HMS Melbreak (L73)

HMS "Melbreak" was a destroyer of the Royal Navy. She was a member of the third subgroup of the class, and saw service in the Second World War. All the ships of this class were named after British fox hunts. She was the first Royal Navy warship with this name, after the Melbreak hunt in Cumbria. In 1942 she was adopted by the civil community of Cockermouth in Cumberland, as part of Warship Week.
Service history.
On commissioning "Melbreak" served in the English Channel, but in 1943 she was deployed to the Mediterranean. In 1944 she served mostly in the English Channel and was part of the escort force for the assault and landings in Normandy, as part of the D-Day operations.
On 28 August 1944 she was attacked in the English Channel by an unknown aircraft, causing 20 casualties including five killed. She was subsequently repaired in Barry, South Wales.
On 7 May 1945 "Melbreak" suffered considerable damage on grounding and was repaired at Sheerness. She was subsequently placed in reserve at Chatham. She was in attendance at the Coronation Fleet Review in Portsmouth in 1953.
She was subsequently sold for scrap to Thos W Ward and arrived at their ship breaking yard in Grays on 22 November 1956.
Sources.


Kuty

Kuty ( translit. "Kuty", , , translit. "Kitev", ) is an urban-type settlement in Ukraine, on the Cheremosh river, in the Kosiv Raion of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. It is one of the historical centres of the ancient region of Pokuttya, whose name derives from the township. The current population estimate is
History.
Kuty, which means "angles" or "corners" in Ukrainian, was first mentioned in records of 1469 as a village in the estate of Jan Odrowąż, then Polish archbishop of Lwów (now Lviv) and personal adviser to several Polish kings. Over time the settlement grew and in 1715 at the request of Jan Potocki, the voivod of Kiev, King Augustus II the Strong granted it a town charter. Two churches were founded for local Uniates and Armenians. With expansion and the proximity of Bukovina, the town became the seat of a starost in the region of Halych and an administrative centre within the Ruthenian Voivodship of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The town was the Fiefdom of the Potocki family until the partitions of Poland. In 1772 it came under Austrian administration and on May 1, 1782 Kuty lost its town privileges. As a result, its economic growth halted and Kuty remained a provincial backwater inhabited mostly by Jewish and Armenian merchants. Around 1850 the town was linked to the rest of Galicia by the Kołomyja-Czerniowce railway. However, as both Galicia and Bukovina were under Austrian rule, it could not capitalize on its status as a border town. From the 19th-century onwards, Kuty acquired fame as a holiday resort owing to its picturesque location, on a river surrounded by hills and blessed with a balmy climate. It was known as a fruit-growing area and associated festivals. It was home to the largest Armenian community in Poland, many of whom had settled there from Moldova.
After the collapse of the Central Powers in 1918 the town was briefly under the control of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. After seizure by Romania Kuty returned to newly independent Polish administration. It became the most important border crossings between Poland and Romania. In 1930 the Polish Army built a new wooden bridge across the Cheremosh river.
It was in Kuty that the Polish president, Ignacy Mościcki, spent his last days in Poland before crossing the border into exile during the 1939 Polish Defensive War against the Germans and the Soviets attacking on two fronts. The town was defended by the Polish Army until September 20, 1939. Among the last soldiers to be killed by the Red Army in heavy fighting for the bridge was the notable Polish writer, Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz. Except for the term of German occupation between 1941 and 1944, Kuty was annexed by the USSR in 1939 and was administered by Soviet Ukraine. In the spring of 1944 Ukrainian nationalists killed about 200 Poles and Armenians.
Since 1991 Kuty has been part of independent Ukraine.
Jewish community.
In the spring of 1942 during the German occupation, the entire Jewish population of Kuty was killed by the Nazis. Many died in the town while the rest were rounded up and deported to the ghetto in Czernowitz. Only a handful survived.
Demography.
In 1849 the town had roughly 3,700 inhabitants, in 1880, 6,300 and in the late 1920s – 8,000. Of these 3,300 were Jews, 1,900 Hutsuls, 1,300 Poles and over 500 Armenians.
In 2001, the population was 4,272, and in 2016 ca. .


Kazimierz Plater

Kazimierz Plater (Broel-Plater) (3 March 1915, Vilna – 30 April 2004, Warsaw) was a Polish chess master.
Born into an aristocratic family in Vilnius, he studied in Warsaw where he won the Warsaw County Chess Championship in 1934.
After the Second World War, he participated twelve times in Polish championships (1946–1964). He was thrice Polish Champion (1949, 1956, 1957) and twice Sub-champion (1950, 1963).
In 1947, he took 6th place in Warsaw in a tournament won by Svetozar Gligorić and 12th in the Hilversum zonal won by Albéric O'Kelly de Galway. In 1949, he took 7th in Bucharest (Luděk Pachman won). In 1957, he shared 4th in Szczawno Zdrój at the 2nd Przepiórka Memorial won by Efim Geller .
He represented Poland in Chess Olympiads:
Plater was awarded the International Master title in 1950.


Sark Shags

The Sark Shags represent Sark in rugby union. They compete annually in the Two Nations Championship against Guernsey.
The history of the team extends back to 2003 when the Sark Shags team played their first official Test match, beating Guernsey by one point. Sark dominated the early Island Nations Championship (now the Two Nations) which started in 2003. Sark did not win the Championship again until 2007.
Name.
The Sark Shags' name pays tribute to the bird native to the island, the Shag.
Colours, home ground and sponsorship.
Sark Shags players traditionally wear a white shirt showing the Flag of Sark, white shorts, and white socks.
Their home ground is [[Sark Sports Club Field] where they first played in 2003. The team is administered by the Sark Island Council and is jointly managed by father and son pair, Alex and Jake Magell. Jake took up the rains in 2015 after his brother, Robbie Magell, left the island to play for St John's College (University of Queensland).
The official sponsor of the Sark Shags is the Stocks Hotel, Sark.
History and team selection.
The Sark Shags were formed by the Sark Island Council in 2003 as a way to develop relationships with other islands in the [[Bailiwick of Guernsey]]. As time has gone on [[Guernsey]] has become their main rival playing them in a match every August, however matches have also been played with islands such as [[Herm]].
Team selection was previously strictly for citizens of the island, gradually the team has become an invitation XV where players must be known by citizens, or be citizens of Sark.
References.
[[Category:Sark]]
[[Category:Rugby union in the Channel Islands]]


Admiralty of the Noorderkwartier

The Admiralty of the Noorderkwartier (Dutch, 'Northern Quarter'), also known as the Admiralty of West Friesland, was one of the five admiralties of the Dutch Republic, made up of West Friesland, a region in the north of the province of Holland.
History.
It was set up on 6 March 1589 by a resolution of the Parliament of the Netherlands, via a decision of the Stadholder Maurits of Orange. It was established at Hoorn (and in Enkhuizen for about three months in 1597). The admiralty was disestablished in 1795.


Rusyn Americans

Rusyn Americans (also known as Carpatho-Rusyn Americans or Ruthenian Americans) are citizens of the United States of America, with ancestors who were Rusyns, born in Carpathian Ruthenia, or neighboring areas of Central Europe. However, some Rusyn Americans, like some Rusyn Canadians, also or instead identify as Ukrainian Americans, Slovak Americans, or even Russian Americans.
Since the Revolutions of 1989, there has been a revival in Rusyn nationalism and self-identification in both Carpathian Ruthenia and among the Rusyn diaspora in other parts of Europe and North America.
History.
Rusyns began immigrating to the United States in the late 1870s and in the 1880s. Upon arrival in North America, the vast majority of Rusyns identified with the larger state that they had left. It is, therefore, impossible to know their exact number. It is estimated that between the 1880s and 1914 some 225,000 Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants came to northeastern United States. Based on immigration statistics and membership records in religious and secular organizations, it is reasonable to assume that there are about 620,000 Americans who have at least one ancestor of Rusyn background.
At the time of the first and largest wave of immigration (1880s to 1914), the Rusyn homeland was located entirely within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In both parts of Austria-Hungary, the economic situation for Rusyns was the same. Their approximately 1,000 villages were all located in hilly or mountainous terrain from which the inhabitants eked out a subsistence-level existence based on small-scale agriculture, livestock grazing (especially sheep), and seasonal labor on the richer plains of lowland Hungary.
Since earning money was the main goal of the immigrants, they settled primarily in the northeast and north central states, in particular the coal mining region around Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Pennsylvania, and in the Pittsburgh and Erie areas of the western part of that state. Other cities and metropolitan areas that attracted Rusyns were Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New York City and northeastern New Jersey; southern Connecticut; the Binghamton-Endicott-Johnson City triangle in south central New York; Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; Gary and Whiting, Indiana; Detroit and Flint, Michigan; and Minneapolis, Minnesota. By 1920, nearly 80 percent of all Rusyns lived in only three states: Pennsylvania (54 percent), New York (13 percent), and New Jersey (12 percent).
Like other eastern and southern Europeans, Rusyns were effectively segregated from the rest of American society because of their low economic status and lack of knowledge of English. This was, however, a relatively short-term phase, since the American-born sons and daughters of the original immigrants had, by the late 1930s and 1940s, assimilated and become absorbed into the American mainstream.
Cultural Center.
The Carpatho-Rusyn Society has purchased the historic former Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Munhall, Pennsylvania to convert it into the nation's first National Carpatho-Rusyn Cultural Center.
The historic structure was the first cathedral in America exclusively for Carpatho-Rusyns. It was built in 1903 at the corner of Tenth and Dickson Streets in Munhall, just outside of Pittsburgh. Designed by the Hungarian-born architect, Titus de Bobula, and patterned after the Rusyn Greek Catholic Cathedral of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Uzhorod, Subcarpathian Rus. The parish was established in 1897 and the church, the parish's second, was built in 1903. By the 1920s the congregation had more than 700 families. In 1929 it was chosen as the cathedral for the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Exarchate in America.
The congregation, then known as St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic parish, left the building in 1993 when it constructed a new suburban cathedral. In April 2004, the property was purchased by the Carpatho-Rusyn Society to create a home and center for the organization and culture.


Concentrazione Antifascista Italiana

Concentrazione Antifascista Italiana (CAI; Italian Anti-Fascist Concentration), officially known as Concentrazione d'Azione Antifascista (Anti-Fascist Action Concentration), was an Italian coalition of anti-fascist groups which existed from 1927 to 1934. It was formed in Paris on 27 March 1927 with the purpose of the organization of Italian antifascist forces in order to reorganize the anti-fascist movement abroad avoiding to repeat the old divisions existing in Italy before the establishment of the regime. The CAI made a public appeal signed by Claudio Treves and Giuseppe Emanuele Modigliani (PSLI), Pietro Nenni and Angelica Balabanoff (PSI), Fernando Schiavetti and Mario Pistocchi (Italian Republican Party), Bruno Buozzi and Felice Quaglino (CGdL) and by Alceste De Ambris (Italian League for Human Rights, "Lega italiana dei diritti dell'uomo", LIDU). Communists remained outside along with liberals, populars and others in order to keep contact with Italian masses «in their social defence and political resistance moves». The official weekly newspaper "La Libertà" was created on 1 May 1927 with Claudio Treves as director.
Due to the divisions among the members, CAI showed poor accomplishing skills since its first actions: it obtained success defending the emigrates in France, urging the intervention of LIDU in the assistance to the victims (including communists) of police provisions. But the work of CAI was insignificant in Italy and for this reason republicans and leftists in particular kept their distances from it without leaving the organization. The leading group authority of PSLI weighed on CAI and imposed itself as the mediator of financial contributions granted by the Labour and Socialist International, of which it was member. Moreover, this circumstance fuelled the left opposition within the PSI, which had its strengths in the sections of Vienne and Paris, where a third formation was formed in favour of the entry of socialists into the Antifascist Proletarian Committees ("Comitati Proletari Antifascisti"), organized by PCd'I. Socialist left founded "Il nostro Avanti" ("Our Avanti") in Paris, a newspaper that antifascists called "Il piccolo Avanti" ("The Little Avanti").


Anna von Hintzen

Anna von Hintzen, also called "von Hinske" (died after 1648) was a Swedish (originally Baltic-German) noble, who figured in a famous scandal around a murder.
She was born to a Baltic-German colonel from Riga in Swedish Latvia, and married to the Swedish noble Nils Ribbing (1590–1641), governor of Kalmar Castle, with whom she had seven children; her daughter Catharina Ribbing married Anton von Steinberg, a favorite of Queen Christina of Sweden.
Anna von Hintzen was described as a sadistic employer. In 1639, she murdered a female domestic and a servant boy and a scandal ensued. She fled to Denmark to avoid arrest, followed by her spouse, who was deposed from his position. The couple settled in Lübeck, where she was widowed. In 1648, she was acknowledged as a member of the Swedish nobility despite her crime by the royal government in Sweden. She did not return however.
Von Hintzen died in Lübeck and was buried in Wismar.


Arholzen

Arholzen is a municipality in the district of Holzminden, in Lower Saxony, Germany.


Barton Priory

Barton Priory (or Burton Oratory) was a priory on the Isle of Wight, England.
Early history.
The Convent, or Oratory of Burton, or Barton, having been dissolved long before the general suppression of monastic foundations, escaped the notice of William Dugdale, John Speed, Thomas Tanner, and other writers on religious houses, so that its existence had nearly sunk into oblivion. Sir John Oglander mentions it in his manuscript Memoirs, but his information appears to have been merely traditional.
Its history is however preserved in the register of John of Pontoise, Bishop of Winchester, wherein the statutes of the house are confirmed by an instrument, in which the bishop affirms he had seen the charters of John de Insula, Rector of Shalfleet, and of Thomas de Winton, Rector of Godshill, founders of the Oratory of the Holy Trinity of Burton, for the ordering and governing the said Oratory made, and in full force, under the seals of the founders, as follows:
I. That there shall be six chaplains and one clerk to officiate both for the living and dead, under the rules of St. Augustin.
II. That one of these shall be presented to the Bishop of Winchester, to be the archpriest; to whom the rest stiall take an oath of obedience.
III. That the archpriest shall be chosen by the chaplains there residing, who shall present him to the bishop within twenty days after any vacancy shall happen.
IV. They shall be fubjea to the immediate authority of the bishop.
V. When any chaplain shall die, his goods shall remain to the Oratory.
VI. They shall have only one mess, with a pittance, at a meal, excepting on the greater festivals, when they may have three messes.
VII. They shall be diligent in reading and praying.
VIII. They shall not go beyond the bounds of the Oratory, without license from the archpriest.
IX. Their habit shall be of one colour, either black or blue; they shall be clothed fallio Hiberniemfi, de nigra bor.ftn cum pileo.
X. The archpriest shall sit at the head of the table, next to him those who have celebrated "magiaan miffam"; then the priest of St Mary; next the priest of the Holy Trinity; and then the priest who says mass for the dead.
XI. The clerk shall read something edifying to them while they dine.
XII. They shall sleep in one room.
XIII. They shall use a special prayer for their benefactors.
XIV. They shall in all their ceremonies, and in tinkling the bell, follow the use of Sarum.
XV. The archpriest alone shall have charge of the business of the house.
XVI. They shall, all of them, at their admission into the house, swear to the observance of these statutes.
Thomas de Winton, and John de Insula, clerks, grant to John Bishop of Winchester, and his successors, the patronage of their Oratory at Burton, in the parish of Whippingham, that he might become a protector and a defender of them, the archpriest, and his fellow chaplains. The bishop, at the instance of John de Infills, the surviving founder, Thomas, being then dead, or that, after a year and a day from their entering into this Oratory, no one shall accept of any other benefice, or shall depart the house, "A/Hum et datum in eliflo Oratorio de Barton, a. 1289, Jordant de Kingston et aliis testittu".
The archpriest being suspended by the bishop, the dean of the island was ordered to take charge of his Oratory in the house at Burton. Soon after, the archpriest being a captive in France, and the house of Burton in a ruinous condition, the bishop gave orders for the house to be repaired, and other necessary things to be done. The Oratory was, in the 18th year of Henry VI (1440–41), surrendered into the hands of the bishop, and, together with its lands, by the procurement the bishop Wainfleet, granted to Winchester College. It was endowed with the manor of Whippingham, the demesne lands of Burton, or Barton, and some lands at Chale. The site and demesnes of the Oratory are still held under a lease from the Warden and Fellows of Winchester College; and part of the old building is yet standing.
References.
This article includes text incorporated from Edmund Burke's "The Annual Register of world events: a review of the year", Volume 24 (1880), a publication now in the public domain.


Denton Thompson

James Denton Thompson (20 July 1856 – 31 October 1924) was the Bishop of Sodor and Man from 1912 until his death in 1924.
Thompson was and educated at the Liverpool Institute and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was ordained in 1883 and held curacies at St James, Didsbury and St Saviour's, Liverpool. From 1886 to 1889 he was Clerical Superintendent of the Church of England Scripture Readers’ Society. After this he held incumbencies in Bootle, North Meols and Birmingham before ordination to the episcopate.
In Birmingham, one of the most important parishes outside London, Thompson enhanced his reputation as a persuasive orator. ‘He was a vigorous speaker and preacher, with a carrying voice and plenty of appropriate gesture, accustomed to address meetings of men of all grades, while his spiritual influence was unmistakeable’.
Although regarded by the Archbishop of Canterbury as lacking in ‘refinement’, Prime Minister Asquith decided to recommend him for the see of Sodor and Man in November, 1911. There, the great open-air services attended by visitors played to his strengths. However, tourism came to a temporary halt with the declaration of war in August, 1914. Thompson was a strong advocate of British participation in the Great War, even though he realised some of the horrors that lay ahead ‘Horrible beyond all exaggeration are the agonies of mind and body produced by any war, but no imagination can conceive a thousandth part of the horrors of this great and terrible conflict ... If we had preferred peace to honour, or safety to truth, or ease to chivalry, the moral characteristic of the British Empire would have been strained and tarnished for ever.’ Thompson’s support for the War never wavered despite the enormous casualties and he opposed those seeking a negotiated peace. ‘But there can be no peace without victory. Not until the power of German militarism is defeated and broken for ever can the world hope for peace. This menace to the freedom and progress of the race must be crushed out of existence before the War can come to an end.’
Thompson died suddenly in Harrogate in October, 1924.


Minoan (disambiguation)

Minoan may refer to the following:


Poppo II, Margrave of Carniola

Poppo II (died 1098), Count of Weimar-Orlamünde, was margrave of Carniola from 1070 and of Istria from 1096 to his death.
Life.
Poppo was the son of Margrave Ulric I of Carniola, whom he succeeded upon his death in 1070. His mother Sophia was a daughter of King Béla I of Hungary. He was thus of royal blood.
He married Richgard (lt: "Richardis"), daughter of Count Engelbert of Sponheim , who governed Istria until his death on 1 April 1096. According to the 1170 "Historia Welforum" chronicle, Poppo and Richgard had two daughters:
Poppo remained a loyal supporter of the Salian emperor Henry IV during the Investiture Controversy. Because of his lack of surviving sons, he was succeeded by his younger brother Ulric II.


Altenbrak

Altenbrak is a village and a former municipality in the district of Harz, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.
Geography.
The village is strung out for about 1.6 kilometres along the River Bode in an east-west valley. It is 3 kilometres from the Wendefurth Reservoir, which is part of the Rappbode Reservoir. From its shape and nature, Altenbrak is very much a "Straßendorf" or ribbon development.
In front of the dam is the hamlet of Wendefurth that used to belong to this parish. Altenbrak's neighbouring communities are
Allrode, Blankenburg (Harz), Cattenstedt, Friedrichsbrunn, Hasselfelde, Treseburg, Wendefurth and Wienrode.
Within the local area are the forest inn of Todtenrode ("Gasthaus Todtenrode") and the "Jagdschloss Windenhütte" which are also checkpoints 65 and 59 in the Harzer Wandernadel hiking network.
There is viewing point, "Aussichtspunkt Schöneburg", above the village at an elevation of 441 metres above sea level. It is checkpoint 63 on the Harzer Wandernadel hiking network.
History.
Altenbrak was first mentioned in 1448 as a smelting site. The establishment of the village probably goes back further to 1227. After the last ironworks was closed in 1867 the population became poverty-stricken. Later, tourism developed, encouraged by the sheltered situation of the village.
There has been a private post office ("Postagentur") in Altenbrak since 1891. Its post agents were Heinrich Fessel (1891–1902); Adolf Schomburg (1907); Fritz Steffen (1908–09); and Georg Hoffmann (1910–16).
In 1884 Theodor Fontane spent some time in Altenbrak. The "Gasthaus zum Rodenstein" and other places he visited during his excursion into the Bode Gorge are mentioned in his novel, Cécile. Since 1949 Altenbrak has been a climatic spa ("Luftkurort").
Since 1 July 2009, it has been part of the borough of Thale.
Politics.
Mayor.
The last mayor ("Bürgermeister") of the parish of Altenbrak was Ralf Trute.
Coat of arms.
The coat of arms was approved by the county on 10 July 2008.
Blazon: "Divided vertically gold and green, left a green spruce, right a silver half-waterwheel, in the blue wavy base a silver trout" ("Gespalten von Gold und Grün, vorn eine ausgerissene grüne Fichte, hinten ein halbes silbernes Wassermühlrad am Spalt, im blauen Wellenschildfuß eine silberne Forelle."")
The colours of the old parish are the colours green and gold (based on the tincture of the coat of arms).
The coat of arms was created by the Magdeburg herald, Jörg Mantzsch.
Flag.
The flag has two stripes: the left-hand stripe is green and the right is yellow. On horizontal flags the upper striper is green and the lower one yellow. The coat of arms is placed in the centre.
Culture and places of interest.
The "Harzer Hexenstieg", a hiking trail just under 100 km long, running from Osterode to Thale passes through Altenbrak. Every year on the first weekend in September the Harz Yodelling Competition takes place in Altenbrak. Plays and concerts take place on the forest stage in Altenbrak in the summer. It has seating for 1300.


Scerri

Scerri is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:


Battle of Ceber

The Battle of Ceber was a World War II battle took place overnight on 4–5 August 1944 in the village of Ceber in the Holy Cross Mountains (Świętokrzyskie). A battalion of Polish partisans of the Home Army's 2nd Legions' Infantry Regiment led by Capt. Michał Mandziara (nom de guerre Siwy) assaulted a German garrison of the village, took it by surprise and annihilated it after a brief encounter. The battle was part of a larger Operation Tempest.
The Polish unit numbered 84 men (entire 3rd battalion of the 2nd Legions' Infantry Regiment) and was organised into two platoons led by second lieutenant Dionizy Mędrzycki (nom de guerre Reder) and second lieutenant Witold Józefowski (nom de guerre Miś). The Poles assaulted the German garrison overnight and from numerous directions. After a brief fight the enemy force was destroyed. The Poles acquired plenty of war materiel, including 22 machine guns, a gun repair shop, an infantry mortar with ammunition, an ambulance and plenty of supplies.
Polish losses were relatively small: only one soldier and one officer were wounded in action and died the following day. German losses were approximately 40 killed and 39 taken prisoner of war.


Stuiver

The stuiver was a pre-decimal coin used in the Netherlands. It was worth 16 "penning" or 8 "duit". Twenty stuivers equalled a "guilder." It circulated until the Napoleonic Wars. After the conflict, the Netherlands decimalised its guilder into 100 cents. Two stuivers equalled a dubbeltje - the ten-cent coin.
After the decimalisation of Dutch currency, the name "stuiver" was preserved as a nickname for the five-cent coin until the introduction of the euro. The word can still refer to the five euro cent coin, which has almost exactly the same diameter and colour despite being over twice the value of the older coin. The English denomination name stiver (used in colonial Sri Lanka and Guyana) is derived from stuiver.
Stuivers of the Dutch East India Company.
From 1660, the Dutch East India Company began to strike copper stuiver coins for local use in Sri Lanka. At first, the coins were simply stamped on both sides with their denomination but from 1783, the VOC monogram and date were added. The coins were minted at Colombo, Jaffna, Galle and Trincomalee. These coins were issued till British occupation in 1796.
Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The Five cent coin struck in the Kingdom of the Netherlands between 1818 and 2001 was also called "Stuiver".
Euro.
The Euro five cent coin continues to be referred to as stuiver in the contemporary Netherlands.