Early life and career.

Rossy was born in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel in 1959. He served as a fighter pilot in the Swiss Air Force, where he flew Dassault Mirage IIIs, Northrop F-5 Tiger IIs, and Hawker Hunters. He piloted Boeing 747s for Swissair, and later for Swiss International Air Lines.

Jet wingpack.

Rossy developed and built a wingsuit system comprising a backpack equipped with semi-rigid aeroplane-type carbon-fiber wings—with a span of about —powered by four Jetcat P400 jet engines, modified from large kerosene-fueled model aircraft engines. This has led to him being referred to in the press by various monikers, such as "The Airman", "Rocketman", "Fusionman", and—most commonly—"Jetman".

Developmental flights.

In December 2006 (in Bex, Switzerland) Rossy became the first to successfully fly horizontally for six minutes using four jet engines and wings strapped on his back. He was quoted as saying: "The idea is to have fun, not to kill yourself".  Since 2007 Rossy has conducted some of his flight tests from a private airfield, Skydive Empuriabrava, in Empuriabrava (Girona, Costa Brava), Spain.  In May 2008 Rossy made a flight over the Alps Mountain Range, reaching a top speed of, and an average speed of.  On 26 September 2008, Jumping from a Pilatus Porter at an altitude of 8,200 feet (2,500 meters) over Calais, France, Rossy crossed the English Channel with a single jet-powered wing strapped on his back, wearing only a helmet and a flight suit for protection. Reaching speeds of up to, he made the 22-mile (35-km) flight to England in 13 minutes, where he deployed his parachute and landed in Dover, UK becoming the first person to cross the Channel in this manner.  In November 2009 Rossy attempted a crossing of the Strait of Gibraltar, hoping to be the first person to fly between two continents using a "Jet pack". He leapt from a small plane about 1,950 m (6,500 ft) above Tangier in Morocco and headed in the direction of Atlanterra, Spain. The flight was expected to take about a quarter of an hour. Strong winds and cloud banks forced Rossy to ditch into the sea just three miles from the Spanish coast, where his support helicopter picked him up ten minutes later, unhurt. The Spanish Coast Guard retrieved the jetpack, which was equipped with a parachute and float.  In 5 November 2010 Rossy flew a new version of his jet-powered flight system and successfully performed two aerial loops before landing via parachute. He had launched from a hot air balloon piloted by Brian Jones at 2,400 meters (7,900 feet).  In 7 May 2011 Rossy flew above the Grand Canyon in Arizona. The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had classified his flight system as an aircraft. When it finally granted him a license, the FAA waived the normal 25 to 40 hours of flight testing time, and Rossy acted quickly to complete his flight.

Latest media and event appearances.

Rossy was featured on an episode of "Stan Lee's Superhumans". He has appeared on the BBC's "Top Gear", where he raced Richard Hammond and Toni Gardemeister.  Rossy was a main attraction at the 2013 Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture Fly-In, America's largest fly-in.  Rossy was also a feature of the South Australian Primary School's Music Festival in 2014, when the theme of the Festival was flight. A song was written, 'Jetman' about Yves Rossy by Paul Jarman.

October 2015 sustained flight.

In 13 October 2015, Rossy and Vince Reffet, wearing jetpacks, deployed from a helicopter flying at 5,500 feet (1,676 meters) and flew in a choreographed demonstration with an Emirates Airbus A380 cruising at an altitude of 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) over Dubai. The flights were documented by the use of helmet-mounted cameras and third-party videos released in early November 2015. The videos show the pair soaring and diving around the airliner, flying in formation with it for about ten minutes. A television program "City in the Sky, part 2" about how airliner flights are run, showed at its start Yves Rossy and Vince Reffet flying with Rossy-type jetpacks, to show some principles of how airliners fly. It said that before being allowed to jetpack-fly in Britain, he had to get himself registered as an aeroplane, because parts of his body, rather than parts of his jetpack, acted as control surfaces; but he was exempted from the seat-belt rule. It showed him being lifted to flying height on the outside of a helicopter. He had to fall a distance to build up enough air speed for his airfoils to work.

Yves Rossy (born 27 August 1959) is a Swiss military-trained pilot and an aviation enthusiast. He is known as the inventor of a series of experimental individual jet packs, the latest using carbon-fiber wings for flight. Often referred to as "Jetman," Rossy has sometimes tested and presented new versions of his jet packs in high-profile events staged around the world.


History.

The CDGVAL project replaced the SK6000 project, which was abandoned after unsuccessful test runs in 1999. CDGVAL was launched in 2000, with construction work beginning in 2003. Total cost is estimated at €145 million.  Charles de Gaulle is Europe's largest airport with an area of 3500 hectares. The airport terminals are relatively far apart. Terminal 2 opened in 1982. At that time links between terminals, including the rail link at Roissypole and the long-stay car parks, were achieved by a shuttle system of buses which progressively became an increasing percentage of airport road congestion. It was not uncommon for the journey between terminals to take nearly half an hour during peak periods. This problem revealed the requirement for a rapid and modern transport solution for airport users. Aéroports de Paris (ADP) planned to overhaul the transport system within the airport perimeter by introducing an internal train link.  The VAL metro system project was launched and project specific infrastructure work commenced shortly afterwards. After the project was under way in 1992, use of the SK6000 train system built by French company Soulé was imposed on ADP by the French government. Infrastructure had to be adapted and Line 1 was now due to open to the public on May 1, 1996. However, during testing the automated rail transit system did not perform as hoped revealing several flaws in the system. Deemed unreliable and incapable of meeting availability targets, ADP were forced to consider alternatives despite the amount already invested which had attained nearly 150 million Euros of state funds. In June 1999 the project was abandoned so ADP had to invest urgently in order to renew its fleet of ageing coaches and maintain road service. SK Line 2, which was due to open during the summer of 1997, was still nowhere near completion after almost one billion Francs invested. A new project codenamed CDGVAL was undertaken in 2000. Building on the original project, CDGVAL largely followed the SK path while adapting existing infrastructure to allow transit of automatic metro-type equipment. Work began in 2003.  Developed by Siemens Mobility France (previously Matra Transport then Siemens Transportation Systems), this train system has already equipped the French cities of Lille, Toulouse and Rennes, Italian city Turin and Chicago O'Hare International Airport. The company has supplied and installed seven trains with two VAL 208 cars each, automation, the command centre, track-side facilities, electrical installations and cabling, station floors and landings and workshop equipment.  The launch was initially forecast for autumn 2006, ten years after the scheduled opening for the SK6000 line, but the launch still underwent 6 further months delay. The first CDGVAL line opened to the public on April 4, 2007 after a full test run on March 19, 2007. The bus routes ran alongside the new tramway for the first ten days.

Passenger services.

A travelator provides access to CDGVAL platform.  Caution: CDGVAL Shuttle has pickpockets active as it's open to anyone free of charge & passes through airport Parking PR and Parking PX stations. Pickpockets are adept at taking valuables that are often not secured properly.  CDGVAL serves also as transport for hotels situated within the boundaries of the airport. Do not to confuse CDGVAL & Hotel Shuttle Buses (Navette Bus): black line, pink line..) at Terminal 2 above CDG TGV rail station.

Detail of Connections to RER-B.

The RER-B commuter line is a heavy-rail service to the Parisian region which is quite cheap.  Passengers for T1 or T2 connect to the RER-B via CDGVAL as follows: Terminal T2 has an RER-B platform in the train station directly underneath it; this station also handles the high-speed TGV, Eurostar, etc. Terminal T1 has no direct connection to the RER-B; instead, it connects at T3. There is then a short hop on the CDGVal to/from T1. The T3-to-T1 (i.e. CDGVAL) connection is uncomplicated, very user-friendly, modern, fast, and free.  Riders TO CDG should be aware that the RER-B trains become extremely crowded during the morning rush hour. Standing room only is the norm, and this is exacerbated by luggage. The evening rush hour is of no concern to North Atlantic passengers, since these Paris departure flights are universally scheduled for morning or early afternoon departure.  Travelers FROM CDG will have their choice of seats, since this is the terminus.

LISA.

A second CDGVAL line, called LISA ("Liaison Interne Satellite Aérogare"), links Terminal 2E and the Terminal S3 and opened on 27 June 2007. With two stations and a length of it is located within the security controlled area of the airport and therefore accessible only to flight passengers.

CDGVAL "(Charles de Gaulle Véhicule Automatique Léger)" is a free automatic shuttle rail service at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport consisting of two lines: a first line which opened on 4 April 2007 and a second on 27 June 2007. Based on the VAL system and using Siemens Transportation Systems VAL 208 coaches, the first five-station line links the three airport terminals, RER and TGV stations and remote car parks within 8 minutes.


Early life.

Born in Johannestal, Austrian Silesia, Mildner served as a volunteer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy during World War I. After the war, Mildner served in the Freikorps Sudetenland. Mildner trained to become a police officer in Salzburg. In 1925, he entered the Austrian police service. During that time Mildner furthered his education by attending night school.

Nazi career.

He became a member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in 1931 with number 614,080. He achieved a doctorate of law at the University of Innsbruck in 1934. In 1935 he was forced to leave Austria and move to Germany. There he became a German citizen and entered the SS (number 275,741). Milder obtained a position in the political police department in Munich.  After the 1938 "Anschluss", Mildner became chief of the Gestapo in Linz and in 1939 in Salzburg, Austria. From December 1939 to early 1941 he led the Gestapo at Chemnitz. In March 1941 he was named as the head of the Gestapo in Katowice. It was through this office that Mildner became connected with the Auschwitz concentration camp and served as head of a "kangaroo court", which sentenced some 2,000 Poles to death. In 1942, he received the War Merit Cross, 2nd class for fighting the enemies of the Reich.  In September 1943, Mildner was transferred to occupied Denmark as Gestapo chief to fight the Danish resistance movement and organize the deportation of the Danish Jews. Mildner oversaw security in Denmark in 1943 when the deportation of the Jews failed. 95% of them succeeded in sailing safely to neutral Sweden. This failure was held against Mildner and he was transferred out of Denmark in January 1944. He then served as Inspector of the SiPo and SD in Kassel.  From March 1944 to June 1944 he was Deputy Chief of sub-offices IVA and IVB (Enemies of the Regime & Activities of the Sects and Churches) in the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA). In December 1944, he was appointed the successor of Franz Josef Huber as chief of the SiPo, Gestapo and SD in Vienna. In this capacity, he was responsible for the court-martial and subsequent execution of resistance fighters Major Karl Biedermann, Captain (Hauptmann) Alfred Huth und First Lieutenant (Oberleutnant) Rudolf Raschke, who had tried to save Vienna from destruction by handing the city over to the Allies. After Vienna was captured by the Soviets, Mildner returned to Linz where he was the deputy of Franz Josef Huber. In May 1945, he escaped to the west and was arrested by the American army and testified at the Nuremberg Trials. The U.S. Army detained Mildner and "saved him from landing in the hands of war crimes investigators, because his knowledge of communist subversion was considered useful."

Nuremberg trials.

At Nuremberg he testified with regards to RSHA chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Mildner declared that while he was Gestapo leader at Katowice he frequently sent prisoners to Auschwitz for imprisonment or execution. He visited Auschwitz on several occasions and was shown the extermination installations. Mildner stated that he had tried to prevent the Jewish persecution in Denmark, but was overruled by Himmler. He was released in 1949 and disappeared to escape prosecution. His place and date of death are unknown; Adolf Eichmann claimed to have met Mildner in Argentina in 1958, but this claim has not been verified.

Rudolf Mildner (July 7, 1902 – 1953?) was an Austrian-German SS-"Standartenführer" who served as the chief of the Gestapo at Katowice and who was the head of the political department at Auschwitz concentration camp, conducting "third degree" methods of interrogation from March 1941 until September 1943. As such, he frequently sent prisoners to Auschwitz for incarceration or execution. He visited Auschwitz on several occasions. In December 1944, he was appointed chief of the SiPo, Gestapo and SD in Vienna. After the war, Mildner testified at the Nuremberg Trials and remained in custody until 1949.


History.

The river was first mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus. In his Annals, he describes the Roman campaign against the Chatti under the command of Germanicus in 15 AD. Forty-five thousand soldiers of the Roman army destroyed the major centre of the Chatti, Mattium, directly after they crossed the "Adrana" (Eder).  In the Middle Ages, the river was known by the names; Aderna, Adarna, Adrina.  On the banks of the Eder, in the town of Schwarzenau, near Bad Berleburg, a religious group was founded in August 1708; the Schwarzenau Brethren. Eight adults were completely baptised thrice in the Eder. This group emigrated to America where they are still to be found.  As late as up to the end of the 19th Century, the river was also known in local dialect as "Edder". For instance, in Felsberg-Gensungen, the pharmacy is known as the "Edder-Apotheke".

Gold in the Eder.

Sediments of the Eder contain a proportion of gold. The majority of this gold is said to originate from Eisenberg (Korbach), which contains one of the largest reserves of gold in Middle Europe. Gold is eroded out of the Eisenberg, for example, by the Itter stream, which, since the Edersee dam was built, flows into the Edersee lake.  Gold panning in the Eder has been known since 1308. The main historical area for panning the gold is between Affoldern and Fritzlar. In the 14th Century, the Teutonic Order panned gold out of the Eder sediments near Obermöllrich. In the 18th Century, even ducats were minted from Eder gold; they are collector's items today.  Up to the 1970s, school children from Duisburg, who stayed at a nearby holiday camp, together with a teacher from Marienhagen, part of the town of Vöhl, went panning for gold in the sediments of the River Itter. Panning for gold along the Eder is still popular.

Course.

The river rises from the Ederkopf mountain in the Rothaar mountain range in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, near the springs of the Lahn and Sieg rivers. However, unlike the Lahn and Sieg, which are both tributaries of the Rhine, the Eder flows east and north, into the river Fulda at Edermünde, south of Kassel. The Fulda then confluences with the Werra River at Hann. Münden to form the Weser River, which flows in to the North Sea.

Edersee Dam.

The Edersee Dam is situated below the town of Waldeck. It is constructed of rock and concrete, and is high and long. It was completed in 1914; in 2014 its 100th birthday was celebrated. It forms the Edersee lake, which is long and contains 200 million cubic metres of water. This is used to generate hydroelectricity and to regulate water levels for shipping on the Weser river.  At low water in late summer, and during dry years, the remnants of three villages (Asel, Bringhausen, and Berich) and a bridge across the original river bed, which was submerged when the lake was filled in 1914, can be seen. Descendants of those buried there go to visit the graves of their ancestors.

Destruction of the Eder dam.

On the night of the 17 May 1943, Avro Lancaster bombers of the RAF 617 Squadron used specially-developed bouncing bombs (codename: Upkeep) that were engineered by Barnes Wallis. They were used to destroy the Möhne and Eder dams, as part of Operation Chastise. The dam was repaired and in use again before the end of the year. The story of the raid was documented by the 1955 film called "The Dam Busters".

Tributaries of the Eder.

The most important tributaries of the Eder are (listed first in Eder-kilometres from source to the Fulda):

The Eder is a -long major river in Germany that begins in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia and passes in to Hesse, where it confluences with the River Fulda.


Early life.

Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark was born on at Mon Repos, the summer residence of the Greek royal family on the island of Corfu. She was the third child and eldest daughter of King George I of Greece and his wife, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia. Alexandra's father was not a native Greek, but he had been born a Danish prince named Christian Wilhelm of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a son of Christian IX, King of Denmark, and he had been elected to the Greek throne at the age of seventeen. Five of his sons (Constantine, George, Nicholas, Andrew and Christopher), and two daughters (Alexandra and Maria), attained adulthood.  The Greek royal family was not wealthy by royal standards and they lived with simplicity. King George was a taciturn man, but contrary to the general approach of the time, he believed in happy rambunctious children. The long corridors of the royal place in Athens were used by Alexandra and her siblings for all types of play and sometimes a "bike ride" would be led by the King himself. Raised by British nannies, English was the children's first language, but they spoke Greek between themselves. They also learned German and French.  Alexandra, nickname "Aline" within her family, or Greek Alix, to distinguish her from her aunt and godmother, Alexandra, Princess of Wales, had a sunny disposition and was much loved by her family. "She had one of those sweet and lovable natures that endeared her to everybody who came in touch with her," recalled her brother, Nicholas. "She looked young and beautiful, and ever since she was a child, life looked as it had nothing but joy and happiness in store for her."  Alexandra's playmates were her brother Nicholas and her sister Maria, who followed her in age. Alexandra spent many holidays in Denmark visiting her paternal grandparents. In Denmark, Alexandra and her siblings met their Russian and British cousins in large family gatherings.

Marriage and children.

When she was eighteen years old, she was married to Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, her maternal first cousin once removed and the youngest child and sixth son of Emperor Alexander II and his first wife, Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine. They had become close when Grand Duke Paul spent winters in Greece due to his frequent respiratory illnesses. The Greek royal family also frequently spent holidays with the Romanov family on visits to Russia or Denmark. Their engagement was announced on 10 November 1888. The wedding took place on in St. Petersburg, at the chapel of the Winter Palace.  They had two children:

Death.

Seven months into her second pregnancy, Alexandra took a walk with her friends on the bank of the Moskva River and jumped directly into a boat that was permanently moored there, but fell as she got in. The next day, she collapsed in the middle of a ball from violent labour pains. She gave birth to her son, Dimitri, lapsed into a fatal coma, and she died six days later in the Romanovs' estate Ilyinskoe near Moscow. The Grand Duchess was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, St. Petersburg. Her grieving husband had to be restrained from throwing himself into the grave with her.  Her husband later morganatically remarried Olga Karnovich, and her son would be involved in the murder of Grigori Rasputin, a favorite of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorvna, in 1916.  In 1939 when Alexandra's nephew George II of Greece was reigning, the Greek government obtained permission from the Soviet government under Joseph Stalin to rebury Princess Alexandra in Greece. Her body was removed from the vault in Leningrad and transferred by a Greek ship to Athens. It was finally laid to rest near the Tatoi Palace. Alexandra's marble tombstone over an empty tomb is still in its place in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.  The ""Alexandra Maternity Hospital"" (now ""Alexandra General Hospital"") in Athens was later named in her memory by another nephew, King Paul; it was affiliated with the University of Athens with a special remit to research and combat postpartum maternal mortality. Alexandras Avenue in Athens was also named after her.

Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna of Russia (; "née" Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark (); 30 August [O.S. 18 August] 1870 – 24 September 1891) was the third child and firstborn daughter of King George I and Queen Olga of Greece, who herself was a Russian grand duchess and was also a grandchild of Denmark's King Christian IX and Queen Louise. She was a sister to Constantine I of Greece, and thus aunt of three kings and two queens, Constantine's three sons, who all became kings of Greece, and two of his daughters, who were queens, of Romania and (titularly) Croatia, respectively. She was also first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, King George V of the United Kingdom, King Christian X of Denmark, and both King Haakon VII and Queen Maud of Norway, as well as a paternal aunt of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.


Definition.

The Open Group owns the UNIX trademark and administers the Single UNIX Specification, with the "UNIX" name being used as a certification mark. They do not approve of the construction "Unix-like", and consider it a misuse of their trademark. Their guidelines require "UNIX" to be presented in uppercase or otherwise distinguished from the surrounding text, strongly encourage using it as a branding adjective for a generic word such as "system", and discourage its use in hyphenated phrases.  Other parties frequently treat "Unix" as a genericized trademark. Some add a wildcard character to the name to make an abbreviation like "Un*x" or "*nix", since Unix-like systems often have Unix-like names such as AIX, A/UX, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, Minix, Ultrix, Xenix, Xinu, and XNU. These patterns do not literally match many system names, but are still generally recognized to refer to any UNIX system, descendant, or work-alike, even those with completely dissimilar names such as Darwin/macOS, illumos/Solaris or FreeBSD.  In 2007, Wayne R. Gray sued to dispute the status of UNIX as a trademark, but lost his case, and lost again on appeal, with the court upholding the trademark and its ownership.

History.

"Unix-like" systems started to appear in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many proprietary versions, such as Idris (1978), UNOS (1982), Coherent (1983), and UniFlex (1985), aimed to provide businesses with the functionality available to academic users of UNIX.  When AT&T allowed relatively inexpensive commercial binary sub-licensing of UNIX in 1979, a variety of proprietary systems were developed based on it, including AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, SunOS, Tru64, Ultrix, and Xenix. These largely displaced the proprietary clones. Growing incompatibility among these systems led to the creation of interoperability standards, including POSIX and the Single UNIX Specification.  Various free, low-cost, and unrestricted substitutes for UNIX emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, including 4.4BSD, Linux, and Minix. Some of these have in turn been the basis for commercial "Unix-like" systems, such as BSD/OS and macOS. Several versions of (Mac) OS X/macOS running on Intel-based Mac computers have been certified under the Single UNIX Specification. The BSD variants are descendants of UNIX developed by the University of California at Berkeley with UNIX source code from Bell Labs. However, the BSD code base has evolved since then, replacing all of the AT&T code. Since the BSD variants are not certified as compliant with the Single UNIX Specification, they are referred to as "UNIX-like" rather than "UNIX".

Categories.

Dennis Ritchie, one of the original creators of Unix, expressed his opinion that Unix-like systems such as Linux are "de facto" Unix systems. Eric S. Raymond and Rob Landley have suggested that there are three kinds of Unix-like systems:

Genetic UNIX.

Those systems with a historical connection to the AT&T codebase. Most commercial UNIX systems fall into this category. So do the BSD systems, which are descendants of work done at the University of California, Berkeley in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Some of these systems have no original AT&T code but can still trace their ancestry to AT&T designs.

Trademark or branded UNIX.

These systemslargely commercial in naturehave been determined by the Open Group to meet the Single UNIX Specification and are allowed to carry the UNIX name. Most such systems are commercial derivatives of the System V code base in one form or another, although Apple macOS 10.5 and later is a BSD variant that has been certified, EulerOS and Inspur K-UX are Linux distributions that have been certified, and a few other systems (such as IBM z/OS) earned the trademark through a POSIX compatibility layer and are not otherwise inherently Unix systems. Many ancient UNIX systems no longer meet this definition.

Functional UNIX.

Broadly, any Unix-like system that behaves in a manner roughly consistent with the UNIX specification, including having a "program which manages your login and command line sessions"; more specifically, this can refer to systems such as Linux or Minix that behave similarly to a UNIX system but have no genetic or trademark connection to the AT&T code base. Most free/open-source implementations of the UNIX design, whether genetic UNIX or not, fall into the restricted definition of this third category due to the expense of obtaining Open Group certification, which costs thousands of dollars for commercial closed source systems.  Around 2001, Linux was given the opportunity to get a certification including free help from the POSIX chair Andrew Josey for the symbolic price of one dollar. There have been some activities to make Linux POSIX-compliant, with Josey having prepared a list of differences between the POSIX standard and the Linux Standard Base specification, but in August 2005, this project was shut down because of missing interest at the LSB work group.

Compatibility layers.

Some non-Unix-like operating systems provide a Unix-like compatibility layer, with varying degrees of Unix-like functionality.  Other means of Windows-Unix interoperability include:

A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-like application is one that behaves like the corresponding Unix command or shell. There is no standard for defining the term, and some difference of opinion is possible as to the degree to which a given operating system or application is "Unix-like".


Early life.

Dolby was born in Portland, Oregon, the son of Esther Eufemia (née Strand) and Earl Milton Dolby, an inventor. He attended Sequoia High School (class of 1951) in Redwood City, California. As a teenager in the decade following World War II, he held part-time and summer jobs at Ampex in Redwood City, working with their first audio tape recorder in 1949. While at San Jose State College and later at Stanford University (interrupted by two years of Army service), he worked on early prototypes of video tape recorder technologies for Alexander M. Poniatoff and Charlie Ginsburg. As a non degree-holding "consultant", Dolby played a key role in the effort that led Ampex to unveil their prototype Quadruplex videotape recorder in April 1956 which soon entered production.

Career.

In 1957, Dolby received his B.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford. He subsequently won a Marshall Scholarship for a Ph.D (1961) in physics from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Research Fellow at Pembroke College.  After Cambridge, Dolby acted as a technical advisor to the United Nations in India until 1965,when he returned to England, where he founded Dolby Laboratories in London with a staff of four. In that same year, 1965, he officially invented the Dolby noise-reduction system, a form of audio signal processing for analog tape recorders. His first U.S. patent was not filed until 1969, four years later. The system was first used by Decca Records in the UK.  The Dolby B consumer noise-reduction system works by compressing and increasing the volume of low-level high-frequency sounds during recording and correspondingly reversing the process during playback. This high-frequency round turn reduces the audible level of tape hiss. The professional Type A system operates on four different frequency bands, and the final SR system on ten.  After his pioneering work with noise reduction Dolby sought to improve film sound. As the As Dolby Laboratories' corporate history explains:  The first film with Dolby sound was "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), which used Dolby noise reduction on all pre-mixes and masters, but a conventional optical sound track on release prints. "Callan" (1974) was the first film with a Dolby-encoded optical soundtrack. The first true LCRS (Left-Center-Right-Surround) soundtrack was encoded on the movie "A Star Is Born" in 1976. In fewer than ten years, 6,000 cinemas worldwide were equipped to use Dolby Stereo sound.  Dolby then developed a digital surround sound compression scheme for the cinema. Dolby Stereo Digital (now simply called Dolby Digital) was first featured on the 1992 film "Batman Returns". Dolby Digital is now found in the HDTV (ATSC) standard of the United States, DVD players, and many satellite-TV and cable-TV receivers.  Dolby was a Fellow and past president of the Audio Engineering Society.

Death.

Dolby died of leukemia on September 12, 2013, at his home in San Francisco at the age of 80. Dolby was survived by his wife Dagmar, two sons, Tom and David, and four grandchildren. Kevin Yeaman, president and chief executive of Dolby Laboratories, said "Today we lost a friend, mentor and true visionary." Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, said Dolby had "changed the way we listen to music and movies for nearly 50 years" and that Dolby's "technologies have become an essential part of the creative process for recording artists and filmmakers, ensuring his remarkable legacy for generations to come."  In his will, Dolby bequeathed £35 million to Pembroke College, Cambridge, the largest single donation received by the University's current fundraising campaign. In December 2017 it was announced that his family has donated a further £85m from his estate to Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory and a new Ray Dolby Center will be established in 2022.

Ray Milton Dolby (; January 18, 1933 – September 12, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor of the noise reduction system known as Dolby NR. He helped develop the video tape recorder while at Ampex and was the founder of Dolby Laboratories.


History.

The Khanate of Kokand was established in 1709 when the Shaybanid emir Shahrukh, of the Ming Tribe of Uzbeks, declared independence from the Khanate of Bukhara, establishing a state in the eastern part of the Fergana Valley. He built a citadel as his capital in the small town of Kokand, thus starting the Khanate of Kokand. His son, Abdul Kahrim Bey, and grandson, Narbuta Bey, enlarged the citadel, but both were forced to submit as a protectorate, and pay tribute to, the Qing dynasty in China between 1774 and 1798.  Narbuta Bey’s son Alim was both ruthless and efficient. He hired a mercenary army of Tajik highlanders, and conquered the western half of the Fergana Valley, including Khujand and Tashkent. He was assassinated by his brother Umar in 1811. Umar’s son, Mohammed Ali (Madali Khan), ascended to the throne in 1822 at the age of 12. During his reign, the Khanate of Kokand reached its greatest territorial extent. The Kokand Khanate also housed the Khojas of Kashgar like Jahangir Khoja. In 1841, the British officer Captain Arthur Conolly failed to persuade the various khanates to put aside their differences, in an attempt to counter the growing penetration of the Russian Empire into the area. In November 1841, Captain Conolly left Kokand for Bukhara in an ill-fated attempt to rescue fellow officer Colonel Charles Stoddart, and both were executed on 24 June 1842 by the order of Emir Nasrullah Khan of Bukhara.  Following this, Madali Khan, who had received Conolly in Kokand, and who had also sought an alliance with Russia, lost the trust of Nasrullah. The Emir, encouraged by the conspiratorial efforts of several influential figures in Kokand (including the commander in chief of its army), invaded the Khanate in 1842. Shortly thereafter he executed Madali Khan, his brother, and Omar Khan's widow, the famed poet Nodira. Madali Khan’s cousin, Shir Ali, was installed as the Khan of Kokand in June 1842. Over the next two decades, the khanate was weakened by a bitter civil war, which was further exacerbated by Bukharan and Russian incursions. Shir Ali’s son, Khudayar Khan, ruled from 1844 to 1858, from 1862 to 1863, and from 1865 to 1875. In the meantime, Russia was continuing its advance; on 29 June 1865 Tashkent was taken by the Russian troops of General Chernyayev; the loss of Khujand followed in 1867.  Shortly before the fall of Tashkent, Kokand’s best-known son, Yakub Beg, former lord of Tashkent, was sent by the then Khan of Kokand, Alimqul, to Kashgar, where the Hui Muslims were in revolt against the Chinese. When Alimqul was killed in 1865 during the battle with Russia for Tashkent, many Kokandian soldiers fled to join Yaqub Beg, helping him establish his dominion throughout the Tarim Basin, which lasted until 1877, when Qing reconquered the region.  In 1868, a treaty turned Kokand into a Russian vassal state. The now powerless Khudayar Khan spent his energies improving his lavish palace. Western visitors were impressed by the city of 80,000 people, which contained some 600 mosques and 15 madrasahs. Insurrections against Russian rule and Khudayar’s oppressive taxes forced him into exile in 1875. He was succeeded by his son, Nasruddin Khan, whose anti-Russian stance provoked the annexation of Kokand (after six months of fierce fighting) by Generals Konstantin von Kaufman and Mikhail Skobelev. In January 1876, Tsar Alexander II stated that he had been forced to "... yield to the wishes of the Kokandi people to become Russian subjects." The Khanate of Kokand was declared abolished, and incorporated into the Fergana Oblast of Russian Turkestan.

Rulers of Kokand (1709-1876).

Sources:

The Khanate of Kokand (; Қўқон Хонлиги, قۇقان خانلىگى; ) was an Uzbek state in Fergana Valley, Central Asia that existed from 1709–1876 within the territory of eastern Uzbekistan, modern Kyrgyzstan, eastern Tajikistan and southeastern Kazakhstan. The name of the city and the khanate may also be spelled as Khoqand in modern scholarly literature.


Overview.

The Bamberg State Library supplies the town of Bamberg and the region Upper Franconia with literature for research and higher education purposes, professional work and advanced training. The historically grown holdings of more than 500,000 volumes are continuously supplemented and enlarged by acquisitions in all general fields, and in specialized areas such as the history and geography of (Upper) Franconia, art history and appreciation, manuscripts and the printed book.  It cooperates in all areas of librarianship with the University Library of Bamberg.  One of its regional tasks is to acquire documentary material on and of persons who are connected with the region.  More over it gets the legal deposit for the region of Upper Franconia; that means the Bamberg State Library receives a copy of every book published in Upper Franconia and continues to compile a complete bibliography of the region.  It also provides space for book collections belonging to Bamberg institutions such as the Bamberg Historical Society (), the Bamberg Society of Naturalists (), the Bamberg Art Association () the E.-T.-A.-Hoffmann-Gesellschaft and the Bamberg group of the Frankenbund.  Its high esteem to be a research library of international rank is based on its rich manuscripts holdings. This collection may be traced back to the emperor Henry II, who founded the bishopric of Bamberg on November 1, 1007. Three of these manuscripts became part of UNESCO's Memory of the World:

History.

The nucleus of the collection may be traced back to the emperor Henry II, who founded the bishopric of Bamberg in 1007. Among his gifts to the cathedral were many precious manuscripts, which he and his predecessors had collected or commissioned. Manuscripts from various spiritual centres of the Western world were brought to Bamberg as a result. In the ensuing period many books were written and illuminated in the town, notably in the 12th century by the Benedictine monks of the Michaelsberg Abbey.  Bamberg was the first place where printed books in the German language were illustrated with woodcuts. Although only fragments of the very first period of printing in Bamberg can be found in the library, the collection of 3,500 incunabula documents the wide range of book production in the 15th century.  All that remained of these manuscripts and books in the monasteries of the town and bishopric up to 1802/1803 was incorporated into one library (now the Bamberg State Library) during the period of German Mediatisation and merged with the library of the old University of Bamberg, which had been founded in 1648 as a Jesuit academy and was closed at that time. Bamberg became part of the Electorate of Bavaria. In the course of the 19th century the library was enriched by gifts such as the art historian Joseph Heller's collection, which today comprises 80,000 prints and drawings. The E. T. A. Hoffmann material became a special collection in our times, as did, more recently, autograph books from the 18th and 19th century.

Building.

The Bamberg State Library nowadays is housed in the east wing of the New Residence of Bamberg which was built in 1697–1703 by Johann Leonhard Dientzenhofer on behalf of Prince-Bishop Lothar Franz von Schönborn. Originally, the administration of the bishopric was placed in that wing of the building.  The so-called Dominikanerräume are part of the library's showrooms which are not open to public. They are so called because of the bookshelves from Bamberg's Dominican monastery that were brought to the library during the secularisation when the monastery was closed down.  The Vierzehnheiligenpavillion on the third floor also belongs to the internal showrooms. It was the prince-bishop's library room. Since 1978, the former wine cellar serves as closed access stacks. The library presents in the entrance hall precious stained glass dating from the 16th and 17th centuries. Joseph Heller, an art historian and collector, left them as legacy to the library. The reading room can be reached from the entrance hall. In former times, it served the prince-bishop as audience room and summer room. The reading room provides a view over the rose garden which also was built on behalf of Prince-Bishop Lothar Franz von Schönborn. During the exhibitions taking place several times a year the Sternengewölbe and the former Gartensaal – or Scagliolasaal – can be visited.

The Bamberg State Library () is a combined universal, regional and research library with priority given to the humanities. Today it is housed in the New Residence, the former prince-bishop's new palace. The Free State of Bavaria is responsible for the library.


Princess Elisabeth of Saxe-Altenburg (1865–1927)

Family and early life.

Princess Elisabeth, as she was usually known, was the second child of Prince Moritz of Saxe-Altenburg (1829–1907) and his wife, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Meiningen (1843–1919). During her youth she made several trips around Europe visiting her relatives.

Marriage and issue.

In 1882, when she was sixteen, she met her second cousin, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia in Altenburg. His mother and her father were first cousins; in addition to that, they shared Emperor Pavel I as a common ancestor. There was immediately some talk of marriage. However, although she said she was ready to marry Konstantin, he hesitated, even though he was by then 24 years old. When she left, he promised to write often, but he never did, as he was tremendously shy. Nevertheless, he did write several poems about her. In 1884, she visited Russia and the wedding was announced, although she manifested her wish to keep her Lutheran faith, which was a serious blow for her future husband, since he believed firmly in the Russian Orthodox Church. Even worse was the fact that she refused to kiss the cross held in Orthodox services.  On the wedding day, which took place on 27 April 1884, she wrote to him a reassuring letter, saying that "I promise you that I will never do anything to anger nor hurt you through our divided religions... I can only tell you again, "how very much" I love you.  The marriage was a success, although Grand Duke Konstantin secretly kept male lovers. Konstantin and Elizaveta had nine children:

Later life.

Grand Duchess Elizaveta Mavrikievna, or "Mavra" as she was known within the Romanov family, was a popular figure, and got on quite well with her nephew, Tsar Nicholas II.  She outlived most of her children. In 1905 her daughter Natalia died aged exactly two months. When World War I broke out, she found herself fighting on the opposite side of her native Germany. However, several of her sons, who were trained soldiers, joined the army and fought bravely. One of them, Oleg, was killed in 1914 in Lithuania, where Elizaveta quickly went to see her dying son.  The untimely death of their son led her husband to an early grave in 1915. That same year her son-in-law (Princess Tatiana's husband) was also killed in action. After the revolution, she managed to escape Russia, but several of her sons were caught by the Soviet forces. In fact, three (Ioann, Konstantin and Igor) were shot together by Bolsheviks in Alapaievsk, Siberia, in July 1918 along with several other members of the family. Her brother-in-law, Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich was shot in Petrograd the following year.  K.R.'s wife, two youngest children, Prince George and Princess Vera, and two grandchildren (Ioann's children: Vsevolod and Catherine) remained at Pavlovsk throughout the war, the chaotic rule of the Provisional Government, and after the October Revolution. In the fall of 1918, they were permitted by the Bolsheviks to move by boat called Ångermanland to Sweden (via Tallinn to Helsinki and via Mariehamn to Stockholm), at the invitation of the Swedish queen. In Stockholm harbor they met prince Gustaf Adolf who took them to the royal palace. Later, Vsevolod and Catherine were able to reunite with their mother.  Elizaveta Mavrikievna and Vera and Georgi lived for the next two years in Sweden first in Stockholm then in Saltsjöbaden, but Sweden was too expensive a place to live so they moved to Belgium by invitation of Albert I of Belgium. Later they moved to Germany, settling in Altenburg where they lived for 30 years except for a couple of years in England. Elizaveta died of cancer on 24 March 1927 in Leipzig. Prince Georgi died in New York City in 1938. Princess Vera lived in Germany until Soviet forces occupied the east part of the country, when she fled to Hamburg and in 1951 she moved to the United States and died there in 2001, in New York City.  A scarab brooch given to the Princess by her husband in 1891 was auctioned by Sotheby's in 2012.

Elizabeth Mavrikievna (, "née" Princess Elisabeth Auguste Marie Agnes of Saxe-Altenburg; 25 January 1865 – 24 March 1927) was a Russian Grand Duchess by marriage. She was the wife of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia (1858–1915), whom she married in 1884 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.


Biography.

Ilona Štěpánová-Kurzová belongs to notable representatives of the Czech piano school. To the public she is known as appreciated and popular teacher who prepared many marvellous interpreters during her life. Her amazing concert career is omitted nowadays even though Ilona Štěpánová ranked herself among the best European artists of her time.  She was born as the only daughter in a family of excellent piano teachers Vilém Kurz and his wife Růžena. She was taught to play piano by her parents from a very young age. Her concert career started in Lviv, Ukraine at the age of ten with Mozart's "Coronation concert in D major" conducted by Oskar Nedbal and accompanied by the Viennese Tonkünstlerverein orchestra. This concert was repeated in Vienna and Prague.

Concert activity.

Beginning in 1911 she developed extensive concert activity which lasted until the second half of the 1930s. Ilona Štěpánová inherited profession mastery to which she added her own personal contribution - deep inner experience and poetry. Summary of these qualities made her one of the most popular piano players of her time. She performed innumerable solo concerts, accompanied by notable orchestras and chamber ensembles (e. g. Czech, Ševčík's, Prague quartet etc.) in her country and abroad (performances in Poland, Germany, Austria, Holland). She included eleven piano concertos with orchestra and her general and extensive repertoire included principal works of world literature of all style periods (she was especially famous for her interpretation of Chopin's compositions).  Of Czech piano literature she played mostly Josef Suk, Vítězslav Novák, Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák, but also compositions of contemporary Czech authors (K. B. Jirák, B. Vomáčka). She presented premieres of many compositions: e.g. in 1919 she played the first performance of Dvořák's Piano Concerto in G minor adapted by her father Vilém Kurz, conducted by Václav Talich; at Frankfurt am Main modern music festival in 1926 she performed the world premiere of Janáček's Concertino (Czech premiere - 16 February 1926); of the Russian literature she played Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto in C major in Prague in 1926.  Marriage to outstanding Czech pianist, composer, teacher and musicologist Václav štěpán (1924) meant another extension of public activities for the pianist. There is movement to contemporary music and many individual concerts from the two pianos literature.

Pedagogy.

Ilona Štěpánová's teaching abilities were shown since her young age and it seemed to be just natural to turn her attention to this activity. As in her concert career she achieved outstanding success in this field. After her husband's death (1944) she took the lead of the master school of Prague Conservatory students. When Vilém Kurz died she took lead of his students as well.  She was professor at Academy of Music and Drama in Prague since 1946 (Ivan Moravec, Mirka Pokorná, Ilja Hurník, Anna Machová, Zdeněk Hnát, Dagmar Baloghová, Zorka Lochmanová-Zichová, Jaroslav Jiránek etc. were among her graduates). She fully concentrated on teaching for the rest of her life. Her son Pavel Štěpán became successor of family tradition. The pianist brought regard to composer's intention from Kurz school. This is shown in precise interpretation of the part and respecting composer's style, beautiful fine-sounding cantilena and brilliancy of technical performance. She enriched the Czech piano school by deep inner experience, colourfulness and plasticity of touch nuances. It enabled her complete loosening of entire playing apparatus combined with conscious fixing of some of its parts where certain kind of touch - according to character of the expected sound - demands this.

Publications.

Technical studies anthology by Ilona Štěpánová "Piano technique" [Klavírní technika] (Prague 1979; new publications are being prepared) completed with methodical explanation which extends Kurz's "Technical fundamentals of piano play" [Technické základy klavírní hry] (Prague 1924) which it quotes in some parts. It analyses the smallest details of separate piano technique components. Each of eighteen series concentrates on one technical problem in progressively structured exercises. The development of piano play trend confirmed correctness of her opinion and comprehensive handbook was established, which professionals appreciate.

Ilona Štěpánová-Kurzová (19 November 1899 in Lviv – 25 September 1975 in Prague) was a Czech concert pianist and piano teacher, a professor at the Prague Academy of Arts. Her students included Ivan Moravec. Ilona Štěpánová-Kurzová was the mother of pianist Pavel Štěpán.


History.

The monastery was built in the mid-11th century, by Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and his wife, Empress Zoe. According to tradition, it is built on the location where three monks, Nikitas, Ioannes and Iosif, miraculously found an icon of the Virgin Mary, hanging from a branch of myrtle. At that time, Constantine was exiled in nearby Lesbos, and the monks visited him and told of a vision according to which he would eventually become emperor. Constantine promised to build a church if this should come to pass. Indeed, in 1042, Constantine became emperor, and in gratitude began constructing the monastery, dedicated to the Theotokos. The main church (the "katholikon") was inaugurated in 1049, and the complex finished in 1055, after Constantine's death.  The monastery was early on endowed with privileges: in a chrysobull of July 1049, Constantine Monomachos granted the monastery the head tax of all Jews of the island of Chios, and set the monastery apart from any superior ecclesiastic or secular hierarchy. As a result of land grants, tax exemptions and other privileges granted by successive emperors, the monastery prospered during the Byzantine period. Over the centuries, the monastery amassed substantial riches and became one of the wealthiest monasteries in the Aegean. At its peak, around 1300, its estates covered one third of Chios and it is estimated that up to 800 monks belonged to it. The subsequent Genoese domination reduced its wealth, but the monastery prospered again during the Ottoman era, when it was subject directly to the Patriarch of Constantinople, and enjoyed considerable autonomy. The late 16th-century traveler Samuel Purchas recounts that it had 200 monks, and that "alone in all Greece they had the right to use bells." During the 17th century the number of monks decreased further, but recovered in the next century. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, Chrysanthos Notaras, and the French priest Fourmont, who visited the monastery in 1725 and 1729 respectively, commented on the large numbers of monks, the quantity of relics preserved, and the beauty of the church and its decoration.  The monastery's decline began only after the destruction of Chios by the Ottomans in April 1822, during the Greek War of Independence. 2,000 people had sought refuge in the monastery, but the Ottomans stormed it, slaughtered many, and set fire to the templon and other wooden furnishings of the church, including the roof, leaving the rest of the refugees to burn there. The monastery never recovered its former glory.  In 1881, an earthquake added further damage to the main church, leading to the collapse of its dome, while several other buildings, like the 1512 bell-tower, were destroyed. In 1952, due to the shortage of monks, Nea Moni was converted to a convent. According to the 2001 census, it is inhabited by only three nuns.

Structures and architecture.

The monastery complex covers an area of approximately 17,000 m and consists of the katholikon, two smaller churches (dedicated to the Holy Cross and to St Panteleimon) the dining hall ("trapeza"), the monks' cells ("kelia"), the reception hall or "triklinon" and underground water cistern ("kinsterna"). The complex is surrounded by a wall (the original Byzantine wall was destroyed in 1822), and in the northeastern corner stands a defensive tower, in earlier times used as a library. In addition, outside the walls, near the monks' cemetery, there is a small chapel to St Luke.  The katholikon is the monastery's central structure, dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. It is composed of the main church, the esonarthex and the exonarthex. The main church is of an octagonal shape, the so-called "insular" type, found in Chios and Cyprus. Although all three sections date to the 11th century, the main church suffered significant damage in 1822 and 1881, with the result that its current, rebuilt, form is different from the original. The bell tower was constructed in 1900, replacing an older one built in 1512. Originally, the remains of the three founders were kept in the exonarthex, but most of these were destroyed during the sack of 1822.  Along with the katholikon, the only remaining 11th century buildings are the partially ruined tower, the chapel of St Luke, the cistern and parts of the trapeza. The cells, most of which are in a ruined state, date to the Venetian and Genovese periods. A small museum, opened in 1992, exists to the NW of the katholikon, housed in a renovated cell. The displayed artifacts date mostly from the latter 19th century.

Nea Moni (, lit. "New Monastery") is an 11th-century monastery on the island of Chios that has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is located on the Provateio Oros Mt. in the island's interior, about 15 km from Chios town. It is well known for its mosaics, which, together with those at Daphni and Hosios Loukas, are among the finest examples of "Macedonian Renaissance" art in Greece.


History.

The oldest weapons collection in Dresden, the City Armoury ("Städtische Harnischkammer") was founded in 1409, containing the weapons used by the citizens to defend the city. It existed until the 17th century when it became obsolete. Besides this, two further armouries were established shortly after. One was the Ducal Armoury ("Herzogliche Harnischkammer"), founded after Duke Albert was granted an independent dukedom in 1485. Housed in Dresden Castle, it contained the personal weapons of the ruling House of Wettin. Furthermore, Prince Elector Augustus founded the Arsenal of the Saxon State ("Kurfürstliches Landeszeughaus") containing Saxony's weapons of war, such as cannons.  The Ducal Armoury ("Herzogliche Harnischkammer") is the direct predecessor of today’s "Rüstkammer". It was founded after Albert III, Duke of Saxony, ("Albert the Bold") established Meissen as the centre of Albertine Saxony and named himself Margrave of Meissen in 1485. A continuous growth in the collection of parade weapons occurred during the reign of his son, George, Duke of Saxony ("George the Bearded"), who named Dresden the capital of his realm. After George's grandson, Duke Maurice, gained the title of Saxon prince elector in 1547, the Ducal Armory was renamed Electoral Armory ("Kurfürstliche Rüstkammer") and thus gained electoral status. It was located on the ground floor of the "Hausmannsturm", the tower of Dresden Castle.  Prince Elector Augustus initiated the museum era of the armoury by taking an inventory of the electoral holdings. The inventory of 1567 mentions several buildings with holdings of the armoury, listing more than 1,500 weapons. Much of the armoury was displayed on carved wooden horses. The amory moved into the newly established Stable Building ("Stallgebäude", today’s Johanneum) in 1591, where it remained until 1722.  When Prince Elector Frederick Augustus I was made King of Poland in 1697, the armoury acquired royal status. Now named Augustus II ("Augustus II the Strong"), he faced increased needs for representation, leading to the establishment of his treasure chamber, the Green Vault. As a result, richly adorned weapons were moved into the new museums, spoiling the integrity of the armoury’s holdings. Furthermore, the armoury had to be moved again, this time into the Secret War Chancellery ("Geheime Kriegskanzlei") where it was housed from 1722 until 1832. Nevertheless, the armoury remained a favorite among visitors at this time. The son of Augustus II the Strong, Augustus III, established the Firearms Gallery in the Long Corridor of the "Stallhof" (Stall Courtyard), which links the castle complex with the adjacent Johanneum. At the time, the Firearms Gallery was the most valuable of its kind in Germany; today, its more than 3,000 firearms are an important part of the "Rüstkammer".  After the armoury was acquired by the state in 1831, it was renamed the Royal Historic Museum ("Königliches Historisches Museum") and moved into the Zwinger building in 1832. It remained there until 1877, when it was moved again into the Johanneum. In 1913/14, the parade weapons which had been placed in the Green Vault, were reintegrated into the armory collection.  The artefacts from the Firearms Gallery and the Historic Museum were taken to Königstein Fortress during World War II. At the end of the war in 1945, the collections were confiscated by the Red Army and transported to Leningrad. Since their return to Dresden in 1958, part of the collection, now again named the Dresden Armoury ("Rüstkammer"), had been on display in the Semper Gallery of the Zwinger until September 2012. After completion of the "Riesensaal" in Dresden Castle in February 2013, the armoury's collection has been exhibited there.

Exhibition.

Today’s exhibition comprises around 1,300 artefacts, representing less than 10 percent of the entire holdings. They are arranged in 121 showcases and six pedestals. The exhibition is centered around knighthood. It includes parade and tournament weapons, firearms from the Firearms Gallery, racing and jousting equipment, and paintings of tournaments. The displayed items span three centuries, from the 15th to the 18th century.

Turkish Chamber.

The holdings of the Dresden Armoury include objects belonging to the Turkish Chamber (German: "Türckische Cammer") which formed a separate collection within the armoury from at least 1591. Over the course of several centuries, diplomatic gifts, purchased objects, and booty gained in various battles against the Ottomans were assembled, creating one of the oldest and most significant collections of Ottoman art outside Turkey.  The roots of the oriental collection in Dresden can be traced back as far as 1591. At that time, the Turkish Chamber was still called "Ungerische Cammer" (Hungarian Chamber), probably because Saxony at that time had primarily come into contact with the Ottoman Empire in Hungary. The first recorded use of the name Turkish Chamber dates from 1614.  The first inventory of the oriental holdings of the "Rüstkammer" was compiled on request of Elector Johann Georg II of Saxony. The inventory was completed in July 1674 and revised in August 1677. It listed 385 items, divided into four groups: defensive weapons, reflex bows, pole weapons and flags, and finally saddles, bridles and caparisons.  After the dramatic years of the Great Northern War, August the Strong decided to reorganize his troops and renew their equipment. A military review of the 27,000-men-strong army was scheduled for June 1730, requiring an encampment near Zeithain north-west of Dresden with large tents. The biggest tent in the current exhibition was brought to Dresden specifically for this event in 1729. Originally, it consisted of a large roof section, two side walls and parts of an awning. One of the sidewalls and parts of the awning have been missing since the end of World War II. Nevertheless, it is one of the most magnificent surviving Ottoman tents in the world.

Today's collection.

Today's exhibition presents more than 600 individual pieces of art. The largest object in the Turkish Chamber is the three-mast tent brought to Dresden for the Zeithain encampment in 1730. This long, wide and high tent gives the viewer a sense of being under a second sky of gold and silk. The tent is made of satin, cotton and gilt leather; its restoration lasted 14 years. In addition, there are eight life-sized, carved wooden horses and a group of reflex bows with original strings, the oldest of which dates from 1586. Also shown are weapons, suits of chain mail, helmets, flags and costumes.

The Dresden Armoury or Dresden Armory (German: Rüstkammer), also known as the Dresden Historical Museum (German: "Historisches Museum Dresden"), is one of the world's largest collections of ceremonial weapons, armour and historical textiles. It is part of the Dresden State Art Collections and is located in Dresden Castle in Dresden.


Childhood.

Princess Anastasia was born in Cetinje, Montenegro on 4 January 1868, the third child and third daughter of her parents. At birth, her name was "Princess Stana Petrovich Njegosh of Montenegro"; as of the date of her father's assumption of the title and style of "Royal Highness" in 1900, she became known as "Her Royal Highness" Princess Stana Petrovich Njegosh of Montenegro. She retained her childhood name of "Stana" to close relations.  Anastasia was educated at the Smolny Institute with her older sister, Princess Milica.

First marriage.

On 28 August n.s., 1889, at the Imperial Russian Palace of Peterhof, Stana married Prince George Maximilianovich of Leuchtenberg (later the Duke of Leuchtenberg.) The Duke had previously been married and widowed, with one son, Alexander Georgievich, from his prior marriage to Princess Therese of Oldenburg. The couple had two children before divorcing in St. Petersburg on 15 November 1906.

Second marriage.

On 29 April 1907, at the age of 39, Anastasia was married to Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (1856–1929). The marriage was childless. Both her husbands were descendants of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia (1796–1855): the first one was his grandson through a maternal line, and the second one was his grandson through a direct male line.

Imperial Russia.

Both Anastasia and her second husband Nicholas were religious Eastern Orthodox Christians, with a tendency to and interest in Persian mysticism. Since the Montenegrins were a fiercely Slavic, anti-Turkish people from the Balkans, Anastasia reinforced the Pan Slav tendencies of Nicholas. Her sister, Princess Milica (Cetinje, Montenegro, 26 July 1866 – Alexandria, Egypt, 5 September 1951) was married to Grand Duke Peter Nicolaievich Romanov of Russia, brother of Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaevich. The two Montenegrin princesses were thus also sisters-in-law, as their husbands were brothers.  Anastasia and her sister were intrigued by the more mystical side of the Eastern Orthodox religion; they were early supporters of the French seer "Dr." Philippe Vachot and of the "starets" Rasputin, and introduced both in turn to the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, the last Tsarina of Russia. According to popular Russian belief, the influence of Rasputin was instrumental in the downfall of the Romanov family.  Anastasia's husband, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (1856–1929), was Commander in Chief of the Russian Army during the first year of World War I, carrying out campaigns on the Austro-German front and in the Caucasus. His Supreme Commandership was terminated by Tsar Nicholas on 21 August 1915.

Post Revolution.

In March 1917, the last Tsar was overthrown and the ruling Romanov family removed from power by the Bolsheviks. Anastasia and her husband lived from 1917–1919 first in the Caucasus, then in the Crimea. From Yalta in the Crimea, Anastasia and her husband escaped Russia in 1919 aboard a British battleship, HMS "Marlborough". They settled briefly in Italy, living with her sister Elena, Queen of Italy and later in France, spending winters on the Riviera. She died in Cap d'Antibes on 15 November 1935, having outlived her husband by six years. Grand Duchess Anastasia and her husband died in exile and were originally buried in the church of St. Archangel Michael in Cannes, France. Requests to transfer their remains came from Nicholas Romanov, Prince of Russia, who died in 2014 and Prince Dimitri Romanov (who died in 2016), and were made in 2014. Their remains were re-buried in Moscow, at the Bratsky military cemetery in May 2015.

Princess Anastasia Petrović-Njegoš of Montenegro (4 January [O.S. 23 December] 1867 – 25 November 1935) was the daughter of King Nikola I Petrović-Njegoš of Montenegro (1841–1921) and his wife, Milena Vukotić (1847–1923). Through her second marriage, she became Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaievna Romanova of Russia. She and her sister "Militza" (Princess Milica), having married Russian royal brothers, were known colloquially as the "Montenegrin princesses" during the last days of Imperial Russia, and may have contributed to its downfall by the introduction of Grigori Rasputin to the Empress Alexandra.


Classes.

The Order was awarded in nine classes until 2003, when the Grand Cordon with Paulownia Flowers was made a separate order, and the lowest two classes were abolished. Since then, it has been awarded in six classes. Conventionally, a diploma is prepared to accompany the insignia of the order, and in some rare instances, the personal signature of the Emperor will have been added. As an illustration of the wording of the text, a translation of a representative 1929 diploma says:

Insignia.

The "star" for the "Grand Cordon" and "Second Class" is a silver star of eight points, each point having three alternating silver rays; the central emblem is identical to the badge. It is worn on the left chest for the Grand Cordon, on the right chest for the 2nd Class.  The "badge" for the "Grand Cordon to Sixth Classes" is an eight-pointed badge bearing a central red enamelled sun disc, with gilt points (1st–4th Classes), with four gilt and four silver points (5th Class), or with silver points (6th Class); each point comprises three white enamelled rays. It is suspended from three enamelled paulownia leaves (not chrysanthemum leaves as the Decoration Bureau page claims) on a ribbon in white with red border stripes, worn as a sash from the right shoulder for the Grand Cordon, as a necklet for the 2nd and 3rd Classes and on the left chest for the 4th to 6th Classes (with a rosette for the 4th Class).  The "badge" for the "Seventh and Eighth Classes" consisted of a silver medal in the shape of three paulownia leaves, enamelled for the 7th Class and plain for the 8th Class. Both were suspended on a ribbon, again in white with red border stripes, and worn on the left chest. Both classes were abolished in 2003 and replaced by the Order of the Paulownia Flowers, a single-class order that now ranks above the Order of the Rising Sun.

Notable recipients.

7th Class, Green Paulownia Leaves Medal.

In 2003, the 7th and 8th levels – named for leaves of the Paulownia tree, long used as a mon (emblem) for the highest levels of Japanese society – were moved to a new and distinct order, the single-class "Order of the Paulownia Flowers".

8th Class, White Paulownia Leaves Medal.

The is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight from the rising sun. The design of the Rising Sun symbolizes energy as powerful as the rising sun in parallel with the "rising sun" concept of Japan ("Land of the Rising Sun").


Etymology.

"Kathmandu" is not the native name used by the indigenous Nepa people of the valley. The term "Nepa-al" means "land of the Nepa people" and was traditionally used to refer this valley.  The Pahari name "Kathmandu" comes from a structure in the Durbar Square called by the Sanskrit name "Kāsṣtha mandapa" "Wooden shelter". This unique temple, also known as the "Maru Sattal", was built in 1596 by King Lakshmi Narasimha Malla. The entire structure contained no iron nails or supports and was made entirely from wood. Legend has it that the timber used for this two-story pagoda was obtained from a single tree.

Area of Kavre.

City of Banepa, Panauti and Dhulikhel is also considered part of Kathmandu valley as it has a similar culture.

History.

The Kathmandu Valley may have been inhabited as early as 300 BCE, since the oldest known objects in the valley date to a few hundred years BCE. The earliest known inscription is dated 185 CE. The oldest firmly dated building in the earthquake-prone valley is over 2,000 years old. Four stupas around the city of Patan that are said to have been erected by a Charumati, a purported daughter of the Maurya emperor Ashoka, in the third century BCE, attest to the ancient history present within the valley. As with the tales of the Buddha's visit, there is no evidence supporting Ashok's visit, but the stupas probably date to that century. The Licchavis, whose earliest inscriptions date to 464, were the next rulers of the valley and had close ties with the Gupta Empire of India. The Mallas ruled the Kathmandu Valley and the surrounding area from the 12th until the 18th century CE, when the Shah dynasty of the Gorkha Kingdom under Prithvi Narayan Shah conquered the valley as he created present-day Nepal. His victory in the Battle of Kirtipur was the beginning of his conquest of the valley.

Newars.

The Newars are the indigenous inhabitants and the creators of the historic civilization of the valley. Their language is today known as Nepal Bhasa. They are understood to be the descendants of the various ethnic and racial groups that have inhabited and ruled the valley in the two-millennium history of the place. Scholars have also described the Newars as a nation. They have developed a division of labour and a sophisticated urban civilization not seen elsewhere in the Himalayan foothills. They are known for their contributions to art, sculpture, architecture, culture, literature, music, industry, trade, agriculture and cuisine, and left their mark on the art of Central Asia.  Newa architecture consists of the pagoda, stupa, shikhara, chaitya and other styles. The valley's trademark is the multiple-roofed pagoda which may have originated in this area and spread to India, China, Indochina and Japan. The most famous artisan who influenced stylistic developments in China and Tibet was Araniko, a Newar who traveled to the court of Kublai Khan in the 13th century AD. He is known for building the white stupa at the Miaoying Temple in Beijing. At present, people from other parts of Nepal tend to migrate to the valley for a better life due to its high level of cultural and economic development. Even with urbanization taking place, the Newars have sustained their culture in Kathmandu Valley.

Mythology.

According to Swayambhu Puran, the Kathmandu Valley was once a lake, deemed by scientists as Paleo Kathmandu Lake. The hill where the Swayambu Stupa rests had lotus plants with flowers in bloom. One story says that the God Manjusri cut a gorge at a valley called Kashapaal (later called Chobhar) with a sword called Chandrahrasha and drained away the waters in order to establish a habitable land.  According to Gopal Banshawali, Krishna cut the gorge with his Sudarshana Chakra to let the water out. He then handed the drained valley to the Gopal Vansi people, who were nomadic cow herders.

Geography.

Kathmandu valley is bowl-shaped. Its central lower part stands at above sea level. Kathmandu valley is surrounded by four mountain ranges: Shivapuri hills (at an elevation of ), Phulchowki (), Nagarjun () and Chandragiri (). The major river flowing through the Kathmandu Valley is the Bagmati.  The valley is made up of the Kathmandu District, Lalitpur District and Bhaktapur District covering an area of. The valley consists of the municipal areas of Kathmandu, Patan, Bhaktapur, Kirtipur and Madhyapur Thimi; the remaining area is made up of a number of municipalities and rural municipalities (in Lalitpur district). The valley is a cultural and political hub of Nepal. The Kathmandu valley was accorded the status of a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in the year 1979.

Places to see.

This is an incomplete alphabetical list of notable temples and monuments in Kathmandu Valley. Seven of these are designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Present.

This valley hosts a UNESCO World Heritage Site with seven preserved locations: the centers of the three primary cities, Kathmandu Hanuman Dhoka, Patan Durbar Square and Bhaktapur Durbar Square, the two most important Buddhist stupas, Swayambhunath and Boudhanath and two famous Hindu shrines, Pashupatinath temple and Changu Narayan. In 2003, UNESCO listed the sites as being "endangered" out of concern for the ongoing loss of authenticity and the outstanding universal value of the cultural property. The endangered status was lifted in 2007.  In the past, Tibetan Buddhist Masters including Marpa, Milarepa, Rwa Lotsava, Ras Chungpa, Dharma Swami, XIII Karmapa, XVI Karmapa and several others visited and travelled in the Kathmandu Valley. However, the largest group of Tibetans came in the 1960s. Many settled around the Swayambhunath and Boudhanath Stupas. Many other famous Lamas known throughout the world have their Buddhist monasteries and centers in the Kathmandu Valley.  The 1500-year history of funerary architecture in the valley provides some of the finest examples of stone architecture found in the subcontinent. A "caitya" is placed in almost all courtyards in cities like Patan. Stone inscriptions in the Kathmandu Valley are important sources for the history of Nepal.

Kathmandu (National Capital Area).

It is proposed to Government of Nepal to develop Kathmandu valley as a separate national capital territory and not a part of Bagmati Pradesh. Kathmandu Valley consists 3 Districts of Bagmati Pradesh of Which total population is 2472071 and total area is

The Kathmandu Valley (, Nepal Bhasa: स्वनिगः, नेपाः गाः), historically known as Nepal Valley or Nepa Valley, lies at the crossroads of ancient civilizations of the Indian subcontinent and the broader Asian continent, and has at least 130 important monuments, including several pilgrimage sites for Hindus and Buddhists. There are seven World Heritage Sites within the valley.


Creation.

The Lebanese Communist Party was officially founded on 24 October 1924, in the Lebanese town of Hadath, south of Beirut. The first meeting was made up of union workers, who formed independent unions for the first time in Lebanon (Previously, labor unions were controlled by the French). The meeting was also attended by scholars, academics, writers and journalists who were active in promoting the ideas of the French Revolution, and who were familiar with the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The party was founded to cover the area held under the French mandate, which is now Syria and Lebanon. Initially, the party's name was "Lebanese People Party", in an attempt to evade the French ban on "Bolshevik" activities.  The party was declared illegal at first, but the ban was relaxed during World War II. For about twenty years, the LCP organized communist political activities in both Lebanon and Syria, but in 1944 the party was split into the Lebanese Communist Party and the Syrian Communist Party.

Post-independence activities.

During the first two decades of Lebanon's independence, the LCP enjoyed little success. In 1943, the party participated in the legislative elections, but failed to win any seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The LCP ran for election again in 1947, but all of its candidates were defeated and the party was outlawed in 1948. During the 1950s, the party's inconsistent policies on Pan-Arabism and the Nasserite movement cost it support and eventually isolated it. The party was active against the government during the 1958 uprising. In 1965, the LCP decided to end its isolation and became a member of the Front for Progressive Parties and National Forces, which later evolved into the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) under Druze leftist leader Kamal Jumblatt. In the mid-1960s, the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 3000.  The 1970s witnessed something of a resurgence of the LCP. In 1970, Kamal Jumblatt, as Minister of the Interior, legalized the party. This allowed many LCP leaders, including Secretary General Nicolas Shawi, to run for election in 1972. Although they polled several thousand votes, none of them succeeded in gaining a seat.

The LCP during the Civil War.

During the early 1970s, the LCP established a well-trained militia, the Popular Guard, which participated actively in the fighting at the start of the Lebanese Civil War. The LCP was aligned with the mostly Muslim LNM-Palestinian coalition, even though its membership was mainly Christian (particularly Greek Orthodox and Armenian).  Throughout the 1980s, the LCP generally declined in influence. In 1983, the Tripoli-based Sunni Islamic movement, Islamic Unification Movement (Tawhid), reportedly executed fifty Communists. In 1987, together with the Druze Progressive Socialist Party, the LCP fought a week-long battle against the Shi'a militants of the Amal in West Beirut, a conflict that was stopped by Syrian troops.  Also in 1987, the LCP held its Fifth Party Congress and was about to oust George Hawi, its Greek Orthodox leader, in favor of Karim Mroue, a Shi'a, as Secretary General. However, Hawi remained in his post. Hawi, who had been a rising opponent of the party's complete dependence on the Soviet Union, was reportedly unpopular for his idealism and unwillingness to compromise his ideology. Mroue was probably the most powerful member of the LCP and was on good terms with Shi'a groups in West Beirut. Nevertheless, between 1984 and 1987 many party leaders and members were assassinated, reportedly by Islamic fundamentalists.

After the Lebanese Civil war.

The end of the Lebanese civil war was in sync with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Two back-to-back congresses saw the exit of Hawi, Mroue and other prominent leaders of the party, which left it in a major crisis. The congresses witnessed the election of Farouq Dahrouj as the new secretary general of the party. Hawi returned to the party as head of its national council (formerly the central committee), but later abdicated in the 1998 8th congress, which saw the second election of Dahrouj as secretary general. The party was then led by Dr. Khaled Hadadi, who was elected in the 9th Congress in December 2003. Saadallah Mazraani, who was Vice General Secretary under Dahrouj, remained in the same position under Hadadi.  The party is led now by Hanna Gharib.

Electoral results.

The party participated in the 2005 parliamentary elections in several regions but did not win any seats. In South Lebanon, vice general secretary Saadallah Mazraani won 8,886 votes in the second district, and Anwar Yassin, a former detainee in Israel, received 18,244 votes in the first district. Former general secretary Farouq Dahrouj obtained 10,688 votes in the Bekaa third district.  In the 2009 legislative elections, the LCP ran independently with candidates in five districts but failed to win any seats. In a formal statement, the LCP commented that "the 2009 elections widened the gap already existing because of the sectarian system," and, while expressing dismay at its electoral showing, analyzed and attempted to justify the party's performance.

Hawi assassination.

On 21 June 2005, George Hawi, a former secretary general of the LCP, was killed in a car bombing in Beirut. Hawi, a recent critic of Syria, claimed a few days before his death that Rifaat al-Assad, uncle of Bashar al-Assad, Syria's current president, masterminded the 1977 assassination of Lebanese opposition leader Kamal Jumblatt. Allies of Hawi accused pro-Syrian forces in the Lebanese-security apparatus for the assassination. Emile Lahoud, then president of Lebanon, and the Syrian government denied this allegation. Foreign governments, including the White House, strongly condemned the killing.  The bombing occurred two days after Lebanon's 2005 elections ushered in an anti-Syrian majority in parliament and less than one month after Samir Kassir, a left-wing Lebanese journalist and political figure, was assassinated in a bombing.

Political organization.

The Lebanese Communist Party is one of the few Lebanese parties that have affiliations throughout different sects and regions. It is present in most Lebanese districts, but its strength is greatest in South Lebanon. This structure gives the party a national presence, but at the same time weakens its representation in the local and central governmental bodies including municipalities and parliament. The party, as other traditional communist parties, operates through several popular organizations to recruit and spread its political message. These organizations include the Union of Lebanese Democratic Youth (youth organization), The Committee of Woman's Rights (Women's organization), The Popular Aid (Health organization) and The General Union of Workers and Employees in Lebanon (labor union).  The smallest organizational structure is a branch, usually found in a town or village. Several branches belong to a Regional Committee (usually made up of 5-10 branches), then every few regional committees belong to a Governorate ("Mohafaza"). The party has now an estimated membership of around 5000 members.

The Lebanese Communist Party – LCP (, transliterated: ') or Parti communiste libanais (PCL) in French, is a communist party in Lebanon. It was founded in 1924 by the Lebanese intellectual, writer and reporter Youssef Ibrahim Yazbek and Fou'ad al-Shmeli, a tobacco worker from Bikfaya.


The operation.

The operation's official name originated from two biblical passages:  The Operation Magic Carpet was the first in a series of operations. Israel sees the rescue operation as a successful rescue of Yemen's community from oppression towards redemption. 49,000 Jews were brought to Israel under the program.  A street in Jerusalem, one in Herzliya, one in Ramat Gan, and another in Kerem HaTeimanim, Tel Aviv, were named "Kanfei Nesharim" ("Wings of Eagles") in honor of this operation.  In 1948, there were 55,000 Jews living in Yemen, and another 8,000 in the British Colony of Aden.

Anti-Jewish violence.

Following the 1947 UN Partition Plan, Muslim rioters attacked the Jewish community in Aden and killed at least 82 Jews (1947 Aden riots) and destroyed a number of Jewish homes. Early in 1948, accusations of the murder of two Muslim Yemeni girls led to looting of Jewish property.

Reasons for the exodus.

Jewish Agency's emissary, Rabbi Yaakov Shraibom was sent in 1949 to Yemen and discovered that there were ~50,000 Jews living in Yemen, which was unknown at the time to the Jewish state. He sent multiple letters to convey the community's strong religious and messianic desire to come to Israel. David Ben-Gurion was reluctant at first, but he came through eventually.  Esther Meir-Glitzenstein showed evidence how the community's sentiment for Aliyah played a part in the exodus, the extent of which surprised even the Jewish state and the agency in charge of the operation, who were not prepared for the mass of Jews who were fleeing Yemen. Once he realized that, Shraibom tried to prevent the coming crisis and urged the community to stay in Yemen, but the sentiment of the community for Aliyah was stronger and they came nonetheless.  Meir-Glitzenstein also claims that collusion between Israel and the Imam of Yemen who "profited hugely from confiscatory taxes levied on the Jewish community" led to a botched operation in which the Jewish community suffered terribly. Reuven Ahroni and Tudor Parfitt argue that economic motivations also had a role in the massive emigration of Yemeni Jews, which began prior to 1948.  Tudor Parfitt described the reasons for the exodus as multi-faceted, some aspects due to Zionism and others more historically based:

Critiques.

Esther Meir-Glitzenstein also criticized the execution of the operation. She especially criticized the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Israel, which, according to her, abandoned thousands of Jews in the deserts on the border between North Yemen and Aden. Mismanagement or corruption by the imam of Yemen, the British authorities, and the Jewish Agency also played a role. Some 850 Yemenite Jews died en route to their departure points, and in the community which reached Israel, infant mortality rates were high, but still lower than in Yemen. According to Ben-Gurion's diary, the Yemeni children in the Israeli "ma'abarot" or tent transit camps were dying like flies. Children were often separated from their parents for hygienic reasons, or taken away to hospitals for treatment, but often, parents only received notification, often by loudspeaker, they had died. According to some testimony, there was a suspicion that the state kidnapped healthy Yemeni children, for adoption, and then informed the parents they had died. As a result, some decades later, the Yemenite Children Affair exploded, in which it was rumoured that something of the order of 1,000 children had gone missing.  DNA paternity testing has been able to confirm that, in some cases, adopted children trying to track down their biological parents were born to Yemenite families who had been informed that their children had died.  Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described the issue as ‘an open wound that continues to bleed’ for the many families not knowing what happened to the children who disappeared.

The Jewish community in Yemen after the operation.

In 1959, another 3,000 Jews from Aden fled to Israel, while many more left as refugees to the United States and the United Kingdom. The emigration of Yemeni Jews continued as a trickle, but stopped in 1962, when a civil war broke out in North Yemen, which put an abrupt halt to further emigration. In 2013, a total of some 250 Jews still lived in Yemen. The Jewish communities in Raydah were shocked by the killing of Moshe Ya'ish al-Nahari in 2008. His wife and nine children emigrated to Israel. Other members of the Jewish community received hate letters and threats by phone. Amnesty International wrote to the Yemeni government, urging the country to protect its Jewish citizens. The human rights organization stated that it is "deeply concerned for the safety of members of the Jewish community in northwestern Yemen following the killing of one member of the community and anonymous serious threats to others to leave Yemen or face death". During the Gaza War, the Jewish communities in Raydah were attacked several times.  It was forbidden for native-born Yemeni Jews who had left the country to re-enter, rendering communication with these communities difficult. Muslims were therefore hired as "shelihim" (emissaries) to locate the remaining Jews, pay their debts, and transport them to Aden. Little came of this.

Operation Magic Carpet is a widely known nickname for Operation On Wings of Eagles (, "Kanfei Nesharim"), an operation between June 1949 and September 1950 that brought 49,000 Yemenite Jews to the new state of Israel. During its course, the overwhelming majority of Yemenite Jews – some 47,000 from Yemen, 1,500 from Aden, as well as 500 from Djibouti and Eritrea and some 2,000 Jews from Saudi Arabia– were airlifted to Israel. British and American transport planes made some 380 flights from Aden, in a secret operation that was not made public until several months after it was over. At some point, the operation was also called Operation Messiah's Coming.


Biography.

Early life.

She was born in Cetinje as daughter of Montenegrin Prince and future King Nicholas I and his wife Milena. At the age of 10, she went to the Institute for young ladies in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She was talented at painting and architecture, and she designed the monument for Prince Danilo I.

Marriage.

As the result of Elena's marriage to King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy on 24 October 1896, she converted to Catholicism from Orthodoxy and became Queen of Italy when her husband acceded to the throne in 1900. Her mother was so distressed with the fact that Elena had changed her religion that she refused to come to the wedding ceremony in Rome.  Due to the Fascist conquest of Ethiopia in 1936 and Albania in 1939, Queen Elena briefly used the claimed titles of Empress of Ethiopia and Queen of Albania; both titles were dropped when her husband formally renounced them in 1943.  She influenced her husband to lobby Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister of Italy, for creation of the independent Kingdom of Montenegro in 1941. In 1943 she subsequently obtained the release from a German prison of her nephew, Prince Michael of Montenegro, and his wife, Geneviève. Prince Michael had been imprisoned after refusing to become King of Montenegro under the protection of Italy.

The Queen and the wars.

On 29 July 1900, following his father's assassination, Victor Emmanuel ascended the Italian throne. Officially, Elena assumed her husband's whole titles: she became "Queen of Italy", and with the birth of the Italian Colonial Empire she became "Queen of Albania" and "Empress of Ethiopia".  On 28 December 1908 Messina was hit by a disastrous earthquake. Queen Elena helped with the rescuers, as some photographs show. This helped to increase her popularity within the country. During the First World War Elena worked as a nurse and, with the help of the Queen Mother, she turned Quirinal Palace and Villa Margherita into hospitals. To raise funds, she invented the "signed photograph", which was sold at the charity desks. At the end of the war, she proposed to sell the crown treasures in order to pay the war debts.  Elena was the first "Inspector of the Voluntary Nurses" for the Italian Red Cross from 1911 until 1921. She studied medicine and was able to obtain a laurea honoris causa. She financed charitable institutions for people with encephalitis, tuberculosis, former soldiers and poor mothers.  She was deeply involved in her fight against disease, and she promoted many efforts for the training of doctors, and for research against poliomyelitis, Parkinson's disease and cancer.  On 15 April 1937 Pope Pius XI gave her the Golden Rose of Christianity, the most important honour for a Catholic lady at the time. Pope Pius XII, in a condolence telegram sent to her son Umberto II for the queen's death, defined her a "Lady of charitable work".  In 1939, three months after the German invasion of Poland and the declaration of war by the United Kingdom and France, Elena wrote a letter to the six European queens still neutral (Queen Alexandrine of Denmark, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, Queen Ioanna of Bulgaria and Queen Mother Maria of Yugoslavia) in order to avoid the great tragedy World War II would become.  On 25 July 1943 Victor Emmanuel III had Benito Mussolini arrested. The king left Rome on 9 September to flee to Brindisi with the help of the Allies and Elena followed her husband in his escape. In contrast, on 23 September their daughter Mafalda was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, where she died in 1944.

Exile and death.

Following the war, on 9 May 1946, Victor Emmanuel III abdicated in favour of their son Umberto, and the former king assumed the title of Count of Pollenzo. On 2 June 1946 a referendum resulted in 52 percent of voters favouring an Italian republic over the monarchy. The republic was formally proclaimed four days later, and the House of Savoy's reign over Italy formally ended on 12 June 1946. Elena and Victor Emmanuel III went to Egypt, where they were welcomed with great honor by King Faruk, but forced to live the rest of their lives in exile. Vittorio Emmanuel III died a year later of pulmonary congestion in Alexandria. Elena stayed in Egypt a short time before moving to France. There, in Montpellier, she was diagnosed with a severe form of cancer, and died in November 1952 while having surgery to treat it.  65 years after her death, on 15 December 2017, the remains of Elena were repatriated from Montpellier, to the sanctuary of Vicoforte, near Turin. The remains of Victor Emmanuel III were transferred two days later from Alexandria, and interred alongside hers.

Children.

King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and Queen Elena had 5 children:

Princess Elena of Montenegro, or more commonly known as Queen Elena of Italy (; 8 January 1873 – 28 November 1952) was the daughter of King Nicholas I of Montenegro and his wife, Milena Vukotić. As wife of Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, she was Queen of Italy from 1900 until 1946, Empress consort of Ethiopia from 1936 until 1941 and Queen consort of the Albanians from 1939 until 1943.