George "Duo" Dickinson (born August, 21, 1955) is an American architect.  He has built over 500 projects in over 10 states, with budgets ranging from $5,000 to $5,000,000.  He maintains an office of 10 staff members in Madison, Connecticut.

Life and career
Dickinson graduated from Cornell in 1977 with a Bachelor's degree in Architecture and opened his own architectural practice in 1987. He is licensed in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Oklahoma, Minnesota and Tennessee.

His work has received more than 30 awards, including the Architectural Record Record House, the Metropolitan Home Met Home Award, and the Connecticut and New York American Institute of Architects design awards. He is the first non-member award-winner of the Society of America Registered Architects' 2009 Special Service Award. He is the co-Founder of The Congress of Residential Architecture (CORA), the first national organization of residential designers. CORA has grown to over 20 chapters and 1,000 members in seven years.

Publications
Dickinson's design work has been published in over 70 publications including the New York Times, Architectural Record and House Beautiful. He has written seven books, including The Small House and Expressive Details for McGraw-Hill and The House You Build, published by Taunton Press and as a paperback entitled House On A Budget. His last book, Staying Put, was released by Taunton Press in November 2011.

Dickinson is a commissioned blogger for the New Haven Register, and his blog, "Saved By Design" has been up since the summer of 2010. He is a contributing writer on home design for Money Magazine. Additionally he is the architecture critic for the New Haven Register and contributing writer in home design for New Haven magazine. Dickinson has written articles for more than a dozen national publications including Residential Architect, Home and Fine Homebuilding and was a contributing writer for the "By Design" column for This Old House magazine.

Books
1994: Small Houses for the Next Century. McGraw Hill
1996: Expressive Details: Materials, Selection, Use. McGraw Hill
2004: The House You Build.Taunton Press
2007: House on a Budget. Taunton Press
2011: Staying Put: Remodel Your House to Get the Home You Want Taunton Press

Academia
Dickinson has taught at Yale College, Roger Williams University and at the Harvard Graduate School of Design Summer Program. Additionally he has lectured at dozens of universities, AIA associations, and at national conventions and gatherings.

Media
Dickinson was the co-host of the CNN/Money Magazine web series Home Work.  He was under contract with Lightworks Producing Group to create production ideas for cable television programming focusing on residential design and is in production with Bruce Barber on a regional radio program The Real Life Survival Guide scheduled to begin airing in 2011. He has appeared on a variety of national media platforms, including Heritage Radio Network's Burning Down the House, CNN's Open House,  NPR's Studio 360 and Weekend Marketplace.

Community
Dickinson sits on the board of seven not-for-profit organizations, including the New Haven Chapter of Habitat for Humanity, the Katherine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, and Madison Cultural Arts.   Additionally, 20-30% of the ongoing work in his office is dedicated to pro bono or at-cost work for not-for-profits, totaling over 50 projects for over 30 organizations over the last 25 years.

References

Other websites

Official website
"An Architect Who Puts Work Before Worship", New York Times

1955 births
Living people
American architects
People from Connecticut
Cornell University alumni

Duo Dickinson


"Anniversary" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov.  It was first published in the March 1959 issue of Amazing Stories and subsequently appeared in the collections Asimov's Mysteries (1968) and The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973).

The story was written for the twentieth anniversary of Asimov's first published story, "Marooned off Vesta", in the March 1939 issue of Amazing. The magazine reprinted the earlier story with the new one, and he feared that someone would write a letter stating that the earlier's writing was better, but no one did. The story is also part of a loosely connected series of stories by Asimov about the supercomputer Multivac.

Plot summary

Warren Moore and Mark Brandon are two of the three survivors of the wreck of the Silver Queen in the asteroid belt.  Every year, they meet on the anniversary of the disaster to celebrate their survival.  On the 20th anniversary, Brandon has a surprise: he appears at Moore's house with Michael Shea, the third survivor.

As the three men reminisce, Brandon admits that he is unhappy with the way their fame has faded over the years.  Even though the three are still the only people ever to survive a spaceship wreck, the public has forgotten them.  The only thing the general public remember about the wreck of the Silver Queen is that Dr. Horace Quentin, a great scientist, was killed.

When Shea mentions that Trans-space Insurance is still searching for wreckage from the ship, 20 years later, it occurs to Brandon that there must have been something extremely valuable on board, and that Trans-space still hasn't found it.  The three men learn via Moore's Multivac terminal that Quentin had a prototype of a revolutionary new invention with him on the ship, and that it is still missing.  The only clue is the description of the device as "an opticon", an apparent reference to a light-manipulating device.

Moore realizes that he has had the device all along, having idly picked it up as a souvenir during his spacewalk, and that its actual name is "anopticon", meaning a device without lenses.  An apparently useless tube a few inches long, it seems to employ force-fields instead of conventional optics and can be used as a powerful microscope or telescope. The potential applications of the technology could be even broader. With Quentin's device in their possession, the three men will once again become famous.

In the first story, the irony was that the men were in orbit around Vesta with no source of motive power and limited food and air but a year's supply of water.  They find a way to use the water as a makeshift rocket in order to reach Vesta, and on the way down they make a toast: "Here's to the year's supply of water we used to have."  At the end of this story, they change the toast to "Here's to the Silver Queen souvenirs we used to have."

Story notes
Asimov notes in his comments on the story that Moore picking up the device had been a throwaway line he included in the original "Marooned Off Vesta".

Reception
Algis Budrys described "Anniversary" as "a badly contrived stunt".

References

External links

1959 short stories
4 Vesta
Fiction about main-belt asteroids
Multivac short stories by Isaac Asimov
Works originally published in Amazing Stories

Anniversary (short story)


This article is about the mathematician Marie-Sophie Germain. For the number theory (set, or predicate), see Sophie Germain prime.Marie-Sophie Germain (April 1, 1776 – June 27, 1831) was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher who made important contributions to differential geometry and number theory. She was born in 1776 in an era of revolution. In the year of her birth, 1776, the American Revolution began. In many ways Sophie embodied the spirit of revolution into which she was born. She was a middle-class female who went against the wishes of her family and the social prejudices of the time to become a highly recognized mathematician. Like the member of a revolution, her life was full of perseverance and hard work. It took a long time for her to be recognized and appreciated for her contributions to the field of mathematics, but she did not give up. Even today, it is felt that she was never given as much credit as she was due for the contributions she made in number theory and mathematical physics because she was a woman.

Early life

Sophie Germain was born in Paris. As we have mentioned before, her family was quite wealthy. Her father was a merchant and later became director of the Bank of France. Sophie's interest in mathematics began during the French Revolution when she was 13 years old and confined to her home due to the danger caused by revolts in Paris. She initially received opposition from her parents and also the difficulties presented by the society for females to study. However, she had the opportunity to learn from books in her father's library, so she spent a great deal of time in there. She read important scientists and one day she ran across a book in which the legend of Archimedes' death was recounted. This legend has it that during the invasion of his city by the Romans Archimedes was so engrossed in the study of a geometric figure in the sand that he failed to respond to the questioning of a Roman soldier. As a result, he was speared to death. This sparked Sophie's interest. If someone could be so engrossed in a problem as to ignore a soldier and then die for it, the subject must be interesting. Thus, she began her study of mathematics.

Sophie began teaching herself mathematics and other topics using the books in her father's library. But her parents felt that her interest was inappropriate for a female (the common belief of the middle-class in the 19th century), and they did all they could to discourage her. She began studying at night to escape them, but they went to such measures as taking away her clothes once she was in bed and depriving her of heat and light to make her stay in her bed at night instead of studying. However, their efforts failed. She would wrap herself in quilts and use candles she had hidden in order to study at night. Finally. and they realized that Sophie's passion for mathematics was "incurable," and they let her learn. Thus, Sophie spent the years of the Reign of Terror studying differential calculus without the aid of a tutor. She was self-taught.

Work, and correspondences

In 1794, when Sophie was 18, the Ecole Polytechnique was founded in Paris. It was an academy to train mathematicians and scientists for the country, but women were not allowed to enroll. Nevertheless, Sophie was able to obtain the lecture notes for several of the courses and study from them. This gave her the opportunity to learn from many of the prominent mathematicians of those days. Sophie was particularly interested in the teachings of Joseph Louis Lagrange. Under the pseudonym of M. LeBlanc (a former student of Lagrange's), she submitted a paper on analysis to Lagrange at the end of the term. He was quite impressed with the work and wanted to meet the student who had written it. He was amazed that the author of the work was actually a female; he recognized her abilities and became her mentor. With a male to introduce her, Sophie could enter the circle of scientists and mathematicians that she never before could. Up until this point not only had her gender been a hindrance to her, but her social status had been too, because she was not an aristocratic woman but one of the middle class. Lagrange certainly made his colleagues aware that Germain was a girl with mathematical talent and several of them wrote to her; for instance, Monge. But not everyone treated her with the respect she deserved. One case was Jérôme Lalande. She started to talk to him about Laplace's Exposition du système du monde. Lalande told her that she should not be reading such works, rather she should be reading the second edition of his book Astronomie des dames. This "astronomy for ladies" does not contain a single mathematical equation and Germain felt insulted by his suggestion. Lalande sent her a letter of apology but she never forgave him.

However, Germain's most famous correspondence began in 1804 with the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. She was intrigued with his work in number theory and sent him some of the results of her work. Again, she used her pseudonym to disguise her true identity; she feared being ignored because of being a woman. It was not until 1807 that Gauss found out who M. LeBlanc truly was. He was thrilled to find that his "pen pal" was a very gifted woman. Gauss was amazed for seeing that all the excellent that he could find in the interchange of letters and discussions came from a female, considered the weak gender. He was not bothered but pleased.

At about this time, in 1808, the French Academy of Sciences announced a contest to explain the "underlying mathematical law" of a German physicist's study on the vibration of elastic surfaces. Sophie was fascinated and set out to explain the law underlying Chladni's study. The Academy set a two-year deadline, and in 1811 Sophie submitted the only entry in the contest. Her lack of formal education was evident in the anonymous paper she submitted, and thus she was not awarded the prize. Lagrange corrected her errors and two years later she again entered the contest which had been extended. She received honorable mention this time. It was in 1816, when she entered for the third time and won with her paper Memoir on the Vibrations of Elastic Plates. After winning the contest, Sophie continued her work on the theory of elasticity publishing several more memoirs. Her work in the theory of elasticity would prove to be very important to the field.

Among her work done during these years is what would be her most important work in number theory. In 1820, Sophie made a statement about the divisibility of solutions to Fermat's equation, for an odd prime p. She proved that if x, y, and z are integers and if x5 + y5 = z5 then either x, y, or z must be divisible by 5.

The prize from the Academy, however, was of immediate importance because it introduced her into the ranks of the prominent mathematicians of the time. She became the first woman who was not a wife of a member to attend the Academy of Sciences' sessions. She was also praised by the Institut de France and was invited to attend their sessions. Sophie continued working with well-known male mathematicians in the 1820s as an "equal collaborator" to refine her proofs and work in number theory; and also continued to work in philosophy until her death, in 1831.

Later life
After a battle with breast cancer, Sophie Germain died at the age of 55 on June 27, 1831 in Paris. Shortly before this Gauss, one of her earliest mentors, had convinced the University of Gottingen to give Sophie an honorary degree. She died before she could receive it.

Related pages
 Timeline of women in mathematics

References
https://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/germain.htm#:~:text=Sophie%20Germain%20was%20a%20revolutionary,also%20very%20important%20to%20mathematics.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sophie-Germain

https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Germain/

https://totallyhistory.com/sophie-germain/

Other websites

1776 births
1831 deaths
French number theorists
Differential geometers
French geometers

Sophie Germain


Angelica is a town in Shawano County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,635 at the 2000 census. The unincorporated communities of Angelica, Frazer Corners, Krakow, and Zachow are located partially in the town.

Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 36.6 square miles (94.8 km), of which 36.6 square miles (94.8 km) is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km) (0.05%) is water.

Demographics

As of the 2000 census, there were 1,635 people, 585 households, and 468 families in the town. The population density was 44.7 people per square mile (17.2/km).  There were 600 housing units at an average density of 16.4 per square mile (6.3/km). The racial makeup of the town was 98.35% White, 0.06% African American, 0.61% Native American, 0.49% Asian, 0.06% from other races, and 0.43% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race made up 0.06% of the population.

There were 585 households, of which 39.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 70.1% were married couples living together, 4.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 20.0% were non-families. 17.1% of households were made up of individuals, and 8.7% were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.79, and the average family size was 3.15.

The age distribution was 29.2% under the age of 18, 6.2% from 18 to 24, 31.3% from 25 to 44, 21.8% from 45 to 64, and 11.5% 65 or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 108.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 107.7 males.

The median household income was $48,500 and the median family income  was $53,618. Males had a median income of $33,750 versus $22,891 for females. The per capita income for the town was $19,828. About 3.7% of families and 5.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.2% of those under age 18 and 5.7% of those age 65 or over.

See also
 List of census-designated places in Wisconsin

References

Towns in Shawano County, Wisconsin
Towns in Wisconsin

Angelica, Wisconsin


The Toyota 4Runner is a sport utility vehicle made by Toyota. Toyota makes the 4Runner in Tahara, Japan as well as the Hino factory. The 4Runner was first sold in 1984 as a camper version of the Toyota Hi-Lux, sharing the same parts and engines. The 4Runner got a bigger V6 engine in 1988. Toyota has redesigned the 4Runner in many years of its life. The 4Runner was sold as a 2-door model alongside the 4-door until 1992. The 4Runner's competition comes from the Nissan Pathfinder, Jeep Grand Cherokee, and Chevrolet Blazer. The 4Runner was a compact SUV until 1996.

4Runner
1980s automobiles
1990s automobiles
2000s automobiles
2010s automobiles
Sport utility vehicles

Toyota 4Runner


The Noche Buena mine is one of the largest silver mines in Mexico and in the world. The mine is located in the center of the country in Zacatecas. The mine has estimated reserves of 1 million oz of gold and 32.4 million oz of silver. Noche Buena translates into English literally as "Good Night", but is typically the term used for the Christmas Eve holiday in Latin American cultures.

References

Silver mines in Mexico

Noche Buena mine


Male is one of two biological sexes. Most species have two sexes  male and female. Human males are usually men or boys; human females are usually women or girls (Except if their gender doesn't correlate with their sex assigned at birth).

The two sexes have different sexual organs, and different secondary sex characteristics. They also often have different biological functions. The female sexual organs can give birth to children with the semen provided by the male.

In many human societies, females often were involved in gathering, while men used to hunt, but over the course of time, Gender equality has been (or is being) recognized in more and more countries.

Related pages

 Female

Gender

Male


The Right Reverend Stephen McGill PSS (4 January 1912 – 9 November 2005) was the sixth Bishop of Argyll and the Isles and second Bishop of Paisley.

Early life
Stephen McGill was born on 4 January 1912 to Peter McGill and Charlotte Connolly in Glasgow, Scotland where he was educated at Holy Cross primary school and St Aloysius' College before entering the national junior seminary at St Mary's College, Blairs, Aberdeen.

Priesthood
In October 1931 he entered Le Grand Séminaire at Coutances in France and was ordained priest of the Archdiocese of Glasgow at St Andrew's Cathedral, Glasgow by Bishop Henry Grey Graham on 29 June 1936. Following his ordination he returned to France where he entered the novitiate of the Sulpicians at Issy-les-Moulineaux, Paris and was incardinated priest of St Sulpice (PSS) in July of the following year. Further studies were undertaken at the Institut Catholique in Paris where he gained his licentiate in sacred theology (STL) in 1939.

Thereafter he was appointed to the staff of Le Grand Séminaire at Bordeaux in October 1939 and transferred to Le Grand Séminaire at Aix-en-Provence in January 1940. At this point the Second World War was under way in Europe so, following the fall of France to the Germans in June 1940, Father McGill, as a British citizen, had to make his escape via Marseille and Spain to avoid internment as an enemy alien.

On his return to Scotland he was appointed to the staff of St Mary's in Blairs where he remained as spiritual director until he was appointed rector in 1951. In 1952 he was made an honorary canon of the Glasgow cathedral chapter.

Episcopate
When Bishop Kenneth Grant of Argyll and the Isles died suddenly in 1959 Canon McGill was appointed to succeed him by Pope John XXIII and was consecrated bishop in St Columba's Cathedral, Oban on 22 June 1960. During his time in Argyll and the Isles Bishop McGill attended sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962 - 1965) and oversaw translation of the liturgy into Gaelic.

On the death of Bishop James Black in March 1968 Bishop McGill was translated by Pope Paul VI to the see of Paisley  as his successor. There he remained until his retirement in March 1988.

Final years
In retirement Stephen McGill maintained his interest in priestly formation and was a prolific letter writer. He died peacefully in his ninety fourth year on 9 November 2005 at Nazareth House, Cardonald, Glasgow. His motto was, in Latin, Per Tuas Semitas ("By Your Ways") taken from the hymn 'Panis angelicus' by St Thomas Aquinas.

References
  Paisley Daily Express

Sources
 The Catholic Directory for Scotland 2006 (Glasgow, 2006)

Clergy from Glasgow
Roman Catholic bishops of Argyll and the Isles
Roman Catholic bishops of Paisley
People from Renfrewshire
1912 births
2005 deaths
People educated at St Aloysius' College, Glasgow
20th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Scotland
Scottish Roman Catholic bishops
Sulpician bishops

Stephen McGill


S3 Graphics Chrome 500 series is the successor of S3 Graphics Chrome S20 series, and is produced in parallel to the S3 Graphics Chrome 400.

Availability
The 530 GT is sold from S3's store for a price of $54.95 USD. No other online stores are known to carry this model and it is out of stock as of November 6, 2009.
The 540GTX is sold from S3's Gstore for $69.95. It is similarly out of stock although a low profile version has been produced by Aopen Japan  and is still on sale as of November 6, 2009.

Features
The production model is with a 65 nm process, supports DirectX 10.1, OpenGL 3.0, and uses the PCI Express 2.0 interface. Chromotion engine now supports Variable length decoding, and dual-stream Blu-ray playback. Display unit includes 2 dual-link DVI transmitters with integrated HDMI (audio passthrough) and HDCP, an integrated dual channel LVDS transmitter, an integrated TV/HDTV encoder, and support for two analog CRTs. 530 GT runs at 625 MHz core speed, and has 512MB of 500 MHz GDDR2 memory on a 64 bit bus. The 540GTX added a DisplayPort in the full height version as well as increased clock and memory speeds of 800Mhz and 850Mhz GDDR3 respectively.

From Linux driver version 14.02.10 on, S3 Chrome 500 video cards support VDPAU.

Performance
The 500 MHz GDDR2 memory clock, combined with the cards 64 bit memory bus, gives it a total memory bandwidth of 8GB/s, on par with budget cards from Nvidia and AMD. Performance information released by S3 indicates the cards performance in 3dMark 2006 is comparable to an AMD HD4350.

References
S3 Product Page
Overview of Product Features
Froogle Search Showing No Other Stores Carrying the Product

Graphics cards

Chrome 500 series


The Satanic Witch is a book by Anton LaVey, currently published by Feral House. The book is a treatise on lesser magic, a system of manipulation by means of applied psychology and glamour (or "wile and guile") to bend an individual or situation to one's will. The book is introduced as an extension of LaVey's witches workshops which were conducted prior to the founding of the Church. The book presents its methods as a tool of the feminine, and how the female can enchant and manipulate men.

The book was first published as The Compleat Witch, or What to Do When Virtue Fails, in 1971 by Dodd, Mead & Company. The first paperback edition was released by Lancer Books in 1972. It was republished by Feral House in 1989 with an introduction by Zeena LaVey, wherein it was retitled The Satanic Witch; and again in 2003 with a new introduction by Peggy Nadramia and afterword by Blanche Barton. The book concludes with a bibliography of over 170 books on topics of psychology, anthropology, sociology, biology and volumes on sexuality and body language. The publisher describes the book as "...undiluted Gypsy lore regarding the forbidden knowledge of seduction and manipulation."

Editions
 LaVey, Anton Szandor. The Satanic Witch. (2003 2nd ed. 1st printing), Feral House.

References

External links
 The Compleat Story of The Compleat Witch
 "Anton LaVey and Women - Apologetics" by Vexen Crabtree from "A Defence Of Common Attacks on Satanism"

1971 non-fiction books
English-language books
Neopagan witchcraft
Works by Anton LaVey
Criticism of feminism
Feral House books
Dodd, Mead & Co. books
Church of Satan

The Satanic Witch


The Crown Colony of the Island of Malta and its Dependencies (commonly known as the Crown Colony of Malta or simply Malta) was the British colony in the Maltese islands, today the modern Republic of Malta. It was established when the Malta Protectorate was transformed into a British Crown colony in 1813, and this was confirmed by the Treaty of Paris in 1814.

Establishment and early years (1813–1824)

From 1530 to 1798, Malta had been ruled by the Order of Saint John. The Order was ousted during the War of the Second Coalition and Malta was occupied by Napoleon. The Maltese rebelled after a couple of months of French rule and asked Britain for help. Eventually, the French capitulated in 1800 and Malta voluntarily became a British protectorate. Britain was then supposed to evacuate the island according to the terms of the Treaty of Amiens of 1802, but failed to keep this obligation – one of several mutual cases of non-adherence to the treaty, which eventually led to its collapse and the resumption of war between Britain and France a year later.

Malta became a Crown Colony on 23 July 1813, when Sir Thomas Maitland was appointed as Governor of Malta. That year, Malta was granted the Bathurst Constitution. Malta's status as a Crown Colony was confirmed by the Treaty of Paris of 1814, which was itself reaffirmed by the Congress of Vienna of 1815.

The plague broke out in Malta in March 1813, when a British merchant ship infected with the disease arrived from Alexandria. The disease began to spread especially in Valletta and the Grand Harbour area, and when Governor Maitland arrived, stricter quarantine measures were enforced. The plague spread to Gozo by January 1814, but the islands were free of the disease by March of that year. Overall, 4,486 people were killed which amounted to 4% of the total population.

After the eradication of the plague, Maitland made several reforms. He was autocratic since he refused to form an advisory council made up of Maltese representatives, and so he was informally known as "King Tom". He formed the Malta Police Force in 1814, while the local Italian-speaking Università was dissolved in 1819. Various reforms were undertaken in taxation and the law courts as well. Maitland remained Governor until his death on 17 January 1824.

19th and early 20th centuries (1824–1914)

In 1825, the Maltese scudo and the other circulating currencies at the time were officially replaced by the pound sterling, with the lowest-valued coin being a one-third farthing coin minted at irregular intervals, the last such issue occurring in 1913, keeping alive the tradition of the Maltese "grano", equal to one-twelfth of a penny. Despite this, scudi and other foreign coinage continued to circulate in limited amounts, and the last scudi were withdrawn over 60 years later in October and November 1886.

During the Greek War of Independence, Malta became an important base for British, French and Russian naval forces, especially after the Battle of Navarino of 1827. The local economy improved and there was a boom in business, but shortly after the war ended in 1832 there was an economic decline.

The year 1828 saw the revocation of the right of sanctuary, following the Vatican Church-State proclamation. Three years later, the See of Malta was made independent of the See of Palermo. In 1839, press censorship was abolished, and the construction of the Anglican St Paul's Pro-Cathedral began.

Following the 1846 Carnival riots, in 1849 a Council of Government with elected members under British rule was set up. In 1870 a referendum was held on ecclesiastics serving on Council of Government, and in 1881 an Executive Council under British rule was created; in 1887, the Council of Government was entrusted with "dual control" under British rule. In 1878 a Royal Commission (the Rowsell-Julyan-Keenan Commission) recommended in its report the Anglicisation of the educational and judicial systems. A backlash came in 1903, with the Return to the 1849 form of Council of Government under British rule.

Despite this, home rule was refused to the Maltese until 1921, and the locals sometimes suffered considerable poverty. This was due to the island being overpopulated and largely dependent on British military expenditure which varied with the demands of war. Throughout the 19th century, the British administration instituted several liberal constitutional reforms which were generally resisted by the Church and the Maltese elite who preferred to cling to their feudal privileges. Political organisations, like the Nationalist Party, were created to protect the Italian language in Malta.

The last quarter of the century saw technical and financial progress in line with the Belle Epoque: the following years saw the foundation of the Anglo-Egyptian Bank (1882) and the beginning of operation of the Malta Railway (1883); the first definitive postage stamps were issued in 1885, and in 1904 tram service begun. In 1886 Surgeon Major David Bruce discovered the microbe causing the Malta Fever, and in 1905 Themistocles Zammit discovered the fever's sources. Finally, in 1912, Dun Karm Psaila wrote his first poem in Maltese.

World War I and the Interwar period (1914–1940)
During World War I, Malta became known as the Nurse of the Mediterranean due to the number of wounded soldiers who came to be treated.

In 1919, the Sette Giugno riots over the excessive price of bread led to greater autonomy for the locals during the 1920s. After Filippo Sciberras had convened a National Assembly, in 1921 self-government was granted under British rule. Malta obtained a bicameral parliament with a Senate (later abolished in 1949) and an elected Legislative Assembly. Joseph Howard was named Prime Minister. In 1923 the Innu Malti was played for the first time in public, and the same year Francesco Buhagiar became Prime Minister, followed in 1924 by Sir Ugo Pasquale Mifsud and in 1927 by Sir Gerald Strickland.

The 1930s saw a period of instability in the relations between the Maltese political elite, the Maltese church, and the British rulers; the 1921 Constitution was suspended twice. First in 1930–32, following a clash between the governing Constitutional Party and Church and the latter's subsequent imposition of mortal sin on voters of the party and its allies, thus making a free and fair election impossible. Again, in 1933 the Constitution was withdrawn over the Government's budgetary vote for the teaching of Italian in elementary schools. Malta thus reverted to the Crown Colony status it held in 1813.

Before the arrival of the British, the official language for hundreds of years, and one of the educated elite had been Italian, but this was downgraded by the increased use of English. In 1934, English and Maltese were declared the sole official languages. That year only about 15% of the population could speak Italian fluently. This meant that out of 58,000 males qualified by age to be jurors, only 767 could qualify by language, as only Italian had until then been used in the courts.

In 1936 the Constitution was revised to provide for the nomination of members to Executive Council under British rule, and in 1939 to provide again for an elected Council of Government under British rule.

World War II and aftermath (1940–1947)

Before World War II, Valletta was the location of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet's headquarters. However, despite Winston Churchill's objections, the command was moved to Alexandria, Egypt, in April 1937 fearing it was too susceptible to air attacks from Europe. At the time of the Italian declaration of war (10 June 1940), Malta had a garrison of less than four thousand soldiers and about five weeks of food supplies for the population of about three hundred thousand. In addition, Malta's air defences consisted of about forty-two anti-aircraft guns (thirty-four "heavy" and eight "light") and four Gloster Gladiators, for which three pilots were available.

Being a British colony, situated close to Sicily and the Axis shipping lanes, Malta was bombarded by the Italian and German air forces. Malta was used by the British to launch attacks on the Italian navy and had a submarine base. It was also used as a listening post, reading German radio messages including Enigma traffic.

The first air raids against Malta occurred on 11 June 1940; there were six attacks that day. The island's biplanes were unable to defend due to the Luqa Airfield being unfinished; however, the airfield was ready by the seventh attack. Initially, the Italians would fly at about 5,500 m, then they dropped down to three thousand metres (to improve the accuracy of their bombs). Major Paine stated, "[After they dropped down], we bagged one or two every other day, so they started coming in at [six thousand metres]. Their bombing was never very accurate. As they flew higher it became quite indiscriminate." Mabel Strickland would state, "The Italians decided they didn't like [the Gladiators and AA guns], so they dropped their bombs twenty miles off Malta and went back."

By the end of August, the Gladiators were reinforced by twelve Hawker Hurricanes which had arrived via HMS Argus. During the first five months of combat, the island's aircraft destroyed or damaged about thirty-seven Italian aircraft. Italian fighter pilot Francisco Cavalera observed, "Malta was really a big problem for us—very well-defended."

On Malta, 330 people had been killed and 297 were seriously wounded from the war's inception until December 1941. In January 1941, the German X. Fliegerkorps arrived in Sicily as the Afrika Korps arrived in Libya. Over the next four months, 820 people were killed and 915 seriously wounded.

On 15 April 1942, King George VI awarded the George Cross (the highest civilian award for gallantry) "to the island fortress of Malta – its people and defenders". Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived on 8 December 1943, and presented a United States Presidential Citation to the people of Malta on behalf of the people of the United States. He presented the scroll on 8 December but dated it 7 December for symbolic reasons. In part, it read: "Under repeated fire from the skies, Malta stood alone and unafraid in the center of the sea, one tiny bright flame in the darkness – a beacon of hope for the clearer days which have come." The complete citation now stands on a plaque on the wall of the Grand Master's Palace on Republic Street in the town square of Valletta.

In 1942, the Operation Pedestal convoy arrived in Grand Harbour, and the following year Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill visited Malta. King George VI also arrived in Grand Harbour for a visit.

During the Second World War, Ugo Pasquale Mifsud and George Borg Olivier were the only remaining Nationalist members of parliament of Malta. Ugo Mifsud fainted after delivering a very passionate defence against the deportation to concentration camps in Uganda of Enrico Mizzi and 49 other Maltese Italians accused of pro-Italian political activities. He died a few days later.

The Allies launched their invasion of Sicily from Malta in 1943. After the Cassibile armistice in the same year, the Italian Fleet surrendered to the Allies in Malta. In 1945, Churchill and Roosevelt met in Malta prior to the Yalta Conference with Joseph Stalin.

The 1946 National Assembly resulted in the 1947 constitution, with the restoration of self-government, and Paul Boffa became the fifth Prime Minister of Malta.

Home rule to Independence (1947–1964)

After the Second World War, the islands achieved self-government, with the Malta Labour Party (MLP) of Dom Mintoff seeking either full integration with the UK or else self-determination (independence), and the Partit Nazzjonalista (PN) of Giorgio Borġ Olivier favouring independence, with the same "dominion status" that Canada, Australia and New Zealand enjoyed. Meanwhile, after the 1948 Red Flag Incident, in 1949 Britain signed the North Atlantic Treaty and joined NATO.

After the 1952 accession of Queen Elizabeth II, in December 1955 a Round Table Conference was held in London, on the future of Malta, attended by the new PM Dom Mintoff, Borġ Olivier and other Maltese politicians, along with the British Colonial Secretary, Alan Lennox-Boyd. The British government agreed to offer the islands three seats of their own in the British House of Commons. In addition, the Home Office would take over responsibility for Maltese affairs from the Colonial Office. Under the proposals, the Maltese Parliament would also retain responsibility over all affairs except defence, foreign policy, and taxation. The Maltese were also to have social and economic parity with the UK, to be guaranteed by the British Ministry of Defence (MoD), the islands' main source of employment.

A UK integration referendum was held on 11 and 12 February 1956, in which 77.02 per cent of voters were in favour of the proposal, but owing to a boycott by the Nationalist Party, only 59.1 per cent of the electorate voted, allowing the opposition to claim that the result was inconclusive.

There were also concerns expressed by British MPs that the representation of Malta at Westminster would set a precedent for other colonies, and influence the outcome of general elections.

In addition, the decreasing strategic importance of Malta to the Royal Navy meant that the British government was increasingly reluctant to maintain the naval dockyards. Following a decision by the Admiralty to dismiss 40 workers at the dockyard, Mintoff declared that "representatives of the Maltese people in Parliament declare that they are no longer bound by agreements and obligations toward the British government" (the 1958 Caravaggio incident) In response, the Colonial Secretary sent a cable to Mintoff, stating that he had "recklessly hazarded" the whole integration plan.

Under protest, Mintoff resigned as Prime Minister, while Borġ Olivier declined to form an alternative government. This led to the islands being placed under direct colonial administration from London for the second time, with the MLP abandoning support for integration and now advocating independence. In 1959, an Interim Constitution provided for an Executive Council under British rule.

While France had implemented a similar policy in its colonies, some of which became overseas departments, the status offered to Malta from Britain constituted a unique exception. Malta was the only British colony where integration with the UK was seriously considered, and subsequent British governments have ruled out integration for remaining overseas territories, such as Gibraltar.

In 1961, the Blood Commission provided for a new constitution allowing for a measure of self-government. Giorgio Borġ Olivier became Prime Minister the following year when the Stolper report was delivered. Malta became independent on 21 September 1964.

Notes

References

External links
British Empire.uk: The Crown Colony of Malta

History of Malta
Former British colonies and protectorates in Europe
Malta and the Commonwealth of Nations
19th century in Malta
20th century in Malta
1813 establishments in Malta
1964 disestablishments in Malta
1813 establishments in the British Empire
1964 disestablishments in the British Empire
States and territories established in 1813
States and territories disestablished in 1964

Crown Colony of Malta


School of Aeronautics and Astronautics (SAA) of Zhejiang University (Traditional Chinese: 浙江大學航空航天學院, Simplified Chinese: 浙江大学航空航天学院), is one of the university schools/colleges primarily focuses on space technology in the People's Republic of China.

Introduction

The history of this school can be traced back to 1936. In 1936, Zhejiang University founded a sub-department about aeronautical engineering under the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

1945, the physicist and educator Mr. FAN Xuqi (范绪箕) further foundered the Department of Aeronautical Engineering, and was pointed to the first director of the department.

1952, the Adjustment of University Colleges & Departments (中國高校院系調整/中国高校院系调整) started, Mr. Fan was transferred to the newly established East China Aeronautical College (華東航空學院/华东航空学院), the Zhejiang University Department of Aeronautical Engineering was dissociated from the Zhejiang University and joined into the other universities and colleges. 1956, Fan became the vice-president of the Nanjing Aeronautical College (南京航空學院/南京航空学院), and in 1972, he was further transferred into Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), and then became the president of SJTU.

At the beginning of 2007, the Zhejaing University School (instead of a department previously) of Aeronautics and Astronautics was refounded.

Present

The school has three academicians from CAS/CAE. Current director is Mr.Shen Rongjun, who is an academician from CAE, and the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese Manned Spaceflight Program. Every year, about 50 undergraduate and 50 postgraduate students join into the school.

References

External links
 School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Zhejiang University (Homepage)

Schools and colleges of Zhejiang University
Aeronautical engineering schools
Universities and colleges established in 1936
1936 establishments in China


The Newfoundland expedition was a naval raiding expedition led by English Captain John Leake between August and October 1702 that targeted French colonial settlements on the North Atlantic island of Newfoundland and its satellite, Saint Pierre.  The expedition occurred in the early days of Queen Anne's War, as the North American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession is sometimes known.

Leake's fleet descended on French settlements on the southern shore of Newfoundland, destroying fishing stages and other infrastructure.  They captured fishing and trade ships, and destroyed most of the settlement at Saint Pierre.  In a final flurry of activity before returning to England, Leake captured several ships from the French merchant convoy as it headed for Europe. More than 50 ships were taken in total, and six seasonal settlements were destroyed.  The strongly fortified French base at Plaisance was not attacked.

Background
Hostilities in the War of the Spanish Succession had begun in 1701, but England did not get involved until 1702, planning a major naval expedition against targets in Spain.  On 9 June 1702 (Old Style) Newfoundland also became a target when George Churchill, chief advisor to the Lord High Admiral, Prince George, informed Captain John Leake, "I have proposed to the Prince, your going to command a squadron to Newfoundland; you will be a Chief of Squadron".  Leake's commission, issued on 24 June, came with instructions to investigate the military strength of the French in Newfoundland, and to "annoy them there in their fishing harbours and at sea".  He was also to convoy merchant ships in both directions, report on the conditions of the English settlements and fisheries, and act as governor of the territory while he was there.  To accomplish this he was given command of  and a small fleet of ships.  On 22 July 1702, he departed from Plymouth with a fleet of nine ships, including six ships of the line.  His ships included (in addition to Exeter) the fourth rates , , , , and .

Newfoundland had been the site of much conflict during King William's War (1689–1697).  The most ambitious expedition had been conducted by French and Indian forces led by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1696.  His raiding expedition was highly destructive: it completely destroyed almost all of the English settlements on the island.  Many of these were rebuilt shortly afterwards, and the chief English port at St. John's was strongly fortified.

Permanent French settlements on Newfoundland were relatively few.  Most of their settlements, such as those in Trepassey Bay and St. Mary's, were only used in the summertime by fishermen who returned to Europe at the end of the season.  The principal town of Plaisance was permanently settled, and its fortifications housed a small garrison.  In 1702 it was temporarily under the command of Philippe Pastour de Costebelle, a captain of the French Marines in Canada, who was awaiting the arrival of the next governor, Daniel d'Auger de Subercase (who did not arrive until 1703).  The permanent French population of Newfoundland was fairly small—only 180 French settlers left Newfoundland when the colony was abandoned in 1713.

The French also had a small settlement on the island of Saint Pierre, just south of Newfoundland in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.  Its governor, Sébastien Le Gouès, Sieur de Sourdeval, had only arrived in July 1702, and erected a crude wooden fort armed with a few guns.

Raids

Newfoundland
Leake's fleet arrived in late August at Bay Bulls.  From the inhabitants they learned that two French fishing ships were loading at Trepassey Bay, and that two French warships were at anchor near the French capital at Plaisance.  He also learned that the French routinely posted spies to observe activities at Bay Bulls, and were likely to report the fleet's presence to Plaisance—a three-day overland trek.

Leake consequently moved with speed, heading south and west toward the French settlements.  On 28 August the fleet made its first captures, taking a French ship recently arrived from the French West Indian isle of Martinique, the two at Trepassey Bay, and two more that Lichfield chased down. The next day Leake captured another French ship in St. Mary's Bay, and was rejoined by Montagu, which had taken three prizes the day before.  Ordering Montagu, Lichfield, and Charles Galley to make for Colinet, Leake took the rest of the fleet to St. Mary's, where he chased a ship aground, and then sent out boats to refloat her.  Landing parties were sent ashore, where they destroyed fishing stages, houses, shipbuilding equipment and unfinished ships, and many small boats.

After destroying the facilities at Colinet, the fleet regrouped on the 30th.  Leake ordered a few of his ships to escort the captured prizes to St. John's, and then to cruise off Cape Race for 14 days looking for prizes.  Leake detached Montagu and Lichfield to destroy St. Lawrence while he sailed for Saint Pierre.

Saint Pierre
Leake's account places his first arrival off Saint Pierre on 1 September.  Bad weather prevented him from entering the harbour until the next day.  He was therefore only able to capture two of the eight ships that had been in the harbour, because the rest got away through a shallow channel.  On the 3rd he again approached the harbour, but did not report landing, and left then Saint Pierre to head for St. John's.

Leake's fleet reassembled at St. John's on 7 September.  He then detached about half the fleet, led by the Medway and Charles Galley, to return to Saint Pierre to destroy it, while he took the other half north toward Bonavista.  There he hoped to acquire experienced pilots with knowledge of other French harbours.  Failing in this endeavour (none of the pilots he found had the needed experience, and also expressed concerns over the advancing winter conditions), he returned to St. John's.  He was met there on 2 October by the other half of the fleet, which had completed the destruction of Saint Pierre.

Saint Pierre's Governor Sourdeval reported in a letter dated 11 October (presumably New Style, thus 30 September Old Style) that the English had twice landed men, on 7 and 8 October.  He reported the second landing to consist of 400 men, who besieged him in his small fort.  He surrendered after they exchanged gunfire for several hours, after which the English destroyed most of the facilities.  They then deposited 52 French prisoners captured earlier in the expedition, and left.

Cruising for the French convoy

Leake then divided the fleet to begin the return to Europe. Montagu and Looe were assigned to convoy merchants and prizes destined for Portugal, while Reserve, Charles Galley, and Firebrand were set to escort those destined for England. Leake took the rest of the fleet and cruised off Cape Race for several weeks, hoping to intercept the French convoy that would have to pass nearby before winter set it.  Weather conditions were often quite stormy, but Leake managed to take eight prizes before he finally sailed for England in mid-October.

Aftermath
Leake reported taking 51 ships.  Sixteen were sent to England, six to Portugal, and five were sold at St. John's.  He left two ships at St. John's as part of its defence force.  The remaining ships, including their cargoes and trade goods that had not been loaded before they were taken, were destroyed.  Six French settlements were destroyed: Trepassey, St. Mary's, Colinet, Great and Little St. Lawrence, and Saint Pierre.  Upon his return to England, Leake was received with favour by Queen Anne.  He was promoted to rear admiral for his actions, and went on to have a distinguished career for the rest of the war, serving in European waters.

Newfoundland continued to be contested throughout the war, with each side waging economic war against the other's settlements, destroying fishing stages and other infrastructure.  The main English settlement at St. John's was besieged in 1705 and captured in 1709 by French forces from Plaisance.  Sovereignty of the entire island passed to Great Britain with the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, although the French were granted some rights to dry fish on shore.  Saint Pierre also came under British control, but it and neighboring Miquelon were eventually given to France after the War of the Austrian Succession.

Notes

References

Military history of Newfoundland
Conflicts in 1702
Newfoundland 1702
Newfoundland 1702
Newfoundland 1702
History of Saint Pierre and Miquelon
New France
1702 in North America
1702 in the British Empire
Pre-Confederation Newfoundland
Military expeditions
Queen Anne's War
Expeditions from the Kingdom of England
Prince George of Denmark

Newfoundland expedition (1702)


James Stirling (11 May O.S. 1692, Garden, Stirlingshire – 5 December 1770, Edinburgh) was a Scottish mathematician. He was nicknamed "The Venetian".

The Stirling numbers, Stirling permutations, and Stirling's approximation are named after him. He also proved the correctness of Isaac Newton's classification of cubic plane curves.

Biography

Stirling was born on 11 May 1692 O.S. at Garden House near Stirling, the third son of Archibald Stirling, Lord Garden.

At 18 years of age he went to Balliol College, Oxford, where, chiefly through the influence of the Earl of Mar, he was nominated in 1711 to be one of Bishop Warner's exhibitioners (or Snell exhibitioner) at Balliol. In 1715 he was expelled on account of his correspondence with his cousins, who were members of the Keir and Garden families, who were noted Jacobites, and had been accessory to the "Gathering of the Brig o' Turk" in 1708.

From Oxford he made his way to Venice, where he occupied himself as a professor of mathematics. In 1717 appeared his Lineae tertii ordinis Newtonianae, sive . . . (8vo, Oxford). While in Venice, also, he communicated, through Isaac Newton, to the Royal Society a paper entitled "Methodus differentialis Newtoniana illustrata" (Phil. Trans., 1718). Fearing assassination on account of having discovered a trade secret of the glassmakers of Venice, he returned with Newton's help to London about the year 1725.

In London he remained for ten years, being most part of the time connected with an academy in Tower Street, and devoting his leisure to mathematics and correspondence with eminent mathematicians. In 1730 his most important work was published, the Methodus differentialis, sive tractatus de summatione et interpolatione serierum infinitarum (4to, London), which is something more than an expansion of the paper of 1718. In 1735, he communicated to the Royal Society a paper "On the Figure of the Earth, and on the Variation of the Force of Gravity at its Surface."

In the same year he was appointed manager for the Scots Mining Company at Leadhills, where the Scots Mining Company House was built for him in 1736. His next paper to the Royal Society was concerned, not with pure but with applied sciences; specifically, a trompe, i.e., a water-powered air compressor that was used by a Scottish lead mine. His name is also connected with another practical undertaking, since grown to vast dimensions. The accounts of the city of Glasgow for 1752 show that the very first instalment of ten million sterling spent in making Glasgow a seaport (a sum of £28, 4s. 4d.), was for a silver tea-kettle to be presented to "James Stirling, mathematician, for his service, pains, and trouble in surveying the river towards deepening it by locks."

Another edition of the Lineae tertii ordinis was published in Paris in 1797; another edition of the Methodus differentialis in London in 1764; and a translation of the latter into English by Halliday in London in 1749. A considerable collection of literary remains, consisting of papers, letters and two manuscript volumes of a treatise on weights and measures, are still preserved at Garden.

Notes

See also
Stirling polynomials
Stirling transform

References

  This work in turn cites:
 WP. Fraser, The Stirlings of Keir, and their Family Papers, (Edinburgh, 1858)
 "Modern History of Leadhills", in Gentleman's Magazine (June 1853)
 Brewster, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton, ii. 300, 307, 411, 516
 J. Nicol, Vital Statistics of Glasgow (1881–1885), p. 70
 Glasgow Herald, 5 August 1886

External links

1692 births
1770 deaths
18th-century Scottish mathematicians
18th-century Scottish people
People from Stirling (council area)
James
Combinatorialists
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Fellows of the Royal Society
Scottish expatriates in Italy
Scottish Jacobites
Scottish mathematicians
Scottish surveyors
British technology writers

James Stirling (mathematician)


The Admiralty Islands are an archipelago group of 18 islands in the Bismarck Archipelago, to the north of New Guinea in the South Pacific Ocean. These are also sometimes called the Manus Islands, after the largest island.

These rainforest-covered islands form part of Manus Province, the smallest and least-populous province of Papua New Guinea, in its Islands Region. The total area is . Many of the Admiralty Islands are atolls and uninhabited.

Islands
The larger islands in the center of the group are Manus Island and Los Negros Island. The other larger islands are Tong Island, Pak Island, Rambutyo Island, Lou Island, and Baluan Island to the east, Mbuke Island to the south and Bipi Island to the west of Manus Island. Other islands that have been noted as significant places in the history of Manus include Ndrova Island, Pitylu Island and Ponam Island.

Geography

The temperature of the Admiralty Islands varies little throughout the year, reaching daily highs of  and  at night. Average annual rainfall is  and is somewhat seasonal, with June–August being the wettest months.

Manus reaches an elevation of  and is volcanic in origin and probably broke through the ocean's surface in the late Miocene, 8–10 million years ago. The substrate of the island is either directly volcanic or from uplifted coral limestone.

The main town in the islands is Lorengau on Manus, connected by road to an airport on nearby Los Negros Island, otherwise transport around the islands is by boat. There is little tourism, although the seas are attractive to divers, including Jean-Michel Cousteau who spent time on nearby Wuvulu Island in the 1970s.

Ecology

Due to the isolated location, the rain forests of the Admiralty Islands are home to rare and endemic species of birds, bats and other animals, and are considered a separate ecoregion, the Admiralty Islands lowland rain forests. The majority of the forests on Manus still remain, but some of the smaller islands have been cleared for coconut farming. The typical tree species are various Calophyllum and Sararanga species.

The  Ndrolowa Wildlife Management Area was created in March 1985 south of Lorengau on Manus Island and contains both terrestrial and marine regions. A further  protected area has been established around the highest mountain on Manus, Mount Dremsel, but the level of protection remains undetermined in the UNEP World Database on Protected Areas.

Three of the bird species endemic to Admiralty Islands have been listed as vulnerable in the IUCN Red List: Manus fantail (Rhipidura semirubra), Superb pitta (Pitta superba) and Manus masked owl (Tyto manusi). Three other birds are endemic to Admiralty Islands but are classified as non-threatened or least concern: white-naped friarbird (Philemon albitorques), Manus monarch (Monarcha infelix) and Manus hawk owl (Ninox meeki). Birds found mainly but not exclusively on the Admiralty Islands include Melanesian megapode (Megapodius eremita), yellow-bibbed fruit-dove (Ptilinopus solomonensis), yellowish imperial-pigeon (Ducula subflavescens), pied cuckoo-dove (Reinwardtoena browni), Meek's pygmy parrot (Micropsitta meeki), black-headed white-eye (Zosterops hypoxanthus) and ebony myzomela (Myzomela pammelaena).

Mammals found only here or on nearby island groups include the large fruit bats, Admiralty flying-fox (Pteropus admiralitatum), Andersen's naked-backed fruit bat (Dobsonia anderseni) and Seri's sheathtail-bat (Emballonura serii) while the two pure-endemics are Admiralty Island cuscus (Spilocuscus kraemeri) and a local mosaic-tailed rat (Melomys matambuai). The islands are home to two endemic Platymantis frogs (Platymantis admiraltiensis and Platymantis latro) and four lizards, while the emerald green snail of Manus was the first terrestrial snail to be listed as vulnerable by the IUCN.

History

Prehistory
Along with New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands Archipelago, the Admiralty Islands were first inhabited approximately 40,000 years ago, in the initial wave of migration out of Southeast Asia that also populated Australia. This early society appears to have cultivated taro, and to have deliberately introduced wild animals from New Guinea such as bandicoots and large rats. Obsidian was gathered and traded throughout the Admiralty Islands archipelago.

The Lapita culture arose around 3,500 years ago, and its extent ranged from the Admiralty Islands to Tonga and Samoa. Its origins are contested, but it may well have been a product of another wave of migration from Southeast Asia. Lapita society featured renowned pottery, stilt houses, the introduction of domestic animals such as pigs, dogs, and chickens, and substantial developments in agriculture and boat technology, allowing long-distance trade to develop. Lapita society, as a distinct culture and extended trade network, collapsed around 2,000 years ago.

European and Japanese periods
The first European to visit the islands was the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Saavedra when trying to return from Tidore to New Spain in the summer of 1528. Saavedra charted Manus as Urays la Grande. Its visit was also reported in 1616 by the Dutch navigator Willem Schouten. The name 'Admiralty Islands' was devised by Captain Philip Carteret of the British Royal Navy in 1767.

Between 1884 and 1914 the area was administered as a German colony. In November 1914, the islands were occupied by troops of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed from the SS Siar. A few shots fired from a machine gun on Siar over the heads of the tiny German garrison at Lorengau were the last shots fired in the battle. After the war, the islands were governed by the Commonwealth of Australia under a League of Nations mandate.

Japanese troops landed on Manus Island on 7 April 1942. In 1944, Japanese forces occupying the islands were attacked and defeated by Allied forces in Operation Brewer. Subsequently, a large American airbase and Manus Naval Base was built at Lombrum near Lorengau.

Independence
Following Papuan independence in 1975, the Admiralty Islands became part of Papua New Guinea.

They became the Manus Province of the Islands Region in Papua New Guinea.

See also
 Admiralty (disambiguation)
 Admiralty Islands languages
 US Naval Advance Bases

Notes

References

External links

Bismarck Archipelago
Archipelagoes of Papua New Guinea
Manus Province
Islands Region (Papua New Guinea)
Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests
Australasian ecoregions
Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean
Archipelagoes of Oceania
Volcanoes of Papua New Guinea
Endemic Bird Areas

Admiralty Islands


The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes is the second book co-authored by actor Don Cheadle, and co-founder of the Enough Project and human rights activist, John Prendergast. Cheadle and Prendergast's first book, Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond, was published in 2007.

Release and Sales
The Enough Moment details the efforts of both famous and unknown citizen activists, referred to as "Upstanders," as they work to combat genocide, sexual violence, and child soldierdom in Africa. The book aims to further fuel public demand for an end to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, the sexual violence in Congo resulting from the deadly trade in conflict minerals, and child soldier recruitment in northern Uganda. The book offers harrowing accounts of how victims of these atrocities have found the strength to help other survivors. The book also describes the actions that U.S. citizens have taken to aid those suffering from human rights abuses and provides practical ways in which ordinary citizens can get involved and make a difference. The book was published by Random House on September 7, 2010.

Celebrity Testimonies and Interviews
Many celebrity "Upstanders" contributed to The Enough Moment. The list includes:

Ben Affleck
Sheryl Crow
Dave Eggers
Mariska Hargitay
Angelina Jolie
Nicole Richie
Madeleine Albright
Ann Curry
Mia Farrow
Emile Hirsch
Nicholas Kristof
Martin Sheen
Emmanuelle Chriqui
Annie Duke
Ryan Gosling
Iman
Joel Madden
Robin Wright

References

External links
Enough Project
The Enough Moment Wall
The Morning Show Interview with John Prendergast

2010 non-fiction books
Books about Africa
Books about human rights

The Enough Moment


James Hickman (born 2 February 1976) is a male English former competitive swimmer.

Swimming career
Hickman represented Great Britain in the Olympics, FINA world championships and European championships, and England in the Commonwealth Games.  He became a world champion five times on the 200 m butterfly in short course (25 m), twice world record holder, Commonwealth Champion and four times European Champion. He announced his retirement from the sport in 2004. During that year he reached the semi-final of the 100 m butterfly in the 2004 Athens Olympics, finishing with a time of 53.10 seconds. He also reached the semi-final in the 2000 Sydney Olympics finishing 6th (likewise in the 200 m butterfly). His best appearance in an Olympic final came in the 1996 Atlanta Games, where he placed 7th in the 200 m butterfly.

At the ASA National British Championships he won the 100 metres butterfly title five times in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002  and the 200 metres butterfly title three times in 1994, 1998 and 1999.

Personal life
Hickman also owns a television and radio production company called Made in Manchester Productions. He set it up with Ashley Byrne (BBC broadcaster and former commercial radio boss) in May 2005. The company made From Bomb to Boom (about the Manchester bomb) for ITV1, Cartoon Kings presented by Sir David Jason (about animators Cosgrove and Hall) for ITV1 and Another Fine Mess for BBC Radio 2, presented by Sir Norman Wisdom (celebrating 80 years of Laurel and Hardy). Made in Manchester has also been commissioned to make a religious documentary for BBC Radio 4 which was broadcast in early 2007. They have also produced radio shows for BBC Radio Manchester in the Citizen Manchester Series, plus various other documentaries for the station. They have also produced "Jah Wobble's Mystical Musical Tour" for the BBC World Service, "Salt 'n' Pepa – Push it" for BBC Radio 1Xtra and also "Brass Britain" and a documentary about the Beach Boys for BBC Radio 2.

In 2008 Made in Manchester won the contract to deliver the PR and Communications for the FINA World Swimming Championships 2008 in the MEN Arena for which James was the Head of PR and Communications. The event was the first of its kind in a concert venue and won "Best Event Look" at the SportBusiness Awards 2008.

He currently works for Speedo International as the Global Sports Marketing Manager and manages the international sponsorships for the brand. He worked on London 2012 Olympics, 2013 FINA World Championships and 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Hickman attended William Hulme's Grammar School and the Victoria University of Manchester.

Achievements
Short Course World 200 m butterfly champion in 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002 and 2004
Commonwealth 200 m butterfly champion – 1998
Short Course World record holder, 100 and 200 butterfly (short course) from 1998 to 2001
European 200 m butterfly champion in 1999 and 2001
Great Britain Olympic team member in 1996, 2000 and 2004

See also
 List of Commonwealth Games medallists in swimming (men)
 World record progression 100 metres butterfly
 World record progression 200 metres butterfly

References

External links
James Hickman's official website

1976 births
Living people
English male swimmers
Male butterfly swimmers
Swimmers at the 1996 Summer Olympics
Swimmers at the 2000 Summer Olympics
Swimmers at the 2004 Summer Olympics
Olympic swimmers for Great Britain
Sportspeople from Stockport
World record setters in swimming
Commonwealth Games gold medallists for England
Commonwealth Games silver medallists for England
Commonwealth Games bronze medallists for England
People educated at William Hulme's Grammar School
Medalists at the FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m)
European Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming
Commonwealth Games medallists in swimming
Swimmers at the 1994 Commonwealth Games
Swimmers at the 1998 Commonwealth Games
Swimmers at the 2002 Commonwealth Games
Medallists at the 1994 Commonwealth Games
Medallists at the 1998 Commonwealth Games
Medallists at the 2002 Commonwealth Games

James Hickman


Protmušis (literally "Mindfight" in Lithuanian) is a team pub quiz-type game (where the teams play against each other) that takes place in Vilnius, Lithuania. The organisers and participants of Protmušis are mainly students from various universities in Vilnius. All major universities of Vilnius are represented in Protmušis (including all the faculties of Vilnius University, some faculties of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts, ISM University of Management and Economics and the Vilnius Pedagogical University) as well as the Kaunas University of Technology and Vytautas Magnus University of Kaunas and the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga; in addition, some people who had already graduated and those who are not yet studying in universities take or were taking part in the competition as well. Protmušis was organized for the first time in 1997. About 250 people (38 teams) have chosen to participate in the twelfth season of Protmušis, which started in March 2009.

Rules

Traditionally in every match of Protmušis two teams play against each other. At any given moment no less than three and not more than five people could play for a single team (although it is permitted to register up to eight team members in which case different team members could play at different matches). During the match ten pre-prepared questions are shown on the large screen in the front of the hall (the questions are of such a style that in order to answer them one needs both general knowledge and the ability to think logically). After the host reads each question, the one-minute timer is started.  During that one minute players are permitted to discuss the possible answers with the fellow members of their team and to think. Once one of the teams believes that it already knows the correct answer, the team presses a button to stop the timer and calls out the answer. If the host and/or the referee accepts the answer as correct, the full answer is shown on the screen and the team is awarded a point. If not, the one-minute timer is restarted and the other team is permitted to continue searching for the answer and to tell their attempt to answer the question. The team that has more points after all ten questions are read is declared the winner. If both teams have an equal number of points at that time, the match ends in a draw.  A draw is only possible in the regular season; if such a situation occurs during the playoffs, an overtime is played: additional questions are presented to the teams until the first correct answer is given - at that point the team which answered correctly is declared to be the winner.

In the semi-finals 12 questions are presented in each game rather than 10. In the finals there are 15 questions.

In various unofficial matches of Protmušis the rules may differ slightly.

System of the championship

Every year two championships (seasons) are held, each one lasting for approximately four months (one in the winter and spring and one in the autumn and winter; the seasons are separated by the winter and summer holidays and the student exams).

Each season consists of the regular season and the playoffs. In the regular season all the participating teams are put into groups. All teams in the same group has to play against each other. During these games, the winning team is given two points, and both teams are given one point each for a draw. The number of groups and the number of teams in each group as well as the number of teams advancing to playoffs depend on how many teams participate in Protmušis that particular season, therefore, the system varies somewhat from season to season. In some seasons some matches are played by three teams rather than two.

In addition to the main championship, various smaller games are being held: when neither of the playing teams answer the question correctly the spectators of Protmušis are permitted to give a try (the spectators who answered the most questions are being listed in the official website), the best questions are voted for and the spectators and players who had created the most questions are named, all the players and spectators are asked additional questions where it is possible to win special prizes.

At present Protmušis is held each Thursday at 18:30 (Vilnius time) in the great hall of the Faculty of the Natural Sciences of Vilnius University. Anybody (including non-players and non-students) is permitted to come and watch the games, try their luck in answering the questions that teams are unable to answer or to support the teams of their faculty or institute. Each Wednesday four matches are played (whole event of four matches lasts for approximately two hours). All the questions and answers during the game are presented in the Lithuanian language.

Questions

The questions that are presented in the Protmušis games requires both general knowledge and the ability to think logically. They might be related to various fields (such as history, geography, arts, physics, biology, politics, sports, chemistry and so on), but may not require a very specific knowledge in those fields. Usually, the questions are about more or less minor topics that are not known to most people, but after thinking logically it is possible to guess the answer based on one's general knowledge about various similar more important subjects. The goal of a good Protmušis question is to make it so that nobody would answer it immediately, but the team members would need to discuss among themselves and only after each member said his/her suggestions or thoughts regarding the question it would be possible to find the best answer. The number of questions that are answered correctly by the teams per each match varies greatly (from 10% when the weaker teams play to 90% when the major teams face each other), but usually the teams are able to find the correct answer for approximately 50%-60% of the questions.

Each question, as is shown on the screen, consists of two slides, one for question and one for answer. The question slide usually includes introduction that is meant both to help find out the answer to the question and to describe the subject more, and the question itself. The answer slide includes a detailed explanation of the answer. The goal of Protmušis is not only to entertain but to expand the knowledge of the players and the spectators as well, therefore, the questions that are related to interesting subjects that are not widely known to the general public, but are worth to be known, are especially valued. Both the question slide and the answer slide are usually illustrated with pictures related to the subject.

Everybody (both players and spectators) is permitted to send in the questions for Protmušis (the questions are not presented during the matches of the team of the player who had created the question).

History

Protmušis was organised for the first time in 1997. The game is based on 1990th-year soviet game "Brain ring" (). It is organized regularly, two seasons a year, since 2003. Over the time Protmušis have expanded and improved greatly. The number of participating teams increased and so did the number of universities and faculties represented. The technology have improved (for example, special buttons are now used by the teams to express their will to attempt answer the question; prior to the fifth season lamps were used instead and in the 1997 it was simple hand raising), the number of organisers and the question authors have increased. Protmušis found many sponsors (such as Vaga, one of the biggest publishing houses in Lithuania) and therefore prizes are given now. The official internet website and forums were established and had improved, Protmušis was featured many times in the student press. In the autumn of 2006, Protmušis was also featured in the Sostinė supplement of the leading Lithuanian newspaper Lietuvos Rytas and on the Lithuanian national television (LRT). In the spring of 2006 the cooperation of Protmušis and the International Quizzing Association started and the Lithuanian branch of the World Quizzing Championships 2006 was organised using the organisational basis of Protmušis. In December 2006 during the European Quizzing Championships in Paris, a demonstration of Protmušis was given, introducing the gameplay to other European nations. In 2008 an article on Protmušis was published in daily newspaper 15 min.

In the second season (autumn of 2003) 10 teams participated, all players were students of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Vilnius University or the Faculty of Chemistry of Vilnius University.
In the third season (spring of 2004) 16 teams participated, representing various faculties of Vilnius University.
In the fourth season (autumn of 2004) 15 teams participated.
In the fifth season (spring of 2005) 21 team participated, with some players being students of other universities than Vilnius University for the first time.
In the sixth season (autumn of 2005) 22 teams participated.
In the seventh season (spring of 2006) 26 teams (representing all the Vilnius-based faculties of Vilnius University and some faculties of the other universities of Vilnius) expressed their will to participate. Due to such a large number of teams the qualification matches had to be organised. After the preliminary games, 20 teams won the right to participate in the main tournament.
In the eight season (autumn of 2006) 28 teams participated.
In the ninth season (spring of 2007) 35 teams participated, with universities that are based not in Vilnius represented for the first time.
In the tenth season (autumn of 2007) 24 teams participated.
In the eleventh season (spring of 2008) 27 teams participated.
In the twelfth season (autumn of 2008) 28 teams participated.
In the thirteenth season (spring of 2009) 38 teams participate.

In addition to the official championships, unofficial matches and mini-tournaments have been held. These included demonstration games and special games (that have been organised as a part of some bigger scientific, educational or entertainment events). The rules and questions might differ slightly during unofficial matches (for example, in matches that are organised as a part of some event the questions might all be set in accordance to the topic of the event).

Each team may consist of five to eight players (no more than five players could play for the team in a match at any given time however). Some teams are participating for many years (there are players who have participated in every season since 1997). Each season at least several new teams registers for participation. Many teams represent some particular faculty or institute, while other teams are mixed.

International versions

References

External links
Official website of Protmušis—includes news, articles about the matches, current standings, official rules, history of the teams, questions that were asked in past matches, polls (among other things)
Presentational film of Protmušis (filmed during the semifinals and finals of the 8th season)
The information, statistics and the roster of Protmušis teams until 12th season

Games of mental skill
Student quiz competitions
Lithuanian games
Recurring events established in 1997
1997 establishments in Lithuania
Guessing games

Protmušis


Johan Erik Nylander (born 3 April 1981 in Norberg, Sweden) is a Swedish jazz musician (drums), improviser and composer, working in Norway since 2002. He plays in several bands, among them Ola Kvernberg Trio, "Kobert", Kirsti Huke Quartet, Tore Brunborg Trio, "Liarbird", Bjørn Alterhaug Quintet, "Peloton", Juxtaposed, Magic Pocket, "Monoswezi", and his own Erik Nylanders Orkester.

Career
After completing high school at Domarhagsskolan, Nylander studied on the Jazz program at Trondheim Musikkonservatorium (2002–04). He fold recognition on the Norwegian and Nordic jazz scenes within various projects and contributed on a number of releases, among them the album Corrupted Mirror (2009), in a meeting with Karl Stømme (trumpet) and Steinar Nickelsen (keyboard). The album took shape in the studio where the musicians met without any specific intention to record an album. The idea was to use the three instruments in interaction playing all kinds of music, coming naturally in the moment. The recordings were made in three different sessions. Most of the tracks are improvised on the spot, but also includes compositions written by Strømme and Nickelsen. The Oberheim OB-X synthesizer from 1980 was crucial for the album soundscape.

In 2005 he performed at the international Jazz festival Nattjazz in Bergen, Norway, with Marita Røstad & "Velvet City". The album A festa Vale Tudo (2009) within his Erik Nylanders Orchestra (including Eivind Lønning, Espen Reinertsen, Hanna Gjermundrød, Ole Morten Vågan and Petter Vågan) marked Nylander's debut as a record producer and band leader. He has also collaboratively initiated several other band projects.

Discography

As band leader
 2009: A festa Vale Tudo (), within Erik Nylanders Orkester

Collaborative works
Within Ola Kvernberg Trio
 2004: Night driver (Jazzland Recordings), performing Nylanders own compositions
 2009: Folk (Jazzland)

Within Kobert
 2006: Glowing (NorCD)
 2009: Trondheim Jazz Orchestra and Kobert (MNJ Records), fra at Moldejazz 2008

 2009: Invasion of Privacy (Impeller Recordings)
 2011: Off The Hook (Øra Fonogram)

Within The Espen Reinertsen Organic Jukebox
 2007: Subaquatic Disco (Aim Records)

Within Peloton
 2007: Selected Recordings ()
 2011: The Early Years ()

Within Bjørn Alterhaug Quintet
 2009: Songlines (Ponca Jazz)

With Steinar Nickelsen and Karl Strømme
 2009: Corrupted Mirror ()

Within Magic Pocket
 2011: The Katabatic Wind (Bolage), featuring Morten Qvenild
 2011: Kinetic Music (MNJ Records), with Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, fra Moldejazz 2010

Within Liarbird
 2011: Liarbird (Bolage)

Within Monkeybar (duo with Steinar Nickelsen)
 2012: Dear You (Parallell)

Within the trio Kirsti, Ola and Erik
 2015: Rags & Silk (Name Music & Publishing)

References

External links
 Ola Kvernberg Trio – Sardinen USF 16 November 2012, Bergen Jazzforum on YouTube

1981 births
Living people
Swedish jazz drummers
Norwegian jazz drummers
Male drummers
20th-century Norwegian drummers
21st-century Norwegian drummers
Swedish jazz composers
Male jazz composers
Norwegian jazz composers
20th-century drummers
20th-century Swedish male musicians
20th-century Swedish musicians
21st-century Swedish male musicians
Ola Kvernberg Trio members
Magic Pocket members

Erik Nylander


Beagle Brigade is a team of beagles and their human handlers who, as part of the United States Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), inspect luggage at U.S. airports searching for agricultural products.  According to the USDA, the Beagle Brigade program averages around 75,000 seizures of prohibited agricultural products a year.

Unauthorized meat, animal byproducts, fruit and vegetables can carry diseases and pests that have the potential to infect U.S. agriculture. For example, foot-and-mouth disease could be introduced into the U.S. via contaminated meat products brought into the country by a traveller. The APHIS works in conjunction with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the United States Public Health Service at entry points to the U.S., including land borders, ports and airports. The Beagle Brigade generally works in the baggage-claim area at international airports.

Originally bred for rabbit hunting, the beagle has an acute sense of smell; they can detect smells that are too faint to be sensed by scientific equipment. In addition, they have a voracious and undiscerning appetite. Beagles are generally friendly and gentle with people, and, due to their small size, are not intimidating. For these reasons, beagles were chosen as the breed to be used for these APHIS airport inspections.

The APHIS airport inspection program was begun in 1984 at Los Angeles International Airport.  In 2004, there were more than 60 Beagle Brigade teams at 21 international airports. The canine members of the Beagle Brigade have either been donated by private owners and breeders, or rescued from animal shelters. The dogs are evaluated for appropriateness, such as friendliness and intelligence. Those beagles that are not selected for the program are placed in adoptive homes. None are returned to animal shelters.

Beagles have the ability to categorize smells. Therefore, they can distinguish between smells emanating from restricted items (such as fruit, vegetables, and meat) and non-restricted items. When a member of the Beagle Brigade smells a restricted scent, it sits down next to the luggage to alert its handler, who then talks to the owner, and, if necessary, performs a search. Experienced beagles have a 90% success rate, and can recognize almost 50 distinct smells.

A beagle's career with the Beagle Brigade usually lasts between six and ten years. When they retire, they are usually adopted by their handlers (handlers and dogs are paired throughout the beagle's career). Otherwise, they are placed in adoptive homes.

The USDA National Detector Dog Training Center in Newnan, Georgia, receives beagles donated by private owners, breeders, and animal shelters.

References

External links
 National Geographic article

Working dogs
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

Beagle Brigade


Dean Wayne Young (born July 2, 1938) is the head writer of the popular comic strip Blondie, which he inherited from his father Chic Young, who died in 1973.

Since then, Dean Young has collaborated on Blondie with several artists: Jim Raymond (1973–1981), Mike Gersher (1981–1984), Stan Drake (1984–1997) and Denis Lebrun (1997–2005). Since 2005, Blondie is drawn by John Marshall, who worked with his assistant Frank Cummings until the latter's death in 2014.

In 1986, Young talked about his gag situations, his approach to the characters of Blondie and Dagwood and satisfying his readers. He also explained how he could be in Vermont or Florida and collaborate with Stan Drake at his studio in Westport, Connecticut:
"I like to deal mainly with domestic situations, and I primarily stick with eating, sleeping, raising children and making money. These days I often do ideas that will appeal to more feminist-type women. I don't want Blondie just to be stuck at home with gags involving her to be limited to that setting alone. I want Blondie to be a complete woman, and I want readers to respect her not only for her ability to maintain a home, but also for her own mind and her own person. If readers admire a character's personality and the way he or she is, they have affection and love for the character... A lot of the changes in the way he [Dagwood] acts nowadays have to do with his relationships to women. I'm careful to see that he doesn't do things that might make a segment of women readers unhappy or upset... I don't want to make any group or persons unhappy with the way the Blondie characters behave. This was my dad's formula, and the advice he passed on to me in this connection has worked very well...".

As of 2021, Young and his wife Charlotte make their home in Belleair, Florida.

References

External links
 Washington Post: Dean Young
 Dean Young and Stan Drake interview

1938 births
American comics writers
Living people
Artists from New Rochelle, New York

Dean Young (cartoonist)


Brenden James Abbott (born 8 May 1962) is a convicted Australian bank robber. He is reported to have stolen and hidden millions of dollars, and was dubbed "the postcard bandit" by police seeking media coverage.

Abbott was held in a maximum-security prison in Queensland until he was transferred in 2016 to Casuarina Prison in Western Australia. He will be eligible for parole in 2026.

A film about Abbott, The Postcard Bandit, was made in 2003.

Personal
A former ward of the state of Western Australia, Abbott continues to suffer anxiety and related health disorders, as noted in a semi-biographical work, Australian Outlaw, by Derek Pedley. As a hearing-impaired 12-year-old in November 1974, he was maltreated at Hillston Boys Home. Abbott attended Eastern Hills High School in Mount Helena and was considered an average to good student. His watercolour "Little Boy Blue" was painted after the November 2009 national apology to Forgotten Australians.

Abbott is recognised as a highly intelligent criminal and "minor genius" with a strong reliance on memory and observational skills to carry out his criminal activities. He used his knowledge and self-taught skills in make-up to create convincing disguises, computers to create false IDs, and electronics to dodge alarms and police. Weeks were spent methodically planning each bank robbery including observing the staff in the bank, identifying weaknesses in security, patterns of behaviour and the layout of the premises prior to the robbery taking place. These skills are widely thought to have assisted him in both successful prison escapes. Police officers who have interviewed Abbott have stated he is always probing for information on how he has been caught or what the police know about him. Abbott used his understanding of police methodology and intelligence gathering to successfully avoid capture during his time as an escapee.

Fremantle Prison escape – 1989
Abbott had fled from police during questioning in relation to burglary at the Nollamara police station in 1986 and in 1987 successfully stole $11,200 from the Commonwealth Bank in Perth with his first bank robbery. In the months following, police arrested Abbott at Perth Airport. Sentenced to Fremantle Prison, Abbott was given duties in the tailor workshop, fitting and sewing uniforms to order. It was through the workshop Abbott and Aaron Reynolds were able to create fake prison guard uniforms. On 24 November 1989 Abbott dressed in the false uniform, cut through the bars in the workshop and gained access to the guard's walkway, he made his way across the rooftop and out of the prison grounds. This escape earned Abbott his lifelong notoriety as a criminal genius, and ultimately led to his permanent and erroneous branding as "the postcard bandit." In the almost 150-year history Fremantle Prison was operational, Abbott is the only prisoner to escape and never return due to its closure in 1991.

Fugitive 1989–1995
While Reynolds was arrested within weeks of the Fremantle escape, Abbott went on to establish himself as a "professional" bank robber, believed to have been responsible for "40 to 50" bank robberies across Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland's Gold Coast. Working in Abbott's favour, the Adelaide police force was structured with each suburb having its own CIB office, limiting communication between the departments and making Adelaide a repeated target. Rivalry between the states made intelligence sharing minimal and Western Australian Police were yet to issue a warrant for Abbott's arrest almost five years following the escape. By 1994 the states' police departments compromised and agreed to work together. Elevated to the status of Australia's most wanted man, his five-and-a-half years on the run came to an end when police tracked down a post-office box on Queensland's Gold Coast used by Abbott, which was found to contain a pager bill registered to the address where he was living. On 26 March 1995 Abbott was recaptured.

Media reports in the 1990s said Abbott sent postcards of his travels to the Western Australian Police. However, the story was a WA Police media unit concoction; the "postcards" were photos Abbott lost while running from police with Aaron Reynolds after the Fremantle Prison escape, and were intended for his friends and family. They included a picture of Reynolds outside the Dwellingup police station.

Sir David Longland Prison escape – 1997
On 5 November 1997, less than three years after his recapture, Abbott escaped with four other prisoners from Sir David Longland Prison at Wacol, Queensland. Using angel wire—diamond-encrusted wire—smuggled into the prison to cut through the bars in their cells, the escapees made it to the perimeter sensor fence where they were thrown bolt cutters by an accomplice, Brendan Berichon, who had been released in September. Uncharacteristically for Abbott, the escape from Sir David Longland Prison in November 1997 involved actual force rather than an implied threat of force. While cutting through the sensor fencing, the alarm was raised. Berichon was armed and fired on a patrol vehicle successfully disabling it. Guards were pinned down by the shots. The offenders alleged that this occurred in panic, when the escapees' escape plan went awry. Nonetheless, it gave the escapees enough time to cut through the fence and escape in the car driven by Berichon.

Fugitive 1997–1998
Abbott was on the run for six months from 1997 to 1998. On 2 May 1998 he was eventually caught in Darwin and was, , serving a 23-year sentence in Queensland for bank robberies and the 1997 prison escape.  Following his recapture, Abbott was transferred to Maximum Security at
Woodford Correctional Centre.  Due to Abbott's high risk profile, he was flown into the prison by helicopter, being the only prisoner in Australia to have arrived directly by air.  After serving two years of his current sentence in solitary confinement, he sued the Queensland Government for mistreatment. He was released from solitary confinement in May 2004 and returned there on a Maximum Security Order in April 2006, after he requested medical attention three times in 12 months. After years in mainstream, Abbott was again returned to Supermax solitary confinement in August 2008 and then released back into mainstream detention in the days preceding a judicial review hearing into his back-to-back Maximum Security Orders, in October 2009.

Attempts to transfer
A 1994 warrant for questioning remains in place with Adelaide Criminal Prosecutions Branch for one count of armed robbery in Glenelg, South Australia. In mid-2008, Abbott applied for an interstate transfer to South Australia to address the outstanding warrant. The application followed official statements by Adelaide detective Sid Thomas, in The Advertiser in 2008, that detectives were travelling to Queensland to question Abbott at Woodford Correctional Centre, although no such interview has ever occurred. In December 2010, Abbott's application for a South Australian transfer was approved by the Queensland Attorney-General, and the South Australian Attorney-General's decision is pending. On 12 June 2011, The Advertiser reporter Nigel Hunt incorrectly reported that Abbott had filed for a Supreme Court Judicial Review regarding the application to transfer to face the charges. Hunt's story concludes with an unnamed source's suspicions that Abbott could have committed not just the one he is sought for questioning over, but multiple robberies in South Australia.

During Abbott's Queensland sentence, Western Australia twice refused Abbott's transfer applications in 2005 and 2008 to return to the state to complete his sentence. In 2004 Queensland authorities approved an interstate transfer but Western Australian Attorney-General Jim McGinty refused to accept him. In early 2007, Abbott re-applied to be transferred to Western Australia and that was approved by the Queensland Attorney-General in 2008. However, former WA Corrective Services Minister, Margaret Quirk, promptly released a media statement rejecting Abbott's bid to return home. Abbott had unsuccessfully applied for transfer to Western Australia four times in response to outstanding warrants. In May 2010, Glenn Cordingley of The Sunday Times in Perth, cited an unnamed Western Australian police source who alleged that WA authorities "had a cell waiting" for Abbott, although there had been no official confirmation of such.

On 4 May 2016, Abbott was extradited back to Western Australia to serve out his sentence of 16 years, nine months and two days that he was serving for armed robberies and his role in the Fremantle Prison riot at the time of his escape in 1989 (12 years, six months and 24 days plus an additional one-third penalty of four years, two months and eight days in forfeited remissions for escaping custody under the law then extant). On 16 January 2017, Abbott was sentenced to an additional and cumulative five months' imprisonment for the 1989 escape.

In June 2019, Abbott had a bid for freedom unanimously rejected by the WA Court of Appeal. Lawyers argued the sentence should be reduced because he already spent 17 years in prison in Queensland for crimes committed before he escaped Fremantle Prison in 1989. The court said the original sentences were appropriate, and it would not intervene on the basis of mercy, noting Abbott had also deliberately committed subsequent crimes that led to his imprisonment in Queensland.

He will be eligible for parole in Western Australia in July 2026, and his Western Australian sentence will expire in July 2033. If no further charges are laid against him, he will remain on parole in Queensland until July 2040, when he will be 78 years of age.

See also

Fremantle Prison riot

References

AAP, Postcard bandit denied computer, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 March 2006
Pedley, Derek, Australian Outlaw – The True Story of Postcard Bandit Brenden Abbott, Sly Ink, 2006.
Pedley, Derek, No Fixed Address – The Hunt for Brenden James Abbott, HarperCollins Australia, 1999.

1962 births
Australian bank robbers
Australian escapees
Living people
Place of birth missing (living people)
Escapees from Queensland detention
Criminals from Melbourne
Escapees from Western Australian detention
People convicted of robbery

Brenden Abbott