History.

The canton of St. Gallen is an artificial construct of various historical territories, defined by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Act of Mediation in 1803. About half of the canton's area corresponds to the acquisitions of the abbey of St. Gallen over centuries.  The city of St. Gallen became independent of the abbey in 1405. At the same time, the abbey lost control of Appenzell. Conversely, the Toggenburg was acquired by the Abbey in 1468.  Both the city and the abbey were associates ("Zugewandte Orte") of the Old Swiss Confederacy, but unlike Appenzell never joined as full members.  The territories at Lake Zürich, Walensee and Rheintal remained independent until 1798. In the Helvetic Republic, the northern parts of the modern canton together with Appenzell became the canton of Säntis, while its southern parts together with Glarus became the canton of Linth.  Before the 1798 French invasion, the territory of the modern canton consisted of the free city of St. Gallen, the territories of the Abbey of St. Gallen (including Fürstenland and Toggenburg), the free city of Rapperswil, Pfäfers Abbey, Sargans and the independent lordships (bailiwicks) of Rheintal, Sax-Forstegg, Hohensax, Werdenberg, Windegg and Uznach.  In April 1798, the territories of the later canton of St. Gallen were divided between the cantons of Säntis and Linth of the Helvetic Republic (along with Appenzell, Glarus and parts of Schwyz.  However, the two new Cantons had immediate financial problems and were forced to institute a number of unpopular taxes and laws. The Abbey was secularized on 17 September 1798 and the Prince-Abbot Pankraz Vorster fled to Vienna. The unpopular laws and the closing of the Abbey caused unrest throughout the area. When the War of the Second Coalition broke out in 1799, an Austrian army marched into eastern Switzerland and returned the Prince-Abbot to his throne at the Abbey. However, his victory was short lived. The Austrian and Russian armies were defeated outside Zürich and the French Army returned to St. Gallen driving the Prince-Abbot out.  In 1803, as part of the Act of Mediation, the area joined the Swiss Confederation as the Canton of St. Gallen.  The cantonal constitution of 1803 was revised in 1814. Because of the confessional heterogeneity of the canton's population, the 1814 constitution did unusually organise matters of religion, marriage and education not on a cantonal level but introduced a twofold division (confessional dualism), with separate Protestant and a Catholic assemblies subordinate to the legislative cantonal assembly (Grosser Rat).  The constitution was revised again in 1831, introducing elements of direct democracy. The constitution of 1831 divided the canton into 15 districts ("Bezirke"), reduced to 14 in 1918 (fusion of Tablat district with St. Gallen district).  Due to continuing confessional squabbles over the organisation of schools, the canton eventually placed education under its authority in 1861.  The constitution was yet again revised in 1890, with a stronger emphasis on direct democracy.  The 1890 constitution remained in effect, with numerous later changes, until 2001, the date of the latest revision of the cantonal constitution.  In the 2001 constitution, the division into districts was replaced by a division into eight constituencies ("Wahlkreise"), effective on 1 January 2003.

Geography.

The canton is located in the north east of Switzerland. It is bounded to the north by Lake Constance ("Bodensee"). To the east lies the Rhine valley. Over the Rhine are Austria (state of Vorarlberg) and Liechtenstein. To the south, the canton of St. Gallen is bounded by the cantons of Graubünden, Glarus and Schwyz. To the west lie the cantons of Zürich and Thurgau.  The two half cantons Appenzell Innerrhoden and Appenzell Ausserrhoden are completely surrounded by lands of the canton of St. Gallen.  The main rivers of the canton are the Rhine, Thur, Linth and Seez. The topography changes from the plains, near river Rhine and Lake Constance, towards the mountainous areas of the Alps in the south (Appenzell Alps and Glarus Alps). About one third () of the canton is wooded, while nearly half is is used for farming. of the farm land is alpine pastures. Of the rest of the canton, is considered unproductive while is filled with housing or roads.  The altitude above the sea-level varies from (the lake of Constance) to (the Ringelspitz). The canton includes portions of the lake of Constance (), of the Walensee (rather over ), and of the lake of Zürich (), and several small lakes wholly within its limits.  The mountains of the canton include part of a thrust fault that was declared a geologic UNESCO world heritage site, under the name Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona, in 2008.

Political subdivisions.

Constituencies.

Since 2003 the canton is subdivided into 8 constituencies ("Wahlkreise") replacing the districts ("Bezirke").

Municipalities.

There are 77 municipalities in the canton ().

Demographics.

88% of the population is German-speaking. The main centres of population are the capital St. Gallen (69,700 inhabitants), Jona (18,100), Wil (17,500) and Gossau (17,000). The majority of the population () is Roman Catholic (52%) while a large minority is Protestant (28%).

Economy.

Agricultural activity consists predominantly of dairy farming and cattle breeding in the mountainous areas. In the plains fruit and wine production are important, but there is also mixed farming.  Industries of the canton include optical goods, pyrotechnics, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Tourism plays an important role in the many resorts. There is a thermal spa in Bad Ragaz and another in St. Margrethen and a great number of winter sports facilities.

Education.

Higher educational institutions include the Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil and the University of St. Gallen.

The canton of St. Gallen, also canton of St Gall ( ; dialectally,,, ), is a canton of Switzerland. The capital is St. Gallen.


Early years.

Ottokar's parents were Vladislaus II, Duke of Bohemia, and Judith of Thuringia. His early years were passed amid the anarchy that prevailed everywhere in the country. After several military struggles, he was recognized as ruler of Bohemia by Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI in 1192. He was, however, soon overthrown for joining a conspiracy of German princes to bring down the Hohenstaufen dynasty. In 1197, Ottokar forced his brother, Duke Vladislaus III Henry, to abandon Bohemia to him and to content himself with Moravia.  Taking advantage of the civil war in Germany between the Hohenstaufen claimant Philip of Swabia and the Welf candidate Otto IV, Ottokar declared himself King of Bohemia in 1198, being crowned in Mainz. This title was supported by Philip of Swabia, who needed Czech military support against Otto.  In 1199, Ottokar divorced his wife Adelheid of Meissen, a member of the Wettin dynasty, to marry Constance of Hungary, the young daughter of Hungarian King Béla III.  In 1200, with Otto IV in the ascendancy, Ottokar abandoned his pact with Philip of Swabia and declared for the Welf faction. Otto IV and later Pope Innocent III subsequently accepted Ottokar as the hereditary King of Bohemia.

Golden Bull of Sicily.

Ottokar was quickly forced back into Philip's camp by the imperial declaration of a new duke of Bohemia, Děpolt III. Subject to his recognition as duke, Ottokar had to allow his divorced wife to return to Bohemia. Having been completed this condition, he again ranged himself among Philip's partisans and still later was among the supporters of the young King Frederick II. In 1212 Frederick granted the Golden Bull of Sicily to Bohemia. This document recognised Ottokar and his heirs as Kings of Bohemia. The king was no longer subject to appointment by the emperor and was only required to attend Diets close to the Bohemian border. Although a subject of the Holy Roman Empire, the Bohemian king was to be the leading electoral prince of the Holy Roman Empire and to furnish all subsequent emperors with a bodyguard of 300 knights when they went to Rome for their coronation.  Ottokar's reign was also notable for the start of German immigration into Bohemia and the growth of towns in what had until that point been forest lands. In 1226, Ottokar went to war against Duke Leopold VI of Austria after the latter wrecked a deal that would have seen Ottokar's daughter (Saint Agnes of Bohemia) married to Frederick II's son Henry II of Sicily. Ottokar then planned for the same daughter to marry Henry III of England, but this was vetoed by the emperor, who knew Henry to be an opponent of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. The widowed emperor himself wanted to marry Agnes, but by then she did not want to play a role in an arranged marriage. With the help of the pope, she entered a convent.

Family.

Ottokar was married first in 1178 to Adelheid of Meissen (after 1160 - 2 February 1211), who gave birth to the following children:  In 1199, he married secondly to Constance of Hungary (1181 – 6 December 1240), who gave birth to the following children:

Ottokar I (; c. 1155 – 1230) was Duke of Bohemia periodically beginning in 1192, then acquired the title King of Bohemia, first in 1198 from Philip of Swabia, later in 1203 from Otto IV of Brunswick and in 1212 from Frederick II. He was a member of the Přemyslid dynasty.


Childhood (1289–1301).

He was the second son of Wenceslaus II, King of Bohemia and Wenceslaus II's wife, Judith of Habsburg. He was born in Prague on 6 October 1289. His elder brother died before his birth and he was the only son of his parents to survive infancy.  Wenceslaus was still a child when his mother, Judith, died on 18 June 1297. He was betrothed to Elizabeth of Hungary on 12 February 1298. She was the only child of Andrew III of Hungary. Andrew III was the last male member of the House of Árpád, the native royal dynasty of Hungary, but the legitimacy of his rule had not been unanimously acknowledged.  Wenceslaus's father occupied Greater Poland, Kujavia and other regions of Poland in early 1300. After his main opponent, Władysław the Elbow-high, was forced to leave the kingdom, Wenceslaus II was crowned king of Poland in Gniezno in late September 1300. However, Pope Boniface VIII refused to confirm Wenceslaus II's position in Poland.

King of Hungary and Croatia (1301–1305).

Andrew III of Hungary died on 14 January 1301, leaving no male heirs. The late king's rival, Charles of Anjou, who was Béla IV of Hungary's great-great-grandson, had regarded himself as the lawful king of Hungary for years. On hearing Andrew III's death, Charles of Anjou hurried to Esztergom where Gregory Bicskei, Archbishop-elect of Esztergom, crowned him king. Being Pope Boniface VIII's candidate for the Hungarian throne, Charles had always been unpopular, because the Hungarian lords feared that they would "lose their freedom by accepting a king appointed by the Church", according to the "Illuminated Chronicle". Charles's coronation was not performed with the Holy Crown of Hungary in Székesfehérvár, as it was required by customary law, but with a provisional crown in Esztergom. Accordingly, the Diet of Hungary declared Charles's coronation invalid on 13 May 1301.  Jan Muskata, Bishop of Cracow, who was Wenceslaus II of Bohemia's advisor, was the first to propose that Wenceslaus II's son and namesake should be elected king of Hungary. The younger Wenceslaus was not only Béla IV of Hungary's great-great-grandson, but also the fiancé of the late Andrew III of Hungary's daughter. Bribed by Wenceslaus II's agents, the majority of the Hungarian lords and prelates decided to offer the crown to the young Wenceslaus and sent a delegation to his father to Bohemia. Wenceslaus II met the Hungarian envoys in Hodonín in August and accepted their offer in his eleven-year-old son's name. Wenceslaus II accompanied his son to Székesfehérvár where John Hont-Pázmány, Archbishop of Kalocsa, crowned the young Wenceslaus king with the Holy Crown on 27 August. Wenceslaus who assumed the name Ladislaus signed all his charters under that name in Hungary.  After Wenceslaus II returned to Bohemia, Jan Muskata became the young king's principal advisor in Hungary. Most lords and prelates accepted the rule of Wenceslaus-Ladislaus. In contrast with their Hungarian peers, the Croatian lords did not acknowledge Wenceslaus-Ladislaus as a lawful king and remained faithful to Charles of Anjou. The latter withdrew to the southern territories of Hungary after Ivan Kőszegi, who was a partisan of Wenceslaus-Ladislaus, captured Esztergom in late August 1301. However, both kings' authority remained nominal because Hungary had meanwhile disintegrated into a dozen provinces, each headed by a powerful lord, or "oligarch". The "Illuminated Chronicle" writes that the Hungarian lords did not "grant a castle, or might and power, or royal authority" either to Wenceslaus-Ladislaus or to Charles of Anjou.  In his letters to Wenceslaus II of Bohemia and Archbishop John of Kalocsa, Pope Boniface VIII emphasized that Wenceslaus-Ladislaus had been crowned without the authorization of the Holy See. The papal legate, Niccolo Boccasini, who came to Hungary in September, started negotiations with the Hungarian prelates to convince them to abandon Wenceslaus-Ladislaus and support Charles of Anjou's case. In an attempt to buy the most powerful lords off, Wenceslaus-Ladislaus granted large estates and high offices to them. Matthew Csák received Nyitra and Trencsén Counties, along with the royal castles and the estates attached to them, in February 1302. Ivan Kőszegi was made Palatine of Hungary before 25 April 1302. In the first half of that year, many prelates (including Stephen, the new Archbishop of Kalocsa) abandoned Wenceslaus-Ladislaus; even Jan Muskata left Hungary.  Taking advantage of the weakened position of his rival, Charles of Anjou attempted to capture Buda, the capital of Wenceslaus-Ladislaus, in September 1302. After laying siege to Buda, Charles of Anjou called upon the burghers to extradite Wenceslaus-Ladislaus. The mainly German citizentry and their major, Werner, remained faithful to the young king and Ivan Kőszegi relieved the city in the same month. After Charles of Anjou withdrew from Buda, the papal legate placed the town under interdict. In response, a local priest excommunicated the pope and all Hungarian prelates. On 31 May 1303, Pope Boniface VIII declared Charles of Anjou the lawful king of Hungary, stating that Wenceslaus-Ladislaus's election had been invalid. Thereafter Albert II of Germany, who was the maternal uncle of both Wenceslaus-Ladislaus and Charles of Anjou, called on Wenceslaus-Ladislaus to withdraw from Hungary.  To strengthen his son's position, Wenceslaus II of Bohemia came to Hungary at the head of a large army in May 1304. He captured Esztergom, but his negotiations with the local lords convinced him that his son's position in Hungary had dramatically weakened. Accordingly, he decided to take Wenceslaus-Ladislaus back to Bohemia. Wenceslaus-Ladislaus did not renounce Hungary and made Ivan Kőszegi governor before leaving for Bohemia in August. He even took the Holy Crown of Hungary with himself to Prague. Charles of Anjou and Rudolf III of Austria invaded Moravia in September, but did not defeat Wenceslaus II's army. In the same months, a member of the Piast dynasty, Władysław the Elbow-high, who had claimed Poland against Wenceslaus II, returned to Poland at the head of Hungarian troops. Before long, he captured many important forts and towns, including Pełczyska, Wiślica, Sandomierz, and Sieradz.

King of Bohemia and Poland (1305–1306).

Wenceslaus II of Bohemia and Poland died on 21 June 1305. Wenceslaus III succeeded his father in both kingdoms, but his position in Poland was precarious because Władysław the Elbow-high continued his fight for the Polish throne. Wenceslaus realized that he could not preserve his three kingdoms and decided to renounce Hungary. However, instead of acknowledging Charles of Anjou as the lawful king of Hungary, Wenceslaus abandoned his claim to the Hungarian throne in favor of Otto III of Bavaria, who was Béla IV of Hungary's grandson. Wenceslaus handed the Holy Crown of Hungary over to Otto in Brno on 9 October 1305. In the same months, Wenceslaus, who had meanwhile broken his engagement to Elizabeth of Hungary, married Viola of Teschen upon the Bohemian lords' advice.  The sixteen-year-old Wenceslaus led a dissolute life. He was surrounded by a group of young Czech noblemen, to whom he made large land grants. His position in Poland further weakened after Władysław the Elbow-high captured Cracow in early 1306. To forge an alliance against his rival, Wenceslaus granted Gdańsk and Pomorze to Waldemar, Margrave of Brandenburg-Stendal and Herman, Margrave of Brandenburg-Salzwedel as fiefs in July 1306. After deciding to invade Poland, Wenceslaus dismissed his young favorites and made his brother-in-law, Henry of Carinthia, governor. However, Wenceslaus could not invade Poland, because he was stabbed in Olomouc on 4 August 1306. His murder remained an unsolved mystery, because his assassin has not been identified. Wenceslaus was the last king of Bohemia from the native Přemyslid dynasty.

Wenceslaus III (,,,, ; 6 October 12894 August 1306) was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1301 and 1305, and King of Bohemia and Poland from 1305. He was the son of Wenceslaus II, King of Bohemia, who was later also crowned king of Poland, and Judith of Habsburg. Still a child, Wenceslaus was betrothed to Elizabeth, the sole daughter of Andrew III of Hungary. After Andrew III's death in early 1301, the majority of the Hungarian lords and prelates elected Wenceslaus king, although Pope Boniface VIII supported another claimant, Charles Robert, a member of the royal house of the Kingdom of Naples.


Taxonomy and etymology.

The zander is closely related to perch. Zander are often called pike-perch as they resemble the pike with their elongated body and head, and the perch with their spiny dorsal fin. Zander are not, as is commonly believed, a pike and perch hybrid. In Europe, a second species ("Sander volgensis") is limited to rivers in southern Russia and the basin of the Danube. These two species are suspected to hybridize occasionally where they are sympatric, as they produce fertile hybrids in captivity; no natural hybrids are known yet however, and while they are apparently hard to detect, it is suspected that the species are separated by strong prezygotic isolation. It strongly resembles, both in looks and in taste, the closely related American walleye ("Sander vitreus").

Description.

The zander is a common and popular game fish in Europe. It is often eaten, and it may reach of weight, although typical catches are considerably smaller. The IGFA All-Tackle world record zander was caught in Lago Maggiore, Switzerland in June 2016 weighing. Zander reach an average length of with a maximum length of.

Distribution and habitat.

The zander is very widely distributed across Eurasia, occurring in the drainages of the Caspian, Baltic, Black, Aral, North and Aegean Sea basins. Its northern distribution limit is Finland. It has been introduced to Great Britain, southern Europe, and continental Europe west of the Elbe, Ebro, Tagus and Jucar drainages, as well as to Anatolia, North Africa, Siberia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.  Zander inhabit freshwater bodies, preferentially large rivers and eutrophic lakes. They tolerate brackish water and will make use of coastal lakes and estuaries. Individuals living in brackish water habitats migrate upriver (for up to 250 km) for spawning.  In the UK, zander were introduced into the East Anglian fens (large, partly artificial waterways) in the 20th century and spread rapidly, after the release of 97 fingerlings to the Great Ouse Relief Channel in 1963 by the former Great Ouse River Board. British Waterways included zander among a "dirty dozen" non-native species most likely to harm native wildlife along rivers in Great Britain.  Their success in establishing themselves is owed to a number of factors, one of which is that they are particularly well adapted to life in the slow-flowing, sparsely vegetated, rather murky waters that comprise so many of the British lowland rivers. Zander thrive in water with rather low visibility, unlike pike, which often dominate the predator fish niche in clear water. However, zander need plenty of oxygen and soon disappear from eutrophic areas.

Use by humans.

The zander is considered one of the most valuable food fish native to Europe. It is esteemed for its light, firm but tender meat with few bones and a delicate flavour. Although it is not generally bred for food, its adaptability makes zander fishery quite sustainable. Indeed, in some regions release of young zanders is restricted, as natural stocks already provide a sufficient supply for the market, while boosting the population of this large predator would have an adverse effect on the zander's food fishes. Zander is especially well suited for fish fillets. It can also be served whole, baked, smoked or cooked. In some culinary circles, zander is appreciated even more highly than salmon. Even the offals can be cooked into consommé.  In 2004, it was revealed that some restaurants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area of Minnesota in the United States were serving imported zander instead of the closely related North American walleye (the state fish, and a popular food in the region). While zander and walleye are almost indistinguishable by taste, the restaurants were selling the European fish under the name "walleye", which is an illegal practice. An investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration followed.  In Ohio many restaurants were caught using juvenile Zander fillets in the 40 to 80 gram range in place of Lake Erie Yellow Perch. Shortages on the availability of Perch along with skyrocketing prices caused wholesalers and restaurants to use the juvenile Zander also known as Pike Perch fillets.  In Poland, this fish is popular and regarded as a delicacy, but the difficulty in catching it makes it expensive. It is most commonly baked with a trace of butter.  In the Serbian province of Vojvodina, zander has a long tradition in the local cuisine and is considered to be a delicacy. Its usually served baked or fried in a batter along with lemon sauce and potato and onion salad.  In Finland, as a conservation measure, the law regulates the minimum size of zander considered mature enough to be eaten. Zander is popular for its taste and its tendency to be picky with its prey, making it harder to catch than many other fish. Zander also tend to chase their prey before striking. When striking a fishing lure, it fights by pulling backwards, giving the impression that there is a big stone attached to the fishing line. Because the zander is not as good in striking as the pike, it prefers slower, even wounded fish; a lure moving too fast will not catch the zander's attention. On the other hand, anecdotal evidence suggests that zander do not attack lures that are moving too slowly either. In July 2009 in Switzerland, a zander attacked tourists in Lake Maggiore, sending two people to the emergency room; the worst cut inflicted was about 10 centimeters long. The 70-cm 8-kg fish was later caught by the local police who cooked it and offered it to the tourists for the trouble it caused. It is very unusual for zander to attack humans.

The zander ("Sander lucioperca") is a species of fish from freshwater and brackish habitats in western Eurasia. It is a popular game fish and has been introduced to a variety of localities outside its native range.


Names.

The application of "gentoo" to the penguin is unclear. "Gentoo" was an Anglo-Indian term to distinguish Hindus from Muslims. The English term may have originated from the Portuguese "gentio" ("pagan, gentile"). Some speculate that the white patch on the bird's head was thought to resemble a turban.  It may also be a variation of another name for this bird, "Johnny penguin", "Johnny" being in Spanish and sounds vaguely like "gentoo". The Johnny rook, a predator, is likely named after the Johnny penguin.  The specific name "papua" is a misnomer; in the original description, Johann Reinhold Forster, a naturalist who had circumnavigated the world with Captain James Cook, mistakenly assumed that the species occurred in Papua (New Guinea), the closest gentoos actually being over 6000 km to the south (on Macquarie Island). There are no penguins in New Guinea, however. Others trace the error to a "possibly fraudulent claim" in 1776 by French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat, who also alleged a Papuan location for the king penguin despite never having been to the island himself.

Taxonomy.

The gentoo penguin is one of three species in the genus "Pygoscelis". Mitochondrial and nuclear DNA evidence suggests the genus split from other penguins around 38 million years ago, about 2 million years after the ancestors of the genus "Aptenodytes". In turn, the Adelie penguins split off from the other members of the genus around 19 million years ago, and the chinstrap and gentoo finally diverged around 14 million years ago.  Two subspecies of this penguin are recognised: "Pygoscelis papua papua" and the smaller "Pygoscelis papua ellsworthi".

Description.

The gentoo penguin is easily recognized by the wide white stripe extending like a bonnet across the top of its head and its bright orange-red bill. It has pale whitish-pink webbed feet and a fairly long tail – the most prominent tail of all penguin species. Chicks have grey backs with white fronts. As the gentoo penguin waddles along on land, its tail sticks out behind, sweeping from side to side, hence the scientific name "Pygoscelis", which means "rump-tailed". Gentoos reach a height of, making them the third-largest species of penguin after the emperor penguin and the king penguin. Males have a maximum weight of about just before molting, and a minimum weight of about just before mating. For females, the maximum weight is just before molting, but their weight drops to as little as when guarding the chicks in the nest. Birds from the north are on average heavier and taller than the southern birds. Southern gentoo penguins reach in length. They are the fastest underwater swimmers of all penguins, reaching speeds of up to. Gentoos are well adapted to extremely cold and harsh climates.

Breeding.

The breeding colonies of gentoo penguins are located on ice-free surfaces. Colonies can be directly on the shoreline or can be located considerably inland. They prefer shallow coastal areas and often nest between tufts of grass. In South Georgia, for example, breeding colonies are 2 km inland. Whereas in colonies farther inland, where the penguins nest in grassy areas, they shift location slightly every year because the grass will become trampled over time.  Gentoos breed on many sub-Antarctic islands. The main colonies are on the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and Kerguelen Islands; smaller colonies are found on Macquarie Island, Heard Islands, Crozet Islands, South Shetland Islands, and the Antarctic Peninsula. The total breeding population is estimated to be over 600,000 birds. Gentoos breed monogamously, and infidelity is typically punished with banishment from the colony. Nests are usually made from a roughly circular pile of stones and can be quite large, high and in diameter. The stones are jealously guarded and their ownership can be the subject of noisy disputes and physical attacks between individuals. They are also prized by the females, even to the point that a male penguin can obtain the favors of a female by offering her a choice stone.  Two eggs are laid, both weighing around. The parents share incubation, changing duty daily. The eggs hatch after 34 to 36 days. The chicks remain in the nests for around 30 days before joining other chicks in the colony and forming crèches. The chicks molt into subadult plumage and go out to sea at around 80 to 100 days.

Diet.

Gentoos live mainly on crustaceans, such as krill, with fish making up only about 15% of the diet. However, they are opportunistic feeders, and around the Falklands are known to take roughly equal proportions of fish ("Patagonotothen" sp., "Thysanopsetta naresi", "Micromesistius australis"), squat lobsters (Munida gregaria), and squid ("Loligo gahi", "Gonatus antarcticus", "Moroteuthis ingens").

Physiology.

The gentoos' diet is high in salt as they eat organisms with relatively the same salinity as sea water, and this can lead to complications associated with high sodium concentrations in the body, especially for gentoo chicks. To counteract this, gentoos as well as many other marine bird species have a highly developed salt gland located above their eyes that takes the high concentration of sodium within the body and produces a highly saline-concentrated solution that drips out of the body from the tip of the beak.  Gentoo penguins do not store as much fat as the Adelie penguin, their closest relative: gentoos require less energy investment when hunting because the net gain of energy after hunting is greater in gentoos than Adelies. As embryos, gentoos require a lot of energy in order to develop. Oxygen consumption is high for a developing gentoo embryo. As the embryo grows and requires more oxygen, the amount of consumption increases exponentially until the gentoo chick hatches. By then, the chick is consuming around 1800 mL O per day.

Predators.

In the sea, leopard seals, sea lions, and killer whales are all predators of the gentoo. On land, no predators of full-grown healthy gentoo penguins exist. Skuas and giant petrels regularly kill many chicks and steal eggs; Petrels will kill injured and sick adult gentoos. Various other seabirds, such as the kelp gull and snowy sheathbill, will also snatch chicks and eggs. Skuas on King George Island have been observed attacking and injuring adult gentoo penguins in apparent territorial disputes.

Conservation status.

, the IUCN Red List lists the gentoo as least concern, although rapid declines in some key areas are believed to be driving a moderate overall decline in the species population. Examples include Bird Island, South Georgia, where the population has fallen by two-thirds over 25 years.

Influence.

The Linux distribution Gentoo Linux is named after the Gentoo penguin. This is a nod to the fact that the penguin is the fastest swimming penguin, as Gentoo Linux aims to be a high performance operating system.

The gentoo penguin ( ) ("Pygoscelis papua") is a penguin species in the genus "Pygoscelis", most closely related to the Adélie penguin ("P. adeliae") and the chinstrap penguin ("P. antarcticus"). The earliest scientific description was made in 1781 by Johann Reinhold Forster with a type locality in the Falkland Islands. They call in a variety of ways, but the most frequently heard is a loud trumpeting which the bird emits with its head thrown back.


Design principles.

Ogden tried to simplify English while keeping it normal for native speakers, by specifying grammar restrictions and a controlled small vocabulary which makes an extensive use of paraphrasing. Most notably, Ogden allowed only 18 verbs, which he called "operators". His "General Introduction" says "There are no'verbs' in Basic English", with the underlying assumption that, as noun use in English is very straightforward but verb use/conjugation is not, the elimination of verbs would be a welcome simplification.

Word lists.

Ogden's word lists include only word roots, which in practice are extended with the defined set of affixes and the full set of forms allowed for any available word (noun, pronoun, or the limited set of verbs). The 850 core words of Basic English are found in Wiktionary's Basic English word list. This core is theoretically enough for everyday life. However, Ogden prescribed that any student should learn an additional 150-word list for everyday work in some particular field, by adding a list of 100 words particularly useful in a general field (e.g., science, verse, business, etc.), along with a 50-word list from a more specialised subset of that general field, to make a basic 1000-word vocabulary for everyday work and life.  Moreover, Ogden assumed that any student already should be familiar with (and thus may only review) a core subset of around 200 "international" words. Therefore, a first-level student should graduate with a core vocabulary of around 1200 words. A realistic general core vocabulary could contain around 2000 words (the core 850 words, plus 200 international words, and 1000 words for the general fields of trade, economics, and science). It is enough for a "standard" English level. This 2000 word vocabulary represents "what any learner should know". At this level students could start to move on their own.  Ogden's and Voice of America's serve as dictionaries for the Simple English Wikipedia.

Rules.

Basic English includes a simple grammar for modifying or combining its 850 words to talk about additional meanings (morphological derivation or inflection). The grammar is based on English, but is much simpler.

Criticism.

Like all international auxiliary languages (or IALs), Basic English may be criticised as inevitably based on personal preferences, and thus, paradoxically, inherently divisive. Moreover, like all natural language based IALs, Basic is subject to criticism as unfairly biased towards the native speaker community.  As a teaching aid for English as a Second Language, Basic English has been criticised for the choice of the core vocabulary and for its grammatical constraints.  In 1944, readability expert Rudolf Flesch published an article in "Harper's Magazine", "How Basic is Basic English?" in which he claimed, "It's not basic, and it's not English." The essence of his complaint is that the vocabulary is too restricted, and, as a result, the text ends up being awkward and more difficult than necessary. He also argues that the words in the Basic vocabulary were arbitrarily selected, and notes that there had been no empirical studies showing that it made language simpler.

Literary references.

In the novel "The Shape of Things to Come", published in 1933, H. G. Wells depicted Basic English as the lingua franca of a new elite that after a prolonged struggle succeeds in uniting the world and establishing a totalitarian world government. In the future world of Wells' vision, virtually all members of humanity know this language.  From 1942 to 1944 George Orwell was a proponent of Basic English, but in 1945 he became critical of universal languages. Basic English later inspired his use of Newspeak in "Nineteen Eighty-Four".  Evelyn Waugh criticized his own 1945 novel "Brideshead Revisited", which he had previously called his magnum opus, in the preface of the 1959 reprint: "It <nowiki>[</nowiki>World War II<nowiki>]</nowiki> was a bleak period of present privation and threatening disaster—the period of soya beans and Basic English—and in consequence the book is infused with a kind of gluttony, for food and wine, for the splendours of the recent past, and for rhetorical and ornamental language that now, with a full stomach, I find distasteful."  In his story "Gulf", science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein used a constructed language called Speedtalk, in which every Basic English word is replaced with a single phoneme, as an appropriate means of communication for a race of genius supermen.

Basic English is an English-based controlled language created by linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teaching English as a second language. Basic English is, in essence, a simplified subset of regular English. It was presented in Ogden's book "Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar" (1930). The first work on Basic English was written by two Englishmen, Ivor Richards, University of Harvard, and C.K. Ogden, of Cambridge University, England, working in association.


Historical setting and purposes of the Dias expedition.

Bartolomeu Dias was a squire of the royal court, superintendent of the royal warehouses, and sailing-master of the man-of-war "São Cristóvão" (Saint Christopher). Very little is known of his early life. King John II of Portugal appointed him, on 10 October 1486, to head an expedition to sail around the southern tip of Africa in the hope of finding a trade route to India. Dias was also charged with searching for the lands ruled by Prester John, a fabled Christian priest and ruler of territory somewhere beyond Europe. He left 10 months later in August 1487. In the previous decades Portuguese mariners, most famously Prince Henry the Navigator (whose contribution was more as a patron and sponsor of voyages of discovery than as a sailor), had explored the areas of the Atlantic Ocean off Southern Europe and Western Africa as far as the Cape Verde Islands and modern-day Sierra Leone, and had gained sufficient knowledge of oceanic shipping and wind patterns to enable subsequent voyages of greater distance. In the early 1480s Diogo Cão in two voyages (he died towards the end of the second) had explored the mouth of the Congo River and sailed south of the Equator to present-day Angola and Namibia.

The Journey.

"São Cristóvão" was piloted by Pêro de Alenquer. A second caravel, the "São Pantaleão", was commanded by João Infante and piloted by Álvaro Martins. Dias's brother Pêro Dias was the captain of the square-rigged support ship with João de Santiago as pilot.  The expedition sailed down the west coast of Africa; provisions were picked up on the way at the Portuguese fortress of São Jorge de Mina on the Gold Coast. After sailing south of modern-day Angola, Dias reached the Golfo da Conceicão (Walvis Bay, in modern Namibia) by December. Continuing south, he discovered Angra dos Ilheus, then was hit by a violent storm. Thirteen days later, from the open ocean, he searched the coast again to the east, discovering and using the westerlies winds—the ocean gyre, but finding just ocean. Having rounded the Cape of Good Hope at a considerable distance to the west and southwest, he turned east, and taking advantage of the winds of Antarctica that blow strongly in the South Atlantic, sailed northeast. After 30 days without seeing land, he entered what he named Aguada de São Brás (Bay of Saint Blaise)—later renamed Mossel Bay—on 4 February 1488. Dias's expedition reached its furthest point on 12 March 1488 when it anchored at Kwaaihoek, near the mouth of the Boesmans River, where a padrão—the Padrão de São Gregório—was erected before turning back. Dias wanted to continue to India, but he was forced to turn back when his crew refused to go further and the rest of the officers unanimously favoured returning to Portugal. It was only on the return voyage that he actually discovered the Cape of Good Hope, in May 1488. Dias returned to Lisbon in December of that year, after an absence of 16 months and 17 days.  The discovery of the passage around southern Africa was significant because, for the first time, Europeans could trade directly with India and the Far East, bypassing the overland Euro-Asian route with its expensive European, Middle Eastern and Central Asian middlemen. The official report of the expedition has been lost.  Dias originally named the Cape of Good Hope the Cape of Storms ("Cabo das Tormentas"). It was later renamed (by King John II of Portugal) the Cape of Good Hope ("Cabo da Boa Esperança") because it represented the opening of a route to the east.

Follow-up voyages.

After these early attempts, the Portuguese took a decade-long break from Indian Ocean exploration. During that hiatus, it is likely that they received valuable information from a secret agent, Pêro da Covilhã, who had been sent overland to India and returned with reports useful to their navigators.  Using his experience with explorative travel, Dias helped in the construction of the "São Gabriel" and its sister ship the "São Rafael" that were used in 1498 by Vasco da Gama to sail past the Cape of Good Hope and continue to India. Dias only participated in the first leg of Da Gama's voyage, until the Cape Verde Islands. Two years later he was one of the captains of the second Indian expedition, headed by Pedro Álvares Cabral. This flotilla first reached the coast of Brazil, landing there in 1500, and then continued east to India. Dias perished near the Cape of Good Hope that he presciently had named "Cape of Storms". Four ships, including Dias's, encountered a huge storm off the cape and were lost on 29 May 1500. A shipwreck found in 2008 by the Namdeb Diamond Corporation off Namibia was at first thought to be Dias's ship, but recovered coins come from a later time.

Personal life.

Dias was married and had two children:

Bartolomeu Dias (; ; Anglicized: Bartholomew Diaz; c. 1450 – 29 May 1500), a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, was a Portuguese explorer. He sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, the first European to do so, setting up the route from Europe to Asia later on. Dias is the first European during the Age of Discovery to anchor at what is present-day South Africa.


Early life and education.

Thomas Bach was born in 1953 in Würzburg, West Germany. He grew up in Tauberbischofsheim, where he lived with his parents until 1977. Bach earned a doctor of law (Dr. iur. utr.) degree in 1983 from the University of Würzburg. He speaks fluent French, English, Spanish and German.

Fencing career.

Bach is a former foil fencer who competed for West Germany. He won a team gold medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics, as well as silver, gold, and bronze team medals at the 1973, 1977 and 1979 world championships, respectively.  On 11 November 2017, Bach became the first Olympian formally granted the use of the post-nominal letters "OLY".

DOSB presidency.

Bach served as the President of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), prior to becoming President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He resigned as the head of the DOSB on 16 September 2013, having served as President since 2006. He was replaced by Alfons Hörmann, and remained a member of the DOSB Executive Board. Additionally, he resigned as the head of Ghorfa Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Bach will however continue to serve as the head of Michael Weinig AG Company, a company in the industrial woodworking machinery industry that has its headquarters in Bach's hometown of Tauberbischofsheim, Germany  Bach headed Munich's bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics. In the host city election, Munich secured 25 votes as Pyeongchang was elected as host city with 63 votes.

IOC presidency.

On 9 May 2013, Bach confirmed that he would run for President of the International Olympic Committee.

2013 IOC Presidential Election.

Bach was elected to an eight-year term as IOC President at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires on 10 September 2013. He secured 49 votes in the final round of voting, giving him the majority needed to be elected. He succeeds Jacques Rogge who served as IOC President from 2001 to 2013. Bach will be eligible to run for second six-year term at the 134th IOC Session in 2019 until 2025.  Bach's successful election came against five other candidates, Sergey Bubka, Richard Carrión, Ng Ser Miang, Denis Oswald and Wu Ching-Kuo. The result of the election was as follows:  Bach officially moved into the IOC presidential office at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 17 September 2013, a week after being elected President.

Olympic Agenda 2020.

Following his election as IOC President, Bach stated that he wished to change the Olympic bidding process and make sustainable development a priority. He stated that he felt that the current bidding process asks "too much, too early". These proposed reforms became known as Olympic Agenda 2020. These forty proposed reforms were all unanimously approved at the 127th IOC Session in Monaco.

Olympic Host City elections.

The first bidding process over which Thomas Bach presided over as President was the bidding process for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Bids were due in November 2013 and the host city, Beijing was elected to host the 2022 Winter Olympics at the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in July 2015. Lausanne was elected to host the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics during that same session.  During the bidding process for the 2024 Summer Olympics, President Bach proposed a joint awarding of the 2024 and 2028 Summer Olympics after several bidders withdrew. The IOC later approved a plan to award the 2024 Olympics to Paris with Los Angeles securing the right to host the 2028 Olympics. President Bach presided over the election of Paris was elected to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and Los Angeles was elected to host the 2028 Summer Olympics at the 131st IOC Session in Lima, Peru where both cities were unanimously elected.  Milan-Cortina d'Ampezzo was elected to host the 2026 Winter Olympics at the 134th IOC Session in Lausanne, Switzerland. The full IOC membership will elect the host city at the 134th IOC Session in Lausanne, home of the International Olympic Committee.

Russian doping.

One of the biggest challenges President Bach has been faced with as IOC President is having to deal with Russia's state-sponsored doping scandal. This program did begin prior to his presidency, but nonetheless it has become a pressing issue during his tenure. It had been discovered that Russia tampered with the anti-doping lab at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and that the government had sanctioned doping amongst the Russian Olympic athletes for many years. Speaking at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics, his call to "respect the rules and stay clean" was widely interpreted as a reference to the Russian scandal. Bach was harshly criticized for what many see as turning a blind-eye to Russia's state-sponsored Olympic doping effort. Jim Walden, attorney for Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, called Bach's move to reinstate the Russian Olympic Committee following the 2018 Winter Olympics despite the failed drug tests during the Games, "weakness in the face of evil".

COVID-19 pandemic.

On 5 March 2020 Bloomberg News reported that Bach said "Neither the word ‘cancellation’ nor the word ‘postponement’ was even mentioned" regarding the 2020 Summer Olympics to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic at the IOC’s executive board meeting the previous day. On 22 March 2020, the IOC announced that within four weeks a decision would be made on whether Tokyo 2020 will be staged as planned or whether a rescheduling is necessary. Canada announced its withdrawal from the Games later that day, and Australia did the same on 23 March.

Criticism.

Marina Hyde admonished Thomas Bach in "The Guardian" for comparing the IOC positively to FIFA with regard to corruption. Also in "The Guardian", Owen Gibson accused Bach of hypocrisy for agreeing to be involved with the 2015 European Games hosted in Azerbaijan. Twenty-nine journalists signed an open letter to Bach calling for him to condemn Azerbaijan's jailing of dissenters and attacks on freedom of expression.

Thomas Bach, (born 29 December 1953) is a German lawyer and former Olympic fencer. Bach is the ninth and current President of the International Olympic Committee, and a former member of the German Olympic Sports Confederation Executive Board.


Origins.

The chasuble originated as a sort of conical poncho, called in Latin a or "little house", that was the common outer traveling garment in the late Roman Empire. It was simply a roughly oval piece of cloth, with a round hole in the middle through which to pass the head, that fell below the knees on all sides. It had to be gathered up on the arms to allow the arms to be used freely.  In its liturgical use in the West, this garment was folded up from the sides to leave the hands free. Strings were sometimes used to assist in this task, and the deacon could help the priest in folding up the sides of the vestment. Beginning in the 13th century, there was a tendency to shorten the sides a little. In the course of the 15th and the following century, the chasuble took something like its modern form, in which the sides of the vestment no longer reach to the ankle but only, at most, to the wrist, making folding unnecessary.  At the end of the sixteenth century the chasuble, though still quite ample and covering part of the arms, had become less similar to its traditional shape than to that which prevailed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the chasuble was reduced to a broad scapular, leaving the whole of the arms quite free, and was shortened also in front and back. Additionally, to make it easier for the priest to join his hands when wearing a chasuble of stiff (lined and heavily embroidered) material, in these later centuries the front was often cut away further, giving it the distinctive shape often called "fiddleback". Complex decoration schemes were often used on chasubles of scapular form, especially the back, incorporating the image of the Christian cross or of a saint; and rich materials such as silk, cloth of gold or brocade were employed, especially in chasubles reserved for major celebrations.

Current usage.

In the 20th century, there began to be a return to an earlier, more ample, form of the chasuble, sometimes called "Gothic", as distinguished from the "Roman" scapular form. This aroused some opposition, as a result of which the Sacred Congregation of Rites issued on 9 December 1925 a decree against it, "De forma paramentorum" which it explicitly revoked with the declaration "Circa dubium de forma paramentorum" of 20 August 1957, leaving the matter to the prudent judgement of local Ordinaries. There exists a photograph of Pope Pius XI wearing the more ample chasuble while celebrating Mass in Saint Peter's Basilica as early as 19 March 1930.  After the Second Vatican Council, the more ample form became the most usually seen form of the chasuble, and the directions of the GIRM quoted above indicate that "it is fitting" that the beauty should come "not from abundance of overly lavish ornamentation, but rather from the material that is used and from the design. Ornamentation on vestments should, moreover, consist of figures, that is, of images or symbols, that evoke sacred use, avoiding thereby anything unbecoming" (n. 344). Hence, the prevalence today of chasubles that reach almost to the ankles, and to the wrists, and decorated with relatively simple symbols or bands and orphreys. By comparison, "fiddleback" vestments were often extremely heavily embroidered or painted with detailed decorations or whole scenes depicted.  Use of scapular "Roman" chasubles, whether with straight edges or in "fiddleback" form, is sometimes associated with traditionalism. However, some priests prefer them simply on grounds of taste and comfort, while for similar reasons some traditionalist priests prefer ampler chasubles of less stiff material.  Pope Benedict XVI sometimes used chasubles of the transitional style common at the end of the 16th century.  In the Slavic tradition, though not in the Greek, the phelonion, the Byzantine Rite vestment that corresponds to the chasuble, is cut away from the front and not from the sides, making it look somewhat like the western cope.

In Catholicism.

Called in Latin "casula", "planeta" or "pænula", and in early Gallic sources "amphibalus". The chasuble is the principal and most conspicuous Mass vestment, covering all the rest. It is described in prayer as the "yoke of Christ" and said to represent charity. Nearly all ecclesiologists are now agreed that liturgical costume was simply an adaptation of the secular attire commonly worn throughout the Roman Empire in the early Christian centuries. The priest in discharging his sacred functions at the altar was dressed as in civil life, but the custom probably grew up of reserving for this purpose garments that were newer and cleaner than those used in his daily ministry, and out of this gradually developed the conception of a special liturgical attire.

In Protestantism.

Many, but not all, Lutheran and Anglican churches make use of the chasuble.  The chasuble has always been used by the Lutheran denominations of Scandinavia, although in earlier times its use was not directly connected to the communion. German Lutherans used it for the first two hundred years after the Reformation but later replaced it with the Geneva Gown. A variety of practices emerged in North America but by the mid-20th century, the alb and stole became widely customary. More recently, the chasuble has been readopted for Communion services in both Germany and North America.  It is the stole, not the chasuble, that is the priestly vestment. The chasuble was never used by low-church Anglicans and rarely used by high-church Anglicans until the Oxford Movement in the 19th century, and even then not until the second generation of the Oxford Movement.  It is not customary and rarely seen in Protestantism outside of the liturgical churches.

In popular culture.

In Oscar Wilde's 1895 play "The Importance of Being Earnest", Dr. Chasuble is a clergyman who, in the 2002 film adaptation, is seen wearing his namesake vestment.

The chasuble () is the outermost liturgical vestment worn by clergy for the celebration of the Eucharist in Western-tradition Christian churches that use full vestments, primarily in Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches. In the Eastern Orthodox Churches and in the Eastern Catholic Churches, the equivalent vestment is the phelonion.


Foundation.

In the course of the Great Depression, the German government of the Weimar Republic under Chancellor Heinrich Brüning by emergency decree had established the "Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst" ('Voluntary Labour Service', FAD), on 5 June 1931, two years before the Nazi Party (NSDAP) ascended to national power. The state sponsored employment organisation provided services to civic and land improvement projects, from 16 July 1932 it was headed by Friedrich Syrup in the official rank of a "Reichskommissar". As the name stated, participating was voluntary as long as the Weimar Republic existed.  The concept was adopted by Adolf Hitler, who upon the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 appointed Konstantin Hierl state secretary in the Reich Ministry of Labour, responsible for FAD matters. Hierl was already a high-ranking member of the NSDAP and head of the party's labour organisation, the "Nationalsozialistischer Arbeitsdienst" or NSAD. Hierl developed the concept of a state labour service organisation similar to the "Reichswehr" army, with a view to implementing a compulsory service. Meant as an evasion of the regulations set by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, voluntariness initially was maintained after protests by the Geneva World Disarmament Conference.  Hierl's rivalry with Labour Minister Franz Seldte led to the affiliation of his office as a FAD "Reichskommissar" with the Interior Ministry under his party fellow Wilhelm Frick. On 11 July 1934, the NSAD was renamed "Reichsarbeitsdienst" or RAD with Hierl as its director until the end of World War II. By law issued on 26 June 1935, the RAD was re-established as an amalgamation of the many prior labour organisations formed in Germany during the Weimar Republic, with Hierl appointed as Reich Labour Leader ("Reichsarbeitsführer") according to the "Führerprinzip". With massive financial support by the German government, RAD members were to provide service for mainly military and to a lesser extent civic and agricultural construction projects. Per Reich Labor Service Act of June 26, 1935 "(1) The Reich Labor Service is an honorary service to the German people.(2) All young Germans of both sexes are obliged to serve their people in the Reich Labor Service.(3) The Reich Labor Service is to educate the German youth in the spirit of National Socialism to the national community and to the true working attitude, above all to the due respect of manual labor.(4) The Reich Labor Service is intended for the performance of charitable work.[...]

Organisation.

The RAD was divided into two major sections, one for men ("Reichsarbeitsdienst Männer - RAD/M") and the voluntary, from 1939 compulsory, section for young women ("Reichsarbeitsdienst der weiblichen Jugend - RAD/wJ").  The RAD was composed of 33 districts each called an "Arbeitsgau" (lit. Work District) similar to the "Gaue" subdivisions of the Nazi Party. Each of these districts was headed by an "Arbeitsgauführer" officer with headquarters staff and a "Wachkompanie" (Guard Company). Under each district were between six and eight "Arbeitsgruppen" (Work Groups), battalion-sized formations of 1200–1800 men. These groups were divided into six company-sized RAD-Abteilung units.  Conscripted personnel had to move into labour barracks. Each rank and file RAD man was supplied with a spade and a bicycle. A paramilitary uniform was implemented in 1934; beside the swastika brassard, the RAD symbol, an arm badge in the shape of an upward pointing shovel blade, was displayed on the upper left shoulder of all uniforms and great-coats worn by all personnel. Men and women had to work up to 76 hours a week.

War.

The RAD was classed as "Wehrmachtgefolge" (lit. Defence Force Following). Auxiliary forces with this status, while not a part of the Armed Forces themselves, provided such vital support that they were given protection by the Geneva Convention. Some, including the RAD, were militarised.  Just prior to the outbreak of World War II, nearly all the RAD/M's extant RAD-Abteilung units were either incorporated into the Heer's "Bautruppen" (Construction troops) as an expedient to rapidly increase their numbers or else in a few cases transferred to the Luftwaffe to form the basis of new wartime construction units for that service. New units were quickly formed to replace them.  During the early war Norwegian and Western campaigns, hundreds of RAD units were engaged in supplying frontline troops with food and ammunition, repairing damaged roads and constructing and repairing airstrips. Throughout the course of the war, the RAD were involved in many projects. The RAD units constructed coastal fortifications (many RAD men worked on the Atlantic Wall), laid minefields, manned fortifications, and even helped guard vital locations and prisoners. The role of the RAD was not limited to combat support functions. Hundreds of RAD units received training as anti-aircraft units and were deployed as RAD Flak Batteries. Several RAD units also performed combat on the eastern front as infantry. As the German defences were devastated, more and more RAD men were committed to combat. During the final months of the war RAD men formed 6 major frontline units, which were involved with serious fighting. On the western front RAD troops were used as reinforcements to the 9th SS Engineer Abt (SS-Captain Moeller) in the fighting to retake the northern end of the Arnhem bridge from British Paratroopers under Col. Frost. This action was during Operation Market-Garden in September 1944. It was noted that the RAD troops had no combat experience. SS-Captain Moeller's report concluded: "These men were rather skeptical and reluctant at the beginning, which was hardly surprising. But when they were put in the right place they helped us a lot; and in time they integrated completely, becoming good and reliable comrades." Losses for these troops were in the hundreds.

The Reich Labour Service ("Reichsarbeitsdienst"; RAD) was a major organisation established in Nazi Germany as an agency to help mitigate the effects of unemployment on the German economy, militarise the workforce and indoctrinate it with Nazi ideology. It was the official state labour service, divided into separate sections for men and women.


Taxonomy.

This species was originally given the scientific name "Aptenodytes antarctica" by Johann Reinhold Forster in 1781, thereby placing it in the same genus as the king and emperor penguins. In 1990, Graham Turbott transferred this species into the genus "Pygoscelis", together with the Adélie and gentoo penguins. This gave it the new name "P. antarctica". However, this is an orthographic error due to the disagreement in Latin grammar between "antarctica" and its assigned genus. The corrected form, "P. antarcticus", is the currently accepted name for this species.

Description.

The chinstrap penguin grows to a length of and a weight of, with the weight varying with the time of year. Males are greater in weight and height than females.  The adult chinstrap's flippers are black with a white edge; the inner sides of the flippers are white. The face is white extending behind the eyes, which are reddish brown; the chin and throat are white, as well, while the short bill is black. The strong legs and the webbed feet are pink. Its short, stumpy legs give it a distinct waddle when it walks. The chinstrap penguin's black back and white underside provide camouflage in the form of countershading when viewed from above or below, helping to avoid detection by its predators.

Distribution.

Chinstrap penguins have a circumpolar distribution. They breed in Antarctica, Argentina, Bouvet Island, Chile, the Falkland Islands, the French Southern Territories, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Vagrant individuals have been found in New Zealand, the islands of Saint Helena and Tristan da Cunha, and South Africa.

Ecology.

The diet of the chinstrap penguin consists of small fish, krill, shrimp, and squid, for which they swim up to offshore each day to obtain. The chinstrap penguin's tightly packed feathers provide a waterproof coat, enabling it to swim in freezing waters. Additionally, thick blubber deposits and intricate blood vessels in the flippers and legs assist in the preservation of heat.  The main predator of the chinstrap penguin at sea is the leopard seal ("Hydrurga leptonyx"). Every year, the leopard seal causes the chinstraps population to decrease by about 5% to 20%. On land, the brown skua ("Stercorarius antarcticus"), south polar skua ("Stercorarius maccormicki"), and southern giant petrel ("Macronectes giganteus") are the primary predators of the penguin. These three species most often prey on eggs and young chinstrap penguins. The Antarctic fur seal is also known to occasionally kill chinstrap penguins.

Behaviour.

On land, they build circular nests from stones, and lay two eggs, which are incubated by both the male and the female for shifts around 6 days each. The chicks hatch after around 37 days, and have fluffy grey backs and white fronts. The chicks stay in the nest for 20–30 days before they go to join other chicks in a crèche. Around 50–60 days old, they moult, gaining their adult feathers and go to sea.  Chinstrap penguins are generally considered to be the most aggressive and ill-tempered species of penguin.

Roy and Silo.

In 2004, two male chinstrap penguins named Roy and Silo in Central Park Zoo, New York City, formed a pair bond and took turns trying to "hatch" a rock, for which a keeper eventually substituted a fertile egg, and the pair subsequently hatched and raised the chick. Penguins by nature hatch eggs and are social creatures. The children's book "And Tango Makes Three" was written based on this event.

Conservation status.

The global population of the chinstrap penguins is estimated to be at least eight million. Although it is believed to be decreasing overall, its population is not severely fragmented and in many sites it is increasing or stable.  The chinstrap penguin is primarily threatened by climate change. In several parts of its range, climate change decreases the abundance of krill, which likely makes reproduction less successful. For instance, a 2019 expedition to breeding grounds on Elephant Island show a fifty percent population decline in just under fifty years. Other potential threats include volcanic events and the fishing of krill by humans. Several conservation actions are taking place for this species. Multiple areas where it lives are being monitored for long periods. Conservation actions proposed for the future include more monitoring and researching of its population, range, and behavior. It is listed as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List as of 2016, due to its large range and population, following five previous assessments of the same status from 2004 to 2012 and three assessments as "unknown" from 1988 to 2000.

The chinstrap penguin ("Pygoscelis antarcticus") is a species of penguin that inhabits a variety of islands and shores in the Southern Pacific and the Antarctic Oceans. Its name stems from the narrow black band under its head, which makes it appear as if it were wearing a black helmet, making it easy to identify. Other common names include ringed penguin, bearded penguin, and stonecracker penguin, due to its loud, harsh call.


Cultivation.

Several species of clover are extensively cultivated as fodder plants. The most widely cultivated clovers are white clover, "Trifolium repens", and red clover, "Trifolium pratense". Clover, either sown alone or in mixture with ryegrass, has for a long time formed a staple crop for silaging, for several reasons: it grows freely, shooting up again after repeated mowings; it produces an abundant crop; it is palatable to and nutritious for livestock; it fixes nitrogen, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers; it grows in a great range of soils and climates; and it is appropriate for either pasturage or green composting.  In many areas, particularly on acidic soil, clover is short-lived because of a combination of insect pests, diseases and nutrient balance; this is known as "clover sickness". When crop rotations are managed so that clover does not recur at intervals shorter than eight years, it grows with much of its pristine vigor.  Clovers are most efficiently pollinated by bumblebees, which have declined as a result of agricultural intensification. Honeybees can also pollinate clover, and beekeepers are often in heavy demand from farmers with clover pastures. Farmers reap the benefits of increased reseeding that occurs with increased bee activity, which means that future clover yields remain abundant. Beekeepers benefit from the clover bloom, as clover is one of the main nectar sources for honeybees.  "Trifolium repens", white or Dutch clover, is a perennial abundant in meadows and good pastures. The flowers are white or pinkish, becoming brown and deflexed as the corolla fades. "Trifolium hybridum", alsike or Swedish clover, is a perennial which was introduced early in the 19th century and has now become naturalized in Britain. The flowers are white or rosy, and resemble those of "Trifolium repens". "Trifolium medium", meadow or zigzag clover, a perennial with straggling flexuous stems and rose-purple flowers, has potential for interbreeding with "T. pratense" to produce perennial crop plants.  Other species are: "Trifolium arvense", hare's-foot trefoil; found in fields and dry pastures, a soft hairy plant with minute white or pale pink flowers and feathery sepals; "Trifolium fragiferum", strawberry clover, with globose, rose-purple heads and swollen calyxes; "Trifolium campestre", hop trefoil, on dry pastures and roadsides, the heads of pale yellow flowers suggesting miniature hops; and the somewhat similar "Trifolium dubium", common in pastures and roadsides, with smaller heads and small yellow flowers turning dark brown.

Symbolism.

Shamrock, the traditional Irish symbol, which according to legend was coined by Saint Patrick for the Holy Trinity, is commonly associated with clover, although alternatively sometimes with the various species within the genus "Oxalis", which are also trifoliate.  Clovers occasionally have four leaflets, instead of the usual three. These four-leaf clovers, like other rarities, are considered lucky. Clovers can also have five, six, or more leaflets, but these are rarer still. The record for most leaflets is 56, set on 10 May 2009. This beat the "21-leaf clover", a record set in June 2008 by the same discoverer, who had also held the prior Guinness World Record of 18.  A common idiom is "to be (or to live) in clover", meaning to live a carefree life of ease, comfort, or prosperity.  The cloverleaf interchange is named for the resemblance to the leaflets of a (four-leaf) clover when viewed from the air.

Phylogeny.

The first extensive classification of "Trifolium" was done by Zohary and Heller in 1984. They divided the genus into eight sections: "Lotoidea, Paramesus, Mistyllus, Vesicamridula, Chronosemium, Trifolium, Trichoecephalum," and "Involucrarium," with "Lotoidea" placed most basally. Within this classification system, "Trifolium repens" falls within section "Lotoidea", the largest and least heterogeneous section. "Lotoidea" contains species from America, Africa, and Eurasia, considered a clade because of their inflorescence shape, floral structure, and legume that protrudes from the calyx. However, these traits are not unique to the section, and are shared with many other species in other sections. Zohary and Heller argued that the presence of these traits in other sections proved the basal position of "Lotoidea", because they were ancestral. Aside from considering this section basal, they did not propose relationships between other sections. Since then, molecular data has both questioned and confirmed the proposed phylogeny from Zohary and Heller. A genus-wide molecular study has since proposed a new classification system, made up of two subgenera, "Chronosemium" and "Trifolium." This recent reclassification further divides subgenus "Trifolium" into eight sections. The molecular data supports the monophyletic nature of three sections proposed by Zohary and Heller ("Tripholium, Paramesus," and "Trichoecepalum"), but not of "Lotoidea" (members of this section have since been reclassified into five other sections). Other molecular studies, although smaller, support the need to reorganize "Lotoidea."

Selected species.

The genus "Trifolium" currently has 245 recognized species:

Clover or trefoil are common names for plants of the genus Trifolium (Latin, "tres" "three" + "folium" "leaf"), consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume or pea family Fabaceae. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution with highest diversity in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, but many species also occur in South America and Africa, including at high altitudes on mountains in the tropics. They are small annual, biennial, or short-lived perennial herbaceous plants. Clover can be evergreen. The leaves are trifoliate (rarely quatrefoiled; see four-leaf clover), cinquefoil, or septfoil, with stipules adnate to the leaf-stalk, and heads or dense spikes of small red, purple, white, or yellow flowers; the small, few-seeded pods are enclosed in the calyx. Other closely related genera often called clovers include "Melilotus" (sweet clover) and "Medicago" (alfalfa or Calvary clover).


History.

Soissons enters written history under its Celtic name (as later borrowed in Latin), Noviodunum, meaning "new hillfort". At Roman contact, it was a town of the Suessiones, mentioned by Julius Caesar ("B. G." ii. 12). Caesar ("B.C." 57), after leaving the Axona (modern Aisne), entered the territory of the Suessiones, and making one day's long march, reached Noviodunum, which was surrounded by a high wall and a broad ditch. The place surrendered to Caesar.  From 457 to 486, under Aegidius and his son Syagrius, Noviodunum was the capital of the Kingdom of Soissons, until it fell to the Frankish king Clovis I in 486 after the Battle of Soissons.  Part of the Frankish territory of Neustria, the Soissons region, and the Abbey of Saint-Médard, founded in the 6th century, played an important political part during the rule of the Merovingian kings (A.D. 447–751). After the death of Clovis I in 511, Soissons was made the capital of one of the four kingdoms into which his states were divided. Eventually, the kingdom of Soissons disappeared in 613 when the Frankish lands were amalgamated under Chlothar II.  The 744 Council of Soissons met at the instigation of Pepin the Short and Saint Boniface, the Pope's missionary to pagan Germany, secured the condemnation of the Frankish bishop Adalbert and the Irish missionary Clement.  During the Hundred Years' War, French forces committed a notorious massacre of English archers stationed at the town's garrison, in which many of the French townsfolk were themselves raped and killed. The massacre of French citizens by French soldiers shocked Europe; Henry V of England, noting that the town of Soissons was dedicated to the saints Crispin and Crispinian, claimed to avenge the honour of the saints when he met the French forces at the Battle of Agincourt on Saint Crispin's Day 1415. The town was liberated by French troops under the command of Joan of Arc on July 23, 1429.  Between June 1728 and July 1729 it hosted the Congress of Soissons an attempt to resolve a long-standing series of disputes between the Kingdom of Great Britain and Spain which had spilled over into the Anglo-Spanish War of 1727–1729. The Congress was largely successful and led to the signing of a peace treaty between them.  During World War I, the city came under heavy bombardment. There was mutiny after the disastrous "Chemin des Dames" offensive at the Second Battle of the Aisne. A statue erected with images of French soldiers killed in action in 1917 is behind the St Peter's Church, next to the Soissons Courthouse. The town was on the main path of totality for the solar eclipse of August 11, 1999.

Sights.

Today, Soissons is a commercial and manufacturing centre with the 12th century Soissons Cathedral and the ruins of St. Jean des Vignes Abbey as two of its most important historical buildings. The nearby Espace Pierres Folles contains a museum, geological trail, and botanical garden.

Landmarks.

Cathedral.

The Cathédrale Saint-Gervais-et-Saint-Protais de Soissons is constructed in the style of Gothic architecture. The building of the south transept was begun about 1177, and the lowest courses of the choir in 1182. The choir with its original three-storey elevation and extremely tall clerestory was completed in 1211. This was earlier than Chartres, on which the design was supposed to have been based. Work then continued into the nave until the late 13th century.

Abbey of Notre Dame.

The former abbey of Notre Dame, former royal abbey, founded in the Merovingian era, famous for its rich treasure of relics, including the "shoe of the Virgin." The abbey was prestigious abbesses like Gisèle, sister of Charlemagne, or Catherine de Bourbon, aunt of Henry IV.

Saint-Médard Abbey.

The Saint-Médard Abbey was a Benedictine monastery of Soissons whose foundation went back to the sixth century. Today, only the crypt remains.

Hôtel de ville.

Since 1833 the city hall has been housed in a chateau built by architect Jean-François Advyné between 1772 and 1775 at the request of the Intendant Pelletier Mortefontaine on the site of a previous one belonging to the counts of Soissons.  Arsenal: contemporary art exhibitions. UK Monument (1914–1918)

La passerelle des Anglais Bridge.

The Gateway Anglais Bridge is a concrete casson built cantilevered from an abutment against-weight with an isostatic central beam of 20.50 m in length. The floor has a width of 3.50 m between railings. The original bridge was destroyed in 1914. It was rebuilt by British soldiers, and logically took the name of the English bridge. Again destroyed during World War II, the bridge was rebuilt in 1950 as a footbridge. The covered market, built in 1908 by architect Albert-Désiré Guilbert (1866–1949).

Soissons () is a commune in the northern French department of Aisne, in the region of Hauts-de-France. Located on the Aisne River, about northeast of Paris, it is one of the most ancient towns of France, and is probably the ancient capital of the Suessiones. Soissons is also the see of an ancient Roman Catholic diocese, whose establishment dates from about 300, and it was the location of a number of church synods called "Council of Soissons".


History.

The settlement of Obdorsk () was founded in 1595, in the place of a Khanty settlement called Polnovat-Vozh (), by Russian settlers after the conquest of Siberia. It was situated on the Ob River, and its name supposedly derives from that. The land around Obdorsk was referred to as Obdorsky krai, or Obdoriya.  The town was often used as a place of exile during the Tsarist and Soviet periods. Among notable people who spent time here were the Doukhobor spiritual leader Pyotr Verigin and Leon Trotsky. The town and nearby area contained three Soviet camps where approximately 6,500 prisoners were held, arrested for their belief in God. At the port of Salekhard, approximately 1,500 prisoners loaded and unloaded goods at the dock, or mined metal ores. About 5,000 prisoners in two camps near Salekhard were assigned to polish diamonds mined from Mir mine.  On December 10, 1930, Obdorsk became the administrative centre of the new Yamal (Nenets) National Okrug. The settlement was renamed Salekhard (from the Nenets "salja' harad", meaning "house on the peninsula") in 1933, and granted town status in 1938.  The nearest railway station is at Labytnangi on the opposite side of the river Ob. From 1949 to 1953, the Salekhard-Igarka Railway project made an unsuccessful attempt to extend the line to Igarka, claiming the lives of thousands of Gulag prisoners. The section of railway from Salekhard to Nadym was completed and remained in use for some time in the Soviet era, although it was later abandoned. It is currently being rebuilt, along with a long-awaited bridge across the Ob between Labytnangi and Salekhard.  Salekhard was the host city for the 2006 Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in October 2006.  In April 2014, Rostelecom, a Russian Internet service provider, completed the final stretch of the Nadym-Salekhard optical internet line. That same line stretches for almost 3,500 km (2175 mi).  In summer 2016, after temperatures as high as thawed anthrax infected corpses frozen since 1941 near Salekhard, anthrax spores infected reindeer herds and herders.

Administrative and municipal status.

Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is, together with one rural locality, incorporated as the town of okrug significance of Salekhard—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the town of okrug significance of Salekhard is incorporated as Salekhard Urban Okrug.

Economy.

Yamal Airlines has its head office in Salekhard.  By 2015, about from the airport, near the Arctic circle, authorities plan to build a large polar resort "Center of the Arctic tourism."

Transportation.

Salekhard is located in the Ob river valley and is an important river port of the Russian Far North. The unfinished Salekhard–Igarka Railway was set to provide a rail connection between the Ob river port of Salekhard and the Yenisei river port of Igarka. Currently, the nearest railway is at Labytnangi (on the Salekhard–Igarka Railway), 20 kilometres (12 miles) north-west on the opposite side of the river Ob. The project Northern Latitudinal Railway will provide Salekhard access to railway and a long-awaited bridge across the Ob between Labytnangi and Salekhard, and will further connect Salekhard to the Konosha-Vorkuta railway and other parts of European Russia. For 9–10 months of year, the river is frozen and cars and trucks can cross via the river ice. In the summer a ferry operates, however during the floating of ice, generally shortly before the start and shortly after the end of summer, Salekhard is effectively cut off from the outside world, regarding freight. During these periods, only helicopters are able to reach Salekhard in case of emergency. Native people, mainly the Nenets and Khanty people, always build up stocks of food at home, in the shops, and in the markets during this period, but they still suffer from seasonal price increasing. The city is also served by the Salekhard Airport which is located 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) north of the main city.

Climate.

Salekhard has a subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfc") with short, mild summers and severely cold winters. Precipitation is moderate, and is significantly greater in summer than in winter.

International relations.

Twin towns and sister cities.

Salekhard is twinned with:

Salekhard (; Khanty:, "Pułñawat";, "Salja’ harad") is a city in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia, serving as the okrug's administrative centre. It crosses the Arctic Circle, the main parts being about south and suburbs stretching to the north of the circle. Population:


Types.

By function.

A balustrade or railing is a fence to prevent people from falling over an edge, most commonly found on a stairway, landing, or balcony. Railing systems and balustrades are also used along roofs, bridges, cliffs, pits, and bodies of water.

Legal issues.

In most developed areas the use of fencing is regulated, variously in commercial, residential, and agricultural areas. Height, material, setback, and aesthetic issues are among the considerations subject to regulation.

Required use.

The following types of areas or facilities often are required by law to be fenced in, for safety and security reasons:

History.

Servitudes are legal arrangements of land use arising out of private agreements. Under the feudal system, most land in England was cultivated in common fields, where peasants were allocated strips of arable land that were used to support the needs of the local village or manor. By the sixteenth century the growth of population and prosperity provided incentives for landowners to use their land in more profitable ways, dispossessing the peasantry. Common fields were aggregated and enclosed by large and enterprising farmers—either through negotiation among one another or by lease from the landlord—to maximize the productivity of the available land and contain livestock. Fences redefined the means by which land is used, resulting in the modern law of servitudes.  In the United States, the earliest settlers claimed land by simply fencing it in. Later, as the American government formed, unsettled land became technically owned by the government and programs to register land ownership developed, usually making raw land available for low prices or for free, if the owner improved the property, including the construction of fences. However, the remaining vast tracts of unsettled land were often used as a commons, or, in the American West, "open range" as degradation of habitat developed due to overgrazing and a tragedy of the commons situation arose, common areas began to either be allocated to individual landowners via mechanisms such as the Homestead Act and Desert Land Act and fenced in, or, if kept in public hands, leased to individual users for limited purposes, with fences built to separate tracts of public and private land.  Ownership of a fence on a boundary varies. The last relevant original title deed(s) and a completed seller's property information form may document which side has to put up and has installed any fence respectively; the first using "T" marks/symbols (the side with the "T" denotes the owner); the latter by a ticked box to the best of the last owner's belief with no duty, as the conventionally agreed conveyancing process stresses, to make any detailed, protracted enquiry. Commonly the mesh or panelling is in mid-position. Otherwise it tends to be on non-owner's side so the fence owner might access the posts when repairs are needed but this is not a legal requirement. Where estate planners wish to entrench privacy a close-boarded fence or equivalent well-maintained hedge of a minimum height may be stipulated by deed. Beyond a standard height planning permission is necessary.  Where a rural fence or hedge has (or in some cases had) an adjacent ditch, the ditch is normally in the same ownership as the hedge or fence, with the ownership boundary being the edge of the ditch furthest from the fence or hedge. The principle of this rule is that an owner digging a boundary ditch will normally dig it up to the very edge of their land, and must then pile the spoil on their own side of the ditch to avoid trespassing on their neighbour. They may then erect a fence or hedge on the spoil, leaving the ditch on its far side. Exceptions exist in law, for example where a plot of land derives from subdivision of a larger one along the centre line of a previously-existing ditch or other feature, particularly where reinforced by historic parcel numbers with acreages beneath which were used to tally up a total for administrative units not to confirm the actual size of holdings, a rare instance where Ordnance Survey maps often provide more than circumstantial evidence namely as to which feature is to be considered the boundary.  On private land in the United Kingdom, it is the landowner's responsibility to fence their livestock in. Conversely, for common land, it is the surrounding landowners' duty to fence the common's livestock out such as in large parts of the New Forest. Large commons with livestock roaming have been greatly reduced by 18th and 19th century Acts for enclosure of commons covering most local units, with most remaining such land in the UK's National Parks.

United States.

Distinctly different land ownership and fencing patterns arose in the eastern and western United States. Original fence laws on the east coast were based on the British common law system, and rapidly increasing population quickly resulted in laws requiring livestock to be fenced in. In the west, land ownership patterns and policies reflected a strong influence of Spanish law and tradition, plus the vast land area involved made extensive fencing impractical until mandated by a growing population and conflicts between landowners. The "open range" tradition of requiring landowners to fence out unwanted livestock was dominant in most of the rural west until very late in the 20th century, and even today, a few isolated regions of the west still have open range statutes on the books. More recently, fences are generally constructed on the surveyed property line as precisely as possible. Today, across the nation, each state is free to develop its own laws regarding fences. In many cases for both rural and urban property owners, the laws were designed to require adjacent landowners to share the responsibility for maintaining a common boundary fenceline. Today, however, only 22 states have retained that provision.

Cultural value of fences.

The value of fences and the metaphorical significance of a fence, both positive and negative, has been extensively utilized throughout western culture. A few examples include:

A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its whole length.


Life.

Thutmose IV was born to Amenhotep II and Tiaa but was not actually the crown prince and Amenhotep II's chosen successor to the throne. Some scholars speculate that Thutmose ousted his older brother in order to usurp power and then commissioned the "Dream Stele" in order to justify his unexpected kingship. Thutmose's most celebrated accomplishment was the restoration of the Sphinx at Giza and subsequent commission of the "Dream Stele". According to Thutmose's account on the "Dream Stele", while the young prince was out on a hunting trip, he stopped to rest under the head of the Sphinx, which was buried up to the neck in sand. He soon fell asleep and had a dream in which the Sphinx told him that if he cleared away the sand and restored it he would become the next Pharaoh. After completing the restoration of the Sphinx, he placed a carved stone tablet, now known as the "Dream Stele", between the two paws of the Sphinx. The restoration of the Sphinx, and the text of the "Dream Stele" would then be a piece of propaganda on Thutmose's part, meant to bestow legitimacy upon his unexpected kingship. Little is known about his brief ten-year rule. He suppressed a minor uprising in Nubia in his 8th year (attested in his Konosso stela) around 1393 BC and was referred to in a stela as the "Conqueror of Syria", but little else has been pieced together about his military exploits. Betsy Bryan, who penned a biography of Thutmose IV, says that Thutmose IV's Konosso stela appears to refer to a minor desert patrol action on the part of the king's forces to protect certain gold-mine routes in Egypt's Eastern Desert from occasional attacks by the Nubians. Thutmose IV's rule is significant because he established peaceful relations with Mitanni and married a Mitannian princess to seal this new alliance. Thutmose IV's role in initiating contact with Egypt's former rival, Mitanni, is documented by Amarna letter EA 29 composed decades later by Tushratta, a Mittanian king who ruled during the reign of Akhenaten, Thutmose IV's grandson. Tushratta states to Akhenaten that:

Dates and length of reign.

Dating the beginning of the reign of Thutmose IV is difficult to do with certainty because he is several generations removed from the astronomical dates which are usually used to calculate Egyptian chronologies, and the debate over the proper interpretation of these observances has not been settled. Thutmose's grandfather Thutmose III almost certainly acceded the throne in either 1504 or 1479, based upon two lunar observances during his reign, and ruled for nearly 54 years. His successor Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV's father, took the throne and ruled for at least 26 years but has been assigned up to 35 years in some chronological reconstructions. The currently preferred reconstruction, after analyzing all this evidence, usually comes to an accession date around 1401 BC or 1400 BC for the beginning of Thutmose IV's reign.  The length of his reign is not as clear as one would wish. He is usually given about nine or ten years of reign. Manetho credits him a reign of 9 years and 8 months. However, Manetho's other figures for the 18th Dynasty are frequently assigned to the wrong kings or simply incorrect, so monumental evidence is also used to determine his reign length. Of all of Thutmose IV's dated monuments, three date to his first regnal year, one to his fourth, possibly one to his fifth, one to his sixth, two to his seventh, and one to his eighth. Two other dated objects, one dated to a Year 19 and another year 20, have been suggested as possibly belonging to him, but neither have been accepted as dating to his reign. The readings of the king's name in these dates are today accepted as referring to the prenomen of Thutmose III—Menkheperre—and not Menkhepe[ru]re Thutmose IV himself. Due to the absence of higher dates for Thutmose IV after his Year 8 Konosso stela, Manetho's figures here are usually accepted. There were once chronological reconstructions which gave him a reign as long as 34–35 years. Today, however, most scholars ascribe him a 10-year reign from 1401 to 1391 BC, within a small margin of error.

Monuments.

Like most of the Thutmoside kings, he built on a grand scale. Thutmose IV completed the eastern obelisk at the Temple of Karnak started by Thutmose III, which, at, was the tallest obelisk ever erected in Egypt. Thutmose IV called it the "tekhen waty" or 'unique obelisk.' It was transported to the grounds of the Circus Maximus in Rome by Emperor Constantius II in 357 AD and, later, "re-erected by Pope Sixtus V in 1588 at the Piazza San Giovanni" where it is today known as the 'Lateran Obelisk.'  Thutmose IV also built a unique chapel and peristyle hall against the back or eastern walls of the main Karnak temple building. The chapel was intended for people "who had no right of access to the main [Karnak] temple. It was a 'place of the ear' for the god Amun where the god could hear the prayers of the townspeople." This small alabaster chapel and peristyle hall of Thutmose IV has today been carefully restored by French scholars from the "Centre Franco-Egyptien D'Étude des Temple de Karnak" (CFEETK) mission in Karnak.

Burial and mummy.

Thutmose IV was buried in tomb KV43 the Valley of the Kings but his body was later moved to the mummy cache in KV35, where it was discovered by Victor Loret in 1898. An examination of his mummy conducted by Grafton Elliot Smith revealed that he was an extremely emaciated at the time of his death. His height was given as but considering that the feet have been broken off post-mortem, his height in life would have been taller. The forearms are crossed over the chest, right over left. His hair, which is parted in the middle, is about long and dark reddish-brown. His ears are also pierced. Elliot Smith estimated his age to be 25–28 years or possibly older. He was succeeded to the throne by his son, Amenhotep III.  Recently a surgeon at Imperial College London analysed the early death of Thutmose IV and the premature deaths of other Eighteenth Dynasty pharaohs (including Tutankhamun and Akhenaten). He concludes that their early deaths were likely as a result of a familial temporal epilepsy. This would account for both the untimely death of Thutmose IV and also his religious vision described on the Dream Stele, due to this type of epilepsy's association with intense spiritual visions and religiosity.

Thutmose IV (sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis IV, Thothmes in older history works in Latinized Greek; Ancient Egyptian: /"ḏḥwty.ms"/ Djehutymes, meaning "Thoth is born") was the 8th Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt, who ruled in approximately the 14th century BC. His prenomen or royal name, Menkheperure, means "Established in forms is Re."