The State Security Service (SSS), self-styled as the Department of State Services (DSS), is a security agency in Nigeria and one of three successor organisations to the National Security Organization (NSO). The agency is under the Presidency of Nigeria, and it reports its activities direct to the President, office of the ONSA, headquartered in Abuja.

Mandate
The mission of the SSS is to protect and defend the Federal Republic of Nigeria against domestic threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of Nigeria, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to both federal and state law-enforcement organs. The SSS is also charged with the protection of the President, Vice President, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, State Governors and Deputy Governors, their immediate families, other high ranking government officials, former presidents and their spouses, certain notable candidates for the offices of President, Vice President and Governors, and visiting foreign heads of state and government. The SSS has constantly adapted to various roles necessitated by evolving security threats in Nigeria including counter-terrorism and counter-insurgents.

Its main responsibilities are within the country and include counter-intelligence, medical intelligence, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives threat, economic intelligence, internal security, counter-terrorism, and surveillance as well as investigating some other types of serious crimes against the state. It is also charged with the protection of senior government officials, particularly the President, Vice President, state governors and visiting heads of states and governments with their respective families.

History

Fulfilling one of the promises made in his first national address as president, Ibrahim Babangida in June 1986 issued Decree Number 19, dissolving the National Security Organization (NSO) and re-structuring Nigeria's security services into three separate entities under the Office of the Co-ordinator of National Security.
The State Security Service (SSS) was made responsible for domestic intelligence, with Director General Ismaila Gwarzo and Deputy Director Lt. Col. A.K. Togun. The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) handled external intelligence and counterintelligence. The
Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) was responsible for military-related intelligence outside and inside Nigeria.
The first headquarters of the agency was located at 15, Awolowo road, Ikoyi in Lagos; this site currently houses the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The SSS headquarters was finally moved to Abuja during the regime of General Sani Abacha, the headquarters complex is informally known as the "Yellow House", it is located on the northern edge of the three-arms zone on Aso drive in Maitama, Abuja.

According to the 1998 Presidential Proclamation, the SSS operates as a department within the Ministry of Defence and its under the control of the National Security Adviser.

In an exclusive report on September 29, 2020, Peoples Gazette reported lengthy details exposing nepotism and favouritism in the recruitment of personnel of the State Security Service led by Bichi, the report became known as the "SSS recruitment scandal". The report cited many sources, including serving personnel of the agency, who gave figures of how the agency neglected the official procedures for recruitment to favour individuals from the local government area of the director-general and the Northern region of Nigeria against the Southern region. Leaders across the Southern and Middle Belt regions of Nigeria criticised the process and threatened to sue the State Security Service and the director-general for it.

Director-Generals of the SSS

Operations

Successes
The SSS has been reasonably successful in performing its primary internal security responsibility. The agency in its early day was credited with the arrest of the Egyptian bomber Omar Mohammed Ali Rezaq in 1993 while he was trying to enter Nigeria through the Nigeria–Benin border. Rezaq was wanted by the United States for leading the bombing of an EgyptAir plane for the Abu Nidal group in 1985 he was subsequently rendered to the United States after an official request was received from the State Department.

In October 2010, the SSS intercepted a large cache of arms and ammunition originating from Iran at the Apapa port in Lagos; this in spite of a UN arms embargo on Iran. The arms which included artillery rockets, shells and mortars were concealed in thirteen containers falsely declared as "building materials", it was alleged that Nigeria was being used as a transhipment destination while Gambia was the final destination for the arms.

The agency has also been reported to have infiltrated a number of religious extremist groups in the country including the Boko Haram sect. In September 2001, six Pakistani proselyters invited by the Lagos-based Tabliq, a Muslim NGO were arrested in Benue State on suspicion of immigration violations and they were subsequently deported on 18 November.

The SSS has also recorded some successes in combating kidnapping in Nigeria with the arrest of some kidnappers and the rescue of their victims. In October 2011, the agency rescued the Parish Priest of St Bernard's Catholic Church Eguaholo in Orhionmwon local government area of Edo state, Rev. Fr Sylvester Chukwura, from his kidnapper's hideout. The kidnappers were baited with the ransom sum and were subsequently ambushed by SSS operatives. In the same time frame, the SSS also arrested another kidnapper in Edo state known as Binebi Sibete, who was described as a notorious kidnapper and killer. Binebi was wanted amongst other things for killing an SSS operative in 2010 and also burning down the state government patrol boat at Gelegele.

Criticisms
The SSS has been criticised for allowing Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the "underpants bomber", to board Northwest airlines flight from Lagos despite his father having previously warned security officials of his sons radical views on America. In its defence, the SSS said it was not informed by Mr. Mutallab's father of his sons alleged radical beliefs, the agency said that Mutallab's father had actually spoken with officials at the United States Embassy in Abuja and also sought the help of a past Nigerian National Security Adviser. The SSS held that the American authorities did not share the information that Mr. Mutallab senior had given them and the former National Security Adviser had also not contacted the agency hence their inability to act on information they did not possess.

The agency was also criticized heavily in the wake of 26 August 2011 United Nations House bombing in Abuja. The Boko Haram sect which has ties to Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for the car bomb attack that left 24 people dead; the sect had been fighting Boko Haram insurgency that started as a result of their leader being killed by policemen after he had been arrested. The Nigerian public grew even more critical of the agency after newspapers ran stories in which they claimed that the agency had received intelligence about the bombing beforehand from the Americans. This news item later turned out to be false when it was revealed that it was the SSS who had actually received credible intelligence from sources within Boko Haram about an impending attack in Abuja. The intelligence pointed out key government buildings and ministries as targets, the agency subsequently raised the alert level in Abuja and also advised diplomatic missions and international organizations in the city to take adequate security precautions for their staff and premises. The final UN report on the incident indicted the UN resident Security adviser in Abuja and his deputy, they were accused of negligence considering the fact that they had been given "adequate intelligence on a possible suicide attack", yet they failed to implement suitable safeguards. Both men were subsequently relieved of their positions.

In early November 2011, the Nigerian press ran stories alleging that the United States government had issued a travel advisory on Nigeria. The travel advisory according to the papers included the threat of bomb attacks at major hotels in Abuja frequented by expatriates. The story immediately generated panic among the populace and accusations of incompetence made against the security agencies, the SSS inclusive. The story also alleged that the American ambassador had given a statement explaining that the US had given the warning directly because the Nigerian security agencies had failed to act on previous intelligence shared with them. In the end, the situation was only brought under control when the National Security Adviser, Gen. Owoye Andrew Azazi demanded evidence that the Americans had indeed given such a warning or that the American Ambassador had actually said what had been attributed to him in the press. The story turned out to be false, the threat to hotels was actually an intelligence analysis of possible threats made by the SSS some months earlier which was circulated in government circles. The SSS had failed to manage information in a timely and proper fashion which had led to the public losing confidence in the organisation.

Casualties
The agency has lost a number of operatives in the line of duty, while fatalities are not generally publicised some cases do get a mention in the media. During Nigeria's 50th anniversary celebrations in Abuja on 1 October 2010, a car bomb killed an Assistant Director of the agency and Mr Tahir Zakari Biu an Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) operative while they were trying to remove abandoned vehicles from a roadside a few kilometres from the venue of the celebrations. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claimed responsibility for the attack. The SSS was able to trace the registration of the car used in the attack and subsequently arrested suspects in Lagos, the mastermind of the operation Mr. Henry Okah was arrested by the South African authorities and put on trial in South Africa on terrorism charges. On 13 April 2007 a Security Protection Officer (SPO) working in the close protection detail of Mr. Onyema Ugochukwu, the People's Democratic Party (PDP) 2007 governorship candidate for Abia state was shot in an assassination attempt on his principal. The bodyguard was shot in the head and in his hand. In 2013, a botched security operation in Nasarawa state in the middle belt region of the country to arrest the leader of the Ombatse cult group who many claim possesses super natural powers used in the maiming of other ethnic groups especially the Fulanis, left scores of security personnel dead including not less than six men of the SSS allegedly killed using occultic powers

In February 2013, the SSS broke up a terrorist cell led by Iranian handlers that was gathering intelligence for future attacks on American and Israeli targets in the country.

Weapons and equipment

As of 2010, the standard issue assault rifles used by SSS Combat Operatives/Security Protection Officers (S.P.O) are the IMI Tavor Tar-21 assault rifle produced by Israeli Military Industries and the FN P90 personal protection weapon, FN F2000 assault rifle, both manufactured by FN Herstal; these rifles replace the Uzi as the primary assault weapon of the SSS. Operatives also use various side arms and pistols from a number of manufacturers including Beretta, Glock, and Browning.

The agency has also deployed van mounted backscatter X-ray screeners from Basix Technologies for detecting Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) due to an upsurge in bombing incidents arising from a Boko Haram insurgency in the north east of Nigeria. In this counter terrorism role, the agency also uses mobile IED jammers for VIP protection in public spaces like stadiums and in a mobile configuration for use in convoys.

Due to the disproportionately large GSM mobile phone subscriber base in Nigeria and the use of cellphones as the principal means of communication by kidnappers and terrorists, the agency has had to develop telephone call intercept capability. IMSI number catchers and signal direction finders have been deployed for intercepting and tracking GSM and satellite phone communications.

The agency maintains a fleet of armoured limousines and SUVs that are used to ferry the President, Vice president and visiting dignitaries. Other vehicles mainly SUVs  produced by Ford Motor Company, Toyota and Lexus  are also used by the agency.

See also
 National Intelligence Agency (NIA) – Responsible for Foreign intelligence and counterintelligence operations
 Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) – Responsible for military intelligence.

References

Some material for this article was derived from the Nigeria Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1997, U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 30 January 1998.

External links
 Official site State Security Service (Nigeria)
 RSF/Reporters Without Borders Summary on State Security Service (SSS)
 Nigeria: NIA: 20 Years of Service
 Nigeria: The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) At Twenty - A Tribute

Law enforcement agencies of Nigeria
Government of Nigeria
Nigerian intelligence agencies
Emergency services in Nigeria
National security of Nigeria
Counterterrorism in Nigeria
1986 establishments in Nigeria
Government agencies established in 1986

State Security Service (Nigeria)


Rodney Earl Slater (born February 23, 1955) is an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as the United States Secretary of Transportation under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. Prior to being appointed to the Clinton Cabinet, Slater served as the administrator of the Federal Highway Administration from 1993 to 1997.

Education
Slater graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1977, and received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1980.

Early career
Slater became a research assistant to the State Judiciary Committee of the Arkansas Constitutional Convention in 1979–80, an assistant attorney general for the state of Arkansas in 1980. He was appointed to several state government positions in Arkansas by Bill Clinton. Positions included assistant to the governor between 1983 and 1987, and member of the Arkansas State Highway Commission between 1987 and 1993. Slater was also the director of governmental affairs for Arkansas State University during that time.

Appointment to federal positions

After Clinton was elected president, 1993 Slater became the first African-American Director of the Federal Highway Administration.

In 1997, Slater was appointed to be the Secretary of Transportation. He was the second African American to hold that post.

Projects
Slater was able to muster bipartisan support in congress for his projects including:
 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), making a record $200 billion investment in surface transportation.
 Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment Reform Act for the 21st Century (AIR-21), which provides a record $46 billion to provide safety and security of the nation's aviation system
Negotiated of 40 Open skies agreements with other countries

Private sector
Slater is part of a group of investors headed by Stan Kasten that successfully purchased the Major League Baseball team, the Washington Nationals.

Slater is a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Squire Patton Boggs, where he is head of the transportation practice and works on projects related to the transportation infrastructure. He is also a partner in James Lee Witt Associates, a risk management firm headed by former Federal Emergency Management Agency director James Lee Witt.

He serves on the board of directors of Africare, a nonprofit providing development aid to countries in Africa, and The Dance Theater of Harlem, and is the chair of the Board of Trustees of United Way. Slater also serves on the corporate board of Verizon. He served on the board of Northwest Airlines, continuing on with Delta Air Lines after their merger in 2008. He has been appointed to join the board of WS Atkins as a non-executive director effective 9 September 2011.

As of December 3, 2014 Slater was appointed to serve as special counsel to Takata Corporation in support of Takata's dealings on the 2013 airbag recall issues they are facing. They will advise the Company as they address the current challenges Takata faces. He also led a safety advisory panel for Toyota and served as independent monitor for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

See also
List of African-American United States Cabinet members

References

External links
Profile at Squire Patton Boggs

1955 births
20th-century American politicians
Administrators of the Federal Highway Administration
African-American members of the Cabinet of the United States
Arkansas lawyers
Arkansas State University faculty
Clinton administration cabinet members
Delta Air Lines people
Eastern Michigan University alumni
Lawyers from Washington, D.C.
Living people
People from Marianna, Arkansas
United States Secretaries of Transportation
University of Arkansas School of Law alumni
Verizon Communications people
Members of the Arkansas State Highway Commission
Clinton administration personnel
People associated with Squire Patton Boggs

Rodney E. Slater


Domingo Bordaberry Elizondo (1889–1952) was a Uruguayan lawyer and political figure.

Early career

Bordaberry was a lawyer by profession.

He became a farm manager and subsequently a landowner.

Senator

Bordaberry served as a Senator under the sponsorship of the Colorado Party (Uruguay); he was regarded as one of its more conservative members, and also acted as somewhat of a bridge to the Blanco Party, being strongly identified, with the Blanco Benito Nardone and others, with the defence of rural interests, and was particularly expert on livestock matters.

He was particularly linked with the 'Riverista' current of opinion within the Colorado Party (Uruguay), although his record for political cooperation reached much beyond that Party.

With Nardone, he was also heavily involved in the development of radio broadcasting for rural Uruguay, as co-owner of CX 4 Radio Rural.

Family background

Domingo Bordaberry was the son of Santiago Bordaberry Senior, a French national from the Northern Basque Country.

Domingo Bordaberry's son Juan María Bordaberry served with him in a prominent Ruralist organization and later became President of Uruguay in 1972.

A grandson, Pedro Bordaberry, was to serve as a minister in the government of Jorge Batlle.

Another grandson, Santiago Bordaberry, was to be prominent in Ruralist leadership.

Political heritage

Domingo Bordaberry may be said to have contributed to a distinct tendency within Uruguayan political culture in that he and his son Juan María Bordaberry, standing apart somewhat from the Montevideo-based political life, also succeeded by one means or another in garnering at least limited support from both of the formerly mutually antagonistic National (Blanco) and Colorado parties. (This antagonism may be understood in the context of the intermittent Civil War which occurred throughout much of the 19th century.) The wide personal political support commanded in recent years by his grandson Pedro Bordaberry, himself a former government minister, which reaches beyond the lately low poll percentages received by the formerly dominant Colorado Party (Uruguay), is thus arguably not beyond the context of an apparent capacity to unify support from diverse parts of the Uruguayan party spectrum inherited in some measure from Domingo Bordaberry. The relevance of this capacity for cooperation, particularly for the second round of the more recent Presidential elections, between the National and Colorado Parties, has been made more acute by the greatly increased electoral support in recent years for the Frente Amplio grouping.

See also

 Politics of Uruguay
 List of political families#Uruguay
 Colorado Party (Uruguay)#Post 2004: defeat at polls and rise of Pedro Bordaberry
 Pedro Bordaberry#Riverista resurgence
 Benito Nardone#Ruralist involvement with the Bordaberrys

References
 :es:Domingo Bordaberry

Uruguayan people of Basque descent
1889 births
1952 deaths
20th-century Uruguayan lawyers
Colorado Party (Uruguay) politicians
Members of the Senate of Uruguay
Uruguayan cattlemen

Domingo Bordaberry


David Lord Paterson (born 1966) is an American screenwriter, actor and producer. He is in heavy demand as a public speaker, serves on several film festival advisory boards (including the Savannah Film Festival and Big Apple Film Festival), and has had his films in over a hundred film festivals throughout the world. His studio releases have been seen by tens of millions throughout the world.

When Paterson was a boy, his best friend, an eight-year-old girl named Lisa Hill, was struck by lightning and killed.  His mother, author Katherine Paterson, used this real-life experience as the basis for her children's novel Bridge to Terabithia. David Paterson produced and co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of the novel released in 2007. The film was one of the highest-grossing films of 2007 and helped launch the careers of Josh Hutcherson, Anna Sophia Robb and Bailee Madison.

He graduated from The Catholic University of America in 1989 with a BA. Paterson held a special advance screening of Bridge to Terabithia on February 1, 2007, for members of the CUA community at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland. David and Lisa Hill grew up in the next town, Takoma Park, Md.

As a playwright Paterson has published over one dozen titles with Samuel French, Inc. He holds the record for being the only playwright ever to have three plays premiere on New York stages within one month.

In December 2012, Paterson ran a write-in campaign for Park District Commissioner of Manhasset, and won against the Incumbent. David was reelected on December 9, 2015, for another 3-year term.

In the Fall of 2016, his feature film, The Great Gilly Hopkins, based on another book written by his mother, opened in US theaters. The film starred Kathy Bates, Glenn Close, Octavia Spencer, Julia Stiles, Bill Cobbs, Sophie Nélisse, Billy Magnussen, and Toby Turner.

References

External links
Official homepage Retrieved 12 Feb 2007.

Election Results Retrieved January 6, 2013.

1966 births
Living people
American male screenwriters
Catholic University of America alumni
Date of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)
American male dramatists and playwrights
21st-century American dramatists and playwrights
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American screenwriters

David L. Paterson


The Battle of Lake Poyang () was a naval conflict which took place (30 August – 4 October 1363) between the rebel forces of Zhu Yuanzhang and Chen Youliang during the Red Turban Rebellion which led to the fall of the Yuan dynasty. Chen Youliang besieged Nanchang with a large fleet on Lake Poyang, one of China's largest freshwater lakes, and Zhu Yuanzhang met his force with a smaller fleet. After an inconclusive engagement exchanging fire, Zhu employed fire ships to burn the enemy tower ships and destroyed their fleet. This was the last major battle of the rebellion before the rise of the Ming dynasty.

Background
On 30 August 1363, the forces of Chen Han conducted a major amphibious assault on Nanchang but failed to take it due to the defenders' use of cannons and suffered significant losses. The town of Nanchang was strategically located to guard Lake Poyang, which connected the Yangzi with other river basins. During the early 1360s, Zhu Yuanzhang held key garrisons on the lake and administered them from Nanjing 560 kilometers downriver. In 1362, Chen Youliang used "tower ships" to transport his troops to Nanchang. They could not disembark on the city walls like they did at other cities because the wall was no longer on the shore. Chen personally led an assault on the city gates. They were repelled with a barrage of cannon fire and driven back. After this failure, Chen set up a blockade, determined to starve out the defenders, but a small fishing boat managed to slip out and reached Nanjing in time to warn Zhu Yuanzhang.

Battle

Zhu Yuanzhang's fleet arrived at Hukou on 24 August and relieved Nanchang on the 28th. Chen Youliang embarked his forces and sailed north into Lake Poyang. The two fleets met on 29 August. Zhu's forces numbered only a third the size of Chen's army. According to one Ming source, Zhu's forces arrived armed with "fire bombs, fire guns, fire arrows, fire seeds [probably grenades], large and small fire lances, large and small 'commander' fire-tubes, large and small iron bombs, rockets". This shows that older gunpowder weapons co-existed alongside guns, and proto-guns such as fire lances were not supplanted until after the early Ming. A new weapon called the "No Alternative" was also mentioned. The No Alternative was "made from a circular reed mat about five inches around and seven feet long that was pasted over with red paper and bound together with silk and hemp— stuffed inside it was gunpowder twisted in with bullets and all kinds of [subsidiary] gunpowder weapons". It was hung from a pole on the foremast, and when an enemy ship came into close range, the fuse was lit, and the weapon would supposedly fall onto the enemy ship, at which point things inside shot out "and burned everything to bits, with no hope of salvation".

On 30 August, Zhu deployed his fleet in 11 squadrons with orders to "get close to the enemy's ships and first set off gunpowder weapons (發火器), then bows and crossbows, and finally attack their ships with short-range weapons". Fire bombs were hurled using naval trebuchets, and Zhu's forces succeeded in "burning twenty or more enemy vessels and killing or drowning many enemy troops". Still, their flagship also caught fire and hit a sandbar. Chen's warships drove back the opposing line until they fell back to a shallow area where they could not be pursued. Zhu tried again to engage with Chen's fleet in ship-to-ship combat and was driven back once more with severe losses. The next day, the wind shifted toward Chen's forces, and Zhu sent burning ships into the opposing fleet, destroying several hundred vessels. While guns were used during the battle, ultimately, they were not pivotal to success, and the battle was won using incendiary weapons.

On 2 September, the two fleets engaged in battle again. Though still outnumbered, Zhu's forces were able to isolate and destroy larger enemy warships, forcing them to withdraw. Afterward, Zhu's fleet settled into a blockade for another month before Chen decided to attempt a breakout on 4 October. Zhu was ready with fire ships set adrift, scattering Chen's ships so that clusters of ships engaged in combat far from each other. Chen was killed when an arrow struck his head.

Aftermath
Chen Youliang was succeeded by his son, Chen Li, who surrendered to Zhu in 1364.

The Western Wu victory cemented their position as the leading rebel group. The Western Wu would overthrow the Yuan five years later and command China. Zhu Yuanzhang then became the first emperor of the Ming dynasty as the Hongwu Emperor.

See also
 Red Turban Rebellions
 Ming campaign against the Uriankhai
 Battle of Buir Lake

Notes

References

Further reading
 .
 Hok-lam Chan, 'The Rise of Ming T'ai-tsu (1368–98): Facts and Fictions in Early Ming Official Historiography', Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 95, No. 4 (Oct. – Dec., 1975), p. 703, quoting TTSL, 13/165, abbreviation for (Ming) T'ai-tsu shih-lu (1418), ed. Yao Kuang-hsiao (1335–1418) et al., 257 chüan. Academia Sinica, Taipei 1962. (1.1.1.).【陳,Ming T'aitsu refers to 明太祖】
 Dreyer, Edward L., 'The Poyang Campaign of 1363: Inland Naval Warfare in the Founding of the Ming Dynasty,' in Kierman, Frank A., and Fairbank, John K. (eds.), Chinese Ways in Warfare (Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press, 1974).
 Turnbull, Stephen, 'Fighting Ships of the Far East (1): China and Southeast Asia 202 BC – AD 1419.' (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002).

 Wakeman, Frederic, Jr., 'Voyages', American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 1 (Feb., 1993), pp. 1–17.

Wars involving Imperial China
Lake Poyang
Lake Poyang
Lake Poyang
Lake Poyang
1363 in Asia
14th century in China
Military history of Jiangxi
1363 in the Mongol Empire
Transition from Yuan to Ming

Battle of Lake Poyang


A Tribe Called Quest was an alternative hip hop group that started in 1985. They are perhaps most famous for their song "Can I Kick It?". The members are MC/producer Q-Tip, MC Phife Dawg aka Phife Diggy (Malik Taylor), and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. Jarobi White was a member until 1991. They have released six albums.

History
In 1985, A Tribe Called Quest started. They were signed to Jive Records in 1989. In 1990, their first album People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm was released. In 1991, the group's second album The Low End Theory was released, and is one of the best hip-hop albums of all-time. Midnight Marauders was released in 1993. It reached number eight in the American album chart. In 1996, Beats, Rhymes and Life was released. It reached number one in the American album chart. Rolling Stone magazine gave it a score of 4 out of 5 stars. In 1998, The Love Movement was released and the group broke up after. It reached number three in the American album chart. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album in 1999. In 2016, they returned to make their sixth and last album We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service.

Discography
People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990)
The Low End Theory (1991)
Midnight Marauders (1993)
Beats, Rhymes and Life (1996)
The Love Movement (1998)
We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service (2016)

Related pages
Lou Reed

References

1980s music groups
Hip hop bands

A Tribe Called Quest


Doynton is a village in South Gloucestershire, England. The population of this village taken at the 2011 census was 320.

Setting
Doynton is a village situated on the lower slopes of the Cotswolds, approximately two miles south-east of Pucklechurch. The River Boyd passes through the northern part of Doynton. The village is essentially linear in character with houses lining the four main roads into the village. Doynton lies within the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The village
Doynton has a pub called The Cross House, and a village hall. There is also a park and playing field. The village church is Holy Trinity Church which is noted for its herringbone masonry (around 12th century) on the south wall.

The historic core of Doynton was designated a conservation area in February 1983. The area of Doynton Mill and its immediate surroundings to the north of the village are not longer part of it as they are used for light industrial purposes. Doynton has a number of 17th or 18th century buildings, many of which are listed. These include Doynton House (grade II-listed), The Old Rectory (grade II-listed), The Old Brewery (grade II-listed) and Holy Trinity Church. Doynton has retained its village-like quality: indeed the tithe map of 1840 shows how little the village has changed since then.

History
Doynton's history can be traced back to the Domesday Book (1086) in which the village is mentioned as having two mills. One was probably a corn mill and the other a tucking or fulling mill connected with the Cotswold woollen cloth industry. Both these mills were important to the survival of the village and were referred to again in historical records 500 years later. The tuck mill, however, is not mentioned after the middle of the 17th century. The corn mill continued in use until the 1950s marking nine centuries of service to the village. The mill wheel and old machinery were then broken up and electrically powered equipment installed. More recently a light engineering firm has taken over the site.

The Holy Trinity Church (grade II*-listed) is at the centre of the village. It was largely rebuilt between 1864 and 1867 but dates back to Saxon times. Its features include 12th-century herringbone masonry on the south wall - a style almost unique in this part of the country. It also features a 12th-century leper window, again situated in the south wall and the 13th-century Lady Chapel.

North-west of the church there is evidence of a group of mediaeval fishponds which provided a source of food to supplement the diet of villagers in the Middle Ages. Doynton had a rather elaborate group of ponds made by taking water from a stream via a leat (a man-made watercourse) to a group of rectangular ponds situated in the field.

Doynton and the River Boyd were immortalised by the poet and fisherman John Dennys, Squire of Pucklechurch, in his poem "The Secrets of Angling", the earliest English poetical treatise on fishing, published in 1613:And thou sweet Boyd that with thy watry sway
Dost wash the cliffes of Deington and of Weeke
And through their Rockes with crooked winding way
Thy mother Avon runnest soft to seeke.

References

External links
 British Listed Buildings

Villages in South Gloucestershire District
Civil parishes in Gloucestershire

Doynton


Capacity is the ability to hold something, very similar to volume.

Capacity may also mean:

 Capacity in economics, how much a company or a government uses its potential output
 Capacitythe legal ability to do certain things, such as making a contract
 Capacity of a set, in mathematics, one way of measuring a set's size
 Battery capacity, a measure of a battery's ability to store electrical charge
 Carrying capacity, in biology, the ability of an environment to sustain populations
 Channel capacity, in communications
 Combining capacity, in chemistry, number of chemical bonds formed by the atoms of a given element
 Heat capacity, in physics, the measure of how materials store heat as they change temperature
 Nameplate capacity, in power plants, the general number of Megawatts technically available
 Seating capacity, how many people can fit into in a sports venue

Related pages
 Incapacity

Capacity


Pinocchio is a fictional character from the 1883 book The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.

Pinocchio is a puppet, made by wood carver, Gepetto. When he tells lies, his nose gets longer. Pinocchio learns about being a real life boy and wants to be a real human being instead of a puppet made of wood and strings.

The most well-known version of the story is the 1940 animated Disney movie Pinocchio.

Other websites

Characters in written fiction

Pinocchio


In audio engineering, a fade is a gradual increase (fade-in) or decrease (fade-out) in the level of an audio signal. The term can also be used for film cinematography or theatre lighting, in much the same way (see: fade (filmmaking)).

A recorded song may be gradually reduced to silence at its end (fade-out), or may gradually increase from silence at the beginning (fade-in). For example, the songs "Bitter Sweet Symphony" by The Verve and "Turn to Stone" by Electric Light Orchestra fade in from the beginning, while the songs "Born to Be Wild" by Steppenwolf, "Boogie Oogie Oogie" by A Taste of Honey, and "Hey Jude" by The Beatles fade out. However, "Born to be Wild" and "Boogie Oogie Oogie" fade out in a matter of seconds, whereas "Hey Jude" takes over 2 minutes to completely fade out. "Goodbye Stranger" by Supertramp takes about a minute to fade out. Fading-out can serve as a recording solution for pieces of music that contain no obvious ending.

Though relatively rare, songs can fade out, then fade back in. Some examples of this are "Helter Skelter" by The Beatles, "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis Presley, "Thank You" by Led Zeppelin or "Undercover of the Night" by The Rolling Stones.

The term fade is also used in multi-speaker audio systems to describe the balancing of power between front and rear channels.

Origins and early examples

"Neptune", part of the orchestral suite, The Planets, by Gustav Holst, was an early piece of music to have a fade-out ending. Holst stipulates that the women's choruses are "to be placed in an adjoining room, the door of which is to be left open until the last bar of the piece, when it is to be slowly and silently closed", and that the final bar (scored for choruses alone) is "to be repeated until the sound is lost in the distance". Although commonplace today, the effect bewitched audiences in the era before widespread recorded sound—after the initial 1918 run-through, Holst's daughter, Imogen (in addition to watching the charwomen dancing in the aisles during "Jupiter") remarked that the ending was "unforgettable, with its hidden chorus of women's voices growing fainter and fainter... until the imagination knew no difference between sound and silence".

The technique of ending a spoken or musical recording by fading out the sound goes back to the earliest days of recording. In the era of mechanical (pre-electrical) recording, this could only be achieved by either moving the sound source away from the recording horn, or by gradually reducing the volume at which the performers were singing, playing or speaking. With the advent of electrical recording, smooth and controllable fadeout effects could be easily achieved by simply reducing the input volume from the microphones using the fader on the mixing desk.

No single recording can be reliably identified as "the first" to use the technique. In 2003, on the (now-defunct) website Stupid Question , John Ruch listed the following recordings as possible contenders:

Fader
A fader is any device used for fading, especially when it is a knob or button that slides along a track or slot. A knob which rotates is usually not considered a fader, although it is electrically and functionally equivalent. A fader can be either analogue, directly controlling the resistance or impedance to the source (e.g. a Potentiometer); or digital, numerically controlling a digital signal processor (DSP).  Digital faders are also referred to as virtual faders, since they can be viewed on the screen of a digital audio workstation. Modern high-end digital mixers often have piezo-electric actuators attached to the faders such that they can be multi-use and will jump to the correct position for the selected function and/or saved setting.

Crossfading
A crossfader on a dj mixer essentially functions like two faders connected side-by-side, but in opposite directions. It allows a DJ to fade one source out while fading another source in at the same time. This is extremely useful when beatmatching two phonograph records or compact discs.

The technique of crossfading is also used in audio engineering as a mixing technique, particularly with instrumental solos. A mix engineer will often record two or more takes of a vocal or instrumental part and create a final version which is a composite of the best passages of these takes by crossfading between each track.

In the perfect case the crossfader would keep constant output level. However, there's no standard how this should be achieved. Many DJ equipment manufacturers offer different mixers for different purposes (e.g. scratching, beatmixing, cut mixing, etc.). High-end mixers often have crossfade curve switches allowing the DJ to select the type of crossfade necessary. Experienced DJs are also able to crossfade between tracks using the channel faders.

There are many software applications that feature virtual crossfaders. For instance, burning-software for the recording of audio-CDs.

Pre-fader, post-fader

On a mixer with auxiliary send mixes, the send mixes are configured pre-fader or post-fader.

If a send mix is configured pre-fader, then changes to the main channel strip fader does not affect the send mix.  This is useful for stage monitor mixes where changes in the Front of House channel levels would distract the musicians.

If a send mix is configured post-fader, then the level sent to the send mix follows changes to the main channel strip fader.  This is useful for reverberation and other signal processor effects.

References

 Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music, p. 95-6. Philadelphia: Open University Press. .

Other websites
WikiRecording's Article on Faders

Sound

Fade (audio engineering)


Christian August of Saxe-Zeitz (9 October 1666 in Moritzburg – 23 August 1725 in  Regensburg), was a German prince of the House of Wettin.

Christian August of Saxe-Zeitz was a Teutonic Knight, the Primas of Hungary and finally a cardinal. On 22 May 1712 he crowned Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor as the King of Hungary and on 18 October 1714 also his wife Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in St. Martin's Cathedral.

Life
He was the third (but second surviving) son of Maurice, Duke of Saxe-Zeitz, and his second wife, Dorothea Maria of Saxe-Weimar.

A Teutonic Knight, he converted to Catholicism in 1696 and became Provost of Cologne (1696–1725), then Bishop of Raab (1696–1725) and finally on 17 May 1706 was created a Cardinal by Pope Clement XI.

He was chosen to convert his kinsman, the King-Elector August the Strong of Poland to the Catholic faith. Christian August instructed him secretly and on 1 June 1697 baptized him secretly in the Court Chapel (Hofkapelle) in Baden bei Wien, then publicly and solemnly in the German Piekar in Oppeln. When the conversion was finally formalized, Christian August issued a certificate to the king, which was authenticated by the Papal nunzio.

In 1707 Christian August was elected Archbishop of Esztergom (Gran) and consequently, Primas of Hungary. He used the office of a deputy of the Emperor as Principal Commissioner (Prinzipalkommissar) in the Perpetual Imperial Diet (Reichstag) of Regensburg.

On the occasion of the victory over the Turks in Belgrade in 1717 Christian August, as representative of the Emperor Charles VI, organized a magnificent celebration in the Imperial Diet realm. During the festivities, the Order of St. Emmeram was created in the knight's hall on 26 October.

The death of his brother Maurice Wilhelm, Duke of Saxe-Zeitz, on 15 November 1718 without surviving male issue, made him heir to the duchy of Saxe-Zeitz, but because he took the monastic vows (and the next in line to the inheritance, Christian August's nephew Maurice Adolf, was also a priest), Zeitz was merged into the Electorate of Saxony in accordance with the will of Elector Johann Georg I.

Death
Christian August of Saxe-Zeitz died on 23 August 1725 in Regensburg. He is buried in the crypts of St. Martin's Cathedral in Bratislava the capital of present-day Slovakia.

References

17th-century German people
18th-century German people
17th-century Hungarian people
18th-century Hungarian people
Bishops of Győr
House of Wettin
German expatriates in Hungary
Archbishops of Esztergom
People from Győr
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Lutheranism
People from Moritzburg
1666 births
1725 deaths
Burials at St. Martin's Cathedral, Bratislava
Albertine branch
Sons of monarchs

Christian August of Saxe-Zeitz


Marmaduke Wyvill (22 December 1815 in Constable Burton – 25 June 1896 in Bournemouth) was a leading English chess master and Liberal Party politician. He was among the world's strongest players in the 1840s and 1850s.

He was born the son of Marmaduke Wyvill of Constable Burton Hall (1791–1872), MP for York.

Regarded by Howard Staunton as 'one of the finest players in England', he was primarily an enthusiastic amateur of chess, yet in his sole tournament appearance at London 1851 he took second prize behind Adolf Anderssen. Finishing ahead of Staunton, Elijah Williams, Bernhard Horwitz, and Jozsef Szen, he succumbed only to Anderssen in the final, by a score of 2½-4½. Long after he had retired from competitive play, he retained a great interest in the game and was known to have contributed to the organisation and funding of the 1883 London tournament.

Through his 1845 marriage to Laura, daughter of Sir Charles Ibbetson, Bart., he came into possession of Denton Hall. In 1847 Wyvill was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond, North Yorkshire. He retained the seat in 1861, but lost it in 1865, regaining it for a final time in 1866.

In a chess game, the Wyvill formation refers to a pawn formation in which White has no pawn on the b file, doubled pawns at c3 and c4, and the d-pawn at d4 or d5, such as may typically arise out of variations of the Nimzo-Indian and (Winawer) French Defences. The pawn at c4 may become a weakness, since it cannot be supported by other pawns.

Notable game

His triumph in the third game of the final of the London tournament saw Wyvill winning with a fine counter-attack after defending Anderssen's attack with great expertise. As Staunton put it in a note to Black's 28th move: "... the assault is conducted with uncommon ingenuity and spirit."
 Anderssen - Wyvill, London 1851
Sicilian Defence - 1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Nxd4 e6 5. Be3 Nf6 6. Bd3
Be7 7. O-O O-O 8. Nd2 d5 9. Nxc6 bxc6 10. e5 Nd7 11. f4 f5
12. Rf3 c5 13. Rh3 Rf7 14. b3 g6 15. Nf3 Nb6 16. Bf2 d4
17. Bh4 Nd5 18. Qd2 a5 19. Bxe7 Rxe7 20. Ng5 Ne3 21. Qf2 Bb7
22. Bf1 Ng4 23. Qh4 Qd7 24. Rd1 Rc8 25. Be2 h5 26. Rg3 Qe8
27. Rd2 Rg7 28. c3 Ne3 29. cxd4 cxd4 30. Rxd4 Rc1+ 31. Kf2 Nd5
32. Rgd3 Qc6 33. Rd2 Qb6 34. Bc4 Rc2 35. Ke1 Rxd2 36. Rxd2
Qg1+ 37. Bf1 Rc7 38. Rd1 Rc2 39. Qg3 Ba6 40. Qf3 Bxf1 0-1

References

External links

 Family tree of Marmaduke Wyvill
 31 chess games of Marmaduke Wyvill

1815 births
1896 deaths
British chess players
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
UK MPs 1847–1852
UK MPs 1852–1857
UK MPs 1857–1859
UK MPs 1859–1865
UK MPs 1865–1868
19th-century chess players

Marmaduke Wyvill (chess player)


Halachoth Gedoloth (lit. great halachoth) is a work on Jewish law dating from the Geonic period. It exists in several different recensions, and there are sharply divergent views on its authorship, though the dominant opinion attributes it to Simeon Kayyara.

Authorship controversy
Kayyara's chief work is believed by some to be the Halakhot Gedolot, whereas Moses ben Jacob of Coucy wrote that it was in fact composed by Yehudai ben Nahman.

Based on anachronistic discrepancies, Moses ben Jacob's opinion that it was Yehudai ben Nahman who composed the Halachoth Gedoloth was thought to be an error.  David Gans may have been the first to suggest that Moses ben Jacob, in referring to "Rav Yehudai" as the author, was actually alluding to Yehudai Hakohen ben Ahunai, Gaon of the Sura Academy (served 4519 - 4524 of the Hebrew calendar)

As to the time of its composition, all the older authorities are silent. Abraham ibn Daud alone has an allusion to this problem, which has caused much perplexity. According to him, "Simeon Kayyara wrote his work in the year 741, and after him lived Yehudai Gaon, author of the Halakhot Pesukot, which he compiled from Simeon's Halakhot Gedolot."  This statement cannot be relied upon, as Simeon Kayyara in fact lived in the century following Yehudai Gaon; and Halevy is of the opinion that the names were inadvertently switched, though this reading creates as many problems as it solves. The Ramban in his preface to
Sefer Ha-Mitzvot says in passing that Simeon, not Yehudai, was the author of Halachot Gedolot.

Many ancient authorities, like the Geonim Sherira ben Hanina and Hai ben Sherira, and others, support Kayyara's authorship; and according to Abraham Epstein, there can be no doubt that Simeon Kayyara wrote the Halakhot Gedolot.  It would also seem from the statements of these authorities that Simeon Kayyara's chief sources were the She'iltot of Ahai of Shabha and the Halakhot Pesukot of Yehudai ben Nahman .

Other authors, in particular from France, Germany and Italy, ascribe this work to Yehudai ben Nahman. Some scholars have tried to reconcile these two views by saying that the core of the work was written by Yehudai Gaon and that Simeon Kayyara later expanded it.  Halevy holds that this "core" is to be identified with the Halakhot Pesukot.  Louis Ginzberg (in his Geonica) is of the opinion that the Babylonian recension (see below) is the work of Yehudai Gaon and that Simeon Kayyara expanded it into what is now known as the Spanish recension.  Both these views were formed before the discovery of the sole surviving manuscript of the Halakhot Pesukot, and the question may need to be reassessed.

Title variations

Some Jewish-Spanish authors, to distinguish it from later halakhic codices of a similar nature, called the work "Halakhot Rishonot". It gives the entire halakhic and practical material of the Talmud in a codified form, and seems to represent the first attempt to treat it according to its contents rather than according to the arrangement of its treatises.

Sources
The A. Hildesheimer edition of the Halakhot Gedolot gives no less than 83 passages in which the She'eltot has been cited (Reifmann gives 109 passages); and it has in addition more than 40 literal though unacknowledged quotations from this same source. At the time of that edition it was more difficult to trace material borrowed from Yehudai Gaon's Halakhot Pesukot, since the original form of that work had been lost. (It has since been found: see Yehudai Gaon.) A comparison with the redaction of Yehudai Gaon's composition which has been preserved as the Halakhot Pesukot or Hilkot Re'u, showed that most of the halakhot in that recension were found in the Halakhot Gedolot, although they deviate from it both in wording and in arrangement. Simeon Kayyara, however, used yet another recension of the Halakhot Pesukot, and at times cites both. There were of course other sources at his disposal which have not been preserved. Not only does the fact that both the She'eltot and the Halakhot Pesukot were used, but also certain passages in the Halakhot Gedolot of themselves, prove that the work was composed about the year 825, apparently at Sura, since many explanations and usages of the Halakhot Gedolot are elsewhere cited under the names of Geonim of that place.

Interpretations and redactions
In the course of time the Halakhot Gedolot underwent many changes. In Spain and in North Africa the legal decisions of the Geonim were incorporated into the book, and its whole appearance was so changed that gradually a different recension was developed.

The original or Babylonian redaction exists in printed form in the editions of Venice (1548), Amsterdam (1762), Vienna (1810), etc., and finally in that of Warsaw (1874, with an index of passages and notes by S. A. Traub). This redaction was used by the Babylonian geonim and by the German and northern French scholars; for the citations of the latter from the Halakhot Gedolot, which work they ascribe to Yehudai Gaon, refer to this recension. In the 13th century this recension reached Italy, where it was used by Isaiah di Trani (see Ha-Makria, No. 31).

The second or so-called Spanish redaction (Mahadurat Aspamia) exists in a manuscript in the Vatican library, and has been edited by A. Hildesheimer in the collection of the Mekitze Nirdamim (Berlin, 1888–92). The material of this recension is much richer and more comprehensive, since it contains many passages from the Talmud, mnemonic introductory words ("simanim"), the order of the weekly lessons, and, most important of all, legal decisions of the Geonim, usually indicated by the term "shedar" (="he sent"), which are lacking in the earlier redaction. The first gaon of whom a teshuvah is mentioned in this recension is Yehudai Gaon; the last, Tzemah ben Paltoi (d. 890). A. Epstein has concluded, accordingly, that this redaction was made, or rather finished, about the year 900, in some place where the Jews were in close literary correspondence with the Babylonian seminaries. This was either in Spain or in northern Africa—probably in Kairwan, the center of Talmudic studies at that time. Evidence in favor of Kairwan is supplied by a passage in the Halakhot Gedolot (ed. Hildesheimer, p. 175), which mentions a usage as being common among the "Bene Afrika"; for it is known that "Afrika" frequently connotes Kairwan.

From northern Africa or Spain this recension was carried into Italy: it was used by the scholars of these three countries; and all of them regarded Simeon Kayyara as its author. In the 12th century the recension was brought to northern France, and in the 13th to Germany, where it is sometimes cited by the scholars of both countries as "Halakhot Gedolot shel Aspamia".

A more recent edition, based on the Venice edition of the Babylonian recension but showing variants from other versions, was published in Jerusalem in 1991 by Ezriel Hildesheimer (grandson of the Hildesheimer who edited the Berlin edition). References to "the Hildesheimer edition" must therefore be approached with caution.

External links
Discussion by Robert Brody (below) with comments
Encyclopaedia Judaica article by Yehoshua Horowitz, in Jewish Virtual Library

Text of the book
5308/1548 Venice printing for online read or download at Hebrewbooks.com (PDF, OCR'd)

References
Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture, Yale 1998

Geonim
Jewish texts in Aramaic

Halachot Gedolot


Association football headgear is worn by association football players to protect the head from injury. The headgear is designed to absorb the impact of blows to the head by external physical forces in order to reduce the chance of a concussion, a noteworthy example in international football being Czech goalkeeper Petr Čech from Chelsea. These collisions can occur from head to head, head to ground, head to goal post, or head to body extremity contact. It is flexible, not a rigid helmet.

Function and structure
Since "soccer is one of a few sports in which the head is intentionally and frequently used to strike the ball", a uniquely designed form of headgear was created.  A plastic helmet as in other sports would not suffice since they are bulky and may consist of uneven surfaces; this would make ball control off a header nearly impossible.  Most soccer headgear is made from foam that will cushion the head from the full force of the impact.  The softness of the foam will increase the time of impact and lessen the blow without altering the direction and distance of the ball as it rebounds off the head.

Types of headgear
ASTM International (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials) set a product performance standard for headgear in soccer in 2006. This standard does not address head to ball contact, solely head to hard surface contact.  There are currently two headguards that meet the ASTM soccer headgear standard, the DonJoy Hat Trick and the Full90 Sports Premier-A. Both comply with FIFA, the U.S. Soccer Federation, and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).

Headgear studies
Injury to the head can occur from repeatedly making contact with the ball through headers or from a single blow.  The danger of this trauma is especially significant to children because their bodies are not fully developed and may not be able to counteract a blow to the head.  Minor trauma similar to pugilistic dementia may occur from repetitively heading the ball. A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that headgear does not help reduce the impact on the head from ball contact.  This is because a human head is stiffer than the soccer ball.  On impact, the ball will deform more than the head. However, studies in 2006 by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Pennsylvania found no link between brain injuries and routinely heading the ball. Because of this, the aim of wearing headgear turned to mitigating damage from accidental head on head collisions between players on the pitch.  It was found that there was an overall 33% reduction of impact force on the head from head to head impacts when headgear was used.   The U.S. Soccer Federation sees that protective headgear in soccer can provide measurable benefit in head to head contact, and permits players to wear headgear at their own discretion until more conclusive evidence is obtained.

See also (other equipment)
Kit (association football)
Shin guards
Football boots

References

External links
 Can the right gear protect soccer players from concussions?

Headgear
Protective gear

Association football headgear


Lewis A. Sharpe (14 July 1906 – 19 March 2001) was an Australian rules footballer who played with St Kilda, Footscray, Fitzroy and Essendon in the Victorian Football League (VFL).

Sharpe had a much traveled career, which began at Kernot in 1924. He then played with Loch the following year and joined St Kilda during the 1926 season. After a year and a half with St Kilda, he went to Wonthaggi. He resumed in the VFL in 1929 when he played 11 games for Footscray, the most he ever played in a league season. In 1930 he crossed to Blackwood as captain-coach but after a year was back in Melbourne, playing for Fitzroy. He captain-coached Dalyston to a premiership in 1933 and played at Essendon in 1934. Having played just once for Essendon, Sharpe returned to Loch for a season, before going to Archer's Creek as their new captain-coach.

References

1906 births
Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state)
St Kilda Football Club players
Western Bulldogs players
Fitzroy Football Club players
Essendon Football Club players
2001 deaths

Lew Sharpe


Cleveland University-Kansas City (CUKC) is a private university in Overland Park, Kansas, United States. Cleveland University-Kansas City is known primarily for its chiropractic doctorate program (D.C.) but it also offers associate, bachelor's, and master's degrees. The university has been in operation in the Kansas City area since 1922 and has occupied its current 34-acre Overland Park, Kansas, location since 2008.

History
Cleveland University-Kansas City was founded in 1922 as the Central College of Chiropractic. The founders of the school were one of the first families of chiropractic, C. S. and Ruth Cleveland, and Perl B. Griffin. All three were graduates of Palmer College of Chiropractic. After two years Central College of Chiropractic was renamed Cleveland Chiropractic College.

In 1951 the college absorbed Ratledge System of Chiropractic Schools located in Los Angeles. In 1955 the school was rechartered as Cleveland Chiropractic College of Los Angeles. In 2011 the Los Angeles campus and the Kansas City campuses merged into the Overland Park campus.

In 2015, Cleveland Chiropractic College changed the name of the institution to Cleveland University-Kansas City. "The name change and expanded identity supports the university's degree program expansion, and is centered around the university's vision for providing leadership in health science and health promotion education," said Carl S. Cleveland III, university president and leader of the university's 10-year strategic plan. Today, the university is led by Carl S. Cleveland III, the grandson of the founders.

Accreditation
Cleveland University-Kansas City is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, one of the U.S. Dept. of Education's accrediting organizations for higher education institutions. The Doctor of Chiropractic degree program at Cleveland Chiropractic College is accredited by The Council on Chiropractic Education. CUKC's other degree programs follow their profession's accreditation standards.

See also
 List of chiropractic schools
 Chiropractic

References

External links

Buildings and structures in Overland Park, Kansas
Education in Overland Park, Kansas
Chiropractic schools in the United States
Private universities and colleges in Kansas
1922 establishments in Kansas
Universities and colleges established in 1922

Cleveland University-Kansas City


Frank Glazer (February 19, 1915 – January 13, 2015) was an American pianist, composer, and teacher of music.

Career details

Glazer was born in Chester, Wisconsin on February 19, 1915, the sixth child of Benjamin and Clara Glazer, Jewish emigrants from Lithuania. The family moved to Milwaukee in 1919.   His first piano lessons were given by his sister Blanche (1907–1920); later he was taught by several local musicians. Frank Glazer was educated in Milwaukee Public Schools, and graduated the city's North Division High School in 1932. In his teenage years, he played in  his brothers' dance band, his high school band and vaudeville. Alfred Strelsin, a New York City signage manufacturer and arts patron, provided the funds for Glazer to travel to Berlin in 1932 to study with Artur Schnabel; he also studied with Arnold Schoenberg. Glazer then taught piano in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Strelsin urged Glazer to make his New York debut, telling him, "If you don't start by the time you're 21, forget it". Glazer made his debut at Town Hall in New York City on October 20, 1936, with a program of Bach, Brahms, Schubert and Chopin. He played this program again in 2006, to celebrate his seventieth anniversary of public performance. In 1939 Glazer performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Sergei Koussevitzky. Glazer served in the United States Army as an interpreter from 1943 to 1945 in Germany and France.

In the early 1950s, Glazer had his own television show called Playhouse 15 in Milwaukee. On September 6, 1952, he married classical singer Ruth Gevalt (1910–2006). (1) With his wife, Ruth, he founded in the 1970s the Saco River Festival in Maine, a summer chamber series. From 1965 until 1980 Glazer taught at the Eastman School of Music; among his students Myriam Avalos and Martin Amlin. In 1980 Glazer left Eastman and became artist in residence at Bates College in Maine.

Glazer has been called "the greatest interpreter of the piano music of Erik Satie". In the 1960s he recorded the complete piano music of Satie for the Vox label.

Glazer died at the age of 99 on January 13, 2015. His brother David was a clarinetist who performed with the New York Woodwind Quintet for more than 35 years.

References

Notes
(1) The Fountain of Youth: The Artistry of Frank Glazer, by Duncan J Cumming  (VDM Verlag, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2009).

External links
Frank Glazer's official website (www.FrankGlazer.in)
Time in His Hands: Frank Glazer's musical light shines undimmed 70 years after his New York debut", Doug Hubley, Bates Magazine Online, Fall 2006 edition.
At 95, pianist is still learning, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, published October 9, 2010.
Frank Glazer's Long Road, American Public Media, published March 2, 2012.
Maine Pianist Frank Glazer Dies at 99 Portland Press Herald, published January 13, 2015, updated January 14, 2015

1915 births
2015 deaths
American classical pianists
American male classical pianists
American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
Bates College faculty
Jewish American musicians
People from Dodge County, Wisconsin
Musicians from Milwaukee
Pupils of Maria Curcio
Vaudeville performers
People from Topsham, Maine
20th-century classical pianists
20th-century American pianists
Classical musicians from Wisconsin
20th-century American male musicians
North Division High School (Milwaukee) alumni
21st-century American Jews

Frank Glazer


The Queen's Walk is a promenade located on the southern bank of the River Thames in London, England, between Lambeth Bridge and Tower Bridge.

The creation of pedestrian access along the south bank of the Thames was seen as an integral part of the creation of the Jubilee Walkway to mark the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 1977. However, the last section was not established until the completion of construction of London Bridge City c.1990.

In 1996, the Walk was recognised as a foundation for establishing the Thames Path national trail through London.

This is a convenient route of several miles for tourists to walk from the London Eye Ferris wheel past numerous attractions to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

External links

 The Queen's Walk London
 Thames Path National Trail

Streets in the London Borough of Southwark
Streets in the London Borough of Lambeth
Footpaths in London

The Queen's Walk (South Bank)


The spectacled porpoise (Phocoena dioptrica) is a small to midsize porpoise indigenous to the Southern Ocean. It is one of the most poorly studied cetaceans, partly due to its remote range in the southern ocean. What little is known about this porpoise species has been gathered mainly from stranded individuals, and a few observations of living animals made at sea.

Description

As with other porpoise species, the spectacled porpoise has no beak. It has small pectoral fins with rounded tips positioned far forward on the body, and a triangular dorsal fin. Interestingly, this porpoise species shows obvious sexual dimorphism between adult males and females, as the dorsal fins in the former are much larger and more rounded.

Records for female length range up to , while males may reach , which represents the largest specimen documented thus far. The maximum weight for a female was , while a male has been recorded at .

The spectacled porpoise has a distinctive colouration. As an adult it is countershaded, with a black dorsal region which is sharply delineated from a white belly. In some individuals, this line can be feathered. An obvious dark eye patch is present in both juveniles and adults. A pale 'saddle-patch' around the dorsal fin and a dark line around the blowhole have also been documented. Females are described as lighter in colouration, while young animals may have a dorsal area that is grey rather than black, with a lighter grey on the belly, a clearly demarked line connecting the mouth and flipper.

Geographic distribution
The distribution of the spectacled porpoise is thought to be circumpolar, and it is considered a predominately oceanic species, however occasional sightings and specimens are documented in coastal regions. Evidence from sightings and strandings suggest that the species can be found within cool temperate, sub-Antarctic and Antarctic waters, where water temperatures range between .

Stranded individuals have been found across the southern hemisphere. In the south-western Atlantic records have been made at Santa Catarina in Southern Brazil, Uruguay, from Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego, and the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. Records exist from the south-western South Pacific (Auckland and Maquarie Islands) to the southern Indian Ocean (Heard and Kerguelen), and also from New Zealand, Burney Island, Tasmania and South Australia. This widespread distribution is evidence of a circumpolar range, and possible association with the Falkland Current and Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) which transports cold water along the Atlantic coast of South America, and around Antarctica respectively.

Sightings of spectacled porpoise at sea are similarly widespread, and include waters off Patagonia, South Georgia, Kerguelen, south of New Zealand, Tasmania and Heard Island. Nine sightings have been made south of 64°, in Antarctic waters.

Foraging
Little dietary information is available for the spectacled porpoise, but it is thought to forage on fish and squid. No observations of foraging behaviour at sea have been made. Stomach contents from a small number of stranded specimens included anchovy (Eugraulis sp.), stomatopods, cephalopod beaks (Sepia sp.) and a half digested ornate cowfish (Aracana ornata).

Reproduction
Little is known about the reproduction of the spectacled porpoise. In the Tierra del Fuego region, studies estimate that young porpoises are born at  long in late spring or summer (November to February). No information is available on gestation, lactation, or inter-birth intervals.

Taxonomy
The species was named by the French naturalist Fernando Lihille in 1912 for its two distinctive black eye patches, with the latin dioptrica meaning 'spectacled'. In Spanish, the spectacled porpoise is known as 'marsopa de anteojos', a literal translation of the English common name
.
Recent analyses of mitochondrial DNA from 50 porpoises indicated high levels of genetic diversity that would indicate a large and stable population, or one with a wide distribution. The study also revealed evidence for a recent expansion in population.

Phylogenetic tree analyses found that spectacled porpoises are more closely related to Burmeister's porpoise (Phocoena spinipinnis)  than to the vaquita (Phocoena sinus) which appeared to diverge from Burmeister's and spectacled porpoises in the Pliocene era. These three species diverged from the harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) and Dall's porpoise ( Phocoenoides dalli) around 4 million years ago, while the split between Burmeister's and spectacled porpoises occurred 2.3 million years ago.

Population status
The population size and its inter-connectedness across the Southern Ocean is unknown. Research cruises conducted between 1978 and 2004 in the Antarctic resulted in 28 sightings, however these were made in fair weather conditions and porpoises may have been missed during poorer conditions. It is possible that Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) for spectacled porpoises may shed more light on their range and habitat use, however no studies have been conducted to date.

Threats
The spectacled porpoise is likely prey for sharks, leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx) and killer whales (Orcinus orca). In Tierra del Fuego, it has been observed that scavenging birds such as kelp gulls will target stranded spectacled porpoise carcasses over other cetacean species. Such scavenging can result in a carcass becoming skeletonised rapidly, within one to two hours.

Researchers have uncovered spectacled porpoise remains within the kitchen middens of the canoe people who lived in Tierra del Fuego between 6000 and 1400 years ago. It is possible the species was once a common food source for peoples in the region. More recently, porpoises may be caught and used as bait for the crab fishery industry, however the frequency of this activity and its impact on porpoise population status is unknown.

Bycatch and incidental capture are most likely the greatest anthropogenic threat to the spectacled porpoise. Porpoises and other small cetaceans are particularly at risk of entanglement and drowning in gillnets, as the thin filaments are not easily detected by their echolocation clicks. The extent of incidental bycatch is unknown, however strandings and fishing ground locations often coincide.

Conservation status

While previously listed by the IUCN in 2008 as 'Data Deficient' the species was upgraded to 'Least Concern' in 2018. While it is widely accepted that spectacled porpoises are threatened by fishery bycatch and entanglement, and stranding rates in Tierra del Fuego may be unsustainable for the population, the category of Least Concern has been applied provisionally until more data is available.

Captivity

At least two incidents have been documented where a living spectacled porpoise was taken into captivity, in both cases for medical treatment and rehabilitation following stranding. The first individual was a very young 127 cm long female calf that stranded in Port Elliot, Southern Australia, on 24 March 1997. The calf was disorientated and exhausted, preventing refloating attempts, and rescuers subsequently transported the calf to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) marine rescue unit in Adelaide. The porpoise died five days later on 29 March 1997, and a necropsy revealed damage to the oesophagus and first stomach caused by intubation during force-feeding. However, other organs were normal and no direct cause of death was determined.

The second incident occurred on 26 January 2019, where an adult male live stranded 30 km up a river estuary in Argentina. The porpoise was emaciated and dehydrated, and was taken to the Marine Fauna Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre. The animal died four days later on 30 January 2019.

See also

List of cetaceans
Marine biology

References

External links
Whale & Dolphin Conservation (WDC)
Convention on Migratory Species page on the Spectacled porpoise

Porpoises
Mammals of Argentina
Mammals of Chile
Fauna of the Auckland Islands
Mammals described in 1912

Spectacled porpoise


The Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 (c 4) is the primary legislation concerning the state retirement provision, accident insurance, statutory sick pay and maternity pay in the United Kingdom.

Contents
Part I Contributions
Part II Contributory benefits
Part III Non-contributory benefits
Part IV Increases for dependants
Part V Benefit for industrial injuries
Part VI Miscellaneous provisions relating to Parts I to V
Part VII Income-related benefits
Part VIII The Social Fund
Part IX Child Benefit
Part X Christmas bonus for pensioners
Part XI Statutory sick pay
Part XII Statutory maternity pay (ss 164-171)
Part XIII General

Schedules
Schedule 1 Supplementary provisions relating to contributions of Classes 1, 1A, 2 and 3.
Schedule 2 Levy of Class 4 contributions with income tax.
Schedule 3 Contribution conditions for entitlement to benefit.
Schedule 4 Rates of benefits, etc.
Schedule 5 Increase of pension where entitlement is deferred.
Schedule 6 Assessment of extent of disablement.
Schedule 7 Industrial injuries benefits.
Schedule 8 Industrial injuries and diseases (old cases).
Schedule 9 Exclusions from entitlement to child benefit.
Schedule 10 Priority between persons entitled to child benefit.
Schedule 11 Circumstances in which periods of entitlement to statutory sick pay do not arise.
Schedule 12 Relationship of statutory sick pay with benefits and other payments, etc.
Schedule 13 Relationship of statutory maternity pay with benefits and other payments etc.

See also
UK labour law
Pensions in the United Kingdom
Pensions Act 1995

External links
 Data

Pensions in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1992
Social security in the United Kingdom


Michael Ming-Chiao Lai (; born 8 September 1942) is a Taiwanese virologist.

A native of Tainan born on 8 September 1942, Lai graduated from National Tainan First Senior High School and studied medicine at National Taiwan University. After completing his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley in 1973, Lai joined the University of Southern California faculty, where he remained until 2003. While teaching at USC, Lai was elected a member of Academia Sinica in 1992 and a fellow of the American College of Microbiology in 2002.  From 1990, Lai was a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator. Upon his return to Taiwan in 2003, Lai was named a distinguished fellow of Academia Sinica. He became a fellow of The World Academy of Sciences in 2006. In 2009, Lai received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America. The government of Taiwan awarded Lai a  in 2013. He won the Nikkei Asia Prize in science and technology in 2017.

Lai specialized in coronavirus, the species of virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome. His work has led to acknowledgement of Lai as "father of coronavirus research." He returned to Taiwan in the midst of the 2003 SARS outbreak, and began researching vaccinations against the disease with the help of Ding-Shinn Chen. Lai succeeded Sunney Chan as vice president of Academia Sinica in July 2003. He stepped down from Academia Sinica in 2006, and began his tenure as president of National Cheng Kung University the next year. During his tenure, the institution began partnering with IBM Taiwan on nanotechnology research. Thirteen of the university's departments were placed on a watchlist compiled by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan in 2009. Later that year, researchers at NCKU piloted the first unmanned aerial vehicle flight across the Taiwan Strait. Lai was supportive of government proposals to permit Chinese students to study at Taiwanese universities and backed efforts to retain top academics. In 2010, NCKU established an English-language medical program. Later that year, The Small Medicine and Advanced Research Translation team at Institute of Oral Medicine, affiliated with NCKU announced new developments in gene manipulation techniques using Artificial Targeting Light Activated Nano Scissors. After yielding the NCKU presidency to Hwung Hwung-hweng in 2011, Lai was named distinguished professor in 2013. Lai researched the H7N9 virus soon after cases were reported in China in 2013.

External links

References

1942 births
Living people
Taiwanese virologists
National Taiwan University alumni
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Academic staff of the National Cheng Kung University
University of Southern California faculty
Members of Academia Sinica
Presidents of universities and colleges in Taiwan
Howard Hughes Medical Investigators
Scientists from Tainan
TWAS fellows
Winners of the Nikkei Asia Prize

Michael M. C. Lai


"Me and a Gun" is a song by American singer-songwriter and musician Tori Amos. It was released as the first single from her debut studio album Little Earthquakes and is her debut single under the name Tori Amos. It was released on October 21, 1991 by Atlantic Records in North America and EastWest Records in the UK.

Background
The song is three minutes and 44 seconds long. Amos wrote the song about being raped in Los Angeles when she was 21. After she performed at a bar, a patron asked her if he could have a ride home. She obliged, and he raped her at knifepoint. Years later, in London, she saw the film Thelma and Louise and was stirred.

Amos discussed the attack in a 1994 interview:

"I'll never talk about it at this level again but let me ask you. Why have I survived that kind of night, when other women didn't?

How am I alive to tell you this tale when he was ready to slice me up? In the song I say it was 'Me and a Gun' but it wasn't a gun. It was a knife he had. And the idea was to take me to his friends and cut me up, and he kept telling me that, for hours. And if he hadn't needed more drugs I would have been just one more news report, where you see the parents grieving for their daughter.

And I was singing hymns, as I say in the song, because he told me to. I sang to stay alive. Yet I survived that torture, which left me urinating all over myself and left me paralyzed for years. That's what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violation through sex.

I really do feel as though I was psychologically mutilated that night and that now I'm trying to put the pieces back together again. Through love, not hatred. And through my music. My strength has been to open again, to life, and my victory is the fact that, despite it all, I kept alive my vulnerability."

When released as a single, the track was not the A-side: "Silent All These Years," another song from Little Earthquakes, was the first track, with "Me and a Gun" appearing third (or as the B-side on the 7" release). "Silent All These Years" was a more accessible song, and radio stations began to play that instead. Ultimately the single was re-released with nearly identical packaging but retitled as Silent All These Years.

Amos made a habit of singing this song during live appearances. In 1994, the DC Rape Crisis Center awarded her a Visionary award for the song and the co-creation of RAINN. Amos stopped singing the song live in December 2001 and did not sing it live again until September 2007 (with the exception of one performance in Istanbul in August 2005).

Effect on rape myths
The lyrics of Me and a Gun address the rape myth where some people believe that a woman who dresses in revealing clothes is somehow responsible for her rape. Amos acknowledges wearing a revealing red top and challenges her rapist with the question of whether this made him think she deserved to be raped. A survey of thousands of Amos listeners revealed that only about 6% of the Amos listeners believed this myth as compared to 26% of the general population. This was the rape myth most rejected by Amos listeners, but the survey went on to analyze the attitudes of Amos listeners to other rape myths as well. All rape myths were rejected more strongly--to varying degrees--by Amos listeners than by the general population.

Later appearances of the song
 Trance pioneers Salt Tank sampled the line "Do you know Carolina, where the biscuits are soft and sweet" on their 1996 release "Eugina."
 A VHS video of music videos and live performances was released in 1992; it was also called Little Earthquakes. Amos sings "Me and a Gun" in an appearance on MTV Asia.
 Amos performs "Me and a Gun" on the video Tori Amos: Live from New York, a recording of the 1997 RAINN benefit concert.
 During 1997, a CD called Tori Amos the benefit for RAINN  (Atlantic #PRCD 6995-2) was given out during several promotions in order to raise money for RAINN. An audio version of the above live concert version was released on this two-track CD. (The other track was the album version of "Putting the Damage On.")
 In 1999, the song was featured on an MTV compilation called Fight for Your Rights: Take a Stand Against Violence.
 "Me and a Gun" is also included on A Tori Amos Collection: Tales of a Librarian.
 While performed for her stint on MTV Unplugged, "Me and a Gun" was cut from the final airing of the show. Clips of this performance surfaced on the MTV special Hips, Lips and Genderbenders: MTV's History of Sex, but it has otherwise remained unreleased.
 On November 6, 2007, during a concert in Chicago on her ADP tour, Amos performed "Me and a Gun" as Pip with her backing band, using a knife and gun as props.  This marked the first time she sang the song with instrumentation. The performance was considered especially controversial, with Amos dancing to the instrumentation in a sexual but angry manner. Pip was considered the angriest of her ADP alter egos. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint, opened her legs and used the knife prop to simulate her rapist's penis entering her, provoking great shock from most of her audience who were used to the song being performed in a very different way. Amos also used the gun to point at her audience, causing some in the audience to fear she might actually fire it in anger during the performance, although she did not.
 On November 12–14 and 17, 2011, during her Night of Hunters tour, Tori performed "Me and a Gun" for all four of her South Africa concerts.
 On June 16, 2022, during her Ocean to Ocean tour, Amos performed "Me and a Gun" as part of the solo section during the penultimate show of the US leg in Los Angeles.

Covers and remixes
 Fan remixes of this track exist; however, no official club or house remix exists. It was remastered for the album Tales of a Librarian.
 Rock band Stabbing Westward covered the song in 1996 during a live concert.
 Amanda Palmer covered the song live on September 12, 2009.

Track listing
CD single and 12" single
 "Silent All These Years" – 4:11
 "Upside Down" – 4:22
 "Me and a Gun" – 3:42
 "Thoughts" – 2:36

Tracks 1 & 3 are from the album. Track 2 also appeared on the single for "Winter". Track 4 was otherwise unavailable until it was remastered and released on the deluxe reissue of Little Earthquakes in 2015.

7" single
 "Silent All These Years" – 4:11
 "Me and a Gun" – 3:42

References

1991 songs
1991 singles
Tori Amos songs
A cappella songs
Songs written by Tori Amos
Song recordings produced by Eric Rosse
Songs about sexual assault
Atlantic Records singles
East West Records singles

Me and a Gun


Cyrus Hall McCormick (February 15, 1809 – May 13, 1884) was an American inventor and businessman who founded the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which later became part of the International Harvester Company in 1902. Originally from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, he and many members of the McCormick family became prominent residents of Chicago.
McCormick has been simplistically credited as the single inventor of the mechanical reaper. He was, however, one of several designing engineers who produced successful models in the 1830s. His efforts built on more than two decades of work by his father Robert McCormick Jr., with the aid of Jo Anderson, who was enslaved by the family. He also successfully developed a modern company, with manufacturing, marketing, and a sales force to market his products.

Early life and career

Cyrus Hall McCormick was born on February 15, 1809, in  Raphine, Virginia. He was the eldest of eight children born to inventor Robert McCormick Jr. (1780–1846) and Mary Ann "Polly" Hall (1780–1853). As Cyrus' father saw the potential of the design for a mechanical reaper, he applied for a patent to claim it as his own invention. He worked for 28 years on a horse-drawn mechanical reaper to harvest grain, but was never able to reproduce a reliable version.

Building on his father's years of development, Cyrus took up the project aided by Jo Anderson, an enslaved African-American on the McCormick plantation. A few machines based on a design of Patrick Bell of Scotland (which had not been patented) were available in the United States in these years. The Bell machine was pushed by horses. The McCormick design was pulled by horses and cut the grain to one side of the team.

Cyrus McCormick held one of his first demonstrations of mechanical reaping at the nearby village of Steeles Tavern, Virginia in 1831. He claimed to have developed a final version of the reaper in 18 months. The young McCormick was granted a patent on the reaper on June 21, 1834, two years after having been granted a patent for a self-sharpening plow. None was sold, however, because the machine could not handle varying conditions.

The McCormick family also worked together in a blacksmith/metal smelting business. The panic of 1837 almost caused the family to go into bankruptcy when a partner pulled out. In 1839 McCormick started doing more public demonstrations of the reaper, but local farmers still thought the machine was unreliable. He did sell one in 1840, but none for 1841.

Using the endorsement of his father's first customer for a machine built by McPhetrich, Cyrus continually attempted to improve the design. He finally sold seven reapers in 1842, 29 in 1843, and 50 in 1844. They were all built manually in the family farm shop.
He received a second patent for reaper improvements on January 31, 1845.

As word spread about the reaper, McCormick noticed orders arriving from farther west, where farms tended to be larger and the land flatter. While he was in Washington, D.C. to get his 1845 patent, he heard about a factory in Brockport, New York, where he contracted to have the machines mass-produced. He also licensed several others across the country to build the reaper, but their quality often proved poor, which hurt the product's reputation. His father then died.

Move to Chicago
In 1847, after their father's death, Cyrus and his brother Leander (1819–1900) moved to Chicago, where they established a factory to build their machines. At the time, other cities in the midwestern United States, such as Cleveland, Ohio; St. Louis, Missouri; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin were more established and prosperous. Chicago had no paved streets at the time, but the city had the best water transportation from the east over the Great Lakes for his raw materials, as well as railroad connections to the farther west where his customers would be.

When McCormick tried to renew his patent in 1848, the U.S. Patent Office noted that a similar machine had already been patented by Obed Hussey a few months earlier. McCormick claimed he had really invented his machine in 1831, but the renewal was denied.  William Manning of Plainfield, New Jersey had also received a patent for his reaper in May 1831, but at the time, Manning was evidently not defending his patent.

McCormick's brother William (1815–1865) moved to Chicago in 1849, and joined the company to take care of financial affairs. The McCormick reaper sold well, partially as a result of savvy and innovative business practices. Their products came onto the market just as the development of railroads offered wide distribution to distant markets. McCormick developed marketing and sales techniques, developing a wide network of salesmen trained to demonstrate operation of the machines in the field, as well as to get parts quickly and repair machines in the field if necessary during crucial times in the farm year.

A company advertisement was a take-off of the Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way mural by Emanuel Leutze; it added to the title: "with McCormick Reapers in the Van."

In 1851, McCormick traveled to London to display a reaper at the Crystal Palace Exhibition. After his machine successfully harvested a field of green wheat while the Hussey machine failed, he won a gold medal and was admitted to the Legion of Honor. His celebration was short-lived after he learned that he had lost a court challenge to Hussey's patent.

Legal controversies and success

Another McCormick Company competitor was John Henry Manny of Rockford, Illinois.  After the Manny Reaper beat the McCormick version at the Paris Exposition of 1855, McCormick filed a lawsuit against Manny for patent infringement. McCormick demanded that Manny stop producing reapers, and pay McCormick $400,000.

The trial, originally scheduled for Chicago in September 1855, featured prominent lawyers on both sides. McCormick hired the former U.S. Attorney General Reverdy Johnson and New York patent attorney Edward Nicholl Dickerson. Manny hired George Harding and Edwin M. Stanton. Because the trial was set to take place in Illinois, Harding hired the local Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln. The trial was moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, however. Manny won the case, with an opinion by the State Supreme Court Judge John McLean. Lincoln did not contribute to the defense. Stanton had objected to Lincoln's presence, referring to him as "that damned long armed ape." After being elected president five years later, Lincoln selected Stanton to be his Secretary of War where he became one of Lincoln's key advisers.

In 1856, McCormick's factory was producing more than 4000 reapers each year, mostly sold in the Midwest and West. In 1861, however, Hussey's patent was extended but McCormick's was not. McCormick's outspoken opposition to Lincoln and the anti-slavery Republican party may not have helped his cause. McCormick decided to seek help from the U.S. Congress to protect his patent.

In 1871, the factory burned down in the Great Chicago Fire, but McCormick heeded his wife's advice to rebuild, and it reopened in 1873 even as McCormick's health declined, so she took a greater role in the family's business as well as philanthropic affairs. In 1879, brother Leander changed the company's name from "Cyrus H. McCormick and Brothers" to "McCormick Harvesting Machine Company". He wanted to acknowledge the contributions of others in the family to the reaper "invention" and company, especially their father.

Family relationships

On January 26, 1858, 49-year-old Cyrus McCormick married his secretary Nancy "Nettie" Fowler (1835–1923). She was an orphan from New York who had graduated from the Troy Female Seminary and moved to Chicago. They had met two years earlier and shared views about business, religion and Democratic party politics. They had seven children:
 Cyrus Hall McCormick Jr. was born May 16, 1859.
 Mary Virginia McCormick was born May 5, 1861.
 Robert McCormick III was born October 5, 1863, and died January 6, 1865.
 Anita McCormick was born July 4, 1866, married Emmons Blaine on September 26, 1889, and died February 12, 1954. Emmons was a son of the U.S. Secretary of State James G. Blaine.
 Alice McCormick was born March 15, 1870, and died less than a year later on January 25, 1871.
 Harold Fowler McCormick was born May 2, 1872, married Edith Rockefeller, and died in 1941. Edith was the youngest daughter of Standard Oil co-founder John Davison Rockefeller and schoolteacher Laura Celestia "Cettie" Spelman.
 Stanley Robert McCormick was born November 2, 1874, married Katharine Dexter (1875–1967), and died January 19, 1947.

Mary and Stanley both had schizophrenia. Stanley McCormick's life inspired the 1998 novel Riven Rock by T. Coraghessan Boyle.

Cyrus McCormick was an uncle of Robert Sanderson McCormick (son-in-law of Joseph Medill); granduncle of Joseph Medill McCormick and Robert Rutherford McCormick; and great-granduncle of William McCormick Blair Jr.

Activism
McCormick had always been a devout Presbyterian, as well as advocate of Christian unity. He also valued and demonstrated in his life the Calvinist traits of self-denial, sobriety, thriftiness, efficiency, and morality. He believed feeding the world, made easier by the reaper, was part of his religious mission in life.

A lifelong Democrat, before the American Civil War, McCormick had published editorials in his newspapers, The Chicago Times and Herald, calling for reconciliation between the national sections. His views, however, were unpopular in his adopted home town. Although his invention helped feed Union troops, McCormick believed the Confederacy would not be defeated and he and his wife traveled extensively in Europe during the war. McCormick unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Democrat for Illinois's 2nd congressional district with a peace-now platform in 1864, and was soundly defeated by Republican John Wentworth. He also proposed a peace plan to include a Board of Arbitration.  After the war, McCormick helped found the Mississippi Valley Society, with a mission to promote New Orleans and Mississippi ports for European trade. He also supported efforts to annex the Dominican Republic as a territory of the United States. Beginning in 1872, McCormick served a four-year term on the Illinois Democratic Party's Central Committee. McCormick later proposed an international mechanism to control food production and distribution.

McCormick also became the principal benefactor and a trustee of what had been the Theological Seminary of the Northwest, which moved to Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood in 1859, a year in which he endowed four professorships. The institution was renamed McCormick Theological Seminary in 1886, after his death, although it moved to Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood in 1975 and began sharing facilities with the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

In 1869, McCormick donated $10,000 to help Dwight L. Moody start YMCA, and his son Cyrus Jr. would become the first chairman of the Moody Bible Institute.

McCormick and later his widow, Nettie Day McCormick, also donated significant sums to Tusculum College, a Presbyterian institution in Tennessee, as well as to establish churches and Sunday Schools in the South after the war, even though that region was slow to adopt his farm machinery and improved practices. Also, in 1872, McCormick purchased a religious newspaper, the Interior, which he renamed the Continent and became a leading Presbyterian periodical.

For the last 20 years of his life, McCormick was a benefactor and member of the board of trustees at Washington and Lee University in his native Virginia. His brother Leander also donated funds to build an observatory on Mount Jefferson, operated by the University of Virginia and named the McCormick Observatory.

Later life and death
During the last four years of his life, McCormick became an invalid, after a stroke paralyzed his legs; he was unable to walk during his final two years. He died at home in Chicago on May 13, 1884. He was buried in Graceland Cemetery. He was survived by his widow, Nettie, who continued his Christian and charitable activities, within the United States and abroad, between 1890 and her death in 1923, donating $8 million (over $160 million in modern equivalents) to hospitals, disaster and relief agencies, churches, youth activities and educational institutions, and becoming the leading benefactress of Presbyterian Church activities in that era.

Official leadership of the company passed to his eldest son Cyrus Hall McCormick Jr., but his grandson Cyrus McCormick III ran the company. Four years later, the company's labor practices (paying workers $9 per week) led to the Haymarket riots. Ultimately Cyrus Jr. teamed with J.P. Morgan to create the International Harvester Corporation in 1902. After Cyrus Hall McCormick Jr., Harold Fowler McCormick ran International Harvester. Various members of the McCormick family continued involvement with the corporation until Brooks McCormick, who died in 2006.

Legacy and honors
Numerous prizes and medals were awarded McCormick for his reaper, which reduced human labor on farms while increasing productivity. Thus, it contributed to the industrialization of agriculture as well as migration of labor to cities in numerous wheat-growing countries (36 by McCormick's death). The French government named McCormick an Officier de la Légion d'honneur in 1851, and he was elected a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1878 "as having done more for the cause of agriculture than any other living man."

The Wisconsin Historical Society holds Cyrus McCormick's papers.

 The Cyrus McCormick Farm, operated by other family members after Cyrus and Leander moved to Chicago, was ultimately donated to Virginia Tech, which operates the core of the property as a free museum, and other sections as an experimental farm. A marker memorializing Cyrus McCormick's contribution to agriculture had been erected near the main house in 1928.
 A statue of McCormick was erected on the front campus of Washington and Lee University, at Lexington, Virginia.
 The town of McCormick, South Carolina and McCormick County in the state were named for him after he bought a gold mine in the town, formerly known as Dornsville.
 1975, McCormick was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame.
 3 cent U.S. postage stamps were issued in 1940 to commemorate Cyrus Hall McCormick. See Famous Americans Series of 1940.

References

Further reading

External links

   Improvement in Machines for Reaping Small Grain: Cyrus H. McCormick, June 21, 1834
 Farm Equipment on Antique Farming web site

 McCormick Family Financial Records  at Newberry Library
 Explore McCormick County South Carolina

1809 births
1884 deaths
19th-century American inventors
19th-century American journalists
19th-century American newspaper publishers (people)
American anti-war activists
American male journalists
American people of Scotch-Irish descent
American Presbyterians
Burials at Graceland Cemetery (Chicago)
Businesspeople from Chicago
Illinois Democrats
Recipients of the Legion of Honour
McCormick family
Members of the French Academy of Sciences
People from Rockbridge County, Virginia
Washington and Lee University trustees

Cyrus McCormick