Gaius Sollius Modestus Apollinaris Sidonius, better known as Sidonius Apollinaris (5 November of an unknown year,  430 – 481/490 AD), was a poet, diplomat, and bishop. Born into the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, he was son-in-law to Emperor Avitus and was appointed Urban prefect of Rome by Emperor Anthemius in 468. In 469 he was appointed Bishop of Clermont and he led the defence of the city from Euric, King of the Visigoths, from 473 to 475. He retained his position as bishop after the city's conquest, until his death in the 480s. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic church, the Orthodox Church, and the True Orthodox Church, with his feast day on 21 August.

Sidonius is "the single most important surviving author from 5th-century Gaul" according to Eric Goldberg. He is one of four Gallo-Roman aristocrats of the 5th- to 6th-century whose letters survive in quantity; the others are Ruricius, bishop of Limoges (died 507), Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, bishop of Vienne (died 518) and Magnus Felix Ennodius of Arles, bishop of Ticinum (died 534). All of them were linked in the tightly bound aristocratic Gallo-Roman network that provided the bishops of Catholic Gaul. His writing is characterised by an extremely dense network of classical and biblical allusions, which was central to his self-presentation as a Roman aristocrat.

Life

Sidonius was born in Lugdunum (modern Lyon). His father, whose name is unknown, was Prefect of Gaul under Valentinian III (Sidonius recalls with pride being present with his father at the installation of Astyrius as consul for the year 449.) Sidonius' grandfather, Apollinaris, was Praetorian Prefect of Gaul from May 408 or earlier until 409, when he was succeeded by his friend Decimus Rusticus. Sidonius may be a descendant of another Apollinaris who was Prefect of Gaul under Constantine II between 337 and 340.

Sidonius married Papianilla, the daughter of Emperor Avitus, around 452. This union produced one son, Apollinaris, and at least two daughters, Severina and Roscia, whom Sidonius mentions in his letters. A daughter Alcima is mentioned much later by Gregory of Tours, and Theodor Mommsen speculated that Alcima may be another name for one of his daughters. As part of Papianilla's dowry, Sidonius received a summer villa on Lac d'Aydat, named Avitacum. He describes the villa in detail in his letters, as an L-shaped villa with three baths, located on a hill overlooking the lake, but the description draws heavily on Pliny the Younger's depiction of his own villas and is carefully crafted to present his cultural identity.

Gallo-Roman aristocrat
Sidonius' letters reveal him to have been part of a wide-reaching network of Roman aristocrats in Gaul. His correspondence focused on his own region of Auvergne, where his main interlocutors were based in Clairmont (like him) and the provincial capital of Lyon. Other key contacts were the aristocrats of Narbonne and Bordeaux, but some of his letters are addressed as far afield as Ravenna, Rome, and Hispania. Notable acquaintances include bishop Faustus of Riez and his theological adversary Claudianus Mamertus. He was recognised in life for his literary accomplishments; in 456 his bronze portrait was added to the gallery of writers in the libraries of Trajan's Forum, the last statue to be erected there.

Sidonius spent time in the court of Theodoric II, king of the Visigoths, in 455 or 456, and wrote a letter about the experience to his brother-in-law Agricola. This letter, placed first in Sidonius's anthology of his correspondence, praises Theodoric as an ideal king.

Sidonius's father-in-law, Avitus became emperor in 455 and Sidonius wrote a panegyric for him. In 457 Majorian deprived Avitus of the empire and seized the city of Lyons; Sidonius fell into his hands. However, the reputation of Sidonius's learning led Majorian to treat him with the greatest respect. In return Sidonius composed a panegyric in his honour (as he had previously done for Avitus), which won for him a statue at Rome and the title of comes. In 468 the emperor Anthemius appointed him Urban Prefect of Rome, a post he held until 469. Sidonius presents this as a reward for his literary ability and especially the panegyric which he had written in honour of Anthemius, but the appointment was probably also part of Anthemius' efforts to win the support of the Roman aristocrats in Gaul. Afterwards, Anthemius made him a Patrician and Senator.

Bishop

In 469, Sidonius was elected to succeed Eparchius, a relative of his wife, as Bishop of Averna (Clermont). He says little about this in his writing and it appears that he had not desired the role. Writing to the former praetorian prefect Tonantius Ferreolus, he encourages him to exchange his secular life "among Valentianian's prefects" for a religious life "among Christ's perfected men". Gregory of Tours speaks of Sidonius as a man who could celebrate Mass from memory (without a sacramentary) and give spontaneous speeches without any hesitation. He writes in praise of the aristocrats who supported the Church, ascetics, and authors of theological works, including those who incorporated pagan philosophy. On becoming a bishop, he publicly declared that he would give up pagan poetry, as incompatible with a religious life, but he continued to write and exchange poetry privately.

For three years, from 473 to 475, Sidonius and his brother-in-law Ecdicus led the defense of Clermont, which was attacked annually by the Visigoths under king Euric. He compared the conflict to the Carthaginian capture of Capua during the Second Punic War, casting Euric in the role of Hannibal and himself as Decius Magius, loyally defending the city on behalf of Rome. When the city was finally conquered, he was imprisoned and exiled to Liviana, but Euric allowed him to return and resume his office as bishop in 476 or 477, following an intervention by the king's advisor Leo. Sidonius maintained connections with Euric's court thereafter. Euric favoured Arianism over Catholicism and Sidonius maintained contacts with Catholic clergy throughout Gaul and beyond, in order to support them in legal disputes and with recommendations.

Sidonius accepted a degree of collaboration with Euric's court as necessary to maintain the unity of the Roman aristocracy in Gaul, but he was hostile to the Goths, writing to a senator "You shun barbarians because they have a bad reputation; I avoid them, even when they have a good one." He mocks the literary pretensions of Euric's court, which was known as the Athenaeum, and presents the Visigothic conquest as responsible for a reversal of the social order, which had placed the uneducated in power over the educated. He was involved in legal disputes with a Gothic noble who had seized the majority of his mother-in-law's lands and clashed with Seronatus, whom he considered a collaborator, for encouraging them to billet their troops in the villas of Roman aristocrats. His hostility to Euric is reflected in his decision to open his letter collection, published around 477, with a letter enthusiastically praising Theoderic II, whom Euric had murdered in order to assume the Visigothic throne.

Sidonius was still living in 481, but had died by 490, when his successor as bishop, Aprunculus, died. His date of death was 21 or 23 August. Following his death he was venerated as a saint in Aremorica.

Descendants
Sidonius's relations have been traced over several generations as a narrative of a family's fortunes, from the prominence of his paternal grandfather's time into later decline in the 6th century under the Franks. Sidonius's son Apollinaris, who was a correspondent of Ruricius of Limoges, commanded a unit raised in Auvergne at the Battle of Vouille in 507, where the Goths were decisively defeated by the Franks. He was also bishop of Clermont for four months before his death. Sidonius's grandson, Arcadius, on hearing a rumor that the Frankish king Theuderic I had died, betrayed Clermont to Childebert I, only to abandon his wife and mother when Theuderic appeared; his other appearance in the history of Gregory of Tours is as a servant of king Childebert.

Works

Carmina

A collection of twenty-four Carmina by Sidonius survives, consisting of occasional verse, including panegyrics on different emperors , which document several important political events and draw largely upon Statius, Ausonius and Claudian. Sidonius emphasises Rome's past successes and glories as a "crisis mirror" for contemporary rulers, suggesting both the degree to which Rome had declined but also the possibility of revitalisation. In both Carmen 7 for Avitus and Carmen 5 for Majorian, Sidonius reviews past emperors and concludes that only those who earnt the title through virtue, especially the military virtue of Vespasian and above all Trajan, deserved praise - an implicit challenge to the new emperors. Other virtues are also important; Carmen 2 praises Anthemius for his mastery of the liberal arts.

Other poems have different subjects. For example, Carmen 22 is an ecphrasis of a painting of the Third Mithridatic War on the wall of the villa of Pontius Leontius "Dionysus", one of Sidonius' friends, at Burgus. Sidonius' visit to the villa is compared to a meeting of Apollo with Dionysus, at which they decide to settle in Aquitania and establish learned symposiastic culture there.

Letters
Nine books of Letters are preserved, containing a total of 147 documents, addressed to 117 different individuals. Sidonius worked on his letter collection over a protracted period, publishing some of them in the early 470s and producing the final version of his collection around 477. The collection was dedicated to Constantius, a priest in Lyon, who was a personal friend, with apologies to the Praetorian Prefect Tonantius Ferreolus, on the grounds that even a minor priest ought to be put before even the greatest members of the laity, because Constantius had helped to edit the volume, and because of Constantius' advice following the siege of Clairmont in 473.

Sidonius' Latin style was highly praised in his own time. His contemporary, Claudianus Mamertus, dubbed him the "resuscitator of ancient eloquence." By contrast, in his introduction to his translation of Sidonius' letters in 1939, W.B. Anderson characterised them as very stilted in diction, but revealing him as a man of genial temper, fond of good living and of pleasure. Sigrid Mratschek characterises Sidonius' Latin as intentionally elaborate and learned, calling it

The complexity of the allusions to mythical, historical, biblical exempla often makes his writing very difficult to understand, but the difficulty was intentional and Sidonius disparages those unwilling to put in the effort necessary for a complete education in Roman language, literature, and culture. For Sidonius, familiarity with Classical Latin authors was the central point of education and the justification for the social position of the aristocrat; he says that difference between educated and uneducated men is the same as the difference between men and animals.

W.B. Anderson notes, "Whatever one may think about their style and diction, the letters of Sidonius are an invaluable source of information on many aspects of the life of his time." Many studies have used the letters in order to reconstruct the social networks of the intelligentsia in fourth-century Gaul. However, the letters cannot be treated as straightforward depictions of Sidonius' times. Sidonius actively models his letters and their representations of his contemporary world on those of earlier epistolographers, notably Pliny the Younger. He represents Rome as a model society. Peter Brown argues that the resulting picture of continuity is actually a response to the rapidity of change in his contemporary Gaul. Sigrid Mratschek says that through his literary work, he sought to build up the literary and cultural element of Roman identity, as compensation for Rome's military and political collapse, to reinforce the position of the Roman aristocracy in Gaul, and the church.

A letter of Sidonius's addressed to Riothamus, "King of the Brittones" () is of particular interest, since it provides evidence that a king or military leader with ties to Britain lived around the time frame of King Arthur. An English translation of his poetry and letters by W.B. Anderson, with accompanying Latin text, have been published by the Loeb Classical Library (volume 1, containing his poems and books 1-2 of his letters, 1939; remainder of letters, 1965).

Manuscript tradition
Although Sidonius' works may have been published in part during his lifetime (5th century), there is no textual evidence of this and all manuscripts can be traced back to a single archetype, which is estimated as dating to roughly the 7th century. The oldest witness dates to the 9th century and is likely a fourth-generation copy. Although the archetype contained poems, they were omitted in most copies, and most extant manuscripts contain only his letters, often jumbled together with a garbled transcription of another writer, Ausonius. Most of the work on textual variants was done by  in the 1870s, but Lütjohann died prematurely before he had developed the stemmatics, which are crucial for reconstructing Sidonius' idiosyncratic Latin. Lütjohann's work was published in the 1887 Monumenta Germaniae Historica with inferior stemmatics provided by other scholars. Franz Dolveck provided a partial new stemma, including only those editions complete with poetry, in 2020.Franz Dolveck, "The Manuscript Tradition of Sidonius," in Edinburgh Companion to Sidonius Apollinaris, ed. Gavin Kelly (Edinburgh University Press, 2020).

Notes

Editions and commentaries

Sources and further reading

 Nora Chadwick, Poetry and Letters in Early Christian Gaul London: Bowes and Bowes, 1955.

M. P. Hanaghan, Reading Sidonius' Epistles, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Gavin Kelly and Joop van Waarden (eds), The Edinburgh Companion to Sidonius Apollinaris, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020.
 Sigrid Mratschek, "Identitätsstiftung aus der Vergangenheit: Zum Diskurs über die trajanische Bildungskultur im Kreis des Sidonius Apollinaris", in Therese Fuhrer (hg), Die christlich-philosophischen Diskurse der Spätantike: Texte, Personen, Institutionen: Akten der Tagung vom 22.-25. Februar 2006 am Zentrum für Antike und Moderne der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2008) (Philosophie der Antike, 28),

 C.E. Stevens, Sidonius Apollinaris and his Age. Oxford: University Press, 1933.
K.F. Stroheker. Der senatorische Adel im spätantiken Gallien. Tübingen, 1948.

External links

Apollinaris Sidonius (5 November  - 21 August ) – Medieval Lectures. Lynn Harry Nelson.
1887 critical Latin edition of the works of Sidonius, Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Biographical introduction to the Letters , O. M. Dalton (1915)
Complete English translation of the Letters of Sidonius Apollinaris, O. M. Dalton (1915)
Sidonius Apollinaris, dedicated site, with bibliography and complete Latin text of the correspondence and the poetry, maintained by Joop van Waarden since 2003, frequently updated
Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina with analytical indexes

Bishops of Clermont
Letter writers in Latin
5th-century Roman poets
People from Lugdunum
Urban prefects of Rome
5th-century writers in Latin
5th-century bishops in Gaul
5th-century Christian saints
430 births
480s deaths
Occasional poets

Sidonius Apollinaris


The Capitol at Williamsburg, Virginia housed both Houses of the Virginia General Assembly, the Council of State and the House of Burgesses of the Colony of Virginia from 1705, when the capital was relocated there from Jamestown, until 1780, when the capital was relocated to Richmond. Two capitol buildings served the colony on the same site: the first from 1705 until its destruction by fire in 1747; the second from 1753 to 1780.

The earlier capitol was reconstructed in the early 1930s as part of the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg. The reconstruction has thus lasted longer than the combined total of both original capitol buildings.

History of Williamsburg

First Williamsburg Capitol (1705–1747)
In 1698, the Capitol building in Jamestown, Virginia, burned. Following the fire, the government of Virginia decided to relocate inland, away from the swamps at the Jamestown site.

A better Capitol building was constructed by Henry Cary, a contractor finishing work on the College of William and Mary Wren Building (the legislature's temporary home). Begun in 1701, the Capitol was completed in 1705, although the legislature moved in during 1704. In 1714, the Governor's Palace was constructed between the College and the Capitol.

The Colonial Capitol was a two-story H-shaped structure, functionally two buildings connected by an arcade. Each wing served one of the two houses of the Virginia legislature, the Council and the House of Burgesses. The first floor of the west building was for the General Court and the colony's secretary, the first floor of the east for the House of Burgesses and its clerk. As a result of the fires that had destroyed several prior Virginia capitals, Cary built the first Capitol without fireplaces. In 1723, chimneys were added for fireplaces to help keep the Capitol dry. On January 30, 1747, the building burned and only some walls and the foundation remained.

Second Williamsburg Capitol (1753–1779)

Governor William Gooch urged that the Capitol be rebuilt, but many legislators preferred relocating the government to a city more accessible to trade and navigation. In the meantime, the burgesses met again at the nearby Wren Building. Finally, in November 1748, reconstruction of the Capitol was approved (by only two votes: 40 to 38). The burgesses met inside for the first time on November 1, 1753.

In this building, Patrick Henry delivered his Caesar-Brutus speech against the Stamp Act on May 29, 1765. Henry, George Washington, George Mason, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, and others played parts in the legislative maneuvering that ended in revolution. As fighting began in the North, the building featured discussion concerning Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, his Virginia constitution, and Jefferson's first attempt at a bill for religious freedom.

On June 29, 1776, Virginians declared their independence from Great Britain and wrote the state's first constitution, thereby creating an independent government four days before Congress voted for the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on July 4.

The Capitol at Williamsburg served until the American Revolutionary War began, when Governor Thomas Jefferson urged it that the capital be relocated to Richmond. The building was last used as a capitol on December 24, 1779, when the Virginia General Assembly adjourned to reconvene in 1780 at the new capital, Richmond.

After the capital of Virginia was moved to Richmond in 1779, the old Capitol was used for a wide range of purposes, from a court to a school.  The east wing was removed around 1800 because of its dangerous condition, leaving only the west wing standing for the next 30 years, until it was destroyed by fire in 1832, leaving no trace of the original structure, except for the outline of its foundations.

Reconstruction

The building that stands now in Colonial Williamsburg is the third Capitol on that site. Early in the 20th century, the Reverend Dr. W. A. R. Goodwin undertook restoration of historic Bruton Parish Church (c. 1711) where he was rector. His dreams of restoring other buildings of the old colonial capital city led to his affiliation with Standard Oil heir and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. and the creation of Colonial Williamsburg. The reconstructed Capitol and Governor's Palace join the Wren Building of the College of William & Mary as the three main structures of the restoration.

The architects charged with restoration of Williamsburg chose to reconstruct the first capitol based on superior documentation of its design, including in the 1929-discovered Bodleian Plate, and its unique architecture compared to the second Capitol. Later architectural historians have since shown that parts of the reconstruction, chiefly its foundations, were embellished or conjectural and were based more on contemporary architectural ideas than actual historic evidence. However, the reconstructed Capitol is now itself valued as a Colonial Revival interpretation and work of architecture.

The reconstruction opened to the public on February 24, 1934.

Gallery

See also
Virginia State Capitol (Richmond)

References

External links

Colonial Williamsburg, Capitol web page

Capitol
Buildings and structures in Williamsburg, Virginia
Government buildings completed in 1705
Virginia
Colonial Williamsburg
Tourist attractions in Williamsburg, Virginia
Historic district contributing properties in Virginia
1705 establishments in Virginia
Rebuilt buildings and structures in Virginia
National Register of Historic Places in Williamsburg, Virginia

Capitol (Williamsburg, Virginia)


The Reliquary of Saint Eustace is a medieval silver and wooden holy container in the shape of Saint Eustace's head that once formed part of Basel Minster's treasury. The treasury was acquired by the Canton of Basel in 1836 and shortly afterwards sold at auction to collectors and museums across Europe. The reliquary was later bought by the British Museum.

History
For centuries the reliquary belonged to the cathedral treasury of Basel in Switzerland, where it was first recorded in 1477.  It was sold, along with the rest of the treasury, in 1836, shortly after their acquisition by the canton of Basel. After passing through several owners, it was purchased by the British Museum in 1850.

Description
The main image shows the repoussé silver-gilt cover of the reliquary modelled in the shape of the saint's head, which was made between 1180 and 1200 AD.  It is adorned with a headband composed of glass and various precious stones. Around the base, twelve gold figures of the Apostles stand within arcading.  Inside was a contemporary sycamore wooden case with a hollow compartment that held the relics of various saints and fragments of a skull that may have been from the head of Saint Eustace. The wooden head and relics were only discovered when the outer silver case was being cleaned in 1956.

Relic Deposit
From the ninth century, enshrining items which had once belonged to saints or church leaders, such as their bones or parts of their clothing,  was an important feature of religious life in early medieval Europe. The reliquary could often be in the shape of a foot, arm, bell or even a domed building. In this case, the medieval silversmith had designed the relic deposit container in the shape of St. Eustace's head, who was an important Roman military saint. The image was designed to convey the sacredness and majesty of the saint to the pious faithful. Many of these luxury items were later melted down and destroyed during the reformation.

Gallery

References

Further reading
J.C.H. King (ed.), Human image (London, The British Museum Press, 2000)
J. Robinson, Masterpieces: Medieval Art (London, British Museum Press, 2008)
T. Richard Blurton (ed.), The enduring image: treasures, exh. cat (British Council, 1997)

Medieval European objects in the British Museum
Silver objects
Christian reliquaries

Reliquary of Saint Eustace


Marianne Elisabeth Grönvall (, née Nordqvist; born 18 May 1962), known by her stage name Nanne (), is a Swedish singer-songwriter.

Biography
Grönvall's musical career started in the 1980s group Sound of Music. The trio participated twice in the Swedish Eurovision Song Contest selections, Melodifestivalen, finishing fourth both times; in 1986 with "Eldorado" and in 1987 with "Alexandra". Over the following ten years, she established herself as a songwriter in Melodifestivalen, writing two songs for the 1992 competition and the 1995 runner-up "Det vackraste" ("The Most Beautiful Thing") performed by Cecilia Vennersten.

From 1991 till 1997, she was a member of the group One More Time with her husband, Peter Grönvall, and Maria Rådsten. They won the Melodifestivalen 1996 final with the folk-ballad "Den vilda" (recorded in English as "The Wilderness Mistress"). It finished third (out of 23) in the Eurovision Song Contest 1996 behind Norway and winners Ireland.

Boosted by this, Nanne began a solo career following One More Time's final album in 1997. In 1998 she returned to Melodifestivalen with "Avundsjuk" ("Envious"), a satirical song about her hatred of successful people. For the Melodifestivalen performance of the song, she wore a purple wig and ears reminiscent of Star Trek's Mr. Spock. The regional juries placed the song fourth. She participated in the United Kingdom's Song for Europe selection for Eurovision in 2001 and finished fourth (last) with "Men", written by Kimberley Rew of Katrina and the Waves. In 2003, she returned to Melodifestivalen with "Evig kärlek" ("Eternal Love"), a somewhat peculiar mix of opera and techno. Maria Rådsten was a backing singer for the song. However, the song did not appeal to the voting public and failed to qualify for the final.

In 2005, Nanne made her sixth appearance as a performer at Melodifestivalen, singing a song co-written with Ingela 'Pling' Forsman. Even though it was initially rejected by the jury selecting the entries, "Håll om mig" ("Embrace me") was chosen as a wildcard for the competition, due to the lack of female songwriters participating. It was performed at the semi-final in Växjö and qualified for the final with ease. It was considered the favourite, albeit in a close contest. The song finished a disappointing third with the regional juries, but won the national televote by a surprisingly huge margin, scoring a total of 209 points. This left it three points behind the overall winner, Martin Stenmarck. It went on to top the Swedish single chart for two weeks and stayed in the top three for eight weeks, selling more than 10,000 copies (gold throughout Sweden).

In June 2006, Nanne cancelled her tour and announced that she was suffering from breast cancer, which she recovered from some months later.

Nanne entered Melodifestivalen again in 2007 with the song "Jag måste kyssa dig" ("I Must Kiss You"), written by herself and Ingela 'Pling' Forsman. On 17 February 2007, Nanne Grönvall finished third in the Melodifestivalen semi-final, thus qualifying for the "second chance" round. On 3 March 2007, Nanne was eliminated from the "Second chance round" after the first voting round in which she was up against Magnus Uggla.

She competed as a celebrity dancer in Let's Dance 2015. Grönvall participated in Melodifestivalen 2020 with the song "Carpool Karaoke" and also composed a song for another artist in the competition, Jakob Karlberg and his song "Om du tror att jag saknar dig". "Carpool Karaoke" got eliminated in the fourth "deltävling" of the competition.

Musicals and theatre
Nanne has done several musical and acting roles throughout the years, mainly leading roles as Sweet Charity, Miss Hannigan in Annie, Miss Danvers in the German musical Rebecca based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier and the Alfred Hitchcock thriller movie. She's been Guldmasken (Swedish equivalent to Tony award) nominated for her roles as Sweet Charity and debut role in How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. She has also dubbed a lot of cartoon movies and TV-series as well as the leading role in "Månsaråttan", a Swedish Christmas daily calendar radio play 2015.

Composer – records and movies
Nanne has written/co-written several gold- and platinum selling songs, recorded by her former groups, solo and/or by other artists and movie theme songs.

The song "Highland" with her former group One More Time, entered the charts all around in Europe 1994 and also sold gold in South Africa. In 2010 Ritchie Blackmore and Candice Night's group Blackmore's Night recorded "Highland" and made a video with the song. Highland is written by Peter Grönvall and Nanne.

In 1995, Peter Grönvall, Nanne and Maria Rådsten wrote the song "Det vackraste", performed by Cecilia Vennersten. It was the first Swedish Song Contest song ever to receive a Grammy for "song of the year" and it sold gold and platinum both in Sweden and Norway. One More Time also released the song in English with the title Living in a Dream (1997). The song was also translated and released in Holland with the Belgian singer Dana Winner 1999, then with the song title "I'll Sing A Song Today".

Together with Peter Grönvall, Nanne has written the movie theme songs "De Hjältemodiga" (1996) and "Vår Vitaste Ros" (1997), sung by Sanna Nielsen, both movies based on the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren's Kalle Blomqvist-books.

She is one of the composers of the radio (and chart) hit song "I Do", performed by Arvingarna in Melodifestivalen February 2019. In May, the same year, it reached gold record and won the Guldklaven (Goldclef) Award for; "Song of the year".

Radio and tv host
Nanne has hosted many radio and TV shows. She has had her own radio show called "Nanne i P4" with many Swedish stars as guests. In June 2011 her radio show was broadcast live from Sweden Rock Festival. The same weekend she did an exclusive interview with Ozzy Osbourne at the festival, before his performance there. She got the one and only Swedish media interview during his visit in Sweden 2011. It was broadcast in "P4 Rock".

In 2005 she TV hosted "Lilla Melodifestivalen" together with Shan Atci and in 2011 she hosted the music final of "Svensktoppen nästa" together with Annika Jankell. She has also hosted radio shows for several years where she still is making guest-host appearances every now and then, such as "Jukeboxen i P4" and "Karlavagnen".

Awards

1992 DIAMOND AWARDS – International Group/Artist of the Year – One More Time
1995: GRAMMY AWARD Song of the Year – "Det Vackraste" Cecilia Vennersten
1996: SÅNGFÅGELN – for winning Melodifestivalen
2005: QX GAYGALA Song of the Year – "Håll Om Mig" Nanne Grönvall
2005: ULLA BILLQUIST STIPENDIUM Artist of the Year – Nanne Grönvall
2014: SKAP STIPENDIUM – for great achievements as a composer and lyricist:  Nanne Grönvall
2019: GULDKLAVEN AWARD Song Of The Year – "I Do" Arvingarna
2020 MELODIFESTIVALEN HALL OF FAME

Melodifestivalen
Nannes participations as an artist and/or composer at Melodifestivalen:
1986: "Eldorado" (as a member of Sound of Music) – 4th
1987: "Alexandra" (as a member of Sound of Music) – 4th
1992: "Vad Som Än Händer"(as a composer) - 3rd
1992: "Ingenting går ändå som man vill" (as a composer) - 6th
1995: "Det Vackraste" (as a composer) - 2nd
1996: "Den vilda" (as a member of One More Time) – 1st
1998: "Avundsjuk" ("Envious") – 4th
2003: "Evig kärlek" ("Eternal Love") – 7th in semi-final
2005: "Håll om mig" ("Embrace Me") – 2nd
2007: "Jag måste kyssa dig" ("I Must Kiss You") – second chance round
2019: "I Do" (as a composer) – 7th
2020: "Om du tror att jag saknar dig" (as a composer) – 6th in semi-final
2020: "Carpool Karaoke" – 7th in semi-final

She is the member of the Melodifestivalen Hall of Fame.

Eurovision Song Contest
Grönvall has performed at the Eurovision Song Contest once:

1996: "Den vilda" (as a member of One More Time) – 3rd

Discography

Albums

Sound of Music
 Sound of Music (1986)
 Sound of Music II (1987)

One More Time
 Highland (1992)
 One More Time (1994)
 Den vilda (1996)
 Living in a Dream (1997)

Solo albums
 Cirkus Homo Sapiens (1998)
 Alla mina ansikten (2001)
 Alltid på väg (2005)
 Jag måste kyssa dig (2007)
 En rastlös själ (2010)
 My Rock Favourites (2011)
 Drama Queen (2014)

Singles

Sound of Music

One More Lonely Night (1985)
Eldorado (1986)
Blue Magic Woman/ A Pretty Lovesong (1986)
Self Erection (1986)
Love Me or Leave Me (1986)
Alexandra (1987)
Once Again (1987)
Summer Sensation (1987)
Magic Night (1987)

Peter's Pop Squad

Have You Heard (1990)
Strangers in the Night (Tonight) (1990)
When the Lady Shakes (1990)

One More Time

Highland (1992)
Calming Rain (1993)
Turn Out the Light (1993)
No One Else Like You (1993)
Song of Fête (1994)
Get Out (1994)
The Dolphin (1994)
Den Vilda (1996)
Kvarnen (1996)
The Wilderness Mistress (1996)
Living in a Dream (1996)

Solo singles

Kul i jul (1997)
Avundsjuk (1998)
Nannes sommarvisa (1998)
Vem som helst (1998)
Svarta änkan (2000)
Jag har inte tid (2000)
Men (2001)
Fördomar (2001)
Ett vackert par (2002)
Vi är dom tuffaste, dom starkaste, dom grymmaste, dom vackraste (2002) (The swedish official Icehockey World Cup song 2002)
Evig kärlek (2003)
Håll om mig (2005)
Jag sträcker mig mot himlen / Om du var min (2005)
Lyckos dig (2005)
Många karlar lite tid (2006)
Jag måste kyssa dig (2007)
Pissenisse (2007)
Otacksamhet (2009)
I natt är jag din (2010)
En rastlös själ (2010)
Explosivt (2010)
Nag (2011)
Ingen dansar dåligt (Lika bra som jag) (2013)
The King (2015) (with Brolle and The Boppers)
Jättekänd (2019) (featuring Per Andersson)
Carpool Karaoke (2020)
The Carpool Karaoke Song [English Version] (2023)

Musicals and theatre
How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Hur Man Lyckas i Business....) 2003 (as Smitty)
Sweet Charity 2006 (as Sweet Charity)
Boeing Boeing 2011 (as Mirelle – gender roles were switched from the original movie and play)
Rebecca 2014 (as Mrs Danvers)
Snow White (Snövit) 2016 (as the Evil Queen)
Annie 2018 (as Miss Hannigan)

References

External links

Nanne fan site

1962 births
Living people
Singers from Stockholm
Eurovision Song Contest entrants for Sweden
Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 1996
Swedish women songwriters
Swedish women singer-songwriters
Swedish singer-songwriters
Swedish women singers
Swedish pop singers
English-language singers from Sweden
Melodifestivalen contestants of 2020
Melodifestivalen contestants of 2007
Melodifestivalen contestants of 2006
Melodifestivalen contestants of 2005
Melodifestivalen contestants of 2003
Melodifestivalen contestants of 1998
Melodifestivalen contestants of 1996
Melodifestivalen contestants of 1987
Melodifestivalen contestants of 1986

Nanne Grönvall


Tlilpotonqui or Tlilpotoncatzin (died in the year 11 Reed/1503) was the second cihuacoatl ("president") of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.

Tlilpotoncatzin was the second son of Tlacaelel and Maquiztzin. His father was a son of the second tlatoani ("ruler" or "king") of Tenochtitlan, Huitzilihuitl. While Tlacaelel never became tlatoani himself, as cihuacoatl he played a significant role in the creation of the Aztec Empire. His mother was the daughter of Huehue Quetzalmacatzin, king of Itztlacozauhcan in Amaquemecan Chalco. Tlilpotoncatzin succeeded his father as cihuacoatl upon his death in the year 8 Reed (1487).

According to the Crónica mexicayotl of Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, composed around 1598, Tlilpotoncatzin was a great, brave warrior. In battle he wore the quetzalpatzactli, a crest of quetzal feathers.

Tlilpotoncatzin took at least two wives, both from Amaquemecan: Xiuhtoztzin, the daughter of Yaopaintzin, quauhtlatoani of Tequanipan Huixtoco; and Quauhtlamiyahualtzin, a noblewoman from Acxotlan Cihuateopan. He fathered fourteen children, eleven males and three females. A son by Xiuhtoztzin, Miccacalcatl Tlatletecuintzin, was installed as the ruler of Tequanipan; and one of his daughters, Tzihuacxochitzin II, married Moctezuma II, and gave birth to Leonor Moctezuma and María Moctezuma.

Tlilpotoncatzin died in the year 11 Reed (1503). He was succeeded by his nephew Tlacaelel II, the son of his elder brother Cacamatzin.

Notes

References

Tenochca nobility
15th-century indigenous people of the Americas
Indigenous leaders of the Americas
15th-century births
Year of birth unknown
1503 deaths

Tlilpotoncatzin


WLTX (channel 19) is a television station in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, affiliated with CBS. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station maintains studios on Garners Ferry Road (US 76–378) in southeastern Columbia, and its transmitter is located on Screaming Eagle Road (southeast of I-20) in rural northeast Richland County.

WLTX is Columbia's oldest continuously operating television station, going on the air in September 1953 as WNOK-TV on ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 67. Built by Columbia radio station WNOK (1230 AM), it struggled in its first years on air as Columbia's lone very high frequency station, WIS (channel 10), used that position to become the dominant TV station in central South Carolina. The station endured in the shadow of its much larger competitor and moved to the lower channel 19 in 1961. The WNOK stations were sold to Julius Curtis Lewis Jr. in 1977; the TV station was given its present call letters, WLTX.

For most of its first four decades on the air, the station was a distant runner-up to WIS. For much of that time, it only offered one daily newscast, even after a substantial power increase in 1985. However, in the final years of Lewis ownership and after WLTX's purchase by Gannett in 1998, the news department was significantly expanded in facilities, personnel, and newscasts offered. As a result, in the last quarter-century, the station has become a more substantial challenger to the once-dominant WIS and has even overtaken it on occasion.

History

WNOK-TV
On August 15, 1951, Palmetto Radio Corporation, owner of WNOK (1230 AM), applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking to build a new TV station on channel 10 in Columbia. It had previously bid for channel 7, but that allocation was moved to Spartanburg after heavy lobbying from Governor and Spartanburg resident James F. Byrnes.

In May 1952, with the possibility looming of a contest for channel 10—now the only available very high frequency (VHF) allocation in central South Carolina—and two parties seeking channel 25 in the new ultra high frequency (UHF) band, Palmetto Radio amended its application to specify the only other commercial allocation for Columbia, channel 67.  When the FCC made its way through a priority list of station applications to Columbia, channels 25 and 67 were uncontested, and on September 18, 1952, the commission moved to grant Palmetto Radio a construction permit for channel 67. On the same day, it granted Radio Columbia, owner of WCOS (1400 AM), a construction permit for channel 25.

WNOK-TV began broadcasting on channel 67 on September 1, 1953, as an affiliate of CBS and the DuMont Television Network. It used DuMont Laboratories's second high-power UHF transmitter installed (the first having been at WGLV in Pennsylvania). It signed on four months after WCOS-TV on May 1 and WIS-TV (channel 10) on November 7.

Palmetto Radio's decision to drop out of the bidding for channel 10 quickly came back to haunt it. WIS was the only station that Columbia-area viewers could receive without buying a UHF converter. Even with a converter, UHF reception was marginal at best. This left both WNOK-TV and WCOS-TV far behind WIS, which became the dominant television station in the Midlands of South Carolina. Dick Laughridge, a station employee from 1953 to 1999 and general manager for the last 21 years of his tenure, described having to buy UHF converters for the station's advertisers just so they could see their own advertisements on channel 67. When WCOS-TV folded in January 1956 for economic reasons, WNOK-TV acquired its business assets but not its physical plant. Channel 67 then began airing selected ABC programs.

Nearly from the start, Palmetto Radio sought to improve the visibility of its television station by adding a second VHF channel to Columbia. When it bought WCOS-TV's assets, it also asked the FCC to move channel 5 from Charleston to Columbia. The FCC invited comment on the proposal, though it was denied nearly a year later. It later sought to move channel 8, but this bid failed as well. In 1960, with a second attempt to build a station on channel 25 (WCCA-TV, today's WOLO-TV) on the horizon, WNOK instead proposed changing Columbia to have UHF channels 14, 25, and educational 31 instead of educational 19, 25, and 67. The FCC chose to instead switch channel 19 to commercial use, move WNOK-TV there, and allocate channel 31 for educational use by moving it from Lancaster. On June 12, 1961, the station switched to the lower channel 19.

In 1966, the Hotel Jefferson, which had housed the studios of WNOK radio and television, was sold to the Citizens & Southern National Bank, which announced plans to build an office tower on the site. Though the hotel closed in April 1966, the WNOK stations continued to hold a lease on the studio site through June 1967. A new facility would be necessary. In August, Palmetto Radio Corporation broke ground on a new studio and office complex on Garners Ferry Road, which would be twice as large as the old facility and feature two television studios. The stations moved into the facility in June 1967. Following the studio move, Palmetto Radio upgraded the station's effective radiated power, improving its signal, and began producing live local programs in color in 1968.

WLTX: Lewis Television ownership
Palmetto Radio Corporation announced in April 1977 it would sell WNOK radio and television to Lewis Broadcasting, a company owned by Savannah, Georgia businessman and politician Julius Curtis Lewis Jr., for $4 million. When the sale took effect in April 1978, Lewis changed the station's call sign from WNOK-TV to WLTX. While the radio stations remained under common ownership, station officials wanted to change channel 19's image. Laughridge said that the WLTX call letters would be easier to promote and easier for viewers to remember.

In 1984, Lewis applied for a nearly five-fold increase in WLTX's effective radiated power from a new tower northeast of Columbia. Channel 19 had previously operated at 1.2 million watts, but the new facility would operate at five million watts, the maximum power allowed for analog UHF stations. The new tower would be the tallest in the market and give WLTX a coverage area comparable to that of WIS. The new facility and  tower were activated in June 1985. It doubled the station's coverage area, providing secondary Grade B coverage as far east as Florence, as far north as Lancaster, and as far west as Aiken. It also gave the station primary coverage of outer suburbs like Orangeburg and Newberry; these areas had only received a Grade B signal.

In January 1995, WLTX began airing United Paramount Network (UPN) programming on a secondary basis, beginning first with Star Trek: Voyager and expanding at UPN's insistence to additional network programming that fall. Citing scheduling difficulties, WLTX dropped UPN programs in September 1997. The market was without UPN programming until Sumter-licensed WQHB (channel 63) signed on that November.

Gannett/Tegna ownership
The Gannett Company announced in February 1998 that it would acquire WLTX from Lewis, a move that came as the Lewis family was planning their estate and seeking a buyer. With the move, Laughridge, who had served as general manager for over 20 years, announced his retirement. It came at a time when WLTX beat WIS in total-day viewership for the first time in history, though the improving news department was still far behind channel 10. The purchase closed at the end of April. A renovation and expansion of the Garners Ferry Road studio, started in 2000 and completed in 2001, added another  to the facility; the addition housed the newsroom, studio control, and several offices. In 2002, WLTX became the first commercial station in Columbia to broadcast in digital.

WLTX's broadcasts became digital-only, effective June 12, 2009. The station later relocated its signal from channel 17 to channel 15 on September 6, 2019, as a result of the 2016 United States wireless spectrum auction.

On June 29, 2015, the Gannett Company split in two, with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media. WLTX was retained by the latter company, named Tegna.

News operation

WLTX spent most of its history as a distant runner-up to WIS in the market. At one point in the late 1970s, channel 19's ratings were so low that it canceled its short, five-minute 11 p.m. local newscast, concentrating on its 6 p.m. dinner-hour news. This allowed it to compete against WIS with syndicated shows, most notably The Andy Griffith Show, which was far more competitive with the WIS 11:00 Report and often finished in second place in its time slot.

WLTX began adding more news updates in the latter years of the tenure of Dick Hall, the news director for 13 years under Lewis ownership. Hall left for WKXT-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1991, wanting to work in a more competitive market. After taking the role in 1993, Carolyn Powell made a concerted effort to add a full schedule of news. As part of that effort, she began gradually scaling up channel 19's news department to a more typical size for a medium-market station. During the final years of Lewis ownership, five-minute 11 p.m. news updates and weekend 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts debuted between 1993 and 1995. A full 30-minute newscast at 11, seven nights a week, began airing in March 1996. In conjunction with a revamped format for CBS This Morning, the station began broadcasting a 7 a.m. morning newscast that August; a midday newscast debuted in September 1997.

The Gannett purchase led to wholesale changes throughout 1999 as Gannett replaced the general manager (hiring Rich O'Dell of WKYC-TV in Cleveland) and news director. Longtime WLTX personalities, including anchor Gene Upright and weather presenter Camille Bradford Hugg, moved to new off-air jobs or retired. In August 1999, to accommodate the launch of The Early Show by CBS, WLTX replaced its 7 a.m. morning news with a two-hour broadcast at 5 a.m. At year's end, on December 31, the centerpiece of the strategy debuted on air in the person of former longtime WIS meteorologist Jim Gandy. The previous year, Gannett had hired Gandy as a consultant while he waited out a one-year non-compete clause in his contract with channel 10; when the move was announced, he was widely expected to return to Columbia and forecast the weather on WLTX after the year was up, which proved to be the case. Channel 19 also added a Doppler weather radar system to bolster its weather forecasts.

The substantial changes in WLTX's news product did not immediately lead to a ratings boost, but by 2001, WLTX was giving WIS its most credible competition ever, aided by the strong performance of CBS network programming such as Survivor. A 7 p.m. newscast—the first-ever challenge to WIS's popular 7:00 Report—debuted in late 2001 after the September 11 attacks. However, WIS was able to successfully fend off the challenge and keep WLTX in second place, particularly in the 6 and 7 p.m. newscasts. Looking for a further lift, in late 2002, the station moved the anchor duo of J. R. Berry and Darci Strickland, both South Carolina natives, from the morning newscasts to the evening newscasts. The move kept WLTX competitive; its ratings remained behind WIS in total households but sometimes pulled ahead in key demographics with desirable younger viewers. One of the few holdovers from the pre-Gannett WLTX was in the area of sports: sports director Bob Shields, who created a regional high school Player of the Week award while at channel 19 and retired from broadcasting in 2010 after 30 years.

WLTX was awarded the prestigious Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award in 2015 for DSS: When the System Fails, its series of reports on the dysfunction of South Carolina's Department of Social Services.

Gandy retired in 2019 after 44 years in broadcasting. That year, Broadcasting & Cable magazine honored O'Dell as its general manager of the year in a non-top-50 market, citing an improvement in the station's ratings that catapulted it ahead of WIS in early evening news and significantly closed the gap in the late news slot. The station also surged ahead of WIS among adults 25–54; a three-share point deficit among that demographic in 2017 had become a 12-point lead by 2019. O'Dell credited WLTX's piloting of Tegna's "Street Squad" community reporting model as a factor in the ratings boost.

Notable former on-air staff
 Matt Barrie – sportscaster
 Joel Connable – reporter
 Natasha Curry – reporter, weekend anchor in the early 2000s
 Ainsley Earhardt – reporter, weekend anchor in the early 2000s

Subchannels
The station's signal is multiplexed:

References

External links

Tegna Inc.
CBS network affiliates
True Crime Network affiliates
Quest (American TV network) affiliates
Twist (TV network) affiliates
Catchy Comedy affiliates
This TV affiliates
TheGrio affiliates
Television channels and stations established in 1953
1953 establishments in South Carolina
LTX
Former Gannett subsidiaries

WLTX


A card game is any game played with playing cards. Some common card games are poker, bridge, blackjack, solitaire, and go fish.

Cards are individually identifiable from one side only (the "face"). Each player knows only the cards he holds and not those held by anyone else. Card games are often called  "games of chance" or games of "imperfect information". In these, the current position is not seen by all players throughout the game.

Some games of cards use a board. The gameplay of a card game depends on the use of the cards by players. The board is a guide for scorekeeping or for card placement. Board games (the principal non-card game genre to use cards) generally focus on the players' positions on the board, and use the cards for some secondary purpose.

There are trading card games like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! that use special packs. These games often involve fighting role-play.

Other websites
 International Playing Card Society
 Rules for historic card games
 Clock and Patience Card Game

References

Card game


Portuguese Asilah () covers the period of Portuguese rule over Asilah, today a city in Morocco. The territory was ruled by the Kingdom of Portugal from 1471 to 1550 and again between 1577 and 1589.

History

In 1471 the Portuguese captured Asilah. The Portuguese were commanded by King Afonso V personally, at the head of an army that numbered 30,000 men and 400 vessels of various sizes. The episode is illustrated in the Pastrana Tapestries.

The Count of Viana do Alentejo Dom Henrique de Meneses was appointed first captain of Asilah. He was killed in action by the Moroccans in 1480.

During the tenure of captain Álvaro de Faria, in 1488, the Count of Borba Dom Vasco Coutinho distinguished himself in combat ahead of 70 horsemen against the qaid of Ksar el-Kebir, whom he personally fought and captured, despite having been ambushed. The qaid was later ransomed in exchange for 15 000 gold dobras, 15 Christian s, 20 horses, 18 hostages, the qaids suit of chain mail and a truce. He was later further rewarded by king John II, who promoted him to the post of captain of Asilah in 1490.

Like Portuguese Tangier, Portuguese Asilah received Spanish Jewish families after 1490, after they had fled from Spain into Portugal. The city was then governed by the Count of Borba Dom Vasco Coutinho, who granted asylum to many. Many Jews sought baptism out of fear of the Muslims, while others stuck to Judaism or moved to Portugal later.

Dom Vasco was recalled to Portugal to stand trial in 1495, and his nephew Dom Rodrigo Coutinho briefly replaced him as captain until he was killed later that year in a skirmish against the qaids of Chefchaouen and Tetouan. He was replaced by João de Meneses until being replaced by Dom Vasco who returned still in 1495.

A temporary truce was agreed upon with the Sultan of Fez, and while peace lasted, the villages in the vicinity of Asilah developed and cattle could be raised in safety. The governor of Asilah, Count of Borba Dom Vasco Coutinho earned the respect of both Christians and Muslims alike as a fair governor, hence in 1498 he was selected by King Manuel of Portugal to negotiate with the Sultan of Fez Abu Abd Allah al-Sheikh Muhammad ibn Yahya an extension of the truce. Talks however floundered, because Dom Vasco was outraged at the envoy the Sultan had selected and insulted him as inept.

In 1505, Dom Vasco Coutinho succeeded his brother-in-law Dom João de Meneses as captain of Asilah for a second term. In 1507 Meneses would lead a flotilla of three caravels to recon the harbours of Azemmour, Mamora, Salé and Larache accompanied by Duarte D'Armas, who produced sketches in preparation for future attacks. The following year, Dom João de Meneses led a force of 2400 men and caravels against Azemmour though he failed to capture the city upon landing and fighting its garrison on land.

First siege of Asilah 1508
Aware of the attack being prepared against Azemmour, the Sultan of Fez Abu Abd Allah al-Burtuqali Muhammad ibn Muhammad gathered an army to defend Azemmour and siege Asilah so as to pressure the Portuguese. Dom Vasco got word of the impending siege, and dispatched requests for reinforcements to the Portuguese fortresses of Ceuta, Portuguese Tangier and Alcácer-Ceguer.

The city was besieged by the Sultan of Fez on October 15, 1508. He commanded a large army and was accompanied by the qaid of Chefchaouen Ali ibn Musa ibn Rashid Al-Alam ("Barraxe" in Portuguese) and the qaid of Tétouan Cid Al-Mandri II ("Almandarim" in Portuguese). As almost all the guns in the fortress were inactive, the Moroccoans managed to breach into the city on the second day of the siege, wound captain Dom Vasco with an arrow and force the Portuguese to seek refuge in to the citadel.

The first of Dom João de Meneses' ships arrived on October 17 by midnight but most of it only arrived the following day by mid-day, but after gathering a war-council with the forts officer, landed only on Thursday on Dom Vascos requests. Dom Vascos son-in-law Dom João Mascarenhas landed with a force of 300 men, who managed to secure a beachhead for the landing of further reinforcements. The Portuguese were assisted by Castillians, who dispatched a number of reinforcements to their aid aboard galleys. Warned of the heavy siege on Asilah, King Manuel I moved to Tavira in the southernmost Portuguese region of Algarve, to oversee the organization of reinforcements more closely, while many residents of Algarve volunteered to sail out in the aid of the beleaguered fortress. Seeing no way to overcome Portuguese defences and gradually accosted by an increasing number of Portuguese attacks on his camp, the Sultan of Fez lifted the siege and withdrew with his army.

Second siege of Asilah 1509
After the Sultan of Fez had lifted the siege of Asilah, captain Dom Vasco Coutinho conducted a raid where he succeeded in capturing 30 POWs and numerous cattle from hostile Moroccan towns and cities in the vicinity of Asilah. The qaids of Alcácer Quibir, Jazém, Larache, Tetouan, e Chefchaouen retaliated against Asilah, but failed in causing damage. Outraged at the scope of Portuguese action, the Sultan of Fez decided to lay siege to Asilah once more. As Dom Vasco informed King Manuel of the impending attack, he was provided with numerous reinforcements, and the Sultan was forced to withdraw shortly after arrived.

Development of the defenses of Asilah

The Portuguese built a stronghold, which was expanded and strengthened from 1509 onwards, with designs by Diogo de Boitaca, who rebuilt the citadel and the wall of its port, combining traditional architectural elements such as the keep and a sea-wall, with more modern ones, such as the bastions with embrasures.

Among the most spectacular bastions and towers standing as representatives of the Portuguese stronghold are the Borj al-Bahr and the Borj al-Kamra. The first was built between 1508 and 1516, stretched out to sea and was used to track the arrival and departure of supplies and reinforcements by ship. The second, dubbed Torre de Menagem in Portuguese was the main tower of the stronghold, and it marks the medina of Asilah with its imposing appearance. Built in 1509 and reproduced on a very famous engraving of Assilah in the 16th  century, it featured a double-pitched roof and turrets at the four corners. These architectural features refer to the style of Portuguese military architecture. This tower ensured a public function and more ceremonial than military, conveying the image of power. It is a remnant of the Portuguese governor's residence, which was built over the location of the Moroccan governor's palace in medieval Asilah.

Later history
In 1515, Asilah was experiencing a great scarcity of cattle, and its captain Dom João Coutinho (son of Dom Vasco Coutinho) conducted a raid a village in the vicinity of Ksar el-Kebir the Portuguese identified as "Tintais", having departed by night with no more than 250 horse from the garrison of Asilah and successfully captured the villages cattle. On the way back, they found that heavy rains had swollen the previously dry rivers so much that the water flowed over the bridges and the trees on the banks. Yet as the garrison of Ksar el Kebir presumed the Portuguese would not have undertaken such a daring raid without the support of the garrison of Portuguese Tangier, they failed to pursue, giving the Portuguese time to cross the rivers and return to Asilah safely.

In 1520 Manuel I of Portugal opened a royal feitoria (trade post) in Arzila, for whose defense a coast-guard fleet called "Squadron of the Strait" was created. The feitoria was provided with cloths, silks, headwear like caps, as well as lacquer, fine embroideries, semi-precious stones and spices which were highly sought after by Moroccan and Jewish merchants; Francisco Ribeiro was appointed as its first feitor, Tomé Pires as clerk, João Queimado as provedor and a branch was opened in Fez, the feitor of which was Francisco Gonçalves. In just a few years, the city became an important commercial and strategic hub on the Saharan gold route.

Starvation befell all of Morocco in 1521, causing a scarcity of foodstuffs in Asilah (and an abundance of slaves, sold into captivity by their family members). The captain of the city Dom João Coutinho successfully raided the region of Ksar el-Kebir, and though pursued by the forces of the qaid of that city he managed to return with 48 POWs and 2000 animals, with which Asilah was restocked.

Plague however befell Asilah in 1522. Captain Dom João Coutinho took various measures meant to keep the city free from pestilence, such as turning back merchant caravans, forbidding raids, arresting anyone who challenged these rules, and forcing people to wash their clothes, however plague nevertheless broke out in January 12. In February the captain evacuated his family and 500 people on a caravel to Tavira, in Portugal. At its height in March, 20 to 25 people died a day, until it subsided in June 24, day of the feast of Saint John. The captain hosted a feast with the remaining inhabitants, and the evacuees returned in September.

In April 1523, Dom João Coutinho travelled to Portugal to attend the funeral of his father, the previous captain of Asilah Dom Vasco Coutinho, and left behind Dom Manuel de Meneses in his place. Dom Manuel was however killed in a skirmish shortly after taking office. Fearing for the safety of the stronghold, the alcaide-mor of Castro Marim and anadel-mor of crossbowmen Garcia de Melo sailed there in person with 600 men, among other volunteers from Portugal and Spain. Melo was however unpopular, and the residents elected the contador Fernão Caldeira as interim captain until Dom João returned.

Arzila was also the birthplace of the warrior "Mulei Amade", who started by fighting the Portuguese, then defected to their side and served under their command in Portuguese India and the Far East.

In April 1529, the Sultan of Fez Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad attempted to siege Asilah in 1529 unsuccessfully, and destroyed the crops around Asilah for four days. In retaliation the then captain of Asilah António da Silveira set fire the crops of the Moroccans in the region of Ksar el-Kebir between May and June, which caused great damage to the region as the weather conditions were dry and windy. Silveira was succeeded by Dom João Coutinho in October that year.

With the support of King John III, Coutinho signed a truce with qaid of Chefchaouen Muley Ibrahim on behalf of the Sultan of Fez Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad, by a river the Portuguese identified as Rio Doce. The truce was not respected, and although captain Dom João Coutinho renewed them in 1538, the qaids of Chefchaouen, Tetouan and Ksar el-Kebir persisted in raiding Asilah, until the Sultan of Fez considered truces officially null and void in 1543.

On January 20, 1548, the captain of Asilah Dom Francisco Coutinho together with the captain of Portuguese Tangier Francisco Botelho raided the fields of "Alexarife" beyond Ksar el-Kebir, capturing more than 500 cattle and numerous POWs; upon trying to raid the region of Ksar el Kebir later that year, they were engaged by 400 horse and 1000 foot under the qaid of that city, however the Portuguese routed them killing over a hundred, and forced the remainder to seek refuge within the settlement. That same year, the qaids of Ksar el-Kebir, Tetouan and Chefchaouen together attempted to raid the fields around Asilah with a combined force of 2500 horse, however captain Dom Francisco Coutinho sallied out at the head of the garrison and put them to flight.

After Mohammed al-Shaykh unified Morocco, the captain of Asilah Dom Francisco Coutinho reported to King John III that the sultan, his princes and many qaids were assembling an army to siege Asilah and other Portuguese strongholds. Fearing that the defenses of the city would be inadequate to resist the onslaught, King John III ordered Dom Francisco to speak to the inhabitants, register their belonging and oversee their evacuation to Tangier by sea, returning then to Portugal, while his successor Luís de Loureiro would stay behind with the soldiers and the frontiersmen to evacuate the objects, the artillery and demolish the church of São Bartolomeu as well as the Franciscan monastery.

The city was later recaptured by King Sebastian in 1577. Portugal kept hold of the town until Philip I of Portugal returned Arzila to Ahmad al-Mansur. The Moroccans briefly regained control of Asilah, but then lost it to the Spanish.

List of captains
{| class="wikitable"
Tenure
Incumbent
Notes
|-
|1471–1479
|Henrique de Meneses
|
|-
|1480–1481
|Lopo Dias de Azevedo
|
|-
|1482–1486
|João de Meneses
|
|-
|1486–1488
|Álvaro de Faria
|
|-
|1488–1495
|Vasco Coutinho, Count of Redondo
|First term. Interim to 1490.
|-
|1495
|Rodrigo Coutinho
|
|-
|1495
|João de Meneses
|First term. Interim.
|-
|1495–1501
|Vasco Coutinho, Count of Redondo
|Second term.
|-
|1501–1502
|João Coutinho, Count of Redondo
|First term. Interim.
|-
|1502–1505
|João de Meneses
|Second term. Interim.
|-
|1505–1508
|Vasco Coutinho, Count of Redondo
|Third term.
|-
|1508
|Jorge Barreto
|
|-
|1508–1513
|Vasco Coutinho, Count of Redondo
|Fourth term.
|-
|1513
|João Coutinho, Count of Redondo
|Second term. Interim.
|-
|1513–1514
|Vasco Coutinho, Count of Redondo
|Fifth term.
|-
|1514–1523
|João Coutinho, Count of Redondo
|Third term. Interim.
|-
|1523
|Manuel de Meneses
|Interim.
|-
|1523
|Fernão Caldeira
|Interim.
|-
|1523–1525
|João Coutinho, Count of Redondo
|Fourth term. Interim.
|-
|1525–Oct 1529
|António da Silveira
|Substitute.
|-
|1529–1538
|João Coutinho, Count of Redondo
|Fifth term. Interim.
|-
|1538–1544
|Manuel Mascarenhas
|
|-
|1544–1546
|Sebastião de Vargas
|
|-
|1546–1549
|Francisco Coutinho, Count of Redondo
|
|-
|1549–Aug 1550
|Luís de Loureiro
|
|-
|Aug 1550–1577
| colspan="2" |Moroccan rule
|-
|1577–1578
|Duarte de Meneses
|
|-
|1578
|Pedro de Mesquita
|
|-
|1578–1580
|Pedro de Silva
|
|-
|1580–1589
|Vasco Fernandes Homem
|
|}

Gallery

See also
Pastrana Tapestries
Portuguese Tangier

References

Asilah
15th century in Morocco
16th century in Morocco
Asilah
Asilah
Asilah
Asilah
Asilah
Asilah
Asilah
Asilah

Portuguese Asilah


Vohindroa is a town and commune in Madagascar. It belongs to the district of Nosy Varika, which is a part of Vatovavy-Fitovinany Region. The population of the commune was estimated to be approximately 17,000 in 2001 commune census.

Only primary schooling is available. The majority 99% of the population of the commune are farmers.  The most important crop is coffee, while other important products are sugarcane, cassava and rice. Services provide employment for 1% of the population.

References and notes

Populated places in Vatovavy-Fitovinany

Vohindroa


Arthur D. Nicholson Jr. (7 June 1947 – 24 March 1985) was a United States Army military intelligence officer shot by a Soviet sentry while engaged in intelligence-gathering activities as part of an authorized military liaison mission which operated under reciprocal U.S.–Soviet authority. Military liaison missions were ostensibly liaisons between the British, French and U.S. forces and the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (East Germany), but they had a known intelligence-gathering secondary mission and an important role to verify that offensive action was not being prepared.  Reciprocal groups were authorized and operated by both the British, French and U.S. (in East Germany) and the Soviet Union (in West Germany) during the Cold War. Nicholson is officially regarded by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been a victim of "murder" and the final "victim" of the Cold War. Nicholson's death led to a U.S. – Soviet crisis and intense negotiations regarding the military liaison missions.

Career as intelligence officer
Nicholson was the son of a career navy officer. He graduated from Joel Barlow High School of Redding, Connecticut, in 1965 and earned a bachelor's degree from Transylvania University in 1969 before joining the U.S. Army in 1970.

Nicholson was commissioned as a military intelligence (MI) officer and served as a Battalion S-2 (officer in charge of the staff section responsible for intelligence products and analysis) with a missile battalion in Korea during 1973 and 1974. From 1974 to 1979, he served with MI units in Frankfurt am Main and Munich in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Following this, Nicholson became a foreign area officer. In 1980, he earned a master's degree in Soviet and East European studies from the Naval Postgraduate School and also attended a two-year course in the Russian language at the Defense Language Institute. From 1980 to 1982, Nicholson attended the U.S. Army's Russian Institute in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

In 1982, Nicholson was assigned to the U.S. Military Liaison Mission (USMLM) to the Commander-in-Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces Germany. He was promoted to major in 1983.

Death

On March 24, 1985, with Sergeant Jessie G. Schatz, Nicholson undertook his final mission for the USMLM. The mission was to photograph a Soviet tank storage building near Ludwigslust, some  northwest of Berlin. After approaching the Soviet facility covertly but legitimately through an adjacent forest, Nicholson stepped out of the vehicle and approached the building to photograph it while Sergeant Schatz maintained a watch for Soviet personnel.

Unseen by either man, Soviet Sergeant Aleksandr Ryabtsev emerged from the forest and opened fire on the Americans. The first bullet narrowly missed Schatz, and another bullet struck Nicholson. After crying out that he had been hit, Nicholson fell to the ground. Attempting to go to Nicholson's aid, Schatz was halted by Ryabtsev at gunpoint and forced back into the USMLM vehicle.

Although the Soviets later claimed that Nicholson died instantly, an autopsy indicated that he had actually bled to death while on the ground.

Even as more senior Soviet personnel arrived, no medical aid for Nicholson was provided and no one checked his conditions for two hours after he was shot.

After an attempt by the Soviets to perform an autopsy of Nicholson and a demand by General Glenn K. Otis that they return the body, Nicholson's body was returned to the U.S. Army at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin.

On March 30, 1985, Nicholson was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the Legion of Merit as well as promoted to lieutenant colonel.

The Soviets contended that the response of Sergeant Ryabtsev, as a guard, had been appropriate in confronting an "unknown intruder who did not comply with the warnings of the sentry", and also stated that the area that Major Nicholson was in was "off-limits" to military liaison mission operations, as well as placing blame for the incident on the United States.

Aftermath
At a subsequent meeting between General Otis and General Mikhail Zaitsev, the commander of Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, General Otis made it clear that the U.S. Army believed that Nicholson's murder was "officially condoned, if not directly ordered."

Following this, a Soviet diplomat was ordered out of the U.S. and the U.S. canceled plans to jointly celebrate the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe with the Soviets.

The incident was also the first major foreign policy crisis faced by Mikhail Gorbachev as leader of the Soviet Union. The relatively muted U.S. response drew criticism from various sources, among them George Will.

Further negotiations over the shooting resulted in the Soviets issuing instructions to their personnel that the use of force or weapons against Allied military liaison personnel was strictly forbidden. However, in 1987, another incident took place in which Soviet soldiers fired at USMLM personnel, one of whom was wounded. In 1988, Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov officially apologized for the death of Major Nicholson to U.S. Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci at a summit conference in Moscow.

Nicholson Hall, located at the United States Army Intelligence Center in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, is named in his honor.

References

Sources

 USAREUR report of 1988
 Nicholson Memorial with photos, Website of the USMLM
 Tödliche Schüsse ohne Vorwarnung, Der Spiegel, 20 March 2005
 "Soviets Offer Apology In Killing of U.S. Major". New York Times. 15 June 1988.

External links

 The Embracing Forest First-person account of 20th anniversary memorial in Ludwigslust.
 Arthur D. Nicholson, Jr. at ArlingtonCemetery.net, an unofficial website

1947 births
1985 deaths
United States military attachés
Burials at Arlington National Cemetery
Defense Language Institute alumni
People of the Cold War
People from Redding, Connecticut
Soviet Union–United States relations
Recipients of the Legion of Merit
United States Army officers
American military personnel killed in action
Deaths by firearm in East Germany

Arthur D. Nicholson


Mark-Ye-Well (1949–1970) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse.

Background
Mark-Ye-Well was bred and raced by Calumet Farm. He was sired by their five-time North American Champion Sire, Bull Lea.  Mark-Ye-Well was out of Mar-Kell, Calumet's excellent racing mare who was the 1943 American Champion Older Female Horse.

Trained by the father and son team of Ben and Jimmy Jones, Mark-Ye-Well  was ridden by Eddie Arcaro in most of his major races.

Racing career
At age two, the colt was taken out of training as a result of a stifle joint problem and did not return to racing until February 1952. Brought back slowly, the then three-year-old colt did not compete in any of the 1952 U.S. Triple Crown races, but by mid-year he had developed into one of the top runners in his age group in the United States. In July, he recorded a five-length win in the Arlington Classic, which was reportedly the most valuable three-year-old race ever run. In the following month, Mark-Ye-Well was described as a "sensation" after he easily won the $103,325 American Derby. The Calumet colt seemed on the way to winning divisional honors at least, but at Belmont in September he was decisively beaten by Tom Fool in the Jerome Handicap. Two weeks later, he beat Belmont Stakes winner One Count by four lengths in the Lawrence Realization Stakes, but One Count was voted American Champion Three-Year-Old Colt after reversing the form in the Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Mark-Ye-Well was sent to race in California in 1953, where he won the Santa Anita Maturity, the San Fernando Stakes, and the state's richest and most important race, the Santa Anita Handicap. His win in the Santa Anita Handicap was the first for Calumet Farm after three previous tries. He then was sent to compete in the Eastern United States but developed a quarter crack that hampered his performance.

Sent back to start the 1954 racing season in California, the five-year-old  Mark-Ye-Well won the San Antonio and San Marcos Handicaps.  At Chicago's Arlington Park, he won the Stars and Stripes Handicap and the Laurance Armour Memorial Handicap.

Stud record
He was retired to stud duty at Calumet Farm beginning with the 1956 season. Mark-Ye-Well sired only three stakes winners before he was sold to breeders in Scandinavia.

References

1949 racehorse births
1970 racehorse deaths
Thoroughbred family 9-f
Racehorses bred in Kentucky
Racehorses trained in the United States

Mark-Ye-Well


Edward M. Chaprak (born July 5, 1945, in Nizhny Novgorod, called Gorky during the Soviet period) is a leader of the Jewish community in his home town. He is the chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod Synagogue. He is also an entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Life and business

He was born into a family of disabled veterans of World War II, and graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Physical Culture. He entered the catering business in 1973 and has been the CEO of the "Kulinar" company since 1992. The company produces about 400 kinds of confectionery products, as well as 12 kinds of alcohol-free drinks.

Charitable and community work

He is actively involved in charity work: participating in nutrition programs for children, the homeless and other vulnerable populations.

He never lost connection with the Jewish community and adhered to its traditions even in the darkest years of economic and social stagnation in the 1970s - 1980s. He regularly provided minyan for prayers in private apartments and defended the return of Torah scrolls which the KGB had seized as "evidence" in the investigation of criminal cases.

Since the revival of religious life, he has become actively involved in the restoration and repair of the older synagogues and other projects. He was selected as the chairman of the Jewish religious community in 1998. With his support a fundamental reconstruction of the central synagogue was begun in 2005 and a new community center is now under construction and expected to be complete by 2009.

External links
Nizhny Novgorod Jewish Community

Living people
1945 births
Russian Jews

Edward Chaprak


Lucius Jacques Dupré (April 18, 1822 – March 5, 1869) was a prominent Confederate politician during the American Civil War.

He was born in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, and served as a state court judge in 1853. He was a delegate to the Louisiana secession convention and served in the Confederate States Army. He later represented the state in the First Confederate Congress and the Second Confederate Congress from 1862 to 1865.

Following the collapse of the Confederacy in the spring of 1865, he returned to Louisiana. He died four years later.

External links

1822 births
1869 deaths
Members of the Confederate House of Representatives from Louisiana
19th-century American politicians
People from St. Landry Parish, Louisiana
Louisiana lawyers
Louisiana Democrats
19th-century American lawyers

Lucius Jacques Dupré


Krypetsky Monastery () is a Russian Orthodox monastery situated 23 km from Pskov.

The monastery was founded in 1485 by St. Savva Krypetsky, a Serbian monk from Mount Athos, in what was then described as an impracticable mire. Two years later, the Pskov veche supported his establishment by granting a large plot of land to the monks. Prince Obolensky had a road for pilgrims built through the mire to the monastery. St. Savva died on 28 August 1495 and was interred in the then timber cathedral, which was rebuilt in stone in 1547 and still stands.

Famous monks of the Krypetsky Monastery included Basil, who described the life of St. Savva in the 1540s; St. Nilus, who founded the Nilov Monastery on Stolbnyi Island; and the former chancellor Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin, who had the monastery grounds greatly expanded and improved. In the 18th century, the abbey fell into disrepair, but was restored by Evgeny Bolkhovitinov, a bishop best known for his friendship with Gavriil Derzhavin and the latter's poems dedicated to him.

In 1918, the monastery was disbanded by the Bolsheviks who plundered more than five poods (2,600 troy ounces) of gold in the monastery sacristy and had its Neoclassical belltower disfigured. The abbey was briefly revived during the German occupation of the area in World War II and was finally restituted to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1991.

External links

Views of the monastery

Russian Orthodox monasteries in Russia
1485 establishments in Europe
15th-century establishments in Russia
Buildings and structures in Pskov Oblast
Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Pskov Oblast

Krypetsky Monastery


The Union Trade is an American Indie rock band formed in San Francisco, California, in 2006. An early and leading member of the Bay Area post-rock scene, The Union Trade is also the founding band of San Francisco independent music label, Tricycle Records. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Nate Munger (lead vocals, bass), Don Joslin (guitar), and Eric Salk (vocals, guitar, keys). The founding drummer was Dan Rodkewich. The band's current drummer, Eitan Anzenberg, has been with the band since 2012.

History
The Union Trade's first live performance was an unpublicized show on August 19, 2006, played before a small group of friends and family in the upstairs back room of Edinburgh Castle, a San Francisco pub and music venue. Prior to The Union Trade, Don Joslin and Nate Munger were in an instrumental band together called The Andrea Doria. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Joslin described the first six months of the Union Trade as "exciting for all of us ... The vision came first, then the band set out to develop the sound ... In the end, we have all reached a place musically that none of us would have reached alone."  The first official live performance of the band was at another SF venue, Hotel Utah, on September 26, 2006. The band has since shared the stage with notable national and international acts like The Appleseed Cast, The Morning Benders, Neon Trees, Film School, Vetiver, Pela, Figurines, The Pack A.D., Starlight Mints, Dappled Cities, Polysics, Loquat, and LoveLikeFire.

The Union Trade made their recording debut in February 2007 with the release of their first EP, Now the Swell, on Tricycle Records. This EP was also the first release on the label which guitarist Don Joslin co-founded with San Francisco music photographer, Julie Schucard.  The follow-up full-length album, Everyday Including, also released on Tricycle, came out in August 2008.  Smother Magazine called it "a transcendental album awash in guitar fuzzy logic and hugely catchy triumphs. Simply amazing and simply essential" and the UK music blog The Beat Surrender ranked it No. 32 of its Top 50 albums for 2008. The Union Trade's EP Why We Need Night, was released on February 8, 2011, and received recognition as a notable release from music publications such as the KEXP blog, Indie Rock Cafe, Largehearted Boy, and Faronheit. The San Francisco music blog Kata Rokkar calls Why We Need Night "A moody but gorgeous EP infused with youthful sincerity, it is cinematic in scope with soothing soundscapes of atmospheric, ambient, and shimmering chimes interspersed with crashing interludes...This isn't average post rock that drags and bores the listener, this is tight and well thought out songs that burst with color and expand with repeated listens." Their most recent release is a remix EP called Translations.

As members of the local San Francisco indie rock scene, The Union Trade have played multiple live shows at local venues including six at Bottom of the Hill, Cafe Du Nord, and Rickshaw Stop.  They also performed as part of the San Francisco indie music festival Noise Pop in 2007 and 2008.   In 2008 and 2009 The Union Trade traveled to Austin, Texas, to perform in the Bay Area Takeover, a Bay Area music scene showcase sponsored by Tricycle Records and the music blog The Bay Bridged during the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival. In 2009, they were also selected as an official showcasing band at SXSW. In a review from the release show of Everyday Including, West Coast Performer magazine described The Union Trade's live set as a "heavy-hitting somber sound" with "a hauntingly sustaining wail over jagged vocals and pulsating rhythms set by the band's aggressive drummer and bassist."

The Union Trade have been placed in regular rotation on several internet radio outlets, including, Pandora Radio, Spotify, Rdio, somaFM's indie pop rocks, and Last.fm.

A Place of Long Years was recorded after a three-year hiatus that followed the release of their last studio release, the 2011 EP Why We Need Night. According to their label, Tricycle Records The band took a new approach, writing without a drummer for the first time. The result of this approach was a, quieter process that involved the founding members Don Joslin, Nate Munger and Eric Salk. The songs that would become A Place of Long Years began as an entirely instrumental set of songs. Once drummer Eitan Anzenberg was added the song took on their final form. The record was recorded at San Francisco's historic Different Fur Studio. In-studio contributions on the album were made by Tricycle labelmates Nate Blaz on Cello (Geographer) and Ann Yu (Silver Swans) on vocals. It was released on February 3, 2015 on Tricycle Records.

Musical style and influences
The Union Trade is most widely associated with the post-rock and shoegaze genres.  Designating themselves "cinematic post-rock," the band describes their sound as bridging the typically instrumental rock sounds of influences such as Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, This Will Destroy You, with the highly effected guitar and vocal sounds of bands like The Appleseed Cast, Ride, Slowdive, and Swervedriver.

Discography
 A Place of Long Years LP (2015)
 Translations Remix EP (2013)
 Why We Need Night EP (2011)
 Everyday Including LP (2008)
 Now The Swell EP (2007)

Band members
 Don Joslin - guitar (2006–present) founding member
 Nate Munger - bass guitar (2006–present) founding member
 Eric Salk - guitar / keyboard (2006–present) founding member
 Dan Rodkewich - drums (2006 - 2010) founding member
 David Elrod - drums (2010–2011)
 Eitan Anzenberg – drums (2013–present)

References

External links
 The Union Trade official website
 The Union Trade on Pandora
 The Union Trade on Spotify
 The Union Trade on Rdio
 The Union Trade at Allmusic
 The Union Trade at Last.fm
 The Union Trade label, Tricycle Records

American post-rock groups
Indie rock musical groups from California
Musical groups from San Francisco

The Union Trade


is a prepaid rechargeable contactless smart card, electronic money used as a fare card on train lines in Japan, launched on November 18, 2001. The card can be used interchangeably with JR West's ICOCA in the Kansai region and San'yō region in Okayama, Hiroshima, and Yamaguchi prefectures, and also with JR Central's TOICA, JR Kyushu's SUGOCA, Nishitetsu's Nimoca, and Fukuoka City Subway's Hayakaken area in Fukuoka City and its suburb areas. The card is also increasingly being accepted as a form of electronic money for purchases at stores and kiosks, especially within train stations. As of 2018, JR East reports 69.4 million Suica UID's have been issued, usable at 476,300 point of sale locations, with 6.6 million daily transactions.

Since Suica is completely interchangeable with Pasmo (see Interoperation for the complete listing of companies and lines that accept Suica) in the greater Tokyo area, it is supported on virtually any train, tramway, and bus system (excluding various limited and shinkansen trains, as well as a few local buses as the system is still in the process of being extended to all routes).

Etymology
Suica stands for "Super Urban Intelligent CArd". In the logo, the "ic" is highlighted, standing for the initialism of integrated circuit in "IC card", which in turn is common Japanese vernacular for smart card. An additional meaning comes from the ideophone "sui sui" which means "to move smoothly", intended to highlight the smooth simplicity of using the card compared with traditional train tickets.  Since penguins can also swim smoothly through water, a penguin is used as a motif.

Uses
While Suica's primary usage is as a fare card for transportation services, it can also be used as electronic money for general purchases. With the exception of archaic models of the Suica, all Suica have the  logo, which indicates that the card can be used as an electronic money in addition to train fare usage. Older cards without the logo can be replaced at no cost. As of 2004, JR East employees use the card as an employee ID card.Most vending machines, kiosks, and coin-operated lockers within JR stations can be paid with the card. In addition to payment, the card is also used as an electronic key to open the specific locker used. Outside of train stations, chain stores such as FamilyMart, 7-Eleven, Ministop, Yodobashi Camera and Bic Camera support transactions with Suica, however mostly restricted to the Kantō region only. A few shops at Narita International Airport, and taxis accept Suica. Stores that accept Suica are indicated by displaying either a Suica, Pasmo, Kitaca, Icoca, Toica, Sugoca, Nimoca, or Hayakaken logo. The card can also be used to make payments at supporting online shops, which requires the consumer to own a Sony FeliCa Reader hardware and a PC running the Windows operating system alongside the necessary drivers.

Functions and services

Usage of the card involves scanning it at a card reader. The technology allows for the card to be read at a short distance from the reader, so contact is not required. This functionality is in contrast to the instructions which frequently inform the user to  the card to the reader, a misnomer since it works with or without physical contact. In fact, it is possible to leave the card in most wallets and just pass the wallet over the reader as they enter the ticket gate.

The balance on the card is displayed when the user enters the ticket gate this way. The minimum fare is needed on the card when entering the train system, which is not deducted at that time. The balance is also displayed whenever the card is inserted into ticket or fare adjustment machines. A travel record is stored on the card, and can be displayed or printed out at the same places where cards can be purchased and reloaded. On exit, the card is again scanned at a card reader. At this time the fare is deducted from the remaining balance from the card and the new balance is displayed.

The card can also be used to store a commuter pass. This is available for purchase from regular ticket machines and allows a Monthly, 3-monthly or Annual pass for travel between two JR stations to be stored on the card.

When traveling from a JR-EAST station Suica is supported to stations of not JR-EAST area, purchasing the ticket is required.

Points of purchase
These cards are available at card vending machines at the train stations that allows Suica. A new card costs 2,000 yen, which includes a 500 yen deposit that will be refunded if the card is returned. The remaining 1,500 yen is immediately available for train rides, and more money can be charged on to the card (in 500 yen, 1,000 yen, 2,000 yen, 3,000 yen, 4,000 yen, 5,000 yen, and 10,000 yen increments), up to a card maximum of 20,000 yen, at similar ticket vending machines or fare adjustment machines displaying the Suica logo inside each station.

In June 2023, railway operators including JR East announced an indefinite suspension of sales of unregistered cards, which do not display the customer's name due to the 2020–2023 global chip shortage. In August 2023, sales of registered cards displaying the customer's name were also suspended.

Types of cards
Suica are sold by JR East and two of its subsidiaries:
Suica, MySuica, Welcome Suica and View Suica cards are sold directly by JR East
Rinkai Suica cards are sold by Tokyo Waterfront Area Rapid Transit (Rinkai Line)
Monorail Suica cards are sold by Tokyo Monorail

Credit card integrations
The View Suica cards pairs the prepaid Suica with a credit card. Various types exist, including at least one available through JR and View, and others such as the Bic Camera Suica. These function both as a prepaid Suica as well as a regular credit card, and provide an auto-charge feature to prevent exhausting the Suica balance unintentionally. The automatically recharged amount is added to the user's credit card bill. Thus, these cards have two balances: a prepaid Suica balance and a credit balance for which monthly bills are sent. Thus, store-related cards like the Bic Suica can include fully three separate functions: serving as a store point card, a general use Suica, and as a credit card. Any credit purchase (restricted, in the case of Bic, to JCB) adds a small amount to the available points on the store point card. Yet another type of Suica offered by Japan Airlines that is called JALCARD Suica. In addition to having Suica and credit card functionalities, a JALCARD Suica can also function as an electronic boarding pass for a JAL-operated domestic flight in Japan at an airport that offers the JAL IC service.

MySuica
MySuica allows users to input personal information at the time the card is created. If the card is later lost or stolen, the user can obtain a new card with the previous balance.

Welcome Suica

In August 2019, JR East unveiled Welcome Suica, a Suica variant designed for use by tourists to Japan. The card's design features white cherry blossoms on a red background.

Welcome Suica is also reloadable, but unlike regular Suica cards, Welcome Suica does not require the user to make a deposit. However, Welcome Suica can only be used for 28 days from the date of purchase after which it stops working. It is also nonrefundable, regardless of the balance or user's activity.

JR East request customers always carry with them a reference sheet, or receipt, to accompany the card.

Card stacking
Ticket gates return an error when the scan encounters more than one compatible card. Although it is intended that each person have only one Suica, many people have more than one. Further, since the introduction of Pasmo in March 2007, more people have at least one of each. Consequently, JR has begun, and intensified since March, an awareness campaign to discourage commuters from storing multiple cards together. Incompatible cards, such as Edy, seem to have an inconsistent effect on a machine's ability to read the card which may depend on the reading device. On the other hand, the Express-IC (EX-IC) card for Tokaido Shinkansen reservations is meant to be used in this manner (stacked on either a Suica or ICOCA to facilitate transfer between Shinkansen and regular lines).

Technology
The card incorporates a contactless  Near Field Communication (NFC) technology developed by Sony, called FeliCa. The same technology is also deployed in the Edy electronic cash cards used in Japan, the Octopus card in Hong Kong, and the EZ-Link Card in Singapore.

Interoperation

On 18 March 2007, the Tokyo-area private railways, bus companies, and subways implemented Pasmo, a smart card solution to replace the existing Passnet magnetic card system. Through collaboration with JR East, passengers can use Suica wherever Pasmo cards are accepted to ride any railway or bus in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Monthly passes for JR East lines can only be on Suica, while monthly passes for Tokyo Metro can only be on Pasmo cards but otherwise, the cards are functionally identical for commuters.

This agreement has since been implemented with other systems across Japan. On 23 March 2013, a nationwide inter-operation among 10 transportation smart cards started. As of 2014 Suica has interoperability with ICOCA, Kitaca, PASMO, TOICA, manaca, PiTaPa, SUGOCA, nimoca, hayakaken and several other local smart cards.

In 22 July 2014, Nintendo added support for Suica and Pasmo cards in the Nintendo eShop through the NFC function of the Wii U GamePad and the New Nintendo 3DS. The service was then discontinued on 18 January 2022.

Mobile devices

Mobile Suica
Since January 2006, a version called  was incorporated into mobile FeliCa wallet phones by Japan's mobile operators. This system includes Java applications to manage the Suica function in the mobile phone, to recharge the Suica stored in the mobile phone, review the stored value and perform other functions via the mobile phone. An enhancement for 2007 allowed for Suica charges to be added directly to the phone bill, eliminating the requirement to constantly add to and monitor the remaining balance. On 23 May 2011, JR announced debut of Mobile Suica app for Android Smartphones supporting Osaifu-Keitai.

Mobile Suica is a service for Osaifu Keitai mobile phones, first launched on 28 January 2006 by NTT DoCoMo and au in Japan, and now also offered by SoftBank Mobile and Willcom.

Just like traditional Suica cards, which are prepaid rechargeable contactless smart cards mainly used to pay for fares on the JR East railway network, Mobile Suica can also be charged when the remaining balance gets low. Other features supported by the mobile phone includes the ability to review past Suica transactions via the mobile's display. Suica uses Sony's FeliCa chip for its main functionalities. Mobile Suica interacts with the FeliCa chip using Java technology.

Since October 2006, it is possible to register for Mobile Suica using any major credit card, a Suica VIEW card is no longer required. A limited e-money only application called "Easy Mobile Suica" (which does not require a credit card) was also launched in late October 2006.

Apple Pay
On September 7, 2016, Apple announced that Suica cards could be added to Apple Pay in the Wallet app and used in the same way as a physical card. This functionality was limited to devices purchased in Japan which included FeliCa support: iPhone 7 (model A1779 and A1785) and Apple Watch Series 2.

With the release of the iPhone 8, iPhone X and the Apple Watch Series 3, and later, devices purchased anywhere in the world could be used with Apple Pay Suica.

iOS 13 introduced support for creating a virtual Suica card from the Wallet app.

iOS 15 introduced new Wallet app improvements and a dedicated category for adding Suica and other transit cards regardless of the device region setting.

Google Pay
On 24 May 2018, Google announced that Suica cards could be added to Google Pay. This functionality is limited to Android devices that are purchased in Japan that support Osaifu-Keitai and have their Google Account's region set to Japan.

See also
Mass transit system
Electronic money
List of smart cards

References

External links

 JR-East: Mobile Suica (In Japanese)
 JR-East: Research and Development > R&D Story

2001 introductions
2001 establishments in Japan
Japanese inventions
Contactless smart cards
Fare collection systems in Japan
East Japan Railway Company

Suica


Gum guaicum, or guaiac resin, is a substance produced from the tree species Guaiacum officinale. It is registered as food additive: as a preservative under the E number E241, and as an antioxidant under E314.

Guaiac resin is also used medically for the stool guaiac test.

Chemically, it is mixture of approximately 70% alpha- and beta-guaiaconic acids, 10% guaiaretic acid, 15% guaiac beta-resin, and small quantities of other chemical compounds such as guaiac yellow and vanillin.

References

Natural gums
Food antioxidants

Gum guaicum