Overview.

The R19 was presented in June 1988, with sales in the domestic French market beginning in September 1988. It was the replacement for the 9 and 11, both of which were ageing and outdated by the end of the 1980s. The R19 went on sale in right hand drive form for the British market in February 1989.  The R19 was styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro, featuring Renault's new E-type (or "Energy") 1.4 L engine and F type 1.7 L versions. Base models originally used the OHV C-type Cléon 1.2 and 1.4 L engines, depending on the market. While originally only available with an atmospheric diesel engine, a turbocharged version appeared in the beginning of 1992.  Intended to be Renault's last numeric named car, the 19 ushered in a new naming policy, with the saloon versions of the 19 being known as the 19 Chamade, to distinguish them from the hatchbacks. The saloon version was launched in 1989.  In many markets, the Chamade badge was dropped following the facelift of 1992, with some replacing it with the "Europa" tag.  In 1991, a convertible bodystyle built by Karmann was first shown; few of these were built with the Phase I design, as it was facelifted shortly afterwards. Although the R19's exterior design (which was relatively conservative, like that of the Renault 9/11) received a muted response, it was praised for its interior comfort and handling.  For the fuel injected top versions, a four speed automatic transmission became available in the fall of 1990. Lesser versions still made do with four or five speed manuals, or a three speed automatic. A convertible version appeared in the beginning of 1992, only available with the two most powerful engine options.  In the summer of 1992, a revamped model was introduced with a substantially restyled front and rear, while LHD market versions received a new dashboard and interior — RHD models retained the original design.  With the facelift, smaller "Energy" series units gradually replaced the old pushrod items, and 1.8 litre engines appeared at the top of the lineup, where they replaced the more powerful 1.7 units (the F3N). The R19 was sold in most of Europe until 1996, and was produced for some South American markets in Argentina until 2000 and for the Andean markets in Colombia until 2001. Turkish production lasted a little longer than in the rest of Europe, also until the year 2000. The R19's platform and running gear would continue to be used in its replacement, the first generation Renault Mégane, which lasted for seven years.  The Renault 19 was awarded the 1989 Car of the Year in Spain and Germany, 1990 Car of the Year in Ireland, and 1993 Car of the Year in Argentina.

16S.

The Renault 19 16S (16V in some countries) was first shown towards the very end of 1988. It was only actually added to the lineup in the autumn of 1990, and was the only Renault 19 with a 16 valve engine. It had a distinctive air inlet on the bonnet, a rear spoiler, 15 inch Speedline SL401 alloy wheels, side skirts, twin headlamps, Recaro bucket seats with optional leather trim, four in one exhaust manifold and ABS braking system with optional trip computer, aircon and electric sunroof. The "S" is for "Soupapes", French for valves.  It was praised for its excellent handling and rev happy F7P engine, which, along with the advanced Renix ECU, made it faster and more fuel efficient compared to most competitors. The braking system was upgraded to include vented discs on the front and discs on the rear as well as an uprated lower suspension setup and front strut bar.  Phase 1 editions benefited from unique front and rear bumpers with front indicators relocated into the bumpers to allow for the twin headlamps, while the Phase 2 retained the original bumpers found throughout the range but added colour coded tops, rubber inserts, and a discreet lower splitter.  The very last models (1995 to 1996) were called Executive and came with leather interior as standard.  A 16S version was also produced in Europe which was equipped as above – however, the earliest models did not sport the bonnet vent. The Phase 2 models gear ratios were also revised, to allow for the extra weight found in the safety equipment the later models carried.  Renault claimed an acceleration from 0 to of 8.2 seconds. Each model boasted in a catalysed form and a top speed of. Phase I included a non catalysed version with.

Engines.

Only for model in South America

The Renault 19 is a small family car that was produced by the French car manufacturer Renault between 1988 and 1996. In Turkey and in Argentina, production continued until 2000. The internal development code for the 19 was X53, with the five door receiving the "B53" chassis code, the three door being the "C53", the Chamade the "L53", and the Cabriolet the "D53".


Life and career.

Born in Shanghai in 1888, Koo attended Saint John's University, Shanghai, and Columbia University, where he was a member of the Philolexian Society, a literary and debating club, and graduated with a B.A. in Liberal Arts (1908) and an M.A. in Political Science (1909). In 1912 he received his Ph.D. in international law and diplomacy from Columbia.  Koo returned to China in 1912 to serve the new Republic of China as English Secretary to President Yuan Shikai. In 1915, Koo was made China's Minister to the United States and Cuba. In 1919, he was a member of the Chinese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, led by Foreign Minister Lu Zhengxiang (Lou Tseng-Tsiang). Before the Western powers and Japan, he demanded that Japan return Shandong to China. He also called for an end to imperialist institutions such as extraterritoriality, tariff controls, legation guards, and lease holds. The Western powers refused his claims and, consequently, the Chinese delegation at the Paris Peace Conference was the only nation that did not sign the Treaty of Versailles at the signing ceremony.  Koo also was involved in the formation of the League of Nations as China's first representative to the newly formed League. From 1922, Koo served successively as Foreign Minister and Finance Minister. He was twice Acting Premier, in 1924 and again in 1926 during a period of chaos in Beijing under Zhang Zuolin in 1926-7. Koo was Acting Premier from 1 October 1926 and acted concurrently as Interim President. (On 12 March 1925, Sun Yat-sen died in Wellington Koo's home in Beijing, where he had been taken when it was discovered he had incurable liver cancer.) He served as Premier from January until June 1927, when Zhang organised a military government and Koo resigned. After the Northern Expedition toppled the government in Beijing in 1928, he was briefly wanted for arrest by the new Nationalist government in Nanjing, but through Zhang Xueliang's mediation he was reconciled with the new government and returned to the diplomatic service. He represented China at the League of Nations to protest the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. He served as the Chinese Ambassador to France from 1936–1940 until France was occupied by Germany. Afterwards, he was the Chinese Ambassador to the Court of St James's until 1946. In 1945, Koo was one of the founding delegates of the United Nations. He later became the Chinese Ambassador to the United States and focused on maintaining the alliance between the Republic of China and the United States as the Kuomintang began losing to the Communists and had to retreat to Taiwan.  Koo retired from the Chinese diplomatic service in 1956. and in the same year he became a judge of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and served as Vice-President of the Court during the final three years of his term. In 1967, he retired and moved to New York City, where he lived until his death in 1985.

Personal life.

In 1908, Koo married his first wife, Chang Jun-e (). They divorced prior to 1912.  Koo's second wife, Tang Pao-yueh "May" (; c. 1895–1918), was the youngest daughter of the former Chinese prime minister Tang Shaoyi and a first cousin of the painter and actress Mai-Mai Sze. Their marriage took place soon after Koo's return to China in 1912. She died in the US during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. They had two children: a son, Teh-chang Koo (1916–1998), and a daughter, Patricia Koo (1918-2015). Koo's third wife was the socialite and style icon Oei Hui-lan (1889–1992). She married Koo in Brussels, Belgium, in 1921. She was previously married, in 1909, to British consular agent Beauchamp Stoker, by whom she had one son, Lionel, before divorcing in 1920. Much admired for her adaptations of traditional Manchu fashion, which she wore with lace trousers and jade necklaces, Oei Hui-lan was the favorite daughter of "Peranakan" tycoon "Majoor" Oei Tiong Ham, and the heiress of a prominent family of the "Cabang Atas" or the Chinese gentry of colonial Indonesia. She wrote two memoirs: "Hui-Lan Koo (Mrs. Wellington Koo): An Autobiography" (written with Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer, Dial Press, 1945) and "No Feast Lasts Forever" (written with Isabella Taves, Quadrangle/The New York Times, 1975). Koo had two sons with her: Yu-chang Wellington Koo, Jr. (1922–1975) and Fu-chang Freeman Koo (1923–1977).  On 3 September 1959, Koo married his fourth wife Yen Yu-yun (1905–2017), the widow of Clarence Kuangson Young. He had three stepdaughters from this marriage: Genevieve (wife of American photographer and film director Gordon Parks), Shirley and Frances Loretta Young.

Death.

Koo lived long enough to see two of his sons die before him. He died surrounded by his family on the night of 14 November 1985, at the age of 97. Wellington Koo was survived by his fourth wife, two children, nineteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.  Dying older than both the 87-year old Qianlong Emperor, the 92-year old People's Republic paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and living Jiang Zemin, Koo holds the distinction of being the longest-lived person to ever lead China. Despite this, his last wife lived even longer than he did. His last wife Juliana Koo died aged 111.

Vi Kyuin Wellington Koo (; 29 January 1888 – 14 November 1985) was a Chinese statesman of the Republic of China. He was one of China's representatives at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919; served as an ambassador to France, Great Britain and the United States; was a participant in the founding of the League of Nations and the United Nations; and sat as a judge on the International Court of Justice in The Hague from 1957 to 1967. Between October 1926 and June 1927, while serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Koo briefly held the concurrent positions of acting Premier and interim President of the Republic of China. Koo was the first and only Chinese head of state known to use a Western name publicly.


The voyage.

In 1592, De Houtman was sent by Amsterdam merchants to Lisbon to discover as much information on the Spice Islands as he could. Portugal and Spain, then united, had closed their ports to Dutch ships in 1585, in the context of the Eighty Years' War. Houtman spent about two years in Portugal; the Portuguese needed help and did not realize that the Dutch represented a risk. When Houtman returned to the Netherlands he brought with him precious information about the seas and lands of the East: the coasts, the reefs and skerries, the sea currents, the winds, landmarks, local birds, friendly and enemy foes and about the strengths and weaknesses of the Portuguese.  At the same time he returned to Amsterdam, Jan Huygen van Linschoten returned from India. The merchants determined that Bantam provided the best opportunity to buy spices. In 1594, the two merchants founded the Compagnie van Verre, and on 2 April 1595, four ships left Amsterdam: the,,, and the. The voyage was beset with trouble from the beginning. Scurvy broke out after only a few weeks, due to insufficient provisions. At Madagascar, where a brief stop was planned, seventy people had to be buried. The Madagascan bay where they were anchored is now known as the Dutch cemetery. After the death of one of the skippers, quarrels broke out among the captains and traders, one was imprisoned on board and locked up in his cabin. In June 1596, the ships finally arrived at Banten, a northwestern port at Java. Jan Huyghen van Linschoten had told them not to pass through the Malacca Strait, which was controlled by the Portuguese, but through Sunda Strait.  De Houtman was introduced to the Sultan of Banten, who promptly entered into an optimistic treaty with the Dutch, writing "We are well content to have a permanent league of alliance and friendship with His Highness the Prince Maurice of Nassau, of the Netherlands and with you, gentlemen." The local Portuguese traders became very suspicious when De Houtman did not buy any black pepper, and wanted to wait on the next harvest. Unfortunately, De Houtman was undiplomatic and insulting to the sultan, and was turned away for "rude behaviour", without being able to buy spices at all.  The ships then sailed east to Madura, but were attacked by pirates on the way. In Madura, they were received peacefully, but De Houtman ordered his men to brutally attack and rape the civilian population in revenge for the unrelated earlier piracy.  The ships then sailed for Bali, and met with the island's king. They managed to obtain a few pots of peppercorns on 26 February 1597. Two of the crewmembers stayed on the island. At Bawean one of the ships, the "Amsterdam" was purposely set on fire, and the crew divided over the other three ships. When the sailors had enough of the exhausting voyage, it was decided not to go to the Moluccas and return to Holland. That evening another one of the skippers died. De Houtman was accused of poisoning him.  Portuguese ships prevented them from taking on water and supplies at Saint Helena. Out of the 249 men crew, only 87 returned, too weak to moor their ships themselves.

Repercussions.

Though the trip was a humanitarian disaster and financially probably just broke even, it was a symbolic victory. It may be regarded as the start of the Dutch colonisation of Indonesia. Within five years, 65 more Dutch ships had sailed east to trade. Soon, the Dutch would fully take over the spice trade in and around the Indian Ocean.  On his second trip to the East, for a different company, De Houtman and his troops got into a confrontation in Aceh, because of his rude temperament, and soon there were fierce battles with the Acehnese Navy, led by Aceh's female admiral, Keumalahayati (Malahayati) who eventually managed to kill De Houtman. Because of that incident, Queen Elizabeth I of England decided to send an emissary to the Sultan of Aceh, asking permission to enter Malacca Strait.

Cornelis de Houtman (2 April 1565 – 1 September 1599), brother of Frederick de Houtman, was a Dutch explorer who discovered a new sea route from Europe to the East Indies, and who thus begun the Dutch spice trade. At the time, the Portuguese Empire held a monopoly on the spice trade, and the voyage was a symbolic victory for the Dutch, even though the voyage itself was a disaster. Houtman was also a spy, having worked against the Portuguese by bringing back to the Netherlands privileged nautical information obtained during his stay in Portugal.


Early career.

Karl Leiberich was born at Nennslingen, in the Principality of Ansbach. In 1770 he joined an Austrian cavalry regiment, in which his uncle, Leiberich, was a squadron commander, becoming an officer seven years later. During the brief War of the Bavarian Succession he was selected for service on the staff of Count Kinsky, under whom, and subsequently under the commander-in-chief Field Marshal Count Lacy, he did excellent work. He was promoted first lieutenant in 1778, and captain on the quartermaster-general's staff in 1783. Count Lacy, then the foremost soldier of the Austrian army, had the highest opinion of his young assistant. In 1785 Mack married Katherine Gabrieul, and was ennobled under the name of Mack von Leiberich.  In the Turkish War he was employed on the headquarters staff, becoming in 1788 major and personal aide-de-camp to the emperor, Joseph II and in 1789 was promoted to lieutenant colonel. He distinguished himself in the storming of Belgrade in 1789. Shortly after this, disagreements between Mack and Ernst Gideon von Laudon, now commander-in-chief, led to the former demanding a court-martial; Mack left the front but received a colonelcy (1789) and the Order of Maria Theresa. In 1790 Laudon and Mack, reconciled, were again on the field together. During these campaigns Mack received a severe head injury from which he never fully recovered. In 1793 he was made quartermaster-general (chief of staff) to Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg, commanding in the Netherlands and he enhanced his reputation by the ensuing campaign. The young Archduke Charles of Austria, who won his own first laurels in the action of March 1, 1793, wrote after the battle, "Above all we have to thank Colonel Mack for these successes".

French Revolutionary Wars.

Mack distinguished himself again on the field of Neerwinden and had a leading part in the negotiations between Coburg and Dumouriez. He continued to serve as quartermaster-general, and was now made titular chief ("Inhaber") of a cuirassier regiment. He received a wound at Famars, but in 1794 was once more engaged in active service, having at last been made a major-general. But the failure of the coalition allies, due though it was to political and military factors and ideas, over which Mack had no control, was ascribed to him, as their successes of March–April 1793 had been, and he subsequently fell into disfavour in military circles. The Emperor, now Francis II, remained his supporter and in 1797 Mack was promoted Feldmarschall-leutnant, and in the following year he accepted, at the personal request of the emperor, the command of the Neapolitan army. He could do nothing with the unpromising material of his new command against the French revolutionary troops, and before long, being in actual danger of being murdered by his men, he took refuge in the French camp. Initially, he was promised a free pass to his own country, but Napoleon ordered that he should be sent to France as a prisoner of war.

War of the Third Coalition.

Two years later he escaped from Paris in disguise. There were allegations that he broke his parole, a severe allegation that reflected on his honor as a gentleman and an officer (in the opinion of the anonymous author of his biography in the 1911 Eleventh edition of Encyclopædia Britannica this allegation was false).  He was not employed for some years, but in 1804, when the war party in the Austrian court needed a general to oppose the peace policy of the Archduke Charles, Mack was made quartermaster-general of the army, with instructions to prepare for a war with France. He did all that was possible within the available time to reform the army, and on the opening of the war of 1805 he became quartermaster-general to the titular commander-in-chief in Germany, the Archduke Ferdinand Karl Joseph of Austria-Este, who was himself inexperienced in military command. Consequently, Mack held the real responsible commander of the army that opposed Napoleon in Bavaria, but his position was ill-defined and his authority treated with minimal respect by the other general officers. Furthermore, the restructuring of the Habsburg military had been incomplete; Mack chose to initiate some of Charles' innovations, while ignoring others. His own insecurities and vagaries did not encourage the confidence of the staff; in the campaigning that led up to the Battle of Ulm, Mack's frequent reversals of Viennese policy, and even his own decisions, further undermined an already fragile command structure.  At Ulm in October 1805, he surrendered the entire army to Napoleon. A few of his officers, including Prince von Schwarzenberg, broke through the French defenses in a massed cavalry charge and escaped, but most of the Austrian high command was captured with 25,000 men, 18 generals, 65 guns, and 40 standards. The general officers received a parole that required them to abstain from combat with France, removing the bulk of Habsburg commanders from the possibility of service in the upcoming campaign of the Upper Danube.  After Austerlitz, Mack was convicted of cowardice by a court-martial. He was deprived of his rank, his regiment, and his honors, chiefly the Order of Maria Theresa, and imprisoned for two years. Upon his release in 1808, he lived in relative obscurity until 1819, when the ultimate victory of the allies had obliterated the memory of earlier disasters, he was, at the request of Prince Schwarzenberg, reinstated in the army as Feldmarschall-leutnant, and a member of the Order of Maria Theresa. He died on 22 October 1828 at S. Pölten.

External sources.

Ph.D thesis: Gramm, E.R.: "Der unglückliche Mack - Aufstieg und Fall des Karl Mack von Leiberich" http://othes.univie.ac.at/480/1/02-05-2008_7500647.pdf

Karl Freiherr Mack von Leiberich (25 August 1752 – 22 December 1828) was an Austrian soldier. He is best remembered as the commander of the Austrian forces that capitulated to Napoleon's "Grande Armée" in the Battle of Ulm in 1805. Mack makes a brief appearance as a character in book two of Volume I of Tolstoy's "War and Peace".


Early life.

Menshikov was born on in Moscow. Historian Paul Bushkovitch argues that Menshikov was not an aristocrat and was most likely descended from servants of the palace stables, who among others made up the first soldiers of Peter's 'toy armies.' As the legend (dating from around 1710) goes, he was making a living on the streets of Moscow as a vendor of stuffed buns known as pirozhki at the age of twenty. His fine appearance and witty character caught the attention of Franz Lefort, Peter's first favourite, who took him into his service and finally transferred him to the tsar. On the death of Lefort in 1699, Menshikov succeeded him as Peter's prime favourite and confidant.  He took an active part in the Azov campaigns (1695–1696) against the Ottoman Empire. During the tsar's first foreign tour in the next year, Menshikov worked by his side in the dockyard of Amsterdam, and acquired a thorough knowledge of shipbuilding and colloquial Dutch and German. He acted as subordinate to Boris Sheremetev, who was commander-in-chief during the retreat before Charles XII in 1708, subsequently participating in the battle of Holowczyn, the reduction of Mazepa, and the crowning victory of Poltava (), where he won his field-marshal's baton.

Corruption.

Around 1706 he had a conflict with Andrew Vinius; Vinius lost all of his land and goods. From 1709 to 1714 he served during the Courland, Holstein and Pomeranian campaigns, but then, as governor-general of Ingria, with almost unlimited powers, was entrusted with a leading part in the civil administration. Menshikov understood perfectly the principles on which Peter's reforms were conducted and was the right hand of the tsar in all his gigantic undertakings. But he abused his powerful position, and his corrupt practices frequently brought him to the verge of ruin. Every time the tsar returned to Russia he received fresh accusations of plunder against "his Serene Highness."  Peter's first serious outburst of indignation (March 1711) was due to the prince's looting in Poland. On his return to Russia in 1712, Peter discovered that Menshikov had turned a blind eye to wholesale corruption in his own governor-generalship. Peter warned him "for the last time" to change his ways. Yet, in 1713, he was implicated in the "Solovey process", in the course of which it was demonstrated that he had defrauded the government of 100,000 roubles. He only owed his life on this occasion to a sudden illness. On his recovery Peter's fondness for his friend overcame his sense of justice. In 1714 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.  In the last year of Peter's reign new allegations of fraud by Menshikov came to light, and he was obliged to appeal for protection to the empress Catherine. It was chiefly through the efforts of Menshikov and his colleague Tolstoi that, on the death of Peter, in 1725, Catherine was raised to the throne. Menshikov was committed to the Petrine system, and he recognised that, if that system were to continue, Catherine was, at that particular time, the only possible candidate. Her name was a watchword for the progressive faction. The placing of her on the throne meant a final victory over ancient prejudices, a vindication of the new ideas of progress, and not least security for Menshikov and his ill-gotten fortune.

Supremacy and disgrace.

During Catherine's short reign (February 1725May 1727), Menshikov was practically the absolute ruler of Russia. He promoted himself to the unprecedented rank of Generalissimus, and was the only Russian to bear a ducal title. Upon finishing the construction of the Menshikov Palace on the Neva Embankment in St Petersburg (now assigned to the Hermitage Museum), Menshikov intended to make Oranienbaum a capital of his ephemeral duchy. Pushkin in one of his poems alluded to Menshikov as "half-tsar".  On the whole he ruled well, his difficult position serving as some restraint upon his natural inclinations. He contrived to prolong his power after Catherine's death by means of a forged will and a coup d'état. While his colleague Peter Tolstoi would have raised Elizabeth Petrovna to the throne, Menshikov set up the youthful Peter II, son of the tsarevich Alexei, with himself as dictator during the prince's minority.  He now aimed at establishing himself definitely by marrying his daughter Mary to Peter II. But the old nobility, represented by the Dolgorukovs and the Galitzines, united to overthrow him, and he was deprived of all his dignities and offices and expelled from the capital (). Subsequently, he was deprived of his enormous wealth, stripped of the titles, and he and his whole family were banished to Beryozovo in Siberia, where he died on. His wife Darya Mikhailovna (born Arseneva) died on their way into exile in 1728 near Kazan.  According to Simon Sebag Montefiore in his book "The Romanovs 1613–1918" Menshikov was once punched twice by Tsar Peter the Great, once in the nose and once on the side of the head, after Tsar Peter saw Menshikov dancing with his sword still on, considered highly rude and offensive.  In Beryozovo Menshikov built a wooden church. He buried his daughter who died in exile there. Menshikov's younger children survived the exile and were eventually returned to the court.

Prince Aleksander Danilovich Menshikov (, tr. ; – ) was a Russian statesman, whose official titles included Generalissimus, Prince of the Russian Empire and Duke of Izhora (Duke of Ingria), Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Duke of Cosel. A highly appreciated associate and friend of Tsar Peter the Great, he was the "de facto" ruler of Russia for two years.


Plot.

In 1961, the Soviet Union launches its first ballistic missile nuclear submarine, the "K-19", commanded by Captain Alexei Vostrikov (Harrison Ford), with executive officer Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson), the crew's original captain. Vostrikov is alleged to have been appointed through his wife's political connections, as well as Polenin's tendency to put crew morale and safety before Soviet pride. Discovering the reactor officer drunk and asleep on duty, Vostrikov fires him, receiving a replacement, Vadim Radtchenko (Peter Sarsgaard), fresh from the academy. Bad luck surrounds the launch; the medical officer is killed by a truck and replaced by command's foremost medical officer, who has never been out to sea, and the inaugural bottle of champagne fails to break on the bow.  The "K-19"'s first mission is to surface in the Arctic, test-fire an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile, and patrol the Atlantic within striking range of New York City and Washington, D.C.. Vostrikov orders "K-19" to submerge past its maximum operational depth, then surface at full-speed to break through the Arctic pack-ice. Protesting the dangerous maneuver, Polenin storms off the bridge. The test missile launches successfully.  En route to the patrol zone, a reactor coolant pipe bursts. Control rods are inserted to stop the reactor, but reactor temperature rises and the crew learns back-up coolant systems were not installed. "K-19" surfaces to contact fleet command but the long-range transmitter antenna cable is damaged, possibly by the Arctic maneuver. Engineers rig a makeshift coolant system, working in shifts to limit radiation exposure. The first team emerges vomiting and blistered; the second and third teams cool the reactor, but all suffer radiation poisoning. With radiation levels rising, the submarine surfaces and most of the crew are ordered topside. Radtchenko balks after seeing the first team's injuries, and the crew chief takes his place on the third team.  A Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw helicopter from a nearby United States Navy destroyer offers assistance, which Vostrikov rejects. The Soviet government grows concerned when the "K-19" ceases contact but is spotted near the destroyer. Hoping diesel submarines will be sent to tow the "K-19", Vostrikov orders a return to port, but the pace could kill the entire crew. The repaired pipework leaks and reactor temperature rises again, and torpedo fuel ignites a fire. Initially ordering the fire suppression system activated – which would suffocate anyone in the area – Vostrikov is talked down by Polenin, who personally assists the fire crew. Two officers mutiny against Vostrikov, and Radtchenko enters the reactor alone to attempt repairs.  Polenin deceives the mutineers into handing over their weapons, arrests them, and frees Vostrikov. Unaware of Radtchenko, Vostrikov, at Polenin's behest, announces his plan to dive and attempt another repair, fearing an overheating reactor could set off their warheads and incite nuclear war. The crew responds positively, and "K-19" dives. Radtchenko's repairs are successful, but blind and weakened by heavy radiation, he is dragged out by Vostrikov. A meltdown is prevented, but irradiated steam leaks throughout the submarine.  A Soviet diesel submarine reaches "K-19", with orders to confine the crew on-board until a freighter can pick them up, but as it is too dangerous to stay, Vostrikov orders an evacuation, knowing he may lose his command and be sent to a gulag. Returning to the Soviet Union, Vostrikov is tried for endangering the mission and disobeying a direct order, but Polenin comes to his defense.  An epilogue reveals Vostrikov was acquitted, but the "K-19" crew was sworn to secrecy and Vostrikov never given submarine command again. All seven men who went into the reactor chamber died of radiation poisoning, and twenty others later died from radiation sickness. Only after the dissolution of the Soviet Union decades later could the crew discuss what happened.  In 1989, an aged Vostrikov meets Polenin and other survivors at a cemetery on the anniversary of their rescue. Vostrikov informs the men that he nominated the 28 deceased crewmen for the Hero of the Soviet Union award, but was told the honor was reserved for combat veterans. Remarking "what good are honors from such people," Vostrikov toasts the survivors and those who sacrificed their lives.

Production.

"The Widowmaker" nickname was used only in the film. In real life, the submarine had no nickname until the nuclear accident on July 3, 1961, when it received the nickname "Hiroshima".  "K-19: The Widowmaker" cost $100 million to produce, but gross returns were only $35 million in the United States and $30.5 million internationally. The film was not financed by a major studio ("National Geographic" was owned by National Geographic Partners, a joint venture with 21st Century Fox and The National Geographic Society), making it one of the most expensive independent films to-date. "K-19: The Widowmaker" was filmed in Canada, specifically Toronto, Ontario; Gimli, Manitoba; and Halifax, Nova Scotia.  The producers made some efforts to work with the original crew of "K-19", who took exception to the first version of the script available to them. The submarine's captain presented an open letter to the actors and production team, and a group of officers and crew members presented another. In a later script, several scenes were cut, and the names of the crew changed at the request of the crew members and their families.  The most significant difference between the plot and the historical events is the scene that replaces an incident where the captain threw almost all the submarine's small arms overboard out of concern about the possibility of a mutiny; the film instead portrays an actual attempt at mutiny.  The ""K-19"" was portrayed in the film by the "Juliett"-class "K-77", which was significantly modified for the role. HMCS "Ojibwa" portrayed the Soviet "S-270". portrayed. The Canadian Halifax Shipyard stood in for the Sevmash shipyard of northern Russia.  Klaus Badelt wrote the film's late-Romantic-styled score.

Reception.

"K-19: The Widowmaker" received mixed reviews. It has a 61% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 170 reviews, with an average score of 6.09/10. It is summarized as being "A gripping drama even though the filmmakers have taken liberties with the facts."  When "K-19: The Widowmaker" was premiered in Russia in October 2002, fifty-two veterans of the "K-19" submarine accepted flights to the Saint Petersburg premiere; despite what they saw as technical as well as historical compromises, they praised the film and, in particular, the performance of Harrison Ford.  In his review, film critic Roger Ebert compared "K-19: The Widowmaker" to other classic films of the genre, "Movies involving submarines have the logic of chess: The longer the game goes, the fewer the possible remaining moves. "K-19: The Widowmaker" joins a tradition that includes "Das Boot" and "The Hunt for Red October" and goes all the way back to "Run Silent, Run Deep". The variables are always oxygen, water pressure and the enemy. Can the men breathe, will the sub implode, will depth charges destroy it?"  Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote: "Why did movie moguls think that this was the right moment for a tale of unflinching loyalty to the Soviet Union?."

K-19: The Widowmaker is a 2002 historical submarine film directed and produced by Kathryn Bigelow, and produced by Edward S. Feldman, Sigurjon Sighvatsson, Christine Whitaker and Matthias Deyle with screenplay by Christopher Kyle. An international production of the US, UK, Germany and Canada, the film takes place in 1961 and focuses its story on the Soviet K-19 submarine.


Biography.

Substantially the circumstances of her martyrdom are believed to be authentic, though the legend cannot be proven true, and many details of the fifth century "Acts of Saint Agnes" are open to criticism. A church was built over her tomb, and her relics venerated.  According to tradition, Agnes was a member of the Roman nobility, born in AD 291 and raised in an early Christian family. She suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve or thirteen during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, on 21 January 304.  A beautiful young girl from a wealthy family, Agnes had many suitors of high rank, and the young men, slighted by her resolute devotion to religious purity, submitted her name to the authorities as a follower of Christianity.  The Prefect Sempronius condemned Agnes to be dragged naked through the streets to a brothel. In one account, as she prayed, her hair grew and covered her body. It was also said that all of the men that attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind. The son of the prefect was struck dead but revived after she prayed for him, causing her release. There commenced a trial from which Sempronius recused himself, allowing another figure to preside and sentence St. Agnes to death. She was led out and bound to a stake, but the bundle of wood would not burn, or the flames parted away from her, whereupon the officer in charge of the troops drew his sword and beheaded her, or, in some other texts, stabbed her in the throat. It is also said that her blood poured to the stadium floor where other Christians soaked it up with cloths. Agnes was buried beside the Via Nomentana in Rome. A few days after her death, her foster-sister, Emerentiana, was found praying by her tomb; she claimed to be the daughter of Agnes' wet nurse, and was stoned to death after refusing to leave the place and reprimanding the pagans for killing her foster-sister. Emerentiana was also later canonised. The daughter of Constantine I, Constantina, was said to have been cured of leprosy after praying at Agnes' tomb. She and Emerentiana appear in the scenes from the life of Agnes on the 14th-century Royal Gold Cup in the British Museum.  An early account of Agnes' death, stressing her young age, steadfastness and virginity, but not the legendary features of the tradition, is given by Ambrose.

Veneration.

Agnes was venerated as a saint at least as early as the time of St Ambrose, based on an existing homily. She is commemorated in the "Depositio Martyrum" of Filocalus (354) and in the early Roman Sacramentaries.  Agnes' bones are conserved beneath the high altar in the church of Sant'Agnese fuori le mura in Rome, built over the catacomb that housed her tomb. Her skull is preserved in a separate chapel in the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone in Rome's Piazza Navona.  Her feast day is 21 January.

Patronage.

Because of the legend around her martyrdom, she is patron saint of those seeking chastity and purity.  Agnes is also the patron saint of young girls. Folk custom called for them to practise rituals on Saint Agnes' Eve (20–21 January) with a view to discovering their future husbands. This superstition has been immortalised in John Keats's poem, "The Eve of Saint Agnes".

Iconography.

Since the Middle Ages, Agnes has traditionally been depicted as a young girl in robes, with a lamb, the symbol of her virginal innocence, and often, like many other martyrs, with a palm branch.

Legacy.

The Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes is a Roman Catholic religious community for women based in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, USA. It was founded in 1858, by Father Caspar Rehrl, an Austrian missionary, who established the sisterhood of pioneer women under the patronage of Agnes, to whom he had a particular devotion.  It is customary on her feast day for two lambs to be brought from the Trappist abbey of Tre Fontane in Rome to the Sant'Agnese in Agone church to be blessed by the Pope. On Holy Thursday they are shorn, and from the wool is woven the pallium which the pope gives to a newly consecrated metropolitan archbishop as a sign of his jurisdiction and his union with the pope.

In popular culture.

Hrotsvitha, the tenth-century nun and poet, wrote a heroic poem about Agnes.  In the historical novel "Fabiola or, the Church of the Catacombs", written by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman in 1854, Agnes is the soft-spoken teenage cousin and confidant of the protagonist, the beautiful noblewoman Fabiola.  The instrumental song "Saint Agnes and the Burning Train" appears on the 1991 album 'The Soul Cages' by Sting.  The song “Bear’s Vision of St. Agnes” appears on the 2012 album ‘Ten Stories’ by rock band mewithoutYou.  The St. Agnes Library is a branch of the New York Public Library located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, on Amsterdam Avenue between West 81st and West 82nd Streets.

Agnes of Rome () is a virgin martyr, venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, and Lutheranism. She is one of seven women who, along with the Blessed Virgin, are commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass.


Early life.

Larkin was born in El Monte, California. He suffered from a severe stutter by the time he learned to speak, which led to an emotionally traumatic childhood. At age twelve, he began to learn the piano and was introduced to the art of scat singing two years later through records by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, among others. The piano provided him with a means of artistic expression to compensate for his speech difficulties, and he "hid behind [the] piano because [he] was scared to speak."

Musical career.

Larkin became a professional jazz pianist in the 1970s and 1980s, playing many engagements in jazz clubs around Los Angeles. His first known performance on a studio album was in 1981 on the album "Animal Sounds" by Sam Phipps. In 1986, he released the self-titled album "John Larkin" on the Transition label. This album was produced by John himself, along with Marcia Larkin. It featured Joe Farrell on saxophone.

"Scatman John".

To advance his career in 1990, Larkin moved to Berlin, Germany. Once there, he discovered an appreciative jazz culture and started playing jazz gigs. This was when he first decided to take a monumental step away from his insecurities and add singing to his act for the first time, heavily inspired by the standing ovation he received for his rendition of the song "On the Sunny Side of the Street". Soon after, his agent Manfred Zähringer from Iceberg Records (Denmark) thought of combining scat singing with modern dance music and hip hop effects. Larkin was hesitant at first, terrified of being laughed at and criticized once again, but BMG Hamburg was open.  Larkin was worried that listeners would realize he stuttered, and his wife, Judy, suggested that he talk about it directly in his music. Working with dance producers Ingo Kays and Tony Catania, he recorded the first single, "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)". After his first big hit, he adopted the new name and persona of "Scatman" John.  In 1995, at age 53, Larkin became a worldwide star. Sales of his debut single were slow at first, but they gradually reached number-one in many countries and sold over six million records worldwide. "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" charted highly across Europe and Japan and remains his biggest-selling and most well-known song. He later followed up with the song "Scatman's World" entering the UK Singles chart at number 10, which met lesser but still notable success, selling a million copies and charting highly throughout Europe.  Following the success of these two singles, he released his debut album as Scatman John, also titled "Scatman's World", which entered the top 10 album charts in many countries including his then home Germany as well as in Switzerland, Finland and Norway; the album eventually sold millions of copies worldwide. He began a promotional and concert tour of Europe and Asia. Referring to a performance in Spain, Larkin said, "the kids screamed for five minutes straight, I couldn't start the song".  The second Scatman John album, "Everybody Jam!", was released in 1996. While nowhere near as successful on an international level as his debut, the album and accompanying single took off in Japan, the country in which he would see success on a larger scale than anywhere else in the world. He was so popular there that he even appeared on Coca-Cola cans. In Europe, subsequent singles failed to replicate the chart success of his first two singles, giving him the title two-hit wonder.  The Japanese version of "Everybody Jam!" included a total of five bonus tracks, including the hit singles there Su Su Su Super Ki Re i and "Pripri Scat", which were commissioned by Japanese companies for commercials for cosmetics and pudding respectively. The Ultraman franchise even jumped on the Scatman bandwagon, releasing a single titled "Scatultraman", the cover art of which featured the Ultraman characters wearing Scatman's trademark hat and mustache. The album reached No. 45 in Switzerland.

Illness and death.

In late 1998 Larkin was diagnosed with lung cancer, but he continued his musical work despite being told to take it easy from his substantial workload. In June 1999, Larkin released his fourth and ultimately final album as Scatman John, "Take Your Time". Shortly afterwards, he embarked on a 24-city US tour. At the concert of November 26, 1999 in Cleveland, Ohio, Larkin collapsed on stage during the show's finale. While engaged in his trademark show-closing scat duel against his drummer, Larkin appeared to faint on stage. The crowd initially believed the collapse to be part of the show, until an announcement was made that the show would be ending due to a medical situation. Larkin was transported to the Cleveland Clinic where he was stabilized. The following week he returned to his home in Los Angeles.  Larkin died at his home in Los Angeles on December 3, 1999, at the age of 57. He was surrounded by his wife Judy, his mother Harriet, and his brother Bill. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea near Malibu, California.

John Paul Larkin (March 13, 1942 – December 3, 1999), known professionally as Scatman John, is an American musician and singer who created a fusion of scat singing and dance music, best known for his 1995 hits "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" and "Scatman's World".


Taxonomy.

There are three species of European cockchafers:

Description.

Adults of the common cockchafer reach sizes of 25–30 mm; the forest cockchafer is a little smaller (20–25 mm). The two species can best be distinguished by the form of their tail end: it is long and slender in the common cockchafer, but shorter and knob-shaped at the end in the forest cockchafer. Both have a brown colour. Male cockchafers have seven "leaves" on their antennae, whereas the females have only six.  The species "M. pectoralis" looks similar, but its pygidium is rounded. The cockchafer should not be confused with the similar European chafer ("Rhizotrogus majalis"), which has a completely different life cycle, nor with the June beetles ("Phyllophaga" spp.), which are native to North America, nor with the summer chafer (or "European June bug", "Amphimallon solstitiale"), which emerges in June and has a two-year life cycle. (All of these are Scarabaeidae, have white grubs, and are turf pests.)

Life cycle.

Adults appear at the end of April or in May and live for about five to seven weeks. After about two weeks, the female begins laying eggs, which she buries about 10 to 20 cm deep in the earth. She may do this several times until she has laid between 60 and 80 eggs. The common cockchafer lays its eggs in fields, whereas the Forest Cockchafer stays in the vicinity of the trees. The preferred food for adults is oak leaves, but they will also feed on conifer needles.  The larvae, known as "white grubs" or "chafer grubs", hatch after four to six weeks. They feed on plant roots, for instance potato roots. The grubs develop in the earth for three to four years, in colder climates even five years, and grow continually to a size of about 4–5 cm, before they pupate in early autumn and develop into an adult cockchafer in six weeks.  The cockchafer overwinters in the earth at depths between 20 and 100 cm. They work their way to the surface only in spring.  Because of their long development time as larvae, cockchafers appear in a cycle of every three or four years; the years vary from region to region. There is a larger cycle of around 30 years superimposed, in which they occur (or rather, used to occur) in unusually high numbers (10,000s).

Pest control and history.

Both the grubs and imagos have a voracious appetite and thus have been and sometimes continue to be a major problem in agriculture and forestry. In the pre-industrialized era, the main mechanism to control their numbers was to collect and kill the adult beetles, thereby interrupting the cycle. They were once very abundant: in 1911, more than 20 million individuals were collected in 18 km of forest.  Collecting adults was an only moderately successful method. In the Middle Ages, pest control was rare, and people had no effective means to protect their harvest. This gave rise to events that seem bizarre from a modern perspective. In 1320, for instance, cockchafers were brought to court in Avignon and sentenced to withdraw within three days onto a specially designated area, otherwise they would be outlawed. Subsequently, since they failed to comply, they were collected and killed. (Similar animal trials also occurred for many other animals in the Middle Ages.)  In some areas and times, cockchafers were served as food. A 19th-century recipe from France for cockchafer soup reads: "roast one pound of cockchafers without wings and legs in sizzling butter, then cook them in a chicken soup, add some veal liver and serve with chives on a toast". A German newspaper from Fulda from the 1920s tells of students eating sugar-coated cockchafers. Cockchafer larvae can also be fried or cooked over open flames, although they require some preparation by soaking in vinegar in order to purge them of soil in their digestive tracts. A cockchafer stew is referred to in W. G. Sebald's novel "The Emigrants".  Only with the modernization of agriculture in the 20th century and the invention of chemical pesticides did it become possible to effectively combat the cockchafer. Combined with the transformation of many pastures into agricultural land, this has resulted in a decrease of the cockchafer to near-extinction in some areas in Europe in the 1970s. Since then, agriculture has generally reduced its use of pesticides. Because of environmental and public health concerns (pesticides may enter the food chain and thus also the human body) many chemical pesticides have been phased out in the European Union and worldwide. In recent years, the cockchafer's numbers have been increasing again, causing damage to over 1,000 km of land all over Europe. At present, no chemical pesticides are approved for use against cockchafers, and only biological measures are utilised for control: for instance, pathogenic fungi or nematodes that kill the grubs are applied to the soil.

In culture.

Children since antiquity have played with cockchafers. In ancient Greece, boys caught the insect, tied a linen thread to its feet and set it free, amusing themselves to watch it fly in spirals. English boys in Victorian times played a very similar game by sticking a pin through one of its wings. Nikola Tesla recalls that as a child he made one of his first "inventions"—an "engine" made by harnessing four cockchafers in this fashion.  The name 'cockchafer' derives from late 17th century usage of 'cock' (in the sense of expressing size or vigour) + 'chafer' which simply means, as now, an insect of this type and has its root in Old English "ceafor" or "cefer", of Germanic origin and is related to the Dutch "kever".  Cockchafers appear in the fairy tales Thumbelina by Hans Christian Andersen and Princess Rosette by Madame d'Aulnoy.  The cockchafer is featured in a German children's rhyme similar to the English "Ladybird, Ladybird": The verse dates back to the Thirty Years' War in the first half of the 17th Century, in which Pomerania was pillaged and suffered heavily. Since World War II, it is associated in Germany also with the closing months of that war, when Soviet troops advanced into eastern Germany.  The cockchafer was the basis for the "fifth trick" in the well-known illustrated German book "Max and Moritz", dating from 1865.  Jim Dixon, in Kingsley Amis's comic novel "Lucky Jim" (1954), repeatedly calls his department head, Professor Welch, an "old cockchafer."  The Italian – specifically Neapolitan – collection of stories "Il Pentamerone" of Giambattista Basile (in its English translation by Norman M. Penzer from Benedetto Croce's Italian) contains a tale on Day 3, Night 5: "The Cockchafer, Mouse and Grasshopper".  There have been four Royal Navy ships named.

The cockchafer, colloquially called Maybug or doodlebug, is the name given to any of the European beetles of the genus "Melolontha", in the family Scarabaeidae.


Foundation.

The site of the "villa Amelungsborn" to the west of the present Stadtoldendorf was originally part of the ancestral lands of the Counts of Northeim.  Siegfried IV, the last Count of Northeim-Boyneburg and Homburg gave the land at Amelungsborn for the foundation of a Cistercian monastery, which was officially settled by a community of monks from Altenkamp Abbey on 20 November 1135.  With the establishment of this monastery and of the nearby Burg Homburg, built at around the same time, it seems that Count Siegfried was aiming to secure a part of his possessions that lay distant from his ancestral seat in North Hessen.  No foundation charter has survived, although there is a confirmation dated 5 December 1129 by Pope Honorius II. Nevertheless, an interval of six years between foundation and settlement fits the general timescale of Cistercian foundations.  The abbey was dedicated in 1135 by Bernhard I, Bishop of Hildesheim. The first abbot of Amelungsborn, appointed in 1141, was Heinrich I, a half-brother of the founder, Count Siegfried IV.

Development and daughter houses.

The new monastery prospered and was soon able to extend the settlements of the order. As early as 1138 a monk of Amelungsborn was appointed abbot of Mariental Abbey near Helmstedt. In 1145 Amelungsborn provided the entire community (12 monks and an abbot) for the foundation of Riddagshausen Abbey near Braunschweig, of which it was thus the mother house.  Amelungsborn was also the mother house of the rich and powerful Doberan Abbey (in the present Bad Doberan near Rostock), in 1171 and again in 1176, at the instigation of the missionary bishop Berno, once a monk of Amelungsborn, who in 1155 became Bishop of Mecklenburg and when in 1160 the seat of the bishopric was moved, the first Bishop of Schwerin.  Further foundations at one remove were at Isenhagen-Marienrode near Wittingen and Wahlshausen near Fuldatal, daughter houses of Riddagshausen, and Dargun Abbey and Pelplin Abbey, daughter houses of Doberan. Amelungsborn became the richest monastery of the Welf sphere of influence, and the one most closely connected with the German colonisation to the east. By about 1280 the community numbered 50 monks and 90 lay-brothers.  Even after the alienation of their Mecklenburg estates, principally round Satow and Dranse, in the 14th century, Amelungsborn Abbey remained an extensive landowner, thanks largely to the generosity of the Edelherren of Homburg, successors of the founder, and the Counts of Everstein, who gave many estates between the Weser and Leine, among them lands at Allersheim near Holzminden, Schnedinghausen near Moringen, Erzhausen, Bruchhof and Holtershausen near Greene, besides possessions in the towns of Einbeck, Höxter and Hameln, and forests near the abbey itself.

After the Reformation.

During the first half of the 16th century Amelungsborn fell increasingly into the power of the Welf territorial princes. In 1549 the abbey was forced to cede the lucrative farm at Allersheim to Duke Henry the Younger of Brunswick.  In 1568 Duke Julius of Brunswick implemented the Reformation in his realm, and the abbot and community converted to Lutheranism. The first Lutheran abbot was Andreas Steinhauer (d. 1588), who founded the school for which the abbey was from this point on principally known.  In 1760 the abbey school was transferred to Holzminden by Duke Charles I of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and merged with the town school, the predecessor of the present Campe Gymnasium.  Under the rule of Napoleon in 1806 Amelungsborn Abbey was dissolved, but by an anomaly the position of abbot remained. When in 1875 the school was taken over by the state and the educational duties of the abbey ended, the office of abbot remained as an honorary title for members of the senior Brunswick clergy  From 1912 the position was left vacant for political reasons. In 1941 the church was transferred to the Hanover State Church ("Landeskirche Hannover"). The church senate assumed the rights of the previous territorial lords and took over responsibility for the abbey.

World War II.

In World War II the buildings were severely damaged, including the outer ring wall, on 8 April 1945, when the premises were heavily bombed by American troops in pursuit of fleeing SS units. The church sustained particularly heavy damage, and the south side of the nave and the east window of 1350 were totally destroyed. Restoration work took place from 1954 to 1959.

Revival.

In 1960 Christhard Mahrenholz was appointed 54th abbot, assembled a community and founded a society of laymen, "Familiaritas". The community, as at 2008, consists of the abbot and eight religious, while the lay brotherhood ""Familiaritas"" has about 30 members.

Amelungsborn Abbey, also Amelunxborn Abbey ("Kloster Amelungsborn"), is a Lutheran monastery in Germany. It is located near Negenborn and Stadtoldendorf, in the "Landkreis" of Holzminden in the Weserbergland. It was the second oldest Cistercian foundation in Lower Saxony, Germany, after Walkenried Abbey. It survived the Reformation by becoming Lutheran, and with Loccum Abbey, also previously Cistercian, is one of the only two Lutheran monasteries in Germany with an uninterrupted tradition. The abbey church, St. Mary's, is also the parish church of the abbey's former estate villages Negenborn and Holenberg.


Early life.

Gerlich was born in Stettin, Pomerania, and grew up as the eldest of the three sons of wholesale and retail fishmonger Paul Gerlich and his wife Therese. In Autumn 1889, Gerlich was enrolled in the Marienstiftungymnasium (Our Lady's Grammar School) and graduated from his senior class there in 1901.  In 1902 he began his studies at the University of Munich, and first majored in mathematics and natural sciences before switching to history. At the university, he was an active member of the Free Student Union (or sometimes translated as Free Student Association from the German word "Freistudentenschaft"). He wrote his doctoral dissertation "The Testament of Henry VI" and completed it in 1907.  On 9 October 1920, he married Sophie Botzenhart, born Stempfle, in Munich.

Career.

After completing his studies with a doctorate, Gerlich became an archivist.  He also began to contribute political articles that were anti-socialist and national-conservative in the publications "Süddeutsche Monatshefte", which was edited by Paul Nikolaus Cossmann, and "Die Wirklichkeit" (in 1917). In 1917, he also became active in the German Fatherland Party (Deutsche Vaterlandspartei) and after it was dissolved in the Anti-Bolshevist League (Antibolschewistische Liga) (1918/19).  In 1919, he published the book "Communism as the Theory of the Thousand Year Reich" ("Der Kommunismus als Lehre vom Tausendjährigen Reich"), where Gerlich compared communism with the phenomenon of redemption religion. A whole chapter in the work is devoted to denouncing antisemitism, which had gained ground because of the leading positions of many Jews in the Revolution and founding of the Soviet Union and Bavarian Soviet Republic.  During those years, Gerlich's political views became more liberal. In 1920, he was nominated as candidate to the Bavarian Landtag and German Reichstag for the left-liberal German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei).

Editor-in-chief of the "Münchner Neueste Nachrichten".

From 1920 to 1928 he was editor in chief of the "Münchner Neueste Nachrichten" (MNN), a predecessor to today's "Süddeutsche Zeitung" in that its circulation was one of the largest in southern Germany. As editor, Gerlich opposed Nazism and Hitler's Nazi Party as "murderous". In the early 1920s, he had seen proof of Nazi tyranny already in Munich. Once a conservative nationalist, after the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch Gerlich decisively turned against Hitler and became one of his fiercest critics. Other critics of the Nazis at MNN were later arrested within days of Gerlich, such as: Fritz Buechner, who followed Gerlich as the editor of the MNN, Erwein Freiherr von Aretin, who was domestic editor at the MNN, and Cossmann, who wrote for the MNN, all of whom had steered the MNN to support a return of the monarchy.

Friendship with Therese Neumann.

By 1927, he had befriended Therese Neumann, a Catholic mystic from Konnersreuth, Bavaria, who supported Gerlich's resistance activities. Initially, he wanted to expose her stigmatism as a fraud, but Gerlich came back a changed man and later converted from Calvinism to Catholicism in 1931. From that year until his death, his resistance became inspired by the social teachings of the Catholic Church.

"The Straight Path" newspaper.

Gerlich returned in November 1929 to his job at the Bavarian National Archives. A circle of friends that had developed around Neumann gave rise to the idea of founding a weekly political newspaper to dispute the left and right political extremism in Germany. Supported by a wealthy patron, Prince Waldburg-Zeil, Gerlich was able to take over the weekly newspaper "Sunday Illustrated" ("Der Illustrierte Sonntag"), which was renamed "The Straight Path" ("Der Gerade Weg") in 1932.  In this newspaper, Gerlich opposed Communism, National Socialism and antisemitism. The dispute with the growing Nazi movement became the central focus of Gerlich and his later writing. At the end of 1932 the circulation of the weekly was over 40,000 readers.  Gerlich once wrote "National Socialism means: Enmity with neighbouring nations, tyranny internally, civil war, world war, lies, hatred, fratricide and boundless want."

Arrest and death at Dachau.

After the Nazis seized power on 30 January 1933, Gerlich was arrested March 9, 1933 and held at the Dachau concentration camp, where he died on 30 June 1934 during the Night of the Long Knives. His death was officially announced days after his arrest, and the announcement was published in the international press at the time. He was cremated, ashes given to his wife.

Fictional portrayals.

Gerlich was portrayed in the TV movie "" by actor Matthew Modine. In the film, as he dictates a front-page article that warns of the danger that Hitler poses, Gerlich finishes with the words: "The worst thing we can do, the absolute worst, is to do nothing". This line is inspired by a quote often incorrectly attributed to Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Carl Albert Fritz Michael Gerlich (15 February 1883 – 30 June 1934) was a German journalist and historian, and one of the main journalistic resistors of Adolf Hitler. He was arrested, later killed and cremated at the Dachau concentration camp.


Distribution and ecology.

The plant is widespread across North America. The plant grows as an annual in the northern half of North America. In the southern areas of North America, the plant tends to grow as a biennial with a more erect habit and with much larger leaves, flowers, and fruits. It flowers from May until August. Common stork's-bill can be found in bare, sandy, grassy places both inland and around the coasts. It is a food plant for the larvae of the brown argus butterfly.  The seeds of this annual are a species collected by various species of harvester ants.

Description.

It is a hairy, sticky annual. The stems bear bright pink flowers, which often have dark spots on the bases. The flowers are arranged in a loose cluster and have ten filaments – five of which are fertile – and five styles. The leaves are pinnate to pinnate-pinnatifid, and the long seed-pod, shaped like the bill of a stork, bursts open in a spiral when ripe, sending the seeds (which have long tail called awns) into the air.

Seed dispersal behavior.

Erodium cicutarium seed uses self-dispersal mechanisms to spread away from the maternal plant and also to reach good germination site to increase fitness. Two techniques that Erodium uses are explosive dispersal which launch seeds by storing elastic energy, and self-burial dispersal where Erodium seeds move themselves across the soil using hygroscopically powered shape change.

Explosive dispersal.

After flowering, the five pericarps on the fruits of Erodium, and the awns, which are hair like appendages of pericarps, joined together and grow into a spine shape. As the fruits dry, dehydration create tension, and elastic energy develops within the awns. The shape of the awns change from straight to helical, causing them to explosively separate the seeds away from the maternal plants. During dispersal, mechanical energy stored in specialized tissues is transferred to the seeds to increase their kinetic and potential energy. The energy storage capacity of the seeds is determined by the level of hydration, suggesting a role of turgor pressure in the explosive dispersal mechanism.

Self-burial dispersal.

The awn of each seed, once on the ground, responds to humidity of the environment and changes its shape accordingly. The awn coils under dehydration and uncoils when wet. This results in motor action of the seed, which, combined with hairs on the seed and along the length of the awns, moves the seed across the surface, eventually positioning them into a crevice and creating a drilling action that forces the seed into the ground. The coil and uncoil of the awns are achieved by the hygroscopic tissue in the active layer on the awns. Hygroscopic movement happens with respond to a change in the water content of dead plant tissue, specially in the cell wall. Water absorbed by the cell wall binds to the matrix of the awns, causing it to expand and to drive the cellulose microfibrils apart, which causes the matrix to uncoil, thus straightening the awns. Inversely, the matrix will contract under dehydration, leading to the coil of the awns.  Research found no correlation between weight of the awned fruits and the dispersal distance. E.cicutarium with larger seeds have a longer coil and uncoil time compare to smaller seeds. In the field, the rate of seed burial declined throughout the season. The larger seeds buried themselves more often than the smaller seeds. However, larger seeds have a harder time finding a large enough space for the seeds to be buried. Conversely, smaller seeds have an easier time finding a hole and drilling themselves in, and thus are more likely to be buried.

Advantages.

The advantages of explosive dispersal and self-burial dispersal are to get mature seeds of E.cicutarium quickly to the ground during the most favorable period for burial by hygroscopic mechanisms, thus increase fitness.

Uses.

The entire plant is edible with a flavor similar to sharp parsley if picked young. According to John Lovell's "Honey Plants of North America" (1926), "the pink flowers are a valuable source of honey (nectar), and also furnish much pollen". Among the Zuni people, a poultice of chewed root is applied to sores and rashes and an infusion of the root is taken for stomachache.

Erodium cicutarium, also known as redstem filaree, redstem stork's bill, common stork's-bill or pinweed, is a herbaceous annual – or in warm climates, biennial – member of the family Geraniaceae of flowering plants. It is native to Macaronesia, temperate Eurasia and north and northeast Africa, and was introduced to North America in the eighteenth century, where it has since become naturalized, particularly of the deserts and arid grasslands of the southwestern United States.


Biography.

Early life.

Jean-Baptiste Antoine Marcelin Marbot was born into a family of military nobility in Altillac, in the ancient province of Quercy in southwestern France. He was the younger son of General Jean-Antoine Marbot, former "aide-de-camp" to "Lieutenant-Général" de Schomberg, inspector general of the cavalry within the Military household of the king of France.  After studying at the Sorèze Military College (1793–1798), he joined the 1st Hussards Regiment as a volunteer on 3 September 1799. He served under General Jean-Mathieu Seras, who promoted him to the rank of sergeant on 1 December 1799. In the same month, on 31 December 1799, he was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant in recognition of his courage. He fought with the Army of Italy and took part in the Battle of Marengo and the Siege of Genoa, during which his father, General Jean-Antoine Marbot died.  Having returned to France, he joined the 25th Chasseur Regiment on 11 June 1801 and was detached to the School of Cavalry at Versailles.

Napoleonic wars.

He became "aide-de-camp" to Marshal Pierre Augereau on 31 August 1803 and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant on 11 July 1804. During the war against the Kingdom of Prussia and the Russian Empire between 1806 and 1807, he fought in the VII corps of the "Grande Armée". Having distinguished himself at the Battle of Austerlitz, he was promoted to the rank of captain on 3 January 1807. The following month, he took part in the Battle of Eylau, during the course of which he nearly lost his life. After this he served in the Peninsular War under Marshals Jean Lannes and André Masséna, and showed himself to be a dashing leader of light cavalry in the Russian campaign of 1812.  On 15 November 1812 he was promoted to the rank of colonel and took part in the German campaign of 1813 as the commander of a cavalry regiment. During the morning of the first day of the Battle of Leipzig, Marbot nearly changed the course of the entire war when his regiment came close to capturing the Tsar of Russia, Alexander I and the King of Prussia, Frederick William III, as they had strayed from their escort. After a slow recovery from the wounds he had received at the battles of Leipzig and Hanau, he took part in the Battle of Waterloo alongside Emperor Napoleon I during the Hundred Days.  After the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, he was exiled during the first years of the Bourbon Restoration and only returned to France in 1819.

July Monarchy.

During the July Monarchy, his intimacy with King Louis Philippe I and his son, Prince Ferdinand Philippe of Orléans secured him important military positions. He was promoted to the rank of "maréchal de camp" (brigadier general), and in this rank he was present at the Siege of Antwerp in 1832.  From 1835 to 1840 he served in various Algerian expeditions, and was promoted to the rank of "lieutenant-général" (divisional general) in 1836. In 1845 he was made a member of the Chamber of Peers. Three years later, at the fall of King Louis Philippe I, he retired into private life.

Family.

His father, General Jean-Antoine Marbot, had four sons, only two whom reached adulthood: Antoine Adolphe Marcelin, the elder, "maréchal de camp" (brigadier general) during the July Monarchy, and Jean-Baptiste Antoine Marcelin, the younger. Through his mother, he was the cousin of François Certain de Canrobert, marshal of France during the Second French Empire.  On 5 November 1811, he married Angélique Marie Caroline Personne-Desbrières (1790–1873), and by this alliance became the owner of the Château du Rancy in Bonneuil-sur-Marne. They had two sons:

Decorations.

Marbot received the following decorations:

Wounds and injuries.

Marbot endured 13 wounds and injuries during his service:

Literary works.

Publications.

In exile after Battle of Waterloo, Marbot returned to France in 1819 and wrote two books:  The first publication was a reply to General Joseph Rogniat’s treatise on war, in which Marbot effectively contrasted the human factor in war with Rogniat’s pure theory. The second presented his recommendations for the future development of the French Armed Forces.  Napoleon read the first publication while in exile on the island of Saint Helena. His "aide-de-camp", General Henri-Gatien Bertrand recorded in his diary on 14 March 1821: In the evening, the Emperor handed me Marbot's book, [...] and said: "That is the best book I have read for four years. It is the one that has given me the greatest amount of pleasure. [...] He has expressed some things better than I did, he was more familiar with them because, on the whole, he was more of a Corps commander than I. [...] Throughout the book he never refers to 'the Emperor'. He wanted the King of France (Louis XVIII) to give him an appointment with the rank of Colonel; that is quite obvious. He uses 'Emperor' once, so as not to look as though he were afraid to do so, or to appear cowardly, and another time he uses 'Napoleon'. He mentions Masséna and Augereau frequently, and he has described the Battle of Essling better than I could have done it myself [...]. I should have liked to show Marbot my appreciation by sending him a ring. If I ever return to active life, I will have him attached to me as an "aide-de-camp" [...].  This publication earned Marbot the distinction of being remembered in Napoleon's will: To Colonel Marbot, one hundred thousand francs. I recommend him to continue to write in defense of the glory of the French armies, and to confound their calumniators and apostates.

Memoirs.

His fame rests chiefly on the Memoirs of his life and campaigns, the "Memoirs of General Baron de Marbot", which were written for his children and published posthumously in Paris, in 1891. An English translation by Arthur John Butler was published in London, in 1892. Marbot’s Memoirs were widely acclaimed, and Arthur Conan Doyle wrote of them:  The first of all soldier books in the world. [...] There are few books which I could not spare from my shelves better than the Memoirs of the gallant Marbot.

Literary references.

Several authors and personalities have cited Marbot and his Memoirs in their works:

Eponyms.

Several places and buildings have been named after Marbot:

References.

Sources  Citations

Jean-Baptiste Antoine Marcelin Marbot, known as Marcellin Marbot (, ; August 18, 1782 – November 16, 1854), was a French general, famous for his memoirs depicting the Napoleonic age of warfare. He belongs to a family that has distinguished itself particularly in the career of arms, giving three generals to France in less than 50 years. His elder brother, Antoine Adolphe Marcelin Marbot, was also a military man of some note.


Early life and career.

Little is known of Rackham's upbringing or early life, except for the fact that he was English and born around the year 1682. The first record of him is as quartermaster on Charles Vane's brigantine "Ranger" in 1718, operating out of New Providence island in the Bahamas, which was a notorious base for pirates known as the "Pirates' republic". Vane and his crew robbed several ships outside New York City, then encountered a large French man-of-war. The ship was at least twice as large as Vane's brigantine, and it immediately pursued them. Vane commanded a retreat from battle, claiming caution as his reason. Jack Rackham quickly spoke up and contested the decision, suggesting that they fight the man-of-war because it would have plenty of riches. In addition, he argued, if they captured the ship, it would place a much larger ship at their disposal. Of the approximately ninety-one men on the ship, only fifteen supported Vane in his decision. Vane declared that the captain's decision is considered final, however, despite the overwhelming support for Rackham's cry to fight, they fled the man-of-war. On 24 November 1718, Rackham called a vote in which the men branded Vane a coward and removed him from the captaincy, making Calico Jack the next captain. Rackham gave Vane and his fifteen supporters, the other ship in the fleet along with a decent supply of ammunition and goods.

Captain Rackham.

Rackham made a career of plundering small vessels close to shore once he became captain. He and his crew captured the "Kingston", a small Jamaican vessel, and made it their flagship. They made several conquests in the West Indies, taking a couple of large ships off Bermuda.  In 1719, Rackham sailed into Nassau in the Bahamas, taking advantage of a general amnesty for pirates to obtain a royal pardon and commission from Governor Woodes Rogers. Rogers had been sent to the Bahamas to address the problem of pirates in the Caribbean who had started to attack and steal from British ships.  In December, he captured the merchant ship "Kingston". The "Kingston" had a rich cargo, and promised to be a big score for Rackham and his crew. Unfortunately for him, the "Kingston" had been taken within sight of Port Royal, where outraged merchants outfitted bounty hunters to go after him. They caught up with him in February 1719, while his ship and the "Kingston" were anchored at Isla de los Pinos off Cuba. Rackham and most of his men were on shore at the time, and they escaped capture by hiding in the woods—but their ship and rich trophy were taken away.  Captain Charles Johnson describes how Rackham stole a sloop in his seminal 1724 book "A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates". Rackham and his men were at a town in Cuba refitting their small sloop when a Spanish warship charged with patrolling the Cuban coast entered the harbour, along with a small English sloop which they had captured. The Spanish warship saw the pirates but could not get at them at low tide, so they anchored in the harbour entrance to wait for morning. That night, Rackham and his men rowed over to the captured English sloop and overpowered the Spanish guards there. As dawn broke, the warship began blasting Rackham's old ship, now empty, as Rackham and his men silently sailed past in their new prize.  Rackham and his men made their way back to Nassau, where they appeared before Governor Rogers and asked for the royal pardon, claiming that Vane had forced them to become pirates. Rogers hated Vane and chose to believe them, granting them the pardon and allowing them to stay. Their time as honest men, however, did not last long.

Anne Bonny.

While in port, Rackham began an affair with Anne Bonny, wife of sailor James Bonny, who was employed by Governor Rogers. James Bonny learned about the relationship and brought Anne to Governor Rogers, who ordered her whipped on charges of adultery. Rackham offered to buy Anne in a "divorce by purchase," because he loved her, but her husband sternly refused. This caused Anne to flee Nassau and run away with Rackham. The pair (with a new crew) escaped to sea together, voiding Rackham's pardon, by stealing a sloop belonging to John Ham. They sailed the Caribbean for two months, taking over other pirate ships. Rackham would often invite the crew of ships that he attacked to join his own. Anne became pregnant and went to Cuba to have the child.

Capture, trial and death.

In September 1720, the Bahamas' Governor Woodes Rogers issued a proclamation declaring Rackham and his crew pirates—although it was not published until October 1720. After publication of the warrant, pirate hunter Jonathan Barnet and former pirate Jean Bonadvis started in pursuit of Rackham, who was cruising near Jamaica capturing numerous small fishing vessels and terrorizing fishermen along the northern Jamaican coastline.  Rackham had come across a small vessel crewed by nine English pirates, and they joined Rackham on his ship for a bout of drinking while at anchor, during which they became intoxicated at Dry Harbour Bay in Jamaica, October 1720. Barnet's sloop attacked Rackham's ship and captured it after a fight presumably led by Mary Read and Anne Bonny. Rackham and his crew were brought to Spanish Town, Jamaica, in November 1720, where they were tried and convicted of piracy and sentenced to be hanged.  Rackham was executed in Port Royal on 18 November 1720, his body then gibbeted on display on a very small islet at a main entrance to Port Royal now known as Rackham's Cay.

Fate of his crew.

Anne Bonny and Mary Read both claimed to be pregnant at their trials, ten days after Rackham's execution, and so were given a temporary stay, and imprisoned at Fort Charles until the claim was proven. Read died in her cell April 1721, most likely of fever related to childbirth. There is no historical record of Bonny's release or of her execution.  George Fetherston (Master), Richard Corner (Quarter-Master), John Davis, and John Howell were executed along with Jack Rackham in Port Royal. Patrick Carty, Thomas Earl, James Dobbin and Noah Harwood were executed the next day in Kingston.  The day after Rackham's trial, former crew members John "Old Dad the Cooper" or "Fenis" Fenwick and Thomas Bourn (alias Brown) were separately tried and convicted for mutinies committed in mid-June 1720 off Hispaniola.  Nine men who had been caught drinking with Rackham's crew (John Eaton, Edward Warner, Thomas Baker, Thomas Quick, John Cole, Benjamin Palmer, Walter Rouse, John Hanson, and John Howard) were tried and convicted on 24 January 1721. On 17 February John Eaton, Thomas Quick and Thomas Baker were executed at Gallows Point, at Port Royal, and the next day John Cole, John Howard and Benjamin Palmer, were executed at Kingston. The fate of the remaining three is unknown.  The pirate flag of a skull over crossed swords flown on the Black Pearl, in Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies is actually a flag attributed to Calico Jack Rackham.

In popular culture.

Anecdotally the crossed swords represented Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Jack's female accomplices.

John Rackham (26 December 1682 – 18 November 1720), commonly known as Calico Jack, was an English pirate captain operating in the Bahamas and in Cuba during the early 18th century. His nickname was derived from the calico clothing that he wore, while Jack is a nickname for "John".


Biography.

Alekseyev was born in Vyazma, in the Smolensk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Smolensk Oblast, Russia). His father, Vasili Alekseyev, was an army captain in the 64th Kazan Regiment from a modest background. In 1873 Alekseyev entered as a volunteer in the 2nd Grenadiers Regiment in Rostov. He graduated from the Moscow Infantry School in 1876 and was commissioned an ensign in the same 64th Kazan Regiment. He served as an orderly to General Mikhail Skobelev during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), and was wounded in combat near Pleven, Bulgaria. He was promoted to lieutenant in January 1881, and captain in May 1883.  Completing his studies at the Nicholas General Staff Academy in 1890 with the rank of lieutenant colonel, he was posted as a senior adjutant in the headquarters of the 1st Army Corps in the St. Petersburg Military District. He served in this capacity and as a professor at the Academy's Department of Military History from 1898 to 1904. In March 1904, he was promoted to the rank of major general.

Russo-Japanese War.

With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, in October 1904 Alekseyev was appointed Quartermaster General of the Russian 3rd Manchurian Army. During the war he was awarded a gold sword, the Order of St. Stanislav, and the Order of St. Anne.  After the war, he became first senior quartermaster of the General Staff’s main directorate, while maintaining his position as a professor at the General Staff Academy. In 1908 he was made Chief of Staff of the Kiev military district and promoted to lieutenant general. In 1912 Alekseyev was given command of the 13th Army Corps.

World War I.

The beginning of World War I in August 1914 saw Alekseyev appointed Chief of Staff of the Southwestern Front (which held the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Armies), where he planned the Russian offensive into Galicia with the rank of General-of-Infantry. He was subsequently awarded the Order of St. George (4th class). In March 1915 Alekseyev became the overall commander of the Russian Northwestern Front.  When Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich of Russia stepped down as Russian supreme Commander-in-chief in August 1915 to be replaced by Tsar Nicholas II, Alekseyev was appointed as Chief of Staff of the General Headquarters (Stavka) and placed in charge of all military operations. He served in this capacity from August 1915 to March 1917.  In his capacity as Chief of Staff, Alekseyev proved to be a more adaptable and flexible commander, than his predecessor. He was, however, incapable of changing a political system that allowed the promotion of incompetent commanders, through nepotism, patronage and the use of court intrigue. Alekseyev remained committed to the Allied cause of the Entente, which is proved by the undertaking of the summer offensive in 1916. However, Russian Army did not manage to exploit strategic benefits of the successful offensive and the situation at the front did not improve significantly.

Russian Civil War.

During the February Revolution of 1917, Alexeyev sent a telegram to the Tsar advising him to abdicate the throne. This telegram, combined with one from his uncle Grand Duke Nicholas, pressure from the Stavka, as well as two representatives of the Duma, led to the Tsar's decision to abdicate on the 2 March 1917 in favour of his brother Grand Duke Michael, who ultimately refused the throne.  From March to May 1917, Alekseyev's position remained ambiguous. While he was the Commander-in-chief and later adviser to the Provisional Government, he spoke out against the Soviets and the democratization of the army. On 30 August 1917 Alekseyev became Chief of Staff of the Stavka under Commander-in-Chief Alexander Kerensky. His goal was to prevent the Kornilov movement (see Kornilov Affair) from developing into civil war. That same day, Alekseyev arrived at the General Headquarters, arrested General Lavr Kornilov and his men and sent them to prison in Bykhov (a town in Mogilev oblast in Belarus), from which they would "break away" with the help of General Nikolai Dukhonin. He then resigned his post in protest of Kerensky's policies. After his resignation, he was suspected of sinking several ships off the coast of Odessa in retaliation.  After the October Revolution, Alekseyev fled to Novocherkassk, where he received the support of the leader of the Don Cossacks, General Alexey Kaledin. On 15 November 1917, he first formed "Alekseyev's Officer Organization", which would become the core of the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army. He was joined by General Kornilov, who never forgave him for his arrest in 1917, and the bad relations between the generals threatened to destroy the movement. In December 1917, Kornilov took command of the combat forces within the army and Alekseyev took charge of political and financial matters. After the death of Kornilov in April 1918, Alexeyev led the Volunteer Army back to the Don River region. He was appointed the head of the Special Council, which would function as a government under Anton Denikin. However, Alekseyev, sick for some time, died of heart failure in Ekaterinodar in September 1918. He was first buried in the crypt of the Cossack host cathedral, but his family moved his remains to Belgrade, Serbia, where they remain to this day.

Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseyev () ( – ) was an Imperial Russian Army general during World War I and the Russian Civil War. Between 1915 and 1917 he served as Tsar Nicholas II's Chief of Staff of the Stavka, and after the February Revolution, was its commander-in-chief under the Russian Provisional Government from March to May 1917. He later played a principal role in founding the Volunteer Army in the Russian Civil War and died in 1918 of heart failure while fighting the Bolsheviks in the Volga region.


History.

The 607 was launched in October 1999, to replace the already discontinued 605. It used its predecessor's chassis but had an all new, more modern exterior design. The engine range (2.2 and 3.0 petrol, and 2.2 diesel) was completely new.  Equipment levels were also high, with all models getting air conditioning, CD player, electric windows, 8 airbags, anti-lock braking system, tire-pressure monitor and central locking as standard. Available AMVAR nine stage electronic damping control.  Motoring journalists, such as Jeremy Clarkson, disliked the 607. They claimed it had handling that wasn't up to Peugeot's usual "good" standards. In December 2000, in "The Sunday Times", Clarkson profoundly claimed it was the worst car ever made. This was even worse than the Peugeot 807, which he rated almost as badly.  In France, its home market, it was often chosen for official usage.

Taxi versions.

The 607 is frequently used as a taxi in France; Portugal uses them as airport taxis in Faro Airport; these versions are usually 3.0 V6 or 2.2 HDi versions; the Benelux countries also use them as well, but less frequently at airports.

Facelift.

The 607 was restyled in November 2004, with the most notable modifications being the new front end and the 2.7 HDi V6 engine, capable of, mated to a new six speed automatic gearbox, which is now also available on the V6 petrol model. 2.0 and 2.2 diesel engines got more power and a 6-speed transmission, like the newly introduced Peugeot 407.  During 2008, the 607 was withdrawn from the United Kingdom, owing to poor sales.

Peugeot 607 Paladine.

The Peugeot 607 Paladine is a special Landaulet version of the 607 which was developed and built in 2000 in cooperation with Heuliez, as a concept car. The engine is the 3.0 V6. It is lengthened by (making it long), and the rear part is equipped with a retractable metallic roof similar to the Peugeot 206's or 307's CC. It is a one off design.  The special leather interior was developed in cooperation with Hermès.  The car was first presented at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2000. It was first used seven years later by then French President Nicolas Sarkozy for his inauguration on May 16, 2007. Meanwhile, the car had been retrofitted in accordance with the 2004 restyling of the 607 (updated front part).

Successor.

In November 2009, Philippe Varin from PSA announced that the successor of the Peugeot 607 would not be called the Peugeot 608, but instead the Peugeot 508. The 508 also replaced the smaller Peugeot 407, which lost sales fast during the period of 2008 to 2009.

The Peugeot 607 is an executive car produced by the French automaker Peugeot from September 1999 to June 2010. It is known by several nicknames including a french cruiser, lion king and spaceship.


Life.

John Frederick of Württemberg was the eldest son of Frederick I and Sibylla of Anhalt. He was born in Montbéliard castle which he left at the age of four when his family moved its residence to Stuttgart.  John Frederick married Barbara Sophie of Brandenburg (16 November 1584 – 13 February 1636), daughter of Joachim Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg. To commemorate his marriage on 5 November 1609, he had Castle Urach converted, turning its "golden room" into one of the finest surviving examples of renaissance banqueting halls in Germany.  John Frederick and his wife had the following children:  John Frederick was a well-meaning, peace-loving ruler but he displayed a number of personal weaknesses and was often ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of the era. Despite this he restored the constitution (which had been suspended by his father, Frederick I, subject to changes that were never implemented). He also restored the power of the councils of Duke Louis (which had been abolished by Frederick I). Most importantly, he had Frederick’s powerful chancellor Matthäus Enzlin condemned to a fortress for life for embezzlement and extortion, subjecting him later to trial on a count of high treason for which he was executed on the market place in Urach in 1613. He achieved little improvement in the state of affairs within the ducal household, however. In fact the duchy ran into further debt leading to unruly debate within the family and even the ranks of servants and eventually problems with the mint.  John Frederick continued the long-standing negotiations held by his father with other evangelical princes, resulting in talks in Auhausen near Nördlingen in May 1608 and the subsequent signing of the Union of Auhausen. In 1621 he moved with a Unionist army into the Palatinate region, although the alliance crumbled in the same year with little to show for its efforts.  Duke John Frederick continued to swear allegiance to the union. At the battle of Wimpfen (26 April 1622), Georg Friedrich, Margrave of Baden-Durlach, was defeated by Marshall Tilly and the duke’s youngest brother fell in battle. Despite a neutrality accord, the victors of this battle went on to sack the north western areas of the Duke's region and in the years that followed it suffered repeatedly under harmful raids and settlement.  On 28 May 1617, John Frederick entered into an agreement with a number of his many brothers; the eldest of his youngest brothers, Louis Frederick was given the county of Montbéliard – still not totally independent of the Duchy of Württemberg. The next brother, Julius Frederick inherited recently acquired sovereignty over Brenz and Weiltingen, leading to two new branch lines in the Duchy; the younger line of Württemberg-Mömpelgard (which died out in 1723) and Württemberg-Weiltingen (which died out in 1792). His other brothers, Frederick Achilles and Magnus inherited the castles of Neuenstadt and Neuenbürg respectively. As both of the latter brothers were unmarried when they died their possessions were subsequently brought back into the main line of the Duchy.  See also: German family tree of the

References.

German books

Duke John Frederick of Württemberg (5 May 1582, Montbéliard – 18 July 1628) was the 7th Duke of Württemberg from 4 February 1608 until his death on 18 July 1628 whilst en route to Heidenheim.