Battle of Hulao

The Battle of Hulao () or Battle of Sishui (汜水之戰, Wade–Giles: Ssŭ Shui), on 28 May 621 was the main and final battle of the Luoyang–Hulao campaign between the rival Tang, Zheng, and Xia regimes during the transition from Sui to Tang. It was a decisive victory for the Tang prince Li Shimin, through which he was able to subdue two rival warlords, Dou Jiande who headed the Xia regime in Hebei, and Wang Shichong, the self-declared emperor of the Zheng dynasty. The battle was fought at the strategically important Hulao Pass, east of Luoyang.
Following victories in the west that had established his credentials as a general, in August 620 Li Shimin marched against Wang Shichong. Tang troops blockaded Wang in his capital of Luoyang, while seizing the rest of Henan province. After failing in his efforts to break through the Tang siege, and suffering from ever greater privations, Wang solicited help from Dou Jiande. In April 621, Dou Jiande led a 100,000–120,000 strong army west to confront the Tang. Li Shimin's generals urged him to retreat west and protect the Tang core territory at Shanxi, but doing so would surrender the northeastern plains, at that time the heartland of China, to Dou. Consequently, Li Shimin took a gamble by leading a small force east to occupy the strategic Hulao Pass, while the bulk of his army was left behind continuing the siege of Luoyang. Ensconced in favourable defensive positions, the Tang managed to hold up the Xia advance. A large and heterogeneous army, the Xia lacked the flexibility to either outflank Li Shimin's position or abandon the Luoyang campaign and attack the exposed Tang heartland at Shanxi. As a result, the standoff between the two armies continued for several weeks.
Finally, when he judged the situation ripe, Li Shimin feigned detaching part of his forces north to entice an attack. When Dou took the bait and advanced to the Tang positions in battle order, Li Shimin held back his own troops for several hours, until the troops of Dou Jiande were exhausted from being made to wait in formation under the sun for the entire morning. Once signs of disorder began appearing among them, Li Shimin attacked, breaking the opposing army and capturing Dou Jiande. Subsequently, Wang Shichong, left with no other choice, surrendered Luoyang. Both his and Dou Jiande's states were absorbed by the Tang. Dou Jiande was later executed, resulting in some of his followers, led by Liu Heita, raising an unsuccessful rebellion against the Tang. Hulao marked the decisive turning point in the civil wars that followed the collapse of the Sui Dynasty, after which the eventual victory of the Tang was never in doubt.
Background.
During the later reign of the second emperor of the Sui Dynasty, Yang (), the dynasty's authority began to wane: the immense material and human cost of the protracted and fruitless attempts to conquer the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo, coupled with natural disasters, caused unrest in the provinces, and military failures eroded the emperor's prestige and legitimacy ("Mandate of Heaven") among the provincial governors. Yang nevertheless continued to be fixated on the Korean campaigns, and by the time he realized the gravity of the situation, it was too late: as revolts spread, in 616, he abandoned the north and withdrew to Jiangdu, where he remained until his assassination in 618.
Local governors and magnates rose to claim power in the wake of Yang's withdrawal. Nine major contenders emerged, some claiming the imperial title, others, contenting themselves, for the time being, with the more modest titles of "Duke" ("gōng") and "King" ("wáng"). Among the most well-positioned contenders was Li Yuan, Duke of Tang and governor of Taiyuan in the northwest (modern Shanxi). A scion of a noble family related to the Sui dynasty, and with a distinguished career behind him, Li Yuan was an obvious candidate for the throne. His province possessed excellent natural defences, a heavily militarized population and was located near the capitals of Daxingcheng (Chang'an) and Luoyang. In autumn 617 Li Yuan and his sons, Li Shimin and Li Jiancheng, led their troops south. In a lightning campaign they defeated the Sui forces that tried to bar their way and, on 9 November, Li Yuan's troops stormed Chang'an. Li Yuan was now firmly placed as a major contender for the imperial throne, and on 16 June 618 he proclaimed himself the first emperor of the Tang Dynasty.
In a series of campaigns in 618–620 the Tang, led by the talented Li Shimin, managed to eliminate their rivals in the northwest and repel an attack by Liu Wuzhou, who had taken control of Shanxi, but they still had to expand their control to the northeastern plain and the modern provinces of Hebei and Henan, which, in the words of historian Howard J. Wechsler, would decide whether the new dynasty "would remain a regional regime or whether they would succeed in uniting the country under its control". By early 620, two major regimes had established themselves over this region. Henan was controlled by the Luoyang-based Wang Shichong, a former Sui general who declared himself the first emperor of the Zheng dynasty after defeating another rebel leader, Li Mi, at the Battle of Yanshi and absorbing his army and territories. Hebei was ruled by the one-time bandit leader Dou Jiande, who had risen in revolt against the Sui already in 611. From his base at Mingzhou in south-central Hebei he had expanded his control south towards the Yellow River, claiming the title of "King of Xia". Like Wang and the Tang, he too made use of the pre-existing Sui officialdom and administrative apparatus to maintain his realm.
In 619, Dou defeated the Tang army under Li Yuan's cousin Li Shentong and captured their territories north of the Yellow River, while from Luoyang Wang was a constant threat to the cities of the lower Yellow River that had only recently acknowledged Tang authority. The two men are presented as diametrically different characters in the sources: while Dou was chivalrous and successfully extended his territories by judicious moderation, Wang's arbitrariness and lack of courtesy quickly alienated many of his own supporters, leading two of his most distinguished generals, Qin Shubao and Luo Shixin, to desert him and join the Tang. The Tang began launching raids against Wang, causing morale to drop and many of his men to defect. Wang was forced to take hostages from the families of his own generals to ensure their loyalty, and impose kin punishment for any trespassing. Although up to 30,000 people ended up as virtual prisoners in his palace city in Luoyang, these acts only served to further undermine his regime.
Li Shimin besieges Wang Shichong at Luoyang.
Fresh from his crushing victory over Liu Wuzhou, in August 620 Li Shimin, with an army of 50,000 men, began his advance from Shanxi towards Luoyang. The strategic aim of the Tang prince was to capture the Yellow River valley up to the sea, thus separating the territories held by rival regimes in the north (i.e., Dou Jiande) from any allies in the south, particularly after Du Fuwei, a rebel leader who controlled the Huai River area, chose to acknowledge Tang authority.
Starting from Shenzhou, Li Shimin's progress was swift, advancing against little resistance as Wang feared to risk an open confrontation and remained behind the walls of Luoyang. By September, Tang troops had begun to establish a ring of fortified camps around the city. Wang's offers of a settlement based on a partition of the empire were rejected by Li Shimin. While both sides skirmished around Luoyang, each trying to protect or prevent the supply convoys coming into the city, Tang detachments had penetrated further south, east and north, triggering the defection of most of central Henan from Wang's control. By the end of the year, only the distant cities of Xiangyang and Xuzhou remained under Wang's control, but were unable to provide any assistance. The monks of the nearby Shaolin Monastery also sided with Li Shimin, defeating a detachment of Wang's army at Mount Huanyuan and capturing his nephew, Wang Renze.
Isolated in his capital and the territory immediately around it, Wang Shichong was growing desperate and more aggressive, launching two major attempts to break out of the Tang blockade in early 621. Both battles were hard fought, but eventually won by the Tang, largely thanks to the intervention of Li Shimin with his bodyguard of 1,000 heavily armed horsemen. The failure of these attempts meant that the siege became ever closer, with siege engines employed to support daily attacks on the city from all sides. The supply situation in Luoyang grew steadily worse as the siege continued into winter and then spring. By March, people were reportedly shifting through dirt to find traces of food, or ate cakes of rice and mud. No one was spared from the suffering, not even the highest officials; and of the 30,000 prisoners held by Wang in his palace, barely a tenth were left alive. Nevertheless, Wang refused any suggestion of surrender, placing his final hopes on an intervention by Dou Jiande, to whom he had sent envoys already in late 620.
Dou Jiande marches west and Li Shimin occupies Hulao.
During the siege of Luoyang, Dou Jiande and the Tang had been engaged in negotiations, but these had been inconclusive: Dou could not ignore the threat posed by the Tang, but was as yet unwilling to effect a complete breach, and made some conciliatory gestures such as releasing a Tang princess he had captured in 619. When Wang's pleas arrived at his court, Dou was persuaded by his councillor Liu Bin that the situation presented both danger and opportunity: if Luoyang fell, the Tang would next turn against Dou, but if Dou intervened and saved Luoyang, it would be easy to oust the weakened Wang and annex Henan to his own Xia state. It was therefore probably by design that Dou waited until April, when Wang's situation had become critical, before he began marching west to relieve the siege of Luoyang.
The Tang launched an attack from their bases in Shanxi against Dou's flank, hoping to divert his attention, but in vain. Dou had enough men to strongly garrison his territory, while still mustering a huge force for marching against Li Shimin. The 10th-century "Old Book of Tang" and the 11th-century "Zizhi Tongjian" put Dou's army at 100,000 strong, while the 8th-century works "Tongdian" and "Taizong zun shi" (surviving only in fragments), raise it to 120,000 men. Although possibly exaggerated, an army of this size was well within the capabilities of the time. The Xia army was accompanied by a similarly large supply train, comprising both carts and boats.
The approach of the Xia army placed the Tang army at Luoyang in a predicament: with no prospects of reinforcements, and with the loyalty of the recently captured cities in Henan suspect, remaining in place to be caught between Wang's men in Luoyang and Dou's army was a recipe for disaster. The older, more experienced and cautious of Li Shimin's generals suggested that he abandon the siege and retire west to Guanzhong, but the Tang prince refused to heed them, as this would mean abandoning the entirety of eastern China to Dou Jiande. Leaving control of the populous northeastern plain to Dou would strengthen his regime, and allow him to expand south to the south, where Du Fuwei and other Tang clients would be forced to submit. Not only would this mean abandoning the unification of the empire, but it would place the Tang regime itself in peril. In what his modern biographer C. P. Fitzgerald called "the most critical military decision of his life", Li Shimin opted to confront the Xia army with a part of his forces, while leaving most of his army to maintain the siege of Luoyang. This was a risky gamble, as a defeat would risk eliminating the main Tang army, and opening the path for Dou to capture not only Luoyang, but Shanxi and Chang'an itself.
Leaving the siege of Luoyang in the hands of his younger brother Li Yuanji and the general Qutu Tong, Li Shimin took 3,500 men to the Hulao Pass, some to the east of Luoyang, which he occupied on 22 April. His force was augmented by the garrison of the local town, but is unlikely to have exceeded 10,000 men, albeit representing some of the best troops in the Tang army. The Hulao Pass was formed by the ravine of the Sishui river. Lined on both banks by escarpments and steep hills, rising in the south to the Song mountains, it possessed major strategic importance, as the east–west road along the Yellow River's south bank crossed it. Fitzgerald, who visited the area himself in the early 20th century, described this "Chinese Thermopylae" as follows:
Standoff at Hulao and Dou Jiande's dilemma.
When Dou Jiande's army arrived before Hulao, Li Shimin headed a daring raid to raise his own army's morale in the face of such a numerically superior enemy. Taking only 500 horsemen, he crossed the river and advanced towards the Xia camp. Leaving the bulk of this force in ambush, Li Shimin pressed on with only four or five men as escort. When the Xia troops attacked, Li Shimin felled several of them with his precise archery, keeping them at a distance while leading them on into the ambush he had prepared. The Xia lost over 300 men, and a number of higher officers were taken prisoner.
Li Shimin followed up this success by sending a letter to Dou, addressing him as if he were a subject, and demanding that he abandon the region. Dou responded by attacking the walled town of Sishui, but found it and the western heights behind strongly held by the Tang. Dou then encamped his forces at Banzhu, a plain east of the pass. Over the next weeks, he repeatedly marched to Hulao and offered battle. Li Shimin, however, was content to remain in his powerful defensive position from which his numerically inferior force could easily hold the Xia at bay. The Tang prince knew that time worked in his favour, as each day the standoff continued only brought the garrison of Luoyang closer to starvation and surrender, and when this happened he would be able to launch his strike with the entire strength of the Tang army. Furthermore, as time passed, the Xia position too deteriorated. The Xia had to laboriously pull their supply barges upstream, while the Tang were conversely aided by the current; and the very size of the Xia army meant that every passing week the costs of maintaining it in the field exhausted the Xia treasury further.
Other passes were available through the hills near Hulao, but they were smaller and equally defensible. Given the size of the Xia army, the only alternatives for Dou would have been to bypass the Tang position entirely, either by crossing the Yellow River to the north, or by venturing further south to the Huanyuan Pass. Indeed, one of Dou's civil officials, Ling Jing, suggested a different strategic approach, namely to avoid any engagement with Li Shimin, cross to the northern bank of the Yellow River and strike at the Tang heartland in Shanxi, thereby both weakening the Tang and forcing them to abandon the siege of Luoyang without the Xia incurring any casualties. The plan was supported by Dou's wife, Lady Cao, but was not adopted due to the vehement opposition of the Xia generals. Aside from the natural disregard of the military professionals towards a suggestion from someone whom they regarded as an "armchair general", however, this opposition is attributed by some sources to the entreaties and bribery of some Xia generals by Wang Shichong's ambassador, who wished to ensure that Dou remained committed to the relief of Luoyang.
Military historian David A. Graff opines that logistical concerns played the major role in Dou's decision to stay at Banzhu, as his huge army was utterly dependent on proximity to the Yellow River and its canal network for its supplies. In addition, the heterogeneous nature of the Xia army, containing as it did the forces of various rebel leaders Dou had defeated over the past few years, and whose loyalty was doubtful, prevented Dou from dividing his army and sending various detachments on independent missions.
Battle of Hulao Pass.
In the event, after a month had passed, the Tang prince decided to force a confrontation. Li Shimin's reasons for this move are unknown; Graff suggests that it is "possible that he believed the morale of Dou's men had deteriorated, and it is very likely that he did not wish to allow the exposed Xia army to withdraw to safety in Hebei after Luoyang had fallen", or that he was frustrated at Luoyang's unexpectedly long resistance. At the same time, Li Shimin was evidently determined to exploit the opportunity offered by the tactical situation to score a crushing victory against Dou, which would result in the rapid absorption of his domains by the Tang.
To entice his enemy to accept battle, Li Shimin sent his cavalry to raid Dou's supply lines, and then led a portion of his forces, with 1,000 horses across the Yellow River, giving the appearance that he had detached them to guard against an attack in the direction of Shanxi. During the night, these troops secretly crossed the river again. Dou took the bait, and on the early morning hours of 28 May led a large part of his army against Hulao, deploying his troops for battle along the eastern shore of the Sishui river in challenge to the Tang. Per Li Shimin's plan, the Tang troops did not come forth to deploy for battle; instead they remained in their strong defensive positions in the hills, waiting for the Xia army to tire and begin its withdrawal. Then the Tang, according to Graff, "would rush out and fall upon the by now demoralized and disorganized Xia army". This conformed to Li Shimin's usual blueprint, which he had already employed to prevail over Liu Wuzhou and the ruler of eastern Gansu, Xue Rengao: the Tang prince let the enemy advance, stretching their supply lines, and chose a suitable, highly defensible position where to confront them; he avoided a direct confrontation, instead launching raids on his opponent's supply lines, awaiting either signs of weakness or the beginning of a retreat; he then launched an all-out attack aiming at a crushing battlefield success, which he rendered decisive by following it up with a "relentless cavalry pursuit", in Graff's words, to exploit it and bring about the collapse of his opponent's entire regime.
In order to draw the Tang out to the open field, where his superior numbers would carry the day, Dou sent 300 of his cavalry to cross the Sishui stream and provoke Li Shimin to attack. Careful to stick to his plan but also exploit the pretext for a delay offered by Dou, the Tang prince sent only 200 of his horsemen. The duel between the two cavalry forces lasted for some time but proved indecisive, until both sides withdrew to their lines. Apart from this and a minor skirmish between a Xia officer and the Tang general Yuchi Gong, the two armies maintained their standoff from about 08:00 until noon, when the Xia troops began to show signs of thirst and weariness, with soldiers sitting down or breaking formation to fetch water. Li Shimin, from a high vantage point, saw this. With the horses from his earlier feint having returned and his cavalry again at full strength, the Tang prince sent 300 horsemen under Yuwen Shiji in a probing attack.
When Li Shimin saw that the demoralized and dispersed Xia troops were thrown into confusion from this assault and struggled to put up a cohesive defence, he sent more of his cavalry to turn Dou's left flank from the south. The Tang attack was inadvertedly aided by Dou, who was holding a council with his officers at the time. With his army buckling, Dou reacted by ordering the withdrawal of his entire army from the river to the better defensive position offered by the eastern escarpment of the Sishui valley. However, in the spreading confusion, many officers were not able to reach their men in time, while orders issued by the generals often did not arrive in the fighting ranks. Seeing disorder spreading in the Xia army, Li Shimin ordered his army to launch a general attack against the withdrawing Xia, himself spearheading the attack at the head of his remaining cavalry. Li Shimin's 18-year-old cousin Li Daoxuan particularly distinguished himself in this stage of the battle, charging through the Xia line until he emerged in their rear, turning round to emerge on the other side, and repeating this feat so many times that at the end of the battle so many arrows stuck out of his armour that the Chinese sources liken his appearance to a porcupine.
The ensuing battle was bloody, but was decided when Li Shimin and a part of his cavalry broke through the Xia lines and reached the eastern escarpment, planting the Tang banners in full view of both armies. Possibly coupled with the arrival of the flanking Tang cavalry, this development caused the complete collapse of the Xia army: trapped between the Tang forces and the eastern cliffs, 3,000 Xia soldiers fell in the field or the subsequent pursuit, but more than 50,000 were taken prisoner, and the rest dispersed in the surrounding countryside. These included Dou Jiande himself, who was wounded, unhorsed and captured while trying to find a way to cross the Yellow River. The rout of the Xia state was complete: only a few hundreds of horsemen reached the Xia capital, and with their ruler captured, any possibility of rallying the remaining Xia forces was gone.
Aftermath and impact.
The Tang victory at Hulao spelled the end for Luoyang too: bereft of any hope of rescue, Wang Shichong surrendered on 4 June, after Li Shimin displayed the captured Dou Jiande and his generals before the city walls. Li Shimin returned to Chang'an, which he entered at the head of a triumphal procession, wearing golden armour, followed by the two captive rivals and their courts, 25 of his own generals, and 10,000 horsemen. Dou's wife and senior officials managed to escape the Xia camp and reach the safety of Hebei, but although some wanted to continue fighting under Dou's adopted son, most, including the influential Qi Shanxing, regarded the outcome of the battle as a sign that the Tang possessed the "Mandate of Heaven", the divine right to rule. On 10 June, the Xia formally surrendered to the Tang, with Dou's ally Xu Yuanlang and Wang Shichong's brother Shibian following suit over the next days. In stark contrast to the leniency with which the Tang treated most of their defeated rivals, Dou Jiande and Wang Shichong were soon eliminated: Dou was sent to Chang'an, where he was executed, while Wang was ostensibly allowed to retire in exile in Sichuan, but was killed on his way there.
According to David Graff, the battle at Hulao was "the single most decisive engagement of the civil wars" that followed the fall of Sui, while C. P. Fitzgerald considers it "one of the decisive battles in the history of the world". By defeating Dou Jiande and Wang Shichong, the Tang eliminated their two strongest rivals and brought the vital north-eastern plain under their control, securing an unchallenged ascendancy over all other competing factions and making possible the reunification of China under Tang rule. Tang authority had not yet encompassed all of China and rebellions occurred for a few more years. The most notable of these occurred in late 621, when the former Xia officials in Hebei rose up in reaction to the execution of Dou Jiande, under the leadership of Dou's cavalry commander Liu Heita. Nevertheless, the course the civil war had been decided at Hulao, and the various rebel leaders were overcome one by one; the last, Liang Shidu of Shuofang, was defeated in June 628, marking the end of the civil war.
In late 629, Li Shimin, by now Emperor of China, ordered the erection of Buddhist monasteries on the sites of seven of the battles he had fought during the civil war. In a gesture that illustrated the emperor's desire to heal the divisions of the conflict, for Hulao he chose the name "Temple of Equality in Commiseration".


Jason Lee (missionary)

Jason Lee (June 28, 1803 – March 12, 1845) was a Canadian Methodist Episcopalian missionary and pioneer in the Pacific Northwest. He was born on a farm near Stanstead, Quebec.
After a group of Nez Perce and Bitterroot Salish men journeyed to St. Louis requesting the Book of Heaven in 1831 (their people had heard of it years before), Lee and his nephew Daniel Lee volunteered to serve as missionaries for them. Both were appointed as missionaries by the church, given orders to open and maintain a mission among the Salish. At the time, the Pacific Northwest was "jointly occupied" by the United Kingdom and the United States as agreed to in the Treaty of 1818. The missionaries went overland in 1834 with Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, an American merchant who previously visited the Columbia River basin to enter the regional fur trade market. The party of priests and fur trappers arrived at Fort Vancouver later that year and were greeted by Chief Factor John McLoughlin. While there, McLoughlin influenced Jason Lee to open the station among the Kalapuya in the Willamette Valley rather than the Salish.
Jason Lee was the first of the Oregon missionaries and instrumental in the American settlement in the Oregon Country.
Early life.
Jason Lee was the youngest of fourteen siblings. At the age of 13 Lee was self-supporting, converted to Methodism at 23 and later attended the Wilbraham Wesleyan Academy. While studying there, he became friends with Osman Baker and graduated in 1830. Between 1830 and 1832 he was minister in the Stanstead area and taught school. Lee had applied to the London-based Weslyan Missionary Society to proselytize to the First Nations of Canada but his application wasn't processed as Richard Watson, the secretary had died.
Missionary.
In 1832, four men of the Nez Perce and Bitterroot Salish or Flathead tribe journeyed to St. Louis and requested from resident William Clark for someone to bring the "Book of Heaven", prophesied in a vision, to the Salish people. An account was editorialized by the Christian Advocate and Journal the subsequent year, calling upon its readers to send preachers to the Rocky Mountains and beyond. The article quickly was given the attention of Wilbur Fisk, President of the Wesleyan University, who tabled a proposal for the Methodist Church to establish a presence among the Salish. Jason Lee, a former student of Fisk, and his nephew Daniel volunteered for service in the planned mission among the Flathead Indians.
Arrangements were made with Nathaniel Wyeth for the small missionary group to travel with his party. In early 1834 the combined group departed from Independence, Missouri. Lee didn't refrain from judging and comparing the various native cultures along the Columbia River basin while en route west. He found the Walla Walla in particular "far more filthy and indolent than the Kioos Cayuse." The close to two thousand mile trek ended at the Hudson's Bay Company's (HBC) fur trading station of Fort Vancouver, where the missionaries wintered. During their stay there Chief Factor John McLoughlin advised against creating a mission in interior Flathead land and instead recommended the nearby Willamette Valley. Lee eventually settled on a location northwest of the present site of Salem, Oregon. There he found about a dozen French-Canadian settlers who previously had been employed by the HBC, in addition to their native wives and children.
Conversion efforts.
Over time the superintendent began to request additional missionaries and laymen be sent to relieve him of temporal duties. This view was shared by Daniel Lee and later missionaries, all of whom complained of having to spend too much time away from conversion efforts. Additionally Lee downplayed the accounts from fellow priests by proclaiming that hundreds of natives had become Methodists. It wasn't until the arrival of George Abernethy in 1840 that Lee was finally allowed to focus solely on proselyting to indigenous peoples.
Lee also highlighted that the indigenous populations were on the decline from disease in 1836: "unless the God of heaven undertake their cause, they must perish from off the face of the Earth, and their name blotted out from under heaven." This became a typical view of Lee despite his continued conversion efforts. According to his biographer Brosnan, Lee saw "Oregon as the home of a future white civilization" as early as 1837 while back in New York. In a letter addressed to the Methodist Missionary Board he beseeched for agriculturalists. Lee felt that because "this country will settle ere long," if the board were to send "a few good, pious settlers" then "an incalculable benefit" would benefit "generations yet unborn."
Political activities.
Temperance efforts.
Lee formed the Oregon Temperance Society in 1836, composed of lay members of the Mission and former HBC employees. Blocked out of the local fur trade by the HBC, pioneer Ewing Young began plans to create an alcohol distillery for sale to natives. Once this became known to the Society its members were mobilized into action. In a letter signed by residents of the valley, Young was requested to refrain from opening the distillery and offered to cover the costs of forfeiting the venture. Young blamed the HBC for "tyranizing oppression" and the situation he was in but nonetheless agreed to forfeit production of alcohol without compensation.
Willamette Cattle Company.
The first representative from the United States to visit the Methodist station was Navy Lieutenant William A. Slacum on board the "Loriot". John McLoughlin welcomed the naval official and informed Jason Lee of his arrival, who met Slacum at Champoeg in January. A common topic Slacum had with French-Canadian and American settlers residing in the Willamette Valley was about livestock. All the cattle residing in Oregon at the time was then owned by the HBC. Despite this, McLoughlin authorized the loaning out of livestock as needed to missionaries and settlers. To resolve this pressing issue, Slacum suggested that cattle from Alta California be purchased. The Willamette Cattle Company was formed and the "Loriot" gave passage to Young and other men to California. Returning overland with a herd of 600 livestock, the portion for Lee and the Mission bestowed a sound means of nutritional self-sufficiently.
Promoting a settler authority.
Ewing Young became the center of attention of the Willamette Valley farmsteads once again with his death and his extensive estate, which had no heirs to claim it in 1841 Several meetings were held and Lee chaired the first one where he put forth a proposal for a singular jurisdiction for all inhabitants south of the Columbia river. This was the culmination of feuds with Vicar General Blanchet who had till then dispensed justice on the Catholic population of the Willamette Valley. Blanchet was accused by Lee of splitting the settler community by refusing to submit to the attempted civic authority. This attempt was aimed at cutting the financially supportive relationship and patronage the HBC gave the Catholic Missionaries. By removing the political control over Catholics, the Company would lose influence among the settlers. An additional motive was that the Oregon Mission was in debt to the Company. These were the roots of Lee's support for a government in 1841, rather than finding a local regime necessary in and of itself.
At the time of the Champoeg Meetings Lee was no longer an active participant of the political activities in the valley. By this point noted a biographer, "Jason's Lee acumen made him realize that a local provisional government was not the direction that lay Oregon's true interest." Abernethy joined Lee in criticizing the Champoeg Meetings and their developments as unnecessary.
1838 trip East.
The delays in communication with the Board of Managers back in the United States eventually necessitated Lee to return there to give a more thorough description of the activities of the Mission. Prior to leaving he was influential in the propagation of a memorial by many residents of the Willamette Valley addressing the United States Congress. The document requested that the American government establish rule over the regions of the Oregon Country south of the Columbia River and highlighted the potentials of trade with Asia and the Pacific. Besides gathering funds for missionary work, Lee apparently left for the east as he had a "desire to promote" Oregon as a worthwhile place for colonization. Lee spent three weeks at the interior ABCFM missions run by Marcus Whitman and Henry H. Spalding while waiting for an escort from the HBC. Viewing the growing farms maintained by the Cayuse and Nez Perce, Jason considered them both "superior to those upon the Willamette [River] ..." despite the occasional whipping by the two missionaries. After giving birth to their child, both his wife, Anna Maria Pittman Lee, and their infant died in June. News of this reached Lee as he entered Missouri, who soon remarried to Lucy Thompson Grubbs.
While traveling through Illinois, Lee convinced John P. Richmond to join him in Oregon, later being appointed as the head of the Nisqually Mission in modern Washington. While in Peoria he held a speech on Oregon that enthralled some locals who formed the Peoria Party to attempt to colonizing Oregon. At a meeting with the Missionary Board in November the Board approved his plan for the creation of recruiting laymen such as blacksmiths and mechanics, the creation of grist mill, and expansion of agricultural production. After the memorial arrived in Washington D.C. it was presented to Congress by Senator Lewis F. Linn in January 1839. In correspondence with Representative Caleb Cushing Lee noted that if America were to control the area many of the laymen of the Mission would in time become permanent settlers, which did eventually occur as predicted. During his time in the United States Lee went on several speaking tours throughout the nation along with a visit to his hometown in Canada to raise funds for the mission. Despite his position that only two additional preachers were needed, the Board recruited five. Lee and the "great reinforcement" sailed aboard the Lausanne and arrived in Oregon on 1 June 1840.
Dismissal.
Letters were sent to the Board of Managers from Elijah White, John P. Richmond, Gustavus Hines attacking the leadership of Lee for several years.
Conflict with White had been a source of discontent for years, who previously managed the mission financial records. White was accused by Lee for having spent money at Fort Vancouver on the account of the mission and rather than show his records, he left for the United States in 1841. While David Leslie gave the superintendent a positive appraisal, it wasn't enough to counter the years of criticisms. Reports held Lee accountable for a general neglect and disinterest in converting Indigenous peoples. Additionally, Lee's inability to provide a complete financial history of the Willamette Mission and its subsidiary stations proved to be too much for the Board. They appointed Rev. George Gray as the new superintendent and instructed him to dispose of the temporal properties of the Mission, including the grist mill and missions not actively used.
After hearing the news that he was ejected as the superintendent from Marcus Whitman, who recently returned from the United States, Lee went to meet the Board in person to defend himself. Crossing Mexico and sailing up the Mississippi River, Lee reached New York City on 27 May 1844. He found the leadership debating over slavery, which soon led to a schism and the formation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In the meantime, Lee went to Washington D.C. and had conferences with both President John Tyler and Senator Thomas H. Benton to present the land claims of the Oregon Mission. When finally meeting with the Board leadership Lee was able to rectify his position but he wasn't reappointed as superintendent. He opted to raise money for the Oregon Institute, (now Willamette University), a school he helped organize. However while visiting his sister in Stanstead, his health failed, and he died on 12 March 1845. His remains were reinterred at the Lee Mission Cemetery in Salem, Oregon in 1906 alongside the remains of his two wives and infant daughter.
Legacy.
The house Lee occupied in 1841 is preserved as part of the Willamette Heritage Center, formerly known as the Mission Mill Museum.
In 1953, the State of Oregon donated a bronze statue of Lee to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection. Another copy was installed on the grounds of the Oregon State Capitol in 1953, having been finished by Gifford MacGregor Proctor after the death of his father, sculptor Alexander Phimister Proctor.
Elementary schools in Richland, Washington, and Portland, Oregon and middle schools in Vancouver, Washington, and Tacoma, Washington are named after him.


Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants v Osborne

Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants v Osborne [1910] AC 87 is a UK labour law case, which ruled that members of trade unions would now have to "contract in" if they wanted a portion of their salary to go to a trade union, unlike the previous system of "contracting out", in which the portion of salary was taken unless the individual explicitly stated otherwise.
Facts.
Osborne, a member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants for 16 years in Walthamstow alleged that the union's creation of a political fund to support the Labour Representation Committee in elections was done irregularly in breach of union procedure. The original rules, from 1900, contained no reference to seeking Parliamentary representation. Because of the irregularity, it was argued that the donations by the union were "ultra vires" and void.
Judgment.
House of Lords.
The House of Lords held that a union’s authority was circumscribed by the union’s rules. Use of union funds for any purpose other than those enumerated in the union rules was "ultra vires".
Court of Appeal.
After bringing his action, Mr Osborne was expelled from the union. He brought a further claim that his expulsion was wrongful. The Court of Appeal held that he was wrongfully excluded. Lord Cozens-Hardy MR noted that the union was, at common law, a lawful association.
Significance.
The judgment threatened one of the Labour party's main funding sources. This was especially detrimental to the Labour Party as its supporters were generally poorer than other political parties. The two elections in 1910 saw Labour gain 40 seats and 42 seats respectively. In 1911 H. H. Asquith's government decided, for the first time, that MPs should receive a salary. (Previously, only people with savings or funding organizations behind them could become members of parliament.) David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave MPs a wage of £400 per annum, which alleviated financial problems.
The Osborne judgment was overturned in 1913 by the Trade Union Act 1913, which compromised by giving members the choice to opt out of union political funds. The Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927 required union members to opt into the political fund. The Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1946 repealed the 1927 Act and again required that members opt out. Currently under TULRCA 1992 s 82, members have the right to not contribute to a political fund, not be discriminated against for it, and the right to complain to the Certification Officer.


Gorgidas

Gorgidas (Ancient Greek: Γοργίδας) was the first known Theban military leader of the Sacred Band of Thebes around 378 BCE.
Plutarch in his "Life of Pelopidas" mentions Gorgidas for the first time when the pro-spartan polemarch Leontidas took over with a spartan army and forced the pro-athens aristocrats and supporters to leave Thebes for good in 382bce. They later came back in 379/378bce to take back their city and kill the tyrants. Also in Life of Pelopidas, Plutarch credits Gorgidas with the creation of the Sacred Band, which he dispersed at first throughout the front ranks of the regular infantry, with the idea that they would inspire valour. However, they were later arrayed by Pelopidas as a unit in order to make their gallantry more conspicuous.
Cultural references.
In the Videssos Cycle by Harry Turtledove, there appears as a main character a Greek physician named Gorgidas, who has much in common with the men of the Sacred Band of Thebes.
In the book My Fair Captain by J. L. Langley, the society mainly featured is based on and draws its roots from the Sacred Band of Thebes mentioning Gorgidas.


Zanzibar independence movement

Zanzibari independence is a political ambition of some political parties, advocacy groups, and individuals of Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous region territory within Tanzania, to become an independent sovereign state.
Background.
Sultanate of Zanzibar.
The Portuguese arrived in East Africa in 1498, where they found a series of independent towns on the coast, with Muslim Arabic-speaking elites. While the Portuguese travelers describe them as 'black' they made a clear distinction between the Muslim and non-Muslim populations. Their relations with these leaders were mostly hostile, but during the sixteenth century they firmly established their power, and ruled with the aid of tributary sultans. The Portuguese presence was relatively limited, leaving administration in the hands of preexisting local leaders and power structures. This system lasted until 1631, when the Sultan of Mombasa massacred the Portuguese inhabitants. For the remainder of their rule, the Portuguese appointed European governors. The strangling of trade and diminished local power led the Swahili elites in Mombasa and Zanzibar to invite Omani aristocrats to assist them in driving the Europeans out.
In 1698, Zanzibar came under the influence of the Sultanate of Oman. There was a brief revolt against Omani rule in 1784. Local elites invited Omani merchant princes to settle on Zanzibar in the first half of the nineteenth century, preferring them to the Portuguese. Many locals today continue to emphasize that indigenous Zanzibaris had invited Seyyid Said, the first Busaidi sultan, to their island, claiming a patron-client relationship with powerful families was a strategy used by many Swahili coast towns since at least the fifteenth century.
British protectorate.
Control of Zanzibar eventually came into the hands of the British Empire; part of the political impetus for this was the 19th century movement for the abolition of the slave trade. Zanzibar was the centre of the Arab slave trade, and in 1822, the British consul in Muscat put pressure on Sultan Said to end the slave trade. Said came under increasing pressure from the British to abolish slavery, and in 1842 the British government told the Zanzibari ruler it wished to abolish the slave trade to Arabia, Oman, Persia, and the Red Sea.
In 1890 Zanzibar became a protectorate (not a colony) of Britain. This status meant it continued to be under the sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar.
Zanzibar revolution and merger with Tanganyika.
On 10 December 1963, the Protectorate that had existed over Zanzibar since 1890 was terminated by the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom did not grant Zanzibar independence, as such, because the UK had never had sovereignty over Zanzibar. Rather, by the Zanzibar Act 1963 of the United Kingdom, the UK ended the Protectorate and made provision for full self-government in Zanzibar as an independent country within the Commonwealth. Upon the Protectorate being abolished, Zanzibar became a constitutional monarchy under the Sultan.
However, just a month later, on 12 January 1964 Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah was deposed during the Zanzibar Revolution. The Sultan fled into exile, and the Sultanate was replaced by the People's Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba, a socialist government led by the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP). Over 20,000 people were killed and refugees, especially Arabs and Indians, escaped the island as a consequence of the revolution.
In April 1964, the republic merged with mainland Tanganyika. This United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar was soon renamed, blending the two names, as the United Republic of Tanzania, within which Zanzibar remains a semi-autonomous region.
Demographic and cultural differences.
Ethnicity.
The people of Zanzibar are of diverse ethnic origins. The first permanent residents of Zanzibar seem to have been the ancestors of the Bantu Hadimu and Tumbatu, who began arriving from the African Great Lakes mainland around AD 1000. They belonged to various mainland ethnic groups and on Zanzibar, generally lived in small villages. They did not coalesce to form larger political units.
During Zanzibar's brief period of independence in the early 1960s, the major political cleavage was between the Shirazi (Zanzibar Africans), who made up approximately 56% of the population, and the Zanzibar Arabs, who made up approximately 17%. Today, Zanzibar is inhabited mostly by ethnic Swahili, a Bantu population of sub-Saharan Africans. There are also a number of Arabs, as well as some ethnic Persian and Indian people.
Religion.
Unlike mainland Tanzania, Zanzibar's population is almost entirely Muslim, with a small Christian minority containing around 22 000 Christians. Other religious groups that are represented include Hindus, Jains and Sikhs.
Languages.
Zanzibaris speak Swahili (Kiswahili), a Bantu language that is extensively spoken in the African Great Lakes region and indeed most of Tanzania where it is the de facto national and official language. However unlike the mainland, many local residents also speak Arabic, French and/or Italian, with Arabic a recognised minority language.
Cuisine.
Given the multi-cultural background of the island, Zanzibari cuisine is very distinct, with a mixture of various culinary traditions, including Bantu, Arab, Portuguese, Indian, British and even Chinese cuisine.
Governance.
Relationship with the mainland.
As a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, Zanzibar has its own government, known as the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar. It is made up of the Revolutionary Council and House of Representatives.
The House of Representatives has a similar composition to the National Assembly of Tanzania. Fifty members are elected directly from constituencies to serve five-year terms; 10 members are appointed by the President of Zanzibar; 15 special seats are for women members of political parties that have representation in the House of Representatives; six members serve "ex officio", including all regional commissioners and the attorney general. Five of these 81 members are then elected to represent Zanzibar in the National Assembly.
Unguja has three administrative regions: Zanzibar Central/South, Zanzibar North and Zanzibar Urban/West. Pemba has two: Pemba North and Pemba South.
Concerning the independence and sovereignty of Zanzibar, Tanzania Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda said on 3 July 2008 that there was "nothing like the sovereignty of Zanzibar in the Union Government unless the Constitution is changed in future". Zanzibar House of Representatives members from both the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, and the opposition party, Civic United Front, disagreed and stood firmly in recognizing Zanzibar as a fully autonomous state.
Zanzibari Politics.
Zanzibar has a government of national unity, with the president of Zanzibar being Ali Mohamed Shein, since 1 November 2010. There are many political parties in Zanzibar, but the most popular parties are the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) and the Civic United Front (CUF). Since the early 1990s, the politics of the archipelago have been marked by repeated clashes between these two parties.
Contested elections in October 2000 led to a massacre on 27 January 2001 when, according to Human Rights Watch, the army and police shot into crowds of protestors, killing at least 35 and wounding more than 600. Those forces, accompanied by ruling party officials and militias, also went on a house-to-house rampage, indiscriminately arresting, beating, and sexually abusing residents. Approximately 2,000 temporarily fled to Kenya.
Violence erupted again after another contested election on 31 October 2005, with the CUF claiming that its rightful victory had been stolen from it. Nine people were killed.
Following 2005, negotiations between the two parties aiming at the long-term resolution of the tensions and a power-sharing accord took place, but they suffered repeated setbacks. The most notable of these took place in April 2008, when the CUF walked away from the negotiating table following a CCM call for a referendum to approve of what had been presented as a done deal on the power-sharing agreement.
In November 2009, the then-president of Zanzibar, Amani Abeid Karume, met with CUF secretary-general Seif Sharif Hamad at the State House to discuss how to save Zanzibar from future political turmoil and to end the animosity between them. This move was welcomed by many, including the United States. It was the first time since the multi-party system was introduced in Zanzibar that the CUF agreed to recognize Karume as the legitimate president of Zanzibar.
A proposal to amend Zanzibar's constitution to allow rival parties to form governments of national unity was adopted by 66.2 percent of voters on 31 July 2010.
The autonomous status of Zanzibar is viewed as comparable to Hong Kong as suggested by some scholars, and being recognized as the "African Hong Kong".
Sport.
Football is the most popular sport in Zanzibar, overseen by the Zanzibar Football Association., which is separate from Zanzibar is an associate member of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), but not of FIFA. This means that the Zanzibar national football team is not eligible to enter national CAF competitions, such as the African Nations Cup, but Zanzibar's Football Clubs get representation at the CAF Confederation Cup and the CAF Champions League.
The national team participates in non-FIFA Football tournaments such as the FIFI Wild Cup, and the ELF Cup. Because Zanzibar is not a member of FIFA, their team is not eligible for the FIFA World Cup.
The Zanzibar Football Association also has a Premier League for the top clubs, which was created in 1981, again, separate from the Tanzanian Premier League.
Media.
The media in Zanzibar come under a different set of regulations to their counterparts in mainland Tanzania.
Causes.
Various reasons have been given for the on-going secessionist movement, including historical independence, socio-economic disparity, cultural differences and ethnic tensions between Arab islanders and black African mainlanders. It has also been noted that radical islamist groups support independence capitalising on the political turbulence related to electoral issues.


Jonathan Portes

Jonathan Portes (born 18 April 1966) is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the School of Politics & Economics of King's College, London.
Early life and education.
Portes is the son of Richard Portes, a Rhodes Scholar from Chicago in the United States. He earned a degree in mathematics from Balliol College, Oxford, and a master's degree in Public Affairs (Economics and Public Policy) at Princeton University.
Career.
After joining HM Treasury in 1987, he held increasingly senior positions in the civil service, rising to be the chief economist at the Department for Work and Pensions and then the chief economist at the Cabinet Office under Gordon Brown. He left the civil service in 2011, after the Labour Party lost power to the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.
Portes was appointed as the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research in February 2011, on a salary of £100,000 per annum. In October 2015, it was announced that Portes would step down as Director of NIESR before the end of that year, following a management review at the organisation.
His areas of interest include fiscal policy, labour markets and immigration. He has a particular interest in the economic effects of Brexit, and was a prominent critic of the 'austerity' policies advocated by George Osborne, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer; Portes has described the Coalition's Incapacity Benefit reassessment programme — a major Whitehall project that was supposed to cut welfare spending by up to seven billion pounds a year — as "the biggest single social policy failure of the last fifteen years". He analysed the government's welfare reforms for BBC Radio 4 in 2014.
Portes is a council member of the Royal Economic Society, and a trustee of the charity Coram.
Views.
Portes has expressed primarily left-leaning views on social media. He maintains UK government policy has disproportionately harmed the poorest UK people. Portes stated, "There were a lot of choices, and the government chose to balance the budget on the backs of the poorest."


List of attacks on civilians attributed to the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna

The following is a list of notable attacks on civilians attributed to the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a Sri Lankan Marxist-Leninist, communist group.


Northern Han

The Northern Han () was a dynastic state of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. It was founded by Liu Min (), formerly known as Liu Chong (), and lasted from 951 to 979.
Founding of the Northern Han.
The short-lived state of Later Han fell in 950. Liu Min founded the Northern Han Kingdom, sometimes referred to as the Eastern Han, in 951 claiming that he was the legitimate heir to the imperial throne of Later Han. Liu Min immediately restored the traditional relationship with the Khitans, who had founded the Liao dynasty.
Sources conflict as to the origin of the Later Han and Northern Han emperors; some indicate sinicized Shatuo ancestry while another claims that the emperors claimed patrilineal Han Chinese ancestry.
Territorial extent.
The Northern Han was a small kingdom located in Shanxi with its capital located at Taiyuan. Shanxi had been a traditional base of power since the fading days of the Tang Dynasty in the late ninth century and early tenth century. It was wedged between the two major powers of the day, the Liao Dynasty to the north and the Song Dynasty to the south. It also shared a border with the Tangut kingdom of Western Xia.
Wedge between Liao and Song.
The existence of the Northern Han was one of the two major thorns in relations between the Liao Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, the other being the continued possession of the Sixteen Prefectures by the Liao Dynasty. The Northern Han had placed itself under the protection of the Liao.
Emperor Taizu was successful in nearly completing the incorporation of the southern kingdoms into the Song Dynasty by his death in 976. His younger brother, Emperor Taizong wished to emulate his older brother's successes. Wuyue was brought into the realm in 978.
Fall of the Northern Han.
Emboldened by his success to the south, Emperor Taizong decided to embark on a campaign to finally destroy the Northern Han. Leading the army himself, he brought his forces to the Northern Han capital of Taiyuan, which was laid under siege in June. An initial relief force sent by the Liao was easily defeated by Song. After a two-month siege of the capital, the leader of the Northern Han surrendered and the kingdom was incorporated into the Song Dynasty.
The family tree of the Later Han and Northern Han rulers.
 - Later Han emperors; - Northern Han emperors


Antoine Christophe Saliceti

Antoine Christophe Saliceti (baptised in the name of "Antonio Cristoforo Saliceti": "Antoniu Cristufaru Saliceti" in Corsican; 26 August 175723 December 1809) was a French politician and diplomat of the Revolution and First Empire.
Early career.
He was born a member of a Piacentine family in Saliceto, Haute-Corse. He was born during the era of the Corsican Republic, but after the Conquest of Corsica the island became French. After studying law in Tuscany, he became a lawyer at the upper council of Bastia, and was elected deputy of the Third Estate to the French Estates-General of 1789.
As deputy to the National Convention, Saliceti became a "Montagnard" and on 15 January 1793 voted for the death of King Louis XVI, and was sent to Corsica on mission to oversee Pasquale Paoli and enforce the Reign of Terror; however, he was compelled to withdraw to Provence, where he took part in repressing the revolts at Marseille and Toulon. During this time he met and promoted his compatriot Napoleon Bonaparte.
Directory, Consulate, and Empire.
On account of his friendship with Maximilien Robespierre, Saliceti was denounced by the Thermidorian Reaction and was saved only by the amnesty of the French Directory. In 1796 Saliceti was commissioned to organize the French Revolutionary Army in the , and the two "départements" into which Corsica had been divided after its recapture. Saliceti also became deputy to the Council of the Five Hundred, and served the Directory in missions to the Ligurian Republic. Saliceti represented France during the negotiations with the Papal States regarding the Armistice of Bologna.
Although an adversary of Napoleon's 18 Brumaire Coup which created the Consulate (9 November 1799), he was kept by Napoleon as his representative to the Republic of Lucca (1801–1802) and Liguria (1805), engineering the territory's annexation to the Empire. In 1806, he followed Joseph Bonaparte to the Kingdom of Naples, where Joseph had been imposed as King, and served as minister of police and of war. Saliceti died in Naples in mysterious circumstances, possibly poisoned.


9th G7 summit

The 9th G7 Summit was held at Williamsburg, Virginia, United States between May 28 and 30, 1983. The venue for the summit meetings was Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.
The Group of Seven (G7) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada (since 1976) and the President of the European Commission (starting officially in 1981). The summits were not meant to be linked formally with wider international institutions; and in fact, a mild rebellion against the stiff formality of other international meetings was a part of the genesis of cooperation between France's President Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the first Group of Six (G6) summit in 1975.
Leaders at the summit.
The G7 is an unofficial annual forum for the leaders of Canada, the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. This was the first summit where none of the original participants from 1975 were still in office.
The 9th G7 summit was the first summit for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.
Participants.
These summit participants are the current "core members" of the international forum:
Issues.
The summit was intended as a venue for resolving differences among its members. As a practical matter, the summit was also conceived as an opportunity for its members to give each other mutual encouragement in the face of difficult economic decisions.
Meetings of the G7 focus on issues related to the economy and multinational efforts to connect these issues. However, talks led by President Reagan at this G7 Summit also concentrated on tensions with the Soviet Union and the need for missile deployment in Europe to encourage the Soviet Union to return to arms control talks in Geneva. A bilateral discussion was held between President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher prior to the G-7 meeting. Margaret Thatcher stressed the need to reaffirm the NATO double-track decision of 1979 approach to talks with the Soviets. Mrs. Thatcher and President Reagan agreed that it would be helpful to have G-7 reaffirm the decision. However, President Mitterrand and Prime Minister Trudeau were hesitant to agree. The first meeting of the leaders was head of state only. At the coffee hour Reagan appeared concerned that it would not be possible to get full agreement. Following the coffee break the first meeting of the Summit, President Reagan forged an agreement with the strong support of Prime Minister Nakasone of Japan, Chancellor Kohl of Germany and Prime Minister Thatcher. The need to deploy the Pershing II missiles was reached and reaffirmed. This decision showed the unity of Western leaders as they forged ahead to seek meaningful arms control agreements with the Soviet Union and it was a critical step in the arms control agreements reached between Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev and President Reagan two years later at the Geneva Summit, the first meeting between these two leaders.
In addition to the reinforcement of the double-track decision on arms control, the leaders were confronted with a stubborn world economy, double digit inflation, high interest rates and high unemployment. These economic conditions were stimulated, in part, due to higher oil prices in the early 1980s caused by the Iranian Revolution. The G-7 summit a year earlier had been held in Versailles, hosted by President Mitterrand. Reagan felt that it was important to stress the importance of free markets and free trade and transparency in international dealings. After two days of debate, the leaders agreed to the Williamsburg Declaration, which stands as quite unique in terms of G-7 communiques as it was a short ten point declaration and it was read in its entirety by President Reagan seated before the other leaders The significance of the Declaration cannot be over-emphasized as it was the free market principles agreed to by the leaders at the summit that provided an international environment of free trade and investment that propelled the world economies out of economic recession toward durable economic growth of twenty years. The declaration was prepared by a small team of NSC advisers close to Reagan.
The Williamsburg Economic Summit was the only international meeting chaired by President Reagan.


Hajji Beg

Hajji Beg Barlas (died 1361) was a leader of the Barlas tribe. He was the immediate predecessor in this role to Timur, who later founded the Timurid Empire.
Background.
Hajji Beg was a member of the Barlas tribe and claimed descent from Qarachar Noyan, one of the Mongol nobles assigned by Genghis Khan to his son Chagatai. Hajji Beg and Timur shared a common ancestor in Qarachar, though they descended from different sons.
Life.
Hajji Beg is first mentioned in 1358 or 1359, when he participated in the overthrow of the Qara'unas ‘Abdullah, who was effectively in control of the southern Chagatai Khanate. 'Abd Allah, who had recently taken power, was young and inexperienced, and his move to Samarkand threatened Hajji Beg, whose territories were centered in the nearby city of Kish. Together with another tribal leader named Buyan Suldus, Hajji Beg removed him from power and killed his puppet khan Shah Temur. Buyan Suldus was then raised to 'Abd Allah's former position of amir.
Buyan Suldus' refusal to enforce his authority, as well as a continuing state of chaos within the Chagatai "ulus", led to the Khan of Moghulistan, Tughlugh Timur, to invade in 1360. Most of the Chagatai leaders did not oppose the invasion; many of them took the opportunity to pillage each other's lands. The Yasa'ur Hajji Mahmudshah, whose tribe bordered the Barlas, decided to raid their territory with a Moghul army. Hajji Beg decided at first to resist, but seeing that the Moghuls were much stronger, he fled to Khorasan.
During his retreat, Hajji Beg was accompanied by a member of a prominent Barlas family, Timur. When they reached the Oxus River, Timur asked to return to Kish so that he could maintain order within the Barlas region. Timur's prominent standings within the Barlas and with several members of the Moghul elite, however, resulted in Tughlugh Temur's appointing him as the ruler of the Barlas region. Timur then aligned himself with tribal leaders that were hostile to Hajji Beg, eventually throwing his support behind Amir Husayn, a nephew of 'Abd Allah and the current leader of the Qara'unas. In the meantime, the Moghuls abandoned the region and headed back to Moghulistan.
Soon afterwards, Hajji Beg returned to the Chagatai "ulus" in an effort to regain control of the Barlas. He went to the ruler of the Jalayir, Bayazid, and together they attacked the Yasa'uri. When Timur heard of this, he moved his army in support of the Yasa'uri. The two sides met in battle, and while its outcome is disagreed upon, it caused the Barlas emirs as well as the army to defect back to Hajji Beg. As a result, Timur was constrained to submit to Hajji Beg. The Barlas and Jalayir then again attacked the Yasa'uri and defeated them; this victory secured Hajji Beg's position as leader of his tribe.
In the spring of 1361 Tughlugh Timur again invaded the "ulus". Knowing that both Bayazid Jalayir and Buyan Suldus had decided to pledge their allegiance to the khan, Hajji Beg planned to do so as well. Tughlugh Timur's execution of Bayazid, however, prompted him to change his mind. He went to Kish to gather troops, and then crossed the Oxus into Khorasan, but there he was killed by a group of Turks. Tughlugh Timur then gave Timur command of Kish a second time, but he would lose it soon afterwards.


Yvonne Fletcher


Internal Security Unit

The Internal Security Unit (ISU) was the counter-intelligence and interrogation unit of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). This unit was often referred to as the Nutting Squad.
The unit is thought to have had jurisdiction over both Northern and Southern Commands of the IRA, (encompassing the whole of Ireland), and to have been directly attached to IRA General Headquarters (GHQ).
Duties.
The group was believed to have had a number of briefs:
The ISU was believed to have unlimited access to the members, apparatus and resources of the IRA in carrying out its duties. Its remit could not be countermanded except by order of the Army Council.
Depositions obtained as part of its operation would ideally be noted on paper, and if possible recorded for the purposes of propaganda.
Activity.
The ISU carried out debriefing of IRA volunteers following their detention by security forces operating in Northern Ireland. These interviews would take place to discover if a volunteer had betrayed information or secrets of the organisation. They would also take place in the event of an operation, weapons cache, or unit being exposed to danger or uncovered.
The membership of the IRA and wider republican community were expected to comply with requests for information made by the ISU, this information then being used to build or refute accusations made against an IRA volunteer.


Li Yuanji

Li Yuanji (李元吉) (603 – 2 July 626), formally Prince La of Chao (巢剌王), more commonly known by the title of Prince of Qi (齊王), nickname Sanhu (三胡), was an imperial prince of the Chinese Tang Dynasty. He was a son of the dynasty's founder Emperor Gaozu of Tang (Li Yuan), and in the intense rivalry developed between his older brothers Li Jiancheng the Crown Prince and Li Shimin the Prince of Qin, he sided with Li Jiancheng and often advocated drastic actions against Li Shimin, including assassination. In 626, Li Shimin, fearing that Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji were about to kill him, laid an ambush for them at Xuanwu Gate outside the palace and killed them. Li Shimin then effectively forced Emperor Gaozu to yield the throne to him (as Emperor Taizong).
Background.
Li Yuanji was born in 603, during the reign of Emperor Wen of Sui. He was the fourth and final son of Li Yuan the Duke of Tang, a hereditary noble, and Li Yuan's wife Duchess Dou, who was herself the daughter of Dou Yi (竇毅) the Duke of Shenwu and Northern Zhou's Princess Xiangyang. He had three older brothers by Duchess Dou -- Li Jiancheng, Li Shimin, and Li Xuanba (李玄霸, who died in 614). She also gave birth to an older sister of Li Yuanji's, the eventual Princess Pingyang.
In 616, with agrarian rebellions beginning to engulf northern China and frequent Eastern Tujue incursions across the border, Emperor Yang of Sui commissioned Li Yuan to be the commander of the forces at Taiyuan, guarding it against both agrarian rebels and Eastern Tujue. At that time, Li Yuan took Li Shimin with him to Taiyuan, but left Li Jiancheng, Li Yuanji, another son Li Zhiyun (李智雲), and the rest of his household at Hedong (河東, in modern Yuncheng, Shanxi). In 617, Li Yuan, fearful that Emperor Yang might punish him for his inability to suppress the rebels led by Liu Wuzhou the Dingyang Khan, was persuaded by Li Shimin to rebel against Sui rule. He then sent secret messengers to Hedong to summon his sons and to the capital Chang'an to summon his daughter and son-in-law Chai Shao (柴紹). Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji secretly travelled to Taiyuan, but left the 13-year-old Li Zhiyun at Hedong.
Participation in Tang's founding.
Even before Li Jiancheng, Li Yuanji, and Chai Shao (who, at the urging of Li Yuan's daughter, left Chang'an on his own while she went into hiding) arrived at Taiyuan, Li Yuan rebelled, declaring that he wanted to support Emperor Yang's grandson Yang You the Prince of Dai, then nominally in charge at Chang'an, as emperor, while honoring Emperor Yang as "Taishang Huang" (retired emperor). In response, Sui officials arrested Li Zhiyun, took him to Chang'an, and executed him.
Li Yuan made Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin both key generals, but the younger Li Yuanji was not, initially, although Li Yuan created him the Duke of Guzang. When Li Yuan subsequently began his campaign toward Chang'an, he left Li Yuanji in charge at Taiyuan. Later that year, after he captured Chang'an and declared Yang You emperor (as Emperor Gong) but kept power for himself as regent, he created Li Yuanji the Duke of Qi and put him in charge of the 15 commanderies around Taiyuan.
In spring 618, Emperor Yang, then at Jiangdu (江都, in modern Yangzhou, Jiangsu), was killed in a coup led by the general Yuwen Huaji. When the news arrived at Chang'an, Li Yuan had Yang You yield the throne to him, establishing Tang Dynasty as its Emperor Gaozu. He created Li Yuanji the Prince of Qi.
It was said that, while he was at Taiyuan, Li Yuanji was arrogant and wasteful, and he often held military exercises with his concubines and servants, involving use of actual armor and arms, and they suffered many casualties in these exercises, including injuries to Li Yuanji himself. His wet nurse Chen Shanyi (陳善意) tried to get him to change his ways, but he had his guards batter her to death. In spring 619, when his assistant Yuwen Xin (宇文歆) reported this to Emperor Gaozu, Emperor Gaozu temporarily removed him from his post. Less than a month later, however, with the people of Taiyuan petitioning to have Li Yuanji kept in charge, Emperor Gaozu restored him. (The traditional historians allege that Li Yuanji pressured the people into petitioning Emperor Gaozu.)
In summer 619, Liu Wuzhou launched an attack on the Taiyuan region, and Li Yuanji sent the general Zhang Da (張達) to resist Liu, despite Zhang's protestations that the army given him was too small to resist Liu. When Zhang was in fact defeated, he surrendered to Liu and served as Liu's guide in subsequent attacks. Liu soon put Taiyuan under siege, and while Li Yuanji initially repelled him, Liu was soon back and again had Taiyuan under siege. In fall 619, Li Yuanji fled with his wife and concubines back to Chang'an, and Liu captured Taiyuan, moving his capital from Mayi (馬邑, in modern Shuozhou, Shanxi) there. (In 620, Li Shimin defeated Liu and recaptured the region.)
In 621, with Li Shimin leading the army in besieging Luoyang, the capital of Wang Shichong's rival Zheng state, Li Yuanji served as Li Shimin's assistant. When subsequently another rival ruler, Dou Jiande the Prince of Xia, came to Wang's aid, Li Shimin left Li Yuanji at Luoyang to continue the siege and to watch Wang, while he himself advanced to Hulao Pass to engage Dou. Li Shimin defeated and captured Dou at the Battle of Hulao, and Wang, in fear, surrendered. Li Shimin received the most honors stemming from the victory, but Li Yuanji also received promotions and honors. Subsequently, when Emperor Gaozu had the government mint new coins, there were strict prohibitions against minting by any other persons, except that Li Shimin and Li Yuanji were each granted the right to have three mints and Pei Ji was granted the right to have one mint. Later that year, when Dou's general Liu Heita rose in resistance to Tang rule and took over all of Dou's former territory, Li Shimin and Li Yuanji were sent against him. Li Shimin defeated Liu in spring 622, forcing Liu to flee to Eastern Tujue. Subsequently, they attacked another rebel leader, Xu Yuanlang the Prince of Lu, when Li Shimin returned to Chang'an and left Li Yuanji in charge of the operations against Xu. Meanwhile, however, Liu returned from Eastern Tujue and again occupied Dou's old territory, and Li Yuanji was not able to stop him.
Role in the rivalry between Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin.
Meanwhile, an intense rivalry had developed between Li Jiancheng, who as the oldest son was Emperor Gaozu's crown prince, and Li Shimin, as Li Jiancheng, while a capable general himself, was overshadowed by Li Shimin, who had done much to solidify Tang rule by destroying Liu Wuzhou, Wang Shichong, Dou Jiande, and Xue Rengao. Li Yuanji supported Li Jiancheng in this rivalry, as he believed that if Li Jiancheng became emperor, Li Jiancheng would create him crown prince. Since their mother Duchess Dou had died in 614, the fact that Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji had better relations with Emperor Gaozu's favored young concubines than Li Shimin did take a notable importance, since those concubines helped rehabilitate Li Jiancheng's standing before Emperor Gaozu, causing him to no longer consider making Li Shimin crown prince instead, as he considered at one point.
After Liu Heita returned from Eastern Tujue and reoccupied old Xia territory, Li Jiancheng, at the suggestion of his staff members Wang Gui and Wei Zheng, volunteered to lead the army against Liu. Emperor Gaozu thus sent Li Jiancheng, assisted by Li Yuanji, against Liu. Around the new year 623, with Liu's forced bogged down while attacking Tang's Wei Prefecture (魏州, in modern Handan, Hebei), Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji engaged him at Guantao (館陶, in modern Handan as well), crushing him. Liu fled north toward Eastern Tujue, but was ambushed and captured by his own official Zhuge Dewei (諸葛德威), who delivered him to Li Jiancheng. Li Jiancheng executed Liu. China was by this point almost completely unified by Tang. At one point, Li Yuanji tried to persuade Li Jiancheng to have Li Shimin assassinated when Li Shimin was visiting Li Yuanji's mansion, but Li Jiancheng, not having the heart to kill a brother, stopped Li Yuanji from doing so.
In 624, Li Jiancheng requisitioned a number of soldiers from the general Li Yi the Prince of Yan, to supplement his guard corps, against Emperor Gaozu's regulations. When this was revealed to Emperor Gaozu, Emperor Gaozu rebuked Li Jiancheng and exiled his guard commander Keda Zhi (可達志). When, subsequently, Li Jiancheng nevertheless requested the commandant at Qing Prefecture (慶州, in modern Qingyang, Gansu), Yang Wen'gan (楊文幹), to conscript troops, presumably to guard against Li Shimin, the officers Erzhu Huan (爾朱煥) and Qiao Gongshan (橋公山) informed Emperor Gaozu that Li Jiancheng was encouraging Yang to start a rebellion so that they could seize power together. Emperor Gaozu, then at Renzhi Palace (仁智宮, in modern Tongchuan, Shaanxi), was incensed, and summoned Li Jiancheng, then at Chang'an, to Renzhi Palace. Li Jiancheng briefly flirted the idea of occupying Chang'an and not accepting the order, but eventually reported to Renzhi Palace to request forgiveness. Emperor Gaozu put him under arrest. When Yang heard this, Yang rebelled, and Emperor Gaozu, after promising Li Shimin that he would be made crown prince, sent Li Shimin to attack Yang. (Under Emperor Gaozu's promise, Li Jiancheng would be removed as crown prince and created the Prince of Shu instead. He would then send Li Jiancheng to the modern Sichuan region.) Once Li Shimin left, however, Li Yuanji, Emperor Gaozu's concubines, and the chancellor Feng Deyi, all spoke on Li Jiancheng's behalf, and Emperor Gaozu changed his mind, released Li Jiancheng, and allowed him to return to Chang'an and remain as crown prince. Instead, Emperor Gaozu only blamed the discord between his sons on Li Jiancheng's staff members Wang Gui and Wei Ting (韋挺), and Li Shimin's staff member Du Yan, exiling them. Yang was subsequently assassinated by his own subordinates.
Later that year, Emperor Gaozu, troubled by repeated Eastern Tujue incursions, seriously considered burning Chang'an to the ground and moving the capital to Fancheng (樊城, in modern Xiangfan, Hubei), a suggestion that Li Jiancheng, Li Yuanji, and the chancellor Pei Ji agreed with. Li Shimin opposed, however, and the plan was not carried out. Meanwhile, Li Shimin himself was sending his confidants to Luoyang to build up personal control of the army there. After an incident in which Li Shimin suffered a severe case of food poisoning after feasting at Li Jiancheng's palace—an event that both Emperor Gaozu and Li Shimin apparently interpreted as an assassination attempt—Emperor Gaozu considered sending Li Shimin to guard Luoyang to prevent further conflict, but Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji, after consulting each other, believed that this would only give Li Shimin an opportunity to build up his personal power there, and therefore opposed it. Emperor Gaozu therefore did not carry out the plan.
Death.
By 626, Li Shimin was fearful that he would be killed by Li Jiancheng, and his staff members Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, and Zhangsun Wuji were repeatedly encouraging Li Shimin to attack Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji first—while Wei Zheng was encouraging Li Jiancheng to attack Li Shimin first. Li Jiancheng persuaded Emperor Gaozu to remove Fang and Du, as well as Li Shimin's trusted guard officers Yuchi Gong and Cheng Zhijie (程知節), from Li Shimin's staff. Zhangsun, who remained on Li Shimin's staff, continued to try to persuade Li Shimin to attack first.
In summer 626, Eastern Tujue was making another attack, and under Li Jiancheng's suggestion, Emperor Gaozu, instead of sending Li Shimin to resist Eastern Tujue as he first was inclined, decided to send Li Yuanji instead. Li Yuanji was given command of much of the army previously under Li Shimin's control, further troubling Li Shimin, who believed that with the army in Li Yuanji's hands, he would be unable to resist an attack. Li Shimin had Yuchi summon Fang and Du back to his mansion secretly, and then on one night submitted an accusation to Emperor Gaozu that Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji were committing adultery with Emperor Gaozu's concubines. Emperor Gaozu, in response, issued summonses to Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji for the next morning, convening the senior officials Pei Ji, Xiao Yu, and Chen Shuda to examine Li Shimin's accusations. As Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji approached the central gate leading to Emperor Gaozu's palace, Xuanwu Gate (玄武門), Li Shimin carried out the ambush he had set. He personally fired an arrow that killed Li Jiancheng. Subsequently, Li Yuanji tried to kill Li Shimin, but Yuchi killed Li Yuanji instead during the struggle. Li Shimin's forces entered the palace and, under the intimidation of Li Shimin's forces, Emperor Gaozu agreed to create Li Shimin crown prince, and two months later passed the throne to him (as Emperor Taizong). Li Yuanji's five sons were all executed as well. Emperor Taizong also took Li Yuanji's wife Princess Yang as a concubine.
Li Yuanji was initially posthumously reduced to commoner rank. After Emperor Taizong took the throne, he posthumously created Li Yuanji the Prince of Hailing, with the unflattering posthumous name of La (meaning "ungrateful"). In 642, Emperor Taizong changed Li Yuanji's posthumous title to the greater title of Prince of Chao, and adopted his own son, by Consort Yang (Li Yuanji's widow), Li Ming (李明) the Prince of Cao (note difference in title) into Li Yuanji's line, as Li Yuanji's heir.


2007 Venezuelan referendum protests

Venezuelan protests for and against President Hugo Chávez's proposed 2 December constitutional referendum occurred after the National Assembly approved the referendum on 2 November 2007.
Foundation of the Student Movement.
Student activists have been mobilizing in Venezuela since as early as 1998. In 2002, the Red Democrática Universitaria Estudantil was founded, a national student federation. According to Rayma López, one of the prominent student leaders involved with the organization, "Student leaders met, but as the police intelligence harassed and prosecuted them, these meetings came to a halt."
The movement also experienced issues internally, as there was tension between groups of student from different universities.
Closure of RCTV.
In December 2006, President Chávez announced that he intended to shut down RCTV ("Radio Caracas Televisión"), the last of the country's private television channels, and there were immediate repercussions seen throughout the country. University and school students gathered nationwide and organized workshops of human rights principles; the intended closure "violated two human rights: freedom of expression and freedom of thought".
On 28 March 2007, the Venezuelan government failed to renew the broadcasting license of RCTV. In the days leading up to the decision, students from different universities around the country had already begun to gather in their campuses in protest. They believed that without RCTV, the people would be left without an objective source of information, since all other private channels had made treaties with the government about what to broadcast. On the day the announcement was made, student protests were violently broken up by the National Guard using teargas and blank rifle shots, while some students that protested were even shot at with live ammunition by Chávez supporters.
Several months later, the student movement was given the opportunity to present their beliefs to parliament when the Bolivarian political party "Podemos" (that had recently joined the opposition) fought for the students' right to raise their concerns. Student representatives spoke out at parliament on 7 June 2007, and the speeches were broadcast live on television and radio.
Douglas Barrios, a student leader from the "Universidad Metropolitana", gave a speech in which he addressed the political neutrality of the student movement:
We are not neoliberals, we are liberated beings. We are not the opposition; we are a proposition. Youth is not on the streets today fighting for business interests or political tendencies. We are on the streets making politics without traditional politicians, fighting for our nation, protecting the interests of our society.
The broadcast was hugely helpful for the student movement, as they became much better known around the country because of the exposure they received in the media. The movement experienced an expansion and was forced to re-organize, cutting down from 127 student representatives to 8, in order to better and more efficiently reach consensus at meetings. These 8 representatives were chosen from eight universities in Caracas, while another committee held another 25 representatives, including leaders like Alexis Cabrera, Stalin Gonzáles, Fabricio Briceño, Ricardo Sánchez, Rayma López, Yon Goicoechea and Freddy Guevara.
The movement profited greatly from continued media coverage after the 28 March protests and the broadcast parliament speeches.
Tactics.
The student movement made use of symbols in their discourse, and they consistently tried to emphasize that their cause was not related or tied to any political or partisan ideology.
Most methods of protest were confrontational and peaceful, although in early June some government websites were hacked in protest of the RCTV closing.
"Manos Blancas" (White hands).
The movement stayed away from using colors that would have implied partisanship- Chavez's party has always clearly made use of the color red- and instead utilized white as a symbol of peace and freedom from labels and division. At rallies and protests, students would paint the palms of their hands white, as a call for peace and reconciliation amongst divided parties.
"Resistencia" (Resistance).
"Resistencia", or resistance, was the phrase used specifically to challenge the constitutional amendments presented in the December 2007 referendum. Students generally took to peaceful methods of resistance, such as sit-ins and demonstrations, though confrontations with the police usually turned violent.
Key leaders.
Several students played important roles in the 2007 protests, acting as the movement's representatives and speakers in the media. One important aspect of leadership was activity on social media platforms like Twitter, because there were few ways for groups to keep in contact other than through large outlets that couldn't be controlled by the government. Yon Goicoechea, Stalin González, and Ricardo Sánchez were well-known speakers and leaders who began publicizing the movement's activities on Twitter in 2009. Stalin González was the president of the "Federación de Centros Universitarios", or Federation of University Centers, in 2006, from which he organized campaigns directed at addressing human and civil rights and how these were being treated by the government. Ricardo Sánchez succeeded him as president of the FCU in 2007 and 2008, and after much participation in the 2007 protests went on to become a substitute legislator who broke off from the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática opposition coalition. Perhaps most known in the media, Yon Goicoechea was one of the most prominent leaders after the 2007 referendum, though he received much negative attention, including death threats, after having received a $500,000 award from the Cato Institute, located in D.C.
Transition from RCTV to referendum protests.
In late June, RCTV managed to continue producing unofficial daily broadcasts by posting them on YouTube and running on a severely minimized staff, although the government refused to sway in their decision not to renew the channel's license. National protests calmed and quieted down as Chavez and his government continuously failed to address or acknowledge any of the protest activity.
The momentum that the student movement had picked up after the closing of RCTV was channeled into protests against Chavez's proposed national referendum, as the students believed that the 69 amendments on the ballot would give the president too much power over the government and the country. The referendum was rejected in the December elections, and RCTV's alternative broadcasting continued smoothly for the next two and a half years until 2010, when the channel did not air a speech made by President Chavez and therefore ran into trouble with laws that required Chavez's speeches to all be shown by cable companies and broadcast channels.
In November 2007, demonstrations arose in Caracas, Venezuela and six other cities over the proposed constitutional changes. "Tens of thousands" of "Yes" voters marched in Caracas after the referendum had finally been approved on 2 November. An 8 November riot at the Central University of Venezuela resulted in clashes between students and several masked gunmen, with several injuries; footage was caught on tape. In late November 2007, just days before the referendum, tens of thousands marched in Caracas for both the "Yes" and "No" votes. An opposition politician estimated the crowd marching for the "No" vote at 160,000. Protests were largely peaceful, and only one pro-government worker's death has been reported.
Some of Chávez's supporters expressed concerns and disagreement with his proposals to change the constitution.
Many voters abstained in the vote, rather than cast a "No" vote against Chávez. The student movement played a crucial role in consolidating this position and in organizing numerous rallies. The student movement has played a large role in the Venezuelan political process, having gained a prominent position during the RCTV broadcast license expiration protests. Although the student movement is not limited to the opposition, it has been the opposition students that have gained the largest support, in part because they are not officially affiliated with any political cadres.


Prince of Brazil (Brazil)

Prince of Brazil (feminine: Princess of Brazil; Portuguese: "Príncipe do Brasil"; feminine: "Princesa do Brasil") was an imperial title of the Empire of Brazil, granted to the sons or daughters of the Emperor and other dynasts of the imperial family who were not the heir apparent or heir presumptive to the throne. It was also used to denote a grandson or granddaughter in the male line of a reigning monarch, with some exceptions.
Style of Address.
A Prince or Princess of Brazil was usually entitled to the style of "Highness", except for the Prince/ss Imperial and Prince of Grão-Pará, who were addressed as "Imperial Highness". Princes or Princesses who bore additional titles of higher standing would be addressed with the style linked with the highest title they possessed. Since the agreement between the French House of Orléans and the Brazilian House of Orléans-Braganza in 1909, Brazilian princes in the line of succession to the former French throne bear the title of "Prince of Orléans-Braganza" with the style of "Royal Highness". Those Princes with higher Brazilian titles may be addressed with the style linked with those titles, in conjunction with their French royal titles and styles; for instance, "His Imperial and Royal Highness" Prince Luiz of Orléans-Braganza.
Privileges.
A Prince or Princess of Brazil would receive financial assistance from birth until death, unless they married a foreign-born spouse or moved out of the country.


Gaius Plautius Decianus

Gaius Plautius Decianus was a Roman general and poltician who served as consul once in 329 BC. Plautius was from a plebeian family whose first consul, Gaius Plautius Proculus, had only attained the position in 358 BC, meaning that Plautius, and his family as of large, lacked the same kind of political clout which was held by more prominent patrician families. As for his exact lineage, nothing is known other than that both his father and grandfather were named Publius.
Consulship.
In 329 BC, Plautius was elected to his first and only consulship, serving alongside Lucius Aemilius Mamercinus, his patrician colleague. The previous year, in 330 BC, the two cities of Privernum and Fundi revolted against Rome, with their cause being led by Vitruvius Vaccus, a general of Fundi who also owned properties in Rome. In response, the senate sent two armies led by the consuls to deal with the rebellion, with one, led by the consul Lucius Papirius Crassus defeating the army of Vaccus in pitched battle, and the second one under the command of Lucius Plautius Venox marching to Fundi and accepting the surrender of the city. The consuls then advanced to Privernum itself and laid siege to it before their consular year came to a close, prompting one of the consuls to return to Rome in order to conduct the elections in which Plautius and Aemilius would be chosen. Around this time, word reached the senate of a potential attack by the Gauls so the command was split, with Aemilius being chosen to take on the Gauls and Plautius being assigned with continuing the war on Privernum. Aemilius raised a massive army, levying all available men without exception, but within a few days it became clear that the news of the Gallic invasion was a false alarm, so instead both Plautius and Aemilius marched to take on Vaccus and Privernum. What happened next is a bit murky, either the city was taken by storm, or the city and Vaccus himself were surrendered by the Privenates. Either way however the result remained the same; Privernum was taken, the rebellion was quashed, and Vitruvius Vaccus was taken prisoner. When the senate heard word of this capture, they ordered Plautius to tear down the fortifications of Privernum and place a sizable Roman garrison in the city, and also gave permission for the consuls to celebrate a triumph for their victory. After Plautius and Aemilius, now known as "Privernas" because of the victory, had triumphed, Vitruvius Vaccus and his associates were executed and his lands in Rome were seized.