Early life.

Thomas Cook was born on 22 November 1808, to John and Elizabeth Cook, who lived at 9 Quick Close in the village of Melbourne, Derbyshire.  At the age of 10, Cook started working as an assistant to a local market gardener for a wage of six pence a week. When he was 14, he secured an apprenticeship with his uncle John Pegg, and spent five years as a cabinet maker.  Cook was brought up as a strict Baptist. In February 1826, he became a Baptist missionary and toured the region as a village evangelist, distributing pamphlets and occasionally working as a cabinet maker to earn money.  In 1832, Cook moved to Adam and Eve Street in Market Harborough. Influenced by the local Baptist minister Francis Beardsall, he took the temperance pledge on New Year's Day in 1833. As a part of the temperance movement, he organised meetings and held anti-liquor processions.  On 2 March 1833, Cook married Marianne Mason (1807–1884) at Barrowden in Rutland. A son, John Mason Cook, was born on 13 January 1834. Thomas Cook died at Thorncroft, Knighton, Leicester, on 18 July 1892, having been afflicted with blindness in his declining years. He was buried with his wife and daughter at Welford Road Cemetery, Leicester.

Cook's first excursions.

Cook's idea to offer excursions came to him while "walking from Market Harborough to Leicester to attend a meeting of the Temperance Society". With the opening of the extended Midland Counties Railway, he arranged to take a group of temperance campaigners from Leicester Campbell Street railway station to a teetotal rally in Loughborough, eleven miles away. On 5 July 1841, Thomas Cook escorted around 500 people, who paid one shilling each for the return train journey, on his first excursion. On 4 August 1845 he arranged for a party to travel from Leicester to Liverpool. In 1846, he took 350 people from Leicester on a tour of Scotland. In 1851 he arranged for 150,000 people to travel to the Great Exhibition in London. Four years later, he planned his first excursion abroad, when he took two groups on a 'grand circular tour' of Belgium, Germany and France, ending in Paris for the Exhibition.  The Thomas Cook statue outside Leicester Railway Station, London Road, Leicester was unveiled on 14 January 1994 by his great-great-grandson Thomas Cook. It was sculpted by James Walter Butler RA.  He was awarded Serbian Order of Saint Sava.

Thomas Cook & Son.

Thomas Cook acquired business premises on Fleet Street, London in 1865. The office also contained a shop which sold essential travel accessories, including guide books, luggage, telescopes and footwear. In 1872, he formed a partnership with his son, John Mason Andrew Cook, and renamed the travel agency as "Thomas Cook & Son".  In accordance with his beliefs, he and his wife also ran a small temperance hotel above the office. Their business model was refined by the introduction of the 'hotel coupon' in 1868. Detachable coupons in a counterfoil book were issued to the traveller. These were valid for either a restaurant meal or an overnight hotel stay provided they were on Cook's list.  Conflicts between father and son were resolved when the son persuaded his father, Thomas Cook, to retire at the end of 1878. He moved back to Leicester and lived quietly until his death in 1892.

Legacy – Thomas Cook and mass tourism.

Thomas Cook was a frontrunner of establishing tourism systems and thus made mass tourism possible in Italy. First, the circular tickets could be used on almost all Italian railways. These tickets allowed travel by train for a preset number of days along predetermined routes. Second, Cook designed a series of hotel coupons to complement circular tickets, which could be exchanged for lodging and meals at designated accommodations. Last, he introduced the circular notes which could be changed at designated hotels, banks, and tickets agents for Italian lira at a predetermined exchange rate. Cook's introduction of tourism-specific currency facilitated easier and effective trips within Italy. Also, by introducing a widely dispersed coupon system, Cook "helped to stabilize the burgeoning Italian economy not only by increasing the revenues from tourism but also by expanding the circulation of Italy's new currency, the lira." The coupon system spread rapidly and was well accepted throughout Italian cities. Furthermore, thanks to this system, middle class Italians could afford to travel more frequently and more easily.

Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) was an English businessman. He is best known for founding the travel agency Thomas Cook & Son.


Statement of the test.

Consider an integer and a non-negative function defined on the unbounded interval, on which it is monotone decreasing. Then the infinite series  converges to a real number if and only if the improper integral  is finite. In other words, if the integral diverges, then the series diverges as well.

Remark.

If the improper integral is finite, then the proof also gives the lower and upper bounds  for the infinite series.

Proof.

The proof basically uses the comparison test, comparing the term with the integral of over the intervals  Since is a monotone decreasing function, we know that  and  Hence, for every integer,  and, for every integer,  By summation over all from to some larger integer, we get from ()  and from ()  Combining these two estimates yields  Letting tend to infinity, the bounds in () and the result follow.

Applications.

The harmonic series diverges because, using the natural logarithm, its antiderivative, and the fundamental theorem of calculus, we get Contrary, the series converges for every, because by the power rule From () we get the upper estimate which can be compared with some of the particular values of Riemann zeta function.

Borderline between divergence and convergence.

The above examples involving the harmonic series raise the question, whether there are monotone sequences such that decreases to 0 faster than but slower than in the sense that for every, and whether the corresponding series of the still diverges. Once such a sequence is found, a similar question can be asked with taking the role of, and so on. In this way it is possible to investigate the borderline between divergence and convergence of infinite series.  Using the integral test for convergence, one can show (see below) that, for every natural number, the series  still diverges (cf. proof that the sum of the reciprocals of the primes diverges for ) but  converges for every. Here denotes the -fold composition of the natural logarithm defined recursively by Furthermore, denotes the smallest natural number such that the -fold composition is well-defined and, i.e. using tetration or Knuth's up-arrow notation.  To see the divergence of the series () using the integral test, note that by repeated application of the chain rule hence To see the convergence of the series (), note that by the power rule, the chain rule and the above result hence and () gives bounds for the infinite series in ().

In mathematics, the integral test for convergence is a method used to test infinite series of non-negative terms for convergence. It was developed by Colin Maclaurin and Augustin-Louis Cauchy and is sometimes known as the Maclaurin–Cauchy test.


Family.

He is the grandson of Cuban composer Ernestina Lecuona y Casado. His great-uncle, Ernesto Lecuona, composed "La Malagueña" and his second cousin, Margarita Lecuona, composed "Babalú", which was popularized by Cuban musician and actor Desi Arnaz.

Music career.

Early years.

Brouwer was born in Havana. When he was 13, he began classical guitar with the encouragement of his father, who was an amateur guitarist. His teacher was Isaac Nicola, who was a student of Emilio Pujol, who was himself a student of Francisco Tárrega. At age 17 he performed publicly for the first time and began composing.  Brouwer went to the United States to study music at the Hartt College of Music of the University of Hartford, and later at the Juilliard School, where he studied under Vincent Persichetti and took composition classes with Stefan Wolpe.  In 1970 Brouwer played in the premiere of "El Cimarrón" by Hans Werner Henze in Berlin. Together with Morton Feldman, he was awarded a 1972 scholarship by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and to work as a guest composer and lecturer at the Academy of Science and Arts of Berlin. In Germany Brouwer also recorded a number of LPs for Deutsche Grammophon.

Composing and performing.

In his early compositions, Brouwer remained close to the rhythms of Cuban music, while later he was drawn to aleatoric music. During the 1960s and 70s, he became interested in the music of modernist composers such as Luigi Nono and Iannis Xenakis, using indeterminacy in works such as "Sonograma I". Other works from this period include the guitar pieces "Canticum" (1968), "La espiral eterna" (1971), "Parábola" (1973) and "Tarantos" (1974). More recently, Brouwer's works have leaned towards tonality and modality. The solo guitar works "El Decamerón Negro" (1981), "Paisaje cubano con campanas" (1986), and the "Sonata" (1990; for Julian Bream) exemplify this tendency. His playing career ended in the early 1980s due to an injury to a tendon in his right hand middle finger.  Brouwer has written for guitar, piano, and percussion, and has composed orchestral works, ballet, and music for over one hundred movies, including the film "Like Water for Chocolate". For a guitar competition in Hungary in 1979, he wrote a composition that employed 200 guitarists. He is known for a series of studies called the Etudes Simples. Brouwer has also transcribed Beatles songs for classical guitar.  He has performed and recorded works by Sylvano Bussotti, Hans Werner Henze, Maurice Ohana, Cristóbal Halffter, Leni Alexander, Cornelius Cardew, and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Other activities.

He has been a conductor for many symphony orchestras, including the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Cordoba Symphony in Spain.  Brouwer is involved in the Concurso y Festival Internacional de Guitarra de la Habana (Havana International Guitar Festival and Competition). He frequently travels to attend guitar festivals throughout the world, and especially to other Latin American countries.  Brouwer is a member of the Communist Party of Cuba, and has held a number of official posts in Cuba, including with the music department of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry.  Brouwer is the great-uncle of Al Jourgensen of Ministry fame. Brouwer is the brother of Jourgensen's maternal grandfather.

Selected compositions.

Chamber and solo instrumental  Film scores

Further reading.

Articles  Interviews  Documentaries

Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida (born March 1, 1939) is a Cuban composer, conductor, and classical guitarist. He is a Member of Honour of the International Music Council.


Biography.

Bertillon was born in Paris. He was a son of statistician Louis-Adolphe Bertillon and younger brother of the statistician and demographer Jacques Bertillon.  After being expelled from the Imperial Lycée of Versailles, Bertillon drifted through a number of jobs in England and France, before being conscripted into the French army in 1875. Several years later, he was discharged from the army with no real higher education, so his father arranged for his employment in a low-level clerical job at the Prefecture of Police in Paris. Thus, Bertillon began his police career on 15 March 1879 as a department copyist.  Being an orderly man, he was dissatisfied with the "ad hoc" methods used to identify the increasing number of captured criminals who had been arrested before. This, together with the steadily rising recidivism rate in France since 1870, motivated his invention of anthropometrics. His road to fame was a protracted and hard one, as he was forced to do his measurements in his spare time. He used the famous La Santé Prison in Paris for his activities, facing jeers from the prison inmates as well as police officers.  Bertillon also created many other forensics techniques, including the use of galvanoplastic compounds to preserve footprints, ballistics, and the dynamometer, used to determine the degree of force used in breaking and entering.  The nearly 100-year-old standard of comparing 16 ridge characteristics to identify latent prints at crime scenes against criminal records of fingerprint impressions was based on claims in a 1912 paper Bertillon published in France.  Bertillon died 13 February 1914 in Paris.

Bertillon and the Dreyfus Affair.

Bertillon was a witness for the prosecution in the Dreyfus affair in 1894 and again in 1899. He testified as a handwriting expert and claimed that Alfred Dreyfus had written the incriminating document (known as the "bordereau"). However, he was not a handwriting expert, and his convoluted and flawed evidence was a significant contributing factor to one of the most infamous miscarriages of justice — the condemnation of the innocent Dreyfus to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.  Using a complex system of measurements, he attempted to prove that Dreyfus had disguised his handwriting by imitating his own handwriting as if someone else was doing so, so that if anyone thought the "bordereau" was in Dreyfus's hand, he would be able to say that someone else had forged his writing. Both courts martial evidently accepted this, and Dreyfus was convicted. The verdict of the second court martial caused a huge scandal, and it was eventually overturned.  Bertillon was by many accounts regarded as extremely eccentric. According to Maurice Paléologue, who observed him at the second court-martial, Bertillon was "certainly not in full possession of his faculties". Paléologue goes on to describe Bertillon's argument as "... a long tissue of absurdities," and writes of "... his moonstruck eyes, his sepulchral voice, the saturnine magnetism" that made him feel that he was "... in the presence of a necromancer."  Bertillon pretended that his graphological system was based on mathematical probability calculus. A later expertise undertaken in 1904 by three renowned mathematicians, Henri Poincaré, Jean Gaston Darboux, and Paul Émile Appell, concluded that Bertillon's system was deprived of any scientific value and that he had failed both to apply the method and to present his data properly. With this key evidence against Dreyfus debunked, he was finally acquitted in 1906.

Bertillon System.

The specific anthropological technique practiced by Bertillon is often called the Bertillon System. This system consisted of five initial measurements — head length, head breadth, length of middle finger, length of the left foot, and length of the cubit. Along with these measurements, Bertillon used photography, now known as a mugshot, to complete this system of record. These methods of identification were combined into a system for law enforcement officials to access information and images quickly.  Although the system was based in scientific measures, it was known to have its flaws. For example, it may not have been able to accurately apply to children or women, as it was mostly designed for men who had reached full physical maturity and had short hair.

Alley workers in Minneapolis.

In the late 19th and 20th centuries black women who were working as sex workers in Minneapolis, Minnesota became known as "alley workers." The Minneapolis Police Department followed the Bertillon System as a means to identify and document the crimes of these alley workers. The system soon became used as a tool to police and categorize these women.  In order to bypass the system many black women would use aliases instead of their real names in order to obtain agency over their criminalization. The most common name that was used as an alias was "Mamie", which was also the alias used by Mamie Knight, who was the only surviving mugshot of an alley worker during the department's period of using the Bertillon System. Her mugshot is currently located in the St. Paul police department archives.

Legacy.

Bertillon is referenced in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Hound of the Baskervilles", in which one of Holmes' clients refers to Holmes as the "second highest expert in Europe" after Bertillon. Also, in "The Naval Treaty", speaking of the Bertillon system of measurements, "[Holmes]... expressed his enthusiastic admiration of the French savant."  In the Arsène Lupin story "The Escape of Arsène Lupin" by Maurice Leblanc, Lupin escapes by exploiting the same flaws in anthropometry that led to its eventual disuse.  In "Surfeit of Lampreys" by Ngaio Marsh Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn touches on the system in Chapter 14, Part 1.  Bertillon is also referenced in the Caleb Carr novel "The Alienist". The Isaacson brothers, who are detectives, mention that they are trained in the Bertillon System.  Bertillon Measurements are also mentioned in Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu-inspired "The Emperor of America" (Cassel, 1929, p. 61), the Ross MacDonald novels "The Drowning Pool" and "Blue City" (p. 30), Yves Fey's mystery "Floats the Dark Shadow", and Agatha Christie's mystery "The Secret of Chimneys" (1925, chapter 27).  Bertillonage is mentioned in Chapter 4 and in an appendix of the mystery novel, "The Assassin in the Marais", by Claude Izner.  Bertillon appears in Eric Zencey's novel "Panama".  Bertillon is referenced in the 1965 short story, ""Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman", by Harlan Ellison.  Bertillon is the main character of the third episode of Czech television series "The Adventures of Criminology" called "Bertillonage".  Bertillon is also mentioned in the second episode of the seventh season of FX television series Archer.  Bertillon was also referenced in the American television series, "Elementary" (a modern take on "Sherlock Holmes"), season 2, episode 17 (Ears To You).  Bertillon is lampooned in "The Dreyfus Case: IV", by Finley Peter Dunne ("Mr. Dooley"), reprinted in "Mr. Dooley in the Hearts of His Countrymen" (Robert Howard Russell, pub., 1899), pp. 268, ff.  Bertillon is mentioned by Hercule Poirot in 'The Murder on the Links' by Agatha Christie (p55, )  The Bertillon system is demonstrated in the Canadian television series, "Murdoch Mysteries", season 13, episode 3 (Forever Young).

Alphonse Bertillon (; 22 April 1853 – 13 February 1914) was a French police officer and biometrics researcher who applied the anthropological technique of anthropometry to law enforcement creating an identification system based on physical measurements. Anthropometry was the first scientific system used by police to identify criminals. Before that time, criminals could only be identified by name or photograph. The method was eventually supplanted by fingerprinting.


World War I and inter-war career.

Born in 1894 into a family of a traveling salesmen, Bittrich volunteered for military service after the outbreak of World War I. He served on the Western and Italian Front and was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross. In 1916, Bittrich transferred to the "Luftstreitkräfte" and trained as a pilot. He served with several units, including the 37th Fighter Squadron.  From March to July 1919, Bittrich was a member in the paramilitary "Freikorps" under the General Bernhard von Hülsen during the German Revolution of 1918–19. In 1923, Bittrich was accepted into the "Reichswehr" of the Weimar Republic. In December 1931 or early 1932, Bittrich joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) (Nr. 829,700). From March until June 1932, he served in the "Sturmabteilung" (SA). On 1 July 1932, Bittrich joined the SS (Nr. 39,177) and served in various SS units in leadership positions, reaching the rank of "Hauptsturmführer" by June 1934.  From August 1934, Bittrich was a commander of the "Politische Bereitschaft" (Political Readiness Detachment) in Hamburg. This unit later became part of the SS-Standarte "Germania" in the "SS-Verfügungstruppe" (SS-VT). By January 1938, Bittrich was promoted to "Obersturmbannführer". He was given command of a battalion in the SS-Regiment "Deutschland". With this unit he participated in the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938. In May 1939, Bittrich was posted to the headquarters unit of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) and was promoted to "Standartenführer" in June 1939.

World War II.

He took part in the invasion of Poland (1939), assigned as LSSAH Chief of Staff to Sepp Dietrich. In January 1940 through October 1941, he was commander of the Regiment "Deutschland" and fought in the battle of France. From the summer of 1942 through February 1943, Bittrich commanded SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer, that was tasked with rear-security operations ("Bandenbekämpfung", literally "bandit-fighting") in the Soviet Union. On 9 July 1942 Bittrich attended a conference called to convey the principles of the "Bandenbekämpfung" to senior police and security leaders. Organized by Heinrich Himmler, the conference included Kurt Daluege, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, Odilo Globocnik, Bruno Streckenbach and others. The policies included collective punishment against villages suspected of supporting partisans, automatic death penalty for immediate families of suspected partisans, deportation (to labor and death camps) of women and children, and confiscation of property for the state. He assumed temporary command of the 2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" from 14 October 1941 through 12 December 1941, after Paul Hausser had been wounded. He then was given command over the 9th SS Panzer Division "Hohenstaufen" effective February 1943 until 1 July 1944. On 1 July 1944, he was appointed the commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps. The 2nd Panzer Corps fought in Normandy. Early September of 1944, the 2nd Panzer Corps was relocated to the Arnhem area in the Netherlands, in order to rest its units. On September 17, 1944, the Allies launched Operation Market Garden, British paratroopers of the 1st Airborne Division landed in Arnhem, some distance from its objectives and was quickly hampered by unexpected resistance from Bittrich's corps. 2nd Panzer Corps managed to encircle the 1st Airborne, inflicting heavy casualties. At the request of the British Divisional Medical Officer, Bittrich authorized a three-hour cease-fire on September 24, 1944, to evacuate more than 2,000 wounded British from the encirclement, and place them in the infirmary of his divisions. Bittrich later saw action at Hungary. Bittrich was listed as a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords by the Association of Knight's Cross Holders, although no record of the award could be found in the German archives due to the irregular nature of its presentation.

Conviction for war crimes.

After his arrest on 8 May 1945 he was extradited to France on charges of having ordered the execution of 17 members of the Resistance in Nîmes. The trial revealed that Bittrich had not given such an order and had even opened procedures against the responsible officers. As the commander in charge of the troops who committed the execution, he was held responsible for their misconduct and sentenced to five years in prison. The sentence was considered as served after a long pretrial detention. He was put on trial for a second time in 1953 and sentenced to five years in prison for countenancing hangings, pillage and arson, but was acquitted by the French court in Bordeaux again and released in 1954. He was never brought to trial for any actions and war crimes of the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer in the Soviet Union.

Activities within HIAG.

Following his release from prison, Bittrich became active in HIAG, a revisionist organization of former Waffen-SS members. In the 1970s, he served as the organization's chairman. Bittrich died in Wolfratshausen, Bavaria on 19 April 1979.

Cultural portrayals.

In the 1977 film, "A Bridge Too Far", Bittrich is portrayed by actor Maximilian Schell.

Wilhelm Bittrich (26 February 1894 – 19 April 1979) was a high-ranking Waffen-SS commander of Nazi Germany. Between August 1942 and February 1943, Bittrich commanded the SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer, in rear security operations ("Bandenbekämpfung", literally: "bandit fighting") in the Soviet Union. From July 1944 until the end of the war Bittrich commanded the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in Normandy, during Market Garden and in Hungary.


Early life.

Pisier was born in Dalat, French Indochina, where her father was serving as colonial governor of French Indochina. Her younger brother, Gilles Pisier, is a mathematician and a member of the French Academy of Sciences. Her sister, Evelyne, was the first wife of Bernard Kouchner, a French politician and the co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières. The family moved to Paris when Marie-France was 12 years old.

Career.

Five years later, she made her screen acting debut for director François Truffaut in his 1962 film, "Antoine and Colette". Pisier had a brief but incendiary romance with the older, married Truffaut. Despite its end, she later appeared in Truffaut's "Stolen Kisses" ("Baiser volés", 1968) and "Love on the Run" ("L'Amour en fuite", 1979), which was the fifth and final film in Truffaut's series about the character Antoine Doinel. Pisier was credited as a co-writer of the screenplay. In a review in "The New York Times", film critic Vincent Canby praised her for a "ravishing performance".  Pisier later collaborated on the screenplay to Jacques Rivette's "Celine and Julie Go Boating" ("Céline et Julie vont en bâteau", 1974); she also played a significant supporting role in the film. Later in the same year, she had a role in Luis Buñuel’s "Phantom of Liberty".  She gained widespread public recognition in 1975 when she appeared in Jean-Charles Tacchella's popular comedy, "Cousin Cousine". Her role as the volatile Karine earned her a César Award for Best Supporting Actress.  Her subsequent feature films included three with director André Téchiné: "French Provincial" ("Souvenirs en France", 1975); "The Bronte Sisters" ("Les Sœurs Brontë", 1979), in which she portrayed Charlotte; and "Barocco" (1976), for which she won a second César for her performance alongside Isabelle Adjani and Gérard Depardieu.  Pisier attempted to crack the American film industry with "The Other Side of Midnight" (1977), adapted from a Sidney Sheldon novel. She appeared on American television in the miniseries "The French Atlantic Affair" (1979), and "Scruples" the following year. She made two more Hollywood films, "French Postcards" (1979) with Debra Winger and "Chanel Solitaire" (1981) with Timothy Dalton.  Returning to France, Pisier made her directorial debut with "The Governor's Party" ("Le Bal du gouverneur", 1990), which she adapted from her own novel. She also played Madame Verdurin in Raúl Ruiz's adaptation of Marcel Proust, "Time Regained" ("Le Temps retrouvé", 1999). Her final film as director was with Bérénice Bejo (winner of the César Award for Best Actress in "The Artist) in "Like An Airplane" ("Comme un avion", 2002).

Personal life.

Pisier's first marriage to Georges Kiejman ended in divorce. She resided in Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer, Var, and was married to Thierry Funck-Brentano. The couple had a son, Mathieu, and a daughter, Iris.  In 1971, Pisier signed the Manifesto of the 343, publicly declaring she had an illegal abortion.

Death.

The 66-year-old actress died on 24 April 2011. She was found dead in her swimming pool by Funck-Brentano and is believed to have drowned. She is survived by her sister Évelyne, brother Gilles, and both children. The local mayor announced her death to the news media and President Nicolas Sarkozy made a public statement honouring “her supreme elegance born of the most perfect simplicity.”

Filmography.

Pisier appeared in more than 70 films including:

Marie-France Pisier (10 May 194424 April 2011) was a French actress, screenwriter, and director. She appeared in numerous films of the French New Wave and twice earned the national César Award for Best Supporting Actress.


Early life.

He was the second son of Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland and Anne Digby, daughter of George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol. On the death of his elder brother Robert in Paris in September 1688, he became heir to the peerage. Called by John Evelyn "a youth of extraordinary hopes," he completed his education at Utrecht, and in 1695 entered the House of Commons as member for Tiverton. In the same year, he married Arabella, daughter of Henry Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Newcastle; she died in 1698 and in 1700, he married Anne Churchill, daughter of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. This was an important alliance for Sunderland and for his descendants; through it he was introduced to political life and later the dukedom of Marlborough came to the Spencers.  In 1698 he plunged his family into scandal when his brother-in-law Donogh MacCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarty, who had been imprisoned in the Tower of London for his support for James II and later escaped, was reconciled with his long-estranged wife, Charles' sister Elizabeth, and at long last consummated the marriage. Charles, alerted by his father's servants, had Clancarty arrested while he was actually in bed with Elizabeth. The result was a public uproar which gravely embarrassed their parents. William III treated the matter as a trifle, wondering why everyone he met teased him about "that little spark Clancarty", and gave the couple permission to settle in Altona, Hamburg. Elizabeth, who died in Hamburg in 1704, never saw her parents or brother again. His father's biographer comments that the affair did not show Charles in a good light either as a man or a brother.

Career.

Having succeeded to the peerage in 1702, Sunderland was one of the commissioners for the union between England and Scotland, and in 1705, he was sent to Vienna as envoy extraordinary. Although he was tinged with republican ideas and had made himself obnoxious to Queen Anne by opposing the grant to her husband, Prince George, through the influence of Marlborough he was foisted into the ministry as Secretary of State for the Southern Department, taking office in December 1706.  From 1708 to 1710, he was one of the five Whigs collectively called the "Junto", who dominated the government, but he had many enemies, the Queen still disliked him, and in June 1710, he was dismissed. Anne offered him a pension of £3000 a year, but this he refused, saying "if he could not have the honour to serve his country he would not plunder it." When Marlborough protested about the dismissal, the Queen inquired sarcastically whether "the Peace of Europe must depend on it?" She added that Sunderland was universally unpopular, which was indeed the case.  Sunderland continued to take part in public life, and was active in communicating with the court of Hanover about the steps to be taken in view of the approaching death of the queen. He made the acquaintance of George I in 1706, but when the elector became king, Sunderland only secured the comparatively unimportant position of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In August 1715, he joined the cabinet as Lord Privy Seal. After a visit to George I in Hanover, he secured in April 1717 the position of Secretary of State for the Northern Department. This he retained until March 1718, when he became First Lord of the Treasury, holding also the post of Lord President of the Council. He was now effectively the prime minister. Sunderland was especially interested in the proposed peerage bill, a measure designed to limit the number of members of the House of Lords, but this was defeated owing partly to the opposition of Sir Robert Walpole. In 1719 he was one of the main subscribers in the Royal Academy of Music (1719), a corporation that produced baroque opera on stage.  The bursting of the South Sea Bubble led to his political ruin. He had taken some part in launching the scheme of 1720, therefore public opinion was roused against him and it was only through the efforts of Walpole that he was acquitted by the House of Commons, when the matter was investigated. In April 1721, he resigned his offices, but he retained his influence with George I until his own death on 19 April 1722.  Sunderland inherited his father's passion for intrigue, while his manners were repelling, but he stands high among his associates for disinterestedness and had an alert and discerning mind. From his early years he had a great love of books, and he spent his leisure and his wealth in forming the library at Althorp, which in 1703 was described as "the finest in Europe." In 1749 part of it was removed to Blenheim Palace.  Sunderland's second wife died in April 1716, after a career of considerable influence on the political life of her time. In 1717, he married an Irish lady of fortune, Judith Tichborne (d. 1749), daughter of Sir Benjamin Tichborne (younger brother of Sir Henry Tichborne, 1st Baron Ferrard, Irish cr. 1715) and Elizabeth Gibbs. She later married Sir Robert Sutton.  In 1722 Sunderland was implicated in what became known as the Atterbury Plot, to restore the House of Stuart, and his death was one of the factors which brought the Plot to light.  The town of Sunderland, Massachusetts, was named in his honour in November 1718, just after he became Lord President of the Council.

Children.

His first wife was Lady Arabella Cavendish (19 August 16734 June 1698), daughter of Henry Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Newcastle. They had one daughter:  His second wife was Lady Anne Churchill (27 February 168315 April 1716). They had six children:  His third wife was Judith Tichborne (17 May 1749). They had three children:

Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland, KG, PC (23 April 167519 April 1722), known as Lord Spencer from 1688 to 1702, was an English statesman and nobleman from the Spencer family. He served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1714–1717), Lord Privy Seal (1715–1716), Lord President of the Council (1717–1719) and First Lord of the Treasury (1718–1721).


History.

In 1866, Georges Leclanché invented a battery that consisted of a zinc anode and a manganese dioxide cathode wrapped in a porous material, dipped in a jar of ammonium chloride solution. The manganese dioxide cathode had a little carbon mixed into it as well, which improved conductivity and absorption. It provided a voltage of 1.4 volts. This cell achieved very quick success in telegraphy, signalling and electric bell work.  The dry cell form was used to power early telephones—usually from an adjacent wooden box affixed to the wall—before telephones could draw power from the telephone line itself. The Leclanché cell could not provide a sustained current for very long. In lengthy conversations, the battery would run down, rendering the conversation inaudible. This is because certain chemical reactions in the cell increase the internal resistance and, thus, lower the voltage. These reactions reverse themselves when the battery is left idle, so it is good only for intermittent use.

Construction.

The original form of the cell used a porous pot. This gave it a relatively high internal resistance and various modifications were made to reduce it. These included the "Agglomerate block cell" and the "Sack cell". Leclanché first, and Carl Gassner later, strived both to transform the original wet cell into a more portable and more efficient dry cell.

Chemistry.

The redox reaction in a Leclanché cell involves the two following half-reactions:  The chemical process which produces electricity in a Leclanché cell begins when zinc atoms on the surface of the anode oxidize, i.e. they give up both their valence electrons to become positively charged Zn ions. As the Zn ions move away from the anode, leaving their electrons on its surface, the anode becomes more negatively charged than the cathode. When the cell is connected in an external electrical circuit, the excess electrons on the zinc anode flow through the circuit to the carbon rod, the movement of electrons forming an electric current.  As the current travels around the circuit, when the electrons enter the cathode (carbon rod), they combine with manganese dioxide (MnO) and water (HO), which react with each other to produce manganese oxide (MnO) and negatively charged hydroxide ions. This is accompanied by a secondary acid-base reaction in which the hydroxide ions (OH) accept a proton (H) from the ammonium ions present in the ammonium chloride electrolyte to produce molecules of ammonia and water.  or if one also considers the hydration of the MnO(s) sesquioxide into Mn(III) oxy-hydroxide:  Alternately, the reduction reaction of Mn(IV) can proceed further, forming Mn(II) hydroxide.

Uses.

The electromotive force (e.m.f.) produced by a Leclanche cell is 1.4 volts, with a resistance of several ohms where a porous pot is used. It saw extensive usage in telegraphy, signaling, electric bells and similar applications where intermittent current was required and it was desirable that a battery should require little maintenance.  The Leclanché battery wet cell was the forerunner of the modern zinc-carbon battery (a dry cell). The addition of zinc chloride to the electrolyte paste raises the e.m.f. to 1.5 volts. Later developments dispensed with the ammonium chloride completely, giving a cell that can endure more sustained discharge without its internal resistance rising as quickly (the zinc chloride cell).

The Leclanché cell is a battery invented and patented by the French scientist Georges Leclanché in 1866. The battery contained a conducting solution (electrolyte) of ammonium chloride, a cathode (positive terminal) of carbon, a depolarizer of manganese dioxide (oxidizer), and an anode (negative terminal) of zinc (reductant). The chemistry of this cell was later successfully adapted to manufacture a dry cell.


Early life.

Barnard was born in Nashville, Tennessee, to Reuben Barnard and Elizabeth Jane Barnard ("née" Haywood), and had one brother. His father died three months before his birth, so he grew up in an impoverished family and did not receive much in the way of formal education. His first interest was in the field of photography, and he became a photographer's assistant at the age of nine.  He later developed an interest in astronomy. In 1876 he purchased a refractor telescope, and in 1881 he discovered his first comet, but failed to announce his discovery. He found his second comet later the same year and a third in 1882.  While he was still working at a photography studio he was married to the British-born Rhoda Calvert in 1881. In the 1880s, Hulbert Harrington Warner offered US$200 per discovery of a new comet. Barnard discovered a total of five, and used the money to build a house for himself and his wife.  With his name being brought to the attention of amateur astronomers in Nashville, they collectively raised enough money to give Barnard a fellowship to Vanderbilt University. He never graduated from the school, but did receive the only honorary degree Vanderbilt has ever awarded. He joined the staff of the Lick Observatory in 1887, though he later clashed with the director, Edward S. Holden, over access to observing time on the larger instruments and other issues of research and management.

Astronomical work.

Barnard saw the gegenschein in 1882, not aware of earlier papers by Theodor Brorsen and T. W. Backhouse. In 1889 he observed the moon Iapetus pass behind Saturn's rings. As he watched Iapetus pass through the space between Saturn's innermost rings and the planet itself, he saw a shadow pass over the moon. Although he did not realize it at the time, he had discovered proof of the "spokes" of Saturn, dark shadows running perpendicular to the circular paths of the rings. These spokes were doubted at first, but confirmed by the spacecraft Voyager 1.  In 1892 he made observations of a nova and was the first to notice the gaseous emissions, thus deducing that it was a stellar explosion. The same year he also discovered Amalthea, the fifth moon of Jupiter. He was the first to discover a new moon of Jupiter since Galileo Galilei in 1609. This was the last satellite discovered by visual observation (rather than by examining photographic plates or other recorded images).  In 1895 he joined the University of Chicago as professor of astronomy. There he was able to use the telescope at Yerkes Observatory. Much of his work during this period was taking photographs of the Milky Way. Together with Max Wolf, he discovered that certain dark regions of the galaxy were actually clouds of gas and dust that obscured the more distant stars in the background. From 1905, his niece Mary R. Calvert worked as his assistant and computer.  The faint Barnard's Star is named for Edward Barnard after he discovered in 1916 that it had a very large proper motion, relative to other stars. This is the second nearest star system to the Sun, second only to the Alpha Centauri system.  He was also a pioneering astrophotographer. His Barnard Catalogue lists a series of dark nebulae, known as Barnard objects, giving them numerical designations akin to the Messier catalog. They begin with and end with. He published his initial list with the 1919 paper in the "Astrophysical Journal," "On the Dark Markings of the Sky with a Catalogue of 182 such Objects".  He died on February 6, 1923 in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, and was buried in Nashville. After his death, many examples from his exceptional collection of astronomical photographs were published in 1927 as "A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way", this work having been finished by Mary R. Calvert, and Edwin B. Frost, then director of Yerkes Observatory.

Comet discoveries.

Between 1881 and 1892, he discovered 15 comets, three of which were periodic, and co-discovered two others:

Honors.

Awards Named after him

Edward Emerson Barnard (December 16, 1857 – February 6, 1923) was an American astronomer. He was commonly known as E. E. Barnard, and was recognized as a gifted observational astronomer. He is best known for his discovery of the high proper motion of Barnard's Star in 1916, which is named in his honor.


Location.

Kazbegi is located on the Khokh Range, a mountain range which runs north of the Greater Caucasus Range, and which is pierced by the gorges of the Ardon and the Terek. At its eastern foot runs the Georgian Military Road through the pass of Darial 2,378 meters (7,805 feet). The mountain itself lies along the edge of the Borjomi–Kazbegi Fault (which is a northern sub-ending of the North Anatolian Fault). The region is highly active tectonically, with numerous small earthquakes occurring at regular intervals. An active geothermal/hot spring system also surrounds the mountain. Kazbek is a potentially active volcano, built up of trachyte and sheathed with lava, and has the shape of a double cone, whose base lies at an altitude of 1,770 meters (5,800 feet). Kazbek is the highest of the volcanic cones of the Kazbegi volcanic group which also includes Mount Khabarjina (3,142 metres).  Owing to the steepness of its slopes, the glaciers of Kazbek are not very large. The total combined area of all of Kazbek's glaciers is 135 km2. The best-known glacier is the Dyevdorak (Devdaraki), which creeps down the north-eastern slope into a gorge of the same name, reaching a level of 2,295 meters (7,530 feet). Kazbegi's other glaciers include the Mna, Denkara, Gergeti, Abano, and Chata. The recent collapse of the Kolka Glacier, located in a valley between Mt. Jimara and Kazbegi in the year 2002 was attributed to solfatara volcanic activity along the northern slope of the mountain, although there was no eruption. In addition to the 2002 event, a massive collapse of the Devdaraki Glacier on the mountain's northeastern slope which occurred on August 20, 2014, led to the death of seven people. The glacier collapse dammed the Terek River in the Daryal Gorge and flooded the Georgian Military Highway.  From 24 to 28 May 2019 Caucasus skitouring network organize expedition to survey Mt. Kazbegi height. On 27 May 2019 at 12:22 GMT+4, for the first time, a survey team placed a GPS receiver on the Mt. Kazbegi peak. The new height is defined with the WGS 84 datum. Height was determinate with 5mm accuracy. Defined height is 5053.927m.

Legend.

Mount Kazbegi is associated in Georgian folklore with Amirani, the Georgian version of Prometheus, who was chained on the mountain in punishment for having stolen fire from the gods and having given it to mortals. The location of his imprisonment later became the site of an Orthodox hermitage located in a cave called "Betlemi" (Bethlehem) at around the 4,000-meter level. According to legends, this cave housed many sacred relics, including Abraham's tent and the manger of the infant Jesus. The summit was first climbed in 1868 by D. W. Freshfield, A. W. Moore, and C. Tucker of the Alpine Club, with the guide François Devouassoud. They were followed by the female Russian alpinist Maria Preobrazhenskaya, who made the climb nine times starting in the year 1900.

Kazbegi nature reserve.

The area around Mount Kazbegi was designated a nature reserve by the Soviet government in 1979, and includes beech forests, subalpine forests and alpine meadows. Many of the plants and animals in the reserve are endemic to the Caucasus region.

Mount Kazbegi is a dormant stratovolcano and one of the major mountains of the Caucasus located on the border of Georgia's Kazbegi District and Russian Republic of North Ossetia–Alania.


Motivation.

For the subscribing sites, syndication is an effective way of adding greater depth and immediacy of information to their pages, making them more attractive to users. For the provider site, syndication increases exposure. This generates new traffic for the provider site—making syndication an easy and relatively cheap, or even free, form of advertisement.  Content syndication has become an effective strategy for link building, as search engine optimization has become an increasingly important topic among website owners and online marketers. Links embedded within the syndicated content are typically optimized around anchor terms that will point an optimized link back to the website that the content author is trying to promote. These links tell the algorithms of the search engines that the website being linked to is an authority for the keyword that is being used as the anchor text. However the recent rollout of Google Panda's algorithm may not reflect this authority in its SERP rankings based on quality scores generated by the sites linking to the authority.  The prevalence of web syndication is also of note to online marketers, since web surfers are becoming increasingly wary of providing personal information for marketing materials (such as signing up for a newsletter) and expect the ability to subscribe to a feed instead. Although the format could be anything transported over HTTP, such as HTML or JavaScript, it is more commonly XML. Web syndication formats include RSS, Atom, and JSON Feed.

History.

Syndication first arose in earlier media such as print, radio, and television, allowing content creators to reach a wider audience. In the case of radio, the United States Federal government proposed a syndicate in 1924 so that the country's executives could quickly and efficiently reach the entire population. In the case of television, it is often said that "Syndication is where the real money is." Additionally, syndication accounts for the bulk of TV programming.  One predecessor of web syndication is the Meta Content Framework (MCF), developed in 1996 by Ramanathan V. Guha and others in Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group.  Today, millions of online publishers, including newspapers, commercial websites, and blogs, distribute their news headlines, product offers, and blog postings in news feeds.

As a commercial model.

Conventional syndication businesses such as Reuters and Associated Press thrive on the internet by offering their content to media partners on a subscription basis, using business models established in earlier media forms.  Commercial web syndication can be categorized in three ways:  Commercial web syndication involves partnerships between content producers and distribution outlets. There are different structures of partnership agreements. One such structure is licensing content, in which distribution partners pay a fee to the content creators for the right to publish the content. Another structure is ad-supported content, in which publishers share revenues derived from advertising on syndicated content with that content's producer. A third structure is free, or barter syndication, in which no currency changes hands between publishers and content producers. This requires the content producers to generate revenue from another source, such as embedded advertising or subscriptions. Alternatively, they could distribute content without remuneration. Typically, those who create and distribute content free are promotional entities, vanity publishers, or government entities.  Types of content syndicated include RSS or Atom Feeds and full content. With RSS feeds, headlines, summaries, and sometimes a modified version of the original full content is displayed on users' feed readers. With full content, the entire content—which might be text, audio, video, applications/widgets or user-generated content—appears unaltered on the publisher's site.  There are two methods for selecting distribution partners. The content creator can hand-pick syndication partners based on specific criteria, such as the size or quality of their audiences. Alternatively, the content creator can allow publisher sites or users to opt into carrying the content through an automated system. Some of these automated "content marketplace" systems involve careful screening of potential publishers by the content creator to ensure that the material does not end up in an inappropriate environment.  Just as syndication is a source of profit for TV producers and radio producers, it also functions to maximize profit for Internet content producers. As the Internet has increased in size it has become increasingly difficult for content producers to aggregate a sufficiently large audience to support the creation of high-quality content. Syndication enables content creators to amortize the cost of producing content by licensing it across multiple publishers or by maximizing distribution of advertising-supported content. A potential drawback for content creators, however, is that they can lose control over the presentation of their content when they syndicate it to other parties.  Distribution partners benefit by receiving content either at a discounted price, or free. One potential drawback for publishers, however, is that because the content is duplicated at other publisher sites, they cannot have an "exclusive" on the content.  For users, the fact that syndication enables the production and maintenance of content allows them to find and consume content on the Internet. One potential drawback for them is that they may run into duplicate content, which could be an annoyance.

E-commerce.

Web syndication has been used to distribute product content such as feature descriptions, images and specifications. As manufacturers are regarded as authorities and most sales are not achieved on manufacturer websites, manufacturers allow retailers or dealers to publish the information on their sites. Through syndication, manufacturers may pass relevant information to channel partners. Such web syndication has been shown to increase sales.  Web syndication has also been found effective as a search engine optimization technique.

Web syndication is a form of syndication in which content is made available from one website to other sites. Most commonly, websites are made available to provide either summaries or full renditions of a website's recently added content. The term may also describe other kinds of content licensing for reuse.


Military career.

Hermann began his military career as an infantry officer, but was commissioned into the newly formed "Luftwaffe" (air force) in 1935. From 1936 until 1937 he was a bomber pilot in Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War.  Early in World War II, Hermann flew bombing missions in the Invasion of Poland and Norwegian Campaign. By 1940 he was Commander of the 7th Staffel of KG 4 and took part in the Battle of Britain.  In February 1941 his group was transferred to Sicily, from where it attacked Malta then fought in the Battle of Greece. In one attack Herrmann sank the ammunition ship in the Port of Piraeus. The explosion sank 11 ships and made the Greek port unusable for many months.  In July 1942 he was assigned to the general staff in Germany, where he became a confidant of "Luftwaffe" commander Hermann Göring. In 1942 Herrmann was appointed to the Luftwaffe Operational Staff. He played a role in the creation of night fighter wing Jagdgeschwader 300 in response to the night raids of Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command on Germany in mid-1943.  In December 1943 Herrmann was appointed Luftwaffe Inspector of Aerial Defence. By 1944 he was Inspector General of night fighters and received the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. At the end of 1944 he led the 9th Air Division.  Herrmann was a leading exponent of the tactical deployment of "Rammjäger" "Sonderkommando Elbe" (ram fighters), sent into action in April 1945. Suicide pilot volunteers, often aged 18 to 20, were to be trained only to be competent enough to control specially lightened and unarmoured Bf 109 fighters and bring down Allied bombers by ramming the tail or control surfaces with the propellers of their aircraft and bailing out if possible. Herrmann's intention was to gather a large number of these fighters for a one-off attack on the USAAF bomber formations in the hope of causing enough losses to curtail the bombing offensive for a few months. Fuel shortages prevented employment of the large numbers necessary, although from one mission of this type, on 7 April 1945, of the 120 fighters thus committed only 15 returned.

Law career and Nazi activism.

Herrmann surrendered to Soviet forces after the war, was held prisoner for 10 years and returned to Germany in 1955. Then he studied law and settled in Düsseldorf. He defended Otto Ernst Remer, the head of the neo-Nazi Socialist Reich Party and the Holocaust deniers David Irving and Fred A. Leuchter. Hermann's affinity for Remer, a committed Nazi and former Wehrmacht officer, was rooted in their mutual Holocaust denial activities.  In 1959 Herrmann married the German soprano Ingeborg Reichelt. The couple had two children.

Hans-Joachim "Hajo" Herrmann (1 August 1913 – 5 November 2010) was a World War II Luftwaffe pilot and officer and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.


Distribution.

"Pinus nigra" is a tree of the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. The majority of the range is in Turkey. It is found in the higher elevations of the South Apennine mixed montane forests ecoregion in southern Italy and the Tyrrhenian-Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests ecoregion in Sicily. There are remnant populations in the Mediterranean conifer and mixed forests ecoregion, and in the higher Atlas Mountains in Morocco and Algeria.  It is found at elevations ranging from sea level to, most commonly from. Several of the varieties have distinct English names.  It has naturalized in parts of the midwestern states of the U.S, normally south of the normal native ranges of native pines.

Description.

"Pinus nigra" is a large coniferous evergreen tree, growing to high at maturity and spreading to 20 to 40 feet wide. The bark is grey to yellow-brown, and is widely split by flaking fissures into scaly plates, becoming increasingly fissured with age. The leaves ("needles") are thinner and more flexible in western populations (see 'Taxonomy' section below).  The ovulate and pollen cones appear from May to June. The mature seed cones are 5–10 cm (rarely to 11 cm) long, with rounded scales; they ripen from green to pale grey-buff or yellow-buff in September to November, about 18 months after pollination. The seeds are dark grey, 6–8 mm long, with a yellow-buff wing 20–25 mm long; they are wind-dispersed when the cones open from December to April. maturity is reached at 15–40 years; large seed crops are produced at 2–5 year intervals.  "Pinus nigra" is moderately fast growing, at about per year. It usually has a rounded conic form, that becomes irregular with age. The tree can be long-lived, with some trees over 500 years old. It needs full sun to grow well, is intolerant of shade, and is resistant to snow and ice damage.

Taxonomy.

The species is divided into two subspecies, each further subdivided into three varieties. Some authorities (e.g. "Flora Europaea") treat several of the varieties at subspecific rank, but this reflects tradition rather than sound taxonomy, as the distinctions between the taxa are small.

Ecology.

In Mediterranean Europe and the Anatolian Peninsula (Asia Minor), trees usually associated with this species include Scots pine ("Pinus sylvestris"), Serbian spruce ("Picea omorika"), Bosnian pine ("Pinus heldreichii"), Norway spruce ("Picea abies"), Taurus cedar ("Cedrus libani"), European silver fir ("Abies alba") and related firs. Several species of juniper ("Juniperus" spp.), and various broadleaf trees are associates.  "Pinus nigra" is a light-demanding species, intolerant of shade but resistant to wind and drought. The eastern "P. nigra" subsp. "nigra" exhibits greater winter frost hardiness (hardy to below −30 °C) than the western "P. nigra" subsp. "salzmannii" (hardy to about −25 °C).  Different provenances (seed sources by geographic area) or varieties are adapted to different soil types: Austrian and Pyrenees origins grow well on a wide range of soil types, Corsican origins grows poorly on limestone, while Turkish and Crimean origins grow well on limestone. Most provenances also show good growth on podzolic soils.

Uses.

Lumber.

The timber of European black pine is similar to that of Scots pine ("Pinus sylvestris") and red pine ("Pinus resinosa"), being moderately hard and straight-grained. It does however tend to be rougher, softer, and not as strong, due to its faster growth. It is used for general construction, fuel, and in paper manufacture.  In the United Kingdom, "Pinus nigra" is important both as a timber tree and in plantations (primarily Corsican pine subsp.). Recently however, serious problems have occurred with red band needle blight disease, caused by the fungus "Dothistroma septosporum", resulting in a major recent decline in forestry planting there. In the United States it is of low importance as a timber species.  In regard to Austrian pine, the fungus "Dothistroma septosporum" is widespread and rapidly spreading out of control throughout the United States. All now growing Austrian pine are expected to be killed by this disease. It is out of control and not recommended for landscaping, especially in groups or rows.

Ethnobotanical and ethnomedicinal usage.

In Turkey, this pine (subsp. pallasiana) was and is used in various ways, both topically and internally, as well as for construction and for livestock. Among its uses are curing acne, common cold, osteomyelitis, and viral infections; acting as an oral antiseptic; treating cracked hands and feet in the winter; and sealing wooden roofs.

Ornamental usage.

In the US and Canada, the European black pine is planted as a street tree, and as an ornamental tree in gardens and parks. Its value as a street tree is largely due to its resistance to salt spray (from road de-icing salt) and various industrial pollutants (including ozone), and its intermediate drought tolerance. In the UK the tree is planted as an ornamental tree in parks and gardens. It is planted with great success as far north as Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  In both the US and UK most of the specimens planted are from Austrian sources, the "Pinus nigra" subsp. "nigra" and "Pinus nigra" subsp. "nigra" var. "nigra" seed selections. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, when demand for natural trees was extremely high, its rapid growth, deep green color and low cost made it briefly a popular Christmas tree, but the extreme length of the needles (making it very difficult to decorate) soon led to its fall from favor, and it has long since been abandoned in the US for that purpose.  "P. nigra" is planted for windbreaks and shelterbelts in the US, recommended for windbreaks in the Northern Great Plains on medium to deep moist or upland soils.

Invasive species.

"Pinus nigra" has become naturalised in a few areas of the United States. In New Zealand it is considered an invasive species and noxious weed, along with lodgepole pine ("Pinus contorta") and Scots pine ("Pinus sylvestris"), due to their habitat conversion nature in tussock grassland plant communities, shading out the native bunch grasses as their forest canopy develops.

Pinus nigra, the Austrian pine or black pine, is a moderately variable species of pine, occurring across southern Mediterranean Europe from Spain to the eastern Mediterranean, on the Anatolian peninsula of Turkey on Corsica and Cyprus as well as Crimea and in the high mountains of the Maghreb in North Africa.


Plot.

Johnny English is a kindhearted but inept MI7 employee, working a desk job while dreaming of being their most trusted agent. After Agent One dies in a submarine accident unknowingly caused by English, the remaining agents are killed by a bombing at Agent One's funeral, again due to English's incompetence, leaving English as the lone surviving agent capable of finishing Agent One’s mission.  Assigned to thwart a plot to steal the newly restored Crown Jewels, English meets the mysterious Lorna Campbell at the jewels' unveiling at the Tower of London. During a sudden blackout, the jewels are stolen. In the chaotic aftermath, English accidentally knocks out the deputy head of security and pretends to fight an imaginary "assailant" to cover his mistakes; he makes up a false description of the suspect to MI7 head Pegasus.  English and his assistant Angus Bough discover the jewels were removed via a hole dug beneath their display case. Following the tunnel, they confront the German thieves Dieter Klein and Klaus Vendetta, who escape in a hearse. After pursuing the wrong hearse, English gatecrashes a funeral. Bough comes to his rescue, pretending English is an escaped mental patient and posing as a doctor from the "Lunatic Response Unit".  English connects the thieves to Pascal Sauvage, a French prison entrepreneur who helped restore the jewels. Pegasus finds English’s claims absurd and warns English not to involve Sauvage, as he is his personal friend. In the car park, English and Bough are attacked by Vendetta but are unharmed. English again encounters Campbell in a YO! Sushi restaurant, recognising her pink motorcycle. Having seen her at two crime scenes, English’s suspicions deepen when her records cannot be found on any government computer.  English and Bough parachute into Sauvage's headquarters, but English mistakenly lands on an identical tower, the City Hospital. Reaching the correct building, the two learn that Sauvage, a descendant of Charles Edward Stuart, plans to make himself king, using an impostor to impersonate the Archbishop of Canterbury. Campbell arrives, revealed to be an Interpol agent tracking Sauvage. With evidence of Sauvage's involvement, English crashes a reception hosted by Sauvage but is suspended by Pegasus for his clumsy actions.  Sauvage scraps his plan to use the fake Archbishop and instead sends his minions to force Queen Elizabeth II to abdicate by threatening her corgis, causing the entire line of succession to be swept clean for Sauvage to become king. Campbell, now placed in charge of the assignment by Pegasus, visits the depressed English and convinces him to travel with her to Sauvage's French château to investigate. Eavesdropping on Sauvage's meeting with internationally renowned criminals, English and Campbell learn he plans to transform all of England into the world's biggest prison. The agents are exposed when English accidentally activates a microphone, and they are taken prisoner.  Bough rescues English and Campbell and they race to stop Sauvage's coronation. English crashes the coronation and discovers the Archbishop in attendance is genuine. Undeterred, English orders Bough to play the incriminating DVD, only to find it is footage of himself lip-syncing to ABBA's "Does Your Mother Know" in his underclothes; Sauvage had bugged English's flat. Sneaking away, English swings in to steal St. Edward’s Crown from the Archbishop. Sauvage attempts to kill English, who drops the crown. However, English falls from the wire, lands on the throne, and is crowned instead. In his singular act as king, English has Sauvage arrested and restores the Queen to the throne, simply requesting a knighthood as a reward.  Sauvage is awaiting trial for high treason, while English and Campbell drive to southern France for a romantic holiday, only for English to accidentally eject her out of his car while leaning in to kiss her. In a mid-credits scene, Lorna lands in a hotel swimming pool, where Bough is vacationing alongside a man identical to the fictitious assailant English described to Pegasus.

Production.

In March 2000, before the release of "Maybe Baby", Atkinson signed up to star as a spoof 007, with the news becoming official.  In July 2002, "Johnny English" principal photography commenced. The film shot for fourteen weeks, filming at Shepperton Studios, on location in London and St. Albans, and finally setting down in Monte Carlo for two days to complete filming the final scene. In September 2002, it was announced that Natalie Imbruglia, who wrote the theme tune for "Johnny English", would star alongside Atkinson.  The character of Johnny English himself is based on a similar character called Richard Latham, who Atkinson played in a series of British television adverts for Barclaycard. The character of Bough (pronounced 'Boff') was retained from the adverts though another actor, Henry Naylor, played the part in the ads. Some of the gags from the adverts made it into the film, including English incorrectly identifying a waiter, and inadvertently shooting himself with a tranquilliser ballpoint pen.

Reception.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 33% based on 121 reviews with an average rating of 4.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A tame spy spoof that elicits infrequent chuckles." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 51 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.

Soundtrack.

All tracks were written by Edward Shearmur and performed by London Metropolitan Orchestra unless otherwise noted.

Home media.

"Johnny English" was released on VHS on 11 August 2003 and on DVD on 13 January 2004, The film was released on Blu-ray on 28 February 2012, along with its sequel "Johnny English Reborn". The film was released on Netflix in February 2016.

Sequels.

A sequel, titled "Johnny English Reborn", was released in October 2011. In September 2010, filming for the sequel began, seven years after the release of the original, and concluded in March 2011. The film follows Johnny English, now training in Asia after being disgraced in an earlier mission, as he attempts to foil a plot to assassinate the Chinese Premier, while a mole is found in "MI7" and English has to deal with being framed.  In May 2017, it was announced that pre-production had begun on a third film titled, "Johnny English Strikes Again", which was released on 5 October 2018.

Johnny English (taglined in some countries as "Little Brother of James Bond") is a 2003 spy action comedy film directed by Peter Howitt and written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and William Davies. It is a British-French venture produced by StudioCanal and Working Title Films, and distributed by Universal Pictures.


Biography.

Amann was born in Munich on 24 November 1891. During the First World War he obtained the rank of "Feldwebel" (equivalent to the US Army staff sergeant) in the Royal Bavarian 16th Infantry Regiment. Amann was Adolf Hitler's company sergeant, and was thus an early acquaintance of Hitler long before his rise to prominence in German politics. He was awarded the Iron Cross second class during the war.  Amann joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in October 1921, as the Party's business manager, and held NSDAP membership number 3. After 1922, he also led the Nazis' publishing house, Eher Verlag. Eher Verlag published, among other imprints, the SS magazine "Das Schwarze Korps". In 1924 he was elected as a NSDAP candidate to the Munich city council and in 1933 became a Nazi member of the Reichstag for the electoral district of Upper Bavaria/Swabia. Amann's most notable contribution was persuading Hitler to retitle his first book from "Viereinhalb Jahre (des Kampfes) gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit", ("Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice") to "Mein Kampf", ("My Struggle") which he also published. The book became a major source of Eher-Verlag's income and Amann oversaw the book through many editions. He helped Hitler become a wealthy man. Amann also enriched himself through many Nazi publications. Amann published the daily "Volkischer Beobachter", the weekly "Illustrierter Beobachter" and the "Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte".  In November 1933, Hitler named Amann the president of the Reich Media Chamber and Reich Press Leader. He pursued a dual-pronged strategy to establish Nazi control over the industry. In his official role as president of the Media Chamber, Amann had the power to seize or close down any newspapers that did not fully support the Nazi regime. Then, as head of the Eher-Verlag, he bought them at a substantial discount–often at "auctions" at which the Eher-Verlag was the sole bidder. By 1942, Amann controlled 80% of all German newspapers through his publishing empire. Combined with the proceeds from "Mein Kampf," this made the Eher-Verlag the largest newspaper and publishing company in Germany, and one of the largest in the world. His income increased from 108,000 RM in 1934 to 3,800,000 RM in 1944.  He rose to the rank of SS-"Obergruppenführer". However, as a party official Amann lacked talent, being a poor speaker and debater. In addition, his handwriting was illegible, thus his Chief of Staff and deputy, Rolf Rienhardt, performed these duties for him. Poor handwriting can be attributed in part to the loss of his left arm in an accident with a firearm while hunting with Franz Ritter von Epp on 4 September 1931.  Arrested by Allied troops after the war ended, Amann was deemed a "Hauptschuldiger" (Prominent Guilty Party) and sentenced to ten years in a labour camp on 8 September 1948. He was released in 1953, but was stripped of his property, pension rights and practically all of his fortune. Amann died on 30 March 1957, in Munich.

Max Amann (24 November 1891 – 30 March 1957) was a German politician, businessman and a member of the Nazi Party. He was the first business manager of the Nazi Party and later became the head of "Eher Verlag", the official Nazi Party publishing house. After the war ended, Amann was arrested by Allied troops. Amann was deemed a "Hauptschuldiger" (Prominent Guilty Party) and sentenced to ten years in a labour camp. He was released in 1953. Amann died in poverty on 30 March 1957, in Munich.


Biography.

Le Clézio's mother was born in the French Riviera city of Nice, his father on the island of Mauritius (which was a British possession, but his father was ethnically Breton). Both his father's and his mother's ancestors were originally from Morbihan, on the south coast of Brittany. His paternal ancestor François Alexis Le Clézio fled France in 1798 and settled with his wife and daughter on Mauritius, which was then a French colony but would soon pass into British hands. The colonists were allowed to maintain their customs and use of the French language. Le Clézio has never lived in Mauritius for more than a few months at a time, but he has stated that he regards himself both as a Frenchman and a Mauritian. He has dual French and Mauritian citizenship (Mauritius gained independence in 1968) and calls Mauritius his "little fatherland".  Le Clézio was born in Nice, his mother's native city, during World War II when his father was serving in the British Army in Nigeria. He was raised in Roquebillière, a small village near Nice until 1948 when he, his mother, and his brother boarded a ship to join his father in Nigeria. His 1991 novel "Onitsha" is partly autobiographical. In a 2004 essay, he reminisced about his childhood in Nigeria and his relationship with his parents.  After studying at the University of Bristol in England from 1958 to 1959, he finished his undergraduate degree at Nice's Institut d'études littéraires. In 1964 Le Clézio earned a master's degree from the University of Provence with a thesis on Henri Michaux.  After several years spent in London and Bristol, he moved to the United States to work as a teacher. During 1967 he served as an aid worker as part of his national service in Thailand, but was quickly expelled from the country for protesting against child prostitution and sent to Mexico to finish his national service. From 1970 to 1974, he lived with the Embera-Wounaan tribe in Panama. He has been married since 1975 to Jémia Jean, who is Moroccan, and has three daughters (one by his first marriage with Rosalie Piquemal). Since the 1990s they have divided their residence between Albuquerque, Mauritius, and Nice.  In 1983 he wrote a doctoral thesis on colonial Mexican history for the University of Perpignan, on the conquest of the Purépecha people who inhabit the present day state of Michoacán. It was serialized in a French magazine and published in Spanish translation in 1985.  He has taught at a number of universities around the world. A frequent visitor to South Korea, he taught French language and literature at Ewha Womans University in Seoul during the 2007 academic year.  In November 2013, he joined Nanjing University, China as a professor.

Literary career.

Le Clézio began writing at the age of seven; his first work was a book about the sea. He achieved success at the age of 23, when his first novel, "Le Procès-Verbal" ("The Interrogation"), was the Prix Renaudot and was shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt. Since then he has published more than thirty-six books, including short stories, novels, essays, two translations on the subject of Native American mythology, and several children's books.  From 1963 to 1975, Le Clézio explored themes such as insanity, language, nature and writing. He devoted himself to formal experimentation in the wake of such contemporaries as Georges Perec or Michel Butor. His persona was that of an innovator and a rebel, for which he was praised by Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze.  During the late 1970s, Le Clézio's style changed drastically; he abandoned experimentation, and the mood of his novels became less tormented as he used themes like childhood, adolescence, and traveling, which attracted a broader audience. In 1980, Le Clézio was the first winner of the newly created Grand Prix Paul Morand, awarded by the Académie Française, for his novel "Désert". In 1994, a survey conducted by the French literary magazine "Lire" showed that 13 percent of the readers considered him to be the greatest living French language writer.

Nobel Prize.

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2008 went to Le Clézio for works characterized by the Swedish Academy as being "poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy" and for being focused on the environment, especially the desert. The Swedish Academy, in announcing the award, called Le Clézio an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization." Le Clézio used his Nobel prize acceptance lecture to attack the subject of information poverty. The title of his lecture was "Dans la forêt des paradoxes" ("In the forest of paradoxes"), a title he attributed to Stig Dagerman.  Gao Xingjian, a Chinese émigré, was the previous French citizen to receive the prize (for 2000); Le Clézio was the first French-language writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature since Claude Simon for 1985, and the fourteenth since Sully Prudhomme, laureate of the first prize of 1901.

Controversy.

He is a staunch defender of Mama Rosa, director of a Mexican shelter raided by the police in July 2014 when children were found eating rotten food and kept against the will of their parents. He wrote an article in "Le Monde" arguing that she is close to sanctity.

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (; 13 April 1940), usually identified as J. M. G. Le Clézio, of French and Mauritian nationality, is a writer and professor. The author of over forty works, he was awarded the 1963 Prix Renaudot for his novel "Le Procès-Verbal" and the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature for his life's work, as an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization".


History.

The town's history dates back probably to 999 or 1024 and in 1125 Yury Dolgoruky made Suzdal the capital of the Rostov-Suzdal principality. Suzdal began to function as a capital at the time when Moscow was still a cluster of cowsheds. In 1157 Andrei Bogolyubsky moved the capital from Suzdal to Vladimir, from which time the principality was known as Vladimir-Suzdal. Set in a fertile wheat-growing area, Suzdal remained a trade centre even after Mongol-led invasions. Eventually, it united with Nizhny Novgorod until both were annexed by Moscow in 1392.  After a decline in political importance, the town rose in prominence as a religious center with incredible development projects funded by Vasily III and Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century. In the late 17th and 18th centuries, wealthy merchants paid for 30 charming churches, which still adorn the town. Thus Suzdal reached a remarkable ratio of churches to citizens: at one point, 40 churches per 400 families.  In 1864, local merchants failed to coerce the government into building the Trans-Siberian Railway through their town. Instead it went through Vladimir, away. As a result, Suzdal was bypassed not only by trains, but by the 20th century altogether. Furthermore, in 1967 Suzdal earned a federally protected status, which officially limited the development in the area. That is why the place remains largely the same as ages ago—its cute wooden cottages mingling with golden cupolas that reflect in the river Kamenka, which meanders sleepily through gentle hills and flower-filled meadows.  In 1943 high ranking Nazi officers captured at the Battle of Stalingrad were imprisoned within the monastery  Today, the town operates as an important tourist center, featuring many fine examples of old Russian architecture—most of them churches and monasteries. Although having just under ten thousand residents, Suzdal still retains a rural look with streams and meadows everywhere and chicken and livestock a common sight on the streets, some of which remain unpaved. This juxtaposition of stunning medieval architecture with its pastoral setting lends Suzdal a picturesque charm, and in the summer, artists and easels are a common sight.

Administrative and municipal status.

Within the framework of administrative divisions, Suzdal serves as the administrative center of Suzdalsky District, to which it is directly subordinated. As a municipal division, the town of Suzdal is incorporated within Suzdalsky Municipal District as Suzdal Urban Settlement.

Tourism.

The only industry in the town is tourism. Suzdal avoided the industrialisation of the Soviet times and was able to preserve a great number of stunning examples of the Russian architecture of the 13th-19th century. There are 305 monuments and listed buildings in Suzdal, including 30 churches, 14 bell towers and 5 monasteries and convents. 79 of them are federally protected buildings and 167 are regionally protected.  In 1992 two of the monuments (Saviour Monastery of St Euthymius and Kremlin with Nativity of the Virgin Cathedral) were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, together with six other White Monuments in this region.

Infrastructure.

There are four major hotels in Suzdal: There are also 50 guest-houses with a total number of 700 more rooms. Thus Suzdal has developed an outstanding ratio of about 20 hotel rooms per 100 population ("comparing to 0.2 rooms for Russia in general, or 1.6 rooms for USA").  Suzdal has 13 restaurants ("with 1429 seats"), 10 cafes ("305 seats"), 11 bars and 73 souvenir shops.  In 1982 Suzdal became the first Russian town to receive "La Pomme d'Or" "("The Golden Apple")" - a prize for excellence in the tourism industry, awarded annually by the World Federation of Travel Journalists and Writers (FIJET).

Film.

More than 60 movies were filmed in Suzdal and the vicinity. Among them:  According to local historian Yury Belov, in the summer of 1964 three different feature films ("Metel", "Zhenitba Balzaminova" and "Tsarskaya nevesta") were filmed in Suzdal at the same time.

Twin towns.

Suzdal is twinned with:

Suzdal () is a town and the administrative center of Suzdalsky District in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, located on the Kamenka River, north of the city of Vladimir, the administrative center of the oblast. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 10,535.


Biography.

London-born Carr started smoking while doing National Service aged 18. He qualified as an accountant in 1958. Carr finally stopped smoking on 15 July 1983, aged 48, after a visit to a hypnotherapist. However, it wasn't the hypnotherapy itself that enabled him to stop – "I succeeded in spite of and not because of that visit" and "I lit up the moment I left the clinic and made my way home...". There were two key pieces of information that enabled Allen to stop later that day. First, the hypnotherapist told him smoking was "just nicotine addiction", which Allen had never perceived before that moment, i.e. that he was an addict. Second, his son John lent him a medical handbook which explained that the physical withdrawal from nicotine is just like an "empty, insecure feeling". He claims that these two realisations crystallised in his mind just how easy it was to stop and so then enabled him to follow an overwhelming desire to explain his method to as many smokers as possible.

Philosophy.

Carr teaches that smokers do not receive a boost from smoking a cigarette, and that smoking only relieves the withdrawal symptoms from the previous cigarette, which in turn creates more withdrawal symptoms once "it" is finished. In this way the drug addiction perpetuates itself. He asserted that the "relief" smokers feel on lighting a cigarette, the feeling of being "back to normal", is the feeling experienced by non-smokers all the time. So that smokers, when they light a cigarette are really trying to achieve a state that non-smokers enjoy their whole lives. He further asserted that withdrawal symptoms are actually created by doubt and fear in the mind of the ex-smoker, and therefore that stopping smoking is not as traumatic as is commonly assumed, if that doubt and fear can be removed.  At Allen Carr Clinics during stop-smoking sessions, smokers are allowed to continue smoking while their doubts and fears are removed, with the aim of encouraging and developing the mindset of a non-smoker before the final cigarette is extinguished. A further reason for allowing smokers to smoke while undergoing counselling is Carr's belief that it is more difficult to convince a smoker to stop until they understand the mechanism of "the nicotine trap". This is because their attention is diminished while they continue to believe it is traumatic and extremely difficult to quit and continue to maintain the belief that they are dependent on nicotine.  Another assertion unique to Carr's method is that willpower is not required to stop smoking.  His contention was that fear of "giving up" is what causes the majority of smokers to continue smoking, thereby necessitating the smoker's perpetuation of the illusion of genuine enjoyment as a moral justification of the inherent absurdity of smoking in the face of overwhelming medical and scientific evidence of its dangers. Instead, he encourages smokers to think of the act of quitting, not as giving up, but as "escaping".

Easyway.

Carr left his accountancy job in 1983 and set up his first "Easyway" clinic. (He actually stopped smoking and modeled his program from a program called the Living Free Program for Smokers which was given by InControl International Inc. in hospitals across the U.S.) He wrote ten books which appeared as bestsellers on selected book ranking charts including his first book "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking" (1985). The success of the original London clinic, through word-of-mouth and direct recommendation, has led to a worldwide network of 100 Easyway clinics in 35 countries plus the production of audio CDs and DVDs. Based on their full money-back guarantee (which requires two follow-up sessions without reimbursement of travel costs), Carr's clinics claim 90% success rate in aiding smokers to stop for three months, and 51% success rate in helping smokers stop for 12 months based on an independent study not connected with any health organisation. Celebrity endorsements include Richard Branson, Anthony Hopkins, Ashton Kutcher, Ellen DeGeneres, Pink, Jason Mraz, Charlotte Church and Hrithik Roshan which aids the organisations efforts to expand commercially.  Allen Carr's Clinics are run by therapists who have claimed they were once smokers and have used Allen's method to stop smoking. All therapists are members of an association created by the Allen Carr multi-million pound enterprise known as the Allen Carr Therapists International (ACTI). ACTI is not accredited by any public health organisation or the NHS.  Carr also wrote a number of other how-to books on subjects such as losing weight and stopping alcohol consumption.

Personal life.

In late July 2006 it was revealed that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 71. The following month he revealed that it was terminal and his life expectancy was about nine months. Carr said: "Since I smoked my final cigarette, 23 years ago, I have been the happiest man in the world. I still feel the same way today.” Carr wrote to Tony Blair, urging the UK Government and NHS to accept his method, saying that the "powerful influence" of lobbyists working for nicotine replacement firms had turned them against him.  Carr died on 29 November 2006 at the age of 72, as a result of his lung cancer. He died at his home near Málaga, Spain.

Allen Carr (2 September 1934 – 29 November 2006) was a British author of books about stopping smoking and other psychological dependencies including alcohol addiction.


Background.

Paul Strand was born Nathaniel Paul Stransky on October 16, 1890, in New York; his Bohemian parents were merchant Jacob Stransky and Matilda Stransky (née Arnstein).

Career.

In his late teens, he was a student of renowned documentary photographer Lewis Hine at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. It was while on a fieldtrip in this class that Strand first visited the 291 art gallery – operated by Stieglitz and Edward Steichen – where exhibitions of work by forward-thinking modernist photographers and painters would move Strand to take his photographic hobby more seriously. Stieglitz later promoted Strand's work in the 291 gallery itself, in his photography publication "Camera Work", and in his artwork in the Hieninglatzing studio. Some of this early work, like the well-known "Wall Street", experimented with formal abstractions (influencing, among others, Edward Hopper and his idiosyncratic urban vision). Other of Strand's works reflect his interest in using the camera as a tool for social reform. He was one of the founders of the Photo League, an association of photographers who advocated using their art to promote social and political causes.  Over the next few decades, Strand worked in motion pictures as well as still photography. His first film was "Manhatta" (1921), also known as "New York the Magnificent", a silent film showing the day-to-day life of New York City made with painter/photographer Charles Sheeler. "Manhatta" includes a shot similar to Strand's famous "Wall Street" (1915) photograph. In 1932–35, he lived in Mexico and worked on "Redes" (1936), a film commissioned by the Mexican government, released in the US as "The Wave". Other films he was involved with were the documentary "The Plow That Broke the Plains" (1936) and the pro-union, anti-fascist "Native Land" (1942).  In June 1949, Strand left the United States to present "Native Land" at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Czechoslovakia. The remaining 27 years of his life were spent in Orgeval, France, where, despite never learning the language, he maintained an impressive, creative life, assisted by his third wife, fellow photographer Hazel Kingsbury Strand.  Although Strand is best known for his early abstractions, his return to still photography in this later period produced some of his most significant work in the form of six book "portraits" of place: "Time in New England" (1950), "La France de Profil" (1952), "Un Paese" (featuring photographs of Luzzara and the Po River Valley in Italy, Einaudi, 1955), "Tir a'Mhurain / Outer Hebrides" (1962), "Living Egypt" (1969, with James Aldridge) and "Ghana: An African Portrait" (with commentary by Basil Davidson; London: Gordon Fraser, 1976).

Personal life.

Strand married the painter Rebecca Salsbury on January 21, 1922. He photographed her frequently, sometimes in unusually intimate, closely cropped compositions. After divorcing Salsbury, Strand married Virginia Stevens in 1935. They divorced in 1949; he then married Hazel Kingsbury in 1951 and they remained married until his death in 1976.  The timing of Strand's departure to France is coincident with the first libel trial of his friend Alger Hiss, with whom he maintained a correspondence until his death. Although he was never officially a member of the Communist Party, many of Strand's collaborators were either Party members (James Aldridge; Cesare Zavattini) or prominent socialist writers and activists (Basil Davidson). Many of his friends were also Communists or suspected of being so (Member of Parliament D. N. Pritt; film director Joseph Losey; Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid; actor Alex McCrindle). Strand was also closely involved with Frontier Films, one of more than 20 organizations that were identified as "subversive" and "un-American" by the US Attorney General. When he was asked by an interviewer why he decided to go to France, Strand began by noting that in America, at the time of his departure, "McCarthyism was becoming rife and poisoning the minds of an awful lot of people."  During the 1950s, and owing to a printing process that was reportedly only available in that country at the time, Strand insisted that his books be printed in Leipzig, East Germany, even if it meant they were initially banned in the American market on account of their Communist provenance. Following Strand's move to Europe, it was later revealed in de-classified intelligence files, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and now preserved at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, that he was closely monitored by security services.

References.

Further reading

Paul Strand (October 16, 1890 – March 31, 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. His diverse body of work, spanning six decades, covers numerous genres and subjects throughout the Americas, Europe, and Africa.


Life and career.

Cuvilliés was so diminutive in stature that it was as a court dwarf that he first came to the notice of the then-exiled Max Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, who detected the young dwarf's aptitude and had him tutored in mathematics, then underwrote his further education with Joseph Effner and sent him to Paris from 1720–24, where he trained in the atelier of Jean-François Blondel, On his return to Munich, he was appointed court architect, at first in conjunction with Effner.  At the Elector's death in 1726, for a time Cuvilliés worked at Schloss Brühl for the new Elector's brother, Clemens August of Bavaria. He provided designs for the chapel at Brūhl, (1730–40) and the hunting lodge Falkenlust (1729–40) but as Charles Albert's interests shifted to Munich, he also returned to Munich. There his fame was established by the decors of the Reiche Zimmer in the Munich Residenz, which had been damaged by a fire, 14 December 1729. The contents of the "Schatzkammer" fortunately had been spared, and Cuvilliés was commissioned to design the panelling of a new interior, to be executed by the court's premier carver Joachim Dietrich. with four rococo gilded console tables on scrolling legs with playful dragons.  His masterpiece is the Amalienburg in the park at Nymphenburg, built 1734-39, with silvered or gilded naturalist Rococo decorations set off by coloured grounds. As the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica commented, "his style, while essentially thin, is often painfully elaborate and bizarre. He designed mirrors and consoles, balustrades for staircases, ceilings and fireplaces, and in furniture, beds and commodes especially".  The Residenztheater, or "Cuvilliés Theatre", (1751–1755) was designed and constructed for Elector Max III Joseph by Cuvilliées. Though the theatre was bombed during World War II, the carved and gilded boxes had been dismantled and stored for security. Afterwards, the Residenztheatre was meticulously recreated in the 1950s.  He wrote several treatises on artistic and decorative subjects, which were edited by his son, François de Cuvilliés the Younger, who succeeded his father at the court of Munich. From 1738 he embarked on his lifelong series of suites of engravings of wall-panelling, cornices, furniture and wrought-iron work, which were then published in Munich and distributed in Paris and doubtless elsewhere; they served to disseminate the Rococo throughout Europe.

François de Cuvilliés the Younger.

His son François de Cuvilliés the Younger (* 24 October 1731 in Munich; † 10 January 1777 there) was also an architect and an assistant to his father. After the death of the latter, he became a deputy master-builder to the Electoral court at Munich. His work led from his father's rococo style to Neoclassicism.

François de Cuvilliés, sometimes referred to as "the Elder" (23 October 1695, Soignies, Hainaut — 14 April 1768, Munich), was a Belgian-born Bavarian decorative designer and architect. He was instrumental in bringing the Rococo style to the Wittelsbach court at Munich and to Central Europe in general.


History.

The history of the Upper Sorbian language in Germany began with the Slavic migrations during the 6th century AD. Beginning in the 12th century, there was a massive influx of rural Germanic settlers from Flanders, Saxony, Thuringia and Franconia. This so-called "Ostsiedlung" (eastern settlement or expansion) led to a slow but steady decline in use of the Sorbian language. In addition, in the Saxony region, the Sorbian language was legally subordinated to the German language. Language prohibitions were later added: In 1293, the Sorbian language was forbidden in Berne castle before the courts; in 1327 it was forbidden in Zwickau and Leipzig, and from 1424 on it was forbidden in Meissen. Further, there was the condition in many guilds of the cities of the area to accept only members of German-language origin.  However, the central areas of the Milzener and Lusitzer, in the area of the today's Lausitz, were relatively unaffected by the new German language settlements and legal restrictions. The language therefore flourished there. By the 17th century, the number of Upper Sorbian speakers in that area grew to over 300,000. The oldest evidence of written Upper Sorbian is the "Burger Eydt Wendisch" monument, which was discovered in the city of Bautzen and dated to the year 1532.

Upper Sorbian in Germany.

There is an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 speakers of Upper Sorbian. Almost all of these live in the state of Saxony, chiefly in the district of Bautzen (Budyšin). The stronghold of the language is the village of Crostwitz (Chrósćicy) and the surrounding municipalities, especially to the west of it. In this core area, Upper Sorbian remains the predominant vernacular.

Phonology.

Vowels.

The vowel inventory of Upper Sorbian is exactly the same as that of Lower Sorbian. It is also very similar to the vowel inventory of Slovene.

Samples.

The Lord's Prayer in Upper Sorbian:  Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Upper Sorbian:

Upper Sorbian () is a minority language spoken by Sorbs in Germany in the historical province of Upper Lusatia, which is today part of Saxony. It is grouped in the West Slavic language branch, together with Lower Sorbian, Czech, Polish, Slovak and Kashubian.