Tractor vaporising oil (or TVO) is a fuel for petrol-paraffin ingines. In the United Kinrick an Australie, efter the Seicont Warld War, it wis commonly uised for tractors until diesel ingines became commonplace. In Australian Inglis it wis kent as power kerosene.

History
TVO existit for at least fifteen years afore it became widely uised. A 1920 publication mentions it as a product o Breetish Petroleum. But it wis nae until the late 1930s that it first became widely uised. The post war Ferguson TE20 tractor, a carefully researched an near-ideal tractor for uise on Breetish farms, wis designed aroond a petrol (gasoline) ingine, the Standard inline-fower. Awtho thare wis a campaign for the reintroduction o agricultural Road Duty (tax)-free petrol, which haed been curtailed during the war, this wis nae forthcoming. Perkins Engines supplied some conversions intae diesel ingines which coud uise untaxed reid diesel.

On the early Fordson model N, the tap which changed ower frae petrol tae TVO wis merked G for gasoline an K for kerosene, reflecting that thir tractors haed thair design origin in the USA. In the UK tractor vaporising oil wis uisually cried TVO.

Octane rating
As a substitute for petrol, TVO wis developed. Paraffin (kerosene) wis commonly uised as a domestic heating fuel an wis untaxed. Paraffin haes a law octane rating an wad damage an ingine biggit for petrol. The manufacture o paraffin involves the removal o aromatic hydrocarbons frae what is nou sauld as heating oil. Thir aromatics hae an octane rating, sae adding some o that otherwise waste product material back in a controlled manner intae paraffin gae TVO. The resultin octane rating o TVO wis somewhere atween 55 an 70.

 Octane ratings o various fuels

 Octane ratings o petrol/heating oil mixtures

 pbv = pairts bi volume

The words paraffin an kerosene are eften uised interchangeably but the tables suggest that this is incorrect acause thay hae different octane ratings. Houiver, kerosene an heating oil hae seemilar octane ratings. Paraffin, kerosene an petrol (gasoline) are aw rather loosely defined. For ensaumple, gasoline mey hae an octane rating atween 95 an 102.

Ingine modifications

Compression ratio
Because TVO haes a lawer octane rating than petrol, the ingine needs a lawer compression ratio. On the TVO version o the Ferguson TE20 tractor, the cylinder heid wis re-designed tae reduce the compression ratio tae 4.5:1.  This reduced the power output, sae the cylinder bore wis increased tae 85 mm tae restore the power. The petrol version haed a compression ratio o 5.77:1 an a cylinder bore o 80 mm on early versions..

Vaporiser
In practice TVO haed maist o the properties o paraffin, includin the need for heating tae encourage vapourisation. As a result, the exhaust an inlet manifolds war adapted sae that mair heat frae the umwhile warmed the latter. Sic a setup wis cried a vaporiser. Tae get the tractor tae stairt frae cauld, a smaw seicont fuel tank wis added that contained petrol. The tractor wis stairtit on the expensive petrol, then – ance the ingine wis warm – the fuel supply switched ower tae TVO or paraffin. Sae lang as the ingine wis wirkin haurd, as when ploughing or pulling a load, the TVO wad burn well. Unner licht conditions, sic as travelling unloaded on the highway, the ingine wis better on petrol.

Radiator blind
Some tractor designs included a radiator "blind" that wad restrict the flow o air ower the radiator which led tae the ingine running hetter, which coud help wi stairtin. If the radiator blind wis left shut, tho, thare wis a risk o ingine damage, especially in warm wather.

Terminology
The phrase petrol-paraffin ingine is eften uised tae describe an ingine that uses TVO. This can be interpreted aither as

 the use of the two fuels, starting on petrol then switching to the paraffin-based TVO
 the use of a mixture of petrol and paraffin as a substitute for the proper TVO

Supply
TVO wis withdrawn frae sale bi UK suppliers in 1974 but haes been re-introduced bi at least ane supplier (Rye Oil Ltd). An approximation tae the correct specification can be made frae petrol an heating oil (burning oil). In the UK thare is an exception that permits the uise o rebated kerosene an fuel oils in vintage vehicles.

Notes and references

Fuels
Internal combustion piston ingines
Iles
Petroleum products
Tractors

Tractor vapourisin ile


Geureudong or Bur ni Geureudong or Bur ni Telong is a stratovolcanic complex in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The official name of the whole complex is confusing between the two adjacent volcanoes: Bur ni Geureudong and Bur ni Telong. Two other volcanic cones are Salah Nama and Pepanji, and there are small sediment hills. Bur ni Geureudong has been eroded since the Pleistocene age, but has solfatara and hot springs on its flanks. Bur ni Telong is located in the south of Bur ni Geureudong. Bur ni Telong has active crater that lava flows are exposed in the southern flank.

See also

 List of volcanoes in Indonesia

References

Volcanoes of Sumatra
Stratovolcanoes of Indonesia
Mountains of Sumatra
Complex volcanoes
Pleistocene stratovolcanoes

Geureudong


The Williams–Linscott House was a historic First Period house at 357 William Street in Stoneham, Massachusetts.  The oldest part of the house was said to date to c. 1712, but it is unclear to which part of the house this referred, on account of major alterations the house in the 18th and 19th centuries.  It is believed to have begun as a four-room two-story structure built around a central chimney.  This underwent significant alteration during the Federal period, including replacing the center chimney with smaller side chimneys, and the construction of four more rooms in front of the original four.  Sometime around 1850 Micah Williams, a prosperous farmer, again refashioned the house in the then-popular Italianate style.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.  It was demolished in 2004, although architectural elements of the house were salvaged and reused elsewhere.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Stoneham, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Middlesex County, Massachusetts

References

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Stoneham, Massachusetts
Georgian architecture in Massachusetts
Italianate architecture in Massachusetts
Houses completed in 1712
Demolished buildings and structures in Massachusetts
Buildings and structures demolished in 2004

Williams–Linscott House


Sanjiv Bhattacharya is a British journalist, based in the US. He was born in London and graduated from the University of Cambridge where he studied philosophy. His book Secrets and Wives: The Hidden World of Mormon Polygamy explores the polygamy west, including the Kingstons, who for over a century have also practiced incest breeding techniques, believing they are descendants from Abraham and Jesus.

A former features editor and current contributing editor for British GQ, he has written for several magazines and newspapers including The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Los Angeles Times, Marie Claire, Maxim and Details. He writes generally about social issues, fringe groups, the entertainment industry and boxing.

In 2006, he wrote and presented the Channel Four documentary The Man With 80 Wives, about Warren Jeffs, the fugitive prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He was subsequently commissioned by Simon & Schuster to write a book of investigative journalism about Mormon polygamy.

In 2008, he was appointed Editor of GQ India.

He lives in Los Angeles, California.

References

British male journalists
Living people
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Year of birth missing (living people)

Sanjiv Bhattacharya


Božena Benešová, née Zapletalová (30 November 1873 – 8 April 1936), was a Czech author and poet whose work is considered to have been at the forefront of psychological prose. The greater part of her youth was spent in Uherské Hradiště and Napajedla, where in 1896 she married a railway clerk named Josef Beneš. In 1908 she and her husband moved to Prague.

Life
Benešová and her husband divorced in 1912 but continued living together until his death in 1933. Her friendship with the writer Růžena Svobodová, whom she met in 1902 in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm, had a tremendous influence on her life. Svobodová helped Benešová to overcome a resigned melancholia after the wedding and supported her as a writer. The friends corresponded prolifically, Svobodová visited Benešová in Moravia, and they traveled together to Italy (e.g., in 1903 and in 1907). Their friendship lasted until Svobodová's death in 1920. Svobodová had had the effect of a disciplinarian on Benešová (as she had earlier had on actress/writer Hana Kvapilová), overseeing that she read and write daily and compelling her to finish her manuscripts. Svobodová introduced Benešová to František Xaver Šalda, a Francophilic Czech literary critic who would have profound national influence during the interwar period and who is now viewed as the founder of modern Czech criticism. According to Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer, "The novelist Marie Pujmanová, who was a fairly close friend of Benešová's after the Great War, relates that young Benešová had enthusiastically read Dostoyevsky and Maupassant, but that, under the guidance of F. X. Šalda, she came to admire Flaubert even more."

On their second trip to Italy, in 1907, they were accompanied by the renowned Czech poet, essayist, leader of the Realist movement and master of colloquial Czech Josef Svatopluk Machar. In 1907 and 1908 Benesova edited the supplement "Woman in Arts" in the newspaper Female Revue ("a resource for women's issues, ethnicity, culture and society"). This experience opened doors to future collaborations with other magazines, e.g., Masaryk's New Era. At this point in 1908 the family resolved to move from Moravia to Prague.
During the war years, 1914–18, Benešová completed two books of short stories, Mice and Cruel Youth, and set to work on her largest literary work, the two-part novel A Human Being.
In 1926 she commenced work as a secretary and librarian at the German YWCA where she eventually headed a summer camp, the starting point of her financial security. Benešová was very popular with the young women at YWCA, who formed an inner group called the "Božena Benešová girls." (A decade later, when she was gravely ill, it was to these same Božena Benešová girls that she dictated the final chapter of her final work Don Pablo, Don Pedro and Věra Lukášová.)

From 1932 onward Benešová was a regular member of the Czech Academy of Arts and Sciences. She died on 8 April 1936 in her Prague-Bubeneč home and is interred beside her companion / erstwhile husband Josef Beneš at the neighborhood cemetery Hřbitovní správa Bubeneč.

During the remainder of the 1930s the feverishly inventive polymath Emil František Burian, a well-known exponent of the Devětsil (or Svaz moderní kultury Devětsil) Czech avant-garde association in the 1920s, produced and directed a film adaptation of Benešová's swansong novel, which premiered as Vera Lukášová in 1939, starring Jiřina Stránská in the title role. A 1962 edition of the same novel, Don Pablo, Don Pedro and Věra Lukášová—and other stories, included the posthumous short story "Povídka s dobrým koncem" (A Story with a Happy Ending), which in 1986 was adapted as a TV movie for Česká televize featuring Ivana Chýlková, Vlasta Fialová, Radovan Lukavský, Oldřich Navrátil, Jaroslav Dušek and Stanislav Zindulka. As evidenced in Don Pablo, Don Pedro and Věra Lukášová, as well as in later works such as the story collections Myška and Kruté mládí, narratives about children form an important aspect of Benešová's prose work.

Work

By and large, Benešová's characters are young people from small towns who experience an inner struggle with loneliness and selfishness. Following in Benešová's footsteps were a bevy of younger writers such as Marie Majerová and Marie Pujmanová. After Benešová's death, the literary critic Paul Buzková became the first editor of her work.

Poetry collections
 Verse True and Untrue (1909)
 Verse (1938)

Novels
 A Human Being (1919–20), a novel in two parts
 The Blow (1926), Pt. 1 of the Úder trilogy
 Underground Flames (1929), Pt. 2 of the Úder trilogy
 Rainbow of Tragedy (1933), Pt. 3 of the Úder trilogy
 Don Pablo, Don Pedro and Věra Lukášová (1936)

Short story collections
 Three Tales (1914)
 Mice: Tales from 1909-13 (1916)
 Cruel Youth (1917)
 Silent Girls (1922)
 The Beguiled: A Book of Stories (1923)
 Boys: Stories about Children (1927)

Plays
 Dramas (1937), including "Bitter Drink," "Clairvoyant" and "Golden Sheep"

Film and television adaptations
 Vera Lukášová (1939), dir. E. F. Burian
 Povídka s dobrým koncem (1986), dir. P. Tuček

References

External links

1873 births
1936 deaths
Czech feminists
Czech women short story writers
Czech short story writers
Czech women novelists
Czech women dramatists and playwrights
Czech women poets
20th-century Czech poets
20th-century women writers
20th-century short story writers
20th-century Czech novelists
20th-century Czech dramatists and playwrights
People from Nový Jičín
Poets from Austria-Hungary

Božena Benešová


The Sixteenth United States Census was done by the Census Bureau.  It found the  population of the United States to be 132,164,569.  This was an increase of 7.3 percent from the 1930 population.  The census date of record was April 1, 1940.

A number of new questions were asked.  These included where people were 5 years before, highest level of education, and information about wages.

1940
1940s in the United States
United States Census

1940 United States Census


Bught Park (Gaelic: Pàirc nam Bochd ) is the largest park in the city of Inverness, Scotland, and is situated on the western bank of the River Ness. It is home to the Inverness Highland Games and a small scale outdoor music festival. It is located next to the city's sports centre, swimming pool and BMX track.  The Bught Park is also the name for the sports stadium situated within the confines of the park which regularly hosts both the Camanachd Cup Final and the Composite Rules Shinty/Hurling Internationals and is considered one of the finest parks in shinty. It is also home to Inverness Shinty Club who have played there since the 1920s. The park is situated on land that was formerly the Bught House estate. An 18th century stately home on the site was demolished for the creation of the Ice Centre in the 1960s.

The capacity of the stadium is 5000, comprising standing and the wooden grandstand. The stadium was the centre of controversy in June 2009 when Highland Council, having evicted Inverness City from the Northern Meeting Park offered the use of the facility to the football team without consulting with the shinty club.

References

Geography of Inverness
Sports venues in Inverness
Parks in Highland (council area)
Shinty venues
Scottish Women's Premier League venues

Bught Park


Alexander Starne (November 21, 1813 – March 31, 1886) was an American politician from Pennsylvania. He moved to Illinois as a young man and rose to become both 12nd Secretary of State of Illinois and 12nd Treasurer of State of Illinois.

Biography
Alexander Starne was born on November 21, 1813, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended public schools until he was sixteen and then became a clerk at the T. W. Dyott drug store. After working there for seven years, he moved to Alton, Illinois, in 1836. He soon relocated to Griggsville, where he opened a general merchandise store. Starne was elected Commissioner of Pike County in 1839 and served for three years. He was then elected as a Democrat to the Illinois House of Representatives, where he served two two-year terms.

Starne moved to Pittsfield and was appointed Clerk of the Pike County Circuit Court. He was elected Illinois Secretary of State in 1852, serving one term under Governor Joel Aldrich Matteson. When the Republican Party came to power in 1856, Starne was replaced with a Republican candidate. He was a delegate at large to the 1856 Presidential Election, supporting Stephen A. Douglas and John A. Quitman. Douglas later withdrew in favor of eventual nominees James Buchanan, who won. Starne became President of the Hannibal and Naples Railroad in 1856, moving back to Griggsville. He saw through the completion of the railroad, which later became part of the Wabash Railway. Starne chaired the State Democratic Convention in 1858.

In 1861, Starne was elected a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention. The next year, he was elected Illinois Treasurer, a position he held for one year under Republican governor Richard Yates Sr. Starne moved to Springfield, the state capitol, where he spent the rest of his life. Starne was selected as an at-large delegate to the 1864 Presidential Election, supporting George B. McClellan, the eventual nominee. He supported John D. Caton as vice presidential nominee. He was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1870 and served two two-year terms. Starne was also the longtime owner of the West End Coal Mines as Starne & Sons.

He married Rebecca Hatch on September 23, 1840. She died six years later and Starne remarried to Elvira S. Swetland. He had one daughter by his first marriage and three sons and one daughter by his second. He died on March 31, 1886, and is buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery.

References

1813 births
1886 deaths
Secretaries of State of Illinois
Democratic Party members of the Illinois House of Representatives
Democratic Party Illinois state senators
Politicians from Philadelphia
State treasurers of Illinois
19th-century American politicians
People from Pittsfield, Illinois
People from Griggsville, Illinois

Alexander Starne


Masters M40 javelin throw world record progression is the progression of world record improvements of the javelin throw M40 division of Masters athletics.  Records must be set in properly conducted, official competitions under the standing IAAF rules unless modified by World Masters Athletics.

The M40 division consists of male athletes who have reached the age of 40 but have not yet reached the age of 45, so exactly from their 40th birthday to the day before their 45th birthday. The M40 division throws an 800 g implement.  These competitors threw their world record performances in Open competition.

Key

References

Masters Athletics Javelin Throw list
All Time Athletics

Masters athletics world record progressions
Javelin


Óscar Valentín Martín Luengo (born 20 August 1994) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder for La Liga club Rayo Vallecano.

Career
Born in Ajofrín, Toledo, Castile-La Mancha, Valentín finished his formation with CF Rayo Majadahonda, and made his senior debut during the 2012–13 campaign, in Tercera División. In 2013, he moved to fellow fourth division side Fútbol Alcobendas Sport.

In July 2014, Valentín joined Rayo Vallecano and was immediately loaned back to Alcobendas. Upon returning, he was assigned to the reserves also in the fourth division.

On 23 July 2016, Valentín joined Alcobendas on a permanent basis. The following 1 July, he returned to his former club Rayo Majadahonda, now assigned to the first team in Segunda División B.

Valentín was a regular starter during the 2017–18 campaign, contributing with 33 league appearances as his side achieved promotion to Segunda División for the first time ever. He made his professional debut on 19 August 2018, starting in a 2–1 away loss against Real Zaragoza.

Valentín scored his first professional goal on 12 May 2019, but in a 3–2 home loss against Albacete Balompié. He finished the campaign as an undisputed starter, as his team was immediately relegated back.

On 25 June 2019, Valentín signed a four-year contract with Rayo Vallecano.

Career statistics

Club

References

External links

1994 births
Living people
Footballers from the Province of Toledo
Spanish men's footballers
Men's association football midfielders
La Liga players
Segunda División players
Segunda División B players
Tercera División players
CD Paracuellos Antamira players
Rayo Vallecano B players
CF Rayo Majadahonda players
Rayo Vallecano players

Óscar Valentín


Agriculture in Saudi Arabia is focused on the export of dates, dairy products, eggs, fish, poultry, fruits, vegetables, and flowers to markets around the world as it has achieved self-sufficiency in the production of such products. The government of Saudi Arabia is heavily involved in the agriculture industry and subsidizing corporate farming and the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture is primarily responsible for the agricultural policies in the nation. The private sector also plays a role in the nation's agriculture, as the government offers long-term interest-free loans and low-cost water, fuel, electricity, and duty-free imports of raw materials and machinery.

Although Saudi Arabia is widely thought of as a desert, it has regions where the climate has favoured agriculture. Rain falls in winter every year in Saudi Arabia but with an average of maximum 100mm except in the Southern area of the country. The government, in particular, has aided with this process by converting large areas of desert into agricultural fields. By implementing major irrigation projects and adopting large-scale mechanization, this has progressed in developing agriculture in the country, adding previously barren areas to the stock of cultivatable land.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recommends in a report that paying extra consideration on creating and nurturing the agrosystem in the desert may lead to an interference in the ecosystem of the desert which would lead to unpleasant results.

Production
In 2018, Saudi Arabia produced:

 1,300,000 tons of date (2nd largest producer in the world, behind only Egypt);
 634,000 tons of watermelon;
 624,000 tons of barley;
 586,000 tons of wheat;
 482,000 tons of potato;
 312,000 tons of tomato;
 144,000 tons of sorghum;
 115,000 tons of cucumber;

This is in addition to smaller quantities of other agricultural products, such as a few fruit orchards.

History

During the 1970s and 1980s, the government undertook a massive restructuring of agriculture in Saudi Arabia. The stated objectives were food security through self-sufficiency and improvement of rural incomes. Although successful in raising the domestic output of several important crops and foodstuffs through the introduction of modern agricultural techniques, the agricultural development program has not entirely achieved these objectives. In regards to self-sufficiency, the kingdom produced a limited surplus, sufficient to export some quantities of food. However, if the entire production process were considered, the import of fertilizers, equipment, and labor have made the Kingdom even more dependent on foreign inputs to bring food to the average Saudi household.

Two patterns of income distribution emerged: traditional agricultural regions did not benefit from the development program, and the government's financial support led to the establishment of large-scale agricultural production units. Some of these were managed and operated by foreign entities and owned by wealthy individuals and large businesses. From an environmental viewpoint, the program had a less than satisfactory impact. Not only has it caused a serious drain on the kingdom's water resources, drawing mainly from non-renewable aquifers, but it has also required the use of massive amounts of chemical fertilizers to boost yields. In 1992 Saudi agricultural strategy was only sustainable as long as the government maintained a high level of direct and indirect subsidies, a drain on its budget and external accounts.

The contribution of agriculture to the gross domestic product (GDP) in 1984 was 3.3%. In 2001, it increased to 5.1%, but it was due to decline in oil revenues.

Traditional agriculture and pastoral nomadism

In the past, the bulk of agricultural production was concentrated in a few limited areas. The produce was largely retained by these communities although some surplus was sold to the cities. Nomads played a crucial role in this regard, shipping foods and other goods between the widely dispersed agricultural areas. Livestock rearing was shared between the sedentary communities and nomads, who also used it to supplement their precarious livelihoods.

The water supply in Saudi Arabia, and specifically the lack of water has always been the major constraint on agriculture and the determining factor on where cultivation occurred. The kingdom has no natural rivers. Rainfall is slight and irregular over most of the country. Only in the southwest, in the mountains of 'Asir, close to the Yemen border and accounting for three percent of the land area, was rainfall sufficient to support regular crops. This region plus the southern Tihamah coastal plains sustained subsistence farming. Cropping in the rest of the country was scattered and dependent on irrigation. Along the western coast and in the western highlands, groundwater from wells and springs provided adequate water for self-supporting farms and, to some extent, for commercial production. Moving east, in the central and northern parts of the interior, Najd and An Nafud, some groundwater allowed limited farming. The Eastern Province supported the most extensive plantation economy. The major oasis centered around Al Hasa, which enjoyed high water tables, natural springs, and relatively good soils, and can even produce rice.

Historically, the limited arable land and the near absence of grassland forced those raising livestock into a nomadic pattern to take advantage of what forage was available. Only in summer, the year's driest time, did the nomad keep his animals around an oasis or well for water and forage. The Bedouin developed special skills knowing where rain had fallen and forage was available to feed their animals and where they could find water en route to various forage areas.

Traditionally, the Bedouin were not self-sufficient but needed some food and materials from agricultural settlements. The near constant movement required to feed their animals limited other activities, such as weaving. The settled farmers and traders needed the nomads to tend camels. Nomads would graze and breed animals belonging to sedentary farmers in return for portions of the farmers' produce. Bedouin groups contracted to provide protection to the agricultural and market areas they frequented in return for such provisions as dates, cloth, and equipment. Bedouin further supplemented their income by taxing caravans for passage and protection through their territory.

Bedouin themselves needed protection. Operating in small independent groups of a few households, they were vulnerable to raids by other nomads and therefore formed larger groups, such as tribes. The tribe was responsible for avenging attacks on any of its members. Tribes established territories that they defended vigorously. Within the tribal area, wells and springs were found and developed. Generally, the developers of a water source, such as a well, retained rights to it unless they abandoned it. This system created problems for nomads because many years might elapse between visits to a well they had dug. If people from another tribe just used the well, the first tribe could frequently establish that the well was in territory where they had primary rights; but if another tribe improved the well, primary rights became difficult to establish. By the early twentieth century, control over land, water rights, and intertribal and intratribal relationships were highly developed and complex.

Modern agriculture

Nomadic pastoralism declined as a result of several political and economic forces. Sedentarization was a means of imposing political control over various tribal groupings in the Arabian Peninsula. New legal structures such as the 1968 Public Lands Distribution Ordinance created novel land relations and spurred the dissolution of the Bedouin way of life. The establishment of an activist modern state provided incentives for large numbers of Saudi citizens to enter the regular, wage-based, or urban commercial employment. Moreover, modern technology and new transport networks undermined the primitive services that the Bedouin offered the rest of the economy.

Until the 1970s, sedentary agriculture saw few changes and declined in the face of foreign imports, urban drift, and lack of investment. The use of modern inputs remained relatively limited. Introduction of mechanical pumping in certain areas led to a modest level of commercial production, usually in locations close to urban centers. Nevertheless, regional distribution of agricultural activity remained relatively unchanged, as did the average holding size and patterns of cultivation.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the government undertook a multifaceted program to modernize and commercialize agriculture, in order to improve the nation's agricultural industry. Indirect support involved substantial expenditures on infrastructure, which included electricity supply, irrigation, drainage, secondary road systems and other transportation facilities for distributing and marketing produce. Land distribution was also an integral part of the program. The 1968 Public Lands Distribution Ordinance allocated 5 to 100 hectares of fallow land to individuals at no cost, up to 400 hectares to companies and organizations, and a limit of 4,000 hectares for special projects. The beneficiaries were required to develop a minimum of 25 percent of the land within a set period of time  (usually two to five years); thereafter, full ownership was transferred. In FY 1989, the total area distributed stood at more than 1.5 million hectares. Of this total area 7,273 special agricultural projects accounted for just under 860,000 hectares, or 56.5 percent; 67,686 individuals received just under 400,000 hectares or 26.3 percent; 17 agricultural companies received slightly over 260,000 hectares, or 17.2 percent. Judging from these statistics, the average fallow land plot given to individuals was 5.9 hectares, 118 hectares to projects, and 15,375 hectares to companies, the latter being well over the limit of 400 hectares specified in the original plans.

The government also mobilized substantial financial resources to support the raising of crops and livestock during the 1970s and 1980s. The main institutions involved were the Ministry of Agriculture and Water, the Saudi Arabian Agricultural Bank (SAAB) and the Grain Silos and Flour Mills Organization (GSFMO). SAAB provided interest-free loans to farmers; during FY 1989, for example, 26.6 percent of loans were for well drilling and casing, 23 percent for agricultural projects, and the balance for the purchase of farm machinery, pumps, and irrigation equipment. SAAB also provided subsidies for buying other capital inputs.

GSFMO implemented the official procurement program, purchasing locally produced wheat and barley at guaranteed prices for domestic sales and exports. The procurement price was steadily reduced during the 1980s because of massive overproduction and for budgetary reasons, but it was substantially higher than international prices. By the late 1980s, the procurement price for wheat, for example, was three times the international price. Although quantity restrictions were implemented to limit procurement, pressures from a growing farm lobby led to ceiling-price waivers. Moreover, the government encountered considerable fraud with imports being passed off as domestic production. To control this situation, the government has granted import monopolies for some agricultural products to the GSFMO, while procurement and import subsidies on certain crops have been shifted to encourage a more diversified production program. Finally, agricultural and water authorities provided massive subsidies in the form of low-cost desalinated water, and electric companies were required to supply power at reduced charges.

The program prompted a huge response from the private sector, with average annual growth rates well above those programmed. These growth rates were underpinned by a rapid increase in land brought under cultivation and agricultural production. Private investments went mainly into expanding the area planted for wheat. Between 1983 and 1990, the average annual increase of new land brought under wheat cultivation rose by 14 percent. A 35 percent increase in yields per ton during this period further boosted wheat output; total production rose from 1.4 million tons per year in FY 1983 to 3.5 million tons in FY 1989. To put the sheer volume in perspective, exports were lifted to the point where Saudi Arabia was the sixth largest wheat exporter in the early 1990s.

The kingdom's most dramatic agricultural accomplishment, noted worldwide, was its rapid transformation from importer to exporter of wheat. In 1978, the country built its first grain silos. By 1984, it had become self-sufficient in wheat. Shortly thereafter, Saudi Arabia began exporting wheat to some 30 countries, including China and the former Soviet Union, and in the major producing areas of Tabuk, Hail, and Qasim, average yields reached . As of 2016, in the interest of preserving precious water resources, domestic production of wheat ended. The kingdom has, however, stepped up fruit and vegetable production, by improving both agricultural techniques and the roads that link farmers with urban consumers. Saudi Arabia is a major exporter of fruits and vegetables to its neighbours. Among its most productive crops are watermelon, grapes, citrus fruits, onions, squash, and tomatoes. At Jizan in the country's well-watered southwest, the Al-Hikmah Research Station is producing tropical fruits including pineapples, paw-paws, bananas, mangoes, and guavas.

Other food grains also benefited from private investment. For example, output growth rates for sorghum and barley accelerated even faster than wheat during the 1980s, although the overall amount produced was much smaller. During the 1980s, farmers also experimented with new varieties of vegetables and fruits but with only modest success. More traditional crops, like onions and dates, did not fare as well and their output declined or remained flat.

In 2018, the Saudi Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture adopted a new plan that aims at boosting organic farming in the country. The aim of the plan is to increase organic agricultural by 300 percent and the allocated budget is US$200 million.

In the 1970s, increasing incomes in urban areas stimulated the demand for meat and dairy products, but by the early 1980s government programs were only partially successful in increasing domestic production. Bedouin continued to raise a large number of sheep and goats. Payments for increased flocks, however, had not resulted in a proportionate increase of animals for slaughter. Some commercial feedlots for sheep and cattle had been established as well as a few modern ranches, but by the early 1980s, much of the meat consumed was imported. Although the meat supply was still largely imported in the early 1990s, domestic production of meat had grown by 33 percent between 1984 and 1990, from 101,000 tons to 134,000 tons. This increase, however, masked the dominant role of traditional farms in supplying meat. Although new projects accounted for some of the rapid growth during the 1980s, a sharp decline of roughly 74 percent in beef stock production by specialized projects during 1989 resulted in only a 15 percent fall in meat output. This reversal also highlighted the problems in introducing modern commercial livestock-rearing techniques to the Kingdom.

Commercial poultry farms, however, greatly benefited from government incentives and grew rapidly during the 1980s. Chickens were usually raised in controlled climatic conditions. Despite the doubling of output, as a result of the rapid rise in chicken consumption, which had become a major staple of the Saudi diet, domestic production constituted less than half of total demand. Egg production also increased rapidly during the 1980s. The numbers of broiler chickens increased from 143 million in 1984 to 270 million in 1990, while production of eggs increased from 1,852 million in 1984 to 2,059 million in 1990.

Fishing, however, was an underdeveloped aspect of the Saudi economy despite the abundance of fish and shellfish in coastal waters. The major reasons for the small size of this sector were the limited demand for fish and the comparative lack of fish marketing and processing facilities. Iraqi actions in releasing crude oil into the Persian Gulf during the Gulf War caused appreciable damage to fish and wildlife in the gulf. Data concerning postwar catches were not available in late 1992, but in 1989 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimated Saudi Arabia's total catch at more than 53,000 tons.

Saudi Arabia is suffering from a major depletion of the water in its underground aquifers and a resultant break down and disintegration of its agriculture as a consequence. As a result of the catastrophe, Saudi Arabia has bought agricultural land in the United States, Argentina, Indonesia, Thailand, and Africa. Saudi Arabia is ranked as a major buyer of agricultural land in foreign countries.

References

External links

EarthTrends: Agriculture and Food - Saudi Arabia
Country studies
Agriculture in Saudi Arabia
 Saudi Arabia Ministry of Agriculture

Agriculture in Saudi Arabia


Thomas Edward Hett Heywood (29 November 1877 – 26 November 1953) was a British engineer. During his career, he worked for the Taff Vale Railway, the Burma Railway Company, the Great North of Scotland Railway and the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER).

Career
He trained at the Taff Vale Railway under Tom Hurry Riches and won a Whitworth Exhibition gold medal for engineering in 1899. He then worked as a draughtsman and inspector at Cardiff. In 1902, he became Assistant Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Superintendent of the Burma Railway Company. After returning from Burma he again worked for the Taff Vale Railway as Junior Assistant Superintendent at Penarth Dock. In 1914, he became Locomotive Superintendent of the Great North of Scotland Railway.  After the 1923 Grouping, Heywood's post ceased to exist but he became Running Superintendent of the Northern Scottish Area of the LNER.

Innovations
Heywood expanded the use of superheating on the GNSR, and created a new class of superheated 4-4-0 locomotives which became the LNER Class D40.

Retirement and death
He retired in June 1942 and died at Aberdeen in November 1953.

References

External links

British railway mechanical engineers
Locomotive builders and designers
1953 deaths
1877 births
British expatriates in British Burma

Thomas Heywood (railway engineer)


Tom Melvin (born October 1, 1961) is an American football coach who is the tight ends coach for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL). His cousin, Bob Melvin, is manager of the San Diego Padres.

Playing career

Early years
Melvin attended Ellwood P. Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California and lettered in football and soccer. He graduated from Cubberley High School in 1979.

College
Melvin attended San Francisco State University, where he played football as an offensive lineman. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in physical education.  He earned a master's degree in educational administration while he coached at Northern Arizona University.

Coaching career

College
Melvin's first coaching job was as a graduate assistant at San Francisco State University.  He then coached at Northern Arizona University, where he tutored tight end Shawn Collins.

After this, he coached at University of California, Santa Barbara.  UCSB's offense was ranked fifth during Melvin's tenure in 1989, and Melvin coached five All-America selections.

Following UCSB, Melvin coached at Occidental College for eight years, as offensive coordinator and offensive line coach.

Professional
In 1999, Melvin joined the Philadelphia Eagles coaching staff, serving for three seasons as the offensive assistant/quality control coach before moving to his current position as tight ends coach. In 2019, Melvin won his first Super Bowl when the Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 in Super Bowl LIV. In 2022, Melvin won his second Super Bowl when the Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 in Super Bowl LVII.

References

External links
Philadelphia Eagles bio

1961 births
Living people
Kansas City Chiefs coaches
Northern Arizona University alumni
People from Redwood City, California
Philadelphia Eagles coaches
San Francisco State University alumni

Tom Melvin


The Ongud (also spelled Ongut or Öngüt; Mongolian: Онгуд, Онход; Chinese: 汪古, Wanggu; from Old Turkic öng "desolate, uninhabited; desert" plus güt "class marker") were a Turkic tribe that later became Mongolized active in what is now Inner Mongolia in northern China around the time of Genghis Khan (1162–1227). Many Ongud were members of the Church of the East. They lived in an area lining the Great Wall in the northern part of the Ordos Plateau and territories to the northeast of it. They appear to have had two capitals, a northern one at the ruin known as Olon Süme and another a bit to the south at a place called Koshang or Dongsheng. They acted as wardens of the marches for the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) to the north of Shanxi.

History and origin
The ancestors of the Ongud were the Shatuo Turks, who, in turn, descended mainly from the two remnant tribes of Western Turkic Khaganate: namely, the Chuyue, the Türgesh-associated Suoge, and the Anqing of Sogdian origins. In the seventh century they moved to east of modern Dzungaria, then under the rule of the Tang dynasty. By the ninth century, the Shatuo were scattered over North China and modern Inner Mongolia. A Shatuo warlord, Li Keyong, mobilized 10,000 Shatuo cavalrymen and served the Tang dynasty as an ally. In 923, his son Li Cunxu defeated the Later Liang dynasty and became emperor of the Later Tang dynasty.

After the overthrow of the Li family, Shatuo commanders established the Later Jin, the Later Han and the Northern Han.

In the 13th century, a part of Shatuo probably included in the Mongol Empire as an Ongud tribe, another part as White Tatars. According to a number of authors, the Onguds were already Mongolized tribe in the 13th century (Nikolai Aristov, Ochir). Academicians Boris Vladimirtsov and Vasily Bartold believed that ethnically the Onguds were already the southern Mongols. According to the Mongolian chronicler Sanan-Setsen, the Onguds at the time of Genghis Khan were part of the Su Mongols.

The Ongud chief Ala Kush Tegin revealed the Naimans plan to attack Genghis Khan in 1205 and allied with the Mongols. When  Genghis Khan invaded the Jin Dynasty in 1211, Ala Kush Tegin supported him. Genghis married his daughter Alakhai Bekhi to one of Ala Kush's sons. However, political opponents killed Ala Kush Tegin. Genghis put down the rebellion and  took the family under his protection, with his daughter the de facto ruler. Alakhai Bekhi ruled the Ongud as regent for several underage princes until the reign of Güyük Khan (1246–48).

Many famous post-Genghis Mongols are of Ongud descent, including the well-known traveler, diplomat, and monk of the Church of the East, Rabban Bar Sauma (1220–1294). The Ongud proved good allies to Kublai. For example, the Ongud ruler George married Kublai's two granddaughters and fought against Kaidu, whose protégé Duwa captured and killed him later in 1298. A number of Öngüd were said to have been converted to Catholicism by John of Montecorvino (1246–1328).

After 1221 many Onguds were resettled in Khwarezm, where they served as governors for the Golden Horde. They formed part of the Argyns and the Mughal tribe. The Onguds in Mongolia became an otog of the Tumed in the 15th century. The Onguds gradually vanish from records and likely assimilated into other Turkic and Mongol tribes beginning in the post-Yuan period. The Mongols of Inner Mongolia, Mongolia and western China eventually converted to Tibetan Buddhism from the 16th century onwards.

Art and architecture
The University of Hong Kong possesses a collection of around a thousand 13th- and 14th-century bronze Nestorian crosses from the Ongud region collected during the 1920s by F. A. Nixon, a British postal official working in northern China.  Although their designs vary, Maltese crosses with a square central panel displaying a swastika, the Buddhist good luck symbol, predominate.

The Ongud Monument Ensemble was constructed by the Turkic tribes during the 6th-8th centuries for their noblemen.  This consists of over 30 man-like figures, a lion and a sheep, and about 550 standing stones in alignments reminiscent of Carnac or Avebury.  There is also a large tomb made of 4 sculptured slabs.  Each slab has the front face decorated with a trellis-pattern like the walls of a yurt, and a simple frieze on top.

See also
 List of medieval Mongol tribes and clans
 Christianity among the Mongols

Notes

References

Roux, Jean-Paul, Histoire de l'Empire Mongol, Fayard,

Turco-Mongol
Nestorianism
Turkic peoples of Asia
Extinct Turkic peoples

Ongud


William John Duff (born January 1962) is a Scottish dentist from Kilbarchan in Renfrewshire who was jailed for three years (reduced on appeal to two years) for fraud and reckless endangerment in 2001.()

Duff worked for a number of dental practices in West Central Scotland in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was the recipient of a number of complaints (initially dismissed by authorities) about unnecessary dental work carried out on patients. It was later revealed in disciplinary and court proceedings that he also exposed his patients to infection from diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C due to his deliberate failure to follow standard sterilisation and hygiene procedures.

The issues surrounding the case were initially raised in the UK Parliament by Maria Fyfe MP for the Maryhill Constituency in Glasgow in series of debates in the British House of Commons.()

Duff was sentenced to three years imprisonment in February 2001 after pleading guilty to one charge of fraud, and one charge of reckless endangerment (15 Months for the first charge and 21 months for the second charge to run consecutively).

In June 2001 Duff appealed his sentence to the High Courts of the Justiciary in Scotland, although rejecting all the arguments put forward by his defense they agreed on a legal technicality that his sentence should be reduced to two years. The appellant judges did not disagree or dispute the findings of the original sentence.().

In 2006 it was revealed that Duff was now working as a senior manager within the IT department of Inverclyde Council responsible for contract negotiation and implementation. He left this position suddenly in August 2007.

External links
Dirty Needle Dentist Jailed at BBC News Online (published 22 February 2001)
Dentists (Scotland) at House of Commons Hansard Debates for 11 Nov 1996 (part 34)
Mr William Duff - at House Of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 28 Feb 1997 (part 15)
William Duff v. Her Majesty's Advocate, 20 June 2001, Lord McCluskey and Lord Prosser at Opinions of the High Court of the Justiciary (published 20 June 2001)

Living people
1962 births
Scottish dentists
Scottish fraudsters

William Duff (dentist)


Juan Carlos Mesa (May 15, 1930 – August 2, 2016) was an Argentine humorist, screenwriter, and director.

Life and work
Juan Carlos Mesa was born in Córdoba, Argentina, in 1930. Following a stint as a writer in Uruguay for a sitcom, Telecataplum, He began his career in Argentine television in 1967 as a junior writer for comedian Carlos Balá and first collaborated on a film script in 1971, with Enrique Carreras' family comedy, El veraneo de los Campanelli. He was reunited with Carreras for the film's 1972 sequel, wrote later that year for Fernando Siro in his picaresque comedy, Autocine mon amour, and in 1976, earned his first credit as lead writer in Palito Ortega's Dos locos en el aire.

Writing for leading local television comic Tato Bores in 1980, Mesa first became widely known as a performer on the radio, rather than on the screen, with his popular Radio Mitre show, Tenis de mesa; the name of the show ("table tennis") was a play on his own last name, a witticism that became part of his act on many of his subsequent productions.  Perhaps the most successful of these was Mesa de noticias ("News Desk"). The primetime sitcom, which premiered in 1983, set Mesa in a struggling network news program as its hapless programming director, and ran until 1987, appealing to audiences of an unusually varied demographic. His leading co-star, Italian actor Gianni Lunadei, joined Mesa in 1991 for a less successful spin-off, El gordo y el flaco (akin to Laurel and Hardy).

Mesa continued to write for cinema, as well, working with the best-known local comedy duo of the 1980s, Alberto Olmedo and Jorge Porcel (whose wiry and portly physiques, respectively, mirrored those of Lunadei and Mesa, somewhat). His script for the boot camp comedy Los colimbas se divierten (1986) was followed by the Olmedo-Porcel duo's last, the 1988 gender-bender Atracción peculiar.

Following Alberto Olmedo's death in 1988, and Porcel's departure for Miami Beach, Mesa's career declined somewhat. Appearing mainly on radio, he worked with his brother Edgardo and son, Juan Martín, in El Surtidor ("The Dispenser"), a variety show complete with astrology forecasts. He reemerged on television, however, as the chief writer and in a supporting role in a 2003 sitcom, Dr. Amor (played by Arturo Puig, who had become well-known among younger audiences in the United States in the PBS educational series, Destinos). He returned Radio Mire in 2006 with a segment, Río con Mesa, on Lalo Mir's top-rated Animados, and portrayed Noah in a voice-over role for an award-winning 2007 animated film, El arca ("The Ark").

He died on 2 August 2016 at the age of 86.

Screenwriting (film)
 El veraneo de los Campanelli (1971)
 El picnic de los Campanelli (1972)
 Autocine mon amour (1972)
 Dos locos en el aire (1974)
 Brigada en acción (1977)
 El tío Disparate (1978)
 Sálvese quien pueda (1984)
 Mirame la palomita (1985)
 Los colimbas se divierten (1986)
 Rambito y Rambón primera misión (1986)
 Los colimbas al ataque (1987)
 Galería del terror (1987)
 Atracción peculiar (1988)
 El Arca (2007)
 Pájaros volando (2010)

References

External links

1930 births
2016 deaths
Argentine comedians
Argentine television personalities
Argentine screenwriters
Argentine male screenwriters
Argentine people of Spanish descent
People from Córdoba, Argentina

Juan Carlos Mesa


Lop Buri () is ane o the central provinces (changwat) o Thailand. Neighborin provinces are (frae north clockwise) Phetchabun, Chaiyaphum, Nakhon Ratchasima, Saraburi, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Ang Thong, Sing Buri an Nakhon Sawan.

Geography
Lop Buri is locatit on the east side o the Chao Phraya river valley, atween the Lopburi River an Pa Sak Rivers. 30% o the aurie o the province, includin maist o Tha Wung destrict, the soothwastren pairts o Mueang Lopburi an Ban Mi destricts are a very law alluvial plain. The rest 70% is intermixed atween plains an hills, wi the Phetchabun Muntains form the eastren bundary o the province towards the Khorat Plateau.

History
Kent as Lavo durin muckle o its history, Lopburi probably dates tae prehistoric times. The name Lavo oreeginatit in the Dvaravati period (6t tae 11t century C.E.). The conquerin Khmer wad build mony impressive temples in the ceety during its rule. Lopburi mey even hae liberatit itsel for a time, as it sent independent embassies tae Cheenae in 1115 an 1155. In 1289 it sent anither embassy tae Cheenae, but suin became pairt o the Thai kinrick o Sukhothai an later Ayutthaya.

Durin the Ayutthaya period, King Ramathibodi I sent Phra Ramesuan (later King Ramesuan) as the Uparaja tae reign in Lopburi. In 1665 King Narai the Great ordered a new palace built on the east bank o the Lopburi River an made Lop Buri the seicont caipital o the kintra, as Ayutthaya wis threatened bi the Dutch. Efter King Narai dee'd, the ceety wis amaist abandoned an fell intae ruin.

In 1856 King Mongkut o the Chakri dynasty ordered King Narai's Palace tae be renovatit. The ceety finally regained its importance in 1938, when Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram chose Lop Buri tae be the lairgest military base in Thailand.

Seembols
The provincial seal shows Vishnu in front o the Khmer temple Phra Prang Sam Yod.

The provincial tree as well as the provincial flouer is the Bullet Wood (Mimusops elengi).

The slogan o the province is Naitional Treasures o Keeng Narai's Palace an Phra Kan Shrine, Famous Prang Sam Yot, Ceety o Din So Phong Marl, well-kent Pa Sak Jolasid Dam an Gowden Land o Keeng Narai the Great.

Admeenistrative diveesions

The province is subdividit intae 11 destricts (amphoe). The destricts are further subdividti intae 124 subdistricts (tambon) an 1110 veelages (muban).

Education
Thepsatri Rajabhat University
Kasetsart University, Lopburi Campus
Ramkhamhaeng University, Lopburi Campus

Provinces o Thailand

Lopburi Province


Ske is an Icelandic band whose origins can be traced back to 1992, when a band called Skárren ekkert was founded by Eiríkur Þorleifsson, Frank Hall and Guðmundur Steingrímsson, and joined by Hrannar Ingimarsson in 1998.

History
In 1999, they wrote the music for NPK, a dance performance by the Icelandic Dance Company. The following year Eiríkur, Frank and Guðmundur, along with Guðmundur Hafsteinsson, wrote and performed music for Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Icelandic National Theatre's (Þjóðleikhúsið) 50th anniversary performance. Hrannar was away in New York with Icelandic rap-band Quarashi, with whom he'd worked extensively as engineer/mixer and guitarist since 1996.

In 2002 the album Life, Death, Happiness and Stuff was ready, with additional performances from Kjartan Guðnason on drums, Una Sveinbjarnardóttir on violin and vocalists Jón Oddur Guðmundsson, Juri Hashimoto, Julie Coadou and Daníel Ágúst Haraldsson.  The album was a cult hit, the songs Julietta 2 and Stuff were picked up by ad-agencies for national television campaigns for The National Bank of Iceland and Icelandair.  The album was also nominated as Album of the Year and 'Julietta 2' was nominated for Song of the Year and won.

In 2003 the band, now consisting of Eiríkur Þorleifsson, Frank Hall, Guðmundur Steingrímsson, Hrannar Ingimarsson, Jón Oddur Guðmundsson, Kjartan Guðnason and Ragnheiður Gröndal, who had started singing with the band at the end of 2002, started work on new songs as well as playing dates in Scandinavia and UK, including Roskilde Festival 2003. In the fall of 2003, Ske composed music for a dance piece written by Lonneke Van Leth, performed by the Icelandic Dance Company.

In 2004, Ske continued work on the new album, as well as playing some dates in UK. Feelings are great, Ske's second album, was released by Smekkleysa in Iceland in October 2004.

In 2005 Ske played Austin, Texas' SXSW and Denmark's SPOT-festival, as well as opening for former Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant in Reykjavík. Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir replaced Ragnheiður Gröndal for those dates as well as for a TV appearance on the Icelandic National Television RÚV program Hljómsveit kvöldsins, hosted by Margrét Krístin Blöndal, and Ske's fourth Icelandic Airwaves appearance.

In August 2006 Hössi Ólafsson, formerly the lead vocalist of Quarashi, joined Ske as their lead singer.

In December 2008 Ske finished recording and mixing its third studio album which will be released in January/February 2009. The album was recorded in various studios around Reykjavík and features 12 original songs written collectively by band-members in 2007/2008. English drummer Paul Maguire, formerly a member of The Stairs, plays drums on most of the songs but Orri Páll Dýrason from the band Sigur Rós plays drums on at least 3 songs. Also on percussion is Kjartan Guðnason, former drummer of Ske and currently the drummer of the Icelandic band Menn ársins and a percussionist for the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.

The single "My Lo" was released in Iceland in 2008.

References

External links
Official website

Icelandic musical groups

Ske


Yves Farge (19 August 1899, Salon-de-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône − 31 March 1953, Tbilisi) was a French journalist and politician.

Biography
Farge was a journalist for the Progrès de Lyon. His colleague, Georges Altman, put him in contact with the French Resistance movement Franc-tireur. In 1942, Farge met Jean Moulin. Farge was put in charge of the military organization of the massif du Vercors. He was also a member of the l'état-major directed by General Delestraint. After the arrest of those two prominent resistance figures, Farge was sought by the Gestapo and went to Paris, where he presided over the Comité d'action contre la déportation.

General Charles de Gaulle named Farge commissaire de la République for the departements of la région rhodanienne. Farge saved 800 hostages who were at risk of being shot at Montluc Prison in Lyon.

Farge was politically left-wing without having any specific affiliation. He served as minister of ravitaillement, a very difficult position, in the provisional government of Georges Bidault, from 8 January to 16 December 1946. He spoke out against wine smuggling and struggled hard against the black market.

Farge was a progressive, and close to the communists. He participated in the founding of the Mouvement de la Paix in 1947, of which he became the president until his death in 1953 in a car accident in Georgia. He was also a member of the World Peace Council. For his actions in support of peace, he was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in 1953.

Farge was a compagnon de la Libération.

Sources
Dominique Veillon, article on Yves Farge taken from the Dictionnaire historique de la résistance directed by François Marcot, Robert Laffont, 2006 (French)

Bibliography
Farge is responsible for a number of French works:
Toulon, Editions de Minuit, Paris 1943
Sauvons nos gosses. À Megève, premier village d'enfants, Lyon, 1945
Vent des fous, Paris 1946
Rebelles, soldats et citoyens. Souvenirs d'un Commissaire de la République, Paris 1946
Lettre au Président Truman, Paris 1949
La République est en danger, Paris 1950
La Guerre d'Hitler continue, Paris 1950
Le sang de la corruption, Paris 1951
Témoignage sur la Chine et la Corée, Paris 1952
Un simple mot, Paris 1953
Histoire vécue de la Résistance. Rebelle soldat et citoyen, carnet d'un Commissaire de la République, Genève 1971

External links
 bibliography and photographic record  l'Ordre de la Libération website (French)].

French Resistance members
Stalin Peace Prize recipients
Companions of the Liberation
People from Salon-de-Provence
1899 births
1953 deaths
Road incident deaths in the Soviet Union
Road incident deaths in Georgia (country)

Yves Farge


The Glasgow Science Fiction Writers' Circle (GSFWC, aka "The Circle") is a group of amateur, semi-professional, and professional fiction authors that has met regularly in Glasgow, Scotland since 1987.

The purpose of the Circle is to provide a supportive, non-confrontational setting in which an individual's work can be reviewed, critiqued, and discussed. The group's underlying emphasis on quality and professionalism has, in recent years, contributed to the commercial publication of novels and/or short story collections by members including Michael Cobley, Hal Duncan, Gary Gibson, and Neil Williamson. Members have also had work published in magazines including Analog, Asimov's Science Fiction, Interzone, and The Third Alternative, and short story anthologies Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction, Other Edens II, Shipbuilding, and Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.

History

The origins of the Circle lie in a science fiction short story competition – originally suggested by the SF writer Chris Boyce – that ran for several years in The Glasgow Herald newspaper (now, The Herald). The winning entry was published in the weekend edition of the newspaper that coincided with what had effectively become, at that time, a local annual science fiction convention known as Albacon.

In 1986, Ann Karkalas of the University of Glasgow Adult & Continuing Education Department contacted the competition's judge, the writer (and the Herald'''s then-Science Fiction reviewer) Duncan Lunan, about the possibility of starting a science fiction writing evening class. Both knew each other previously from the Glasgow Science Fiction Circle, a group of readers and writers which had met during the 1960s and 1970s. Duncan was willing to teach the course, and indeed the classes would go on to run for the best part of a decade.

Many of those who attend the first year's class were so enthusiastic about writing that – once the class finished – they wanted to continue meeting. So they did; at the suggestion of Lunan, this new group began to refer to itself as the Glasgow Science Fiction Writers Circle, although the group remains remarkably anarchic and non-hierarchical in form.

Although the Circle's early membership largely overlapped with that of the evening classes, the two entities gradually became more distinct. After the evening classes were ended, the Circle has continued to attract new members through word of mouth, brochure entries, and its own website.

Having survived several changes of venue, frequency of meetings and an almost complete turnover of members, the Circle currently meets every second Tuesday. Venues have included St Aloysius Church, the Glasgow Film Theatre, the city's branch of Border's bookshop, and a smaller function room of a Glasgow church.

 Structure

The Circle's workshops are neither instructor-led nor formally arranged. Although the group does follow a set routine (modeled on the Milford Method, wherein each person who has read the story gives their comments before the author's final "right of reply" at the end of the session), the meetings are democratic in nature. The Circle does not engage in creative writing exercises: each meeting focuses specifically on the constructive criticism of an individual work, be it a short story, novella, or novel that has previously been distributed by email or via the Circle's newsgroup. This said, many members of the Circle do also regularly socialise with each other outside of these official meetings.

In late 2009, some members of the Circle established a spoken word performance group called Word Dogs. This ran irregular events in and around Glasgow, such as a special horror-themed evening around Halloween 2010.

 Other groups
During its history the Circle has seldom interacted with other writers groups in and around Glasgow, thanks to its focused working practices and – arguably – its championing of genre fiction. As a result, probably its closest links have been with members of the East Coast SF Writers Group (ECSFWG). This group shared a common origin, having originally been formed as a gathering of some east coast-based entrants to the same Glasgow Herald Science Fiction Short Story Competition.

A more recent offshoot from ECSFWG is the Writers' Bloc spoken word group, with whom members of the Circle have performed in special joint events.

Published works
Since its inception, the circle has sponsored, or otherwise caused to be written, a number of anthologies. These are composed of original works, most often short stories, by its members. The books typically commemorate an occasion, but the most recent was published to raise money for a charitable cause.

  Shipbuilding: New SF from Scotland (1995). Published for the 53rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow.
  Thirty Years of Rain (2016). () To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Glasgow Sf Writers' Circle.
  Flotation Device: A Charity Anthology'' (2020). To support charities fighting COVID-19/coronavirus.

References

External links
 Group website

Scottish literature
Science fiction organizations
British writers' organisations
Writing circles
Speculative fiction writing circles
Arts organizations established in 1987

Scottish science fiction
1987 establishments in Scotland

Glasgow Science Fiction Writers' Circle


The Capture of Sint Eustatius took place in February 1781 during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War when British army and naval forces under Lieutenant-General Sir John Vaughan and Admiral George Rodney seized the Dutch-owned Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius. The capture was controversial in Britain, as it was alleged that Vaughan and Rodney had used the opportunity to enrich themselves and had neglected more important military duties. The island was subsequently taken by Dutch-allied French forces in late 1781, ending the British occupation.

Background
St. Eustatius, a Dutch-controlled island in the West Indies, was an entrepot that operated as a major trading centre despite its relatively small size. During the American War of Independence it assumed increased importance, because a British blockade made it difficult to transport supplies directly across the Atlantic Ocean to US ports. St. Eustatius became a crucial source of supplies, and its harbour was filled with American trading ships. Its importance increased further following France's entry into the war in 1778 as it was used to help supply the French West Indian islands. It is estimated that one half of all the American Revolutionary military supplies were trans-shipped through St. Eustatius. Its merchant networks – Dutch, but also Jewish, many of whom were St. Eustatius residents – were key to the military supplies and goods being shipped to the revolutionary forces. US-European communications were directed through St. Eustatius.  In 1776, St. Eustatius, hence the Dutch, were the first to recognize the American Revolutionary government when the US brig, Andrew Doria, fired thirteen guns announcing their arrival. The Andrew Doria was saluted with an eleven gun response from Fort Orange. The Andrew Doria arrived to purchase military supplies on St. Eustatius and to present to the Dutch governor a copy of the US Declaration of Independence. An earlier copy of the Declaration had been captured by a British naval ship. The British were confused by the papers wrapped around the declaration, which they thought were a secret cypher.  The papers were written in Yiddish for a merchant in Holland.

St. Eustatius's role in supplying Britain's enemies provoked anger amongst British leaders. Rodney alleged that goods brought out on British convoys had then been sold, through St. Eustatius, to the rebels. It seems to have fuelled a hatred for this island especially with Rodney who vowed to "bring this Nest of Villains to condign Punishment: they deserve scourging and they shall be scourged." He had already singled out several individuals on St. Eustatius who were instrumental in aiding the enemy, such as "...Mr Smith in the House of Jones – they cannot be too soon taken care of – they are notorious in the cause of America and France ..." Following the outbreak of war between the Dutch Republic and Britain in December 1780, orders were sent from London to seize the island. The British were assisted by the fact that the news of the war's outbreak had not yet reached St. Eustatius.

Capture

A British expedition of 3,000 troops sailed from Saint Lucia on 30 January 1781. Rodney left behind ships to monitor the French on Martinique. He also sent Samuel Hood ahead to stop any merchant ships escaping from the harbour. The main force arrived off St. Eustatius on 3 February. Rodney's ships took up position to neutralise any shore batteries. Two or three shots were fired from the only Dutch warship on the roadstead, the frigate Mars under Captain Count Van Bijland. Instead of disembarking the troops and launching an immediate assault, Rodney sent a message to Governor Johannes de Graaff suggesting that he surrender to avoid bloodshed. De Graaff agreed to the proposal and surrendered. De Graaff had ten guns in Fort Orange and sixty soldiers. Rodney had over 1,000 guns on his ships. By the following day the nearby islands of Saint Martin and Saba had also surrendered.

There was a brief exchange of fire when two of the British ships shot at the Mars and Van Bijland answered with his cannons. Rodney reprimanded the captains responsible for this lack of discipline.

The only battle occurred near Sombrero. Rodney found out that a convoy of thirty richly loaded Dutch merchant ships had just sailed off for the motherland less than two days before his arrival, protected only by a single man-of-war.  He sent three warships after them, and they quickly caught up with the convoy. The lone Dutch man-of-war was no match for the three British ships and, after a fierce 30-minute pounding, the mortally wounded commander, Rear-Admiral Willem Krul, while dying, ordered his captain to lower the flag. Eight of the Dutch crew were killed. Krul was taken back to St. Eustatius where he was buried with full honours.

The crews of all Dutch ships taken at St. Eustatius and also those of Krul's convoy were stripped of all their possessions and taken to St. Kitts, where they were imprisoned- "with hardly anything more than the most necessary clothes."

Controversy
The wealth Rodney and Vaughan discovered on St. Eustatius exceeded their expectations. There were 130 merchantmen in the bay as well as the Dutch frigate and five smaller American warships. In total the value of goods seized, including the convoy captured off Sombrero, was estimated to be around £3 million. On 5 February 1781, Rodney and Vaughan signed an agreement stating that all goods taken belonged to the Crown. Rodney and Vaughan, by British custom, expected to personally receive a significant share of the captured wealth from the king once it reached England. Instead of delegating the task of sorting through and estimating the value of the confiscated property, Rodney and Vaughan oversaw this themselves. The time spent doing this led to allegations that they had neglected their military duties. In particular, Samuel Hood suggested that Rodney should have sailed to intercept a French fleet under Admiral de Grasse, traveling to Martinique. The French fleet instead turned north and headed for the Chesapeake Bay of Virginia and Maryland. Rodney had further weakened his fleet by sending a strong defending force to Britain to accompany his treasure ships.  After months on St. Eustatius, capturing additional merchants and treasure, Rodney was imposed upon to send part of his fleet under Hood north to aid General Cornwallis and British armed forces fighting the Americans, while he took the rest of the fleet back to Britain for some overdue refitting.

Hood arrived at Chesapeake Bay and, finding no French fleet, continued to New York to join forces under Admiral Graves. The French forces under Admiral de Grasse (along with another French squadron from Rhode Island) arrived at the Chesapeake soon after Hood had left. Graves and Hood had been outmaneuvered and, although the resulting Battle of the Chesapeake was a tactical draw, it was a strategic defeat for the British. Cornwallis could not be supplied and was forced to surrender a few weeks later. The Americans had won the war, partially because of Rodney's anti-Semitism and avaricious delays.

After returning home, both officers defended themselves in the House of Commons. As Rodney was a supporter of the government led by Lord North, it approved of his conduct, and he returned to the West Indies for the 1782 campaigning season. When the North government fell and was replaced in 1782, the new government sent orders recalling Rodney. However, before they arrived, he led his fleet to victory at the Battle of the Saintes – ending a Franco-Spanish plan to invade Jamaica – and returned home to be rewarded with a peerage. Rodney survived censure in parliament by a vote strictly along party lines.

At the time, St. Eustatius was home to a significant Jewish community, mainly merchants and a few plantation owners with strong connections to the Dutch Republic. Ten days after the island was captured by Rodney, part of the Jewish community, together with Governor de Graaff, were deported, being given only 24 hours' notice beforehand. Rodney was particularly hard on the Jews. The harshness was reserved for the Jews alone as he did not do the same to French, Dutch, Spanish or American merchants on the island. He even permitted the French to leave with all their possessions. Rodney was concerned that his unprecedented behavior would be repeated upon British islands by French forces when events were different. Rodney imprisoned all the adult Jewish males (101) in the West India Company's weighing house on the Bay. Those who were not immediately shipped to St. Kitts (31 heads of Jewish families) were held there for three days. He pillaged Jewish personal possessions, even cutting open the lining of their clothing to find money hidden there. When Rodney realized that the Jews might be hiding additional treasure, he dug up fresh graves at the Jewish cemetery. Later, Edmund Burke, upon learning of Rodney's actions, rose to condemn Rodney's anti-Semitic, avaricious vindictiveness in parliament.

British control of St. Eustatius only lasted ten months, and Rodney's work to manage the prizes was in vain.  Many of the goods he seized were captured on their way to Britain by a French squadron under Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte.

Recapture

On the evening of 26 November 1781, 1500 French troops from Fort Royal, led by Marquis de Bouillé, landed covertly at St. Eustatius to take the island. Opposing them were the battalion companies of the 13th and 15th Regiments of Foot, which numbered 756 men. Unaware that the French were on the island, the British commandant, Lieutenant Colonel James Cockburn, was taking a morning ride when he was captured by troops of the Irish Brigade in French service. The Irish and French troops subsequently surprised the British at drill outside the fort and those on guard. The French ran into the fort behind the British and forced the garrison to surrender. Cockburn was afterwards tried by a general court martial and cashiered (forced to retire). There were no significant casualties on either side. Four million livres were taken—170,000 belonging to Admiral Rodney or his troops.  These funds were distributed to the French troops and Dutch colonists.

The French returned St. Eustatius to the Dutch in 1784. The Jews and other expelled merchants returned, commerce and trade resumed, and the island's population reached its all-time high in 1790.

Citations

References

Hartog, J. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Antillen IV. Aruba, 1960
Jong, Cornelius de. Reize naar de Caribische Eilanden in de jaren 1780 en 1781. Haarlem, 1807
O'Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson. An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
Teenstra, Marten D. De Nederlandsche West-Indische Eilanden. Amsterdam, 1836
Trew, Peter. Rodney & The Breaking of the line. Pen & Sword, 2006.

Further reading

Sint Eustatius
Sint Eustatius
Sint Eustatius
Conflicts in 1781
1781 in the Dutch Republic
1781 in the Caribbean
1781 in the British Empire

Capture of Sint Eustatius


Ground beef, minced beef or beef mince is beef that has been finely chopped with a knife, meat grinder (American English), mincer or mincing machine (British English). It is used in many recipes including hamburgers, bolognese sauce, meatloaf, meatballs and kofta.

It is not the same as mincemeat, which is a mixture of chopped dried fruit, distilled spirits, spices and historically (but present day rare) minced/ground meat.

Contents

In many countries, food laws define specific categories of ground beef and what they can contain. For example, in the United States, beef fat may be added to hamburger but not to ground beef if the meat is ground and packaged at a USDA-inspected plant. In the U.S., a maximum of 30% fat by weight is allowed in either hamburger or ground beef. The allowable amount in France is 5 to 20% (15% being used by most food chains). In Germany, regular ground beef may contain up to 15% fat while the special "Tatar" for steak tartare may contain less than 5% fat. Both hamburger and ground beef can have added seasoning, phosphate, extenders, or binders added, but no additional water is permitted. Ground beef is often marketed in a range of different fat contents to match the preferences of customers.

Ground beef is generally made from the less tender and less popular cuts of beef. Trimmings from tender cuts may also be used.

In a study in the U.S. in 2008, eight brands of fast food hamburgers were evaluated for recognizable tissue types using morphological techniques that are commonly used in the evaluation of tissue's histological condition. The study of the eight laboratory specimens found the content of the hamburgers included:
 Water: 37.7% to 62.4% (mean, 49%)
 Muscle: 2.1% to 14.8% (median, 12.1%)
 Skeletal tissue: "Bone and cartilage, observed in some brands, were not expected; their presence may be related to the use of mechanical separation in the processing of the meat from the animal. Small amounts of bone and cartilage may have been detached during the separation process."
 Connective tissue
 Blood vessels
 Peripheral nerve tissue. Brain tissue was not detected in any of the samples.
 Adipose tissue—"The amount of lipid observed was considerable and was seen in both adipose tissue and as lipid droplets. Lipid content on oil-red-O staining was graded as 1+ (moderate) in 6 burgers and 2+ (marked) in 2 burgers."
 Plant material: "was likely added as a filler to give bulk to the burger"

"Pink slime"

Ground beef in the United States may contain a meat-based product used as a food additive produced using technology known as advanced meat recovery systems or alternatively by using the slime system. Meat processing methods used by companies such as Beef Products, Inc. (BPI) and Cargill Meat Solutions produce lean, finely textured beef product, otherwise known as "pink slime," from fatty beef trimmings. This meat-based product is then treated with antimicrobial agents to remove salmonella and other pathogens, and is included in a variety of ground beef products in the U.S. From 2001, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved the product for limited human consumption. In a 2009 article by The New York Times, the safety of the beef processing method used by BPI was questioned. After the USDA's approval, this product became a component in ground beef used by McDonald's, Burger King and many other fast-food chains as well as grocery chains in the U.S.

In government and industry records in testing for the United States' school lunch program, pathogens such as E. coli and salmonella were found dozens of times in meat from BPI, which raises questions about safety of the meat product and the effectiveness of the antimicrobial method used in meat recovery system of the company. Between 2005 and 2009, E. coli was found three times and salmonella 48 times. BPI had a rate of 36 positives for salmonella per 1,000 tests, compared to a rate of nine positives per 1,000 tests for other suppliers for the program. However, the program continued to source from BPI because its price was substantially lower than ordinary meat trimmings, saving about $1m a year for the program.
Cargill, among the largest hamburger makers in the U.S., is a big buyer of the meat-based product from BPI for its patties, according to the Times. It suspended buying meat from two plants owned by BPI for several months in 2006 after excessive levels of salmonella were found.

Cuts of beef
Although any cut of beef can be used to produce ground beef, chuck steak is a popular choice because of its rich flavor and meat-to-fat ratio. Round steak is also often used. In the United States, ground beef is usually categorized based on the cut and fat percentage:

 Chuck: 78–84% lean
 Round: 85–89% lean
 Sirloin: 90–95% lean

Culinary use
Ground beef is popular as a relatively cheap and quick-cooking form of beef. Some of its best-known uses are in hamburgers, sausages and cottage pie. It is an important ingredient in meatloaf, sloppy joes, meatballs, and tacos. It can be used to make meat sauces, for example, lasagna and spaghetti bolognese in Italian cuisine. In the Middle East, it is used to make spicy kofta and meatballs. The Scottish dish 'mince and tatties" uses it with mashed or boiled potatoes. In Lancashire, particularly Oldham, minced meat is a common filling for rag pudding. The Dutch slavink consists of ground meat (half beef, half pork) rolled in bacon.

Raw, lean, ground beef is used to make steak tartare, a French dish. More finely diced and differently seasoned, it is popular as a main course and as a dressing in Belgium, where it is known as filet américain ("American fillet").

Food safety
Food safety of ground meat is problematic; bacterial contamination occurs frequently. Undercooked hamburgers contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 were responsible for four deaths in the U.S. in 1993 and hundreds of people fell ill. Ground beef must be cooked to 72 °C (160 °F) to ensure all bacterial contamination—whether it be endogenous to the product or contaminated after purchasing by the consumer—is killed. The color of cooked meat does not always indicate the beef has reached the required temperature; beef can brown before reaching 68 °C (155 °F).

To ensure the safety of food distributed through the National School Lunch Program, food banks, and other federal food and nutrition programs, the United States Department of Agriculture has established food safety and quality requirements for the ground beef it purchases. A 2010 National Research Council report reviewed the scientific basis of the Department's ground beef safety standards, compared the standards to those used by large retail and commercial food service purchasers of ground beef, and examined ways to establish periodic evaluations of the Federal Purchase Ground Beef Program. The report found that although the safety requirements could be strengthened using scientific concepts, the prevention of future outbreaks of foodborne diseases will depend on eliminating contamination during production and ensuring meat is properly cooked before it is served.

The 2013 horse meat scandal found traces of horsemeat in many UK and European foods and ready meals which were labelled as being minced/ground beef products mostly.

See also

 Ground meat
 Patty
 List of hamburgers

Notes

References

External links
 Ground Beef Safety
 35 Ground Beef Recipes: Easy And Delicious Meals

Beef
Ground meat

Ground beef


Othello (, ) is a character in Shakespeare's Othello (c. 1601–1604). The character's origin is traced to the tale "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio. There, he is simply referred to as the Moor.

Othello was first mentioned in a Revels account of 1604 when the play was performed on 1 November at Whitehall Palace with Richard Burbage almost certainly Othello's first interpreter. Modern notable performers of the role include Paul Robeson, Orson Welles, Richard Burton, James Earl Jones, Laurence Fishburne, Laurence Olivier, and Avery Brooks.

Role
Othello is a Venetian general. After their time in Venice, Othello is appointed general in the Venetian Army. His officer Iago tricks him into believing that his wife Desdemona is having an affair with his Lieutenant, Michael Cassio. Othello kills his wife out of jealousy by strangling her, only to realize that his wife was faithful after Emilia reveals the truth, at which point he commits suicide.

Ethnicity

There is no final consensus over Othello's ethnicity; whether of Maghrebi origin as in the generally accepted definition of "Moor", or of Sub-Saharan African.

E. A. J. Honigmann, the editor of the Arden Shakespeare edition concluded that Othello's ethnic background is ambiguous. "Renaissance representations of the Moor were vague, varied, inconsistent, and contradictory. As critics have established, the term 'Moor' referred to dark-skinned people in general, used interchangeably with similarly ambiguous terms as 'African', 'Ethiopian' and even 'Indian' to designate a figure from Africa (or beyond)." Various uses of the word "black" (for example, "Haply for I am black") are insufficient evidence for any accurate racial classification, Honigmann argues, since "black" could simply mean "swarthy" to Elizabethans. In 1911, James Welton argued more evidence points to him being Sub-Saharan, though Shakespeare's intention is unknown. He cites Brabantio's description of Othello's "sooty bosom", a racial stereotype during this time, and Othello's contrast between his "begrimed" features and the purity of the goddess Diana. He argues that interpretations attempting to change Othello from "black to brown" were due to racial prejudice during Reconstruction in the US and notes that Othello is described using similar language to Aaron in Titus Andronicus. Virginia Mason Vaughan suggests that the racial identity of the character of Othello fits more clearly as a man from Sub-Saharan Africa than from North Africa (Barbary), as north Africans were more easily accepted into society. She states that by 1604, accounts of Othello as deriving from farther south were not uncommon. She notes Roderigo's description of Othello having "thick lips" was a racial stereotype used by 16th century explorers for Sub-Saharan Africans. Modern-day readers and theatre directors lean away from a North African Moorish interpretation but Shakespeare's textual references are unclear. Iago twice uses the word "Barbary" or "Barbarian" to refer to Othello, seemingly referring to the Barbary coast inhabited by the "tawny" Moors. Roderigo calls Othello "the thicklips", which seems to refer to European conceptions of Sub-Saharan African physiognomy, but Honigmann counters that, as these comments are all intended as insults by the characters, they need not be taken literally.

Michael Neill, editor of the Oxford Shakespeare edition, notes that the earliest known critical references to Othello's colour, (Thomas Rymer's 1693 critique of the play, and the 1709 engraving in Nicholas Rowe's edition of Shakespeare), assume him to be a black man, while the earliest known North African interpretation was not until Edmund Kean's production of 1814. It has been suggested that Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun, Moorish ambassador of the Arab King of Barbary to Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, may have been an inspiration for Othello. He stayed with his retinue in London for several months and occasioned much discussion, and thus might have inspired Shakespeare's play, written only a few years afterwards. The exact date that Othello was written is unknown, though sources indicate that it was written between 1601 and 1610, sometime after the Moorish delegation. However, Honigmann questions the view that ben Messaoud inspired Othello.

Othello is referred to as a "Barbary horse" (1.1.113), a "lascivious Moor" (1.1.127), and "the devil" (1.1.91).  In III.III, he denounces Desdemona's supposed sin as being "black as mine own face". Desdemona's physical whiteness is otherwise presented in opposition to Othello's dark skin; V.II "that whiter skin of hers than snow". Iago tells Brabantio that "an old black ram / is tupping your white ewe" (1.1.88). In Elizabethan discourse, the word "black" could suggest various concepts that extended beyond the physical colour of skin, including a wide range of negative connotations.

Ira Aldridge pioneered the prominence of black actors in the role, beginning in 1825 in London. Othello was also frequently performed as an Arab Moor during the 19th century. In the past, Othello would often have been portrayed by a white actor in theatrical makeup. Black American actor Paul Robeson played the role from 1930 to 1959. Recent actors who chose to "blacken up" include Laurence Olivier (1965) and Orson Welles. Black English actor Wil Johnson, known for his roles in Waking the Dead and Emmerdale, played Othello on stage in 2004. Since the 1960s it has become commonplace to cast a black actor in the character of Othello, although the casting of the role now can come with a political subtext. Patrick Stewart took the role in the Shakespeare Theatre Company's 1997 staging of the play and Thomas Thieme, also white, played Othello in a 2007 Munich Kammerspiele staging at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre; both played without blackface, their performances critically acclaimed.

20th-century Othellos

The most notable American production may be Margaret Webster's 1943 staging starring Paul Robeson as Othello and José Ferrer as Iago. This production was the first ever in America to feature a black actor playing Othello with an otherwise all-white cast (there had been all-black productions of the play before). It ran for 296 performances, almost twice as long as any other Shakespearean play ever produced on Broadway. Although it was never filmed, it was the first nearly complete performance of a Shakespeare play released on records. Robeson played Othello in three separate productions between 1930 and 1959. He first played it opposite a cast that included Peggy Ashcroft as Desdemona and Ralph Richardson as Roderigo, and would return to it in 1959 at Stratford on Avon.

The American actor William Marshall performed the title role in at least six productions. His Othello was called by Harold Hobson of the London Sunday Times "the best Othello of our time", continuing: "nobler than Tearle, more martial than Gielgud, more poetic than Valk. From his first entry, slender and magnificently tall, framed in a high Byzantine arch, clad in white samite, mystic, wonderful, a figure of Arabian romance and grace, to his last plunging of the knife into his stomach, Mr Marshall rode without faltering the play's enormous rhetoric, and at the end the house rose to him." Marshall also played Othello in a jazz musical version, Catch My Soul, with Jerry Lee Lewis as Iago, in Los Angeles in 1968. His Othello was captured on record in 1964 with Jay Robinson as Iago and on video in 1981 with Ron Moody as Iago. The 1982 Broadway staging starred James Earl Jones as Othello and Christopher Plummer as Iago.
When Laurence Olivier gave his acclaimed performance of Othello at the Royal National Theatre (UK) in 1964, he had developed a case of stage fright that was so profound that when he was alone onstage, Frank Finlay (who was playing Iago) would have to stand offstage where Olivier could see him to settle his nerves. This performance was recorded complete on LP, and filmed by popular demand in 1965 (according to a biography of Olivier, tickets for the stage production were notoriously hard to get). The film version still holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for acting ever given to a Shakespeare film – Olivier, Finlay, Maggie Smith (as Desdemona) and Joyce Redman (as Emilia, Iago's wife) were all nominated for Academy Awards.

Actors have alternated the roles of Iago and Othello in productions to stir audience interest since the nineteenth century. Two of the most notable examples of this role swap were William Charles Macready and Samuel Phelps at Drury Lane (1837) and Richard Burton and John Neville at the Old Vic Theatre (1955).  When Edwin Booth's tour of England in 1880 was not well attended, Henry Irving invited Booth to alternate the roles of Othello and Iago with him in London. The stunt renewed interest in Booth's tour. James O'Neill also alternated the roles of Othello and Iago with Booth.

White actors have continued to take the role. These include British performers Paul Scofield at the Royal National Theatre in 1980, Anthony Hopkins in the BBC Shakespeare television production (1981), and Michael Gambon in a stage production at Scarborough directed by Alan Ayckbourn in 1990. In 1997, Patrick Stewart took the role with the Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington, D.C.) in a race-bending performance, in a "photo negative" production of a white Othello with an otherwise all-black cast.  Stewart had wanted to play the title role since the age of 14, so he and director Jude Kelly inverted the play so Othello became a comment on a white man entering a black society. Two Indian adaptations of Othello has been released. In 1997, Kaliyattam the Malayalam film adaptation starred Suresh Gopi playing the Othello part in the role of Kannan Perumalayan. In 2006, Omkara, the Bollywood version of Othello, Othello née Omkara 'Omi' Shukla was played by Ajay Devgan. In 2016, baritone and actor David Serero took the role in a Moroccan adaptation in New York.

Performance history

Ira Aldridge
Edwin Booth
Avery Brooks
Richard Burbage
Richard Burton
Keith Hamilton Cobb
Billy Crudup (as Ned Kynaston playing Othello in Stage Beauty)
Ajay Devgn (as Omkara Shukla in Omkara)
Chiwetel Ejiofor
Laurence Fishburne
Colin McFarlane
Mark Holden
Johnston Forbes-Robertson
Suresh Gopi (as Kannan Perumalayan in Kaliyattam)
Moses Gunn
John Gielgud
Paul Harris (as Aurelius Rex in All Night Long)
Lenny Henry
Anthony Hopkins
Emil Jannings
Wil Johnson
James Earl Jones
Paterson Joseph
Raúl Juliá
Yaphet Kotto
Adrian Lester
Art Malik
William Marshall
John Neville
Cyril Nri
James O'Neill
Laurence Olivier
Mekhi Phifer (as Odin in O)
Hugh Quarshie
Paul Robeson
Tommaso Salvini
Paul Scofield
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
Patrick Stewart
Eamonn Walker
Orson Welles

References

External links

Articles containing video clips
Literary characters introduced in 1603
Fictional suicides
Fictional generals
Fictional Italian people in literature
Fictional Arabs
Male Shakespearean characters
Othello
Fictional uxoricides
Fictional princes
Fictional characters with epilepsy and seizures
Fictional war veterans
Race-related controversies in theatre

Othello (character)