title: Piers Plowman

text: Thomas Fuller (1662) bases his remarks about Langland on Selden and Bale, emphasizing Langland's putative proto-Protestant status. Fuller also notes that "The Praier and Complaynte of the Ploweman unto Christe" was "first set forth by Tindal, since, exemplified by Mr. Fox." Since the language of this text is similar to that of "Piers Plowman", Fuller attributes it to Langland as well. Thomas Dudley, father of Anne Dudley Bradstreet (1612–72), brought a copy of Crowley's "Piers Plowman" to America. Alexander Pope (1688–1744) owned a copy of Rogers' reprint of Crowley's edition of "Piers Plowman" with the "Crede" appended, and Isaac D'Israeli (1766–1848) wrote in his "Amenities of Literature" that Pope had "very carefully analyzed the whole" of the latter text. D'Israeli also mentions Lord Byron's (1788–1824) praise for "Piers Plowman".


title: Piers Plowman

text: With its old language and alien worldview, "Piers Plowman" fell into obscurity until the nineteenth century. Barring Rogers, after Crowley, the poem was not published in its entirety until Thomas Whitaker's 1813 edition. It emerged at a time when amateur philologists began the groundwork of what would later become a recognized scholarly discipline. Whitaker's edition was based on a C-text, whereas Crowley used a B-text for his base.


title: Piers Plowman

text: With Whitaker, a modern editorial tradition began, with each new editor striving to present the "authentic" "Piers Plowman" and challenging the accuracy and authenticity of preceding editors and editions. Then, as before in the English Reformation, this project was driven by a need for a national identity and history that addressed present concerns, hence analysis and commentary typically reflected the critic's political views. In the hands of Frederick Furnivall and W. W. Skeat, "Piers Plowman" could be, respectively, a consciousness-raising text in the Working Man's College or a patriotic text for grammar school pupils. "Piers Plowman" has often been read primarily as a political document. In an 1894 study, J. J. Jusserand was primarily concerned with what he saw as the poem's psychological and sociopolitical content—as distinct from the aesthetic or literary—in a dichotomy common to all modern humanistic studies.


title: Piers Plowman

text: In "Le temps des laboureurs. Travail, ordre social et croissance en Europe (XIe-XIVe siècle)" (Albin Michel 2012) historian of medieval labour Mathieu Arnoux devotes particular attention to "Piers Plowman" in a breakthrough attempt to identify theological causes for the growth of agricultural production from the 11th century to the 14th century.


title: Piers Plowman

text: Many subsequent texts – at least 14 – use characters from "Piers Plowman", most often Piers himself. Many more texts were written with similar themes and characters, though not directly borrowing from "Piers Plowman", until around the end of the 16th century. Conversely, "Piers Plowman" was preceded by and contemporary with a number of similar works in the 14th and 15th centuries. Together, these are referred to as the "Piers Plowman tradition".


title: Piers Plowman

text: In 2017, a UK theatre production of the poem was developed by Tom Chivers, under the moniker 'Fair Field'. It included an exhibition at the National Poetry Library and a series of podcasts published by the "Guardian".


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: "Engoulaeme"; ) is a commune, the prefecture of the Charente department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France.


title: Angoulême

text: Located on a plateau overlooking a meander of the river Charente, the city is nicknamed the "balcony of the southwest". The city proper's population is a little less than 42,000 but it is the centre of an urban area of 110,000 people extending more than from east to west.


title: Angoulême

text: Formerly the capital of Angoumois in the Ancien Régime, Angoulême was a fortified town for a long time, and was highly coveted due to its position at the centre of many roads important to communication, so therefore it suffered many sieges. From its tumultuous past, the city, perched on a rocky spur, inherited a large historical, religious, and urban heritage which attracts a lot of tourists.


title: Angoulême

text: Nowadays, Angoulême is at the centre of an agglomeration, which is one of the most industrialised regions between Loire and Garonne (the paper industry was established in the 16th century, a foundry and electromechanical engineering developed more recently). It is also a commercial and administrative city with its own university of technology, and a vibrant cultural life. This life is dominated by the Angoulême International Comics Festival, the FFA Angoulême Francophone Film Festival and the Musiques Métisses Festival that contribute substantially to the international renown of the city. Moreover, Angoulême hosts 40 animation and video game studios that produce half of France's animated production. Wes Anderson's "The French Dispatch" was filmed in this city.


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême is called "Ville de l'Image" which means literally "City of the Image". The commune has been awarded four flowers by the "National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom" in the "Competition of cities and villages in Bloom".


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême is an Acropolis city located on a hill overlooking a loop of the Charente limited in area upstream by the confluence of the Touvre and downstream by the Anguienne and Eaux Claires.


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême is located at the intersection of a major north–south axis: the N10 Paris-Bayonne; and the east–west axis: the N14 "route Central-Europe Atlantique" Limoges-Saintes. Angoulême is also connected to Périgueux and Saint-Jean-d'Angely by the D939 and to Libourne by the D674.


title: Angoulême

text: Old Angoulême is the old part between the ramparts and the town centre with winding streets and small squares. The city centre is also located on the plateau and was portrayed by Honoré de Balzac in "The Lost Illusions" as "the height of grandeur and power". There is a Castle, a town hall, a prefecture, and a cathedral with grand houses everywhere. Unlike Old Angoulême, however, the entire city centre was greatly rebuilt in the 19th century.


title: Angoulême

text: Surrounding the city were five old faubourgs: l'Houmeau, Saint-Cybard, Saint-Martin, Saint-Ausone, and la Bussatte. The district of l'Houmeau was described by Balzac as "based on trade and money" because this district lived on trade, boatmen, and their scows. The port of l'Houmeau was created in 1280 on the river bank. It marked the beginning of the navigable part from Angoulême to the sea. Saint-Cybard, on the bank of the Charente, was created around the Abbey of Saint-Cybard then became an industrial area with papermills, especially "Le Nil". Saint-Martin - Saint-Ausone is a district composed of two former parishes outside the ramparts. At La Bussatte the Champ de Mars esplanade is now converted into a shopping mall, and adjoins Saint-Gelais.


title: Angoulême

text: The "Port-l'Houmeau", the old port on the Charente located in the district of l'Houmeau is in a flood zone and during floods the Besson Bey Boulevard is usually cut.


title: Angoulême

text: Geologically the town belongs to the Aquitaine Basin as does three-quarters of the western department of Charente.


title: Angoulême

text: The commune is located on the same limestone from the Upper Cretaceous period which occupies the southern half of the department of Charente, not far from Jurassic formations beginning at Gond-Pontouvre.


title: Angoulême

text: The earliest Cretaceous period - the Cenomanian- is in the relatively low areas (l'Houmeau, the heights of Saint-Cybard, Sillac), at an average altitude of 50m.


title: Angoulême

text: The city was established on the Plateau (altitude 100m) that dominates the loop of the River Charente, a Turonian (also called "Angoumien") formation which forms a dissected plateau of parallel valleys and a cuesta facing north that extends towards La Couronne to the west and Garat to the east.


title: Angoulême

text: This limestone plateau contains natural cavities which have been refurbished by man in the form of three or four floors of caves, some of which include antique grain silos.


title: Angoulême

text: The valley of the Charente is made up of old and new alluvium which provides rich soil for farming and some sandpits. These alluvial deposits were deposited successively during the Quaternary period on the inside of two meanders of the river that are Basseau and Saint-Cybard. The oldest alluviums are on the plain of Basseau and reach a relative height of 25m.


title: Angoulême

text: The old part of the city is built on the plateau - a rocky outcrop created by the valleys of the Anguienne and Charente at an altitude of - while on the river bank the area subject to flooding is high. Angoulême is characterized by the presence of ramparts on a cliff high.


title: Angoulême

text: The plateau of "Ma Campagne", south of the old town, has almost the same features and peaks at 109 m in the woods of Saint-Martin. The plateau is elongated and separates the valleys of Eaux Claires, which is the southern boundary of the commune, from that of Anguienne, which is parallel.


title: Angoulême

text: Both plateaux overlook the Charente valley and the outlying areas such as l'Houmeau, Basseau, and Sillac at their western ends. The plateau of Angoulême is the northwest extension of the Soyaux plateau. L'Houmeau, the station area, and that of Grand-Font are to the north of the plateau along the small Vimière valley, also a tributary of the Charente, but further north (towards Gond-Pontouvre and L'Isle-d'Espagnac) than Anguienne is to the south.


title: Angoulême

text: The highest point of the city of Angoulême is at an altitude of 133m near Peusec located to the south-east near the border with Puymoyen. The lowest point is 27 m, located along the Charente at Basseau.


title: Angoulême

text: Since Roman times ramparts have surrounded the Plateau of Angoulême. Repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt, their reconstruction was finally stopped in the 19th century. The Ramparts are classified as historical monuments and the "Ramparts Tour" is one of the main attractions of the city.


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême is under an oceanic influence and similar to that of the city of Cognac where the departmental weather station is located. Precipitations are modest all year long, with a slight drying tendency during summer.


title: Angoulême

text: Since Antiquity and through the Middle Ages, the name of the town has been attested in many forms in Latin and Old French:


title: Angoulême

text: The absence of any convincing explanation of the origin of the name of the city has led to several attempts to fit etymological explanations unrelated to the well documented old forms and phonetically unlikely:


title: Angoulême

text: At the time of the French Revolution the city was known by the transient name of "Montagne-Charente".


title: Angoulême

text: The history of the city is not very well known before the Roman period: it is simply known that the plateau was occupied by an oppidum, traces of which were found during excavations in the Saint-Martial cemetery under the name "Iculisma". Its currency was Lemovice.


title: Angoulême

text: The town was not located on major roads and was considered by the poet Ausonius as a small town. No Roman monuments have been found but it benefited from the "Pax Romana" and from trade on the river. The town had a prosperous period at the end of the Roman Empire. The rocky promontory overlooking the Charente high and over the Anguienne high formed a strategic position. It was raised to the rank of capital of "civitas" (at the end of the 3rd or 4th centuries) and the first fortress dates from the end of the Roman Empire. The rampart called Bas-Empire which surrounds 27 hectares of land was maintained until the 13th century. The network of Roman roads were then reorganized to link the town with the surrounding cities of Bordeaux, Saintes, Poitiers, Limoges, and Périgueux.


title: Angoulême

text: The city of "Haut-Empire" remained unknown for a long time. Recent excavations have provided details on the power of the Roman city. A well dug in an early era shows that the water table was very high. A large thermal spa complex was found under the courthouse which is usually related to water supply through an aqueduct.


title: Angoulême

text: The first bishop of Angoulême was Saint Ausone of Angoulême in the 3rd century. The administrative importance of the city was strengthened by the implementation of a County in the 6th century with Turpion (or Turpin) (839–863), adviser to Charles the Bald. However, the town was always attached to the various kingdoms of Aquitaine and the end of antiquity for the city was in 768, when Pepin the Short defeated Hunald II and linked it to the Frankish kingdom. In June 2019, archeologists discovered a prehistoric stone with an engraving of a horse and other animals near Angoulême station. The Palaeolithic stone plate is estimated to be about 12,000 years old.


title: Angoulême

text: When held by the Visigoths, the city followed the Arian version of Christianity and was besieged for the first time by Clovis in 507 after Vouillé then taken in 508; "miraculously" according to Gregory of Tours and Ademar of Chabannes.


title: Angoulême

text: During the battle, however, Clovis was seriously wounded in the leg - probably a fracture. The fact is reported by tradition and on a wall of a tower from the 2nd century a leg is carved called the "leg of Clovis".


title: Angoulême

text: During his stay in Angoulême, after putting the garrison to the sword, Clovis pulled down the old Visigothic cathedral dedicated to Saint-Saturnin to build a new one bearing the name of Saint-Pierre. All that remains of the original building are two carved marble capitals that frame the bay of the axis in the apse of the present cathedral.


title: Angoulême

text: In the 7th century Saint Cybard stayed secluded in a cave beneath the extension to the north wall of Angoulême called Green Garden which caused the creation of the first abbey: the Abbey of Saint-Cybard, then created the first abbey for women: the Abbey of Saint-Ausone where the tomb of the first bishop of the city is located.


title: Angoulême

text: In 848 Angoulême was sacked by the Viking chief Hastein. In 896 or 930 the city suffered another attack from invading Vikings but this time the Vikings faced an effective resistance. Guillaume I, third Count of Angoulême, at the head of his troops made them surrender in a decisive battle. During this engagement, he split open to the waist Stonius, the Norman chief, with a massive blow together with his helmet and breastplate.


title: Angoulême

text: It was this feat that earned him the name "Taillefer", which was borne by all his descendants until Isabella of Angoulême who was also known as Isabelle Taillefer, the wife of King John of England. The title was withdrawn from the descendants on more than one occasion by Richard Coeur-de-Lion then the title passed to King John of England at the time of his marriage to Isabella of Angoulême, daughter of Count Aymer of Angoulême. After becoming a widow, Isabella subsequently married Hugh X of Lusignan in 1220, and the title was passed to the Lusignan family, counts of Marche. On the death of Hugh XIII in 1302 without issue, the County of Angoulême passed his possessions to the crown of France.


title: Angoulême

text: In 1236 Jewish communities in Anjou and Poitou, particularly Bordeaux and Angoulême were attacked by crusaders. 500 Jews chose conversion and over 3000 were massacred. Pope Gregory IX, who originally had called the crusade, was outraged about this brutality and criticized the clergy for not preventing it.


title: Angoulême

text: From the 10th to the 13th centuries the counts of Angoulême, the Taillefer, then the Lusignan strengthened the defences of the city and widened it to encompass the district of Saint-Martial.


title: Angoulême

text: On 18 May 1204 a charter was signed by King John of England to make official the creation of the commune of Angoulême. The King "grants to residents of Angoulême to keep the freedoms and customs of their fair city and defend their possessions and rights". The city celebrated their 800th anniversary throughout 2004.


title: Angoulême

text: In 1360 the city, like all of Angoumois, passed into the hands of the Plantagenet English with the Treaty of Brétigny. From 16 to 22 October 1361, John Chandos, Lieutenant of King Edward III of England and the Constable of Aquitaine responsible for implementing the Treaty particularly in Angoumois, took possession of the city, its castles, and the "mostier" (monastery) of Saint-Pierre. He received oaths of allegiance to the King of England from the main personalities of the city.


title: Angoulême

text: The English were, however, expelled in 1373 by the troops of Charles V who granted the town numerous privileges.


title: Angoulême

text: The County of Angoulême was given to Louis d'Orléans who was the brother of King Charles VI in 1394 and it then passed to his son Jean d'Orléans (1400–1467), the grandfather of Marguerite de Navarre and François I. The "Good Count" Jean of Angoulême greatly expanded the County castle after his return from English captivity in the middle of the 15th century.


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême, the seat of the County of Angoumois, came into the possession of a branch of the family of Valois from which came François I, King of France from 1515 to 1547 who was born in Cognac in 1494. In 1524 the Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano returned from the Indies. He told François I he had discovered a new territory that he named New Angoulême in his honour. This area later became New Amsterdam then New York.


title: Angoulême

text: The duchy, now crown land, thereafter was passed on within the ruling house of France. One of its holders was Charles of Valois, the "natural" (or illegitimate) son of Charles IX. The last duke of Angoulême was Louis-Antoine (died 1844), eldest son of Charles X of France.


title: Angoulême

text: John Calvin, the promoter of Protestantism and friend of Jean du Tillet the archdeacon of Angoulême, was forced to flee Paris in 1533 and took refuge in Angoulême in the caves of Rochecorail at Trois-Palis. He wrote some of his "Institutes of the Christian Religion" there which first edition was published in Latin in Basel in 1536.


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême was affected by the Revolt of the Pitauds peasant revolt: in 1541, the gabelle (salt tax) was imposed on Saintonge and Angoumois. These provinces did not pay the tax on salt. The revolt broke out around Angoulême and farmers from the surrounding countryside took the city in July 1548


title: Angoulême

text: During the first wars of religion the city took up arms: it was reconquered in 1563 by Montpensier. In 1565 Charles IX passed through the city during his royal tour of France (1564–1566) accompanied by the court. In October 1568 the city was taken by the Protestants under Coligny.


title: Angoulême

text: Henry III was, in his infancy, the Duke of Angoulême. He left an unflattering description: "The streets of Engolesme are twisted, houses are disordered, the walls built out of various kinds of masonry which show that it was built several times and often taken and ruined"


title: Angoulême

text: In 1588 the mayor of Angoulême, François Normand Lord of Puygrelier, was ordered by Henri III to arrest the Duke of Épernon, governor of Angoumois. He led the assault, was repelled, and died on 10 August 1588.


title: Angoulême

text: In 1619 Marie de Médicis escaped and was received by the Duke of Épernon, governor of Angoumois. At that time the castle was the residence of the governors.


title: Angoulême

text: During the French Revolution the city was called "Mountagne-Charente". The first tree of liberty was planted on 5 July 1792.


title: Angoulême

text: On 24 June 1940, the 2nd Verfügungstruppe division (special intervention troops) Das Reich supported by other units of the Wehrmacht arrived in Angoulême. These troops took prisoners and neutralized the many refugee French soldiers in the city. Their number is estimated between 10 and 20 thousand. They were released in the following days.


title: Angoulême

text: The Das Reich division, which became tragically famous in 1944 during the Battle of Normandy, continued their "lightning war" by quickly moving to the Spanish border to quickly set the line of demarkation to cut France in two. Angoulême was located in the occupied zone under German authority and was the seat of the "Feld Kommandatur". The border with the free zone, colloquially called the "zone nono" (non-occupied) passed about east of Angoulême through the Forest of Braconne and split the department in two.


title: Angoulême

text: On 20 August 1940 a convoy of Spanish Republicans were sent from Angoulême: convoy 927. This was the first convoy of the history of Deportation in Europe. Men over the age of 13 were sent to the Mauthausen camp where very few survived; women and children were sent to Franco. These refugees were gathered in camps of "Combe aux Loups" at Ruelle-sur-Touvre and "Alliers" in Angoulême. It also served as a concentration camp for Gypsies until June 1946.


title: Angoulême

text: On 21 October 1941 the young Gontran Labrégère, who tried with his friend Jean Pierre Rivière to set fire to a train carrying straw and munitions in Angoulême railway station, was shot by the occupiers. This was the first of a long list of 98 resistance fighters or hostages from Charente. In 1942 Mayor Guillon was dismissed and accused of belonging to an organisation outlawed by the Vichy regime. He was replaced by a notable industrialist, Pallas.


title: Angoulême

text: On 8 October 1942, 387 people of Jewish origin were arrested and deported to Auschwitz. Only eight of them ever returned. On 19 March 1944 allied bombing caused widespread damage and one casualty at the National Explosives factory. On 15 June and 14 August 1944, the railway station was the target of American Flying Fortresses that dumped a carpet of bombs with little damage to the Germans but killing 242 civilians, destroying 400 houses, and caused 5,000 disaster victims in l'Éperon, l'Houmeau, Madeleine, and Grand-Font districts. At the end of August 1944 the Elster column, which was composed of the remains of various German units and the Indische Legion, passed through the city without incident and withdrew.


title: Angoulême

text: Various units of FFI from the department and reinforcements from Dordogne then began the encirclement of the city. On the evening of 31 August an attack was launched, putting to flight the remnants of the German garrison. They fortunately did not have an opportunity to reorganize the defence of the city using the numerous and formidable fortifications erected for this purpose. On the night of 31 August to 1 September the city was liberated and a Liberation Committee with a new prefect was installed. This attack, however, resulted in 51 casualties among the different units involved: Maquis de Bir Hacheim, Groupe Soleil, SSS (Special Section for Sabotage), etc.


title: Angoulême

text: A museum in the commune is devoted to the Resistance and the deportations of Jewish and political prisoners. A statue near the station commemorates the deportations to the concentration camps. The survivors of Operation Frankton, notable for their daring raid by canoe on the German U-boat base at Bordeaux, made their escape across country to a safe house at Ruffec just north of Angoulême. This is now the site of a shop featuring British goods. The Monument to the Resistance is in Chasseneuil to the east.


title: Angoulême

text: After the war, the city underwent a major expansion of its suburbs. First Grand Font and Bel-Air, following the MRU reconstruction program for war damage of the area around the station which was bombed in 1944. Then in the 1960s the districts of Basseau (ZAC) and the Grande-Garenne were built and then there was the creation of Priority Urban Zones (ZUPs) at Ma Campagne in the 1970s.


title: Angoulême

text: Gradually industries moved into more spacious industrial zones created in the peripheral communes between 1959 and 1975:


title: Angoulême

text: Urbanisation also affected the peripheral communes with housing estates at Soyaux and Ruelle-sur-Touvre and the agglomeration became one of the largest cities in the south-west.


title: Angoulême

text: In 1972, the city signed a "pilot city" contract with the State (DATAR, represented by Albin Chalandon), which allowed the city to make large scale public works - e.g. the small ring road (bridge and Rue Saint-Antoine, Boulevard Bretagne, Tunnel of Gâtine) penetrating Ma Campagne and called the way to Europe, the ZUPs at Ma Campagne, the Saint-Martial town centre, underground parking at Bouillaud and Saint-Martial, Montauzier indoor swimming pools at Ma Campagne, a pedestrianized street, a one-way traffic plan with computerized management of traffic lights (Angoulême is one of the first cities in France with Bordeaux which has the Gertrude computerized system called "Philibert" in Angoulême), STGA urban transport (ten routes with flexible buses), development of Bouillaud square, Conservatory of Music.


title: Angoulême

text: In 1989 after defeat in the municipal elections, the PS deputy mayor, Jean-Michel Boucheron left a hole of 164 million francs in the finances of the city and a debt of 1.2 billion francs. This deficit has burdened the finances of the city and long served as justification for the non-involvement in the completion of public works.


title: Angoulême

text: The small ring road (the southwest quarter - i.e. the Aquitaine Boulevard, a second bridge over the Charente, and the connection to the "way of Europe") was completed in 1995.


title: Angoulême

text: Following the construction of the Nautilis swimming complex at Saint-Yrieix by the urban community, the town of Angoulême closed three swimming pools in 2001 (Montauzier, Ma Campagne and the Bourgines summer pool).


title: Angoulême

text: The "Urban Community of Greater Angoulême" or "Grand Angoulême" includes 16 communes: Angoulême, Fleac, Gond-Pontouvre, La Couronne, Linars, L'Isle-d'Espagnac, Magnac-sur-Touvre, Mornac, Nersac, Puymoyen, Ruelle-sur-Touvre, Saint-Michel, Saint-Saturnin, Saint-Yrieix-sur-Charente, Soyaux, and Touvre.


title: Angoulême

text: Taxation is at a rate of 40.20% on buildings, 71.94% on undeveloped land, and 18.43% for the housing tax (2007 figures).


title: Angoulême

text: The Champ de Mars is the central square of the city and has had an underground shopping arcade since September 2007.


title: Angoulême

text: The eastern ring road was opened in 2004 (2010 for the final section) which opened up several districts. The deviation of the N10 which has bypassed the city since 1973 has formed a western ring road since 2004 when the initial Fléac-Linars project was abandoned.


title: Angoulême

text: Rehabilitation operations for collective housing are underway as part of the government Operation for Urban Renewal. The districts of Grande Garenne, Basseau and Ma Campagne were combined in a program of urban regeneration.


title: Angoulême

text: By population Angoulême is by far the largest city in Charente with 41,711 inhabitants on 1 January 2018. With a communal area of 2,185 hectares, the population density is 1,909 inhabitants per km, making it the most densely populated city in Charente.


title: Angoulême

text: In 2018, the urban unit of Angoulême, which includes eighteen communes, totaled 109,395 inhabitants. It is the seventh most populous urban unit of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, and extends over from north to south.


title: Angoulême

text: Its functional area has 179,758 inhabitants (2018), and is composed of 94 communes in the impact zone of the city.


title: Angoulême

text: In 2017 Angoulême had 41,740 inhabitants, down 13% from its largest population in 1962, and down 2.2% compared to 2007. The commune was 172nd in size at the national level, while it was at 145th in 1999, and 1st at the departmental level out of 366 communes.


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême is a centre of the paper-making and printing industry, with which the town has been connected since the 14th century. Papermaking is favoured because of the uniform temperature and volume of the water year-round, partly due to the river Touvre, which joins the Charente at Angoulême. The Touvre is the second largest river with an underground source in France after the Sorgue (Fontaine-de-Vaucluse).


title: Angoulême

text: The Touvre emerges as a full-blown river from the head of the valley at Ruelle. A trout fishery is located at the source and a pumping station supplies the drinking water needs of Angoulême. Most of the paper mills are situated on the banks of watercourses in the neighbourhood of the town. Cardboard for packaging, as well as fine vellum for correspondence, have been produced in quantity.


title: Angoulême

text: The best known export is Rizla cigarette roll-up paper, a combination of "riz" (rice paper) and LaCroix, after Monsieur LaCroix the founder. "Le Nil" is another local brand of roll-up paper, named not after the Nile in Egypt but after a small tributary of the Charente. The Le Nil paper-mill is now the Paper Museum. Paper-making in the town has been in decline.


title: Angoulême

text: The economy of the modern town also is supplemented by annual tourist events and festivals. For example, the printers and paper-makers, whose industry relied on intricate machinery, became skilled mechanics and among the first to become fascinated with the motor car in the late 19th century. Motor trials were held regularly, starting on the long straight road through Puymoyen, now a suburb. Monsieur LaCroix (of RIZLA+) was a celebrated motorcycle racer. The Paris-Madrid road race of 1903, notorious for its cancellation due to numerous deaths, passed through Angoulême. Marcel, one of the brothers Renault, was one of the victims. The place of his death is marked by a memorial on road RN10 to Poitiers.


title: Angoulême

text: The town has been closely associated with motor trials and racing. The Circuit des Remparts (see below) is held annually, one of the last such street-racing course in France, together with Pau (and Monaco). In addition to local heroes, internationally known racing drivers, such as Juan Manuel Fangio, José Froilán González, Jean-Pierre Wimille, Pierre Veyron and Maurice Trintignant, have been regular participants. The cars which they drove frequently are presented at the modern event. The hotel and restaurant trade receives a considerable boost from the races.


title: Angoulême

text: Subsidiary industries, such as the manufacture of machinery, electric motors and wire fabric, are of considerable importance. Angoulême is the most inland navigable port on the Charente River. The traditional river boat is the Gabare. Iron and copper founding, brewing and tanning also continue. The manufacture of gunpowder, confectionery, heavy iron goods, gloves, boots and shoes (including the traditional "pantoufle" carpet slippers) and cotton goods are also important. There is wholesale and retail trade in wine, cognac and building-stone.


title: Angoulême

text: The new high-speed rail link between Tours and Bordeaux bypasses the town centre to the west, but with a link to Angoulême station from both the north and south. It opened in July 2017. Direct TGV journeys from Paris Gare Montparnasse take just over two hours. The [Angoulême railway station offers connections to Paris, Bordeaux, Tours, Limoges and several regional destinations. The main line of the Paris Bordeaux railway passes through a tunnel beneath the town and is due for large-scale refurbishment to improve travel time.


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême - Cognac International Airport is situated NE of the city centre in Champniers, just off the N10. The runway can accommodate Boeing 737s, and a new restaurant and shops were added in 2008. However Ryanair stopped its Angoulême-Stansted service in 2010. Air France used to operate a service to Lyon. There are currently no regular flights to/from Angoulême airport.


title: Angoulême

text: In place of its ancient fortifications, Angoulême is encircled by boulevards above the old city walls, known as the "Remparts", from which fine views may be obtained in all directions. Within the town the streets are often narrow. Apart from the cathedral and the "City Hall", the architecture is of little interest to purists. However, the "old town" has been preserved, maintained and largely reserved for pedestrians. It has a cobbled restaurant quarter, with several galleries and boutiques.


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême contains a very large number of buildings and structures which are registered as historical monuments. Below are listed some of the most interesting sites.


title: Angoulême

text: Tours of the town include the "murs peints", various walls painted in street-art cartoon style, a feature of Angoulême and related to its association with the "bande dessinée", the comic strip. A statue has been erected to Hergé, creator of "The Adventures of Tintin". The attractive covered market "Les Halles", on the site of the old jail, was restored and refurbished in 2004 and is a central part of city life.


title: Angoulême

text: In 2009 the National Council of Cities and Villages in Bloom of France awarded four flowers to the commune in the competition for cities and villages in bloom.


title: Angoulême

text: The valley of the Charente upstream from Angoulême is a Natura 2000 zone with remarkable species: 64 species of birds. Among them are species for marshland and wetland; and at Angoulême it is common to see wildfowl including mute swan, black-necked grebe, little grebe, horned grebe, great crested grebe, greylag goose, gadwall, pintail, Eurasian wigeon, shoveler, garganey, teal and common pochard, tufted duck on the Charente. It is more rare to see waders. Terns and great cormorants return during periods of storms from far upstream on the river.


title: Angoulême

text: Marquet island and the Forest of la Pudrerie have been finally cleared and will be provided to the population.


title: Angoulême

text: Hiking trails and an old haulage road have become part of the green corridor which allows walks along the river.


title: Angoulême

text: In 1983 the Regional School of Fine Arts in Angoulême (EESI) was created with the first cartoon section in France.


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême is home to the "International City of Cartoons and Images" which registers all the comics published in France. There is also at "la Cité" the "ENJMIN" which is the first state-funded school in Europe for the key subjects of video games and interactive media.


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême, along with paper and printing, has long been associated with animation, illustration and the graphic arts. The Cité internationale de la Bande Dessinée et de l'Image includes an exhibition space and cinema in a converted brewery down by the river. A new museum dedicated to the motion picture opened in 2007 at the newly restored "chais" on opposite side of the river at Saint Cybard. The architect was Jean-François Bodin. The Angoulême International Comics Festival takes place for a week every year in January and attracts nearly a quarter of a million international visitors.


title: Angoulême

text: Another festival, small yet influential, is FITA, held each December. FITA stands for "Forum International des Technologies de l'Animation", International Forum for Animation Technologies. The event was started in 1998. Some 250 to 300 French professionals from animation, effects, post-production and game development studios: SFX supervisors, head of studios, animators, technical directors, meet to share information and hear internationally renowned speakers on the latest advances and new ideas in entertainment technology.


title: Angoulême

text: The Circuit des Remparts motor racing event, with its street circuit around the ramparts and past the Cathedral, is held the Sunday of the middle weekend in September. It is also the occasion of the world's largest gathering of pre-war Bugatti race cars, usually around 30 cars, many being examples of the legendary T35, the Ferraris of their day. British vintage and classic cars are also in attendance, most having been driven to the event. The Saturday of the "Remparts" weekend includes a tourist rally (as opposed to a speed event) for classic and sporting cars, around the Cognac area.


title: Angoulême

text: In another international sports event, Angoulême was the site of the finish of Stages 18 and 19 (ITT) in the 2007 Tour de France.


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême also hosts the "Gastronomades" festival at Christmas, Music "Metisse" in May and "Piano en Valois" in October.


title: Angoulême

text: A new exhibition centre (Le Parc Des Expos) and a new shopping mall at the Champ de Mars in the town centre (opening Sept/Oct 2007) are the latest additions to the town.


title: Angoulême

text: Angoulême is the seat of a bishop, a prefect, and an assize court. Its public institutions include tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a council of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. It has several lycées (including the Lycee de l'Image et du Son d'Angoulême (LISA – High School of Image and Sound)), training colleges, a school of artillery, a library and several learned societies.


title: Angoulême

text: The University Centre of Charente is administratively attached to the University of Poitiers. It includes:


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is neuropathic pain that occurs due to damage to a peripheral nerve caused by the reactivation of the varicella zoster virus (herpes zoster, also known as shingles). Typically, the nerve pain (neuralgia) is confined to an area of skin innervated by a single sensory nerve, which is known as a dermatome. PHN is defined as dermatomal nerve pain that persists for more than 90 days after an outbreak of herpes zoster affecting the same dermatome. Several types of pain may occur with PHN including continuous burning pain, episodes of severe shooting or electric-like pain, and a heightened sensitivity to gentle touch which would not otherwise cause pain (mechanical allodynia) or to painful stimuli (hyperalgesia). Abnormal sensations and itching may also occur.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: The nerve pain of PHN is thought to result from damage in a peripheral nerve that was affected by the reactivation of the varicella zoster virus or troubles after chemotherapy. PHN typically begins when the herpes zoster vesicles have crusted over and begun to heal, but can begin in the absence of herpes zoster—a condition called "zoster sine herpete".


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: There is no treatment that modifies the disease course of PHN; therefore, controlling the affected person's symptoms is the main goal of treatment. Medications applied to the skin such as capsaicin or topical anesthetics (e.g., lidocaine) are used for mild pain and can be used in combination with oral medications for moderate to severe pain. Oral anticonvulsant medications such as gabapentin and pregabalin are also approved for treatment of PHN. Tricyclic antidepressants reduce PHN pain, but their use is limited by side effects. Opioid medications are not generally recommended for treatment except in specific circumstances. Such cases should involve a pain specialist in patient care due to mixed evidence of efficacy and concerns about potential for abuse and addiction.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: PHN is the most common long-term complication of herpes zoster. The incidence and prevalence of PHN are uncertain due to varying definitions. Approximately 20% of people affected by herpes zoster report pain in the affected area three months after the initial episode of herpes zoster, and 15% of people similarly report this pain two years after the herpes zoster rash. Since herpes zoster occurs due to reactivation of the varicella zoster virus, which is more likely to occur with a weakened immune system, both herpes zoster and PHN occur more often in the elderly and in people with diabetes mellitus. Risk factors for PHN include older age, a severe herpes-zoster rash, and pain during the herpes zoster episode. PHN is often very painful and can be quite debilitating. Affected individuals often experience a decrease in their quality of life.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: Postherpetic neuralgia is thought to be due to nerve damage caused by herpes zoster. The damage causes nerves in the affected dermatomic area of the skin to send abnormal electrical signals to the brain. These signals may convey excruciating pain, and may persist or recur for months, years, or for life.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: A key factor in the neural plasticity underlying neuropathic pain is altered gene expression in sensory dorsal root ganglia neurons. Injury to sensory nerves induces neurochemical, physiological, and anatomical modifications to afferent and central neurons, such as afferent terminal sprouting and inhibitory interneuron loss. Following nerve damage, NaCl channel accumulation causes hyperexcitability, and downregulation of the TTX-resistant Nav1.8 (sensory neuron specific, SNS1) channel and upregulation of TTX-sensitive Nav1.3 (brain type III) and TRPV1 channels. These changes contribute to increased NMDA glutamate receptor-dependent excitability of spinal dorsal horn neurons and are restricted to the ipsilateral (injured) side. A combination of these factors could contribute to the neuropathic pain state of postherpetic neuralgia.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: In 1995, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Varicella vaccine to prevent chickenpox. Its effect on postherpetic neuralgia is still unknown. The vaccine—made from a weakened form of the varicella-zoster virus—may keep chickenpox from occurring in nonimmune children and adults, or at least lessen the risk of the varicella zoster virus lying dormant in the body and reactivating later as shingles. If shingles could be prevented, postherpetic neuralgia could be completely avoided.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: In May 2006 the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices approved a new vaccine by Merck (Zostavax) against shingles. This vaccine is a more potent version of the chickenpox vaccine, and evidence shows that it reduces the incidence of postherpetic neuralgia. The CDC recommends use of this vaccine in all persons over 60 years old.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: The most effective means of preventing PHN from a herpes zoster infection is prior vaccination with the varicella vaccine. Vaccination decreases the overall incidence of virus reactivation but also decreases the severity of disease development and incidence of PHN if reactivation does occur.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: A 2013 Cochrane meta-analysis of 6 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating oral antiviral medications given within 72 hours after the onset of herpes zoster rash in immunocompetent people for preventing postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) found no significant difference between placebo and aciclovir.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: Additionally, there was no significant difference in preventing the incidence of PHN found in the one RCT included in the meta-analysis that compared placebo to oral famciclovir treatment within 72 hours of HZ rash onset. Studies using valaciclovir treatment were not included in the meta-analysis.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: PHN was defined as pain at the site of the dermatomic rash at 120 days after the onset of rash, and incidence was evaluated at 1, 4, and 6 months after rash onset. Patients who are prescribed oral antiviral agents after the onset of rash should be informed that their chances of developing PHN are no different than those not taking oral antiviral agents.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: The pain from postherpetic neuralgia can be very severe and requires immediate treatment. There is no treatment which modifies the course of the disease and management primarily aims to control symptoms.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: Medications applied to the skin can be used alone if the pain from PHN is mild or in combination with oral medications if the pain is moderate to severe. Topical medications for PHN include low-dose (0.075%) and high-dose (8%) capsaicin and anesthetics such as lidocaine patches. Lidocaine patches (5% concentration) are approved in the United States and Europe to treat PHN though evidence supporting their use is limited. A meta-analysis of multiple small placebo-controlled randomized controlled trials found that for every two people treated with topical lidocaine, one person experienced at least a 50% reduction in their PHN-associated pain (number needed to treat (NNT)=2).


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: Low-dose capsaicin may be useful for reducing PHN-associated pain but is limited by side effects (redness and a burning or stinging sensation with application) and the need to apply it four times daily. Approximately three people must be treated with low-dose capsaicin cream for one person to experience significant pain relief (number needed to treat =3.3). A single topical application of a high-dose capsaicin patch over the affected area after numbing the area with a topical anesthetic has also been found to relieve PHN-associated pain. For every eleven people treated with a high-dose capsaicin patch for up to 12 weeks, one person experienced a significant improvement in their pain. (number needed to treat=11). Due to the need for topical anesthesia before application of the high-dose capsaicin patch, referral to a pain specialist is generally recommended if this approach is being considered.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: Multiple oral medications have demonstrated efficacy in relieving postherpetic neuralgia pain. Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), such as nortriptyline or desipramine, are effective in reducing postherpetic neuralgia pain but are limited by their numerous side effects. For every three people treated with a tricyclic antidepressant, one person is expected to have a clinically significant reduction in their pain (NNT=3). Additionally, of every sixteen people treated with a TCA, one person is expected to stop the medication due to a bothersome side effect, such as dry mouth, constipation, or urinary retention (number needed to harm=16). The anticonvulsant medications pregabalin and gabapentin also effectively relieve postherpetic neuralgia pain. Treatment with pregabalin leads to a reduction in pain intensity of 50% or more in one person out of every 4–5 people treated (NNT=4–5). Similarly, treatment with gabapentin also leads to a 50% reduction in pain intensity in one person out of every 7-8 people treated (NNT=7.5).


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: Opioids such as tramadol, methadone, oxycodone, and morphine have not been well-studied for postherpetic neuralgia treatment. Acetaminophen and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are thought to be ineffective and have not undergone rigorous study for PHN.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: The natural history of postherpetic neuralgia involves slow resolution of the pain syndrome. A subgroup of affected individuals may develop severe, long-lasting pain that does not respond to medical therapy.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: In the United States each year approximately 1,000,000 individuals develop herpes zoster. Of those individuals, approximately 10–18% develop postherpetic neuralgia.


title: Postherpetic neuralgia

text: Fewer than 10 percent of people younger than 60 develop postherpetic neuralgia after a bout of herpes zoster, while about 40 percent of people older than 60 do.


title: Rhea Silvia

text: Rhea (or Rea) Silvia (), also known as Ilia (as well as other names) was the mythical mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, who founded the city of Rome. Her story is told in the first book of "Ab Urbe Condita Libri" of Livy and in Cassius Dio's "Roman History". The Legend of Rhea Silvia recounts how she was raped by Mars while she was a Vestal Virgin and as a result became the mother of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. This event was portrayed numerous times in Roman art and mentioned in the "Aeneid" and the works of Ovid. Modern academics consider both how Rhea Silvia is relevant for the treatment of rape victims in Roman mythology as well as the different ways she is portrayed in Roman art.


title: Rhea Silvia

text: According to Livy's account of the legend, she was the daughter of Numitor, king of Alba Longa, and descended from Aeneas. Numitor's younger brother Amulius seized the throne and killed Numitor's son, then forced Rhea Silvia to become a Vestal Virgin, a priestess of the goddess Vesta. As Vestal Virgins were sworn to celibacy, this would ensure the line of Numitor had no heirs. Rhea, however, became pregnant with the twins Romulus and Remus by the god Mars.


title: Rhea Silvia

text: According to Plutarch, she believed this because she saw her children being cared for by a woodpecker and a wolf – animals sacred to Mars. The account says that Rhea Silvia went to a grove sacred to Mars to get water for use in the temple where she encountered Mars who attempted to rape her, she ran into a cave to escape him but to no avail. Mars then promised that her children would be great. These claims of her children's paternity were later doubted by the Roman historian Livy.


title: Rhea Silvia

text: Vesta, to show her displeasure at the birth of Rhea Silvia's children, caused the holy fire in her temple to go out, shook her altar, and shut the eyes of her image. According to Ennius, the goddess Venus was more sympathetic to Rhea Silvia's plight.


title: Rhea Silvia

text: When Amulius learned of the birth he imprisoned Rhea Silvia and ordered a servant to kill the twins. But the servant showed mercy and set them adrift on the river Tiber, which, overflowing, left the infants in a pool by the bank. There, a she-wolf ("lupa"), who had just lost her own cubs, suckled them. Rhea Silvia was herself spared from death due to the intercession of Amulius' daughter Antho. According to Ovid, Rhea Silvia ultimately threw herself into the Tiber.


title: Rhea Silvia

text: Romulus and Remus overthrew Amulius and reinstated Numitor as king in 752 BCE. They would then go to found Rome.


title: Rhea Silvia

text: Despite Livy's euhemerist and realist deflation of this myth, it is clear that the story of her seduction by Mars continued to be widely accepted. This is demonstrated by the recurring theme of Mars discovering Rhea Silvia in Roman arts: In bas-relief on the Casali Altar (Vatican Museums), in engraved couched glass on the Portland Vase (British Museum), or on a sarcophagus in the Palazzo Mattei. Mars' discovery of Rhea Silvia is a prototype of the "invention scene" ("discovery scene") familiar in Roman art; Greek examples are furnished by Dionysus and Ariadne or Selene and Endymion.


title: Rhea Silvia

text: The Portland Vase features a scene that has been interpreted as a depiction of the "invention", or coming-upon, of Rhea Sylvia by Mars.


title: Rhea Silvia

text: In the Museo Nazionale Romano there is a depiction of Rhea Silvia sleeping during the conception of Romulus and Remus in a Relief.


title: Rhea Silvia

text: In a version presented by Ovid's "Fasti", it is the river Anio who takes pity on her and invites her to rule his realm.


title: Rhea Silvia

text: In Virgil's "Aeneid", Anchises gives a prophecy that Rhea Silvia would give birth to Romulus and Remus by Mars.


title: Long Depression

text: The Long Depression was a worldwide price and economic recession, beginning in 1873 and running either through March 1879, or 1896, depending on the metrics used. It was most severe in Europe and the United States, which had been experiencing strong economic growth fueled by the Second Industrial Revolution in the decade following the American Civil War. The episode was labeled the "Great Depression" at the time, and it held that designation until the Great Depression of the 1930s. Though a period of general deflation and a general contraction, it did not have the severe economic retrogression of the Great Depression.


title: Long Depression

text: It was most notable in Western Europe and North America, at least in part because reliable data from the period is most readily available in those parts of the world. The United Kingdom is often considered to have been the hardest hit; during this period it lost some of its large industrial lead over the economies of continental Europe. While it was occurring, the view was prominent that the economy of the United Kingdom had been in continuous depression from 1873 to as late as 1896 and some texts refer to the period as the Great Depression of 1873–1896, with financial and manufacturing losses reinforced by a long recession in the UK agricultural sector.


title: Long Depression

text: In the United States, economists typically refer to the Long Depression as the Depression of 1873–1879, kicked off by the Panic of 1873, and followed by the Panic of 1893, book-ending the entire period of the wider Long Depression. The U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research dates the contraction following the panic as lasting from October 1873 to March 1879. At 65 months, it is the longest-lasting contraction identified by the NBER, eclipsing the Great Depression's 43 months of contraction. In the United States, from 1873 to 1879, 18,000 businesses went bankrupt, including 89 railroads. Ten states and hundreds of banks went bankrupt. Unemployment peaked in 1878, long after the initial financial panic of 1873 had ended. Different sources peg the peak U.S. unemployment rate anywhere from 8.25% to 14%.


title: Long Depression

text: The period preceding the depression was dominated by several major military conflicts and a period of economic expansion. In Europe, the end of the Franco-Prussian War yielded a new political order in Germany, and the £200 million indemnity imposed on France led to an inflationary investment boom in Germany and Central Europe. New technologies in industry such as the Bessemer converter were being rapidly applied; railroads were booming. In the United States, the end of the Civil War and a brief post-war recession (1865–1867) gave way to an investment boom, focused especially on railroads on public lands in the Western United States - an expansion funded greatly by foreign investors.


title: Long Depression

text: In 1873, during a decline in the value of silver—exacerbated by the end of the German Empire's production of "thaler" coins—the US government passed the Coinage Act of 1873 in April. This essentially ended the bimetallic standard of the United States, forcing it for the first time onto a pure gold standard. This measure, referred to by its opponents as "the Crime of 1873" and the topic of William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold speech in 1896, forced a contraction of the money supply in the United States. It also drove down silver prices further, even as new silver mines were being established in Nevada, which stimulated mining investment but increased supply as demand was falling. Silver miners arrived at US mints, unaware of the ban on production of silver coins, only to find their product no longer welcome. By September, the US economy was in a crisis, deflation causing banking panics and destabilizing business investment, climaxing in the Panic of 1873.


title: Long Depression

text: The Panic of 1873 has been described as "the first truly international crisis". The optimism that had been driving booming stock prices in central Europe had reached a fever pitch, and fears of a bubble culminated in a panic in Vienna beginning in April 1873. The collapse of the Vienna Stock Exchange began on May 8, 1873, and continued until May 10, when the exchange was closed; when it was reopened three days later, the panic seemed to have faded, and appeared confined to Austria-Hungary. Financial panic arrived in the Americas only months later on Black Thursday, September 18, 1873, after the failure of the banking house of Jay Cooke and Company over the Northern Pacific Railway. The Northern Pacific railway had been given of public land in the Western United States and Cooke sought $100,000,000 in capital for the company; the bank failed when the bond issue proved unsalable, and was shortly followed by several other major banks. The New York Stock Exchange closed for ten days on September 20.


title: Long Depression

text: The financial contagion then returned to Europe, provoking a second panic in Vienna and further failures in continental Europe before receding. France, which had been experiencing deflation in the years preceding the crash, was spared financial calamity for the moment, as was Britain.


title: Long Depression

text: Some have argued the depression was rooted in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War that devastated the French economy and, under the Treaty of Frankfurt, forced that country to make large war reparations payments to Germany. The primary cause of the price depression in the United States was the tight monetary policy that the United States followed to get back to the gold standard after the Civil War. The U.S. government was taking money out of circulation to achieve this goal, therefore there was less available money to facilitate trade. Because of this monetary policy the price of silver started to fall causing considerable losses of asset values; by most accounts, after 1879 production was growing, thus further putting downward pressure on prices due to increased industrial productivity, trade and competition.


title: Long Depression

text: In the US the speculative nature of financing due to both the greenback, which was paper currency issued to pay for the Civil War and rampant fraud in the building of the Union Pacific Railway up to 1869 culminated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Railway overbuilding and weak markets collapsed the bubble in 1873. Both the Union Pacific and the Northern Pacific lines were central to the collapse; another railway bubble was the Railway Mania in the United Kingdom.


title: Long Depression

text: Because of the Panic of 1873, governments depegged their currencies, to save money. The demonetization of silver by European and North American governments in the early 1870s was certainly a contributing factor. The US Coinage Act of 1873 was met with great opposition by farmers and miners, as silver was seen as more of a monetary benefit to rural areas than to banks in big cities. In addition, there were US citizens who advocated the continuance of government-issued fiat money (United States Notes) to avoid deflation and promote exports. The western US states were outraged—Nevada, Colorado, and Idaho were huge silver producers with productive mines, and for a few years mining abated. Resumption of silver dollar coinage was authorized by the Bland–Allison Act of 1878. The resumption of the US government buying silver was enacted in 1890 with the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.


title: Long Depression

text: Monetarists believe that the 1873 depression was caused by shortages of gold that undermined the gold standard, and that the 1848 California Gold Rush, 1886 Witwatersrand Gold Rush in South Africa and the 1896–99 Klondike Gold Rush helped alleviate such crises. Other analyses have pointed to developmental surges (see Kondratiev wave), theorizing that the Second Industrial Revolution was causing large shifts in the economies of many states, imposing transition costs, which may also have played a role in causing the depression.


title: Long Depression

text: Like the later Great Depression, the Long Depression affected different countries at different times, at different rates, and some countries accomplished rapid growth over certain periods. Globally, however, the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s were a period of falling price levels and rates of economic growth significantly below the periods preceding and following.


title: Long Depression

text: Between 1870 and 1890, iron production in the five largest producing countries more than doubled, from 11 million tons to 23 million tons, steel production increased twentyfold (half a million tons to 11 million tons), and railroad development boomed. But at the same time, prices in several markets collapsed - the price of grain in 1894 was only a third what it had been in 1867, and the price of cotton fell by nearly 50 percent in just the five years from 1872 to 1877, imposing great hardship on farmers and planters. This collapse provoked protectionism in many countries, such as France, Germany, and the United States, while triggering mass emigration from other countries such as Italy, Spain, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. Similarly, while the "production" of iron doubled between the 1870s and 1890s, the "price" of iron halved.


title: Long Depression

text: Many countries experienced significantly lower growth rates relative to what they had experienced earlier in the 19th century and to what they experienced afterwards:


title: Long Depression

text: The global economic crisis first erupted in Austria-Hungary, where in May 1873 the Vienna Stock Exchange crashed. In Hungary, the panic of 1873 terminated a mania of railroad-building.


title: Long Depression

text: In the late 1870s the economic situation in Chile deteriorated. Chilean wheat exports were outcompeted by production in Canada, Russia and Argentina and Chilean copper was largely replaced in international markets by copper from the United States and Spain. Income from silver mining in Chile also dropped. Aníbal Pinto, president of Chile in 1878, expressed his concerns the following way:


title: Long Depression

text: This "mining discovery" came, according to historians Gabriel Salazar and Julio Pinto, into existence through the conquest of Bolivian and Peruvian lands in the War of the Pacific. It has been argued that economic situation and the view of new wealth in the nitrate was the true reason for the Chilean elite to go into war with its neighbors.


title: Long Depression

text: Another response to the economic crisis, according to Jorge Pinto Rodríguez, was the new pulse of conquest of indigenous lands that took place in Araucanía in the 1880s.


title: Long Depression

text: France's experience was somewhat unusual. Having been defeated in the Franco-Prussian War, the country was required to pay £200 million in reparations to the Germans and was already reeling when the 1873 crash occurred. The French adopted a policy of deliberate deflation while paying off the reparations.


title: Long Depression

text: While the United States resumed growth for a time in the 1880s, the Paris Bourse crash of 1882 sent France careening into depression, one which "lasted longer and probably cost France more than any other in the 19th century". The Union Générale, a French bank, failed in 1882, prompting the French to withdraw three million pounds from the Bank of England and triggering a collapse in French stock prices.


title: Long Depression

text: The financial crisis was compounded by diseases impacting the wine and silk industries French capital accumulation and foreign investment plummeted to the lowest levels experienced by France in the latter half of the 19th century. After a boom in new investment banks after the end of the Franco-Prussian War, the destruction of the French banking industry wrought by the crash cast a pall over the financial sector that lasted until the dawn of the 20th century. French finances were further sunk by failing investments abroad, principally in railroads and buildings. The French net national product declined over the ten years from 1882 to 1892.


title: Long Depression

text: A ten-year tariff war broke out between France and Italy after 1887, damaging Franco-Italian relations which had prospered during Italian unification. As France was Italy's biggest investor, the liquidation of French assets in the country was especially damaging.


title: Long Depression

text: The Russian experience was similar to the US experience - three separate recessions, concentrated in manufacturing, occurred in the period (1874–1877, 1881–1886, and 1891–1892), separated by periods of recovery.


title: Long Depression

text: The United Kingdom, which had previously experienced crises every decade since the 1820s, was initially less affected by this financial crisis, even though the Bank of England kept interest rates as high as 9 percent in the 1870s.


title: Long Depression

text: The 1878 failure of the City of Glasgow Bank in Scotland arose through a combination of fraud and speculative investments in Australian and New Zealand companies (agriculture and mining) and in American railroads.


title: Long Depression

text: Building on an 1870 reform, and the 1879 famine, thousands of Irish tenant farmers affected by depressed producer prices and high rents launched the Land War in 1879, which resulted in the reforming Irish Land Acts.


title: Long Depression

text: In the United States, the Long Depression began with the Panic of 1873. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the contraction following the panic as lasting from October 1873 to March 1879. At 65 months, it is the longest-lasting contraction identified by the NBER, eclipsing the Great Depression's 43 months of contraction. Figures from Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz show net national product increased 3 percent per year from 1869 to 1879 and real national product grew at 6.8 percent per year during that time frame. However, since between 1869 and 1879 the population of the United States increased by over 17.5 percent, per capita NNP growth was lower. Following the end of the episode in 1879, the U.S. economy would remain unstable, experiencing recessions for 114 of the 253 months until January 1901.


title: Long Depression

text: The dramatic shift in prices mauled nominal wages - in the United States, nominal wages declined by one-quarter during the 1870s, and as much as one-half in some places, such as Pennsylvania. Although real wages had enjoyed robust growth in the aftermath of the American Civil War, increasing by nearly a quarter between 1865 and 1873, they stagnated until the 1880s, posting no real growth, before resuming their robust rate of expansion in the later 1880s. The collapse of cotton prices devastated the already war-ravaged economy of the southern United States. Although farm prices fell dramatically, American agriculture continued to expand production.


title: Long Depression

text: Thousands of American businesses failed, defaulting on more than a billion dollars of debt. One in four laborers in New York were out of work in the winter of 1873–1874 and, nationally, a million became unemployed.


title: Long Depression

text: The sectors which experienced the most severe declines in output were manufacturing, construction, and railroads. The railroads had been a tremendous engine of growth in the years before the crisis, yielding a 50% increase in railroad mileage from 1867 to 1873. After absorbing as much as 20% of US capital investment in the years preceding the crash, this expansion came to a dramatic end in 1873; between 1873 and 1878, the total amount of railroad mileage in the United States barely increased at all.


title: Long Depression

text: The Freedman's Savings Bank was a typical casualty of the financial crisis. Chartered in 1865 in the aftermath of the American Civil War, the bank had been established to advance the economic welfare of America's newly emancipated freedmen. In the early 1870s, the bank had joined in the speculative fever, investing in real estate and unsecured loans to railroads; its collapse in 1874 was a severe blow to African-Americans.


title: Long Depression

text: The recession exacted a harsh political toll on President Ulysses S. Grant. Historian Allan Nevins says of the end of Grant's presidency:


title: Long Depression

text: Recovery began in 1878. The mileage of railroad track laid down increased from in 1878 to 11,568 in 1882. Construction began recovery by 1879; the value of building permits increased two and a half times between 1878 and 1883, and unemployment fell to 2.5% in spite of (or perhaps facilitated by) high immigration.


title: Long Depression

text: The recovery, however, proved short-lived. Business profits declined steeply between 1882 and 1884. The recovery in railroad construction reversed itself, falling from of track laid in 1882 to of track laid in 1885; the price of steel rails collapsed from $71/ton in 1880 to $20/ton in 1884. Manufacturing again collapsed - durable goods output fell by a quarter again. The decline became another financial crisis in 1884, when multiple New York banks collapsed; simultaneously, in 1883–1884, tens of millions of dollars of foreign-owned American securities were sold out of fears that the United States was preparing to abandon the gold standard. This financial panic destroyed eleven New York banks, more than a hundred state banks, and led to defaults on at least $32 million worth of debt. Unemployment, which had stood at 2.5% between recessions, surged to 7.5% in 1884–1885, and 13% in the northeastern United States, even as immigration plunged in response to deteriorating labor markets.


title: Long Depression

text: This second recession led to further deterioration of farm prices. Kansas farmers burned their own corn in 1885 because it was worth less than other fuels such as coal or wood. The country began to recover in 1885.


title: Long Depression

text: The period preceding the Long Depression had been one of increasing economic internationalism, championed by efforts such as the Latin Monetary Union, many of which then were derailed or stunted by the impacts of economic uncertainty. The extraordinary collapse of farm prices provoked a protectionist response in many nations. Rejecting the free trade policies of the Second Empire, French president Adolphe Thiers led the new Third Republic to protectionism, which led ultimately to the stringent Méline tariff in 1892. Germany's agrarian Junker aristocracy, under attack by cheap, imported grain, successfully agitated for a protective tariff in 1879 in Otto von Bismarck's Germany over the protests of his National Liberal Party allies. In 1887, Italy and France embarked on a bitter tariff war. In the United States, Benjamin Harrison won the 1888 US presidential election on a protectionist pledge.


title: Long Depression

text: As a result of the protectionist policies enacted by the world's major trading nations, the global merchant marine fleet posted no significant growth from 1870 to 1890 before it nearly doubled in tonnage in the prewar economic boom that followed. Only the United Kingdom and the Netherlands remained committed to low tariffs.


title: Long Depression

text: In 1874, a year after the 1873 crash, the United States Congress passed legislation called the Inflation Bill of 1874 designed to confront the issue of falling prices by injecting fresh greenbacks into the money supply. Under pressure from business interests, President Ulysses S. Grant vetoed the measure. In 1878, Congress overrode President Rutherford B. Hayes's veto to pass the Silver Purchase Act, a similar but more successful attempt to promote "easy money".


title: Long Depression

text: The United States endured its first nationwide strike in 1877, the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. This led to widespread unrest and often violence in many major cities and industrial hubs including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Reading, Saint Louis, Scranton, and Shamokin.


title: Long Depression

text: The Long Depression contributed to the revival of colonialism leading to the New Imperialism period, symbolized by the scramble for Africa, as the western powers sought new markets for their surplus accumulated capital. According to Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (1951), the "unlimited expansion of power" followed the "unlimited expansion of capital".


title: Long Depression

text: In the United States, beginning in 1878, the rebuilding, extending, and refinancing of the western railways, commensurate with the wholesale giveaway of water, timber, fish, minerals in what had previously been Indian territory, characterized a rising market. This led to the expansion of markets and industry, together with the robber barons of railroad owners, which culminated in the genteel 1880s and 1890s. The Gilded Age was the outcome for the few rich. The cycle repeated itself with the Panic of 1893, another huge market crash.


title: Long Depression

text: In the United States, the National Bureau of Economic Analysis dates the recession through March 1879. In January 1879, the United States returned to the gold standard which it had abandoned during the Civil War; according to economist Rendigs Fels, the gold standard put a floor to the deflation, and this was further boosted by especially good agricultural production in 1879. The view that a single recession lasted from 1873 to 1896 or 1897 is not supported by most modern reviews of the period. It has even been suggested that the trough of this business cycle may have occurred as early as 1875.


title: Long Depression

text: In fact, from 1869 to 1879, the US economy grew at a rate of 6.8% for real net national product (NNP) and 4.5% for real NNP per capita. Real wages were flat from 1869 to 1879, while from 1879 to 1896, nominal wages rose 23% and prices fell 4.2%.


title: Long Depression

text: Irving Fisher believed that the Panic of 1873 and the severity of the contractions which followed it could be explained by debt and deflation and that a financial panic would trigger catastrophic deleveraging in an attempt to sell assets and increase capital reserves; that selloff would trigger a collapse in asset prices and deflation, which would in turn prompt financial institutions to sell off more assets, only to further deflation and strain capital ratios. Fisher believed that had governments or private enterprise embarked on efforts to reflate financial markets, the crisis would have been less severe.


title: Long Depression

text: David Ames Wells (1890) wrote of the technological advancements during the period 1870–90, which included the Long Depression. Wells gives an account of the changes in the world economy transitioning into the Second Industrial Revolution in which he documents changes in trade, such as triple expansion steam shipping, railroads, the effect of the international telegraph network and the opening of the Suez Canal. Wells gives numerous examples of productivity increases in various industries and discusses the problems of excess capacity and market saturation.


title: Long Depression

text: The economic changes that have occurred during the last quarter of a century - or during the present generation of living men - have unquestionably been more important and more varied than during any period of the world's history.


title: Long Depression

text: Other changes Wells mentions are reductions in warehousing and inventories, elimination of middlemen, economies of scale, the decline of craftsmen, and the displacement of agricultural workers. About the whole 1870–90 period Wells said:


title: Long Depression

text: Some of these changes have been destructive, and all of them have inevitably occasioned, and for a long time yet will continue to occasion, great disturbances in old methods, and entail losses of capital and changes in occupation on the part of individuals. And yet the world wonders, and commissions of great states inquire, without coming to definite conclusions, why trade and industry in recent years has been universally and abnormally disturbed and depressed.


title: Long Depression

text: Wells notes that many of the government inquiries on the "depression of prices" (deflation) found various reasons such as the scarcity of gold and silver. Wells showed that the US money supply actually grew over the period of the deflation. Wells noted that deflation lowered the cost of only goods that benefited from improved methods of manufacturing and transportation. Goods produced by craftsmen and many services did not decrease in value, and the cost of labor actually increased. Also, deflation did not occur in countries that did not have modern manufacturing, transportation, and communications.


title: Long Depression

text: Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman, author of "A Monetary History of the United States", on the other hand, blamed this prolonged economic crisis on the imposition of a new gold standard, part of which he referred to by its traditional name, The Crime of 1873. Additionally, Friedman pointed to the expansion of the gold supply through Gold cyanidation as a contributor to the recovery. This forced shift into a currency whose supply was limited by nature, unable to expand with demand, caused a series of economic and monetary contractions that plagued the entire period of the Long Depression. Murray Rothbard, in his book "History of Money and Banking of the United States", argues that the long depression was only a misunderstood recession since real wages and production were actually increasing throughout the period. Like Friedman, he attributes falling prices to the resumption of a deflationary gold standard in the U.S. after the Civil War.


title: Long Depression

text: Most economic historians see this period as negative for the most industrial nations. Many argue that most of the stagnation was caused by a monetary contraction caused by abandonment of the bimetallic standard, in favor of a new fiat gold standard, starting with the Coinage Act of 1873.


title: Long Depression

text: Other economic historians have complained about the characterization of this period as a "depression" because of conflicting economic statistics that cast doubt on this interpretation. They note it saw a relatively large expansion of industry, of railroads, of physical output, of net national product, and of real per capita income.


title: Long Depression

text: As economists Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz have noted, the decade from 1869 to 1879 saw a growth of 3 percent per year in money national product, an outstanding real national product growth of 6.8 percent per year, and a rise of 4.5 percent per year in real product per capita. Even the alleged "monetary contraction" never took place, the money supply increasing by 2.7 percent per year. From 1873 through 1878, before another spurt of monetary expansion, the total supply of bank money rose from $1.964 billion to $2.221 billion, a rise of 13.1 percent, or 2.6 percent per year. In short, it was a modest but definite rise, not a contraction. Although per-capita nominal income declined very gradually from 1873 to 1879, that decline was more than offset by a gradual increase over the course of the next 17 years.


title: Long Depression

text: Furthermore, real per capita income either stayed approximately constant (1873–1880; 1883–1885) or rose (1881–1882; 1886–1896), so the average consumer appears to have been considerably better off at the end of the "depression" than before. Studies of other countries where prices also tumbled, including the US, Germany, France, and Italy, reported more markedly positive trends in both nominal and real per capita income figures. Profits generally were also not adversely affected by deflation, although they declined (particularly in Britain) in industries struggling against superior, foreign competition. Furthermore, some economists argue a falling general price level is not inherently harmful to an economy and cite the economic growth of the period as evidence. As economist Murray Rothbard has stated:


title: Long Depression

text: Unfortunately, most historians and economists are conditioned to believe that steadily and sharply falling prices must result in depression: hence their amazement at the obvious prosperity and economic growth during this era. For they have overlooked the fact that in the natural course of events, when government and the banking system do not increase the money supply very rapidly, freemarket capitalism will result in an increase of production and economic growth so great as to swamp the increase of money supply. Prices will fall, and the consequences will be not depression or stagnation, but prosperity (since costs are falling, too), economic growth, and the spread of the increased living standard to all the consumers.


title: Long Depression

text: Accompanying the overall growth in real prosperity was a marked shift in consumption from necessities to luxuries: by 1885, "more houses were being built, twice as much tea was being consumed, and even the working classes were eating imported meat, oranges, and dairy produce in quantities unprecedented". The change in working class incomes and tastes was symbolized by "the spectacular development of the department store and the chain store".


title: Long Depression

text: Prices certainly fell, but almost every other index of economic activity - output of coal and pig iron, tonnage of ships built, consumption of raw wool and cotton, import and export figures, shipping entries and clearances, railway freight clearances, joint-stock company formations, trading profits, consumption per head of wheat, meat, tea, beer, and tobacco - all of these showed an upward trend.


title: Long Depression

text: A large part at least of the deflation commencing in the 1870s was a reflection of unprecedented advances in factor productivity. Real unit production costs for most final goods dropped steadily throughout the 19th century and especially from 1873 to 1896. At no previous time had there been an equivalent "harvest of technological advances... so general in their application and so radical in their implications". That is why, notwithstanding the dire predictions of many eminent economists, Britain did not end up paralyzed by strikes and lockouts. Falling prices did not mean falling money wages. Instead of inspiring large numbers of workers to go on strike, falling prices were inspiring them to go shopping.


title: Equirectangular projection

text: The equirectangular projection (also called the equidistant cylindrical projection or la carte parallélogrammatique projection), and which includes the special case of the plate carrée projection (also called the geographic projection, lat/lon projection, or plane chart), is a simple map projection attributed to Marinus of Tyre, who Ptolemy claims invented the projection about AD 100. The projection maps meridians to vertical straight lines of constant spacing (for meridional intervals of constant spacing), and circles of latitude to horizontal straight lines of constant spacing (for constant intervals of parallels). The projection is neither equal area nor conformal. Because of the distortions introduced by this projection, it has little use in navigation or cadastral mapping and finds its main use in thematic mapping. In particular, the plate carrée has become a standard for global raster datasets, such as Celestia, NASA World Wind, the USGS Astrogeology Research Program, and Natural Earth, because of the particularly simple relationship between the position of an image pixel on the map and its corresponding geographic location on Earth or other spherical solar system bodies. In addition it is frequently used in panoramic photography to represent a spherical panoramic image.


title: Equirectangular projection

text: The forward projection transforms spherical coordinates into planar coordinates. The reverse projection transforms from the plane back onto the sphere. The formulae presume a spherical model and use these definitions:


title: Equirectangular projection

text: The (French, for "flat square"), is the special case where formula_3 is zero. This projection maps "x" to be the value of the longitude and "y" to be the value of the latitude, and therefore is sometimes called the latitude/longitude or lat/lon(g) projection or is said to be “unprojected”. Despite sometimes being called “unprojected”, it is actually projected.


title: Equirectangular projection

text: When the formula_3 is not zero, such as Marinus's formula_12, or Ronald Miller's formula_13, the projection can portray particular latitudes of interest at true scale.


title: Equirectangular projection

text: While a projection with equally spaced parallels is possible for an ellipsoidal model, it would no longer be equidistant because the distance between parallels on an ellipsoid is not constant. More complex formulae can be used to create an equidistant map whose parallels reflect the true spacing.


title: Pau FC

text: Pau Football Club , known simply as Pau, is a French professional association football club based in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, capital of Béarn. They compete in Ligue 2, the second tier of French football.


title: Pau FC

text: Pau FC were founded in 1920 as Bleuets de Notre-Dame de Pau, although their official founding date is in 1959, when Football Club de Pau were first formed. Bleuets de Notre-Dame joined the highest amateur league in France in 1958 after success in the French South-West League (Ligue du Sud-Ouest). However, the religious authorities argued that the football section had outgrown the rest of the club and financial support was withdrawn. As a consequence, José Bidegain, a local businessman, created the Football Club de Pau. In the early years after the club's formation in its original home of Pau, they played their home matches at many different grounds until finally settling at the Nouste Camp.


title: Pau FC

text: The club's achievements include winning the Championnat National in 2020, winning the National 2 title twice in 1998 and 2016 and winning the French South-West League in 1958 and 1968.


title: Pau FC

text: Pau FC have long-standing rivalries with several other clubs in Southern France in the Adour river basin. The most notable of these are Bayonne, Mont-de-Marsan and Tarbes. With the rise of Pau FC and the decline of Bayonne, Mont-de-Marsan and Tarbes, Pau recently became a strong rival to Bordeaux and both form the New Aquitaine derby.


title: Pau FC

text: Since the Belle Époque, football had to play second fiddle to basketball and especially rugby union in Pau. Nowadays, the popularity of both Pau's rugby union and basketball clubs – Section Paloise and Élan Béarnais, respectively – remains greater than that of Pau FC.


title: Pau FC

text: Historically and culturally, rugby was probably closer to the values of the place (Gascony), replacing the Béarnese and Basque rural sports in the hearts of the people of Béarn and Gascony.


title: Pau FC

text: On 16 January 2020, Pau eliminated Ligue 1 side Bordeaux from the Coupe de France following a 3–2 victory. "Les Maynats" went on to face national champions Paris Saint-Germain in the round of 16 of the cup, losing 2–0. Pau registered their highest attendance ever that day, with 16,707 persons witnessing the Parisian victory.


title: Pau FC

text: When the 2019–20 Championnat National season was prematurely ended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Pau were top of the table, and were declared promoted to Ligue 2 by the FFF executive committee. In the 2020–21 season, the club placed fourteenth in Ligue 2.


title: Pau FC

text: 1958: Champion of the French South-West regional football league. Promotion to the third tier of French football.


title: Pau FC

text: 1995: The club went to administration, reformed, changed their name to Pau Football Club and were relegated to the fourth tier of French football.


title: Pau FC

text: 1998: Champion of the Group C of the Championnat de France Amateur and promoted to the Championnat National. The club also reached the round of 16 of the Coupe de France, where they lost 2–0 to Paris Saint-Germain.


title: Pau FC

text: For the 2022–23 season, the club decided to update their logo. Their new crest has a round shape and gathers many symbols of Béarn and the city of Pau: the Pyrenees mountain range, the Pic du Midi d'Ossau and the two cows that feature on the province of Béarn's flag.


title: Pau FC

text: There are various references to the coat of arms of the city of Pau such as King Henry IV's crown, the three posts that gave the city its name ("pau" in Béarnese) and the peafowl, a clear example of canting arms, as its name ("pavon" or "pau" in Béarnese) was used as an approximation to represent the city of Pau.


title: MassKara Festival

text: The MassKara Festival (Hiligaynon: "Pista sang MassKara", Filipino: "Pista ng MassKara") is an annual festival with highlights held every 4th Sunday of October in Bacolod, Philippines. The most recent festival was held last October 30, 2021 (with only virtual audience, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic). The festival sites include the Bacolod Public Plaza, the Lacson Tourism Strip and the Bacolod City Government Center.


title: MassKara Festival

text: The word "Masskara" is a portmanteau, coined by the late artist Ely Santiago from "mass" (a multitude of people), and the Spanish word "cara" (face), thus forming "MassKara" (a multitude of faces). The word is also a pun on "maskara", Filipino for "mask" (itself from Spanish "máscara"), since it is a prominent feature of the festival and are always adorned with smiling faces, giving rise to Bacolod being called the "City of Smiles".


title: MassKara Festival

text: The Festival first began in 1980. The province relied on sugar cane as its primary agricultural crop and the price of sugar was at an all-time low due to the introduction of sugar substitutes like high fructose corn syrup in the United States. This was the first MassKara Festival and a time of tragedy; on April 22 of that year, the inter-island vessel MV Don Juan carrying many Negrenses, including those belonging to prominent families in Bacolod City, collided with the tanker "Tacloban City" and sank in Tablas Strait off Mindoro while en route from Manila to Bacolod, which resulted in 18 lives lost, and 115 missing.


title: MassKara Festival

text: In the midst of these events, the local government then headed by the late Mayor Jose "Digoy" Montalvo appropriated a seed fund and enjoined the city's artistic community, civic and business groups to hold a "festival of smiles", to live up to the City's moniker as the "City of Smiles". They reasoned that a festival was also a good opportunity to pull the residents out of the pervasive gloomy atmosphere brought by the Don Juan Tragedy. The initial festival was held during the City's Charter Day celebration on October 19, 1980 and was steered by an organizing committee created by City Hall which was headed by the late councilor Romeo Geocadin and then city tourism officer Evelio Leonardia. It was a declaration by the people of the city that no matter how tough and bad the times were, Bacolod City was going to pull through, survive, and in the end, triumph.


title: MassKara Festival

text: The festival has evolved into one of the major annual tourism attractions of the Philippines over the next four decades. Held in typical Oktoberfest and Mardi Gras fashion, the MassKara Festival served as a catalyst for far-reaching growth and development of the city's tourism, hospitality, culinary, crafts and souvenirs and services sectors. In later years, the Electric Masskara was added as another attraction of the Festival. For several nights leading to the highlight weekend, tribes of MassKara dancers garbed in colorful neon and LED lights on illuminated floats make their way up and down the Lacson Strip, a one kilometer stretch of merrymaking dotted with band stages, souvenir stands, exotic car displays and roadside bars and food set-ups put out by restaurant and hotels along the strip. It is said that beer consumption during the festival is so high that at one time during the first few stagings of the festival, it bled dry the Mandaue brewery of San Miguel Corporation on nearby Cebu island. The company eventually built its Bacolod brewery to serve the city and Negros Island.


title: MassKara Festival

text: The mask motif of the festival has changed from masks influenced by native Filipinos to those influenced by the Carnival of Venice and the Rio Carnival. Earlier masks were hand-painted and adorned with feathers, flowers and native beads, while contemporary masks feature plastic beads and sequins.


title: MassKara Festival

text: The festival features a street dance competition where people from all walks of life troop to the streets to see masked dancers gyrating to the rhythm of Latin musical beats in a display of mastery, gaiety, coordination and stamina. Major activities include the MassKara Queen beauty pageant, carnivals, drum, bugle corps competitions, food festivals, sports events, musical concerts, agriculture-trade fairs, garden shows, and other special events organized every year.


title: MassKara Festival

text: The street dance competition is divided into two categories; the school division, and the barangay division, the latter is considered as the highlight of the street dancing competition.


title: Qismat

text: Qismat () is a 2018 Punjabi romantic drama film written and directed by Jagdeep Sidhu. Produced by Shri Narotam Ji Productions, the film stars Ammy Virk and Sargun Mehta in lead roles along with Guggu Gill, Tania and Harby Sangha in supporting roles. It was titled after a 2017 song of the same name, sung by Virk and starring Mehta in its music video. The film follows a man who falls in love whilst studying in Chandigarh, despite his marriage being arranged to another woman. It marked feature film debut for Tania.


title: Qismat

text: Principal photography took place within a single schedule that lasted 45 days in Chandigarh and other villages of Punjab, India, with Jalesh Oberoi serving as cinematographer. The background score was composed by Gurmeet Singh and Sandeep Saxena while the soundtrack was composed by B Praak and Sukh-E, with vocals from Ammy Virk, Gurnam Bhullar, Kamal Khan, Divya Bhatt, Neetu Bhalla and B Praak. Also, Khan won "Best Playback Singer" Award.


title: Qismat

text: "Qismat" was released worldwide on 21 September 2018 by White Hill Studios The film attracted positive reviews from critics, with some highlighting it as Virk's best performance at the time, while some criticized film's length. Commercially, the film has grossed in its theatrical run, and it ran for more than 50 days. The film is one of the highest-grossing Punjabi films of all time and second highest grossing Punjabi film of 2018. The film won Best Film (critics) award at 9th PTC Punjabi Film Awards, and was nominated for Best Film award at PTC Awards and Brit Asia Film Awards.


title: Qismat

text: The sequel was announced in May 2019. Sidhu, Virk, Mehta, Jaani, and B Praak returned for the sequel, titled "Qismat 2" and was released on 23 September 2021.


title: Qismat

text: The film begins with Shivjit (Ammy Virk) asking his family members to send him off to Chandigarh to attend college. He had already failed twice so his family was reluctant at first and wanted him to marry Aman (Tania) but then they send him to Chandigarh. As soon as he reaches Chandigarh, he starts searching for a casual relationship and gets attracted to Bani (Sargun Mehta) who lives in the same apartment building. Bani is a modern and confident girl who finds her boyfriend cheating on her. To humiliate him she gets Shiva's help by asking him to pose as her fake boyfriend. After some encounters between the two they become close. Due to Bani's boyfriend's cheating she agrees to the arranged marriage. Shiva is sent off from her neighbourhood because of Bani's strict father Gurnam Singh ( Guggu Gill). Soon Bani's alliance gets fixed and Shiva goes back to his village. Shiva now meets Aman and is about to marry her when Bani's father comes to take him along. After separation from Shiva , Bani's health deteriorates. She suffers a chronic illness and severe infection. Shiva visits her and helps in her recovery, but soon he has to leave for his marriage about which he informs Bani, later Bani's reports improve. While Shiva is wedding shopping with Aman he confesses to her about his love for Bani who understands him and let's him go. When Shiva reaches the hospital Bani is dead, the two lovers are then separated by destiny.


title: Qismat

text: A single titled "Qismat" was released by Ammy Virk starring Sargun Mehta in its music video which got huge success and was one of the most successful hits of Ammy Virk. When Jagdeep Sidhu was asked would their be any similarity between film and song, he denied by saying that genre of song was sad whereas film is romedy. The film was written by Jagdeep Sidhu even before the release of song "Qismat" but was untitled yet. Also, the film was written for Bollywood and was narrated to Sushant Singh Rajput, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Varun Dhawan, Ayushmann Khurrana, Vicky Kaushal, Kartik Aaryan, Shraddha Kapoor and to leading production houses – Yash Raj, Balaji, T-Series, Dharma by Sidhu but wasn’t working and one of his friend asked Sidhu to make the film in Punjabi. After the film was signed producers suggested Sidhu to direct the film by himself only.


title: Qismat

text: He wanted to direct the film with new lead actors. As, Virk is his old friend and have done many films together before said he would do the film. Then, Tania was being considered as a lead actress but Sidhu wasn’t sure. Sidhu said, “One day Sargun came to meet Ammy and we just shared the film with her. As soon as she heard the script, she wanted to do it.” Sargun wrote, "Jab Jaggi Ne Mujhe yeh film Sunayi thi tabhi Meri Aankhon Mein Aansu they" means "when Jaggi was narrating this film to her she was crying". So, due to similarity in characters and crew of film and song, the film was titled as "Qismat". There were also some shooting locations in Chandigarh and Benaras similar in song and film. In an interview with PTC Punjabi Ammy and Sargun disclosed that they both signed the film just few days after the release of song and only film signed by Sargun releasing in 2018. Her last film Lahoriye was released 16 months ago from "Qismat".