Classes.

The Order can be awarded in any of six classes. Conventionally, a diploma is prepared to accompany the insignia of the order, and in some rare instances, the personal signature of the emperor will have been added. As an illustration of the wording of the text, a translation of a representative 1929 diploma says: "By the grace of Heaven, Emperor of Japan, seated on the throne occupied by the same dynasty from time immemorial,  We confer the "Second Class of the Imperial Order of Meiji" upon Henry Waters Taft, a citizen of the United States of America and a director of the Japan Society of New York, and invest him with the insignia of the same class of the "Order of the Double Rays of the Rising Sun," in expression of the good will which we entertain towards him.  "In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hand and caused the Grand Seal of State to be affixed at the Imperial Palace, Tokyo, this thirteenth day of the fifth month of the fourth year of Shōwa, corresponding to the 2,589th year from the accession to the throne of Emperor Jimmu."

Insignia.

The insignia of the order incorporates symbols for the three imperial treasures: the "Yata Mirror", so sacred that not even the Emperor is allowed to look at it; the "Yasakani Jewel", which is made of the finest jade; and the "Emperor's personal sword".  The "star" for the "Grand Cordon" and "Second Class" is similar to the badge as described above, but effectively with "two" sets of Maltese crosses, one in gilt and one placed diagonally in silver. It is worn on the left chest by the Grand Cordon, on the right chest (without any other insignia) by the 2nd class.  The "badge" for the first through sixth classes is a Maltese cross, in gilt (1st–4th classes), gilt and silver (5th class) and silver (6th class), with white enameled rays (representing the sword). The central disc is blue, bearing an eight-pointed silver star (representing the mirror), surrounded by a wreath with red-enameled dots (representing the jewel). The badge is suspended on a ribbon, worn as a sash on the right shoulder by the Grand Cordon, as a necklet by males of the 2nd and 3rd classes, on the left chest (the ribbon folded into a triangle) by the 4th to 6th classes (with a rosette for the 4th class). For females of the 2nd to 6th classes, the ribbon is a bow worn on the left shoulder (with a rosette for the 4th class).  Until 2003, when it was abolished, the "badge" of the "seventh and eighth classes" was an eight-pointed silver medal, partially gilded for the 7th class, with representations of just the mirror and the jewel. The badge is suspended on a ribbon, worn by men on the left chest (the ribbon folded into a triangle). For women, the ribbon is a bow worn on the left shoulder.  Until 2003, the "ribbon" of the order was very pale blue with a gold stripe near the borders; since then the ribbon has been light blue, but retains the gold stripe near the borders. When the ribbon is worn alone, the ribbon for the Fourth Class and above incorporates a blue-and-gold rosette (very pale blue until 2003), with a solid gold bar for the Grand Cordon, a gold and silver bar for the Second Class, a solid silver bar for the Third Class and only the rosette for the Fourth Class. The ribbon for the Fifth and Sixth Classes has a centered blue disc (very pale blue until 2003) with gold rays radiating from its center, eight rays for the Fifth Class and six rays for the Sixth Class. Formerly, the ribbon for the Seventh and Eighth Classes had a centered very pale blue disc with gold rays radiating from its center, four rays for the Seventh Class and three rays for the Eighth Class.

After the 2003 reform.

In 2003 the lowest two classes of the Order were abolished. Moreover, the badges of the Order will from now on be suspended from three white-enamelled paulownia leaves (not chrysanthemum leaves as the Decoration Bureau page claims).

Selected recipients.

1st class, Grand Cordon.

Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Altham Altham, KCB, CMG. awarded 1918 Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Thomas Clayton, KCB, KCMG. awarded 1918 Lieutenant-General Sir John Steven Cowans, GCMG, KCB, MV. awarded 1918 Lieutenant-General Sir David Henderson, KCB, DSO. awarded 1918 Lieutenant-General Sir Lancelot Edward Kiggell, KCB, KCMG. awarded 1918 Lieutenant-General Sir Cecil Frederick Nevil Macready, GCMG, KCB. awarded 1918 Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald James Murray, GCMG, KCB, CVO, DSO. awarded 1918 Lieutenant-General Sir James Wolfe Murray, KCB. awarded 1918 Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Crichton SCLATER, GCB. awarded 1918

7th class: abolished.

While established with the original induction of the First 6 classes, Class 7 has never been issued or given an official designation or design.  Officially the Medal and its designation were abolished in 2003; there are no known recipients or issuances of this Medal in its original design from 1887.

8th class: abolished.

While established with the original induction of the First 6 classes, Class 8 has never been issued or designated a design, like Class 7 Before it.  Officially the Medal and its designation were abolished in 2003; there are no known recipients or issuances of this Medal in its original design from 1887.

The is a Japanese order, established on 4 January 1888 by Emperor Meiji as the Order of Meiji. Originally awarded in eight classes (from 8th to 1st, in ascending order of importance), since 2003 it has been awarded in six classes, the lowest two medals being abolished that year. The most widely conferred Japanese order, it is awarded to those who have made distinguished achievements in research fields, business industries, healthcare, social work, state/local government fields or the improvement of life for handicapped/impaired persons.


Plot.

In 1941, eight-year-old Hannibal Lecter lives in Lecter Castle in Lithuania. The German invasion of the Soviet Union turns the Baltic region into part of the bloodiest front line of World War II. Lecter, his younger sister Mischa, and their parents travel to the family's hunting lodge in the woods to elude the advancing German troops. After three years, the Nazis are finally driven out of the countries soon to be re-occupied by the Soviet Union. During their retreat, however, they destroy a Soviet tank that had stopped at the Lecter family's lodge looking for water. The explosion kills everyone but Lecter and Mischa. They survive in the cottage until five former Lithuanian militiamen, led by a Nazi collaborator named Vladis Grutas, storm and loot it. Finding no other food in the bitterly cold Baltic winter, the men look menacingly at Lecter and Mischa. Then, the soldiers kill and eat her.  By 1949, Lithuania is under Soviet rule and Lecter Castle has been converted into an orphanage, which also houses Hannibal. After dealing violently with a bully, Lecter escapes from the orphanage to Paris to live with his widowed aunt, Lady Murasaki. While in France, Lecter flourishes as a student. He commits his first murder as a teenager, killing a local butcher who insults his aunt. He is suspected of the murder by Inspector Pascal Popil, a French detective who also lost his family in the war. Thanks in part to his aunt's intervention, as she leaves the butcher's head on the gates in front of the station during Lecter's interview, Lecter accepts responsibility for the crime.  Eventually, Lecter becomes the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France. He works in Paris, where he is given a job preparing cadavers. One day, Lecter witnesses a condemned war criminal receiving a sodium thiopental injection, allowing him to recall details about his war crimes. Consequently, in an attempt to recall the names of those responsible for his sister's death, Lecter injects himself with the solution. His subsequent flashback reveals the men who had killed Mischa had cannibalized her as well. Lecter returns to Lithuania in search of his sister's remains. He excavates the ruins of the lodge where his family died, and upon finding Mischa's remains, he gives her a proper burial. He also unearths the dog-tags of the deserters who killed his sister. One of them, Enrikas Dortlich, sees him arrive in the country and attempts to kill him but is incapacitated by Lecter. After he buries Mischa's remains, Lecter forces Dortlich to reveal the whereabouts of the rest of his gang, then decapitates Dortlich with a horse-drawn pulley. Dortlich's blood splashes on Lecter's face, and he licks it off.  Lecter then visits Kolnas's restaurant in Fontainebleau. He finds his young daughter and notices Mischa's bracelet on her. He gives her Kolnas's dogtag. Dortlich's murder puts the rest of the group on alert and, because of the similarity to the first murder, places Lecter under renewed suspicion from Popil. Grutas, now a sex trafficker, dispatches a second member of the group, Zigmas Milko, to kill him. Lecter kills Milko instead, drowning him in formaldehyde inside his laboratory. Popil then tries to dissuade him from hunting the gang. During a confrontation with Lady Murasaki, she begs him not to get revenge. He refuses, claiming that he made a promise to Mischa. He then attacks Grutas in his home but Grutas is rescued by his bodyguards.  Grutas kidnaps Lady Murasaki and calls Lecter, using her as bait. Lecter recognizes the sounds of Kolnas's birds from his restaurant in the background. Lecter goes there and plays on Kolnas's emotions by threatening his children. Kolnas gives up the location of Grutas's boat, but Lecter kills him when Kolnas goes for Lecter's gun. Lecter goes to the houseboat and finds Grutas assaulting Lady Murasaki. In a final confrontation, Grutas claims that Lecter had also consumed his sister in broth fed to him by the soldiers, and he was killing them to keep this fact secret. Enraged by the revelation, Lecter eviscerates Grutas by repeatedly carving his sister's initial into his body. Lady Murasaki, finally disturbed by his behavior, flees from him even after he tells her that he loves her. The houseboat is incinerated, but Lecter, assumed to be dead, emerges from the woods. He then hunts down the last member of the group, Grentz, in Melville, Canada, before leaving for the United States.

Reception.

Critical response.

"Hannibal Rising" received generally negative reviews from film critics, though Ulliel's performance as Lecter was generally praised. The film garnered a 16% approval rating from 143 critics—an average rating of 3.9 out of 10—on the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, which said, ""Hannibal Rising" reduces the horror icon to a collection of dime-store psychological traits." Metacritic provides a score of 35% based on reviews from 30 critics, which indicates "generally unfavorable" reviews. The film was nominated for, but did not win, two Golden Raspberry Awards. They were for Worst Prequel or Sequel (lost to "Daddy Day Camp") and Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie (lost to "I Know Who Killed Me").

Box office.

The film opened at #2 in the United States with $13.4 million, less than half of the $33.7 million opening of "Norbit", which was released during the same week as "Hannibal Rising". In its second week of release, "Hannibal Rising" dropped to #7 at the U.S. box office, making $5.5 million, a 59% drop from the previous week. It dropped out of the top 10 U.S. grossing films in its third week of release at #13 with $1,706,165 in revenue, a 69% drop from the previous week. After a theatrical release of 91 days, the final total North American domestic gross of the film was $27,669,725, less than the opening weekend gross of both "Hannibal" and "Red Dragon" ($58,003,121 and $36,540,945, respectively).

Home media.

The DVD was released on 29 May 2007 and sold 480,861 units in the opening weekend, generating revenue of $10,574,133. As of August 2009, the film has grossed $23,242,853 from DVD sales alone. Blu-ray sales or DVD rentals are not included.

Hannibal Rising is a 2007 horror film and the fifth film of the "Hannibal Lecter" franchise. It is a prequel to "The Silence of the Lambs", "Hannibal", and "Red Dragon". The film is an adaptation of Thomas Harris' 2006 novel of the same name and tells the story of Lecter's evolution into a cannibalistic serial killer.


Early life.

Vasily Aksyonov was born to Pavel Aksyonov and Yevgenia Ginzburg in Kazan, USSR on August 20, 1932. His mother, Yevgenia Ginzburg, was a successful journalist and educator and his father, Pavel Aksyonov, had a high position in the administration of Kazan. Both parents "were prominent communists." In 1937, however, both were arrested and tried for her alleged connection to Trotskyists. They were both sent to Gulag and then to exile, and "each served 18 years, but remarkably survived." "Later, Yevgenia came to prominence as the author of a famous memoir, "Into the Whirlwind", documenting the brutality of Stalinist repression."  Aksyonov remained in Kazan with his nanny and grandmother until the NKVD arrested him as a son of "enemies of the people", and sent him to an orphanage without providing his family any information on his whereabouts. Aksyonov "remained [there] until rescued in 1938 by his uncle, with whose family he stayed until his mother was released into exile, having served 10 years of forced labour." "In 1947, Vasily joined her in exile in the notorious Magadan, Kolyma prison area, where he graduated from high school." Vasily's half-brother Alexei (from Ginzburg's first marriage to Dmitriy Fedorov) died from starvation in besieged Leningrad in 1941.  His parents, seeing that doctors had the best chance to survive in the camps, decided that Aksyonov should go into the medical profession. "He therefore entered the Kazan University and graduated in 1956 from the First Pavlov State Medical University of St. Peterburg" and worked as a doctor for the next 3 years. During his time as a medical student he came under surveillance by the KGB, who began to prepare a file against him. It is likely that he would have been arrested had the liberalisation that followed Stalin's death in 1953 not intervened.

Career.

Reportedly, "during the liberalisation that followed Stalin's death in 1953, Aksyonov came into contact with the first Soviet countercultural movement of zoot-suited hipsters called "stilyagi" (the ones 'with style')." As a result, He fell in love with their slang, fashions, libertine lifestyles, dancing and especially their music. From this point on began his lifelong romance with jazz. Interest in his new milieu, western music, fashion and literature turned out to be life-changing for Aksyonov, who decided to dedicate himself to chronicling his times through literature. He remained a keen observer of youth, with its ever-changing styles, movements and trends. Like no other Soviet writer, he was attuned to the developments and changes in popular culture. In 1956, he was "discovered" and heralded by the Soviet writer Valentin Kataev for his first publication, in the liberal magazine Youth. "His first novel, "Colleagues" (1961), was based on his experiences as a doctor." "His second, "Ticket to the Stars" (1961), depicting the life of Soviet youthful hipsters, made him an overnight celebrity."  In the 1960s Aksyonov was a frequent contributor to the popular "Yunost" ("Youth") magazine and eventually became a staff writer. Aksyonov thus reportedly became "a leading figure in the so-called "youth prose" movement and a darling of the Soviet liberal intelligentsia and their western supporters: his writings stood in marked contrast to the dreary, socialist-realist prose of the time." "Aksyonov's characters spoke in a natural way, using hip lingo, they went to bars and dance halls, had premarital sex, listened to jazz and rock'n'roll and hustled to score a pair of cool American shoes." "There was a feeling of freshness and freedom about his writings, similar to the one emanating from black-market recordings of American jazz and pop." "He soon became one of the informal leaders of the Shestidesyatniki – which translates roughly as "the '60s generation" – a group of young Soviets who resisted the Communist Party's cultural and ideological restrictions." "'It was amazing: We were being brought up robots, but we began to listen to jazz,' Aksyonov said in a 2007 documentary about him."  For all his hardship, Aksyonov,  as a prose stylist, was at the opposite pole from Mr. Solzhenitsyn, becoming a symbol of youthful promise and embracing fashion and jazz rather than dwelling on the miseries of the gulag. Ultimately, however, he shared Mr. Solzhenitsyn's fate of exile from the Soviet Union.  "Solzhenitsyn is all about the imprisonment and trying to get out, and Aksyonov is the young person whose mother got out and he actually can live his life now," said Nina L. Khrushcheva, who is a granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev and a friend of the Aksyonov family and who teaches international affairs at the New School in New York. "It was important to have the Aksyonov light, that light of personal freedom and personal self-expression." However, as Mark Yoffe notes in Aksyonov's obituary, his "open pro-Americanism and liberal values eventually led to problems with the KGB." "And his involvement in 1979 with an independent magazine, "Metropol", led to an open confrontation with the authorities." His next two celebrated dissident novels, "The Burn" and "The Island of Crimea", could not be published in the USSR. "The former explored the plight of intellectuals under communism and the latter was an imagining of what life might have been like had the white army staved off the Bolsheviks in 1917."  "When "The Burn" was published in Italy in 1980, Aksyonov accepted an invitation for him and his wife Maya to leave Russia for the US." "Soon afterwards, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship, regaining it only 10 years later during Gorbachev's perestroika."  "Aksyonov spent the next 24 years in Washington, D.C. and Virginia, where he taught Russian Literature at George Mason University." "He [also] taught literature at a number of [other] American universities, including USC and Goucher College in Maryland... [and] worked as a journalist for Radio Liberty."  "He continued to write novels, among which was the ambitious "Generations of Winter" (1994), a multi-generational saga of Soviet life that became a successful Russian TV mini-series." The so-called ""The Moscow Saga," [this 1994] epic trilogy... described the lives of three generations of a Soviet family between the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and Stalin's death in 1953." The TV mini-series consisted of 24 episodes and was broadcast on Russian television in 2004. "[In 1994], he also won the Russian Booker Prize, Russia's top literary award, for his historical novel "Voltairian Men and Women," about a meeting between the famous philosopher Voltaire and Empress Catherine II." "In 2004, he settled in Biarritz, France, and returned to the US less frequently, dividing his time between France and Moscow." His novel "Moskva-kva-kva" (2006) was published in the Moscow-based magazine "Oktyabr".  "Aksyonov was translated into numerous languages, and in Russia remained influential". In addition to writing novels, he is also known as author of poems, occasionally performed as songs. He was reportedly "forever a hipster [and] was used to being in the avant garde, be it in fashion or literary innovation." He was described as "a colourful man, with his trademark moustache, elegant suits, expensive cars, and a love for grand cities, fine wine and good food."  On July 6, 2009, he died in Moscow at the age of 76.

Political views.

Vasily Aksyonov was a convinced anti-totalitarian. On the presentation of one of his last novels, he stated: "If in this country one starts erecting Stalin statues again, I have to reject my native land. Nothing else remains."

Novels.

His other novels include:

Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov (; August 20, 1932 – July 6, 2009) was a Soviet and Russian novelist. He became known in the West as the author of "The Burn" ("Ожог", "Ozhog", from 1975) and of "Generations of Winter" ("Московская сага", "Moskovskaya Saga", from 1992), a family saga following three generations of the Gradov family between 1925 and 1953.


Distribution.

The Arctic willow grows in tundra and rocky moorland, and is the northernmost woody plant in the world, occurring far above the tree line to the northern limit of land on the north coast of Greenland.  It also occurs further south in North America on high-altitude alpine tundra, south to the Sierra Nevada in California and the Rocky Mountains in New Mexico, to Xinjiang in China in Asia.

Description.

"S. arctica" is typically a low shrub growing to only in height (rarely to high), but in the Pacific Northwest, it may reach in height, and has round, shiny green leaves long and broad; they are pubescent, with long, silky, silvery hairs. Like the rest of the willows, Arctic willow is dioecious, with male and female catkins on separate plants. As a result, the plant's appearance varies; the female catkins are red-coloured, while the male catkins are yellow-coloured.  Despite its small size, it is a long-lived plant, growing extremely slowly in the severe arctic climate; one in eastern Greenland was found to be 236 years old.  Hybrids with "Salix arcticola" and "Salix glauca" are known.

Ecology.

The Arctic willow is a food source for several Arctic animals. Muskoxen, caribou, Arctic hares, and lemmings all feed on the bark and twigs, while the buds are the main food source of the rock ptarmigan.  It is the primary host plant and food source for the Arctic woolly bear moth, "Gynaephora groenlandica".

Uses.

Both the Inuit and the Gwich’in make use of this willow. Twigs are used as fuel, while the decayed flowers ("suputiit") are mixed with moss and used as wicking in the "kudlik". The plant was used for several medicinal purposes, such as relieving toothache, helping to stop bleeding, curing diarrhoea and indigestion, and as a poultice on wounds. Both the Gwich’in and Inuit in the Bathurst Inlet area were known to eat parts of the Arctic willow, which is high in vitamin C and tastes sweet.

Salix arctica, the Arctic willow, is a tiny creeping willow (family Salicaceae). It is adapted to survive in Arctic conditions, specifically tundras.


Plot.

On his way to start rehearsals at the Théâtre Montmartre, where he has been hired as male lead for a new production, young Bernard Granger tries to talk to an attractive woman, who repeatedly rebuffs him. When he arrives, she turns out to be the costume designer Arlette, a lesbian. He is taken to see the icily beautiful Marion, who is both owner of the theatre and leading lady. Her Jewish husband, Lucas, is believed to have left Paris but is in fact living in the cellar, where Marion visits him each evening to bring books and food and to talk about the new production. However, Marion is quite struck by Bernard, whom Lucas can just hear through a heating vent but never see. Unknown to anybody at the theatre, Bernard is a member of a Resistance group and delivers the bomb that kills a German admiral.  The first night is loved by a full house but one of the newspaper reviews next morning is viciously hostile, damning the show as Jewish. The writer, Daxiat, an anti-semite, hopes to oust Marion and take over her theatre. While cast and crew are celebrating their success in a nightclub, Daxiat is also there with another party. Bernard, furious that the man has insulted the gentile Marion, hustles him out to the street and pushes him around. Furious that Bernard has jeopardised her theatre, Marion refuses all contact with him offstage. One night, pretending to be air raid wardens, two Gestapo men start searching the theatre and it is Bernard to whom Marion turns in desperation for urgent help in concealing Lucas and his effects. When the Gestapo arrest Bernard's Resistance contact just before they have planned to meet in a church, he decides to devote his life to the cause and give up acting. As he is clearing out his little dressing room, Marion comes in to say goodbye and the two make love on the floor.  After the war, Bernard returns to be male lead in a new play that the freed Lucas wrote while hiding. In it, the female lead played by Marion offers to share her life but he claims he never really loved her. At the end of the opening night, Bernard, Marion and Lucas stand hand in hand to receive the applause.

Production.

Truffaut had wanted to create a film set during the French occupation period for a long time, as his uncle and grandfather were both part of the French Resistance, and were once caught while passing messages. This event was eventually recreated in "The Last Metro". Truffaut was inspired by the actor Jean Marais’s autobiography, basing the film on this and other documents by theatre people from during the occupation.  This film was one installment—dealing with theatre—of a trilogy on the entertainment world envisaged by Truffaut. The installment that dealt with the film world was 1973's "La Nuit Américaine" ("Day for Night"), which had won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Truffaut completed the screenplay for the third installment, "L'Agence Magique", which would have dealt with the world of music hall. In the late 1970s he was close to beginning filming, but the failure of his film "The Green Room" forced him to look to a more commercial project, and he filmed "Love on the Run" instead.  Truffaut began casting in September 1979, and he wrote the role of Marion especially with Catherine Deneuve in mind for her energy. Gérard Depardieu initially did not want to be involved in the film, as he did not like Truffaut’s directing style, but he was subsequently convinced.  Most of the filming took place in an abandoned chocolate factory on in Clichy, which was converted into a studio. During shooting Deneuve suffered an ankle sprain from a fall, resulting in having to shoot scenes at short notice. Scriptwriter Suzanne Schiffman was also hospitalised with a serious intestinal obstruction. The film shoot lasted fifty-nine days and ended on 21 April 1980.

Themes.

A recurring theme in Truffaut’s films has been linking film making and film watching. "The Last Metro" is self-conscious in this respect. In the opening the film mixes documentary footage with period re-creations alongside shots of contemporary film posters.  Truffaut commented “this film is not concerned merely with anti-semitism but intolerance in general” and a tolerance is shown through the characters of Jean Poiret playing a homosexual director and Andrea Ferreol plays a lesbian designer.  As in Truffaut's earlier films "Jules et Jim" and "Two English Girls", there is a love triangle between the three principal characters: Marion Steiner (Deneuve), her husband Lucas (Heinz Bennent) and Bernard Granger (Depardieu), an actor in the theatre's latest production.

Reception.

The film recorded admissions in France of 3,384,045.

The Last Metro () is a 1980 historical drama film, written and directed by François Truffaut, that stars Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu.


Rebellion.

Without heirs, Emperor Matthias sought to assure an orderly transition during his lifetime by having his dynastic heir (the fiercely Catholic Ferdinand of Styria, later Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor) elected to the separate royal thrones of Bohemia and Hungary. Some of the Protestant leaders of Bohemia feared they would be losing the religious rights granted to them by Emperor Rudolf II in his Letter of Majesty (1609). They preferred the Protestant Frederick V, elector of the Palatinate (successor of Frederick IV, the creator of the Protestant Union). However, other Protestants supported the stance taken by the Catholics, and in 1617, Ferdinand was duly elected by the Bohemian Estates to become the Crown Prince, and automatically upon the death of Matthias, the next King of Bohemia.  The king-elect then sent two Catholic councillors (Vilem Slavata of Chlum and Jaroslav Bořita of Martinice) as his representatives to Prague Castle in May 1618. Ferdinand had wanted them to administer the government in his absence. On 23 May 1618, an assembly of Protestants seized them and threw them (and also secretary Philip Fabricius) out of the palace window, which was some off the ground. Remarkably, although injured, they survived. This event, known as the (Second) Defenestration of Prague, started the Bohemian Revolt. Soon afterward, the Bohemian conflict spread through all of the Bohemian Crown, including Bohemia, Silesia, Upper and Lower Lusatia, and Moravia. Moravia was already embroiled in a conflict between Catholics and Protestants. The religious conflict eventually spread across the whole continent of Europe, involving France, Sweden, and a number of other countries.  Had the Bohemian rebellion remained a local conflict, the war could have been over in fewer than thirty months. However, the death of Emperor Matthias emboldened the rebellious Protestant leaders, who had been on the verge of a settlement. The weaknesses of both Ferdinand (now officially on the throne after the death of Emperor Matthias) and of the Bohemians themselves led to the spread of the war to western Germany. Ferdinand was compelled to call on his cousin, King Philip III of Spain, for assistance. The Spanish Crown had interests in maintaining the Holy Roman Empire as a stable ally; a critical trade route, the "Spanish Road", extended from the Mediterranean to Brussels. To this end they invested an enormous sum of treasure in the hiring of free companies and mercenaries.  The Bohemians, desperate for allies against the Emperor, applied to be admitted into the Protestant Union, which was led by their original candidate for the Bohemian throne, the Calvinist Frederick V, Elector Palatine. The Bohemians hinted Frederick would become King of Bohemia if he allowed them to join the Union and come under its protection. However, similar offers were made by other members of the Bohemian Estates to the Duke of Savoy, the Elector of Saxony, and the Prince of Transylvania. The Austrians, who seemed to have intercepted every letter leaving Prague, made these duplicities public. This unraveled much of the support for the Bohemians, particularly in the court of Saxony. Even James I of England refused to support Frederick, despite his wife being James' daughter. Overall, England was criticized for its inaction in the Thirty Years' War. In spite of these issues surrounding their support, the rebellion initially favoured the Bohemians. They were joined in the revolt by much of Upper Austria, whose nobility was then chiefly Lutheran and Calvinist. Lower Austria revolted soon after, and in 1619, Count Thurn led an army to the walls of Vienna itself.

Defeat of the revolt.

The Spanish sent an army from Brussels under Ambrosio Spinola to support the Emperor. In addition, the Spanish ambassador to Vienna, Don Íñigo Vélez de Oñate, persuaded Protestant Saxony to intervene against Bohemia in exchange for control over Lusatia, in addition they would invest nearly two million ducats in the supply and payment of both the army and its free company contingents. The Saxons invaded, and the Spanish army in the west prevented the Protestant Union's forces from assisting. Oñate conspired to transfer the electoral title from the Palatinate to the Duke of Bavaria in exchange for his support and that of the Catholic League.  The Catholic League's army (which included René Descartes in its ranks as an observer) pacified Upper Austria, while Imperial forces under Johan Tzerclaes, Count of Tilly, pacified Lower Austria. The two armies united and moved north into Bohemia. Ferdinand II decisively defeated Frederick V at the Battle of White Mountain, near Prague, on 8 November 1620. In addition to becoming almost entirely Catholic, Bohemia would remain in Habsburg hands for nearly three hundred years.  This defeat led to the dissolution of the League of Evangelical Union and the loss of Frederick V's holdings. Frederick was outlawed from the Holy Roman Empire, and his territories, the Rhenish Palatinate, were given to Catholic nobles. His title of elector of the Palatinate was given to his distant cousin, Duke Maximilian of Bavaria. Frederick, now landless, made himself a prominent exile abroad and tried to curry support for his cause in Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark.  This was a serious blow to Protestant ambitions in the region. As the rebellion collapsed, the widespread confiscation of property and suppression of the Bohemian nobility ensured the country would return to the Catholic side after more than two centuries of Hussite and other religious dissent. However while Bohemia was effectively annexed by the Crown, other regions would continue their revolt for several years. This would have the effect of bringing in elements of the Protestant Union which had suffered a severe blow to their credibility via their refusal to support the Bohemian revolutionaries. In addition, the changes in territory meant that previously unaligned powers would find a resurgent Empire on their own borders, a circumstance that Kingdoms like Denmark found untenable.

The Bohemian Revolt (; ; 1618–1620) was an uprising of the Bohemian estates against the rule of the Habsburg dynasty that began the Thirty Years' War. It was caused by both religious and power disputes. The estates were almost entirely Protestant, mostly Utraquist Hussite but there was also a substantial German population that endorsed Lutheranism. The dispute culminated after several battles in the final Battle of White Mountain, where the estates suffered a decisive defeat. This started re-Catholisation of the Czech lands, but also expanded the scope of the Thirty Years' War by drawing Denmark and Sweden into it. The conflict spread to the rest of Europe and devastated vast areas of central Europe, including the Czech lands, which were particularly stricken by its violent atrocities.


Europe.

there are about 250 low-emission zones (LEZ), which help meet EU health-based air quality limit values. This means that vehicles may be banned from a LEZ, or in some cases charged if they enter a LEZ when their emissions are over a set level.  Different vehicles may be regulated, depending on local conditions. All LEZs apply to heavy vehicles, some to diesel vans, others also to diesel and petrol cars; in Italy, motor cycles and three-wheelers are also liable to control.  A publicly funded website run by a network of cities and ministries operating or preparing LEZs gives up-to-date information on LEZs, such as which cities have LEZs, the vehicle types affected, the required emissions standards and their application dates.

Denmark.

Denmark has LEZ's that are applicable to vehicles over 3.5T. In Denmark, LEZ's exist in Aalborg, Århus, Copenhagen, Frederiksberg and Odense.

Finland.

An LEZ is present in Helsinki.

France.

France has LEZ's in Greater Paris, Grenoble, Lyon, Paris and Strasbourg

Germany.

In Germany, an LEZ is called an environmental zone ("Umweltzone"). There are currently 47 LEZs in operation or in planning in Germany. The cities of Berlin, Cologne, Hanover Mannheim and Stuttgart started LEZs in their respective central city areas in 2008 and more cities followed in the years after.

Italy.

Italy has LEZ's that are applicable to all vehicles. There are combined LEZ's and urban road tolling schemes in Milan and Palermo as well as low emission zones with differing standards and timeperiods. The latter are mainly found in north Italy, but also in mid Italy and Sicily.

Netherlands.

Rotterdam and Utrecht have LEZs. In Rotterdam this applies to trucks with a diesel engine that fall under stages Euro-I, Euro-II and Euro-III of the EU emission standards; delivery vans and passenger cars with a diesel engine registered before 2001; and delivery vans and passenger cars running on petrol/LPG registered before July 1992. In Utrecht this applies only to diesel vehicles registered before 2001.

Norway.

Norway has LEZ's in Bergen and Oslo.

Portugal.

Portugal has an LEZ in Lisbon.

Spain.

Spain has LEZ's in Barcelona and Madrid.

Sweden.

The cities of Gothenburg, Lund, Malmö, Helsingborg, Mölndal, Uppsala, Umeå and Stockholm have low-emission zones. Heavy trucks and buses with compression ignited engines (mainly diesel engines) may not be allowed inside the environmental zones depending on their age and on their emission class.

United Kingdom.

The London low emission zone came into effect in 2008 covering almost all of Greater London - the largest such zone in the world. London currently has levels of air pollution among the worst in Europe and road transport related emissions account for around half of total emissions of PM10 and NOx in the capital. The Low Emission Zone targets emissions of these pollutants from older diesel-engined lorries, buses, coaches, vans, minibuses and other heavy vehicles that are derived from lorries and vans such as motor caravans and motorised horse boxes. There was a phased introduction of the scheme from 2008 through to 2012. Different vehicles were affected over time and increasingly tougher emissions standards applied.  The London Ultra Low Emission Zone started on 8 April 2019. In the context of the coronavirus pandemic, Mayor Sadiq Khan asked TfL to suspend enforcement of the next phase of LEZ standards which had been due to come into force on 26 October, so that these would apply instead from the end of February 2021.  Glasgow introduced a Low Emission Zone (LEZ) at the end of 2018. Initially, only local buses in the centre of the city are affected. The city council plans to extend restrictions to all vehicles, including older petrol and diesel cars, from December 2022. Norwich, Leeds, and York also introduced a LEZ.  Since 2015, more than 60 local authorities have been ordered to tackle illegal levels of air pollution, which is why many of these planning to introduce clean air zones. The following cities have plans to introduce LEZs: Aberdeen (2020), Bath (2021), Birmingham (2019), Derby, Dundee (2020), Edinburgh (2020), Manchester (2021), Newcastle (2021), and Sheffield (2021). , Oxford is slated to become the first city to implement a Zero Emission Zone (ZEZ) scheme, beginning with a small area to go into effect by mid 2021. It was postponed from a 2020 start due to the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan is to expand the ZEZ gradually into a much larger zone, until the ZEZ encompasses the majority of the city centre by 2035.

Elsewhere.

Japan.

In Tokyo, the municipal government decided to tackle controlling diesel vehicle emissions (particulate matter emissions,...) far ahead of the national government.

People's Republic of China.

An LEZ is present in Beijing.

Hong Kong.

Since the end of 2015, the Hong Kong Government has designated three major junctions in Central, Causeway Bay and Mong Kok as low emission zone for franchised buses. For bus routes entering the three zones, franchised bus operators are required to use only buses meeting emission standards of Euro IV or above except when necessary. The LEZ scheme does not cover vehicles other than franchised buses. As of December 31, 2019, the standard for entry into the LEZ has been increased to Euro V.

Workings.

In many LEZ's, vehicles that do not meet the emission standards set by the LEZ are not barred from entry into the LEZ (i.e. using automated boom barriers), but rather simply fined if they enter the zone. A fine is not issued if entering the LEZ with a vehicle that does not meet the emission standards, when a fee (LEZ daily charge,...) has been paid. In some LEZ's, such as the one in London, this is done by ANPR cameras which read the vehicle registration number plate as they enter the LEZ and then compare it against a database of vehicles which: This fee/fine works as a deterrent for those having a vehicle that does not meet the LEZ emission standard for entering the city, and those having such vehicles will hence try to avoid paying this fee/fine (using various means, see "intent and actual impact").

Intent and actual impact.

The intent of LEZ's is generally to improve air quality within cities. This intent is indeed achieved, with diesel particulates (PM10) dropping in most LEZ's.  Often, this is achieved as people with polluting vehicles replace them with vehicles that attain a higher emission standard, which may mean buying a new vehicle. Some people (such as workers on night shift or carrying heavy tools or cargo) however can't do without a car, but might not be able to afford to purchase unsubsidized cleaner vehicles. Therefore in some places the LEZ is only enforced when public transport is available, or electric taxis or cargobikes are subsidized.  Transport & Environment is of the opinion that LEZ's should be gradually turned into zero-emission mobility zones and complement policies promoting a switch to clean alternatives, including walking and cycling, amongst others.  Most LEZ's which are not also congestion charge zones do not change the number of vehicles entering the zone: but some LEZ's (such as the one in Milan) double as congestion charge zones and thus have the potential to reduce the numbers travelling into the city.

A low-emission zone (LEZ) is a defined area where access by some polluting vehicles is restricted or deterred with the aim of improving the air quality. This may favour vehicles such as (certain) alternative fuel vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, and zero-emission vehicles such as all-electric vehicles.


Background.

The graphics processing unit (GPU), as a specialized computer processor, addresses the demands of real-time high-resolution 3D graphics compute-intensive tasks. By 2012, GPUs had evolved into highly parallel multi-core systems allowing very efficient manipulation of large blocks of data. This design is more effective than general-purpose central processing unit (CPUs) for algorithms in situations where processing large blocks of data is done in parallel, such as:

Programming abilities.

The CUDA platform is accessible to software developers through CUDA-accelerated libraries, compiler directives such as OpenACC, and extensions to industry-standard programming languages including C, C++ and Fortran. C/C++ programmers can use 'CUDA C/C++', compiled with "nvcc", Nvidia's LLVM-based C/C++ compiler. Fortran programmers can use 'CUDA Fortran', compiled with the PGI CUDA Fortran compiler from The Portland Group.  In addition to libraries, compiler directives, CUDA C/C++ and CUDA Fortran, the CUDA platform supports other computational interfaces, including the Khronos Group's OpenCL, Microsoft's DirectCompute, OpenGL Compute Shaders and C++ AMP. Third party wrappers are also available for Python, Perl, Fortran, Java, Ruby, Lua, Common Lisp, Haskell, R, MATLAB, IDL, Julia, and native support in Mathematica.  In the computer game industry, GPUs are used for graphics rendering, and for game physics calculations (physical effects such as debris, smoke, fire, fluids); examples include PhysX and Bullet. CUDA has also been used to accelerate non-graphical applications in computational biology, cryptography and other fields by an order of magnitude or more.  CUDA provides both a low level API (CUDA Driver API, non single-source) and a higher level API (CUDA Runtime API, single-source). The initial CUDA SDK was made public on 15 February 2007, for Microsoft Windows and Linux. Mac OS X support was later added in version 2.0, which supersedes the beta released February 14, 2008. CUDA works with all Nvidia GPUs from the G8x series onwards, including GeForce, Quadro and the Tesla line. CUDA is compatible with most standard operating systems. Nvidia states that programs developed for the G8x series will also work without modification on all future Nvidia video cards, due to binary compatibility.  CUDA 8.0 comes with the following libraries (for compilation & runtime, in alphabetical order):  CUDA 8.0 comes with these other software components:  CUDA 9.0-9.2 comes with these other components:  CUDA 10 comes with these other components:

Advantages.

CUDA has several advantages over traditional general-purpose computation on GPUs (GPGPU) using graphics APIs:

GPUs supported.

Supported CUDA level of GPU and card. See also at Nvidia:  '*' – OEM-only products

Version features and specifications.

Note: Any missing lines or empty entries do reflect some lack of information on that exact item.<br>  For more information see the article: and read Nvidia CUDA programming guide.

Example.

This example code in C++ loads a texture from an image into an array on the GPU:  texture<float, 2, cudaReadModeElementType> tex;  void foo()  } //end foo()  __global__ void kernel(float* odata, int height, int width) Below is an example given in Python that computes the product of two arrays on the GPU. The unofficial Python language bindings can be obtained from "PyCUDA".  import pycuda.compiler as comp import pycuda.driver as drv import numpy import pycuda.autoinit  mod = comp.SourceModule(""" __global__ void multiply_them(float *dest, float *a, float *b) """)  multiply_them = mod.get_function("multiply_them")  a = numpy.random.randn(400).astype(numpy.float32) b = numpy.random.randn(400).astype(numpy.float32)  dest = numpy.zeros_like(a) multiply_them(  print dest-a*b  Additional Python bindings to simplify matrix multiplication operations can be found in the program "pycublas". import numpy from pycublas import CUBLASMatrix A = CUBLASMatrix( numpy.mat(1,2,3],[4,5,6,numpy.float32) ) B = CUBLASMatrix( numpy.mat(2,3],[4,5],[6,7,numpy.float32) ) C = A*B print C.np_mat() while CuPy directly replaces NumPy: import cupy  a = cupy.random.randn(400) b = cupy.random.randn(400)  dest = cupy.zeros_like(a)  print(dest-a*b)

Benchmarks.

There are some open-source benchmarks containing CUDA codes

CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a parallel computing platform and application programming interface (API) model created by Nvidia. It allows software developers and software engineers to use a CUDA-enabled graphics processing unit (GPU) for general purpose processing an approach termed GPGPU (General-Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units). The CUDA platform is a software layer that gives direct access to the GPU's virtual instruction set and parallel computational elements, for the execution of compute kernels.


Comacini.

Their masons' marks have suggested arcane meanings for some enthusiasts. The name "comacini" Romantic historians of the nineteenth century traced to the location where they supposedly had their headquarters, the minute Isola Comacina in Lake Como, alleged to have been a safe haven during the Lombard invasion; a more inventive etymology derives from a supposed Latin expression "cum machinis", referring to their tools.  The first mention of Comacine masters was in an edict of 643 of the Lombard king Rothari, which concerned itself in Lombard fashion mainly with the indemnity that would be due should a house collapse which had been built by a "magister comacinus" for a patron "ad opera dictandi" ("commissioning the works"). The reference has been interpreted as granting certain privileges to "magistri comacini", but the context shows that modern readers are correct in interpreting the key word "comacini" simply as "masons". "Comacini" are also mentioned in a passage in the "Memoratorium" of Liutprand the Lombard.  The survival of brotherhoods of the "comacini" are based on the hypothesis that the Roman secrets of masonry construction were never utterly lost in Italy but were passed on by the mason brotherhoods, which were supposed to be among the numerous documented "collegii" in which workingmen joined together for mutual protection, fraternal banqueting and eventual support of their widows throughout the Roman Empire, sometimes associated together as masters of the "arcana" or "mysteries" of their craft. Each such confraternity was composed of men (never women) located in a single town, and was made up of men of a single craft or those worshipping a single deity, free, freedmen and slaves together, forming a bond very like the image of a city, always under the uneasy surveillance of officialdom. Such, it supposed, were the "comacini" whose geographical center in the Early Middle Ages originated in Lombardy, in Como and Pavia.  If mason's marks were the sign of the "comacini", then evidence of their work has been found in several parts of Europe, as far as the capitals of the crypt in the cathedral of Lund. The "Como-Pavian" architectural sculpture is recognized in the cathedral of Modena and its Torre della Ghirlandina, in central and southern Italy, west across Languedoc to Iberian Peninsula, across southern Germany as far as Hungary, and even in England.  In the Middle Ages, artists did not customarily sign their work, so to detect the work of this corporation, historians look to masons' marks inscribed in the stonework; in this way historians have traced comacine master's influence as far as Sweden and Syria. Freemasons claimed descent from the guilds of "comacini".  The efflorescence of a "Como-Pavian" school of sculptural decoration on pulpits and portals that surfaced in the area of Como in the late eleventh century and developed luxuriously to enrich facades in Pavia in the 1130s, then were disseminated more widely in the twelfth and thirteenth century, doubtless by travelling groups of artisans, is traditionally ascribed to a surfacing of a long-buried tradition of "comacini" sculptors, who were influenced by the animal interlaces of Lombard metalwork. In this "corrente comasca" that spread on the periphery of Romanesque and Early Gothic art, geometric interlaces are peopled with sleek monsters and figures that seem to synthesize some very disparate and distant influences: barbaric Longobard metalwork, Ottonian illuminations, Byzantine silk patterns, Islamic patterning, Coptic reliefs, have all been compared to the "Como-Pavian" current of sculpture. Another notable group of medieval stoneworkers were maestri Campionesi from Campione, not far from Como.

The Comacine masters ("magistri comacini") were early medieval Lombard stonemasons working in a region of excellent building stone who gave to Lombardy its preeminence in the stone architecture that preceded Romanesque style.


Early life.

Kreis played for the Gladiator Soccer Club in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, where his parents were among the pioneers who established this first premier/select club within the state. As a freshman at Burke High School in Omaha, Kreis was selected First Team All-State. He remains the only freshman selected to the first team. Following his freshman year, Kreis and his family moved to Mandeville, Louisiana, where he led Mandeville High School to several Class 5A state soccer tournaments, but never won a state title, losing to Lafayette High in the quarterfinals his senior year. While at Mandeville, he was also a standout performer for the Baton Rouge United Jags, a U-19 Select team that finished as national runner-up in 1991 and won the prestigious Capital Cup tournament in Washington, D.C. He played collegiately at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Club career.

Minor leagues.

In 1993, Kreis played during the summer for the Raleigh Flyers of the USISL. In the summer of 1994, he returned to Louisiana to play for the New Orleans Riverboat Gamblers, also of the USISL. After finishing his collegiate eligibility in 1994, Kreis signed his first professional contract with the Raleigh Flyers in the spring of 1995.

Dallas Burn.

On August 1, 1995, Kreis signed a contract with Major League Soccer as the league prepared for its inaugural season. Kreis was drafted forty-third overall by the Dallas Burn in the fifth round of the MLS Inaugural Draft. He scored the first goal in Burn history. In 1999, Kreis was the first American-born player to be named league MVP after he led the league in points and goals, and also registered the first 15-goal, 15-assist season in league history. The five-time all-star led his team in goals five times and in points four times.  On June 26, 2004, Kreis scored his eighty-ninth league goal against D.C. United, moving past Roy Lassiter to the top of the league's all-time goal-scoring chart. Kreis remained the MLS all time goalscoring leader for more than three years until Jaime Moreno surpassed his record on August 22, 2007. He ended his ninth MLS season with career totals of 91 goals and 65 assists for 247 points, plus added four goals and two assists in the playoffs. He remains Dallas' all-time leader in games played (247), goals (91), assists (65), and points (247).

Real Salt Lake.

On November 17, 2004, Kreis was traded to expansion team Real Salt Lake, becoming the first player in the club's history. Kreis scored the first goal in Salt Lake's history in its second match, a 3–1 loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy. In doing so, he became the first player in league history to do so for two different teams, as he scored the inaugural goal for Dallas in 1996 as well.  On August 13, 2005, he became the first player in MLS history to score 100 career league goals, during a 4–2 loss to the Kansas City Wizards. The achievement was unexpected from observers, especially out of a 1996 class that included other candidates like Eric Wynalda, Brian McBride, or Joe-Max Moore; Kreis had never been considered a particularly dangerous goalscorer and had only lead the league in scoring once, in 1999.  Kreis was left unprotected in the 2006 MLS Expansion Draft by Real Salt Lake and subsequently chosen by Toronto FC. He was reacquired by Salt Lake on November 17, 2006, with the club sending partial allocation money to Toronto in exchange.  He retired as a player on May 3, 2007, to take over as head coach, finishing with 108 career goals.

International career.

With only 14 international appearances, Kreis was never able to translate his club success into one with the U.S. national team. He received his first cap on August 30, 1996, against El Salvador at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Kreis scored his only international goal on September 8, 1999 in a 2–2 draw against Jamaica in Kingston.

Coaching career.

Real Salt Lake.

On May 3, 2007 Kreis retired from professional competition and was announced as the new head coach of Real Salt Lake, retiring as a player and taking over the coaching reins from John Ellinger. At the time of his hire, Kreis became the youngest active head coach in MLS at 34 years and 127 days. He led Real Salt Lake to its first-post season playoff appearance in 2008 and in 2009 he coached the team to its first MLS Cup championship. Kreis is the youngest coach in MLS history to win the MLS Cup. Following the 2009 MLS Cup win, Kreis would lead Real Salt Lake to playoff appearances in every subsequent season through 2013, including an appearance in the 2013 MLS Cup, which RSL lost to Sporting Kansas City in dramatic fashion on penalty kicks. Kreis also guided Real Salt Lake to a very good CONCACAF Champions League campaign in 2011. Real Salt Lake won Group A and made it all the way to the final, only to lose to 3-2 on aggregate to C.F. Monterrey.  Real Salt Lake signed Kreis to a contract extension on March 24, 2011 that kept him at the RSL helm through the 2013 season, after which he left RSL to become head coach of New York City FC. Real Salt Lake has retired Kreis' number 9 jersey from his playing days.

New York City FC.

On December 11, 2013, Kreis was announced as the first head coach of New York City FC, having reached the end of his contract at Real Salt Lake and declining an extension offer from RSL so he could take the New York City FC position. The move came just four days after he missed out on lifting his second MLS Cup with the Utah team, losing on penalty kicks to Sporting Kansas City. It was revealed in the announcement that his contract, starting on January 1, 2014, would see him begin by traveling to Manchester in England to familiarize himself with the set-up of franchise-owners Manchester City.  Kreis' inaugural season with NYCFC ended in disappointment. The club finished with a 10–17–7 record in the regular season placing 8th in the Eastern Conference, failing to make the 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs. He and the club parted ways on November 2, 2015.

Orlando City SC.

On July 19, 2016, Kreis was hired by Orlando City SC to replace outgoing inaugural coach Adrian Heath. At Orlando City, he reunited with two of his assistant coaches, Miles Joseph and C. J. Brown, and led the club to its first win in two months during his first game in charge.  On June 15, 2018, Kreis was released by Orlando City.

Inter Miami.

On 30 January 2019, Kreis was hired by Inter Miami to the team's Technical Department.

United States U-23.

On March 19, 2019, Kreis was named head coach of the United States men's national under-23 team.

Jason Clarence Kreis (born December 29, 1972) is an American soccer manager and former player who currently serves as head coach of USL League One club Fort Lauderdale CF and the United States U-23 team. He coached Orlando City SC in Major League Soccer and was previously an assistant coach under Jürgen Klinsmann for the United States men's national soccer team. Prior to that he was the head coach of New York City FC and Real Salt Lake.


Early life.

Gabriela von Habsburg was born in Luxembourg, the fourth child of the German politician Otto von Habsburg, head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and erstwhile heir apparent to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and Regina (née Prinzessin von Sachsen-Meiningen). She was baptised with the names Gabriela Maria Charlotte Felicitas Elisabeth Antonia. The name in her birth certificate is Gabriela von Österreich-Ungarn.  Gabriela von Habsburg was raised at her parents' home in exile, Villa Austria, in Pöcking, Bavaria. As a result of the Habsburgs' banishment from Austria, she feels that she grew up devoid of any sense of pride of country and thus identifies as European. She believes that her dynasty's role in history shaped her upbringing, noting that her family "never spoke about anything at mealtimes except politics". A granddaughter of the last Austrian emperor, Charles I, she does not use the traditional Habsburg-Lorraine titles ("Princess Imperial and Archduchess of Austria, Princess Royal of Hungary and Bohemia", with the style of Imperial and Royal Highness).  After graduating in 1976, Gabriela von Habsburg studied philosophy for two years at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. From 1978 to 1982, she studied art at the Munich Academy of Arts with Robert Jacobsen and Eduardo Paolozzi.

Career.

Since 2001, she has been an art professor at the Academy of Arts of Tbilisi, Georgia while also teaching at the Summer Academy of Arts in Neuburg an der Donau, Germany until 2005. She found the creativity and cheerfulness of her students in the face of the adversity then prevalent in Georgia inspiring. During her tenure there she was granted Georgian citizenship. Her five hectare vineyard in Georgia produces wine.  In November 2009, Georgia appointed Gabriela von Habsburg as its ambassador to Germany, and since March 2011 she has maintained a flat in Berlin. Believing that Georgian history served as a crucible for European culture, she has maintained that the liberalizing reforms of President Mikheil Saakashvili have been welcome and invigorating for Georgia's people and economy, which has prompted her to work for Georgia's membership in the European Market. She was dismissed from her position in January 2013, after the change of government in Georgia in October 2012.  Since March 2010 Gabriela von Habsburg has represented Georgia at the International Council of the Austrian Service Abroad.

Marriage and children.

On 30 August 1978, in Pöcking, Bavaria, Gabriela was married civilly and on 5 September 1978 religiously at Mont Sainte-Odile to Christian Meister (born 1 September 1954 in Starnberg), a German attorney, son of Karl Meister and Johanna Sponheim. They divorced in 1997 and the marriage was annulled canonically. Gabriela was the only one of her parents' seven children to marry a spouse who had neither a title nor an aristocratic name. They had three children and four grandchildren:

Honours.

Dynastic honours.

Gabriela von Habsburg-Lothringen is sometimes referred to as "Archduchess of Austria", a reference to the defunct familial title of her grandfather, but says that "I do not like my family titles. Whatever you inherit, you haven’t done anything for".

Literature.

Gabriela von Habsburg. Sculpture (English version) By Prof. Mathias Frehner and Prof. Carla Schulz-Hofmann Bucher GmbH & Co. Druck Verlag Netzwerk; (22. Oktober 2007) Gabriela von Habsburg.Skulpturen (German version)

Gabriela von Habsburg (born 14 October 1956) is an abstract sculptor, working mainly in stainless steel as well as stone-printed lithography. She was the ambassador of Georgia to Germany from 2009 to 2013. She is the granddaughter of Charles I, the last emperor of Austria.


Army career.

Born the son of the Reverend Henry Hardinge, Rector of Stanhope, and Frances Hardinge (née Best) and educated at Durham School and Sevenoaks School, Hardinge entered the British Army on 23 July 1799 as an ensign in the Queen's Rangers, a corps then stationed in Upper Canada. He was promoted to lieutenant by purchase in the 4th Regiment of Foot on 27 March 1802 and transferred to the 1st Regiment of Foot on 11 July 1803 before becoming a captain of a company by purchase in the 57th Regiment of Foot on 21 April 1804. In February 1806 he was sent to the newly formed Staff College at High Wycombe.  He saw action at the Battle of Roliça on 17 August 1808, at the Battle of Vimeiro on 21 August 1808, where he was wounded, and at Corunna on 16 January 1809 where he was by the side of Sir John Moore when the latter was killed. He was promoted to major on 13 April 1809 and appointed deputy-quartermaster-general in the Portuguese army and was present at many of the battles of the Peninsular War. Promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1811, he saved the day for the British at Battle of Albuera on 16 May 1811 by taking responsibility at a critical moment and strongly urging General Cole's division to advance. He took part in the Battle of Vitoria on 21 June 1813, where he was wounded again, and was also present at the Battle of the Pyrenees in July 1813 and the Battle of Nivelle on 10 November 1813. He commanded the Portuguese brigade at the Battle of Orthez on 27 February 1814 and the Battle of Toulouse on 10 April 1814. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in January 1815.  When war broke out again in 1815 after Napoleon's escape from Elba, Hardinge returned to active service as a brigadier. Attached to the staff of the allied Prussian Army under Marshal Blucher, he was present at the Battle of Ligny on 16 June 1815, where he lost his left hand by a shot, and thus was not present at Waterloo two days later. Wellington presented him with a sword that had belonged to Napoleon. Hardinge remained attached to the Prussian army of occupation in France until 1818.  He was promoted to brevet colonel on 19 July 1821 and to major-general on 22 July 1830.

Political service.

In 1820 Hardinge was returned to parliament as member for Durham. On 4 April 1823 he was appointed Clerk of the Ordnance and on 9 June 1828 he accepted the office of Secretary at War in Wellington's ministry. Returned as Member of Parliament for St Germans in 1830, for Newport in 1831 and for Launceston in 1832, he served as Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1830 and 1834 to 1835. He was Secretary at War once again in Sir Robert Peel's cabinet from 1841 to 1844. He was promoted to lieutenant-general in 1841.  In May 1844 he succeeded Lord Ellenborough as Governor-General of India. He was advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on 1 July 1844. Following the death of Maharajah Ranjit Singh tribal war broke out and the first Sikh War ensued in 1845. Hardinge, waiving his right to the supreme command, offered to serve as second in command under Sir Hugh Gough. At the Battle of Mudki on 18 December 1845 Gough commanded the right flank and Hardinge commanded the left flank. After further British successes at the Battle of Sobraon on 10 February 1846, the Battle of Ferozeshah on 21 December 1845 and the Battle of Aliwal on 28 January 1846, Hardinge concluded the campaign with the Treaty of Lahore with Maharajah Duleep Singh on 9 March 1846 and the Treaty of Amritsar with Maharajah Gulab Singh on 16 March 1846. He was created Viscount Hardinge of Lahore and of King's Newton in Derbyshire on 7 April 1846.  Recognising an annuity of £5000 being paid by the East India Company, Parliament provided that Viscount Hardinge should continue to receive his full salary as Governor General. Under a subsequent Act, in recognition of his "great and brilliant services", Parliament settled an annuity of £3000 on Lord Hardinge and the next two heirs male of his body, although this was not to be paid if the East India Company paid an annuity.

Commander-in-Chief.

Hardinge returned to England in 1848, and became Master-General of the Ordnance on 5 March 1852; he succeeded the Duke of Wellington as commander-in-chief of the British Army on 28 September 1852. While in this position he had responsibility for the direction of the Crimean War, which he endeavoured to conduct on Wellington's principles — a system not altogether suited to the changed mode of warfare. He was promoted to brevet general on 20 June 1854 and field marshal on 2 October 1855. A commission was set up to investigate the failings of the British military during the Crimean campaign. As Hardinge was delivering the report of the commission to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, he collapsed with a stroke. Albert helped him to a sofa, where despite being paralysed on one side, he continued to deliver his report, apologizing for the interruption.  He was also colonel of the 97th Regiment of Foot from 4 March 1833 and of the 57th Regiment of Foot from 31 May 1843.  Hardinge resigned his office of commander-in-chief in July 1856, owing to failing health, and died on 24 September 1856 at South Park near Tunbridge Wells. There is a memorial to him at St John the Baptist, Penshurst. He is buried in the churchyard at St. Peter, Fordcombe.

Family.

In 1821 he married Lady Emily Jane, seventh daughter of Robert Stewart, 1st Marquess of Londonderry. His elder son, Charles Stewart (1822–1894), who had been his private secretary in India, was the 2nd Viscount Hardinge. The younger son of the 2nd Viscount, Charles Hardinge (b. 1858), became a prominent diplomat, and was appointed Viceroy of India in 1910, being created Baron Hardinge of Penshurst.

Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge, (30 March 1785 – 24 September 1856) was a British Army officer and politician. After serving in the Peninsula War and the Waterloo Campaign he became Secretary at War in Wellington's ministry. After a tour as Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1830 he became Secretary at War again in Sir Robert Peel's cabinet. He went on to be Governor-General of India at the time of the First Anglo-Sikh War and then Commander-in-Chief of the Forces during the Crimean War.


Benefits.

"Manufacturing Execution Systems [help] create flawless manufacturing processes and provide real-time feedback of requirement changes", and provide information at a single source. Other benefits from successful MES implementation might include:

MES.

A wide variety of systems arose using collected data for a dedicated purpose. Further development of these systems during the 1990s introduced overlap in functionality. Then the Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association (MESA) introduced some structure by defining 11 functions that set the scope of MES. In 2000, the ANSI/ISA-95 standard merged this model with the Purdue Reference Model (PRM).  A functional hierarchy was defined in which MES were situated at Level 3 between ERP at Level 4 and process control at Levels 0, 1, 2. With the publication of the third part of the standard in 2005, activities in Level 3 were divided over four main operations: production, quality, logistics and maintenance.  Between 2005 and 2013, additional or revised parts of the ANSI/ISA-95 standard defined the architecture of an MES into more detail, covering how to internally distribute functionality and what information to exchange internally as well as externally.

Functional areas.

Over the years, international standards and models have refined the scope of such systems in terms of activities. These typically include:.

Relationship with other systems.

MES integrates with ISA-95 (previous Purdue Reference Model, “95”) with multiple relationships.

Relationship with other Level 3 systems.

The collection of systems acting on the ISA-95 Level 3 can be called manufacturing operations management systems (MOMS). Apart from an MES, there are typically laboratory information management system (LIMS), warehouse management system (WMS) and computerized maintenance management system (CMMS). From the MES point of view possible information flows are:

Relationship with Level 4 systems.

Examples of systems acting on ISA-95 Level 4 are product lifecycle management (PLM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), human resource management (HRM), process development execution system (PDES). From the MES point of view possible information flows are:  In many cases, middleware enterprise application integration (EAI) systems are being used to exchange transaction messages between MES and Level 4 systems. A common data definition, B2MML, has been defined within the ISA-95 standard to link MES systems to these Level 4 systems.

Relationship with Level 0, 1, 2 systems.

Systems acting on ISA-95 Level 2 are supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), programmable logic controllers (PLC), distributed control systems (DCS) and batch automation systems (BAS). Information flows between MES and these process control systems are roughly similar:  Most MES systems include connectivity as part of their product offering. Direct communication of plant floor equipment data is established by connecting to the PLC. Often, plant floor data is first collected and diagnosed for real-time control in a DCS or SCADA system. In this case, the MES systems connect to these Level 2 systems for exchanging plant floor data.  Until recently, the industry standard for plant floor connectivity has been OLE for Process Control (OPC), but it is now moving to OPC Unified Architecture (OPC-UA); meaning that OPC-UA compatible systems will not necessarily run only on Microsoft Windows environment, but will also be able to run on GNU/Linux or other embedded systems, decreasing the cost of SCADA systems, and rendering them more open with robust security.

Manufacturing execution systems (MES) are computerized systems used in manufacturing to track and document the transformation of raw materials to finished goods. MES provides information that helps manufacturing decision makers understand how current conditions on the plant floor can be optimized to improve production output. MES works in real time to enable the control of multiple elements of the production process (e.g. inputs, personnel, machines and support services).


Geography.

Guria is bordered by Samegrelo to the north-west, Imereti to the north, Samtskhe-Javakheti to the east, Ajaria to the south, and the Black Sea to the west. The province has an area of 2,033 km2.  Guria is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and longitude.

Subdivisions.

Guria is divided into 4 entities (3 municipalities and 1 city), including :

History.

The toponym "Guria" is first attested in the c. 800 Georgian chronicle of Pseudo-Juansher.  Guria first appears c. 1352 as a fief of the house of Vardanidze-Dadiani; and after 1463 it became a sovereign principality independent of the Kingdom of Georgia under a branch of that house, known thereafter by the name of Gurieli. The principality, comprising modern Guria and much of Adjara with the city of Batumi, was subsequently reduced in size and devastated in a series of conflicts with the Ottoman Empire. A Russian protectorate was established by the treaty concluded on June 19, 1810 between Mamia V Gurieli and the empire, and in 1829, during the regency for the last prince, the Gurieli David, the principality was annexed by Russia.  There were uprisings against Russian rule in 1819 and again in 1841. In 1840, Guria was made a county ("uyezd") and renamed Ozurgeti, after one of its main towns. In 1846, it was transferred to the new Kutais Governorate. By 1904, the population was just under 100,000, occupying an area of approximately of mountains and swampy valleys, covered by corn fields, vineyards, and some tea plantations. It was the most ethnically homogenous of Georgian areas, with the peasantry and lesser rural nobility making up almost the entire population, with a high level of literacy and relatively high degree of economic self-satisfaction. The peasant protest movement, which originated in 1902 and culminated in an open insurrection against the government during the Russian Revolution of 1905, was the most effective and organized peasant movement in the empire. The peasants’ self-government, the so-called Gurian Republic, survived into 1906, when it was crashed and Guria devastated by the Cossack punitive expedition. The region was a native powerbase of the Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party which dominated the Democratic Republic of Georgia from 1918 to 1921. Guria was a scene of guerrilla resistance to the militarily imposed Soviet rule early in the 1920s. Under the Soviet government, Guria was an agrarian area divided into three administrative districts. In 1995, the Georgian government decreed the creation of the region ("mkhare") of Guria, restoring the province's historical name to official usage.  The Orthodox churches of Likhauri and Shemokmedi are the main historical buildings in the province.

Origin of the name "Guria".

As for the etymology of the name of Guria, some say that the root of the word refers to restlessness and the word should mean “the land of the restless” and may be associated with events during the eighth and ninth centuries when “Leon became the King of Abkhazeti, Guruls refused to obey the ruler of Odzrakho, ceased their vassal relations with Adarnase and Ashot Bagrationi and united with Leon” as it was described in Vakhushti Bagrationi’s historical works of the eighteenth century.  According to a later explanation, in the times of Georgia’s prosperity, when its borders stretched from "Nikopsia to Daruband", Guria was situated in the heart of the Georgian territory. The linguistic evidence for the above hypothesis is the Megrelian for “heart” – “guri”.

Economy.

Subtropic farming and tourism are a mainstay of the region's economy. Water is one of Guria's main assets. The province is famous for the mineral water of Nabeglavi, which is similar to Borjomi in its chemical composition, and the Black Sea health resort of Ureki, which is rich in magnetic sand. Guria is also one of the largest tea growing regions in Georgia.

Demographics.

Ethnic and religious groups.

According to the 2014 census, Guria has a population of 113.000 inhabitants, which accounts for 3.1% of the total population of Georgia. 98% of the population is ethnic Georgian (mostly native "Gurians"), 1% is ethnic Armenian and the remaining 1% is composed of Ossetians and Russians and the majority of the population is Orthodox Christians (86%), followed by Islam.

Gurians.

The Gurians or Gurulebi (Georgian: გურულები) is one of the ethnographical groups of Georgians, inhabiting Guria. Gurians are Orthodox Christian and speak the Gurian dialect of the Georgian language.

Politics.

Administration.

The administration centre is Ozurgeti. There are 189 populated areas, including :

Governors.

To date, the following politicians have held the office of Governor of Guria:

Guria () is a region ("mkhare") in Georgia, in the western part of the country, bordered by the eastern end of the Black Sea. The region has a population of 113,000 (2016), with Ozurgeti as the regional capital.


History.

The founder of the library, Cardinal Jules Raymond Mazarin (1602-1661), was born Giulio Ramondo Mazzarino in Pescina in the Kingdom of Naples, into a noble but poor family. He went into the church, studied at the Jesuit College in Rome, though he declined to join their order. He went into the Papal service, where he became known for his diplomatic, political and military skills, and was assigned as a nuncio to the French Court from 1634 to 1636. His talents brought him to the elder Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister of Louis XIII, who made him a member of the council of State of the King. When he came from Rome to Paris, he brought with him an impressive library of five thousand books which he had kept in his palace on mont Quirinal in Rome.  With the death of Louis XIII in 1643, he became the new Prime Minister, with the support of the Queen, Anne of Austria. He immediately began constructing a palace for himself on rue de Richelieu in Paris, with an enormous chamber fifty-eight meters long designed especially to house his library. Visitors, including Frederick III, the King of Denmark, came from around Europe to see his library, and to model their own royal libraries after his. Between 1642 and 1653, Mazarin's librarian, Gabriel Naudé, traveled to Italy, Switzerland, Germany, England and Holand, buying entire libraries for Mazarin's collection, making it the largest library in Europe at the time, with forty thousand volumes.  The library nearly came to an end in January and February 1652 with the outbreak of the "Fronde", an uprising by several powerful nobles against the authority of Mazarin. Mazarin and the young King were forced to flee Paris. The palace was looted and thousands of books were burned, lost or sold. Fortunately Naudé succeeded in hiding the most valuable volumes in his apartment in the Abbey of Saint-Genevieve. When Mazarin was finally able to return to Paris and to power in 1653, Naudé was able to get back many of the books which had been sold or stolen.  He then began a second library with what was left of the first, assisted by the successor to Naudé, François de La Poterie. Since 1643, Mazarin had opened his library to scholars. It was open on Thursdays, and each week some eighty to one hundred came to do research. By the 1660s, the library held 25,000 volumes. The collection was matched by only three other libraries in Europe; the Bodleian Library of Oxford; the Ambrosian Library in Milan and the Angelique Library in Rome.  After his experience with the Fronde, Mazarin wanted to assure that his library remained intact after his death. In his will written March 6, 1661, three days before his death, he bequeathed his library to the Collège des Quatre-Nations a new college of the University of Paris that he founded for the sons of noble families from four provinces recently added to France. The new library building was constructed on the exact site of the medieval Tour de Nesle, or Nesle Tower, on the banks of the Seine. On the fronton is the inscription in Latin: "Bibliotheca a fundatore mazarinea" (Library founded by Mazarin). The original bookcases of his library, decorated with carved Corinthian columns and with the coat of arms of the Cardinal, were moved to the new location in the east wing of the College, along rue de Richelieu. The new library opened for Easter in 1689.  The library continued to grow during the 18th century, from 36,000 volumes in 1730 to 50,000 in 1771. The French Revolution did no harm to the collection, and in fact greatly increased its size; the librarian, Gaspard Michel, bought books which had been confiscated from monasteries and from nobles who had gone into exile, and increased the collection to more than 60,000 volumes. He also collected works of art, mostly from the 17th and 18th centuries, gilded bronze chandeliers, Louis XVI commodes, a globe of the heavens by Gastellier from 1694, and other objects which decorate the reading room today.  In 1805, under Napoleon I, The Collège des Quatre-Nations became the Palace of the Institut de France, the headquarters of the French scholarly and scientific academies. Since that time the Library has received donations of numerous large collections, and since 1926 has also been the depository of publications relating to the history of the regions of France.

The Collections.

The library today contains about 600,000 volumes. The oldest part of the collection, brought together by Mazarin, contains about 200,000 volumes on all subjects. The more modern collections specialize in French history, particularly religious and literary history of the Middle Ages (12th-15th centuries) and the 16th and 17th centuries. Other specialities are the history of the book and the local and regional history of France.  Among the library's collection of 2,370 incunabula is a Gutenberg Bible known as the "Bible Mazarine". The original is kept in a vault, while a facsimile copy is on display in the reading room.  The manuscript collection of Mazarin comes from an exchange made in 1668 with the Royal Library of France (now the National Library of France. The collection now contains 4 600 manuscripts, including 1,500 medieval manuscripts, many of which are illuminated, which were largely confiscated from French nobles after the French Revolution. It also has the most important collection of the Mazarinade, a type of political tract from the period of the Fronde.  In the 19th and 20th centuries the library received donations of important collections, including the archives of Pierre-Antoine Lebrun, Joseph Tastu, Arsène Thiébaut de Berneaud; and the library and archives of the scientists Albert Demangeon and of Aimé Perpillou (geography); the library of Marcel Chatillon (History of the Antilles) and a part of the archives of the Chevalier de Paravey (voyages); of Jean-Jacques Ampère (Nordic civilizations) and of Prosper Faugère (Pascal and Jansenism).

Access.

The Library is located at 23 quai de Conti. It is open to the public every day except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 10:00 until 18:00. it is closed each summer from August 1 until August 15.

The Bibliothèque Mazarine, or Mazarin Library, is located within the Palais de l'institut de France, or the Palace of the Institute of France (previously the Collège des Quatre-Nations of the University of Paris), at 23 quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement, on the Left Bank of the Seine facing the Pont des Arts and the Louvre. Originally created by Cardinal Mazarin as his personal library in the 17th century, it today has one of the richest collections of rare books and manuscripts in France, and is the oldest public library in the country.


History.

Séverin of Paris, a devout hermit, lived on the banks of the River Seine during the first half of the fifth century. The oratory which was built over his tomb became the site of a small Romanesque church which was built around the eleventh century. As a result of the rapidly expanding community on the Left Bank, it was decided a larger church was required. The new structure, built at the beginning of the thirteenth century in the Gothic style, had a nave with lateral aisles. An additional aisle on the south side was built in the early 14th century to accommodate the growing congregations from the nearby university. After the church was seriously damaged by fire in 1448 during the Hundred Years' War, the archpriest Guillaume d'Estouteville rebuilt the church in the Late-Gothic style, adding a new aisle to the north. In 1489, a semi-circular apse was added at the eastern end with an ambulatory complete with columns including the strangely coiled central pillar. Additional space was provided by constructing chapels along the outer aisles. After their completion in 1520, the church took on the general appearance it still has today. In 1643, a second sacristy was added and in 1673, the royal architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart built the Communion chapel on the church's southeast corner. In 1684, the decorator Charles le Brun modified the design of the choir, removing the rood screen and providing the apse columns with marble facing.

Exterior.

The church's external features include some fine gargoyles and flying buttresses. Its bells include the oldest one remaining in Paris, cast in 1412; their ringing is recalled in a well known poem in praise of Paris by Alan Seeger.  There is a flamboyant rose window above the west entrance. The large Gothic portal under the bell tower was transferred from the church of St-Pierre-aux-boeufs which was demolished to create a new street. Its relief depicts St. Martin dividing his cloak.

Interior.

Internal features of the church include both ancient stained glass and a set of seven modern windows by Jean René Bazaine (1970), inspired by the seven sacraments of the Catholic church, around the ambulatory. The deambulatory also includes an unusual pillar in the form of the trunks of a palm tree, that brings to mind the Apprentice Pillar at Rosslyn Chapel. The construction of the marble choir was made possible by donations from Anne, Duchess of Montpensier, a cousin of Louis XIV. The organ is signed Jean Ferrand.  Until 1790 Saint-Severin was the seat of the southern archdeaconry of the pre-revolutionary diocese of Paris. In the late nineteenth century the writer Joris-Karl Huysmans frequented and popularised the church. At Michaelmas 1956 it was the scene of a demonstration by Christian conscripts against the war in Algeria. In the years leading up to the Second Vatican Council Saint-Severin was known for the style of its worship arising from the Liturgical Movement.  Recent curés have included  The address of the church is 3, rue des Prêtres Saint-Séverin, 75005 Paris, France.

The Church of Saint-Séverin (French: "Église Saint-Séverin") is a Roman Catholic church in the Latin Quarter of Paris, located on the lively tourist street Rue Saint-Séverin. It is one of the oldest churches that remains standing on the Left Bank, and it continues in use as a place of worship. It was on this burial ground that the first recorded surgery for gallstones was performed in 1451 by Germanus Collot.


Early life.

Princess Beatrice was born on 20 April 1884 at Eastwell Park, Kent. Her father was Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort. Her mother was Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, the only surviving daughter of Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine. She was called "Baby Bee" by her family.  She was baptised at Eastwell House on 17 May 1884 by the Revd William Lloyd (her father's chaplain); her godparents were Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom (her paternal aunt), the Duchess of Albany (her paternal uncle's wife, represented by her mother), and William I, German Emperor (represented by her father).  Beatrice spent much of her early years in Malta, where her father was serving in the Royal Navy. Along with her elder sister Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of their paternal cousins the Duke and Duchess of York (the future King George V and Queen Mary) on 6 July 1893.  On the death of Prince Alfred's uncle, Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, on 22 August 1893, the duchy was inherited by the Duke of Edinburgh, since the Prince of Wales, the Duke's elder brother and future King Edward VII, had renounced his right to the succession. The Duke and Duchess, with their five surviving children, travelled shortly afterwards to Coburg to take up residence.

Marriage prospects.

In 1902, Princess Beatrice had a romance with Russian Grand Duke Michael, the younger brother of Tsar Nicholas II, and at that time the heir presumptive to the Imperial Throne. She began receiving letters from him in September 1902 and, although he was a Russian Grand Duke and she now a German Princess, they corresponded in English, and he nicknamed her "Sima". However she was prevented from marrying the Grand Duke as the Russian Orthodox Church forbade the marriage of first cousins. Although such marriages had been allowed previously in the House of Romanov (Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna, whose hand was denied to Napoleon I, was twice allowed to wed first cousins; her descendants became the Russian branch of the Dukes of Oldenburg), the devout Nicholas II, official head of Russia's church, refused to relax the rules for the sake of his brother.  In November 1903, Michael wrote to Beatrice telling her that he could not marry her. The situation was aggravated by a letter Beatrice then received from her elder sister Victoria Melita ("Ducky"), in which Michael was blamed for having callously initiated the doomed romance (when, a couple of years later Ducky, having divorced her first cousin Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, was told that remarriage to another first cousin, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, would likewise be forbidden by the Tsar, she refused to take no for an answer; the couple eloped into exile). The humiliated Beatrice was sent to Egypt to recover from heartbreak, but pined and wrote reproachful letters to Michael until 1905.  Beatrice was then rumoured to be intending to marry Alfonso XIII of Spain, but this proved to be a false rumour also as he married her cousin Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg in 1906. It was at their wedding that Beatrice met a cousin of King Alfonso, Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón (12 November 1886 Madrid, Spain – 10 August 1975), Infante of Spain, 5th Duke of Galliera. The Spanish government objected to an "infante"s proposed match with a British Princess who, unlike Queen Victoria Eugenie, had not agreed to convert to Roman Catholicism: the King was obliged to make clear that, should the wedding take place, the couple would have to live in exile.  Nonetheless, Beatrice and Alfonso married in a Roman Catholic and Lutheran ceremony at Coburg on 15 July 1909. The couple settled in Coburg until, in 1912, Alfonso and Beatrice were allowed to return to Spain and his rank of "Infante" was restored.  In August 1913, Beatrice was received into the Roman Catholic Church.

Scandal and exile.

During King Alfonso XIII's unhappy marriage, he had numerous affairs and dalliances, some of which produced illegitimate children. He allegedly also made advances toward Princess Beatrice, which she rebuffed. The King expelled her and her husband from Spain, under the pretext of sending Infante Alfonso on a mission to Switzerland. At the same time, the King's circle of friends, who despised both Beatrice and Queen Ena, started to spread malicious rumours, saying that Beatrice had been expelled because of her bad behaviour, which was not true.  The couple had three sons:

Civil War.

The family moved to England, where their three sons were educated at Winchester College. The Spanish royal family eventually relented, and Beatrice and her family were allowed to return to Spain where they established their home at an estate in Sanlúcar de Barrameda.  The 1930s were an unhappy time for the family, as the collapse of the Spanish monarchy and the subsequent civil war led to the loss of much of the family's wealth. After the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, King Alfonso and his family fled into exile in Italy. In the years that followed, the political situation in Spain worsened as various groups wrestled for power. By the late-1930s, the conflicts had erupted into all-out civil war. Beatrice and Alfonso lost their estate during the war and the couple's middle son, Alonso, was killed fighting for the fascist forces.

Later life.

Beatrice died at her estate of El Botánico in Sanlúcar de Barrameda on 13 July 1966. Her husband survived her by nine years. Their son Ataulfo died, unmarried, in 1974. Their only grandchildren are the children of Prince Alvaro.  At the time of her death, Beatrice was the last surviving child of Prince Alfred and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna.

Arms.

Beatrice's arms in Britain were the royal arms, with an inescutcheon of the shield of Saxony, differenced with a label argent of five points, the central bearing a cross gules, the four others anchors azure. In 1917, the inescutcheon was dropped by royal warrant from King George V. This did not affect her Saxon arms.

Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Beatrice Leopoldine Victoria; 20 April 1884 – 13 July 1966) was a member of the British royal family, a male-line granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She later married into the Spanish royal family, and was the wife of Prince Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón, Infante of Spain, a first cousin of Alfonso XIII of Spain.


History.

On 26 December 2003, during an AATW demonstration near the village of Mas'ha, the Israeli Defense Forces shot and wounded Gil Na'amati, an anarchist and former paratrooper. Shots were fired after demonstrators started to shake the locked gate in the fence. Video clips of that incident were shown on all Israeli TV channels.  On 12 March 2004, during a demonstration against the Wall at the village of Kharbatha, Itay Levinsky was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet.  On April 3 Jonathan Pollak was shot in the head with a tear gas canister from an M16, at a distance of approximately thirty meters, at a protest against the Wall in the West Bank village of Bil'in, leaving him with internal brain hemorrhaging and a wound requiring 23 stitches.  In February 2006, Matan Cohen, a 17-year-old member of Anarchists Against The Wall, was shot with rubber bullets by Israeli soldiers during a demonstration in Beit Sira village. Cohen, whose left eye was injured, later told reporters, "My feeling is that the blood of left-wing activists and the Palestinians is cheap." Three soldiers and Border Police officers were injured by rocks thrown at them, and one police officer was taken to hospital.  On August 11, in the midst of the 2006 war in Lebanon, marked the most severe injury to an Israeli activist yet. During a demonstration against the wall in Bil'in, an Israeli border police officer shot Limor Goldstein in the head with a rubber coated steel bullet from a distance of 10 to 20 meters. Shooting rubber bullets from such a short distance is prohibited and video evidence indicates that the shot was unprovoked. With border police officers at the scene initially refusing to provide medical treatment to his injury, or let others treat him properly, it took two hours to complete the evacuation.  Goldstein, who suffered brain damage, later told a "Haaretz" reporter: "I'm not depressed, but I feel an ongoing helplessness and disorientation. I have nightmares in which I relive what happened.”  AAtW issued a call for support in July 2007, owing more than $40,000 in expense for over 60 indictments.  A collection of writings by activists in the group appeared in 2013.

Political position.

Anarchists Against the Wall, along with Ta'ayush, main political support comes from Arab parties and the extreme left. It openly opposes the state and activists routinely break the law as they consider the government's decision to be illegal according to international law and therefore illegitimate.

Anarchists Against the Wall (AAtW), () sometimes called "Anarchists Against Fences" or "Jews Against Ghettos", is a direct action group composed of Israeli anarchists and anti-authoritarians who oppose the construction of the Israeli Gaza Strip barrier and Israeli West Bank barrier.