Karlsburg Castle

Karlsburg Castle in the Durlach district of Karlsruhe characterizes the history of the Baden since 1563. Only the ("Princesses' wing") of the historical building still stands.
Pforzheim was the residence of Margrave Charles II, until he decided in 1563 to move to Durlach. What, if anything, the citizens of Durlach offered him during the negotiations is unknown. Charles decided to extende the medieval Karlsburg Castle into a palace and make it his residence. His successors further extended the castle, until the city was occupied by French troops in 1689. The French burned down the city and the castle. In 1698, Margrave Frederick Magnus returned from exile in Basel and started rebuilding the castle. Frederick had grandiose plans, but no money and the margraviate had been devastated by the war. A dispute erupted with the citizens of Durlach, who refused to support the rebuilding effort. By 1703 two wings had been completed and the margrave had moved in, when the project was suspended indefinitely.
Frederick's son and successor, Margrave Charles III William, decided in 1715 to end the discussion and relocate his residence to a new palace outside Durlach. He founded the city of Karlsruhe, centered on his new palace. Charles and his court moved into the new palace in 1718. His wife, however, chose to remain in Durlach until her death in 1743.
The Karlsburg was later used as an administrative office and even as a barracks. The Pfinzgau Museum has been housed in the castle since 1924. In 1964, a wing was demolished to make room for the Castle School at Durlach. The castle was extensively renovated from 1973 to 1988. Today, it houses the registry office, the Pfinzgau Museum, the Carpathian-German Museum, classrooms for adult education and the Margrave School, the historic banquet hall and the Durlach city library.


Bastard feudalism

"Bastard feudalism" is a somewhat controversial term invented by 19th century historians to characterize the form feudalism took in the Late Middle Ages, primarily in England in the Late Middle Ages. Its distinctive feature is that middle-ranking figures rendered military, political, legal, or domestic service in return for money, office, or influence. As a result, the gentry began to think of themselves as the men of their lord rather than of the king. Individually, they are known as retainers, and collectively as the "affinity" of the lord, among other terms.
History and historiography.
The historian Charles Plummer coined the term "bastard feudalism" in 1885. Plummer blamed bastard feudalism for the disorder and instability of the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth century. However, "bastard feudalism" as a concept is primarily associated with Plummer's contemporary William Stubbs (1825–1901).
According to Stubbs, a shift in English history took place under Edward I (reigned 1272–1307) when the feudal levy was replaced with royal payment in return for military service by the great magnates who willingly served the king. Thus, instead of vassals rendering military service when required by the lord, they paid a portion of their income into the lord's treasury. In turn the lord would supplement the owed military service with hired retainers, a sort of private army in full-time service to the lord.
In the 1940s K. B. McFarlane presented a strong challenge to the ideas of Stubbs. McFarlane stripped the term "bastard feudalism" of any negative connotation. To him, bastard feudalism centred not on the financial aspect (the sums involved were mostly negligible) but on the concept of service in exchange for good favour. In a society governed on a personal basis, service to a lord was the best way to obtain favour in the form of offices, grants, etc. Lords would retain administrators and lawyers, as well as recruiting local gentry into their affinities. By offering money instead of land, lords could afford to retain more followers.
In return for becoming retainers, the gentry would expect to rely on their lord's influence in local and national politics. This practice was known as "maintenance". The retainer might wear his lord's livery badge or the grander form, a livery collar, which could be very useful in a courtroom. Under a weak king, such as Henry VI (reigned 1422–1461 and 1470–1471), the rivalries of magnates might spill over from the courtroom to armed confrontations, thereby perverting justice.
Because they were rarely kept under arms for long periods, noble retinues were not private armies. Lacking standing armies, kings relied on noble retinues for the military forces they required to conduct wars or to crush internal rebellions. Under an inadequate king like Henry VI, ambitious or disaffected magnates such as Richard Duke of York (1411–1460) or Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (1428–1471) could use their network of servants and retainers to defy or even control the crown. Groups of gentry, already coming to blows over local issues, inevitably attached themselves to different patrons. Their private feuds continued under their leaders' banners and transferred to the battlefields of the Wars of the Roses.
Although Edward IV (reigned 1461–1470 and 1471–1483) attempted to limit "retaining", he generally did not succeed. However, Henry VII (reigned 1485–1509) managed to largely overcome bastard feudalism by imposing financial sanctions on unruly nobles. Furthermore, Henry passed a statute in 1504 that only allowed the King to have retainers – nobles had to apply and pay for a licence. Overall, bastard feudalism had vanished by the early seventeenth century.


Claud Vere Cavendish Hobart


Dutch phonology

Dutch phonology is similar to that of other West Germanic languages, especially Afrikaans and West Frisian.
While the spelling of Dutch is officially standardised by an international organisation (the Dutch Language Union), the pronunciation has no official standard and relies on a "de facto" standard documented in reference works such as "The Phonetics of English and Dutch" by Beverley Collins and Inger M. Mees, "The Phonology of Dutch" by Geert Booij, "Dutch" by Carlos Gussenhoven, "Belgian Standard Dutch" by Jo Verhoeven or pronunciation dictionaries such as "" by Josée Heemskerk and Wim Zonneveld.
Standard Dutch has two main de facto pronunciation standards: Northern and Belgian. Northern Standard Dutch (henceforth Northern SD) is the most prestigious accent in the Netherlands. It is associated with high status, education and wealth. Even though its speakers seem to be concentrated mostly in the densely populated Randstad area in the provinces of North Holland, South Holland and Utrecht, it is often impossible to tell where in the country its speakers were born or brought up, so it cannot be considered a regional dialect within the Netherlands. Belgian Standard Dutch (henceforth Belgian SD) is used by the vast majority of Flemish journalists, which is why it is sometimes called "VRT-Nederlands" ("VRT Dutch"; formerly "BRT-Nederlands" "BRT Dutch"), after VRT, the national public-service broadcaster for the Flemish Region.
Consonants.
The following table shows the consonant phonemes of Dutch:
Sonorants.
In many areas the final 'n' of the ending "-en" (originally , with a variety of meanings) is pronounced only when a word is being individually stressed; this makes "-en" words homophonous with otherwise identical forms ending in "-e" alone. The "-n" is dropped both word-finally and, in compound words, word-internally. This pronunciation can be morphologically sensitive and serve to distinguish words, since the "-n" is dropped only when it is part of the distinct ending "-en" and not when the word consists of an indivisible stem which happens to end in "-en". Thus, the "teken" of "ik teken" ('I draw') always retains its "-n" because it is part of an indivisible stem whereas in "teken" ('ticks') it is dropped because it is part of a plural ending. Such pairs ("teken" = 'draw'; "teken" = 'ticks') are therefore not homophones in dialects that drop "-n", despite being written identically.
Final "-n" is retained in the North East (Low Saxon) and the South West (East and West Flemish), where it is the schwa that disappears instead. This creates a syllabic or (after velars) syllabic sounds: "laten" ; "maken" . Some Low Saxon dialects that have uvular pronunciations of and (or one of them) also have a syllabic uvular nasal, like in "lagen" and/or "lachen"
Final devoicing and assimilation.
Dutch devoices all obstruents at the ends of words, as is partly reflected in the spelling. The voiced "z" in plural "huizen" becomes "huis ('house') in singular. Also, "duiven" becomes "duif ('dove'). The other cases are always written with the voiced consonant, but a devoiced one is actually pronounced: the "d" in plural "baarden" is retained in singular spelling "baard ('beard'), but the pronunciation of the latter is , and plural "ribben" has singular "rib ('rib'), pronounced .
Because of assimilation, the initial of the next word is often also devoiced: "het vee" ('the cattle') is . The opposite may be true for other consonants: "ik ben" ('I am') .
Vowels.
Dutch has an extensive vowel inventory consisting of thirteen plain vowels and at least three diphthongs. Vowels can be grouped as front unrounded, front rounded, central and back. They are also traditionally distinguished by length or tenseness. The vowels are included in one of the diphthong charts further below because Northern SD realizes them as diphthongs, but they behave phonologically like the other long monophthongs.
Monophthongs.
The following sections describe the phonetic quality of Dutch monophthongs in detail.
Close vowels.
Word-final are raised and end in a voiceless vowel: . The voiceless vowel in the first sequence may sound almost like a palatal fricative .
 are frequently longer in Belgian SD and most Belgian accents than in Northern SD, in which the length of these vowels is identical to that of lax vowels.
Regardless of the exact accent, are mandatorily lengthened to before in the same word. In Northern SD and in Randstad, these are laxed to and often have a schwa-like off-glide (). This means that before , are less strongly differentiated from in Northern SD and Randstad than is usually the case in other regional varieties of SD and in Belgian SD. There is one exception to the lengthening rule: when is followed by a consonant different than and , remain short. Examples of that are words such as "wierp" , "stierf" , "zwierf" and"bedierf" . The rule is also suppressed syllable-finally in certain compounds; compare "roux-room" with "roerroom" and "Ruhr-Ohm" .
Mid vowels.
 are typically somewhat lengthened and centralized before in Northern SD and Randstad, usually with a slight schwa-like offglide: . In addition, in this position is somewhat less rounded () than the main allophone of .
The free vowels are realized as monophthongs in Belgian SD (Jo Verhoeven describes the Belgian SD realization of as mid central ) and in many regional accents. In Northern SD, narrow closing diphthongs are used. The starting point of is centralized back (), and the starting point of has been described as front by Collins and Mees and as centralized front by Gussenhoven. The monophthongal counterparts of are peripheral; the former is almost as front as cardinal , whereas the latter is almost as back as cardinal . Many speakers of Randstad Dutch as well as younger speakers of Northern SD realize as rather wide diphthongs of the type, which may be mistaken for the phonemic diphthongs by speakers of other accents. Using for goes hand in hand with lowering the first elements of to , a phenomenon termed "Polder Dutch". Therefore, the phonemic contrast between and is still strongly maintained, but its phonetic realization is very different from what one can typically hear in traditional Northern SD. In Rotterdam and The Hague, the starting point of can be fronted to instead of being lowered to .
In Northern SD and in Randstad, lose their closing glides and are raised and slightly centralized to (often with a schwa-like off-glide ) before in the same word. The first two allophones strongly resemble the lax monophthongs . Dutch children frequently misspell the word "weer" ('again') as "wir". These sounds may also occur in regional varieties of SD and in Belgian SD, but they are more typically the same as the main allophones of (that is, ). An exception to the centralizing rule are syllable-final in compounds such as "zeereis" ('sea voyage'), "milieuramp" ('environmental disaster') and "bureauredactrice" ('desk editor (f.)').
In Northern SD, are mid-centralized before the pharyngealized allophone of .
Several non-standard dialects have retained the distinction between the so-called "sharp-long" and "soft-long" "e" and "o", a distinction that dates to early Middle Dutch. The sharp-long varieties originate from the Old Dutch long "ē" and "ō" (Proto-Germanic "ai" and "au"), while the soft-long varieties arose from short "i"/"e" and "u"/"o" that were lengthened in open syllables in early Middle Dutch. The distinction is not considered to be a part of Standard Dutch and is not recognised in educational materials, but it is still present in many local varieties, such as Antwerpian, Limburgish, West Flemish and Zeelandic. In these varieties, the sharp-long vowels are often opening diphthongs such as , while the soft-long vowels are either plain monophthongs or slightly closing .
Open vowels.
In Northern SD and some other accents, are realised so that the former is a back vowel , whereas the latter is central or front . In Belgian SD is also central or front, but may be central instead of back , so it may have the same backness as .
Other accents may have different realisations:
Before , is typically a slight centering diphthong with a centralized first element () in Northern SD and in Randstad.
Diphthongs.
Dutch also has several diphthongs, but only three of them are indisputably phonemic. All of them end in a non-syllabic close vowel (henceforth written for simplicity), but they may begin with a variety of other vowels.
Apart from which occur only in Northern SD and regional Netherlands SD, all varieties of SD have phonetic diphthongs . Phonemically, they are considered to be sequences of by Geert Booij and as monosyllabic sequences by Beverley Collins and Inger Mees (they do not comment on and ). This article adopts the former analysis.
In Northern SD, the second elements of can be labiodental . This is especially common in intervocalic positions.
In Northern SD and regional Netherlands SD, the close-mid elements of may be subject to the same kind of diphthongization as , so they may be actually triphthongs with two closing elements ( can instead be , a closing diphthong followed by ). In Rotterdam, can be phonetically , with a central starting point.
 is realized with more prominence on the first element according to Booij and with equal prominence on both elements according to Collins and Mees. Other diphthongs have more prominence on the first element.
The ending points of these diphthongs are typically somewhat more central () than cardinal . They tend to be higher than the ending points of the phonemic diphthongs .
Stress.
Most native Germanic words (the bulk of the core vocabulary) are stressed on the root syllable, which is usually the first syllable of the word. Germanic words may also be stressed on the second or later syllable if certain unstressed prefixes are added (particularly in verbs). Non-root stress is common in loanwords, which are generally borrowed with the stress placement unchanged. In polysyllabic words, secondary stress may also be present. Certain prefixes and suffixes will receive secondary stress: , . The stressed syllable of a word receive secondary stress within a compound word: , .
The vast majority of compound nouns are stressed on the first element: appeltaart" , luidspreker" . The word "boeren" generally takes secondary stress in compounds: "boerenkool , "boerenland . Some compounds formed from two words are stressed on the second element: "stadhuis , "rijksdaalder . In some cases the secondary stress in a compound shifts to preserve a trochaic pattern: eiland" , but schateiland" . Compounds formed from two compound words tend to observe these same rules. But in compounds formed from more than two words the stress is irregular.
While stress is phonemic, minimal pairs are rare, and marking the stress in written Dutch is always optional, but it is sometimes recommended to distinguish homographs that differ only in stress. While it is common practice to distinguish "een" (indefinite article) from "één" (the cardinal number one), this distinction is not so much about stress as it is about the pronunciation of the vowel ( versus ), and while the former is always unstressed, the latter may or may not be stressed. Stress also distinguishes some verbs, as stress placement on prefixes also carries a grammatical distinction, such as in "vóórkomen" ('to occur') and "voorkómen" ('to prevent'). In "vóórkomen" and other verbs with a stressed prefix, the prefix is separable and separates as "kom voor" in the first-person singular present, with the past participle "vóórgekomen". On the other hand, verbs with an unstressed prefix are not separable: "voorkómen" becomes "voorkóm" in the first-person singular present, and "voorkómen" in the past participle, without the past participle prefix "ge-".
Dutch has a strong stress accent like other Germanic languages, and it uses stress timing because of its relatively complex syllable structure. It has a preference for trochaic rhythm, with relatively stronger and weaker stress alternating between syllables in such a way that syllables with stronger stress are produced at a more or less constant pace. Generally, every alternate syllable before and after the primary stress will receive relative stress, as far secondary stress placements allow: Wá.gə.nì.ngən. Relative stress preferably does not fall on so syllables containing may disrupt the trochaic rhythm. To restore the pattern, vowels are often syncopated in speech: kín.də.rən > , há.ri.ngən > , vər.gə.líj.king > . In words for which the secondary stress is imposed lexically onto the syllable immediately following the stressed syllable, a short pause is often inserted after the stressed syllable to maintain the rhythm to ensure that the stressed syllable has more or less equal length to the trochaic unit following it: bóm..mèl.ding, wéér..lò.zə.
Historically, the stress accent has reduced most vowels in unstressed syllables to , as in most other Germanic languages. This process is still somewhat productive, and it is common to reduce vowels to in syllables carrying neither primary nor secondary stress, particularly in syllables that are relatively weakly stressed due to the trochaic rhythm. Weakly stressed long vowels may also be shortened without any significant reduction in vowel quality. For example, "politie" (phonemically ) may be pronounced , or even .
Phonotactics.
The syllable structure of Dutch is (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C). Many words, as in English, begin with three consonants such as " straat" (street). Words that end in four consonants are mostly superlative adjectives.
Onset.
Notes on individual consonants:
A sequence of CCC always begins with . The CC-structure can be realised by almost all stops and non-sibilant, non-glottal fricatives followed by the sonorants or , exceptions are that and are impossible: "brutaal", "bling", "printplaat", "krimp", "kloot", "grapefruit", "glossy", "truck", "droevig", "vrij", "wreken", "vlaag", "fris", "flodder", "groen", "glunderen", "chrisma", "chloroform".
Voiced obstruents cannot appear in other clusters except for . Voiceless obstruents can occur in stop-fricative and fricative-stop clusters. Sequences of a voiceless obstruent or and are also possible, for only occurs:
Nasals rarely begin clusters.
Historic sound changes.
Dutch (with the exception of the Limburg dialects) did not participate in the second Germanic consonant shift:
Dutch has also preserved the fricative variety of Proto-Germanic as or , in contrast with some dialects of German, which generalised the stop , and English, which lost the fricative variety through regular sound changes. Dutch has, however, had a fortition of to like High (and Low) German:
Dutch also underwent a few changes on its own:
Sample.
The sample text is a reading of the first sentence of "The North Wind and the Sun".
Northern SD.
The phonetic transcription illustrates a Western Netherlandic, educated, middle-generation speech and a careful colloquial style.
Orthographic version.
De noordenwind en de zon hadden een discussie over de vraag wie van hun tweeën de sterkste was, toen er juist iemand voorbijkwam die een dikke, warme jas aanhad.
Belgian SD.
The phonetic transcription illustrates the speech of "a highly educated 45-year-old male who speaks Belgian Dutch with a very slight regional Limburg accent." Sentence stress is not transcribed.
Orthographic version.
De noordenwind en de zon waren ruzie aan het maken over wie het sterkste was toen er een reiziger voorbij kwam met een warme jas aan.


Vergarola explosion

The Vergarola explosion , known as Vergarolla Massacre, took place on 18 August 1946 when the sudden detonation of 12 large pieces of assorted ordnance, containing an estimated 9 tons of explosives, killed approximately 70 people and injured 100 others at Vergarola (or Vergarolla) beach, in Pula (Pola), which was at the time under temporary Allied military administration.
The ordnance, which "had been swept from the water [and] were piled up on a beach awaiting disposal" exploded at just after 2pm, 18 August 1946. Initial newspaper reports cited 43 dead and 57 injured, including two British soldiers.
Many of the victims were bathers who were attending an annual swimming event called "Scarioni Cup". The explosion had strong political implications, because local Italian leaders and the main Italian newspaper "L'Arena di Pola", suggested that it was a demonstration against the Italian feelings of the residents, and a way to reinforce the possible (later actual) annexation to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The exact number of victims of the incident remains undefined, with estimates ranging up to about a hundred dead.
Allied investigation.
A subsequent Allied military investigation into the incident was undertaken by Brigadier M.D. Erskine, commander of the 24th Guards Brigade who reported on 8 September 1946 that the accident was caused by the detonation of three torpedo warheads, four TNT demolition charges and five smoke generators. He said that the munitions had been inspected on several occasions and had been certified as being safe and that "I do not consider therefore that it is possible for it to have exploded without being detonated." He added that "[t]he ammunition was deliberately exploded by person or persons unknown. This is confirmed by the fact that a small preliminary explosion was heard and a fire was seen burning."
Agreeing with these findings, Brigadier Bastin on behalf of the General Officer Commanding in Chief concluded in the final report dated 14 February 1947 that "I am of the opinion that the explosion was caused by some person or persons unknown. I am satisfied that the ammunition was safe and properly inspected and that it was not feasible to place guards over it. I therefore consider that no blame for the explosion lies with the Allied Military Authorities."


Mettlach

Mettlach (Saarlandic dialect:Mettlich) is a municipality in the district Merzig-Wadern, in Saarland, Germany, situated on the river Saar, approximately northwest of Merzig, and south of Trier. The headquarters of Villeroy & Boch are in Mettlach. Also, the Mettlach tiles are named after the municipality.
Municipalities.
The population of the present city, including all outlying districts (as of 31 December 2015):


Aegean Maritime Museum

The Aegean Maritime Museum is a maritime museum in Mykonos, Greece. The founder and chairman of the museum, George M. Drakopoulos, received the Athens Academy Award and the World Ship Trust's Award for Individual Achievement for the foundation of the museum.
A non-profit institution, it was founded in 1983 and in 1985 opened to the public in a Mykonian building of the 19th century, located in the area known as Tria Pigadia in the town centre.
The museum aims to undertake the preservation, promotion and study of Greek maritime history and tradition and specializes in the merchant-ship history of the Aegean Sea. The Aegean Maritime Museum was the first ever Greek museum to restore living historical exhibits as they were originally designed and built. Exhibits that are living restorations include the Armenistis Lighthouse (built in 1890), which stands in the museum garden, and the ships "Thalis o Milesios" (built in 1909) and "Evangelistria" (built in 1940), which are located on the Naval Tradition Park in Palaio Faliro, Athens.
The garden of the Aegean Maritime Museum, aside from displaying the lighthouse, has a number of ancient sailors' marble gravestones collected from the islands of Mykonos and Delos.


Richard Ellis (librarian)

Richard Ellis (27 December 1865 – 6 September 1928) was a Welsh librarian and bibliographer, whose main work was to collect materials on the life and work of Edward Lhuyd.
Life.
Ellis, the son of John Ellis from Aberystwyth, studied at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth from 1889 and won a scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford in 1893. Family reasons meant that he did not take up the place at Oxford until 1898; he was re-awarded a scholarship on the recommendation of the historian Reginald Lane-Poole. He obtained his BA in 1902 and his MA in 1908. His main research at Oxford and thereafter was the collection of material on the life and work of Edward Lhuyd. Some of it was published in 1906/1907 in the "Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion" under the title "Some incidents in the life of Edward Lhuyd". His work was unfinished at his death, and he left his papers to the university library in Aberystwyth.
In 1907, Ellis was appointed to run the Welsh library at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and in 1908 he was appointed the principal assistant to Sir John Ballinger, the first librarian of the National Library of Wales. He was not happy in this post and returned to Oxford in 1912 with a research scholarship. He also worked at the Codrington Library at All Souls College, Oxford, and was the only assistant librarian between 1916 and the end of the First World War. In the early 1920s, Ellis returned to Oxford, making trips to Dublin and Oxford for his research. It was on one of these visits to Oxford that he died in 1928; he was buried in Aberystwyth.
Works.
Through his work on Lluyd, Ellis developed a knowledge of other Welshmen at Oxford. This led to "Facsimiles of Letters of Oxford Welshmen" (the writers including Henry Vaughan, Sir Leoline Jenkins, Ellis Wynne, Edward Samuel and Moses Williams). In 1904, he published "An Elizabethan Broadside in the Welsh Language, being a Brief granted in 1591 to Sion Salusburi of Gwyddelwern, Merionethshire". He also wrote some poetry in English.


Richard Cyril Hughes

Richard Cyril Hughes (born 1932) is a Welsh historian.
Hughes was born in Anglesey. He started his career as a teacher of Welsh at Grove Park School in Wrexham before moving to Bangor Normal College to lecture in education. He became an early pioneer for the teaching of subjects through the medium of Welsh and worked as an education officer for Gwynedd Education Authority before taking early retirement. He married Nan Hughes from Conwyl Elfed, Carmarthen in 1959. They are the parents of actor Huw Garmon and have three other sons, Rhiryd Wyn Hughes, Rhys Hughes and Sion Hughes. They have eleven grandchildren.
Hughes' third book, "Castell Cyfaddawd", won the Daniel Owen Prize at the National Eisteddfod in 1984. He now lives in Llanfair PG.


Cynan ab Owain Gwynedd

Cynan ab Owain Gwynedd (died 1174) was an illegitimate son of Owain Gwynedd, a Prince of the ancient Kingdom of Gwynedd, Wales. He held the title "Lord of Meirionnydd".
In the battle for the throne of Gwynedd after the death of his father, he was ultimately driven into exile in 1173 by Gwynedd's new co-rulers Dafydd and Rhodri. After Cynan's death in 1174 his sons supported his nephew Llywelyn ab Iorwerth's successful bid for the throne in 1195.


Johannes Gysius

Johannes Gysius (c.1583–1652) was a Dutch historian and minister.
Gysius was born in Ostend, Belgium around 1583. He was married twice. His second wife was named Petronella Michiel Matthijsdr. The couple married in Dordrecht in South Holland on 8 August 1617. The couple had one daughter, named Sara. She was born in 1630 in Streefkerk. His work "Oorsprong en voortgang der Nederlandtscher beroerten" ("Origin and progress of the disturbances in the Netherlands") about the Dutch Revolt. He died in 1652 in Streefkerk.


William Russell (bishop of Sodor)

William Russell (died 1374) was a fourteenth-century Cistercian prelate. He appears to have begun his career as a Cistercian monk at Rushen Abbey on the Isle of Man (Mann), ascending to the rank of abbot there, before being elected Bishop of Mann and the Isles (Sodor). After traveling to Continental Europe for confirmation and consecration, avoiding a trip to the metropolitan in Norway, he returned to the Irish Sea as a legal bishop. A few things are known of his episcopate, particularly his activities in England and a series of provincial statutes apparently promulgated under his leadership.
Abbot of Rushen and election as bishop.
A native of Mann, an island in the Irish Sea south of Galloway in Scotland, for eighteen years he was the abbot of Rushen Abbey. In either 1348 or 1349 he was elected Bishop of Mann and the Isles. Papal letters reveal that the see had recently been made vacant by the death of Thomas de Rossy, and that the clergy of the diocese had elected William unanimously as the new bishop; they also reveal that Russell had had to obtain permission from the abbot at Rushen Abbey's mother-house, Furness Abbey.
Provision and consecration.
For notice of the election, the "Manx Chronicle" related the following:William Russell, a Manxman, abbot of the monastery of St. Mary of Rushen, was elected pastor of the Sodor diocese, by the clergy of the island of Mann, in the cathedral church of St. German, in Holm of Mann, and was consecrated at Avignon by Pope Clement VI. He was the first Sodor bishop-elect consecrated and confirmed by the Apostolic see; for all his predecessors had been wont to be confirmed and consecrated by the Archbishop of Trondheim, that is the metropolitan. Although the "Chronicle" says 1348, it is thought by some to refer to 1349. Pope Clement VI provided him on 27 April 1349 and he was consecrated by May 6, by Bertrand du Pouget, Cardinal-bishop of Ostia. He was neither, as the "Chronicle" claimed the first Bishop of the Isles to be provided by the Pope himself, nor was he consecrated by the pope directly.
Pope Clement wrote letters informing of Russell's appointment to Arne, Archbishop of Trondheim, William de Monteacuto, Lord of Mann, Robert Stewart, Lord of Bute and Steward ("senescallus") of Scotland, and John of Islay, Lord of the Isles, and it was from these that the details of the election are known. The pope granted Russell exemption from any trip to Trondheim to pay obedience to the Archbishop of Trondheim. Clement however made it clear that the bishopric of the Isles was still subject to Trondheim, and Russell still had to send a proctor to Norway to give obedience on his behalf. Russell was also granted a loan of 1200 gold florins to cover his expenses, as the diocese was one of the poorest in the Catholic Church.
Bishop of the Isles.
On 23 February 1351 Bishop Russell allegedly held a provincial synod at Kirkmichael on the Isle of Man. A number of provincial statutes are attributed to this synod, including a requirement to teach the laity the apostolic creed in the Gaelic language. In 1362, Russell complained to Pope Urban V that his cathedral on Mann had been occupied as a fortress by the Lord of Mann, and petitioned the pope to order that de Monteacuto restore the cathedral to the control of the clergy; the same letter also complained that, because of wars [between the Scots and the English], there were not enough men literate [in Latin] to fill benefices, and so Russell requested permission to ordain eight illiterates to priesthood. On 7 December 1367 Pope Urban wrote to the bishop regarding the wish of William de Monteacuto, Earl of Salisbury and Lord of Mann, to found a Franciscan house on Mann.
Russell was active in England during his episcopate. For instance, on 11 December 1351, the Archbishop of York, William Zouche, granted William commission to confer orders in the diocese of York, a commission that was renewed on 21 October 1353 by Zouche's successor John de Thoresby. Indeed, it was in England that Russell died. The "Manx Chronicle" reported his death as follows: He died on the 21st day of the month of April 1376, at "Ramsheved", and was buried in the monastery of St. Mary of Furness. He was abbot of Rushen eighteen years, and bishop of the Sodor diocese twenty-six. "Ramsheved" is Ramshead, near Bolton-le-Sands in Westmorland, Lancashire; the "monastery of St Mary of Furness" refers to Furness Abbey in Cumbria; the date the "Chronicle" meant was 21 April 1374.


Henry Bouverie

Lieutenant General Sir Henry Frederick Bouverie (11 July 1783 – 14 November 1852) was a British Army officer.
Military career.
He was the son of Edward Bouverie MP, of Delapré Abbey, Hardingstone in Northamptonshire, and his wife, Harriet Fawkener, the only daughter and sole heiress of Sir Everard Fawkener; and nephew of the 1st Earl of Radnor. Bouverie was educated at Eton College and commissioned a Cornet in the 2nd Dragoon Guards in 1799, transferring to the Coldstream Guards as an Ensign a few months later. He spent the rest of his regimental career in the Coldstreams.
For his services during the Peninsular War, he received the Army Gold Cross, with one clasp, for the battles of Salamanca, Vitoria, San Sebastian, the Nive, and Orthez. He became General Officer Commanding Northern Command in 1828 and Governor of Malta in 1836.
A stained east window was erected to the General on 9 February 1869 at St Edmunds Church, Hardingstone by the tenants and other inhabitants of the parish.


Sancho, Count of Provence

Sancho (died 1223), also spelled Sanç or Sanche, was a Catalano-Aragonese nobleman and statesman, the youngest son of Queen Petronilla of Aragon and Count Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona. He was at different times the count of Cerdanya (c.1175–89), Provence (1181–85), Gévaudan, Rodez and Carlat (1183–85), and Roussillon (1208–12). He served as the regent of Provence from 1209 until 1218 during the minority of Count Raymond Berengar IV, and as regent of Aragon from 1214 until 1218, during the minority of King James I.
Life.
Count of Cerdanya.
Sancho was a minor at the time of his father's death (1162) and he did not inherit lands or titles, but only the right of reversion should his elder brothers die without heirs. Thus, according to his father's will, he should have inherited Provence and Cerdanya only after his elder brother Raymond Berengar III, count of Provence, was assassinated in 1181. In fact, while he inherited Provence at that time, he may have received Cerdanya shortly before that.
Sancho came of age between 1175, when he first began witnessing the royal charters of his eldest brother, King Alfonso II of Aragon, and 1180. In these years, he witnessed charters only in Catalonia and Provence. Before 1180, he occasionally signed documents with the title "Count of Cerdanya" ("comes Ceritanie"), but usually he was described as just "the king's brother". Alfonso does not seem to have entirely trusted his administration of Cerdanya, for he intervened in the county in 1177 and again in 1188. Sancho is not recorded as count of Cerdanya after that.
Count of Provence.
Sancho's first responsibility after inheriting the county of Provence in 1181 was to defend the county from the claims of Count Raymond V of Toulouse. For the following four years, Sancho and his brother Alfonso prosecuted a war against Toulouse. On 9 December 1182, Alfonso visited his brother in Aix and exempted the Knights Hospitaller from commercial duties and tolls in Provence. In March 1183, Alfonso enfeoffed Sancho with the counties of Gévaudan, Rodez and Carlat. Sancho's expense account for his stay at Perpignan in November 1184, where he met his brother, has survived and provides a detailed look at how his court functioned.
During Sancho's first government of Provence, conflict arose every spring between him and the neighbouring prince, Count William IV of Forcalquier. Finally, in 1184, Sancho signed a treaty of alliance with the count of Forcalquier, the count of Toulouse and the Republic of Genoa agreeing to oppose the king of Aragon's efforts to dominate Genoa and to take the city of Marseille from him. He then intervened on the side of Genoa in that commune's war against Pisa. These actions of disloyalty caused a rift between the brothers, and Alfonso dispossessed Sancho of Provence (and Gévaudan, Rodez and Carlat). In his place he appointed Roger-Bernard I, Count of Foix, as his bailiff or procurator in Provence. According to some historians, like Joan Cabestany, the king was merely looking for an excuse to seize control of Provence. Alfonso had travelled to Aix-en-Provence by March 1185, when the dating clause of a charter reads "when we recovered Provence from the hands of Sancho, our brother". Evidence of ill-will can even be found in the "Gesta comitum Barcinonensium", which records of Alfonso that "his brother Sancho he never loved and did not wish to give him anything in his kingdom."
The hostility between Sancho and Alfonso caught the notice of the troubadour Peire Vidal, who addresses the king in a "tornada":
By contrast, the troubadour Bertran de Born presents Sancho as popular in Provence:
After his removal from office, Sancho continued to style himself Count of Provence.
Count of Roussillon and procurator of Provence.
In 1204, Sancho and his son, Nuño Sánchez, witnessed the donation of the county of Roussillon to Maria of Montpellier, the new wife of King Peter II, Sancho's nephew. Since Roussillon was a region in which Sancho had ambitions, his recognition of the donation to Maria was critical. In 1208, Peter finally granted Sancho the government of the county of Roussillon. In 1209–10, Sancho left the day-to-day government in the hands of a "vicar and bailiff" ("vicarius et baiulus"), Ferran de Norvais. In January 1211, Peter "granted" Roussillon to Guillem de Creixell, but this probably refers to a grant of the county's revenues, since Guillem was the king's creditor, in which case Sancho continued to govern the county into 1212.
In 1209, Sancho's other nephew and Alfonso's successor in Provence, Count Alfonso II, died, leaving a minor heir, Raymond Berengar IV. King Peter appointed him governor of Provence on behalf of Raymond Berengar. One of his first tasks was to subdue the rebellious city of Arles. Sancho also promptly associated with him his own son in the governance of Provence. They pursued a policy that favoured communal liberties and commercial activity while opposing encroaching French and Papal influence. For their base in Provence, Peter granted Sancho and Nuño the ports of Agazi, Boch and Monaco.
In 1212, Sancho fought at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa on the side of Peter II. That same year Roussillon was transferred from Sancho to his son Nuño, to be held by the latter along with Cerdanya and Conflent for life.
Peter II died fighting the anti-Catharist crusaders at the Battle of Muret in 1213. His heir and successor, James I, a minor, was taken captive by Simon IV de Montfort, the Earl of Leicester. An army was soon assembled at Narbonne with the support of Viscount Aimery III to recover the captive king and avenge the dead king. Sancho and his son Nuño were among the leading men present. The situation was diffused, however, by the papal legate Peter of Benevento, who secured James's release.
Procurator general of the realm.
Opposition and setbacks (1214–16).
Since Peter had placed his kingdom under the authority of the Papacy, the papal legate arranged for James to be placed under the guardianship of Guillem de Montrodon, master of the Templars in Aragon and for Sancho to be appointed procurator general, effectively regent. The exact date of Sancho's appointment is uncertain: it occurred either late in 1214 or early in 1215. James in his autobiographical "Llibre dels fets", later accused Sancho of wanting to be king and of plotting for the throne. This claim has been widely accepted by historians, but Salvador Sanpere has written a short monograph to "vindicate" Sancho's actions.
In the summer of 1214, Peter of Benevento convened a "cort" (council of the realm) in Lleida. The assembled clergy and nobility agreed on a political programme for James's minority that included a prohibition on new taxes. Sancho was charged with implementing the programme. His power base, however, was in Provence and he had limited support in Aragon and Catalonia, especially for his preferred policy of continuing the war against Simon de Montfort.
In 1214, Gaston VI, Viscount of Béarn and Count of Bigorre, died. In order to prevent the county of Bigorre from falling out of Aragon's orbit, Sancho arranged for his son Nuño to marry Gaston's widow, Petronilla, the hereditary countess in 1215. This marriage, however, was annulled by the clergy (1216), and Petronilla ended up marrying Guy de Montfort, brother of Simon.
In November 1215, the Fourth Council of the Lateran, an ecumenical council of the church, met in Rome. As procurator, Sancho sent two envoys, Pedro Ahones and Guillem IV de Cervera, to attend the council. At the council, they, along with Bishop Hispan of Segorbe, undermined Sancho's anti-crusade policy. In the end, the council upheld the legality of the crusade. In a letter addressed to Pope Innocent III, Sancho had requested enhanced authority as procurator, but the envoys to the Lateran returned instead with a series of orders dated 23 January 1216. In them, Innocent appointed seven noblemen from both Aragon and Catalonia as deputy councillors to assist Sancho and ordered all the men of the realm to observe the truce with the crusaders. Innocent did order the cities of the Aragon and Catalonia to subsidise the regent's redemption of pledged lands (royal demesne that had been pawned by Peter II to fund his wars), but royal finances were transferred to Guillem de Montrodon. As a result, Sancho found his power not strengthened but curtailed.
War in Occitania (1216–18).
Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who had been deprived of his lands by the Lateran council, was granted refuge by Sancho. In April 1216, King Philip II of France formally granted Raymonds fiefs to Simon de Montfort. Raymond tried during the spring of 1216 to recruit knights in Aragon and Catalonia in order to fight for him in Provence. Encouraged by a letter from King Frederick II of Germany, emperor-elect, Raymond besieged Beaucaire in June. On 12 June 1216 Sancho signed a treaty at Balaguer in Aragon with representatives of the rectors of the Confraternity of the Holy Spirit of Marseille. The Confraternity was a pious lay association and the "de facto" government of the city. By the treaty of Balaguer the principals agreed to aid one another in the case of any aggression by a third party. This was part of a concerted effort by the houses of Toulouse and Aragon to restore their shaken authority in Provence at the same time as Raymond Berengar IV came of age and Sancho's second government in Provence ended.
On 26 October 1216 at Barcelona, Sancho and Nuño signed a peace treaty with Guillem Ramon de Montcada, the viscount of Béarn, his son Guillem and Guillem de Cervera. This treaty was made in response to Petronilla of Bigorre's marriage to Guy de Montfort, which the viscount of Béarn considered a threatening move. The newfound allies invaded Bigorre and as a result Simon de Montfort lifted his siege of Lourdes, temporarily removing the threat the crusade posed to western flank of the Aragonese sphere.
In September 1216, Raymond of Toulouse, probably with a following of Catalan and Aragonese knights, invaded France to reclaim the county of Toulouse with Sancho's support. At the siege of Toulouse, Simon de Montfort was killed in 1218.
Sancho's policy of intervention in Occitania was opposed by a faction of Aragonese feudatories led by his nephew, Ferdinand, abbot of Montearagón, and by those who wished to make peace with the Papacy. Ferdinand even encouraged local rebellions in Huesca, Jaca and Zaragoza. In two bulls dated 28 and 29 December 1217, Pope Honorius III threatened to excommunicate James and Sancho, respectively, and to authorise a crusade against their realm if they did not abandon Raymond VI's cause. Under pressure from several sides and apparently unwilling to abandon the Toulousain alliance, Sancho stepped down as regent.
On 8 September 1218 he signed an agreement with James which formally terminated the regency. In it, he agreed to keep peace with the king and in exchange the king granted him lands and revenues—15,000 "solidi" from five castles in Aragon and 10,000 "solidi" from Barcelona and Vilafranca. James also promised not to attack his lands or to permit anyone else from doing so for a period of seven years. This last clause secured James's neutrality in the event that Sancho continued to fight the Crusaders. The historian Ferran Soldevila considers Sancho's promise to keep the peace an indication that his resignation was not wholly voluntary.
Shortly after his resignation, in the same month of September 1218, Sancho was present at the assembly in Lleida, where he was named as one of the king's advisers when James confirmed the privileges of Montpellier, which he had inherited from his mother. This same assembly appointed Guillem IV de Cervera as procurator in Sancho's place.
Marriages and children.
Sometime before 1184, Sancho married Ermessenda, daughter of Geoffrey I of Rocabertí and Ermessenda de Vilademuls. In 1185, he married Sancha Núñez de Lara, daughter of Count Nuño Pérez de Lara and Teresa Fernández de Traba, and thus a step-daughter of King Ferdinand II of León. By her he had his only known son, Nuño Sánchez.


Reinhold von Anrep-Elmpt

Reinhold Philipp Johann Graf von Anrep-Elmpt (30 January 1834 – 26 August 1888) was a Baltic German officer in Russian service, and an explorer.
Life and work.
Reinhold von Anrep-Elmpt of the Anrep family was born in Kursk in the Russian Empire to Joseph Carl von Anrep and Cecilie Anrep, "née" von Elmpt. He grew up in Riga and Saint Petersburg. In 1854 he became a cornet in the Chevalier Guard Regiment. He served in the Crimean War. In 1858 he left the army with the rank of "Rittmeister". The time between 1858 and 1870 he spent on his estate Kärstna Manor () in present-day Estonia. After this, he spent the rest of his life as an explorer, travelling to Australia, the East Indies, China, Japan, California, Central America, South America, Cambodia and Thailand. He died in Thailand.


Lille Chamber of Accounts

The Lille Chamber of Accounts () was founded by Philip the Bold on 15 February 1386 to audit the accounts of his functionaries in the county of Flanders. As Burgundian rule expanded in the Low Countries, similar chambers were founded in Brussels and The Hague. The Lille chamber ultimately oversaw government expenditure not only in the county of Flanders, but also in the county of Artois, county of Hainaut, marquisate of Namur, the Franche Comté, and the lordship of Mechelen in the Burgundian Netherlands, and later among the Seventeen Provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands.
In 1667 the chamber was transferred to Bruges as a consequence of the French seizure of Lille. Louis XIV of France instead established a Bureau des Finances to oversee the accounts of functionaries in the "pays conquis" of Walloon Flanders, Artois and the Cambrésis.


Archaeology of Greece

Archaeology of Greece includes artificial remains, geographical landscapes, architectural remains, and biofacts (artefacts that were once living organisms). The history of Greece as a country and region is believed to have begun roughly 1–2 million years ago when Homo erectus first colonized Europe. From the first colonization, Greek history follows a sequential pattern of development alike to the rest of Europe. Neolithic, Bronze, Iron and Classical Greece are highlights of the Greek archaeological record, with an array of archaeological finds relevant to these periods.
Hunter-gatherers of Greece inhabited the region during the Middle Paleolithic Age (55,000–30,000 BC). Franchthi cave, an archaeological site in Southern Greece, has uncovered evidence which demonstrates people hunting small and large game, gathering wild cereals and fishing in coastal waters, following the Ice Age.
Neolithic Greece.
Succeeding the hunter-gatherers of Ancient Greece is the Neolithic Age. The Neolithic period (6500–3000 BC) was the beginning of agriculture and the domestication of livestock; archaeological remains of farming settlements are evident in tells (mounds composed of mudbrick used in the construction of houses) that protrude from the landscape. Tells are formed through remains of older structures being built upon with new structures; they dominate the Neolithic archaeological record in Greece as the Neolithic period saw to the introduction of agriculture and firmer community and settlement patterns.
The beginning of agriculture within Greece is believed to have been a transition influenced by newcomers from western Anatolia. With human colonization occurring outside of Anatolia and the Levant, Greece was affected in economic and material means, adopting the structure of economic and material culture from Near Eastern neighbours. Northern Greece is home to Thessaly, where the majority of archaeological remains and information relevant to the Neolithic period of Greek history has been uncovered; around 120 sites, mostly tells, have been excavated in the whole of Thessaly. The region provides evidence of having been a significant agricultural centre with soils ideal for cultivation, and this evidence is further demonstrated in the number of tells and mounds bearing evidence of farming settlements within Thessaly. One tell that has been uncovered in Thessaly is Sesklo and comprises both a large lower town called a Polis, and a small upper town called an Acropolis; together the two sections of the settlement cover 13 ha of land. The houses within the acropolis of Sesklo were detached and spacious, compared to the houses within the polis, which formed tighter clusters over a larger space of land.
Following the Last Ice Age, archaeological remains of the period disappeared due to the rising sea levels. Natural geological processes, such as glacial periods and interglacial periods, have inhibited archaeologists from uncovering material from Neolithic Greece through the destruction or consumption of archaeological remains Archaeologists use the European record as a whole, in order to understand more on this period of Greek history. Although the extremities of the environment have led to archaeological challenges, there have been discoveries relevant to the Neolithic period of the region.
Pottery.
Following the introduction of agriculture, Neolithic Greece saw its first wave of Pottery; the vessels that have been uncovered are thus assumed to have been used for cooking, eating and storing the crop yields of farming settlements. Early Neolithic pottery shows no sign of burning (indicating food was instead cooked directly over a fire) and are simple in shape. Pottery of Middle Neolithic Greece does show signs of being used over a fire. Middle and Late Neolithic Greece shows signs of design transformation for pottery with more elaborately decorated tableware; an example of this 'new' pottery is Middle Neolithic Sesklo Ware (red geometric designs on a pale background).
Pottery differs within regions of Greece but has also shown close links between regions and within close communities; similar shapes and styles of pottery from the Neolithic period have been uncovered in differing regions of Thessaly and the Peloponnese region.
Bronze Age Greece.
Archaeology of Bronze Age Greece prominently features remains of two main civilizations that existed during the three thousand years from Early to Late Bronze Age Greece.
The Minoan Civilization.
The Minoan civilization was one of the first group of people to form a community and operate in a democratic and economical manner within the geography of the Aegean Islands of Greece, and the continent of Europe. British archaeologist, Sir Arthur Evans, who was first to excavate the Palace of Knossos in the 1900s, uncovered much information relevant to the Minoan archaeological record. The Palace of Knossos is an archaeological site belonging to the Minoan civilization along with smaller palaces of Zakros and Phaistos.
Palaces.
Palaces of the Minoan period were multi-functional; they were the religious, economic and political administrative centres for the whole of the Minoan society. Basic palace structures consisted of a Central court, which was the main focus of the palace, where most theatrical and political events took place. The Central court is also believed to be the room where the cultural or religious activity of bull-leaping, which is depicted in the Bull-leaping Fresco located in the Palace of Knossos on Crete, took place. Other rooms within the basic palace structure consisted of residential quarters, workshops and crafts rooms, storerooms for surplus foodstuffs, and rooms for religious practice.
The Mycenaean Civilization.
The Mycenaean civilization succeeded that of the Minoan civilization and resided on mainland Greece. Prominent sites include Mycenae, Pylos, and Argos. The Palace of Pylos in Messenia has contributed a significant amount of Linear B tablets to the archaeological record of the Mycenaeans; it has also revealed evidence of a previous settlement area surrounding the palace, through a survey of the site. The Shaft Graves in Mycenae are also an archaeological discovery relevant to the Mycenaean period; it took place in the 1870s.
Graves.
Shaft Grave Circle A was discovered by Heinrich Schliemann and has provided archaeologists with artificial remains, predominantly weaponry and warrior iconography. One of the graves discovered within the cemetery revealed five bodies in total: two women and three men. The grave contained many weapons and intricate jewellery with the materials used to make them coming from places such as Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Syria. The Mycenaean record also has evidence of a different means of burial with a different style of tomb appearing before 1500; the tholos was a large stone chamber that was cut horizontally into a hillside.
Iron Age Greece.
The Mycenaean civilization ended at the beginning of Iron Age Greece (1100 BC), which is also known as the Dark Age of Greek history. The Early Iron Age still bears evidence of Mycenaean presence through archaeological remains at sites of Tiryns, Argos, Midea and Asine. Archaeological remains prove an earthquake disrupted Mycenaean sites such as the ones mentioned, and this earthquake led to a series of fires and smaller earthquakes; during this environmentally unstable period, the Mycenaean civilization collapsed due to political circumstances and community pressures caused by the environmental destruction.
Pottery.
The chronology of the Iron Age in Greece was navigated through analysing the differing pottery styles. There are five noted phases in the chronology of Iron Age pottery beginning with Submycenaean (1125–1050 BC) which still contains evidence of Mycenaean influence in design. The sequential phases are then Protogeometric (1050–900 BC), Early Geometric (900–850 BC), Middle Geometric (850–760 BC) and Late Geometric (760–700 BC). Pottery designs also soon featured designs of animals, humans, and major group scenes (battles, ritual processions) at the end of the 8th Century BC.
Graves.
Burial plots (areas of landscape that have been assigned as ancient cemeteries) of the Early Iron Age period have been discovered in East Lokris. The modern town of Atalante within the eastern Lokris region has been excavated with discoveries of two large burial plots. Both burial plots were found in the southwest of Atalante, not too far from each other. One burial plot was found at a site called Karagiorgos and the other at a site called Gouras. Karagiorgos had ten graves in total; seven were cist tombs (an elaboration of a pit burial with four walls and a roof; cist is the Greek word for box) one was a pithoi burial (a burial practice originating on Crete during the Bronze Age where bodies were placed in the pithos storage containers) and the remaining two were sarcophagi burials. The other burial plot in Gouras had thirty-three located graves; seventeen were cist tombs, fourteen were pithoi burials, and two were simple pit burials (a simple hole in the ground).
Across all the graves found at Karagiorgos and Gouras, burial offerings that were found in higher numbers were bronze dress-fasteners, fibulae, and necklaces made of faience beads.
The Alphabet.
Increasing contact with the East influenced the creation of the Greek alphabet during the Iron Age; Greeks incorporated letters from the Phoenician alphabet to represent both consonant and vowel sounds in their own alphabet and created the first true phonetic alphabet. Linear B script that was introduced during the Bronze Age had eighty-seven syllables whereas the Greek alphabet introduced during the Iron Age had only twenty-four syllables; a significant advance in writing.
Classical Period.
Classical Greek (510 BC – 323 BC) archaeology is dominated by art, religion, and war. During the Classical period, Greek cities were at war with one another and invading Persia until Athens and Sparta emerged as the superior cities following the Persian Wars (499–449 BC). Athens and Sparta rivalled for supreme power during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC). The war situation across the region led to significant developments in settlements, architecture, and crafts.
Settlements.
Field surveying techniques have been used to unearth material that identifies farming settlements belonging to the Classical period. Surveying techniques involve analysing the stratigraphy and their deposits. Archaeological remains of evening lamps, weaving equipment, and storage vessels holing agricultural surpluses have been discovered at a few sites suggested as farming settlements. The domestic debris that have been found surrounding assumed settlement sites also indicate a prolonged residence. Surveys have been taken of rural settlement areas of several regions of Greece, and results show rural sites only account for twenty percent of classical Boeotia, twenty-five percent for classical Kea and forty percent for Archaic-Classical Laconia; this archaeological analysis determines the high probability that people more often lived in cities during this period.
Pottery.
Classical pottery depicted myths and legends, ritual processions and social activities between men and women. Scenes were predominantly painted on clay vessels using either Black-figure or Red-figure techniques; Black-figure and Red-figure pottery techniques were both used interchangeably up until the fifth century BC when Red-figure pottery became more widely used. Red-figure pottery was also out of use by the end of the fourth century BC after a decline in quality. During the sixth and fifth centuries BC, figure decoration lacked with vessels simply painted black with a metallic lustre.
Archaeologists use the remains of art in Greece to formulate conclusions on topics such as societal norms, religion, culture, and political initiatives and/or structure.
Recent discoveries.
In March 2021, archaeologists announced the discovery of a 2500 year-old unbroken bronze bull idol near to the temple of Greek deity Zeus in Olympia. According to archaeologist Zaharaoula Leventouri, one of the statue's horns stuck to the ground after the heavy rainfall and carefully removed from the area. Researchers also revealed fine pottery remains dated back to Greece's Geometric period.


Sword Scabbard Declaration

The Order of the Day of the Sword Scabbard, or the Sword Scabbard Declaration, actually refers to two related declarations by the Finnish Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim during World War I and World War II against Soviet control of East Karelia.
Background.
World War I.
During the Civil War in Finland, in February 1918, General Mannerheim, the commander of the anti-communist White Guards, wrote his famous Order of the Day, in which he declared that he would not set his sword to the scabbard "until Lenin's last soldier and hooligan is deported from Finland and White Karelia" ("... ennen kuin viimeinen Leninin soturi ja huligaani on karkoitettu niin hyvin Suomesta kuin Vienan Karjalastakin.").
The events at the end of World War I made this goal hard to accomplish, but nevertheless, two attempts were made to this end: the Viena expedition in 1918 and the Aunus expedition in 1919, during the Russian Civil War, had allowed Finland to occupy and annex two regions of East Karelia - Repola and Porajärvi respectively.
Between the wars.
Hostilities between Finland and Soviet Russia came to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Tartu in 1920. In accordance with the treaty, Soviet Russia ceded Petsamo to Finland and guaranteed special freedoms to the Karelian SSR. In return, Finland had to give up the two previously annexed Karelian counties. This was seen by many Finns as a very bad deal. The peace treaty thus got a nickname, "a Shame Peace" ("Häpeärauha" in Finnish).
World War II.
Following the Soviet attack on Finland of June 25, 1941, Finland was again at war with its eastern neighbour. On July 10, 1941, Mannerheim referred to his 1918 declaration in his "Order of the Day" speech to his troops: "... [I]n 1918 during the War of Liberation I stated to the Finnish and Viena Karelians, that I would not set my sword to the scabbard before Finland and East Karelia would be free." () This "Order of the Day" signified the beginning of an offensive, which would result in a three-year-long occupation of Eastern Karelia.
Diplomatic consequences.
Immediately after the Axis invasion, Finland officially declared itself neutral in relation to the conflict. However, German minelayers, which had been hiding in the Finnish archipelago, laid two large minefields across the Gulf of Finland. Later the same night, German bombers flew along the Gulf of Finland to Leningrad and mined its harbor and the river Neva. On the return trip, these bombers landed on the Utti airfield for refueling. After three days, early on the morning of June 25, a Soviet preemptive air-attack was unleashed on towns, airfields and industrial centers in Finland. The country was at war with its larger neighbor once again. This war, called the Continuation War by Finland, began at first as a defensive war, but with his nearly immediate restatement of his Sword Scabbard Declaration, Mannerheim lost the possibility to brand it a defensive war, or even as a war of revanchism to regain the territory lost in the Winter War, where one-eighth of the Finnish populace lived. Gradually, the Continuation War became, in the eyes of some, a war of conquest, to capture land that had not historically belonged to Finland.
For large segments of the public, both in Finland and in other democratic countries, there was a huge difference between a defensive war and a war of aggression. In the Winter War Finland had the sympathy of virtually the whole world (with the exception of Nazi Germany and the aggressor, the Soviet Union). The chief reason was that Finland, in international opinion, was unjustly attacked by a much larger power. In the Continuation War, on the other hand, Finland was partly an aggressor in the eyes of some, attacking the Soviet Union alongside the Axis invasion. This badly damaged Finland's image in the eyes of the Churchill government and eventually caused the formerly sympathetic Britain to declare war on Finland in December 1941.


SS Heraklion

SS "Heraklion" (sometimes spelled out in books as the "Iraklion") was a roll on/roll off car ferry operating the lines Piraeus – Chania and Piraeus – Irakleio between 1965 and 1966. The ship capsized and sank on 8 December 1966 in the Aegean Sea, resulting in the death of over 200 people. Her demise resulted in one of the greatest maritime disasters in Greek history.
Background.
SS "Heraklion" was built as SS "Leicestershire" by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Glasgow in 1949, for the Bibby Line to operate the UK to Burma route. She was chartered to the British India Line for some time to supplement its London to East Africa service. In 1964 she was sold to the Aegean Steam Navigation Co to operate under their Typaldos Lines, renamed SS "Heraklion".
Once Typaldos Line took ownership, she was refitted as a passenger/car ferry. The ship had an overall length of , a beam of , gross register tonnage of 8,922 tons, propelled by a single prop reaching a speed of . The ship's winter capacity was 35 trucks with an average weight of 10 tons. "Heraklion" had her last survey on 29 June 1966.
Sinking.
At 8:00 p.m. on 7 December 1966, and under extreme weather conditions, with winds blowing at Force 9 on the Beaufort scale, "Heraklion" sailed from Souda Bay, Crete for Piraeus, after a two-hour delay, allegedly in order to embark a refrigerator truck that according to most accounts contributed to the sinking. At that time it was up to the ship's captain to decide whether to sail or not, sometimes under pressure from the ship owners.
Port authorities of Souda Bay monitoring the horrendous weather throughout the day prohibited smaller vessels from setting sail but it was wrongly believed that such weather was not a threat to a ship of "Heraklion" size. The same night an advertisement from the Typaldos Line was shown on many cinemas in Athens, projecting the Typaldos ships as: "The most luxurious, the most advanced and, of course, the safest!", with the "Heraklion" being the company's favourite in the advertisement, calling it: "The unmatched ferry Heraklion, with a speed of 17 knots!"
After midnight, the "Heraklion" was sailing in the Myrtoan Sea amidst high waves and heavy winds that were steadily picking up speed. As the ship was rolling heavily from side to side, passengers began waking up in their cabins and children started crying. Cars were rocking back and forth, and the ship started taking on water.
At 2:00 a.m., halfway through the voyage, sailing six miles off the small rocky island of Falkonera, the aforementioned refrigerator truck, which was carrying oranges and was either left unsecured or was loosely strapped, started banging on the midship loading door, which eventually gave way and opened; the truck plummeted into the sea, where it was found floating the next morning. Water immediately rushed in and the "Heraklion" started to develop a list.
At 2:06 a.m., the first SOS signal was sent, saying: "This is Heraklion. The midship door has been destroyed. Ship is in danger." At the same time, the list was increasing by the minute and the ship was losing speed. Officers and crew tried desperately to save the ship, but to no avail, while the list worsened and the ship began to sink. At 02:07, the alarm was raised. Life jackets where handed around hastily and the life boats where lowered desperately into the thunderous waves.
At 2:13 a.m., only eight minutes after the first SOS, Heraklion's radio emitted a signal for the final time. "SOS, we're sinking! Coordinates are ! SOS, we're sinking!" After that message there was silence.
Rescue efforts.
The SOS signal was repeated twice. The Greek Ministry of Mercantile Marine was underequipped to handle the necessary communications, while the port authorities of Piraeus, Syros and other islands also reported that they were unable to offer assistance due to lack of equipment. Unfortunately, the ferry "Minos", which was away from the scene, did not receive the SOS.
At around 2:30 a.m., the head of the Hellenic Coast Guard was alerted, followed by the Minister of Mercantile Marine and the Minister of Defence. The Ministry of Defence reported that a ship of the then-Greek Royal Navy was at Syros, but that it would take three to four hours for it to get underway. A number of ships, including two British Royal Navy warships northeast of Crete, received the SOS and altered course for the scene.
At 4:30 a.m., RHS "Syros" was ordered to sea, while an hour later the prime minister was informed of the situation and the Air Force was alerted. At 06:30 the Prime Minister informed King Constantine about the disaster. At 7:20 a.m. a Douglas C-47 Skytrain took off from Elefsis airport and soon after two more followed suit.
The first messages transmitted from the ships that arrived at the scene of the tragedy at 8:30 a.m were disheartening. There was no sign of debris from the ship and, more importantly, no sign of survivors. The first headlines in Greek newspapers reported that the ship had sunk with complete loss of life. The prime minister declared a week-long period of national mourning.
At 9:45 a.m, the first C-47 Skytrain arrived at the scene and spotted the refrigerator truck, while the rushed to the scene as well. The plane circled above the truck, slowly descending to a lower altitude when the voice of the pilot of the second plane sounded on the radio, almost commanding: "Your Highness, your flight path is dangerous, take height now!" The Captain of the "Ashton", realising that the King himself was participating in the rescue operation, radioed: "Your Highness, Ashton is at your service." The King replied, "Thank you. Please follow me," as the planes spotted the few survivors and began air dropping life jackets.
At 19:00 "Leverton" and "Ashton" docked at the port of Piraeus, where a large crowd had gathered to seek information and to wait for the rescue ships carrying survivors and bodies.
A number of United States Navy ships, deployed in the Mediterranean Sea at the time of the sinking, participated in the search and rescue operations. They included , , , and .
Officially, out of 73 officers and crew and 191 passengers, only 46 were rescued (16 crew and 30 passengers), while 217 died. The exact number remains unknown since, at the time, it was customary to board the ship without a ticket, which would be issued upon sailing.
One of the dead was Michael Robert Hall King (born 1942), a grandson of Robert Baden-Powell.
Aftermath.
The Greek government's investigation found the Typaldos Lines guilty of negligence for several reasons; there was no drill for abandoning ship, there was a delay in sending a distress call, and there was no organization of rescue work by the ship's officers. The company was also charged with manslaughter and faking documents. Haralambos Typaldos, the owner of the company, and Panayotis Kokkinos, the general manager, were both sentenced to jail in 1968. It was also found that twelve of the company's fifteen ships had failed inspection under international law. The company's remaining ships were taken over and sold either for scrap or sold off for other uses, except three; , SS "Athinai" and MV "Rodos". None of the ships attracted buyers and so were laid up for 20 years before being sold for scrap and broken up in Turkey in 1989. In the meantime, the badly rusted "Athinai" was used in 1978–1979 as a floating set for the film "Raise the Titanic" and was renamed "Titanic" for the duration of filming.
In the 1990s a sculpture known as "The Monument of the Hand" was erected near the harbour in Chania to commemorate the victims of the accident.


Sawin, Lublin Voivodeship

Sawin is a settlement in Chełm County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Sawin. It lies approximately north of Chełm and east of the regional capital Lublin.
The settlement has a population of 2,181.
Jewish Community.
The first Jewish synagogue was built in Sawin on Brzeskiej Street in the early 1880s. A second synagogue was built in 1925 when the
611 Jews living in the village represented 48% of total population. There were 882 Jews living in the village at the start of World War II. They included 157 traders and salesmen, 75 craftsmen, and 250 laborers.
The Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of the village, on a street called Chuteckiej, was vandalized in 1943. In 1999, Mordechai Holcblat, a Sawin native living in Israel, rectified a wooden fence. In 2001, Philip Goldstejn, a Sawin native from Canada, and Mr. Holcblat from Israel created a Holocaust memorial on stone brought from Israel. They had the cemetery cleaned and the remaining gravestones were reset.
The Holocaust.
The Nazis destroyed both synagogues and created a slave labor camp in November 1940 for local Jews and others from Kraków, Czechoslovakia, France, Austria, and Yugoslavia. They built drainage ditches and later were sent to extermination camps. Sawin's labor camp was closed on December 9, 1943, marching prisoners to Sobibor.
Sawin was the site of a Jewish forced labor camp established by the Germans for the purpose of improving water for the area. This camp had between 700 and 800 Jewish workers.


Otto, Lord of Arkel

Otto, Lord of Arkel ( – 26 March or 1 April 1396) was Lord of Arkel from 6 May 1360 until his death.
Life.
He was a son of John IV and his wife, Irmengard of Cleves. Otto was born as his parents' second son, after his elder brother John, who died during a tournament in Dordrecht in 1352. During his reign, he further extended the family possessions: he acquired the Lordship of Haastrecht again, and in 1379, he acquired Liesveld.
Otto became an advisor to Count Albert of Holland. Albert claimed the County of Cleves, after John, the last count, died. However, the Emperor gave Cleves to Adolph II of the Marck. This caused a lasting animosity between the Houses of Arkel and La Marck.
In 1382, Otto granted town privileges to Gorinchem, Hagestein and Leerdam. In the following years, Otto tried to combine Hagestein Castle and the village of Gasperde and create a new town out of this combination. This was triggered by the Lords of Vianen, who were expanding their territory to the south-west, by annexing Noordeloos and Meerkerk. This isolated some manors Arkel owned in this area. Also, the Lords of Vianen sided with the Hooks.
Marriage and issue.
Otto married in 1360 in Deventer to Elisabeth de Bar (d. 1410), daughter and heiress of Theobald of Bar-Pierrepont. They had one son:
Otto's illegitimate sons:


Index of Guernsey-related articles

This page list topics related to the Bailiwick of Guernsey, including Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and smaller islands.


Camilleri

Camilleri (; ) is a common surname in Malta and, to a lesser extent, in Italy (most typically in Sicily). The surname is believed to have originated in the 12th century and derives from the Latin term "camelarius" (camel driver, cameleer).
Notable people with the surname include:


Aled Eames

Aled Eames (29 July 1921 – 7 March 1996) was a Welsh historian and author, primarily on Welsh maritime history.
Life and career.
Eames, born in Llandudno, attended a local grammar school. He joined the Royal Navy in the Second World War, reached the rank of lieutenant and was twice mentioned in despatches. He then read history at the University College of North Wales and obtained a first class degree. The college was the forerunner of Bangor University, whose staff he joined as an education lecturer and as warden of Neuadd Reichel hall of residence for twenty years.
In 1955 Eames was awarded the Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Prize for his thesis "Sea Power and Welsh History during the Reign of Charles I". His research interests focused on Welsh merchant shipping in the 18th and 19th centuries. He visited the Canadian Maritime Provinces and parts of the United States on a study trip in 1981.
Eames was one of the founders of the annual "Cymru a'r Mor/Maritime Wales" in 1976 and was one of the editors of the "Journal of the Merioneth Historical and Record Society". He also worked on television, for instance on the BBC2 series "Tradewinds" (1986) and several Welsh-language programmes.
Eames was married first to Hazel Phillips, with whom he had two daughters, but the marriage was dissolved. He later married Freda Gale, with whom he had a son and two daughters. He lived for many years at Moelfre.
Eames died on 7 or 8 March 1996, aged 74, after a long illness. The biennial Aled Eames Memorial Lecture was instituted in his memory at Moelfre.
Book publications.
Bibliographic information augmented from British Library catalogues:


Frimley and Camberley Urban District

Frimley and Camberley was an urban district in Surrey, England from 1894 to 1974.
Area.
Frimley and Camberley consisted of the villages of Frimley, Mytchett, Frimley Green, nascent town of Camberley and the 20th century military community of Frimley, Deepcut. Under the Local Government Act 1972 it merged with Bagshot Rural District to form Surrey Heath district on 1 April 1974.<br> The council offices were on the London Road in Camberley. The building was converted into residential properties in the 1980s when new offices were built for Surrey Heath Borough Council.
History.
Consisting of the civil parish of Frimley, the district was called Frimley Urban District until 1929 when it was renamed Frimley and Camberley. Frimley had been in existence for many years and was a Registration Sub-District of the Farnham Registration district which was created in 1846. The name Camberley was devised by Royal Mail in 1877 when it was decided to avoid postal confusion to rename the growing town of Cambridge Town, technically a locality of Frimley named after the Duke of Cambridge who established a military Staff College in the area in 1862.
Motto.
The motto for the district was 'A Deo Et Regina' (From God and the Queen).


Daniel Bomberg

Daniel Bomberg ( – ) was one of the most important printers of Hebrew books. A Christian who employed rabbis, scholars and apostates in his Venice publishing house, Bomberg printed the first Mikraot Gdolot (Rabbinic Bible) and the first complete Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. These editions set standards that are still in use today, in particular the pagination of the Babylonian Talmud and universal layout of the commentaries of Rashi and Tosfot. His publishing house printed about 200 Hebrew books, including Siddurim (prayer books), responsa, codes of law, works of philosophy and ethics, commentaries, and more. He was the first Hebrew printer in Venice and the first non-Jewish printer of Hebrew books.
Biography.
Bomberg was born around 1483 in Antwerp, Brabant to Cornelius van Bombergen and Agnes Vranckx. Van Bombergen was a merchant who sent his son to Venice to help with the family business. There Daniel met Felix Pratensis (Felice da Prato), an Augustinian friar who had converted from Judaism, and who is said to be the one who encouraged Bomberg to print Hebrew books. Bomberg established an initially successful printing press in Venice, in which he supposedly invested over 4,000,000 ducats. Other sources, likely equally exaggerated, claim that he lost at least as much. He returned to Antwerp in 1539, though his press continued to operate until 1548, and it seems he retained some level of involvement throughout. Very little is known about his death some time between 1549 and 1553.
Publication of the Pentateuch and Mikraot Gdolot (1517-19).
Bomberg began his printing career in 1517 with the first edition of Mikraot Gdolot (Rabbinic Bible). The four volume set included the Hebrew Pentateuch with accompanying commentaries (many of which had never previously been printed), a Targum (Aramaic translation), the haftarot and the Five Megillot. It was printed with the approval of Pope Leo X and the editing was overseen by the Jewish convert to Christianity Felix Pratensis.
Criticism.
The first edition generated harsh criticism by Jewish audiences, possibly because of its numerous errors, albeit mostly minor issues in the cantillation and pronunciation marks, and possibly because of the involvement of the apostate Pratensis. In a second edition edited by Yaakov b. Hayim Adonijah hundreds of such errors were fixed, and though it still generated criticism, it nonetheless served as the standard upon which future printings of Mikraot Gdolot were based.
Innovations in use of Chapter and Verse Numbers.
Bomberg was the first to print chapter and verse numbers in a Hebrew bible. Today this innovation has become so commonplace it is hard to believe how remarkable it was at the time. The division of the Vulgate into chapters was made in the 13th century, and Jews began adopting the numbers for use in concordances by the mid fourteen hundreds, yet until Bomberg, no Hebrew bible had ever included the chapter numbers as part of the book itself. Bomberg not only added the chapter numbers; he was the first to indicate verse numbers on the printed page. Though verse numbers were used by convention for centuries, no one had thought to include these numbers on the printed page of the bible. This seemingly trivial innovation immediately caught on and can be seen in many bibles of his era, and is still in use today.
Censorship.
Though Bomberg opposed censorship in principle, he had a keen sense of the dangers of printing texts seen as threatening to Christianity. Thus, for example, the commentary of Rabbi David Kimchi (Radak) was significantly censored because it contained anti-Christian polemics. These were published later in a separate book, which Bomberg released in a limited edition.
Publication of the Babylonian Talmud (1519-23).
Probably Bomberg's most impressive accomplishment is his publication of the editio princeps (first printed edition) of the complete Babylonian Talmud, which he completed in under four years. Bomberg adopted the format created by Joshua Solomon Soncino, who printed the first individual tractates of the Talmud in 1483, with the Talmud text in the middle of the page and the commentaries of Rashi and Tosfot surrounding it. Published with the approval of Pope Leo X, this edition became the standard format, which all later editions have followed. The project was overseen by chief editor Rabbi Chiya Meir b. David, a rosh yeshiva and dayan (judge) on the Venice rabbinical court. In addition to the Rashi and the Tosfot on the page, Bomberg included other commentaries at the back, such as Rabbeinu Asher (Rosh), Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishna and Piskei Tosfot.
Standardization.
The Bomberg edition of the Talmud established the standard both in terms of page layout as well as pagination (with the exception of the tractate Berachot which follows Bomberg's second edition). Prior to the printing of the Talmud, manuscripts had no standard page division, and the Talmud text usually did not appear on the same page as the commentaries, which were contained in separate codices. The standard page layout in use in all conventional editions of Talmud today (also the accepted method of citing a Talmudic reference) follows the pagination of Bomberg's 1523 publication.
Originality.
The earliest printed Talmuds were published by the Soncino family decades prior to Bomberg's Talmud. Though the Soncinos only printed about sixteen tractates, Bomberg clearly based his own publication after their model. Gershon Soncino claimed that in addition to emulating his layout, Bomberg also copied the texts of the Soncino Talmuds, a claim some modern scholars, such as Raphael Rabinovicz, have substantiated. Still, Bomberg printed many tractates that Soncino never released, which were obviously rendered directly from manuscripts, and even the editions which may have borrowed from Soncino's text show evidence of having been supplemented by additional manuscripts.
Staff.
Bomberg employed some of Venice's leading scholars and Rabbis in his publishing house. Besides Rabbi Chiya Meir b. David, rosh yeshiva and dayan in Venice, there were notable figures such as Rabbi Avraham de Balmes, Rabbi Chaim b. Rabbi Moshe Alton, and the Maharam Padua. Bomberg's Talmud edition is generally considered highly accurate, and many bibliographers and historians have praised the precision of the text.
Publishing Rights.
In 1518, Bomberg requested and received from the Venetian Senate the exclusive printing rights to the Talmud, and received official endorsement from Pope Leo X. Nonetheless, Venetian politicians were suspicious of Hebrew printing. In 1525, when Bomberg attempted to renew his license for a fee of 100 ducats, the Venetian senate refused, accusing Bomberg's Hebrew publications of attacking the Catholic faith. Several months later, for a fee of 500 ducats, they approved his appeal and renewed his license.
Censorship and Papal Approval.
Unlike the previously printed editions of the Talmud, Bomberg's work was largely uncensored. In the early stages of his career he cultivated a positive relationship with the Vatican, and he received approval from Pope Leo X for both the publication of Mikraot Gdolot as well as the Talmud. In later years Hebrew printing was viewed with mounting suspicion. By the end of his career, in the late 1540s, fears of censorship and church opposition caused Bomberg to release editions of the Talmud with backdated cover pages.
In 1548 Pope Paul III dispatched his ambassador to censure the venetian Hebrew publications, but Bomberg argued that ancient manuscripts were not to be altered, and successfully resisted papal pressure. Though the church did not successfully interfere with Bomberg's printing within his lifetime, by 1553 the Talmud was being burned in Italy and the church was actively seeking to restrict its publication and circulation.
Other publications.
In addition to the Mikraot Gdolot and the Babylonian Talmud, Bomberg's printing house published some two hundred other Hebrew books, many for the first time. Some of the more notable works published include:
In addition to these works, Bomberg's publishing house released dozens of prayer books and commentaries on prayer, grammars, dictionaries and concordances and many more rabbinic, philosophic and ethical works.
Legacy.
Bomberg's printing became such a standard of quality that subsequent books are found advertising themselves to be printed “with Bomberg type."
The title page of a book of Psalms from 1765 - centuries after Bomberg's death – gives testament to the lasting gratitude Jewish communities felt toward him. The dedication reads: “Daniel Bomberg, whose name is known in the gates of justice […] was great among the Christians, producing gold from his purse in order to print from his printing press…”
In his book “Venetian Printers of Hebrew Books,” Joshua Bloch wrote:
“[A]s a pioneer in Hebrew printing in Venice [Bomberg] established so high a standard that no one has surpassed his work, even with the aid of modern mechanical improvements, and it is a question whether Hebrew printing has yet equaled the quality and taste shown in the productions of the Bomberg press.”
On December 22, 2015, a well-preserved complete copy of the first edition of Bomberg's Babylonian Talmud, formerly contained in the Valmadonna Trust Library, sold at a Sotheby's auction for $9.3 million to Stephan Loewentheil of the 19th Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop.


Nikola Pushkarov

Nikola Petkov Pushkarov (Bulgarian Никола Петков Пушкаров) (1874–1934) was the first Bulgarian soil researcher and founder of the soil science in Bulgaria. He was also an activist of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization.
Early life and education.
Nikola Pushkarov was born on December 14, 1874 in Pirdop, then in the Ottoman Empire. He graduated from elementary school in his hometown and high school in Sofia. Afterwards Pushkarov taught as a teacher in Mirkovo. In the period 1898-1901 he studied natural sciences at the Sofia University. Later he taught in the Bulgarian High School in Skopje, where he became a member of Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). In 1902 he received a task from Gotse Delchev to reinforce the Skopje Revolutionary Region. As a result, Pushkarov was elected as a president of the Skopje Revolutionary Committee of IMRO in 1902. Pushkarov was also the editor of the IMRO organizational newsletter in Skopje, "Freedom or death". As a whole the revolutionary network, in Skopje Region was not well developed and the lack of weapons was a serious problem. On the other hand, in some areas, as in Kumanovo, the strong pro-Serbian propaganda gained support, and other districts, as Kratovo, were under the control of the Supremists.
The Ilinden Uprising.
Before the start of the Ilinden Uprising in 1903 Pushkarov had on his disposal an armed detachment of 18 people, which carried 100 kilograms of dynamite and 200 bombs.
At the outbreak of the uprising Pushkarov was a chief of the rebel forces in the Skopje Region. On July 22, the band of Pushkarov settled in the Monastery "St. John", near the village of Vetarsko, close towhere the river Pchinya flows into Vardar. From there the cheta could control the traffic on the railway. The detachment moved from the monastery to the village of Novachene and on August 1, they derailed a military train with 32 carriages. On 3 and 5 August respectively, they attacked a Turkish unit, guarding the bridge on the Vardar river and gave a battle in the "St. John" monastery. In the next few days the band was pursued by numerous Bashibozuks and moved slowly to Bulgaria, because it carried the wounded rebels with it. On August 20 the band runs through Vranje in Kyustendil. Nicola Pushkarov formed a new band there, which went into Macedonia again. The cheta moved to Kriva Palanka and in October after a battle in Prelesiya returned to Bulgaria.
Later life.
After the uprising Pushkarov returned to Bulgaria. He could no longer return to Skopje, as the Turkish police actively sought him and worked as a teacher in Plovdiv, Sofia and Vidin. Later he devoted himself to scientific work. He dealt with the study of the soil types and created the first soil map of Bulgaria in 1931. Pushkarov died on February 18, 1943 in Sofia. His native house in Pirdop today is a house museum. On his name was named the Institute of Soil Science in Sofia.


Wheel Wreck

The Wheel Wreck is the remains of a shipwreck lying in Crow sound off Little Ganinick in the Isles of Scilly. The wreck site consists of a discrete mound of cargo that appears to consist of numerous sizes of different iron wheels, cogs, clack valves, tubes and boiler pipes. Lead scupper pipes and other small artefact material show the ship was once present, however, not much remains of this vessel today. A Trotmann style anchor lies some 60m from the site, and this along with the cargo, date the site as sometime just after 1835. It has been published that this may be the wreck of the "Padstow", however, being lost in 1804 this can not be so as neither boiler tubes or Trotmann anchors were invented back then. The wreck was discovered by local divers in 2005 and investigated by the archaeological contractor for the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 in 2006. It still remains unidentified.
The archaeological contractor has, however, identified that the cargo consists of tin-mining equipment and is presumed to have been from a foundry in Cornwall. This archaeological identification fortuitously came just after the designation of the Cornish tin mining areas as a World Heritage Site. The cargo find is considered particularly important, because such mining equipment no longer exists on land.
The site was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act on 5 April 2007. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England.