Annie Besant

Annie Besant (née Wood; 1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer, orator, educationist, and philanthropist. Regarded as a champion of human freedom, she was an ardent supporter of both Irish and Indian self-rule. She was a prolific author with over three hundred books and pamphlets to her credit. As an educationist, her contributions included the founding of the Banaras Hindu University.

In 1867, Annie, at age 20, married Frank Besant, a clergyman, and they had two children. However, Annie's increasingly unconventional religious views led to their legal separation in 1873. She then became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society (NSS), as well as a writer, and a close friend of Charles Bradlaugh. In 1877 they were prosecuted for publishing a book by birth control campaigner Charles Knowlton. The scandal made them famous, and Bradlaugh was subsequently elected M.P. for Northampton in 1880.

Thereafter, she became involved with union actions, including the Bloody Sunday demonstration and the London matchgirls strike of 1888. She was a leading speaker for both the Fabian Society and the Marxist Social Democratic Federation (SDF). She was also elected to the London School Board for Tower Hamlets, topping the poll, even though few women were qualified to vote at that time.

In 1890 Besant met Helena Blavatsky, and over the next few years her interest in theosophy grew, whilst her interest in secular matters waned. She became a member of the Theosophical Society and a prominent lecturer on the subject. As part of her theosophy-related work, she travelled to India. In 1898 she helped establish the Central Hindu School, and in 1922 she helped establish the Hyderabad (Sind) National Collegiate Board in Mumbai, India. In 1902, she established the first overseas Lodge of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry, Le Droit Humain. Over the next few years she established lodges in many parts of the British Empire. In 1907 she became president of the Theosophical Society, whose international headquarters were, by then, located in Adyar, Madras, (Chennai).

She also became involved in politics in India, joining the Indian National Congress. When World War I broke out in 1914, she helped launch the Home Rule League to campaign for democracy in India, and dominion status within the British Empire. This led to her election as president of the Indian National Congress, in late 1917. In the late 1920s, Besant travelled to the United States with her protégé and adopted son Jiddu Krishnamurti, who she claimed was the new Messiah and incarnation of Buddha. Krishnamurti rejected these claims in 1929. After the war, she continued to campaign for Indian independence and for the causes of theosophy, until her death in 1933.

Early life

Annie Wood was born in 1847 in London into a middle-class family of Irish origin. She was proud of her heritage and supported the cause of Irish self-rule throughout her adult life. Her father died when she was five years old, leaving the family almost penniless. Her mother supported the family by running a boarding house for boys at Harrow School. However, she was unable to support Annie and persuaded her friend Ellen Marryat to care for her. Marryat made sure that she had a good education.  Annie was given a strong sense of duty to society and an equally strong sense of what independent women could achieve. As a young woman, she was also able to travel widely in Europe. There she acquired a taste for Roman Catholic colour and ceremony that never left her.

In 1867, at age twenty, she married 26-year-old clergyman Frank Besant (1840–1917), younger brother of Walter Besant. He was an evangelical Anglican who seemed to share many of her concerns. On the eve of her marriage, she had become more politicised through a visit to friends in Manchester, who brought her into contact with both English radicals and the Manchester Martyrs of the Irish Republican Fenian Brotherhood, as well as with the conditions of the urban poor.

Soon Frank became vicar of Sibsey in Lincolnshire. Annie moved to Sibsey with her husband, and within a few years they had two children, Arthur and Mabel; however, the marriage was a disaster. As Annie wrote in her Autobiography, "we were an ill-matched pair". The first conflict came over money and Annie's independence. Annie wrote short stories, books for children, and articles. As married women did not have the legal right to own property, Frank was able to collect all the money she earned. Politics further divided the couple. Annie began to support farm workers who were fighting to unionise and to win better conditions. Frank was a Tory and sided with the landlords and farmers. The tension came to a head when Annie refused to attend Communion. In 1873 she left him and returned to London. They were legally separated and Annie took her daughter with her.

Besant began to question her own faith. She turned to leading churchmen for advice, going to see Edward Bouverie Pusey, one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement within the Church of England. When she asked him to recommend books that would answer her questions, he told her she had read too many already. Besant returned to Frank to make a last unsuccessful effort to repair the marriage. She finally left for London.

Birkbeck
In the late 1880s she studied at the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution, where her religious and political activities caused alarm. At one point the Institution's governors sought to withhold the publication of her exam results.

Reformer and secularist

She fought for the causes she thought were right, starting with freedom of thought, women's rights, secularism, birth control, Fabian socialism and workers' rights. She was a leading member of the National Secular Society alongside Charles Bradlaugh and the South Place Ethical Society.

Divorce was unthinkable for Frank, and was not really within the reach of even middle-class people. Annie was to remain Mrs Besant for the rest of her life. At first, she was able to keep contact with both children and to have Mabel live with her; she also got a small allowance from her husband.

Once free of Frank Besant and exposed to new currents of thought, she began to question not only her long-held religious beliefs but also the whole of conventional thinking. She began to write attacks on the churches and the way they controlled people's lives. In particular she attacked the status of the Church of England as a state-sponsored faith.

Soon she was earning a small weekly wage by writing a column for the National Reformer, the newspaper of the NSS. The NSS argued for a secular state and an end to the special status of Christianity, and allowed her to act as one of its public speakers. Public lectures were very popular entertainment in Victorian times. Besant was a brilliant speaker, and was soon in great demand. Using the railway, she criss-crossed the country, speaking on all of the most important issues of the day, always demanding improvement, reform and freedom.

For many years Besant was a friend of the National Secular Society's leader, Charles Bradlaugh. Bradlaugh, a former soldier, had long been separated from his wife; Besant lived with him and his daughters, and they worked together on many projects. He was an atheist and a republican; he was also trying to get elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Northampton.

Besant and Bradlaugh became household names in 1877 when they published Fruits of Philosophy, a book by the American birth-control campaigner Charles Knowlton. It claimed that working-class families could never be happy until they were able to decide how many children they wanted. It also suggested ways to limit the size of their families. The Knowlton book was highly controversial, and was vigorously opposed by the Church. Besant and Bradlaugh proclaimed in the National Reformer:

We intend to publish nothing we do not think we can morally defend. All that we publish we shall defend.

The pair were arrested and put on trial for publishing the Knowlton book. They were found guilty, but released pending appeal. As well as great opposition, Besant and Bradlaugh also received a great deal of support in the Liberal press. Arguments raged back and forth in the letters and comment columns as well as in the courtroom. Besant was instrumental in founding the Malthusian League during the trial, which would go on to advocate for the abolition of penalties for the promotion of contraception. For a time, it looked as though they would be sent to prison. The case was thrown out finally only on a technical point, the charges not having been properly drawn up.

The scandal cost Besant custody of her children. Her husband was able to persuade the court that she was unfit to look after them, and they were handed over to him permanently.

On 6 March 1881 she spoke at the opening of Leicester Secular Society's new Secular Hall in Humberstone Gate, Leicester. The other speakers were George Jacob Holyoake, Harriet Law and Charles Bradlaugh.

Bradlaugh's political prospects were not damaged by the Knowlton scandal and he was elected to Parliament in 1881. Because of his atheism, he asked to be allowed to affirm rather than swear the oath of loyalty. When the possibility of affirmation was refused, Bradlaugh stated his willingness to take the oath. But this option was also challenged. Although many Christians were shocked by Bradlaugh, others (like the Liberal leader Gladstone) spoke up for freedom of belief. It took more than six years before the matter was completely resolved (in Bradlaugh's favour) after a series of by-elections and court appearances.

Meanwhile, Besant built close contacts with the Irish Home Rulers and supported them in her newspaper columns during what are considered crucial years, when the Irish nationalists were forming an alliance with Liberals and Radicals. Besant met the leaders of the Irish home rule movement. In particular, she got to know Michael Davitt, who wanted to mobilise the Irish peasantry through a Land War, a direct struggle against the landowners. She spoke and wrote in favour of Davitt and his Land League many times over the coming decades.

However, Bradlaugh's parliamentary work gradually alienated Besant. Women had no part in parliamentary politics. Besant was searching for a real political outlet, where her skills as a speaker, writer and organiser could do some real good.

In 1893, she was the representative of The Theosophical Society at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. The World Parliament is famous in India because of Indian monk Swami Vivekanand addressed in the same event and which has received global recognition.

In 1895, together with the founder-president of the Theosophical Society, Henry Steel Olcott, as well as Marie Musaeus Higgins and Peter De Abrew, she was instrumental in developing the Buddhist school, Musaeus College, in Colombo in the island Sri Lanka.

Political activism
For Besant, politics, friendship and love were always closely intertwined. Her decision in favour of Socialism came about through a close relationship with George Bernard Shaw, a struggling young Irish author living in London, and a leading light of the Fabian Society who considered Besant to be "The greatest orator in England". Annie was impressed by his work and grew very close to him too in the early 1880s. It was Besant who made the first move, by inviting Shaw to live with her. This he refused, but it was Shaw who sponsored Besant to join the Fabian Society. In its early days, the society was a gathering of people exploring spiritual, rather than political, alternatives to the capitalist system. Besant began to write for the Fabians. This new commitment – and her relationship with Shaw – deepened the split between Besant and Bradlaugh, who was an individualist and opposed to Socialism of any sort. While he defended free speech at any cost, he was very cautious about encouraging working-class militancy.

Unemployment was a central issue of the time, and in 1887 some of the London unemployed started to hold protests in Trafalgar Square. Besant agreed to appear as a speaker at a meeting on 13 November. The police tried to stop the assembly, fighting broke out, and troops were called. Many were hurt, one man died, and hundreds were arrested; Besant offered herself for arrest, an offer disregarded by the police.

The events created a great sensation, and became known as Bloody Sunday. Besant was widely blamed – or credited – for it. She threw herself into organising legal aid for the jailed workers and support for their families. Bradlaugh finally broke with her because he felt she should have asked his advice before going ahead with the meeting.

Another activity in this period was her involvement in the London matchgirls strike of 1888. She was drawn into this battle of the "New Unionism" by a young socialist, Herbert Burrows. He had made contact with workers at Bryant and May's match factory in Bow, London, who were mainly young women and were very poorly paid. They were also prey to industrial illnesses, like the bone-rotting Phossy jaw, which was caused by the chemicals used in match manufacture. Some of the match workers asked for help from Burrows and Besant in setting up a union.

Besant met the women and set up a committee, which led the women into a strike for better pay and conditions, an action that won public support. Besant led demonstrations by "match-girls", who were cheered in the streets, and prominent churchmen wrote in their support. In just over a week they forced the firm to improve pay and conditions. Besant then helped them to set up a proper union and a social centre.

At the time, the matchstick industry was a very powerful lobby, since electric light was not yet widely available, and matches were an essential commodity; in 1872, lobbyists from the match industry had persuaded the British government to change its planned tax policy. Besant's campaign was the first time anyone had successfully challenged the match manufacturers on a major issue, and was seen as a landmark victory of the early years of British Socialism.

During 1884, Besant had developed a very close friendship with Edward Aveling, a young socialist teacher who lived in her house for a time. Aveling was a scholarly figure and it was he who first translated the important works of Marx into English. He eventually went to live with Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl Marx. Aveling was a great influence on Besant's thinking and she supported his work, yet she moved towards the rival Fabians at that time. Aveling and Eleanor Marx had joined the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and then the Socialist League, a small Marxist splinter group which formed around the artist William Morris.

It seems that Morris played a large part in converting Besant to Marxism, but it was to the SDF, not his Socialist League, that she turned in 1888. She remained a member for a number of years and became one of its best speakers. She was still a member of the Fabian Society; neither she nor anyone else seemed to think the two movements incompatible at the time.

Soon after joining the Marxists, Besant was elected to the London School Board in 1888. Women at that time were not able to take part in parliamentary politics, but had been brought into the local electorate in 1881.

Besant drove about with a red ribbon in her hair, speaking at meetings. "No more hungry children", her manifesto proclaimed. She combined her socialist principles with feminism:
"I ask the electors to vote for me, and the non-electors to work for me because women are wanted on the Board and there are too few women candidates." Besant came out on top of the poll in Tower Hamlets, with over 15,000 votes. She wrote in the National Reformer: "Ten years ago, under a cruel law, Christian bigotry robbed me of my little child. Now the care of the 763,680 children of London is placed partly in my hands."

Besant was also involved in the London dock strike of 1889, in which the dockers, who were employed by the day, were led by Ben Tillett in a struggle for the "Dockers' Tanner". Besant helped Tillett draw up the union's rules and played an important part in the meetings and agitation which built up the organisation. She spoke for the dockers at public meetings and on street corners. Like the match-girls, the dockers won public support for their struggle, and the strike was won.

Theosophy
Besant was a prolific writer and a powerful orator. In 1889, she was asked to write a review for the Pall Mall Gazette on The Secret Doctrine, a book by H. P. Blavatsky. After reading it, she sought an interview with its author, meeting Blavatsky in Paris. In this way she was converted to Theosophy. Besant's intellectual journey had always involved a spiritual dimension, a quest for transformation of the whole person. As her interest in theosophy deepened, she allowed her membership of the Fabian Society to lapse (1890) and broke her links with the Marxists. In her Autobiography, Besant follows her chapter on "Socialism" with "Through Storm to Peace", the peace of Theosophy. In 1888, she described herself as "marching toward the Theosophy" that would be the "glory" of her life. Besant had found the economic side of life lacking a spiritual dimension, so she searched for a belief based on "Love". She found this in Theosophy, so she joined the Theosophical Society, a move that distanced her from Bradlaugh and other former activist co-workers. When Blavatsky died in 1891, Besant was left as one of the leading figures in theosophy and in 1893 she represented it at the Chicago World Fair.

In 1893, soon after becoming a member of the Theosophical Society she went to India for the first time. After a dispute the American section split away into an independent organisation. The original society, then led by Henry Steel Olcott and Besant, is today based in Chennai, India, and is known as the Theosophical Society Adyar. Following the split Besant devoted much of her energy not only to the society, but also to India's freedom and progress. Besant Nagar, a neighbourhood near the Theosophical Society in Chennai, is named in her honour.

Co-freemasonry
Besant saw freemasonry, in particular Co-Freemasonry, as an extension of her interest in the rights of women and the greater brotherhood of man and saw co-freemasonry as a "movement which practised true brotherhood, in which women and men worked side by side for the perfecting of humanity. She immediately wanted to be admitted to this organisation", known now as the International Order of Freemasonry for Men and Women, "Le Droit Humain".

The link was made in 1902 by the theosophist Francesca Arundale, who accompanied Besant to Paris, along with six friends. "They were all initiated, passed and raised into the first three degrees and Annie returned to England, bearing a Charter and founded there the first Lodge of International Mixed Masonry, Le Droit Humain." Besant eventually became the Order's Most Puissant Grand Commander, and was a major influence in the international growth of the Order.

President of Theosophical Society

Besant met fellow theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater in London in April 1894. They became close co-workers in the theosophical movement and would remain so for the rest of their lives. Leadbeater claimed clairvoyance and reputedly helped Besant become clairvoyant herself in the following year. In a letter dated 25 August 1895 to Francisca Arundale, Leadbeater narrates how Besant became clairvoyant. Together they clairvoyantly investigated the universe, matter, thought-forms, and the history of mankind, and co-authored a book called Occult Chemistry.

In 1906 Leadbeater became the centre of controversy when it emerged that he had advised the practice of masturbation to some boys under his care and spiritual instruction. Leadbeater stated he had encouraged the practice to keep the boys celibate, which was considered a prerequisite for advancement on the spiritual path. Because of the controversy, he offered to resign from the Theosophical Society in 1906, which was accepted. The next year Besant became president of the society and in 1908, with her express support, Leadbeater was readmitted to the society. Leadbeater went on to face accusations of improper relations with boys, but none of the accusations were ever proven and Besant never deserted him.

Until Besant's presidency, the society had as one of its foci Theravada Buddhism and the island of Sri Lanka, where Henry Olcott did the majority of his useful work. Under Besant's leadership there was more stress on the teachings of "The Aryavarta", as she called central India, as well as on esoteric Christianity.

Besant set up a new school for boys, the Central Hindu College (CHC) at Banaras which was formed on underlying theosophical principles, and which counted many prominent theosophists in its staff and faculty. Its aim was to build a new leadership for India. The students spent 90 minutes a day in prayer and studied religious texts, but they also studied modern science. It took 3 years to raise the money for the CHC, most of which came from Indian princes. In April 1911, Besant met Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya and they decided to unite their forces and work for a common Hindu University at Banaras. Besant and fellow trustees of the Central Hindu College also agreed to Government of India's precondition that the college should become a part of the new University. The Banaras Hindu University started functioning from 1 October 1917 with the Central Hindu College as its first constituent college.

Blavatsky had stated in 1889 that the main purpose of establishing the society was to prepare humanity for the future reception of a "torch-bearer of Truth", an emissary of a hidden Spiritual Hierarchy that, according to theosophists, guides the evolution of mankind. This was repeated by Besant as early as 1896; Besant came to believe in the imminent appearance of the "emissary", who was identified by theosophists as the so-called World Teacher.

"World Teacher" project
In 1909, soon after Besant's assumption of the presidency, Leadbeater "discovered" fourteen-year-old Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986), a South Indian boy who had been living, with his father and brother, on the grounds of the headquarters of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, and declared him the probable "vehicle" for the expected "World Teacher". The "discovery" and its objective received widespread publicity and attracted worldwide following, mainly among theosophists. It also started years of upheaval, and contributed to splits in the Theosophical Society and doctrinal schisms in theosophy. Following the discovery, Jiddu Krishnamurti and his younger brother Nityananda ("Nitya") were placed under the care of theosophists and Krishnamurti was extensively groomed for his future mission as the new vehicle for the "World Teacher". Besant soon became the boys' legal guardian with the consent of their father, who was very poor and could not take care of them. However, his father later changed his mind and began a legal battle to regain the guardianship, against the will of the boys. Early in their relationship, Krishnamurti and Besant had developed a very close bond and he considered her a surrogate mother – a role she happily accepted. (His biological mother had died when he was ten years old).

In 1929, twenty years after his "discovery", Krishnamurti, who had grown disenchanted with the World Teacher Project, repudiated the role that many theosophists expected him to fulfil. He dissolved the Order of the Star in the East, an organisation founded to assist the World Teacher in his mission, and eventually left the Theosophical Society and theosophy at large. He spent the rest of his life travelling the world as an unaffiliated speaker, becoming in the process widely known as an original, independent thinker on philosophical, psychological, and spiritual subjects. His love for Besant never waned, as also was the case with Besant's feelings towards him; concerned for his wellbeing after he declared his independence, she had purchased  of land near the Theosophical Society estate which later became the headquarters of the Krishnamurti Foundation India .

Home Rule movement
As early as 1902 Besant had written that "India is not ruled for the prospering of the people, but rather for the profit of her conquerors, and her sons are being treated as a conquered race.". She encouraged Indian national consciousness, attacked caste and child marriage, and worked effectively for Indian education. Along with her theosophical activities, Besant continued to actively participate in political matters. She had joined the Indian National Congress. As the name suggested, this was originally a debating body, which met each year to consider resolutions on political issues. Mostly it demanded more of a say for middle-class Indians in British Indian government. It had not yet developed into a permanent mass movement with local organisation. About this time her co-worker Leadbeater moved to Sydney.

In 1914 World War I broke out, and Britain asked for the support of its Empire in the fight against Germany. Echoing an Irish nationalist slogan, Besant declared, "England's need is India's opportunity". As editor of the New India newspaper, she attacked the colonial government of India and called for clear and decisive moves towards self-rule. As with Ireland, the government refused to discuss any changes while the war lasted.

In 1916 Besant launched the All India Home Rule League along with Lokmanya Tilak, once again modelling demands for India on Irish nationalist practices. This was the first political party in India to have regime change as its main goal. Unlike the Congress itself, the League worked all year round. It built a structure of local branches, enabling it to mobilise demonstrations, public meetings and agitations. In June 1917 Besant was arrested and interned at a hill station, where she defiantly flew a red and green flag. The Congress and the Muslim League together threatened to launch protests if she were not set free; Besant's arrest had created a focus for protest.

The government was forced to give way and to make vague but significant concessions. It was announced that the ultimate aim of British rule was Indian self-government, and moves in that direction were promised. Besant was freed in September 1917, welcomed by crowds all over India, and in December she took over as president of the Indian National Congress for a year. Both Nehru and Gandhi spoke of Besant's influence with admiration.

After the war, a new leadership of the Indian National Congress emerged around Mohandas K. Gandhi – one of those who had written to demand Besant's release. He was a lawyer who had returned from leading Asians in a peaceful struggle against racism in South Africa. Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi's closest collaborator, had been educated by a theosophist tutor.

The new leadership was committed to action that was both militant and non-violent, but there were differences between them and Besant. Despite her past, she was not happy with their socialist leanings. Until the end of her life, however, she continued to campaign for India's independence, not only in India but also on speaking tours of Britain. In her own version of Indian dress, she remained a striking presence on speakers' platforms. She produced a torrent of letters and articles demanding independence.

Later years and death
Besant tried as a person, theosophist, and president of the Theosophical Society, to accommodate Krishnamurti's views into her life, without success; she vowed to personally follow him in his new direction although she apparently had trouble understanding both his motives and his new message. The two remained friends until the end of her life.

In 1931 she became ill in India.

Besant died on 20 September 1933, at age 85, in Adyar, Madras Presidency, British India. Her body was cremated.

She was survived by her daughter, Mabel. After her death, colleagues Jiddu Krishnamurti, Aldous Huxley, Guido Ferrando, and Rosalind Rajagopal, built the Happy Valley School in California, now renamed the Besant Hill School of Happy Valley in her honour.

Descendants

The subsequent family history became fragmented. A number of Besant's descendants have been traced in detail from her son Arthur Digby's side. Arthur Digby Besant (1869–1960) was President of the Institute of Actuaries, 1924–26. He wrote The Besant Pedigree (1930) and was director of the Theosophical bookstore in London. One of Arthur Digby's daughters was Sylvia Besant, who married Commander Clem Lewis in the 1920s. They had a daughter, Kathleen Mary, born in 1934, who was given away for adoption within three weeks of the birth and had the new name of Lavinia Pollock. Lavinia married Frank Castle in 1953 and raised a family of five of Besant's great-great-grandchildren – James, Richard, David, Fiona and Andrew Castle – the last and youngest sibling being a former British professional tennis player and now television presenter and personality.

Criticism of Christianity

Besant opined that for centuries the leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as a necessary evil, and that the greatest saints of the Church were those who despised women the most, "Against the teachings of eternal torture, of the vicarious atonement, of the infallibility of the Bible, I leveled all the strength of my brain and tongue, and I exposed the history of the Christian Church with unsparing hand, its persecutions, its religious wars, its cruelties, its oppressions. (Annie Besant, An Autobiography Chapter VII)." In the section named "Its Evidences Unreliable" of her work "Christianity", Besant presents the case of why the Gospels are not authentic.
 1876: "Christianity", The freethinker's text-book, Part II. (Issued by authority of the National Secular Society) ;(D.) That before about A.D. 180 there is no trace of FOUR gospels among the Christians.  ...As it is not pretended by any that there is any mention of four Gospels before the time of Irenaeus, excepting this "harmony". pleaded by some as dated about A.D. 170 and by others as between 170 and 180, it would be sheer waste of time and space to prove further a point admitted on all hands. This step of our argument is, then on solid and unassailable ground —That before about A.D. 180 there is no trace of FOUR gospels among the Christians. (E.) That, before that date, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are not selected as the four evangelists. This position necessarily follows from the preceding one [D.], since four evangelists could not be selected until four Gospels were recognised. Here, again, Dr. Giles supports the argument we are building up. He says : "Justin Martyr never once mentions by name the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This circumstance is of great importance ; for those who assert that our four canonical Gospels are contemporary records of our Saviour's ministry, ascribe them to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and to no other writers."

Works
Besides being a prolific writer, Besant was a "practised stump orator" who gave sixty-six public lectures in one year. She also engaged in public debates.
List of Works on Online Books
List of Work on Open Library
 The Political Status of Women (1874)
 Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History (1876)
 The Law of Population (1877)
 My Path to Atheism (1878, 3rd ed 1885)
 Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, And As It Should Be: A Plea for Reform (1878)
 The Atheistic Platform: 12 Lectures One by Besant (1884)
  Autobiographical Sketches (1885)
 Why I Am a Socialist (1886)
 Why I Became a Theosophist (1889)
 The Seven Principles of Man (1892)
 Bhagavad Gita (translated as The Lord's Song) (1895)
 Karma (1895)
 In the Outer Court(1895)
 The Ancient Wisdom (1897)
 Dharma (1898)
 Thought Forms with C. W. Leadbeater (1901)
 The Religious Problem in India (1901)
  Thought Power: Its Control and Culture (1901)
  Esoteric Christianity (1905 2nd ed)
 A Study in Consciousness: A contribution to the science of psychology. (ca 1907, rpt 1918)
 Occult Chemistry with C. W. Leadbeater (1908)
 An Introduction to Yoga (1908)
 Australian Lectures (1908)
 Annie Besant: An Autobiography (1908 2nd ed)
 The Religious Problem in India Lectures on Islam, Jainism, Sikhism, Theosophy (1909)
 Man and His Bodies (1896, rpt 1911)
 Elementary Lessons on Karma (1912)
 A Study in Karma (1912)
 Initiation: The Perfecting of Man (1912)
 Man's Life in This and Other Worlds (1913)
 Man: Whence, How and Whither with C. W. Leadbeater (1913)
 The Doctrine of the Heart (1920)
 The Future of Indian Politics 1922
 The Life and Teaching of Muhammad (1932)
 Memory and Its Nature (1935)
 Various writings regarding Helena Blavatsky (1889–1910)
 Selection of Pamphlets as follows:
 "Sin and Crime" (1885)
 "God's Views on Marriage" (1890)
 "A World Without God" (1885)
 "Life, Death, and Immortality" (1886)
 "Theosophy" (1925?)
 "The World and Its God" (1886)
 "Atheism and Its Bearing on Morals" (1887)
 "On Eternal Torture" (n.d.)
 "The Fruits of Christianity" (n.d.)
 "The Jesus of the Gospels and the Influence of Christianity" (n.d.)
 "The Gospel of Christianity and the Gospel of Freethought" (1883)
 "Sins of the Church: Threatenings and Slaughters" (n.d.)
 "For the Crown and Against the Nation" (1886)
 "Christian Progress" (1890)
 "Why I Do Not Believe in God" (1887)
 "The Myth of the Resurrection" (1886)
 "The Teachings of Christianity" (1887)

Indian National Movement

 The Commonweal (a weekly dealing on Indian national issues)
New India (a daily newspaper which was a powerful mouthpiece for 15 years advocating Home Rule and revolutionizing Indian journalism)

Legacy
On 1 October 2015, search engine Google commemorated Annie Besant with a Doodle on her 168th birth anniversary. Google commented: "A fierce advocate of Indian self-rule, Annie Besant loved the language, and over a lifetime of vigorous study cultivated tremendous abilities as a writer and orator. She published mountains of essays, wrote a textbook, curated anthologies of classic literature for young adults and eventually became editor of the New India newspaper, a periodical dedicated to the cause of Indian Autonomy".


Shayesteh Ghaderpour

Shayesteh Ghaderpour () is an Iranian chess player who hold the title of International Women Master. She is a silver medalist the Iranian Women's Chess Championship and has represented Iran at six Chess Olympiads.

Biography
In 2009, Shayesteh Ghader Pour won Iranian Women's Rapid Chess Championship. In 2011, she won West Asian Zonal Women's Chess Championship and was given the right to participate in Women's World Chess Championship. In 2012, she was second in Iranian Women's Chess Championship (tournament won Mitra Hejazipour). In 2012, in Khanty-Mansiysk Shayesteh Ghader Pour made her debut at the Women's World Chess Championship, where in the first round she lost to Pia Cramling.

Shayesteh Ghader Pour has played for Iran:
 at six Women's Chess Olympiads (1996, 2002, 2006—2012);
 at five Women's Asian Team Chess Championships (2005—2014), where won two team bronze (2009, 2014) medals, and individual silver (2005) and bronze (2008) medals;
 at Asian Games team chess tournament in 2010;
 at two Asian Indoor Games team chess tournaments (2007—2009).


Jörg Volkmann

Jörg Volkmann (born 25 January 1958) is a German fencer. He competed in the team sabre event at the 1984 Summer Olympics.


Capella Space

Capella Space is a US space company founded by Payam Banazadeh and William Walter Woods that aims to create capabilities for hourly, reliable, and persistent imagery of anywhere on the globe. To that end, it is developing space-based radar earth observation satellites equipped with synthetic aperture radar. Company is based in San Francisco, California. Capella was founded in 2016, has 75 employees and raised venture capital from investors such as Canaan Partners, Data Collective, & Spark Capital.


Press release

A press release, news release, media release, press statement or video release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, an official statement, or making an announcement. A press release is traditionally composed of nine structural elements. Press releases can be delivered to members of the media both physically and electronically.

Press release material can benefit media corporations because they help decrease costs and improve the amount of material a firm can output in a certain amount of time. Due to the material being pre-packaged, press releases save journalists time, not only in writing a story, but also the time and money it would have taken to capture the news firsthand.

Although using a press release can save a company time and money, it constrains the format and style of distributed media. In the digital age, consumers want to get their information instantly which puts pressure on the news media to output as much material as possible. This may cause news media companies to heavily rely on press releases in order to create stories.

Elements

Any information deliberately sent to a reporter or media source is considered a press release as it is information released by the act of being sent to the media. Public relations professionals often follow a standard professional format for press releases. Additional communication methods that journalists employ include pitch letters and media advisories. Generally, a press release body consists of four to five paragraphs with a word limit ranging from 400 to 500. Press release length can range from 300 to 800 words.

Common structural elements include:
 Letterhead or Logo
 Media Contact Information – name, phone number, email address, mailing address, or other contact information for the PR or other media relations contact person.
 Headline – used to grab the attention of journalists and briefly summarize the news.
 Dek – A sub-headline that describes the headline in more detail.
 Dateline – contains the release date and usually the originating city of the press release. If the date listed is after the date that the information was actually sent to the media, then the sender is requesting a news embargo.
 Introduction – first paragraph in a press release, that generally gives basic answers to the questions of who, what, when, where and why.
 Body – further explanation, statistics, background, or other details relevant to the news.
 Boilerplate – generally a short "about" section, providing independent background on the issuing company, organization, or individual.
 Close – in North America, traditionally the symbol "-30-" appears after the boilerplate or body and before the media contact information, indicating to media that the release has ended. A more modern equivalent has been the "###" symbol. In other countries, other means of indicating the end of the release may be used, such as the text "ends".

As the Internet has assumed growing prominence in the news cycle, press release writing styles have evolved. Editors of online newsletters, for instance, often lack the staff to convert traditional press release prose into print-ready copy.

Distribution models
In the traditional distribution model, the business, political campaign, or other entity releasing information to the media hires a publicity agency to write and distribute written information to the newswires. The newswire then disseminates the information as it is received or as investigated by a journalist.

An alternative is the self-published press release.  In this approach, press releases are either sent directly to local newspapers or to free and paid distribution services. The distribution service then provides the content, as-is, to their media outlets for publication which is usually online.

Video news releases

Some public relations firms send out video news releases (VNRs) which are pre-taped video programs that can be aired intact by TV stations.

Video news releases may include interviews of movie-stars which have been taped on a set which located at the movie studio and decorated with the movie's logo.

Video news releases can be in the form of full-blown productions costing tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands. They can also be in the TV news format or even produced for the web.

Some broadcast news outlets have discouraged the use of video news releases, citing a poor public perception and a desire to increase their credibility.

Video news releases can be turned into podcasts and then posted onto newswires. A story can also be kept running longer by engaging "community websites" which are monitored and commented on by many journalists and feature writers.

Embargoes
If a press release is distributed before the information is intended to be released to the public it is embargoed. An embargo requests that news organizations not report the story until a specified time.

Unless the journalist has signed a legally binding non-disclosure agreement agreeing to honor the embargo in advance, the journalist is under no obligation to hold the information. There have been cases reported of news organizations being blacklisted after breaking an embargo.


Antonín Charvát

Antonín Charvát (1899 – 19 September 1930) was a Czech cyclist. He competed in two events at the 1924 Summer Olympics.


Mureu

Meure (also known as Meureu) is a village in Aceh Besar district, Indonesia. The village is known as a place where Teungku Chik di Tiro Muhammad Saman, an Indonesian national hero and former GAM leader Hasan Tiro buried side by side.


Eviella

Eviella hynesae is a species of dugesiid triclad, the only one in the genus Eviella.


The 2015 Little League Softball World Series was held in Portland, Oregon from August 13 to August 19, 2015.  Six teams from the United States and four from throughout the world competed for the Little League Softball World Champions.

Teams

Each team that competes in the tournament will come out of one of the 10 regions.

Results

All times US PST.

Elimination Round


Yutaka Otsuka

is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher. He was born on December 20, 1987 in Tokyo, Japan. He is currently playing for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of the NPB.


Joseph Dudley

Joseph Dudley (September 23, 1647 – April 2, 1720) was a colonial administrator, a native of Roxbury in Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the son of one of its founders. He had a leading role in the administration of the Dominion of New England (1686–1689) which was overthrown in the 1689 Boston revolt. He served briefly on the council of the Province of New York where he oversaw the trial which convicted Jacob Leisler, the ringleader of Leisler's Rebellion.  He then spent eight years in England in the 1690s as Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Wight, including one year as a Member of Parliament for Newtown (Isle of Wight). In 1702, he returned to New England after being appointed governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and Province of New Hampshire, posts that he held until 1715.

His rule of Massachusetts was characterized by hostility and tension, with political enemies opposing his attempts to gain a regular salary and regularly making complaints about his official and private actions. Most of his tenure was dominated by the French and Indian Wars, in which the two provinces were on the front lines with New France and suffered from a series of major and minor French and Indian raids. He orchestrated an unsuccessful attempt to capture the Acadian capital of Port Royal in 1707, raised provincial militia forces for its successful capture in 1710, and directed an unsuccessful expedition against Quebec in 1711.

Dudley's governorship initiated a hostility in Massachusetts toward royal governance, most frequently over the issue of the salaries of crown officials. The colonial legislature routinely challenged or disputed the prerogatives of the governor, and this hostility affected most of the governors of Massachusetts up to the American Revolutionary War and the end of British rule. Dudley's rule of New Hampshire, however, was comparatively uncontroversial.

Early life

Joseph Dudley was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony on September 23, 1647. His mother was Katherine Dudley (née Dighton or Deighton; formerly Hackburne) and his father was Thomas Dudley, one of the founders and leading magistrates of the colony. His father was 70 when he was born and died in 1653. His mother then married Reverend John Allin, who raised the young Dudley at his home in Dedham, Massachusetts.

He graduated from Harvard College in 1665 and was admitted as a freeman in 1672.  He became a member of the Massachusetts General Court representing Roxbury in 1673, and he was elected to the colony's council of assistants in 1676.  King Philip's War broke out in 1675, and Dudley was a commissioner who accompanied the colonial troops into the field against the Indians. He was present at the Great Swamp Fight in which the Narragansett tribe was decisively defeated. He served for several years as a commissioner to the New England Confederation, and was sent by the administration on diplomatic missions to neighboring Indian communities. He served on a committee that negotiated the boundary between Massachusetts and the Plymouth Colony.

Revocation of the colonial charter
The colony's governance came under the scrutiny of King Charles II in the 1660s, and it faced a substantial threat in the late 1670s. Crown agent Edward Randolph was sent to New England in 1676 to collect customs duties and to enforce the Navigation Acts, and in the process he documented a list of issues and took his complaints to the Lords of Trade in London.  The colonial leadership was divided on how to answer this threat.  Dudley was part of a moderate faction which supported accommodating the king's demands, along with his brother-in-law Simon Bradstreet and William Stoughton, and they were opposed by others who did not want the crown to interfere in the colony's business.  These factions were separated in part along class lines; the wealthier land owners and merchants who dominated the legislature's upper house (called the "court of assistants") favored accommodation, while the more representative lower house favored the opposition view.

In 1682, Massachusetts sent Dudley and John Richards to London as agents to represent its case to the Lords of Trade.  Dudley brought a letter of introduction from Plymouth Governor Thomas Hinckley to colonial secretary William Blathwayt, and the favorable relationship that he established with Blathwayt contributed to his future success as a colonial administrator, but it also raised suspicions in the colony about his motives and ability to represent the colony's interests.  The authority of the agents was limited, and the Lords of Trade insisted to the colonial administration that their agents be authorized to negotiate modifications to the colonial charter.  The legislature refused this demand, which led to a quo warranto writ demanding the surrender of the colonial charter.  Dudley brought this news to Boston at the end of 1683, igniting a heated debate in the legislature, with the opposition party again prevailing.  The leadership of the opposition included Reverend Increase Mather, and they began to view the accommodationists as enemies of the colony, including Dudley and Bradstreet.  Richards sided with the opposition, and Dudley was removed from the council of assistants in the 1684 election.

The episode also led to accusations that Dudley had secretly schemed in London to have the charter vacated as a means of personal advancement.  He did discuss the form of a replacement government with Edward Randolph, although this discussion did not take place until after the quo warranto writ was issued. The opposition viewed this as evidence that he was hostile to the present order of the colony and was working against his commission as colonial agent.  Randolph, in contrast, believed that Dudley's election loss meant that he would make a good crown servant.  As a result, rumors began circulating in Boston in late 1684 that Dudley might be appointed governor, with Randolph as his deputy.

The charter was annulled in 1684, and the Lords of Trade began planning to combine the New England colonies into a single province called the Dominion of New England.  This work was still in progress when King James II took the throne in 1685. However, there were difficulties in drafting a commission for intended governor Sir Edmund Andros, and this prompted Randolph to propose an interim appointment.  Dudley was chosen for this post based on Randolph's recommendation, and a commission was issued to him on October 8, 1685 as President of the Council of New England.  The territories covered by his commission included the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Province of New Hampshire, the Province of Maine, and the "Narragansett Country", a territory at the heart of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (which both Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut Colony were trying to wrest away from Rhode Island).  Randolph was appointed to a long list of subsidiary posts, including secretary of the colony, which gave him considerable power.

President of the Council of New England
Randolph arrived in Boston with Dudley's charter on May 14, 1686 and Dudley formally took charge of Massachusetts on May 25, but his rule did not begin auspiciously. A number of Massachusetts magistrates had been named to his council but they refused to serve, and he was unable to reconcile with Increase Mather, who refused to see him.  According to Randolph, the Puritan magistrates "were of opinion that God would never suffer me to land again in this country, and thereupon began in a most arbitrary manner to assert their power higher than at any time before."  Elections of colonial military officers were compromised when many of them also refused to serve.  Dudley made a number of judicial appointments, generally favoring the political moderates who had supported accommodation of the king's wishes in the battle over the old charter.  He renewed treaties with the Indians of northern New England, and traveled to the Narragansett Country in June to formally establish his authority there.

Dudley was significantly hampered by the inability to raise revenues in the dominion.  His commission did not give him authority to introduce new revenue laws, and the Massachusetts government had repealed all such laws in 1683 in anticipation of losing their charter.  Furthermore, many people refused to pay the remaining taxes on the grounds that they had been enacted by the old government and were thus invalid.  Dudley and Randolph also attempted to introduce the Church of England into New England, but they were largely unsuccessful; they did not have buildings to house their new churches, and they recognized the danger of forcing Colonial churches to share their buildings with the Church of England.

Dudley and Randolph enforced the Navigation Acts, although they did not adhere to the letter of the law, understanding that some provisions of the acts were unfair, such as requiring payments of multiple duties.  Some violations were overlooked, and they suggested to the Lords of Trade that the laws be modified to ameliorate these conditions.  Nevertheless, the Massachusetts economy was harmed by their otherwise vigorous enforcement of the acts.

Dudley and Randolph eventually had a falling out over matters related to trade, administration, and religion. "I am treated by Mr. Dudley worse than by Mr. Danforth", Randolph wrote, comparing Dudley to one of the opposition magistrates.

While Dudley governed, the Lords of Trade decided to include the colonies of Rhode Island and Connecticut in the dominion, based on a petition from Dudley's council.  Andros' commission had been issued in June, and he was given an annex to the commission with instructions to bring Rhode Island and Connecticut under his authority.

Service under Governor Andros
Governor Andros arrived in December 1686 and immediately assumed the reins of power.  Dudley sat on his council and served as judge of the superior court and censor of the press.  He also sat on the committee that worked to harmonize legislation throughout the dominion.  Andros' appointed council was intended to represent all of the combined territories.  However, travel was difficult, and the government did not reimburse travel expenses; consequently, his council was dominated by representatives from Boston and Plymouth.

Dudley and Randolph were widely regarded as a significant part of the tyranny of Andros' reign.  Dudley's position as judge brought him the harshest criticisms and complaints, in particular when he enforced unpopular laws imposed by Andros concerning taxes, town meetings, and land titles.

Word arrived in April 1689 of the 1688 Glorious Revolution, whereupon citizens rose up and arrested Andros.  Dudley was away from the city but was arrested upon his return.  Since he was ill, he was released into house arrest upon payment of a £1,000 bond, but a group descended on his home and carried him back to jail.  He stayed in jail for ten months, in part for his own safety, and was then sent back to England at the command of King William, along with Andros and other dominion leaders.  Colonial authorities brought charges against Andros and Dudley, but none of their agents in London were prepared to take responsibility for making those charges in court, so they were dismissed and both men were freed.

Dudley was stranded in London with limited connections, so he appealed to Blathwayt for assistance.  He also asked business associate Daniel Coxe for help in finding a new position.  Coxe was a proprietor of West Jersey and he considered Dudley for the post of lieutenant governor there, and Dudley was eventually recommended as chief of council to New York governor Henry Sloughter which he took up in 1691.  In addition to his council duties, he negotiated with New York's Indians and sat as chief judge in the trial of Jacob Leisler, who had led the rebellion in 1689 that overthrew Andros' lieutenant governor Francis Nicholson.  The trial was controversial, and Dudley's role made him many enemies.  Leisler was convicted of high treason and sentenced to death.  Governor Sloughter was initially opposed to immediately executing Leisler and his main ally and son-in-law Jacob Milborne, preferring to defer the decision to the king.  But he changed his mind under pressure from anti-Leisler forces in his council, and the two men were executed on 16 May 1691.  Cotton Mather claimed that Dudley was an influential force arguing for Leisler's execution, although this is disputed by testimony from anti-Leisler councillor Nicholas Bayard.

Dudley left New York for his home in Roxbury in 1692 and re-established connections with political friends such as William Stoughton, who had just been appointed lieutenant governor of the newly chartered Province of Massachusetts Bay under Sir William Phips.

Patronage
Dudley returned to England in 1693 and embarked on a series of intrigues to regain an office in New England.  He ingratiated himself to the religious elements of the London political establishment by formally joining the Church of England.  He acquired a patron in Baron Cutts, who engineered his appointment as lieutenant governor of the Isle of Wight where Cutts had been appointed governor.  Dudley and Cutts assisted each other politically; Cutts worked to advance Dudley's agenda in London, while Dudley worked to promote that of Cutts on Wight. Dudley manipulated the parliamentary election processes on the island to ensure that Cutts' chosen candidates were elected, which made Cutts highly unpopular on Wight—although he continued as its governor until his death in 1707.  Dudley also tried to assist Cutts with some financial difficulties, and he schemed with Cutts' father-in-law to gain permission to mint coins for use in New England.

Dudley's principal object of intrigue was the removal of William Phips as Massachusetts governor, something that he did not hide from the colony's agents.  Phips' rule was unpopular in Massachusetts, and he was recalled to England to answer a variety of charges brought by his opponents.  Dudley caused Phips to be arrested shortly after his arrival, on the charge that Phips had withheld customs money from the crown.  Phips died in February 1695 before the charges were heard, and Dudley was optimistic that he would be named the next governor.

At this point, Dudley's enemies from New York and Massachusetts joined forces to deny him the opportunity.  Jacob Leisler's son was in London attempting to have the attainder reversed against his father's estate. A bill was introduced into Parliament to accomplish this, with assistance from Massachusetts agent Constantine Phips.  The debate included a review of Leisler's trial, and Dudley was forced to appear and defend his role in it.  Afterward, Phips wrote to Cotton Mather that Dudley "is not so much talked of to be governor", and the appointment went instead to Lord Bellomont.

Cutts continued to be active on Dudley's behalf, and he secured him election as a Member of Parliament representing Newtown in 1701.  This made it possible for Dudley to further expand his own political connections in London.  He managed temporarily to mend political fences with Constantine Phips and Cotton Mather, and he began lobbying for the Massachusetts governorship after the death of Bellomont in 1701.  In this he was successful, receiving commissions as governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire on 1 April 1702 from Queen Anne.

Governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire
Dudley served as governor until 1715, and his administration was marked by regular conflict with the general court, particularly in the early years. His instruction from the English colonial office was to gain a regular salary for the governor.  He and all of the succeeding royal governors, however, were unsuccessful in extracting this concession from the Colonial legislature, and it became a regular source of friction between representatives of crown and colony.  Dudley pressed his complaint in letters to London, in which he complained of men "who love not the Crown and Government of England to any manner of obedience".  He wrote in one letter to his son Paul, then the provincial attorney general, "this country will never be worth living in for lawyers and gentlemen, till the charter is taken away."  This letter was discovered and published, fueling Colonial opposition to his rule.  Dudley also angered the powerful Mather family when he awarded the presidency of Harvard to John Leverett instead of Cotton Mather. He consistently vetoed the election of councilors and speakers of the general court who had acted against him in 1689, further increasing his unpopularity in Massachusetts.  In contrast, his tenure as Governor of New Hampshire was popular; its legislature specifically praised him to the Queen after learning of complaints levelled against him by his Massachusetts opponents.

Queen Anne's War

Dudley was active in managing colonial defenses during Queen Anne's War.  He attempted to forestall French-orchestrated Indian hostilities by meeting with Indians at Casco Bay in June 1703, but the French had already begun rallying them to their cause and the war began with raids on the settlements of southern Maine in August 1703.  Dudley called out the militia and licensed privateers to raid French shipping, such as Thomas Larimore; he also fortified the Massachusetts and New Hampshire frontiers from the Connecticut River to southern Maine.  The French and Indians raided Deerfield in February 1704, prompting calls for retaliation, and Dudley authorized aging Indian fighter Benjamin Church to lead an expedition against settlements in Acadia.  He also engaged in protracted negotiations for the return of captives taken at Deerfield.

Boston merchants and the Mathers accused Dudley of being in league with smugglers and others who were illegally trading with the French, in part because he specifically refused permission for Church to attack the Acadian capital and commercial center of Port Royal.  He sought to forestall these criticisms in 1707 when he sent the colonial militia on a fruitless expedition against Port Royal.  In 1708, a bitter attack on his administration was published in London entitled The Deplorable State of New England by reason of a Covetous and Treacherous Governor and Pusillanimous Counsellors, as part of a campaign to have him recalled.  Dudley again rallied the provincial militias for a planned expedition against Quebec in 1709, but the supporting expedition from England was called off.  Support arrived from England in 1710, and a successful siege led to the fall of Port Royal and the beginning of the Province of Nova Scotia.

Boston was again the organizing point for a Quebec expedition in 1711 combining British and provincial forces. The expedition failed disastrously, however, when some of its transports foundered on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River.  During the war, Dudley also authorized expeditions against the Abenakis of northern New England, but these were largely ineffective.  The war quieted to some extent after the fall of Port Royal, with only small raiding parties hitting frontier communities, and peace came in 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht.

Dudley negotiated a separate peace with the Abenakis at Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1713.  He hoped to separate the western Kennebec tribe from French influence and consequently adopted a fairly hard line, threatening to withhold trade that was vital to their survival and reiterating claims of British sovereignty over them.  The Treaty of Portsmouth (1713) resulted from those negotiations and repeated the claims of sovereignty. Dudley claimed that the French had ceded Abenaki lands as part of Acadia, and one sachem responded: "The French never said anything to us about it, and we wonder how they would give it away without asking us".  Nevertheless, Dudley and succeeding governors treated the Abenaki as British subjects, and friction persisted over British colonial expansion into Maine which flared into Dummer's War in the 1720s.

Other issues

The war worsened currency and finance problems in Massachusetts.  The province had been issuing paper currency since the 1690s, and the issue of large amounts of this currency was causing it to depreciate compared to precious metals used in other currencies.  The situation caused a division between the colonists and the governor which was not repaired until the 1760s.  Business leaders who borrowed money were happy to pay it back later with depreciated currency, while lenders sought reforms to stabilize the currency.  In 1714, Dudley's opponents proposed that a bank should issue as much as £50,000 in currency, secured by the shareholder's real estate properties.  Dudley was opposed to this scheme, and instead convinced the provincial legislature to issue £50,000 in bills of credit.  The financially powerful interests whom he upset with this move proved to be his downfall.

In 1713, surveys determined that the border between Massachusetts and the Connecticut Colony had been incorrectly sited in the 17th century, and that Massachusetts had consequently distributed lands that actually belonged to Connecticut.  Dudley and Connecticut Governor Gurdon Saltonstall negotiated an agreement in which Massachusetts would retain those lands but would grant to Connecticut an equivalent amount of land.  The Equivalent Lands amounted to over  on either side of the Connecticut River in northern Massachusetts, southeastern Vermont, and southwestern New Hampshire.  These lands were auctioned off in April 1716, and Connecticut used the proceeds to fund Yale College.

Dudley's commission expired in 1714, six months after the death of Queen Anne, as did that of Lieutenant Governor William Tailer.  The governor's council was dominated by his political opponents, and they asserted its authority at that point. They assumed control of the government on February 14, 1715 under the provisions of the provincial charter concerning governance in the absence of the governor and his lieutenant.  Just six weeks later, news arrived from England that Dudley's commission had been temporarily confirmed by King George I, and he was reinstated on March 21.

However, Dudley's political opponents were active in London, especially those involved in the land bank proposal, and they convinced the king to appoint Colonel Elizeus Burges as governor later in the year.  Burges' commission was proclaimed in Boston on November 9, 1715, ending Dudley's commission.  Burges was not in the colony, so governance fell to Lieutenant Governor Tailer whose commission had been renewed.  Jonathan Belcher and Jeremiah Dummer, the brother of Dudley's son-in-law William Dummer, bribed Burges to resign his commission without leaving England in April 1716, and a new commission was issued to Samuel Shute, who promised to oppose attempts to introduce the land bank.  He arrived in the colony and assumed the post of governor in October 1716, with William Dummer as his lieutenant.

Dudley retired to the family home in Roxbury.  He acted as an informal advisor to Governor Shute upon his arrival, and made appearances at public and private functions.  He died in Roxbury on April 2, 1720 and was buried next to his father in Roxbury's Eliot Burying Ground, accompanied with the pomp and ceremony appropriate to his position.

Family and legacy
In 1668, Dudley married Rebecca Tyng, who survived him by two years. They had 12 children, 10 of whom survived to adulthood.  His son Paul served as attorney general and chief justice of Massachusetts,  and Dudley, Massachusetts is named for his sons Paul and William, who were its first proprietors.

Dudley owned large tracts of land in Massachusetts when he died, principally in Roxbury and Worcester County.  The Worcester properties he purchased from the Nipmuc in partnership with William Stoughton, and he was granted land in Oxford, Massachusetts for the purpose of settling French Huguenots.  He frequently used his position to ensure that his land titles were judicially cleared, especially when president of the dominion and governor of the province. This was a practice that also benefited friends, relatives, and business partners.  Edward Randolph wrote that it was "impossible to bring titles of land to trial before them where his Majesties's rights are concerned, the Judges also being parties."

Historian John Palfrey wrote that Dudley "united rich intellectual attributes with a groveling soul", forging political connections and relationships in his early years for the purpose of his own advancement.  He capitalized on his favorable family connections to the Puritan leadership of Massachusetts to establish connections in England, but then betrayed those Massachusetts connections when it became necessary to further his quest for power.  Thomas Hutchinson also served as provincial governor and wrote an extensive history of Massachusetts; he wrote that Dudley "had as many virtues as can consist with so great a thirst for honour and power."  Biographer Everett Kimball adds that Dudley "possessed a good deal of tact and personal charm, by which, when everything else failed, he could sometimes transform an enemy into a friend."


Choi Soo-min

Choi Soo-min (also Choi Su-min, ; born April 12, 1981) is a South Korean former swimmer, who specialized in backstroke events. She won a bronze medal, as a 17-year-old, at the 1998 Asian Games, and later represented South Korea at the 2000 Summer Olympics.

Choi made her own swimming history at the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok, Thailand, where she captured a bronze medal in the 100 m backstroke at 1:03.37, finishing behind Japanese duo Mai Nakamura and Tomoko Hagiwara by more than a full body length.

At the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Choi swam only in the women's 200 m backstroke. She achieved a FINA B-cut of 2:15.71 from the Asian Championships in Busan. She challenged seven other swimmers in heat three, including Hagiwara, Australia's top favorite Clementine Stoney, and Romania's Diana Mocanu, who later dominated the backstroke double at these Games. Racing against some of the toughest swimmers in her heat, Choi struggled to keep up her pace on the outside lane, and eventually rounded out the field to last place in a time of 2:26.42, the slowest of the event's heats. Choi failed to advance into the semifinals, as she placed thirty-fifth overall in the prelims.


Valeria Meza

Valeria Alejandra Meza Cárdenas (born 8 November 1999), known as Valeria Meza, is a Mexican professional football defender who
currently plays for Guadalajara (commonly known as Chivas) of the Liga MX Femenil, the first professional women's soccer league in Mexico. She also plays for the Mexico women's national under-20 football team. In 2017, she helped elevate Chivas to the first professional women's soccer championship in the country. Chivas won the final in front of a record-breaking 32,466 spectators.

Playing career

Guadalajara, 2017–
Meza began playing for Guadalajara during the inaugural season of Liga MX Femenil. In July 2017, she helped the team win the inaugural Tapatío Women's Classic.

Honours

Club
Guadalajara
Liga MX Femenil: Apertura 2017

Notes


The Key to Perfection

The Key to Perfection is a promo album by Swiss electronic duo Yello, released on 4 September 2012. It was not released on a label, and was distributed by Volkswagen officials at special events. The record contains additional vocals by Billy Mackenzie (on track 3), Heidi Happy (on track 4), and Malia (on track 7).

Background
The Key to Perfection is a soundtrack for the new VW Golf 7. The album has all new remixed modern versions of celebrated songs: "The Race", "Oh Yeah/Goldrush", "Vicious Games", and "Desire". All the classic songs have been re-imagined in a new modern style.

Track listing


Margaret Reid (scientist)

Professor Margaret Reid from Swinburne University of Technology (Melbourne, Australia) is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. She is known for her pioneering work in new fundamental tests of quantum theory, including teleportation and cryptography.

Career
Reid graduated from the University of Auckland with an MSc in theoretical physics and then undertook PhD studies in New Zealand with Dan Walls FRS, graduating in 1984. She developed theories for the generation of squeezed states of light and quantum non-demolition measurement. Following several years as a lecturer at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, she was awarded an Australian QEII Fellowship to do research at the University of Queensland. She later became a researcher with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Quantum and Atom Optics at the University of Queensland. She is currently Professor at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne and works as a researcher within the Centre for Quantum and Optical Sciences.

Research
Reid's work has focussed on the fundamental tests of quantum mechanics, including of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox and Bell's theorem, based on parametric down conversion and quantum optics. On working with squeezed states of light in the 1980s, Reid thought of a way to test for the original Einstein's entanglement, after noting scientists were able to amplify and detect the tiny quantum fluctuations of optical amplitudes.
Experiments since have confirmed this mesoscopic type of Einstein's entanglement in a range of environments, which enables a closer to understanding to Schrödinger's cat.

Einstein's scepticism about quantum mechanics may lead to an ultra-secure internet suggests a new paper by researchers from Swinburne University of Technology and Peking University.

In a landmark publication, Reid's research group outlined Einstein's reservations about quantum mechanics in a phenomenon known as "'spooky' action at a distance".  In 1935 Einstein and researchers highlighted a 'spooky' theory in quantum mechanics, which is the strange way entangled particles stay connected even when separated by large distances.

In this paper, theoretical proof that such messages can be shared between more than two people and may provide unprecedented security for a future quantum internet is provided for the first time.

In the 1990s, scientists realised one can securely transmit a message through encrypting and using a shared key generated by Einstein's strange entanglement to decode the message from the sender and receiver. Using the quantum key meant the message was completely secure from interception during transmission.

Sending Einstein's entanglement to a larger number of people means the key can be distributed among all the receiving parties, so they must collaborate to decipher the message, which makes the message even more secure.

The report that a secure message can be shared by up to three to four people, opening the possibility to the theory being applicable to secure messages being sent from many to many. The message will also remain secure if the devices receiving the message have been tampered with, like if an iPhone were hacked, because of the nature of Einstein's spooky entanglement.

Discovering that it can be applied to a situation with more parties has the potential to create a more secure internet – with less messages being intercepted from external parties.

Honours
Reid was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in May 2014. Fellowship is a great accomplishment for any Australian scientist, but Reid sees it as further recognition for women scientists.
"The idea that women are in any way inferior when it comes to doing physics or mathematics is a complete myth. Unfortunately, a big problem is that not all the great achievements made by the women physicists of the last century were properly recognised. But that has and will continue to change as more and more women are recognised for their contributions to science."


Swan 100

The Swan 100 was designed by German Frers and built by Nautor's Swan and first launched in 2002. Originally launched as th 100RS the S and FD version were later developed to use the hull moulding.


Jaime (1999 film)

Jaime is a 1999 Portuguese drama film directed by António-Pedro VasconcelosA woman takes her young son, leaves her husband and moves in with her lover. The boy, desperate to get his parents back together, becomes convinced that if only he can get his father’s stolen motorcycle back everything will be fine again, so he sets out to get enough money to buy his father a new one. unsentimental tale about underage street kids in Portugal. The film opens with a teenaged worker at a bakery getting dumped off at a hospital after losing his finger. The boss instructs the youth's father to tell the doctors that he lost his digit playing with a knife, but fearing an investigation, the boss subsequently dumps his other underage workers, including 13-year old Jaime (Saul Fonseca). Jaime is struggling to mend his tattered family. His mother threw his father out of the house and has taken up with a disreputable Brazilian. His heartbroken father moved into a shack and has been unemployed since his moped was stolen. Jaime's hopes that he could reunite his family by buying his dad a replacement scooter are dashed when the Brazilian steals his cash; Jaime subsequently moves out of his mom's place and in with his father. Meanwhile, Jaime and his sidekick Ulisses (Sandro Silva) sleep during their days at school and look for job opportunities at night.. It was released on 9 April 1999.

Cast
Saul Fonseca
Sandro Silva
Fernanda Serrano
Joaquim Leitão
Nicolau Breyner

Production
It had a budget of $377,000,000.

Reception

Accolades


Toronto Lake (Kansas)

Toronto Lake is a flood control lake in southeast Kansas, primarily in Woodson County.  It is located on the Verdigris River about 4 miles southeast of Toronto, Kansas.  The lake is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

History
Toronto Lake was authorized in the Flood Control Act of 1941.  Construction started on the lake in November 1954 and it was completed in February 1960.  In addition to flood control, the lake serves for recreational purposes, to improve water quality, and potentially to supply water.


Mr. Pacman

Mr. Pacman is a bitpop/gamewave (or as the band calls themselves, "8-bit hero gangsta rock") band from Denver, Colorado. Described as a performance art project as well as a band, Mr. Pacman's live shows include martial arts fighting with monsters, outrageous 1980s-style retro-futuristic outfits, and their signature Commodore 64-inspired electronic music with a rock attitude. Although most musicians who use the MOS Technology SID chip do so only in the studio, Mr. Pacman uses a SidStation, controlled by his keytar, live on stage, and the Silver Ghost uses a Commodore SX-64 as a bass synthesizer. (Daniel Eriksson, who helped design the SidStation, was the first to use a Sidstation live on stage, at mekke 2000; Goto80 was the first to use a SID chip live onstage at the ECC in 1993.) Many Mr. Pacman songs are based on songs from classic video games, such as the Mega Man series.

Biography
Mr. Pacman started out as a project by film school student Avery Rains in 2001 who rapped over Commodore 64 video game music. After one such performance, some Japanese exchange students remarked, "Mr. Pacman is awesome!". The name stuck, and Mr. Pacman now says he's from "Denver, Japan". A running gag based on this is the intentional use of Engrish in the band's e-mail newsletters . Since 2001, the band has expanded to 4 members, adding first the Silver Ghost, then White Tiger, and finally Cockroach 3030 (now known as Anarchy Dragon).

Denver alternative newspaper Westword named Mr. Pacman "Best Bizarro Fashion/Rock Act" in 2002 as part of its "Best of Denver" awards; Mr. Pacman has not won a Best of Denver since. The Denver Post has put Mr. Pacman on its Top 10 Underground Bands of Colorado list every year since 2002, placing 7th that year, 5th in 2003 & 2004, 8th in 2005 & 14th in 2006. Mr. Pacman played keytar on the Hot IQs track "The New One" in 2004.

In May 2005, the short film "Half Hour of Power" (called a "violent children's show" by the band) was included with the music video "No Ghosts!" and an interview with Mr. Pacman, among other band-related videos, on Dropframe, a local Emmy-winning PBS show featuring indie films. Mr. Pacman currently hosts Extreme Karaoke Challenge Monday nights at 9 PM at the hi-dive, 7 South Broadway in Denver.

Discography

Turbotron EP (2002)

Intro
Turbotron
Pacman Rap (Shout-out by Wesley Willis)
Neurotica
Be the Zero
O.P.A (Original Party Animal)
Welcome to the Future (Sucks)
The End
Girls That Go Boom (featuring Ozzy Osmond)

*Trivia: The cover photo was taken on a karaoke night at Armida's Mexican Restaurant in Denver "just prior to getting kicked out". O.P.A. is a mix of 6 different performances of the song at the Scott Baio Army Fourth of July party; during the instrumental for each, Mr. Pacman chugged a 40-oz. malt liquor.

7" vinyl split with Magicyclops

Mr. Pacman:  Baby's on Fire (Originally by Brian Eno)
Magic Cyclops:  Abracadabra (Originally by Steve Miller Band)

Star Hustler (2003)

Gangsta Pac (Contains a sample from the movie Colors)
(rock) Star Hustler (with Magicyclops)
Pacman Densu (feat. Monotrona)
Lifeless
Pacman Power
Be the Hero (feat. Sara Thorpe; a Fischerspooner-like reinterpretation of "Be the Zero" from Turbotron)
Turbo Attack!
Mr. Pacman International
No Ghosts!
Luxury Car
Pacman Birthday (feat. Monotrona)
The Ninja
Paxcercise (feat. Bebe & Serge; based on "Deflektor" by Ben Daglish)
(porn) Star Hustler (feat. Sara Thorpe & Claudine; an alternate version of "(rock) Star Hustler")
Let's Go! (various video game samples)
Songjacked

*This is an enhanced CD. Included on the disc are the videos for Be the Hero, No Ghosts!, Luxury Car, and Paxcercise. The album was named 2003's Best Local CD of the Year by the Denver Post. The "limo tank" on the cover was a toy designed & built by Greg Hignight. It is said to shoot diamonds and run on Hennessy Private Reserve.

Future projects
Mr. Pacman plans to make 4 total episodes of Half Hour of Power, the first of which premiered at the Denver Visual Music Festival in 2004; each episode will star a different band member. Three new albums are in the works: the heavy metal Crotch Rocket, the Caribbean-flavored Mr. Pacman Goes to Jamaica, & Mr. Pacman's Christmas in Japan. No release dates have been announced yet for any of these.

PacFashion

Since 2002, Mr. Pacman has presented both original fashions, pieces from local designers, and (one year) his collection of Power Rangers monster costumes in the annual PacFashion show. The shows' fashions are inspired by science fiction, anime, and video games, and include musical performances by Mr. Pacman as well as other indie bands.

External links
Official website
"Paxcercise" music video


Hunter Cantwell

Hunter Cantwell (born December 30, 1985) is a former American football quarterback. After playing college football for the Louisville Cardinals, he was signed by the Carolina Panthers as an undrafted free agent in 2009. He spent most of the 2009 season on the team's practice squad, and was promoted to the active roster late in the season. Cantwell was signed to the Baltimore Ravens' practice squad in 2010 and 2011 before becoming the quarterbacks coach for Campbellsville University. Later on, Cantwell served as head coach at Carroll County High in Kentucky in 2017 and 2018, and is currently the head coach at Christian Academy of Louisville.

Early years
Cantwell prepped at Paducah Tilghman High School in Paducah, Kentucky, where he became the school's all-time passing leader, completing 458-756 passes, for 7,272 yards, and 70 touchdowns. He set the Kentucky 3-A state playoff record for passing yards in a game (409) while going 31-8 as a starter.

College career
Cantwell walked on to the Louisville Cardinals football team prior to the 2005 season. On November 25, 2005, QB Brian Brohm injured his leg in a game against Syracuse and was out for the rest of the season. Cantwell stepped in and completed 3 of 5 passes for 66 yards, helping the Cardinals to a 41-17 victory. On December 2, 2005, Cantwell started the season finale on the road against the Connecticut Huskies, completing 16 of 25 passes for 271 yards and 1 touchdown, aiding Louisville in a 30-20 win. In the 2006 Gator Bowl against Virginia Tech Hokies, Cantwell played well, throwing for 216 yards and 3 touchdowns. Despite his efforts, Virginia Tech won the game, 35-24. He was voted the Cardinals MVP of the Gator Bowl.

On September 16, 2006, after Brohm suffered a thumb injury against Miami, Cantwell went into the game and completed 3 of 4 passes for 113 yards and 1 touchdown. Louisville defeated Miami, 31-7. Cantwell started the next two games for the Cardinals, both on the road, against Kansas State and Middle Tennessee State. Against the Wildcats, he completed 18 of 26 passes for 173 yards and 1 touchdown in a 24-6 Louisville win. Against the Blue Raiders, Cantwell completed 17 of 32 passes for 340 yards and 3 touchdowns, leading the Cardinals to a 44-17 rout. Cantwell helped lead the Cardinals in winning games for most of the 2006 regular season. The Cardinals finished the season 12-1, losing only to Rutgers, which helped the Cardinals win an Orange Bowl bid, the highest ranked Bowl Game Louisville has played in. The Cardinals won the 2007 Orange Bowl against Wake Forest 24-13 under Brohm.

In 2007, Cantwell played sparingly in a disappointing 6-6 season for the Cardinals. He  was nominated for the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award and the Maxwell award in the 2008 preseason.

After leading the team to a 5-2 start, the Cards lost their last five games to finish 5-7, making it the first time since 1996-97 the Cardinals football team missed a bowl game in consecutive years.

Professional career

Carolina Panthers
After going undrafted in the 2009 NFL Draft, Cantwell signed a three-year contract with the Carolina Panthers. He was waived during final cuts on September 5 and re-signed to the practice squad the following day. The Panthers promoted Cantwell to the active roster on December 24 after quarterback Jake Delhomme was placed on injured reserve. Cantwell was waived during final cuts on September 4, 2010.

Baltimore Ravens
On September 5, 2010, Cantwell was signed to the Baltimore Ravens practice squad, waived on September 9, 2010, and then signed back onto the practice squad on September 14, 2010. Cantwell was cut September 3, 2011, and signed to the practice squad again the next day.
On September 29, Cantwell was cut from the Ravens' practice squad.

Coaching career
Cantwell had a contract offer from the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 2012 offseason, but chose instead to become the quarterbacks coach for the Campbellsville University football team. He later served as head coach at Carroll County High School in Kentucky from November 2016 to 2018, and was hired as the head coach at Christian Academy of Louisville in March 2019.