title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: The Freedom Alliance was not involved in ratifying the interim Constitution in November 1993 and it announced that its members, including the IFP, would boycott the upcoming elections, to be held under universal suffrage. The IFP's boycott, endorsed by the king, was perceived as a particular obstacle to successful elections. In April 1994, an international delegation of mediators, led by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former British Foreign Secretary Peter Carington, visited South Africa to broker a resolution to the IFP's election boycott, or, failing that, to persuade the ANC and NP to delay the elections to avert possible violence. Rejecting the call to delay, the ANC and NP offered Buthelezi additional constitutionally guarantees of the status of the Zulu monarchy and a process of post-election international mediation to resolve remaining disagreements about regional autonomy. The week before the election, Buthelezi announced that he had agreed to accept their proposal, saying, "South Africa may well have been saved from disastrous consequences of unimaginable proportions". The ballot papers for the election had already been printed, so the IFP's name – with the picture of Buthelezi, its presidential candidate – was added by means of a sticker attached manually to the bottom of each slip.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Under the interim Constitution, the bantustans, including KwaZulu, were disbanded and formally reintegrated into South Africa; KwaZulu was reintegrated with Natal to form the new province of KwaZulu-Natal. However, in March, Buthelezi had said of this shift, "We were a nation-state long before there was any Pretoria... [The idea] that as a people, as a nation we will cease to exist on April 27 – I find it laughable, really."


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: In the 1994 general election, Buthelezi was elected as a Member of the new Parliament. Although the ANC won a comfortable national majority, the interim Constitution required it to form a multi-party government, in a form of transitional power-sharing. The so-called Government of National Unity consisted of the ANC, the IFP, and (until 1996) the NP; the IFP had won enough parliamentary seats to be entitled to a cabinet seat, and Buthelezi was appointed Minister of Home Affairs in May. In the week before the election, Buthelezi had told a rally that the IFP would not join the power-sharing government because, "Our struggle for your freedom has just begun". He said that after the election he was swayed by the majority view in his party: "As a democrat I do what my people want, even if I don't like it".


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: As the constituent assembly drafted South Africa's final Constitution, the IFP maintained its earlier negotiating position, seeking the devolution of a great deal of autonomy to the new province of KwaZulu-Natal and guarantees for the status of the Zulu traditional leadership; faced with opposition to this proposal, Buthelezi stormed out of the assembly in April 1995. There were also continued tensions between the ANC and IFP's national leaders over the ongoing political violence in KwaZulu-Natal, and in 1997 Buthelezi terminated the IFP's peace talks with the ANC, angered by what he perceived as the bias of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. However, Jakes Gerwel, who was Mandela's cabinet secretary, said that Buthelezi remained cooperative within the cabinet even when he clashed with the ANC in public; he recalled that "we spoke of the Wednesday Buthelezi and the Saturday Buthelezi, because he was so mild in the cabinet on Wednesdays and so aggressive at the IFP’s public meetings on Saturdays".


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Mandela appointed Buthelezi acting president more than a dozen times in periods when both he and his deputy, Thabo Mbeki, were abroad. On the first such occasion in February 1997, Buthelezi told reporters that he saw his appointment as "gesture toward reconciliation". On another occasion, in September 1998, Buthelezi was acting president when widespread rioting broke out in neighbouring Lesotho after a disputed election. Buthelezi deployed the South African National Defence Force across the border to protect Pakalitha Mosisili's government, inaugurating a months-long military incursion by South Africa. In Buthelezi's account, he consulted Mandela and Mbeki by telephone and they "supported military intervention, but acknowledged that the final decision lay on my shoulders".


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Buthelezi's first term as a cabinet minister was also marked by his estrangement from King Zwelithini and his royal house. Observers viewed it as the result of Zwelithini's attempts to distance himself from the IFP, both to reduce his dependence on Zwelithini and to bolster his public status as a true monarch, above party politics. This was partly facilitated by the establishment of the Ingonyama Trust, which had been set up just before the 1994 election as a result of negotiations between the NP and the IFP; it reduced the king's direct financial dependence on the local political authority formerly headed by Buthelezi. For the "New York Times", the first sign of Zwelithini's desire for increased independence was during the election, when Zwelithini asked the national government to send South African soldiers to replace his palace guard, which was controlled by Buthelezi. After the election, Zwelithi's frequent meetings with ANC leaders, including Mandela, were perceived as a snub to Buthelezi. Buthelezi publicly signalled his irritation in a speech in June, boasting of Zwelithini's coronation, "When I came to my maturity there was in fact no real Zulu king... I was personally behind all that." In subsequent months, he was rarely seen in public with Zwelithini.The tensions came to a head in September 1994, just months after the election. When Zwelithini invited Mandela to a traditional Shaka Day commemoration service, Buthelezi was angered that he had not been consulted; IFP supporters stormed the royal place, disrupting a visit by Mandela, and Buthelezi organised a boycott of Zwelithini's annual Reed Dance. On 21 September, the royal house announced that Zwelithini would "sever all ties" with Buthelezi and that all Shaka Day ceremonies would be cancelled. That weekend, Buthelezi presided over Shaka Day services held without the king for the first time ever; in his speech, he surprised observers by rejecting the concept of a sovereign Zulu state with an executive monarch.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Then, on the evening of 25 September, Buthelezi and his bodyguards got into a physical scuffle with Prince Sifiso Zulu, Zwelithini's cousin and a member of the royal house. The incident was broadcast live on SABC, South Africa's public broadcaster. Zulu had been in the middle of an appearance on a live television interview programme and had been criticising Buthelezi; Buthelezi happened to be in the same building for a different interview, had watched Zulu's remarks on a monitor, and had stormed uninvited onto the chat show's set with his bodyguards to confront Zulu, not realising that the cameras were still rolling. Buthelezi could be heard shouting "Why are you saying these things about me?" in Zulu and a gun was brandished by one of the parties. After Zulu fled the room, Buthelezi seized his chair and the television show resumed with a diatribe from Buthelezi. Buthelezi was widely criticised, including for transgressing the values of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and the following day he issued a public apology to the programme's viewers.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: In December 1994, Buthelezi was appointed chairperson of the new KwaZulu-Natal House of Traditional Leaders; his appointment was challenged by Zwelithini. Buthelezi saw the appointment as continuous with his earlier role in the province, but Zwelithini continued to insist that he was not and had never been traditional prime minister. By Shaka Day of 1997, three years later, there remained a rift between Buthelezi's IFP and the royal house; Zwelithini still maintained that Buthelezi was not prime minister. Fellow Zulus Jacob Zuma and Ben Ngubane reportedly acted as government emissaries in attempting to mediate between them, including by trying to persuade Zwelithini to reinstate Buthelezi's premiership. Buthelezi's relationship with the king later improved and he was reinstated as traditional prime minister, but the royal family was never again as strongly aligned to Inkatha as it had been during apartheid.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: The 1999 general election proceeded in terms of the final Constitution without any formal provision for power-sharing, but Mbeki, who became Mandela's successor as president, chose informally to extend the Government of National Unity by maintaining IFP representation in his cabinet. Buthelezi therefore retained the Home Affairs portfolio for another term. Mbeki had offered him the position of deputy president, but on the condition that the IFP would help elect an ANC representative as Premier of KwaZulu-Natal; Buthelezi was unwilling to meet this condition. Mbeki later said that he had initially offered the deputy presidency unconditionally, but had been persuaded by his party to link it to the KwaZulu-Natal government; he said that Buthelezi, likewise, had been persuaded not to accept the proposal by his party, who would view it as "dishonourable" and as elevating Buthelezi personally at the expense of his organisation.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: According to Mbeki's biographer Mark Gevisser, Mbeki's strategy towards Buthelezi was to "bring him in, promise to see to his grievances once the country has made it to the other side of the rainbow and hope that the grievances recede as he busies himself with the authority and status accorded to him in the new democracy". He appointed Buthelezi as chairperson of two of the six cabinet committees. However, relations between the IFP and ANC, and therefore between Buthelezi and Mbeki, suffered, primarily due to ongoing discord in the ANC–IFP coalition that was operating simultaneously in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: In addition to making findings about Buthelezi's cooperation with apartheid security forces, the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, published in 1999, was highly critical of Buthelezi and the IFP's broader conduct during apartheid. The Commission reported "overwhelming evidence that Inkatha/the IFP was the primary non-state perpetrator [of gross human rights violations], and that it was responsible for approximately 33 per cent of all the violations reported to the Commission". It said that the IFP leadership had "created a climate of impunity by expressly or condoning gross human rights violations and other unlawful acts by members and supporters of the organisation". Buthelezi had not given comprehensive testimony to the commission or applied for amnesty – the Commission said that it had not subpoena'd him out of fear that "Buthelezi's appearance would give him a platform from which to oppose the Commission and would stoke the flames of violence in KwaZulu-Natal, as indeed he himself promised". He therefore might have been open to prosecution for the violations identified in the report.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Buthelezi continued to deny that he had ever "ordered, ratified or condoned human rights violations" and launched a lengthy legal battle to force the Commission to open its records to him and change its report. He and the Commission reached a settlement in early 2003, which involved the Commission making minor corrections to factual details and publishing a statement from Buthelezi as an appendix to the report.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Towards the end of the cabinet's five-year term, Buthelezi and Mbeki had a serious spat over immigration regulations promulgated by Buthelezi on 8 March 2004. The existing immigration regulations had been suspended in March 2003 after the Cape High Court ruled that Buthelezi had not followed proper public consultation procedures when devising them; he published the new regulations in haste because of a court application lodged by an impatient citizen. However, Mbeki and Penuell Maduna, the Minister of Justice, had a range of complaints about the regulations, including that they were unconstitutional, established unduly lax immigration standards, would cause "administrative chaos", and had not yet been discussed and agreed to by the rest of the cabinet.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Mbeki and Maduna applied for the court to declare the regulations invalid and void, and there was a comical exchange of press releases in which Maduna's department declared that the regulations would not be implemented just as Buthelezi's department declared that they would be. The case went to trial, and Mbeki's legal counsel claimed that Buthelezi's actions had been "carefully orchestrated to circumvent the cabinet process" and that he had "deliberately misled the court as well as President Mbeki". The judge found no grounds to believe that Buthelezi had been deceitful but agreed with Mbeki that the regulations required collective cabinet approval; they were set aside. In 2007, Buthelezi reflected of the incident, "I am not aware of any world precedent in which a president not only sued his own minister, but went so far as trying to get a cost order against him in his personal capacity".


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Mbeki did not appoint Buthelezi to his second cabinet when he was re-elected in the 2004 general election, and the IFP joined the opposition benches – both in the national Parliament and in KwaZulu-Natal. In a statement upon his departure, Buthelezi said:At times it has also not been easy for us to participate in [Mbeki's] coalition Cabinet... [But] I think history will credit him for his vision in promoting reconciliation between the IFP and the ANC in this manner... It would also be unkind of me on an occasion such as this one, to mention the low moments and the times when I felt that this Cabinet or my own president was unfair with me, or not sufficiently confident in my competence, expertise and good faith in the exercising of my ministerial functions. I would rather mention the many positive moments which we shared in this Cabinet, as together we attended to the concerns of the country.The "Mail & Guardian" reported that Mbeki had offered two deputy ministerial posts to mid-level IFP leaders, but that this proposal – rejected by the IFP – had stoked, rather than ameliorated, tensions between him and Buthelezi.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: The KwaZulu-Natal Traditional Leadership and Governance Act of 2005 further entrenched the status of the KwaZulu-Natal House of Traditional Leaders as an advisory body attached to the KwaZulu-Natal provincial legislature with the power to make non-binding recommendations about legislation related to traditional leadership and governance; Buthelezi remained its chairperson. In addition, he retained his role as leader of the IFP and his seat in the Parliament. In Parliament plenaries, he intervened frequently to chastise the Economic Freedom Fighters for a lack of decorum and warned the government against land expropriation without compensation. He also attempted to quell xenophobic sentiment in KwaZulu-Natal.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: In August 2005, there was a minor media scandal concerning an internal IFP discussion document entitled "The IFP: Crisis of Identity and of Public Support". It had been drafted in October 2004 by Gavin Woods, one of the IFP's most senior MPs, at the request of the IFP's national parliamentary caucus. The document was highly critical of the party's trajectory, describing it as having had "no vision, no mission or philosophical base, no clear national ambitions or direction and no articulated ideological basis" since around 1987, and as having become "increasingly reactionary, defensive and internalised", prone to "a persecution- and conspiracy-dominated analysis". It was perceived as indirectly critical of Buthelezi – among other things, Woods warned that Buthelezi must be treated as "the leader of a political party and not the political party itself".


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Sources told News24 that the document had been well received by the parliamentary caucus when first tabled in a meeting in which Buthelezi was not present, but that Buthelezi had been "livid" about the report and in a subsequent caucus meeting had read from a prepared statement attacking "the author of the document" without naming Woods. The "Mail & Guardian" reported that Buthelezi recalled all the copies and ordered them shredded to keep them from the media. He told the press that he felt Woods had "mis-assessed the situation in the party"; Woods himself released a statement in which he said that the media had misrepresented the report and overstated the extent to which it blamed Buthelezi for the party's problems. The saga received particular attention because it coincided with the suspension of the IFP's national chairperson, Ziba Jiyane, for having warned the party against the dangers of "dictatorial leadership"; Jiyane subsequently resigned from the party.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: The IFP performed poorly in the 2009 general election and lost seats in KwaZulu-Natal to the ANC, whose presidential candidate, Jacob Zuma, was Zulu. Groups within the IFP began to lobby for leadership change. In particular, the party's youth wing, the Inkatha Youth Brigade, lobbied for chairperson Zanele Magwaza-Msibi to take over from Buthelezi. However, even IFP conservatives looked for alternatives: many supported secretary general Musa Zondi. Several youth activists were expelled from the party during the subsequent factionalist agitation, and the entire leadership of the KwaZulu-Natal Youth Brigade was suspended in May 2009.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: The KwaZulu-Natal House of Traditional Leaders was up for re-election in the same period, but Buthelezi withdrew ahead of the vote, saying that he would not stand for re-election as chairperson. His withdrawal followed an announcement by the Independent Electoral Commission which suggested that he was not the frontrunner for the position: Bhekisisa Bhengu (who was ultimately elected to succeed Buthelezi) had received 28 nominations against Buthelezi's 24. Buthelezi claimed that ANC leaders, including newly elected President Zuma and Premier Zweli Mkhize, had induced traditional leaders to withdraw their support for him in exchange for bribes. The ANC said the allegation was baseless and defamatory.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: The IFP was also due to convene a national elective conference, in July 2009, to elect its leadership, but the conference was postponed indefinitely; Buthelezi's critics, especially in the Youth Brigade, said that it was a delaying tactic intended to buy his supporters time to shore up his re-election as IFP president. In September, Youth Brigade members clashed with Buthelezi's supporters outside the IFP headquarters in Durban, necessitating police intervention. In January 2011, when Magwaza-Msibi left the IFP to form the National Freedom Party, the "Daily Maverick" observed, "The revolt seems to be inspired by the old complaint that Mangosuthu Buthelezi... refuses to hand power over to anyone." Buthelezi linked the breakaway to an ANC conspiracy, and his attitude towards the ANC during this period has been described as paranoid. In February 2013, he confronted President Zuma in the National Assembly, saying that Zuma and some of his ministers had advised him that it was time for him to retire.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Following a series of victories for the IFP in local by-elections, the party's National General Conference, initially scheduled for July 2009, was finally held in Ulundi in December 2012, in the same week as the ANC's 53rd National Conference. Buthelezi was re-elected unopposed as IFP president, but the conference also signalled the beginning of a leadership succession process by amending the party's constitution to create a deputy president post; Buthelezi said that he would stay on to oversee a "smooth transition". Nonetheless, the IFP lost further ground in the 2014 general election and lost its status as the official opposition in KwaZulu-Natal to the Democratic Alliance (DA).


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: On 20 January 2019, Buthelezi announced that he would not seek re-election to another term as party president of the IFP, pointing out that he had been intending to step down since 2006. Since 2017, it had been understood that Velenkosini Hlabisa was his preferred successor. With Hlabisa as the party's candidate for KwaZulu-Natal Premier, the IFP's performed well in the 2019 general election and usurped the DA as the official opposition in KwaZulu-Natal. Although Buthelezi had been expected to retire from Parliament in 2019 after 25 years in his seat, he remained on the IFP party list and was re-elected to his seat for another term. As expected, the IFP's 2019 National General Conference, held in August, elected Hlabisa unopposed to succeed Buthelezi; he stepped down from the party presidency after almost 45 years in the position.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: In subsequent years, it also appeared that Buthelezi might retire from his position as traditional prime minister – although he became heavily involved in the royal family's succession battle in 2021 and 2022 after King Zwelithini died in March 2021. Although Prince Misuzulu Zwelithini was the heir apparent, and had Buthelezi's strong backing, his claim to succession was fiercely challenged over the next year. Buthelezi was intimately involved in negotiating the battle and on multiple occasions his critics within the royal house accused him of exceeding his authority. Misuzulu prevailed. On at least two occasions, including at his recognition ceremony in late October 2022, Buthelezi advised the new King Misuzulu that he was entitled to appoint a new traditional prime minister, although he offered to continue to serve in the position until a replacement was appointed. According to Buthelezi, he had often urged Misuzulu's predecessor to replace him, too, to no avail.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Buthelezi's political trademark is his infamously lengthy speeches: as of 2022, he retained a Guinness World Record he had won in 1993 for the longest ever legislative speech. That year, his opening speech to the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly lasted from 12 to 29 March; the address ran to 427 pages and was delivered partly in English and partly in Zulu. The political cartoonist Zapiro, speaking from personal experience, described him as "the most litigious politician in South Africa"; he fought a long-running battle to discredit Mzala Nxumalo after he wrote a critical biography of Buthelezi, "Chief With a Double Agenda," in 1988.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: He married Irene Audrey Thandekile Mzila (born 1929, died 25 March 2019), whom he met at a wedding in January 1949 when she was a nursing student from Johannesburg. They married on 2 July 1952 and had three sons, five daughters, and several grandchildren. At the time of Irene's death in March 2019, three of their children survived: Princess Phumzile Nokuphiwa (born 1953), Prince Ntuthukoyezwe Zuzifa (born 1955) and Princess Sibuyiselwe Angela (born 1969). Deceased were Mabhuku Sinikwakonke (born 1957, died 1966), Mandisi Sibukakonke (born 1958, died 2004), Lethuxolo Bengitheni (born 1959, died 2008), Nelisuzulu Benedict (born 1961, died 2004), and Phumaphesheya Gregory (born 1963, died 2012).


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Buthelezi is a practicing member of the Anglican Church. He said that he was occasionally put under pressure to take on additional wives, in line with customary Zulu polygamy, but had followed Christian edicts in remaining monogamous. His traditional residence is at kwaPhindangene in Ulundi in northern KwaZulu-Natal, and he is a fan of classical and choral music. He contracted COVID-19 twice, in August 2020 and December 2021, and was hospitalised with hypertension in January 2022.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: Buthelezi was made a Knight Commander of the Star of Africa for Outstanding Leadership by Liberian President William Tolbert in 1975 and appointed to the French National Order of Merit in 1981; King Goodwill Zwelithini awarded him the King's Cross Award in 1989 and the King Shaka Gold Medal in 2001. He has been awarded four honorary doctorates in law, from the University of Zululand in 1976, the University of Cape Town in 1978, Florida's Tampa University in 1985, and the University of Boston in 1986. He was named Man of the Year by the Institute of Management Consultants in 1972 and by the "Financial Mail" in 1985, and Newsmaker of the Year by the South African Society of Journalists in 1973 and Pretoria Press Club in 1985. He was patron of the Mangosuthu University of Technology and is also a former Chancellor of the University of Zululand, a ceremonial position to which he was appointed in 1979; he was the first black person to hold the title.


title: Mangosuthu Buthelezi

text: His other awards include a Citation for Leadership from the District of Columbia Council (1976), the AFL-CIO's George Meany Human Rights Award (1982), the Key to the City of Birmingham, Alabama (1989), the American Conservative Union's Charlton Heston Courage Under Fire Award (2001), the order of St. Markhus of the Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa (2009), the order of St. Michael and All Angels of the Diocese of Zululand in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (2010), the order of Simon of Cyrene from the Bishops of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (2010), and the Everlasting Gospel Leadership Award from the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star (2011).


title: Turbonegro

text: Turbonegro (Turboneger in Norway) is a Norwegian rock band, active from 1989 to 1998 and from 2002 to the present. The band combines glam rock, punk rock, and hard rock into a self-described "deathpunk" musical style.


title: Turbonegro

text: Turbonegro formed in Oslo during the winter of 1988–1989. The initial lineup consisted of Thomas Seltzer (a.k.a. Happy-Tom), Vegard Heskestad, Pål Bøttger Kjærnes, Rune Grønn, Pål Erik Carlin and Tor-Kristian "TK" Jenssen. Seltzer and Heskestad had formerly performed in a band called "De Dype" – a noisy and subversive ensemble inspired by American rock band Butthole Surfers. Early Turbonegro continued their conceptional styles.


title: Turbonegro

text: Turbonegro played their first show in March 1989 at Ungdomshuset in Copenhagen, Denmark. In April, they played their hometown of Oslo for the first time. In the following weeks, they recorded their debut single "Route Zero" and additional songs for their "Turboloid" 12" EP. Both records were released by Thomas Seltzer's label, Straitjacket Records, which he started in 1983 to release the EP of his first band "Akutt Innleggelse". The first session was recorded at Nesodden Musikkverksted by Christian Calmeyer. Seltzer played bass and drums on "Route Zero". An initial pressing of 50 copies came with an exclusive demo tape called "Computech," featuring a cover of The Stooges' song "1970".


title: Turbonegro

text: The early pre-deathpunk Turbonegro sound featured fairly tormented and distorted noise rock (contemporary reviews compared the band's sound to Halo of Flies or early Mudhoney). "Turboloid" was the second and last release by the original lineup. Drummer Carlos Carrasco left to play guitar for Anal Babes.


title: Turbonegro

text: In 1990, "Route Zero" was reissued by Sympathy for the Record Industry with two additional songs from the "Turboloid" EP. In September of that year, Turbonegro left for a three-week tour of the United States. Hours after their arrival in Minneapolis, Grønn was beaten by local denizens and, as a result, hospitalized. The band continued touring without him, but the tour was unsuccessful. Three weeks after the tour began, the band returned to Oslo.


title: Turbonegro

text: In the winter of 1990, Seltzer reformed Turbonegro with Kjærnes and Grønn. Norwegian punk veteran Harald Fossberg, who had gained fame in the late 1970s with Norwegian punk pioneers Hærverk, was recruited as the new singer. Bengt "Bingo" Calmeyer soon joined the band on bass guitar. In the summer of 1991, the new lineup released the "Vaya Con Satan" 7" in the U.S., followed by their 1992 debut album of "Hot Cars and Spent Contraceptives" on Big Ball Records. Both the single and the CD introduced the world to deathpunk, Turbonegro's self-acclaimed genre.


title: Turbonegro

text: The musical pre-settings were anticipating later "Ass Cobra" era – dark death-driven punk rock with occasional excursions into hardcore and metal, as well as a tendency to disruptive and sarcastic lyrics. Swedish broadcasting DJ Lars Aldman once described their sound as, "Radio Birdman meets Venom in an institution for sexually abused retards," and Danish "Moshable" magazine wrote, "One great big hunk of an album that simply barfs up the best in Scandinavian punk rock - and then slam it into overdrive. So fucking punk that it will tear you a new asshole - and then some!"


title: Turbonegro

text: In December 1992, Turbonegro began a ruinous tour outside Norway. With money left from a grant, they went for one gig confirmed in Ålborg, Denmark, then headed south to Hamburg, Germany, where they became stranded in an unsuccessful search for an opportunity to play. After five days, the band ran out of money, but then they were able to make contacts with Gravy Train Agency, who organized several tours for Turbonegro outside Scandinavia in later years, as well as people from Crypt Records.


title: Turbonegro

text: In late March 1993, Fossberg played his last show with Turbonegro at Sentrum Scene in Oslo. He quit due to health reasons and was replaced by Hans Erik Husby (a.k.a. Hank von Helvete), who would become their best known vocalist. With the new singer, the band was renamed Stierkampf (German for "bullfight"). They opened up for Poison Idea in Oslo and Denmark, as well as the Ramones in August 1993 at the Oslo Rock Festival.


title: Turbonegro

text: The band's only professional release as Stierkampf was the "Grunge Whore" EP on Sympathy for the Record Industry. All songs on this release would resurface on their next album, with the exception of "Six Pack". Their second album "Never Is Forever" (1994) was recorded by Christian Calmeyer at Nesodden Musikkverksted, and was self-released (limited to 1,200 copies) with a friend at Oslo Musikk Distribusjon. In their own words, this second album was "a tribute to Blue Öyster Cult", an attempt to dissociate from the lo-fi aesthetics of the garage. "When the rest of the punk oriented world tried hard to be lo-fi and 'real', Turbonegro as usual went the opposite way, creating a miniature suburban deathpunk opera. Seldom have pop culture, darkness and desperation blended so well." The release of this album followed their first full European Tour, which was nicknamed "Nihil Jung" and had 17 shows in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands.


title: Turbonegro

text: By the winter of 1994–1995, the band had reclaimed the name Turbonegro, but had a new look referred to as the "Al Jolson schtick", though it did not last long. Happy-Tom summed it up with an anecdote, "So there we were backstage with our black faces and wigs and little hats, smoking pot with our all-time heroes the Bad Brains, and the absurdity just didn't cross our minds. I mean, those guys didn't mention it, they were probably just embarrassed on our behalf."


title: Turbonegro

text: The gag was long gone by May 1995 when they debuted the denim and moustache look. Happy-Tom said, "We feel that denim out-rocks leather at all levels. Leather is for empty, little people. Denim is for us big guys! And the kids love it!" With a new look came a new sound. Calmeyer, their engineer at the time, said, "We decided to make things more raw, trying to convey the power of the live performance, if not the sound."


title: Turbonegro

text: The first recordings of the new and improved Turbonegro were the "Denim Demon" and "Bad Mongo" singles in the spring of 1995. That summer, Turbonegro left for their second attempt at a U.S. tour, "Namblin in the 90's". They played only 11 shows. In the words of Happy-Tom, "at least we didn't get the shit kicked out of us like we did the last time we were in the USA". In the fall of 1995, Bingo and Pål left the band, putting Turbonegro on hold. Pål wanted to travel, while Bingo didn't like the new musical direction ("less Slayer, more rock'n'roll.") Happy-Tom, at the same time, was suffering from stress injuries to his arms after the U.S. tour. Therefore, agreements were made to put the band on hold for a while.


title: Turbonegro

text: In that same year, Anthony Martin started his new label, Boomba Records, in order to release Turbonegro's third album "Ass Cobra". It did not come out until the spring of 1996 and, by September, they were touring Europe again with a new lineup. Anders Gerner from Angst was added as the new drummer, so Happy-Tom returned to playing bass. Pål was replaced by Knut Schreiner, with whom Happy-Tom had played in The Vikings. Knut (a.k.a. Euroboy) was added to the band to help reshape their sound. The "Prince of the Rodeo" 7" was Euroboy's recording debut with Turbonegro.


title: Turbonegro

text: Also at this time, Pamparius returned from traveling in Thailand to open his famous "Pamparius" pizza parlor outside Oslo in Kolbotn. He decided to rejoin the band as the keyboard player and dancer. His return would be the final touch in the latest incarnation of the band. The new look, sound and album irritated and fascinated the European underground. People were starting to pay attention to Turbonegro.


title: Turbonegro

text: In December and January, Turbonegro continued touring with 14 more dates in Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and Denmark. The insignia of their stage performance – the bulging denim, Hanky's routine to stick in his rectum a lit Roman candle, Happy-Tom's sailor hat, Euroboy's lithesome and sultry guitar choreography, and Hanky's attempts at addressing the audience in their broken native tongue – became Turbonegro's trademarks.


title: Turbonegro

text: In spring 1997, Turbonegro had another lineup change. Christer Engen (a.k.a. Chris Summers, from BigBang) took over on drums, and they were ready to tour Europe again. This time, they opened up with a modified version of a Grand Funk song, "We are a Norwegian Band".


title: Turbonegro

text: Hank wore Alice Cooper-like make-up and lit Roman candles in his ass (referred to as "assrockets"). Their final album was "Apocalypse Dudes". Musically, they made a move into mid-1970s punk and glam territory in the spirit of proto-punk pioneers á la The Dictators, The Ramones or late Iggy & The Stooges, plus a bit of New York Dolls travesty thrown in. As Euroboy explained, "When I came into the band, that added a ’70s rock-n-roll feel that wasn't there before...Turbonegro was just as dirty, but they were certainly more punk rock-driven than (before). We brought the Rolling Stones into the Ramones." It was time to take the new and improved Turbonegro back across the Atlantic with the "Summer of Head" U.S. tour. They were more warmly received this time, but still played only a few shows that were plagued with problems. Nonetheless, after years of stumbling through lineup changes, name changes and various shticks, they finally found themselves.


title: Turbonegro

text: In the autumn of 1997, their next album "Apocalypse Dudes" – the first part of the so-called Apocalypse trilogy – was recorded at Endless Sound studios in Oslo with producer Pål Klaastad. When Happy-Tom was asked if their new sound and album had anything to do with Euroboy's entry into the band, he replied, "Yep, he's a genius, and so is our new drummer Chris Summers, The Prince of Drummers. We released the punk album of the millennium with 'Ass Cobra,' and didn't want to make an 'Ass Cobra' part two, plus we spent two years writing new stuff, so as to make sure that every song is a hit, so we ended up making the rock album of the next millennium."


title: Turbonegro

text: The album was released in March 1998 by Boomba Records. However, it was released in Norway exclusively by Virgin. It is regarded among many fans and critics as their best and most successful album. Moshable magazine wrote, ""Apocalypse Dudes" is the perfect mix of classic 70's US punk / rock'n'roll like Dictators, Heartbreakers & Ramones... every tune on this release is fucking brilliant". Jello Biafra said, "The new Turbonegro record is possibly the most important European record ever."


title: Turbonegro

text: Turbonegro supported the album by playing 24 sold-out shows throughout Europe. By fall, they returned for another 16 European dates on the "Darkness Forever" tour, which was for a long time their last, and ultimately the end of Turbonegro. According to Happy-Tom, "Turbonegro broke up in the waiting room of a psychiatric emergency ward in Milan, Italy." Hank's mental indisposition became a serious problem and, as a result, the remainder of the tour was cancelled. They bid their farewell on 18 December 1998, at Mars in their hometown of Oslo. The last song they performed onstage before they broke up was the final encore "I Am in Love with the Destructive Girls".


title: Turbonegro

text: On the threshold of what was expected to be a major breakthrough for the band, Turbonegro withdrew from the music business and appeared unlikely to ever return. While there were several reasons, Hank von Helvete's drug addiction made it impossible for him to continue. Leaving the band to undergo treatment for heroin dependency, as well as his struggle with depression, von Helvete returned to his childhood town in northern Norway. There, he worked at a Local radio station and as a guide at a Fishing Village Museum. Another reason for Turbonegro's hiatus was that the band was stuck in an oppressive record deal with Boomba. The band saw very little money from the arrangement, and cancelling their tour with Nashville Pussy after playing only half the dates added to their financial problems.


title: Turbonegro

text: In 1999, Bitzcore Records out of Hamburg bought the contracts from Boomba and began to reissue Turbonegro's entire back-catalogue of albums. The year 1999 also saw the release of a posthumous live album entitled "Darkness Forever!" It released selections from two of the band's shows in Hamburg and Oslo, documenting Turbonegro's larger-than-life stage antics. Their appreciation among contemporary artists from diverse musical genres as rock, pop, punk and even black metal was displayed on "Alpha Motherfuckers", a tribute album to Turbonegro that was compiled over a span of two years and released by Bitzcore in May 2001. The lineup included, among others, Queens of the Stone Age, Nashville Pussy, Therapy?, HIM, Bela B. & Denim Girl (a.k.a. German technopop star Blümchen).


title: Turbonegro

text: During these four years, the band members would rarely speak; however, the momentum from their previous albums (especially "Ass Cobra" and "Apocalypse Dudes") continued to grow as more and more music fans turned to their music. Unbeknownst to the band, Turbonegro was becoming a cult phenomenon. Fan clubs were established all over the world (see Turbojugend).


title: Turbonegro

text: The immense following and the tribute album revealed a huge interest that, by audience numbers, hadn't existed before they had quit. When Turbonegro was approached by the organizers of the Norwegian Quart Festival about possible participation in 2002, Turbonegro agreed to the reunion. What was initially meant to be a one-off event to provide an opportunity to the many new fans to witness a Turbonegro performance, finally resulted in the band's reunion. The festival shows received tremendous response.


title: Turbonegro

text: Shortly after the Bizarre Festival, the band announced that they signed a record deal for two new albums with Burning Heart Records, an independent record company from Sweden with a long tradition in the punk & hardcore sector. Burning Heart also licensed Turbonegro's most successful albums "Ass Cobra" and "Apocalypse Dudes" from Bitzcore and reissued them as digipak CDs with additional video footage from the recent Res-erection show at Quart. Turbonegro appeared in an episode of Viva La Bam during Season 1. The band plays their concert at Bam's West Chester home. Their single, "All My Friends Are Dead", was also used in some episodes of the show.


title: Turbonegro

text: Turbonegro played 22 U.S. dates in the spring of 2003, culminating in two U.S. shows at The Troubadour in Los Angeles, the first of which sold out in under an hour.


title: Turbonegro

text: The band released its highly anticipated album, the second installment of the Apocalypse trilogy, "Scandinavian Leather" in 2003, complete with artwork of a skull Ouroboros from legendary "Revolver"-designer Klaus Voormann. A U.S. tour with Queens of the Stone Age proved that the American Turbojugend contingent had grown completely out of control, and almost 150 shows later, Turbonegro finished the "Scandinavian Leather" campaign by selling out the House of Blues in Los Angeles two days in a row in December 2004.


title: Turbonegro

text: While "Scandinavian Leather" was recorded at their own Crystal Canyon Studio in Oslo, Turbonegro decided to bring in Steven Shane McDonald as co-producer for "Party Animals". This follow-up to 2003s "Scandinavian Leather" and the last installment in the Apocalypse trilogy was released throughout Europe on 9 May (in Norway 2 May). It continued the 1970s and 1980s glam metal and hard rock-influenced party-oriented deathpunk sound that was first introduced on "Apocalypse Dudes". "Party Animals" was followed by intense touring throughout Europe and, in October, they visited the U.S. A collection of remixes and rarities appeared in 2005 as "Small Feces".


title: Turbonegro

text: Turbonegro went on tour again in 2006 to mostly European locations. In summarizing the band, Happy-Tom said, "Most rock 'n' roll bands start as a riot but end up as a parody. We started up as a parody but ended up as a revolution."


title: Turbonegro

text: On 8 March 2007, the new single "Do You Do You Dig Destruction" was released in Norway. The single was from the album, "Retox", released on 13 June 2007.


title: Turbonegro

text: On 10 July 2007, Turbonegro was one of the warmup bands, alongside "HIM", at Metallica's headlining concert at Valle Hovin Stadium in Oslo, Norway.


title: Turbonegro

text: The band toured Europe in late summer in 2007, including an appearance at Download Festival and 10 intimate gigs in the United Kingdom.


title: Turbonegro

text: The Turbonegro official site was completely redesigned for the new album release, and the new site debuted on 11 June 2007.


title: Turbonegro

text: On 27 October 2007, Rune Rebellion played his last live show with Turbonegro in Stavanger, Norway, and subsequently left the band. He said, "The decision was made this summer, realizing I hadn't had time off at all from work or touring for three years." Despite his departure from the position of rhythm guitar, he was still closely collaborating with the band by running their label, Scandinavian Leather Recordings and managing their itinerary.


title: Turbonegro

text: On 3 March 2008, it was announced that Chris Summers had been asked to leave the band. He had already been gone from the band for six months due to a broken foot. On the band's website, they announced that, "[due to] personal problems and a focus on other projects, we have been forced to ask drummer Chris Summers to resign from Turbonegro." Chris' replacement was announced to be Vikings drummer Thomas Dahl, who had been filling in for Chris since he broke his foot.


title: Turbonegro

text: In early 2008, guitarist Euroboy also announced that he and Happy-Tom were working on a new album tentatively titled "Tumours".


title: Turbonegro

text: They continued their Retox album tour throughout 2008 and 2009, and on 7 August 2008, Turbonegro celebrated the 10-year anniversary of "Apocalypse Dudes" by performing the entire album at the Øya Festival in Oslo, Norway.


title: Turbonegro

text: After finishing their Retox world tour, the band announced through the Turbojugend-Forum that they were going on hiatus for an unknown amount of time.


title: Turbonegro

text: On 9 July 2010, Norwegian newspapers announced that Hank had left the band. Subsequently, in early December 2010, news broke that a new band featuring Hank von Helvete on vocals had been formed, called Doctor Midnight & the Mercy Cult, with an album to be released in 2011.


title: Turbonegro

text: Euroboy stated in an interview with "Lydverket" that Turbonegro would appear with Tony Sylvester as the replacement for Hank von Helvete for the first time in Hamburg on 15 July. Former member Rune Rebellion also rejoined the band as rhythm guitarist, while Rune's replacement and former keyboardist Pål Pot went on to become a part-time member, due to family and working commitments.


title: Turbonegro

text: In May 2012, social networks announced that a new Turbonegro album was about to be released. The new album would be titled "Sexual Harassment," and would be released on 13 June 2012, on the Universal Music label for Norway, Sweden and Finland, and Volcom Entertainment for the rest of the world. This announcement was followed by the release of the album's first single "You Give Me Worms" on 4 May. The Album is produced by Matt Sweeney.


title: Turbonegro

text: In an interview with the Swedish Newspaper Värmlands Folkblad in April 2015, Tony Sylvester says that the band is currently working on new material, but that he can not say when and how the music becomes available.


title: Turbonegro

text: A later update revealed the album, titled "Rock N' Roll Machine", would be released in February 2018.


title: Turbonegro

text: Turbonegro's lyrics often attack political correctness. For example, the cover of the single "Bad Mongo" depicts Adolf Hitler as mentally retarded, and in the song "Hobbit Motherfuckers", they complain that there is "not enough suffering" and "not enough natural selection". Their genre of punk has been self-described as deathpunk. The band has stated that their music superseded existing genres, so they dubbed it "deathpunk" as a way to avoid being pigeonholed into musical groupings they felt they were above. Lyrics referencing the genre choice include "gimme deathpunk baby, and I like it" from the song "Get It On". Sharing characteristics with certain musical predecessors, (Sex Pistols wearing swastikas, etc.), Turbonegro has been praised by some as playing the most up-to-date form of punk with an anarchic blend of humour, shock and sexuality.


title: Turbonegro

text: In the "Turbonegro – The Movie" DVD extras, Happy-Tom says that, early on, festival-goers expected Turbonegro to be gothic metal or black metal in the vein of other Norwegian bands. They are notorious for their on-stage gimmicks. An early version of the band wore blackface and wigs onstage in an effort to challenge those watching their shows. On "The Reserection" DVD, the band states that early on they were often driven away from shows they were to play because they were not edgy enough or did not fit the look that the crowd wanted. As a result, the onstage schticks started to become as much of the Turbonegro experience as the music. Following several tours in blackface, the band started an oddball theme of tight denim pants, nautically themed stage props and homosexual innuendo, stylistically similar to the characters of Tom of Finland. A tongue-in-cheek joke, the homosexual/transvestite stage presence found its way into the band's music, including songs such as "Prince of the Rodeo" and "Rendezvous with Anus" which are both thinly veiled references to anal intercourse. Levi's jeans endorsements soon followed, and the trucker-cut jacket soon became standard fare among fans.


title: Turbonegro

text: The band's first break-out album, "Ass Cobra" (1996), was widely acclaimed. Jello Biafra would later comment that it was one of the best punk albums of the 1990s. Following "Ass Cobra," was Turbonegro's most critically acclaimed release "Apocalypse Dudes" (1998). "Apocalypse Dudes" introduced a combination of 1970s arena rock, irreverent lyrics, and punk stylings, which brought the band a level of notoriety that they had not achieved at any other point in their career.


title: Turbonegro

text: Among the band's main influences are Black Flag, the Rolling Stones, KISS, Venom, Radio Birdman, AC/DC, Iggy Pop & James Williamson, Circle Jerks, David Bowie, Ramones, the Lewd, Hanoi Rocks, Alice Cooper, Negazione, the Dictators and the Stooges.


title: Turbonegro

text: Initially, the band had two running ideas for band names: "Nazipenis" and "Turbonegro". They were advised that a band named Nazipenis would never sell records, so they chose Turbonegro as a more consumer-friendly choice. The band's name raised some eyebrows and, for that reason, their first releases were sometimes branded "TRBNGR", perhaps to preclude backlash against what some consider to be a racist name. However, the band's stated motivations are anti-racist, an attempt to change the attitude of racism and nationalism perceived as prevalent in parts of Scandinavia.


title: Turbonegro

text: According to lead guitarist Euroboy, the band name also has a peculiar origin. "I think Pål saw it spray-painted on a brick wall in a tube-station in a suburb of Oslo back in the day. It's actually two Latin words. It means 'fast' and 'black,' and we thought that was a cool name for a band. Because our music is very fast and very dark. And also, it's a name for a color. In the car industry, it's the name for the paint, for the darkest paint. If you want to paint your car black, the most black colour of all is Turbonegro."


title: Turbonegro

text: A feature of Turbonegro's fan base is the "Turbojugend" (Turbo Youth), the band's fan club. In explaining Turbojugend's beginnings, Euroboy said, "We thought about how Kiss had the Kiss Army so we thought that Turbonegro should have our own Navy. It started as a joke in Happy-Tom’s apartment. We put his address on the album sleeves and it was all just for laughs. The Jugend blossomed into something way bigger than we ever expected." The first Turbojugend chapter started in St Pauli, Hamburg, Germany, with later chapters appearing throughout the world, St. Pauli being the unofficial capital. Chapter members identify themselves by wearing specially made denim jackets with the Turbonegro logo and "Turbojugend [name of chapter]" stitched on the back.


title: Turbonegro

text: Once a year, Turbojugends from all over the world meet in St. Pauli, Germany, to celebrate Turbonegro, themselves, and punk rock in general during a two-day event, called "Welt-Turbojugend-Tage" (in English: "World Turboyouth Days"), with concerts and meetings in different clubs. Welt-Turbojugend-Tage 7, in July 2011, featured the comeback of Turbonegro. The eighth annual event was held in July 2012, and another was scheduled for August 2013.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), designated by siglum B or 03 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1 (von Soden), is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the majority of the Greek New Testament. It is one of the four great uncial codices. Along with Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Sinaiticus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. The codex has been dated palaeographically to the 4th century.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The manuscript became known to Western scholars as a result of correspondence between Erasmus and the prefects of the Vatican Library. Portions of the codex were collated by several scholars, but numerous errors were made during this process. The codex's relationship to the Latin Vulgate was unclear and scholars were initially unaware of its value. This changed in the 19th century when transcriptions of the full codex were completed. It was at that point that scholars realised the text differed significantly from the Textus Receptus.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: Most current scholars consider Codex Vaticanus to be one of the most important Greek witnesses to the Greek text of the New Testament, followed by Codex Sinaiticus. Until the discovery by Tischendorf of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus was unrivalled. It was extensively used by Westcott and Hort in their edition of "The New Testament in the Original Greek" in 1881. The most widely sold editions of the Greek New Testament are largely based on the text of the Codex Vaticanus. Codex Vaticanus "is rightly considered to be the oldest extant copy of the Bible."


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The Codex is named after its place of conservation in the Vatican Library, where it has been kept since at least the 15th century.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The manuscript is in quarto volume, written on 759 leaves of fine and thin vellum (sized , although originally bigger), in uncial letters, arranged in quires of five sheets or ten leaves each, similar to Codex Marchalianus or Codex Rossanensis; but unlike Codex Sinaiticus which has an arrangement of four or three sheets. The number of the quires is often found in the margin. Originally it must have been composed of 830 parchment leaves, but it appears that 71 leaves have been lost. The Old Testament currently consists of 617 sheets and the New Testament of 142 sheets. The codex is written in three columns per page, with 40–44 lines per page, and 16–18 letters per line. In the poetical books of the Old Testament (OT) there are only two columns to a page. There are 44 lines in a column in the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and 1 Kings 1:1–19:11; in 2 Chronicles 10:16–26:13 there are 40 lines in a column; and in the New Testament always 42.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The manuscript is one of the very few New Testament manuscripts to be written with three columns per page. The other two Greek codices written in that way are Uncial 048 and Uncial 053.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The Greek lettering in the Codex is written continuously in small and neat letters. All the letters are equidistant from each other; no word is separated from the other, with each line appearing to be one long word. Punctuation is rare (accents and breathings have been added by a later hand) except for some blank spaces, diaeresis on initial iotas and upsilons, abbreviations of the "nomina sacra" and markings of OT citations. The first letter of a new chapter sometimes protrudes a little from the column. The OT citations were marked by an inverted "comma" or "diplai" (>). There are no enlarged initials; no stops or accents; no divisions into chapters or sections such as are found in later manuscripts.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The text of the Gospels is not divided according to the Ammonian Sections with references to the Eusebian Canons, but is divided into peculiar numbered sections: Matthew has 170, Mark 61, Luke 152, and John 80. This system is only found in two other manuscripts: Codex Zacynthius and Minuscule 579. There are two system divisions in the Acts and the Catholic Epistles which differ from the Euthalian Apparatus. In Acts, these sections are 36 (the same system as Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Amiatinus, and Codex Fuldensis) and according to the other system 69 sections. The chapters in the Pauline epistles are numbered continuously as the Epistles were regarded as comprising one book.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: In the Old Testament the type of text varies, with a received text in Ezekiel and a rejected one in the Book of Isaiah. In Judges the text differs substantially from that of the majority of manuscripts, but agrees with the Old Latin, Sahidic version and Cyril of Alexandria. In Job, it has the additional 400 half-verses from Theodotion, which are not in the Old Latin and Sahidic versions. The text of the Old Testament was considered by critics, such as Hort and Cornill, to be substantially that which underlies Origen's Hexapla edition, completed by him at Caesarea and issued as an independent work (apart from the other versions with which Origen associated it) by Eusebius and Pamphilus.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: In the New Testament the Greek text of the codex is a representative of the Alexandrian text-type. Aland placed it in Category I. It has been found to agree very closely with the text of Bodmer in the Gospels of Luke and John. has been dated to the beginning of the 3rd century, and hence is at least 100 years older than the Codex Vaticanus itself. This is purported to demonstrate (by recourse to a postulated earlier exemplar from which both and B descend) that Vaticanus accurately reproduces an earlier text from these two biblical books, which reinforces the reputation the codex held amongst Biblical scholars. It also strongly suggests that it may have been copied in Egypt. In the Pauline epistles there is a distinctly Western element.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The codex originally contained a virtually complete copy of the Septuagint ("LXX"), lacking only 1-4 Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasseh. The original 20 leaves containing Genesis 1:1–46:28a (31 leaves) and Psalm 105:27–137:6b have been lost. These were replaced by pages transcribed by a later hand in the 15th century.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: 2 Kings 2:5–7, 10-13 are also lost because of a tear to one of the pages. The order of the Old Testament books in the Codex is as follows: Genesis to 2 Chronicles as normal; 1 Esdras; 2 Esdras (Ezra–Nehemiah); the Psalms; Proverbs; Ecclesiastes; Song of Songs; Job; Wisdom; Ecclesiasticus; Esther; Judith; Tobit; the minor prophets from Hosea to Malachi; Isaiah; Jeremiah; Baruch; Lamentations and the Epistle of Jeremiah; Ezekiel and Daniel. This order differs from that followed in Codex Alexandrinus.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The extant New Testament portion contains the Gospels, Acts, the general epistles, the Pauline epistles, and the Epistle to the Hebrews (up to Hebrews 9:14, καθα[ριει); it is lacking 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Revelation. The missing part of Hebrews and Revelation were supplemented by a 15th-century minuscule hand (folios 760–768), and are catalogued separately as minuscule 1957. It is possible some apocryphal books from the New Testament were included at the end (as in codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus). It is also possible that Revelation was not included.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The provenance and early history of the codex are uncertain; Rome (Hort), southern Italy, Alexandria (Kenyon,), and Caesarea (T. C. Skeat; Burkitt) have been suggested as possible origins. Hort mainly based his argument for Rome on certain spellings of proper names, such as and , which show a Western or Latin influence. A second argument was the chapter division in Acts, similar to the ones in Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, is not found in any other Greek manuscript, but is present in several manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate. Robinson cautiously suggests however, the system of chapter divisions was introduced into the Vulgate by Jerome himself, due to his studies at Caesarea. Hort also postulated the codex was copied from a manuscript whose line length was 12–14 letters per line, as when the codex's scribe made large omissions, they were typically 12–14 letters long.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: Kenyon suggested the manuscript originated in Alexandria: "It is noteworthy that the section numeration of the Pauline Epistles in B shows that it was copied from a manuscript in which the Epistle to the Hebrews was placed between Galatians and Ephesians — an arrangement which elsewhere occurs only in the Sahidic version." Kenyon also suggested the order of the Pauline epistles indicates a connection with Egypt, and as in Codex Alexandrinus, the titles of some of the books contain letters of a distinctively Coptic character, particularly the Coptic mu (which was also frequently seen at the ends of lines where space has to be economized). According to Metzger, "the similarity of its text in significant portions of both Testaments with the Coptic versions and with Greek papyri, and the style of writing (notably the Coptic forms used in some of the titles) point rather to Egypt and Alexandria".


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: It has been postulated the codex was at one time in the possession of Cardinal Bessarion, because the minuscule supplement has a text similar to one of Bessarion's manuscripts. T. C. Skeat believed Bessarion's mentor, the patriarchal notary in Constantinople John Chortasmenos, had the book brought to Rome from Constantinople around the time of the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Paul Canart argued the decorative initials added to the manuscript in the Middle Ages are reminiscent of Constantinopolitan decoration found in the 10th century, but the poor execution gives the impression they were added in the 11th or 12th century, and likely not before the 12th century in light of the way they appear in connection with notes in a minuscule hand at the beginning of the book of Daniel. T. C. Skeat first argued that Codex Vaticanus was among the 50 Bibles that the Emperor Constantine I ordered Eusebius of Caesarea to produce.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The codex is dated to the first half of the 4th century and is likely slightly older than Codex Sinaiticus, which was also transcribed in the 4th century. One argument to support this is Codex Sinaiticus has the, at that time, very new Eusebian Canon tables, but Vaticanus does not. Another is the slightly more archaic style of Vaticanus, and the complete absence of ornamentation.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: According to Tischendorf the manuscript was written by three scribes (A, B, C), two of whom appear to have written the Old Testament and one the entire New Testament. Tischendorf's view was accepted by Frederic G. Kenyon, but contested by T. C. Skeat, who examined the codex more thoroughly. Skeat and other paleographers contested Tischendorf's theory of a third (C) scribe, instead asserting two scribes worked on the Old Testament (A and B) and one of them (B) wrote the New Testament.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: Two correctors have been suggested as working on the manuscript, one (B) was contemporary with the scribes, the other (B) worked in about the 10th or 11th century. The theory of a first corrector, B, proposed by Tischendorf was rejected by later scholars. According to Tischendorf, one of the scribes is identical to (and may have been) one of the scribes of Codex Sinaiticus (scribe D), but there is insufficient evidence for his assertion. Skeat agreed that the writing style is very similar to that of Codex Sinaiticus, but there is not enough evidence to accept the scribes were identical: "the identity of the scribal tradition stands beyond dispute".


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The original writing was retraced by a later scribe (usually dated to the 10th or 11th century), and the beauty of the original script was spoiled. Accents, breathing marks, and punctuation were added by a later hand. There are no enlarged initials, no divisions into chapters or sections such as are found in later manuscripts, but a different system of division peculiar to this manuscript. There are plenty itacistic faults, especially the interchange of ει for ι and αι for ε. The exchange of ο for ω is less frequent.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The manuscript contains unusual small horizontally aligned double dots (so called "distigmai", formerly called "umlauts") in the column margins and are scattered throughout the New Testament. There are 795 of these clearly seen in the text, and perhaps another 40 that are undetermined. The date of these markings are disputed among scholars. Two such distigmai can be seen in the left margin of the first column (top image). Tischendorf reflected upon their meaning, but without any resolution. He pointed on several places where these distigmai were used: at the ending of the Gospel of Mark, 1 Thess 2:14; 5:28; Heb 4:16; 8:1. The meaning of these distigmai was recognized in 1995 by Philip Payne. Payne discovered the first distigme while studying the section 1 Cor 14.34–35 of the codex. He suggested that distigmai indicate lines where another textual variant was known to the person who wrote the umlauts. Therefore, the distigmai mark places of textual uncertainty.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The same distigmai were observed in Codex Fuldensis, especially in the section containing 1 Cor 14:34–35. The distigme of two codices indicate a variant of the Western manuscripts, which placed 1 Cor 14:34–35 after 1 Cor 14:40 (manuscripts: Claromontanus, Augiensis, Boernerianus, 88, it, and some manuscripts of Vulgate).


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: On , the text contains a marginal note, ""Fool and knave, leave the old reading and do not change it!" – """ which may suggest unauthorised correcting was a recognized problem in scriptoriums.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The manuscript is believed to have been housed in Caesarea in the 6th century, together with Codex Sinaiticus, as they have the same unique division of chapters in Acts. It came to Italy, probably from Constantinople, after the Council of Florence (1438–1445).


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: The manuscript has been housed in the Vatican Library (founded by Pope Nicholas V in 1448) for as long as it has been known, possibly appearing in the library's earliest catalog of 1475 (with shelf number 1209), but definitely appearing in the 1481 catalog. In the catalog from 1481 it was described as a "Biblia in tribus columnis ex membranis in rubeo" (three-column vellum Bible).


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: In the 16th century Western scholars became aware of the manuscript as a consequence of the correspondence between Erasmus and the prefects of the Vatican Library, successively Paulus Bombasius, and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. In 1521, Bombasius was consulted by Erasmus as to whether the Codex Vaticanus contained the Comma Johanneum, and Bombasius supplied a transcript of 1 John 4:1–3 and 1 John 5:7–11 to show that it did not. Sepúlveda in 1533 cross-checked all places where Erasmus's New Testament (the Textus Receptus) differed from the Vulgate, and supplied Erasmus with 365 readings where the Codex Vaticanus supported the latter, although the list of these 365 readings has been lost. Consequently, the Codex Vaticanus acquired the reputation of being an old Greek manuscript that agreed with the Vulgate rather than with the Textus Receptus. Not until much later would scholars realise it conformed to a text that differed from both the Vulgate and the Textus Receptus – a text that could also be found in other known early Greek manuscripts, such as the Codex Regius (L), housed in the French Royal Library (now Bibliothèque nationale de France).


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: In 1669 a collation was made by Giulio Bartolocci, librarian of the Vatican, which was not published, and never used until Scholz in 1819 found a copy of it in the Royal Library at Paris. This collation was imperfect and revised in 1862. Another collation was made in 1720 for Bentley by Mico, revised by Rulotta, although not published until 1799. Bentley was stirred by Mill's claim of 30,000 variants in the New Testament and he wanted to reconstruct the text of the New Testament in its early form. He felt that among the manuscripts of the New Testament, Codex Alexandrinus was "the oldest and best in the world". Bentley understood the necessity to use manuscripts if he were to reconstruct an older form than that apparent in Codex Alexandrinus. He assumed, that by supplementing this manuscript with readings from other Greek manuscripts, and from the Latin Vulgate, he could triangulate back to the single recension which he presumed existed at the time of the First Council of Nicaea. Therefore, he required a collation from Vaticanus. Unfortunately, the text of the collation was irreconcilable with Codex Alexandrinus and he abandoned the project.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: A further collation was made by Andrew Birch, who in 1798 in Copenhagen edited some textual variants of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles, in 1800 for the Book of Revelation, in 1801 for the Gospels. They were incomplete and included together with the textual variants from the other manuscripts. Many of them were false. Andrew Birch reproached Mill and Wettstein, that they "falso citatur Vaticanus" (cite Vaticanus incorrectly), and gave as an example Luke 2:38 – Ισραηλ [Israel] instead of Ιερουσαλημ [Jerusalem]. The reading Ισραηλ could be found in the codex 130, housed at the Vatican Library, under shelf number Vat. gr. 359.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: Before the 19th century, no scholar was allowed to study or edit the Codex Vaticanus, and scholars did not ascribe any value to it; in fact, it was suspected to have been interpolated by the Latin textual tradition. John Mill wrote in his "Prolegomena" (1707): "in Occidentalium gratiam a Latino scriba exaratum" ("written by a Latin scribe for the western world"). He did not believe there was value to having a collation for the manuscript. Wettstein would have liked to know the readings of the codex, but not because he thought that they could have been of any help to him for difficult textual decisions. According to him, this codex had no authority whatsoever ("sed ut vel hoc constaret, Codicem nullus esse auctoris"). In 1751 Wettstein produced the first list of the New Testament manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus received symbol B (because of its age) and took second position on this list (Alexandrinus received A, Ephraemi – C, Bezae – D, etc.) until the discovery of Codex Sinaiticus (designated by ℵ).


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: Griesbach produced a list of nine manuscripts which were to be assigned to the Alexandrian text: C, L, K, 1, 13, 33, 69, 106, and 118. Codex Vaticanus was not in this list. In the second (1796) edition of his Greek NT, Griesbach added Codex Vaticanus as a witness to the Alexandrian text in Mark, Luke, and John. He still believed the first half of Matthew represented the Western text-type.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: In 1809 Napoleon brought the manuscript as a victory trophy to Paris, but in 1815 it was returned to the Vatican Library. During that time, German scholar Johann Leonhard Hug (1765–1846) saw it in Paris. Together with other worthy treasures of the Vatican, Hug examined it, but he did not perceive the need of a new and full collation.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: Cardinal Angelo Mai prepared the first typographical facsimile edition between 1828 and 1838, which did not appear until 1857, three years after his death, and which was considered unsatisfactory. It was issued in 5 volumes (1–4 volumes for the Old Testament, 5 volume for the New Testament). All lacunae of the Codex were supplemented. Lacunae in the Acts and Pauline epistles were supplemented from the codex Vaticanus 1761, the whole text of Revelation from Vaticanus 2066, and the text of Mark 16:8–20 from Vaticanus Palatinus 220. Verses not included by codex as ; Mark 15:28; Luke 22:43–44; 23:17.34; John 5:3.4; 7:53–8:11; 1 Peter 5:3; 1 John 5:7 were supplemented from popular Greek printed editions. The number of errors was extraordinarily high, and also no attention was paid to distinguish readings of the first hand versus correctors. There was no detailed examination of the manuscript's characteristics. As a consequence, this edition was deemed inadequate for critical purposes. An improved edition was published in 1859, which became the source of Bultmann's 1860 NT.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: In 1843 Tischendorf was permitted to make a facsimile of a few verses, in 1844 Eduard de Muralt saw it, and in 1845 S. P. Tregelles was allowed to observe several points which Muralt had overlooked. He often saw the Codex, but "it was under such restrictions that it was impossible to do more than examine particular readings."


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: "They would not let me open it without searching my pockets, and depriving me of pen, ink, and paper; and at the same time two prelati kept me in constant conversation in Latin, and if I looked at a passage too long, they would snatch the book out of my hand".


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: Tregelles left Rome after five months without accomplishing his purpose. During a large part of the 19th century, the authorities of the Vatican Library obstructed scholars who wished to study the codex in detail. Henry Alford in 1849 wrote: “It has never been published in facsimile (!) nor even thoroughly collated (!!).” Scrivener in 1861 commented:


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: "Codex Vaticanus 1209 is probably the oldest large vellum manuscript in existence, and is the glory of the great Vatican Library in Rome. To these legitimate sources of deep interest must be added the almost romantic curiosity which has been excited by the jealous watchfulness of its official guardians, with whom an honest zeal for its safe preservation seems to have now degenerated into a species of capricious wilfulness, and who have shewn a strange incapacity for making themselves the proper use of a treasure they scarcely permit others more than to gaze upon". It (...) "is so jealously guarded by the Papal authorities that ordinary visitors see nothing of it but the red Morocco binding".


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: "The history of the Codex Vaticanus B, No. 1209, is the history in miniature of Romish jealousy and exclusiveness.”


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: Burgon was permitted to examine the codex for an hour and a half in 1860, consulting 16 different passages. Burgon was a defender of the Traditional Text and for him Codex Vaticanus, as well as codices Sinaiticus and Bezae, were the most corrupt documents extant. He felt that each of these three codices "clearly exhibits a fabricated text – is the result of arbitrary and reckless recension." The two most widely respected of these three codices, א and B, he likens to the "two false witnesses" of Matthew 26:60.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: In 1861, Henry Alford collated and verified doubtful passages (in several imperfect collations), which he published in facsimile editions complete with errors. Until he began his work he met unexpected hindrances. He received a special order from Cardinal Antonelli "per verificare", to verify passages, but this license was interpreted by the librarian to mean that he was to see the book, but not to use it. In 1862, secretary of Alford, Mr. Cure, continued Alford's work. For some reason which does not clearly appear, the authorities of the Vatican Library put continual obstacles in the way of all who wished to study it in detail, one of which was the Vatican Library was only opened for three hours a day. In 1867 Tischendorf published the text of the New Testament of the codex on the basis of Mai's edition. It was the "most perfect edition of the manuscript which had yet appeared".


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: In 1868–1881 C. Vercellone, Giuseppe Cozza-Luzi, and G. Sergio published an edition of the entire codex in 6 volumes (New Testament in volume V; Prolegomena in volume VI). A typographical facsimile appeared between 1868 and 1872. In 1889–1890 a photographic facsimile of the entire manuscript was made and published by Cozza-Luzi, in three volumes. Another facsimile of the New Testament text was published in 1904–1907 in Milan. As a result, the Codex became widely available.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: In 1999, the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato in Rome (the Italian State Printing House and Mint) published a limited edition, full-color, exact scale facsimile of Codex Vaticanus. The facsimile reproduces the very form of the pages of the original manuscript, complete with the distinctive individual shape of each page, including holes in the vellum. It has an additional "Prolegomena" volume with gold and silver impressions of 74 pages.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: Codex Vaticanus is one of the most important manuscripts for the text of the Septuagint and Greek New Testament. It is a leading example of the Alexandrian text-type. It was used by Westcott and Hort in their edition, "The New Testament in the Original Greek" (1881), and it was the basis for their text. All critical editions of the New Testament published after Westcott and Hort were closer in the Gospels to the Codex Vaticanus text than to the Sinaiticus, with only the exception of Hermann von Soden's editions which are closer to Sinaiticus. All editions of Nestle-Aland remain close in textual character to the text of Westcott-Hort.


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: According to the commonly accepted opinion of the textual critics, it is the most important witness of the text of the Gospels, in the Acts and Catholic epistles, with a stature equal to Codex Sinaiticus, although in the Pauline epistles it includes Western readings and the value of the text is somewhat less than the Codex Sinaiticus. Unfortunately the manuscript is not complete. Aland notes: "B is by far the most significant of the uncials".


title: Codex Vaticanus

text: For more bibliographies see: J. K. Elliott, "A Bibliography of Greek New Testament Manuscripts" (Cambridge University Press: 1989), pp. 34–36.


title: My Ding-a-Ling

text: "My Ding-a-Ling" is a novelty song written and recorded by Dave Bartholomew. It was covered by Chuck Berry in 1972 and became his only number-one Billboard Hot 100 single in the United States. Later that year, in a much, much longer unedited form, it was included on the album "The London Chuck Berry Sessions". Guitarist Onnie McIntyre and drummer Robbie McIntosh who later that year went on to form the Average White Band, played on the single along with Nic Potter of Van der Graaf Generator on bass.


title: My Ding-a-Ling

text: "My Ding-a-Ling" was originally recorded by Dave Bartholomew in 1952 for King Records. When Bartholomew moved to Imperial Records, he re-recorded the song under the new title, "Little Girl Sing Ting-a-Ling". In 1954, the Bees on Imperial released a version entitled "Toy Bell". Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts recorded it in 1961, and it was part of their live act for many years. Berry recorded a version called "My Tambourine" in 1968, but the version which topped the charts was recorded live during the Lanchester Arts Festival at the Locarno ballroom in Coventry, England, on 3 February 1972 by the Pye Mobile Recording Unit - engineered by Alan Perkins, where Berry – backed by the Roy Young Band – topped a bill that also included Slade, George Carlin, Billy Preston and Pink Floyd. Boston radio station WMEX disc jockey Jim Connors was credited with a gold record for discovering the song and pushing it to #1 over the airwaves and amongst his peers in the United States. "Billboard" ranked it as the No. 15 song for 1972.


title: My Ding-a-Ling

text: The song is based on the melody of the 19th-century folk song "Little Brown Jug". Bartholomew's 1952 version contains a Shave and a Haircut motif.


title: My Ding-a-Ling

text: The song tells of how the singer received a toy consisting of "silver bells hanging on a string" from his grandmother, who calls them his "ding-a-ling". According to the song, he plays with it in school, and holds on to it in dangerous situations like falling after climbing the garden wall, and swimming across a creek infested with snapping turtles. From the second verse onward, the lyrics consistently exercise the double entendre in that a penis could just as easily be substituted for the toy bells and the song would still make sense.


title: My Ding-a-Ling

text: The lyrics with their sly tone and innuendo (and the enthusiasm of Berry and the audience) caused many radio stations to refuse to play it. British morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse tried unsuccessfully to get the song banned. Whitehouse wrote to the BBC's Director General that "One teacher told us of how she found a class of small boys with their trousers undone, singing the song and giving it the indecent interpretation which—in spite of all the hullabaloo—is so obvious ... We trust you will agree with us that it is no part of the function of the BBC to be the vehicle of songs which stimulate this kind of behaviour—indeed quite the reverse."


title: My Ding-a-Ling

text: In "Icons of Rock", Scott Schinder calls the song "a sophomoric, double-entendre-laden ode to masturbation". Robert Christgau remarked that the song "permitted a lot of twelve-year-olds new insight into the moribund concept of 'dirty.


title: My Ding-a-Ling

text: For a re-run of "American Top 40", some stations, such as WOGL in Philadelphia, replaced the song with an optional extra when it aired a rerun of a November 18, 1972 broadcast of "AT40" (where it ranked at #14) on December 6, 2008. Among other stations, most Clear Channel-owned radio stations to whom the "AT40" 1970s rebroadcasts were contracted did not air the rebroadcast that same weekend, although it was because they were playing Christmas music and not because of the controversy. Even back in 1972, some stations would refuse to play the song on "AT40", even when it reached number one.


title: My Ding-a-Ling

text: The controversy was lampooned in "The Simpsons" episode "Lisa's Pony", in which a Springfield Elementary School student attempts to sing the song during the school's talent show. He barely finishes the first line of the refrain before an irate Principal Skinner pushes him off the stage, angrily proclaiming "This act is over!"


title: Akbar Khan (director)

text: Akbar Khan (born 7 July 1949) is an Indian actor, screenwriter, producer and director. He is the youngest brother of the Indian actor, producer, editor and director, Feroz Khan and Sanjay Khan.


title: Akbar Khan (director)

text: Akbar was born on July 7, 1949, in Bangalore, India, to Sadiq Ali Khan Tanoli and Fatima. His father was an Afghan from Ghazni, Afghanistan and belonged to Tanoli people which is a Pashtun tribe, while his mother had Persian ancestry from Iran] His brothers are the legendary actor-filmmaker Feroz Khan, actor-filmmaker Sanjay Khan, Sameer Khan and Shahruq Khan. His sisters are Dilshad and Khurshid.


title: Akbar Khan (director)

text: Akbar started his career as an assistant director to some filmmakers and after some years of assisting made his debut in "Anjaan Rahain" (1974), which starred his brother Feroz in the main lead. He was also assistant director to his brother Feroz in "Apradh" (1972). After acting in a couple of films, Akbar turned producer-director with "Haadsa" (1983), starring himself in the lead. He also starred in his brother Sanjay Khan's directorial venture "Kala Dhanda Gorey Log" (1986). After acting in "Aakarshan" (1988), Akbar turned his attention to the TV industry and directed the first 15 episodes of his brother Sanjay Khan's epic TV Serial, "The Sword of Tipu Sultan".


title: Akbar Khan (director)

text: Akbar produced-directed and also played the title role of Emperor Akbar in the classic TV serial "Akbar The Great". In 2005, Akbar produced-directed the magnum opus "". He also launched Pakistani legend actress-singer Noor Jehan's granddaughter Sonya Jehan in the film, which also starred Kabir Bedi, Zulfi Syed, Arbaaz Khan and Pooja Batra. It was the costliest film made in India at that time, with a budget of INR 60 crores. It was also the first Indian film to release in Pakistani cinemas, as Indian films were banned there since the Indo-Pak war of 1965. Akbar, along with his family and other Indian film stars also visited Pakistan in April 2006 and actively promoted the film. The film was badly sabotaged and ill-marketed in India by Mukta Arts, which led to a dispute between Akbar, Subhash Ghai and Yash Chopra. The film was highly appreciated at nearly all international film festivals. Akbar plans to re-release the film in India and abroad very soon, as many people didn't know that it actually released in 2005. Akbar starred in Vashu Bhagnani's "Faltu" (2011) and played the main lead in "Faraar" (2011).


title: Akbar Khan (director)

text: He is into the petrochemical business with his company Abraiz Petrochemicals. Akbar also has some business interests in Iran. He lives at Oberoi Enclave in Juhu, Mumbai near his late brother Feroz's bungalow.


title: Azolla

text: Azolla (mosquito fern, duckweed fern, fairy moss, water fern) is a genus of seven species of aquatic ferns in the family Salviniaceae. They are extremely reduced in form and specialized, looking nothing like other typical ferns but more resembling duckweed or some mosses. "Azolla filiculoides" is one of just two fern species for which a reference genome has been published. It is believed that this genus grew so prolifically during the Eocene (and thus absorbed such a large amount of carbon) that it triggered a global cooling event that has lasted to the present.


title: Azolla

text: Azolla is considered an invasive plant in wetlands, freshwater lakes and ditches. It can alter aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity substantially.


title: Azolla

text: "Azolla" is a highly productive plant. It can double its biomass in as little as 1.9 days, depending on growing conditions, and yield can reach 8–10 tonnes fresh matter/ha in Asian rice fields. 37.8 t fresh weight/ha (2.78 t DM/ha dry weight) has been reported for "Azolla pinnata" in India (Hasan et al., 2009).


title: Azolla

text: "Azolla" floats on the surface of water by means of numerous small, closely overlapping scale-like leaves, with their roots hanging in the water. They form a symbiotic relationship with the cyanobacterium "Anabaena azollae", an extracellular endosymbiont (living outside the host's cells) which fixes atmospheric nitrogen. The typical limiting factor on its growth is phosphorus; thus, an abundance of phosphorus - due for example to eutrophication or chemical runoff - often leads to "Azolla" blooms. Unlike all other known plants, its symbiotic microorganism transfers directly from one generation to the next. "A. azollae" is completely dependent on its host, as several of its genes have either been lost or transferred to the nucleus in Azolla's cells.


title: Azolla

text: The nitrogen-fixing capability of "Azolla" has led to widespread use as a biofertiliser, especially in parts of southeast Asia. The plant has been used to bolster agricultural productivity in China for over a thousand years. When rice paddies are flooded in the spring, they can be planted with "Azolla", which then quickly multiplies to cover the water, suppressing weeds. The rotting plant material resulting from the die off of this "Azolla" releases nitrogen into the water for the rice plants, providing up to nine tonnes of protein per hectare per year.


title: Azolla

text: "Azolla" are weeds in many parts of the world, entirely covering some bodies of water. The myth that no mosquito can penetrate the coating of fern to lay its eggs in the water gives the plant its common name "mosquito fern", and may deter the survival of some of the larvae.


title: Azolla

text: Most species can produce large amounts of deoxyanthocyanins in response to various stresses, including bright sunlight and extreme temperatures, causing the water surface to appear to be covered with an intensely red carpet. Herbivore feeding induces accumulation of deoxyanthocyanins and leads to a reduction in the proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids in the fronds, thus lowering their palatability and nutritive value.


title: Azolla

text: "Azolla" cannot survive winters with prolonged freezing, so is often grown as an ornamental plant at high latitudes where it cannot establish itself firmly enough to become a weed. It is also not tolerant of salinity; normal plants cannot survive in greater than 1–1.6‰, and even conditioned organisms die if grown in water with a salinity above 5.5‰.


title: Azolla

text: "Azolla filiculoides" (red azolla) is the only member of this genus and of the family Azollaceae in Tasmania. It is a common native aquatic plant in Tasmania. It is common behind farm dams and other still waterbodies. The plants are small (usually only a few cm across) and float, but they are fast growing, and can be abundant and form large mats. The plants are typically red, and have small, water repellent leaves.


title: Azolla

text: Like all ferns, sexual reproduction leads to spore formation, but unlike other members of this group "Azolla" is heterosporous, producing spores of two kinds. During the summer months, numerous spherical structures called sporocarps form on the undersides of the branches. The male sporocarp is greenish or reddish and looks like the egg mass of an insect or spider. It is two millimeters in diameter, and bears numerous male sporangia. Male spores (microspores) are extremely small and are produced inside each microsporangium. Microspores tend to adhere in clumps called massulae.


title: Azolla

text: Female sporocarps are much smaller, containing one sporangium and one functional spore. Since an individual female spore is considerably larger than a male spore, it is termed a megaspore.


title: Azolla

text: "Azolla" has microscopic male and female gametophytes that develop inside the male and female spores. The female gametophyte protrudes from the megaspore and bears a small number of archegonia, each containing a single egg. The microspore forms a male gametophyte with a single antheridium which produces eight swimming sperm. The barbed glochidia on the male spore clusters cause them to cling to the female megaspores, thus facilitating fertilization.


title: Azolla

text: In addition to its traditional cultivation as a bio-fertilizer for wetland paddies, "Azolla" is finding increasing use for sustainable production of livestock feed. "Azolla" is rich in protein, essential amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. Studies describe feeding "Azolla" to dairy cattle, pigs, ducks, and chickens, with reported increases in milk production, weight of broiler chickens and egg production of layers, as compared to conventional feed. One FAO study describes how "Azolla" integrates into a tropical biomass agricultural system, reducing the need for food supplements. Concerns about biomagnification exist because the plant may contain the neurotoxin BMAA that remains present in the bodies of animals consuming it and BMAA has been documented as passing along the food chain. "Azolla" may contain this substance that is a possible cause of neurodegenerative diseases. "Azolla" has been suggested as a foodstuff for human consumption, however, no long-term studies of the safety of eating "Azolla" have been made on humans. Previous studies attributed neurotoxin production to "Anabaena flos-aquae" species, which is also a type of nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria. Further research may be needed to ascertain if "A. azollae" produces neurotoxins.


title: Azolla

text: "Azolla" has been used for at least one thousand years in rice paddies as a companion plant, to fix nitrogen and to block out light to prevent competition from other plants. Rice is planted when tall enough to poke through the "Azolla" layer. Mats of mature "Azolla" can also be used as a weed-suppressing mulch.


title: Azolla

text: Rice farmers used "Azolla" as a rice biofertilizer 1500 years ago. The earliest known written record of this practice is in a book written by Jia Ssu Hsieh (Jia Si Xue) in 540 A.D on "The Art of Feeding the People" (Chih Min Tao Shu). By the end of the Ming dynasty in the early 17th century, "Azolla"’s use as a green compost was documented in local records.


title: Azolla

text: The myth that no mosquito can penetrate the coating of fern to lay its eggs in the water gives the plant its common name "mosquito fern". "Azolla" have been used to control mosquito larvae in rice fields. The plant grows in a thick mat on the surface of the water, making it more difficult for the larvae to reach the surface to breathe, effectively choking the larvae.


title: Azolla

text: Azolla has been proposed as a carbon sequestration modality. The proposal draws upon the hypothesized Azolla event that asserts that Azolla once covered the Arctic and then sank, permanently sequestering teratons of carbon that would otherwise have contributed to the planet's greenhouse effect and ending a warming event that reached degrees warmer than twenty-first century averages.


title: Azolla

text: This fern has been introduced to other parts of the world, including the United Kingdom, where it has become a pest in some areas. A nominally tropical plant, it has adapted to the colder climate. It can form mats up to 30 cm thick and cover 100% of a water surface, preventing local insects and amphibians from reaching the surface.


title: Azolla

text: A study of Arctic paleoclimatology reported that "Azolla" may have had a significant role in reversing an increase in greenhouse effect that occurred 55 million years ago that had caused the region around the north pole to turn into a hot, tropical environment. This research was conducted by the Institute of Environmental Biology at Utrecht University. It indicates that massive patches of "Azolla" growing on the (then) freshwater surface of the Arctic Ocean consumed enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for the global greenhouse effect to decline, eventually causing the formation of ice sheets in Antarctica and the current "icehouse period". This theory has been termed the Azolla event.


title: Azolla

text: "Azolla" can remove chromium, nickel, copper, zinc, and lead from effluent. It can also remove lead from solutions containing 1–1000 ppm.


title: Durvasa

text: In Hindu scriptures, Durvasa (, ) also known as Durvasas (Sanskrit: दुर्वासस्), is a legendary rishi (sage). He is the son of Anasuya and Atri. According to some Puranas, Durvasa is a partial avatar of Shiva, known for his short temper. Wherever he goes, he is received with great reverence by humans and devas alike.


title: Durvasa

text: The rishi Durvasa, being short-tempered, is said to have both cursed and gifted boons to several notable deities and people in the Hindu scriptures. Some of them include:


title: Durvasa

text: According to Chapter 44 of the Brahmanda Purana, Brahma and Shiva got into a heated quarrel. Shiva became violently enraged when the devas fled from his presence in fear. His consort, Parvati, complained that Shiva is now impossible to live with. Realizing the chaos his anger had caused, Shiva deposited this anger into Anasuya, the wife of sage Atri. From this portion of Shiva deposited into Anasuya, a child is born, named 'Durvasa' (lit. "one who is difficult to live with"). Because he is born of Shiva's anger, he had an irascible nature.


title: Durvasa

text: In Vishnu Purana, Vayu Purana, and the Padma Purana, a curse that Durvasa laid upon Indra is described as the indirect reason for the Samudra Manthana. The Srimad Bhagavata and Agni Purana also mention Durvasa's involvement in the episode, without going into detail. Other sources for this story, such as Ramayana, Mahabharata, Harivamsa, and Matsya Purana, do not mention Durvasa's involvement at all and ascribe the incident to other causes, such as the devas' and asuras' desire for immortality.


title: Durvasa

text: According to a story in the Vishnu Purana, Durvasa, while wandering the earth in a state of ecstasy due to a vow he is observing, came by a "Vidyadhari" (nymph of the air) and demanded her heavenly wreath of flowers. The nymph respectfully gave the garland to the sage, whereupon he wore it on his brow. Resuming his wanderings, the Durvasa came across Indra riding his elephant, Airavata, attended by the gods. Still, in his state of frenzy, Durvasa threw the garland at Indra, who caught it and placed it on Airavata's head. The elephant is irritated by the fragrance of the nectar in the flowers, so it threw the garland to the ground with its trunk.


title: Durvasa

text: Durvasa is enraged to see his gift treated so callously and cursed Indra that he would be cast down from his position of dominion over the three worlds, just as the garland is cast down. Indra immediately begged Durvasa's forgiveness, but the sage refused to retract or soften his curse. Because of the curse, Indra and the devas were diminished in strength and stripped of their lustre. Seizing this opportunity, the asuras led by Bali waged war against the gods.


title: Durvasa

text: The gods were routed and turned to Brahma for help. Brahma directed them to seek refuge with Vishnu. Vishnu, in turn, advised them to call a truce with the asuras ,and help them churn the ocean of milk to obtain the amrita (nectar of immortality), on the pretext of sharing it with them. Vishnu promised that only the devas would drink the nectar to regain their former power, so they could once again defeat the asuras. The devas took Vishnu's advice and called their truce with the asuras, and thus the gods and demons began planning their great enterprise.


title: Durvasa

text: In the Uttara Kanda of Valmiki's Ramayana, Durvasa appeared at Rama's doorstep and, seeing Lakshmana guarding the door, demanded an audience with Rama. Meanwhile, Rama was having a private conversation with Yama (the god of death), disguised as an ascetic. Before the conversation, Yama gave Rama strict instructions that their dialogue is to remain confidential, and anyone who entered the room is to be executed. Rama agreed and entrusted Lakshmana with the duty of guarding his door and fulfilling his promise to Yama.


title: Durvasa

text: Hence, when Durvasa made his demand, Lakshmana politely asked the sage to wait until Rama had finished his meeting. Durvasa grew angry, and threatened to curse all of Ayodhya if Lakshmana did not immediately inform Rama of his arrival. Lakshmana, in a dilemma, decided it would be better that he alone die to save all of Ayodhya from falling under Durvasa's curse, and so interrupted Rama's meeting to inform him of the sage's arrival. Rama quickly concluded his meeting with Yama and received the sage with due courtesy. Durvasa told Rama of his desire to be fed, and Rama fulfilled his guest's request, whereupon the satisfied sage went on his way.