title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: The Iron Age is conventionally defined by the widespread replacement of bronze weapons and tools with those of iron and steel. That transition happened at different times in different places, as the technology spread. Mesopotamia was fully into the Iron Age by 900 BC. Although Egypt produced iron artifacts, bronze remained dominant until its conquest by Assyria in 663 BC. The Iron Age began in India about 1200 BC, in Central Europe about 800 BC, and in China about 300 BC. Around 500 BC, the Nubians, who had learned from the Assyrians the use of iron and were expelled from Egypt, became major manufacturers and exporters of iron.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: One of the earliest smelted iron artifacts, a dagger with an iron blade found in a Hattic tomb in Anatolia, dated from 2500 BC. About 1500 BC, increasing numbers of non-meteoritic, smelted iron objects appeared in Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Egypt. Nineteen meteoric iron objects were found in the tomb of Egyptian ruler Tutankhamun, who died in 1323 BC, including an iron dagger with a golden hilt, an Eye of Horus, the mummy's head-stand and sixteen models of an artisan's tools. An Ancient Egyptian sword bearing the name of pharaoh Merneptah as well as a battle axe with an iron blade and gold-decorated bronze shaft were both found in the excavation of Ugarit.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Although iron objects dating from the Bronze Age have been found across the Eastern Mediterranean, bronzework appears to have greatly predominated during this period. As the technology spread, iron came to replace bronze as the dominant metal used for tools and weapons across the Eastern Mediterranean (the Levant, Cyprus, Greece, Crete, Anatolia and Egypt).


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Iron was originally smelted in bloomeries, furnaces where bellows were used to force air through a pile of iron ore and burning charcoal. The carbon monoxide produced by the charcoal reduced the iron oxide from the ore to metallic iron. The bloomery, however, was not hot enough to melt the iron, so the metal collected in the bottom of the furnace as a spongy mass, or "bloom". Workers then repeatedly beat and folded it to force out the molten slag. This laborious, time-consuming process produced wrought iron, a malleable but fairly soft alloy.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Concurrent with the transition from bronze to iron was the discovery of carburization, the process of adding carbon to wrought iron. While the iron bloom contained some carbon, the subsequent hot-working oxidized most of it. Smiths in the Middle East discovered that wrought iron could be turned into a much harder product by heating the finished piece in a bed of charcoal, and then quenching it in water or oil. This procedure turned the outer layers of the piece into steel, an alloy of iron and iron carbides, with an inner core of less brittle iron.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: The development of iron smelting was traditionally attributed to the Hittites of Anatolia of the Late Bronze Age. It was believed that they maintained a monopoly on iron working, and that their empire had been based on that advantage. According to that theory, the ancient Sea Peoples, who invaded the Eastern Mediterranean and destroyed the Hittite empire at the end of the Late Bronze Age, were responsible for spreading the knowledge through that region. This theory is no longer held in the mainstream of scholarship, since there is no archaeological evidence of the alleged Hittite monopoly. While there are some iron objects from Bronze Age Anatolia, the number is comparable to iron objects found in Egypt and other places of the same time period, and only a small number of those objects were weapons.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: A more recent theory claims that the development of iron technology was driven by the disruption of the copper and tin trade routes, due to the collapse of the empires at the end of the Late Bronze Age. These metals, especially tin, were not widely available and metal workers had to transport them over long distances, whereas iron ores were widely available. However, no known archaeological evidence suggests a shortage of bronze or tin in the Early Iron Age. Bronze objects remained abundant, and these objects have the same percentage of tin as those from the Late Bronze Age.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: The history of ferrous metallurgy in the Indian subcontinent began in the 2nd millennium BC. Archaeological sites in Gangetic plains have yielded iron implements dated between 1800 and 1200 BC. By the early 13th century BC, iron smelting was practiced on a large scale in India. In Southern India (present day Mysore) iron was in use 12th to 11th centuries BC. The technology of iron metallurgy advanced in the politically stable Maurya period and during a period of peaceful settlements in the 1st millennium BC.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Iron artifacts such as spikes, knives, daggers, arrow-heads, bowls, spoons, saucepans, axes, chisels, tongs, door fittings, etc., dated from 600 to 200 BC, have been discovered at several archaeological sites of India. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote the first western account of the use of iron in India. The Indian mythological texts, the Upanishads, have mentions of weaving, pottery and metallurgy, as well. The Romans had high regard for the excellence of steel from India in the time of the Gupta Empire.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Perhaps as early as 500 BC, although certainly by 200 AD, high-quality steel was produced in southern India by the crucible technique. In this system, high-purity wrought iron, charcoal, and glass were mixed in a crucible and heated until the iron melted and absorbed the carbon. Iron chain was used in Indian suspension bridges as early as the 4th century.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Wootz steel was produced in India and Sri Lanka from around 300 BC. Wootz steel is famous from Classical Antiquity for its durability and ability to hold an edge. When asked by King Porus to select a gift, Alexander is said to have chosen, over gold or silver, thirty pounds of steel. Wootz steel was originally a complex alloy with iron as its main component together with various trace elements. Recent studies have suggested that its qualities may have been due to the formation of carbon nanotubes in the metal. According to Will Durant, the technology passed to the Persians and from them to Arabs who spread it through the Middle East. In the 16th century, the Dutch carried the technology from South India to Europe, where it was mass-produced.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Steel was produced in Sri Lanka from 300 BC by furnaces blown by the monsoon winds. The furnaces were dug into the crests of hills, and the wind was diverted into the air vents by long trenches. This arrangement created a zone of high pressure at the entrance, and a zone of low pressure at the top of the furnace. The flow is believed to have allowed higher temperatures than bellows-driven furnaces could produce, resulting in better-quality iron. Steel made in Sri Lanka was traded extensively within the region and in the Islamic world.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: One of the world's foremost metallurgical curiosities is an iron pillar located in the Qutb complex in Delhi. The pillar is made of wrought iron (98% Fe), is almost seven meters high and weighs more than six tonnes. The pillar was erected by Chandragupta II Vikramaditya and has withstood 1,600 years of exposure to heavy rains with relatively little corrosion.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Historians debate whether bloomery-based ironworking ever spread to China from the Middle East. One theory suggests that metallurgy was introduced through Central Asia. In 2008, two iron fragments were excavated at the Mogou site, in Gansu. They have been dated to the 14th century BC, belonging to the period of Siwa culture, suggesting an independent Chinese origin. One of the fragments was made of bloomery iron rather than meteoritic iron.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: The earliest iron artifacts made from bloomeries in China date to end of the 9th century BC. Cast iron was used in ancient China for warfare, agriculture and architecture. Around 500 BC, metalworkers in the southern state of Wu achieved a temperature of 1130 °C. At this temperature, iron combines with 4.3% carbon and melts. The liquid iron can be cast into molds, a method far less laborious than individually forging each piece of iron from a bloom.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Cast iron is rather brittle and unsuitable for striking implements. It can, however, be "decarburized" to steel or wrought iron by heating it in air for several days. In China, these iron working methods spread northward, and by 300 BC, iron was the material of choice throughout China for most tools and weapons. A mass grave in Hebei province, dated to the early 3rd century BC, contains several soldiers buried with their weapons and other equipment. The artifacts recovered from this grave are variously made of wrought iron, cast iron, malleabilized cast iron, and quench-hardened steel, with only a few, probably ornamental, bronze weapons.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: During the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD), the government established ironworking as a state monopoly (repealed during the latter half of the dynasty and returned to private entrepreneurship) and built a series of large blast furnaces in Henan province, each capable of producing several tons of iron per day. By this time, Chinese metallurgists had discovered how to fine molten pig iron, stirring it in the open air until it lost its carbon and could be hammered (wrought). (In modern Mandarin-Chinese, this process is now called "chao", literally stir frying; pig iron is known as 'raw iron', while wrought iron is known as 'cooked iron'.) By the 1st century BC, Chinese metallurgists had found that wrought iron and cast iron could be melted together to yield an alloy of intermediate carbon content, that is, steel. According to legend, the sword of Liu Bang, the first Han emperor, was made in this fashion. Some texts of the era mention "harmonizing the hard and the soft" in the context of ironworking; the phrase may refer to this process. The ancient city of Wan (Nanyang) from the Han period forward was a major center of the iron and steel industry. Along with their original methods of forging steel, the Chinese had also adopted the production methods of creating Wootz steel, an idea imported from India to China by the 5th century AD. During the Han Dynasty, the Chinese were also the first to apply hydraulic power (i.e. a waterwheel) in working the bellows of the blast furnace. This was recorded in the year 31 AD, as an innovation by the Chinese mechanical engineer and politician Du Shi, Prefect of Nanyang. Although Du Shi was the first to apply water power to bellows in metallurgy, the first drawn and printed illustration of its operation with water power appeared in 1313 AD, in the Yuan Dynasty era text called the "Nong Shu".


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: In the 11th century, there is evidence of the production of steel in Song China using two techniques: a "berganesque" method that produced inferior, heterogeneous steel and a precursor to the modern Bessemer process that utilized partial decarbonization via repeated forging under a cold blast. By the 11th century, there was a large amount of deforestation in China due to the iron industry's demands for charcoal. By this time however, the Chinese had learned to use bituminous coke to replace charcoal, and with this switch in resources many acres of prime timberland in China were spared.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Iron working was introduced to Greece in the late 10th century BC. The earliest marks of Iron Age in Central Europe are artifacts from the Hallstatt C culture (8th century BC). Throughout the 7th to 6th centuries BC, iron artifacts remained luxury items reserved for an elite. This changed dramatically shortly after 500 BC with the rise of the La Tène culture, from which time iron metallurgy also became common in Northern Europe and Britain. The spread of ironworking in Central and Western Europe is associated with Celtic expansion. By the 1st century BC, Noric steel was famous for its quality and sought-after by the Roman military.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Though there is some uncertainty, some archaeologists believe that iron metallurgy was developed independently in sub-Saharan Africa (possibly in West Africa).


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: In the region of the Aïr Mountains in Niger there are also signs of independent copper smelting between 2500 and 1500 BC. The process was not in a developed state, indicating smelting was not foreign. It became mature about 1500 BC.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Archaeological sites containing iron smelting furnaces and slag have also been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria in what is now Igboland: dating to 2000 BC at the site of Lejja (Eze-Uzomaka 2009) and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi (Holl 2009). The site of Gbabiri (in the Central African Republic) has yielded evidence of iron metallurgy, from a reduction furnace and blacksmith workshop; with earliest dates of 896–773 BC and 907–796 BC respectively. Similarly, smelting in bloomery-type furnaces appear in the Nok culture of central Nigeria by about 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: There is also evidence that carbon steel was made in Western Tanzania by the ancestors of the Haya people as early as 2,300 to 2,000 years ago (about 300 BC or soon after) by a complex process of "pre-heating" allowing temperatures inside a furnace to reach 1300 to 1400 °C.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Iron and copper working spread southward through the continent, reaching the Cape around AD 200. The widespread use of iron revolutionized the Bantu-speaking farming communities who adopted it, driving out and absorbing the rock tool using hunter-gatherer societies they encountered as they expanded to farm wider areas of savanna. The technologically superior Bantu-speakers spread across southern Africa and became wealthy and powerful, producing iron for tools and weapons in large, industrial quantities.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: The earliest records of bloomery-type furnaces in East Africa are discoveries of smelted iron and carbon in Nubia that date back between the 7th and 6th centuries BC, particularly in Meroe where there are known to have been ancient bloomeries that produced metal tools for the Nubians and Kushites and produced surplus for their economy.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Iron technology was further advanced by several inventions in medieval Islam, during the Islamic Golden Age. These included a variety of water-powered and wind-powered industrial mills for metal production, including geared gristmills and forges. By the 11th century, every province throughout the Muslim world had these industrial mills in operation, from Islamic Spain and North Africa in the west to the Middle East and Central Asia in the east. There are also 10th-century references to cast iron, as well as archeological evidence of blast furnaces being used in the Ayyubid and Mamluk empires from the 11th century, thus suggesting a diffusion of Chinese metal technology to the Islamic world.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Geared gristmills were invented by Muslim engineers, and were used for crushing metallic ores before extraction. Gristmills in the Islamic world were often made from both watermills and windmills. In order to adapt water wheels for gristmilling purposes, cams were used for raising and releasing trip hammers. The first forge driven by a hydropowered water mill rather than manual labour was invented in the 12th century Islamic Spain.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: One of the most famous steels produced in the medieval Near East was Damascus steel used for swordmaking, and mostly produced in Damascus, Syria, in the period from 900 to 1750. This was produced using the crucible steel method, based on the earlier Indian wootz steel. This process was adopted in the Middle East using locally produced steels. The exact process remains unknown, but it allowed carbides to precipitate out as micro particles arranged in sheets or bands within the body of a blade. Carbides are far harder than the surrounding low carbon steel, so swordsmiths could produce an edge that cut hard materials with the precipitated carbides, while the bands of softer steel let the sword as a whole remain tough and flexible. A team of researchers based at the Technical University of Dresden that uses X-rays and electron microscopy to examine Damascus steel discovered the presence of cementite nanowires and carbon nanotubes. Peter Paufler, a member of the Dresden team, says that these nanostructures give Damascus steel its distinctive properties and are a result of the forging process.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: There was no fundamental change in the technology of iron production in Europe for many centuries. European metal workers continued to produce iron in bloomeries. However, the Medieval period brought two developments—the use of water power in the bloomery process in various places (outlined above), and the first European production in cast iron.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Sometime in the medieval period, water power was applied to the bloomery process. It is possible that this was at the Cistercian Abbey of Clairvaux as early as 1135, but it was certainly in use in early 13th century France and Sweden. In England, the first clear documentary evidence for this is the accounts of a forge of the Bishop of Durham, near Bedburn in 1408, but that was certainly not the first such ironworks. In the Furness district of England, powered bloomeries were in use into the beginning of the 18th century, and near Garstang until about 1770.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: The Catalan Forge was a variety of powered bloomery. Bloomeries with hot blast were used in upstate New York in the mid-19th century.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: The preferred method of iron production in Europe until the development of the puddling process in 1783–84. Cast iron development lagged in Europe because wrought iron was the desired product and the intermediate step of producing cast iron involved an expensive blast furnace and further refining of pig iron to cast iron, which then required a labor and capital intensive conversion to wrought iron.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Through a good portion of the Middle Ages, in Western Europe, iron was still being made by the working of iron blooms into wrought iron. Some of the earliest casting of iron in Europe occurred in Sweden, in two sites, Lapphyttan and Vinarhyttan, between 1150 and 1350. Some scholars have speculated the practice followed the Mongols across Russia to these sites, but there is no clear proof of this hypothesis, and it would certainly not explain the pre-Mongol datings of many of these iron-production centres. In any event, by the late 14th century, a market for cast iron goods began to form, as a demand developed for cast iron cannonballs.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: An alternative method of decarburising pig iron was the finery forge, which seems to have been devised in the region around Namur in the 15th century. By the end of that century, this Walloon process spread to the "Pay de Bray" on the eastern boundary of Normandy, and then to England, where it became the main method of making wrought iron by 1600. It was introduced to Sweden by Louis de Geer in the early 17th century and was used to make the oregrounds iron favoured by English steelmakers.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: A variation on this was the German forge. This became the main method of producing bar iron in Sweden.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: In the early 17th century, ironworkers in Western Europe had developed the cementation process for carburizing wrought iron. Wrought iron bars and charcoal were packed into stone boxes, then sealed with clay to be held at a red heat continually tended in an oxygen-free state immersed in nearly pure carbon (charcoal) for up to a week. During this time, carbon diffused into the surface layers of the iron, producing "cement steel" or "blister steel"—also known as case hardened, where the portions wrapped in iron (the pick or axe blade) became harder, than say an axe hammer-head or shaft socket which might be insulated by clay to keep them from the carbon source. The earliest place where this process was used in England was at Coalbrookdale from 1619, where Sir Basil Brooke had two cementation furnaces (recently excavated in 2001–2005). For a time in the 1610s, he owned a patent on the process, but had to surrender this in 1619. He probably used Forest of Dean iron as his raw material, but it was soon found that oregrounds iron was more suitable. The quality of the steel could be improved by faggoting, producing the so-called shear steel.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: In the 1740s, Benjamin Huntsman found a means of melting blister steel, made by the cementation process, in crucibles. The resulting crucible steel, usually cast in ingots, was more homogeneous than blister steel.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Early iron smelting used charcoal as both the heat source and the reducing agent. By the 18th century, the availability of wood for making charcoal was limiting the expansion of iron production, so that England became increasingly dependent for a considerable part of the iron required by its industry, on Sweden (from the mid-17th century) and then from about 1725 also on Russia.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Smelting with coal (or its derivative coke) was a long sought objective. The production of pig iron with coke was probably achieved by Dud Dudley around 1619, and with a mixed fuel made from coal and wood again in the 1670s. However this was probably only a technological rather than a commercial success. Shadrach Fox may have smelted iron with coke at Coalbrookdale in Shropshire in the 1690s, but only to make cannonballs and other cast iron products such as shells. However, in the peace after the Nine Years War, there was no demand for these.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: In 1707, Abraham Darby I patented a method of making cast iron pots. His pots were thinner and hence cheaper than those of his rivals. Needing a larger supply of pig iron he leased the blast furnace at Coalbrookdale in 1709. There, he made iron using coke, thus establishing the first successful business in Europe to do so. His products were all of cast iron, though his immediate successors attempted (with little commercial success) to fine this to bar iron.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Bar iron thus continued normally to be made with charcoal pig iron until the mid-1750s. In 1755 Abraham Darby II (with partners) opened a new coke-using furnace at Horsehay in Shropshire, and this was followed by others. These supplied coke pig iron to finery forges of the traditional kind for the production of bar iron. The reason for the delay remains controversial.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: It was only after this that economically viable means of converting pig iron to bar iron began to be devised. A process known as potting and stamping was devised in the 1760s and improved in the 1770s, and seems to have been widely adopted in the West Midlands from about 1785. However, this was largely replaced by Henry Cort's puddling process, patented in 1784, but probably only made to work with grey pig iron in about 1790. These processes permitted the great expansion in the production of iron that constitutes the Industrial Revolution for the iron industry.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: In the early 19th century, Hall discovered that the addition of iron oxide to the charge of the puddling furnace caused a violent reaction, in which the pig iron was decarburised, this became known as 'wet puddling'. It was also found possible to produce steel by stopping the puddling process before decarburisation was complete.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: The efficiency of the blast furnace was improved by the change to hot blast, patented by James Beaumont Neilson in Scotland in 1828. This further reduced production costs. Within a few decades, the practice was to have a 'stove' as large as the furnace next to it into which the waste gas (containing CO) from the furnace was directed and burnt. The resultant heat was used to preheat the air blown into the furnace.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Apart from some production of puddled steel, English steel continued to be made by the cementation process, sometimes followed by remelting to produce crucible steel. These were batch-based processes whose raw material was bar iron, particularly Swedish oregrounds iron.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: The problem of mass-producing cheap steel was solved in 1855 by Henry Bessemer, with the introduction of the Bessemer converter at his steelworks in Sheffield, England. (An early converter can still be seen at the city's Kelham Island Museum). In the Bessemer process, molten pig iron from the blast furnace was charged into a large crucible, and then air was blown through the molten iron from below, igniting the dissolved carbon from the coke. As the carbon burned off, the melting point of the mixture increased, but the heat from the burning carbon provided the extra energy needed to keep the mixture molten. After the carbon content in the melt had dropped to the desired level, the air draft was cut off: a typical Bessemer converter could convert a 25-ton batch of pig iron to steel in half an hour.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: In the 1860s development of regenerative furnaces and higher temperature refractory lining allowed to melt steel in an open hearth. That was slow and energy intensive, but allowed to better control the chemical makeup of the product and recycle iron scrap.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: The acidic refractory lining of Bessemer converters and early open hearths didn't allow to remove phosphorus from steel with lime, which prolonged the life of puddling furnaces in order to utilize phosphorous iron ores abundant in Continental Europe. However in the 1870s Gilchrist–Thomas process was developed, and later basic lining was adopted for the open hearths as well.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Finally, the basic oxygen process was introduced at the Voest-Alpine works in 1952; a modification of the basic Bessemer process, it lances oxygen from above the steel (instead of bubbling air from below), reducing the amount of nitrogen uptake into the steel. The basic oxygen process is used in all modern steelworks; the last Bessemer converter in the U.S. was retired in 1968. Furthermore, the last three decades have seen a massive increase in the mini-mill business, where scrap steel only is melted with an electric arc furnace. These mills only produced bar products at first, but have since expanded into flat and heavy products, once the exclusive domain of the integrated steelworks.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: Until these 19th-century developments, steel was an expensive commodity and only used for a limited number of purposes where a particularly hard or flexible metal was needed, as in the cutting edges of tools and springs. The widespread availability of inexpensive steel powered the Second Industrial Revolution and modern society as we know it. Mild steel ultimately replaced wrought iron for almost all purposes, and wrought iron is no longer commercially produced. With minor exceptions, alloy steels only began to be made in the late 19th century. Stainless steel was developed on the eve of World War I and was not widely used until the 1920s.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: The steel industry is often considered an indicator of economic progress, because of the critical role played by steel in infrastructural and overall economic development. In 1980, there were more than 500,000 U.S. steelworkers. By 2000, the number of steelworkers had fallen to 224,000.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: The economic boom in China and India caused a massive increase in the demand for steel. Between 2000 and 2005, world steel demand increased by 6%. Since 2000, several Indian and Chinese steel firms have risen to prominence, such as Tata Steel (which bought Corus Group in 2007), Baosteel Group and Shagang Group. , though, ArcelorMittal is the world's largest steel producer. In 2005, the British Geological Survey stated China was the top steel producer with about one-third of the world share; Japan, Russia, and the US followed respectively. The large production capacity of steel results also in a significant amount of carbon dioxide emissions inherent related to the main production route. In 2019, it was estimated that 7 to 9 % of the global carbon dioxide emissions resulted from the steel industry. Reduction of these emissions are expected to come from a shift in the main production route using cokes, more recycling of steel and the application of carbon capture and storage or carbon capture and utilization technology.


title: Ferrous metallurgy

text: In 2008, steel began trading as a commodity on the London Metal Exchange. At the end of 2008, the steel industry faced a sharp downturn that led to many cut-backs.


title: Shettles method

text: The Shettles Method is a child conception idea that is reputed to help determine a baby's sex. It was developed by Landrum B. Shettles in the 1960s and was publicized in the book "How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby", coauthored by Shettles and David Rorvik. The book was first published in 1971 and has been in print in various editions ever since. By following the various methods outlined in the book, it is proposed that a couple can affect the probability of having a boy or a girl.


title: Shettles method

text: According to the hypothesis, male (Y) sperm are faster but more fragile than female (X) sperm. Further, acidic environments harm Y sperm, according to the theory, making conception of a girl more likely The Shettles method aims to exploit these two factors.


title: Shettles method

text: The Shettles method differs from the Ericsson method, in which the semen is deposited outside the woman and time is given for the fast/slow swimmers to separate before artificial insemination takes place.


title: Shettles method

text: To have a boy, insemination should occur as close as possible to the moment of ovulation so that the faster, Y-sperm arrive first and achieve conception, according to the hypothesis. When seeking a girl, the couple should have sex 2½ to 3 days before ovulation.


title: Shettles method

text: Shallow penetration coupled with the sperm deposited close to the entrance favors female conception because the area is more acidic, which inhibits the weaker Y sperm, according to the hypothesis. To allow the Y sperm, which supposedly moves faster, to reach the egg first, use deeper penetration to deposit the sperm at the least acidic area near the uterus opening. Intercourse should occur from 5 am and continue every 2 hours during the ovulation period. Eggs are more likely to be fertilized before 7 am known as "the peak period".


title: Shettles method

text: May 19, 1998, Landrum B. Shettles, M.D., PhD dictated to his daughter, Lana B. Shettles-Callahan, an email reply to Professor Hunt concerning the presentation of choosing the sex of your baby with the following statement: “David M. Rorvik and I published in 1971 How to Choose Your Baby's Sex with revised editions in 1977, 1984, 1989, and 1997 in seventeen languages with worldwide distribution. To date, over one million copies have been sold and over 25,000 answers to the questions 'what you want' and 'what you got' with the approximate success rate of 85% for boys and 82% for girls. A bibliography of 129 references cites 28 papers of my own. The book has proven sound through the past 27 years; and, like the house in the scriptures, built on the rock rather than the sand.”


title: Shettles method

text: For example, the 1995 article "Timing of Sexual Intercourse in Relation to Ovulation—Effects on the Probability of Conception, Survival of the Pregnancy, and Sex of the Baby" in the "New England Journal of Medicine" concludes that "for practical purposes, the timing of sexual intercourse in relation to ovulation has no influence on the sex of the baby." The study tracked women's hormone levels daily to determine the day of ovulation.


title: Shettles method

text: In contrast, another study from the "New England Journal of Medicine" (1979) found that "[our] results ... demonstrate that insemination on different days of the menstrual cycle does lead to variations in sex ratio." While this second study was larger, it did not track the levels of LH in the blood but instead used cycle lengths to determine probable time of ovulation. Adding support to another aspect of the Shettles's findings related to sperm morphology, an important element in his method, a 1997 study, "Size Differences Between X and Y Spermatozoa and Prefertilization Diagnosis," published in Molecular Human Reproduction, using polymerase chain reaction-aided techniques, concluded: “Statistically, the length, perimeter and area of the sperm heads , and the length of the sperm necks and tails of X-bearing spermatozoa were significantly larger and longer than those of Y-bearing spermatozoa"


title: Shettles method

text: Multiple studies have confirmed Dr. Shettles's findings that the larger X-bearing, female producing spermatozoa are hardier, another factor that is important in his method. Men who work at high altitudes, in high heat environments and in situations that expose them to various toxic substances and other forms of physiological stress have been reported to give birth to far more girls than boys. "OBGYN News," October 15–31, 1982, for example, reported on a study of undersea divers in Australia showing that their offspring were almost 2-1 female.


title: Shettles method

text: The researchers cited other data indicating a similar situation involving pilots of high-altitude military aircraft. Dr. Shettles contended that atmospheric pressures, tight fitting clothing and many other stressors could favor the X-bearing spermatozoa. Another study, reported upon in "Discover" Magazine in 1988 called "Girls from Space," found that both high altitude tactical pilots and astronauts fathered far more daughters than sons.


title: Shettles method

text: A 2006 letter published by BMJ, however, reviewing some of the research, claims that "So far, researchers have found no morphological differences between human X sperm and Y sperm", ignoring prior findings to the contrary, including some published in the same journal just the year before.


title: Shettles method

text: A May 2021 article in "Fertility & Sterility" reflected on a paper published in the same journal 50 years earlier that month, stating that "...scientific journals such as "Fertility and Sterility" and "The New England Journal of Medicine" have continued to publish research dispelling the claims of the Shettles Method."


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (; ; 14 June 1736 – 23 August 1806) was a French officer, engineer, and physicist. He is best known as the eponymous discoverer of what is now called Coulomb's law, the description of the electrostatic force of attraction and repulsion. He also did important work on friction.


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was born in Angoulême, Angoumois county, France, to Henry Coulomb, an inspector of the royal demesne originally from Montpellier, and Catherine Bajet. He was baptised at the parish church of St. André.


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: His studies included philosophy, language and literature. He also received a good education in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry and botany.


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: When his father suffered a financial setback, he was forced to leave Paris, and went to Montpellier. Coulomb submitted his first publication to the Society of Sciences in Montpellier during this time. He went back to Paris and passed the exams for the École royale du génie de Mézières in 1760.


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: Over the next twenty years, he was posted to a variety of locations where he was involved in engineering: structural, fortifications, soil mechanics, as well as other fields of engineering. His first posting was to Brest but in February 1764 he was sent to Martinique, in the West Indies, where he was put in charge of building the new Fort Bourbon and this task occupied him until June 1772. His health suffered setbacks during the three years he spent in Martinique that would affect him for the rest of his life.


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: On his return to France, Coulomb was sent to Bouchain. He began to write important works on applied mechanics and he presented his first work to the Académie des Sciences in Paris in 1773. In 1779 Coulomb was sent to Rochefort to collaborate with the Marquis de Montalembert in constructing a fort made entirely from wood near Île-d'Aix. During his period at Rochefort, Coulomb carried on his research into mechanics, in particular using the shipyards in Rochefort as laboratories for his experiments. Also in 1779 he published an important investigation of the laws of friction (), which was followed twenty years later by a memoir on fluid resistance.


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: Upon his return to France, with the rank of captain, he was employed at La Rochelle, the Isle of Aix and Cherbourg. He discovered first an inverse relationship of the force between electric charges and the square of its distance and then the same relationship between magnetic poles. Later these relationships were named after him as Coulomb's law.


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: In 1781, he was stationed at Paris. In 1787 with Tenon he visited the Royal Naval Hospital, Stonehouse and they were impressed by the revolutionary "pavilion" design and recommended it to the French government. On the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, he resigned his appointment as "intendant des eaux et fontaines" and retired to a small estate which he possessed at Blois.


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: He was recalled to Paris for a time in order to take part in the new determination of weights and measures, which had been decreed by the Revolutionary government. He became one of the first members of the French National Institute and was appointed inspector of public instruction in 1802. His health was already very feeble and four years later he died in Paris.


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: Coulomb leaves a legacy as a pioneer in the field of geotechnical engineering for his contribution to retaining wall design. His name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: In 1784, his memoir "Recherches théoriques et expérimentales sur la force de torsion et sur l'élasticité des fils de metal" (Theoretical research and experimentation on torsion and the elasticity of metal wire) appeared. This memoir contained the results of Coulomb's experiments on the torsional force for metal wires, specifically within a torsion balance. His general result is:


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: Coulomb explained the laws of attraction and repulsion between electric charges and magnetic poles, although he did not find any relationship between the two phenomena. He thought that the attraction and repulsion were due to different kinds of fluids.


title: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

text: Coulomb also made a significant contribution to the field of tribology. He completed the most comprehensive study of friction undertaken in the eighteenth century and was named as one of the 23 "Men of Tribology" by Duncan Dowson.


title: Larmor precession

text: where formula_2 is the torque, formula_3 is the magnetic dipole moment, formula_4 is the angular momentum vector, formula_5 is the external magnetic field, formula_6 symbolizes the cross product, and formula_7 is the gyromagnetic ratio which gives the proportionality constant between the magnetic moment and the angular momentum.


title: Larmor precession

text: The angular momentum vector formula_4 precesses about the external field axis with an angular frequency known as the Larmor frequency,


title: Larmor precession

text: formula_7 is (for a particle of charge formula_13) the gyromagnetic ratio, equal to formula_14, where formula_15 is the mass of the precessing system, while formula_16 is the g-factor of the system. The g-factor is the unit-less proportionality factor relating the system's angular momentum to the intrinsic magnetic moment; in classical physics it is just 1. The Larmor frequency is independent of the angle between formula_4 and formula_5 which does affect how much formula_4 changes during the precession cycle.


title: Larmor precession

text: In nuclear physics the g-factor of a given system includes the effect of the nucleon spins, their orbital angular momenta, and their couplings. Generally, the g-factors are very difficult to calculate for such many-body systems, but they have been measured to high precision for most nuclei. The Larmor frequency is important in NMR spectroscopy. The gyromagnetic ratios, which give the Larmor frequencies at a given magnetic field strength, have been measured and tabulated here.


title: Larmor precession

text: Crucially, the Larmor frequency is independent of the polar angle between the applied magnetic field and the magnetic moment direction. This is what makes it a key concept in fields such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), since the precession rate does not depend on the spatial orientation of the spins.


title: Larmor precession

text: The above equation is the one that is used in most applications. However, a full treatment must include the effects of Thomas precession, yielding the equation (in CGS units) (The CGS units are used so that E has the same units as B):


title: Larmor precession

text: where formula_7 is the relativistic Lorentz factor (not to be confused with the gyromagnetic ratio above). Notably, for the electron "g" is very close to 2 (2.002...), so if one sets "g" = 2, one arrives at


title: Larmor precession

text: The spin precession of an electron in an external electromagnetic field is described by the Bargmann–Michel–Telegdi (BMT) equation


title: Larmor precession

text: where formula_24, formula_25, formula_15, and formula_27 are polarization four-vector, charge, mass, and magnetic moment, formula_28 is four-velocity of electron (in a system of units in which formula_29), formula_30, formula_31, and formula_32 is electromagnetic field-strength tensor. Using equations of motion,


title: Larmor precession

text: one can rewrite the first term on the right side of the BMT equation as formula_34, where formula_35 is four-acceleration. This term describes Fermi–Walker transport and leads to Thomas precession. The second term is associated with Larmor precession.


title: Larmor precession

text: When electromagnetic fields are uniform in space or when gradient forces like formula_36 can be neglected, the particle's translational motion is described by


title: Larmor precession

text: The Beam-Optical version of the Thomas-BMT, from the "Quantum Theory of Charged-Particle Beam Optics", applicable in accelerator optics


title: Larmor precession

text: A 1935 paper published by Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz predicted the existence of ferromagnetic resonance of the Larmor precession, which was independently verified in experiments by J. H. E. Griffiths (UK) and E. K. Zavoiskij (USSR) in 1946.


title: Larmor precession

text: Larmor precession is important in nuclear magnetic resonance, magnetic resonance imaging, electron paramagnetic resonance, and muon spin resonance. It is also important for the alignment of cosmic dust grains, which is a cause of the polarization of starlight.


title: Larmor precession

text: To calculate the spin of a particle in a magnetic field, one must in general also take into account Thomas precession if the particle is moving.


title: Larmor precession

text: The spin angular momentum of an electron precesses counter-clockwise about the direction of the magnetic field. An electron has a negative charge, so the direction of its magnetic moment is opposite to that of its spin.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: Shorts (also known as Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock and released internationally as The Wishing Rock) is a 2009 fantasy comedy film written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. The film stars Jon Cryer, William H. Macy, Leslie Mann, James Spader, Jimmy Bennett and Kat Dennings.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: "Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock" made its world premiere screening on August 15, 2009 at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. Shortly after that, the movie was theatrically released in the United States on August 21, 2009 by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film grossed $29 million on a $20 million budget. It received mixed reviews from critics. It received a Young Artist Award nomination for Best Performance in a Feature Film. "Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 24 November 2009 by Warner Home Video. A Wii and Nintendo DS video game of the same name was announced on 23 June 2009 with a prospective July release date in advance of the film's release, but was canceled.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: The film is set in a very busy suburban company town in Austin, Texas called Black Falls Community, where every adult always works, and citizens and children use the company's famous product "The Black Box", a technological device that can turn into almost any gadget imaginable. (Some of the events will be considered as "episodes" and will be randomized due to the narrator being unable to correctly remember the order of events).


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: A rainbow-colored Wishing Rock appears at the end of a rainbow where it is found by Loogie, Laser, and Lug Short. They use it to wish for various things like a fortress, crocodiles that can stand on two legs and climb walls, snakes, and a pterodactyl before wishing themselves back home. They eventually wish that one of them was very smart; however, the power is given to their infant sister in the form of psychic abilities. Now having telekinesis and is able to speak telepathically, she convinces the boys to dispose of the rock, which they do using a catapult. Cole finds the rock the next day to throw at Toby.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: Toby Thompson is bullied by Helvetica Black and her brother Cole on the way to school. Toby speculates that Helvetica has feelings for him, infuriating Helvetica, and Toby is dumped in a trash can. Later that day after school, Cole and his gang to start throwing rocks at Toby. One of the rocks they throw is the wishing rock, which Toby uses to wish for friends, which come in the form of small aliens. Toby takes the aliens to school, but their presence causes Toby and Helvetica to fall from the school's roof. This results in both Toby and Helvetica having casts put on both arms. The aliens leave, but Toby keeps the rock.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: Toby’s parents, Bill and Jane Thompson, like all adults in the town, work for Black Box Unlimited Worldwide Industries Incorporated, which manufactures the "Black Box" universal gadget. They are assigned by Mr. Carbon Black, owner of Black Box, to compete to create a new marketing strategy. Jane finds the rock in Toby’s room and takes it. She and Mr. Thompson go to a Black Box costume party. Since they were having trouble with their relationship, she wishes that she and her husband were closer. They become merged into a two-headed person, but Carbon thinks that they're wearing a costume.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: Meanwhile, Toby realizes that his mother took the rock and rushes to the costume party, but runs into Helvetica and Cole, who take the rock and dump him in the garbage. An infuriated Hel wishes that Cole would turn into a dung beetle and then loses the rock. The rock is found by Carbon who, unaware of its power, accidentally wishes for all of the employees to go for each other's throats. Helvetica takes the rock, wishes off her casts, and attempts to escape on a rocket-powered bike that she wished for, but hits a curb and loses the rock again before Toby retrieves it and wishes everyone back to normal. Helvetica attempts to get the rock back, but Toby throws it as far away as he can, where it lands at the Noseworthy's house.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: Toby’s older sister Stacey arrives to tutor "Nose" Noseworthy, Toby’s old, germaphobic friend. Nose picks his nose against his father's wishes and accidentally flicks the booger into his father's radioactive work study. Toby and Loogie, now friends, arrive at Nose's house in time to see Nose's booger mutate into a giant monster who eats the rock. Toby eventually retrieves the rock with Nose's help. After helping Nose's father capture the monster outside, Toby and Loogie take the rock and leave.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: As Toby and Loogie contemplate what to do with the rock, Toby wishes his casts on his arm are off. They are confronted by Helvetica and Cole, who want the rock back. They are suddenly chased and stampeded by the rest of the kids and fight until the rock winds up in the hands of Carbon. Carbon wishes that he was the most powerful thing in the world and turns into a giant Black Box robot. Hel uses the rock to turn into a giant wasp and Cole uses it to turn into a giant dung beetle in an attempt to stop their father, aided by Toby's aliens and Loogie's humanoid crocodiles. The infant appears, uses her powers to stop a crocodile from eating her, and tells them that the rock is starting to feel misused, as shown by the fact that the rock is starting to undo all of their wishes. She also tells them the rock could destroy the Earth because of all of the petty wishes they make. Together they get rid of the rock and all of its effects are undone. Toby’s parents decide to work on the marketing plan together and Carbon agrees. Carbon changes the Black Box into the more environmentally friendly Green Box. The Noseworthys lose their germaphobia, Toby’s parents become closer, and it is suggested that Helvetica and Toby will marry in the future. All the children become friends and wished that their story would become a Hollywood movie, breaking the 4th wall.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: On 11 January 2008, it was announced that Robert Rodriguez would direct, produce and write a 2009 American and Emirati live action and animated family science fiction fantasy adventure comedy movie which features live action and CGI animation titled "Shorts" also known as "Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock".


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: On 16 July 2008, it was announced that Jimmy Bennett would play the lead role in the film, while Jon Cryer, Leslie Mann and Kat Dennings were in early talks to join the cast. On 17 July 2008, William H. Macy, Jolie Vanier, Devon Gearhart, James Spader and Trevor Gagnon were also in final talks to join the film, Rebel Rodriguez, Leo Howard, Bianca Rodriguez, Elizabeth Avellan, Jake Short, Racer Rodriguez, Rocket Rodriguez, Alejandro Rose-Garcia, Cambell Westmoreland and Zoe Webb were added to the cast.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: "Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock" was filmed in Austin, Texas. The special effects were done by KNB EFX Group, Troublemaker Digital Studios and Hybride Technologies for the animation.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: George Oldziey, Robert Rodriguez and Carl Thiel scored the music for the film on its soundtrack and the film's soundtrack contains "Spy Ballet" performed by Robert Rodriguez and "Summer Never Ends" performed by Jimmy Bennett. Warner Bros. Pictures distributed the film.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: "Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock" was released in cinemas on 21 August 2009 in the US by Warner Bros. Pictures, and on DVD and Blu-ray on 24 November 2009 by Warner Home Video.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: The film holds a 47% approval rating on critical response aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 103 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Shorts" has imagination and energy, but most viewers beyond elementary school will likely tire of the kiddie humor and sensory overload." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 53 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: For its opening weekend, the film made $6.4 million, an average of $2,065 per each of 3,105 theaters. It opened at #6, being overshadowed by "Inglourious Basterds", "", and "Julie & Julia". Overall, the grossed about $20.9 million in the United States and Canada, and about $29 million worldwide.


title: Shorts (2009 film)

text: George Oldziey, Robert Rodriguez and Carl Thiel scored the music for the film on its soundtrack and the film's soundtrack contains "Spy Ballet" performed by Robert Rodriguez and "Summer Never Ends" performed by Jimmy Bennett. The soundtrack was released in 2009 by Warner Bros. Records.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: The National Front for the Liberation of Angola (; abbreviated FNLA) is a political party and former militant organisation that fought for Angolan independence from Portugal in the war of independence, under the leadership of Holden Roberto.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: Founded in 1954 as the União dos Povos do Norte de Angola guerrilla movement, it was known after 1959 as the União dos Povos de Angola (UPA) guerrilla movement, and from 1961 as the FNLA guerilla movement.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: Ahead of the first multiparty elections in 1992, the FNLA was reorganized as a political party. The FNLA received 2.4% of the votes and had five Members of Parliament elected. In the 2008 parliamentary election, the FNLA received 1.11% of the vote, winning three out of 220 seats.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: In 1954, the United People of Northern Angola (UPNA) was formed as a separatist movement for the Bakongo tribe who wished to re-establish its 16th-century feudal kingdom but was also a protest movement against forced labour. Holden Roberto was to be the king of that land.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: By 1958, the organisation's name had been changed to the "União das Populações de Angola" (UPA) under Holden Roberto who came from São Salvador, Bakongo, Northern Angola with the newly named organisation described as an ethnic political movement. In March 1961, the UPA began an uprising in the north massacring thousands of white settlers and servants, most of the Bailundo southern ethnicity, "assimilados", African Catholics and tribal members other than the Bakongo tribe, men, women and children. The Portuguese government respond by sending soldiers to Angola and more than 50,000 people would die in the violence by the end of 1961. It was said more than a million refugees fled the north of Angola for Zaire.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: In an attempt to become a national political movement, it merged with the "Partido Democratico de Angola" (PDA) to form the "Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola" (FNLA). By February 1962, the FNLA had merged into an organisation called the Angolan Revolutionary Government in Exile (GRAE) with Roberto as its President and Jonas Savimbi as its foreign minister, based in Kinshasa, Zaire. It was recognised by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) as Angola's only freedom movement until 1971. Its core membership were Angolan refugees and expatriates in Zaire.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: The United States government began aiding the FNLA in 1961 during the Kennedy administration and rerouted one-third of its official aid to Zaire to the FNLA and UNITA organisations. Over the course of many years, the governments of Algeria, Tunisia, West Germany, Ghana, Israel, France, Romania, the People's Republic of China, South Africa, the United States, Zaire, and Liberia actively supported and aided the FNLA. The French government supplied men and loaned one million pounds sterling without interest. The Israeli government gave aid to the FNLA between 1963 and 1969. Holden Roberto visited Israel during the 1960s, and FNLA members were sent to Israel for training. During the 1970s the Israeli government shipped arms to the FNLA through Zaire. The People's Republic of China supplied the FNLA with military equipment and at least 112 military advisers in 1974.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: By July 1964, GRAE's right as the only liberation movement was challenged with the resignation of Congo Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula, their backer, and the departure of Jonas Savimbi, who would go on to form his only liberation movement UNITA because of Roberto's dictatorial leadership, unwillingness to accept non-western support and a lack of a political program. Roberto would see off a "coup d'état" in June 1965 by his defence minister and in November of the same year, his brother in law, Mobutu Sese Seko took control of Zaire in a coup. But by 1968, GRAE's unity had begun to disintegrate.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: On President Richard Nixon assuming office in 1969, he ordered a review of the United States policy towards Angola as well as South Africa and Rhodesia. In January 1970, National Security Council Study Memorandum 39 was adopted, which acknowledged that the white regimes in those countries should not be politically and economically isolated and that engaging them was the best means of achieving changes in their systems. This meant a reduction in aid to the FNLA.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: In late 1972, the FNLA concluded a ceasefire with the MPLA, which was being attacked by the former in northwest Angola and by the Portuguese in the northeast. A condition of the ceasefire was it needed more arms as it had no US aid apart from Roberto's CIA retainer, and Neto spoke to the Tanzanians who interceded with the Chinese government. After all groups met the Chinese, the FNLA received military aid and training from early 1973 until the fall of 1974, and then only diplomatic aid thereafter. In April 1974, a military coup occurred in Portugal with a later announcement of future independence for its colonies which began the process by the FNLA, MPLA and UNITA in attempting to strengthen their reach throughout Angola and resulted in conflict amongst each other. The Romanian government delivered arms to the FNLA in August 1974. In August 1974, the Portuguese Angolan government had proposed a two-year plan for independence with the three groups and white settlers forming a coalition government but this was rejected outright. In order to end the conflict amongst the groups, individual ceasefires were arranged between the groups and the Portuguese Angolan Military Council, with the FNLA signing on 15 October 1974 that allowed it and the other three liberation parties to set up political offices in Luanda. By 25 November 1974, a ceasefire was concluded between the FNLA and UNITA and with the MPLA on 18 December.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: When Gerald Ford assumed the presidency in August 1974, the new USA foreign policy moved away from the National Security Council Study Memorandum 39 to one of support for black rule in Angola as well as passive support for the white rule and so minimal aid was returned to the FNLA. But by November 1974, the US decided they did not want a future government dominated by the pro-Soviet MPLA so the CIA funded the FNLA with $300,000 to help it achieve that objective.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: The increasing violence would result in the gathering of the FNLA and the other two parties in Mombasa, Kenya, from 3–5 January 1975 by the invitation of President Jomo Kenyatta. The object of the meeting was to unite the parties and find common ground prior to the independence talks in Portugal later that month. Roberto speaking on behalf of all, declared an accord had been reached and that all parties had overcome their differences and had agreed firstly to a just and democratic society without ethnic discrimination; agreeing to a transitional government, armed forces and civil service and lastly to co-operate in the country's decolonisation and defence. The FNLA and the other parties would meet in Portimao, Portugal on 10 January 1975 and resulted in the formation of the Alvor Agreement, signed on 15 January 1975, which would grant Angola independence from Portugal on 11 November, ending the war of independence. The plan also called for a coalition government and a united army.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: Within 24 hours of the Alvor Agreement, fighting broke out in Luanda amongst the FNLA and MPLA with further violence on 23 March when the MPLAs Lopo do Nascimento was subject to an assassination attempt by the FNLA. The transitional government's failure to work was also said to be the result of a lack of interest by the Portuguese government in Angola as it tackled a failed counter-coup in Lisbon by General Spinola and the lack of will of the Portuguese troops to serve in Angola and end the violence between the MPLA and FNLA. The final straw was the dismissal in August of the Portuguese High Commissioner Antonio da Silva Cardoso whose attempt to reign in the MPLA had the support of the FNLA. The FNLA saw its only alternative as a military one after having been expelled from Luanda. On 29 August 1975, the Alvor Agreement was suspended by Portugal except for independence in November, and withdrawal of its troops that signal an escalation of violence for the control of Angola prior to that date.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: The US government did not believe the Portuguese plan would work and that the MPLA would seize power and install a Soviet-backed regime in power. In late January 1975, the 40 Committee, part of the executive branch of the US government, met and reviewed a proposal from the CIA to fund the FNLA with $300,000 and UNITA, $100,000. The committee approved the funding for the FNLA but not for UNITA. The money was to be used by the FNLA to purchase newspapers and radio stations. In addition to the money, the US supplied weapons to Zaire which, in turn, passed them on to the FNLA, and also supplied several thousand troops. With this funding, Roberto believed any future coalition could be abandoned and in doing so the Soviet Union would begin to increase its aid to the MPLA. By June 1975, the CIA requested a meeting with the 40 Committee in which it proposed increased aid for the FNLA. A decision was not made for a month as the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) and U.S. State Department wished to consider the proposal. Assistant Secretary of State Nathaniel Davies objected to further aid, as he believed it would not help the FNLA to become as militarily strong as the MPLA except with massive amounts of money; escalate Soviet and Cuban involvement and feared South Africa would intervene and this would have negative diplomatic connotations for the United States in Africa, so the only option was a diplomatic solution. Henry Kissinger ensured that the NSC viewpoint prevailed and that aid, not diplomacy could prevent an MPLA win so aid of $14 million was approved for the FNLA and UNITA in July and that increased to $25 million in August and reached $32 million by September. The assistance would become known as Operation IA Feature. The CIAs covert plan begun sending supplies to the FNLA through Zaire and Zambia and was able to supply by November 1975, 12 APC, 50 SAMs, 1000 mortars, 50,000 rifles and machine guns, 100,000 grenades, 25 million rounds of ammunition, 60 trucks, trailers, boats, radios, spare parts, medicine and food with training by retired US military advisors and five spotter planes as well as mercenaries. The CIA appointed John Stockwell to manage the Angolan Task Force but found that many members of the CIA doubted the FNLAs ability to beat the MPLA and this was confirmed when he visited Angola and discovered the lack of political support for the organisation and also feared any entry of South African forces in Angola would undermine the United States diplomatically in Africa.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: On the pretext of attacks around the Calueque hydroelectric facility, the South Africans army would enter Angola to defend its interests in the facility and would develop into Operation Savannah to assist the FNLA and UNITA to gain as much control of southern and central Angola prior to independence day in November. The US appeared to give the green light for the South Africans covert invasion but this would soon change as their involvement became public knowledge, the US would distance themselves. The South Africans would advance close to Luanda from the south while a small force of South African artillery and advisors would support the FNLA in the north.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: Without the control of Luanda on independence day, Roberto saw that the FNLA's international legitimacy would be in doubt. The only 'suitable' attack on Luanda was from the north through Quifangondo. Attacks were carried out by the FNLA on 5 and 8 November 1975 but were repulsed each time by the MPLA. With independence day looming on 11 November 1975, Roberto gave the final order to attack Quifangondo on 10 November unaware that the Cubans had reinforced the positions with troops and new Soviet equipment. Roberto would claim the South African were sending men to help him while the South Africans claimed they warned against a frontal assault but whatever the real story was, the FNLA's final assault on what became known as the Battle of Quifangondo failed disastrously. The MPLA retained Luanda, and Angola gained independence from the Portuguese High Commissioner with Neto declaring the People's Republic of Angola. The FNLA would continue its fight inside Angola for another four months.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: On 6 November 1975, CIA Director William Colby appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and briefed them that his organisation had not informed the committee fully on its activities in Angola and the following day, the "New York Times" released the testimony to the world. By 26 November, Nigeria, against U.S. wishes, had recognised the MPLA government and soon convinced twenty-two other African nations to recognise them too. By December, President Ford and Kissinger decide that the aid to the opposition parties should not be abandoned and the CIA was ordered to draw up further aid plans which would need Senate approval but meanwhile, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee drew up the Clark Amendment, named after Senator Dick Clark, after his visit to Angola. He concluded that the White House and CIA had lied about their involvement and that the US effort was responsible for dragging the Cubans and South Africans into the country's conflict. The State Department and CIA, unable to stay on message, were unable to convince the House or Senate and on 19 December 1975, the Clark Amendment passed the Senate and covert US aid in Angola ended with the House following suit on 27 January 1976.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: The MPLA and Cubans would maintain the initiative in Northern Angola after the defeat of the FNLA at Quifangondo with the advances on Caxito and the latter's airbases at Camabatela and Negage. Caxito would fall on 27 December 1975 and the FNLAs main airbase at Camabatela was captured on 1 January and Negage on 3 January while their capital at Carmona fell on 4 January and so the FNLA rout began in earnest. By early 1976, defeated by the MPLA, the FNLA began retreating, looting villages in northern Angola, as they headed for the Zairian border. On 11 January 1976, FAPLA and the Cubans captured Ambriz and Ambrizete from the FNLA and then advanced on their headquarters at São Salvador its route defended by foreign mercenaries under Colonel Callan and elements of the FNLA. With Colonel Callan committing atrocities in the fighting including against his own men he would be stripped of his command in the FNLA and so mercenary support which had begun the previous December ended and São Salvador was captured on 15 February 1976. The South Africans would withdraw from Angola on 27 March 1976 after receiving guarantees from Angola and United Nations on the safety of the installations at the Calueque hydroelectric facility so ending Operation Savannah. Elements of the FNLA that had taken part as South African army's Task Force Zulu, would be reformed into 32 Battalion.


title: National Liberation Front of Angola

text: On 29 February 1976, the Angolan President Agostinho Neto and Zairian President Mobuto Sese Seko met in Brazzaville to sign a non-aggression pact which was meant to see the end of Angola's support for Katangese rebels in their country while the Zairians promised to expel both the FNLA and UNITA from bases in Zaire but the deal did not hold and the Shaba I invasion would occur in March 1977. The Shaba II invasion of the Zairian Shaba Province in May 1978, by separatists based in eastern Angola, was the beginning of the end for the FNLA based in Zaire. The Angolan President Neto and Zairian President Mobuto Sese Seko would meet again in Brazzaville during June 1978 where a reconciliation pact was signed between the two countries. The result of this pact saw Holden Roberto exiled to Gabon by the Zairian President in November 1979 while he was in France for medical treatment. Elements of the FNLA would continue the fight after Roberto left, now called the FNLA-COMIRA (Angolan Military Resistance Committee) but ceased to exist by 1983.


title: Romeo-class submarine

text: The Project 633 class (known in the West by its NATO reporting name as the Romeo class) is a class of Soviet diesel-electric submarine, built between 1957 and 1961. A Chinese variant, Type 033, was built in China from 1962 to 1984.


title: Romeo-class submarine

text: Project 633 was a further development of the Soviet navy's post-war 611 (Zulu-) and 613 (Whiskey-class) designs. The project was undertaken by Lazurit Central Design Bureau of Gorky.


title: Romeo-class submarine

text: Only 20 of the Soviet Union's originally intended 56 were completed between October 1957 and the end of December 1961 because of the introduction of the nuclear submarine into the Soviet Navy.


title: Romeo-class submarine

text: By today's standards Romeo class submarines are considered obsolete, but they still have some value as training and surveillance vessels.


title: Romeo-class submarine

text: Under the 1950 Sino-Soviet Friendship and Mutual Assistance Treaty, the Soviets passed to China (and later to North Korea) the documentation necessary to produce Romeo submarines in 1963. The Chinese variant is known as the Type 033 Romeo. A total of 84 Type 033 submarines were built in China from 1962 to 1984, plus several exported to other countries.


title: Romeo-class submarine

text: The Chinese Type 033 incorporated some improvements over the original Romeo, including noise reduction of 20 dB. Sonar on board was also continuously upgraded: the original Soviet sonar was first replaced by domestic Chinese Type 105 sonar, which consequently was replaced by H/SQ2-262A sonar built by No. 613 Factory. Today most of the Type 033 subs have been retired or preserved, with a few remaining in service for training purposes. A total of six Chinese Romeo-class submarine variants were developed:


title: Macross Delta

text: "Macross Delta" is set in the year 2067, eight years after the events of "Macross Frontier" in a remote part of the Milky Way Galaxy called the , which is plagued by the , a mysterious phenomenon which turns people berserk without any apparent cause. A team of talented idols, the "Walküre", uses the power of their songs to calm down the infected by the Vár Syndrome, assisted by the Delta Flight, a team of experienced Valkyrie pilots, while facing the interference from the Aerial Knights of the Windermere Kingdom, which found a way to exploit the infection in their favor as part of their plan to resume war against the for control of the Cluster.


title: Macross Delta

text: The series was sponsored by Big West Advertising and Bandai Visual. As with the previous "Macross" series, the "Macross Delta" staff have scouted new talent for the anime. Auditions began on December 1, 2014. On February 7, 2015, it was reported that over 8,000 people auditioned to star in the new series. The final selection round was held in Tokyo in late April 2015. The finalists went through interviews with the judges, and demonstrated their singing and voice performing skills.


title: Macross Delta

text: "Macross Delta" held a Chō Jikū' Seisaku Happyōkai" (""The Super Dimension" Production Unveiling"), a live-streamed event that revealed more details on the project on October 29 at 12:00 p.m. Kawamori appeared at the event to reveal the main staff, the winner of the audition for the new singer in the anime, and the new anime's characters.


title: Macross Delta

text: A promotional visual created by artist Hidetaka Tenjin an depicting 2 fictional dogfighting aircraft was posted in the franchise's official website on Friday the 25th September 2015. Kawamori confirmed that both fighters in the visual are "Valkyries" (transforming variable fighters), and he specifically cited the old Swedish jet fighter Saab 35 Draken as an inspiration for the darker Valkyrie in the background of the image. Kawamori added that he has been a fan of the Draken jet since he was a child. He also acknowledged that the blue and white Valkyrie in the foreground shares a design lineage with previous variable fighters in the "Macross" series and therefore was less of a challenge to design. By contrast, the background variable fighter will feature a relatively new transformation scheme that bears little similarity to those of previous Valkyries.


title: Macross Delta

text: Shoji Kawamori explained that the two fighters have exhausts in different colors because they were developed by different companies. He also noted that he has been deliberately avoiding more direct design inspirations from current real world fighters, since stealth technology has made modern combat aircraft look too similar and harder to distinguish from each other. Kawamori added that this new series will emphasize "Valkyrie versus Valkyrie" duels as opposed to previous television series. While video productions such as "Macross Plus" and "Macross Zero" prominently featured variable fighters against each other, Kawamori admitted that it has not been the focus in a "Macross" television series in a long time.


title: Macross Delta

text: The staff also presented the official designs by Shōji Kawamori for the two main variable fighters: the VF-31 Siegfried and the Sv-262 Draken III. The VF-31 is flown by the Walküre group's escorts, the "Delta Flight". Kawamori confirmed that the VF-31 is an update of the YF-30 Chronos that appeared in the PlayStation 3 video game "". However, unlike the YF-30 the VF-31 design has built-in gunpods in its arms and forward-swept wings.


title: Macross Delta

text: The Sv-262 is used by the Aerial Knights Valkyrie Aerial Knights of the Windermere Kingdom. The new variable fighter design was inspired by the real-life Saab 35 Draken. While describing the Sv-262, Kawamori mentioned that this is the first time that a Valkyrie with this unique delta wing design variant has appeared in Macross. Hidetaka Tenjin also noted that unlike other Valkyries its cockpit is not transparent.


title: Macross Delta

text: The "Macross Delta" logo features a planet within the Japanese characters that form the word "Macross". Shoji Kawamori specifically noted that this planet is the main setting for the new series. He also explained that this was made deliberately in direct contrast with "Macross Frontier", whose setting was primarily in space. Kawamori started to describe more details about "Macross Delta"'s setting but stopped short and asked fans to watch ""The Super Dimension" Production Unveiling" event.


title: Macross Delta

text: Kawamori pointed out that the delta symbol in the logo is made of triangular symbols to symbolize the three main thematic elements of "Macross": music, a love triangle, and Valkyries. However, he also noted that the two symbols are split, and explained that this is indicative that the three elements will not come together as expected in the new story.


title: Macross Delta

text: 18-year old Minori Suzuki from Aichi Prefecture was announced as the winner of the newest "Macross" singer auditions. Suzuki plays Freyja Wion, an aspiring idol who is full of spirit and who is always smiling. Other characters include five girls that form the "Tactical Sound Unit Walküre", the first major songstress group in the Macross anime franchise. ("Macross 7" had the "Jamming Birds" group, and the PlayStation video game "Macross Digital Mission VF-X" had the group "Milky Dolls").


title: Macross Delta

text: Hidetaka Tenjin is credited as the ""Macross" visual artist" for this series while Majiro ("Barakamon", "Nagareboshi Lens") and Yuu Shindo ("My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU", "") adapted the original character designs by Chisato Mita (designer in Capcom's "E.X. Troopers" video game). Other non-Japanese staff members include Thomas Romain as worldview designer, Vincento Niemu as art designer, and Stanislas Brunet as mechanical designer.


title: Macross Delta

text: A "Macross Delta Preview Special" was aired on Japanese television on New Year's Eve in 2015, with the all-but complete first episode.


title: Macross Delta

text: The anime premiered on Tokyo MX and BS11, along other stations in Japan on April 3, 2016. The series used twelve musical themes: two openings and ten endings. From episodes 2-12 and 14, the first opening theme is by Walküre while the ending themes are (for the new year special and Episode 1), , , "Giraffe Blues", and by Walküre. From episodes 15–25, the second opening theme is by Walküre while the ending themes are , "God Bless You", "Love! Thunder Grow", by Walküre, and by Mina Kubota. For episode 26, the ending theme is by Walküre.


title: Macross Delta

text: A compilation film with some plot changes, "Macross Delta the Movie: Passionate Walküre" was released in Japanese theaters on February 9, 2018.


title: Macross Delta

text: A new film, "Macross Delta the Movie: Absolute Live!!!!!!", serving as a sequel to "Passionate Walküre", was released in Japanese theaters on October 8, 2021.


title: Macross Delta

text: Four manga adaptations were officially serialized, all released in June 2016. The first one was serialized in Kodansha's "Monthly Shōnen Sirius". The second, titled was written by Shoji Kawamori and serialized in Kodansha's "Magazine Special". The third, , was serialized in Ichijinsha's "Monthly Comic Rex". The last, , was also serialized in "Monthly Comic Rex".


title: Macross Delta

text: Due to a current legal dispute over the distribution rights of the "Macross" franchise, involving Studio Nue and Big West against Harmony Gold, much of the "Macross" merchandise post 1999, including "Macross Delta", have not received an international release.


title: Macross Delta

text: However, on March 1, 2021, Big West, Studio Nue and Harmony Gold reached an agreement on the international distribution of most "Macross" sequels and films.


title: Macross Delta

text: Richard Eisenbeis from Kotaku gives the preview episode a mixed review. He praised the episode's beginning for introducing the basic setting and shows the first meeting of Freyja, Hayate, and Mirage along with some short character building scenes for each, but criticised halfway point of the episode. Despite praising the aerial dogfight, he thinks the sudden conflict and the introduction of 15 different characters was "far too much too fast". For the music, while the first two Walkure songs are deemed forgettable, he thinks the final song used for the ending and credits, "Ikenai Borderline", is great. Richard's main problem is Walkure themselves, referring them as the elephant in the room. He commented "While their "magic" is clearly technology-based, it is something so unexpected in a Macross anime, it's likely to throw even longtime fans for a loop—I know it did me". Nevertheless, he genuinely interested to see more and hopes much of the information will be sorted out by the time the series makes its true premiere this spring.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: The Airman Battle Uniform (ABU) is a U.S. camouflage combat uniform formerly worn by members of the United States Air Force, United States Space Force, and some civilian employees of the U.S. Department of the Air Force until April 2021. It replaced the Battle Dress Uniform and Desert Camouflage Uniform on 1 November 2011 after a four-year phase-in period.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: On 14 May 2018, The U.S. Air Force announced that all airmen will transition from the Airman Battle Uniform to the OCP Uniform. All airmen have been permitted to wear the OCP Uniform since 1 October 2018, and the wear out date for the ABU was 1 April 2021. The ABU is currently worn by the Civil Air Patrol.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: The first prototype of the ABU was unveiled in the summer of 2003. The early uniform prototypes consisted of trousers, an embroidered undershirt, and a blouse. The prototype camouflage pattern was a blue/gray, tigerstripe pattern, based upon the tigerstripe uniforms worn by airmen during the Vietnam War.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: After months of wear testing, Air Force officials revised the color scheme and camouflage pattern due to feedback received from airmen. The new semi-pixelated tiger-stripe pattern would trade its dominant blue overtones for a more subdued palette, similar to the Universal Camouflage Pattern, but with some added slate blue tones. The uniform maintains a similar cut to the previous Battle Dress Uniform, rather than the contemporary Army Combat Uniform. The fabric was made in 50-50 nylon and cotton in order to reduce the need for summer/winter-type uniforms.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: On 2 October 2007, the Air Force began issuing the ABU to enlisted trainees in Basic Military Training at Lackland Air Force Base, was issued to the Class of 2012 at the United States Air Force Academy on 26 June 2008, and was made available for all airmen. Since 2008, it has been issued to airmen deploying to locations in the CENTCOM area of responsibility.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: Starting in 2009, airmen who were in ground combat roles, such as Security Forces, were issued the new Airman Battle Shirt (ABS). The ABS was based on the Army Combat Shirt (ACS). Like the ACS, the ABS is a stand-alone shirt designed specifically for use with Improved Outer Tactical Vest armor in warm and hot weather. It is intended to greatly increase user comfort through the use of lightweight, moisture-wicking, and breathable fabrics. The ABS features the same tiger stripe pattern on the sleeves.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: In 2010, the Operation Enduring Freedom Pattern Army Combat Uniform was authorized to replace the Airman Battle Uniform for airmen in the War in Afghanistan.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: In June 2011, The Air Force Times released the announcement of a summer weight ABU to be available in 2012. The Improved Airman Battle Uniform will be made of a 50–50 nylon-cotton blend and was composed of the same material used by the Army for the ACU. Just like the ABU, the IABU is machine washable and also wrinkle resistant. Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Norton A. Schwartz gave approval of the IABU coat and pants which will be available to trainees at Basic Military Training first.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: The ABU was fully phased in on 1 October 2011, completely replacing the BDU and DCU though most airmen had been wearing the ABU for several years by that point.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: The Air Force's civilian auxiliary, Civil Air Patrol, wear-tested the ABU in late 2015, and in May 2016, the national commander of the Civil Air Patrol issued a memorandum allowing the wear of the ABU effective 15 June 2016. However, the uniform is worn with dark blue background and light silver lettering name and branch tapes and black boots in order to distinguish CAP personnel.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: All airmen have been authorized to wear the Operational Camouflage Pattern instead of ABUs since 1 October 2018. Recruits in basic training and cadets in Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps, and Officer Training School started being issued OCPs on 1 October 2019. The Airman Battle Uniform was no longer authorized to wear after 1 April 2021.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: A limited number of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel have been photographed wearing the ABU during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: Airman Battle Uniform

text: The Airman Battle Uniform is similar to the Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP) in color, with the inclusion of slate blue, but is otherwise nearly identical to the BDU cut. The ABU is to be worn with sage green combat boots. The ABU does have essential NIR (near-infra red) qualities, and the sleeves are authorized to be rolled up.


title: Aleem Dar

text: Aleem Dar PP (Punjabi, ; born 6 June 1968) is a Pakistani cricket umpire and former cricketer. He is a member of the Elite Panel of ICC Umpires. He won the David Shepherd Trophy three years in a row from 2009 to 2011, after being nominated twice in 2005 and 2006. Aleem Dar, Marais Erasmus, Richard Kettleborough, Kumar Dharmasena and Simon Taufel were the only umpires to have received the award from its inception until 2017. Before becoming an umpire, he played first-class cricket as a right-handed batsman and a leg-break bowler for Allied Bank, Gujranwala, Lahore and Pakistan Railways.


title: Aleem Dar

text: In December 2019, in the first match between Australia and New Zealand, Aleem stood in his 129th Test match, breaking the record previously set by Steve Bucknor. On 1 November 2020, in the second ODI between Pakistan and Zimbabwe, Aleem stood in his 210th ODI match as an on-field umpire, surpassing South African Rudi Koertzen's record of officiating in the most ODI matches.


title: Aleem Dar

text: Aleem Dar was born on June 6, 1968 in Jhang, Pakistan. He is married to Noshaba and has three children, two sons Hassan and Ali, and late daughter Jaweria, who died due to epilepsy.


title: Aleem Dar

text: Aleem is best known as an international cricket umpire. He made his international umpiring debut in an ODI between Pakistan and Sri Lanka at Gujranwala on 16 February 2000. In 2002 he became a member of ICC's International Panel of umpires. He was chosen to umpire at the ICC Cricket World Cup.


title: Aleem Dar

text: In April 2004, he became the first Pakistani to be part of the Elite Panel of ICC Umpires. He was nominated for the ICC Umpire of the year Award in 2005 and 2006, beaten on both occasions by the Australian Simon Taufel. On 17 October 2007 Aleem umpired in his 100th ODI (between India and Australia at Mumbai), making him the tenth umpire in the history of cricket to reach that landmark. He reached the landmark in a record time, taking just seven years, and became the first Pakistani to officiate in a century of One Day Internationals.


title: Aleem Dar

text: Aleem has stood in a solitary India-Pakistan ODI match at Karachi 2006 and five Ashes Test matches. He was also one of the on-field umpires for the final of the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy, standing alongside Rudi Koertzen. He was appointed to stand in the final of the 2007 Cricket World Cup between Australia and Sri Lanka, where he officiated with Steve Bucknor. Dar was also selected to stand in the final of the 2010 ICC World Twenty20 between Australia and England .


title: Aleem Dar

text: In January 2005, Aleem and his colleague Steve Bucknor, received death threats during a Test match between England and South Africa at Centurion. He was also involved in a controversy during the 2007 Cricket World Cup final where he, along with fellow officials Bucknor, Koertzen, Bowden and Crowe incorrectly made Australia bowl three unnecessary overs in near darkness. Consequently, the ICC decided to suspend him, along with the other four officials, from duty for the next ICC event, which was the 2007 World Twenty20 Championship.


title: Aleem Dar

text: Aleem proved his accuracy at the 2011 Cricket World Cup when all the 15 Umpire Decision Review System appeals against him were struck down.


title: Aleem Dar

text: He was selected as one of the twenty umpires to stand in matches during the 2015 Cricket World Cup. In April 2019, he was named as one of the sixteen umpires to stand in matches during the 2019 Cricket World Cup. The following month, in the second match of the 2019 Ireland Tri-Nation Series, he became the third umpire, and first from Pakistan, to officiate in 200 ODIs.


title: Aleem Dar

text: Aleem Dar Cricket Academy, ADCA is training and coaching academy for hearing-impaired boys and girls. It is located in Lahore, Pakistan. It is equipped with a ground, gymnasium, jogging track and basketball court. Aleem Dar formed it in 2013.


title: Aleem Dar

text: After being nominated twice in 2005 and 2006, Aleem finally won the Umpire of the Year award in October 2009, at the annual ICC awards ceremony in Johannesburg, South Africa. By claiming the award, Aleem ended Simon Taufel's run of five successive awards. It was the first time that any umpire other than Taufel had picked up the accolade in the six years that the ceremony has taken place. In October 2010, he won the award for a second straight year. In September 2011, he was named best umpire for the third consecutive year. On 14 August 2010, the Government of Pakistan honoured him with the President's Award for Pride of Performance.


The Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) were a series of conflicts fought principally in Northern Italy between the French Revolutionary Army and a Coalition of Austria, Russia, Piedmont-Sardinia, and a number of other Italian states.


title: Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars

text: The campaign of 1796-1797 brought prominence to Napoleon Bonaparte, a young, largely unknown commander, who led French forces to victory over numerically superior Austrian and Sardinian Armies.


text: The War of the First Coalition broke out in autumn 1792, when several European powers formed an alliance against Republican France. The first major operation was the annexation of the County of Nice and the Duchy of Savoy (both states of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia) by 30,000 French troops. This was reversed in mid-1793, when the Republican forces were withdrawn to deal with a revolt in Lyon, triggering a counter-invasion of Savoy by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (a member of the First Coalition). After the revolt in Lyon had been suppressed, the French under General Kellermann managed to push back the Piedmontese with just 12,000 troops, winning engagements at Argentines and St Maurice in September and October 1793.


text: The conflict soon escalated with Austrian and Neapolitan forces being mobilised for an invasion of southern France to recover Nice and strike into Provence. The Allied forces were bolstered by some 45,000 Austrians, Piedmontese, and Neapolitans, with additional support from the British Royal Navy. Before the Allies could launch this assault the French, under tactical command of André Masséna, launched the Saorgio Offensive (April, 1794), which was planned by the army's artillery commander, General Napoleon Bonaparte. This two-pronged French offensive drove back the Allied force, despite their strong positions, and firmly captured the mountain passes that led into Piedmont.


text: A further offensive, also designed by General Bonaparte to exploit the victory at Saorgio, was called off under orders from war minister Carnot, who was concerned about supply lines being cut by rebels behind the front. The commanders in the field were unhappy about this decision, but appeals were interrupted by the overthrow of the Committee of Public Safety and its leader, Maximilien de Robespierre (28 July 1794). During the political chaos that ensued in the French army, the Allies launched an assault on Savona. Ignoring Carnot's orders, the commander of the Army of Italy, André Masséna, launched a counter-offensive and secured supply routes to Genoa following victory at the First Battle of Dego. Following this the French consolidated the front and awaited further opportunities.


text: The main focus of the war then shifted north to the Rhine, until 29 June 1795, when the Austrians launched an attack against the depleted and poorly supplied French Army of Italy. Nominally 107,000-strong, the Army of Italy could only manage to field an effective force of about 30,000. Kellermann, who had resumed command, appealed to Carnot for reinforcements. Instead, General Bonaparte was appointed to the general staff where he devised a third plan for an attack towards Vado and Ceva. Kellermann was replaced by General Schérer soon after and he carried out the attacks, gaining victory at Loano.


text: Following a short respite in hostilities Schérer resigned and Bonaparte was appointed commander-in-chief on 2 March 1796. The motives for Bonaparte's appointment were most likely political. On 9 March, Bonaparte had married Joséphine de Beauharnais, who had shared her imprisonment (under Robespierre) with the woman who had become wife to Tallien, one of the then Directors of the French Republic. It was "universally believed" that Josephine had been introduced by her friend to the First Director, Barras, and had become his lover.


text: Josephine's letters claim Barras had promised the command to Bonaparte, before she'd consented to marry him.


text: Barras is cited by his colleagues as saying of Bonaparte, "Advance this man or he will advance himself without you." Bonaparte had shown himself to be highly ambitious and had made a name for himself following 13 Vendémiaire in 1795. By placing him in command of the Army of Italy, Bonaparte was being assigned to an obscure front: of the Republic's thirteen principal field armies, the Italian force was the most neglected and was in terrible condition when Bonaparte arrived.


text: Bonaparte launched attacks almost immediately after he arrived on the front on 27 March. His 37,000 men and 60 guns were facing more than 50,000 Allied troops in the theatre. His only chance of support came from Kellermann's Army of the Alps, which was faced by a further 20,000 Allied troops. Bonaparte had no chance of gaining reinforcements as the Republican war effort was being concentrated on the massive offensives planned on the Rhine.


text: At the Battle of Montenotte Bonaparte defeated the Austrians and fought a second engagement around Dego soon after. Following these battles he launched an all-out invasion of Piedmont and won a further victory at Mondovì. Piedmont was forced to accept the Armistice of Cherasco on 28 April, knocking it out of the war and the First Coalition. It had taken Bonaparte just a month to defeat Piedmont (between his arrival and the armistice), a country which had resisted the French armies for over three years. Total losses during the lightning campaign were 6,000 French troops and over 25,000 Allied.


text: Bonaparte reorganised his newly enthused army following the short let-up in operations that followed Piedmont's defeat. Following this he manoeuvred his army into more opportune positions along the Po River. A small French victory at Codogno led to a retreat by Coalition forces across the Adda River. At the river, the Austrian army of General Beaulieu was defeated in the Battle of Lodi on 10 May.


text: The Army of Italy was now reinforced to almost 50,000 men and Bonaparte continued on the offensive, striking at Austrian forces mobilising in the vicinity of the fortress of Mantua. A series of minor Coalition defeats resulted in the garrison at Mantua being reinforced to 12,000. Placing Mantua under siege, Bonaparte then led a French division south to invade and occupy Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Papal States, defeating Papal forces at Fort Urban.


text: Next he turned north and with 20,000 men defeated some 50,000 Austrians under Field Marshal Wurmser at the battles of Lonato and Castiglione. The Austrian commander was forced back into the Alps.


text: Wurmser was reinforced once again to compensate for some 20,000 losses sustained in the past two months and made an attempt to relieve the siege of Mantua. Some 45,000 Austrian troops were left behind to guard against any new French offensive whilst the main body of the Austrian army moved on Mantua. At Rovereto on 4 September, Bonaparte inflicted a heavy defeat on the Austrians and was then well-placed to strike at the rear of Wurmser's army. Reacting slowly to this new threat, the Austrians were again defeated at the Battle of Bassano, where their army was reduced to just 12,000. The remaining troops marched rapidly towards Mantua, but became trapped there by General Masséna's advance party.


text: Additional Austrian forces arrived whilst Bonaparte's army was weakened by disease and his supply lines threatened by rebellion. Government political commissars, especially Cristoforo Saliceti, brutally put down the uprisings, but the French position was weakened. To stabilise the situation Bonaparte created the client states of the Transpadane Republic and the Cispadane Republic.