Banat of Temeswar

The Banat of Temeswar or "Banat of Temes" was a Habsburg province that existed between 1718 and 1778. It was located in the present day region of Banat, which was named after this province. The province was abolished in 1778 and the following year it was incorporated into the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary.
Duality of name.
In the official documents of the time and also in all of native languages of the region, the name of the province appears in two basic forms, first derived from the name of Temeswar (Timișoara), second derived from the name of Temes region: in German - , Romanian - , Serbian - , , Hungarian - and Latin - .
History.
Before the Habsburg province was established, several other entities had existed in the Banat region, including: the Voivodeship of Glad (9th century), the Voivodeship of Ahtum (11th century), the medieval Kingdom of Hungary (11th - 16th century) and one of its frontier provinces
the Banate of Severin (from 1233 to the 16th century), the Ottoman province named Eyalet of Temeşvar (1552–1716), and the Banate of Lugos and Karansebes province within the Principality of Transylvania (16th–17th century), which was under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire as a whole.
Although after the Austro-Ottoman war (1683–1697) and before the treaty of Karlowitz (1699) most parts of Banat were temporarily controlled by the forces of Prince Eugene of Savoy; in consequence of the treaty, the Ottoman sovereignty was recognized over the region with the fort of Temeşvar. However, as a result of the Spanish Succession War and the Rákóczi's War for Independence, the Habsburgs were inclined to direct their attention elsewhere within their country, and there was no attempt on their part to gain any territories from the Ottomans until 1710.
In the Austro-Turkish War of 1716-18, Prince Eugene of Savoy conquered the Banat region from the Ottoman Empire, which was recognized by the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718). The Habsburg Monarchy then established a new military administrative region there under the name of Banat of Temeswar. The capital of the province became Temeswar. The province remained under military administration until 1751 when civil administration was introduced in northern parts of the region by Empress Maria Theresa of Austria.
From 1718 to 1739, Banat of Temeswar included not only the Banat region, but also parts of present-day eastern Serbia along the southern bank of the Danube river. Following the Treaty of Belgrade (1739), areas along the southern bank of Danube returned under Ottoman control. In 1751, the southern parts of Banat were excluded from the province and the Banatian Military Frontier was established in that area.
The Banat of Temeswar was abolished on 6 June 1778, and on 23 April 1779, it was incorporated into the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary, while its former territory was divided into three counties: Torontál, Temes and Krassó-Szörény. The southern part of the Banat region, which was part of the Banat of Temeswar until 1751, remained part of the Military Frontier (Banat Krajina) until 1873.
Population.
The province was bound to repopulate after the Habsburg conquest because it had a low population density on the grounds that the territory sustained a lot of adversity from the previous wars. The population density was among the lowest in Europe; some researchers suggest that it was around 1 person / square kilometres. According to the first census conducted by the Habsburg military authorities, the population of Banat numbered about 20,000 inhabitants, mostly Serbs. The former Muslim population of Banat had left the area immediately before and during the Habsburg conquest. The low population density resulted in the territory being repopulated by German families coming from Austrian and southern German lands, Romanians coming from Wallachia and Transylvania, by Slovaks from the north, and by Serb refugees coming from the Ottoman Empire, while some Serbs arrived in the area from other parts of the Habsburg Monarchy. Colonization of various ethnic groups in the area lasted until the early 19th century. The government organized regimental districts which mostly had Serb population with special privileges in exchange for defending the borders. The area also lost its Hungarian population in the 16th century, but Hungarians were not allowed to return until the 1740s, because the Habsburgs regarded them as "politically unreliable". Thus, Hungarians were almost totally absent from Banat in the first half of the 18th century. After the permission was given, Hungarian settlers arrived from different parts of the kingdom (mainly from Transdanubia, Csongrád county and the Jász and Kun districts).
According to data from 1774, the population of the Banat of Temeswar was composed of:
The first official census took part during the rule of Joseph II, from the late 18th century. This shows Romanian majority in the east, Serbian in the west, and numerous German population in the whole area.
Governors.
Governors of Banat of Temeswar did not have the title of "ban". They were military governors and chefs of provincial administration (in German: Militärpräsidenten der Landesadministration des Temescher Banats).


Thymios Vlachavas

Thymios Vlahavas (, also known as Παπαθύμιος "Papathymios"; born in Vlachava (also known as Smoliani) in 1760, died in 1809) was a Greek klepht.
He was the son of Athanasios Vlachavas. In the 19th century, he achieved a prominent position among the other klepht leaders, and led the fight against Ali Pasha, the powerful and semi-independent Ottoman governor of Yanina. Along with others, he prepared a large-scale anti-Ottoman uprising in May 1808, but it was betrayed. Vlachavas was later captured by Ali Pasha by ploy, executed and quartered.


Saccocoma

Saccocoma is an extinct genus of crinoids that lived from the Late Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous in Europe and North America. It contains at least two species.


Visconti Castle (Locarno)

Visconti Castle is a castle in Locarno, Switzerland. It is a Swiss heritage site of national significance.
In January 2004, the Italian historian Marino Vigano' speculated that it may have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci: after 7 years of studies, the Leonardo's Rivellino was recognized as a Da Vinci project.
History.
While there was a royal palace in Locarno in 866 and a noble family with a castle in the 10th century, the oldest remaining parts of the Castello (part of the ring wall and residential tract and foundation of a tower) date to the late 12th or 13th century. In 1164 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa granted Locarno the right to hold a market and for the first time mentioned the "Capitanei di Locarno" or noble families that administered the town and the Pieve or local church. While the "Capitanei" enjoyed the right of imperial immediacy, they did not always support the emperor. By around 1240 Locarno had become a stronghold of the Guelph faction which supported the pope against the emperor, possibly leading to the construction or expansion of the castle. In 1260 the Castello was attacked and destroyed by the pro-emperor Ghibellines, leading Simone Orelli, the most powerful member of the "Capitanei" to join the Ghibellines and bring the town to the emperor's side until his death in 1290. The castle was rebuilt following the destruction of 1260.
During the 14th century Milan under the Visconti aggressively expanded into the valleys at the foot of the Alps. In 1342 Luchino and Giovanni Visconti besieged and captured the castle from both the landward and lake sides. Many members of the "Capitanei" were captured. After accepting the Visconti as their new overlords, they were quickly released from captivity and restored to their former positions under a podestà appointed by Milan. The podestà became the only resident of the castle and some of the buildings were allowed to fall into ruin. However, under the Visconti the fortifications were strengthened and new defensive walls were built.
In 1439 the Visconti appointed Franchino Rusca as podestà in Locarno. Under the Rusca family, the castle was renovated, repaired and expanded. It was transformed into an ornate late medieval administrative castle. A little south of the old main tower, a palazzo was built with ornate halls, large chimneys, and an arcade leading to the courtyard. It was surrounded by a ring wall with machicolations and half-round towers which were topped with swallow-tail merlons. Today, part of the Rusca castle wall still remains on the south-west side of the castle compound. By the mid to late 15th century the Duke of Milan became concerned that the Rusca family might support the Old Swiss Confederacy against Milan. He appointed a castellan to manage the castle for him. The Rusca family remained at the castle in the palazzo, while the castellan lived in the old main tower, known as the "Rocca". The various castellans often wrote letters to Milan asking for money to repair the old, uncomfortable tower and more soldiers to garrison it.
In 1495 Louis XII of France offered Locarno to the Swiss Confederacy in exchange for military help against Milan. Four years later he invaded Lombardy and quickly captured the castle and town of Locarno. However, he continually delayed and avoided handing the town over to the Swiss. In 1503, the Confederation invaded and conquered the Leventina valley and captured Locarno. However, the Treaty of Arona, in the same year, gave the fortifications at Bellinzona to the Confederation but returned the town to France. In 1507 the castle complex was expanded, for the last time, when the "Rivellino", a triangular bastion, was added to the north side of the complex. In 2006 the historian Marino Viganò presented evidence that the "Rivellino" was designed, planned and constructed by Leonardo da Vinci, though no surviving documents prove this.
In 1512, during the War of the League of Cambrai, the Confederation again invaded the Alpine foothills including Locarno. They besieged the castle, but did not have the artillery needed to capture it. In 1513, negotiations after the decisive Swiss victory at the Battle of Novara gave temporary control over the castle to the Swiss. The 1516 peace treaty which ended the War of the League of Cambrai gave them permanent control over much of Ticino including Locarno.
The Swiss appointed a "landvogt" to administer Locarno for the Confederation from the castle. The expense of maintaining the large complex soon proved to be too much and in 1531 they decided to demolish much of the complex. By 1532, most of the walls were demolished, leaving only the "palazzo". Three years later the fortifications at the harbor near the castle were also removed. Maintaining just the "palazzo" remained expensive and by 1762 the Landvogt Anton Schuhmacher reported that the roof was in such poor condition that it rained in every room. The castle remained the seat of the Swiss vogt until the 1798 French invasion of Switzerland and the creation of the Helvetic Republic. After the collapse of the Republic, the 1803 Act of Mediation created the new Canton of Ticino and transferred the castle to the new Canton. It was used as a cantonal administration building until 1921 when it transferred to the town of Locarno. Locarno repaired the castle and transformed it into a museum, the "Museo civico e archeologico".


Vericeras

Vericeras is an extinct genus of actively mobile carnivorous cephalopod, essentially a Nautiloid, that lived in what would be Europe during the Silurian from 421—418.7 mya, existing for approximately .
Taxonomy.
"Vericeras" was assigned to Orthocerida by Sepkoski (2002).
Morphology.
The shell is usually long, and may be straight ("orthoconic") or gently curved. In life, these animals may have been similar to the modern squid, except for the long shell.
Fossil distribution.
Fossil distribution is exclusive to Sardinia.


Henry Joy McCracken

Henry Joy McCracken (31 August 1767 – 17 July 1798) was a leading member in the north of Ireland of the republican Society of the United Irishmen. He sought to ally the largely Presbyterian movement with the Catholic Defenders, and in 1798 to lead their combined forces in Antrim against the British Crown. Following the defeat and dispersal of the rebels under his command, McCracken was court-martialled and executed in Belfast.
Early life.
Henry Joy McCracken was born in High street, Belfast into two of the city's most prominent Presbyterian industrial families. He was the son of a shipowner, Captain John McCracken and Ann Joy, daughter of Francis Joy, of French Huguenot descent. The Joy family made their money in linen manufacture and founded the "Belfast News Letter".
With his younger sister Henry Mary Ann McCracken, with whom alone in the family he was to share a radical democratic outlook, he attended David Manson's school in Donegall Street. Manson, whose ambition was to banish "drudgery and fear" from children's education, may have been a very considerable influence.
In his classes David Manson mimicked the social hierarchy with pupils ranked from kings and queens to tenants and subtenants. But in contrast to the hierarchy of Crown and landed Ascendancy against which McCracken was later to rebel, Manson's play scheme was entirely meritocratic; involved mutual obligation (as the rent or tribute paid to rank was a certain portion of reading or a spelling lesson, to receive their due the higher ranks were induced to assist the lower, with all accounts settled at a Saturday "parliament"); and was not was not coerced (William Drennan noted that the key to the scheme was the "liberty of each to take the quantity [of lessons] agreeable to his inclination").
Together, his sister Henry would go on to imbibe the radicalism of William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft and Tom Paine. Brother and sister may also have shared a patriotic enthusiasm for Irish music: following Belfast Harpist Festival in July 1792, the McCracken family hosted Edward Bunting who collected and transcribed the Irish airs.
United Irishman.
In response to William Drennan's proposal for a "benevolent conspiracy--a plot for the people", on April 1,1791 McCracken resolved with Samuel Neilson, John Robb, Alexander Lowry and Thomas McCabe to form "an association to unite all Irishmen [...] for the restoration and preservation of our liberty". Those who gathered for the inaugural meeting in October, and who called themselves, at the suggestion of Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Society of United Irishmen, were men with whom McCracken and his family had been associated in Belfast through the Rosemary Street Presbyterian churches and the Irish Volunteer companies. While his name does not appear in early records, he was in the confidence of the Society's executive committee from the outset.
By the time McCracken formally took the United Irish pledge (or "test") on 24 March 1795 to "persevere in endeavouring to form a brotherhood of affection among Irishmen of every religious persuasion", and "to obtain an equal, full and adequate representation of all the people of Ireland", the Society was abandoning its hopes for parliamentary reform. It was just week since the reform-minded Lord Fitzwilliam was recalled as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland after just 100 days in office, and just four days before trade in Belfast and Dublin shut down in "sullen indignation" at this departure. Under the newly repressive regime of Lord Camden, a decided opponent of Catholic emancipation and of all other concessions, thoughts turned increasingly toward the prospect of a French-assisted insurrection.
In June 1795, with three other members of the movement's Northern Executive, Thomas Russell, Samuel Neilson and Robert Simms, McCracken met with Theobald Wolfe Tone who was "en route" to exile in the United States (and France). At McArt's fort atop Cave Hill overlooking Belfast they swore the celebrated oath "never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country, and asserted our independence'".
Working parallel to the "uniting" efforts of Father James Coigly, during the Armagh Disturbanes McCracken and other emissaries from Belfast travelled extensively in an effort to counter sectarian tensions with the Society's republican programme. For a time he lived in County Armagh, working with Charles Teeling amongst the Defenders (and ranging as far south as King's County), urging them to join the united movement and binding himself in substantial sums to meet the expenses of those hauled before biased magistrates by their Protestant neighbours.
Nearer home, in Belfast and its hinterland in Down and Antrim, McCracken worked with Jemmy Hope organising among Presbyterian tenant farmers, tradesmen and labourers. He also undertook the fraught task of seducing government militia and of carrying information between Belfast and Dublin.
In September 1796 Lord Castlereagh personally presented Neilson, Russell, Teeling and five other prominent United men with warrants for their arrest and pursued McCracken. He was seized on 10 October and lodged with the others in Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin. Serious illness, however, permitted his release on bail a little more than a year later, in December 1797.
Rebel commander.
The north did not respond to the call from Dublin and the south to rise on 23 May 1798. In Antrim, Robert Simms, resigned his county command rather than proceed without greater certainty of French assistance. Seizing the initiative, McCracken was elected his replacement by local delegates, and he proclaimed the "First Year of Liberty" on 6 June. There were widespread local musters but before they could coordinate, most were burying their arms and returning to their farms and workplaces. The issue had been decided by the following evening. McCracken, commanding a body of four to six thousand, failed, with heavy losses, to seize Antrim Town where he had planned to surprise a meeting of the county's magistrates.
Catholic Defenders turned out, but in the march upon the town tensions with the Presbyterian United Irish may have caused some desertions and a delay in McCracken's planned assault.
The Crown forces meanwhile prepared and were able themselves to surprise McCracken with reinforcements from their main base in Lisburn.
On 15 June McCracken, together with his brother William, James Hope, James Orr, James Dickey and about 50 other rebel survivors took refuge on the slopes of Slemish, near Ballymena. There they received news of the defeat of the Down insurgency at Ballynahinch on the 12th and, under threat of attack from Scottish Fencibles, dispersed.
Court martial and execution.
McCracken sister, Mary Ann, met with him twice while he was on the run, supplying him with money and clothes. On July 8 she received news that he was in Carrickfergus Gaol: where he had been seized with two companions hoping to embark on a foreign vessel. Court-martialled on July 17, he refused clemency in return for naming the Robert Simms. His last request of his sister, who walked with him later that afternoon to the gallos, was that she convey to his friend Thomas Russell (who, five years later, was to suffer the same fate) the simple message that he had done his "duty". McCracken was hanged in the Corn Market, Belfast (land his grandfather had donated to the town) on 17 July 1798, aged 30.
General Sir George Nugent allowed the body to be cut down quickly and entrusted it to Mary Ann. She arranged for a surgeon to resuscitate her brother but his efforts proved unavailing.
Remembrance.
Spared the indignity of decapitation (comrades who had preceded him had had their heads displayed on spikes), McCracken's body was buried in the Parish Church of St George in Belfast. In 1909, after the High Street graveyard had been cleared for redevelopment, Francis Joseph Bigger reinterred what he believed were McCracken's remains in Clifton Street Cemetery, Belfast, alongside his sister Mary Ann and his daughter Maria (thought to be the child of Mary Bodell) for whom Mary Ann had cared.
Jemmy Hope, who survived both 1798 and his attempt with Robert Emmett and Thomas Russell to renew the insurrection in 1803, named two of his sons (the first having died in infancy) Henry Joy McCracken Hope. "When all our leaders deserted us", recalled Hope, "Henry Joy McCracken stood alone faithful to the last. He led the forlorn hope of the cause ...".


New Iceland

New Iceland ( ) is the name of a region on Lake Winnipeg in the Canadian province Manitoba which was named for settlers from Iceland. It was settled in 1875.
Background.
The first Icelandic emigrants to Canada were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from the Westman Islands. The more general migration followed an offer from Lord Dufferin of land in Manitoba to establish what amounted to a "free state".
Due to harsh environmental and economic conditions in Iceland, including the eruption of Mount Askja, some 20,000 Icelanders left their homeland between 1870 and 1915—roughly a quarter of the population of Iceland. In 1875 a large group of Icelandic immigrants migrated from Ontario to Manitoba, leaving Kinmount, Ontario, on 25 September 1875, for Gimli, Manitoba, on the shores of Lake Winnipeg. One of the main reasons for the choice of the colony site was “the abundance of fish” in Lake Winnipeg, but according to "The Icelandic People in Manitoba", their first attempts at fishing on Lake Winnipeg were not successful, partly because they set their nets too close to the shore. Moreover, the “winter of 1875–1876 was one of the coldest on record in Manitoba, and the settlers’ clothes, including the leather shoes from Ontario, were not suitable for the rigorous weather”. However, the immigrants eventually learned to handle the ax, prepare the soil, fish through ice, and hunt game. They also learned how to drain the land, grow crops, and build better houses.
These Icelandic settlers, known in their native language as "Vestur-Íslendingar" (meaning Icelanders in the West; initially many Icelanders did not see emigration as a change of country, and there was some discussion of moving the entire population), called their settlement "New Iceland", and the region remains a symbolic center of the Icelandic heritage in Canada today.


EDA Youth

EDA Youth (, 'Neolaia EDA', abbreviated NEDA) was the youth wing of the Greek United Democratic Left (EDA). NEDA was a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY).
NEDA merged with the Grigoris Lambrakis Democratic Youth Movement in September 1964, forming the Lambrakis Democratic Youth (DNL).


Constance of Austria

Constance of Austria (; ; 24 December 1588 – 10 July 1631) was queen of Poland as the second wife of King Sigismund III Vasa and the mother of King John II Casimir.
Biography.
Constance was a daughter of Charles II of Austria and Maria Anna of Bavaria. Her paternal grandparents were Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary (1503–1547). Anne was the only daughter of King Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary and his wife Anne de Foix. Her maternal grandparents were Albert V, Duke of Bavaria and Anne Habsburg of Austria.
Constance was also a younger sister of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, Margaret of Austria, Leopold V of Austria and Anna of Austria.
Her older sister Anna was the first wife of King Sigismund III Vasa. After her death Constance and Sigismund were married on December 11, 1605.
They had seven children:
Queen Constance was an ambitious politician. Immediately after the wedding, she made efforts to influence policy. She built a strong faction of followers by arranging marriages between her handmaidens and powerful nobles. She represented the interests of the Habsburg family in Poland, and influenced the appointments of positions in the court, government and church. Her closest confidant was Urszula Meyerin.
Constance was proficient in Spanish, Latin and Italian. She learned Polish after the wedding but rarely used it. She was very religious and went to Mass twice a day. She also was a patron of clerics, painters and architects. She financed the buildings of several palaces for her children, but she was also described as an economic person.
In 1623 Constance bought Żywiec from Mikołaj Komorowski, which was forbidden by law to the members of the Royal Family and caused misunderstandings with the Parliament. Some time later (in 1626) she made it forbidden for Jews to settle in the city ("de non tolerandis Judaeis").
Constance wished to secure the succession of her own son to the throne rather than the son of her sister, but she did not succeed. She died of a stroke.


Serafima Birman

Serafima Germanovna Birman (; – 11 May 1976) was a Soviet and Russian actress, theatre director and writer. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1946).
Biography.
Serafima Birman was born in Kishinyov in the Russian Empire (modern-day Chișinău, Moldova) into a Russian Orthodox family. Her father German Mikhailovich Birman was a Stabs-kapitan who served in the 51st reserve infantry battalion of the Imperial Russian Army. He came from raznochintsy, but was granted personal nobility after making a successful military career. He resigned rather early and died in 1908. Serafima described him as a "lonely, unsociable man... who had little success at finishing things, like the Moldovan-Russian dictionary he was writing for years". Her mother Elena Ivanovna Birman (née Botezat) "was a complete opposite". She came from a wealthy Moldovan family, studied in a finishing school and married as a teenager. At the time German met and married her, she was already a 19-year-old widow with two daughters. Serafima also had a younger brother, Nikolai.
Theatre.
She grew up in Kishinyov and graduated from a local gymnasium for girls with a gold medal. At the age of 11 she visited a theatre and became obsessed with it. One of her stepsisters, then a student at the Saint Petersburg medical university, was offered to play a small part in Konstantin Stanislavski's play. She brought Serafima a signed photo of him and suggested to enter the Moscow Art Theatre. In 1908 she left for Moscow and entered drama courses led by Alexander Adashev; among her fellow students was Evgeny Vakhtangov. , a well-known Bessarabian State Duma deputy and philanthropist, supported her and paid for the first year of studying.
In 1911 Birman graduated from the courses and became an actress of the Moscow Art Theatre with the help of Vasily Kachalov, one of her teachers who sent a recommendation letter straight to Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. From 1913 on she also performed at the First Studio led by Stanislavski. She played her first big role of Ortensia in the 1914 adaptation of "The Mistress of the Inn" play. In 1924 the First Studio was turned into the by its actors led by Michael Chekhov. Same year Birman debuted as a theatre director with "Love – A Golden Book", an adaptation of Aleksey Tolstoy's play. After a number of internal conflicts the theatre was finally closed in 1936.
Birman and other actors then joined the Mossovet Theatre where she continued staging plays. One of her biggest successes was Maxim Gorky's "Vassa Zheleznova" where she also performed in the main part which she considered the role of her life. In 1938 one of the actors Ivan Bersenyev founded the Lenin Komsomol Theatre and invited some of the leading Mossovet actors to join him, including Birman. In 1943 she relaunched "Vassa Zheleznova" and directed other adaptations of classic plays such as Leo Tolstoy's "The Living Corpse" and Edmond Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac". She served there until 1958 and then returned to the Mossovet Theatre where she stayed for the rest of her life.
She also published articles and several non-fiction books dedicated to her profession and Russian theatre in general: "Actor and Character" (1934), "Actor's Labour" (1939)," The Path of an Actress" (1959 and 1962), "Meetings Granted by Fate" (1971).
Cinema.
Birman's first roles in cinema date back to 1918: she played a small part in "But He, Rebellious, Seeks for Tempest..." crime drama and Lady Sophia Entwistle in the "Buried Alive" adaptation of Arnold Bennett's satirical book. Both films were directed by Alexandre Volkoff shortly before his emigration and are considered to be lost today. She returned to big screen during the mid-1920s and played several comedy roles and episodes in a number of silent films, most notably a neighbor in Yakov Protazanov's "The Tailor from Torzhok" (1925) and Madame Irène in Boris Barnet's "The Girl with a Hatbox" (1927). Her unusual appearance and expressive acting attracted comedy directors: between 1956 and 1957 she played two memorable grotesque characters in Andrey Tutishkin's "Crazy Day" and Alexander Stolbov's "An Ordinary Man". She also voiced some animated films.
Yet her biggest success came with "Ivan the Terrible" directed by Sergei Eisenstein in 1944 during the war. Birman played the main antagonist – Evfrosinia Staritskaia, mother of Vladimir of Staritsa – who wanted to see him as a new Russian Tsar and led the plot against Ivan the Terrible. Eisenstein first planned Faina Ranevskaya for this part, but she was rejected by censors supposedly because of her "openly Semitic features". Either way, Birman's character has been widely praised since. In 1946 she was awarded the Stalin Prize and the rank of People's Artist of the RSFSR for it. Same year the second part "The Boyars' Plot" was finished where she reprised the role of Evfrosinia, although the film was met with harsh criticism and banned for 12 years.
Death.
In 1969 Birman's husband Alexander Talanov, a Russian writer and journalist, died of illness aged 68. Serafima took his death hard. She soon became mentally ill and left the theatre. She was taken by her relatives to Leningrad where she went through treatment in mental hospitals until her death in 1976. As one of her close friends Rostislav Plyatt wrote in his memoirs, "She tried to stage "The Blue Bird" with her ward neighbors, hasting to demonstrate the work to her beloved Stanislavski! Irrepressible, she even died Birman-style – no day without theatre!.." She was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow near her husband. While biographers usually state the couple was childless, according to the actor Stanislav Sadalsky Birman actually left some descendants.


Fascism in Europe

Fascism in Europe was the set of various fascist ideologies which were practiced by governments and political organizations in Europe during the 20th century. Fascism was born in Italy following World War I, and other fascist movements, influenced by Italian Fascism, subsequently emerged across Europe. Among the political doctrines which are identified as ideological origins of fascism in Europe are the combining of a traditional national unity and revolutionary anti-democratic rhetoric which was espoused by the integral nationalist Charles Maurras and revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel in France.
The earliest foundations of fascism in practice can be seen in the Italian Regency of Carnaro, led by the Italian nationalist Gabriele D'Annunzio, many of whose politics and aesthetics were subsequently used by Benito Mussolini and his Italian Fasces of Combat which Mussolini had founded as the "Fasces of Revolutionary Action" in 1914. Despite the fact that its members referred to themselves as "fascists", the ideology was based around national syndicalism. The ideology of fascism would not fully develop until 1921, when Mussolini transformed his movement into the National Fascist Party, which then in 1923 incorporated the Italian Nationalist Association. The INA established fascist tropes such as colored shirt uniforms and also received the support of important proto-fascists like D'Annunzio and nationalist intellectual Enrico Corradini.
The first declaration of the political stance of fascism was the Fascist Manifesto, written by national syndicalist Alceste De Ambris and futurist poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and published in 1919. Many of the policies advanced in the manifesto, such as centralization, abolition of the senate, formation of national councils loyal to the state, expanded military power, and support for militias (Blackshirts, for example) were adopted by Mussolini's regime, while other calls such as universal suffrage and a peaceful foreign policy were abandoned. De Ambris later became a prominent anti-fascist. In 1932, "The Doctrine of Fascism", an essay by Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile, provided an outline of fascism that better represented Mussolini's regime.
Regimes and parties.
Some scholars assert that the term "fascism" should only be used to mean the ideology of the National Fascist Party under Benito Mussolini in Italy, which ruled from 1922 to 1943. However, other European regimes that showed strong similarities to Mussolini's] government are also popularly described as fascist. European parties often described as fascist or being strongly influenced by fascism include:
These regimes listed did not fully abide by the doctrine of fascism as stated by Mussolini and Gentile. However all regimes listed presented fascist influence through authoritarianism, use of organised paramilitaries/youth movements loyal to the state, propaganda and rhetoric that opposed liberalism, individualism, democracy, communism, etc, and built their economies around corporatism. These are all elements of governing popularised by Mussolini. The use of the Roman Salute and coloured shirt uniforms used by most of these regimes also shows how the aesthetics established by the National Fascist Party became adopted throughout Europe.
There were multiple regimes in Romania that were influenced by fascism. These include the National Christian Party under Octavian Goga (1938), Party of the Nation under Ion Gigurtu (1940) and the National Legionary State which was led by the Iron Guard under Horia Sima in conjunction with the Romanian military dictatorship under Ion Antonescu (1940-1941). The first two of these regimes were not completely fascist however used fascism to appeal to the growing far-right sympathies amongst the populace. The military dictatorship of Ion Antonescu (1941-1944) is also often considered fascist.
Prior to and during the Second World War, Nazi Germany imposed numerous fascist/fascist related regimes across occupied Europe, these may not fully espouse the form of fascism established by Mussolini however they were authoritarian, nationalist, anti-communist and staunchly pro-Axis powers:
There were also a number of political movements active in Europe that were influenced in part by some features of Mussolini's regime. These include: Le Faisceau, British Fascists, British Union of Fascists, Imperial Fascist League, Blueshirts, French National-Collectivist Party, Breton National Party, Falange Española, Black Front, National Syndicalist Movement, Verdinaso, Nationale Front, Greek National Socialist Party, Vlajka, National Fascist Community, ONR-Falanga, Patriotic People's Movement, Pērkonkrusts, Union of Bulgarian National Legions, Ratniks and the Russian Fascist Party (based in Manchuria).
Prominent figures associated with European fascism outside of the Axis include Oswald Mosley, Rotha Lintorn-Orman, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Joris Van Severen, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, Francisco Rolão Preto, Hristo Lukov, Aleksandar Tsankov, Bolesław Piasecki, Radola Gajda, Eoin O'Duffy, Sven Olov Lindholm, Vihtori Kosola and Konstantin Rodzaevsky.
Other right-wing/far-right political parties such as the German National People's Party, CEDA, Party of Hungarian Life, Union of Mladorossi and the Fatherland League lacked the ideology of fascism but adopted some fascist characteristics. Far-right politicians like Alfred Hugenberg, José María Gil-Robles and Gyula Gömbös represent fascism's influence on the right with these leaders adopting an ultra-nationalist and authoritarian rhetoric influenced by Mussolini and later Hitler's successes.
The nationalism espoused by these groups contrasted the internationalist focus of communism; there was little coordination between fascist movements prior to the Second World War however there was an attempt at unifying European fascists. The 1934 Montreux Fascist conference was a meeting held by members of a number of European fascist parties and movements and was organised by the Comitati d'Azione per l'Universalità di Roma which received support from Mussolini. The first conference was open to many perspectives and failed to develop any unity amidst the many ideological conflicts among the delegates. The second conference was equally ineffective and more meetings were attempted.
After the Second World War, most fascist regimes or regimes influenced by fascism were dismantled by the victors, with only those in Spain and Portugal surviving, both of which remained neutral during the war. Parties, movements or politicians who carried the label "fascist" quickly became political pariahs with many nations across Europe banning any organisations or references relating to fascism and Nazism. With this came the rise of Neo-Fascism, movements like the Italian Social Movement, Socialist Reich Party and Union Movement attempted to continue fascism's legacy but failed to become mass movements.
European fascism influenced movements in the Americas. Both North America and South America would develop fascistic political groups rooted in the local European descended communities. These included the Chilean Nacistas, Brazilian Integralist Action, Argentine Civic Legion, Peruvian Revolutionary Union, National Synarchist Union, Revolutionary Mexicanist Action and the Silver Legion of America along with figures like Plínio Salgado, Gustavo Barroso, González von Marées, Salvador Abascal, Nicolás Carrasco, William Dudley Pelley and Adrien Arcand. Some historians also consider Argentine president Juan Perón and his ideology, Peronism as being influenced by European fascism, however, this has been disputed. Brazilian president, Getúlio Vargas, and his corporate regime known as the "New State" was also influenced by Mussolini's rule. European fascism was also influential in the European diaspora elsewhere in the world, in Australia Eric Campbell's Centre Party and the South African fascist movement, which included Oswald Pirow, being examples of this.
Fascist electoral performance.
In the interwar period many parties which in historiography are referred to as fascist, proto-fascist, para-fascist, quasi-fascist, fascist-like, fascistic, fascistoid or fascistized participated in general elections organized in their respective countries. Though in numerous cases the fascist denomination is doubted (e.g. in case of the Belgian Christus Rex or the Greek National Union), electoral results obtained demonstrate their scale of popular support among the population. The best-ever performance of such parties in specific countries is given in the below table.
Outcome of theoretically multi-party elections which were clearly manipulated is ignored as unrepresentative for genuine support which the party enjoyed, e.g. the result of Partito Nazionale Fascista in Italy of 1924.
In case of some countries the lifetime of a fascistoid party did not overlap with reasonably free general elections, though the party might have fared well in other elections, e.g. in local elections in Bulgaria of 1934 Народно социално движение gained 12% of the votes, in local elections of Estonia in 1934 Eesti Vabadussõjalaste Kesklii won absolute majority of seats in 3 largest cities, while in local elections of France in 1938-1939 Parti Social Français garnered some 15% of the votes. Some parties, like National Corporate Party in Ireland or Le Faisceau in France existed so briefly that they hardly managed to take part in any type of elections.
In some countries clearly fascistoid parties ignored electoral competition, like British Union of Fascists did in case of the UK elections of 1935. At times fascist parties abstained since elecions were considered manipulated, like in case of Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny in Polish elections of 1935.
In case of some countries (Albania, Luxembourg, Turkey) no party even distantly meeting fascistoid criteria has been identified.
Early relationship.
Mussolini and Adolf Hitler were not always allies. While Mussolini wanted the expansion of fascist ideology throughout the world, he did not initially appreciate Hitler and the Nazi Party. Hitler was an early admirer of Mussolini and asked for Mussolini's guidance on how the Nazis could pull off their own March on Rome. Mussolini did not respond to Hitler's requests as he did not have much interest in Hitler's movement and regarded Hitler to be somewhat crazy. Mussolini did attempt to read "Mein Kampf" to find out what Hitler's Nazism was, but he was immediately disappointed, saying that "Mein Kampf" was "a boring tome that I have never been able to read" and claimed that Hitler's beliefs were "little more than commonplace clichés".
Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1922 had praised the rise to power of Mussolini and sought a German-Italian alliance. Upon Mussolini's rise to power, the Nazis declared their admiration and emulation of the Italian Fascists, with Nazi member Hermann Esser in November 1922 saying that "what a group of brave men in Italy have done, we can also do in Bavaria. We’ve also got Italy’s Mussolini: his name is Adolf Hitler".
The second part of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" ("The National Socialist Movement", 1926) contains this passage:
In a 1931 interview, Hitler spoke admirably about Mussolini, commending Mussolini's racial origins as being the same as that of Germans and claimed at the time that Mussolini was capable of building an Italian Empire that would outdo the Roman Empire and that he supported Mussolini's endeavors, saying:
Mussolini had personal reasons to oppose antisemitism as his longtime mistress and Fascist propaganda director Margherita Sarfatti was Jewish. She had played an important role in the foundation of the fascist movement in Italy and promoting it to Italians and the world through supporting the arts. However, within the Italian fascist movement there were a minority who endorsed Hitler's antisemitism as Roberto Farinacci, who was part of the far-right wing of the party.
There were also nationalist reasons why Germany and Italy were not immediate allies. Habsburg Austria (Hitler's birthplace) had an antagonistic relationship with Italy since it was formed, largely because Austria-Hungary had seized most of the territories once belonging to Italian states such as Venice. Italian irredentist claims sought the return of these lands to Italian rule ("Italia irredenta"). Although initially neutral, Italy entered World War I on the side of the Allies against Germany and Austria-Hungary when promised several territories (Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Trieste, Istria and Dalmatia). After the war had ended, Italy was rewarded with these territories under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
In Germany and Austria, the annexation of Alto Adige/South Tyrol was controversial as the province was made up of a large majority of German speakers. While Hitler did not pursue this claim, many in the Nazi Party felt differently. In 1939, Mussolini and Hitler agreed on the South Tyrol Option Agreement. When Mussolini's government collapsed in 1943 and the Italian Social Republic was created, Alto Adige/South Tyrol was annexed to Nazi Greater Germany, but was restored to Italy after the war.
Racism.
The most striking difference is the racialist ideology which was the central priority of Nazism, but not a priority of the other ideologies. Fascism was founded on the principle of nationalist unity which opposed the divisionist class war ideologies of Marxist socialism and communism; therefore, the majority of the regimes viewed racialism as counterproductive to unity, with Mussolini asserting: that "National pride has no need of the delirium of race".
Nazism differed from Italian fascism in that it had a stronger emphasis on race in terms of social and economic policies. Though both ideologies denied the significance of the individual, Italian fascism saw the individual as subservient to the state whereas Nazism saw the individual as well as the state as ultimately subservient to the race. However, subservience to the Nazi state was also a requirement on the population. Mussolini's fascism held that cultural factors existed to serve the state and that it was not necessarily in the state's interest to interfere in cultural aspects of society. The only purpose of government in Mussolini's fascism was to uphold the state as supreme above all else, a concept which can be described as statolatry.
Unlike Hitler, Mussolini repeatedly changed his views on the issue of race according to the circumstances of the time. In 1921, Mussolini promoted the development of the Italian race such as when he said this:
Like Hitler, Mussolini publicly declared his support of a eugenics policy to improve the status of Italians in 1926 to the people of Reggio Emilia:
In a 1921 speech in Bologna, Mussolini stated the following: "Fascism was born [...] out of a profound, perennial need of this our Aryan and Mediterranean race". In this speech, Mussolini was referring to Italians as being the Mediterranean branch of the Aryan race, Aryan in the meaning of people of an Indo-European language and culture. However, Italian fascism initially strongly rejected the common Nordicist conception of the Aryan race that idealized "pure" Aryans as having certain physical traits that were defined as Nordic such as blond hair and blue eyes. The antipathy by Mussolini and other Italian fascists to Nordicism was over the existence of the Mediterranean inferiority complex that had been instilled into Mediterraneans by the propagation of such theories by German and Anglo-Saxon Nordicists who viewed Mediterranean peoples as racially degenerate and thus inferior. Mussolini refused to allow Italy to return again to this inferiority complex.
In a private conversation with Emil Ludwig in 1932, Mussolini derided the concept of a biologically superior race and denounced racism as being a foolish concept. Mussolini did not believe that race alone was that significant. Mussolini viewed himself as a modern-day Roman Emperor, the Italians as a cultural elite and he also wished to "Italianise" the parts of the Italian Empire which he had desired to build. A cultural superiority of Italians, rather than a view of racialism. Mussolini believed that the development of a race was insignificant in comparison to the development of a culture, but he did believe that a race could be improved through moral development, though he did not say that this would make a superior race:
Mussolini believed that a biologically superior race was not possible, but that a more developed culture's superiority over the less developed ones warranted the destruction of the latter, such as the culture of Ethiopia and the neighboring Slavic cultures, such as those in Slovenia and Croatia. He took advantage of the fact that no undertaking with regard to the rights of minorities such as those that lived in Istria and Trieste's surroundings was made in either the Treaty of Rapallo or the Treaty of Rome and after 1924 Treaty of Rome these same treaties did not make any undertaking with regard to the rights of the minorities that lived in Rijeka. Croatian, Slovene, German and French toponyms were systematically Italianized.
Against ethnic Slovenes, he imposed an especially violent fascist Italianization policy. To Italianize ethnic Slovene and Croatian children, Fascist Italy brought Italian teachers from Southern Italy to the ex Austro-Hungarian territories that had been given to Italy in exchange for its decision to join Great Britain in World War I such as Slovene Littoral and a big part of western Slovenia while Slovene and Croatian teachers, poets, writers, artists, and clergy were exiled to Sardinia and Southern Italy. Acts of fascist violence were not hampered by the authorities, such as the burning down of the Narodni dom (Community Hall of ethnic Slovenes in Trieste) in Trieste, which was carried out at night by fascists with the connivance of the police on 13 July 1920.
After the complete destruction of all Slovene minority cultural, financial, and other organizations and the continuation of violent fascist Italianization policies of ethnic cleansing, one of the first anti-fascist organizations in Europe, TIGR, emerged in 1927, and it coordinated the Slovene resistance against Fascist Italy until it was dismantled by the fascist secret police in 1941, after which some ex-TIGR members joined the Slovene Partisans.
For Mussolini, the inclusion of people in a fascist society depended upon their loyalty to the state. Meetings between Mussolini and Arab dignitaries from the colony of Libya convinced him that the Arab population was worthy enough to be given extensive civil rights and as a result, he allowed Muslims to join a Muslim section of the Fascist Party, namely the Muslim Association of the Lictor. However, under pressure from Nazi Germany, the fascist regime eventually embraced a racist ideology, such as promoting the belief that Italy was settling Africa in order to create a white civilization there and it imposed five-year prison sentences on any Italians who were caught having sexual or marital relationships with native Africans. Against those colonial peoples who were not loyal, vicious campaigns of repression were waged such as in Ethiopia, where native Ethiopian settlements were burned to the ground by the Italian armed forces in 1937. Under fascism, native Africans were allowed to join the Italian armed forces as colonial troops and they also appeared in fascist propaganda.
At least in its overt ideology, the Nazi movement believed that the existence of a class-based society was a threat to its survival, and as a result, it wanted to unify the racial element above the established classes, but the Italian fascist movement sought to preserve the class system and uphold it as the foundation of an established and desirable culture. Nevertheless, the Italian fascists did not reject the concept of social mobility and a central tenet of the fascist state was meritocracy, yet fascism also heavily based itself on corporatism, which was supposed to supersede class conflicts. Despite these differences, Kevin Passmore (2002 p. 62) observes: There are sufficient similarities between Fascism and Nazism to make it worthwhile by applying the concept of fascism to both. In Italy and Germany, a movement came to power that sought to create national unity through the repression of national enemies and the incorporation of all classes and both genders into a permanently mobilized nation.
Nazi ideologues such as Alfred Rosenburg were highly skeptical of the Italian race and fascism, but he believed that the improvement of the Italian race was possible if major changes were made in order to convert it into an acceptable "Aryan" race and he also said that the Italian fascist movement would only succeed if it purified the Italian race into an Aryan one. Nazi theorists believed that the downfall of the Roman Empire was due to the interbreeding of different races which created a "polluted" Italian race that was inferior.
Hitler believed this and he also believed that Mussolini represented an attempt to revive the pure elements of the former Roman civilization, such as the desire to create a strong and aggressive Italian people. However, Hitler was still audacious enough when meeting Mussolini for the first time in 1934 to tell him that all Mediterranean peoples were "tainted" by "Negro blood" and thus in his racist view they were degenerate.
Relations between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were initially poor but they deteriorated even further after the assassination of Austria's fascist chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss by Austrian Nazis in 1934. Under Dollfuss Austria was a key ally of Mussolini and Mussolini was deeply angered by Hitler's attempt to take over Austria and he expressed it by angrily mocking Hitler's earlier remark on the impurity of the Italian race by declaring that a "Germanic" race did not exist and he also indicated that Hitler's repression of Germany's Jews proved that the Germans were not a pure race:
Foreign affairs.
Italian Fascism was expansionist in its desires, looking to create a New Roman Empire. Nazi Germany was even more aggressive in expanding its borders in violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. The Nazis murdered the Austrofascist dictator Dollfuss, causing an uneasy relationship in Austria between fascism and Nazism at an early stage. Italian nationalist and pan-German claims clashed over the issue of Tyrol.
In the 1920s, Hitler with only a small Nazi party at the time wanted to form an alliance with Mussolini's regime as he recognized that his pan-German nationalism was seen as a threat by Italy. In Hitler's unpublished sequel to "Mein Kampf", he attempts to address concerns among Italian fascists about Nazism. In the book, Hitler puts aside the issue of Germans in Tyrol by explaining that overall Germany and Italy have more in common than not and that the Tyrol Germans must accept that it is in Germany's interests to be allied with Italy. Hitler claims that Germany, like Italy, was subjected to oppression by its neighbours and he denounces the Austrian Empire as having oppressed Italy from completing national unification just as France oppressed Germany from completing its national unification. Hitler's denunciation of Austria in the book is important because Italian fascists were skeptical about him due to the fact that he was born in Austria which Italy had considered to be its primary enemy for centuries and Italy saw Germany as an ally of Austria. By declaring that the Nazi movement was not interested in the territorial legacy of the Austrian Empire, this is a way to assure the Italian fascists that Hitler, the Nazi movement and Germany were not enemies of Italy.
Despite public attempts of goodwill by Hitler towards Mussolini, Germany and Italy came into conflict in 1934 when Engelbert Dollfuss, the Austrofascist leader of Italy's ally Austria, was assassinated by Austrian Nazis on Hitler's orders in preparation for a planned Anschluss (annexation of Austria). Mussolini ordered troops to the Austrian-Italian border in readiness for war against Germany. Hitler backed down and defer plans to annex Austria.
When Hitler and Mussolini first met, Mussolini referred to Hitler as "a silly little monkey" before the Allies forced Mussolini into an agreement with Hitler. Mussolini also reportedly asked Pope Pius XII to excommunicate Hitler. From 1934 to 1936, Hitler continually attempted to win the support of Italy and the Nazi regime endorsed the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (leading to Ethiopia's annexation as Italian East Africa) while the League of Nations condemned Italian aggression. With other countries opposing Italy, the fascist regime had no choice but to draw closer to Nazi Germany. Germany joined Italy in supporting the Nationalists under Francisco Franco with forces and supplies in the Spanish Civil War.
Later, Germany and Italy signed the Anti-Comintern Pact committing the two regimes to oppose the Comintern and Soviet communism. By 1938, Mussolini allowed Hitler to carry out Anschluss in exchange for official German renunciation of claims to Tyrol. Mussolini supported the annexation of the Sudetenland during the Munich Agreement talks later the same year.
In 1939, the Pact of Steel was signed, officially creating an alliance of Germany and Italy. The Nazi official newspaper "Völkischer Beobachter" published articles extolling the mutually benefit of the alliance:
Hitler and Mussolini recognized commonalities in their politics and the second part of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" ("The National Socialist Movement", 1926) contains this passage:
Both regimes despised France (seen as an enemy which held territories claimed by both Germany and Italy) and Yugoslavia (seen by the Nazis as a racially degenerate Slavic state and holding lands such as Dalmatia claimed by the Italian fascists). Fascist territorial claims on Yugoslav territory meant that Mussolini saw the destruction of Yugoslavia as essential for Italian expansion. Hitler viewed Slavs as racially inferior, but he did not see importance in an immediate invasion of Yugoslavia, instead focusing on the threat from the Soviet Union.
Mussolini favored using the extremist Croatian nationalist Ustaše as a useful tool to tear down Yugoslavia, led by the Serbs and with a Serbian dynasty, the House of Karađorđević. In 1941, the Italian military campaign in Greece (the Greco-Italian War, called the Battle of Greece for the period after the German intervention) was failing. Hitler reluctantly began the Balkan Campaign with the invasion of Yugoslavia. German, Italian, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Croatian insurgents (under the Axis puppet Independent State of Croatia) decisively defeated Yugoslavia.
In the aftermath, with the exception of Serbia and Vardar Macedonia, most of Yugoslavia was reshaped based on Italian fascist foreign policy objectives. Mussolini demanded and received much of Dalmatia from the Croats in exchange for supporting the independence of Croatia. Mussolini's policy of creating an independent Croatia prevailed over Hitler's anti-Slavism and eventually, the Nazis and the Ustashe regime of Croatia would develop closer bonds due to the Ustashe's brutal effectiveness at suppressing Serb dissidents.
The question of religion also poses considerable conflicting differences as some forms of fascism, particularly the Fatherland Front and National Union that were devoutly Catholic. The occultist and pagan elements of Nazi ideology were very hostile to the traditional Christianity found in the vast majority of fascist movements of the 20th century.
References.
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography


Roundton Hill

Roundton Hill is a rounded, steep sided, hill, volcanic in origin, in the easternmost part of old Montgomeryshire, Wales, which juts into the English border near Church Stoke. It is managed as a nature reserve by the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust, who acquired it in 1985.
Archaeology.
There was once an Iron Age hillfort here. The vantage point offers views across the surrounding countryside, with views of Corndon Hill to the north, as well as the Cambrian Mountains to the west. Lead and Barytes mines run into the hill, and are today used as a roost by Horseshoe and Daubenton's bats. Having avoided the plough, the hill's steep rocky slopes still support plants such as the mountain pansy, which has long since disappeared from most of the hills in mid-Wales. The reserve was made a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in 1986.


Province of Villafranca

The Province of Villafranca (also known as Province of Villafranca del Bierzo, Province of El Bierzo, or Province of El Vierzo) was a province of Spain created in the 1822 territorial division of Spain (27 January 1822), during the "Trienio Liberal" of 1820–1823. Its population of 86,365 represented 0.7% of the total Spanish population of the time. Its capital was Villafranca del Bierzo. With the restoration of absolutism, this territorial division was revoked 1 October 1823. Although Javier de Burgos's 1833 territorial division of Spain was very close to that of 1822, the province of Villafranca was not recreated; the other two major changes were the omission of the provinces of Calatayud and Játiva.
Territories.
The territories of the province of Villafranca included the present-day "comarca" of El Bierzo in the Province of León, plus several other Leonese municipalities and some other territories that now belong to the provinces of Lugo and Ourense.
Following the general pattern of the 1822 territorial division of Spain, the province was named after its capital city, Villafranca del Bierzo. However, the regionalists in this area have always favored the name "El Bierzo" or "El Vierzo" ("El Bierzu" in the local Bercian dialect).
Background.
There have been many Bercian administrative entities in the history of Spain. El Bierzo was one of the 40 provinces of the Crown of Castile under the "Repartimiento" of 1591. Later, until the territorial division in the 1780s by Floridablanca, it was habitually united with León and Asturias, and referred to as either the "Partido de Ponferrada" or the "Provincia del Vierzo".
From 1789 to 1833 there were numerous efforts to reorganize the territory of Spain. El Bierzo was variously integrated into Province of León or the Prefecture of Astorga, or (in 1822) made a province in its own right. In this period, when conservatives and absolutists favored a system of "partidos" and liberals favored a division reflecting the newly rationalized departments of France, there were Bercian regionalists on both sides of that divide, each wanting the recognition of the region within whichever system they advocated.
The liberal territorial division of 1822 seemed briefly to satisfy these ambitions; however, with the return to absolutism the following year, that decree was revoked, and the 1833 territorial division, which remains largely in effect down to the present day, although hewing closely to the 1822 plan, did not include a Bercian province.


Dunfermline Building Society

The Dunfermline Building Society was a building society and later a trading division of Nationwide Building Society, based in Dunfermline, Scotland. Before its 2009 merger with Nationwide, it was the largest building society in Scotland and the 12th largest in the United Kingdom based on total assets of £3.3 billion at 31 December 2007. It was a member of the Building Societies Association.
On 28 March 2009, reports indicated the Society was no longer viable, and would be put up for public sale, to be managed by the Bank of England. This process led to acquisition of the Society's branches, good loans and deposits by the Nationwide Building Society with the Bank of England assuming control of £1bn in commercial lending and the Society's poorer-quality and shared ownership mortgages. The Dunfermline was fully integrated into Nationwide in June 2014.
History.
The Dunfermline was established in 1869 in the town of Dunfermline from which it took its name.
It expanded throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and acquired over 20 other organisations including: the Stenhousemuir, Peebles, Fourth Fifeshire Investment Company, the Stirlingshire, and the Edinburgh and Paisley Building Society.
A telephone banking service, Dunfermline Direct, was launched during Spring 1999.
By the end of 2005, the Society had 34 branches and 38 agencies throughout Scotland. Around 20% of its business was generated outwith Scotland. The Society also had a large commercial lending book and was leading the way in investment in social housing.
2009 financial crisis.
In the 6 months running up to March 2009 the Board explored various options to secure an injection of capital (between £60m and £100m) which would allow the Building Society to continue operating as an independent mutual building society. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) stated that such capital would not be possible.
On 28 March 2009, reports indicated the building society was no longer viable, toxic assets would be stripped out and the remaining business put up for public sale, to be managed by the Tripartite Authorities (Bank of England, FSA and HM Treasury). BBC Scotland business editor Douglas Fraser broke the story, where a £26m loss was announced in late March 2009. Around 500 jobs are at risk, where half are employed at its headquarters in Fife and half in the network of 34 branches.
It was announced on 30 March that the Nationwide Building Society had bought the retail and wholesale deposits, branches, head office and most of the residential mortgage book of the Dunfermline, with the Bank of England assuming control of £1bn in commercial lending. Dunfermline became a trading division of Nationwide.
On 24 October 2013, Nationwide announced that Dunfermline Building Society would be merged with the company.


Lorium

Lorium was an ancient village of ancient Etruria, Italy, along the Via Aurelia, 19 km west of Rome. The 15th emperor of the Roman Empire, Antoninus Pius, who was educated here, afterwards built a palace, in which he died. It was also a favorite haunt of Pius' successor as emperor, Marcus Aurelius.
Remains of ancient buildings exist in the neighborhood of the road on each side (near the modern Castel di Guido) and remains of tombs, inscriptions, etc., were excavated in 1823–1824. Parts of an elite villa have been excavated near Castel di Guido as well. Three or four kilometres farther west was probably the post-station of Baebiana, where inscriptions show that some sailors of the fleet were stationed; no doubt a detachment of those at Centumcellae, which was reached by this road.


Hastein

Hastein (Old Norse: "Hásteinn") (also recorded as "Anstign", "Haesten", "Hæsten", "Hæstenn" or "Hæsting" and alias "Alsting") was a notable Viking chieftain of the late 9th century who made several raiding voyages.
Early life.
Little is known of Hastein's early life. He is described as a Dane in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle".
Hastein is credited with being involved with various raids on the Frankish Empire. He also led a great raid into the Mediterranean in 859.
For indeed the Frankish nation, which was crushed by the avenger Anstign [Hastein], was very full of filthy uncleanness. Treasonous and oath-breaking, they were deservedly condemned; unbelievers and faithless, they were justly punished ... "Dudo of St. Quentin's. Gesta Normannorum. Book 1. Chapter 3."
Spain and the Mediterranean.
During 859–862, Hastein jointly led an expedition with Björn Ironside. A fleet of 62 ships sailed from the Loire to raid countries in the Mediterranean.
At first the raiding did not go well, with Hastein being defeated by the Asturians and later the Muslims of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba at Niebla in 859. Success followed with the sacking of Algeciras, where the mosque was burned, and then the ravaging of Mazimma in the Idrisid Caliphate on the north coast of Africa, followed by further raids into the Umayyad Caliphate at Orihuela, the Balearic Islands and Roussillon. They occupied Nekor for 8 days.
Hastein and Björn wintered at Camargue island on the mouth of the Rhone before ravaging Narbonne, Nîmes and Arles, then as far north as Valence, before moving onto Italy. There they attacked the city of Luna. Believing it to be Rome, Hastein had his men carry him to the gate and tell the guards he was dying and wished to convert to Christianity. Once inside, he was taken to the town's church where he received the sacraments, before jumping from his stretcher and leading his men in a sack of the town. Another account has him claiming to want to convert before he died, and then feigning death on the following day. Luna then allowed his body and 50 of his men clad in robes enter for his burial. Hastein's men had concealed swords under their robes, and once inside Hastein leaped from his coffin, decapitated the priest and sacked the city. However, the veracity of this is much debated. He sailed down the coast and sacked Pisa and, sailing on the River Arno, ravaged Fiesole. The fleet then possibly raided the Byzantine Empire's territories in the eastern Mediterranean.
On the way back to the Loire, he stopped off in North Africa where he bought several African slaves (known to the Vikings as 'blámenn', "blue men", possibly Soussians or Tuaregs) who he later sold in Ireland. They were presumed to have lost 40 ships in a storm, and lost 2 more at the Straits of Gibraltar on their way home, near Medina-Sidonia, but still managed to ravage Pamplona before returning home to the Loire with 20 ships.
Loire and Seine.
Settled back in Brittany, Hastein allied himself with Salomon, King of Brittany against the Franks in 866, and as part of a Viking-Breton army he killed Robert the Strong at the Battle of Brissarthe near Châteauneuf-sur-Sarthe. In 867 he went on to ravage Bourges and a year later attacked Orléans. Peace lasted until spring 872 when the Viking fleet sailed up the Maine and occupied Angers, which led to a siege by the Frankish king Charles the Bald and a peace being agreed in October 873.
Hastein remained in the Loire country until 882, when he was finally expelled by Charles and then relocated his army north to the Seine. There he stayed until the Franks besieged Paris and his territory in the Picardy was threatened. It was at this point he became one of many experienced Vikings to look to England for riches and plunder.
England.
Hastein crossed to England from Boulogne in 892 leading one of two great companies. His army, the smaller of the two, landed in 80 ships and occupied the royal village of Milton in Kent, whilst his allies landed at Appledore with 250 ships. Alfred the Great positioned the West Saxon army between them to keep them from uniting, the result of which was that Hastein agreed terms, including allowing his two sons to be baptised, and left Kent for Essex. The larger army attempted to reunite with Hastein after raiding Hampshire and Berkshire in the late spring of 893, but was defeated at Farnham by an army under Prince Edward, Alfred's son. The survivors eventually reached Hastein's army at Mersea Island, after a combined West Saxon and Mercian army failed to dislodge them from their fortress at Thorney.
As a result, Hastein combined his forces from Appledore and Milton and withdrew them to a fortified camp at Benfleet, Essex. He used this camp as a base to raid Mercia. However, while his main force was out raiding those left in the fort were defeated by the bolstered militia of eastern Wessex. The West Saxons captured the fort, along with the ships, booty, women and children. This included Hastein's own wife and sons. Hastein re-established his combined force at a new fort at Shoebury further north in Essex, and received reinforcements from the settled Danes of East Anglia and York. Shortly after, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Hastein held talks with Alfred, possibly to discuss terms for the release of his family.
Whatever the discussion, it seems Hastein had his two sons returned to him. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that it was because
Alfred and Alfred's son-in-law Aethelred of Mercia, had stood sponsor to Hastein's sons at their baptism in early 893, before Hastein had arrived at Benfleet. Thus Alfred was godfather to one boy and Aethelred godfather to the other
If Alfred's strategy was to create peace then it was a failure as shortly after, Hastein launched a second raid along the Thames valley and from there along the River Severn. Hastein was pursued all the way by Aethelred and a combined Mercian and West Saxon army, reinforced by a contingent of warriors from the Welsh kingdoms. Eventually the Viking army was trapped at Buttington, this was possibly the island of Buttington on the Severn near Welshpool, Powys, then at the resulting Battle of Buttington several weeks later they fought their way out, and lost many men, and returned to the fortress at Shoebury. According to the annals:
..after many weeks had passed, some of the heathen [Vikings] died of hunger, but some, having by then eaten their horses, broke out of the fortress, and joined battle with those who were on the east bank of the river. But, when many thousands of pagans had been slain, and all the others had been put to flight, the Christians [English] were masters of the place of death. In that battle the most noble Ordheah and many of the king's thegns were killed ...
In late summer 893, Hastein's men struck out again. They moved all their booty, women and ships, from East Anglia, to a ruined Roman fortress at Chester. The plan was to rebuild the fortifications and use it as a base for raiding northern Mercia. However, the Mercians had other ideas, they laid siege to the fortress and attempted to starve the Danes out by removing or retrieving any livestock and destroying any crops in the area.
In the autumn the besieged army left Chester, marched down to the south of Wales and devastated the Welsh kingdoms of Brycheiniog, Gwent and Glywysing until the summer of 894. They return via Northumbria, the Danish held midlands of the Five Burghs, and East Anglia to return to the fort at Mersea Island. In the autumn of 894, the army towed their ships up the Thames to a new fort on the River Lea. In the summer of 895 Alfred arrived with the West Saxon army, and obstructed the course of the Lea with a fort either side of the river. The Danes abandoned their camp, returned their women to East Anglia and made another great march across the Midlands to a site on the Severn (where Bridgnorth now stands), followed all the way by hostile forces. There they stayed until the spring of 896 when the army finally dispersed into East Anglia, Northumbria and according to the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", those that were penniless found themselves ships and went south across the sea to the Seine.
Legacy.
Hastein disappeared from history in around 896, by then an old man having already been described as "the lusty and terrifying old warrior of the Loire and the Somme", when he arrived in England several years earlier. He was one of the most notorious and successful Vikings of all time, having raided dozens of cities across many kingdoms in Europe and North Africa.
The Norman monk Dudo of Saint-Quentin was very critical of Hastein:
This was a man accursed: fierce, mightily cruel, and savage, pestilent, hostile, sombre, truculent, given to outrage, pestilent and untrustworthy, fickle and lawless. Death-dealing, uncouth, fertile in ruses, warmonger general, traitor, fomenter of evil, and double-dyed dissimulator ... "Dudo of St. Quentin's. Gesta Normannorum. Book 1. Chapter 3."
He is identified with the Jarl Hasting who held the Channel Islands for a while.
Some scholars have suggested that the Hastings area of Sussex in England may have been founded by a forebear of Hastein.
Fictional representations.
Jarl Hastein is a recurring character in Bernard Cornwell's "The Saxon Stories", as a former ally and then opponent of Uhtred of Bebbanburg. In the television adaptation "The Last Kingdom" he is played by Norwegian actor Jeppe Beck Laursen.
Jarl Hastein also appears in the fictional series "The Strongbow Saga" written by Judson Roberts.
The Old Gods expansion pack for 2012's Crusader Kings II makes it possible to play as Hastein. The game's successor, Crusader Kings III, includes Hastein as one of the bookmark characters players are encouraged to play as and has become one of the most well known characters amongst the game's playerbase due to his versatility.


Battle of Mestre

The sortie on Mestre occurred during the revolutionary year of 1848 on October 27.<BR>
Italian volunteers charged the Austrian fortification, took the town and withdrew, with the loot of three baggage-waggons, eight horses, large quantity of ammunition and the military chest, back to the fort at Marghera.
Prelude.
A narrative on the event of the sortie on mestre, was written by Lieutenant-General Pepe, and published by Henry Colburn in 1850, London:
"On the morning of the 27th, before dawn, the General-in-Chief, surrounded by his staff, from the lunette No. 12 in the fort of Malghera, observed the movement of three columns, which contained in all about 2000 bayonets. That on the left consisted of 450 men of the fifth Venetian legion, commanded by its colonel, D'Amigo, and embarked on a number of boats; it was preceded by five pirogues and two scouts, under the orders of Captain Basilesso of the navy. These boats, with their artillery, were intended to facilitate the landing of our men in Fuseria."
"The Colonel had instructions to occupy that post, and afterwards the part of Boaria which adjoins the city of Mestre, so as to form a reserve for the centre column. This column consisted of 900 men, commanded by Colonel Morandi, and composed of Lombard and Bolognese volunteers; its orders were to dislodge the enemy entrenched on the railroad, and then to occupy Mestre by force. The right column of 650 men, formed of the free Italian battalion, and the chasseurs of the Upper Reno, commanded by Colonel Zambeccari, had orders to take a barricade erected on the narrow banks of the canal of Mestre, and defended by two guns, and by considerable numbers of infantry posted in the neighbouring houses, which were fortified with loopholes."
The sortie.
A narrative on the event of the sortie on mestre, was written by Lieutenant-General Pepe, and published by Henry Colburn in 1850, London:
"The strength of the enemy was about 3000 men on the whole line, besides 2000 entrenched in Mestre, which was also defended by many field-pieces, and by chasseurs ready to fire from the houses."
"The centre column was stopped by the fire of the muskets, and by the artillery of the enemy. The General-in-Chief despatched Colonel Ulloa with one hundred gendarmes of the reserve, and with this reinforcement he rallied and urged on the column at the pas de charge; and they penetrated into the city. They were stopped a second time; but in spite of the obstinate resistance they encountered, and the great loss they sustained, they advanced onwards."
"The enemy, after losing part of their artillery, defended themselves from the houses. Captain Sirtori, Major Rosaroll, and Captain Cattabene, bold even to temerity, undertook with a handful of brave Lombards to drive out the Austrian's house by house, and thus opened the way to our troops who occupied the city militarily."
"But what was still better, was to have proved that the Italian volunteers, who only a few months before had taken arms for the first time, commanded by officers for the most part new to the profession, had beaten the Austrians, who were superior in number, well entrenched, obstinately defended, and prepared overnight to receive us, and who made use of the loop-holed houses as a second line of defence."
Aftermath.
Part of the loot taken from Mestre, included the official Austrian war correspondence. Amongst which the Venetians discovered that the Austrians had been informed of the projected attack, and had made all the necessary arrangements to meet it, which proved that the Venetians had a spy amongst their ranks.


Matthew of Ajello

Matthew of Ajello () was a high-ranking member of the Norman court of the Kingdom of Sicily in the 12th century. His brother John was a bishop.
Career.
He first appears as the notary of the Admiral Maio of Bari who drew up the Treaty of Benevento of 1156. He rose to prominence in the next reign, that of William II of Sicily, becoming first grand protonotary and then chancellor.
Maio groomed Matthew to be his successor and, it was alleged, even used him to get permission from Pope Alexander III in Rome for Maio to succeed William I in 1159. On 10 November 1160, Matthew warned Maio of an impending assassination attempt, but to no avail. While Matthew escaped, Maio was killed by Matthew Bonnellus.
In 1162, Matthew interceded to prevent the William I from sacking Salerno. On William's death, he became foremost among the advisors of the queen regent, Margaret of Navarre. After the rebellions of the later years of William's reign, Matthew compiled from memory a vast catalogue of records lost in the revolts. In 1166, he was a candidate for the chancellorship but was passed over in favour of Stephen du Perche, which caused him lasting resentment.
He took part in the conspiracies of Henry, Count of Montescaglioso, but was not arrested. However, he joined with Gentile, Bishop of Agrigento to assassinate Stephen in Palermo after Henry's arrest in Messina. This failed and both were arrested. Yet from prison Matthew coordinated a new conspiracy, and his plotters successfully besieged the chancellor in the cathedral tower and released Matthew, who offered the chancellor the opportunity to leave unmolested on crusade, paving the way for Matthew's own rise to the chancellery.
But Matthew was not raised immediately to the rank of chancellor. He was first appointed vice-chancellor (1169), in which capacity he constantly advised Margaret against interfering in the crisis between church and state in England, where Margaret supported Thomas Becket and Pope Alexander III, and Matthew firmly supported King Henry II, believing his cause was similar to that of the previous monarchs of Sicily. For similar reasons, in his later years he opposed Walter of the Mill's feudalising and pro-imperial policies. The chronicler Richard of San Germano described Walter and Matthew as "the two firmest columns of the Kingdom."
Matthew was known to be a cruel bigamist. Though racked with gout, which the poet Peter of Eboli states he tried to cure by washing his feet in the blood of children.
Matthew opposed the marriage of Princess Constance paternal aunt of William II, who was confined as a nun to a monastery from childhood due to a prophecy that "her marriage would destroy Sicily", to Prince Henry of Holy Roman Empire, the future Henry VI; while William II had named his aunt heiress to the Sicilian throne and ordered Matthew and others to swear fealty, Matthew induced Walter and other barons to support Tancred, Count of Lecce, an illegitimate cousin of William, for the throne after the death of William. It was Matthew's propaganda against Roger of Andria that ruined that claimant's candidature and secured Tancred's coronation and Matthew's urging that brought the Pope Clement III on side. For this, Tancred created Matthew chancellor, the first since the flight of Stephen du Perche in 1168.
In 1191 Emperor Henry attempted to invade Sicily to strive for the Sicilian crown for Empress Constance but failed and retreated, leaving Constance at Salerno as a sign that he would soon return. Nicholas son of Matthew who had been made archbishop of Salerno was hostile to Germans, and at then he was at Naples to help the defense there. He wrote letters to some friends at Salerno, and later they resubmitted to Tancred and handed Constance over to him. Unable to persuade Tancred to put Constance to death, Queen Sibylla discussed with Matthew on the place to imprison Constance, and Matthew wrote a letter to Tancred at her presence, managing to persuade him to lock Constance in Castel dell'Ovo at Naples, a castle on an island and surrounded by water to be better-guarded and secluded from people, in the custody of nobleman Aligerno Cottone who was defending Naples. In addition Matthew wrote to Aligerno ordering him to "ut imperatricem in Castro Salvatoris ad mare benè custodiat" (guard the empress in Castle of the Savior (i. e. Castel dell'Ovo) in the sea properly). However, only one year later under the pressure of Pope Celestine III Tancred had to send Constance to Rome to exchange for his recognition from the Pope, and on the way Constance was released by German soldiers.
Matthew's health, however, continued to deteriorate and he died at a great old age in 1193. He left as his monument a nunnery in Palermo named San Benedetto. He had two sons of influence: Richard, who was made count of Ajello (Calabria), and the aforementioned Nicholas.


Council of Aragon

The Council of Aragon, officially, the Royal and Supreme Council of Aragon (Spanish: Real y Supremo Consejo de Aragón; Catalan: Consell Suprem d'Aragó), was a ruling body and key part of the domestic government of the Spanish Empire in Europe, second only to the monarch himself. It administered the Crown of Aragon, which was composed of the Kingdom of Aragon, Principality of Catalonia (including Roussillon until 1659), Kingdom of Valencia, Kingdom of Mallorca, Kingdom of Sardinia, and finally the Aragonese possessions in Southern Italy (Naples and Sicily) that were incorporated into the Council of Italy together with the Duchy of Milan in 1556. The Council of Aragon ruled these territories as a part of Spain, and later the Iberian Union.
History.
The Council of Aragon was the result of the nature of the Spanish empire, composed of individual kingdoms ruled by a common king but each retaining their own laws, customs, and government. Ferdinand II, along with his wife Isabella, was the first ruler of both Castile and Aragon. Because Ferdinand II was crowned king of Castile before becoming king of Aragon (1474 and 1479, respectively), the majority of his time was spent at the Castilian royal court in Valladolid rather than in Aragon. This royal absenteeism created problems in the government and organization for the lands of Aragon. As a result, the viceroy and conciliar systems arose to solve these administrative problems. In 1494, the Council of Aragon was founded out of what had previously been the royal Council of the kings of Aragon. The Council consisted of a Treasurer-General, a Vice-Chancellor, and five "Regentes"; all of these positions except the Treasurer-General were filled with native-born Aragonese. Much of Council's members were drawn from the "letrados", the lawyer-class on which Ferdinand and Isabella had relied on for administrative organization of their lands. While the viceroy remained the supreme administration in Aragon, the Council controlled their activities and was the link between the viceroy and the king. Its functions included receiving reports from viceroys, advising the king on his policies, and dispatching the king's orders to various territories. Through the Council of Aragon the king was able to oversee territories he could not visit and interact with the natives of these territories.
The Council of Aragon served as the basis for future Councils that were created as the Spanish empire expanded in the 16th century. Olivares, in his memorandum on the Spanish government for King Philip IV, said of the councils,
Councils were established not only for each of Spain's possessions (for example Italy, Portugal, and Flanders) but also for general affairs, such as the Council of the Inquisition (for religious matters), the Council of War, and the "Consejo de Estado", the Council of State. Under Philip II, the Council of State remained rather small as the king preferred to do his own ruling. However, under Philip III it grew and became the "coping stone of the system."
While the advantages of the conciliar system were obvious, the system also had its disadvantages. There remained no association between the different parts of the empires or attempt to break down the barriers between the disparate peoples of the empire; and indeed the only thing binding them together was the presence of a common king. In addition, there was no effort to establish a common government or promote economic and commercial ties between the various provinces. The individual interests of one province took priority over a measure that may benefit all. As a result, in the 16th century, both in Aragon and other conciliar-ruled territories, there lacked any real form of association.


Hiberno-Roman relations

Hiberno-Roman relations refers to the relationships (mainly commercial and cultural) which existed between Ireland (Hibernia) and the ancient Roman Empire, which lasted from the 1st to the 5th century AD in Western Europe. Ireland was one of the few areas of western Europe not conquered by Rome.
Characteristics.
Rome never annexed Hibernia (the Latin name for Ireland) into the Roman Empire, but did exert influence on the island, although only a small amount of evidence of this has survived.
This influence was expressed in three characteristic ways: commercial; cultural and religious; and military.
Commercial.
The relationship between Rome and Hibernia was mostly commercial. In 1995, scholar Richard Warner wrote that after emperor Claudius' invasion of southern Britannia, the trade routes between the Mediterranean Sea and Roman Britannia encompassed even Hibernia. The geographer Ptolemy, in his map of the 1st century AD, pinpointed the coastal settlements and tribes of Ireland, showing a knowledge that (it is suggested) only merchants could have achieved in that century. Additionally, there are many Roman archaeological objects (mainly jewellery and Roman coins) found in areas of central and southern Ireland (such as Tara and Cashel), that reveal a relationship. Roman coins have also been found at Newgrange.
According to the theory of Thomas Charles-Edwards, who wrote about the Irish Dark Age, between the 1st and 3rd century there was a depopulating slave trade from Hibernia toward rich Roman Britain, that had an economy based on villa farming and needed slaves to perform the heaviest labour in agriculture. As the empire declined, this relationship may have reversed, as the biography of Saint Patrick suggests, and the Irish of Late Antiquity may have anticipated the later role of Irish Vikings as raiders across the Irish Sea.
Cultural and religious.
The religious influence of the late Roman Empire involved the conversion to Christianity of many Irish people before the arrival of Saint Patrick in the century when the Western Roman Empire disappeared. The first reliable historical event in Irish history, recorded in the "Chronicle" of Prosper of Aquitaine, is the ordination by Pope Celestine I of Palladius as the first bishop to Irish Christians in 431 - which demonstrates that there were already Christians living in Ireland, before Palladius or Patrick. Prosper says in his "Contra Collatorem" that by this act Celestine "made the barbarian island Christian", although it is clear the Christianisation of Ireland was a longer and more gradual process.
Apart from the introduction of a new religion, the cultural influence from Rome can be seen even in the clothes (and glades) of high-ranking people inside Celtic tribes of the 3rd and 4th centuries. The Ogham alphabet and writing system (which was probably first invented in the 4th century at Irish settlements in west Wales), was derived from the Latin alphabet after contact and intermarriage with Romanized Britons with a knowledge of written Latin. In fact, several Ogham stones in Wales are bilingual, containing both Old Irish and Latin-influenced Brythonic (the ancestor of contemporary Welsh) inscriptions.
Military.
There is some evidence of possible exploratory expeditions during the time of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, although the interpretation of this is a matter of debate amongst historians. In places like Drumanagh (interpreted by some historians to be the site of a possible Roman fort or temporary camp) and Lambay island, some Roman military-related finds may be evidence for some form of Roman presence. The most commonly advanced interpretation is that any military presence was to provide security for traders, possibly in the form of an annual market where Romano-British and Irish met to trade. Other interpretations, however, suggest these may be merely Roman trading outposts, or native Irish settlements which traded with Roman Britain. Later, during the collapse of Roman authority in the 4th and 5th centuries, Irish tribes raided Britain and may have brought back Roman knowledge of classical civilization.
Roman presence in Hibernia.
The question of whether the Romans ever landed in Ireland has long been the subject of speculation, but in recent years firmer theories have emerged. Historian Vittorio di Martino writes in his book "Roman Ireland" that Agricola promoted an exploratory expedition to Hibernia, similar to the one Nero sent to explore southern Sudan in 61 AD, in order to organize a following military expedition to conquer Ethiopia (though this never came about because of his death).
Indeed, the Roman historian Tacitus mentions that Agricola, while governor of Roman Britain (AD 78 - 84), considered conquering Ireland, believing it could be held with one legion plus auxiliaries and entertained an exiled Gael prince, thinking to use him as a pretext for a possible invasion of Ireland. This Roman author tells us that around those years Agricola had with him a Gael chieftain (may be Túathal Techtmar) who later returned to conquer Ireland with an army. Excavations at sites linked to the tale of Túathal have produced Roman material of the late 1st or early 2nd centuries. It would be consistent for Túathal to have been that Gael chieftain.
Clearly, neither Agricola nor his successors ever conquered Ireland, but in recent years, archaeology has challenged the belief that the Romans never set foot on the island. Roman and Romano-British artefacts have been found primarily in Leinster, notably a fortified site on the promontory of Drumanagh, fifteen miles north of Dublin, and burials on the nearby island of Lambay, both close to where Túathal Techtmar is supposed to have landed, and other sites associated with Túathal such as Tara and Clogher.
However, whether this is evidence of trade, diplomacy or military activity is a matter of controversy. It is possible that the Romans may have given support to Túathal, or someone like him, to regain his throne in the interests of having a friendly neighbour who could restrain Gael raiding.
Furthermore, the 2nd-century Roman poet Juvenal, who may have served in Britain under Agricola, wrote that "arms had been taken beyond the shores of "Iuverna" (Hibernia)", and the coincidence of dates is striking. Although Juvenal is not writing history, it is possible that he is referring to a genuine Roman military expedition to Ireland, according to Philip Freeman.
It is also speculated that such an invasion may have been the origin of the presence of the Brigantes in Ireland as noted in Ptolemy's 2nd century Geography. The Brigantes were a rebellious British tribe only recently conquered in Agricola's time. The dispossessed nobility may have been ready recruits for Túathal's invasion force, or the Romans may have found it a convenient way of getting rid of troublesome subjects, just as Elizabeth I and James VI & I planted rebellious Scots in Ireland in the 16th and 17th century. Other tribal names associated with the south-east, including the Domnainn, related to the British Dumnonii, and the Menapii, also known from Gaul (Roman France), may also date from such an invasion.
Roman Church influence.
Irish religious belief and practices became Romanized after Saint Patrick and Saint Palladius began in the 5th century the slow process of spreading Christianity throughout Hibernia. One of the first churches in Hibernia was founded by Saint Palladius in 420 AD, with the name "House of the Romans" (Teach-na-Roman, actual Tigroney). However, actual contacts with Rome and Italy seem to have been erratic for much of this period, and there were also contacts with Egyptian Christianity.
The Romano-British Saint Patrick promoted the creation of monasteries in Hibernia and the older druid tradition collapsed, in the face of the new religion he brought. In the monastic culture that followed the Christianisation of Ireland, Latin learning was preserved in Ireland during the Early Middle Ages in contrast to some other parts of Europe, where the period popularly referred to as the Dark Ages followed the loss of Roman imperial authority over Western Europe. However, the concept of a period in which knowledge was lost and regression occurred in post-Roman Europe during the Early Middle Ages is no longer accepted by historians. In those monasteries, Hiberno-Latin was a learned sort of Latin literature created and spread by Irish monks during the period from the 6th to the 10th centuries.


Friends of Irish Freedom

The Friends of Irish Freedom was an Irish-American Republican organisation founded at the third Irish Race Convention held in New York (4–5 March 1916). Supported by the United Irish League, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and other leading Irish-American organisations. Clan na Gael dominated the Executive (holding 15 of the 17 seats).
The Organisation's aims were to 'encourage and assist any movement that will tend to bring about the National Independence of Ireland'. Among the first members of the Executive Committee were Victor Herbert (President), Thomas Hughes Kelly (Treasurer) and John D. Moore (Secretary). An office was set up in Sweden and relations established with Imperial Germany. The Friends of Irish Freedom supported the 1916 Rising and in the months following, raised $350,000 through the Irish Relief Fund to assist dependents of many who fought in the Rising.
In 1917, the Executive Committee of the Friends of Irish Freedom circulated a petition calling for the Independence of Ireland throughout the US and secured several hundred thousand signatures. President Wilson in turn directed Secret Service agents to examine the membership and funding of the organisation. In May 1918, the Friends of Irish Freedom organised the fourth Irish Race Convention during which Diarmuid Lynch became National Secretary holding the post until his return to Ireland in 1932.
By 1920, there was a Regular membership of 100,000 and 484 Associate Branches with an Associate membership of 175,000. During the Irish War of Independence, the Friends of Irish Freedom raised over $5,000,000 in Dáil loans for the newly declared Irish Republic through the promotion of Bond Certificates. Legal advisor to the organisation for the Bond Drive was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In October 1920, a rift developed between the Irish American leaders and Éamon de Valera which resulted in a split between the Friends of Irish Freedom in the United States and the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Ireland. Prior to his departure from the US, de Valera founded a rival organisation—the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic—to take over the activities of the Friends.
The Friends of Irish Freedom was wound up in 1932 following extensive litigation concerning the funds raised for the Irish Republic which were claimed by de Valera, most of the funds were returned to the original donors.


Coombe Hill, East Sussex

Coombe Hill or Combe Hill is the name of a hill near Jevington in the English county of East Sussex. It is the site of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure and much later archaeological evidence.
Built around 3200 BC, the enclosure consists of two concentric, segmented ditches with an internal area measuring around 6,000 m2.
Excavations in 1949 found animal bone, flint tools and Ebbsfleet type Peterborough ware at the site. A small engraved conical chalk block has also been recovered from the centre.
Later Bronze Age bowl barrows were erected around the enclosure and even Roman pottery was found in the upper layers of the ditch fills, indicating that the site remained significant over a long period of time.
The word "coombe" is derived from Brythonic, and means "hollow".