title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: He traveled to the United Kingdom in 1977, where he wrestled under the name "Bronco" Bruce Hart for the London based Joint Promotions.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: While there, he met a young Tom Billington and offered him an opportunity to wrestle for Stampede, which Billington declined. After a falling out with Joint Promotions, Billington, using the ring name Dynamite Kid, traveled to Canada and joined Stampede. Dynamite quickly became a huge star in Western Canada. As a result, Hart invited Billington's younger cousin, David Smith, to also come to Western Canada. Smith, who originally wrestled as Young David, later became known as Davey Boy Smith (after British lightweight boxing champion - Dave Boy Green) after Hart decided that it was a better ring name.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: In 1978 Hart and Billington worked together as a tag team in the German promotion Catch Wrestling Association, they wrestled against Angel Grey and Michael Seitz. Hart also worked in singles matches against Seitz.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: From 1979 until 1984, Hart was in large part in charge of matchmaking and talent development, selling out regularly and producing a myriad of successful wrestlers, including: Jake Roberts, the Junkyard Dog, Jim Neidhart, "Dr. D." Dave Shultz, Honky Tonk Man, Bad News Allen (aka Bad News Brown) and Bret "the Hitman" Hart, the period was one where the company was generally breaking even.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: In 1979 Hart won his first championship, the Stampede World Mid-Heavyweight Title from Dick Steinborn. In 1980 Hart won two championships, the World Mid-Heavyweight Title for a second time and the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Title. By the end of 1982 Hart won the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship two times and then a third time by the beginning of 1983.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: In 1983 Hart worked for New Japan Pro Wrestling in their NJPW Bloody Fight Series. There he worked in singles matches against wrestlers such as Kengo Kimura, Kantaro Hoshino, Ryuma Go, Kuniaki Kobayashi and in tag team matches with wrestlers such as Bad News Allen and Tony St. Clair against Akira Maeda and Kengo Kimura with the former and against Isamu Teranishi and Rusher Kimura with the later as well as participating in three man tag matches with Dick Murdoch and Tony St. Clair against Antonio Inoki, Osamu Kido and Seiji Sakaguchi. Hart later in the year returned to Stampede. In March 1984 while back in Stampede Hart became Stampede International Tag Team Champion together with Davey Boy Smith.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: Hart returned to New Japan in early April 1984 for the NJPW Big Fight Series where he primarily wrestled in singles matches, several of which were with Norio Honaga but also against other wrestlers such as Nobuhiko Takada, Tatsutoshi Goto, Masanobu Kurisu, Makoto Arakawa, Fumihiro Niikura, Isamu Teranishi. He also took part in one known tag match, partnering with Hercules Ayala against Haruka Eigen and Kantaro Hoshino.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: Near the end of 1984, Bruce's father, Stu, accepted an offer from WWF president, Vince McMahon, to sell the promotion for $1,000,000, plus 10% of all subsequent WWF gates in Western Canada to the WWF. As part of the deal, several Stampede superstars, including Bret Hart, Dynamite Kid, Davey Boy and Neidhart also joined the WWF. However, several months later, Bruce violated the terms of the agreement by assisting a rival promotion in the territory, leading McMahon to renege on the deal.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: As a result, near the end of 1985, Stu Hart decided to re-open the promotion with Bruce running most of it. Initially, the promotion, which had been hurt by the loss of most of its well-known wrestlers, struggled to remain afloat. As a consequence, Bruce chose to feature a new, edgier and more hard core style of wrestling - featuring villains: the Karachi Vice (Makhan and Vokhan Singh and the Great Gama), the Viet Cong Express (Hiroshi Hase and Nubohiko Niikura) Jason the Terrible, the masked Zodiak (Barry Orton) and younger babyfaces, such as Owen Hart, Ben Bassarab, Chris Benoit, Jushin Thunder Liger and the tag team Bad Company (Bruce Hart and Brian Pillman). In short order, the promotion would survive for the next several years, drawing reasonable gates and turning out a number of performers who would go on to have decent careers in other companies after the promotion's collapse. Despite this, the promotion suffered backstage due to Bruce and his father Stu having grave disagreements about how to handle storylines. The promotion shut down in 1989 when Stu's promoter's license expired and they could not afford to pay for a new one.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: During this period Hart won five titles, the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship for the fifth time, the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship for the sixth time, the Stampede International Tag Team Championship for the third time with Brian Pillman as Bad Company, the Stampede International Tag Team Championship for the fourth time, again with Brian Pillman and the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship for the seventh time.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: Hart has made several appearances with his brothers Bret and Owen in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Bruce made his first appearance on the August 16, 1992, episode of WWF Superstars, where he sided with Davey Boy Smith in the run-up to SummerSlam 92. Bruce made his first in-ring appearance at the 1993 Survivor Series pay-per-view, teaming with his brothers Bret, Owen and Keith to take on Shawn Michaels and his "Knights" (The Red Knight, The Blue Knight and The Black Knight). The Knights theme was used as the team was supposed to be led by Jerry "The King" Lawler, who was having legal troubles at the same time as his feud with Bret Hart and was replaced by Michaels. The Hart Brothers won the match, with Owen being the only team member eliminated.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: Owen's failure ignited a lengthy feud between Bret and Owen that would last for several years. The Owen and Bret feud was originally conceived as a feud between Bret and Bruce but Bret proposed to make it between him and Owen instead as he believed the dynamic for them would be superior. At the 1994 SummerSlam, the two brothers competed in a Steel Cage match for the WWF Championship. Bruce and several Hart brothers interfered in the match by climbing the cage. Bruce also appeared on an episode of "Monday Night Raw" in the summer of 1994.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: In 1996 Bruce Hart made a comeback to the ring with the independent New York based promotion Ultimate Championship Wrestling (UCW), where he wrestled with the likes of Chris Chavis, his brother-in-law Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, Falcon Coperis, and Marty Jannetty and feuding with wrestlers such as Tiger Khan.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: In UCW Hart was involved in and developed a nWo type storyline in which he and former WWE wrestlers portrayed greedy lazy fat-cat type villains who looked down on and used the younger rookie talent at the shows to make money and gain power in the promotion.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: Bruce's next WWF appearance was at when he interfered in the main event which pitted The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart, Owen Hart, British Bulldog, Brian Pillman and Jim Neidhart) against Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ken Shamrock, Goldust and Legion of Doom (Hawk and Animal). Bruce played a key role in the finish of the match as he scuffled with Austin, allowing Owen to score the pinfall victory over Austin.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: Bruce's next and most recent appearance in the renamed WWE was at WrestleMania XXVI, where he was the surprise Special Guest Referee for his brother Bret's first WWE match in 13 years, a No Holds Barred Lumberjack match against the WWE chairman Vince McMahon. McMahon thought that Bruce and the rest of Hart family were on his side, but they all turned on him and helped Bret win the match.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: Hart has attempted to revive Stampede Wrestling numerous times. In the late 90s Hart collaborated with his brother Ross Hart as promoters and bookers, this incarnation of Stampede Wrestling featured many third-generation members of the Hart family, including Natalya Neidhart, Teddy Hart and David Hart Smith.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: In 2001 Hart won the Stampede North American Heavyweight Championship for the first time. In 2002 he won four titles, the Stampede International Tag Team Titles a fifth time with his nephew Teddy Hart, the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship for the eight and last time, the Stampede North American Heavyweight Championship as well as the Stampede International Tag Team Championships for the last time with TJ Wilson.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: One of Hart's last matches for his and Ross's incarnation of Stampede Wrestling was in June 2003 in a match for the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Title against Duke Durrango which Hart lost, leaving over the title to Durrango.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: In 2011 Hart wrestled in a Four-On-Three-Handicap-Match for Stampede Next Generation Stampede Wrestling together with his nephew Teddy Hart and Hal Eagletail against Big Jess, DerRic Super Starlight, The Inuit Warrior and Wyatt Beaver.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: In 2012 Hart wrestled his last match for Real Canadian Wrestlings 9th Anniversary Show in a Six-Man-Tag-Team-No-Disqualiication where he wrestled against Andrew Hawks, Kid Kash and nephew Teddy Hart together with Heavy Metal and Tommy Lee Curtis.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: He was a trainer at the original Hart Brothers University wrestling school during the 1990s. In June 2013, Hart resurrected the wrestling school. He continues to train wrestlers at the school together with his sons Torrin and Bruce Jr. in his hometown of Calgary, AB. Some of the wrestlers he has trained include Chris Benoit, David Hart Smith, Natalya, Teddy Hart and Tyson Kidd.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: Since 2014 Hart has a weekly column and runs a podcast for the multimedia website PWP Nation formerly co hosted by wrestler and journalist Jordan Garber and Jay Alletto.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: Hart has appeared on several wrestling documentaries, including the 2010 documentary which is about his younger brother Bret Hart and the WWE released in which he has a segment dedicated to his career.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: He has five children with his ex-wife, Andrea Hart: daughters Brit and Lara and sons Torrin, Bruce Jr. and Rhettger Hart. Rhett was born three months premature and suffers from cerebral palsy. Two of Bruce Hart's sons, Bruce Jr and Torrin, have been involved in pro wrestling.


title: Bruce Hart (wrestler)

text: Hart and his wife Andrea separated for a period from 2000 and Andrea started a relationship with Hart's former brother-in-law Davey Boy Smith until Smith's death in 2002. Andrea and Hart later reconciled but separated again after a time. Andrea died on December 27, 2019, at the age of 52.


title: Canada Post

text: Canada Post Corporation (), trading as Canada Post (), is a Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada. Originally known as Royal Mail Canada (the operating name of the Post Office Department of the Canadian government founded in 1867, ), rebranding was done to the "Canada Post" name in the late 1960s, even though it had not yet been separated from the government. On October 16, 1981, the Canada Post Corporation Act came into effect. This abolished the Post Office Department and created the present-day Crown corporation which provides postal service. The act aimed to set a new direction for the postal service by ensuring the postal service's financial security and independence.


title: Canada Post

text: Canada Post provided service to more than 16 million addresses and delivered nearly 8.4 billion items in 2016 and consolidated revenue from operations reached $7.88 billion. Delivery takes place via traditional "to the door" service and centralized delivery by 25,000 letter carriers, through a 13,000 vehicle fleet. There are more than 6,200 post offices across the country, a combination of corporate offices and private franchises that are operated by retailers, such as drugstores. In terms of area serviced, Canada Post delivers to a larger area than the postal service of any other nation, including Russia (where Russian Post service in Siberia is limited largely to communities along the railway). As of 2004, nearly 843,000 rural Canadian customers received residential mail delivery services.


title: Canada Post

text: Canada Post operates as a group of companies called The Canada Post Group. It employs approximately 64,000 full and part-time employees. The Corporation holds an interest in Purolator Courier, Innovapost, Progistix-Solutions and Canada Post International Limited. In 2000, Canada Post created a company called Epost, allowed customers to receive their bills from participating merchants and institutions online for free. In 2007, Epost was absorbed into Canada Post. In early 2022, Canada Post announced that the Epost service would be discontinued at the end of the year.


title: Canada Post

text: "Canada Post" (French: "Postes Canada") is the Federal Identity Program name. The legal name is "Canada Post Corporation" in English and "Société canadienne des postes" in French. During the late 1980s and much of the 1990s, the short forms used in the corporation's logo were "Mail" (English) and "Poste" (French), rendered as "Poste Mail" in Québec and "Mail Poste" in the other provinces. Although English-language advertising also still referred to the corporation as "Canada Post".


title: Canada Post

text: On August 3, 1527, in St. John's, Newfoundland, the first known letter was sent from present day Canada. While in St. John's, John Rut wrote a letter to King Henry VIII about his findings and planned voyage. Mail delivery within Canada first started in 1693 when the Portuguese-born Pedro da Silva was paid to deliver between Québec City and Montréal. Official postal services began in 1775, under the control of the British Government up to 1851. The first postage stamp (designed by Sandford Fleming) went into circulation in Canada that same year. It was not until 1867 when the newly formed Canada created the Post Office Department as a federal government department (The "Act for the Regulation of the Postal Service") headed by a Cabinet minister, the Postmaster General of Canada. The Act took effect on April 1, 1868, providing uniform postal service throughout the newly established dominion. The Canadian post office was designed around the British service as created by Rowland Hill, who introduced the concept of charging mail by weight and not destination along with creating the concept of the postage stamp. The new service traded under the name The Royal Mail Canada.


title: Canada Post

text: Prior to rural mail delivery, many Canadians living outside major cities and towns had little communication with the outside world. On October 10, 1908 the first free rural mail delivery service was instituted in Canada. The extension of residential mail delivery services to all rural Canadian residents was a major achievement for the Post Office Department.


title: Canada Post

text: The Post Office Department was an early pioneer of airmail delivery, with the first airmail flight taking place on June 24, 1918, carrying mail from Montreal to Toronto. A modern plaque at the site of Leaside Aerodrome reads: "At 10:12 a.m. on June 24, 1918, Captain Brian Peck of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and mechanic Corporal C.W. Mathers took off from the Bois Franc Polo Grounds in Montreal in a JN-4 Curtiss two-seater airplane. They had with them the first bag of mail to be delivered by air in Canada. Wind and rain buffeted the small plane and forced it to make refuelling stops at Kingston and Deseronto. Finally, at 4:55 p.m., Peck and Mathers landed at the Leaside Aerodrome (immediately southwest of here). The flight had been arranged by a civilian organization, the Aerial League of the British Empire, to demonstrate that aviation was the way of the future." A regular air express service began in 1928.


title: Canada Post

text: The Post Office Savings Bank system, an agency created by the April 1868 Post Office Act, was phased out in 1968–69.


title: Canada Post

text: The 1970s was a difficult decade for the Post Office, with major strikes combined with annual deficits that had hit $600 million by 1981. This state of affairs made politicians want to rethink their strategy for the federal department. It resulted in two years of public debate and input into the future of mail delivery in Canada. The government sought to give the post office more autonomy, in order to make it more commercially viable and to compete against the new threat of private courier services. On October 16, 1981, the Federal Parliament passed the "Canada Post Corporation Act", which transformed Canada Post into a Crown corporation to create the "Canada Post Corporation (CPC)". The legislation also includes a measure that legally guarantees basic postal service to all Canadians. It stipulates that all Canadians have the right to expect mail delivery, regardless of where they live.


title: Canada Post

text: Several historical sites related to the history of the Post Office Department of Canada can be visited today. In Ontario, the first Toronto Post Office is still in operation. The site of Scotiabank Arena was once the Canada Post Delivery Building. Also notable are the Vancouver Main Post Office and the Dawson, Yukon, Post Office, a National Historic Site of Canada. In Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia, a nineteenth-century lighthouse acts as a seasonal post office for the tiny coastal community.


title: Canada Post

text: Any letter sent within Canada has the destination address on the centre of its envelope, with a stamp, postal indicia, meter label, or frank mark on the top-right corner of the envelope to acknowledge payment of postage. A return address, although it is not required, can be put on the top-left corner or the back of the envelope in smaller type than the destination address.


title: Canada Post

text: Official addressing protocol is for the address to be in block letters, using a fixed-pitch typeface (such as Courier). The first line(s) of the address contain(s) the personal name and internal address of the recipient. The second-to-last line is the post office box, general delivery indicator, or street address, using the shortened name of the street type and no punctuation. The last line consists of the legal place name, a single space, the two-letter province abbreviation, two full spaces, and then the postal code. The country designation is unnecessary if mailed within Canada.


title: Canada Post

text: The Corporation has a directory of all its products and services called the "Postal Guide" and has divided its range of services into three main categories: Transaction Mail, Parcels and Direct Marketing.


title: Canada Post

text: The lettermail service allows the transmission of virtually any paper document. The 2015 to 2018 rate was 85 cents for a standard letter (30 g or less) and $1.20 for a letter between 30 g and 50 g. Proposed change for 2019 is 90 cents and $1.27 for these rates. Rates usually increase in mid-January of each year; for ordinary letters (30 g or less). The rate was regulated by a price-cap formula, linked to the inflation rate. The Corporation now has a "permanent" stamp that is valued at the domestic rate forever, eliminating the need to buy 1 cent stamps after a rate increase. The rates for lettermail are based on weight and size and determine whether the article falls into the aforementioned standard format or in the oversize one.


title: Canada Post

text: Daily cross-country airmail services were introduced in 1939. Canadian municipal delivery service standards are two days, as seen on the Lettermail Delivery Standards Grid.


title: Canada Post

text: Mail sent internationally is known as letter-post. It can only contain paper documents (See "Small Packet" below). From 2015 to 2018 the rate for a standard letter is $1.20 if sent to the United States and $2.50 if sent to any other destination.


title: Canada Post

text: Canada Post offers four domestic parcel services. The rates are based on distance, weight, and size. The maximum acceptable weight is 30 kg.


title: Canada Post

text: On September 22, 2014, Canada Post unveiled Snap Admail™, an all-in-one online tool that is aimed to support small businesses in the creation and execution of direct-marketing campaigns.


title: Canada Post

text: Canada Post operates a store front that sells a variety of stamps, and postal supplies to the public. The personal shop is focused on nominal postage, shipping supplies, and prepaid envelopes while the collectors shop has a selection of limited edition definitive and commemorative stamps as well as coins.


title: Canada Post

text: On October 26, 2010, Canada Post launched a comparison shopping service for Canadians. This service, Canada Post Comparison Shopper, allowed shoppers to find and compare product available to Canadians from over 500 stores across the USA and Canada. Notable features included price comparison, store policy information, cross-border shipping, duties and fees estimation, price history charts, reviews and color search ability. As of October 2012 the Comparison Shopper service is no longer available.


title: Canada Post

text: Although Canada Post is responsible for stamp design and production, the corporation does not actually choose the subjects or the final designs that appear on stamps. That task falls under the jurisdiction of the Stamp Advisory Committee. Their objective is to recommend a stamp program that will have broad-based appeal, regionally and culturally, reflecting Canadian history, heritage, and tradition.


title: Canada Post

text: Before Canada Post calls a meeting of the committee, it also welcomes suggestions for stamp subjects from Canadian citizens. Ideas for subjects that have recently appeared on a stamp are declined. The committee works two years in advance and can approve approximately 20 subjects for each year.


title: Canada Post

text: Once a stamp subject is selected, Canada Post's Stamp Products group conducts research. Designs are commissioned from two firms, both chosen for their expertise. The designs are presented anonymously to the committee. The committee's process and selection policy have changed little in the thirty years since it was introduced.


title: Canada Post

text: Notable stamps include Canadian definitive postage stamps like the Queen Elizabeth II definitive stamps, the Canada Post millennium stamps, and an assortment of ice hockey and Olympic stamps.


title: Canada Post

text: Canada Post use 13 digit alphanumeric tracking numbers / barcodes for their pre-printed labels. Bar codes consist of two letters, followed by eight sequence digits, and a ninth digit which is the check digit. The first two letters are the type of service (RN for registered mail, PG for express post envelopes). The last two characters are the letters CA. The check digit ignores the letters and only concern itself with the first 8 numeric digits. The scheme is to multiply each of those 8 digits by a different weighting factor, (8 6 4 2 3 5 9 7). Add up the total of all of these multiplications and divide by 11. The remainder after dividing by 11 gives a number from 0 to 10. Subtracting this from 11 gives a number from 1 to 11. That result is the check digit, except in the two cases where it is 10 or 11. If 10 it is then changed to a 0, and if 11 then it is changed to a 5. The check digit may be used to verify if a barcode scan is correct, or if a manual entry of the barcode is correct. The system of barcode digit checking is referred to as Modulo 11 or Modulus 11 digit calculation.


title: Canada Post

text: Canada Post use 16 digit numeric tracking numbers / barcodes for parcels that originate from a Canada Post post office. The first 7 digits are the reference numbers for the specific post office that the package originated. A Modulus 10 digit calculation is used to verify that the barcode has been read correctly, also referred to as the Luhn algorithm. USPS and Canada Post both use the same system to verify the barcodes, with a difference that USPS uses a 20 digit numeric tracking number. These types of barcodes are referred to as GS1-128.


title: Canada Post

text: 1999–2004 - appointed by Jean Chretien and former Minister in charge of Canada Post (as Postmaster General); Chair 1996-2004


title: Canada Post

text: The Office of the Ombudsman at Canada Post was created in October 1997 as a result of the 1995 Canada Post Mandate Review conducted by an Advisory Panel appointed by the Canadian government.


title: Canada Post

text: The Ombudsman is the final appeal authority in resolving postal service complaints. If a complaint is not resolved to the customer's satisfaction by Canada Post, the customer can appeal to the Ombudsman. Although the Ombudsman has no legislative power over the Corporation, the recommendations that the office makes to Canada Post can help improve company processes, amend policies and reinforce compliance with procedures.


title: Canada Post

text: The Ombudsman is independent of Canada Post staff and management, reporting directly to the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Mrs. Francine Conn was appointed on July 11, 2011, as the fourth and current Ombudsman at Canada Post. The services offered by the Office of the Ombudsman are free of charge.


title: Canada Post

text: In 2014, Canada Post began to phase out door-to-door service in urban centres, in favour of community mailboxes—a process that was estimated to affect 32% of Canadian addresses (subdivisions built after 1985 already use community mailboxes, and customers using rural mailboxes would not be affected). This change was instituted by Stephen Harper's Conservative government, and was meant to be a cost-cutting measure in the face of financial losses, due primarily to the decreased use of traditional mail in favour of electronic alternatives.


title: Canada Post

text: The plan proved controversial, and the CUPW criticized the move, which was expected to result in the loss of at least 8,000 jobs, by arguing that Canada Post should have attempted to expand its services to include new offerings, such as postal banking, rather than cutting jobs and reducing services. In 2015, the CUPW filed a federal lawsuit demanding that the roll-out be suspended—an action endorsed by Mayor of Montreal Denis Coderre. Concerns were also raised about the effect of the change on seniors and people with disabilities. During the 2015 Canadian federal election campaign, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau promised to halt the cutbacks at Canada Post and the shift to community mailboxes.


title: Canada Post

text: On October 26, 2015, following Trudeau's victory in the election, Canada Post announced that it would place the discontinuation of door-to-door delivery "on hold in an orderly fashion" and that it would collaborate with the government on evaluating the future of the mail system in Canada. On January 24, 2018, the Liberal government announced that it had officially halted the future deployment of community mailboxes, and will focus on finding other methods of expanding Canada Post's services in the future. Canada Post will not reintroduce door-to-door delivery in areas where it was discontinued prior to April 15, 2016, but stated that an advisory panel would assist in addressing related accessibility issues.


title: Canada Post

text: Canada Post has a history of troubled labour relations with its trade unions, particularly the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and the Letter Carriers Union of Canada (which merged with CUPW in 1989), culminating in periodic strike action that has halted mail service in Canada on different occasions. There have been at least 19 strikes, lockouts, and walkouts between 1965 and 1997, including several wildcat strikes. A number of these strikes since the 1970s have seen the corporation employ strikebreakers, resulting in back-to-work legislation being passed by the Canadian parliament.


title: Canada Post

text: In 2007, Canada Post was able to sign a 4-year agreement with CUPW without any labour disruptions. For 2007, 2008, and 2009 the corporation was named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers, as published in Maclean's magazine. In 2008, however, it endured a long strike by its administrative worker union — Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) - which compromised customer service.


title: Canada Post

text: Nearly all Canada Post employees who are not in the CUPW belong to one of three smaller trade unions. The Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association covers 12,000 rural workers, the Association of Postal Officials of Canada has 3,400 supervisors and the Union of Postal Communications Employees represents 2,600 technical workers.


title: Canada Post

text: On June 2, 2011, a labour action involving rotating strikes (the first strike to affect Canada Post in 14 years) commenced with CUPW members striking in Winnipeg, Manitoba and in Hamilton, Ontario on June 3. On June 14, 2011, Canada Post management locked out CUPW members, marking the 20th work stoppage in the 46-year relationship between CUPW and Canada Post. Back to work legislation was passed in the Canadian Legislature which also mandated arbitration by a government-appointed arbitrator. This back to work legislation was challenged in court by CUPW for violating their constitutional right to strike. CUPW won this case in 2016 and the back to work legislation was ruled in violation of the constitution by the Superior Court of Ontario. However, following the legislation, a new collective agreement was signed in 2012 which included major concessions by the employees, such as a $4 per hour reduction in starting wages and the complete elimination of bankable sick days Since this agreement was signed and agreed to by the membership of CUPW, the court ruling on the back to work legislation was of no effect.


title: Canada Post

text: In 2016, Canada Post and CUPW negotiated a two-year agreement without a labour disruption. This agreement expired January 31, 2018.


title: Canada Post

text: Starting October 22, 2018, Canada Post workers have organized rotating strikes nationwide, the major friction points being major processing centers, including Toronto and Richmond. In mid-November, annual Black Friday and Cyber Monday online purchases, and even Christmas holiday deliveries, appeared at risk. With a 30-day backlog of mail stored in 600 trailers at distribution centers, CP appealed to the 190 Universal Postal Union (UPU) countries to hold Canada-bound mail.


title: Canada Post

text: Moya Greene, former Canada Post CEO, was quoted as saying that years of under-investment to improve the company had hurt its efficiency and its financial performance. In September 2007, she estimated that modernizing the corporation would cost $2.7 billion over five to seven years for new buildings, equipment, technology and training.


title: Canada Post

text: The initiative, called Postal Transformation, has been rolled out across the country from 2010 to 2017. The transformation saw a fundamental change in the work duties of letter carriers. Previously, the delivery of parcels, clearance and transfers to retail postal outlets and collection of mail from street letter boxes was carried out by the separate position of a mail service courier, while letter carriers delivered the mail through walking routes, utilizing public transit and taxis to travel to their work locations. Today, many letter carrier routes are motorized and they are responsible for delivering parcels, mail, clearing and transfers at retail postal outlets, and collection of mail from street letter boxes. The additional duties have led to increased overtime, work stress, and injuries to employees who are facing greater fatigue and delivering mail in the dark; with many complaining that regular routes can no longer be completed in 8 hours, resulting in forced overtime and undelivered mail.


title: Canada Post

text: For 16 years until 2011, Canada Post realized an annual profit, and it has since had several profitable years. In 2011, Canada Post posted a pretax loss of $253 million, due in part to a 25-day employee lockout, and a $150 million pay equity class action lawsuit. In 2012, Canada Post rebounded to post a profit of $98 million before tax. In 2013, Canada Post lost $37 million overall. The Canada Post group's gross profit in 2014 was $269 million. In 2015, the corporation continued to remain profitable, posting a $136 million profit before tax. In 2016, Canada Post recorded its 3rd consecutive profitable year, making $114 million before tax ($81 million after taxes). In total, Canada Post has made a net profit of $266 million since 2012. In 2017, the Corporation posted $144 million after tax profit.


title: Canada Post

text: In 2018: "Canada Post is reporting a loss before tax of $270 million for 2018. Three main non-recurring items factor into the result: the $280 million cost of resolving pay equity and the estimated $135 million net impact of the labour disruption in the fall, partially offset by a $48 million gain after an actuarial update to workers compensation liabilities. Had it not been for these non-recurring factors, Canada Post would have recorded a profit in 2018."


title: Canada Post

text: Safety of rural mobile delivery personnel on busy roads has been an ongoing concern. Canada Post launched the Rural Mail Safety Review as rural and suburban mail carriers across the country, supported by their union, raised complaints about workplace safety. As of March 2008, there have been more than 1,400 such complaints. In some cases, the union staged protests in delivering mail, even after Canada Post tests showed there was no undue traffic safety risk at a particular mail box. Such cases were referred to Labour Canada, who in several instances asked Canada Post to cease delivery to mailboxes. In December 2006, the Canadian government ordered that Canada Post maintain rural delivery wherever possible. On January 1, 2004, rural route contractors became employees of Canada Post and joined the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.


title: Canada Post

text: Canada Post receives millions of letters addressed to Santa Claus each year, with a special dedicated postal code, H0H 0H0. About 15,000 current and retired employees respond in many languages to each letter received on behalf of Santa. Over the past 27 years, more than 15 million letters were written by volunteers.


title: Canada Post

text: In 2001, Canada Post started accepting e-mail messages to Santa. In 2006, more than 44,000 email messages were responded to.


title: Canada Post

text: In 1974, three Canada Post employees started to respond to mail addressed to Santa in Montreal, Quebec. In 1982, Canada Post rolled out the initiative across Canada and pledged that every letter sent in would receive a reply. A stamp is not required when sending a letter to Santa Claus. Canada Post also receives letters to God and, on occasion, the Easter Bunny.


title: Burgundians

text: The Burgundians (; ; ; ) were an early Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared in the middle Rhine region, near the Roman Empire, and were later moved into the empire, in the western Alps and eastern Gaul. They were possibly mentioned much earlier in the time of the Roman Empire as living in part of the region of Germania that is now part of Poland.


title: Burgundians

text: The Burgundians are first mentioned together with the Alamanni as early as the 11th panegyric to emperor Maximian given in Trier in 291, and referring to events that must have happened between 248 and 291, and they apparently remained neighbours for centuries. By 411 a Burgundian group had established themselves on the Rhine, between Franks and Alamanni, holding the cities of Worms, Speyer, and Strasbourg. In 436, Aëtius defeated the Burgundians on the Rhine with the help of Hunnish forces, and then in 443, he re-settled the Burgundians within the empire, in eastern Gaul.


title: Burgundians

text: This Gaulish domain became the Kingdom of the Burgundians, in the western Alps region. This later became a component of the Frankish Empire. The name of this kingdom survives in the regional appellation, Burgundy, which is a region in modern France, representing only a part of that kingdom.


title: Burgundians

text: Before clear documentary evidence begins, the Burgundians may have originally emigrated from mainland Scandinavia to the Baltic island of Bornholm, and from there to the Vistula basin, in the middle of what is now Poland.


title: Burgundians

text: The ethnonym Burgundians is commonly used in English to refer to the "Burgundi" ("Burgundionei", "Burgundiones" or "Burgunds") who settled in eastern Gaul and the western Alps during the 5th century. The original Kingdom of the Burgundians barely intersected the modern "Bourgogne" and more closely matched the boundaries of Franche-Comté in northeastern France, the Rhône-Alpes in southeastern France, Romandy in west Switzerland, and Aosta Valley, in north west Italy.


title: Burgundians

text: In modern usage, however, "Burgundians" can sometimes refer to later inhabitants of the geographical "Bourgogne" or "Borgogne" (Burgundy), named after the old kingdom, but not corresponding to the original boundaries of it. Between the 6th and 20th centuries, the boundaries and political connections of "Burgundy" have changed frequently. In modern times the only area still referred to as Burgundy is in France, which derives its name from the Duchy of Burgundy. But in the context of the Middle Ages the term Burgundian (or similar spellings) can refer even to the powerful political entity the Dukes controlled which included not only Burgundy itself but had actually expanded to have a strong association with areas now in modern Belgium and Southern Netherlands. The parts of the old Kingdom not within the French controlled Duchy tended to come under different names, except for the County of Burgundy.


title: Burgundians

text: The origins of the Burgundians before they reached the area near the Roman-controlled Rhine is a subject of various old proposals, but these are doubted by some modern scholars such as Ian Wood and Walter Goffart. As remarked by Susan Reynolds:


title: Burgundians

text: They have long been associated with Scandinavian origin based on place-name evidence and archaeological evidence (Stjerna) and many consider their tradition to be correct (e.g. Musset, p. 62). According to such proposals, the Burgundians are believed to have then emigrated to the Baltic island of Bornholm ("the island of the Burgundians" in Old Norse). By about 250 AD, the population of Bornholm had largely disappeared from the island. Most cemeteries ceased to be used, and those that were still used had few burials (Stjerna, in German 1925:176). In "Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar" ("The Saga of Thorstein, Viking's Son"), a man (or group) named Veseti settled on a holm (island) called "borgundarhólmr" in Old Norse, i.e. Bornholm. Alfred the Great's translation of "Orosius" uses the name "Burgenda land" to refer to a territory next to the land of Sweons ("Swedes"). The 19th century poet and mythologist Viktor Rydberg asserted from an early medieval source, "Vita Sigismundi", that they themselves retained oral traditions about their Scandinavian origin.


title: Burgundians

text: Early Roman sources, such as Tacitus and Pliny the Elder, knew little concerning the Germanic peoples east of the Elbe river, or on the Baltic Sea. Pliny (IV.28) however mentions a group with a similar names among the Vandalic or Eastern Germanic Germani peoples, including also the Goths. Claudius Ptolemy lists these also, as living between the Suevus (probably the Oder) and Vistula rivers, north of the Lugii, and south of the coast dwelling tribes. Around the mid-2nd century AD, there was a significant migration by Germanic tribes of Scandinavian origin (Rugii, Goths, Gepidae, Vandals, Burgundians, and others) towards the south-east, creating turmoil along the entire Roman frontier. These migrations culminated in the Marcomannic Wars, which resulted in widespread destruction and the first invasion of Italy in the Roman Empire period. Jordanes reports that during the 3rd century, the Burgundians living in the Vistula basin were almost annihilated by Fastida, king of the Gepids, whose kingdom was at the mouth of the Vistula.


title: Burgundians

text: In the late 3rd century, the Burgundians appeared on the east bank of the Rhine, apparently confronting Roman Gaul. Zosimus (1.68) reports them being defeated by the emperor Probus in 278 near a river, together with Silingi and Vandals. A few years later, Claudius Mamertinus mentions them along with the Alamanni, a Suebic people. These two peoples had moved into the Agri Decumates on the eastern side of the Rhine, an area today referred to still as Swabia, at times attacking Roman Gaul together and sometimes fighting each other. He also mentions that the Goths had previously defeated the Burgundians.


title: Burgundians

text: Ammianus Marcellinus, on the other hand, claimed that the Burgundians descended from the Romans. The Roman sources do not speak of any specific migration from Poland by the Burgundians (although other Vandalic peoples are more clearly mentioned as having moved west in this period), and so there have historically been some doubts about the link between the eastern and western Burgundians.


title: Burgundians

text: In 369/370, the Emperor Valentinian I enlisted the aid of the Burgundians in his war against the Alemanni.


title: Burgundians

text: Approximately four decades later, the Burgundians appear again. Following Stilicho's withdrawal of troops to fight Alaric I the Visigoth in AD 406–408, a large group of peoples from central Europe north of the Danube, came west and crossed the Rhine, entering the Empire, near the lands of the Burgundians who had moved much earlier. The dominant groups were Alans, Vandals (Hasdingi and Silingi), and Danubian Suevi. The majority of these Danubian peoples moved through Gaul and eventually established themselves in kingdoms in Roman Hispania. One group of Alans was settled in northern Gaul by the Romans.


title: Burgundians

text: Some Burgundians also migrated westwards and settled as "foederati" in the Roman province of Germania Prima along with the Middle Rhine. Other Burgundians however remained outside the empire and apparently formed a contingent in Attila's Hunnic army by 451.


title: Burgundians

text: In 411, the Burgundian king Gundahar (or "Gundicar") set up a puppet emperor, Jovinus, in cooperation with Goar, king of the Alans. With the authority of the Gallic emperor that he controlled, Gundahar settled on the left (Roman) bank of the Rhine, between the river Lauter and the Nahe, seizing Worms, Speyer, and Strassburg. Apparently as part of a truce, the Emperor Honorius later officially "granted" them the land, with its capital at the old Celtic Roman settlement of Borbetomagus (present Worms).


title: Burgundians

text: Despite their new status as "foederati", Burgundian raids into Roman Upper Gallia Belgica became intolerable and were ruthlessly brought to an end in 436, when the Roman general Aëtius called in Hun mercenaries, who overwhelmed the Rhineland kingdom in 437. Gundahar was killed in the fighting, reportedly along with the majority of the Burgundian tribe.


title: Burgundians

text: The destruction of Worms and the Burgundian kingdom by the Huns became the subject of heroic legends that were afterwards incorporated in the "Nibelungenlied"—on which Wagner based his Ring Cycle—where King Gunther (Gundahar) and Queen Brünhild hold their court at Worms, and Siegfried comes to woo Kriemhild. (In Old Norse sources the names are "Gunnar", "Brynhild", and "Gudrún" as normally rendered in English.) In fact, the "Etzel" of the "Nibelungenlied" is based on Attila the Hun.


title: Burgundians

text: For reasons not cited in the sources, the Burgundians were granted "foederati" status a second time, and in 443 were resettled by Aëtius in the region of Maxima Sequanorum. The Burgundians expanded their realm south into "Sapaudia", which corresponds to the modern-day Savoy, and Burgundians probably even lived near "Lugdunum", known today as Lyon. A new king, Gundioc or "Gunderic", presumed to be Gundahar's son, appears to have reigned following his father's death. The historian Pline tells us that Gunderic ruled the areas of Saône, Dauphiny, Savoie and a part of Provence. He set up Vienne as the capital of the kingdom of Burgundy. In all, eight Burgundian kings of the house of Gundahar ruled until the kingdom was overrun by the Franks in 534.


title: Burgundians

text: As allies of Rome in its last decades, the Burgundians fought alongside Aëtius and a confederation of Visigoths and others against Attila at the Battle of Châlons (also called "The Battle of the Catalaunian Fields") in 451. The alliance between Burgundians and Visigoths seems to have been strong, as Gundioc and his brother Chilperic I accompanied Theodoric II to Spain to fight the Sueves in 455.


title: Burgundians

text: Also in 455, an ambiguous reference "infidoque tibi Burdundio ductu" implicates an unnamed treacherous Burgundian leader in the murder of the emperor Petronius Maximus in the chaos preceding the sack of Rome by the Vandals. The Patrician Ricimer is also blamed; this event marks the first indication of the link between the Burgundians and Ricimer, who was probably Gundioc's brother-in-law and Gundobad's uncle.


title: Burgundians

text: In 456, the Burgundians, apparently confident in their growing power, negotiated a territorial expansion and power sharing arrangement with the local Roman senators.


title: Burgundians

text: In 457, Ricimer overthrew another emperor, Avitus, raising Majorian to the throne. This new emperor proved unhelpful to Ricimer and the Burgundians. The year after his ascension, Majorian stripped the Burgundians of the lands they had acquired two years earlier. After showing further signs of independence, he was murdered by Ricimer in 461.


title: Burgundians

text: Ten years later, in 472, Ricimer–who was by now the son-in-law of the Western Emperor Anthemius–was plotting with Gundobad to kill his father-in-law; Gundobad beheaded the emperor (apparently personally). Ricimer then appointed Olybrius; both died, surprisingly of natural causes, within a few months. Gundobad seems then to have succeeded his uncle as Patrician and king-maker, and raised Glycerius to the throne.


title: Burgundians

text: In 474, Burgundian influence over the empire seems to have ended. Glycerius was deposed in favor of Julius Nepos, and Gundobad returned to Burgundy, presumably at the death of his father Gundioc. At this time or shortly afterwards, the Burgundian kingdom was divided among Gundobad and his brothers, Godigisel, Chilperic II, and Gundomar I.


title: Burgundians

text: According to Gregory of Tours, the years following Gundobad's return to Burgundy saw a bloody consolidation of power. Gregory states that Gundobad murdered his brother Chilperic, drowning his wife and exiling their daughters (one of whom was to become the wife of Clovis the Frank, and was reputedly responsible for his conversion). This is contested by, e.g., Bury, who points out problems in much of Gregory's chronology for the events.


title: Burgundians

text: In c. 500, when Gundobad and Clovis were at war, Gundobad appears to have been betrayed by his brother Godegisel, who joined the Franks; together Godegisel's and Clovis' forces "crushed the army of Gundobad". Gundobad was temporarily holed up in Avignon, but was able to re-muster his army and sacked Vienne, where Godegisel and many of his followers were put to death. From this point, Gundobad appears to have been the sole king of Burgundy. This would imply that his brother Gundomar was already dead, though there are no specific mentions of the event in the sources.


title: Burgundians

text: Either Gundobad and Clovis reconciled their differences, or Gundobad was forced into some sort of vassalage by Clovis' earlier victory, as the Burgundian king appears to have assisted the Franks in 507 in their victory over Alaric II the Visigoth.


title: Burgundians

text: During the upheaval, sometime between 483 and 501, Gundobad began to set forth the "Lex Gundobada" (see below), issuing roughly the first half, which drew upon the "Lex Visigothorum". Following his consolidation of power, between 501 and his death in 516, Gundobad issued the second half of his law, which was more originally Burgundian.


title: Burgundians

text: The Burgundians were extending their power over eastern Gaul—that is western Switzerland and eastern France, as well as northern Italy. In 493, Clovis, king of the Franks, married the Burgundian princess Clotilda (daughter of Chilperic), who converted him to the Catholic faith.


title: Burgundians

text: At first allied with Clovis' Franks against the Visigoths in the early 6th century, the Burgundians were eventually conquered at Autun by the Franks in 532 after a first attempt in the Battle of Vézeronce. The Burgundian kingdom was made part of the Merovingian kingdoms, and the Burgundians themselves were by and large absorbed as well.


title: Burgundians

text: The 5th century Gallo-Roman poet and landowner Sidonius, who at one point lived with the Burgundians, described them as a long-haired people of immense physical size:


title: Burgundians

text: The Burgundians and their language were described as Germanic by the poet Sidonius Apollinaris. Herwig Wolfram has interpreted this as being because they had entered Gaul from "Germania".


title: Burgundians

text: More specifically their language is thought to have belonged to the East Germanic language group, based upon their presumed equivalence to the Burgundians named much earlier by Pliny in the east, and some names and placenames. However this is now considered uncertain. Little is known of the language. Some proper names of Burgundians are recorded, and some words used in the area in modern times are thought to be derived from the ancient Burgundian language, but it is often difficult to distinguish these from Germanic words of other origin, and in any case the modern form of the words is rarely suitable to infer much about the form in the old language.


title: Burgundians

text: The language appears to have become extinct during the late 6th century, likely due to the early conversion of the Burgundians to Latin Christianity.


title: Burgundians

text: Somewhere in the east the Burgundians had converted to the Arian Christianity from earlier Germanic paganism. Their Arianism proved a source of suspicion and distrust between the Burgundians and the Catholic Western Roman Empire.


title: Burgundians

text: Divisions were evidently healed or healing circa 500, however, as Gundobad, one of the last Burgundian kings, maintained a close personal friendship with Avitus, the bishop of Vienne. Moreover, Gundobad's son and successor, Sigismund, was himself a Catholic, and there is evidence that many of the Burgundian people had converted by this time as well, including several female members of the ruling family.


title: Burgundians

text: The "Liber Constitutionum sive Lex Gundobada" ("The Book of Constitutions or Law of Gundobad"), also known as the "Lex Burgundionum", or more simply the "Lex Gundobada" or the "Liber", was issued in several parts between 483 and 516, principally by Gundobad, but also by his son, Sigismund. It was a record of Burgundian customary law and is typical of the many Germanic law codes from this period. In particular, the "Liber" borrowed from the "Lex Visigothorum" and influenced the later "Lex Ripuaria". The "Liber" is one of the primary sources for contemporary Burgundian life, as well as the history of its kings.


title: Burgundians

text: Like many of the Germanic tribes, the Burgundians' legal traditions allowed the application of separate laws for separate ethnicities. Thus, in addition to the "Lex Gundobada", Gundobad also issued (or codified) a set of laws for Roman subjects of the Burgundian kingdom, the "Lex Romana Burgundionum" ("The Roman Law of the Burgundians").


title: The Pit and the Pendulum

text: "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual "The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843". The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts. The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such as sound, emphasizing its reality, unlike many of Poe's stories which are aided by the supernatural. The traditional elements established in popular horror tales at the time are followed, but critical reception has been mixed. The tale has been adapted to film several times.


title: The Pit and the Pendulum

text: The unnamed narrator is brought to trial before sinister judges of the Spanish Inquisition, charged with offenses that are never stated. As seven tall white candles on a table slowly burn down, the narrator feels his hopes of survival diminishing as well. He is condemned to death, whereupon he faints and later awakens to find himself in a totally dark room. At first the prisoner thinks that he is locked in a tomb, but then he discovers that he is in a cell. He decides to explore the cell by placing a scrap of his robe against the wall so that he can count the paces around the room, but he faints before he can measure the whole perimeter.


title: The Pit and the Pendulum

text: When he reawakens, he discovers food and water nearby. He tries to measure the cell again, and finds that the perimeter measures one hundred steps. While crossing the room, he trips on the hem of his robe and falls, his chin landing at the edge of a deep pit. He realizes that had he not tripped, he would have fallen into this pit.


title: The Pit and the Pendulum

text: After losing consciousness again, the narrator discovers that the prison is slightly illuminated and that he is strapped to a wooden frame on his back, facing the ceiling. Above him is a picture of Father Time, holding a pendulum measuring "one foot from horn to horn". The pendulum is swinging back and forth and slowly descending, designed to kill the narrator eventually. However, he is able to attract rats to him by smearing his bonds with the meat left for him to eat. The rats chew through the straps, and he slips free just before the pendulum can begin to slice into his chest.


title: The Pit and the Pendulum

text: The pendulum is withdrawn into the ceiling, and the walls become red-hot and start to move inwards, forcing him slowly toward the center of the room and into the pit. As he loses his last foothold and begins to topple in, he hears a roar of voices and trumpets, the walls retract, and an arm pulls him to safety. The French Army has captured the city of Toledo and the Inquisition has fallen into its enemies' hands.


title: The Pit and the Pendulum

text: Poe makes no attempt to describe accurately the operations of the Spanish Inquisition, and takes considerable dramatic license with the broader history premised in this story. The rescuers are led by Napoleon's General Lasalle (who was not, however, in command of the French occupation of Toledo) and this places the action during the Peninsular War (1808–14), centuries after the height of the Spanish Inquisition. The elaborate tortures of this story have no historic parallels in the activity of the Spanish Inquisition in any century, let alone the nineteenth when under Charles III and Charles IV only four persons were condemned. The Inquisition was, however, abolished during the period of French intervention (1808–13).


title: The Pit and the Pendulum

text: The original source of the pendulum torture method is one paragraph in the preface of the 1826 book "The history of the Inquisition of Spain " by the Spanish priest, historian, and activist, Juan Antonio Llorente, relating a second-hand account by a single prisoner released from the Inquisition's Madrid dungeon in 1820, who purportedly described the pendulum torture method. Most modern sources dismiss this as fantasy. One theory is that Llorente misunderstood the account he heard; the prisoner was actually referring to another common Inquisition torture, the "strappado" (garrucha), in which the prisoner has his hands tied behind his back and is hoisted off the floor by a rope tied to his hands. This method was also known as the "pendulum".


title: The Pit and the Pendulum

text: Poe places a Latin epigraph before the story, describing it as "a quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris". The epigraph was not Poe's invention; such an inscription had been reported, no later than 1803, as having been composed with the intention (possibly facetious) of having it placed on the site, and it had appeared, without attribution, as an item of trivia in the 1836 "Southern Literary Messenger", a periodical to which Poe contributed. It does not appear, however, that the market was ever built as intended. Charles Baudelaire, a French poet who translated Poe's works into French and who viewed Poe as an inspiration, said that the building on the site of the Old Jacobin Club had no gates and, therefore, no inscription.


title: The Pit and the Pendulum

text: "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a study of the effect terror has on the narrator, starting with the opening line, which suggests that he is already suffering from death anxiety ("I was sick — sick unto death with that long agony"). However, there is an implicit irony in the reference to the black-robed judges having lips "whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words", which shows that he has survived and is writing the story after the events. Unlike much of Poe's work, the story has no supernatural elements. The "realism" of the story is enhanced through Poe's focus on reporting : the dungeon is airless and unlit, the narrator is subject to thirst and starvation, he is swarmed by rats, the razor-sharp pendulum threatens to slice into him and the closing walls are red-hot. The narrator experiences the blade mostly through sound as it "hissed" while swinging. Poe emphasizes this element of sound with such words as "surcingle," "cessation," "crescent," and "scimitar", and various forms of literary consonance.


title: The Pit and the Pendulum

text: Poe was following an established model of terror writing of his day, often seen in "Blackwood's Magazine" (a formula he mocks in "A Predicament"). Those stories, however, often focused on chance occurrences or personal vengeance as a source of terror. Poe may have been inspired to focus on the purposeful impersonal torture in part by Juan Antonio Llorente's "History of the Spanish Inquisition", first published in 1817. It has also been suggested that Poe's "pit" was inspired by a translation of the Qur'an (Poe had referenced the Qur'an also in "Al Aaraaf" and "Israfel") by George Sale. Poe was familiar with Sale, and even mentioned him by name in a note in his story "The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade". Sale's translation was a part of commentary and, in one of those notes, refers to an allegedly common form of torture and execution by "throwing [people] into a glowing pit of fire, whence he had the opprobrious appellation of the Lord of the Pit." In the Koran itself, in Sura (Chapter) 85, "The Celestial Signs", a passage reads: "...cursed were the contrivers of the pit, of fire supplied with the fuel... and they afflicted them for no other reason, but because they believed in the mighty, the glorious God." Poe is also considered to have been influenced by William Mudford's "The Iron Shroud", a short story about an iron torture chamber which shrinks through mechanical action and eventually crushes the victim inside. Poe apparently got the idea for the shrinking chamber in the "Pit and the Pendulum" after Mudford's story was published in "Blackwood's magazine" in 1830.


title: The Pit and the Pendulum

text: "The Pit and the Pendulum" was included in "The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present" for 1843, edited by Eliza Leslie and published by Carey & Hart. It was slightly revised for a republication in the May 17, 1845 issue of the "Broadway Journal".


title: The Pit and the Pendulum

text: William Butler Yeats was generally critical of Poe, calling him "vulgar." Of "The Pit and the Pendulum" in particular he said it does "not seem to me to have permanent literary value of any kind... Analyse the Pit and the Pendulum and you find an appeal to the nerves by tawdry physical affrightments."


title: White Witch

text: Jadis is the main antagonist of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (1950) and "The Magician's Nephew" (1955) in C. S. Lewis's series, "The Chronicles of Narnia". She is commonly referred to as the White Witch in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", as she is the Witch who froze Narnia in the Hundred Years Winter.


title: White Witch

text: Some recent editions of the books include brief notes, added by later editors, that describe the cast of characters. As Lewis scholar Peter Schakel points out, the notes' description of Jadis and the Queen of Underland (the main antagonist of "The Silver Chair") "states incorrectly that the Queen of Underland is an embodiment of Jadis". Beyond characterising the two as "Northern Witches", Lewis's text does not connect them. See "Lady of the Green Kirtle" for further discussion.


title: White Witch

text: Jadis was born on an unknown date long before the creation of Narnia. In "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" she is identified by a character as a descendant of giants and Adam's first wife (Lilith):


title: White Witch

text: (This reference to Lilith is a tribute to the fantasy novel with this title by George MacDonald, a literary hero of C.S. Lewis.) Jadis died in battle in Narnian year 1000, meaning that she lived for well over 1,000 years.


title: White Witch

text: In "The Magician's Nephew", Jadis is introduced as the last Queen of Charn, a city in an entirely different world from Narnia. She was the last of a long line of kings and queens, who were good in the beginning but grew evil over many generations and conquered the entire world of Charn, ruling it as despots. Jadis, a powerful sorceress, fought a bloody war of rebellion against her sister. On the point of defeat, Jadis chose not to submit, but instead spoke the Deplorable Word, a powerful spell which destroyed all life on Charn except her own. She then cast a spell of enchanted sleep upon herself to await someone who could rescue her from Charn.


title: White Witch

text: Many years later, a 12-year-old Digory Kirke and his friend Polly Plummer arrive in the ruins of Charn through Digory's uncle's magic. The children find the bell that Jadis left to break the spell. Despite Polly's warning not to ring the bell, Digory does so. Jadis is awakened and by holding on to them is transported with them back to London in the year 1900. She initially aims to conquer the world to which she is transported, but finds that her magic does not work there. Digory, seeking to correct his mistake, attempts to transport her back to Charn, but they end up instead in the world of Narnia at the moment of its creation by the lion Aslan. As Aslan approaches, she attacks him with the rod of iron she has torn from a London lamp post with her great physical strength; when this has no effect, she flees.


title: White Witch

text: Jadis makes her way to the garden on a mountain west of Narnia, where she eats an apple that she believes will make her immortal and give her eternal life. However, this supposed immortality comes at a cost: her skin is bleached white, and the evil in her heart causes her eternal misery. She cannot stand the sight of the tree that Aslan has Digory plant in Narnia from the fruit of the garden, and she thus stays to the north of Narnia, working to develop her magic.


title: White Witch

text: Meanwhile, the land of Narnia remains the domain of animals (chosen animals are given the ability to speak, and become pillars of society) and is not troubled by the Witch nor any other enemy for many hundreds of years.


title: White Witch

text: In "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", set 1,000 Narnian years after the events of "The Magician's Nephew", the tree that kept Jadis at bay has died, and Jadis has usurped power over Narnia. She is now known as the White Witch, and is served by various races including Wolves (who make up her secret police), Black Dwarves, Giants, Werewolves, Tree Spirits that are on her side, Ghouls, Boggles, Ogres, Minotaurs, Cruels, Hags, Spectres, People of the Toadstools, Incubi, Wraiths, Horrors, Efreets, Orknies, Sprites, Wooses, Ettins, Poisonous Plant Spirits, Evil Apes, Giant Bats, Vultures, and creatures that (as Lewis writes) are "so horrible that if I told you, your parents probably wouldn't let you read this book."


title: White Witch

text: The Witch's magic is now powerful, and with her wand she can turn enemies to stone. Many good Narnians who have objected to her rule have ended up being captured by the Witch and her forces and turned into stone in the courtyard or the interior of her castle, which stands isolated between two hills in the north of Narnia. Stories of this grim fate has spread around Narnia from the few Narnians who were lucky enough to be taken in there and who were released or managed to escape.


title: White Witch

text: She styles herself "Her Imperial Majesty Jadis, Queen of Narnia, Chatelaine of Cair Paravel, Empress of the Lone Islands", and she casts Narnia into an endless winter with no Christmas. She fears a prophecy that four humans – two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve – will bring about the end of her reign and ultimately her life, and orders all Narnians to bring any human they come across to her.


title: White Witch

text: By the time the Pevensie children arrive in Narnia, Jadis has ruled for 100 years, although a mere 40 years have passed on Earth. The children were staying as wartime evacuees at the country home of Digory Kirke, now an ageing professor.


title: White Witch

text: She first meets Edmund Pevensie while riding on her sledge through the land of Narnia, enchants him with magical Turkish delight, and tempts him to betray his siblings by offering to make him her heir. She wants all four of them, although at this stage only Edmund and his sister Lucy have been in Narnia. The four Pevensie children arrive together in Narnia soon afterwards, and Edmund strays to the Witch after he and the other children are taken in by Mr and Mrs Beaver. While he understands now that the "Queen of Narnia" (as she had introduced herself) and the White Witch are one and the same, he is still determined to taste more Turkish Delight – and remains convinced that the Witch would keep her promise to make him heir to her throne. In the meantime, her Secret Police had captured Tumnus the faun, who had harboured Lucy on her first visit to Narnia, after discovering that he had disobeyed the Witch’s orders to hand over any humans to her.


title: White Witch

text: But with the approach of Aslan, her magical winter thaws. Edmund receives a hostile reception from the White Witch upon arriving at her castle without his siblings, who is even angrier when he informs her that Aslan has arrived in Narnia. The harshness of the Witch's winter makes Edmund realise that he has been wrong in thinking that her side was the right side, and he realises the full extent of her evil when he witnesses her angrily turning a party of creatures into stone after their revelation that Father Christmas had been in Narnia.


title: White Witch

text: A wolf eventually reaches Jadis and informs her that Edmund's siblings have reached Aslan's camp and that one of them killed Maugrim. Jadis sends the wolf off to rally her army as speedily as they can, as she prepares to kill Edmund as a traitor. Aslan's army advances to rescue Edmund as Jadis uses a spell to conceal herself and her dwarf.


title: White Witch

text: Jadis then arrives at the Stone Table, and meets Aslan for a parley, and insists on her right, as the first to rebel against Aslan, to take the life of Edmund as a traitor. She accepts Aslan's offer of his own life as substitute, knowing that without him the Pevensies cannot stand against her. Aslan keeps this pact secret from his followers. Jadis has Aslan bound at the Stone Table, and an ogre shaves his mane. She tells him that his sacrifice won't save Edmund and that he has given her Narnia forever. Then she kills him with a stone knife. Susan and Lucy, who followed Aslan from their encampment, witness his death from bushes nearby.


title: White Witch

text: Jadis is unaware, however, of a deeper magic from before Narnia's founding. As a willing innocent victim who has offered his life in a traitor's stead, Aslan is revived. He then heads to her castle and restores all her statues to life. He brings them as reinforcements to the battle at Beruna against the witch's army, who are already battling against Aslan’s followers. Her army is defeated, and Aslan himself kills Jadis. Most of her followers are killed and the remnants of her army who do not surrender flee and are later killed by Aslan's followers.


title: White Witch

text: In "Prince Caspian", 1,300 years after the Witch's death, Narnia has been conquered by the Telmarines, a human race who believe they have wiped out Narnia's population of mythical beings and talking animals. The old Narnians, however, are still very much alive and have been driven into hiding, and they rebel under the leadership of the disinherited Telmarine heir, Prince Caspian.


title: White Witch

text: When their fight against the Telmarines gets off to a bad start, a black dwarf (Nikabrik), a hag, and a wer-wolf (to use Lewis's spelling) plan to resurrect Jadis to fight for them, as they consider her a lesser evil than the current ruler, King Miraz, despite Caspian’s insistence that the Witch was far worse than Miraz, and his tutor’s insistence that the Witch is dead.


title: White Witch

text: They are then killed in a melee which involves Caspian, his tutor Dr Cornelius, and Peter and Edmund, who have been recalled to Narnia after Caspian blows Susan's horn. On the orders of Aslan and the newly-crowned King Caspian, Narnia is now a land in which humans and talking animals are encouraged to integrate and have equal rights.


title: White Witch

text: Jadis does not appear in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", though the stone knife she used to kill Aslan at the Stone Table has been found on Ramandu's island by three of the Seven Great Lords of Narnia who had been banished there several years earlier. Disagreeing on what course to take, one of them takes up the knife to use against the other two, whereupon all three fall into an enchanted sleep. The knife may be intended as an analogy to the Holy Lance, the spear used to pierce Jesus Christ, according to the Gospel of John.


title: White Witch

text: In "The Silver Chair", 1,356 years after her death, Jadis is described as one of the "Northern Witches", along with the Lady of the Green Kirtle - a new enemy to the good animals and humans who now inhabit Narnia. Glimfeather the Owl speculates that the Green Lady may be "of the same crew" as the White Witch. This has led to speculation by some readers that Jadis and the Lady of the Green Kirtle may be the same person. Lewis's text does not support this (See "Lady of the Green Kirtle" for further discussion). Lewis never clarifies the Green Lady's origins, or what connection she has to the White Witch.


title: White Witch

text: The "Green Lady" had first entered Narnia in serpent form and killed the wife of King Caspian, and later re-emerged in human form to lure away Caspian's son Rilian and place him under an enchantment in the underworld. Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole reach the underworld with their guide, Puddleglum the marshwiggle, and rescue Rilian - who kills the Green Lady before they return to Narnia.


title: White Witch

text: An extraordinarily beautiful, tall, and imposing woman, Jadis enchants Digory Kirke, Andrew Ketterley and Edmund Pevensie on first encounters. She is seven feet tall, as were all members of the Royal Family of Charn. After eating the fruit of eternal life, her skin becomes as white as paper.


title: White Witch

text: A natural-born sorceress and a cunning strategist, Jadis is arrogant and cruel, considering herself above all rules and viewing others as tools to be used or obstacles to be demolished. After she eats the Fruit of Everlasting Life, selfishly and against the written admonition on the gate, she discovers that her sense of inner power and life is amplified. Her callousness and sense of entitlement are most clearly demonstrated when she uses the Deplorable Word in Charn to vanquish her sister, even though the Word would eradicate all life in that world but her own. She prefers to destroy that entire world than submit to her sister's authority and shows afterward a remorseless pride in her actions.


title: White Witch

text: Though her magic disappears when she leaves Charn, she manages to build it up again in Narnia's world, exercising both her previous experience and her privilege to witness a new world's dawning to become again a sorceress of formidable power, though she is still outclassed by Aslan. She eventually usurps the throne of Narnia, using her magic to cast the land into perpetual winter. Her most feared weapon is her wand, whose magic is capable of turning people into stone. The petrified remains of her enemies decorate the halls of her castle. For the brief time that Jadis is on Earth, she has no magical power but retains her phenomenal strength. This is demonstrated when she battles with Metropolitan Police in London, wielding the cross-bar she wrenched from a lamp post. The same cross-bar is taken into the new world that would become Narnia and grows into the full lamp post encountered by Lucy Pevensie many years later.


title: White Witch

text: The voice of Jadis was provided by Elizabeth Counsell in Focus on the Family's radio drama versions of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and "The Magician's Nephew". Counsell also made a cameo appearance as a lamb in "The Last Battle". The distribution rights to this version were later purchased by the BBC.


title: White Witch

text: In the 2005 Walt Disney Pictures feature film "", she was portrayed by British actress Tilda Swinton. Swinton's performance won particular acclaim among fans and critics. BBC film critic Stella Papamichael wrote:


title: White Witch

text: Jadis is viewed as significantly more psychopathic and malevolent, possessing an instinctively violent streak and the expressed disregard for the lives of others - during the Battle of Beruna, she declares that no prisoners are to be taken simply since she has no interest in taking any. She is also hinted to have a cynical, dry sense of humour.


title: White Witch

text: Tilda Swinton was nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain for her performance as the White Witch in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", but lost to Hayden Christensen for his performance as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in "".


title: White Witch

text: Swinton reprised her role as the White Witch in the 2008 Disney Movie sequel "". In a departure from the novel, Nikabrik and his fellow conspirators (a hag and werewolf) use the White Witch's retrieved wand to conjure an apparition of Jadis within a mystical wall of ice. She tries to coax Caspian and then Peter into offering her a drop of their blood so that she can come back to life, promising to lend her powers to their fight against King Miraz once she is made whole. However, Edmund shatters the ice, and the apparition vanishes.


title: White Witch

text: Swinton reprised White Witch again in the 20th Century Fox film adaptation of "", only as a manifestation of the Dark Island preying on Edmund's fears, a mental test that Edmund overcomes as he manages to kill the Dark Island's sea serpent, a manifestation of his fear. The apparition disappears, screaming in defeat.


title: White Witch

text: Swinton has expressed interest in returning to the role once more in a film adaptation of "The Magician's Nephew".


title: White Witch

text: Jadis appears in the Neil Gaiman short story "The Problem of Susan" which appeared in the 2006 collection "Fragile Things".


title: White Witch

text: In 2011, the White Witch was one of eight British magical figures, which included the wizards Merlin (from Arthurian legend), Albus Dumbledore (from "Harry Potter") and Rincewind (from Terry Pratchett's "Discworld"), commemorated on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail.


title: Anoop Menon

text: Anoop Menon (born 3 August 1976) is an Indian actor, director, screenwriter and lyricist. He worked in television before acting in Malayalam films and has acted in more than 75 films.


title: Anoop Menon

text: Menon won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Supporting Actor and also the Filmfare Award for his performance as the fictional movie star Ajayachandran in "Thirakkatha". He wrote the screenplay and dialogue for films such as "Pakal Nakshatrangal" (2008), "Cocktail" (2010), "Beautiful" (2011), "Trivandrum Lodge" (2012), and "Hotel California" (2013). Actress Shwetha Menon is his cousin.


title: Anoop Menon

text: He was born on 3 August 1976 to P. Gangadharan Nair and Indira Menon in Kozhikode. He grew up in Thiruvananthapuram.


title: Anoop Menon

text: Menon was educated at Christ Nagar School, Thiruvananthapuram. He is a law graduate from Government Law College, Thiruvananthapuram (1994 99) and was the first-rank holder from Kerala University. During this period, he used to do compèring for Kairali TV and Surya TV. He met fellow filmmaker and screenplay writer Shankar Ramakrishnan during this time. Both of them were under the tutelage of renowned malayalam director Ranjith. Anoop married Shema Alexander on 27 December 2014. This is Shema's second marriage. Her first husband died of heart attack in 2006. She has a daughter born in 2002.


title: Anoop Menon

text: He began his acting career in Malayalam television serials. He was in two series on Asianet called "Swapnam" and "Megham", the former one directed by K. K. Rajeev. Anoop made his debut as a screenwriter in "Pakal Nakshatrangal" with Mohanlal playing father and Anoop playing his son.


title: Anoop Menon

text: He also played main character in "Thirakkatha" by Ranjith, portraying different stages in the life of film star Ajay Chandran, loosely based on the personal life of Kamal Haasan. His co-stars were Priyamani and Prithviraj Sukumaran.


title: Jon Bokenkamp

text: Jon Bokenkamp (born September 9, 1974 in Kearney, Nebraska) is an American writer and producer best known for his role in writing the screenplays for "Taking Lives" and "The Call", and creating the NBC series "The Blacklist" along with "".


title: Jon Bokenkamp

text: He was involved in theater and music as a student at Kearney High School, attended the University of Nebraska at Kearney, then went to the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.


title: Jon Bokenkamp

text: Bokenkamp was encouraged to enter a script writing competition by friend and fellow Nebraskan, Todd Nelson, creator of the Nebraska Coast Connection. After winning the competition, Jon landed an agent and his first paid assignment, rewriting a horror film for "Exorcist" director William Friedkin.


title: Jon Bokenkamp

text: Success allowed Bokenkamp to return to his hometown where he earned the 2013 Hub Freedom Award for his work restoring the historic World Theater in downtown Kearney, Nebraska.


title: Jon Bokenkamp

text: Bokenkamp was awarded with an honorary doctorate in musical arts from University of Nebraska at Kearney in May 2019.


title: Military tactics

text: Military tactics encompasses the art of organizing and employing fighting forces on or near the battlefield. They involve the application of four battlefield functions which are closely related – kinetic or firepower, mobility, protection or security, and shock action. Tactics are a separate function from command and control and logistics. In contemporary military science, tactics are the lowest of three levels of warfighting, the higher levels being the strategic and operational levels. Throughout history, there has been a shifting balance between the four tactical functions, generally based on the application of military technology, which has led to one or more of the tactical functions being dominant for a period of time, usually accompanied by the dominance of an associated fighting arm deployed on the battlefield, such as infantry, artillery, cavalry or tanks.


title: Military tactics

text: Beginning with the use of melee and missile weapons such as clubs and spears, the kinetic or firepower function of tactics has developed along with technological advances so that the emphasis has shifted over time from the close-range melee and missile weapons to longer-range projectile weapons. Kinetic effects were generally delivered by the sword, spear, javelin and bow until the introduction of artillery by the Romans. Until the mid 19th century, the value of infantry-delivered missile firepower was not high, meaning that the result of a given battle was rarely decided by infantry firepower alone, often relying on artillery to deliver significant kinetic effects. The development of disciplined volley fire, delivered at close range, began to improve the hitting power of infantry, and compensated in part for the limited range, poor accuracy and low rate of fire of early muskets. Advances in technology, particularly the introduction of the rifled musket, used in the Crimean War and American Civil War, meant flatter trajectories and improved accuracy at greater ranges, along with higher casualties. The resulting increase in defensive firepower meant infantry attacks without artillery support became increasingly difficult. Firepower also became crucial to fixing an enemy in place to allow a decisive strike. Machine guns added significantly to infantry firepower at the turn of the 20th century, and the mobile firepower provided by tanks, self-propelled artillery and military aircraft rose significantly in the century that followed. Along with infantry weapons, tanks and other armoured vehicles, self-propelled artillery, guided weapons and aircraft provide the firepower of modern armies.


title: Military tactics

text: Mobility, which determines how quickly a fighting force can move, was for most of human history limited by the speed of a soldier on foot, even when supplies were carried by beasts of burden. With this restriction, most armies could not travel more than per day, unless travelling on rivers. Only small elements of a force such as cavalry or specially trained light troops could exceed this limit. This restriction on tactical mobility remained until the latter years of World War I when the advent of the tank improved mobility sufficiently to allow decisive tactical manoeuvre. Despite this advance, full tactical mobility was not achieved until World War II when armoured and motorised formations achieved remarkable successes. However, large elements of the armies of World War II remained reliant on horse-drawn transport, which limited tactical mobility within the overall force. Tactical mobility can be limited by the use of field obstacles, often created by military engineers.


title: Military tactics

text: Personal armour has been worn since the classical period to provide a measure of individual protection, which was also extended to include barding of the mount. The limitations of armour have always been weight and bulk, and its consequent effects on mobility as well as human and animal endurance. By the 18th and 19th centuries, personal armour had been largely discarded, until the re-introduction of helmets during World War I in response to the firepower of artillery. Armoured fighting vehicles proliferated during World War II, and after that war, body armour returned for the infantry, particularly in Western armies. Fortifications, which have been used since ancient times, provide collective protection, and modern examples include entrenchments, roadblocks, barbed wire and minefields. Like obstacles, fortifications are often created by military engineers.


title: Military tactics

text: Shock action is as much a psychological function of tactics as a physical one, and can be significantly enhanced by the use of surprise. It has been provided by charging infantry, and as well as by chariots, war elephants, cavalry and armoured vehicles which provide momentum to an assault. It has also been used in a defensive way, for example by the drenching flights of arrows from English longbowmen at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 which caused the horses of the French knights to panic. During early modern warfare, the use of the tactical formations of columns and lines had a greater effect than the firepower of the formations alone. During the early stages of World War II, the combined effects of German machine gun and tank gun firepower, enhanced by accurate indirect fire and air attack, often broke up Allied units before their assault commenced, or caused them to falter due to casualties among key unit leaders. In both the early modern and World War II examples, the cumulative psychological shock effect on the enemy was often greater than the actual casualties incurred.


title: Military tactics

text: The development of tactics has involved a shifting balance between the four tactical functions since ancient times, and changes in firepower and mobility have been fundamental to these changes. Various models have been proposed to explain the interaction between the tactical functions and the dominance of individual fighting arms during different periods. J. F. C. Fuller proposed three "tactical cycles" in each of the classical and Christian eras. For the latter epoch, he proposed a "shock" cycle between 650 and 1450, a "shock and projectile" cycle 1450–1850, and a "projectile" cycle from 1850, with respect to the Western and North American warfare. During World War II, Tom Wintringham proposed six chronological periods, which alternate the dominance between unarmoured and armoured forces and highlight tactical trends in each period.


title: Military tactics

text: Massed volley fire by archers brought infantry firepower to the fore in Japanese warfare in the second half of the 13th century, preceding the rise of the English longbowman. The mobility and shock action of the Oirat Mongol army at the Battle of Tumu in 1449 demonstrated that cavalry could still defeat a large infantry force. In both the European and Oriental traditions of warfare, the advent of gunpowder during the late Medieval and Early Modern periods created a relentless shift to infantry firepower becoming "a decisive, if not dominant" arm on the battlefield, exemplified by the significant impact of massed arquebusiers at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575.


title: Military tactics

text: The synchronisation of the various fighting arms to achieve the tactical mission is known as combined arms tactics. One method of measuring tactical effectiveness is the extent to which the arms, including military aviation, are integrated on the battlefield. A key principle of effective combined arms tactics is that for maximum potential to be achieved, all elements of combined arms teams need the same level of mobility, and sufficient firepower and protection. The history of the development of combined arms tactics has been dogged by costly and painful lessons. For example, while German commanders in World War II clearly understood from the outset the key principle of combined arms tactics outlined above, British commanders were late to this realisation. Successful combined arms tactics require the fighting arms to train alongside each other and to be familiar with each other's capabilities.


title: Military tactics

text: Beginning in the latter stages of World War I, airpower has brought a significant change to military tactics. World War II saw the development of close air support which greatly enhanced the effect of ground forces with the use of aerial firepower and improved tactical reconnaissance and the interdiction of hostile air power. It also made possible the supply of ground forces by air, achieved by the British during the Burma Campaign but unsuccessful for the Germans at the Battle of Stalingrad. Following World War II, rotary-wing aircraft had a significant impact on firepower and mobility, comprising a fighting arm in its own right in many armies. Aircraft, particularly those operating at low or medium altitudes, remain vulnerable to ground-based air defence systems as well as other aircraft.


title: Military tactics

text: Parachute and glider operations and rotary-wing aircraft have provided significant mobility to ground forces but the reduced mobility, protection and firepower of troops delivered by air once landed has limited the tactical utility of such vertical envelopment or air assault operations. This was demonstrated during Operation Market Garden in September 1944, and during the Vietnam War, in the latter case despite the additional firepower provided by helicopter gunships and the ability quickly to remove casualties, provided by aeromedical evacuation.


title: Military tactics

text: Military tactics answer the questions of how best to deploy and employ forces on a small scale. Some practices have not changed since the dawn of warfare: assault, ambushes, skirmishing, turning flanks, reconnaissance, creating and using obstacles and defenses, etc. Using ground to best advantage has not changed much either. Heights, rivers, swamps, passes, choke points, and natural cover, can all be used in multiple ways. Before the nineteenth century, many military tactics were confined to battlefield concerns: how to maneuver units during combat in open terrain. Nowadays, specialized tactics exist for many situations, for example for securing a room in a building.


title: Military tactics

text: Technological changes can render existing tactics obsolete, and sociological changes can shift the goals and methods of warfare, requiring new tactics. Tactics define how soldiers are armed and trained. Thus technology and society influence the development of types of soldiers or warriors through history: Greek hoplite, Roman legionary, medieval knight, Turk-Mongol horse archer, Chinese crossbowman, or an air cavalry trooper. Each – constrained by his weaponry, logistics and social conditioning – would use a battlefield differently, but would usually seek the same outcomes from their use of tactics. The First World War forced great changes in tactics as advances in technology rendered prior tactics useless.


title: Military tactics

text: "Gray-zone" tactics are also becoming more widely used. These include "everything from strong-arm diplomacy and economic coercion, to media manipulation and cyberattacks, to use of paramilitaries and proxy forces." The title "gray-zone" comes from the ambiguity between defense vs. offense, as well as the ambiguity between peace-keeping vs. war effort.


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: In materials science, a thermosetting polymer, often called a thermoset, is a polymer that is obtained by irreversibly hardening ("curing") a soft solid or viscous liquid prepolymer (resin). Curing is induced by heat or suitable radiation and may be promoted by high pressure, or mixing with a catalyst. Heat is not necessarily applied externally, but is often generated by the reaction of the resin with a curing agent ("catalyst", "hardener"). Curing results in chemical reactions that create extensive cross-linking between polymer chains to produce an infusible and insoluble polymer network.


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: The starting material for making thermosets is usually malleable or liquid prior to curing, and is often designed to be molded into the final shape. It may also be used as an adhesive. Once hardened, a thermoset cannot be melted for reshaping, in contrast to thermoplastic polymers which are commonly produced and distributed in the form of pellets, and shaped into the final product form by melting, pressing, or injection molding.


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: Curing a thermosetting resin transforms it into a plastic, or elastomer (rubber) by crosslinking or chain extension through the formation of covalent bonds between individual chains of the polymer. Crosslink density varies depending on the monomer or prepolymer mix, and the mechanism of crosslinking:


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: Acrylic resins, polyesters and vinyl esters with unsaturated sites at the ends or on the backbone are generally linked by copolymerisation with unsaturated monomer diluents, with cure initiated by free radicals generated from ionizing radiation or by the photolytic or thermal decomposition of a radical initiator – the intensity of crosslinking is influenced by the degree of backbone unsaturation in the prepolymer;


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: Epoxy functional resins can be homo-polymerized with anionic or cationic catalysts and heat, or copolymerised through nucleophilic addition reactions with multifunctional crosslinking agents which are also known as curing agents or hardeners. As reaction proceeds, larger and larger molecules are formed and highly branched crosslinked structures develop, the rate of cure being influenced by the physical form and functionality of epoxy resins and curing agents – elevated temperature postcuring induces secondary crosslinking of backbone hydroxyl functionality which condense to form ether bonds;


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: Polyurethanes form when isocyanate resins and prepolymers are combined with low- or high-molecular weight polyols, with strict stochiometric ratios being essential to control nucleophilic addition polymerisation – the degree of crosslinking and resulting physical type (elastomer or plastic) is adjusted from the molecular weight and functionality of isocyanate resins, prepolymers, and the exact combinations of diols, triols and polyols selected, with the rate of reaction being strongly influenced by catalysts and inhibitors; polyureas form virtually instantaneously when isocyanate resins are combined with long-chain amine functional polyether or polyester resins and short-chain diamine extenders – the amine-isocyanate nucleophilic addition reaction does not require catalysts. Polyureas also form when isocyanate resins come into contact with moisture;


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: Phenolic, amino, and furan resins all cured by polycondensation involving the release of water and heat, with cure initiation and polymerisation exotherm control influenced by curing temperature, catalyst selection or loading and processing method or pressure – the degree of pre-polymerisation and level of residual hydroxymethyl content in the resins determine the crosslink density.


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: Polybenzoxazines are cured by an exothermal ring-opening polymerisation without releasing any chemical, which translates in near zero shrinkage upon polymerisation.


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: Thermosetting polymer mixtures based on thermosetting resin monomers and pre-polymers can be formulated and applied and processed in a variety of ways to create distinctive cured properties that cannot be achieved with thermoplastic polymers or inorganic materials.


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: Thermosetting plastics are generally stronger than thermoplastic materials due to the three-dimensional network of bonds (crosslinking), and are also better suited to high-temperature applications up to the decomposition temperature since they keep their shape as strong covalent bonds between polymer chains cannot be broken easily. The higher the crosslink density and aromatic content of a thermoset polymer, the higher the resistance to heat degradation and chemical attack. Mechanical strength and hardness also improve with crosslink density, although at the expense of brittleness. They normally decompose before melting.


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: Hard, plastic thermosets may undergo permanent or plastic deformation under load. Elastomers, which are soft and springy or rubbery and can be deformed and revert to their original shape on loading release.


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: Conventional thermoset plastics or elastomers cannot be melted and re-shaped after they are cured. This usually prevents recycling for the same purpose, except as filler material. New developments involving thermoset epoxy resins which on controlled and contained heating form crosslinked networks permit repeatedly reshaping, like silica glass by reversible covalent bond exchange reactions on reheating above the glass transition temperature. There are also thermoset polyurethanes shown to have transient properties and which can thus be reprocessed or recycled.


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: When compounded with fibers, thermosetting resins form fiber-reinforced polymer composites, which are used in the fabrication of factory-finished structural composite OEM or replacement parts, and as site-applied, cured and finished composite repair and protection materials. When used as the binder for aggregates and other solid fillers, they form particulate-reinforced polymer composites, which are used for factory-applied protective coating or component manufacture, and for site-applied and cured construction, or maintenance purposes.


title: Thermosetting polymer

text: Application/process uses and methods for thermosets include protective coating, seamless flooring, civil engineering construction grouts for jointing and injection, mortars, foundry sands, adhesives, sealants, castings, potting, electrical insulation, encapsulation, 3D printing, solid foams, wet lay-up laminating, pultrusion, gelcoats, filament winding, pre-pregs, and molding.