title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: The Canadian boreal forest is a very large bio-region that extends in length from the Yukon-Alaska border right across the country to Newfoundland and Labrador. It is over in width (north to south) separating the arctic tundra region from the various landscapes of southern Canada. The taiga growth (as defined in North America) along the northern flank of the boreal forest creates a transition to the tundra region at the northern tree line. On the southwestern flank, the boreal forest extends into sub-alpine and lower elevation areas of northern British Columbia. The central interior of the province is occupied by a sub-boreal transition zone between the main boreal forest and the dry forests of the southern interior. However, across the Prairie Provinces, a band of aspen parkland marks a different kind of transition along the south-central flank from boreal forest to grassland. In Central Canada, the southeastern flank is marked by the Eastern forest-boreal transition of Central Ontario and western Quebec. It consists mainly of mixed coniferous and broad-leaf woodlands. South of this transition can be found the deciduous woodlands of Southern Ontario.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Canada's boreal forest is considered to be the largest intact forest on earth, with around three million square kilometres still undisturbed by roads, cities and industrial development. Its high level of intactness has made the forest a particular focus of environmentalists and conservation scientists who view the untouched regions of the forest as an opportunity for large-scale conservation that would otherwise be impractical in other parts of the world.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: The Canadian boreal forest in its current form began to emerge with the end of the last Ice Age. With the retreat of the Wisconsin Ice Sheet 10,000 years ago, spruce and northern pine migrated northward and were followed thousands of years later by fir and birch. About 5,000 years ago, the Canadian boreal began to resemble what it is today in terms of species composition and biodiversity. This type of coniferous forest vegetation is spread across the Northern Hemisphere. These forests contain three structural types: forest tundra in the north, open lichen woodland further south, and closed forest in more southern areas. White spruce, black spruce and tamarack are most prevalent in the four northern eco-zones of the Taiga and Hudson Plains, while spruce, balsam fir, jack pine, white birch and trembling aspen are most common in the lower boreal regions. Large populations of trembling aspen and willow are found in the southernmost parts of the Boreal Plains.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: One dominant characteristic of the boreal is that much of it consists of large, even-aged stands, a uniformity that owes to a cycle of natural disturbances like forest fires, or outbreaks of pine beetle or spruce budworm that kill large tracts of forest with cyclical regularity. For example, the many stands of white spruce, black spruce, and balsam fir are vulnerable to the cyclical outbreaks of a species of the spruce budworm, the "Choristoneura fumiferana." Since the melting of the great ice sheet, the boreal forest has been through many cycles of natural death through fire, insect outbreaks and disease, followed by regeneration. Prior to European colonization of Canada and the application of modern firefighting equipment and techniques, the natural burn/regeneration cycle was less than 75 to 100 years, and it still is in many areas.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Terms like old growth and ancient forest have a different connotation in the boreal context than they do when used to describe mature coastal rain forests with longer-lived species and different natural disturbance cycles. However, the effects of forest fires and insect outbreaks differ from the effects of logging, so they should not be treated as equivalent in their ecological consequences. Logging, for example, requires road networks with their negative impacts, and it removes nutrients from the site, which may deplete nutrients for the next cycle of forest growth. Fire, on the other hand, recycles nutrients on location (except for some nitrogen), it removes accumulated organic matter and it stimulates reproduction of fire-dependent species.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Canada's boreal region can be divided into seven ecozones. These seven can be divided into two main groups. The northern regions of the boreal forest consists of four eco-zones – Taiga Cordillera, Taiga Plains, Taiga Shield and Hudson Plains – that are the most thinly treed areas where the growing season and average tree size progressively shrinks until the edge of the Arctic tundra is reached. The southern tier of the boreal meanwhile consists of three other ecozones that form the largely uninterrupted or continuous forest in stretching as far south as Lake Superior in Ontario (as the Central Canadian Shield forests ecoregion) and the Manitoba-North Dakota border. These three southern zones are the Boreal Shield, at 1,630,000 square kilometres the largest of the eight zones, the Boreal Plains and Boreal Cordillera. A typical ecoregion of this southern tier would be the Eastern Canadian Shield taiga that covers northern Quebec and most of Labrador. Within the boreal region, there are about 1,890,000 square kilometres that are between 80% to 100% forested and another 650,000 square kilometres with 60% to 80% forest cover.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Most trees native to the Canadian boreal are conifers, with needle leaves and cones. These include: black spruce, white spruce, balsam fir, larch (tamarack), lodgepole pine, and jack pine. A few are broad-leaved species: trembling and large-toothed aspen, cottonwood and white birch, and balsam poplar. There are large areas of black spruce, a species which is tolerant of shallow soil, permafrost and waterlogged substrates, although as a consequence they have relatively low biological productivity.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Owing to the short growing season, generally infertile soils, generally shallow soils, and frequent waterlogging, most of these forest types are slow-growing species, which generally tend to predominate in stressed habitats. Similarly, many of the understory shrubs are in the Ericaceae, a family known to tolerate acid, infertile and flooded habitats: examples include Labrador tea, sheep-laurel and blueberry. Since nutrient levels are so low, overall, the productivity of forest trees is highly dependent on the rate at which mineral elements such as nitrogen and phosphorus are recycled by litterfall and decomposition. After logging, the loss of nutrients may convert forested areas into shrub barrens dominated by shrubs such as sheep-laurel. Many of the plant species are fire-dependent, since fire removes neighbouring plants, and recycles nutrients locked in organic matter.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Although there are rather few species of trees in the boreal forest, there is a considerable diversity of other kinds of plants. An accurate summary is difficult, since most compendia on plants are organized by political, rather than ecological boundaries; one exception addresses the flora of the Hudson Bay Lowland, but much of this area is not forested. One portion of the boreal forest can be used to illustrate plant diversity; consider the "Flora of the Yukon". In this western part of the boreal forest, there are, for example 127 species of grass (Poaceae), 118 species of Asteraceae, 115 species of sedge (Cyperaceae), 93 species of crucifer (Brassicaceae), 52 species of Rosaceae, 37 species of Saxifragaceae and 36 members of the snapdragon family (Scrophulariaceae). Overall, the flora has 1112 species – there are even 15 species of orchids.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Canada's boreal landscape contains more lakes and rivers than any comparably sized landmass on earth. It has been estimated that the boreal region contains over 1.5 million lakes with a minimum surface area of 40,000 square metres as well as some of Canada's largest lakes. Soft water lakes predominate in central and eastern Canada and hard water lakes predominate in Western Canada. Most large boreal lakes have cold water species of fish like trout and whitefish, while in warmer waters, species may include northern pike, walleye and smallmouth bass.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: The boreal forest also has vast areas of wetland, particularly bogs and fens. Two wetland areas, the Hudson Bay Lowland and the Mackenzie River basin, are among the ten largest wetlands in the world. The boreal forest wetlands provide wildlife habitat (particularly for migratory birds), they maintain water flow in rivers, and they store significant amounts of carbon that otherwise would be released to the atmosphere.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: In contemporary times, the boreal forest has suffered little deforestation, defined as the permanent conversion of forest area to non-forest due to activities associated with agriculture, urban or recreational development, oil and gas development, and flooding for hydroelectric projects. In Alberta, the province with the largest oil and gas industry, more trees are cut for agriculture or oil and gas exploration than for timber. In eastern Canada, over 9,000 square kilometres of peatlands and forest have been flooded over the past four decades for hydroelectric projects. , Canada as a whole has 91% of the forest cover that existed at the dawn of European settlement. More deforestation has occurred outside the boreal region, in more southerly areas of the country. The forest sector annually harvests approximately ½ of 1% of the region. However, this is not considered deforestation by some, given that provincial laws are meant to ensure that areas harvested by the forest sector are replanted or regenerated naturally. However, the resulting road network from logging has effects that persist long beyond the period of harvest; indeed, one can make the case that road construction is one of the most harmful and persistent effects of logging.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: There may be as many as five billion landbirds, including resident and migratory species. The Canadian boreal region contains the largest area of wetlands of any ecosystem of the world, serving as breeding ground for over 12 million waterbirds and millions of land birds, the latter including species as diverse as vultures, hawks, grouse, owls, hummingbirds, kingfishers, woodpeckers and passerines (or perching birds, often referred to as songbirds). It is estimated that the avian population of the boreal represents 60% of the landbirds in all of Canada and almost 30% of all landbirds in the United States and Canada combined.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Many of the wildlife species, are, like the forests, dependent upon natural disturbance from fire and insect outbreaks. For example, at least three species of warbler (Cape May warbler, bay-breasted warbler and Tennessee warbler), have distributions and abundance related to spruce budworm outbreaks. The black-backed woodpecker shows a preference for burnt over forests, where it forages for insects burrowing in the dead trees that remain standing. Fireweed, as the name suggests, is a plant that similar thrives in recently burned areas. Blueberries and huckleberries are also stimulated by fires, probably benefiting from the removal of shade, and the nutrients released in ashes. The resulting berries are an important food source for boreal forest animals.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Few species of boreal wildlife are classified under government conservation regimes as being at risk of extinction. However, the decline of some major species of wildlife is a concern. Boreal woodland caribou, whose lichen-rich, mature forest habitat spans the boreal forest from the Northwest Territories to Labrador, is designated as a threatened by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. The Newfoundland population of marten is threatened by habitat loss, accidental trapping and prey availability.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: The particular mixture of tree species depends upon factors including soil moisture, soil depth, and organic content. Upland forests can be closely mixed with forested peatlands. The resulting conifer forests are produced by and dependent upon recurring disturbance from storms, fires, floods and insect outbreaks. Owing to the accumulated peat in the soil, and the predominance of coniferous trees, lightning-caused fire has always been a natural part of this forest. It is one of many ecosystems that depend upon such recurring natural disturbance. For example, fire dependent species like lodgepole and jack pine have resin sealed cones. In a fire, the resin melts and the cones open, allowing seeds to scatter so that a new pine forest begins (see also fire ecology). It has been estimated that prior to European settlement, this renewal process occurred on average every 75 to 100 years, creating even-aged stands of forest. Fire continues to cause natural forest disturbance, but fire suppression and clear-cutting has interrupted these natural cycles, leading to significant changes in species composition.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Boreal vegetation never attains stability because of interactions among fire, vegetation, soil–water relationships, frost action, and permafrost (Churchill and Hanson 1958, Spurr and Barnes 1980). Wildfires produce a vegetation mosaic supporting an ever-changing diversity of plant and animal populations (Viereck 1973). In the absence of fire, the accumulation of sphagnum peat on level upland sites would eventually oust coniferous vegetation and produce muskeg.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Despite today's sophisticated and expensive fire-spotting and fire-fighting techniques, forest fires in Canada still burn, on average, about 28,000 square kilometres of boreal and other forest area annually. That average annual burn area is equivalent to more than three times the current annual industrial timber harvest. It can be many more times that in intense fire years. However, although logging also removes trees, fire is not the same as logging, since fire has been a part of coniferous forests for millennia. Fire not only stimulates regeneration of many plant species, it recycles phosphorus and removes accumulated organic matter. Fire is increasingly used as a management tool to maintain forest health in some parts of North America (see fire ecology). Different parts of the boreal have different burn cycles. The drier western region, which receives lower average rainfall, had higher natural fire frequencies. Hence, more area is burned annually on average in the west than in central and eastern Canada. When natural burn cycles are interrupted by fire suppression, natural renewal is obstructed and species composition is changed. In addition, fire suppression causes fuel loads to increase so that fires, when they do occur, become more intense. One can argue that fire suppression actually creates a positive feed back loop, where ever more expensive fire suppression generates the conditions for ever larger fires. The negative effects of fire suppression are still under study, and not fully measured, but they need to be considered when making decisions about the future health of boreal forests.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Because parts of the boreal forest region are found in nearly every province and territory in Canada, there has not been much in the way of coordinated planning to develop the region. Prime Minister Diefenbaker talked of his "northern vision" but little was done to see it come to pass. A proposal was authored by Richard Rohmer in 1967 called "Mid-Canada Development Corridor: A Concept" and was discussed by officials and politicians but was never implemented. In 2014, John van Nostrand attempted to revive the concept.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: In the absence of a nationwide plan, private industry and the provinces have pursued development in particular products or certain regions. These include the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, the Ring of Fire (Northern Ontario), and Quebec's Plan Nord.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Forest land in Canada is largely Crown land. Over 90% of the boreal forest is provincial Crown land; another 5% is federally controlled and includes national parks, First Nations reserves and national defence installations.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: About 1,400 communities within the Boreal region rely on resource industries for at least part of the livelihood and stability. Many of these communities were carved out of the forest to support a sawmill, pulp and paper mill, mine or railway maintenance facility. Boreal forestry activities support almost 400,000 direct and indirect jobs across Canada. Forestry, pulp and paper, mining, and oil and gas exploration and development are the largest industries along with tourism, trapping, recreation, light manufacturing and the services to support industry and communities. The forest products sector is one of Canada's largest export industries, representing approximately 3% of GDP, with about half of the annual wood harvest coming from the boreal forest.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Roughly one quarter of the boreal forest is managed for industrial forestry. The remaining three-quarters is either in parks, conservation areas, model forests or is considered non-timber-productive, generally defined as unsuitable for managed forestry or inaccessible. As recently as 2003, it was estimated that the annual harvest in the boreal was about 7,500 square kilometres per year, equivalent to about 0.2% of the total Canadian boreal forest. The sharp downturn in the market for lumber because of the collapse of the housing market in the United States that began in 2006, coupled with import tariff and tax barriers, have knocked the bottom out of Canada's forest industry. In Ontario, Canada's most populous province, where most forestry activity is in the boreal, government statistics suggest that the harvest declined 18% from 2005 to 2006. Given the high number of mill closings from 2005 onward, mostly in Ontario and Quebec, it is a trend that most likely persisted through 2007 and 2008. Most of Canada's conventional onshore oil and gas production, including the rapidly expanding oil sands production in Alberta, is located in the boreal region as is Canada's largest uranium producing zone in northern Saskatchewan and Quebec's largest hydroelectric generating facilities in the La Grande watershed.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: About eighty percent of the Indigenous population of Canada resides in forested areas – including one million in over five hundred First Nations and Métis settlements in boreal zones. Of that amount, over 17,000 work in the forest products industry, mostly in silviculture and woodlands operations in the boreal and other forest regions.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Since the early 1990s, a strong impetus has been created to focus on conserving Canada's boreal legacy and sustainably managing economic activity within the entire region. The Canadian boreal is largely intact and available for multiple uses like timber harvest, recreation and hunting. Forestry companies have come to adopt the management practices known as eco-system based management, which takes into consideration criteria and indicators for sustainability – social, economic and environmental. A number of key principles have come to underpin Canadian forestry practices as mandated by forestry legislation, including the obligation for forestry companies operating on public lands to fully regenerate all areas harvested for timber and to consult the public on the preparation of forest management/harvest plans submitted to the relevant provincial authorities.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: As a result of growing public concern with sustainable development and conserving the integrity of the boreal forests, conservation initiatives are progressing on various fronts. The area in national and provincial parks and protected conservation areas is approximately 10% of the total boreal area. Most large forest products companies have certified their boreal forestry operations to one of three third-party, independently audited standards for sustainable forest management:


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: Sustainable Forest Management refers to managing a forest ecosystem in a manner that maintains and enhances its long-term health.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: In July 2008 the Ontario government announced plans to protect 225,000 square kilometres of the Northern Boreal lands.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: In February 2010 the Canadian government established protection for of boreal forest by creating a new reserve of in the Mealy Mountains area of eastern Canada and a waterway provincial park of that follows alongside the Eagle River from headwaters to sea. A report issued in 2011 by the Pew Environment Group described the Canadian boreal forest as the largest natural storage of freshwater in the world.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: The boreal forest is deeply ingrained in the Canadian identity and the images foreigners have of Canada. The history of the early European fur traders, their adventures, discoveries, aboriginal alliances and misfortunes is an essential part of the popular colonial history of Canada. The canoe, the beaver pelt, the coureur des bois, the voyageurs, the Hudson's Bay Company and the North-West Mounted Police, the construction of Canada's transcontinental railways – all are symbols of Canadian history familiar to school children that are inextricably linked to the boreal forest.


title: Boreal forest of Canada

text: The forest – and boreal species such as the caribou and loon – are or have been featured on Canadian currency. Another iconic and enduring image of the boreal was created by 20th-century landscape painters, most notably from the Group of Seven, who saw the uniqueness of Canada in its boreal vastness. The Group of Seven artists largely portrayed the boreal as natural, pure and unspoiled by human presence or activity and hence only partly a reflection of reality.


title: Cuirassier

text: Cuirassiers (; ) were cavalry equipped with a cuirass, sword, and pistols. Cuirassiers first appeared in mid-to-late 16th century Europe as a result of armoured cavalry, such as men-at-arms and demi-lancers, discarding their lances and adopting the use of pistols as their primary weapon. In the later part of the 17th century the cuirassier lost his limb armour and subsequently wore only the cuirass (breastplate and backplate), and sometimes a helmet. By this time, the sword or sabre had become his primary weapon, with pistols relegated to a secondary function.


title: Cuirassier

text: Cuirassiers achieved increased prominence during the Napoleonic Wars and were last fielded in the opening stages of World War I (1914-1918). A number of countries continue to use cuirassiers as ceremonial troops.


title: Cuirassier

text: The first cuirassiers were similar in appearance to the fully armoured Late Medieval man-at-arms. They wore three-quarter armour that covered the entire upper body as well as the front half of the legs down to the knee. The head was protected by a close helm, burgonet, or lobster-tailed pot helmet, usually worn with a gorget for the neck. The torso was protected by a breast and back plate, sometimes reinforced by a plackart. The arms and shoulders were fully armoured with pauldrons, rerebraces, elbow couters, and vambraces. Armoured gauntlets were often abandoned, particularly for the right hand, as they interfered with the loading of pistols. Long tassets, instead of a combination of short tassets with cuisses, protected the front of the thighs and knees, and riding boots were substituted for lower leg armour (greaves and sabatons). Weapons included a pair of pistols in saddle holsters (these were the primary weapons instead of a lance), a sword, and sometimes a "horseman's pick" (a type of war hammer). Barding (horse armour) was not used.


title: Cuirassier

text: The armour of a cuirassier was very expensive; in England, in 1629, a cuirassier's equipment cost four pounds and 10 shillings, whilst a harquebusier's (a lighter type of cavalry) was a mere one pound and six shillings.


title: Cuirassier

text: During the latter half of the 16th century, the heavy "knightly" lance gradually fell out of use perhaps because of the widespread adoption of the infantry pike. Also, the lance required a great amount of practice to perfect its use, whilst proficiency in the use of firearms was considerably more easily acquired. The lancer or demi-lancer, when he had abandoned his lance, became the pistol-armed cuirassier or reiter.


title: Cuirassier

text: The adoption of the pistol as the primary weapon led to the development of the stately caracole tactic, where cuirassiers fired their pistols at the enemy, then retired to reload whilst their comrades advanced in turn to maintain the firing. Following some initial successes, this tactic proved to be extremely ineffective as infantry, with superior firearms and numbers, could easily outgun the cuirassiers. The change from cavalry reliant on firearms to shock-capable close combat cavalry reliant mainly on the sword was often attributed to Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in the 1620s and 1630s. Gustavus Adolphus also reduced the number of ranks in a cavalry formation from the previously usual six to ten, for pistol-based tactics, to three to suit his sword-based shock tactics, or as a partial remedy to the frequent numerical inferiority of his cavalry arm.


title: Cuirassier

text: Only two cuirassier regiments were raised during the English Civil War, the Lifeguard of the Earl of Essex and the 'London lobsters,' though individuals within other regiments did serve in full armour. With the refinement of infantry firearms, especially the introduction of the powerful musket, the usefulness of the protection afforded by full armour became greatly lessened. By the mid 17th century, the fully armoured cuirassier was becoming increasingly anachronistic. "It will kill a man to serve in a whole cuirass" commented a late 17th century observer. The cuirassier lost his limb armour and entered the 18th century with just the breast and backplate.


title: Cuirassier

text: Body armour, restricted to a breast and backplate, fell in and out of use during the 18th century; for example British cavalry entered the War of the Spanish Succession without body armour, although they readopted it during the conflict. Cuirassiers played a prominent role in the armies of Austria, and of Frederick the Great of Prussia. By the time of the French Revolutionary Wars, few heavy cavalry regiments, except those of Austria, wore the cuirass on campaign. The twelve Austrian cuirassier regiments in existence between 1768 and 1802 (when the number was reduced) unusually wore only a front plate. This reduced the burden of the weight carried by the individual trooper, but left his back unprotected during a swirling cavalry melee.


title: Cuirassier

text: Most heavy cavalry from c. 1700 to c. 1785 wore the tricorne hat, which evolved into the bicorne, or cocked hat, towards the close of the century. In the first two decades of the 19th century, helmets, often of hardened leather with brass reinforcement (though the French used iron-skulled helmets for their cuirassiers), replaced the bicorne hat.


title: Cuirassier

text: A resurgence of armoured cavalry took place in France under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, who increased the number of armoured regiments from one to, ultimately, sixteen (fourteen cuirassier regiments plus two Carabiniers-à-Cheval regiments).


title: Cuirassier

text: During the first few decades of the 19th century most of the major states of Europe, except Austria which had retained its armoured cavalry, readopted the cuirass for some of their heavy cavalry in emulation of the French. The Russians fielded two divisions of armoured cavalry, but most other states armoured a few senior regiments: Prussia three regiments, the Kingdom of Saxony three, the Kingdom of Westphalia two, Spain one ("Coraceros Españoles") and the Duchy of Warsaw one. The three Household Cavalry regiments of the British Army (1st and 2nd Life Guards and Royal Horse Guards) adopted cuirasses shortly after the Napoleonic Wars as a part of their full dress uniforms, but never had occasion to wear the armour in battle.. However as late as 1887 these regiments were still wearing cuirasses on maneuvers in "field day order".


title: Cuirassier

text: Cuirassiers were generally the senior branch of the mounted portion of an army, retaining their status as heavy cavalry—"big men on big horses". Their value as a heavy striking force during the Napoleonic Wars ensured that the French, Russian, and Prussian armies continued to use cuirassier regiments throughout the 19th century. The Austrian cuirassiers were abolished in 1868.


title: Cuirassier

text: For reasons of climate and cost, cuirassiers of the 19th century type seldom appeared outside of Europe and Latin America. However Ranjit Singh's Sikh Army (the Khalsa) of the 1830s included two regiments of cuirassiers equipped and armed in French fashion. Four hundred "carabinier" cuirasses were imported from France while helmets and uniforms were manufactured in Wazirabad.


title: Cuirassier

text: Though the armour could not protect against contemporary flintlock musket fire, it could deflect shots fired from long-range, stop ricochets, and offer protection from all but very close range pistol fire. More importantly, in an age which saw cavalry used in large numbers, the breastplates (along with the helmets) provided excellent protection against the swords and lances of opposing cavalry and against infantry equipped with bayonets. It also had some psychological effect for the wearer (effectively making the cuirassier more willing to plunge into the thick of fighting) and the enemy (adding intimidation), while it also added weight to a charge, especially in cavalry versus cavalry actions.


title: Cuirassier

text: Napoleonic French cuirasses were originally intended to be proof against three musket shots at close range; however, this was never achieved in practice. The regulations eventually recognised this, and cuirasses were subsequently only expected to be proof against one shot at long range.


title: Cuirassier

text: The utility of this armour was sometimes disputed. Prussian cuirassiers had abandoned the armoured cuirass before the Napoleonic Wars, but were reissued with it in 1814. During this period, a single British cavalry regiment (Royal Horse Guards) wore cuirasses during the Netherlands campaign of 1794, using breastplates taken from store. The Austrian cuirassiers traded protection for mobility by wearing only the half-cuirass (without back plate) and helmet. Napoleon believed it sufficiently useful that he had cuirassier-style armour issued to his two carabinier regiments after the Battle of Wagram. The Russians, having abandoned Austrian-style half-cuirasses in 1801, reissued full cuirasses in 1812 for all Army and Guard cuirassier regiments, with troops receiving them during the summer 1812 and wearing cuirasses at Borodino. After Battle of Tarutino the Pskov dragoon regiment received captured French cuirasses and was officially upgraded to a cuirassier regiment. Despite being metallurgically more advanced than the plate armour of old, the Napoleonic era cuirass was still quite cumbersome and hot to wear in warm weather; however, the added protection that it gave to the wearer and the imposing appearance of an armoured cavalryman were factors favouring retention.


title: Cuirassier

text: The last occasions when cuirassiers played a major tactical role as shock cavalry wearing traditional armour was during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The French cuirassiers numbered 11 regiments at the outbreak of war but had not seen active service since the Battle of Waterloo. A brigade comprising the 6th and 9th Regiments had served in the Crimean War but had not actually encountered the enemy. Accordingly, the prospect of action against the Prussian Army, which included 10 cuirassier regiments of its own, was seen as an opportunity for a strongly traditional branch of the French cavalry to prove its continuing relevance. In the event, in a series of massed charges against Prussian infantry and artillery at Froeschwiller and Rezonville, the French cuirassiers suffered very heavy losses for little return.


title: Cuirassier

text: In 1914, the German Army still retained cuirassiers (ten regiments including the Gardes du Corps and the Guards Cuirassiers); as did the French (twelve regiments) and the Russian (four regiments, all of the Imperial Guard) armies. The Austrians had dispensed with breastplates in 1860 and formally abolished the twelve "Kuirassier" regiments as the heavy cavalry branch of their army in 1868. Influenced by the French example, the Belgian Army created two regiments of cuirassiers in 1830. For reasons of economy they were converted to lancers in 1863.


title: Cuirassier

text: By the end of the 19th century, the German and Russian cuirassiers used the breastplates only as part of their peacetime parade dress, but the French regiments still wore the cuirass and plumed helmet (both with cloth covers) on active service during the first weeks of World War I. Amongst ceremonial units the Spanish "Escolta Real" (Royal Escort) Squadron, the Argentinian Presidential Bodyguard, and the Italian Cuirassier ("Corazzieri") Corps all wore cuirasses as part of their mounted full dress during the early years of the 20th century.


title: Cuirassier

text: The retention of cuirasses as part of their field uniform by the French Army in 1914 reflected the historic prestige of this branch of the cavalry, dating back through the Franco-Prussian War to the campaigns of Napoleon. Before the war, it had been argued within the army that the cuirass should be limited to parade dress but upon mobilisation in 1914 the only concession made to active service was the addition of a cover of brown or blue cloth over the shining steel and brass of the metal equipment to make the wearer less visible. Within a few weeks, most French regiments stopped wearing the cuirass, as it served no real purpose in this new war. It was not however formally withdrawn until October 1915.


title: Cuirassier

text: The Russian and German cuirassiers ceased to exist when the Imperial armies in both countries were disbanded; respectively in 1917 (due to the Russian Revolution) and in 1918 (due to the Treaty of Versailles). The French cuirassiers continued in existence after World War I, although without their traditional armour and reduced in numbers to only the six regiments that had been most decorated during the war. Five of these units had achieved their distinctions serving as "cuirassiers "à pied"" or dismounted cavalry in the trenches. The surviving cuirassier regiments were amongst the first mounted cavalry in the French Army to be mechanised during the 1930s. One cuirassier regiment still forms part of the French Army.


title: Cuirassier

text: The development of firearms, which reduced the effectiveness of expensive heavy armour, led to a considerable reduction of the size and complexity of the latter. This form of protection was reduced in the latter half of the 17th century to the breastplate and the helmet, both of which eventually became largely decorative against projectiles but still retained their effectiveness against swords, lances, bayonets, and other edged weapons.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Abdul Hayee (8 March 1921 – 25 October 1980), popularly known by his pen name (takhallus) Sahir Ludhianvi, was an Indian poet and film song lyricist who wrote primarily in Urdu in addition to Hindi.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: His work influenced Indian cinema, in particular Bollywood films. Sahir won a Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist for "Taj Mahal" (1963). He won a second Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist for his work in "Kabhie Kabhie" (1976). He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1971. On 8 March 2013, the ninety-second anniversary of Sahir's birth, a commemorative stamp was issued in his honor.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Sahir was born on 8 March 1921, in a red sandstone haveli in Karimpura, Ludhiana, Punjab, India, into a Muslim Gujjar landlord family. This is the reason why he added the suffix "Ludhianvi" after his name. His mother, Sardar Begum, left her husband thus forfeiting any claim to financial assets from the marriage. In 1934, Sahir's father remarried and sued (acrimoniously and unsuccessfully) for custody of his son. In a recent biography titled "Sahir: A Literary Portrait" (Oxford University Press) written by US-based author Surinder Deol, the author agrees with the very brief conclusion of Pakistani poet Ahmad Rahi, a friend of Sahir over the years, about Sahir's life story in a nutshell, "In his entire life, Sahir loved once, and he nurtured one hate. He loved his mother, and he hated his father." Sardar Begum required protection from Sahir's father and suffered financial deprivation. Sahir's place of birth is marked with a small plaque on the building's arched entrance.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Sahir was educated at the Khalsa High School in Ludhiana. He then enrolled at the Government College, Ludhiana. The auditorium there is named after him. As a college student, Sahir was popular for his "ghazals" and "nazms" (poetry in Urdu) and empassioned speeches.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: In 1943, Sahir settled in Lahore. There, he completed "Talkhiyaan" (Bitterness) (1945), his first published work in Urdu. He was member of All India Students Federation. Sahir edited Urdu magazines such as "Adab-e-Lateef", "Shahkaar", "Prithlari", and "Savera" and became a member of the Progressive Writers' Association. However, when he made controversial statements promoting Communism, a warrant for his arrest was issued by the Government of Pakistan. In 1949, after partition, Sahir fled from Lahore to Delhi. After eight weeks, Sahir moved to Bombay. He later lived in Andheri, a suburb of Mumbai. There, his neighbours included Gulzar, a poet and lyricist and Krishan Chander, an Urdu litterateur. In the 1970s, Sahir built a bungalow which he called "Parchaiyaan" (Shadows), after one of his works, and lived there until his death.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: On 25 October 1980, at the age of fifty-nine, Sahir died of a sudden cardiac death. He died in the presence of his friend, Javed Akhtar. He was buried at the Juhu Muslim cemetery. In 2010, his tomb was demolished to make room for new interments.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Sahir's work as a lyricist in the film industry gave him financial stability beyond his earnings as a poet. He made his debut with four songs performed in the film "Azadi Ki Raah Par" (1949). One of the songs was "Badal Rahi Hai Zindagi". Both the film and its songs went unnoticed. However, after Naujawan (1951 film), with music by S.D. Burman, Sahir gained recognition. Sahir's major success was "Baazi" (1951). Again, the composer was Burman. Sahir was then considered part of Guru Dutt's team. The last film Sahir made with Burman was "Pyaasa" (1957). In "Pyaasa", Guru Dutt played a poet named "Vijay". After "Pyaasa" (1957), Sahir and Burman went separate ways due to artistic and contractual differences.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Sahir did work with other composers including Ravi, Roshan, Khayyam and Datta Naik. Datta Naik also credited as N. Datta, a Goan, admired Sahir's poetry and their collaboration produced the score for "Milaap" (1955), "Chandrakanta" (1956), "Saadhna" (1958), "Dhool Ka Phool" (1959). Sahir also worked with music director Laxmikant–Pyarelal in the films like "Man Ki Aankhe", "Izzat", "Dastaan" and Yash Chopra's "Daag" all have fabulous songs. From about 1950 until his death, Sahir collaborated with Baldev Raj Chopra (1914 - 2008), a film producer and director. Sahir's last work for Chopra was for "Insaaf Ka Tarazu". Yash Chopra, both while directing for B.R.films, and later as an independent director and producer, also engaged Sahir as the lyricist for his films, till Sahir's death.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: In 1958, Sahir wrote the lyrics for Ramesh Saigal's film "Phir Subah Hogi", which was based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment". The male lead was played by Raj Kapoor. It was presumed that Shankar–Jaikishan would be the composer but Sahir demanded a composer with a more intimate knowledge of the novel. Khayyam composed the film score. The song "Woh Subah Kabhi Toh Aayegi" with its minimal background music remains popular. Khayyam collaborated with Sahir in many films including "Kabhie Kabhie" and "Trishul".


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Sahir was a controversial figure in that he was artistically temperamental. He insisted that the film score should be composed for his lyrics and not the other way around. He also insisted on being paid one rupee more than Lata Mangeshkar and this created a rift between them. Sahir promoted his girlfriend, Sudha Malhotra's singing career. He also insisted that All India Radio credit film song lyricists.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Sahir was different from his contemporaries in that he did not praise "Khuda" (God), "Husn" (beauty) or "Jaam" (wine). Instead, he wrote bitter yet sensitive lyrics about the declining values of society; the senselessness of war and politics; and the domination of consumerism over love. His love songs, tinged with sorrow, expressed his realisation that there were other, starker concepts more important than love.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Sahir might be called the "bard for the underdog". Close to his heart were the farmer crushed by debt, the soldier gone to fight someone else's war, the woman forced to sell her body, the youth frustrated by unemployment and the family living on the street for instance. Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India said he was moved by Sahir's lyrics in "Pyaasa". Vijay, as he is passing through a red light area sings,


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Sahir's poetry was influenced by noted Pakistani poet, "Faiz Ahmed Faiz". Like Faiz, Sahir gave Urdu poetry an intellectual element that caught the imagination of the youth of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s and reflected the feelings of the people of that period. He roused people from an independence-induced smugness. He would pick on the self-appointed custodian of religion, the self-serving politician, the exploitative capitalist, and the war-mongering super-powers. Sahir wrote with verve about the arrest of progressive writers in Pakistan; the launch of the satellite Sputnik and the discovery of Ghalib by a government lusting after minority votes. He wrote "Kahat-e-Bangal" ("The Famine of Bengal") at 25 years of age. "Subah-e-Navroz" ("Dawn of a New Day"), mocks the way people celebrate while the poor exist in squalor. Of the Taj mahal, he wrote,


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Sahir Ludhianvi asks his lover to meet him anywhere else but at the Taj Mahal: although the tomb has been a symbol of luxurious monarchy for years, there is no need for beautiful (but not famous) hearts to travel to meet there.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Sahir Ludhianvi recited this poetry couplet at his college event, when he was barely 19 years old, and created an uproar in the literary circles:


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: The 1957 Hindi movie, Pyaasa now considered a cinema classic, is inspired by Sahir's unrequited affection for the Hindi novelist and poet, Amrita Pritam and features several famous songs with lyrics written by him.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Sahir's life has been chronicled by Sabir Dutt and by Chander Verma and Dr. Salman Abid in "Main Sahir Hoon"


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: In 2010, Danish Iqbal wrote a stage play entitled, "Sahir", about the poet's life. It was successfully directed by Pramila Le Hunt in its Delhi premier. It used song to narrate Sahir's life.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: "Sahir Ludhianvi: the People's Poet" by Akshay Manwani The book is the product of interviews and writings about Sahir given by his friends such as Yash Chopra, Dev Anand, Javed Akhtar, Khayyam, Sudha Malhotra, Ravi Chopra and Ravi Sharma. The book also analyses Sahir's poetry and lyrics in the context of his personal life. Sahir's contribution to the Progressive Writers’ Movement is also discussed.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: Javed Akhtar, in an interview with Rekhta, has talked about how it is a matter of concern that Sahir's Poetry is still as relevant as it was when he wrote it. He, including many other have always considered Sahir more of a poet than a lyricist, though he played both the roles beautifully.


title: Sahir Ludhianvi

text: A feature film based on his life is rumored to be produced by Red Chillies and starring Shah Rukh Khan.


title: Harvey Wallbanger

text: The Harvey Wallbanger is a mixed drink made with vodka, Galliano, and orange juice. It is a variant of the screwdriver, and was very popular in the United States in the 1970s.


title: Harvey Wallbanger

text: The Harvey Wallbanger was created in 1969 as a marketing campaign by McKesson Imports Company, importer of Galliano, as a means of driving sales of Galliano. The campaign was headed by George Bednar, marketing director of McKesson, and a cartoon character was commissioned from graphic artist William J. "Bill" Young in Lima, New York, with the tagline that Bednar claimed to have penned: "Harvey Wallbanger is the name. And I can be made!". The Harvey Wallbanger character was a surfer, appearing in various ads during the campaign, and was mentioned in print as early as 1969, continuing into the 1970s.


title: Harvey Wallbanger

text: The cocktail itself is credited to three-time world champion mixologist Donato "Duke" Antone, of Hartford, Connecticut, where he ran a bartending school, Bartending School of Mixology (established 1949) and worked as a cocktail consultant. It is unclear if Antone designed the drink for Galliano (to advertise the ingredient), or renamed an existing drink, as suggested by his grandson, who claimed the earlier version was called "Duke's Screwdriver". An implausible story of the origin is that it was invented in 1952 by Antone, and named after a surfer frequenting Antone's Blackwatch Bar on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. This is implausible because at the time, Antone was running a bartending school in Hartford, and there is no evidence of any "Blackwatch Bar" in Los Angeles at the time, so it is presumably a fabrication; spirits writer Robert Simonson goes so far as to say that "no sane person ever believed that story."


title: Harvey Wallbanger

text: Cocktail historian David Wondrich considers the Harvey Wallbanger the first successful consultant-created cocktail saying,


title: Harvey Wallbanger

text: Antone is also credited with the Freddy Fudpucker, which swaps vodka for tequila, but this was not nearly as popular.


title: Saba Hameed

text: Saba Hameed () is a Pakistani television actress. Saba has portrayed mother's role in many dramas & telefilms. She is better known for her roles in Kahin Deep Jaley, Mere Humsafar & Fitoor.


title: Saba Hameed

text: Saba was born in Lahore, Pakistan to writer and columnist Hameed Akhtar. She studied at the Lahore College for Women University. Her siblings include three sisters and one brother.


title: Saba Hameed

text: Saba Hameed started her four-decade-long career as an actress in 1978 on television and also worked in theater from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.


title: Saba Hameed

text: Saba Hameed was previously married to Syed Pervaiz Shafi, with whom she had two children, daughter, actress and singer Meesha Shafi, and son Faris Shafi. She is currently married to actor Waseem Abbas.


title: Saba Hameed

text: She holds the record for most nominations ever received by an actress without ever winning at the Lux Style Awards.


title: SK Hynix

text: SK hynix Inc. is a South Korean supplier of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips and flash memory chips. Hynix is the world's second-largest memory chipmaker (after Samsung Electronics) and the world's third-largest semiconductor company. Founded as Hyundai Electronic Industrial Co., Ltd. in 1983 and known as Hyundai Electronics, the company has manufacturing sites in Korea, the United States, mainland China and Taiwan. In 2012, when SK Telecom became its major shareholder, Hynix merged with SK Group (the third largest conglomerate in South Korea).


title: SK Hynix

text: The company's major customers include Microsoft, Apple, Asus, Dell, MSI, HP Inc., and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (formerly Hewlett-Packard). Other products that use Hynix memory include DVD players, cellular phones, set-top boxes, personal digital assistants, networking equipment, and hard disk drives.


title: SK Hynix

text: According to SK Hynix's "Annual Salary Rules", the employment rules for office workers, employees are to be paid from 90% to 110% of the contract wage depending on their annual evaluation. However, a so-called "Self-Design" system was introduced in 2018, allowing managers to adjust each employee's salary. Under this system, differences in wages between departments and individuals can occur even if they receive the same evaluation. It is a zero-sum where the head of the organization distributes a limited budget to his employees. Under this wage system, only 60 percent of the annual salary is guaranteed. It has been reported that a majority of employees in a specific department received less than 90% of the contract salary.


title: SK Hynix

text: In 2020, SK Hynix Labor Union submitted a petition to the Gyeonggi Provincial Labor Relations Commission and sent an official letter to the company. In response, the company held a briefing session on the "Self-Design" system and tried to ask the consent of employees. The briefing session and consent process has many procedural defects, which caused more controversy.


title: SK Hynix

text: When the above-mentioned pay-cut became controversial, SK Hynix held a briefing session to ask consent of the employees. It transpired that:


title: SK Hynix

text: Workers who have been disadvantaged by wage cuts due to changes in the company's employment rules can later claim the amount of their lost wages to the company. In addition, according to the Supreme Court's ruling, even if the employment rules are changed later through due process, favorable contents in the previous labor contract shall prevail for workers who do not agree to change the employment rules.


title: SK Hynix

text: In January 2021, employees complained about the decision to pay a bonus of 20% of their annual salary. This is because performance-based bonuses were less than half of Samsung Electronics' peers. Samsung Electronics' sales and operating profit are far above SK Hynix's, so there is no reason to pay the same performance-based bonus simply because of its increased operating profit, but the amount of performance-based bonus has not changed at all compared to 19 years. Sales and operating profit increased by 18.2% and 84.3% compared to 19 years, but the scale of performance-based bonuses has been set due to the management's unilateral notification.


title: SK Hynix

text: Due to the nature of the semiconductor industry, which is actively moving to the same industry, attracting manpower is important, but due to the reform of various wage systems, there has been a controversy over performance-based pay.


title: Leper colony

text: A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy. "M. leprae", the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believed to have spread from East Africa through the Middle East, Europe, and Asia by the 5th century before reaching the rest of the world more recently. Historically, leprosy was believed to be extremely contagious and divinely ordained, leading to enormous stigma against its sufferers. Other severe skin diseases were frequently conflated with leprosy and all such sufferers were kept away from the general public, although some religious orders provided medical care and treatment. Recent research has shown "M. leprae" has maintained a similarly virulent genome over at least the last thousand years, leaving it unclear which precise factors led to leprosy's near elimination in Europe by 1700. A growing number of cases following the first wave of European colonization, however, led to increased attention towards leprosy during the New Imperialism of the late 19th century. Following G.A. Hansen's discovery of the role of "M. leprae" in the disease, the First International Leprosy Conference held in Berlin in 1897 renewed interest and investment in the isolation of lepers throughout the European colonial empires. Although Western countries now generally treat cases of leprosy individually on an outpatient basis, traditional isolated colonies continue to exist in India, China, and some other countries.


title: Leper colony

text: In medieval Latin, a place for the isolation and care of lepers was known as a leprosaria, leprosarium, or leprosorium, names which are sometimes used in English as well. The Latin was calqued in English as , with becoming by far the most common English term in the 1880s as the growing number of leprosy cases were discussed within the context of European colonialism. Less common synonyms include leper asylum, leper lodge, and leper hospital. Other names derive from the figure of Lazarus in one of Jesus's parables, treated by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages as a historical figure and as the patron saint of both lepers and the Crusader Order of Saint Lazarus, who administered the leper colony in Jerusalem before spreading to other locations. This caused leper colonies to also be known as and, after the leper colony and quarantine center on Venice's Sta. Maria di Nazareth, as lazarets, lazarettes, lazarettos, and lazarettas. The name leper or is sometimes used for colonies in China, a calque of the Mandarin name "máfēngcūn"


title: Leper colony

text: Although not all of the skin diseases ("kushtha") discussed in the Indian Vedas and the Laws of Manu were leprosy, some of them seem to have been, with the disease appearing in the subcontinent by at least 2000. The Indian religious texts and laws did not organize formal leper colonies but treated those afflicted with the disease as untouchable outcastes, forbidding and punishing any marriage with them while they suffered from the disease, which was considered both contagious and a divine punishment for sins of the sufferer's current or former life. In legend, even kings were removed from power and left to wander in the forests while suffering from leprosy, although their position could be restored in the event of their recovery, whether through divine intervention or Ayurvedic herbal remedies such as chaulmoogra oil. Similarly, the ancient Persians and Hebrews considered certain skin diseases to render people unclean and unfit for society, without organizing any special locations for their care; it seems likely, however, that the references to "leprosy" in the Old and New Testments of the Bible are the result of a misunderstanding produced by the Septuagint's Greek translation and subsequent Latin translations like the Vulgate and originally referred to a variety of conditions such as psoriasis before becoming associated with leprosy centuries later. This confusion of termsand the related divine opprobriumwas then translated into Islamic medicine in the 9th century. The introduction of leprosy to southern Europe was blamed on the armies of Alexander and Pompey; ancient Greek and Roman doctors did not blame divine punishment and advocated various treatments but still usually advised that lepers be kept out of cities. Some early Christians sought to emulate Jesus's example by personally ministering to lepers or communities of lepers, activity recorded in hagiographies like StGregory's life of StBasil.


title: Leper colony

text: Leprosy seems to have reached the rest of Europe during late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, with the imperial Church reducing formal restrictions on lepers while setting aside funds for leprosaria where clerics would treat the afflicted. Such leper houses are documented at St-Oyen in 460, Chalon-sur-Saône in 570, and Verdun in 634; their management was often provided by monastic orders. The area of modern Belgium alone may have had as many as 700 or 800 prior to the Crusades. Christian folklore misunderstood the parable of Lazarus and Dives as a historical account and took the sore-covered beggar in the story as StLazarus, patron of lepers; the military order StLazarus was established to care for lepers in Crusader Jerusalem and subsequently operated other leprosaria around Europe. Some colonies were located on mountains or in remote locations in order to ensure isolation, some on main roads, where donations would be made for their upkeep. Others were essentially hospitals within major cities. In 1623 the Congregation of the Mission, a Catholic society of apostolic life founded by Vincent de Paul, was given possession of the Priory of St. Lazarus, a former leper house in Paris, due to which the entire Congregation gained the name of "Lazarites" or "Lazarists" although most of its members had nothing to do with caring for lepers.


title: Leper colony

text: Debate exists over the conditions found within historical colonies; while they are currently thought to have been grim and neglected places, there are some indications that life within a leper colony or house was no worse than the life of other, non-isolated individuals. There is even doubt that the current definition of leprosy can be retrospectively applied to the medieval condition. What was classified as leprosy then covers a wide range of skin conditions that would be classified as distinct afflictions today. Some leper colonies issued their own money or tokens, in the belief that allowing people affected by leprosy to handle regular money could spread the disease. Today leper hospitals exist throughout the world to treat those afflicted with leprosy, especially in Africa, Brazil, China and India.


title: Leper colony

text: In 2001, government-run leper colonies in Japan came under judicial scrutiny, leading to the determination that the Japanese government had mistreated the patients, and the district court ordered Japan to pay compensation to former patients. In 2002, a formal inquiry into these colonies was set up, and in March 2005, the policy was strongly denounced. "Japan's policy of absolute quarantine... did not have any scientific grounds." The inquiry denounced not only the government and the doctors who were involved with the policy, but also the court that repeatedly ruled in favor of the government when the policy was challenged, as well as the media, which failed to report the plight of the victims.


title: Evening Standard

text: The Evening Standard, formerly The Standard (1827–1904), also known as the London Evening Standard, is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.


title: Evening Standard

text: In October 2009, after being purchased by Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev, the paper ended a 180-year history of paid circulation and became a free newspaper, doubling its circulation as part of a change in its business plan. Emily Sheffield became editor in July 2020 but resigned in October 2021.


title: Evening Standard

text: The newspaper was founded by barrister Stanley Lees Giffard on 21 May 1827 as "The Standard". The early owner of the paper was Charles Baldwin. Under the ownership of James Johnstone, "The Standard" became a morning paper from 29 June 1857. "The Evening Standard" was published from 11 June 1859. "The Standard" gained eminence for its detailed foreign news, notably its reporting of events of the American Civil War (1861–1865), the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, all contributing to a rise in circulation. By the end of the 19th century, the evening edition eclipsed its morning counterpart.


title: Evening Standard

text: Both "The Standard" and the "Evening Standard" were acquired by C. Arthur Pearson in 1904. In May 1915, Edward Hulton purchased the "Evening Standard" from Davison Dalziel. Dalziel had purchased both papers in 1910, and closed "The Standard", the morning paper, in 1916. Hulton introduced the gossip column "Londoner's Diary", originally billed as "a column written by gentlemen for gentlemen".


title: Evening Standard

text: In 1923, Lord Beaverbrook, owner of the "Daily Express", bought Hulton's newspapers, although he sold them shortly thereafter to the "Daily Mail"s owner Lord Rothermere, with the exception of the "Standard". It became a staunchly Conservative paper, harshly attacking Labour in 1945 in a high-profile campaign that backfired. In the 1960s, the paper was upstaged by "The Evening News", which sold over 1 million copies nightly. During the decade, the paper also began to publish the comic strip "Modesty Blaise", which bolstered its sales throughout the 1970s. "The Evening Standard" ceased publishing on Saturdays on 30 November 1974, when it still produced six editions daily.


title: Evening Standard

text: In 1980, Express Newspapers merged the "Standard" with Associated Newspapers' "Evening News" in a Joint Operating Agreement. The new paper was known as the "New Standard" until 1985, when Associated Newspapers bought out the remaining stake, turning it into "The Standard". In 1987 the "Evening News" was briefly revived to compete with Robert Maxwell's "London Daily News", but was reabsorbed into "The Standard" later that year, after the collapse of Maxwell's paper. In 1988 the "Evening Standard" included the by-line "Incorporating the 'Evening News'", which remained until the paper's sale in 2009.


title: Evening Standard

text: On 21 January 2009, the Russian businessman and former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev and his son Evgeny Lebedev, owners of "The Independent", agreed to acquire control of the "Evening Standard" for £1 for 64 percent ownership. A few years earlier, 12 percent of the paper had been sold to Justin Shaw and Geordie Greig. Associated Newspapers retained the remaining 24 percent.


title: Evening Standard

text: In November 2009, it was announced that the "London Evening Standard" would drop its midday "News Extra" edition from 4 January 2010. From then on, the first edition was the West End Final, available from 2 pm. One edition of 600,000 copies would be printed starting at 12:30 pm, ending 3 am starts for journalists and the previous deadline of 9 am for the first edition. Twenty people were expected to lose their jobs as a result.


title: Evening Standard

text: Previously there were three editions each weekday, excluding Bank holidays. The first, "News Extra", went to print at 10:00 am and was available around 11 am in central London, slightly later in more outlying areas. A second edition, "West End Final", went to print at 3 pm, and the "Late Night Final" went to print at 5 pm and was available in central London from about 6 pm. There were often considerable changes between editions, particularly with the front-page lead and following few pages, including the Londoner's Diary, though features and reviews stayed the same. In January 2010, circulation was increased to 900,000.


title: Evening Standard

text: In May 2009, the newspaper launched a series of poster ads, each of which prominently featured the word "Sorry" in the paper's then-masthead font. These ads offered various apologies for past editorial approaches, such as "Sorry for losing touch". None of the posters mentioned the "Evening Standard" by name, although they featured the paper's Eros logo. Ex-editor Veronica Wadley criticised the "Pravda-style" campaign saying it humiliated the paper's staff and insulted its readers. The campaign was designed by McCann Erickson. Also in May 2009 the paper relaunched as the "London Evening Standard" with a new layout and masthead, marking the occasion by giving away 650,000 free copies on the day, and refreshed its sports coverage.


title: Evening Standard

text: After a long history of paid circulation, on 12 October 2009 the "Standard" became a free newspaper, with free circulation of 700,000, limited to central London. In February 2010, a paid-for circulation version became available in suburban areas of London for 20p (although many places sell it for 50p). The newspaper won the "Media Brand of the Year" and the "Grand Prix Gold" awards at the Media Week awards in October 2010. The judges said, "[the Standard has] quite simply ... stunned the market. Not just for the act of going free, but because editorial quality has been maintained, circulation has almost trebled and advertisers have responded favourably. Here is a media brand restored to health." The "Standard" also won the daily newspaper of the year award at the London Press Club Press Awards in May 2011.


title: Evening Standard

text: "The Evening Standard" launched a mobile app with US app developer Handmark in May 2010. The range of apps was updated in 2015.


title: Evening Standard

text: In March 2018, editor George Osborne initiated a redesign of the paper, which featured a dropping of the 'London' from the paper's title in a signal of the paper's ambition to have greater national and international influence. The paper also introduced more colourful "sign-posting" for different sections such as news, comment, and business, as it was noted by Osborne that it had not been "easy" to find them inside the paper previously. The masthead was also redesigned with a new font, and emojis were added to the paper's five-day weather forecast.


title: Evening Standard

text: In May 2018, James Cusick of openDemocracy alleged the newspaper had been providing favourable news coverage to companies including Uber and Google in exchange for financial sponsorship.


title: Evening Standard

text: In June 2019, the "Evening Standard" announced job cuts. By the end of 2019, the company reported a pre-tax loss of £13.6 million. In August 2020, the paper announced a further 115 job cuts in order to save the company.


title: Evening Standard

text: The "Evening Standard" endorsed Liz Truss in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election.


title: Evening Standard

text: From July 2020 to October 2021, the newspaper's editor was Emily Sheffield, sister of Samantha Cameron, who took over from the former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who has now taken over the role of editor-in-chief. As editor he had replaced Sarah Sands who, in turn, had replaced Geordie Greig following his departure to "The Mail on Sunday" in March 2012. Veronica Wadley was the newspaper's editor between 2002 and 2009. Max Hastings was editor from 1996 until he retired in 2002.


title: Evening Standard

text: "The London Evening Standard", although a regional newspaper, does cover national and international news, though with an emphasis on London-centred news (especially in its features pages), covering building developments, property prices, traffic schemes, politics, the congestion charge and, in the "Londoner's Diary" page, gossip on the social scene. It also occasionally runs campaigns on local issues that national newspapers do not cover in detail.


title: Evening Standard

text: It has a tradition of providing arts coverage. Its best known former art critic, Brian Sewell, was known for his acerbic view of conceptual art, Britart and the Turner Prize and his views attracted controversy and criticism in the art world. He has been described as "Britain's most famous and controversial art critic".


title: Evening Standard

text: During the 2008 London mayoral election the newspaper – and particularly the correspondent Andrew Gilligan – published articles in support of the Conservative candidate, Boris Johnson, including frequent front-page headlines condemning Ken Livingstone. This included the headline "Suicide bomb backer runs Ken's campaign".


title: Evening Standard

text: On 5 May 2010, the newspaper stated in an editorial that, having supported Labour under Tony Blair, the newspaper would be supporting David Cameron and the Conservatives in the General Election, saying that "the Conservatives are ready for power: they look like a government in waiting." On 5 May 2015, an editorial stated that the newspaper would again be supporting David Cameron and the Conservatives in the 2015 General Election, saying that the Conservatives have "shown themselves to be good for London." The newspaper did however also claim "there may be good tactical reasons to vote Liberal Democrat."


title: Evening Standard

text: The Media Reform Coalition (MRC) and Goldsmiths University of London argued that in the 2016 elections, the Evening Standard favoured the Conservative Party, according to MRC chair Justin Schlosberg. There were almost twice as many positive headlines about the Conservative candidate, Zac Goldsmith, as for his Labour rival, Sadiq Khan, with stories exhibiting the strongest bias against Khan also being the most prominent.


title: Evening Standard

text: During the 2019 Conservative leadership election, the "Evening Standard" endorsed Boris Johnson. During the 2020 Labour leadership election, the "Evening Standard" endorsed Keir Starmer to become Labour leader and consequently Leader of the Opposition.


title: Evening Standard

text: On 14 December 2004, Associated Newspapers launched a Monday–Friday freesheet edition of the "Evening Standard" called "Standard Lite" to help boost circulation. This had 48 pages, compared with about 80 in the main paper, which also had a supplement on most days.


title: Evening Standard

text: In August 2006, the freesheet was relaunched as "London Lite". It was designed to be especially attractive to younger female readers and featured a wide range of lifestyle articles, but less news and business news than the main paper. It was initially available only between 11.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. at "Evening Standard" vendors and in the central area, but later became available in the evening from its street distributors. With the sale of the "Evening Standard", but not the "London Lite", to Alexander Lebedev on 21 January 2009, the ownership links between the "Standard" and the "Lite" were broken.


title: Evening Standard

text: On Fridays, the newspaper includes a free glossy lifestyle magazine, "ES" (launched as the "Evening Standard Magazine" in 2009), and the circulation was increased to 350,000 in September 2014. This has moved from more general articles to concentrate on glamour, with features on the rich, powerful and famous. On Wednesdays, selected areas offer a free copy of the "Homes & Property" supplement, edited by Janice Morley, which includes London property listings as well as articles from lifestyle journalists including Barbara Chandler, Katie Law, and Alison Cork.


title: Evening Standard

text: An entertainment guide supplement "Metro Life" (previously called "Hot Tickets") was launched in September 2002. This was a what's-on guide with listings of cinemas and theatres in and around London and was given away on Thursdays. It was discontinued on 1 September 2005.


title: Evening Standard

text: The newspaper's "This Is London" website carries some of the stories from the "Evening Standard" and promotions, reviews and competitions. It also includes a number of blogs by "Evening Standard" writers, such as restaurant critic Charles Campion, theatre critic Kieron Quirke and music critic David Smyth. A separate website contains images of each page of the print edition (two versions) and supplements.


title: AlexNet

text: AlexNet is the name of a convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture, designed by Alex Krizhevsky in collaboration with Ilya Sutskever and Geoffrey Hinton, who was Krizhevsky's Ph.D. advisor.


title: AlexNet

text: AlexNet competed in the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge on September 30, 2012. The network achieved a top-5 error of 15.3%, more than 10.8 percentage points lower than that of the runner up. The original paper's primary result was that the depth of the model was essential for its high performance, which was computationally expensive, but made feasible due to the utilization of graphics processing units (GPUs) during training.


title: AlexNet

text: AlexNet was not the first fast GPU-implementation of a CNN to win an image recognition contest. A CNN on GPU by K. Chellapilla et al. (2006) was 4 times faster than an equivalent implementation on CPU. A deep CNN of Dan Cireșan et al. (2011) at IDSIA was already 60 times faster and outperformed predecessors in August 2011. Between May 15, 2011 and September 10, 2012, their CNN won no fewer than four image competitions. They also significantly improved on the best performance in the literature for multiple image databases.


title: AlexNet

text: According to the AlexNet paper, Cireșan's earlier net is "somewhat similar." Both were originally written with CUDA to run with GPU support. In fact, both are actually just variants of the CNN designs introduced by Yann LeCun et al. (1989) who applied the backpropagation algorithm to a variant of Kunihiko Fukushima's original CNN architecture called "neocognitron." The architecture was later modified by J. Weng's method called max-pooling.


title: AlexNet

text: In 2015, AlexNet was outperformed by Microsoft Research Asia's very deep CNN with over 100 layers, which won the ImageNet 2015 contest.


title: AlexNet

text: AlexNet contained eight layers; the first five were convolutional layers, some of them followed by max-pooling layers, and the last three were fully connected layers. It used the non-saturating ReLU activation function, which showed improved training performance over tanh and sigmoid.


title: AlexNet

text: AlexNet is considered one of the most influential papers published in computer vision, having spurred many more papers published employing CNNs and GPUs to accelerate deep learning. As of late 2022, the AlexNet paper has been cited over 100,000 times according to Google Scholar.


title: Timeline of events in the Cold War

text: This is a timeline of the main events of the Cold War, a state of and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others) and powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union, its allies in the Warsaw Pact and later the People's Republic of China).


title: James LaBrie

text: Kevin James LaBrie (born May 5, 1963) is a Canadian singer, best known as the lead singer of American progressive metal band Dream Theater, which he has been fronting since 1991.


title: James LaBrie

text: Kevin James LaBrie was born in Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada and started playing drums at age five. By his mid-teens, he was a member of several bands as a front man that attempted singing and/or drumming. He stopped playing drums at age 17 and in 1981, at age 18, he moved to Toronto.


title: James LaBrie

text: LaBrie joined Coney Hatch in 1986 when they were attempting a new lineup. The band recorded a number of demonstration tapes in their rehearsal studio and performed live in Ontario clubs for several months. When their record company (Anthem) expressed their disapproval of the lineup, the band replaced LaBrie with Phil Naro in one last ditched attempt at forging ahead without Carl Dixon. That lineup was to be short lived as well.


title: James LaBrie

text: Soon after parting ways with Coney Hatch, LaBrie became the vocalist for the glam metal band Winter Rose. The group also included Richard Chycki on guitar and bass, Randy Cooke on drums, and Sebastian Bach on vocals. Chycki had also worked with Bach under the band names Sebastian and Hope. The band recorded a series of demos through 1988 and 1989 with guest musicians Bruce Dies and Rob Laidlaw. The tracks were commercially released in 1989 as a self-titled album by Inside Out Music. All the songs on the album were written by Richard Chycki and James LaBrie, except two which Richard Chycki wrote alone.


title: James LaBrie

text: In 1990, LaBrie learned that American progressive metal band Dream Theater was looking for a new singer, so he submitted a tape and was quickly flown to New York for a full audition. The tryout went well, and he was chosen ahead of 200 other hopefuls to fill the full-time vocalist position in that band.


title: James LaBrie

text: LaBrie has since had a significant impact on the vocal melodies on each Dream Theater album, but until recently has had little input on the instrumentation of Dream Theater's music; 2011's "A Dramatic Turn of Events" features LaBrie in the music credits on three songs. To date he has written or co-written lyrics for at least one song on ten of the fifteen albums Dream Theater has released with him in the band, "Images and Words," "Black Clouds & Silver Linings", "Dream Theater" and "The Astonishing" containing none of them.


title: James LaBrie

text: Asked by Prog-Sphere.com what is his favorite Dream Theater song to play live, James says "The favorite song for me is Scarred, I love performing that live. And... well, Octavarium, that whole freakin’ thing."


title: James LaBrie

text: With Matt Guillory, LaBrie has released five solo albums under various names (Mullmuzzler, James LaBrie's Mullmuzzler, and simply James LaBrie).


title: James LaBrie

text: In an interview from "Beyond The Dark Horizon" on June 12, 2010, James LaBrie stated that his next solo album entitled "Static Impulse", is in the mixing stages and will contain 12 tracks. James stated "It's very heavy and I'm really excited."


title: James LaBrie

text: On July 27, 2010 it was announced on Dream Theater's website that "Static Impulse" would be released on September 27, 2010 through Inside Out Music. It features longtime collaborator Matt Guillory on keyboards, Marco Sfogli (who also played on LaBrie's earlier album "Elements of Persuasion") on guitars, Peter Wildoer of the Swedish melodic death metal band Darkane on drums and screaming vocals, and Ray Riendeau on bass.


title: James LaBrie

text: James LaBrie stated "The release of "Static Impulse" is one that the whole band is psyched about. This is modern metal and as heavy and relevant as any other band out there going in a similar musical direction. There are riffs that will blow your head off and melodies both musically and vocally that are hypnotic. Get in the driver's seat and let the ears bleed. Enjoy and see you out there with a tour to follow up and support this release."


title: James LaBrie

text: In 2011's interview for Prog-Sphere.com, LaBrie stated that the US tour got cancelled, saying "Because it was so disorganized last time. That's why I basically said, 'You don't have the visas yet. Where we're at this point, by the time you get the visas processed, we're gonna have one rehearsal and then we're gonna go out.' And I said, 'I'm not doing that.'"


title: James LaBrie

text: Throughout his career with Dream Theater, LaBrie has lent his voice to many other artists' records as well as tribute albums. In 1991, not long after joining Dream Theater (and before ever appearing on a Dream Theater recording), he sang background vocals on the song "Life in Still Water" on Fates Warning's "Parallels" album. He has appeared on many Trent Gardner releases (including "Leonardo: The Absolute Man" and "Explorer's Club"), as well as appearing on albums by such artists as Shadow Gallery, Tim Donahue and Frameshift.


title: James LaBrie

text: LaBrie provided the lead vocals for the main character in the rock opera album "The Human Equation" by Ayreon; in 2015, he reprised his role for a live version, "The Theater Equation". He was also featured as the character "The Historian" in the album "The Source".


title: James LaBrie

text: LaBrie is also a featured vocalist on Henning Pauly's "Babysteps" project released in 2006; LaBrie plays the role of the arrogant doctor.


title: James LaBrie

text: Since 2004, LaBrie has been working with the True Symphonic Rockestra project, along with Thomas Dewald, Vladimir Grishko, Dirk Ulrich, Christoph Wansleben, Sandro Martinez, Paul Mayland, Marvin Philippi, and Igor Marin.


title: James LaBrie

text: Their album, "Concerto in True Minor - 3 Rock Tenors" was released on iTunes and for download on Amazon on March 28, 2008, by Brainworx and Marinsound.


title: James LaBrie

text: In 2016 LaBrie was the special guest on the Last Union debut album firstly meant to be named "Most Beautiful Day". He sang in three songs: "President Evil", "Taken" and "A Place In Heaven". Eventually the album was called "Twelve" and finally released on December 21, 2018. "Twelve" was written and pieced together over a -year period.


title: James LaBrie

text: LaBrie had said in many older interviews that he was Christian, and actively practiced the religion. However, in 2005 he revealed that he's since strayed from organized religion, and now considers himself "a more spiritual-directed person".


title: James LaBrie

text: His musical inspiration comes from many different genres, including such artists as Sebastian Bach, Aerosmith, Don Dokken, Metallica, The Doors, Ludwig van Beethoven, Nat King Cole, Queen, Sting, and Muse whose inspiration, according to LaBrie, is shown on Dream Theater's album, "Octavarium". LaBrie lists Freddie Mercury as his "all-time favorite" singer, and also admires such singers as Steve Perry, Lou Gramm, Rob Halford, Steven Tyler, Robert Plant, and Jeff Buckley, among others.


title: James LaBrie

text: LaBrie is widely known for his lyric tenor style singing voice. He was voted by fans to #16 on MusicRadar's "The greatest vocalists of all time" in 2010. During his career with Dream Theater, LaBrie's singing voice has received both praise and criticism. In response to detractors of his vocal abilities, LaBrie has said, "These people are pathetic and need to move on. I say get a life and maybe work on making your life a better one instead of thinking the answer lies in cutting someone else up to raise your miserable spirit".


title: James LaBrie

text: On December 30, 1994, while vacationing in Cuba, LaBrie was stricken with a severe case of food poisoning from contaminated pork and while vomiting, he ruptured his vocal cords. He saw three throat specialists who all said there was nothing they could do except have him rest his voice as much as possible. However, on January 12, 1995, against doctor's orders, he was on the Waking Up the World Tour in Japan promoting Dream Theater's "Awake" album with his voice far from normal. LaBrie has said he did not feel vocally "normal" until at least 2002. He has also said that this era was a very hard time for him as a singer, and depression as a result caused him to consider departing from the band, although his bandmates supported him and urged him to stay. After the World Tourbulence tour, he discovered that his voice had fully returned. He said that his voice was fully healed by time and training. However, while speaking to Greg Prato of Songfacts in 2019, LaBrie explained how the incident affected his vocal range. "So, instead of hitting D's and E's and F-sharps and all that stuff, I was able to hit C, C-sharp, and D. But I had to really watch it. I have hit F notes here and there, but I have to really watch it. But that was probably the darkest moment in my life, for sure."


title: James LaBrie

text: In February of 2022, rumors emerged of LaBrie lip syncing during the North American leg of Dream Theater's Top of the World Tour as fan recordings from the tour were posted online. Specifically, fans pointed to the post-chorus section of the song "Bridges In The Sky" as evidence of LaBrie lip syncing to a pre-recorded vocal track. LaBrie addressed the controversy onstage during the band's performance in Houston, Texas, on March 18, 2022, denying the allegations and claiming he has never lip synced in his entire life.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: Julius Maada Wonie Bio (born 12 May 1964) is a Sierra Leonean politician, and the current president of Sierra Leone since 4 April 2018. He is a retired brigadier general in the Sierra Leone Army and was the military head of state of Sierra Leone from 16 January 1996, to 29 March 1996, in a military junta government known as the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). As the candidate of the main opposition Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), Bio defeated Samura Kamara of the ruling All People's Congress (APC) in the runoff vote of the 2018 Sierra Leone presidential election with 51.8% of the votes to Kamara's 48.2%. International and local observers declared the election free and fair.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: Bio succeeded Ernest Bai Koroma as president. As the main opposition leader, Bio was a critic of his predecessor president Ernest Bai Koroma and his administration. As president, Bio has overturned most of the policies of Ernest Bai Koroma, whom he accuses of corruption and mismanagement of the country's treasury, and the two men very rarely speak to each other. A couple of senior government officials under former president Koroma, have been arrested by the Sierra Leone Police and indicted by the Sierra Leone Ministry of Justice under president Bio on corruption related charges, including former Finance Minister and 2018 APC presidential candidate Samura Kamara who lost the 2018 presidential election to president Bio.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: Bio was the SLPP presidential candidate in the 2012 presidential election, but he received 37% of the vote as he was defeated by the incumbent President Ernest Bai Koroma who won 58% of the votes. As the military head of state, Bio returned Sierra Leone to a democratically elected government, when he handed power to Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of the Sierra Leone People's Party, following Kabbah's victory in the 1996 Sierra Leone presidential election. Upon retiring from the military in 1996, Bio moved to the United States, where he was granted political asylum, and he did not visit Sierra Leone from the U.S until 2005.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: Bio has a master's degree in international affairs from American University in Washington, D.C. Bio is also a cadet graduate from Sierra Leone's Benguema Military Academy. Bio is a practicing Roman Catholic Christian, though his wife, First Lady Fatima Bio, is a practicing Muslim.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: Julius Maada Wonie Bio was born on 12 May 1964, in Tihun, a village in the "Sogbini Chiefdom", Bonthe District in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone. Bio was born three years after Sierra Leone's Independence during the administration of then Sierra Leone Prime Minister Sir Albert Margai of the SLPP. Bio is the 33 of 35 children born to Sherbro Paramount Chief Charlie Bio II of Sogbini Chiefdom. Bio's father had nine wives. Bio is named after his paternal grandfather Julius Maada Wonie Bio, who was also a Sherbro paramount chief of Sogbini Chiefdom. Bio is an ethnic Sherbro, and a practicing Roman Catholic.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: Bio began his primary education at the Roman Catholic Primary School in Tihun, Bonthe District. After finishing his early years in primary school, Bio was sent to the town of Pujehun to live with his older sister Agnes, who was a primary school teacher in Pujehun. Bio completed his primary education at the Holy Family Primary School in Pujehun. After his primary education, Bio's older sister, Agnes, enrolled him at the Bo Government Secondary School in Bo (commonly known as Bo School), a prominent boarding school. Bio spent seven years at Bo School, rising to become school prefect. Bio graduated from Bo School in 1984 with A-level at age 20.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: After graduating from secondary school, Bio applied for admission into Fourah Bay College in Freetown in 1985 at age 21. However, Bio ultimately enrolled in the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces military academy at Benguema, just outside the capital city of Freetown. He trained as a cadet officer under the command of Major Fallah Sewa, the head of cadet training at the military academy.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: Bio graduated from the Military academy as a Second Lieutenant in the Sierra Leone Army in October 1987 at age 23. His first post as a commissioned officer was at the Lungi Garrison in Port Loko District in 1987. Bio was later posted to Kambia District as part of the Economic Emergency Unit, created by President Joseph Saidu Momoh to combat smuggling and other crimes along the Guinean border. In 1988, Bio was again re-posted at Lungi and trained by United Nations forces in aviation security. After the training, Bio was transferred to Benguema as a platoon commander.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: In 1990, the Sierra Leone Government contributed military personnel to the West African Peacekeeping Force, ECOMOG, which was mandated to keep the peace in the Liberian civil war. Bio and several other Sierra Leonean soldiers, including Captain Valentine Strasser, and Lt Solomon Musa were deployed to Liberia as part of Sierra Leone's contingent to ECOMOG. At the time, thousands of Liberians were fleeing to Sierra Leone weekly, exposing the country's fragile security and adding to the economic hardship.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: After a year in Liberia as an ECOMOG soldier, the Sierra Leone Government ordered Bio and several members of Sierra Leonean soldiers serving in Liberia to immediately return to Sierra Leone and report to the army barracks in Daru, Kailahun District to populate newly formed 600 man battalion of soldiers set up by President Momoh to repel the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels who had attacked villages on the border between Sierra Leone and Liberia, in March 1991. The soldiers included future NPRC members Lieutenant Solomon Musa, Captain Valentine Strasser, Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, and Lieutenant Tom Nyuma.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: On 29 April 1992, Bio was one of a group of young Sierra Leonean soldiers including Captain Valentine Strasser, Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, Lieutenant Solomon Musa, Lieutenant Tom Nyuma and Captain Komba Mondeh that toppled president Joseph Saidu Momohs All People's Congress (APC) government in a military coup. The young soldiers formed the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) with Strasser as their leader and Head of State of Sierra Leone.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: Bio's first appointment following the formation of the NPRC was as the Secretary of State South, stationed in the country's second capital Bo. He was later moved to Freetown to serve as Secretary of State in charge of Information and Broadcasting. At that point, he was promoted to Captain alongside other junior lieutenants. As a leading member of the coup that kicked out the APC government, Bio served as Supreme Council of State member throughout the NPRC's stay in power and when Strasser's deputy, captain S. A. J. Musa, was sacked and exiled to the UK, Bio was appointed to the position of Deputy Chairman of the NPRC.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: On 16 January 1996, Bio led a military coup, ousting Captain Valentine Strasser, following a dispute within the governing Supreme Council of State (SCS) over whether to seek peace with the RUF before multi-party elections, planned for March 1996, or go ahead with the election notwithstanding the ongoing war in the country, and the conditions for participation (or disqualification) of junta members in the elections. The coup was backed by many high-ranking NPRC soldiers including Colonel Tom Nyuma, Lieutenant Colonel Komba Mondeh, Lieutenant Colonel Reginald Glover, Lieutenant Colonel Idriss Kamara, and Lieutenant Colonel Karefa-Kargbo. Captain Valentine Strasser, then the leader of the NPRC and the military Head of State of Sierra Leone, was handcuffed at gunpoint by his own military bodyguards who were supposed to protect him, and was immediately flown into exile in a military helicopter to Conakry, in neighboring Guinea.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: After retiring from the military in 1996, Bio moved to the United States, where he earned a master's degree in International Affairs from American University in Washington, DC. He also served as the president of International Systems Science Corporation, a consulting and investment management firm based in the United States.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: Bio officially became a member of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) in 2005. That same year, Bio sought the leadership of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) at its national convention in Makeni on 3 to 4 September 2005; he took third place, with 33 votes, behind Vice President Solomon Berewa, who received 291 votes, and Charles Margai, who won 34 votes. J.B. Dauda polled 28 votes.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: On the night of 31 July 2011, fanatics within the SLPP forced their way during the SLPP convention and declared Bio as the SLPP's 2012 presidential candidate which was held at the Youyi Building in the heart of Freetown. In the national election, he faced off with President Ernest Bai Koroma of the ruling APC and was defeated, winning 37% of the vote, but established the SLPP as the only viable opposition party in Sierra Leone.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: Julius Maada Bio was elected President of Sierra Leone in a run-off election held 31 March 2018. He gained 51.8 percent of the votes, according to official results from Sierra Leone's National Elections Commission. He succeeded Ernest Bai Koroma of the APC who had been President since 2007, and who had to step down from his post having reached the constitutional term limit.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: In his first month in office, Bio became the first Sierra Leonean president to introduce free education through executive order for primary and secondary school students in public schools throughout Sierra Leone, starting the next school year in the fall of 2018. Bio has also eliminated application fees for students in government-run public universities across Sierra Leone. Bio cancelled a China funded four hundred million dollar loan agreement with the previous Sierra Leone president Ernest Bai Koroma to build a new international airport in Sierra Leone. In his first two months in office, Bio opened an ongoing review and audit of all government mining contracts, ministry departments, and other government agencies in the immediate past government of Ernest Bai Koroma. In his first two months in office, Bio sacked all of Sierra Leone's ambassadors and permanent representatives abroad in the immediate past government of Ernest Bai Koroma. In his first two months in office, Bio appointed his cabinet ministers, including the appointment of an opposition leader, Charles Margai, who served briefly as the country's Attorney General and Minister of Justice.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: Bio's administration, led by his Chief Minister David J. Francis, issued an investigative report accusing former president Ernest Bai Koroma and his previous government of widespread financial corruption. The allegations against Koroma include stealing millions of dollars from government revenue, selling of state properties, selling significant amounts of a state mining company, stealing funds meant for the country's victims of Ebola and the mudslide; and stealing funds meant to help some poor Sierra Leonean Muslims to go on Hajj. On Bio's orders, the Sierra Leone Justice Ministry has set up a commission of judges, led by an international judge, to investigate the allegations against the previous government.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: In February 2019, President Bio declared a state of emergency in Sierra Leone due to endemic sexual violence. He increased penalties for rape and other sexual violations. The state of emergency was rescinded that June. President Bio attended the Global Education Summit in July 2021, and said on Twitter that he had "a zestful and productive meeting with Prime Minister Boris Johnson." He added that he "had a forward-looking and reassuring discussion on strengthening our relationship and building back better after COVID.". Bio was one of few heads of state invited "because of his efforts in increasing access to education through the Free Quality Education Programme and breaking down gender barriers to increase girls’ enrolment in schools in the last three years." In March 2022, President Bio visited Vietnam.


title: Julius Maada Bio

text: Maada Bio is an ethnic Sherbro and a practicing Roman Catholic Christian. Bio's wife, Fatima Bio, is a practising Muslim and a Gambian-Sierra Leonean national, though she grew up in Kono District in Sierra Leone; her mother was born in Kono District, Sierra Leone, and her father is a Gambian native. Bio and Fatima were married in 2013 in London in an interfaith wedding ceremony that was held in a church with later mosque prayer services in London. The couple have one child together that was born in London. Bio has three other children from a previous marriage, all born in the United States.


title: Ian Schrager

text: Ian Schrager (born July 19, 1946) is an American entrepreneur, hotelier and real estate developer, credited for co-creating the "boutique hotel" category of accommodation. Originally, he gained fame as co-owner and co-founder of Studio 54.


title: Ian Schrager

text: Schrager grew up in a Jewish family in New York City. His father Louis owned a factory in Long Branch, New Jersey, which manufactured women's coats and died when Schrager was 19. His mother, Blanche, died when he was 23.


title: Ian Schrager

text: In 1968, he graduated from Syracuse University with a BA and then earned a JD from St. John's University School of Law in 1971. While at Syracuse, he was a member and eventual president of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity. It was through this fraternity that he met fellow brother Steve Rubell, with whom he would eventually go into business.


title: Ian Schrager

text: In the early 1970s, Schrager with Steve Rubell and Jon Addison bought 15 Lansdowne Street in Boston for a discotheque (the former "The Ark", later "Boston Tea Party").


title: Ian Schrager

text: In December 1975, after practicing law for three years, Schrager partnered with Rubell to open Enchanted Garden, a disco in Douglaston, Queens.


title: Ian Schrager

text: Seeing the success of Enchanted Garden, Schrager and Rubell decided to open a nightclub in Manhattan.