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United States military occupation code | When an enlisted soldier is promoted from sergeant first class to master sergeant in most career types, that soldier will be reclassified administratively to the "senior sergeant" of their career management field. For example, a combat engineer (MOS 12B, part of CMF 12) is promoted from sergeant first class to master sergeant. That soldier is reclassified administratively from MOS 12B to MOS 12Z "senior engineer sergeant"). An example of when this conversion occurs at the MSG to SGM level is the 68 (formerly the 91) CMF. In this case, the soldier becomes a 68Z at the SGM level, not the MSG level. When promoted from master sergeant or first sergeant or sergeant major to command sergeant major, that soldier will be reclassified administratively from their previous "senior sergeant" MOS to the MOS 00Z (zero-zero-zulu), "command sergeant major". Some MOS do not change though, for example 25U starts out as 25U1O (E1-E4), and advances though 25U2O (E5/SGT), 25U3O (E6/SSG), 25U4O (E7/SFC), and 25U5O (E8, E9/MSG, 1SG, SGM, CSM) |
United States military occupation code | The navy officer "designator" is similar to an MOS but is less complicated and has fewer categories. For example, a surface warfare officer with a regular commission has a designator of 1110; a reserve officer has an 1115 designator. A reserve surface warfare officer specializing in nuclear training (i.e., engineer on a carrier) has a designator of 1165N. Navy officers also have one or more three-character additional qualification designators (AQD) that reflect completion of requirements qualifying them in a specific warfare area or other specialization. In some senses this functions more like the MOS in other services. An officer with the naval aviator designator of 1310 might have an AQD of DV3, SH-60F carrier anti-submarine warfare helicopter pilot, or DB4, F-14 fighter pilot. An officer designated 2100, medical corps officer (physician) may hold an AQD of 6CM, trauma surgeon, or 6AE, flight surgeon who is also a naval aviator. Some AQDs may be possessed by officers in any designator, such as BT2, freefall parachutist, or BS1, shipboard Tomahawk strike officer. Navy officer designators and AQD codes may be found in NAVPERS 15839I, The Manual of Navy Officer Manpower and Personnel Classification.ip |
Momentum exchange tether | If the tether is long enough and the rotation rate high enough, it is possible for the lower endpoint to completely cancel the orbital speed of the tether such that the lower endpoint is stationary with respect to the planetary surface that the tether is orbiting. As described by Moravec, this is "a satellite that rotates like a wheel". The tip of the tether moves in approximately a cycloid, in which it is momentarily stationary with respect to the ground. In this case, a payload that is "grabbed" by a capture mechanism on the rotating tether during the moment when it is stationary would be picked up and lifted into orbit; and potentially could be released at the top of the rotation, at which point it is moving with a speed significantly greater than the escape velocity and thus could be released onto an interplanetary trajectory. (As with the bolo, discussed above, the momentum and energy given to the payload must be made up, either with a high-efficiency rocket engine, or with momentum gathered from payload moving the other direction.) |
Eurasian crag martin | The Eurasian crag martin was formally described as Hirundo rupestris by Italian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli in 1769 and was moved to the new genus Ptyonoprogne by German ornithologist Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach in 1850. Its nearest relatives are the three other members of the genus, the pale crag martin, P. obsoleta, the rock martin, P. fuligula, and the dusky crag martin, P. concolor. The genus name is derived from the Greek ptuon (πτύον), "a fan", referring to the shape of the opened tail, and Procne (Πρόκνη), a mythological girl who was turned into a swallow. The specific rupestris means "of rocks", from the Latin rupes "rock". There are no generally recognised subspecies. Two races, Central Asian P. r. centralasica and P. r. theresae in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, have been proposed, but the slight differences in size and colour show no consistent geographical pattern. Fossils of this species have been found in Late Pleistocene deposits in Bulgaria, and in central France in layers dated at 242,000 to 301,000 years ago. |
Eurasian crag martin | The Eurasian crag martin is 13–15 cm (5.1–5.9 in) long, with a 32–34.5 cm (12.6–13.6 in) wingspan, and weighs an average 23 g (0.81 oz). It has ash-brown upperparts and paler underparts, and has a broader body, wings and tail than any other European swallow. The tail is short and square, with white patches near the tips of all but the central and outermost pairs of feathers. The underwing and undertail coverts are blackish, the eyes are brown, the small bill is mainly black, and the legs are brownish-pink. The sexes are alike, but juveniles have buff-brown tips to the plumage of the head, upperparts and wing coverts. This species can be distinguished from the sand martin by its larger size, the white patches on the tail, and its lack of a brown breast band. Where the range overlaps with that of another Ptyonoprogne species, the Eurasian crag martin is darker, browner and 15% larger than the rock martin, and larger and paler, particularly on its underparts than the dusky crag martin. The white tail spots of the Eurasian crag martin are significantly larger than those of both its relatives. |
Eurasian crag martin | The Eurasian crag martin breeds in mountains from Iberia and northwesternmost Africa through southern Europe, the Persian Gulf and the Himalayas to southwestern and northeastern China. Northern populations are migratory, with European birds wintering in north Africa, Senegal, Ethiopia and the Nile Valley, and Asian breeders going to southern China, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. Some European birds stay north of the Mediterranean, and, like martins in warmer areas such as India, Turkey and Cyprus, just move to lower ground after breeding. The breeding range is bounded by the 20 °C (68 °F) July isotherm, and wintering areas need a temperature of about 15 °C (59 °F) for enough insect food to be available. This is a rare species any distance north of its breeding areas. For example, there are only 12 records from the UK, none from Ireland, and the first record for Sweden was reported as recently as 1996. South of its normal wintering range, it has occurred as a vagrant in The Gambia. In 2022, the first nesting of the species was recorded on the territory of Slovakia in the Malá Fatra National Park. |
Eurasian crag martin | Crag martin pairs nest alone or in small colonies, usually containing fewer than ten nests. Nests are on average 30 m (98 ft) apart and each pair aggressively defends its breeding territory against other crag martins and most other bird species. Nesting takes place from May to August, and usually two broods are raised. The nest, built by both adults, is an open half cup made of mud and lined with soft material such as feathers or dry grass. It is constructed under an overhang on a rock cliff face, in a crevice or cave, or on a man-made structure. It takes one to three weeks to build and is re-used for the second brood and in subsequent years. The clutch is two to five eggs with an average of three. The eggs are white with brownish blotches particularly at the wide end, and average 20.2 mm × 14.0 mm (0.80 in × 0.55 in) with a weight of 2.08 g (0.073 oz). The eggs are incubated mainly by the female for 13–17 days to hatching, and the chicks take another 24–27 days to fledge. Both parents feed the chicks bringing food every two to five minutes, and the young are fed for 14–21 days after fledging. With such frequent feeding rates the adults mainly forage in the best hunting zones in the immediate vicinity of the nest, since the further they fly to forage the longer it would take to bring food to the chicks in the nest. In an Italian study, the hatching rate was 80.2 percent, and the average number of fledged young was 3.1. |
Eurasian crag martin | The Eurasian crag martin feeds mainly on insects caught in its beak in flight, although it will occasionally take prey items off rocks, the ground, or a water surface. When breeding, birds often fly back and forth near to a rock face hunting for insects, feeding both inside and outside the nesting territory. At other times, they may hunt while flying above streams or alpine meadows. The insects taken depend on what is locally available and may include flies, ants, aerial spiders, and beetles. Aquatic species such as stoneflies, caddisflies and pond skaters appear to be important in at least Spain and Italy. Unlike other hirundines, these birds feed close to their breeding sites, and may be locally vulnerable to fluctuations in insect availability. This martin is gregarious outside the breeding season, and may form sizeable flocks where food is abundant. Cliff faces generate standing waves in the airflow which concentrate insects near vertical areas. The crag martin exploits the area close to the cliff when it hunts, relying on its high manoeuvrability and ability to perform tight turns. |
Railroad Bill | On March 6, 1895, the crew of a freight train found Railroad Bill asleep behind a water tank near Hurricane Bayou, west of Bay Minette, Alabama, and took his rifle and pistol before awakening him. To their surprise he jumped to his feet, ran about a hundred yards, and pulled another revolver and engaged them in a gunfight. He forced the trainmen to seek refuge in a section house where they were reinforced by a bridge crew and armed themselves with shotguns. The trainmen advanced on the outlaw, but just at that time a second train pulled up to the tank. Railroad Bill sprang into the cab and forced the engineer to drive it out of the station. As the locomotive passed the section house, the wounded desperado fired on his adversaries who could not return fire for fear of hitting the engineer. When the train was several hundred yards away, Railroad Bill brazenly got off and preceded back to again engage the men in a gunfight. The gunfight lasted until Railroad Bill ran out of ammunition and escaped into the swamplands. |
Railroad Bill | On March 7, 1896, Railroad Bill was cornered and killed inside a general store in Atmore, Alabama. Knowing he would come to the store around closing time, the proprietor staged an ambush by positioning two men with weapons hidden from view. The plan was to wait for the proprietor to give a predetermined signal before they opened fire on the desperado. Their scheme was interrupted by a two-man posse that was also hunting the fugitive. One posse member entered the store about the same time as Railroad Bill and waited for the second posse member, Atmore Constable Leonard McGowin, to arrive. When McGowin entered a few minutes later, he saw the desperado seated in front and with his back to him talking with the proprietor. Although no signal to commence firing was given, the constable raised his rifle and fired twice at point-blank range into the desperado. As Railroad Bill rose to his feet and reached for one of his two revolvers he was shot multiple times again by the deputy and two others inside the store. Railroad Bill, veteran of numerous gunfights, staggered forward a few steps before falling dead on the floor. However, according to a correction based on an interview with James Sellars (Robertsdale, Alabama), grandson of Sears Sellars who was an eyewitness to the killing, it was Dick Johns (bounty hunter from Texas) who ambushed Railroad Bill in the store near Atmore. J.L. McGowan was in the "railroad head" working as a telegraph operator when the shooting occurred and ran over to see what happened. Recorded on tape at age 94, Sears said that McGowan telegraphed authorities and collected the reward money, then posed for pictures and charged a fee for his photo with the outlaw's dead body. Sears' son Josh was mayor of Robertsdale, Ala., for 28 years. |
Railroad Bill | The body of Railroad Bill was embalmed and transported by officers to Montgomery, Alabama, for official identification that would qualify the payment of reward money. There was a great demand in the city to see the body, leading the officers to place it on display for a price, charging twenty-five cents per customer. City authorities condemned the practice, and the body was taken to Pensacola, Florida for official identification to receive the reward offered by the state. It was again placed on public display at a price, and again city authorities ordered the practice to cease. The body was transported to Mobile, but on arrival the officers were met with an order from the mayor prohibiting the display of the body for commercial gain. It was taken to Birmingham, Alabama, to be "petrified" by a process that would allow it to be placed on permanent display—a practice of carnivals and freak shows at the turn of the century. However, it was not again placed on public display. Instead, it was transported back to Pensacola on March 30, 1896, and given a Christian interment in the African American section of St. John's Cemetery. The ceremony was attended by the mayor and various dignitaries of the city. The location of the grave, however, was unmarked and became lost until rediscovered in 2012 using original interment records. A headstone was then placed on the grave to mark the last resting place of this American desperado. |
Connie Morgan | A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Morgan graduated John Bartram High School in 1953 and attended William Penn Business Institute. She joined the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League in 1954, playing second base under Baseball Hall of Fame skipper Oscar Charleston. She was signed "to a contract estimated at $10,000 per season" by Clowns owner Syd Pollock at the same time as female pitcher Mamie "Peanut" Johnson. She replaced Toni Stone, who had been the first woman to compete in the league, and who had been traded to the Kansas City Monarchs prior to the season. Described as standing 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 metres) tall and weighing 140 pounds (64 kilos), she was "slated to get the regular female assignment in the starting lineup." On opening day, 23 May 1954, "she went far to her right to make a sensational stop, flipped to shortstop Bill Holder and started a lightning doubleplay against the Birmingham Barons." Making her first appearance in her native Philadelphia in July, the Clowns took both games of a doubleheader from the Monarchs, one of the preeminent teams in the league. Morgan played with the Clowns through 1955. Before her tenure with the Indianapolis, she played catcher for five seasons with the North Philadelphia Honey Drippers, an all-women baseball team, batting .338 in that time. |
Viola abyssinica | Viola abyssinica is a low, somewhat weedy perennial herbaceous plant with long, thin, slightly winged, sparingly branching stems that creep along the surface, taking root at the nodes or scrambling through other vegetation. The leaves of about 1.5–4 cm (0.6–1.6 in) long and 1.2–3.3 cm (0.5–1.3 in) wide, which are alternate set along the stems are oval, have a hart-shaped foot, a scalloped to toothy margin and a pointy tip. These may have a few hairs along the veins at the upper side, but are distinctly hairy below. They are on a leaf stalk of .5–3.5 cm (0.2–1.4 in) long, which carries at its base two leafy stipules of 0.3–1.3 cm (0.12–0.51 in) long, that are deeply incised in the lower half. The flowers are on long, slender flower stalks of 3–7 cm (1.2–2.8 in) long, which carry a pair of narrow triangular bracteoles of 2–5 mm (0.08–0.20 in) long in the upper half. The sepals are green, narrow, 5–7 mm (0.20–0.28 in) long and without a basal appendage, hairy along the midrib and sometimes with a regular row of hairs along the outline. The upper and lateral petals are 7–9 mm (0.28–0.36 in) long, whitish, pale mauve or bluish in color. The lowest petal is with 5–7 mm (0.20–0.28 in) shorter than the other four, marked with dark purple stripes, and carries a blunt spur of 2–3 mm (0.08–0.12 in) long. The stamens are about 1⁄3× as long as the lateral petals, orange to golden brown in color, with the style just reaching beyond them. The fruit is a small, yellowish and hairless, 4–6 mm (0.16–0.24 in) long capsule with three parts, that splits when ripe, eventually squeezing out the 1–2 mm (0.04–0.08 in) long seeds with such a force that they shoot away. The seeds have a clear, spongy elaiosome. In Zambia the plants flower from October to March. |
Inside the Whale | Janet Montefiore strongly criticized Inside the Whale in her book Men and Women Writers of the 1930s: the dangerous flood of history. Montefiore states that Inside the Whale is "clear, vigorous and well-written: it is also aggressive, misleading and full of holes", and claims that Inside the Whale and Virginia Woolf's essay "The Leaning Tower" are responsible for creating an inaccurate view of 1930s literature. Montefiore argues Orwell misreads Auden's poem Spain: 1937, claiming that the poem's phrase "necessary murder" refers to the horrors of war rather than Orwell's view of it as referring to political assassinations. Montefiore also disputes Orwell's view that British writers of the time had comfortable lives, pointing out that both Storm Jameson and Naomi Mitchison worked to help European victims of fascism, and that Christopher Isherwood and his partner had to live in exile because of their homosexuality. Montefiore argues that Inside the Whale "anticipates Cold War condemnations of 'premature anti-fascists'" by regarding all the left-wing writers of the period "as uniform tools or stooges of Moscow". |
The Greatest Generation (album) | In November the group went on a headful of UK shows, included UK Warped Tour, with support from Real Friends. Proceeding this, the group played a handful of shows in Europe. In December, the band went on a short acoustic holiday tour with Vinnie Caruana and Young Statues. On March 24, 2014, a music video was released for "Dismantling Summer". In March and April 2014 the group embarked on a North American headlining tour with support from Citizen, Real Friends and Modern Baseball. They group offered VIP bundles which included pre-show acoustic sets and Q&As, along with memorabilia. Defeater was originally scheduled to support, however, due to their vocalist becoming ill, they were replaced by Fireworks. In May, the group went on a headlining European and UK tour with support from State Champs and A Loss for Words. In August, the group appeared at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in the UK. In September, the group was due to perform in Australia, but was unable to due to "circumstances beyond our control". In October, the group went on a headlining US tour with support from The Story So Far, Modern Baseball, Gnarwolves. |
The Greatest Generation (album) | The Greatest Generation has received critical acclaim upon its release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics the album holds an overall rating of 97, which indicates "universal acclaim", based on 5 reviews. Scott Heisel of Alternative Press gave the album 4.5 out 5 stars saying, "It's fast, it's honest, and it'll probably make you tear up more than once." Thomas Nassif of Absolute Punk did not even give the album a standard rating from 10 to 10, stating "It is my firm belief that The Greatest Generation has no real precedent in this community. It's my belief that there isn't another band in pop-punk right now that can write a record this good." David Allen of TheCelebrityCafe.com, gave the album a 5/5, stating, "This album, more than ever, speaks to the fast, the angry, and the unforgiving part of the human subconscious...It feels as if this album, by itself, has been able to repossess every inch of teenage angst over the past 60 years and throw it back up into arrangements, lining it up half-hazardly, and yet purposefully, to hear.". |
Polish nationalism | Modern Polish nationalism arose as a movement in the late-18th and early-19th centuries amongst Polish activists who promoted a Polish national consciousness while rejecting cultural assimilation into the dominant cultures of Austria, Prussia and Russia, the three empires which partitioned Poland-Lithuania and occupied the various regions of Poland. This was the consequence of Polish statelessness, because the Polish nationality was suppressed by the authorities of the countries which acquired the territory of the former Commonwealth. During that time Polishness begun to be identified with ethnicity, increasingly excluding groups such as the Polish Jews, who had previously been more likely to be accepted as Polish patriots. This was also the period in which Polish nationalism, which was previously common to both left-wing and right-wing political platforms, became more redefined as being limited to the right-wing, with the emergence of the politician Roman Dmowski , who renamed Liga Polska (the Polish League) as Liga Narodowa (the National League) in 1893. |
Johanna Meyer-Lövinson | Shortly after Paul's birth, Eugen's business fell through, and Johanna resumed teaching students in schools. She also gave voice projection lessons; lectured on Jewish subjects; and read children's stories (occasionally in costume and with music) "in rented halls". This opened the door for Johanna to perform "readings of literature for more organizations and events". Through these jobs, Johanna became acquainted with famous writers like Ernst Toller, Stefan Zweig, and Georg Hermann. Johanna became "a successful and prolific reciting artist", and occasionally travelled to perform. Sometimes, she invited the authors of her book club books to join her in her reading circles. In 1923, the first German radio station opened in Berlin, and Johanna joined the station in 1924. She read children's literature, and gave "lectures on women's issues". Johanna became a famous speaker, "and she was often requested at cultural events in various cities". When the Nazis took power in 1933, Johanna lost her radio position, yet she resumed performing "dramatic readings and lectures for the Jüdischer Kulturbund". |
German horn | The German horn is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell, and in bands and orchestras is the most widely used of three types of horn, the other two being the French horn (in the less common, narrower meaning of the term) and the Vienna horn. Its use among professional players has become so universal that it is only in France and Vienna that any other kind of horn is used today. A musician who plays the German horn is called a horn player (or less frequently, a hornist). The word "German" is used only to distinguish this instrument from the now-rare French and Viennese instruments. Although the expression "French horn" is still used colloquially in English for any orchestral horn (German, French, or Viennese), since the 1930s professional musicians and scholars have generally avoided this term in favour of just "horn". Vienna horns today are played only in Vienna, and are made only by Austrian firms. German horns, by contrast, are not all made by German manufacturers (e.g., Paxman in London; Conn in the US), nor are all French-style instruments made in France . |
German horn | By the middle of the 19th century the most common type of single F horn was the German horn, with three rotary valves and a centrally placed slide crook. This instrument remained the dominant type of orchestral horn until the 1920s, by which time it had been supplanted by the (also German) double horn, introduced in 1897 by Fritz Kruspe of Erfurt. The French horn, using either two or three piston valves (also called Périnet valves after their inventor) and with crooks inserted at the mouthpipe end, continued to be preferred by many British orchestral players until the 1930s. By the mid-1940s, however, the German horn was achieving dominance in the UK. The last great British exponent of the French instrument was Dennis Brain who, even after the Second World War continued to favour the purer tone of his 1818 Raoux single horn until finally abandoning it for a four-valved B♭/A Alexander model 90 in October 1951. Though he did not like the sound as much, he said he "was paid to get the notes" and the German horn was "virtually foolproof" in contrast to the French horn. His father, Aubrey Brain, also a celebrated horn player and lifelong champion of the French style of instrument, declared that his son had given up the horn altogether. |
German horn | From the second half of the nineteenth century until the 1920s, "German horn" meant the most common type of F horn, with a bore as wide as 11.5 mm (0.453 in) in the cylindrical valve portion of the instrument. It had three rotary valves and was fitted with a slide-crook which also served as a master tuning slide. The German horn had a broader bell than the "French" single horn and was played using a conical mouthpiece with a flat-edged rim. French makers, by contrast, preferred to preserve as much as possible the character of the natural horns exemplified by the instruments built in the eighteenth century by Raoux, which meant a narrower bore between 10.8 and 11.0 mm (0.425–0.433 in) and, in many earlier models, a removable set of piston valves which could be replaced by a simple centre crook to transform the instrument for hand-horn use. After about 1847, the French generally used an "ascending" third valve which normally sends the air through the extra length of the valve slide but, when, depressed, cuts out the slide instead of adding it as in the German horn and older French horns. Single horns use a single set of tubes connected to the valves. This allows for simplicity of use and a much lighter weight. They are usually in the keys of F or B♭, although many F horns have longer slides to tune them to E♭, and most B♭ horns have a fourth valve to put them in the key of A. The problem with single horns is the inevitable choice between accuracy or tone. While the F horn has the "typical" horn sound, above third-space C accuracy is a concern for the majority of players because, by its nature, one plays high in the horn's harmonic series where the overtones are closer together. This led to the development of the B♭ horn, which, although easier to play accurately, has a less desirable sound in the mid and especially the low register where it is not able to play all of the notes. The solution has been the development of the double horn, which combines the two into one horn with a single lead pipe and bell. Both main types of single horns are still used today as student models because they are cheaper and lighter than double horns. In addition, the single B♭ horns are sometimes used in solo and chamber performances and the single F survives orchestrally as the Vienna horn. Additionally, single F alto and B♭ alto descants are used in the performance of some baroque horn concertos and F, B♭, and F-alto (an octave above the usual F horn) singles are occasionally used by jazz performers. |
German horn | Despite the introduction of valves, the single F horn proved difficult for use in the highest range, where the partials grew closer and closer, making accuracy a great challenge. An early solution was simply to use a single horn of higher pitch—usually in B♭. Late in the nineteenth century a new design was worked out by the German horn maker Ed. Kruspe (namesake of his family's brass instrument firm), in collaboration with a nephew of the horn player F. A. Gumbert, who introduced a prototype of the "double horn" in Markneukirchen in 1897. The French maker Pierre Louis Gautrot, in the meantime, had been experimenting along similar lines from 1858 onwards. In 1864 he patented his "système équitonique", originally conceived not for the horn but rather as a "compensating system" to correct the intonation of the lowest notes of the euphonium and the bombardon. It was eventually applied also to the horn, but the extra weight and cost proved excessive. Although the French firm Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy in about 1928 introduced a piston-valved double-horn with ascending third valve, designed in collaboration with the horn player Louis Vuillermoz, the double horn has continued to be identified mainly as a German horn. |
German horn | In Europe the most popular German horns are arguably those made by Alexander Brothers of Mainz and by Paxman in London. In Germany and the Benelux countries, the Alexander 103 is extremely popular. These horns do not fit strictly into the Kruspe or Knopf camps, but have features of both. Alexander prefers the traditional medium bell size, which they have produced for many years, whereas Paxman offer their models in a range of bell throat sizes. In the United States, the Conn 8D, a mass-produced instrument based on the Kruspe design, has been extremely popular in many areas (New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Philadelphia). Since roughly the early 1990s, however, for reasons ranging from changing tastes to a general dislike of Conn's newer 8Ds, orchestras have been moving away from the popular Conn 8D. Geyer model horns (by Carl Geyer, Karl Hill, Keith Berg, Steve Lewis, Jerry Lechniuk, Dan Rauch, and Ricco-Kuhn) are used in other areas (San Francisco, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston, Houston). The CF Schmidt double, with its unique piston change valve, is occasionally found in sections playing Geyer/Knopf model equipment. |
German horn | In the second half of the twentieth century the principle of the German double horn was extended by adding yet another "side" to create the triple horn. This design was developed by the horn player Richard Merewether and the London firm of Paxman to afford the player even more security in the high register. One variation adds to the F and B♭ horns a third, descant horn in high F, an octave above the normal F horn, though it may alternatively be pitched in E♭. It is activated through the use of a second thumb valve. The triple horn was met with considerable resistance when it first appeared. Horn players were reluctant to spend far more money for a triple horn than they would for a double horn, and they were much heavier than the average double horn. Players noted that their arms became fatigued much faster. Moreover, the combination of three different horns creates issues with sonority, because the piping shared among all three sides (that is, the lead pipe and bell) are mathematically disproportionate to two or all three horn lengths. Horn makers have had to make concessions to "even out" the sound between all three, often to the loss of sound quality of each side or entire ranges of the instrument. Advances in horn production are gradually eliminating these drawbacks, and the triple horn is gaining popularity. They are rarely available in anything lower than professional quality. Like double horns, triple horns can come in both full and compensating wraps. Today they are found being played in many professional orchestras, although the substantial cost difference between double and triple horns limits their usage elsewhere. |
German horn | The Vienna horn is a special horn used primarily in Vienna, Austria. Instead of using rotary valves or piston valves, it uses the pumpenvalve (or Vienna valve), which is a double-piston operating inside the valve slides, and usually situated on the opposite side of the corpus from the player's left hand, and operated by a long pushrod. Unlike the German horn, which has grown considerably larger internally (for a bigger, broader, and louder tone), and considerably heavier (with the addition of valves and tubing in the case of the double horn) the Vienna horn very closely mimics the size and weight of the natural horn, (although the valves do add some weight, they are lighter than rotary valves) even using crooks in the front of the horn, between the mouthpiece and the instrument. The bore of the Vienna horn is even smaller than that of the French horn, averaging only 10.7 mm (0.421 in). Vienna horn players use a conical F crook inserted at the mouthpipe end. Vienna horns are often used with funnel shaped mouthpieces similar to those used on the natural horn, with very little (if any) backbore and a very thin rim. The Viennese horn requires very specialized technique and can be quite challenging to play, even for accomplished players of modern horns. The Vienna horn has a warmer, softer sound than the modern horn. Its pumpenvalves facilitate a continuous transition between notes (glissando); conversely, a more precise operating of the valves is required to avoid notes that sound out of tune. |
German horn | The second instrument is used in modern brass bands and marching bands, and is more accurately called a "marching mellophone" or simply "mellophone". A derivative of the F alto horn, it is usually keyed in F, occasionally in G. It is shaped like a flugelhorn, with piston valves played with the right hand and a forward-pointing bell. These horns are generally considered better marching instruments than regular horns because their position is more stable on the mouth, they project better, and they weigh less. It is primarily used as the middle voice of drum and bugle corps. Though they are usually played with a V-cup cornet-like mouthpiece, their range overlaps the common playing range of the horn. This mouthpiece switch makes the mellophone louder, less mellow, and more brassy and brilliant, making it more appropriate for marching bands. Often now with the use of converters, traditional conical horn mouthpieces are used to achieve the more mellow sound of a horn to make the marching band sound more like a concert band. |
Finite strain theory | The material deformation gradient tensor F ( X , t ) = F j K e j ⊗ I K {\displaystyle \mathbf {F} (\mathbf {X} ,t)=F_{jK}\mathbf {e} _{j}\otimes \mathbf {I} _{K}} is a second-order tensor that represents the gradient of the mapping function or functional relation χ ( X , t ) {\displaystyle \chi (\mathbf {X} ,t)\,\!} , which describes the motion of a continuum. The material deformation gradient tensor characterizes the local deformation at a material point with position vector X {\displaystyle \mathbf {X} \,\!} , i.e., deformation at neighbouring points, by transforming (linear transformation) a material line element emanating from that point from the reference configuration to the current or deformed configuration, assuming continuity in the mapping function χ ( X , t ) {\displaystyle \chi (\mathbf {X} ,t)\,\!} , i.e. differentiable function of X {\displaystyle \mathbf {X} } and time t {\displaystyle t\,\!} , which implies that cracks and voids do not open or close during the deformation. Thus we have, d x = ∂ x ∂ X d X or d x j = ∂ x j ∂ X K d X K = ∇ χ ( X , t ) d X or d x j = F j K d X K . = F ( X , t ) d X {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}d\mathbf {x} &={\frac {\partial \mathbf {x} }{\partial \mathbf {X} }}\,d\mathbf {X} \qquad &{\text{or}}&\qquad dx_{j}={\frac {\partial x_{j}}{\partial X_{K}}}\,dX_{K}\\&=\nabla \chi (\mathbf {X} ,t)\,d\mathbf {X} \qquad &{\text{or}}&\qquad dx_{j}=F_{jK}\,dX_{K}\,.\\&=\mathbf {F} (\mathbf {X} ,t)\,d\mathbf {X} \end{aligned}}} |
Finite strain theory | Consider now a material point Q {\displaystyle Q} neighboring P {\displaystyle P\,\!} , with position vector X + Δ X = ( X I + Δ X I ) I I {\displaystyle \mathbf {X} +\Delta \mathbf {X} =(X_{I}+\Delta X_{I})\mathbf {I} _{I}\,\!} . In the deformed configuration this particle has a new position q {\displaystyle q} given by the position vector x + Δ x {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} +\Delta \mathbf {x} \,\!} . Assuming that the line segments Δ X {\displaystyle \Delta X} and Δ x {\displaystyle \Delta \mathbf {x} } joining the particles P {\displaystyle P} and Q {\displaystyle Q} in both the undeformed and deformed configuration, respectively, to be very small, then we can express them as d X {\displaystyle d\mathbf {X} } and d x {\displaystyle d\mathbf {x} \,\!} . Thus from Figure 2 we have x + d x = X + d X + u ( X + d X ) d x = X − x + d X + u ( X + d X ) = d X + u ( X + d X ) − u ( X ) = d X + d u {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\mathbf {x} +d\mathbf {x} &=\mathbf {X} +d\mathbf {X} +\mathbf {u} (\mathbf {X} +d\mathbf {X} )\\d\mathbf {x} &=\mathbf {X} -\mathbf {x} +d\mathbf {X} +\mathbf {u} (\mathbf {X} +d\mathbf {X} )\\&=d\mathbf {X} +\mathbf {u} (\mathbf {X} +d\mathbf {X} )-\mathbf {u} (\mathbf {X} )\\&=d\mathbf {X} +d\mathbf {u} \\\end{aligned}}} |
Finite strain theory | For an infinitesimal element d X {\displaystyle d\mathbf {X} \,\!} , and assuming continuity on the displacement field, it is possible to use a Taylor series expansion around point P {\displaystyle P\,\!} , neglecting higher-order terms, to approximate the components of the relative displacement vector for the neighboring particle Q {\displaystyle Q} as u ( X + d X ) = u ( X ) + d u or u i ∗ = u i + d u i ≈ u ( X ) + ∇ X u ⋅ d X or u i ∗ ≈ u i + ∂ u i ∂ X J d X J . {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\mathbf {u} (\mathbf {X} +d\mathbf {X} )&=\mathbf {u} (\mathbf {X} )+d\mathbf {u} \quad &{\text{or}}&\quad u_{i}^{*}=u_{i}+du_{i}\\&\approx \mathbf {u} (\mathbf {X} )+\nabla _{\mathbf {X} }\mathbf {u} \cdot d\mathbf {X} \quad &{\text{or}}&\quad u_{i}^{*}\approx u_{i}+{\frac {\partial u_{i}}{\partial X_{J}}}dX_{J}\,.\end{aligned}}} Thus, the previous equation d x = d X + d u {\displaystyle d\mathbf {x} =d\mathbf {X} +d\mathbf {u} } can be written as d x = d X + d u = d X + ∇ X u ⋅ d X = ( I + ∇ X u ) d X = F d X {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}d\mathbf {x} &=d\mathbf {X} +d\mathbf {u} \\&=d\mathbf {X} +\nabla _{\mathbf {X} }\mathbf {u} \cdot d\mathbf {X} \\&=\left(\mathbf {I} +\nabla _{\mathbf {X} }\mathbf {u} \right)d\mathbf {X} \\&=\mathbf {F} d\mathbf {X} \end{aligned}}} |
Finite strain theory | The time derivative of F {\displaystyle \mathbf {F} } is F ˙ = ∂ F ∂ t = ∂ ∂ t [ ∂ x ( X , t ) ∂ X ] = ∂ ∂ X [ ∂ x ( X , t ) ∂ t ] = ∂ ∂ X [ V ( X , t ) ] {\displaystyle {\dot {\mathbf {F} }}={\frac {\partial \mathbf {F} }{\partial t}}={\frac {\partial }{\partial t}}\left={\frac {\partial }{\partial \mathbf {X} }}\left={\frac {\partial }{\partial \mathbf {X} }}\left} where V {\displaystyle \mathbf {V} } is the (material) velocity. The derivative on the right hand side represents a material velocity gradient. It is common to convert that into a spatial gradient by applying the chain rule for derivatives, i.e., F ˙ = ∂ ∂ X [ V ( X , t ) ] = ∂ ∂ X [ v ( x ( X , t ) , t ) ] = ∂ ∂ x [ v ( x , t ) ] | x = x ( X , t ) ⋅ ∂ x ( X , t ) ∂ X = l ⋅ F {\displaystyle {\dot {\mathbf {F} }}={\frac {\partial }{\partial \mathbf {X} }}\left={\frac {\partial }{\partial \mathbf {X} }}\left=\left.{\frac {\partial }{\partial \mathbf {x} }}\left\right|_{\mathbf {x} =\mathbf {x} (\mathbf {X} ,t)}\cdot {\frac {\partial \mathbf {x} (\mathbf {X} ,t)}{\partial \mathbf {X} }}={\boldsymbol {l}}\cdot \mathbf {F} } where l = ( ∇ x v ) T {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {l}}=(\nabla _{\mathbf {x} }\mathbf {v} )^{T}} is the spatial velocity gradient and where v ( x , t ) = V ( X , t ) {\displaystyle \mathbf {v} (\mathbf {x} ,t)=\mathbf {V} (\mathbf {X} ,t)} is the spatial (Eulerian) velocity at x = x ( X , t ) {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} =\mathbf {x} (\mathbf {X} ,t)} . If the spatial velocity gradient is constant in time, the above equation can be solved exactly to give F = e l t {\displaystyle \mathbf {F} =e^{{\boldsymbol {l}}\,t}} assuming F = 1 {\displaystyle \mathbf {F} =\mathbf {1} } at t = 0 {\displaystyle t=0} . There are several methods of computing the exponential above. |
Finite strain theory | The deformation gradient F {\displaystyle \mathbf {F} \,\!} , like any invertible second-order tensor, can be decomposed, using the polar decomposition theorem, into a product of two second-order tensors : an orthogonal tensor and a positive definite symmetric tensor, i.e., F = R U = V R {\displaystyle \mathbf {F} =\mathbf {R} \mathbf {U} =\mathbf {V} \mathbf {R} } where the tensor R {\displaystyle \mathbf {R} } is a proper orthogonal tensor, i.e., R − 1 = R T {\displaystyle \mathbf {R} ^{-1}=\mathbf {R} ^{T}} and det R = + 1 {\displaystyle \det \mathbf {R} =+1\,\!} , representing a rotation; the tensor U {\displaystyle \mathbf {U} } is the right stretch tensor; and V {\displaystyle \mathbf {V} } the left stretch tensor. The terms right and left means that they are to the right and left of the rotation tensor R {\displaystyle \mathbf {R} \,\!} , respectively. U {\displaystyle \mathbf {U} } and V {\displaystyle \mathbf {V} } are both positive definite, i.e. x ⋅ U ⋅ x > 0 {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} \cdot \mathbf {U} \cdot \mathbf {x} >0} and x ⋅ V ⋅ x > 0 {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} \cdot \mathbf {V} \cdot \mathbf {x} >0} for all non-zero x ∈ R 3 {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} \in \mathbb {R} ^{3}} , and symmetric tensors, i.e. U = U T {\displaystyle \mathbf {U} =\mathbf {U} ^{T}} and V = V T {\displaystyle \mathbf {V} =\mathbf {V} ^{T}\,\!} , of second order. |
Finite strain theory | Invariants of C {\displaystyle \mathbf {C} } are often used in the expressions for strain energy density functions. The most commonly used invariants are I 1 C := tr ( C ) = C I I = λ 1 2 + λ 2 2 + λ 3 2 I 2 C := 1 2 [ ( tr C ) 2 − tr ( C 2 ) ] = 1 2 [ ( C J J ) 2 − C I K C K I ] = λ 1 2 λ 2 2 + λ 2 2 λ 3 2 + λ 3 2 λ 1 2 I 3 C := det ( C ) = J 2 = λ 1 2 λ 2 2 λ 3 2 . {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}I_{1}^{C}&:={\text{tr}}(\mathbf {C} )=C_{II}=\lambda _{1}^{2}+\lambda _{2}^{2}+\lambda _{3}^{2}\\I_{2}^{C}&:={\tfrac {1}{2}}\left={\tfrac {1}{2}}\left=\lambda _{1}^{2}\lambda _{2}^{2}+\lambda _{2}^{2}\lambda _{3}^{2}+\lambda _{3}^{2}\lambda _{1}^{2}\\I_{3}^{C}&:=\det(\mathbf {C} )=J^{2}=\lambda _{1}^{2}\lambda _{2}^{2}\lambda _{3}^{2}.\end{aligned}}} where J := det F {\displaystyle J:=\det \mathbf {F} } is the determinant of the deformation gradient F {\displaystyle \mathbf {F} } and λ i {\displaystyle \lambda _{i}} are stretch ratios for the unit fibers that are initially oriented along the eigenvector directions of the right (reference) stretch tensor (these are not generally aligned with the three axis of the coordinate systems). |
Finite strain theory | The undeformed length of the curve is given by l X = ∫ 0 1 | d X d s | d s = ∫ 0 1 d X d s ⋅ d X d s d s = ∫ 0 1 d X d s ⋅ I ⋅ d X d s d s {\displaystyle l_{X}=\int _{0}^{1}\left|{\cfrac {d\mathbf {X} }{ds}}\right|~ds=\int _{0}^{1}{\sqrt {{\cfrac {d\mathbf {X} }{ds}}\cdot {\cfrac {d\mathbf {X} }{ds}}}}~ds=\int _{0}^{1}{\sqrt {{\cfrac {d\mathbf {X} }{ds}}\cdot {\boldsymbol {I}}\cdot {\cfrac {d\mathbf {X} }{ds}}}}~ds} After deformation, the length becomes l x = ∫ 0 1 | d x d s | d s = ∫ 0 1 d x d s ⋅ d x d s d s = ∫ 0 1 ( d x d X ⋅ d X d s ) ⋅ ( d x d X ⋅ d X d s ) d s = ∫ 0 1 d X d s ⋅ [ ( d x d X ) T ⋅ d x d X ] ⋅ d X d s d s {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}l_{x}&=\int _{0}^{1}\left|{\cfrac {d\mathbf {x} }{ds}}\right|~ds=\int _{0}^{1}{\sqrt {{\cfrac {d\mathbf {x} }{ds}}\cdot {\cfrac {d\mathbf {x} }{ds}}}}~ds=\int _{0}^{1}{\sqrt {\left({\cfrac {d\mathbf {x} }{d\mathbf {X} }}\cdot {\cfrac {d\mathbf {X} }{ds}}\right)\cdot \left({\cfrac {d\mathbf {x} }{d\mathbf {X} }}\cdot {\cfrac {d\mathbf {X} }{ds}}\right)}}~ds\\&=\int _{0}^{1}{\sqrt {{\cfrac {d\mathbf {X} }{ds}}\cdot \left\cdot {\cfrac {d\mathbf {X} }{ds}}}}~ds\end{aligned}}} Note that the right Cauchy–Green deformation tensor is defined as C := F T ⋅ F = ( d x d X ) T ⋅ d x d X {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {C}}:={\boldsymbol {F}}^{T}\cdot {\boldsymbol {F}}=\left({\cfrac {d\mathbf {x} }{d\mathbf {X} }}\right)^{T}\cdot {\cfrac {d\mathbf {x} }{d\mathbf {X} }}} Hence, l x = ∫ 0 1 d X d s ⋅ C ⋅ d X d s d s {\displaystyle l_{x}=\int _{0}^{1}{\sqrt {{\cfrac {d\mathbf {X} }{ds}}\cdot {\boldsymbol {C}}\cdot {\cfrac {d\mathbf {X} }{ds}}}}~ds} which indicates that changes in length are characterized by C {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {C}}} . |
Finite strain theory | d x 2 − d X 2 = d X ⋅ C ⋅ d X − d X ⋅ d X = d X ⋅ ( C − I ) ⋅ d X = d X ⋅ 2 E ⋅ d X {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}d\mathbf {x} ^{2}-d\mathbf {X} ^{2}&=d\mathbf {X} \cdot \mathbf {C} \cdot d\mathbf {X} -d\mathbf {X} \cdot d\mathbf {X} \\&=d\mathbf {X} \cdot (\mathbf {C} -\mathbf {I} )\cdot d\mathbf {X} \\&=d\mathbf {X} \cdot 2\mathbf {E} \cdot d\mathbf {X} \\\end{aligned}}} or ( d x ) 2 − ( d X ) 2 = ∂ x j ∂ X K ∂ x j ∂ X L d X K d X L − d X M d X M = ( ∂ x j ∂ X K ∂ x j ∂ X L − δ K L ) d X K d X L = 2 E K L d X K d X L {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}(dx)^{2}-(dX)^{2}&={\frac {\partial x_{j}}{\partial X_{K}}}{\frac {\partial x_{j}}{\partial X_{L}}}\,dX_{K}\,dX_{L}-dX_{M}\,dX_{M}\\&=\left({\frac {\partial x_{j}}{\partial X_{K}}}{\frac {\partial x_{j}}{\partial X_{L}}}-\delta _{KL}\right)\,dX_{K}\,dX_{L}\\&=2E_{KL}\,dX_{K}\,dX_{L}\end{aligned}}} where E K L {\displaystyle E_{KL}\,\!} , are the components of a second-order tensor called the Green – St-Venant strain tensor or the Lagrangian finite strain tensor, E = 1 2 ( C − I ) or E K L = 1 2 ( ∂ x j ∂ X K ∂ x j ∂ X L − δ K L ) {\displaystyle \mathbf {E} ={\frac {1}{2}}(\mathbf {C} -\mathbf {I} )\qquad {\text{or}}\qquad E_{KL}={\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial x_{j}}{\partial X_{K}}}{\frac {\partial x_{j}}{\partial X_{L}}}-\delta _{KL}\right)} |
Finite strain theory | Replacing this equation into the expression for the Lagrangian finite strain tensor we have E = 1 2 ( F T F − I ) = 1 2 [ { ( ∇ X u ) T + I } ( ∇ X u + I ) − I ] = 1 2 [ ( ∇ X u ) T + ∇ X u + ( ∇ X u ) T ⋅ ∇ X u ] {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\mathbf {E} &={\frac {1}{2}}\left(\mathbf {F} ^{T}\mathbf {F} -\mathbf {I} \right)\\&={\frac {1}{2}}\left\\&={\frac {1}{2}}\left\\\end{aligned}}} or E K L = 1 2 ( ∂ x j ∂ X K ∂ x j ∂ X L − δ K L ) = 1 2 [ δ j M ( ∂ U M ∂ X K + δ M K ) δ j N ( ∂ U N ∂ X L + δ N L ) − δ K L ] = 1 2 [ δ M N ( ∂ U M ∂ X K + δ M K ) ( ∂ U N ∂ X L + δ N L ) − δ K L ] = 1 2 [ ( ∂ U M ∂ X K + δ M K ) ( ∂ U M ∂ X L + δ M L ) − δ K L ] = 1 2 ( ∂ U K ∂ X L + ∂ U L ∂ X K + ∂ U M ∂ X K ∂ U M ∂ X L ) {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}E_{KL}&={\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial x_{j}}{\partial X_{K}}}{\frac {\partial x_{j}}{\partial X_{L}}}-\delta _{KL}\right)\\&={\frac {1}{2}}\left\\&={\frac {1}{2}}\left\\&={\frac {1}{2}}\left\\&={\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {\partial U_{K}}{\partial X_{L}}}+{\frac {\partial U_{L}}{\partial X_{K}}}+{\frac {\partial U_{M}}{\partial X_{K}}}{\frac {\partial U_{M}}{\partial X_{L}}}\right)\end{aligned}}} |
Finite strain theory | d x 1 ⋅ d x 2 = d x 1 d x 2 cos θ 12 F ⋅ d X 1 ⋅ F ⋅ d X 2 = d X 1 ⋅ F T ⋅ F ⋅ d X 1 ⋅ d X 2 ⋅ F T ⋅ F ⋅ d X 2 cos θ 12 d X 1 ⋅ F T ⋅ F ⋅ d X 2 d X 1 d X 2 = d X 1 ⋅ F T ⋅ F ⋅ d X 1 ⋅ d X 2 ⋅ F T ⋅ F ⋅ d X 2 d X 1 d X 2 cos θ 12 I 1 ⋅ C ⋅ I 2 = Λ I 1 Λ I 2 cos θ 12 {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}d\mathbf {x} _{1}\cdot d\mathbf {x} _{2}&=dx_{1}dx_{2}\cos \theta _{12}\\\mathbf {F} \cdot d\mathbf {X} _{1}\cdot \mathbf {F} \cdot d\mathbf {X} _{2}&={\sqrt {d\mathbf {X} _{1}\cdot \mathbf {F} ^{T}\cdot \mathbf {F} \cdot d\mathbf {X} _{1}}}\cdot {\sqrt {d\mathbf {X} _{2}\cdot \mathbf {F} ^{T}\cdot \mathbf {F} \cdot d\mathbf {X} _{2}}}\cos \theta _{12}\\{\frac {d\mathbf {X} _{1}\cdot \mathbf {F} ^{T}\cdot \mathbf {F} \cdot d\mathbf {X} _{2}}{dX_{1}dX_{2}}}&={\frac {{\sqrt {d\mathbf {X} _{1}\cdot \mathbf {F} ^{T}\cdot \mathbf {F} \cdot d\mathbf {X} _{1}}}\cdot {\sqrt {d\mathbf {X} _{2}\cdot \mathbf {F} ^{T}\cdot \mathbf {F} \cdot d\mathbf {X} _{2}}}}{dX_{1}dX_{2}}}\cos \theta _{12}\\\mathbf {I} _{1}\cdot \mathbf {C} \cdot \mathbf {I} _{2}&=\Lambda _{\mathbf {I} _{1}}\Lambda _{\mathbf {I} _{2}}\cos \theta _{12}\end{aligned}}} |
Unconscious State | Unconscious State was met with critical acclaim from music critics. Shad of AllHipHop stated, "Overall, this is a great addition to Jon Connor's already impressive catalogue of previous material. It's only a matter of time before Unconscious State propels Jon Connor further into the Hip-Hop audience's consciousness than he has ever been before." XXL said, "By this point, Connor was known as one of the most lyrical MCs in the game, but Unconscious State—with its features from Royce, Kweli, Freddie Gibbs, Danny Brown and Smoke DZA, to name just a few—proved that he could stand his ground amongst his peers in the game. Connor may have made his name through his mixtapes—calling himself The People's Rapper, he's been known to cater to his fanbase but consistently delivering top-notch music for free—but Unconscious State established him as a rapper with more than just technical ability on his side." Jesse Fairfax of HipHopDX said, "Unconscious State is a change of pace from Jon Connor, reflecting both growth and regression. At times he sacrifices artistry in the chase for recognition." |
India–Seychelles relations | Diplomatic ties between India and Seychelles have existed since Seychelles gained independence in 1976. A resident high commissioner of India has been in Victoria since 1987 while Seychelles opened its resident mission in New Delhi in 2008. Relations between the two countries have been warm and cordial with regular high level exchange visits between the countries. From India, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Presidents R Venkataraman and Pratibha Patil have visited the Seychelles, while Presidents France Albert Rene, James Alix Michel and Danny Faure of Seychelles have paid state visits to India. India and Seychelles have broad based relations that cover a host of sectors including defence, culture, trade and technical cooperation. According to the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India, relations between India and Seychelles have been characterised by "close friendship, understanding and cooperation", while Seychelles has described itself as a "rock of dependability for India in the Indian Ocean region". |
Daron Hagen | Daron Hagen was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew up in New Berlin, a suburb west of Milwaukee. Hagen was the youngest of the three sons of Gwen Hagen, a visual artist, writer and advertising executive who studied creative writing with Mari Sandoz and enjoyed a successful advertising career as creative director of Exclusively Yours Magazine and Earl Hagen (an attorney). Hagen began composing prolifically in 1974, when his older brother Kevin gave him a recording and score of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd. Two years later, at the age of fifteen, he conducted the premiere of his first orchestral work, a recording and score of which came to the attention of Leonard Bernstein, who enthusiastically urged Hagen to attend Juilliard to study with David Diamond. He studied piano with Adam Klescewski, and studied composition, piano, and conducting at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music (where his teachers included Duane Dishaw and Judy Kramer) while attending Brookfield Central High School. |
Daron Hagen | After two years at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where his teachers included Catherine Comet (conducting), Jeanette Ross (piano), and Les Thimmig and Homer Lambrecht (composition), he was invited to attend the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia by Ned Rorem (with whom he developed a lifelong friendship). While a student of Rorem's at Curtis, he studied piano with Marion Zarzeczna and also studied privately with Lukas Foss. Hagen moved to New York City in 1984 to complete his formal education as a student at Juilliard, studying first for two years with Diamond, then for a semester each with Joseph Schwantner and Bernard Rands. After graduating, Hagen was a Tanglewood composition fellow before briefly living abroad, first at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, and then at the Rockefeller Foundation's Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy, where he has twice been a guest. Between 1985 and 1998 Hagen was also a frequent guest at the MacDowell Colony. When he returned to the United States, Hagen studied privately with Bernstein, whose guidance during the composition of Hagen's Shining Brow — the opera that launched Hagen's career internationally — prompted him to dedicate the score to Bernstein's memory. |
Daron Hagen | As artistic director of the Perpetuum Mobile Concerts he premiered compositions by over a hundred American composers on concerts produced in Philadelphia and New York. Hagen served as president of the Lotte Lehmann Foundation in New York City, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging the performance and creation of opera and art song; from 2000 to 2018 he served as a trustee of the Douglas Moore Fund for American Opera and was elected a lifetime member of the Corporation of Yaddo in 2006. He is the founding artistic director of the New Mercury Collective, "a laboratory for artistic exploration, creative risk-taking, and performance in which its members can collaborate on the creation and performance of post-genre works combining theater, music, and emerging technology for audiences of all types." Hagen has been a featured composer at the Tanglewood, Mostly Modern, Ravinia, Wintergreen, and Aspen music festivals, and has served as artistic director and head of faculty for the Seasons Fall Music Festival in Yakima, Washington . He has served as co-chair of Composition for the Wintergreen Summer Music Academy in Virginia since 2015. |
Daron Hagen | Faculty appointments include a stint as composer in residence at the Music Conservatory of the Chicago College of Performing Arts that led to an invitation to join the artist faculty there "in a multi-disciplinary position created for him that enable him to share his skills as a stage director, dramaturge, composer, and social activist with students from throughout the Roosevelt University community as they shadowed him and collaborate in the development of a new Hagen opera each year." He has also served as the Franz Lehár Composer in Residence at the University of Pittsburgh , twice as composer in residence for the Princeton University Atelier ; as artist in residence at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas ; Sigma Chi-William P. Huffman Composer in Residence at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio ; artist in residence at Baylor University, Waco, Texas ; on the musical studies faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music ; as an associate professor at Bard College ; as a visiting professor at the City College of New York ; and as a lecturer in music at New York University . |
Daron Hagen | Hagen's music is essentially tonal, though serial, pitch class, and octatonic procedures are customarily used for psychologically and emotionally fraught passages. It is "notable for its warm lyricism, but his style defies easy categorization. While his works demonstrate fluency with a range of twentieth-century compositional techniques, those procedures are secondary to his exploitation and expansion of the possibilities of tonal harmony, giving his music an immediacy that makes it appealing to a wide spectrum of audiences. His music is broadly eclectic, drawing on a variety of styles as diverse as jazz, Broadway, Latin music, Italian verismo, and soft rock." According to Hagen, "Polytonality figures prominently in the major operas as a mechanism for manifesting the interaction between characters." Hagen, asked at one point by Bernstein to complete Marc Blitzstein's opera Sacco and Vanzetti, acknowledges a debt to Blitzstein's music: "I find the musical DNA of which it is composed indispensable. Strands of that DNA — strict adherence to economy of means, a passion for combining words and music, the belief that music can promote social justice, an abhorrence of pretension — are woven contrapuntally, inextricably, into the music that I compose, and have been, nearly from the start." |
Daron Hagen | His operas embrace a particularly broad stylistic spectrum, and often "straddle the divide between the opera and musical theater worlds." In Shining Brow "Hagen's baseline idiom," writes Tom Strini, "seems to be modernist-expressionist, tonal but freely dissonant. He sets all sorts of influences, from barbershop to ticky-tick dance music against that idiom, to underscore character and crystallize the period ." In Vera of Las Vegas, Hagen, writes Robert Thicknesse, "blends idioms – neo-Gershwin, jazz, soft rock, Broadway – with soaring melodies that send the characters looping off in arias of self-revelation." "Bandanna is neither fish nor fowl – as fierce as verismo but wrought with infinite care; a melding of church and cantina and Oxonian declamation," writes Tim Page. Catherine Parsonage expands upon this assessment: " is wholly convincing as a modern opera, ranging stylistically from the music theatre of Gershwin, Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, to traditional mariachi music and contemporary opera of Benjamin Britten. Hagen, who served his apprenticeship on Broadway, acknowledges that holistically the piece falls between opera and musical theatre. Hagen's style encourages audiences to be actively involved in constructing their own meanings from the richness of the textual and musical cross-references in his work." Hagen's effective fusing of many styles into a coherent personal vision is recognized by a 2014 American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award that acknowledges the "outstanding artistic achievement a composer who has arrived at his or her own voice." |
Daron Hagen | His first composition to attract wide attention was Prayer for Peace, premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra , garnering him the distinction of being the youngest composer since Samuel Barber to be premiered by that orchestra; the New York Philharmonic commissioned Philharmonia for its 150th anniversary ; the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Music commissioned Concerto for Brass Quintet for its 100th anniversary ; the Curtis Institute commissioned Much Ado for its 75th anniversary . Hagen's commissions from major orchestras and performers between 1981 and 2008 included orchestral works, five symphonies (for the orchestras of Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Oakland, Albany, and Phoenix), seven concertos (for Gary Graffman, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Jeffrey Khaner, and Sara Sant'Ambrogio, among others), several massive works for chorus and orchestra, two dozen choral works (including one for the Kings Singers), ballet scores, concert overtures, showpieces, two brass quintets, six piano trios, three string quartets, an oboe quintet, a duo for violin and cello, solo works for piano (His Suite for Piano was a featured new work for the Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition), organ, violin, viola, and cello, and seventeen published cycles of art songs. (Hagen has over 300 art songs in print.) Material from Shining Brow was used in Hagen's piano piece "Built Up Dark", written for Bruce Brubaker in 1994. |
Bob Hooper | Although he was originally signed by the New York Giants, Hooper came to the majors with the 1950 Philadelphia Athletics and promptly won 15 games while losing only 10 for a last-place outfit that won only 52 games all year — Hooper thus accounting for 28.8 percent of all wins for the 1950 A's. In 1951, he won 12 of 22 decisions for a Philadelphia club that improved to 70 victories. Continuing his "against the grain" career, in 1952, with the A's putting up what would be their final over-.500 season in their Philadelphia history, Hooper won only eight games, losing 15. He was traded to the pennant-contending Cleveland Indians that December 19, and became strictly a relief pitcher, appearing in 43 games in 1953 and only 17 contests in 1954. Hooper did not appear in the 1954 World Series, which Cleveland lost to the Giants in a four-game sweep. In his final season, Hooper appeared briefly with the 1955 Cincinnati Redlegs and lost his only two decisions. He finished his career with 40 victories, 41 defeats, 25 saves and an earned run average of 4.80. In 6202⁄3 innings pitched, he allowed 640 hits and 240 bases on balls, with 196 strikeouts. |
Louis Walsh | In July 2011, he raced the "Reasonably Priced Car", a Kia Cee'd, during series 17 of Top Gear On 1 September 2014, Walsh appeared on an episode of Who's Doing the Dishes? In January 2016, ITV announced that Walsh would appear in Drive, a new show which pitted eight celebrities against each other in a series of races in different vehicles. Hosted by Vernon Kay, the show began airing on 5 April 2016 In 2023 he was a guest on Channel 5's Eurovision: 30 Unforgettable Moments a chart countdown based on the song contest which also featured contributions from David and Carrie Grant, The Fizz and Johnny Logan, with footage from the 1980s' contest showing Walsh cheering on Logan included in the run time. In March 2024, Walsh entered the Celebrity Big Brother house as a housemate on the twenty-third series. During his stint in Celebrity Big Brother, Walsh revealed that he had survived a diagnosis of Waldenström macroglobulinemia, a rare form of blood cancer, in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He reached the final and finished in fourth place. |
Louis Walsh | Walsh sought access to documents which allegedly showed that The Sun UK tabloid paid €700 to a man who made a false sexual assault accusation against him. The man was later imprisoned for the false accusation. The senior counsel for Walsh told Ireland's High Court on 14 May 2012, "The Sun directed the operation to take out Louis Walsh as a public person." On 10 August 2012, the High Court ordered The Sun to give all documents and information to Walsh relating to the preparation of an article in The Sun entitled "Louis Probed Over 'Sex Attack' on Man in Loo". The article was published both in The Sun and their website on 23 June 2011. Walsh sued for defamation of character resulting from the false and malicious allegations and the case was settled out of court. Walsh was awarded damages of €500,000 and €180,000 costs on 28 November 2012. Despite winning the legal case, the false accusations had a "lasting effect" on Walsh who was, as of 2015, suffering from paranoid thoughts and panic attacks as a result of the ordeal. |
Louis Walsh | During an interview conducted by Sarah-Jane Crawford on The Xtra Factor during the semi-final results show in 2014, Walsh groped Mel B by her buttocks. Visibly irritated, she scolded and moved away from Walsh, who said he was only "looking after her". Crawford and the other judges, Cowell and Cheryl, tried to reassure her that she was "safe" while laughing off the gesture. After resurfacing on social media in July 2018, a few months after the Me Too movement began, the clip amassed millions of views on social media; it prompted discussion on the treatment of women by men and drew condemnation of Walsh and the responses of Crawford, Cowell and Cheryl. Some viewers defended Walsh based on his alleged homosexuality and the justification that he was unaware of what he was doing, while others pointed out that, if it can happen so openly in a public setting, there is a correlation to how frequently it may happen behind closed doors. Walsh stated on 21 July 2018 that he grabbed Mel B's buttocks as a joke, but conceded that the gesture was no longer "politically correct" due to social media reaction. |
Jones Bar-B-Q (Kansas City) | Deborah "Little" and Mary "Shorty" Jones are the daughters of Leavy and Juanita Jones, two of eight siblings raised in Kansas City.: 120 Leavy Jones quit school after the 7th grade, worked as an electrician, and moonlighted as a pitmaster at an African-American owned barbecue restaurant, Hezekiah's, on 10th Street in Kansas City.: 120 The sisters helped out part-time making their family's sausage recipe "since they were old enough to stand on a milk crate and help crank out links." The sisters and their siblings worked at Hezekiah's on weekends growing up, and their brother Daniel eventually purchased it. Deborah continued to work with her brother as an adult while also working full-time for the US Postal service. When Daniel died in the 1980s, Mary, then working full-time as a nurse, joined her, and they ran the business together. They stayed on 10th Street until 2003, moved to 6th Street and stayed there until 2009, then downsized to a food cart on 12th Street so they could focus on caregiving for their father, who had been injured in an automobile accident. |
Occupy Eugene | Occupy Eugene was a collaboration that occurred in Eugene, Oregon based on the Occupy Wall Street movement which began in New York City on September 17, 2011. Occupy Eugene included peaceful protests and demonstrations. Protesters were concerned about inequities in the distribution of wealth, banking regulation, housing issues and corporate greed. The first protest march was held on October 15, 2011. The march started at the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza and continued downtown before marching over Ferry Street Bridge. It was reported that close to 2000 people were in attendance from all over the state of Oregon. Occupy Eugene continued to hold regular protests and actions until it left the encampment in December 2011. Protesters have stated that they do not have a set group of leaders. Occupy Eugene General Assemblies have met from as frequently as twice a day at times during active occupations, and as infrequently as weekly. Many committees have met since at least the third General Assembly, typically weekly. Decisions are made through a process known as consensus. Occupy Eugene's consensus process operates in a similar fashion to how consensus is being handled in New York City by protesters involved in Occupy Wall Street. Although the exact method varies from Occupation to Occupation. As of October 18, 2011, The Eugene police department was allowing protesters to camp in downtown Eugene, although city law prohibits it. Eugene police also stated that downtown camping won't be permanently allowed. |
James Henry Mills | For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty. Pvt. Mills, undergoing his baptism of fire, preceded his platoon down a draw to reach a position from which an attack could be launched against a heavily fortified strongpoint. After advancing about 300 yards, Pvt. Mills was fired on by a machinegun only 5 yards distant. He killed the gunner with 1 shot and forced the surrender of the assistant gunner. Continuing his advance, he saw a German soldier in a camouflaged position behind a large bush pulling the pin of a potato-masher grenade. Covering the German with his rifle, Pvt. Mills forced him to drop the grenade and captured him. When another enemy soldier attempted to throw a hand grenade into the draw, Pvt. Mills killed him with 1 shot. Brought under fire by a machinegun, 2 machine pistols, and 3 rifles at a range of only 50 feet, he charged headlong into the furious chain of automatic fire shooting his M 1 from the hip. The enemy was completely demoralized by Pvt. Mills' daring charge, and when he reached a point within 10 feet of their position, all 6 surrendered. As he neared the end of the draw, Pvt. Mills was brought under fire by a machinegunner 20 yards distant. Despite the fact that he had absolutely no cover, Pvt. Mills killed the gunner with 1 shot. Two enemy soldiers near the machinegunner fired wildly at Pvt. Mills and then fled. Pvt. Mills fired twice, killing 1 of the enemy. Continuing on to the position, he captured a fourth soldier. When it became apparent that an assault on the strongpoint would in all probability cause heavy casualties on the platoon, Pvt. Mills volunteered to cover the advance down a shallow ditch to a point within 50 yards of the objective. Standing on the bank in full view of the enemy less than 100 yards away, he shouted and fired his rifle directly into the position. His ruse worked exactly as planned. The enemy centered his fire on Pvt. Mills. Tracers passed within inches of his body, rifle and machine pistol bullets ricocheted off the rocks at his feet. Yet he stood there firing until his rifle was empty. Intent on covering the movement of his platoon, Pvt. Mills jumped into the draw, reloaded his weapon, climbed out again, and continued to lay down a base of fire. Repeating this action 4 times, he enabled his platoon to reach the designated spot undiscovered, from which position it assaulted and overwhelmed the enemy, capturing 22 Germans and taking the objective without casualties. |
Unión Obrera Democrática Filipina | In June 1901, the printers at the then-American-owned newspaper The Manila Times formed an industrial union: the Union de Impresores (UI), which was considered the first labor union in the Philippines. Similar unions were soon formed at other printing places in Manila, and on either December 30, 1901 or in January 1902, a conference was held that united them in a single organization. The organization was then called the Union de Impresores de Filipinas (UIF, "Printers' Union of the Philippines") which was later renamed to Union de Litografos y Impresores de Filipinas (ULIF). Its first president was Hermenegildo Cruz. Shortly after, ULIF was later renamed again to Unión Democrática de Litógrafos, Impresores, Encuadernadores y Otros Obreros ("Democratic Union of Lithographers, Printers, Bookbinders and Other Workers") after Cruz and some of its members approached Isabelo de los Reyes to seek advice in forming a workers' movement and cooperative store based on memberships' savings or contributions. |
Unión Obrera Democrática Filipina | Soon after its founding, and realizing to include other workers outside the printing business, the members of the then-ULIF, spearheaded by de los Reyes, reorganized themselves as a trade union federation and thus, the Unión Obrera Democrática (UOD, "Democratic Workers Union") was formally established on February 2, 1902, at a congress of "approximately 140 printers and lithographers and representatives from other guilds including those of tobacco workers, carpenters, cooks, tailors, shoeworkers, mariners, and laborers" gathered at Variedades Theater in Sampaloc, Manila. Isabelo de los Reyes was elected president of the organization, whilst Hermenegildo Cruz was elected secretary. Except for Cruz, all the elected founding officers were "rich manufacturers and employers in Manila." The founding congress adopted the principles of two books, Vida e Obras de Carlos Marx ("Life and Works of Karl Marx") by Friedrich Engels, and Between Peasants by Errico Malatesta, as the political foundation of the movement. |
Unión Obrera Democrática Filipina | The organization called for a national general strike campaign on August 2, 1902, a day before the proclamation of the Philippine Independent Church, in protest of the refusal of the government to comply with the demands for increased wages for the workers. In culmination of the general strike campaign, the following day despite heavy rain, in a meeting of about 42 prominent members at the Centro de Bellas Artes in Quiapo, Manila, the organization, led by its president Isabelo de los Reyes, launched and proclaimed the establishment of the Philippine Independent Church, a schismatic church from the authority of the state-sponsored Roman Catholic Church. The first strike action then occurred on August 9, 1902, as workers at the Malabon Commercial Tobacco Factory went on strike. The Union Obrera Democratica organized various walk-outs in factories in Manila and adjacent cities in support of the strike. As a result of the strike, wages were increased in some factories. Working hours were, however, unaffected. The state authorities responded to the general strike by arresting four union leaders and Isabelo de los Reyes on August 15 and August 17, 1902, respectively. De los Reyes was sentenced to four months in jail. |
Proxy war | During classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, many non-state proxies were external parties that were introduced into an internal conflict and aligned themselves with a belligerent to gain influence and to further their own interests in the region. Proxies could be introduced by an external or local power and most commonly took the form of irregular armies which were used to achieve their sponsor's goals in a contested region. Some medieval states like the Byzantine Empire used proxy warfare as a foreign-policy tool by deliberately cultivating intrigue among hostile rivals and then backing them when they went to war with each other. Other states regarded proxy wars as merely a useful extension of a pre-existing conflict, such as France and England during the Hundred Years' War, both of which initiated a longstanding practice of supporting privateers, which targeted the other's merchant shipping. France used England's turmoil of the Wars of the Roses from their victory as a proxy, siding with the Lancastrians against the Yorkists who were backed by the Burgundian State. The Ottoman Empire likewise used the Barbary pirates as proxies to harass Western European powers in the Mediterranean Sea. |
Proxy war | Frequent application of the term "proxy war" indicates its prominent place in academic research on international relations. Distinct implementations of soft power and hard power have proved to be unsuccessful in recent years. Accordingly, great failures in classic wars increased the tendency to use proxy wars. Since the early twentieth century, proxy wars have most commonly taken the form of states assuming the role of sponsors to non-state proxies and essentially using them as fifth columns to undermine adversarial powers. That type of proxy warfare includes external support for a faction engaged in a civil war, terrorists, national-liberation movements, and insurgent groups, or assistance to a national revolt against foreign occupation. For example, the British government partially organized and instigated the Arab Revolt to undermine the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Many proxy wars began assuming a distinctive ideological dimension after the Spanish Civil War, which pitted the fascist political ideology of Italy and Nazi Germany against the communist ideology of the Soviet Union without involving these states in open warfare with each other. Sponsors of both sides also used the Spanish conflict as a proving ground for their own weapons and battlefield tactics. |
Proxy war | Another common motivating factor is the existence of a security dilemma. A nation may use military intervention to install a more favorable government in a third-party state. Rival nations may perceive the intervention as a weakened position to their own security and may respond by attempting to undermine such efforts, often by backing parties favorable to their own interests (such as those directly or indirectly under their control, sympathetic to their cause, or ideologically aligned). In that case, if one or both rivals come to believe that their favored faction is at a disadvantage, they will often respond by escalating military and/or financial support. If their counterpart(s), perceiving a material threat or desiring to avoid the appearance of weakness or defeat, follow suit, a proxy war ensues between the two powers. That was a major factor in many of the proxy wars during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as in the ongoing series of conflicts between Saudi Arabia and Iran, especially in Yemen and Syria. |
Kilve | South of the village is Kilve Court Residential and Outdoor Learning Centre, which runs a wide range of courses for young people including Adventurous Activity Courses set in the centre's extensive grounds and Academic Enrichment Courses, designed to help gifted and talented children to develop their skills in subjects such as Art, Drama, English and Maths. Kilve Court is one of the few centres in the country to run instructive Creative Writing for ages up to and including 16, with published authors, such as Beth Webb, directing courses. The main part of the building was constructed between 1702 and 1705, in the reign of Queen Anne, by Henry Sweating, and incorporating an earlier dwelling, although alterations were made in the 1920s by Clough Williams-Ellis. Somerset County Council acquired the house in 1964 and it was opened in 1965 with residential places for 26 children and four members of staff. Since that date there have been a number of extensions and the house, together with a hutted camp site on the hill above, can now accommodate a total of 166. Kilve Court is a major employer in the village. |
2023 Czech presidential election | Pavel confirmed his intention to run on 29 June 2022, saying that he would launch his campaign officially in August 2022. Pavel stated that he wanted to win the election so that the Czech Republic would not have to feel ashamed by its president. In July 2022 Zima launched his campaign and started gathering signatures. He used an old ambulance for his campaign to represent his relationship to the health system. Pavel officially announced his candidacy on 6 September 2022 when he launched his campaign, with the slogan "Let's bring order and peace back to the Czech Republic". Karel Janeček launched his campaign on 7 September 2022 at the VR Play Park. He appeared in front of journalists in a VR suit to say that anybody could visit his Metaverse platform to submit their signature. Janeček was reported to be the first political candidate to use the Metaverse in his campaign. He said he would appear in the Metaverse on scheduled occasions to answer questions. On 10 September 2022, SPD announced it would nominate Bašta for the presidency. |
2023 Czech presidential election | On 10 October 2022 Fischer announced that he had gathered 10 signatures from Senators, allowing him to run. Karel Janeček admitted on 11 October 2022 that he had failed to gather 50,000 signatures, so he was seeking nominations from senators. On 12 October 2022 it was reported that Cyril Svoboda, former leader of KDU-ČSL, had started gathering signatures in the Senate to allow him to run. Svoboda initially refused to comment, but on 13 October confirmed he would not be running as he had failed to gather enough signatures. Nerudová announced on the same day she had gathered enough signatures to submit her candidacy. On 14 October 2022 Hilšer confirmed he had gathered the signatures of 14 Senators allowing him to run. Tomáš Zima also announced on 18 October 2022 that he had collected signatures from 13 senators allowing him to run. Zima said he had collected 37,000 from citizens so far, and could have over 50,000 by November, but had decided to insure himself with senators' signatures. Pavel Fischer launched his campaign on 18 October 2022, with the slogan "The Czech Republic in First Place". He said his priorities were respect for tradition, democracy and human rights, society's resistance to hostile influences, economic development, and the economic independence of the Czech Republic. |
2023 Czech presidential election | Babiš conceded defeat in a speech at his headquarters, and congratulated Pavel, expressing hope that Pavel would be "everyone's president". Former Minister of Finance Alena Schillerová called Babiš's result a "historic result for ANO" which the party would try to replicate in the next parliamentary election. Prime Minister Petr Fiala also sent a congratulatory message, and criticised Babiš's campaign during the election, calling it "the most abhorrent in our new era" and hailed "the end of Babiš's era in our country". Outgoing president Miloš Zeman expressed surprise at the scale of Pavel's victory, and stated that Babiš "should not be written off prematurely". Pavel was also congratulated by Senate leader Miloš Vystrčil, Chamber of Deputies speaker Markéta Pekarová Adamová, and Deputy Prime Minister Marian Jurečka. Ivan Bartoš, the leader of the Czech Pirate Party, called upon Babiš to apologise for what he described as his "dishonest" campaign. On 3 February 2023 Karel Janeček submitted a complaint to the Supreme Administrative Court over the presidential election process. |
8th Vermont Infantry Regiment | Unlike the 7th Vermont (which also was sent to Butler), the regiment's officers and men knew that they were bound for the Gulf of Mexico. The 8th was raised by the state legislature's authority, and were recruited, armed, and equipped by Col. Thomas, under direct instructions from federal government through Butler. Due to this genesis, the regiment had a different relationship to the state than the other volunteer units. Other volunteer regiments enlisted by the state received care and supplies from state officials, but the troops raised by Thomas could not look to Vermont for any aid, and the responsibility and labor of providing for them devolved wholly upon him and his staff. In a sense they belonged to the federal government, and not to the state where they enlisted. They were not entitled to share in the state aid provided other Vermont troops. Being thus thrown on their own resources to obtain supplies as best they could, members of the 8th developed learned to become self-reliant and make do to meet and endure the hard life in store for them. |
8th Vermont Infantry Regiment | The regiment debarked from the Hovey on Monday evening and after the regiment formed in the street, orders were given to load the muskets in readiness for any emergency that might arise. Marching to "Yankee Doodle", which drowned the secession songs of the taunting mobs, the men moved to temporary quarters at the Union Cotton Press, and a strong guard was detailed for the neighborhood, and both officers and men slept on their arms. To further insure their safety, Col. Thomas issued very strict orders against leaving the quarters for any purpose. That first night in the city was memorable for the men. The colonel was vigilant,the men quiet and determined, the sentinels alert, and every precaution taken against surprise attack by an armed force or a city mob. The enforcement of strict military discipline was deadly serious. No one could be trusted, and the Vermont soldiers were liable at any moment to have to fight for their lives. The men knew they were in a hostile city and little temptation to leave quarters. The men got little sleep the first night, and, though no disturbance was attempted, they were relieved to see daylight on Tuesday morning. |
8th Vermont Infantry Regiment | Soon, U.S. forces found large numbers of escaped slaves emancipating themselves by crossing into their lines. Standing War Department orders then in force, required troops to return fugitives. Many of his forces were seeing the results of slavery first-hand for the first time and felt strongly the policy was wrong. The men of the 8th were caught up in this conundrum. Many members saw slavery as evil, and others were turning against it, after seeing enough of its horrors up close to make them "an Abolitionist forever," yet forced to comply by the orders. Natural sympathy won out, and the men, not finding it in their hearts to comply, ignored it. One incident changed many of the men to turn completely against the institution when a slave owner appeared and began to beat the escapee when he refused to return. Every time he hit the black man, men of the 8th kicked him; the slaveowner, finding himself likely to get badly beaten stopped and left without the man. Men of the 8th hid him and pledged never to return him. |
8th Vermont Infantry Regiment | The proverbial first baptism of blood came to part a patrol on Sunday, June 22. On Friday, Company H, which had been at the extreme end of the operable line, had fallen back from La Fourche Crossing to Bayou des Allemands, when reports of Rebels tearing up track to the west caused Capt. Dutton to send a 30-man detachment under Lieutenants Franklin and Holton in a passenger car, pushed ahead of a locomotive, to investigate. No enemy was seen they saw a mounted man ride across the track as they approached at Raceland Station, seven miles out from their post. Franklin halted and sent forward an advance squad of six men on foot, following them slowly with the train. The advance guard was surprised by a volley from the lush vegetation beside the track. Franklin and Holton were severely wounded at the first fire, and the advance guard sprang back on the train. Despite his wounds, Franklin kept his wits, ordering his men in the car to kneel and fire from the windows, he jumped from the car and ran to the engine where the fireman lay dead and the engineer crouched in the iron-clad cab. Franklin told the engineer him to put on steam, and the man quickly reversed his engine running backwards with all possible speed. |
8th Vermont Infantry Regiment | Upon their return to Des Allemands, Dutton sent the wounded to the hospital at Algiers and reported the action. Thomas immediately sent Companies A, C, and I, to relieve Company H at Des Allemands, but the Rebels did attack nor return to destroy the rail line. The days turned into summer and the regiment continued its patrols and work details, but made no contact with the enemy. During July and August, the regiment picketed the right bank of the Mississippi for 13 miles from the "Cut-off road" below Algiers to the canal above, guarded the NOO&GW for 32 miles, to Bayou des Allemands, maintained order in the town, and arrested many citizens who attempted to pass out of the lines. Serious illness prevailed in the command, and three line officers died between July 22-24, causing the commissioning of NCOs from within the regiment to fill the vacancies. The 8th, as part of Phelps' brigade moved north to support Brig Gen. Thomas R. Williams attack at the Battle of Baton Rouge on Tuesday, August 5, but made no contact with the enemy and returned to Algiers. |
8th Vermont Infantry Regiment | As a result, no Vermonter was executed by Taylor for any alleged robbery. However, after the Union captured New Orleans, a number of German-Americans who become U.S. citizens enlisted in the 8th to make up for losses. Having opposed secession, they felt they were exercising rightful privilege as citizens of the U.S. by joining the regiment. Seven of them were the POWs from September 4. They were recognized by members of the Confederate guard who had formerly known them. As soon as this information reached Rebel headquarters, they decided that their names had been on the New Orleans conscription list and the Confederacy had a claim on them for military service despite them never having served. On this flimsy pretext the Germans were arrested as deserters, and denied POW status. Without allowing the Germans to communicate with their friends or prepare their defence, a quick court martial returned a guilty verdict condemning them to be publicly shot as deserters. The men of the 8th saw the act simply as a murder indicitave of the malignacy the "barbarism of slavery " that had infected Southern society. On Thusrday, October 23, a 70-man firing squad executed them along a shallow trench under some trees beside the railroad track and hastily buried.They were forced to dig their own graves, then were shot. |
8th Vermont Infantry Regiment | Butler, decided to launch a three-pronged expedition into the Bayou Lafourche region. Commander McKean Buchanan took four light-draft gunboats from New Orleans to Berwick Bay via the Gulf of Mexico. Thomas would take the 8th, the 1st, and 2nd Native Guards, which Butler had recently organized, and up the railroad dislodging Confederates from Des Allemands, and meet Weitzel at La Fourche Crossing. Butler tasked Weitzel's mhe main column of 5,000 soldiers to attack Taylor at Donaldsonville and Thibodeaux, occupy the La Fourche district, cut off the Rebels' cattle supplies from Texas permanently, and open the NOO&GW so loyal planters could send their sugar and cotton to the New Orleans market. Once done, he was to move into Bayou Teche, and, if practicable, make an incursion into Texas. The Navy would take Weitzel's main body upriver aboard 7 river transports to Donaldsonville. There he would drive out the Rebels, and then move by the country roads down the Bayou La Fourche to meet Thomas at La Fourche Crossing.. The two columns, uniting there, were to proceed to Brashear City, the western terminus of the NOO&GW, on Berwick Bay. A fleet of four gunboats was meanwhile to pass up the bay to Brashear and cut off the retreat of the enemy. |
8th Vermont Infantry Regiment | Meanwhile, Thomas' movement was slow as he was under orders to put the line in running condition as he progressed. Despite the two regiments covering seven miles before bivouacking for the night, the opening of the remaining 20 miles would take great effort. A heavy growth of the long grass of the region had covered the rails with a matted troublesome mass of grass which blocked the wheels of the construction train. There was one way of effectually doing this, to pull it up with immense toil by their hands, as the men in the 8th had often weeded their gardens in Vermont. Initially reluctant considering it rather undignified work for soldiers, the 8th soon fell to work with a will, and the 1st joined them. The two regiments also discovered they needed to rebuild culverts that had been destroyed, and replace rails that had been torn up. Bent rails were straightened and re-laid, missing rails and sleepers replaced. The 8th's experience with the telegraph system helped as the two regiments also had to rebuild fifteen miles of telegraph line and poles. Thomas' column took two days to reach Boutee station, where they halted for the night on Monday, October 27. |
8th Vermont Infantry Regiment | Weitzel's troops on the right bank, the 8th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment and two sections of the 1st Maine Light Artillery Battery moved faster than those on the left. On Monday, October 27, at 9:00 am near a settlement named Texas, these men met a battery and were briefly held up. The 1st Maine's counterbattery fire was very effective, and after losing their commander and running out of ammunition, the Rebel battery made a hasty retreat. Accordingly, the Rebel commander, Brig. Gen. Alfred Mouton withdrew his forces farther to the south. At 11:00 am, the Union force reached a position about 2 mi (3.2 km) north of Labadieville. Getting a report that Confederates were in considerable force ahead with six artillery pieces, Weitzel formed 75th New York, 13th Connecticut, and the 4th Massachusetts Battery, in battle order on the left (east) bank, and sent them forward through a sugarcane field. He also ordered the remaining two sections of the 1st Maine to the front for additional support. |
8th Vermont Infantry Regiment | On the right bank, the 8th New Hampshire met stiff resistance so Weitzel put the 12th Connecticut on the 8th New Hampshire's right flank and ordered both to attack. Their lines of advance diverged, and Weitzel had the 13th Connecticut plug the gap opening in the center. While the 8th New Hampshire stood firing, the other two regiments slowly advanced through ditches and briars almost unmolested since the Confederate gunners mostly fired too high. The Federals, some in battle for the first time, reached an open field where the opposing fire became more heavy. The Federals fired at will as they advanced, cursing at the top of their lungs, while Weitzel sat on his horse smoking a cigar. The Terrebonne militia appeared on the western flank, fired a volley at the Union troops, then fled. Finally, the Federals reached a point about 100 yd (91 m) from the 18th and 24th Louisiana Infantry, who defended a drainage ditch behind a fence near a plantation road at Georgia Landing. Suddenly, the Confederates panicked and fled, swarming out of the ditch and into the woods behind them. The Union soldiers rushed forward, cheering. |
8th Vermont Infantry Regiment | At the time of the battle, the 2nd Brigade was composed of four under-strength units, the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, the 12th Connecticut Infantry, the 160th New York Infantry, and the 8th Vermont Infantry. The brigade was commanded by Colonel Stephen Thomas, who had previously commanded the 8th Vermont. As ordered, the brigade advanced several hundred yards beyond the Federal lines and engaged the vastly superior Confederate forces in brutal hand-to-hand combat. Their stubborn fight held up the Confederate attack for thirty minutes, allowing the rest of the XIX Corps to withdraw and join forces with the VI Corps about a mile to their rear near Belle Grove Plantation. The 47th Pennsylvania Infantry, on the Brigade's extreme right flank, was almost immediately overrun, hindered by a dense fog and Union 8th Corps men fleeing through its line. They were pinned down in a ravine and systematically decimated as their black knapsacks stood out in the swirling fog. As mounting casualties reduced the 2nd Brigade's combat effectiveness, Col. Thomas successfully withdrew his brigade, the 8th Vermont Infantry being the last unit to withdraw. |
The Saga Continues (Wu-Tang Clan album) | Upon its release, The Saga Continues received mixed to positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 64, based on 16 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". AllMusic's reviewer, who gave the album 3 out of 5 stars, stated that "Mathematics fills The Saga Continues with dark, moody beats, atmospheric keyboard patches, snatches of classic soul sides, and samples from vintage kung-fu movies. If this isn't quite a brother to Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)". Alex McLevy of The A.V. Club rated the album a "B−" calling it more "cobbled-together" than A Better Tomorrow, but also stated that "it turns out to be the best Wu-related effort since 2010's thin yet enjoyable Wu-Massacre". He also praised Mathematics' production saying that he "has been intricately involved with the Wu since its inception and he turns out to do a better RZA than the RZA these days, stitching together more than an hour of trilling violins, head-snap drums, and mawkish hooks". Will Rosebury of Clash Music, rated The Saga Continues a 6 out of 10 stating that "at its best, 'The Saga Continues' captures some of the old Wu magic but unfortunately these moments are few and far between". |
Fort Monckton | Despite several previous plans which noted the exposed nature of Portsmouth harbour to attack, it was not until the American War of Independence that construction of a defensive fort was started on the site in 1779. The Governor of Portsmouth Lt. General Sir Robert Monckton told his Commanding Engineer, Lt. Col. John Archer to draw up plans for the defence of Stokes Bay. In 1779 the Gilkicker Sea Mark was demolished to provide clear ground for a new temporary fort, which consisted of a 6 feet (1.8 m) thick earth bank, supported by brushwood fascines. So poor was the structure that the tents of the billeted soldiers blew away in 1780, while the site was so exposed that it was used as a sighting point by ships entering Portsmouth harbour. Archer proposed a new permanent structure, which was accepted in July 1780. Known as The Fort at Gilkicker, construction started in September 1780. However, using civilian and often supplemented by conscript labour, construction speed was slow and the design came under criticism from Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, who in 1782 was appointed as Master-General of the Ordnance. After Archer was removed from his post in 1783 construction was taken over by engineer officer James Glenie, who himself was removed in 1784. Construction again slowed, and after much more controversy in its design and naming, it was renamed Fort Monckton after the now deceased Robert Monckton, and completed in 1789 or 1790, just before the French Revolution of 1793. |
Tenpō Tsūhō | The Tenpō Tsūhō (Japanese: 天保通宝; kyūjitai: 天保通寳 or 天保通寶) was an Edo period coin with a face value of 100 mon, originally cast in the 6th year of the Tenpō era . The obverse of the coin reads "Tenpō" (天保) a reference to the era this coin was designed in, and "Tsūhō" (通寳) which means "circulating treasure" or currency. The Kaō is that of Gotō San'emon, a member of the Kinza mint's Gotō family (後藤家), descendants of Gotō Shozaburo Mitsutsugu, a metalworker and engraver from Kyoto appointed by shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1600 to oversee the Edo mint of his shogunate and oversee its coinage. All mother coins were produced in Edo (present day Tokyo) before they were sent to other mints where they would place the individual mint's mark (shirushi, 印) on the edge of the coin. The coin circulated for 40 years, and stopped being produced during the Meiji Restoration after the introduction of the Japanese yen. Today these coins are now sold as "lucky charms" as well as being collected by numismatists. |
Tenpō Tsūhō | The Tokugawa government started issuing the 100 mon coin in 1835 as a way to combat its fiscal deficit, but due to the debasement of the copper in the 100 mon denomination (5½ times a 1 mon Kan'ei Tsūhō coin) which lead to chronic inflation in commodity prices, this has been compared by economic historians to the inflation caused by the introduction of the 100 wén minted by the Qing dynasty due to the Taiping rebellion in 1853, or the 100 mun coin issued by the Kingdom of Joseon in 1866, both of which were also cast to combat government deficits. Unlike the Chinese 100 wén whose production stopped after a single year, and the Korean 100 mun which was only produced for 172 days, the Tenpō Tsūhō continued to be produced for the duration of the Edo period. Despite this the actual market value of the Tenpō Tsūhō was significantly lower than its face value and was estimated only at 80 mon during the end of the Bakumatsu in 1869, while the coin had become the most commonly circulated mon denomination; accounting for 65% of all mons circulating at the time. |
Min Chung Sik | Photography requires two fundamental elements in order to understand the deeper process of its unique history: to define the internal principle of the medium with which the art genre has grown and developed, and to discover relationships between the medium and other surrounding art perspectives. Photography has created its foundation through the process of its historical unfolding, and has close relationships with other art genres, intellectual, and cultural contexts. Koreans have traditionally used the word "Sajin" to refer to photographs. However, today's concept and dynamic connotation of Sajin has been developed in the Western world and Europe. Examining and studying how photography was introduced in Korea, the East Asian belief system, and how photography captures cultural conflicts, has helped to being Korean-ness and a national identity to light. Also, discovering the identity and media-driven culture of Korea has directly dominated the life of modern Korea, when the principles of a camera were first introduced. |
Min Chung Sik | Min Ch'ung-Sik's was a part of a generation of pioneers who played with art forms. These original black and white photographs filled a chasm not only in the visual archive of modern Korean photography, but also in the visual vernacular of this particular period. The captivating imagery in Min's collection showcases a pivotal role in the development of photography. Through his influence and later as a teacher, Min revealed everyday life through visual diversity as important aspects of Korea's nearly forgotten past. The photographs offer a counter-narrative of ordinary lives during this turbulent period of Korean colonialism. These photographs are documentary, but at the same time aesthetically charged, illustrating and illuminating the traces and trails of Korean life as seen through Korean eyes. Min Ch'ung-Sik moved away from art photography to advocating realism and documentary photography, thus becoming a founder and leader in the realist movement during the era of portrait photography. |
Hridayam (soundtrack) | On 25 October 2021, the first single "Darshana" was launched coinciding with the re-opening of theatres in Kerala. The song is picturised on Pranav Mohanlal and Darshana Rajendran during their college days. On 6 December 2021, the second track "Arike Ninna" was released, which depicted the "pain and frustration" of the lead character. A celebratory song, titled "Onakka Mundhiri" was released as the third single on 17 December. On 31 December 2021, coinciding with the New Year's Eve, Vineeth Sreenivasan announced that the A-side of Hridayam's soundtrack will be launched on the same day. The remaining tracks were released as the B-side of the soundtrack online on 7 January 2022. The same day, a promotional event held in Kochi, with the presence of Mohanlal and film producer Antony Perumbavoor, in order to release the physical copies of the album – through cassettes and CDs. Mohanlal praised Vineeth Sreenivasan and the crew for bringing the true essence of music, adding that it reminded of his films: His Highness Abdullah , Bharatham and Kamaladalam , which had a strong emphasis on Malayalam film music and particularly the former, set the record for highest sales in music cassettes in Kerala. He further added "It makes me glad to know that Hridayam is bringing the emphasis of music with a whole new dimension". |
Hridayam (soundtrack) | Upon releases, the tracks "Darshana" and "Onakka Munthiri" were positively received by music critics, cinephiles and netizens. In an interview with The Times of India, Nithya Mammen, who won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Singer for the track "Vathikkalu Vellaripravu" featured in Sufiyum Sujatayum , listed "Darshana" as one of her favourite picks of the "Top 10 Malayalam Songs of 2021". Mammen had stated it as "a very refreshing song, which also has a positive energy". Celebrities such as Dulquer Salmaan too praised the track. "Darshana" crossed more than 3.5 million views within 48 hours. In its critical review for The Indian Express, VS Gowtham stated that "the songs blend well with the film". Anand Kochukudy of The Quint had stated "Hesham Abdul Wahab's music is also fresh and adds to the film. The "Onakka Munthiri" number (with just vocals) sung by debutante Divya, spouse of Vineeth Sreenivasan, stands out for its peppiness." A critical review from Manorama Online praised Hesham's songs as "the heart and soul of the film" that are "seamlessly blended into the narrative". Critic Vipin Nair stated the album as "a labour of love from the composer (Hesham Abdul Wahab)" and a "multilingual" and "multi-genre treat". He further wrote: "At a time when most Malayalam soundtracks do not last more than 15 minutes, a soundtrack of this length and diversity is a welcome change to a music lovers. Adding to that the way this album has been packaged and marketed, feels nice to see this level of care compared to how a lot of movies do not even have their songs come out on time." |
East Mediterranean Gas Forum | On 15 June 2022 it was announced at the EGMF that the EU, Egypt and Israel had reached an accord that would see the supply of gas to the EU, in order that the latter could reduce its dependence on Russia, which in 2021 supplied the EU with roughly 40 percent of its gas. According to the deal, gas from Israel will be brought via a pipeline to the LNG terminal on the Egypt's Mediterranean coast before being transported on tankers to the European shores. Reports were afoot that Russia cut its exports to Europe on the same day "as a sign of displeasure at the deal signed in Cairo." As a deal sweetener Ursula von der Leyen pledged food relief worth $104 million for Egypt, which has been reeling from grain shortages as a result of the Ukraine war, as well as 3 billion euros in "agriculture, nutrition, water and sanitation programmes over the next years here in the region". The EU's new policy is to be fully independent of Russian fossil fuels before 2030. The subject of the agreement, white gas, is found in underground deposits and created through fracking. |
2023 Serbian protests | At a press conference inside the House of the National Assembly of Serbia, opposition parties People's Party, Do not let Belgrade drown, Together, Democratic Party, and the Party of Freedom and Justice-led Ujedinjeni parliamentary group announced that they would organise a "Serbia Against Violence" protest in front of the National Assembly on 8 May. The parties announced the demands at the conference, which included halting and cancelling the broadcast of reality programs and shows that promote violence on television with a national frequency, banning print media whose content promotes violence, publishes fake news, and violates the Journalistic Code, confiscating the national frequency of Pink and Happy television channels, demanding the resignation of the board members of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM) and Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) and ministers Ružić and Bratislav Gašić, and the head of the Security Intelligence Agency, Aleksandar Vulin, and holding a session in the National Assembly with only one item on the agenda where the government's responsibility and the security of the country would be discussed. |
2023 Serbian protests | Zdravko Ponoš, a 2022 presidential election candidate, and his Serbia Centre organisation stated their support for the protests. Former SNS member of parliament Dragan Šormaz expressed his support for the protest, including former president of Serbia, Boris Tadić. Members of the National Assembly such as Aleksandar Olenik, Miloš Parandilović, and Vladeta Janković attended the protests, including actors Seka Sablić, Dragan Bjelogrlić, and Filip Karađorđević, a member of House of Karađorđević. Actors Nikola Kojo and Rade Šerbedžija, singers Seka Aleksić and Breskvica, and Bishop Grigorije Durić voiced their support for the protests. Basketball coach Duško Vujošević also attended the protests. Over 50 environmental organisations expressed their support for the Serbia Against Violence protests. A group of European Parliament members from the European Greens voiced their support for the protests, including European Parliament members, members of national parliaments, and public figures affiliated with the Progressive International. In July 2023, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament expressed their support for the protests. |
2023 Serbian protests | Vučić described the demonstrators as "hyenas and vultures", and has accused the opposition of attempting to kill him or to stage a coup d'état. Darija Kisić, the minister of family welfare and demography, characterised the organisers of the protests as "parties that are the opposition to Serbia", while Brnabić accused them of "politicising" the shootings. Vladimir Orlić, the president of the National Assembly, accused them of "self-promotion", while Ivica Dačić, the first deputy prime minister, accused them of "abusing the shootings". Following the 12 May protest, Vučić uploaded a photo on Instagram in which he said that "I tried, but failed, to make the three of us nine" and "there are no forgeries and photoshopping" in the photo, while Brnabić uploaded a photoshopped photo of Vučić, minister Siniša Mali, and her on Twitter, ridiculing the protest by claiming that less demonstrators were actually present at the protest. These reactions received criticism. On the other hand, Rade Basta, the minister of economy, said that "I believe that other members of the government should also be on the streets with the citizens because of the tragedy that befell us all". |
Ballast tractor | The ballast box is a metal box installed on the rear chassis of the tractor instead of the fifth wheel coupling. Earlier heavy haulers unmounted the fifth wheel and used merely a piece or two of heavy rocks, stones or concrete blocks which weighted enough to avoid wheel spin, later builders and heavy haulers developed metal boxes of different designs to match the tractor layout. These boxes were filled with concrete or steel to increase the weight of the tractor. The problem with ballast tractors was the weight of ballast itself weighted over 10, 20 or even 40 tons in some scenarios. Other designs also included sleeping cabins in the ballast for the drivers and the crew for longer journeys and harsh weather conditions, This made the height of the tractors increase significantly, these units are still used today in the gulf area due to extreme heat. Some units have factory fitted ballast box with appropriate weight to meet with the regional guidelines, these tractors units do not have fifth wheel and drive out from the factory with a ballast box. Heavy haul operators convert heavy-duty tractors to ballast tractors with an aftermarket ballast box built by a builder or by themselves. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | The crisis was related to the War in Donbas, itself part of the Russo-Ukrainian War, ongoing since February 2014. Intercepted phone conversations of Sergey Glazyev, a top advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, disclosed the specifics of the project Novorossiya to take over not just Crimea, but also the Donbas, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine, which Russia apparently aimed to annex following Crimea. The plan involved fomenting widespread unrest using pro-Russian agents on the ground, and then orchestrating uprisings that would announce rigged referendums about joining Russia, similar to the one that took place in Crimea on 16 March 2014. In December 2021, Russia advanced two draft treaties that contained requests for what it referred to as "security guarantees", including a legally binding promise that Ukraine would not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a reduction in NATO troops and materiel stationed in Eastern Europe, threatening unspecified military response if those demands were not met in full. NATO rejected these requests, and the United States warned Russia of "swift and severe" economic sanctions should it further invade Ukraine. The crisis was described by many commentators as one of the most intense in Europe since the Cold War. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | Following months of Euromaidan protests, on 21 February 2014, pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and parliamentary opposition leaders signed an agreement calling for an early election. The following day, Yanukovych fled Kyiv ahead of an impeachment vote that stripped him of his presidential authority. Leaders of the Russian-speaking eastern regions of Ukraine declared continued loyalty to Yanukovych, causing the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in the country. This unrest was fomented by Russia as part of a coordinated political and military campaign against Ukraine. This was followed by Russia's invasion and subsequent annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the beginning of the Donbas war in April, with the creation of the Russia-backed quasi-states of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. The Minsk agreements allowed the fighting to subside in Donbas, leaving separatists in control of about a third of the region. This stalemate led to the war being labelled a "frozen conflict". |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | Beginning in 2019, Russia issued over 650,000 internal Russian passports to Donbas residents, which the Ukrainian government viewed as a step towards the annexation of the region. On 14 September 2020, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy approved a new national security strategy for the country, signaling Ukraine's intent to foster a stronger relationship with NATO "with the aim of membership in ." On 24 March 2021, Zelenskyy signed Decree No. 117/2021 approving the government's strategy for the "de-occupation and reintegration" of Crimea, including Sevastapol. The decree complemented the activities of the already existing Crimean Platform while also mentioning other means for regaining control of the region, including through potential military force. The next day, Zelenskyy enacted the National Security and Defence Council's decision on Ukraine's military security strategy, protecting the country from external threats through deterrence, internal stability in times of crisis, and cooperation, particularly with the EU and NATO. The decree additionally described Russia as a "military adversary" which "carries out armed aggression against Ukraine... uses military, political, economic, informational and psychological, space, cyber and other means that threaten independence, state sovereignty and territorial integrity" of the country. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | Russian and pro-Kremlin media alleged on 3 April 2021 that a Ukrainian drone attack had caused the death of a child in separatist-controlled Donbas; however, no further details were given surrounding the incident. Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the Russian State Duma, believed that Ukrainian leaders should be "held responsible for the death", while proposing to exclude Ukraine from the Council of Europe. On 5 April, Ukrainian representatives of the Joint Centre of Control and Coordination (JCCC) sent a note to the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine regarding pro-Russian intentions to falsify the accusations. The next day, the mission confirmed the death of a child in Russian-occupied Donbas but failed to establish a link between the purported "Ukrainian drone strike" and the child's death. On 6 April 2021, two Ukrainian servicemen were killed in Donetsk Oblast: one by shelling at a Ukrainian army position near the town of Nevelske and another near the village of Stepne by an unknown explosive device. Following the deaths, Zelenskyy declared that Ukraine would not respond to "provocations" by separatists forces. Due to the shelling, the water pumping station in the "gray-zone" between the villages of Vasylivka and Kruta Balka in South Donbas was de-energized, cutting off the water supply to over 50 settlements. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | Russia moved ships between the Caspian Sea and Black Sea, with the transfer including several landing craft and artillery boats. Interfax reported on 8 April that the crews and ships of the Caspian Flotilla would perform the final naval exercises in cooperation with the Black Sea Fleet. On 10 April 2021, Ukraine invoked Paragraph 16 of the Vienna Document and initiated a meeting in the OSCE on the surge of Russian troops near the Russo-Ukrainian border and Russian-occupied Crimea. Ukraine's initiative was supported by several countries but the Russian delegation failed to appear at the meeting and refused to provide explanations. On 13 April 2021, Ukrainian consul Oleksandr Sosoniuk was detained in Saint Petersburg and later expelled by the FSB for allegedly "receiving confidential information" during a meeting with a Russian citizen. In response, on 19 April, Yevhen Chernikov, a senior Russian diplomat of the Russian embassy in Kyiv, was declared by Ukraine a persona non grata and ordered to leave the country within 72 hours. On 14 April 2021, in a meeting in Crimea, Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of Russia accused Ukrainian special services of trying to organise "terrorist attacks and sabotage" on the peninsula. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | On the night of 14 to 15 April 2021, a naval confrontation took place in the Sea of Azov, 40 kilometres (25 mi) from the Kerch Strait, between three Ukrainian Gyurza-M-class artillery boats and six vessels from the Coast Guard of the Border Service of the FSB. The Ukrainian artillery boats were escorting civilian ships when the incident occurred. It was reported that Ukrainian ships threatened to use airborne weapons to deter provocations from FSB vessels. The incident ended without any casualties. The following day, Russia announced the closure of parts of the Black Sea to warships and vessels of other countries until October, under the pretext of military exercises. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the decision as a "gross violation of the right of navigational freedoms" guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. According to the convention, Russia must not "obstruct maritime passages of the International strait to ports" in the Sea of Azov. According to John Kirby, Pentagon Press Secretary, Russia had concentrated more troops near the Russo-Ukrainian border than in 2014. Additionally, temporary restrictions by Russia on flights over parts of Crimea and the Black Sea were reportedly imposed from 20 to 24 April 2021. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | On 3 December 2021 Ukrainian Minister of Defence Oleksii Reznikov, spoke of the possibility of a "large-scale escalation" by Russia during the end of January 2022, during a session at the country's national parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Reznikov estimated that the Russian military buildup consisted of 94,300 troops. In early December 2021, an analysis conducted by Janes concluded that major elements of the Russian 41st Army (headquartered at Novosibirsk) and the 1st Guards Tank Army (normally deployed around Moscow) had been re-positioned to the west, reinforcing the Russian 20th and 8th Guards armies that were already positioned closer to the Russo-Ukrainian border. Additional Russian forces were reported to have moved to Crimea, reinforcing Russian naval and ground units that were previously deployed there. U.S. intelligence officials warned that Russia was planning an upcoming major military offensive into Ukraine scheduled to take place in January 2022. A report released in November 2023 by the international NGO Global Rights found that Russia's defense contractor began buying trucks and three 170-meter bulk carriers to transport grain in December 2021, suggesting earlier Russian planning to loot Ukraine's food supplies. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | Russia began a slow evacuation of its embassy staff at Kyiv in January 2022. The motives for the evacuation were, at the time, unknown and subjected to multiple speculations. By mid-January, an intelligence assessment produced by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence estimated that Russia was in its final stages of completing a military buildup at the Russo-Ukrainian border, amassing 127,000 troops in the region. Among the troops, 106,000 were land forces, with the remainder comprising naval and air forces. In addition, 35,000 Russian-backed separatist forces and another 3,000 Russian forces were reported to be present in rebel-held eastern Ukraine. The assessment estimated that Russia had deployed 36 Iskander short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) systems near the border, many stationed within striking distance of Kyiv. The assessment also noted intensified Russian intelligence activity. An analysis conducted by the Atlantic Council on 20 January concluded that Russia had deployed additional critical combat capabilities to the region. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | While the U.S. had rejected Russia's demand to keep Ukraine out of NATO in January, by early February, the Biden administration had reportedly shifted its position, offering to prevent Ukraine's NATO accession if Russia backed away from the imminent invasion. Referring to unspecified intelligence, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated an attack could begin at any moment prior to 20 February, the conclusion of the 2022 Winter Olympics at Beijing. Separately, the media published several reports based on acquired U.S. intelligence that had been briefed to several allies with specific references to 16 February as a potential starting date for a ground invasion. Following these announcements, the U.S. ordered most of its diplomatic staff and all military instructors in Ukraine to evacuate. Numerous countries, including Japan, Germany, Australia, and Israel also urged their citizens to leave Ukraine immediately. The next day, KLM suspended its flights to Ukraine, while other airlines shifted their flight schedules to limit exposure across the country. By 11 February, Biden had issued a public warning to Americans to leave Ukraine as soon as possible. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | On 10 February, the Baltic states invoked provisions of the Vienna Document requesting an explanation from Belarus regarding the unusual military activities. The move was followed by Ukraine a day after, where it too invoked Chapter III (risk reduction) of the Vienna Document, requesting Russia to provide "detailed explanations on military activities in the areas adjacent to the territory of Ukraine and in the temporarily occupied Crimea". The request was refused, with Russia asserting that it had no obligation to share the information, although it allowed a Swiss inspection team to enter the territories of Voronezh and Belgorod. On 12 February, the Russian cruise missile submarine Rostov-on-Don (B-237) transited the Dardanelles on its way back to the Black Sea. The Russian Black Sea Fleet conducted live missile and gun firing exercises from 13 to 19 February 2022. In response to Russian military activities, Ukraine requested on 13 February that an emergency meeting within the OSCE be held within the following 48 hours, at which Russia was expected to provide a response. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | According to a detained agent who was set to participate in the coup, Russia was to send an appeal to Ukrainian authorities asking them to surrender; if the appeal was declined, pro-Russian agents would stage a coup. The coup would begin by creating false-flag incidents in Kyiv and along Ukraine's border with Transnistria to create a pretext for invasion. After the invasion started, agents would seize the administrative buildings of multiple cities, install pro-Russian officials, and ultimately surrender and transfer them to Russian troops. To further destabilise the situation, mass riots with the use of fake blood, clashing with law enforcement officers, terrorist attacks, and the assassination of President Zelenskyy were also planned. After the coup, the Verkhovna Rada would be dissolved and replaced by a pro-Russian "People's Rada", playing the role of a puppet government on Russian-occupied territory and newly created "people's republics" in Western Ukraine. The agent also claimed a pro-Russian president was planned to be installed in Ukraine. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | In addition, multiple EU members individually gave support to Ukraine, with the Danish government announcing on 16 January 2022 that they would provide Ukraine with a €22 million (US$24.8 million) defence package. This was followed by a public statement on 21 January by the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Wopke Hoekstra who said that the Netherlands was ready to deliver "defensive military support" and explained that Ukraine request to the country for arms assistance the previous day was supported by majority in parliament. On 31 January, Poland announced its decision to supply Ukraine with lethal weapons. It intended to provide significant quantities of light ammunition, artillery shells, light mortar systems, reconnaissance drones, and Polish-made Piorun MANPADS. A trilateral pact was launched between Poland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom on 17 February 2022 with the aim of responding to European security threats and deepening bilateral relationships in matters of cyber security, energy independence and countering disinformation. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | On 21 February, Russia's FSB said that Ukrainian shelling had destroyed an FSB border facility 150 m from the Russia–Ukraine border in Rostov Oblast. Separately, the press service of the Southern Military District said that Russian forces had killed a group of five saboteurs that morning near the village of Mityakinskaya, Rostov Oblast. The press release alleged that the saboteurs had penetrated the border from Ukraine in two infantry fighting vehicles, which were destroyed in the act. Ukraine denied being involved in both incidents and called them a false flag. Additionally, two Ukrainian soldiers and a civilian were reported killed by shelling in the village of Zaitseve, 30 km north of Donetsk. The Ukrainian News Agency reported that the Luhansk Thermal Power Plant, located close to the contact line, was forced to shut down on 21 February after being shelled by unknown forces. Several analysts, including the investigative website Bellingcat, published evidence that many of the claimed attacks, explosions, and evacuations in Donbas were staged by Russia. |
Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine | The Geneva meeting was followed by a meeting of the NATO–Russia Council in Brussels on 12 January that involved delegations from all thirty NATO countries and one from Russia to discuss (according to the official statement issued by NATO), "the situation in and around Ukraine, and the implications for European security". The Russian MoD statement following the meeting stated that Russia "brought Russian assessments of the current state in the field of Euro-security, and also gave explanations on the military aspects of the Russian draft agreement on security guarantees." The talks were judged by Russia to be unsuccessful. Following the meeting, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that, with respect to Ukraine's potential accession to NATO, all NATO Allies were "united on the core principle that each and every nation has the right to choose his own path" and "Russia doesn't have a veto on whether Ukraine can become a NATO member. at the end of the day, it has to be NATO Allies and Ukraine that decides on membership." |