Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp or Maarten van Tromp ( 23 April 1598 – 31 July 1653) was a Dutch army general and admiral in the Dutch navy during much of the Eighty Years' War and throughout the First Anglo-Dutch War. Son of a ship's captain, Tromp spent much of his childhood at sea, during which time he was captured by pirates and enslaved by Barbary Corsairs. In adult life, he became a renowned ship captain and naval commander, successfully leading Dutch forces fighting for independence in the Eighty Years War, and then against England in the First Anglo-Dutch War, proving an innovative tactician and enabling the newly independent Dutch nation to become a major sea power. He was killed in battle by a sharpshooter from an English ship. Several ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy have carried the name HNLMS Tromp after him and/or his son Cornelis, also a Dutch Admiral of some renown.

Early life
Born in Brielle in the Netherlands, Tromp was the oldest son of Harpert Maertensz, a naval officer and captain of the frigate Olifantstromp ("Elephant Trunk"). The surname Tromp probably derives from the name of the ship; it first appeared in documents in 1607. He was baptized 3 May 1598 in St. Catherine's Cathedral.  In 1606, the Tromp family moved to Rotterdam where Tromp's father was appointed by the Admiralty of Rotterdam as captain of the frigate Olifantstromp. His mother supplemented the family's income as a washerwoman. In 1607, at the age of nine, Tromp went to sea with his father aboard the Olifantsdorp, of the Rotterdam squadron, commanded by  Commodore Mooy Lambert, as part of the Dutch fleet of Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Heemskerck, with the objective of blockading Dunkirk and the Spanish coast and intercepting the Spanish fleet being sent to drive the Dutch from the East Indies. On 25 April,  a fierce battle ensued at the Battle of Gibraltar, resulting in a great Dutch victory.

In 1610, after his father's discharge because of a navy reorganization, the Tromps were on their way to Guinea on their merchantman when they were attacked by a squadron of seven ships under command of the English pirate Peter Easton. During the fight, Tromp's father was slain by a cannonball, where after the battle his body was thrown overboard by the boarding party. According to legend, the 12-year-old boy rallied the crew of the ship with the cry "Won't you avenge my father's death?" The pirates seized him and sold him on the slave market of Salé where he ended up serving as a cabin boy. Two years later, Easton was moved by pity and ordered his redemption.

Set free, Tromp supported his mother and three sisters by working in a Rotterdam shipyard. He went to sea again at 19, briefly working for the navy, but he was captured again in 1621 after having rejoined the merchant fleet, this time by Barbary corsairs off Tunis. He was kept as a slave until the age of 24 and by then had so impressed the Bey of Tunis and the corsair John Ward with his skills in gunnery and navigation that the latter offered him a position in his fleet. When Tromp refused, the Bey was even more impressed by this show of character and allowed him to leave as a free man in 1622.

Naval career
Maarten Tromp was supreme commander of the Dutch fleet during the later part of the Eighty Years' War and throughout  the First Anglo-Dutch war. He is widely considered the best Dutch naval commander during most of this time. Tromp's former superior, Admiral Piet Pieterszoon Hein, once told a friend that Tromp as a seaman and a commander possessed a sound character that distinguished him from all the captains he had ever known. Tromp joined the Dutch navy as a lieutenant in July 1622, entering service with the Admiralty of the Maze based in Rotterdam, serving aboard the Bruynvisch. On 7 May 1624, he married Dignom Cornelisdochter de Haes, the daughter of a merchant; in the same year he became captain of the St. Antonius, a fast sailing dispatch and escort yacht. His first distinction was as Lieutenant-Admiral  Hein's flag captain on the Vliegende Groene Draeck during the fight with Ostend privateers in 1629 in which Hein was killed, after which Tromp returned home with his body.

Eighty Years' War

During the Eighty Years' War, (1568–1648), Tromp was appointed as full captain in 1629 at the initiative of stadtholder Frederick Henry himself, where Tromp demonstrated that he was very successful in fighting the Dunkirkers as a squadron commander, functioning as a commandeur on the Vliegende Groene Draeck. Despite receiving four honorary golden chains, he was not promoted further. The Vliegende Groene Draeck foundered and new heavy vessels were reserved for the flag officers while Tromp was relegated to the old Prins Hendrik. After Tromp's first wife died in 1634, with whom they had three sons left for tromp to support, he subsequently left the naval service that year in disappointment. He became a deacon and married Alijth Jacobsdochter Arckenboudt, the daughter of Brill's wealthy schepen and tax collector, on 12 September 1634.

In 1637 Tromp re-enlisted in the Dutch navy and was promoted from captain to Lieutenant-Admiral of Holland and West Frisia,  under the Stadtholder, Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. This occurred following the resignation of Lieutenant-Admiral Philips van Dorp, and the dismissal of Vice-Admiral Jasper Liefhebber, and other flag officers due to incompetence, neglecting the Dutch navy which had fallen into a deplorable state, with several captains resigning their commissions and seeking service with the army. With the resignation of van Dorp on 27 October the States of Holland once again asked Tromp  to accept the command of the Dutch navy. Tromp accepted but under the conditions that afforded him greater authority than was allowed for the navy's previous commanders, remembering how badly the fleet had been neglected by them under van Dorp.Tromp insisted on a greater number of ships, which were to be well outfitted with supplies, and well manned. The States gave Tromp their solemn promise that they would grant all his requests. The terms of Tromp's official appointment from the Stadtholder further strengthened his position. Witte de With  a year younger, very brave but brutal and ill-tempered, was appointed as his vice-admiral. Both were  born in Den Briel and served as flag captains under Piet Hein. Although formally ranking under the Admiral-General Frederick Henry of Orange, he was the de facto supreme commander of the Dutch fleet, as the stadtholders never fought at sea. Tromp was mostly occupied with blockading the privateer port of Dunkirk.

With his flagship, the Aemilia, Tromp promptly re-established the neglected blockade of Dunkirk and took steps to hinder the transportation of Spanish troops to Flanders. Tromp out-maneuvered Oquendo's fleet which was bound for Flanders but was forced to retreat to England at the Downs, behind the sandbanks of the Kentish coast, where they remained trapped, while a prolonged debate preceding the Wars of the Three Kingdoms continued in London. Tromp was already familiar with the channel from his cruising during 1637 and 1638, and sailed to Calais Roads, blocking the southwestern entrance of Dunkirk, where he resupplied his fleet from Calais with the support of Cardinal Richelieu. Now with a reinforced fleet Tromp, in spite of the objection of Charles I, who was on good terms with the Spain,.  attacked on 21 October, during the Battle of the Downs, destroying a large proportion of Oquendo's armada.  During the Fight in the Channel, a preliminary action to the Downs, Tromp was the first fleet commander known for the deliberate use of line of battle tactics, marking the end of Spanish naval power.Wijn, 1997, p. 46  For his landmark victory Tromp was rewarded by the States-General and knighted by Louis XIII of France, a close Dutch ally in the war against Spain. Shortly thereafter his second wife died. Tromp married again in 1640, to Cornelia van Berckhout.
In 1643 the deputy of parliament in Holland made a loud protest in the General Assembly against the Prince of Orange for his orders to Tromp to allow two of the frigates bought by English royalists in Dunkirk, for his use and command.

During his career, his main rival was Vice-Admiral Witte de With, who also served the Admiralty of Rotterdam (de Maze) from 1637. De With temporarily replaced him as supreme commander for the Battle of Kentish Knock. Tromp's crew would not permit De With, who had a reputation of severity when disciplining a crew, to raise his flag on their ship, and insisted that he use the Prins Willem as his flagship. Tromp's successor was Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam.

Tromp commanded the Dutch squadron that escorted Queen Henrietta Maria  in 1643 when she returned from the Hague to King Charles I. Opposed to her returning to England the Parliamentarian squadron under William Batten threatened to attack the Queen's convoy when it landed at Bridlington but was thwarted by Tromp to withdraw.

First Anglo-Dutch War

In the First Anglo-Dutch War of 1652 to 1653, Tromp commanded the Dutch fleet in the battles of Dover, Dungeness, Portland, the Gabbard and Scheveningen.

Prior to the war,  Oliver Cromwell and the Rump Parliament had issued an ordinance prohibiting foreign trade and requiring all foreign fleets in the North Sea or the Channel to lower their flag in salute and as a sign of compliance. A Dutch embassy was in London trying to negotiate a lifting of the Navigation Acts, but without much success.
On 19 May 1652, Tromp was cruising in the English Channel with a fleet of forty ships between Nieuport and the mouth of the Meuse River, with general orders to protect Holland's commerce, while keeping watch over the English fleet who were searching and seizing Dutch merchant ships prior. British Admiral Robert Blake had recently seized seven richly laden Dutch merchant ships, off the coast of Fairlight. Blake was now lying in Dover Roads with fifteen ships, while eight others were anchored in Bourne in the Downs. When Tromp failed to lower his flag in salute, Blake, aboard his flagship the James, believing Tromp had just received orders from a dispatch ketch to commence battle, fired two warning shots, without ball. The Battle of Dover was began when Tromp refused to strike his flag and instead hoisted a red battle flag in defiance, which prompted Blake to fire a third gun, hitting Tromp's ship and wounding some crew members. This was followed with Tromp returning fire with a warning broadside from his flagship Brederode. Blake in turn fired a broadside and a five-hour battle ensued. The fighting continued until nightfall, where both sides withdrew, the battle having no distinct victor.Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, 1717, pp. 459-460 Shortly after the battle a board of commissioners, which included Cromwell, after questioning witnesses, had concluded that Tromp had deliberately provoked hostilities. Subsequently Holland withdrew its three ambassadors from Westminster, and on 8 July 1652 England declared war against Holland.

Tromp with a larger fleet than he had ordered for, sailed to the Downs and found that Blake had made it to the north-east coast, where he set sail for the Thames River. Near the mouth of the river he came upon an English squadron, commanded by Sir George Ayscough, who had the advantage of the weather gage, thus preventing Tromp to engage effectively. Subsequently, Tromp decided  to return to the Netherland coast, which was a decision that was not at all well received by the Dutch government, resulting in his removal from command, with Admiral de Ruyter taking his place.

On 8 October 1652, with Tromp's command still in suspension, Dutch Vice-Admiral  Witte de With underestimating Blake, with 60 ships, attempted an attack at the Battle of the Kentish Knock, but ended with Blake sending the defeated de With back to the Netherlands. Although de With was the more adept tactician, he was no match against Blake's force, that included the heavy English ships the Resolution,  and the Sovereign, the two largest war ships in the world at the time. The significance of De With's defeat was received over-optimistically by the Council of State, leading them to assume that Blake now had control over the English Channel. The Council subsequently dispersed their fleets to protect English interests in the Baltic Sea, and Newcastle, while another fleet was sent to reinforce the squadron in the Mediterranean. This left Blake with about forty ships that were in anchor in the Downs, and a situation that was compounded by a lack of funds to pay for badly needed repairs and for the crews.Lambert, 2008, p. 54-55

Subsequent to de With's defeat, Tromp was reinstated as commander, on 8 May Tromp, which proved to be a big boost for Dutch navy morale, which was the highest it had been since he was dismissed months before in July. The Battle of Dungeness occurred on 30 November 1652, and proved to be the most important Dutch victory during the war, with Tromp's fleet winning for the Dutch the temporary control of the English Channel.  A great convoy of 300 merchant ships was ready to leave the Netherlands headed for the Bay of Biscay, accompanied by a large fleet of 73 warships and a small number of fireships  which were sent in escort to protect it. Tromp was in  command, with Jan Evertsen and De Ruyter were his subordinate commanders. Admiral Blake had seriously underestimated Dutch strength, possibly due to poor visibility, as his fleet was outnumbered, two-to-one. Blake, nevertheless, shadowed the Dutch fleet which was sailing parallel along the English coast towards Dungeness, with the coastline beginning to bend to the south.Hannay, 1886, pp. 98-100 As the fleets were approaching Dungeness Point Blake's fleet became pinned against the shore bringing the two fleets close together. Tromp subsequently hoisted  the red battle-flag and advanced on Blake's new flagship, the Triumph. The battle that developed involved only a part of the Dutch fleet as the winds were preventing the others from engaging in a timely fashion.  The re was much hand-to-hand fighting that lasted until about 5:00 pm with the advance of nightfall, with the Dutch fleet prevailing, taking several British prizes, while Blake retreated to the mouth of the Thames. Tromp's victory over the British prompted a marked turning point for the British navy.

The naval Battle of the Gabbard,  took place on 2–3 June 1653, (12–13 June 1653 Gregorian calendar) off the coast of Suffolk, England  near the Gabbard shoal. Tromp, aboad his flagship Brederode with, Vice-admiral Witte de With aboard the Vrijheid,  was in command of 98 ships and six fireships, divided in five squadrons, while Generals at Sea George Monck and Richard Deane were in command of 100 ships and five fireships, divided into three squadrons. Tromp's fleet was organized mostly for mélée fighting and were largely  crewed with soldiers for that purpose, while the English employed the use of superior firepower. Admiral Robert Blake joined the English fleet on 3 June.  Though his fleet was very low on ammunition Tromp decided for a direct attack, but at the time the winds became almost still, leaving the Dutch fleet vulnerable in the face of superior enemy fire. Subsequently the Dutch lost seventeen ships to capture or sinking, while the English lost none. Deane was killed during the action. It was one  of the most costly defeats ever suffered by the Dutch, leaving the English in control of the English Channel.

During the  Battle of Scheveningen, the last battle of the war, on 31 July 1653, Tromp was killed by a sharpshooter in the rigging of William Penn's ship. Tromp's flagship, the  Brederode, broke through the English line where an intense battle ensued, resulting in Tromp's imminent death. Tromp's last words were, "It is all over, 0 Lord, be merciful to me and thy poor people." Members of his crew carried the mortally wounded Tromp below deck to his cabin, where he died only a moment later.  His acting flag captain, Egbert Bartholomeusz Kortenaer, on the Brederod] kept up fleet morale by not lowering Tromp's standard, pretending Tromp was still alive. At this point Evertsen assumed command, and with this the Dutch admirals returned to their ships and resumed battle with "unabated vigour".  The loss of Tromp was a severe blow to the Dutch navy. The battle proved to be a tactical victory for the English, but a strategic victory for the Dutch in that they had the blockade removed.

Legacy

Tromp was held in high esteem in the Dutch navy and with the general public.  His death was a severe blow to the Dutch navy but also to the Orangists, who sought the defeat of the Commonwealth of England and the restoration of the Stuart monarchy. Republican influence strengthened after Scheveningen, which led to peace negotiations with the Commonwealth, culminating in the Treaty of Westminster. He received a state funeral in August 1653 at the Oude Kerk in Delft where a monument was erected to his honor. Tromp was survived by his second son, Cornelis Maartenszoon Tromp (1629-1691), who was also a distinguished naval officer.

See also
 Second Anglo-Dutch War
 Glossary of nautical terms :''' (A–L),  (M–Z)

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

R. Prud'homme van Reine, Schittering en Schandaal. Dubbelbiografie van Maerten en  Cornelis Tromp, Arbeiderspers, 2001

 Warnsinck, JCM, Twaalf doorluchtige zeehelden'', PN van Kampen & Zoon NV, 1941

17th-century Dutch military personnel
1598 births
1653 deaths
Admirals of the navy of the Dutch Republic
Burials at the Oude Kerk, Delft
Dutch military personnel killed in action
Dutch naval personnel of the Anglo-Dutch Wars
Dutch people of the Eighty Years' War (United Provinces)
Naval commanders of the Eighty Years' War
People from Brielle

Maarten Tromp


Gordon Liu (Lau Kar-fai ); born Sin Kam-hei (, 22 August 1951) is a Chinese martial arts film actor and martial artist. He played the lead role in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) and its sequels, and later played two roles in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films: Johnny Mo, the leader of the Crazy 88 Yakuza gang in Volume 1 (2003); and kung fu master Pai Mei in Volume 2 (2004).

Early life
Liu was born Sin Kam-hei in Guangdong Province, China on 22 August 1955, prior to his adoption into another family. He is often wrongly cited as being the adopted son of Lau Cham, and adoptive brother of directors and actors Lau Kar-leung (Liu Chia-liang) and Lau Kar-wing (Liu Chia-Yung). He was not adopted by the family but is Lau Cham's godson.

In his youth (ages 15–20), he skipped school to train in Chinese martial arts without his parents' knowledge. He trained at Lau Cham's martial arts school of Hung Gar discipline, which descended from Wong Fei-hung's grand student (father to Lau Kar Leung). Lau Cham's wife assisted in his training and due to the friendship and respect Liu felt for Lau and his wife, he took on the name Lau Ka-fai. As he grew up, he found a job as a shipping clerk to make ends meet. His interests had always been towards martial arts and he was eventually offered a role by Lau Kar-leung.

Career
Liu's first break was with Chang's Film Company (a Shaw Brothers subsidiary operating in Taiwan) acting small parts for such films as 5 Shaolin Masters, Shaolin Martial Arts, and 4 Assassins. He starred in Challenge of the Masters (1976), as the folk hero Wong Fei Hung, and was featured in Executioners From Shaolin (1977) before starring in his signature role as Shaolin hero San Te in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.

The tale of the imperialistic struggle, while not a new one, was significant for the intense focus placed on the inner workings of Shaolin Temple itself. San Te, Liu's character, overcomes the temple's thirty-five chambers as he unwittingly undergoes the rigorous training regimen imposed by the temple's Head Abbott on the pretext of "earning" a right to study martial arts there.

The "zero-to-hero" tale turned Liu into an international icon in spite of a frame far slighter than that of the folk hero himself (known as "Iron Arms" for the muscularity of his physique) and paved the way for a very healthy working schedule into the mid-1990s, even as younger, more agile martial artists eventually emerged. By the late 1980s, he had begun accepting smaller roles, such as in Lau Kar-leung's Tiger on the Beat.

Liu has also been active in television, and was contracted to Hong Kong's TVB company for many years, continuing playing roles as a martial arts master. Though still performing some martial arts roles, he is at home as well in comedic, self-deprecatory or emotional characters. His second-most common role in TVB has been playing a Hong Kong Police Force officer.

Quentin Tarantino had long been a fan of Liu, and hoped to find him a role in one of his movies. This eventually came to pass with the roles of Johnny Mo and Master Pai Mei in Tarantino's Kill Bill films. His roles in Kill Bill raised Liu's profile again and a renewed interest was shown by Chinese producers; since Kill Bill, Liu has returned to doing movies while continuing to do television for Hong Kong's TVB station.

In 2008, Liu added a Bollywood film to his profile. Collaborating with Indian actor Akshay Kumar who is a top-billed Bollywood actor and also a martial arts performer in a film titled Chandni Chowk To China (CC2C). He played the role of the villain, Hojo, a smuggler and a well-trained martial artist. Before this, he appeared as himself (along with his mentor Lau Kar Leung) in the 2009 film Dragonland, the first Italian documentary about martial cinema history, by Lorenzo De Luca. Liu attended as special guest star at the premiere in Rome, meeting his Italian fans for the first time. During August 2011, Liu had a stroke and put all his plans on hold to recover. Liu had cancelled all public engagements as of March 2012.

Personal life
Liu has been married twice. He has two daughters, Angie and Bonnie, from his first marriage which ended in 1986, and a son Kris () and daughter Sonia () from his second marriage with Ma Fei-feng () of Thai-descent which ended in 2009.

In August 2011, while in To Kwa Wan performing with his band, Liu had a stroke and hit his head. He had partial right-sided paralysis and a speech impairment as a consequence of the stroke, needing a wheelchair to travel. At the same time, his estranged family from his second marriage had begun pressuring him for money. Depressed at his physical state and family complications, he isolated himself in a nursing home. In June 2012, Liu decided to divorce his second wife and focus on his recovery.

During his medical crisis, Liu entrusted his assets to his assistant and spokesperson, Eva Fung. However, the two fell out, and Fung refused to return his assets. Subsequently in 2013, he arranged for Hong Kong actress Amy Fan to become the legal guardian of his assets. Liu later took legal action to recover his assets, and on April 29, 2014, a day before the court date, Fung agreed to return them with interest. In 2015, it was reported that he no longer spoke with a slur but continued to use a wheelchair, and that he had resided at a nursing home for several years.

Filmography

Film

Television

Documentaries

See also
List of Shaw Brothers films
Shaw Brothers Studio

References

External links

Gordon Liu at Hong Kong Cinemagic
Gordon Liu at Love HK Film
Gordon Liu Biography at Hong Kong Cinema

1955 births
Living people
Chinese Hung Gar practitioners
Hong Kong martial artists
Hong Kong male film actors
Shaw Brothers Studio
Sportspeople from Guangdong
Male actors from Guangdong
Chinese male film actors
Hong Kong male television actors
Chinese male television actors

Gordon Liu


Michalis Karaolis (; 13 February 1933 – 10 May 1956) was a Cypriot public official and revolutionary. Born in the village of Palaichori Oreinis of Pitsilia, Karaolis worked as a government clerk and a member of EOKA. He was the first to be sentenced to death and hanged alongside Andreas Dimitriou on 10 May 1956.

Life and work
Michalis Karaolis was born on 13 February 1933 in Palaichori Oreinis, Cyprus. He finished primary school in Palaichori and The English School in Nicosia. He worked as a tax clerk. During the 1955–59 national uprising against the British, many of APOEL's athletes and members of the club were active members of EOKA (the National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters). The most outstanding example being the club's track and field athlete Michalis Karaolis.

He was a member of EOKA long before 1955 in group headed by Polycarpos Giorkatzis. On 28 August 1955 he carried out the public execution of P.C. Michael Poullis, a Cypriot police officer, of the Special Branch who had been spying on the Nicosia groups of EOKA and interfering with their work. The assassination was carried out in broad daylight whilst P.C. Poullis was on duty at an AKEL meeting at the Ledra Palace.

Karaolis was captured on his way to meet Grigoris Afxentiou's guerillas in the Kyrenia mountains, following General George Grivas' orders.

Field Marshal Harding chose to announce Karaolis' death sentence on 28 October, an important Greek national holiday marking the refusal of Greece to surrender to the Axis Powers in the Second World War, and that hugely inflamed public feeling.

Execution
He was 23 years old when he was executed for the murder of P.C. Poullis and buried in the Imprisoned Graves in the Central Jail of Nicosia.

French philosopher and Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus appealed to Queen Elizabeth for mercy. That letter was acquired by philanthropist and entrepreneur Nasos Ktorides and donated to the National Struggle Museum in Nicosia.

The hangings were condemned internationally and caused serious demonstrations and unrest in Greece. The Athens police failed to suppress a huge demonstration and a riot developed in which 7 people were killed and 200 people were injured. The Mayor of Athens protested by taking a hammer to a commemorative marble plaque dedicated in honour of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip while a crowd cheered and applauded and there were many more similar scenes in Greece.

References

Sources
 The Memoirs of General Grivas, by General Grivas, edited by Charles Foley. Longman. London. 1964
 CYPRUS: Deepening Tragedy, Time Magazine, Monday, 21 May 1956.
Demetra Demetriou The pleiade in Cyprus: French authors and the island of Aphrodite p.303
 Remembering Karaolis - a historical document by Albert Camus, Financial mirror 28 March 2017

1934 births
1956 deaths
Cypriot poets
Cypriot people of the EOKA
Executed writers
Executed Cypriot people
People executed for murdering police officers
People executed by British Cyprus by hanging
People convicted of murder by the British military
People executed by the British military by hanging
Cypriot people convicted of murder
People who were court-martialed
People killed in the Cyprus Emergency
20th-century poets

Michalis Karaolis


Tuva Republic is one of 85 federal subjects of Russia. Another way to spell its name is Tyva. It is in south Siberia. It is grouped and governed as part of Siberian Federal District. The Siberian Federal District contains nine other federal subjects too. Tuva also shares an international border with Mongolia.

History
During the Chinese Qing Dynasty, Tuva was part of the province of Mongolia. From 1921 to 1944, Tuva was a separate country called Tannu-Tuva. In 1944, it joined the Soviet Union. In 1991, it continued to be part of Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Geography and climate

Kyzyl is the capital city of Tuva. The name means red in Tuvan. Tuvans say that Kyzyl is the exact center of Asia. And there is a monument to the Center of Asia in the capital. But others think that Kyzyl is not the exact center of Asia. Nevertheless, Tuva is in Central Asia. And Tuvan culture is similar to the culture of their neighbors in other Central Asian countries.

Tuva is in a mountain basin between the Sayan Mountains and the Tannu-Ola Mountains. In the east, Tuva has forests. In the west, the land is drier.

The average temperature in January is −32 °C (−25.6 °F). The average temperature in July is +18 °C (64.4 °F).

Demographics
Tuva's population at the end of the Soviet Union stayed about the same for some time, according to data. It is currently increasing again. A little bit more than half of the population live in cities and towns. Most of the people that live in cities and towns live in Kyzyl. Ethnic Tuvans make up the most of the population. Most ethnic Tuvans practice a religion that is mixed with Tibetan Buddhism and Shamanism, which is a belief that worships spirits and nature.

Language
Tuvans speak their own language, which is called Tuvan. It is a Turkic language. And it is related to Turkish. Before Tuva joined the Soviet Union, the Tuvan language used the Roman alphabet, which is the same alphabet that English uses. Since Tuva joined the Soviet Union, they have used the Cyrillic alphabet, which is the same alphabet that Russian uses. Because Tuva is part of Russia, Tuvans also learn to speak Russian.

Culture

Before they joined the Soviet Union, Tuvans were nomadic people. They traveled on horses. Therefore, horses were very important in Tuvan culture. Tuvan art often shows horses. And many Tuvan songs are about horses. Tuvans lived in yurts (round, felt covered houses that are easy to take apart and carry). Even today, a few Tuvans are nomads. Ethnically they are Mongols.

Tuvans are famous for their throat singing. Throat singing is a very old art. And it is very special because a throat singer can sing two or more notes at the same time. Throat singers imitate the sounds of nature. They can sound like a bird or like the howling wind. One style of throat singing has a rhythm like a horse trotting. For many centuries only men were allowed to be throat singers. But now women are throat singers too. Singing more than one note at the same time is sometimes called overtone singing.

Tannu-Tuva was also famous for its colorful and unusual postage stamps. Some were triangles. Many showed interesting pictures of life in Tuva.

References

Further reading
 Nomads of Eurasia, the National History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., 1989.
 Where Rivers and Mountains Sing: Sound, Music, and Nomadism in Tuva and Beyond by Ted Levin, Indiana University Press, January 11, 2006.
 The Postal History and Stamps of Tuva by S. M. Blekhman. English edition published by Scientific Consulting Services International, 1997.

Other websites

 News of Tuva
 Friends of Tuva
 Demonstrations of Tuvan throat singing styles
 Picture of Kongar-ool Ondar at the Monument to the Center of Asia in Kyzyl

Republics of Russia
Tuva
Federal subjects of Russia

Tuva


In music, sight-reading, also called a prima vista (Italian meaning "at first sight"), is the practice of reading and performing of a piece in a music notation that the performer has not seen or learned before. Sight-singing is used to describe a singer who is sight-reading. Both activities require the musician to play or sing the notated rhythms and pitches.

Terminology

Sight-reading
In music literature, the term "sight-reading" is often used in a generic sense to refer to the ability to read and perform instrumental and vocal music at first sight, which involves converting musical information from sight to sound. However, some authors, including Udtaisuk, prefer to use more specific terms such as "sight-playing" and "sight-singing" when applicable. This distinction allows for a narrower usage of the term "sight-reading" to describe the silent reading of music without producing sound through an instrument or voice.

Highly skilled musicians can sight-read silently; that is, they can look at the printed music and hear it in their heads without playing or singing (see audiation). Less able sight-readers generally must at least hum or whistle in order to sight-read effectively. This distinction is analogous to ordinary prose reading in late antiquity, when the ability to read silently was notable enough for Augustine of Hippo to comment on it.

The term a prima vista is also used, as Italian words and phrases are commonly used in music and music notation. To play a musical piece a prima vista means to play it 'at first sight'. According to Payne, "the ability to hear the notes on the page is clearly akin to music reading and should be considered a prerequisite for effective performance ... Egregious errors can occur when a student, analyzing a piece of music, makes no effort to play or hear the composition but mechanically processes the notes on the page."

Music schools generally require sight-reading as part of an audition or an exam.

Sight transposition

Some musicians can transpose music during performance to suit particular instruments or vocal ranges, to make the playing of the instrument(s) or singing easier, or a number of other uses. For transposing instruments such as the clarinets, trumpets, saxophones, and others, transposing is a necessary skill; for all musicians, it is a useful one.

Sight-playing
According to Udtaisuk, "many [authors] use the term sight-reading for instrumental sight-reading performance". However, Udtaisuk and some other authors use the more descriptive term "sightplaying" (or "sight-playing") for instrumental sight-reading, because sight-playing combines two unique skill sets: music reading and music making.

Sight-singing
Some authors, according to Udtaisuk, use the term "sight-singing" for vocal sight-reading. As with sight-playing, Udtaisuk advocates and uses the more descriptive term "sightsinging" for vocal sight-reading because sight-singing combines sight-reading and singing skills.

Psychology
The ability to sight-read partly depends on a strong short-term musical memory. An experiment on sight reading using an eye tracker indicates that highly skilled musicians tend to look ahead further in the music, storing and processing the notes until they are played; this is referred to as the eye–hand span.

Storage of notational information in working memory can be expressed in terms of the amount of information (load) and the time for which it must be held before being played (latency). The relationship between load and latency changes according to tempo, such that t = x/y, where t is the change in tempo, x is the change in load, and y is the change in latency. Some teachers and researchers have proposed that the eye–hand span can be trained to be larger than it would otherwise be under normal conditions, leading to more robust sight-reading ability.

Human memory can be divided into three broad categories: long-term memory, sensory memory, and short-term (working) memory. According to the formal definition, working memory is "a system for temporarily storing and managing the information required to carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension". The paramount feature that distinguishes the working memory from both the long-term and sensory memory is this system's ability to simultaneously process and store information. The knowledge has what is called a "limited capacity", so there is only a certain amount of information that can be stored and it is easily accessible for only a small window of time after it has been processed, with a recall time block of roughly fifteen seconds to one minute.

Experiments dealing with memory span have been conducted by George Miller in 1956 that indicated, "Most common number of items that can be stored in the working memory is five plus or minus two." However, if this information is not retained and stored ("consolidated") in one's long-term memory, it will fade quickly.

Research indicates that the main area of the brain associated with the working memory is the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is located in the frontal lobe of the brain. This area deals with cognition and contains two major neural loops or pathways that are central to processing tasks via the working memory: the visual loop, which is necessary for the visual component of the task, and the phonological loop, which deals with the linguistic aspects of the task (i.e. repeating the word or phrase). Although the hippocampus, in the temporal lobe, is the brain structure most frequently paired with memories, studies have indicated that its role is more vital for consolidation of the short-term memories into long-term ones than the ability to process, carry out, and briefly recall certain tasks.

This type of memory has specifically come into focus when discussing sight reading, since the process of looking at musical notes for the first time and deciphering them while playing an instrument can be considered a complex task of comprehension. The main conclusion in terms of this idea is that working memory, short-term memory capacity and mental speed are three important predictors for sight reading achievement. Although none of the studies discredits the correlation between the amount of time one spends practicing and musical ability, specifically sight-reading proficiency, more studies are pointing to the level at which one's working memory functions as the key factor in sight-reading abilities. As stated in one such study, "Working memory capacity made a statistically significant contribution as well (about 7 percent, a medium-size effect). In other words, if you took two pianists with the same amount of practice, but different levels of working memory capacity, it's likely that the one higher in working memory capacity would have performed considerably better on the sight-reading task."

Based on the research and opinions of multiple musicians and scientists, the take home message about one's sight-reading ability and working memory capacity seems to be that "The best sight-readers combined strong working memories with tens of thousands of hours of practice."

Sight-reading also depends on familiarity with the musical idiom being performed; this permits the reader to recognize and process frequently occurring patterns of notes as a single unit, rather than individual notes, thus achieving greater efficiency. This phenomenon, which also applies to the reading of language, is referred to as chunking. Errors in sight-reading tend to occur in places where the music contains unexpected or unusual sequences; these defeat the strategy of "reading by expectation" that sight-readers typically employ.

Professional use
Studio musicians (e.g., musicians employed to record pieces for commercials, etc.) often record pieces on the first take without having seen them before. Often, the music played on television is played by musicians who are sight-reading. This practice has developed through intense commercial competition in these industries.

Kevin McNerney, jazz musician, professor, and private instructor, describes auditions for University of North Texas Jazz Lab Bands as being almost completely based on sight-reading: "you walk into a room and see three or four music stands in front of you, each with a piece of music on it (in different styles ...). You are then asked to read each piece in succession."

This emphasis on sight-reading, according to McNerney, prepares musicians for studio work "playing backing tracks for pop performers or recording [commercials]". The expense of the studio, musicians, and techs makes sight-reading skills essential. Typically, a studio performance is "rehearsed" only once to check for copying errors before recording the final track. Many professional big bands also sight-read every live performance. They are known as "rehearsal bands", even though their performance is the rehearsal.

According to Frazier, score reading is an important skill for those interested in the conducting profession and "Conductors such as the late Robert Shaw and Yoel Levi have incredibly strong piano skills and can read at sight full orchestral scores at the piano" (a process which requires the pianist to make an instant piano reduction of the key parts of the score).

Pedagogy
Although 86% of piano teachers polled rated sight-reading as the most important or a highly important skill, only 7% of them said they address it systematically. Reasons cited were a lack of knowledge of how to teach it, inadequacy of the training materials they use, and deficiency in their own sight-reading skills. Teachers also often emphasize rehearsed reading and repertoire building for successful recitals and auditions to the detriment of sight-reading and other functional skills.

Hardy reviewed research on piano sight-reading pedagogy and identified a number of specific skills essential to sight-reading proficiency:
 Technical fundamentals in reading and fingering
 Visualization of keyboard topography
 Tactile facility (psychomotor skills) and memory
 Ability to read, recognize, and remember groups of notes (directions, patterns, phrases, chords, rhythmic groupings, themes, inversions, intervals, etc.)
 Ability to read and remember ahead of playing with more and wider progressive fixations
 Aural imagery (ear-playing and sight-singing improves sight-reading)
 Ability to keep the basic pulse, read, and remember rhythm
 Awareness and knowledge of the music's structure and theory

Beauchamp identifies five building blocks in the development of piano sight-reading skills:
 Grand-staff knowledge
 Security within the five finger positions
 Security with keyboard topography
 Security with basic accompaniment patterns
 Understanding of basic fingering principles

Grand-staff knowledge consists of fluency in both clefs such that reading a note evokes an automatic and immediate physical response to the appropriate position on the keyboard. Beauchamp asserts it is better to sense and know where the note is than what the note is. The performer does not have time to think of the note name and translate it to a position, and the non-scientific note name does not indicate the octave to be played. Beauchamp reports success using a Key/Note Visualizer, note-reading flashcards, and computer programs in group and individual practice to develop grand-staff fluency.

Udtaisuk also reports that a sense of keyboard geography and an ability to quickly and efficiently match notes to keyboard keys is important for sight-reading. He found that "computer programs and flash cards are effective ways to teach students to identify notes [and] enhance a sense of keyboard geography by highlighting the relationships between the keyboard and the printed notation".

Most students do not sight-read well because it requires specific instruction, which is seldom given. A major challenge in sight-reading instruction, according to Hardy, is obtaining enough practice material. Since practicing rehearsed reading does not help improve sight-reading, a student can only use a practice piece once. Moreover, the material must be at just the right level of difficulty for each student, and a variety of styles is preferred. Hardy suggests music teachers cooperate to build a large lending library of music and purchase inexpensive music from garage sales and store sales.

Assessment and standards
In some circumstances, such as examinations, the ability of a student to sight-read is assessed by presenting the student with a short piece of music, with an allotted time to peruse the music, then testing the student on the accuracy of the performance. A more challenging test requires the student to perform without any preparation at all.

The Washington Assessment of Student Learning has piloted a classroom based assessment which requires 5th and higher grade students to sight-sing or perform on instruments from sheet music they have written. It is suggested that students use solfege or numbering systems or fingering without instruments as aids. 8th graders are expected to sing by sight: "Students are asked to perform a sight-singing exercise of four measures of music. Students will be assessed on their understanding of rhythm and steady beat and their ability to perform in the designated key with accurate interval changes, a cappella."

Many students and adults cannot sight-sing, and even some professional singers cannot sing by sight. However, in combination with an assessment which requires composing music on a staff as early as 5th grade, it is hoped that such a requirement will raise arts achievement. Pilot data show that many students can meet or exceed such standards.

The Standard Assessment of Sight Reading (SASR) is a non-subjective sight reading evaluation method. It was created with a scientific/electronic platform to insure a non-subjective approach to grading and administering that test. It consists of several thousand pieces of music over 80 graded levels of difficulty that have been reviewed by 135 teachers and students to ascertain the correct difficulty levels. Their scores were averaged electronically in order to insure a scientific approach to graduating the difficulty levels of the music.

See also
 Count singing
 Ear training
 Eye movement in music reading
 Shape note
 Subvocalization

Notes and references
Notes

References

Sources

Further reading
 Bower, Bruce (15 December 2011). "For Sight-Reading Music, Practice Doesn't Make Perfect : Discovery News." Discovery News: Earth, Space, Tech, Animals, History, Adventure, Human, Autos. Science News.
 Hambrick, David Z. and Meinz, Elizabeth J. (19 November 2001). "Sorry, Strivers: Talent Matters", The New York Times

External links
 Interactive sight-reading software for all instruments and voice, See Music
 Sight reading training, crisstanza.github.io

Reading (process)
Musical notation

Sight-reading


Aflac Inc.  (American Family Life Assurance Company) is an American insurance company and is the largest provider of supplemental insurance in the United States. The company was founded in 1955 and is based in Columbus, Georgia. In the U.S., Aflac underwrites a wide range of insurance policies, but is perhaps more known for its payroll deduction insurance coverage, which pays cash benefits when a policyholder has a covered accident or illness. The company states it "provides financial protection to more than 50 million people worldwide".

In 2009, Aflac acquired Continental American Insurance Company for $100 million; this enabled Aflac to sell supplemental insurance on both the individual and group platform. , Aflac was represented by approximately 19,300 sales agencies in Japan, and 76,900 licensed sales associates in the U.S.

History
The company was founded by brothers John, Paul (died 2014), and William Amos in Columbus, Georgia, in 1955, as American Family Life Insurance Company of Columbus. In 1964, the company name was changed to American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus. The company had an initial public offering in 1974 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1990, the company adopted the Aflac acronym, although the official name of the underwriting subsidiary remains American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus. Aflac announced the appointment of Frederick J. Crawford as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President in June 2015.

The company signed 6,426 policyholders in its first year. Aflac pioneered cancer insurance in 1958. Beginning in 1964, the company decided to focus sales on worksite settings, eventually through policies sponsored by employers and funded through payroll deductions. By 2003, more than 98% of Aflac policies in the United States were issued on a payroll deduction basis, making the company a leader in that approach to policy distribution.

Business
Aflac operates in the United States and Japan, and has its worldwide headquarters and corporate offices in an eighteen-story tower just east of Downtown Columbus, Georgia, in an area known as MidTown. The Aflac tower is the tallest building in the city. , the corporation's total assets were more than $103 billion, and the company insured more than 50 million people worldwide.

Aflac is the largest provider of guaranteed-renewable insurance in the United States and the largest insurance company overall in Japan, when measured by individual insurance policies in force.

The company now offers several types of insurance policies in the United States, including the following:
 Accident
 Cancer/Specified Disease
 Dental
 Hospital Confinement Indemnity
 Hospital Confinement Sickness Indemnity
 Hospital Intensive Care
 Life
 Lump Sum Cancer
 Lump Sum Cancer Critical Illness
 Specified Health Event
 Short Term Disability
 Vision

Aflac also offers un-reimbursed medical, dependent day-care, and transportation flexible spending accounts. The company additionally offers human resources services for HIPAA and COBRA. From 1979 to 1997, the company owned several television stations, most of them in small and medium markets. It sold the broadcasting division (including flagship station WTVM) to what became Raycom Media in 1997.

Aflac is ranked 137th in the Fortune 500 list of largest United States corporations by revenue.

Critics of cancer policies
Consumer groups and some government officials say that cancer insurance returns fewer premium dollars to policyholders than standard insurance. A United States General Accounting Office study found that the policies paid back as little as 35% of premiums (Aflac said its cancer insurance paid back 62.4%). In comparison, New York State requires most major-medical policies to pay back 82% and group policies to pay back 75%. New York State does not allow stand-alone cancer policies.

In 1997, AFLAC spent $175,000 on lobbyists and campaign contributions to change the law. New York State lifted its ban in 1998 for purchasers who already have basic coverage. Consumer Reports recommended that policyholders use the money instead to buy lower-deductible insurance.

The Aflac Duck
Since December 1999, the company's identity and brand has become more widely recognized in the United States as the result of TV commercials featuring the Aflac Duck, who quacks the company's name with frustration to unsuspecting prospective policy holders. The duck concept and all of the commercials to date have been created by Kaplan Thaler Group, an advertising agency based in New York City. Metzer Farms, a Gonzales, California, waterfowl and gamebird hatchery, supplied them with the initial ducklings that each grew into the famous duck. Struggling to come up with a concept to make the big but relatively obscure insurance company's name memorable, one of the agency's art directors stumbled upon the duck idea while walking around Central Park at lunchtime uttering, "Aflac, Aflac." He soon realized how much the company's name sounded like a duck's quack. The Aflac Duck character has now starred in more than 30 commercials. In many of these commercials, character actor Earl Billings also appears. The Aflac Duck is enshrined on Madison Avenue's Walk of Fame as one of America's Favorite Advertising Icons.

From 2003 to 2006, when both NASCAR on NBC and NASCAR on TNT were scheduled to televise the second half of the Cup Series Season, they ran a 30 second segment in certain parts of each and every race they broadcast, called, "The Aflac Trivia Quiz." The segment would always begin when NASCAR on NBC-TNT Commentator/Cup Series Champion Benny Parsons would segue the topics he would be talking about by saying, "Cue The Duck!"

In April 2009, Aflac introduced a new marketing campaign called "Get the Aflacts," designed to educate consumers about the specific benefits of the insurance products the company sells. The Aflacts campaign gave the Aflac Duck "a more prominent role", designed to "help potential customers learn the Aflacts, er, facts about policies and other products", according to The New York Times.

Celebrities have starred in the Aflac ads, including Chevy Chase (2003); Yogi Berra; Yao Ming; future First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump (2005); NASCAR Cup Series driver Carl Edwards (2008–2014); the United States Olympic synchronized swimming team (2004); and Wayne Newton playing at Stardust Hotel and Casino for the 2003 commercial. The duck also appeared with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. In 2005, the company logo was changed to incorporate the duck. The first commercial using the new logo featured Gilbert Gottfried at a pet store because the duck kept saying, "Aflac!" and he had to trade in the duck for a parrot, saying, "If you're hurt and can't work".

The duck was originally voiced by comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who also voiced Digit on the PBS Kids series Cyberchase and Iago in the Disney film Aladdin. After 11 years as the voice of the Aflac duck, Gottfried was dismissed on March 14, 2011, due to jokes on Gottfried's Twitter account referencing the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The company's chief marketing officer stated that "Gilbert's recent comments about the crisis in Japan were lacking in humor, and certainly do not represent the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac."

On March 23, 2011, Aflac announced that the company was taking applications for the new voice of the Aflac Duck through QuackAflac.com until April 1. Commercials requesting the submissions, first aired in 2006 but updated, resemble a silent movie. On April 26, 2011, it was announced that Daniel McKeague, a television advertising sales manager from Hugo, Minnesota, would be the new voice of the Aflac duck. The first Aflac commercial featuring the duck's new voice aired on May 1, 2011.

In 2018, an Aflac ad inserted an animated Aflac duck into the opening credits of the DuckTales reboot.

Corporate philanthropy and social responsibility
The company states that through a partnership with Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Aflac has contributed more than $100 million to childhood cancer research and treatment.

Aflac employees are formally involved in an array of charitable organizations such as Habitat for Humanity International, the Easter Seals, and the United Way.

Aflac's stated objectives include the decrease of its environmental impact, for which the company is into a partnership with the Clean Air Campaign to encourage employees to engage with greater frequency in alternate commuting methods.

Aflac and Macy's Partnership
Starting in 2001, Aflac and Macy's have partnered to sell the annual Aflac holiday plush duck in select Macy's stores nationwide. Net proceeds from each duck sold are donated to the participating children's cancer facility nearest to where it is purchased. Since 2001, more than $3 million has been raised from the sale of the ducks.

Aflac has participated in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for the past six years. A new balloonicle was unveiled in 2014, featuring the Aflac Duck wearing ice skates.

COVID-19
Aflac expects an increase in claims due to COVID-19.

Award programs

Aflac National High School Baseball Player of the Year, which was first presented in 2004.

The Jackie Robinson Award is given to the high-school player who is entering his senior year and who best displays character, leadership, and the values of being a student athlete in academics and community affairs. The award is presented at an annual All-American Awards banquet, which was first held in 2003. The banquet follows the annual All-American Baseball Classic, an East-West all-star game featuring the 38 best players from around the nation who are entering their senior year of high school. First held in 2003, the game is played at Petco Park, San Diego, California. Proceeds from the game and banquet are donated to Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego and its fight against childhood cancer.

In 2011, the name of the all-star game was changed to the Perfect Game All-American Classic.

Awards and honors
Aflac has been the recipient of several awards:
 Aflac has appeared on Fortune'''s 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 20 consecutive years.
 Aflac has appeared on Fortune's America's Most Admired Companies list for 17 years.
 Aflac has been recognized by Ethisphere magazine as a World's Most Ethical Company since 2007.
 Aflac has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index North America for six consecutive years.
 In August 2016, Latina Style magazine placed Aflac on the list of the 50 Best Companies for Latinas to work for in the United States. Aflac has been on this annual list for 17 years.
 Aflac has appeared on Black Enterprise'' magazine's list of the Top 40 Best Companies for Diversity for 10 years.

See also
 List of United States insurance companies

References

External links

Insurance companies of the United States
Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Financial services companies established in 1955
Companies based in Columbus, Georgia
1955 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
1970s initial public offerings

Aflac


Angeren is a village in the municipality of Lingewaard, Gelderland province, Netherlands. It has a population of 2,851 (1 January 2009), and is located in the very eastern tip of the Betuwe, 2 km to the south of Huissen, between the cities of Arnhem and Nijmegen.

Angeren is first mentioned as Angrina in a document dated 814 or 815. By 1160 Angeren was an independent parish. During the Middle Ages, Angeren grew to a village with a village square, a fortification ('Het Roode Wald') and a flour mill.

The symbol of Angeren is Het Keuje ('The Pig') and there is a small statue of it in the centre of the town. The symbol refers to the historic dependency of Angeren on agriculture (mainly pig farms).

The local football club is S.V. Angeren. Their first squad plays in the 3rd division (Sunday amateurs – Eastern Region KNVB).
The local tennis club is called TV Angeren.

Angeren is located at the Linge, a small river that springs up in the nearby town of Doornenburg, and the Pannerdens Kanaal, a canal linking the Waal and the Nederrijn.

The freight train route Betuwelijn (opened in 2007) passes Angeren and crosses the Pannerdens Kanaal via a tunnel. Construction of the train route caused considerable protest in the village: on 4 April 2000 for example, a house that needed to be demolished was occupied by protesters who sat on the roof before being forced off by police. This event caused substantial media coverage.

Gallery

References

External links

 Angeren op Nederland-in-beeld.nl

Populated places in Gelderland
Lingewaard

Angeren


Falsterbo Lighthouse () .  To the north-east of the lighthouse is the city of Skanör-Falsterbo, to the south-east of the lighthouse are some of the finest sandy beaches in Sweden and surrounding the lighthouse is the golf course of the Falsterbo Golf Club.

History
The sea route past the Falsterbo Headland has always been dangerous, because of the moving sand banks hidden under the sea. In 1230 the Dominikans from Lübeck sent a letter to the Danish king Valdemar with a request that a "mark" should be built to warn seafarers. There is no evidence that it was ever built. Most likely is that a prominent house at Falsterbo and The Church of Santa Maria were used as seamarks.

In 1636, a lever light known as a "swape" light was built nearby at Kolabacken. An iron basket full of burning coal was hoisted up and down by a balanced bar, hence the light was moving and easier to detect. The coal fire was intensely red and could not be mistaken for a star or ship lantern. The remains of the beacon are still visible as a small hillock of ashes and coal, "Coal Hill" (). Towards the end of the 18th century the lever light was moved to the site of the present lighthouse, closer to the new shoreline.

The lighthouse was built in 1793-96 and the "light" was a coal fire at the top. In 1842-43 the uppermost crenellated parts were replaced with the present lantern. Coal was replaced with rapeseed oil. The oil was very inflammable and the lighthouse keepers had to watch the lamp all night. To make a periodic light; a screen was moved around the lantern by heavy weights. Around 1850 a house for the keeper was built next to the lighthouse. At the end of the 19th century another house was built for the assistants to the lighthouse keeper.

Also when the oil was replaced with paraffin and, later gas, the screen still had to be moved around. When electric light was installed in 1935 the screen was removed and so were most of the staff. Only one lighthouse keeper remained. In 1972 the lighthouse was automated and the last keeper retired.

The lighthouse is  high and  broad. Nowadays it has no importance as a navigation mark and therefore the light is not very strong (ca. 4000 candela). It was totally turned off 1990-93. The interval of the light is intermittent: 4 seconds on, 1 second off, repeated.

Present activities
Even though the lighthouse is managing itself nowadays, there are still many activities around it. Falsterbo is one of twenty synoptic weather stations in Sweden still staffed. Every three hours weather data (wind, temperature, air pressure, visibility, cloud cover etc.) are reported to the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. In earlier days the weather observations were carried out by the lighthouse keepers.

The lighthouse garden is the ringing site of the Falsterbo Bird Observatory. Falsterbo is a premier site in Europe to watch autumn bird migration. Several millions of birds pass every autumn en route to wintering areas in Africa or southern Europe. Annually, about 25,000 small birds are trapped and ringed.

Every year on the last Sunday of August it is "Lighthouse Day". Then the lighthouse is open to the public. Visitors are shown not only the lighthouse itself but also bird ringing and the weather station.

References

Lighthouses completed in 1796
Towers completed in 1796
Scania
Lighthouses in Sweden
Meteorological stations
Buildings and structures in Skåne County
Lighthouses in the Øresund Region
1796 establishments in Sweden

Falsterbo Lighthouse


Winchester Dam is a dam on the North Umpqua River in Winchester, Oregon. Constructed in 1890, the dam was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

The Winchester Dam was made from large timber cribs. Originally, the dam was a mere four feet high, which was raised to sixteen feet in 1907. The dam was the main source of water and electricity for the town of Roseburg until 1923. The dam's hydropower facilities have long since been removed, and the structure is now maintained solely for the recreational benefit of the Winchester Water Control District, composed of the private landowners surrounding the reservoir pool.

Public Safety
The dam is officially categorized as "high hazard" by the Oregon Department of Water Resources , primarily due to likely loss of life in the case of dam failure among the people who frequent the river, parks, and boat ramps just downstream. Following an annual inspection in October 2019, state officials downgraded Winchester Dam's condition to "poor," requested that the owners hire an engineer to comprehensively inspect its structure, and warned the owners to address known dam safety issues soon. According to the 2019 inspection report, Winchester Dam has not received a comprehensive structural inspection, nor have the owners updated the dam's required emergency action plan, since 1987.

Drinking Water Impacts
In January 2020, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality levied a $58,378 fine for violations during a repair at Winchester Dam in late 2018. According to DEQ, pollution from this repair degraded aquatic habitat, killed numerous fish, and harmed the primary drinking water source for the City of Roseburg and the Umpqua Basin Water Association – serving approximately 37,700 people combined. Officials found that dam repairs were conducted without following established best management practices, even after state and federal agencies provided information in advance on how to protect water quality and fish.

Harm to Fish
In 1994, conservation group Oregon Natural Resources Council released a report titled "Damnable Dams" which called for the removal of a number of Pacific Northwest dams, including Winchester Dam, because of the harm these structures caused to salmon and other fish. Since then, other dams on the "Damnable Dams" list have come down, including Savage Rapids, Elk Creek, and Gold Ray dams in southern Oregon. However, Winchester Dam has remained.

In 2013, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife placed Winchester Dam on the Statewide Fish Passage Priority List, an official listing of Oregon's top artificial obstructions to native migratory fish. In 2019, Winchester Dam was raised to the second highest ranked privately-owned dam on the Statewide Fish Passage Priority List, where it is noted for impeding passage to 160 miles of high quality habitat for spring Chinook, fall Chinook, summer steelhead, winter steelhead, cutthroat trout, and Pacific Lamprey, as well as Southern Oregon Coast Coho which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife staff maintain and operate the Winchester Dam's fish ladder through an easement providing access, but lack a substantive written system or analysis for maximizing fish passage efficiency at different flows. Winchester's ladder has a number of right angle turns and the ability to control flow velocities in the ladder is limited, making it difficult to pass fish at a wide range of flows. In mid-2019, after the dam owners objected, state officials declined the offer of seventeen conservation and fishing groups to fully fund an aquatic engineer to independently analyze the ladder and create a comprehensive system for maximizing ladder efficiency at different flows.

Fish Counting Station
Although the fish ladder at Winchester Dam does not meet current federal standards for passing fish, it has generated information for fishery management decisions since 1945. There is a fish counting station maintained by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife here. At the station, biologists count fish to monitor population, design management methods, and prescribe angling regulations. Since 2015, funding for fish counting at the station has been significantly reduced, and local fishermen have questioned the accuracy of the station's results.

See also
 National Register of Historic Places listings in Douglas County, Oregon

References

1890 establishments in Oregon
Dams completed in 1890
Dams on the National Register of Historic Places in Oregon
National Register of Historic Places in Douglas County, Oregon

Winchester Dam


An anoxic event (AE) is an event in which parts of the ocean have become low in oxygen (O2) below the surface levels, or when all the oxygen has gone. They may be called oceanic anoxic events or deep ocean anoxic events.

Major anoxic events have happened, though not for millions of years. The geological record of organic-rich sediment (black shales) shows that they happened in the past. However, only "in rare, extreme cases, [did] euxinia lead to biotic crises. [The] hypothesis  [is] best supported by evidence from the end-Permian mass extinction".

Anoxic events may have caused mass extinctions. These mass extinctions were so characteristic that they have been used by geologists as markers in biostratigraphic dating. Typically, oceanic anoxic events last for under half a million years, before a full recovery.

There are several places on earth today that show the features of anoxic events on a localized level. 'Dead zones' exist off the East Coast of the United States in the Chesapeake Bay, in the Scandinavian strait Kattegat, the Black Sea, in the northern Adriatic and off the coast of Louisiana.

Events which may have caused anoxic events
It is not known why anoxic events may have happened. Some ideas include:

Global warm climate leading to a huge growth of biomass.
High rainfall sweeping organic material down into the oceans.
Deep water circulation between poles and the equator stopping.
Oceanic oxygen being used up, and not being replaced fast enough.
Poisonous hydrogen sulphide collecting in the oceans.
Oceans becoming hostile to most forms of life

All of these events may have caused mass extinction in the seas, changing ways in which all animals which feed on sea creatures.

Historic examples

Jurassic
Toarcian event 183 million years ago (mya)

Lower Cretaceous
Aptian: mid-Aptian extinction event, 116/7 mya.

Upper Cretaceous
Cenomanian–Turonian boundary event: black shale deposition in ocean basins. 91.5 (±8.6) mya.

Cainozoic
Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 55.8 mya.

References

Extinction events
Oceanography

Anoxic event


Chess software comes in different forms. A chess playing program provides a graphical chessboard on which one can play a chess game against a computer. Such programs are available for personal computers, video game consoles, smartphones/tablet computers or mainframes/supercomputers. A chess engine generates moves, but is accessed via a command-line interface with no graphics. A dedicated chess computer has been purpose built solely to play chess. A graphical user interface (GUI) allows one to import and load an engine, and play against it. A chess database allows one to import, edit, and analyze a large archive of past games.

Chess-playing programs for personal computers

Chess engines
This list contains only chess engines for which Wikipedia articles exist yet and therefore is very incomplete. It does not reflect or imply current or historic play strength as this characteristic in itself usually does not warrant an entry on Wikipedia.

Chess graphical user interfaces

Chess-playing programs for video game consoles

Chess apps for phones/tablets

Chess computers
The following are special-purpose hardware/software combinations that are inextricably connected:

Programs for reading and editing chess databases
Chess Assistant
Chess Informant Expert
ChessBase
Shane's Chess Information Database

Chess-playing programs for mainframes/supercomputers
AlphaZero
Chess (Northwestern University)
CilkChess
Kaissa
Kotok-McCarthy
Mac Hack

Tiniest chess programs
1K ZX Chess
Microchess
Toledo Nanochess

See also

References

Video game lists by genre
Software
Lists of software

List of chess software


Koroni or  Corone () is a town and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Pylos-Nestor, of which it is a municipal unit. Known as Corone by the Venetians and Ottomans, the town of Koroni (pop. 1,397 in 2011) sits on the southwest peninsula of the Peloponnese on the Gulf of Messinia in southern Greece,  by road southwest of Kalamata. The town is nestled on a hill below a Venetian castle and reaches to the edge of the gulf. The town was the seat of the former municipality of Koróni, which has a land area of  and a population of 4,366 (2011 census). The municipal unit consists of the communities Akritochori, Charakopio, Chrysokellaria, Falanthi, Kaplani, Kompoi, Koroni, Vasilitsi, Vounaria and Iamia. It also includes the uninhabited island of Venétiko.

History

The town was founded in ancient times. The 2nd century Greek geographer Pausanias in his book Messeniaka reports the original location of Koroni at modern Petalidi, a town a few kilometers north of Koroni. He also reports many temples of Greek gods and a copper statue of Zeus. In the centuries that followed the town of Koroni moved to its current location, where the ancient town of Asini had once stood. In the 6th and 7th centuries AD, the Byzantines built a fortress there.

The town appears for the first time as a bishopric in the Notitiae Episcopatuum of the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI the Wise, in which it appears as a suffragan of the See of Patras. Surviving seals give the names of some of its Greek bishops. The Greek eparchy was suppressed in the 19th century as part of an ecclesiastical reorganization after Greece gained its independence.

Venetian period
Following the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Partitio Romaniae assigned most of the Peloponnese to the Republic of Venice, but the Venetians moved slowly to claim it, and the peninsula swiftly passed to the Frankish crusaders under William of Champlitte, who established the Principality of Achaea. The fortress of Koroni was initially given to Champlitte's chief lieutenant, Geoffrey of Villehardouin. It was not until 1206 or 1207, that a Venetian fleet under Premarini and the son of Doge Enrico Dandolo took the Messenian peninsula and Koroni with its neighbouring Methoni from Champlitte's men. Venetian possession of the two fortresses was recognized by Geoffrey of Villehardouin, by now Prince of Achaea, in the Treaty of Sapienza in June 1209.

The Venetian period lasted for three centuries, during which time Koroni and Methoni, or Coron and Modon—the first Venetian possessions on the Greek mainland—became, in the words of a Venetian document, "the receptacle and special nest of all our galleys, ships, and vessels on their way to the Levant", and by virtue of their position controlling the Levantine trade were known as "the chief eyes of the Republic". The town flourished as a waystation of merchants and pilgrims to the Holy Land. Koroni in particular was famous for its cochineal, from which crimson dyes were made, and for the Venetian engineers' expertise in siege engines, which was much in demand by the princes of Frankish Greece in their wars. Of the two, Koroni was the more important: when the two captains of the fortresses were increased to three towards the end of the 13th century, the two resided in Koroni, and in emergencies a bailo resided there as an extraordinary consul. During this period Koroni became the seat of bishops of the Latin Church. As the Catholics imitated the pre-existing Byzantine ecclesiastical structure, the Latin bishop of Koroni remained a suffragan of the Latin Archbishop of Patras. One of its bishops, Angelo Correr, later became Pope Gregory XII. No longer a residential Catholic bishopric, Corone is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.

In the mid-14th century, the two Venetian colonies suffered greatly from the Black Death, so that it was necessary to send a fresh
batch of colonists from home, and the franchise was extended to all the inhabitants, except the Jews. The two fortresses began to be governed by a series of minutely detailed Statutes and Capitulations issued by the metropolitan government, containing such clauses as a regulation that forbade the Venetian garrison to wear beards, so as to distinguish them from the local Greeks. Unlike other Latin rulers in Greece, the Venetians allowed the Greek Orthodox bishops to reside in their sees alongside their Catholic counterparts, but in the latter half of the 14th century, there are reports of mistreatment of the Greek population, which fled from Venetian territory to the Franks of Achaea.

In the early 15th century, as the Principality of Achaea gradually collapsed, the Venetians expanded their territory in Messenia: Navarino was taken over in 1417, and by 1439 had constructed or taken over six further castles between Navarino and Methoni and Koroni to secure her extended possession. The first seaborne Ottoman attack on Koroni took place in 1428, and after the Ottoman conquest of the Despotate of the Morea in 1460, the Venetian domains shared a border with Ottoman territory. Koroni fell to the Ottomans in 1500, during the Second Ottoman–Venetian War (1499–1503): Sultan Bayezid II stormed Methoni, after which Koroni and Navarino surrendered (15 or 17 August 1500).

Ottoman and modern period
Supported by the local population, the town was retaken by admiral Andrea Doria in 1532, but in the spring of 1533 the Ottomans laid siege to it. Doria was able to relieve the town, prompting Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent to call upon the services of the corsair captain Hayreddin Barbarossa. Barbarossa was aided by the outbreak of plague among the garrison and a particularly harsh winter, and in 1534 the Spanish garrison surrendered the fortress and sailed for Italy. Albanian inhabitants who participated in the revolt travelled with Doria and populated several settlements in the Kingdom of Naples, including San Chirico Nuovo, Ginestra and Maschito, where the Arbëreshë dialect is still spoken.

In the first half of the 16th century, Koroni was initially a kaza within the sub-province (sanjak) of Methoni and the seat of a kadi. The fortress itself and the surrounding territory were an imperial fief (hass-i hümayun). Its annual revenue was 162,081 akçes, which, according to Theodore Spandounes, were granted along with the revenue of Methoni to Mecca.

In 1582, the fortress was part of the Sanjak of Mezistre, and reportedly contained 300 Christian and 10 Jewish households, while the Muslim population was limited to the officials and a 300-strong garrison, which apparently remained constant over the entire Ottoman period. According to the 17th-century traveller Evliya Çelebi, Koroni was the seat of a separate sanjak, within either the Morea Eyalet or the Eyalet of the Archipelago. The 17th-century French traveller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier reports that its bey (governor) had to provide a galley for the Ottoman navy. Later it was part of the Sanjak of the Morea, and is once more attested as a separate sanjak by François Pouqueville in the late 18th century.

In the Morean War, Koroni was the first place the Venetians targeted during their conquest of the Peloponnese, capturing it after a siege (25 June – 7 August 1685). It remained in Venetial hands as part of the "Kingdom of the Morea" until the entire peninsula was recaptured by the Ottomans in 1715, during the Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War. During the 18th century, the town declined: its harbour was reported as blocked and ruinous already at the turn of the previous century, but it continued to export silk and olive-oil; until the 1770s, four French merchant houses were active there. By 1805, the English traveller William Martin Leake reported that trade had stopped, that the port offered only "insecure anchorage", and that the Janissary garrison abused the local population.

Koroni became part of the modern Greek state in 1828, when it was liberated by the French General Nicolas Joseph Maison.

Rocket launch site
Between 1966 and 1989 a facility for launching sounding rockets was established near the town. The first launches were performed from Koroni on May 20, 1966 for investigation an annular solar eclipse. These rockets reached an altitude of 114 kilometers. From 1972 to 1989 several Russian meteorological rockets of M-100 type were launched. They reached altitudes up to 95 kilometers. In total 371 rockets were launched.

Climate
Koroni has a hot-summer mediterranean climate (Köppen Csa) with mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers. The average annual temperature is 17.3 °C or 63.2 °F. About 737 mm or 29.0 inches of precipitation falls annually.

Notes

References

External links

Official website

Populated places in Messenia
Pylos-Nestor
Rocket launch sites in Greece
Stato da Màr
Castles in the Peloponnese
Venetian fortifications in Greece
Arvanite settlements

Koroni


The Spot (Dr. Johnathon Ohnn) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character has been depicted as an enemy of Spider-Man and Daredevil. The Spot gained the ability to open interdimensional portals and smaller-scale portals, which he uses to travel long distances instantly and commit crimes.

The character appears as a silent cameo in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), and is voiced by Jason Schwartzman in its sequels Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) and the upcoming Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.

Publication history

Dr. Johnathon Ohnn first appeared unnamed in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #97 (December 1984) and became the Spot in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #98 (January 1985). He was created by writer Al Milgrom and artist Herb Trimpe.

Creation
In an interview with Back Issue!, Milgrom discussed the character's creation,

"As I recall, the Kingpin wanted to find out
how Cloak's power, that would transport himself and Dagger away
whenever he chose, worked. I thought that it would be a cool idea
if there were another character that could do that in another way
like access that interdimensional-ity. Then I came up with the idea
for the Spot. Then I imagined a visual for him. Herb Trimpe drew
the issue, but I designed the visual on the character because I drew the cover first."

"One of the things I visualized was the Warner Bros. cartoons with Bugs Bunny. Elmer Fudd would be hunting him, and Bugs would go down the rabbit hole. Bugs would then move the hole like it was an extradimensional thing. That was kind of
one of the inspirations for the character."

"I have a sick sense of humor, so I
came up with the name Johnathan Ohnn. My thinking was that
he would be Johnny Ohnn the Spot"

"Years after I created the Spot, I saw a rerun of an old Warner Bros. cartoon with a mad scientist who had the same schtick that he could produce black holes,"  "He could put them anywhere and jump through them. I don't remember seeing the cartoon when I created the character, but after watching it years later, I said, 'Oh, my God, that's the Spot.' I may have inadvertently ripped off an old Warner Bros. cartoon. I might have seen it as a kid and had it in the back of my head somewhere."

Fictional character biography

As a former MIT scientist working for the Kingpin, Dr. Johnathon Ohnn was assigned to reproduce the radiation levels of the superhero Cloak to find a way to artificially mimic his powers. Working late one night, he succeeded in creating a solid black circular portal. In doing so, however, the drain on the city's power became so great, a blackout washed over the city, causing the portal to shimmer and destabilize. Fearful of losing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Ohnn stepped into it. The shock of the transition caused him to pass out. He awoke floating weightlessly in a dimension which he initially assumed was Cloak's dark dimension. He soon realized that the power shortage caused the portal to send him to a different dimension, a place of half darkness and half light. A seemingly infinite number of portals surrounded him in this place. Making swimming motions, he found the original portal that brought him there and slipped back through it. When Ohnn emerged back in his lab, his body had undergone a radical transformation. The portals from the other dimension had adhered to his skin, covering him with black spots from head to toe. Realizing the spots were portable space warps, he started to think he might be able to use them to defeat anyone in battle. When Spider-Man and Black Cat arrived to confront Kingpin, he appeared before them and announced himself as the Spot. Spider-Man collapsed on the roof, laughing at the name. The Spot ended up winning that first confrontation and warned the heroes to leave the Kingpin alone. He later lost a second battle against Spider-Man, because he was tricked into throwing too many of his spots as weapons and not keeping enough to defend himself with.

Spot later formed a short-lived team with Gibbon, Grizzly, and Kangaroo called the Spider-Man Revenge Squad, which was better known as the Legion of Losers. This team fell apart when Spider-Man carted the Spot and the Kangaroo to jail for bank robbery, and Grizzly and Gibbon left the group as they disagreed with their teammates' more ruthless approach. Some time later, the Spot was captured by an organization called the Gideon Trust and forced to open a portal to the Negative Zone. Gideon Trust hoped to investigate and exploit the natural resources of the Zone for their own purposes, but were defeated by the Fantastic Four who were trapped there. The Spot later helped Tombstone escape from a maximum security prison. In return, Tombstone snapped his neck. Despite this, he reappeared alive months later and arranged a meeting with Slyde. Both were upset at the reports of Hydra capturing or killing lesser-known supervillains. When the Spot arrived, both he and Slyde were quickly captured by a brainwashed Elektra. They were then resurrected by the Hand to join Hydra's army of superhumans and assault the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, however the Spot was taken out by Wolverine during the attack. The Spot returned in "Civil War: War Crimes" where he was recruited as part of Hammerhead's supervillain army. However, as Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D. attacked their forces, it remains unknown if the Spot was incarcerated with other villains and somehow escaped, or was among the casualties of the raid.

The Spot appeared in MODOK's 11 as part of a team organized by the villain of the same name to steal a weapon/power-source named the Hypernova. In the book, the Spot's intelligence seems to have been reduced to the point that he brags about having once been defeated by Spider-Man. He is showing a self-serving streak and in #3, it was revealed he'd defected to Temugin in return for a larger paycheck. He runs out on the rest of the team - leaving them to die - the instant they get the Hypernova. The Temugin immediately afterward trapped the Spot in the dimension he originally gained his powers from. The Temugin felt he couldn't trust the Spot not to backstab him like he had MODOK's 11. In the Brand New Day issues of Amazing Spider-Man, the Spot is seen in the "Bar With No Name". Later he begins to kill members of the Russian Mafia in revenge because his son was injured in a drive-by shooting and is now in a coma. During the "Dark Reign" storyline, Spot is one among many supervillains who joined the Hood's crime syndicate. It is later revealed he is serving as a mole for Mister Negative (a fellow Darkforce-powered villain) under the promise that he will be cured once the Maggia crime families are killed. During the Origin of the Species storyline, Spot is among the supervillains invited by Doctor Octopus to join his supervillain team where he promises each of them a reward in exchange that they secure some specific items for him. Ever since Lily Hollister's baby was stolen by the Chameleon, Spider-Man had been going on a rampage against any villains involved. The police ended up getting a web ball containing Spot, Diablo, and Overdrive.

Later, Spot worked with a man to kidnap the little girl of a mafia family during the wedding of her family and another mafia family, but the abduction was foiled by Daredevil. Spot was then captured and had his powers replicated by Coyote, a minion of an unknown figure trying to bring Daredevil down. Boomerang and Owl hire Spot onto the Sinister Sixteen, assembled to distract the Chameleon's forces while Boomerang steals from him. Spot was among the villains seen at the Bar with No Name when Black Cat tried to recruit a group of villains. They declined because of her affiliation to Electro. After Black Cat was thwarted by Spider-Man and Silk, Spot and the other criminals at the Bar with No Name joined her army when they wanted her to lead them. After helping the Ringer escape from prison, the Spot battled White Rabbit during a gang war, then attacked a museum, where he was incapacitated by Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099. As part of the 2016 Marvel NOW!, Spot kidnapped Jessica Jones by punching her to an unknown van. Spot later appeared as a member of the Sinister Six that is led by Aaron Davis in a recolored version of the Iron Spider armor. He accompanied the group in their mission to steal a decommissioned S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. During the "Infinity Wars" storyline, Spot is among the villains that accompany Turk Barrett to his meeting with the Infinity Watch at Central Park. During the "Hunted" storyline, Spot was seen as a patron at the Pop-Up with No Name. During the "Last Remains" arc, Spot was used by Mayor Wilson Fisk and Norman Osborn to power Project Blank in order to trap Kindred. Project Blank was inspired by the Darkforce Dome that was used to surround Manhattan back during Hydra's takeover of the United States.

Powers and abilities
Using his space warps, the Spot can instantly move himself or any part of his body from one area to another over a theoretically unlimited distance via another dimension nicknamed "Spotworld".

The Spot can control and manipulate the warps to almost any degree he wishes. He can expand or shrink them to any size, or he can join together multiple spots to form one larger warp. The spots are unaffected by gravity and can be placed against a surface or left suspended in mid-air. He can also designate which spots will lead to the spot dimension from those that will instantly lead to another location in this dimension. He can create new spots, or close them entirely by retreating into his dimension and pulling the warp in behind him (making a quiet "poit" sound). By concentrating, he used to be able to revert to his human appearance. When doing this, the spots merged to form one large black void in his chest, though this was easily covered with a shirt.

The number of space warps the Spot can throw is limited however, since he primarily draws on the ones on his own body. Spider-Man defeated Spot when his body was mostly white.

His preferred method of attack is to surround his opponent with numerous spots, allowing him to punch or kick them from unexpected angles across great distances. This proved very effective against Spider-Man as his spider-sense was unable to detect incoming attacks from another dimension, effectively negating this ability (and although the Spot's lack of super-strength meant that his punches did not actually do much damage even when they did connect, the cumulative effect could prove dangerous in an extended fight). The same phenomenon was true when Spot flung Spider-Man through a warp and he reappeared in this dimension too close to a wall to dodge. However, on Daredevil, who also has superhuman senses, this trick does not work, as his Radar Sense could easily detect the teleportation energy in the Spot's body, making it simple for him to tell where the Spot was going to attack from. The Spot can also move the spots on his body to protect himself from physical attack by positioning one in the path of a punch or kick, causing the attack to pass harmlessly through a warp.

Due to Spot's connection to "Spotworld", he appears to possess a form of immortality, being capable of speech even after having been decapitated; and if his physical body is fatally-wounded it will disintegrate and reconstitute itself in the Spotted Dimension.

Alternative versions

Marvel Zombies: Dead Days
In the comic Marvel Zombies: Dead Days, Dr. Johnathon Ohnn (shown in his Spot form) appears in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier with the other heroes who survived the Zombie plague.

Ultimate Marvel
The Ultimate Marvel version of the Spot appeared in Ultimate Spider-Man #111. Not much is known about him, except that his name is Frank, and he worked for Roxxon Industries, where an accident gave him his powers. He has similar powers to his 616 counterpart, being able to use the "spots" on his body to attack his opponent from long range. After a fight with Spider-Man, he is apprehended. The main difference in appearance between the Ultimate version and his 616-counterpart is that his spots flow around his body like a lava lamp instead of staying put. From an illustrator's point of view he is not drawn with a Dalmatian-like pattern, but is instead penciled as a white figure and covered in black ink blots when the page is inked.

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows
In Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows (an alternate reality first shown in the Secret Wars storyline where Peter and Mary Jane's marriage never ended), the Spot is one of the few beings with natural powers left free after the powerful Regent attempted to capture all powered beings to absorb their abilities for himself as part of a plan to challenge God Emperor Doom. Although Spot escaped, he apparently left parts of himself behind with the result that his body has obvious 'gaps' where his holes once were, and each time he uses one it takes away more of what remains of his body. Despite this, he 'sacrifices' one hole to save Spider-Man's family when they are attacked by the Sinister Six, and hides another in the Sandman so that the resistance can attack Regent directly.

In other media

Television

 Dr. Johnathon Ohnn / The Spot appears in a self-titled episode of Spider-Man (1994), voiced by Oliver Muirhead. This version is a scientist who originally worked for Tony Stark until Venom and Carnage stole Ohnn's technology in previous episodes. Despite being fired by Stark, Ohnn was subsequently hired by the Kingpin, who provides him with a lab and assistant named Dr. Silvia Lopez, with whom Ohnn soon enters a relationship. After several weeks, Ohnn and Lopez finish their work, but he accidentally falls into one of his portals, whereupon numerous more attach to him, giving him the ability to create them at will. Adopting the alias of the "Spot", he uses his newfound powers for personal gain; robbing banks and jewelry stores while lying to the Kingpin about his work. Ohnn later learns that the Kingpin is a crime lord after discovering Lopez works for him and tries to take over his criminal empire, but the Kingpin takes Lopez hostage to force Ohnn to continue working for him. Ohnn is sent to capture Spider-Man, who defeats the latter after using his "spider-sense" to deduce his pattern. Ohnn then explains to the web-slinger what happened and the two join forces to defeat the Kingpin, only to discover that one of Ohnn's portals was left open too long and it will grow large enough to engulf New York and eventually the Earth. Ohnn, Spider-Man, and the Kingpin attempt to close it from the outside, but fail to, leading to Ohnn sacrificing himself to close it from the inside, though not before Lopez confesses her love for him and allows herself to be taken with him. Following the incident, Ohnn's portal technology is used to create the Time-Dilation Accelerator, which would later be used by villains like the Hobgoblin and Green Goblin.
 An alternate universe variant of Dr. Ohnn appears in a flashback in the episode "I Really, Really Hate Clones". This version completed his work on interdimensional portal technology for the Kingpin without any accidents, and as such, never became the Spot. He later accidentally brought the Carnage symbiote into his universe, leading to the creation of Spider-Carnage, who combined a bomb with Ohnn's Time-Dilation Accelerator in an attempt to destroy the multiverse. However, Madame Web and the Beyonder assemble a team of Spider-Men from across the multiverse to stop him.
 The Spot appears in the Spider-Man (2017) episode "Bring on the Bad Guys" Pt. 2, voiced by Crispin Freeman.

Film

Dr. Johnathon Ohnn / The Spot appears in Sony's Spider-Verse trilogy, voiced by Jason Schwartzman.

 An unnamed Alchemax scientist who Miles Morales threw a bagel at while escaping from a facility, retroactively identified as Ohnn, makes a retconned non-speaking cameo appearance in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018).
 Formally introduced in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), this version is a former Alchemax scientist who was involved in the testing of the Kingpin's "super-collider" and played an indirect role in Morales becoming their world's new Spider-Man. When Morales destroyed the collider during the events of Into the Spider-Verse, Ohnn was caught in the subsequent explosion and absorbed energy particles that left him mutated and with black interdimensional portals across his body. Due to this, he was fired, abandoned by his loved ones, and turned to a life of crime to seek revenge on Morales, deeming him as his archenemy from then on. Offended that Morales sees him as another "Villain of the Week", Ohnn constructs his own collider to absorb its energy and strengthen himself after learning the potential of his abilities. He then travels the multiverse to absorb energy from other Alchemax colliders, encountering members of Spider-Man 2099's "Spider-Society" in the process. After becoming fully empowered, Ohnn returns to his and Morales' native Earth-1610, intent on destroying it as an act of vengeance on the latter.
 Ohnn will return in Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.

Video games
The Spot appears as a playable character in Marvel: Future Fight.

References

External links
 Spot at Marvel.com

Characters created by Al Milgrom
Characters created by Herb Trimpe
Comics characters introduced in 1984
Fictional physicists
Marvel Comics characters who can teleport
Marvel Comics characters with immortality
Marvel Comics male supervillains
Marvel Comics mutates
Marvel Comics scientists
Marvel Comics supervillains
Spider-Man characters

Spot (comics)