A Pandit (; ; also spelled Pundit, pronounced ; abbreviated Pt.) is an individual with specialised knowledge or a teacher of any field of knowledge whether it is shashtra (Holy Books) or shastra (Weapons) in Hinduism, particularly the Vedic scriptures, dharma, or Hindu philosophy; in colonial-era literature, the term generally refers to lawyers specialized in Hindu law. Whereas, today the title is used for experts in other subjects, such as music.  Pundit is a loanword in English meaning "an expert in a particular subject or field who is frequently called upon to give their opinions to the public".

Ustad is the equivalent title for a Muslim man in the musical sense. The equivalent titles for a Hindu woman are Vidushi, Pandita, or Panditain; however, these titles are not currently in widespread use.

In Sanskrit, pandit generally refers to any "wise, educated or learned man" with specialized knowledge. The term is derived from  () which means "to collect, heap, pile up", and this root is used in the sense of knowledge. The term is found in Vedic and post-Vedic texts, but without any sociological context.

Pandit as a title in Hindustani classical music
Pandit (abbreviated as Pt. and written as / in Marathi/Hindi) is an honorific title for an expert person in Indian classical singing and instrumental playing, used for an Indian musician. It is used in Hindustani classical music to recognize master performers for classical singing and other performing arts, like classical dance. It is used as a Music Title. The title is awarded to musicians by their teachers, prominent individuals, or members of their gharana in recognition of their expertise. It is used in various languages including Marathi, Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi and other languages which are there in India. An Indian woman, who is an expert in Indian classical music, is given the title of pandita or vidushi. Ustad is the equivalent title for a Muslim man.

Usage
Titles of pandit (and even ustad) are appended informally to the names of classical singers and players by their admirers, individuals or institutions, once they have reached eminence in their performing art, especially on public performances. As they are informal titles, mentioning names of eminent singers without those appendages is ok, unlike prefixes like Dr. awarded formally by educational institutions.

The title pandit of a classical musician and the pandit which is used as a title given to a knowledgeable person, is different.

There are many pandits in Hindustani classical music, for example, Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Kumar Gandharva, Pandit Guru Jnan Prakash Ghosh, Pandit Nikhil Ghosh, Pandit Nayan Ghosh, Pandit Anindo Chatterjee, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Taalyogi Pandit Suresh Talwalkar, Pandit Yogesh Samsi, Pandit Vyenkatesh Kumar, Pandit Birju Maharaj, Pandit Kishan Maharaj, Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Pandit Kaivalya Kumar Gurav, Pandit Shankar Ghosh, Pandit V.G. Jog, etc.

Synonym
As ustad is equivalent to pandit but used for a Muslim man, similarly a music title that is equivalent to pandit and used for an Indian man itself is given the title of Vidwan. Generally this title is given to a male Carnatic classical singer or instrument player. One prominent example is Vidwan Thetakudi Harihara Vinayakram.

For a woman Carnatic classical singer or instrument player, the title of Vidushi is given.

Equivalent titles for an Indian woman are Vidushi or Pandita (; ). Some examples are, Vidushi Kishori Amonkar, Vidushi Prabha Atre, Vidushi Gangubai Hangal, Vidushi Padma Talwalkar, Vidushi Veena Sahasrabuddhe, Vidushi Aruna Sairam, Vidushi Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande, Vidushi Kaushiki Chakraborty, Vidushi Anuradha Pal, Vidushi Indrani Mukherjee Vidushi Mita Nag, etc.

Kashmiri surname

Pandit is a Kashmiri Pandit clan and surname native to the Kashmir Valley of Jammu and Kashmir, India. 'Pandit' as a last name is used by both Kashmiri Hindus and Kashmiri Muslim of Hindu lineage.

See also
 Pundit
 Pujari
 Ustad
 Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
 Purohit – a house priest

References

External links

Hindustani music
Honorifics
Indian music
Men's social titles
Titles and occupations in Hinduism

Pandit


Simon Peter Wallace Murdoch  (born 1948) is a New Zealand diplomat and public servant. He was New Zealand's Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade and was previously New Zealand High Commissioner to Canberra, and Chief Executive of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Early life and education
Murdoch attended University of Canterbury, where he gained a first class master's degree with honours in history.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Murdoch joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1972. He had an early posting to Canberra, before joining the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in 1980 as foreign affairs adviser to Prime Minister Rob Muldoon.

In 1983, Murdoch was assistant head of the Asian division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Later that year, he was posted to Washington, D.C., as political counsellor, and the New Zealand intelligence liaison officer to the United States.

In 1987, Murdoch returned to New Zealand and became head of the Australia Division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 1989, Murdoch was seconded to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to be head of the Policy Advisory Group.  In 1991, State Services Commissioner Don Hunn appointed Murdoch to the post of Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Murdoch was head of the department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Prime Ministers Jim Bolger and Jenny Shipley. He left the post in 1998, to become visiting professor of Public Policy and Management at Victoria University of Wellington for a year.

In 1999, Murdoch was appointed New Zealand High Commissioner to Australia.

In 2002, Murdoch succeeded Neil Walter as New Zealand's Secretary of Foreign Affairs. He retired from that position in 2009. In the 2009 Queen's Birthday Honours, Murdoch was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for public services, lately as Secretary of Foreign Affairs.

GCSB
In 2010 he conducted a review of New Zealand intelligence agencies, and for two periods before and after the appointment of Lt Gen Sir Jerry Mateparae, he was acting chief executive and director of the GCSB. During his second stint in the position he presided over the illegal surveillance of Kim Dotcom, but left weeks before the raid was carried out on 20 January 2013.

References

1948 births
Living people
High commissioners of New Zealand to Australia
New Zealand public servants
Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit
University of Canterbury alumni
New Zealand diplomats

Simon Murdoch


Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man is a novel by Siegfried Sassoon, first published in 1928 by Faber and Faber.  It won both the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, being immediately recognised as a classic of English literature.  In the years since its first appearance, it has regularly been a set text for British schoolchildren.

Background
Prior to its publication, Siegfried Sassoon's reputation rested entirely on his poetry, mostly written during and about World War I.  Only ten years after the war ended, after some experience of journalism, did he feel ready to branch out into prose.  So uncertain was he of the wisdom of this move that he elected to publish Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man anonymously.  It is a depiction of his early years presented in the form of an autobiographical novel, with false names being given to the central characters, including Sassoon himself, who appears as "George Sherston". Sassoon was motivated to write the work by a war incident, when a fox was loose in the trenches and one of his friends shot and killed it. However, the book draws heavily on his pre-war life, with riding and hunting being among the favourite pastimes of the author.

Much of the material for the novel came from Sassoon's own diaries. He said he was inspired by the work of Marcel Proust, saying, "A few pages of Proust have made me wonder whether insignificant episodes aren't the most significant". In particular, his relationship with "Aunt Evelyn", a fictionalised representation of his mother Theresa, is revealed as having been a major influence in his upbringing.

Plot
The story is a series of episodes in the youth of George Sherston, ranging from his first attempts to learn to ride to his experiences in winning point-to-point races.  The title is somewhat misleading, as the book is mainly concerned with a series of landmark events in Sherston/Sassoon's childhood and youth, and his encounters with various comic characters. "The Flower-Show Match", an account of an annual village cricket match – an important fixture for those involved – in which young Sherston plays a significant part, was later published separately by Faber as a self-contained story.  The book as a whole is a frequently humorous work, in which fox-hunting, one of Sassoon's major interests, comes to represent the young man's innocent frame of mind in the years before war broke out.  The book ends with his enlistment in a local regiment, the Sussex Yeomanry, and his subsequent transfer, with a commission, to the Flintshire Fusiliers, a battalion of the Royal Welsh which was sent to France.  The story is continued in two sequels: Memoirs of an Infantry Officer and Sherston's Progress.

References

External links

1928 British novels
Books by Siegfried Sassoon
British autobiographical novels
British memoirs
English novels
Faber and Faber books
Fox hunting
Hawthornden Prize-winning works
Novels about orphans
Roman à clef novels

Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man


Mitch Fatel (born December 20, 1968), also known as Mitch Faytel, is a stand-up comedian. Born in Manhattan, he was raised in Yonkers, New York, and began doing stand-up at the age of 15. In 1988, Fatel attended NYU/Tisch School of the Arts and majored in film and acting studies. Around this time, Fatel was an intern on The Howard Stern Show. When Mitch left the show, he brought in a friend of his, John Melendez. John went on to take his place as intern and became known as "Stuttering John".

Fatel performs regularly at the famed Comedy Cellar. He has performed on the Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O'Brien and worked as a correspondent on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno covering major sporting events and conventions.

In 2004, he released his first album, entitled Miniskirts and Muffins, which debuted number one on the iTunes Comedy Charts.

In 2006, he took home honors as "Best Comedian" at the HBO Aspen Comedy Festival. In the same year, he released his second album, Super Retardo, from Laugh.com.

His first half-hour special aired on April 10, 2007, at 10PM on Comedy Central Presents, which was ranked number 6 by viewers in the "Stand Up Showdown".

Tracks from his albums are often heard on XM Comedy 150 on XM Satellite Radio on Sirius Satellite Radio's Raw Dog Comedy 104 and on Pandora Radio.

References

External links

American stand-up comedians
Living people
1968 births
Tisch School of the Arts alumni
20th-century American comedians
21st-century American comedians

Mitch Fatel


Oakwell Hall is an Elizabethan manor house in Birstall, West Yorkshire, England. The Grade I listed hall is set in period gardens surrounded by  of country park.

The house was built for John Batt. A recarved stone dated 1583 probably indicates the date of construction. The estate had been purchased by Batt's Halifax-born father, a receiver of rents to the Savile family, who resided at Howley Hall in Batley.

Oakwell Hall was immortalised in literature as "Fieldhead" by Charlotte Brontë, in her novel Shirley.

It is used in many TV productions, most recently the ITV drama Victoria (UK TV series)

History
John Batt built the hall after the estate had been purchased by his father, a receiver of rents for the Savile family, who resided at Howley Hall in Batley. The hall was built in gritstone to a post-medieval plan with a central hall flanked by crosswings.  Its entrance is through a porch and screens passage at the lower end of the house. A recarved stone dated 1583 probably indicates the date of construction.

Oakwell Hall passed into municipal hands in 1928 and is owned and managed by Kirklees Council. The hall is supported by volunteers from the Friends of Oakwell Hall. The hall's interiors were restored to a late-17th-century condition, the time the Batt family lived here, with the aid of research into local inventories . During restoration the original painted panelling of the great parlour and the painted chamber was revealed from under layers of varnish and paint.

The BBC Television series Gunpowder (2017) used Oakwell Hall as a location.

Interior
The Great Hall originally had two storeys but, in the mid-17th century, John Batt's grandson removed the ceiling and inserted a gallery and a large mullioned and transomed window. It was the main thoroughfare for the house linking the wings and hub of domestic life. It was a reception room for visitors, tenants and businessmen and large gatherings. It is sparsely furnished and uncluttered. The table is placed at one end of the room as it would have been towards the end of the 17th century, rather than in its earlier position in the centre. The size of the room is intended to impress visitors.

The Great Parlour was the most important room in the early 17th century. According to the inventory of 1611 it had the best furniture, and contained the Batt family's collection of maps. In the 1630s the Batts added a magnificent plaster ceiling and painted the oak panelling including a landscape scene above the fireplace. Most of the original panels have survived. The painting technique known as scumbling was a way of decorating to create an air of warmth and grandeur. Few examples of this decorative work survive today. In the late-17th century, dining rooms and parlours were the preferred rooms for eating and entertaining guests in private. The great parlour is furnished with pieces intended to show it as a fashionable and comfortable room of the 1690s.

In 1690, the Great Parlour Chamber was occupied by John Batt. It has a garderobe in the outer wall. The rush matting in this and other family rooms was a feature of wealthy households, and was warmer than bare floorboards or stone floors. The fireplace is a 19th-century addition, one of few interior structural changes made since the 17th century. The inclusion of a table and chairs in a bed chamber in the 17th century was not unusual. Bed chambers had a dual purpose where their occupiers thought nothing of entertaining guests with wine or cards.

The kitchen was one of the busiest rooms in the home. The mistress supervised female servants preparing food, medicines and pot-pourri, and there would be a stream of tradesmen, estate workers, errand boys and servants of visiting gentry. At meal times the servants gathered to eat from wooden platters. When the hall was built, food may have been cooked over a large fire at one end of the Great Hall but, by the time of the inventory of 1611, the kitchen occupied a separate room in the east wing. The kitchen is divided from the living quarters by the screens passage. The 17th-century fireplace, replaced in the 19th century, would have been wider and larger.

The Kitchen Chamber is where the servants slept and food was stored. It is unpanelled and has no ceiling. Its position next to the back stairs and above the kitchen made it accessible to the servants. Many local houses used their kitchen chambers for storage. In 1611 it had five arks for storing meal and grain. Today it has one great ark and a collection of food chests. Lack of a fireplace and unpanelled walls would have made it cold in winter, although warmth from the kitchen below would keep the stored food dry.

The inventory of 1611 records the household had 17 beds of different types, truckle beds for the servants and grand tester beds for members of the family. Older beds were relegated to less important rooms. The Little Parlour Chamber is furnished with older furniture and used as a second-best bedchamber. Reproduction tapestries are hung on the walls. In the 19th century, this room was transformed with the addition of the stairs and passage. The original timber studding can be seen on two walls, showing the lath and plaster structure.

The layout of the New Parlour shows typical features of a modest 17th-century dining room. Servants placed food on the side table, and served it to the family. The court cupboard housed pewter and plate and could be locked as could the small corner spice cupboard, the key kept by the mistress, as spices were valuable commodities.

A gentry household in the 17th century accommodated visitors. The New Parlour Chamber, displayed as a second-best bed chamber, may have been occupied by the nursemaid and her charges, or other members of the household. The screen at right angles to the doorway prevented draughts through the bed curtains. An adjoining dressing room or closet is used to display reproduction costumes. The warm colours of the panelling and bed curtains are echoed in the carpet on the table, a feature of wealthier 17th-century houses. Tables or beds were ideal places to display a fine carpet too valuable to walk upon.

The Painted Chamber is furnished with reproduction oak furniture to show what it looked like when new (not dark with age and polish). The painted panelling has a larger design than that the Great Parlour and is less decorative. It was discovered under layers of emulsion paint and thought to date from the 17th century. The room is displayed as the mistress's chamber; a small table by the window obtains the maximum light for sewing. The floorboards have been relaid in a 17th-century manner. In 1609, a floor was laid at a cost of five shillings and tenpence for seven days' work, as recorded in the account book. The painted panelling creates a three-dimensional effect imitating the grainy effect of wood. The wild 'squiggles' were intended to imitate walnut, a wood becoming more fashionable in the late-17th century. It was expensive so painting was used to imitate it. The paint had a linseed oil base, and feathers and combs were dragged over it to create the grained effect.

The study is a small room off the gallery above the Main Hall. The 1611 inventory of Robert Batt shows him to have more than 60 books, at a time when books were expensive and few people could read. He studied at Oxford University and became rector at Newton Tony in Wiltshire.

Grounds

A Stone Ram statue, rumoured to have stood above the gates to Dewsbury Brewery, stands on the lawn in front of the hall.

Formal gardens

Surrounding the hall are formal gardens including a herb garden at the side. Herbs and flowers were essential ingredients for the housewife and cook. They were distilled to produce scented oils and are the basis of herbal remedies and had an important culinary role. Although Oakwell's herb garden is small, it gives an impression of the range of herbal plants available. More than 80 varieties of herbs are found in the garden and many more planted amongst the flowers in the formal gardens behind the hall.

Restoration has been carried out to return the formal gardens to how they would have been in the 1690s using plants popular at the time. The garden contains a parterre with topiary specimens and clipped box hedging. The patterns of the box hedges were taken from furniture and plaster work in the hall and feature the lozenge design local to the area. Trellis has been made using locally sourced materials and 17th-century carpentry techniques. Even the shade of green used to colour the woodwork is typical of the period.

Parkland

Oakwell Hall Country Park is the most northerly accredited country park in England. Within the  of parkland are many diverse habitats: woodland, streams, pasture land, ponds and bridleways.  Nature trail marker indicate several walks around the park. Information points give details of the flora and fauna. One walk out of the park leads to the site of the Battle of Adwalton Moor and another to Red House (now closed).

Colliery Field, the pasture land in the middle of the park was the site of the spoil heaps of Gomersal Colliery which closed in the 1970s. The nutrient-poor soil has been reseeded with meadow plants such as red clover, ox-eye daisy, self heal and yellow rattle. The nectar-rich flowers attract insects, particularly bumblebees. The field is sometimes used for historical English Civil War battle re-enactments, horse shows and country fairs.

Colliery pond was created when the National Coal Board constructed a concrete road to facilitate tipping. The road is concealed beneath the grass and acts as a dam. Water plants include water forget-me-not, bogbean and purple loosestrife. Large numbers of creatures are attracted to the pond, such as toads, moorhens, smooth newts, swan mussels plus varieties of damselfly and dragonfly.

Nova Meadow is damp area containing moisture loving plants including lady's smock, common tussock grass, meadowsweet, ragged robin and yellow flag iris. A pond was created in 2003 to attract wildlife and the southern part of the meadow has reverted to scrubland creating a habitat for yellowhammers and linnets. In autumn it attracts thrushes, fieldfares and redwings which feed on the hawthorn berries.

Much of Nova Wood was coppiced for pit props for Gomersal Colliery but the trees have regrown to produce multi-stemmed sessile oaks and birch. Nova Wood is carpeted by bluebells during spring and is a habitat for summer migrant birds such as chiffchaff and blackcap.

Nova Beck is one of two streams that run through Oakwell, both running north to south. Nova Beck forms the western boundary of Nova Wood and flows through areas of wildflowers. Many of the species present such as yellow archangel, wood anemone and wild garlic are good indicators of ancient woodland. Hard shield fern, red campion and herb bennet grow in abundance.

Oakwell Beck winds its course along the southern boundary of Colliery Field. Along its length are exposed coal seams and fossilized 'ripples' from ancient seas. It does not support the same diversity of plants as Nova Beck, but in spring and early summer, the wooded areas are thick with wild garlic, lesser celandine and bistort. Occasional patches of lords and ladies survive in shadier parts. ash, alder and willow make up the majority of the tree cover and provide habitat for tawny owls.

Ghost

A legend concerns the ghost of William Batt, aged 25, a bachelor whose widowed mother, Elizabeth, lived at Oakwell. An account of the story was written by Mrs Gaskell in her Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857). Her account is as follows:

"Captain Batt was believed to be far away; his family was at Oakwell; when in the dusk on winter evening, he came stalking along the lane, through the hall and up the stairs, into his own room, where he vanished. He has been killed in duel in London that very same afternoon of December 9th 1684."

The legend says that he left a bloody footprint in a bedroom. The historical facts from the archives show that Batt was at the Black Swan, in Holborn, London on 9 December where he borrowed money. Local diarist Oliver Heywood has two entries recording his death; one that he died 'in sport'; the other that he was 'slain by Mr Gream at Barne near London'. Batt was buried in Birstall on 30 December 1684.

Brontë connection

In the 19th century the hall was used as a girls' school. Charlotte Brontë's closest friend Ellen Nussey (whom she first met at Roe Head school) lived in Birstall and almost certainly brought her to see the school at Oakwell since Charlotte was considering setting up a school at Haworth with her sisters. Charlotte Brontë visited the hall and was inspired to use it as the setting for the manor house, Fieldhead, in her novel Shirley.

"If Fieldhead had few other merits as a building, it might at least be termed picturesque: its irregular architecture, and the grey and mossy colouring communicated by time, gave it a just claim to this epithet. The old latticed windows, the stone porch, the walls, the roof, the chimney-stacks, were rich in crayon touches and sepia lights and shades. The trees behind were fine, bold, and spreading; the cedar on the lawn in front was grand, and the granite urns on the garden wall, the fretted arch of the gateway, were, for an artist, as the very desire of the eye." Charlotte Brontë; Shirley (1849)

Elizabeth Gaskell described the house when discussing Shirley: "From the 'Bloody Lane', overshadowed by trees, you come into the field in which Oakwell Hall is situated... The enclosure in front, half court, half garden; the panelled hall, with the gallery opening into the bed-chambers running round; the barbarous peach-coloured drawing-room; the bright look-out through the garden-door upon the grassy lawns and terraces behind, where the soft-hued pigeons still love to coo and strut in the sun, – are described in Shirley. The scenery of that fiction lies close around; the real events which suggested it took place in the immediate neighbourhood."
Elizabeth Gaskell; The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857)

Oakwell is a trailhead on the Brontë Way, a  long-distance footpath that skirts Bradford to Haworth then crosses the South Pennines, continuing to Gawthorpe Hall, Padiham, Lancashire.

Friends of Oakwell Hall

Founded in 1988, the Friends of Oakwell Hall and Country Park are a voluntary support group for the manor house and its surrounding  of country park. Friends work with the Head Ranger and staff at Oakwell and provide assistance inside and outside the hall.

Archaeology

Archaeological excavations have been carried out by WYAS with help from 'South Leeds Archaeology', a community group based in Rothwell.  In May 2008 the lawn in front of the hall was excavated to reveal post holes, probably left from a farm that occupied the site and disappeared from maps between 1834 and 1844.

Footnotes

References

External links

 Oakwell Hall - official site at Kirklees Council
 Yorkshire.com Attractions
 Friends of Oakwell Hall website

Grade I listed buildings in West Yorkshire
Grade I listed houses
Gardens in West Yorkshire
Buildings and structures in Kirklees
Historic house museums in West Yorkshire
Country houses in West Yorkshire
Birstall, West Yorkshire

Oakwell Hall


The Iberian Peninsula, where Galicia is located, has been inhabited for at least 500,000 years, first by Neanderthals and then by modern humans. From about 4500 BC, it (like much of the north and west of the peninsula) was inhabited by a megalithic culture, which entered the Bronze Age about 1500 BC. These people would become the Gallaeci (a group of Celtic tribes), and they would be conquered by the Roman Empire in the first and second centuries AD. As the Roman Empire declined, Galicia would be conquered and ruled by various Germanic tribes, notably the Suebi and Visigoths, until the 9th century. Then the Muslim conquest of Iberia reached Galicia, although they never quite controlled the area.

In the 9th century, remains were found that were believed to be Saint James, the apostle who had brought Christianity to Spain in the first century, and the church Santiago de Compostela was built to honor these relic. This church would become one of the most important Christian pilgrimage destinations in the world.

Intermittent war, especially between Christians and Muslims, was a regular part of the Middle Ages in Galicia, as the Reconquista (Christians gradually defeating Muslim kingdoms in Spain) would last until the 15th century. During this time, Galicia was sometimes an independent kingdom, and sometimes part of or united with kingdoms such as Asturias, León, or Portugal. The kingdom of Spain was formed at the end of the 15th century by the union of Castile (of which Galicia was then a part) and Aragon.

Political and cultural sentiments during the 19th century increased support for the idea of Galicia having a separate identity from the rest of Spain. The Second Spanish Republic allowed Galicia to have an official status of autonomy during the 1930s. After the Spanish Civil War, however, the regime of Francisco Franco removed this autonomy, and generally suppressed local cultural identities throughout Spain in favor of a single Spanish national identity. When Spain transitioned to democracy following Franco's death in 1975, Galicia was allowed autonomy again, and there have been efforts since then to preserve Galician heritage and culture.

Prehistory

Megalithic culture

Galicia, northern Portugal, Asturias, western León, and Zamora formed a single megalithic area since the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Ages (also called the Copper Age), around 4500–1500 BC.

This was the first great culture to appear in Galicia, with a great capacity for construction and architecture. This was combined with a deep sense of religion, based on the cult of the dead, the mediators between man and the gods.

Many historians believe that the Megalithic culture had two sources: an oriental source that was predominant in the Mediterranean area, and an Atlantic source, which originated north of the Tagus River. The latter, because of its geographical proximity to Galicia, would explain the abundant traces of megalithic culture in this area. As this was the first great culture, it was an important source of Galicia's cultural personality.

From this era there remain thousands of dolmens (mámoas), a type of tomb or sepulchre, throughout the entire territory. From its social organization it has been confirmed that it corresponded to some type of clan structure.

Bronze Age
The introduction of bronze-working techniques introduced a new cultural era, in which the new importance of metals resulted in intense mining activity. Some historians  attribute this to the extremely dry and warm climate of the time, resulting in erosion which revealed the rich mineral resources of the North.

Peoples from the Castilian plateau moved to Galicia, thus increasing the population, because its position near the Atlantic Ocean gave it a very humid climate.

The increase in population caused certain conflicts, but also led to increased mining and production of weapons, useful objects, and ornamental objects of gold and bronze. Pieces of jewellery crafted from Galician metals circulated throughout the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe.

Antiquity

The Gallaeci (Celts)

At the end of the Iron Age, people from northwestern Iberian Peninsula formed a homogeneous and distinct cultural group, which was later identified by early Greek and Latin authors, who called them "Gallaeci" (Galicians), perhaps due to their apparent similarity with the Galli (Gauls) and Gallati (Galatians). The name of Galicia derives from the name of this tribal complex.

The Gallaeci were originally a Celtic people who for centuries had occupied the territory of modern Galicia and northern Portugal; bounded to the south by the Lusitanians and to the east by the Astures. The Gallaecians lived in fortified villages now called castros (Latin: castra): (hillforts), ranging from small villages of less than a hectare (more common in the north), to great hillforts with more than 10 hectares, named "Oppida" or "Citânia", which were more common in the southern half of the traditional settlement area.

This mode of inhabiting the territory – in hillforts – was common throughout Europe during the Bronze and Iron Ages, having received in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula the name of "culture of hillforts" or "Castro Culture", what refers to this type of cultural manifestation before the arrival of the Roman Empire. However, even after the Romans' fall, the Gallaeci-Romans continued living in hillforts until the 8th century A.D. In the territory of actual Galicia alone, there exist more than two thousand hillforts, which shows the greatest dispersion of population from the Iron Age in Europe. This would be the origin of the Galician occupation of the territory inherited until nowadays, characterized by small and high numerous populations so distant from each other.

The Gallaeci's political organization was based on small independent states formed by a large number of hillforts; these states were headed by a local king whom the Romans called princeps, as in other parts of Europe. Each Gallaecian identified himself as a member of the hillfort where he lived, as well as the state / people to whom it belonged, and which the Romans called Populus. Among the Galleci there were many named tribes: the Artabri, the Bracari, the Coelerni, the Grovii, the Nemetati, etc. In the same way, at the end of the 18th century, Galicians identified themselves with their parish and their county.

In religious terms, the Gallaeci showed a Celtic religion based on the cult to pan-Celtic gods as Bormanus, Coventina and Lugus; also Bandua, Cossus, Endovelicus, Reue, etc.

Roman Gallaecia (19 BC – 410 AD)

The knowledge that we have today about the society of the hillforts is very limited; according to the Roman historians, the Galicians were a collection of barbarians who spent the day fighting and the night eating, drinking and dancing to the moon. But today it appears that in the last five centuries BC they developed an aristocratic and even perhaps a feudal social model. The division of the country into concelhos, a concept similar to the counties of the islands or Romania, seems to be based on this class of social organization. Also, the structure based on hillforts seems to be associated with a fortified occupation of the territory, resembling the Central European classic Celtic habitat. On the other hand, this kind of territorial occupation was likely associated with its mineral resources (like a gold rush). It is also clear that the Romans' interest in this region was mainly related to its gold mines.

When Iberia was involved in the Punic Wars between the Carthaginians and the Romans, the strategic alliance that they maintained with the Phoenicians enabled Hannibal to recruit many Gallegans. When the Romans finally undertook the conquest of Iberia, the Gallaicoi faced them in 137 BC. in the battle at the river Douro that resulted in a great Roman victory against 60,000 Galicians; the Roman general, proconsul Decimus Iunius Brutus, returned to Rome as a hero, receiving the additional name of Gallaicus, according to the historian Paulus Orosius.

At the end of Brutus' campaigns, Rome controlled the territory between the Douro and Minho rivers plus probable extensions along the coast and in the interior. The Second Invasion, of 61 BC, landed at Brigantium (A Coruña), under the command of Julius Caesar.

The evidence suggests that the resistance of the Gaedels against the Romans ended here; from now on, they would be enlisted massively as auxiliaries of the Roman legions, fulfilling destinies sometimes completely separate from Galicia, as far as Thrace and Dacia. It has been estimated  that of the total of Roman auxiliary troops coming from Iberia, more than a third belonged to tribes of the peninsular northwest.

The final extinction of Celtic resistance was the aim of the violent and ruthless Cantabrian Wars fought under the emperor Octavian from 26 to 19 BC. The resistance was appalling: collective suicide rather than surrender, mothers who killed their children before committing suicide, crucified prisoners of war who sang triumphant hymns, rebellions of captives who killed their guards and returned home from Gaul.

In the 3rd century, Diocletian created an administrative division which included the conventūs (plural of conventus) of Gallaecia, Asturica and perhaps Cluniense. This province took the name of Gallaecia since Gallaecia was the most populous and important zone within the province. In 409, as Roman control collapsed, the conquests by the Suebi transformed Roman Gallaecia (conventūs Lucense and Bracarense) into the kingdom of Gallaecia (the Galliciense Regnum recorded by Hydatius and Gregory of Tours).

Medieval Galicia

Suebic Kingdom of Galicia (410–585)

In the year 411, Galicia fell to the Suebi, who formed a kingdom of their own.

The number of the original Suebic invaders is estimated as fewer than 30,000 people, settled mainly in the urbanized zones of Braga (Bracara Augusta), Porto, Lugo (Lucus Augusta) and Astorga (Asturica Augusta). Bracara Augusta, the modern city of Braga, became the capital of the Suebi, as it was previously the capital of the Gallaecia Roman province. Suebic Gallaecia was larger than the modern region: it extended south to the river Douro and to Ávila in the east.

The Suebic kingdom in Gallaecia lasted from 410 to 584 and seems to have enjoyed relatively stable government for most of that time. Historians like José António Lopes Silva, the translator of Idatius' chronicles, the primary written source for the 5th century, finds that the essential temper of Galician culture was established in the blending of Ibero-Roman culture with that of the Suebi.

There were occasional clashes with the Visigoths, who arrived in the Iberian Peninsula in 416 and came to dominate most of the peninsula, but the Suebi maintained their independence until 584, when the Visigothic King Leovigild, invaded the Suebic kingdom and finally defeated it, bringing it under Visigoth control.

Richard Fletcher (Fletcher 1984) points out that in Late Antiquity Galicia was still very much a part of the Roman and Mediterranean world. He instances the Galician nun Egeria's account of her pilgrimage to the Holy Land, 381–4 and the journey of the young Idatius, though living "at the uttermost limit of the world", who had met Jerome in the East; his chronicle shows that he remained aware of the affairs of the eastern Mediterranean and refers to travellers from the east coming to Galicia. As bishop Idatius travelled to Gaul on an embassy to Aetius, 431–2. Miro, king of the Suevi, had diplomatic relations with fellow barbarian kings in Neustria and Burgundy, but also with the emperors in Constantinople. Martin of Braga, a distinguished 6th century bishop, was a native of Pannonia. The Visigothic king Leovigild impounded the ships of Gaulish merchants in Galicia. At Lorenzana, the fine sarcophagus that received at a later date the mortal remains of count Osorio Gutiérrez,was probably an import from southern Gaul in the 7th century, Fletcher notes. And one of the coins in the Bordeaux hoard deposited about 700 was struck at a Galician mint, suggesting possible trade connections.

Arrival of the Britons and the founding of the diocese of Britonia

The political situation on the island of Britain between the 4th and 7th centuries had completely changed with the abandonment of the island by Rome and the constant arrival of Anglo-Saxon tribes, from northern Germany and Denmark to the eastern part of Great Britain. The constant aggression and harassment that Jutes and Anglo-Saxons carried out against the native Britons caused some of them to emigrate by sea to other points near the Atlantic coast, settling in what is now northwest France Armorica (consequently, becoming known as Brittany) and in the north of the ancient Gallaecia.

Nowadays, the cause of the displacement of some Britons to the north coast of Galicia and their reception by the Galician-Suevi remains unknown. Some authors suggest a possible military pact, or just acceptance by the native population.
Organized in an important territory, introduced its own religious-Christian organization, actually bit different, and founded a bishopric itself that appears quoted in Parochiale Suevorum or Divisio Teodomiri, a document that shows the ecclesiastical organization of the kingdom of Galicia at the time of the monarchy sueva dated among 572 and 573. Its religious integration was complete, having watched his representative, – called Maeloc – to the Second Royal Council of Braga in 572.

The ancient territory of the diocese of Britonia Most of what is known about the settlement comes from ecclesiastical sources; records from the 572 Second Council of Braga refer to a diocese called the Britonensis ecclesia ("British church") and an episcopal see called the sedes Britonarum ("See of the Britons"), which was likely the monastery of Santa Maria de Bretoña. occupied mainly the coastal strip from the Lugo's coast to the Terra Chá, reaching his influence to the region of the Eo-Navia from the east and the west of Ferrol. Its ancient headquarters, known under the name Maximus Monastery was identified by some authors with the medieval Basilica of Saint Martin of Mondoñedo, were remnants of 5th–6th centuries. Changed its name and its headquarters on several occasions, currently the Galician diocese of Mondoñedo is its historical successor.

The settlement of this wave of Britons immigrants  and the creation of their Christian diocese is the second largest settlement of a foreign people in the lands of Galicia, after the Suevi.

Visigothic Kingdom (585 – 711)

With the Catholicization of the Visigothic kings, the Catholic bishops increased in power, until, at the synod held at Toledo in 633, they took upon themselves the nobles' right to select a king from among the royal family.

Rodrigo, the last elected king, was betrayed by Julian, count of Ceuta, who called for the Umayyad Muslims (or Moors) to enter Hispania. During the battle of Guadalete in 711, king Rodrigo lost his life. His left wing turned against him, as it was led by bishop Oppas, a collaborator with the Moors and a member of a rival royal faction. By the end of the battle the whole kingdom fell, and the throne was left empty, for the Moors did not allow the Oppas' faction to regain it. One of the few survivors was Pelayo, a noble in charge of the royal guard (Comes Spatharius).

The kingdom of Asturias and Moorish Iberia

This marked the beginning of the Muslim conquest of Hispania in which most of peninsula came under Islamic rule by 718. This rapid conquest can be understood as a continuation of the civil wars that had afflicted the peninsula for centuries, as well as through the conversion to Islam of a significant part of the population.
Pelayo is credited with beginning the Christian Reconquista of Iberia in 718 or 722, when he defeated the Umayyads in the Battle of Covadonga, and established the Kingdom of Asturias in the northern part of the peninsula.

Although the lands of the former Kingdom of Gallaecia were invaded by the Moors, there is no evidence of any invasion or occupation force ever crossing beyond the Galician mountains into Galicia-proper, only going as far as occupying Asturica (modern León) and Gijón (modern Asturias), there is no evidence of any moorish occupation of any settlement in modern Galicia, thus is would be purely speculative to assume the region was ever conquered or even invaded by the Moors.

After being briefly occupied by the Moors, Asturias would revolt in 718 or 722, led by Pelayo and form the Kingdom of Asturias. Later, in 736 Alfonso I of Asturias would incorporate Galicia under his kingdom of Asturias, until 924, when it became the Kingdom of León.

During the early Reconquista, Galicia would expand south, establishing the County of Portugal in 868 and County of Coimbra in 878.

The discovery of the tomb of Saint James (813)

In 813 an ark was discovered in Galicia that contained remains that were attributed to the apostle Saint James. According to Christian tradition, Pelagius the Hermit saw a star on a marble ark near to  . Notified by Pelagius, Theodemir, the bishop of Iria Flavia, travelled quickly to the place, identifying the remains found there as the decapitated body of the Apostle James.

Myth or reality, this "discovery" was quickly magnified by the Galician-Asturian monarch, Alphonse II (791–842), who in the same year ordered build a church around the tomb, spreading the news throughout Christendom. Iria Flavia became the most powerful ecclesiastical administration, not only of high-medieval Gallaecia, but the entire Iberian Peninsula, increasing its power with the constant royal donations to the church of Santiago de Compostela. It was transformed into the third pilgrim centre of Christianity, just after Jerusalem and Rome. From the 11th and 12th centuries especially, pilgrims from many parts of Europe began arriving, including from Occitania, France, Navarra and Aragon-Catalonia (by land) and from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and German territories (by sea).

The pilgrim phenomenon was decisive in shaping the cultural and economic of the Kingdom of Galicia. This development happened especially during bishop Diego Gelmirez's tenure (1100–1136) who successfully converted Compostela into a metropolitan church (year 1122), the most important Christian dignity in Western Christianity after Rome. Around the Apostolic tomb grew not only a cathedral – great center of artistic and religious life – but a village and then a town, strongly established in the Middle Ages, with a commercial derivative of its status as a holy city. The city of Compostela would be where Galician kings were crowned, where the great Galician-Portuguese lyric school grew, and where the capital of Galicia has been located since the Middle Ages.

Historical and archaeological studies conducted in 20th century cathedral itself, however, revealed that during Gallaeci-Roman time and even during the Suevic period, Compostela was an important place where important dignitaries – civil or religious – had been buried since long before the year 813. Several specialists argued that the body attributed to the apostle Saint James was actually the body of Priscillian, patriarch of the Galicia church, beheaded at Trier in 385.

Reconquista

During the 9th and 10th centuries, the counts of Galicia owed fluctuating obedience to their nominal sovereign, and Normans/Vikings occasionally raided the coasts. The Towers of Catoira See "Catoira History" (in Spanish)(Pontevedra) were built as a system of fortifications to stop Viking raids of Santiago de Compostela.

Constant rivalry between the Kingdom of León and the Kingdom of Castile opened rifts that could be exploited by outsiders, and Sancho III "the Great" of Navarre (1004–1035) absorbed Castile in the 1020s, and added León in the last year of his life, leaving Galicia to temporary independence. In the division of lands which followed his death, his son Fernando succeeded to the county of Castile. Two years later, in 1037, he conquered León and Galicia. In 1065, Ferdinand I of Castile and León divided his kingdom among his sons. Galicia was allotted to Garcia II of Galicia.

Kingdom of Galicia and Portugal

The Kingdom of Galicia and Portugal was formed in 1065 after the County of Portugal declared independence following the death of Ferdinand I of León. The Count of Portugal, Nuno Mendes, took advantage of the internal tension caused by the civil war between Ferdinand's sons to finally break off and declare himself an independent ruler. However, in 1071 king Garcia II defeated and killed him at the battle of Pedroso, and annexed his territory, adding the title of King of Portugal to his previous ones. In 1072, King Garcia II himself was defeated by his brother Sancho II of Castile and fled. In that same year, after Sancho's murder Alfonso VI became king of Castile and León; he imprisoned Garcia for life, proclaiming himself King of Galicia and Portugal as well, thus reuniting his father's realm. From that time Galicia remained part of the kingdom of Castile and León, although under differing degrees of self-government.

In 1095, Portugal separated almost definitely from the Kingdom of Galicia, both under the rule of the Kingdom of León, just like Castile (Burgos). Its territories consisting largely of mountain, moorland and forest, were bounded on the north by the Minho, on the south by the Mondego.

Santiago and Galicia

The translation of St James's relics to Galicia in the northwest of Iberia was achieved, in legend, by a series of miraculous happenings: decapitated in Jerusalem with a sword by Herod Agrippa himself, his body was taken up by angels, and sailed in a rudderless, unmanned boat to Iria Flavia in Spain, where a massive rock closed around his relics at Compostela. The Historia Compostellana provides a summary of the legend of St James as it was believed at Compostela in the 12th century. Two propositions are central to it: first, that St James preached the gospel in Spain as well as in the Holy Land; second, that after his martyrdom at the hands of Herod Agrippa I his disciples carried his body by sea to Spain, where they landed at Padrón on the coast of Galicia, and took it inland for burial at [Santiago de Compostela.

An even later tradition states that he miraculously appeared to fight for the Christian army during the Battle of Clavijo during the Reconquista, and was henceforth called Matamoros (Moor-slayer). Santiago y cierra España ("St James and strike for Spain") has been the traditional battle cry of Spanish armies.

St. James the Moorslayer, one of the most valiant saints and knights the world ever had ... has been given by God to Spain for its patron and protection.— Cervantes, Don Quixote.

The possibility that a cult of James was instituted to supplant the Galician cult of Priscillian (executed in 385), who was widely venerated across the north of Spain as a martyr to the bishops rather than as a heretic, should not be overlooked.

Modern Age

Galicia was subject to several raids in the 18th century. In 1719, a British expedition led by Lord Cobham captured Vigo and marched inland as far as Santiago de Compostela before withdrawing.

Emigration
Apparently due to unusually cold winters throughout the 1850s combined with the prevalence of subsistence agriculture, many Galician family farms went bankrupt.

The weather of the decade is sometimes likened to a mini Ice-Age. In January 1850, there was notable snowfall over much of Spain and by February a large number of wolves roamed the countryside. In February 1853, the Galician port cities of Ferrol and A Coruña reported heavy snowfall, a highly unusual event. February 1854 was again very cold—on the fourteenth Madrid registered a night-time temperature of -8 °C. January 1855 was again very cold and snowy over northern Spain.

The winter of 1856–57 was especially hard,

Official reports in the official bulletin of the Spanish government La Gaceta de Madrid highlighted the frostiness of the winter. From Puigcerda (Girona), "For more than a month the countryside has been snow-covered." From Biscay, "As a consequence of the copious snows that have fallen over our region during the past days, especially on the peaks of the Valley of Carranza, there has appeared down in the valley a strong pack of wolves that is inflicting great losses on herds of sheep and cattle." Announcements of planned wolf culls were numerous during those cold days of 1857...The snow fell over all of northern Spain from Galicia to Catalonia...On February 4 the province of Santander had spent three months without links with the interior, completely snowed in. "No one remembers such a prolonged spell of bad weather."

To compound the problem the main domestic industry also went into crisis.

From the second half of the 19th century onward Galicia's textile industry suffered a severe crisis brought on by the legal importation and the smuggling in of foreign fabrics, and many families endured hardship because there was no alternate source of employment.  To make matters worse, the agricultural sector went into crisis between the years 1850–1860, destabilizing the rural economy.  The composite crisis forced the population to look for a better life overseas.

The economic downturn accelerated the existing emigration.

There is evidence of a strong current of emigration from the year 1810 to 1853 that is difficult to quantify because the Spanish government did not condone emigration officially.  Consequently, some authors refer to this obscure period as the period of clandestine emigration.

But from 1836 onward Spain began to grant official recognition to her newly independent colonies.  Mexico was the first former colony to be recognized in 1836 and Uruguay, Chile and Argentina followed soon thereafter.  As a result, emigration intensified...In December 1836 there appeared the first commercial advertisement offering transatlantic passage—aboard the [slave-ship] General Laborde—from A Coruña to Montevideo, Buenos Aires and other destinations in Mar del Plata.  The offer of transatlantic crossings increased progressively.  The majority of the crossings was made on sailing ships.  In 1850 the brigantine Juan departed from Carril advertised as a first-class steamer.   Relatively reliable data suggest that 93,040 Galicians left between the years 1836 and 1860.

The Spanish government legalized emigration in 1853, and this made the count reliable: 122,875 people left Galicia between the years 1860–1880.

The census of 1857 found 1,776,879 inhabitants in the region.  Therefore, according to all these figures, over 12% of the population left Galicia during the period 1836–1880.

Emigration continued well into the 20th century. The noted Galician writer and politician Alfonso Castelao (1886–1950)—himself an expatriate twice, during his childhood and after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936—chose to see in emigration both an economic imperative and the affirmation of a dauntless spirit.  However, the reality of leaving one's homeland was unpleasant for most, whether in the 19th or 20th century, as the photographs of Manuel Ferrol attest.

Contemporary Galicia

Galician nationalist and federalist movements arose in the 19th century, and after the Second Spanish Republic was declared in 1931, Galicia became an autonomous region following a referendum.

Following the Spanish Civil War and once established the Spanish State, a Galician from Ferrol, Galicia's autonomy statute was annulled (as were those of Catalonia and the Basque provinces). Francoist Spain also suppressed any official promotion of the Galician language (although its everyday use was never proscribed). During the last decade of Franco's rule, there was a renewal of nationalist sentiment in Galicia.

Following the transition to democracy following Franco's death in 1975, Galicia regained its status as an autonomous region within Spain. Varying degrees of nationalist or separatist sentiment are evident at the political level. The only nationalist party of any electoral significance, the Bloque Nacionalista Galego or BNG, advocates greater autonomy from the Spanish state, and the preservation of Galician heritage and culture. Other factions advocate total independence from Spain, while some smaller groupings aspire to integrate with Portugal and the Portuguese-speaking world. However, the nationalist parties have hitherto obtained only minority electoral support at election time.

From 1990 to 2005, the region's government and parliament, the Xunta de Galicia was presided over by the Partido Popular ('People's Party', Spain's main national conservative party) under Manuel Fraga, a former minister and ambassador in the Francoist government. However, in the 2005 Galician elections, the People's Party lost its overall majority, while just remaining the largest party in the parliament.

In the event, power passed to a coalition between the Partido Socialista de Galicia (PSdeG) ('Galician Socialist Party'), a regional sister-party of Spain's main socialist party, the Partido Socialista Obrero Español ('Spanish Socialist Workers Party') and the BNG. As the senior partner in the new coalition, the PSdeG nominated its leader, Emilio Perez Touriño, to serve as Galicia's new president.

See also
 Timeline of Galician history
 Suebi

Notes

References
 R. A. Fletcher, 1984. Saint James's Catapult: The Life and Times of Diego Gelmírez of Santiago de Compostela (Oxford University Press). Chapter 1 "Galicia" offers a brief synopsis of sub-Roman Galicia to the 11th century. (on-line text)

History of Galicia


The  was a three-year period of Imperial rule in Japanese history between the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period from 1333 to 1336. The Kenmu Restoration was an effort made by Emperor Go-Daigo to overthrow the ruling Kamakura Shogunate (de facto ruled by Hōjō clan) and restore the Imperial House to power in Japan, returning to civilian government after 148 years of de facto military government from Kamakura. Go-Daigo launched the Genkō War in 1331 against the Kamakura Shogunate but was defeated and forced to exile to the Oki Islands. Go-Daigo launched a second uprising, and with the assistance of the defected Kamakura general Ashikaga Takauji and rebel leader Nitta Yoshisada, defeated the Kamakura Shogunate at the siege of Kamakura in 1333. The Imperial House was restored to power but Go-Daigo's policies failed to satisfy his major samurai supporters and most Japanese people. The Kenmu Restoration was ultimately overthrown when Takauji became Shōgun and founded the Ashikaga Shogunate in 1336, beginning the  "Northern and Southern Courts" period and the Muromachi period.

The Kenmu Restoration was the last time the Emperor of Japan held significant power until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

Background
The Emperor's role had been usurped by the Minamoto and Hōjō families ever since Minamoto no Yoritomo had obtained from the Emperor the title of shōgun in 1192, ruling thereafter from Kamakura.
For various reasons, the Kamakura shogunate decided to allow two contending imperial lines—known as the Southern Court or junior line, and the Northern Court or senior line—to alternate on the throne. The method worked for several successions until a member of the Southern Court ascended to the throne as Emperor Go-Daigo. Go-Daigo wanted to overthrow the shogunate and openly defied Kamakura by naming his own son his heir. In 1331 the shogunate exiled Go-Daigo but loyalist forces, including Kusunoki Masashige, rebelled and came to his support. They were aided by, among others, future shōgun Ashikaga Takauji, a samurai who had turned against Kamakura when dispatched to put down Go-Daigo's rebellion. At roughly the same time, Nitta Yoshisada, another eastern chieftain, attacked the shogunate's capital. The shogunate tried to resist his advance: Yoshisada and shogunate forces fought several times along the Kamakura Kaidō, for example at ,  (both near today's Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture), and Bubaigawara, in today's Fuchū, ever closer to Kamakura. The city was finally reached, besieged, and taken. Kamakura would remain for one century the political capital of the Kantō region, but its supremacy as political centre was over.

Objectives of the restoration
When Emperor Go-Daigo ascended the throne in 1318, he immediately manifested his intention to rule without interference from the military in Kamakura. Historical documents show that, disregarding evidence to the contrary, he and his advisers believed that a revival of the Imperial House was possible, and that the Kamakura's shogunate was the greatest and most obvious of the obstacles.

Another situation that begged for a solution was the land-ownership problem posed by the manors and their lands (see the article shōen). The great landowners (shugo (governors) and jitō (manor's lord), with their political independence and their tax exemptions were impoverishing the government and undermining its authority, and Kitabatake Chikafusa, Go-Daigo's future chief adviser, discussed the situation in his works on succession. Chikafusa admitted that nobody had any intention of abolishing those privileges, so the hope of success on this front was from the beginning clearly very dim. What he planned to replace shugo and jitō with is unclear, but he surely had no intention of sharing power with the samurai class. However serious the land ownership problem, Go-Daigo and his advisers made no serious effort to solve it, partly because it was samurai from the manors in the western provinces that had defeated the shogunate for him. In such a situation, any effort to regulate the manors was bound to cause resentment among key allies.

Failure of Go-Daigo's policies

The Emperor reclaimed the property of some manors his family had previously lost control of, rewarding with them, among others, Buddhist temples like Tō-ji and Daitoku-ji in the hope to obtain their support. He however failed to protect the rights of tenants and workers, whose complaints poured into the monasteries.

He did not understand the importance to him of the warrior class either, because he never properly rewarded his minor samurai supporters, as he could have done using lands from the confiscated Hōjō lands, indulging instead in favoritism. These errors are the key to understanding the events of the next few decades. After rewarding religious institutions, he prepared to redistribute Hōjō lands, and samurai came to him in great numbers to lay their claims. The biggest rewards were given to samurai, among them Nitta Yoshisada, the man who had destroyed the Kamakura shogunate, and Ashikaga Takauji. In so doing, however, he failed to return control of the provinces to civilians. But he made his greatest error when he failed to properly reward minor warriors who had supported him. The tribunals set up to the purpose were inefficient and too inexperienced for the task, and corruption was rife. Samurai anger was made worse by the fact that Go-Daigo, wanting to build a palace for himself but having no funds, levied extra taxes from the samurai class. A wave of enmity towards the nobility started to run through the country, growing stronger with time. The Taiheiki also records that, although Takauji and Yoshisada were richly rewarded, the offices of shugo and jito in more than fifty provinces went to nobles and court bureaucrats, leaving no spoils for the warriors. By the end of 1335 the Emperor and the nobility had lost all support of the warrior class.

Rise of the Ashikaga brothers

Go-Daigo wanted to re-establish his rule in Kamakura and the east of the country without sending a shōgun there, as this was seen as still too dangerous. As a compromise, he sent his six-year-old son Prince Norinaga to Mutsu Province (the eastern part of today's Tōhoku region, stretching from Fukushima Prefecture in the south to Aomori Prefecture in the north) and nominated him Governor-General of the Mutsu and Dewa Provinces. In an obvious reply to this move, Ashikaga Takauji's younger brother Tadayoshi without an order from the Emperor escorted another of his sons, eleven-year-old Nariyoshi (a.k.a. Narinaga) to Kamakura, where he installed him as Governor of the Kōzuke Province with himself as a deputy and de facto ruler. The appointment of a warrior to an important post was intended to show the Emperor that the samurai class was not ready for a purely civilian rule.

Later, a third son of Go-Daigo's, Prince Morinaga, was appointed sei-i taishōgun together with his brother Norinaga, a move that immediately aroused Ashikaga Takauji's hostility. Takauji believed the military class had the right to rule and considered himself not a usurper but, since the Ashikaga descended from a branch of the Minamoto clan, rather a restorer of Minamoto power. When the Hōjō garrison at Rokuhara was destroyed in 1333, he immediately stepped in and installed there his office (bugyōsho). It kept order in the city and in general took over the original's function. Extending its authority to controlling travel along highways, issuing passports and exercising rights previously belonging to the shogunate's deputies (the Rokuhara Tandai), Takauji showed he believed that samurai political power must continue. His setting himself apart as a representative of the military made him an aggregation point for the warriors' discontent. Samurai saw him as the man who could bring back the shogunate's heyday, and therefore his strength was superior to that of any other samurai, Nitta Yoshisada included. His only obstacle to the shogunate was Prince Morinaga.

Prince Morinaga

Prince Morinaga, with his prestige and his devotion to the civilian government cause, was Takauji's natural enemy and could count therefore on the support of his adversaries, among them Nitta Yoshisada, whom Takauji had offended. Tension between the Emperor and the Ashikaga gradually grew, until Takauji had Morinaga arrested on a pretext and first confined him in Kyoto, then transported him to Kamakura, where the Prince was kept prisoner until late August 1335. The situation in Kamakura continued to be tense, with Hōjō supporters staging sporadic revolts here and there. In the course of the same year Hōjō Tokiyuki, son of last regent Takatoki, tried to re-establish the shogunate by force and defeated Tadayoshi in Musashi, in today's Kanagawa Prefecture. Tadayoshi had to flee, so before leaving he ordered the beheading of Prince Morinaga. Kamakura was therefore temporarily in Tokiyuki's hands. Heard the news, Takauji asked the Emperor to make him sei-i tai-shōgun so that he could quell the revolt and help his brother. When his request was denied, Takauji organized his forces and returned to Kamakura without the Emperor's permission, defeating the Hōjō. He then installed himself in Kamakura's Nikaidō neighborhood. When invited to return to Kyoto, he let it be known through his brother Tadayoshi that he felt safer where he was, and started to build himself a mansion in Ōkura, where first Kamakura shōgun Minamoto no Yoritomo's residence had been.

Civil war
Kyoto by then was aware that Takauji had assumed wide powers without imperial permission, for example nominating an Uesugi clan member to the post of Constable of Kōzuke, Nitta Yoshisada's native province. By late 1335 several thousand of the emperor's men were ready to go to Kamakura, while a great army at the command of Kō no Moroyasu was rushing there to help it resist the attack. On November 17, 1335, Tadayoshi issued a message in his brother's name asking all samurai to join the Ashikaga and destroy Nitta Yoshisada. The Court, meanwhile, had done the opposite, ordering samurai from all provinces to join Yoshisada and destroy the two Ashikaga. The war started with most samurai convinced that Takauji was the man they needed to have their grievances redressed, and most peasants were persuaded that they had been better off under the shogunate. The campaign was therefore enormously successful for the Ashikaga, with huge numbers of samurai rushing to join the two brothers. By February 23 of the following year Nitta Yoshisada and the Emperor had lost, and Kyoto itself had fallen. On February 25, 1336, Ashikaga Takauji entered the capital and the Kenmu Restoration ended.

Calendrical peculiarities of the era
The Kenmu era is in the anomalous condition of having two different durations. Because Japanese era names (nengō) change with the Emperor and the Imperial House split in two after 1336, the Kenmu era was counted by the two sides in two different ways. "Kenmu" is the era after the Genkō era, and it is understood to have spanned the years 1334 through 1336 before the beginning of the "Engen" era, as time was reckoned by the Southern Court; and it is concurrently said to have spanned the years 1334 through 1338 before Ryakuō, as time was reckoned by the rival Northern Court. Because the Southern Court, the loser, is nonetheless considered the legitimate one, its time reckoning is the one used by historians.

See also
 Fifteen Shrines of the Kenmu Restoration

Notes

References

Further reading

 Titsingh, Isaac, ed. (1834). [Siyun-sai Rin-siyo/Hayashi Gahō, 1652], ''Nipon o daï itsi ran; ou,  Annales des empereurs du Japon, tr. par M. Isaac Titsingh avec l'aide de plusieurs interprètes attachés.'' Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.

Japanese governmental reforms
1330s in Japan
1333 in Asia
1334 in Asia
1335 in Asia
1336 in Asia
Restorations (politics)
1330s establishments in Japan
1331 establishments in Asia
1330s disestablishments in Japan
1338 disestablishments in Asia
Emperor Go-Daigo

Kenmu Restoration


A mountain bike (MTB) or mountain bicycle is a bicycle designed for off-road cycling. Mountain bikes share some similarities with other bicycles, but incorporate features designed to enhance durability and performance in rough terrain, which makes them heavier, more complex and less efficient on smooth surfaces. These typically include a suspension fork, large knobby tires, more durable wheels, more powerful brakes, straight, extra wide handlebars to improve balance and comfort over rough terrain, and wide-ratio gearing optimised for topography and application (e.g., steep climbing or fast descending). Rear suspension is ubiquitous in heavier-duty bikes and now common even in lighter bikes. Dropper posts can be installed to allow the rider to quickly adjust the seat height (an elevated seat position is more effective for pedaling, but poses a hazard in aggressive maneuvers).

Mountain bikes are generally specialized for use on mountain trails, single track, fire roads, and other unpaved surfaces. In addition to being used to travel and recreate on those surfaces, many people use mountain bikes primarily on paved surfaces; some may prefer the upright position, plush ride, and stability that mountain bikes often have. Mountain biking terrain commonly has rocks, roots, loose dirt, and steep grades. Many trails have additional technical trail features (TTF) such as log piles, log rides, rock gardens, skinnies, gap jumps, and wall-rides. Mountain bikes are built to handle these types of terrain and features. The heavy-duty construction combined with stronger rims and wider tires has also made this style of bicycle popular with urban riders and couriers who must navigate through potholes and over curbs.

Since the development of the sport of mountain biking in the 1970s, many new subtypes of mountain biking have developed, such as cross-country (XC), enduro, all-mountain, freeride, downhill, and a variety of track and slalom types. Each of these place different demands on the bike, requiring different designs for optimal performance. MTB development has led to an increase in suspension travel, now often up to , and gearing up to 13 speed, to facilitate both climbing and rapid descents. Advances in gearing have also led to the ubiquity of "1x" drivetrains (pronounced "one-by"), simplifying the gearing to one chainring in the front and a wide range cassette at the rear, typically with 9 to 12 sprockets. 1x gearing reduces overall bike weight, increases ground clearance, and greatly simplifies the process of gear selection, but 2- or 3-ring drivetrains are still common on entry-level bikes.

The expressions "all terrain bicycle", "all terrain bike", and the acronym "ATB" are used as synonyms for "mountain bike", but some authors consider them passé.

History

Origins

The original mountain bikes were modified heavy cruiser bicycles used for freewheeling down mountain trails. The sport became popular in the 1970s in Northern California, USA, with riders using older, single-speed balloon tire bicycles to ride down rugged hillsides. These modified bikes were called "ballooners" in California, "klunkers" in Colorado, and "dirt bombers" in Oregon. Joe Breeze, a bicycle frame builder, used this idea and developed what is considered the first mountain bike.

It was not until the late 1970s and early 1980s that road bicycle companies started to manufacture mountain bicycles using high-tech lightweight materials, such as M4 aluminum. The first production mountain bike available was the 1979 Lawwill Pro Cruiser. The frame design was based on a frame that Don Koski fabricated from electrical conduit and a Schwinn Varsity frame. Mert Lawwill had Terry Knight of Oakland build the frames. The bikes sold for about $500 new and were made from 1979 though 1980 (approximate run of 600 bikes).

The first mass production mountain bike was the Specialized Stumpjumper, first produced in 1981. With the rising popularity of mountain bikes, Randolph (Randy) Ross, executive vice president of Ross Bicycles Inc., was quoted in the New York Times saying I'd say these bikes are one of the biggest things that ever happened to the biking industry. Its basic look constitutes "a total shift in image" for the industry.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, mountain biking moved from a little-known sport to a mainstream activity complete with an international racing circuit and a world championship, in addition to various free ride competitions, such as the FMB World Tour and the Red Bull Rampage.

Designs
Mountain bikes can usually be divided into four broad categories based on suspension configuration:
Rigid: A mountain bike with large, knobby tires and straight handlebars, but with neither front nor rear suspension.
Hard Tail: A mountain bike equipped with a suspension fork for the front wheel, but otherwise a rigid frame.
Soft Tail: A recent addition, a mountain bike with pivots in the frame but no rear shock. the flex of the frame absorbs some vibrations. These bikes are usually cross country bikes.
Full suspension (or dual suspension): A mountain bike equipped with both front and rear suspension. The front suspension is usually a telescopic fork similar to that of a motorcycle, and the rear is suspended by a mechanical linkage with components for absorbing shock.

Modern designs

Gears

Since the 1980s, mountain bikes have had anywhere from 7 to 36 speeds, with 1 to 4 chain-rings on the crankset and 5 to 12 sprockets in the cogset. 30-speed, 33-speed and 36-speed mountain bikes were originally found to be unworkable, as the mud-shedding capabilities of a 10-speed, 11-speed or 12-speed cassette, and the intricacies of a 10-speed, 11-speed or 12-speed rear derailleur were originally not found to be suitable combined with front shifters, although 10, 11 and 12 speed cassettes are now commonplace in single front chainring bicycles, and are also found on some mountain bikes. However, many pro-level mountain bikers have taken to using a narrower 10-speed road chain with a 9-speed setup in an effort to reduce the weight of their bike. In early 2009, component group SRAM announced their release of their XX groupset, which uses a 2-speed front derailleur, and a 10-speed rear derailleur and cassette, similar to that of a road bike. Mud-shedding capabilities of their 10-speed XX cassette are made suitable for MTB use by extensive Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machining of the cassette. Due to the time and cost involved in such a product, they were only aimed at top-end XC-racers. However, 10-speed has become the norm by 2011 and the market leader Shimano even offers its budget groupset "Alivio" in a 10-speed version. In July 2012, SRAM announced a 1×11 drivetrain called XX1 that does not make use of a front derailleur for lighter weight and simplicity. In the 2014 Commonwealth Games at Glasgow all leading riders used 1×11 drivetrains. SRAM's new 1×12 gearing was introduced in 2016 as SRAM Eagle. This gives a single chain ring bike better ability to climb.

Geometry

The critical angles in bicycle geometry are the head angle (the angle of the head tube), and the seat tube angle (the angle of the seat tube). These angles are measured from the horizontal, and drastically affect the rider position and performance characteristics of the bicycle. Mountain bike geometry will often feature a seat tube angle around 73 degrees, with a head tube angle of anywhere from 60 to 73 degrees. The intended application of the bike affects its geometry very heavily. In general, steeper angles (closer to 90 degrees from the horizontal) are more efficient for pedaling up hills and make for sharper handling. Slacker angles (leaning farther from the vertical) are preferred for high speeds and downhill stability.

Suspension

In the past mountain bikes had a rigid frame and fork. In the early 1990s, the first mountain bikes with suspension forks were introduced. This made riding on rough terrain easier and less physically stressful. The first front suspension forks had about 1 to 2 inches (38 to 50 mm) of suspension travel. Once suspension was introduced, bikes with front suspension and rigid, non-suspended rear wheels, or "hardtails", became popular nearly overnight. While the hardtail design has the benefits of lower cost, less maintenance, and better pedaling efficiency, it is slowly losing popularity due to improvements in full suspension designs. Front fork suspensions are now available with  of travel or more (see above under Designs.)

Many new mountain bikes integrate a "full suspension" design known as dual suspension, meaning that both the front and rear wheel are fitted with a shock absorber in some form as the wheel attaches to the bike. This provides a smoother ride as the front and rear wheels can now travel up and down to absorb the force of obstacles striking the tires. Dual suspension bikes of a similar quality are considerably more expensive, but this price increase brings an enormous off-road performance upgrade as dual suspension bikes are much faster on downhill and technical/rough sections, than other forms of the mountain bike. This is because when the wheel strikes an obstacle its tendency is to bounce up. Due to some forward energy being lost in the upward movement some speed is lost. Dual suspension bikes solve this problem by absorbing this upward force and transmit it into the shocks of the front and rear wheels, drastically decreasing the translation of forward momentum into useless upward movement. Disadvantages of rear suspension are increased weight, increased price, and with some designs, decreased pedaling efficiency, which is especially noticeable when cycling on roads and hard trails. At first, early rear suspension designs were overly heavy, and susceptible either to pedaling-induced bobbing or lockout.

Disc brakes

Most new mountain bikes use disc brakes. They offer much improved stopping power (less lever pressure is required providing greater braking modulation) over rim brakes under all conditions  especially adverse conditions, because they are located at the center of the wheel (on the wheel hub).  They therefore remain drier and cleaner than wheel rims, which are more readily soiled or damaged. The disadvantage of disc brakes is their increased cost and often greater weight. Disc brakes do not allow heat to build up in the tires on long descents; instead, heat builds up in the rotor, which can become extremely hot. There are two different kinds of disc brakes: hydraulic, which uses oil in the lines to push the brake pads against the rotors to stop the bike. They cost more but work better. Mechanical, which uses wires in the lines to pull the pads against the rotors.

Wheel and tire design
Typical features of a mountain bike are very wide tyres. The original 26 inch wheel diameter with ≈2.125″ width (ISO 559 mm rim diameter) is increasingly being displaced by 29-inch wheels with ≈2.35″ width (ISO 622 mm rim diameter), as well as the 27.5-inch wheel diameter with ≈2.25 widths (ISO 584 mm rim diameter), particular on smaller frame sizes for shorter riders. Mountain bikes with 24-inch wheels are also available, sometimes for dirt jumping, or as a junior bike.

Bicycle wheel sizes are not precise measurements: a 29-inch mountain bike wheel with a  bead seat diameter (the term, bead seat diameter (BSD), is used in the ETRTO tire and rim sizing system), and the average 29″ mountain bike tire is (in ISO notation) 59-622 corresponds to an outside diameter of about 29.15 inches (740 mm).

622 mm wheels are standard on road bikes and are commonly known as 700C. In some countries, mainly in Continental Europe, 700C (622 mm) wheels are commonly called 28 inch wheels. 24 inch wheels are used for dirt jumping bikes and sometimes on freeride bikes, rear wheel only, as this makes the bike more maneuverable. 29 inch wheels were once used for only cross country purposes, but are now becoming more commonplace in other disciplines of mountain biking. A mountain bike with 29″ wheels is often referred to as a 29er, and a bike with 27.5-inch wheels is called a 27.5 Mountain bike or as a marketing term ″650B bike".

Wheels come in a variety of widths, ranging from standard rims suitable for use with tires in the 1.90 to 2.10 in (48 to 53 mm) size, to  widths popular with freeride and downhill bicycles. Although heavier wheelsets are favored in the freeride and downhill disciplines, advances in wheel technology continually shave weight off strong wheels. This is highly advantageous as rolling weight greatly affects handling and control, which are very important to the technical nature of freeride and downhill riding.

The widest wheel/tire widths, typically 3.8 in (97 mm) or larger, are sometimes used by icebikers who use their mountain bikes for winter-time riding in snowy conditions.

Manufacturers produce bicycle tires with a wide variety of tread patterns to suit different needs. Among these styles are: slick street tires, street tires with a center ridge and outer tread, fully knobby, front-specific, rear-specific, and snow studded. Some tires can be specifically designed for use in certain weather (wet or dry) and terrain (hard, soft, muddy, etc.) conditions. Other tire designs attempt to be all-around applicable. Within the same intended application, more expensive tires tend to be lighter and have less rolling resistance. Sticky rubber tires are now available for use on freeride and downhill bikes. While these tires wear down more quickly, they provide greater traction in all conditions, especially during cornering. Tires and rims are available in either tubed or tubeless designs, with tubeless tires recently (2004) gaining favor for their pinch flat resistance.

Tires also come with tubes, tubeless and tubeless-ready. Tires with tubes are the standard design and the easiest to use and maintain. Tubeless tires are significantly lighter and often have better performance because you can run them at a lower tire pressure which results in better traction and increasing rolling resistance. Tubeless-ready tires are tires that can use tubes or go tubeless. A liquid sealant is used without the tube to secure the seal to the rim. Popular tire manufacturers include Wilderness Trail Bikes, Schwalbe, Maxxis, Nokian, Michelin, Continental, Tioga, Kenda, Hutchinson, Specialized and Panaracer.

Tandems

Mountain bikes are available in tandem configurations. For example, Cannondale and Santana Cycles offer ones without suspension, while Ellsworth, Nicolai, and Ventana manufacture tandems with full suspension.

See also

 Bicycle
 Electric bicycle
 Bicycle gearing
 Bicycle suspension
 Downhill mountain biking
 Enduro (mountain biking)
 Freeride mountain-biking movies
 Glossary of cycling
 International Mountain Bicycling Association
 List of bicycle manufacturers
 List of bicycle parts
 Mountain bike racing
 Mountain bike orienteering
 Mountain biking
 Mountain quadracycle
 Mountain unicycling
 National Off-Road Bicycle Association (NORBA)
 Singletrack
 Transrockies
 Cross triathlon
 Mountain Bike Hall of Fame
 UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships

References

Bicycles
Cycle types
Mountain biking
Off-road vehicles
Racing vehicles
Road cycles

Mountain bike


Skate America is an international, senior-level figure skating competition held as part of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series. It is hosted by U.S. Figure Skating. The location changes yearly. Medals are awarded in four disciplines: men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance.

The first Skate America (officially called Norton Skate) was held in 1979 in Lake Placid, New York, and was the test event for the 1980 Winter Olympic Games. It was incorporated into the Grand Prix Series in 1995, the year of the series' inception.

On September 27, 2001, the Heinz Frozen Foods Company, an affiliate of the H. J. Heinz Company, agreed to become an official sponsor of the U.S. Figure Skating. This gave them the right to rename the competition to Smart Ones Skate America, using their brand name of frozen foods.

Venues

Medalists

Men's singles

Women's singles

Pair skating

Ice dance

References

External links

ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating
International figure skating competitions hosted by the United States
Recurring sporting events established in 1979
1979 establishments in New York (state)

Skate America


Schorle () is a German beverage made by diluting juice or wine with carbonated water or lemonade (lemon-lime soda). The most common variety is Apfelschorle (made from apple juice and sparkling mineral water). Bottled Schorle can often be found alongside soft drinks at restaurants and grocery stores. Due to its dilution it is less sweet or alcoholic than the original beverage, making it better suited as a refreshment on hot summer days or as an alternative to beer at the biergarten or .

Typical proportions are half seltzer in a high glass and half juice or wine. In the Palatinate, in Germany, a wine schorle may be almost all wine, with water considerably less than 1/4 of the total.

Varieties
There is no specific word for Schorle in the English language. However, Spritzer is very similar with the slight difference of Schorle typically being a freshly mixed drink and not usually sold in cans or bottles as spritzers sometimes are.

Schorle, Spritzer and Gespritzter are all expressions for similar variations of Schorle:
 Wine with mineral water
 sour Schorle ("Schorle sauer"), sour spritzed Schorle ("Sauergespritzter")
 in Austria: white/red spritzed or simply spritzer ("Gespritzter" or "G'spritzter")
 Wine with lemonade
 sweet Schorle which is also known as the "Arbeitersekt" which can be translated as "worker's sparkling wine"
 Wine with Cola
 "Cola-Schoppen"
 in Austria: red Cola or white Cola
 Juice with mineral water
 "Juice-Schorle", "Fruit-Schorle" or "Fruit-Juice-Schorle"
 in Austria: spritzed apple juice, spritzed orange juice etc.
Schorle (usually with the female German article "die", but in Baden-Württemberg typically with the neutral German article "das" or male German article "der" and in the Palatinate area with the male German article "der" as well) is very popular as a refreshment especially in summer. The mixing proportions are mostly approximately 1:1 but in case of Schorle with juice the proportions are usually unbalanced and there is often far more mineral water in the drink.

Origin of the term Schorle
According to the Duden dictionary of etymology, the word Schorlemorle, which occurred first as Schurlemurle in Lower Bavaria, is since the 18th century a designation for a mixed drink consisting of wine and sparkling mineral water. The origin of the word is uncertain; perhaps it is due to a play on words, similar to that in the 16th century, where the designations for beer, scormorrium in Münster and Murlepuff in Strasbourg, could be ascertained. The Southern German word Schurimuri, which dates from the 16th century and means "excited, hectic", and the older Low German word Schurrmurr, which means "mishmash", might be related to it.

According to Kluge, the word Schorlemorle, however, is probably based upon the vernacular Southern German word schuren, which means "to bubble" or "to fizz".

In an article of the Südwest Presse, Henning Petershagen lists also other attempts to interpret the origin of this word, for example a linguistic relationship to the Dutch term schorriemorrie, which means "ragtag" or "rabble".

The digitale bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse letteren provides evidence that the word originates from the Persian-Turkish schurmur which means "confusion, turmoil" and is similarly present in Albanian, Serbian, Slovenian and Russian, up to the Spanish churriburri. The latter can be found in the dictionary of the royal-Spanish Academy as zurriburri ("muddle", "base subject", "plebs"). Schorle is said to have formed thus; the oriental schurimuri came to Europe with its original meaning "muddle" where it was established as a character denotation (also as family name) and as a term to refer to the beverage-muddle.

Mixing with wine

Germany
Schorle made with fruit juice is subject to the order on the regulation of fruit and soft drinks (cf. Fruchtsaft- und Erfrischungsgetränkeverordnung).

Weinschorle (wine spritzer)
Wine is the basis of wine schorle or wine spritzer. Preferred wine varieties are Riesling (Riesling schorle / Riesling spritzer), Blauer Portugieser, vin gris, Müller-Thurgau, Silvaner or other red wine.  Depending on what the wine is mixed with, a wine schorle can be called "sour" when it is prepared with carbonated water, "sweet" when prepared with carbonated lemonade, or "sweet and sour" when made with some of both.

In the Palatinate, the ratio of wine is often much larger; depending on the waiting staff, the glass is filled almost completely with wine and diluted with only a spritzer of water, especially in wine bars and at wine festivals. In the Palatinate, schorle is traditionally served in a special glass that holds 0.5 liters, a Palatinate pint glass. A regional term for this glass is "Dubbeglas".

Similarly to schorle, wine is sometimes mixed with cola: "red cola" and "white cola" are served, meaning cola mixed with red or white wine respectively.

Gespritzter
Schorle is also called Gespritzter in some areas of Germany but this doesn't always mean the same thing:

In Hesse, 'Gespritzter' stands for a 2:1, sometimes even a 3:1 mixture of apple wine and sparkling water. At traditional apple wine pubs, this mixture is only served in corrugated apple wine glasses. Today it is also known as Sauergespritzter, so that it can be differentiated from 'Süßgespritzten', which is made with lemonade.

In Rheinhessen a 'Gespritzter' or 'sauer Gespritzter' is a mixture made out of white wine or red wine together with sparkling water. In addition, there are also mixtures with cola or lemonade.

In Bavaria and Austria 'Gespritzter' basically refers to the same drink.

Austria
According to §3 of the German Weinbezeichnungsverordnung, which is a decree for the labelling of wine, a G'spritzter (also Gespritzter, Spritzer) is a mixed drink with at least 50% wine and up to 50% soda or mineral water. The drink is required to contain at least 4.5% by volume of alcohol after mixing. The name Schorle is unusual in Austria.

Colloquially the expression Sommerspritzer or Sommergespritzter is used for a mixture with less wine and Winterspritzer for a mixture with more wine.

There are red as well as white Gespritzter, though until the 1980s only the white wine mixtures were served in rural areas. Normally no special grape variety is specified; in practice only table wines are used. Most often Grüner Veltliner (white grape variety) or Zweigelt (red grape variety) is used.

Customarily, Gespritzter is served in 0.25-litre stemware or mug-like glass. If a large Gespritzter is ordered, one gets 0.4 or 0.5 litre, generally in a beer mug.

Sweet Gespritzter is made with herbal lemonade (for example Almdudler); other terms are Almweiß, Liftler oder Tiroler. A Kaiserspritzer or Kaisergespritzter (emperor spritz) is Gespritzter with a shot of elderflower syrup.

In Vienna on rare occasions a Gespritzter is also called "Sprüher" or "Sprühwein". In some areas of Lower Austria it is also called "Siphon". In Styria it is called "Mischung" (mixture).

In the state of Vorarlberg the names "white-sweet", "white-sour", "red-sour", and "red-sweet" are common. These are Gespritze served in 0.25 litre stemware or glasses with a handle. The mixing ratio is about 50% white or red wine with 50% sparkling water (sour) or lemonade (sweet). The name Gespritzter is universally understood but rarely used. The Styrian name "Mischung" is largely unknown here.

A "Gespritzter" (or "die Gespritzte" for females) is also often used as a derogatory term for a person in Eastern Austria.

Switzerland
In Switzerland, a  is white wine mixed with either mineral water (a , or sour spritzer) or with lemonade (a , or sweet spritzer).

Hungary
The various mixtures of (generally dry) wine and sparkling mineral water also have a long tradition and are very popular in Hungary. They are generally called fröccs (spritzers) but the numerous variations (with wine and water in differing ratios) have various imaginative names in Hungarian.

Other Countries
Derived from Austrian Gespritzten, Spritz (or Spriz, Spriss or Sprisseto) is also drunk in Italy.

In the former Yugoslavian area, wine with mineral water is commonly called špricer or gemišt (spritzer or mixed). The combination of red wine with cola or lemonade is however called (especially in Croatia) Bambus.

In Spain, the combination of red wine and lemonade is known as Tinto de verano.

In the Basque country, a popular drink is kalimotxo, a combination of red wine and cola.

In Great Britain, red or white wine mixed with lemonade or carbonated water has been well known since the 1980s as a spritzer. In the United States, similar drinks are known as wine coolers.

Mixing with juice
Schorle with juice, also known as "fruit schorle" or "fruit juice schorle", is a mixture of, in most cases, carbonated water and fruit juice. Because of its massive popularity, drink manufacturers offer bottled fruit schorle. The proportion of water to juice can vary considerably, however it is typically under 50%, usually 40% to 60%. "Apfelschorle" is particularly popular but sourer or bitterer varieties of fruit also work quite well; for example using grapefruit, which has juice that, when undiluted, is otherwise less palatable. It is also good for diluting particularly sweet varieties of fruit, such as cherry juice schorle. Fruit juice schorle contains fewer calories than pure fruit juice.

Apfelschorle (apple juice spritzer)

Apple schorle is often drunk as a sports drink since it contains both minerals and carbohydrates and is almost isotonic.

Commercially available apple schorlen have a fruit juice content between 55% and 60% and contain 5 to 6 grams of fructose. Sometimes synthetic apple flavouring is added, which can give the drink an unnatural and strange taste.

References

Mixed drinks

Schorle