Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko ( , pronounced  without the middle name;  – ), also known as Kobzar Taras, or simply Kobzar (a kobzar is a bard in Ukrainian culture), was a Ukrainian poet, writer, artist, public and political figure, folklorist and ethnographer. His literary heritage is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and, to a large extent, the modern Ukrainian language, though this is different from the language of his poems. Due to prosecution of the Ukrainian language, he also wrote selective works in "Great Russian" language (nine novellas, a diary, and an autobiography). Shevchenko is also known for his many masterpieces as a painter and an illustrator.

He was a fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts. Though investigation never determined whether he was a member of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Shevchenko was convicted in 1847 of explicitly promoting the independence of Ukraine, writing poems in the Ukrainian language and ridiculing members of the Russian Imperial House. Contrary to the members of the society who did not understand that their activity led to the idea of an independent Ukraine, according to the secret police, he was a champion of independence.

Life

Childhood and youth

Taras Shevchenko was born on  in the village of Moryntsi, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire. About 20 years following the so called partitions of Poland when the territory of Ukraine where Shevchenko was born had been annexed by the Imperial Russia. He was the third child after his sister Kateryna and brother Mykyta; his younger siblings were a brother, Yosyp, and a sister, Maria, who was born blind. His parents were Kateryna  Shevchenko (née Boiko) and Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko, former subjects of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became serf peasants who worked the land owned by , a nephew of the Russian statesman Grigory Potemkin.

In 1816, the family moved to Kyrylivka (modern ), another village owned by Engelhardt, where Taras's father and grandfather had been born. The boy grew up in the village. Once, he went looking for "the pillars that prop up the sky" and got lost. Chumaks who met the boy took him back to the village. From 1822, Shevchenko was sent to a school, where he was taught to read and write. His teacher was the precentor of the village church, whose nickname was "Sovhyr". He was a harsh disciplinarian, who had a tradition of birching the children in his class every Saturday.

On  Kateryna Shevchenko died. The widowed Hryhoriy, left to look after six children aged from thirteen to four, had little choice but to remarry. He was married to Oksana Tereshchenko, a widow from Moryntsi, who had three children of her own.

When Hryhoriy Shevchenko became a chumak (travelling merchant), Taras travelled twice with his father and his older brother away from his neighbourhood and, for the first time in his life, on to the open steppe. Hryhoriy died from a chill on , and for a period the children's stepmother ruled the family, treating Taras and those siblings still at the family home with great cruelty, until she was expelled by their grandfather, Ivan Shevchenko. For a period Taras lived with his grandfather and his father's brother Pavlo, and was made to work as a swineherd and a groom's assistant. At the age of 12, he left home to work as a student-assistant and a servant for a drunkard named Bohorsky, who had replaced Sovhyr as the village precentor and teacher, and was even more violent than his predecessor. One of Shevenko's duties was to read psalms over the dead. He was treated still more violently by Bohorsky once the boy's stepmother became his mistress.

In February 1827, the 13-year-old Shevchenko escaped from the village and worked for a few days for a deacon in Lysianka, before moving on to Tarasivka. Frustrated in his attempts to become an artist, he returned back to his home village. At around this time, Shevchenko experienced his first love, , as confirmed by a dedication he later wrote in the poem :

There is evidence that during this period of his life, Shevchenko  was trained by his older brother Mykola to become a wheelwright, and that he also lived with and worked for the family of Hryhoriy Koshytsia, the Kyrylivka priest, who treated Taras well. His duties included driving the priest's son to school, and transporting fruit to markets in Burty and Shpola.

Life as a servant of Pavlo Engelgardt

In 1828, Engelhardt died, and one of his sons, , became the Shevchenko family's new landlord. Taras Shevchenko, then aged 14, was trained to become a kitchen servant and the  (court servant) of his new master at the Vilshana estates. There he saw for the first time the luxuries of the Russian nobility.

In 1829, Shevchenko was part of Engelgardt's retinue that travelled to Warsaw, where his regiment was based. By the end of 1829 they had reached Vilno (modern Vilnius). On  Engelgardt caught Shevchenko at night painting a portrait of the Cossack general Matvei Platov. He boxed the boy's ears, and ordered him to be whipped. When the party reached Warsaw, Engelgardt arranged for his servant to be apprenticed to a painter-decorator, who, recognising the boy's artistic talents, recommended he receive lessons from a professional artist, Franciszek Ksawery Lampi.

When the November Uprising broke out in 1830, Engelgardt and his regiment were forced to leave Warsaw. His servants, including Shevchenko, were later expelled from the city, forced to leave Polish territory under armed guard, and then make their way to St. Petersburg. Upon arriving there, Shevchenko returned to the life of being a page-boy. His artistic training was delayed for a year, after which he was permitted to study for four years with the painter Vasiliy Shiriayev, a man who proved to be much crueller and controlling than his master in Warsaw.. The summer nights were light enough for Shevchenko to visit the city's Summer Garden, where he drew the statues.

In his novel Artist, Shevchenko described that during the pre-academical period he painted such works as Apollo Belvedere, Fraklete, Heraclitus, Architectural barelief, Mask of Fortune He participated in the painting of the Bolshoi Theatre as an apprentice. The composition Alexander of Macedon shows trust towards his doctor Philip was created for a contest of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1830.

Liberation from serfdom

During one of his copying sessions in the city's Summer Gardens, Shevchenko made the acquaintance of a young Ukrainian artist, Ivan Soshenko, a painter and a student of the Imperial Academy of Arts, who came from Bohuslav, close to Shevchenko's home village. Soshenko showed in an interest in Shevchenko's drawings, and recognised the young man's talent. He was allowed to receive drawing and watercolour painting lessons from Soshenko at the weekend, and when he had spare time during the week. Shevchenko made such progress a portraitist that he was asked by Engelgardt to portray a number of his mistresses.

Soshenko took Shevchenko to Saint Petersburg's art galleries, including the Hermitage. He introduced him to other compatriots, such as the writer and poet Yevhen Hrebinka, the art historian , and the Russian painter Alexey Venetsianov. Through these men  in around June 1832, Shevchenko was introduced to the most fashionable painter of the day, the artist Karl Briullov. Briullov took an interest in Shevchenko, praising his work and indicating a willingness to take him on as a student. However, as a serf, Shevchenko was ineligible to study under Briullov at the Academy, who requested his freedom from Engelhardt. The request was met with a refusal, which enraged Briullov.

Engelhardt was persuaded to release his servant on condition that a fee of 2500 rubles was paid. To raise this sum, Bryulov painted a portrait of the Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky as a lottery prize for the imperial family; the winning lottery ticket was drawn by the tsarina. Engelhardt signed the paperwork that released Shevchenko from serfdom on .

Initial success (18381846)

Paintings and drawings

After he became a student of the Imperial Academy of Arts, with Bryullov as his mentor, Shevchenko spent most of his time at the academy and in Bryullov's studio. Together they attended literary and musical evenings, and visited writers and artists. Shevchenko's social life enriched and expanded his horizons and stimulated his creativity. His friends during this period included , a writer and officer of the Black Sea Cossack Host, who was to become his friend for life, and the artist ,

From June to November 1838, Shevchenko's examination marks improved enough to allow him to join a compositional drawings class. An early drawing from this class, , was completed in December that year. The following month his work was recognised by the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, who agrred to pay him a monthly maintenance fee of 30 rubles a month.

In April 1839, Shevchenko was awarded a silver medal by the Council of the Academy. He began to master the technique of oil painting, with  being among his earliest attempts. From November, he became seriously ill with typhus. That year, he received another silver medal, this time for his oil painting The Beggar Boy Giving Bread to a Dog. In September 1841, the Academy of Arts awarded Shevchenko his third silver medal, for the painting . The following May, continual absenteeism from classes forced the Society for the Encouragement of Artists to exclude him from among its free boarders. To earn an income he produced book illustrations, such as for Nikolai Nadezhdin's story The Power of Will, 's publication Ours, written off from nature by the Russians, an edition of Wolfgang Franz von Kobell's Galvanography (1843). and a book by Nikolai Polevoy, Russian Generals (1845).

Poetry

At the end of 1839, Shevchenko met the sculptor and art teacher Ivan Martos, who showed great interest in his poems. He offered to publish them but, Shevchenko did not immediately agree. Hrebinka took an active and direct part in the publication of Kobzar (1840), it was he who submitted the manuscript to the . Kobzar sold out. It did not openly call for revolutionary actions, but it all contained a protest against social injustice and a desire for a free life.

In March 1840, Hrebinka submitted the manuscript of the almanac Lastivka to the censors, which also included Shevchenko's "Prychynna" and the poems "" and "".
In 1841, Shevchenko paid for his epic poem Haidamaky. The poem was met with sharp criticism by the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky; in the magazine Otechestvennye Zapiski he criticized Shevchenko's "inclination to romantic pompous ingenuity". Other poems produced by Shevchenko during this period include "", "", and "".

While residing in Saint Petersburg, Shevchenko made three trips to Ukraine, in 1843, 1845, and 1846. The difficult conditions Ukrainians had made a profound impact on the poet-painter. Shevchenko visited his siblings, still enserfed, and other relatives. He met with prominent Ukrainian writers and intellectuals Yevhen Hrebinka, Panteleimon Kulish, and Mykhaylo Maksymovych, and was befriended by the princely Repnin family, especially Varvara.

In 1844, distressed by the condition of Ukrainian regions in the Russian Empire, Shevchenko decided to capture some of his homeland's historical ruins and cultural monuments in an album of etchings, which he called Picturesque Ukraine. Only the first six etchings were printed because of the lack of means to continue. An album of watercolors from historical places and pencil drawings was done in 1845.

Plays
Shevchenko 's play Blind Beauty, which was written in , has not survived. In 1842, he released a part of the tragedy  and, in 1843, he completed the drama .

In the autumn of 1842, Shevchenko planned a sea trip to Sweden and Denmark, but due to illness, he returned home after reaching Revel (modern Tallinn).

First trip to Ukraine

In May 1843, Shevchenko travelled to Ukraine, where he met as many intellectuals, poets, and artists as possible, including the future Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius member Vasyl Bilozersky. During his stay in Kyiv, Shevchenko sketched the city's historical sights and landscapes. After a month he went to Yahotyn, where he befriended the wealthy Repnin family. In October 1843, he wrote his poem "", after visiting recent excavations of burial mounds that many Ukrainians considered to be symbolic of the heroic past of the Cossacks.

Shevchenko planned to publish an album, Picturesque Ukraine, to consist of his annotated etchings of places and events connected with Ukraine and its past, and use the proceeds to buy his family their freedom.The Society for the Encouragement of Artists gave him 300 rubles to help produce Picturesque Ukraine, but due to his poor planning and lack of business skills, few of the intended etchings with their accompanying text were published, and not enough money was generated from sales to fulfill his dream of buying his siblings' freedom.

Exile
On 22 March 1845, the Council of the Academy of Arts granted Shevchenko the title of a non-classed artist. He again traveled to Ukraine where he met with historian Mykola Kostomarov and other members of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, a clandestine society also known as Ukrainian-Slavic society and dedicated to the political liberalization of the Empire and its transformation into a federation-like polity of Slavic nations.

In 1844, Shevchenko wrote the poem "" that described the social and national oppression of the Ukrainians by the Russian upper classes. In February, he arrived back in Saint Petersburg from Ukraine. Copies of the poem were confiscated from the society's members and became one of the major issues of the scandal.

Shevchenko was arrested together with the members of the society on 5 April 1847. Tsar Nicholas I read Shevchenko's poem, "Dream". Vissarion Belinsky wrote in his memoirs that, Nicholas I, knowing Ukrainian very well, laughed and chuckled whilst reading the section about himself, but his mood quickly turned to bitter hatred when he read about his wife. Shevchenko had mocked her frumpy appearance and facial tics, which she had developed fearing the Decembrist uprising and its plans to kill her family. After reading this section the Tsar indignantly stated "I suppose he had reasons not to be on terms with me, but what has she done to deserve this?"

In the official report of Orlov Shevchenko was accused of composing poetry in "Little-Russian language" (archaic Russian name for Ukrainian language)  of outrageous content, instead of being grateful to be redeemed out of serfdom. In the report, Orlov listed the crimes as advocating and inspiring Ukrainian nationalists, alleging enslavement and misfortune of Ukraine, glorifying the Hetman Administration (Cossack Hetmanate) and Cossack liberties and that he "with incredible audacity poured slander and bile on persons of Imperial House".

While under investigation, Shevchenko was imprisoned in Saint Petersburg in casemates of the 3rd Department of Imperial Chancellery on Panteleimonovskaya Street (today Pestelia str., 9). After being convicted, he was exiled as a private to the Russian military garrison in Orenburg at Orsk, near the Ural Mountains. Tsar Nicholas I, personally confirmed his sentence, added to it, "Under the strictest surveillance, without the right to write or paint." He was subsequently sent on a forced march from Saint Petersburg to Orenburg and Orsk.

The following year, 1848, he was assigned to undertake the first Russian naval expedition of the Aral Sea on the ship "Konstantin", under the command of Lieutenant Butakov. Although officially a common private, Shevchenko was effectively treated as an equal by the other members of the expedition. He was tasked to sketch various landscapes around the coast of the Aral Sea. After an 18-month voyage (1848–49), Shevchenko returned with his album of drawings and paintings to Orenburg. Most of those drawings were created for a detailed account of the expedition. Nevertheless, he created many unique works of art about the Aral Sea nature and Kazakhstan people at a time when Russian conquest of Central Asia had begun in the middle of the nineteenth century.

He was then sent to one of the worst penal settlements, the remote fortress of Novopetrovsk at Mangyshlak Peninsula, where he spent seven terrible years. In 1851, at the suggestion of fellow serviceman Bronisław Zaleski, lieutenant colonel Mayevsky assigned him to the Mangyshlak (Karatau) geological expedition. In 1857, Shevchenko finally returned from exile after receiving amnesty from a new emperor, though he was not permitted to return to St. Petersburg and was forced to stay in Nizhniy Novgorod.

Shevchenko was eventually allowed to return to St. Petersburg. In the winter of 1858, he saw African-American Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge perform with his troupe. Using translators, the two became good friends over discussions of art and music and their shared experiences of oppression. Shevchenko drew Aldridge's portrait. Aldridge was later gifted a portrait of Shevchenko by Mikhail Mikeshin.

In May 1859, Shevchenko got permission to return to Ukraine. He intended to buy a plot of land close to the village of Pekari. In July, he was again arrested on a charge of blasphemy, but then released and ordered to return to St. Petersburg.

Death
Taras Shevchenko spent the last years of his life working on new poetry, paintings, and engravings, as well as editing his older works.  After difficult years in exile, however, his illnesses took their toll upon him. Shevchenko died in Saint Petersburg on 10 March 1861, the day after his 47th birthday.

He was first buried at the Smolensk Cemetery in Saint Petersburg. However, fulfilling Shevchenko's wish, expressed in his poem "Testament" ("Zapovit"), to be buried in Ukraine, his friends arranged the transfer of his remains by train to Moscow and then by horse-drawn wagon to his homeland. Shevchenko was re-buried on 8 May on the Chernecha hora (Monk's Hill; today Taras Hill) near the Dnipro River and Kaniv. A tall mound was erected over his grave, now a memorial part of the Kaniv Museum-Preserve.

Dogged by terrible misfortune in love and life, the poet died seven days before the 1861 emancipation of serfs was announced. His works and life are revered by Ukrainians throughout the world and his impact on Ukrainian literature is immense.

His funeral in Saint Petersburg was attended by such greats of Russian literature as Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Saltykov-Shchedrin and Leskov.

Poetic works
237 poems were written by Shevchenko but only 28 of these were published in the Russian Empire. Six others were published in the Austrian Empire over his lifetime.

Example of poetry: Testament (Zapovit)
Shevchenko's 1845 Testament (Zapovit) has been translated into more than 150 languages and set to music in the 1870s by H. Hladky.

Political, philosophical and aesthetic views
Shevchenko is considered to be "the founder of the revolutionary democratic trend in the history of Ukrainian social thought" and a utopian socialist. His political, aesthetic and philosophical worldview was formed under the influence of the ideas of Russian revolutionary democrats such as Herzen, Belinsky, Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky; his views reflected the interests of the Ukrainian peasantry of the mid-19th century, the era of the crisis of the feudal-serf system in Imperial Russia.

A serf peasant, ransomed from captivity, Shevchenko was in the words of Russian critic Nikolai Dobrolyubov, "a poet of the people ... He came out of the people, lived with the people, and not only by thought, but by the circumstances of life, was closely and bloodily connected with the people."

Shevchenko was one of the most active participants in a secret political organization in Ukraine, the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius and headed the revolutionary nucleus in it. He was associated with a group of Petrashevists (the Petrashevsky Circle was a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded intellectuals in St. Petersburg in the 1840s, which also included a young Fyodor Dostoyevsky and radical utopian socialists) who, in their plans for a peasant uprising, hoped to use his revolutionary activities in Ukraine. After his exile, Shevchenko became close to the members of the Sovremennik literary, social and political magazine and its editors, Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Dobrolyubov.

While he tirelessly exposed the oppression of the Russian landowners and the Tsar, Shevchenko, as a pan-Slavist, fought for friendship between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, praised the "glorious of the glorious" Bohdan Khmelnitsky, a 17th-century Ukrainian Cossack leader who had set the stage for the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. Shevchenko advocated the unification of the Slavic peoples on a democratic basis.

Shevchenko did not consider the existing social system to be unshakable, he was convinced that the serf system would be destroyed everywhere due to the development of the steam engine, a technique that would "devour the landlord-inquisitors", and that the most important role in a radical change in social life would be played by the masses. Although he argued that the strength of the spirit cannot manifest itself without matter, he did not call his philosophical position "materialism", understanding by this word the vulgar materialism of contemporary thinkers such as Büchner, Moleschott and Vogt, which he rejected. In his poem, "The Heretic", Shevchenko praised the struggle of Jan Hus (an early 15th-century Bohemian religious reformer) for the interests of ordinary people and the unity of the Slavs.

According to Shevchenko's aesthetic views, which the poet expressed in his Diary, the source of beauty is nature; any attempts to deviate from the eternal beauty of nature make the artist "a moral monster". Shevchenko strove for art that is both national (folkloric) and realistic, and for that he earned the praise of Chernyshevsky and the Russian itinerant painter Ivan Kramskoi, who drew the poet's famous portrait after his death.

In the 1840s and then in the 1850s, in the era of the political struggle within the Empire's intelligentsia between the revolutionary-minded radical wing and the more moderate liberal wing, Shevchenko stood on the side of the Russian revolutionary democrats. His battle poetry, which spread underground, was a sharp weapon in the fight against serfdom. Shevchenko had a great influence on the further development of revolutionary social thought in Ukraine and on Ukrainian culture in general (Ivan Franko, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Lesya Ukrainka, etc.).

Artwork
Of Shevchenko's known paintings and drawings, generally related to Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan, 835 works have survived as original works or as prints or copies made during his lifetime; 270 other works are lost. Shevchenko produced portraits, compositions on mythological, historical, and household themes, architectural drawings, and landscapes, using oils on canvas, watercolour, sepia, ink, and pencil, as well as etchings. Sketches and studies are known, which are of use in understanding Shevchenko's artistic style and methods. Few of his works are signed and an even fewer are dated.

Heritage and legacy

A great number of his pictures, drawings, and etchings preserved to this day testify to his unique artistic talent. He also experimented with photography and it is little known that Shevchenko may be considered to have pioneered the art of etching in the Russian Empire (in 1860 he was awarded the title of Academician in the Imperial Academy of Arts specifically for his achievements in etching.)
He inspired some of the protestors during the Euromaidan. The context of his poem "Testament" (Zapovit) was given credit for "resonating" with Ukraine's ongoing struggle during the invasion from Russia in 2022.

Monuments and memorials

The earliest statues of Shevchenko were created by the authorities in the Soviet Union. The first was unveiled in Romny in October 1918. Statues erected in Moscow in November 1918 and Petrograd in December 1918 perished because they were made of inferior materials, and had to be remade. The monument erected in his name in Saint Petersburg was remade in 2000. There are monuments to Shevchenko throughout Ukraine, such as at his memorials in Kaniv, in the centre of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, and Luhansk. After Ukraine gained its independence in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, some Ukrainian statues of Lenin were replaced by statues of Shevchenko.

Monuments to Shevchenko have been put up in other countries. These include the granite Taras Shevchenko Memorial in Washington, D.C., a monument in Soyuzivka, New York, statues in the Brazilian cities of Curitiba and Prudentópolis, and in the Croatian capital Zagreb. A bust of Shevchenko was unveiled on 24 September 2010 in the Østre Anlæg Park in Copenhagen.

Other commemorations
In 1957, the Ukrainian-American composer  wrote the cantata Poslaniie, based on Shevchenko's poem of the same name.

From 1966 to 1968 artist Hanna Veres made a series of ornamental textiles that she dedicated to Shevchenko. They were used to illustrate the 1971 edition of Kobzar.

See also
 Legacy of Taras Shevchenko
 List of things named after Taras Shevchenko
From the Ukrainian Wikipedia:

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading

 Shevchenko, T. Complete collection of works in ten volumes. Kyiv: Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, 1951–1964.
 Victor Pogadaev. Taras Shevchenko: Jubli ke-200. – in: Pentas, Jil. 9, Bil. 1 – Mac 2014. Kuala Lumpur: Istana Budaya, 45–49 (in Malay)

External links

 Information about the National Museum of Taras Shevchenko in Kyiv, from Museum Portal
 Taras Shevchenko Museum, Toronto, Canada (official website)
 Information about facsimile editions of works by Shevchenko designed by Volodymyr Yurchyshyn from the British Library

1814 births
1861 deaths
People from Cherkasy Oblast
People from Kiev Governorate
Ukrainian people in the Russian Empire
Ukrainian democracy activists
Ukrainian nationalists
Ukrainian illustrators
Ukrainian male poets
Ukrainian ethnographers
Ukrainian dramatists and playwrights
Dramatists and playwrights from the Russian Empire
Male writers from the Russian Empire
19th-century Ukrainian dramatists and playwrights
Ukrainian prisoners and detainees
Academic staff of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius members
Hromada (society) members
19th-century Ukrainian painters
19th-century Ukrainian male artists
Ukrainian male painters
Ukrainian exiles in the Russian Empire
Ukrainian dissidents
19th-century Ukrainian writers
Members of the Imperial Academy of Arts
Serfs
19th-century farmers

Taras Shevchenko


The Temples of the Beqaa Valley are a number of shrines and Roman temples that are dispersed around the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. The most important and famous are those in Roman Heliopolis. A few temples are built on former buildings of the Phoenician & Hellenistic era, but all are considered to be of Roman construction and were started to be abandoned after the fourth century with the fall of the Roman Paganism.

Historical development

During the early Roman empire the area was chosen to create huge pagan temples of Roman deities, in order to show the "greatness" of the empire of Rome in Phoenicia.

After the end of the first century CE the territory became jointly controlled by the cities of Damascus, Sidon and Paneas. It is thought that the area was inhabited continuously until the third century CE. Although the sites may have been built on previous layers of architecture, the current temples are predominantly considered to be of Roman construction and were largely abandoned after the fourth century CE during the Byzantine era.

In the first century the Temples started to be built, using the nearby quarries with famous ""Monoliths".

The Temple of Jupiter in Heliopolis (in a complex area called even Sanctuary of Heliopolitan Zeus) was the biggest pagan temple in the classical world. The presence of a huge quarry was one of the reasons for the Roman decision to create a huge "Great Court" of a big pagan temple complex in this mountain site, located at nearly 1100 meters of altitude and on the eastern Borders of the Roman Empire: it took three centuries to create this colossal Roman paganism's temple complex.

With Constantine the Great Christianity was declared officially the religion of the Roman empire and the pagan Temples started to be neglected. Eusebius records that the Emperor Constantine destroyed a temple of Venus 'on the summit of Mount Lebanon'. Later the Bizantines used some materials from the abandoned Temples.

Surveys

Documentation of the temples in the Beqaa Valley area began in the 19th century, with surveys by Edward Robinson in 1852 CE and Sir Charles Warren. The most notable of the temples of Venus, Bacchus and Jupiter at Baalbek were thoroughly studied by Paul Collart and Pierre Coupel. Ten sacred sites were also documented by Daniel Krencker and Willy Schietzschmann in 1938. Maurice Tallon published an itinerary of the sanctuaries in 1967 with details of the paths to reach them. George F. Taylor provided a pictorial guide in the late 1960s with more recent information coming from Shim'on Dar in 1993 and epigraphic surveys in 2002 and 2003.

The Seleucids occupied the area after 200 BCE, shortly after which the Ituraeans developed a principality in the area until the fall of Chalcis when the territory passed to the Herodian kings Agrippa I and Agrippa II. After the end of the first century CE the territory became jointly controlled by the cities of Damascus, Sidon and Paneas. It is thought that the area was inhabited continuously until the third century CE. Although the sites may have been built on previous layers of architecture, the current temples are predominantly considered to be of Roman construction and were largely abandoned after the fourth century CE during the Byzantine era.

The temples were often connected with ancient occupational sites. Olivier Callot and Pierre-Louis Gatier argued that several of the temple sites might have been mistaken for monumental tombs as Roman mausoleums such as Saidnaya have been found in Lebanon. Taylor held the view that the religious architecture was the responsibility of "the hand of a single master builder" but was not able to answer the question of why so many shrines should be concentrated in the area. Henry Seyrig, when reviewing Krencker and Zscheitzmann's "Romische Tempel in Syrien" highlighted that "the clue to an important social and economic change that would deserve to be one day the focus of a study". There is still a deplorable lack of a comprehensive study into the history, archaeology,  architecture of these buildings and ancient sites, or the religious life of the people who used them.

Temple types

The typology of the temples has been studied and they are generally divided into Antae, Prostylos or Peripteral types. Antae temples have side walls that extend to form a porch at the front or rear (or both) and terminated in pilasters that were called the antae. If columns were placed in advance of the walls or antae, the temple was termed Prostylos and if columns surrounded the temple it was termed Peripteral. The peripteral type is thought to be the most perfect form of temple and the best preserved of this type is the Temple of Bacchus at Baalbek.

Worship
It was the opinion of Edward Robinson that worship was not conducted within the temples, but rather outside it. The temple was the domain of the priests where they venerated a cult statue. Worshippers gathered around the temple at ceremonial times and hence there was no need for divisions within it, such as the aisles of modern churches. The cult images, along with temples themselves would often be aligned so that the sun would illuminate them at certain times of day and year. George F. Taylor was of the opinion that a sacrifice would be made when certain areas of the temple became illuminated. He suggested that a "Minister of Works" may have been responsible for local civil engineering in Ancient Roman times.

Temple groups

George F. Taylor divided up the Temples of Lebanon into three groups:
 First, one covering the Beqaa valley north of the road from Beirut to Damascus.
 Second, a group to the south, including the Wadi al-Taym known as Temples of Mount Hermon.
 Third, a group in the area west of a line drawn along the ridge of Mount Lebanon that includes Makam Er-Rab, Sfira, Kasr Naous, Amioun, Bziza, Batroun, Edde, Mashnaqa, Yanouh, Afka, Qalaat Faqra, Kalaa, Sarba Jounieh, Antoura, Deir el-Kalaa, Shheem and the coastal plains of Beirut, Byblos, Sidon, Tripoli and Tyre.

The Temples of the Beqaa Valley in Taylor's first group included El-Lebwe, Yammoune, Qasr Banat, Iaat, Nahle, Baalbek, Hadeth, Kasarnaba, Temnin el-Foka, Nebi Ham, Saraain El Faouqa, Niha, Hosn Niha, Ferzol and Kafr Zebad.

Niha Gallery

Heliopolis (Baalbek) Gallery

See also
 List of Ancient Roman temples
 Temple of Bacchus
 Baalbek § Ruins
 Temples of Mount Hermon

References

External links
The Roman Temples of Lebanon by George Taylor on discoverlebanon.com
Full text of Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt. Edited by Charles Wilson, 1881.
Roman Temples of the Bekaa - Lebanese Ministry of Tourism Guide

Ancient Roman temples
Ancient Roman religion
Shrines
Religious buildings and structures in Lebanon
Roman sites in Lebanon

Temples of the Beqaa Valley


The black carpet beetle (Attagenus unicolor)  is a  beetle that can be a serious household pest. The larvae grow to  in length, are reddish brown in colour and covered with bristles. The larval form feeds on natural fibres, damaging carpets, furniture and clothing.

Life cycle
Attagenus unicolor undergoes complete metamorphosis, which has four life stages: Egg, larvae, pupae and adult. Each stage looks different, and needs different amounts of time to reach the next stage.

Eggs are usually laid near or on a food source. If no food source can be found, the female will lay them in dark undisturbed locations where the larvae can feed on carpeting or clothing. They will also lay eggs on or near dog food or other pet food. Eggs take anywhere from 5 to 20 days to hatch depending on the conditions, such as temperature and humidity.

Larvae are  about  in size when they hatch from the egg. They grow fairly quickly depending on the food source availability and protein found in the food itself. Larvae moult about 10 to 15 times, or more depending on conditions. Sometimes if food is scarce they will retro-moult with the larvae moulting into a lower instar.  They can do this multiple times, if they are large enough.

The larval stage is the longest and most destructive stage; they can remain as larvae for up to 3 years, although it does not typically take longer than 3 months to go through the larval stage if food and conditions are good. Larvae pupate in undisturbed locations, far away from the food source so that they aren't cannibalized.

Pupae are cream white but quickly turn yellow and darken with age. They do not eat in this stage nor move. They transform into the beetles in about 8 to 20 days, depending on the conditions. The beetle may stay in the shedded pupae case for an additional day or two.

Beetles start out white but darken with age. They typically do not eat, although they will sometimes eat flower pollen in the wild, but not indoors. Adults live for a few weeks, just long enough to mate and lay more eggs. They are eventually black in colour, hence the name Black Carpet Beetle. Females are capable of laying 50 to 100 eggs.

The whole life cycle under ideal conditions takes about 4 to 5 months, or less if given protein-rich food, such as pet food. The adult females will lay more eggs if water is present in small amounts.

See also
Varied carpet beetle

External links

Black carpet beetle on the UF / IFAS Featured Creatures website
 Black carpet beetle fact sheet, Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences

Dermestidae
Beetles described in 1791

Black carpet beetle


John Bishop Estlin (26 December 1785 – 10 June 1855) was an English ophthalmic surgeon.

Life
Estlin was the son of the Unitarian minister John Prior Estlin, who kept a well-known school in a large house at the top of St. Michael's Hill, Bristol, and was born there on 26 December 1785. He was educated in his father's school, and began his professional studies at the Bristol Infirmary in 1804. He continued them at Guy's Hospital, London, became a member of the College of Surgeons of London in 1806, and, after further study at the university of Edinburgh, settled in practice in Bristol in 1808. He attained success, and, having special interest in ophthalmic surgery, gradually restricted his practice to ophthalmic surgery as far as he could. In 1812 he established a dispensary for the treatment of eye diseases at No.9 Pipe Lane, on the corner of Frogmore Street, Bristol. He maintained this charity for more than a year at his own cost, and afterwards managed its affairs for thirty-six years, treating fifty-two thousand poor patients himself. He kept careful notes of his cases, and published papers in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, the London Medical Gazette and the Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal.

Estlin's reputation spread, and he became known as one of the leading ophthalmic surgeons in England. He was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the year in which the college received its present charter. In 1817 he married Margaret Bagehot, aunt of Walter Bagehot; she died four years later, leaving an only daughter. She was Mary Anne Estlin and she became a leading abolitionist.

Estlin's health was not robust, and in 1832 he visited the island of St. Vincent, where the warm climate restored him. He obtained and circulated in 1838 a fresh supply of vaccine lymph from cows near Berkeley, Gloucestershire, the place where Edward Jenner had originally discovered the effectiveness of vaccination in preventing smallpox. Estlin rendered other public services in regard to temperance, the abolition of slavery, the education of the poor, the maintenance of religious toleration, and the suppression of medical impostures.

Estlin was a Unitarian with definite theological opinions, and wrote in favour of the Christian miracles and On Prayer and Divine Aid, 1825. In 1845 he published Remarks on Mesmerism, a lucid exposition of the scientific method of investigating phenomena said to be due to hidden forces of nature. He was always generous, but nevertheless grew rich, and became, by force of upright character and professional skill, one of the most trusted men in Bristol. He had an attack of right hemiplegia in May 1853, died 10 June 1855, and was buried in the Lewin's Mead burying-ground, Bristol. In the adjoining meeting-house are monumental tablets for him and his wife.

Works
 'Amaurosis', Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 1815
 On Prayer and Divine Aid, 1825
 'Cataract', London Medical Gazette, 1829
 'Cysticercus Cellulosæ on the Sclerotica', London Medical Gazette, 1838 and 1840
 'One Hundred Cases of Operation for Strabismus', Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. ii.
 'Pretended Cure of Cataract', Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal. vol. v.
 'Injuries of the Iris', Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. vi.
 Remarks on Mesmerism, 1845

References

1785 births
1855 deaths
English surgeons
British ophthalmologists
Medical doctors from Bristol
19th-century English medical doctors
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
English Unitarians
English medical writers
19th-century English non-fiction writers
English male non-fiction writers
19th-century English male writers

John Bishop Estlin


Gleebruk was a village in the district (Kabupaten/Kota) of Aceh Besar just to the southwest of Banda Aceh, the capital of the special territory of Aceh on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. It was completely destroyed by the tsunamis resulting from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

See also
 Calang
 Teunom
 Meulaboh
 Tapaktuan

External links
 DigitalGlobe analysis of Gleebruk tsunami images. (For reference only. PDF 840 KB)

Populated places in Aceh

Glee Bruek


Alfonso IX (15 August 117123 or 24 September 1230) was King of León and Galicia  from the death of his father Ferdinand II in 1188 until his own death.

He took steps towards modernizing and democratizing his dominion and founded the University of Salamanca in 1212. In 1188 he summoned the first parliament reflecting the fullest representation of the citizenry ever seen in Western Europe, the Cortes of León.

Alfonso took part in the Reconquista, conquering several territories within Extremadura, capturing Mérida and Badajoz in 1230, which allowed for the eventual conquest of Seville during the reign of his son Ferdinand III. He was also involved in numerous conflicts with Pope Celestine III, being interdicted on account of the nature of his marriages.

Biography

Early life
Alfonso was born in Zamora. He was the only son of King Ferdinand II of León and Urraca of Portugal. His father was the younger son of Alfonso VII of León and Castile, who divided his kingdoms between his sons, which set the stage for conflict in the family until the kingdoms were re-united by Alfonso IX's son Ferdinand III of Castile.

Alfonso IX had great difficulty in obtaining the throne through his given birthright.  In July 1188 his cousin Alfonso VIII of Castile required the younger Alfonso to recognize the elder as overlord in exchange for recognizing the younger's authority in León.

Reign
The convening of the Cortes de León in the cloisters of the Basilica of San Isidoro would be one of the most important events of Alfonso's reign. The difficult economic situation at the beginning of his reign compelled Alfonso to raise taxes on the underprivileged classes, leading to protests and a few town revolts. In response, the king summoned the Cortes, an assembly of nobles, clergy and representatives of cities, and subsequently faced demands for compensatory spending and greater external control and oversight of royal expenditures. Alfonso's convening of the Cortes is considered by many historians, including John Keane, to be instrumental to the formation of democratic parliaments across Europe. Note that Iceland had already held what may have been what is Europe's first parliament, the Þingvellir, in 930. However, the Cortes' 1188 session predates the first session of the Parliament of England, which occurred in the thirteenth century.

In spite of the democratic precedent represented by the Cortes and the founding of the University of Salamanca, Alfonso is often chiefly remembered for the difficulties his successive marriages caused between him with Pope Celestine III. He was first married in 1191 to his first cousin, Theresa of Portugal, who bore him two daughters, and a son who died young. The marriage was declared null by the papal legate Cardinal Gregory for consanguinity.

After Alfonso VIII of Castile was defeated at the Battle of Alarcos, Alfonso IX invaded Castile with the aid of Muslim troops. He was summarily excommunicated by Pope Celestine III. In 1197, Alfonso IX married his first cousin once removed, Berengaria of Castile, to cement peace between León and Castile. For this second act of consanguinity, the king and the kingdom were placed under interdict by representatives of the pope. In 1198, Pope Innocent III declared Alfonso and Berengaria's marriage invalid, but they stayed together until 1204.  The annulment of this marriage by the pope drove the younger Alfonso to again attack his cousin in 1204, but treaties made in 1205, 1207, and 1209 each forced him to concede further territories and rights.  The treaty in 1207 is the first existing public document in the Castilian dialect.

The Pope was, however, compelled to modify his measures by the threat that, if the people could not obtain the services of religion, they would not support the clergy, and that heresy would spread. The king was left under interdict personally, but to that he showed himself indifferent, and he had the support of his clergy.

In 1211 Alfonso IX of León and Galicia gave the castle of Alcañices to the Templar Order, where inhabitants celebrated the great victories of the order.

Death
Alfonso IX of León and Galicia died on 24 September 1230. His death was particularly significant in that his son, Ferdinand III of Castile, who was already the King of Castile, also inherited the thrones of León and Galicia from his father. This was thanks to the negotiations of his mother, Berengaria, who convinced her stepdaughters to renounce their claim on the throne. In an effort to quickly consolidate his power over León, Ferdinand III abandoned a military campaign to capture the city of Jaén immediately upon hearing news of his father's death and traveled to León to be crowned king.  This coronation united the Kingdoms of León and Castile which would go on to dominate the Iberian Peninsula.

Marriages and issue
Alfonso IX married twice, both times to near relatives, and remarkably, both of his marriages were annulled for consanguinity. Apart from the eight children born of these two marriages, Alfonso also fathered numerous progeny with women of lower rank.

Marriages and legitimate issue
In 1191, Alfonso married his first cousin Theresa of Portugal, who was his mother's brother's daughter. Theresa was the daughter of King Sancho I of Portugal and Queen Dulce of Aragon. The marriage was annulled five years later, on grounds of consanguinity but three children had been born by then, being:
 Sancha (1191before 1243) unmarried and without issue. She and her sister Dulce became nuns or retired to the monastery of San Guillermo Villabuena in León, where she died before 1243.
 Ferdinand (1192/11931214), unmarried and without issue.
 Dulce (1193/11941248).

On 17 November 1197, Alfonso IX married his first cousin once removed, the infanta Berengaria of Castile. Berengeria was the daughter of King Alfonso VIII of Castile and his wife Queen Leonor of England. Her paternal grandfather, Sancho III of Castile, had been a brother of Alfonso's own father Ferdinand II of León. Thus, both Alfonso IX and Berengaria belonged to the same dynasty or family. The marriage was annulled on grounds of consanguinity, but not before five children had been born, namely:
 Eleanor (119811 November 1202).
 Constance (died in 1242), became a nun at the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas, Burgos, where she died.
 Ferdinand III of Castile (1199/12011252). King of Castile in 1217 after the death of Henry I of Castile and of León  in 1230 after the death of his father.
 Alfonso  (died in 1272), Lord of Molina jure uxoris due to his first marriage to Mafalda González de Lara.
 Berengaria of León (died in 1237), in 1224 married John of Brienne,

Affairs and illegitimate issue
Alfonso also fathered many illegitimate children. After the annulment of his first marriage and before marrying for the second time, he had a relationship which lasted about two years with Inés Íñiguez de Mendoza, daughter of Iñigo López de Mendoza and María García. This affair produced a daughter born around 1197:
 Urraca Alfonso, the wife of Lope Díaz II de Haro, Lord of Biscay.

Alfonso had another relationship afterwards with a noblewoman from Galicia, Estefanía Pérez de Faiam. She was the daughter of Pedro Menéndez Faiam, who confirmed several royal charters of King Alfonso IX, and the granddaughter of Menendo Faiam, who also confirmed several diplomas issued in Galicia as of 1155 by King Ferdinand II of León. In 1211, Alfonso gave her lands in Orense where her family, as can be inferred from her last will dated 1250, owned many estates, as well as in the north of Portugal. After the relationship ended, Estefanía married Rodrigo Suárez with whom she had further issue. In her will, she asked to be buried in the Monastery of Fiães in northern Portugal. Alfonso IX and Estefanía were the parents of possibly two sons, but definitely of one, being:
 Ferdinand Alfonso of León (born in 1211), died young.

According to Spanish historian Julio González, after his relationship with Estefanía, the king had a lover from Salamanca, of unknown origin, whose name was Maura and with whom he had issue:
 Fernando Alfonso de León (/1218Salamanca, 10 January 1278), archdeacon of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, who had issue with Aldara de Ulloa.

Alfonso also had a relationship with a noblewoman from Portugal, Aldonza Martínez de Silva, daughter of Martim Gomes da Silva and his wife Urraca Rodrigues, which lasted from 1214 to 1218. Three children were born to them:
 Rodrigo (), lord of Aliger and Castro del Río, and Adelantado of the March of Andalusia,  he married Inés Rodríguez, daughter of Rodrigo Fernández de Valduerna, Lord of Cabrera and alférez of King Alfonso IX.
 Aldonza (died after 1267). Married count Pedro Ponce de Cabrera, and had issue.  They are the ancestors of the Ponce de León family.
 Teresa Alfonso of León, the wife of Nuño González de Lara el Bueno.

Some families that arrive to Los Altos de Jalisco in Mexico like Gutierrez descend from the union of Alfonso with Aldonza Martínez de Silva

King Alfonso's most long-lasting extra-marital relationship, which began in 1218 and lasted until his death in 1230, was with Teresa Gil de Soverosa. A member of the Portuguese nobility, Teresa was the daughter of Gil Vasques de Soverosa and his first wife María Aires de Fornelos. They had four children, all of them born between 1218 and 1230:
 Sancha (d. 1270). Married Simon Ruiz, Lord of Los Cameros. She later became a nun at the convent of Santa Eufemia de Cozuelos which she had founded.
 María (died after July 1275). Her first marriage was with Álvaro Fernández de Lara. She was then the concubine of her nephew King Alfonso X of Castile and, according to the Count of Barcelos, her second husband was Suero Arias de Valladares.
 Martín (died 1268/1272), married to Maria Mendes de Sousa, founders of the Monastery of Sancti-Spíritus, Salamanca. There was no issue from this marriage.
 Urraca (d. after 1252). First married García Romeu, and then Pedro Núñez de Guzmán.

Although Alfonso IX is supposed to have had another son, Pedro Alfonso de León, there is no documentary proof that he was the king's son or that he was the Grand Master of the Order of Santiago.

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading
 Sánchez Rivera, Jesús Ángel, "Configuración de una iconografía singular: la venerable doña Sancha Alfonso, comendadora de Santiago", Anales de Historia del Arte, nº 18 (2008), Madrid, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, pp. 167–209.
 Szabolcs de Vajay, "From Alfonso VIII to Alfonso X" in Studies in Genealogy and Family History in Tribute to Charles Evans on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday, 1989, pp. 366–417.

1171 births
1230 deaths
People from Zamora, Spain
Leonese infantes
12th-century Leonese monarchs
Roman Catholic monarchs
12th-century Galician monarchs
People excommunicated by the Catholic Church
Castilian House of Burgundy
Spanish royalty and nobility with disabilities
13th-century Leonese monarchs

Alfonso IX of León


Frances Kirkwood Crane (October 27, 1890 – November 6, 1981) was an American mystery author, who introduced private investigator Pat Abbott and his future wife Jean in her first novel, The Turquoise Shop (1941). The Abbotts investigated crimes in a total of 26 volumes, each with a color in the title.

Life and career
Crane was born in Lawrenceville, Illinois, and hailed from a wealthy, well-educated family; most of her male relatives were doctors, and her aunt Nancy may have earned a master's degree, highly unusual for a woman of that time. Some biographies mistakenly list her birth year as 1896. Crane herself was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Illinois, and she did graduate study at the University of Chicago.

Her husband was the wealthy advertising executive Ned Crane, and throughout their marriage Frances regularly published articles in The New Yorker, where she became known for her dry, sophisticated sense of humour. She spent an extended stay in Germany towards the end of the 1930s, but her liberal opinions and outspokenness soon put her at odds with the rising tide of Nazism; she was once reprimanded after thumbing her nose at a speech by Hitler being broadcast over loudspeakers, and on another occasion tried convincing the staff at an anti-Semitic restaurant that she was Jewish (her family were in fact descended from Scottish Presbyterians). She was expelled from Germany following the arrest of her Jewish housekeeper and the woman's son, supposedly for 'crimes against the state', and Frances's subsequent furious articles decrying the Nazi regime.

After leaving behind Nazi Germany, having been recently divorced and faced with mounting college bills from her only daughter, Nancy, Frances began formulating detective stories, upon realising that her old fiction – gentle satires of English culture – were going out of fashion among modern American readers, who were now supporting the British in World War II. Nancy herself was a sculptor and also wrote articles of her own in the late 1940s; she was married to the pulp magazine writer Norbert Davis until his suicide, possibly as a result of his cancer diagnosis, and had one daughter, Diana Farris. Frances published no novels in 1949 because of Nancy's near fatal car accident; she crashed the same vehicle her husband gassed himself in, and was left facially mutilated for several months afterwards. Amazingly she had another child, Cynthia, soon after the incident.

Frances published her first crime novel, The Turquoise Shop, in 1941, after hearing about a real-life incident in a jeweller's shop, and subsequently produced 25 more mystery novels, taking early retirement by 1968. She died in an Albuquerque, New Mexico nursing home, where she had spent the previous few months because of ill-health. Her ashes were scattered across her home town of Lawrenceville.

Radio
From 1945 to 1947, the radio series, Abbott Mysteries, was based on Crane's characters. Between 1954 and 1955, the radio program Adventures of the Abbotts starred Claudia Morgan and Don Briggs (followed by Les Damon and Mandel Kramer) as the husband-and-wife crimefighters.

Bibliography

Pat and Jean Abbott novels
The Turquoise Shop – 1941
The Golden Box – 1942
The Yellow Violet – 1942
The Applegreen Cat – 1943
The Pink Umbrella – 1943 (aka The Pink Umbrella Murder)
The Amethyst Spectacles – 1944
The Indigo Necklace – 1945 (aka The Indigo Necklace Murders)
The Cinnamon Murder – 1946
The Shocking Pink Hat – 1946
Murder on the Purple Water – 1947
Black Cypress – 1948
The Flying Red Horse – 1949
The Daffodil Blonde – 1950
Murder in Blue Street – 1951 (aka Death in the Blue Hour)
The Polkadot Murder – 1951
13 White Tulips – 1953
Murder in Bright Red – 1953
The Coral Princess Murders – 1954
Death in Lilac Time – 1955
Horror on the Ruby X – 1956
The Ultraviolet Widow – 1956
The Man in Gray – 1958 (aka The Gray Stranger)
The Buttercup Case – 1958
Death-Wish Green – 1960
The Amber Eyes – 1962
Body Beneath A Mandarin Tree – 1965

Non-Abbott novels

The Reluctant Sleuth – 1961
Three Days in Hong Kong – 1965
A Very Quiet Murder – 1966
Worse Than a Crime – 1968

Listen to
Adventures of the Abbotts

External links
Rue Morgue Press: "Frances Crane" by Tom and Enid Schantz
Pat and Jean Abbott

References

American mystery writers
20th-century American novelists
1890 births
1981 deaths
American expatriates in Germany
American women novelists
20th-century American women journalists
Women mystery writers
20th-century American women writers
People from Lawrenceville, Illinois
Novelists from Illinois
Journalists from Illinois
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American journalists

Frances Crane


The 1969 Yangjiang earthquake occurred on 26 July, at 6:49 am, Beijing local time (25 July 22:49 UTC). It had a magnitude of 6.4 on the moment magnitude scale and a maximum perceived intensity of VIII (Severe) on the Mercalli intensity scale. It struck the city of Yangjiang, causing over 10,700 houses to collapse and severely damaging a further 36,000. The earthquake also caused landslides and sandblows observed along the coast and along some rivers in the area of Yangjiang. The earthquake was also felt in Hong Kong. There were an unconfirmed total of 3,000 deaths.

Tectonic setting
Guangdong Province lies in a tectonically stable part of China, which has relatively low seismicity. The area forms part of the passive margin between the continental crust of China and the oceanic crust of the northern part of the South China Sea. Within the stable South China Block, there are three zones of higher earthquake activity, one of which is the Southeast China Coast seismic zone running through Guangdong and Fujian Provinces. This zone follows the South China Maritime Fold Belt, which was formed by a subduction event during the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous epochs. The area is currently in a compressive stress regime with the maximum horizontal stress orientated northwest–southeast. This results from a combination of the continuing collision between the Indian and Eurasian Plates, and the subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate.

Earthquake
The earthquake occurred on a steeply-dipping fault striking nearly east–west. The focal mechanism shows mainly dextral (right lateral) strike-slip faulting. The magnitude and number of recorded foreshocks and aftershocks were unusually small, considering the size of the mainshock. This earthquake is the only damaging event in the epicentral area in historical records.

Damage
The epicentral area lay mostly in Yangjiang County, affecting an area measuring 19 km by 10 km, elongated west to east. In the whole county, a total of 10,762 houses were completely destroyed, a further 35,965 were severely damaged and another 90,840 suffered some damage. In Xinyi about 1,200 houses suffered some damage and several were destroyed. The earthquake was also strongly felt in Fengkai, Huaiji, Xinzhong, Deqing, Zhaoqing, Yunan, Zengcheng, Gaohe and Panyu, although there was no serious damage in these areas. Minor damage was also reported in Hong Kong. A report of 3,000 casualties caused by this earthquake is described as "unconfirmed".

See also
List of earthquakes in 1969
List of earthquakes in China

References

External links

Yangjiang Earthquake, 1969
Earthquakes in Guangdong
1969 disasters in China
Yangjiang

1969 Yangjiang earthquake


The Isle of Wight Gazette was a local newspaper. The paper edition was published on Fridays as a fortnightly publication until January 2011. It remained as an active online publication until June 2011.

The Gazette included a mix of local news, advertising features, entertainment, jobs and sport. It latterly had close links with the local Fire and Rescue Service, and often reported on traffic accidents and fires.

The newspaper was launched on 30 May 2008 as a free paper with a voluntary donation to charity. Stands were set up across the Island in over 200 locations. Between 2010 and 2011 the paper became a paid-for publication with a cover price of 30p.

Ceased Trading
The Isle of Wight Gazette Ltd ceased trading in February 2011, but the Gazette continued trading under the name of WightFM Media Group Ltd, although WightFM Media Group Ltd was at the time registered as a dissolved company.

The end of the Gazette
A controversial news story was published by the Gazette in February 2010 about Isle of Wight council Leader, David Pugh and his girlfriend at the Cowes Yacht Haven. This generated considerable publicity but did not find favour with sponsors and advertisers. The Earl Mountbatten Hospice decided to cut ties with the paper, and other advertisers withdrew. The Gazette newspaper declined after the article was published.

References

External links
 Isle of Wight Gazette website

Newspapers published on the Isle of Wight
Newspapers established in 2008
2008 establishments in England

Isle of Wight Gazette


A coalition is formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economic spaces.

Formation
According to A Guide for Political Parties published by the National Democratic Institute and the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, there are five steps to coalition building. The first step in coalition building involves developing a party strategy that will prepare for successful negotiation. The more effort parties place on this step, the more likely they are to identify strategic partners, negotiate a good deal and avoid some of the common mistakes associated with coalition building. The second step is negotiating a coalition. Based on the strategy that each party has prepared, the parties come together to negotiate and reach an agreement on the coalition terms. Depending on the context and objectives of the coalition, these negotiations may be completely secret or partially public. While some issues may be agreed on with relative ease, others may be more contentious and require different approaches to reach compromise. As negotiation concludes, the agreement between political parties needs to be formally sealed. This third step includes finalizing a written agreement, securing formal approval of the deal from the relevant structures of the coalition's member parties and announcing the coalition details to the general public. The next step involves working in coalition. As the coalition partners begin working to implement their agreement, they will need to maintain good relations by continuing efforts to increase or sustain trust and communication among the member parties. Each party will also need to find a balance between respecting its obligations to the coalition and maintaining its individual identity. The final step is to identify lessons learned. Regardless of whether it plans to move forward alone or in another coalition, it is important for each party to review and document lessons learned from each coalition-building experience. This will make it possible to get a clearer picture of the positive and negative impacts of coalition-building on the party and to identify lessons learned that can inform any future coalition-building efforts.

Coalitions manifest in a variety of forms, types, and terms of duration. Campaign coalitions are high intensity and involve long-term cooperation. Federations are characterized by a relatively lower degree of involvement, intensity, and participation, also involving long-term cooperation but with members' primary commitment remaining with their own entities. Instrumental coalitions have low-intensity involvement without a foundation to mediate conflict. Finally, event-based coalitions are those that have a high level of involvement and the potential for future collaboration.

In contrast to alliances, coalitions may be termed partnerships of unequals, since comparative political, economic, and military might, as well as the extent to which a nation is prepared to commit to the coalition, dictate influence. Coalitions can often occur as unplanned responses to situations of danger, uncertainty, or extraordinary events, directed at interim objectives.

Function
Coalitions can be classified as internal or external. Internal coalitions consist of people who are already in an organization, such as a workplace. For example, a trade union is a type of coalition formed to represent employees' wages, benefits, and working conditions. Without this unity between employees, workers may be subjugated to harsh working environments and low pay due to no practical regulations. Often, organizations prefer to meet with members of their respective internal coalitions before implementing changes in the workplace to ensure support.

In contrast, external coalitions consist of people that are members of different organizations who collaborate their efforts to achieve an overall objective. For example, in order to prevent gun violence and advocate gun control, several groups, unions, and nonprofit organizations banded together to form the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. External coalitions base their confidence in gaining credibility on inviting unlikely partners who wish to attain the same end goal, even if the reasons to achieve the goal differ.

Use

Government and politics

Coalition government is an alternative model to a majority government, the latter being prevalent in winner-take-all first-past-the-post electoral systems that favor clear distinctions between winners and losers. Not only can coalitions of legislative groups form governments in parliamentary systems, they can also form in divisions of power. Most typical analyses of coalitions in politics deal with the formation of multiparty cabinets in parliamentary regimes. In Germany, every administration has been a multiparty coalition since the conclusion of the Second World Waran example of coalition government creation in a parliamentary system. When different winning coalitions can be formed in a parliament, the party composition of the government may depend on the bargaining power of each party and the presence or lack of a dominant party.

Coalitions are similar to parliamentary groups. Fluid coalitions, which change with each vote, exist in the European Parliament and Swiss parliament to pass legislation.

International relations

The temporary collaboration of two or more separate parties with a set goal and common purpose can be viewed as a coalition in international relations. Coalition competitions are represented in international political dynamics. A coalition can be an ad hoc grouping of nations united for specific purposes. Although persons and groups form coalitions for many and varied reasons, the most common purpose is to combat a common threat or to take advantage of a certain opportunity, resulting in the often temporary nature of coalitions. The common threat or existence of opportunity is what gives rise to the coalition and allows it to exist as all parties involved see the benefit in working together. Such collaborative processes allow the actors of the coalition to approach a common goal or accomplish the same task. The behavior and dynamics of coalitions in international relations are created by commonalities and differences within the groups joining together. Rationality, group dynamics, and gender are all contributing factors of coalitional behaviors in an international security framework.

Economics
Economic agents can form coalitions. When a coalition is formed around economic goals, the reasoning is financial. In economics, when two opposing sectors, such as a buyer and seller or two sellers, come together, it can be thought of as a coalition in the denotative sense, as the two groups come together temporarily to achieve a goal. One example would be the 1997 deal between Microsoft and Apple. The deal consisted of Microsoft rescuing the then-struggling Apple with a cash infusion of $150 million. Unions can be viewed as coalitions of workers, usually of the same job sector. When the agents considered are countries, the formation of an international treaty (e.g. trade agreements or international environmental agreements) can also be seen as a coalition. In economics, a coalition's formation and its stability is mostly studied using game theory.

Civil society
In civil society, a coalition denotes a group effort or a population of people coming together who believe strongly in their cause. The term also describes alliances between civil society organizations, such as labor unions, community organizations, and religious institutions. In France for example, workers from different sectors and unions band together to aid each other in communicating a point. This coalition of unions is often very effective as it can cause massive inconvenience to the country. The formation of coalitions such as the Community-Labor Coalition have proven to be an important strategy for social change in many contexts. In social groups, a coalition often forms from private citizens uniting behind a common goal or purpose. Many of these private citizen groups form grassroots organizations, such as the Christian Coalition, which is the largest grassroots political group in the US. Activist groups in civil society are also viewed as coalitions for their respective cause. These activists are joined together by their belief in what they want to achieve or accomplish.

Military
Military coalitions can be built and united under a singular power by multiple states and governments. They are fluid in terms of membershipnot only does a country not have to have been a traditional ally to join a coalition, but nations can join, vary their contributions and caveats, withdraw, and be replaced by new members as the situation changes or national agendas change. The expansion of assets accessible to member nations to perform military operations is a crucial attribute of coalitions. In many ways, coalition warfare serves to make the crafting of a peace more difficult than winning the war itself. An example of such a coalition happened after World War I during the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference, when the Allied powers attempted to reach a peace agreement.

Examples of military coalitions include the Coalition of the Gulf War, when George H. W. Bush ended Saddam Hussein's aggression in the Middle East by enlisting and leading a military coalition in the 1991 Gulf War's Operation Desert Storm as well as his son George W. Bush's efforts in the Coalition of the Willing, a phrase employed during the 2003 campaign for the war in Iraq led by the US and its allies. A contemporary example is the United Nations coalition that intervened in the 2011 Libyan Civil War against Muammar Gaddafi. For coalitions to be effective in principle or in action, participating nations have tended to require a single overpowering threatperhaps to freedom or a way of life or a crucial national interestor the presence of a single despotic figure or regime whose continued existence is considered not only abhorrent to the generality of nations but also destabilizing to the region or world order.

Mathematics
In mathematics, the term coalition is linked to an equation which uses the coalition model for exponential population growth. This analytical equation was first published by mathematician Pierre François Verhulst in 1838 to allow for the approximation of the world's population at a given time by applying differential and integral techniques.

See also
 Electoral alliance
 Political alliance
 Collaborative leadership
 Multi-party system
 Popular front
 Syndicate
 United front
 List of countries with coalition governments
 The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod

References

External links

Diplomacy
Coalitions

Coalition


Punjab Land Records Authority (reporting name: PLRA) is the Punjab Government's agency that is responsible for land registration. It was established under the administrative control of the Board of Revenue to replace the Patwari culture in Punjab.

History
The Punjab Land Record Authority (PLRA) was created in 2002 by the government of Punjab, Pakistan. It was set up to provide citizens with a secure, reliable and accurate land record system. The PLRA was created to address the growing need for accurate and up-to-date land ownership records in the province. The PLRA maintains a database of land records, including ownership records, boundary lines, and other important information. It also provides a range of services, such as online land registration, land transfer, and dispute resolution. The PLRA is committed to providing a transparent, efficient, and secure land record system and has developed a number of initiatives over the years to ensure that all stakeholders have access to accurate land records.

References

Government agencies of Punjab, Pakistan
Land registration

Punjab Land Records Authority


St Thomas is a suburban district and community in Swansea, Wales.  It is a mainly residential area which lies east of Swansea city centre across the River Tawe and falls within the St Thomas ward. Fabian Way divides the traditional residential area from Swansea Docks, which has been developed during the 2010s to create a new area of commercial activities and apartments.

At the 2011 UK Census the community had a population of 7,187. It includes the area of Port Tennant.

Local amenities in the area include the  recently  built  St Thomas Community Primary school which  also  incorporates  the  old  Margaret Street Nursery school,  Community Centre  and  local  library.  St. Thomas is a traditional working class area with a core of 2-3 bedroom mid-Victorian terraces built to accommodate the local dock and industrial workers.  Post-war council housing was constructed in the mid twentieth century.

On the east bank of the River Tawe in St Thomas, there is a grassy recreational area that includes a footpath and cycle track (part of NCR 43).  The area is used for recreation purposes by the local population and there are proposals to re-develop the area with new housing.  This proposal has met with some opposition from residents on Kilvey Hill.

Neighboring areas are Kilvey Community Woodland and Port Tennant.

The area is the birthplace of educator Flora Forster and singer Harry Secombe.

References

Districts of Swansea
Communities in Swansea

St Thomas, Swansea


Cronenwett Island is a high, ice-covered island about  long. It lies between Vollmer Island and Steventon Island in the Marshall Archipelago, off the coast of Marie Byrd Land. The feature was first observed and roughly delineated from aerial photographs taken by the Byrd Antarctic Expedition, 1928–30. It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names for Commander W.R. Cronenwett, U.S. Navy, Photographic Officer for Deep Freeze II, 1956–57, and Public Information Officer for Task Group 43.1 during Deep Freeze 1962.

See also
 List of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands

References

Islands of Marie Byrd Land

Cronenwett Island


Hilaria belangeri is a species of grass known by the common name curly mesquite, sometimes written curlymesquite or curly-mesquite. It is not related to mesquites, which are legumes. This grass is native to Mexico and the southwestern United States from Arizona to Texas.

This perennial grass forms tufts of stems growing up to about 30 cm tall. It forms a sod. It spreads by stolons which extend along the ground and root to grow new tufts. The grass has been known to spread 4 m in one season. This is the main method of reproduction in the plant because it is often sterile and rarely forms seeds. One of the two varieties, H. b. var. longifolia, does not form stolons, however.

This grass grows in a number of southwestern habitat types, such as desert grasslands, woodlands, and shrubsteppe. It is a dominant species on some grasslands. It tolerates a wide variety of soils. It tolerates low levels of precipitation as it typical of deserts, but not necessarily drought, during which it goes dormant.

This is an important forage for animals in some local regions. In central and western Texas, it is the main forage for cattle. Cattle find it very palatable. Wild ungulates such as pronghorn and deer graze on it. The grass is tolerant of grazing pressure, and even overgrazing. In some areas, it is productive early in the season, but most of its productivity occurs after summer rainfall.

The growth of this grass is inhibited by the introduced African plant sweet resin bush (Euryops multifidus).

References

External links
USDA Plants Profile for Hilaria belangeri

Chloridoideae
Grasses of Mexico
Grasses of the United States
Native grasses of Texas
Flora of Arizona
Flora of New Mexico
Flora of Northwestern Mexico
Flora of Northeastern Mexico
Flora of the Chihuahuan Desert
Flora of the Sonoran Deserts
Flora of the Mexican Plateau

Hilaria belangeri


Mugen Motorsports (M-TEC Co., Ltd) (無限) is a Japanese company formed in 1973 bi Hirotoshi Honda, the son o Honda Motor Company foonder Soichiro Honda, an Masao Kimura. Mugen, meanin "Without Limit", or "Unlimited", (hence the commonly placed wird "Pouer" efter, denotin "Unlimited Pouer")  is an ingine tuner an pairts manufacturer closely associatit wi the Honda Motor Company. Despite the family connections, housomeivver, Mugen is no, an haes niver been, awned bi Honda. Things wur complicated for some time as Mugen wis awned an run bi Hirotoshi Honda, who haes been the major shareholder in Honda since his father's daith in 1991.

The company tunes an races Honda vehicles in the Super GT championship, an, additionally, sells eftermarket parts tae amateur enthusiasts. It wis pairt o partnerships that wan the Formula 3000 championship in 1990 an 1991, an that eventually led tae Mugen's involvement in Formula Ane, frae 1992 tae 2000, an up to 2005 wis the exclusive supplier o Formula Nippon ingines.

External links

Mugen Offeecial Site
 Forum Community for Mugen Enthusiasts and Owners
Mugen authorised agent for Unitit States o Americae
Mugen authorised agent for New Zealand an Pacific Islands
2009 Civic Type R Mugen Championship White available in the UK
Automotive companies o Japan
Honda

Mugen Motorsports


Wylie House is a historic structure built in 1835 and located in Bloomington, Indiana. It was home of Andrew Wylie, first president of Indiana University, until his death in 1851.  In 1859, following the death of Andrew's widow Margaret, Theophilus Adam Wylie, professor at Indiana University and half-cousin to Andrew, purchased the house from their heirs and his family resided there until his widow's death in 1913.  Today Wylie House is operated as an historic house museum by Indiana University Libraries to interpret the lives of these families.

1835 - 1859: Andrew Wylie family period
In transitioning from the "State Seminary" to Indiana College in 1828 the state legislature sought to hire a college president.  They offered the position to Andrew Wylie, then president of Washington College (now Washington & Jefferson College) in western Pennsylvania, who accepted. In 1829 Wylie arrived in Bloomington, Indiana with his wife, Margaret Ritchie, and their children.  Wylie became the first president and third faculty member of the newly renamed Indiana College. (In 1838 the name changed again to Indiana University. It was also sometimes referred to as Indiana State University in the mid-nineteenth century.)  For the first several years the family resided in rental properties.  In 1835 Andrew Wylie built a house on a  tract of land near the college that he had purchased in 1829 and 1830.  Andrew, Margaret and ten of their twelve children lived in the house, in various numbers from 1835 to 1859.

The house itself is a two-story brick structure, with a Flemish bond facade.  Atypical for buildings of the 1830s, the house is a blend of Georgian and Federal styles.  This style may have seemed old fashioned compared to the contemporary Greek Revival style that was becoming fashionable at the time of construction.  One explanation of this architectural choice relates to the area from which the Wylies arrived.  Southwestern Pennsylvania was culturally influenced by northern Virginia, an area that continued to be dominated by Georgian architecture.  Further, Wylie designed his house based on Manchester house, a home in Washington County, Pennsylvania, which in turn recreates the builder's original house in Newport, Rhode Island.  The widow's walk present in Wylie's house is evidence of this connection.

The house was the center of a  farmstead, and as such was surrounded by numerous outbuildings.  According to a memory map made by a Wylie descendant in 1954, these included a smoke house, double-pen barn, an elaborate log chicken house, a carriage house and a two-story utility building.  The outbuildings reflect the various activities undertaken in and around this house - butchering, smoking and salting meats, gathering wood for winter months, preserving foods, laundering clothes and so on. It is notable that hired servants were difficult to find and often unreliable in frontier towns such as Bloomington in the 1830s and 1840s.  As a result, most of this work was undertaken by the Wylie household themselves.

1859 - 1913: Theophilus Adam Wylie family period

In 1837 President Wylie invited Theophilus Adam Wylie, his half-cousin, to teach mathematics, natural philosophy, and chemistry at Indiana College.  In 1838 Theophilus married Rebecca Dennis of Germantown, PA and brought his bride to Bloomington.  They lived in a series of rental houses until 1859, when following the death of Andrew's widow, Theophilus purchased the house and 5 of the  from their heirs.  Theophilus Wylie's household was often quite large, with six of his eight children growing up in the house (two died in early childhood prior to 1859), and several extended family members living with or taking extended visits to the home over the rest of the century.

During this period, the character of Bloomington had begun to change from a frontier settlement to a burgeoning college town.  In addition to family, the Wylies took in two boarders at a time, either students or young professors from the college.  Likewise servants, absent from the house during the Andrew Wylie period, formed a part of the household during the Theophilus Adam Wylie period.  Among them was Lizzie Breckinridge, an African American woman and daughter of a former slave, who came to work and live with the family in 1856 at the age of thirteen.  Breckinridge stayed in this position until at her death in 1910.

The house was the site of several scientific and technological advancements.  Theophilus began to experiment with photography soon after the daguerreotype process was invented in 1839, many of the photographs he took at the house survive today.  He often used a telescope for celestial observations from the roof of the house.  And in 1876 Theophilus installed the first telephone in state of Indiana, built from plans sent to him from a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, that ran between the house and a college laboratory.  Theophilus was an active faculty member at Indiana University until 1886.  In that year he became an emeritus professor in which capacity he served until his death in 1895.  Rebecca Wylie continued to live in the house until her death in 1913.

Wylie House Museum

Dr. Amos Hershey, a professor of political science at Indiana University, bought the house from the Wylie heirs in 1915.  While he and his wife Lillian lived there, they undertook the first significant changes to the building.  In addition to modernizing the kitchen and bathrooms and adding a furnace, they enclosed the second story porch, removed the ground floor pantries and screened in the front porch on the first floor.  They also added pediment awnings over the front door and a small slanting roof over the east door to the kitchen.

In 1947 Herman B Wells, then president of Indiana University, helped the university acquire the house from Dr. Hershey's widow, who continued to live there until 1951.  Between 1951 and 1959 the house was home to Indiana University Press. Then in the period between 1960 and 1965, major restorations of the house were conducted aimed at bringing it back to its original configuration.  In  attempting to remove all features added to the house since its construction, the restoration removed at least one feature now believed to be original to the house, a small back porch.

Today, known as Wylie House Museum, the building is a historic house museum that presents the house as it would have looked prior to 1860.  With an inventory from 1859 as a guide it is furnished with a combination of Wylie family heirlooms and period pieces.

References

External links

 Wylie House Museum official website

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana
Houses completed in 1835
Biographical museums in Indiana
Buildings and structures in Bloomington, Indiana
Federal architecture in Indiana
Historic house museums in Indiana
Indiana University Bloomington
Museums in Monroe County, Indiana
National Register of Historic Places in Monroe County, Indiana
Houses in Monroe County, Indiana
Tourist attractions in Bloomington, Indiana

Wylie House


This is a list of episodes for Traders a Canadian television drama series, which was broadcast on Global Television Network from 1996 to 2000.  The show was set in a Bay Street investment bank, Gardner Ross. Bruce Gray and Sonja Smits starred as the firm's senior partners, Adam Cunningham and Sally Ross. The cast also included Patrick McKenna, David Cubitt, Rick Roberts, Chris Leavins, Gabriel Hogan, David Hewlett, Peter Stebbings and Alex Carter.

References

1999 Canadian television seasons
2000 Canadian television seasons

Traders (season 5)


Gareth Jones OBE (born 14 May 1939) is a Welsh politician. He was a member of the National Assembly for Wales for the Conwy from 1999 until 2003 when he lost by 72 votes. He sought a successful re-election to the newly created Aberconwy constituency in 2007 before retiring in 2011. He was also a Llandudno town councillor representing the Craig-y-Don ward.

In July 2007 he was elected Chair of the Assembly's new Enterprise and Learning Committee.

Prior to winning the Aberconwy constituency he was the cabinet member for finance and resources and the leader of the Plaid Cymru party group on Conwy County Borough Council.

On 26 September 2010 Gareth Jones announced that he would not be standing for election in the 2011 National Assembly for Wales elections.

Personal
Gareth Jones was born in Blaenau Ffestiniog but now lives in Craig-y-Don, a suburb of Llandudno. A former headmaster of Ysgol John Bright, Llandudno's secondary school, he graduated with a BA from the University of Wales, Swansea. Gareth Jones' political interests include social justice, the Welsh language and education. His hobbies include reading and walking. His wife formerly owned a local bookshop.

Political career
Between 1999 and 2003, Jones was a member of the National Assembly for Wales for the then constituency of Conwy and was Shadow Minister for Education and later chairman of the Education Committee. In the 2003 Assembly election, he lost his seat by the narrow margin of 72 votes to Labour's Denise Idris Jones amid allegations of electoral fraud by Royal Mail (after they failed to deliver some 11,000 of his electoral leaflets to parts of Llandudno and surrounding areas).

In 2007, in the new constituency of Aberconwy that was created following boundary changes, Jones defeated the Conservative candidate, Dylan Jones-Evans by a margin of 1,700 votes, as well as Denise Idris Jones who came in third place. Jones mainly campaigned in the run up to the election against potential downgrading of services at Ysbyty Llandudno hospital (as well as against the proposed Gwynt-y-Môr off-shore windfarm and for affordable housing).  He stood with the ballot paper description Plaid Cymru - Save Llandudno Hospital. Following Jones's victory, the local Labour Party spokesperson described this as dishonest "scaremongering", claiming that the hospital was not under threat of closure under the incumbent Labour Welsh Assembly Government.

He has also held several posts within his political party, Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, including being a member of the National Executive Committee.

Prior to his re-election he was an active member of the Llandudno Hospital Action Group, and a Trustee of Llandudno's St David's Hospice. He remains a board member of Aberconwy Women's Aid and of the National Welsh Language and Heritage Centre at Nant Gwrtheyrn, Chair of Deganwy Chapel, and Patron of Tyddyn Bach, a respite centre for HIV patients and families in Penmaenmawr.

On 26 September 2010 Gareth Jones announced that he would not be standing for election in the 2011 National Assembly for Wales elections.

References

External links
Plaid Cymru Website
BBC News
National Assembly for Wales Register of Members Interests
National Assembly for Wales

Offices held

People from Blaenau Ffestiniog
Councillors in Wales
Plaid Cymru members of the Senedd
Wales AMs 1999–2003
Wales AMs 2007–2011
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Plaid Cymru politicians
Alumni of Swansea University
1939 births
Living people
Welsh-speaking politicians

Gareth Jones (politician)


Steve Nielsen (born 2 July 1964) is a British engineer working in Formula One motor racing.

Career
After leaving school in 1985 Nielsen trained as a police officer but resigned after 11 months.
He then worked as a truck driver for a Formula One catering company. In 1986, he joined Team Lotus' test team, before running their spare parts department. In 1991, he moved to Tyrrell in the same role before being appointed assistant team manager in 1994. In the next five years he moved to Benetton, back to Tyrrell, to Honda, then Arrows, before moving back to Benetton, where he spent almost a decade as Sporting Director, including the team's transitions to Renault F1 and Lotus Renault GP.

After spending 2012 as Sporting Director at Caterham, Nielsen joined Scuderia Toro Rosso at the start of the 2013 season. He joined Williams as Sporting Manager in December 2014  and worked in that role until leaving in July 2017.

On 1 August 2017 he started in a new position as the Sporting Director of Formula One. He left this role and became the FIA Sporting Director on 18 January 2023.

References

1964 births
Living people
Formula One engineers
British automotive engineers
Scuderia Toro Rosso
Williams Grand Prix Engineering

Steve Nielsen


The Church of St Swithin is a parish church in Ganarew, south Herefordshire, England. The parish church is dedicated to St Swithin, although the 1868 National Gazetteer notes a dedication to St Luke. The parish is within the Church of England Diocese of Hereford, and the church is a Grade II listed building.

History
Giles Rawlines served as rector in 1624. Tamalanc, a son of Brychan, may be the same person as Tiuinauc (or Tywinauc or Tywannog), a patron saint connected with the Church of St Swithin's history. The church was rebuilt in about 1850 by John Prichard, a noted church builder and restorer of the Victorian period. The church required the expensive restoration because of the failing foundations.

Architecture and fittings
The church, of English Gothic architectural style, is described by Pevsner as Middle Pointed or Decorated Period. The building is of coursed sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings and has a decorative tiled roof with bands of fishscale tiles. The nave, south porch, chancel and north vestry, are in the Decorated style. The nave has two square-headed windows with hoodmoulds. They have cusped ogee-headed lights and spandrels.  A square-set bellcote is partly supported by a central buttress at the west end and has similar cusped ogee-headed openings in square surrounds and spirelet with decorative lucarnes, and three-cusped ogee-headed lancets in the chancel.

The church interior has a decorative arch-braced roof with moulded members and cusped wind-braces. There is a mock sepulchral recess in the north wall of the chancel with cusping and crocket ornament.  The reredos forms the village war memorial, a sculpture in white marble featuring the figure of Christ accompanied by two angels.

Grounds

The graveyard contains a Gothic pinnacle memorial to the Bannerman family who lived nearby at Wyastone Leys. The medieval churchyard cross is a scheduled ancient monument.
There is also a war grave of a Royal Engineers soldier of World War I.

References

External links

Grade II listed churches in Herefordshire
Diocese of Hereford
Ganarew
John Prichard buildings

Church of St Swithin, Ganarew


Associazione Sportiva Dilettantistica Calcio Ivrea commonly referred to as A.S.D. Calcio Ivrea or simply Ivrea is an Italian association football club, based in Ivrea, Piedmont that plays in the regional Eccellenza.

The club founded in 1901 as U.S. Ivrea Calcio was refounded in 2010, after its dissolution the previous year, as A.S.D. Montalto Ivrea after that U.S.D. Montaltese has transferred the seat from Montalto Dora to this town. In 2012 the club was renamed with the current name.

History

U.S. Ivrea Calcio

Unione Sportiva Ivrea Calcio was founded in 1901, with its Football Division founded in 1918.

Seasons from 2005–06 to 2008–09

U.S. Ivrea Calcio played 2005–2006 in Serie C2/A, and won the promotion play-offs beating A.C. Carpenedolo in the finals, being therefore promoted to Serie C1, but promptly relegated after having lost the relegation play-out the next season.

In the summer 2009, the club failed, to register in Lega Pro Seconda Divisione and disbanded.

From A.S.D. Montalto Ivrea to A.S.D. Calcio Ivrea

A.S.D. Montalto Ivrea

In the summer 2010 U.S.D. Montaltese, after the 9th place in 2009–10 Promozione Piedmont and Aosta Valley group B, has transferred its seat from Montalto Dora to Ivrea and was renamed A.S.D. Montalto Ivrea, after the dissolution of the historical U.S. Ivrea Calcio the previous year.

In the season 2010–11 it plays always in Promozione Piedmont and Aosta Valley group B ranking 2nd in the league and 3rd in the subsequent playoffs.

In the season 2011–12 it was promoted to Eccellenza after winning the group B of Promozione Piedmont and Aosta Valley group B, also conquering the regional Scudetto of Promozione.

A.S.D. Calcio Ivrea

In the summer 2012 the club that plays in Eccellenza Piedmont and Aosta Valley group A was renamed A.S.D. Calcio Ivrea, thus becoming the new Ivrea.

Colors and badge
The team's color is orange.

References

External links
Regional Football Site
Piedmont Football Site
Local Sports Site

Football clubs in Piedmont and Aosta Valley
A.S.D. Calcio Ivrea
A.S.D. Calcio Ivrea
Serie C clubs
Association football clubs established in 1901
1901 establishments in Italy

ASD Calcio Ivrea


The Croatia men's national under-18 ice hockey team is the men's national under-18 ice hockey team of Croatia. The team is controlled by the Croatian Ice Hockey Federation, a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation. The team represents Croatia at the IIHF World U18 Championships.

International competitions

IIHF World U18 Championships

External links
Croatia at IIHF.com

Under
National under-18 ice hockey teams


Nadderud stadion is a multi-purpose stadium at Nadderud near Bekkestua, in Bærum, Norway.

Association football
It is currently used mostly for track and field meets and football matches, and is the home ground of the Norwegian Toppserien (women's) and Eliteserien (men's) team Stabæk Fotball. Former tenants are Bærum SK. Matches for the U-21 national team has also been played here.

The record attendance is about 10,000, from a 1970 Norwegian Cup match where Stabæk played Strømsgodset. Ahead of the 1996 season, a new main grandstand with seating for 2,900 people was opened, costing 15 million Norwegian krone (NOK). It increased the seating at the stadium with 1,400 seats from the old grandstand. The municipality installed flood lights ahead of the 2005 season. Stabæk moved to Telenor Arena for the 2009 Tippeligaen season, but returned to Nadderud for the 2012 season due to financial issues. In a 2012 survey carried out by the Norwegian Players' Association among away-team captains, Nadderud was ranked twelfth amongst league stadiums, with a score of 2.73 on a scale from one to five.

From 2009 the stadium is the home pitch of Stabæk's women's team Stabæk Fotball Kvinner (SFK), who play in Toppserien, the women's top division.

Before the start of the 2012 season, Stabæk Fotball has moved back to Nadderud and the team's Eliteserien matches will be played at the stadium. This follows a decline in fortune of the top tier team, who were not able to pay for their rent for Telenor Arena past the end of 2011.

Athletics
The stadium hosted the European Cup in Athletics, First League for Men, in 2000. Domestically it has hosted the Norwegian Championships in 1966 (arranged by (IL Tyrving) and 1985 (arranged by (Fossum IF). It annually hosts the country's largest track and field meet, Tyrvinglekene.

Bandy
The Norwegian bandy final was held here on 22 February 1970 when Strømsgodset IF under a heavy snowfall beat Stabæk IF 3–1.

External links
 Nadderud Stadion - Nordic Stadiums

References

Football venues in Norway
Eliteserien venues
Athletics (track and field) venues in Norway
Sports venues in Bærum
Stabæk IF
Bærum SK
Sports venues completed in 1961
1961 establishments in Norway
Multi-purpose stadiums in Norway

Nadderud Stadion