title: Cam Akers

text: On July 20, 2021, Akers tore his Achilles tendon while working out shortly before the start of training camp. Akers was expected to be sidelined for the entire 2021 season, as he was placed on the reserve/non-football injury list to start the season. However, Akers was activated to the active roster on December 25, 2021, 5 full months after his injury. Akers returned to action in Week 18 against the San Francisco 49ers, where he rushed for 3 yards on 5 carries, and caught 3 passes for 10 yards. In the Super Bowl, Akers had 13 carries for 21 yards and 3 receptions for 14 yards in the Rams 23-20 victory against the Cincinnati Bengals.


title: Cam Akers

text: Akers was expected to start Week 1, but ended up only getting 3 rushing attempts for 3 yards. Akers requested a trade from the Los Angeles Rams after Week 5, and did not play Week 6 or 7, and is not expected to play Week 8.


title: Mediolanum

text: Mediolanum, the ancient city where Milan now stands, was originally an Insubrian city, but afterwards became an important Roman city in northern Italy. The city was settled by the Insubres around 600 BC, conquered by the Romans in 222 BC, and developed into a key centre of Western Christianity and informal capital of the Western Roman Empire. It declined under the ravages of the Gothic War, its capture by the Lombards in 569, and their decision to make Ticinum the capital of their Kingdom of Italy.


title: Mediolanum

text: During the Principate the population was 40,000 in AD 200; when the city became capital of the Western Roman Empire under emperor Maximian (r. 286–305), the population rose to 100,000 people and thus Milan became one of the largest cities in Roman Italy.


title: Mediolanum

text: Mediolanum appears to have been founded around 390 BC by the Celtic Insubres, after whom this region of northern Italy was called Insubria. According to the legend reported by Livy, the Gaulish king Ambicatus sent his nephew Bellovesus into northern Italy at the head of a party drawn from various Gaulish tribes; this Bellovesus was said to have founded Mediolanum (in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, according to this legend).


title: Mediolanum

text: The Romans, led by consul Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus, fought the Insubres and captured the city in 222 BC; the chief of the Insubres submitted to Rome, giving the Romans control of the city. They eventually conquered the entirety of the region, calling the new province Cisalpine Gaul – "Gaul this side of the Alps" – and may have given the site its Latinized Celtic name: in Gaulish "*medio –" meant "middle, center" and the name element "-lanon" is the Celtic equivalent of Latin "-planum" "plain", thus "*Mediolanon" (Latinized as "Mediolānum") meant "(settlement) in the midst of the plain."


title: Mediolanum

text: Mediolanum was important for its location as a hub in the road network of northern Italy. Polybius describes the country as abounding in wine, and every kind of grain, and in fine wool. Herds of swine, both for public and private supply, were bred in its forests, and the people were well known for their generosity.


title: Mediolanum

text: During the Augustan age Mediolanum was famous for its schools; it possessed a theater and an amphitheatre (129.5 X 109.3 m). A large stone wall encircled the city in Caesar's time, and later was expanded in the late third century AD, by Maximian. Mediolanum was made the seat of the prefect of Liguria ("Praefectus Liguriae") by Hadrian, and Constantine made it the seat of the vicar of Italy ("Vicarius Italiae"). In the third century Mediolanum possessed a mint, a "horreum" and imperial mausoleum. In 259, Roman legions under the command of Emperor Gallienus soundly defeated the Alemanni in the Battle of Mediolanum.


title: Mediolanum

text: In 286, Diocletian moved the capital of the Western Roman Empire from Rome to Mediolanum. He chose to reside at Nicomedia in the Eastern Empire, leaving his colleague Maximian at Mediolanum. Maximian built several gigantic monuments, the large circus (470 x 85 metres), the "thermae" or "Baths of Hercules", a large complex of imperial palaces and other services and buildings of which fewer visible traces remain. Maximian increased the city area surrounded by a new, larger stone wall (about 4.5 km long) encompassing an area of 375 acres with many 24-sided towers. The monumental area had twin towers; one that was included in the convent of San Maurizio Maggiore remains 16,60 m high.


title: Mediolanum

text: It was from Mediolanum that the Emperor Constantine issued what is now known as the Edict of Milan in AD 313, granting tolerance to all religions within the Empire, thus paving the way for Christianity to become the dominant religion of the Empire. Constantine was in Mediolanum to celebrate the wedding of his sister to the Eastern Emperor, Licinius. There were Christian communities in Mediolanum, which contributed its share of martyrs during the persecutions, but the first bishop of Milan who has a firm historical presence is Merocles, who was at the Council of Rome of 313. In the mid-fourth century, the Arian controversy divided the Christians of Mediolanum; Constantius supported Arian bishops and at times there were rival bishops. Auxentius of Milan (died 374) was a respected Arian theologian.


title: Mediolanum

text: At the time of the bishop St. Ambrose (bishop 374–397), who quelled the Arians, and emperor Theodosius I, Mediolanum reached the height of its ancient power.


title: Mediolanum

text: The city also possessed a number of basilicas, added in the late fourth century AD. These are San Simpliciano, San Nazaro, San Lorenzo and the chapel of San Vittore, located in the basilica of Sant'Ambrogio. In general, the Late Empire encouraged the development of the applied arts in Mediolanum, with ivory and silver work being common in public building projects. In the crypt of the Duomo survive ruins of the ancient church of Saint Tecla and the baptistry where St. Augustine of Hippo was baptized.


title: Mediolanum

text: In 402, the city was besieged by the Goths and the imperial residence was moved to Ravenna. In 452, it was besieged again by Attila, but the real break with its imperial past came in 538, during the Gothic War, when Mediolanum was laid to waste by Uraia, a nephew of Vitiges, King of the Goths, with great loss of life. The Lombards took Ticinum as their capital (renaming it ‘Papia’, hence the modern Pavia), and Early Medieval Milan was left to be governed by its archbishops.


title: Mediolanum

text: The ancient city name is commemorated in the Mediolanum Forum at Assago and the Mediolanum Corporate University, Milan.


title: Steve Park (comedian)

text: Stephen Park is an American comedian and actor. He is best known for being a cast member of the sketch comedy television series "In Living Color" during the 1991–1992 season. He is also known for the film roles of Sonny in "Do the Right Thing" (1989), Detective Brian in "Falling Down" (1993), Mike Yanagita in "Fargo" (1996), and Lt. Nescaffier in "The French Dispatch" (2021).


title: Steve Park (comedian)

text: Park's other acting work includes the role of Mike Sorayama in the Adult Swim animated television series "The Venture Bros." and the role of Judge Pete in the critically acclaimed independent film "Rocket Science" (2007). Park has acted in two Coen brothers films, "Fargo" and "A Serious Man" (2009).


title: Steve Park (comedian)

text: Park grew up in Vestal, New York. The son of Korean immigrants, Park began his entertainment career as a stand-up comedian before transitioning into acting.


title: Steve Park (comedian)

text: Park was a cast member on "In Living Color". He has appeared in films such as "Do the Right Thing" (1989), "Fargo" (1996), "A Serious Man" (2009), "Snowpiercer" (2013), and "The French Dispatch" (2021).


title: Steve Park (comedian)

text: Park married Kelly Coffield, another former cast member of "In Living Color", in 1999. They have a son, Owen, and a daughter, Eliza.


title: Steve Park (comedian)

text: In 1997, Park wrote a mission statement in which he called for Hollywood to portray people of Asian descent in a less disparaging light. He wrote the statement after witnessing a racist incident while appearing in a guest role on the television series "Friends". In his statement, Park wrote that "In movies and television, Asian characters, mostly men, are subjected to indignity and violence or are tokenized, while Asian women are exploited as objects of sexual desire. You rarely see Asian characters in leading roles that contain any significant power or influence".


title: Armagh

text: Armagh ( ; , , "Macha's height") is the county town of County Armagh and a city in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Primates of All Ireland for both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland. In ancient times, nearby Navan Fort ("Eamhain Mhacha") was a pagan ceremonial site and one of the great royal capitals of Gaelic Ireland. Today, Armagh is home to two cathedrals (both named after Saint Patrick) and the Armagh Observatory, and is known for its Georgian architecture.


title: Armagh

text: Although classed as a medium-sized town, Armagh was given city status in 1994 and Lord Mayoralty status in 2012, both by Queen Elizabeth II. It had a population of 14,777 people in the 2011 Census.


title: Armagh

text: "Eamhain Mhacha" (or Navan Fort), at the western edge of Armagh, was an ancient pagan ritual or ceremonial site. According to Irish mythology it was one of the great royal sites of Gaelic Ireland and the capital of Ulster. It appears to have been largely abandoned after the 1st century. In the 3rd century, a ditch and bank was dug around the top of Cathedral Hill, the heart of what is now Armagh. Its circular shape matches the modern street layout. Evidence suggests that it was a pagan sanctuary and the successor to Navan. Like Navan, it too was named after the goddess Macha: "Ard Mhacha", meaning "Macha's height". This name was later anglicised as "Ardmagh", which eventually became "Armagh". Navan and Armagh were linked by an ancient road which passes over Mullacreevie hill.


title: Armagh

text: After Christianity spread to Ireland, the pagan sanctuary was converted into a Christian one, and Armagh became the site of an important church and monastery. According to tradition, Saint Patrick founded his main church there in the year 445, and it eventually became the head church of Ireland. Muirchú writes that a pagan chieftain named Dáire would not let Patrick build a church on the hill of Ard Mhacha, but instead gave him lower ground to the east. One day, Dáire's horses died after grazing on the church land. He told his men to kill Patrick, but was himself struck down with illness. They begged Patrick to heal him, and Patrick's holy water revived both Dáire and his horses. Dáire rewarded Patrick with a great bronze cauldron and gave him the hill of Ard Mhacha to build a church. Dáire has similarities with the Irish god the Dagda.


title: Armagh

text: By the 7th century, Armagh had become the site of the most important church, monastery and monastic school in the north of Ireland. The "Book of Armagh" was produced in the monastery in the early 9th century and contains some of the oldest surviving specimens of Old Irish.


title: Armagh

text: Armagh was at the heart of the kingdom of the Airthir, a part of the Airgíalla federation. The church at Armagh looked to both the Airthir and neighbouring Uí Néill for patronage. The Uí Néill High King, Niall Caille (Niall of the Callan), was buried at Armagh in 846 after drowning in the River Callan. His son, High King Áed Findliath, had a house at Armagh.


title: Armagh

text: The first Viking raids on Armagh were recorded in 832, with three in one month, and it suffered at least ten Viking raids over the following century. A hoard seemingly lost by Vikings in the River Blackwater shows the high quality of metalwork being made in Armagh at this time.


title: Armagh

text: Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, visited Armagh in 1004, acknowledging it as the head church of Ireland and bestowing it a large sum of gold. Brian was buried at Armagh cathedral after his death at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Armagh's claim to being the head church of Ireland was formally acknowledged at the Synod of Ráth Breasail in 1111.


title: Armagh

text: Following the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, Armagh was attacked by Anglo-Normans led by Philip de Worcester in 1185 and by John de Courcy in 1189. It was also raided by Ruaidrí mac Duinn Sléibe of Ulaid in 1196 and 1199.


title: Armagh

text: Archbishop Máel Patraic Ua Scannail rebuilt Armagh cathedral in 1268 and founded a Franciscan friary, whose remains can still be seen. There was also a small Culdee community in Armagh until the 16th century.


title: Armagh

text: During the 16th century Tudor conquest of Ireland, Armagh suffered greatly in the conflict between the English and the O'Neills. Armagh was strategically important as it lay between the English Pale and the O'Neill heartland of Tyrone, and the town changed hands many times during the wars. In the 1560s, English troops under Thomas Radclyffe occupied and fortified the town, which was then attacked and largely destroyed by Shane O'Neill. After the Battle of the Yellow Ford in 1598, the routed English army took refuge at Armagh before surrendering to Hugh O'Neill. By the end of the Nine Years' War, Armagh lay in ruins, as shown on Richard Bartlett's 1601 map.


title: Armagh

text: Following the Nine Years' War, Armagh came under English dominance and the cathedral came under the control of the Protestant Church of Ireland. The cathedral was rebuilt under Archbishop Christopher Hampton and the town began to be settled by Protestants from Britain, as part of the Plantation of Ulster. During the Irish Rebellion of 1641, many British settlers fled to Armagh cathedral for safety. After negotiations with the besieged settlers, Catholic rebels under Felim O'Neill occupied the town. In May 1642, following several rebel defeats and massacres by settlers elsewhere, the rebels in Armagh seized the settlers' property and set fire to the town.


title: Armagh

text: Armagh has been an educational centre since the time of Saint Patrick, and thus it has been referred to as "the city of saints and scholars". The educational tradition continued with the foundation of the Royal School in 1608, St Patrick's College in 1834 and the Armagh Observatory in 1790. The Observatory was part of Archbishop Lord Rokeby's plan to have a university in the city. This ambition was finally fulfilled, albeit briefly, in the 1990s when Queen's University of Belfast opened an outreach centre in the former hospital building.


title: Armagh

text: The Catch-my-Pal Protestant Total Abstinence Union was founded in 1909 in Armagh by the minister of 3rd Armagh (now The Mall) Presbyterian Church, Rev. Robert Patterson. Although relatively short-lived it was very successful for that time, attracting many tens of thousands of members. It was influential in the development of a 'two-community' narrative in Ulster which was important in the Ulster Unionist campaign during the Third Home Rule Crisis. A 'blue plaque' historical marker commemorating Rev. Patterson was erected on The Mall in 2019.


title: Armagh

text: Three brothers from Armagh died at the Battle of the Somme during World War I. None of the three has a known grave and all are commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. A fourth brother was wounded in the same attack.


title: Armagh

text: On 14 January 1921, during the Irish War of Independence, a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) sergeant was assassinated by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Armagh. He was attacked with a grenade as he walked along Market Street and later died of his wounds. On 4 September 1921, republican leaders Michael Collins and Eoin O'Duffy addressed a large meeting in Armagh, which was attended by up to 10,000 people.


title: Armagh

text: During the Troubles in Armagh, the violence was substantial enough for a stretch of road on the outskirts of the city to be referred to by one RUC officer as "Murder Mile". Over the span of 36 years, although mainly concentrated in the years from 1969 until 1994, the small city, including some outlying areas, saw 86 deaths in the Troubles, including those of a number of people from the city who lost their lives elsewhere in Troubles-related incidents. Armagh City Hall, which had been built as the Tontine Buildings in 1828 and converted into a municipal building in 1910, was badly damaged in a bomb attack on 27 September 1972 and subsequently demolished.


title: Armagh

text: As the seat of the Primate of All Ireland, Armagh was historically regarded as a city, and recognisably had the status by 1226. It had no charter granted but claimed the title by prescription; Acts of the Parliament of Ireland in 1773 and 1791 refer to the "City of Armagh". Armagh lost the status with the abolition of its city corporation by the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 after it was deemed ineffective and unrepresentative of its population. From 1953, Armagh began to argue for the restoration of the status lost in 1840, with several applications to the Home Office being made. The council used the appellation "city" unofficially until 1994 when, at Queen Elizabeth's personal request, Armagh along with the Welsh town of St Davids was awarded the status. Charles, Prince of Wales during a visit in July 1994 announced it had been granted to mark the 1,550th anniversary of the traditional date of Armagh's foundation by Saint Patrick, and also "in recognition of [Armagh's and St Davids'] important Christian heritage and their status as cities in the last century".


title: Armagh

text: The award of city status is typically granted to a local authority body, and the letters patent was initially presented to dignitaries and Armagh District Council by Queen Elizabeth during a visit on 9 March 1995. Following this, it was renamed Armagh City and District Council from 1 October 1995. Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council presently holds the status on behalf of the city as there is no localised council body since the aforementioned districts were merged in 2015 as a result of local government reform. Armagh contains the lowest population of all the cities of Northern Ireland, and is fifth smallest in the UK. Its urban area covering , makes it the smallest city by size in Northern Ireland, however several other cities are smaller when the UK is taken as a whole.


title: Armagh

text: Armagh is the site of two cathedrals, both on hills and both named after Saint Patrick. The Church of Ireland cathedral dates back to around 445. The present-day, post-Reformation, Roman Catholic cathedral was constructed during the latter half of the 19th century and features twin 64m spires, making it the tallest such structure in the county. Armagh is one of the few cities in the world that is home to two cathedrals of the same name.


title: Armagh

text: Armagh has a Georgian area of heritage importance. Perhaps one of the more well known of the buildings is the former women's prison. The construction of Armagh Gaol began in 1780 and was extended in the 1840s and 1850s. The front façade of the prison was built in the Georgian style, while the later development, based on the design of Pentonville (HM Prison), is Victorian. For most of its working life it was a women's prison although not exclusively so. Armagh Gaol was the primary women's prison in Northern Ireland. In 1986 the prison closed and its prisoners were transferred to the new prison at Maghaberry.


title: Armagh

text: The city is home to the Armagh Observatory, founded in 1790, and to the Armagh Planetarium, established in 1968 to complement the research work of the Observatory. The palace of the Archbishop of Armagh is now the local council offices and, along with the archbishop's private chapel, is open to the public. The Palace Stables heritage centre is a reconstructed stable block dating from the 18th century, which was once part of the Archbishop's estate.


title: Armagh

text: Among the city's chief glories is Armagh Public Library on Abbey Street. It was founded in 1771 by Archbishop Richard Robinson (later created The 1st Baron Rokeby in 1777), using his own library as its nucleus. It is especially rich in 17th- and 18th-century books in English, including Dean Jonathan Swift's own copy of the first edition of his "Gulliver's Travels" with his manuscript corrections.


title: Armagh

text: Armagh Market House was built in 1815 as a two-storey five-bay building, and is currently used as a library.


title: Armagh

text: Armagh County Museum is the oldest county museum in Ireland. The building dates from 1833 and was originally a school house. It was opened as the County Museum in 1937.


title: Armagh

text: Armagh is within the civil parish of Armagh. Like the rest of Ireland, this parish is divided into townlands, whose names mostly come from the Irish language. When these townlands were built upon, they lent their names to various streets, roads and housing estates.


title: Armagh

text: In 1830, most of Armagh's urban townlands were amalgamated for administration and became known as Corporation Lands or simply Corporation. The surrounding townlands remained as separate units and they were eventually built upon too. They are listed below alongside their likely etymologies.


title: Armagh

text: On Census day (27 March 2011) there were 14,777 people living in Armagh (5871 households), accounting for 0.82% of the NI total, representing an increase of 1.3% on the Census 2001 population of 14,590. Of these:


title: Armagh

text: Armagh City and District Council was a single district council until 2015 when it merged with Banbridge District Council and Craigavon Borough Council under local government reorganisation in Northern Ireland to become Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council, sometimes colloquially referred to as the ABC council.


title: Armagh

text: Together with part of the district of Newry and Mourne, it forms the Newry & Armagh constituency for elections to the Westminster Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly.


title: Armagh

text: The Education Authority (Southern) and the Southern Health and Social Care Trust have their headquarters in the city, which has a long reputation as an administrative centre.


title: Armagh

text: The secretariat of the North/South Ministerial Council is based in Armagh, and consists jointly of members of the civil services of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.


title: Armagh

text: Armagh is the seat of both the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, both of whom hold the position of "Primate of All Ireland" for their respective denominations.


title: Armagh

text: The Ulster Railway linked Armagh with Belfast in 1848 and Monaghan in 1858. The Newry and Armagh Railway (N&A) opened in 1864 and the Castleblayney, Keady and Armagh Railway (CK&A) was completed in 1910. In 1876 the Ulster Railway became part of the new Great Northern Railway (GNR), which took over the N&A in 1879 and the CK&A in 1911.


title: Armagh

text: The Armagh rail disaster, which killed 80 people, occurred on 12 June 1889 on the N&A line near Armagh.


title: Armagh

text: The partition of Ireland in 1922 hastened the railways' decline, and the GNR closed the Keady – Castleblayney section of the CKA in 1923. The GNR withdrew passenger trains from the Armagh – Keady section of the CKA in 1922 and closed the Armagh – Markethill section of the N&A in 1933. The Government of Northern Ireland forced the GNR Board to close all remaining lines serving Armagh railway station on 1 October 1957: the goods branch from Armagh to Keady and the main line through Armagh from as far as the border at Glaslough on the way to Monaghan.


title: Armagh

text: Northern Ireland Railways train services run from to Belfast Great Victoria Street and the cross-border Enterprise service runs via Newry to Dublin Connolly. Poyntzpass also has a limited service.


title: Armagh

text: When he was Minister for the Department for Regional Development, then MLA Danny Kennedy had indicated plans to restore the railway from Armagh station to .


title: Armagh

text: Armagh City Football Club, which plays in the NIFL Championship is the main association football club, and the City of Armagh Rugby Club is the local rugby club. Lisanally Rangers F.C. is another football team, playing in the Mid-Ulster Football League. Gaelic football is represented by Armagh Harps and Pearse Ógs. The local GAA handball club is Eugene Quinn's, named after a player from the Armagh area who died on an attempted swim from Tory Island to the coast of Donegal. The local hurling club is Armagh Cúchulainns.


title: Armagh

text: In 2004 the Royal School, Armagh became only the second team in history to win both the schools' rugby and hockey cups in the same year.


title: Armagh

text: The Mall in Armagh has a long association with cricket, and is the location of the Armagh Cricket Club clubhouse.


title: Armagh

text: Armagh Athletics Club was founded in 1969. The club organises the Armagh International 5k Road Race annually. The race was first organised in 1980 and takes place every February with athletes coming from England, Scotland, Wales, continental Europe and the United States.


title: Armagh

text: Only people who are sufficiently notable to have individual entries on Wikipedia have been included in the list and, in each instance, their birth or residence has been verified by citations.


title: Armagh

text: Armagh has a temperate maritime climate ("Cfb") according to the Köppen climate classification system. The nearest Met Office standard weather station, at Armagh Observatory, provides long term weather data back to 1794. The lowest temperature was on 7 February 1895. This is also the coldest temperature on record for February in Northern Ireland.


title: Armagh

text: Armagh also holds the record for highest daily minimum temperature in Northern Ireland, at on 31 July 1868. The lowest daily maximum temperature on record is which occurred on 20 December 2010.


title: Armagh

text: Typically, the warmest day of the year will reach , and 3.7 days a year should attain a maximum temperature of or above.


title: Armagh

text: Typically the coldest night of the year should fall to and 40.4 nights should register an air frost. All averages refer to the 1981–2010 observation period.


title: Thomas Turgoose

text: Thomas Aiden Turgoose (born 11 February 1992) is an English actor, best known for his role as Shaun Fields in the film "This Is England" (2006), a role he reprises in the "This Is England" TV series "This Is England '86" (2010), "This Is England '88" (2011) and "This Is England '90" (2015).


title: Thomas Turgoose

text: In his first film role in 2006, he played the lead character, Shaun Fields, in "This Is England", written and directed by Shane Meadows. On television he played the character Dizzy, a young boy mentored by Adam Solomons (Luke Treadaway), in the 2006 BBC drama series "The Innocence Project". The programme was cancelled after eight episodes due to poor ratings and negative reviews. Turgoose's character was in six of the eight episodes. In 2008, he was again in a Shane Meadows film, "Somers Town", where he co-starred in a comedy role with young Polish actor Piotr Jagiello. Both young actors shared the "Best Actor in a Narrative Feature" award at New York's Tribeca Film Festival. He was also in "The Scouting Book for Boys", and appeared in "This Is England '86", a 4-part TV series for Channel 4 looking at characters from "This is England" three years on. A year later, he appeared in the three-part series "This Is England '88", aired just before Christmas 2011, and also appeared in "This Is England '90", aired in 2015.


title: Thomas Turgoose

text: He appeared on "Pointless Celebrities", where he was paired with fellow actor Vas Blackwood. On 7 November 2015, he made his second appearance on "Pointless Celebrities", where he was paired with Tyger Drew-Honey. In 2017, Turgoose appeared in the Season 7 premiere of the HBO series "Game of Thrones" as a Lannister soldier.


title: Thomas Turgoose

text: Turgoose is a supporter of Grimsby Town, although he admits that as a boy he supported Manchester United, and is a season ticket holder at his hometown club. Prior to Grimsby Town's Conference Premier play-off final against Bristol Rovers, he interviewed manager Paul Hurst, club captain Craig Disley and striker Lenell John-Lewis for "Football Focus", which was aired on 16 May 2015.


title: Raja

text: Raja (; from , IAST "") is a royal title used for South Asian monarchs. The title is equivalent to king or princely ruler in South Asia and Southeast Asia.


title: Raja

text: The title has a long history in South Asia and Southeast Asia, being attested from the Rigveda, where a ' is a ruler, see for example the ', the "Battle of Ten Kings".


title: Raja

text: While most of the Indian salute states (those granted a by the British Crown) were ruled by a Maharaja (or variation; some promoted from an earlier Raja- or equivalent style), even exclusively from 13 guns up, a number had Rajas:


title: Raja

text: Rajadharma is the dharma which applies to the king, or the Raja. Dharma is that which upholds, supports, or maintains the order of the universe and is based on truth. It is of central importance in achieving order and balance within the world and does this by demanding certain necessary behaviors from people.


title: Raja

text: The king served two main functions as the Raja: secular and religious. The religious functions involved certain acts for propitiating gods, removing dangers, and guarding dharma, among other things. The secular functions involved helping prosperity (such as during times of famine), dealing out even-handed justice, and protecting people and their property. Once he helped the Vibhore to reach his goal by giving the devotion of his power in order to reduce the poverty from his kingdom.


title: Raja

text: Protection of his subjects was seen as the first and foremost duty of the king. This was achieved by punishing internal aggression, such as thieves among his people, and meeting external aggression, such as attacks by foreign entities. Moreover, the king possessed executive, judicial, and legislative dharmas, which he was responsible for carrying out. If he did so wisely, the king believed that he would be rewarded by reaching the pinnacle of the abode of the sun, or heaven. However, if the king carried out his office poorly, he feared that he would suffer hell or be struck down by a deity. As scholar Charles Drekmeier notes, "dharma stood above the king, and his failure to preserve it must accordingly have disastrous consequences". Because the king's power had to be employed subject to the requirements of the various ashramas and varnas' dharma, failure to "enforce the code" transferred guilt on to the ruler, and according to Drekmeier some texts went so far as to justify revolt against a ruler who abused his power or inadequately performed his dharma. In other words, dharma as both the king's tool of coercion and power, yet also his potential downfall, "was a two-edged sword".


title: Raja

text: The executive duty of the king was primarily to carry out punishment, or "daṇḍa". For instance, a judge who would give an incorrect verdict out of passion, ignorance, or greed is not worthy of the office, and the king should punish him harshly. Another executive dharma of the king is correcting the behavior of brahmanas that have strayed from their dharma, or duties, through the use of strict punishment. These two examples demonstrated how the king was responsible for enforcing the dharmas of his subjects, but also was in charge of enforcing rulings in more civil disputes. Such as if a man is able to repay a creditor but does not do so out of mean-spiritedness, the king should make him pay the money and take five percent for himself.


title: Raja

text: The judicial duty of the king was deciding any disputes that arose in his kingdom and any conflicts that arose between dharmasastra and practices at the time or between dharmasastra and any secular transactions. When he took the judgment seat, the king was to abandon all selfishness and be neutral to all things. The king would hear cases such as thefts, and would use dharma to come to a decision. He was also responsible for making sure that the witnesses were honest and truthful by way of testing them. If the king conducted these trials according to dharma, he would be rewarded with wealth, fame, respect, and an eternal place in heaven, among other things. However, not all cases fell upon the shoulders of the king. It was also the king's duty to appoint judges that would decide cases with the same integrity as the king.


title: Raja

text: The king also had a legislative duty, which was utilized when he would enact different decrees, such as announcing a festival or a day of rest for the kingdom.


title: Raja

text: Rajadharma largely portrayed the king as an administrator above all else. The main purpose for the king executing punishment, or danda, was to ensure that all of his subjects were carrying out their own particular dharmas. For this reason, rajadharma was often seen as the root of all dharma and was the highest goal. The whole purpose of the king was to make everything and everyone prosper. If they were not prospering, the king was not fulfilling his dharma. He had to carry out his duties as laid down in the science of government and "not act at his sweet will." Indeed, in the major writings on dharma (i.e. dharmasastra, etc.), the dharma of the king was regarded as the "capstone" of the other varnas' dharma both due to the king's goal of securing the happiness and prosperity of his people as well as his ability to act as the "guarantor" of the whole social structure through the enforcement of "daṇḍa".


title: Raja

text: In contemporary India, an idea pervades various levels of Hindu society: the "Ramrajya", or a kind of Hindu Golden Age in which through his strict adherence to rajadharma as outline in the Hindu epics and elsewhere, Rama serves as the ideal model of the perfect Hindu king. As Derrett put it, "everyone lives at peace" because "everyone knows his place" and could easily be forced into that place if necessary.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: Pandit Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi BR (; ; 4 February 1922 – 24 January 2011), also known by the honorific prefix Pandit, was one of the greatest Indian vocalists from Karnataka, in the Hindustani classical tradition. He is known for the "khayal" form of singing, as well as for his popular renditions of devotional music ("bhajans" and "abhangs"). Joshi belongs to the Kirana gharana tradition of Hindustani Classical Music. He is noted for his concerts, and between 1964 to 1982 Joshi toured Afghanistan, Italy, France, Canada and USA. He was the first musician from India whose concerts were advertised through posters in New York City. Joshi was instrumental in organising the Sawai Gandharva Music Festival annually, as homage to his guru, Sawai Gandharva.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: In 1998, he was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour conferred by Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy for Music, Dance and Drama. Subsequently, he received the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, in 2009.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: Bhimsen Joshi was born on 4 February 1922 in a Kannada Deshastha Madhva Brahmin family to Gururajrao Joshi and Godavaribai at Gadag in Dharwad district that was then in the Bombay Presidency of British India. His father, Gururaj Joshi, was a school teacher. Bhimsen was the eldest among 16 siblings. He lost his mother at a young age.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: As a child, Joshi was fascinated with music and musical instruments like the harmonium and tanpura and would often follow processions accompanied by music bands. This exercise often tired him and he would curl up somewhere and sleep, forcing his parents to go to the police after efforts to trace him failed. Fed up, his father Gururajacharya Joshi came up with the solution, writing "son of teacher Joshi" on Joshi's shirts. This worked and those who found the boy sleeping would safely deposit him back to his house.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: His first music teacher was Channappa of Kurtakoti, who had trained with the veteran singer Inayat Khan. After learning Ragas Bhairav and Bhimpalasi, the one and only unique vigorous style of rendering he developed along with advanced trainings by other teachers is attributed to the basic training he received from Channappa. Joshi next went to Pandit Shyamacharya Joshi, who hailed from Bagalkot and was a priest and classical singer. Pandit Shyamacharya taught him to sing as well as play the harmonium. Shamacharya Joshi was a descendant of Great Haridasa Shree Mahipati Dasaru. As revealed by Shyamacharya Joshi himself when he was alive, it was a turning point in Joshi's life that Shyamacharya Joshi went to Bombay for recording his songs by HMV where Joshi also accompanied him and due to ill health Shyamacharya Joshi returned to Bagalkot after recording few songs and asked Joshi to render the rest of the songs which Joshi did and this proved to be a major breakthrough for Joshi in the initial stage of his career.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: Joshi heard a recording of Abdul Karim Khan's Thumri "Piya Bin Nahi Aavat Chain" in Raga Jhinjhoti when he was a child, which inspired him to become a musician. During this time, he also heard Pandit Sawai Gandharva at a performance in Kundgol. In 1933, the 11-year-old Joshi left Dharwad for Bijapur to find a master and learn music. With the help of money lent by his co-passengers in the train, Joshi reached Dharwad first and later went to Pune. Later he moved to Gwalior and got into Madhava Music School, a school run by Maharajas of Gwalior, with the help of famous "sarod" player Hafiz Ali Khan. He traveled for three years around North India, including in Delhi, Kolkata, Gwalior, Lucknow and Rampur, trying to find a good guru. He met Ustad Mushtaq Husain Khan of Rampur Gharana and stayed for more than one year. Eventually, his father succeeded in tracking him down in Jalandhar and brought young Joshi back home.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: In 1936, Sawai Gandharva, a native of Dharwad, agreed to be his guru. Joshi stayed at his house in the "guru-shishya" (teacher-student) tradition. Joshi continued his training with Sawai Gandharva.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: Joshi first performed live in 1941 at the age of 19. His debut album, containing a few devotional songs in Marathi and Hindi, was released by HMV the next year in 1942. Later Joshi moved to Mumbai in 1943 and worked as a radio artist. His performance at a concert in 1946 to celebrate his guru Sawai Gandharva's 60th birthday won him accolades both from the audience and his guru. In 1984, he received his 1st Platinum Disc, being the first Hindustani Vocalist to receive the award.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: Joshi's performances have been acknowledged by music critics such as S. N. Chandrashekhar of the Deccan Herald to be marked by spontaneity, accurate notes, dizzyingly-paced "taans" which make use of his exceptional voice training, and a mastery over rhythm. In his especially mid singing career (i.e. the 60s & 70s) Joshi's most iconic and noticeable trait was his use of swift and long aakar taans, exemplifying tremendous and almost unrivalled breath-control, although he rarely used sargam taans. The Hindu, in an article written after he was awarded the Bharat Ratna, said: "Bhimsen Joshi was ever the wanderer, engendering brilliant phrases and tans more intuitively than through deliberation". Joshi occasionally employed the use of sargam and tihai, and often sang traditional compositions of the . His music often injected surprising and sudden turns of phrase, for example through the unexpected use of boltaans. Over the years, his repertoire tended to favour a relatively small number of complex and serious ragas; however, he remained one of the most prolific exponents of Hindustani classical music. Some of Joshi's more popular ragas include Shuddha Kalyan, Miyan Ki Todi, Puriya Dhanashri, Multani, Bhimpalasi, Darbari, Malkauns, Abhogi, Lalit, Yaman, Asavari Todi, Miyan ki malhar and Ramkali. He was a purist who has not dabbled in experimental forms of music, except for a series of Jugalbandi recordings with the Carnatic singer M. Balamuralikrishna.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: Joshi's singing has been influenced by many musicians, including Smt. Kesarbai Kerkar, Begum Akhtar and as aforementioned, Ustad Amir Khan. Joshi assimilated into his own singing various elements that he liked in different musical styles and Gharanas.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: He along with Smt. Gangubai Hangal along with others took Kirana gharana to heights and are proudly referred as worthy son and daughter of kirana gharana. Both were from Old Dharwad district.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: In devotional music, Joshi was most acclaimed for his Hindi and Marathi and Kannada Bhajan singing. He has recorded bhakti songs in Marathi,"Santavani", Kannada "Dasavani".


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: Joshi was widely recognised in India due to his performance in the Mile Sur Mera Tumhara music video (1988), which begins with him and which was composed originally by him when he was asked to do so by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The video was created for the purpose of national integration in India, and highlights the diversity of Indian culture. Joshi was also a part of Jana Gana Mana produced by A. R. Rahman on the occasion of the 50th year of Indian Republic.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: Joshi sang for several films, including "Basant Bahar" (1956) with Manna Dey, in Marathi movie "Swayamvar zale Siteche" (1964) for famous song "Ramya Hi Swargahun lanka", in Kannada movie Sandhya Raga (1966) where he has sung extensively. It includes a song "e pariya sobagu" rendered in both Hindustani and Carnatic () styles along with M. Balamuralikrishna. He sang "Birbal My Brother" (1973) with Pandit Jasraj. He also sang for the Bengali film Tansen (1958) and Bollywood Movie "Ankahee" (1985) which later fetched him National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer. His song 'Bhagyadalakshmi baaramma', a Purandara Dasa composition, was used by Anant Nag and Shankar Nag in the Kannada film "Nodi Swami Naavu Irodhu Heege". He also sang as a playback singer for the Marathi film Gulacha Ganapati, produced and directed by P. L. Deshpande


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: Joshi and his friend Nanasaheb Deshpande organised the Sawai Gandharva Music Festival as a homage to his guru, Sawai Gandharva, along with the Arya Sangeet Prasarak Mandal in 1953, marking Gandharva's first death anniversary. The festival has been held ever since, typically on the second weekend of December in Pune, Maharashtra also in kundagol Dharwad district and has become not only a cultural event for the city, but an annual pilgrimage for Hindustani Classical music lovers all over the world. Joshi conducted the festival annually since 1953, until his retirement in 2002.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: A classicist by training and temperament, Joshi was renowned for having evolved an approach that sought to achieve a balance between what may be termed as "traditional values and mass-culture tastes" and as such he went on to have supposedly the largest commercially recorded repertoire in Hindustani vocal music. Pt. Joshi's iconic status in the music world has earned him a whole generation of who by merely listening to him have picked up his style and not through any formal tutelage.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: His greatest endeavour in perpetuating his legacy could be the Sawai Gandharva Festival held at Pune annually since the year 1953 which seeks to promote a certain music culture.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: Madhav Gudi, Prof Baldev Singh Bali, Narayan Deshpande, Shrikant Deshpande, Shrinivas Joshi, Anand Bhate and others are some of his more well-known disciples.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: Joshi married twice. His first wife was Sunanda Katti, the daughter of his maternal uncle, whom he married in 1944. He had four children from Sunanda; Raghavendra, Usha, Sumangala, and Anand. In 1951, he married Vatsala Mudholkar, his co-actor in the Kannada play Bhagya-Shree. Bigamous marriages among Hindus were prohibited by law in the Bombay Presidency; so he took up residency in Nagpur (capital of Central Province and Berar in 1951) where bigamy was allowed and married there for the second time. He did not divorce or separate from Sunanda. With Vatsala, he had three children; Jayant, Shubhada, and Shrinivas Joshi. Initially, both his wives and families lived together, but when this did not work out, his first wife moved out with the family to live in a house in Limayewadi in Sadashiv Peth, Pune, where Joshi continued to visit them.


title: Bhimsen Joshi

text: Joshi was admitted to Sahyadri Super Speciality Hospital on 31 December 2010 with gastrointestinal bleeding and bilateral pneumonia. Due to difficulty in breathing, he was put on ventilator support. He suffered convulsions and was put on dialysis too during his stay in hospital. Though he recovered briefly for three days when he was taken off the ventilator, his condition deteriorated thereafter. He died on 24 January 2011 . He was cremated at Vaikunth Crematorium in Pune with full state honours.


title: World tree

text: The world tree is a motif present in several religions and mythologies, particularly Indo-European religions, Siberian religions, and Native American religions. The world tree is represented as a colossal tree which supports the heavens, thereby connecting the heavens, the terrestrial world, and, through its roots, the underworld. It may also be strongly connected to the motif of the tree of life, but it is the source of wisdom of the ages.


title: World tree

text: Specific world trees include "égig érő fa" in Hungarian mythology, Ağaç Ana in Turkic mythology, Andndayin Ca˙r in Armenian mythology, Modun in Mongol mythology, "Yggdrasil" in Norse mythology, Irminsul in Germanic mythology, the oak in Slavic, Finnish and Baltic, Iroko in Yoruba religion, "Jianmu" in Chinese mythology, and in Hindu mythology the "Ashvattha" (a "Ficus religiosa").


title: World tree

text: Scholarship states that many Eurasian mythologies share the motif of the "world tree", "cosmic tree", or "Eagle and Serpent Tree". More specifically, it shows up in "Haitian, Finnish, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Norse, Siberian and northern Asian Shamanic folklore".


title: World tree

text: The World Tree is often identified with the "Tree of Life", and also fulfills the role of an "axis mundi", that is, a centre or axis of the world. It is also located at the center of the world and represents order and harmony of the cosmos. According to Loreta Senkute, each part of the tree corresponds to one of the three spheres of the world (treetops - heavens; trunk - middle world or earth; roots - underworld) and is also associated with a classical element (top part - fire; middle part - earth, soil, ground; bottom part - water).


title: World tree

text: Its branches are said to reach the skies and its roots to connect the human or earthly world with an underworld or subterranean realm. Because of this, the tree was worshipped as a mediator between Heavens and Earth. On the treetops are located the luminaries (stars) and heavenly bodies, along with an eagle's nest; several species of birds perch among its branches; humans and animals of every kind live under its branches, and near the root is the dwelling place of snakes and every sort of reptiles.


title: World tree

text: A bird perches atop its foliage, "often ... a winged mythical creature" that represents a heavenly realm. The eagle seems to be the most frequent bird, fulfilling the role of a creator or weather deity. Its antipode is a snake or serpentine creature that crawls between the tree roots, being a "symbol of the underworld".


title: World tree

text: The imagery of the World Tree is sometimes associated with conferring immortality, either by a fruit that grows on it or by a springsource located nearby. As George Lechler also pointed out, in some descriptions this "water of life" may also flow from the roots of the tree.


title: World tree

text: The World Tree has also been compared to a World Pillar that appears in other traditions and functions as separator between the earth and the skies, upholding the latter. Another representation akin to the World Tree is a separate World Mountain. However, in some stories, the world tree is located atop the world mountain, in a combination of both motifs.


title: World tree

text: A conflict between a serpentine creature and a giant bird (an eagle) occurs in Eurasian mythologies: a hero kills the serpent that menaces a nest of little birds, and their mother repays the favor - a motif comparativist Julien d'Huy dates to the Paleolithic. A parallel story is attested in the traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, where the thunderbird is slotted into the role of the giant bird whose nest is menaced by a "snake-like water monster".


title: World tree

text: Romanian historian of religion, Mircea Eliade, in his monumental work "", suggested that the world tree was an important element in shamanistic worldview. Also, according to him, "the giant bird ... hatches shamans in the branches of the World Tree". Likewise, Roald Knutsen indicates the presence of the motif in Altaic shamanism. Representations of the world tree are reported to be portrayed in drums used in Siberian shamanistic practices.


title: World tree

text: Some species of birds (eagle, raven, crane, loon, and lark) are revered as mediators between worlds and also connected to the imagery of the world tree. Another line of scholarship points to a "recurring theme" of the owl as the mediator to the upper realm, and its counterpart, the snake, as the mediator to the lower regions of the cosmos.


title: World tree

text: Researcher Kristen Pearson mentions Northern Eurasian and Central Asian traditions wherein the World Tree is also associated with the horse and with deer antlers (which might resemble tree branches).


title: World tree

text: Mircea Eliade proposed that the typical imagery of the world tree (bird at the top, snake at the root) "is presumably of Oriental origin".


title: World tree

text: Likewise, Roald Knutsen indicates a possible origin of the motif in Central Asia and later diffusion into other regions and cultures.


title: World tree

text: A common theme in most indigenous cultures of the Americas is a concept of directionality (the horizontal and vertical planes), with the vertical dimension often being represented by a world tree. Some scholars have argued that the religious importance of the horizontal and vertical dimensions in many animist cultures may derive from the human body and the position it occupies in the world as it perceives the surrounding living world. Many Indigenous cultures of the Americas have similar cosmologies regarding the directionality and the world tree, however the type of tree representing the world tree depends on the surrounding environment. For many Indigenous American peoples located in more temperate regions for example, it is the spruce rather than the ceiba that is the world tree; however the idea of cosmic directions combined with a concept of a tree uniting the directional planes is similar.


title: World tree

text: Like in many other Indo-European cultures, one tree species was considered the World Tree in some cosmogonical accounts.


title: World tree

text: The sacred tree of Zeus is the oak, and the one at Dodona (famous for the cultic worship of Zeus and the oak) was said by later tradition to have its roots furrow so deep as to reach the confines of Tartarus.


title: World tree

text: In a different cosmogonic account presented by Pherecydes of Syros, male deity "Zas" (identified as Zeus) marries female divinity "Chthonie" (associated with the earth and later called Gê/Gaia), and from their marriage sprouts an oak tree. This oak tree connects the heavens above and its roots grew into the Earth, to reach the depths of Tartarus. This oak tree is considered by scholarship to symbolize a cosmic tree, uniting three spheres: underworld, terrestrial and celestial.


title: World tree

text: Besides the oak, several other sacred trees existed in Greek mythology. For instance, the olive, named Moriai, was the world tree and associated with the Olympian goddess Athena.


title: World tree

text: In a separate Greek myth the Hesperides live beneath an apple tree with golden apples that was given to the highest Olympian goddess Hera by the primal Mother goddess Gaia at Hera's marriage to Zeus. The tree stands in the Garden of the Hesperides and is guarded by Ladon, a dragon. Heracles defeats Ladon and snatches the golden apples.


title: World tree

text: In the epic quest for the Golden Fleece of "Argonautica", the object of the quest is found in the realm of Colchis, hanging on a tree guarded by a never-sleeping dragon (the Colchian dragon). In a version of the story provided by Pseudo-Apollodorus in "Bibliotheca", the Golden Fleece was affixed by King Aeetes to an oak tree in a grove dedicated to war god Ares. This information is repeated in Valerius Flaccus's "Argonautica". In the same passage of Valerius Flaccus' work, King Aeetes prays to Ares for a sign and suddenly a "serpent gliding from the Caucasus mountains" appears and coils around the grove as to protect it.


title: World tree

text: In Roman mythology the world tree was the olive tree, that was associated with Pax. The Greek equivalent of "Pax" is Eirene, one of the Horae. The Sacred tree of the Roman Sky father Jupiter was the oak, the laurel was the Sacred tree of Apollo. The ancient fig-tree in the Comitium at Rome, was considered as a descendant of the very tree under which Romulus and Remus were found.


title: World tree

text: In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is the world tree. Yggdrasil is attested in the "Poetic Edda", compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the "Prose Edda", written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. In both sources, Yggdrasil is an immense ash tree that is central and considered very holy. The Æsir go to Yggdrasil daily to hold their courts. The branches of Yggdrasil extend far into the heavens, and the tree is supported by three roots that extend far away into other locations: one to the well Urðarbrunnr in the heavens, one to the spring Hvergelmir, and another to the well Mímisbrunnr. Creatures live within Yggdrasil, including the harts Dáinn, Dvalinn, Duneyrr and Duraþrór, the giant in eagle-shape Hræsvelgr, the squirrel Ratatoskr and the wyrm Níðhöggr. Scholarly theories have been proposed about the etymology of the name "Yggdrasil", the potential relation to the trees Mímameiðr and Læraðr, and the sacred tree at Uppsala.


title: World tree

text: In Baltic, Slavic and Finnish mythology, the world tree is usually an oak. Most of the images of the world tree are preserved on ancient ornaments. Often on the Baltic and Slavic patterns there was an image of an inverted tree, "growing with its roots up, and branches going into the ground".


title: World tree

text: Scholarship recognizes that Baltic beliefs about a World Tree, located at the central part of the Earth, follow a tripartite division of the cosmos (underworld, earth, sky), each part corresponding to a part of the tree (root, trunk, branches).


title: World tree

text: It has been suggested that the word for "tree" in Baltic languages (Latvian "mežs"; Lithuanian "medis"), both derived from Proto-Indo-European "*medh-" 'middle', operated a semantic shift from "middle" possibly due to the belief of the "Arbor Mundi".


title: World tree

text: The world tree () is widespread in Lithuanian folk painting, and is frequently found carved into household furniture such as cupboards, towel holders, and laundry beaters. According to Lithuanian scholars Prane Dunduliene and Norbertas Vėlius, the World Tree is "a powerful tree with widespread branches and strong roots, reaching deep into the earth". The recurrent imagery is also present in Lithuanian myth: on the treetops, the luminaries and eagles, and further down, amidst its roots, the dwelling place of snakes and reptiles. The World Tree of Lithuanian tradition was sometimes identified as an oak or a maple tree.


title: World tree

text: In Latvian mythology the world tree () was one of the most important beliefs, also associated with the birth of the world. Sometimes it was identified as an oak or a birch, or even replaced by a wooden pole. According to Ludvigs Adamovičs's book on Latvian folk belief, ancient Latvian mythology attested the existence of a Sun Tree as an expression of the World Tree, often described as "a birch tree with three leaves or forked branches where the Sun, the Moon, God, Laima, Auseklis (the morning star), or the daughter of the Sun rest[ed]".


title: World tree

text: According to Slavic folklore, as reconstructed by Radoslav Katičić, the draconic or serpentine character furrows near a body of water, and the bird that lives on the treetop could be an eagle, a falcon or a nightingale.


title: World tree

text: Scholars Ivanov and Toporov offered a reconstructed Slavic variant of the Indo-European myth about a battle between a Thunder God and a snake-like adversary. In their proposed reconstruction, the Snake lives under the World Tree, sleeping on black wool. They surmise this snake on black wool is a reference to a cattle god, known in Slavic mythology as Veles.


title: World tree

text: Further studies show that the usual tree that appears in Slavic folklore is an oak: for instance, in Czech, it is known as "Veledub" ('The Great Oak').


title: World tree

text: In addition, the world tree appears in the Island of Buyan, on top of a stone. Another description shows that legendary birds Sirin and Alkonost make their nests on separate sides of the tree.


title: World tree

text: Ukrainian scholarship points to the existence of the motif in "archaic wintertime songs and carols": their texts attest a tree at the center of the world and two or three falcons or pigeons sat on its top, ready to dive in and fetch mud to create land (the "Earth diver" cosmogonic motif).


title: World tree

text: According to scholar Aado Lintrop, Estonian mythology records two types of world tree in Estonian runic songs, with similar characteristics of being an oak and having a bird at the top, a snake at the roots and the stars amongst its branches.


title: World tree

text: The Tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the Tree of life are both components of the Garden of Eden story in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. According to Jewish mythology, in the Garden of Eden there is a tree of life or the "tree of souls" that blossoms and produces new souls, which fall into the Guf, the "Treasury of Souls". The Angel Gabriel reaches into the treasury and takes out the first soul that comes into his hand. Then Lailah, the Angel of Conception, watches over the embryo until it is born.


title: World tree

text: According to the Gnostic codex On the Origin of the World, the tree of immortal life is in the north of paradise, which is outside the circuit of the Sun and Moon in the luxuriant Earth. Its height is so great it reaches Heaven. Its leaves are described as resembling cypress, the color of the tree is like the Sun, its fruit is like clusters of white grapes and its branches are beautiful. The tree will provide life for the innocent during the consummation of the age.


title: World tree

text: Mandaean scrolls often include abstract illustrations of world trees that represent the living, interconnected nature of the cosmos. In Mandaeism, the date palm (Mandaic: ) symbolizes the cosmic tree and is often associated with the cosmic wellspring (Mandaic: ). The date palm and wellspring are often mentioned together as heavenly symbols in Mandaean texts. The date palm takes on masculine symbolism, while the wellspring takes on feminine symbolism.


title: World tree

text: Armenian professor Hrach Martirosyan argues for the presence, in Armenian mythology, of a serpentine creature named "Andndayin ōj", that lives in the (abyssal) waters that circundate the World Tree.


title: World tree

text: According to scholarship, Georgian mythology also attests a rivalry between mythical bird Paskunji, which lives in the underworld on the top of a tree, and a snake that menaces its nestlings.


title: World tree

text: Professor Amar Annus states that, although the motif seems to originate much earlier, its first attestation in world culture occurred in Sumerian literature, with the tale of "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld". According to this tale, goddess Innana transplants the "huluppu" tree to her garden in the City of Uruk, for she intends to use its wood to carve a throne. However, a snake "with no charm", a ghostly figure (Lilith or another character associated with darkness) and the legendary Anzû-bird make their residence on the tree, until Gilgamesh kills the serpent and the other residents escape.


title: World tree

text: In fragments of the story of Etana, there is a narrative sequence about a snake and an eagle that live on opposite sides of a poplar tree ("şarbatu"), the snake on its roots, the eagle on its foliage. At a certain point, both animals swear before deity Shamash and share their meat with each other, until the eagle's hatchlings are born and the eagle decides to eat the snake's young ones. In revenge, the snake alerts god Shamash, who agrees to let the snake punish the eagle for the perceived affront. Later, Shamash takes pity on the bird's condition and sets hero Etana to release it from its punishment. Later versions of the story associate the eagle with mythical bird Anzû and the snake with a serpentine being named Bašmu.


title: World tree

text: In Persian mythology, the legendary bird Simurgh (alternatively, "Saēna bird"; "Sēnmurw" and "Senmurv") perches atop a tree located in the center of the sea Vourukasa. This tree is described as having all-healing properties and many seeds. In another account, the tree is the very same "tree of the White Hōm" (Haōma). "Gaokerena" or white Haoma is a tree whose vivacity ensures continued life in the universe, and grants immortality to "all who eat from it". In the Pahlavi Bundahishn, it is said that evil god Ahriman created a lizard to attack the tree.


title: World tree

text: Remnants are also evident in the Kalpavriksha ("wish-fulfilling tree") and the Ashvattha tree of the Indian religions. The "Ashvattha" tree ('keeper of horses') is described as a sacred fig and corresponds to "the most typical representation of the world


title: World tree

text: tree in India", upon whose branches the celestial bodies rest. Likewise, the Kalpavriksha is also equated with a fig tree and said to possess wish-granting abilities.


title: World tree

text: Indologist David Dean Shulman provided the description of a similar imagery that appears in South Indian temples: the "sthalavṛkṣa" tree. The tree is depicted alongside a water source (river, temple tank, sea). The tree may also appear rooted on Earth or reaching the realm of Patala (a netherworld where the Nāga dwell), or in an inverted position, rooted in the Heavens. Like other accounts, this tree may also function as an "axis mundi".


title: World tree

text: The world tree is also represented in the mythologies and folklore of North Asia and Siberia. According to Mihály Hoppál, Hungarian scholar Vilmos Diószegi located some motifs related to the world tree in Siberian shamanism and other North Asian peoples. As per Diószegi's research, the "bird-peaked" tree holds the sun and the moon, and the underworld is "a land of snakes, lizards and frogs".


title: World tree

text: In the mythology of the Samoyeds, the world tree connects different realities (underworld, this world, upper world) together. In their mythology the world tree is also the symbol of Mother Earth who is said to give the Samoyed shaman his drum and also help him travel from one world to another. According to scholar Aado Lintrop, the larch is "often regarded" by Siberian peoples as the World Tree.


title: World tree

text: Scholar Aado Lintrop also noted the resemblance between an account of the World Tree from the Yakuts and a Mokshas-Mordvinic folk song (described as a great birch).


title: World tree

text: The imagery of the world tree, its roots burrowing underground, its branches reaching upward, the luminaries in its branches is also present in the mythology of Finno-Ugric peoples from Northern Asia, such as the Ob-Ugric peoples and the Voguls.


title: World tree

text: The symbol of the world tree is also common in Tengrism, an ancient religion of Mongols and Turkic peoples. The world tree is sometimes a beech, a birch, or a poplar in epic works.


title: World tree

text: Scholarship points out the presence of the motif in Central Asian and North Eurasian epic tradition: a world tree named Bai-Terek in Altai and Kyrgyz epics; a "sacred tree with nine branches" in the Buryat epic.


title: World tree

text: The "Bai-Terek" (also known as "bayterek", "beyterek", "beğterek", "begterek", "begtereg"), found, for instance, in the Altai "Maadai Kara" epos, can be translated as "Golden Poplar". Like the mythological description, each part of tree (top, trunk and root) corresponds to the three layers of reality: heavenly, earthly and underground. In one description, it is considered the "axis mundi". It holds at the top "a nest of a double-headed eagle that watches over the different parts of the world" and, in the form of a snake, Erlik, deity of the underworld, tries to slither up the tree to steal an egg from the nest. In another, the tree holds two gold cuckoos at the topmost branches and two golden eagles just below. At the roots there are two dogs that guard the passage between the underworld and the world of the living.


title: World tree

text: Among the Yakuts, the world tree (or sacred tree) is called "Ál Lúk Mas" (Aal Luuk Mas) and is attested in their "Olonkho" epic narratives. Furthermore, this sacred tree is described to "connect the three worlds (Upper, Middle and Lower)", the branches to the sky and the roots to the underworld. Further studies show that this sacred tree also shows many alternate names and descriptions in different regional traditions. According to scholarship, the prevalent animal at the top of the tree in the Olonkho is the eagle.


title: World tree

text: Researcher Galina Popova emphasizes that the motif of the world tree offers a binary opposition between two different realms (the Upper Realm and the Underworld), and Aal Luuk Mas functions as a link between both. A spirit or goddess of the earth, named Aan Alahchin Hotun, is also said to inhabit or live in the trunk of Aal Luuk Mas.


title: World tree

text: According to scholarship, in the Bashkir epic "Ural-batyr", deity Samrau is described as a celestial being married to female deities of the Sun and the Moon. He is also "The King of the Birds" and is opposed by the "dark forces" of the universe, which live in the underworld. A similarly named creature, the bird Samrigush, appears in Bashkir folktales living atop the tallest tree in the world and its enemy is a snake named Azhdakha. After the human hero kills the serpent Azhdakha, the grateful Samrigush agrees to carry him back to the world of light.


title: World tree

text: Scholarship points to the existence of a bird named Samurik (Samruk) that, according to Kazakh myth, lives atop the World Tree "Baiterek". Likewise, in Kazakh folktales, it is also the hero's carrier out of the underworld, after he defeats a dragon named Aydakhara or Aydarhana. In the same vein, Kazakh literary critic and folklorist described that the Samruk bird travels between the three spheres of the universe, nests atop the "cosmic tree" (bәyterek) and helps the hero out of the underworld.


title: World tree

text: An early 20th-century report on Altaian shamanism by researcher Karunovskaia describes a shamanistic journey, information provided by one Kondratii Tanashev (or Merej Tanas). However, A. A. Znamenski believes this material is not universal to all Altaian peoples, but pertains to the specific worldview of Tanashev's Tangdy clan. Regardless, the material showed a belief in a tripartite division of the world in sky (heavenly sphere), middle world and underworld; in the central part of the world, a mountain ("Ak toson altaj sip"') is located. Upon this mountain there is "a navel of the earth and water ... which also serves as the root of the 'wonderful tree with golden branches and wide leaves' ("Altyn byrly bai terek")". Like the iconic imagery, the tree branches out to reach the heavenly sphere.


title: World tree

text: Finnish folklorist Uno Holmberg reported a tale from the Kalmuck people about a dragon that lies in the sea, at the foot of a Zambu tree. In the Buryat poems, near the root of the tree a snake named Abyrga dwells. He also reported a "Central Asian" narrative about the fight between the snake Abyrga and a bird named Garide - which he identified as a version of Indian Garuda.


title: World tree

text: The world tree is visible in the designs of the Crown of Silla, Silla being one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. This link is used to establish a connection between Siberian peoples and those of Korea.


title: World tree

text: In Chinese mythology, a manifestation of the world tree is the "Fusang" or "Fumu" tree. In a Chinese cosmogonic myth, solar deity Xihe gives birth to ten suns. Each of the suns rests upon a tree named "Fusang" (possibly a mulberry tree). The ten suns alternate during the day, each carried by a crow (the "Crow of the Sun"): one sun stays on the top branch to wait its turn, while the other nine suns rest on the lower branches.


title: World tree

text: An origin myth is recorded from the Wapangwa tribe of Tanzania, wherein the world is created through "a primordial tree and a termite mound". As a continuation of the same tale, the animals wanted to eat the fruits of this Tree of Life, but humans intended to defend it. This led to a war between animals and humans.


title: World tree

text: The imagery of the World Tree appears in a specific tale type of the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, type ATU 301, "The Three Stolen Princesses", and former subtypes AaTh 301A, "Quest for a Vanished Princess" (or "Three Underground Kingdoms") and AaTh 301B, "The Strong Man and His Companions" ("Jean de l'Ours" and "Fehérlófia"). The hero journeys alone to the underworld (or a subterranean realm) to rescue three princesses. He leads them to a rope that will take them to the surface and, when the hero tries to climb up the rope, his companions cut it and the hero is stranded in the underworld. In his wanderings, he comes across a tree, on its top a nest of eggs from an eagle, a griffin or a mythical bird. The hero protects the nest from a snake enemy that slithers from the roots of the tree.


title: World tree

text: Serbian scholarship recalls a Serbian mythical story about three brothers, named Ноћило, Поноћило и Зорило ("Noćilo, Ponoćilo and Zorilo") and their mission to rescue the king's daughters. Zorilo goes down the cave, rescues three princesses and with a whip changes their palaces into apples. When Zorilo is ready to go up, his brothers abandon him in the cave, but he escapes with the help of a bird. Serbian scholar Pavle Sofric (), in his book about Serbian folkmyths about trees, noted that the tree of the tale, an ash tree (Serbian: јасен), showed a great parallel to the Nordic tree as not to be coincidental.


title: World tree

text: While comparing Balkanic variants of the tale type ATU 301, researcher Milena Benovska-Sabkova noticed that the conflict between the snake and the eagle (bird) on the tree "was very close to the classical imagery of the World Tree".


title: World tree

text: According to scholarship, Hungarian scholar János Berze Nágy also associated the imagery of the World Tree with fairy tales wherein a mysterious thief comes at night to steal the golden apples of the king's prized tree. This incident occurs as an alternative opening to tale type ATU 301, in a group of tales formerly classified as AaTh 301A, and as the opening episode in most variants of tale type ATU 550, "Bird, Horse and Princess" (otherwise known as "The Golden Bird").


title: World tree

text: Likewise, historical linguist Václav Blažek argued for parallels of certain motifs of these fairy tales (the night watch of the heroes, the golden apples, the avian thief) to Ossetian Nart sagas and the Greek myth of the Garden of the Hesperides. The avian thief may also be a princess cursed into bird form, such as in Hungarian tale "Prince Árgyilus () and Fairy Ilona" and in Serbian tale "The Nine Peahens and the Golden Apples" (both classified as ATU 400, "The Man on a Quest for the Lost Wife"). This second type of opening episode was identified by Romanian folklorist Marcu Beza as another introduction to swan maiden tales.


title: Kush (cannabis)

text: Kush generally refers to a pure or hybrid "Cannabis indica" strain. Pure "C. indica" strains include Afghan Kush, Hindu Kush, Green Kush, and Purple Kush. Hybrid strains of "C. indica" include Blueberry Kush and Golden Jamaican Kush. The term "kush" is now also used as a slang word for cannabis.


title: Kush (cannabis)

text: The origins of Kush "Cannabis" are from landrace plants mainly in Afghanistan, Northern Pakistan and North-Western India with the name coming from the Hindu Kush mountain range. "Hindu Kush" strains of "Cannabis" were taken to the United States in the mid-to-late 1970s and continue to be available there to the present day.


title: Scott Cook

text: Scott David Cook (born 1952) is an American billionaire businessman who co-founded Intuit. Cook is also a director of eBay and Procter & Gamble.


title: Scott Cook

text: Cook holds a bachelor's degree in economics and mathematics from the University of Southern California and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he serves on the dean's advisory board.


title: Scott Cook

text: Cook started his career at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he learned about product development, market research, and marketing. He then took a job in strategic consulting at Bain & Company in Menlo Park, California. Cook soon began using the insights he was learning there to look for an idea for a company of his own. That idea came to him one day when his wife was complaining about paying the bills. With personal computers just coming out at the time, Scott thought there might be a market for basic software that would help people pay their bills. He launched Quicken and named his company Intuit in 1983, which today offers software and online products to help individuals and small companies manage their finances.


title: Scott Cook

text: He was Intuit's chairman from February 1993 to July 1998. From April 1983 to April 1994, he served as president and CEO of Intuit.


title: Scott Cook

text: In 2002, Cook and his wife, Signe Ostby, established the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Business, the nation's first university-based center focused exclusively on training MBAs in brand and product management. Cook and Ostby both started their careers in brand management.


title: Scott Cook

text: In 2005, Cook was No. 320 on the "Forbes" 400, with a net worth of $1.1 billion. Since the 1990s, he has "more than doubled his donations to Republicans and Democrats, giving the maximum [in 2007] to mainstream politicians such as Mitt Romney and Harry Reid."


title: Scott Cook

text: Cook is married to Signe Ostby. Ostby worked for Procter & Gamble and Clorox before she launched Software Publishing Corporation, making productivity software for personal computers. They have three children and live in Woodside, California.


title: Scott Cook

text: Scott and Signe founded and are trustees of their $348 million family foundation, Valhalla, which funds early childhood development, K12 education, medical research and talent, environmental innovation, data literacy, and collaborative philanthropy.


title: Scott Cook

text: The Cook family owns and manages a ranch that both raises livestock for local restaurant trade, and breeds, raises, sells, and trains show jumping horses from stallions and mares chosen from European bloodlines.


title: Committee of Five

text: The Committee of Five of the Second Continental Congress was a group of five members who drafted and presented to the full Congress in Pennsylvania State House what would become the United States Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776. This Declaration committee operated from June 11, 1776, until July 5, 1776, the day on which the Declaration was published.


title: Committee of Five

text: The Committee was composed of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman.


title: Committee of Five

text: The delegates of the Thirteen Colonies in Congress resolved to postpone until Monday, July 1, the final consideration of whether or not to declare the several sovereign independencies of the Colonies, which had been proposed by the North Carolina resolutions of April 12 and the Virginia resolutions of May 15. The proposal, known as the Lee Resolution, was moved in Congress on June 7 by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. During these allotted three weeks Congress agreed to appoint a committee to draft a broadside statement to proclaim to the world the reasons for the Colonies seceding from the British Empire. The actual declaration of "American Independence" is precisely the text comprising the final paragraph of the published broadside of July 4. The broadside's final paragraph repeated the text of the Lee Resolution as adopted by the declaratory resolve voted on July 2.


title: Committee of Five

text: On June 11, the Committee of Five was appointed: John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert Livingston of New York, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Because the committee left no minutes, there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded—accounts written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, although frequently cited, are contradictory and not entirely reliable.


title: Committee of Five

text: Certainly the committee, after discussing the general outline that the document should follow, decided that Jefferson would write the first draft. With Congress's busy schedule, Jefferson had limited time to write the draft over the ensuing 17 days. He then consulted with the others on the committee, who reviewed the draft and made extensive changes. Jefferson then produced another copy incorporating these alterations.


title: Committee of Five

text: Among the changes was the simplification of what Jefferson had termed "preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness" to the more succinct and sonorous phrase familiar to all today, “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. This shares some similarities with, but is distinct from, John Locke's prior description of private property as a natural right, in the phrase "life, liberty, and estate".


title: Committee of Five

text: Jefferson's first draft also considered a scathing criticism of Great Britain's use of slavery, which was later removed in order to avoid offending slaveholders.


title: Committee of Five

text: On June 28, 1776, the committee presented this copy to the "Committee of the Whole" Congress, which was commemorated by Trumbull’s famed painting. The title of the document was "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled".


title: Committee of Five

text: Although not officially noted, the estimated time was 6:26 p.m. (18:26 LMT) for the recording of this historic vote. The Congress then heard the report of the Committee of the Whole and declared the sovereign status of the United Colonies the following day, during the afternoon of July 2. The Committee of the Whole then turned to the Declaration, and it was given a second reading before adjournment.


title: Committee of Five

text: On Wednesday, July 3, the Committee of the Whole gave the Declaration the third reading and commenced scrutiny of the precise wording of the proposed text. But for two passages in the Committee of Five's draft that were rejected by the Committee of the Whole the work was accepted without any other major changes. One was a critical reference to the English people and the other was a denunciation of the slave trade and of slavery itself.


title: Committee of Five

text: As John Adams recalled many years later, this work of editing the proposed text was largely completed by the time of adjournment on July 3. However, the text's formal adoption was deferred until the following morning, when the Congress voted its agreement during the late morning of July 4.


title: Committee of Five

text: The draft document as adopted was then referred back to the Committee of Five to prepare a "fair copy", this being the redrafted-as-corrected document prepared for delivery to the broadside printer, John Dunlap. And so the Committee of Five convened in the early evening of July 4 to complete its task.


title: Committee of Five

text: Historians have had no documentary means by which to determine the identity of the authenticating party. It is unclear whether the Declaration was authenticated by the Committee of Five's signature, or the Committee submitted the fair copy to President Hancock for his authenticating signature, or the authentication awaited President John Hancock's signature on the printer's finished proof-copy of what became known as the Dunlap broadside. Either way, upon the July 5 release of the Dunlap Broadside of the Declaration, the Committee of Five's work was done.


title: Committee of Five

text: Upon the July 5 release of the Dunlap broadside, the public could read who had signed the Declaration. Hancock's signature, as President of the Continental Congress, appears on the broadside, as does that of Continental Congress Secretary Charles Thomson in an attest. Memories of the participants proved to be very short on this particular historic moment. Not three decades had elapsed by which time the prominent members of the Committee of Five could no longer recollect either detail of what had actually taken place, or their active participation, on July 4 and 5 of 1776. And so during these early decades was born the durable myth of one grand ceremonial general signing on July 4, by all the delegates to Congress.


title: Monogram

text: A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. A series of uncombined initials is properly referred to as a cypher (e.g. a royal cypher) and is not a monogram.


title: Monogram

text: Monograms first appeared on coins, as early as 350 BC. The earliest known examples are of the names of Greek cities which issued the coins, often the first two letters of the city's name. For example, the monogram of Achaea consisted of the letters alpha (Α) and chi (Χ) joined together.


title: Monogram

text: Monograms have been used as signatures by artists and craft workers on paintings, sculptures and pieces of furniture, especially when guilds enforced measures against unauthorized participation in the trade. A famous example of a monogram serving as an artist's signature is the "AD" used by Albrecht Dürer.


title: Monogram

text: Over the centuries, monograms of the name of Jesus Christ have been used as Christian symbols. The IX monogram consists of the initial Greek letters of the name "Jesus Christ," "I" for Ιησούς, (Jesus in Greek) and "X" for Χριστος (Christ in Greek). The "IHS" Christogram, denoting the first three letters of the Greek name of Jesus, is usually written as a cypher, but sometimes as a monogram.


title: Monogram

text: Perhaps the most significant Christogram is the Chi Rho, formed from the first two letters of Χριστος. The symbol was used by the Roman emperor Constantine I (r. 306–337) as part of a military standard.


title: Monogram

text: "Signum manus" (sometimes also known as "Chrismon") refers to the medieval practice, current from the Merovingian period until the 14th century in the Frankish Empire and its successors, of signing a document or charter with a special type of monogram or royal cypher.


title: Monogram

text: Monograms of the names of monarchs are used as part of the insignia of public organizations in kingdoms, such as on police badges. This indicates a connection to the ruler. However, the royal cypher, so familiar on pillar boxes, is not technically a monogram, since the letters are not combined.


title: Monogram

text: Royal monograms often appear on coins, frequently surmounted by a crown. Countries that have employed this device in the past include Bulgaria, Great Britain, Russia, Sweden and many German states. Today, several Danish coins carry the monogram of Margrethe II, while the current Norwegian 1 Krone coin has the "H5" monogram of Harald V on the obverse. The only countries using the Euro to have a royal monogram as their national identifying mark are Belgium and Monaco. In Thailand, royal monograms appear on the individual flag for each major royal family member.


title: Monogram

text: An individual's monogram may appear in stylized form on stationery, luggage, clothing, or other personalized items. These monograms may have two or three letters.


title: Monogram

text: A basic 3-letter monogram has the initial of the individual's last name (surname) set larger, or with some special treatment in the center, while the first name initial appears to the left of it and the middle name initial appears to the right of it. There is a difference in how this is written for men and women. For example, if the individual's name is Mary Ann Jones, and Jones is the surname, then the arrangement of letters would be thus: MJA, with the surname initial set larger in the center, the M for Mary to the left and the A for Ann to the right. Traditionally, individual monograms for men are based on the order of the name. The name Kyle George Martin would be written (KGM).


title: Monogram

text: Married or engaged couples may use two-letter monograms of their entwined initials, for example on wedding invitations. Married couples may also create three-letter monograms incorporating the initial of their shared surname. For example, the monogram MJA might be used for Michael and Alice Jones. However, monogramming etiquette for the married couple varies according to the item being monogrammed. Linens, for example, typically list the woman's given initial first, followed by the couple's shared surname initial and then the man's given initial (AJM).


title: Monogram

text: Monograms can often be found on custom dress shirts where they can be located in a number of different positions.


title: Monogram

text: Some personal monograms have become famous symbols in their own right and instantly recognizable to many, such as J.R.R. Tolkien's monogram.


title: Monogram

text: Some companies and organizations adopt a monogram for a logo, usually with the letters of their acronym. For example, as well as having an official seal, and the Texas Longhorns logo, the University of Texas at Austin uses a "UT" monogram (in the same color as the Longhorns logo, burnt orange). The New York Yankees baseball team also uses a monogram on their ball cap insignia. The Consolidated Edison logo, with a rounded "E" nested inside a "C," has been described as a "classic emblem."


title: Monogram

text: Many fashion companies have a monogram for a logo, including Louis Vuitton and Fendi. The connected "CC" company logo, created by Coco Chanel, is one of the most recognizable monograms internationally.


title: Monogram

text: The victor is a monogram of the Latin or Spanish painted on Spanish and Hispanic universities to celebrate a student receiving a doctorate.


title: Monogram

text: Athletes have also been known to brand merchandise with their monogram logo; notably Tiger Woods and Roger Federer.


title: Monogram

text: A notable example of a royal monogram is the H7 monogram of King Haakon VII of Norway. While in exile during World War II, Haakon VII spearheaded the Norwegian resistance to the German occupation, and H7 became a symbol used by the Norwegian populace to mark solidarity and loyalty to the King, and adherence to the Norwegian resistance movement. The act of drawing or creating a H7 symbol in German-occupied Norway was punishable by imprisonment.


title: Monogram

text: Similarly, in Poland during the war, the "PW" monogram was used as a resistance symbol, known as 'The Anchor' (), due to its characteristic shape. Its meaning varied, as the initials were useful for many different slogans, such as 'Poland Fights', 'Warsaw Uprising', 'Polish Army', and others. Like the Norwegian example above, its use was punished by the Nazi occupation authorities.


title: Monogram

text: In the Germanosphere, certain student societies ("Studentenverbindung") use monograms known as "Zirkel" ("circle", as in "circle of friends"), consisting of the initial letter of the organization's name and/or the letters v,c,f or e,f,v, together with an exclamation mark if the society is still active.


title: Monogram

text: A Japanese rebus monogram is a monogram in a particular style, which spells a name via a rebus, as a form of Japanese wordplay or visual pun. Today they are most often seen in corporate logos or product logos.


title: Vlaams Belang

text: Vlaams Belang (, , VB) is a Flemish nationalist, anti immigration, right-wing populist political party in the Flemish Region and Brussels Capital Region of Belgium.


title: Vlaams Belang

text: Vlaams Belang is a rebrand of Vlaams Blok, which dissolved after a trial in 2004 condemned the party for racism. After reorganizing itself as Vlaams Belang, the party continued the core philosophy of its predecessor by campaigning on a separatist and Flemish nationalist platform. It also supports maintaining Flemish cultural identity, opposition to multiculturalism and calls for tougher law and order policies. However, the VB toned down and implemented some changes to the more controversial portions of the former "Vlaams Blok" statute and has sought to change its image from a radical to a more conservative party by distancing itself from some of its former programs. Nonetheless, most other parties initially continued the "cordon sanitaire" which was implemented against the former party, effectively blocking the Vlaams Belang from taking part in government at any level. Additionally, attempts on cutting public subsidies specifically for the party were made through the Belgian draining law.


title: Vlaams Belang

text: Like "Vlaams Blok," Vlaams Belang was initially popular with the Flemish electorate and was one of the most successful national-populist parties in Europe. However, from 2008 the party experienced a downturn in support and membership which coincided with internal disputes within the party and the rise of the more moderate nationalist New Flemish Alliance which also supports Flemish independence. Under the current leadership of Tom Van Grieken, the VB has begun to regain popular support and made a comeback during the 2019 federal elections. Following the election, there has been some media speculation that the cordon sanitaire on the party may be lifted for the first time.


title: Vlaams Belang

text: The direct predecessor of the Vlaams Belang was the Vlaams Blok, which was formed by the nationalist right-wing and national conservative faction of the People's Union (VU) which had emerged in the late 1970s. The ideology of the Vlaams Blok started out with its radical nationalist rejection of the People's Union compromise on the Flemish autonomy issue, and later increasingly focused on immigration and security, exploitation of political scandals, and defense of traditional values. The immigration positions of the Vlaams Blok were subject to much controversy, particularly after the party released its 70-point plan, and the Vlaams Blok was forced to disband in 2004 after a political trial ruled that it sanctioned discrimination. By then, the party was the most popular Flemish party, supported by about one in four of the Flemish electorate, and was one of the most successful parties considered to be right-wing populist in Europe as a whole.


title: Vlaams Belang

text: In Belgium in 2001, Roeland Raes, the ideologue and vice-president of Vlaams Blok, gave an interview on Dutch TV where he cast doubt over the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. In the same interview he questioned the scale of the Nazis' use of gas chambers and the authenticity of Anne Frank's diary. In response to the media assault following the interview, Raes was forced to resign his position but vowed to remain active within the party.


title: Vlaams Belang

text: Upon complaints filed by the governmental Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism and the Dutch-speaking Human Rights League in Belgium, in 2001 three non-profit organisations that in effect constituted the core of the Vlaams Blok party were charged with violation of the Law on Racism and xenophobia by assisting "a group or organisation that clearly and repeatedly commits discrimitation or segregation," here the political party. By April 2004, the Appellate Court of Ghent came to a final verdict, forbidding their and the party's continued existence for its "repeated incitement to discrimination." In November that year, the Court of Cassation rejected their last appeal to annul the verdict; the delay had allowed using the name Vlaams Blok for election candidacy.


title: Vlaams Belang

text: After the Supreme Court ruling, the leadership of the VB seized the occasion to dissolve itself, and start afresh under a new name. On 14 November, the Vlaams Blok thus disbanded itself, and the Vlaams Belang was established. Other proposed names had included the Flemish People's Party and Flemish Freedom Front. The Vlaams Belang instituted a number of changes in its political program, carefully moderating or discarding some of the more radical positions of the former Vlaams Blok. Nevertheless, the party leader Frank Vanhecke made it clear that the party would fundamentally remain the same; "We change our name, but not our tricks. We change our name, but not our programme."


title: Vlaams Belang

text: Former Vlaams Blok chairman Frank Vanhecke was chosen as chairman of the Vlaams Belang on 12 December 2004. Like its predecessor, the Vlaams Belang has continued to be subjected to the "cordon sanitaire", wherein all the traditional Flemish parties have agreed to systematically exclude the party, and never form a coalition with it. This situation was however altered slightly with the emergence of the smaller right-wing party List Dedecker (founded in 2007), which has not joined in on the agreement. In an interview with the popular weekly "Humo", Flemish Prime Minister Yves Leterme for instance declared that a local chapter of his Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V) that would form a coalition or close agreements with the Vlaams Belang, would no longer be considered part of the CD&V.


title: Vlaams Belang

text: The VB contested the 2006 municipal elections on the theme of "Secure, Flemish, Liveable". The VB enjoyed a massive increase of votes, and its council members almost doubled, from 439 to about 800. The election result was described by the party as a "landslide victory." In Antwerp, the VB's vote count ran behind that of the Socialist Party, which increased their share of the vote dramatically. Nevertheless, the VB, which was in a coalition with the minor VLOTT party, slightly increased their vote in the city to 33.5%. In the 2007 general election, the party won 17 seats in the Chamber of Representatives and five seats in the Senate, remaining more or less at "status quo". Earlier the same year, the party joined the short-lived European Parliament group Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty alongside parties such as the French National Front.


title: Vlaams Belang

text: In 2008, Bruno Valkeniers was chosen as new party chairman for the VB, having contested the position unopposed. In 2009, the party contested elections for the Flemish Parliament and the European Parliament. The party was reduced from 32 to 21 seats (from the Vlaams Blok's record 24%, to 15%) in the Flemish parliament, and from three to two seats in the European parliament. In the 2010 general election, the party was again reduced, to 12 seats in the Chamber, and three in the Senate. This was largely due to the great success of the more moderate new party New Flemish Alliance, which also campaigned on Flemish independence and took many of the VB's votes. Around this time, the VB also saw several high-profile members defect from or quit the party, such as former leader Frank Vanhecke. After the party suffered heavy losses during the local elections of 2012 Bruno Valkeniers stepped down as party chairman and was succeeded by Gerolf Annemans.


title: Vlaams Belang

text: In the 2014 federal and regional elections the party again suffered a big loss and was reduced to 5.9% of the Flemish vote. The European list, pulled by Annemans, scored slightly better with 6.8%. Annemans resigned as party leader, a function he only performed for two years, and argued for a rejuvenation of the party. The following party chairman election was won by the only candidate, Tom Van Grieken, then 28 years old and at the time the youngest leader of a political party in Belgium. After assuming leadership of the party, Van Grieken sought to soften and moderate its image further.


title: Vlaams Belang

text: During the 2018 Belgian local elections the party saw a resurgence in support, obtaining 13.1% of the Flemish vote with an outlier of more than 40% in the city of Ninove where it fought locally under the name of Forza Ninove. The party also led a campaign against the Global Compact for Migration, which some commentators credit to successfully pressuring the rival N-VA to adopt a position against the Compact.