Christopher Asher Wray (born December 17, 1966) is an American attorney who is the current director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was nominated by president Donald Trump on June 7, 2017, and has served since August 2, 2017.

Born in New York City, Wray graduated from Yale University in 1989, then attended Yale Law School. He joined government in 1997 as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. From 2003 to 2005, Wray served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division in George W. Bush's administration. He later was a litigation partner with the law firm King & Spalding from 2005 to 2016.

On June 7, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Wray to replace James Comey as Director of the FBI. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 30, and took office on August 2. Wray is a registered Republican.

Early life and education
Christopher Asher Wray was born in New York City. His father, Cecil A. Wray Jr., was a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Yale Law School who worked as a lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York City. His paternal grandfather, T. Cecil Wray, was the city manager of Brentwood, Tennessee from 1971 to 1973. His paternal great-grandfather, Taylor Malone, was also a Vanderbilt graduate, and the co-founder and president of Malone & Hyde, "one of the South's largest wholesale grocery firms." His maternal grandfather, Samuel E. Gates, "helped shape the laws that govern national and international airline flights" as an official of the Bureau of Air Commerce.

Wray attended the private Buckley School<ref>Soon-to-be FBI director has Adirondack ties , Lake Placid News, Chris Knight, July 30, 2017. Retrieved October 11, 2018.</ref> in New York City and the private boarding school Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. After graduating, Wray attended Yale University where he majored in philosophy and graduated cum laude in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then attended Yale Law School, where he was the executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and graduated in 1992 with a Juris Doctor. After graduating from law school, Wray served as a law clerk to Judge J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

 Early career
 Government service

Wray joined the government in 1997 as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. In 2001, he moved to the Justice Department as associate deputy attorney general and principal associate deputy attorney general.

On June 9, 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Wray to be the 33rd Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. Wray was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on September 11, 2003. Wray was Assistant Attorney General from 2003 to 2005, working under Deputy Attorney General James Comey. While heading the Criminal Division, Wray oversaw prominent fraud investigations, including Enron.

In early 2004, the Justice Department issued a finding that the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program under the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) was unconstitutional. Under White House procedures, DoJ approval was required in order for the program to be renewed. In 2006, it was revealed DoJ officials came under pressure from the White House to change this ruling, and that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller and Comey had prepared their resignations if the White House overruled it. In 2013, it was revealed that Wray threatened to resign along with them over the matter.

In March 2005, Wray announced that he would resign from his post.

In 2005, Wray received the Edmund J. Randolph Award, the Justice Department's highest award for public service and leadership.

 Private law practice
Wray joined King & Spalding in 2005 as a litigation partner in the firm's Washington, D.C., and Atlanta offices. Wray represented several Fortune 100 companies and chaired the King & Spalding Special Matters and Government Investigations Practice Group. During his time at King & Spalding, Wray acted as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's personal attorney during the Bridgegate scandal. Wray's firm also represents Russian energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft, an issue which came under contention during the confirmation process for position of FBI Director.

 Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (2017–present)

Nomination
Following the dismissal of FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie presented to President Donald Trump the possibility of hiring Wray as Comey's replacement.  Trump interviewed Wray for the vacant FBI Director job on May 30, 2017, according to then Press Secretary Sean Spicer. On June 7, 2017, Trump announced his intention to nominate Wray to be the next FBI Director. Wray's Senate confirmation hearing commenced on July 12, 2017. Among other testimony, when asked if he believed that the investigation into Russian 2016 election interference and possible links to Trump's campaign is a "witch hunt", he stated that he did not. On July 20, 2017, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously recommended to confirm Wray as the next Director of the FBI. Wray was officially confirmed by the Senate with bipartisan support on August 1, 2017; the vote was 92–5.

Tenure
Wray was sworn in by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a private ceremony on August 2, 2017. Wray was formally sworn in on September 28, 2017, in a ceremony that was not attended by President Trump, marking the first time an FBI director had been sworn in without the president who nominated him present at the ceremony.

On February 13, 2018, in a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing focused on Chinese espionage in the United States, Senator Marco Rubio asked Wray about the risk posed from Chinese students in advanced science and mathematics programs. In response, Wray stated "nontraditional collectors" (which he elaborated to include professors, scientists, and students) are "exploiting the very open research and development environment that we have" and consequently he viewed the risk "as not just a whole of government threat but a whole of society threat." Representatives Judy Chu , Ted Lieu, and Grace Meng released statements criticizing Wray's response as "irresponsible generalizations" implying that all Chinese students and scholars were spies. A coalition of Asian American advocacy groups wrote an open letter to Wray asking for a dialogue "to discuss how well-intentioned public policies might nonetheless lead to troubling issues of potential bias, racial profiling, and wrongful prosecution". In a follow-up interview with NBC, Wray stood by his earlier remarks: "To be clear, we do not open investigations based on race, or ethnicity, or national origin. But when we open investigations into economic espionage, time and time again, they keep leading back to China."

On December 9, 2019, Wray was interviewed by ABC News following the release of the DoJ inspector general's report on the origins of the Russia investigation.  In the interview, when asked about characterizations of the FBI and its agents as the "deep state", Wray responded, "I think that's the kind of label that's a disservice to the men and women who work at the FBI who I think tackle their jobs with professionalism, with rigor, with objectivity, with courage. So that's not a term I would ever use to describe our work force and I think it's an affront to them." He said he did not believe the Trump campaign was unfairly targeted by the FBI probe. He also denied that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential elections, stating "We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election" and "as far as the [2020] election itself goes, we think Russia represents the most significant threat". This led Trump to criticize Wray the following day, claiming that Wray would "never be able to fix the FBI."

In January 2020, Senator Chris Murphy wrote to Wray, urging the FBI to "investigate the allegations" that Saudi Arabia "illegally compromised and stole personal data" from Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post, as part of a possible effort to "influence, if not silence, the Washington Post's reporting on Saudi Arabia".

In April 2020, Trump considered ousting Wray and replacing him with William Evanina but when Attorney General William Barr threatened to resign, Trump backed down.
In May 2020, Wray ordered an internal review into possible misconduct in the FBI's investigation of Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

On June 4, 2020, Wray stated that "anarchists" like antifa are "exploiting" George Floyd protests "to pursue violent, extremist agendas". Wray later clarified that antifa is an ideology rather than a specific organization, clashing with Trump.

In July 2020, Wray called People's Republic of China the "greatest long-term threat" to the United States. He said that "the FBI is now opening a new China-related counterintelligence case every 10 hours. Of the nearly 5,000 active counterintelligence cases currently under way across the country, almost half are related to China." Wray cited the Anthem medical data breach that exposed the personal information of more than 78 million people and the 2017 Equifax data breach that impacted more than 145 million Americans. Wray argued China was trying to become the world's only superpower, supplanting the United States.

On October 28, 2020, the FBI Agents Association released a letter addressed to both Trump and Joe Biden requesting Wray remain Director of the FBI for the 10-year term.

On December 2, 2020, a member of then-president-elect Biden's transition team announced that if Wray was not fired or removed from his position by Trump, then he would remain Director of the FBI.

On March 2, 2021, Wray testified in Senate hearings about the extremism that led to the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol in which he condemned the attack on the U.S. Capitol and argued that it was a case of domestic terrorism.

In February 2023, Wray appeared in an interview on Fox News endorsing the theory that the COVID-19 virus may have leaked from a laboratory in China. The endorsement comes after the United States Department of Energy and the FBI both released statements saying that it was likely that the virus had come after a lab leak in China. The assessments were made with "low confidence" and "moderate confidence", respectively.

In July 2023, Wray was questioned by House Republicans regarding allegations of political bias and civil liberties violations. The Republicans criticized the FBI's interference in the Hunter Biden investigation and broader abuses of power. However, he defended the FBI's actions to apprehend violent criminals and seize drugs.

 Personal life
Wray married Helen Garrison Howell, a Yale classmate, in 1989. They have a son, Trip, and a daughter, Caroline, and live in Georgia.

From January 2016 to July 2017, the month of his confirmation, Wray earned $9.2 million working as an attorney for the law firm King & Spalding, significantly more than his salary as FBI Director. According to a calculation from The Wall Street Journal'', Wray's net worth in 2017 was estimated to be $23 million to $42 million.

Wray is a Republican and a member of the Federalist Society.

See also
Foreign electoral intervention

References

External links

 FBI Director biography
 Department of Justice biography

|-

1966 births
20th-century American lawyers
21st-century American lawyers
Assistant United States Attorneys
Biden administration personnel
Buckley School (New York City) alumni
Directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
George W. Bush administration personnel
Georgia (U.S. state) lawyers
Georgia (U.S. state) Republicans
Law clerks of J. Michael Luttig
Lawyers from New York City
Living people
Phillips Academy alumni
Trump administration personnel
United States Assistant Attorneys General for the Criminal Division
United States Department of Justice lawyers
Yale College alumni
Yale Law School alumni

Christopher A. Wray


In Slavic folklore, the raskovnik or razkovniche (Serbian Cyrillic and ;  ; ; ) is a magical herb. According to lore, the raskovnik has the magical property to unlock or uncover anything that is locked or closed. However, legends claim it is notoriously difficult to recognize the herb, and reputedly only certain chthonic animals are able to identify it.

Names
The herb is known by a multitude of names among the South Slavs, and the names vary significantly by region. While razkovniche and raskovnik are the customary names in Bulgarian and Serbian respectively and the root is also preserved in the Leskovac dialect as raskov, in some parts of Macedonia it is known as ež trava ("hedgehog herb"). In the vicinity of Bar (southeastern Montenegro), the term is demir-bozan, a Turkish borrowing meaning "iron breaker". In Syrmia, the plant is referred to as špirgasta trava (a hapax legomenon), in Slavonia it is known as zemaljski ključ ("earth key"), and in Slovenia's Savinja Valley as mavričin koren ("rainbow root").

Description and properties
Traditionally, it is considered that few people, if any, could actually recognize the herb. However, in Bulgarian sources the raskovnik is sometimes described as a plant resembling a four-leaf clover. It grows in meadows and may be picked either while green and blooming or in hay, when it is already dry. While it is not necessarily rare, nor does it thrive only in remote locations, it is nevertheless impossible to recognize by the uninitiated. In the words of Serbian linguist and folklorist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, "It is some (maybe imaginary) herb whose touch is thought to be able to open every lock or closure."

According to the legend, the raskovnik could unlock any gate or padlock, regardless of its size, material or key. It could also uncover treasures buried in the ground: in Bulgarian beliefs, it could split the ground at the place where a treasure lay so that people could locate it. In some regions of Serbia, the treasure itself was a black man in chains who requested that a raskovnik be brought to him. The raskovnik would break the chains and the man would disappear into the ground to be replaced by a cauldron filled with gold coins. Other supernatural properties attributed to the herb by Bulgarians include the alchemic ability to transmute iron into gold, the more general ability to make the one who picked it forever happy or wealthy. In some interpretations, the raskovnik is a wonderful plant that makes true whatever its owner desires.

Obtainment

The raskovnik is believed to have been sought after by treasure hunters, sorcerers and herbalists who desired its magic powers for personal benefit. In Serbia, it was believed that there exist certain treasures, such as the Treasure of Tsar Radovan, which could not be unlocked in any other way but employing a raskovnik.

As, according to Bulgarian folklore, tortoises were the only beings who knew the appearance of the herb and the location where it grows, such people would try to obtain the raskovnik by deceiving a tortoise. They would find a tortoise nesting site and hem it in with a fence while the tortoise is away. When it returns, the tortoise would be unable to access its eggs, so it would return with a raskovnik in order to breach the fence. Thus, the tortoise would reveal the herb and people would acquire it from the tortoise, which does not need it anymore.

While the tricking of a tortoise was the most popular method in Bulgarian mythology, in Dalmatia the legend refers to snakes, and among Serbs another version involves the locking of young hedgehogs in a box for their mother to unlock. In Serbia, one would also have to be quick to take the raskovnik, as the hedgehog would swallow it after use. In any case, turtles, snakes and hedgehogs are all animals with chthonic characteristics which were often variously associated with the underworld in South Slavic tradition.

Karadžić also mentions another Serbian method to obtain the raskovnik. He recorded a story from the town of Zemun about a merchant who desired to find the herb. The merchant locked an old woman into leg irons and let her wander in a field during the night; if the irons unlocked by themselves at a certain place, that would be a place where the raskovnik grows.

Metaphoric use
The legendary herb has entered the modern Bulgarian vocabulary as a metaphor for a magic key or a panacea in the wider sense. The phrase "to find the razkovniche" ("да намериш разковничето" "da namerish razkovnicheto") means to find the solution to a certain problem, usually a complex or difficult one. Razkovniche is also the common Bulgarian name for the plant European waterclover (Marsilea quadrifolia) which, in its appearance, has many similarities with the descriptions of the mythical raskovnik. In eastern Serbia, raskovnik also refers to a specific plant used in vernacular medicine, namely Laserpitium siler.

References

Slavic folklore
Bulgarian folklore
Croatian folklore
Serbian folklore
Slovene mythology
Mythological plants
North Macedonia folklore

Raskovnik


Uriel Nespoli (January 15, 1884 – June 1973) was an Italian conductor born in Naples.

A pupil of Leopoldo Mugnone, Nespoli specialized in Italian opera. He was considered a National Treasure to Italy, and in 1931 he was secretly brought to the United States for safety. He first served as music director of the Houston Symphony, which was reforming after a 13-year break, having dissolved in 1918 owing to World War I, and from general lack of funding.  After conducting concerts in the spring of 1931 and for the entirety of the 1931–1932 season, Nespoli was dismissed from his post in Houston. He continued his conducting career in New York City. He was the third conductor to conduct Giacomo Puccini's famed opera La boheme, and reputedly never forgave Puccini for not having given him the premiere, as they had known each other well as colleagues in younger days. However, it is said that he was in Brazil at the time of its first performance.

Among his musical colleagues was the operatic soprano Rosa Ponselle. He directed several future opera singers to her for lessons at her Villa Pace in Baltimore.

References
Roussel, Hubert. The Houston Symphony Orchestra 1913-1971. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972. .
Social Security Death Index (United States). Accessed via RootsWeb.com.

1884 births
1973 deaths
American male conductors (music)
Italian conductors (music)
Italian male conductors (music)
Texas classical music
Musicians from Naples
Italian emigrants to the United States
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American male musicians

Uriel Nespoli


Ralph Engelstad Arena (REA), commonly called the Ralph, is an indoor arena located on the campus of the University of North Dakota (UND) in Grand Forks, North Dakota and serves as the home of UND men's ice hockey. The arena was built by controversial UND alumnus Ralph Engelstad. The North Dakota Fighting Hawks men's hockey team is the tenant. The arena formerly hosted the defunct North Dakota women's hockey team.

Facility

Ralph Engelstad Arena, which seats 11,643, opened on October 5, 2001 and is located on the UND campus. The REA is home to the UND men's ice hockey team (UND women's ice hockey team discontinued after 2016–17 season), and hosts select games for UND men's and women's basketball. The arena also hosts many non-athletic events including concerts and a yearly circus. Called the "Taj Mahal of hockey," the $104 million arena was built with materials that would not usually be found in such a facility. For instance, the concourses of the REA are covered in granite flooring, each spectator seat is made of Cherry wood and leather upholstery, escalators bring spectators between levels, and full-color LCD displays dot the arena. The REA has been called one of the finest facilities of its kind in the world. Former NHL hockey player Wayne Gretzky has called the structure "one of the most beautiful buildings we have in North America."

The REA complex has evolved to include more than just the main arena. A second Olympic-sized sheet of ice sits adjacent to the main arena. An addition to the main arena, The Betty Engelstad Sioux Center (or simply The Betty) was completed in 2004 and is now the home of UND's basketball and volleyball teams.

Although located on the campus of the University of North Dakota the arena and land itself is owned by The Engelstad Family Foundation and rented conditionally to UND each year for $1.  This setup was created to give the Engelstad family control and final say regarding the facility.

In 2015 the Ralph Engelstad Arena received a certificate of excellence from Trip Advisor for being one of the top rated destinations in America.

In 2019 the REA announced they would install a new $6 million scoreboard. It was unveiled June 26, 2019 and is considered one of the best scoreboards in the country. Numerous other upgrades were completed including a new LED ribbon display wrapping around the entire arena.

During the COVID-19 pandemic the Ralph was being considered by the NHL to potentially host playoff games due to North Dakota's low population density and the high quality of the REA.

Controversy

Midway during construction, Ralph Engelstad threatened to withdraw his funding if UND's Fighting Sioux sports teams were renamed in deference to political pressures. In an effort to make the prospect of removal a prohibitively costly measure, the Fighting Sioux logo was strategically placed in thousands of instances in the arena, including a large granite logo in the main concourse. After the NCAA barred several universities that use Native American imagery from hosting post-season tournaments or wearing such imagery in post-season play, UND sued the NCAA. A preliminary injunction was granted that would have allowed the Fighting Sioux to both host post-season events and wear their regular uniforms while the lawsuit was in progress.  The legal papers filed in support of UND pointed out that the Florida State Seminoles have not been required to change their name, thus raising the possibility that the decision regarding the UND Fighting Sioux was arbitrary and capricious.  In addition, the legal papers noted that UND has a Native American Studies program, has Native Americans on its faculty, and has a significant Native American student population.

The lawsuit with the NCAA was settled under the condition that UND had three years to gain tribal support from both Sioux nations in North Dakota, or retire the Sioux name and logo. After the three years expired,  permission was obtained from only one of the two Sioux tribes.  The North Dakota Legislative Assembly passed a law requiring the University to retain the name in June 2011, but then repealed the law in November 2011.  A statewide vote was held in June 2012, and the citizens of North Dakota voted to discontinue the Sioux name, and on October 22, 2012 crews removed signage that declared "Home of the Fighting Sioux" from the face of the building. The 2012 vote also banned UND from choosing a new name for three years. After the nickname ban expired in 2015, the university held two rounds of online fan voting from a suggested list of nicknames; the final selection of Fighting Hawks was adopted in November of that year.

Notable events

The REA's inaugural hockey game was on October 5, 2001 and featured the Fighting Sioux men's team against the WCHA rival Minnesota Golden Gophers in the US Hockey Hall of Fame Game, in which Minnesota defeated North Dakota, 7–5. The REA hosted the West Regional in the 2006 NCAA Men's Division I Ice Hockey Tournament, with North Dakota playing in its home building.

The REA has hosted a number of non-NCAA ice hockey events, notably the 2005 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships with over 195,000 tickets sold and the 2005 NCAA Men's Division II Basketball Championship. The Minnesota Wild and Winnipeg Jets have played several exhibition games at the arena as well. REA also hosted the 2008 World Men's Curling Championship, along with family-friendly ice shows such as Stars on Ice and Disney's High School Musical On Ice.The REA hosted the 2016 IIHF World U18 Championships.

Non-ice events at the REA have included concerts, by artists such as Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Sugarland, Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts, Toby Keith, Kelly Clarkson, Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, Clay Aiken, Incubus, Elton John, Eric Church, Little Big Town, and Florida Georgia Line, and a tennis match between Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick.

The Ralph and Fargo's Scheels Arena share hosting duties for the North Dakota High School Activities Association State Boys' and Girls' Hockey Tournament, usually taking place during the last weekend in February. REA typically hosts the tournament in even-numbered years with Scheels Arena hosting in odd-numbered years.

Notes

External links

Ralph Engelstad Arena website

College ice hockey venues in the United States
College basketball venues in the United States
Indoor ice hockey venues in the United States
Sports venues in North Dakota
North Dakota Fighting Hawks ice hockey venues
Buildings and structures in Grand Forks, North Dakota
Tourist attractions in Grand Forks, North Dakota
Sports venues completed in 2001
2001 establishments in North Dakota

Ralph Engelstad Arena


George Arnold Haynes Safroni-Middleton, also known as Count Safroni (3 September 1873 – 7 November 1950) was a British composer, director, violinist, harpist, writer and amateur astronomer. For several works he used the pseudonym William H. Myddleton.

Biography
Safroni-Middleton was born in Kent. He studied violin with Pablo de Sarasate and afterwards started performing as violinist. He played the violin in the Orchestra of "Her Majesty's Theatre" in Sydney, the Orchestra of the Opera House in Auckland, the Providence Opera House in Providence (Rhode Island), the Tokyo Orchestra, the Government House (Sarawak) Orchestra and the Government House (Hayti) Mexico Orchestra. As solo performer he toured around Australia, South America, Italy and Spain.

Later he became bandmaster of the Orchestra of the Carl Rosa Opera Company in London.

As a writer he wrote many novels, travel guides and poems. He explored Borneo, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia.

As a composer he is mainly known for his marches and dance music for the harmony orchestra. His best known piece is probably Imperial Echoes (1913), which for many years was the theme of Radio Newsreel on BBC radio.

He died in Streatham and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery on 10 November 1950, age 77.

Compositions

Works for orchestra
 Imperial Echoes (BBC Radio Newsreel march)
 The Leek - A Selection of Welsh Melodies published by Boosey and Hawkes early 20th c.
 The Rose - A Selection of English Melodies published by Boosey and Hawkes early 20th c.
 The Shamrock - A Selection of Irish Melodies published by Boosey and Hawkes early 20th c.

Works for harmony orchestra
 American President, march
 Boys of The Old Brigade
 By Imperial Command, march
 By Order of the King, march
 Call of the Empire, march
 Chanson de la Nuit, entr'acte
 Down South
 Firenze, waltz
 House of Hanover, march
 Imperial Echoes, march
 Imperial March, march
 King's Cavalier, march
 Light of the Regiment
 Men of the Mist, march
 Negro dream
 Salute the Standard, march
 Samoan Love Waltz
 Sierra Leone, march
 The Dashing British, march
 The Last Tryst, concert waltz
 The Monk's Dream
 The Night Riders, march
 The Phantom Brigade, march
 The Relief, march
 The Shamrock
 The Scottish Thistle
 The Stronghold, march

Stage plays
 La Foresta, musical comedy
 Gabrielle, musical comedy

Publications
 Bush Songs and Oversea Voices, including Songs of the South Sea Islands, Australia, Etc., London, John Long, 1914, 159 p.
 Sailor and Beachcomber: Confessions of a Life at Sea, in Australia and amid the Islands of the Pacific, Grant Richards, London, UK, 1915, 304 p.
 A Vagabond's Odyssey: Being Further Reminiscences of a Wandering Sailor-Troubadour in Many Lands, Dodd & Mead, 1916, 328 p.
 Wine Dark Seas and Tropic Skies: Reminiscences and a Romance of the South Seas, Grant Richards, London, UK, 1918
 Gabrielle of the Lagoon: A Romance of the South Seas, The Solomon Isles. J.B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia/London, 1919, 286 p.
 South Sea Foam: The Romantic Adventures of a Modern Don Quixote in the Southern Seas, George H. Doran, 1920, 350 p.
 Sestrina: A Romance of the South Seas, George H. Doran, 1920, 256 p.
 No Extradition, Ward, Lock & Co., 1923
 Tropic Shadows: Memories of the South Seas, Together with Reminiscences of the Author's Sea Meetings with Joseph Conrad, London: The Richards Press, 1927, 302 p.
 Two Faces in Borneo: A Drama of a Dual Personality, London, The Richards Press, 1928
 Tides of Sunrise and Sunset: The Fourth Dimension of Romance, London: Heath Cranton, 1932. 219 p.
 In the Green Leaf: A Chapter of Autobiography, London: Fortune Press, 1950, 199 p.
 Australian Bush Lyrics

Bibliography
 Wolfgang Suppan, Armin Suppan: Das Neue Lexikon des Blasmusikwesens, 4th edition, Freiburg-Tiengen, Blasmusikverlag Schulz GmbH, 1994,
 Paul E. Bierley, William H. Rehrig: The heritage encyclopedia of band music : composers and their music, Westerville, Ohio: Integrity Press, 1991,
 Norman E. Smith: March music notes, Lake Charles, La.: Program Note Press, 1986,
 John L. Adams: Musicians' autobiographies - An annotated bibliography of writings available in English, 1800 to 1980, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1982, 126p.
 Leslie Gilbert Pine: Who's who in music, First post-war edition (1949–50), London: Shaw Publishing, 1950, 419 p.
 Sir Landon Ronald: Who's who in music, London: Shaw Publishing, 1937

External links

 Biographical website
 William H. Myddleton at the Internet Movie Database

British male conductors (music)
British harpists
British writers
British violinists
British male violinists
19th-century British composers
20th-century British composers
1873 births
1950 deaths
Burials at West Norwood Cemetery
20th-century British conductors (music)
20th-century British male musicians
19th-century British male musicians

Arnold Safroni-Middleton


Dunkirk is a 2004 BBC Television factual about the Battle of Dunkirk and the Dunkirk evacuation in World War II.

Background
Dunkirk used archive film footage, eyewitness accounts and original dramatised sequences to describe the events of the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation. The BBC also included an interactive 'red button' facility allowing television viewers to reach further information. The documentary has been described as helping the BBC build 'Digital Britain' and fulfil its public service remit.

Episodes

Episode one: Retreat
Day 1: Captain Bill Tennant, Royal Navy, at the Admiralty receives reports of the British Expeditionary Force's retreat and prepares to oversee Operation Dynamo. Private Alf Tombs and his decimated company rest at Wormhoudt on the western end of the corridor to Dunkirk. New Prime Minister Winston Churchill chairs a briefing of the War Cabinet where Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax presses for peace negotiations. Adolf Hitler has halted the Blitzkrieg, giving Tombs's company time to consolidate their position and Signalmen Clive Tonry and Wilf Saunders return to offer support.

Day 2: Tennant sails from Dover on  to find the Port of Dunkirk wrecked by enemy bombardment. Divisions between Churchill and Halifax deepen over the proposed mediation of Fascist Italy, threatening a leadership crisis. Embarkation progresses slowly and Tennant signals the Queen of the Channel to come alongside the eastern breakwater to speed up the process.

Day 3: Tonry and Saunders intercept enemy orders for a pincer movement on Dunkirk. Tombs's company is forced to pull back as it comes under fire and Tonry and Saunders head into the front line in a last-ditch attempt to hold open the corridor. After nine hours of fighting, the line breaks as Tombs's company surrenders to the advancing enemy and Tonry and Saunders retreat to Dunkirk. Tombs narrowly escapes as the rest of his company is massacred but is later recaptured and spends the rest of the war in a POW camp.

Day 4: Tennant orders all vessels to be brought up to the eastern breakwater at once for embarkation as numbers on the beach swell. Churchill decrees that the wounded should be left behind to speed up the retreat. The enemy launch aerial attacks on the beaches from captured Royal Air Force airfields south of Dunkirk, sinking 30 British ships and leaving 400,000 allied troops stranded on the beach.

Episode two: Evacuation
Day 5: Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay and Captain Michael Denny at Dover issue the request for more inshore craft. Captain Tom Halsey and navigator David Mellis hold their destroyer, , off the coast while small boats ferry troops to her. BEF commander Lord Gort, contemplating his unauthorised order to retreat from a villa overlooking the beach and organises a final defensive perimeter. French Admiral Jean Abrial first learns of the British evacuation from Tennant as French troops swell the numbers on the beach. Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall reports the problem to Churchill.

When the cockleboat Renown is amongst those small boats requisitioned, Captain Harry Noakes and his crew volunteer to stay on for the mission to France. With a large percentage of the British fleet tied up in the rescue operation, Churchill orders the gassing of Britain's south coast to ward off invasion. Gort and Tennant argue over the evacuation strategy as the HQ comes under artillery fire. Churchill, refusing to send support to the beleaguered French at the Somme, agrees instead that their troops will be evacuated from Dunkirk on an equal basis.

Day 6: The Renown joins the hundreds of small craft that narrowly avoid running aground in order to rescue the troops from the French beaches. HMS Malcolm collects her passengers from the eastern breakwater, where she comes under bombardment. Major-General Harold Alexander takes command after Gort is ordered back to London. HMS Malcolm returns to Dover where Holsey and Mellis contemplate the friends that they have lost on other ships. The Renown safely delivers its passengers to Dover but is destroyed by a mine on its way home. Tonry and Saunders are amongst the two-thirds of the BEF evacuated safely back to England but 200,000 allied troops remain on the beach as the perimeter comes under attack from advancing enemy forces.

Episode three: Deliverance
Day 6: Lieutenant Jimmy Langley and Major Angus McCorquodale of the Coldstream Guards receive orders to hold the perimeter for one last night. Abrial, learning from Alexander of the imminent British pullout that will leave many French troops still on the beach, threatens to close the port. Philip Newman cares for the wounded left behind at the casualty clearing station in an abandoned château on the outskirts of Dunkirk. Alexander and Tennant promise Abrial one last day to evacuate the French troops.

Day 7: Langley's company engages the enemy at dawn as an exhausted Newman struggles to get the wounded to safety. Tennant informs Newman of the policy to de-prioritise the wounded and asks him to hold out for one more day. Enemy troops advancing on the perimeter use civilians as a shield and Langley has to rely on rifle fire to hold them back. Holsey and Mellis arrive on board HMS Malcolm on their fifth rescue mission under heavy fire. Newman remains to care for the wounded with a skeleton staff as the rest of the station staff withdraw. As the rearguard pull out, leaving the perimeter to be defended by the French, a badly wounded Langley is abandoned on the beach.

Day 8: Desmond Thorogood arrives in Dunkirk but must wait until nightfall for rescue. Ramsay meticulously plans the night's operations. When it is over, Tennant sends his last signal from Dunkirk and embarks for home; he gets his first sleep on the train to London.

Day 9: Newman discovers the abandoned Langley and takes him into the station. The French troops covering the evacuation did not make it out in time so another night's operations are required to pull them out. HMS Malcolm sets out on her ninth mission to Dunkirk.

Day 10: Returning safely to Dover, the Malcolms crew are granted three days leave. The operation is deemed a success, Churchill looks to the skies for what will be the next threat of total war. Dunkirk finally falls to the enemy but the rescued troops of the BEF make up the core of Britain's wartime army.

Cast

Reception

Reviews
Reviews were mixed, though The Telegraph thought the documentary portrayed the events very fairly. They singled out Simon Russell Beale's portrayal of Winston Churchill as "in a superior class altogether".

Awards
BAFTA Awards 2005
Won: Huw Wheldon Award for Specialist Factual: Robert Warr & Alex Holmes
Nominated: BAFTA TV Award for Best Editing (Factual): Oliver Huddleston
Biarritz International Festival of Audiovisual Programming 2005
Won: Golden FIPA for TV Series and Serials (Music): Samuel Sim
Royal Television Society 2004
Nominated: RTS Television Award for Best Make Up Design (Entertainment & Non-Drama)
Nominated: RTS Television Award for Best Sound (Entertainment & Non-Drama)

References

External links

2004 British television series debuts
2004 British television series endings
World War II television drama series
BBC television docudramas
BBC History of World War II
2000s British television miniseries
British military television series
Television series set in 1940

Dunkirk (TV series)


Võ Quý  (December 31, 1929 – January 10, 2017) was a Vietnamese zoologist and professor at the Vietnam National University, Hanoi. He was an ornithologist and a recipient of the 2003 Blue Planet Prize.

During the war against the French, he studied in China, but in 1954 he returned to Vietnam and helped to found the University of Hanoi.

He researched the effects of defoliation by the United States in the Vietnam War, and the impact of the herbicides, including Agent Orange used on the environment. He  helped to plan government reforestation programmes.

Dr. Quy relocated the rare eastern sarus crane, a species badly affected by the war, and helped to establish a treaty for the protection of migratory birds.

He suggested that  the Vietnamese pheasant (Lophura hatinhensis) might be a different species from Edward's pheasant (Lophura edwardsi) although most ornithologists do not split these two forms.

He wrote the two-volume book, The Birds of Vietnam, and co-authored The Kouprey: An Action Plan for Its Conservation . He died in Hanoi on January 10, 2017, at the age of 87.

References

External links
Biography at terradaily.com

1929 births
2017 deaths
Vietnamese ornithologists
20th-century zoologists
21st-century zoologists

Võ Quý


Shaft Rock Blues and Jazz Club is a blues and rock club in Istanbul, Turkey. Besides providing blues and jazz music which gives the place its name, it additionally offers a combination of rock music covers by famous Turkish musicians and a weekly free stage night for newcomer musicians. Its late night drinking and disco style entertainment is one of the few on the Anatolian side of Istanbul.

Its location in regional town and city centre Kadıköy has been a focus of some contribution to late night disorder in this area, prompting a recent zero tolerance approach to drunkenness in this licensed premise. It offers live music from 23:00 to 04:00, and has a busy dancefloor almost every night.

External links
 Shaft Blues and Jazz Club

Jazz clubs
Entertainment venues in Istanbul
Music organizations based in Turkey
Turkish jazz

Shaft (club)


Dr. Nina Mikhailovna Pavlova (1897–1973) was a Russian botanist, plant breeder, and children's literature author. As a botanist she is noted for developing cultivars of berry plants, including 24 new varieties of currant and gooseberry. As a children's literature author, she popularized scientific topics for children as fairy tales. She was a recipient of the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Badge of Honour.

References

 1897 births
 1973 deaths
 Russian women scientists
Soviet botanists
 Russian children's writers
Russian women children's writers
Russian women botanists

Nina Pavlova


George Steevens (10 May 1736 – 22 January 1800) was an English Shakespearean commentator.

Biography

Early life
He was born at Poplar, the son of a captain and later director of the East India Company. He was educated at Eton College and at King's College, Cambridge, where he remained from 1753 to 1756. Leaving the university without a degree, he settled in chambers in the Inner Temple, moving later to a house on Hampstead Heath, where he collected a valuable library, rich in Elizabethan literature. He also accumulated a large collection of Hogarth prints, and his notes on the subject were incorporated in John Nichols's Genuine Works of Hogarth.

Career
He walked from Hampstead to London every morning before seven o'clock, discussed Shakespearian questions with his friend, Isaac Reed, and, after making his daily round of the booksellers shops, returned to Hampstead. He began his work as a Shakespearean editor with reprints of the quarto editions of Shakespeare's plays, entitled Twenty of the Plays of Shakespeare ... (1766). Samuel Johnson was impressed by this work, and suggested that Steevens should prepare a complete edition of Shakespeare. The result, known as Johnson's and Steevens's edition, was The Plays of Shakespeare with the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators (10 vols., 1773), Johnson's contributions to which were very slight.

This early attempt at a variorum edition was revised and reprinted in 1778, and further edited in 1785 by Reed; but in 1793 Steevens, who had asserted that he was now a dowager-editor, was persuaded by his jealousy of Edmond Malone to resume the task. The definitive result of his researches was embodied in an edition of fifteen volumes. He made changes in the text sometimes apparently with the sole object of showing how much abler he was as an emendator than Malone, but his wide knowledge of Elizabethan literature stood him in good stead, and subsequent editors have gone to his pages for parallel passages from contemporary authors. His deficiencies from the point of view of purely literary criticism are apparent from the fact that he excluded Shakespeare's sonnets and poems because, he wrote, "the strongest act of parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into their service."

In the 20 years between 1773 and 1793, Steevens was less harmlessly engaged in criticizing his fellows and playing malicious practical jokes on them. Dr Johnson, who was one of his staunchest friends, said he had come to live the life of an outlaw, but he was generous and to a small circle of friends civil and kind. After Johnson's death in Dec. 1784, he sent a series of anonymous items to the Public Advertiser promoting the claims of James Boswell as Johnson's biographer, mainly in order to vex the official biographer, Sir John Hawkins. He was one of the foremost in exposing the Chatterton-Rowley and the Ireland forgeries. He wrote an entirely fictitious account of the Java upas tree, derived from an imaginary Dutch traveller, which imposed on Erasmus Darwin, and he hoaxed the Society of Antiquaries with the tombstone of Hardicanute, supposed to have been dug up in Kennington, but really engraved with an Anglo-Saxon inscription of his own invention. He died at Hampstead on 22 January 1800. A monument to his memory by John Flaxman, with an inscription commemorating his Shakespearian labours, was erected in Poplar Chapel. The sale catalogue of his valuable library is in the British Museum.

Steevens's Shakespeare was re-issued by Reed in 1803, in 21 volumes, with additional notes left by Steevens. This, which is known as the first  edition, was reprinted in 1813.

Honours
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May 1767.

See also
Shakespeare's editors

References

 Sherbo, Arthur. The Achievement of George Steevens. Peter Lang, 1991.
 Tankard, Paul. "Boswell, George Steevens, and the Johnsonian Biography Wars". The Age of Johnson: A Scholarly Annual, 22 (2012). Pp. 73–95.

1736 births
1800 deaths
People from Poplar, London
Shakespearean scholars
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
People educated at Eton College
Fellows of the Royal Society

George Steevens