title: Free verse

text: Imagism, in the wake of French Symbolism (i.e. vers libre of French Symbolist poets) was the wellspring out of which the main current of Modernism in English flowed. T. S. Eliot later identified this as "the point de repere usually taken as the starting point of modern poetry," as hundreds of poets were led to adopt vers libre as their medium.


title: Free verse

text: As the French-language term "vers libre" suggests, this technique of using more irregular cadences is often said to have its origin in the practices of 19th-century French poets such as Gustave Kahn and Jules Laforgue, in his "Derniers vers" of 1890. Taupin, the US-based French poet and critic, concluded that free verse and "vers libre" are not synonymous, since "the French language tends to give equal weight to each spoken syllable, whereas English syllables vary in quantity according to whether stressed or unstressed."


title: Free verse

text: The sort of cadencing that we now recognize in free verse can be traced back at least as far as the Biblical Hebrew psalmist poetry of the Bible. By referring to the , it is possible to argue that free verse in English first appeared in the 1380s in the John Wycliffe translation of the Psalms and was repeated in different form in most biblical translations ever since.


title: Free verse

text: Walt Whitman, who based his long lines in his poetry collection "Leaves of Grass" on the phrasing of the King James Bible, influenced later American free verse composers, notably Allen Ginsberg. One form of free verse was employed by Christopher Smart in his long poem "Jubilate Agno" (Latin: "Rejoice in the Lamb"), written some time between 1759 and 1763 but not published until 1939.


title: Free verse

text: Many poets of the Victorian era experimented with free verse. Christina Rossetti, Coventry Patmore, and T. E. Brown all wrote examples of rhymed but unmetered verse, poems such as W. E. Henley's "Discharged" (from his "In Hospital" sequence).


title: Free verse

text: Free verse in English was persuasively advocated by critic T. E. Hulme in his "A Lecture on Modern Poetry" (1908). Later in the preface to "Some Imagist Poets" 1916, he comments, "Only the name is new, you will find something much like "vers libre" in Dryden's "Threnodia Augustalis"; a great deal of Milton's "Samson Agonistes", and the oldest in Chaucer's "House of Fame"."


title: Free verse

text: In France, a few pieces in Arthur Rimbaud's prose poem collection "Illuminations" were arranged in manuscript in lines, rather than prose, and in the Netherlands, tachtiger (i.e., a member of the 1880s generation of innovative poets) Frederik van Eeden employed the form at least once in his poem "Waterlelie" ("Water Lily").


title: Free verse

text: Goethe in some early poems, such as "Prometheus" and also Hölderlin used free verse occasionally, due in part to a misinterpretation of the meter used in Pindar's poetry. Hölderlin also continued to write unmetered poems after discovering this error.


title: Free verse

text: The German poet Heinrich Heine made an important contribution to the development of free verse with 22 poems, written in two-poem cycles, called "Die Nordsee" ("The North Sea") (written 1825–1826). These were first published in "Buch der Lieder" ("Book of Songs") in 1827.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: Stephenson's "Rocket" is an early steam locomotive of 0-2-2 wheel arrangement. It was built for and won the Rainhill Trials of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), held in October 1829 to show that improved locomotives would be more efficient than stationary steam engines.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: "Rocket" was designed and built by Robert Stephenson in 1829, and built at the Forth Street Works of his company in Newcastle upon Tyne.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: Though "Rocket" was by no means the first steam locomotive, it was the first to bring together several innovations to produce the most advanced locomotive of its day. It is the most famous example of an evolving design of locomotives by Stephenson that became the template for most steam engines in the following 150 years.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: The locomotive was preserved and displayed in the Science Museum in London until 2018, after which it was displayed at the National Railway Museum in York.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: The locomotive had a tall smokestack chimney at the front, a cylindrical boiler in the middle, and a separate firebox at the rear.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: The large front pair of wooden wheels was driven by two external cylinders set at an angle. The smaller rear wheels were not coupled to the driving wheels, giving an 0-2-2 wheel arrangement.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: Stephenson designed "Rocket" for the Rainhill trials, and the specific rules of that contest. As the first railway intended for passengers more than freight, the rules emphasised speed and would require reliability, but the weight of the locomotive was also tightly restricted. Six-wheeled locomotives were limited to six tons, four-wheeled locomotives to four and a half tons. In particular, the weight of the train expected to be hauled was to be no more than three times the actual weight of the locomotive. Stephenson realised that whatever the size of previously successful locomotives, this new contest would favour a fast, light locomotive of only moderate hauling power.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: Stephenson's most visible decision was to use a single pair of driving wheels, with a small carrying axle behind. This was the first 0-2-2 and first single driver locomotive. The use of single drivers gave several advantages. The weight of coupling rods was avoided and the second axle could be smaller and lightweight, as it only carried a small portion of the weight. "Rocket" placed just over  tons of its  ton total weight onto its driving wheels, a higher axle load than "Sans Pareil", even though the 0-4-0 was heavier overall at 5 ton, and officially disqualified by being over the  ton limit. Early locomotive designers had been concerned that the adhesion of a locomotive's driving wheels would be inadequate, but Stephenson's past experience convinced him that this would not be a problem, particularly with the light trains of the trials contest.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: "Rocket" uses a multi-tubular boiler design. Previous locomotive boilers consisted of a single pipe surrounded by water (though the "Lancashire Witch" did have twin flues). "Rocket" had 25 copper fire-tubes that carry the hot exhaust gas from the firebox, through the wet boiler to the blast pipe and chimney. This arrangement resulted in a greatly increased surface contact area of hot pipe with boiler water when compared to a single large flue. Additionally, radiant heating from the enlarged separate firebox helped deliver a further increase in steaming and hence boiler efficiency.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: The original innovator of multiple fire-tubes is unclear, between Stephenson and Marc Seguin. It is known that Seguin visited Stephenson to observe "Locomotion" and that he also built two multi-tubular locomotives of his own design for the Saint-Étienne–Lyon railway before "Rocket". "Rocket"s boiler was of the more highly developed form, with the separate firebox and a blastpipe for draught, rather than Seguin's cumbersome fans, but "Rocket" was not the first multi-tubular boiler, although it remains unclear just whose invention it was.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: The benefits of increasing the fire-tube area had also been attempted with Ericsson and Braithwaite's "Novelty" at Rainhill. Their design though used a single fire-tube, folded in three. This offered an increased surface area, but only at the cost of a proportionately increased length and so poor draught on the fire. Its arrangement also made tube cleaning impractical.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: The advantages of the multiple-tube boiler were quickly recognised, even for heavy, slow freight locomotives. By 1830, Stephenson's past employee Timothy Hackworth had re-designed his return-flued "Royal George" as the return-tubed "Wilberforce" class.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: "Rocket" also used a blastpipe, feeding the exhaust steam from the cylinders into the base of the chimney so as to induce a partial vacuum and pull air through the fire. Credit for the invention of the blastpipe is disputed, though Stephenson used it as early as 1814. The blastpipe worked well on the multi-tube boiler of "Rocket" but on earlier designs with a single flue through the boiler it had created so much suction that it tended to rip the top off the fire and throw burning cinders out of the chimney, vastly increasing the fuel consumption.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: Like the "Lancashire Witch", "Rocket" had two cylinders set at angle from the horizontal, with the pistons driving a pair of diameter wheels. Most previous designs had the cylinders positioned vertically, which gave the engines an uneven swaying motion as they progressed along the track. Subsequently, "Rocket" was modified so that the cylinders were set close to horizontal, a layout that influenced nearly all designs that followed.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: Again like the "Lancashire Witch", the pistons were connected directly to the driving wheels, an arrangement which is found in subsequent steam locomotives.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: The firebox was separate from the boiler and was double walled, with a water jacket between them. Stephenson recognised that the hottest part of the boiler, and thus the most effective for evaporating water, was that surrounding the fire itself. This firebox was heated by radiant heat from the glowing coke, not just convection from the hot exhaust gas.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: Locomotives of "Rocket"s era were fired by coke rather than coal. Local landowners were already familiar with the dark clouds of smoke from coal-fired stationary engines and had imposed regulations on most new railways that locomotives would 'consume their own smoke'. The smoke from a burning coke fire was much cleaner than that from coal. It was not until 30 years later and the development of the long firebox and brick arch that locomotives would be effectively able to burn coal directly.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: "Rocket"s first firebox was of copper sheet and of a somewhat triangular shape from the side. The throatplate was of firebrick, possibly the backhead too. When rebuilt around 1831, this was replaced by a wrought iron backhead and throatplate, with a drum wrapper (now missing), presumed to be of copper, between them. This gave a larger internal volume and encouraged better combustion within the firebox, rather than inside the tubes. These early fireboxes formed a separate water space from the boiler drum and were connected by prominent external copper pipes.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: There have been differences in opinion on who should be given the credit for designing "Rocket". George Stephenson had designed several locomotives before but none as advanced as "Rocket". At the time that "Rocket" was being designed and built at the Forth Banks Works, he was living in Liverpool overseeing the building of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. His son Robert had recently returned from a stint working in South America and resumed as managing director of Robert Stephenson and Company. He was in daily charge of designing and constructing the new locomotive. Although he was in frequent contact with his father in Liverpool and probably received advice from him, it is difficult not to give the majority of the credit for the design to Robert. A third person who may deserve a significant amount of credit is Henry Booth, the treasurer of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. He is believed to have suggested to Robert Stephenson that a multi-tube boiler should be used.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: "Rocket" was built at a time of rapid development of steam engine technology. It was based on experience gained from earlier designs by George and Robert Stephenson, including the Killingworth locomotive "Blücher" (1814); "Locomotion" (1825); and the "Lancashire Witch" (1828).


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: "Rocket" was followed by a number of other engines of similar 0-2-2 layout with rear-mounted cylinders built for the L&MR before it opened on 15 September 1830, culminating in the "Northumbrian" (1830), by which time the cylinders were horizontal. Other engines of the "Rocket" design which were delivered to the Liverpool and Manchester railway included "Arrow", "Comet", "Dart" and "Meteor", all being delivered to the railway during 1830.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: At around the same time, Stephenson experimented with front-mounted cylinders. The unsuccessful 0-4-0 "Invicta", built in 1829 immediately after "Rocket", still had them at an angle. The successful 2-2-0 locomotive "Planet" (1830) had internal front-mounted cylinders set to the horizontal.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: Engines built to the "Planet" design and the subsequent 2-2-2 "Patentee" design of 1833 made the design of "Rocket" obsolete.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: On 20 April 1829, the board of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway project passed a resolution for a competition to be held to prove their railway could be reliably operated by steam locomotives, there being advice from eminent engineers of the age that stationary engines would be required. A prize of £500 was offered as an incentive to the winner, with strict conditions a locomotive would need to meet to enter the trial. Robert Stephenson was able to report to Henry Booth on 5 September 1829 that "Rocket" had performed initial manufacturer tests with flying colours at Killingworth. "Rocket" was dismantled at Newcastle and began the long trip to Rainhill: by horse wagon to Carlisle; lighter to Port Carlisle then by the "Cumberland" steamer to Liverpool for re-assembly on 18 September 1829. "Rocket" passed the trial requirement of achieving an average speed of over by over 40 percent. Demonstrations also saw "Rocket" consistently and easily haul a carriage of over 20 person up the Whiston incline at over , and light engine running of around . No other locomotive at the trials was able to achieve anything like the level of performance reliably, with partners Booth and Stephensons sharing the £500 winnings, and perhaps more importantly the need for stationary engines being demonstrated as unnecessary with sceptics such as Rastrick on the way to conversion.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: The opening ceremony of the L&MR on 15 September 1830 was a considerable event, drawing luminaries from the government and industry, including the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington. The day started with a procession of eight trains setting out from Liverpool for Manchester. The parade was led by "Northumbrian" driven by George Stephenson, and included "Phoenix" driven by his son Robert, "North Star" driven by his brother Robert Sr. and "Rocket" driven by assistant engineer Joseph Locke. The day was marred by the death of William Huskisson, the Member of Parliament for Liverpool, who was struck and killed by "Rocket" at Parkside.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: After service on the L&MR, "Rocket" was used between 1836 and 1840 on Lord Carlisle's Railway near Brampton, in Cumberland (now Cumbria), England.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: Built as a prototype to win a speed trial, the engine was soon superseded by improved designs, such as Stephenson's "Northumbrian" and "Planet" designs, both of 1830.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: Within a few years, the "Rocket" itself had been much modified to be similar to the "Northumbrian" class. The cylinders were altered to a near-horizontal position, compared to the angled arrangement as new; the firebox capacity was enlarged and the shape simplified; and the locomotive was given a drum smokebox. These arrangements can be seen in the engine today.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: Such are the changes in the engine from 1829 that "The Engineer" magazine, circa 1884, concluded that "it seems to us indisputable that the "Rocket" of 1829 and 1830 were totally different engines".


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: In 1834, the engine was selected for further (unsuccessful) modifications to test a newly developed rotary steam engine designed by Admiral The 10th Earl of Dundonald. At a cost of nearly £80, "Rocket"s cylinders and driving rods were removed and two of the engines were installed directly on its driving axle with a feedwater pump in between. On 22 October, of that year, an operational trial was held with disappointing results; one witness observing, that "the engine could not be made to draw a train of empty carriages". Due to inherent design flaws and engineering difficulties associated with their design, Lord Dundonald's engines were simply too feeble for the task.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: In 1836, "Rocket" was sold for £300 and began service on the Brampton Railway, a mineral railway in Cumberland that had recently converted to Stephenson gauge. It remained here at Tindale, after service, until 1862 and its donation to the Patent Office Museum, London.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: In 1862, "Rocket" was donated to the Patent Office Museum in London (now the Science Museum) by the Thompsons of Milton Hall, near Brampton.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: The locomotive still exists, though it has not been operated since becoming a museum exhibit. It was displayed at the Science Museum for 150 years, although in a form much modified from its state at the Rainhill Trials. In 2018, it was displayed first in Newcastle and then in Manchester at the Science and Industry Museum from 25 September 2018 to 8 September 2019. From 2019, it has been displayed at the National Railway Museum, York.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: In 1923, Buster Keaton had a functioning replica built for the film "Our Hospitality". Two years later, the replica was used again in the Al St. John film, "The Iron Mule", directed by Keaton's mentor, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. The subsequent whereabouts of the replica are unknown. There are, however, at least two other replicas of "Rocket" in the US, both built by Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns in 1929; one is at the Henry Ford Museum in the Metro Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, the other at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: The earliest full-size replica of "Rocket" seems to have been one depicted on a London and North Western Railway postcard (therefore pre-1923).


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: A cut-away static replica (see photo above) was built in 1935 and displayed for many years next to the original at London's Science Museum.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: In 1979, a further, working replica "Rocket" was built by Locomotion Enterprises in the Springwell workshops at the Bowes Railway for the 150th anniversary celebrations. It first worked in public on a short length of track in front of the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens from 25 August to 2 September 1979, before going to Newcastle on 9 September, York on 16 October and running the measured mile, between Lea Green and Rainhill, on the last two days at the Rocket 150 celebrations from 24 to 26 May 1980. It has a shorter chimney than the original to clear the bridge at Rainhill: successive additions of ballast and heavier rail have raised the track, leaving less headroom than in the 19th century. As of 2022, both of these replicas were based at the National Railway Museum, York, with the original "Rocket".


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: In 1963, Tri-ang Railways released a 00 Gauge model of "Rocket" containing three coaches and crew members. It was produced until 1969 by Tri-ang Hornby.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: It was re-introduced to the Hornby range in 1982 until 1983 in Hornby Railways packaging. However this 1982 re-introduced model was un-catalogued, and it was only available through exclusive retailers and from Hornby directly.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: In 1980, as part of the Rocket 150 anniversary, Hornby launched a gauge live steam "Rocket" locomotive, with additional track and coaches available separately.


title: Stephenson's Rocket

text: In 2020, Hornby announced a newly tooled 00 Gauge model of Stephenson's "Rocket" with three coaches and crew members as part of their Centenary range. It was available as a standard model and a limited edition with commemorative certificate of authentication in retro 1963 Hornby Centenary Tri-ang Railways packaging.


title: Sodalite

text: Sodalite ( ) is a tectosilicate mineral with the formula , with royal blue varieties widely used as an ornamental gemstone. Although massive sodalite samples are opaque, crystals are usually transparent to translucent. Sodalite is a member of the sodalite group with hauyne, nosean, lazurite and tugtupite.


title: Sodalite

text: First discovered by Europeans in 1811 in the Ilimaussaq intrusive complex in Greenland, sodalite did not become important as an ornamental stone until 1891 when vast deposits of fine material were discovered in Ontario, Canada.


title: Sodalite

text: The structure of sodalite was first studied by Linus Pauling in 1930. It is a cubic mineral of space group P3n () which consists of an aluminosilicate cage network with Na cations and chloride anions in the interframework. (There may be small amounts of other cations and anions instead.) This framework forms a zeolite cage structure. Each unit cell has two cavities, which have almost the same structure as the borate cage found in the zinc borate , the beryllosilicate cage , and the aluminate cage in ), and as in the similar mineral tugtupite () (see Haüyne#Sodalite group). There is one cavity around each chloride ion. One chloride is located at the corners of the unit cell, and the other at the centre. Each cavity has chiral tetrahedral symmetry, and the cavities around these two chloride locations are mirror images one of the other (a glide plane or a four-fold improper rotation takes one into the other). There are four sodium ions around each chloride ion (at one distance, and four more at a greater distance), surrounded by twelve tetrahedra and twelve tetrahedra. The silicon and aluminum atoms are located at the corners of a truncated octahedron with the chloride and four sodium atoms inside. (A similar structure called "carbon sodalite" may occur as a very high pressure form of carbon — see illustration in reference.) Each oxygen atom links between an tetrahedron and an tetrahedron. All the oxygen atoms are equivalent, but one half are in environments that are enantiomorphic to the environments of the other half. The silicon atoms are at the locations


title: Sodalite

text: The three silicon atoms and the three aluminum atoms listed above closest to a given corner of the unit cell form a six-membered ring of tetrahedra, and the four in any face of the unit cell form a four-membered ring of tetrahedra. The six-membered rings can serve as channels in which ions can diffuse through the crystal.


title: Sodalite

text: The structure is a crumpled form of a structure in which the three-fold axes of each tetrahedron lie in planes parallel to the faces of the unit cell, thus putting half the oxygen atoms in the faces. As the temperature is raised the sodalite structure expands and uncrumples, becoming more like this structure. In this structure the two cavities are still chiral, because no indirect isometry centred on the cavity (i.e. a reflexion, inversion, or improper rotation) can superimpose the silicon atoms onto silicon atoms and the aluminum atoms onto aluminum atoms, while also superimposing the sodium atoms on other sodium atoms. A discontinuity of the thermal expansion coefficient occurs at a certain temperature when chloride is replaced by sulfate or iodide, and this is thought to happen when the framework becomes fully expanded or when the cation (sodium in natural sodalite) reaches the coordinates (1/4, 1/4, 1/4) (et cetera). This adds symmetry (such as mirror planes in the faces of the unit cell) so that the space group becomes Pmn (), and the cavities cease to be chiral and take on pyritohedral symmetry.


title: Sodalite

text: Natural sodalite holds primarily chloride anions in the cages, but they can be substituted by other anions such as sulfate, sulfide, hydroxide, trisulfur with other minerals in the sodalite group representing end member compositions. The sodium can be replaced by other alkali group elements, and the chloride by other halides. Many of these have been synthesized.


title: Sodalite

text: A light, relatively hard yet fragile mineral, sodalite is named after its sodium content; in mineralogy it may be classed as a feldspathoid. Well known for its blue color, sodalite may also be grey, yellow, green, or pink and is often mottled with white veins or patches. The more uniformly blue material is used in jewellery, where it is fashioned into cabochons and beads. Lesser material is more often seen as facing or inlay in various applications.


title: Sodalite

text: Although somewhat similar to lazurite and lapis lazuli, sodalite rarely contains pyrite (a common inclusion in lapis) and its blue color is more like traditional royal blue rather than ultramarine. It is further distinguished from similar minerals by its white (rather than blue) streak. Sodalite's six directions of poor cleavage may be seen as incipient cracks running through the stone.


title: Sodalite

text: Hackmanite is a variety of sodalite exhibiting tenebrescence. When hackmanite from Mont Saint-Hilaire (Quebec) or Ilímaussaq (Greenland) is freshly quarried, it is generally pale to deep violet but the color fades quickly to greyish or greenish white. Conversely, hackmanite from Afghanistan and the Myanmar Republic (Burma) starts off creamy white but develops a violet to pink-red color in sunlight. If left in a dark environment for some time, the violet will fade again. Tenebrescence is accelerated by the use of longwave or, particularly, shortwave ultraviolet light. Much sodalite will also fluoresce a patchy orange under UV light.


title: Sodalite

text: Sodalite was first described in 1811 for the occurrence in its type locality in the Ilimaussaq complex, Narsaq, West Greenland.


title: Sodalite

text: Occurring typically in massive form, sodalite is found as vein fillings in plutonic igneous rocks such as nepheline syenites. It is associated with other minerals typical of silica-undersaturated environments, namely leucite, cancrinite and natrolite. Other associated minerals include nepheline, titanian andradite, aegirine, microcline, sanidine, albite, calcite, fluorite, ankerite and baryte.


title: Sodalite

text: Significant deposits of fine material are restricted to but a few locales: Bancroft, Ontario (Princess Sodalite Mine), and Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, in Canada; and Litchfield, Maine, and Magnet Cove, Arkansas, in the US. The Ice River complex, near Golden, British Columbia, contains sodalite. Smaller deposits are found in South America (Brazil and Bolivia), Portugal, Romania, Burma and Russia. Hackmanite is found principally in Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Greenland.


title: Sodalite

text: "Sodalitite" is a type of extrusive igneous rock rich in sodalite. Its intrusive equivalent is "sodalitolite".


title: Sodalite

text: The mesoporous cage structure of sodalite makes it useful as a container material for many anions. Some of the anions known to have been included in sodalite-structure materials include nitrate, iodide, iodate, permanganate, perchlorate, and perrhenate.


title: Dave Arneson

text: David Lance Arneson (; October 1, 1947 – April 7, 2009) was an American game designer best known for co-developing the first published role-playing game (RPG), "Dungeons & Dragons", with Gary Gygax, in the early 1970s. Arneson's early work was fundamental to the development of the genre, developing the concept of the RPG using devices now considered to be archetypical, such as adventuring in "dungeons" and using a neutral judge who doubles as the voice and consciousness of all characters aside from the player characters to develop the storyline.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Arneson discovered wargaming as a teenager in the 1960s, and he began combining these games with the concept of role-playing. He was a University of Minnesota student when he met Gygax at the Gen Con gaming convention in the late 1960s. In 1970 Arneson created the game and fictional world that became "Blackmoor", writing his own rules and basing the setting on medieval fantasy elements. Arneson showed the game to Gygax the following year, and the pair co-developed a set of rules that became "Dungeons & Dragons" ("D&D"). Gygax subsequently founded TSR, Inc. to publish the game in 1974. Arneson worked briefly for the company.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Arneson left TSR in 1976, and he filed suit in 1979 to retain credits and royalties on the game. He continued to work as an independent game designer, including work submitted to TSR in the 1980s, and continued to play games for his entire life. Arneson also did some work in computer programming, and he taught computer game design and game rules design at Full Sail University from the 1990s until shortly before his death in 2009.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Arneson's role-playing game design work grew from his interest in wargames. His parents bought him the board wargame "Gettysburg" by Avalon Hill. After Arneson taught his friends how to play, the group began to design their own games, and tried out new ways to play existing games. Arneson was especially fond of naval wargames. Exposure to role-playing influenced his later game designs. In college history classes he role-played historical events and preferred to deviate from recorded history in a manner similar to "what if" scenarios recreated in wargames.


title: Dave Arneson

text: In the late 1960s Arneson joined the Midwest Military Simulation Association (MMSA), a group of miniature wargamers and military figurine collectors in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area that included among its ranks future game designer David Wesely. Wesely asserts that it was during the "Braunstein" games he created and refereed, and in which other MMSA members participated, that Arneson helped develop the foundations of modern role-playing games on a 1:1 scale basis by focusing on non-combat objectives—a step away from wargaming towards the more individual play and varied challenges of later RPGs. Arneson was a participant in Wesely's wargame scenarios and, as Arneson continued to run his own scenarios, he eventually expanded them to include ideas from "The Lord of the Rings" and "Dark Shadows". Arneson took over the Braunsteins when Wesely was drafted into the Army, and he often ran them in different eras with different settings. Arneson had also become a member of the International Federation of Wargamers by this time.


title: Dave Arneson

text: In 1969 Arneson was a history student at the University of Minnesota and working part-time as a security guard. He attended the second Gen Con gaming convention in August 1969 (at which time wargaming was still the primary focus) and it was at this event that he met Gary Gygax, who had founded the Castle & Crusade Society within the International Federation of Wargamers in the 1960s at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Arneson and Gygax also shared an interest in sailing ship games and they co-authored the "Don't Give Up the Ship" naval battle rules, serialized from June 1971 and later published as a single volume in 1972 by Guidon Games with a revised edition by TSR, Inc. in 1975.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Following the departure of David Wesely to service in the Army Reserves in October 1970, Arneson and his fellow players in the Twin Cities began to imagine alternate settings for "Braunstein" games. Arneson developed a Braunstein in which his players played fantasy versions of themselves in the medieval Barony of Blackmoor, a land inhabited in part by fantastic monsters. As the game quickly grew and characters developed, Arneson devised scenarios where they would quest for magic and gold, escort caravans, lead armies for or against the forces of evil, and delve into the dungeons beneath Castle Blackmoor (which was represented by a Kibri kit model of Branzoll Castle). To explain his inspiration for the game, Arneson said:


title: Dave Arneson

text: Arneson drew heavily upon the fantasy material in the "Chainmail" rules, written by Gygax and Jeff Perren and published in the spring of 1971, but after a short and unsatisfactory trial of the Fantasy Combat table found therein, he developed his own mix of rules, including adapted elements from his revision of Civil War Ironclad game. The gameplay would be recognizable to modern "D&D" players, featuring the use of hit points, armor class, character development, and dungeon crawls. This setting was fleshed out over time and continues to be played to the present day.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Much of the fantasy medieval trope of "D&D", such as the concept of adventuring in "dungeons" originated with "Blackmoor", but it also incorporated time travel and science fiction elements. These are visible much later in the DA module series published by TSR (particularly "City of the Gods"), but were also present from the early to mid-1970s in the original campaign and parallel and intertwined games run by John Snider, whose ruleset developed from these adventures and was intended for publication by TSR from 1974 as the first science fiction RPG. Arneson described "Blackmoor" as "roleplaying in a non-traditional medieval setting. I have such things as steam power, gunpowder, and submarines in limited numbers. There was even a tank running around for a while. The emphasis is on the story and the roleplaying." Details of "Blackmoor" and the original campaign, established on the map of the Castle & Crusade Society's "Great Kingdom", were first brought to print briefly in issue #13 of the "Domesday Book", the newsletter of the Castle & Crusade Society in July 1972, and later in much-expanded form as "The First Fantasy Campaign", published by Judges Guild in 1977.


title: Dave Arneson

text: In November 1972, Dave Arneson and Dave Megarry traveled to Lake Geneva to meet with Gary Gygax, to provide a demonstration of "Blackmoor" and "Dungeon!" While meeting at Gygax's house, Dave Arneson ran the Lake Geneva gamers through their first session of "Blackmoor". Rob Kuntz describes Dave Arneson as the referee, and the Lake Geneva players as being Gary Gygax, Ernie Gygax, Terry Kuntz, and himself. Kuntz describes Dave Megarry as the de facto leader of the group, as he understood the "Blackmoor" game and campaign world. In "Wargaming" magazine, Rob Kuntz wrote a short summary of their first "Blackmoor" session:


title: Dave Arneson

text: After playing in the "Blackmoor" game Arneson refereed, Gygax almost immediately began a similar campaign of his own, which he called "Greyhawk", and asked Arneson for a draft of his playing-rules. The two then collaborated by phone and mail, and playtesting was carried out by their various groups and other contacts. Gygax and Arneson wanted to have the game published, but Guidon Games and Avalon Hill rejected it. Arneson could not afford to invest in the venture.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Gygax felt that there was a need to publish the game as soon as possible, since similar projects were being planned elsewhere, so rules were hastily put together, and Arneson's own final draft was never used. Despite all this, Brian Blume eventually provided the funding required to publish the original "Dungeons & Dragons" set in 1974, with the initial print run of 1,000 selling out within a year and sales increasing rapidly in subsequent years. Further rules and a sample dungeon from Arneson's original campaign (the first published RPG scenario in a professional publication) were released in 1975 in the "Blackmoor" supplement for "D&D", named after the campaign-setting. "Blackmoor" included new classes for monks and assassins, more monsters, and "The Temple of the Frog", the first published RPG adventure for other people to run.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Arneson formally joined TSR as their Director of Research at the beginning of 1976, but left at the end of the year to pursue a career as an independent game-designer.


title: Dave Arneson

text: In 1977, despite the fact that he was no longer at TSR, Arneson published "Dungeonmaster's Index", a 38-page booklet that indexed all of TSR's "D&D" properties to that point in time.


title: Dave Arneson

text: TSR had agreed to pay Arneson royalties on all "D&D" products, but when the company came out with "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" ("AD&D") in 1977, it claimed that "AD&D" was a significantly different product and so did not pay him royalties for it. In response, Arneson filed the first of five lawsuits against Gygax and TSR in 1979. In March 1981, as part of a confidential agreement, Arneson and Gygax resolved the suits out of court by agreeing that they would both be credited as "co-creators" on the packaging of "D&D" products from that point on, and Arneson would receive a 2.5% royalty on all "AD&D" products. This provided him with a comfortable six-figure annual income for the next twenty years. This did not end the lingering tensions between them.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Arneson wrote up the Blackmoor setting for Judges Guild in "The First Fantasy Campaign" (1977). In 1979 Arneson and Richard L. Snider, an original "Blackmoor" player, co-authored "Adventures in Fantasy", a role-playing game that attempted to recapture the "original spirit of the Role Playing Fantasy Game" that Arneson had envisioned in the early 1970s, instead of what "D&D" had become. In the early 1980s he established his own game company, Adventure Games – staffed largely by Arneson's friends, most of whom were also members of a Civil War reenactment group – that produced the miniatures games "Harpoon" (1981) and "Johnny Reb" (1983), as well as a new edition of his own "Adventures in Fantasy" role-playing game (1981). The company also put out about a half-dozen Tékumel related books, due to Arneson's friendship with M. A. R. Barker. Adventure Games was profitable, but Arneson found the workload to be excessive and finally sold the company to Flying Buffalo. Flying Buffalo picked up the rights to Adventure Games in 1985; because Arneson owned a portion of Flying Buffalo, he let them take care of the rest of the company's stock and IP when he shut the company down.


title: Dave Arneson

text: While Gary Gygax was president of TSR in the mid-1980s, he and Arneson reconnected, and Arneson briefly relinked "Blackmoor" to "D&D" with the "DA" (Dave Arneson) series of modules set in Blackmoor (1986–1987). The four modules, three of which were written by Arneson, detailed Arneson's campaign setting for the first time. When Gygax was forced out of TSR, Arneson's projects were dropped from the company before a planned fifth module could be published. Gygax and Arneson again went their separate ways. In 1986 Arneson wrote a new "D&D" module set in Blackmoor called "The Garbage Pits of Despair", which was published in two parts in "Different Worlds" magazine issues #42 and #43.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Arneson and Dustin Clingman founded Zeitgeist Games to produce an updated d20 System version of the "Blackmoor" setting. Goodman Games published and distributed "Dave Arneson's Blackmoor" in 2004, and Goodman produced a few more Blackmoor products in the next year. Code Monkey Publishing released "Dave Arneson's Blackmoor: The First Campaign" (2009) for 4th edition "D&D".


title: Dave Arneson

text: In 1988 Arneson stated his belief that RPGs, whether paper or computer, were still "hack and slash" and did not teach novices how to play, and that games like "Ultima IV" "have stood pretty much alone as quirks instead of trend setters" as others did not follow their innovations. He hoped that computer RPGs would teach newcomers how to role play while offering interesting campaigns and said that SSI's Gold Box games did not innovate on the genre as much as he had hoped. Arneson stepped into the computer industry and founded 4D Interactive Systems, a computer company in Minnesota that has since dissolved. He also did some computer programming and worked on several games. He eventually found himself consulting with computer companies. Arneson wrote the 1989 adventure "DNA / DOA", the first adventure published for the FASA fantasy/cyberpunk game "Shadowrun", which was released the same year.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Living in California in the late 1980s, Arneson had a chance to work with special education children. Upon returning to Minnesota, he pursued teaching and began speaking at schools about educational uses of role-playing and using multi-sided dice to teach math.


title: Dave Arneson

text: In the 1990s he began working at Full Sail, a private university that teaches multimedia subjects, and continued there as an instructor of computer game design until 2008. At Full Sail University he taught the class "Rules of the Game", a class in which students learned how to accurately document and create rule sets for games that were balanced between mental challenges for the players and "physical" ones for the characters. He retired from the position on June 19, 2008.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Arneson continued to play games his entire life, including "D&D" and military miniature games, and regularly attended an annual meeting to play the original "Blackmoor" in Minnesota.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Arneson wrote for "Computer Gaming World" magazine in the 1980s and early 1990s. He wrote columns on his opinion of the role-playing game genre and reviews of computer games such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (1985), "Zork Zero" (1988), "" (1989), "Uncharted Waters" (1990), and "" (1990).


title: Dave Arneson

text: During the 1990s, he was invited to Brazil by Devir, a game publisher. He became friends with the owner of the publishing company and he gave him his D&D woodgrain box and some of his books as a gift.


title: Dave Arneson

text: In 1997, after Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR, Peter Adkison paid Arneson an undisclosed sum to free up "D&D" from royalties owed to Arneson; this allowed Wizards to retitle "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" to simply "Dungeons & Dragons".


title: Dave Arneson

text: Around 2000, Arneson was working with videographer John Kentner on "Dragons in the Basement" (unreleased), a video documentary on the early history of role-playing games. Arneson describes the documentary: "Basically it is a series of interviews with original players ('How did "D&D" affect your life?') and original RPG designers like Marc Miller ("Traveller") and M.A.R. Barker ("Empire of the Petal Throne")." He also made a cameo appearance in the "Dungeons & Dragons" movie as one of many mages throwing fireballs at a dragon, although the scene was deleted from the completed movie.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Arneson died on April 7, 2009, after battling cancer for two years. According to his daughter, Malia Weinhagen, "The biggest thing about my dad's world is he wanted people to have fun in life."


title: Dave Arneson

text: Arneson received numerous industry awards for his part in creating "Dungeons & Dragons" and other role-playing games. In 1984 he was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design's Hall of Fame (also known as the Charles Roberts Awards Hall of Fame) and in 1999 was named by "Pyramid" magazine as one of "The Millennium's Most Influential Persons", "at least in the realm of adventure gaming". He was honored as a "famous game designer" by being featured on the king of hearts in Flying Buffalo's 2008 Famous Game Designers Playing Card Deck.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Three days after his death, Wizards of the Coast temporarily replaced the front page of the "Dungeons & Dragons" section of their web site with a tribute to Arneson. Other tributes in the gaming world included "Order of the Stick" #644, and "Dork Tower" for April 8, 2009. Video game publisher Activision Blizzard posted a tribute to Arneson on their website and on April 14, 2009, released patch 3.1 of the online role-playing game "World of Warcraft", "The Secrets of Ulduar", dedicated to Arneson.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Turbine's "Dungeons and Dragons Online" added an in-game memorial altar to Arneson in the Ruins of Threnal location in the game. They also created an in-game item named the "Mantle of the Worldshaper" that is a reward for finishing the Threnal quest chain that is narrated by Arneson himself. The Mantle's description reads: "A comforting and inspiring presence surrounds you as you hold this cloak. Arcane runes run along the edges of the fine cape, and masterfully drawn on the silken lining is an incredibly detailed map of a place named 'Blackmoor'."


title: Dave Arneson

text: On October 30, 2010, Full Sail University dedicated the student game development studio space as "Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Studios" in Arneson's honor.


title: Dave Arneson

text: Since the release of the history of Braunstein in 2008 and "Playing at the World" in 2012, a scholarly work by Jon Petersen, the role of Dave Wesely and Dave Arneson was restored in the broad conversation on the origins of the tabletop role-playing games. Robert Kuntz published "Dave Arneson's True Genius" in 2017 and gave interviews to Kotaku to detail how the gameplay of the current tabletop role-playing games was designed by Arneson. In 2019, the documentary "The Secrets of Blackmoor" presented interviews of the first players of Dave Arneson and acknowledged his innovations.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: The Hang (; plural form: Hanghang) is a type of musical instrument called a handpan, fitting into the idiophone class and based on the Caribbean steelpan instrument. It was created by Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer in Bern, Switzerland. The name of their company is PANArt Hangbau AG. The Hang is sometimes referred to as a "hang drum", but the inventors consider this a misnomer and strongly discourage its use.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: The instrument is constructed from two half-shells of deep drawn, nitrided steel sheet glued together at the rim leaving the inside hollow and creating the shape of a convex lens. The top ("Ding") side has a center 'note' hammered into it and seven or eight 'tone fields' hammered around the center. The bottom ("Gu") is a plain surface that has a rolled hole in the center with a tuned note that can be created when the rim is struck.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: The Hang uses some of the same basic physical principles as a steelpan, but modified in such a way as to act as a Helmholtz resonator. The creation of the Hang was the result of many years of research on the steelpan and other instruments. The inventors of the Hang have continued to refine the shape and materials and have produced several variations over the years.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: The name "Hang" comes from a Bernese German word that has a double-meaning, one of which is "hand" and the other "hillside" referring to its convex shape. It is a registered trademark and property of PANArt Hangbau AG.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: Growth of a worldwide interest in the Hang created a group of similar instruments that are referred to as "handpans", a term coined in 2007 by the American steelpan producer Pantheon Steel.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: The Hang is typically played resting on the player's lap. The Hang is generally played with the hands and fingers instead of mallets. This lighter means of playing produces an overtone-rich sound that could be considered softer and warmer than the bright sound of a mallet-based traditional steelpan.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: The top (Ding) side of the Hang, depending on how it is played, can sound like a harp, bells, or harmonically tuned steelpans. The notes are laid out in a cross pattern in the tone circle from low to high so that with a specific orientation of the Hang, the player can ascend or descend the scale by alternating using the left and right hands to strike the tone fields. Each tone field has multiple overtones oriented specifically in the flattened field with a dome at the center. Typically there is a fundamental tone, an overtone tuned to an octave above that fundamental, and an additional overtone a perfect fifth above that octave (twelfth or tritave). The orientation is fairly consistent across the fields on each Hang so that the overtones can be highlighted, muted, or extracted based on how and where the player strikes the tone field.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: The bottom side of the Hang has a round opening, the Gu, producing together with the air in the cavity a Helmholtz resonance similar to a ghatam or an udu. In the second generation, Integral Hang and Free Integral Hang adjustment of the size of the Gu (by partially blocking it with either a hand, or the legs) can generate a sympathetic D from the Helmholtz resonance, which introduces subtle layers of cross complexities in the resonance of the instrument as notes are played on the Ding side. In the first- and second-generation models there is a single high note with a long sustain that can be generated by striking the rim of the hole on the 'Gu' side. In the Integral Hang there are two notes that can be generated (F and F). The Hang can also be used as a friction idiophone. Shaker-like sounds can be made by sliding a hand across the surface, and it can also ring like a singing bowl by using skin (a hand) or a bow.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: The Hang was developed in the year 2000 and introduced at the Musikmesse Frankfurt in 2001. It is in diameter and has a height of . The two deep drawn steel hemispheres of the Hang are hardened by a process known as gas nitridization. The side considered the bottom has an opening (Gu) in the center, which allows the generation of the bass note through Helmholtz resonance. When it is played in a damped way it can change in pitch similar to a talking drum. On the top are seven or eight notes arranged in a tone circle in zigzag fashion from low to high. All are tuned harmonically (with fundamental, octave and the fifth above the octave) around a low note (Ding) at the center of the tone circle. Each creation is numbered and signed.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: There are only two people who built Hanghang, the inventors Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer. They have a small workshop in Bern where every Hang has been created.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: From 2001 to 2005 the first generation Hang was offered in multiple scales ranging up to 45 different sound models. The Hang makers took their initial inspiration from ethnomusicological roots with models such as the Aeolian, Ake Bono, Hijaz, Melog, Pygmy, and Zhi Diao. From 2001 to 2004 each Hang had eight tone fields in the circle. In 2005 PANArt was able to lower the tones on the Hang significantly in what they referred to as the "Low Hang" with the Ding tuned to F, E or E. It was offered in two versions with eight or seven tone fields in the circle. In the first generation each creation was numbered, the name of the sound model was written, and a signature of either Felix Rohner or Sabina Schärer was on a small note pasted on the inside of the top (Ding) surface.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: In the spring of 2006 the Hang makers presented a new generation of Hang. The "new generation" instruments (often referred to as "second generation") have a surface coating of annealed brass over the nitrided steel as well as a ring of brass around the circumference of the Hang. From the many different scales the Hang makers reduced to a structure with one type of central note (Ding) at D. All new generation models have two A notes (A and A) as well as another D (D) in the tone circle around the Ding. The remaining notes were mixed into several different configurations. The majority of second generation Hanghang were built with seven tone fields in the circle. Older Hanghang had tone fields with the oval indentation oriented radially towards the Ding, with the 2007 models (as well as the Integral Hang) the tone fields are angled at about 45° from a line drawn from the Ding to the edge. They also started marking the individual serial number on the inside of the Gu opening and signing each Hang at the outside edge of the Gu side of the Hang. No sound model names were officially given to the second generation models.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: In the spring of 2008 the Hang makers announced a new version, the Integral Hang. Numbers began again with an H in front (H1, H2, etc.) and with the first Integral Hang dated in November 2007. Several changes marked the Integral Hang. There was only one scale with seven tone fields in the cycle (D Ding, A, B, C, D, E, F, A) and no other sound models offered. The Gu hole was adjusted to a subtly oval shape to improve the tuning of the three partials D, F and an F of the Gu neck. Significant changes were made to the Ding (center note on the top). A circular indentation in the dome was made and has a texture of brass applied, annealed, and then lacquered. Also changes to the shoulder area between the flattened area of the Ding and the notes in the tone circle were implemented so that the transition was more gradual than in the 2nd generation Hanghang. The PANArt logo, serial number, date of finalization, and signatures of the Hang makers were placed on Gu side of the Hang near the equator where the two shells meet.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: By developing the Integral Hang, Rohner and Schärer distanced themselves from the idea of building an instrument for the needs of professional musicians. Their aims and ambitions were published in a 'Letter from the Hangbauhaus':


title: Hang (instrument)

text: This model has been available since April 2010. Compared to its predecessor, the Free Integral Hang features a few construction changes. First of all, there is no longer a brass ring around the seam connecting the ding and gu shells. Furthermore, the dome of the ding is not brass-coated anymore and is characterized by a double offset (a triple dome). The Free Integral Hanghang are tuned without the use of tuning devices. The pitch of the Ding differs from one instrument to another and varies around the tone D. The tones in the tone circle relative to the Ding correspond to those of the Integral Hang.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: In the free tuning of a Hang, the focus is not about the precise mathematical frequency ratios of the partials of a tone field, but on the impact of the entire sound. Trinidad's steelpan tuners already slightly detuned partial tones to attain the characteristic sound of their own instruments. In an acoustic-mathematical analysis, Anthony Achong substantiated that this detuning is the most important parameter in influencing the structure of a steelpan tone: the duration of the partials as well as the amplitude and frequency modulations. By foregoing a tuning device for the Free Integral Hang, the Hang tuners are free to systematically make use of this parameter and to concentrate on the artistic design of the sound structure during the entire tuning process.


title: Hang (instrument)

text: As of December 2013 PANArt announced that the Hang would no longer be made, as the PANArt tuners were completely concentrated on a new different instrument, the Gubal. In the following years PANArt developed a number of other instruments called "Hang Gudu", "Hang Urgu", "Hang Bal" and "Hang Gede" as well as a number of string instruments and created a collective improvised music form played with these "Pang instruments".


title: Yashpal Sharma (actor)

text: Yashpal Sharma is an Indian Hindi and Punjabi film actor and theatre artist. He is best known for his role as Randhir Singh in Sudhir Mishra's 2003 Hindi movie "Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi", apart from "Lagaan" (2001), "Gangaajal" (2003), "Ab Tak Chhappan" (2004), "Apaharan" (2005), "Lakshyam" (2007), "Singh Is Kinng" (2008), "Aarakshan" (2011) and "


title: Yashpal Sharma (actor)

text: Halso played the role as Don Rana in a sequence of popular TV sitcom Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah (2008-present) on SAB TV. He played Kuwar Singh in Zee's "Mera Naam Karegi Roshan". Yashpal is also a stage actor and appears in live plays. He formerly starred in Zee's "Neeli Chhatri Waale". The Haryanvi film "Pagdi: The Honour" was awarded at the 62nd National Film Awards.


title: Yashpal Sharma (actor)

text: Sharma was born and brought up in a lower-middle-class Brahmin family in Hisar in the state of Haryana. Since childhood, he was interested in acting and used to actively organise and participate in Ramlila during Dasara (also called Navaratri) festivals.


title: Yashpal Sharma (actor)

text: He graduated from the National School of Drama, Mandi House, New Delhi in 1994, the lead role of his theatre play franchise (Koi Baat Chale) with writer and director Ramji Bali.


title: Yashpal Sharma (actor)

text: After his graduation he joined the National School of Drama Repertory Company in Delhi, where he worked for about two years before moving to Mumbai in 1997.


title: Yashpal Sharma (actor)

text: His first big break was Govind Nihlani's film, "Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa" (1998), which gave him a chance to act alongside Jaya Bachchan and Nandita Das. He also started appearing in commercial films, like "Shool" and "Arjun Pandit". However, it was the Academy Award-nominated "Lagaan" (2001) which brought him to the limelight, and thereafter he appeared in "Gangajal" (2003) and "Ab Tak Chhappan". He has been a regular in films of Shyam Benegal and Prakash Jha and continues to work as a stage actor in Mumbai.


title: Yashpal Sharma (actor)

text: In 2010, he acted in Rage productions' bilingual play, "One on One" and the play "Lakeerein", written by Gulzar and directed by Salim Arif, opposite actor, Lubna Salim.


title: Yashpal Sharma (actor)

text: He made his television debut with "Mera Naam Karegi Roshan" on Zee TV in 2010. Then he played a cameo role in "Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah" on SAB TV in 2011. The same year, he appeared in a significant role in Dev Anand's "Chargesheet," which turned out to be the veteran actor's last film before his death.


title: Yashpal Sharma (actor)

text: Sharma returned on television in a lead role as Bhagwandas with "Neeli Chhatri Waale" on Zee TV in 2014. His upcoming film as lead is "Das Capital", directed by Rajen Kothari.


title: Yashpal Sharma (actor)

text: He briefly appeared in a short documentary "The Facebook Generation", produced by Blue Strike Productions and Dev Samaj Modern School and directed by Sahil Bhardwaj. The film competed in the Reel to Real film making competition at Harmony 2012 organised by The Global Education and Leadership Foundation and was among the top 10 finalists.


title: Yashpal Sharma (actor)

text: He turned to film direction with a biopic on Haryanvi poet Pandit Lakshmi Chand, which he wrote as well.


title: Oprichnina

text: The oprichnina (, ) was a state policy implemented by Tsar Ivan the Terrible in Russia between 1565 and 1572. The policy included mass repression of the boyars (Russian aristocrats), including public executions and confiscation of their land and property. In this context it can also refer to:


title: Oprichnina

text: The term "oprichnina", which Ivan coined for this policy, derives from the Russian word "oprich" (, "apart from", "except").


title: Oprichnina

text: In 1558, Tsar Ivan IV started the Livonian War. A broad coalition, which included Poland, Lithuania and Sweden, became drawn into the war against Russia. The war became drawn-out (it continued until 1583) and expensive; raids by Crimean Tatars, Polish and Lithuanian invasions, famines, a trading blockade and escalating costs of war ravaged Russia.


title: Oprichnina

text: In 1564, Prince Andrey Kurbsky defected to the Lithuanians and commanded the Lithuanian army against Russia, devastating the Russian region of Velikiye Luki.


title: Oprichnina

text: Historians Vasily Klyuchevsky (1841–1911) and (1876–1952) explained the oprichnina in terms of Ivan's paranoia and denied larger social aims for the oprichnina. However, historian Sergey Platonov (1860–1933) argued that Ivan IV intended the oprichnina as a suppression of the rising boyar aristocracy.


title: Oprichnina

text: Professor Isabel de Madariaga (1919–2014) expanded this idea to explain the oprichnina as Ivan's attempt to subordinate all independent social classes to the autocracy.


title: Oprichnina

text: On December 3, 1564, Ivan IV departed Moscow on pilgrimage. While such journeys were routine for the throne, Ivan neglected to set in place the usual arrangements for rule in his absence. Moreover, an unusually large personal guard, a significant number of boyars, and the treasury accompanied him.


title: Oprichnina

text: After a month of silence, Ivan finally issued two letters from his fortifications at Aleksandrova Sloboda on January 3, 1565. The first addressed the elite of the city and accused them of embezzlement and treason. Further accusations concerned the clergy and their protection of denounced boyars. In conclusion, Ivan announced his abdication. The second letter addressed the population of Moscow and claimed "he had no anger against" its citizenry. Divided between Aleksandrova Sloboda and Moscow, the boyar court was unable to rule in absence of Ivan and feared the wrath of the Muscovite citizenry. Envoys departed for Aleksandrova Sloboda


title: Oprichnina

text: Ivan IV agreed to return on condition that he might prosecute people for treason outside legal limitations. He demanded the right to execute and confiscate the land of traitors without interference from the boyar council or from the church. To pursue his investigations, Ivan decreed the establishment of the oprichnina (originally a term for land left to a noble widow, separate from her children's land). He also raised a levy of 100,000 rubles to pay for the oprichnina.


title: Oprichnina

text: The oprichnina consisted of a separate territory within the borders of Russia, mostly in the territory of the former Novgorod Republic in the north. This region included many of the financial centers of the state, including the salt region of Staraia Russa and prominent merchant towns. Ivan held exclusive power over the oprichnina territory. The Boyar Council ruled the zemshchina ('land'), the second division of the state. Until 1568, the oprichnina relied upon many administrative institutions under zemshchina jurisdiction. Only when conflict between the zemshchina and oprichnina reached its peak did Ivan create independent institutions within the oprichnina.


title: Oprichnina

text: Ivan also stipulated the creation of a personal guard known as the oprichniki. Originally it was a thousand strong. The noble oprichniki Aleksei Basmanov and Afanasy Viazemsky oversaw recruitment. Nobles and townsmen free of relations to the zemshchina or its administration were eligible for Ivan’s new guard. Henri Troyat has emphasized the lowly origin of the oprichnina recruits. However, historian Vladimir Kobrin has contested that a shift to the lower classes constituted a late development in the oprichnina era. Many early oprichniki had close ties to the princely and boyar clans of Russia.


title: Oprichnina

text: Territorial divisions under the oprichnina led to mass resettlement. When the property of zemshchina nobles fell within oprichnina territory, oprichniki seized their lands and forced the owners onto zemshchina land. The oprichnina territory included primarily service estates. Alexander Zimin and Stepan Veselovsky have argued that this division left heredity landownership largely unaffected. However, Platonov and other scholars have posited that resettlement aimed to undermine the power of the landed nobility. Pavlov has cited the relocation of zemshchina servicemen from oprichnina territories onto heredity estates as a critical blow to the power of the princely class. The division of hereditary estates diminished the influence of the princely elites in their native provinces. The worst affected was the province of Suzdal which lost 80% of its gentry.


title: Oprichnina

text: The oprichniki enjoyed social and economic privileges under the oprichnina. While zemshchina boyars lost both heredity and service land, the oprichniki retained hereditary holdings that fell in zemshchina land. Moreover, Ivan granted the oprichnina the spoils of a heavy tax levied upon the zemshchina nobles. The rising oprichniki owed their allegiance to Ivan, not heredity or local bonds.


title: Oprichnina

text: The first wave of persecutions targeted primarily the princely clans of Russia, notably the influential families of Suzdal. Ivan executed, exiled, or tortured prominent members of the boyar clans on questionable accusations of conspiracy. 1566 saw the oprichnina extended to eight central districts. Of the 12,000 nobles there, 570 became oprichniks, and the rest were expelled. They had to make their way to the zemshchina in mid-winter; peasants who helped them were executed. In a show of clemency, Ivan recalled a number of nobles to Moscow. The Tsar even called upon zemshchina nobles for a zemskii sobor concerning the Livonian War. Ivan posed the question whether Russia should surrender the Livonian territories to recently victorious Lithuania or maintain the effort to conquer the region. The body approved war measures and advanced emergency taxes to support the draining treasury.


title: Oprichnina

text: However, the zemskii sobor also forwarded a petition to end the oprichnina. The Tsar reacted with a renewal of the oprichnina terror. He ordered the immediate arrest of the petitioners and executed the alleged leaders of the protest. Further investigations tied Ivan Federov, leader of the zemshchina duma, to a plot to overthrow Tsar Ivan; Federov was removed from court and executed shortly thereafter.


title: Oprichnina

text: The overthrow of King Erik XIV of Sweden in 1568 and the death of Ivan's second wife in 1569 exacerbated Ivan's suspicions. His attention turned to the northwestern city of Novgorod. The second-largest city in Russia, Novgorod housed a large service nobility with ties to some of the condemned boyar families of Moscow. Despite the sack of the city under Ivan III, Novgorod maintained a political organization removed from Russia’s central administration. Moreover, the influence of the city in the northeast had increased as the city fronted the military advance against the Lithuanian border. The treasonous surrender of the border town Izborsk to Lithuania also caused Ivan to question the faith of border towns.


title: Oprichnina

text: Ivan IV and an oprichniki detachment instituted a month-long terror in Novgorod (the Massacre of Novgorod). The oprichniki raided the town and conducted executions among all classes. As the Livonian campaign constituted a significant drain on state resources, Ivan targeted ecclesiastical and merchant holdings with particular fervor. After Novgorod, the oprichniki company turned to the adjacent merchant city Pskov. The city received relatively merciful treatment. The oprichniki limited executions and focused primarily upon the seizure of ecclesiastical wealth. According to a popular apocryphal account, Nicholas Salos of Pskov the fool-for-Christ prophesied the fall of Ivan and thus motivated the deeply religious Tsar to spare the city. Alternatively, Ivan may have felt no need to institute a terror in Pskov due to his prior sack of the city in wake of the Izborsk treason. The dire financial condition of the state and the need to bolster the war treasury likely inspired the second raid.


title: Oprichnina

text: Ivan IV maintained the heightened terror as he returned to Moscow. A series of particularly brutal open-air executions took place in Moscow's Pagan Square. The persecutions began to target the oprichnina leadership itself. The tsar had already refused Basmanov and Viazemsky participation in the Novgorod campaign. Upon his return, Ivan condemned the two to prison, where they died shortly thereafter. Pavlov links Ivan's turn against the higher echelons of oprichniki to the increasing number of the lower-born among their ranks. Ivan may have reacted to the apparent discontent among the princely oprichniki over the brutal treatment of Novgorod. Furthermore, class disparity may have set the lower recruits against the princely oprichniki. As Ivan already suspected the older oprichniki on the issue of Novgorod, the lower-born recruits may have advanced the new persecutions to increase their influence in the oprichnina hierarchy.


title: Oprichnina

text: 1572 saw the fall of the oprichnina state structure. The zemshchina and oprichnina territories were reunited and placed under rule of a reformed Boyar Council, which included members from both sides of the divided apparatus.


title: Oprichnina

text: Scholars have cited diverse factors to explain the dissolution of the oprichnina. When the Crimean Tatars burnt Moscow in 1571 during the Russo-Crimean War, the oprichniki failed to offer serious resistance. The success of the Tatars may have shaken the Tsar’s faith in the effectiveness of the oprichnina. Ivan may have found state division ineffective in a period of war and its significant social and economic pressures. Alternatively, Ivan may have deemed the oprichnina a success; the weakening of the princely elite achieved, the Tsar may have felt that the terror had simply outlived its usefulness.


title: Oprichnina

text: Scholar Robert O. Crummey and Platonov have emphasized the social impact of the mass resettlements under the oprichnina. The division of large estates into smaller oprichnik plots subjected the peasants to a stricter landowning dominion. Furthermore, a new itinerant population emerged as state terror and the seizure of lands forced many peasants from their lands. The increase in itinerants may have motivated the ultimate institutionalization of serfdom by the Russian throne. The oprichnina coincided with the major social and economic crisis in Russia and, according to some contemporary and historical accounts, contributed to it.


title: Oprichnina

text: Historian Isabel de Madariaga has emphasized the role of the oprichnina in the consolidation of aristocratic power. Resettlement drastically reduced the power of the hereditary nobility. Oprichniki landowners who owed their loyalty to the throne replaced an aristocracy that might have evolved independent political ambitions. Alternatively, Crummey has summarized the social effects of the oprichnina as a failure. From this perspective, the oprichnina failed to pursue coherent social motives and instead pursued a largely unfocused terror. Such interpretations are derived from the 1960s works by Ruslan Skrynnikov who described the Oprichnina as the reign of terror designed to root out every possible challenge to the autocracy:


title: Oprichnina

text: Ivan Lazhechnikov wrote the tragedy "The Oprichniki" (), on which Tchaikovsky based his opera "The Oprichnik". In turn, Tchaikovsky's opera inspired a 1911 painting by Apollinary Vasnetsov, depicting a city street and people fleeing in panic at the arrival of the oprichniki.


title: Oprichnina

text: A fantasy variation on the Oprichnina appears in the Japanese light novel franchise "Gate". It retains the name, purpose, activities, dog head motif, and even the use of brooms from the historic original.


title: Oprichnina

text: Vladimir Sorokin's 2006 novel "Day of the Oprichnik" envisions a dystopian near future in which the Russian monarchy and oprichnina have been reestablished. The novel's oprichnina drive red cars with severed dog heads as hood ornaments, rape and kill dissenting nobles, and consume massive amounts of alcohol and narcotics, all while praising the monarchy and the Russian Orthodox Church.


title: Havarti

text: Havarti () or cream havarti () is a semisoft Danish cow's milk cheese. It can be sliced, grilled, or melted.


title: Havarti

text: Havarti was previously called "Danish Tilsiter" after the German cheese type tilsiter. Danish production began in 1921. In 1952, the cheese was named Havarti, after Havartigården near Holte, where the Danish cheese pioneer Hanne Nielsen worked in the 19th century. Among other cheeses, Nielsen created a Tilsit cheese with cumin for King Christian IX of Denmark.


title: Havarti

text: Some sources, such as "The Oxford Companion to Cheese", say that Nielsen invented Havarti cheese, while the "Dansk Biografisk Leksikon" states that the current Havarti is not based on her cheesemaking.


title: Havarti

text: The original havarti cheese is different from "flødehavarti" ("cream Havarti"), which is made from high-pasteurized milk, so that the whey proteins that would otherwise be eliminated during production remain in the curd. This raises yields, but alters the taste and texture. Cream havarti usually ripens very little, since the remaining whey proteins cause problems (off-taste, odd appearance) during prolonged ripening.


title: Havarti

text: Havarti is made like most cheeses, by introducing rennet to milk to cause curdling. The curds are pressed into cheese molds which are drained, and then the cheese is aged.


title: Havarti

text: Havarti was traditionally a "smear-rind" cheese, but modern "flødehavarti" is not. Havarti is a washed-curd cheese, which contributes to the subtle flavor of the cheese. Havarti is an interior-ripened cheese that is rindless, smooth, and slightly bright-surfaced with a cream to yellow color depending on type. It has very small and irregular openings called eyes distributed throughout.


title: Havarti

text: Havarti has a buttery aroma and can be somewhat sharp in the stronger varieties, much like Swiss-type cheeses. The taste is buttery, from somewhat to very sweet, and slightly acidic. It is typically aged about three months, though when the cheese is older, it becomes more salty and tastes like hazelnut. When left at room temperature, the cheese tends to soften quickly.


title: Havarti

text: In 2013, 18,900 metric tons were produced in Denmark. As of 2019, 17,000 metric tons are produced annually in Denmark, of which 3,000 to 4,000 metric tons are consumed domestically. In 2015, 17,700 metric tons were produced in Wisconsin and 7,400 in Canada. In 2018, Wisconsin produced 18,400 metric tons and Canada 7,500 metric tons.


title: Havarti

text: Less than half of the world production is made in Denmark. Other major producers in the EU are Germany and Spain. Internationally, the main producers are the United States and Canada, with other producing countries including Finland, Poland, France, Australia and New Zealand. In the United States, the main producing state by far is Wisconsin, with other producing states being California, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Washington. The Danish multinational Arla Foods produces the cheese for the American market in Wisconsin from milk produced in Wisconsin.


title: Havarti

text: Havarti is one of twelve cheeses whose characteristics and manufacturing standards are registered in the "Codex Alimentarius" as of 2019.


title: Havarti

text: In October 2019, the EU granted exclusive Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) rights to Denmark after four years of lobbying by the Danish industry. It may now only be produced from Danish milk and at approved dairies, for it to be sold in the EU and countries with which it has signed a trade agreement recognising EU PGI rules on cheese (specifically South Korea). There was vehement opposition and pressure from the US against recognition, which earlier compelled the EU to postpone the planned PGI status fearing it might be deemed too provocative amidst indications of a political backlash from the United States.


title: Havarti

text: The Consortium for Common Food Names (CCFN), an industry alliance based in Virginia, United States, representing exporting interests founded by the U.S. Dairy Export Council to fight EU geographical indication guidelines expressed outrage over the 2019 EU decision to reserve the name for Denmark, claiming the PGI status is not "legitimate intellectual property protection, but instead for barely concealed protectionism for economic gain". The United States, Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay and Argentina have joined with the CCFN to overturn the decision. The CCFN has claimed that havarti is a generic cheese, and that the EU is trying to "egregiously ... monopolise global trade" in this and many other traditional European products, and is disregarding "established international standards". The CCFN demands that EU PGIs are amended to include the name of the region where it is produced, such that only the name "Danish havarti" is protected, a proposal Danish producers are amenable to. Danish producers contend it is domestically well known as a Danish cheese and knowledge of the cheese outside Denmark is "extremely limited". The CCFN urged the Trump administration to sanction the EU for its "abuses".


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Bostock v. Clayton County, , is a landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights case in which the Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because they are gay or transgender.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: The plaintiff, Gerald Bostock, was fired after he expressed interest in a gay softball league at work. The lower courts followed the Eleventh Circuit's past precedent that Title VII did not cover employment discrimination protection based on sexual orientation. The case was consolidated with "Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda", a similar case of apparent discrimination due to sexual orientation from the Second Circuit, but which had added to a circuit split. Oral arguments were heard on October 8, 2019, alongside "R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission", a similar question of Title VII discrimination relating to transgender persons.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: On June 15, 2020, the Court ruled in a 6–3 decision covering all three cases that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is necessarily also discrimination "because of sex" as prohibited by Title VII. According to Justice Neil Gorsuch's majority opinion, that is so because employers discriminating against gay or transgender employees accept a certain conduct (e.g., attraction to women) in employees of one sex but not in employees of the other sex.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: The ruling has been hailed as one of the most important legal decisions regarding LGBT rights in the United States, along with "Lawrence v. Texas" (2003) and "Obergefell v. Hodges" (2015). Many legal analysts claimed that the case defined Gorsuch as a textualist in statutory interpretation.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed into law amid the civil rights movement. It had been proposed by President John F. Kennedy as a means to combat racial discrimination and racial segregation in the aftermath of the Birmingham campaign. After Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, his successor Lyndon B. Johnson advocated passage of the Civil Rights Act in the following year.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Among several provisions in the law is Title VII, which covers equal employment opportunities. Its key provision, codified at , states that it is illegal to discriminate in any hiring or employment practices based on an "individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin". To enforce this requirement, Title VII established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency based on an office Kennedy had established with Executive Order 10925, to help oversee any reported employment discrimination and file lawsuits against entities that the EEOC believes have discriminated in the employment context. In addition, the EEOC may make its own determination on cases rather than taking these to court. These decisions do not carry the weight of case law, but the Supreme Court does consider the weight of the EEOC opinions as the EEOC "constitute[s] a body of experience and informed judgment to which courts and litigants may properly resort for guidance".


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: The nature of protected classes under § 2000e-2(a)(1) have been refined through case law over the years. Three key Supreme Court cases prior to "Bostock" had considered the aspect of "sex" in the context of the statute:


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Until "Bostock", whether the Civil Rights Act gave federal protection against employment discrimination to the class of LGBT people was in dispute. Individual states since 1973 acted on their own accord to extend employment discrimination protections to explicitly cover LGBT employees, and by 2020 before the "Bostock" decision, 21 states had included LGBT as a protected class against employment discrimination, while other states offered some but less extensive protections in their laws. States with such protections often have a state-level board that performs functions equivalent to the EEOC, and which will work with the EEOC to unify employment discrimination regulations. Numerous local governments passed similar LGBT employment discrimination statutes as well.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Since 1994, members of the Democratic Party in the U.S. Congress have introduced some form of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in nearly every two-year term, which would have amended the Civil Rights Act to include both sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes under Title VII at the federal level and thus applying across the entire country. Passage of these bills has generally failed because of partisan politics. More recently, the Equality Act, expanding the non-discrimination protections to include housing, education, and other areas, was introduced in 2015 and similarly introduced each term, failing to pass due to partisan politics.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: The EEOC has used past case law and its evaluation of discrimination cases brought before it to establish that LGBT discrimination is unlawful under the context of the Civil Rights Act. In 2012, the EEOC ruled in "Macy v. Holder" that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is a form of sex stereotyping, and thus prohibited in employment as a form of discrimination on the basis of sex under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 2015, the EEOC ruled in "Baldwin v. Foxx" that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is also prohibited in employment under Title VII, on the exact same basis as in "Macy". The following year, the EEOC filed its first pair of test cases in federal court arguing that sexual orientation is protected by Title VII.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Gerald Bostock was an employee of Clayton County, within the Atlanta metropolitan area, as an official for its juvenile court system since 2003, with good performance records through the years. In early 2013, he joined a gay softball league and promoted it at work for volunteerism. In April 2013, Clayton County conducted an audit of funds controlled by Bostock and fired him for "conduct unbecoming a county employee". Georgia had no law protecting LGBT people from employment discrimination at the time.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Bostock believed that the county used the claim of misspent funds as a pretext for firing him for being gay, and sought legal recourse for workplace discrimination in 2016 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The county sought to dismiss the claim of prohibited discrimination—the District Court agreed to dismiss, on the basis of the precedent established in the 2017 case "Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital" decided by the Eleventh Circuit (of which the District is part), which held that the Civil Rights Act's Title VII does not include protection against discrimination towards sexual orientation.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Bostock appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, where the three-judge panel affirmed the District Court's ruling in 2018. The Eleventh Circuit relied on two prior cases: its previous ruling in "Evans", and "Blum v. Gulf Oil Corp." from the Fifth Circuit in 1976. In upholding the ruling, the Eleventh Circuit pointed to their ruling in "Evans" that dismissed the Supreme Court's precedent against sex discrimination set by "Price Waterhouse" and "Oncale".


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: The Eleventh Circuit's ruling in "Evans" furthered a circuit split, as it conflicted with that of the Seventh Circuit in "Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana" (2017) in which, by an 8–3 decision, the Circuit found that discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation violated Title VII. The Second Circuit came to the same conclusion in "Zarda v. Altitude Express, Inc." (2018) ("Altitude Express"). Thus the Eleventh Circuit, on the one hand, and the Second and Seventh Circuits, on the other, were divided on the question of the interpretation of Title VII. These cases and a related case, "R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission", ("Harris Funeral Homes"), in which the Sixth Circuit found Title VII also covered transgender employment discrimination, set the stage for the Supreme Court's decision in "Bostock".


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Bostock petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of "certiorari" on the question of whether sexual orientation is covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The Supreme Court certified the petition in April 2019, and consolidated the case with "Altitude Express". Between these cases, as well as prior Circuit court decisions, there had been a split of opinions on whether sexual orientation discrimination is covered by Title VII. The combined "Bostock" and "Altitude Express" cases drew numerous "amicus curiae" briefs. Over thirty-six briefs were filed in support of Bostock and the estate of Zarda, including one signed by over 200 major corporations such as Amazon, the Walt Disney Company, and Coca-Cola, that asserted that it would not be "unreasonably costly or burdensome" for them to accept sexual orientation as a protected class under Title VII. Over 25 briefs were filed to support Clayton County and Altitude Express; among them, the U.S. Department of Justice argued that sexual orientation was not covered, but asserted, "Congress of course remains free to legislate in this area; and employers, including governmental employers, remain free to offer greater protections to their workers than Title VII requires."


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Oral arguments in the consolidated cases were heard on October 8, 2019, alongside the arguments in "Harris Funeral Homes", the case related to Title VII protections for transgender individuals. Just prior to the hearings, police from the District of Columbia had discovered two suspicious packages near the Supreme Court building and temporarily cleared the plaza of arriving supporters to remove the packages. In oral arguments, the statutory claims centered on the discrimination "because of ... sex" language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Andrée Sophia Blumstein, the Solicitor General of Tennessee, predicted that the Supreme Court would make a consequential decision in this case because of the sensitivity of the issue and the Constitutional implications. In an article before oral arguments, Blumstein stated that the decision would determine whether the Supreme Court would remain solely as the “expositor of the law” or become the policymakers alongside Congress.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Justice Neil Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court in this case on June 15, 2020. In a 6–3 decision, the Court held that Title VII protections pursuant to § 2000e-2(a)(1) did extend to cover sexual orientation and gender identity. The decision then involved the statutory interpretation of Title VII (specifically the original meaning of "sex"), not constitutional law as in other recent landmark cases involving the rights of LGBT individuals such as "Obergefell v. Hodges". The Court further held that Title VII protections against sex discrimination in the employment context apply to discrimination against particular individuals on the basis of sex, as opposed to discrimination against groups. Thus, Title VII provides a remedy to individuals who experience discrimination on the basis of sex even if an employer's policy on the whole does not involve discrimination. Gorsuch wrote:


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: An employer who fired an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids. Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. But the limits of the drafters' imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.In his opinion, Gorsuch wrote, "it is irrelevant what an employer might call its discriminatory practice, how others might label it, or what else might motivate it." He referenced "Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp.", in which a company refused to hire women with young children; and "Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart", in which an employer required women to make larger pension fund contributions than did men, on the premise that women on average live longer than men do. Both cases violated Title VII, and Gorsuch wrote, "just as labels and additional intentions or motivations didn't make a difference in "Manhart" or "Phillips", they cannot make a difference here."


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Gorsuch's decision also alluded to concerns that the judgment may set a sweeping precedent that would force gender equality on traditional practices. "They say sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes will prove unsustainable after our decision today but none of these other laws are before us; we have not had the benefit of adversarial testing about the meaning of their terms, and we do not prejudge any such question today."


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Justice Samuel Alito wrote a dissent, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. In his dissent, Alito asserted that at the time of the crafting of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 the concepts of sexual orientation and transgender identity would have been unknown, and thus Congress's language should not be implied to cover these facets. Alito wrote, "Many will applaud today's decision because they agree on policy grounds with the Court's updating of Title VII. But the question in these cases is not whether discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity should be outlawed. The question is whether Congress did that in 1964. It indisputably did not." Alito further stated that "even if discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity could be squeezed into some arcane understanding of sex discrimination, the context in which Title VII was enacted would tell us that this is not what the statute's terms were understood to mean at that time." Alito was critical of the majority decision:


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a separate dissent, arguing that the Court could not add sexual orientation or gender identity to Title VII due to the separation of powers, leaving this responsibility to Congress. He concluded by acknowledging that


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: The Supreme Court ruling was seen as a major victory by proponents of LGBT rights. Sarah Kate Ellis, the CEO of GLAAD, stated that the "Court's historic decision affirms what shouldn't have even been a debate: LGBT Americans should be able to work without fear of losing jobs because of who they are". The Human Rights Campaign praised the decision, with the HRC President, Alphonso David, stating: "This is a landmark victory for LGBT equality. No one should be denied a job or fired simply because of who they are or whom they love. For the past two decades, federal courts have determined that discrimination on the basis of LGBT status is unlawful discrimination under federal law. Today's historic ruling by the Supreme Court affirms that view, but there is still work left to be done. In many aspects of the public square, LGBT people still lack non-discrimination protections, which is why it is crucial that Congress pass the Equality Act to address the significant gaps in federal civil rights laws and improve protections for everyone". Torie Osborn stated that the decision in "Bostock" represented a more significant advance than same-sex marriage, calling it a "watershed". Ken Mehlman took the decision as evidence that conservatism is not inconsistent with support for LGBT rights.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Legal scholars saw the ruling as having an impact beyond employment, extending to areas such as education, health care, housing and financial credit. Attorney Paul Smith, who argued "Lawrence v. Texas" (2003), said, "[a]ny law, and I think there are dozens, that says you can't discriminate because of sex is going to have a reckoning with this ruling"; indeed, Alito's dissent in "Bostock" notes that "[o]ver 100 federal statutes prohibit discrimination because of sex". American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Joshua Block said, "[a]ll of the Trump administration's actions ['curtailing protections for transgender Americans'] have been built around this assertion that Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act] and Title IX [of the Education Amendments of 1972] provide no protections to LGBTQ people ... [i]t's an Achilles' heel that's been built into every single thing they've done."


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Some Christian conservatives, including Russell D. Moore and Franklin Graham, expressed concern that the decision would impact religious freedoms and affect faith-based employment, but Gorsuch's opinion said that the scope of how this decision intersects with past precedent for religious freedom would likely be the subject of future cases at the Court. Archbishop José Horacio Gómez, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (which had filed an amicus brief (friend of the court) against Bostock), called the ruling an "injustice" and said he was "deeply concerned that the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively redefined the legal meaning of 'sex' in our nation's civil rights law". Franklin Graham said it was "a very sad day". Dan McLaughlin of the "National Review" postulated that Dixiecrat Howard W. Smith's insertion of the word "sex" in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had inadvertently protected sexual orientation and gender identity from employment discrimination.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Gerald Bostock, the only surviving plaintiff from all three cases, stated that he was "proud to take part in a role to get us to this historic moment". The Supreme Court decision remanded his case to be reheard at the District Court.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Some legal scholars have expressed disappointment that the Supreme Court did not define the terms "transgender" or "gay" in its ruling, leaving doubt about who is covered by them. In the Connecticut Law Review, Mercer University law professor Pamela Wilkins wrote that the Court's decision regarding transgender people uses only examples in which someone identified as male or female and "does not address whether Title VII protects transgender non-binary individuals who identify as something other than exclusively male and female." Legal scholars have also debated whether the term "gay" in Title VII includes bisexual people.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Many politicians across the political spectrum praised the ruling. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the ruling "secures critical protections for LGBT Americans across the country". Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio stated that the ruling was "a big deal" and emphasized that people should not be fired simply because of their sexual orientation. Some politicians, however, were critical of the ruling, such as Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who argued that the ruling was simply "policymaking". President Donald Trump neither praised nor criticized the ruling, and stated in response to the decision that "some people were surprised" but said that the court had "ruled and we live with their decision". He called the decision "very powerful".


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: There was some surprise that Gorsuch, a conservative-leaning Trump appointee, wrote the majority opinion supporting LGBT employment rights. Some commentators claimed that his opinion was consistent with his textualism in statutory interpretation of the plain meaning of laws in general, while others asserted otherwise. Gorsuch wrote much on textualism in his book "A Republic, If You Can Keep It", published in mid-2019, and some of his questioning at the oral hearings drew on using textual interpretation of the law.


title: Bostock v. Clayton County

text: Alito's dissent fundamentally criticized Gorsuch's opinion as textualism. He argued that the majority opinion went beyond the plain language of the law to claim that its intent in 1964 covered sexual orientation and gender identity as part of the meaning of "sex" in the statute. Alito called the majority's decision a "pirate ship", in that "It sails under a textualist flag, but what it actually represents is a theory of statutory interpretation that Justice Scalia excoriated—the theory that courts should 'update' old statutes so that they better reflect the current values of society."