Gregory Wayne Sheppard (born April 23, 1949) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey forward who most notably played for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League. He played in three Stanley Cup Finals with the Bruins (1974, 1977, 1978).

Career
Sheppard was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. Playing in the waning days of the period where teenagers were signed to junior league contracts by NHL teams, Sheppard played his junior hockey for the Estevan Bruins of the Western Hockey League, competing for the Memorial Cup in two seasons and being the star of his team's Memorial Cup drive in 1968.  In 1969 Sheppard began a three-year pro apprenticeship with the Oklahoma City Blazers of the Central Hockey League, becoming a Second Team All-Star in 1971.  The following season, he was named the league's most valuable player and remains the all-time leading career scorer of the franchise.

Joining the defending Stanley Cup champion Bruins in 1972 as a result of the parent club losing players to expansion and the new World Hockey Association, Sheppard – showing both scoring prowess and exemplary defensive and penalty killing skills – had a fine rookie season, finishing sixth in balloting for rookie of the year honors.  The following season Sheppard made his true mark in the playoffs, scoring eleven goals in sixteen playoff games as the Bruins went to the Cup finals.

He was a mainstay in Boston for six seasons in all, scoring thirty or more goals three straight years—and only a serious injury costing him much of the 1978 season cost him a fourth—as well as proving himself as one of the league's premier faceoff men and penalty killers.  He was named to play in the All-Star Game in 1976, during which he won the Bruins' Seventh Player Award as the team's unsung hero and the Elizabeth C. Dufresne Trophy for the player judged best in home games.  His best statistical season was 1975, in which he scored 78 points and finished with a plus/minus rating of +45.

Before the 1978–79 season began, Sheppard was dealt to the Pittsburgh Penguins in a three-way deal.  At first holding out due to dissatisfaction at the deal, he eventually joined the team in late November 1978, although his days as a scorer were behind him.  He played four seasons in all for Pittsburgh before retiring in 1982.

Sheppard played in 657 NHL games in all over ten seasons, finishing with 205 goals and 293 assists for 498 points.  A notably clean player for some rough teams, he finished with 243 penalty minutes.

Career statistics

External links

1949 births
Living people
Boston Braves (AHL) players
Boston Bruins players
Canadian ice hockey centres
Estevan Bruins players
Ice hockey people from Saskatchewan
Oklahoma City Blazers (1965–1977) players
Sportspeople from North Battleford
Pittsburgh Penguins players
Salt Lake Golden Eagles (WHL) players
Canadian expatriate ice hockey players in the United States

Gregg Sheppard


The Can-Am United Floorball Club, known simply as Can-Am United FC, is a floorball club consisting of players from both Canada and the United States.

The club is one of the first ever joint Canada-U.S. floorball clubs, and will be a building block on which ties can be strengthened between both floorball in Canada and in the United States. As well, it will build a partnership between many players. The club is only the second joint team ever in the history of North American floorball, the previous being the North-American All-Star Team, which participated in the intermediate division of the 2007 Czech Open.

History
The floorball club was created in 2010 by several North American free agent players looking for a team to participate with at the Canada Cup. After being in contact with each other and finding other players, the team registered for the tournament in the Intermediate Division.

The club is a mix of three North American floorball clubs: Alaska's Arctic Floorball Monkeys, the Boston Bandyts Floorball Club, and the Edmonton Panthera Floorball Club. As well, the team has free agent players from Colorado, D.C., Massachusetts, and Vermont.

2010 Canada Cup

Roster difficulties
Originally posed to send three players to the tournament, the Edmonton Panthera could only send one, but instead were able to pick up another free agent player from the Vaughan Sharks in the form of Paul Charbonneau.

Tournament results
Can-Am FC played in the intermediate division, with their debut being on May 22, 2010 at York University, in Toronto, Ontario. They won their first match by a score of 3:2 over Innebandy Chicago.

After steamrolling the St. James Floorball Club by a score of 9:1, the club was shut out in its next two matches against Toronto Floorball League clubs iMove Blue Collars and Striation Six Striators by scores of 2:0 and 3:0, respectively.

Following the 4 round robin matches, Can-Am United found itself tied for 4th place in their division with the iMove Blue Collars. Due to tournament tiebreaker rules, the iMove Blue Collars advanced to the playoff round based on head-to-head statistics, eliminating Can-Am United from the tournament.

Roster
As of May 28, 2010

Note: Paul Charbonneau, Matthew Ellis, and Myles Hacking double as both defensemen and goalkeepers

Rankings & records

Franchise scoring leaders
To sort this table by any column, click on the  icon next to the column title.

Tournament records

Head-to-head records

See also
Canada Cup
Edmonton Panthera FC
2010 Canada Cup, Intermediate Division

References

External links
Arctic Floorball Monkeys
Official Canada Cup Intermediate Division Page

Floorball teams in Canada
Floorball teams in the United States
Floorball in Canada
Floorball in the United States
Floorball in North America

Can-Am United Floorball Club


Pick a Box was an Australian game shows that first aired on radio in 1948 until the early 1960s; subsequently, the concept transferred to TV and was broadcast from 1957 and 1971. The program was hosted by the husband and wife duo Bob and Dolly Dyer

History

Radio program
Beginning initially as a radio program in 1948, it was heard Australia-wide on was then the Macquarie Broadcasting Service (now Nine Entertainment Co.).

It was originally produced in Sydney, New South Wales at studio  2GB. The program successfully made the move to television, debuting at  on Saturday 2 March 1957, less than six months after the new medium had been launched in Australia. Nevertheless, the program continued to be heard on radio for some years.

Television version
The TV version in addition to the radio version was filmed in the studios of Sydney's ATN-7 and was broadcast on ATN-7 and Melbourne's GTV-9, which were initially affiliated.

This changed, however, when Frank Packer, owner of TCN-9, bought a controlling share in GTV-9 and formed the National Television Network, which later became the Nine Network. As a result, in 1963 ATN-7 and HSV-7 came together to form the Australian Television Network, now known as the Seven Network. The affiliation changes meant that Pick a Box became part of the newly formed Seven Network and its Melbourne broadcast moved from GTV-9 to HSV-7.

The program was initially broadcast on Saturday nights and sponsored by the Colgate-Palmolive Company of Australia. Three years later, on 4 July 1960, the show was moved to Monday nights at  and was sponsored by BP.

Presenters
Bob Dyer, who produced and packaged the show for the Seven Network, decided in 1969 that it was time to start thinking about ending the show. After approximately 900 episodes, Pick a Box broadcast its final episode on 28 June 1971. As they owned the program, the Dyers then reviewed most of the archived episodes – kept a few as souvenirs and discarded most of them. The couple then retired to Queensland where Bob pursued his other great love, fishing.

In 1971 the show was still the seventh most popular in the country.

Format
The format for each episode consisted of two contestants participating in a multi-question trivia quiz. The contestant who correctly answered a set number of questions, was invited to choose from one of 30 boxes. Without disclosing the box's contents (which could be either valuable or a booby prize), Dyer would offer the contestant a cash payment in lieu of the prize. Here appears one of the program's catch phrases, "The money or the box?"

To increase the risk/suspense, he would sometimes offer increasing amounts of cash to contestants who chose the box. After receiving the cash or prize, contestants had the option of leaving the show undefeated, or returning to play for more prizes, at the risk of losing those already won.

This format remained largely unchanged throughout its entire run.

Famous contestants
The first contestant to make a name for himself was Ken Eccleston who gained fame over 10 weeks in 1958 when he achieved what was then the longest win on the program. After claiming the official title of "Mr Pick a Box" during a closely fought contest with Melbourne entrant George Morris, Eccleston retired from the game with a total of AU£3873/5/-, or AU$7746.50. ($121,477.99 in 2018 currency, adjusted for inflation)

Two other famous contestants were Frank Partridge, the last Australian to be awarded the Victoria Cross in World War II, and George Black, who went on to become a question writer for the show.

However, by far the program's most successful contestant was Barry Jones, who won a total of 208 episodes spanning eight years between 1960 and 1967, winning over A$58,000.

He was known for taking issue with Dyer about certain expected answers, most famously in response to a question about "the first British Governor-General of India", where he pointed out that Warren Hastings was technically only the Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal Presidency. Jones' appearances on Pick a Box lasted from 1960 to 1968.

Jones later became a member of the Parliament of Victoria and then of the Federal Parliament, a minister in the Hawke government and president of the Australian Labor Party. He was also chosen as an Australian Living Treasure.

Pick a Box was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia Registry in 2010. An excerpt of Episode 170, featuring Barry Jones, has been published online.

The show's later remake, Ford Superquiz, featured Hutton "Red" Gibson as a contestant. Gibson, who had already won thousands of dollars as a Grand Champion on the game show Jeopardy! in his native United States, had a prolonged run of several weeks as champion on Superquiz.

Episode status
Out of the 900+ episodes made, 73 are stored at the National Film and Sound Archive, including the final episode, according to a search of the archive's website.

Superquiz
Ford Superquiz was a remake of the show hosted by Bert Newton and his wife Patti Newton and produced by the Reg Grundy organisation for the Nine Network. It began in 1981 and ran for two seasons with the number of boxes reduced to 20. It was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company of Australia.
Superquiz was a remake of the show in 1989 hosted by Mike Walsh and Deborah Hutton on Network Ten. The number of boxes was further reduced to 12 in this version.
Super Quiz is a series of games and books as well as a syndicated quiz column and online quiz game created by Ken Fisher.

See also
 It Pays to Be Funny, Bob Dyer's other television game show, ran from 26 February 1957 to around November of the same year
 List of Australian game shows
 List of Australian television series

References

External links

 Pick a Box at memorabletv.com
 Pick A Box on Australian Screen

1940s Australian game shows
1950s Australian game shows
1960s Australian game shows
1970s Australian game shows
Seven Network original programming
Television shows set in New South Wales
1957 Australian television series debuts
1971 Australian television series endings
Black-and-white Australian television shows
English-language television shows

Pick a Box


On 17 August 2015, a bombing took place inside the Erawan Shrine at the Ratchaprasong intersection in Pathum Wan District, Bangkok, Thailand, killing 20 people and injuring 125. Thai police were reported to have arrested two suspects, the second of whom confessed to having been the bomber. He later retracted his confession.

Prior incidents
Prior to this bombing incident, there were two other bombings in Thailand in the same year. In February 2015, two bombs exploded on the Siam BTS Station outside the nearby Siam Paragon shopping mall, injuring three people. The attack was believed to have been politically motivated. In April 2015, a car bomb exploded in Ko Samui, injuring seven.

Attack

On 17 August 2015, at 18:55 ICT (11:55 UTC), a bomb exploded inside the grounds of the Erawan Shrine, near the busy Ratchaprasong Intersection in Bangkok's city centre. The Royal Thai Police said that  of TNT had been stuffed in a pipe bomb and left under a bench near the outer rim of the grounds surrounding the shrine, and that an electronic circuit suspected to have been used in the attack was found  from the scene.  Surveillance footage showed a suspect leaving a backpack at the scene shortly before the explosion.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. The attacks are thought to have targeted Thailand's tourism and economy, but there has been a range of inconsistencies in the statements of Thai authorities about those arrested and the reasons for the attack. The Thai government has at times suggested the bombers acted to avenge a crackdown on their human trafficking network, to take revenge for Thailand's deportation of a group of Uighurs back to China in July 2015, to strike a blow for the insurgents fighting the Thai government in the deep south, or for reasons related to Thailand's domestic politics. The government has implicated a range of other suspects in the bombing, mostly Thai opponents of the military regime.

The site of the bombing had been cleaned, and the crater paved over with cement, by 19 August.

Second incident

In a separate attack in Bangkok, an explosive device was thrown from a bridge near a boat pier shortly after 13:30 ICT on 18 August 2015, but it caused no injuries. The device, possibly a grenade, appeared to have been thrown to the busy Sathon pier under the Taksin Bridge in Bangkok but landed in water of Chao Phraya river by the Saphan Taksin BTS station where it exploded. The district's deputy police chief said, "If it did not fall in the water then it certainly would have caused injuries." Some damage was done to the bridge.

Victims

Most of the victims of the explosion were tourists visiting the shrine. The Royal Thai Police reported that 20 people died and 125 had been injured.

The dead included six Thais, five Malaysians, five mainland Chinese, two from Hong Kong (including one British national resident in Hong Kong), one Indonesian, and one Singaporean. In addition, citizens of Austria, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mali, the Maldives, Oman, the Philippines, Qatar, Singapore and Taiwan were among those injured.

All of the 14 non-Thai fatalities, from Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore were ethnic Chinese.

Reward
Police offered a one million baht reward for information leading to the arrest of the bomber. On 20 August this was increased to two million baht by an anonymous Thai businessman, and later to three million baht (US$84,000). A further two million baht (US$56,000) was offered by a prominent member of the Red Shirt movement and another two million by the son of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as well as five million baht (US$140,000) for "those officials who investigate and make arrests". On 31 August, national police chief Somyot Poompanmoung awarded the three million baht to members of the police whose work led to the arrest of a suspect in the bombings. This suspect later confessed to being the individual seen on CCTV in the first bombing. One million baht came from police chief Somyot and the rest came from his friends. At the end of September 2015, police awarded themselves a second reward, essentially for making substantial progress in the investigation.

Investigation
Investigators said they were "certain" that a man shown leaving a backpack at the scene of the explosion was responsible for the blast. The security camera footage, which has been broadcast internationally, shows the man in shorts and a yellow T-shirt taking off a dark-coloured backpack while sitting on a bench and then standing up, putting the backpack underneath the bench and walking away while looking at his phone. The suspect likely had arrived by tuk-tuk from an alley near Hua Lamphong.

Some newspapers alleged that the man captured on security footage at the Erawan Shrine bomb attack was named by authorities as Mohamad Museyin, and that investigators are focusing their efforts on budget hotels in the Sathorn Road area of Bangkok where they believe the suspect stayed. However, this information was quickly dismissed by Thai authorities.

Thailand's chief of police said the attack was carried out by a network and released a sketch of the "unidentified foreign man" who was identified in CCTV footage as being the bomber. A warrant was issued for his arrest the same day the reward was announced. Police are also saying that two other people, wearing red and white T-shirts, seen in the same footage were being treated as suspects. These two suspected accomplices were later identified and cleared by police. Police said that the bombing was not international terrorism, but said that it involved several teams and at least 10 people. Military junta leader Prayut Chan-o-cha warned against speculating about the reason for the bombing too soon as, "It could affect international affairs".

A taxi driver later confirmed that he picked up the suspect, and described him as "not in a hurry. He seemed to be calm, like a regular customer, and not Thai. He also spoke in an unclear language on the way."

Video from shortly after the first bombing showed someone in a blue shirt kicking an item into the canal where the second explosion occurred the next day. On 27 August, an arrest warrant was issued for this unnamed individual.

On 29 August 2015, police arrested a 28-year-old man in connection to the bombing. He is not believed to have been the bomber but is suspected of involvement. His nationality was unknown but he had a fake Turkish passport, as well as at least 11 other Turkish passports and over 200 passports in all in his apartment, along with bomb-making components. The Turkish embassy in Bangkok denied that the bomb suspect arrested by Thai police and troops on Saturday was a citizen of Turkey. A second foreigner was detained near the Cambodian border on 1 September, and authorities planned to conduct DNA tests using DNA found on taxis the bomber used.

On 30 August, authorities raided an apartment building in Bangkok, initially telling reporters nothing suspicious had been found. However, on 31 August the authorities announced in a special broadcast that more bomb-making materials had been found and issued arrest warrants for 26-year-old Wanna Suansan, who is living in Turkey, and a foreign male named Jusuf. A photo of a suicide vest was displayed but authorities denied it was connected to the bombing.

Thai authorities state that the bombings were carried out by the Pan-Turkic Turkish ultra-nationalist organization Grey Wolves in retaliation for Thailand's deportation of Uyghur terrorist suspects back to China instead of allowing them to travel to Turkey for asylum. A Chinese ethnic Uyghur man, Adem Karadağ, was arrested by the Thai police in connection with the bombing after fake Turkish passports and bomb-making materials were found in his apartment.

The arrested suspect confessed to Thai authorities that he came from Turkey and travelled to Vietnam on a fake passport, and then travelled through Laos and Cambodia, paying bribes to Thai border police in Sa Kaeo to cross the border from Cambodia. He is believed to have provided Uyghurs with fake passports to go to Turkey.

Adem Karadağ, 31, was identified as the bomber on 26 September while being held in police custody, based on his own confession as well as other evidence.

In February 2016, Adem Karadağ, also known as Bilal Mohammed, retracted his earlier confession that his lawyer said was a result of torture.
His co-defendant, Mieraili Yusufu, 26, also denied the charges. The Military Court has set 20–22 April 2016 for the inspection of evidence. In 2018, it was estimated that it could take several more years for the trial of the suspects to be wrapped up.

The progress in trials have been criticised for being slow. A court observer report from a 2017 trial cited a lawyer's notion that the trial is likely to end as late as 2022.

The trials continued in January 2020.

On 22 November 2022, the court resumed the trial of the "two members of China's Muslim Uyghur minority" since the suspension of the court proceedings due to the COVID-19.

Motivations

Many theories were raised as to what the motivation could have been. Initial suspects were of varying degree of Islamic terrorism, from domestic separatist movement in South Thailand to possible involvement of international groups associated with the Islamic State terrorism. The official press briefs changed as the investigation progressed. It was initially the Muslim Uyghur retaliation, a highly doubted suggestion that was later dropped. A month later, it was hinted by the police to be associated with former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the people-smuggling operators. However, no official confirmation has been announced concerning the motivation and the suspects are still in custody, facing slow series of trials as of 2022, six years later.

Former National Intelligence Agency director-general Bhumarat Taksadipong believed it was carried out by a radical domestic political group and strongly opposed the accused Uyghur involvement.

Uyghurs theory
Mainstream reports cited the attack as a retaliation on Thailand's decision on deporting the Muslim Uyghur immigrants back to China. It was in July, a month prior to the bombing, that Thai government deported more than a hundred of the Muslim minorities. The action was condemned by international human right groups and the US government, as well as infuriated many Turks. The consulate of Thailand in Istanbul was attacked the following day alongside the Chinese counterpart. The Thai embassy later issued a recommendation that its citizens in Turkey shall refrain from displaying symbols of Thailand in public. Then Thai prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha justified the deportation stating that Thailand has been offering asylums for the Uyghurs for so long, now it no longer affords to take care of the Uyghur children", ending the press interview with an infuriating tone.

As the suspects were officially declared to be Muslims associating with the Turkish and Uyghur communities, the theory gained traction, alongside the speculation of that the site - Erawan Shrine - is a place of worship that goes against the Muslim aniconist practice. The accusation was later dropped a few days later by the authority in favor of a "local insurgency". Bangkok-based security analyst Anthony Davis supported the Uyghur possibility. He believed the attack was carried out by nationalist Turkish terrorists who were as well responsible for the attacks on Thai consulate in Istanbul a month earlier. Some members of the Thai public still believe it was the Uyghurs. As recent as 2021, in the wake of pro-democracy protests, protesters waving an Uyghur flag while demonstrating in the Ratchaprasong vicinity were condemned by opposers for supporting the same separatists that "terrorized" the very intersection in 2015.

The accusation on Uyghurs have been doubted by many experts, including Former National Intelligence Agency director-general Bhumarat Taksadipong. Thai expert on critical terrorism studies Kridikorn Wongsawangpanit criticised the government for confidently blaming the Uyghurs too early. "It was so early that [I am] certain that there no way they [the government] could have collected enough evidences and analyzed in this short period of time," he added. Vorasakdi Mahatdhanobol, then Director of Chinese Studies Center at Chulalongkorn University denied this accusation as it was "a too simple decision" for the perpetuators which only "have negatively affected the Uyghurs".

Domestic actors
Wongsawangpanit listed the junta, who came into power from the 2014 Thai coup, among the likeliest suspects. In a BBC News report, Thai political expert Pavin Chachavalpongpun claimed that the junta "could be taking advantage of this situation to assert its legitimacy and justify staying in power longer". A similar notion was similarly nodded by Wongsawangpanit.

Police commissioner-general Somyot Poompanmoung hinted the attack was of an "internal insurgency". This was believed to be implying to either the Red Shirts political group associated with former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, or the South Thailand separatists.

Reactions
Thai military junta leader Prayut Chan-o-cha called it the "worst-ever attack" on his country, saying, "there have been minor bombs or just noise, but this time they aim for innocent lives. They want to destroy our economy, our tourism."

The foreign ministry announced that mostly Western countries issued travel warnings. Twelve countries—Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United States—issued "Level 2" advisories urging citizens to take extra care during trips to the country. Nine others—Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Ireland, New Zealand, Russia, and the United Kingdom—recommended a higher degree of caution, or "Level 3" warnings. Hong Kong advised its people to avoid non-essential travel to Thailand, or "Level 4" warning. The Netherlands instructed its people to be alert, or a "Level 1 warning."

Effect on economy

Malaysia Airlines reported that there were no flight cancellations to Bangkok. After Hong Kong raised its travel advisory for Bangkok to "red alert", which prevented the purchase of compulsory travel insurance, the number of tourists from major Asian markets dropped by 10%. Hong Kong downgraded its travel advisory to amber on 22 September.

Notes

References

Explosions in 2015
Terrorist incidents in Bangkok
Improvised explosive device bombings in Thailand
Terrorist incidents in Thailand in 2015
Grey Wolves (organization) attacks
Bangkok bombing, 2015
Bangkok bombing, 2015
Bangkok bombing, 2015
Massacres in Thailand
Bangkok bombing, 2015
Bangkok bombing, 2015
Bangkok bombing, 2015
Bangkok bombing, 2015
Attacks on religious buildings and structures in Asia
Explosions in Bangkok
Filmed improvised explosive device bombings
Bankok
Chinese people murdered abroad

2015 Bangkok bombing


Prosopis pubescens, commonly known as screwbean mesquite,  is a species of flowering shrub or small tree in the pea family, Fabaceae, that is native to the southwestern United States (Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, southern Nevada and Utah) and northern Mexico (Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Sonora).

Description
This plant grows to about . It has light brown bark, usually short, straight spines 1 to 3 centimeters long, twice-compound leaves, and numerous small yellowish flowers appearing in elongate spikes. The tightly twisted seedpods (legumes) are up to 5 centimeters long and very much resemble turned screws. This morphology may have been an evolutionary defense against seed predators such as bean weevils (Bruchinae). The seeds germinate after being scarified in the digestive tracts of animals that eat them. The plant also grows in a clockwise spiral.

Habitat
It is found along streams and valleys in deserts, particularly in damp or saline soil. It grows alongside common plants of this habitat type, such as arrowweed (Pluchea sericea) and tamarisks. It can be found on playas and other areas of alkaline substrates. This and other mesquite species are dominant plants in the Mesquite Bosque-mesquite woodlands, a common habitat type in the desert southwest region.

Many types of animals readily eat the seedpods, including several bird and rodent species and coyotes. Many species of birds nest and roost in the trees, and small mammals find shelter in thicketlike stands.

Uses

Food
Like those of other Prosopis species, Screwbean Mesquite has nutritious seedpods that can be eaten. The Pimas cooked the pods in dirt-covered pits over intervals of a few days. Mesquite is a traditional Native American food source, being used to make meal, cakes and syrup. Used as a staple food for centuries by desert dwellers, this high protein meal contains good quantities of calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron and zinc, and is rich in the amino acid lysine as well. Mesquite is high in fiber, moderate in sugar, and 8% protein. It has a sweet, rich, molasses-like flavor with a hint of caramel which blends well into smoothies or other drinks, especially those made with cacao and maca. The fruits may be used as a coffee substitute.

Wood
Native Americans found Screwbean wood valuable for building, for making tools and weapons, and as firewood. The wood is durable and considered attractive, and it may be used in woodworking. Some Native Americans also used the root bark to prepare a treatment for wounds.

See also
Mesquite Bosque

References

Further reading
 National Audubon Society, Field Guide to Trees, Western Region, North America, 1980, pg. 501.

External links

USDA Plants Profile for Prosopis pubescens (screwbean mesquite)
Calflora Database: Prosopis pubescens (Screwbean mesquite, Tornillo)
Jepson Manual eFlora (TJM2) treatment of Prosopis pubescens
UC CalPhotos gallery − Prosopis pubescens

pubescens
Flora of the Sonoran Deserts
Flora of the Chihuahuan Desert
Flora of the California desert regions
Flora of the Rio Grande valleys
Flora of the Southwestern United States
Flora of the South-Central United States
North American desert flora
Natural history of the Colorado Desert
Natural history of the Mojave Desert
Trees of the Southwestern United States
Trees of the South-Central United States
Trees of Baja California
Trees of Chihuahua (state)
Trees of Coahuila
Trees of Sonora
Plants described in 1846
Edible legumes
Plants used in Native American cuisine
Nitrogen-fixing crops
Flora without expected TNC conservation status

Prosopis pubescens


The history of macOS, Apple's current Mac operating system formerly named Mac OS X until 2011 and then OS X until 2016, began with the company's project to replace its "classic" Mac OS. That system, up to and including its final release Mac OS 9, was a direct descendant of the operating system Apple had used in its Mac computers since their introduction in 1984. However, the current macOS is a UNIX operating system built on technology that had been developed at NeXT from the 1980s until Apple purchased the company in early 1997.

Although it was originally marketed as simply "version 10" of Mac OS (indicated by the Roman numeral "X"), it has a completely different codebase from Mac OS 9, as well as substantial changes to its user interface. The transition was a technologically and strategically significant one. To ease the transition for users and developers, versions through 10.4 were able to run Mac OS 9 and its applications in the Classic Environment, a compatibility layer.

macOS was first released in 1999 as Mac OS X Server 1.0. It was built using the technologies Apple acquired from NeXT, but did not include the signature Aqua user interface (UI). The desktop version aimed at regular users—Mac OS X 10.0—shipped in March 2001. Since then, several more distinct desktop and server editions of macOS have been released. Starting with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, macOS Server is no longer offered as a standalone operating system; instead, server management tools are available for purchase as an add-on. The macOS Server app was discontinued on April 21, 2022 and will stop working on macOS 13 Ventura or later. Starting with the Intel build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, most releases have been certified as Unix systems conforming to the Single UNIX Specification.

Lion was referred to by Apple as "Mac OS X Lion" and sometimes as "OS X Lion"; Mountain Lion was officially referred to as just "OS X Mountain Lion", with the "Mac" being completely dropped. The operating system was further renamed to "macOS" starting with macOS Sierra.

From the introduction of machines not supporting the classic Mac OS in 2003 until the introduction of iPhone OS in early 2007, Mac OS X was Apple's only software platform.

macOS retained the major version number 10 throughout its development history until the release of macOS 11 Big Sur in 2020.

Mac OS X 10.0 and 10.1 were given names of big cats as internal code names ("Cheetah" and "Puma").  Starting with Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, big cat names were used as marketing names; starting with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, names of locations in California were used as marketing names instead.

The current major version, macOS 14 Sonoma, was announced on June 5, 2023 at WWDC 2023 and released on September 26 of that year.

Development

Development outside Apple

After Apple removed Steve Jobs from management in 1985, he left the company and attempted to create the "next big thing", with funding from Ross Perot and himself. The result was the NeXT Computer. As the first workstation to include a digital signal processor (DSP) and a high-capacity optical disc drive, NeXT hardware was advanced for its time, but was expensive relative to the rapidly commoditizing workstation market. The hardware was phased out in 1993; however, the company's object-oriented operating system NeXTSTEP had a more lasting legacy as it eventually became the basis for Mac OS X.

NeXTSTEP was based on the Mach kernel developed at CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) and BSD, an implementation of Unix dating back to the 1970s. It featured an object-oriented programming framework based on the Objective-C language. This environment is known today in the Mac world as Cocoa. It also supported the innovative Enterprise Objects Framework database access layer and WebObjects application server development environment, among other notable features.

All but abandoning the idea of an operating system, NeXT managed to maintain a business selling WebObjects and consulting services, only ever making modest profits in its last few quarters as an independent company. NeXTSTEP underwent an evolution into OPENSTEP which separated the object layers from the operating system below, allowing it to run with less modification on other platforms. OPENSTEP was, for a short time, adopted by Sun and HP.

However, by this point, a number of other companies — notably Apple, IBM, Microsoft, and even Sun itself — were claiming they would soon be releasing similar object-oriented operating systems and development tools of their own. Some of these efforts, such as Taligent, did not fully come to fruition; others, like Java, gained widespread adoption.

On February 4, 1997, Apple Computer acquired NeXT for $427 million, and used OPENSTEP as the basis for Mac OS X, as it was called at the time. Traces of the NeXT software heritage can still be seen in macOS. For example, in the Cocoa development environment, the Objective-C library classes have "NS" prefixes, and the HISTORY section of the manual page for the defaults command in macOS straightforwardly states that the command "First appeared in NeXTStep."

Internal development

Meanwhile, Apple was facing commercial difficulties of its own. The decade-old Macintosh System Software had reached the limits of its single-user, co-operative multitasking architecture, and its once-innovative user interface was looking increasingly outdated. A massive development effort to replace it, known as Copland, was started in 1994, but was generally perceived outside Apple to be a hopeless case due to political infighting and conflicting goals. By 1996, Copland was nowhere near ready for release, and the project was eventually cancelled. Some elements of Copland were incorporated into Mac OS 8, released on July 26, 1997.

After considering the purchase of BeOS — a multimedia-enabled, multi-tasking OS designed for hardware similar to Apple's, the company decided instead to acquire NeXT and use OPENSTEP as the basis for their new OS. Avie Tevanian took over OS development, and Steve Jobs was brought on as a consultant. At first, the plan was to develop a new operating system based almost entirely on an updated version of OPENSTEP, with the addition of a virtual machine subsystem — known as the Blue Box — for running "classic" Macintosh applications. The result was known by the code name Rhapsody, slated for release in late 1998.

Apple expected that developers would port their software to the considerably more powerful OPENSTEP libraries once they learned of its power and flexibility. Instead, several major developers such as Adobe told Apple that this would never occur, and that they would rather leave the platform entirely. This "rejection" of Apple's plan was largely the result of a string of previous broken promises from Apple; after watching one "next OS" after another disappear and Apple's market share dwindle, developers were not interested in doing much work on the platform at all, let alone a re-write.

Changed direction under Jobs
Apple's financial losses continued and the board of directors lost confidence in CEO Gil Amelio, asking him to resign. The board asked Steve Jobs to lead the company on an interim basis, essentially giving him carte blanche to make changes to return the company to profitability. When Jobs announced at the World Wide Developer's Conference that what developers really wanted was a modern version of the Mac OS, and Apple was going to deliver it, he was met with applause.

Over the next two years, a major effort was applied to porting the original Macintosh APIs to Unix libraries known as Carbon. Mac OS applications could be ported to Carbon without the need for a complete re-write, making them operate as native applications on the new operating system. Meanwhile, applications written using the older toolkits would be supported using the "Classic" Mac OS 9 environment. Support for C, C++, Objective-C, Java, and Python were added, furthering developer comfort with the new platform.

During this time, the lower layers of the operating system (the Mach kernel and the BSD layers on top of it) were re-packaged and released under the Apple Public Source License. They became known as Darwin. The Darwin kernel provides a stable and flexible operating system, which takes advantage of the contributions of programmers and independent open-source projects outside Apple; however, it sees little use outside the Macintosh community.

During this period, the Java programming language had increased in popularity, and an effort was started to improve Mac Java support. This consisted of porting a high-speed Java virtual machine to the platform, and exposing macOS-specific "Cocoa" APIs to the Java language.

The first release of the new OS — Mac OS X Server 1.0 — used a modified version of the Mac OS GUI, but all client versions starting with Mac OS X Developer Preview 3 used a new theme known as Aqua. Aqua was a substantial departure from the Mac OS 9 interface, which had evolved with little change from that of the original Macintosh operating system: it incorporated full color scalable graphics, anti-aliasing of text and graphics, simulated shading and highlights, transparency and shadows, and animation. A new feature was the Dock, an application launcher which took advantage of these capabilities.

Despite this, Mac OS X maintained a substantial degree of consistency with the traditional Mac OS interface and Apple's own Apple Human Interface Guidelines, with its pull-down menu at the top of the screen, familiar keyboard shortcuts, and support for a single-button mouse. The development of Aqua was delayed somewhat by the switch from OpenStep's Display PostScript engine to one developed in-house that was free of any license restrictions, known as Quartz.

Releases

With the exception of Mac OS X Server 1.0 and the original public beta, the first several macOS versions were named after big cats. Prior to its release, version 10.0 was code named "Cheetah" internally at Apple, and version 10.1 was code named internally as "Puma".

After the code name "Jaguar" for version 10.2 received publicity in the media, Apple began openly using the names to promote the operating system: 10.3 was marketed as "Panther", 10.4 as "Tiger", 10.5 as "Leopard", 10.6 as "Snow Leopard", 10.7 as "Lion", and 10.8 as "Mountain Lion". "Panther", "Tiger", and "Leopard" were registered as trademarks.

Apple registered "Lynx" and "Cougar", but these were allowed to lapse. Apple started using the name of locations in California for subsequent releases: 10.9 Mavericks was named after Mavericks, a popular surfing destination; 10.10 Yosemite was named after Yosemite National Park; 10.11 El Capitan was named for the El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park; 10.12 Sierra was named for the Sierra Nevada mountain range; and 10.13 High Sierra was named for the area around the High Sierra Camps.

In 2016, OS X was renamed to macOS. A few years later, in 2020, with the release of macOS Big Sur, the first component of the version number was incremented from 10 to 11, so Big Sur's initial release's version number was 11.0 instead of 10.16, making the version numbers of macOS behave the way the version numbers of Apple's other operating systems do. All subsequent major releases also increased the first component of the version number.

Public Beta: "Kodiak"

On September 13, 2000, Apple released a $29.95 "preview" version of Mac OS X (internally codenamed Kodiak) in order to gain feedback from users. It marked the first public availability of the Aqua interface, and Apple made many changes to the UI based on customer feedback. Mac OS X Public Beta expired and ceased to function in spring 2001.

Version 10.0: "Cheetah"
On March 24, 2001, Apple released Mac OS X 10.0 (internally codenamed Cheetah).
The initial version was slow, incomplete, and had very few applications available at the time of its launch, mostly from independent developers. While many critics suggested that the operating system was not ready for mainstream adoption, they recognized the importance of its initial launch as a base on which to improve. Simply releasing Mac OS X was received by the Macintosh community as a great accomplishment, for attempts to completely overhaul the Mac OS had been underway since 1996, and delayed by countless setbacks. Following some bug fixes, kernel panics became much less frequent.

Version 10.1: "Puma"
Mac OS X 10.1 (internally codenamed Puma) was released on September 25, 2001.
It has better performance and provided missing features, such as DVD playback. Apple released 10.1 as a free upgrade CD for 10.0 users. Apple released a  upgrade CD for Mac OS 9.

On January 7, 2002, Apple announced that Mac OS X was to be the default operating system for all Macintosh products by the end of that month.

Version 10.2: "Jaguar"
On August 23, 2002,
Apple followed up with Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, the first release to use its code name as part of the branding.
It brought great raw performance improvements, a sleeker look, and many powerful user-interface enhancements (over 150, according to Apple
), including Quartz Extreme for compositing graphics directly on an ATI Radeon or Nvidia GeForce2 MX AGP-based video card with at least 16 MB of VRAM, a system-wide repository for contact information in the new Address Book, and an instant messaging client named iChat.
The Happy Mac which had appeared during the Mac OS startup sequence for almost 18 years was replaced with a large grey Apple logo with the introduction of Mac OS X 10.2.

Version 10.3: "Panther"
Mac OS X Panther was released on October 24, 2003. In addition to providing much improved performance, it also incorporated the most extensive update yet to the user interface. Panther included as many or more new features as Jaguar had the year before, including an updated Finder, incorporating a brushed-metal interface, Fast user switching, Exposé (Window manager), FileVault, Safari, iChat AV (which added videoconferencing features to iChat), improved Portable Document Format (PDF) rendering and much greater Microsoft Windows interoperability.
Support for some early G3 computers such as the Power Macintosh and PowerBook was discontinued.

Version 10.4: "Tiger"
Mac OS X Tiger was released on April 29, 2005. Apple stated that Tiger contained more than 200 new features.
As with Panther, certain older machines were no longer supported; Tiger requires a Mac with a built-in FireWire port.
Among the new features, Tiger introduced Spotlight, Dashboard, Smart Folders, updated Mail program with Smart Mailboxes, QuickTime 7, Safari 2, Automator, VoiceOver, Core Image and Core Video. The initial release of the Apple TV used a modified version of Tiger with a different graphical interface and fewer applications and services.

On January 10, 2006, Apple released the first Intel x86-based Macs along with the 10.4.4 update to Tiger. This operating system functioned identically on the PowerPC-based Macs and the new Intel-based machines, with the exception of the Intel release dropping support for the Classic environment. 10.4.4 introduced Rosetta, which translated 32-bit PowerPC machine code to 32-bit x86 code, allowing applications for PowerPC to run on Intel-based Macs without modification.
Only PowerPC Macs can be booted from retail copies of the Tiger client DVD, but there is a Universal DVD of Tiger Server 10.4.7 (8K1079) that can boot both PowerPC and Intel Macs.

Version 10.5: "Leopard"
Mac OS X Leopard was released on October 26, 2007. Apple called it "the largest update of Mac OS X". Leopard supports both PowerPC- and Intel x86-based Macintosh computers; support for Macs with the G3 processor was dropped, and Macs with the G4 processor required a minimum clock rate of 867 MHz and at least 512 MB of RAM to be installed. The single DVD works for all supported Macs (including 64-bit machines). New features include a new look, an updated Finder, Time Machine, Spaces, Boot Camp pre-installed, full support for 64-bit applications (including graphical applications), new features in Mail and iChat, and a number of new security features.

Leopard is an Open Brand UNIX 03 registered product on the Intel platform. It was also the first BSD-based OS to receive UNIX 03 certification. Leopard dropped support for the Classic Environment and all Classic applications, and was the final version of Mac OS X to support the PowerPC architecture.

Version 10.6: "Snow Leopard"
Mac OS X Snow Leopard was released on August 28, 2009, the last version to be available on disc. Rather than delivering big changes to the appearance and end user functionality like the previous releases of , the development of Snow Leopard was deliberately focused on "under the hood" changes, increasing the performance, efficiency, and stability of the operating system. For most users, the most noticeable changes are these: the disk space that the operating system frees up after a clean installation compared to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, a more responsive Finder rewritten in Cocoa, faster Time Machine backups, more reliable and user friendly disk ejects, a more powerful version of the Preview application, as well as a faster Safari web browser.

An update introduced support for the Mac App Store, Apple's digital distribution platform for macOS applications and subsequent macOS upgrades. Snow Leopard only supports Macs with Intel CPUs, requires at least 1 GB of RAM, and drops default support for applications built for the PowerPC architecture (Rosetta can be installed as an additional component to retain support for PowerPC-only applications).

Version 10.7: "Lion"
Mac OS X Lion (also known as OS X Lion) was released on July 20, 2011. It brought developments made in Apple's iOS, such as an easily navigable display of installed applications (Launchpad) and (a greater use of) multi-touch gestures, to the Mac. This release removed Rosetta, making it incapable of running PowerPC applications. It dropped support for 32-bit Intel processors and requires 2GB of memory. Changes made to the GUI (Graphical User Interface) include the Launchpad (similar to the home screen of iOS and iPadOS devices), auto-hiding scrollbars that only appear when they are being used, and Mission Control, which unifies Exposé, Spaces, Dashboard, and full-screen applications within a single interface.
Apple also made changes to applications: they resume in the same state as they were before they were closed (similar to iOS). Documents auto-save by default.

Version 10.8: "Mountain Lion"
OS X Mountain Lion was released on July 25, 2012. It incorporates some features seen in iOS 5, which include Game Center, support for iMessage in the new Messages messaging application, and Reminders as a to-do list app separate from iCal (which is renamed as Calendar, like the iOS app). It also includes support for storing iWork documents in iCloud. 2GB of memory is required. Notification Center, which makes its debut in Mountain Lion, is a desktop version similar to the one in iOS 5.0 and higher. Application pop-ups are now concentrated on the corner of the screen, and the Center itself is pulled from the right side of the screen. Mountain Lion also includes more Chinese features, including support for Baidu as an option for Safari search engine. Notification Center is added, providing an overview of alerts from applications. Notes is added, as an application separate from Mail, synching with its iOS counterpart through the iCloud service. Messages, an instant messaging software application, replaces iChat.

Version 10.9: "Mavericks"
OS X Mavericks was released on October 22, 2013, as a free update through the Mac App Store worldwide.
It placed emphasis on battery life, Finder enhancements, other enhancements for power users, and continued iCloud integration, as well as bringing more of Apple's iOS apps to the OS X platform. iBooks and Apple Maps applications were added. Mavericks requires 2GB of memory to operate. It is the first version named under Apple's then-new theme of places in California, dubbed Mavericks after the surfing location. Unlike previous versions of OS X, which had progressively decreasing prices since 10.6, 10.9 was available at no charge to all users of compatible systems running Snow Leopard (10.6) or later, beginning Apple's policy of free upgrades for life on its operating system and business software.

Version 10.10: "Yosemite"
OS X Yosemite was released to the general public on October 16, 2014, as a free update through the Mac App Store worldwide. It featured a major overhaul of user interface, replaced skeuomorphism with flat graphic design and blurred translucency effects, following the aesthetic introduced with iOS 7. It introduced features called Continuity and Handoff, which allow for tighter integration between paired OS X and iOS devices: the user can handle phone calls or text messages on either their Mac or their iPhone, and edit the same Pages document on either their Mac or their iPad. A later update of the OS included Photos as a replacement for iPhoto and Aperture.

Version 10.11: "El Capitan"
OS X El Capitan was revealed on June 8, 2015, during the WWDC15 keynote speech. It was made available as a public beta in July and was made available publicly on September 30, 2015. Apple described this release as containing "Refinements to the Mac Experience" and "Improvements to System Performance" rather than new features. Refinements include public transport built into the Maps application, GUI improvements to the Notes application, as well as adopting San Francisco as the system font. Metal API, an application enhancing software, had debuted in this operating system, being available to "all Macs since 2012".

Version 10.12: "Sierra"
macOS Sierra was announced on June 13, 2016, during the WWDC16 keynote speech. The update brought the Siri assistant to macOS, featuring several Mac-specific features, like searching for files. It also allowed websites to support Apple Pay as a method of transferring payment, using either a nearby iOS device or Touch ID to authenticate. iCloud also received several improvements, such as the ability to store a user's Desktop and Documents folders on iCloud so they could be synced with other Macs on the same Apple ID. It was released publicly on September 20, 2016.

Version 10.13: "High Sierra"
macOS High Sierra was announced on June 5, 2017, during the WWDC17 keynote speech. It was released on September 25, 2017. The release includes many under-the-hood improvements, including a switch to Apple File System (APFS), the introduction of Metal 2, support for HEVC video, and improvements to VR support. In addition, numerous changes were made to standard applications including Photos, Safari, Notes, and Spotlight.

Version 10.14: "Mojave"
macOS Mojave was announced on June 4, 2018, during the WWDC18 keynote speech. It was released on September 24, 2018. Some of the key new features were Dark wallpaper in dark mode, Desktop stacks and Dynamic Desktop, which changes the desktop background image to correspond to the user's current time of day.

Version 10.15: "Catalina"
macOS Catalina was announced on June 3, 2019, during the WWDC19 keynote speech. It was released on October 7, 2019. It primarily focuses on updates to built-in apps, such as replacing iTunes with separate Music, Podcasts, and TV apps, redesigned Reminders and Books apps, and a new Find My app. It also features Sidecar, which allows the user to use an iPad as a second screen for their computer, or even simulate a graphics tablet with an Apple Pencil. It is the first version of macOS not to support 32-bit applications. The Dashboard application was also removed in the update. Since macOS Catalina, iOS apps can run on macOS with Project Catalyst but requires the app to be made compatible unlike ARM-powered Apple silicon Macs that can run all iOS apps by default.

Version 11: "Big Sur"
macOS Big Sur was announced on June 22, 2020, during the WWDC20 keynote speech. It was released November 12, 2020. The major version number is changed, for the first time since "Mac OS X" was released, making it macOS 11. It brings ARM support, new icons, GUI changes to the system, and other bug fixes.
Since macOS 11.2.3, it is no longer possible to install iOS apps by default from an IPA file instead of the Mac App Store on Apple silicon Macs, which now requires third-party software to unlock the functionality. Big Sur introduced Rosetta 2 to allow 64-bit Intel applications to run on Apple silicon Macs. However, Intel-based Macs are unable to run ARM-based applications, including iOS and iPadOS apps.

Version 12: "Monterey"
macOS Monterey was announced on June 7, 2021, during the WWDC21 keynote speech. It was released on October 25, 2021. macOS Monterey introduces new features such as Universal Control, which allows users to use a single keyboard and mouse to move between devices; AirPlay, which now allows users to present and share almost anything; the Shortcuts app, also introduced to macOS, gives users access to galleries of pre-built shortcuts, designed for Macs, a service brought from iOS, and users can now also set up shortcuts, among other things. macOS Monterey is the final version of macOS that officially supports macOS Server.

Version 13: "Ventura"
macOS Ventura was announced on June 6, 2022, during the WWDC22 keynote speech. It was released on October 24, 2022. macOS Ventura introduces Stage Manager, a new and optional window manager, a redesigned settings app, and Continuity Camera, which is a program that allows Mac users to use their iPhone as a camera, and several other new features. It is also the first version of macOS without macOS Server support.

Version 14: "Sonoma"
macOS Sonoma was announced on June 5, 2023, during the WWDC23 keynote speech. It was released on September 26, 2023.

Timeline of Macintosh operating systems

See also
 Mac operating systems
 Architecture of macOS
 List of macOS built-in apps
 iOS version history

References

External links

MacOS

MacOS version history


A hazard quotient is the ratio of the potential exposure to a substance and the level at which no adverse effects are expected. If the Hazard Quotient is calculated to be less than 1, then no adverse health effects are expected as a result of exposure. If the Hazard Quotient is greater than 1, then adverse health effects are possible. The Hazard Quotient cannot be translated to a probability that adverse health effects will occur, and is unlikely to be proportional to risk. It is especially important to note that a Hazard Quotient exceeding 1 does not necessarily mean that adverse effects will occur.

References

This article is based on material from the public domain U.S. Federal Government document "NATA Glossary of Terms"

Pollution

Hazard quotient


Cyclone Nargis (JTWC designation: 01B, kent as Very Severe Cyclonic Storm Nargis an aw) wis a rare, eastward movin at law-latitude strang tropical cyclone that caused the worst naitural disaster in the recordit history o Burma. The cyclone made landfaw in Burma on Friday, Mey 2, 2008, sendin a storm surge 40 kilometers up the densely-populatit Irrawaddy delta, causin catastrophic destruction an at least 138,000 fatalities. The Labutta Tounship alane wis reportit tae hae 80,000 deid, wi aboot 10,000 mair daiths in Bogale. Thare wur aroond 55,000 fowk missin an mony ither daiths wur foond in ither touns an auries, altho the Burmese govrenment's offeecial daith toll mey hae been underreportit, an thare hae been allegations that govrenment offeecials stopped updatin the daith toll efter 138,000 tae minimize poleetical fawoot. The feared 'seicont wave' o fatalities frae disease an lack o relief efforts never materialized. Damage wis estimatit at ower US$10 billion, which made it the maist damagin cyclone ever recordit in this basin.

Nargis is the deidliest named cyclone in the North Indian Ocean Basin, as well as the seicont deadliest named cyclone o aw time, ahind Typhoon Nina o 1975. Includin unnamed storms lik the 1970 Bhola cyclone, Nargis is the aicht deadliest cyclone o aw time, but an uncertainty atween the daiths caused bi Nargis an those caused bi ither cyclones (lik the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone), coud put Nargis as sevent deidliest or heicher, acause the exact daith toll is uncertain. Nargis wis the first tropical cyclone tae strike the kintra syne Cyclone Mala made landfaw in 2006, which wis slichtly stranger, but haed a significantly lawer impact. Accordin tae reports, Indie authorities haed wairned Burma aboot the danger that Cyclone Nargis posed 48 oors afore it hit the kintra's coast.

Relief efforts wur slawed for poleetical raisons as Burma's militar rulers ineetially resistit lairge-scale internaitional aid. U.S. Preses George W. Bush said that an angry warld should condemn the wey Burma's militar rulers wur handlin the eftermath o sic a catastrophic cyclone. Burma's militar junta feenally acceptit aid a few days efter Indie's request wis acceptit.

Hamperin the relief efforts, anly ten days efter the cyclone, nearbi central Cheenae wis hit bi a massive yirdquauk, kent as the Sichuan yirdquauk which measured 7.9 in magnitude an it alane haed taken 87,476 lives, an caused US$85 billion in damage, makin it the costliest disaster in Cheenese history an third costliest disaster ever kent. Furthermair, some donatit aid items wur foond tae be available in the kintra's black mercat, an Burma's junta wairned on Mey 15 that legal action wad be taken against fowk who tradit or hoardit internaitional aid.

The name "Nargis" ( ) is an Urdu wird meanin daffodil; the wird haes its ruits in the Persie name Nargess, which haes the same meanin. The first named storm o the 2008 North Indian Ocean cyclone saison, Nargis developed on Aprile 27 in the central aurie o Bay o Bengal. Ineetially it tracked slawly northwastward an, encoonterin favorable condeetions, it quickly strengthened. Dry air waikened the cyclone on Aprile 29, tho efter beginnin a steady eastward motion Nargis rapidly intensified tae attain peak winds o at least 165 km/h (105 mph) on Mey 2 accordin tae IMD observations; the JTWC assessed peak winds o 217 km/h (135 mph), makin it a waik Category 4 cyclone on the SSHS. The cyclone moved ashore in the Ayeyarwady Division o Burma at peak intensity an, efter passin near the major ceety o Yangon (Rangoon), the storm gradually waikened till dissipatin near the mairch o Burma an Thailand.

Resources

Freemit airtins
Damage information frae BBC
Google Map: Path o Cyclone Nargis
Reid Cross  - Reid Cross Movement response tae Cyclone Nargis
 "Eyes of the Storm" Full episode o PBS documentary on orphans o Cyclone Nargis fendin for themselves.

Tropical cyclones in Burma
2008 North Indian Ocean cyclone saison
2008 in Burma
Very severe cyclonic storms

Cyclone Nargis


Bally Sports North is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, and operates as a Bally Sports affiliate. The channel broadcasts coverage of sporting events involving teams located in the Upper Midwest region, with a focus on professional and collegiate sports teams based in Minnesota.

The network maintains production studios and offices located in downtown Minneapolis, which are shared with production and office operations of Bally Sports Wisconsin, which formerly served as a subfeed of Fox Sports North until it was spun off into a separate channel in 2006.

Bally Sports North is available on cable providers throughout Minnesota, western Wisconsin, northern Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota; it is available nationwide on satellite via DirecTV.

History

Origins

The channel originated sometime in 1982 as WCCO II, a local cable channel owned by Midwest Radio and Television (later Midwest Communications), and created as a project by CBS affiliate WCCO-TV (channel 4, now an owned-and-operated station of the network) that broadcast a slate of local and general entertainment programming. On March 1, 1989, it was relaunched as the Midwest Sports Channel. It was also the same year that the network would acquire rights to Twins broadcasts.

MSC's main draws in its early days were games from the Minnesota Twins and Minnesota North Stars. The channel also served as an affiliate of SportsChannel America, filling much of its broadcast day with a mix of national programs and paid programming from the channel, and incorporated sports news tickers provided by the channel. MSC was largely considered a premium channel until the early 1990s, and did not even have full cable coverage in the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area until it was added by Continental Cablevision's St. Paul system on its expanded basic cable lineup in 1994.

During the North Stars' 1991 Stanley Cup Playoff run, Midwest Sports Channel declined to exercise an option to carry the North Stars' home games (as the SportsChannel America package which MSC carried did not include rights to in-market home games). Instead the North Stars cut a revenue-sharing deal with a group of 11 cable companies to televise the games as a pay-per-view events at a then very expensive price of $12.95 a game.

The following season the North Stars parted ways with Midwest Sports Channel and instead signed a new contract with Prime Sports Midwest to televise 17 games out-of-market while in-market viewers would be offered the games on pay-per-view through the same revenue sharing agreement with local cable operators that was used for the previous season's playoffs. The price for these games were $9.95 each with an option to purchase the entire package at a reduced rate. Additionally, 25 games were televised on KMSP-TV.

Ownership changes and affiliation with FSN

In 1992, CBS acquired the Midwest Sports Channel, through its purchase of Midwest Communications (which it previously had 47% ownership). For the 1992-93 season MSC once again televised some North Stars games, but the channel lost the broadcast rights permanently when the North Stars relocated to Dallas after the end of the season. MSC expanded its lineup of professional sports events in 1995, after it landed a television contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves to hold the regional cable rights to the team's games for the 95-96 season.

The following year, the Wisconsin Sports Network (a gametime-only network broadcasting Milwaukee Brewers and Bucks games), which had been owned by Time Warner Cable's Milwaukee franchise and Group W (whose corporate parent, Westinghouse, had just merged with CBS), was folded into MSC, giving the network a broader reach throughout the Midwest, in addition to the rights to the Brewers and Bucks contracts, and a sizeable stable of local outdoor programs. In 1997, the Midwest Sports Channel became an affiliate of the recently created Fox Sports Net.

Shortly after completing its merger with CBS, on June 10, 2000, Viacom announced that it would sell the Midwest Sports Channel and Baltimore-based regional sports network Home Team Sports. On July 11, 2000, Comcast acquired the Midwest Sports Channel from CBS. News Corporation, which was a minority owner in the network and wanted to acquire the channel outright, attempted to block the deal,(as it would have been reworked into a Comcast SportsNet), filing a lawsuit on July 21 to stop the sale of MSC and Home Team Sports. On September 7, 2000, as part of a settlement between the two companies, Comcast traded its equity interest in Midwest Sports Channel to News Corporation in exchange for exclusive ownership of Home Team Sports (which subsequently joined Comcast SportsNet as Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic). Through its existing content agreement with the channel, WCCO continued to broadcast a replay of its 10:00 p.m. newscast daily at 4:30 a.m. as an encore until the sale to Fox was finalized.

In 2000, MSC acquired the television rights to the Minnesota Wild, an NHL expansion team which began play that year; the deal was struck by Fox in May shortly before the lawsuit against Comcast was filed as part of its plans to start a Minnesota-based regional sports network. With the acquisition of the Wild broadcasts, MSC adopted FSN-branded graphics, with announcers frequently using the phrase "...live on MSC, Fox Sports Net style" during its game broadcasts.

This culminated in the channel's official rebranding as Fox Sports Net North in April 2001, coinciding with the start of that year's Minnesota Twins season and the opening of American Family Field (Then named Miller Park) as the home stadium of the Milwaukee Brewers; the new branding was heavily promoted on-air, on billboards and on bus advertisements. One side effect to the rebranding were resulting reductions to the network's budget; Fox also let the contracts to some events expire, forcing the network to depend more on programming from FSN's national schedule (such as the National Sports Report and You Gotta See This!).

In October 2003, Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad attempted to launch a competing regional sports network, to be named Victory Sports One, which would broadcast all Twins games as well as local college and high school sport events. The channel was also expected to carry a number of locally produced sports shows, the centerpiece of which would be Kent Hrbek Outdoors. Victory Sports One launched in November 2003, however the effort folded in May 2004 after six months due to financial and cable carriage issues; after VS1 ceased operations, Fox Sports Net North absorbed most of the channel's programming including the television rights to the Twins. As a result, Fox Sports Net launched a new "local fans first" initiative, launching the daily regional news program Minnesota Sports Report and adding regular broadcasts of high school sport events.

In April 2006, still lacking a local news program after CBS Sold the channel (the now-defunct Minnesota Sports Report originated from FSN West and FSN West 2's studios in Downtown Los Angeles), FSN North launched FSN Live, a first-of-its-kind program serving as both a sports news show, and a pre-game and post-game analysis program for the channel's game broadcasts. FSN Live is usually broadcast live and on-location from sports events televised by the channel, though FSN Live originates from the FSN North studios in Minneapolis whenever the focused team is playing on the road.  Regardless of the origin of FSN Live, the pregame show usually features a preview of the game from the announcers and a pregame press conference by the head coach or manager.  Meanwhile, the postgame show includes an interview with the player of the game, postgame analysis from the announcers and the head coach or manager's postgame press conference.

On April 4, 2007, FSN North spun off its Wisconsin subfeed into FSN Wisconsin (now Bally Sports Wisconsin), a separate channel carrying Milwaukee Brewers and Milwaukee Bucks games as well as other events sourced from its former parent channel. Wild broadcasts are available throughout Wisconsin. In 2009, FSN North rebranded as Fox Sports North as part of a network-wide rebranding of the Fox Sports regional networks.

On December 14, 2017, as part of a merger between both companies, The Walt Disney Company announced plans to acquire all 22 regional Fox Sports networks from 21st Century Fox, including YES Network. However, on June 27, 2018, the Justice Department ordered their divestment under antitrust grounds, citing Disney's ownership of ESPN. On May 3, 2019, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios (through their joint venture, Diamond Holdings) bought Fox Sports Networks from The Walt Disney Company for $10.6 billion. The deal closed on August 22, 2019, thus placing Fox Sports North in common ownership with neighboring Sinclair station WUCW in Minneapolis. On November 17, 2020, Sinclair announced an agreement with casino operator Bally's Corporation to serve as a new naming rights partner for the FSN channels. Sinclair announced the new Bally Sports branding for the channels on January 27, 2021.  On March 31, 2021, coinciding with the 2021 Major League Baseball season, Fox Sports North was rebranded as Bally Sports North, resulting in 18 other Regional Sports Networks renamed Bally Sports in their respective regions.

In the spring of 2021, Bally Sports North aired five Timberwolves games on WUCW, branded as "Bally Sports North Extra". This was the first time since the WFTC deal that any broadcaster regionally aired Timberwolves games over-the-air.

In the spring of 2022, Bally Sports North aired two Twins games and a Wild game on WUCW.

Bankruptcy

On February 15, 2023, Diamond Sports Group, the owner of Bally Sports Great Lakes, failed to make a $140 million interest payment, instead opting for a 30-day grace period to make the payment. On March 14, 2023, Diamond Sports Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

During its bankruptcy, Diamond missed a payment to the Minnesota Twins. On April 5, 2023, Major League Baseball, on behalf of the Twins, filed an emergency motion asking the bankruptcy judge to order Diamond to pay the Twins fully or give its media rights back to the MLB. Diamond argued that because of cord-cutting the contract rate for the media rights of the teams was too high. A hearing on the matter was set for May 31, 2023. As an interim, on April 19, the bankruptcy judge ordered Diamond Sports to pay 50% of what the Twins were owed. On June 1, 2023, after a two day long hearing, the bankruptcy judge ordered Diamond to pay the Twins fully within five days.

Programming
Bally Sports North holds the exclusive regional cable television rights to Major League Baseball from the Minnesota Twins (having aired the team's games since 1989, and exclusive rights since 2011), NBA games from the Minnesota Timberwolves (since 1995), and NHL games from the Minnesota Wild (since 2000). They also air WNBA games from the Minnesota Lynx and AHL games from the Iowa Wild as well.  The channel also broadcasts NCAA Division I collegiate sporting events from the Minnesota Golden Gophers and the North Dakota Fighting Hawks. Finally Bally Sports North airs Minnesota Vikings related material though it is limited to a pregame show airing on NFL Sundays a couple of hours before the game as well as replays of preseason action.

Bally Sports North also distributes some of its programming to Bally Sports Wisconsin, including a reduced schedule of Minnesota Wild games and competitions sanctioned by the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA). Due to blackout restrictions imposed by Major League Baseball and the NBA, Bally Sports North is not permitted to broadcast Milwaukee Brewers and Milwaukee Bucks games televised by Bally Sports Wisconsin.

Other Programming
Fox Sports North also aired outdoor programming under the FSN Outdoors banner.  This included fishing and hunting action.  Also included is a portion of the national schedule which includes the World Poker Tour as well as repeats of earlier national events on other Fox Sports branded channels.

Bally Sports North Extra
Bally Sports North operates Bally Sports North Extra as a 24-hour full-time HD channel that is used to carry additional programming including overflow live sports programming. Most providers carry the channel full-time, though some opt to carry it as a game-time only channel. Beginning in April 2021, Bally Sports North has been using Sinclair-owned WUCW as a third overflow channel to accommodate several dates when all three professional sports teams are scheduled to play at the same time. These broadcasts are branded as  Bally Sports Extra on The CW Twin Cities. For subscribers in the team's territories unable to access WUCW, these games will be offered on the Bally Sports app.

Former Programming
Bally Sports North previously had the right to the Minnesota United FC of Major League Soccer. It has carried telecasts of College Football and Basketball games from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Additionally, it aired Minnesota Golden Gophers ice hockey games, as well as college hockey games from the National Collegiate Hockey Conference schools the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs and the St. Cloud State Huskies.

On-air staff

Current

Minnesota Timberwolves
 Michael Grady – play-by-play announcer
 Jim Petersen – analyst
 Katie Storm – courtside reporter
 Marney Gellner – pregame/postgame host
 Rebekkah Brunson – pregame/postgame analyst
 Quincy Lewis – pregame/postgame analyst
 Kevin Lynch – pregame/postgame analyst

Minnesota Twins
 TBD – play-by-play announcer
 Chris Vosters – fill-in play-by-play announcer
 Cory Provus – fill-in play-by-play announcer
 Justin Morneau – analyst
 Jack Morris – analyst
 LaTroy Hawkins – analyst
 Anthony LaPanta – pregame/postgame host & fill-in play-by-play announcer
 Roy Smalley – pregame/postgame analyst
 Glen Perkins – pregame/postgame analyst
 Marney Gellner – on-field reporter
 Audra Martin – on-field reporter
 Katie Storm -- studio host
 Tim Laudner -- studio analyst

Minnesota Wild
 Anthony LaPanta – play-by-play announcer
 Ryan Carter – analyst
 Kevin Gorg – studio/rinkside analyst
 Wes Walz – studio analyst
 Tom Chorske – studio analyst
  Audra Martin – studio host

Minnesota Lynx
 Marney Gellner – Play-by-Play announcer
 Lea B Olson – analyst

Minnesota Vikings
(Preseason only)
 Paul Allen – play-by-play
 Pete Bercich – analyst
 Ben Leber – sideline reporter

Iowa Wild
 Joe O'Donnell – play-by-play

Other
 Ann Carroll – host/reporter

Former
 Dick Bremer – Twins play-by-play announcer
 Tom Hanneman – studio host (deceased)
 Bert Blyleven – Twins analyst
 Jamie Hersch – Twins/Wild studio host (now at NHL Network)
 Greg Coleman – Vikings sideline reporter (retired)
 Dave Benz – Timberwolves play-by-play announcer
 Callum Williams – Minnesota United play-by-play (now at Apple TV)
 Kyndra de St. Aubin – Minnesota United analyst (now at Apple TV)
 Charlie Beattie – Minnesota United sideline reporter/analyst
 Doug McLeod – University of Minnesota Hockey play-by-play announcer
 Ben Clymer – University of Minnesota Hockey analyst

References

External links

Fox Sports Networks
SportsChannel
Prime Sports
Television stations in Minneapolis–Saint Paul
Television channels and stations established in 1989
1989 establishments in Minnesota
Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023
Former CBS Corporation subsidiaries
Bally Sports

Bally Sports North


The Doctor of Management (DM or DMgt) is an applied research doctorate (or professional practice doctorate) with a degree focus in management, leadership, and organizational topics."

The intention of the DM is to advance the skills of professionals in research, analysis, theory, and practice in organizations. The DM combines theory and applied research to understand practical outcomes and implications of research in several different business environments.
Furthermore, a DM degree may enable holders to become faculty members at academic institutions.
The degree was first offered at Case Western Reserve University in 1995.

Program objectives
The primary aim of the Doctor of Management is to learn and understand managerial dilemmas and how to plan and implement changes and improvements in organizations as a leader, practitioner, and scholar within the respective business environment. This advanced knowledge entails practical leadership training and in-depth research in management topics with a focus on enhancing organizational effectiveness. Sometimes, the DM has an interdisciplinary style approach to management combining subjects in management, leadership, and business. In addition to learning a combination of advanced subjects, professionals pursuing a DM will learn how to conduct independent original research, analyze data, and critically evaluate theories. This body of knowledge helps the DM advance their careers in professional management, leadership, or education.

Curriculum and admission requirements
Most Doctor of Management programs require a master's degree in a related field for admission. Applicants may also need acceptable graduate admission scores (e.g. GMAT or GRE), personal essays, and letters of recommendation.

The curriculum for the Doctor of Management includes a variety of teaching and learning methods for personal and professional development including lectures, presentations, independent study, doctoral supervision, cohort format, workshops, seminars, residencies, and information technologies. The curriculum includes both coursework and research. Content courses normally include management, leadership, global business, organizational design, organizational behavior, psychology, sustainability, ethics, human resource management, communications, and employee development.

DM programs require a dissertation or a research project. Depending on the institution, the length of time to complete the DM program can be 3 to 5 years full-time. The overall intention of DM coursework is to create and understand the connection between theoretical and practical knowledge through cognitive, professional, and peer learning.
See .

See also
Doctorate
Professional Doctorate
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Academic Research

 Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)
 Doctor of Commerce (DCom)
 PhD in management

References

Business qualifications
Management
Management education

Doctor of Management


Frank Stokes (January 1, 1877 or 1888 – September 12, 1955) was an American blues musician, songster, and blackface minstrel, who is considered by many musicologists to be the father of the Memphis blues guitar style.

Biography
Stokes was born in Shelby County, Tennessee, in the vicinity of Whitehaven, located two miles north of the Mississippi state line. There is uncertainty over his year of birth; his daughter and later sources reported 1888, but the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc give 1877, the date on his World War I draft card.

His parents died when he was a child, and he was raised by his stepfather in Tutwiler, Mississippi. He learned to play the guitar as a youth in Tutwiler and, after 1895, in Hernando, Mississippi, which was the home of the guitarists Jim Jackson, Dan Sane, Elijah Avery (of Cannon's Jug Stompers), and Robert Wilkins. By the turn of the century, Stokes was working as a blacksmith, traveling 25 miles to Memphis on weekends to sing and play the guitar with Sane, with whom he formed a long-term musical partnership. Together, they busked on the streets and in Church's Park (now W. C. Handy Park) on Memphis's Beale Street in Memphis.

In the mid-1910s, Stokes joined another Mississippi musician, Garfield Akers, as a blackface songster, comedian, and buck dancer in the Doc Watts Medicine Show, a tent show that toured the South. During this period of touring, Stokes developed a professionalism that set him apart from many of the more rural, less polished blues musicians of that time and place. It is said that his performances on the southern minstrel and vaudeville circuit around this time influenced the country singer Jimmie Rodgers, who played the same circuit. Rodgers borrowed songs and song fragments from Stokes and was influenced stylistically as well.

Around 1920, Stokes settled in Oakville, Tennessee, where he went back to work as a blacksmith. He teamed up again with Sane, playing dances, picnics, fish fries, saloons, and parties in his free time. The two joined Jack Kelly's Jug Busters to play at white country clubs, parties, and dances. Stokes and Sane performed on Beale Street as the Beale Street Sheiks and first recorded under that name for Paramount Records in August 1927. Stokes eventually cut 38 sides for Paramount and Victor Records. "The fluid guitar interplay between Stokes and Sane, combined with a propulsive beat, witty lyrics, and Stokes's stentorian voice, make their recordings irresistible." Their duet style influenced the young Memphis Minnie in duets with her husband, Kansas Joe McCoy.

The Sheiks next recorded at a session for Victor Records in February 1928, at which Furry Lewis also recorded. At this session, the emphasis was on blues rather than the older songs that were also part of Stokes's repertoire. Stokes recorded again for Victor that August, playing "I Got Mine", one of a body of pre-blues songs about gambling, stealing and living high. He also recorded the more modern "Nehi Mama" (or "Nehi Mama Blues", also rendered as "Nehi Mamma Blues"), the title being a pun on the name of the Nehi soft drink and the knee-high skirts that were fashionable at the time. Sane joined Stokes for the second day of the August 1928 session, and they produced a two-part version of "Tain't Nobody's Business if I Do", a song well known in later versions by Bessie Smith and Jimmy Witherspoon but whose origin lies in the pre-blues era. The Sheiks also continued to busk on the streets and perform at parties.

In 1929, Stokes and Sane recorded again for Paramount, resuming their billing as the Beale Street Sheiks for a few cuts. In September, Stokes was back with Victor to make what were to be his last recordings, this time without Sane but with Will Batts playing the fiddle. Stokes and Batts were a team, as evidenced by these records, which are both traditional and wildly original, but their style had fallen out of favor with the record-buying public. Stokes was still a popular live performer, however, appearing in medicine shows, the Ringling Brothers Circus, and other tent shows and similar venues during the 1930s and 1940s.  In the 1940s, he moved to Clarksdale, Mississippi, and occasionally worked with Bukka White in local juke joints.

Stokes died of a stroke in Memphis on September 12, 1955. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery, in Memphis. In 2017, Frank Stokes was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.

Discography
Frank Stokes with Dan Sane & Will Bats 1927–1929 (Roots, 1968)
Creator of the Memphis Blues (Yazoo, 1977)
The Remaining Titles (Matchbox, 1984)
The Victor Recordings in Chronological Order 1928–1929 (Document, 1990)
The Best of Frank Stokes (Yazoo, 2005)
Downtown Blues (Monk, 2010)

Songs recorded by Stokes

"Ain't Goin' to Do Like I Used to Do"
"Beale Town Bound"
"Bedtime Blues"
"Blues in 'D'"
"Chicken You Can Roost Behind the Moon"
"Downtown Blues"
"Fillin' in Blues"
"Frank Stokes' Dream"
"Half Cup of Tea"
"How Long"
"Hunting Blues"
"I Got Mine"
"I'm Going Away Blues"
"It Won't Be Long Now"
"It's a Good Thing"
"Jazzin' the Blues"
"Jumpin on the Hill"
"Last Go Round"
"Memphis Rounders Blues"
"Mistreatin' Blues"
"Mr. Crump Don't Like It"
"Nehi Mama"
"Old Sometime Blues"
"Right Now Blues"
"Rockin' on the Hill Blues"
"South Memphis Blues"
"Sweet to Mama"
"Tain't Nobody's Business if I Do"
"Take Me Back"
"Wasn't That Doggin' Me"
"What's the Matter Blues"
"You Shall"

References

External links
Frank Stokes: Memphis School
How the Blues Affected Race Relations in the United States: Minstrel and Medicine Shows
Frank Stokes The Victor Recordings 1928–1929
 Illustrated Frank Stokes / Beale Street Sheiks discography

19th-century births
1955 deaths
Memphis blues musicians
African-American  male guitarists
American blues guitarists
American blues singers
Paramount Records artists
American street performers
Songster musicians
Singers from Tennessee
Vaudeville performers
Age controversies
Guitarists from Tennessee
Musicians from Clarksdale, Mississippi
People from Shelby County, Tennessee
People from Tutwiler, Mississippi
20th-century guitarists
20th-century African-American male singers

Frank Stokes (musician)


Edmond Spencer Blackburn (September 22, 1868March 10, 1912) was a Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina between 1901 and 1903 and 1905 and 1907.

Born near Boone, North Carolina, Blackburn attended common schools and became a lawyer. He was admitted to the bar in 1890 and practiced law in Jefferson, North Carolina. A clerk for the North Carolina Senate in 1894 and 1895, he was elected to the state house in 1896 and 1897, the second year serving as speaker pro tempore.

In 1898, he was named an assistant United States attorney, and two years later, was elected as a Republican to the United States House of Representatives. He ran unsuccessfully for re-election in 1902, but was elected to a second non-consecutive term in 1904 in the 59th U.S. Congress.

Declining to run again in 1906, Blackburn returned to his law practice in Greensboro, North Carolina and died in Elizabethtown in 1912; he is buried near his hometown of Boone.

External links

1868 births
1912 deaths
People from Watauga County, North Carolina
American people of Scottish descent
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina
Republican Party members of the North Carolina House of Representatives
Politicians from Greensboro, North Carolina
19th-century American politicians

Edmond Spencer Blackburn


Talis Group Ltd. is a software company based in Birmingham, England that develops software for higher education. They were previously involved in development of library management software and a Semantic Web application platform. In 2005 Talis was voted one of the top ICT Employers in the United Kingdom.

History

In 1969 a number of libraries founded a small co-operative project, based in Birmingham, to provide services that would help the libraries become more efficient. The project was known as the Birmingham Libraries Co-operative Mechanisation Project, or BLCMP, and included the library of the University of Birmingham. At this time the concept of library automation was so new that the term mechanisation was often used in its place.

BLCMP began a co-operative catalogue of bibliographic data at the start of its work, a database that now contains many millions of records. For this an adaptation of UKMARC coding was used. This shared approach to creating metadata is the forefather of later, Internet-based, community ventures such as IMDb, Freebase and others. But this was back in 1969 when shipping this data around involved printing cards and putting boxes on trucks. More libraries became members of BLCMP, e.g. many of the academic libraries of Manchester and Salford.

BLCMP moved into using microfiche and later IBM mainframes with dedicated terminals at libraries in the mid-seventies and was one of the first library automation vendors to provide a GUI on top of Microsoft Windows to provide a better interface for end-users. The integrated library system (ILS) was first called Talis after 'The Automated Library And Information System'.  Talis became the name of the company during re-structuring and the ILS became known as Alto. In 1995 Talis was the first library systems vendor to produce a web-enabled public access catalogue. The library of the University of Sheffield became the 50th customer to choose the Talis library system  in 1996.

During the first decade of the 3rd millennium, much of Talis's work focused on the transition of information to the web, specifically the Semantic Web, and Talis has led much of the debate about how Web 2.0 attitudes affect traditional libraries. Alongside semantic web developments Talis launched Talis Education Ltd, a business focused on products in Higher Education learning, and Kasabi, a data marketplace.

In March 2011 Talis sold its library management division to Capita Group.  The division was sold for a reported £18.5 million plus a further £2.5 million depending on the company's profitability in the following financial year. The company moved its headquarters from Solihull to central Birmingham.

Following the sale of its library management business Talis experimented with a semantic web and data marketplace business alongside the rapidly establishing education business. A tough economic climate required Talis to focus its investment, therefore they announced in July 2012 that investment in the semantic web and data marketplace areas would cease. All efforts are now concentrated on the education business.

Talis Aspire, the company's enterprise teaching and learning platform, is now in use by over 1 million students at 93 universities across 8 countries, including over 65% of all UK universities.

Talis was acquired by SAGE Publications in 2018.

See also
 Copac
 Library 2.0
 SUNCAT

References

Further reading
 Stubley, P. (1988). BLCMP: a guide for librarians and systems managers. Aldershot, Hants, England: Gower.
 Birmingham; Buckle, David, & BLCMP. (1974). Birmingham libraries co-operative mechanisation project: research and development programme, January 1969 to March 1975 : a background paper.
 Birmingham Libraries Co-operative Mechanisation Project, & Buckle, D. G. R. (1976). Birmingham Libraries Co-operative Mechanisation Project final report. Birmingham: BLCMP. (David Buckle became the first manager of BLCMP.)

External links
 Talis Group Ltd.—company homepage

Companies based in Birmingham, West Midlands
Semantic Web companies
Software companies of the United Kingdom
Library automation
Library cataloging and classification
Library-related organizations
Software companies established in 1969
1969 establishments in England
Employee-owned companies of the United Kingdom
British companies established in 1969
Science and technology in the West Midlands (county)

Talis Group