text: Major was two votes short of an overall majority. Under the rules then in force, a third and final round was to be held on 29 November 1990. The third round was open to the top three candidates from the second round, thus none of the second round contenders were automatically eliminated. Had all three candidates opted to continue, the final round would have been conducted using the alternative vote.


title: 1990 Conservative Party leadership election

text: Nevertheless, within minutes of the second round result being announced, both Heseltine and Hurd withdrew from the election in Major's favour. It was therefore announced by the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, Cranley Onslow, that no voting would be necessary and that Major was elected unopposed.


text: "The Sun", a firm supporter of Thatcher and her party since her election campaign in 1979, marked her resignation with the front-page headline "MRS T-EARS" on 23 November 1990, in reference to her breaking down in tears in front of her ministers after announcing her resignation. The accompanying photo also showed her in tears whilst being driven away from 10 Downing Street.


text: Labour opposition leader Neil Kinnock (whose party had been ascendant in the opinion polls since the announcement of the poll tax more than a year earlier) described Thatcher's resignation as "good, very, very good indeed" and called for an immediate general election.


text: Henry Kissinger rang Downing Street "in a very emotional state" saying her decision to resign was "worse than a death in the family" and, according to notes by Charles Powell, "Gorbachev had sent Shevardnadze [his foreign minister] out of a high level meeting in the Kremlin to telephone him, to find out what on earth was going on and how such a thing could be conceivable. The ambassador said that he had indeed found it very hard to explain. Indeed, there was a certain irony. Five years ago they had party coups in the Soviet Union and elections in Britain. Now it seemed to be the other way round".


text: Major was declared the leader of the party on the evening of Tuesday 27 November 1990. Following Thatcher's formal resignation as Prime Minister, Queen Elizabeth II invited Major to form a government the next day. Hurd was re-appointed as Foreign Secretary and Heseltine returned to the Cabinet as Environment Secretary, a post he had held in the early 1980s. Both Hurd and Heseltine remained key figures during the Major government, Heseltine eventually rising to become Deputy Prime Minister in 1995.


text: Major's premiership began well, and he was credited with restoring a consensual style of Cabinet government after the years of forceful leadership under Thatcher. The success of the First Gulf War in early 1991 contributed to strong public support. He secured some foreign policy successes in Europe, negotiating the Maastricht Treaty after securing an opt-out from the Social Chapter and the single currency, and he sprung a surprise victory in the 1992 election, albeit with a significantly reduced majority of only 21 seats.


text: Nevertheless, the political tides soon turned. The Major government's reputation for economic competence was destroyed by Britain's ejection from the ERM in September 1992. A notable protest came from Thatcher's former cabinet minister Norman Tebbit at the 1992 Party Conference, that the Conservatives had been wrong to ignore Thatcher's wishes to stay out (whether Britain entered the ERM at too high an exchange rate has been debated ever since). Apart from a brief period during fuel protests in 2000, the Conservatives would not again enjoy an opinion poll lead until after the election of David Cameron as leader in 2005. The ongoing rebellion in the first half of 1993 by Conservative backbenchers against the passage of the Maastricht Treaty through the House of Commons was also deeply damaging to the government. Many of the Maastricht rebels were Thatcher supporters, and one of them, Teresa Gorman, devoted the opening chapter of her memoir of the incident to an account of the 1990 leadership contest.


text: The massive Conservative defeat in 1997 at the hands of Tony Blair and New Labour was thus attributable, at least in part, to the perception of internal division over Europe which had first been exposed by the 1990 leadership election. The Conservatives would not achieve the most seats in another general election until 2010, under Cameron, and would not win a large majority again until 2019, more than three decades after last doing so in 1987.


title: Meet the Blacks

text: Meet the Blacks is a 2016 American black comedy horror film directed by Deon Taylor, written by Taylor and Nicole DeMasi, and is a parody of the 2013 film "The Purge". It stars Mike Epps, Gary Owen, Zulay Henao, Lil Duval, Bresha Webb, George Lopez and Mike Tyson. This was Charlie Murphy's last film role before his death from leukemia in 2017 as well as the final role for Paul Mooney who died in 2021.


title: Meet the Blacks

text: The film was released on April 1, 2016, by Freestyle Releasing. Although the film received generally negative reviews from critics, it was a box-office success, grossing over $9 million on its $900,000 budget. A sequel, titled "", was released on June 11, 2021.


title: Meet the Blacks

text: Carl Black and his family are getting out of Chicago. After having stolen a lot of money from a famed criminal drug king, Key Flo (Charlie Murphy), and believing that he will be imprisoned for the next five to six years, Carl Black (Mike Epps) leaves the hustling lifestyle behind for something better. Carl, his new wife Lorena (Zulay Henao), son Carl Jr. (Alex Henderson), daughter Allie Black (Bresha Webb) and cousin Cronut (Lil Duval) pack up and move to Beverly Hills. Turns out, Carl could not have picked a worse time to move. They arrive right around the time of the annual purge and all Carl's personal issues intertwine while all crime is legal for twelve hours.


title: Meet the Blacks

text: In its opening weekend, early tracking suggested the film would gross $4–5 million from 1,115 theaters in its opening weekend, and was released alongside "God's Not Dead 2". In its opening weekend the film grossed $4.1 million, finishing 8th at the box office.


title: Meet the Blacks

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 17%, based on 12 reviews, with an average rating of 3.30/10. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 26 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". The "Herald & Review" named "Meet the Blacks" the fifth worst film released in 2016.


title: Meet the Blacks

text: "The Guardian" gave the three out of five stars writing, "While there is a whiff of social commentary in this low-budget spoof of the 2013 horror "The Purge", only a comic performance from Bresha Webb provides any impact", saying that her performance was "so unpredictable and versatile it virtually makes up for the film’s many dull patches."


title: Meet the Blacks

text: The "Truckee Sun" gave the film an F, writing, "Given the family's chaotic and disagreeable state, we have every reason to hope they are purged along with this movie that ought to have been killed months before it reached any cinema." The "Citizen Times" wrote, "In the hands of gifted performers, this open approach has the power to inspire in-the-moment hilarity often greater than the best lines and gags cooked up by the film’s creators, but no individuals who fit that description are present here." The "Arkansas Times" wrote, "Movies don't come much worse than "Meet the Blacks," and when they do, they tend to go straight to video. At this quality level they tend to slink beneath the classification of movie per se, because technically they're just some dude screwing around with a camera and his buddies so he can get better at Final Cut. There are many markers of the overall badness of "Meet the Blacks," but none perhaps more damning than George Lopez playing a character named President El Bama, maybe the funniest thing in this film's 90-minute run time."


title: Meet the Blacks

text: "Substream Magazine" described the film as "criminally bad [...] an alleged horror-comedy that fails spectacularly at being either one of those things. Carried by a funny, yet uninspired Mike Epps, the films [sic] tries to reinvent the parody genre with a lazy and uninspired take on "The Purge" franchise that is dead on arrival." "The Hollywood Reporter" called the film "a wrongheaded, utterly incompetent and nearly laugh-free satire".


title: Meet the Blacks

text: Common Sense Media called it "nearly unwatchable [...] crass and forgettable". Christy Lemire, writing for RogerEbert.com, gave one out of four stars, saying "every once in a while it seems to be trying, slightly, to make a vague point about racial prejudices and tensions. Mostly, though, "Meet the Blacks" is too scatterbrained to be so self-aware." "The A.V. Club" said the film "may not actually qualify as one after all. It’s more like an extremely confusing and sloppily written chunk of "Purge" fan-fiction—a tortured use of another movie’s absurd mythology to help make muddled quasi-satirical points, while indulging the apparently fail-safe punchline of saying the word “purge” about once a minute."


title: Meet the Blacks

text: In October 2017, a sequel was confirmed to be released in February 2020, called "", with Mike Epps reprising his role. The sequel was released on June 11, 2021.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: 7 Days in Hell is a sports mockumentary directed by Jake Szymanski and written by Murray Miller. The film premiered on July 11, 2015, on HBO and July 8 on HBO Now. The film was inspired by the Isner–Mahut marathon men's singles match at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: The film is framed as a fictitious HBO Sports documentary incorporating BBC footage. It explores the backgrounds of the competitors Aaron Williams (Andy Samberg) and Charles Poole (Kit Harington), two professional tennis players who face off in what becomes the longest match in history.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: Aaron Williams is considered "The Bad Boy of Tennis." He is an American orphan who was found on the streets and adopted by Richard Williams, who raised Aaron with his daughters, Venus and Serena Williams. At the 1996 Wimbledon Finals, his serve hits a line judge, who has an immediate heart attack and dies. Williams falters and loses the championship. At the ceremony following the match, Williams pushes Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent (Howie Mandel), and disappears.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: Charles Poole is a British child prodigy forced into a tennis career by his domineering mother (Mary Steenburgen), who threatens to disown him if he loses. He appears on a sports talk show hosted by Caspian Wint (Michael Sheen) as a 15 year old and is on track to become the youngest professional tennis player in history. He tells Wint that he idolizes Aaron Williams.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: Williams resurfaces in Sweden creating a male underwear line, but the line is discontinued when it is found to cause groin chafing and infertility. When Williams runs out of funds, he descends into pornography and an addiction to PCP. He is arrested, convicted, and is sent to a Swedish prison.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: Two weeks before 2001 Wimbledon starts, Poole is asked by a reporter if he is a better player than Williams, he says yes. This comment reaches Williams, who escapes prison and becomes a free man, according to Swedish law.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: Williams claims he will be playing in Wimbledon. The All-England Chair Committee, led by the Duke of Kent, refuses to let him play. Edward Pudding (Fred Armisen), also a member of the committee, believes that letting Williams play will spike interest for the tournament, and he suggests that Williams play an Englishman who is likely to beat him, which turns out to be Poole.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: The night before the match, Poole receives a call from Queen Elizabeth II (June Squibb), who tells him to "win."


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: On the first day of the match, Poole wins the first set 6–0. Before the second set starts, a thunderstorm suspends play for the rest of the day.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: On the second day, a revitalized Williams takes the second and third sets under the influence of cocaine. That night, Poole gets another call from the Queen. She drunkenly shouts expletives, accuses him of embarrassing England and bribes him with a knighthood if he wins.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: On the third day, neither Williams and Poole are willing to surrender the match. After eight hours of intense tennis, the match is suspended.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: On the fourth day, a female streaker (Lyssa Roberts) runs onto the court. Williams tries to subdue her, but ends up having sex with her. After they finish, a male streaker (Chris Romano) runs onto the court, with whom Williams also has sex. The female streaker runs back onto the court, and a threesome takes place until the match is suspended on account of darkness.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: Before the fifth day, Williams arranges a press conference to announce he has located his birth father, British singer Engelbert Humperdinck. He claims he will dedicate his performance at Wimbledon to all Englishmen. After darkness again suspends the match, Poole is physically attacked in an elevator by the Queen.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: Before the sixth day, Williams is hit by a truck, which is implied to be driven by Poole. Williams leaves the hospital and elects to play with one arm. In the 196th game, with Poole serving 98-97 and triple match point, illusionist David Copperfield magically appears on Poole's shoulders. Copperfield later claims he was supposed to appear on the Statue of Liberty. Poole, visibly distracted, fails to win the match in the sixth day.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: Before the seventh day, Poole and Williams meet at a joint press conference. Williams reveals that a sex tape of himself and Poole's ex-girlfriend Lily has been leaked, enraging Poole. Poole attacks Williams and removes his wig, revealing Williams's bald scalp.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: The two elect to settle their matters on the court. Queen Elizabeth makes an appearance at the match, and the two players challenge each other to fight. Although the judges try to separate them, the Queen orders that they be released and allowed to fight. Poole and Williams charge the net and kill each other after simultaneously hitting one another in the head with their rackets. The two are buried together in the same coffin. The documentary ends with video flashbacks of Poole and Williams praising each other.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: Also appearing as themselves are David Copperfield, Chris Evert, Filip Hammar, Jim Lampley, John McEnroe, Soledad O’Brien, and Serena Williams. Archive footage of Dolph Lundgren is also used with different subtitles to relate to the film's subject matter.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: The American premiere on HBO on July 11, 2015, was watched by 579,000 viewers. In Australia, the telemovie premiered on August 8, 2015, on Showcase.


title: 7 Days in Hell

text: The film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 37 critics, and an average score of 7.6/10 on Rotten Tomatoes.


title: Railway coupling

text: A coupling (or a coupler) is a mechanism typically placed at each end of a railway vehicle that connects them together to form a train. A variety of coupler types have been developed over the course of railway history. Key issues in their design include strength, reliability, ease of making connections and operator safety.


title: Railway coupling

text: The equipment that connects the couplings to the vehicles is the draft gear or draw gear and these must absorb the stresses of coupling and train acceleration.


title: Railway coupling

text: Compatible and similar couplings or couplers are frequently referred to using widely differing make, brand, or regional names, or nicknames, which can make describing standard or typical designs confusing. Dimensions and ratings noted in these articles are usually of nominal or typical components and systems, though standards and practices also vary widely with railway, region, and era.


title: Railway coupling

text: The basic type of coupling on railways following the British tradition is the buffer and chain coupling. A large chain of three links connects hooks on the adjoining wagons. These couplings followed earlier tramway practice but were made more regular. Buffers on the frame of the wagon absorbed impact loads, as the train over-ran a slowing locomotive.


title: Railway coupling

text: The simple chain could not be tensioned and this slack coupling allowed a lot of back-and-forth movement and banging between vehicles, and jarring when starting trains. While acceptable for mineral wagons, this coupling gave an uncomfortable ride for passenger coaches, and so the chain was improved by replacing the centre link with a turnbuckle that draws the vehicles together, giving the "screw coupling".


title: Railway coupling

text: A simplified version of this, quicker to attach and detach, still used three links but with the centre link given a T-shaped slot. This could be turned lengthwise to lengthen it, allowing coupling, then turned vertically to the shorter slot position, holding the wagons more tightly together.


title: Railway coupling

text: The earliest 'dumb buffers' were fixed extensions of the wooden wagon frames, but later spring buffers were introduced. The first of these were stiff cushions of leather-covered horsehair, later steel springs and then hydraulic damping.


title: Railway coupling

text: This coupling is still widespread in Western and Central Europe and in parts of Northern Africa, Middle East and South Asia.


title: Railway coupling

text: The link-and-pin coupling was the original style of coupling used on North American railways. After most railroads converted to semi-automatic Janney couplers, the link-and-pin survived on forest railways. While simple in principle, the system suffered from a lack of standardisation regarding size and height of the links, and the size and height of the pockets.


title: Railway coupling

text: The link-and-pin coupler consisted of a tube-like body that received an oblong link. During coupling, a rail worker had to stand between the cars as they came together and guide the link into the coupler pocket. Once the cars were joined, the employee inserted a pin into a hole a few inches from the end of the tube to hold the link in place. This procedure was exceptionally dangerous and many brakemen lost fingers or entire hands when they did not get them out of the way of the coupler pockets in time. Many more were killed as a result of being crushed between cars or dragged under cars that were coupled too quickly. Brakemen were issued with heavy clubs that could be used to hold the link in position, but many brakemen would not use the club, and risked injury.


title: Railway coupling

text: In Britain link-and-pin couplers were common on narrow gauge industrial and military railways, and eventually evolved into a form that could be reliably coupled when the train was stationary. Some preserved railways still use stock featuring a variety of link-and-pin couplers.


title: Railway coupling

text: The nowadays well established Scharfenberg coupler can be seen as evolved from the link-and-pin, by having double link-and-pin couplers and the links fixed with one per direction and the pins automatic.


title: Railway coupling

text: To avoid safety issues, Karl Albert, then director at the Krefeld Tramway, developed the Albert coupler during 1921. The Albert coupler was created as a key and slot coupler with two pins. Cars to be coupled were pushed together, both couplings moving to the same side. One pin was inserted, then the cars were pulled to straighten the coupling and the other pin inserted. This operation required less exact shunting. Due to the single-piece design, only minimal slack was possible. The system became quite popular with tram systems and narrow gauge lines.


title: Railway coupling

text: During the 1960s most cities replaced them with automatic couplers. But even in modern cars, Albert couplers get installed as emergency couplers for towing a faulty car.


title: Railway coupling

text: The link and pin was replaced in North American passenger car usage during the latter part of the 19th century by the assemblage known as the Miller Platform, which included a new coupler called the Miller Hook. The Miller Platform (and hook coupler) was used for several decades before being replaced by the Janney coupler.


title: Railway coupling

text: Norwegian (or meat chopper) couplings consist of a central buffer with a mechanical hook that drops into a slot in the central buffer. There may also be a U-shaped securing latch on the opposite buffer which is fastened over the top of the hook to secure it. The Norwegian is found only on narrow gauge railways of , or less, such as the Isle of Man Railway, Western Australian Government Railways, Tanzania, the Ffestiniog Railway, the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway and the Welsh Highland Railway where low speeds and reduced train loads allow a simpler system. The Norwegian coupler allows sharper curves than the buffer-and-chain, which is an advantage on those railways.


title: Railway coupling

text: On railway lines where rolling stock always points the same way, the mechanical hook may be provided only on one end of each wagon. Similarly, the hand brake handles may also be on one side of the wagons only.


title: Railway coupling

text: Not all Norwegian couplings are compatible with one another as they vary in height, width, and may or may not be limited to one hook at a time.


title: Railway coupling

text: Two versions of radial coupler were used in South Africa. One, the Johnston coupler, commonly known as a bell link-and-pin coupler, was introduced in 1873 and is similar in operation to and compatible with link-and-pin couplers, but bell-shaped with a circular coupler face. The other, the bell-and-hook coupler, was introduced in 1902 and is similar to the Norwegian coupler, but also with a circular coupler face and with a coupler pocket which is open at the top of the coupler face to accommodate the drawhook.


title: Railway coupling

text: The Johnston coupler, commonly known as a bell link-and-pin coupler from its bell shape, was first introduced in the Cape of Good Hope in 1873, following the establishment of the Cape Government Railways (CGR) in 1872 and the decision by the Cape government to expand the railways into the interior and to convert the existing tracks from to Cape gauge. All new Cape gauge locomotives and rolling stock acquired from 1873 were equipped with these or similar couplers, beginning with the CGR 0-4-0ST of 1873, a construction locomotive named "Little Bess".


title: Railway coupling

text: The Natal Government Railways (NGR), established in the Colony of Natal in 1875, followed suit and all locomotives and rolling stock acquired by that railway were equipped with Johnston couplers, beginning with the NGR Class K 2-6-0T in 1877.


title: Railway coupling

text: Likewise, in 1889, when the first locomotives were obtained by the newly established Netherlands-South African Railway Company in the "Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek", they were fitted with Johnston couplers.


title: Railway coupling

text: Unlike the narrow gauge railways of the CGR, those of the NGR also made use of Johnston couplers. The first of these narrow gauge lines came into operation in 1906, when the first NGR Class N 4-6-2T locomotives entered service on the Weenen branch out of Estcourt.


title: Railway coupling

text: Coupling and uncoupling were done manually, which posed a high risk of serious injury or death to crew members, who had to go between moving vehicles to guide the link into the coupler pocket during coupling. Johnston couplers gradually began to be replaced on the South African Railways from 1927, but not on narrow gauge rolling stock. All new Cape gauge locomotives and rolling stock acquired from that year were equipped with AAR knuckle couplers. Conversion of all older rolling stock was to take several years and both coupler types could still be seen on some vehicles into the late 1950s. During the transition period, knuckle couplers on many locomotives had a horizontal gap and a vertical hole in the knuckle itself to accommodate, respectively, a link and a pin, to enable it to couple to vehicles which were still equipped with the older Johnston couplers.


title: Railway coupling

text: The bell-and-hook coupling system was first introduced in the Cape of Good Hope in 1902, when two CGR Type A 2-6-4T locomotives were acquired as construction engines on the new narrow gauge Avontuur Railway which was being constructed out of Port Elizabeth through the Langkloof. In South Africa, these couplers were used on only the narrow gauge lines in the Cape of Good Hope.


title: Railway coupling

text: The coupler is similar to the Norwegian coupler. It is a radial coupler with a coupler pocket which is open at the top of the coupling face. Instead of a link and pins, it makes use of a drawhook which, upon coupling, slides over the drawhook pin in the coupler of the next vehicle in the train. To prevent the drawhook of the mating coupler from accidental uncoupling, the coupler bell is equipped with a drawhook guard, commonly known as a bridle, above the coupler pocket.


title: Railway coupling

text: Usual practice was to have a drawhook fitted to only one of the mating couplers and train crews therefore carried spare drawhooks and drawhook pins on the locomotive. While automatic coupling is possible, this rarely happens and manual assistance is required during coupling. Uncoupling is done manually by lifting the drawhook by hand to release it. The coupler could be adapted to be compatible with the Johnston coupler by replacing the drawhook with a U-shaped adapter link, which was attached using the same drawhook pin.


title: Railway coupling

text: Bell-and-hook couplers began to be replaced on the Avontuur Railway upon the introduction of Class 91-000 diesel-electric locomotives on the narrow gauge system in 1973. All new narrow gauge rolling stock acquired for that line from that year were equipped with Willison couplers. Older rolling stock were not converted and an adapter was used to enable coupling between the two types. The drawhook on the bell-and-hook coupler would be replaced with the adapter, which was attached using the same drawhook pin.


title: Railway coupling

text: There are a number of automatic train couplings, most of which are mutually incompatible. The level of automation varies and can be divided into categories:


title: Railway coupling

text: The Janney coupler, later the Master Car Builders Association (MCB) coupler, now the Association of American Railroads (AAR) coupler, is also commonly known as a "buckeye", "knuckle", or "Alliance" coupler. The AAR/APTA TypeE, TypeF, and TypeH couplers are all compatible Janney couplers, but used for different rail cars (general freight, tank cars, rotary hoppers, passenger, etc.).


title: Railway coupling

text: The knuckle coupler or Janney coupler was invented by Eli H. Janney, who received a patent in 1873 (). It is also known as a "buckeye coupler", notably in the United Kingdom, where some rolling stock (mostly for passenger trains) is fitted with it. Janney was a dry goods clerk and former Confederate Army officer from Alexandria, Virginia, who used his lunch hours to whittle from wood an alternative to the link and pin coupler. The term "buckeye" comes from the nickname of the US state of Ohio, the "Buckeye State" and the Ohio Brass Company which originally marketed the coupling.


title: Railway coupling

text: In 1893, satisfied that an automatic coupler could meet the demands of commercial railroad operations and, at the same time, be manipulated safely, the United States Congress passed the Safety Appliance Act. Its success in promoting switchyard safety was stunning. Between 1877 and 1887, approximately 38% of all railworker accidents involved coupling. That percentage fell as the railroads began to replace link and pin couplers with automatic couplers. By 1902, only two years after the SAA's effective date, coupling accidents constituted only 4% of all employee accidents. Coupler-related accidents dropped from nearly 11,000 in 1892 to just over 2,000 in 1902, even though the number of railroad employees steadily increased during that decade.


title: Railway coupling

text: When the Janney coupler was chosen to be the North American standard, there were 8,000 patented alternatives to choose from. The only significant disadvantage of using the Janney design is that sometimes the drawheads need to be manually aligned. Many AAR coupler designs exist to accommodate requirements of various car designs, but all are required to have certain dimensions in common which allow for one design to couple to any other.


title: Railway coupling

text: The Janney coupler is used in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, India, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Chile, Brazil, Portugal, China and elsewhere.


title: Railway coupling

text: The Janney coupler generally provides only mechanical coupling, only Type H adds automatic connections of pneumatic and electrical lines.


title: Railway coupling

text: The Henricot coupler is a variation on the Janney coupler, introduced by Belgian engineer and entrepreneur of Court-Saint-Étienne. It is used on certain EMUs of the National Railway Company of Belgium, including the ).


title: Railway coupling

text: The Willison coupler was developed in the US in 1916 to address issues present in the Janney coupling.


title: Railway coupling

text: The Russian SA3 coupler works according to the same principles as the AAR coupler but the two types are incompatible. It was introduced in the Soviet Union in 1932 based on a British patent and has since been used on the whole network, including Mongolia. Finnish locomotives have Unilink couplers that can couple to UIC couplers used in Finnish stock and SA3 couplers used in Russian stock.


title: Railway coupling

text: It is also used on the networks of Iran and on Malmbanan in Sweden for ore trains. Some gauge cane tramway vehicles in Queensland have been fitted with miniature Willison couplers. It was introduced on the narrow gauge Avontuur Railway of the South African Railways in 1973.


title: Railway coupling

text: The SA3 coupler is one of the strongest couplers in the world – maximum tonnage of a train that uses this type of coupler is about 8000 t – but provides only mechanical coupling. Adding automatic electrical and pneumatic connectivity is a complex challenge.


title: Railway coupling

text: Unicoupler has been developed by Knorr from West Germany in the 1970s, in parallel with a compatible counterpart, the Intermat coupler, by VEB Waggonbau Bautzen from East Germany. The Unicoupler/Intermat coupler can automatically couple two pneumatic lines and up to six electrical connections.


title: Railway coupling

text: This coupler is mechanically compatible with SA-3 and Willison couplers (but pneumatic and electrical connections must be done manually). The Unicoupler is also known as AK69e.


title: Railway coupling

text: Maximum tonnage of a train that uses this type of coupler is about 6000 t. AK69e and Intermat adoption failure has been attributed to economic performance.


title: Railway coupling

text: The C-AKv coupler (also called Transpact) is a newer compact Willison coupler developed by Faiveley Transport. It is mechanically compatible with the SA3 coupler (but pneumatic and electrical connections must be done manually), fully compatible with the Unicoupler and, if additional buffers are mounted, it can be coupled with the conventional European screw coupling as well. The C-AKv coupler can automatically couple two pneumatic lines. its use is limited to trains transporting ore between Rotterdam and Dillingen steelworks and lignite between Wählitz and Buna in Germany.


title: Railway coupling

text: The Z-AK coupler is yet another Willison coupler developed by Knorr Bremse. It was designed in response to the obvious failure of the Unicoupler/Intermat. It is compatible with the buffers and screw coupling. It is one of only few automatic couplers that cannot carry tensile forces, railway vehicles using this type of coupler must be equipped with buffers as well.


title: Railway coupling

text: The Unilink coupler is a coupler compatible with SA3 and screw coupling, which is used e.g. in Finland. It is an SA3 coupler with an additional horn that allows hooking up of the chain, and also with an adapter that connects the hook to the SA3 head. Rolling stock equipped with Unilink couplers is also equipped with side buffers.


title: Railway coupling

text: Multi-function couplers (MFCs), or fully automatic couplers, make all connections between the rail vehicles (mechanical, air brake, and electrical) without human intervention, in contrast to autocouplers, or semi-automatic couplers, which just handle the mechanical aspects. The majority of trains fitted with these types of couplers are multiple units, especially those used in mass transit operations.


title: Railway coupling

text: There are a few designs of fully automatic couplers in use worldwide, including the Scharfenberg coupler, various knuckle hybrids such as the Tightlock (used in the UK), the Wedgelock coupling, Dellner couplings (similar to Scharfenberg couplers in appearance), BSI coupling (Bergische Stahl Industrie, now Faiveley Transport) and the Schaku-Tomlinson Tightlock coupling.


title: Railway coupling

text: There are a number of other automatic train couplings similar to the Scharfenberg coupler, but not necessarily compatible with it. Older US transit operators continue to use these non-Janney electro-pneumatic coupler designs and have used them for decades.


title: Railway coupling

text: The Westinghouse H2C coupler, whose predecessor the H2A was first used on the BMT Standards and later the R1 through R9 classes, is currently used on the R32, R42, R62, R62A, R68, and R68A class subway cars of the New York City Subway. The A ends of the cars typically have the Westinghouse coupler and the B ends use either a semi-permanent drawbar, or a Westinghouse coupler.


title: Railway coupling

text: The WABCO N-Type coupler was first developed for the prototype Pittsburgh Skybus system with the initial model N-1 as applied only to the three Skybus cars. The updated model N-2 with a larger gathering range was first applied to the new "Airporter" rapid transit cars on the Cleveland Rapid Transit line. The model N-2 used lightweight draft gear slung below the center sill, to allow for the wide swings required to go around sharp curves. This made the N-2 unsuitable for main line railroad use so an updated version N-2-A was developed for that market. The first of these were fitted in 1968 to the UAC TurboTrain with 228 electrical contacts and the Budd Metropolitan EMU with 138 contacts. Starting in the 1970s the N-2-A was fitted to the entire SEPTA Silverliner family of MU's, the NJT Arrow series of MU's and the Metro-North Railroad/Long Island Rail Road M series of MU railcars. The N-2 was also used by the PATCO Speedline, but was replaced due to issues with the electrical contacts. Later WABCO would create a new model N-3 for the BART system with a gathering range which required a rectangular funnel.


title: Railway coupling

text: The Tomlinson coupler was developed by the Ohio Brass Company for mass transit applications, but eventually found use in some mainline railroad vehicles as well. It consists of two squared metal hooks that engage with each other in a larger rectangular frame with air line connections above and below. Since the coupler's development the manufacturing arm of Ohio Brass was purchased by WABCO which now manufacturers the line along with the N-type. The Tomlinson coupler is the most widely used fully automatic heavy rail coupling in North America having been adopted by the Washington Metro, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, PATCO Speedline, SEPTA Broad Street Subway, Los Angeles Metro Rail, Baltimore Metro, Miami Metro, MARTA Rail and the New York City Subway for its R44/R46 fleet and all modern classes starting with the R142. For applications outside of rapid transit the coupler had to be significantly enlarged to meet the increased strength requirements first appearing in this capacity on the Budd Metroliner and later on the Illinois Central Highliner fleet. Its relative lack of strength is one reason the N-Type has been more successful in the mainline railroad arena.


title: Railway coupling

text: Outside the United States, the Tomlinson coupler is used on Tokyo Metro's Ginza and Marunouchi Lines and on the heavy capacity Taipei Metro lines.


title: Railway coupling

text: The Scharfenberg coupler ( or ) is probably the most commonly used type of fully automatic coupling. Designed in 1903 by Karl Scharfenberg in Königsberg, Germany (today Kaliningrad, Russia), it has gradually spread from transit trains to regular passenger service trains, although outside Europe its use is generally restricted to mass transit systems. The Schaku coupler is superior in many ways to many other automatic couplers because it makes the pneumatic and electrical connections automatically and is capable of automatic uncoupling. However, there is no standard for the placement of these electro-pneumatic connections. Some rail companies have them placed on the sides while others have them placed above the mechanical portion of the Schaku coupler.


title: Railway coupling

text: Small air cylinders, acting on the rotating heads of the coupler, ensure the Schaku coupler engagement, making it unnecessary to use shock to get a good coupling. Joining portions of a passenger train can be done at very low speed (less than in the final approach), so that the passengers are not jostled about. Rail equipment manufacturers such as Bombardier offer the Schaku coupler as an option on their mass transit systems and their passenger cars and locomotives. In North America all the trains of the Montreal Metro are equipped with it, as are new light rail systems in Denver, Baltimore and New Jersey. It is also used on light rail vehicles in Portland, Minneapolis, the Vancouver Skytrain, and Line 3 Scarborough in Toronto. It also equips all the dedicated rolling stock used for the shuttle services in the Channel Tunnel.


title: Railway coupling

text: The Swedish-made Dellner coupling, is a proprietary version of the Scharfenberg coupler, connecting vehicle, pneumatics and electronics at the same time. The patented energy absorption D-BOX technology allows coupling at speeds of up to with no structural damage, and up to with deformation but with the vehicles remaining on track. The patented D-REX system provides Ethernet high speed data connection at speeds of 100 Mbit/s.


title: Railway coupling

text: The origin of the Wedgelock principle is unclear; however, there are a number of variants, many of which were once produced by the now-defunct Associated Equipment Company (AEC) in Southall, London. Wedgelock intellectual property was acquired in 1979 by Radenton later (in 1994) to become Radenton Scharfenberg.


title: Railway coupling

text: Basic design and coupling principle: The older coupler design has a body consisting of two horizontal steel plates separated by shaped blocks to create two pockets the one on the right (driver's perspective) has a vertical pin to anchor a shaped hook protruding forward of a front plate bolted to the body. The second void in the left of the body contains a cylindrical pin with a large flat to create a D-shaped cross-section. The hook is free to swing left and right through an arc of about 5 degrees and can engage with the D-pin in an opposing coupler. During coupling, once opposing front plates are in contact, a pneumatic actuator within the left-hand void drives a (partially) wedge-shaped block behind the outer edge of the opposing hook to engage it with the host D-pin. The sloping wedge geometry occupies the central horizontal third of the block and contacts a similar horizontal sloping groove in the opposing hook merely to engage it with the D-pin. The upper and lower thirds of the wedge have pockets machined to create faces parallel to the longitudinal axis of the coupler. As the wedge is caged by body structure it is these faces which prevent sideways movement of the opposing hook and therefore prevent uncoupling. A relatively lightweight spring is enough to maintain the wedge position in the event of a loss of compressed air to the deploy side of the actuator (also known as the wedge-engine). Uncoupling is achieved by air directed to the retract side of the wedge-engines on both couplers to retract the wedges and free the hooks; uncoupling is completed by simply moving the vehicles apart. In the event of a loss of retract air, the wedges can be moved manually to allow uncoupling.


title: Railway coupling

text: The , made by Schwab Verkehrstechnik AG, Schaffhausen, is used on Stadler Kiss and SZU Be 510. It has been offered in four versions:


title: Railway coupling

text: The Schwab coupler is superior in many ways to many other automatic couplers because it makes the pneumatic and electrical connections automatically and is capable of automatic uncoupling.


title: Railway coupling

text: The Shibata coupler is a variation of the Scharfenberg coupler which was developed by Japanese Government Railways (JGR) engineer in the 1930s for electric trains. It is the standard coupler type for all passenger trains in Japan as well as on commuter and subway trains in South Korea.


title: Railway coupling

text: Shinkansen (bullet train) rolling stock utilize a variation of the Shibata coupler developed by Sumitomo Metal Industries in the 1960s which uses rotary tight-lock pins, and which coincidentally bears a closer resemblance to the Scharfenberg coupler rather than the Shibata coupler.


title: Railway coupling

text: Sometimes a wagon with one coupling system needs to be coupled to wagons with another coupling type This may be needed when taking metro rolling stock from its manufacturer to the city where it is to be used. There are two solutions:


title: Railway coupling

text: Only some kinds of couplings coexist on the end of a wagon at the same time, because amongst other reasons they need to be at the same height. For example, in the Australian state of Victoria, engines had the AAR coupler, with buffers, and the chain mounted on a lug cast into the AAR coupler.


title: Railway coupling

text: A barrier vehicle / wagon in Britain and "transition car" in North America) has different kinds of couplings at each end. If a pair of barrier vehicles is used, a rake of wagons using coupling A can be inserted into a train otherwise using coupling B.


title: Railway coupling

text: A coupling adaptor or compromise coupler might couple to an AAR coupling on a wagon, and present, for example, a meatchopper coupler or rapid transit coupler to the next wagon. Such an adaptor might weigh .


title: Railway coupling

text: Automatic couplers like the Janney are safer in a collision because they help prevent the carriages telescoping. British Rail therefore decided to adopt a Janney variant for its passenger carriages, with the coupler able to swing out of the way for coupling to engines with the traditional buffer and chain system.


title: Railway coupling

text: In New South Wales, sets of carriages were permanently coupled with a fixed bar, since the carriages were disconnected only at the workshops. Freight cars are sometimes coupled in pairs or triplets, using bar couplings in between.


title: Railway coupling

text: Articulated sets of carriages or wagons share the intermediate bogies, and have no need for couplings in the intermediate positions.


title: Railway coupling

text: Electronically controlled pneumatic brakes (ECP) need a method of connecting electrically adjacent wagons, both for power and for command signals, and this can be done by plugs and sockets, or by very short range radio signals.


title: Railway coupling

text: A draw gear (also known as a draft gear) is the assembly behind the coupling at each end of the wagon to take care of the compression and tension forces between the wagons of trains. Early draw gears were made of wood, which was gradually replaced by steel.


title: Railway coupling

text: Janney couplers have the draft gear in a centersill to absorb the pushing and pulling forces (slack action).


title: Railway coupling

text: There is also a draw gear behind tightlock couplers, SA3 couplers, C-AKv couplers, Scharfenberg couplers, and other multi-function couplers.


title: Railway coupling

text: In the case of buffers and chain couplers, the draw gear behind the hooks, if any, will absorb the tension, while the side buffers will absorb the compression.


title: Railway coupling

text: On model railroads couplers vary according to scale, and have evolved over many years. Early model trains were coupled using various hook-and-loop arrangements, which were frequently asymmetrical, requiring all cars to be pointing in the same direction. In the larger scales, working scale or near-scale models of Janney couplers were quite common, but proved impractical in HO and smaller scales.


title: Railway coupling

text: For many years, the "X2F" or "Horn-Hook" coupler was quite common in HO scale, as it could be produced as a single piece of moulded plastic. Similarly, for many years, a "lift-hook" coupler known as the "Rapido" and developed by Arnold, a German manufacturer of N-scale model trains, was commonly used in that scale.


title: Railway coupling

text: The chief competitor of both these couplers, more popular among serious modellers, was the Magne-Matic, a magnetically released knuckle coupler developed by Keith and Dale Edwards, and manufactured by Kadee, a company they started. While they closely resemble miniature Janney couplers, they are somewhat different mechanically, with the knuckle pivoting from the center of the coupler head, rather than from the side. A steel pin, designed to resemble an air brake hose, allows the couplers to be released magnetically; the design of the coupler head prevents this from happening unless the train is stopped or reversed with a mated pair of couplers directly over an uncoupling magnet. An earlier, mechanically tripped version of the design had a straight pin extending down from the knuckle itself, which engaged a diamond-shaped mechanical "ramp" between the rails, which had to be raised above rail height when uncoupling was desired.


title: Railway coupling

text: Once the Kadee patents ran out, a number of other manufacturers began to manufacture similar (and compatible) magnetic knuckle couplers.


title: Railway coupling

text: Recently, an exact-scale HO model of the AAR coupler has been designed and manufactured by Frank Sergent. This design uses a tiny stainless steel ball to lock the knuckle closed. Uncoupling is achieved by holding a magnetic wand over the coupler pair to draw the balls out of the locking pockets.


title: Railway coupling

text: In O scale, an exact-scale working miniature version of the "Alliance" coupler was manufactured from the 1980s by GAGO models in Australia. Since 2002 it has been marketed by the Waratah Model Railway Company. European modellers tend to use scale hook and chain couplings.


title: Railway coupling

text: In British 00 scale (similar to H0 scale) models the 'tension lock' coupler developed by Tri-ang is standard. This is similar in operation to the meatchopper type of coupling. Remote uncoupling is possible by using a sprung ramp between the rails. The design of the hooks is such that the couplings will not uncouple when under tension (instead depressing the ramp). When the train is pushed over the ramp, it will lift the coupling hooks as the train passes over. By halting the train over the ramp, it is split at this point. While it works well, it is often seen as ugly and obtrusive (although smaller designs are available, these are not always fully compatible with other models) and many British modellers prefer to retrofit either Kadee types or working hook and chain couplings.


title: Railway coupling

text: A recent development is an interchangeable coupling which plugs into a standardised socket, known as NEM 362 and which can be easily unplugged as required. This allows the modeller to easily standardise on whatever coupling is desired, without individual manufacturers needing to change their coupling type.


title: Cessna 421

text: The Cessna 421 Golden Eagle is an American six or seven seat twin-engined light transport aircraft, developed in the 1960s by Cessna as a pressurized version of the earlier Cessna 411.


title: Cessna 421

text: The Cessna 421 was first produced in May 1967, the 1968 model year. It had "Stabila-Tip" fuel tanks on the wingtips (like the Cessna 310). Its electro-mechanical landing gear are similar to that of the 310. It was an immediate hit, selling 200 planes in its first year.


title: Cessna 421

text: The very next year, 1969, the design was refined, with a three-inch stretch of the fuselage, five more gallons of fuel capacity, and a 40-pound increase in gross weight. The plane was redesignated the Cessna 421A.


title: Cessna 421

text: In 1971, the design was again improved. Both empty and gross weight increased, the wingspan was increased by two feet, raising the service ceiling by 5,000 feet. The nose was stretched two feet to accommodate a larger nose baggage section. This new plane is designated the Cessna 421B.


title: Cessna 421

text: In 1975, the plane was offered with a package of equipment enabling flight into known icing conditions.


title: Cessna 421

text: In 1976, the 421C appeared which featured wet wings, the absence of wingtip fuel tanks and landing gear that was changed from straight-leg to a trailing-link design from the 1981 model year onwards. Production ended in 1985 after 1,901 aircraft had been delivered.


title: Cessna 421

text: The 421 was first certified on 1 May 1967 and shares a common type certificate with models 401, 402, 411, 414 and 425.


title: Cessna 421

text: Some 421s have been modified to accept turboprop engines, making them very similar to the Cessna 425, which itself is a turboprop development of the 421.


title: Cessna 421

text: The 421 is an all-metal low-wing cabin monoplane with a retractable tricycle landing gear, and powered by two geared Continental GTSIO-520-D engines, wing-mounted in tractor configuration. The cabin is accessed from a door, on the left hand side behind the wing, and has seating for six on the basic 421, or up to ten on later variants.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Sir William Rowan Hamilton LL.D, DCL, MRIA, FRAS (3/4 August 1805 – 2 September 1865) was an Irish mathematician, astronomer, and physicist. He was the Andrews Professor of Astronomy at Trinity College Dublin, and Royal Astronomer of Ireland, living at Dunsink Observatory.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton's scientific career included the study of geometrical optics, ideas from Fourier analysis, and his work on quaternions which made him one of the founders of modern linear algebra. He made major contributions in optics, classical mechanics and abstract algebra. His work was fundamental to modern theoretical physics, particularly his reformulation of Newtonian mechanics, now called Hamiltonian mechanics. It is now central both to electromagnetism and to quantum mechanics.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton was the fourth of nine children born to Sarah Hutton (1780–1817) and Archibald Hamilton (1778–1819), who lived in Dublin at 29 Dominick Street, later renumbered to 36. Hamilton's father, who was from Dublin, worked as a solicitor. By the age of three, Hamilton had been sent to live with his uncle James Hamilton, a graduate of Trinity College who ran a school in Talbots Castle in Trim, Co. Meath. James's daughter Grace, Hamilton's cousin, became the mother of Mary Elizabeth Townsend, philanthropist and co-founder of the Girls' Friendly Society.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton is said to have shown talent at an early age. His uncle observed that Hamilton, from a young age, had displayed an uncanny ability to acquire languages. This has been disputed by some historians, who claim he had only a basic understanding of them. At the age of seven, he had already made progress in Hebrew, and before he was 13 he had acquired, under the care of his uncle a dozen languages: classical and modern European languages, Persian, Arabic, Hindustani, Sanskrit, Marathi and Malay. The emphasis on languages is attributed to the wish of Hamilton's father to see his son employed by the British East India Company.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: An expert mental calculator, the young Hamilton was capable of working out the result of some calculations to many decimal places. In September 1813, an American calculating prodigy, Zerah Colburn, was being exhibited in Dublin. Colburn was 9, a year older than Hamilton.The two were pitted against each other in a mental arithmetic contest, with Colburn emerging the clear victor.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: In reaction to his defeat, Hamilton spent less time studying languages, and more on mathematics. At age ten, he stumbled across a Latin copy of Euclid; and at twelve he studied Newton's "Arithmetica Universalis". He moved on to read the "Principia", and by age 16 he had covered much of it, as well as some more recent works on analytic geometry and the differential calculus. At this period he encountered what he believed to be a logical error in Laplace. It led to an introduction to John Brinkley, then Royal Astronomer of Ireland. Hamilton showed him some work on differential geometry of curves.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: In mid-1822 Hamilton began a systematic study of Laplace's "Mécanique Céleste". In November and December 1822 he completed his first three original mathematical papers. On his first visit to Dunsink Observatory, he showed two of them to Brinkley, who asked for a more developed form. Hamilton complied, and early in 1823 Brinkley approved the amended version. In July 1823, he gained a place at Trinity College Dublin by examination, aged 18. His tutor there was Charles Boyton, a family friend. Boyton brought to his attention contemporary mathematics published by the group at the École Polytechnique in Paris. John Brinkley remarked of the 18-year-old Hamilton, "This young man, I do not say "will be", but "is", the first mathematician of his age."


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: The college awarded Hamilton two optimes, or off-the-chart grades, in Greek and in physics. He was in fact first in every subject and at every examination. He was expected to win further student honours, but his undergraduate career was curtailed. He did take degrees in both classics and mathematics (BA in 1827, MA in 1837).


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton was aiming to win a Trinity College fellowship by competitive examination. But that ambition was overtaken by events, after Brinkley in 1826 was made Bishop of Cloyne. Hamilton was still an undergraduate, when he was appointed in 1827 to the vacant posts left by Brinkley's departure, Andrews Professor of Astronomy and Royal Astronomer of Ireland.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: In 1824, Hamilton was introduced at Edgeworthstown to the novelist Maria Edgeworth, by the Rev. Richard Butler, the vicar of Trim, County Meath to whom his uncle James Hamilton was curate. During the same period, his uncle introduced him to the Disney family at Summerhill, County Meath. The Disney sons attended Trinity College, and Hamilton had friends among them. At Summerhill, he met Catherine Disney, their sister.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton was attracted to Catherine Disney, but her family did not approve and Catherine was required to marry the Rev. William Barlow, a brother of her elder sister's husband. The wedding took place in 1825. Hamilton wrote in 1826 about his feelings for her in an extended poem, "The Enthusiast". Over twenty years later, in 1847, he confided in John Herschel that during this period he might have become a poet.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: In 1825, Hamilton met Arabella Lawrence, younger sister of Sarah Lawrence, a significant correspondent and frank critic of his poetry. It was a contact he made through Maria Edgeworth's circle.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton, now Royal Astronomer of Ireland, took up residence at Dunsink Observatory where he spent the rest of his life. He was there from 1827 until his death in 1865. In his early years at Dunsink, Hamilton observed the heavens quite regularly; he left routine observation to his assistant Charles Thompson. Hamilton's sisters also supported the observatory's work.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: The introductory lectures by Hamilton in astronomy were celebrated; in addition to his students, they attracted scholars, poets, and women. Felicia Hemans wrote her poem "The Prayer of the Lonely Student" after hearing one of his lectures.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton invited his four sisters to come and live at the observatory in 1827, and they ran the household until his marriage in 1833. They included Eliza Mary Hamilton (1807–1851) the poet. In 1827, Hamilton wrote to his sister Grace about "some of" the Lawrence sisters having met his sister Eliza in Dublin.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Newly appointed to the Observatory, Hamilton set off on a tour in Ireland and England with Alexander Nimmo, who was coaching him on latitude and longitude. One call was to Sarah Lawrence's school at Gatacre, near Liverpool, where Hamilton had a chance to assess the calculator Master Noakes. They visited William Wordsworth at Rydal Mount in September of that year, where Caesar Otway was also present. After the visit, Hamilton sent numerous poems to Wordsworth, becoming a "poetic disciple".


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: When Wordsworth visited Dublin in summer 1829, in a party with John Marshall and his family, he stayed at Dunsink with Hamilton. On a second tour in England with Nimmo in 1831, Hamilton parted from him at Birmingham, to visit the Lawrence sisters and family on his mother's side in the Liverpool area. They met up again in the Lake District, where they climbed Helvellyn and had tea with Wordsworth. Hamilton returned to Dublin, via Edinburgh and Glasgow.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton visited Samuel Taylor Coleridge at Highgate, in 1832, helped by an unexpected letter of introduction given to him by Sarah Lawrence on a visit to Liverpool in March of that year. He also paid a call, with Arabella, on the family of William Roscoe who had died in 1831.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: While attending Trinity College, Hamilton proposed to his friend's sister, whose refusal drove the young Hamilton to depression and illness, even to the verge of suicide. He proposed again in 1831 to Ellen de Vere, a sister of the poet Aubrey De Vere (1814-1902), who declined as well. Hamilton eventually married Helen Marie Bayly in 1833, a country preacher's daughter, and had three children with her: William Edwin Hamilton (born 1834), Archibald Henry (born 1835), and Helen Elizabeth (born 1840). Hamilton's married life turned out to be difficult and unhappy as Bayly proved to be pious, shy, timid, and chronically ill.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton retained his faculties unimpaired to the last, and continued the task of finishing the "Elements of Quaternions" which had occupied the last six years of his life. He died on 2 September 1865, following a severe attack of gout. He is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: His first discovery was in an early paper that he communicated in 1823 to John Brinkley, who presented it under the title of "Caustics" in 1824 to the Royal Irish Academy. It was referred as usual to a committee, which recommended further development and simplification before publication. Between 1825 and 1828 the paper was expanded, and became a clearer exposition of a novel method. Over this period, Hamilton gained appreciation for the nature and importance of optics.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: In 1827, Hamilton presented a theory of a single function, now known as Hamilton's principal function, that brings together mechanics and optical theory. It helped to establish foundations of the wave theory of light in mathematical physics. He proposed it when he first predicted its existence in the third supplement to his "Systems of Rays", read in 1832.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: The Royal Irish Academy paper was finally entitled "Theory of Systems of Rays" (23 April 1827), and the first part was printed in 1828 in the "Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy". The more important contents of the second and third parts appeared in the three voluminous supplements (to the first part) which were published in the same Transactions, and in the two papers "On a General Method in Dynamics", which appeared in the "Philosophical Transactions" in 1834 and 1835. In these papers, Hamilton developed his central principle of "Varying Action".


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: A result of this work is a prediction for transparent biaxial crystals (i.e. monoclinic, orthorhombic or triclinic crystals). A ray of light entering such a crystal at a certain angle would emerge as a hollow cone of rays. This discovery was known as conical refraction. Hamilton found it from the geometry of the wave surface introduced by Augustin-Jean Fresnel, which has singular points. There is a basic mathematical explanation of the phenomenon, namely that the wave surface is not the boundary of a convex body. A fuller understanding awaited the microlocal analysis of the middle of the 20th century,


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: The step from optics to dynamics in the application of the method of "Varying Action" was made in 1827, and communicated to the Royal Society, in whose "Philosophical Transactions" for 1834 and 1835 there are two papers on the subject.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamiltonian mechanics was a powerful new technique for working with equations of motion. Hamilton's advances enlarged the class of mechanical problems that could be solved. His principle of "Varying Action" was based on the calculus of variations, in the general class of problems included under the principle of least action which had been studied earlier by Pierre Louis Maupertuis, Euler, Joseph Louis Lagrange and others. Hamilton's analysis uncovered deeper mathematical structure than had been previously understood, in particular a symmetry between momentum and position. The credit for discovering what are now called the Lagrangian and Lagrange's equations belongs also to Hamilton.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Both the Lagrangian mechanics and Hamiltonian approaches have proven important in the study of continuous classical systems in physics, and quantum mechanical systems: the techniques find use in electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, relativity theory and quantum field theory. In the "Dictionary of Irish Biography" David Spearman writes:


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Many scientists, including Liouville, Jacobi, Darboux, Poincaré, Kolmogorov, Prigogine and Arnold, have extended Hamilton's work, in mechanics, differential equations and symplectic geometry.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton's mathematical studies seem to have been undertaken and carried to their full development without collaboration, and his writings do not belong to any particular school. He was intended by the university authorities who elected him to the Professorship of Astronomy to spend his time as he best could for the advancement of science, without restrictions.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton made his discovery of the algebra of quaternions in 1843. Among much prior related work, in 1840 Benjamin Olinde Rodrigues had reached a result that amounted to their discovery in all but name.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton was looking for ways of extending complex numbers (which can be viewed as points on a 2-dimensional Argand diagram) to higher spatial dimensions. In working with four dimensions, rather than three, he created quaternion algebra. According to Hamilton, on 16 October he was out walking along the Royal Canal in Dublin with his wife when the solution in the form of the equation


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: occurred to him; Hamilton then carved this equation using his penknife into the side of the nearby Broom Bridge (which Hamilton called Brougham Bridge).


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: The quaternions involved abandoning the commutative law, a radical step for the time. In the context of this prototype geometric algebra, Hamilton also introduced the cross and dot products of vector algebra, the quaternion product being the cross product minus the dot product as scalar. Hamilton also described a quaternion as an ordered four-element multiple of real numbers, and described the first element as the "scalar" part, and the remaining three as the "vector" part. He coined the neologisms "tensor" and "scalar", and was the first to use the word "vector" in the modern sense.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton looked into the solution of the quintic in the theory of equations, examining of the results arrived at by Niels Henrik Abel, George Jerrard and others in their researches. There is Hamilton's paper on fluctuating functions in Fourier analysis, and the invention of the hodograph. Of his investigations into the solutions, especially by numerical approximation, of certain classes of physically-important differential equations, only parts were published, at intervals, in the "Philosophical Magazine".


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton also introduced the icosian game or "Hamilton's puzzle". It is based on the concept of a Hamiltonian path in graph theory.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton introduced, as a method of analysis, both quaternions and biquaternions, the extension to eight dimensions by introduction of complex number coefficients. When his work was assembled in 1853, the book "Lectures on Quaternions" had "formed the subject of successive courses of lectures, delivered in 1848 and subsequent years, in the Halls of Trinity College, Dublin". Hamilton confidently declared that quaternions would be found to have a powerful influence as an instrument of research.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: When he died, Hamilton was working on a definitive statement of quaternion science. His son William Edwin Hamilton brought the "Elements of Quaternions", a hefty volume of 762 pages, to publication in 1866. As copies ran short, a second edition was prepared by Charles Jasper Joly, when the book was split into two volumes, the first appearing 1899 and the second in 1901. The subject index and footnotes in this second edition improved the "Elements" accessibility.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton was twice awarded the Cunningham Medal of the Royal Irish Academy. The first award, in 1834, was for his work on conical refraction, for which he also received the Royal Medal of the Royal Society the following year. He was to win it again in 1848.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: In 1835, being secretary to the meeting of the British Association which was held that year in Dublin, Hamilton was knighted by the lord-lieutenant. Other honours rapidly succeeded, among which his election in 1837 to the president's chair in the Royal Irish Academy, and the rare distinction of being made a corresponding member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Later, in 1864, the newly established United States National Academy of Sciences elected its first Foreign Associates, and decided to put Hamilton's name on top of their list.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: A plaque under the Broom Bridge, associated with the discovery of quaternions, was unveiled by Éamon de Valera on 13 November 1958. Since 1989, the National University of Ireland, Maynooth has organised a pilgrimage called the "Hamilton Walk", in which mathematicians take a walk from Dunsink Observatory to the bridge, where no trace of the carving remains, though a stone plaque does commemorate the discovery.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: The Hamilton Institute is an applied mathematics research institute at Maynooth University and the Royal Irish Academy holds an annual public Hamilton lecture at which Murray Gell-Mann, Frank Wilczek, Andrew Wiles and Timothy Gowers have all spoken. The year 2005 was the 200th anniversary of Hamilton's birth and the Irish government designated that the "Hamilton Year, celebrating Irish science". Trinity College Dublin marked the year by launching the Hamilton Mathematics Institute.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Two commemorative stamps were issued by Ireland in 1943 to mark the centenary of the announcement of quaternions. A 10-euro commemorative silver proof coin was issued by the Central Bank of Ireland in 2005 to commemorate 200 years since his birth.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: It is believed by some modern mathematicians that Hamilton's work on quaternions was satirized by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in "Alice in Wonderland". In particular, the Mad Hatter's tea party was meant to represent the folly of quaternions and the need to revert to Euclidean geometry. In September 2022 evidence was presented to counter this suggestion, which appears to have been based on an incorrect understanding of both quaternions and their history.


title: William Rowan Hamilton

text: Hamilton married Helen Bayly, daughter of Rev Henry Bayly, Rector of Nenagh, County Tipperary, in 1833; she was a sister of neighbours to the observatory. They had three children: William Edwin Hamilton (born 1834), Archibald Henry (born 1835) and Helen Eliza Amelia (born 1840). Helen stayed with her widowed mother at Bayly Farm, Nenagh for extended periods, until her mother's death in 1837. She also was away from Dunsink, staying with sisters, for much of the time from 1840 to 1842. Hamilton's married life was reportedly difficult. In the troubled period of the early 1840s, his sister Sydney ran his household; when Helen returned, he was happier after some depression.


title: Mary Ball Washington

text: Mary Washington (; born sometime between 1707 and 1709 – August 25, 1789), was the second wife of Augustine Washington, a planter in Virginia, the mother-in-law of Martha Washington, the paternal grandmother of Bushrod Washington, and the mother of George Washington, the first president of the United States, and five other children. Washington lived a large part of her life in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where many monuments were erected in her honor and a university plus other public buildings bear her name.


title: Mary Ball Washington

text: Mary Ball was born sometime between 1707 and 1709 at either Epping Forest, her family's plantation in Lancaster County, Virginia or at a plantation near the village of Simonson, Virginia. She was the only child of Col. Joseph Ball (1649–1711) and his second wife, Mary Johnson Ball. Joseph was born in England and emigrated to Virginia as a child. Fatherless at three and orphaned at twelve, Mary Ball was placed under the guardianship of George Eskridge, a lawyer, in accordance with the terms of her mother's will, for whom her son George Washington, was named, consistent with the naming conventions at the time. (See the appendix of the book "Albion's Seed" by David Hackett Fischer for an insightful discussion of four naming conventions in use at the time in Great Britain.) Her paternal grandfather was William Ball (1615 – c. 1680); he left England for Virginia in the 1650s. His wife Hannah Atherold arrived later along with their four children, including Mary's father Joseph.


title: Mary Ball Washington

text: Augustine Washington had sailed to Britain on business (and to visit his sons who had been sent to school there) but on his return, he discovered that his first wife, Jane Butler Washington, had died in the interim. George Eskridge supposedly arranged an introduction between his friend, Washington, and his ward Mary Ball, with the two marrying on March 6, 1731 when she was 22. She was wealthy by the standards of the day and brought at least 1000 acres of inherited property to the marriage. The couple had the following children:


title: Mary Ball Washington

text: Augustine died in 1743 when son George was 11 years old. On his deathbed, "Gus" gave his son George three books on prayer. In some of those books, now in the Lyceum in Boston, Mary Ball Washington, also wrote her name. Unlike most widows in Virginia at the time, Mary Ball Washington never remarried. When George was 14, his older half-brother Lawrence Washington, who commanded a unit of Virginia Militia that served on board with British Admiral Edward Vernon, for whom Mount Vernon was named, arranged for young George to become a British Navy Midshipman. However, Mary's highly respected half-brother, Joseph Ball, under whom the Virginia House of Burgesses had voted money to pay the cost for Virginia's young men to go study for the ministry, wrote a reply to her letter requesting advice, wherein he said do "not" allow your son George to join the British Navy, for they will "...treat him worse than a slave or a dog."


title: Mary Ball Washington

text: Mary managed the family estate and 276 acres of Ferry Farm (a plantation) with the help of others until her eldest son came of age and well beyond. She lived to see that her son, George Washington, commanded the Continental Army to independence and was inaugurated as the first president of the United States in 1789. After learning that he had been elected president in April 1789, George Washington traveled from Mount Vernon to visit his mother in Fredericksburg. He was accompanied by Martha Washington's grandson George Washington Parke Custis. George Washington knew his Mother was ill. She was suffering from breast cancer, the disease to which she eventually succumbed, but, he sought her blessing as he embarked on another service to his Country: the new concept of "The Presidency of the United States."


title: Mary Ball Washington

text: Here, as popularly told, the stories and lore—probably begun and perpetuated by Custis—take over. It is said that Mrs. Washington informed her son of her poor health and expected to die soon. Further, the story continues, that her son George said that he would need to decline to serve as president. George's mother Mary responded, saying, "But go, George, fulfill the high destinies which Heaven appears to have intended for you for; go, my son, and may that Heaven's and a mother's blessing be with you always." This purely legendary account is frequently cited as true, but cannot be verified.


title: Mary Ball Washington

text: What can be documented is that he received her approval and, of course, left Fredericksburg and made his way to New York City, where he was inaugurated at the end of April.


title: Mary Ball Washington

text: After a lengthy illness, on August 25, 1789, Mary Ball Washington died of breast cancer at her home in Fredericksburg, Virginia.


title: Mary Ball Washington

text: While there is a legend that Mrs. Washington was said to be openly opposed to her son's revolutionary politics and, according to French officers based in Virginia during the war, she was a Loyalist sympathizer, there is no credible source to support that legend. The facts are that other than her son George who was Commander in Chief of the Continental forces (Army and Navy), Mary's other three sons Samuel, John Augustine, and Charles, all served in the Virginia Militia. Her son-in-law Fielding Lewis (husband to her daughter Betty), was in charge of the Fredericksburg Gunnery or Gun Manufactory. The gunnery works made muskets for use by American Revolutionary forces, and ended up almost bankrupting Lewis in the process.


title: Mary Ball Washington

text: Mary Washington was by no means poor despite the fact that she petitioned the Government of Virginia claiming, in response to a Virginia government notice to citizens to do so, asking to be reimbursed for farm animals, horses and cattle that she gave to support the American war effort. Her son, George, purchased her a fine house in Fredericksburg, four blocks from some "Prayer Rocks" Mary frequented to pray for her children and only two blocks from Kenmore, where George's sister Betty (Mrs. Fielding Lewis) lived. Mary lived in her home nearby from 1772 until her death in 1789, but George also arranged for water from the "medicine springs" on the Ferry Farm property, her home for many years, to be brought to his mother in town each day. In her will, Mary Washington left George the majority of her lands and appointed him as her executor.


title: Mary Ball Washington

text: Mary Washington frequently visited her daughter Elizabeth "Betty" and her husband Fielding Lewis at their Kenmore Plantation two blocks from her home in Fredericksburg. She had a favorite "prayer rock" that was close to the Lewis mansion. Tradition has it that this was her favorite retreat for reading and prayer. She asked Betty to bury her there after her death, and her daughter arranged that.


title: Mary Ball Washington

text: Her third son, John Augustine Washington, was the father of Bushrod Washington, who was nominated by President John Adams to the U.S. Supreme Court, and confirmed by the Senate in 1798, while his Uncle George was living in retirement at Mount Vernon. Charles Town, West Virginia, is named for her fourth son, Charles Washington. The national capital and many other cities, towns and villages are named "Washington" for her first son, George Washington.


title: The Prince of Tennis II

text: The Prince of Tennis II, known in Japan as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Takeshi Konomi. It is a sequel to Konomi's manga series "The Prince of Tennis". It has been serialized in Shueisha's "shōnen" manga magazine "Jump Square" since March 2009. A 13-episode anime television series adaptation was broadcast on TV Tokyo from January to March 2012. A new anime television series titled "The Prince of Tennis II: U-17 World Cup" aired from July to September 2022.


title: The Prince of Tennis II

text: "The New Prince of Tennis" is set shortly after the end of the original manga. Ryoma Echizen returns to Japan after his trip to America as a candidate for the Japanese U-17 (under 17) High School Representatives Selection Camp, along with 50 other middle school tennis players.


title: The Prince of Tennis II

text: "The New Prince of Tennis", written and illustrated by Takeshi Konomi, was announced by Shueisha's "Jump Square" on November 4, 2008. The series began serialization in the magazine on March 4, 2009. Shueisha has collected its chapters into individual "tankōbon" volumes. The first volume was released on August 4, 2009. As of October 4, 2022, thirty-seven volumes have been released.


title: The Prince of Tennis II

text: A 13-episode anime television series adaptation by Production I.G and M.S.C ran from January 5 to March 29, 2012. The episodes were collected in seven DVDs, released from April 20, 2012, to April 24, 2013. Each DVD included a special original video animation (OVA) episode. Crunchyroll streamed the series.


title: The Prince of Tennis II

text: A ten-episode OVA, titled "The Prince of Tennis II OVA vs. Genius 10", was released on five DVDs from October 29, 2014, to June 26, 2015. The OVA has been streamed by Crunchyroll.


title: The Prince of Tennis II

text: A two-part original net animation (ONA) by Studio Kai and M.S.C, titled "The Prince of Tennis II: Hyotei vs. Rikkai Game of Future", was released on February 13 and April 17, 2021, respectively.


title: The Prince of Tennis II

text: In April 2021, Funimation announced that they licensed the entire "The Prince of Tennis" anime franchise. and "The Prince of Tennis II" was added to their platform on August 17 of the same year.


title: The Prince of Tennis II

text: During the 20th anniversary event of "The Prince of Tennis" on October 10, 2021, it was announced that a new anime television series titled "The Prince of Tennis II: U-17 World Cup" is being produced. The staff of the "Hyotei vs. Rikkai Game of Future" ONA series, as well as the main cast members, reprised their roles. It aired from July 7 to September 29, 2022, on TV Tokyo. The opening theme song is "I can fly" by Yoshiki Ezaki and Bleecker Chrome, while the ending theme song is "Dear Friends" by TeniPri Artistars. Crunchyroll has licensed the series and will be streaming it along with an English dub.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: The four kingdoms of Daniel are four kingdoms which, according to the Book of Daniel, precede the "end-times" and the "Kingdom of God".


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: The Book of Daniel originated from a collection of legends circulating in the Jewish community in Babylon and Mesopotamia in the Persian and early Hellenistic periods (5th to 3rd centuries BC), and was later expanded by the visions of chapters 7–12 in the Maccabean era (mid-2nd century).


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: The "four kingdoms" theme appears explicitly in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7, and is implicit in the imagery of Daniel 8. Daniel's concept of four successive world empires is drawn from Greek theories of mythological history. The symbolism of four metals in the statue in chapter 2 is drawn from Persian writings, while the four "beasts from the sea" in chapter 7 reflect Hosea 13:7–8, in which God threatens that he will be to Israel like a lion, a leopard, a bear or a wild beast. The consensus among scholars is that the four beasts of chapter 7, like the metals of chapter 2, symbolise Babylon, Media, Persia and the Seleucid Greeks, with Antiochus IV as the "small horn" that uproots three others (Antiochus usurped the rights of several other claimants to become king).


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: In chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a statue made of four different materials, identified as four kingdoms:


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: In chapter 7, Daniel has a vision of four beasts coming up out of the sea, and is told that they represent four kingdoms:


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: This is explained as a fourth kingdom, different from all the other kingdoms; it "will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it" (v. 23). The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom (v. 24). A further horn (the "little horn") then appears and uproots three of the previous horns: this is explained as a future king.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: In chapter 8 Daniel sees a ram with two horns destroyed by a he-goat with a single horn; the horn breaks and four horns appear, followed once again by the "little horn".


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: Rashi, a medieval rabbi, interpreted the four kingdoms as Nebuchadnezzar ("you are the head of gold"), Belshazzar ("another kingdom lower than you"), Alexander of Macedon ("a third kingdom of copper"), and the Roman Empire ("and in the days of these kings"). Rashi explains that the fifth kingdom that God will establish is the kingdom of the messiah.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: From the time of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, the "four monarchies" model became widely used by all for universal history, in parallel with eschatology, among Protestants. Some continued to defend its use in universal history in the early 18th century.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: Christopher Cellarius (1638–1707), based on the distinctive nature of medieval Latin. The modern historicist interpretations and eschatological views of the "Book of Daniel" with the "Book of Revelation" closely resemble and continue earlier historical Protestant interpretations.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: There are references in classical literature and arts that apparently predate the use of the succession of kingdoms in the "Book of Daniel". One appears in Aemilius Sura, an author quoted by Velleius Paterculus (c. 19 BC – c. AD 31). This gives Assyria, Media, Persia and Macedonia as the imperial powers. The fifth empire became identified with the Romans. (After the 17th century, the concept of a "fifth monarchy" was re-introduced from Christian millennarian ideas.)


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: An interpretation that became orthodox after Swain (1940) sees the "four kingdoms" theory becoming the property of Greek and Roman writers at the beginning of the 1st century BCE, as an import from Asia Minor. They built on a three-kingdom sequence, already mentioned by Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC) and by Ctesias (fl. 401 BC). Mendels (1981) contests this dating and origin, placing it later in the century.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: Jewish Reconstructionists and Full Preterists believe that Daniel is completely fulfilled, and that the believers are now working to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: The following interpretation represents a traditional view of Jewish and Christian Historicists, Futurists, Dispensationalists, Partial Preterists, and other futuristic Jewish and Christian hybrids, as well as certain Messianic Jews, who typically identify the kingdoms in Daniel (with variations) as:


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: Jerome (c. 347–420) described this scheme in his "Commentary on Daniel". Within this framework there are numerous variations.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: Christian interpreters typically read the Book of Daniel along with the New Testament's Book of Revelation. The Church Fathers interpreted the beast in Revelation 13 as the empire of Rome. The majority of modern scholarly commentators understand the "city on seven hills" in Revelation as a reference to Rome.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: Full Preterists, Idealists, certain Reconstructionists and other non-futurists likewise typically believe in the same general sequence, but teach that Daniel's prophecies ended with the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, and have few to no implications beyond that. Jewish and Christian Futurists, Dispensationalists, and, to some degree, Partial Preterists believe that the prophecies of Daniel stopped with the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem; but will resume at some point in the future after a gap in prophecy that accounts for the Church Age.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: For over two thousand years readers have speculated as to the meaning of the themes running through the Book of Daniel:


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: The prophecy of 2,300 days in Daniel 8:14 plays an important role in Seventh-day Adventist eschatology. The 2,300 days are interpreted as 2,300 years using the day-year principle. According to the Adventist teaching, this period starts in unison with the Prophecy of Seventy Weeks in 457 BC and ends in 1844 AD. It was thought that the end of this period would bring the end of days as advocated by the Millerite movement at the turn of the 19th century.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: Most Adventist groups in the Millerite tradition hold similar beliefs about the Great Apostasy, as do those of other Restorationist types of Christian faith. Some of these, most notably the Seventh-day Adventist Church, have traditionally held that the apostate church formed when the Bishop of Rome began to dominate and brought heathen corruption and allowed pagan idol worship and beliefs to come in, and formed the Roman Catholic Church, and to rest from their work on Sunday, instead of Sabbath, which is not in keeping with Scripture.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: Seventh-day Adventists teach that the Little Horn Power which as predicted rose after the breakup of the Roman Empire is the papacy. In 533 AD Justinian, the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, legally recognized the bishop (pope) of Rome as the head of all the Christian churches. Because of the Arian domination of some of the Roman Empire by the barbarian tribes, this authority could not be exercised by the bishop of Rome. Finally, in 538 AD, Belisarius, one of Justinian's generals, routed the Ostrogoths, the last of the barbarian kingdoms, from the city of Rome and the bishop of Rome could begin establishing his universal civil authority. So, by the military intervention of the Eastern Roman Empire, the bishop of Rome became all-powerful throughout the area of the old Roman Empire.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: Like many reformation-era Protestant leaders, the writings of Adventist pioneer Ellen White speak against the Catholic Church as a fallen church and in preparation for a nefarious eschatological role as the antagonist against God's true church and that the pope is the Antichrist. Many Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther, John Knox, William Tyndale and others held similar beliefs about the Catholic Church and the papacy when they broke away from the Catholic Church during the Reformation.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: The Baháʼí Faith interprets the prophecy of the 2300 days and the 70 weeks in the same manner as the Seventh-day Adventists, with the period ending in the year 1844. In Baháʼí belief, 1844 marked the end of the "old world" and the start of the millennial period. This meant the end of the "Islamic age", the end of the prophetic cycle of all religions, and the inauguration of the common era where the fulfillment of prophecies would occur for all religions. For the Baháʼí, the promise of the return of "God's Messenger" was fulfilled in this year by the appearance of the Báb, followed 19 years later by Baha'u'llah.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: Methodist theologian and historicist Adam Clarke proposed an alternative to the 1844 date as used by Seventh-day Adventists and followers of Baháʼí Faith. Clarke viewed Daniel 8 as a separate vision from Daniel 7. In his 1831 commentary on , he states that the 2,300-year period should be calculated from 334 BC, the year Alexander the Great began his conquest of the Persian Empire. His calculation ends in the year 1966, where he links to .


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: The traditional interpretation of the four kingdoms, shared among Jewish and Christian expositors for over two millennia, identifies the kingdoms as the empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. This view conforms to the text of Daniel, which considers the Medo-Persian Empire as one, as with the "law of the Medes and Persians". These views have the support of the Jewish Talmud, medieval Jewish commentators, Christian Church Fathers, Jerome, and Calvin.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: Jerome specifically identified the four kingdoms of Daniel 2 in this way. The "four monarchies" theory existed alongside the Six Ages and the Three Eras, as general historical structures, in the work of Augustine of Hippo, a contemporary of Jerome.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: The alternative view which sees the sequence ending with Greece and the Diadochi, thus excluding Rome, is not without historical precedent however. The pagan critic of Christianity, Porphyry, suggested a variation of this interpretation in the third century CE. In the following centuries, several Eastern Christians espoused this view, including Ephrem the Syrian, Polychronius, and Cosmas Indicopleustes.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: During the Medieval ages the orthodox Christian interpretation followed the commentary by Jerome on the Book of Daniel. It tied the fourth monarchy and its end to the end of the Roman Empire, which was considered not to have yet come to pass (the Eastern Roman Empire persisted until 1453). This is the case for example in the tenth-century writer Adso, whose "Libellus de Antichristo" incorporated the characteristic medieval myth of the Last Roman Emperor. Otto of Freising used the principle of "translatio imperii" and took the Holy Roman Empire as the continuation of the Roman Empire (as fourth monarchy).


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: A series of Protestant theologians, such as Jerome Zanchius (1516–1590), Joseph Mede (1586–1639), and John Lightfoot (1602–1675), particularly emphasized the eschatological theory of four monarchies. Mede and other writers (such as William Guild (1586–1657), Edward Haughton and Nathaniel Stephens ()) expected the imminent end of the fourth empire, and a new age. The early modern version of the four monarchies in universal history was subsequently often attributed to the chronologist and astrologer Johann Carion, based on his "Chronika" (1532). Developments of his Protestant world chronology were endorsed in an influential preface of Philipp Melanchthon (published 1557).


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: The theory was topical in the 1550s. Johann Sleidan in his "De quatuor imperiis summis" (1556) tried to summarise the status of the "four monarchies" as historical theory; he had already alluded to it in previous works. Sleidan's influential slant on the theory was both theological, with a Protestant tone of apocalyptic decline over time, and an appeal to German nationalist feeling in terms of "translatio imperii". The "Speculum coniugiorum" (1556) of the jurist Alonso De la Vera Cruz, in New Spain, indirectly analysed the theory. It cast doubts on the Holy Roman Emperor's universal "imperium" by pointing out that the historical "monarchies" in question had in no case held exclusive sway. The Carion/Melanchthon view was that the Kingdom of Egypt must be considered a subsidiary power to Babylon: just as France was secondary compared to the Empire.


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: The Catholic Jean Bodin was concerned to argue against the whole theory of "four monarchies" as a historical paradigm. He devoted a chapter to refuting it, alongside the classical scheme of a Golden Age, in his 1566 "Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem".


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: In 1617, sculptures representing the four kingdoms of Daniel were placed above the doors of Nuremberg town hall:


title: Four kingdoms of Daniel

text: In the conditions leading to the English Civil War of 1642–1651 and in the disruption that followed, many Englishmen advanced millennarian ideas, believing they were living in the "end of days". The Fifth Monarchists were a significant element of the Parliamentary grouping and, in January 1661, after Charles II had taken the throne following the English Restoration of 1660, 50 militant Fifth Monarchists under Thomas Venner attempted to take over London to start the "Fifth Monarchy of King Jesus". After the failure of this uprising, Fifth Monarchists became a quiescent and devotional part of religious dissent.


title: Sky Rojo

text: Sky Rojo () is a Spanish black comedy action drama television series, created by Álex Pina and Esther Martínez Lobato. The series traces three prostitutes who flee from their pimp. According to the creators, the series shows "the impunity, ambiguity and brutal reality of prostitution, and the psychological portraits of those on both sides of the scale". Pina and Martínez Lobato have described the series as "Latin pulp".


title: Sky Rojo

text: Produced by Vancouver Media and distributed by Netflix, the series premiered on 19 March 2021. Two seasons of eight 25-minute episodes each were announced. The series' second season premiered on 23 July. The third and final season is scheduled to be released on January 13, 2023.


title: Sky Rojo

text: Coral, Wendy, and Gina, three prostitutes, go on the run in search of freedom while being chased by Romeo, their pimp from Las Novias Club in Tenerife, and his henchmen, Moisés and Christian. Together, the women embark on a frantic, chaotic journey during which they must face dangers of all kinds and live every second as if it were their last, while strengthening their friendship and discovering the most important thing: that together they are stronger and have more options to recover their lives.


title: Sky Rojo

text: Filmed on location in Madrid and Tenerife, "Sky Rojo" was produced by Vancouver Media for Netflix. Álex Pina and Esther Martínez Lobato are the creators and executive producers of "Sky Rojo" alongside Jesús Colmenar, with support from co-executive producers David Barrocal, Migue Amoedo and David Victori. The original series is directed by Jesús Colmenar, Óscar Pedraza, David Victori, Albert Pintó, Javier Quintas and Eduardo Chapero-Jackson. The scriptwriting team is made up of Álex Pina, Esther Martínez Lobato, David Barrocal, David Oliva, Javier Gómez Santander, Juan Salvador López and Mercedes Rodrigo. Migue Amoedo has taken the lead as cinematographer alongside David Azcano and David Acereto, while Juan López Olivar and Cristina López Ferraz are heading up production management.


title: Sky Rojo

text: Filming began in Madrid on 18 November 2019, and later moved to Arico, Tenerife. Filming was set to move to Castilla–La Mancha in early 2020 and take place there for approximately four months. However, the project was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and filming continued in October 2020 in Madrid. While set in the south of Tenerife, the shooting location of Las Novias club was an estate near Huerta de Valdecarábanos, province of Toledo.


title: Sky Rojo

text: The series is set to last two seasons of eight 25-minutes episodes each. In a joint statement, the creators said: "We wanted "Sky Rojo" to have the same frenetic action as always, but to use that 25-minute runtime to underline the dynamic nature of the plot: the getaway, the race for survival. The third act of a movie or an episode is where all the energy converges to produce the most vibrant explosion of all the conflicts that are being narrated. What we set out to do was to make a constant third act, to funnel our entire story through that frenzied energy".


title: Sky Rojo

text: On 19 January 2021, it was announced via a teaser trailer that the series' first season would premiere exactly two months later, on 19 March. The series' official trailer was released on 2 March 2021.