The 8th (Belfast) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery (Supplementary Reserve), was founded in the wake of the Munich crisis, and recruited mainly in the spring of 1939 from young men of the City and District of Belfast. It was mobilised and at action stations, manning its guns to defend Belfast, before war was declared on 3 September 1939.

World War II
In October, it left for practice camp in Cornwall, and thence to France, where it joined the British Expeditionary Force before Christmas. Following the German invasion of the Low Countries on 10 May 1940, all units were soon in action, but the fortunes of war resulted in evacuation from Dunkirk, Cherbourg, Saint-Malo and other ports during late May and early June. One troop successfully brought back four of its 3.7-inch Anti Aircraft guns and some vital gunnery instruments, despite having orders to blow them up. Back in England, the regiment was soon in action again during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, first in Coventry, unit then ordered to London (Clapham Common) three days before Coventry was blitzed, the units road convoy took two hours to pass Green Road Roundabout on the outskirts of Oxford, such was its size, London and then on Teesside.

In the spring of 1942, the regiment embarked for the Far East in the Belfast-built liner RMS Britannic, and after a long voyage, escorted for a long way by battleships HMS Rodney, HMS Nelson & HMS Valiant at different times, reached Bombay. The guns and equipment were unloaded at Karachi and both elements assembled at Lahore before driving some 2,000 miles in convoy down the Grand Trunk Road to Calcutta. It was later transferred to East Bengal, before moving south to join XV Corps in Burma.

For the next two and a half years. the regiment took part in the Arakan campaigns, firing effectively against the Japanese Air Force and ground targets. Their accuracy at long range earned them the nickname "The Twelve Mile Snipers." Some elements took part in the famous Battle of the Admin Box at Ngakyedouk ("Okeydoke") Pass. Several officers and men received awards for gallantry following this heroic stand, which proved to be the turning point in the Arakan. At Easter 1945, a tablet to the memory of members of the regiment who died in the Arakan was unveiled in St. Mark's Church, Akyab. This little, battle-torn church was one of the first in all Burma to be retaken, and men of the regiment assisted in restoring the building.

Postwar
When the war ended, the regiment was fortunate to embark at Madras as a unit, instead of being dispersed in age groups as was the common practice, and returned home to Ulster in another Belfast-built ship, RMS Stirling Castle. In 1946 the Regiment was placed in suspended animation.

Many of the officers and men came together again in 1947 when the Territorial Army was re-formed, and so helped to perpetuate the regimental spirit in a new organisation, the 245th (Belfast) (Mixed) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, RA (TA) with headquarters in Belfast. (245 HAA Regiment was considered the successor to 8th (Belfast) HAA Regiment, although that unit was continued by the regular 56 HAA Regt).

In 1955 the Regiment was amalgamated with four other Territorial Royal Artillery Regiments and reorganised to form 245 (Ulster) Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment RA (TA). In 1964 it was redesignated as 245 (Ulster) Light Air Defence Regiment RA (TA).

In 1967 the Regiment was amalgamated with the 445th (Lowland) Light Air Defence Regiment RA (TA) to form 102nd (Ulster and Scottish) Light Air Defence Regiment RA (TA). It became the 206 (Ulster) Battery Royal Artillery (Volunteers), is one of the most efficient units of the Volunteer Reserve today.

Notes

Bibliography
Doherty, Richard, 1992. The Sons of Ulster: Ulstermen at War from the Somme to Korea, Appletree Press, Belfast.
Doherty, Richard, 2009. Ubique: The Royal Artillery in the Second World War, The History Press, Stroud.
Litchfield, Norman E H, 1992. The Territorial Artillery 1908-1988, The Sherwood Press, Nottingham.

External links
https://ra39-45.co.uk/units/heavy-anti-aircraft-regiments/8-belfast-heavy-anti-aircraft-regiment-rasr
http://www.lennonwylie.co.uk/8th_belfast_haa_regt.htm

Heavy anti-aircraft regiments of the Royal Artillery
Military units and formations established in 1939
Military units and formations in Belfast
Military units and formations in Northern Ireland


Bari ( , ;  ; ) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples. It is a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas. The city itself has a population of 315,284 inhabitants, over , while the urban area has 750,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area has 1.3 million inhabitants.

Bari is made up of four different urban sections. To the north is the closely built old town on the peninsula between two modern harbours, with the Basilica of Saint Nicholas, the Cathedral of San Sabino (1035–1171) and the Norman-Swabian Castle, which is now also a major nightlife district. To the south is the Murat quarter (erected by Joachim Murat), the modern heart of the city, which is laid out on a rectangular grid-plan with a promenade on the sea and the major shopping district (the via Sparano and via Argiro).

Modern residential zones surrounding the centre of Bari were built during the 1960s and 1970s replacing the old suburbs that had developed along roads splaying outwards from gates in the city walls. In addition, the outer suburbs developed rapidly during the 1990s. The city has a redeveloped airport, Karol Wojtyła Airport, with connections to several European cities.

History

Ancient
Bari itself known in antiquity as Barium, was a harbour of the Iapygian Peuceti. The authors of the Etymologicum Magnum have preserved an etymology by authors of antiquity about Barium, which they explain as the word "house" in Messapic. The city had strong Greek influences before the Roman era. In ancient Greek, it was known as Βάριον. In the 3rd century BC, it became part of the Roman Republic and was subsequently Romanized. The city developed strategic significance as the point of junction between the coast road and the Via Traiana and as a port for eastward trade; a branch road to Tarentum led from Barium. Its harbour, mentioned as early as 181 BC, was probably the principal one of the districts in ancient times, as it is at present, and was the centre of a fishery. The first historical bishop of Bari was Gervasius who was noted at the Council of Sardica in 347. The bishops were dependent on the Patriarch of Constantinople until the 10th century.

Middle Ages
After the devastations of the Gothic Wars, under Longobard rule a set of written regulations was established, the Consuetudines Barenses, which influenced similar written constitutions in other southern cities. Until the arrival of the Normans, Bari continued to be governed by the Longobards and Byzantines, with only occasional interruption.

Throughout this period, and indeed throughout the Middle Ages, Bari served as one of the major slave depots of the Mediterranean, providing a central location for the trade in Slavic slaves. The slaves were mostly captured by Venice from Dalmatia, by the Holy Roman Empire from what is now Prussia and Poland, and by the Byzantines from elsewhere in the Balkans, and were generally destined for other parts of the Byzantine Empire and (most frequently) the Muslim states surrounding the Mediterranean: the Abbasid Caliphate, the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba, the Emirate of Sicily, and the Fatimid Caliphate (which relied on Slavs purchased at the Bari market for its legions of Sakalaba Mamluks).

For 20 years, Bari was the centre of the Emirate of Bari; the city was captured by its first emirs Kalfun in 847, who had been part of the mercenary garrison installed there by Radelchis I of Benevento. The city was conquered and the emirate extinguished in 871 following five-year campaign by Emperor Louis II, assisted by a Byzantine fleet. Chris Wickham states Louis spent five years campaigning to reduce then occupy Bari, "and then only to a Byzantine/Slav naval blockade"; "Louis took the credit" for the success, adding "at least in Frankish eyes", then concludes by noting that by remaining in southern Italy long after this success, he "achieved the near-impossible: an alliance against him of the Beneventans, Salernitans, Neapolitans and Spoletans; later sources include Sawadān as well." In 885, Bari became the residence of the local Byzantine catapan, or governor. The failed revolt (1009–1011) of the Lombard nobles Melus of Bari and his brother-in-law Dattus, against the Byzantine governorate, though it was firmly repressed at the Battle of Cannae (1018), offered their Norman adventurer allies a first foothold in the region. In 1025, under the Archbishop Byzantius, Bari became attached to the see of Rome and was granted "provincial" status.

In 1071, Bari was captured by Robert Guiscard, following a three-year siege.

The Basilica di San Nicola was founded in 1087 to receive the relics of this saint, which were surreptitiously brought from Myra in Lycia, in Byzantine territory. The saint began his development from Saint Nicholas of Myra into Saint Nicholas of Bari and began to attract pilgrims, whose encouragement and care became central to the economy of Bari.

In 1095, Peter the Hermit preached the first crusade there. In October 1098, Urban II, who had consecrated the Basilica in 1089, convened the Council of Bari, one of a series of synods convoked with the intention of reconciling the Greeks and Latins on the question of the filioque clause in the Creed, which Anselm ably defended, seated at the pope's side. The Greeks were not brought over to the Latin way of thinking.

A civil war broke out in Bari in 1117 with the murder of the archbishop, Riso. Control of Bari was seized by Grimoald Alferanites, a native Lombard, and he was elected lord in opposition to the Normans. By 1123, he had increased ties with Byzantium and Venice and taken the title gratia Dei et beati Nikolai barensis princeps. Grimoald increased the cult of St Nicholas in his city. He later did homage to Roger II of Sicily, but rebelled and was defeated in 1132.

Bari was occupied by Manuel I Komnenos between 1155 and 1158. Maio of Bari (died 1160), a Lombard merchant's son, was the third of the great admirals of Norman Sicily.

In 1246, Bari was sacked and razed to the ground; Frederick II, King of Sicily, repaired the fortress of Bari but it was subsequently destroyed several times. Bari recovered each time.

Early modern period

A long period of decline characterized the city under the dominations of Aldoino Filangieri di Candida, and those of the Kings of Naples, which held the control of the entire mainland Southern Italy from 1282 to 1806. This decline was interrupted, however, by the splendor under the Sforzas, first with the dukes Ludovico and Beatrice d'Este, then with the duchesses Isabella of Aragon and Bona Sforza. Bari also underwent Venetian domination, which led to the expansion of the port and a very prosperous period, also favored by the trade of inland products, which were in great demand on foreign markets.

In 1556 Princess Bona Sforza of Aragon, second wife of the King of Poland Sigismund I, left Poland and settled in Bari, whose principality she had inherited. Bona Sforza died in 1557.

In 1813, Joachim Murat, King of Naples in the Napoleonic era, began a new urbanization, changing the face of the city and setting a new "chessboard" growth model, which continued for many years to come. The village built at the time on the outskirts of the old city still retains its name.

Water arrived in the city of Bari on 24 April 1915: it was the first cry of the Apulian Aqueduct. During the twenty years of fascism, thanks to the commitment of the mayor and then minister Araldo di Crollalanza, the city experienced the urban development of the seafront.

World War II

On 11 September 1943, in connection with the Armistice of Cassibile, Bari was taken without resistance by the British 1st Airborne Division, then during October and November 1943, New Zealand troops from the 2nd New Zealand Division assembled in Bari.

The Balkan Air Force supporting the Yugoslav partisans was based at Bari.

The 1943 chemical warfare disaster

Through a tragic coincidence intended by neither of the opposing sides in World War II, Bari gained the unwelcome distinction of being the only European city in the course of that war to experience effects like those of chemical warfare.

On the night of 2 December 1943, 105 German Junkers Ju 88 bombers attacked the port of Bari, which was a key supply centre for Allied forces fighting their way up the Italian Peninsula. Over 20 Allied ships were sunk in the overcrowded harbour, including the U.S. Liberty ship John Harvey, which was carrying mustard gas; mustard gas was also reported to have been stacked on the quayside awaiting transport (the chemical agent was intended for retaliation if German forces had initiated chemical warfare). The presence of the gas was highly classified and the U.S. had not informed the British military authorities in the city of its existence. This increased the number of fatalities, since British physicians—who had no idea that they were dealing with the effects of mustard gas—prescribed treatment proper for those suffering from exposure and immersion, which proved fatal in many cases. Because rescuers were unaware they were dealing with gas casualties, many additional casualties were caused among the rescuers, through contact with the contaminated skin and clothing of those more directly exposed to the gas.

Following the attack, the harbor was closed for operations for three weeks and it did not return to full capacity until February 1944.

A member of U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower's medical staff, Stewart F. Alexander, was dispatched to Bari following the raid. Alexander had trained at the Army's Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, and was familiar with some of the effects of mustard gas. Although he was not informed of the cargo carried by the John Harvey, and most victims suffered atypical symptoms caused by exposure to mustard diluted in water and oil (as opposed to airborne), Alexander rapidly concluded that mustard gas was present. Although he could not get any acknowledgement of this from the chain of command, Alexander convinced medical staffs to treat patients for mustard exposure and saved many lives as a result. He also preserved many tissue samples from autopsied victims at Bari. After World War II, these samples would result in the development of an early form of chemotherapy based on mustard, Mustine.

On the orders of Allied leaders Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Eisenhower, records were destroyed and the whole affair was kept secret for many years after the war. The U.S. records of the attack were declassified in 1959, but the episode remained obscure until 1967, when writer Glenn B. Infield exposed the story in his book Disaster at Bari. Additionally, there is considerable dispute as to the exact number of fatalities. In one account: "[S]ixty-nine deaths were attributed in whole or in part to the mustard gas, most of them American merchant seamen". Others put the count as high as "more than one thousand Allied servicemen and more than one thousand Italian civilians".

Part of the confusion and controversy derives from the fact that the German attack, which became nicknamed "The Little Pearl Harbor" after the Japanese air attack on the American naval base in Hawaii, was highly destructive in itself, apart from the effects of the gas. Attribution of the causes of death to the gas, as distinct from the direct effects of the German attack, has proved far from easy.

The affair is the subject of two books: the aforementioned Disaster at Bari, by Glenn B. Infield, and Nightmare in Bari: The World War II Liberty Ship Poison Gas Disaster and Coverup, by Gerald Reminick.

In 1988, through the efforts of Nick T. Spark, U.S. Senators Dennis DeConcini and Bill Bradley, Stewart Alexander received recognition from the Surgeon General of the United States Army for his actions during the Bari disaster.

Charles Henderson explosion
The port of Bari was again struck by disaster on 9 April 1945 when the Liberty ship Charles Henderson exploded in the harbour while offloading 2.000 tons of aerial bombs (half of that amount had been offloaded when the explosion occurred). Three hundred and sixty people were killed and 1,730 were wounded. The harbour was again rendered non-operational, this time for a month.

Geography
Bari is the largest urban and metro area on the Adriatic. It is located in Southern Italy, at a more northerly latitude than Naples, further south than Rome.

Climate
Bari has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csa) bordering on a humid subtropical climate (Köppen: Cfa) with mild winters and hot, dry summers.

Quarters

Bari is divided into five municipalities (Municipi), constituted in 2014. The municipality is also divided into 17 official neighbourhoods ("quartieri").

Architectural landmarks

 Teatro Margherita.
 Teatro Piccinni.
 Orto Botanico dell'Università di Bari, a botanical garden.
 Santa Chiara, once church of the Teutonic Knights (as Santa maria degli Alemanni) and now houses a museum. It was restored in 1539.
 The Acquedotto Pugliese
 The medieval church of San Marco dei Veneziani, with a rose window in the façade.
 Conservatory of Bari
 San Giorgio degli Armeni.
 Santa Teresa dei Maschi, the main Baroque church in the city (1690–1696).
 Pane e Pomodoro Beach is the main beach within reach of the city. Its reputation has for several years suffered from the apparent presence of asbestos from nearby industrial plants.
 Bari features two sea harbours: the Old Port and the New Port, constructed in 1850.

Basilica of Saint Nicholas

The Basilica di San Nicola (Saint Nicholas) was founded in 1087 to receive the relics of this saint, which were brought from Myra in Lycia, and now lie beneath the altar in the crypt. The church is one of the four Palatine churches of Apulia (the others being the cathedrals of Acquaviva delle Fonti and Altamura, and the church of Monte Sant'Angelo sul Gargano).

Bari Cathedral
Bari Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Sabinus of Canosa (San Sabino), was begun in Byzantine style in 1034, but was destroyed in the sack of the city of 1156. A new building was thus built between 1170 and 1178, partially inspired by that of San Nicola. Of the original edifice, only traces of the pavement are today visible in the transept.

Petruzzelli Theatre
The Petruzzelli Theatre, founded in 1903, hosted different forms of live entertainment, or nineteenth century "Politeama". The theatre was all but destroyed in a fire on October 27, 1991. It was reopened in October 2009, after 18 years.

Swabian Castle

The Norman-Hohenstaufen Castle, widely known as the Castello Svevo (Swabian Castle), was built by Roger II of Sicily around 1131. Destroyed in 1156, it was rebuilt by Frederick II of Hohenstaufen. The castle now serves as a gallery for a variety of temporary exhibitions in the city.

Pinacoteca Provinciale di Bari
The Pinacoteca Provinciale di Bari (Provincial Picture Gallery of Bari) is the most important art gallery in Apulia. It was first established in 1928 and contains many paintings from the 15th century up to the days of contemporary art.

The Russian Church
The Russian Church of Saint Nicholas, in the Carrassi district of Bari, was built in the early 20th century to welcome Russian pilgrims who came to the city to visit the church of Saint Nicholas in the old city where the relics of the saint remain.

The city council and Italian national government were recently involved in a trade-off with the Putin government in Moscow, exchanging the piece of land on which the church stands, for, albeit indirectly, a military barracks near Bari's central railway station.

Barivecchia
Barivecchia, or Old Bari, is a sprawl of streets and passageways making up the section of the city to the north of the modern Murat area. A large-scale redevelopment plan began with a new sewerage system, followed by the development of the two main squares, Piazza Mercantile and Piazza Ferrarese.

Demographics
, there were 316,491 people residing in Bari (about 1.6 million lived in the greater Bari area in 2015), located in the province of Bari, Puglia, of whom 47.9% were male and 52.1% were female. , minors (children ages 18 and younger) totaled 17.90 percent of the population compared to pensioners who number 19.08 percent. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06 percent (minors) and 19.94 percent (pensioners). The average age of Bari residents is 42 compared to the Italian average of 42. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Bari grew by 2.69 percent, while Italy as a whole grew by 3.56 percent. The current birth rate of Bari is 8.67 births per 1,000 inhabitants compared to the Italian average of 9.45 births.

, 3.8% of the population was foreign residents.

Migration
According to an urban migration study in Bari, return migration gain to urban areas is higher than migration loss from urban areas. People migrating from urban destinations tend to migrate to different places in comparison to people migrating from rural areas. These findings are based on the background and behavior of a sample of 211 return migrants to Bari, Italy. Bari is a port city, making it historically important because of its strong trade links with Greece, North Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean. Bari's economic structure is based on industry, commerce, services, and administration. Around two-thirds of the city's employment is in the tertiary sector with its port, commerce, and administrative functions. The highest percentage of Bari's working population is employed in services, with 45.6%. From 1958 to 1982, around 20% of migrants left Bari for other Italian communes, while around 17% or migrants came to Bari from other Italian communes. Under 2% of migrants left Bari to go abroad and came to the city from abroad.

Culture

Fiera del Levante
The Fiera del Levante, held in September in the Fiera site on the west side of Bari city center, focuses on agriculture and industry. There is also a "Fair of Nations" which displays handcrafted and locally produced goods from all over the world.

Cuisine and gastronomy

Bari's cuisine is based on three typical agricultural products found within the surrounding region of Apulia, namely wheat, olive oil and wine. The local cuisine is also enriched by the wide variety of fruit and vegetables produced locally. Local flour is used in homemade bread and pasta production including, most notably, the famous orecchiette ear-shaped pasta, recchietelle or strascinate, chiancarelle (orecchiette of different sizes) and cavatelli.

Homemade dough is also used for baked calzoni stuffed with onions, anchovies, capers, olives, etc.; fried panzerotti with mozzarella and/or ricotta forte; focaccia alla barese with tomatoes, olives and oregano; little savoury taralli, and larger friselle; and sgagliozze, fried slices of polenta; all making up the Barese culinary repertoire.

Vegetable minestrone, chick peas, broad beans, chicory, celery and fennel are also often served as first courses or side dishes.

Meat dishes and the local Barese ragù often include lamb and pork.

Pasta al forno, a baked pasta dish, is very popular in Bari and was historically a Sunday dish, or a dish used at the start of Lent when all the rich ingredients such as eggs and pork had to be used for religious reasons. The recipe commonly consists of penne or similar tubular pasta shapes, a tomato sauce, small beef and pork meatballs and halved hard-boiled eggs. The pasta is then topped with mozzarella or similar cheese and then baked in the oven to make the dish have its trademark crispy texture.

Another popular pasta dish is the spaghetti all'assassina. It is a slightly crunchy spaghetti dish, cooked in an iron pan with garlic, olive oil, chili pepper, tomato sauce and tomato broth.

Fresh fish and seafood are often eaten raw. Octopus, sea urchins and mussels feature heavily. Perhaps Bari's most famous dish is the oven-baked patate, riso e cozze (potatoes with rice and mussels).

Bari and the whole Apulian region have a range of wines, including Primitivo, Castel del Monte, and Muscat, notably Moscato di Trani.

Language

The dialect of Bari belongs to the upper-southern Italo-Romance family, and currently coexists with Italian; generally these are used in different contexts.

Notable people

 Licia Albanese
 Giovanni Alemanno
 Emanuele Arciuli
 Argyrus (catepan of Italy)
 Francesco Attolico
 Lino Banfi
 Alessio Bax
 Pope Benedict XIII
 Gioia Bruno
 Gianrico Carofiglio
 Antonio Cassano
 Riccardo Cucciolla
 Niccolò dell'Arca
 Franco Giordano
 Alfredo Giovine
 Ivan Iusco
 Gaetano Latilla
 Guido Marzulli
 Antonio Matarrese
 Domenico Modugno
 Aldo Moro
 Pomponio Nenna
 Mario Nuzzolese
 Joe Orlando
 Anna Oxa
 Pino Pascali
 Nico Perrone
 Niccolò Piccinni
 Victor Posa
 Lazarus Racanelli
 Francesco Racanelli
 Francesco Riefolo
 Rocco Rodio
 Sergio Rubini
 Gaetano Salvemini
 Bona Sforza
 Cesare Stea
 Pope Urban VI
 Nichi Vendola
 Checco Zalone

Sport

Local football club S.S.C. Bari, currently competing in Serie B (as of the 2022–2023 season), plays in the Stadio San Nicola, an architecturally innovative 58,000-seater stadium purpose-built for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. The stadium also hosted the 1991 European Cup final.

Education
Conservatory of Bari
Polytechnic University of Bari
University of Bari

Transport

Bari has its own airport, Bari Karol Wojtyła Airport, which is located  northwest of the centre of Bari. It is connected to the centre by train services from Bari Aeroporto railway station.

Bari Central Station lies on the Adriatic railway and has connection to cities such as Rome, Milan, Bologna, Turin and Venice. Another mainline is connection southwards by the Bari-Taranto railway. The Bari metropolitan railway service operates local commuter services; while regional services also operate to Foggia, Barletta, Brindisi, Lecce, Taranto and other towns and villages in the Apulia region.

Bari has an old fishery port (Porto Vecchio) and a so-called new port in the north, as well as some marinas. The Port of Bari is an important cargo transport hub to Southeast Europe. Various passenger transport lines include some seasonal ferry lines to Albania, Montenegro or Dubrovnik. Bari – Igoumenitsa is a popular ferry route to Greece. Some cruise ships call at Bari.

Twin towns — sister cities

Bari is twinned with:

Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Batumi, Georgia
Corfu, Greece
Durrës, Albania
Guangzhou, China
Kostroma, Russia
Mar del Plata, Argentina
Monte Sant'Angelo, Italy
Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Patras, Greece
San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy
Słupsk, Poland
Szczecin, Poland
Sumgait, Azerbaijan

In popular culture
The Guido Guerrieri novels by Gianrico Carofiglio are set in Bari, where Guerrieri is a criminal lawyer, and include many descriptions of the town.

Bari is one of the primary settings of the detective novel The Black Mountain by Rex Stout. It is the characters' point of embarkation to Communist Yugoslavia.

In the 1995 film The Bridges of Madison County, Italian housewife Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep), is mentioned as being from Bari and growing up in Naples.

The 2020 Edoardo Ponti film La vita davanti a sé, starring Sophia Loren, is set in Bari.

Gallery

See also
 Accademia Apulia
 Antivari (means "opposite Bari")
 Bari Light, the Punta San Cataldo di Bari Lighthouse
 Durres
 Province of Bari

References

Further reading

 Glenn B. Infield. 1973. Disaster at Bari. Ace Books. New York, N.Y.
 Vito Antonio Melchiorre. 2001. Note storiche su Bari.

External links

 City of Bari
 Province of Bari
 Region of Apulia

Cities and towns in Apulia
Coastal towns in Apulia
Mediterranean port cities and towns in Italy
Port cities and towns of the Adriatic Sea

Bari


Axial ratio, for any structure or shape with two or more axes, is the ratio of the length (or magnitude) of those axes to each other - the longer axis divided by the shorter.

In chemistry or materials science, the axial ratio (symbol P) is used to describe rigid rod-like molecules.  It is defined as the length of the rod divided by the rod diameter.

In physics, the axial ratio describes electromagnetic radiation with elliptical, or circular, polarization.  The axial ratio is the ratio of the magnitudes of the major and minor axis defined by the electric field vector.

See also
 Aspect ratio
 Degree of polarization

Ratios
Polymer physics

Axial ratio


Coulson Norman Mitchell  (11 December 1889 – 17 November 1978) was a Canadian soldier. Mitchell was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

World War I
Born in Winnipeg on December 11, 1889, Mitchell was a graduate of the University of Manitoba in civil engineering. With the outbreak of the First World War he enlisted as a private in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1914 and went overseas with a railway construction unit. He was commissioned in the field as a temporary lieutenant. While serving with the 1st Tunnelling Company of Canadian Engineers he was awarded the Military Cross in 1917.

Victoria Cross
Mitchell was 28 years old, and a captain in the 4th Engineer Battalion, Canadian Engineers,  2nd Canadian Division in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty on the night of 8–9 October 1918, at Canal de L'Escaut, north-east of Cambrai.

He led a small party ahead of the first wave of infantry in order to examine the various bridges on the line of approach and, if possible, to prevent their demolition.

On reaching the canal he found the bridge already blown up. Under a heavy barrage he crossed to the next bridge, where he cut a number of "lead" wires. Then in total darkness, and unaware of the position or strength of the enemy at the bridgehead, he dashed across the main bridge over the canal. This bridge was found to be heavily charged for demolition, and whilst Capt. Mitchell, assisted by his N.C.O., was cutting the wires, the enemy attempted to rush the bridge in order to blow the charges, whereupon he at once dashed to the assistance of his sentry, who had been wounded, killed three of the enemy, captured 12, and maintained the bridgehead until reinforced.

Then under heavy fire he continued his task of cutting wires and removing charges, which he well knew might at any moment have been fired by the enemy.

It was entirely due to his valour and decisive action that this important bridge across the canal was saved from destruction.

World War II
After the war, Mitchell returned to Winnipeg to practice civil engineering. Early in World War II, he was assigned to the Royal Canadian Engineers (RCE), at Camp Borden, Ont. In 1940, he went overseas and was put in charge of replacement training. Transferred back to Canada in 1943, he was attached to National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa before joining the staff of the RCE Training Centre at Petawawa, Ont. In 1944, he took command of the Royal Canadian School of Military Engineering in Chilliwack, B.C. He later achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Later life and memorials

In 1946, Mitchell moved to Montreal where he joined an engineering firm in an executive capacity. In 1965, a Montreal branch of The Royal Canadian Legion was named after him.  He died November 17, 1978 and was buried at the National Field of Honour in Pointe Claire, Quebec (Section M. Grave 3051).

The Canadian Military Engineers chose to honour Mitchell by naming the main building of the Canadian Forces School of Military Engineering at CFB Gagetown, New Brunswick after him.  His Victoria Cross is on display at the museum there.

A street in the town of Mount Royal is named after him. Mitchell Avenue, Mount Royal, Quebec.  Coulson Mitchell Lake, named after him is located approximately 100 kilometres east of Thompson. The name of the lake is being modified to Norman Mitchell Lake at the request of the family to reflect that Lieutenant-colonel  Mitchell was commonly referred to by the name "Norman".

Honours

References

Further reading
Monuments to Courage (David Harvey, 1999)
The Register of the Victoria Cross (This England, 1997)
The Sapper VCs (Gerald Napier, 1998)
VCs of the First World War - The Final Days 1918 (Gerald Gliddon, 2000)

External links

Coulson Norman Mitchell's digitized service file
Royal Engineers Museum Sappers VCs
Legion Magazine article on Coulson Mitchell

1889 births
1978 deaths
Canadian World War I recipients of the Victoria Cross
Canadian military personnel of World War I
Canadian Expeditionary Force officers
Military personnel from Winnipeg
Canadian recipients of the Military Cross
Canadian military engineers
University of Manitoba alumni
Tunnel warfare in World War I
Canadian Army personnel of World War II
Canadian Militia officers
Canadian Army officers
Royal Canadian Engineers officers
Burials in Quebec

Coulson Norman Mitchell


Fernando Medrano Medina (born May 14, 1988) is a Nicaraguan former swimmer, who specialized in butterfly events. Medrano qualified for the men's 100 m butterfly at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, by receiving a Universality place from FINA, in an entry time of 1:00.80. He participated in heat one against two other swimmers Luis Matias of Angola and Rad Aweisat of Palestine. He raced to second place by nearly two seconds behind winner Matias in 1:00.91. Medrano failed to advance into the semifinals, as he placed fifty-eighth overall in the preliminaries.

References

1988 births
Living people
Nicaraguan male swimmers
Olympic swimmers for Nicaragua
Swimmers at the 2004 Summer Olympics
Male butterfly swimmers

Fernando Medrano (swimmer)


The Sangkum Reastr Niyum (,  , ; ), usually translated as Popular  People's Socialist Community and commonly known simply as the Sangkum (,  ; ), was a political organisation set up on 22 March 1955 by Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia. Though it described itself as a 'movement' rather than a political party (members had to abjure membership of any political group), the Sangkum retained control of the government of Cambodia throughout the first administration of Sihanouk, from 1955 to 1970. Central to the Sangkum ideology were nationalism, conservatism, preserving the monarchy, and a conservative interpretation of Buddhism.

Formation

The Sangkum came into existence after Sihanouk stepped down from the throne in 1955 in favour of his father Norodom Suramarit, with the intention of concentrating on politics.

The movement was based on four small monarchist, rightist parties, including the Victorious Northeast party of Dap Chhuon and the Khmer Renovation party of Lon Nol. Sihanouk broadened this political base into the Sangkum in order to fight the 1955 parliamentary election, the first after independence. Despite its apolitical image, the Sangkum effectively functioned as the pro-Sihanouk party. It won an overwhelming victory in the elections: there were subsequently allegations of massive electoral fraud, and of intimidation directed against both the opposing Democratic Party and the socialist Krom Pracheachon.

Policies and character

Despite its name, Sangkum's "Royal-Buddhist socialism" or "Khmer socialism" had little to do with socialism, neither with the Marxist variant nor with Anglo-Saxon "welfare socialism". Lacking a consistent political philosophy, it combined pseudo-socialist slogans with conservative social values, monarchism, nationalism and Theravada Buddhist teachings. It was stated that administrators would be "socialists for the well-being of the people and royalists for the prestige and cohesion of the nation". At the same time, the Sangkum was designed to democraticise the country and to exert political control. Rather than subscribing to a certain ideology, Sangkum was defined by its leader Prince Sihanouk and his personal popularity.

In power, the Sangkum functioned according to principles of 'Buddhist socialism', a rather vague construct that while claiming to seek progressive goals and the end of social injustice, was based around the conservative religious and social traditions of Cambodia. Rather than doing away with private property, 'Buddhist socialism' encouraged the wealthy to give to the poor in order to gain merit. Public figures were also instructed to be fully accountable to the populace, transparent in their dealings, and were encouraged to take regular breaks to perform ordinary agricultural-related work (Sihanouk often had himself photographed performing such labour during his visits to development projects).

In practice, economic management developed as a form of "crony socialism" analogous to crony capitalism: state enterprises were set up and then managed by members of the Sangkum elite, often for their own personal gain. State organisations set up under the Sangkum included OROC, the Office royale de coopération, which handled trade, import and export.

In 1957, Sihanouk set up a youth wing of the Sangkum, known as the "Royal Khmer Socialist Youth" (French: Jeunesse socialiste royale khmère, JSRK).

Domestic politics under the Sangkum

Sihanouk's method of alternately criticising his opponents in various public forums, and then of offering them posts within the Sangkum in a demand that they positively contribute to Cambodian society, had the dual effect of stifling dissent and of integrating much of the opposition into his regime. Sihanouk attempted to construct an image of Cambodia as a "Southeast Asian Camelot", an oasis of peace and social order amidst the conflict affecting the rest of the region. Internationally, an official policy of neutrality was adopted.

During the period of Sihanouk's rule, the Sangkum managed to absorb many of the rightist and centrist elements of Cambodian politics, as well as pro-Sihanouk elements of the left and moderate communists: only the more hardline secret elements of the Communist Party of Kampuchea avoided collaborating with Sihanouk's regime. Several prominent communists, such as Hu Nim and Khieu Samphan, accepted posts with the Sangkum in an attempt to work with the system. In the early 1960s, Samphan – later to become the head of state under the Khmer Rouge – was called on by Sihanouk to implement a series of economic reforms based on plans outlined in Samphan's PhD thesis.

While the Democratic Party, the representatives of moderate, progressive republican politics in the Cambodian political milieu, were effectively incorporated into the Sangkum in 1957, many republican moderates simply avoided politics altogether until the period immediately after 1970.

The only notable element to remain outside the Sangkum, other than the hardline communists, was the right-wing, anti-monarchist nationalist Son Ngoc Thanh, whose Khmer Serei irregulars maintained armed resistance with funding from Thailand. Sihanouk was to label his opponents on the right as the "Khmer Bleu" to distinguish them from his opponents on the left. However, it seems that during the late 1950s and early 1960s there was relatively little violent repression of opposition to the Sangkum (although there was repeated political intimidation of the leftist Pracheachon party, who were accused of being pro-Vietnam) and the country as a whole experienced a period of comparative stability. The one exception was again the Khmer Serei, who were dealt with harshly: Preap In, a Khmer Serei activist who attempted to negotiate with Sihanouk in 1963, was arrested and his subsequent execution shown in cinemas across the country. The same treatment was given to another group of alleged Khmer Serei leaders, Chau Bory (previously implicated in the Bangkok Plot), Chau Mathura, and Sau Ngoy, in 1967.

End of the Sangkum era

Sihanouk was made Head of State for life in 1963. From the mid-1960s, however, fractures began to appear in the regime. The 1966 elections resulted in an overwhelming victory for rightist candidates; Sihanouk responded by creating a left-wing "Counter-Government", including Hu Nim and Khieu Samphan, to act as a check, and prevent the regime splitting completely.

Increasingly violent repression of the left, led by Lon Nol and the military in Sihanouk's name, came to alienate many of the remaining communists, especially the more moderate pro-Sihanouk faction who owed a strong allegiance to Vietnam and the Viet Minh. Sihanouk's public criticism of the 'Khmer Viet Minh' had the damaging effect of increasing the power of the hardline, anti-Vietnamese, but also anti-monarchical members of the CPK, led by Pol Pot. Escalation of the Second Indochina War also had a destabilising effect on both the political situation and the Cambodian economy. The Sangkum found itself locked in an increasingly bitter struggle with what it represented as 'foreign' elements of the Viet Minh and Pathet Lao within Cambodia: speaking on Phnom Penh radio after a group of Vietnamese communists was captured, Sihanouk stated that "I had them roasted [...] we had to feed them to the vultures".

The shockingly brutal tactics adopted by the Sangkum regime against not only leftists from outside the Cambodian borders, but also increasingly against the Khmer left, especially after a possibly CPK-backed rebellion in rural Battambang Province beginning in early 1967, presaged the similarly brutal conduct of the subsequent Cambodian Civil War. Reports stated that captured communists were summarily killed, in some cases being disembowelled or thrown from cliffs. The three remaining public representatives of the communists – Khieu Samphan, Hou Yuon and Hu Nim – fled to the forests in 1967-8, though at the time it was widely rumoured that they had been murdered by the Sangkum's police (after their reappearance in the 1970s, they were referred to in the press as the "Three Ghosts").

Deposition of Sihanouk

Amid increasing political instability, Sihanouk was eventually deposed in 1970 by Lon Nol and the rightists led by In Tam and Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak. Subsequent to the coup, the Khmer Rumdo ("Liberation Khmer") guerrillas, armed and trained by North Vietnam, continued armed resistance on Sihanouk's behalf against his own former colleagues. Sihanouk's tactic of making common cause with the Khmer communist insurgents was to attract a huge number of recruits to their side. The Sangkum was formally dissolved on 18 February 1971.

Elements of Sihanouk's Sangkum regime went on to form the royalist party FUNCINPEC and its military wing, the Sihanouk National Army or ANS, which controlled large parts of rural Cambodia during the 1980s.

Evaluation

Opinion remains sharply divided on the Sangkum movement, as on Sihanouk himself. Many commentators, particularly those on the left or those personally opposed to Sihanouk, have described the Sangkum as essentially a conservative movement which sought to maintain the power and influence of the Cambodian status quo through authoritarianism. Others, however, have noted that it vastly increased the participation of ordinary Cambodians in democracy, and describe it as a pragmatic movement which genuinely sought to bring community development to Cambodia through "expert guidance and gentle persuasion".

There is a certain degree of nostalgia amongst older Cambodians for the Sangkum era, especially given the relative stability of the years 1955–1965 in comparison to later periods. After the 1991 political settlement and Sihanouk's 1993 restoration as king, a number of Cambodian political parties used the term "Sangkum" in their name in order to associate themselves with this period.

General election results

References

1955 establishments in Cambodia
1970 disestablishments in Cambodia
Buddhist political parties
Defunct political parties in Cambodia
Conservative parties in Cambodia
Monarchist parties in Cambodia
Nationalist parties in Cambodia
Political parties disestablished in 1970
Political parties established in 1955
Social democratic parties in Cambodia
Socialist parties in Cambodia
Parties of one-party systems

Sangkum


Vang Stave Church (; ; ) or Mountain Church of Our Savior () is a stave church located in Karpacz in the Karkonosze mountains in Poland. It was transferred to its present location from Vang in the Valdres region of Norway and re-erected in 1842. A notable tourist attraction, it is Poland's only stave church. It serves as a parish church of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland.

The church is a four-post single-nave stave church originally built around 1200 in the parish of Vang in the Valdres region of Norway.

History
Originally built as a Catholic church in the Middle Ages, following the Reformation it used by a congregation belonging to the Church of Norway. In 1832, the local council decided to pull down the stave church because it was too small and had become structurally unsafe over the years. The plans for its demolition and replacement were known already in 1826, when the painter Johan Christian Dahl made the first attempt to save it. He urged the council to repair and extend it.

There was also an attempt to have it re-erected at Heensåsen in the same parish as an annex church. Knut Nordsveen, a local farmer, offered to donate the building site to the community, but his offer was rejected. Disappointed by the rebuff, he later sold his farm and emigrated to America. In 1932, a monument was erected in memory of him.

Relocation

While traveling in Norway in 1839, Dahl again visited Vang. He found the stave church still standing, beside a newly built larger log-built church seating 230 parishioners. Demolition of the old one was imminent. Dahl was more than ever convinced that the stave church must be preserved as a cultural monument. He proposed without success to have it re-erected as a Royal Chapel in Christiania, or as a museum church adjacent to the medieval Haakon's Hall in Bergen. Count Herman Wedel Jarlsberg announced his willingness to place it in his park at Bogstad manor near Christiania, but he died before the plan could be carried out.

Dahl saw no other way than to buy the church himself. He asked the vicar of Vang to bid on his behalf at the public auction held in January 1841. Dahl won the bid at 86 speciedaler, 1 ort and 7 skilling, on the condition that the site was cleared by the end of the year. Accused of being a speculant, Dahl defended himself by stating that his only intention was to rescue the church, and that he had no intention of making money from the deal.

The solution came from Crown Prince, later King Frederick William IV of Prussia, whom Dahl knew personally. After the exchange of several letters, he persuaded the prince to take over responsibility for the Vang Stave Church and cover the costs of re-erecting it in Potsdam.

The task of surveying the church, marking the materials, supervising the dismantling and preparing for the transportation was entrusted to the young German architect , who had helped Dahl to make the plates for his book on the stave churches, and who was probably also known to the Crown Prince. Schiertz did pioneering work in documentation and planning for an enterprise without precedent. His drawings and inventories are now priceless sources of knowledge about the original appearance of the stave church. All pieces were marked and packed for transportation during the summer. In September they were delivered at the harbour of Lærdalsøyri at the head of the Sognefjord, where they were loaded on board the Haabet, bound for Stettin (Szczecin). Upon arrival in Stettin after two months at sea, the materials were transferred onto a barge for the last leg of the journey to Berlin, where they were stored during the winter in the courtyard of the Altes Museum.

The original plan had been to re-erect the church on the Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island) near Potsdam. But in the meantime, this plan was discarded in favour of a site at the remote village of Karpacz Górny near Karpacz in the Giant Mountains (Karkonosze), in the province of Silesia. The idea probably came from countess Friederike von Reden of Bukowiec, whose memorial stands beside the church. Count Christian Leopold von Schaffgotsch Jelenia Góra|Cieplice, donated the site.

In the spring of 1842 the materials were again taken by river barge up the Oder to the foothills, and from there by wagon to the mountain village of Karpacz. The new site for the church is  above sea level in Brückenberg, about halfway between Krummhübel and the peak of the Sněžka-Śnieżka.

Re-erection

The foundation stone was laid on 2 August 1842 in the presence of King Friedrich Wilhelm himself. It was a demanding task for carpenters who had never seen the church, nor any stave church, to rebuild it correctly. In spite of excellent drawings, most of the materials were discarded. Only the main construction, consisting of sills, posts and wall plates, were made use of, in addition to the carved doorframes. All of the external gallery was built with new materials, and every wall plank was replaced.

The long lost apse was reconstructed, albeit with a very strange baroque roof. The gallery and the flèche were reconstructed, but several new windows without historical precedent were put in. The doorways were turned inside out, with the carvings facing inward. The decorated ceiling above the choir was not restored, probably because it seemed too Catholic in a Protestant church. All the original roof trusses were renewed.

The work took two years and the total cost amounted to more than 75 000 marks. On the King's birthday, 15 October 1843, the flèche with the date 1200 was raised. On 27 July 1844 Prince Frederick of the Netherlands together with huge crowds witnessed the consecration of "Die Bergkirche unseres Erlösers zu Wang" (The mountain church of Our Savior of Vang). The former owner J. C. Dahl was not present, but he was happy to know that his project had been realised. He was spared the burden of preserving only certain decorated elements, and pleased that "a fair likeness" had been rebuilt.

Now serving a Polish Lutheran community, Wang church has become a major tourist attraction and is probably the world's most visited stave church with about 200,000 visitors each year.

Original building

The layout with four internal posts or staves is common to several stave churches in the Valdres region. But in the stave churches of Høre and Lomen they are incorporated into a construction with a raised roof above the central part of the nave, whereas the churches of Vang and Øye have ordinary saddle roofs, with no structural connection between the roof and the interior posts.

According to tradition, the church had been relocated once before at an earlier date, confirming the opinion of many scholars that it was much altered before leaving Vang. The Norwegian architect Arne Berg has after thorough examination of the rebuilt church concluded that the remaining original materials belonged to a stave church of the Sogn type with a raised roof above the central part of the nave. Dating evidence is, however, scant. He estimates it to have been built around 1200 – confirming the rather dubious date inscribed in 1843. It may have been rebuilt already in the medieval period, but perhaps as late as 1600.

Runic inscription N 83

There is a runic inscription listed in Rundata as N 83 located on the doorway of the church, of which the expert Magnus Olsen has proposed the translation: " Eindridi the dexterous carved (the doorway), the son of Olav of Lo" (Old Norse: Eindriði skar, mjáfingr, sonr Ólafs á Ló). If this is the correct interpretation, the inscription identifies the artist. His name was Eindridi, his nickname was "dexterous" or "handy", and his father was Olav of Lo. In 1937, the inscription was reported as badly damaged and hardly readable. The interpretations of the inscriptions are based on copies made before the church was moved.

Gallery

See also
 The Vang stone
 Øye Stave Church

Further reading

 Berg, Arne, Stavkyrkja frå Vang og hennar lange ferd, Foreningen til norske Fortidsminnesmerkers bevaring, Årbok 1980, vol. 134, p. 105-140

References

External links

 Vang Stave Church in Poland – in English, Polish, German
 View of the Vang Stave Church from a drone

Churches completed in 1842
Churches in Poland
Lutheran churches in Poland
Stave churches
Runic inscriptions
Churches in Lower Silesian Voivodeship
Karkonosze County
Churches completed in 1200
Wooden churches in Poland
19th-century churches in Poland

Vang Stave Church


Witch from Nepal (奇緣) is a 1986 Hong Kong supernatural film directed by Ching Siu-tung. The film stars Chow Yun-fat as Joe Wong, an architect on vacation in Nepal with his girlfriend, Ida (Yammie Lam). Joe injures his leg as in a hospital where he has dreams of a beautiful woman with magical powers. Joe is later in a hospital in Hong Kong with his leg infected, finding that the woman from his visions named Sheila (Emily Chu) magically heals him. Sheila is a good witch who gets Joe to return to Nepal to fight a cat-like demon with supernatural powers.

The film was part of a trend of supernatural film productions from Hong Kong about Chinese tourists in exotic South Asian locations. It grossed $4.2 million Hong Kong dollars on its theatrical run in Hong Kong. The film was nominated for two awards at the 6th Hong Kong Film Awards, where director Chin Siu-tung won the Best Action Choreography Award.

Plot
While on vacation in Nepal, Joe Wong (Chow Yun-fat) and his girlfriend, Ida (Yammie Lam), ride an elephant when Joe falls and hurts his knee and is sent to a hospital. In a local hospital, Joe has visions of a beautiful veiled woman with mystical powers. Joe's leg later becomes infected and he finds himself in a hospital in Hong Kong, and finds the woman from his dreams earlier named Sheila (Emily Chu) magically healing his legs and granting him superhuman powers such as the ability to make large leaps through the air. Sheila reveals to Joe that she is a witch and that he has become a chosen one, to help defeat a demon for a Himalayan tribe who had their temple destroyed by the creature. Joe and Sheila begin to have an affair. Joe eventually meets up with the demon (Dick Wei) and the two have a clash at a temple. Sheila eventually sacrifices herself to save both Joe and Ida.

Production
Witch from Nepal was director Ching Siu-tung's second film as a director after Duel to the Death (1983).

Style
Witch from Nepal follows a trend of Hong Kong films at the time to have a plot about Chinese tourists in exotic South Asian locations such as Nepal, Thailand or Borneo such as The Seventh Curse. The film is a mixture of genres that include gothic horror, romance, comedy and mystery.

Release
Witch from Nepal was released in Hong Kong on 27 February 1986. grossed a total of HK$4,285,113 The film has been released under several different English titles including The Nepal Affair, Affair from Nepal and A Touch of Love.

Reception
At the 6th Hong Kong Film Awards, the film was nominated for Best Art Direction (James Leung) and Best Film Editing (Peter Cheung). Ching Siu-tung (Along with other three choreographers such as Philip Kwok, Alan Chui Chung-San and Lau Chi Hou) won the award for Best Action Choreography, beating other films nominees including Righting Wrongs and Peking Opera Blues.

Notes

References

External links

1986 films
1986 action films
1986 martial arts films
1986 horror films
1980s romance films
Hong Kong action films
Hong Kong martial arts films
Hong Kong horror films
Hong Kong romance films
Martial arts horror films
Hong Kong supernatural horror films
Romantic horror films
Golden Harvest films
1980s Cantonese-language films
Films directed by Ching Siu-tung
Films set in Nepal
Films shot in Nepal
Films set in Hong Kong
Films shot in Hong Kong
1980s Hong Kong films

Witch from Nepal


"White Rabbit" is the fifth episode of the first season of Lost. The episode was directed by Kevin Hooks and written by Christian Taylor. It first aired on October 20, 2004, on ABC.

The episode is centered on the character of Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), with flashbacks revealing his past, including his childhood and his trip to Australia looking for his missing father Christian Shephard. In present-day events, the plane crash survivors begin to struggle as they realize they are running out of fresh water. While Jack tries to solve the conflicts, he starts seeing Christian in the jungle, and chases the hallucination of his dead father.

The episode attracted an estimated 16.82 million live viewers. It received mostly positive reviews, and was listed as #49 on IGN's ranking of every episode of Lost. After the broadcast of "White Rabbit", ABC picked up Lost for a full season, adding an additional nine episodes to the thirteen that were already scheduled.

Plot

Flashbacks
A young Jack Shephard opens his eye and sees a bully and another assaulting his best friend, Mark Silverman. The bully gives Jack the chance to leave, but Jack decides to stay with his friend and so the bully puches Jack in his eye. When Jack returns home his father, Christian Shephard, sees his son's beaten face, he tells him he should not be a hero because he's weak and "doesn't have what it takes."

In September 2004, Jack visits his mother, who tells him that Christian has abruptly left for Australia, and asks Jack to bring him back. He initially refuses, but she guilts him into doing it by reminding him of what he did to his father. In Sydney, Jack is informed by the manager of the hotel Christian was staying at that he has not been there for several days, following an incident at a bar. Jack finds alcohol, pills, and Christian's wallet in his room.

In a morgue, Jack identifies Christian's body. The coroner tells him that his father suffered an alcohol-induced heart attack. Jack later argues with an Oceanic Airlines ticket agent, who says the documentation to put Christian's coffin aboard Flight 815 is incomplete. Jack, frustrated, explains that all the arrangements are set for the funeral once he arrives at LAX, and he needs to bury his father, because he needs it "to be over."

On the Island
Jack rescues Boone when Boone fails to save a drowning woman, Joanna. Later, Jack is approached by Hurley and Charlie about how to deal with their diminishing water supplies. At the same time, Boone confronts Jack for saving him and not Joanna, asking who made Jack their leader. Jack again sees the man in the suit from the previous episode and runs after him. Upon catching up, he recognizes the man as Christian before he disappears. Continuing to chase him, Jack trips and is left clinging to a branch over a cliff.

Back at the beach, Claire faints from dehydration, and Charlie is unable to find the water rations. Locke volunteers to look for water in the jungle. While searching, he discovers Jack and rescues him. The two talk, and Jack says he does not want to be the leader because he "doesn't have what it takes." Locke advises him to pursue his "hallucination" of his father, explaining his belief that everything on the Island happens for a reason.

At nightfall, Jack follows a sound he heard in the jungle, leading him to stumble upon a cave containing a spring of fresh water. He also finds some debris from the plane, including his father's coffin. He opens it, only to discover that it's empty, leading him to smash it up in frustration.

Charlie catches Boone giving water to an unconscious Claire. Boone admits that he stole the water in an attempt to take responsibility for its rationing. A fight begins between him and some of the other survivors, but Jack returns and stops them. He gives a speech, telling them about the water he found and that they all need to cooperate to survive, because "if we can't live together, we're going to die alone." From that point, Jack  believes he proved to his dad that he's not weak and "has got what it takes."

Production

"White Rabbit" aired on October 20, 2004. The episode was directed by Kevin Hooks and written by Christian Taylor. Taylor declared the underlying message was of "a man's journey to find out who he really is", in how solving Jack's conflicted relationship with his father gave him an excuse to reinvent himself and was "integrated into what Jack becomes in the context of the series". Showrunner Damon Lindelof was enthused about working with the episode, even if "it did not end with a big shocking twist or surprise" like predecessor "Walkabout". Lindelof was particularly positive about "this great scene between Jack and Locke in the woods," which still influenced the characters' later discussions about faith, such as in the fourth-season finale "There's No Place Like Home".

In the scene when Jack is dangling from the cliff, Matthew Fox performs the stunt himself, as he considered that relying on stunt doubles "always sort of inhibits the director's ability to shoot it in cool ways." Fox dangled from a thirty foot high cliff in front of a blue screen, that through digital extensions appeared to be hundreds of feet high. However, Fox's long time stunt actor, Steve Blalock, performed Jack's rolling down the mountain before grabbing the edge of the cliff, given Fox considered that "there are some things that I'm not gonna be able to do".

The episode is named after the White Rabbit from the tale Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, who leads the story's title character, Alice, deeper and deeper down a hole to a whimsical world called Wonderland, while meeting different characters. Just as Alice followed the White Rabbit deeper and deeper down the hole to Wonderland, Jack follows his father deeper and deeper into the jungle. Geoff Heise, who shows Jack his dead father at the morgue, is also in the Pilot episode as a survivor. It is unclear why this is so, and whether or not his portrayal of two seemingly unrelated characters has any symbolism. The episode marks the first appearance of actor John Terry, who plays Jack's father, Christian Shephard (the mysterious man who Jack chases in the jungle). In the previous episode, "Walkabout", Christian was played by a stand-in actor, as the character hadn't been cast yet; thus, only the back of his head was shown.

Reception
"White Rabbit" first aired in the United States on October 20, 2004. An estimated 16.82 million viewers in America watched the episode on its first broadcast, and it finished second in its timeslot behind the 2004 Major League Baseball season playoffs.  Among adults aged 18 to 49, the episode earned a ratings share of 6.3/16, finishing in fourteenth place for the week. Based upon the series' success, ABC picked up Lost for the full season soon after the broadcast of "White Rabbit", ordering another nine episodes beyond the thirteen it had already agreed upon.

The episode received mostly positive reviews. Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club gave the episode an A−, writing that "The structure of 'White Rabbit' is kind of half-formed, in a way that strikes me as very similar to the structure of 'Tabula Rasa', but I think that feeling of everything having been tossed together at the last minute suits the episode in a way it didn't the earlier one." VanDerWerff also writes, "the more I think about this episode, the more I admire it for taking away Jack's agency." IGN reviewer Chris Carabott gave the episode a 7.9/10, writing that it "features one of the best flashbacks dedicated to Jack." Robin Pierson of The TV Critic gave "White Rabbit" a 72/100, praising on how the writers did another "character heavy" episode without "trying to cram unnecessary action." However, Pierson added that the cliff scene was clichéd, particularly as "we don't really believe that he will die, so it is an action movie scene which we probably didn't leave."

Ryan McGee of Zap2it described "White Rabbit" as "a worthy successor to 'Walkabout,' and one of the stronger Jack-centric eps the show ever produced." Lost Episode Guide for Others: An Unofficial Anthology by Robert Dougherty says the episode is a must-see; it is "our first in depth glimpse at Jack's character". Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly gave the episode a B+, complimenting the "tantalizing peek" into Jack's dysfunctional relationship with Christian, "producing both juicy questions and eerie revelations". IGN listed "White Rabbit" 49th on their ranking of every episode of Lost, describing the "live together, die alone" speech as iconic. A similar ranking of episodes by Emily VanDerWerff for the Los Angeles Times placed the episode at 82nd, feeling it was "more notable for the things it introduces – like the Monster impersonating dead people" than the plot.

References

Works cited

External links

 "White Rabbit" at ABC

Lost (season 1) episodes
2004 American television episodes
Television episodes directed by Kevin Hooks

White Rabbit (Lost)


The Neufville de Villeroy family was a French noble family, the most notable member of which was François de Neufville, duc de Villeroi.  It was descended from a finance minister to Louis XII.

Arms
Its arms are "d'azur au chevron d'or accompagné de trois croisettes ancrées du même".

Titles
It held two main duchies, that of Villeroy (peerage rank) and Alincourt (non-peerage rank).  It also acquired the duchies and titles of Beaupréau and Retz (1716).  Before becoming duke of Villeroy in title, Louis François Anne de Neufville de Villeroy called himself "Duke of Retz", a purely courtesy title.

Duke of Villeroy
The title duke of Villeroy was created in September 1651 for Nicolas V de Villeroy.  He was raised to the peerage of France in 1663.

 1651–1685 : Nicolas V de Neufville de Villeroy (1597–1685), 1st duke of Villeroy. Marshal of France, named governor by Louis XIV in 1646.
 1685–1730 : François de Neufville de Villeroy (1644–1730), 2nd duke of Villeroy, son of the former, marshal, governor under Louis XV.
 1730–1734 : Louis Nicolas de Neufville de Villeroy (1663–1734), 3rd duke of Villeroy, son of the former.
 1734–1766 : Louis François Anne de Neufville de Villeroy (1695–1766), 4th duke of Villeroy, son of the former.
 1766–1794 : Gabriel Louis François de Neufville de Villeroy (1731–1794), 5th and last duke of Villeroy, nephew of the former.

Duke of Alincourt
The title duke of Alincourt was created on 20 September 1729 for François Camille de Neufville de Villeroy, younger son of Louis Nicolas de Neufville de Villeroy.

 1729–1732 : François Camille de Neufville de Villeroy (†1732).
 1732–1794 : Gabriel Louis François de Neufville de Villeroy (1731–1794).

Other notable family members

 Camille de Neufville de Villeroy (1606–1693), archbishop of Lyon.
 François Paul de Neufville de Villeroy (1677–1731), archbishop of Lyon.

French families

Neufville de Villeroy family


Prairie restoration is a type of habitat conservation, for prairies and habitats that lived alongside prairies.  It is the act of restoring land that was once native prairie to how it once was.  In North America this is usually defined as pre-settlement, meaning before Europeans arrived.  Much of this land is good for farming and has been plowed for planting crops or turned into pastures.  In Illinois, there was once 22 million acres (9 million hectares), now there are less than 2300 acres (920 hectares) of high-quality original prairie remaining.

Invasive plants and trees
Invasive species are a big problem with prairies.  Since fires cannot burn freely, many new species are taking over, and preventing sunlight from reaching shorter plants.  In the United States, European buckthorn is a common problem.  Garlic mustard is another.  Often areas that once held a hundred different species of plants now only has three or four species.

Restoration techniques

Controlled burns
Weeding
Brush cutting
Seed collecting
Sowing

References

ecosystems
Conservation

Prairie restoration


King Leodegrance , sometimes Leondegrance, Leodogran, or variations thereof, is the father of Queen Guinevere in Arthurian legend. His kingdom of Cameliard (or Carmelide) is usually identified with Cornwall but may be located in Breton Cornouaille near the town of Carhaix-Plouguer, which is the Carhaise of L'Histoire de Merlin (13th century).

Leodegrance had served Uther Pendragon, King Arthur's biological father and regnal predecessor. Leodegrance was entrusted with the keeping of the Round Table at Uther's death. When Guinevere marries Arthur, Leodegrance gives the young king the table as a wedding present. In later romance Leodegrance is one of the few kings who accept Arthur as his overlord. For this, his land is invaded by the rebel king Rience, but Arthur comes to his rescue and expels the enemy. Arthur meets Guinevere for the first time during this excursion, and they develop a love that eventually results in their fateful marriage.

According to the Lancelot-Grail prose cycle, Leodegrance fathered a second daughter out of wedlock; he also names this child Guinevere. The "False Guinevere" later treacherously convinces Arthur's court that she is his real wife and her sister is an impostor, forcing the real queen and her lover Lancelot into hiding with their friend Galehaut. Guinevere eventually returns and reclaims her throne.

In Welsh mythology, the father of Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere) is the giant Ogyruan/Ogyrvan or Gogyrfan, who is mentioned in a number of Middle Welsh texts.

In popular culture
Leodegrance was portrayed by Patrick Stewart in the 1981 film Excalibur and by Daragh O'Malley in the 2011 television series Camelot.

References

Arthurian characters
Family of King Arthur
Knights of the Round Table
Mythological kings
Welsh giants

King Leodegrance


Task parallelism (also known as function parallelism and control parallelism) is a form of parallelization of computer code across multiple processors in parallel computing environments. Task parallelism focuses on distributing tasks—concurrently performed by processes or threads—across different processors.  In contrast to data parallelism which involves running the same task on different components of data, task parallelism is distinguished by running many different tasks at the same time on the same data. A common type of task parallelism is pipelining, which consists of moving a single set of data through a series of separate tasks where each task can execute independently of the others.

Description
In a multiprocessor system, task parallelism is achieved when each processor executes a different thread (or process) on the same or different data.  The threads may execute the same or different code.  In the general case, different execution threads communicate with one another as they work, but this is not a requirement.  Communication usually takes place by passing data from one thread to the next as part of a workflow.

As a simple example, if a system is running code on a 2-processor system (CPUs "a" & "b") in a parallel environment and we wish to do tasks "A" and "B", it is possible to tell CPU "a" to do task "A" and CPU "b" to do task "B" simultaneously, thereby reducing the run time of the execution. The tasks can be assigned using conditional statements as described below.

Task parallelism emphasizes the distributed (parallelized) nature of the processing (i.e. threads), as opposed to the data (data parallelism).  Most real programs fall somewhere on a continuum between task parallelism and data parallelism.

Thread-level parallelism (TLP) is the parallelism inherent in an application that runs multiple threads at once. This type of parallelism is found largely in applications written for commercial servers such as databases. By running many threads at once, these applications are able to tolerate the high amounts of I/O and memory system latency their workloads can incur - while one thread is delayed waiting for a memory or disk access, other threads can do useful work.

The exploitation of thread-level parallelism has also begun to make inroads into the desktop market with the advent of multi-core microprocessors. This has occurred because, for various reasons, it has become increasingly impractical to increase either the clock speed or instructions per clock of a single core.  If this trend continues, new applications will have to be designed to utilize multiple threads in order to benefit from the increase in potential computing power.  This contrasts with previous microprocessor innovations in which existing code was automatically sped up by running it on a newer/faster computer.

Example
The pseudocode below illustrates task parallelism:

 program:
 ...
 if CPU = "a" then
     do task "A"
 else if CPU="b" then
     do task "B"
 end if
 ...
 end program

The goal of the program is to do some net total task ("A+B"). If we write the code as above and launch it on a 2-processor system, then the runtime environment will execute it as follows.

In an SPMD (single program, multiple data) system, both CPUs will execute the code.
In a parallel environment, both will have access to the same data.
The "if" clause differentiates between the CPUs. CPU "a" will read true on the "if" and CPU "b" will read true on the "else if", thus having their own task.
Now, both CPU's execute separate code blocks simultaneously, performing different tasks simultaneously.

Code executed by CPU "a":

 program:
 ...
 do task "A"
 ...
 end program

Code executed by CPU "b":

 program:
 ...
 do task "B"
 ...
 end program

This concept can now be generalized to any number of processors.

Language support
Task parallelism can be supported in general-purpose languages by either built-in facilities or libraries. Notable examples include:
 Ada: Tasks (built-in)
 C++ (Intel): Threading Building Blocks
 C++ (Intel): Cilk Plus
 C++ (Open Source/Apache 2.0): RaftLib
 C, C++, Objective-C, Swift (Apple): Grand Central Dispatch
 D: tasks and fibers
 Delphi (System.Threading.TParallel)
 Go: goroutines
 Java: Java concurrency
 .NET: Task Parallel Library
Examples of fine-grained task-parallel languages can be found in the realm of Hardware Description Languages like Verilog and VHDL.

See also
Algorithmic skeleton
Data parallelism
Fork–join model
Parallel programming model

References

Parallel computing
Threads (computing)

Task parallelism


A clapperboard, also known as a dumb slate, clapboard, film clapper, film slate, movie slate, or production slate, is a device used in filmmaking and video production to assist in synchronizing of picture and sound, and to designate and mark the various scenes and takes as they are filmed and audio-recorded. It is operated by the clapper loader. It is said to have been invented by Australian filmmaker F. W. Thring.

When sound and picture are out of synchronization, lip flap may occur.

History

In the silent era the principal requirement of film stock identification during a day's shoot was the slate.

The clapper as two sticks hinged together was invented by F. W. Thring (father of actor Frank Thring), who later became head of Efftee Studios in Melbourne, Australia. The clapperboard with both the sticks and slate together was a refinement of Leon M. Leon (1903–1998), a pioneer sound engineer.

Description
The clapperboard combines a chalkboard slate or acrylic board with a set of clapper sticks across the top; one stick is fixed to the upper edge of the slate, while the other is attached to it by a hinge at one end. The slate displays the name of the production, the scene and "take" about to be performed, and similar information; a camera assistant holds the clapperboard so the slate is in view of the cameras with the clapper sticks already open, speaks out information for the benefit of the audio recording, then snaps the sticks shut.

The shutting of the clapper sticks is easily identified on the visual track, and the sharp "clap" noise is easily identified on the separate audio track. The two tracks can later be precisely synchronized by matching the sound and movement. Since each take is expressly identified on both the visual and audio tracks, segments of film are easily matched with corresponding segments of audio.

It is also known as a "dumb slate".

Purpose

Finding a way to synchronize visual and audio tracks was essential to traditional filmmaking because film stock reacts to light, not sound. During a film shoot, the audio track was always recorded by the audio engineer with a separate system on separate media (so-called double-system recording).  (For early sound films, playback of the audio track was synchronized during post-production with sound-on-disc techniques; engineers later figured out how to directly add an audio track to a release print with sound-on-film techniques.) Failure to use clapperboards can prevent the film editor from synchronizing the visual images on film footage with the accompanying audio recordings, as actually happened with the long-delayed film Amazing Grace.

Methods were later developed to directly record sound to film (technically, a magnetic stripe on film) as part of a single system integrated with the film camera (so-called single-system recording), which was most commonly used with small formats like Super 8 film.  However, single-system recording did not render clapperboards obsolete. First, single-system recording of sound-on-film is "decidedly inferior in audio quality" to traditional double-system recording.  Second, footage from single-system recording is difficult to shoot and edit.  Since the sound playback head cannot block the projector gate and must be placed after the gate, the soundtrack must be offset by several frames (usually 28, 26, or 18 ahead) to maintain sync with the frame in the gate.  With such footage, cutting to the next shot when an actor's lips stop moving will risk cutting off their last syllable, unless the soundtrack is copied and edited on a separate system, and actors must be directed to pause to allow for such cuts.  Because of these technical limitations, the film industry has continued to use double-system recording for professional-quality film projects.

Construction

A traditional clapperboard (i.e., a dumb slate) consists of a wooden slate with a hinged clapper stick attached to its top. A modern clapperboard generally uses a pair of wooden sticks atop either a whiteboard or a translucent acrylic glass slate (the latter being easily legible via the light coming through it from the scene about to be shot).  The clapper sticks traditionally have diagonally interleaved lines of black and white to ensure the camera can capture a clear visual image of the clap in most lighting conditions. In recent years sticks with calibrated color stripes have become available.

A digislate is a clapperboard with an inbuilt electronic box displaying SMPTE time codes. The timecode displayed on the clapperboard will have been jam synced with the internal clock of the camera, so that in theory it should be easy for the film editor to pull the timecode metadata from the video file and sound clip and synchronize them together. However, electronic timecodes can still drift during a long shooting day, so the clapper sticks on the clapperboard still need to be closed together in order to ensure there is a way of manually synchronizing the footage and audio if matching the digital timecode fails.

Operation

The slate typically includes the date, the production title, the name of the director, the name of the director of photography (DoP) and the scene information — which follows two popular systems:
 American: scene number, camera angle and take number; e.g. scene 24, C, take 3;
 European: slate number, take number (with the letter of the camera shooting the slate if using multiple-camera setup); e.g. slate 256, take 3C.  Often, the European system will also include the scene number; however, a separate continuity sheet that maps the slate number to the scene number, camera angle and take number may be used if the scene number is not included on the slate. This is generally not as great a concern with short films, however.

A verbal identification of the numbers, known either as "voice slate" or "announcement", occurs after sound has reached speed. At the same time or shortly thereafter, the camera will start running, and the clapperboard is then filmed briefly at the start of the take; its two sticks are snapped sharply together as soon as the camera has reached sync speed. Specific procedures vary depending on the nature of the production (documentary, television, feature, commercial, etc.), and the dominant camera assisting regional conventions.

A clapperboard is generally used to identify all takes on a production, even takes that do not require synchronization, such as MOS takes, which have no sound. When a slate is used to mark an MOS take, the slate is held half open, with a hand blocking the sticks, or closed, with a hand over the sticks.

Operator
The clapper loader (or 2nd AC) is generally responsible for the maintenance and operation of the clapperboard, while the script supervisor is responsible for determining which system will be used and what numbers a given take should have. While these are usually fairly obvious once a system has been agreed upon, the script supervisor is usually considered the final arbiter in the event of an unclear situation.

Alternatives
Sometimes a "tail slate" or end slate is filmed at the end of a take, during which the clapperboard is held upside-down. This is done when the slate was not captured at the start of the take due to the camera being set up for the shot in such a way that the board cannot be captured, for example when a specific focus or frame is set up and cannot be altered until the take is complete. Tail slates are also commonly used when the director makes the decision that clapping a slate at the beginning of the scene would be distracting to the actor, such as when filming a highly emotional performance.

See also
 Slate (broadcasting), a title card listing important metadata of a television program, attached before the first frame of the program

References

 The Two Frank Thrings – Peter Fitzpatrick — Monash University Publishing, 2012

Film and video technology

Clapperboard


F. Murray Abraham (born Murray Abraham, October 24, 1939) is an American actor. Known for his roles on stage and screen, he came to prominence for his acclaimed leading role as Antonio Salieri in the drama film Amadeus (1984) for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama as well as a BAFTA Award nomination.

Abraham made his Broadway debut in the 1968 play Man in the Glass Booth. He received the Obie Award for Outstanding Performance for his roles in Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (1984) and William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (2011). He returned to Broadway in the revival of Terrence McNally's comedy It's Only a Play (2014), receiving a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play nomination.

He has appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films such as All the President's Men (1976), Scarface (1983), The Name of the Rose (1986), Last Action Hero (1993), Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Dillinger and Capone (1995), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), Finding Forrester (2000), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Isle of Dogs (2018) and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019).

He was a regular cast member on the Showtime drama series Homeland (2012–2018), which earned him two nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. He also starred in Mythic Quest (2020–2021), Moon Knight (2022) and The White Lotus (2022), with the latter earning him a nominations for the Golden Globe Award and the Primetime Emmy Award.

Early life and education
Abraham was born Murray Abraham on October 24, 1939, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Fahrid "Fred" Abraham, an automotive mechanic and his wife Josephine (née Stello) (April 15, 1915 – March 10, 2012), Murray has described himself as an Italian American and Syrian American. His father emigrated with his family from Muqlus, Ottoman Syria, a small village in the Valley of the Christians, at age five due to the famine of Mount Lebanon; his paternal grandfather was a priest in the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch. His mother, one of 14 children, was Italian American and the daughter of an Italian immigrant who worked in the coal mines of Western Pennsylvania. He had two younger brothers, Robert and Jack, who were killed in separate car accidents.

Abraham was raised in El Paso, Texas. Murray and his two younger brothers were altar boys in the St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in El Paso. He attended Vilas Grammar School, and graduated from El Paso High School in 1958. He was a gang member during his teenage years. In El Paso, Abraham worked in the  factory owned by a Lebanese family before launching a career in acting. He attended Texas Western College (later named University of Texas at El Paso), where he was given the best actor award by Alpha Psi Omega for his portrayal of the Indian Nocona in Comanche Eagle during the 1959–60 season. He attended the University of Texas at Austin, then studied acting under Uta Hagen at HB Studio in New York City. He began his acting career on the stage, debuting in a Los Angeles production of Ray Bradbury's The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit.

Abraham added "F." to his stage name in honor of his father Fahrid. He has stated that "Murray Abraham just doesn't seem to say anything. It just is another name, so I thought I'd frame it".

Career

1971–1978: Early roles
Abraham made his screen debut as an usher in the George C. Scott comedy They Might Be Giants (1971). He can be seen as one of the undercover police officers along with Al Pacino in Sidney Lumet's Serpico (1973) and in television roles including the bad guy in one fourth-season episode of Kojak ("The Godson"). His early film roles include small parts as a cabdriver in the theatrical version of Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), a mechanic in the theatrical version of Simon's The Sunshine Boys (1975). He also played a police officer in the Alan J. Pakula watergate film All the President's Men (1976), and acted in the comedy films The Ritz (1976) opposite Rita Moreno and The Big Fix (1978) alongside Richard Dreyfuss.

By the mid-1970s, he also had steady employment doing commercials and voice-overs. Most notably, he played "the leaf", one of four costumed characters, in television and print commercials for Fruit of the Loom underwear. In 1978, he gave up this work. Frustrated with the lack of substantial roles, he said: "No one was taking my acting seriously. I figured if I didn't do it, then I'd have no right to the dreams I've always had." His wife, Kate Hannan, went to work as an assistant and Abraham became a "house husband". As he described it: "I cooked and cleaned and took care of the kids. It was very rough on my macho idea of life. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me."

1983–1986: Breakthrough and acclaim

Abraham gained greater prominence when he appeared as drug dealer Omar Suárez in the gangster film Scarface (1983). Then, in 1984, he played envious composer Antonio Salieri in the Academy Award for Best Picture-winning Amadeus (1984), directed by Miloš Forman. Abraham won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role, an award for which his co-star in the film Tom Hulce, playing Mozart, had also been nominated. He also won a Golden Globe Award, among other awards and his role in the film remains his most iconic.

Abraham's relatively low-profile film career subsequent to his Academy Award win has been considered an example of the "Oscar jinx." According to film critic Leonard Maltin, professional failure following an early success is referred to in Hollywood circles as the "F. Murray Abraham syndrome." Abraham rejected this notion and told Maltin, "The Oscar is the single most important event of my career. I have dined with kings, shared equal billing with my idols, lectured at Harvard and Columbia. If this is a jinx, I'll take two." In the same interview, Abraham said, "Even though I won the Oscar, I can still take the subway in New York, and nobody recognizes me. Some actors might find that disconcerting, but I find it refreshing."

Abraham also joined The Mirror Theater Ltd's Mirror Repertory Company in 1984. He joined MRC the week after winning his Oscar for Best Actor for his work in Amadeus because he wanted to work with MRC Artist-in-Residence Geraldine Page (to whom he would eventually present her own Academy Award the following year) and would star opposite her in MRC's The Madwoman of Chaillot.

Since Amadeus, he has mainly focused on classical theater and has starred in many Shakespearean productions such as Othello and Richard III. He was highlighted in many other plays by the likes of Samuel Beckett and Gilbert and Sullivan and played the lead in Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (for which he received an Obie Award). His next film role was in The Name of the Rose (1986), in which he played Bernardo Gui, nemesis to Sean Connery's William of Baskerville. In its DVD commentary, the director of the film, Jean-Jacques Annaud, described Abraham as an "egomaniac" on the set, who considered himself more important than Sean Connery because Connery did not have an Oscar. Despite the on-set tensions, the film was a critical and commercial success.

1989–1998: Established actor
After the release of The Name of the Rose, Abraham tired of appearing as villains and wanted to return to his background in comedy. From May 10 through July 14, 1991, Abraham  portrayed King Lear in American Repertory Theater's (A.R.T.) production of King Lear, directed by Adrian Hall, Cambridge, MA. In 1994, Abraham portrayed Roy Cohn in the first Broadway production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America at the Walter Kerr Theater, replacing Ron Leibman in the role.

Over the next decade or so, Abraham had fewer prominent roles, but he did have substantial supporting roles in Peter Yates' An Innocent Man (1989), Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Ahdar Ru'afo in Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) and Gus Van Sant's Finding Forrester (2000), where he again played the nemesis to Connery. He had a significant role in Brian De Palma's adaptation of The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), but chose not to be credited due to a contract dispute. He continued his association with classical music by narrating the plot summaries of the operas of Wagner's Ring Cycle in the 1990 PBS broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, to the largest viewing audience of the Ring Cycle in history, conducted by James Levine.

In the 1997/98 Broadway season, he starred in the new chamber musical Triumph of Love opposite Betty Buckley, based on Marivaux's classic comedy. The production did not find a large audience, running 85 performances after its pre-opening preview period. He has also taught theater at Brooklyn College.

2000–present: Career resurgence

A 2009 guest appearance on Saving Grace began a new phase of Abraham's career, wherein he has become gradually more prolific onscreen. Further guest appearances include roles on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Louie and Curb Your Enthusiasm as well as a recurring role on The Good Wife between 2011 and 2014. Additionally, Abraham was the primary narrator for the PBS series Nature between 2007 and 2010, narrating 32 episodes (plus one more in 2013). Abraham's most notable television role came about through Showtime's drama series Homeland, in which he portrayed black ops specialist Dar Adal. This role resulted in his first Emmy Award nomination in 2015, followed by a second in 2018.

Abraham has focused on stage work throughout his career, giving notable performances as Pozzo in Mike Nichols's production of Waiting for Godot, Malvolio in Twelfth Night for the New York Shakespeare Festival and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice for the Off-Broadway Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) in March 2007, which was performed at the Duke Theater in New York and also at the Swan Theater, part of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He reprised this role in February 2011, when he replaced Al Pacino in the Public Theater's production.

In the 2010s, he featured prominently in two widely acclaimed films: first as folk music impresario Bud Grossman in the Coen brothers' drama Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), then as the mysterious Mr. Moustafa in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). He was nominated along with the ensemble for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture for the later. That same year he returned to Broadway portraying Ira Drew in the revival of Terrence McNally's comedic play It's Only a Play. Abraham starred alongside Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, and Rupert Grint. For his performance he earned a nomination for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. In 2016, he played the title role in Classic Stage Company's production of Nathan the Wise.

He reunited with Wes Anderson voicing a role in stop-motion animated film Isle of Dogs (2018) and voiced roles in DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) and played Tony in the Disney+ 2019 live-action Lady and the Tramp. In February 2022, it was revealed that Abraham would be voicing Khonshu in the superhero limited series Moon Knight, set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He starred in the 2022 film adaptation of The Magic Flute based on the opera of the same name. In 2023 he portrayed Judge John Sirica in the HBO political drama limited series The White House Plumbers. Murray acted in the HBO series The White Lotus: Sicily (2022) playing the elderly and gregarious grandfather Bert Di Grasso, earning nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.

Also in 2023 he acted in the film Mother, Couch alongside Ewan McGregor, Taylor Russell, and Ellen Burstyn. The film is premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.

Personal life
Abraham was married to Kate Hannan for 60 years (1962–2022) until her death on November 19, 2022. At that time, they had two children and one grandchild.

In 1993, while filming the movie Surviving the Game in rural Washington state, Abraham was involved in a car crash in which another driver was killed, while Abraham was injured.

In January 2010, Abraham scuffled with a thief in the dressing room area during a public rehearsal at the Classic Stage Company in New York City.

Abraham has spoken about his faith: "I've attended many churches. I grew up as an Orthodox Christian and I was an altar boy. I love the Society of Friends, the Quakers. I attended their meetings for almost fifteen years. I'm now [in 2008] attending the First Presbyterian Church of New York because they're such a generous, terrific church with outreach. They reach out to old people, to homeless, to A.A., to cross-dressers: it's truly a church of the teachings of Christ. Religion is essential to my life."

Sexual misconduct
In April 2022, Abraham was fired from Mythic Quest, after being accused of sexual misconduct while on set. In a response statement, Abraham apologized and stated that he never intended "to offend anyone, I told jokes, nothing more, that upset some of my colleagues and as a result lost a great job with wonderful people."

Acting credits

Awards and honors

Abraham received an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for his performance in Amadeus (1984). He also received a British Academy Film Award nomination for his performance. He has also received a Grammy Award and two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He has earned three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations with the ensemble casts of Homeland and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). He has earned two Obie Awards for his work in theater for his performances in Uncle Vanya (1984) and The Merchant of Venice (2011).

In July 2004, during a ceremony in Rome, he was awarded the "Premio per gli Italiani nel Mondo". This is a prize distributed by the Marzio Tremaglia foundation and the Italian government to Italian emigrants and their descendants who have distinguished themselves abroad. In 2009, he was recognized by the Alumni Association of the City College of New York with John H. Finley Award in recognition of exemplary dedicated service to the City of New York. In 2010, Abraham was the recipient of The Gielgud Award (Theater) for that year. In 2015, Abraham was an inductee to the American Theater Hall of Fame. He also has an honorary doctorate from Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

References

External links

 Yahoo! Movies Biography

1939 births
Living people
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
University of Texas at El Paso alumni
University of Texas at Austin alumni
Royal Shakespeare Company members
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American male Shakespearean actors
American people of Arab descent
American people of Italian descent
American people of Syrian descent
Male actors from Pittsburgh
Middle Eastern Christians
American Presbyterians
American Quakers
Best Actor Academy Award winners
Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Brooklyn College faculty
Obie Award recipients
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners

F. Murray Abraham