title: Eisteddfod

text: During the days of Gaelic Ireland and of the Irish clans, there was a tradition similar to the first eisteddfodau. Irish clan chiefs would host feasts for their clansmen, servants, and warriors which centered around a contest between Irish-language bards, whose poetry was performed by professional singers accompanied by a harp. As in 12th-century Wales, the clan chief always chose the winner with the approval of those assembled. This tradition, which arose during the 14th century, was termed a "Gairm Sgoile" (Early Modern Irish: 'summoning', or 'gathering', 'of the [Bardic] school').


title: Eisteddfod

text: The most famous of these gatherings took place on Christmas Day, 1351. William Ua Cellaig, Chief of the Name and King of Uí Maine in Connacht, held, like Prince Rhys ap Gruffydd, a great competition and feast for the bards of Ireland. An entire temporary village was erected with separate streets for musicians, "seanchaithe", poets, and jugglers.


title: Eisteddfod

text: The traditional Connacht Irish phrase, ""Fáilte Uí Cheallaigh"" ("An O'Kelly Welcome") dates from this event, which was held at Gailey Castle along Lough Ree, near what is now Knockcroghery, County Roscommon. The feast reportedly lasted for a month. It was during this feast that the poet, Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh, wrote the poem, "Filidh Éireann go hAointeach", which remembers the feast.


title: Eisteddfod

text: After the 16th and 17th century dispossession, emigration, and outlawry of the Irish clan chiefs and the loss of their patronage, the teachers and former students of the bardic schools adapted, according to Daniel Corkery, by becoming teachers at the hedge schools in Irish villages. Meanwhile, in 18th-century Munster, the custom arose, in what was both mimicry and satire of the ceremonial of the English-dominated legal and court system, of the local chief-bard presiding over sessions of a , or poetic court. A would begin with "bailiffs" delivering often humorously worded "warrants" which summoned local Irish-language poets to a bardic competition presided over by the chief-bard as "judge". In many cases, two poets at the would engage in flyting, or trading insults in verse improvised on the spot. According to Corkery, much of the serious, improvised, and comic poetry in the Irish language composed for sessions of the Munster poetic courts was written down by the court "recorders" and still survives. At the beginning of his term, the Chief-Poet of a district, similarly to an Irish clan chief, would receive a Staff of Office (), which would later be handed down to his successor.


title: Eisteddfod

text: Also according to Corkery, the patronage of Bardic and musical contests also continued among the very few remaining families from the Gaelic nobility of Ireland; like the O'Connell family of Derrynane House in County Kerry and the MacDermot Princes of Coolavin in County Sligo, who continued to hold at least a part of their ancestral lands, while ruling over their tenants and servants as the Chief of the Name.


title: Eisteddfod

text: At least for a time, some Anglo-Irish landlords hosted similar contests. During the early 18th century, Irish-language poet, composer, and itinerant harpist Turlough O'Carolan is said to have improvised "Carolan's Concerto" inside the house of the Anglo-Irish Power family, during such a contest against the Italian violinist Francesco Geminiani. According to other versions of the story, the contest that resulted in the impromptu composition of "Carolan's Concerto" took place at the home of Church of Ireland clergyman, poet, and satirist Jonathan Swift.


title: Eisteddfod

text: Since it was founded as part of the Gaelic revival by Conradh na Gaeilge in 1897, the eisteddfod-inspired festival known as Oireachtas na Gaeilge was envisaged to spearhead a renaissance of Irish-language literature, culture, and the arts.


title: Eisteddfod

text: In contrast to today's Oireachtas, there was more emphasis on Modern literature in Irish than upon Irish traditional music or the performing arts. There were two competitions for Irish poetry, five for Irish language essays, one for best poetry collection; a competition for unpublished songs or short stories in Irish; a competition for best new song composition, and a recitation competition.


title: Eisteddfod

text: The early organizers of Oireachtas pulled off several major accomplishments, such as the first staging of Robert O'Dwyer's "Eithne", the first Irish-language opera, in 1909. Even so, the popularity of Oireachtas waned following the Irish War of Independence and the subsequent Irish Civil War, and the festival was repeatedly cancelled during the 1920s and 1930s.


title: Eisteddfod

text: The festival was traditionally held in Dublin, but, beginning in 1974, Coiste Cearta Síbialta na Gaeilge (English: Irish Language Civil Rights Committee") successfully coerced an end to the practice of never holding Oireachtas in Ireland's Gaeltacht areas.


title: Eisteddfod

text: Oireachtas currently culminates in four major competitions over the weekend: Comórtas na mBan, a sean-nós singing competition for women, Comórtas na bhFear, a similar one for men, and Corn Uí Riada, one for both genders and all ages. There is also the Comórtas Damhsa ar an Sean Nós ("Steip"), a Sean-nós dance competition mainly based on the Connemara stepdancing style now popular throughout the country, but also including dancing in other regional styles.


title: Eisteddfod

text: The organisers, under the Directorship of Liam Ó Maolaodha have attempted from the 1990s on to market Oireachtas to millennial Irish speakers via outings, discos, and other youth-oriented events.


title: Eisteddfod

text: Since it was also founded by Conradh na Gaeilge in 1902, "Seachtain na Gaeilge" (English: Irish Language Week), which is similarly based upon the Welsh eisteddfod, has celebrated Irish traditional music, Gaelic games, and Irish culture.


title: Eisteddfod

text: The festival begins each year on St David's Day and ends on St Patrick's Day, with community-organised events celebrated all over Ireland and the world, such as céilís, concerts, quizzes, competitions and parades. Like the first documented 12th-century eisteddfod, the 14th-century and the 18th-century Munster , includes a contest between Irish poets in the Irish language.


title: Eisteddfod

text: The Fleadh Cheoil is an annual festival for Irish traditional music that takes place in the same town for a few years in a row, before moving to another area of Ireland in an effort to include all localities in the celebration.


title: Eisteddfod

text: After the end of the Irish War of Independence and the subsequent Civil War, the 1924-1937 revival of the ancient Tailteann Games also emulated the Welsh Eisteddfod by including ceremonies in Pre-Christian Irish clothing and inspired by Irish mythology.


title: Eisteddfod

text: There is also the event known as "Imram", which was founded in 2004 by Liam Carson, who had noticed that there was no literary festival dedicated to Irish literature in the Irish language. In response, Carson received funding from Poetry Ireland, Dublin City Council, and "Foras na Gaeilge". According to Carson, "The festival name means ‘a voyage of discovery’ and what we’re asking people to do is come with us and discover the Irish language."


title: Eisteddfod

text: The Scottish Gaelic "mòd", a festival of Scottish Gaelic song, literature, arts and culture, is modeled upon the Welsh eisteddfod. The , however, is different in that it lacks the 12th-century roots or the fictitious rituals introduced by Iolo Morganwg.


title: Eisteddfod

text: Similarly to the Welsh word "eisteddfod", the Gaelic word , which derives from the Old Norse word , refers to a Viking Age "Thing" or a gathering of Scottish clans. In the Highlands and Islands, however, the term originally referred to the Council of the Isles, Scottish clan chiefs who advised Somerled and his successors among as Lords of the Isles. Finlaggan on Islay was the usual site for the gathering of the Council of the Isles.


title: Eisteddfod

text: Similar to the Eisteddfod and other Celtic festivals, the mòd was founded in response to colonialism and in an effort to preserve an increasingly endangered language from the coercive Anglicisation of the educational system.


title: Eisteddfod

text: According to Marcus Tanner, the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge was incorporated under Queen Anne in 1709 and began building both schools and libraries in the Scottish Highlands and Islands with a twofold purpose. The first purpose was to prevent the Gaels from returning to the still illegal and underground Catholic Church in Scotland. The second was to ensure, "that in process of time Britons from North to South may speak the same language". For this reason, all schoolmasters were under orders to teach their students only in English and to subject any student who spoke Gaelic inside the school or on the playground to flogging.


title: Eisteddfod

text: Under the 1872 Education Act, school attendance was compulsory and only English was taught or tolerated in the schools of both the Lowlands and the Highlands and Islands. As a result, any student who spoke Scots or Scottish Gaelic in the school or on its grounds could expect what Ronald Black calls the, "familiar Scottish experience of being thrashed for speaking [their] native language."


title: Eisteddfod

text: In response, An Comunn Gàidhealach was founded at Oban in 1891 to help preserve the Scottish Gaelic language and its literature and to establish the Royal National Mòd (), as a festival of Gaelic music, literature, arts, and culture deliberately modelled upon the National Eisteddfod of Wales.


title: Eisteddfod

text: A largely takes the form of formal competitions. Choral events in Gaelic (both solo and by choirs), and Scottish traditional music including fiddling, bagpipe and folk groups dominate. Spoken word events include children and adult's poetry reading, storytelling and Bible reading, and categories such as ancient folk tale or humorous monologue. Children can also present an original drama, and there are competitions in written literature.


title: Eisteddfod

text: Unlike the national , local "s" usually only last a day or two. They attract a much smaller crowd and the only notable social event is the winners' ceilidh. As there are fewer competitions than in the national , this ceilidh is often more like a traditional ceilidh with dancing and guest singers between the winners' performances.


title: Eisteddfod

text: Similarly to the Eisteddfod, since its more recent creation, the Mòd tradition has been introduced to the Scottish diaspora.


title: Eisteddfod

text: In Nova Scotia, where a distinctive form of Gaelic brought by the early Highland settlers preserves the otherwise extinct Lochaber dialect, the Nova Scotia Gaelic Mod attracts visitors from both sides of the U.S.-Canadian Border.


title: Eisteddfod

text: First held at Alexandria, Virginia in 1988, the U.S. National Mòd is now held annually as part of the Highland games at Ligonier, Pennsylvania and sponsored by ('The American Scottish Gaelic Society').


title: Eisteddfod

text: The 2011 Royal National Mòd, held at Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, crowned Lewis MacKinnon ("Lodaidh MacFhionghain"), a poet in the Canadian Gaelic dialect spoken in Antigonish County, Nova Scotia, as the winning bard. It was the first time in the 120-year history of the that a writer of Gaelic poetry from the Scottish diaspora had won the Bardic Crown.


title: Mbabane

text: Mbabane (; , ) is a city in Eswatini (previously called Swaziland), and is one of the two capitals (along with Lobamba), serving as the executive capital.


title: Mbabane

text: With an estimated population of 94,874 (2010), it is located on the Mbabane River and its tributary the Polinjane River in the Mdzimba Mountains. It is located in the Hhohho Region, of which it is also the capital. The average elevation of the city is 1,243 meters. It lies on the MR3 road.


title: Mbabane

text: The town grew after the nation's administrative centre moved from Bremersdorp (now called Manzini) in 1902.


title: Mbabane

text: It derives its name from a chief, Mbabane Kunene, who lived in the area when British settlers arrived.


title: Mbabane

text: Mbabane was founded in 1887 by Mickey Wells, on the spot where the Transvaal-to-Mozambique route crossed the Mbabane river. It was declared the capital of the new Protectorate of Swaziland in 1902. During this time, Mbabane consisted of a few shops, churches and schools founded by white settlers. Black Africans were not allowed to live in the town and had to reside in nearby rural districts. By the 1930s, Mbabane had electricity, running water, telephone connection and a hospital.


title: Mbabane

text: Prior to the Second World War, most Swazis lived in rural districts and worked outside Eswatini, which prevented the town from growing.


title: Mbabane

text: After the war, the creation of trade schools in the city, the arrival of the Goba railway connecting Maputo to the mines in South Africa, and foreign investment resources within Eswatini (particularly sugar) all contributed to the city's growth. Mbabane became the central hub for development in the Hhohho district.


title: Mbabane

text: In the years following independence, governmental buildings such as the British Consulate were built in Mbabane. Further growth has been achieved through the growth of the tourism industry in Eswatini, of which Mbabane has become the centre. Mbabane today is home to many hotels and recreational sites such as clubs and golf courses tending to tourists.


title: Mbabane

text: Mbabane's closest border crossing to South Africa is Ngwenya-Oshoek, and though siSwati is the primary language, English is widespread. Mbabane, and Eswatini itself, depend on tourism and sugar exports. It is also a commercial hub for the surrounding region, while tin and iron were mined nearby. The city has two sites for light industries.


title: Mbabane

text: Mbabane is the home of the Waterford-Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa, as well as one of the three campuses of the University of Eswatini. Limkokwing University of Creative Technology is a private international university that lies by the South African-Eswatini border with several university candidates from Eswatini.


title: Mbabane

text: Indingilizi Gallery is an art gallery in Mbabane, established in 1982 and showcases a range of Swazi art, including sculptures, paintings, batiks, mohair, ethnic jewellery and pottery.


title: Mbabane

text: Among the places of worship, they are predominantly Christian churches: Roman Catholic Diocese of Manzini (Catholic Church), Swaziland Reformed Church (World Communion of Reformed Churches), Zion Christian Church. There are also Muslim mosques.


title: Mbabane

text: Mbabane is located in the district of Hhohho, of which it is also the capital, and lies on the Mbabane River and its tributary the Polinjane River in the Mdzimba Mountains. The average elevation of the city is 1243 metres. Neighbourhoods and suburbs include Mbangweni, Sidwashini, Kent Rock, Sandla, Westridge Park, Malunge, New Checkers, Msunduza and Vukutentele.


title: Mbabane

text: Due to its altitude, Mbabane features a moderate subtropical highland climate (Köppen": Cwb"). The city has a mild climate and snow is a rare event, which has occurred only three times since 1900. The city averages only four days of frost a year. The average temperature is in July and in January. The thermal range is low, but the winter night is cold for a subtropical climate in general. Most of the precipitation is concentrated in the summer. The difference in the driest month (June) and the wettest (January) is 210 mm.


title: Transceiver

text: In radio communication, a transceiver is an electronic device which is a combination of a radio "trans"mitter and a re"ceiver", hence the name. It can both transmit and receive radio waves using an antenna, for communication purposes. These two related functions are often combined in a single device to reduce manufacturing costs. The term is also used for other devices which can both transmit and receive through a communications channel, such as "optical transceivers" which transmit and receive light in optical fiber systems, and "bus transceivers" which transmit and receive digital data in computer data buses.


title: Transceiver

text: Radio transceivers are widely used in wireless devices. One large use is in two-way radios, which are audio transceivers used for bidirectional person-to-person voice communication. Examples are cell phones, which transmit and receive the two sides of a phone conversation using radio waves to a cell tower, cordless phones in which both the phone handset and the base station have transceivers to communicate both sides of the conversation, and land mobile radio systems like walkie-talkies and CB radios. Another large use is in wireless modems in mobile networked computer devices such laptops, pads, and cellphones, which both transmit digital data to and receive data from a wireless router. Aircraft carry automated microwave transceivers called transponders which, when they are triggered by microwaves from an air traffic control radar, transmit a coded signal back to the radar to identify the aircraft. Satellite transponders in communication satellites receive digital telecommunication data from a satellite ground station, and retransmit it to another ground station.


title: Transceiver

text: The transceiver first appeared in the 1920s. Before then, receivers and transmitters were manufactured separately and devices that wanted to receive and transmit data required both components. Almost all amateur radio equipment today uses transceivers, but there is an active market for pure radio receivers, which are mainly used by shortwave listening operators.


title: Transceiver

text: Analog transceivers use frequency modulation to send and receive data. Although this technique limits the complexity of the data that can be broadcast, analog transceivers operate very reliably and are used in many emergency communication systems. They are also cheaper than digital transceivers, which makes them popular with the CB and HAM radio communities.


title: Transceiver

text: Digital transceivers send and receive binary data over radio waves. This allows more types of data to be broadcast, including video and encrypted communication, which is commonly used by police and fire departments. Digital transmissions tend to be clearer and more detailed than their analog counterparts. Many modern wireless devices operate on digital transmissions.


title: Transceiver

text: In a wired telephone, the handset contains the transmitter (for speaking) and receiver (for listening). Despite being able to transmit and receive data, the whole unit is colloquially referred to as a "receiver". On a mobile telephone or other radiotelephone, the entire unit is a transceiver for both audio and radio.


title: Transceiver

text: A cordless telephone uses an audio and radio transceiver for the handset, and a radio transceiver for the base station. If a speakerphone is included in a wired telephone base or in a cordless base station, the base also becomes an audio transceiver.


title: Transceiver

text: A modem is similar to a transceiver in that it sends and receives a signal, but a modem uses modulation and demodulation. It modulates the signal being transmitted and demodulates the signal being received.


title: Transceiver

text: Transceivers are called Medium Attachment Units (MAUs) in IEEE 802.3 documents and were widely used in 10BASE2 and 10BASE5 Ethernet networks. Fiber-optic gigabit, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, 40 Gigabit Ethernet, and 100 Gigabit Ethernet utilize GBIC, SFP, SFP+, QSFP, XFP, XAUI, CXP, and CFP transceiver systems.


title: Transceiver

text: Because transceivers are capable of broadcasting information over airwaves, they are required to adhere to various regulations. In the United


title: Transceiver

text: States, the Federal Communications Commission oversees their use. Transceivers must meet certain standards and capabilities depending on their intended use, and manufacturers must comply with these requirements. However, transceivers can be modified by users to violate FCC regulations. For instance, they might be used to broadcast on a frequency or channel that they should not have access to. For this reason, the FCC monitors not only the production but also the use of these devices.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Ezra Taft Benson (August 4, 1899 – May 30, 1994) was an American farmer, government official, and religious leader who served as the 15th United States Secretary of Agriculture during both presidential terms of Dwight D. Eisenhower and as the 13th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1985 until his death in 1994.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Born on a farm in Whitney, Idaho, Benson was the oldest of eleven children. He was the great-grandson of Ezra T. Benson, who was appointed by Brigham Young to be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1846. When he was 12 years old, his father was called as a missionary to the midwestern United States, leaving his expectant mother alone with seven children. Benson took much of the responsibility for running the family farm and in the words of his sister, "He took the place of father for nearly two years." Benson began his academic career at Utah State Agricultural College (USAC, modern Utah State University), where he first met his future wife, Flora Smith Amussen. Benson alternated quarters at USAC and worked on the family farm.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Benson served an LDS Church mission in Britain from 1921 to 1923. It was while serving as a missionary, particularly an experience in Sheffield, that caused Benson to realize how central the Book of Mormon was to the message of the church and in converting people to it. Due to local antagonism and threats of violence, LDS Church leaders sent apostle David O. McKay to personally oversee the mission. McKay was impressed with Benson and appointed him as president of the Newcastle Conference.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: After his mission, Benson studied at Brigham Young University and finished his bachelor's degree there in 1926. That year he married Flora Smith Amussen, shortly after her return from a mission in Hawaii. They had six children together. Benson received a master of science degree in agricultural economics in 1927 from Iowa State University. Several years later, he did preliminary work on a doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley, but never completed it.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Just after receiving his master's degree, Benson returned to Whitney to run the family farm. He later became the county agriculture extension agent for Oneida County, Idaho. He later was promoted to the supervisor of all county agents and moved to Boise in 1930. Benson encouraged crop rotation, improved grains, fertilizers, pest controls, and establishment of farmer's cooperatives to market farm commodities.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: While in Boise, Benson also worked in the central state extension office connected with the University of Idaho Extension Service. He also founded a farmers cooperative. Benson was superintendent of the Boise Stake Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association and later a counselor in the stake presidency. Benson was a critic of national agricultural policies implemented in the 1930s under Franklin D. Roosevelt. In particular, he objected to farm subsidies, and efforts by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to raise prices by paying farmers to destroy crops and kill livestock.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: In 1939, he became president of the Boise Idaho Stake. Later that year, he moved to Washington, D.C., to become Executive Secretary of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, overseeing around five thousand farm cooperatives which represented two million farmers throughout the country.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: In 1943, Benson went to Salt Lake City to ask church leaders for advice on whether to accept a new job. They unexpectedly told him that he would join them. On October 7, 1943, both Benson and Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) became members of the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, filling two vacancies created by the deaths of apostles that summer. Because Kimball was ordained first, he was given seniority over Benson in the Quorum. Upon Kimball's death in 1985, Benson became the church's next president.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: In 1946, the First Presidency sent Benson to Europe to oversee the church's relief efforts after World War II. He spent eleven months there, traveling 61,000 miles and supervising two thousand tons of relief supplies, including to Germany and Poland. Recalling this experience, he wrote to his wife, "I'm so grateful you and the children can be spared the views of the terrible ravages of war. I fear I'll never be able to erase them from my memory." Apostle Gordon B. Hinckley noted of Benson's experience in Europe, "I am confident that it was out of what he saw of the bitter fruit of dictatorship that he developed his strong feelings, almost hatred, for communism and socialism."


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: On April 25, 1950 Benson was married vicariously to his never married and recently deceased cousin, Eva Amanda Benson, with his wife standing in as proxy.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Benson's teachings as an apostle were the 2015 course of study in the LDS Church's Sunday Relief Society and Melchizedek priesthood classes.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: In 1948, Republican presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey approached Benson before the election that year about becoming the United States Secretary of Agriculture. Although Benson had supported his distant cousin Robert A. Taft over Dwight D. Eisenhower for the 1952 Republican nomination and did not know Eisenhower, after his election Eisenhower nevertheless appointed Benson as Secretary of Agriculture. Benson accepted with the permission and encouragement of church president David O. McKay; Benson therefore served simultaneously in the United States Cabinet and in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He became the first clergy member to be a cabinet secretary since Edward Everett in 1852, which created some controversy as crossing a boundary between church and state. The American Council of Churches opposed Benson for being a member of what they felt was a "pagan religion...hostile to the Biblical evangelical Christian faith."


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: At the time of assuming office, the Department of Agriculture had 78,000 employees and an annual budget of $2.1 billion dollars.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Benson opposed the system of government price supports and aid to farmers which he was entrusted by Eisenhower to administer, arguing that it amounted to unacceptable socialism. Furthermore, farming in the United States was increasingly becoming large scale agribusiness at the expense of the small farmer, and Benson was opposed to outsized portions of these government subsidies being apportioned to these large companies. He was once pelted with eggs by a group of South Dakota farmers over his efforts to reduce price controls. Another time, 21 congressman from the midwest stormed his office requesting he not lift price controls on hogs, which he refused to do, and later noted that the prices rose on their own. Nonetheless, he served in his cabinet position for all eight years of Eisenhower's presidency. He was selected as the administrator-designate of the Emergency Food Agency, part of a secret group that became known as the Eisenhower Ten. The group was created by Eisenhower in 1958 to serve in the event of a national emergency.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: As Benson's term came to an end in 1961, farm commodity prices had risen 10% from the previous year, and Benson's popularity increased.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: In 1968, the John Birch Society (JBS) made an effort to nominate Benson as a presidential candidate, with segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond as Vice President, for which Benson sought and obtained approval from LDS Church president David O. McKay. Several months later, Benson flew to Alabama to meet with segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace, who asked Benson to become his vice presidential running mate for the presidency. This time McKay refused Benson's request, even after Wallace himself wrote to McKay.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Benson's interest in politics could be seen in the subjects he chose for his biannual addresses at general conference. Three-quarters of Benson's 20 sermons at general conference during the 1960s were on a political theme. In addition, Benson gave hundreds of other talks discussing Communism and how to combat it.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: In August 1989, Benson received the Presidential Citizens Medal from U.S. President George H. W. Bush.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Benson was an outspoken opponent of communism and socialism, and a strong supporter, but not an official member, of the JBS, which he praised as "the most effective non-church organization in our fight against creeping socialism and Godless Communism." Benson requested permission of church president McKay to join the JBS and sit on its board, but the request was denied. Benson was a close friend with the JBS founder, Robert W. Welch Jr., exchanging dozens of letters, and many hours in person discussing politics. When Nikita Khrushchev came in September 1959 to the USA, Benson opposed his visit. From the 1950s to the 1980s, his public support of anti-communism often put him at odds with other leaders of the LDS Church. In 1960, Benson made a proposition to Brigham Young University president Ernest L. Wilkinson that his son, Reed Benson, be used as a spy to "find out who the orthodox teachers were and report to his father." Wilkinson declined the offer, stating "neither Brother Lee nor I want espionage of that character." Later in the 1960s and 1970s, members and advocates of the Birch Society did conduct espionage at BYU.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: In October 1961 general conference, Benson said, "No true Latter-day Saint and no true American can be a socialist or a communist or support programs leading in that direction." This, and similar statements by Benson in the December "Church News" led Hugh B. Brown, a politically liberal member of the church's First Presidency, to begin publicly and privately push back against Benson. In the April 1962 general conference, Brown said, "The degree of a man's aversion to communism may not always be measured by the noise he makes in going about and calling everyone a communist who disagrees with his personal political bias. ... There is no excuse for members of this Church, especially men who hold the priesthood, to be opposing one another over communism."


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: In October 1962, Benson formally endorsed the JBS, as his son, Reed, accepted a leadership role in the society. Reed Benson had been using LDS Church meetinghouses for JBS meetings, a move that angered both Brown and first counselor Henry D. Moyle, who believed it violated the LDS Church's policy of political neutrality. Brown wrote in a letter shortly after the endorsement that he was "disgusted" and if Ezra Taft Benson continued his JBS activities that "some disciplinary action should be taken." In January 1963, the First Presidency issued a statement, "We deplore the presumption of some politicians, especially officers, coordinators and members of the John Birch Society, who undertake to align the Church or its leadership with their political views." Three days later, Benson spoke at a JBS-endorsed political rally, reported by several newspapers as purposefully ignoring the First Presidency statement, and embarrassing to the LDS Church. In February 1963, the JBS asked its members to "write to President McKay," with the suggested verbiage to praise "the great service Ezra Taft Benson and his son, Reed (our Utah Coordinator), are rendering to this battle, with the hope that they will be encouraged to continue." That same month, Benson gave a copy of his book, "The Red Carpet: A Forthright Evaluation of the Rising Tide of Socialism – the Royal Road to Communism," to newly called apostle N. Eldon Tanner, who was a Democrat, and had been a Canadian politician in the Alberta Social Credit Party.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: In 1963, the First Presidency sent Benson to Europe to preside over the missionary work there. Some, including the "New York Times", interpreted this move as an "exile" after Benson's virtual endorsement of the JBS in general conference. McKay publicly denied that the assignment was an exile or a rebuke, but other church leaders, including Joseph Fielding Smith, indicated that a purpose in sending Benson to Europe was to break his ties with the JBS.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Benson published a 1966 pamphlet entitled "Civil Rights, Tool of Communist Deception". In a similar vein, during a 1972 general conference, Benson recommended that all church members read Gary Allen's New World Order tract "None Dare Call It a Conspiracy". U.S. Representative Ralph R. Harding, during a speech in Congress, accused Benson of being "a spokesperson for the radical right" and using his apostleship to give the impression that the church "approve[d] of" the JBS. Eisenhower endorsed Harding's criticism of Benson.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Benson viewed the civil rights movement as having been infiltrated with communists, who were using the movement to steer the United States towards communist policies. In his October 1967 conference address, Benson summed up his oft-repeated views, "Now there is nothing wrong with civil rights; it is what's being done in the name of civil rights that is alarming. There is no doubt the so-called civil rights movement as it exists today is used as a Communist program for revolution in America just as agrarian reform was used by the Communists to take over China and Cuba."


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: In 1967, Benson asked McKay for permission to speak on "how the Communists are using the Negros to ... foment trouble in the United States". While McKay allowed Benson to speak on this subject, other church apostles were opposed to Benson's positions. (McKay did occasionally take action to limit Benson's use of the church to promote the JBS, such as when he deleted a couple of paragraphs from Benson's 1965 conference address after a complaint from Brown.) When Joseph Fielding Smith became church president in 1970, Benson was no longer given permission to promote his political opinions.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Also in 1967, Benson gave a talk discussing his views on the civil rights movement at the anti-Communist/segregationist leadership school of Billy James Hargis, who published it in his "Christian Crusade" magazine. Benson approved this talk to be used as the foreword to the book "The Black Hammer: A Study of Black Power, Red Influence and White Alternatives", which the Southern Poverty Law Center has classified as "racist". This book features a decapitated and bleeding African-American head, being used at the end of a hammer in the Communist hammer and sickle, illustrating the books theme that the civil rights movement was being used as a tool by communists. Historian D. Michael Quinn speculates that the endorsement of this book by Benson may have been an attempt to curry favor with segregationist George Wallace, who several months later asked Benson to be his vice presidential running mate for his 1968 campaign.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Benson succeeded Kimball as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1973, and as church president in 1985. Benson retained Gordon B. Hinckley, who had been Kimball's second counselor, as his first counselor and chose Thomas S. Monson as his second counselor. Despite speculation, Benson did not discuss politics during his tenure as president, and instead focused on spiritual messages. During his early years as church president, Benson brought a renewed emphasis to the distribution and reading of the Book of Mormon, reaffirming this LDS scripture's importance as "the keystone of [the LDS] religion." After his challenge to the membership to "flood the earth with the Book of Mormon", the church sold a record six million copies that year to its membership for distribution. He is also remembered for a general conference sermon condemning pride, which relied heavily upon C. S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity". In the priesthood session of the church's April 1988 General Conference, Benson specifically addressed the single adult men of the church, encouraging them to examine their direction in life and align themselves with the priorities of Christian discipleship, including marriage and family responsibilities.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Benson was a lifelong supporter of Scouting. He started in 1918 as assistant Scoutmaster. On May 23, 1949, he was elected a member of the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America. He received the three highest national awards in the Boy Scouts of Americathe Silver Beaver, the Silver Antelope, and the Silver Buffaloas well as world Scouting's international award, the Bronze Wolf.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Benson suffered poor health in the last years of his life from the effects of blood clots in the brain, dementia, strokes, and heart attacks, and was rarely seen publicly in his final years. He was ultimately rendered unable to speak due to the strokes he suffered. One of Benson's last appearances during which he spoke was at his 90th birthday celebration in 1989. Benson made his final public appearance at the funeral of his wife Flora in 1992. He was hospitalized in 1992 and 1993 with pneumonia.


title: Ezra Taft Benson

text: Benson died May 30, 1994, of congestive heart failure in his Salt Lake City apartment, slightly more than two months before his 95th birthday. Funeral services were held June 4, 1994, in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and were conducted by Hinckley. Benson was buried near his birthplace in Whitney, Idaho, at the Whitney City Cemetery. Following Benson's funeral, Howard W. Hunter succeeded him as church president.


title: Desi daru

text: Desi Daaru (), also known as Country Liquor or Indian-made Indian liquor (IMIL) is a category of liquor made in the countryside of the Indian subcontinent. They are traditionally prepared by a procedure that has been passed down for centuries. Due to cheap prices, country liquor is the most popular alcoholic beverage among the impoverished people. It is fermented and distilled from molasses, a by product of sugarcane. Desi liquor is a broad term and it can include both legally and illegally made local alcohol. The term "desi daru" usually refers to legal alcohol while other types of country liquor (arrack and palm toddy) may be categorised as moonshine alcohol.


title: Desi daru

text: The term "desi", from Hindi language term "desh" (country or region), which is generally an endonym for the "compatriot" or "local" is often applied to food or drink that is considered traditional or native. Dārū (Hindi दारू and Urdu دارو) is a Persian-derived term used for any alcoholic beverage in India. Śarāb (Hindi शराब and Urdu شراب) is another Persian-derived equivalent and is used in some areas with less frequency.


title: Desi daru

text: An article in the medical journal "The Lancet" estimated that nearly two-thirds of the alcohol consumed in India is country liquor. "Globus spirits" mentioned that India's country liquor market is about 242 million cases (over 30% of the beverage industry in India) with a growth rate of about 7% per annum. No data regarding Pakistan is available as drinking alcohol is officially prohibited for Muslims in Pakistan, although locally made liquor is sold on the black market.


title: Desi daru

text: Government regulation provide for a separate licensing for production, distribution and retailing of country liquor (IMIL) as opposed to Indian-made foreign liquor.


title: Desi daru

text: Country liquor, being the cheapest alcohol in India, is the mainstay alcoholic beverage for the rural population and urban poor. In rural areas, illicit country liquor has been blamed for domestic violence and poverty in the family. There have been several protests against country liquor shops/bars in villages.


title: Desi daru

text: As country liquor is cheaper than other spirits, there have been reports of mixing country liquor with Scotch/English whisky in many bars in India.


title: Desi daru

text: If care is not taken in the distillation process and the proper equipment is not used, harmful impurities such as fusel alcohols, lead from plumbing solder, and methanol can be concentrated to toxic levels. Several deaths have been reported in India and Pakistan due to consumption of non-factory made toxic liquor.


title: Mac App Store

text: The App Store (also known as the Mac App Store) is a digital distribution platform for macOS apps, often referred to as Mac apps, created and maintained by Apple Inc. The platform was announced on October 20, 2010, at Apple's "Back to the Mac" event. Apple began accepting app submissions from registered developers on November 3, 2010, in preparation for its launch.


title: Mac App Store

text: The Mac App Store was launched on January 6, 2011, as part of the free Mac OS X 10.6.6 update for all current Snow Leopard users. After 24 hours of release, Apple announced that there were over one million downloads.


title: Mac App Store

text: To submit an app for consideration, the developer must be a member of the Apple Developer Program. As of June 2019, the membership fee is US$99 a year.


title: Mac App Store

text: Apps must be approved by Apple before becoming available on the store. Disallowed types of apps revealed by Apple include apps that:


title: Mac App Store

text: As with the iOS and iPadOS App Store, Apple rates applications worldwide based on their content, and determines the age group for which each is appropriate. macOS will allow blocking of objectionable apps in System Settings. The following are the ratings that Apple has detailed:


title: Mac App Store

text: Since the opening of the Mac App Store, Apple has increasingly used it as the primary means of distribution of its own in-house software products at the expense of boxed versions being sold at its retail stores. This position was increased with the July 2011 release of OS X Lion, which was the first release of OS X not sold in the form of DVD boxes. This method limited the reach of distribution of the operating system to those who currently use Mac OS X 10.6.6+, although other means offered by Apple after the release included a USB flash drive containing the operating system and a digital in-store download of the operating system through Apple Store locations. Starting from OS X Mountain Lion, Apple's operating systems can only be downloaded from the Mac App Store.


title: Mac App Store

text: This has also affected Apple's prior means of distribution through its own website, with the Downloads gallery being removed in July 2011 and replaced with links to the Mac App Store information page. However, it has not affected the Dashboard widget gallery, nor has it affected the Safari Extensions gallery, both of which remain online and web-based (however, in Safari 12, the old kind of extensions was deprecated and replaced by the new, more safe, one, available exclusively on the Mac App Store). Apple Support Download section also remains online, as it provides mostly security updates for current and older software applications and operating systems, many dating back to before 1998.


title: Mac App Store

text: Not long after independent game developer Wolfire Games placed its game, "Lugaru", on the Mac App Store, as "Lugaru HD" for $9.99, the developer noticed a counterfeit copy of their game also being sold on the App Store for US$0.99. The developer contacted Apple on January 31, 2011, and on February 10, 2011, the counterfeit copy of the game was removed from the App Store.


title: Mac App Store

text: A number of news sites have remarked that for all the scrutiny Apple places on apps listed in their store, a counterfeit copy of an existing app should not have made it through the process, and the days it had been since the developer had alerted Apple to the counterfeit software is disconcerting to developers.


title: Mac App Store

text: The Mac App Store launched with over 1000 apps on January 6, 2011, including Apple's own iWork '09, iLife '11, Aperture, and third-party applications ported from iOS, such as Angry Birds, Flight Control, Things and Twitter for Mac. Most of the apps belonged to the Games category, which had nearly three times as many apps in the next largest category, Utilities. The most common price point was $20–50. "Angry Birds", a popular video game on iOS App Store, was the number one paid app on the Mac App Store on the first day.


title: Mac App Store

text: An update to the Mac App Store for OS X Mountain Lion introduced an Easter egg in which, if one downloads an app from the Mac App Store and goes to one's app folder before the app has finished downloading, one will see the app's timestamp as "January 24, 1984, at 2:00 AM," the date the original Macintosh went on sale. This is the first time an Easter egg has appeared in a piece of Apple software since Steve Jobs had declared a ban on Easter eggs when he returned to Apple in 1997.


title: Mac App Store

text: On November 11, 2015, a number of apps purchased through the Mac App Store began to fail at launch. Users worldwide got error messages and were forced to delete and re-download affected apps. It was discovered the next day by Tapbots developer Paul Haddad that the issue had to do with an expired security certificate. On November 17, Apple sent an email with explanations to developers. The company stated that most of the issues were resolved and that troubleshooting information was provided to the AppleCare support team.


title: Mac App Store

text: On December 17, 2015, responsibility for overseeing App Store was given to Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. Previously App Store was led by Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services.


title: Mac App Store

text: On January 1, 2018, Apple announced it was no longer accepting 32-bit apps on the Mac App Store, while existing 32-bit apps on the App Store must be updated to fit the 64-bit architecture by June 1, 2018.


title: Mac App Store

text: On June 4, 2018, Apple announced that a new version of the App Store would be included in macOS Mojave.


title: Te3n

text: Teen (stylised as Te3n; ) is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language mystery thriller film written and directed by Ribhu Dasgupta. This remake of the 2013 South Korean film "Montage" stars Amitabh Bachchan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Padmavati Rao, and Vidya Balan in the lead roles. It was released on 10 June 2016. The film was a commercial failure at the box office.


title: Te3n

text: John Biswas (Amitabh Bachchan) is a 70-year-old grandfather who visits the police station regularly. He is desperate to find the kidnapper and murderer of his granddaughter Angela, who died eight years ago. Police inspector Sarita Sarkar (Vidya Balan) has no clues about the case. But she continues to search for the person who caused it, despite being discouraged by people all around her and collects evidence one by one at a slow pace.


title: Te3n

text: John's wife Nancy (Padmavati Rao) is sick and uses a wheelchair. Despite personal problems, John is determined not to give up. John also regularly meets Father Martin Das (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), who was a police inspector and was handling the Angela kidnapping case. Father Martin Das tries his best in solving the case, but the guilt of being unsuccessful compelled him to leave his job and become a priest.


title: Te3n

text: One day, eight years after that tragic incident, there is another kidnapping, that of a boy named Rony. Everything about it echoes the kidnapping of Angela. Further investigation reveals that the modus operandi for kidnapping Rony is the same as that of Angela. Inspector Sarita requests Father Martin for assistance in cracking the case. Martin supports partially by providing clues and Sarita, with John, start investigating the case.


title: Te3n

text: Since the modus operandi was the same, Angela's case file is re-opened. Rony's grandfather, Manohar (Sabyasachi Chakraborty) is arrested when he tries to flee with the ransom at the railway station. Sarita interrogates him in the lock-up, but he says he was acting under the instructions of the real kidnapper.


title: Te3n

text: In the meantime, John doggedly pieces together the identity of Angela's kidnapper from little bits of information that he collects through his own investigations. It is eventually revealed that these scenes take place before Rony's kidnapping, as John discovers that Manohar was the one who had kidnapped Angela and subsequently creates a plan to kidnap Rony to seek revenge and justice.


title: Te3n

text: Father Martin finds out that John kidnapped Rony and confronts him. John requests Martin to arrange a meeting with Manohar. During the meeting, John makes Manohar confess to his crimes. Manohar explains that he kidnapped Angela to pay for his daughter's open heart surgery.


title: Te3n

text: It is revealed that Angela was not murdered — while being held captive, she escaped and accidentally fell from a height on to a moving car and died. The car was driven by Father Martin Das, who was injured in the accident.


title: Te3n

text: Shooting started on 24 November 2015 with Vidya Balan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui at Writers' Building, Kolkata. It is the first Hindi film for which the doors of the Victorian-era Writers' Building were opened for shooting. Many parts of the movie were also shot in the historic heritage site of St. Paul's Cathedral, Kolkata. Actor Amitabh Bachchan was reported to join the crew on 27 November 2015. The movie was shot in Kolkata. Shooting wrapped up on 31 January 2016.


title: Te3n

text: In May 2016, Bachchan revealed that the rights of the 2013 South Korean movie had been officially purchased by Sujoy Ghosh.


title: Te3n

text: Clinton Cerejo composed the music and background score of the film while Amitabh Bhattacharya wrote the lyrics. The audio album of the movie was released on 27 May which was accompanied by a live performance by Vishal Dadlani on the song "Grahan". The album consists of five tracks sung by Clinton Cerejo, Vishal Dadlani, Benny Dayal, Divya Kumar and Bianca Gomes.


title: Te3n

text: Amitabh Bachchan recorded a version of song "Kyun Re" for the film. The song depicts the pain of a grandpa who has lost his granddaughter. The music rights were acquired by T-Series.


title: Te3n

text: The film released in about 373 screens in various countries with about 93 screens in USA, 80 in UAE, 51 in Pakistan, 30 in UK, 20 in Kenya, 17 in Australia, 15 in Tanzania, 12 in Canada, over 9 screens in Malaysia and other countries.


title: Pixel 3a

text: The Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL are a pair of Android smartphones designed, developed, and marketed by Google as part of the Google Pixel product line. They collectively serve as mid-range variants of the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL. They were officially announced on May 7, 2019 at Google I/O, seven months after the announcement of the original Pixel 3 lineup, and were released on the same day. On August 3, 2020, it was succeeded by the Pixel 4a.


title: Pixel 3a

text: The Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL come in three colors: 'Just Black' (all black), 'Clearly White' (white with an orange power button), and 'Purple-ish' (lavender, with a neon yellow power button). Both the Pixel 3a and the Pixel 3a XL resemble the smaller Pixel 3, following criticism of the Pixel 3 XL's notch. They look similar to their more expensive counterparts, but both have a polycarbonate unibody construction and Asahi Dragontrail glass, rather than Corning Gorilla Glass which is used on most other smartphones.


title: Pixel 3a

text: The Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL come with the Snapdragon 670 chip and 4GB of RAM, with 64GB of non-expandable eMMC internal storage. Both phones lack wireless charging, water resistance and the Pixel Visual Core (PVC), all of which are standard on the Pixel 3. They feature stereo speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack, the latter of which was omitted on the Pixel 2 and Pixel 3. Unlike the Pixel 2 and Pixel 3, only one of the speakers is front-firing, with the other speaker on the bottom. A USB-C port is used on both for charging and connecting other accessories. Both phones also have Active Edge, where squeezing the sides of the phone activates Google Assistant, which debuted with the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.


title: Pixel 3a

text: The Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL have a 12.2 megapixel rear camera, which is the same unit found on the Pixel 3, and a single 8 megapixel front-facing camera, lacking the second wide-angle sensor. They feature many of the same photography features as the Pixel 3. Some of these features of Google Camera include:


title: Pixel 3a

text: The Pixel 3a's Google Photos capabilities are more restrictive than the Pixel 3, being limited to free "high quality" backups; full resolution images and videos count towards the Google Drive quota.


title: Pixel 3a

text: The Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL were updated bringing several features from the Pixel 4 including: Live captions, Google Recorder, New Google Assistant, Astrophotography mode and Top Shot for short videos.


title: Pixel 3a

text: The Pixel 3a's camera quality was highly praised, more so considering the device's price point, with Tom's Guide calling it "the new midrange benchmark" for cameras. Tom's Guide gave the Pixel 3a an Editor's Choice award and a rating of 4.5/5, concluding that it "has far and away the best camera, software and display you could ever hope to get in a $400 phone". The Verge was similarly positive, giving both the 3a and the 3a XL an 8/10, stating that "[it] takes photos that are nearly indistinguishable from what you get out of a Pixel 3". The battery life and build quality were praised as well, while reviewers were critical of the slower processor and lack of wireless charging and water resistance.


title: Pixel 3a

text: The 3a received an overall score of 101 from DxOMark (matching the iPhone XR and 1 point short of the Pixel 3), with a photo score of 103 and a video score of 98.


title: The Crying Boy

text: The Crying Boy is a mass-produced print of a painting by Italian painter Giovanni Bragolin (1911–1981). This was the pen-name of the painter Bruno Amarillo. It was widely distributed from the 1950s onwards.


title: The Crying Boy

text: There are numerous alternative versions, all portraits of tearful young boys or girls. In addition to being widely known, certain urban legends attribute a 'curse' to the painting.


title: The Crying Boy

text: On 5 September 1985, the British tabloid newspaper "The Sun" reported that an Essex firefighter claimed that undamaged copies of the painting were frequently found amidst the ruins of burned houses. By the end of November, belief in the painting's curse was widespread enough that "The Sun" was organising mass bonfires of the paintings, sent in by readers.


title: The Crying Boy

text: Steve Punt, a British writer and comedian, investigated the curse in a BBC Radio 4 production called "Punt PI". The conclusion reached by the programme, following testing at the Building Research Establishment, is that the prints were treated with a varnish containing fire retardant, and that the string holding the painting to the wall would be the first to deteriorate, resulting in the painting landing face down on the floor and thus being protected.


title: The Crying Boy

text: David Clarke, investigative journalist, says that stories naming the child as Don Bonillo or Diablo did not emerge until 2000 in a book by Tom Slemen. They relate the child to several fires including the painter's studio. However, he says that "there is absolutely no truth whatsoever to any of that."


title: Supermarine Spitfire (Griffon-powered variants)

text: The Rolls-Royce Griffon engine was designed in answer to Royal Navy specifications for an engine capable of generating good power at low altitudes. Concepts for adapting the Spitfire to take the new engine had begun as far back as October 1939; Joseph Smith felt that "The good big 'un will eventually beat the good little 'un." and Ernest Hives of Rolls-Royce thought that the Griffon would be "a second power string for the Spitfire". The first of the Griffon-engined Spitfires flew on 27 November 1941.


text: Although the Griffon-engined Spitfires were never produced in the large numbers of the Merlin-engined variants they were an important part of the Spitfire family, and in their later versions kept the Spitfire at the forefront of piston-engined fighter development. This article describes the Griffon-powered Spitfire variants.


text: The majority of Spitfires from the Mk VIII used C, D and E wing types. Unless otherwise noted, all Griffon-engined Spitfire variants used the strengthened Dunlop AH10019 "four spoke" pattern mainwheels. With the increasing use of hard-surfaced runways in the post-war years, many Spitfires were either manufactured or re-fitted with, larger mainwheels which were of a "three spoke" pattern. These were used on modified undercarriage legs which had reduced "toe-in" for the axles, which reduced tyre scrub.


text: Also known as the "Universal wing" the new design was standard on the majority of Spitfires built from mid-1942. This wing was structurally modified to reduce labour and manufacturing time plus it was designed to allow mixed armament options, A type, B type or four 20 mm Hispano cannon.


text: The undercarriage mountings were redesigned and the undercarriage doors were bowed in cross section allowing the legs to sit lower in the wells, eliminating the upper-wing blisters over the wheel wells and landing gear pivot points. Stronger undercarriage legs were raked 2 inches (5.08 cm) forward, making the Spitfire more stable on the ground and reducing the likelihood of the aircraft tipping onto its nose. During production of the Mk VIII and Mk IX, a new undercarriage leg was introduced which had external v-shaped "scissor-links" fitted to the front of the leg; this also led to small changes in the shape of the undercarriage bay and leg fairings. Several versions of the Spitfire, including Mk XIV and Mk XVIII had extra 13 gallon integral fuel tanks in the wing leading edges, between the wing-root and the inboard cannon bay.


text: The Hispano Mk.II cannons were now belt fed from box magazines allowing for 120 rpg (the system). The fairings over the Hispano barrels were shorter and there was usually a short rubber stub covering the outer cannon port. Redesigned upper wing gun bay doors incorporated "teardrop" shaped blisters to clear the cannon feed motors and the lower wings no longer had the gun bay heating vents outboard of the gunbays. To provide room for the belt feed system of the cannon, the inner machine gun bays were moved outboard between ribs 13 and 14. As the Spitfire was no longer to be used as a night fighter, the retractable landing lights were no longer fitted.


text: These were specifically made for the Photo-Reconnaissance Spitfires, including the PR XIX; no armament was fitted and the "D" shaped leading edges of the wings ahead of the main spar, were converted into integral fuel tanks, each carrying 66 gallons. To avoid the expansion of fuel in hot weather damaging the wing, pressure relief valves, incorporating small external vent pipes, were fitted near the wing tips.


text: Structurally unchanged from the C wing, the outer machine gun ports were eliminated, although the outer machine gun bays were retained and their access doors were devoid of empty cartridge case ports and cartridge case deflectors. The inner gun bays allowed for two weapon fits;


text: The 20 mm Hispano cannon were moved outboard and a more effective .50 calibre Browning .50 cal M2/AN heavy machine gun with 250 rpg was added to the inner gun-bay replacing the outer Browning .303s. The first trial installation of the installation (modification 1029) was made in "BS118", a Mark XI in November 1943. This armament later became standard for all Spitfire Mk XIVs used by 2 TAF as fighters. The improved armament was more effective for both air-to-air engagements and air-to-ground attacks.


text: The Mk XII flew operationally with their rounded wingtips replaced by shorter, squared off fairings; the single-stage supercharger of the Griffon II or IV used in the Mk XIIs meant that it was rated and used as a low altitude fighter and the LF prefix used by Merlin-powered Spitfires was never applied.


text: Starting in early 1945 most Spitfire Mk XIVs also used clipped wing tips, mainly to reduce wrinkling of the wing's skin; again the LF prefix was not applied to these aircraft.


text: As the Spitfire gained more power and was able to fly at greater speeds the risk of aileron reversal was increasing so the Supermarine design team set about redesigning the wings to counter this possibility. The original wing design had a "theoretical" aileron-reversal speed of , which was somewhat lower than that of some contemporary fighters. The new wing of the Spitfire F Mk 21 and its successors was designed to help alleviate this problem; the wing's stiffness was increased by 47 per cent and a new design of aileron using piano hinges and geared trim tabs meant the theoretical aileron-reversal speed was increased to . This wing entered service on the Spitfire XXI. The standard armament was now four 20mm Hispano IIs or the shorter, lighter Hispano V cannons, each with 150 rounds per gun.


text: The Mark numbers used in the aircraft designations did not necessarily indicate a "chronological" order; for example, the Mk IX was a stopgap measure brought into production "before" the Mks VII and VIII. Some Spitfires of one mark or variant may have been modified to another; for example, several of the first Mk Vbs were converted from Mk Ibs; the first Mk IXs were originally Mk Vcs.


text: Up until the end of 1942, the RAF always used Roman numerals for mark numbers. From 1943–1948, new aircraft entering service were given Arabic numerals for mark numbers but older aircraft retained their Roman numerals. From 1948, Arabic numerals were used exclusively. Thus, the Spitfire PR Mk XIX became the PR 19 after 1948. This article adopts the convention of using Roman numerals for the Mks I–XX and Arabic numerals for the Mks 21–24. "Type numbers" (such as type 361) are the drawing board design numbers allocated by Supermarine.


text: On 4 December 1939, the Supermarine design staff produced a brochure which mooted the idea of converting the Spitfire to use the Rolls-Royce Griffon engine. A top speed of 423 mph (681 km/h) at 18,500 ft (5,639 m) was predicted. However, constant problems with the development of the Griffon meant that the decision to proceed with building a Spitfire with this engine didn't come to fruition until 1942, with the successful flight trials of the Mk IV.


text: The Griffon IIB which powered the Mk IV was a single-stage supercharged engine of 1,735 hp (1,293 kW). Stronger main longerons were needed to cope with the weight of the Griffon and it required a bigger radiator and oil cooler, although it kept the asymmetric under-wing radiator layout of the single stage Merlin marks. The new engine had a lower thrust-line than the Merlin and was set with 2 degrees of downthrust. The lower thrust line and larger capacity of the new engine meant that the contours of the engine cowling were completely changed, with more prominent blisters over the cylinder heads, plus a third tear-drop shaped blister on the upper forward cowling to clear the magneto, and a deeper curve down to the spinner, which was much longer than previous types. The lower cowling lost its "pigeon-chested" appearance, with a shallower curve up to the spinner. A four blade Rotol propeller of 10 ft 5 in (3.1 m) was used. Apart from these differences the Mk IV airframe was closely related to that of the Merlin-powered Mk III. One feature of the Griffon engine which was to catch a lot of pilots out was that the propeller rotated in the opposite direction to that of the Merlin; i.e.,: to the left, from the pilot's perspective, rather than to the right. This meant that the powerful slipstream swung the Spitfire to the right on the ground, requiring the rudder to be deflected to the left during takeoff.


text: The Mark IV "DP845" first flew on 27 November 1941. It had the full-span C wing combined with a small tail unit and retractable tailwheel, and also had external bracket hinges under the wings, denoting the installation of braking flaps. These were soon removed and a mock up of a proposed six-cannon armament was fitted, three in each wing. The aircraft was soon renamed Mk XX, to avoid confusion with a renamed PR type, then it became the Mk XII.


text: Jeffrey Quill, Supermarine's chief test pilot, was the first to fly the Mk IV/Mk XII prototype "DP845",


text: The Mk XII was the first Spitfire powered by a Griffon engine to go into service. The first of 100 Supermarine-built production aircraft started appearing in October 1942; two RAF squadrons in total were equipped with the XII. Mk XIIs were manufactured from Mk Vc and Mk VIII airframes: early production aircraft had the fixed tail wheels, Dunlop AH2061 pattern "five spoke" mainwheels and small elevator balances. They had a single 85 gal main fuel tank, giving a short range of little over on internal fuel. All were fitted with the larger, pointed tip rudder. The last 45 or so Mk XIIs, were based on Mk VIIIs with two wing fuel tanks, each containing a maximum fuel load of 14 gal, and featured the larger horn balances, retractable tailwheel and undercarriage legs with torque-links, "dished" leg fairings and the stronger Dunlop AH10019 four spoke wheels. The wheels were occasionally fitted with disc-style covers. A later model IFF was fitted, replacing the aerials from the tailplane tip to fuselage with a rod aerial under the starboard wing. Another important feature of the Griffon-engine Spitfires was the entirely flush-riveted finish which was progressively introduced on all Spitfires.


text: The single-stage Griffon engine (II or IV) gave the aircraft superb low and medium level performance, although the Mk XII's performance declined at higher altitudes: because of this all production aircraft had "clipped" wings. In comparative tests with a Mk IX it was faster at sea level, but above it had become slower. Handling, however, was considered to be better than previous Spitfire marks, and the clipped wings conferred excellent manoeuvrability through enhanced aileron response.


text: At low altitude it was one of the fastest aircraft in the world; in one speed trial, held at Farnborough in July 1942 "DP485" (now referred to as the Mk XII) piloted by Jeffrey Quill raced ahead of a Hawker Typhoon and a captured Focke-Wulf Fw 190, contrary to expectations.


text: However pilots found it difficult to exploit this advantage in combat as German pilots were reluctant to be drawn into dogfights with Spitfires of any type below . When the Mk XII was able to engage in combat it was a formidable fighter and several Fw 190s and Bf 109Gs fell victim to it.


text: The Mk XII's speed advantage at lower altitudes again became useful near the end of its front line service in summer 1944, when its pilots were credited with 82.5 V-1 Flying Bomb kills. The Mk XII variant was retired in September 1944.


text: The first Griffon-powered Spitfires suffered from poor high altitude performance due to having only a single stage supercharged engine. By 1943, Rolls-Royce engineers had developed a new Griffon engine, the 61 series, with a two-stage supercharger. In the end it was a slightly modified engine, the 65 series, which was used in the Mk XIV. The resulting aircraft provided a substantial performance increase over the Mk IX. Although initially based on the Mk VIII airframe, common improvements made in aircraft produced later included the cut-back fuselage and tear-drop canopies, and the E-Type wing with improved armament.


text: The Mk XIV differed from the Mk XII in that the longer, two-stage supercharged Griffon 65, producing 2,050 hp (1,528 kW), was mounted 10 inches (25.4 cm) further forward. The top section of the engine bulkhead was angled forward, creating a distinctive change of angle to the upper cowling's rear edge. A new five bladed Rotol propeller of in diameter was used, although one prototype "JF321" was fitted with a six bladed contra rotating unit. The "fishtail" design of ejector exhaust stub gave way to ones of circular section. The increased cooling requirements of the Griffon engine meant that all radiators were much bigger and the underwing housings were deeper than previous versions.


text: The cowling fasteners were new, flush fitting "Amal" type and there were more of them. The oil tank (which had been moved from the lower cowling location of the Merlin engine variants to forward of the fuselage fuel tanks) was increased in capacity from 6 to 10 gal.


text: To help balance the new engine, the radio equipment was moved further back in the rear fuselage and the access hatch was moved from the left fuselage side to the right. Better VHF radio equipment allowed for the aerial mast to be removed and replaced by a "whip" aerial further aft on the fuselage spine. Because the longer nose and the increased slipstream of the big five-bladed propeller a new tail unit with a taller, broader fin and a rudder of increased area was adopted.


text: The first batch of aircraft to fly with the Griffon 60 series engines were six converted Mk VIIIs "JF316 to JF321" which were called Mk VIIIG. The first one of these was flown by Jeffrey Quill on 20 January 1943,


text: One prototype, "JF321", was fitted and tested with a Rotol six-bladed contra-rotating propeller unit; although this promised to eliminate the characteristic swing on take-off (caused by the propeller slipstream) the propeller unit was prone to failure. The pitch control mechanism controlled the pitch on the front propeller,


text: When the new fighter entered service with 610 Squadron in December 1943 it was a leap forward in the evolution of the Spitfire. Jeffrey Quill flew the first production aircraft, "RB140" in October 1943:


text: In operational service many pilots initially found that the new fighter could be difficult to handle, particularly if they were used to earlier Spitfire marks. Don Healy of 17 Squadron, based at Madura recalled that the Mk XIV was;


text: ...a hairy beast to fly and took some getting used to. I personally preferred the old Mk Vs from a flying standpoint ... Even with full aileron, elevator and rudder, this brute of a fighter took off slightly sideways.


text: In spite of the difficulties pilots appreciated the performance increases. Wing Commander Peter Brothers, O/C Culmhead Wing in 1944–1945 and a Battle of Britain veteran;


text: It was truly an impressive machine, being able to climb almost vertically – it gave many Luftwaffe pilots the shock of their lives when, having thought they had bounced you from a superior height, they were astonished to find the Mk XIV climbing up to tackle them head-on, throttle wide open!


text: F Mk XIVs had a total of 109.5 gal of fuel consisting of 84 gal in two main tanks and a 12.5 imp gal fuel tank in each leading edge wing tank; other 30, 45, 50 or 90 gal drop tanks could be carried. The fighter's maximum range was just a little over on internal fuel, since the new Griffon engine consumed much more fuel per hour than the original Merlin engine of earlier variants. By late 1944, Spitfire XIVs were fitted with an extra 33 gal in a rear fuselage fuel tank, extending the fighter's range to about on internal fuel and a 90 gal drop tank. Mk XIVs with "tear-drop" canopies had 64 gal. As a result, F and FR Mk XIVes had a range that was increased to over , or with a 90 gal drop tank.


text: The first test of the aircraft was in intercepting V1 flying bombs and the Mk XIV was the most successful of all Spitfire marks in this role. When 150 octane fuel was introduced in mid-1944 the "boost" of the Griffon engine was able to be increased to +25 lbs (80.7"), allowing the top speed to be increased by about to at .


text: The Mk XIV was used by the 2nd Tactical Air Force as their main high-altitude air superiority fighter in northern Europe with six squadrons operational by December 1944.


text: One problem which did arise in service was localised skin wrinkling on the wings and fuselage at load attachment points; although Supermarine advised that the Mk XIVs had not been seriously weakened, nor were they on the point of failure, the RAF issued instructions in early 1945 that all F and FR Mk XIVs were to be refitted with clipped wings.


text: Spitfire XIVs began to arrive in the South-East Asian Theatre in June 1945, too late to operate against the Japanese.


text: Late in 1944 a number of high-back full-span Mk XIVes were converted by the Forward Repair Unit (FRU) to have a single camera fitted, facing to port or starboard; a conversion identical to that used on the FRU-converted FR Mk IXc. To achieve this a new hatch, similar to the radio hatch on the port side, was installed on the starboard side, and both hatches were fitted with camera ports in streamlined blisters. Otherwise this version of the FR Mk XIVe was essentially the same as the standard aircraft. These field-converted aircraft were allocated to 430 squadron RCAF. Later, purpose-built conversions, also known as the FR Mk XIVe, had the later cut-down rear fuselage with its tear drop–shaped canopy, port and/or starboard camera ports (without blisters), and an additional rear fuel tank of 34 gallons which extended the Spitfire's range to about on internal fuel. Because it was used mainly at low altitudes the "production" FR Mk XIVe had clipped wingtips.


text: In total, 957 Mk XIVs were built, over 430 of which were FR Mk XIVs. After the war, second hand Mk XIVs were exported to a number of foreign air forces; 132 went to the Royal Belgian Air Force, 70 went to the Royal Indian Air Force and 30 of its reconnaissance variant went to the Royal Thai Air Force.


text: The mark numbers XV and XVII (15 and 17) were reserved for the naval version, the Seafire, in an effort to reconcile the Spitfire numbering scheme with that of the Seafire.


text: The Mk 18 was a refinement of the Mk XIV. It was identical in most respects including engine (the Griffon 65) and cockpit enhancements, but it carried extra fuel and had a revised, stronger wing structure. Its handling was also nearly identical and so it was not put through any performance tests. Like the Mk XIV there were fighter and fighter reconnaissance variants built.


text: The Mk 18 missed the war. It was built up until early 1946 but it was not until January 1947, that an RAF squadron, 60 Squadron which operated from RAF Seletar, Singapore, was re-equipped with the variant. Later, other squadrons in the Far East and Middle East would receive them. Some 300 F Mk 18s and FR Mk 18s were built, before production ended in early 1946. The Mk 18s saw little action apart from some involvement against guerrillas in the Malayan Emergency. The Royal Indian Air Force purchased 20 ex-RAF Mk 18s in 1947.


text: The Mk XIX was the last and most successful photographic reconnaissance variant of the Spitfire. It combined features of the Mk XI with the Griffon engine of the Mk XIV. After the first 25 (type 389s) were produced, later aircraft were also fitted with the pressurised cabin of the Mk X and the fuel capacity was increased to 256 gallons, three-and-a-half times that of the original Spitfire This version was the type 390.


text: The first Mk XIXs entered service in May 1944, and by the end of the war the type had virtually replaced the earlier Mk XI. A total of 225 were built with production ceasing in early 1946, but they were used in front line RAF service until April 1954.


text: In 1951, Hainan Island (People's Republic of China) was targeted at the behest of US Naval Intelligence for RAF overflights, using Spitfire PR Mk 19s based at Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong. The last operational sortie by a Mk 19 was in 1963 when one was used in battle trials against an English Electric Lightning to determine how best a Lightning should engage piston-engined aircraft. This information was needed in case RAF Lightnings might have to engage P-51 Mustangs in the Indonesian conflict of the time.


text: Mark XX was given to the original Mk IV Griffon engine prototype "DP845" to avoid confusion with the retitled Spitfire PR Mk IVs.


text: The second Mk XX, "DP851", initially had a Griffon II engine and made its first flight in August 1942. In December, it was refitted with a Griffon 61 and re-designated as a Mk 21 initial prototype.


text: By early 1942, it was evident that Spitfires powered by the new two-stage supercharged Griffon 61 engine would need a much stronger airframe and wings. The proposed new design was called the Mk 21, which at first displayed poor flight qualities that damaged the excellent Spitfire reputation. The wings were redesigned with a new structure and thicker-gauge light alloy skinning. The new wing was torsionally 47 per cent stiffer, allowing an increased theoretical aileron reversal speed of . The ailerons were 5 per cent larger and the Frise balanced type were dispensed with, the ailerons being attached by continuous piano-hinges. They were extended by eight inches, meaning that with a straighter trailing edge, the wings were not the same elliptical shape as previous Spitfires. The Mk 21 armament was standardised as four 20mm Hispano II cannon with 150 rpg and no machine guns.


text: The Griffon engine drove an -diameter five-bladed propeller, some larger than that fitted to the Mk XIV. To ensure sufficient ground clearance for the new propeller, the undercarriage legs were lengthened by . The undercarriage legs also had a wider track to help improve ground handling. The designers used a system of levers to shorten the undercarriage legs by about as they retracted, because the longer legs did not have enough space in which to retract; the levers extended the legs as they came down. The larger diameter four-spoke main wheels were strengthened to cope with the greater weights; post-war these were replaced by wider, reinforced three spoke wheels to allow Spitfires to operate from hard concrete or asphalt runways. When retracted the wheels were fully enclosed by triangular doors which were hinged to the outer edge of the wheel wells.


text: The first production Mk 21s used the same airframe as the Mk XIV. The first true Mk 21 prototype, "PP139" first flew in July 1943, with the first production aircraft "LA187" flying on 15 March 1944. The modifications over the Mk XIV made the Mk 21 sensitive to trim changes. "LA201"'s poor flight control qualities during trials in late 1944 and early 1945, led to a damning report from the Air Fighting Development Unit


text: Supermarine were seriously concerned because Castle Bromwich had been converted to produce Mk 21s and more were coming off the production lines daily. Jeffrey Quill commented that,


text: After intensive test flying, the most serious problems were solved by changing the gearing to the trim tabs and other subtle control modifications, such that the Mk 21 was cleared for instrument flying and low level flight during trials in March 1945. An AFDU report on "LA215" issued that month noted that the Spitfire 21 was now much easier to fly,


text: Spitfire 21s became operational on 91 Squadron in January 1945. The squadron had little opportunity to engage the "Luftwaffe" before the war ended but scored a rare success on 26 April 1945, when two Spitfire Mk 21s shot up and claimed to have sunk a German midget submarine which they caught on the surface. With the end of the war, most orders for the Mk 21 were cancelled and only 120 were completed. In 1946 forty Spitfire 21s were delivered to Shoeburyness; once there their leading edges were removed and destroyed in "lethality" tests. Some aircraft had less than five hours flying time.


text: The Mk 22 was identical to the Mk 21 in all respects except for the cut-back rear fuselage, with the tear-drop canopy, and a more powerful 24 volt electrical system in place of the 12 volt system of all earlier Spitfires. Most of the Mk 22s were built with enlarged tail surfaces, similar to those of the Supermarine Spiteful. A total of 287 Mk 22s were built: 260 at Castle Bromwich and 27 by Supermarine at South Marston.


text: The Mk 22 was used by only one regular RAF unit, 73 Squadron based on Malta. However 12 squadrons of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force used the variant and continued to do so until March 1951. The Mk 22 was also used at Flying refresher schools. In May 1955 the remaining F.22s were declared obsolete for all RAF purposes and many were sold back to Vickers-Armstrongs for refurbishment and were then sold to the Southern Rhodesian, Egyptian and Syrian Air Forces.


text: The Mk 23 was to be a Mk 22 incorporating a revised wing design which featured an increase in incidence, lifting the leading edge by . It was hoped that this would improve the pilot's view over the nose in flight and increase the high speed and dive performance of the aircraft. The modified, hand-built wing was first fitted to a Mk VIII "JG204" which was tested from July 1944. However the tests were disappointing and, after discussions at Supermarine, it was decided to build a new prototype using the Mk 21 prototype "PP139": in this form the prototype was designated F Mk 23, and was to be renamed the Supermarine Valiant. However the new wing gave less than perfect handling characteristics and so the Mk 23 was never built from the Mk 22 airframe as intended.


text: The final Spitfire variant, the Mk 24, was similar to the Mk 22 except that it had an increased fuel capacity over its predecessors, with two fuel tanks of 33 gal (150 L) each installed in the rear fuselage. There were also zero-point fittings for rocket projectiles under the wings. All had the larger "Spiteful" tail units; modifications were also made to the trim tab gearings to perfect the F Mk 24's handling. The F Mk 24 achieved a maximum speed of and could reach an altitude of in eight minutes, putting it on a par with the most advanced piston-engined fighters of the era.


text: Although designed as a fighter-interceptor aircraft, the Spitfire proved its versatility in other roles. As a fighter, the F Mk 24 armament consisted of 4 × short-barrelled Mk.5 20 mm Hispano cannon – operational experience had proved that the hitting power of these larger weapons was necessary to overcome the thicker armour encountered on enemy aircraft as the war progressed. The aircraft was also used as a fighter-bomber, carrying 1 × and 2 × bombs, with rocket-projectile launch rails fitted as standard. Late production aircraft were built with the lighter, short-barrelled, electrically fired Mark V Hispano cannon.


text: A total of 81 Mk 24s were completed, 27 of which were conversions from Mk 22s. The last Mk 24 to be built was delivered in February 1948 and were used until 1952 by 80 Squadron. Some of the squadron's aircraft went to the Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force where they were operated until 1955.


text: Introduced into service in late 1945, the F Mk 24 differed greatly from the original Spitfire Mk I, was twice as heavy, more than twice as powerful and showed an increase in climb rate of 80 percent over that of the prototype, 'K5054'. These remarkable increases in performance arose chiefly from the introduction of the Rolls-Royce Griffon engine in place of the famous Merlin of earlier variants. Rated at , the 12-cylinder Vee liquid-cooled Griffon 61 engine featured a two-stage supercharger, giving the Spitfire the exceptional performance at high altitude that had been sometimes lacking in early marks.


text: After the destruction of the main Itchen and Woolston works by the "Luftwaffe" in September 1940, all Supermarine manufactured Spitfires were built in a number of "Shadow Factories"; by the end of the war there were ten main factories and several smaller workshops which built many of the components. The main Castle Bromwich factory was also aided by a smaller number of the shadow factories.


text: The breakdown of production figures is taken from "Air International" 1985, p. 187. Information as to when the first production aircraft emerged is from the serial number lists provided in Morgan and Shacklady 2000. Because the first XIVs were converted from existing Mk VIII airframes the first true production serial No. is listed. Protracted development of the Mk 21 meant that this variant did not reach operational service until January 1945.


title: John Lennox

text: John Carson Lennox (born 7 November 1943) is a Northern Irish mathematician, bioethicist and Christian apologist. He has written many books on religion, ethics, the relationship between science and faith (like his books, "Has Science Buried God" and "Can Science Explain Everything"), and has had numerous public debates with atheists including Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.


title: John Lennox

text: He retired from professorship where he specialised in group theory. He is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and an Emeritus Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College, Oxford University. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Saïd Business School and a Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum.


title: John Lennox

text: John Lennox was born on 7 November 1943 in Northern Ireland and brought up in Armagh where his father ran a store.


title: John Lennox

text: He attended The Royal School, Armagh, and went on to become Exhibitioner and Senior Scholar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where in 1962 he also attended the last lectures of C. S. Lewis on the poet John Donne. Lennox obtained Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees at the University of Cambridge with the dissertation "Centrality and Permutability in Soluble Groups" (1970). He was awarded a Doctor of Science degree in mathematics by Cardiff University for his research. Lennox also holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Oxford (by incorporation) and an M.A. degree in bioethics at the University of Surrey.


title: John Lennox

text: Upon completing his doctorate, Lennox moved to Cardiff, Wales, becoming a reader in Mathematics at the University of Wales, Cardiff. Lennox also teaches science and religion in the University of Oxford. During his 29 years in Cardiff he spent a year at each of the universities of Würzburg, Freiburg (as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow), and Vienna, and has lectured extensively in both Eastern and Western Europe, Russia and North America on mathematics, apologetics, and the exposition of scripture.


title: John Lennox

text: Lennox is the author of a number of books on the relations of science, religion, and ethics. His most recent works are: "Being Truly Human" (2018), "Determined to Believe?" (2018) and "Against the Flow" (2015). Titles being released early in 2019 include "Finding Ultimate Reality", "Joseph" and "Can science explain everything?" He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles on mathematics, co-authored two Oxford Mathematical Monographs, and worked as a translator of Russian mathematics.


title: John Lennox

text: He has spoken in many different countries, in conferences and as an academic fellow, including numerous trips to the former Soviet Union. On 14 March 2012 he presented an edition of the Lent Talks for BBC Radio Four. Lennox has also given lectures at the Veritas forum on topics such as the relationship between science and religion, the existence of God, doubt, and the problems of evil and suffering. Additionally, he is a Senior Fellow of The Trinity Forum, a Christian nonprofit organisation that develops leaders to make contributions to cultural renewal.


title: John Lennox

text: Lennox has been part of numerous public debates defending the Christian faith, including debates with Christopher Hitchens, Michael Shermer, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss,


title: John Lennox

text: Lennox speaks English, Russian, French, and German. He is married to Sally and has three children and 10 grandchildren. He has a brother named Gilbert Lennox, an elder in Glenabbey Church, Glengormley. The hymn writer and recording artist Kristyn Getty is John's niece, being Gilbert's daughter.


title: Libby Titus

text: Elizabeth Titus (nee Jurist; born July 6, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter, actor, and concert producer.


title: Libby Titus

text: Titus was born in Woodstock, New York. Her studies at Bard College in upstate New York were cut short by pregnancy and marriage at the age of 21.


title: Libby Titus

text: In 1968, Titus released "Libby Titus", an album of folk-rock and pop covers, on Hot Biscuit. She continued her career, providing backing vocals for Martin Mull's debut album "Martin Mull" (1972), among others. At the same time she was developing her songwriting skills.


title: Libby Titus

text: Her second album, confusingly also called "Libby Titus", had four high-profile producers, Phil Ramone, Robbie Robertson, Paul Simon, and Carly Simon; the last also contributed to the songwriting. The album was released by Columbia in 1977. It contained four songs co-written by Titus, including the one for which she is best known, "Love Has No Pride", which she wrote with Eric Kaz. It had already been recorded several times – most notably by Bonnie Raitt on "Give It Up" (1972) and Linda Ronstadt on "Don't Cry Now" (1973), as well as by Daryl Braithwaite whose version was a top 5 hit in Australia in early 1977.


title: Libby Titus

text: In the late 1970s, Titus collaborated with Burt Bacharach. They wrote at least five songs together, two of them ("Riverboat" and "I Live in the Woods") appearing on Bacharach's album "Woman", and one ("In Tune") on his soundtrack for the film "Together?" ("Amo non amo"), both released in 1979. Titus also sang "Riverboat" and "In Tune" on these recordings. Carly Simon's 1979 album "Spy" included "Love You By Heart", a song she wrote with Titus and Jacob Brackman. Titus later wrote "The Sailor and the Mermaid" with Brackman and sang it with Dr. John on the "Sesame Street" album "In Harmony" (1980).


title: Libby Titus

text: Titus and Dr. John wrote the music for Robert Frank's short film "Energy and How to Get It" (1981), and performed some of it on screen. As an actor, Titus had small parts in Mike Nichols's "Heartburn" (1986) and Penny Marshall's "Awakenings" (1990), in which she appeared as a club singer.


title: Libby Titus

text: Titus still performed occasionally at venues around New York in the mid-1980s. Never a powerful singer, she was admired at this stage of her career for her "feeling for style, especially in jazzier numbers" and her "appealingly sultry insouciance". In the second half of the 1980s, Titus began producing "rock-and-roll musicales featuring well-known musicians ... in New York restaurants and clubs". She later recalled that her "horrid little evenings" started "at this little Italian restaurant on Thirty-ninth Street that had room for thirty people. One night it would be, say, Dr. John plus Carly Simon, and it was by invitation only."


title: Libby Titus

text: These sessions led to the "informal concert" at the Lone Star Roadhouse on September 20, 1989 featuring Dr. John, Donald Fagen, Phoebe Snow, Jevetta Steele, and Bonnie Raitt that gave birth to the New York Rock and Soul Revue, which Titus produced with Fagen until the beginning of 1992. Fagen credits Titus with rekindling his interest in live performance, on which he had turned his back in 1974. The Rock and Soul Revue also brought Walter Becker to New York, and so played a part in the 1993 reformation of Steely Dan, which Fagen and Becker had put on hold while Walter recovered from heroin addiction in 1981.


title: Libby Titus

text: Titus went on to write songs with Fagen, including "Florida Room" on "Kamakiriad" (1993). In 1996, Pony Canyon Records anthologised three previously unissued songs that Titus recorded for Bearsville in 1971, two by Eric Kaz and one by Kaz and Titus. Other recordings from this period remain unissued.


title: Libby Titus

text: Titus has been described as "glamorous and compelling" and a "formidable singer-scenester". Her large personality has prompted several musical tributes. She is the subject of Carly Simon's song "Libby" from the album "Another Passenger" (1976), to which Titus also contributed vocals. She inspired Dr. John's piano composition "Pretty Libby" from the 1983 album "The Brightest Smile in Town". Singer-songwriter Wendy Waldman wrote about their friendship in "Long Hot Summer Nights" on the album "Strange Company" (1978). "The Great Pagoda of Funn", from Donald Fagen's 2006 "Morph the Cat" album, "rhapsodizes on Fagen’s marriage to songwriter Libby Titus".


title: Libby Titus

text: Titus's mother, Julia Irene Jurist "née" Mooney (December 29, 1911 – January 27, 1989), was an Earl Carroll dancer. In 1966, Titus married novelist Barry Titus (born 1938), grandson of Helena Rubinstein (1870–1965); they separated in 1968. The couple had a son, the writer Ezra Titus (July 23, 1966 – July 30, 2009).


title: Libby Titus

text: From 1969 and through much of the 1970s, Titus's partner was musician Levon Helm (1940–2012). They had a daughter, the singer Amy Helm (born December 3, 1970).


title: Libby Titus

text: In 1987, Titus met musician Donald Fagen (born 1948), who was a contemporary at Bard College, and who still remembered his one sighting of her "from a distance" on campus two decades earlier. They married in 1993.


title: Libby Titus

text: On January 4, 2016, Titus sustained injuries after Fagen allegedly shoved her against a marble window frame at their Upper East Side apartment. Titus informed the "New York Post" that she was divorcing her husband. The two have since reconciled.


title: West Orange, New Jersey

text: West Orange is a suburban township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 48,843 an increase of 2,636 (+5.7%) from the 46,207 counted in the 2010 Census. West Orange is both an inner-ring suburb of Newark (the seat of Essex County, and New Jersey's largest city) and a commuter suburb of New York City; it is approximately 12 miles west of Manhattan. West Orange is well known for having been home to the inventor Thomas Edison, who also maintained a laboratory and workshop in town.


title: West Orange, New Jersey

text: West Orange was originally part of the Native American Hackensack clan's territory, for over 10,000 years. The Hackensack were a phratry of the Unami tribe of the Leni Lenape. In their language, "Leni Lenape" means, "The Original People." The Acquackanonk sub-tribe were located along the Passaic River. They were part of the Algonquin language family, and known as "Delaware Indians" by the 18th century. They identified themselves with the totem of the Turtle. They were hunter-gatherers, matrilineal, and had cultural traditions such as wedding ceremonies. Northfield Ave and Old Indian Road in West Orange, remain as original Hackensack trails. Their main settlement was where the city of Hackensack is today. They would travel to the ocean or mountains to hunt for food. The Passaic River runs in an upside-down V shape— west and east, and north of West Orange. In the centuries prior to industrial development, the Passaic River and Watchung Mountains were major geographic landmarks amidst the untouched wilderness.


title: West Orange, New Jersey

text: West Orange is located at the peak of the Watchung Mountains. This vantage point over the valleys east to Manhattan had a strategic value for Lenni Lenape warriors, and later George Washington's troops during the American Revolution. The wooded South Mountain Reservation has rocks shaped like the backs of large turtles. The area is now known as "Turtle Back Rock Picnic Area" and gives its name to the Turtle Back Zoo. The Turtle Back Rocks were considered sacred to the Native Americans.


title: West Orange, New Jersey

text: The Native Americans were hunter-gatherer tribes who would overlap territories and occasionally had tribal wars, but did not "own" land. They believed in taking only what was immediately necessary from nature, and considering the needs of the next seven generations. This hospitality at first benefited the European settlers, who struggled in the wilderness after reaching North America's shores. In the 1500s and 1600s, the territory was disputed and transferred many times between the Hackensack, Dutch, Scottish, Swedes, and English colonists. Due to the wars between the Native Americans and European settlers, most European settlers stayed East of the Hudson River. In 1664, the English took possession of Dutch New Netherland. On October 28, 1664, The English purchased of land from the Hackensack, from Staten Island to the Passaic River on the North to the Raritan River on the South, for about 154 English pounds. This is known as the "Elizabethtown Purchase."


title: West Orange, New Jersey

text: In 1666, Puritan Captain Robert Treat moved south to New Jersey from Connecticut and purchased a tract of land from Governor Carteret, west of the Passaic River and east of what is currently West Orange. However, the Hackensack tribe disputed this purchase, and said it was not included in the Elizabethtown Purchase. On July 11, 1667, Treat settled the purchase through Samuel Efsal, a Lenni Lenape interpreter. He then founded "New Ark" or Newark, establishing it as a Puritan theocracy, as had been done in Milford, CT. The Newark territory kept extending West as the English overthrew the Dutch and claimed or purchased more Hackensack territory. This expansion was effected primarily by individual property owners, who would purchase tracts of land bit by bit. Sometimes they would name it after themselves or where they were from in Europe. Often the borders were not clearly defined, and few if any maps remain.