Christopher Walken (born Ronald Walken; March 31, 1943) is an American actor. Prolific in film, television, and on stage, Walken is the recipient of numerous accolades. He has earned an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Tony Awards. His films have grossed more than $1.6 billion in the United States alone.

Walken has appeared in supporting roles in films such as The Anderson Tapes (1971), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), Roseland (1977) and Annie Hall (1977), before coming to wider attention as the troubled Vietnam War veteran Nick Chevotarevich in The Deer Hunter (1978). His performance earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was nominated for the same award for portraying con artist Frank Abagnale's father in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002).

Since his breakthrough, Walken has appeared in films in various genres, both in lead and supporting roles. These include The Dogs of War (1980), Brainstorm (1983), The Dead Zone (1983), A View to a Kill (1985), At Close Range (1986), Biloxi Blues (1988), King of New York (1990), The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Batman Returns (1992), True Romance (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994), Suicide Kings (1997), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Man on Fire (2004), Wedding Crashers (2005), Hairspray (2007), Seven Psychopaths (2012), A Late Quartet (2012), the first three Prophecy films, and Percy (2020). He has also provided voice work for the animated films Antz (1998) and The Jungle Book (2016).

On television, Walken has appeared in films such as Who Am I This Time? (1982), and Sarah, Plain and Tall (1991), for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. More recently, he has starred in television series The Outlaws (2021–), and Severance (2022–), the latter of which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series nomination. He has guest-hosted Saturday Night Live seven times. His roles on the show include record producer Bruce Dickinson in the "More Cowbell" sketch, the disgraced Confederate officer Colonel Angus, and multiple appearances as an aging, unsuccessful lothario in the Continental sketch.

As a stage actor, Walken starred with Irene Worth in a 1975 Broadway revival of "Sweet Bird of Youth." Walken has played the lead in the Shakespeare plays Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet,  and Coriolanus. His performance in the original rendition of James Joyce's The Dead (2000), earned him a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical nomination. He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role in Martin McDonagh's A Behanding in Spokane (2010). He also wrote and played the lead role in the 1995 play Him, about his idol Elvis Presley.

Early life
Walken was born Ronald Walken on March 31, 1943, in Astoria, Queens, New York City. His parents were Rosalie Russell, a Scottish immigrant from Glasgow, and Paul Wälken, a German immigrant from Gelsenkirchen who owned and operated Walken's Bakery in Astoria. Walken was named after actor Ronald Colman. He was raised Methodist. He and his brothers, Kenneth and Glenn, were child actors on television in the 1950s, influenced by their mother's dreams of stardom.

When he was 15, a girlfriend showed Walken a magazine photo of Elvis Presley and Walken later said, "This guy looked like a Greek god. Then I saw him on television. I loved everything about him." He changed his hairstyle to imitate Presley and has not changed it since. As a teenager, he worked as a lion tamer in a circus.

Walken attended Hofstra University but dropped out after one year, having been cast in the role of Clayton Dutch Miller in an off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward alongside Liza Minnelli. Walken initially trained as a dancer at the Washington Dance Studio before moving on to dramatic stage roles and then film.

Career

1950s–1960s
As a child, Walken appeared on screen as an extra in numerous anthology series and variety shows during the Golden Age of Television. After appearing in a sketch with Martin and Lewis on The Colgate Comedy Hour, Walken decided to become an actor. He landed a regular role in the 1953 television show Wonderful John Acton, playing the part of Kevin Acton. During this time, he was credited as Ronnie Walken.

Over the next two years, he appeared frequently on television, (landing a role in the experimental film Me and My Brother), and had a thriving career in theater. From 1954 to 1956, Walken and his brother Glenn originated the role of Michael Bauer on the soap opera The Guiding Light. In 1963, he appeared as a character named Chris in an episode of Naked City, starring Paul Burke. In 1966, Walken played the role of King Philip of France in the Broadway premiere of The Lion in Winter. In 1968, he played Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo in Romeo and Juliet at the Stratford Festival in Canada. In 1969, Walken guest-starred in Hawaii Five-O as Navy SP Walt Kramer.

In 1964, he changed his first name to Christopher at the suggestion of Monique van Vooren, who had a nightclub act in which Walken was a dancer. She believed the name suited him better than Ronnie (a pet form of his given name, Ronald), which he was credited as until then. He prefers to be known informally as Chris instead of Christopher.

1970s
In 1970, Walken starred in the Off-Broadway production of Lanford Wilson's Lemon Sky opposite Charles Durning and Bonnie Bartlett. Later that year Walken received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.

Walken made his feature film debut with a small role opposite Sean Connery in Sidney Lumet's The Anderson Tapes. In 1972's The Mind Snatchers a.k.a. The Happiness Cage, Walken played his first starring role. In this science fiction film, which deals with mind control and normalization, he plays a sociopathic U.S. soldier stationed in Germany.

Paul Mazursky's 1976 film Next Stop, Greenwich Village had Walken, under the name "Chris Walken", playing fictional poet and ladies' man Robert Fulmer. In Woody Allen's 1977 film Annie Hall (in which his surname was misspelled "Wlaken" in the end credits), Walken played the borderline crazy brother of Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). Also in 1977, Walken had a minor role as Eli Wallach's partner in The Sentinel. In 1978, he appeared in Shoot the Sun Down, a western filmed in 1976 that costarred Margot Kidder. Along with Nick Nolte and Burt Reynolds, Walken was considered by George Lucas for the part of Han Solo in Star Wars; the part ultimately went to Harrison Ford.

In 1977, Walken also starred in an episode of Kojak as Ben Wiley, a robber.

Walken won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Michael Cimino's 1978 film The Deer Hunter. He plays a young Pennsylvania steelworker who is emotionally destroyed by the Vietnam War. To help achieve his character's gaunt appearance before the third act, Walken consumed only bananas, water and rice for a week.

1980s

Walken's first film of the 1980s was the controversial Heaven's Gate, also directed by Cimino. Walken also starred in the 1981 action adventure The Dogs of War, directed by John Irvin. He surprised many critics and filmgoers with his intricate tap-dancing striptease in Herbert Ross's musical Pennies from Heaven (1981). In 1982, he played a socially awkward but gifted theater actor in the film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's short story Who Am I This Time? opposite Susan Sarandon. Walken then played schoolteacher-turned-psychic Johnny Smith in David Cronenberg's 1983 adaptation of Stephen King's The Dead Zone. That same year, Walken also starred in Brainstorm alongside Natalie Wood and (in a minor role) his wife, Georgianne.

In 1985, Walken played a James Bond villain, Max Zorin, in A View to a Kill, Roger Moore's last appearance as Bond. Walken dyed his hair blond to befit Zorin's origins as a Nazi experiment.

At Close Range (1986) starred Walken as Brad Whitewood, a rural Pennsylvania crime boss who tries to bring his two sons into his empire; his character was mostly based on criminal Bruce Johnston.

In 1988, Walken played a memorable role as Sgt. Merwin J. Toomey in Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues, which was directed by Mike Nichols, and he played the role of Federal Agent Kyril Montana in The Milagro Beanfield War. He also played the leading role of Whitley Strieber in 1989's Communion, an autobiographical film written by Strieber. It was based on claims that he and his friends were subject to visitations by unknown, other-worldly entities variously identified as "aliens" or "visitors". That same year, Walken appeared in the film Homeboy, which was written by and featured Mickey Rourke in the titular role. In 1989, he played the lead role of "Puss" in the Cannon theater group's musical version of Puss in Boots.

1990s

The Comfort of Strangers, an art house film directed by Paul Schrader, features Walken as Robert, a decadent Italian aristocrat with extreme sexual tastes and murderous tendencies who lives with his wife (Helen Mirren) in Venice.

King of New York (1990), directed by Abel Ferrara, stars Walken as ruthless New York City drug dealer Frank White, a recently released prisoner set on reclaiming his criminal territory. In 1991, Walken starred in Sarah, Plain and Tall as Jacob Witting, a widowed farmer. In 1992, Walken played villain millionaire industrialist Max Shreck in Batman Returns. Also in 1992, Walken appeared in Madonna's controversial coffee table book SEX, and the music video for her hit single "Bad Girl", (directed by David Fincher). He also played Bobby, Cassandra's producer, in Wayne's World 2.

Walken's next major film role was opposite Dennis Hopper in True Romance, scripted by Quentin Tarantino. His so-called Sicilian scene has been hailed by critics as the best scene in the film , and is the subject of four commentaries on the DVD. Walken has a supporting role in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction as a Vietnam veteran named Captain Koons. He gives his dead comrade's son the family's prized possession—a gold watch—while explaining in graphic detail how he had hidden it from the Vietcong by smuggling it in his rectum after the boy's father, in whose rectum the watch had previously been concealed, had died of dysentery.

Later in 1994, Walken starred in A Business Affair, a rare leading role for him in a romantic comedy. Walken manages to once again feature his trademark dancing scene as he performs the tango. In 1995, he appeared in Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, Wild Side, The Prophecy and the modern vampire flick The Addiction, which was his second collaboration with director Abel Ferrara and writer Nicholas St. John. He also appeared in Nick of Time, which also stars Johnny Depp, and an art house film by David Salle titled Search and Destroy. In 1995, Walken acted in "Him," the first play written by Walken, and about his idol Elvis in the afterlife, featured in the New York Shakespeare Festival.  The New York Times gave a somewhat positive review of his "most cheering and refreshingly absurd invention" of retelling Elvis' death as a disappearing act that enabled Elvis to flee to Morocco for a sex change to become "her" in a "woozily conceived, fantastical new play...in the sharpness and wit of writing and in the performances by Mr. Walken and Mr. Heyman."

In the 1996 film Last Man Standing, Walken plays a sadistic gangster named Hickey. That year, he played a prominent role in the video game Ripper, portraying Detective Vince Magnotta. Ripper made extensive use of real-time recorded scenes and a wide cast of celebrities in an interactive film. In 1996 Walken also appeared in the Italian film Celluloide as US Officer Rod Geiger and played the role of Ray in the Abel Ferrara crime-drama film The Funeral. In 1997, Walken starred in the comedy films Touch and Excess Baggage and had a minor role in the film Mouse Hunt. He also appeared in the drama/thriller film Suicide Kings, which was also filled with suspense and humor.

In 1998, Walken played an influential gay New York theater critic in John Turturro's film Illuminata. The same year he voiced Colonel/General Cutter in the computer-animated film Antz.

In 1999, he played James Houston in Vendetta, an HBO original film based on the March 14, 1891 New Orleans lynchings. In the same year, Walken appeared in the romantic comedy Blast from the Past portraying Calvin Webber, a brilliant but eccentric Caltech nuclear physicist whose fears of a nuclear war lead him to build an enormous fallout shelter beneath his suburban home. The same year, he appeared as the Headless Horseman in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci. He also appeared in Kiss Toledo Goodbye with Michael Rapaport and Nancy Allen.

Walken also starred in two music videos in the 1990s. His first video role was as the Angel of Death in Madonna's 1993 "Bad Girl". The second appearance was in Skid Row's "Breakin' Down" video.

2000s
In 2000, Walken was cast as the lead, along with Blair Brown, in James Joyce's The Dead on Broadway. A "play with music", The Dead featured music by Shaun Davey, conducted by Charles Prince, with music coordination and percussion by Tom Partington. James Joyce's The Dead won a Tony Award that year for Best Book for a Musical.

Walken had a music video performance in 2001 with Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice". Directed by Spike Jonze, it won six MTV awards in 2001 and—in a list of the top 100 videos of all time compiled from a survey of musicians, directors and music industry figures conducted by UK music TV channel VH1—won Best Video of All Time in April 2002. In the video, Walken dances and flies around the lobby of the Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles; Walken also helped choreograph the dance. Also in 2001, Walken played a gangster who was in the witness protection program in the David Spade comedy Joe Dirt and an eccentric film director in America's Sweethearts. Also in 2001, Walken played Lieutenant Macduff in Scotland, PA, a loose film adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

In 2002 Walken played Mike in the film Poolhall Junkies and played Frank Abagnale, Sr. in Catch Me If You Can, which is inspired by the story of Frank Abagnale, Jr., a con artist who passed himself off as several identities and forged millions of dollars' worth of checks. His portrayal earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Walken also had a part in the 2003 action comedy film The Rundown, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Seann William Scott, in which he plays a ruthless despot. He was nominated for a Razzie (Worst Supporting Actor) in 2002's The Country Bears
and in two 2003 films, Gigli and Kangaroo Jack.
Walken also starred in Barry Levinson's Envy, in which he plays J-Man, a crazy guy who helps Ben Stiller's character and in his starring role in 2004's Around the Bend he again has a dancing scene as he portrays an absentee father who has fled prison to reunite with his father, his son and the grandson he never knew before dying. Walken played the role of Paul Rayburn in 2004's Man on Fire, where, when speaking about the imminent destructive actions of John Creasy (Denzel Washington), his character states: "A man can be an artist... in anything, food, whatever. It depends on how good he is at it. Creasy's art is death. He's about to paint his masterpiece."

Also in 2004, Walken played Mike in the film The Stepford Wives.

In 2005, he played Mark Heiss in the film Domino and the role of Secretary Cleary in the film Wedding Crashers.

In 2006, he played Morty, a sympathetic inventor who is more than meets the eye, in the comedy/drama Click and also appeared in Man of the Year with Robin Williams and Lewis Black. He co-starred in the 2007 film adaptation Hairspray, wherein he is seen singing and dancing in a romantic duet with John Travolta and portrayed the eccentric but cruel crime lord and Ping-Pong enthusiast Feng in the 2007 comedy action film Balls of Fury opposite Dan Fogler.

Walken was in the film Five Dollars a Day (released in 2008), in which he plays a con man proud of living like a king on $5 a day.

The film The Maiden Heist, a comedy co-starring Morgan Freeman, William H. Macy and Walken about security guards in an art museum, debuted at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on June 25, 2009.

Walken also starred in Universal Studios Florida's "Disaster!" theme park attraction, which opened in 2008 and closed in 2015. He portrayed Frank Kincaid, the fictional CEO of "Disaster Studios" who encouraged guests to be extras in his latest film. In the attraction's pre-show, Walken was projected on a clear screen, much like a life-size hologram and interacted with the live-action talent.

2010s
Walken returned to Broadway in Martin McDonagh's play A Behanding in Spokane in 2010 and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.
He had a small voice role in NBC sitcom 30 Rock, in the "Audition Day" episode. In 2011, he played the role of Jewish-American loan shark Alex "Shondor" Birns in the film based on the life of gangster Danny Greene, Kill the Irishman. In 2012, Walken reunited with McDonagh for the British-American crime comedy film Seven Psychopaths and also played the founder and leader of a string quartet in A Late Quartet.

Walken costarred with Al Pacino and Alan Arkin in the film Stand Up Guys, a story about aging gangsters out on the town for one last hoorah. He also appeared in The Power of Few.

In December 2012, Walken was selected as a "GQ" Man of the Year. ("Gentlemen's Quarterly."  April 2018. p. 24)

In 2013, Walken became the protagonist in the campaign "Made From Cool" by Jack & Jones. In 2014, he appeared in Turks & Caicos. Walken appears as Gyp DeCarlo in the 2014 film Jersey Boys.

In 2014, Walken played Captain Hook in the NBC production Peter Pan Live!

In 2015, Walken starred in the film When I Live My Life Over Again and played the role of Clem for the second time in the David Spade comedy Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser.

In 2016, he voiced King Louie in the CGI-live action adaptation of Disney's The Jungle Book, directed by Jon Favreau. He also recorded a cover of Louie's song "I Wan'na Be Like You", which he sings in the film as well as on the soundtrack. Also that year, he appeared in Dexter Fletcher's Eddie the Eagle and Barry Sonnenfeld's Nine Lives. In 2017, Walken replaced Bill Irwin in the role of Walter Tinkler in the critically panned Father Figures. The following year, he played Myron in the Netflix film Irreplaceable You.

2020s
In 2021, Walken appeared as Frank in the BBC One/Amazon Prime Video comedy The Outlaws. and in the second series broadcast on BBC1 in 2022.

In 2022, he had a supporting role as Burt Goodman, the severed chief of the Optics and Design division in the Apple TV+ series Severance. For his performance, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Walken will portray Emperor Shaddam IV in the 2024 film, Dune: Part Two.

Legacy and popularity
Described as "diverse and eccentric" and "one of the most respected actors of his generation", Walken has long established a cult following among film fans. He is known for his versatility and was named as one of Empire magazine's "Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time". Once dubbed a "cultural phenomenon", he has portrayed several iconic film characters including Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone, Max Shreck in Batman Returns, and Max Zorin in A View to a Kill, and was also considered for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars films. His Oscar-winning performance in The Deer Hunter was ranked as the 88th greatest film performance of all time by Premiere magazine and his performance in Pennies from Heaven made it into Entertainment Weekly'''s list of the "100 Greatest Performances that should have won Oscars but didn't." Sometimes regarded as "one of the kings of cameos", Walken has made several cameo appearances or appeared in a single scene of films including as Captain Koons in Pulp Fiction, Duane in Annie Hall, Hessian Horseman in Sleepy Hollow and Don Vincenzo in True Romance. Writer and director Quentin Tarantino declared that Walken's involvement in True Romances "Sicilian scene" was one of the proudest moments in his career.

Benicio del Toro cited Walken as an influence and stated that the best advice he had ever been given regarding acting came from him: "When you're in a scene and you don't know what you're gonna do, don't do anything." Kat Dennings called him her favorite actor and said that he was the reason that she wanted to be an actress. Johnny Depp once said one of the main reasons he starred in Nick of Time was wanting to work with Walken. Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell, Colin Farrell, Bradley Cooper, Leonardo DiCaprio and Mads Mikkelsen are among actors who spoke about their admiration for Walken. Prominent film critic Roger Ebert, who was particularly impressed by his villain and anti-hero portrayals, once stated, "when he is given the right role, there is nobody to touch him for his chilling ability to move between easy charm and pure evil" and called him "one of the few undeniably charismatic male villains."

Walken is noted for refusing film roles only rarely, having stated in interviews that he will decline a role only if he is too busy to accept. He regards each role as a learning experience. A rare example of a role Walken turned down was that of Ray Ruby in the film Go Go Tales (2007). According to film director Abel Ferrara, the character was originally written for Walken, who "didn't want to do it". The role was then given to Walken's New Rose Hotel (1998) co-star Willem Dafoe.

Walken's voice and speaking style have been compared to other entertainment figures with voices that create "a pleasing (or at least entertaining) aural experience," such as William Shatner and Garrison Keillor. Walken believes that the source of his speech stems from growing up with immigrant neighbors who came from everywhere, stating, "The neighborhood itself, you didn't hear a lot of English. Lots of Greek, Italian, Polish, German, Yiddish. I think I grew up listening to people who spoke English in a kind of broken way. I think maybe I talked that way." Walken inspired the stage show, All About Walken: The Impersonators of Christopher Walken, created by actor/comedian Patrick O'Sullivan in Hollywood in 2006.

Appearances on Saturday Night Live

Walken has hosted the comedy sketch and satire TV series Saturday Night Live (SNL) seven times.

One of Walken's SNL performances was a spoof of Behind the Music, featuring a recording session of Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) the Reaper". In the guise of record producer Bruce Dickinson (not to be confused with the real Bruce Dickinson, lead singer for Iron Maiden), Walken makes passionate and slightly unhinged speeches to the band and is obsessed with getting "More Cowbell" into the song. The phrase "I gotta have more cowbell" has since been adapted to merchandise. The producer who suggested the cowbell on the original BÖC recording is David Lucas.

Walken appeared in one of Will Ferrell and Rachel Dratch's "The Luvahs" skits. His character brought a lady friend to meet The Luvahs and she is subjected to learning the history that Walken's character shares with The Luvahs. He also divulges private information about his sex life with his girlfriend, much to her horror ("She was willing to accept her lover's body in places no one had ever trespassed... specifically, the ear canal").

Walken spoofed his starring role from The Dead Zone (1983) in a sketch titled "Ed Glosser: Trivial Psychic" (1992). In the film, Walken's character can predict deaths and catastrophes, while Glosser can accurately predict meaningless, trivial future events but with the same emotional intensity as in the film: "You're going to get an ice cream headache. It's going to hurt real bad, right here, [touches forehead] for eight, nine seconds.").

His character in A View to a Kill was parodied in a sketch titled "Lease with an Option to Kill", in which he reprised his role as Max Zorin. Zorin, who had taken on some qualities of other Bond villains (Blofeld's cat and suit, Emilio Largo's eye patch), was upset that everything was going wrong for him. His lair was still under construction; his henchmen had jump suits that didn't fit; and his shark tank lacked sharks, having a giant sea sponge instead. A captive James Bond, portrayed by Phil Hartman, offered to get Zorin "a good deal" on the abandoned Blofeld volcanic lair if Zorin let him go, to which he reluctantly agreed.

He performed a song and dance rendition of the Irving Berlin standard, "Let's Face the Music and Dance". Finally, there was the "Colonel Angus" sketch, laden with ribald double entendres, in which Walken played a dishonored Confederate officer.

Until 2003, Walken had a recurring SNL sketch called "The Continental", in which Walken played a "suave ladies' man" who in reality cannot do anything to keep a woman (a neighbor in his apartment building) from giving him the cold shoulder. Though he is outwardly chivalrous, his more perverted tendencies inevitably drive away his date over his pleading objections. For instance, he invites the woman to wash up in his bathroom; once she is inside, it becomes obvious that the bathroom mirror is a two-way mirror when he is seen lighting up a cigarette. In "The Continental", only the hand of his neighbor is ever seen; the camera always shows her point of view.

The April 5, 2008 Saturday Night Live show was the first time an episode hosted by Walken did not have a "Continental" sketch or a monologue in which he sang and danced. This episode, however, did include one sketch titled "Walken Family Reunion", which spoofs many of Walken's idiosyncrasies. The sketch depicts a fictional Walken family reunion, where all of Christopher's relatives have his mannerisms and speech patterns and sport his trademark pompadour hairstyle. In order of appearance, the other Walkens are Christopher's cousin Stanley (Bill Hader); Stanley's brother John (Jason Sudeikis); John's son Scott (Andy Samberg) and daughter Maxine (Amy Poehler) (who carries a doll that also has a pompadour); Nathan (Fred Armisen), a gay relative for whom "flamboyance" means dressing all in black and running his finger around the rim of a cosmo glass; Uncle Richard (Darrell Hammond) and Aunt Martha (Kristen Wiig), who think that The Deer Hunter was hilarious and who are hosts of a Nigerian foreign exchange student named Oleki (Kenan Thompson). When he came to live with them, Oleki—who has absorbed all of the Walken Family traits—could not speak any English. But now (he says) he "talks like a normal teenaged American boy". The biggest laugh of the sketch occurs when Christopher expresses his sympathies for Scott's teenaged attitude: "I appreciate your situation. For a Walken, adolescence is a difficult time. You feel like you're the only normal person in a school full of nutjobs." Scott's response: "Wow! It's like you're lookin' right into my noggin!" (Will Forte also appears as a waiter at the beginning of the sketch, but does not do a Walken impression.)

In September 2004, SNL released a DVD titled The Best of Christopher Walken through Lionsgate.

Walken returned to the show for the first time in 15 years on October 28, 2023 in a cameo role as the "Spirit of Halloween" in which he gave advice to President Joe Biden (Mikey Day). Walken also introduced the musical guest Foo Fighters instead of host Nate Bargatze. Foo Fighters were the musical guest during his 2003 episode, during which Dave Grohl pranked Walken into speaking with the emphasis on "Fighters" instead of "Foo." Clips of the introduction later became an internet meme and Walken pronounced the band's name correctly in 2023.

Presidential candidacy hoax
Walken became the subject of a hoax controversy in 2006, when a fake website started in August of that year by members of Internet forum Genmay.com announced that he was running for President of the United States. Some believed it was authentic, until Walken's publicist dismissed the claims. When asked about the hoax in a September 2006 interview with Conan O'Brien, Walken said he was amused and when asked to come up with a campaign slogan, he replied, "What the Heck" and "No More Zoos!"

Personal life
In 1963, Walken met Georgianne Thon during a tour of West Side Story. They married in January 1969. The couple have no children and Walken has stated in interviews that not having children is one of the reasons that he has had such a prolific career.

Walken discussed his feelings on sexuality in a 1973 interview with After Dark promoting his appearance as Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice''. "I suppose I think of the man I'm playing as bisexual, and I suppose that's how I think of myself too. I'd hate to think that I was harnessed to heterosexuality. I mean, my life is heterosexual, but I like to think that my head is bisexual, and I think it's a good idea for everybody to start getting used to that notion, because that way one becomes aware of a lot more things."

Filmography

Awards and nominations

References

External links

1943 births
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
American male child actors
American male dancers
American male film actors
American male musical theatre actors
American male Shakespearean actors
American male soap opera actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American male video game actors
American male voice actors
Methodists from New York (state)
American people of German descent
American people of Scottish descent
Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winners
Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award winners
Bisexual men
Childfree
Hofstra University alumni
Living people
Male actors from New York City
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role Screen Actors Guild Award winners
People from Astoria, Queens
People from Bayside, Queens
People from Wilton, Connecticut

Christopher Walken


Valentia (Latin for "Land of Valens") was probably one of the Roman provinces of the Diocese of "the Britains" in late Antiquity. Its position, capital, and even existence remain a matter of scholarly debate. It was not mentioned in the Verona List compiled around AD 312 and so was probably formed out of one or more of the other provinces established during the Diocletian Reforms. Some scholars propose Valentia was a new name for the entire diocese, but the List of Offices names it as a consular-rank province along with Maxima Caesariensis and the other equestrian-ranked provinces. Hypotheses for the placement of Valentia include Wales, with its capital at Deva (Chester); Cumbria south of Hadrian's Wall, with its capital at Luguvalium (Carlisle), the lands between the Antonine Wall and Hadrian's Wall, possibly with a capital at Habitancum (Risingham),, although the latter is dismissed  by some modern scholars due to the absence of archaeological evidence for a Roman re-occupation of southern Scotland in the fourth century.

Name
Its name properly refers the Eastern emperor Valens but some also hold it to have honoured Valentinian. Some researchers such as S. H. Rosenbaum, who place Valentia in far northern Britain also believe the name included wordplay with the Latin  ("wall"), cf. the island Munitia (wordplay on munitio) of Aethicus Ister's Cosmography.

History
Ammianus Marcellinus records that, after dealing with the Pannonian rebel Valentine, Count Theodosius
"...turned his attention to make many necessary amendments, feeling wholly free from any danger in such attempts, since it was plain that all his enterprises were attended by a propitious fortune. So he restored cities and fortresses, as we have already mentioned, and established stations and outposts on our frontiers; and he so completely recovered the province which had yielded subjection to the enemy, that through his agency it was again brought under the authority of its legitimate ruler, and from that time forth was called Valentia, by desire of the emperor, as a memorial of his success."
This occurred in AD 369. It represented the Roman recovery from the Great Conspiracy, which overran northern and western Britain in 367, alongside Germanic attacks on the Roman shores.

Ammianus speaks of the establishment of Valentia as the renaming of a recovered province (or possibly all of the territory in Britain), but the List of Offices names Valentia's governor separately alongside all four of the British provinces known from earlier sources. It is possible a new province was conquered or formed at some time after the composition of the Verona List. The List of Offices also lists two sets of troops under the Duke of the Britains (). One covered the island's eastern shore while the second guarded the northwest coast and formed garrisons listed east to west along Hadrian's Wall. Scholars who place Valentia in Cumbria point to emendations of the surviving text's references to the western units as evidence that the area had been thoroughly overrun during the Great Conspiracy and so formed a prime candidate for Theodosius's reconquest and new command.

Ammianus also noted that the province was named "as if celebrating a minor triumph" (). This was a lesser celebration held for unspectacular victories, as over slave revolts, and unusual for the destruction of a barbarian horde. One explanation is that the mutinous soldiers or even rebellious governors may have been involved, as full triumphs were never celebrated in victories over Roman citizens. Theodosius's lenient treatment of the conspirators involved with the rebel Valentine suggests discontent was already uncomfortably widespread.

Describing the metropolitan sees of the early British church established by SS Fagan and "Duvian", Gerald of Wales placed Valentia in Scotland and improbably fixed its bishop's seat (and thus provincial capital) at St Andrews. William Camden, looking at Ammianus, considered it the recaptured northern portion of Maxima Caesariensis, which he placed around Eboracum (York). This was generally accepted after the appearance of Charles Bertram's highly-influential 1740s forgery The Description of Britain, which placed the province between the two walls and even named the area north of the Antonine Wall as a separate province of Vespasiana. His work was, however, debunked over the course of the mid-19th century.

References

Late Roman provinces
History of the Scottish Borders
Scotland in the Roman era
369 establishments
4th century in Roman Britain
States and territories established in the 360s
Roman Britain
Valens

Valentia (Roman Britain)


Jason Thomas Orange (born 10 July 1970) is a retired English singer-songwriter, dancer, musician and actor. He was a member of Take That during their original run from 1990 to 1996 and again following their reunion in 2005. He left the group in 2014.

Early life
Orange was born in Crumpsall in Manchester. He attended South Trafford College for two years beginning in 2002 and studied A-level English, d an access course including psychology, biology and history though he did not progress onto higher education.

Early career
He was part of the Manchester-based breakdance crew Street Machine in the mid 1980s. They won the Manchester round of the UK Breakdancing Championship in 1985. He also appeared in the show The Hit Man and Her as one of the featured dancers on the show (and in a duo called Look Twice) in the late 1980s.

Take That
Orange joined the boy band Take That in September 1989 and stayed with the band until their split in February 1996. He then pursued a career in acting and appeared in the television thriller Killer Net in 1998, and the London stage production of Gob in 1999. He was the lead actor together with Tom Hayes in the play, which was written by Jim Kenworth, and directed by James Martin Charlton.

In 2005, Take That reformed as a four-piece and released a new greatest hits album, followed in 2006 by their first studio album since 1995, Beautiful World. Orange contributed both songwriting and lead vocals on the album. In 2008, they released another studio album, The Circus. In 2010, the album Progress was released by the band as a five-piece. On 24 September 2014, it was announced that Orange had left the band stating that he did not wish to continue recording music and touring.

Other work
Orange appeared in a cameo role in the Channel 4 comedy Shameless, which aired in April 2013. He also appeared in the 1998 Lynda La Plante crime drama Killer Net, for which his appearance was a major selling point.

Twin people from England
Musicians from Manchester
English pop musicians
English pop singers
English songwriters
Take That members
Living people
1970 births

Jason Orange


Carter Jackson is an actor based in New York City.

Live performances

He has appeared on Broadway in the Paul Newman starring production of Our Town by Thornton Wilder, directed by James Naughton.  Carter played SAM CRAIG in the Westport and the Booth Theater productions, as well as in the televised American Classics production which followed on Showtime and PBS.  Carter also originated the role of TAP in the short play Leaving Tangiers by David Johnston, which was a winner in the 28th Annual Off-Off Broadway Original Short Play Festival in 2003 and published by Samuel French.  Carter is a member of off-off-Broadway's Blue Coyote Theater Group as one of their Repeat Offenders, recently appearing in their evening of one-act plays titled Happy Endings, in Such A Beautiful Shoulder by John Yearley and Yes Yes Yes by David Johnston.

Voice-Over Performances

Carter voiced the role of Conor for the third television adaptation of Speed Racer, titled Speed Racer: The Next Generation, for Nicktoons Network. Carter also provided the voice of Thatch in the first season of the television series Casper's Scare School, but not in the direct-to-video movie on which it is based.

References

Male actors from New York City
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)

Carter Jackson


Centamin plc (, ) is a gold mining company focused on the Arabian-Nubian Shield. It has offices in London, UK; Mount Pleasant, Western Australia; and Alexandria, Egypt. Its registered office is in Jersey. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

History
Centamin was first listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1970. In 1999 it acquired Pharaoh Gold Mines, a company that had been exploring for gold in Egypt since 1995, and became "Centamin Egypt". The company was granted a 160 square kilometre exploitation lease over the Sukari Gold Project in the eastern desert of Egypt in 2005. A listing was secured on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2007 to raise funding for production and first gold was poured in June 2009. The Company moved to a full listing on the London Stock Exchange in November 2009 and was delisted from the Australian Stock Exchange in 2010. In 2011 it redomiciled to Jersey and changed its name to "Centamin plc".

Operations
The company operates the Sukari Gold Mine in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, some 700 km from Cairo and 25 km from the Red Sea. First gold was poured at Sukari in June 2009 and commercial production began on 1 April 2010, making Sukari the first modern gold mine in Egypt, a country which in ancient times was a prolific producer of the precious metal.

References

External links
Official site

Companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange
Non-renewable resource companies established in 1970
Companies based in Perth, Western Australia
Gold mining companies of Australia
Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange
1970 establishments in Australia

Centamin


Leopold Infeld (20 August 1898 – 15 January 1968) was a Polish physicist who worked mainly in Poland and Canada (1938–1950). He was a Rockefeller fellow at Cambridge University (1933–1934) and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Early life
Leopold Infeld was born into a family of Polish Jews in Kraków, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (it rejoined an independent Poland in 1918). He studied physics at Kraków's Jagiellonian University and from 1920 in Berlin, where he had engaged Albert Einstein's help to gain admission to the University of Berlin. He obtained a doctorate in 1921. In 1933 he left for England, then for the United States and Canada after the death of his second wife, Halina.

Work

Infeld was interested in the theory of relativity. He was awarded a doctorate at the Jagiellonian University(1921), worked as an assistant and a docent at the University of Lwów (1930–1933) and then as a professor at the University of Toronto between 1939 and 1950. He collaborated with Albert Einstein at Princeton University (1936–1938). The two scientists jointly formulated the equation describing star movements as well as concurrently writing the book The Evolution of Physics.

After the first use of nuclear weapons in 1945, Infeld, like Einstein, became a peace activist. Because of his activities, he was unjustly accused of having communist sympathies. In 1950 he left Canada and returned to communist Poland. He also could not return to the US at that time. In the US while previously working directly with Einstein who formally invented nuclear weapons by his famous formula he was even like the Rosenbergs in possible danger of receiving the death penalty in case he would be accused of spying for the Soviet Union.

He felt he had an obligation to help science in Poland recover from the ravages of the Second World War. He served as president of the Polish Physical Society between 1955 and 1957. In the staunchly anti-communist climate of the time, many in the Canadian government and media feared that working in a communist country; he would betray nuclear weapons secrets. He was stripped of his Canadian citizenship and was widely denounced as a traitor. In actuality, Infeld's field was the theory of relativity—not directly linked to nuclear weapons research. After Infeld's return to Poland, he requested a leave of absence from the University of Toronto. His request was denied, and Infeld resigned his post. In 1995 the University of Toronto made amends and granted Infeld the posthumous title of professor emeritus. Upon his return to Poland, Infeld became a professor at the University of Warsaw, a post he held until his death.

The Born–Infeld model was named after Max Born and Leopold Infeld, who first proposed it. The Infeld-Hull Factorization Method describing general sets of solutions to the Schrödinger equation.

Infeld was one of the 11 signatories to the Russell–Einstein Manifesto in 1955 and is the only signatory never to receive a Nobel Prize.

In 1964 he was one of the signatories of the so-called Letter of 34 to Prime Minister Józef Cyrankiewicz regarding freedom of culture.

Infeld is the author of Quest: "An Autobiography" and the biography "Whom the Gods Love: The Story of Évariste Galois."

In 1939 he married Helen Schlauch, an American mathematician.

Publications

References

Further reading

External links

1898 births
1968 deaths
Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe)
Jagiellonian University alumni
Academics of the University of Cambridge
Princeton University faculty
Members of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Polish relativity theorists
Academic staff of the University of Toronto
Academic staff of the University of Warsaw
Jewish physicists
Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin
Jewish Canadian scientists
People who lost Canadian citizenship
Polish atheists
Canadian emigrants to Poland

Leopold Infeld


The Scout Association of Guyana, is a Scouting organization in Guyana formed in 1967 as a successor to the British Guiana branch of The Scout Association of the United Kingdom. The association became a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement in 1967. In 2008, the association had 424 members.

History
There is a record of Scout Troops in British Guiana in 1909. Later, some Scout Troops registered with the Boy Scouts Association of the United Kingdom which established a branch in British Guiana. The Boy Scouts Association appointed a District Commissioner, District Committee, and its executive committee. In 1920 these became the Colony Commissioner, Colony Boy Scout Council and its executive committee. The Boy Scouts Association's British Guiana branch changed its name to The Scout Association of Guyana, which joined the World Organization of the Scout Movement in 1967.

Early troops
Scouting was introduced to British Guiana in 1909, making Guyana the first Caribbean country to start scouting and fifth in the world. The first Scout Troop was formed at Queen's College under the leadership of George Manly, a Sergeant Major in the British Regiment stationed there. New troops formed and were attached mainly to church schools including St. Mary's, St. Theresa's, St. Stanislaus, St. Francis, St. Thomas More, HQ Troop 39, St. Pius, and Central High in Georgetown.

Troop 39 was notable as the first Troop to make the overland journey to Kaieteur Falls. This Troop produced some of Guyana's scout leaders - including two Chief Commissioners, D.B. St. Aubyn and Lawrence Thompson, and four Assistant Chief Commissioners for Cubs.

Scouting spread from the county of Demerara to the county of Berbice, where a renowned Troop, Lady Dawson's Own, was formed.

Scouting emerged in the county of Essequibo in the 1940s with Troops mostly attached to Church Schools. A troop was started at Onderneeming Boys' Reformatory in Suddie. Sam Cummings, an instructor at the school, was the first Scout Leader, followed by the Headmaster, a Mr Kissoon. There were a few Troops and Packs in the Pomeroon and Rupununi districts. For many of these Troops the departure of the resident Priest meant the closure of the Troop. A Troop at Kamarang, Upper Mazaruni, catering mainly for Amerindian boys, was run by Canon John Dorman, who had been trained as a scout leader at Gilwell, England.

Another prominent Troop was St. Stanislaus College Troop, catering for Roman Catholic boys before the school became co-educational. Among its leaders was Father Bernard Darke, S.J., who had been trained as a Scout Leader at Gilwell, England and made a great contribution to Scouting in Guyana before his death. As well as running the Troop he served on Guyana's Scout Executive Committee and was a member of the Leader Training Team.

Further history
The first Jamboree Camp in British Guiana was held in 1912.

In the 1960s, scouts included Land, Sea, and Air Scouts and Rovers. Sea and Air Scouts no longer exist. Scouts were probably at its peak around 1969 when their Diamond Jubilee was celebrated and the 3rd Caribbean Jamboree was held there in August. In 1974 the government formed the Guyana National Service, a compulsory youth organization. This affected the organization's numbers. Some leaders joined the National Service where they were paid. While there was no ban on Scouting during this period, the organization was obliged to keep a low profile. With changes in the political situation came renewed support for Scouting in the 1980s.

The 2019 National Camp of the Scouts Association of Guyana marked the 110th anniversary of scouting in Guyana. The headquarters is located at Woolford Avenue.

Training
To obtain the highest rank, a Scout must pass the normal proficiency tests, and, in addition, must be able to obtain badges in agriculture, which prepares each Scout to feed himself from his own produce.

Leader training

Many of the Anglican and Roman Catholic priests who came from England to serve in Guyana had received Scout Leader Wood Badge training at The Boy Scouts Association's Gilwell Park in England. These included the late Archbishop of the West Indies, Dr Alan John Knight, who served on the Colony Scout Council for many years and welcomed the Cub Pack from St Gabriel's School, Convent of the Good Shepherd, who held their meetings on the lawn of his residence, Austin House, for many years. A lack of official trainers in Guyana had Scouters train at Paxdale, Trinidad for many years. Brian Fox, seconded from England in the 1950s spent about three years training leaders and expanding Scouting. It was in this time that British Guiana's Scout Training Team was formed.

Presidents
Justice E. Hewick (1910)
Hon Geo. Garnett, CMG (1911)
Sir Alfred P Sherlock (1913)
Colonel WE Clarke (1918)
Colonel Cecil May (1919)
Colonel FH Blackwood, DSO (1925)
Hon Hector Josephs, KC (1926)
Admiral FC Fisher (1929)
Rev Canon JT Robert, REA (1930)
Prof J Sydney Dash (1937)
LG Crease (1942)
Capt H Nobbs, OBE (1950)

Commissioners
Early Commissioners were referred to as District Commissioners. In 1920 their title was changed to Colony Commissioner. Commissioners have included:

Capt LD Cleare (1913)
HW Sconce (1919)
Major William Bain-Gray (Director of Education) (1925)
Rev C Norman (1926)
Hon C Douglas-Jones, CMG (Colonial Secretary) (1929)
Capt R Patrick (Director of Education Acting) (1929)
Capt F Burnett (1930)
JD Gillespie (1931)
Fred T Weston (1941)
John R Durey, MBE (Awarded Silver Acorn) (1942)
DB St Aubyn, MBE (1952)

Wolf Cubs and Cubs
Cubbing in Guyana started in 1926 with the first Wolf Cub pack being St Barnabas Anglican Church, under the leadership of Mr Braithwaite. The first ACC Cubs was Mrs Isadora Walton, Cubmaster of Pack 39, who did a great deal to spread this section of the organization.

The first Guyanese Cubmaster to be trained at Gilwell was Evelyn St Aubyn who succeeded Isadora Walton as ACC Cubs around 1938. George Manly's granddaughter, Daphne Manly, ran Pack 39 for many years.

40th Anniversary of Cubbing
A special program of activities was planned for the 40th Anniversary of Cubbing in Guyana. On 17 April 1966 over 200 Cubs spent the day at Camp Jubilee observing Cub Day. Clement Gomes and the Camp Jubilee staff assisted Pack Scouters. Communion services were held on arrival in both Anglican and Roman Catholic chapels, and were well attended.

On 20 August Packs held a campfire at Scout Headquarters to raise funds for the Blind Association. Michael Pereira arranged the program. The campfire was well attended and raised $108.50.

On 2 October a party of Old Wolves spent the day at Camp Jubilee. Three yellow cassia trees were planted by CC Lewis, E. Reece and Elsie Taylor in commemoration of the 40th Anniversary. On 30 October Thanksgiving services were held at Main Street Catholic Church and Christ Church (Anglican).

On 26 November the Annual Play Acting Competition was held at Scout Headquarters. The Cup, presented by its donor, Mr. LB Thompson, was won by St Francis Pack. On 9 December Old Wolves entertained Mr. George Mitchell in the Cub Den. Mr. Mitchell expressed his pleasure at seeing the Den, whose sod he had turned on his previous visit in 1963.

Census
1987: 341 Scouts, 125 Cubs and 49 Leaders
2001: 399 members
2008: 424 members

See also
 Guyana Girl Guides Association

References

World Organization of the Scout Movement member organizations
Youth organizations established in 1909
Scouting and Guiding in Guyana

The Scout Association of Guyana


Pedro Medrano (26 April 1769 – 3 November 1840) was a Uruguayan-born Argentine statesman and lawyer. He was a representative to the Congress of Tucumán which on 9 July 1816 declared the Independence of Argentina.

Medrano was born in San Fernando de Maldonado in Uruguay. He studied in Buenos Aires and at the Colegio Montserrat de Córdoba and gained his doctorate in law at the University of Charcas, becoming known as a brilliant orator. In 1810 he was appointed an oidor of the Real Audiencia. That same year he participated in the May Revolution at the Cabildo Abierto. He was one of the authors of the 1815 provisional statute of Argentina.
He was elected by Buenos Aires to the Tucumán Congress in 1816 for the declaration, serving as the first president of the Congress and giving the inaugural speech.

Medrano was secretary of the provincial junta of representatives in 1821 and a deputy on two occasions. He served as fiscal (state attorney) from 1838 and president of the Chamber of Appeals. He was a friend and ally of Juan Manuel de Rosas.

Medrano, Pedro
Medrano, Pedro
Members of the Congress of Tucumán
19th-century Argentine lawyers
Uruguayan emigrants to Argentina
People from Maldonado, Uruguay
People of the Argentine War of Independence
University of Charcas alumni

Pedro Medrano


Eddy Schepers (born 12 December 1955) is a Belgian former professional cyclist. He was a professional cyclist from 1978 to 1990 where he rode for many teams including C&A, Carrera and . He started out in the C&A cycling team of Belgian Eddy Merckx before riding for various teams. He competed in the individual road race event at the 1976 Summer Olympics.

In 1986 he rode alongside Irish cyclist Stephen Roche for the first time in the Carrera cycling team and he became a loyal teammate of Roche that year. During the following year, Schepers was instrumental in Roche winning the 1987 Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in supporting him on the road and also against the rest of the team who wanted the Italian Roberto Visentini to win the Giro d'Italia. On the fifth stage of the 1987 Giro d'Italia, Schepers let his breakaway companion Jean-Claude Bagot take the stage win in exchange for team support from Bagot's Fagor team if it was called upon in the future. In spite of working for Roche in the Giro d'Italia, Schepers still managed to place 12th in the general classification. Again in the 1987 edition of the Tour de France, Schepers provided Roche with crucial support while the rest of the team did not. Afterwards Schepers went with Roche to the Fagor team but with Roche past his peak due to chronic knee injury, their association stopped. Schepers spent his last year in the peloton riding for the Belgian team Tulip Computers.

His career victories include the overall of the Tour de l'Avenir stage race in 1977 and the first stage of the 1985 Tour de Romandie.

Major results

1977
 1st  Overall Tour de l'Avenir
 1st  Overall Giro delle Regioni
1978
 3rd Overall Tour de l'Aude
1979
 2nd Road race, National Road Championships
 3rd Brabantse Pijl
 5th Liège–Bastogne–Liège
 9th Overall GP du Midi-Libre
1980
 3rd Road race, National Road Championships
 10th Liège–Bastogne–Liège
1981
 6th Züri-Metzgete
 6th Liège–Bastogne–Liège
 7th Rund um den Henninger Turm
 8th La Flèche Wallonne
1983
 4th La Flèche Wallonne
1985
 1st Stage 1 Tour de Romandie
 6th Overall Tour of Belgium
1986
 8th Overall Critérium International
1987
 1st Stage 3 (TTT) Giro d'Italia
 4th Overall Critérium International
 8th Liège–Bastogne–Liège
1988
 9th Overall Vuelta a España

References

Notes
The Agony and the Ecstasy: Stephen Roche's World of Cycling (Hardcover) by Stephen Roche (Author), David Walsh (Author) 1988

1955 births
Living people
Belgian male cyclists
Cyclists at the 1976 Summer Olympics
Olympic cyclists for Belgium
People from Tienen
Cyclists from Flemish Brabant

Eddy Schepers


Thomas David Anderson (6 February 1853 – 31 March 1932) was a Scottish amateur astronomer.

Life
He was born at 28 Saxe-Coburg Place in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, the son of John Anderson. When he was five years old, his father showed him Comet Donati, and his nanny also gave him an interest in astronomy.

He was educated at Edinburgh Institution and the University of Edinburgh where he studied theology, graduating with a DSc in philology in 1880. He abandoned his plans of becoming a minister. He was sufficiently well off financially to pursue astronomy full-time.

In 1890 he was living at 3 Alfred Place on the south side of Edinburgh and working as a bank agent for the Bank of Scotland.

He became a keen observer, and discovered two fairly well known novas: Nova Aurigae 1892 and Nova Persei 1901. The former marked the first time a nova's spectrum had been photographed, while the latter eventually reached magnitude 0.2 to become the brightest nova in history since the supernova SN 1604, though it was later topped by Nova Aquilae 1918.  His timely discoveries enabled spectra to be taken before maximum magnitude was reached.

He constructed his own star charts and discovered 53 variable stars, the first being V Cassiopeiae in 1893.  He also discovered through research that the 3rd-magnitude star Theta Eridani had been described as 1st-magnitude by Ptolemy and al-Sufi.

In 1901, Anderson, Joseph Joachim Landerer, and Henri Chrétien jointly received the Prix Jules Janssen, the highest award of the Société astronomique de France, the French astronomical society.

For his nova discoveries he won the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for 1897-1900 and the Jackson-Gwilt Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1902.

He left Edinburgh in 1904 in search of better observing conditions. He claimed to have discovered another nova in Cygnus in 1923, but this could not be independently confirmed, and it is possible that it was a flare star.

Recognition
In 1954 the Astronomical Society of Edinburgh had an inscription added to his grave at Innerwick to recognise his discovery of three temporary and 53 variable stars.

In 2014 a plaque was erected in Anderson's memory at 21 East Claremont Street in Edinburgh.

References

1853 births
1932 deaths
Scientists from Edinburgh
People educated at Stewart's Melville College
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Scottish astronomers
Bank of Scotland people

Thomas David Anderson


François Vaillancourt (born 1967) is a Montreal-based Canadian painter.

François Vaillancourt has a formal training in fine arts and graphic design. After 15 years working as an art director in various advertising agencies, he started painting again. His work plays upon the contrast between very fluid backgrounds and central images which are hyper-realistic using a technique that deliberately mixes raw and refined. Each painting bears witness to the fact that time leaves its mark on objects with patina and deformity indelibly defining an ephemeral moment. His approach cannot be defined or confined by material. Instead it has been chosen solely as the best means to a beautiful end.
His work, mostly acrylic and ink on canvas, has been featured on book covers and was the subject of two shows, one in Montreal and the other in Quebec city.

External links
Interview with François Vaillancourt, Incubus' Choice, January 2008

1967 births
Living people
Canadian painters

François Vaillancourt


A hollow-cathode lamp (HCL) is type of cold cathode lamp used in physics and chemistry as a spectral line source (for example, in atomic absorption spectrometers) and as a frequency tuner for light sources such as lasers. An HCL takes advantage of the hollow cathode effect, which causes conduction at a lower voltage and with more current than a cold cathode lamp that does not have a hollow cathode.

The HCL is a light source or radiation source which is used to excite electrons of a metal of interest to a higher energy level. Excitation is when an electron in its lowest energy state, also known as the ground state, undergoes a transition to a higher energy state known as an excited state. These transitions can occur through heat, electrical energy, light, particles, or a chemical reaction.

Instrument Design

A HCL consists of an anode and a cathode inside of a glass tube. The glass tube is filled with some type of inert gas such as argon or neon with a pressure of around 5 torr (666 Pascal). It is important that the gas is inert in order to minimize interferences in the output of the data. The anode is an electrode in which loss of electrons by ionization takes place.  The anode is typically constructed of an inert conducting metal to ionize the inert gas.

The cathode is made of the pure metal of interest or a mixture of metals containing the metal of interest.   It is important that the cathode be stored under a vacuum to avoid any kind of contamination. Contamination of the cathode compromises the purity of the metal of interest and the data obtained for that metal. The material of the window is specifically selected in order to get the best transmission of spectral lines for the cathode element.

Excitation Process

The excitation process of the element of interest happens in a few steps. First, the inert gas inside the glass tube is ionized by a voltage. Ionization is how neutral atoms are converted to charged species. This voltage is applied across the anode and the cathode and generates a current of 5-15 mA.  This current allows for electrons to move to the anode and cathode.

If the voltage applied is large enough, the ions of the inert gas gather enough energy to remove some of the metal atoms of interest from the surface of the cathode by striking the surface. The removal of these atoms produces a cloud around the cathode. The process of producing this cloud is called sputtering. Some of these metal atoms in the cloud have moved to an excited energy state and as they return to their ground state, they emit a specific radiation which is characteristic to the metal of interest. The release of this radiation allows for data to be collected and information gathered pertaining to the metal of interest.  After a period of time, the atoms move to the glass walls of the lamp or back to the surface of the cathode.

Operation Conditions

How well the HCL works and how long it lasts is dependent on the care of operation. When a high voltage is applied, higher currents arise. These higher currents allow for more intense data output but at the same time can produce a number of unexcited atoms in the cloud. These unexcited atoms can interfere with good output data because they are able to absorb the radiation that is emitted from the excited electrons returning to their ground state. This process is called self adsorption. The process of self adsorption results in weaker intensities. Increasing the current too much can also result in a shorter lifetime of the lamp, as well as melting the metal on the cathode thus ruining the lamp.

References

Lamps

Hollow-cathode lamp


Gisilher, Gisiler or Giseler (died 1004) was the second Archbishop of Magdeburg, succeeding Saint Adalbert, from 981 until his death in 1004.

From 971 to 981, Gisilher was the Bishop of the new see of Merseburg. When he was elevated to the archdiocese in that latter year, however, he suppressed the Merseburg bishopric on the basis that its creation (967 or 968) had not received the written consent of the Diocese of Halberstadt. In 981, the Diocese of Merseburg was united to that of Magdeburg. It was only separated on Gisilher's death. The archbishop had the support of the Bishops of Zeitz and Meissen, who wished to aggrandise their own dioceses.

In 983, the Slavic tribes bordering eastern Saxony rebelled. Havelberg and Brandenburg were destroyed and the March of Zeitz devastated. In August, the margraves of Meissen, Lusatia, and the Nordmark joined with the troops of the Bishop of Halberstadt under the leadership of Gisilher and defeated the Slavs at Belkesheim, near Stendal. Nevertheless, the Germans were once again limited to the land west of the Elbe.

In March 984, Gisilher hosted Henry II, Duke of Bavaria, in Magdeburg on Palm Sunday. He supported Henry for the regency of the young Emperor Otto III and perhaps even as king, for Henry received the commendation of the magnates at Magdeburg.

On his death in 1004, there followed a brief conflict between King Henry II and the cathedral canons before Tagino was installed as archbishop.

Notes

Sources

1004 deaths
Archbishops of Magdeburg
11th-century archbishops
Roman Catholic bishops of Merseburg
10th-century archbishops
10th-century births

Gisilher (archbishop of Magdeburg)


TSV Windeck Germania is a German association football club from the municipality of Windeck in the district of Rhein-Sieg, North Rhine-Westphalia. It was formed through the merger in June 2009 of FC Germania Dattenfeld, 1. Windeck FC and TSV Dreisel. In addition to its football side, the club has departments for judo, tennis, women's gymnastics, and volleyball.

History

Predecessor FC Germania Dattenfeld was founded in 1910 and first came to note with the advance of its football side to the Landesliga Mittelrhein (VI) in 1999, where they captured the title in 2001 to win promotion to the Verbandsliga Mittelrhein (V). Germania continued to deliver strong performances, earning a vice championship in its debut season in fifth-tier play and a succession of upper-table finishes in subsequent seasons. In 2007 the club rose to the Oberliga Nordrhein (IV) on the strength of a Verbandsliga title. The rapid climb by the club out of Bezirksliga C-Klasse football is credited to Chairman Heinz Georg Willmeroth and his friend and the club's main sponsor, Franz-Josef Wernze.

Partners 1. Windeck FC and TSV Dreisel were both established in 1919 and have only ever played in lower-level local competition.

Currently the club plays in the tier five Oberliga Mittelrhein.

Honours
The club's honours:
 Verbandsliga Mittelrhein (V)
 Champions: 2007
 Landesliga Mittelrhein I (VI)
 Champions: 2001
 Middle Rhine Cup
 Winners: 2009, 2010, 2011

Stadium
The club plays its home matches in the Germania Dattenfelder Sports Park which has a capacity of 1,000. A grandstand with seating for 150 is planned.

In August 2007 the club made headlines when, in the third match of the season, the goalkeeper of visiting SV Straelen noticed the crossbar was too low. A measurement showed the goal 14–17 cm lower than the required 2.44 m. Straelen officially protested their 0–4 loss but were initially denied. In November 2007, following an appeal of the original decision, the match was ordered replayed.

Notable coaches
 Hermann-Josef Werres
 Michael Boris

References

External links
 Official website
 Das deutsche Fußball-Archiv historical German domestic league tables (in German)

Football clubs in Germany
Football clubs in North Rhine-Westphalia
Association football clubs established in 1910
1910 establishments in Germany

TSV Germania Windeck


The  is a Shinto shrine in the city of Uji, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. The shrine was built as a guardian shrine for the nearby Byōdō-in, and is adjacent to the Uji Shrine. In 1994, it was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as one of the "Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto". The honden and haiden have been designated by the Agency for Cultural Affairs as National Treasures in the category shrines.

The Ujigami Shrine is dedicated to the Emperor Ōjin and his sons, the imperial princes Uji no Wakiiratsuko and Emperor Nintoku. Uji no Wakiiratsuko committed suicide to solve a dispute over the imperial succession, and the shrine was built in his honor.

The honden of the Ujigami Shrine is known as the oldest example of nagare-zukuri style of shrine architecture in Japan. In this style of architecture the three inner shrine structures are built side-by-side, with the structure in the middle being larger than those to the left and right. The honden dates to the late Heian period (794 – 1185). The haiden is built in the shinden-zukuri style, and its roof in the sugaruhafu style. The haiden dates to the Kamakura period (1185 – 1333). The Kasuga Shrine, also within the shrine precinct, dates to the same period. The shrine is noted for its freshwater spring.

Ujigami Shrine was found via digital dendrochronology to be the oldest original Shinto shrine in Japan. The Nara Research Institute for Cultural Properties determined that the shrine was built in approximately 1060, which closely matches the written account of the founding of the shrine.

Until the Meiji Period (1868 – 1912) the Uji and Ujigami shrines were collectively known as the Rikyukamisha. The annual festival of the Ujigami Shrine is held on May 5.

See also
Uji Shrine
Ujigami
Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto
Byōdō-in

References

Shinto shrines in Kyoto Prefecture
World Heritage Sites in Japan
National Treasures of Japan
Important Cultural Properties of Japan
11th-century Shinto shrines

Ujigami Shrine


Donald McKayle (July 6, 1930 – April 6, 2018) was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and writer. He was best known for creating socially concert works during the 1950s and 1960s.

Early life
McKayle was born in Harlem, New York.

Career
His instructors included modern dance pioneer Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Anna Sokolow and Karol Shook.

McKayle was "among the first black men to break the racial barrier by means of modern dance." He worked with Martha Graham multiple times during his career.

His work for the concert stage, especially Games (1951) and Rainbow Round My Shoulder (1959), were his best known works. In addition, McKayle was the first black man to both direct and choreograph major Broadway musicals, including the Tony Award-winners Raisin (1973) and Sophisticated Ladies (1981).

McKayle held an endowed chair in the Dance Department at University of California, Irvine, where he was the Claire Trevor Professor of Dance. He previously served on the faculties of Connecticut College, Sarah Lawrence College, and Bennington College.

Death
McKayle died in Irvine, California on April 6, 2018 at the age of 87.

References

Other websites

1930 births
2018 deaths
American dancers
Educators from New York City
American choreographers
American stage actors
Actors from New York City
Writers from New York City

Donald McKayle


Bolze is a mixed language spoken in the Basse-Ville district of Fribourg, Switzerland. A mixture of French and Swiss German, Bolze came into being as a result of the immigration of German speakers from the Sense District of the Canton of Fribourg starting from the 19th century. By 2019 the language was reportedly spoken only by a handful of locals.

Origins
The city of Fribourg is located on the border of two Swiss language regions. Landless farmers from Fribourg moved to the lower town (the old town) from the 19th century to the 1940s. Their immigrant children spoke German at home and a mixture of French and German in the street: Bolze.

See also
 Portuñol

References

Languages of Switzerland
Code-switching
Mixed languages
City colloquials
Fribourg
Languages attested from the 19th century

Bolze


Cocoa may refer to:

Chocolate
 Chocolate
 Theobroma cacao, the cocoa tree
 Cocoa bean, seed of Theobroma cacao
 Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and cocoa solids
 Cocoa butter, a pale yellow, edible fat extracted from the cocoa bean
 Cocoa solids or cocoa powder
 Hot chocolate, also called hot cocoa or simply cocoa
 Cocoa Mountain, a gourmet chocolate enterprise in Durness in the North West Highlands of Scotland
 Cocoa Processing Company, a Ghanaian company

Computing
 Cocoa (API), an API and programming environment for macOS
 Cocoa Touch, an API and programming environment for iOS, iPadOS, watchOS and tvOS
 CoCoA, a computer algebra system
 COCOA (digital humanities), an early FORTRAN program for generating concordances and word counts from natural language texts
 Stagecast Creator, formerly Cocoa, a language developed by Apple to teach programming to children

People

 Cocoa Brown (born 1972), American actress
Cocoa Chanelle (born 1971), American DJ
 Cocoa Fujiwara (1983–2015), Japanese manga artist
 Cocoa Samoa (1945–2007), American-Samoan male professional wrestler
 Cocoa Tea (born 1959), Jamaican singer

Other uses
 Cocoa, Florida, a city in the US
 Cocoa Beach, Florida, a neighboring town
 Cocoa brown, a version of the color chocolate
 Cocoa (Is the Order a Rabbit?), a character in the manga series Is the Order a Rabbit?
 COVID-19 Contact-Confirming Application, often abbreviated as COCOA, Japanese COVID-19 contact tracing app

See also
 Cacao (disambiguation)
 Coca
 Coco (disambiguation)
 Co-Co (disambiguation)
 Cocoa Exchange (disambiguation)
 Koko (disambiguation)

Cocoa


Patrick Theodore Joseph Misch (born August 18, 1981) is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He pitched in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets.

Early life
Misch was born in Northbrook, Illinois. He is a graduate of Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook and was twice named to the All-Mid-American Conference Second Team while attending Western Michigan University. In 2001 and 2002, he played collegiate summer baseball with the Falmouth Commodores of the Cape Cod Baseball League.

Professional career

San Francisco Giants
He was selected by Houston in the fifth round (161st overall selection) of the 2002 Major League Baseball Draft, but opted not to sign with the Astros. The San Francisco Giants made him their seventh round selection (the 213th player selected) in the 2003 Major League Baseball Draft and signed him June 8 of that year.

In his first four seasons in the Giants farm system (through the end of ), Misch compiled a 30-28 won-lost record and a 3.52 ERA in 96 games (95 starts). He made his major league debut September 21, 2006, pitching a scoreless inning of relief and striking out the first batter he faced—Milwaukee Brewers' rookie left fielder Drew Anderson.

Misch began the 2007 season pitching out of the bullpen of the former Giants' Triple-A, Pacific Coast League affiliate Fresno Grizzlies. He was recalled to San Francisco July 3 when reliever Vinnie Chulk was placed on the bereavement list.

Misch was the starting pitcher for the Giants on August 4, 2007, against the San Diego Padres. It was in this game that Barry Bonds hit his 755th home run, tying Hank Aaron for most all-time career home runs.

New York Mets
Misch was claimed off waivers by the New York Mets from the Giants on June 5, 2009, and was called up on June 22. On September 3, he achieved his first win as a starting pitcher, holding the Colorado Rockies to two hits in 6 and 2/3 innings. In his previous start, Misch became only the second pitcher in major league history to begin his careers with 12 starts in which his team lost all 12 games. The first pitcher to do this was John Cummings of the 1993-1994 Mariners.

On September 27, 2009, Misch threw his first complete game shutout against the Florida Marlins, it was also the Mets' first complete game shutout of the year.

The Buffalo Bisons gave Misch the Most Valuable Pitcher award for the 2010 season.

Misch had his contract purchased by the Mets on April 16, 2011, after Chris Young was placed on the disabled list. He was designated for assignment the following day to make room for Dillon Gee. The Mets purchased his contract again on May 8, however, he was designated for assignment again on May 27. After the 2011 season, he elected for free agency.

Philadelphia Phillies/Detroit Tigers
He signed a minor league contract with the Philadelphia Phillies on November 29, 2011. Misch joined the Detroit Tigers on a minor league contract in January 2013, underwent Tommy John surgery in August 2013, and left the organization at the end of the year. He spent most of 2014 recovering from the operation and the 2014–15 Puerto Rico Baseball League season pitching for the Cangrejeros de Santurce. Misch finished 0–1 with a 3.41 ERA, and won a league championship.

Lamigo Monkeys
Misch attempted a comeback by signing a minor league contract with the Miami Marlins in January 2015. He played most of the season with the Triple A New Orleans Zephyrs and set a Pacific Coast League record on May 4, 2015, by hitting four straight batters with pitches in the first inning. The Marlins released Misch in July. He subsequently signed with the Lancaster Barnstormers of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, and was sold to the Lamigo Monkeys of Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League later that month. Misch started Game One of the 2015 Taiwan Series, pitching seven innings and yielding three earned runs in an 8–6 victory. He also started Game 4, throwing 80 pitches over three innings. The Monkeys trailed the Chinatrust Brothers 3–1 in the series, but forced a seventh and final game, which Misch won with a no-hitter. This was the first no-hitter in the Taiwan Series. The 11–0 final score was also the largest margin of victory in series history.

Milwaukee Brewers
Misch signed a minor league contract with the Milwaukee Brewers on January 8, 2016. He was released on February 18, 2016.

Orix Buffaloes
Misch signed a one-year contract with the Orix Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball on February 23, 2016. The deal is worth $550,000 and includes performance incentives.

Southern Maryland Blue Crabs
On March 30, 2017, Misch signed with the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. According to the Atlantic League web site, Southern Maryland released him May 4, 2017.

References

External links

1981 births
Living people
San Francisco Giants players
New York Mets players
Major League Baseball pitchers
People from Northbrook, Illinois
Baseball players from Cook County, Illinois
Western Michigan Broncos baseball players
Salem-Keizer Volcanoes players
Norwich Navigators players
Fresno Grizzlies players
Connecticut Defenders players
Buffalo Bisons (minor league) players
Lehigh Valley IronPigs players
Toledo Mud Hens players
Glenbrook North High School alumni
Scottsdale Scorpions players
Lancaster Barnstormers players
Lamigo Monkeys players
American expatriate baseball players in Taiwan
New Orleans Zephyrs players
Cangrejeros de Santurce (baseball) players
Nippon Professional Baseball pitchers
American expatriate baseball players in Japan
Orix Buffaloes players
Southern Maryland Blue Crabs players
Falmouth Commodores players
Liga de Béisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente pitchers

Pat Misch


Ossian Opera House, also known as the Knights of Columbus Hall, is a historic building located in Ossian, Iowa, United States.  The opera house "movement" was active in Iowa from about 1870 to 1930.  Numerous auditoriums and halls were built in towns large and small.  Ossian is somewhat unusual for a small town in that its opera house was a single-use type of building, rather a mixed-use facility.  The frame building with a gable roof was built in 1893 by the Ossian Hall Company.  It features a three-part facade, with a central frontispiece that is flanked by side wings.  The hall could seat 350 people.  The local Knights of Columbus council, a Catholic fraternal organization, acquired the building in 1956, and renovated the building for their clubhouse.  It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

References

Theatres completed in 1893
National Register of Historic Places in Winneshiek County, Iowa
Buildings and structures in Winneshiek County, Iowa
Knights of Columbus buildings in the United States
Opera houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa

Ossian Opera House


Henrik Laurentius Helliesen (20 December 1824–22 July 1900) was a Norwegian civil servant and politician.

Helliesen was born in Bodø in Nordland county, Norway. He studied law and earned his law degree at the University of Christiania in 1847. He was employed by the Ministry of Finance in 1849 and advanced to bureau chief in 1853 and deputy secretary in 1854. He was the County Governor of Nedenes amt from 1860-1863. Also, he represented the town of Arendal in the Norwegian Parliament from 1862 to 1863.

He was the Norwegian Minister of Finance for several periods between 1863 and 1883, and was a member of the Council of State Division in Stockholm several times between 1865 and 1884. He was also Minister of Education and Church Affairs in 1884. He died in Fåberg on 22 July 1900.

References

1824 births
1900 deaths
Politicians from Bodø
University of Christiania alumni
Government ministers of Norway
Ministers of Finance of Norway
County governors of Norway
Ministers of Education of Norway

Henrik Laurentius Helliesen


Chandrakanta Abhidhan is an Assamese Language to English dictionary, the third one published. It contains 36,816 words and was originally compiled and published by Asam Sahitya Sabha in 1933.

In 1987, the Gauhati University published a third edition of this dictionary, edited by Maheswar Neog and Upendranath Goswami. Chandrakanta Abhidhan is available online since 2009.

References

External links

Assamese language
Books from Assam
Assamese-language books

Chandrakanta Abhidhan


Lawful Larceny is a 1930 American pre-Code melodramatic film, directed by Lowell Sherman from Jane Murfin's screenplay. The screenplay, a melodrama, was based on the play of the same name by Samuel Shipman, which originally was a comedy. It starred a staple of the early RKO stable, Bebe Daniels, along with Kenneth Thomson, Olive Tell and Lowell Sherman, who reprised the role he had created in the original Broadway play. This film was a remake of the 1923 silent film version of the same name, produced by Famous Players–Lasky Corporation

Plot
When Marion Corsey's husband, Andrew, is conned out of a small fortune by Vivian Hepburn, she dedicates herself to recovering the money. In order to do so, she hides her identity and insinuates herself into the social circle of Vivian, by becoming her secretary, and studies the tactics employed by the sexy con-artist. While employed by Vivian, Marion meets Guy Tarlow, Vivian's love interest. However, Guy seems to be interested Marion.

Taking advantage of Guy's interest, Marion turns the tables on the con-artists and, using Vivian's own strategy, she cons Guy out of all the funds which were taken from Andrew. When her reverse larceny is discovered, Vivian enlists the help of Judge Perry, who is romantically interested in Vivian, in an attempt to recover her ill-gotten gains. In the end, however, Marion is able to prove that Vivian's gambling club is not run honestly, and that Vivian herself is both a cheater and a thief. In light of the evidence, the Judge and Guy end their pursuit of Marion, and Vivian slinks away. Although their marriage is damaged, and may be over, Marion and Andrew decide to stay together as friends, and see how things work out.

Cast
Bebe Daniels as Marion Dorsey
Kenneth Thomson as Andrew Dorsey
Lowell Sherman as Guy Tarlow
Olive Tell as Vivian Hepburn
Purnell B. Pratt as Judge Perry
Lou Payne as Davis
Bert Roach as French
Maude Turner Gordon as Mrs. Davis
Helene Millard as Mrs. French
Charles Coleman as Butler

(Cast list as per AFI Database)

Notes
This film was a remake of a 1923 silent film of the same name, also based on Samuel Shipman's play, which starred Hope Hampton and Conrad Nagel, and was directed by Allan Dwan. Produced by the Famous Players–Lasky Corporation, it was distributed by Paramount Pictures.

The play by Samuel Shipman, on which Jane Murfin's screenplay is based, was originally a comedy, and ran at the Theatre Republic (which is still in existence, now known as the New Victory Theater) in 1922. It was directed by Bertram Harrison, produced by A.H. Woods, and starred Margaret Lawrence, Alan Dinehart, and Lowell Sherman.

Olive Tell, cast in the less than sympathetic role of the sexy con-artist, was the wife of associate producer Henry Hobart.

In 1958, the film entered the public domain in the United States because the claimants did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.

References

External links

RKO Pictures films
American black-and-white films
American films based on plays
Melodrama films
Films directed by Lowell Sherman
Films with screenplays by Jane Murfin
American drama films
1930 drama films
1930 films
1930s English-language films
1930s American films

Lawful Larceny (1930 film)


Máel Muire ("servant of Mary") mac Céilechair (died 1106) was an Irish cleric of the monastery of Clonmacnoise, County Offaly, and one of the principal scribes of the manuscript Lebor na hUidre.

He came from a prominent clerical family with links to Clonmacnoise going back six centuries. He was the son of Céilechar Mugdornach (of the Mugdornai, a people of early Ireland), bishop of Clonmacnoise; son of Conn ma mBocht ("of the poor"), head of the Céli Dé and an anchorite of the same monastery, d. 1059; son of Joseph, a confessor at Clonmacnoise, d. 1022; son of Dúnchad, bishop of Clonmacnoise, d. 953; son of Égertach, superior of Ecclais Becc, d. 893; grandson of Eogan, an anchorite of Clonmacnoise, d. 845; son of Aedagán, abbot of Louth, d. 834; son of Torbach, scribe, lector and abbot of Armagh, d. 807; son of Gormán, successor of Mochta of Louth, who died in 753 while on a pilgrimage to Clonmacnoise. Another Gormán of the Mugdornai, who according to the Annals of Clonmacnoise was an ancestor of Máel Muire, also died while on pilgrimage to Clonmacnoise in 610.

Máel Muire was one of the three scribes who worked on the manuscript Lebor na hUidre, the earliest and one of the most important collections of early Irish literature. He wrote his name on the manuscript in two marginal probationes pennae (pen tests), and comparison of the handwriting identifies him as one of the two scribes who wrote the original manuscript, which was later amended by a third hand. His contribution amounts to roughly 60% of the surviving manuscript. A note in the manuscript, made in 1345, credits him as the one who "copied and searched out this book from various books".

The Annals of the Four Masters record his death in 1106 in a Viking raid on Clonmacnoise.

References

Irish scribes
1106 deaths
10th-century Irish priests
11th-century Irish priests
People from County Offaly
11th-century Irish historians
Year of birth unknown
Medieval European scribes

Máel Muire mac Céilechair


West Reading is a borough in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 4,212 at the 2010 census. It contains a vibrant main street (Penn Avenue) and the large Reading Hospital and Medical Center. It was also the site of the VF Outlet Village, one of the largest outlet malls in the United States. The VF Outlet Village was located in the buildings of the former Berkshire Knitting Mills, which was in operation from 1908 to 1975. The VF Outlet closed in 2020.

History

The borough was settled in 1873 and incorporated on March 18, 1907. It celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2007.

1733 – Three Welshmen- Hugh Jones, David Lewis, and Evan Price were the first settlers to be granted warrants for the land west of the Schuylkill River.

1810 – A brick home, one of the first buildings in what would become West Reading, is erected and occupied by William Hinnershitz.

1857 – The Lebanon Valley Railroad Bridge is completed.

1873 – Frederick Frill laid out his plan of lots on land which consisted of about 90 acres. The Frill plan covered land that was north of Chestnut Street and east of Tulpehocken Avenue.

1874 – George Eckert purchased a block of lots along Penn Avenue, extending from Second to Third Avenue.

1876 – The largest industry was the Alexander Hat Factory at First Avenue and Franklin Street.

1877 – The Lebanon Valley Railroad bridge was destroyed during the railroad riot.

1884 – The Penn Street Bridge is replaced with one made with steel trusses.

1898 – Spring Township builds a new eight-room brick school building on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and Chestnut Street.

1901 – West Reading Fire Company No. 1 is incorporated.

1907 – On March 18, West Reading is incorporated as a Borough. The first public election is held at John Kintzer's public house; the first Borough officials are elected. In addition, West Reading's Board of Education is organized; the first school sessions for the West Reading School District are held at a school building on the corner of 5th and Chestnut Streets.

1908 – Sessions for grades 7 and 8 are held in a private house on the southeast corner of 5th and Franklin Streets.

1910 – A two-story brick engine house is erected in the 400 block of Franklin Street.

1913 – The steel truss Penn Street Bridge is replaced with a concrete arch bridge.

1914 – West Reading High School is built on the corner off 4th and Franklin Streets.

1919 – The largest industry in West Reading is Narrow Fabric Co., manufacturer of undergarments.

1923 – The Borough police force is established with one police officer.  A new auditorium/gymnasium is added to the high school.

1925 – The West Side News, a monthly newspaper published and distributed in the Borough, begins a nearly 40-year run.

1926 – The Borough acquires property at South Fifth Avenue and Chestnut Street for the new borough hall, which is completed the following year. Final construction of the east and west classroom wings and library are added to the high school.

1929 – Borough Council decides to construct a new playground on 16 acres at Westside Road (now called Museum Road) and Sycamore Road.

1932 – The Buttonwood Street Bridge is built between West Reading and Reading.

1939 – Wyomissing Industries presents the citizens of West Reading with a $25,000 stone field house for the borough playground, which is now a well-rounded recreational facility with a swimming pool, wading pool, athletic field, quarter-mile track, ice skating rink, and basketball, volleyball and tennis courts.

1950 – West Reading is the largest of the county's 30 boroughs.

1953 – The new West Reading Elementary building is constructed on the northwest corner of 4th and Chestnut Streets.

1954 – The school building located at Fifth Avenue and Chestnut Street is razed to provide space for a school play area.

1968 – West Reading Borough Council joins two other boroughs- Shillington and Wyomissing- in the formation of a regional water supply system, later to be known as the Western Berks Water Authority, to "collect, treat, and transmit water from the contemplated Blue Marsh Dam area and sell it to prospective customers."

1969 – The West Reading and Wyomissing School Districts merge.

1985 – The Wyomissing Area School District sells the West Reading High School Building. The building becomes the "Public School Commons" apartments.

1989 – Taylor Alison Swift is born.

2002 – A new fire station is erected at Parkview Road and Playground Drive.

2005 – West Reading Borough Council joins with the Borough of Wyomissing, Spring Township, and Sinking Spring Borough to create the West Side Emergency Management Agency.

2006 – Penn View Motel demolition begins. In addition, the former Neg-Tech building at Chestnut and Yarnell Streets is demolished- making way for three new townhouses.  Construction begins with 58 new townhouses on the former Narrow Fabric property west of Tulpehocken Avenue.

2017 – The Berkshire Knitting Mills, once the world's largest hosiery manufacturer, which occupied the site from the early 1900s until its purchase in 1969 by Vanity Fair Corporation underwent renovations to transform the four-story building into an office and retail campus known as the Knitting Mills.

2018 – The former Narrow Fabric manufacturing building underwent renovations with a restaurant and gym (now a bank) located on the first floor and the top three floors featuring one and two-bedroom apartments.

2022- Samantha Kaag, West Reading's first ever female Mayor, was elected and took office.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of , all land.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 4,049 people, 1,666 households, and 862 families residing in the borough. The population density was . There were 1,783 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the borough was 89.33% White, 4.03% African American, 0.22% Native American, 1.53% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 3.41% from other races, and 1.46% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 7.78% of the population.

There were 1,666 households, out of which 23.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 36.0% were married couples living together, 11.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 48.2% were non-families. 39.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.11 and the average family size was 2.84.

In the borough, the population was spread out, with 18.7% under the age of 18, 8.2% from 18 to 24, 28.8% from 25 to 44, 18.0% from 45 to 64, and 26.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 82.6 males. For every 100 females aged 18 and over, there were 78.8 males.

The median income for a household in the borough was $38,340, and the median income for a family was $43,472. Males had a median income of $31,592 versus $25,411 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $21,414. About 5.8% of families and 9.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.0% of those under age 18 and 3.6% of those aged 65 or over.

Economy

The Reading Hospital and Medical Center is the largest employer in the borough and one of the top five employers in Berks County. The parent company, Tower Health, has its headquarters in the borough.

West Reading also has a bustling business district with bars, restaurants, shops, and salons.

Government

A council-manager form of government governs the Borough of West Reading. The council's president is Ryan Lineaweaver, and the Vice President is Phillip Wert. The five other members are as follows: Christopher Lincoln, Patrick Kaag, Jennifer Bressler, Denise Drobnick, and Zachary Shaver. Each council member is elected to four and two-year terms, which are on a rotating cycle. The Mayor of the Borough is Samantha Kaag. Her primary role is public safety, oversight of the police department, community involvement, and working hand-in-hand with the borough council. The Magisterial District Judge of West Reading (and Wyomissing) is Eric J. Taylor.

Notable people
 John Fetterman (b. 1969), politician
 Al Gursky (b. 1940), former professional football player, New York Giants
 Chad Henne, (b. 1985), former professional football player, Jacksonville Jaguars, Kansas City Chiefs, and the Miami Dolphins
 Michael W. Kirst (b. 1939), former president, California State Board of Education
 Andrew H. Knoll, (b. 1951), natural history professor, Harvard University
 Taylor Swift, (b. 1989), singer-songwriter

Transportation

As of 2020, there were  of public roads in West Reading, of which  were maintained by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) and  were maintained by the borough.

U.S. Route 422 is the main highway serving West Reading. It follows the West Shore Bypass along a northwest-to-southeast alignment across the northeastern portion of the borough. U.S. Route 422 Business follows the old alignment of US 422 along Penn Avenue through the center of the borough.

References

External links

 Love West Reading
 Borough of West Reading

Populated places established in 1873
Boroughs in Berks County, Pennsylvania

West Reading, Pennsylvania


Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (; ; 1698 – 27 July 1759) was a French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters. He became the Director of the Académie des Sciences, and the first President of the Prussian Academy of Science, at the invitation of Frederick the Great.

Maupertuis made an expedition to Lapland to determine the shape of the Earth. He is often credited with having invented the principle of least action; a version is known as Maupertuis's principle – an integral equation that determines the path followed by a physical system. His work in natural history is interesting in relation to modern science, since he touched on aspects of heredity and the struggle for life.

References

1698 births
1759 deaths
French scientists
French physicists
French astronomers
French biologists
French philosophers
Writers from Brittany
Members of the Académie française
Fellows of the Royal Society
People from Ille-et-Vilaine

Pierre-Louis Maupertuis