Projets architecturaux de Catherine de Médicis

Influences.

Historians often assume that Catherine's love for the arts stemmed from her Medici heritage. "As the daughter of the Medici," suggests French art historian Jean-Pierre Babelon, "she was driven by a passion to build and a desire to leave great achievements behind her when she died." Born in Florence in 1519, Catherine lived at the Medici palace, built by Cosimo de' Medici to designs by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo. After moving to Rome in 1530, she lived, surrounded by classical and Renaissance treasures, at another Medici palace (now called the Palazzo Madama). There she watched the leading artists and architects of the day at work in the city. When she later commissioned buildings herself, in France, Catherine often turned to Italian models. She based the Tuileries on the Pitti palace in Florence; and she originally planned the Hotel de la Reine with the Uffizi palace in mind. Catherine, however, left Italy in 1533 at the age of fourteen and married Henry of Orléans, the second son of King Francis I of France. Though she kept in touch with her native Florence, her taste matured at the itinerant royal court of France. Her father-in-law impressed Catherine deeply as an example of what a monarch should be. She later copied Francis' policy of setting the grandeur of the dynasty in stone, whatever the cost. His lavish building projects inspired her own.  Francis was a compulsive builder. He began extension works at the Louvre, added a wing to the old castle at Blois, and built the vast château of Chambord, which he showed off to the emperor Charles V in 1539. He also transformed the lodge at Fontainebleau into one of the great palaces of Europe, a project that continued under Henry II. Artists such as Rosso Fiorentino and Francesco Primaticcio worked on the interior, alongside French craftsmen. This meeting of Italian Mannerism and French patronage bred an original style, later known as the first School of Fontainebleau. Featuring frescoes and high-relief stucco in the shape of parchment or curled leather strapwork, it became the dominant decorative fashion in France in the second half of the sixteenth century. Catherine later herself employed Primaticcio to design her Valois chapel. She also patronised French talent, such as the architects Philibert de l'Orme and Jean Bullant, and the sculptor Germain Pilon.  The death of Henry II from jousting wounds in 1559 changed Catherine's life. From that day, she wore black and took as her emblem a broken lance. She turned her widowhood into a political force that validated her authority during the reigns of her three weak sons. She also became intent on immortalizing her sorrow at the death of her husband. She had emblems of her love and grief carved into the stonework of her buildings. She commissioned a magnificent tomb for Henry, as the centrepiece of an ambitious new chapel.  In 1562, a long poem by Nicolas Houël likened Catherine to Artemisia, who had built the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, as a tomb for her dead husband. Artemesia had also acted as regent for her children. Houël laid stress on Artemesia's devotion to architecture. In his dedication to "L'Histoire de la Royne Arthémise", he told Catherine:  You will find here the edifices, columns, and pyramids that she had built both at Rhodes and Halicarnassus, which will serve as remembrances for those who reflect on our times and who will be astounded at your own buildings–the palaces at the Tuileries, Montceaux, and Saint-Maur, and the infinity of others that you have constructed, built, and embellished with sculptures and beautiful paintings.

Valois Chapel.

In memory of Henry II, Catherine decided to add a new chapel to the basilica of Saint Denis, where the kings of France were traditionally buried. As the centrepiece of this circular chapel, sometimes known as the Valois rotunda, she commissioned a magnificent and innovative tomb for Henry and herself. The design of this tomb should be understood in the context of its planned setting. The plan was to integrate the tomb's effigies of the king and queen with other statues throughout the chapel, creating a vast spatial composition. Catherine's approval would have been essential for such a departure from funerary tradition.

Architecture.

To lead the Valois chapel project, Catherine chose Francesco Primaticcio, who had worked for Henry at Fontainebleau. Primaticcio designed the chapel as a round building, crowned by a dome, to be joined to the north transept of the basilica. The interior and exterior of the chapel were to be decorated with pilasters, columns, and epitaphs in coloured marble. The building would contain six other chapels circling the tomb of Henry and Catherine. Primaticcio's circular design solved the problems faced by the Giusti brothers and Philibert de l'Orme, who had built previous royal tombs. Whereas de l'Orme had designed the tomb of Francis I to be viewed only from the front or the side, Primaticcio's design allowed the tomb to be viewed from all angles. Art historian Henri Zerner has called the plan "a grand ritualistic drama which would have filled the rotunda's celestial space".  Work on the chapel began in 1563 and continued over the next two decades. Primaticcio died in 1570, and the architect Jean Bullant took over the project two years later. After Bullant's death in 1578, Baptiste du Cerceau led the work. The building was abandoned in 1585. Over two hundred years later, in 1793, a mob tossed Catherine and Henry's bones into a pit with the rest of the French kings and queens.

Tomb.

Several of the monuments built for the Valois chapel have survived. These include the tomb of Catherine and Henry—in Zerner's view, "the last and most brilliant of the royal tombs of the Renaissance". Primaticcio himself designed its structure, which eliminated the traditional bas-reliefs and kept ornamentation to a minimum. The sculptor Germain Pilon, who had provided statues for the tomb of Francis I, carved the tomb's two sets of effigies, which represented death below and eternal life above. The king and queen, cast in bronze, kneel in prayer ("priants") on a marble canopy supported by twelve marble columns. Their poses echo those on the nearby tombs of Louis XII and Francis I. Pilon's feel for the material, however, invests his statues with a greater sense of movement.  Before they were destroyed in the Revolution, the remains of the king and queen lay in the mortuary chamber below. Catherine's effigy suggests sleep rather than death, while Henry is posed strikingly, with his head thrown back. From 1583, Pilon also sculpted two later gisants of Catherine and Henry wearing their crowns and coronation robes. In this case, he portrays Catherine realistically, with a double chin. These two statues were intended to flank the altar of the chapel. Pilon's four bronze statues of the cardinal virtues stand at the corners of the tomb. Pilon also carved the reliefs round the base that recall Bontemps' work on the monument for the heart of Francis I.

Statuary.

In the 1580s, Pilon began work on statues for the chapels that were to circle the tomb. Among these, the fragmentary "Resurrection", now in the Louvre, was designed to face the tomb of Catherine and Henry from a side chapel. This work owes a clear debt to Michelangelo, who had designed the tomb and funerary statues for Catherine's father at the Medici chapels in Florence. Pilon's statue of "St Francis in Ecstasy" now stands in the church of St Jean and St François. In art historian Anthony Blunt's view, it marks a departure from the tension of Mannerism and "almost foreshadows" the Baroque.  Pilon had by this time developed a freer style of sculpture than previously seen in France. Earlier French sculpture seems to have influenced him less than Primaticcio's decorations at Fontainebleau: the work of his predecessor Jean Goujon, for example, is more linear and classical. Pilon openly depicts extreme emotion in his work, sometimes to the point of the grotesque. His style has been interpreted as a reflection of a society torn by the conflict of the French wars of religion.

Montceaux.

Catherine's earliest building project was the château of Montceaux-en-Brie, near Paris, which Henry II gave her in 1556, three years before his death. The building consisted of a central pavilion housing a straight staircase, and two wings with a pavilion at each end. Catherine wanted to cover the alley in the garden where Henry played pall mall, an early form of croquet. For this commission, Philibert de l'Orme built her a grotto. He set it on a base made to look like natural rock, from which guests could watch the games while taking refreshments. The work was completed in 1558 but has not survived. The château ceased to be used as a royal residence after 1640, and had fallen into ruin by the time it was demolished by revolutionary decree in 1798.

Tuileries.

After the death of Henry II, Catherine abandoned the palace of the Tournelles, where Henry had lain after a lance fatally pierced his eye and brain in a joust. To replace the Tournelles, she decided in 1563 to build herself a new Paris residence on the site of some old tile kilns or "tuileries". The site was close to the congested Louvre, where she kept her household. The grounds extended along the banks of the Seine and afforded a view of the countryside to the south and west. The Tuileries was the first palace that Catherine had planned from the ground up. It was to grow into the largest royal building project of the last quarter of the sixteenth century in western Europe. Her massive building schemes would have transformed western Paris, as seen from the river, into a monumental complex. To design the new palace, Catherine brought back Philibert de l'Orme from disgrace. This arrogant genius had been sacked as superintendent of royal buildings at the end of Henry II's reign, after making too many enemies. De l'Orme mentioned the project in his treatises on architecture, but his ideas are not fully known. It appears from the small amount of work carried out that his plans for the Tuileries departed from his known principles. De l'Orme is said to have "taught France the classical style—lucid, rational and regular". He notes, however, that in this case he added rich materials and ornaments to please the queen. The plans therefore include a decorative element that looks forward to Bullant's later work and to a less classical style of architecture.  For the pilasters of Catherine's palace, de l'Orme chose the Ionic order, which he considered a feminine form:  Catherine de' Medici was closely involved in planning and supervising the building. De l'Orme records, for example, that she told him to take down some Ionic columns that struck her as too plain. She also insisted on large panels between the dormers to make room for inscriptions. Only a part of de l'Orme's scheme was ever built: the lower section of a central pavilion, containing an oval staircase, and a wing on either side. Though work on de l'Orme's design was abandoned in 1572, two years after his death, it is nonetheless held in high regard. According to Thomson, "The surviving portions of the palace scattered between the Tuileries gardens, the courtyards of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts [Paris] and the Château de la Punta in Corsica show that the columns, pilasters, dormers and tabernacles of the Tuileries were the outstanding masterpieces of non-figurative French Renaissance architectural sculpture". De l'Orme's original plans have not survived. Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, however, has left us a set of plans for the Tuileries. One engraving shows a grandiose palace, with three courts and two oval halls. This design is atypical of de l'Orme's style and so is likely to have been du Cerceau's own proposal or his son Baptiste's. It recalls the houses with tall pavilions and multiple courtyards that du Cerceau often drew in the 1560s and 1570s. Architectural historian David Thomson suggests that the oval halls within du Cerceau's courtyards were Catherine de' Medici's idea. She may have planned to use them for her famously lavish balls and entertainments. Du Cerceau's drawings reveal that, before he published them in 1576, Catherine decided to join the Louvre to the Tuileries by a gallery running west along the north bank of the Seine. Only the ground floor of the first section, the "Petite Galerie", was completed in her lifetime. It was left to Henry IV, who ruled from 1589 to 1610, to add the second floor and the "Grande Galerie" that finally linked the two palaces.  After de l'Orme died in 1570, Catherine abandoned his design for a freestanding house with courtyards. To his unfinished wing she added a pavilion that extended the building towards the river. This was built in a less experimental style by Jean Bullant. Bullant attached columns to his pavilion, as advocated in his 1564 book on the classical orders, to mark proportion. Some commentators have interpreted his different approach as a criticism of de l'Orme's departures from the style of Roman monuments. Despite its unfinished state, Catherine often visited the palace. She held banquets and festivities there and loved to walk in the gardens. According to the French military leader Marshal Tavannes, it was in the Tuileries gardens that she planned the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, in which thousands of Huguenots were butchered in Paris. The gardens had been laid out before work on the palace halted. They included canals, fountains, and a grotto decorated with glazed animals by the potter Bernard Palissy. In 1573, Catherine hosted the famous entertainment at the Tuileries that is depicted on the Valois tapestries. This was a grand ball for the Polish envoys who had come to offer the crown of Poland to her son, the duke of Anjou, later Henry III of France. Henry IV later added to the Tuileries; but Louis XVI was to dismantle sections of the palace. The communards set fire to the remainder in 1871. Twelve years later, the ruins were demolished and then sold off.

Saint-Maur.

The palace of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, south east of Paris, was another of Catherine's unfinished projects. She bought this building, on which Philibert de l'Orme had worked, from the heirs of Cardinal Jean du Bellay, after the latter's death in 1560. She then commissioned de l'Orme to finish the work he had begun there. Drawings by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau in the British Museum may shed light on Catherine's intentions for Saint-Maur. They show a plan to enlarge each wing by doubling the size of the pavilions next to the main block of the house. The house was to stay as one storey, with a flat roof and rusticated pilasters. That meant the extensions would not unbalance the masses of the building as seen from the side.  De l'Orme died in 1570; in 1575 an unknown architect took over at Saint-Maur. The new man proposed to heighten the pavilions on the garden side and top them with pitched roofs. He also planned two more arches over de l'Orme's terrace, which joined the pavilions on the garden side. In historian R. J. Knecht's view, the scheme would have given this part of the house, a "colossal, even grotesque" pediment. The work was only partly carried out, and the house was never fit for Catherine to live in. The Château de Saint-Maur, still in the possession of the Condé family, was nationalised during the French Revolution, emptied of its contents, and its terrains divided up among real-estate speculators. The structure was demolished for the value of its materials; virtually nothing remains.

Hôtel de la Reine.

After de l'Orme's death, Jean Bullant replaced him as Catherine's chief architect. In 1572, Catherine commissioned Bullant to build a new home for her within the Paris city walls. She had outgrown her apartments at the Louvre and needed more room for her swelling household. To make space for the new scheme and its gardens, she had an entire area of Paris demolished.  The new palace was known in Catherine's time as the Hôtel de la Reine and later as the Hôtel de Soissons. Engravings made by Israël Silvestre in about 1650 and a plan from about 1700 show that the Hôtel de la Reine possessed a central wing, a courtyard, and gardens. The walled gardens of the hôtel included an aviary, a lake with a water jet, and long avenues of trees. Catherine also installed an orangery that could be dismantled in winter. The actual construction work was carried out after Bullant's death in 1582. The building was demolished in the 1760s. All that remains of the Hôtel de la Reine today is a single Doric column, known as the Colonne de l'Horoscope or Medici column, which stood in the courtyard. It can be seen next to the domed Bourse de commerce. Catherine's biographer Leonie Frieda has called it "a poignant reminder of the fleeting nature of power".

Chenonceau.

In 1576, Catherine decided to enlarge her château of Chenonceau, near Blois. On Henry II's death, she had demanded this property from Henry's mistress Diane de Poitiers. She had not forgotten that Henry had given this crown property to Diane instead of to her. In return, she gave Diane the less prized Chaumont. When Diane arrived at Chaumont, she found signs of the occult, such as pentangles drawn on the floor. She quickly withdrew to her château of Anet and never set foot in Chaumont again.  Diane had carried out major works at Chenonceau, such as de l'Orme's bridge over the Cher River. Now Catherine set out to efface or outdo her former rival's work. She lavished vast sums on the house and built two galleries on the extension over the bridge. The architect was almost certainly Bullant. The decorations show the fantasy of his late style. Catherine loved gardens and often conducted business in them. At Chenonceau, she added waterfalls, menageries, and aviaries, laid out three parks, and planted mulberry trees for silkworms. Jacques Androuet du Cerceau made drawings of a grandiose scheme for Chenonceau. A trapezoidal lower court leads to a forecourt of semicircular atria joined to two halls that flank the original house. These drawings may not be a reliable record of Bullant's plans. Du Cerceau "sometimes inserted in his book designs embodying ideas which he himself would have liked to see carried out rather than those of the actual designer of the building in question".  Jacques Androuet du Cerceau was a favourite architect of Catherine's. Like Bullant, he became a more fantastical designer with time. Nothing he built himself, however, has survived. He is known instead for his engravings of the leading architectural schemes of the day, including Saint-Maur, the Tuileries, and Chenonceau. In 1576 and 1579, he produced the two-volume "Les Plus Excellents Bastiments de France", a beautiful publication dedicated to Catherine. His work is an invaluable record of buildings that were never finished or were later substantially altered.

End of the dynasty.

Catherine spent ruinous sums of money on buildings at a time of plague, famine, and economic hardship in France. As the country slipped deeper into anarchy, her plans grew ever more ambitious. Yet the Valois monarchy was crippled by debt and its moral authority was in steep decline. The popular view condemned Catherine's building schemes as obscenely extravagant. This was especially true in Paris, where the "parlement" was often asked to contribute to her costs.  Ronsard captured the mood in a poem:  <poem> The queen must cease building, Her lime must stop swallowing our wealth... Painters, masons, engravers, stone-carvers Drain the treasury with their deceits. Of what use is her Tuileries to us? Of none, Moreau; it is but vanity. It will be deserted within a hundred years. </poem>  Ronsard was in many ways proved correct. The death of Catherine's beloved son Henry III in 1589, a few months after her own, brought the Valois dynasty to an end. Precious little of Catherine's grand building work has survived.

Catherine de' Medici's building projects included the Valois chapel at Saint-Denis, the Tuileries Palace, and the Hôtel de la Reine in Paris, and extensions to the château of Chenonceau, near Blois. Born in 1519 in Florence to an Italian father and a French mother, Catherine de' Medici was a daughter of both the Italian and the French Renaissance. She grew up in Florence and Rome under the wing of the Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII. In 1533, at the age of fourteen, she left Italy and married Henry, the second son of Francis I and Queen Claude of France. On doing so, she entered the greatest Renaissance court in northern Europe.

Les projets architecturaux de Catherine de Médicis ont inclus la chapelle des Valois à la basilique Saint-Denis, le palais des Tuileries et l'hôtel de la Reine à Paris, ainsi que des agrandissements au château de Chenonceau près de Blois.


History.

In historical records the village was first mentioned in 1414. In the following centuries the estate belonged to Makovica manor. In the 19th century the village was affected by emigration to North America for economic reasons, in 1947 the proportion of the population at the instigation of the Soviet authorities moved to Ukraine (in particular the village Chomut, the current name Zelenyj Haj – Зелений Гай), from the 20th to the sixties the dawn of the 21st century centuries, the majority returned to Slovakia.  The village has a memorial to the victims of World War II from Cigeľka – especially the seven young boys who were sent to fight the war ended without proper training, and a few Jewish families whose members died in concentration camps. Memorial was unveiled in October 1989. Its author is a painter Mikuláš Lovacký.

Geography.

The municipality lies at an altitude of 526 metres and covers an area of 15 984 km2. It has a population of about 464 people.

Mineral water.

There is a spring mineral water the same name. Almanac "Spas of Czechoslovak Republic of 1949" states as Cigeľka spa place for the treatment of gastric diseases, diseases of upper respiratory tract, heart and blood vessels, and skin diseases. At present, Cigeľka hasn't the status of spa. In addition to salt mineral water springs in Cigeľka from dozens of sources acidulous water.

Genealogical resources.

The records for genealogical research are available at the state archive "Statny Archiv in Presov, Slovakia"

Cigeľka is a village and municipality in Bardejov District in the Prešov Region of north-east Slovakia with Ruthenian and Roma inhabitants. It lies in the valley of Oľchovec below the Busov hill (1 002 meters above sea level) near the Slovakia-Poland border. There is a Greek Catholic church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in the year 1816, which served its first liturgy Presov later Bishop Paul Peter Gojdič.

Cigeľka (précédemment "Cigelka"), en ruthène Цигелка, est un village du district de Bardejov, en Slovaquie orientale. La population est composée de Slovaques, Ruthènes et Roms. Il est situé dans la vallée du ruisseau Oľchovec sous de la montagne Busov ("altitude: 1002 mètres"), près de la frontière slovaquo-polonaise. On y trouve une église catholique byzantine dédiée aux saints Côme et Damien de 1816, relevant de l'Église grecque-catholique ruthène, dans laquelle Pavol-Peter Gojdič, futur évêque de Prešov, a tenu sa première messe.


History.

Before being invaded by the Portuguese in the 16th century, Casablanca used to be known as Anfa. The Portuguese used the ruins of Anfa to build a military fortress in 1515, and were eventually expelled by the Moroccan Saadi Dynasti in 1530. The foundation of the current port started during the reign of Sidi Mohammed Bin Abdellah, the Alawi Sultan of Morocco in the 18th century. It is this Sultan who named it Addar Al Beida, or Casablanca. In the 19th century, the area's population began to grow as Casablanca became a major supplier of wool to the booming textile industry in Britain and shipping traffic increased. The British, in return, began importing gunpowder tea, a key ingredient in Morocco's national drink, mint tea. By the 1860s, there were around 4,000 residents, and the population grew to around 9,000 by the late 1880s. Casablanca remained a modestly sized port, with a population reaching around 12,000 within a few years of the French conquest and arrival of French colonialists in the town—at first as administrators within a sovereign sultanate, in 1912.  The Moroccan administration of the time entrusted to the "Compagnie Marocaine" the construction of a small port whose water surface to be sheltered does not exceed 10 hectares. The work started in 1906, consisted of the construction of two small piers out of grip of share and others of the wet dock. The port of Casablanca began to be developed in 1906.  After completion in 1938, the configuration of the port had taken form and included a water level of a surface of 125 hectares, moles, quay levels and quays for the accosting of the trading ships.  The port has known important works of extension including the prolongation of the two facilities for phosphates shipping and the completion of citrus fruits facility in 1950's until the 1980s. Many other works are ongoing since 2013, ordered by the Marsa-Maroc.

The Port of Casablanca (, ) refers to the collective facilities and terminals that conduct maritime trade handling functions in Casablanca's harbours and which handle Casablanca's shipping. The port is located near Hassan II Mosque.

Le port de Casablanca est le deuxième plus grand port marocain, après celui de Tanger Med. Le premier grand port moderne du royaume a été construit à Casablanca en 1912. Ce grand tournant historique affecta de multiples façons le destin de la ville. L'ensemble du développement économique de la région, ainsi intensifié par l'activité portuaire, draina notamment les investissements nationaux et étrangers. Cela donna naissance à la capitale économique du royaume, dynamique et moderne, que l'on connaît aujourd'hui.


Early life.

Alexander Skarsgård was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He is the eldest son of actor Stellan Skarsgård and his first wife, My Skarsgård, a physician. He has five younger siblings: Gustaf, Sam, Bill, Eija and Valter, and two half-brothers from his father's second wife, Megan Everett. Gustaf, Bill, and Valter are also actors.  A friend of his father, who was a director, gave Skarsgård his first film role when he was seven years old. He played Kalle Nubb in "Åke och hans värld" ("Åke and His World"). In 1989, the lead role in the Swedish television production "Hunden som log" ("The Dog That Smiled") made him famous in Sweden at the age of 13. Uncomfortable with being recognized, he quit acting for the next seven years.  Skarsgård applied to do his national service at age 19. He served in the Swedish military for 18 months, in the "SäkJakt" ("protect and hunt") unit that dealt with anti-sabotage and anti-terrorism in the Stockholm archipelago. After completing his service in 1996 he left Sweden and attended Leeds Beckett University in England for six months. He enrolled to study English but admits he did not study much and "had a blast" instead.  After seven years away from acting, he started to consider it again. In 1997, he enrolled in a theater course at Marymount Manhattan College and moved to New York City. He returned to Stockholm after six months, but the time he spent studying theater showed him that he wanted to act.

Career.

Upon his return to Sweden, Skarsgård began picking up acting jobs, working in film, television and theatrical productions. While on vacation in the United States, he auditioned for and landed the role of Meekus in the 2001 film "Zoolander". In 2003, his work in "Hundtricket-the Movie" ("The Dog Trick") earned him an "Guldbagge Award" nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He was named the Sexiest Man in Sweden five times.  He moved to Los Angeles in 2004 but continued to work in Sweden. His break came when he was cast as Sergeant Brad "Iceman" Colbert in the HBO miniseries "Generation Kill". An adaptation of journalist Evan Wright's book of the same name, "Generation Kill" follows the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of the United States Marine Corps during the early part of the Iraq War. The role of Brad Colbert was the closest to a "lead" in "Generation Kill", and director Susanna White and executive producer David Simon at first disagreed about casting Skarsgård. White wanted to cast him but Simon was not convinced he could pull off the American accent. After four auditions in three cities, Skarsgård learned the role was his just 36 hours before he had to board a plane for Namibia where the project was filming. The cast and crew filmed for seven months in the desert, shooting six days a week. Skarsgård worked with a dialect coach to master the American accent.  Just before leaving to shoot "Generation Kill", Skarsgård heard about "True Blood", a new series HBO was developing based on the "Southern Vampire Mysteries" series of novels by Charlaine Harris. At first he was unsure about playing a vampire, but when he learned that Alan Ball, creator of the HBO series "Six Feet Under" and Academy Award winning screenwriter of "American Beauty", was behind the project, he sent in an audition tape. The audition was for the role of Bill Compton, which eventually went to Stephen Moyer. Skarsgård was later cast as Eric Northman, a 1000-year-old, Viking vampire sheriff, local bar owner and potential love interest of heroine Sookie Stackhouse in October 2007. "True Blood" launched its seventh and final season in June 2014.  In 2009, Skarsgård appeared in the music video for pop singer Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi". He was the voice of Stefan in the 2009 animated film "Metropia", directed by Tarik Saleh. In 2010, Skarsgård portrayed Terje, a gay Norwegian trekking to the North Pole, in the British mockumentary "Beyond the Pole".  Suit maker Hickey Freeman chose Skarsgård to model a new look it debuted in 2010. Annie Leibovitz photographed the ad campaign which appeared in "The Wall Street Journal Magazine", "GQ" and "Details". He covered the September 2010 issue of "Rolling Stone" with his "True Blood" co-stars, Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer.  Skarsgård appeared in two 2011 films. "Melancholia", an apocalyptic movie directed by Lars von Trier and starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kiefer Sutherland, premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Skarsgård appeared in "Straw Dogs", a remake of the 1971 film of the same name, as Charlie Venner. The remake's director, Rod Lurie, transferred the small town setting from Cornwall to Mississippi, and described Venner as "an ex-football star gone to seed". The film co-starred James Marsden and Kate Bosworth and was released 16 September 2011.  In 2012, Skarsgård appeared alongside Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna in Peter Berg's "Battleship", an adaptation of the Hasbro game. He also starred with Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan in Scott McGehee and David Siegel's film, "What Maisie Knew", an adaptation of the Henry James novel of the same name. He was also part of the ensemble cast in Henry Alex Rubin's thriller, "Disconnect", playing opposite Paula Patton.  Skarsgård starred alongside Brit Marling and Ellen Page in Zal Batmanglij's 2013 film, "The East". Skarsgård starred in the 2016 film "The Legend of Tarzan", portraying the title character, opposite Margot Robbie as Jane. Skarsgård worked out for 7 months to prepare for the role. In 2017 he co-starred in HBO's "Big Little Lies". For his role as an abusive husband, Skarsgård won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.  In 2019, he played opposite Keira Knightley in "The Aftermath", a film set in 1946 post-war Hamburg, where he portrays a sensitive German architect, forced to take in a British military couple in his stately home. Skarsgård will star in "The Stand", a CBS All Access miniseries based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Stephen King, portraying Randall Flagg, a "charismatic rockabilly demon".

Personal life.

Skarsgård is a fan of Swedish football and supports Hammarby Fotboll, a club based in Stockholm, his birth city. In October 2010, he participated in "Bajen Aid" by donating several items he had autographed and auctioned to raise money for the Hammarby football club.  In July 2011, Skarsgård received an honorary degree from Leeds Beckett University, where he was formerly a student.  Skarsgård was the Ambassador for the American team for a Walking With The Wounded fundraising event for wounded soldiers. He trekked to the South Pole against Team UK (Prince Harry, Ambassador) and Team Canada/Australia (actor Dominic West, Ambassador). A few days into the trek, it was decided that the competition part of the race would be cancelled due to hazardous terrain and weather conditions, so the teams combined forces and continued the journey together. All three teams successfully made it to the South Pole on 13 December 2013.  Skarsgård identifies as a feminist.

Alexander Johan Hjalmar Skarsgård (; born 25 August 1976) is a Swedish actor. He is best known for his roles as Brad "Iceman" Colbert in the miniseries "Generation Kill" (2008), Eric Northman in the television series "True Blood" (2008–2014), and Perry Wright in the television series "Big Little Lies" (2017–2019). The lattermost earned him several accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. He has also appeared in films such as "Melancholia" (2011) and "The Legend of Tarzan" (2016).

Alexander Skarsgård, né le à Stockholm, est un acteur suédois. Il est notamment connu pour son rôle d'Eric Northman dans la série "True Blood", le sergent Brad « Iceman » Colbert dans "Generation Kill", Perry Wright dans la minisérie "Big Little Lies", ainsi que Tarzan dans le film homonyme réalisé en 2016.


Early life.

Bond was born in 1773 in Frederick, Maryland. He had twelve Illinois Country connections through his uncle, also, named Shadrach Bond, a scout with George Rogers Clark's Illinois Regiment in the American Revolutionary War. Because they held some of the same offices in Illinois, the two Bonds are sometimes confused; the uncle is usually known as Shadrach Bond, Sr. The young Bond learned from his uncle of the rich farmland of the Illinois Territory, and emigrated to the American Bottom, an especially fertile section of the Mississippi River basin. Bond would be an Illinois farmer for the remainder of his life. Shadrach Bond was made a Freemason in Temple Lodge No. 26, Reisters Town, Baltimore County, Maryland. When he moved to Illinois, he became a member of lodge The Western Star Lodge No. 107, Kaskaskia, Territory of Indiana on December 27, 1806. Bond was elected Illinois first Grand Master when the first Illinois Grand Lodge was constituted on December 11, 1822.

Political career.

A Democratic-Republican, Bond was elected to the Indiana Territoral Council. After Illinois Territory was organized, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. When Illinois was admitted to the Union, Bond was elected the first governor.  As Illinois's first governor, Bond led a new state that had sterling prospects but almost no transportation infrastructure or cash in hand. Bond made transportation his top priority as governor. Because the state had almost no money, the General Assembly passed and Bond signed bills to build privately operated toll roads and bridges, headed by a road connecting the state's first capital, Kaskaskia on the Mississippi River, with what was then the state's largest city, Shawneetown, on the Ohio River. The road was built and eventually taken over by the state of Illinois as a state highway. After almost two centuries of improvements, much of it is now part of Illinois Route 13.  Bond was less successful in his advocacy for a canal that would connect Lake Michigan and the Illinois River (the Illinois and Michigan Canal). The canal was eventually built in the 1840s, long after Bond had left office.  Governor Bond was deeply concerned about arson. The Illinois criminal law made arsonists eligible for the death penalty, along with persons guilty of rape and murder. The governor was by no means exclusively concerned with appearing to be tough on crime, however. He took steps to abolish the whipping post and pillory for misdemeanor offenses.  Bond's most controversial act was his attempt to veto an act passed by the General Assembly to create a non-capitalized "State Bank of Illinois." The bank was ready to issue banknotes based on the prospect of future economic growth within Illinois. Bond considered this dishonorable and felt that there should be no banks chartered by the state government of Illinois until the State had enough specie (gold and silver coin) to support the value of its banknotes. The undercapitalized bank was chartered anyway, and promptly went bankrupt, justifying Bond's concerns.

Retirement.

After Bond's single term as governor, he returned to his Kaskaskia farm. He was no longer in the center of Illinois politics, as the General Assembly had moved the state capital from Kaskaskia to Vandalia. President James Monroe appointed Bond chief record keeper of the Kaskaskia land office, an important job in a land-hungry frontier state. As a respected local leader, Bond also helped to raise the local share of funding to secure the construction of the state's first penitentiary in Alton. In the early 1830s Bond was elected Master of his Masonic Lodge.

Death.

Shadrach Bond died of pneumonia on his farm at Kaskaskia in 1832. He is interred in Evergreen Cemetery in Chester, and his grave is marked by the Governor Bond State Memorial. In September 2008, his obelisk – the tallest and most prominent monument in the cemetery – was toppled by Hurricane Ike.

Honors.

In 1817, Illinois Territory named the newly created Bond County for Shadrach Bond. The honor was bestowed for Bond's service as a congressional delegate; he had not yet become governor. Governor Bond Lake in Greenville, Illinois is also named in honor of Bond.

Shadrach Bond (November 24, 1773 – April 12, 1832) was a representative from the Illinois Territory to the United States Congress. In 1818, he was elected Governor of Illinois, becoming the new state's first chief executive. In an example of American politics during the Era of Good Feelings, Bond was elected to both positions without opposition.

Shadrach Bond (1773-1832) est un homme politique américain, membre du parti républicain-démocrate et premier Gouverneur de l'État de l'Illinois de 1818 à 1822 et également le premier délégué du Territoire de l'Illinois à la Chambre des représentants des États-Unis.


Background.

Bilbao was the capital of the autonomous Basque area established by the Republic after the war began to reward Basque nationalist support of the Republic. The Basque people in Spain generally inhabit four provinces: Navarre, Álava, Gipuzkoa and Biscay. The Basque nationalists were dominant in the last two provinces. Navarre and Álava had rallied to the rising against the Republic.  The Spanish Nationalist troops gained Gipuzkoa early in the war with the fall of Irún in August and San Sebastián on 13 September 1936, isolating the Basque Country and the zone held by the Northern Republicans from the French border. On 31 March, the Nationalists, led by the General Mola, launched an offensive against Biscay Province. The Basque troops had to retire, and by June, the Nationalists had reached the outskirts of Bilbao.

Battle.

By 11 June 1937 the Basque forces had fallen back to the city of Bilbao, which was defended by a series of rushed fortifications called the "Bilbao's Iron Ring". It was poorly designed for defence. It was quite a antiquated concept, akin to First World War fortifications, and so was vulnerable to modern warfare and weapons, such as aircraft and artillery, and only 30,000 troops were defending it (it was conceived to be defended by 70,000). Therefore the Iron Ring was rather easily overcome by Nationalist forces.  The ring was breached by an infantry assault supported by heavy air and artillery bombardment (150 guns and 70 bombers). On 12 June, the Spanish Republican Army launched a diversionary attack against Huesca to stop the Nationalist offensive, but the Nationalist troops continued their advance. On the night of 13 June, the defenders evacuated most of the civilian population from the city. On 18 June, General Ulibarri withdrew his remaining troops from Bilbao, and the Nationalists occupied the city on the following day. The city's bridges had been destroyed to hinder the attackers, but the city remained mostly intact.

The Battle of Bilbao, part of the War in the North in the Spanish Civil War, had the Nationalist Army captured Bilbao and the rest of the Basque Country that was still being held by the Republic.

La bataille de Bilbao fait partie des batailles du front du Nord qui opposèrent, durant la guerre d'Espagne les forces républicaines et les insurgés nationalistes. Elle se déroula durant le printemps 1937 en Biscaye et se solda par l'occupation au 19 juin par les nationalistes de Bilbao et du reste du Pays basque républicain.


Early life.

Sein Lwin was born on 27 January 1924 in Kawkayin village, Paung, Mon State, British Burma to parent Shwe Yin and his wife Ma Ma Gyi. Early, he worked a school teacher in his hometown.He has a son by the name Min Lwin Oo who was a mariners ( navigating officer ) in the late 1980's.

Military and governmental career.

He joined the Army in 1943, and in 1944 joined Ne Win's 4th Burma Rifles. He is believed to have personally killed Karen rebel leader Saw Ba U Gyi.  Sein Lwin had a reputation as being a henchman for General Ne Win. He was one of those responsible for the Rangoon University Student Union massacre on 7 July 1962 when 130 university students protesting against General Ne Win's coup d'état were killed and the Student Union building dynamited the next day. Aung Gyi and Tin Pe were the senior officers, and Sein Lwin was the field commanding officer in the University region. No one knows exactly who gave the order.  In 1978, Sein Lwin became chief of staff of the Burmese armed forces with the rank of general. After serving as chief of the Mandalay and Irrawaddy division army commands, he was brought to the Burmese capital of Rangoon as joint general secretary of the party in 1981. Later, he served variously as Minister of Cooperatives, Minister of Transport, Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Religious Affairs under the General Ne Win's cabinet.  Sein Lwin, as commander of the security force riot police (Lon Htein) was again responsible for dealing with student protests during the 1988 pro-democracy demonstrations. On 16 March, following the killing of two students, students marching on Prome Road were confronted near Inya Lake by the riot police and many beaten to death or drowned. On 17 March, soldiers and riot police entered Rangoon University and arrested hundreds of students, 41 dying in custody. As public unrest grew, a general strike was called for 8 August 1988. Sein Lwin, succeeded Ne Win as Burma Socialist Programme Party Chairman on 26 July and San Yu as President on 27 July 1988.  Sein Lwin, implementing the threat in Ne Win's "when the army shoots, it shoots to hit" resignation speech, directed troops to fire on groups of unarmed demonstrators in Yangon during the 8 August 1988 demonstrations (referred to as the 8888 Uprising), killing and wounding hundreds. Protests, more shootings and arrests continued until Sein Lwin resigned on 12 August. For these actions, he earned the nickname "Butcher of Rangoon".  The State Law and Order Restoration Council was established shortly after by Gen Saw Maung who staged a coup on 18 September 1988. Following the military takeover, the junta provided assistance to Sein Lwin, including guards, a pension, several four-wheel drive vehicles and monthly food rations. However, after the junta put Ne Win under arrest in March 2002, this assistance was removed.  Sein Lwin launched his career as leader of Burma with accusations that the country's problems were the fault of individuals, and not the ruling party.

Death.

Sein Lwin died on 9 April 2004 at Yangon General Hospital at the age of 80 after his return from Singapore where had sought treatment for a stomach ailment.  His death was reported in a state-run newspaper, "Myanma Ahlin", which did not give a cause of death.

Sein Lwin (, ; 27 January 1924 – 9 April 2004) was a Burmese politician and retired military general in the Myanmar Army. He was served as President of Myanmar for 17 days in 1988, following the resignation of San Yu.

U Sein Lwin (1923-) est un militaire et homme d'État birman qui fut brièvement président de la Birmanie durant le soulèvement prodémocratique de 1988.


Plot.

Benoit Gando (Laurent Lucas) is a French insurance agent visiting a picturesque Northern Ontario town for a conference. He has a steady marriage with a nuclear engineer and an eleven-year-old daughter. Benoit is leaving a convenience store as twenty-seven-year-old rookie cop Kate Logan (Alexis Bledel) mistakes him for a suspected rapist. She explains the misunderstanding and lets him go, although it is possible she made up the story to get herself introduced to him, but the question arises how did she know who he was beforehand. Later that evening she shows up at his motel and offers him a drink in order to make up for the encounter. He accepts and due to her "innocent" flirtations they end up sleeping together.  In a subsequent encounter, Kate shows Benoit how to hold and aim her service pistol. While he playfully does this, never having handled one before, the pistol goes off and a bullet is lodged in the wall of the motel room. Fearing the loss of her job, Kate drags Benoit deeper into the affair and both are now on the run. Benoit just wants to go to the police and tell them the truth that it was just an accident. She keeps him hooked by threatening to tell his wife that they slept together. She tells him that they will come up with a better solution.  The outcome of the situation is tragic, for everyone but Kate. This woman manages to destroy many lives yet comes out of it unscathed. She murders Benoit and makes it look like self-defense and manages to avoid losing her job as a cop.

The Kate Logan Affair is a 2010 Canadian drama film starring Alexis Bledel and Laurent Lucas, written and directed by Noël Mitrani about a young psychologically unstable police woman named Kate Logan and a married Frenchman who find themselves caught up in a dramatic twisted affair. Based on the true story of a 2002 crime committed by an Alberta policewoman.

The Kate Logan Affair, ou L'Affaire Kate Logan au Québec, est un film canadien en langue anglaise écrit et réalisé par Noël Mitrani, sorti au Canada le et en DVD aux États-Unis le et au Japon le. L'aspect peu conventionnel de ce film divise la critique et le public.


Biography.

Magneric was born and grew up in Trier, Germany. Not much is known about his early life. Once installed as bishop, he continued the work begun by his predecessor of restoring the city of Trier and its environs. He founded several clerical communities, including St. Eucharius and St. Paulin. He had a great devotion to Saint Martin of Tours, and built several monasteries and churches dedicated to him. He converted the Holy Cross Church in Trier to an oratory in honour of St Martin; it later became the Abbey of St. Martin or the Deumelberg. Other churches Magneric dedicated to St Martin are in Ivois, Carden on the Moselle, and a second one in Trier.  He gave sanctuary to bishop Theodore of Marseilles when he was exiled by Guntramnus of Burgundy in 585, and pleaded with King Childebert II on behalf of the bishop.  He lived in the residence of bishop Nicetius, and accompanied the bishop into exile when Nicetius was banished by King Clotaire I. This was an act of revenge for the King being excommunicated. Magneric returned to Trier the next year. He was ordained by Nicetius in 566.  Magneric was close to the Merovingian royal house and Childebert II, who made him godfather of his son Theudebert II in 586. In 587 he attended a family congress of kings Childebert and Guntram, which nearly cost him his life. At the meeting, Duke Boso, who had been condemned by the King, fled to his house and took the Bishop hostage. The house was set on fire at the King's command.  The proximity to the Merovingian family and his influence on the fortunes of Austrasia and the Gallic Church helped him maintain urban and regional domination until his death.  He was buried in the cemetery of St. Martins. Around the year 1000 Abbot Eberwin wrote a hagiography of the Bishop, whereupon his worship spread throughout Lorraine. In 1506 his grave was opened, and after the destruction of the church his remains disappeared.

Magneric (also called Magnerich, or Magnericus) (born c. 522, died c. 596) was a Frankish bishop of Trier. He is a Catholic and Orthodox saint, with a feast day on July 25. Magneric was one of the first bishops with a Germanic name, and had one of the first Swiss francs on a bishop's throne. He was a friend and admirer of Gregory of Tours, mentioned in his "History of the Franks", and ordained St Géry, one of his disciples, who became bishop of Cambrai-Arras on the ascent of King Childebert II. Venantius Fortunatus described the Bishop as virtuous and charitable, and an "ornament of bishops".

Saint Magnéric de Trèves (en latin: "Magnericus", en allemand "Magnerich") (mort entre 596 et 600) était un Franc, évêque de Trèves de 566 à sa mort. Magnéric est un saint de l'Église catholique, et sa fête est le 25 juillet.


Date.

The composition date of each Yoga Upanishad is unclear, and estimates on when they were composed vary with scholar. According to Mahony, they are likely dated between 100 BC and 1100 AD. However, Gavin Flood dates the Yoga Upanishads to the 100 BCE to 300 CE period. According to James Mallinson, some Yoga Upanishads were revised in the eighteenth century to incorporate the Hatha Yoga ideas of the Hindu Natha sub-tradition.  Mircea Eliade states that textual style, archaic language and the mention of some Yoga Upanishads in other Indian texts, suggests the following Yoga Upanishads were likely composed in the same period as the didactic parts of the Mahabharata and the chief Sannyasa Upanishads: Brahmabindu (probably composed about the same time as Maitri Upanishad), Ksurika, Amritabindu, Brahmavidya, Tejobindu Upanishad, Nadabindu, Yogashikha, Dhyanabindu and Yogatattva. Eliade's suggestion places these in the final centuries of BCE or early centuries of the CE. All these, adds Eliade, were likely composed earlier than the ten or eleven later Yoga Upanishads such as the Yoga-kundalini, Varaha and Pashupatabrahma Upanishads.

Scope.

Yoga Upanishads discuss different aspects and kinds of Yoga, ranging from postures, breath exercises, meditation ("dhyana"), sound ("nada"), tantra ("kundalini" anatomy) and others. Some of these topics are not covered in the Bhagavad Gita or Patanjali's Yogasutras.  Many texts describe Yoga as consisting of steps or members ("angas") and according to Paul Deussen, the important Yoga Upanishads which deal with these are the "Brahmavidya", "Kshurika", "Culika" (listed under the Samanya Upanishads), "Nadabindu", "Brahmabindu", "Amritabindu", "Dhyanabindu", "Tejobindu", "Yogashika", "Yogatattva", and "Hamsa". These 11 Yoga Upanishads belong to Vedic shaka (school) from the Vedantic point of view. These Upanishads include discussion of ethics (yama (self restraints such as non-violence) and niyama (self effort such as study)), asana (physical exercises and body posture), pranayama (breath exercises), pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), dharana (concentration of the mind), dhyana (contemplation and meditation) and samadhi (a state of meditative consciousness).

Yoga Upanishads are a group of minor Upanishads of Hinduism related to Yoga. There are twenty Yoga Upanishads in the anthology of 108 Upanishads listed in the Muktika anthology. The Yoga Upanishads, along with other minor Upanishads, are generally classified separate from the thirteen major Principal Upanishads considered to be more ancient and from the Vedic tradition.

Les Yoga Upanishad ou Yoga Upaniṣad est une collection de vingt upanishad composées entre 700 et 1300 et faisant partie du canon Muktikā qui en contient 108. Ces upaniṣad qui ont été rédigées en sanskrit classique ont un rapport avec tous les aspects du yoga et sont en partie centrées sur la part ésotérique de celui-ci. Certaines d’entre elles donnent une description du système des chakra et des nadi qui est associé à l’éveil de la Kuṇḍalinī. Celles-ci font un lien entre l’école du Nord (Védisme) et l’école du Sud (Tantrisme).


History.

The convent was established beneath the Festungsberg hill and the ruined fortifications of the former Roman city of "Juvavum". Its first abbess was Saint Erentrudis of Salzburg, who was either a niece or a sister of Bishop Rupert. The abbey's endowment was provided by the Agilolfing duke Theodo of Bavaria and his successor Theodbert.  The nuns, all of noble birth, held extended estates up the Salzach river in the south of the city. The convent's possessions were later augmented by Emperor Henry II, who was also Duke of Bavaria. The Benedictine rule was finally implemented under Archbishop Conrad I of Salzburg in the early 12th century.  The abbey became independent of the founding house from 987. After a blaze about 1006, the abbey church was re-built with the support of Henry II; he and his consort Cunigunde of Luxembourg attended the consecration in 1009. This Romanesque building was again largely destroyed in a fire of 1423. Reconstruction took place between 1464 and 1509. In 1624 the church was enlarged by the addition of three side chapels. A refurbishment in the Baroque style took place in the 1880s.

Commemorative coin.

The Abbey was selected as main motif for the Austrian Nonnberg Abbey commemorative coin minted on April 5, 2006. This was the first coin of the series "Great Abbeys of Austria". It shows the Benedictine convent of Nonnberg Abbey. On the hilltop in the background, Hohensalzburg Fortress and the Kajetaner church can be seen. The abbey and fortress are connected by the Reisszug, one of the world's oldest extant railways.

In popular culture.

Through Maria Augusta Kutschera, later Maria Augusta von Trapp, who became a postulant in the abbey in 1924 and whose life was the basis for the Broadway musical (1959) and film (1965) "The Sound of Music", the abbey has acquired international fame. The Mother Abbess during Maria's time at Nonnberg was Sister Virgilia Lütz (1869-1949). Nonnberg Abbey is featured in movies depicting the life of Maria Augusta Kutschera, namely "The Sound of Music" and "Die Trapp-Familie".

Nonnberg Abbey () is a Benedictine monastery in Salzburg, Austria. Founded by Saint Rupert of Salzburg, it is the oldest continuously existing nunnery in the German-speaking world. The monastery complex is today a protected monument and part of the Historic Centre of the City of Salzburg, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996.

L'abbaye de Nonnberg (littéralement « Mont-des-Nonnes ») est une abbaye de religieuses bénédictines à Salzbourg, en Autriche. Elle a été fondée vers 712 par saint Rupert de Salzbourg et sa nièce, sainte Érentrude, en fut la première abbesse. L'abbaye féminine est la plus ancienne des pays germanophones encore en activité.


Background.

Puletua was born in Auckland, New Zealand. He is of Samoan descent.

Penrith Panthers.

Puletua played his junior rugby league with the St Mary's Saints before being signed by the Penrith Panthers. Puletua made his début for the Penrith Panthers in 1997 and played at second row in the Panthers team which defeated the Sydney Roosters in the 2003 NRL Grand final. As 2003 NRL premiers, the Panthers travelled to England to face Super League VIII champions, the Bradford Bulls in the 2004 World Club Challenge. Puletua played at second-row forward in the Panthers' 22–4 loss. He was captain of the team from January 2006. Puletua's brother, Frank, also played for the Penrith Panthers, retiring from professional rugby league on April 2011. On 4 October 2006, TP was selected to be a part of the Perinth Panthers' Team Legends. Used to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Panthers, Puletua was alongside Penrith legends Mark Geyer, Brad Fitler and Rhys Wesser.

St Helens.

Puletua joined St Helens at the end of the 2008 season on a three-year deal.  He played in the 2009 Super League Grand Final defeat by the Leeds Rhinos at Old Trafford.  He played in the 2011 Super League Grand Final defeat by the Leeds Rhinos at Old Trafford.

Salford Red Devils.

Puletua joined the Salford Red Devils for the 2014 season. He made 26 appearances for the club in 2014, but was not registered as a player for the 2015 season due to salary cap issues.

Hull KR.

Puletua joined Hull Kingston Rovers mid-season in 2015 on a season-long loan from Salford, and announced that he would retire from the game following his spell with Hull KR.

Representative football.

Puletua represented the New Zealand national team on 22 occasions following his début in 1998, including the 2000 World Cup. His last selection was for New Zealand against Australia in the ANZAC Test on 20 April 2007 as a replacement for the injured David Kidwell. After that, he switched his allegiance to Samoa.  Puletua was named in the Samoa squad for the 2008 Rugby League World Cup, and played in three matches. In 2009 he was named as part of the Samoan side for the Pacific Cup.  Puletua was called up to the Samoan squad as an injury replacement during the 2013 World Cup.

Anthony "Tony" Puletua (born 25 June 1979), also known by the nickname of "TP", is a New Zealand-born Samoan former professional rugby league footballer who last played for the Hull Kingston Rovers in the Super League. A New Zealand and Samoan international, Puletua previously played for the Penrith Panthers in the National Rugby League competition, primarily as forward.

Tony Puletua, né le à Auckland, est un joueur de rugby à XIII néo-zélandais et samoan évoluant à différents postes (deuxième ligne ou pilier) dans les années 1990 et 2000. Il a été sélectionné en sélection néo-zélandaise et sélection samoane, participant avec la première à la coupe du monde 2000 et avec la seconde à la coupe du monde 2008. En club, il a débuté en 1998 à Penrith Panthers en National Rugby League où il est resté près de dix années avant de rejoindre la Super League et St Helens RLFC en 2009.


Career.

Skoblikova was born in Zlatoust, Soviet Union, some 160 km west of Chelyabinsk, Ural. She trained at Burevestnik and later at Lokomotiv sports societies. At age 19 in 1959, Skoblikova qualified for the Soviet team and placed third in the national championships. She repeated that performance at the world championships, winning two distance medals as well. The next season, she seemed headed for the world title after winning the 500 m and placing 2nd in the 1500 m, but she fell in the 1000 m. By winning the 3000 m, she managed to land on the podium anyway, placing third again. A favourite for the Olympics now, she entered three events. In the first race, the 1500 m, she broke the world record, and won the gold medal. After just missing a second medal in the 1000 m (fourth), Skoblikova approached the world record in the 3000 m (missing it by just half a second), but that was enough for her second gold medal.  During the following years, Skoblikova fought with her teammates to become world champion. In 1961, she won the bronze for the third consecutive time, followed by the silver medal in 1962. In 1963, she finally managed to win the title. In Karuizawa, conditions were excellent, and Skoblikova won all four races, setting a new 1000 m world record in the process.  For the 1964 Olympics, Skoblikova qualified for all four distances, and she managed to win all of them, thereby becoming the first Winter Olympian to win four individual gold medals. This record was only beaten by Eric Heiden who won all five speed skating events in 1980. Two weeks after the Olympics, she repeated her performance from Karuizawa and won all four distances at the world championships.  Skoblikova withdrew from speed skating for two seasons, but returned in 1967, setting a new 3000 m world record in January. She failed to reach the podium at the world championships however, and placed fourth. In 1968, she skated her third and last Olympics, with the best achievement of 6th place in the 3000 m. During her career she won 15 national titles in various distances, but never the all-around championships.  After her retirement in 1969, Skoblikova moved to Moscow to work as a speed skating coach at Lokomotiv. In 1973 she began her studies at The Academy of Labor and Social Relations and received a degree in pedagogy in 1979. She later earned a PhD in history and became a professor. By 1983, she was a member of the Soviet National Olympic Committee, and received a silver Olympic Order from the hands of Juan Antonio Samaranch. For 12 years she was president of the Russian Skating Federation, and in the 1990s was the head coach of the Russian team. In 1996, she was inducted into the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame, and three years later received the Order For Merit to the Fatherland from the hands of Boris Yeltsin. On February 7, 2014, she was one of the six people who held the Olympic flag during the opening ceremony.

Family.

Skoblikova was born in a working-class family and had three sisters and one brother. She married Aleksandr Polozkov, who was a competitive racewalker and a member of the national team. Aleksandr was a talented coach and trained his wife during some periods of her career. Their son Georgy (b. 14 March 1965) assisted Skoblikova as a coach of the national speed skating team in the 1990s. His first wife, Natalya Polozkova, was also a speed skater and competed at the 1992, 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics, whereas his second wife, Tanya, won four national titles.

External links.

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Lidiya Pavlovna Skoblikova (; born 8 March 1939) is a retired Russian speed skater and coach. She represented the USSR Olympic team during the Olympic Winter Games in 1960, 1964 and 1968, and won a total of six gold medals, which is still a record for a speed skater. She also won 25 gold medals at the world championships and 15 gold medals at the USSR National Championships in several distances. She was also the first athlete to earn six gold medals in the Winter Olympics and the first to earn four gold medals at a single Olympic Winter Games. She was the most successful athlete at the 1960 and 1964 Winter Olympics, sharing the honour for 1960 Games with her compatriot Yevgeny Grishin.

Lidia Pavlovna Skoblikova (en — Lidiâ Pavlovna Skoblikova), née le à Zlatooust, est une ancienne patineuse de vitesse russe. Elle a remporté un total de 6 médailles d'or sur l'ensemble des Jeux olympiques de Squaw Valley en 1960 et Innsbruck en 1964, où elle représente l'Union soviétique, ce qui fait d'elle la championne olympique la plus titrée dans sa discipline. Elle a également remporté 25 médailles d'or lors des Championnats du monde de patinage de vitesse (toutes disciplines confondues) et 15 médailles d'or lors des championnats nationaux d'Union soviétique.


35 Greatest Boys McDonald's All-Americans.

On January 31, 2012, McDonald's All-American Games unveiled its list of 35 of the Greatest McDonald's All-Americans, released in celebration of the 35th Anniversary of the McDonald's All-American High School Boys Basketball Game.  The Greatest Boys McDonald's All-Americans list, includes some of the top names in men's basketball history, and features past and present Olympics, NBA and NCAA stars. The players were selected by members of the McDonald's All-American Games Selection Committee. In determining the list, all past McDonald's All-Americans were considered based on their high school careers and performances in the McDonald's All-American Games, success at the collegiate and professional level, and post-career accomplishments. The full list of players includes:

Annual game results.

An MVP/MOP award is presented each year to the most outstanding boy and girl players. The award is officially called the John R. Wooden Most Valuable Player Award.

Boys.

Denotes All-Star Games in which joint winners were named

Morgan Wootten National Player of the Year.

Prior to each game since 1997 (Boys)/2002 (Girls), a national player of the year has been chosen from the field of McDonald's All-Americans based on activity in the community, classroom and on the court. The award is named in honor of high school coach Morgan Wootten, one of the founders of the McDonald's game.

Sprite/Powerade Jam Fest Award Winners.

The slam dunk contest was first held as an unofficial event in 1985, and became an official part of the festivities in 1987.  The three-point contest was first held for boys in 1989, with a girls' competition added alongside the inaugural girls' game in 2002.  The skills contest was added for both boys and girls in 2002, with separate events held for both sexes through 2015.  In 2016, the skills contest was discontinued and replaced with a "Legends & Stars Shootout", involving teams consisting of one boy, one girl, and one All-American Game alumnus of either sex. Within each individual entry of Legends & Stars Shootout winners, the teams are listed in the aforementioned order. The Shootout is a timed competition in which each team must make a layup, free throw, three-pointer, and halfcourt shot in that order.

The McDonald's All-American Game is the all-star basketball game played each year for American and Canadian boys' and girls' high school basketball graduates. Consisting of the top players, each team plays a single exhibition game after the conclusion of the high-school basketball season, in an East vs. West format. As part of the annual event, boys and girls compete in a slam dunk contest and a three-point shooting competition, and compete alongside All-American Game alumni in a timed team shootout. The last of these competitions replaced separate overall timed skills competitions for boys and girls. It is rare for girls to compete in the slam dunk contest. However, that contest has been won twice by girls—first in 2004 by Candace Parker, and most recently in 2019 by Fran Belibi. The boys' game has been contested annually since 1978, and the girls game has been played each year since it was added in 2002.

Une McDonald's All-American Team désigne une équipe de basket-ball composée des meilleurs joueurs ou joueuses alors inscrits dans un lycée américain. Chaque année, 4 équipes sont nommées : deux pour les lycéennes (une équipe pour les joueuses venant de l'ouest du pays et une autre pour les joueuses de l'est) et deux pour les lycéens (divisés là aussi entre est et ouest). À la fin de la saison, les équipes de l'ouest et de l'est s'affrontent dans un match d'exhibition, le "McDonald's All-American Game".


History.

Early years – the 19th century.

A Rochdale Athletic Club was formed in 1866 and held its first festival on the cricket ground at Merefield. Rugby football first took place as an organised game about 1866 or 1867, when the Rochdale Football Club was formed by a magistrate and numerous business owners and self-employed men. Within a year they were all playing alongside new members when working-class men were allowed to join as well. Other clubs quickly followed, among them Rochdale Wasps and Rochdale Juniors.  In 1871, Rochdale Juniors and Rakebank merged to form Rochdale United. On 20 April 1871, the directors of Rochdale Wasps, Rochdale United and Rochdale Football Club met at the Roebuck Hotel in the town centre to form a senior team that would represent the town. Rochdale Wasps. Rochdale Butterflies and Rochdale Grasshoppers were suggested as names for the new club before Rochdale Hornets was agreed on. The original team colours were amber and black. In 1875, Hornets played at Mr R. Kershaw's Athletic Grounds in Vavasour Street, and later at Rochdale Cricket Ground. The club very quickly took a leading position in the game in Lancashire. Hornets had an open door approach to membership and were able to insist on gate money as they played on an enclosed field.  In June 1879, Rochdale Rovers threw in their lot with the Hornets, and it was in this year that the club first adopted the white jersey. A ground was taken at Oakenrod for the 1879–80 season but owing to poor gates, Rochdale Hornets returned to Rochdale Cricket Club ground.  In 1881 no fewer than 57 rugby clubs played in Rochdale and district, fielding 80 teams regularly. By the 1890s, the players were almost all working class.  Rochdale moved to the Athletic Grounds in Milnrow Road, which opened on 9 June 1894. Their first game at their new home took place in September 1894 against Crompton.  They were founder members of the Northern Union in 1895. Hornets made a poor start under the new regime and finished bottom of the league table, for a good number of years they lost many more matches than they won.

Early 20th century.

They became tenants of the Athletics Grounds in 1900. Between the 7–9 March 1901, a three-day bazaar was held at the town hall where around £1,000 was raised to help pay for the club's debts. Incidents from the game played on 22 March 1901 resulted in the ground being suspended by the Northern Union.  The players went on strike on 29 March 1902 as empty coffers meant that they went unpaid.  Rochdale Hornets then refused to travel to Dewsbury on 1 October 1904 on account of a smallpox outbreak, and were subsequently fined £20.  Rochdale purchased the Athletics Grounds in 1913. Hornets won the Lancashire County Cup in 1911 and 1914. Between 10 October 1914 and 6 March 1915, Hornets played 25 games without defeat, shortly after this streak was broken by a defeat by Wigan but they would finish fourth in the table. Hornets beat Broughton Moor 75–13 in a cup-tie on 13 March 1915; it was their biggest margin of victory since 1871. Twenty-five Rochdale players enlisted for the First World War, three of whom are known to have died, Sergeant Twigg, Archie Field (arras 1917) and Walter Roman (Somme 1916) (Rochdale Captain).  Rugby League came back to Rochdale following the Great War on Christmas Day 1918 when Rochdale played a friendly game. In the half-season of the spring of 1919, Rochdale Hornets not only won the Lancashire League but also carried off the Lancashire County Cup.  Rochdale's biggest win against a senior club came on 27 March 1920 when Wakefield Trinity were beaten 64-nil.  The annual Law Cup, then known as the Infirmaries' Cup, was first contested against neighbours Oldham on 7 May 1921. Hornets played six games in a fortnight before falling to their biggest ever defeat 79–2 at the hands of Hull FC. Hornets changed their colours from green and black to red, white and blue as the green and black strip was deteriorating in the wash.  The club's record attendance was set at 26,664 in 1922 when Oldham were the visitors for a third round Challenge Cup match. Hornets won the Northern Union Challenge Cup in 1922 by beating Hull 10–9 at Headingley, Leeds. That was Hornets' one and only Challenge Cup final. Due to the ferocity of their play, their pack of forwards was known as ""the Terrible Six"".  Hornets were formed into a limited company on 31 May 1929.  On 4 October 1930, Stanley Baldwin, Hornets' winger was fatally injured during a match with Oldham.  Owing to a financial crisis in 1931, the Athletic Ground was offered for sale and all the players put on the transfer list. A fire destroyed the stadium's main stand, dressing rooms and offices on 18 September 1935. A new stand, built over the ashes of the old, was opened on Saturday 7 March 1936 for the match against Liverpool Stanley. Another financial crisis in 1938 led to further talks about selling the ground and a further crisis in 1939 resulted in the creation of a members' club.  Hornets dropped out of the wartime Lancashire League, their last match a 12–4 defeat against Salford at the Athletic Grounds on 11 May 1940.

Post-war.

An appeal went out to supporters in July 1945 for help in renovating the ground, pitch and premises so that rugby league could restart at the Athletic Grounds after the war. On 25 August 1945, Hornets resumed with an away game at Craven Park, Barrow which they lost 5–14. The first Infirmaries' Cup game since 1938 was played at the Athletic Grounds on 24 August 1946, in which Hornets were beaten by Oldham.  On 29 March 1947, Hornets ended a run of 14 consecutive defeats with a 3–0 home win over Halifax. Hornets played in green and black for the first time in 26 years on 13 December 1947 in a match against Wigan. Thereafter they used the colours as a change strip in the event of a colour clash.  In 1947 and 1958, Rochdale Hornets made it to the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup, but both times Wigan ended their hopes of a Wembley Final.  On 24 October 1953, Hornets' second row Ralph Slater was fatally injured in an A-team game at the Athletic Grounds against Oldham A.  Rochdale's highest attendance in a league match was set on Saturday, 16 October 1954 when Hornets lost 4–18 to local rivals Oldham in front of 19,654 spectators. Hornets played their first game at Spotland in 1954 when a one-off game against Keighley was played there.  Rochdale Hornets brought in a Fijian contingent in the early 1960s, starting with Orisi Dawai and Josefa Levula in 1961 and, later Apisai Toga. This has resulted in Rochdale having the largest Fijian community in the UK, outside of London.  In 1965, Hornets appeared in the final of the Lancashire County Cup when a 19,000 crowd saw them lose to Warrington at Knowsley Road, St. Helens.  Frank Myler arrived at Hornets in May 1971 to take up the position of player-coach with the Rochdale Hornets from May 1971. They reached a Players No 6 Final in 1974. Myler left Hornets in October 1974.  Kel Coslett was coach between 1976 and 1979.

1980s and early 1990s.

In the 1980s, things took a turn for the worse with the crowds virtually disappearing.  Eric Hughes coached Rochdale for the 1987-88 season. In 1987 both Rochdale Hornets and Rochdale A.F.C. were in financial trouble. Hornets were banned from signing players in November after failing to pay a transfer fee. Deep in debt, Rochdale accepted Morrisons £2.7m offer for the Athletic Grounds and following the sale of the land, moved to Rochdale A.F.C.'s stadium in the Spotland area of the town at the end of the 1988 season. The stadium became jointly owned by Hornets, Rochdale Council and Rochdale A.F.C.. In October 1988, Rochdale were saved by the local council with a £60,000 loan.  In 1989, Hornets were promoted from the Second Division to the top tier. The club's record attendance at Spotland was set at 8,150 when Hornets played Oldham on Boxing Day 1989.  In September 1990, Neil Holding briefly coached Hornets.  In 1991, Hornets appeared in the final of the Lancashire Cup.

Summer era.

On 9 May 1996, Rochdale sacked their coach, Steve Gibson, after taking just one point from their first six games of the First Division season.  Deryck Fox became player-coach in May 1998, and made an immediate impact. A ten-match losing sequence was ended as Hornets won at Featherstone Rovers in Fox's first match in charge. However, Hornets ended that 1998 campaign in next to bottom position in Division One.  In October 1998, Karl Marriott died following a training session and a couple of months later Roy Powell died in similar circumstances. Hornets struggled early in the campaign when they occupied bottom spot for a couple of weeks. They recovered slightly and had moved up to 15th position, fourth bottom, by late June.  On 30 June 1999, it was announced that Deryck Fox was no longer Rochdale's coach. During his 13 months as Hornets' coach, the club played 38 matches. They won 12, drew one and lost the remaining 25. Bob Eccles took over as caretaker coach.  Steve Linnane became head coach in December 1999 but quit in June 2000 to become assistant coach at Super League club Halifax.  Steve Deakin joined Rochdale Hornets as head coach in August 2000 before rejoining Keighley as head coach in September 2000 when incumbent Karl Harrison left to become assistant coach at Bradford.  Martin Hall took up the position of coach at Rochdale Hornets in November 2000. He stepped in after the shock resignation of Steve Deakin who returned to Keighley after a few months in charge. He took Rochdale to two consecutive third-place finishes in the Northern Ford Premiership. Hall departed along with all the players after not renewing his contract after his failed bid to take over the club.  Bobbie Goulding arrived as player-coach in December 2003. He was in charge of Rochdale Hornets for two seasons, twice being nominated for coach of the year. He left in November 2005, citing frustration at the club's financial problems and his lack of a proper contract.  On 13 March 2005, Hornets set an all-time Rugby League record when they defeated the amateur side Illingworth 120–4 in the Challenge Cup. This is the highest score ever achieved by a team in the cup. The biggest winning margin is still that of Huddersfield, who beat the amateur side Swinton Park 119–2 in 1914.  Darren Abram was appointed head coach two weeks later. Abram was dismissed on 9 July 2007 after a run of defeats which left the club facing relegation. Shaun Gartland was placed in temporary charge.  Bobbie Goulding was appointed as Rochdale Hornets coach for the second time in September 2007 and relieved of his duties in May 2008 after a run of six consecutive losses.  Darren Shaw was appointed as Rochdale Hornets coach in May 2008 after a previous spell as assistant coach under Bobbie Goulding in his first spell as player coach in 2003.  On 13 January 2009, shareholders voted to put Rochdale Hornets into administration after debts ordered by HM Revenue and Customs accumulated £55,000. An Industrial and Provident Society (a co-operative) was created and recognised by the Rugby Football League, and the Hornets were re-founded. The co-operative was initially created around a core of loyal fans, and membership is open to all. The co-op operates on a one-member, one-vote principle.  Darren Shaw departed the club at the end of the 2009 season and was replaced by ex St Helens player John Stankevitch in early November 2009.  Stankevitch was given the difficult task of recruiting a competitive squad of players from those available that had not already been recruited elsewhere and a slow start to the 2010 Northern Rail Cup followed.  However, the club went on to exceed all expectations and finish 5th in the table giving them a play-off position for the first time in years. The team were eventually eliminated in the semi finals of the competition.  Stankevitch signed a new contract in July 2010 in preparation for the 2011 and 2012 seasons, and began the club's re-emergence with the recontracting of the majority of his squad.  In 2013 Rochdale Hornets appointed Ian Talbot as head coach. He led Hornets to their first trophy in 91 years when they won the Kingstone Press Championship 1 play-off final defeating local rivals Oldham at Leigh Sports Village. Ian Talbot stood down as head coach at Hornets at the end of the 2015 season to take up a position at St. Helens.  Talbot's replacement was Alan Kilshaw who had had a successful stint coaching in Australia.  In Alan Kilshaws 1st season (2016) Rochdale Hornets defeated Toulouse Olympique XIII in the promotion final in Toulouse, France to become Kingstone Press League 1 Champions. This was the 1st time Rochdale Hornets had been Champions of a division since 1919, a gap of 97 years.

Stadiums.

1894–1988: Athletic Grounds.

Rochdale moved to the Athletic Grounds in 1894. Their first game at their new home took place in September 1894 against Crompton. Between 1896 and 1900, Rochdale Association Football Club played at the Athletics Grounds. Hornets became tenants of the ground in 1900 and purchased the ground in 1913.  The highest attendance at the Athletic Grounds was the 1924 Challenge Cup final between Oldham and Wigan when 41,831 saw Wigan win 21-4.  Hornets borrowed £3,000 from the Rugby Football League in 1954 to build a new covered outer boundary wall and new turnstiles for the main entrance and Waithlands. The highest attendance for a league match was set on Saturday 16 October 1954, Hornets lost 4-18 to local rivals Oldham in front of 19,654 spectators. In 1987 both Rochdale Hornets and Rochdale A.F.C. were in financial trouble. First to receive an offer for their ground, Hornets accepted Morrison's £2.6m offer for the Athletic Grounds and, following the sale of the land bought a half share in Rochdale A.F.C.'s Spotland Stadium, thus saving both clubs.

1988-present: Spotland Stadium.

Spotland Stadium is a sports venue located at Willbutts Lane in the Spotland suburb of Rochdale, Greater Manchester. It is currently home to Rochdale A.F.C. and Rochdale Hornets R.F.L.C. It has a capacity of 10,249. The ground has four stands: the Co-Operative Stand (or Main Stand), the Thwaites Beer Stand (the Sandy Lane End), the T.D.S Stand (Pearl Street end) and the Westrose Leisure Stand (the Willbutts Lane Stand). All are fully seated, apart from the Sandy Lane End, which is a small terrace behind one of the goals.

Law Cup.

The Law Cup is an annual match between Oldham and Rochdale Hornets, first contested on 7 May 1921. Including the 2008 fixture, Oldham have won 36 to Rochdale's 22 with 3 drawn games.

2019 transfers.

Gains

2020 Transfers.

Gains Losses

Rochdale Hornets are a professional rugby league club from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England, competing in the Championship, the second tier of European rugby league. Rochdale Hornets are one of the original twenty-two rugby clubs that formed the Northern Rugby Football Union in 1895, making them one of the world's first rugby league clubs. Their main local rivals are Oldham, Salford Red Devils, Swinton Lions, Halifax and Huddersfield Giants.

Rochdale Hornets Rugby Football League Club Industrial and Provident Society Limited dit Rochdale Hornets est un club professionnel anglais de rugby à XIII basé à Rochdale, dans le Grand Manchester. Il évolue dans la Championship qui est le second échelon du championnat d'Angleterre. Ils ont remporté notamment une coupe d'Angleterre appelée la en 1922.


Plot.

In 1976, eight-year-old Mary Daisy Dinkle (Bethany Whitmore) lives a lonely life in Mount Waverley, Victoria, Australia. At school, she is teased by her classmates because of an unfortunate birthmark on her forehead; while at home, her distant father, Noel, and alcoholic, kleptomaniac mother, Vera, provide little support. Her only comforts are her pet rooster, Ethel; her favourite food, sweetened condensed milk; and a Smurfs-like cartoon show called "The Noblets". One day, while at the general store with her mother, Mary spots a New York City telephone book and, becoming curious about Americans, decides to write to one. She randomly chooses Max Jerry Horowitz's name from the phone book and writes him a letter telling him about herself, sending it off in the hope that he will become her pen pal.  Max Jerry Horowitz (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a morbidly obese 44-year-old Jewish atheist who has trouble forming close bonds with other people, due to various mental and social problems. Though Mary's letter initially gives him an anxiety attack, he decides to write back to her, and the two quickly become friends (partly due to their shared love of chocolate and "The Noblets"). Due to Vera's disapproval of Max, Mary tells him to send his letters to her agoraphobic neighbour, Len Hislop, whose mail she collects regularly. When Mary later asks Max about love, he suffers a severe anxiety attack and is institutionalized for eight months. After his release, he is hesitant to write to Mary again for some time. On his 48th birthday, he wins the New York Lottery, using his winnings to buy a lifetime supply of chocolate and an entire collection of Noblet figurines. He gives the rest of his money to his elderly neighbour Ivy, who uses most of it to pamper herself before dying in an accident with a malfunctioning jet pack. Meanwhile, Mary becomes despondent, thinking Max has abandoned her.  On the advice of his therapist, Max finally writes back to Mary and explains he has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Mary is thrilled to hear from him again, and the two continue their correspondence for the next several years. When Noel retires from his job at a tea bag factory, he takes up metal detecting, but is soon swept away (and presumably killed) by a big tidal bore while on a beach. Mary (Toni Collette) goes to the University of Melbourne and has her birthmark surgically removed, and develops a crush on her Greek Australian neighbour, Damien Popodopoulos (Eric Bana). Drunk and guilt-ridden over her husband's death, Vera accidentally kills herself after she drinks embalming fluid (which she mistook for cooking sherry). Mary and Damien grow closer following Vera's death and are later married.  Inspired by her friendship with Max, Mary studies psychology at university, writing her doctoral dissertation on Asperger syndrome with Max as her test subject. She plans to have her dissertation published as a book; but when Max receives a copy from her, he is infuriated that she has taken advantage of his condition, which he sees as an integral part of his personality and not a disability that needs to be cured. He breaks off communication with Mary (by removing the letter "M" from his typewriter), who, heartbroken, has the entire run of her book pulped, effectively ending her budding career. She sinks into depression and begins drinking cooking sherry, as her mother had done. While searching through a cabinet, she finds a can of condensed milk, and sends it to Max as an apology. She checks the post daily for a response and one day finds a note from Damien, informing her that he has left her for his own pen friend, Desmond, a sheep farmer in New Zealand.  Meanwhile, after an incident in which he nearly chokes a homeless man (Ian "Molly" Meldrum) in anger, for throwing away a used cigarette, Max realizes Mary is an imperfect human being, like himself, and sends her a package containing his Noblet figurine collection as a sign of forgiveness. Mary, however, has sunken into despair after Damien's departure, and fails to find the package on her doorstep for several days. Finding some Valium that had belonged to her mother, and unaware that she is pregnant with Damien's child, Mary decides to commit suicide. As she takes the Valium and is on the verge of hanging herself, Len knocks on her door, having conquered his agoraphobia to alert her of Max's package. Inside, she finds the Noblet figurines and a letter from Max, in which he tells her of his realization that they are not perfect and expresses his forgiveness. He also states how much their friendship means to him, and that he hopes their paths will cross one day.  One year later, Mary travels to New York with her infant child to finally visit Max. Entering his apartment, Mary discovers Max on his couch, gazing upward with a smile on his face, having died earlier that morning. Looking around the apartment, Mary is awestruck to find all the letters she had sent to Max over the years, laminated and taped to the ceiling. Realizing Max had been gazing at the letters when he died, and seeing how much he had valued their friendship, Mary cries tears of joy and joins him on the couch.

Production.

Development.

According to the opening credits, the film is based on a true story. In an interview given in April 2009, writer-director Elliot clarified that the character of Max was inspired by "a pen-friend in New York who I've been writing to for over twenty years." Principal photography lasted over 57 weeks, using 133 separate sets, 212 puppets, and 475 miniature props, "including a fully functioning Underwood typewriter which apparently took nine weeks to design and build."

Themes.

The film deals with themes including childhood neglect, friendship, addiction, alcoholism, recovery, the obscurity of life, teasing, loneliness, mental illness, autism (Asperger syndrome in particular), obesity, suicide, depression, isolation, and anxiety.

Music.

The music in the film features Simon Jeffes and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra's "Perpetuum Mobile" (the opening theme) and "Prelude and Yodel", as well as "Russian Rag" by Elena Kats-Chernin. The closing-credits music is "A Swingin' Safari" by Bert Kaempfert and his Orchestra. Other artists include Nana Mouskouri, Dale Cornelius, Leroy Anderson, Pink Martini, London Pops Orchestra, James Last and his Orchestra, The King's Consort and Choir, the Sydney Alpha Ensemble, and the ABC Radio Orchestra.  This film also includes the Pink Martini version of Doris Day's most well-known song, "Que Sera Sera", which is played over Mary's attempted suicide scene.

Reception.

Critical response.

"Mary and Max" received very positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval score of 95% based on 64 reviews, with an average rating of 8.11/10. The consensus reads, ""Mary and Max" is a lovingly crafted, startlingly inventive piece of animation whose technical craft is equaled by its emotional resonance." Matt Ravier, writing for "In Film Australia", said the "story is paper-thin and some stretches of it are simply too long, yet whenever the narrative thread threatens to tear the sheer authenticity and bold honesty of the characters save the day". The "Los Angeles Times" called it a "remarkable and poignant" film depicting a "film noir world of blacks, whites and grays for Max and a sepia suburbia for Mary". After the film was released on DVD in the United States, "Slant" said "Adam Elliot's dry wit is pervasive throughout "Mary and Max" and it's nice to see that this unique sense of humor extends to the extras. The writer-director gives a funny and informative audio commentary and a set of hilarious making-of episodes reflects the sardonic tone of the production. The big prize here, however, is the addition of Elliot's Oscar-winning short "Harvie Krumpet". This Geoffrey Rush-narrated tale of the titular Tourette syndrome sufferer is a wonderful introduction both to Elliot's sensibilities and to "Mary and Max"s specific tone."

Box office.

"Mary and Max" grossed $1,444,617 at the Australian box office. The film received no general theatrical release in the United States, though it was showcased at several American film festivals, and was briefly shown at one of the Laemmle Theatres in the Los Angeles area. The film's U.S. distributor (IFC Films) made the film available on DVD and through video on demand. The film was released in France by Gaumont and in Germany by MFA to significant critical and box office success.

Home media.

"Mary and Max" was released on DVD on January 26, 2010 by Icon Entertainment International.

Related exhibition.

An exhibit of artefacts and clips from the film were presented in France and Australia. In France the exhibition was hosted by Gaumont as part of the release. In Australia initially at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image for three months starting in March 2010 and then touring around Australia throughout 2010/2011.

Mary and Max (stylized as Mary and Max.) is a 2009 Australian stop motion animated comedy-drama film written and directed by Adam Elliot as his first animated feature film with music by Dale Cornelius and produced by Melanie Coombs and Melodrama Pictures. The voice cast included Philip Seymour Hoffman, Toni Collette, Eric Bana and Bethany Whitmore, with narration by Barry Humphries. The film premiered on the opening night of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival on January 15, 2009. The film won the Annecy Cristal in June 2009 from the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, and Best Animated Feature Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in November 2009. The film was theatrically released on April 9, 2009 by Icon Entertainment International. "Mary and Max" received acclaim from critics and it earned US$1.7 million on an $8.2 million AUD budget.

Mary et Max (") est un film d'animation australien en pâte à modeler réalisé par Adam Elliot et sorti en 2009.


Life.

Chalkokondyles was a member of a prominent family of Athens, which at the time was ruled by the Florentine Acciaioli family. His father George was a kinsman of Maria Melissene, the wife of Duke Antonio I Acciaioli. When Antonio died in 1435, Maria attempted to secure control of the Duchy of Athens and sent George on a mission to the Ottoman Sultan Murad II, asking that the government of Athens might be entrusted to herself and George Chalkokondyles. However, during his absence, the Duchess was enticed out of the Acropolis and a young scion of the Acciaiuoli family, Nerio II, was proclaimed Duke of Athens. Meanwhile, George Chalkokondyles had his proposal rejected, despite offering the Sultan 30,000 gold pieces, and was cast into prison. George Chalkokondyles managed to escape to Constantinople, according to William Miller "leaving his retinue, tents and beasts of burden behind him", but after leaving Constantinople by ship, he was captured by an Athenian ship and taken back to the Sultan, who pardoned him.  George with Laonikos and the rest of the family relocated to the Peloponnese, which was under Byzantine rule as the Despotate of the Morea. In 1446 Constantine Palaiologos, then Despot of the Morea, sent George on a diplomatic mission to Murad II to obtain the independence of the Greek states south of Thermopylae; enraged at the offered terms, the Sultan put George Chalkokondyles into prison, then marched on Constantine's forces holding the Hexamilion wall on the Isthmus of Corinth and after bombarding it for three days, destroyed the fortifications, massacred the defenders, then pillaged the countryside, ending all hopes of independence. According to Miller, Laonikos was "evidently" an eye-witness to this battle, although the historian Theodore Spandounes claims Laonikos was the secretary of Murad II and present at the Battle of Varna in 1444.  The one glimpse we have of Laonikos himself is in the summer of 1447, when Cyriacus of Ancona met him in the summer of 1447 at the court of Constantine Palaiologos at Mistra. Cyriacus describes him as a youth "egregie latinis atque grecis litteris eruditum" ("surprisingly learned in Latin and Greek literature"). It was at Mistra where Laonikos was taught by George Gemistos Plethon, and who gave Laonikos his personal copy of the "Histories" of Herodotus: Laur. Plut. 70.6, written in 1318, with corrections by Plethon, and later used by Bessarion in 1436 to make another copy, contains a subscription written by Laonikos.  Laonikos' movements and actions after 1447 are not known with certainty. Internal evidence has led Byzantinist Anthony Kaldellis to put the date Laonikos stopped writing his "Histories" as 1464. In writing this work, his account of the circumcision of Sultan Mehmed II's sons in 1457 suggest he was an eye-witness to the event, and his account of Ottoman finances indicate he interviewed the Sultan's accountants. Other speculations about Laonikos Chalkokondyles' life are not as widely accepted.

Portrayals in fiction.

In the 1954 Albanian–Soviet movie "The Great Warrior Skanderbeg", Laonikos Chalkokondyles is portrayed as an official historian at the Ottoman Court with opportunistic views on politics who tries to discourage Skanderbeg from an anti-Ottoman insurrection. After Skanderbeg leaves the Ottoman army and becomes leader of Albania on his own right, Chalkokondyles is brought as a hostage to his court to witness the First Siege of Krujë.

"The Histories" of Chalkokondyles.

After the Fall of Constantinople, Chalkokondyles wrote his most important historical work, "Proofs of Histories" (Ἀποδείξεις Ἱστοριῶν). This historical work comprises one of the most important sources for the students of the final 150 years of Byzantine history, despite being defective in its chronology. It covers the period from 1298–1463, describing the fall of the Byzantine empire and the rise of the Ottoman Turks, which forms the centre of the narrative, down to the conquest of the Venetians and Mathias, king of Hungary, by Mehmed II. The capture of Constantinople he rightly regarded as an historical event of far-reaching importance and compared it to the fall of Troy. The work also sketches other manners and civilization of England, France and Germany, whose assistance the Greeks sought to obtain against the Turks. For his account of earlier events he was able to obtain information from his father.  His model is Thucydides (according to Bekker, Herodotus), his language is tolerably pure and correct, and his style is simple and clear. The text, however, is in a very corrupt state. The archaic language he used made his texts hard to read in many parts, while the antiquarian names, with which he named people of his time, created confusion (Γέται, Δάκες, Λίγυρες, Μυσοί, Παίονες, Ἕλληνες). The extended use of the name "Hellenes" (Ἕλληνες), which Laonikos used to describe the Byzantines contributed to the connection made between the ancient Greek civilization and the modern one.  Chalkokondyles' "History" was first published in a Latin translation by Conrad Clauser at Basel in 1556, although the translation itself bears the date of November 1544. A French translation was published by Blaise de Vigenère in 1577 with a later edition by Artus Thomas, with valuable illustrations on Turkish matters. The "editio princeps" of the Greek text had to wait until 1615 for J. B. Baumbach's printing.  The two best editions are: "Historiarum Libri Decem", ed. I. Bekker, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (Bonn 1843) and "Historiae Demonstrationes", 2 vols., ed. E. Darko, (Budapest 1922-7). The text can also be found in J.-P. Migne, "Patrologia Graeca", volume 159.  A complete English translation (by Anthony Kaldellis) of "The Histories" was published in two volumes in 2014 by Harvard University Press, as volumes 33 and 34 of The Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. Partial translations include one of Books I-III in "Laonikos Chalkokondyles. A Translation and Commentary of the Demonstrations of Histories", trans. Nikolaos Nikoloudis (Athens 1996) and another of Book VIII in J. R. Melville Jones, "The Siege of Constantinople: Seven Contemporary Accounts" (Amsterdam 1972), pp. 42–55.

Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Latinized as Laonicus Chalcocondyles (, from λαός "people", νικᾶν "to be victorious", an anagram of Nikolaos which bears the same meaning; c. 1430 – c. 1470). Incidentally Chalcokondyles is from χαλκος "brass",and κονδυλος "knuckle". He was a Byzantine Greek historian from Athens. He is known for his "Histories" in ten books, which record the last 150 years of the Byzantine Empire.

Laonicos Chalcondyle ou Chalcocondyle, en grec ou, né à Athènes vers 1423, mort en Italie vers 1490, est un historien grec.