Indian classical music

Indian classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music tradition is called "Hindustani", while the South Indian expression is called "Carnatic". These traditions were not distinct until about the 16th century. During the period of Mughal rule of the Indian subcontinent, the traditions separated and evolved into distinct forms. Hindustani music emphasizes improvisation and exploration of all aspects of a raga, while Carnatic performances tend to be short composition-based. However, the two systems continue to have more common features than differences.
The roots of the classical music of India are found in the Vedic literature of Hinduism and the ancient "Natyashastra", the classic Sanskrit text on performance arts by Bharata Muni. The 13th century Sanskrit text "Sangita-Ratnakara" of Sarangadeva is regarded as the definitive text by both the Hindustani music and the Carnatic music traditions.
Indian classical music has two foundational elements, "raga" and "tala". The "raga", based on a varied repertoire of "swara" (notes including microtones), forms the fabric of a deeply intricate melodic structure, while the "tala" measures the time cycle. The "raga" gives an artist a palette to build the melody from sounds, while the "tala" provides them with a creative framework for rhythmic improvisation using time. In Indian classical music the space between the notes is often more important than the notes themselves, and it traditionally eschews Western classical concepts such as harmony, counterpoint, chords, or modulation.
History.
The root of music in ancient India are found in the Vedic literature of Hinduism. The earliest Indian thought combined three arts, syllabic recital ("vadya"), melos ("gita") and dance ("nrtta"). As these fields developed, "sangeeta" became a distinct genre of art, in a form equivalent to contemporary music. This likely occurred before the time of Yāska (c. 500 BCE), since he includes these terms in his nirukta studies, one of the six Vedanga of ancient Indian tradition. Some of the ancient texts of Hinduism such as the "Samaveda" (c. 1000 BCE) are structured entirely to melodic themes, it is sections of "Rigveda" set to music.
The "Samaveda" is organized into two formats. One part is based on the musical meter, another by the aim of the rituals. The text is written with embedded coding, where "swaras" (octave notes) are either shown above or within the text, or the verse is written into "parvans" (knot or member); in simple words, this embedded code of swaras is like the skeleton of the song. The swaras have about 12 different forms and different combinations of these swaras are made to sit under the names of different ragas. The specific code of a song clearly tells us what combination of swaras are present in a specific song. The lyrical part of the song is called "sahityam" and sahityam is just like singing the swaras altogether but using the lyrics of the song. The code in the form of swaras have even the notation of which note to be sung high and which one low. The hymns of "Samaveda" contain melodic content, form, rhythm and metric organization. This structure is, however, not unique or limited to "Samaveda". The "Rigveda" embeds the musical meter too, without the kind of elaboration found in the "Samaveda". For example, the Gayatri mantra contains three metric lines of exactly eight syllables, with an embedded ternary rhythm.
In the ancient traditions of Hinduism, two musical genre appeared, namely "Gandharva" (formal, composed, ceremonial music) and "Gana" (informal, improvised, entertainment music). The "Gandharva" music also implied celestial, divine associations, while the "Gana" also implied singing. The Vedic Sanskrit musical tradition had spread widely in the Indian subcontinent, and according to Rowell, the ancient Tamil classics make it "abundantly clear that a cultivated musical tradition existed in South India as early as the last few pre-Christian centuries".
The classic Sanskrit text "Natya Shastra" is at the foundation of the numerous classical music and dance traditions of India. Before "Natyashastra" was finalized, the ancient Indian traditions had classified musical instruments into four groups based on their acoustic principle (how they work, rather than the material they are made of) for example flute which works with gracious in and out flow of air. These four categories are accepted as given and are four separate chapters in the "Natyashastra", one each on stringed instruments (chordophones), hollow instruments (aerophones), solid instruments (idiophones), and covered instruments (membranophones). Of these, states Rowell, the idiophone in the form of "small bronze cymbals" were used for "tala". Almost the entire chapter of "Natyashastra" on idiophones, by Bharata, is a theoretical treatise on the system of "tala". Time keeping with idiophones was considered a separate function than that of percussion (membranophones), in the early Indian thought on music theory.
The early 13th century Sanskrit text "Sangitaratnakara" (literally, "Ocean of Music and Dance"), by Sarngadeva patronized by King Sighana of the Yadava dynasty in Maharashtra, mentions and discusses "ragas" and "talas". He identifies seven "tala" families, then subdivides them into rhythmic ratios, presenting a methodology for improvization and composition that continues to inspire modern era Indian musicians. "Sangitaratnakara" is one of the most complete historic medieval era Hindu treatises on this subject that has survived into the modern era, that relates to the structure, technique and reasoning behind "ragas" and "talas".
The centrality and significance of music in ancient and early medieval India is also expressed in numerous temple and shrine reliefs, in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism, such as through the carving of musicians with cymbals at the fifth century Pavaya temple sculpture near Gwalior, and the Ellora Caves.
Texts.
The post-Vedic era historical literature relating to Indian classical music has been extensive. The ancient and medieval texts are primarily in Sanskrit (Hinduism), but major reviews of music theory, instruments and practice were also composed in regional languages such as Braj, Kannada, Odia, Pali (Buddhism), Prakrit (Jainism), Tamil and Telugu. While numerous manuscripts have survived into the modern era, many original works on Indian music are believed to be lost, and are known to have existed only because they are quoted and discussed in other manuscripts on classical Indian music. Many of the encyclopedic Puranas contain large chapters on music theory and instruments, such as the "Bhagavata Purana", the "Markandeya Purana", the "Vayu Purana", the "Linga Purana", and the "Visnudharmottara Purana".
The most cited and influential among these texts are the "Sama Veda", "Natya shastra" (classic treatise on music theory, Gandharva), "Dattilam", "Brihaddesi" (treatise on regional classical music forms), and "Sangita Ratnakara" (definitive text for Carnatic and Hindustani traditions). Most historic music theory texts have been by Hindu scholars. Some classical music texts were also composed by Buddhists and Jain scholars, and in 16th century by Muslim scholars. These are listed in the attached table.
Major traditions.
The classical music tradition of the ancient and medieval Indian subcontinent (modern Bangladesh, India, Pakistan) were a generally integrated system through the 14th century, after which the socio-political turmoil of the Delhi Sultanate era isolated the north from the south. The music traditions of the North and South India were not considered distinct until about the 16th century, but after that the traditions acquired distinct forms. North Indian classical music is called "Hindustani", while the South Indian expression is called "Carnatic" (sometimes spelled as "Karnatic"). According to Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, the North Indian tradition acquired its modern form after the 14th or the 15th century.
Indian classical music has historically adopted and evolved with many regional styles, such as the Bengali classical tradition. This openness to ideas led to assimilation of regional folk innovations, as well as influences that arrived from outside the subcontinent. For example, Hindustani music assimilated Arabian and Persian influences. This assimilation of ideas was upon the ancient classical foundations such as "raga", "tala", "matras" as well as the musical instruments. For example, the Persian "Rāk" is probably a pronunciation of "Raga". According to Hormoz Farhat, "Rāk" has no meaning in modern Persian language, and the concept of "raga" is unknown in Persia.
Carnatic music.
Purandara Dasa (1484–1564) was a Hindu composer and musicologist who lived in Hampi of the Vijayanagara Empire. He is considered "Pithamaha" (literally, "grandfather") of the Carnatic music. Purandara Dasa was a monk and a devotee of the Hindu god Krishna (Vishnu, Vittal avatar). He systematised classical Indian music theory and developed exercises for musicians to learn and perfect their art. He travelled widely sharing and teaching his ideas, and influenced numerous South Indian and Maharashtra Bhakti movement musicians. These exercises, his teachings about "raga", and his systematic methodology called "Suladi Sapta Tala" (literally, "primordial seven talas") remains in use in contemporary times. The efforts of Purandara Dasa in the 16th century began the Carnatic style of Indian classical music.
Carnatic music, from South India, tends to be more rhythmically intensive and structured than Hindustani music. Examples of this are the logical classification of ragas into melakartas, and the use of fixed compositions similar to Western classical music. Carnatic raga elaborations are generally much faster in tempo and shorter than their equivalents in Hindustani music. In addition, accompanists have a much larger role in Carnatic concerts than in Hindustani concerts. Today's typical concert structure was put in place by the vocalist Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar. The opening piece is called a varnam, and is a warm-up for the musicians. A devotion and a request for a blessing follows, then a series of interchanges between ragams (unmetered melody) and Tanam (the ornamentation within a melorhythmic cycle, equivalent to the "jor"). This is intermixed with hymns called krithis. The pallavi or theme from the raga then follows. Carnatic pieces also have notated lyrical poems that are reproduced as such, possibly with embellishments and treatments according to the performer's ideology, referred to as Manodharmam.
Primary themes include worship, descriptions of temples, philosophy, and nayaka-nayika (Sanskrit "hero-heroine") themes. Tyagaraja (1759–1847), Muthuswami Dikshitar (1776–1827) and Syama Sastri (1762–1827) have been the important historic scholars of Carnatic music. According to Eleanor Zelliot, Tyagaraja is known in the Carnatic tradition as one of its greatest composers, and he reverentially acknowledged the influence of Purandara Dasa.
A common belief in South India is that Carnatic music represents a more ancient approach to classical music, whereas Hindustani music has evolved by external influences.
Hindustani music.
It is unclear when the process of differentiation of Hindustani music started. The process may have started in the 14th century courts of the Delhi Sultans. However, according to Jairazbhoy, the North Indian tradition likely acquired its modern form after the 14th or after the 15th century. The development of Hindustani music reached a peak during the reign of Akbar. During this 16th century period, Tansen studied music and introduced musical innovations, for about the first sixty years of his life with patronage of the Hindu king Ram Chand of Gwalior, and thereafter performed at the Muslim court of Akbar. Many musicians consider Tansen as the founder of Hindustani music.
Tansen's style and innovations inspired many, and many modern "gharanas" (Hindustani music teaching houses) link themselves to his lineage. The Muslim courts discouraged Sanskrit, and encouraged technical music. Such constraints led Hindustani music to evolve in a different way than Carnatic music.
Hindustani music style is mainly found in North India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It exists in four major forms: Dhrupad, Khyal (or Khayal), Tarana, and the semi-classical Thumri. Dhrupad is ancient, Khyal evolved from it, Thumri evolved from Khyal. There are three major schools of Thumri: Lucknow gharana, Banaras gharana and Punjabi gharana. These weave in folk music innovations. Tappa is the most folksy, one which likely existed in Rajasthan and Punjab region before it was systematized and integrated into classical music structure. It became popular, with the Bengali musicians developing their own Tappa.
Khyal is the modern form of Hindustani music, and the term literally means "imagination". It is significant because it was the template for Sufi musicians among the Islamic community of India, and "Qawwals" sang their folk songs in the Khyal format.
Dhrupad (or Dhruvapad), the ancient form described in the Hindu text "Natyashastra", is one of the core forms of classical music found all over the Indian subcontinent. The word comes from "Dhruva" which means immovable and permanent.
A Dhrupad has at least four stanzas, called Sthayi (or Asthayi), Antara, Sanchari and Abhoga. The Sthayi part is a melody that uses the middle octave's first tetrachord and the lower octave notes. The Antara part uses the middle octave's second tetrachord and the higher octave notes. The Sanchari part is the development phase, which builds using parts of Sthayi and Antara already played, and it uses melodic material built with all the three octave notes. The Abhoga is the concluding section, that brings the listener back to the familiar starting point of Sthayi, albeit with rhythmic variations, with diminished notes like a gentle goodbye, that are ideally mathematical fractions such as "dagun" (half), "tigun" (third) or "chaugun" (fourth). Sometimes a fifth stanza called Bhoga is included. Though usually related to philosophical or Bhakti (emotional devotion to a god or goddess) themes, some Dhrupads were composed to praise kings.
Improvisation is of central importance to Hindustani music, and each "gharana" (school tradition) has developed its own techniques. At its core, it starts with a standard composition (bandish), then expands it in a process called "vistar". The improvisation methods have ancient roots, and one of the more common techniques is called "Alap", which is followed by the "Jor" and "Jhala". The "Alap" explores possible tonal combinations among other things, "Jor" explores speed or tempo (faster), while "Jhala" explores complex combinations like a fishnet of strokes while keeping the beat patterns. As with Carnatic music, Hindustani music has assimilated various folk tunes. For example, ragas such as Kafi and Jaijaiwanti are based on folk tunes.
Persian and Arab influences.
Hindustani music has had Arab and Persian music influences, including the creation of new ragas and the development of instruments such as the sitar and sarod. The nature of these influences are unclear. Scholars have attempted to study Arabic "maqam" (also spelled "makam") of Arabian peninsula, Turkey and northern Africa, and "dastgah" of Iran, to discern the nature and extent. Through the colonial era and until the 1960s, the attempt was to theoretically study "ragas" and "maqams" and suggested commonalities. Later comparative musicology studies, states Bruno Nettl – a professor of Music, have found the similarities between classical Indian music and European music as well, raising the question about the point of similarities and of departures between the different world music systems.
One of the earliest known discussions of Persian "maqam" and Indian "ragas" is by the late 16th century scholar Pundarika Vittala. He states that Persian "maqams" in use in his times had been derived from older Indian "ragas" (or "mela"), and he specifically maps over a dozen "maqam". For example, Vittala states that the "Hijaz maqam" was derived from the "Asaveri raga", and "Jangula" was derived from the "Bangal". In 1941, Haidar Rizvi questioned this and stated that influence was in the other direction, Middle Eastern "maqams" were turned into Indian "ragas", such as "Zangulah maqam" becoming "Jangla raga". According to John Baily – a professor of Ethnomusicology, there is evidence that the traffic of musical ideas were both ways, because Persian records confirm that Indian musicians were a part of the Qajar court in Tehran, an interaction that continued through the 20th century with import of Indian musical instruments in cities such as Herat near Afghanistan-Iran border.
Features.
Classical Indian music is a genre of South Asian music, the other being film, various varieties of pop, regional folk, religious and devotional music.
In Indian classical music, the "raga" and the "tala" are two foundational elements. The "raga" forms the fabric of a melodic structure, and the "tala" keeps the time cycle. Both "raga" and "tala" are open frameworks for creativity and allow a very large number of possibilities, however, the tradition considers a few hundred "ragas" and "talas" as basic. "Raga" is intimately related to "tala" or guidance about "division of time", with each unit called a "matra" (beat, and duration between beats).
Raga.
A "raga" is a central concept of Indian music, predominant in its expression. According to Walter Kaufmann, though a remarkable and prominent feature of Indian music, a definition of "raga" cannot be offered in one or two sentences. "Raga" may be roughly described as a musical entity that includes note intonation, relative duration and order, in a manner similar to how words flexibly form phrases to create an atmosphere of expression. In some cases, certain rules are considered obligatory, in others optional. The "raga" allows flexibility, where the artist may rely on simple expression, or may add ornamentations yet express the same essential message but evoke a different intensity of mood.
A "raga" has a given set of notes, on a scale, ordered in melodies with musical motifs. A musician playing a "raga", states Bruno Nettl, may traditionally use just these notes, but is free to emphasize or improvise certain degrees of the scale. The Indian tradition suggests a certain sequencing of how the musician moves from note to note for each "raga", in order for the performance to create a "rasa" (mood, atmosphere, essence, inner feeling) that is unique to each "raga". A "raga" can be written on a scale. Theoretically, thousands of "raga" are possible given 5 or more notes, but in practical use, the classical Indian tradition has refined and typically relies on several hundred. For most artists, their basic perfected repertoire has some forty to fifty "ragas". "Raga" in Indian classical music is intimately related to "tala" or guidance about "division of time", with each unit called a "matra" (beat, and duration between beats).
A "raga" is not a tune, because the same "raga" can yield a very large number of tunes. A "raga" is not a scale, because many "ragas" can be based on the same scale. A "raga", states Bruno Nettl and other music scholars, is a concept similar to mode, something between the domains of tune and scale, and it is best conceptualized as a "unique array of melodic features, mapped to and organized for a unique aesthetic sentiment in the listener". The goal of a "raga" and its artist is to create "rasa" (essence, feeling, atmosphere) with music, as classical Indian dance does with performance arts. In the Indian tradition, classical dances are performed with music set to various "ragas".
Tala.
According to David Nelson – an Ethnomusicology scholar specializing in Carnatic music, a "tala" in Indian music covers "the whole subject of musical meter". Indian music is composed and performed in a metrical framework, a structure of beats that is a "tala". A "tala" measures musical time in Indian music. However, it does not imply a regular repeating accent pattern, instead its hierarchical arrangement depends on how the musical piece is supposed to be performed.
The "tala" forms the metrical structure that repeats, in a cyclical harmony, from the start to end of any particular song or dance segment, making it conceptually analogous to meters in Western music. However, "talas" have certain qualitative features that classical European musical meters do not. For example, some "talas" are much longer than any classical Western meter, such as a framework based on 29 beats whose cycle takes about 45 seconds to complete when performed. Another sophistication in "talas" is the lack of "strong, weak" beat composition typical of the traditional European meter. In classical Indian traditions, the "tala" is not restricted to permutations of strong and weak beats, but its flexibility permits the accent of a beat to be decided by the shape of musical phrase.
The most widely used "tala" in the South Indian system is "adi tala". In the North Indian system, the most common "tala" is "teental". In the two major systems of classical Indian music, the first count of any "tala" is called "sam".
Instruments.
Instruments typically used in Hindustani music include the sitar, sarod, surbahar, esraj, veena, tanpura, bansuri, shehnai, sarangi, violin, santoor, pakhavaj and tabla. Instruments typically used in Carnatic music include veena, venu, gottuvadyam, harmonium, mridangam, kanjira, ghatam, nadaswaram and violin.
Players of the tabla, a type of drum, usually keep the rhythm, an indicator of time in Hindustani music. Another common instrument is the stringed tanpura, which is played at a steady tone (a drone) throughout the performance of the raga, and which provides both a point of reference for the musician and a background against which the music stands out. The tuning of the tanpura depends on the raga being performed. The task of playing the tanpura traditionally falls to a student of the soloist. Other instruments for accompaniment include the sarangi and the harmonium.
Notation system.
Indian classical music is both elaborate and expressive. Like Western classical music, it divides the octave into 12 semitones of which the 7 basic notes are, in ascending tonal order, "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni " for Hindustani music and "Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni " for Carnatic music, similar to Western music's "Do Re Mi Fa So La Si ". However, Indian music uses just-intonation tuning, unlike some modern Western classical music, which uses the equal-temperament tuning system. Also, unlike modern Western classical music, Indian classical music places great emphasis on improvisation.
The underlying scale may have four, five, six or seven tones, called "swaras" (sometimes spelled as "svaras"). The "swara" concept is found in the ancient "Natya Shastra" in Chapter 28. It calls the unit of tonal measurement or audible unit as "Śhruti", with verse 28.21 introducing the musical scale as follows,
These seven degrees are shared by both major "raga systems", that is the North Indian (Hindustani) and South Indian (Carnatic) systems. The solfege ("sargam") is learnt in abbreviated form: "sa, ri (Carnatic) or re (Hindustani), ga, ma, pa, dha, ni, sa". Of these, the first that is "sa", and the fifth that is "pa", are considered anchors that are unalterable, while the remaining have flavors that differs between the two major systems.
Contemporary Indian music schools follow notations and classifications (see melakarta and thaat). These are generally based on a flawed but still useful notation system created by Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande.
Reception outside India.
According to Yukteshwar Kumar, elements of Indian music arrived in China in the 3rd century, such as in the works of Chinese lyricist Li Yannian.
In the 1980s, 1990s and particularly the 2000s onwards, Indian Classical Music has seen rapid growth in reception and development around the globe, particularly in North America, where immigrant communities have preserved and passed on classical music traditions to subsequent generations through the establishment of local festivals and music schools. Numerous musicians of American origin, including Ramakrishnan Murthy, Sandeep Narayan, Abby V, and Mahesh Kale have taken professionally to Indian Classical Music with great success. In his 2020 released video, Canadian singer Abby V demonstrated 73 different Indian Classical ragas in a live rendering, which went viral on the internet; further establishing the growing prominence of Indian Classical Music around the globe.
Organizations.
A few of the organizations that promote classical music include Saptak, Sangeet Sankalp established in 1989. SPIC MACAY, established in 1977, has more than 500 chapters in India and abroad. SPIC MACAY claims to hold around 5000 events every year related to Indian classical music and dance.
Prayag Sangeet Samiti is also a well established organisastion promoting Indian Classical Music.
Music Academy Madras' Sangeetha Kalanidhi Award is a well regarded award.


Belina coat of arms

Belina is a Polish coat of arms. It was used by several szlachta families in the times of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Blazon.
Azure, between horseshoes argent, two facing each, the third in base, a sword proper. the hilt in chief or. Crest: A dexter arm embowed in armour or, holding a sword pointed to the right.
Notable bearers.
Notable bearers of this coat of arms include:


Marguerite Bertsch

Marguerite Bertsch (December 14, 1889 – 1967) was an American screenwriter and film director who worked in the early days of film. Her 1917 text "How to Write for Moving Pictures: A Manual of Instruction and Information" reflected and influenced the screenwriters of the era. In the early days of film it was not uncommon for "scenario writers" to be women and she was among those who, beginning in 1916, also directed films. However, she would later be called one of the "forgotten women" of silent film as the non-acting women of early film largely became obscure. Prints of two films that Bertsch had worked on as a screenwriter were rediscovered in the Netherlands, at the Nederlands Filmmuseum. These newly discovered films, "The Diver" and "The Troublesome Step-Daughter", and the 1914 film "A Florida Enchantment," are currently the only films from Bertsch's career that have been recovered. The rest are presumed to be lost.
Career.
Bertsch began her film career with Vitagraph in 1913, starting as a scenario writer. In 1916, she became the head of the screenwriting department, and began working as a director for the company. Her first directorial output was the 1916 film "The Law Decides", which she directed with William P.S. Earle. Several months later, she directed her first solo feature, "The Devil's Prize". This was considered to be an unusual film for a woman director and writer, as it was a "tangled tale of illegitimate pregnancy, abandonment, and murder. She also may have worked as an editor and screenwriter for the Famous Players Film Company, but the dates for this work are unknown.
For reasons that are unknown, Bertsch stopped working for the Vitagraph company in 1918, when she was considered to be at the height of her career. There is no record of any film work by her after this point.
Early life.
Bertsch was born in New York City, and was educated at Columbia University. She worked as a playwright and a public school teacher before beginning her career as a screenwriter with Vitagraph Studios in 1913.
Very little is known about Bertsch's life outside of her career, but it has been suggested that she was a supporter of the Social Reform movement. In "How To Write For Moving Pictures", she argued against writing "anything that might stir up in [the audience] vulgar feelings or sexual thoughts." The film historian Siobhan B. Somerville has argued that Vitagraph's adaptation of the novel "A Florida Enchantment", for which Bertsch was the lead screenwriter, reflects this ideology. A number of overtly sexual scenes from the book were cut, as well as scenes dealing with racial issues. This may also be due to the Vitagraph's interest in making "respectable" films. The historian R. Bruce Basell further argues that Bertsch's screenplay for the film shows an opposition to the women's emancipation movement, as it suggests that there will be societal chaos if emancipation is achieved.
There is very little public information about her life between 1918, when she left Vitagraph, and 1967, when she is believed to have died. Census records from the states of New York and New Jersey suggest that between 1930 and 1941, she was living with various family members and may have been working as a freelance writer.
Selected filmography.
"Writing and Directing"


Lucille McVey

Lucille McVey (April 18, 1890 – November 3, 1925) also known as Mrs Sidney Drew, was an American screenwriter, director, producer, and actress. In the early 1900s, she was part with her husband Sidney Drew of the famous comedy duo Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew.
Biography.
Early career.
Lucille McVey was born in Sedalia, Missouri, on April 18, 1890. From the age of 15, she worked as a comedian and was recognized as a foremost "child dialect reader". She went for a screen career in 1911 at the age of 21. At that time she was credited under the pseudonym of Jane Morrow, her grandmother's name.
In the early 1914, she joined the Vitagraph Studios where she met Sidney Drew and joined his company of players. In April 1914, she and the other members of the company accompanied Drew to Florida for a stay of six weeks, which started the beginning of their personal and working relationship.
Their marriage on July 25, 1914, led to the creation of "Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew" comedies.
Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew.
Like many women of the period, such as Lillian Gish or Margery Wilson, McVey pursued opportunities to write and direct. She started producing comedies with her husband under the name "Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew". They occupied their own unit at the Vitagraph Studios. Soon they specialized in what came to be known as "polite" or "refined" domestic comedies also called high-brow comedies - or situation comedies according to the current terminology. They found their humor in the small misunderstandings affecting the bourgeois people.
Their first big success, "Playing Dead" (1915), was a five-reel "human interest drama" based on Richard Harding Davis's book. Sidney Drew directed it and Lucille McVey was credited as screenwriter. Following this success, they became a famous duo applauded by audience and the industry.
At the time, comedy shorts were paid per productions, not yearly. The 1918 crisis affecting the Vitagraph Studios forced the Drews to fly to Metro Pictures, who became their distributor. They continued producing short domestic comedies for $90,000 a year, releasing one one-reel comedy a week. During that time they perfected their Henry and Dolly characters, who will remain the central players of their productions from this point on.
At the expiration of their Metro's contract, they decided to temporally retire from the screen and returned to the stage with "Keep Her Smiling", a lightweight comedy in which they both starred. In August 1918, they signed a contract with Amadee J. Van Beuren to produce a series of two-reel comedies released by Paramount while touring for "Keep her Smiling".
In 1919, the Drews became independent producers, owner of V.B.K. Corporation, distributed by Famous Players-Lasky Corporation (Paramount Pictures Corporation). They slowed down the production to one or two comedies a month.
During the spring 1918, Sidney Drew's son from his first marriage, S. Rankin Drew, died while serving with the Lafayette Flying Corps, leading to the deterioration of Drew's health. Sidney Drew died on April 9, 1919.
Personal career.
Lucille McVey kept making films from her own New-York studio. Merely a year after Sidney Drew's death, Pathé Exchange sold a series of six to eight two-reel comedies made by McVey-Drew based on the "After Thirty" stories penned by Julian Stuart. It is still unclear whether or not McVey made more than the first two films, "The Charming Mrs. Chase" (1920) and "The Stimulating Mrs. Barton" (1920).
In 1921, she began to write, direct and produce series of short domestic comedies for the Vitagraph Studios. "Cousin Kate" (1921), a five-reel feature based on the play from Hubert Henry Davies, starred Vitagraph biggest star Alice Joyce and was acclaimed by critics and audience. She was one of the four women to direct at Vitagraph Studios after 1916 with Marguerite Bertsch, Lillian Josephine Chester and Paula Blackton.
She died of extended illness in 1925 at the age of thirty-five.
Artistic collaboration.
According to contemporary sources, Lucille Mcvey was the central creator of the Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew comedies. Despite her relative inexperience at her debut, she produced and directed more often than her husband and her input had an important impact on duo's creation.
She selected the ideas and developed them. She would look through incoming manuscript as they were send to the couple and reconstruct the script to give it its final shape. After two years of producing, only six comedies were made from a single author, the others from different writers all across America. The Drews bought scenarios only for the idea, believing that no author could "fit [their] particular methods."
For McVey, the essential of their ideas needed to be clear and thoughtful, inspired and based on real people and event. "Story must be real", she declared at the Photoplay in 1917. They based their stories mostly on married life, which offered a multiplicity of themes while being a "great part of the human". Subsequently, they mostly played husband and wife characters.
Lucille McVey bared the importance of the intimate in characters. The Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew comedies were mostly based on the use of subtitles. She believed they were "direct and human", helping to "get the story started and put continuity over quickly and speedily".
The Drew style was defined by the use of everyday situations of the bourgeois class turned into comical short comedies which was greatly acclaimed by the audience at their time.


The Flaming Frontier

The Flaming Frontier is a 1926 silent film western directed by Edward Sedgwick and starring Hoot Gibson. It was produced and distributed by Universal Pictures.


Cataraqui Cemetery

Cataraqui Cemetery is a cemetery located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1850, it predates Canadian Confederation, and continues as an active burial ground. The cemetery is 91 acres in a rural setting with rolling wooded terrain, ponds and watercourses. More than 46,000 individuals are interred within the grounds, and it is the final resting place of many prominent Canadians, including the burial site of Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. The Macdonald family gravesite, and the cemetery itself, are both designated as National Historic Sites of Canada.
History.
The cemetery charter was created during a special act of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada on August 10, 1850. The Cataraqui Cemetery was incorporated as a not-for-profit, non-denominational, and public resting place. Sir Alexander Campbell served as the first president. Architect Frederick Cornell designed the cemetery landscape. Interments increased quickly when the City of Kingston passed a by-law in 1864, preventing burials within the city limits. The gravesite of Sir John A. Macdonald and family plot were recognized as a National Historic Site of Canada on May 19, 1938. Cataraqui Cemetery as a whole was recognized as a National Historic Site of Canada on July 19, 2011.
Notable interments.
Cataraqui Cemetery is the final resting place for many notable persons including politicians, businessmen, humanitarians, and authors. The cemetery contains the war graves of 61 service personnel from World War I, and 84 from World War II. Queen's University owns a section that is reserved for interring the remains of those who dedicate their bodies to education and research.


Sandae noli

Sandae noli is a regional variant of Korean mask dance drama. According to some scholars, sandae noli may be the root form of many other Korean mask dance dramas today, as it was created and managed by the Sandae Dogam, a government office in charge of providing entertainment both in the capital and in important regional centers. This Sandae Dogam was disbanded in the early 1600s, leaving many performers unemployed and searching for work. It is thought that the stories of these performers became modern day plays such as Songpa Sandae Noli and Yangju Byeolsandae and influenced many other performance forms in Korea. Although modern Koreans tend to use the Korean term talchum to refer to all types of mask dance drama, talchum is properly only applied to three extant mask dance dramas from Hwanghae Province in North Korea.


Tel Michal

Tel Michal is an archaeological site on Israel's central Mediterranean coast, near the modern city of Herzliya, about north of the Yarkon River estuary and south of Arsuf-Appolonia. Excavations have yielded remains from the Middle Bronze Age to the Early Arab period.
Description.
The archaeological site of Tel Michal covers five hills on the ridge running along the coast, which are composed of lithified wind-blown sediments, an eolianite known locally as kurkar. The highest of these, the actual tell, stands 30m above sea level and is three quarters of an acre in size. It is separated from the other hills by two ravines running to the sea on its north and south. To its north stands another hill, 5 meters lower in altitude. This hill is a rectangular plateau, 250 x 175 meters, bordered on its north by the Gelilot Stream. Three hillocks lie to the northeast, east and southeast of the high mound. The northeastern hillock covers an area of some 2000 m2. The two remaining hillocks are smaller and rise to a height of 5 meters.
History.
Bronze Age.
Stratum XVII of the excavations of Tel Michal reveals that the site was first settled at the end of the Middle Bronze Age IIB (1800/1750–1550 BCE). The first settlers built a 4-m-high raised platform made of alternating layers of red clay and sand on the tel's high mound. This was supported by a brick retaining wall on the north and a glacis made of sloping layers of sand. Structures were then built on top of the platform, though none were preserved. The site covered approximately one-half to three quarters of an acre at the time, finds from which included local pottery, Cypriot imports, Hyksos scarabs and Egyptian alabaster vessels. It was likely a trading post connected to the Hyksos dynasties that dominated Egypt. This initial settlement was apparently destroyed by tectonic activity.
Settlers who arrived at Tel Michal during the Late Bronze Age I (1550–1400 BCE) expanded the area of the high mound by means of a 10m high, 30m wide earth fill, determining its shape to this day. During this period in the site's habitation, a small fort, commanding the approach from the coast to the ridge, was constructed on the north side of the mound. The strip of sand below the fort would have been an ideal location for traders to anchor or beach their ships. Several dwellings stood south of the fort. Finds from the period include local pottery and Cypriot imports, plus an unusual group of kraters, different from the typical pottery of the period. Possibly the product of the Palestinian or Syrian coast, these were made of coarse material and decorated with horizontal bands or wavy lines in black or black and red, while two displayed horizontal handles.
The Late Bronze Age I settlement at Tel Michal was also destroyed, though less violently than its predecessor. It was resettled during the Late Bronze Age II (1400–1200 BCE). Although the new inhabitants expanded the earlier rampart and added a retaining wall at its base, the site remained largely unchanged until the 14th or early 13th centuries BCE when it was again abandoned, perhaps as the result of a decline in international commerce.
Iron Age.
Tel Michal remained uninhabited until the 10th century BCE, when the high mound and the three hillocks were settled. Strata XIV and XIII display typical Iron Age dwellings, plus a walled, 10m by 10m open-air cultic structure on the northeastern hillock, a room devoted to cult on the eastern one, and two rectangular structures with benches along the walls on the southeastern hillock. The room on the eastern hillock featured a square eolianite base that may have served as an altar or an offering table, while four chalices and additional vessels were recovered nearby. It appears all three hillocks served as family cultic rooms, the biblical "bamot", suggesting a Phoenician population. East of the high mound excavators also found two pairs of long wine presses. The site was once again abandoned in the 10th century and resettled and abandoned once more during the 8th.
Persian period.
Tel Michal features six strata (XI-VI) from the Persian period, a testament to the importance of the region to both Phoenician trade and the Persian army. Stratum XI, dated to the late 6th century BCE and early 5th, shows the site was again serving as a way station and trading post. Pottery from the period is characterized by geometric and floral motifs of the East Greek style. On the northern edge of the high mound excavators uncovered a fort, while the rest of the mound features multiple silos, cooking ovens and ash pits. These would suggest that the site was home to a garrison, probably charged with guarding the food stores. Though they would change in character in subsequent phases, structures on the northern edge of the mound would continue to serve as military and administrative headquarters throughout the Persian period.
Houses on the southern mound in stratum X (first half of the 5th century BCE) are the first evidence of a permanent settlement. This settlement reached its zenith towards the end of this century and the next, when it covered an area of 1.5 to 2.5 acres. The site also shows evidence of town planning absent in previous phases. A temple stood on the northern hillock, from which dozens of votive figurines were recovered, while another stood on the eastern hillock. Houses on the northern hill are bordered by an industrial quarter featuring several kilns, while two wine presses stood nearby. By the final phase of the Persian period, the high mound also displays a functional division, with its northern edge occupied by a fort, the center by dwellings, and the southern part mostly empty save for a number of silos.
The northern hill also contained a cemetery, a section from which, covering no more than a tenth of its estimated area, yielded 120 burials. These were found to be of three distinct types, cist burials, pit graves and infant burials in storage jars. Burial offering were also recovered, including bowls, fibulae, bronze bracelets, iron tools and silver rings. Ze'ev Harzog noted the striking resemblance of this assemblage to similar finds from Kamid el-Loz in Lebanon, also dated to the 4th century BCE.
Hellenistic period.
The settlement at Tel Michal was not destroyed during the region's conquest by Alexander the Great, ushering the Hellenistic period, though it appears to have been abandoned by the end of the 4th century BCE. Settlement was renewed shortly thereafter, but was completely different in character. The high mound was dominated by a large fortress, 20 by 25 meters, with a central courtyard. Nearby, excavations uncovered a number of houses and a kiln. The northern hill was not resettled, housing a large wine press instead. The installation contained two collection vats, the larger of which had a capacity of 7,000 liters, suggesting a communal role. The northeastern hillock continued to serve a cultic purpose, housing a courtyard containing an altar, while the eastern hillock housed a round silo. A hoard of 47 silver tetradrachms found near the silo contains coins from the reigns of Ptolemy I through Ptolemy III, dating stratum V to the third century BCE. Stratum IV, uncovered on the high mound, testifies to habitation during Seleucid rule over the region (second century BCE). Seleucid control of the site probably ended with John Hyrcanus' (r. 134-104 BCE) conquest of Jaffa.
Tel Michal was also occupied during the Hasmonean period. A small fort stood at the center of the high mound, and a small wine press stood 500 meters south of it. Both produced coins from the reign of Alexander Jannaeus. Tel Michal was probably a part of the defensive line of fortifications established by Jannaeus along the Yarkon river, described by Josephus.
Roman period.
A large fortress, 31 by 38 meters, once again stood at the site during the Roman period. Erected on foundations of coarse eolianite, the superstructure was built of dressed eolianite stones laid in headers. The entrance to the fortress stood on its northern side, while in the center of its inner courtyard stood a tower which may have served as a lighthouse at night. Coins recovered at the site come from the reign of prefects Marcus Ambibulus, Valerius Gratus, Pontius Pilate and King Agrippa I, dating the fortress to 10 – 50 CE. The only fortress of its kind found along Israel's Mediterranean coast,
it served as a base and anchorage for the Roman army. Its remains are the most prominent feature of present-day Tel Michal.
Early Arab period.
The final phase of habitation at Tel Michal, stratum I, features a small watchtower built on top of the high mound. Sherds of Khirbat al-Mafjar ware and plaster decorated with geometric designs date the tower to the Abbasid period. By the late Roman period, Tel Michal had been eclipsed by the nearby city of Apollonia, and a gap of 700 years formed between the Roman layer and the site's final phase, dated to 8th and 9th centuries CE. Built on a foundation of concrete and stone blocks, the tower was probably part of an early warning network against enemy ships mentioned by Arab geographer Al-Muqaddasi.
Research history.
Tel Michal was first surveyed by Jacob Ory, an inspector for the British Mandate Department of Antiquities, in 1922. Ory noted that the surrounding area appears on "Survey of Western Palestine" maps as "Khirbet Makmish". Suspecting the site to be connected to nearby Apollonia, Ory relied on a bilingual inscription from Cyprus identifying Apollo-Amyklos with Reshef-Mekal and proposed that the ancient name of the site had been "Amyklos-Mekal". The suffix "ish" was later added to "Mekal", which was then distorted from "Mekalish" to "Makmish". In 1959, the Israeli Government Names Committee accordingly named it "Tel Michal", although no etymological connection between Mekal and the Hebrew name Michal has been established.
The site was again excavated by Ory in 1940 and by R.W. Hamilton in 1944. Between 1958 and 1960, archaeologist Nahman Avigad conducted a salvage excavation at the northern hill on behalf of the Eretz Israel Museum and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Tel Michal was excavated again during four seasons from 1977 to 1980 under Ze'ev Herzog and James Muhly, as part of a regional project to explore the western Yarkon River basin. Besides the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv, participating institutions included the University of Minnesota Duluth, Brigham Young University, the University of Pennsylvania, the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Hamline University, the Central Michigan University and Macquarie University of North Ryde, Australia. Zeev Herzog conducted another salvage excavation at the site in 1982 after tractors uncovered remains of plastered structures east of the high mound, revealing four Iron Age wine presses.
1979/80 Seasons.
 Staff and students were housed in tents in a secure compound about 4 km north of Tel Michal. Excavation work continued from about 6am to 2pm. Pottery of the day was sorted in the evening.
The hole was a standard 10' x 10' grid and was excavated to a depth of around 7 meters. At around 4 meters the sand changed to earthworks. Further excavation indicated that several construction levels were present, as seen by the colour changes in the strata.
The hole was later extended into a trench using a bulldozer, which verified at least two distinct platforms from different periods.


Labour Leader

The Labour Leader was a British socialist newspaper published for almost one hundred years. It was later renamed New Leader and Socialist Leader, before finally taking the name "Labour Leader" again.
19th century.
The origins of the paper lay in "The Miner", a monthly paper founded by Keir Hardie in 1887. Its main purpose was to advocate for a federation of Scottish miners. The first issue contained an influential programme for labour, co-authored by Hardie and Chisholm Robertson, marking Hardie's switch from support for the Liberal Party to advocating independent labour candidacies. The paper was used as Hardie's platform in the 1888 Mid Lanarkshire by-election, following which Hardie became a founder member of the Scottish Labour Party and relaunched "The Miner" as the "Labour Leader".
In 1893 the Scottish Labour Party affiliated to the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Hardie became the party's first leader and began using the "Labour Leader" as a forum for the development of policy for the new party. In 1894 he was able to increase the paper's frequency from monthly to weekly.
20th century.
Hardie continued to publish and edit the "Labour Leader" until 1904, when he sold it to the ILP, amid some controversy on the appropriate recompense due to him. The ILP appointed John Bruce Glasier to replace Hardie as editor in January 1905. Glasier was able to take sales from 13,000 at the start of his editorship to 43,000 in 1908, but attracted criticism from some ILP members for consistently endorsing all the actions of the party's leadership. He stood down from the post in April 1909.
In 1909 party members were encouraged to write for the "Labour Leader" rather than rival publications. For example, Frederick William Jowett's parliamentary column was transferred from "The Clarion".
Throughout this period the paper was known for investigative reporting and high-quality journalism. As early as 1899 an investigation by Hardie had sensationally exposed poor conditions at the Overtoun Chemical Works, while in 1913 and 14, Walton Newbold worked on a lengthy article exposing the interests of the defence industry.
First World War.
In 1912 the editorship passed to Fenner Brockway, who imposed a policy of strident pacifism, opposing the First World War with front-page headlines such as "The War Must Be Stopped" and "Down With The War". In 1915 the paper's offices were raided by the police and Brockway was charged with publishing seditious material. Brockway won the case, but commented, "if we weren't dangerous to the government we were failing in our duty!" However, his work in the No-Conscription Fellowship led to his repeated imprisonment and by 1916 he felt unable to continue as editor. Katherine Glasier took over the editorship. In 1917 the government prohibited the export of the "Labour Leader" from the UK. By 1918 Glasier had increased circulation to 62,000, but she became increasingly at odds with the prominent columnist Philip Snowden. His opposition to the October Revolution was vocally resisted by Glasier, and in the ensuing dispute sales fell away. The stress of the dispute may have contributed to her nervous breakdown.
Inter-war years.
After Glasier resigned from the paper Clifford Allen, then the Treasurer of the ILP, decided that a new approach was necessary. The paper was renamed the "New Leader" and H. N. Brailsford was appointed editor. Alarmed at Brailsford's left wing reputation, Ramsay MacDonald ensured that Mary Hamilton was appointed as his more moderate deputy, although she soon left the post. Brailsford championed articles on cultural topics alongside an increased proportion of theoretical pieces, and contributed numerous articles proposing a programme for a living wage.
Brailsford also managed to obtain several noted contributors to the "New Leader", including H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Hugh Dalton, Norman Angell and C. E. M. Joad. E. M. Forster and H. W. Nevinson contributed book reviews to the "New Leader", while Julian Huxley wrote science articles. The magazine also added a literature section, with poems by Frances Cornford and Charlotte Mew, and stories by T. F. Powys. Illustrators for the "New Leader" included Jack B. Yeats, Muirhead Bone, Käthe Kollwitz and Clare Leighton.
By 1926 circulation had fallen and Brailsford had fallen out of favour with the ILP leadership. Brockway returned to the helm, supporting James Maxton's call for the ILP to stand for "socialism in our time".
In 1929 Brockway was elected as the Member of Parliament for Leyton East and stood down from the paper. He was replaced by John Paton. Paton was also an advocate of the living wage policy, but gave only reluctant support to the idea that the ILP should split from the Labour Party.
Out of Parliament again in 1931, Brockway returned to the editor's chair, remaining in the post until 1946, when he resigned from the ILP and rejoined the Labour Party.
On 11 March 1938, the magazine published an editorial (titled "Stalin-Stop!") calling on Joseph Stalin to end the Moscow Trials.
George Orwell's essay "Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party" was published in "New Leader" on 28 June 1938.
After the Second World War.
Facing a severe decline as many of its activists defected to Labour, the ILP relaunched the paper as the "Socialist Leader" in 1946, with Douglas Rogers as editor. F. A. Ridley and George Stone were appointed joint editors in 1947, Ridley standing down the following year, but continuing to write regularly for it. Stone pursued a "third force" policy, opposing both capitalism and the Soviet Union. The ILP continued to decline, but remained able to publish a weekly newspaper. A Conservative politician, Cyril Wilson Black, successfully prosecuted the paper for libel after it described him as a racist.
In 1975 the ILP decided to dissolve itself into the Labour Party, renaming its paper as the "Labour Leader" once again and moving back to monthly publication. Relaunched with a claim to be "Labour's Independent Monthly", it was published by Independent Labour Publications until 1986.


Family Order of Seri Utama

The Most Esteemed Family Order of Seri Utama () is an order of Brunei. It was established on 1 March 1954 by Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III. The order carries the post-nominal letters "DK" as well as the title "Dato Seri Utama".


Clancy

Clancy is an Irish name coming from the Gaelic "Mac Fhlannchaidh/Mac Fhlannchadha", meaning "Son of the red/ruddy warrior" (Mac being for sons, "Ní Fhlannchaidh/Ní Fhlannchadha" would be for daughters), or as a hypocorism for Clarence.
Notable people with the name include:


List of Indiana state historical markers in Adams County

This is a list of the Indiana state historical markers in Adams County.
This is intended to be a complete list of the official state historical markers placed in Adams County, Indiana, United States by the Indiana Historical Bureau. The locations of the historical markers and their latitude and longitude coordinates are included below when available, along with their names, years of placement, and topics as recorded by the Historical Bureau. There are 2 historical markers located in Adams County.


Huemmelchen

The hümmelchen is a type of small German bagpipe, attested in Syntagma Musicum by Michael Praetorius during the Renaissance.
Early versions are believed to have double-reeded chanters, most likely with single-reeded drones.
The word "hümmelchen" probably comes from the Low German word "hämeln" meaning "Small Dick". This may refer to the hümmelchen's small size, resembling a trimmed-down version of a larger bagpipe. Another possibly etymology comes from the word "hummel" ("bumble-bee"), referring to the buzzing sound of the drone. The term hummel is still used to refer to a type of droning zither in Germanic countries.


Lis coat of arms

Lis (Polish for "Fox") is a Polish coat of arms. It was used by many noble families of Clan Lis.
The legend of the coat of arms.
In 1058 Duke Casimir I the Restorer while chasing the pagan Lithuanians and Yotvingians who devastated Polish lands, came to Sochaczew. He sent a knight of the Lis Clan ("Fox Clan") to scout the region for enemies. When the knight came across a river he met a strong enemy unit. Unable to attack them alone, he decided immediately to shoot a lighted arrow into the air to call for reinforcements. Help arrived soon and defeated the enemies. A grateful Casimir granted the brave knight a new coat of arms with an arrow in the escutcheon and his former sign - the fox - was placed in the crest.
Notable bearers.
Notable bearers of this coat of arms have included:


Western Morocco Arabic

Western Morocco Arabic, Western Moroccan Arabic or ʿAroubi Arabic is a dialectal continuum of Hilalian Arabic, mainly spoken in the plains of western (Doukkala, Abda, Tadla, Chaouia, Rhamna, Sraghna, Chiadma and Zaër) and central-western (Saïss, Gharb and pre-Rif) plains of Morocco.
It can be divided into 3 regiolects : northern, central and southern.


Theobald Mathew (officer of arms)

Theobald David Mathew (7 April 1942 – 24 December 1998) was an officer of arms at the College of Arms in London.
Theobald Mathew was the son of solicitor Robert Mathew and Joan Young, and great-nephew of Sir Arthur Cochrane, Clarenceux King of Arms from 1928 to 1954. He was educated at Downside and Balliol College, Oxford.
Mathew was a Green Staff Officer at the investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969. He was appointed Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms in Ordinary on 24 March 1970, and promoted to Windsor Herald of Arms in Ordinary on 9 October 1978. Mathew resigned from this post in 1997. He had also been deputy treasurer of the College of Arms from 1978.
Theobald Mathew was made an Esquire of the Venerable Order of Saint John in 1977, and an Officer in 1986.
In 1998, he died at West Mersea, Essex, aged 56.
Coat of Arms.
Theobald Mathew was granted armorial bearings on 5 March 1981. These are blazoned


Kendel Hippolyte

Kendel Hippolyte (born 1952) is a St Lucian poet and playwright.
Biography.
Kendel Hippolyte was born in Castries, the capital of St Lucia, and was educated at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He worked as a teacher at St Mary's College in Vigie, Castries, and the Sir Arthur Lewis College at the Morne. He is actively involved as a playwright and director with the Lighthouse Theatre Company, of which he was a co-founder.
He has written eight plays. His best known, "Drum-maker", uses idiomatic Caribbean language to explore the indigenous local culture in a political context. He has published several collections of verse, characterized by its modernist free style. He is also the editor of the anthologies "Confluence: Nine Saint Lucian Poets" (1988) and "So Much Poetry in We People" (1990).
In 2000, he was awarded the St. Lucia Medal of Merit (Gold) for Contribution to the Arts. In 2013 he won the poetry category of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for his 2012 poetry collection "Fault Lines".
He is married to poet Jane King.


Kettle Valley Railway

The Kettle Valley Railway was a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPD) that operated across southern British Columbia, west of Midway running to Rock Creek, then north to Myra Canyon, down to Penticton over to Princeton, Coalmont, Brookmere, Coquihalla and finally Hope where it connected to the main CPR line.
It opened in 1915 and was abandoned in portions beginning in 1961, with the surviving portion west of Penticton seeing their last trains in 1989.
Much of the railway's original route has been converted to a multi-use recreational trail, known as the Kettle Valley Rail Trail, which carries the Trans-Canada Trail through this part of British Columbia.
History.
The Kettle Valley Railway was built out of necessity to service the growing mining demands in the Southern Interior region of British Columbia. When the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) completed the transcontinental railway in 1885, the route cut through the Rocky Mountains at Kicking Horse and Rogers Passes, then followed the Fraser River for the remainder of the distance to Vancouver. This selected routing was significantly to the north of the mining towns within the Southern Interior. Those critical of the CPR believed that the railway should have been routed along the Dewdney Trail, through the southern portions of British Columbia in order to fulfill politician pledges to keep Americans out of British Columbia should they ever attempt to dominate mining operations in British Columbia's South. However, geography was the main reason the CPR followed the transcontinental railway route that it had selected. Too many mountain ranges stood between Alberta and Vancouver in the southern portions of British Columbia, and CPR had selected what they felt was the path of least resistance.
Once silver was discovered within the region in the spring of 1887, thousands of Americans flooded into the BC's Southern Interior, and essentially took control of the region. These miners quickly found that it was much quicker and cheaper to get their supplies from the recently completed Northern Pacific Railroad that transited through Spokane. Once word caught on, British Columbia's Southern Interior essentially became a commercial annex of the United States. Provincial and Federal officials quickly agreed that a second railway dubbed the "Coast-to-Kootenay" railway within British Columbia was required in order to help preserve Canadian sovereignty of British Columbia, and to also retain the valuable mining revenues within Canada.
The route selected involved connecting the railroad with Vancouver. However, this was not an easy task, as two mountain ranges stood in the way. Construction was some of the costliest per track mile when compared against most other North American railway projects, costing almost $20 million, and it took nearly 20 years to complete. Construction of the railway was not undertaken all at once, or even by one single company. In the process of realizing a completed "Coast-to-Kootenay" railway, a number of "paper railways" emerged. These were railways that never progressed beyond the proposed stage. However some railroads did progress past the proposal stage. The CPR initiated the Nicola Valley Railroad in the early 1890s. This railway connected the town of Merritt with the CPR mainline at Spences Bridge. The Midway & Vernon Railroad was a paper railway that actually started construction. It was hoped that the Midway & Vernon railway would connect Midway (the westernmost station of the CPR-owned Columbia and Western Railway) with Vernon. However, due to funding issues, construction on this railway was stopped. However portions of the completed railway grade were included in the Kettle Valley Railway when the section between Penticton and Midway was completed.
The core portion of the Kettle Valley Railway started in Hope up the steep Coquihalla Valley through the narrow rocky canyon to Coquihalla Pass, transited through GN track via Brookmere, Tulameen, to Princeton; again back on CP track up the grasslands at Jura, through the light forest to Osprey Lake, and down to Summerland, Penticton, Beaverdell and terminated in Midway. An additional, earlier-constructed CPR branch line connected to Spences Bridge, and Merritt. The KVR took over administration and operation of the CPR Spences Bridge-Nicola line in early 1916. The KVR connected this line up the Coldwater River valley to connect with the KVR mainline at Brodie, BC, just west of Brookmere, BC. (After the closure of the Coquihalla Subdivision in late 1959, the Brookmere-Merritt-Spences Bridge line became the connection to the CPR main line.)
After the end of the First World War, additional spur lines connected Copper Mountain with Princeton, Oliver with Penticton. (In 1944, the Osoyoos Subdivision was extended another 10 miles to connect Oliver with Osoyoos.) In the late 1930s until into the 1960s, the portion of the former Columbia & Western Railway from Midway, through Grand Forks continuing through to Castlegar was also periodically referred to as being part of the KVR as well. However, with the exception of some isolated track at Grand Forks, BC, no part of the Boundary Subdivision (Nelson-Midway) was ever part of official KV territory. Former Columbia & Western territory was always administered by the Kootenay Division. In later years of operations after 1962, the Kootenay Division administered the Carmi Subdivision all the way west to the east end of the yard at Penticton, BC.
Much of the KVR was built in response to the construction of the Vancouver, Victoria and Eastern Railway (VV&E). The VV&E was owned by Great Northern Railway. Although the CPR and the GNR had indulged in fierce competition in Boundary, West and East Kootenay Districts, that competition was cooling considerably by the time the construction of the KVR began in 1910. By 1913, prodded by the provincial government, the GNR had reached formal construction and then as regular operations loomed, joint track operations agreements with the KVR.
The Kettle Valley Railway between Merritt and Midway was opened for service on May 31, 1915. On that date, the first two passenger trains commenced service. The Kettle Valley Railway was its own entity, but in practical reality, under the thumb of senior CPR management after about 1912. The Canadian Pacific Railway eventually took over operations of the KVR at the beginning of 1931. The former KVR territory was folded into the CPR's BC District at that time as the Kettle Valley Division.
Rail service on the KVR consisted of both passenger and freight trains. Passenger service over the line consisted for many years of the "Kettle Valley Express" and the "Kootenay Express", which carried passengers between Vancouver, BC and Medicine Hat, Alberta. Freight carried on the KVR consisted primarily of ore from the Kootenay region of British Columbia, as well as forestry products and fruit from the Okanagan. Finished goods were primarily brought into the Southern Interior on trains heading Eastbound. During the Kettle Valley Railway's lifespan, on numerous occasions it was called upon to act as "The Second Mainline" when washouts, avalanches and rock slides closed off the main CPR line through the Fraser Canyon. CPR recognized the benefit of having a second railway transiting through British Columbia, so beginning in the late 1930s and up until 1959, they set off on an upgrade program that saw the weight-bearing strength of the rails increased, as well as bridge and trestle improvements which brought the railway closer to mainline standards.
The first portion to be abandoned was the Copper Mountain Branch in 1957. The loss of traffic due to the Copper Mountain Mine closure spelled the end for this line. The second part of the KVR to be abandoned was the Coquihalla subdivision. In 1959 there was a large washout and the line was closed for some time. The CPR officials in Montreal decided to close the line permanently. Many say that their decision was short sighted. In the late 1940s/early 1950s the CPR invested quite a lot of money in upgrading the line. including many new bridges. (Others, better-informed, knew that the 1950s upgrades were part of a larger corporate strategy: it aimed at getting rid of unprofitable lines such as the Coquihalla Subdivision.)
Through freight was discontinued throughout the line in 1961, and the last passenger train operated in January 1964. With the end of scheduled through-freight service in September 1961, the former KVR line essentially became a wandering, low-trafficked branch line. All rail service stopped from Midway to Penticton (including the famed Myra Canyon section) in May 1973, with the trackage being labelled as abandoned in 1978. Rails along this section were removed in 1979-1980 as the result of a grant of abandonment from the Canadian Transport Commission.
In 1977 the CP abandoned part of the Osoyoos Subdivision from Okanagan Falls to Osoyoos. This was due to the loss of fruit traffic to trucks. The remainder of the former KVR was doing quite well. In the early 1970s, at various times when forest products were shipping at peak rates, trains were operated between Penticton and Spences Bridge daily. This traffic gradually diminished as the 1970s progressed. Train service declined correspondingly. In early 1983, wood chip service was moved to trucking and from that point onwards, rail traffic quickly diminished to a couple of trains per week. Penticton station building and mechanical servicing facilities were closed at Penticton in the spring of 1985. From that time until the end of train service in March 1989, train crews working the Princeton Subdivision west of Penticton, were headquartered at Merritt.
About 2 miles of former KVR track also survived westward from Midway to a sawmill at West Midway. After 1976, Kootenay Division crews handled whatever work was required west of Midway. In fact, even though the Carmi Subdivision had closed to through service between Penticton and Carmi, BC, train service was maintained as far west as Beaverdell until late 1976. After 1977, no trains went past West Midway.
One of the major landmarks on the former line are the Othello-Quintette Tunnels, which are lined up in a straight line, cutting through the Coquihalla River's gorge near Hope. They are open in summer for sightseeing. Andrew McCulloch, who oversaw the engineering projects which resulted in the complex series of bridges and tunnels through Coquihalla Canyon, was an avid reader of William Shakespeare. As a result of an anniversary of the Bard's death in 1916, McCulloch had a role in naming Coquihalla Subdivision stations after characters in Shakespearean literature, such as Iago, Romeo, Juliet, Lear, Jessica, and Portia. Shylock was never an official KVR station name. A spur just below Portia was unofficially known as 'Shylock Spur.'
On the Smithsonian Folkways FW03569 1961 recording, "Bunkhouse and Forecastle Songs of the Northwest," Stanley G. Triggs sings a song called "The Kettle Valley Line" while accompanying himself on the mandolin.
Myra Canyon Trestles.
One of the most popular sections of the hiking trail along the former Kettle Valley Railway line is the section through Myra Canyon. Myra Canyon is located south of Kelowna on Okanagan Mountain. The section of line originally transited between Midway and Penticton. When the railway was built, the section of railway between Myra station and June Springs station required 18 wooden trestles and two tunnels in order to traverse the deep canyon.
For years after the abandonment of this section of rail line, the area was a noted attraction, with its relatively gentle grade, it became a hiker and cyclist haven. Years of disrepair on the trestles began to take its toll on the line. In some cases vandals had removed railway ties on the larger steel bridges, thus creating large gaps. In some cases hikers and cyclists wanting to cross the trestles would be required to walk on sections of steel no wider than a foot across in sections where the ties were removed. This would not normally be an issue, but many of these trestles and bridges were hundreds of feet in height. However, after a fatal accident involving a cyclist on one of the trestles, many people petitioned to have the bridges and trestles made safer. These upgrades included repairs after numerous years of disrepair, and the installation of handrails and planks so that people did not have to jump between each railway tie.
This section of the railway was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2002.
From August to September 2003, lightning sparked the 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park Fire in Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park. This fire rapidly grew in strength and size and made its way southeast across Okanagan Mountain. This fire engulfed many portions of the KVR between Penticton and McCulloch Lake. Despite concerted efforts by the firefighters, the fire claimed 14 of the 18 trestles within Myra Canyon. In addition, the bridge decks of two of the metal bridges were also destroyed in the fire.
Soon after the Okanagan Mountain Park Fire in 2003, the BC provincial government announced that it would rebuild the damaged and destroyed trestles and bridges. In addition, safety improvements including stabilizing rock faces along the line and clearing rock also has taken place. The trestles have since been rebuilt and the trail is fully open to the public. There are indications that plans for further improvement are in place, such as a restroom located at approximately the middle of the trail.
Quintette Tunnels.
When constructing the railway through the roughest portion of the Coquihalla Canyon, chief engineer Andrew McCulloch determined that a routing proposed by his subordinates through this section was unnecessarily long or complex. McCulloch recalculated the requirements, and decided that a straight section of track through this area was required, and in order to achieve this, five closely aligned tunnels would be required. He also determined that two bridges would need to be built between three of the tunnels. These tunnels were eventually known as the Quintette tunnels. These tunnels are a popular tourist attraction, and are located along the existing Coquihalla Highway (however they are not visible from the highway). These tunnels are also known as the Othello Tunnels because they are near the Othello Railway station, named for the Shakespeare character, as is the case with other stations on this stretch of the railway named by McCullough.
Kettle Valley Steam Railway.
The Kettle Valley Steam Railway has been operating a heritage railway along a preserved 10-kilometre section from Prairie Valley Station to Canyon View Siding, near Summerland, British Columbia. This is the only active remaining section of the Kettle Valley Railway. The last freight haul on the KVR was in 1989, after which CP Rail obtained permission to abandon and remove the final section of rails. A heritage society sprang up in a bid to save a portion of the rail line. In their efforts, they were successful in preserving the section, and then proceeded to prepare rail operations. In the original position of the Summerland station, a maintenance building was erected. Sidings were placed at Prairie Valley, and at Canyon View (North side of the Trout Creek Bridge). Temporary stations were built at Prairie Valley, Canyon View and at the original Summerland Station. Eventually a permanent station was built at the Prairie Valley station providing a great access point for the railway.
The railway initially operated with one 1924 Shay locomotive loaned from the BC Forest Discovery Centre in Duncan, British Columbia. It was originally operated by the Mayo Lumber Company on Vancouver Island, and was specifically designed to work on rough forestry trackage.
Rolling stock for the railway was donated from BC Rail. These railcars are Canadian Pacific in origin, but were used by BC Rail for service on the Royal Hudson.
The most recent locomotive addition to the Kettle Valley Steam Railway is a Canadian Pacific Montreal Locomotive Works 2-8-0. This locomotive, originally delivered as number 3916, it now is number 3716 and runs on the KVSR. It was built for the CPR, and operated primarily in the Kootenays. It was stored in Port Coquitlam in 1966, and was restored in 1975. It was used as a backup locomotive to the Royal Hudson until it was retired from BC Rail's service in April 2001.
The train now travels to the middle of the Trout Creek Bridge. Plans also were to extend the run to Faulder along the final portions of remaining original trackage. The Steam Railway owns track to Faulder. However, tours do not run to that location.
Television.
Kettle Valley Railway was featured on the historical television series Gold Trails and Ghost Towns, season 2, episode 8.
Because the CP route through the Rockies had been upgraded to modern steel bridges, the CBC miniseries "The National Dream" filmed its opening and a number of scenes where wooden trestles were wanted on the Myra Canyon section of the Kettle Valley Railway. The locomotive used was Canadian Pacific 4-4-0 No. 136, disguised as CPR 148.


Flynn

Flynn is an Irish surname or first name, an anglicised form of the Irish "Ó Floinn", meaning "descendant of Flann" (a byname meaning "reddish (complexion)" or "ruddy"). The name is more commonly used as a surname rather than a first name. The name rose independently in several parts of Ireland.
According to John O'Donovan's 1849 works, the modern descendants of Lugaid mac Con include the O'Driscolls, O'Learys, Coffeys, Hennessys and Flynns of County Cork.


Erno Polgar

Ernő Polgár (born Ernö Csupity; 27 January 1954 in Bácsalmás, died 28 October 2018 in Borneo is a Radnoti Prize-winning Nagy Lajos Prize-winning In 2007 he won the one of the highest Hungarian prizes:(Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Republic of Hungary) He was nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017 for the year of 2018. World literary rank Hungarian-european author, editor, littérateur and dramaturgist. From 2018 he was living in Borneo Island, Brunei Kingdom in his "writing house".
Life.
He attended the secondary grammar school Janos Hunyadi and did his final exams there in 1972. He worked as a librarian and graduated at the University of Theatre and Film Arts as a dramaturgist.
Between 1972 and 1976 he worked as a librarian in the National Széchényi Library then became an editor for the Hungarian Radio Corporation. From 1979 he worked as a dramaturgist for the then between 1997 and 1998 worked as Head of Registrars Department at the University of Theatre and Film Arts.
Literary career.
Ernő Polgár is a well-known writer. He received the Radnóti Anti-Racism Award 2014
The readers can find the different manifestations of the anti-Semitism in his works This sentence makes it sound like his writing is anti-semitic, which doesn't make sense given the preceding sentence noting that he won an award for not being racist. Ernő Polgar's philosophy is, “the measure of the civilization are the respect for ancestors and humanism.”
He started writing as a child for the journal "The People of Petofi".
His sociography titled “The Lodgers” was published in the magazine in 1975. He won the scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1981, the Soros Fellowship in 1983 and the Scholarship of Pro Cultura Hungariae in 1998 He has been a free-lance writer since 1998. Between 2000 and 2003 he was the head of Blue Shop Online Gallery and Digital Publisher and chairman of the supervisory board of www.hun-info.hu online media agency. From 2002 he was the secretary and later chairman of the Prose Section of the Hungarian Writers' Union.
Since 2004 he has been the member of the , managing literary programs: “Nights in Lipotvaros” (Club Gallery, Ujlipotvaros), “Encounters” and “Frankel Nights”. Member of the Hungarian P.E.N. Club and the National Association of Hungarian Artists (MAOE), chairman of the Association of Humanist Writers (HIT) and secretary general of the Barankovics Jewish Workshop In 2007 he won the one of the highest Hungarian prizes: Magyar Köztarsasagi Erdemrend Lovagkereszt (Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Republic of Hungary)
Works.
Works published online.
all'Internet (Traduzione di Kati Szasz) http://mek.oszk.hu/16300/16364/


Avner Strauss

Avner Strauss () (born 1954 in Jerusalem, Israel) is an Israeli music producer, musician, guitarist singer/songwriter and poet. He has also written books and music for children.
Biography.
Strauss picked up the electric guitar at age 14, and began playing in rock bands in the late 1960s. In 1971 he formed the first Israeli Blues band, and wrote one of the first Israeli Twelve-bar blues; " I got a Telephone, Ain't got no one to call ".
Drawn to jazz guitar, Avner went to Boston in 1975 to study at the Berklee College of Music (Composition, graduated in 1978).
Upon returning to Israel in 1978, he began recording and teaching music, and received an appointment as a guitar professor at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.
For few years after he was the advisor of the Israeli guitar company "Yuval" and endorsed their guitars giving concerts (1980–1984) in the frankfurt trade fair "Musikmesse".
Avner Strauss' musical instrument store in Jerusalem ("Effect") in the 1980s was the first Israeli store dedicated solely to guitars.
Although he started out as an Avant Garde guitarist in Jerusalem in the late 1960s, today Strauss plays jazz, flamenco, classical, folk, bluegrass and blues guitar.
Avner has published two illustrated story books for young children ("The Porcupine", "Mr. Frog") and one book of poetry for adults ("Distance and Other Measures").
He has produced three audio CDs of original Hebrew songs, including a live CD of Blues in Hebrew, and a CD and animated DVD of his original children's songs.
Avner also produced an instrumental guitar album ("Courtyard", MCI records 1990) that highlights his many different musical facets and playing styles.
During the years Strauss devoted many years to the research of catalogs and collecting whistles, he published hundreds of articles about the subject and about the History of whistle manufacturers in the 19th century and is considered one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject of collecting whistles, some of his articles and samples of his collection which might be the largest known, can be found on the Whistle Museum.
Avner Strauss is the founder of "Strauss Mifaaley Tarbut" and Sal Tarbut Strauss (Hebrew:"סל תרבות שטראוס") that were involved with education for the arts in the educational system in Israel since 1986, producing music, dance, theatre, cinema, literature and plastic arts shows and activities for schools.
Poetry.
Avner Strauss poems have been published in various magazines among these are; Mantis 1976, April 2010, February 2011 issues of Moznaim and in the Jewish poetry anthology "Voices Within the Ark" along with poems by his grandfather and great grandfather Martin Buber.


Government House (Newfoundland and Labrador)

Government House is the official residence of the Lieutenant-Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador. Government House was a by-product of the wave of administrative initiatives that took place during the 1820s. The royal charter of 1825 bestowed official colonial status for Newfoundland.
The first governors of Newfoundland were naval officers who resided on their flagship, anchored in St. John's harbour. However, Admiral Richard Edwards decided it would be more apt for the Governor to live ashore, and thenceforth the governor resided at Fort Townshend, where the first Government House was constructed. Completed in 1781, it was intended to be a summer house for the governors, but remained in constant use until the present structure was finished in 1831. Never intended for winter use, the inhabitants complained of the cold, and Francis Pickmore even died there in the winter of 1818.
The building plans for Government House were drawn up in England. The Ordinance had told the Treasury that workmen's wages were too high in Newfoundland, and subsequently, workmen in Scotland were engaged and arrived in St. John's to begin construction in April 1827. The original plan as conceived by Governor Cochrane was for a Palladian style two-storey house, plus basement. When completed in 1831, Government House cost £38,175, which was five times the original estimate; equal to £ today. The two-storey building consists of a centre block flanked by slightly lower wings on the east and on the west. The exterior is of rough, red sandstone quarried at Signal Hill, trimmed with English Portland stone.
The construction of the new Government House was meant to reflect the proper status of the governor of a province that was now a proper British colony, and a key part of the Empire. The principal rooms for entertaining—a salon, dining room, and ballroom—along with the main entrance hall were laid out in such a manner as to allow for ceremonial processions, and pomp befitting a governor.
The Lieutenant-Governor's residence is where the Canadian Royal Family and visiting foreign dignitaries are greeted. Inside are also reception rooms, offices and support facilities; the Lieutenant-Governor's office is the site of swearing-in ceremonies for Cabinet ministers, where Royal Assent is granted, and where the Lieutenant-Governor receives the Premier.
The site was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.


Helen Gregory

Helen Gregory (born 1946) is a prominent historian, author and retired public servant in and of Brisbane, Queensland Australia and its surrounds.
She holds a BA (Hons) from the University of Queensland and is a former adjunct professor of that institution.
In 1969 Helen Gregory was the first Queensland woman to be offered a Rotary Overseas Postgraduate Scholarship, but was unable to take up the award.
In the mid 1970s she was a consultant historian to the private and government sectors, and is believed to be the first graduate historian in Queensland to use her training in this way, demonstrating that privately commissioned histories could be undertaken without sacrificing academic standards or ethical integrity. She was the founder of the Brisbane History Group and the Professional Historians' Association (Queensland), the professional association which promotes the interests of consulting historians in Queensland, and maintains standards of practice. As well as commissioned history, Ms Gregory is the author or co-author of many academic articles and studies and several entries in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
Ms Gregory became the first Chair of the Queensland Heritage Council in 1992, and subsequently became Director, Cultural Heritage in the Queensland Government's Environment and Heritage department (later renamed the Environmental Protection Agency, the first woman to be appointed to a senior executive position in that department.
In 2005 and subsequent years, Ms Gregory has been a judge of the History Book Award for the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards. In 2006 Ms Gregory was a member of the independent panel that suggested the name for the Eleanor Schonell Bridge to the Lord Mayor of Brisbane and in November 2007 she was appointed to the board of trustees of Newstead House, one of Queensland's oldest and most important cultural heritage sites.
Ms Gregory is married to prominent Brisbane solicitor Scott Gregory. Together they have three adult sons and, as of 2015, six grandchildren.
Publications.
Works by Helen Gregory include:


List of New York State Historic Markers in Oneida County, New York

This is an incomplete list of New York State Historic Markers in Oneida County, New York.


Wczele coat of arms

Wczele - is a Polish coat of arms. It was used by several szlachta families in the times of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
History.
This coat of arms was passed down from the Silesian Bernard Pretficz (Bernard Pretwicz, Pretwic). He was born in 1500 and was one of the few Silesians to have an elevated position under the Polish King. He became a Polish National Hero due to his success in driving the Tartars (Crimean Muslims) out of Poland, and what is now the Ukraine. This is the Prittwitz coat of arms. The story is that his ancestor was taken by a North African King. The King told him that if he was able to beat his daughter in chess he would be set free, if he lost he would be killed. The Prittwitz won and was told that he could take the life of the King's daughter. Instead he cut off her arms so that she could no longer play chess (in other variants of this story, he simply hit her in the head with the chess board so hard that it broke, „Wczele” is similar to polish „w czoło”, meaning „in the forehead”)
Notable bearers.
Notable bearers of this coat of arms include:


Burlington Heights (Ontario)

Burlington Heights refers to a promontory or area of flat land sitting elevated (at about ) above the west end of Hamilton Harbour in the city of Hamilton, Ontario which continues as a peninsula to the north toward the city of Burlington, Ontario. It separates Cootes Paradise Marsh on the west from the harbor on the east. Geologically the Burlington Heights is a sand and gravel bar formed across the eastern end of the Dundas Valley by Glacial Lake Iroquois. It is the northern continuation of the longer Iroquois Bar which extends south into Hamilton.
Burlington Heights is traversed by York Boulevard. In the south, extensive parkland surrounds Dundurn Castle on the east side of the road and the large Hamilton Cemetery on the west side. North of Dundurn Castle a city park is named for Sir John Harvey.
The southern portion of the Burlington Heights was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada in 1929, because of its strategic and military importance to the British during the War of 1812. Dundurn Castle was later designated as a National Historic Site in its own right in 1984. The Royal Botanical Gardens is another National Historic Site adjacent to the Burlington Heights National Historic Site. The Royal Botanical Gardens owns and manages the properties on the Burlington Heights peninsula north of the Desjardins Canal
History.
In the late 18th Century Anishinaabe people used the Burlington Heights extensively. These people known as Mississaugas traveled along the northern shore of Lake Ontario throughout the year as various resources became available. The Reverend Peter Jones (Kahkewāquonāby), an Anishinaabe farmer, missionary, and writer, son of Tuhbenahneequay and Loyalist surveyor Augustus Jones, was born on the Burlington Heights in 1802. These people are now known as the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
19th century.
War of 1812.
The "Heights" were the location of a British Army post during the War of 1812. The British army post was established on the commandeered property of Richard Beasley in May 1813. Batteries (on the north and south ends), a magazine, Sally port and earthworks were built to create a line of defence. Troops with the 8th (The King's) and 49th (Princess Charlotte of Wales's) (Hertfordshire) Regiments of Foot were stationed at the Heights after being forced to retreat from American troops advancing into the Niagara Peninsula in May 1813. From Beasley's Establishment the British forces, under the command of General John Vincent and Sir John Harvey launched a successful attack on a much larger American force early on the morning of 6 June 1813, at Stoney Creek.
On 29 July 1813, an American naval squadron arrived near the Burlington Heights in an attempt to dislodge the British forces from the promontory, and to relieve the British-Native blockade of Fort George. Approximately 500 American soldiers disembarked at Burlington Beach under the command of Colonel Winfield Scott, but he found the defenders too well-entrenched in the heights for any assault to be successful. As a result, the American force withdrew from the area, opting instead to raid the settlement of York.
Because of the Heights' importance to the British Army during the War of 1812, the southern portion of the promontory was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1929.
Post-War of 1812.
After the War of 1812, former British barracks on the northern part of the peninsula were used as a hospital for immigrants with contagious diseases, most notably during an outbreak of cholera between 1832 and 1833. In 1832 Beasley sold his property on the Heights to Sir Allan Napier MacNab, who built the 72-room Dundurn Castle on the site of Beasley's house.
Before 1852, the Heights separated Cootes Paradise Marsh from Hamilton Harbour. That year the Desjardins Canal, which had opened in 1836 and which allowed shipping to reach Dundas from Hamilton Harbour, was straightened by an excavation through the Burlington Heights.
On March 12, 1857, the Desjardins Canal disaster occurred when the Great Western Railway bridge over the Desjardins Canal collapsed as a result of a derailment caused by a faulty axle on a locomotive, killing 59 people. This remains Canada's second-worst railway accident in terms of deaths.
20th century.
In 1926 the City of Hamilton purchased most of the Burlington Heights north of the Desjardins Canal for a civic beautification program and construction of a new bridge over the canal. The program was carried out as the "Northwestern Entrance to Hamilton" between 1927 and 1932. The resulting gardens were incorporated into Royal Botanical Gardens in 1932.
The southern portion of the Burlington Heights was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada in 1929, because of its strategic and military importance to the British during the War of 1812. Other properties on the Heights were also designated as a National Historic Site, including Dundurn Castle in 1984 because of its architectural significance and the remarkable degree to which the overall "picturesque" estate remains intact. The northern portion of the Burlington Heights was designated as part of the Royal Botanical Gardens National Historic Site of Canada in 1993, as it includes significant gardens originating in the 1930s City Beautiful Movement and the work of Thomas Baker McQuesten.
In popular culture.
The novel "The Fishers of Paradise" by Rachael Preston is set in 1930 among members of the boathouse community that once lived along the shores of Cootes Paradise Marsh and the Burlington Heights.