title: Liquid Swords

text: Four total singles were released for "Liquid Swords". The first of which was "I Gotcha Back," released August 22, 1994. Similar to Raekwon's single "Heaven & Hell," the song first appeared on the soundtrack for the movie "Fresh", and was the first song written for the album, with its version being re-recorded in 1995. Describing the song's background and theme, GZA later stated "This was a short rhyme I wrote for one of my nephews. When I said, “My lifestyle so far from well, could’ve wrote a book called Age Twelve and Going Through Hell.” It’s for my nephew who was twelve at the time, and whose father, my brother, had been locked up since ‘88. So he wasn’t around for my nephew when times were rough, so I wanted to up my nephew a bit with this track. I had two nephews in the video, they were both real young at the time. And in video, they both had met up and shots rang out from some young gangsters. It’s a shame because both those kids in the video, both nephews of mine, ended up getting in trouble for ringing out shots and are both doing time right now. It’s kind of ironic. One of my nephews ended up getting eights years for that shit. So the whole song is a sad irony to me now."


title: Liquid Swords

text: The second single released for the album, was the title track "Liquid Swords", released over one year later on October 10, 1995. GZA later commented "Usually I take a beat home and write to it for a few days, but it wasn’t like that with this track. I think RZA played the beat for me and I just spit to it right there. The hook was actually a routine from around ‘84 that me RZA and Ol' Dirty would do: 'When the emcees came, to live out the name.' Just like that."


title: Liquid Swords

text: November 28, 1995 saw the release of the album's third single "Cold World." In regards to his writing approach to the song, GZA stated "Normally, when I hear a beat, I already know where to go with it. I can picture the track and just vibe off it. As soon as I heard the beat to “Cold World,” I knew it would be another inner-city story."


title: Liquid Swords

text: The fourth and final single released for the album was "4th Chamber," released early 1996, with "Shadowboxin'" as its B-Side. GZA later remarked "Making '4th Chamber' was crazy because I didn’t have a rhyme ready for that one. That’s why I went last on it. Plus, Ghost killed it with his verse so I knew I had to come correct. It’s not even a GZA song to me—it’s a Wu-Tang song. And Ghost’s verse is just incredible to me. He delivered so well. I don’t know if you saw the video, I directed that too. This song, the guest verses, the video, the crowd response, all turned out perfect for this one."


title: Liquid Swords

text: Upon its release, "Liquid Swords" received critical acclaim. Selwyn Seyfu Hinds from "The Source" called GZA "a highly focused master-graftsman" and felt that "throughout "Liquid Swords" he maintains a clear, precise flow, one that reflects deadly-sharp purpose and skilled execution." Hinds also praised RZA's production on the album, noting his "increasingly sophisticated style: shuffling kicks, neck snapping snares, haunting melodies via strings or vibe-like textures and penetrating bass tones." In his review for "Entertainment Weekly", Dimitri Ehrlich said that, "With its tight beat, "Liquid Swords" emphasizes the finesse with which GZA weaves his vocals over straightforward rhythms." "Los Angeles Times" critic Cheo H. Coker described GZA as "a hip-hop M. C. Escher" whose lyrics "reveal layer after layer of thought with repeated listening", concluding that the album cements the Wu-Tang Clan as "the kings of New York rap."


title: Liquid Swords

text: "NME" hailed "Liquid Swords" as "the best hip-hop album" in years, citing RZA's "spooked, creaky, incredibly dense" production and GZA's complex and "quite brilliant" lyrics. "Mojo" magazine characterized the album as "creepily beautiful" and "East Coast hip hop with a far more warped and disturbing slant on inner-city sickness than the in-your-face Californian equivalent". In "Select", Matt Hall wrote that RZA "provides a series of austere rhythms, sparsely dotting violin stabs and plucked harps to provide the perfect backdrop to Genius' downbeat tales of New York's mean streets… "Liquid Swords" sneaks under the tape to qualify as Rap Album Of The Year." Tom Doyle of "Q" wrote that GZA can seem "perhaps unreasonably hardcore in some of his approaches...[but] when his rhyming is enhanced by the dislocated soul chorus of 'Cold World', the result is dramatic and hypnotic."


title: Liquid Swords

text: Robert Christgau was somewhat less enthusiastic, giving the album a two-star honorable mention, which indicated a "likable effort that consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well enjoy". In his column for "The Village Voice", Christgau cited "Shadowboxin'" and "Killah Hills 10304" as highlights and called the record "gangsta [rap] as mystery, religious and literary".


title: Liquid Swords

text: "Liquid Swords" continues to be held in high regard as one of the best releases in the Wu-Tang Clan's catalog and among the greatest hip hop albums of all time. According to AllMusic critic Steve Huey, it is "often acclaimed as the best Wu-Tang solo project of all" and "cemented the Genius/GZA's reputation as the best pure lyricist in the group—and one of the best of the '90s". Huey likewise viewed it as a significant progression for RZA as a producer, noting his experiments "with stranger sounds and more layered tracks", while evaluating "Liquid Swords" as "one of the group's undisputed classics", along with "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)" (1993) and Raekwon's "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..." (1995). Reviewing "Liquid Swords" for "RapReviews" "Back to the Lab" series, writer Steve Juon called it "an album of 100% Wu-Tang sonic mastery", adding that among Wu-Tang Clan solo albums, "it may the best—if not one of the top two or three." Nick Catucci, writing in "The New Rolling Stone Album Guide" (2004), said that, on the album, GZA "went goth, painting the Wu's street grime black." "Record Collector"s Paul Bowler stated that "Liquid Swords" represented an artistic peak for the Wu-Tang Clan as a whole, noting what he found to be their subsequent creative decline from "Wu-Tang Forever" (1997) onward. Chris Smith from "Stylus Magazine" wrote that the group "never yet managed to make anything this memorable, otherworldly, and strangely beautiful again."


title: Liquid Swords

text: On October 8, 2015, the Recording Industry Association of America announced that "Liquid Swords" had earned a platinum certification for having sold more than 1 million copies. It became the first Wu-Tang-related album to get certified since 2004, when Method Man and Ghostface Killah both earned plaques.


title: Polack

text: In the contemporary English language, the noun Polack ( and ) is a derogatory, mainly North American, reference to a person of Polish descent or from Poland. It is an anglicisation of the Polish masculine noun "Polak", which denotes a person of Polish ethnicity and typically male gender. However, the English loanword is considered an ethnic slur.


title: Polack

text: According to "Online Etymology Dictionary" by Douglas Harper, "Polack" meant as "Polish immigrant, person of Polish descent" was used in American English until the late 19th century (1879) to describe a "Polish person" in a non-offensive way (1574). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) based on the Unabridged Dictionary by Random House claims that the word originated between 1590 and 1600. For example, Shakespeare uses the term "Polacks" in his tragedy "Hamlet" to refer to opponents of Hamlet's father. A quote is given below:


title: Polack

text: In an Irish-published edition of "Hamlet" by the "Educational Company", Patrick Murray noted: "Some editors, however, argue that "Polacks" should read as "pole-axe", and that Horatio is remembering an angry Old Hamlet striking the ice with his battle-axe".


title: Polack

text: On 26 July 2008, "The Times" featured a comment piece by restaurant reviewer and columnist Giles Coren (known for his profanity-strewn complaints), which contained viewpoints that many Poles considered to be anti-Polish. In a piece, entitled "Two waves of immigration, Poles apart", Coren used the ethnic slur "Polack" to describe Polish immigrants who can "clear off", in reference to Polish immigrants leaving the United Kingdom in response to low-paying construction jobs drying up. He went on to articulate his views about the role of Poles in the Holocaust in occupied Poland, referencing the fact that his great-grandfather had left Poland for the United Kingdom:


title: Polack

text: The piece prompted a letter of complaint to "The Times" from the Polish ambassador to the UK, Barbara Tuge-Erecińska. She wrote that "the issue of Polish–Jewish relations has been unfairly and deeply falsified" by his "aggressive remarks" and "contempt". Coren's comments caused the Federation of Poles in Great Britain to attempt to demand a published apology from "The Times" under threat of an official complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, which has the power to force an official apology. After the Press Complaints Commission rejected their complaint because the criticism had been of a group rather than an individual, the Federation of Poles in Great Britain lodged a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights.


title: Polack

text: The neutral English language noun for a Polish person (male or female) today is Pole (see also: Naming Poland in foreign languages). In some other languages such as Swedish, Norwegian or Scots, "polack" or "polakk" are inoffensive terms for a person from Poland.


title: Polack

text: In Iberian languages, "polaco" is a mild slur for people from Catalonia, though it is a completely neutral way of referencing Polish people in all Ibero-American countries except Brazil, where, much like "galego" (Galician), "alemão" (German) and "russo" (Russian), it became a politically incorrect term, and the noun used for Polish people is "polonês" (such term is absent from Spanish and other Portuguese variants).


title: Polack

text: In Ukrainian, the old exonym лях ("lyakh", "lyakhy") is now considered offensive In Russian the same word, formerly often used with negative connotations but not generally offensive, is obsolete. In both languages it was replaced by the neutral ("polyak").


title: Polack

text: Another common Russian ethnic slur for Poles is ("pshek"), an onomatopoeia derived from Polish phonology: prepositions and are quite common, with corresponding to the sound of "sh", and the sibilant-sounding speech (e.g., ("excuse me") transcribed as "psheprasham") has been a target of mockery in Russian culture.


title: Composite bow

text: A composite bow is a traditional bow made from horn, wood, and sinew laminated together, a form of laminated bow. The horn is on the belly, facing the archer, and sinew on the outer side of a wooden core. When the bow is drawn, the sinew (stretched on the outside) and horn (compressed on the inside) store more energy than wood for the same length of bow. The strength can be made similar to that of all-wood "self" bows, with similar draw-length and therefore a similar amount of energy delivered to the arrow from a much shorter bow. However, making a composite bow requires more varieties of material than a self bow, its construction takes much more time, and the finished bow is more sensitive to moisture.


title: Composite bow

text: Archaeological finds and art indicate composite bows have existed since the second millennium BCE, but their history is not well recorded, being developed by cultures without a written tradition. They originated among Asiatic pastoralists who used them as daily necessities, classically for mounted archery, although they can also be used on foot. Such bows spread among the military (and hunters) of civilizations that came into contact with nomad tribes; composite bows have been used across Asia from Korea to the Atlantic coasts of Europe and North Africa, and southwards in the Arabian peninsula and in India. The use of horn in a bow was even remarked on in Homer's epic The Odyssey, believed to have been written in the 8th century BCE.


title: Composite bow

text: The details of manufacture varied between the various cultures that used them. Initially, the tips of the limbs were made to bend when the bow was drawn. Later, the tips were stiffened with bone or antler laths; post-classical bows usually have stiff tips, known as "siyahs", which are made as an integral part of the wooden core of the bow.


title: Composite bow

text: Like other bows, they lost importance with the introduction and increasing accuracy of guns. In some areas, composite bows were still used and were further developed for leisure purposes. Early modern Turkish bows were specialized for flight archery (shooting for distance). Composite bows are still made and used in Korea and in China, and the tradition has been revived elsewhere. Modern replicas are available, often made with fiberglass bellies and backs with a natural or man-made core.


title: Composite bow

text: The wooden core gives the bow its shape and dimensional stability. It is often made of multiple pieces, joined with animal glue in V-splices, so the wood must accept glue well. Pieced construction allows the sharp bends that many designs require, and the use of woods with different mechanical properties for the bending and nonbending sections.


title: Composite bow

text: The wood of the bending part of the limb (""dustar"") must endure intense shearing stress, and denser woods such as hard maples are normally used in Turkish bows. Bamboo, and wood of the mulberry family, are traditional in China. Some composite bows have nonbending tips (""siyahs""), which need to be stiff and light; they may be made of woods such as Sitka spruce.


title: Composite bow

text: A thin layer of horn is glued onto what will be the belly of the bow, the side facing the archer. Water buffalo horn is very suitable, as is horn of several antelopes such as gemsbok, oryx, ibex, and that of Hungarian grey cattle. Goat and sheep horn can also be used. Most forms of cow horn are not suitable, as they soon delaminate with use. The horn can store more energy than wood in compression.


title: Composite bow

text: The sinew, soaked in animal glue, is then laid in layers on the back of the bow; the strands of sinew are oriented along the length of the bow. The sinew is normally obtained from the lower legs and back of wild deer or domestic ungulates. Traditionally, ox tendons are considered inferior to wild-game sinews since they have a higher fat content, leading to spoilage. Sinew has greater elastic tension properties than wood, again increasing the amount of energy that can be stored in the bow stave.


title: Composite bow

text: Hide glue or gelatin made from fish gas bladders is used to attach layers of sinew to the back of the bow, and to attach the horn belly to the wooden core.


title: Composite bow

text: Stiffening laths, if used, are attached. Both horn and laths may be bound and glued with further lengths of sinew. After months of drying, the bow is ready for use. Further finishing may include thin leather or waterproof bark, to protect the bow from moisture, and recent Turkish bows were often highly decorated with colourful paints and gold leaf.


title: Composite bow

text: Strings and arrows are essential parts of the weapon system, but no type of either is specifically associated with composite bows throughout their history.


title: Composite bow

text: The main advantage of composite bows over self bows (made from a single piece of wood) is their combination of smaller size with high power. They are therefore more convenient than self bows when the archer is mobile, as from horseback, or from a chariot. Almost all composite bows are also recurve bows as the shape curves away from the archer; this design gives higher draw-weight in the early stages of the archer's draw, storing somewhat more total energy for a given final draw-weight. It would be possible to make a wooden bow that has the same shape, length, and draw-weight as a traditional composite bow, but it could not store the energy, and would break before full draw.


title: Composite bow

text: For most practical non-mounted archery purposes, composite construction offers no advantage; "the initial velocity is about the same for all types of bow... within certain limits, the design parameters... appear to be less important than is often claimed." However, they are superior for horsemen and in the specialized art of flight archery: "A combination of many technical factors made the composite flight bow better for flight shooting." The higher arrow velocity is only for well-designed composite bows of high draw-weight. At the weights more usual for modern amateurs, the greater density of horn and sinew compared with wood usually cancels any advantage.


title: Composite bow

text: Constructing composite bows requires much more time and a greater variety of materials than self bows, and the animal glue used can lose strength in humid conditions; the 6th-century Byzantine military manual, the "Strategikon", advised the cavalry of the Byzantine army, many of whom were armed with composite bows, to keep their bows in leather cases to keep them dry. Karpowicz suggests that crafting a composite bow may take a week's work, excluding drying time (months) and gathering materials, while a self bow can be made in a day and dried in a week. Peoples living in humid or rainy regions historically have favoured self bows, while those living in temperate, dry, or arid regions have favoured composite bows.


title: Composite bow

text: Medieval Europeans favoured self bows as hand bows, but they made composite prods for crossbows. The prods were usually well protected from rain and humidity, which are prevalent in parts of Europe. Ancient Mediterranean civilizations, influenced by Eastern Archery, preferred composite recurve bows, and the Romans manufactured and used them as far north as Britannia.


title: Composite bow

text: The civilizations of India used both self bows and composite bows. The Mughals were especially known for their composite bows due to their Turko-Mongol roots. Waterproofing and proper storage of composite bows were essential due to India's extremely wet and humid subtropical climate and plentiful rainfall today (which averages in most of the country, and exceeds well over per year in the wettest areas due to monsoons).


title: Composite bow

text: The civilizations of China also used a combination of self bows, composite recurve bows, and laminated reflex bows. Self bows and laminated bows were preferred in southern China in earlier periods of history due to the region's extremely wet, humid, and rainy subtropical climate. The average rainfall in southern China exceeds , averaging in many areas today.


title: Composite bow

text: Composite construction may have become common in the third or fourth millennium BCE, in Mesopotamia and Elam.


title: Composite bow

text: Bows of any kind seldom survive in the archaeological record. Composite bows may have been invented first by the nomads of the Asiatic steppe, who may have based it on earlier Northern Asian laminated bows. However, archaeological investigation of the Asiatic steppe is still limited and patchy; literary records of any kind are late and scanty and seldom mention details of bows. There are arrowheads from the earliest chariot burials at Krivoye Lake, part of the Sintashta culture about 2100–1700 BCE, but the bow that shot them has not survived. Other sites of the Sintashta culture have produced finds of horn and bone, interpreted as furniture (grips, arrow rests, bow ends, string loops) of bows; there is no indication that the bending parts of these bows included anything other than wood. These finds are associated with short arrows, long, and the bows themselves may have been correspondingly short. The Andronovo Culture, descendant of the Sintashta culture, was the first to extend from the Ural Mountains to Tian Shan, and its successor cultures gave rise to the Indo-Aryan migration. It has been suggested that the Srubna culture (contemporaneous with, and a neighbour to, the Andronovo culture) used composite bows, but no archaeological evidence is known.


title: Composite bow

text: Composite bows were soon adopted and adapted by civilizations who came into contact with nomads, such as the Chinese, Assyrians, and Egyptians. Several composite bows were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, who died in 1324 BCE. Composite bows (and chariots) are known in China from at least the Shang Dynasty (1700–1100 BCE). There are strong indications that Greek Bronze Age cultures were using composite bows on a large scale. By the 4th century BCE, chariotry had ceased to have military importance, replaced by cavalry everywhere (except in Britannia, where charioteers are not recorded as using bows).


title: Composite bow

text: The mounted archer became the archetypal warrior of the steppes and the composite bow was his primary weapon, used to protect the herds, in steppe warfare, and for incursions into settled lands.


title: Composite bow

text: Classic tactics for horse-mounted archers included skirmishing: they would approach, shoot, and retreat before any effective response could be made. The term Parthian shot refers to the widespread horse-archer tactic of shooting backwards over the rear of their horses as they retreated. Parthians inflicted heavy defeats on Romans, the first being the Battle of Carrhae. However, horse archers did not make an army invincible; Han General Ban Chao led successful military expeditions in the late 1st century CE that conquered as far as Central Asia, and both Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great defeated horse archer armies. Well-led Roman armies defeated Parthian armies on several occasions and twice took the Parthian capital.


title: Composite bow

text: Composite bows can be used without difficulty by infantry. The infantry archers of classical Greece and the Roman Empire used composite bows. The military of the Han Dynasty (220 BCE–206 CE) utilized composite crossbows, often in infantry square formations, in their many engagements against the Xiongnu. Until 1571, archers with composite bows were a main component of the forces of the Ottoman Empire, but in the Battle of Lepanto in that year, they lost most of these troops and never replaced them.


title: Composite bow

text: The details of bow construction changed somewhat with time. It is not clear that the various developments of the composite bow led to measurable improvements: "the development of archery equipment may not be a process involving progressive improvements in performance. Rather, each design type represents one solution to the problem of creating a mobile weapon system capable of hurling lightweight projectiles."


title: Composite bow

text: Variants of the Scythian bow were the dominant form in Asia until approximately the first century BCE. These were short weapons—one was long when strung, with arrows perhaps long—with flexible, "working" tips; the wooden core was continuous from the centre to the tip.


title: Composite bow

text: From about the 4th century BCE, the use of stiffened ends on composite bows became widespread. The stiffened end of the bow is a "siyah" (Arabic, Persian), "szarv" (Hungarian), "sarvi" (Finnish; both 'sarvi' and 'szarv' mean 'horn') or "kasan" (Turkish); the bending section is a "dustar" (Arabic), "lapa" (Finnish) or "sal" (Turkish). For centuries, the stiffening was accomplished by attaching laths of bone or antler to the sides of the bow at its ends. The bone or antler strips are more likely to survive burial than the rest of the bow. The first bone strips suitable for this purpose come from "graves of the fourth or third centuries" BCE. These stiffeners are found associated with nomads of the time. Maenchen-Helfen states that they are not found in Achaemenid Persia, in early Imperial Rome, or in Han China. However, Coulston attributes Roman stiffeners to about or before 9 CE. He identifies a Steppe Tradition of Scythian bows with working tips, which lasted, in Europe, until the arrival of the Huns, and a Near East or Levantine tradition with siyahs, possibly introduced by the Parni as siyahs are found in Sassanid but not Achaemenid contexts. Siyahs have also been described on the Arabian peninsula. Composite bows were adopted by the Roman Empire and were made even in the cold and damp of Britannia. They were the normal weapon of later Roman archers, both infantry and cavalry units (although Vegetius recommends training recruits ""arcubus ligneis"", with wooden bows).


title: Composite bow

text: A new bow type, in which bone reinforcements cover the handle of the bow as well as the tips, may have developed in Central Asia during the 3rd to 2nd century BCE, with earliest finds from the area of Lake Baikal. Fittings from this type of bow appear right across Asia from Korea to the Crimea. Such bows with reinforcement of both grip and siyahs have been called “Hun,” "Hunnic", or “Hsiung-nu” composite bows. Huns did use such bows, but so did many other peoples; Rausing termed this type the 'Qum-Darya Bow' from the Han Chinese-type site at the frontier post of Loulan, at the mouth of the Qum Darya river, dated by analogy between c. 1st century BCE and the 3rd century CE.


title: Composite bow

text: With the arrival of the Huns, this tradition of bows with stiffened grips came to Europe. "Alanic graves in the Volga region dating to the 3rd to 4th century CE signal the adoption of the Qum-Darya type by Sarmatian peoples from Hunnic groups advancing from the East. In general, Hunnic/Qum-Darya bows had two pairs of ear laths identical in every respect to those found on Roman limes sites. The ear laths show only a greater proportion of longer laths (like those of Roman examples from Bar Hill and London). More distinctively, the grip of the bow was stiffened by three laths. On the sides were glued a pair of trapezoidal laths with their longest edges towards the back. On the belly was glued a third lath, varying in shape but often narrow with parallel sides and splayed ends. Therefore, each bow possessed seven grip and ear laths, compared with none on the Scythian and Sarmatian bows and four (ear) laths on the Yrzi bow."


title: Composite bow

text: The Huns and their successors greatly impressed their neighbours with their archery. Germanic tribes transmitted their respect orally for a millennium: in the Scandinavian Hervarar saga, the Geatish king Gizur taunts the Huns and says, "Eigi gera Húnar oss felmtraða né hornbogar yðrir." (We fear neither the Huns nor their hornbows.) The Romans, as described in the Strategikon, Procopius's histories, and other works, changed the entire emphasis of their army from heavy infantry to cavalry, many of them armed with bows. Maurikios's Strategikon describes the Byzantine cavalry as bow-armed "cursores" and lance-armed "defensores".


title: Composite bow

text: The Qum-Darya bow was superseded in the modern area of Hungary by an 'Avar' type, with more and differently-shaped laths. The grip laths stayed essentially the same except that a fourth piece was sometimes glued to the back of the handle, enclosing it with bone on all four faces. The belly lath was often parallel-sided with splayed ends. The siyah laths became much wider in profile above the nock and less rounded, giving a bulbous aspect. The nock was often further away from the upper end of the siyah than on Qum-Darya type examples. Additional laths were usually added to the belly and back of the siyah, thus enclosing both ends of the stave on four faces. This made a total of up to 12 laths on an asymmetrical bow with a stiff, set-back handle. Examples measured in situ suggest bow lengths of . When unstrung, the siyahs reversed sharply forward at an angle of 50-60 degrees.


title: Composite bow

text: After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, armies of the Byzantine Empire maintained their tradition of horse archery for centuries. Byzantium finally fell to the Turks before the decline of military archery in favour of guns. Turkish armies included archers until about 1591 (they played a major role in the Battle of Lepanto (1571), and flight archery remained a popular sport in Istanbul until the early 19th century. Most surviving documentation of the use and construction of composite bows comes from China and the Middle East; until reforms early in the 20th century, skill with the composite bow was an essential part of the qualification for officers in the Chinese Imperial army.


title: Composite bow

text: The composite bow was adopted throughout the Arab world, even though some Bedu tribesmen in the Hijaz retained the use of simple self bows. Persian designs were used after the conquest of the Sassanid Empire, and Turkish-type bows were widely used after the Turkic expansions. Roughly speaking, Arabs favoured slightly shorter siyahs and broader limbs than the Indo-Persian designs. Sometimes, the protective cover on the back was painted with Arabic calligraphy or geometric patterns. No design was standardized over the vast area of the Arab conquests. It was said that the best Arab composite bows were manufactured in Damascus, Syria.


title: Composite bow

text: The first surviving treatise on composite bow construction and archery was written in Arabic under Mamluk rule about 1368. Fragments of bone laths from composite bows were found among grave goods in the United Arab Emirates dating from the period between 100 BC and 150 AD.


title: Composite bow

text: Later developments in the composite bow included siyahs made of separate pieces of wood, attached with a V-splice to the wooden core of the bow, rather than strengthened by external reinforcement. Medieval and modern bows generally have integral wooden siyahs and lack stiffening laths.


title: Composite bow

text: A string "bridge" or "run" is an attachment of horn or wood, used to hold the string a little further apart from the bow's limbs at the base of the siyahs, as well as allowing the siyah to rest at an angle forward of the string. This attachment may add weight, but might give a small increase in the speed of the arrow by increasing the initial string angle and therefore the force of the draw in its early stages. Large string bridges are characteristic of Manchu (Qing dynasty, 1644–1911) bows and late Mongolian bows, while small string bridges are characteristic of Korean, Crimean Tatar, and some Ming dynasty (1368–1644) bows. String bridges are not present in artwork in the time of Genghis Khan or before.


title: Composite bow

text: All Eurasian composite bows derive from the same nomad origins, but every culture that used them has made its own adaptations to the basic design. The Turkish, Mongolian, and Korean bows were standardized when archery lost its military function and became a popular sport. Recent Turkish bows are optimized for flight shooting.


title: Composite bow

text: The Perso-Parthian bow is a symmetric recurve under high tension when strung. The "arms" of the bow are supposed to reflex far enough to cross each other when the bow is unstrung. The finished bow is covered by bark, fine leather, or in some cases shark skin to keep out moisture.


title: Composite bow

text: Perso-Parthian bows were in use as late as the 1820s in Persia (ancient Iran). They were then replaced by muskets.


title: Composite bow

text: This is the Ottoman development of the composite bow, presumably brought from the steppes. Turkish bows evolved, after the decline of military archery, into probably the best traditional flight bows. Their decoration often included delicate and beautiful multicoloured designs with gold.


title: Composite bow

text: For millennia, archery has played a pivotal role in Chinese history. Because the cultures associated with Chinese society spanned a wide geography and time range, the techniques and equipment associated with Chinese archery are diverse. Historical sources and archaeological evidence suggest that a variety of bow designs existed throughout Chinese history. For much of the 20th century, only a few Chinese traditional bow and arrow-making workshops were active. However, in the beginning of the 21st century, there has been a revival in interest among craftsmen looking to construct bows and arrows in the traditional Chinese style.


title: Composite bow

text: The Mongolian tradition of archery is attested by an inscription on a stone stele that was found near Nerchinsk in Siberia: "While Genghis Khan was holding an assembly of Mongolian dignitaries, after his conquest of Sartaul (Khwarezm), Yesüngge (the son of Genghis Khan's younger brother) shot a target at 335 alds (536 m)". The Mongol bowmaking tradition was lost under the Qing, who heavily restricted archery practice; only practice with blunt arrows at shorted distances was allowed while most other forms of practice, including mounted archery; was forbidden. The present bowmaking tradition emerged after independence in 1921 and is based on Manchu types of bow. Mounted archery had fallen into disuse and has been revived only in the 21st century.


title: Composite bow

text: Archery with composite bows is part of the annual festival of the three virile sports (wrestling, horseriding, archery), called "Naadam".


title: Composite bow

text: The Hungarian bow is a fairly long, approximately symmetrical composite reflex bow with bone stiffeners. Its shape is known from two graves in which the position of the bone plates could be reconstructed. Modern Hungarians have attempted to reconstruct the composite bows of their ancestors and have revived mounted archery as a competitive sport.


title: Composite bow

text: A traditional Korean bow, or gakgung, is a small but very efficient horn-bamboo-sinew composite bow. Korean archers normally practice at a range of approximately 145 metres.


title: Composite bow

text: When Europeans first contacted Native Americans, some bows, especially in the area that became California, already had sinew backing. After the introduction of domesticated horses, newly mounted groups rapidly developed shorter bows, which were often given sinew backing. The full three-layer composite bow with horn, wood, and sinew does not seem to be recorded in the Americas, and horn bows with sinew backing are not recorded before European contact.


title: Composite bow

text: Modern replicas of traditional composite bows are commercially available; they are usually made with fibreglass or carbon on both belly and back, easier to mass-produce and easier to take care of than traditional composite bows.


title: Composite bow

text: Other less satisfactory materials than horn have been used for the belly of the bow (the part facing the archer when shooting), including bone, antler, or compression-resistant woods such as osage orange, hornbeam, or yew. Materials that are strong under tension, such as silk, or tough wood, like hickory, have been used on the back of the bow (the part facing away from the archer when shooting).


title: False imprisonment

text: False imprisonment or unlawful imprisonment occurs when a person intentionally restricts another person’s movement within any area without legal authority, justification, or the restrained person's permission. Actual physical restraint is not necessary for false imprisonment to occur. A false imprisonment claim may be made based upon private acts, or upon wrongful governmental detention. For detention by the police, proof of false imprisonment provides a basis to obtain a writ of habeas corpus.


title: False imprisonment

text: Within the context of false imprisonment, an imprisonment occurs when a person is restrained from moving from a location or bounded area, as a result of a wrongful intentional act, such as the use of force, threat, coercion, or abuse of authority.


title: False imprisonment

text: Not all acts of involuntary detention amount to false imprisonment. An accidental detention will not support a claim of false imprisonment since false imprisonment requires an intentional act. The law may privilege a person to detain somebody else against their will. A legally authorized detention does not constitute false imprisonment. For example, if a parent or legal guardian of a child denies the child's request to leave their house, and prevents them from doing so, this would not ordinarily constitute false imprisonment.


title: False imprisonment

text: Under United States law, police officers have the right to detain individuals based on probable cause that a crime has been committed and the individual was involved, or based on reasonable suspicion that the individual has been, is, or is about to be engaged in a criminal activity.


title: False imprisonment

text: Many jurisdictions in the United States recognize the common law known as shopkeeper's privilege under which a person is allowed to detain a suspected shoplifter on store property for a reasonable period of time. The shopkeeper has cause to believe that the detainee in fact committed, or attempted to commit, theft of store property. The shopkeeper is allowed to ask the suspect to demonstrate that they have not been shoplifting. The purpose of the shopkeeper's privilege is to discover if the suspect is shoplifting and, if so, whether the shoplifted item can be reclaimed.


title: False imprisonment

text: The shopkeeper's privilege, although recognized in most jurisdictions, is not as broad a privilege as that of a police officer's. Therefore, one must pay special attention to the temporal element: the shopkeeper may only detain the suspected criminal for a relatively short period of time. This is similar to a general right in many jurisdictions, and in limited circumstances, of citizen's arrest of suspected criminals by private citizens. In those jurisdictions, if someone detains an innocent person or unreasonably detains the suspect, uses excessive force to detain the suspect, or fails to notify the police within a reasonable time after detaining the suspect, then the detention may constitute false imprisonment and can result in an award of damages for the illegal detention. In jurisdictions without the privilege, detaining someone may constitute false imprisonment, even if the suspect is detained for doing something illegal without using excessive force and doing something illegal in the process, and the police gets notified within a reasonable time after the suspect is detained.


title: False imprisonment

text: This privilege has been justified by the very practical need for some degree of protection for shopkeepers in their dealings with suspected shoplifters. Absent such privilege, a shopkeeper would be faced with the dilemma of either allowing suspects to leave without challenge or acting upon their suspicion and risk making a false arrest.


title: False imprisonment

text: In "Enright v. Groves", a woman sued a police officer for false imprisonment after being arrested for not producing her driver's license. The plaintiff was in her car when she was approached by the officer for not leashing her dog; she was arrested after being asked to produce her driver's license and failing to do so. She won her claim, despite having lost the case of not leashing her dog. The court reasoned that the officer did not have proper legal authority in arresting her, because he arrested her for not producing her driver's license (which itself was legal) as opposed to the dog leash violation.


title: False imprisonment

text: In a Clark County, Indiana Circuit Court case, Destiny Hoffman was jailed for 154 days, during which "no hearing was conducted to determine the validity of such sanction and the defendant was not represented by counsel" according to deputy county prosecutor Michaelia Gilbert. An order by Judge Jerry Jacobi in the Clark County Circuit Court case was supposed to be a 48-hour jail stay for Hoffman, pending drug evaluation and treatment, "until further order of the court." After a motion by Prosecutor Gilbert, Special Judge Steve Fleece ordered Hoffman released and said Hoffman's incarceration was "a big screw up".


title: False imprisonment

text: In a Louisiana case in the United States, a pharmacist and his pharmacy were found liable by a trial court for false imprisonment. They stalled for time and instructed a patient to wait while simultaneously and without the patient's knowledge calling the police. The pharmacist was suspicious of the patient's prescription, which her doctor had called in previously. When the police arrived, they arrested the patient. While the patient was in jail, the police verified with her doctor that the prescription was authentic and that it was meant for her. After this incident, the patient sued the pharmacy and its employees. She received $20,000 damages. An appeals court reversed the judgment, because it believed the elements of false imprisonment were not met.


title: False imprisonment

text: This tort again falls under the umbrella term "trespass to the person" alongside "battery and assault". The definition of false imprisonment under UK law and legislation is the "Unlawful imposition or constraint of another's freedom of movement from a particular place." False imprisonment is where the defendant intentionally or recklessly, and unlawfully, restricts the claimant's freedom of movement totally. During which there is no time limit, false imprisonment could occur for seconds and still be false imprisonment.


title: False imprisonment

text: An example of reckless imprisonment may be a janitor locking up a school for the night, knowing that someone "might" still be inside, but without bothering to check. Whereas, regarding intention, intention to imprison a person is what matters and not necessarily an intention to falsely imprison someone. For example, in "R v Governor of Brockhill Prison, ex p Evans", it did not matter if the decision to imprison the claimant was in good faith, or considered lawful, it still constituted false imprisonment.


title: False imprisonment

text: False imprisonment does not require a literal prison, but a restriction of the claimant's freedom of movement ("complete restraint"). According to the "Termes de la Ley", 'imprisonment is the restraint of a man's liberty, whether it be in the open field, or in the stocks, or in the cage in the streets or in a man's own house, as well as in the common gaole'. Imprisonment does not have to involve seizure of the claimant; touching and informing him that he is under arrest are sufficient. Tagging and an imposed curfew can be false imprisonment. The restriction must also be total, meaning that the claimant is restricted to an area delimited by the defendant. The larger the area, the less likely the claimant will be deemed to be imprisoned. For example, confining a person to a house would constitute the tort of false imprisonment. However, confining someone to the land mass of the USA would not.


title: False imprisonment

text: Therefore, false imprisonment is not just about locking someone within a room, the following examples have all been found to constitute false imprisonment:


title: False imprisonment

text: Finally, where a claimant accedes to authority that does not necessarily mean they consent to being detained, as in "Warner v Riddiford" (1858).


title: False imprisonment

text: 'Imprisonment is, as I apprehend, a total restraint of the liberty of the person, for however, short a time, and not a partial obstruction of his will, whatever inconvenience it may bring on him.' There must be complete restraint, therefore, if there are alternative routes that can be taken this is not false imprisonment. Such as in "Bird v Jones [1845]" where the claimant wanted to walk over Hammersmith bridge but the defendant had cordoned off the public footpath, however, this did not constitute false imprisonment because, through using a longer route, the claimant could have still reached their destination.


title: False imprisonment

text: Therefore, if there is a means of escape, this is not false imprisonment. There must be no reasonable means of escape and you may be compensated for any damages caused in order for you to escape reasonably. However, if you have not taken a reasonable route of escape/reasonable action you will not be awarded damages.


title: False imprisonment

text: It is still false imprisonment even where the claimant does not know at the time. So secretly locking someone in a room is false imprisonment. It may also be false imprisonment where a person is rendered unconscious, for example, by being punched (also a battery), or when their drink is spiked by drugs (also wilful harm or negligence), because their freedom of movement is thereby restricted. For example, in the case of "Meering v Grahame-White Aviation [1918]" the claimant was told to stay in an office because property was going missing and if they tried to leave the office they would have been stopped. This was held to be a false imprisonment even though the claimant did not know they were being imprisoned.


title: False imprisonment

text: In the majority of circumstances/generally, the answer is no, as there must be a positive act. Yet, in certain circumstances defendants may still be found liable if they are under a positive obligation to release the claimant and the claimant has the legal right to be released. In the case of "Prison Officer's Association v Iqbal" where a defendant could not leave their cell due to the prison officers being on strike, it was held at [61] that:


title: False imprisonment

text: Moreover, in the case of "R v Governor of Brockhill Prison, ex p Evans", where the claimant should be released from prison and they weren't, due to a genuine mistake meaning they were held in prison for longer, this was still held to be false imprisonment.


title: False imprisonment

text: This can be looked at as consent, therefore, the imprisonment is not unlawful nor false imprisonment, for example, when flying, you consent to be on the plane for that duration of time through contract. The courts have said it is not unlawful to refuse to open a train door when the train is on a bridge, even though the passenger is thereby restricted inside the train. Likewise, a master of a ship, or the pilot of a plane can detain people during a voyage or flight when they have a reasonable cause or grounds to believe it necessary for the safety of their other passengers. Suddenly saying "I would like to leave now" is dangerous and thus, they have no reason to let you leave, moreover, you are contractually obligated to remain onboard. Therefore, this would not constitute false imprisonment.


title: False imprisonment

text: Additionally, when a claimant is following a work contract the employer may not be held for false imprisonment for not allowing them to leave early due to a breach of contract and potential losses that could result from them leaving. In the case of "Herd v Weardale Steel Coal" where the claimant was in a mine, they were working and they wanted to leave the mine. The employer refused to let them leave at that time and the court held that the employer was under no obligation to allow them to do so.


title: False imprisonment

text: Under English law, police have the right to arrest under a warrant issued by a magistrate, and following conditions set out in PACE Code G. Or without a warrant, police may make an arrest pursuant to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984: 'anyone who is about to commit, is committing or has committed an offence or is so suspected on reasonable grounds may be arrested.' Also, arrest may be lawful if the police have reason to believe that the person arrested poses an imminent risk of harm to themselves or others. Private citizens can also make an arrest for crimes being committed/that have been committed but only in relation to indictable offences ('citizen's arrest'). When a prisoner is lawfully held, it is not false imprisonment just because the conditions are unsanitary such as in the case of "R v Deputy Governor of Parkhurst Prison", 'although this may instead be found to be negligence or the tort of misfeasance in a public office.'


title: False imprisonment

text: Another example would again be the case of "Austin v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis" [2007], a case concerning the alleged unlawful detention of hundreds of members of the public during the May Day riots of 2001 in London, England. The police, using the tactic of "kettling", held a large crowd in Oxford Circus without allowing anyone to leave. Lois Austin, a peaceful protester who had not broken the law, and Geoffrey Saxby, an innocent passer-by who was not involved in the demonstration, claimed that they were falsely imprisoned by the London Metropolitan Police and that their detention was in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights. The pair lost their court action in 2005, when the High Court ruled that the police had not acted unlawfully. An appeal against the ruling also failed in 2007. A ruling by the House of Lords declared that 'even in the case of an absolute right, the High Court was entitled to take the "purpose" of the deprivation of liberty into account before deciding if human rights law applied at all.'


title: False imprisonment

text: Defences for false imprisonment include consent and performance of a contract. Moreover, the defence of illegality may also apply, therefore if the defendant was acting illegally and you locked them in a room to protect yourself whilst you called the police this defence could also apply. However, if the use of force or in this case imprisonment was unreasonable, this would not be a viable defence, as is shown in the case of "Revil v Newbery" where a homeowner fired a shotgun to the burglar and ended up injuring him, this was held to be an unreasonable use of force and thus, the defence of illegality was void.


title: False imprisonment

text: If the false imprisonment was for a minimal amount of time, the claimant could be entitled to nominal damages, as this tort is actionable "per se". In "Walker v Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis" [2014] where someone was stopped in a doorway for a couple of seconds this was still held to be false imprisonment. Additionally, if the applicant was injured through trying to escape using reasonable methods they may be entitled to compensatory damages. Finally, if the claimant suffered an 'affront to their dignity', they may be awarded aggravated damages (these are very rare). For example, in the case of "Hook v Cunard Steamship Co Ltd" the sailor was confined to his quarters and accused of child molestation but with 'no vestige of grounds in support', this was held to be false imprisonment and aggravated damages were available due to this causing humiliation and injury to the claimant's feelings.


title: Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)

text: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa in 1996 after the end of apartheid. Authorised by Nelson Mandela and chaired by Desmond Tutu, the commission invited witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations to give statements about their experiences, and selected some for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.


text: The TRC was seen by many as a crucial component of the transition to full and free democracy in South Africa. Despite some flaws, it is generally (although not universally) thought to have been successful.


text: The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation was established in 2000 as the successor organisation of the TRC.


text: The TRC was set up in terms of the "Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act", No. 34 of 1995, and was based in Cape Town. The hearings started in 1996. The mandate of the commission was to bear witness to, record, and in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations, as well as offering reparation and rehabilitation to the victims. A register of reconciliation was also established so that ordinary South Africans who wished to express regret for past failures could also express their remorse.


text: The TRC had a number of high-profile members, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu (chairman), Alex Boraine (deputy chairman), Sisi Khampepe, Wynand Malan, and Emma Mashinini.


text: Public hearings of the Human Rights Violations Committee and the Amnesty Committee were held at many venues around South Africa, including Cape Town (at the University of the Western Cape), Johannesburg (at the Central Methodist Mission), and Randburg (at the Rhema Bible Church).


text: The commission was empowered to grant amnesty to those who committed abuses during the apartheid era, as long as the crimes were politically motivated, proportionate, and there was full disclosure by the person seeking amnesty. To avoid victor's justice, no side was exempt from appearing before the commission. The commission heard reports of human rights violations and considered amnesty applications from all sides, from the apartheid state to the liberation forces, including the African National Congress.


text: The Commission found more than 19,050 people had been victims of gross human rights violations. An additional 2,975 victims were identified through the applications for amnesty. In reporting these numbers, the Commission voiced its regret that there was very little overlap of victims between those seeking restitution and those seeking amnesty.


text: A total of 5,392 amnesty applications were refused, granting only 849 out of the 7,111 (which includes the number of additional categories, such as "withdrawn").


text: The TRC's emphasis on reconciliation was in sharp contrast to the approach taken by the Nuremberg trials and other de-Nazification measures. South Africa's first black government chose to pursue forgiveness over prosecution, and reparation over retaliation.


text: Opinions differ about the efficacy of the restorative justice method (as employed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) as compared to the retributive justice method, of which the Nuremberg trials are an example. In one survey study, the effectiveness of the TRC Commission was measured on a variety of levels:


text: In the study by Orlando Lentini, the opinions of three ethnic groups were measured in this study: the British Africans, the Afrikaners, and the Xhosa. According to the researchers, all of the participants perceived the TRC to be effective in bringing out the truth, but to varying degrees, depending on the group in question.


text: The differences in opinions about the effectiveness can be attributed to how each group viewed the proceedings. Some viewed them as not entirely accurate, as many people would lie in order to keep themselves out of trouble while receiving amnesty for their crimes. (The commission would grant amnesty to some with consideration given to the weight of the crimes committed.) Some said that the proceedings only helped to remind them of the horrors that had taken place in the past when they had been working to forget such things. Thus, the TRC's effectiveness in terms of achieving those very things within its title is still debatable.


text: The hearings were initially set to be heard "in camera", but the intervention of 23 non-governmental organisations eventually succeeded in gaining media access to the hearings. On 15 April 1996, the South African National Broadcaster televised the first two hours of the first human rights violation committee hearing live. With funding from the Norwegian government, radio continued to broadcast live throughout. Additional high-profile hearings, such as Winnie Mandela's testimony, were also televised live.


text: The rest of the hearings were presented on television each Sunday, from April 1996 to June 1998, in hour-long episodes of the "Truth Commission Special Report". The programme was presented by progressive Afrikaner journalist Max du Preez, former editor of the "Vrye Weekblad". The producers of the programme included Anneliese Burgess, Jann Turner, Benedict Motau, Gael Reagon, Rene Schiebe and Bronwyn Nicholson, a production assistant.


text: A 1998 study by South Africa's Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation & the Khulumani Support Group, which surveyed several hundred victims of human rights abuse during the Apartheid era, found that most felt that the TRC had failed to achieve reconciliation between the black and white communities. Most believed that justice was a prerequisite for reconciliation rather than an alternative to it, and that the TRC had been weighted in favour of the perpetrators of abuse. As a result of the TRC's shortcomings and the unaddressed injuries of many victims, victims' groups, together with NGOs and lawyers, took various TRC-related matters to South African and US courts in the early 2000s.


text: Another dilemma facing the TRC was how to do justice to the testimonials of those witnesses for whom translation was necessary. It was believed that, with the great discrepancy between the emotions of the witnesses and those translating them, much of the impact was lost in interlingual rendition. A briefly tried solution was to have the translators mimic the witnesses' emotions, but this proved disastrous and was quickly scrapped.


text: While former president F. W. de Klerk appeared before the commission and reiterated his apology for the suffering caused by apartheid, many black South Africans were angered at amnesty being granted for human rights abuses committed by the apartheid government; local reports at the time noted that his failure to accept that the former NP government's policies had given security forces a "licence to kill" - evidenced to him personally in different ways - drove the chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu almost to tears. The BBC described such criticisms as stemming from a "basic misunderstanding" about the TRC's mandate, which was to "uncover the truth" about past abuse, using amnesty as a mechanism, rather than to "punish past crimes". Critics of the TRC dispute this, saying that their position is not a misunderstanding but a rejection of the TRC's mandate.


text: Among the highest-profile of these objections were the criticisms levelled by the family of prominent anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who was killed by the security police, and whose story was featured in the film "Cry Freedom". Biko's family described the TRC as a "vehicle for political expediency", which "robbed" them of their right to justice. The family opposed amnesty for his killers on these grounds and brought a legal action in South Africa's highest court, arguing that the TRC was unconstitutional.


text: On the other side of the spectrum, former apartheid State President P.W. Botha defied a subpoena to appear before the commission, calling it a "circus". His defiance resulted in a fine and suspended sentence, but these were overturned on appeal. Playwright Jane Taylor, responsible for the acclaimed "Ubu and the Truth Commission", found fault with the commission's lopsided influence:


text: The TRC is unquestionably a monumental process, the consequences of which will take years to unravel. For all its pervasive weight, however, it infiltrates our culture asymmetrically, unevenly across multiple sectors. Its place in small rural communities, for example, when it establishes itself in a local church hall, and absorbs substantial numbers of the population, is very different from its situation in large urban centres, where its presence is marginalised by other social and economic activities.


title: William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland

text: William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, (14 April 173830 October 1809) was a British Whig and then a Tory politician during the late Georgian era. He served as Chancellor of the University of Oxford (1792–1809) and twice as Prime Minister of Great Britain (1783) and then of the United Kingdom (1807–1809). The gap of 26 years between his two terms as Prime Minister is the longest of any British Prime Minister. He was also the fourth great-grandfather of King Charles III through his great-granddaughter Cecilia Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne.


text: Portland was known before 1762 by the courtesy title Marquess of Titchfield. He held a title for every degree of British nobility: duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron. He was the leader of the Portland Whigs faction, which broke with the Whig leadership of Charles James Fox and joined with William Pitt the Younger in the wake of the French Revolution.


text: Lord Titchfield was the eldest son of William Bentinck, 2nd Duke of Portland and Margaret Cavendish-Harley and inherited many lands from his mother and his maternal grandmother, who was the daughter of John Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated MA in 1757.


text: On 8 November 1766, Portland married Lady Dorothy Cavendish, a daughter of William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire and Charlotte Boyle. They were parents of six children:


text: Portland was elected to sit in the Parliament of Great Britain for Weobley in 1761 before he entered the House of Lords after he succeeded his father as Duke of Portland the next year. He was associated with the aristocratic Whig Party of Lord Rockingham and served as Lord Chamberlain of the Household in Rockingham's first government (1765–1766).


text: Portland served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Rockingham's second ministry (April–August 1782). He faced strong demands for conciliatory measures following years of coercion and taxation brought about by the British government's engagement in the American Revolutionary War. Portland resolved to make concessions and, overcoming the resistance of Lord Shelburne, the Home Secretary to whom he reported, convinced Parliament to repeal the Declaratory Act and to modify Poynings' Law. Following Rockingham's death, Portland resigned from Lord Shelburne's ministry along with other supporters of Charles James Fox.


text: In April 1783, Portland was selected as the titular head of a coalition government as Prime Minister, whose real leaders were Charles James Fox and Lord North. He served as First Lord of the Treasury in the ministry until its fall in December that same year. During his tenure, the Treaty of Paris was signed, which formally ended the American Revolutionary War. The government was brought down after it had lost a vote in the House of Lords on its proposed reform of the East India Company after George III had let it be known that any peer voting for the measure would be considered his personal enemy.


text: In 1789, Portland became one of several vice presidents of London's Foundling Hospital. The charity had become one of the most fashionable of the time, with several notables serving on its board. At its creation, 50 years earlier, Portland's father, William Bentinck, 2nd Duke of Portland, had been one of the founding governors, as listed on the charity's royal charter granted by George II. The hospital had a mission to care for the abandoned children in London, and it achieved rapid fame through its poignant mission, its art collection donated from supporting artists and the popular benefit concerts by George Frideric Handel. In 1793, Portland took over the presidency of the charity from Lord North.


text: Along with many other conservative Whigs such as Edmund Burke, Portland was deeply uncomfortable with the French Revolution; he broke with Fox over that issue and joined Pitt's government as Secretary of State for the Home Department in 1794. In that role he oversaw the administration of patronage and financial inducements, which were often secret, to secure the passage of the Act of Union 1800. He continued to serve in the cabinet until Pitt's death in 1806, from 1801 to 1805 as Lord President of the Council and then as a Minister without Portfolio.


text: In March 1807, after the collapse of the Ministry of all the Talents, Pitt's supporters returned to power, and Portland was once again an acceptable figurehead for a fractious group of ministers that included George Canning, Lord Castlereagh, Lord Hawkesbury and Spencer Perceval.


text: Portland's second government saw the United Kingdom's complete isolation on the continent but also the beginning of its recovery with the start of the Peninsular War. In late 1809, with Portland's health poor and the ministry rocked by the scandalous duel between Canning and Castlereagh, Portland resigned and died shortly thereafter.


text: He died on 30 October 1809 at Burlington House, Piccadilly, after an operation for the stone, and was buried at St Marylebone Parish Church, London.


text: He had lived expensively: with an income of £17,000 a year (worth £577,000 in 2005), he had debts at his death computed at £52,000 (£1.76 million in 2005), which were paid off by his succeeding son by selling off some property, including Bulstrode Park.


text: Along with Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen, Benjamin Disraeli, Marquess of Salisbury, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Bonar Law and Neville Chamberlain, he was the first of eight British prime ministers to die while his direct successor was in office.


text: The Portland Vase of Roman glass was given its name because it was owned by Portland at his family residence at Bulstrode Park.


text: Portland Parish, in Jamaica, was named after him. The Titchfield School, founded in 1786, is in the parish and is also named in his honour. The school's crest is derived from the his personal crest.


text: Two major streets in Marylebone are named after him: Portland Place and Great Portland Street. Both were built on land that he once owned.


text: North Bentinck Arm and South Bentinck Arm were named for the Bentinck family by George Vancouver in 1793, along with other names on the British Columbia Coast, such as Portland Canal and Portland Channel.


text: Portland Bay in Victoria, Australia was named in 1800 by the British navigator James Grant. The city of Portland is located on the bay.


text: The department of Manuscripts and Special Collections, The University of Nottingham holds a number of papers relating to him. His personal and political papers (Pw F) are part of the Portland (Welbeck) Collection, and the Portland (London) Collection (Pl) contains his correspondence and official papers, especially in series Pl C.


text: The Portland Estate Papers held at Nottinghamshire Archives also contain items relating to the 3rd Duke's properties.


text: The Portland Collection of fine and decorative art includes pieces owned and commissioned by him, including paintings by George Stubbs.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Cyril of Alexandria (; ;  376 – 444) was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444. He was enthroned when the city was at the height of its influence and power within the Roman Empire. Cyril wrote extensively and was a major player in the Christological controversies of the late-4th and 5th centuries. He was a central figure in the Council of Ephesus in 431, which led to the deposition of Nestorius as Patriarch of Constantinople.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Cyril is counted among the Church Fathers and also as a Doctor of the Church, and his reputation within the Christian world has resulted in his titles "Pillar of Faith" and "Seal of all the Fathers".


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: The Nestorian bishops at their synod at the Council of Ephesus declared him a heretic, labelling him as a "monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church."


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Cyril is well known for his dispute with Nestorius and his supporter, Patriarch John of Antioch, whom Cyril excluded from the Council of Ephesus for arriving late. He is also known for his expulsion of Novatians and Jews from Alexandria and for inflaming tensions that led to the murder of the Hellenistic philosopher Hypatia by a Christian mob. Historians disagree over the extent of his responsibility in this.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Cyril tried to oblige the pious Christian emperor Theodosius II (AD 408–450) to himself by dedicating his Paschal table to him. It is also important to note that Cyril's Paschal table was provided with a Metonic basic structure in the form of a Metonic 19-year lunar cycle adopted by him around AD 425, which was very different from the first Metonic 19-year lunar cycle invented around AD 260 by Anatolius, but exactly equal to the similar lunar cycle which had been introduced around AD 412 by Annianus; the Julian equivalent of this Alexandrian lunar cycle adopted by Cyril and nowadays referred to as the 'classical (Alexandrian) 19-year lunar cycle' would only much later emerge again: a century later in Rome as the basic structure of Dionysius Exiguus’ Paschal table (AD 525) and two more centuries later in England as the one of Bede's Easter table (AD 725).


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: The Catholic Church did not commemorate Saint Cyril in the Tridentine Calendar: it added his feast only in 1882, assigning to it the date of 9 February. This date is used by the Western Rite Orthodox Church. Yet the 1969 Catholic Calendar revision moved it to 27 June, considered to be the day of the saint's death, as celebrated by the Coptic Orthodox Church. The same date has been chosen for the Lutheran calendar. The Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches celebrate his feast day on 9 June and also, together with Pope Athanasius I of Alexandria, on 18 January.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Little is known for certain of Cyril's early life. He was born circa 376, in the town of Didouseya, Egypt, modern-day El-Mahalla El-Kubra. A few years after his birth, his maternal uncle Theophilus rose to the powerful position of Patriarch of Alexandria. His mother remained close to her brother and under his guidance, Cyril was well educated. His writings show his knowledge of Christian writers of his day, including Eusebius, Origen, Didymus the Blind, and writers of the Church of Alexandria. He received the formal Christian education standard for his day: he studied grammar from age twelve to fourteen (390–392), rhetoric and humanities from fifteen to twenty (393–397) and finally theology and biblical studies (398–402).


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: In 403, he accompanied his uncle to attend the "Synod of the Oak" in Constantinople, which deposed John Chrysostom as Archbishop of Constantinople. The prior year, Theophilus had been summoned by the emperor to Constantinople to apologize before a synod, over which Chrysostom would preside, on account of several charges which were brought against him by certain Egyptian monks. Theophilus had them persecuted as Origenists. Placing himself at the head of soldiers and armed servants, Theophilus had marched against the monks, burned their dwellings, and ill-treated those whom he captured. Theophilus arrived at Constantinople with twenty-nine of his suffragan bishops, and conferring with those opposed to the Archbishop, drafted a long list of largely unfounded accusations against Chrysostom, who refused to recognize the legality of a synod in which his open enemies were judges. Chrysostom was subsequently deposed.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Theophilus died on 15 October 412, and Cyril was made Pope or Patriarch of Alexandria on 18 October 412, but only after a riot between his supporters and those of his rival Archdeacon Timotheus. According to Socrates Scholasticus, the Alexandrians were always rioting.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Thus, Cyril followed his uncle in a position that had become powerful and influential, rivalling that of the prefect in a time of turmoil and frequently violent conflict between the cosmopolitan city's pagan, Jewish, and Christian inhabitants. He began to exert his authority by causing the churches of the Novatianists to be closed and their sacred vessels to be seized.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Orestes, "Praefectus augustalis" of the Diocese of Egypt, steadfastly resisted Cyril's ecclesiastical encroachment upon secular prerogatives.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Tension between the parties increased when in 415, Orestes published an edict that outlined new regulations regarding mime shows and dancing exhibitions in the city, which attracted large crowds and were commonly prone to civil disorder of varying degrees. Crowds gathered to read the edict shortly after it was posted in the city's theater. Cyril sent the "grammaticus" Hierax to discover the content of the edict. The edict angered Christians as well as Jews. At one such gathering, Hierax read the edict and applauded the new regulations, prompting a disturbance. Many people felt that Hierax was attempting to incite the crowd—particularly the Jews—into sedition. Orestes had Hierax tortured in public in a theatre. This order had two aims: one to quell the riot, the other to mark Orestes' authority over Cyril.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Socrates Scholasticus recounts that upon hearing of Hierex's severe and public punishment, Cyril threatened to retaliate against the Jews of Alexandria with "the utmost severities" if the harassment of Christians did not cease immediately. In response to Cyril's threat, the Jews of Alexandria grew even more furious, eventually resorting to violence against the Christians. They plotted to flush the Christians out at night by running through the streets claiming that the Church of Alexander was on fire. When Christians responded to what they were led to believe was the burning down of their church, "the Jews immediately fell upon and slew them" by using rings to recognize one another in the dark and killing everyone else in sight. When the morning came, Cyril, along with many of his followers, took to the city's synagogues in search of the perpetrators of the massacre.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: According to Socrates Scholasticus, after Cyril rounded up all the Jews in Alexandria he ordered them to be stripped of all possessions, banished them from Alexandria, and allowed their goods to be pillaged by the remaining citizens of Alexandria. Scholasticus indicates that all the Jews were banished, while John of Nikiû says only those involved in the ambush. Susan Wessel says that, while it is not clear whether Scholasticus was a Novationist (whose churches Cyril had closed), he was apparently sympathetic towards them, and makes clear Cyril's habit of abusing his episcopal power by infringing on the rights and duties of the secular authorities. Wessel says "...Socrates probably does not provide accurate and unambiguous information about Cyril's relationship to imperial authority".


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Nonetheless, with Cyril's banishment of the Jews, however many, "Orestes [...] was filled with great indignation at these transactions, and was excessively grieved that a city of such magnitude should have been suddenly bereft of so large a portion of its population." Because of this, the feud between Cyril and Orestes intensified, and both men wrote to the emperor regarding the situation. Eventually, Cyril attempted to reach out to Orestes through several peace overtures, including attempted mediation and, when that failed, showed him the Gospels, which he interpreted to indicate that the religious authority of Cyril would require Orestes' acquiescence in the bishop's policy. Nevertheless, Orestes remained unmoved by such gestures.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: This refusal almost cost Orestes his life. Nitrian monks came from the desert and instigated a riot against Orestes among the population of Alexandria. These monks had resorted to violence 15 years before, during a controversy between Theophilus (Cyril's uncle) and the "Tall Brothers"; the monks assaulted Orestes and accused him of being a pagan. Orestes rejected the accusations, showing that he had been baptised by the Archbishop of Constantinople. A monk named Ammonius threw a stone hitting Orestes in the head. The prefect had Ammonius tortured to death, whereupon the Patriarch honored him as a martyr. However, according to Scholasticus, the Christian community displayed a general lack of enthusiasm for Ammonius's case for martyrdom. The prefect then wrote to the emperor Theodosius II, as did Cyril.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: The Prefect Orestes enjoyed the political backing of Hypatia, an astronomer, philosopher and mathematician who had considerable moral authority in the city of Alexandria, and who had extensive influence. Indeed, many students from wealthy and influential families came to Alexandria purposely to study privately with Hypatia, and many of these later attained high posts in government and the Church. Several Christians thought that Hypatia's influence had caused Orestes to reject all conciliatory offerings by Cyril. Modern historians think that Orestes had cultivated his relationship with Hypatia to strengthen a bond with the pagan community of Alexandria, as he had done with the Jewish one, in order to better manage the tumultuous political life of the Egyptian capital. A mob, led by a lector named Peter, took Hypatia from her chariot and murdered her, hacking her body apart and burning the pieces outside the city walls.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Neoplatonist historian Damascius ( 458 –  538) was "anxious to exploit the scandal of Hypatia's death", and attributed responsibility for her murder to Bishop Cyril and his Christian followers. Damascius's account of the Christian murder of Hypatia is the sole historical source attributing direct responsibility to Bishop Cyril. Some modern studies represent Hypatia's death as the result of a struggle between two Christian factions, the moderate Orestes, supported by Hypatia, and the more rigid Cyril. According to lexicographer William Smith, "She was accused of too much familiarity with Orestes, prefect of Alexandria, and the charge spread among the clergy, who took up the notion that she interrupted the friendship of Orestes with their archbishop, Cyril." Scholasticus writes that Hypatia ultimately fell "victim to the political jealousy which at the time prevailed". News of Hypatia's murder provoked great public denunciation, not only of Cyril but of the whole Alexandrian Christian community.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Another major conflict was between the Alexandrian and Antiochian schools of ecclesiastical reflection, piety, and discourse. This long running conflict widened with the third canon of the First Council of Constantinople which granted the see of Constantinople primacy over the older sees of Alexandria and Antioch. Thus, the struggle between the sees of Alexandria and Antioch now included Constantinople. The conflict came to a head in 428 after Nestorius, who originated in Antioch, was made Archbishop of Constantinople.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Cyril gained an opportunity to restore Alexandria's pre-eminence over both Antioch and Constantinople when an Antiochine priest who was in Constantinople at Nestorius' behest began to preach against calling Mary the "Mother of God" ("Theotokos"). As the term "Mother of God" had long been attached to Mary, the laity in Constantinople complained against the priest. Rather than repudiating the priest, Nestorius intervened on his behalf. Nestorius argued that Mary was neither a "Mother of Man" nor "Mother of God" as these referred to Christ's two natures; rather, Mary was the "Mother of Christ" (Greek: "Christotokos"). Christ, according to Nestorius, was the conjunction of the Godhead with his "temple" (which Nestorius was fond of calling his human nature). The controversy seemed to be centered on the issue of the suffering of Christ. Cyril maintained that the Son of God or the divine Word, truly suffered "in the flesh." However, Nestorius claimed that the Son of God was altogether incapable of suffering, even within his union with the flesh. Eusebius of Dorylaeum went so far as to accuse Nestorius of adoptionism. By this time, news of the controversy in the capital had reached Alexandria. At Easter 429 A.D., Cyril wrote a letter to the Egyptian monks warning them of Nestorius's views. A copy of this letter reached Constantinople where Nestorius preached a sermon against it. This began a series of letters between Cyril and Nestorius which gradually became more strident in tone. Finally, Emperor Theodosius II convoked the Council of Ephesus (in 431) to solve the dispute. Cyril selected Ephesus as the venue since it supported the veneration of Mary. The council was convoked before Nestorius's supporters from Antioch and Syria had arrived and thus Nestorius refused to attend when summoned. Predictably, the Council ordered the deposition and exile of Nestorius for heresy.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: However, when John of Antioch and the other pro-Nestorius bishops finally reached Ephesus, they assembled their own Council, condemned Cyril for heresy, deposed him from his see, and labelled him as a "monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church". Theodosius, by now old enough to hold power by himself, annulled the verdict of the Council and arrested Cyril, but Cyril eventually escaped. Having fled to Egypt, Cyril bribed Theodosius's courtiers, and sent a mob led by Dalmatius, a hermit, to besiege Theodosius's palace, and shout abuse; the emperor eventually gave in, sending Nestorius into minor exile (Upper Egypt).


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Cyril died about 444, but the controversies were to continue for decades, from the "Robber Synod" of Ephesus (449) to the Council of Chalcedon (451) and beyond.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Cyril regarded the embodiment of God in the person of Jesus Christ to be so mystically powerful that it spread out from the body of the God-man into the rest of the race, to reconstitute human nature into a graced and deified condition of the saints, one that promised immortality and transfiguration to believers. Nestorius, on the other hand, saw the incarnation as primarily a moral and ethical example to the faithful, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Cyril's constant stress was on the simple idea that it was God who walked the streets of Nazareth (hence Mary was "Theotokos", meaning "God bearer", which became in Latin "Mater Dei or Dei Genitrix", or Mother of God), and God who had appeared in a transfigured humanity. Nestorius spoke of the distinct "Jesus the man" and "the divine Logos" in ways that Cyril thought were too dichotomous, widening the ontological gap between man and God in a way that some of his contemporaries believed would annihilate the person of Christ.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: The main issue that prompted this dispute between Cyril and Nestorius was the question which arose at the Council of Constantinople: What exactly was the being to which Mary gave birth? Cyril affirmed that the Holy Trinity consists of a singular divine nature, essence, and being ("ousia") in three distinct aspects, instantiations, or subsistencies of being ("hypostases"). These distinct hypostases are the Father or God in Himself, the Son or Word ("Logos"), and the Holy Spirit. Then, when the Son became flesh and entered the world, the pre-Incarnate divine nature and assumed human nature both remained, but became "united" in the person of Jesus. This resulted in the miaphysite slogan "One Nature united out of two" being used to encapsulate the theological position of this Alexandrian bishop.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: According to Cyril's theology, there were two states for the Son of God: the state that existed "prior" to the Son (or Word/Logos) becoming enfleshed in the person of Jesus and the state that actually became enfleshed. The Logos Incarnate suffered and died on the Cross, and therefore the Son was able to suffer without suffering. Cyril passionately argued for the continuity of a single subject, God the Word, from the pre-Incarnate state to the Incarnate state. The divine Logos was really present in the flesh and in the world—not merely bestowed upon, semantically affixed to, or morally associated with the man Jesus, as the adoptionists and, he believed, Nestorius had taught.


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Cyril of Alexandria became noted in Church history because of his spirited fight for the title "Theotokos" during the First Council of Ephesus (431).


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: His writings include the homily given in Ephesus and several other sermons. Some of his alleged homilies are in dispute as to his authorship. In several writings, Cyril focuses on the love of Jesus to his mother. On the Cross, he overcomes his pain and thinks of his mother. At the wedding in Cana, he bows to her wishes. Cyril created the basis for all other mariological developments through his teaching of the blessed Virgin Mary, as the "Mother of God." The conflict with Nestorius was mainly over this issue, and it has often been misunderstood. "[T]he debate was not so much about Mary as about Jesus. The question was not what honors were due to Mary, but how one was to speak of the birth of Jesus."


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: St. Cyril received an important recognition of his preachings by the Second Council of Constantinople (553 d.C.) which declared;


title: Cyril of Alexandria

text: Cyril was a scholarly archbishop and a prolific writer. In the early years of his active life in the Church he wrote several exegetical documents. Among these were: "Commentaries on the Old Testament", "Thesaurus", "Discourse Against Arians", "Commentary on St. John's Gospel", and "Dialogues on the Trinity". In 429 as the Christological controversies increased, the output of his writings was so extensive that his opponents could not match it. His writings and his theology have remained central to the tradition of the Fathers and to all Orthodox to this day.


Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (often shortened to Lift Your Skinny Fists or LYSF), or on the rear of physical releases, is the second studio album by Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, released as a double album on October 9, 2000 on vinyl by Constellation and November 8, 2000 on CD by Kranky. It has been listed on multiple decade-end lists as one of the greatest albums of the 2000s.


The four tracks on "Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven" are composed of individually named internal movements. The album is primarily instrumental, except for sampled voice inserts and the one minute "Moya Sings 'Baby-O'...". The samples on the album are often used to send some satirical, political, or poetic message. The inner panels of the vinyl edition released by Constellation contain a diagram used to illustrate the relative lengths of movements within the four tracks; each movement is drawn by Efrim Menuck, as a rectangular block with its length determined by the proportion of the track it comprises. Some of the blocks are shifted slightly upwards to show an increase in intensity. The movement title and the numerical length are denoted either above or below the square. The same diagram is provided as a paper insert in the CD edition from Kranky.


title: Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

text: The inside cover drawings were taken from William Schaff's "Notes to a Friend; Silently Listening No. 2", illustrations taken "from a series of small little books [Schaff] self released in the late 90s, and early into the 21st century". The cover is a redrawn version, by John Arthur Tinholt, of one of Schaff's pieces from that series. The flip side of the vinyl contains various photographs taken by the band.


text: On Metacritic, the album has a score of 84 based on 13 reviews, indicating "Universal acclaim". "Pitchfork" called it a "massive and achingly beautiful work", describing the first disc as "a refinement of the sound that crystallized on the "Slow Riot EP"" whilst the second disc "flirts with moments of vertiginous shoegazing, looser rock drumming and reckless crescendos of unalloyed noise". "Alternative Press" called it "a massive instrumental effort" that is "as skilled and musical as it is on-the-fly improvised and messy". The A.V. Club called the album "as beautiful and disarming as its predecessors". Tiny Mix Tapes called the album "alternately hypnotic and captivating, sleepy and startling" comparing its sounds to "a far subtler Pink Floyd". "The Austin Chronicle" called it "cinematic" and "breathtaking in its grandiose beauty".


text: The album went on to be included in numerous year-end and decade-end music lists. "Magnet" included it in its "20 Best Albums of 2000" list. "NME" ranked it number 16 in its "Top 50 Albums of the Year". Sputnikmusic named it the 6th best album of the 2000s. "Pitchfork" named it the 5th best album of the year. and the 65th best album of the decade. They also ranked the first movement of the track 'Storm' at #283 on their list of "Top 500 tracks of the 2000s". Tiny Mix Tapes ranked it 7th on their "Favorite 100 Albums of 2000–2009" list. "LAS Magazine" ranked it the 14th greatest album of the decade. Gigwise included the album on its list of the 50 best albums of the 2000s. In their 20th anniversary review of pop culture from 2000, The A.V. Club published a piece on this album as one of their "Permanent Records", with reviewer Andrew Paul writing that it feels "prophetic" to listen to in the 21st century, with the content "somehow even more terrifying, beautiful, and awesome". A 2020 BBC overview of double albums lists this as an "honorable mention" for releases that the audience needs to hear. "Paste magazine" placed this album on 6 in their list of 50 post-rock albums of all time.


text: The album consists of four continuous tracks on the compact disc release split into two CDs. The double LP release has each track pressed onto its own side. Time lengths of individual movements are taken from the official discography. Times for each movement appear in the album's cover art, but those times are very inaccurate. While the movements of the tracks are listed, the names of the four tracks that make up the album are unlisted on the CD.


title: Sourabh Raaj Jain

text: Sourabh Raaj Jain (born 1 December 1985) is an Indian actor in Hindi television. He gained a household name with his portrayal of Lord Krishna in "Mahabharat" (2013–2014), that met with nationwide acclaim and proved to be a "game-changer" for him. His portrayal of Lord Vishnu in "Devon Ke Dev...Mahadev" and Lord Shiva in "Mahakali — Anth Hi Aarambh Hai" also received critical appraisal.


title: Sourabh Raaj Jain

text: Other notable television shows to his credit include "Kasamh Se", "Uttaran", "Chandragupta Maurya" and "Patiala Babes". Jain has participated in the reality shows "Nach Baliye 9" (2019) and "" (2021).


title: Sourabh Raaj Jain

text: Sourabh married Riddhima Jain in 2010, after three years of dating. They have participated together in the show "Nach Baliye 9". The couple became parents to twins Hrishika and Hrishiv on 21 August 2017.


title: René Goscinny

text: René Goscinny (, ; 14 August 1926 – 5 November 1977) was a French comic editor and writer, who created the "Astérix" comic book series with illustrator Albert Uderzo. Raised largely in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he attended French schools, he lived for a time in the United States. There he met Belgian cartoonist Morris. After his return to France, they collaborated for more than 20 years on the comic series "Lucky Luke" (in what was considered the series' golden age).


title: René Goscinny

text: He wrote "Iznogoud" with Jean Tabary. Goscinny also wrote a series of children's books known as "Le Petit Nicolas" ("Little Nicolas") illustrated by Jean-Jacques Sempé.


title: René Goscinny

text: Goscinny was born in Paris in 1926, to Jewish immigrants from Poland. His parents were Stanisław Simkha Gościnny, a chemical engineer from Warsaw, and Anna (Hanna) Bereśniak-Gościnna from Chodorków (Ходорків), a small village near Kyiv in Ukraine. Goscinny's maternal grandfather, Abraham Lazare Berezniak, founded a printing company. Claude, Goscinny's older brother, was six years older, born on 10 December 1920.


title: René Goscinny

text: Stanisław and Anna had met in Paris and married in 1919. When René was two, the Gościnnys moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, because his father had been hired as a chemical engineer there. René had a happy childhood in Buenos Aires and studied in French-language schools there. He was often the "class clown", probably to compensate for a natural shyness. He started drawing very early on, inspired by the illustrated stories which he enjoyed reading.


title: René Goscinny

text: In December 1943, the year after Goscinny graduated from lycée or high school, his father died of a cerebral hemorrhage (stroke). The youth had to go to work. The next year, he got his first job, as an assistant accountant in a tire recovery factory. After being laid off the following years, Goscinny became a junior illustrator in an advertising agency.


title: René Goscinny

text: Goscinny, along with his mother, emigrated from Argentina and immigrated to New York, United States in 1945, to join her brother Boris. To avoid service in the United States Armed Forces, he travelled to France to join the French Army in 1946. He served at Aubagne, in the 141st Alpine Infantry Battalion. Promoted to senior corporal, he became the appointed artist of the regiment and drew illustrations and posters for the army.


title: René Goscinny

text: The following year, Goscinny worked on an illustrated version of the Balzac short story "The Girl with the Golden Eyes." In April of that year he returned to New York.


title: René Goscinny

text: There he went through the most difficult period of his life. For a while, Goscinny was jobless, alone, and living in poverty. By 1948, though, he had begun working in a small studio, where he became friends with future "MAD Magazine" contributors Will Elder, Jack Davis, and Harvey Kurtzman. Goscinny became art director at Kunen Publishers, where he wrote four books for children.


title: René Goscinny

text: Around this time he met two Belgian comic artists, Joseph Gillain, better known as Jijé, and Maurice de Bevere, also known as Morris. Morris lived in the US for six years, having already started his cartoon series "Lucky Luke." (He and Goscinny collaborated on this, with Goscinny writing it from 1955 until his death in 1977, a period described as its golden age).


title: René Goscinny

text: Georges Troisfontaines, chief of the World Press agency, convinced Goscinny to return to France in 1951 in order to work for his agency as the head of the Paris office. There he met Albert Uderzo, with whom he started a longtime collaboration. They started out with some work for "Bonnes Soirées", a women's magazine for which Goscinny wrote "Sylvie". Goscinny and Uderzo also launched the series "Jehan Pistolet" and "Luc Junior," in the magazine "La Libre Junior".


title: René Goscinny

text: In 1955, Goscinny, together with Uderzo, Jean-Michel Charlier, and Jean Hébrad, founded the syndicate Edipress/Edifrance. The syndicate launched publications such as "Clairon" for the factory union and "Pistolin" for a chocolate company. Goscinny and Uderzo cooperated on the series "Bill Blanchart" in "Jeannot", "Pistolet" in "Pistolin," and "Benjamin et Benjamine" in the magazine of the same name. Under the pseudonym Agostini, Goscinny wrote "Le Petit Nicolas" for Jean-Jacques Sempé in "Le Moustique." It was later published in "Sud-Ouest" and "Pilote" magazines.


title: René Goscinny

text: In 1956, Goscinny began a collaboration with "Tintin" magazine. He wrote some short stories for Jo Angenot and Albert Weinberg, and worked on "Signor Spaghetti" with Dino Attanasio, "Monsieur Tric" with Bob de Moor, "Prudence Petitpas" with Maurice Maréchal, "Globul le Martien" and "Alphonse" with Tibet, "Strapontin" with Berck and "Modeste et Pompon" with André Franquin. An early creation with Uderzo, "Oumpah-pah", was also adapted for serial publication in "Tintin" from 1958 to 1962. In addition, Goscinny appeared in the magazines "Paris-Flirt" ("Lili Manequin" with Will) and "Vaillant" ("Boniface et Anatole" with Jordom, "Pipsi" with Godard).


title: René Goscinny

text: In 1959, the Édifrance/Édipresse syndicate started the Franco-Belgian comics magazine "Pilote". Goscinny became one of the most productive writers for the magazine. In the magazine's first issue, he launched "Astérix", with Uderzo. The series was an instant hit and remains popular worldwide. Goscinny also restarted the series "Le Petit Nicolas" and "Jehan Pistolet", now called "Jehan Soupolet". Goscinny also began "Jacquot le Mousse" and "Tromblon et Bottaclou" with Godard.


title: René Goscinny

text: The magazine was bought by Georges Dargaud in 1960, and Goscinny became editor-in-chief. He also began new series like "Les Divagations de Monsieur Sait-Tout" (with Martial), "La Potachologie Illustrée" (with Cabu), "Les Dingodossiers" (with Gotlib) and "La Forêt de Chênebeau" (with Mic Delinx). With Tabary, he launched "Calife Haroun El Poussah" in "Record", a series that was later continued in "Pilote" as "Iznogoud". With Raymond Macherot he created "Pantoufle" for "Spirou".


title: René Goscinny

text: Goscinny married Gilberte Pollaro-Millo in 1967. In 1968 their daughter Anne Goscinny was born. She also became an author.


title: René Goscinny

text: Anne Goscinny, the daughter of René Goscinny, co-wrote the screenplay for "Little Nicholas: Happy As Can Be," 2022 animation film with Michel Fessler and Massoubre.


title: René Goscinny

text: Goscinny died at 51, in Paris of cardiac arrest on 5 November 1977, during a routine stress test at his doctor's office. He was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Nice. In accordance with his will, most of his money was transferred to the chief rabbinate of France.


title: René Goscinny

text: Goscinny's death occurred halfway through the writing of "Asterix in Belgium" (published in 1979, two years after his death). As a homage to Goscinny, Uderzo drew darkened skies and rain into the comic for the rest of the book, to mark the point at which Goscinny died. There is a further tribute at the end of "Asterix in Belgium"; near the lower left corner of the final panel of the album, Uderzo drew a rabbit sadly looking over its shoulders towards Goscinny's signature.