Endorheic lakes.

Endorheic lakes are bodies of water that do not flow into the sea. Most of the water falling on Earth finds its way to the oceans through a network of rivers, lakes and wetlands. However, there is a class of water bodies that are located in closed or endorheic watersheds where the topography prevents their drainage to the oceans. These endorheic watersheds (containing water in rivers or lakes that form a balance of surface inflows, evaporation and seepage) are often called terminal lakes or sink lakes.  Endorheic lakes are usually in the interior of a landmass, far from an ocean in areas of relatively low rainfall. Their watersheds are often confined by natural geologic land formations such as a mountain range, cutting off water egress to the ocean. The inland water flows into dry watersheds where the water evaporates, leaving a high concentration of minerals and other inflow erosion products. Over time this input of erosion products can cause the endorheic lake to become relatively saline (a "salt lake"). Since the main outflow pathways of these lakes are chiefly through evaporation and seepage, endorheic lakes are usually more sensitive to environmental pollutant inputs than water bodies that have access to oceans, as pollution can be trapped in them and accumulate over time.

Occurrence.

Endorheic regions can occur in any climate but are most commonly found in desert locations. In areas where rainfall is higher, riparian erosion will generally carve drainage channels (particularly in times of flood), or cause the water level in the terminal lake to rise until it finds an outlet, breaking the enclosed endorheic hydrological system's geographical barrier and opening it to the surrounding terrain. The Black Sea was likely such a lake, having once been an independent hydrological system before the Mediterranean Sea broke through the terrain separating the two. Lake Bonneville was another such lake, overflowing its basin in the Bonneville flood. The Malheur/Harney lake system in Oregon is normally cut off from drainage to the ocean, but has an outflow channel to the Malheur River that is normally dry, but flows in years of peak precipitation.  Examples of relatively humid regions in endorheic basins often exist at high elevation. These regions tend to be marshy and are subject to substantial flooding in wet years. The area containing Mexico City is one such case, with annual precipitation of and characterized by waterlogged soils that require draining.  Endorheic regions tend to be far inland with their boundaries defined by mountains or other geological features that block their access to oceans. Since the inflowing water can evacuate only through seepage or evaporation, dried minerals or other products collect in the basin, eventually making the water saline and also making the basin vulnerable to pollution. Continents vary in their concentration of endorheic regions due to conditions of geography and climate. Australia has the highest percentage of endorheic regions at 21 percent while North America has the least at five percent. Approximately 18 percent of the earth's land drains to endorheic lakes or seas, the largest of these land areas being the interior of Asia. In deserts, water inflow is low and loss to solar evaporation high, drastically reducing the formation of complete drainage systems. Closed water flow areas often lead to the concentration of salts and other minerals in the basin. Minerals leached from the surrounding rocks are deposited in the basin, and left behind when the water evaporates. Thus endorheic basins often contain extensive salt pans (also called salt flats, salt lakes, alkali flats, dry lake beds or playas). These areas tend to be large, flat hardened surfaces and are sometimes used for aviation runways or land speed record attempts, because of their extensive areas of perfectly level terrain.  Both permanent and seasonal endorheic lakes can form in endorheic basins. Some endorheic basins are essentially stable, climate change having reduced precipitation to the degree that a lake no longer forms. Even most permanent endorheic lakes change size and shape dramatically over time, often becoming much smaller or breaking into several smaller parts during the dry season. As humans have expanded into previously uninhabitable desert areas, the river systems that feed many endorheic lakes have been altered by the construction of dams and aqueducts. As a result, many endorheic lakes in developed or developing countries have contracted dramatically, resulting in increased salinity, higher concentrations of pollutants, and the disruption of ecosystems.  Even within exorheic basins, there can be "non-contributing", low-lying areas that trap runoff and prevent it from contributing to flows downstream during years of average or below-average runoff. In flat river basins, non-contributing areas can be a large fraction of the river basin, e.g. Lake Winnipeg's basin. A lake may be endorheic during dry years and can overflow its basin during wet years, e.g., the former Tulare Lake.  Because the Earth's climate has recently been through a warming and drying phase with the end of the Ice Ages, many endorheic areas such as Death Valley that are now dry deserts were large lakes relatively recently. During the last ice age, the Sahara may have contained lakes larger than any now existing.

Notable endorheic basins and lakes.

Antarctica.

Endorheic lakes in Antarctica are located in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Victoria Land, the largest ice-free area in Antarctica.

Asia.

Much of western and Central Asia is a giant endorheic region made up of a number of contiguous closed basins. The region contains several basins and terminal lakes, including:  Other endorheic lakes and basins in Asia include:

Australia.

Australia, being very dry and having exceedingly low runoff ratios due to its ancient soils, has many endorheic drainages. The most important are:

Africa.

Large endorheic regions in Africa are located in the Sahara Desert, the Kalahari Desert, and the East African Rift:

North America.

Many small lakes and ponds in North Dakota and the Northern Great Plains are endorheic; some of them have salt encrustations along their shores.

Europe.

Though a large portion of Europe drains to the endorheic Caspian Sea, Europe's wet climate means it contains relatively few terminal lakes itself: any such basin is likely to continue to fill until it reaches an overflow level connecting it with an outlet or erodes the barrier blocking its exit. Exceptions include:  All these lakes are drained, however, either through manmade canals or via karstic phenomena. Minor endorheic lakes exist throughout the Mediterranean countries of Spain (e.g. Laguna de Gallocanta, Estany de Banyoles), Italy, Cyprus (Larnaca and Akrotiri salt lakes) and Greece.

Ancient.

Some of the Earth's ancient endorheic systems and lakes include:

An endorheic basin (also endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a limited drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but converges instead into lakes or swamps, permanent or seasonal, that equilibrate through evaporation. Such a basin may also be referred to as a closed or terminal basin or as an internal drainage system or interior drainage basin.


Background.

Haakon was the son of Sigurd Haakonsson, Jarl of Lade and ruler of Trøndelag and Hålogaland. His mother was Bergljot Toresdatter, daughter of, Jarl of Møre. Adam of Bremen wrote that he was "of the stock of Ivar (possibly Ivar the Boneless) and descended from a race of giants". In the sagas, Haakon claimed descent from the divine lineage of Sæming, son of Odin. The Hakon Jarl Runestones in Sweden may refer to him.

Reign.

Haakon became earl after his father was killed by King Harald Greycloak's men in 961. Haakon Jarl warred with King Harald for some time, until he was forced to flee to Denmark, where he conspired with Harald Bluetooth against Harald Greycloak.  The two arranged the death of Harald Greycloak around 971, after which Harald Bluetooth invited his foster-son to be invested with new Danish fiefs. Civil war broke out between Haakon Jarl and the surviving brothers of Harald Greycloak, but Haakon proved victorious. After this, Haakon Jarl ruled Norway as a vassal of Harald Bluetooth, but he was in reality an independent ruler. For Harald, he attacked Götaland and killed its ruler Ottar Jarl.  Around 973–974, he went to Denmark to help Harald Bluetooth of Denmark in his defense against the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II. Otto's forces successfully opposed an attempt by Harald to throw off the German yoke. After that Haakon paid no taxes to Denmark.  Haakon was a strong believer in the old Norse gods, even after Harald Bluetooth forced him to accept baptism around 975 and assigned him clergymen to take to Norway to spread Christianity. When a favourable wind came for Haakon to leave, he commanded the clergymen to return ashore, and broke his allegiance to Denmark. In 977 Vladimir I of Kiev fled to him, collecting as many of the Viking warriors as he could to assist him to recover Novgorod, and on his return the next year marched against Yaropolk I of Kiev. In 986, a Danish invasion fleet led by the fabled Jomsvikings was defeated at the Battle of Hjörungavágr.  In 995, a quarrel broke out between Haakon and the Trønders just as Olaf Tryggvason, a descendant of Harald Fairhair arrived. Haakon quickly lost all support, and was killed by his own slave and friend, Tormod Kark, while hiding in the pig sty in the farm Rimul in Melhus. Jarlshola is the location in Melhus thought to have been the hiding place of Haakon Jarl and Tormod Kark on their last night before the infamous murder at Rimul. After his death, Haakon Jarl's two sons Eirik Håkonson and Sveinn Hákonarson, fled for protection to the king of Sweden, Olof Skötkonung.  A number of (textually related) sources also recount Earl Haakon's predilection for raping women, whether the daughters of nobles or of commoners.

Poets.

According to "Skáldatal", Haakon had the following poets at his court:

Korsvikaspillet.

Haakon Jarl is a central figure in "Håkon og Kark" which is performed annually at the Korsvikaspillet festival in Korsvika in Trondheim. The play is based on the story of Haakon Jarl and Tormod Kark as portrayed in the Sagas by Snorri Sturluson. The first play was a poetic tableau that was made in connection with the 800-year anniversary of the Lade Church ("Lade kirke") in 1989 and repeated two years later. In 1995, wrote a new script. The music is composed by.

Primary sources.

Source basis for Haakon Jarl are considerable. He was given coverage in several sagas, including by Snorri Sturluson in "Heimskringla", "Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum" and more. According to "Hallfreðar saga" the poet Hallfreðr composed a "drápa" on the earl. Several disjoint stanzas by Hallfreðr in "Skáldskaparmál" are often thought to belong to this otherwise lost poem.

Oehlenschläger tragedy.

Haakon Jarl's life also received literary treatment by Danish poet Adam Oehlenschläger, in his tragedy "Hakon Jarl", written in six weeks in 1805 during a stay in Halle, after reading Snorri's "Heimskringla". The theme is the conflict between paganism and Christianity. There is an English translation by J. C. Lindberg. Oehlenschläger's play later formed the basis for Smetana's symphonic poem "Hakon Jarl".

Haakon Sigurdarson (Haakon Jarl) (, ) (c. 937 – 995) was the de facto ruler of Norway from about 975 to 995. Sometimes he is styled Hakon the Powerful ().


Life.

Marguerite Radclyffe Hall was born in 1880 at "Sunny Lawn", Durley Road, Bournemouth, Hampshire (now Dorset), to a wealthy philandering father, Radclyffe Radclyffe-Hall, and an unstable mother, Mary Jane Diehl. Her stepfather was the professor of singing Albert Visetti, whom she did not like and who had a tempestuous relationship with her mother. Hall was a lesbian and described herself as a "congenital invert", a term taken from the writings of Havelock Ellis and other turn-of-the-century sexologists. Having reached adulthood without a vocation, she spent much of her twenties pursuing women she eventually lost to marriage.  In 1907 at the Bad Homburg spa in Germany, Hall met Mabel Batten, a well-known amateur singer of lieder. Batten (nicknamed "Ladye") was 51 to Hall's 27, and was married with an adult daughter and grandchildren. They fell in love and, after Batten's husband died, they set up residence together. Batten gave Hall the nickname "John", which she used the rest of her life.  In 1915, Hall fell in love with Batten's cousin Una Troubridge (1887–1963), a sculptor who was the wife of Vice-Admiral Ernest Troubridge and the mother of a young daughter. When Batten died in 1916, Hall had Batten's corpse embalmed and a silver crucifix blessed by the pope laid on it. Hall, Batten and Troubridge were "undeterred by the Church's admonitions on same-sex relationships. Hall's Catholicism sat beside a life-long attachment to spiritualism and reincarnation." In 1917, Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge began living together. From 1924 to 1929 they lived at 37 Holland Street, Kensington, London. The relationship lasted until Hall's death.  In 1934, Hall fell in love with Russian émigrée Evguenia Souline and embarked upon a long-term affair with her, which Troubridge painfully tolerated. Hall became involved in affairs with other women throughout the years.

Later years and death.

Hall lived with Troubridge in London and, during the 1930s, in the small town of Rye, East Sussex, noted for its many writers, including her contemporary the novelist E. F. Benson.  In 1930, Hall received the Gold Medal of the Eichelbergher Humane Award. She was a member of the PEN club, the council of the Society for Psychical Research and a fellow of the Zoological Society. Hall was listed at No. 16 in the top 500 lesbian and gay heroes in "The Pink Paper".  Hall died at age 63 of colon cancer, and is interred at Highgate Cemetery in North London at the entrance of the chamber of the Batten family, where Mabel is buried as well.

Novels.

Hall's first novel was "The Unlit Lamp", the story of Joan Ogden, a young girl who dreams of setting up a flat in London with her friend Elizabeth (a so-called Boston marriage) and studying to become a doctor, but feels trapped by her manipulative mother's emotional dependence on her. Its length and grimness made it a difficult book to sell, so she deliberately chose a lighter theme for her next novel, a social comedy entitled "The Forge". While she had used her full name for her early poetry collections, she shortened it to M. Radclyffe Hall for "The Forge". The book was a modest success, making the bestseller list of "John O'London's Weekly". "The Unlit Lamp", which followed it into print, was the first of her books to give the author's name simply as Radclyffe Hall.  There followed another comic novel, "A Saturday Life" (1925), and then "Adam's Breed" (1926), a novel about an Italian headwaiter who, becoming disgusted with his job and even with food itself, gives away his belongings and lives as a hermit in the forest. The book's mystical themes have been compared to Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha". It sold well, was critically acclaimed, and won both the Prix Femina and the James Tait Black Prize, a feat previously achieved only by E. M. Forster's "A Passage to India".

"The Well of Loneliness".

Hall's best-known work was "The Well of Loneliness", the only one of her eight novels to have overt lesbian themes. Published in 1928, "The Well of Loneliness" deals with the life of Stephen Gordon, a masculine lesbian who, like Hall herself, identifies as an "invert".  Although "The Well of Loneliness" is not sexually explicit, it was nevertheless the subject of an obscenity trial in the UK, which resulted in all copies of the novel being ordered destroyed. The United States allowed its publication only after a long court battle. It is currently published in the UK by Virago, and by Anchor Press in the United States. "The Well of Loneliness" was number seven on a list of the top 100 lesbian and gay novels compiled by The Publishing Triangle in 1999.

Later novels.

An anonymous verse lampoon titled "The Sink of Solitude" appeared during the controversy over "The Well". Although its primary targets were James Douglas, who had called for "The Well"s suppression, and the Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks, who had started legal proceedings, it also mocked Hall and her book. One of the illustrations, which depicted Hall nailed to a cross, so horrified her that she could barely speak of it for years afterward. Her sense of guilt at being depicted in a drawing that she saw as blasphemous led to her choice of a religious subject for her next novel "The Master of the House".  At Hall's insistence, "The Master of the House" was published with no cover blurb, which may have misled some purchasers into thinking it was another novel about "inversion". Advance sales were strong, and the book made No. 1 on "The Observer"s bestseller list, but it received poor reviews in several key periodicals, and sales soon dropped off. In the United States reviewers treated the book more kindly, but shortly after the book's publication, all copies were seized—not by the police, but by creditors; Hall's American publisher had gone bankrupt. Houghton Mifflin took over the rights, but by the time the book could be republished, its sales momentum was lost.

"The Girls of Radcliff Hall".

British composer and bon vivant Gerald Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners, wrote a roman à clef titled "The Girls of Radcliff Hall", in which he depicts himself and his circle of friends, including Cecil Beaton and Oliver Messel, as lesbian schoolgirls at a school named Radcliff Hall. The novel was written under the pseudonym Adela Quebec and published and distributed privately; the indiscretions to which it alluded created an uproar among Berners's intimates and acquaintances, making the whole affair highly discussed in the 1930s. Cecil Beaton attempted to have all the copies destroyed. The novel subsequently disappeared from circulation, making it extremely rare. The story is, however, included in Berners' "Collected Tales and Fantasies".

Marguerite Radclyffe Hall (12 August 1880 – 7 October 1943) was an English poet and author. She is best known for the novel "The Well of Loneliness", a groundbreaking work in lesbian literature.


Early life.

Born in Arad, Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire (modern-day Romania), in 1854 as Franz Denta, son of an army NCO, he became a lieutenant in the "3 Galizisches Uhlanen-Regiment Erzherzog Carl" in 1876 upon graduating from the Theresan Military Academy in Wiener-Neustadt. Having attained the rank of Colonel, he was appointed Chief of Staff of II Corps in September 1897, a position in which he served until April 1901. By 1903 Denta was commanding the 73 Landwehr-Brigade at Pressburg/Pozsony (modern-day Bratislava) and in 1909 was made General Inspector of military educational establishments. In 1911 he was promoted to the rank of General der Kavallerie and appointed commander of the Hungarian "Landwehr" ("Honved") in 1913.

War service.

Responsible for the task of defending the southwestern frontier and historic heartlands of the Empire following the Italian declaration of war on May 23, 1915, Rohr was appointed commander of "Armeegruppe Rohr" on May 27 and took charge of all troops from Graz to Innsbruck.  Having overseen the successful defense of the Carinthian frontier, Rohr was promoted to the rank of Generaloberst on January 1, 1916, and made commander of the new 10th Army following the dissolution of his army-group in anticipation of the Tyrol Offensive. With the halting of all offensive operations on the Italian front by the Imperial army in the face of the Brusilov Offensive, the Tyrol effort was prematurely brought to an end and Rohr was transferred to command the 11th Army, also in the Trento district in June 1916.  In February 1917, and with the promotion of Gen. Arz von Straussenberg to the position of Chief of the General Staff, Rohr took charge of the 1st Army and for the first time served as a commander on the Eastern Front. On April 14, 1917, he was elevated to the nobility, taking the rank of Baron and the title Rohr von Denta.  Promoted to the position of Field Marshal on January 30, 1918, Rohr continued in command of the 1st Army until its disbandment following peace with Romania on April 15, 1918.

Retirement.

Retiring from command at war’s end, Rohr was nevertheless appointed Field Marshal in the army of newly independent Hungary. Freiherr Rohr von Denta died in the village of Rodaun, near Vienna, on 9 December 1927.

Franz Freiherr Rohr von Denta (30 October 1854 – 9 December 1927) was an Austro-Hungarian Field Marshal and field commander who served as the last commander of the Austro-Hungarian First Army.


Characteristics.

Hucul ponies are usually calm with a good disposition, and are used for both hacking and pulling timber in otherwise inaccessible forested areas. They are usually bay, black, chestnut, or the grullo variation of dun, with a dorsal stripe and zebra stripes on the legs characteristic of the breed. Their conformation traits include a short head with a relatively short neck, compact body, short legs, and sound feet.

History.

The Hucul bears some resemblance to the now-extinct Tarpan. Said to have originated in the Carpathian Mountain range of Eastern Europe covered by present-day Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia and Romania, it is named after the small sub-ethnic Ukrainian group of Hutsuls. However, the horse breed is much older than the Hutsul people. The Huculs are probably depicted on the monuments erected by Roman Emperors Domitian and Trajan, as Dacian draft horses. The breed was mentioned for the first time in written resources around 400 years ago (as the "Mountain Tarpan"). Unlike the Polish Konik, the Hucul has been only rarely cross-bred with domestic horses.  In the 19th century, the Huculs were used by the Austro-Hungarian Army.  In 1856, the first stud farm was established at Rădăuţi, Romania. Several bloodlines were established by the foundation stallions Goral, Hroby, Ouşor, Pietrousu and Prislop, and the horses were carefully bred to preserve the purity of these bloodlines. In 1922, thirty-three horses were sent to Czechoslovakia to establish a herd there which would become the Gurgul line. World War II caused a severe decline in the number of Hucul horses in Czechoslovakia. After the end of the war, only 300 Hucul horses remained there. Even though a stud-book was established in 1924 in the Huzelei after Michal Holländer encouraged it, it was not until the early 1970s that breeders established an organization, Hucul Club, to prevent the extinction there caused by the declining number. In 1982 they established a stud book with fifty purebred animals and the goal of increasing the numbers in that region.  Thanks to the efforts of breeders, the world population of these horses now exceeds 1,000. Most of them live in Poland, Slovakia, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine. Many ponies in Europe also have Hucul blood. In recent years the popularity of this breed has spread as far as England.  In Vinnytsia oblast of Ukraine, a hucul stud farm was established by Gennady Romanenko in 2016.

The Hucul or Carpathian is a pony or small horse breed originally from the Carpathian Mountains. It has a heavy build and possesses great endurance and hardiness. The breed is also referred to as the Carpathian pony, Huculska, Hutsul, Huțul, Huțan or Huzul. The breed gets its name from the Hutsul people, who live mostly in the Carpathians in Ukraine and in Romania, but also in an area in the East Carpathian Mountains north of the river Bistritz, officially named “Huzelei”.


Life.

An experienced soldier, he took part in the Aragonese Crusade and attempted an invasion of Sicily in 1287. In 1288 Robert began work on a great park at Hesdin. The park contained a menagerie, aviaries, fishponds, orchards, an enclosed garden and facilities for tournaments. It also contained mechanical statues including waving monkeys draped in skins.  He defeated the Flemings in 1297 at the Battle of Furnes. He was again sent into Flanders in July 1302, where he began to ravage the countryside and attempted to take the town of Kortrijk (Courtrai).

Battle of the Golden Spurs.

He then met the Flemish army at the Battle of the Golden Spurs. His infantry advanced with great success against the Flemings (mostly city militia), but he ordered their recall to allow his cavalry to make the final, victorious charge. But on the broken, marshy ground, his knights were unable to gain enough momentum to break the Flemish shieldwall, and they were knocked down and slaughtered. Robert led some of the reserves in a second charge in an attempt to reverse their fortunes. Artois was unhorsed by Willem van Saeftinghe. He and his troops were cut down by the Flemish infantry.

Family.

In 1262 in Paris Robert married Amicie de Courtenay (1250–1275), daughter of, Seigneur de Conches, a great-grandson of Louis VI, and Perronelle de Joigny. They had three children:  After Amicie's death, Robert married twice more: first, in 1277, to Agnes of Dampierre (1237–1288), heiress of Bourbon, and then, on 18 October 1298 to Margaret (died 1342), daughter of John II, Count of Hainaut. After Robert's death, his daughter Mahaut inherited Artois, but his grandson Robert III unsuccessfully tried to claim it.

Robert II (September 1250 – 11 July 1302) was the Count of Artois, the posthumous son and heir of Robert I and Matilda of Brabant. He was a nephew of Louis IX of France. He died at the Battle of the Golden Spurs.


History.

Chance Vought years 1917–1928.

The Lewis and Vought Corporation was founded in 1917 and was soon succeeded by the Chance Vought Corporation in 1922 when Birdseye Lewis retired. A former chief engineer of the Wright Company, Chance M. Vought founded the company to take advantage of the growing field of military and civilian aviation after World War I. Operations began in Astoria, New York and in 1919 were moved to Long Island City, New York.  Vought died from sepsis in 1930, but in that short time period succeeded in producing a variety of fighters, trainers, flying boats, and surveillance aircraft for the United States Navy and the United States Army Air Service. Vought made history in 1922 when their Vought VE-7 trainer made the first takeoff from the deck of the USS "Langley", the first American aircraft carrier. Following this success came the VE-11 naval fighter and the Vought O2U Corsair, the first of the Corsair aircraft.  In 1928, the company was acquired by United Aircraft and Transport Corporation, but stayed its own separate division among the likes of Pratt & Whitney and Boeing.

1930s–1960.

Despite the Great Depression, Vought continued to design and manufacture aircraft at a growing pace. Soon after Chance Vought's death in 1930, the company moved its operations to East Hartford, Connecticut. Under the Air Mail Act of 1934, United Aircraft and Transportation Corp. was forced by law to divide its businesses, resulting in Boeing Aircraft, United Airlines, and the United Aircraft Corp, of which Vought was a part. In 1939, United Aircraft moved Vought to Stratford, Connecticut where their Sikorsky division was located and renamed the merged divisions Vought-Sikorsky Aircraft.  Chief Engineer Rex Beisel began in 1938 to develop the XF4U, recognized by its distinctive inverted gull wings. After its first flight in 1940, thousands of F4U Corsairs were produced for the Navy and Marines in World War II. By the end of its production in 1952, Vought, Goodyear, and Brewster had all produced the Corsair fighters. Vought was reestablished as a separate division in United Aircraft in 1942.  In postwar 1949, Vought moved operations to Dallas, Texas where the former North American Aviation "B" plant was located. Initiated by the Navy, who feared having their two main aircraft manufacturers located on the East Coast posed an unnecessary risk, Vought moved 27 million pounds of equipment and 1300 employees in 14 months, a record breaking industrial move at the time.  In 1954, the company fully separated from United Aircraft and became the independent Chance Vought Aircraft Inc.  Vought began manufacture of its F-8 Crusader for the US Navy in 1957; it was one of the first Navy fighters capable of supersonic flight and the Navy's last all-gun fighter. The same basic design was later heavily revised and shortened to produce Vought's A-7 Corsair II, a carrier-borne close air support and attack plane in 1965, an aircraft which would become heavily engaged in a variety of close support and strike missions during the Vietnam War, beginning in 1967. The A-7 has also participated in the US invasion of Grenada in 1983; a punitive raid on Syrian missile sites in 1983; reprisal raids against Libya during Operation El Dorado Canyon in 1986; strikes against Iranian coastal platforms and naval forces during Operation Praying Mantis in 1988; support of the 1989 invasion of Panama; and throughout operations during Desert Storm in 1991. The A-7A, A-7B, A-7C and A-7E served with the US Navy while the A-7D was purchased by the US Air Force and Air National Guard. Two-seat models known as the TA-7C/E served with the US Navy while the US Air Force purchased the TA-7K. The A-7 served in limited numbers with three foreign air forces, including Greece (A-7H/TA-7H), Portugal (A-7P/TA-7P) and Thailand (ex-USN A-7E/TA-7E).

LTV acquisition 1960–1990.

Vought was bought by James Ling in 1962, forming the new conglomerate Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV). Yet despite the buyout, Vought Aeronautics and Vought Missiles and Space continued to develop and produce for the Air Force and Navy under the umbrella of LTV Aerospace. By the early 1980s, LTV was struggling, and Vought suffered heavy layoffs. The first of two decades of reorganizations began in 1972 with the creation of Vought Systems by the merging of the Vought Missiles and Space and Aeronautics divisions.  All of LTV Aerospace was renamed the Vought Corporation in 1976, but by 1983 the Vought company was again split along aeronautic and missile lines under LTV Aerospace and Defense.  1992 proved the end of Vought's relationship with LTV. In mid-year the aircraft division was purchased by Northrop and the Carlyle Group, each owning roughly 50% of the company. The missile division was sold to the Loral Corporation, part of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control.

1990s to today.

Northrop Grumman, the successor to Northrop and Grumman, bought the Carlyle Group's Vought interest for $130 million in 1994. The purchase by Carlyle Group of the remainder of Northrop Grumman in 2000 would lead to the establishment of Vought Aircraft Industries, Inc. It is primarily an aerostructures subcontractor. Vought is heavily involved in the Boeing 747, Boeing 787 aircraft as well as supplying parts for the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II and the V-22 Osprey. In July 2003, the Aerostructures Corp., owned by the Carlyle Group and based in Nashville, Tennessee, merged with Vought. Vought's Nashville site supplies wing components for Airbus A319, A320, A330, and A340.  Boeing announced in July 2009 that it had agreed to acquire the North Charleston, South Carolina facility of Vought Aircraft Industries, where Vought builds sections 47 and 48 of the aft fuselage for Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. Boeing agreed to pay $580 million for the facility.  In June 2010, the Carlyle Group sold Vought to the Triumph Group, an aerospace component manufacturer. The Vought acquisitions now operate as Triumph Aerostructures - Vought Aircraft Division. The Dallas/Grand Prairie facility was closed and relocated to a brand new facility in Red Oak, Texas.

Vought was the name of several related American aerospace firms. These have included, in the past, Lewis and Vought Corporation, Chance Vought, Vought-Sikorsky, LTV Aerospace (part of Ling-Temco-Vought), Vought Aircraft Companies, and Vought Aircraft Industries. The first incarnation of Vought was established by Chance M. Vought and Birdseye Lewis in 1917. In 1928, it was acquired by United Aircraft and Transport Corporation, which a few years later became United Aircraft Corporation; this was the first of many reorganizations and buyouts. During the 1920s and 1930s, Vought Aircraft and Chance Vought specialized in carrier-based aircraft for the United States Navy, by far its biggest customer. Chance Vought produced thousands of planes during World War II, including the F4U Corsair. Vought became independent again in 1954, and was purchased by Ling-Temco-Vought in 1961. The company designed and produced a variety of planes and missiles throughout the Cold War. Vought was sold from LTV and owned in various degrees by the Carlyle Group and Northrop Grumman in the early 1990s. It was then fully bought by Carlyle, renamed Vought Aircraft Industries, with headquarters in Dallas, Texas. In June 2010, the Carlyle Group sold Vought to the Triumph Group.


History.

In early 2001, software engineer Chris Wetherell began a project he called "JavaCollect" that served as a news portal based on web feeds. After working at Google he began a similar project with a small team that launched an improved product on October 7, 2005, as Google Reader.  In September 2006 Google announced a redesign for Reader that included new features such as unread counts, the ability to "mark all as read", a new folder-based navigation, and an expanded view so people could quickly scan over several items at once. This also marked the addition of a sharing feature, which allowed readers to publish interesting items for other people to see.  In January 2007 Google added video content from YouTube and Google Video to Reader.  In September 2007 product marketing manager Kevin Systrom (later, founder of Instagram) announced that Google Reader had graduated out of Google Labs.

Discontinuation.

On March 13, 2013, Google announced they were discontinuing Google Reader, stating the product had a loyal but declining following, and they wanted to focus on fewer products. They gave users a sunset period until July 1, 2013, to move their data and suggested: "If you want to retain your Reader data, including subscriptions, you can do so through Google Takeout."  After the closure announcement, Feedly said that more than 500,000 new users had joined them in the following 48 hours, and 3 million in the following two weeks.  In response to the planned closure, Digg also announced plans to build a Google Reader replacement, rebuilding its API and adding features to take advantage of the implicit recommendations of social network activity.  Several petitions were started to keep Google Reader running, including one on Change.org with over 100,000 signatures.  Instapaper developer Marco Arment speculated that the real reason for the closure was to try to keep everyone reading and sharing information using the now defunct Google+, and that it signaled the end of the era of unrestricted and interoperable web services like RSS from large organizations like Google, Facebook, and Twitter.  Enthusiasts re-created a work-alike replacement called "The Old Reader."

Features.

Interface.

Reader's interface evolved several times from an early version, described by a Google designer who helped work on the revision as a "river" of news, to various experiences optimized for a wide range of devices, from browsers to the Wii video game console.  In late 2008, Google Reader had a significant upgrade to its user experience and design. Led by Google designer Jenna Bilotta, the interface now included a cleaner visual style, collapsible navigation, "Friends" navigation, the ability to hide unread counts, and feed bundles.  Some of the features of Google Reader in 2013 were:

Organization.

Users could subscribe to feeds using either Google Reader's search function, or by entering in the exact URL of the RSS or Atom feed. New posts from those feeds were then shown on the left-hand side of the screen. One could then order that list by date or relevance. Items could also be organized with labels, as well as being able to create "Starred Items" for easy access.

Sharing.

From 2007 to 2011, items in Google Reader could be shared with other Web users. Previously this was done by sending a link through e-mail, directing the user to the shared article; or by creating a basic webpage that includes all shared items from a user's account. In December 2007, Google changed the sharing policy so that items the user marked as shared were automatically visible to their Google Talk contacts. Users criticized this change because there was no way to opt out.  Google removed the sharing functionality built into Reader in October 2011, and replaced it with a Google+ +1 button. Users criticized this change because it effectively dismantled existing social networks that used these features and disabled sharing and publishing functions that served as a communications medium for Iranians seeking news sources that couldn't be blocked by the government.  The Google+ +1 button and count of how many people liked an article were removed in March 2013 shortly after the announcement that Google Reader would be discontinued.

Offline access.

Google Reader was the first application to make use of Google Gears, a browser extension that let online applications work offline. Users who installed the extension could download up to 2000 items to be read offline. After coming back online, Google Reader updated the feeds. Google Reader stopped supporting this feature in June 2010.

Mobile access.

A mobile interface was released on May 18, 2006. It could be used by devices that support XHTML or WAP 2.0. On May 12, 2008, Google announced a version of Google Reader targeted at iPhone users. in December 2010, Google released a Google Reader app for Android, available from the Android Market.

iGoogle.

On May 4, 2006, Google released a new feature which enabled feeds from Reader to be displayed on iGoogle (formerly Google Personalized Homepage).

Play.

In March 2010, Google announced and released Google Reader Play. Play presented a slideshow interface which displayed popular items one at a time. These items were drawn from assorted sites' feeds, and their appearance in Play was based on the data provided by Reader users' responses, e.g. how many people liked or shared the item. Unlike Google Reader, a Google Account was not required to access Play.

External links.

Google:  Unofficial:

Google Reader was an RSS/Atom feed aggregator operated by Google. It was created in early 2005 by Google engineer Chris Wetherell and launched on October 7, 2005, through Google Labs. Google Reader grew in popularity to support a number of programs which used it as a platform for serving news and information to people. Google closed Google Reader on July 1, 2013, citing declining use.


Tournament history.

Hoogovens Beverwijk.

The early tournaments were very small, starting with groups of four in 1938, and entry restricted to Dutch players. The first five tournaments continued this way, with the contest held annually early in January. In 1943 and 1944 the tournament field was doubled in size to eight players. No tournament was held in 1945 due to World War II. The first international tournament was held in 1946. The main tournament field was expanded to ten, with invitations to Alberic O'Kelly de Galway (Belgium) and Gösta Stoltz (Sweden) along with a Dutch contingent of eight.  The tournament field remained at ten until 1953 when it was increased to twelve, and an international women's tournament was also held. In 1954 the tournament field was returned to ten players, but the strength of the competitions increased. The field was greatly enlarged to 18 in 1963, and although it reduced to 16 in 1964, the event had become the strongest international chess tournament in the world.  As the tournament grew in stature, the ancillary women's tournament became a regular feature, as did a 'Masters' event and 'Masters Reserves' events. There also began a tradition to operate a year on year invitation policy that resembled the system used in football 'league tables'; the winner of a lesser category event would receive an invitation to the next higher event the following year.  The 1946 tournament was one of the first European international chess tournaments after World War II. Food shortages were still a problem in Europe, so the post-tournament banquet featured pea soup, inexpensive fare of the common people. In subsequent years pea soup has been served as the first course of the concluding banquet, a tradition continued when the tournament was moved from Beverwijk to Wijk aan Zee.  Winners of the top group:

Hoogovens Wijk aan Zee.

The tournament was moved to the Dutch seaside town Wijk aan Zee in 1968. In this period, the tournament was popularly called both "Hoogovens" and "Wijk aan Zee". Winners of the Grandmaster A group since 1968 have been:

Corus tournament.

From 2000, the popular name for the tournament was more or less equally shared between "Wijk aan Zee" and "Corus".

Tata Steel tournament.

From 2011, the popular name for the tournament was changed from 'Corus' to 'Tata Steel'.

Event crosstables.

1990s.

1994.

The tournament was held in Wijk aan Zee along with the first round of 1994 FIDE Candidates Tournament.

2000s.

2000.

IM (2461) won Reserve Group Swiss-system tournament with the score 7/9 and performance rating 2595.

2001.

WGM Viktorija Čmilytė (2433) won Reserve Group Swiss-system tournament with the score 7/9 and performance rating 2616.

2008.

The 2008 Corus Chess Tournament took place in the De Moriaan Community Centre in Wijk aan Zee. The format of each of the three Grandmaster groups remained a 14 player single round robin. The participants in group A included eight of the world's top ten players (country, October 2007 rating and rank in brackets): Viswanathan Anand (India, 2801, 1), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2787, 2), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2785, 3), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria, 2769, 4), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2755, 5=), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan, 2752, 7), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan, 2742, 8) and Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2741, 9). The remaining players were Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2736, 11), Michael Adams (England, 2729, 13), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2714, 16=), Judit Polgár (Hungary, 2708, 20), Pavel Eljanov (Ukraine, 2691, 26) and Loek van Wely (Netherlands, 2679, 31). The average rating of 2742 made it a Category 20 tournament. The only top ten players not participating were Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2755, 5=) and Alexei Shirov (Spain, 2739, 10).  The tournament was won by Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen (both scoring 8 out of 13).  Grandmaster group B was won by Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia with 91⁄2 points, and group C by Italy's Fabiano Caruana with 10, two points ahead of his nearest rival. The Honorary group, a new category consisting of four former A group champions playing a double round robin, was won by Ljubomir Ljubojević with 4 points out of 6, ahead of Jan Timman, Viktor Korchnoi and Lajos Portisch.

References.

Notes Bibliography

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is an annual chess tournament held in January in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. It was called the Hoogovens tournament from its creation in 1938 until the sponsor Koninklijke Hoogovens merged with British Steel to form the Corus Group in 1999, after which the tournament was called the Corus chess tournament. Corus Group became Tata Steel Europe in 2007. Despite the name changes, the series is numbered sequentially from its Hoogovens beginnings; for example, the 2011 event was referred to as the 73rd Tata Steel Chess Tournament.


Playing career.

Zhitnik was drafted 81st overall by the Los Angeles Kings in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft after playing for Sokil Kyiv in the Soviet Championship League for two years. After another year, he came to the NHL for the 1992–93 NHL season.  He made his NHL debut on October 6, 1992, against the Calgary Flames and scored his first goal nine nights later, also against Calgary. In his rookie season with the Kings, he finished second among rookie defenceman in points with 48. He was an important part of the Kings' playoff run to the Stanley Cup Final, where they lost to the Montreal Canadiens.  After another year of playing with the Kings and Wayne Gretzky, he was traded on February 14, 1995, along with Robb Stauber, Charlie Huddy and a fifth-round draft pick, to the Buffalo Sabres for Grant Fuhr, Denis Tsygurov and Philippe Boucher. He became one of the team's best players, helping the Sabres win the Northeast Division in the 1996–97 NHL season, his second full year with the team. In the 1997–98 NHL season, he led all defensemen in shorthanded goals (3). He also helped the Sabres reach the finals in the 1998–99 NHL season and stayed on the team until the 2004–05 NHL lockout when he returned to the Russian Super League.  Following the lockout, he signed a four-year contract with the New York Islanders. He became an effective force on the team, and even though he missed the last 18 games of the season with a fractured ankle, he finished second among team defenceman in scoring.  On December 16, 2006, Zhitnik was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers for Freddy Meyer and a conditional third round draft pick. However, he was traded two months later on February 24, 2007, to the Atlanta Thrashers to add experience for playoffs, in exchange for Braydon Coburn.  Due to Zhitnik's disappointing play and the Thrashers focus on rebuilding, the team bought out Zhitnik's contract on June 30, 2008, making him a free agent. On July 26, 2008, Zhitnik returned to Russia and the now-Kontinental Hockey League, signing a tryout contract with Dynamo Moscow.  Zhitnik won a gold medal as part of Team Ukraine's Masters hockey team at the 2017 Maccabiah Games.

Oleksiy Mykolaiovych "Alexei" Zhitnik (, ; born October 10, 1972) is a Ukrainian-Russian former professional ice hockey defenceman. Zhitnik has played more games in the National Hockey League (NHL) (1,085) than any other Soviet-born defenceman. He has represented the Soviet Union, CIS, and Russia internationally, and Ukraine during two NHL All-Star Games. His number, 13, has been honored by Sokil Kyiv.


Documented life.

He was presumably born in the old Ottonian city of Nijmegen, then in the Duchy of Guelders, which was incorporated in the modern Netherlands in 1543 after the definitive victory of the Dukes of Burgundy in a serie of conflicts knows as the Guelders Wars. He probably trained there in the workshop of his father, the artist Willem Maelwael (his uncle was also an artist), and is recorded as an artist in 1382. He was the uncle of the famous manuscript illuminators, the three Limbourg brothers, whom he introduced to Philip's service around 1400. Malouel also worked as an illuminator, but seems mostly to have produced larger works.  Malouel is recorded as working in Paris painting armorial decorations on cloth (probably for banners) for Isabelle of Bavaria, Queen of France, in 1396–97, but by August 1397 he was in Dijon, the capital of the Duchy of Burgundy, where he succeeded Jean de Beaumetz (d. 1396) to the position of court painter to Philip, with the rank of valet de chambre. He retained these positions until his death, with a salary higher than that of Beaumetz or the sculptor Claus Sluter, and lived in Dijon. In 1405, soon after the death of Philip, he returned to Nijmegen to marry Heilwig van Redinchaven, bringing her back to Dijon. Another visit of over two months was recorded in 1413. In 1415 he died in Dijon, leaving Heilwig and four children. She received a pension from the Duke, and returned to Nijmegen, where she became involved in lengthy litigation over Malouel's estate there.

Attributed works.

Among a number of other commissions, many for decorative painting in the palaces, Malouel is recorded as receiving in 1398 the wood for five altarpiece panels for the Chartreuse of Champmol, Philip's new dynastic burial place near Dijon, as well as painting the Well of Moses there, sculpted by Claus Sluter, the base of which survives with some of its colouring. From 1401, Herman of Cologne, perhaps a specialist gilder, is recorded as Malouel's assistant, or perhaps foreman of a number of apprentices. Painting the "Well", and gilding all the upper parts, was a large job, on which they were occupied between 1401 and 1404. Malouel also painted Philip's tomb at Champmol, when the sculptors finally finished it after Sluter's death.  Malouel's "oeuvre" on panel remains controversial; the most generally accepted painting of his to survive is the "Pietà" tondo in the Louvre, the first true tondo of the Renaissance, though this is not accepted by Châtelet. This has Philip's coat of arms painted on the back, so should predate his death in 1404, and the "unusual iconography of the piece clearly links it to [Champmol]", which was dedicated to the Holy Trinity, who all appear. The style of the work mixes Northern and Sienese elements, in a fashion characteristic of the International Gothic court art of the period. Although painted in the traditional tempera, the work uses transparent glazes in a way that was to be greatly developed in the work of Jan van Eyck after Malouel's death. Another of Phillip's Netherlandish artists, Melchior Broederlam, was already producing works partly in oil paint for Champmol.  The large (162 x 211 cm) altarpiece, also in the Louvre, of the "Martyrdom of St Denis with the Trinity" (or "The Last Communion and Martyrdom of Saint Denis"), also from Champmol, may have been begun by Malouel but completed by Henri Bellechose (his only known work), after Malouel's death. The ducal accounts record the provision of pigments (but not gold) to Bellechose to complete ("parfaire" = "perfect") a "painting of the life of St Denis", known to have been a subject of Malouel's, and some see a difference in style among the figures, while others do not. Snyder and Châtelet support Malouel's participation, but this is disputed, the case against being set out in an article of 1961 by Nicole Reynaud (in French). For Châtelet the St Denis altarpiece and the large tondo in the Louvre are two of the five altarpieces commissioned in 1398. Bellechose, who is not documented before Malouel's death, succeeded him as "valet" and court painter; Châtelet suggests he may have been in his workshop for years, and suggests he was responsible for the large tondo over ten years earlier, thus reversing the traditional attributions for these two famous works.  Malouel is also believed to have been the originator of a portrait image of Philip of about 1400 which survives only in versions believed to be later. He is recorded as working on a portrait of John the Fearless for the King of Portugal in 1413, and there were also portraits of Philip and John in the choir at Champmol (as we know from when Philip the Good ordered one of him to be added). A later version in the Musée Condé in Chantilly has been suggested as a copy of the Malouel image type of John. A large Madonna and Child, unearthed in 1960 in Berlin and now on loan to the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, has also been attributed to Malouel, as has another in the Louvre. It is believed the Berlin picture was one wing of a diptych opposite a portrait of John the Fearless, which would be the first known example of this format, later very common in Netherlandish painting. It was perhaps also for Champmol.  A number of other works are, or have been, attributed to Malouel or his workshop, including a smaller "Pietà" tondo in the Louvre, the "Antwerp-Baltimore polytych", also sometimes associated with Melchior Broederlam, and a damaged "Entombment of Christ" in Troyes.

Jean Malouel, or Jan Maelwael in his native Dutch, ( 1365 – 1415) was a Dutch artist who was the court painter of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and his successor John the Fearless, working in the International Gothic style.


Life.

Born "Maria Teresa", and named after her maternal grandmother Maria Theresa of Austria, she was the eldest of 18 children born to Ferdinand IV & III and Maria Carolina of Austria, the King and Queen of Naples and Sicily. She was her mother's favourite child from birth until she left the Neapolitan court to marry.  In February 1790, Archduke Francis of Austria's first wife, Duchess Elisabeth of Württemberg, died in childbirth, and it was announced that he would marry one of the princesses of Naples. This was in accordance with the traditional Habsburg marriage policy. Maria Theresa and her sister Princess Luisa of Naples and Sicily were both considered for the match. In the end, Luisa was chosen to marry Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany instead, and Maria Theresa to marry Francis.

Empress.

On 15 September 1790 she married her double first cousin, who would in 1792 become Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, and in 1806 Emperor Francis I of Austria.  The marriage is described as a happy one based on good mutual understanding, despite differences in personality. Francis was described as a melancholic character, shy and reserved, serious and with a preference for a spartan lifestyle and duty, and with a pale and haggard appearance. Maria Theresa, on the other hand, was described as a gracious blue-eyed blonde with full lips, but a large nose, with a vivacious personality, a hot temper and a sensual nature. Despite these differences in appearance and personality, however, they were reported to have a good understanding of each other and had a very good relationship.  Maria Theresa reportedly adapted well to her new home in Vienna and did not suffer from homesickness. She loved entertainment, and participated with enthusiasm in court life, and it was noted that she enjoyed dancing, participating in every carnival ball at court even while pregnant. She particularly enjoyed the Waltz, which had been recently introduced as an innovation and became fashionable during her life in Vienna.  Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp described the view of Maria Theresa and the relationship between the couple in her famous diary during her visit to Vienna in 1798–99: The Empress is reputed to be so jealous that she does not allow him to take part in social life or meet other women. Vicious tongues accuse her of being so passionate that she exhausts her consort and never leaves him alone even for a moment. Although the people of Vienna cannot deny that she is gifted, charitable and carries herself beautifully, she is disliked for her intolerance and for forcing the Emperor to live isolated from everyone. She is also accused of interesting herself in unimportant matters and socializing exclusively with her lady-companions. With them she spends her evenings singing, acting out comedies and being applauded.  In February 1799, her seeming indifference to the revolution against her parents in Naples attracted some disfavour in Vienna. Hedwig Elisabeth Charlotte also recounts a scene described to her by a foreigner, who bribed his way into the private park at Laxenburg and came to witness a scene between the couple: "He saw the Emperor sitting on a bench, alone in his thoughts. Immediately, the Empress came to fetch him, and he exclaimed: "Can't you ever leave me alone, so that I may breathe for one moment? For God's sake, don't follow me around all the time." Empress Maria Theresa was interested in politics and came to play a certain role in state affairs due to her influence over her spouse, to whom she acted as an adviser. She was a conservative force and belonged to the critics of Napoleon I, and was reported to have encouraged Francis in an anti-French position during the Napoleonic Wars. She has also been pointed out for being partially responsible for the dismissal of Johann Baptist Freiherr von Schloissnigg and Graf Franz Colloredo.  An important patron of Viennese music, she commissioned many compositions for official and private use. Joseph Haydn wrote his "Te Deum" for chorus and orchestra at her request. Her favourite composers included Paul Wranitzky and Joseph Leopold Eybler, a composer of sacred music.  She died due to complications after her last premature childbirth.

Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily (6 June 1772 – 13 April 1807) was the last Holy Roman Empress and the first Empress of Austria by marriage to Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor. She was the eldest daughter of Ferdinand IV & III of Naples and Sicily (later Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies) (1751–1825) and Marie Caroline of Austria (1752–1814).


Preparations.

Ottoman dominance in Hungary began with the Battle of Mohács in 1526, which resulted in the conquest of most of Hungary by Suleiman the Magnificent. Meanwhile, the parts of Hungary that remained under Austrian control became known as Royal Hungary. Although the Ottomans had been in relative decline since the death of Suleiman I, Ottoman power saw a resurgence under the extremely capable Köprülü family who sought to destroy the Austrian Habsburgs once and for all. They found their "casus belli" when the Habsburgs supported a Transylvanian rebellion against Ottoman rule.  Transylvania had escaped Ottoman conquest during the invasion of Hungary and retained its independence by playing off of their powerful neighbors: Poland, Austria and the Ottomans. They recognized Ottoman suzerainty and paid a tribute to the Porte but were given political and religious autonomy in return. In 1658, seeking new land for his principality, Prince George Rákóczy II invaded Poland with his Swedish allies in the Second Northern War. After initial success, he was defeated by the Poles and fled back to Transylvania. On hearing about Rákóczy's unauthorized war, the Ottomans declared war on their vassal. It was not long before Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha (Vizier 1656-1661) defeated Rákóczy and conquered Transylvania. The new Transylvanian prince, János Kemény, fled to Vienna, seeking Austrian support.  Emperor Leopold I, not wishing to see Transylvania fall under direct Ottoman control, sent Montecuccoli into Hungary with his small army. Montecuccoli gave no direct support as he was severely outnumbered by the Ottomans. The Ottomans, meanwhile, completed the conquest of Transylvania and built up their forces in Ottoman Hungary. Leopold I, not wishing to face the Turks alone, summoned the Imperial Diet in January 1663.  The Turks failed to conquer the fortress of Nové Zámky six times, but managed to do so in 1663. It was made the center of an Ottoman province, the Uyvar eyalet in present-day southern Slovakia. Turks and Tatars crossed the Danube in strength in 1663, ravaging Slovakia, Moravia, and Silesia. They took 12,000 slaves in Moravia. Several Turkish divisions reached as far as Olomouc.

Diplomatic efforts.

Although Leopold personally objected to Protestantism, he had to rely on his Protestant German princes to provide military aid. Even worse was the military aid from France, which was (and continued to be until the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756) Austria's nemesis. Despite numerous objections from some Protestant princes, help was not withheld. The League of the Rhine - a French dominated group of German princes - agreed to send a corps of 6,000 men independently commanded by Count Coligny of France and Prince Johann Philipp of Mainz. By September 1663, Brandenburg and Saxony had also agreed to contingents of their own. In January 1664, the Imperial Diet agreed to raise 21,000 men, although this army did not yet exist other than on paper. The Turks had declared war in April 1663, but were slow in executing their invasion plans.

Battle.

Köprülü's army, which might have numbered 120-150,000, probably included some 60,000 Janissaries and sipahis, 60-90,000 azaps, akıncıs, silidars, Tatars and vassals and allegedly 360 guns.  Montecuccoli's army consisted of Habsburg forces (including Czech infantry and a few hundred Hungarians, approx. 2,000 Croatians) and forces from the German principalities, French brigades, a Piedmontese regiment.  The Habsburg forces: 5,000 infantry (10 Battalions), 5,900 cavalry (27 escadrons), 10 guns The Imperial forces: 6,200 infantry (6 Battalions), 1,200 cavalry (9 escadrons), 14 guns The Rhine forces: 600 infantry (2 Battalions), 300 cavalry (4 escadrons) The French forces: 3,500 infantry (4 Battalions), 1,750 cavalry (10 escadrons) Other forces: 2,000 Croat cavalry (out of this a regiment), Hungarian foot soldiers in Szentgotthárd, and Esterházy, Batthyány and Nádasdy regiment's, Czech musketeers and the Italian (Piedmontish) infantry regiment (commander Marchese Pio de Savoya).  The Turks renewed their invasion in the spring of 1664. They besieged, conquered and destroyed Novi Zrin Fortress on the Mura river in northern Croatia at the very beginning of July. Montecuccoli was still waiting for help to arrive, and this delay was key to the defense of Austria. In July 1664 the Imperial forces were assembled and set out for the River Rába, which separated the Ottoman forces from the Austrian duchy itself. If the Turks were allowed to cross, they would threaten both Vienna and Graz. Montecuccoli intercepted the Turks before they crossed the river but the division of command made effective deployment of troops impossible.  On 1 August 1664, Ottoman forces crossed the river near the monastery of Saint Gotthard and beat the Austrians back. Although initially plagued by disunity, Montecuccoli was finally able to convince Coligny and Leopold Wilhelm of Baden-Baden (commander of the Imperial detachment) to mass their forces and attack the Ottoman troops, who were reorganizing in a nearby forest. The attack surprised the Turks, who fled in confusion back to the river, a large number drowning. The confusion caused by the fleeing troops prevented Ahmed Köprülü (Vizier 1661-1676) from sending the rest of his army across the river and he instead retired from the field.  Ottoman casualties were heavy, significantly falling mostly on the elite corps of the army. Köprülü was left with an army of ill-trained irregulars and auxiliaries while Montecuccoli's casualties were light and mostly in the Imperial contingent.

Aftermath.

Although many in Europe, especially the Croats and Hungarian nobility, expected the Austrian Habsburgs to finally liberate Hungary once and for all, Leopold abandoned the campaign. Many have criticized him for this decision (both in the past and the present). Although Montecuccoli's army was largely intact, there was no interest among the allies to liberate Hungary. Any invasion of Hungary would undoubtedly have to be done without the help of the French and German troops. Leopold noticed that the French officers had begun to fraternize with the Magyar nobles and encouraged them to rebel against Austrian rule.  In addition, Leopold had always been a member of the "Spanish faction" in Vienna. With the last Spanish Habsburg, Carlos II, about to die at any given moment, Leopold wanted to ensure that his hands were free for the inevitable struggle against Louis XIV of France. Although the liberation of Hungary was a strategic interest of the Habsburgs, it would have to wait until later. Throughout his reign, Leopold had always been more interested in the struggle against France rather than the Ottomans. Therefore, he signed the rather unfavourable Peace of Vasvár, which did not take into account the Battle of Saint Gotthard. The Battle of Saint Gotthard is still significant, however, for it stopped any Ottoman invasion of Austria, which certainly would have prolonged the war and led to a disastrous resolution. The Austrians would also use the twenty-year truce to build up their forces and begin the liberation of Hungary in 1683.

In literature.

The battle of Mogersdorf/Szentgotthárd provided Rainer Maria Rilke with the inspiration for his poetic short story, "", which was very popular among German and Austrian soldiers during the first half of the 20th century.

The Battle of Saint Gotthard (; ; and ; ) was fought on August 1, 1664 as part of the Austro-Turkish War (1663–1664), between the Imperial Army led by Generalleutnant Raimondo Montecuccoli, Jean de Coligny-Saligny, Wolfgang Julius, Count of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein, together with the Army of the Holy Roman Empire led by Reichsgeneralfeldmarschall Prince Leopold of Baden and Reichsgeneralfeldmarschalleutnant Georg Friedrich of Waldeck and the army of the Ottoman Empire under the command of Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Paşa.


Name.

The association's official name is Schweizerische Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft" (SRG, formerly "Schweizerische Rundspruchgesellschaft") in German, Société suisse de radiodiffusion et télévision" (SSR, formerly "Société suisse de radiodiffusion") in French, Società svizzera di radiotelevisione" (SSR, formerly "Società svizzera di radiodiffusione") in Italian, and Societad svizra da radio e televisiun" (SSR, formerly "Societad svizra da radio") in Romansh. The corporate name, SRG SSR, is derived from its initials in German, French, Italian and Romansh. In English, the organisation is known as the "Swiss Broadcasting Corporation"; it often uses the abbreviation "SBC". The moniker "idée suisse" (French: "Swiss idea"), which refers to the public service mission of the organisation, was adopted in 1999 and was removed from the name in May 2011.

History.

Europe's third public radio station started broadcasting from Lausanne in 1922, from the start based on a licence fee system. 980 licences were bought in 1923. Within a few years radio cooperatives working along the same principles had started throughout the country. In 1930 it was decided that radio was an important public service that should not be allowed to become a money maker for private interests, and that it needed to be structured on a federal basis. In 1931 SRG SSR was founded (see original names above), as a co-ordination organisation for the regional broadcast associations, and received the only licence to broadcast from the Federal Council. The same year it was agreed that all news reports in the new medium had to be provided by the Swiss news agency SDA, a decision that remained unchanged until 1971.  The first national transmitters began operating in 1931: Radio Sottens for French, Radio Beromünster for German, and 1933 Radio Monte Ceneri for Italian. In 1938 Romansh was recognised as the country's fourth national language, and the Zürich studios began broadcasting programmes in Romansh in between those in German. During the Second World War, SRG SSR filled an important function as a neutral, unbiased supplier of news, reaching far outside Switzerland's borders through shortwave transmissions. Radio Beromünster and Radio Monte Ceneri became known as the only free German and Italian-language radio stations in Europe.  In 1950 SRG SSR was one of 23 founding broadcasting organisations of the European Broadcasting Union. In 1939 television test transmissions started in Zürich. In 1953 regular TV transmissions started in German (from Zürich) – one hour per evening, five days a week – immediately attracting 920 early TV licence buyers. A year later, in 1954, French transmissions were broadcast from Geneva. For the Italian-speaking region, the programmes were re-transmitted with Italian subtitles until dedicated Italian studios were built in 1958. 50,000 TV licences were bought the first year.  In 1960 the company was renamed "Schweizerische Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft" (and the equivalent names in the other languages - see above) to reflect the addition of television services. In 1964 the Federal Council allowed television advertising, as a means of keeping licence fees down. In 1966 the three main languages were each given a second radio channel, in order to counter the effects of new commercial broadcasters outside the country, whose strong signals were reaching the Swiss population. In the same year a dedicated Romansh broadcasting unit was created in Chur, using some of the new German-language second channel's broadcasting time. In 1968 colour television was introduced, and the number of licence fee payers passed one million.  In 1978 the radio channels started stereo transmissions. In 1983 the Federal Council relaxed the Swiss media legislation to permit local private and commercial radio channels. SRG SSR countered this threat by launching its third set of channels, aimed at a younger audience. In 1991 SRG SSR underwent a wide-ranging restructuring. The enterprise organised itself as a private industry association, structured as a holding company under Swiss company law. The name, SRG SSR idée suisse, was introduced in 1999. In 1992 Radio Rumantsch was separated from the German-language radio broadcaster, that had housed the Romansh broadcasting activities since 1938, and in 1994 the Romansh TV activities were moved over as well and the Romansh company renamed itself Radio e Televisiun Rumantscha.  On 3 June 2019, SRG SSR terminated digital terrestrial (DVB-T) broadcasts of all of its television channels due to the extremely low usage of digital terrestrial signals on television sets in Switzerland, which was part of a series of cost-saving measures partly brought about as a result of the 2018 "No Billag" popular initiative. Since then, reception of SRG SSR television channels is only possible mainly through digital cable, Internet streaming, IPTV and DTH satellite.

Organisation.

SRG SSR is headquartered in Bern. It is governed by a Board of Directors, appointed by a central council consisting of representatives of the four organisations.  Broadcasting is handled by five business units:  In addition, there are six subsidiary companies which produce TV programmes, teletext pages, book publishing, TV commercials, and audience research.  Until the termination of all terrestrial signals on 3 June 2019, the only television channels available in the whole of Switzerland were SRF 1, RTS Un, and RSI La 1, but the other channels are available in the linguistic regions represented by the broadcast language, and also nationally via cable, satellite and via the Internet.

Swissinfo.

The former abbreviation SRI originally stood only for "Swiss Radio International", which was SRG SSR's international broadcasting arm (1935-2004), aimed at expatriates and others interested in Switzerland. In October 2004, SRI ceased broadcasting on shortwave and satellite, and instead concentrated its efforts on its multimedia internet platform Swissinfo.ch, which now takes most of the resources. The Swissinfo website is produced in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Japanese.

The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR;,,, ) is the Swiss public broadcasting association, founded in 1931, the holding company of 26 radio and television channels. Headquartered in Bern, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation is a non-profit organisation, funded mainly through radio and television licence fees (70%) and making the remaining income from advertising and sponsorship.


Political developments.

The Czech political scene supports a broad spectrum of parties ranging from the Communist Party on the far left to various nationalistic parties on the far right.  Czech voters returned a split verdict in the June 2002 parliamentary elections, giving Social Democrats (ČSSD) and Communists majority, without any possibility to form a functioning government together due to Vladimír Špidla's strong anticommunism. The results produced a ČSSD coalition government with Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) and Liberals (US-DEU), while Civic Democrats (ODS) and Communists (KSČM) took place in opposition. The MP ratio was the tiniest 101:99. After many buffetings and, finally, after the catastrophic results of the June European Parliament election, 2004 Špidla resigned after a revolt in his own party and the government was reshuffled on the same basis.  As the system in the Czech Republic repeatedly produces very weak governments (a specific problem is that about 15% of the electorate support the Communists, who are shunned by all the other parties) there is constant talk about changing it but without much chance of really pushing the reform through. An attempt to increase majority elements by tweaking the system parameters (more smaller districts, d'Hondt method used) by ČSSD and ODS during their "opposition agreement" of 1998–2002 was vehemently opposed by smaller parties and blocked by the Constitutional Court as going too much against the constitution-stated proportional principle; only a moderated form was adopted. This, however, led to a stalemate in the 2006 elections where both the left and the right each gained exactly 100 seats; as many commentators point out, the earlier system would have given the right a 3–4 seat majority.  In March 2006, the parliament overturned a veto by President Václav Klaus, and the Czech Republic became the first former communist country in Europe to grant legal recognition to same-sex partnerships.  A government formed of a coalition of the ODS, KDU-ČSL, and the Green Party (SZ), and led by the leader of the ODS Mirek Topolánek finally succeeded in winning a vote of confidence on 19 January 2007. This was thanks to two members of the ČSSD, Miloš Melčák and Michal Pohanka, who abstained.  On 23 March 2009, the government of Mirek Topolánek lost a vote of no-confidence.

Executive branch.

The President is the head of state, but the Prime Minister is the head of government.

President.

The President of the Czech Republic is elected by a direct vote (no more than two consecutive) for five years. The president is a formal head of state with limited specific powers.

Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister is the head of government and wields considerable powers, including the right to set the agenda for most foreign and domestic policies, mobilize the parliamentary majority, and choose governmental ministers.

Cabinet.

Cabinet of the Czech Republic is the supreme executive body in the Czech Republic. The Cabinet shall make its decisions as a body. The Cabinet shall consist of the Prime Minister and Ministers. Controls the state and the ministry. Publishes government decree. The Prime Minister shall be appointed by the President of the Republic who shall appoint on the Prime Minister's proposal the other members of the Cabinet and shall entrust them with the direction of individual ministries or other agencies. Within thirty days after its appointment, the Cabinet shall present itself to the Chamber of Deputies and shall ask it for a vote of confidence.

Legislative branch.

The Parliament ("Parlament České republiky") has two chambers. The Chamber of Deputies ("Poslanecká sněmovna") has 200 members, elected for a four-year term by proportional representation with a 5% election threshold. There are 14 voting districts identical to the country's administrative regions. The Chamber of Deputies, at first the Czech National Council, has the powers and responsibilities of the now defunct federal parliament of the former Czechoslovakia.  The Senate ("Senát") has 81 members, in single-seat constituencies elected by two-round runoff voting for a six-year term, with one third renewed every even year in the autumn. The first election was 1996 (for differing terms). This is patterned after the U.S. Senate but each constituency is of the (roughly) same size and the system used is two-round runoff voting. The Senate is unpopular among the public and suffers from low election turnout (overall roughly 30% in the first round, 20% in the second).

Judicial branch.

The country's highest court of appeals is the Supreme Court. The Constitutional Court, which rules on constitutional issues, is appointed by the president with Senate approval, and its 15 members serve 10-year terms. The justices of the Constitutional Court have a mandatory retirement age of 70. The Supreme Administrative Court is the third arm of the Czech judiciary.

Administrative divisions.

The Czech Republic is divided in 14 Regions including the capital of Prague. The older 73 districts ("okresy", singular: "okres") and 4 municipalities* (města, singular: "město") were disbanded in 1999 in an often-criticised administrative reform; however are still traditionally recognized and remain the seats of various branches of state administration: Benešov, Beroun, Blansko, Břeclav, Brno-město*, Brno-venkov, Bruntál, České Budějovice, Česká Lípa, Český Krumlov, Cheb, Chomutov, Chrudim, Děčín, Domažlice, Frýdek-Místek, Havlíčkův Brod, Hodonín, Hradec Králové, Jablonec nad Nisou, Jeseník, Jičín, Jihlava, Jindřichův Hradec, Karlovy Vary, Karviná, Kladno, Klatovy, Kolín, Kroměříž, Kutná Hora, Liberec, Litoměřice, Louny, Mělník, Mladá Boleslav, Most, Náchod, Nový Jičín, Nymburk, Olomouc, Opava, Ostrava*, Pardubice, Pelhřimov, Písek, Plzeň*, Plzeň-jih, Plzeň-sever, Prachatice, Praha*, Praha-východ, Praha-západ, Přerov, Příbram, Prostějov, Rakovník, Rokycany, Rychnov nad Kněžnou, Semily, Sokolov, Strakonice, Šumperk, Svitavy, Tábor, Tachov, Teplice, Trutnov, Třebíč, Uherské Hradiště, Ústí nad Labem, Ústí nad Orlicí, Vsetín, Vyškov, Žďár nad Sázavou, Zlín, Znojmo

International organization participation.

The Czech Republic is member of Australia Group, BIS, CE, CEI, CERN, EAPC, EBRD, ECE, EU (among the 10 new members since May 2004), FAO, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICRM, IDA, IEA (observer), IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, ITUC, NATO, NEA, NSG, OAS (observer), OECD, OIF (Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie) (observer), OPCW, OSCE, PCA, PFP, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNMIK, UNMOP, UNMOT, UNOMIG, UPU, Visegrád group, WCO, WEU (associate), WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO, Zangger Committee  Government

The Czech Republic is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic, in which the President is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the Government of the Czech Republic which reports to the lower house of Parliament. The Legislature is bicameral, with the Chamber of Deputies ("Poslanecká sněmovna") consisting of 200 members and the Senate ("Senát") consisting of 81 members. Both houses together make up the Parliament of the Czech Republic.


Early life.

Damrau was born in Günzburg. She began her operatic studies with at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg. During her studies, she developed an edema on a vocal fold. After consulting with several doctors, she decided to undergo an alternative therapy without surgery. The treatment lasted about one and a half years. After graduating from music conservatory she worked in Salzburg with.

Career.

Damrau's first operatic engagements were in Würzburg and subsequently the Mannheim National Theatre and Oper Frankfurt. Since then, she has sung throughout the world at venues such as the Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Royal Opera House London, the Bavarian State Opera and the Salzburg Festival. She was invited to sing the title role in Salieri's "Europa riconosciuta" at the re-opening of La Scala, Milan in 2004, under the baton of Riccardo Muti.  The Queen of the Night from Mozart's "The Magic Flute" had been Damrau's most famous and most frequently performed role, as she had been engaged to perform it in over 15 productions at houses including the Salzburg Festival, Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera, Oper Frankfurt and the Bavarian State Opera. Damrau made Metropolitan Opera history in the 2007/08 season by appearing as both Pamina and Queen of the Night in different performances of the same run, after which she retired the Queen character. Another notable engagement was her portrayal of all four heroines in Offenbach's "The Tales of Hoffmann" in a new production at the Bavarian State Opera in October 2011. Other coloratura roles in her repertoire include Zerbinetta in "Ariadne auf Naxos", Elvira in "I puritani", Marie in "La fille du régiment", and Aminta in "Il re pastore". She also performs roles in the lyric soprano repertoire including the title role in "Manon", Sophie in "Der Rosenkavalier", Donna Anna in "Don Giovanni", Gretel in "Hänsel und Gretel", Susanna in "The Marriage of Figaro".  Damrau has furthered her exploration of the bel canto repertoire with highlights including new productions of Rossini's comic opera "Le comte Ory" at the Metropolitan Opera and the title role in Donizetti's "Linda di Chamounix" at the Liceu. She has since returned to the Metropolitan Opera as both Adina in "L'elisir d'amore" and Rosina in "The Barber of Seville" and brought her portrayal in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" to Berlin and Vienna. Following the birth of her second child in autumn 2012, Damrau returned to the stage with a new production of Verdi's "Rigoletto" at the Metropolitan Opera in February 2013; this was followed by her role debut in the title role of Verdi's "La traviata" in the same house. In October 2013, she sang in the world premiere of Iain Bell's "A Harlot's Progress" at the Theater an der Wien. In March 2014 she sang in "La sonnambula" at the Metropolitan Opera. She returned to "The Marriage of Figaro" at La Scala debuting as the countess with the run premiering on 26 October 2016 where she received acclaim for her legato, phrasing, and interpretation of aria "Dove sono" in act 3.  She took up the title role in "Maria Stuarda" at the Zürich Opera House in April 2018. In 2019 she debuted as Ophélie in "Hamlet" in concert performances at the Liceu in March and Deutsche Oper Berlin in June.  As well as performing in operas, Damrau is a regular on the concert stage. She performed alongside Plácido Domingo at the concert program "3 Orchester und Stars" in Munich to mark the opening of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. She has performed lieder at Vienna's Musikverein, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, La Scala, the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg, the Kissinger Sommer and both the Munich and Salzburg Festivals, especially with Xavier de Maistre as her accompanist. Her concert repertoire includes Mozart's "Great Mass in C minor", "Requiem" and "Exsultate, jubilate" as well as Handel's "Messiah". She has performed with conductors as James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Sir Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Leonard Slatkin, Pierre Boulez, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Jesús López-Cobos.

Personal life.

Damrau married French bass-baritone Nicolas Testé in May 2010. They have two sons.

Key performances.

NB: * indicates a new production of the piece

Discography.

Early recordings include Verdi's canzoni, Mahler's "Des Knaben Wunderhorn", and Schumann's "Myrthen", Op. 25, with the Telos label and live recordings of her summer 2005 "Liederabend" at the Salzburg Festival and her summer 2006 "Liederabend" at the Schubertiade are released on the Orfeo label.  Damrau also appears on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi's release of Mozart's "Zaide" in the title role, and performs in the trio finale from Richard Strauss' "Der Rosenkavalier" alongside Adrianne Pieczonka on Elīna Garanča's first solo release with Deutsche Grammophon.  Since 2007 Damrau has had an exclusive recording contract with EMI/Virgin.

Videography.

DVDs are available of her performances in the following operas:  Streaming videos are available at Met Opera on Demand of her performances in the following operas:

Diana Damrau (; born 31 May 1971) is a German soprano. She has been successful in coloratura soprano roles, especially admired as the Queen of the Night in "The Magic Flute" and Zerbinetta in "Ariadne auf Naxos". Since the early 2010s, she has gradually proceeded into 19th-century Italian bel canto repertoire, singing roles such as Violetta in "La traviata" and the title role in "Lucia di Lammermoor". Damrau is also known as a lieder singer.


Name.

The Navajo name for the peak,, "rock with wings" or "winged rock", refers to the legend of the great bird that brought the Navajo from the north to their present lands. The name "Shiprock" or Shiprock Peak or Ship Rock derives from the peak's resemblance to an enormous 19th-century clipper ship. Americans first called the peak "The Needle", a name given to the topmost pinnacle by Captain J. F. McComb in 1860. United States Geological Survey maps indicate that the name "Ship Rock" dates from the 1870s.

Geology.

Shiprock is composed of fractured volcanic breccia and black dikes of igneous rock called minette, or lamprophyre. It is the erosional remnant of the throat of a volcano, and the volcanic breccia formed in a diatreme. The rock probably was originally formed 2,500–3,000 feet (750–1,000 meters) below the Earth's surface, but it was exposed after millions of years of erosion. Wall-like sheets of minette, known as dikes, radiate away from the central formation. Radiometric age determinations of the minette establish that these volcanic rocks solidified about 27 million years ago. Shiprock is in the northeastern part of the Navajo Volcanic Field—a field that includes intrusions and flows of minette and other unusual igneous rocks that formed about 30 million years ago. Agathla (El Capitan) in Monument Valley is another prominent volcanic neck in this volcanic field.

Religious and cultural significance.

Shiprock and the surrounding land have religious and historical significance to the Navajo people. It is mentioned in many of their myths and legends. Foremost is the peak's role as the agent that brought the Navajo to the southwest. According to one legend, after being transported from another place, the Navajos lived on the monolith, "coming down only to plant their fields and get water." One day, the peak was struck by lightning, obliterating the trail and leaving only a sheer cliff, and stranding the women and children on top to starve. The presence of people on the peak is forbidden "for fear they might stir up the (ghosts), or rob their corpses."  Navajo legend puts the peak in a larger geographic context. Shiprock is said to be either a medicine pouch or a bow carried by the "Goods of Value Mountain", a large mythic male figure comprising several mountain features throughout the region. The Chuska Mountains comprise the body, Chuska Peak is the head, the Carrizo Mountains are the legs, and Beautiful Mountain is the feet.  Navajo legend has it that Bird Monsters () nested on the peak and fed on human flesh. After Monster Slayer, elder of the Warrior Twins, destroyed at Red Mesa, he killed two adult Bird Monsters at Shiprock and changed two young ones into an eagle and an owl. The peak is mentioned in stories from the Enemy Side Ceremony and the Navajo Mountain Chant, and is associated with the Bead Chant and the Naayee'ee Ceremony. There are a number of other legends regarding what the Shiprock pinnacle might be. Some Navajo traditionalists argue that it is a geological anomaly that may have originated as a work of the'star people'.

Restrictions on the formation.

An injury to a climber in April 1966 (American Alpine Journal 1966 accident report) caused the Navajo Nation to ban rock climbing not only on Shiprock but all over the Navajo Nation on monoliths, spires and within tribal parks under the jurisdiction of Navajo Parks & Recreation. The Navajo Nation announced that the ban was "absolute, final and unconditional". Due to "the Navajo's traditional fear of death and its aftermath, such accidents and especially fatalities often render the area where they occur as taboo, and the location is sometimes henceforth regarded as contaminated by evil spirits and is considered a place to be avoided." The pinnacle is located on private property of Navajo grazing lease holders and is currently monitored and overseen by Shiprock tribal community advocates. Two Navajo chapter tribal government organizations claim jurisdiction over the formation. The Navajo tribal parks and recreation department does not have jurisdiction over the formation because it is not presently a tribal park. The formation is a highly sacred religious site to the Navajo people.  Due to recent deaths, littering, and vandalism, the pinnacle has been under strict evaluation and observation by local Shiprock Pinnacle Tribal Advocates and by two Navajo Chapter organizations since early 2016, who oversee the area and encourage the public to not drive around the formation as if it had open access. Hiking, filming, and driving are all prohibited to the public due to its sacred nature and its sacred space. According to the Navajo traditionalists, an ecosystem of living and non-living matter needs to be protected and unharmed. In the Navajo traditional way, people are to respect the ecosystem and not disrupt its processes. It is recommended that the public respect the Navajo people who visit daily for religious activities and other miscellaneous purposes as it is Navajo trust land. A core/protection and buffer zones will be established soon. Local Shiprock Pinnacle Tribal Advocates and the two Navajo Chapter organizations also encourage visitors to use common sense etiquette and remember that the Navajo Nation is a sovereign, self-governed nation with rules and laws that must be followed.  All areas near the formation are closed to non-Natives for the traditional religious purposes and for the safety of the formation and lava dike. It is recommended that the public stay at least away from the formation and from the lava dikes or wall when visiting. Navajo religious rights (the Fundamental Laws of the Dine' (Dine' Natural Law) from the Navajo Nation Title 1 Laws), Navajo grazing rights, boundaries, and private properties lines apply around and in the formation. The formation is a Navajo religious site. The restrictions were put in place in July 2016 by the delegated tribal authority (i.e., Navajo families and grazing holders who live around the formation, Shiprock Pinnacle Tribal Advocates, and members of the Navajo Chapters & Tribal Council). Visitors without any proper tribal authorization will be considered to be trespassing on Federal Indian Reservation land and are subject to legal sanctions. The tribal police at the formation monitor its use and visits.

Shiprock (, "rock with wings" or "winged rock") is a monadnock rising nearly above the high-desert plain of the Navajo Nation in San Juan County, New Mexico, United States. Its peak elevation is above sea level. It lies about southwest of the town of Shiprock, which is named for the peak.


History.

In 1918, Rudolf Wanzl Senior founded a locksmith's in Giebau in the Sudetenland (today part of the Czech Republic), which he built up into a scale manufacturing business and agricultural machinery company with 20 employees. After the expulsion of Germans from the region in 1947, Rudolf Wanzl Junior re-established the company in Leipheim as a scale manufacturer and repair workshop. The inspiration to focus on the concept of self-service came from the cash register manufacturer NCR in Augsburg. The company ordered hand-made shopping baskets for its demonstration room. At around the same time, the "Production" consumer co-operative, based in Hamburg, ordered 40 trolleys and 100 hand baskets for the opening of Germany's first self-service shop. At the start of the 1950s, Rudolf Wanzl travelled to the United States where he met Sylvan Goldman, inventor of the shopping trolley. On the return flight he had already designed his own more manoeuvrable version, which became the model for all shopping trolleys in use today. In 1951, the first shopping trolley with a fixed basket was patented. Three years later, the co-owning Siegel brothers left the company to found their own business. This is how it came about that Germany's two largest shopping trolley manufacturers were both based in Leipheim for many years. By 1956, Wanzl had 74 employees.

The 1960s.

A new plant was opened in Kirchheim to increase production capacity. Wanzl incorporates manual turnstiles into its product range, to meet the need of Germany's increasingly large supermarkets for customer direction and reduction of theft. By 1966, the company already had 400 employees.

The 1970s.

Following the expansion of German chains into neighbouring countries, the first international branches of the company are founded. Luggage trolleys are supplied to the German Federal Railway stations for the first time. In the course of renewed expansion of production, another plant is built close to Leipheim railway station. For a time, this plant had its own railway connection. In 1978, the company was honoured with the "Goldener Zuckerhut" award for outstanding achievement in the grocery industry.

The 1980s.

The family-run company supplies luggage trolleys to Frankfurt Airport, the first time it has supplied these to an airport. A special feature of these trolleys is that they can be taken on an escalator. In order to be able to better serve the company's market in France, a new plant is built in Sélestat in Alsace. The increasing popularity of DIY stores leads to further increases in production. The company opens sales branches in the U.K. and Belgium. By 1989, Wanzl had 1,600 employees.

The 1990s.

In 1990, plant IV is opened in Leipheim, close to the A8 motorway. Today, this plant is home to the company's headquarters. In 1991, Wanzl founds the Shop Solutions business division. From now on, the fittings for entire supermarkets may be planned and shelving systems manufactured. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, the concept of self-service shopping also spreads to Eastern Europe, opening up new markets. In 1995, a production plant is opened in the Czech Republic, not far from Rudolf Wanzl's former home town. In 1998, after ten years as Managing Director, Gottfried Wanzl assumes overall management of the business from his father. Major orders such as equipping the new airport in Hong Kong with luggage trolleys drive employee numbers and sales figures even higher. In 1999, one million shopping trolleys are manufactured in a year for the first time.

The 2000s.

The markets in the conventional commercial business become increasingly saturated in Western Europe, whilst in developing countries, the self-service concept continues to increase. In 2005 in Shanghai a new Wanzl plant is opened incorporating both production and management. The rise in online trade leads Wanzl to expand its product range to include order picking trolleys and warehouse trolleys. Hotels are also supplied with a specialist product range for the first time. Following the insolvency of former competitor Siegel, Wanzl takes on a large proportion of the company's workforce. In the same year, Wanzl receives the Bavarian Quality Award. In order to develop the Shop Solutions business division, the company integrates Unseld, a carpentry firm based in Ulm.

The 2010s.

In January 2012, Wanzl increased its existing stake in the North American consortium Technibilt, acquired in 2006, to 100%. On 11 February 2012, a fire broke out in the electroplating building. The 40 x 40 m large unit was completely burnt out; damage ran into the tens of millions. Just two years after this major fire, the rebuilt electroplating plant was launched into operation on the same site.

Business Divisions.

Retail Systems/Shop Solutions.

In addition to metal shopping trolleys, the company has now been making plastic shopping trolleys for several years. These go by the product name of Tango and are exported to other European countries in particular. The range of products also includes shop fittings such as shelving and display units and turnstiles and even complete store installation solutions.

Logistics + Industry.

In 2002, the product ranges for industry and logistics customers were brought together in this business division. In addition to trolleys for picking orders, the company also manufactures transport containers and pallet boxes.

Airport + Security Solutions.

Wanzl luggage trolleys, entry controls and space partitions are in use in railway stations and airports around the world. Customers include the major air transport hubs of Frankfurt, Hong Kong and Paris. Wanzl luggage trolleys are also in use at the Eurostar terminal at London St. Pancras.

Hotel Service.

This business division was established in 2006. It offers hotel equipment such as laundry, cleaning and serving trolleys. The trolleys are also used on some AIDA Cruise Line ships.

Production sites.

Wanzl has three production sites in Leipheim, one in Kirchheim in Schwaben and one each in France (Sélestat), Czech Republic (Hněvotín) and China (Shanghai).

International branches.

From 1970 onwards, numerous service and sales branches have been established across the world.

Company Management.

Gottfried Wanzl, son of Rudolf Wanzl Junior, is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the company. Rudolf Wanzl Junior was himself honoured with the Bavarian Founder's Prize in 2006 in the category 'Lifetime achievement'. In 2014, Dr. Klaus Meier-Kortwig took over the role of CEO. Frank Derks is CFO, Harald P. Dörenbach is COO and Bernhard Renzhofer is CSO.

Trade fairs.

Wanzl is a regular exhibitor at the triennial EuroShop trade fair, which takes place in Düsseldorf.

Wanzl GmbH & Co. KGaA is the world's largest manufacturer of shopping trolleys and luggage trolleys. The company, which has its headquarters in Leipheim, Germany, has approximately 5,000 employees in 12 plants in 8 countries and over 27 sales offices (2018 figures). Annual production totalled approximately 2.0 million shopping trolleys.