Kurt Koch (born 15 March 1950) is a Swiss prelate of the Catholic Church. He has been a cardinal since November 2010 and president of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity since 1 July 2010. He was the bishop of Basel from 1996 until 2010.

Personal background
Koch was born in Emmenbrücke in the canton of Lucerne.  He studied theology at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich and at the University of Lucerne, graduating in 1975 with a Doctor of Theology degree. He was ordained to the priesthood on 20 June 1982.

Basel

Koch was appointed Bishop of Basel on 6 December 1995. He received episcopal consecration on 6 January 1996 from John Paul II himself, with Archbishops Giovanni Battista Re and Jorge María Mejía serving as co-consecrators.

When a group of Swiss intellectuals and theologians called for John Paul's resignation on 20 May 2004, on the occasion of his 84th birthday, Koch described it as "disgusting and disloyal". In 2006, he supported the freedom of Muslims to build minarets in Switzerland, but also asked for greater religious freedom for Christians in Muslim countries.

On 27 June 2007, Koch, along with several other Catholic prelates, attended a briefing from the Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, at the Apostolic Palace on Pope Benedict XVI's forthcoming allowing wider celebration of the Tridentine Mass.

In July 2007, Koch defended the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's document "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church." He acknowledged that the document could appear confusing or hurtful to Protestants. He said the document's reception showed the difference between the ecumenical goals of Catholics and the Orthodox on the one hand and that of Protestants on the other.

Koch was President of the Swiss Episcopal Conference from 2007 until 2010. He is a member of the Swiss Council of Religions.

Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
Pope Benedict XVI announced the appointment of Koch as president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity on 1 July 2010, taking over from Cardinal Walter Kasper. Koch was made archbishop as well. He commented: "The Holy Father told me in February, in a personal audience, his desire that I would begin to lead this council. It is a great joy for me because ecumenism has always been in my heart since in my country, Switzerland, Protestants are very close to us and I have also had a particular interest in the Orthodox Churches."

On 16 October 2010, Pope Benedict appointed Koch as a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for a five-year renewable term.

On 20 October 2010, Pope Benedict made him Cardinal-Deacon of Nostra Signora del Sacro Cuore.

On 29 December 2010, Koch was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

Koch headed the Vatican's delegation to Istanbul, Turkey to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Patriarch Bartholomew I, for the Feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle on 30 November 2010 (the Patriarchate sends a delegation each year in turn for the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul on 29 June). He co-presided over a meeting of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church in Vienna, Austria in September 2010 with Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon.

On 4 May 2011 Pope Benedict appointed Koch a member of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The five-year term will be renewed until his 80th birthday.

In his role as president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, Koch spoke to reporters on 16 May 2011, after delivering a speech on Catholic-Jewish relations in light of Vatican II's declaration Nostra aetate on the Church's relations with non-Christian religions. The speech followed Koch's participation in a meeting of the doctrinal congregation to examine the latest progress in the Vatican's reconciliation talks with the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X. "There are questions to clarify in discussions with this community. I can't say more than that", he told reporters, echoing a Vatican statement saying the reconciliation talks are ongoing. Koch noted that "All the doctrinal decisions of the church are binding on a Catholic, including the Second Vatican Council and all its texts", Koch said when asked if the SSPX would be expected to accept all the teachings of Vatican II. "The Nostra aetate declaration of the Second Vatican Council is a clear decree and is important for every Catholic", he added.

16 May 2012, Koch gave the Pope John Paul II Lecture on Interreligious Understanding at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum). Koch spoke on the theme of "Building on Nostra aetate: 50 Years of Christian-Jewish Dialogue".

On 30 October 2012, Koch stated in an interview that, if Lutherans express a wish for an arrangement similar to the personal ordinariates for former Anglicans, the Catholic Church will have to reflect on it, but that the initiative must come from Lutherans.

He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2013 papal conclave that elected Pope Francis.

On Saturday, 30 November 2013, Pope Francis named Cardinal Koch a Member of the Congregation for Catholic Education. He was appointed a member of the Congregation for Bishops.

After ten years at the rank of cardinal deacon, he exercised his option to assume the rank of cardinal priest, which Pope Francis confirmed on 3 May 2021.

References

External links

 Catholic-Hierarchy
 Diocese of Basel

1950 births
Living people
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
Bishops of Basel
20th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Switzerland
21st-century Roman Catholic bishops in Switzerland
Swiss cardinals
Cardinals created by Pope Benedict XVI
Members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints
Members of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches
Members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Members of the Congregation for Bishops
Roman Catholic titular archbishops
Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Kurt Koch


In a criminal trial the trier of fact, also called the finder of fact, is the person or persons responsible for deciding the factual issues. This is also called a finding of fact. In a jury trial the trier of fact is the jury. If there is no jury, the trier of fact is the judge. In many types of hearings the trier of fact may be an administrative law judge, a board, commission, or referee. Trier of fact is now considered an older term. The term "finder of fact" has come into use more recently. Once the trier of fact determines what is assumed to be the truth of a matter, then legal rules are applied to those facts. A judge instructs a jury about the legal rules applying to the case. These instructions include what the findings may be. For example the jury may find for the plantiff or the jury may find for the defendant.

References

Legal terms

Trier of fact


Durham-Shores House is a historic home located near Dupont Station, Kent County, Delaware.  It is an "L"-shaped dwelling constructed in two parts.  Its original plan was as a "house and garden" style dwelling a 1 1/2-half-story, two-bay dwelling containing a single finished room on the ground floor and a second room above. The original section was built about 1860.  A two-story, four-bay, block built about 1910, forms the stem of the "L."

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

References

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Delaware
Houses completed in 1910
Houses in Kent County, Delaware
National Register of Historic Places in Kent County, Delaware

Durham-Shores House


Jonathan Steele (born 7 February 1986) is a Northern Irish professional footballer. He has also received three caps for the Northern Ireland national team.

Early life
Steele was raised in a Catholic family along with three brothers in the predominantly Protestant town of Larne, about 25 miles outside of Belfast. Steele often experienced religious violence and persecution resulting from The Troubles, including being attacked outside of a video rental store. Because of this violence, Steele's mother pleaded with him to leave home and the best opportunity to play football came from Wolverhampton Wanderers. After two years of not being able to make a breakthrough with Wolverhampton, Steele was released after the 2002–2003 season. At the age of 18, he then decided to try to earn a contract elsewhere in Europe or with Major League Soccer of the United States instead of returning home to Northern Ireland.

Club

England
Steele started his career with Wolverhampton Wanderers in England between 2002 and 2004. Although he featured for the youth and reserve sides, never played a game for the senior team.

United States
Steele moved to the United States in 2003, for an ultimately unsuccessful trial with the Dallas Burn of Major League Soccer. Instead, he signed with the Syracuse Salty Dogs of the USL First Division in 2004. and that fall, he joined the Kansas City Comets of Major Indoor Soccer League. He played thirteen games before the Comets placed him on the inactive roster to allow him to compete with the Northern Ireland U-19 national team. He returned to the United States in 2005 and spent the summer with the Rochester Rhinos. As the Comets had folded at the end of the 2004–2005 season, the Baltimore Blast selected Steele with the 26th pick in the Dispersal Draft.

Return home
He returned home to Northern Ireland in August 2005 and had a short spell with Irish League side Ballymena United, before returning to America when his short-term contract expired.

Return to the United States
He won the 2006 MISL Championship with the Blast, and played for the Rhinos again in the summer of 2006. In the spring of 2007, he signed with the expansion Carolina RailHawks of the USL First Division. He was also the first pick of the expansion Orlando Sharks in the 2007 MISL Expansion Draft, but was traded to the Philadelphia KiXX in exchange for Gaston Pernia. Steele played seventeen games with the KiXX during the 2007–2008 MISL season, missing part of the season with a foot injury.

In the spring of 2008, he moved to the Puerto Rico Islanders of USL-1. He was a key part of a team which took the USL-1 championship and was named the 2008 USL-1 MVP.

On 23 December 2009, Steele signed a one-year contract with Vancouver Whitecaps. Steele, along with Whitecaps teammate Ricardo Sánchez, was transferred to league rivals FC Tampa Bay on 21 July 2010.

Carolina RailHawks, now in the second division North American Soccer League, re-acquired Steele on a season-long loan from FC Tampa Bay on 24 February 2011.

Steele signed with Syracuse Silver Knights of Major Indoor Soccer League for the 2011–12 indoor season on 23 September 2011. He was released from the team mid-season.

Major League Soccer

On 23 February 2012 Steele tweeted that he had joined Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer, a club from which he spurned a contract offer two years earlier in favour of joining the Vancouver Whitecaps. The signing was official on 24 February 2012. During his first season with the club, Steele made 28 appearances, including 11 starts, tallying two assists and scoring two goals including a stoppage-time game winner against Toronto FC on 28 April 2012.

Steele's option was declined by Salt Lake on 3 December 2012 as part of a salary cap issue, along with the trade and release of six other players, including starters Jamison Olave, Fabian Espindola, and Will Johnson.

After being released by RSL, Steele trained with Cliftonville F.C. of the IFA Premiership and was reportedly days away from signing for an unnamed League 2 club before being contacted by New York Red Bull's head coach Mike Petke. Steele signed with the Major League Soccer club on 20 February 2013 and solidified his spot in the starting line-up. Steele scored his first goal for the Red Bulls on 20 April 2013 in a 4–1 victory over the New England Revolution. In the same match, Steele tallied his second assist of the season on a goal by Thierry Henry. Steele ended his first season with New York making 36 official appearances and scoring 6 goals, while the team finished with the best overall record in MLS, winning the Supporter's Shield, the first major honor in club history.

In 2014, Steele made 16 appearances, scoring one goal and recording 2 assists, but only started 7 matches. He and the Red Bulls mutually agreed to part ways on 10 July 2014.

Newcastle Jets
Three days after parting ways with the Red Bulls, it was confirmed that Steele had signed for the Newcastle Jets of the A-League in Australia.

Steele and Newcastle Jets mutually agreed to terminate his contract on December 23, 2014.

Minnesota United FC
On January 8, 2015, Minnesota United FC announced the signing of Jonny Steele. After a disappointing showing due to injuries, Steele was released by United on July 1, 2015.

Ottawa Fury
Steele signed a contract with Ottawa Fury FC on January 12, 2016.

Miami FC
Steele moved again on July 14, 2016, this time to NASL side Miami FC.

Ramsgate
At the end of May 2019 it was announced that Steele had joined Ramsgate. He was released by Ramsgate on 21 October 2019.

International
Steele represented Northern Ireland from the Under-15 to the Under-19 level. In 2001, he was part of the Under-16 side that competed in the Victory Shield tournament against the other British nations. Steele earned three caps for the Under-19 side in the 2005 UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship against Germany, Serbia and Montenegro, and Greece in Group A. The tournament was held in his native Northern Ireland but the hosts did not advance past the group stage. Steele was also a member of the U19 squad that competed in the 2005 Milk Cup and scored a goal against the United States during a 4–2 loss in the final.

In April 2013, following Steele's impressive performances with New York, Northern Ireland manager Michael O'Neill stated that he was monitoring Steele's progress and that he could receive his first call up as early as the next squad selection. Seven months later, Steele received his first call up to the senior squad for a friendly against Turkey to be played on 15 November 2013 in Adana after originally being left out of the squad again because of expected club commitments. This call up was the first time Steele was called into camp for Northern Ireland at any level since the 2005 Milk Cup.

Steele made his senior international debut for Northern Ireland in the match against Turkey, coming on as a 67th-minute substitute for Niall McGinn as Northern Ireland lost 1–0. In May 2014, Steele was again called up for the friendly away matches against Uruguay and Chile on 30 May and 4 June respectively as the opposition prepared for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

International career statistics

Honours

Puerto Rico Islanders
Commissioner's Cup: 2008

New York Red Bulls
MLS Supporters' Shield: 2013

Individual
USL First Division MVP: 2008

Gallery

References

External links

Profile at Irish FA

1986 births
Living people
Baltimore Blast (2001–2008 MISL) players
North Carolina FC players
Expatriate men's footballers in Puerto Rico
Expatriate men's soccer players in the United States
Expatriate men's soccer players in Canada
Tampa Bay Rowdies players
Men's association football midfielders
Kansas City Comets (2001–2005 MISL) players
Major Indoor Soccer League (2001–2008) players
Major League Soccer players
Minnesota United FC (2010–2016) players
New York Red Bulls players
Newcastle Jets FC players
North American Soccer League (2011–2017) players
Northern Ireland men's youth international footballers
Association footballers from County Antrim
Men's association footballers from Northern Ireland
Expatriate men's association footballers from Northern Ireland
Expatriate sportspeople from Northern Ireland in the United States
Sportspeople from Larne
Philadelphia KiXX (2001–2008 MISL) players
Puerto Rico Islanders players
Real Salt Lake players
Rochester New York FC players
Syracuse Salty Dogs players
Syracuse Silver Knights players
A-League (1995–2004) players
USL First Division players
USSF Division 2 Professional League players
Vancouver Whitecaps (1986–2010) players
Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. players
Ballymena United F.C. players
NIFL Premiership players
Northern Ireland men's international footballers
Ottawa Fury FC players
Miami FC players
Ramsgate F.C. players
National Premier Soccer League players
Expatriate sportspeople from Northern Ireland in Canada
Expatriate sportspeople from Northern Ireland in Puerto Rico

Jonny Steele


The Battle of Yorktown, also called the Siege of Yorktown, fought from September 28-October 19, 1781. It is considered the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army, led by General George Washington, won a decisive victory against the British Army, led by General Lord Charles Cornwallis. Cornwallis was forced to surrender after being surrounded by Washington's army.

The Americans were assisted by the French, led by the Comte de Rochambeau. The battle took place in Yorktown, Virginia, near the York River. After the French fleet defeated a British fleet, Cornwallis was cut off and had to surrender to the French and the Continental Army. Eventually, it led to the Treaty of Paris in 1783, two years later.

Background
British General Lord Cornwallis had fought against the Americans in 1776 and 1777. He was convinced the Americans could not defeat a British army in the field. In 1778 he returned to England to care for his wife who died in February 1779. After a few months he returned to America to continue the fight.  While he was gone, there was a change in British strategy. Before, the British had concentrated on defeating and destroying Washington's army. Now, since the French had joined the Americans, it was no longer just a rebellion but a world war.  Earlier, the French had been helping the Americans with loans and war supplies.  Now France and Spain were fighting against the British, who had to move troops from North America to defend other places.  The new strategy was to win back the Southern colonies beginning with Georgia. The British thought that as many as 50 percent of the population in the South was loyal to Britain. They would start with Georgia and move north through The Carolinas to the Virginia Colony.

On his arrival in New York City, Cornwallis was made second-in-command to General Henry pork. The two generals did not trust each other. Clinton was convinced Washington would attack him in New York. He was afraid of sending troops home and having to depend more on Loyalist militia. Cornwallis was ready to go ahead with what troops he had. Clinton was suspicious Cornwallis' return from England was to  get a command for himself.  In fact, Cornwallis had secured a commission to replace Clinton if Clinton repeated his threats to resign.

Clinton sent Cornwallis south to recapture Charleston, South Carolina following the new plan.  Soon, Cornwallis began acting independently of Clinton, who stayed safe in New York City. Cornwallis wasn't going to play it safe and advance by careful steps as he had been instructed.  When he saw a chance to attack the new patriot army under Major General Horatio Gates, he did so without orders nearly wiping out the Americans.

Cornwallis moved carelessly. He left American units, such as the one led by Francis Marion (called the "Swamp Fox"), in his rear. The American general Nathanael Greene noticed this right away. He broke up his command into smaller units in order to plague Cornwallis. Finally the two armies met at the Battle of Guilford Court House, which neither army won. During this time Cornwallis was not sending messages to Clinton telling him where he was. After Guilford Court House, Cornwallis moved to the coast of North Carolina to rest his men. Then, again without orders, he decided to march north to Virginia. Frustrated by this, Clinton sent Cornwallis a number of contradictory messages. Most of them were worded as suggestions rather than orders. But he did order Cornwallis to find a defensible position. This was so he could be evacuated by the Royal Navy, possibly to Philadelphia. Cornwallis decided on the community of Yorktown and his men started building defenses there in August 1781 to wait for the Navy.

In New York, Washington learned that the French Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse was sailing north from the West Indies. Rochambeau convinced Washington they could attack and defeat Cornwallis. The two commanders began marching south to meet de Grasse's 27 ships and 3,200 troops. Clinton learned of this and sent a British naval fleet to the Chesapeake Bay to cut them off. But the French and Americans arrived first. In the Battle of the Chesapeake the French navy forced the British ships back to New York City. Clinton warned Cornwallis in early September he would soon be facing American and French troops but promised him reinforcements by sea. Clinton had not yet learned of the French naval victory and did not know he could not rescue Cornwallis by sea.  By the end of September, Washington and Rochambeau had surrounded Yorktown. Cornwallis received another message in late September from Clinton telling him help was on the way.  Cornwallis was misled again and thought he only had to hold out for a few days.

The Siege of Yorktown
Just after the clash between the French and British Fleets, a smaller French squadron carrying the French army's siege artillery slipped into the Chesapeake. Now the French and Americans had bigger guns than Cornwallis had behind his earthen fortifications.

Marching out of Williamsburg, Virginia the Americans and French arrived on September 28, 1781 at Yorktown. They surrounded the earthworks in a Semicircle with the York River completing the circle. Cornwallis made the first move, abandoning his outer works made up of four redoubts.  Washington and Rochambeau thought this was a mistake. They sent troops to occupy the outer earthworks. The Americans and French began setting up their siege operations on September 30, first on the east side. By October 9, they were close enough to begin the bombardment. The Americans and French stormed two of the redoubts on October 14, forcing the British back even further. By that time it became obvious the British could not hold out much longer. On October 16, the British attacked two of the redoubts they had abandoned and spiked the guns. At the same time Cornwallis attempted to slip past the guards to Gloucester (now Gloucester Point, Virginia) across the river but was turned back by a storm. Finally, with no sign of relief as promised by Clinton, Cornwallis' army of 6,000 soldiers surrendered.

The casualties were about 500 British, 200 French and 80 Americans. Captured were 240 artillery pieces, a large supply of small arms and ammunition, plus equipment. General Cornwallis did not attend the surrender. Claiming to be sick, he sent General Charles O'Hara to surrender for him. O'Hara first tried to surrender to Comte de Rochambeau. Rochambeau directed him to surrender to General Washington. In turn, Washington directed him to surrender to General Benjamin Lincoln who accepted O'Hara's sword. As the British stacked their guns marching out of the fortress, their band played "The World Turned Upside Down". When Lord North, the British Prime Minister, received news of the surrender he cried out "Oh God, it is all over!"

Results
The battles of Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781 were two major turning points in the Revolutionary war. Both were American victories over the British, but with very different results. The British defeat at Saratoga prolonged the war, while the battle at Yorktown foretold its end. Saratoga convinced the French to join the Americans against the British. Yorktown was a joint victory by the French and the Americans over the British. France and her allies continued to fight hard for two more years, but there was little fighting anymore on the American continent. The Treaty of Paris (1783) ended the war.

References

Other websites
 America's Final Victory - 1781; YouTube
 The Surrender of Yorktown 1781; YouTube

Battles of the American Revolutionary War
1781 in North America
1780s in the United States
18th century in Virginia

Battle of Yorktown (1781)


Hilma af Klint (; 26 October 1862 – 21 October 1944) was a Swedish artist and mystic whose paintings are considered among the first abstract works known in Western art history. A considerable body of her work predates the first purely abstract compositions by Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian. She belonged to a group called "The Five", comprising a circle of women inspired by Theosophy, who shared a belief in the importance of trying to contact the so-called "High Masters"—often by way of séances. Her paintings, which sometimes resemble diagrams, were a visual representation of complex spiritual ideas.

Early life

Hilma af Klint was the fourth child of Mathilda af Klint (née Sonntag) and Captain Victor af Klint, a Swedish naval commander, and she spent summers with her family at their manor, "Hanmora", on the island of Adelsö in Lake Mälaren. In these idyllic surroundings she came into contact with nature at an early stage in her life, and a deep association with natural forms was to be an inspiration in her work. Later in life, Hilma af Klint lived permanently on Munsö, an island next to Adelsö.

From her family, Hilma af Klint inherited a great interest for mathematics and botany. She showed an early ability in visual art and, after the family moved to Stockholm, she studied at Tekniska skolan (now Konstfack) in Stockholm, where she learned portraiture and landscape painting.

She was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at the age of twenty. Between 1882 and 1887 she studied mainly drawing, portrait painting, and landscape painting. She graduated with honors, and was allocated a scholarship in the form of a studio in the so-called "Atelier Building" (Ateljébyggnaden), owned by The Academy of Fine Arts between Hamngatan and Kungsträdgården in central Stockholm. This was the main cultural hub in the Swedish capital at that time. The same building also held Blanch's Café and Blanch's Art Gallery, where conflict existed between the conventional art view of the Academy of Fine Arts and the opposition movement of the Art Society (Konstnärsförbundet), inspired by the French plein air painters. Hilma af Klint began working in Stockholm, gaining recognition for her landscapes, botanical drawings, and portraits.

Her conventional painting became the source of her income, but her 'life's work' remained a quite separate practice.

Spiritual and philosophical ideas

In 1880 her younger sister Hermina died, and it was at this time that the spiritual dimension of her life began to develop. Her interest in abstraction and symbolism came from Hilma af Klint's involvement in spiritism, very much in vogue at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Her experiments in spiritual investigation started in 1879. She became interested in the Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky and the philosophy of Christian Rosencreutz. In 1908 she met Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the Anthroposophical Society, who was visiting Stockholm. Steiner introduced her to his own theories regarding the arts, and would have some influence on her paintings later in life. Several years later, in 1920, she met him again at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, the headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society. Between 1921 and 1930 she spent long periods at the Goetheanum.

Af Klint's work can be understood in the wider context of the modernist search for new forms in artistic, spiritual, political, and scientific systems at the beginning of the twentieth century. There was a similar interest in spirituality by other artists during this same period, including Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevitch, Fidus, and the French Nabis, in which many, like af Klint, were inspired by the Theosophical Movement.

The works of Hilma af Klint are mainly spiritual, and her artistic work is a consequence of this.

She felt the abstract work and the meaning within were so groundbreaking that the world was not ready to see it, and she wished for the work to remain unseen for 20 years after her death.

Work

At the Academy of Fine Arts she met Anna Cassel, the first of the four women with whom she later worked in "The Five" (De Fem), a group of artists who shared her ideas. The other members were Cornelia Cederberg, Sigrid Hedman, and Mathilda Nilsson. "The Five" began their association as members of the Edelweiss Society, which embraced a combination of the Theosophical teachings of Helena Blavatsky and spiritualism. All of The Five were interested in the paranormal and regularly organized spiritistic séances. They opened each meeting with a prayer, followed by a meditation, a Christian sermon, and a review and analysis of a text from the New Testament. This would be followed by a séance. They recorded in a book a completely new system of mystical thought, in the form of messages from higher spirits called The High Masters ("Höga Mästare"). One, Gregor, announced, "All the knowledge that is not of the senses, not of the intellect, not of the heart but is the property that exclusively belongs to the deepest aspect of your being ... the knowledge of your spirit".

Through her work with The Five, Hilma af Klint created experimental automatic drawing as early as 1896, leading her toward an inventive geometric visual language capable of conceptualizing invisible forces both of the inner and outer worlds.
She explored world religions, atoms, and the plant world and wrote extensively about her discoveries. As she became more familiar with this form of expression, Hilma af Klint was assigned by the High Masters to create the paintings for the "Temple" – however she never understood what this "Temple" referred to.

Hilma af Klint felt she was being directed by a force that would literally guide her hand. She wrote in her notebook:

The pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings, and with great force. I had no idea what the paintings were supposed to depict; nevertheless I worked swiftly and surely, without changing a single brush stroke.

In 1906, at the age of 44, af Klint painted her first series of abstract paintings.

The works for the Temple were created between 1906 and 1915, carried out in two phases with an interruption between 1908 and 1912. As af Klint discovered her new form of visual expression, she developed a new artistic language. Her painting became more autonomous and more intentional. The spiritual would continue to be the main source of creativity throughout the rest of her life.

The collection for the Temple is 193 paintings, grouped within several sub-series. The major paintings, dated 1907, are extremely large: each painting measures approximately 240 x 320 cm. This series, called The Ten Largest, describes the different phases of life, from early childhood to old age.

Quite apart from their diagrammatic purpose the paintings have a freshness and a modern aesthetic of tentative line and hastily captured image: a segmented circle, a helix bisected and divided into a spectrum of lightly painted colours. The artistic world of Hilma af Klint is impregnated with symbols, letters, and words. The paintings often depict symmetrical dualities, or reciprocities: up and down, in and out, earthly and esoteric, male and female, good and evil. The colour choice throughout is metaphorical: blue stands for the female spirit, yellow for the male one, and pink / red for physical / spiritual love. The Swan and the Dove, names of two series of the Paintings for the Temple, are also symbolic, representing respectively transcendence and love. Understood as gates to other dimensions, her paintings call for interpretation on a narrative, esoteric and artistic level while evoking primordial geometry and humanistic motifs.

When Hilma af Klint had completed the works for the Temple, the spiritual guidance ended. However, she continued to pursue abstract painting, now independent from any external influence. The paintings for the Temple were mostly oil paintings, but she now also used watercolours. Her later paintings are significantly smaller in size. She painted among others a series depicting the stand-points of different religions at various stages in history, as well as representations of the duality between the physical being and its equivalence on an esoteric level. As Hilma af Klint pursued her artistic and esoteric research, it is possible to perceive a certain inspiration from the artistic theories developed by the Anthroposophical Society from 1920 onward.

Through her life, Hilma af Klint would seek to understand the mysteries that she had come in contact with through her work. She produced more than 150 notebooks with her thoughts and studies.

In 1908 af Klint met Rudolf Steiner for the first time. In one of the few remaining letters, she asked Steiner to visit her in Stockholm and see the finished part of the Paintings for the Temple series, 111 paintings in total. Steiner did see the paintings but mostly left unimpressed, stating that her way of working was inappropriate for a theosophist. According to H.P. Blavatsky, mediumship was a faulty practice, leading its adepts on the wrong path of occultism and black magic. However, during their meeting, Steiner stated that af Klint's contemporaries would not be able to accept and understand their paintings, and it would take another 50 years to decipher them. Of all the paintings shown to him, Steiner paid special attention only to the Primordial Chaos Group, noting them as "the best symbolically". After meeting Steiner, af Klint was devastated by his response and, apparently, stopped painting for 4 years.  Steiner kept photographs of some of af Klint's artworks, some of them even hand-coloured. Later the same year he met Wassily Kandinsky, who had not yet come to abstract painting. Some art historians assume that Kandinsky could have seen the photographs and perhaps was influenced by them while developing his own abstract path. Later in her life, af Klint made a decision to destroy all her correspondence. She left a collection of more than 1200 paintings and 125 diaries to her nephew, Erik af Klint. Among her last paintings made in 1930s, there are two watercolours predicting the events of World War II, titled The Blitz and The Fight in the Mediterranean.

Despite the popular belief that Hilma af Klint had chosen to never exhibit her abstract works during her lifetime, in recent years art historians such as Julia Voss have uncovered  evidence that af Klint did attempt to show her work. Around 1920 in Dornach, Switzerland, af Klint met Dutch eurythmist Peggy Kloppers-Moltzer, who was also a member of The Anthroposophical Society. Later, the artist travelled to Amsterdam, where she and Kloppers discussed a possible exhibition with the editors of art and architecture magazine Wendingen.
Although the Amsterdam talks were not successful, at least one exhibition of af Klint's abstract works took place in London several years later, in 1928 at the World Conference on Spiritual Science in London, for which Kloppers was a member of the organizing committee. Originally, af Klint was excluded, but after Kloppers' insistence, she was added in the list of participants.

In July 1928, she sailed from Stockholm to London, along with some of her large-scale paintings. In her postcard to Anna Cassel (discovered only in 2018) af Klint wrote that she was not alone during this 4-day trip. Despite af Klint not having named her traveling commpanion, Julia Voss suggests that it was most likely Thomasine Andersson, an old friend from De Fem days. Voss also suggests that it is probable that the works were from the Paintings for the Temple series.

In 1944, Hilma af Klint died at 81 in Djursholm, Sweden, after a traffic accident. She had exhibited her work only a handful of times, for the most part at spiritual conferences and gatherings. She is buried at Galärvarvskyrkogården in Stockholm.

Signature style
Hilma Af Klint's later period abstract art (1906–1920) delved into symbolism with a combination of geometry, figuration, scientific research and religious practices. Her studies of organic growth, including shells and flowers, helped her portray life through a spiritual lens.

Her individual or signature style was also marked with impressions from the late 19th and early 20th century scientific discoveries as also influenced by contemporary spiritual movements such as theosophy and anthroposophy too. The idea to transcend the physical world and the constraints of representational art is visible in her abstract paintings.

Her symbolic visual language has an ordered progression that reflects her understanding of grids, circles, spirals and petal-like forms—sometimes diagrammatic, sometimes biomorphic. Her paintings also explored dichotomy of the world.

Spiral forms appear often in her art, as they do in the automatic drawings by De Fem. While every such geometric form, in this case, Spiral suggests growth, progress and evolution, color choices also are metaphorical in nature.

As one of the Proto-Feminist Artists, her style represents the sublime in the art.

Legacy
In her will, Hilma af Klint left all her abstract paintings to her nephew, vice-admiral Erik af Klint of the Royal Swedish Navy. She specified that her work should be kept secret for at least 20 years after her death. When the boxes were opened at the end of the 1960s, very few persons had knowledge of what would be revealed.

In 1970 her paintings were offered as a gift to Moderna Museet i Stockholm, but the donation was declined. Erik af Klint then donated thousands of drawings and paintings to a foundation bearing the artist's name in the 1970s. Thanks to the art historian Åke Fant, her art was introduced to an international audience in the 1980s, when he presented her at a Nordik conference in Helsinki in 1984.

The collection of abstract paintings of Hilma af Klint includes more than 1200 pieces. It is owned and managed by the Hilma af Klint Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2017, Norwegian architectural firm Snøhetta presented plans for an exhibition centre dedicated to af Klint in Järna, south of Stockholm, with estimated building costs of €6 to 7.5 million. In February 2018, the Foundation signed a long-term agreement of cooperation with the Moderna Museet, thereby confirming the perennity of the Hilma af Klint Room, i.e., a dedicated space at the museum where a dozen works of the artist are shown on a continuous basis.

Cultural references
 Hilma af Klint and her work are presented in the 2016 film Personal Shopper, in which the main character, played by Kristen Stewart, researches art inspired by spirits.
 The work of Hilma af Klint is cited by Jane Weaver as inspiration for Modern Kosmology.
 Af Klint was the subject of a 2019 feature-length documentary by German director , titled Beyond the Visible – Hilma af Klint.
 Af Klint's work is presented in the 2020 short film Point and Line to Plane, written and directed by Sofia Bohdanowicz. The short features the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's 2018 exhibition Hilma Af Klint: Paintings for the Future, which is seen in mid-installation.
 (2022) is an English-language Swedish biographical film directed by Lasse Hallström, and starring his daughter Tora Hallström as Hilma.

Exhibitions (posthumous)
The abstract work of Hilma af Klint was shown for the first time at the exhibition "The Spiritual in Art, Abstract Painting 1890–1985" organized by Maurice Tuchman in Los Angeles in 1986. This exhibition was the starting point of her international recognition.

"Hilma Af Klint: Paintings for the Future", the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's 2019 exhibition, had over 600,000 visitors, the most-visited exhibition in the museum's 60-year history.

Selected exhibitions
 The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890–1985, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA. 23 November 1986 – 8 March 1987. Travelling exhibition : Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, USA. 17 April – 19 July 1987; Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Netherlands. 1 September – 22 November 1987
 Hilma af Klints hemliga bilder, Nordic Art Association, Sveaborg Helsinki, Finland 1988–1989
 The Secret Pictures by Hilma af Klint, MoMA PS1, Queens, New York. 15 January – 12 March 1989
 Ockult målarinna och abstrakt pionjär, Moderna Museet i Stockholm, Sweden 1989–1991. Travelling exhibition : Göteborgs Konsthall, Gothenburg, Sweden; Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden; Fyns Kunstmuseum, Denmark.
 Okkultismus und Abstraktion, Die Malerin Hilma af Klint, Albertina, Vienna, Austria 1991–1992. Travelling exhibition : Kunsthaus Graz, Austria; Modern Museum of Passau, Germany
 Målningarna till templet (The paintings to the Temple), Liljevalchs konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden 1999–2000
 3 x Abstraction: New Methods of Drawing, The Drawing Center, New York, USA 2005–2006; Santa Monica Museum of Art, USA; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland 2005–2006
 An Atom in the Universe, Camden Arts Centre, UK 2006
 The Alpine Cathedral and The City-Crown, Josiah McElheny. Moderna Museet i Stockholm, Sweden. 1 December 2007 – 31 March 2008 (represented by 14 paintings)
 The Message. The Medium as artist – Das Medium als Künstler Museum in Bochum, Germany. 16 February – 13 April 2008 (represented by 4 paintings)
 Traces du Sacré Centre Pompidou, Paris, France. 7 May – 11 August 2008. (represented by 7 paintings)
 Hilma af Klint – Une modernité rélévée Centre Culturel Suédois, Paris, France. April – August 2008 (represented by 59 paintings)
 Traces du Sacré Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany. 18 September 2008 – 11 January 2009
 De geheime schilderijen van Hilma af Klint, Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, Netherlands. 7 March 2010 – 30 May 2010
  Beyond Colour, See! Colour! – Four exhibitions at the Cultural Center in Järna, South of Stockholm, Sweden. James Turrell, Rudolf Steiner, 14 May – Oktober 2, 2011
 Hilma af Klint – a Pioneer of Abstraction was produced by and showed at Moderna Museet i Stockholm, Sweden, from 16 February until 26 May 2013, before touring to Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin, Germany, from 15 June to 6 October; Museo Picasso Málaga, Spain, from 21 October 2013 to 9 February 2014; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebaek, Copenhaguen, Denmark 2014; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway 2015; Kumu, Tallinn, Estonia 2015
 Works by af Klint was exhibited at the Central Pavilion of the 55th Venice Biennale, Italy. 1 June – 24 November 2013.

 Cosa mentale – Imaginaries of Telepathy of the 20th-Century Art, Centre Pompidou, Metz, France. 28 October 2015 – 28 March 2016 (9 paintings)

 Painting the Unseen, Serpentine Galleries, London, UK. 3 March – 15 May 2016
 The Keeper, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, USA 20 July – 2 October 2016
 Beyond the Stars – The Mystical Landscape from Monet to Kandinsky, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France. 14 March – 25 June 2017 (1 painting)
 Jardin infini. De Giverny à l'Amazonie, Centre Pompidou, Metz, France. 18 March – 28 August 2017 (7 paintings)
 L'emozione dei COLORI nell'arte, Galleria civica d'arte moderna e contemporanea GAM of Turin, Italy. 14 March – 23 July 2017
 As Above, So Below, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland. 13 April – 27 August 2017
 Intuition, Palazzo Fortuny in Venice, Italy. 13 May – 26 November 2017
 Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA), Göteborgs Konsthall in Gothenburg, Sweden. 9 September – 19 November 2017
 Hilma af Klint, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo in São Paulo, Brazil. 3 March – 16 July 2018
 Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, USA. 12 October 2018 – 23 April 2019
 Hilma af Klint: The Secret Paintings, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 12 June – 19 September 2021
 Hilma af Klint: The Secret Paintings, City Gallery Wellington, 4 December 2021 –  27 March 2022

Gallery

See also
 Hilma af Klint and Theosophy

Publications
 HILMA AF KLINT: Catalogue Raisonné, Bokförlaget Stolpe,Vol. I - VII, December 27, 2022,
 The Spiritual in Art, Abstract Painting 1890-1985, publ. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986.  LACMA : pbk
  Hilma af Klint, Raster Förlag, Stockholm. Swedish text, about 100 pictures.
  Vägen till templet, Rosengårdens Förlag. Swedish text, 30 sketches. Describes the teaching period to become a medium.
  Enheten bortom mångfalden, Rosengårdens Förlag. Swedish text, 32 pictures. Two parts, one philosophical and one art-scientific.
 I describe the way and meanwhile I am proceeding along it, Rosengårdens Förlag. A short introduction in English with 3 pictures.
 3 X Abstraction, Catherine de Zegher and Hendel Teicher (eds.), Yale University Press and The Drawing Center, New York, 2005
  Okkultismus und Abstraktion, die Malerin Hilma af Klint, Åke Fant, Albertina, Wien 1992, .
  Mod Lyset – Belyj, Goethe, Hilma af Klint, Jeichau, Kandinsky, Martinus, Rosenkrantz, Steiner Gl. Holtegaard & Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum. 2004.
 Hilma af Klint, the Greatness of Things, John Hutchinson (ed.), Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin 2005. English text, 23 images. .
 The Message. Art and Occultism. With an Essay by André Breton. Hrsg. v. Claudia Dichter, Hans Günter Golinski, Michael Krajewski, Susanne Zander. Kunstmuseum Bochum. Walther König: Köln 2007, .
 Swedish Women Artists: Sigrid Hjertén, Hilma af Klint, Nathalie Djurberg, Signe Hammarsten-Jansson, Aleksandra Mir, Ulrika Pasch, Books LCC, 2010.
 The Legacy of Hilma af Klint: Nine Contemporary Responses (English / German), Ann-Sofi Norin, Daniel Birnbaum, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2013.
 Hilma af Klint. The Art of Seeing the Invisible, by Kurt Belfrage, Louise Almqvist (eds.), 2015
 Hilma af Klint – A Pioneer of Abstraction, edited by Iris Müller-Westermann with Jo Widoff, with contributions by David Lomas, Pascal Rousseau and Helmut Zander, exhibition catalogue of Moderna Museet nr. 375, 2013.
 Hilma af Klint – Painting the Unseen, edited by Daniel Birnbaum and Emma Enderby, with contributions by Julia Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jennifer Higgie and Julia Voss. Serpentine Galleries / Koenig Books, 2016.
  Hilma – en roman om gåtan Hilma af Klint [Hilma – a novel about the enigma Hilma af Klint], Anna Laestadius Larsson, ed. Piratförlaget, 24 May 2017
 Hilma af Klint – Seeing is Believing, Kurt Almqvist and Louise Belfrage, König Books, 7 October 2017
  Ni vues, Ni connues pp. 42–44, Collectif Georgette Sand, Publisher Hugo Doc collection Les Simone, 5 October 2017
 Hilma af Klint: Notes and Methods, with an introduction and commentary by Iris Müller-Westerman, University of Chicago Press, 2018

References

External links

https://instagram.com/the_cult_of_curious?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==

 Hilma af Klint Foundation
  (in Swedish with English subtitles, 22 minutes)

1862 births
1944 deaths
People from Solna Municipality
19th-century Swedish painters
19th-century Christian mystics
20th-century Swedish painters
20th-century Christian mystics
Christian occultists
Abstract painters
Swedish nobility
Swedish Theosophists
Anthroposophists
Modern artists
Drawing mediums
Swedish women painters
Swedish painters
20th-century Swedish women artists
20th-century Swedish artists
19th-century Swedish women artists
19th-century Swedish artists
Road incident deaths in Sweden
Burials at Galärvarvskyrkogården

Hilma af Klint


A Song Is Born (also known as That's Life), starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo, is a 1948 Technicolor musical film remake of Howard Hawks'  1941 movie Ball of Fire with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. This version was also directed by Hawks, based on the story "From A to Z" by Billy Wilder and Thomas Monroe, adapted by Harry Tugend (uncredited) and produced by Samuel Goldwyn and released by RKO Radio Pictures.

Filmed in Technicolor, it featured a stellar supporting cast of musical legends, including Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman (with Al Hendrickson as cameo), Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, and Benny Carter. Other notable musicians playing themselves in the cast include Charlie Barnet (with Harry Babasin as cameo), Mel Powell, Louis Bellson, The Golden Gate Quartet, Russo and the Samba Kings, The Page Cavanaugh Trio, and Buck and Bubbles. Other actors include Steve Cochran and Hugh Herbert.

Plot
In the Totten Foundation's Victorian mansion in New York City, mild-mannered Professor Hobart Frisbee (Danny Kaye) and his seven fellow academics, among them Professor Magenbruch (Benny Goodman), are writing and recording a comprehensive musical encyclopedia. They have been living cut off from the world for 9 years, living without a radio. Thanks to two window washers (Buck and Bubbles) seeking help with a radio quiz, they discover that there are many forms of popular music—including swing, jive, jump, blues, two-beat Dixie, boogie woogie, and bebop—that they know nothing about. Hobart, the expert on "folk music" goes out and explores the music scene before, during and after hours, inviting all the artists he meets to come to the Foundation.

The professors become entangled in the problems of nightclub singer Honey Swanson (Virginia Mayo). She needs a place to hide out from the police, who want to question her about her gangster boyfriend Tony Crow (Steve Cochran). Tony wants to marry her—because a wife cannot testify against her husband. Honey invites herself into the sheltered household, over the objections of Hobart and Miss Bragg, the housekeeper. While there, she introduces them to the latest music, of  which they are completely ignorant, aided by many of the musicians Hobart met the night before. The songs they play include "A Song Is Born", "Daddy-O", "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You", "Flying Home", and "Redskin Rumba".

When Miss Bragg delivers an ultimatum, Honey persuades Hobart to let her stay by telling him she is "wacky" about him and introducing him to "yum yum", i.e. enthusiastic kissing. Smitten, the innocent Hobart (who graduated from Princeton at age 13) scours the city for an open jewelry store so he can buy an engagement ring. He proposes the next morning. They are interrupted by a phone call from her "Daddy". Pretending to be her father, Tony easily persuades Hobart to come to Rancocas, New Jersey to be married. Delighted, all the professors join in the elopement. (Honey knocks Miss Bragg out and locks her in the closet.)

A minor accident lands them in an inn near Kingston. There, Honey—who is feeling very guilty and is deeply moved by what she has learned about Hobart—realizes that she has fallen in love with him. Tony and his men arrive and reveal the truth. When Hobart goes to tell her that "Daddy's here," Miss Bragg arrives with the police. Hobart sends them away. Honey shows him her excuses—a blank sheet of paper.

At the Foundation, the professors refuse Miss Bragg's offer of breakfast. Miss Totten and her lawyer arrive, planning to close down the Foundation. Tony's two men break in and hold everyone at gunpoint. Meanwhile, Honey refuses to marry Tony, even though she will never see Frizzy again. Tony descends on the Foundation with Honey and a very deaf justice of the peace and forces Honey to go through the ceremony by threatening the professors and the assembled musicians. When Hobart learns that Honey is being forced, the hostages join to overwhelm the gunmen. The finale, of course, is not decided by guns but by music, its resonance and reverberation, as, inspired by Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho, the musicians send a drum crashing on one of the henchmen and a professor pulls the rug out from under the other. Frizzy gives Tony a beating.

Hobart overcomes Honey's objections to their marriage—she feels unworthy—with his own compelling demonstration of "yum yum".

Cast

 Danny Kaye as Professor Hobart Frisbee
 Virginia Mayo as Honey Swanson
 Benny Goodman as Professor Magenbruch
 Tommy Dorsey as himself
 Louis Armstrong as himself
 Charlie Barnet as himself
 Lionel Hampton as himself
 Mel Powell as himself
 Louis Bellson as himself
 Buck and Bubbles
 Buck Washington as Buck
 John William Sublett as Bubbles
 The Page Cavanaugh Trio as Themselves
 The Golden Gate Quartet as Themselves
 Russo and the Samba Kings as Themselves
 Hugh Herbert as Professor Twingle
 Steve Cochran as Tony Crow
 J. Edward Bromberg as Dr. Elfini
 Felix Bressart as Professor Gerkikoff
 Ludwig Stossel as Professor Traumer
 O.Z. Whitehead as Professor Oddly
 Esther Dale as Miss Bragg
 Mary Field as Miss Totten
 Howland Chamberlin as Mr. Setter
 Paul Langton as Joe
 Sidney Blackmer as Adams
 Ben Welden as Monte
 Ben Chasen as Ben
 Peter Virgo as Louis

Music
 "A Song is Born"
 "Daddy-O"
 Sung by Virginia Mayo (dubbed) and performed by Jeri Sullavan
 Words and music by Don Raye and Gene De Paul
 Orchestration by Sonny Burke
 Musical direction by Emil Newman and Hugo Friedhofer

Production
Kaye's personal writer/composer, Sylvia Fine, who also happened to be Kaye's wife, refused to take part in any more of his projects because Kaye had recently left her for actress Eve Arden. Kaye didn't want anyone else writing songs for him, so he did not perform any songs in the film.

Hawks had little interest in remaking his own earlier movie, and only came to work on it because of the $250,000 paycheck. When speaking of the film, he said "Danny Kaye had separated from his wife, and he was a basket case, stopping work to see a psychiatrist [every] day. He was about as funny as a crutch. I never thought anything in that picture was funny. It was an altogether horrible experience...and Virginia Mayo's performance was 'pathetic'... she's not Barbara Stanwyck, I'll tell you that."

Release
A Song Is Born was the number one film in the country from the time of its release until November 1948, while Hawks's other (and in his opinion, best) film, Red River, was second. However, A Song Is Born never broke even, only earning about $2.2 million (equivalent to $  million in ), while Red River went on to gross $4.1 million.  It has since been released on home video in both VHS and DVD formats.

References

External links

A Song is Born at TCM

1948 musical films
1948 films
Films directed by Howard Hawks
Films set in New York City
Musical film remakes
Samuel Goldwyn Productions films
Jazz films
Films with screenplays by Billy Wilder
American musical films
1940s English-language films
1940s American films
English-language musical films

A Song Is Born


AB Stumbras is the oldest and largest producer of strong alcoholic drinks in Kaunas, Lithuania. The company began operations in 1906. It is also the largest exporter of strong alcoholic beverages and one of the biggest taxpayers in Lithuania. The company's most famous brands include "Lithuanian vodka" (vodka), "999" (bitter), "Gloria" (brandy), "Stumbro Starka" (bitter), "Krupnikas" (liqueur) and "Poema" (liqueur). The company name translates as Wisent.

History

Tsarist Russia
The origins of "Stumbras" lie in an 1894 law on monopolizing alcohol production by state-owned enterprises in the Russian Empire. The law was expected to increase budget revenues and to improve the quality of produced vodka. The government of Kaunas acquired a suitable plot of land in 1903 for a high price of 52,200 Russian rubles. The buildings were finished and production started at the end of 1906. The official name of the company was "Kazionyj Nr.1 vinyj očistnyj sklad" (State wine warehouse No. 1). The city's name was later included in the title. The site included an electric power station, charcoal burner (for filtration purposes), canalisation, evaporation heating, three-dimensional water supply system, six artesian wells, and a rail connection.

German rule
The company was enlarged and modernised several times until 1914. During World War I, Lithuania was occupied by Germany and production of strong alcohol was forbidden. The main building was converted into a public bathhouse.

Between the wars
After the war, when Lithuania regained its independence, the cisterns were used by the Lithuanian state to store its spirits reserves and by the electric power station to store oil and kerosene. The warehouse belonged to the war commissariat. Gradually the idea of rebuilding the factory gained ground. Around 1921–1922, the company received large investments for rebuilding and modernisation. The production of strong alcoholic drinks was still a monopoly, generating considerable income for the national budget.

Soviet rule
Lithuania was occupied by the Soviets at the beginning of World War II and again from 1944. All factories and other businesses were nationalised. The factory continued to operate. In 1948, the Soviets decided to merge the Stumbras factory with the M. Velykis liquor factory, thus creating the largest alcohol producer in the Lithuanian SSR. In 1975, three local spirit producers in Atanavas, Balbieriškis and Šilutė were merged into the company and it became known as "Stumbras".

Independent Lithuania and privatisation
Stumbras was a state-owned company until 2003. UAB "Mineraliniai vandenys", a subsidiary of holding company MG Baltic, as of December 2008, owned 94.9% of the company's shares. After the privatisation, the company underwent management and organisational reforms, including the spinning off of the bioethanol plant in Šilutė. In 2006 and 2007, the company introduced several new vodka and brandy products. Increasing sales of these new products and growing exports resulted in significant growth in sales volume (47.3% in 2007) and net profits (51.4% in 2007). However, 2008, saw decreases in sales and profits with the share price dropping from near 14 litas at the end of 2007 to around 4 litas at the beginning of 2009.

In spring 2010, Stumbras started a project with the Lithuanian Institute of History to commemorate the 600th anniversary of Battle of Grunwald. The aim of the project is to create the biggest mock up model of the battle, which will be 20 sq. meters.

Brands
Stumbras produces a variety of drinks, including vodka, brandy, bitters and liqueurs.

Awards

 "Prodexpo 2010" (Moscow, Russia) – bitter "999" was named "Prodexpo Star", "Lithuanian vodka" Gold received gold medal award
 "Wine & Spirits WSWA 2010" (Las Vegas, United States) – "Lithuanian vodka" Gold received silver medal award
 "Drinks International Vodka Challenge 2009" (United Kingdom)  – "Lithuanian vodka" received silver medal award
 "Prodexpo 2008" (Moscow, Russia) – "Lithuanian vodka" Gold was named "Prodexpo Star"
 In 2007, liqueur "Krupnikas" and bitter "999" were included in the list of Lithuanian Culinary Heritage
 "Prodexpo 2007" (Moscow, Russia) – "Stumbro Šimtmečio" received gold medal award
 "San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2006" (San Francisco, USA) – bitter "999" received double gold medal award, "Lithuanian vodka" Original received gold medal award, "Lithuanian vodka" Gold received gold medal award
 "Beverage Testing Institute 2005" (Chicago, USA) – "Lithuanian vodka" Gold received gold medal award

Stumbras museum
At the end of 2009, the Stumbras museum was opened in Kaunas. In the museum visitors can learn about the history and cultural context of alcohol consumption and production of strong alcoholic beverages in Lithuania, and also the history of the Stumbras factory: the century-old buildings, document archive and photos.

References

External links
AB Stumbras homepage
Stumbras vodka drinks
Project "Žalgiriui 600" (Lithuanian language)

Food and drink companies established in 1906
Drink companies of Lithuania
Companies listed on Nasdaq Vilnius
Distilleries
Companies based in Kaunas
Lithuanian brands
Lithuanian distilled drinks
1906 establishments in Lithuania
Drink companies of the Soviet Union
Companies nationalised by the Soviet Union

Stumbras


Alan Phillips (born 17 June 1956) is a South African retired badminton and baseball player. He won the national badminton championship 27 times, more than any other player. Phillips also played for the South African national baseball team in the 2000 Summer Olympics. As of October 2012, Phillips serves as a baseball coach.

Career
Phillips won 27 national titles in badminton, competing in the South African Badminton Championships, the most of any player. He qualified for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona as the nation's second-ranked badminton player. However, the South African sports federation bypassed Phillips for the third-ranked player because they felt Phillips was too old. He represented South Africa in badminton in the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, British Columbia.

Though South Africa does not have a professional baseball league, Phillips played baseball for various local amateur teams as a relief pitcher, including the Clyde Pinelands and Bellville Tygers. He played for the South African national baseball team in the 1998 Baseball World Cup in Italy and in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. At 44, Phillips was the oldest baseball Olympian. Phillips coached the South African team in the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

Like many South African athletes, Phillips has a full-time job. He works as an electrical inspector.

Personal
Phillips' wife, Gussie, also plays badminton; the couple played mixed doubles in the 1994 Commonwealth Games. His sons, Anthony Phillips and Jonathan Phillips, who both played for South Africa in the 2009 World Baseball Classic, are both minor league baseball players.

References

External links

1956 births
Living people
South African baseball players
South African male badminton players
Baseball players at the 2000 Summer Olympics
Olympic baseball players for South Africa
Sportspeople from Cape Town
Badminton players at the 1994 Commonwealth Games
Commonwealth Games competitors for South Africa

Alan Phillips (baseball)


Julian Clarke (born September 3, 1977) is a Canadian film editor.  Clarke was born in Vancouver. He graduated from Kitsilano Secondary School before enrolling at the University of British Columbia as a film major.  After graduating from UBC in 2000, Clarke immediately began to find work as a professional film editor.  Clarke was nominated for a 2009 Academy Award for Best Film Editing, a BAFTA Award for Best Editing, an ACE Eddie Award for Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic), a Satellite Award for Best Editing, and an Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Editing for his work on the science-fiction film, District 9.

Filmography

References

External links

University of British Columbia alumni
Canadian film editors
Living people
1977 births

Julian Clarke


Cherry Lake is part of historical coastal wetlands in Altona, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The wetlands were converted to a lake with construction of retaining walls, levees and flow channels. The lake and surrounding reserve is an important wildlife habitat and popular recreational destination.

Flora and fauna
Cherry Lake and nearby Truganina Swamp are habitat for the native sedge, chaffy sawsedge (Gahnia filum). The sedgefields provide food and habitat for the endangered Altona skipper butterfly (Hesperilla flavescens flavescens).

The lake and associated salt marsh vegetation provides habitat for pelicans, black swans and purple swamphens.

Weed control is carried out on a regular basis, targeting spiny rush, serrated tussock and boxthorn.

Mosquito larvae numbers are monitored and a biological agent is occasionally utilised for control. Rabbit control is also undertaken.

Construction
The lake was created in the 1960s as a flood retention basin for residential expansion in Altona and Brooklyn. Prior to this, it was a motor racing circuit, constructed in 1954 at a cost of 35,000 pounds.

Levees were constructed on the south and east side of the lake with a spillway and channel which discharges excess water to Port Phillip Bay. These help to maintain a relatively constant water level of around one metre in depth. An additional higher levee bank was constructed to prevent floodwaters from Kororoit Creek sweeping across the lake toward residential areas.

Recreational and community use

The lake attracts boats, windsurfers and anglers. Water birds can be viewed from a bird hide.

A 3.7-kilometre-long shared walking and bicycle path encircles the lake, connected to the Hobsons Bay Coastal Trail. Other facilities in the reserve include a playground, picnic shelter, barbecue, seating, toilets and car park which is accessed from Millers Road.
The Altona Lions Club hold an outdoor market on the first Sunday of every month (and the third Sunday in December) on the Millers Road side of the park.

Motor racing
Originally just a swamp, the Victorian Sporting Car Club built a 2.3-mile circuit in 1953–54. This circuit was known as the Altona Circuit. Unfortunately for the club, the swamp soon became a lake, with the circuit being completely covered by water during winter in 1955. It was used just once more in 1956 before closing for good.

After the closure of the Albert Park Circuit in 1958, it was proposed that a new circuit and facilities be built on the Cherry Lake site for the 1964 Australian Grand Prix, to be called Altona Park, but ultimately the facility was built in Sandown instead.

References

External links

Beautiful Altona
Picturesque Altona
Hobsons Bay Community Online Forum
Attractions of Altona Map
Facebook Page on Events & Activities in Altona
"Friends of Cherry Lake"

Lakes of Melbourne
Melbourne Water catchment
Rivers of Greater Melbourne (region)
Parks in Melbourne
City of Hobsons Bay

Cherry Lake (Victoria)


The Glenn Miller Story is a 1954 soundtrack album released on Decca Records with songs from The Glenn Miller Story, the film biography of Glenn Miller, starring James Stewart and June Allyson. The collection had eight songs from the film recorded under the direction of Joseph Gershenson.

An album of Glenn Miller's own recordings of those heard in the film was issued by RCA Victor as LPT-3057.

Reception
The 1954 10-inch album The Glenn Miller Story movie soundtrack LP, Decca Records DL 5519, spent 10 weeks at number one in the US on the Billboard albums chart in 1954. It was recorded by the Universal-International studio orchestra, conducted by Joseph Gershenson. A 1956 version was of the collection was a 33 1/3 RPM vinyl LP album with James Stewart and June Allyson on the cover as Glenn and Helen Miller respectively. This collection consisted of new studio recordings of the songs by an orchestra under the direction of Joseph Gershenson.

The album was re-released by Decca in an expanded stereo version in 1956 as DL78226 with two additional songs by Louis Armstrong and the All Stars,  "Basin Street Blues" and "Otchi-Tchor-Ni-Ya" or "Dark Eyes".

Track listing
Side 1
"Moonlight Serenade" - (Glenn Miller)
"Tuxedo Junction" - (Erskine Hawkins, Bill Johnson, Julian Dash)
"Little Brown Jug" - (Traditional, Arranged by Billy Finegan)
"St. Louis Blues-March" - (W.C. Handy)

Side 2
"In The Mood" - (Joe Garland)
"A String of Pearls" - (Eddie DeLange, Jerry Gray)
"Pennsylvania 6-5000" - (Carl Sigman, Jerry Gray)
"American Patrol" - (Frank White Meacham, Arranged by Jerry Gray)

The 1956 expanded stereo re-release had two additional songs by Louis Armstrong and the All Stars:

"Basin Street Blues" - (Spencer Williams) - Louis Armstrong and the All Stars
"Otchi-Tchor-Ni-Ya" - (Russian Folk Song, Yevhen Hrebinka, Florian Hermann) - Louis Armstrong and the All Stars

Personnel
The Universal-International Orchestra consisted of:
Double Bass – Rollie Bundock #
Clarinet – Willie Schwartz #
Drums – Ralph Collier
Guitar – Dick Fisher
Saxophone – Art Smith, Babe Russin #, Blake Reynolds, Karl Leaf, Lyman Gandee
Trombone – Joe Yukl, John Stanley, Murray McEachern, Paul Tanner #
Trumpet – Conrad Gozzo, Gene LaFreniere, Ray Linn, and Zeke Zarchy #
Conductor was Joseph Gershenson.
"#" indicates a former member of the civilian and/or AAF Glenn Miller bands

The selections were recorded on December 1, 1953.

The All Star Band consisted of:
Double Bass – Arvell Shaw
Clarinet – Barney Bigard
Drums – Kenny John
Piano – Billy Kyle
Tenor saxophone – Bud Freeman
Trombone – Trummie Young
Trumpet – Louis Armstrong

the former Glenn Miller Orchestra pianist Chummy MacGregor and Miller's manager Don Haynes were advisors on the production.

See also
Glenn Miller Plays Selections From the Film "The Glenn Miller Story" – United States compilation of original recordings by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra
The Glenn Miller Story (album) – United Kingdom compilation of original recordings by the Glenn Miller Band

References

Sources
Simon, George Thomas (1980). Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. New York: Da Capo paperback. .
Simon, George Thomas (1971). Simon Says. New York: Galahad. .
Schuller, Gunther (1991). The Swing Era:the Development of Jazz, Volume 2. 1930–1945. New York: Oxford University Press. .

Glenn Miller albums
1954 soundtrack albums
Decca Records soundtracks
Jazz soundtracks

The Glenn Miller Story (soundtrack)


Roy Edward Disney KCSG (January 10, 1930 – December 16, 2009) was an American businessman. He was the longtime senior executive for the Walt Disney Company, which was founded by his uncle, Walt Disney, and his father, Roy O. Disney. At the time of his death, he held more than 16 million shares (about 1% of the company), and served as a consultant for the company, as director emeritus for the board of directors. During his tenure, he organized the ousting of two top Disney executives: Ron W. Miller in 1984 and Michael Eisner in 2005.

As the last member of the Disney family to be actively involved in the company, Disney was often compared to his uncle and to his father. In 2006, Forbes magazine estimated his personal fortune at $1.2 billion.

Disney was also a celebrated yachtsman, a member of the San Diego Yacht Club best known for his success in the Transpacific Yacht Race and winning the Newport Bermuda Race. Disney died from stomach cancer on December 16, 2009.

Early life and career

Disney was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Edna ( Francis; 1890–1984) and Roy O. Disney (1893–1971), the brother of Walt Disney. He graduated from Pomona College in 1951 and first began working for Walt Disney Productions as an assistant director and producer (True-Life Adventure). He continued until 1967, when he was elected to the company's board of directors.

Career

First "Save Disney" campaign (1984)
Disney resigned as an executive from Walt Disney Productions in 1977 over disagreements with corporate decisions. He later said, "I just felt creatively the company was not going anywhere interesting. It was very stifling."

Disney retained a seat on the board of directors until 1984, when he resigned in the midst of a corporate takeover battle. This began a series of events that ultimately led to the replacement of Ron Miller (husband of Walt's daughter Diane Marie Disney) by Frank Wells and Michael Eisner as president and CEO, respectively. While investors were attempting the hostile takeover of Disney with the intention of dismantling the company and selling off its assets, Disney and his attorney and financial advisor Stanley Gold organized a consortium of white knight investors to fend off the takeover attempts. With the introduction of Wells and Eisner, Roy returned to the company as vice chairman and chairman of the animation department, which became Walt Disney Feature Animation.

Partnership with Eisner

During the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, Disney's department produced a number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed films, an era which has been called the "Disney Renaissance". The Lion King, for instance, garnered nearly $1 billion following its release in the summer of 1994 and was the second-highest-grossing film of the year. Despite this, Disney experienced a marked decline in profits beginning in the late 1990s as it expanded into lower-grossing, though still profitable direct-to-video spin-offs and sequels.

Disney was concerned about Jeffrey Katzenberg taking too much credit for the success of Disney's early 1990s releases. When Frank Wells died in a helicopter crash in 1994, Michael Eisner refused to promote Katzenberg to the vacated position of president. Eisner recalled, "Roy [Walt Disney's nephew and a force on Disney's board who Eisner says "could be a troublemaker"], who did not like him at all — I forget the reason, but Jeffrey probably did not treat him the way that Roy would have wanted to be treated — said to me, 'If you make him the president, I will start a proxy fight.'" Tensions between Katzenberg, Eisner and Disney resulted in Katzenberg's resignation from the company that October. Katzenberg launched a lawsuit against Disney to recover money he felt he was owed and settled out of court for an estimated $250 million.

On October 16, 1998, in a surprise presentation made at the newly unveiled Disney Legends Plaza at the company's headquarters, Eisner presented Disney with the Disney Legends Award. Disney's pet project was the film Fantasia 2000, a sequel to his uncle's 1940 animated movie Fantasia. Walt Disney had planned a sequel to the original movie, but it was not finally released until December 17, 1999, after nine years of production under Disney. Like its predecessor, the film combined high-quality contemporary animation and classical music, but also suffered at the US box office.

Second "Save Disney" campaign (2003–2005)
After relations with Eisner began to sour, Disney's influence began to wane as important executive posts were filled by those friendly to Eisner. When the board of directors rejected Disney's request for an extension of his term as a member, he announced his resignation on November 30, 2003, citing "serious differences of opinion about the direction and style of management" in the company. He issued a letter criticizing Eisner's alleged mismanagement, neglect of the studio's animation division, failures with ABC, timidity in the theme-park business, corporate mentality in the executive structure turning the Walt Disney Company into a "rapacious, soul-less" conglomerate, and refusal to establish a clear succession plan.

After his resignation, Disney helped establish the website SaveDisney.com, intended to oust Michael Eisner and his supporters from their positions and revamp the Walt Disney Company. On March 3, 2004, at the company's annual shareholders' meeting, a surprising 43% of shareholders, predominantly rallied by Disney and fellow former board member Stanley Gold, voted to oppose the re-election of Eisner to the corporate board of directors. This vigorous opposition, unusual in major public corporations, persuaded the board to replace Eisner as chairman with George J. Mitchell; he did, however, remain as chief executive. This "Save Disney" campaign regarded Mitchell himself unfavorably, and in the same election, 25% of shareholders opposed Mitchell's re-election to the board.

As criticism of Eisner intensified in the wake of the shareholder meeting, his position became increasingly tenuous, culminating on March 13, 2005, with the announcement of Eisner's resignation as CEO effective September 30, one year before his contract would expire. On July 8, Roy and the Walt Disney Company agreed to "put aside their differences." Roy rejoined the board as a nonvoting director emeritus and consultant. Roy and Gold consequently shut down their SaveDisney.com website effective August 7 that year.

As announced, on September 30, Eisner resigned as both chief executive and a member of the board. Severing all formal ties with the company, he waived his contractual rights to perks such as use of a corporate jet, a Gold Pass, and an office at the company's Burbank headquarters. Bob Iger, Eisner's long-time lieutenant who had been effectively running the company, now assumed the title of CEO. One of Roy Disney's stated reasons for engineering his second "Save Disney" initiative had been Eisner's well-publicized disputes with long-time production partner Pixar Animation Studios and its CEO Steve Jobs, with whom Disney had produced such computer-animated hits as Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo, which were critically acclaimed and financially successful for both partners. Iger quickly repaired the estrangement, and on January 24, 2006, the company announced the acquisition of Pixar in an all-stock deal worth $7.4 billion. This deal made Jobs, best known as co-founder and CEO of Apple, Inc, Disney's largest shareholder with 7% of all outstanding shares and gave him a new seat on Disney's board of directors. Eisner, who retained 1.7% of shares, became Disney's second-largest shareholder, followed by Roy Disney, with 1% of shares. Disney's second "Save Disney" campaign against Eisner was chronicled by James B. Stewart in his best-selling book DisneyWar.

Other work
 Disney was a trustee of the California Institute of the Arts, another institution founded by his uncle Walt.
 He appeared as himself in a voice cameo in an episode of the animated show Mickey Mouse Works (later shown on House of Mouse) in which Mickey accidentally sent him an angry fax meant for Mortimer Mouse.
 In 1998, he executive produced The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, written by Ray Bradbury and directed by Stuart Gordon.
 Shamrock Holdings, which Disney owned and Stanley Gold ran as CEO, is an investment company which managed Disney's personal investments.

Personal life
Disney held several sailing speed records, including the Los Angeles to Honolulu monohull time record. He set it on his boat Pyewacket in July 1999 (7 days, 11 hours, 41 minutes, 27 seconds).

On January 19, 2007, after beginning a relationship with Leslie DeMeuse, Disney (then 77 years old) filed for divorce from his wife, Patricia (then 72), citing "irreconcilable differences", according to court documents. The couple, married 52 years, had been living apart, according to the Los Angeles County Superior Court filing. They had four adult children, Abigail Disney, Susan Disney Lord, Tim Disney (a documentary film producer), and Roy Patrick Disney (step-father of Charlee Corra).

In 2008, Disney married DeMeuse, a CSTV producer, and Emmy winner of various sailing documentaries.

Death

Disney died of stomach cancer on December 16, 2009, 43 years to the day after his uncle died and 25 days before his 80th birthday, at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, California. He was 79 years old, and had been battling the disease for over a year. He was cremated after his funeral service, and his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean.

Honors
On January 4, 1998, Pope John Paul II made Disney a Knight Commander of the Pontifical Order of St. Gregory the Great.

On January 1, 2000, Disney participated as the grand marshal of the 111th Rose Parade.

On April 26, 2008, Disney received an honorary doctorate from the California Maritime Academy "for his many contributions to the state and the nation, including international sailing."

The animation studio building at the Walt Disney Studios, in Burbank, California, was rededicated as the "Roy E. Disney Animation Building" on May 7, 2010.

See also

 Walt Disney (2015 PBS film)

References

External links

 Roy E Disney - Daily Telegraph obituary

1930 births
2009 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesspeople
California Republicans
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from stomach cancer
Pomona College alumni
Disney executives
Knights Commander of the Order of St Gregory the Great
Roy E.
Directors of The Walt Disney Company

Roy E. Disney


Anton is a 2008 Irish action thriller film directed by Graham Cantwell. It stars Anthony Fox as Anton, a man drawn into the troubles along the Northern Ireland Border in 1972. The film also features Gerard McSorley, Laura Way, Vincent Fegan, Andy Smith and Ronan Wilmot.

The film was written for the screen by Anthony Fox. Anton was produced by Patrick Clarke and Anthony Fox. EastWest Film Distribution  and High Fliers Films released the film to theatres in Ireland and the UK on 8 October 2008. Anton was released in territories outside of Ireland under the title, Trapped. The film was nominated for 3 Irish Film Awards in 2009.  The theme song, One was written and performed by Greg Pearle, John Illsley and Paul Brady.

Plot
When Anton O'Neill returns home after five years at sea, he finds that 1970's Ireland is a radically different place to the one he left behind. Northern Ireland is in flames, and civil unrest has spilled south of the border to his beloved home in County Cavan. Anton's attempts to create a life for himself and his young family are violently interrupted when his experience with explosives attracts the attention of dangerous subversives. Drawn into this illicit world against the wishes of his family, he is forced to choose between the woman he loves and the justice he believes in, all the while trying to stay one step ahead of Lynch, a corrupt detective hell bent on framing him. Falsely imprisoned, he engineers his escape and flees to Paris, but when he returns to salvage his original dream, the scene is set for a final confrontation with his former comrades

Cast
 Gerard McSorley as Detective Lynch
 Anthony Fox as Anton
 Laura Way as Maria
 Ronan Wilmott as Johnny
 Andy Smith as Brendan
 Cillian Roche as Edward
 Vincent Fegan as Diarmuid
 Griet Van Damme as Sophie
 Rachel Rath as Detective Byrne
 Richard Wall as Detective Thornton
 Rory Mullen as Detective Flynn
 Sean Stewart as Steven
 Patrick Clarke as Barrister Macken
 Emmett J. Scanlan as Prison Officer McMahon

References

External links

2008 films
2008 action thriller films
Irish action thriller films
2000s English-language films
English-language Irish films

Anton (2008 film)


Aluminium oxide (or aluminium(III) oxide) is a chemical compound of aluminium and oxygen with the chemical formula . It is the most commonly occurring of several aluminium oxides, and specifically identified as aluminium oxide. It is commonly called alumina and may also be called aloxide, aloxite, or alundum in various forms and applications. It occurs naturally in its crystalline polymorphic phase α-Al2O3 as the mineral corundum, varieties of which form the precious gemstones ruby and sapphire.  Al2O3 is significant in its use to produce aluminium metal, as an abrasive owing to its hardness, and as a refractory material owing to its high melting point.

Natural occurrence
Corundum is the most common naturally occurring crystalline form of aluminium oxide. Rubies and sapphires are gem-quality forms of corundum, which owe their characteristic colours to trace impurities. Rubies are given their characteristic deep red colour and their laser qualities by traces of chromium. Sapphires come in different colours given by various other impurities, such as iron and titanium. An extremely rare δ form occurs as the mineral deltalumite.

Properties

Al2O3 is an electrical insulator but has a relatively high thermal conductivity () for a ceramic material. Aluminium oxide is insoluble in water. In its most commonly occurring crystalline form, called corundum or α-aluminium oxide, its hardness makes it suitable for use as an abrasive and as a component in cutting tools.

Aluminium oxide is responsible for the resistance of metallic aluminium to weathering. Metallic aluminium is very reactive with atmospheric oxygen, and a thin passivation layer of aluminium oxide (4 nm thickness) forms on any exposed aluminium surface  in a matter of hundreds of picoseconds. This layer protects the metal from further oxidation. The thickness and properties of this oxide layer can be enhanced using a process called anodising. A number of alloys, such as aluminium bronzes, exploit this property by including a proportion of aluminium in the alloy to enhance corrosion resistance. The aluminium oxide generated by anodising is typically amorphous, but discharge assisted oxidation processes such as plasma electrolytic oxidation result in a significant proportion of crystalline aluminium oxide in the coating, enhancing its hardness.

Aluminium oxide was taken off the United States Environmental Protection Agency's chemicals lists in 1988. Aluminium oxide is on the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory list if it is a fibrous form.

Amphoteric nature
Aluminium oxide is an amphoteric substance, meaning it can react with both acids and bases, such as hydrofluoric acid and sodium hydroxide, acting as an acid with a base and a base with an acid, neutralising the other and producing a salt.
Al2O3 + 6 HF → 2 AlF3 + 3 H2O
Al2O3 + 2 NaOH + 3 H2O → 2 NaAl(OH)4 (sodium aluminate)

Structure

The most common form of crystalline aluminium oxide is known as corundum, which is the thermodynamically stable form. The oxygen ions form a nearly hexagonal close-packed structure with the aluminium ions filling two-thirds of the octahedral interstices. Each Al3+ center is octahedral. In terms of its crystallography, corundum adopts a trigonal Bravais lattice with a space group of Rc (number 167 in the International Tables). The primitive cell contains two formula units of aluminium oxide.

Aluminium oxide also exists in other metastable phases, including the cubic γ and η phases, the monoclinic θ phase, the hexagonal χ phase, the orthorhombic κ phase and the δ phase that can be tetragonal or orthorhombic. Each has a unique crystal structure and properties.  Cubic γ-Al2O3 has important technical applications. The so-called β-Al2O3 proved to be NaAl11O17.

Molten aluminium oxide near the melting temperature is roughly 2/3 tetrahedral (i.e. 2/3 of the Al are surrounded by 4 oxygen neighbors), and 1/3 5-coordinated, with very little (<5%) octahedral Al-O present. Around 80% of the oxygen atoms are shared among three or more Al-O polyhedra, and the majority of inter-polyhedral connections are corner-sharing, with the remaining 10–20% being edge-sharing. The breakdown of octahedra upon melting is accompanied by a relatively large volume increase (~33%), the density of the liquid close to its melting point is 2.93 g/cm3. The structure of molten alumina is temperature dependent and the fraction of 5- and 6-fold aluminium increases during cooling (and supercooling), at the expense of tetrahedral AlO4 units, approaching the local structural arrangements found in amorphous alumina.

Production

Aluminium hydroxide minerals are the main component of bauxite, the principal ore of aluminium. A mixture of the minerals comprise bauxite ore, including gibbsite (Al(OH)3), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)), and diaspore (α-AlO(OH)), along with impurities of iron oxides and hydroxides, quartz and clay minerals. Bauxites are found in laterites. Bauxite is typically purified using the Bayer process:

 Al2O3 + H2O + NaOH → NaAl(OH)4
 Al(OH)3 + NaOH → NaAl(OH)4

Except for SiO2, the other components of bauxite do not dissolve in base. Upon filtering the basic mixture, Fe2O3 is removed. When the Bayer liquor is cooled, Al(OH)3 precipitates, leaving the silicates in solution.

 NaAl(OH)4 → NaOH + Al(OH)3

The solid  Al(OH)3 Gibbsite is then calcined (heated to over 1100 °C) to give aluminium oxide:

 2 Al(OH)3 → Al2O3 + 3 H2O

The product aluminium oxide tends to be multi-phase, i.e., consisting of several phases of aluminium oxide rather than solely corundum. The production process can therefore be optimized to produce a tailored product. The type of phases present affects, for example, the solubility and pore structure of the aluminium oxide product which, in turn, affects the cost of aluminium production and pollution control.

Applications
Known as alpha alumina in materials science, and as alundum (in fused form) or aloxite in mining and ceramic communities, aluminium oxide finds wide use. Annual global production of aluminium oxide in 2015 was approximately 115 million tonnes, over 90% of which was used in the manufacture of aluminium metal. The major uses of speciality aluminium oxides are in refractories, ceramics, polishing and abrasive applications. Large tonnages of aluminium hydroxide, from which alumina is derived, are used in the manufacture of zeolites, coating titania pigments, and as a fire retardant/smoke suppressant.

Over 90% of aluminium oxide, termed smelter grade alumina (SGA), is consumed for the production of aluminium, usually by the Hall–Héroult process. The remainder, termed specialty alumina, is used in a wide variety of applications which take advantage of its inertness, temperature resistance and electrical resistance.

Fillers
Being fairly chemically inert and white, aluminium oxide is a favored filler for plastics. Aluminium oxide is a common ingredient in sunscreen and is often also present in cosmetics such as blush, lipstick, and nail polish.

Glass
Many formulations of glass have aluminium oxide as an ingredient. Aluminosilicate glass is a commonly used type of glass that often contains 5% to 10% alumina.

Catalysis
Aluminium oxide catalyses a variety of reactions that are useful industrially. In its largest scale application, aluminium oxide is the catalyst in the Claus process for converting hydrogen sulfide waste gases into elemental sulfur in refineries. It is also useful for dehydration of alcohols to alkenes.

Aluminium oxide serves as a catalyst support for many industrial catalysts, such as those used in hydrodesulfurization and some Ziegler–Natta polymerizations.

Gas purification
Aluminium oxide is widely used to remove water from gas streams.

Abrasive
Aluminium oxide is used for its hardness and strength. Its naturally occurring form, corundum, is a 9 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness (just below diamond). It is widely used as an abrasive, including as a much less expensive substitute for industrial diamond. Many types of sandpaper use aluminium oxide crystals. In addition, its low heat retention and low specific heat make it widely used in grinding operations, particularly cutoff tools. As the powdery abrasive mineral aloxite, it is a major component, along with silica, of the cue tip "chalk" used in billiards. Aluminium oxide powder is used in some CD/DVD polishing and scratch-repair kits. Its polishing qualities are also behind its use in toothpaste.  It is also used in microdermabrasion, both in the machine process available through dermatologists and estheticians, and as a manual dermal abrasive used according to manufacturer directions.

Paint

Aluminium oxide flakes are used in paint for reflective decorative effects, such as in the automotive or cosmetic industries.

Composite fiber
Aluminium oxide has been used in a few experimental and commercial fiber materials for high-performance applications (e.g., Fiber FP, Nextel 610, Nextel 720).  Alumina nanofibers in particular have become a research field of interest.

Armor
Some body armors utilize alumina ceramic plates, usually in combination with aramid or UHMWPE backing to achieve effectiveness against most rifle threats. Alumina ceramic armor is readily available to most civilians in jurisdictions where it is legal, but is not considered military grade. It is also used to produce bullet-proof alumina glass capable to withstand impact of .50 BMG calibre rounds.

Abrasion protection
Aluminium oxide can be grown as a coating on aluminium by anodizing or by plasma electrolytic oxidation (see the "Properties" above). Both the hardness and abrasion-resistant characteristics of the coating originate from the high strength of aluminium oxide, yet the porous coating layer produced with conventional direct current anodizing procedures is within a 60–70 Rockwell hardness C range which is comparable only to hardened carbon steel alloys, but considerably inferior to the hardness of natural and synthetic corundum. Instead, with plasma electrolytic oxidation, the coating is porous only on the surface oxide layer while the lower oxide layers are much more compact than with standard DC anodizing procedures and present a higher crystallinity due to the oxide layers being remelted and densified to obtain α-Al2O3 clusters with much higher coating hardness values circa 2000 Vickers hardness.

Alumina is used to manufacture tiles which are attached inside pulverized fuel lines and flue gas ducting on coal fired power stations to protect high wear areas. They are not suitable for areas with high impact forces as these tiles are brittle and susceptible to breakage.

Electrical insulation
Aluminium oxide is an electrical insulator used as a substrate (silicon on sapphire) for integrated circuits but also as a tunnel barrier for the fabrication of superconducting devices such as single-electron transistors, superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) and superconducting qubits.

For its application as an electrical insulator in integrated circuits, where the conformal growth of a thin film is a prerequisite and the preferred growth mode is atomic layer deposition, Al2O3 films can be prepared by the chemical exchange between trimethylaluminium (Al(CH3)3) and H2O:

2 Al(CH3)3 + 3 H2O → Al2O3 + 6 CH4

H2O in the above reaction can be replaced by ozone (O3) as the active oxidant and the following reaction then takes place:

2 Al(CH3)3 + O3 → Al2O3 + 3 C2H6

The Al2O3 films prepared using O3 show 10–100 times lower leakage current density compared with those prepared by H2O.

Aluminium oxide, being a dielectric with relatively large band gap, is used as an insulating barrier in capacitors.

Other
In lighting, translucent aluminium oxide is used in some sodium vapor lamps. Aluminium oxide is also used in preparation of coating suspensions in compact fluorescent lamps.

In chemistry laboratories, aluminium oxide is a medium for chromatography, available in basic (pH 9.5), acidic (pH 4.5 when in water) and neutral formulations.

Health and medical applications include it as a material in hip replacements and birth control pills.

It is used as a scintillator
and dosimeter for radiation protection and therapy applications for its optically stimulated luminescence properties.

Insulation for high-temperature furnaces is often manufactured from aluminium oxide.  Sometimes the insulation has varying percentages of silica depending on the temperature rating of the material.  The insulation can be made in blanket, board, brick and loose fiber forms for various application requirements.

Small pieces of aluminium oxide are often used as boiling chips in chemistry.

It is also used to make spark plug insulators.

Using a plasma spray process and mixed with titania, it is coated onto the braking surface of some bicycle rims to provide abrasion and wear resistance.

Most ceramic eyes on fishing rods are circular rings made from aluminium oxide.

In its finest powdered (white) form, called Diamantine, aluminium oxide is used as a superior polishing abrasive in watchmaking and clockmaking.

Aluminium oxide is also used in the coating of stanchions in the motorcross and mountainbike industry.
This coating is combined with molybdenumdisulfate to provide long term lubrication of the surface.

See also
 Aluminium oxide nanoparticle
 Bauxite tailings
 Beta-alumina solid electrolyte, a fast ion conductor
 Charged Aerosol Release Experiment (CARE)
 List of alumina refineries
 Micro-pulling-down
 Transparent alumina

References

External links

 CDC - NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards

Acid catalysts
Abrasives
Aluminium compounds
Amphoteric compounds
Biomaterials
Oxides
Refractory materials
Sesquioxides

Aluminium oxide


The jungle is a place in a rainforest where the forest floor is covered with plants. Like other rainy places, they have many rivers or streams. Scientists think that more types of animals and plants live in the jungles than everywhere else. When people talk about jungles, they sometimes mean the whole rainforest.

The crowding in a jungle leaves little room to walk.  This may make it dangerous to people.  However, it also has benefits.  The many plants and animals can provide food for foraging.

The Amazon rainforest is thick and dark jungle in many places in nine countries.  However, most of this forest is in Brazil, South America.

Forests
Biomes

Jungle


James Romberger (born 1958) is an American fine artist and cartoonist known for his depictions of New York City's Lower East Side.

Romberger's pastel drawings of the ravaged landscape of the Lower East Side and its citizens are in many public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museums in New York City. His solo and collaborative exhibitions have appeared at Ground Zero Gallery NY,  the Grace Borgenicht Gallery, Gracie Mansion, The Proposition, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art.

Romberger has long contributed work in the comics medium to alternative publications such as World War 3 Illustrated. Ground Zero, his science-fiction strip collaboration with his wife, filmmaker Marguerite Van Cook, was serialized through the 1980s and 1990s in various downtown literary magazines.

His efforts for commercial comics publishers include work for Marvel Comics's Epic Illustrated, Image Comics' NYC Mech, Paradox Press' Big Book series and Papercutz' Tales from the Crypt. DC/Vertigo published Romberger's work on The Bronx Kill with writer Peter Milligan, the Renegade storyline in Jamie Delano's 2020 Visions and the critically acclaimed Seven Miles A Second  Romberger and Van Cook's graphic novel done in collaboration with artist, writer, and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz which was reissued by Fantagraphics Books in February 2013. Romberger's book "Post York," which included a flexi-disc of a song by Crosby Romberger, was nominated for an Eisner Award in 2013 for Best Single Issue (or One-Shot).
In 2011, "Aaron and Ahmed," a collaboration with MacArthur Prize fellow Jay Cantor, was released by Vertigo/DC Comics.

Romberger is also a critic and writer for Publishers Weekly, The Beat and the comics blog the Hooded Utilitarian.

References

External links

American comics artists
Alternative cartoonists
1958 births
Living people
Artists from New York City
20th-century American artists
21st-century American artists

James Romberger


Faygate is a village in the Horsham district of West Sussex, England. It is on the A264 road. It is 3.4 miles (5.4 km) south west of Crawley. It has a railway station on the Arun Valley Line. The village is in the green belt between Crawley and Horsham.

The name Faygate was first recorded in 1614.

References

Villages in West Sussex

Faygate