed to tie themselves to the imperial bloodline, and persuaded Peter to become engaged to marry Ekaterina. However, it soon became clear that the young monarch had no interest in his fiancee, perhaps influenced by his aunt Elizabeth Petrovna, who did not like Ekaterina. Planning for the wedding went forward regardless, set to take place on .

"Peter II has not reached the age when a person's personality has already shaped," historian Mykola Kostomarov wrote. "While contemporaries praised his natural intelligence and good heart, they only hoped for that good to happen in the future. However, his behavior did not give chances to hope that he would be a good ruler. He hated learning and thinking about national affairs. He was totally engrossed in amusements, and was kept under someone else's influence."

In late December 1729 Peter II fell dangerously ill. His condition deteriorated sharply after the frosty Epiphany Day (), when he participated in a feast. He was then rushed into the palace, standing at the back of his sleigh. The next day doctors diagnosed smallpox. The Dolgorukovs attempted to get the emperor to sign a testament naming Ekaterina as his heir, but they were not allowed into the dying emperor's quarters: Peter II was already unconscious. In his delirium, he ordered horses so that he could visit his sister Natalya (who had died in 1728). A few minutes later, he died.

Emperor Peter II died as dawn broke on 30 January 1730 – the day scheduled for his marriage to Ekaterina Dolgorukova. He is buried in the Cathedral of the Archangel located at the Moscow Kremlin and was the only post-Petrine Russian monarch given that honor; along with Ivan VI (who was murdered and buried in the fortress of Shlisselburg), he is the only post-Petrine monarch not buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg.

With Peter's death, the direct male line of the Romanov dynasty ended. He was succeeded on the Russian throne by Anna Ivanovna, daughter of Peter the Great's half-brother and co-ruler, Ivan V.

Ancestry

See also
Tsars of Russia family tree

Notes

References

Further reading

 Konstantin Arseniev (1839) (in Russian) The reign of Peter II (Царствование Петра II) at Runivers.ru in DjVu and PDF formats

External links
  – Historical reconstruction "The Romanovs". StarMedia. Babich-Design(Russia, 2013)

1715 births
1730 deaths
18th-century Russian monarchs
Deaths from smallpox
Royalty from Saint Petersburg
Emperors of Russia
House of Romanov
Eastern Orthodox monarchs
Monarchs who died as children
Modern child monarchs
Infectious disease deaths in Russia
Russian people of German descent
Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland)

Peter II of Russia


The tawny-backed fantail (Rhipidura superflua), also known as the cinnamon-backed fantail, is a species of bird in the family Rhipiduridae. It is endemic to Buru island in Indonesia. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. The species occupies an area of larger than 20,000 km2 and has a stable population of above 10,000, and thus is not considered as threatened.

References

tawny-backed fantail
Endemic birds of Buru
tawny-backed fantail
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot

Tawny-backed fantail


Pontiac or Obwaandi'eyaag (c. 1714/20 – April 20, 1769) was an Odawa war chief known for his role in the war named for him, from 1763 to 1766 leading Native Americans in an armed struggle against the British in the Great Lakes region due to, among other reasons, dissatisfaction with British policies. It followed the British victory in the French and Indian War, the American front of the Seven Years' War. Pontiac's importance in the war that bears his name has been debated. Historical accounts from the 19th century portrayed him as the mastermind and leader of the revolt, but some subsequent scholars argued that his role had been exaggerated. Historians today generally view him as an important local leader who influenced a wider movement that he did not command.

The war began in May 1763 when Pontiac and 300 followers attempted to take Fort Detroit by surprise. His plan foiled, Pontiac laid siege to the fort, where he was eventually joined by more than 900 warriors from a half-dozen tribes. Meanwhile, messengers spread the word of Pontiac's actions, and the war expanded far beyond Detroit. In July 1763, Pontiac defeated a British detachment at the Battle of Bloody Run, but he was unable to capture the fort. In October, he lifted the siege and withdrew to the Illinois Country.  Pontiac's actions contributed to the British Crown's issuance of the Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited any settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains to preserve an area for Native Americans.

Pontiac's influence declined around Detroit because of the siege but he gained stature as he continued to encourage the various tribal leaders to fight against the British. Seeking to end the war, British officials made him the focus of their diplomatic efforts. In July 1766, he made peace with British Superintendent of Indian Affairs Sir William Johnson. The British attention to Pontiac aroused resentment among other tribal leaders, as the war effort was decentralized. Pontiac claimed greater authority than he possessed. He was increasingly ostracized and in 1769 he was assassinated by a Peoria warrior.

Early years
Contemporaneous documents reveal little about Pontiac before 1763. He was probably born between 1712 and 1725, perhaps at an Odawa village on the Detroit or Maumee River. Other sources state that he may have been born in Defiance, Ohio. A park at the confluence of the Maumee and Auglaise rivers in Defiance is named Pontiac Park and identified as his birthplace.

Historians are uncertain about the tribal affiliation of his parents. According to an 18th-century Odawa tradition, Pontiac's mother was a Chippewa and his father an Odawa, although some sources claim that one of his parents was a Miami. Some sources also state that he may have been born a Catawba and taken as prisoner, then adopted as Odawa. Pontiac was always identified as Odawa by people who knew him. Since 1723 he had also lived in close proximity to Fort Detroit (which he later besieged). Pontiac was married to a woman named Kantuckee Gun in 1716 and they had 2 children both sons. They also had a daughter, Marie Manon who is described as a Salteuse or Saulteaux Indian. She is buried in Assumption Cemetery in Windsor, Ontario.

By 1747, Pontiac had become a war leader among the Odawa, when he allied with New France against a resistance movement led by Nicholas Orontony, a Huron leader. Nicolas had also allowed the English to build a trading post, Fort Sandusky, in 1745 near Sandusky Bay in Ohio country. Pontiac continued to support the French during the French and Indian War (1754–1763) against British colonists and their allied Native Americans. He may have taken part in the famous French and Indian victory over the Braddock expedition on July 9, 1755, although there is no direct evidence.

In one of the earliest accounts of Pontiac, Robert Rogers, a noted British frontier soldier, claimed to have met with the warrior chief in 1760, although many details in Rogers' story are unreliable. Rogers wrote a play about Pontiac called Ponteach: or the Savages of America (1765), which helped to make the Odawa leader famous and began the process of mythologizing about him. According to historian Richard White, the play made Pontiac "the most famous Indian of the eighteenth century".

Pontiac's War

The French and Indian War, the North American theater of the Seven Years' War, effectively ended in 1760 with the British conquest of Quebec, which marked the defeat of New France. Indian allies of the defeated French soon became dissatisfied with the trading practices of the victorious British. In addition, although by treaty the British said they would not build any forts in Ohio Country, General Jeffery Amherst, the architect of British Indian policy, ordered one built on the south shore of Sandusky Bay in 1761. It was known as Fort Sandusky. Amherst also changed policies toward Native Americans, cutting back on the practice of gifts, which the French had customarily given to the Indians, but he considered to be bribes. He also restricted the distribution of gunpowder and ammunition, supplies that the Indians needed for hunting and that had previously been traded to them by the French. Some Indian people believed that the British intended to subjugate or destroy them.

Following the war, British colonists started entering areas formerly colonized by the French. By 1761, tribal leaders began calling for Indians to join, drive the British out of the region, and revive the French and Indian alliance. The French government recognized that the region of the Great Lakes was now in British control. Pontiac's desire to see the French return was so great that he refused to believe that the French would not return, believing it to be a ploy by the British. Contributing to the anti-British sentiment was a religious revival inspired by a Lenape prophet named Neolin, who called for Indians to reject European cultural influences and return to traditional ways. Pontiac may have been involved in a 1762 conference on the Detroit River in which leaders had apparently issued a call to arms to various Indian tribes. According to historian John Sugden, Pontiac "probably thought himself part of a resistance movement already under way".

On April 27, 1763, Pontiac held a large council about 10 miles below Fort Detroit (present-day Council Point Park in Lincoln Park, Michigan). Pontiac urged the listeners to join him in a surprise attack on Fort Detroit. On May 1, Pontiac visited the fort with 50 Odawa in order to assess the strength of the garrison.

According to a French chronicler, Pontiac proclaimed in a second council:
It is important for us, my brothers, that we exterminate from our lands this nation which seeks only to destroy us. You see as well as I that we can no longer supply our needs, as we have done from our brothers, the French.... Therefore, my brothers, we must all swear their destruction and wait no longer. Nothing prevents us; they are few in numbers, and we can accomplish it. The French are all subdued, But who are in their Stead become our Lords? A proud, imperious, churlish, haughty Band. The French familiarized themselves with us, Studied our Tongue, and Manners, wore our Dress, Married our Daughters, and our Sons their Maids, Dealt honestly, and well supplied our Wants, Used no one ill, and treated with Respect Our Kings, our Captains, and our aged Men; Call'd us their Friends, nay, what is more, their Children. And seem'd like Fathers anxious for our Welfare

Pontiac's War began on May 7, 1763, when Pontiac and 300 followers attempted to take Fort Detroit by surprise. His plan was foiled because Major Henry Gladwin, the fort's commander, had been warned by an informer and had prepared his defense. Pontiac withdrew and looked for other opportunities to capture the fort, to no avail. On May 9, he laid siege to the fort, and was eventually joined by more than 900 warriors from a half-dozen tribes. While Pontiac was besieging Fort Detroit, messengers spread word of his actions. Indians made widespread attacks against British forts and Anglo-American (but not French) settlements, and at one point controlled nine of eleven British forts in the Ohio Valley. They destroyed Fort Sandusky. In July 1763, Pontiac defeated a British detachment at the Battle of Bloody Run, but he was unable to capture the fort. In October, he lifted the siege and withdrew to the Illinois Country, where he had relatives.

Pontiac continued to encourage militant resistance to British occupation among the Illinois and Wabash tribes, and to recruit French colonists as allies. According to historian Richard White, it was during this time that Pontiac exerted his greatest influence, developing from a local war leader into an important regional spokesman. After the failure of the siege of Fort Detroit, the British initially thought that Pontiac was defeated and would trouble them no longer, but his influence continued to grow. The British had successfully pacified the uprising in the Ohio Country, but British military dominance was tenuous. They decided to negotiate with the Odawa leader. The British further increased his stature by making Pontiac the focus of their diplomacy and not understanding the decentralized Indian approach to war. Pontiac met with Sir William Johnson, the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs, on July 25, 1766, at Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York, and formally ended hostilities when he signed a peace treaty stopping the rebellions.

To prevent a similar uprising, the British increased their frontier presence in the years following Pontiac's War. In this way, the rebellion's result was the opposite of Pontiac's original intentions. Perhaps most importantly, these were the final major Indian rebellions against British control in the Ohio Country before the creation of the United States guaranteed a permanent white presence in the North American interior.

Final years
Pontiac's final years are sparsely documented. He was summoned to Detroit in August 1767 to testify in the investigation of the murder of Elizabeth "Betty" Fisher, a seven-year-old English colonist. In 1763 during the siege of Detroit, an Odawa war party had attacked the Fisher farm, killing Betty's parents and taking the girl captive. The following year, while Betty was still captive at Pontiac's village, she tried to warm herself at Pontiac's fire. The girl was sick with dysentery, and Pontiac became angry when she soiled some of his clothes. According to court testimony, Pontiac picked up the naked child, threw her into the Maumee River, and called upon a French-speaking ally to wade into the river and drown her. This was done. The French colonist who drowned Fisher was later arrested by the British, but he had escaped by the time that Pontiac came to testify. Pontiac neither confirmed nor denied his role in the murder, and the investigation was eventually dropped.

The attention paid to Pontiac by the British Crown encouraged him to assert more power among the Indians of the region than he possessed by traditional rights. "By 1766 he was acting arrogantly and imperiously," wrote historian Richard White, "assuming powers no western Indian leader possessed." In 1768, he was forced to leave his Odawa village on the Maumee River and relocate near Ouiatenon on the Wabash River. On May 10, 1768, he dictated a letter to British officials in which he explained that he was no longer recognized as a chief by the people of his village on the Maumee.

Pontiac was assassinated on April 20, 1769, near the French town of Cahokia. Most accounts place his murder in Cahokia, but historian Gregory Dowd wrote that the killing probably happened in a nearby Indian village. The killer was a Peoria warrior whose name has not been preserved. He was apparently avenging his uncle, a Peoria chief named Makachinga (Black Dog), whom Pontiac had stabbed and badly wounded in 1766.  A Peoria band council had authorized Pontiac's execution.  The Peoria warrior came behind Pontiac, stunned him by clubbing him, and stabbed him to death.

Various rumors quickly spread about the circumstances of Pontiac's death, including one that the British had hired his killer. Benjamin Drake, writing in 1848, records that the Michigamie, along with the other bands in the Illinois Confederation, had been attacked by a general confederation of the Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo, Sioux, Chippewa, Odawa, and Potawatomi, along with the Cherokee and Choctawa from the south.  The war continued for a great many years until the Illinois Confederation was destroyed. Drake records that by 1826, only about 500 members of the Confederation remained.  Lieutenant Pike, in his travels to the sources of the Mississippi, remarked, "By killing the celebrated Sauk chief, Pontiac, the Illinois, Cahokias, Kaskaskias, and Peorias kindled a war with the allied nations of the Sauks and Reynards, which has been the cause of the almost entire destruction of the former nations." According to a story recorded by historian Francis Parkman in The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851), a terrible war of retaliation against the Peoria resulted from Pontiac's murder. This legend is still sometimes repeated, but there is no evidence that there were any Indian reprisals for Pontiac's murder. Pontiac's burial place is unknown, and may have been at Cahokia. But evidence and tradition suggest that his body was taken across the river and buried in St. Louis, recently founded by French colonists from New Orleans and the Illinois Country. In 1900, the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a commemorative plaque at the southeast corner of Walnut and S Broadway in St. Louis, which was said to be near Pontiac's burial place.

Legacy and honors

Historians have differed in their assessments of Pontiac's importance. Older accounts of the war portrayed him as a ruthless but brilliant mastermind behind a massive "conspiracy" which was planned in advance. Historians today generally agree that Pontiac's actions at Detroit were the spark that instigated the widespread uprising, and that he helped to spread the resistance by sending emissaries urging other leaders to join it, but he did not command the various tribal war leaders as a whole. They operated in a highly decentralized way.

In addition, tribal leaders around Fort Pitt and Fort Niagara, for example, had long been calling for a declaration of war against the British; they were not led by Pontiac. According to historian John Sugden, Pontiac "was neither the originator nor the strategist of the rebellion, but he kindled it by daring to act, and his early successes, ambition, and determination won him a temporary prominence not enjoyed by any of the other Indian leaders." The British assumed that chiefs were able to hold more authority than they usually did, and failed to recognize the decentralized nature of the Indian bands and tribes.

Places named for Pontiac include the cities of Pontiac in Michigan and Illinois in the United States; Pontiac, Quebec, in Canada; and the Pontiac Regional County Municipality in Quebec. Pontiac was also the name of a popular automobile brand of General Motors, developed and originally based in Detroit, which was discontinued in 2010. A Belgian watch company was also named after him, reportedly because he was able to tell the time by the stars. Various streets and buildings throughout the US are named after Pontiac.

Notes

References

1720s births
1769 deaths
1769 murders in North America
Murdered Native American people
Native American leaders
Odawa people
Indigenous people of Pontiac's War
Indigenous people of the French and Indian War
Native American people from Michigan

Pontiac (Odawa leader)


Lukomorye, Lukomorie or Lukomorje () was a region in ancient Russian lands and is described and depicted not only in Russian sources, but also in different non-Russian old sources. Lukomorye is also prominent in Russian folklore.

Etymology
The Russian word itself is an old term for "bight" or "bay". In the word  "luk-o-mor-ye", "-o-" is an interfix used to connect two roots, "-ye" is an affix (in this case, of relative location), "luk-" is the root for "bend", "mor-" is the root for "sea". It can also be translated as "curved sea-shore" or  "inlet of the sea".

Middle Ages geography and Early Russian manuscripts
The toponym "Sea Bend" (лука моря, luka morya) and the derivations: lukomorye, lukomorians, etc., has been applied to various geographical locations. It is mentioned in The Tale of Igor's Campaign and the Russian chronicles. According to the chronicles Lukomorye was inhabited by the nomadic Polovtsy people, and the researchers locate it in the region north of the Sea of Azov, where Polovtsy lived in the 11th—12th centuries. These accounts are seen as a source of inspiration for Alexander Pushkin. In modern Russian culture the word Lukomorye is most commonly associated with Pushkin's fairy tale poem Ruslan and Lyudmila, starting with the line: "There is a green oak-tree by the lukomorye, …" (У лукоморья дуб зелёный, … ; U lukomorya dub zelyony, …).

The land of "Lucomoria" was also depicted in a number of antique maps of Siberia/Moscovia.  cartographers followed the descriptions of Sigismund von Herberstein in his 1549 Notes on Muscovite Affairs:

...which they barter with the Grustintzi and Serponovtzi : these latter people derive their name from the fortress of Serponov Lucomoryae, situated in the mountains beyond the river Oby.
It is said that a certain marvellous and incredible occurrence, and very like a fable, happens every year to the people of Lucomoryae, namely, that they die on the 27th of November, which among the Russians is dedicated to St. George, and come to life again like the frosts in the following spring, generally on the 24th of April.
...
The Cossin is a river which flows down from the mountains of Lucomorya ; at its mouth is the fortress of Cossin, which was formerly possessed by the Knes Ventza, but now by his sons.
From the sources of the great river Cossin to this point is a journey of two months. Moreover, from the sources of the same river, rises another river Cassima, which, after passing through the district of Lucomorya, flows into the great river Tachnin ; beyond which are said to dwell men of prodigious stature, some of whom are covered all over with hair, like wild beasts, while others have heads like dogs, and others have no necks, their breast occupying the place of a head, while they have long hands, but no feet.

Giles Fletcher in his Of the Russe Common Wealth repeats the fantastic tale of dying/reviving Lukomorians.

Cultural references
The prologue to the fairy tale poem Ruslan and Lyudmila by Aleksandr Pushkin starts with the line У лукоморья дуб зелёный
Vladimir Vysotsky has a humorous "anti-fairy-tale" song .

See also
Faraway Tsardom
Hyperborea

References

Locations in Slavic mythology
Fictional regions
Culture of Russia

Lukomorye


Opuntia aciculata, also called Chenille pricklypear, old man's whiskers, and cowboy's red whiskers, is a perennial dicot and an attractive ornamental cactus native to Texas. It belongs to the genus Opuntia (prickly pear cacti). It is also widespread in Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas (northern Mexico).

It was reported from Nuevo León, Mexico, according to D. Weniger in 1970. The specific name aciculata derives from many sources: the Latin word acicula which means "a small pin for a headdress", and the adjectival suffix for nouns atus, meaning possessive of or likeness to something (with, shaped, made), while for verb participles it means a completed action. Chenille prickly pear, one of its vernacular names, comes for the fringe of spines around the edge of the pad. The specific name also means "covered with small pins".

Description

It has numerous glochids or microspines, 3–12 mm long, acicular, slender, spreading, forming a dense cluster. They are normally golden yellow to dark red in color. It has often no spines, or rarely one to three, which are reflexed. They are of a yellowish or toasted colour with a brownish base, up to 3 cm in length. They are often folded and seemingly deciduous.

It has broad, point-tipped blossoms colored golden yellow, orange, or red and of diameter 8–10 cm. Several sources report the flowers as being yellow in color, but the plants in cultivation usually have bright red-orange flowers, and sometimes the centre is greenish. Petals are broad-rounded or retuse, filaments are yellowish and the stigma dull yellowish with eight to 10 green lobes. They mostly flower in early summer or spring. The plant's fruits are usually pear-shaped, covered with fine spines and glochids, and are purple or green.

Distribution and habitat

It is native to Chihuahuan Desert (Texas) and northern Mexico.

Ecology

Like its other cactus relatives, this deciduous and succulent species also has its leaves reduced to spines to reduce excess transpiration, which helps it to survive by conserving water in the hot climate of Texas, in southwestern United States, and North Mexico. This adaptation also helps in defending itself from being consumed by any herbivores there. It has the special ability to propagate from woody or softwood stem cuttings. It can even propagate by cuttings of leaf pads at any time in the growing season, allowing the cut surface to callus over before planting. This cactus can survive healthily and produce good many flowers only if it is fully exposed to the sun. They can also tolerate temperatures from −5 to −12 °C.

Uses

The fruits are edible and the soft pads (nopales) can be cooked as vegetables. After burning of spines, the pads can serve as a good feed for cattle.

References

External links

 Opuntia aciculata photo gallery at Opuntia Web

aciculata
Edible plants
Cacti of Mexico
Cacti of the United States
Desert fruits

Opuntia aciculata


Hadidah (, also spelled Hadideh) is a town in the northwestern Syria, administratively part of the Homs Governorate, located west of Homs and just east of the border with Lebanon. Nearby localities include Liftaya to the southeast, Khirbet al-Hamam to the east, Shin to the north, Mizyeneh and al-Huwash to the northwest, and al-Zarah and Talkalakh to the west. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Hadidah had a population of 2,544 in the 2004 census. It is the administrative center of the Hadidah nahiyah ("subdistrict") which consists of 27 localities with a collective population of 25,998 in 2004. The inhabitants of the town are predominantly Alawites.

References

Bibliography

Populated places in Talkalakh District
Towns in Syria
Alawite communities in Syria

Hadidah


George III, Landgrave of Leuchtenberg (13 December 1502 – 21 May 1555) was Landgrave of Leuchtenberg from 1 September 1531 to 1555.

George succeeded John IV as Landgrave after his death in 1531. His mother was Margareta von Schwarzburg, who had died in 1518.

After completing his studies, he became and advisor and treasurer to Emperor Charles V and fought in the Battle of Pavia in 1525.  His post required that he provide horses and knights to Duke Louis X of Bavaria and to the Emperor to fight the war against the Ottoman Empire.  He borrowed the knights and horses, as well as  from Elector Palatine Otto Henry.

In 1546, George III and Elector Palatine Frederick III signed the Treaty of Heidelberg, which defined the boundary between Leuchtenberg and the Palatinate and the privileges of Leuchtenberg.  George's brother, Christopher of Leuchtenberg (d. 1554) commanded the cavalry in the army of Albert II Alcibiades.  Christopher and Albert took several loans from George and the latter was cited before the Reichskammergericht for breach of the peace.  He had to temporarily hand over the Lordship of Grünsfeld and compensate the victims of the looting and pillaging.  His brother Christopher died impoverished in a guest house in Regensburg.  His second brother Hans was mentally ill and lived most of his life with their sister in Wallerstein.

Marriage and issue
George III married on 29 September 1527 at the Plassenburg with Barbara of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach, daughter of Margrave Frederick I of Brandenburg-Ansbach.  With her he had four children
 George IV (d. 1553)
 Louis Henry (1529-1567), Landgrave of Leuchtenberg, married in 1549 with Countess Mathilda of the Marck-Arenberg (1530-1603)
 Elizabeth (1537-1579), married in 1559 with Count John VI of Nassau-Dillenburg (1536-1606)
 Barbara

Landgraves of Leuchtenberg
House of Leuchtenberg
1502 births
1555 deaths
16th-century German people

George III, Landgrave of Leuchtenberg


CHLR is a defunct French-language private Canadian radio station which broadcast at 1380 kHz on the AM band from 1981 to 1985 at Moncton, New Brunswick.

History
In 1980, Rufino Landry on behalf of a company to be incorporated (would be known as Radio-Aboiteaux ltée), received approval by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to operate a new French-language AM radio station at Moncton. CHLR would be the first private French radio station in Moncton with a power of 10,000 watts. Also the same year, a competing application by Edward J. McGrath (English, 1400 kHz, 10,000 watts) was denied on the grounds, since Moncton could not support two new stations. In 1984, CHLR was authorized to become an affiliate of the network operated by Télémédia Communications Inc.

Most of CHLR's staff was laid off in November of the same year due to financial difficulties.

From its inception, CHLR had difficulty attracting sufficient audience and revenues to make the undertaking viable. Hence, Radio-Aboiteaux ltée made a proposal in bankruptcy which was accepted by its creditors and the court. CHLR 1380 left the air on January 2, 1985. Ali LeBouthilier, president of the company said they would apply for a new format and hoped to return to the air within three to six months.

In 1986, Radio-Aboiteaux's original shareholders, Rufino Landry and Alie LeBouthillier, along with four new investors applied to for a licence to operate a new English-language AM station offering a Contemporary music service to listeners between 12 and 49 years of age. It would broadcast on the 1380 kHz frequency (former CHLR) with 10,000 watts.  At the CRTC hearing, the applicant expressed a "desire to serve the needs of the francophone population in south-eastern New Brunswick" but the commission was not convinced that its proposed experimental bilingual programming approach "to test audience reaction" would result in the provision of French-language programming responsive to the needs of the community. In arriving at this determination, the Commission took into account Radio-Aboiteaux's previous unsuccessful attempt to establish a French-language radio service and did not consider that a further period of experimentation was warranted under the circumstances. After assessing all of the information contained in the application and the applicant's responses at the hearing, the commission was not convinced that the Contemporary music format or overall programming proposed by Radio-Aboiteaux represented a real alternative to the service already provided by CKCW. Radio-Aboiteaux Ltée's application was denied.

The callsign CHLR is now assigned to a radio station in Rigolet, Newfoundland and Labrador as CHLR-FM. Therein, CHLR-FM has no relation with the former CHLR at Moncton.

References

External links

Acadian culture in New Brunswick
Hlr
Hlr
Hlr
Radio stations established in 1981
Radio stations disestablished in 1985
1981 establishments in New Brunswick
1985 disestablishments in New Brunswick
HLR

CHLR (AM)


Frank Marryat (1826–1855) was an English sailor, artist, and author. He was one of the sons of Captain Frederick Marryat.

He joined the Royal Navy at 14 years old as midshipman and made a number of drawings during his service on HMS Samarang in the Far East in 1843. He planned to publish these without any accompanying text, but then added text from his own, and colleagues' journals to produce his first book in 1848.

In 1850, he left England for California via Panama with a manservant and three hunting dogs. This provided the material for another book, published in New York in 1855, a sportsman-tourist's chronicle of California in the early 1850s: hunting, horse races, bear and bull fights, and an Englishman's bemused comments on social life in San Francisco, Stockton, and the gold fields. There is also a long and vivid description of the San Francisco Fire of 1851. He had returned to England in 1853, married, and prepared to return with his new bride to California that same year. However, he had contracted yellow fever on board ship, which forced him to cut the trip short and return to England. He died there shortly before his book was published, under the title Mountains and Molehills, or Memoirs of a Burnt Journal.

References

External links

1826 births
1855 deaths
Royal Navy officers
English sailors
British memoirists
19th-century English memoirists

Frank Marryat


Mock the Week is a British topical celebrity comedy panel game. It was created by Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson. It is presented by Dara Ó Briain. It began on 5 June 2005 and is shown BBC Two. Two teams of three celebrities compete to answer questions about events during the past week. Its current regular panel member is comedian Hugh Dennis. Comedians Chris Addison, Rory Bremner, Frankie Boyle, Russell Howard and Andy Parsons previously served as regular panel members.

Other websites
Official website

2005 British television series debuts
2000s British comedy television series
2000s satirical television series
2010s British comedy television series
2010s satirical television series
2020s British comedy television series
2020s satirical television series
BBC television comedy
British satirical television series
British television game shows
English-language television programs
Panel games

Mock the Week


The Mongolian People's Republic (MPR; , ) was a socialist state which existed from 1924 to 1992, located in the historical region of Outer Mongolia in East Asia. Until 1990, it was a one-party state ruled by the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, and maintained close political and economic ties with the Soviet Union, as part of the Eastern Bloc.

Outer Mongolia gained independence from Qing China in 1911, and enjoyed brief autonomy before it was seized by the Republic of China in 1919. After a Soviet-backed revolution in 1921, the Mongolian People's Republic was established in 1924. It was led from 1939 to 1952 by Khorloogiin Choibalsan, who carried out Stalinist purges in the country, and from 1952 to 1984 by Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal, who allied with the Soviets during the 1960s Sino-Soviet split. In 1990, protests for democracy resulted in reforms which established a multi-party system and a market economy, and a new constitution in 1992 ended the socialist republic.

History

Revolutions and foundation

From 1691, the Mongols were ruled by the Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China, during which northern and southern Mongolia became known as Outer Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, respectively. The Qing dynasty promoted Tibetan Buddhism and built monasteries, which grew rich and powerful. Its administrators also impoverished and oppressed the Mongols, and pursued colonization of Inner Mongolia in the 19th century. In the early 20th century, the implementation of the New Policies, aimed at further Qing integration of Outer Mongolia, led to anti-Manchu mutinies and uprisings. In late 1911, the Qing dynasty collapsed in the Xinhai Revolution, and Outer Mongolia declared its independence under the leadership of the 8th Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, who was named the Bogd Khan. The new state called on the Mongols of Inner Mongolia to join it, and sought international recognition. In 1912, it signed a treaty with the Russian Empire. Under the Treaty of Kyakhta of 1915, Mongolia accepted autonomy under the suzerainty of the Republic of China (ROC).

After the 1917 October Revolution and outbreak of the Russian Civil War, Mongolia was recognized by the Bolshevik government in August 1919. That November, ROC troops entered the capital and overthrew the Bogd Khan. During the Chinese occupation, Mongolian revolutionaries made contact with the Bolsheviks in Siberia, and in 1920 founded the Mongolian People's Party (MPP), led by Damdin Sükhbaatar, Khorloogiin Choibalsan, Dogsomyn Bodoo, Soliin Danzan, and others, across the border at Kyakhta. In October, White Russian cavalry under Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg entered Mongolia, and in February 1921 drove out the Chinese and restored the Bogd Khan. The MPP made a provisional government at its first congress on 1 March, and that July cavalry under Sükhbaatar, supported by Soviet troops, captured the capital in the Mongolian People's Revolution. Bodoo was appointed prime minister, while the Bogd Khan was allowed to remain on the throne. In November, a Mongolian delegation traveled to Soviet Russia and signed a treaty.

A split began to emerge between nationalists and communists in the MPP, whose members included lamas and nobles. In 1922, Bodoo was executed as a "counter-revolutionary". After Sükhbaatar's death in 1923, the MPP program was amended so the party could be "purged of oppressor class elements"; after the Bogd Khan's death in 1924, the search for a new incarnation was forbidden. Danzan was executed for "bourgeois tendencies" that year. The MPP declared a socialist "non-capitalist path of development", was renamed the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), and joined the Comintern. The 1924 constitution founded the Mongolian People's Republic (MPR), and its capital was renamed Ulaanbaatar (meaning "red hero").

Early years (1924–1939)

As in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, Mongolian politics went through several abrupt changes of direction in the 1920s and 1930s. The initial nationalist leadership of the MPRP advanced the slogan "Get rich!" to promote business, which was opposed by the communists. The Fifth Congress in 1926 called for restriction and nationalization of private property. The Seventh Congress in 1928 denounced previous "right opportunism" (baruun opportunizm) and dismissed several leaders. In 1929, the state began expropriating monastery property and tried to force herdsmen into collective farms and communes. During 1930–1932, there were uprisings led by the lamas of several monasteries, the largest of which took place in 1932 and was brutally suppressed, and herdsmen began to slaughter their livestock or herd their animals across the border. At the direction of the Comintern, the MPRP expelled the perpetrators of the "left deviation" (züünii nugalaa) in 1932, and a "new turn" (shine ergelt) was taken by moderate leadership. Collectivization of livestock herders was completed in the 1950s (see ).

From September 1937 to April 1939, Stalinist purges in Mongolia saw mass arrests of top party and state leaders, lamas, soldiers, and citizens on false charges of "counter-revolution" and spying for Japan. Some 20,000 to 35,000 Mongols were executed in Mongolia and the USSR in a campaign organized by NKVD officials and Khorloogiin Choibalsan, minister of internal affairs and commander-in-chief. Under communist repression, an estimated 17,000 monks were killed, official figures show. Prime Ministers Peljidiin Genden and Anandyn Amar, for example, were accused of counter-revolution and shot in Moscow in 1937 and 1941, respectively. Buddhist institutions were nearly all destroyed, their property appropriated, and the lamas killed or secularized. In March 1939, Choibalsan, Stalin's close ally, became prime minister of Mongolia and led a Stalinist dictatorship, and initiated further episodes of repression during his tenure.

World War II (1939–1945)

In 1931–1932, the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria and set up the puppet state of Manchukuo. In 1934, Mongolia and the USSR made a verbal agreement on mutual aid in case of invasion, followed by a formal agreement in 1936. In May 1939, Japanese forces first skirmished with Soviet and Mongolian troops at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. That July, Japan launched an unsuccessful attack across the river, and in August, Soviet and Mongolian troops under General (later Marshal) Georgy Zhukov, encircled and destroyed the Japanese forces. In April 1941, the USSR and Japan concluded a neutrality pact. That June, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Mongolia did not join the war directly, but provided the Soviets with volunteers and materiel, and the country's economy was marshalled to support the war effort. Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal, MPRP general secretary and second to Choibalsan, rose to prominence, inspecting aid deliveries and touring the Eastern Front as a Mongolian People's Army (MPA) lieutenant general.

At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the "Big Three" Allied powers (the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union) decided the terms of the planned Soviet entry into the war against Japan, which included a recognition of the "status quo" in Mongolia (which was still internationally recognized as part of China). In August 1945, the Soviet Union used Mongolia as one base for its Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation. The build-up brought 650,000 Soviet troops and large amounts of equipment to the country; the MPA played a limited role. The ROC, headed by Chiang Kai-shek, was persuaded to recognize Mongolian independence in the 1945 Sino-Soviet Treaty after Stalin promised to refrain from supporting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the Chinese Civil War. In keeping with the treaty, a successful independence referendum was held in Mongolia in October 1945.

Cold War politics (1945–1984)

Following the CCP's victory in the Chinese Civil War and its proclamation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, Mongolia transferred its recognition from the ROC to the PRC. The 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty guaranteed Outer Mongolia's independence, but ended Choibalsan's hopes for reuniting it with Inner Mongolia. Mao Zedong privately hoped for Outer Mongolia's reintegration with China, and he was rebuffed by Soviet leadership after raising the question in 1949 and again in 1954, the year after Stalin's death. In 1956, after Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin, Chinese leaders attempted to present Mongolia's independence as one of Stalin's mistakes. The Soviet response was that the Mongols were free to decide their own fate. Choibalsan died of cancer in Moscow in 1952, and was replaced as prime minister by Tsedenbal. Unlike his predecessor, Tsedenbal was enthusiastic about incorporating Mongolia as a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. This proposal was met with strenuous opposition from other MPRP members, and was subsequently abandoned.

Mongolia's foreign relations outside of the USSR and PRC were initially limited to the Soviet satellites of the Eastern Bloc. It was recognized by India in 1955, and that year attempted to join the United Nations (UN), but its request was vetoed by the ROC (now based in Taiwan) which had withdrawn its recognition of Mongolia's independence and renewed its territorial claim on the country. Mongolia eventually became a member state of the UN in 1961, after the Soviet Union threatened to veto the admission of the newly decolonized states of Africa if the ROC again used its veto. Mongolia established diplomatic relations with its first Western country, the United Kingdom, in 1961, but its diplomatic relations with the United States were not established until 1987, near the end of the Cold War.

In the 1950s, relations between the MPR and the PRC improved considerably. The Trans-Mongolian Railway, which opened in 1949 and linked Moscow with Ulaanbaatar via the Trans-Siberian Railway, was extended to the Chinese border and linked with Beijing in 1955. China provided economic support to Mongolia by building factories and apartment blocks, and thousands of Chinese laborers were involved in the projects until they were withdrawn in 1962 in an unsuccessful bid to pressure Mongolia to break with the USSR during the Sino-Soviet split. A military build-up on the Sino-Mongolian border began in 1963, and in 1966 the Soviet Union and Mongolia signed a new mutual aid treaty with a secret annex allowing the stationing of Soviet troops and missiles in the country. The Soviet Union increased its investment in the Mongolian economy on a "fraternal" or "elder brother–younger brother" (akh düü) basis.

Tsedenbal, a friend of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, sent many of his political rivals into internal exile during his leadership, including Dashiin Damba in 1959, Daramyn Tömör-Ochir in 1962, Tsogt-Ochiryn Lookhuuz and others in 1964, Bazaryn Shirendev in 1982, and Sampilyn Jalan-Aajav in 1983. After Jamsrangiin Sambuu's death, Tsedenbal was elected in his place as chairman of the presidium of the People's Great Khural (head of state) in 1974, and handed the premiership to Jambyn Batmönkh. Tsedenbal was expelled from office by Batmönkh and the MPRP Politburo in August 1984, on the pretext of "old age and mental incapacity" in a move with full Soviet backing, and he retired to Moscow; Batmönkh took over as the party leader and head of state.

Reforms and end (1984–1992)

After Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union in March 1985, he began implementing policies of perestroika (restructuring the economy) and glasnost (openness and accountability); the atmosphere of reform prompted the same policies in Mongolia, known as öörchlön baiguulalt and il tod. Unlike Tsedenbal, Batmönkh agreed with the Soviet leadership on normalizing Sino-Soviet relations; between 1987 and 1992, Soviet troops were withdrawn from Mongolia, which enabled both countries to normalize relations with China. In 1988, the MPRP newspaper Ünen urged accelerated reforms to overcome the party's "dogmatic interpretation of socialism", declared that "authoritarianism and intellectual indolence" undermined national "renewal", and described Tsedenbal as "willful and unprincipled". In 1989, Mongolian newspapers called for an "objective and realistic evaluation" of Mongolian–Soviet relations.

On 10 December 1989 (Human Rights Day), young people began demonstrating for political freedom in Ulaanbaatar. In January 1990, anti-MPRP rallies were held by student and social democratic organizations; their spokesman was Sanjaasürengiin Zorig. After more demonstrations and a hunger strike, the MPRP leadership resigned in March, and Batmönkh was replaced as head of state and general secretary. Tsedenbal was expelled from the MPRP. In May, the constitution was amended by the People's Great Khural, which deleted references to the MPRP's "guiding role" in society, legalized opposition parties, and established the office of president and a standing legislature (the State Little Khural). At Mongolia's first multiparty elections in July, the MPRP gained majorities in both bodies. A transition to a market economy was approved, and the herding cooperatives and state farms were broken up and privatized. A new constitution, adopted in January 1992 and entering into force in February, created a unicameral State Great Khural and ended the socialist republic.

Government and politics
From 1924 to 1990, the Mongolian People's Republic was a one-party state ruled by the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP). While formally a democratic republic with regular elections, in reality, its elections were pre-decided and its government alternated between oligarchy and one-man rule.

Before 1928, the leader of the MPRP was the chairman (darga) of its Central Committee (töv khoroo), which had a presidium (tergüülegchid) of about 10 members representing the core party leadership. Between 1928 and 1940, the Comintern replaced the chairman with three co-secretaries to weaken the party's ability to resist its directives. In 1940, the presidium was replaced by a political bureau (Politburo; uls töriin tovchoo), headed by a general secretary (yerönkhii nariin bichgiin darga); the title of the position was "first secretary" (negdügeer nariin bichgiin darga) from 1954 to 1981. Until 1974, the maximum leader of Mongolia was the head of government as the chairman of the council of ministers (said naryn zövlöl), equivalent to a prime minister. The council oversaw cabinet-level ministries, which numbered 42 by 1981. Before it was abolished in 1951, the Little Khural, a presidium of five members (from 1927, three) was elected by the Great Khural to select the premier; its chairman was the head of state. Thereafter, the chairman of the eight-member presidium of the (People's) Great Khural became the head of state. From 1974 to 1990, the maximum leader held this position and that of party general secretary.

The Central Committee was responsible for supervising party affairs and making important policy decisions, including the appointment and removal of party and government leaders. Most of its work was done at plenary meetings, typically held twice a year. The Central Committee's membership numbered 83 in 1971, 91 in 1976 and 1981, and 85 in 1986 (in addition to 55, 61, 71, and 65 non-voting candidate members in the same years). Its members were elected at party congresses; the first congress was held in 1921 and followed by one every year from 1923 to 1928, involving relatively frank debate. From 1930 to 1960, only six congresses were held (in 1930, 1934, 1940, 1947, 1954, and 1958), ratifying key decisions which had been made in advance. From 1961 to 1986, the congresses were purely symbolic events, held every five years to coincide with those of the Soviet Union and the creation of five-year plans. The next MPRP congress was due for 1991, but the protests of 1990 forced an extraordinary congress in April 1990, which claimed a membership of 94,750.

From 1990 to 1992, the head of government was a prime minister (yerönkhii said) and the head of state was a president (yerönkhiilögch), elected indirectly by the People's Great Khural. The People's Great Khural also elected the 50-member State Little Khural, whose seat apportionment reflected proportional representation of the total ballot for parties in the legislative election; three-quarters of its members were required to be People's Great Khural deputies.

Constitutions

Mongolia's first-ever constitution, adopted by the first Great Khural in November 1924, proclaimed the Mongolian People's Republic and the transfer of political power to the working people along Marxist–Leninist lines. The land, water, and mineral wealth of the country were nationalized. The constitution contained a declaration of the rights of the people, equality before the law, and suffrage at age 18 (with the exception of "feudalists" and Buddhist lamas resident in the monasteries). The soyombo symbol of Mongolian independence was adopted as the state arms.

The second constitution, adopted by the eighth Great Khural in June–July 1940, was closely modeled on the 1936 Soviet constitution. It proclaimed a state of "herdsmen, workers, and intelligentsia" taking a "non-capitalist road of development for the future transition to socialism". It added "counter-revolutionaries" to the list of disenfranchised, and declared the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party to be the "vanguard of the working people and core of all their organizations". New state arms depicted a herdsman on horseback and the heads of a cow, sheep, goat, and camel. Amendments adopted by the ninth Great Khural in February 1949 introduced electoral reform, including a secret ballot, universal suffrage, and direct elections. In 1951, the Little Khural was abolished and the Great Khurals were renumbered. In 1956, the Council of Ministers was restructured.

The third constitution, adopted by the fourth Great Khural in July 1960, proclaimed a state of "workers, collectivized herdsmen, and working intelligentsia" which sought to achieve the "building of socialism and in the future build a communist society"; the preamble declared the MPRP the "guiding and directing force of society and the state". The Great Khural was renamed the People's Great Khural. New state arms replaced the four animal heads with a cogwheel and ears of wheat. Amendments adopted by the 11th People's Great Khural in March and May 1990 removed references to the MPRP's "guiding" role from the preamble, instituted a presidency, and established the State Little Khural (a standing legislature). The 1992 constitution ended the socialist republic.

Economy

At the MPR's foundation in 1924, Mongolia was a nomadic subsistence society. Farming and industry were almost nonexistent, and transportation and communications were primitive. Most people were illiterate nomadic herders, and a large part of the male labor force lived in the monasteries, contributing little to the economy. Property in the form of livestock was primarily owned by aristocrats and the monasteries; ownership of the remaining sectors of the economy was dominated by Chinese and other foreigners. The MPR was thus faced with the daunting task of building a modern economy. Socialist collectivization, industrialization, and urbanization ultimately transformed the agrarian, nomadic economy of the 1920s into a developing, agricultural-industrial economy by the late 1980s.

Collective farming
The first attempt to collectivize livestock herding began in 1929. By the end of 1930, nearly 30 percent of all poor and middle herdsmen's households had been forced to join collective farms (khamtral) or communes (kommun). After uprisings, these collectives were disbanded in 1932 and replaced by voluntary cooperatives (nökhörlöl) and production associations (negdel), of which there were 91 in 1940. Collectivization was achieved in the 1950s; the number of negdel, which were run by member councils, rose from 165 in 1952 to a peak of 727 in 1958, comprising 108,200 households (75 percent of the total). The number of livestock owned by negdel rose from 280,500 in 1952 to 16.9 million in 1960, by which the number of negdel had decreased to 354 after consolidation. In the 1950s, the sum (rural districts) and negdel were combined into sum-negdel, and the positions of head of the sum administration and chairman of the negdel council were merged. The national Union of Production Associations was founded in 1967 to regulate negdel membership.

The first state farms (sangiin aj akhui) were established in 1922–1923, and numbered 10 in 1940. Their numbers increased rapidly with the development of large-scale grain and vegetable farming and the introduction of industrialized methods in the 1970s and 1980s, rising to 25 by 1960 and to 52 by 1985. In 1990, there were 53 state farms and 20 specialized fodder farms (tejeeliin aj akhui), with a total of 35,200 workers. They were concentrated in the central and northern regions of the country, where natural conditions were suitable. An average state farm in 1985 had 15,400 hectares of arable land, 92 tractors, 36 grain harvesters, 26,200 head of livestock, and 500 workers. In 1990, the state farms owned 5.1 percent of the country's livestock (1.32 million head).

Industry and urbanization

After a failed attempt in 1931–1935, the government launched eight five-year plans (and one three-year plan) in the period between 1948 and 1990, with the goal of rapidly developing agriculture and industry: 1948–1952 (first), 1953–1957 (second), 1958–1960 (the three-year plan); 1961–1965 (third), 1966–1970 (fourth), 1971–1975 (fifth); 1976–1980 (sixth), 1981–1985 (seventh), and 1986–1990 (eighth). Mongolia first attended a meeting of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) in 1958 as an observer, and became a member in June 1962. It received large amounts of economic, financial, and technical assistance through the council from the USSR and Eastern Europe, in the forms of credits, advisers, and joint ventures. In 1961, the manufacturing town of Darkhan was founded on the Trans-Mongolian Railway, north of Ulaanbaatar. In 1973, Erdenet was founded on a branch railway west of Darkhan to host the Erdenet Mining Corporation, a joint Mongolian–Soviet enterprise and one of the world's largest copper mines. Both towns, which are today Mongolia's second and third largest, were built in previously uninhabited areas and gained modern power stations, high-rise housing, schools, hospitals, and shops. Industrial development of cities was paralleled by small-scale urbanization of rural communities. Some 300 small permanent settlements were built with a school, clinic, shop, administrative office, police station, and electricity.

Mongolia has industrial reserves of coal, copper, fluorite, and iron ore as well as numerous deposits of gold, silver, zinc, lead, tin, tungsten, and other precious and rare metals. The first modern coal mine was built at Nalaikh, near Ulaanbaatar, in the 1930s and linked to the capital by a narrow-gauge railway line. The development of large-scale open-pit mining at Sharyngol near Darkhan and Baganuur, east of Ulaanbaatar, made the Nalaikh mine obsolete. Mongolia had no manufacturing industries before the building of the Ulaanbaatar industrial combine in the 1930s; there were no large-scale developments until the building of Darkhan and Erdenet in the 1960s and 1970s, which was accompanied by efforts to modernize provincial towns such as Choibalsan and Sükhbaatar. The main industries were mining, electricity generation, production of building materials, and processing of livestock produce (meat, wool, and hides) into semi-finished goods, foodstuffs, and consumer goods.

Industry accounted for 7 percent of Mongolia's net material product (NMP) in 1950 and increased to 35 percent in 1985. Trade increased from 10 percent to 26 percent; agriculture, including herding, declined from 68 percent to 20 percent. In 1960, 61 percent of the employed worked in the agricultural sector, decreasing to 33 percent by 1985. GDP figures for Mongolia record growth throughout the 1980s; as late as 1988, the annual increase in GDP amounted to 5.1 percent. In the late 1980s, the stagnation of the economy and the example of perestroika in the Soviet Union led Mongolian leaders to undertake a program of reform which developed the economy in a market direction, which ultimately led to the end of the socialist republic and the turn to capitalism.

Banking and trade
The national bank of Mongolia (Mongolbank) was founded in June 1924 as the Mongolian Trade and Industry Bank, which held yanchaan (silver dollars). In December 1925, it began issuing Mongolia's own currency, the tögrög ('round'), in silver coins of one tögrög subdivided into möngö. It became the sole legal currency in 1928. The bank was transferred to the Mongolian government in 1935, and renamed the State Bank of the Mongolian People's Republic in 1954. Circulation of the tögrög was strictly controlled by the MPR government with Soviet backing, and its foreign exchange rate was artificially fixed. In the 1960s, for example, it was valued by the State Bank at an rate of 1 USD to 4 tögrög. In the 1920s, the Mongolian government drove foreign merchants out of the country and introduced a foreign trade monopoly. Mongolia traded only with the USSR until the establishment of relations with China after World War II, which ceased after the 1960s Sino-Soviet split. Comecon membership enabled import of machinery and vehicles from Eastern Europe in exchange for raw materials, though some 85 percent of trade remained with the USSR. In the 1980s, 1 to 2 percent of trade was opened with Western countries; the value of imports far exceeded that of exports, and the imbalance was funded by long-term loans from the USSR, estimated at 10 billion rubles by 1990.

Society

Education
Before the 1921 revolution, religious schools in monasteries taught lamas to read Buddhist scriptures in Tibetan and Mongol, and the few secular schools trained clerks for local administration. The first government-run primary school was opened in the capital in November 1921, followed by the first secondary school in 1923. The Ministry of Education was established in 1924, and devised a 10-year plan (1926–1936) for the development of education and teacher training. Buryat intellectual Erdene Batkhaan, minister of education in 1926–1929, played a key role. A nationwide cultural offensive was declared in 1930–1931 following the government's decision to adopt the Latin script for Mongolian and eradicate adult illiteracy; adoption of the Cyrillic script was decreed in March 1941, but only came into general use from January 1946. Starting in 1937, increasing numbers of Mongolian students were sent to the Soviet Union for training in vocational schools; Mongolia's first vocational school opened in 1938. Higher education in Mongolia began with the opening of the Mongolian State University in 1942. The number of general education schools rose from 331 with 24,000 pupils in 1940, to 359 with 50,000 pupils in 1947. Obligatory eight-year general education (ages eight to 16) was introduced gradually in the 1970s. In 1980, the 113 elementary schools taught grades one to four, 150 "incomplete" secondary education schools for grades one to nine, and 108 (267 by 1990) "complete" secondary education schools for grades one to 11.

Healthcare
Before the 1920s, Mongolia had no health services apart from what was provided by lamas or shamans, who offered a combination of herbal remedies and incantations, and the population was in decline from untreated sickness. Modern healthcare in Mongolia was developed starting in 1922 under the Soviet Semashko model, with the construction of a large hospital and clinical network and training of staff in Western medicine. The isolation of the country meant that developments in medicine were slow to reach it, though population decline was gradually reversed by the 1930s. The ratio of doctors to the general population increased dramatically; in 1990, there were more than 6,000 physicians, three-quarters of whom were women. The medical care system was accessible at little or no cost even in the most remote areas. State-sponsored maternity rest homes for pastoral women in the final stages of pregnancy helped to lower infant mortality from 109 per 1,000 live births in 1960 to 57.4 in 1990, and maternal mortality by about 25 percent from 1960 to 1990.

Media and arts

Under the one-party rule of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, media in Mongolia was strictly controlled. The main source of information was the state-owned Montsame news agency. The official MPRP newspaper Ünen ('Truth'), founded in 1920 and still published today, served as a mouthpiece of the People's Great Khural, Council of Ministers, and MPRP Central Committee. The party also published the monthly journal Namyn Amidral ('Party Life'), which discussed theoretical matters. Other official publications included the Mongolian Revolutionary Youth League newspaper Zaluuchuudyn Ünen ('Youth Truth') and the cultural paper Utga Zokhiol Urlag ('Literature and Art'), which dispensed ideological guidance. Mongolradio was established in 1933, and Mongolteleviz in 1967.

Under political pressure, traditional Mongolian arts were suppressed in favor of Soviet-inspired "socialist realism". Much of traditional culture was viewed as "feudal" or "religious", and was officially abandoned in favor of artworks depicting revolutionary heroism, intended to mold the "new man" of the socialist society. The MPRP established systematic censorship of press, publications, and artistic performance. However, there was disagreement and lack of clear direction, reflected in particular by the fluctuating political attitudes toward Mongolia's greatest hero, Genghis Khan. Common subjects of "socialist realism" included heroic shepherds and workers, and figures from history such as Sükhbaatar and Choibalsan (a prominent example being the monumental equestrian statue of Sükhbaatar which today stands in the center of Ulaanbaatar's Sükhbaatar Square). Some painters combined realism and mongol zurag, a style developed in the early 20th century. Bypassing Capitalism, a design depicting a Mongol rider jumping from feudalism to socialism, was reproduced in murals and as a stamp design.

The most prominent figure to emerge in modern Mongolian poetry and literature was Dashdorjiin Natsagdorj, whose opera Uchirtai gurvan tolgoi ("Three Sad Hills") remains popular today. The national theater was established in 1931, represented by such playwrights as Sodnombaljiryn Buyannemekh and Donrovyn Namdag. Mongolia's first film studio, set up with Soviet aid in 1935, produced the drama Norjmaa's Destiny in 1938 but generally concentrated on full-length feature films about heroes from Mongolian history. There were co-productions with Soviet filmmakers, such as Son of Mongolia (1936), as well as film versions of classics such as Transparent Tamir by Chadraabalyn Lodoidamba, released as a trilogy in 1970–1973. The first Mongolian ballet, Path of Happiness by Bilegiin Damdinsüren, was staged in 1950. Traditional arts were best preserved as epic poetry, music, and song, which had been passed down by bards and storytellers and first recorded (in printed word and sound) in the 20th century. The state folk song and dance ensemble was established in 1961. Under Soviet influence, European instruments were introduced, foreign works were performed, and Mongolian composers began to write music for orchestras and brass bands. The first full-scale symphonic work, My Homeland, was composed in 1955 by Luvsanjambyn Mördorj. The National Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1957. The 1970s and 1980s saw the development of Soviet-style dance bands and popular music groups.

Science
In November 1921, Buryat scholar Tsyben Zhamtsarano founded the Committee of Scriptures and Manuscripts, which established national archives in 1927. In 1931, the institute was renamed the Committee of Sciences, and began to undertake studies in botany, agriculture, geography, geology, and mapmaking. Further research institutes were linked either to the government (building, education, health, and communications) or universities (physics, mathematics, biology, and the social sciences). The Institute of Party History supervised the writing of the history of the MPRP and the translation of Marxist–Leninist classics. There was close cooperation with the Soviet Academy of Sciences, whose Mongolian Commission supervised Soviet research on Mongolia. In 1961, the Mongolian Academy of Sciences was founded. Scientific cooperation with the Eastern Bloc was coordinated by Comecon.

Military

The Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army was founded in 1921 as a partisan force against Chinese occupation. It primarily consisted of cavalry under its commander, Damdin Sükhbaatar. With Soviet technical aid and training, it received weapons, motor vehicles, communications equipment, and aircraft. Mongolian and Soviet troops clashed with Japanese forces in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol on Mongolia's eastern border in 1939, and jointly participated in the invasion of Manchuria in northern China in 1945, in which Mongolia was an important base. In the Beitashan Incident in 1947, Republic of China cavalry fought Mongolian and Soviet troops on the border with Xinjiang. The army was renamed the Mongolian People's Army in 1955. During the 1970s and 1980s, Mongolia received modern equipment, including tanks, armored personnel carriers, heavy and anti-aircraft artillery, radar, attack helicopters, and jet fighters. The Mongolian Air Force, founded in 1925, initially ran the civil airline MIAT, established in 1956.

Mongolian army ranks and uniform were similar to their Soviet counterparts. As in the Soviet military, there was an army political directorate and deputy political commissars, whose function was to ensure loyalty to the MPRP. The army maintained close ties with Soviet Red Army intelligence and NKVD secret police; Mongolia's Interior Ministry secret police and Buryat Mongol Comintern agents assisted in its administration under direct Soviet guidance.

See also

 List of socialist states
 History of modern Mongolia
 Politics of Mongolia
 Mengjiang
 Tuvan People's Republic

Notes

References

Works cited

Further reading
 Jianyong, Feng. "The 1911 Revolution and the Frontier: The 'Political Game' and 'State-Building' in Outer Mongolia during the 1911 Revolution 辛亥革命とフロンティア 外モンゴルにおける政治のゲームと国家建設." (2014). Online

External links

 History of the Mongolian People's Republic, a joint 1973 Soviet-Mongolian work published in English.
 By-Passing Capitalism, a 1968 Mongolian work published in English.

Mongolian People's Republic
Mongol states
Mongolia
States and territories established in 1924
States and territories disestablished in 1992
1924 establishments in Mongolia
1992 disestablishments in Asia
20th-century disestablishments in Mongolia
20th century in Mongolia
Former socialist republics
Communist states
Totalitarian states

Mongolian People's Republic


The Alien and Sedition Acts were acts of Congress signed by United States president John Adams in 1798, during a naval (sea) conflict against France.

There were four acts.

The first 3 acts were about immigration. They set required time for an immigrant to become a citizen, and allowed the president to send illegal immigrants back to their home country if their home country is at war with the United States or they are considered to be dangerous to the US. The fourth act made it a crime to publish bad things about the government.

The acts were very controversial. Many people did not like them because they felt that they violated the First Amendment.

The acts made many people dislike John Adams. For that reason, Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party were able to defeat John Adams and the Federalist Party in the elections of 1800. Three of the acts were repealed. The Alien Enemies Act, however, is still United States law.

1790s in the United States
United States federal legislation
John Adams
1798

Alien and Sedition Acts


Stanisław Konarski, Sch.P. (actual name: Hieronim Konarski; 30 September 1700 – 3 August 1773) was a Polish teacher and writer. He wrote political books, poems, and plays. He was a monk - member of the order of Piarists; he brought the Enlightenment in Poland.

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Between 1725 and 1727 Konarski learned at the Collegium Nazarenum in Rome, where he became a teacher of rhetoric - the art of good speaking. After that, in order to make better his own learning, he traveled through France, Germany and Austria. In 1730 he went back to Poland and began to work on a new text of Polish law ("Volumina legum").

From 1736 Konarski taught at the Collegium Resoviense in Rzeszów and in 1740 he started the Collegium Nobilium in Warsaw, a school for sons of the people of high social class ("szlachta"). Thereafter, he improved teaching of Piarists in Poland, in a way that agrees with his program of teaching (Ordinationes Visitationis Apostolicae..., 1755). His improvements became an important point in the fight of 18th century to make the system of Polish teaching more modern.

In the beginning, Konarski was joined politically with King Stanislas Leszczynski; later, he came near to Czartoryski's "Familia" and to King Stanislas August Poniatowski. He took part in the well-known "Thursday dinners". Stanislas August Poniatowski caused that a medal was made in the honor of Konarski, with his likeness. There was written in Latin: Sapere auso ("who was brave to be wise").

Konarski, Stanislas
Konarski, Stanislas
1700 births
1773 deaths

Stanislas Konarski