title: Seven trumpets

text: With the sounding of the second trumpet, something described as "a great mountain burning with fire" plunges into the sea and turns a third of the oceans to blood. Soon after, a third of all sea life and a third of all ships will be destroyed."" Some speculate that the "great mountain" will be an asteroid cast from the heavens.


title: Seven trumpets

text: With the sounding of the third trumpet, a great star called Wormwood falls to the Earth, poisoning a third of the planet's freshwater sources, such as rivers and springs. Many will die from the bitterness of its taste.""


title: Seven trumpets

text: Following the sounding of the fourth trumpet, a third of the light that shines from the Sun, moon, and stars becomes dark from the celestial bodies being "struck." This catastrophe causes complete darkness for a third of the day, even through night hours."" This is the final trumpet that sounds before the three woes, also known as the fifth, sixth, and seventh trumpets.


title: Seven trumpets

text: The fifth trumpet is the "first woe" of three. Before this trumpet sounds, an angel (translated as an eagle in some versions) appears, and warns, "Woe, woe, woe, to those who dwell on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!"""


title: Seven trumpets

text: The fifth trumpet prompts a personified star to fall from heaven. The star is given the key to the bottomless pit. After opening it, the smoke that rises out of the pit darkens the air and blocks the sunlight. Then, from out of the smoke, the locusts are unleashed. The locusts are scorpion-tailed warhorses that have a man's face with lion's teeth. Their hair is long and they fly with locust-like wings. They are adorned with golden crowns and protected with iron breastplates. They are commanded by their king, Abaddon, to torment anyone who does not have the seal of God on their forehead, by using their scorpion-like tails. It is also made clear to them that they must not kill anyone during the five months of torment.


title: Seven trumpets

text: Robert Witham, a Catholic commentator, issued his two-volume Annotations on the New Testament, in 1733. Commenting on Chapter 9, he offers two preterist views for identifying the locusts with scorpion tails.""


title: Seven trumpets

text: After the fifth trumpet blast, the sixth one sounds."" This is the "second woe", where four angels are released from their binds in the "great river Euphrates". They command a force of two-hundred million mounted troops whose horses exude plagues of fire, smoke, and brimstone from their mouths. The mounted horsemen wore breastplates with the color of fire, hyacinth, and brimstone. The horses are with lion's head and their tails, as well, are like a serpent with a head. The plagues exuding from the horses will kill a third of all mankind.""


title: Seven trumpets

text: The sound of the seventh trumpet signals the "third woe." This is the final trumpet and the final woe. Loud voices in Heaven will say: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah, and He will reign forever and ever. " ""


title: Seven trumpets

text: In Christian Eschatology, all the first six trumpets are used to serve as a wake up call to the sinners on Earth and a call to repentance. Each trumpet blast brings with it a plague of a more disastrous nature than the one before it. The trumpet is used to build anticipation and tells the reader that an alert, announcement, or warning is about to take place. The seventh trumpet does not bring a plague with it. Rather, it is sounded so that glory is given to God and His kingdom is announced.""


title: Seven trumpets

text: The Preterist understanding is that these blasts are like war trumpets against apostate Israel of the time period and that they correspond to events in the Jewish Wars. For example, the second trumpet is the nation of Rome depicted as a mountain, symbolic for great nations in the Old Testament, and its destruction of Galilee and the Sea of Galilee becoming full of blood and dead bodies.""


title: Seven trumpets

text: Concerning the second trumpet blast, Futurist Christian apologists speculate that the "great mountain burning with fire" that plunges into the sea, in Revelation 8:8,"" is an impact event by a possible Near-Earth object.""


title: Seven trumpets

text: Christians who follow the Posttribulation rapture doctrine, argue that the seventh trumpet is the last trumpet mentioned in I Corinthians 15:52,"" and that there is a strong correlation between the events mentioned in Isaiah 27:13,"" Matthew 24:29-31,"" and I Thessalonians 4:16."" These parallels are used to support the doctrine of the rapture occurring the tribulation. Therefore, Posttribulationists see the rapture happening during the seventh trumpet. The nature of the 7th trumpet shows that "time is no more, and that the mystery of God is finished, Rev. 10:6,7. At the 7th trumpet, Jesus rules and reigns forevermore,"" He has taken His great power and reigned,"" and He rewards the righteous, and judges the wicked."" Both Jesus and Paul declare that when Jesus comes, His reward is with Him, and He rewards everyone according to their works, Rev. 22:12,2 Tim 4:1.


title: Seven trumpets

text: According to the Bahá’í Faith, the first woe is the advent of Muḥammad, the second woe is the advent of the Báb, and the third woe is the advent of the promised day of God; the manifestation of Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith. The seventh angel or trumpet refers to "human souls who have been endowed with heavenly attributes and invested with an angelic nature and disposition" who will joyously proclaim and announce the coming of Bahá’u’lláh, the promised Lord of Hosts.


title: Seven trumpets

text: There are some scholars who describe a part from the finale from the second symphony by Gustav Mahler, as the seven trumpets, actually played by four trumpets, bass drum, cymbals and triangle, which are offstage.""


title: U.S. standard clothing size

text: U.S. standard clothing sizes for women were originally developed from statistical data in the 1940s and 1950s. At that time, they were similar in concept to the EN 13402 European clothing size standard, although individual manufacturers have always deviated from them, sometimes significantly.


title: U.S. standard clothing size

text: However, as a result of various cultural pressures, most notably vanity sizing, North American clothing sizes have drifted substantially away from this standard over time, and now have very little connection to it. Instead, they now follow the more loosely defined standards known as U.S. catalog sizes.


title: U.S. standard clothing size

text: Men's standard sizes were probably developed first during the American Revolutionary War, and they were in regular use by the American army during the War of 1812 for ready-made uniforms . These were based on the chest measurement, with other measurements being assumed to be either proportional (the circumference of the neck, waist, hips, and thighs) or easily altered (length of the inseam) .


title: U.S. standard clothing size

text: As this was largely successful in men, the same approach was attempted in the early 20th century for women using the bust as the sole measurement . However, this proved unsuccessful because women's bodies have far more variety in shape. The hourglass figure is frequently used as an industry standard, but only 8% of women have this body shape . A woman with an hourglass figure and a woman with an apple-shaped figure who have the same bust size will not have the same waist or hip sizes.


title: U.S. standard clothing size

text: This was a significant problem for mail-order companies, and several attempts at predictable, standard sizing were made . In the 1940s, the statisticians Ruth O'Brien and William Shelton received a Works Progress Administration grant to conduct the most ambitious effort to solve this problem. Their team measured almost 15,000 women across the US. After discovering the complex diversity of women's actual sizes, which produced five to seven different body shapes, they proposed a three-part sizing system. Each size would be the combination of a single number, representing an upper body measurement, plus an indicator for height (short, regular, and long) and an indication for girth (slim, regular, and stout). The various combinations of height and girth resulted in nine different sizes for each numerical upper-body measurement, which was highly impractical for manufacturing .


title: U.S. standard clothing size

text: As a result, O'Brien and Shelton's work was rejected. In 1958, the National Bureau of Standards invented a new sizing system, based on the hourglass figure and using only the bust size to create an arbitrary standard of sizes ranging from 8 to 38, with an indication for height (short, regular, and tall) and lower-body girth (plus or minus). The resulting commercial standard was not widely popular, and was declared voluntary in 1970 and withdrawn entirely in 1983. In 1995, ASTM International published its own voluntary standard, which has been revised since then . It has not been widely adopted.


title: U.S. standard clothing size

text: Women's sizes are divided into various types, depending on height. These charts give an indication of size only and are by no means exact as they vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, sometimes by a full inch up and down.


title: U.S. standard clothing size

text: There are multiple size types, designed to fit somewhat different body shapes. Variations include the height of the person's torso (known as "back length"), whether the bust, waist, and hips are straighter (characteristic of teenagers) or curvier (like many adult women), and whether the bust is higher or lower (characteristic of younger and older women, respectively). These categories include:


title: U.S. standard clothing size

text: Please compare to your favorite fit charts. These measurements conflict with many other size charts. These charts are significantly smaller than many current US clothing companies.


title: U.S. standard clothing size

text: Companies who publish catalogs may provide the measurements for their sizes, which may vary even among different styles of the same type of garment. The sizes seen in catalogs generally have roughly the following measurements:


title: U.S. standard clothing size

text: With the average American woman's height (20 years and older) at about 63.8" or approximately 5'4" (162.1 cm) , both standard and catalog size ranges attempt to address a variety of weights / builds as well as providing for the "shorter-than-average" height woman with "petite" and "half-sizes". However "taller-than-average" women may find their size-height addressed by manufacturers less frequently, and may often find themselves facing issues of slightly too short pant legs and sleeve cuffs, as well as waist lengths.


title: Phantom time hypothesis

text: The phantom time hypothesis is a historical conspiracy theory asserted by Heribert Illig. First published in 1991, it hypothesizes a conspiracy by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, Pope Sylvester II, and possibly the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, to fabricate the Anno Domini dating system retroactively, in order to place them at the special year of AD 1000, and to rewrite history to legitimize Otto's claim to the Holy Roman Empire. Illig believed that this was achieved through the alteration, misrepresentation and forgery of documentary and physical evidence. According to this scenario, the entire Carolingian period, including the figure of Charlemagne, is a fabrication, with a "phantom time" of 297 years (AD 614–911) added to the Early Middle Ages.


title: Phantom time hypothesis

text: Illig was born in 1947 in Vohenstrauß, Bavaria. He was active in an association dedicated to Immanuel Velikovsky, catastrophism and historical revisionism, the "Gesellschaft zur Rekonstruktion der Menschheits- und Naturgeschichte" (English: "Society for the Reconstruction of Human and Natural History"). From 1989 to 1994 he acted as editor of the journal "Vorzeit-Frühzeit-Gegenwart" (English: "Past-Early-Present"). Since 1995, he has worked as a publisher and author under his own publishing company, "Mantis-Verlag", and publishing his own journal, "Zeitensprünge" (English: "Leaps in Time"). Outside of his publications related to revised chronology, he has edited the works of Egon Friedell.


title: Phantom time hypothesis

text: Before focusing on the early medieval period, Illig published various proposals for revised chronologies of prehistory and of Ancient Egypt. His proposals received prominent coverage in German popular media in the 1990s. His 1996 "Das erfundene Mittelalter" (English: "The Invented Middle Ages") also received scholarly recensions, but was universally rejected as fundamentally flawed by historians.


title: Phantom time hypothesis

text: In 1997, the journal "Ethik und Sozialwissenschaften" (English: "Ethics and Social Sciences") offered a platform for critical discussion to Illig's proposal, with a number of historians commenting on its various aspects.


title: Phantom time hypothesis

text: After 1997, there has been little scholarly reception of Illig's ideas, although they continued to be discussed as pseudohistory in German popular media.


title: Phantom time hypothesis

text: Also in 2013, he published on an unrelated topic of art history, on German Renaissance master Anton Pilgram, but again proposing revisions to conventional chronology, and arguing for the abolition of the art historical category of Mannerism.


title: David DeLuise

text: David Dominick DeLuise (born November 11, 1971) is an American actor and television director. He has appeared on numerous television shows as well as films. He is known for Coop in the animated show "Megas XLR" and Jerry Russo in "Wizards of Waverly Place".


title: David DeLuise

text: His first leading role came in 2003 with Dantre Cole, in "BachelorMan". He had a recurring role in "3rd Rock from the Sun" as Bug Pollone and was a regular performer on "Jesse" during its first season, playing Jesse's brother Darren. He also played a recurring role in "Stargate SG-1" as Pete Shanahan. He was also seen in a Purina commercial for Beneful dog food, and a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial.


title: David DeLuise

text: DeLuise is also known for voicing Coop on the short-lived action animated "Megas XLR" (later reprising his role for the Cartoon Network game "") and Sergeant Brutto in "". In 2005, he starred opposite Maggie Wheeler on the NBC pilot "The Sperm Donor". In 2012, he had a guest role on "Rizzoli & Isles" as Dominic.


title: David DeLuise

text: He portrayed the character of Jerry Russo, the family patriarch and former wizard on Disney Channel's "Wizards of Waverly Place" and "" from 2007 to 2012. DeLuise also directed numerous episodes of the series, beginning with the episode "My Tutor, Tutor" (2009). He has since directed episodes of "How to Rock", "See Dad Run", "Lab Rats" and "The Thundermans".


title: Andrew Wiles

text: Sir Andrew John Wiles (born 11 April 1953) is an English mathematician and a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Oxford, specializing in number theory. He is best known for proving Fermat's Last Theorem, for which he was awarded the 2016 Abel Prize and the 2017 Copley Medal by the Royal Society. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2000, and in 2018, was appointed the first Regius Professor of Mathematics at Oxford. Wiles is also a 1997 MacArthur Fellow.


title: Andrew Wiles

text: Wiles was born on 11 April 1953 in Cambridge, England, the son of Maurice Frank Wiles (1923–2005) and Patricia Wiles (née Mowll). From 1952-1955, his father worked as the chaplain at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and later became the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford.


title: Andrew Wiles

text: Wiles states that he came across Fermat's Last Theorem on his way home from school when he was 10 years old. He stopped at his local library where he found a book "The Last Problem", by Eric Temple Bell, about the theorem. Fascinated by the existence of a theorem that was so easy to state that he, a ten-year-old, could understand it, but that no one had proven, he decided to be the first person to prove it. However, he soon realised that his knowledge was too limited, so he abandoned his childhood dream until it was brought back to his attention at the age of 33 by Ken Ribet's 1986 proof of the epsilon conjecture, which Gerhard Frey had previously linked to Fermat's famous equation.


title: Andrew Wiles

text: In 1974, Wiles earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics at Merton College, Oxford. Wiles's graduate research was guided by John Coates, beginning in the summer of 1975. Together they worked on the arithmetic of elliptic curves with complex multiplication by the methods of Iwasawa theory. He further worked with Barry Mazur on the main conjecture of Iwasawa theory over the rational numbers, and soon afterward, he generalized this result to totally real fields.


title: Andrew Wiles

text: In 1980, Wiles earned a PhD while at Clare College, Cambridge. After a stay at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1981, Wiles became a Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University.


title: Andrew Wiles

text: In 1985–86, Wiles was a Guggenheim Fellow at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques near Paris and at the École Normale Supérieure.


title: Andrew Wiles

text: From 1988 to 1990, Wiles was a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Oxford, and then he returned to Princeton.


title: Andrew Wiles

text: From 1994 to 2009, Wiles was a Eugene Higgins Professor at Princeton. He rejoined Oxford in 2011 as Royal Society Research Professor.


title: Andrew Wiles

text: In May 2018, Wiles was appointed Regius Professor of Mathematics at Oxford, the first in the university's history.


title: Andrew Wiles

text: Starting in mid-1986, based on successive progress of the previous few years of Gerhard Frey, Jean-Pierre Serre and Ken Ribet, it became clear that Fermat's Last Theorem could be proven as a corollary of a limited form of the modularity theorem (unproven at the time and then known as the "Taniyama–Shimura–Weil conjecture"). The modularity theorem involved elliptic curves, which was also Wiles's own specialist area.


title: Andrew Wiles

text: The conjecture was seen by contemporary mathematicians as important, but extraordinarily difficult or perhaps impossible to prove. For example, Wiles's ex-supervisor John Coates stated that it seemed "impossible to actually prove", and Ken Ribet considered himself "one of the vast majority of people who believed [it] was completely inaccessible", adding that "Andrew Wiles was probably one of the few people on earth who had the audacity to dream that you can actually go and prove [it]."


title: Andrew Wiles

text: Despite this, Wiles, with his from-childhood fascination with Fermat's Last Theorem, decided to undertake the challenge of proving the conjecture, at least to the extent needed for Frey's curve. He dedicated all of his research time to this problem for over six years in near-total secrecy, covering up his efforts by releasing prior work in small segments as separate papers and confiding only in his wife.


title: Andrew Wiles

text: In August 1993, it was discovered that the proof contained a flaw in one area. Wiles tried and failed for over a year to repair his proof. According to Wiles, the crucial idea for circumventing, rather than closing this area came to him on 19 September 1994, when he was on the verge of giving up. Together with his former student Richard Taylor, he published a second paper which circumvented the problem and thus completed the proof. Both papers were published in May 1995 in a dedicated issue of the "Annals of Mathematics."


title: Andrew Wiles

text: Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem has stood up to the scrutiny of the world's other mathematical experts. Wiles was interviewed for an episode of the BBC documentary series "Horizon" about Fermat's Last Theorem. This was broadcast as an episode of the PBS science television series "Nova" with the title "The Proof". His work and life are also described in great detail in Simon Singh's popular book "Fermat's Last Theorem".


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: Good Mythical Morning (abbreviated as GMM) is an American comedy, talk and variety YouTube series created by Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. The show first aired on YouTube on January 9, 2012, and continues to be uploaded every weekday during the seasons. As of January 2022, the show has twenty-one regular seasons and five summer seasons, one being part of season 11 and four being standalone seasons. The YouTube channel has over 18 million subscribers and more than 8.1 billion total video views.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: The show has featured many celebrities and Internet personalities as guests, including Daniel Radcliffe, PewDiePie, Post Malone, Kobe Bryant, Bill Hader, Linkin Park, Terry Crews, and Alton Brown.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: On January 3, 2011, Rhett and Link aired the first episode of "Good Morning Chia Lincoln", a daily show similar in theme and format. The show was retired on February 28, after 40 episodes.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: Rhett and Link aired the first episode of "Good Mythical Morning" approximately one year later on January 9, 2012, to their YouTube channel of the same name. The series' crew only consisted of one member during the first season, but has since grown to have twenty-eight members, as a part of Mythical Entertainment. Fan reactions to their behind-the-scenes crew led to the creation of the YouTube channel "Mythical", which focuses on the antics of their crew and other skits. The show focuses on Rhett and Link as they tell stories, sing songs, do challenges, and more. On November 6, 2017, Good Mythical Morning became a YouTube Original series. Shortly after, they reverted to their classic format.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: "Good Mythical Morning" is uploaded to YouTube every weekday morning, at approximately 6:00 AM Eastern Time. Each episode consists of Rhett and Link playing a game with varying formats, often featuring taste tests.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: During the twelfth season of GMM, the show released four episodes per day. The change was met with backlash from longtime viewers of the show. This format persisted until the fourteenth season, when they returned to making one episode of GMM per day, followed by an episode of Good Mythical More.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: At the end of every episode, Rhett and Link spin the "Wheel of Mythicality", which can land on categories such as "6 Degrees of Bacon," "Winface," and "Gifticality". The contents of the wheel often change between seasons. The consequences of each wheel spin are determined in "Good Mythical More," a more relaxed after-show.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: Due to the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning on March 30, 2020, "Good Mythical Morning" adopted a modified format in which episodes consist of a mix between prerecorded studio episodes and episodes featuring Rhett and Link broadcasting over video call from their own homes. This format continued until June 1, 2020, when the release schedule returned to normal, and the show was once again recorded in the studio.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: "Let's Talk About That" was a Saturday show that aired at 6:00 AM ET hosted by Stevie Wynne Levine. Before LTAT, they had a few other Friday morning shows, including "Ear Biscuits" (which is still airing), and "Good Mythical Crew", continuing.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: "LTAT" was a discussion of the main show's episodes that week (hence the slogan, "the show about the show"). The show began with a "rejected "GMM" food", which was usually food that was not selected for a video that week for various reasons but was saved for Rhett, Link, and Stevie to try during "LTAT". Chef Josh often appeared to describe the food. The show originally began with the "beverage of the week", where they drank an odd beverage and talked about how it tasted and then used a segue to transition to the "LTAT's" main topic.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: "LTAT" was discontinued on December 21, 2019, having completed 54 episodes across two seasons. As a replacement, Rhett & Link began recording vlogs on their original main channel.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: The phrase "LTAT" came from Good Mythical Morning when they would say or ask a question in the intro, then follow it with "Let's talk about that!"


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: On October 28, 2021, McLaughlin and Neal hosted a one-night-only special show titled "Good Mythical Evening" which was live-streamed to the Looped video-sharing platform behind a pay-wall. The special was described as "an evening of LIVE R-rated Mythicality as they take classic "Good Mythical Morning" favorites and add a little cursing, alcohol, sex, and whatever else is on YouTube's list of "don'ts."


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: The third season of "Good Mythical Morning" introduced the "Taste Test" series which include episodes where the hosts guess the food in blindfolds, challenge themselves to eat something often spicy and disgusting, and compare a particular type of food across different brands. Some of the most popular videos from this series are the "Bug War Challenge", the "Ghost Pepper Challenge", the "Carolina Reaper Challenge" and the "Sriracha Challenge". The fifth season brought the "Will It" series, in which the hosts try and invent different varieties of a famous type of food with unusual and increasingly disgusting ingredients. The first episode of "Will It" was aired on May 5, 2014, on Cinco De Mayo titled "Will it Taco" where Rhett and Link tried tacos made of pine needles, baby shampoo, and congealed pork blood. The most viewed video on their channel is "Amazing Game Show Cheaters" with over 31 million views. It was episode 62 of season 9.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: The show has become very popular on YouTube, with the "Good Mythical Morning" channel having more than 17 million subscribers and over 8 billion video views as of November 2022. Each episode generally gains over 1 million views. The show has also won Best Variety Series at the International Academy of Web Television Awards, Best Web Series at the Shorty Awards, Best Comedy Series and Best Non-Fiction Channel, Series or Show at the Streamy Awards, among many others. The series was also featured in "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" with episodes of "Will It Tea," "Will It S'more," "Will It Hot Dog," and "Will It Hummus?"


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: While the fan response to the series has been mostly positive, the relaunched format starting November 6, 2017, was met with a negative reaction from many fans. Several viewers criticized the new format, targeting the show for losing its charm, focusing on guest stars, and feeling forced and rushed. Many fans also reacted negatively to the decision to split each episode into four parts. While the show addressed these complaints in a video response, the number of views for newer episodes steadily declined in the following weeks, with only a handful of episodes surpassing one million views. Despite this, the show currently has retained over fifteen million subscribers to their YouTube channel. In July 2018, the show reverted to the older format, and complaints by fans became much less pronounced. The show once again regularly surpasses a million views per episode.


title: Good Mythical Morning

text: "Good Mythical Morning" won Show of the Year at the 9th Streamy Awards in 2019 and again at the 12th Streamy Awards in 2022.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Margaret of Valois (, 14 May 1553 – 27 March 1615), popularly known as La Reine Margot, was a French princess of the Valois dynasty who became Queen of Navarre by marriage to Henry III of Navarre and then also Queen of France at her husband's 1589 accession to the latter throne as Henry IV.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Margaret was the daughter of King Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici and the sister of Kings Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. Her union with the King of Navarre, which had been intended to contribute to the reconciliation of Roman Catholics and the Huguenots in France, was tarnished six days after the marriage ceremony by the St Bartholomew's Day massacre and the resumption of the French Wars of Religion. In the conflict between Henry III of France and the Malcontents, she took the side of Francis, Duke of Anjou, her younger brother, which caused Henry to have a deep aversion towards her.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: As Queen of Navarre, Margaret also played a pacifying role in the stormy relations between her husband and the French monarchy. Shuttling back and forth between the two courts, she endeavoured to lead a happy conjugal life, but her infertility and the political tensions inherent in the civil conflict led to the end of her marriage. Mistreated by a brother, who was quick to take offence, and being rejected by a fickle and opportunistic husband, she chose the path of opposition in 1585. She took the side of the Catholic League and was forced to live in Auvergne in an exile that lasted 20 years. In 1599, she consented to a "royal divorce", the annulment of the marriage, but only after the payment of a generous compensation.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: A well-known woman of letters, an enlightened mind as well as an extremely generous patron, she played a considerable part in the cultural life of the court, especially after her return from exile in 1605. She was a vector of Neoplatonism, which preached the supremacy of platonic love over physical love. During her imprisonment, she took advantage of the time to write her "Memoirs", the first woman to have done so. She was one of the most fashionable women of her time and influenced many of Europe's royal courts with her clothing.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: After her death, the anecdotes and slanders circulated about her created a legend, which was consolidated around the nickname "La Reine Margot", invented by Alexandre Dumas père. They were handed down through the centuries on the myth of a nymphomaniac and incestuous woman. In the late 20th and the early 21st centuries, historians have reviewed the extensive chronicles of her life and concluded that many elements of her scandalous reputation stemmed from anti-Valois propaganda and a factionalism that denigrated the participation of women in politics and was created by Bourbon dynasty court historians in the 17th century.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Margaret of Valois was born on 14 May 1553 at the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the seventh child and third daughter of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici. Three of her brothers would become kings of France: Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. Her sister, Elisabeth of Valois, would become the third wife of King Philip II of Spain, and her brother Francis II, married Mary, Queen of Scots.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Her childhood was spent in the French royal nursery of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye with her sisters Elisabeth and Claude, under the care of Charlotte de Vienne, baronne de Courton, "a wise and virtuous lady greatly attached to the Catholic religion". After her sisters' weddings, Margaret grew up in the Château d'Amboise with her brothers Henry and Francis. During her childhood, her brother Charles IX gave her the nickname of "Margot".


title: Margaret of Valois

text: At the French court, she studied grammar, classics, history and Holy Scripture. Margaret learned to speak Italian, Spanish, Latin and Greek in addition to her native French. She was competent also in prose, poetry, horsemanship and dance. She traveled with her family and the court in the grand tour of France (1564–1566). During this period Margaret had direct experience of the dangerous and complex political situation in France, and learned from her mother the art of political mediation.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In 1565, Catherine met with Philip II's chief minister the Duke of Alba at Bayonne in hopes of arranging a marriage between Margaret and Carlos, Prince of Asturias. However, Alba refused any consideration of a dynastic marriage. Other marriage negotiations with Sebastian of Portugal and Archduke Rudolf also did not succeed.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: During her teenage years, she and her brother Henry were very close friends. In 1568, leaving court to command the royal armies, he entrusted his 15-year-old sister with the defense of his interests with their mother.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Delighted with this mission, she fulfilled it conscientiously, but Henry showed no gratitude upon his return, according to her "Memoirs". He had suspicions of a secret romance between Margot and Henry of Guise and their presumptive plan of marriage. When the royal family found this out, Catherine and Charles beat her and sent Henry of Guise away from court. This episode is perhaps at the root of a "lasting brotherly hatred" between Margaret and her brother Henry, as well as the equally lasting cooling of relations with her mother.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Some historians have hinted that the duke was Margaret's lover, but nothing confirms this. In the sixteenth century, a king's daughter had to remain a virgin until her marriage for political reasons. Surely after their marriage she was not faithful to her husband, however, it is difficult to discern what is true or invented about her extramarital affairs. Many have no basis, others were simply platonic. Most of Margaret's alleged adventures are the result of pamphlets that have had to politically discredit her and her family.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: The most successful defamation was "Le Divorce Satyrique" (1607), which described Margaret as a nymphomaniac: nevertheless, these defamatory accusations do not stand up to a careful examination of the sources.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: By 1570, Catherine de' Medici was seeking a marriage between Margaret and Henry de Bourbon of Navarre, the leading Huguenot (French Calvinist Protestant). It was hoped this union would strengthen family ties, as the Bourbons were part of the French royal family and the closest relatives to the reigning Valois branch, and end the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: On 11 April 1572, Margaret was betrothed to Henry. Henry was a few months younger than Margaret, and their initial impressions of each other were favorable. In one of her letters to Henry, his mother Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre, wrote about Margaret: "She has frankly owned to me the favourable impression which she has formed of you. With her beauty and wit, she exercises a great influence over the Queen-Mother and the King, and Messieurs her younger brothers." Jeanne d'Albret died in June 1572, two months after the engagement, and was succeeded on the throne by Henry, so that Margaret became queen of Navarre upon the day of her wedding.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Margaret and Henry, both 19 years of age, were married on 18 August 1572 at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The marriage between a Roman Catholic and a Huguenot was controversial. Pope Gregory XIII refused to grant a dispensation for the wedding, and the different faiths of the bridal couple made for an unusual wedding service. The King of Navarre had to remain outside the cathedral during the mass, where his place was taken by Margaret's brother, the Duke of Anjou.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: François Eudes de Mézeray, a 17th century historian, invented the anecdote that Margaret was forced to marry the King of Navarre by her brother Charles IX, who pushed down her head as though she were nodding her assent. This was Bourbon propaganda to justify the subsequent annulment of the marriage, 27 years later, part of the myth of the ""Reine Margot"". Margaret did not mention this in her "Memoirs", nor did any of her contemporaries.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Just six days later, the Catholic faction assassinated many of the Huguenots gathered in Paris for the wedding (the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre).


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In her "Memoirs", Margaret remembered that she saved the lives of several prominent Protestants during the massacre by keeping them in her rooms and refusing to admit the assassins. Her eye-witness account of the massacre in "Memoirs" is the only one from the royal family. These facts inspired Alexandre Dumas for his famous novel "La Reine Margot" (1845).


title: Margaret of Valois

text: After St. Bartholomew's Day, Catherine de' Medici proposed to Margaret that the marriage be annulled, but she replied that this was impossible because she had already had sexual relations with Henry and was "in every sense" his wife. Later she wrote in her "Memoirs": "I suspected the design of separating me from my husband was in order to work some mischief against him."


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In the libelle "Le Réveil-matin des Français", written by an anonymous Huguenot author in 1574 against the royal family, Margaret was accused for the first time of incest with her brother Henry. This libel was another part of the myth of the ""Reine Margot"".


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In 1573, Charles IX's fragile mental state and constitution deteriorated further, but the heir presumptive, his brother Henry, was elected king of Poland. Due to Henry's support of suppressing Protestant worship, moderate Catholic lords, called Malcontents, supported a plot to raise Charles' youngest brother, Francis of Alençon, to the throne of France instead. Alençon appeared willing to compromise in religious affairs, making him an appealing option to those tired of violence. Allied with the Protestants, the Malcontents executed several plots to seize power.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Due to her inclination for her two elder brothers, Margaret initially denounced the plot in which her husband was involved, but later turned her coat in the hope of becoming an indispensable link between moderate Catholic supporters and her King of Navarre's Huguenot supporters. She actively participated in the organization of the "coup d'état" together with her powerful friends Henriette of Nevers and Claude Catherine of Clermont.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In April 1574 the conspiracy was exposed, the leaders of the plot were arrested and decapitated, including Joseph Boniface de La Mole, pretended lover of Margaret. After the failure of the conspiracy, Francis and Henry were held as prisoners at the Château de Vincennes. Margaret wrote a letter pleading for her husband, the "Supporting Statement for Henry of Bourbon". She recorded in her "Memoirs":


title: Margaret of Valois

text: After Charles IX's death, at the accession of Henry III of France, Francis and Henry were left at liberty (albeit under surveillance) and even allowed at court, but the new king did not forgive or forget Margaret's betrayal.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Relations between Henry and Margaret deteriorated. Margaret did not get pregnant even though Henry continued to pay his marital debt assiduously. But he had many mistresses and openly deceived Margaret with Charlotte de Sauve, member of Queen-Mother's notorious "Flying Squadron." Charlotte also provoked a quarrel between Alençon and Navarre, both her lovers, spoiling Margaret's attempt at forming an alliance between her husband and youngest brother.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: This episode may give the impression that despite frequent infidelity, the marriage was a solid political alliance. In reality, Henry only approached his wife when it served his interests, and did not hesitate to abandon her if it did not. For her part, Margaret might have availed herself of the absence of jealousy of her husband to take a lover in the person of the famous Bussy d'Amboise.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Alençon and Navarre finally managed to escape, one in September 1575 and the other in 1576. Henry did not even warn his wife of his departure. Margaret found herself confined to her chambers in the Louvre, under suspicion as her husband's accomplice. She wrote in her "Memoirs":


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Alençon, who allied himself with the Huguenots, took up arms and refused to negotiate until his sister was set free. She was therefore released and assisted her mother in the peace talks. They led to a text extremely beneficial to the Protestants and to Alençon: the Edict of Beaulieu.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Henry of Navarre, who had once again converted to the Protestant faith, sought to have Margaret join him in his kingdom of Navarre. During this conflict, they reconciled to the point that she reported pertinent information from the court in her letters. But Catherine de' Medici and Henry III refused to release her to her husband, fearing that Margaret would become a hostage in the hands of the Huguenots or that she would act to strengthen the alliance between Navarre and Alençon. However, Catherine was persuaded that Henry of Navarre could potentially change religion yet again, and used her daughter as bait to attract him to Paris.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In 1577, Margaret asked permission to go on a mission in the south of the Netherlands on behalf of her younger brother Francis d'Alençon. The Flemings, who had rebelled against Spanish rule in 1576, seemed willing to offer a throne to a foreign prince who was tolerant and willing to provide them with the diplomatic and military forces necessary to protect their independence. Henry III accepted the proposal of his sister because he would finally release the inconvenient duke of Alençon.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: On the pretext of a bath in Spa thermal waters, Margaret left Paris with her court. She devoted two months to her mission: at every stage of the journey, during brilliant receptions, the queen of Navarre was entertained with gentlemen hostile to Spain and, while praising his brother, she tried to persuade them to join him. She also met the governor of the Netherlands, Don Juan of Austria, with whom he had a friendly meeting in Namur. Almost one quarter of her "Memoirs" are devoted to this mission. For Margaret, returning to France was dangerous due to the risk that the Spanish would capture her.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: At the end, despite the contacts Margaret had found, the duke d'Alençon was incapable of defeating the Spanish army.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: After reporting her mission to her younger brother, Margaret returned to the court. The fighting multiplied between Henry III's "mignons" and Alençon's supporters, in the forefront of which Bussy d'Amboise, a lover of Margaret. In 1578 Alençon asked to be absent. But Henry III saw in it the proof of his participation in a conspiracy: he had him arrested in the middle of the night, and kept him in his room, where Margaret joined him. As for Bussy, he was taken to the Bastille. A few days later, Francis fled again, thanks to a rope thrown out of his sister's window.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Shortly afterwards, Margaret, who denied any participation in this escape, finally got permission to join her husband. Catherine also saw the years pass and still had no heir. She hoped for a new wedding and invited her son-in-law to act as a good husband. Perhaps Henry III and the Queen-Mother also hoped that Margaret could play a conciliation role in the troubled provinces of the southwest.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: For her return with her husband, Margaret was accompanied by her mother and her chancellor, a renowned humanist, magistrate and poet, Guy Du Faur de Pibrac. This journey was an opportunity for entering the cities crossed, a way of forging closer ties with the reigning family. At the end of their journey, they finally found the King of Navarre. Catherine and her son-in-law agreed on the modalities of the execution of the last edict of pacification – the object of the Nérac conference in 1579. Then, the Queen-Mother returned to Paris.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: After her departure, the spouses stayed briefly in Pau where Margaret suffered from the prohibition of Catholic worship. They then settled in Nérac, capital of the Albret, which was part of the kingdom of France and where the religious regulations and intolerance in force in Béarn did not apply:


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Queen Margaret worked to create a refined court. She was indeed forming a true literary academy. Besides Agrippa d'Aubigné, Navarre's companion in arms, and Pibrac, the poet Saluste du Bartas or Montaigne frequented the court. Margaret had many exchanges with the author of the "Essays".


title: Margaret of Valois

text: The court of Nérac became especially famous for the amorous adventures that occurred there, to the point of having inspired Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost". Margaret had an affair with one of the most illustrious companions of her husband, the Vicomte de Turenne. Henry of Navarre, on his side, endeavored to conquer all the maids of honor who accompanied his wife. In 1579, a religious war, later called the "Lovers' War", broke out between the Huguenots and King Henry III.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: The conflict was provoked by the misapplication of the last edict of pacification and by a conflict between Navarre and the lieutenant-general of the king in Guyenne, a province in which Henry was governor. During the conflict, Margaret rather took the side of her husband. It lasted briefly (1579–1580), thanks in part to the queen of Navarre who suggested calling her brother Alençon to lead the negotiations. They were rapid and culminated in the peace of Fleix.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: It is then that Margaret fell in love with the grand equerry of her brother, Jacques de Harlay, lord of Champvallon. The letters she addressed to him illustrate her conception of love, imprinted with Neoplatonism. It was a matter of privileging the union of minds with that of the bodies – which did not mean that Margaret did not appreciate physical love – to bring about the fusion of souls.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: After the departure of Alençon, the situation of Margaret deteriorated. One of her ladies-in-waiting, Françoise de Montmorency-Fosseux a 14-year-old girl known as "La Belle Fosseuse", was conducting a passionate affair with the King of Navarre and became pregnant. Margaret proposed banishing her rival from court, but "La Belle Fosseuse" screamed that she would refuse to cooperate. She never ceased to incite Henry against his wife, hoping perhaps to be married to him. "From that moment until the hour of [his mistress's] delivery, which was a few months after, [my husband] never spoke to me. [...] We slept in separate beds in the same chamber, and had done so for some time", remembered Margaret.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Françoise finally gave birth to a daughter, but the child was stillborn. "It pleased God that she should bring forth a daughter since dead" wrote the queen in her "Memoirs".


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In 1582, Margaret returned to Paris. She had failed to give her husband an heir, which would have strengthened her position. However, the real reasons for her departure were obscure. No doubt she wanted to escape from an atmosphere that became hostile, perhaps also to approach her lover Champvallon, or to support her younger brother Alençon. Moreover, King Henry III and the Queen-Mother urged her to return, hoping thus to attract the King of Navarre to the court of France.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Queen Margaret was initially well received by her brother, the King. Margaret maintained an active correspondence with her husband and tried to convince him to join her in Paris. But Henry of Navarre was not persuaded, and a rupturing of their relationship occurred when Margaret forced "La Belle Fousseuse" from her service on the order of the Queen-Mother. After this new break with her husband, from November 1582 to August 1583, the queen of Navarre resumed the relationship with Champvallon, who had returned to Paris.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In the meantime, the relationship between Margaret and her brother Henry III had become very strained. While the King alternated between a dissolute life and crises of mysticism, Margaret encouraged mockery against his morals and she made enemies of two of his chief "mignons" the Duke of Epernon and the Duke of Joyeuse, who retaliated by circulating very injurious reports about her private life. In addition, Margaret encouraged Alençon to continue his expedition to the Netherlands, which King Henry III wished to interrupt, fearing a war with Spain.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: When she fell sick in June 1583, rumors claimed that she was pregnant by Champvallon. Henri III was soon displeased by her reputation and behavior and expelled her from the court, an unprecedented and humiliating measure that scandalized Europe. The Queen's court was stopped by Henry III's guards and some of her servants were arrested and interrogated by the King himself, especially about the possible birth of a bastard child by Jacques de Harlay or an abortion.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Moreover, warned of the rumors, the King of Navarre refused to receive his wife. He gave Henry III embarrassed explanations, then compensations. The Queen of Navarre remained for eight months in uncertainty between the French and Navarre courts, waiting for the negotiations to be concluded. The Huguenot warlords found there the "casus belli" they were waiting for and Navarre took advantage of it to seize Mont-de-Marsan, which Henry III agreed to cede to him to close the incident.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: On 13 April 1584, after long negotiations, Margaret was allowed to return to her husband's court in Navarre, but she received an icy reception. The situation got worse. In June 1584, her brother Francis died and she missed her most valuable ally. With Alençon's death, Henry of Navarre became heir presumptive to the French throne, and he was under increased pressure to produce an heir. In 1585, his new lover Diane d'Andouins, nicknamed "La Belle Corisande", pressed the King of Navarre to repudiate Margaret, hoping to be married to him.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In 1585, in an unprecedented gesture for a Queen of the sixteenth century, Margaret abandoned her husband. She rallied the Catholic League, which united as well the intransigent Catholics with the people hostile to the policy of her family and her husband. Determined to overcome her difficulties, Margaret masterminded a coup d'état and seized power over Agen, one of her appanages. The Queen of Navarre spent several months fortifying the city. Recruiting troops, she sent them to the assault of the cities around Agen.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: But, tired of the Queen's demands, the Agenais revolted and agreed with the lieutenant of Henry III. With the arrival of royal troops, Margaret had to flee precipitously. Refusing her mother's pleas that she move to a royal manor, she retreated to her lofty and impregnable fortress of Carlat with Jean de Lard de Galard, seigneur d'Aubiac, her pretended lover, whom she appointed captain of her guards.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: After a year, probably due to the approach of royal troops, Margaret took refuge in the castle of Ibois, a little to the north of Auvergne, as proposed to her by her mother. But she found herself besieged by the royal troops who seized the fortress. She waited nearly a month for a decision on her fate.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: On 13 October 1586, Margaret was imprisoned by her brother Henry III in the castle of Usson, in Auvergne. D'Aubiac was executed, despite Catherine de' Medici's wish, in front of Margaret. Margaret assumed she was going to die and in a "farewell" letter to the Queen-Mother, she asked that after her execution a post-mortem be held to prove that she was not, despite gossip, pregnant with d'Aubiac's child.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: But suddenly, her gaoler, the Marquis de Canillac, switched from the royal side in the civil war to that of the Catholic League and released her in early 1587. Rumors at the court of France reported that she seduced him, but most probably he was bought by her. Her freedom suited the League perfectly: her continued existence guaranteed that Henry of Navarre would remain without an heir.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Despite obtaining her freedom, Margaret decided to stay in the castle of Usson, where she spent eighteen years. Of her life in Usson, there is very little reliable information, so a lot of legends have gathered around it. Here, she learned of her mother's death and of her brother Henry III's assassination in 1589. Her husband, Henry of Navarre, became King of France under the name of Henri IV. He was, however, not accepted by most of the Catholic population until he converted four years later.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: During this time, Margaret was able to train, as she had done at Nérac, a new court of intellectuals, musicians and writers. She restored the castle and committed her time to reading many works, especially religious and esoteric ones. Even her financial condition improved when her sister-in-law, Elisabeth of Austria, with whom she had always had good relations, began sending her half of her income.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In 1594, Margaret received a letter from her friend Pierre de Bourdeille, known as Brantôme, with whom she was in contact, a panegyric entitled "Discours sur la Reine de France et de Navarre". In response to the poet's work, which contained several mistakes and false rumors about her, she wrote her "Memoirs". She was the first woman to have done so.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Her work was dedicated to Brantôme, and it consisted of an autobiography from her infancy to 1582. The "Memoirs" were published posthumously in 1628. Queen Margaret was also visited by writers, beginning with the faithful Brantôme, but also Honoré d'Urfé, who was no doubt inspired by Margaret to create the character of Galathee in "L'Astrée", and Joseph Scaliger, who visited Usson in 1599.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: By 1593, Henry IV first proposed to Margaret an annulment of their marriage. Margaret resumed contact with him to try to improve her financial situation. Her infertility was proven, but she knew that the new King needed a legitimate son to consolidate his power. For this, he needed the support of his wife because he wished to marry again.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: The negotiations began after the return of peace and Henry IV's return to Catholicism. To support the invalidity of the marriage with the pope, the King and Margaret put forward the infertility of the couple, their consanguinity, and the formal defects of the marriage. During the talks, the queen’s financial situation improved, but she was displeased at the idea of Henry marrying his mistress, Gabrielle d'Estrees, mother of his son, César, who was legitimized in 1595, and refused to endorse what she considered to be a dishonorable remarriage: "It is repugnant to me to put in my place a woman of such low extraction and of so impure a life as the one about whom rumor speaks."


title: Margaret of Valois

text: She stopped the negotiations, but after the providential death of Gabrielle from eclampsia, Margaret returned to her demand for reasons of conscience, in exchange for strong financial compensation and the right to retain the use of her royal title.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: During the trial, many witnesses reported the fake saying that Margaret had been forced by her mother and brother Charles IX to marry Henry. Clement VIII pronounced the cancellation bull on 24 October 1599. Later, on 17 December 1599, the Archbishop of Arles pronounced the annulment of Henry's marriage to Margaret of Valois. A year later Henry IV married Marie de' Medici, who nine months later gave him a son.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Following the annulment of their marriage, positive relations between the two former spouses continued. After twenty years of exile, Margaret entered the good graces of the King of France. Her case was not foreseen by custom, but her new position allowed her to receive visitors at Usson who were charmed by the cultural quality of this "new Parnassus" and the generosity of their hostess.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: On the other hand, well-established in the Auvergne and well-informed, she did not fail to spot the schemes of the Count of Auvergne, bastard son of King Charles IX of France and uterine brother (half-brother with the same mother) of Henriette d'Entragues – a mistress evicted by King Henry IV. Duly informed, in 1604 the King ordered the capture of the conspirator and the confiscation of all his property. Queen Margaret ought in her time to have inherited from Auvergne a property belonging to her mother, Catherine de' Medici, who had disinherited her from her brother Henry III's schemes for the benefit of this ally. Margaret initiated a long trial and the King allowed her to return to Paris to manage her legal case.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In 1605, after nineteen years in Usson, Margaret made her return to the capital. She impressed the Parisians for her appearance: her skin was red and raw, she wore an extravagant blonde wig and her clothes were twenty years out of fashion, but despite this she equally won the affection of the people. Even if she had changed little - at least as far as her tastes were concerned - she became "horribly stout", according to Tallemant des Réaux.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In Paris Queen Margaret established herself as a mentor of the arts and benefactress of the poor. She was also now very devout and Vincent de Paul was her chaplain.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: In 1606, she managed to win the lawsuit against her nephew and gained her entire maternal inheritance. After this, Margaret named as her heir the dauphin Louis. This was an extremely important political move for the Bourbon family, as it made official the dynastic transition between the Valois family, of which Queen Margaret was the last legitimate descendant, and that of Bourbon dynasty, just settled on the throne of France.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: It strengthened the friendship that had been created with Queen Marie de' Medici to delegitimize the claims of Henriette d'Entragues, sister of Charles of Valois and lover of Henry IV, who claimed that her son was the legitimate heir due to the King's promise of marriage. Margaret often helped plan events at court and nurtured the children of Henry IV and Marie. In 1608, at the birth of Prince Gaston of France, future Duke of Orleans, Queen Margaret was chosen by the King himself to be the godmother.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: She settled her household on the Left Bank of the Seine in the "Hostel de la Reyne Margueritte", which is illustrated in Merian's 1615 plan of Paris; the "hostel" was built for her to designs by Jean Bullant in 1609. The palace became a Parisian political and intellectual center. Queen Margaret gave brilliant receptions with theatrical performances and ballets that lasted until night and had great patrons; she also opened a literary lounge where she organized a company of philosophers, poets and scholars (among them Marie de Gournay, Philippe Desportes, François Maynard, Etienne Pasquier, Théophile de Viau).


title: Margaret of Valois

text: On 13 May 1610, Queen Margaret attended Marie's coronation at Saint Denis. The following day, Henri IV was assassinated by the fanatic monk François Ravaillac and Marie de' Medici obtained the regency for their minor child. The regent was entrusted with various diplomatic roles, including the reception of foreign ambassadors at court, the celebrations for the future marriage of Louis XIII and in the Estates General in 1614, in which Margaret was charged with negotiating with clergy representatives. This was her last public assignment.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Also in 1614, she entered the woman question ("querelle des femmes") in response to "The Flowers of Moral Secrets", a text that she considered to be misogynist, written by the Jesuit father Loryot. She wrote "The Learned and Subtle Discourse" in which she affirmed the superiority of the woman over man, arguing that God in the creation of the world started from the lower creatures up to the superiors and the woman is the last created creature, not even from the mud, like Adam, but from a rib. Furthermore, the delicacy of the aesthetic forms of women reflects only their perfection. For Queen Margaret, the world is not "made for man and man for God, but rather the world is made for man, man made for woman, and woman made for God".


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Early in March 1615, Margaret became dangerously ill. She died in her "Hostel de la Reyne Marguerite", on 27 March 1615. "On March 27 – wrote Paul Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain – there died in Paris, Queen Margaret, the sole survivor of the race of Valois; a princess full of kindness and good intentions for the welfare and repose of the State, and who was her only enemy. She was deeply regretted".


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Queen Margaret was buried in the funerary chapel of the Valois in the Basilica of St. Denis. Her casket has disappeared and it is not known whether it was removed and transferred when work was done at the chapel, or destroyed during the French Revolution.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Queen Margaret's life is obscured by the legend of "Queen Margot", the myth of a nymphomaniac and incestuous woman in a damned family. Many slanders were spread throughout the life of the princess, but those in "The Satiric Divorce" ("Le Divorce Satyrique"), a pamphlet probably written by Théodore Agrippa d'Aubigné against Henry IV, were the ones that were most successful by being subsequently handed down as if they had been established.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: By 1630, after the Day of the Dupes, Cardinal Richelieu and his historians initiated a campaign against Marie de' Medici, and the systematic discrediting of all women and their political role revived Margaret's black legend.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: It is in the 19th century that the myth of Queen Margot was born. The nickname was invented by Alexandre Dumas père, who titled his first novel in the Valois Trilogy: "La Reine Margot" (1845). He descried in the novel the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and the intrigues of subsequent courtiers. The historian Jules Michelet instead exploited the figure of Princess Valois to denounce the "depravity" of the "Ancien Régime".


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Between the 19th and the 20th centuries, some historians such as Count Léo de Saint-Poincy sought to rehabilitate the figure of the Queen by trying to discern the scandals from reality and depicting her as a woman who challenged the turmoil of the civil war. To some modern historians, it appears that Margaret of Valois had never felt less than her brothers and even wanted to participate in the affairs of the kingdom. They have also addressed the political behavior of Margaret, in addition to her private life. However, those studies remained marginal and did not affect official texts.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Only since the 1990s have some historians, such as Éliane Viennot, Robert J. Sealy and Kathleen Wellman, contributed to rehabilitating the image of the last Valois and to distinguishing between the historical figure of Margaret of Valois and the legend of Queen Margot. However, literary works and cinematographic works, such as "La Reine Margot" by Patrice Chéreau, have continued to perpetuate the image of an obscene and lustful woman.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: The 1845 novel of Alexandre Dumas, père, "La Reine Margot", is a fictionalised account of the events surrounding Margaret's marriage to Henry of Navarre. The novel was adapted into film three times, with the 1994 version nominated for the Academy Award for Costume Design (Margaret was played by Isabelle Adjani).


title: Margaret of Valois

text: The main action of William Shakespeare's early comedy "Love's Labour's Lost" (1594–1595) is possibly based on an attempt at reconciliation made in 1578 between Margaret and Henry.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Margaret appears in Jean Plaidy's novel, "Myself, My Enemy" () a fictional memoir of Queen Henrietta Maria, consort of King Charles I of England. She also features in Plaidy's "Catherine de Medici" trilogy which focuses on her mother, Catherine de' Medici, mostly in the second book "The Italian Woman" (), and also in the third book, "Queen Jezebel" (). Sophie Perinot's 2015 novel "Médicis Daughter" () covers Margaret's adolescence and the early days of her marriage.


title: Margaret of Valois

text: Margaret of Valois also has a major role in the Meyerbeer opera "Les Huguenots". That was one of the signature roles of the Australian soprano Joan Sutherland, who performed it for her farewell performance for the Australian Opera in 1990. She also appears in the opera comique "Le pré aux clercs", by Ferdinand Herold.


title: Mr. Burns

text: Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber "Monty" Burns, usually referred to as Mr. Burns, Monty, or C. Montgomery Burns, is a recurring character and the main antagonist of the animated television series "The Simpsons", voiced initially by Christopher Collins and currently by Harry Shearer. He is the mostly evil, devious, greedy, and wealthy owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and, by extension, Homer Simpson's boss. He is assisted at almost all times by Smithers, his loyal and sycophantic aide, adviser, confidant, and secret admirer. He is 81 years old.


title: Mr. Burns

text: Although originally conceived as a one-dimensional, recurring villain who might occasionally enter the Simpsons' lives and wreak some sort of havoc, Mr. Burns' popularity has led to his repeated inclusion in episodes. He is a stereotype of corporate America in his unquenchable desire to increase his own wealth and power, inability to remember his employees' names (including Homer's, despite frequent interactions—which has become a recurrent joke) and lack of concern for their safety and well-being. Reflecting on his advanced age, Mr. Burns is given to expressing dated humor, making references to Jazz Age popular culture, and aspiring to apply obsolete technology to everyday life. Conan O'Brien has called Mr. Burns his favorite character to write for, due to his arbitrarily old age and extreme wealth. His house is called Burns Manor.


title: Mr. Burns

text: Mr. Burns' trademark expression is the word "Excellent...”, muttered slowly in a low, sinister voice while steepling his fingertips. He occasionally orders Smithers to "release the hounds", so as to let his vicious guard dogs attack any intruders, enemies, or even invited guests. Mr. Burns is Springfield's richest and most-powerful citizen (and also the richest person in Springfield's state; his current net worth has been given as $1.3 billion by "Forbes", though it fluctuates wildly depending on the episode). He uses his power and wealth to do whatever he wants, usually without regard for consequences and without interference from the authorities. These qualities led "Wizard" magazine to rate him the 45th-greatest villain of all time. "TV Guide" named him #2 in their 2013 list of the 60 nastiest villains of all time. In 2016, "Rolling Stone" ranked him #8 of their "40 Greatest TV Villains of All Time".


title: Mr. Burns

text: Mr. Burns spends his time in his office at the nuclear plant, monitoring his workers via closed-circuit cameras installed throughout the plant. In "Double, Double, Boy in Trouble", Mr. Burns revealed that he was the youngest of a wealthy family, with eleven children, and all his siblings died of suspicious causes (mostly related to eating poisoned baked potatoes), leading to him receiving the entire family fortune, although another episode reveals that his surviving younger brother is George Burns. At an early age, Mr. Burns left his family to live with a twisted and heartless billionaire who owned an "atom mill" in Shelbyville (implied to be his grandfather). He lived a life of privilege and would amuse himself by injuring immigrant laborers. Mr. Burns later attended Yale University, where he studied science and business, joined Skull and Bones, competed in the "etherweight" wrestling class, and graduated in the class of 1914. At his 25-year college reunion, he became romantically involved with the daughter of an old flame. She would later bear his child, Larry Burns, who was given up for adoption and would later enter Mr. Burns' life briefly. Mr. Burns has been engaged at least three times: to a woman named Gertrude who died of loneliness and rabies, to Marge Simpson's mother Jacqueline Bouvier, and to a meter maid named Gloria.


title: Mr. Burns

text: He later enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as a member of Springfield's Flying Hellfish squad under Master Sergeant Abraham Simpson and saw action in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge. During the war, Mr. Burns, Abraham Simpson (father of Homer Simpson and grandparent to Lisa, Bart, and Maggie Simpson) and some of the soldiers found an expensive portrait in a manor in Germany. They locked it in a case and stated the last surviving member would get the painting (he and Abraham tied when the owner's descendant came back for the painting). Later on, he was shipped to the Pacific Theater and was a co-pilot along with Abe Simpson and his brother, Cyrus. Mr. Burns and Abe were shot down by a kamikaze and stuck on an island. At the end of World War II, he was personally hired by President Harry S. Truman to transport a specially printed trillion-dollar bill to Europe as the United States' contribution to the reconstruction of Europe. As the United States' richest citizen, Mr. Burns was thought to be the most trustworthy. Mr. Burns absconded with the bill and kept it in his possession for many years until it was lost to Fidel Castro in "The Trouble with Trillions". In "Homer the Smithers", it is revealed that Mr. Burns' mother is still alive at the age of 122 years, although Mr. Burns dislikes speaking to her because she had an affair with President William Howard Taft and she refers to him as an "improvident lackwit". Furthermore, because she is so old, the only things she can do (according to Smithers) are pick up the phone, dial, and yell.


title: Mr. Burns

text: Mr. Burns resides in a vast, ornate mansion on an immense estate called "Burns Manor", on the corner of Mammon and Croesus Streets. It is protected by a high wall, an electrified fence, and a pack of vicious attack dogs known as "The Hounds". Mr. Burns routinely subjects Springfield and its residents to his abuse and there is a general dislike of him throughout the town. Mr. Burns has blackmailed and bribed various officials in Springfield, including Mayor Quimby and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He employed his wealth to make an ultimately unsuccessful run for governor to prevent his plant from being closed for safety violations, only to be denied his chance to be Governor by Marge Simpson. He once blocked out the sun to force Springfield residents to increase their use of electricity produced by his nuclear plant and was subsequently shot by Maggie when he tried to steal candy from her.


title: Mr. Burns

text: Mr. Burns' extreme old age is a frequent source of humor on the show. He is occasionally referred to as "Springfield's oldest resident"; in Season 2's "Simpson and Delilah", he told Homer that he is 81, although, in several later episodes, he is shown to be 104. When Smithers informs him that Mr. Burns' credit card PIN is his age, he types four digits in his answer. When Lisa Simpson is researching her ancestors from the American Civil War, she comes across a Colonel Burns in the journal, presumably one of Mr. Burns' earlier ancestors. However, when Lisa mentions him, Mr. Burns replies by saying that he has not heard his father's name in years. The episode reveals that Mr. Burns' father was a slaveowning Southern plantation owner who inspired the character Simon Legree from Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin", and that Homer and Grampa are descended from Colonel Burns's runaway slave Virgil who fled to British Canada with Mabel Simpson on the Underground Railroad. In other episodes, Mr. Burns's birthplace is apparently Pangea, his national anthem implies he was both from Austria-Hungary and unaware of its collapse in World War I, and he mentions the possibility of an update on the Siege of Khartoum, implying that he was aware of current events as early as 1884. In other episodes, he has instructed a postal clerk to send a telegram to the Prussian consulate in Siam via autogyro, and believes a nickel will buy "a steak and kidney pie, a cup of coffee, a slice of cheesecake and a newsreel, with enough change left over to ride the trolley from Battery Park to the Polo Grounds.” Mr. Burns frequently answers the telephone with the archaic salutation "Ahoy-hoy", which was proposed by Alexander Graham Bell, but has long since been superseded by "Hello". In "The Old Man and the Lisa", Mr. Burns' investment portfolio is revealed to consist of long-defunct and obsolete companies such as "Confederated Slave Holdings", and he learns about the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression for the first time after checking a very old stock-ticker.


title: Mr. Burns

text: Mr. Burns' state of mind is the subject of frequent jokes on the show. At times, he appears to be completely removed from reality and modern conventions. He continually fails to recognize Homer Simpson or remember his name, even though many of the recent major events in Mr. Burns' life have involved Homer in some way. Mr. Burns is, for the most part, unaware of the townspeople's general dislike of him. He also displays mannerisms that are considered outdated, such as practicing phrenology, writing with a quill pen, and using an antique view camera to take photographs. He is also angered when Springfield Elementary children mock his dated car, saying it was "the first car to outrun a man!" Mr. Burns refers to many celebrities of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the present tense, assuming they are still alive. In "Homer at the Bat", Mr. Burns instructs Smithers to recruit dead-ball-era players, such as Honus Wagner and Cap Anson for the plant's softball team, and has to be told that all of them died long ago. He also once rewarded Homer for being the first to arrive at work with a ticket to the 1939 World's Fair. However, despite his obvious senility and social ineptitude, Mr. Burns is an extraordinarily clever businessman, as he has lost his fortune several times, only to regain it a very brief time later. In the episode "The Old Man and the Lisa", Mr. Burns loses his fortune and regains it by opening a recycling plant, which allows him to regain his nuclear power plant. Additionally, in the episode "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story", Mr. Burns loses both his fortune and nuclear power plant to the Rich Texan after losing a scavenger hunt, but eventually gains both backs after a series of events that includes him briefly working at Moe's Tavern.


title: Mr. Burns

text: Mr. Burns is physically weak and is often shown to have little more strength than an infant. In "The Mansion Family", doctors at the Mayo Clinic discover that Mr. Burns has contracted every known human disease, as well as several that were discovered during his checkup, but that they have canceled each other out in a condition they call "Three Stooges syndrome;" although a doctor warns him that his physical health is extremely fragile and that "even a slight breeze" could upset the balance between his diseases, Mr. Burns misinterprets his condition to believe that he is invincible. In the intro of "The Simpsons Movie", Mr. Burns is seen in his bathroom trying to brush his teeth. After Smithers applies the toothpaste onto his brush, he falls over. In "Rosebud" and "Who Shot Mr. Burns?", he needed a great deal of effort to wrench items from Maggie. He has difficulty performing such simple actions as giving a thumbs-up, and crushing an insect by stepping on it, or using a door-knocker. In one instance, when he is told to jump out of his burning mansion onto a life net, he drops at the speed of a feather, floats onto some power lines, and is electrified. He pitched the opening baseball at a game in "Dancin' Homer", but was only able to throw it a small distance, which drew mocking laughter from the crowd. When Mr. Burns joined Homer's bowling team in "Team Homer", he was barely able to roll the ball down the lane. In season five's "Burns' Heir", Smithers puts a sponge on Mr. Burns' head before leaving the bathroom, causing him to nearly drown in the tub from its weight. In "Lady Bouvier's Lover", however, he shows himself as a lively, excellent dancer.


title: Mr. Burns

text: Mr. Burns also had a teddy bear named "Bobo" that he loved as a child, revealed in the episode "Rosebud". The stuffed animal was lost and eventually, the stuffed bear became a toy for Maggie. In "American History X-cellent", Mr. Burns gets sent to jail because he is in possession of stolen paintings. In the same episode, it is implied that he was once in the SS. Another episode has him exclaim that though he and Oskar Schindler had much in common: ""We both made shells for the Nazis, but mine worked, damn it!""


title: Mr. Burns

text: Mr. Burns' character, appearance, and mannerisms are based on several different people. The show's creator Matt Groening principally based Mr. Burns on his high school teacher Mr. Bailey. Drawing further inspiration from oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller and his grandson David Rockefeller, Groening made Mr. Burns the "embodiment of corporate greed". Animator David Silverman modeled Mr. Burns' appearance on Fox founder Barry Diller, and modeled his body on a praying mantis. The idea of Mr. Burns reading employee names off cards in "There's No Disgrace Like Home" came from an article about Ronald Reagan that writer Al Jean had read. In some episodes, parallels have been drawn between Mr. Burns and moguls such as Howard Hughes and, more frequently, fictional character Charles Foster Kane from "Citizen Kane". Writer George Meyer lifted Mr. Burns' "Excellent!" hand gesture from his former "Saturday Night Live" colleague Jim Downey. While perhaps not intentional, Mr. Burns' physical characteristics and mannerisms are cited as a modern example of the commedia dell'arte character Pantalone.


title: Mr. Burns

text: Matt Groening got Mr. Burns' middle name from a Montgomery Ward department store in Portland, Oregon's Northwest Industrial district and his surname from Burnside Street, a main thoroughfare in Portland. Mr. Burns' first name being Charles is a reference to Charles Foster Kane. In the script for "There's No Disgrace Like Home", Al Jean and Mike Reiss referred to him as "Mr. Meanie". In the second season, the writers started to enjoy writing about Smithers and Mr. Burns' relationship, and they often pitched episodes with them as the focus, but many never came to fruition.


title: Mr. Burns

text: Mr. Burns was originally voiced by actor Christopher Collins in the episodes "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", "Homer's Odyssey", "There's No Disgrace Like Home", and "The Telltale Head". He was soon replaced by Harry Shearer because Sam Simon found Collins "difficult to work with". Shearer has voiced the character ever since. He modeled the voice on Lionel Barrymore and Ronald Reagan. Shearer is also the voice of Smithers and is able to perform dialogue between the two characters in one take. Shearer said that Mr. Burns is the most difficult character for him to voice because it is rough on his vocal cords and he often needs to drink tea and honey to soothe his voice. He describes Mr. Burns as his favorite character, saying he "like[s] Mr. Burns because he is pure evil. A lot of evil people make the mistake of diluting it. Never adulterate your evil."


title: Mr. Burns

text: In 2014, Shearer won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for his performance on "Four Regrettings and a Funeral" for voicing Mr. Burns.


title: Mr. Burns

text: In 2006, "Wizard" magazine rated Mr. Burns the 45th-greatest villain of all time. They also described Smithers and Mr. Burns as being "TV's most functional dysfunctional couple". In a 2003 article, "EW" also named "Last Exit to Springfield" the greatest episode of "The Simpsons". Other episodes which feature Mr. Burns placed on the list, including "Rosebud", at number two, and the "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" two-part episode, at number 25. "Vanity Fair" placed "Rosebud" first on their list of the top 25 "Simpsons" episodes.


title: Mr. Burns

text: "Forbes" estimates Mr. Burns' net worth at $1.3 billion, placing 12th on the 2008 "Forbes Fictional 15" list. Mr. Burns has been on the list since 1989 and has previously placed fifth in 2005, second in 2006 and sixth in 2007 when he was estimated to be worth $16.8 billion. Mr. Burns' evil has made him a popular example of terrible television bosses. In 2006, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas released a report saying that Mr. Burns was one of the eight worst bosses on television. "The News & Observer" named Mr. Burns the third worst boss, calling him "heartless, greedy and exceptionally ugly, Mr. Burns makes Ebenezer Scrooge seem downright lovely."


title: Mr. Burns

text: In the run-up to the New York City's 2009 mayoral election, several posters appeared throughout the city, showing Mr. Burns and accompanied by the words "No Third Terms, Vote for Burns"—a reference to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's run for a third term that year—in the style of Shepard Fairey's Obama poster. The city's Board of Elections announced that December that Mr. Burns had received 27 write-in votes out of 299 write-in votes cast. As the chief of "Springfield Republican Party" Mr. Burns endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012 US Presidential Election. The IG Group, a financial corporation in the City of London, use a recording of Mr. Burns' catchphrase "Excellent" as an alert that an order has been completed.


title: Counties of Kenya

text: The Counties of Kenya () are geographical units envisioned by the 2010 Constitution of Kenya as the new units of devolved government that replaced the previous provincial system. The establishment and executive powers of the counties is provided in Chapter Eleven of the Constitution on devolved government, the Constitution's Fourth Schedule and any other legislation passed by the Senate of Kenya concerning counties. The counties are also single-member constituencies for the election of members of parliament to the Senate of Kenya, and special women members to the National Assembly of Kenya.


title: Counties of Kenya

text: As of 2022, there are 47 counties whose size and boundaries are based on the 47 legally recognized regions established by the 2010 Constitution. Following the re-organization of Kenya's national administration, counties were integrated into a new national administration with the national government posting county commissioners to counties to serve as a collaborative link with county governments.


title: Counties of Kenya

text: County governments were established in 47 counties (largely based on the 1992 districts of Kenya), after the general elections in March 2013. The counties' names are set out in the First Schedule of the Constitution of Kenya.


title: Counties of Kenya

text: Under the new constitution, Kenya is now divided into 47 counties for administrative purposes. They are grouped below according to the former province of which they were part, with their areas and populations as of the 2009 and the 2019 census:


title: Counties of Kenya

text: County governments are responsible for county legislation (outlined in article 185 of the Constitution of Kenya), executive functions (outlined in article 183), functions outlined in the fourth schedule of the constitution of Kenya, functions transferred from the national government through article 187 of the constitution of Kenya, functions agreed upon with other counties under article 189(2) of the constitution of Kenya, and establishment and staffing of a public service (under article 235 of the Constitution of Kenya). The functions of governments assigned to counties by the fourth schedule of the Constitution of Kenya are:


title: Counties of Kenya

text: Counties are mandated by the 2010 constitution of Kenya to enact legislation and laws that ensures management and controls of fire fighting.


title: Counties of Kenya

text: The county governor and the deputy county governor are the chief executive and deputy chief executive of the county, respectively.


title: Counties of Kenya

text: The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission shall not conduct a separate election for the deputy governor but shall declare the running mate of the person who is elected county governor to have been elected as the deputy governor.


title: Counties of Kenya

text: As a specialty in the democratic system Kenyan law requires governors to have a recognised university degree (it is not necessary for the President of the United States, for example, to hold a degree).


title: Counties of Kenya

text: The counties will each have an assembly whose members are elected from single member constituencies known as wards. There may also be a number of nominated members as is necessary to ensure that neither male nor female members constitute more than two-thirds of the assembly. There will also be six nominated members to represent marginalised groups (persons with disabilities, and the youth) and a county assembly speaker who will be an ex officio member of the assembly.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: The aftermath of World War I saw drastic political, cultural, economic, and social change across Eurasia, Africa, and even in areas outside those that were directly involved. Four empires collapsed due to the war, old countries were abolished, new ones were formed, boundaries were redrawn, international organizations were established, and many new and old ideologies took a firm hold in people's minds. World War I also had the effect of bringing political transformation to most of the principal parties involved in the conflict, transforming them into electoral democracies by bringing near-universal suffrage for the first time in history, as in Germany (1919 German federal election), Great Britain (1918 United Kingdom general election), and Turkey (1923 Turkish general election).


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: Through the period from the Armistice of 11 November 1918 until the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with the Weimar Republic on 28 June 1919, the Allies maintained the naval blockade of Germany that had begun during the war. As the German economy was dependent on imports, it is estimated that 523,000 civilians had lost their lives. N. P. Howard, of the University of Sheffield, says that a further quarter of a million more died from disease or starvation in the eight-month period following the conclusion of the conflict. The continuation of the blockade after the fighting ended, as author Robert Leckie wrote in "Delivered From Evil", did much to "torment the Germans ... driving them with the fury of despair into the arms of the devil." The terms of the Armistice did allow food to be shipped into Germany, but the Allies required that Germany provide the means (the shipping) to do so. The German government was required to use its gold reserves, being unable to secure a loan from the United States.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: Historian Sally Marks claims that while "Allied warships remained in place against a possible resumption of hostilities, the Allies offered food and medicine after the armistice, but Germany refused to allow its ships to carry supplies". Further, Marks states that despite the problems facing the Allies, from the German government, "Allied food shipments arrived in Allied ships before the charge made at Versailles". This position is also supported by Elisabeth Gläser who notes that an Allied task force, to help feed the German population, was established in early 1919 and that by May 1919 " Germany [had] became the chief recipient of American and Allied food shipments". Gläser further claims that during the early months of 1919, while the main relief effort was being planned, France provided food shipments to Bavaria and the Rhineland. She further claims that the German government delayed the relief effort by refusing to surrender their merchant fleet to the Allies. Finally, she concludes that "the very success of the relief effort had in effect deprived the [Allies] of a credible threat to induce Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles. However, it is also the case that for eight months following the end of hostilities, the blockade was continually in place, with some estimates that a further 100,000 casualties among German civilians due to starvation were caused, on top of the hundreds of thousands which already had occurred. Food shipments, furthermore, had been entirely dependent on Allied goodwill, causing at least in part the post-hostilities irregularity.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: After the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919, between Germany on the one side and France, Italy, Britain and other minor allied powers on the other, officially ended war between those countries. Other treaties ended the relationships of the United States and the other Central Powers. Included in the 440 articles of the Treaty of Versailles were the demands that Germany officially accept responsibility "for causing all the loss and damage" of the war and pay economic reparations. The treaty drastically limited the German military machine: German troops were reduced to 100,000 and the country was prevented from possessing major military armaments such as tanks, warships, armored vehicles and submarines.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: Historians continue to argue about the impact the 1918 flu pandemic had on the outcome of the war. It has been posited that the Central Powers may have been exposed to the viral wave before the Allies. The resulting casualties having greater effect, having been incurred during the war, as opposed to the allies who suffered the brunt of the pandemic after the Armistice. When the extent of the epidemic was realized, the respective censorship programs of the Allies and Central Powers limited the public's knowledge regarding the true extent of the disease. Because Spain was neutral, their media was free to report on the Flu, giving the impression that it began there. This misunderstanding led to contemporary reports naming it the "Spanish flu." Investigative work by a British team led by virologist John Oxford of St Bartholomew's Hospital and the Royal London Hospital, identified a major troop staging and hospital camp in Étaples, France as almost certainly being the center of the 1918 flu pandemic. A significant precursor virus was harbored in birds, and mutated to pigs that were kept near the front. The exact number of deaths is unknown but about 50 million people are estimated to have died from the influenza outbreak worldwide. In 2005, a study found that, "The 1918 virus strain developed in birds and was similar to the 'bird flu' that in the 21st century spurred fears of another worldwide pandemic, yet proved to be a normal treatable virus that did not produce a heavy impact on the world's health."


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: The dissolution of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires created a number of new countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Some of them, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland, had substantial ethnic minorities who were sometimes not fully satisfied with the new boundaries that cut them off from fellow ethnics. For example, Czechoslovakia had Germans, Poles, Ruthenians and Ukrainians, Slovaks and Hungarians. The League of Nations sponsored various Minority Treaties in an attempt to deal with the problem, but with the decline of the League in the 1930s, these treaties became increasingly unenforceable. One consequence of the massive redrawing of borders and the political changes in the aftermath of the war was the large number of European refugees. These and the refugees of the Russian Civil War led to the creation of the Nansen passport.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: Ethnic minorities made the location of the frontiers generally unstable. Where the frontiers have remained unchanged since 1918, there has often been the expulsion of an ethnic group, such as the Sudeten Germans. Economic and military cooperation amongst these small states was minimal, ensuring that the defeated powers of Germany and the Soviet Union retained a latent capacity to dominate the region. In the immediate aftermath of the war, defeat drove cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union but ultimately these two powers would compete to dominate eastern Europe.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: Approximately 1.5 million Armenians, native inhabitants of the Armenian Highland, were exterminated in Turkey as a consequence of the Genocide of Armenians committed by the Young Turk Government.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: German and Austrian forces in 1918 defeated the Russian armies, and the new communist government in Moscow signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. In that treaty, Russia renounced all claims to Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the territory of Congress Poland, and it was left to Germany and Austria-Hungary "to determine the future status of these territories in agreement with their population." Later on, Vladimir Lenin's government also renounced the Partition of Poland treaty, making it possible for Poland to claim its 1772 borders. However, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was rendered obsolete when Germany was defeated later in 1918, leaving the status of much of eastern Europe in an uncertain position.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: A far-left and often explicitly Communist revolutionary wave occurred in several European countries in 1917–1920, notably in Germany and Hungary. The single most important event precipitated by the privations of World War I was the Russian Revolution of 1917.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: In Germany, there was a socialist revolution which led to the brief establishment of a number of communist political systems in (mainly urban) parts of the country, the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the creation of the Weimar Republic.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: On 28 June 1919 the Weimar Republic was forced, under threat of continued Allied advance, to sign the Treaty of Versailles. Germany viewed the one-sided treaty as a humiliation and as blaming it for the entire war. While the intent of the treaty was to assign guilt to Germany to justify financial reparations, the notion of blame took root as a political issue in German society and was never accepted by nationalists, although it was argued by some, such as German historian Fritz Fischer. The German government disseminated propaganda to further promote this idea, and funded the Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War to this end.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: 132 billion gold marks ($31.5 billion, 6.6 billion pounds) were demanded from Germany in reparations, of which only 50 billion had to be paid. In order to finance the purchases of foreign currency required to pay off the reparations, the new German republic printed tremendous amounts of money – to disastrous effect. Hyperinflation plagued Germany between 1921 and 1923. In this period the worth of fiat Papiermarks with respect to the earlier commodity Goldmarks was reduced to one trillionth (one million millionth) of its value. In December 1922 the Reparations Commission declared Germany in default, and on 11 January 1923 French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr until 1925.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: The treaty required Germany to permanently reduce the size of its army to 100,000 men, and destroy their tanks, air force, and U-boat fleet (her capital ships, moored at Scapa Flow, were scuttled by their crews to prevent them from falling into Allied hands).


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: Germany saw relatively small amounts of territory transferred to Denmark, Czechoslovakia, and Belgium, a larger amount to France (including the temporary French occupation of the Rhineland) and the greatest portion as part of a reestablished Poland. Germany's overseas colonies were divided between a number of Allied countries, most notably the United Kingdom in Africa, but it was the loss of the territory that composed the newly independent Polish state, including the German city of Danzig and the separation of East Prussia from the rest of Germany, that caused the greatest outrage. Nazi propaganda would feed on a general German view that the treaty was unfair – many Germans never accepted the treaty as legitimate, and lent their political support to Adolf Hitler.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: The Soviet Union benefited from Germany's loss, as one of the first terms of the armistice was the abrogation of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. At the time of the armistice Russia was in the grips of a civil war which left more than seven million people dead and large areas of the country devastated. The nation as a whole suffered socially and economically.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia gained independence. They were occupied again by the Soviet Union in 1940.


title: Aftermath of World War I

text: Finland gained a lasting independence, though she repeatedly had to fight the Soviet Union for her borders in the Winter War.