Waldemar F. A. Wendt

Waldemar Frederick August Wendt (March 15, 1912 – October 21, 1997) was a four-star admiral in the United States Navy who served as commander in chief of United States Naval Forces Europe from 1968 to 1971.
Early career.
Born in Millstadt, Illinois to Reverend Paul Wendt and Wilhelmine Thowe, Wendt was appointed in 1929 from the state of Wisconsin to the United States Naval Academy, where he rowed on the Navy crew team and was captain of varsity oarsmen in his final year. Upon graduating, he was commissioned ensign on June 1, 1933.
Wendt's first assignment was aboard the battleship . In March 1935 he transferred to the destroyer minelayer . Detached in December 1935, he returned to the Academy as assistant coach of crew until June 1936, when he reported aboard the destroyer leader until June 1939.
World War II.
Wendt attended the Naval Postgraduate School from June to September 1939, for instruction in applied communications, but the course was cut short when President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted Neutrality Patrol operations, in which he was engaged as gunnery officer and first lieutenant aboard the destroyer in the Panama Canal Zone until June 1940. He then served six months as training officer on the staff of Commander Destroyer Squadron 27 before being transferred in December to the staff of Commander Destroyer Squadron 30 until September 1943, for duty conducting escort of convoy operations and participating in the invasion of North Africa.
In December 1943, Wendt assumed command of the destroyer in the Pacific Fleet. He commanded "Monaghan" in action during the invasions of the Marshall and Marianas Islands. He was detached from "Monaghan" in December 1944 and assigned to the headquarters of the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, in Washington, D.C. Less than a month later, "Monaghan" was lost in the 1944 typhoon, with only six survivors.
Post-war.
In late 1945, Wendt became head of the Pacific Section, Fleet Operations Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy Department. In 1947, he reported aboard the heavy cruiser to serve as executive officer until July 1948, a tour that began and ended with duty in the Far East, and included a stint as "Helena"s commanding officer from June to September 1947 during training operations in California waters. In August he returned to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations as administrative assistant to the assistant chief of naval operations (strategic plans).
Wendt was a student in the Strategy and Tactics course at the Naval War College from September 1949 to June 1950, then served for a year as head of the Atlantic, Europe and Middle East Section, Strategic Plans Division, Office of the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations, Navy Department. In August 1951, he joined the staff of the Commander in Chief, United States Atlantic Fleet, as General Plans Officer. From August 1953 to June 1954, he commanded Escort Destroyer Division 22; then served on the faculty of the National War College from July 1954 to August 1956, where he was chairman of the committee on the curriculum.
Wendt commanded the amphibious attack transport from October 4, 1956, to November 9, 1957, and was advanced to Commander Destroyer Squadron 36 in December 1957. From February 1, 1959, he served as head of the Command and Policies Branch, Strategic Plans Division.
Flag officer.
Promoted to rear admiral, Wendt assumed command on January 17, 1960, of United States Naval Forces, Marianas, with additional duty as CINCPAC representative, Marianas-Bonins, as Deputy High Commissioner of the Marianas District of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and as Deputy Military Governor of the Bonin-Volcano Islands; with headquarters in Guam. In October 1961, he became Commander Destroyer Flotilla 7 (redesignated Cruiser-Destroyer Flotilla 7 on April 1, 1962) with additional duty until November 1961 as Commander Cruiser-Destroyer Force, Pacific Fleet. From August 1962, he was assigned as director of the Strategic Plans Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.
Advanced to vice admiral, Wendt was appointed deputy commander in chief, United States Atlantic Fleet and chief of staff and aide to Commander in Chief Atlantic in Norfolk, Virginia on August 9, 1965. He became deputy chief of naval operations (plans and policy) on April 17, 1967.
On May 27, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Wendt for promotion to admiral as commander in chief, United States Naval Forces Europe. He was confirmed by the Senate on June 6, 1968, and assumed his duties on July 12, 1968. Headquartered in London, England, Wendt was responsible for all United States naval operations in Europe, the eastern Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, North Africa, and the Middle East. He was relieved on June 30, 1971, and placed on the retired list with the grade of admiral on July 1, 1971.
Personal life.
In retirement Wendt served on the Board of Overseers of the Center for Naval Analyses from 1972 to 1983 and resided in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he was a deacon and elder of First Presbyterian Church. He died in 1997.
Wendt married the former Folsom Ferris, of Los Angeles, California, on June 13, 1935; they had three children.
Wendt's decorations included three Navy Distinguished Service Medals, awarded upon completing tours as deputy commander in chief, United States Atlantic Command, as deputy chief of naval operations (plans and policy), and as commander in chief, United States Naval Forces Europe; the Bronze Star Medal with Combat V, awarded for commanding the destroyer "Monaghan" in action against enemy forces in the Pacific Area from January 1 to August 15, 1944; and the Legion of Merit, awarded for his service as director of the Strategic Plans Division.


John Osbaldiston Field

Sir John Osbaldiston Field (30 October 1913 – 1985) was the last Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands from 9 January 1970 and then, from 1 January 1972, the first Governor of this Crown Colony.
Field was one of two children of Frank Osbaldiston Field of Gosport, Hampshire and Gertrude Caroline Perrin of Natal, South Africa. He was educated at Stellenbosch Boys School in South Africa and Magdalene College, Cambridge.
From 1963 to 1969, he also was the British Governor of Saint Helena. He was before the Commissioner of British Cameroons (United Nations trust territory) before incorporation.


De Thematibus


Pohnpei District


Theophilus I of Jerusalem

Theophilus I of Jerusalem was the patriarch of the Church of Jerusalem from 1012 to 1020.
Theophilus was Bishop of Hibal before his appointment as Patriarch of Jerusalem by Mufarrij ibn Daghfal ibn al-Jarrah, the autonomous ruler of Palestine. The appointment occurred under the rule of Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim. Mufarrij suggested that the Christian community should re-build the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. However, shortly after making the suggestion, al-Hakim, who, earlier, had ordered the previous church destroyed, declared war on Mufarrij, and sent his troops to Syria and Palestine. Mufarrij soon died and his son and Patriarch Theophilus fled into hiding. In 1013, after a new amicable governor was seated, Patriarch Theophilus returned and stayed in Jerusalem until his repose in 1020.


Abu Abdallah Jayhani

Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Jayhānī (), better simply known as Abu Abdallah Jayhani (; also spelled al-Gayhani, Jaihani), was the Persian vizier of the Samanid Empire from 914 to 922. His lost geographical work (which was preserved in later authors' books) is an important source of 9th-century history of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. His son and grandson also served as viziers.
Life.
Most details of the life of Jayhani are unknown. He was the son of Ahmad Jayhani, and had a brother named Ubaydallah Jayhani. Spelling patterns in his works suggests that Persian was his native language. Yaqut al-Hamawi also recorded that Jayhani frequently used the Persian expression "bedāw andarūn" ("rush in"). Al-Muqaddasi noted that Jayhani studied philosophy, astronomy and geometry. Furthermore, he also stated that Jayhani would assemble together foreigners and ask them about the lands and the routes to get to different territories. Jayhani was a secret adherent to Manichaeism, according to Ibn al-Nadim.
During his early career, Jayhani was a student of Abu Zayd al-Balkhi, and used to give him female slaves as gifts, but later left him, due to his "Kitab al-Qarabin wa'l-dhaba'ih" (Book on Sacrifices and Offerings), which Jayhani disapproved. Jayhani was made guardian of Nasr II in 913. A year later, his 8-year-old ward became the ruler ("emir") of the Samanid Empire and Jayhani was appointed vizier.
Due to Nasr's youth, Jayhani undertook the regency of the empire. Almost immediately a series of revolts broke out within the state, the most serious being the one led by his great-uncle Ishaq ibn Ahmad. Ishaq’s sons took part in the rebellion; one son, Abu Salih Mansur, took control of Nishapur and several other cities in Khorasan. Eventually, Ishaq was captured, while Abu Salih Mansur died in Nishapur. Nasr's ascension also brought instability to the peripheries of the Samanid state. The Abbasid Caliphate managed to recover Sistan for the last time, while Ray and Tabaristan were taken by the Alid Hasan al-Utrush. Despite being unable to recover the provinces, the Samanids employed numerous local Daylamite and Gilite leaders and remained active in the struggles there.
After the largest mosque of Bukhara was destroyed, Jayhani financed the erection of a minaret, according to Narshakhi. Ahmad ibn Fadlan, who met him in 921, recorded that the people referred to him as "the elder bulwark", evidencing that Jayhani was still regarded as a most influential figure in Nasr II's court. A year later, however, Abu'l-Fadl al-Bal'ami succeeded him as vizier. Jayhani died in 925. His son, Abu Ali Jayhani, was vizier of the Samanid Empire from 938 to 941. Abu Ali's son (Abu Abdallah's grandson) held the same office between 974 and 976.
Works.
Ibn al-Nadim, who confused Abu Abdallah Jayhani with his grandson, attributed four books to Abu Abdallah. Yaqut al-Hamawi, who used al-Nadim's work as a source for his own work, even caused additional confusion by blending the three consecutive generations of the Jayhani family. According to historian István Zimonyi, the four books "point to an author experienced in politics, as every book is connected with state affairs".
"The Book of Routes and Kingdoms".
Jayhani "assembled around himself some foreigners and questioned them about the countries and their revenues, the condition of roads thither, the elevation of the stars above the horizons there and the length of the meridian shadows cast by the sun", according to al-Muqaddasi.


2002 Arab Junior Athletics Championships

The 2002 Arab Junior Athletics Championships was the tenth edition of the international athletics competition for under-20 athletes from Arab countries. It took place in Cairo, Egypt – the city hosted the tournament once before in 1986. A total of 43 athletics events were contested, 22 for men and 21 for women. After an absence in 2000, regional powers Morocco, Algeria and Qatar all returned to the tournament.
Morocco topped the table with twelve gold medals, followed by Egypt which won eight titles. Tunisia and Saudi Arabia each won six medals, with Tunisia mainly having success in women's events and Saudi Arabia winning only men's medals. A women's pole vault was added to the programme, leaving just the steeplechase as the remaining event contested by men but not women. Junior implements were used in the throws events for the first time.
Morocco's Yassine Bensghir completed a men's middle-distance double and was the World Junior Champion that same year. Ismail Ahmed Ismail was third to him in the 800 metres, but went on to much greater success as a senior, winning Sudan's first Olympic medal in 2008. The sprints saw the rise of Yahya Habeeb and Yahya Al-Ghahes of Saudi Arabia (both future Asian champions). The men's throws saw the emergence of a new generation of athletes who would dominate regionally: Sultan Al-Hebshi and Ali Al-Zinkawi later won Asian titles in their disciplines, while the Egyptian trio of Yasser Ibrahim Farag, Omar Ahmed El Ghazaly and Mohsen Mohamed Anani later won gold medals at the African Championships in Athletics in the shot put, discus and hammer throw, respectively.
In women's events, sprint medallists Muna Jabir Adam and Gretta Taslakian each later became continental medallists in their specialities. Mariem Alaoui Selsouli was a medallist in both long-distance events and later won medals at the IAAF World Indoor Championships.


Ahmad Shirazi

Khwaja Abu Nasr Ahmad (), better known as Ahmad Shirazi (), also known as Ahmad(-e) Abd al-Samad (), was a Persian "vizier" of the Ghaznavid Sultan Mas'ud I and the latter's son Mawdud from 1032 to 1043. He was the son of the Samanid secretary Abu Tahir Shirazi, and had a son named Abd al-Hamid Shirazi, who would also later serve as "vizier".


The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is a book authored by New Historian Ilan Pappé and published in 2006 by One World Oxford.
During the 1948 Palestine war, around 720,000 Palestinian Arabs out of the 900,000 who lived in the territories that became Israel fled or were expelled from their homes. The causes of this exodus are controversial and debated by historians. In his own words, Ilan Pappé "want[s] to make the case for the paradigm of ethnic cleansing and use[s] it to replace the paradigm of war as the basis for the scholarly research of, and public debate about, 1948."
The thesis of the book is that the forced move of Palestinians to the Arab world was an objective of the Zionist movement and a must for the desired character of the Jewish state. According to Pappé, the 1948 Palestinian exodus resulted from a planned ethnic cleansing of Palestine that was implemented by the Zionist movement leaders, mainly David Ben-Gurion and the other ten members of his "consultancy group" as referred to by Pappé. The book argues that the ethnic cleansing was put into effect through systematic expulsions of about 500 Arab villages, as well as terrorist attacks executed mainly by members of the Irgun and Haganah troops against the civilian population. Ilan Pappé also refers to Plan Dalet and to the village files as a proof of the planned expulsions.
Background.
The idea that the 1948 events were the results of a planned expulsion had already been suggested by historians Walid Khalidi in "Plan Dalet: The Zionist Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine (1961)" and Nur-eldeen Masalha in "Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought (1991)". Yoav Gelber published an answer criticizing the interpretation of Plan D made by Walid Khalidi and Ilan Pappé: "History and Invention. Was Plan D a Blueprint for Ethnic Cleansing ? (2006)"
Benny Morris proposed several interpretations. The conclusion of his main work on the topic "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (1989)" is that the exodus was the "result of war, not intent". Nevertheless, he stated later that "[i]n retrospect, it is clear that what occurred in 1948 in Palestine was a variety of ethnic cleansing of Arab areas by Jews. It is impossible to say how many of the 700,000 or so Palestinians who became refugees in 1948 were physically expelled, as distinct from simply fleeing a combat zone." In an interview to Ha'aretz in 2004, he also defended the idea that having performed an ethnic cleansing in 1948 had been a better choice for the Jews than living a genocide. In his last book about the 1948 War: "1948: A History the First Arab-Israeli War (2006)", he nuanced all this and stated that "[d]uring the 1948 War, (...) although there were expulsions and although an atmosphere of what would later be called ethnic cleansing prevailed during critical months, transfer never became a general or declared Zionist policy. Thus, by war's end, even though much of the country had been "cleansed" of Arabs, other parts of the country -notably central Galilee- were left with substantial Muslim Arab populations (...).".
More recently, Rosemarie Esber in "Under the cover of war (2008)" concurs with Ilan Pappé and brings new arguments from British documents to support the thesis that the exodus had been planned by the Yishuv leaders.
Critical reception.
Analysis in peer-reviewed journals.
Ben Gurion University professor Uri Ram's review in the "Middle East Journal" concluded that "Pappe provides here a most important and daring book that challenges head-on Israeli historiography" as well as "collective memory and even more importantly Israeli conscience".
Jørgen Jensehaugen, in the "Journal of Peace Research", while calling the book "a good read", faults Pappé for claiming that the preplanned expulsion of Palestinians was ""the" reason for the war", rather than merely ""one" aspect of the various war plans".
Ephraim Nimni, in the "Journal of Palestine Studies", commends Pappé on the book's "polemical character", but claims that the Zionist leaders were not solely responsible for the ethnic cleansing:
Ahmad H. Sa'di, in "International Affairs", "highly recommended" the book.
Mainstream media responses.
Critical analysis appeared in "The New Republic". In his review of "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine", fellow 'new historian' Benny Morris wrote, "At best, Ilan Pappe must be one of the world's sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest. In truth, he probably merits a place somewhere between the two." Morris argued, "Such distortions, large and small, characterize almost every page of "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.""
Ian Black, "The Guardian"'s Middle East editor reviewed it, calling it a "catalogue of intimidation, expulsion and atrocity". He also pointed out that Pappé "does historical understanding a disservice by all but ignoring the mood and motives of the Jews, so soon after the end of a war in which six million had been exterminated by the Nazis.
David Pryce-Jones, writing in the "Literary Review" calls Pappé "an Israeli academic who has made his name by hating Israel and everything it stands for".
Stephen Howe, professor of the history of colonialism at Bristol University, said that Pappé's book was an often compelling mixture of historical argument and politico-moral tract. According to Howe, while the book will not be the final word on the events of 1948, it is "a major intervention in an argument that will, and must, continue".
Seth J. Frantzman, writing in the "Middle East Quarterly", states "[Pappé] is blinded by his need to fit events into a preferred narrative, and what little new evidence he includes does not persuade when considered in the context of historical events—a context that Pappé rigorously obscures."


Abd al-Rafe Heravi

Abd al-Rafi Heravi was a 12th-century Persian poet, who served at the court of the Ghaznavid ruler Khusrau Malik (r. 1160 – 1186) in his capital, Lahore. In 1186, however, the Ghaznavid kingdom was conquered in an invasion by the Ghurid ruler Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad, who had Khusrau Malik imprisoned. Heravi then began serving the Ghurids, where he was valued due to his skill. A large portion of his work has been lost; he is mostly known due to being mentioned several times in the works of the Persian writer 'Awfi.


Taranaki Province

"For the current top-level subdivision of Taranaki in New Zealand, see Taranaki region"
The Taranaki Province was a province of New Zealand from 1853 until the abolition of provincial government in 1876. Initially known as New Plymouth Province, the province was renamed on 1 January 1859 as the Taranaki Province.
Area.
With an area of some , New Plymouth Province was the smallest of the initial six provinces, and it was also the least populous. European settlement started in New Plymouth in 1841, which was the province's capital. For the first 30 years, European settlement did not extend many miles beyond New Plymouth.
History.
At the beginning of the 19th century, a coastal fringe some deep was densely populated with Māori. Tribes from the Waikato region threatened these Ngāti Awa, and during the 1820s, many of the inhabitants left Taranaki. In 1832, Waikato tribes launched an assault with firearms, resulting in the remaining Ngāti Awa being killed or going into slavery apart from the Otaku pā in New Plymouth. When English emigrants arrived in 1841, they found deserted land.
The settlement of the province was organised by the Plymouth Company, a subsidiary of the New Zealand Company which was later absorbed into its parent company. Taranaki was chosen for the settlement by the surveyor Frederic Carrington, and New Plymouth was the only town founded in the country founded through organised settlement that lacked a natural harbour. Carrington argued that fertile land and natural harbours don't come together in New Zealand, and that the land is more important for the settlement, and an artificial harbour will later be affordable. He was present when the breakwater was built 40 years after New Plymouth had been founded.
Anniversary Day.
New Zealand law still provides an anniversary day for each province. Taranaki Anniversary Day is celebrated annually on the second Monday in March.
Superintendents.
The Taranaki Province had four Superintendents:
Legislation.
No surviving legislation.


The Last Outlaw (miniseries)

The Last Outlaw is a 1980 Australian four-part television miniseries based on the life of Ned Kelly. It was shot from February to May 1980 and the end of its original broadcast, in October–November 1980, coincided with the centenary of Ned Kelly's death.
The complete miniseries has been released on region 4 DVD in Australia by Umbrella Entertainment.


Colony of Queensland

The Colony of Queensland was a colony of the British Empire from 1859 to 1901, when it became a State in the federal Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. At its greatest extent, the colony included the present-day State of Queensland, the Territory of Papua and the Coral Sea Islands Territory.
History.
Nineteenth century.
In 1823, John Oxley sailed north from Sydney to inspect Port Curtis (now Gladstone) and Moreton Bay as possible sites for a penal colony. At Moreton Bay, he found the Brisbane River whose existence Cook had predicted, and proceeded to explore the lower part of it. In September 1824, he returned with soldiers and established a temporary settlement at Redcliffe. On 2 December, the settlement was transferred to where the Central Business District (CBD) of Brisbane now stands. The settlement was initially called Edenglassie, a portmanteau of the Scottish towns Edinburgh and Glasgow. Major Edmund Lockyer discovered outcrops of coal along the banks of the upper Brisbane River in 1825. In 1839, transportation of convicts ceased, culminating in the closure of the Brisbane penal settlement. In 1842, free settlement was permitted. In the same year Andrew Petrie reported favourable grazing conditions and decent forests to the north of Brisbane, which led shortly to the arrival of settlers to Fraser Island and the Cooloola coast region.
In 1847, the Port of Maryborough was opened as a wool port. The first immigrant ship to arrive in Moreton Bay was the "Artemisia" in 1848. In 1857, Queensland's first lighthouse was built at Cape Moreton.
Frontier war.
Fighting between Aborigines and settlers in colonial Queensland was more bloody than in any other colonial state in Australia, perhaps partly due to Queensland having a larger pre-contact indigenous population than any other colony in Australia, accounting for over one third, and in some estimates close to forty percent, of the entire pre-contact population of the continent. The latest and hitherto most comprehensive survey estimates that some 1,500 European settlers – and their Chinese, Aboriginal and Melanesian allies – died in frontier skirmishes with Aboriginals in Queensland during the nineteenth century. The same study indicates that the casualties Aboriginal people suffered in these battles with settlers and native police (frequently described by contemporary political leaders and newspapers as "warfare", "a kind of warfare", "guerrilla-like warfare", and at times as a "war of extermination") is highly likely to have exceeded 30,000. (That is a tripling of the hitherto used minimum estimates for Queensland.) Yet even this figure is liable to increase if the results of the first attempt to use extensive "primary sources" to calculate the Aboriginal casualties due to violence on the Queensland frontier in this period is used. A paper prepared by Raymond Evans and Robert Ørsted-Jensen for the annual AHA conference at University of Queensland on 9 July 2014 indicated that a minimum figure of 65,000 Aboriginal casualties is a more realistic figure. The "Native Police Force" (sometimes "Native Mounted Police Force"), recruited and deployed by the Queensland government, was a key instrument in the oppression, dispossession and murder of indigenous people during this period.
The three largest massacres of whites by Aborigines in Australian colonial history all took place in Queensland. On 27 October 1857 Martha Fraser's Hornet Bank station on the Dawson River, in central Queensland took the lives of 11 Europeans. The tent camp of the embryo station of Cullin-La-Ringo near Springsure was attacked by Aborigines on 17 October 1861, killing 19 people including the grazier Horatio Wills. Following the wreck of the brig "Maria" at Bramble Reef near the Whitsunday Islands, on 26 February a total of 14 European survivors were massacred by local Aborigines. The Battle of One Tree Hill and Darkey Flat massacre also took place in the 1840s.
Colony of Queensland.
In 1851, a public meeting was held to consider Queensland's separation from New South Wales. On 6 June 1859 Queen Victoria signed Letters Patent to form the colony of Queensland. A proclamation was read by George Bowen on 10 December 1859 whereupon Queensland was formally separated from New South Wales. Bowen became the first Governor of Queensland and Robert Herbert became the first Premier of Queensland.
Queensland was the only Australian colony that commenced immediately with its own parliament, instead of first spending time as a Crown Colony (i.e. having a Governor appointed by The Crown). By this time, Western Australia was the only Australian colony without responsible government. Ipswich and Rockhampton became towns in 1860, with Maryborough and Warwick becoming towns the following year.
In 1861, rescue parties for Burke and Wills, which failed to find them, did some exploratory work of their own, in central and north-western Queensland. Notably among these was Frederick Walker who originally worked for the native police. Brisbane was linked by electric telegraph to Sydney in 1861; however, the first operating telegraph line in Queensland was from Brisbane to Ipswich in the same year.
Gold rush.
Although smaller than the gold rushes of Victoria and New South Wales, Queensland had its own series of gold rushes in the later half of the nineteenth century. In 1858, gold was discovered at Canoona. In 1867, gold was discovered in Gympie. Richard Daintree's explorations in North Queensland lead to several goldfields being developed in the late 1860s. In 1872, William Hann discovers gold on the Palmer River, southwest of Cooktown. Chinese settlers began to arrive in the goldfields, by 1877 there were 17,000 Chinese on Queensland gold fields. In that year restrictions on Chinese immigration were passed.
Other events.
1862 saw Queensland's western boundary changed from longitude 141° E to 138°E. In 1863, the first Chief Justice, Sir James Cockle was appointed. 1864 was an "annus horribilis" for Queensland. In March of that year, major flooding of the Brisbane River inundated the centre of town, in April, fires devastated the west side of Queen Street, which was the main shopping district and in December, another fire, which was Brisbane's worst ever, wiped out the rest of Queen Street and adjoining streets.
1865 saw the first steam trains in Queensland, travelling (from Ipswich to Bigge's Camp, which is now known as Grandchester). Townsville gazetted as a town in the same year. In 1867, the Queensland Constitution was consolidated from existing legislation under the "Constitution Act 1867". Sugar production was by then becoming a major industry. In 1867, six mills produced 168 tons of cane-sugar, by 1870 there were 28 mills with a production of 2,854 tons. The production of sugar started around Brisbane, but spread to Mackay and Cairns, and by 1888 the annual output of sugar was 60,000 tons. 1871 saw George Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby become the Governor of Queensland. The first record of a rugby match played in Queensland occurred in 1876. In 1877, Arthur Edward Kennedy became the Governor of Queensland. The first meat processed in the state occurred at Queensport along the Brisbane River in 1881.
In 1883, Queensland Premier Sir Thomas McIlwraith annexes Papua (later repudiated by British government). On 2 June the decision to form a rugby union association was made at the Exchange hotel in Brisbane. The same year Queensland's population passed the 250,000 mark. In 1887, the Brisbane-Wallangarra railway line was opened, and in 1888 there was a line opened between Brisbane and Charleville. There were other lines that were nearly complete from Rockhampton to Longreach, and others being constructed around Maryborough, Mackay and Townsville. By 1888, there were more than 5 million cattle in Queensland.
1891 saw the Great Shearers' Strike at Barcaldine leads to formation of the Australian Labor Party. The issue in the strike was whether employers were entitled to use non-union labour. There were troops and police called in, some sheds were fired, and there were mass riots. There was a second shearers strike in 1894. Union sponsored candidates won sixteen seats at the Queensland elections in 1893. The 1893 Brisbane flood caused much destruction including destroying the Victoria Bridge. The land where the Brisbane Cricket Ground now sits was first used as a cricket ground in 1895, with the first cricket match played there in December 1896. In 1897, Native (Aboriginal) Police force disbanded.
In 1899, the world's first Labor Party Government, with Premier Anderson Dawson as the leader, was elected into power only to last one week. In July 1899 Queensland offered to send a force of 250 mounted infantry to help Britain in the Second Boer War (Second Anglo-Boer War). Also in that year, gold production at Charters Towers peaked. The first natural gas find in Queensland and Australia was at Roma in 1900 as a team was drilling a water well. The Mahina Cyclone of 1899 strikes Cape York Peninsula, destroying a pearling fleet in Princess Charlotte Bay. The cyclone claimed the lives of around 400 people, making it Queensland's worst maritime disaster.
Immigration.
During the 1890s many workers known as the Kanakas were brought to Queensland from neighbouring Pacific Island nations to work in the sugar cane fields. Some of whom had been kidnapped under a process known as Blackbirding. When Australia was federated in 1901, the White Australia policy came into effect, whereby all foreign workers in Australia were deported under the Pacific Island Labourers Act of 1901. At this time there were between 7,000 and 10,000 Pacific Islanders living in Queensland. Most of them had been deported by 1908, by which time there were only 1500–2500 remaining.
Exploration.
In 1606, the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon landed near the site of the modern-day town of Weipa on the western shore of Cape York. His arrival was the first recorded encounter between European and Australian Aboriginal people.
In 1614, Luis Váez de Torres, a Spanish explorer may have sighted the Queensland coast at the tip of Cape York. In that year, he had sailed the Torres Strait, the body of water now named after him.
In 1768, the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville sailed west from the New Hebrides islands, getting to within a hundred miles of the Queensland coast. He did not reach the coast because he did not find a passage through the coral reefs, and turned back.
Lieutenant James Cook wrote that he claimed the east coast for King George III of Great Britain on 22 August 1770 when standing on Possession Island off the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, naming eastern Australia "New South Wales". This included the present Queensland. Cook charted the Australian east coast in his ship HM Barque "Endeavour", naming Stradbroke and Morton (now Moreton Island) islands, the Glass House Mountains, Double Island Point, Wide Bay, Hervey Bay and the Great Sandy Cape, now called Fraser Island. His second landfall in Australia was at Round Hill Head, 500 km north of Brisbane. The "Endeavour" was grounded on a coral reef near Cape Tribulation, on 11 June 1770 where he was delayed for almost seven weeks while they repaired the ship. This occurred where Cooktown now lies, on the Endeavour River, both places named after the incident. On 22 August the "Endeavour" reached the northern tip of Queensland, which Cook named the Cape York Peninsula after the Duke of York.
In 1799, in the "Norfolk", Matthew Flinders spent six weeks exploring the Queensland coast as far north as Hervey Bay. In 1802 he explored the coast again. On a later trip to England, his ship "HMS Porpoise" and the accompanying "Cato" ran aground on a coral reef off the Queensland coast. Flinders set off for Sydney in an open cutter, at a distance of , where the Governor sent ships back to rescue the crew from Wreck Reef.


Orhan

Orhan Ghazi (; , also spelled Orkhan, 1281 – March 1362) was the second bey of the Ottoman Beylik from 1323/4 to 1362. He was born in Söğüt, as the son of Osman.
In the early stages of his reign, Orhan focused his energies on conquering most of northwestern Anatolia. The majority of these areas were under Byzantine rule and he won his first battle at Pelekanon against the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos. Orhan also occupied the lands of the Karasids of Balıkesir and the Ahis of Ankara.
A series of civil wars surrounding the ascension of the nine-year-old Byzantine emperor John V Palaiologos greatly benefited Orhan. In the Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347, the regent John VI Kantakouzenos married his daughter Theodora to Orhan and employed Ottoman warriors against the rival forces of the empress dowager, allowing them to loot Thrace. In the Byzantine civil war of 1352–1357, Kantakouzenos used Ottoman forces against John V, granting them the use of a European fortress at Çimpe around 1352. A major earthquake devastated Gallipoli (modern Gelibolu) two years later, after which Orhan's son, Süleyman Pasha, occupied the town, giving the Ottomans a strong bridgehead into mainland Europe.
According to Ibn Battuta, Orhan was "the greatest of the Turkmen kings and the richest in wealth, lands, and military forces".
Passage of power.
Osman Gazi died in either 1323 or 1324, and Orhan succeeded him. According to Ottoman tradition, when Orhan succeeded his father, he proposed to his brother, Alaeddin, that they should share the emerging empire. The latter refused on the grounds that their father had designated Orhan as sole successor, and that the empire should not be divided. He only accepted as his share the revenues of a single village near Bursa.
Orhan then told him, "Since, my brother, thou will not take the flocks and the herds that I offer thee, be thou the shepherd of my people; be my Vizier." The word vizier, "vezir" in the Ottoman language, from Arabic "wazīr", meant "the bearer of a burden". Alaeddin, in accepting the office, accepted his brother's burden of power, according to oriental historians. Alaeddin, like many of his successors in that office, did not often command the armies in person, but he occupied himself with the foundation and management of the civil and military institutions of the state.
Government.
According to some authorities, it was in Alaeddin's time, and by his advice, that the Ottomans ceased acting like vassals to the Seljuk ruler: they no longer stamped money with his image or used his name in public prayers. These changes are attributed by others to Osman himself, but the vast majority of the oriental writers concur in attributing to Alaeddin the introduction of laws respecting the costume of the various subjects of the empire, and the creation and funding of a standing army of regular troops. It was by his advice and that of a contemporary Turkish statesman that the celebrated corps of Janissaries was formed, an institution which European writers erroneously fix at a later date, and ascribe to Murad I.
Janissaries.
Alaeddin, by his military legislation, may be truly said to have organized victory for the Ottoman dynasty. He organised for the Ottoman Beylik a standing army of regularly paid and disciplined infantry and horses, a full century before Charles VII of France established his fifteen permanent companies of men-at-arms, which are generally regarded as the first modern standing army.
Orhan's predecessors, Ertuğrul and Osman I, had made war at the head of the armed vassals and volunteers. This army rode on horseback to their prince's banner when summoned for each expedition, and were disbanded as soon as the campaign was over. Alaeddin determined to ensure any future success by forming a corps of paid infantry, which was to be kept in constant readiness for service. These troops were called Yaya, or piyade. They were divided into tens, hundreds, and thousands with their commanders. Their pay was high, and their pride soon caused their sovereign some anxiety. Orhan wished to provide a check to them, and he took counsel for this purpose with his brother Alaeddin and Kara Khalil Çandarlı (of House of Candar), who was connected with the royal house by marriage. Çandarlı laid before his master and the vizier a project. Out of this arose the renowned corps of Janissaries, which was considered the scourge of the Balkans and Central Europe for a long time, until it was abolished by Sultan Mahmud II in 1826.
Çandarlı proposed to Orhan to create an army entirely composed of the children of conquered places. Çandarlı argued that:
He also claimed that the formation of Janissary out of conquered children would induce other people to adopt, not only out of the children of the conquered nations, but out of a crowd of their friends and relations, who would come as volunteers to join the Ottoman ranks. Acting on this advice, Orhan selected a thousand of the finest boys from conquered Christian families. The recruits were trained according to their individual abilities, and employed in posts ranging from professional soldier to Grand Vizier. This practice continued for centuries, until the reign of Sultan Mehmet IV.
Politics.
Initial expansion.
Orhan, with the help of Ghazi commanders at the head of his forces of light cavalry, started a series of conquests of Byzantine territories in northwest Anatolia. First, in 1321, Mudanya was captured on the Sea of Marmara, which was the port of Bursa. He then sent a column under Konur Alp towards West Black Sea coast; another column under Aqueda to capture Kocaeli, and finally a column to capture the southeast coast of the Sea of Marmara. Then, he captured the city of Bursa just with diplomatic negotiations. The Byzantine commander of the Bursa fort, called Evrenos Bey, became a commander of a light cavalry force and even his sons and grandsons served Ottoman Beylik in this capacity to conquer and hold many areas in Balkans. Once the city of Bursa was captured, Orhan sent cavalry troops towards Bosphorus, capturing Byzantine coastal towns of Marmara. There were even sightings of Ottoman light cavalry along the Bosphoros coast.
The Byzantine Emperor Andronicus III gathered together a mercenary army and set off towards Anatolia on the peninsular lands of Kocaeli. But at the present towns of Darica, at a site then called Pelekanon, not too far from Üsküdar, he met with Orhan's troops. In the ensuing battle of Pelekanon, the Byzantine forces were routed by Orhan's disciplined troops. Thereafter Andronicus abandoned the idea of getting the Kocaeli lands back and never again conducted a field battle against the Ottoman forces.
The city of Nicaea (second only to Constantinople in the Byzantine Empire) surrendered to him after a three-year siege that concluded in 1331. The city of Nicomedia (now Izmit) was also captured, in 1337. Orhan gave the command of it to his eldest son, Suleyman Pasha, who had directed the operations of the siege.
In 1338 by capturing Scutari (now Üsküdar) most of Northwest Anatolia was in Ottoman hands. The Byzantines still controlled the coastal strip from Sile on the Black Sea to Scutari and the city of Amastris (now Amasra) in Paphlagonia, but these were so scattered and isolated as to be no threat to the Ottomans.
Then, there was a change of strategy in 1345. Instead of aiming to gain land from non-Muslims, Orhan took over a Turkish principality, Karesi (present Balıkesir and surrounds). According to Islamic philosophy of war, the areas under Islamic rule were to be "abodes of peace" and the other areas "abodes of war". In "abodes of war" conducting a war was considered a good deed. Karesi principality was a state governed by a Turkish emir and its main inhabitants were Turkish; so it was an "abode of peace". Ottomans had to have special justification for conquering fellow Muslim Turkish principalities.
In the case of Karesi, the ruler had died and had left two sons whose claims to the post of Emir were equally valid. So there was a fight between the armed supporters of the two claimant princes. Orhan's pretext for invasion was that he was acting as a bringer of peace. In the end of the invasion by Ottoman troops the two brothers were pushed to the castle of their capital city of Pergamum (now Bergama). One was killed and the other was captured. The territories around Pergamum and Palaeocastro (Balıkesir) were annexed to Orhan's domains. This conquest was particularly important since it brought Orhan's territories to Çanakkale, the Anatolian side of the Dardanelles Straits.
With the conquest of Karesi, nearly the whole of northwestern Anatolia was included in the Ottoman Beylik, and the four cities of Bursa, Nicomedia İzmit, Nicaea, İznik, and Pergamum (Bergama) had become strongholds of its power. At this stage of his conquests Orhan's Ottoman Principality had four provinces:
Consolidation period.
A twenty-year period of peace followed the acquisition of Karesi. During this time, the Ottoman sovereign was actively occupied in perfecting the civil and military institutions which his brother had introduced, in securing internal order, in founding and endowing mosques and schools, and in the construction of vast public edifices, many of which still stand. Orhan did not continue with any other conquests in Anatolia except taking over Ankara from the commercial-religious fraternity guild of Ahis.
The general diffusion of Turkish populations over Anatolia, before Osman's time, was in main part a push from the Mongol conquest of Central Asia, Iran and then East Anatolia. Turkish peoples had founded a number of principalities after the demise of the Anatolian Sultanate of Rum, after its defeat by the Ilkhanate Mongols. Although they were all of Turkish stock, they were all rivals for dominant status in Anatolia.
After the Byzantine defeat of the Battle of Pelekanon, Orhan developed friendly relations with Andronicus III Palaeologus, and maintained them with some of his successors. Therefore, the Ottoman power experienced a twenty-year period of general repose.
However, as the Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 dissipated the last resources of the Byzantine Empire, the auxiliary armies of the Emirs of Turkish principalities were frequently called over and employed in Europe. In 1346, The Emperor John VI Cantacuzene recognised Orhan as the most powerful sovereign of the Turks. He aspired to attach the Ottoman forces permanently to his interests, and hoped to achieve this by giving his second daughter, Theodora, in marriage to their ruler, despite differences of creed and the disparity of age. However, in Byzantine and in Western European history, dynastic marriages were quite usual and there are many examples which were much more strange.
The splendour of the wedding between Orhan and Theodora at Selymbria (Silivri) is elaborately described by Byzantine writers. In the following year, Orhan and Theodora visited his imperial father-in-law at Üsküdar, (then Chrysopolis) the suburb of Constantinople on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus where there was a display of festive splendor. However, this close relationship soured when Byzantines suffered from marauding migrant Turcoman bands that had crossed the Marmara Sea and Dardanelles and pillaged several towns in Thrace. After a series of such raids, the Byzantines had to use superior forces to deal with them.
Decline of Byzantine Empire.
During Orhan's reign as the Ottoman emir, the Byzantine Empire declined – partly due to the ambitions of Italian maritime states and to the aggression of the Turcomans and other city Turks, but also due to civil wars within the empire.
During these years the Byzantine Empire became so weak that commercial supremacy in the surrounding seas around it became a bone of contention for the Italian maritime commercial city states. The Republic of Genoa possessed Galata, a separate Genoese city across the Golden Horn from Constantinople itself. The Genoese had fought the Byzantines earlier in 1348 when the Byzantines had decreased their customs tariffs in order to attract trade to the Byzantine side of the Golden Horn. In 1352 the rivalry for trade led to a war between Genoa and Venice. The Genoese, in trying to repel a Venetian fleet from destroying their ships in Golden Horn, bombarded the sea walls of Constantinople and pushed the Byzantines to ally with the Venetians. The Venetians assembled a large naval force, including hired fleets from Peter IV of Aragon and from the Byzantine Empire of John VI Cantacuzene. The sea battle between the Venetian fleet under the command of Niccolo Pisani and the Genoese fleet under Paganino Doria led to defeat of Venetians and their Byzantine allies. Orhan opposed the Venetians, whose fleets and piratical raids were disrupting his seaward provinces, and who had met his diplomatic overtures with contempt. The Venetians were allies of John VI, so Orhan sent an auxiliary force across the straits to Galata, which there co-operated with the Genoese.
In the midst of the distress and confusion that the Byzantine Empire now suffered, Orhan's eldest son, Suleyman Pasha, captured the Castle of Tzympe (Cinbi) in a bold move which gave the Turks a permanent foothold on the European side of the Dardanelles Straits. He also started to settle migrant Turcomans and town-dwelling Turks in the strategic city and castle of Gelibolu (Gallipoli), which had been devastated by a severe earthquake and was therefore evacuated by its inhabitants. Suleyman refused various financial inducements offered by John VI to empty the castle and the city. The emperor pleaded with his son-in-law Orhan to meet personally and discuss the matter, but the request was either rejected or could not be carried out due to Orhan's age and ill-health.
This military situation remained unresolved, in part because of the eruption of hostilities between John VI and his co-emperor and son-in-law John V Palaeologus. John V was dismissed from his imperial post and exiled to Tenedos; Cantacuzene's son Matthew was crowned as the co-emperor. But very soon John V returned from exile with Venetian help and conducted a coup, taking over the government of Constantinople. Although the two men came to an agreement to share power, John VI resigned from his imperial post and became a monk. Each of these two contestants for power was continually soliciting Orhan's aid against the other, and Orhan supported whichever side would benefit the Ottomans.
Last years.
Orhan was the longest living and one of the longest reigning of the future Ottoman Sultans. In his last years he had left most of the powers of state in the hands of his second son Murad and lived a secluded life in Bursa.
In 1356 Orhan and Theodora's son, Khalil, was abducted somewhere on the Bay of Izmit. A Genoese commercial boat captain, which was conducting acts of piracy alongside commercial activity, was able to capture the young prince and take him over to Phocaea on the Aegean Sea, which was under Genoese rule. Orhan was very much upset by this kidnapping and conducted talks with his brother-in-law and now sole Byzantine Emperor John V Palaeologos. As to the agreement, John V with a Byzantine naval fleet went to Phocaea, paid the ransom demanded of 100,000 "hyperpyra", and brought Khalil back to Ottoman territory.
In 1357 Orhan's eldest and most experienced son and likely heir, Suleyman Pasha, died after injuries sustained from a fall from a horse near Bolayir on the coast of the sea of Marmara. The horse that Suleyman fell from was buried alongside him and their tombs can still be seen today. Orhan was said to have been greatly affected by the death of his son.
Orhan died soon after, likely from natural causes. It seems rather likely that the death of his son was taxing on his health, however. Orhan died in 1362, in Bursa, at the age of eighty, after a reign of thirty-six years. He is buried in the türbe (tomb) with his wife and children, called "Gümüşlü Kumbet" in Bursa.
Wives and children.
In 1351, Orhan and Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia were negotiating about a potential alliance. There was a proposal to marry Dušan's daughter Theodora to Orhan, or one of his sons. However, the Serbian diplomats were attacked by Nikephoros Orsini, after which the negotiations broke down, the marriage didn't take place, and Serbia and the Ottoman state resumed hostilities.
In popular culture.
In the Turkish television series "" (1988), Orhan Gazi has been portrayed.


Gretchen S. Herbert

RDML Gretchen S. Herbert is a retired United States Navy officer who commanded the Navy Cyber Forces.
A native of Rochester, New York, Rear Admiral Herbert graduated from the University of Rochester in 1984, receiving her commission through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps program. She holds a master's degree in Systems Technology (Space Systems Operations) from the Naval Postgraduate School (1991) and a master's degree in Military Studies from the Marine Corps Command and Staff College (1998).
During her early assignments, Herbert served within the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System at Naval Facility Bermuda; at commander, Oceanographic Systems Atlantic; and at Naval Ocean Processing Facility, Dam Neck, Virginia.
Additional shore assignments include satellite communications officer at Headquarters, U.S. Naval Forces Europe; executive officer, Fleet Surveillance Support Command; Joint Command, Control, Communications, Computer, and Intelligence instructor at the Joint Forces Staff College; commanding officer, Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station Washington; branch head, Naval Networks for OPNAV N6; and assistant chief of Naval Operations for the Next Generation Enterprise Network.
She also served as director of the Communications, Networks and Chief Information Officer (CIO) Division on the staff of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance.
Fleet assignments include combat systems officer embarked in USS "George Washington" (CVN-73) where she deployed to the Persian Gulf in support of Operations Southern Watch, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom; and assistant chief of staff for Communications and Information Systems (N6) to commander, Carrier Strike Group 7 embarked in USS "Ronald Reagan" (CVN-76) where she deployed to the Western Pacific and the Persian Gulf with Ronald Reagan Strike Group.
In June, 2011, Herbert assumed command of Navy Cyber Forces at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Virginia Beach, Virginia. She retired from active duty in January 2014.


Children of Zion

The Children of Zion ("The Path of Agony of the Tehran Children") is a book written by Henryk Grynberg about "the fate of the Polish Jews".
Synopsis.
The "Children of Zion", published in January 1998, is considered as a documentary that was based on a collection of fragments of records compiled in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1943 by the Eastern Center for Information, a Polish government group. The book was a source of the testimonies of Jewish children who were evacuated from the Soviet Union to Palestine. Grynberg arranged the “collection of interviews” to serve as a reminder about the Holocaust experience. The Polish children’s experiences during World War II also provided a recollection of their lives before the war. Memories of when the war broke out were also discussed, apart from the “arrival of the Germans and the Russians”, the children’s journeys and life while in exile, and their condition after the so-called Sikorsky Agreement allowed them to leave the work camps. Many of the children had to cope as orphaned émigrés. The original document that had become the basis for Grynberg’s "Children of Zion" is at the Hoover Institution of Leland Stanford Junior University.
Identities of the children.
Grynberg's "Children of Zion" contains the original list of the Polish children who arrived in Eretz Israel "on February 18th, 1943, those who arrived in August 1943, and those who gave the testimonies". These children escaped from occupied Poland to Russia prior to arriving at Eretz Israel (Land of Israel).
Translations.
Grynberg's book was originally published in Polish as "Dzieci Syjonu" (Warszawa: Karta) in 1994. It was later translated into Hebrew by Zeev Schuss (Yad Vashem, Jerusalem) in 1995. Grynberg’s "Children of Zion" was translated into English by Jacqueline Mitchell, a United Nations interpreter, and published by Northwestern University Press in 1998.


Nasir al-Din Muhammad

Nasir al-Din Muhammad (d. c. 1318) was the Mihrabanid malik of Sistan from 1261 until his death. He was the son of Mubariz al-Din Abu'l-Fath ibn Mas'ud.
Struggle to gain control of Sistan.
Nasir al-Din's uncle Shams al-Din 'Ali ibn Mas'ud had been the first of the Mihrabanid maliks. When Shams al-Din 'Ali was murdered in 1255, the Kartid malik Shams ud-Din occupied Shahr-i Sistan. Shams ud-Din went before Hulagu Khan and claimed that his seizure of Sistan was legitimate, as he had a grant ("yarligh") that had been given to him by the Great Khan Möngke for the province.
Nasir al-Din, meanwhile, asserted his own claim to the throne, attempting to gain Hulagu's support and sending his great-uncle Shuja' al-Din Nasr ibn Khalaf to take control of Sistan after the Kartid malik had departed. Despite these diplomatic attempts, Nasir al-Din did not receive a "yarligh" for six years and was further hampered by a second invasion by the Kartids. It was only in the spring of 1261 that he received official sanction from Hulagu to rule Sistan. Upon Nasr al-Din's return to Shahr-i Sistan, Kartid representatives were expelled and a purge of individuals deemed to be supportive of the Kartids or who had collaborated with the murderers of Shams al-Din 'Ali was initiated. Despite this, when Shams ud-Din invaded again and attacked Shahr-i Sistan in October 1263, several groups hostile to Nasr al-Din supported the Kartid.
Rule as Malik.
Shams al-Din 'Ali had courted Jochids during his reign, a policy that Nasir al-Din continued. During the Berke–Hulagu war an army led by the Jochid noyan Junjudar arrived in Sistan near the end of 1264. A joint Ilkhanid–Kartid force battled with and defeated the Jochids; Junjudar fled to Shahr-i Sistan and received refuge from Nasir al-Din. In retaliation the Ilkhanids and Kartids ravaged parts of Sistan and killed many civilians, then laid siege to Shahr-i Sistan. After forty days the siege had not ended, so the two sides made peace with each other and the invaders left Sistan in early 1265.
From 1267 until 1269 Nasir al-Din was active in northern Sistan establishing his authority over the towns there. The towns, especially Uq, resented being ruled from Shahr-i Sistan. Several sieges were necessary but eventually Nasir al-Din was able to firmly regain control of the region. During this time he was also active in fighting the raids of Qaraunas (also known as Neguderis) bands who aligned with the Chagatayids and had to put down a rebellion staged by his chamberlain.
Relations with the Ilkhanids had not significantly improved since the siege of Shahr-i Sistan, and in 1276 or 1277 Abaqa Khan sent an army to invade Sistan. The Ilkhanids caused havoc in the countryside but an advance on the capital was defeated by the Mihrabanid army. The breach with the Ilkhanate was somewhat mended after Ahmed Tekuder's ascension in 1282; the ilkhan sent Nasir al-Din a "yarligh" and other insignia as a confirmation of his rule.
Having secured control of Sistan and ensured its defense against external forces, Nasir al-Din was free to pursue a relatively independent foreign policy. Sistan became a haven for political refugees, such as several Qutlugh-Khanids and the atabeg of Yazd. At the same time, the Mihrabanids used military force to expand their borders. After repelling a marauding Mongol band, Qaraunas, from Sistan, Nasir al-Din's son Shams al-Din 'Ali advanced on Quhistan, a Kartid appanage, and seized control of it. Shams al-Din soon ran into problems maintaining his hold over Quhistan, but was helped by military assistance from his father. Domestic improvements were also made, including the construction of irrigation canals and channels.
In 1318 Nasir al-Din found himself threatened by the Chagatayid commander Yasa'ur, who had been granted the region around Badghis by Öljaitü Khan. Yasa'ur invaded Sistan after having refused Nasir al-Din's offers of tribute, but became worried when a Neguderi band threatened his rear. He therefore retreated from Sistan, instead choosing to harass the Kartids.
Conflict with Rukn al-Din Mahmud.
The late period of Nasir al-Din's reign was consumed with fighting between the malik and his eldest son, Rukn al-Din Mahmud. After relations between the two fell apart, Rukn al-Din fled to Quhistan. Eventually he established a power base on the fringes of Kerman and began conducting raids into Sistan. After an army sent to subdue him was defeated, Nasir al-Din decided to come to terms and gave Rukn al-Din the citadel of Shahr-i Sistan and several fortresses.
Nasir al-Din quickly decided not to honor this peace agreement and attacked Rukn al-Din's forces. Rukn al-Din was compelled to retreat from Sistan, but only temporarily. When he returned he initiated a siege of Shahr-i Sistan. Eight months of fighting in the capital failed to establish a clear winner and caused a significant amount of damage to the city, so the religious leaders of Sistan stepped in and decided on a division of power. Rukn al-Din was allotted all of Sistan west of the Helmand River, with Nasir al-Din retaining the eastern portion of the province. Despite all this, Nasir al-Din again opened hostilities with Rukn al-Din soon after, prompting the latter to raid Uq and Zirih.
In around 1318, Nasir al-Din died. Rukn al-Din was incapable of marching to Shahr-i Sistan due to an injury, enabling his brother Nusrat al-Din Muhammad to take control of the capital.


Battle of Montgisard

The Battle of Montgisard was fought between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Ayyubids on 25 November 1177 at Montgisard, in the Levant (present day Israel) between Ramla and Yibna. The 16-year-old King Baldwin IV, seriously afflicted by leprosy, led an outnumbered Christian force against Saladin's troops in what became one of the most notable engagements of the Middle Ages. The Muslim army was quickly routed and pursued for twelve miles. Saladin fled back to Cairo, reaching the city on 8 December, with only a tenth of his army. Muslim historians considered Saladin's defeat to be so severe that it was only redeemed by his victory ten years later at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, although Saladin defeated Baldwin in the Battle of Marj Ayyun in 1179, only to be defeated by Baldwin again at the Battle of Belvoir Castle in 1182.
Background.
In 1177, King Baldwin IV, and Philip of Alsace who had recently arrived on pilgrimage, planned an alliance with the Byzantine Empire for a naval attack on Egypt; but none of these plans came to fruition. Instead, Philip decided to join Raymond of Tripoli's expedition to attack the Saracen stronghold of Hama in northern Syria. A large crusader army, the Knights Hospitaller and many Templar knights followed him. This left the Kingdom of Jerusalem with very few troops to defend its various territories. Meanwhile, Saladin was planning his own invasion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from Egypt. When he was informed of the expedition north, he wasted no time in organising a raid and invaded the kingdom with an army of some 30,000 men. Learning of Saladin's plans, Baldwin IV left Jerusalem with, according to William of Tyre, only 375 knights to attempt a defense at Ascalon, but Baldwin was stalled there by a detachment of troops sent by Saladin. Saladin left part of his army to besiege Gaza and a smaller force at Ascalon and marched northward with the rest.
Opposing forces.
The true numbers are impossible to estimate, since the Christian sources refer only to knights and give no account of the number of infantry and turcopoles, except that it is evident from the number of the dead and wounded that there must have been more men than the 375 knights. It is also uncertain whether the so-called knights included mounted sergeants or squires, or whether they were true knights. One contemporary chronicler gave a strength of 7,000 for the Latin army, while another contemporary estimate of 20,000 was probably a textual corruption of 10,000. However, modern historians generally deem the number of Frankish troops to have been lower; 375 knights and 80 Templars for less than 500 armored heavy cavalry, as well as 2,500 to 4,000 infantry and archers (spearmean, swordsmen, axemen, crossbowmen and turcopoles), could explain why Saladin did not remotely believe such a tiny force of Christians should be considered a threat and marched at his leisure on Jerusalem, allowing his army to spread out across the countryside to pillage the Kingdom’s farmlands.
Just as uncertain are the numbers of their opponents. An 1181 review listed Saladin's Mamluk forces at 6,976 Ghulams and 1,553 Qaraghulams. However, there would have been additional soldiers available in Syria and elsewhere, while auxiliaries might have accompanied the Mamluks. William of Tyre reported Saladin's strength as 26,000, while an anonymous chronicler estimated 12,000 Turkish and 9,000 Arab troops. Accompanying Baldwin was Raynald de Châtillon, Lord of Oultrejordain, who had just been released from captivity in Aleppo in 1176. Raynald was a fierce enemy of Saladin and was King Baldwin's second-in-command. Also with the army were Baldwin of Ibelin, his brother Balian, Reginald Grenier and Joscelin III of Edessa. Eudes de Saint-Amand, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, came with 80 Templar knights. Another Templar force attempted to meet Baldwin at Ascalon, but they remained besieged at Gaza.
The battle.
Saladin continued his march towards Jerusalem, thinking that Baldwin would not dare to follow him with so few men. He attacked Ramla, Lydda and Arsuf, but because Baldwin was supposedly not a danger, he allowed his army to be spread out over a large area, pillaging and foraging. However, unknown to Saladin, the forces he had left to subdue the King had been insufficient and now both Baldwin and the Templars were marching to intercept him before he reached Jerusalem.
The Christians, led by the King, pursued the Muslims along the coast, finally catching their enemies at Mons Gisardi, near Ramla. The location is disputed, as Ramla was a large region that included the town under the same name. Malcolm Barber equates Mons Gisardi with the mound of al-Safiya. Saladin's chronicler Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani refers to the battle taking place by the mound of Al-Safiya, potentially modern Tell es-Safi near the village of Menehem, not far from Ashkelon, and within the contemporary Ramla province. Al-Safiya means white and, indeed, the Es-Safi hill is white with the foundations of a Crusader castle recently found at the top, called Blanchegarde. Ibn Al-Athīr, one of the Arab chroniclers, mentions that Saladin intended to lay siege to a Crusader castle in the area. But Saladin's baggage train had been apparently mired. There is a small stream north of Tell es-Safi bordering farmland that in November might have been plowed up and muddy enough to hinder the passage of the baggage train. The Egyptian chroniclers agree that the baggage had been delayed at a river crossing. Saladin was taken totally by surprise. His army was in disarray: part had been held up by the mired baggage train while another part of his force had scattered into raiding parties across the countryside. The horses were tired from the long march. Some men had to hurry to collect their weapons from the baggage train. Saladin's army, in a state of panic, scrambled to make battle lines against the enemy. King Baldwin ordered the relic of the True Cross to be raised in front of the troops. The King, whose teenage body was already ravaged by aggressive leprosy, was helped from his horse and dropped to his knees before the cross. He prayed to God for victory and rose to his feet to cheers from his men, who were moved by what they had just witnessed.
The Jerusalem army attacked the hurriedly arranged Muslims, inflicting heavy casualties. The King, fighting with bandaged hands to cover his sores, was in the thick of the fighting. Egyptian effective command was under Saladin's nephew Taqi ad-Din. Taqi ad-Din apparently attacked while Saladin was putting his Mamluk guard together. Taqi’s son Ahmad died in the early fighting. Saladin's men were quickly overwhelmed. Saladin himself only avoided capture by escaping, as Ralph de Diceto claims, on a racing camel. By nightfall, those Egyptians that were with the Sultan had reached Caunetum Esturnellorum near the mound of Tell el-Hesi. This is about 25 miles from Ramla. It is only about 7 km from Tell es-Safi (al-Safiya).
Baldwin pursued Saladin until nightfall, and then retired to Ascalon. Deluged by ten days of heavy rains and suffering the loss of roughly ninety percent of his army, including his personal bodyguard of Mamluks, Saladin fled back to Egypt, harassed by Bedouins along the way. Only one tenth of his army made it back to Egypt with him.
Aftermath.
Baldwin memorialized his victory by erecting a Benedictine monastery on the battlefield, dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria, whose feast day fell on the day of the battle. However, it was a difficult victory; Roger de Moulins, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, reported that men had been killed and 750 returned home wounded.
Meanwhile, Raymond III of Tripoli and Bohemund III of Antioch joined with Philip of Alsace in a separate expedition against Harim in Syria; the siege of Harim lasted into 1178, and Saladin's defeat at Montgisard prevented him from relieving his Syrian vassals.
Fiction.
The battle of Montgisard is alluded to in the 2005 movie "Kingdom of Heaven", as a battle where King Baldwin IV defeated Saladin when he was sixteen. It was also described in the novel "Jerusalem", written by Cecelia Holland.
An account of the battle is also given in Swedish author Jan Guillou's novel "Tempelriddaren" (The Knight Templar) (), in which the protagonist, Arn Magnusson (de Gothia) is portrayed as a high-ranking member of the Knights Templar, commanding a contingent of the army at the battle of Montgisard. The battle is shown in the movie "Arn – The Knight Templar", which was based on Guillou's book.


USS Dale (DD-353)

The fourth USS "Dale" (DD-353) was a "Farragut"-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. "Dale" received 14 battle stars for World War II service. She was named for American Revolutionary war hero Richard Dale.
"Dale" was launched 23 January 1935 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard; sponsored by Mrs. E. C. Dale; and commissioned 17 June 1935, Commander W. A. Corn in command. Rear Admiral Yates Stirling, Jr., commandant of the Third Naval District and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, oversaw construction and presided over the commissioning. As a fourteen-year-old boy nearly 50 years earlier, Stirling had lived aboard the first USS Dale (1839) when the old sloop-of-war, her masts removed and at the end of her long service, was the station ship at the Washington Navy Yard under his father's command. "Dale" was decommissioned 16 October 1945 and sold 20 December 1946.
Pre-World War II.
"Dale" made a southern cruise from 13 February to 6 March 1936, visiting Norfolk, Dry Tortugas, Florida, and Galveston, Texas, and acted as escort for President F. D. Roosevelt's cruise in the Bahamas before departing for the west coast. She took part in fleet problems, made a good will visit to Callao, Peru, served as training ship for the gunnery school at San Diego, and cruised to Hawaii, Alaska, and the Caribbean on exercises.
On 5 October 1939, "Dale" departed San Diego to join the Hawaiian Detachment for training and patrol.
Late 1941 Pearl Harbor Attack – early 1942.
At the commencement of the raid on Pearl Harbor at 0750 on December 7, 1941, the Dale was moored with ships of Destroyer Division Two at Berth X-14. The order of ships in the nest, from starboard to port, was as follows: USS Aylwin, USS Farragut, the Dale, and USS Monaghan. The ship's head was 030, and boiler number three was in use for auxiliary purposes. The deck officer and acting commanding officer, Ensign F.M. Radel, saw the first plane attack the USS Utah from westward. General Quarters was immediately sounded, and orders were given to set material condition Affirm and light all boilers. At 0810, fire was opened on Japanese planes using the after .50-caliber machine guns, followed shortly thereafter by the after five-inch anti-aircraft guns. The ships on either side of the Dale prevented the use of the forward guns, and the forward searchlight made it impossible to bring the director to bear in the direction of the level bombing attacks. The 5-inch guns operated in local control against a squadron of level bombers flying at about 10,000 feet above the battleships, but results were poor, with shots bursting well behind and short of the targets. At 0815, an enemy dive bomber attacking the USS Raleigh from westward came under severe machine gun fire from all the ships in the nest, was struck, and crashed into the harbor.
At 0820 it was reported to the senior officer in the nest—Lieutenant Commander W.P. Burford, commanding the Monaghan—that the Dale was ready to get underway. While backing clear, a torpedo apparently aimed at the USS Raleigh passed under the bow of the Dale and exploded on Ford Island. At 0844 the Dale stopped while the Monaghan dropped depth charges against a Japanese submarine close aboard the starboard side of the USS Curtiss. The Dale then changed speed to 25 knots and proceeded out of harbor ahead of the Monaghan. Until the Dale neared the submarine net she did not come under the direct fire of the planes; apparently the Japanese wished to sink a ship in the entrance, blocking the harbor, as the Dale came under severe dive bombing and machine gun attacks near the entrance. Machine-gun fire from the ship served to keep the attackers from approaching too closely, although there were several close misses which caused no damage.
At 0907 the Dale cleared the entrance buoys. By stopping the port engine and coming hard left rudder, she caused a flight of three Japanese dive bombers to overshoot their mark. As the flight passed by the starboard side close to the water, machine-gun fire from the Dale struck the leading plane, causing it to burst into flame and crash into the water. The remaining two planes attempted to attack again, but were driven off by machine-gun fire. At 0911, the Dale established offshore patrol in sector one, changing speed to 12 knots at 0927. Due to repeated airplane attacks the ship was forced to make frequent course changes and run at high speed. High-speed wakes and depth charging from other destroyers in the vicinity rendered the sound gear practically useless.
At 1114, the USS Worden (Commander Destroyer Squadron One) sortied. The Dale formed on the Worden as third ship in column. After investigating the falsely-reported presence of three enemy transports off Barbers Point, the ships formed an inner anti-submarine screen on the USS Detroit, USS Phoenix, USS St. Louis, and USS Astoria. The Dale was assigned station nine, and the task force speed was 25 knots.
At 1410, the pinion bearings on the reduction gear of the port engine failed. An attempt was made to stay with the assigned task force, as the maximum speed obtainable with one engine was 22 knots, but the Dale fell steadily behind. The starboard engine began overheating, forcing a further reduction of speed to 10 knots. The Dale retired to southward at 1654, stopped at 1930, and lay to until 0500 the following morning attempting repairs. At dawn the Dale rendezvoused with the task force, but as full repairs to the engine were impossible without the assistance of the tender, the Dale could not maintain her assigned screening station. Instead, under orders of Commander Destroyers, Battle Force, the Dale established an offshore patrol in sector one until the entrance of Task Group 8.4.
The Dale suffered no casualties and no enemy damage during the raid on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese plane shot down by the Dale off the entrance buoys was reported to the Commanding Officer. Two other planes, both dive bombers, were claimed by members of the crew to have been shot down by the Dale.
From 14 December 1941 to 17 March 1942, The Dale screened and , covering the strikes on the Salamaua–Lae campaign area of New Guinea on 10 March. The Dale returned to Pearl Harbor on escort and training duty until 11 May when she departed for Mare Island and an overhaul. On 5 June she sailed from San Francisco, with others, to back up the task forces engaged in the Battle of Midway from 6 July to 17 August. She was assigned to convoy duty between Viti Levu, Fiji, and Efate and Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, in preparation for the assault on Guadalcanal. She covered the landings, escorted transports loaded with reinforcements to the bitterly contested island from 18 August to 21 September, then sailed to Pearl Harbor for escort and training duty until 10 November. She sailed to screen the battleships and into Pearl Harbor, continuing with the USS South Dakota to San Francisco.
1943, Aleutians Campaign.
On 9 January 1943 "Dale" sailed from San Francisco for duty in Aleutian waters. She supported the occupation of Amchitka between 23 January and 19 March, patrolling and repelling attacks by the Japanese. On 22 March her group sailed to patrol west of Attu to intercept and destroy enemy shipping bound for Attu or Kiska. Four days later, the group engaged a numerically superior Japanese force screening reinforcements to Attu. In the resulting Battle of the Komandorski Islands, at one time or another "Dale" took all of the Japanese cruisers under fire as well as screening the damaged . The Japanese reinforcements failed to reach Attu. She screened transports and fire support ships into Attu for the assault on 11 May, then patrolled off Attu until 1 August. She joined in the preinvasion bombardment of Kiska 2 August, then screened the transports which landed men there 13 August. She joined for a reconnaissance of Rat and Buldir Islands 22 August, finding no Japanese present.
1943-1944, Central Pacific.
Sailing from Adak 5 September 1943, "Dale" arrived at Pearl Harbor 16 September to screen the group which on 8 October fueled carriers returning from a two-day air strike on Wake. "Dale" trained at Pearl Harbor until 5 November. She escorted a group of LSTs to the landings on Makin of 20 November, and then sailed for the west coast.
"Dale" got underway from San Diego 13 January 1944 to screen carriers during the assaults on Kwajalein and Eniwetok. She served in the Marshalls on escort and patrol until 22 March, then screened TF 58 during air attacks on Palau, Yap, Ulithi and Woleai between 30 March and 1 April raids supporting the Hollandia operations from 21 to 24 April; and strikes on Truk, Satawan and Ponape from 20 April to 1 May.
1944-45, Marianas, Philippines and Japan.
From 6 June to 30 July "Dale" served in the Marianas, bombarding Saipan and Guam, screening carriers during the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and supporting underwater demolition teams. Overhauled at Bremerton Navy Yard from August to October, "Dale" returned to Pearl Harbor, and then sailed to Ulithi to join TF 38. She screened this group during Philippines invasion between 25 November and 8 December; and while the group refueled TF 38 in the South China Sea during raids on the Chinese coast, Formosa, Luzon, and Okinawa. She remained with the group during carrier strikes on Tokyo and Kobe.
"Dale" cruised with the logistics group on five voyages between Ulithi and the Okinawa area between 13 March 1945 and 11 June when she sailed for Leyte to join a carrier division's screen. "Dale" returned to Leyte to escort a convoy to Ulithi and patrolled there until 29 July and then escorted a convoy to Okinawa.
End of War and fate.
Anchored at Guam when the war ended, "Dale" escorted two ships in a convoy to a rendezvous 19 August off Japan, then sailed homeward, arriving at San Diego 7 September. Four days later, she was underway for the east coast. Arriving at New York 25 September, "Dale" was decommissioned 16 October 1945 and was sold 20 December 1946.
"Dale" received 14 battle stars for World War II service. The last crew member who served from Pearl Harbor through decommissioning, George Nixon, died 22 February 2017. He was discharged with the rank of watertender first class.


Zemo Nikozi church of the Archangel

The Zemo Nikozi church of the Archangel () is a 10th-century Georgian Orthodox church in the Gori Municipality, in Georgia's east-central region of Shida Kartli. It is inscribed on the list of Georgia's Immovable Cultural Monuments of National Significance.
A small domed church, it stands in what is now the village of Zemo Nikozi—an "upper" part of the historical settlement of Nikozi—on the right bank of the Greater Liakhvi River, at an old cemetery, some 100 m. south of the Zemo Nikozi church of the Deity. Being in close proximity to the South Ossetia conflict zone, the church survived the August 2008 Russo-Georgian War, which heavily damaged parts of the church of the Deity complex.
Architecture.
Zemo Nikozi church of the Archangel is a small domed structure, measuring 8.5 × 5.3 m. It is a form of cross-in-square design, known as "kuppelhalle" (domed rectangle) and built of neatly dressed grayish basalt stone blocks. The dome rests on pilasters sharply projecting from the longitudinal walls, its drum lit by four windows. The building terminates in a semicircular apse on the east, which has small apsed niches on each side. The transition from the square bay to the dome circle is achieved through squinches and pendentives. The church can be entered through three symmetrically arranged doors in the west, south, and north arms. The doors used to be embellished with semicircular pilasters and arches running above them. The exterior of the dome is adorned with a blind arch supported by a paired colonettes.
The north façade carries a stone carving depicting the equestrian Saint George slaying the dragon and the dome base, to the north, bears three stylized lions carved in relief. A five-line inscription in the medieval Georgian "asomtavruli" script on the north wall proclaims that the church was built by Bishop Michael (Mikael), who is the same churchman commemorated in an inscription from the church of the Deity. Just above is another inscription, now badly damaged. On a stone above the north window in the dome, between two lion figures, there is the third inscription, arranged in four lines, which mentions Bishop Michael's sisterly nephew, John (Iovane).


John C. England

Ensign John Charles England (December 11, 1920 – December 7, 1941) was an officer in the United States Navy. He died on USS "Oklahoma" after it was torpedoed and sank in the Japanese Empire's attack on Pearl Harbor. The circumstances of his death have been described as heroic, and he is the namesake of two U.S. Navy vessels. He was also awarded a Purple Heart. His remains were identified and returned home after seven decades and an intense inquiry.
Biography.
Born in Harris, Missouri on December 11, 1920, John Charles England was first raised in Oklahoma City and moved to Alhambra, California in his youth. He and his sister Lennie England (Bemiss) attended Alhambra High School. In 1938 he was elected president of his graduating class. In high school, he was a member of the "Light and Shadow" drama club, acted in a senior play, and Senior Hi-Y. After graduation, he then attended Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California, matriculating in 1940. He had many extracurricular activities.
England enlisted as an Apprentice Seaman in the United States Naval Reserve at Los Angeles on September 6, 1940. He received active duty training on board from November 25 to December 21, 1940, and then attended Naval Reserve Midshipman's School, New York, N.Y. On March 6, 1941, he was appointed Midshipman, USNR, completing his training and commissioned Ensign, USNR, on June 6.
Ensign England was next assigned duty under instruction at the Naval Radio School, Connecticut, before joining USS "Oklahoma" at Pearl Harbor in September.
In early December, England anticipated the arrival of his wife (Helen Elaine England, "Lennie"), along with their three-week-old daughter (Victoria Louise England), who he never saw. In December 1941 his wife and daughter were scheduled to arrive in Oahu.
Four days before his 21st birthday, on December 7, 1941, England volunteered to work in the ship's radio room, trading with a friend so that he could spend time with his family upon their arrival. At 7:00 a.m., the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor USS "Oklahoma" was a prime target. Moored at Battleship Row 7, outboard and alongside , "Oklahoma" took three devastating torpedo hits as the first Japanese bombs fell. About to capsize, two more torpedoes struck, and her men were strafed as they abandoned ship. Within 20 minutes, she swung over and capsized her turtling halted only when her masts touched bottom, with her starboard hull above water and some of her keel clear.
England survived the attack. Amidst smoke and flame, disregarding concerns for his personal survival and safety, "the young officer refused to leave without helping others trapped in the depths of the battleship." Despite the order to "abandon ship", he returned three times into the ship and back to the radio room, saving three shipmates. He died during a fourth attempt.
England's family learned of his death via a postal telegram sent by Admiral Chester Nimitz.
Unlike James R. Ward and Francis C. Flaherty, who were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their actions on USS "Oklahoma", England received only a Purple Heart award. He was, however, honored by the naming of two ships after him.
Burials.
England's remains were recovered in 1949. He and four others were buried together as unidentified at the Punchbowl Cemetery, more formally called the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
A total of 429 crewmen were killed aboard the "USS Oklahoma". According to the Department of Defense, "no single vessel at Pearl Harbor, with the exception of the USS Arizona, suffered as many fatalities." From December 1941 through June 1944, Navy personnel recovered the remains of those who perished, interring them in the Halawa and Nu’uanu Cemeteries in Hawaii. In September 1947, the remains were disinterred by the American Graves Registration Service, and transferred to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.
Only 35 of the 429 sailors and Marines who died on "Oklahoma" were identified in the years following the attack. The remains of 388 unidentified sailors and Marines were first interred as unknowns in the Nu'uanu and Halawa cemeteries, but were all disinterred in 1947, in an unsuccessful attempt to identify more personnel. In 1950, all unidentified remains from "Oklahoma" were buried as Unknowns in 61 caskets in 46 graves at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. In 2003, a Pearl Harbor survivor, Ray Emory, conducted inquiries which resulted in the exhumation of a single casket associated with the "Oklahoma" loss. DNA evidence and anthropological research revealed that remains are "extremely commingled" at least 95 individuals were within the first disinterred casket based on mitochondrial DNA results.
On December 7, 2007, the 66th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, a memorial for the 429 crew members who were killed in the attack was dedicated on Ford Island, just outside the entrance to where the battleship is docked as a museum. "Missouri" is moored where "Oklahoma" was moored when she was sunk. The USS "Oklahoma" memorial is part of Pearl Harbor National Memorial and is an arrangement of engraved black granite walls and white marble posts. According to the National Park Service, "in 2015, as part of the USS Oklahoma Project, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, through a partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs, exhumed all of the unknown remains from the USS Oklahoma. Through December 2017, DPAA made their 100th identification from the ship's casualties. The Oklahoma Project is centered at Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base. Despite the passage of seven decades, "fully two-thirds of the 2,400 American casualties are what the Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency describes as "unresolved." The bodies of most of those killed were never recovered, or they were recovered but not identified. Unidentified remains were buried in Hawaiian cemeteries in graves marked "unknown."
In April 2015, the Department of Defense announced, as part of a policy change that established threshold criteria for disinterment of unknowns, that the unidentified remains of the crew members of "Oklahoma" would be exhumed for DNA analysis, with the goal of returning identified remains to their families. The process began in June 2015, when four graves, two individual and two group graves, were disinterred. In December 2017, 100 had been identified; at the end of fiscal year 2018, 181 "Oklahoma" unknowns had been identified by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. On February 26, 2019, the 200th unknown was identified. On December 6, 2019, the US Department of Defense announced that 236 remains had been identified from "Oklahoma" and that 152 had yet to be identified. As of Fiscal year 2020, 267 missing crew have been accounted for.
In 2016, the United States Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency resolved to identify the Oklahoma crew using DNA testing. England's remains were found within the grave of unknown soldiers at the National Cemetery of the Pacific. The Department of Defense used mitochondrial DNA to make the identification. Upon identification, he was reburied with full military honors next to his parents, Sam and Thelma England, in the Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs. His mother attended the funeral, which included a large procession. There was an "impressive motorcade and the services" were covered by the Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel, who were creating film footage in 2016 for the 75th anniversary coverage of the Pearl Harbor attack.
Namesakes and honors.
Two ships have been named USS "England" for him.
In 1943, destroyer escort USS "England" was named in his honor. At the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard in San Francisco, California, his mother Thelma (Mrs. H. B. England) cracked the ceremonial bottle of champagne for the ship christening on "England"'s bow in San Francisco Harbor on September 26, 1943. She was commissioned on December 10, 1943, with Commander W. B. Pendleton in command. Lennie England served as maid of honor and kept the ribbon wrapped bottle until her death in 1995. That ship sank six enemy submarines in 12 days in May 1944, a feat unparalleled in the history of antisubmarine warfare. That performance caused the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Ernest King, to declare in a rhetorical flourish that "There’ll always be an "England" in the United States Navy." DE-635 was decommissioned in 1945.
As down payment on the promise, the second ship to bear the name, the Guided Missile Cruiser was launched in 1962. That "England" served in every major Pacific engagement from Vietnam to Desert Storm, from rescuing pilots, performing as plane guard or picket, to showing force around the globe. "England" was awarded the Navy Unit Commendation Ribbon for supporting search and rescue operations in the Gulf of Tonkin from January 3 to June 6, 1966. Originally called a "destroyer leader" or frigate (DLG), in 1975 she was re-designated a cruiser (CG) in the United States Navy 1975 ship reclassification. "England" was awarded the Navy Unit Commendation a final time for actions performed August 2 to 16, 1990. She was scrapped in 2004.
Since then, beginning on the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, a grass roots petition has been circulated to commission a USS "England", "to recognize and honor the service and sacrifice of Ensign John Charles England," and to demand fulfillment of Commander Pendleton's promise.
Alhambra High School continues to award the John C. England award each year to the graduating senior who has "excelled in character, integrity and benevolent service."
BEQ 836 at Naval Service Training Command, Great Lakes is also named in honor of England.