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Palais Ephrussi
1, University Ring 14
Architect Theophil Hansen 1873
Family:
Address: Franzensring to Universitätsring
Progenitor Ephrussi-Sephardic Greek from Russia
Family tree - family vault at the Central Cemetery
Ignaz leaves the palace built on the ring
Viktor is arrested by the Nazis
The hare with amber eyes
Palais:
A small but fine Heinrichshof - Förstersche group
The neighbor: Palais Lieben
Piano nobile in inconspicuous 1 floor
Interior of Hitler's Professor
Location: Story of the Schottentor
From Franzensring to Universitätsring
The Ephrussi family name is relatively unknown in Vienna.
The Palais Ephrussi, so the building at the ring road, however, many Viennese is familiar, was there but housed the administration of Casinos Austria from 1969 to 2009 housed. The company inscription 'decorates' still the facade.
Today, the property is home of a law firm, led by the President of the Bar Association Gerhard Benn-Ibler.
Students across the university is probably more known McDonald, who has rented the ground floor of the adjacent house.
At that time the palace was at Franzensring. It began at the Parliament and reached to the university. In 1934 one part of it was renamed in Dr. Karl Lueger-Ring. This remained so until 2012. Now it's called University Ring.
The other part even had a more eventfull naming:
1934 Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Ring
1940 Josef Bürckel-Ring
1945 Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Ring
1949 Parliament-Ring
1956 Dr. Karl Renner Ring
Palais Ephrussi, opposite the University
Progenitor Ephrussi - Sephardic Greek from Russia
Ephrussi sounds strange and a bit exotic. One does not really know how to write the word, if you have not seen it before. Hardly anyone suspects that the ancestor of the dynasty, Charles Joachim (1792 - 1864), from Odessa in Russia was - and yet less that this was a Sephardic Greek.
He built a business empire, beginning with grain exports from Ukraine, then investing in the construction of infrastructure: bridges, railways, port facilities. And this, of course, also included the establishment of a bank - with offices in Paris and Vienna.
Offices in Paris - Vienna - Odessa
Pedigree
1. generation
Charles Joachim (1792 - 1864)
2. generation
Ignaz (1829 - 1899)
Leon (1826 - 1878)
3. generation
Viktor (1860 - 1945)
Charles (1849 - 1905)
4. generation
Elisabeth Waal (1899 - 2001)
Ignaz Ephrussi 'Iggie' (1906 - 2011)
5. generation
Victor de Waal
6. generation
Edmund de Waal (1964 - )
Son Ignaz has built the palace
Son Ignaz (1829 - 1899) took over in 1860 the financial transactions in Vienna, his brother Leonid (1826 - 1878) went to Paris and became 'Leon'
As the progenitor Charles died, he was laid to rest in the family vault Ephrussi at the Central Cemetery, not far from the gate 1
(There were later also Ignaz and his wife Emilie, born Porges 1836-1900, buried.)
Ephrussi family vault at the Central Cemetery, Gate 1
Son Ignaz was now head of the Viennese house and reputable in society. He was knighted by the emperor, bestowed him in 1871 with the Order of the Iron Crown, Third Class - although Ignaz throughout his life remained Russian citizen.
Economically he experienced a further upswing, founded more stores, also in London. It is said that the Ephrussi were the second richest banking family after the Rothschilds.
Therefore Ignaz could afford it to take on one of the most successful Ringstrasse architects, Theophil Hansen, 1869 for the construction of his palace. This one had a year earlier started with the construction of the Palais Epstein.
Apart from that Hansen had by his Athens stays good contacts with the Greek society of Vienna and came so to orders such as the Palais Sina am Hohen Markt or the Greek Orthodox Church at the meat market (Fleischmarkt).
Hansen Memorial, Parliament (detail)
Netsuke figurines come in the family
Around the time of the Palais building acquired Ignaz' extremely art-loving cousin Charles (1849 - 1905), who could afford to live as a bohemian and did not have to work, a collection of small carved Japanese figures, netsuke. Those were used in the attachment of kimono belts and were made of ivory, jade or horn.
As heritage (Note: according to other sources, as a gift ) within the family this exotic extravaganza came to Vienna's Palais, where Ignaz resided with family.
Son Victor is arrested by Nazis
In the family Ephrussi it came again to an alteration of generations: Viktor (1860-1945) took over the house. He was with Emilie, called 'Emmy', a born Schey, married.
The marriage was not happy, allegedly, in a manner of speaking the bride was in love with another man. Nevertheless, rapidly three children were born, almost 20 years later, another son - the father was at this time, however, almost certainly Emmys lover (but it was not talked about it).
The family survived reasonably sound an safe to the end of the monarchy, the first World War and the interwar period. But in 1938 came the Nazis, arrested the nearly 80-year-old Viktor in his palace and looted his valuables .
Viktor von Ephrussi
Against the Gestapo violence there were no means, only stratagems: Viktor's maid Anna scurried over and over again among the henchmen.
She succeeded every time to hide some of the small netsuke figurines under her apron, which she then hid in her room.
And she did not say a word to any of them. Not even the stately family.
Viktor was arrested, interrogated in the Hotel Metropol at Morzinplatz and forced to renounce all of his possessions in order to obtain an exit permit.
For his wife Emmy finally all of this became too much. She swallowed an increased dose of heart medications and died.
The Hotel Metropol as an interrogation center
The hare with amber eyes
Viktor was able to flee to England, where he died shortly before the end of the war. His daughter Elizabeth married into the Dutch family de Waal.
She returned in 1945 after the war to Vienna. In the meantime offices of the U. S. Army had moved Into the palais. Vienna should now remain occupied for ten years. Some of the old furnitures were still there. And Anna, the maid.
She handed out Elizabeth the netsuke figures which she could hide then. 264 by the number. A courageous woman. And no one knows her last name. Nobody has asked her for it.
Elizabeth's grandson Edmund has written the story of six generations in the book 'The Hare with the Amber Eyes'. A bestseller: sold 200 000 times.
The Bestseller
Netsuke Figures (Bid: Asian shop Bräunerstraße)
The war-damaged palace was in 1950 returned to the family. Meanwhile impoverished, it had to sell it for only $ 30 000. Were deferred only a few tapestries and books. For the compulsory expropriation of the bank a compensation of $ 5,000 was paid out - with the commitment that they would make no further claims .
As the palace changed hands in 2009, a sum of about 30 million euros has been rumored.
A small but fine Heinrichshof
The Palais Ephrussi extends on the ring road side over nine window axes, on the Schottengasse eight window axes.
The building is a scaled down version of the Heinrichshof which Hansen 1861-63 had built for the brick Baron Heinrich Drasche opposite the Court Opera (destroyed in 1945).
Heinrichshof, 1863
Palais Ephrussi on the left, then the Förstersche group
Theophil Hansen renounced of an accentuation of the center in favor of monumental tower-like corner projections giving the impression that the building stands free. The corner risalit was a characteristic of the baroque palace architecture (example: Schloss Belvedere). It was Hansen's innovative idea to incorporate this motif into the housing. In the business office at the corner of Schottengasse moved in the large, as well furnished by Hansen Café Hembsch.
University (left), Förstersche group (middle), Café Landtmann (right)
Hansen worked very closely with the architects of the adjacent building groups, which also had familial backgrounds: He was with Sophie, sister of Emil Foerster (1838 -1909) married. The brother took over the design on the ring road side, Carl Tietz on the back side at the Palais Lieben. In the literature, this complex of buildings of aesthetic and formal unity went down in history as the 'Förstersche group'.
Unfortunately, the part of the building complex (No. 10, to Mölkerbastei) was severely damaged by bombing in World War II and replaced by a new building.
Palais Ephrussi with caryatids, next to # 12
University Ring No. 10: New in 1966, Carl Appel
The neighbor: Palais Lieben
View Schottengasse:
Left Palais Lieben (8 window axes), right Palais Ephrussi (8 window axes)
One is inclined to attribute the Palais Ephrussi the entire complex. But on the side Schottengasse it includes only the first eight window axes.
If you look closely you can clearly see this on the basis of the color difference of the facade and the gilded, or not gilded balcony lattices.
Ephrussis' immediate neighbors were at the corner Schottengasse/Mölkerbastei the Lieben family, on the ring road side the Iron Baron Mayr-Melnhof (No. 12), No. 10 owned Theresa Blum (destroyed in 1945).
Corner Mölkerbastei/Schottengasse
Piano nobile in inconspicuous 1st floor
Italian flair with plenty of balconies
University Ring (above), Schottengasse (right)
The palace is through ledges horizontally divided into three zones ( base, 'piano nobile', Attica), nevertheless dominates the vertical order: pilasters embrace the second and third floor and the optical impression is further extended by the Terrakottakaryatiden (Terracotta caryatides) that carry the woodwork.
The entire attic floor lies something set back and is circumscribed by a gilded tendrils grid (the thus created balcony room provides surely a nice residential feeling, moreover, perhaps with a view to the Vienna Woods.)
The color scheme of the facade is particularly eye-catching and gives an Italian flair: red brick color with yellow stucco.
Hansen accentuates with the Palais Ephrussi in the first floor the main entrance and the sides with columns, wearing balconies. The shape of the balusters will be taken up later in the opposite University.
The lower floors were rusticated in the neo-Renaissance style, the appear massive and simple.
On the first floor, above the balcony, were the apartment of the landlord and the representative rooms - and not, as one might suspect, a floor above.
Terracotta Jewelry: The head of Mercury protrudes from the Arkanthusblättern (arcanthus leaves) of the capital. Fruit garlands adorn the tower walls between the pilaster capitals.
Detail balcony lattices
Interior of Hitler's Professor
Entrance hall
Transversely embedded courtyard with a glass roof
1 bedroom
2 Damensalon (ladie's salon)
3 dance lounge (including main entrance)
4 reception room
5 smoking-room, billiard room
6 Dining Room
(Note: In the Palais no tours are possible, only the reception area on the ground floor can be visited during business hours.)
Floor plan main floor
Ignaz Ritter von Ephrussi expressly wished from the architect to his main floor a separate staircase, which must not beeing used by any other house party. For the tenants were to build three floors with a convenient main and kitchen stair. On the ground floor a stable for four horses was provided. There are two basement levels.
For the interior design none other than Christian Griepenkerl was taken that equipped the main floor with painting cycles.
Later this one will Adolf Hitler refuse admission to the Academy of Arts because of "insufficient sample drawings".
The ceiling paintings in the Palais show Greek Zeus adventures and Jewish themes (images from the Book of Esther). In other respects, too, it was made sure that nothing was lacking: precious wood floors, expensive fireplaces, elegant marble - and a lot of gold. Inside and outside.
In sunlight, the balcony lattices shine far into the distance. No other Ringstraßenpalais (ring road palais) afforded this beauty .
Terracotta decorations, detail (Mercury)
Location - history from Schottentor
View before 1900 with still intact Gehtor (walking gate) of the Schottentor (gate).
Tor - Tower - Residential House
In the Middle Ages the Babenberg Jasomirgott took Irish-Scottish monks to Vienna. They founded on the ancient Roman road (traffic artery) leading to the west a convent and a school. The name Schottenviertel became customary.
The Schottentor was a part of the fortification. Mentioned it is for the first time in 1276, from 1291 on it was called the Schottenburgtor (Scottish castle gate), later only Schottentor.
The above the gate situated tower was extended in 1418, 1716 were converted into a house gate and tower, which belonged 1775-95 to the couple Eva and Anton Prohaska and 1812 to Protomedicus Edward Guldner von Lobes.
1839 has been demolished.
Old Schottentor Schottenkloster (monastery) 1683
Already in 1656 had been built a new (outer) gate in front of the old Schottentor. 1840 it was replaced by a neoclassical building, similar to the exterior castle gate.
However, as so inconvenient The five passages at Schottentor proved that the new gate soon, " the 5 follies " was the nickname . Supposedly, have been held to narrow the driving gates. And for pedestrians , it was a zig- zag course .
The new Schottentor was already 20 years after its establishment , in 1862 , demolished, only a Gehtor has been preserved until 1900. Then they demolished the remaining groups together with four houses of Mölkerbastei .
The term Schottentor found today on any street sign, only the metro station at the University bears the name - much to the chagrin of some Vienna tourists from the next station - can be misleading - Scots ring.
Old Schottentor to 1839
Schottentor , plan 1799
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New Schottentor 1840
View Schottengasse with Schottentor ( direction Votive Church ) , circa 1840
View Schottentor - outside, around 1840
View Schottentor - outside, around 1840
Outside, around 1840
Outside, around 1840
▲
New ablation Schottentor 1862
left: Palais Ephrussi
1875 - 1920 : Maximilian Course ( Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, initiated the building of the Votive Church )
1920 - 1934 : Liberty Square
1934 - 1938 : Dollfußplatz
1938 - 1945 : Hermann Goering place
1945 - 1946 : Liberty Square
1946 - Roosevelt Square ( with Sigmund Freud Park )
After the 2nd World War I circulated the following joke in Vienna: A visitor from the provinces asks in a Viennese tram :
" What is the name of the place over there? " "That is the Town Hall Square , formerly Adolf- Hitler-Platz . " A little further asks the visitors again :
" And what is there in the building? " "This is the Parliament , formerly County House . " Again, the tram runs a piece .
" And what is this place?" "This is the Stalin Square , formerly Schwarzenberg Platz . " The visitor gets out and says goodbye with the words:
"Goodbye , formerly Heil Hitler . "
View after 1900
▲
external link : Image Indoors on f1.online
Link :
Alphonse Thorsch
A banker was almost as rich as Rothschild - the extinction
Tomb of Thorsch family , Central Cemetery , Gate 1
▲
sources:
Dehio S 336 , Czeike , Archives Publishing
Viennese palace , W. Kraus, P. Müller, Blanck stone Verlag, 1991
The Ringstrasse , a European architectural idea , Barbara Dmytrasz , Amalthea Verlag, 2008
Vienna in old postcards, Czeike , 1989
Vienna pictures from the youth of our Emperor , Gerlach, 80 born FJ
The Press : The Ephrussi family scattered to the winds
The Standard : Prison of gold
The chief external differences from Mark I lay in the tail wheels, which were not used on Marks II and III and later heavy tanks, the narrower driver's cab and the 'trapezoid' hatch cover on the roof. Only fifty tanks each of Marks II and III were produced. They were unarmoured, in the sense that the steel from which they were built was not heat treated to make it bullet proof. The reason being that these tanks were only intended for use as training machines.
Built as a Male Tank, No. 785. Took part in the battle of Arras, April 1917. Various features, in particular the hinged hatch on the cab roof and internal modifications show that this tank subsequently served in the supply role. Returned to the UK after the war. Exhibited as a Gate Guardian at Chertsey for some years. Around this time it was modified to resemble a Mark I, complete with tail wheel assembly and fitted with sample Male and Female sponsons In this guise it subsequently came to the Tank Museum, bearing the name HMLS Dragonfly. With the arrival of the Mark I Hatfield Tank, it reverted to a Mark II, remained a hermaphrodite, and was later renamed Flying Scotsman when the lettering was detected beneath later layers of paint. Strangely there is no trace of the name Flying Scotsman in 6th Battalion records.
A more detailed account of the wartime history of this tank can be found in Tankette Volume 18, issue number 2.
For more detailof the type see; British Mark I tank 1916 by David Fletcher. New Vanguard 100 (Osprey Publishing 2004 isbn 1 84176 689 5)
The British tanks 1915-19 by David Fletcher (Crowood Press 2001 isbn 1 86126 400 3)
VEHICLES Features
Full Tracked
Tracks/Wheels
2 x 6 pdr (57mm) MG
Armament - Main Weapon Type
Daimler in line double sleeve valve, 6 cylinder
Engine
2 speed main gear box, two secondary gear boxes
Transmission
No sprung suspension
Suspension
4 Machine Guns
Armament - Secondary Weapon Type
Vehicle Statistics
8
Number (Crew)
28tons
Weight (Overall)
3.7mph
Maximum (Speed - Road)
Petrol
Type (Fuel)
10.00mm
Maximum (Armour Thickness)
6pdr
Calibre (Main Gun)
105bhp
Power (Engine Output)
50gall
Volume (Fuel)
23ml
Radius (Range)
332rounds
Number (Projectile)
8.05m
Length (Overall)
4.19m
Width (Overall)
2.44m
Height (Overall)
()
Both figures in this scene come from the VERY nicely detailed 'Ma.K. UP' series of female 1:20 scale characters from Brick Works.
Even though they are not cheap, these figures make nice diorama staff, and since 1:20 scale figures are hard to find at all I ordered a couple of them, including this pilot figure and a mechanic.
The pilot figure was not taken OOB, though, but completely converted: I got hold of the 'Maschinen Krieger Profile 2: Snake-Eye' source book in a local Japanese book store. Beyond 'hard' Snake-Eye facts the source book also contains pictures of the Japanese model Demura Minae in a kind of pilot outfit, made up from a diving wet suit shorty, a pilot helmet and some props. Since I was not totally convinced by the original pilot figure's look, I decided to modify the figure towards this sexy Demura Minae outfit ;)
For the intended conversion, I would not change the original hairdo and the caucasian face. But the main modification were elongated body suit legs for which the small original holster (or whatever it is?) had to go from the left leg. To sculpt the new suit I used nitrous putty, adding seamless 'shorts' to the body suit. Additionally, and a bit inspired by Evangelion plug suits, I added 3 pressure vents at the shoulders and on the breast of the suit.
The rest of details was added from scratch, e .g. the air hose and mask (including a microphone cable, just as on the Demura Minae picture) and the new bigger holster/bag on the upper leg with strappers. Here, parts from leftover 1:35 scale military figures and masking tape found a new home. On the back, I also added a zipper extension, just like the ones you typically find on diving suits for ease of pulling them on and off on your own. This was also made with masking tape, painted red.
I suppose that the diving suit Demura Minae wore during the shooting was all black, but that was a bit too dull and simple for my taste. Closer inspection of the various pictures of this original diving/surf suit revealed a lot of subtle details, therefore most of the suit received a very dark brown basic tone, with lighter highlights and medium brown trim on the arms, as well as thin contrast lines to some black areas. The differences are very subtle.
The figure's skin was painted with Testor's Skin Tone Light, shades and contrasts set with sepia ink.
The hair started with Testor's Rubber (a dark, reddish brown) and then highlighted with Humbrol's 100 (Red Brown) and 132 (Crimson) - a nice contrast to the dark brown suit and the olive drab holster/bag. Finally, the figure received a coat of semi-matte varnish, on order to play with light reflexes on the dark surface.
The orginal two-piece white metal helmet was retained and not modified. It was polished with a brass brush, and the shiny metallic look with painted red contrasts on top make another nice addition to the dark suit - I did not want to use the matte olive and black model from the source book's photo shooting.
The other figure in this scene is a mechanics figure of Brick Works' fine 'Ma.K. UP!' line. Again, details are fine, proportions excellent and the execution clean and crisp! Like the pilot figure, this one is also balanced out very well - it has a stable stand, even without glue under the feet or other tricks.
The original mechanics figure was painted in khaki drab - but as a contrast to the planned concrete hangar diorama scene, as well as to the greyish fighting suits, I painted the overall all blue. Basic tone is Humbrol 96 (RAF Blue), with lighter shades of dry painted blue and gray, and a wash with dark blue and black ink.
The basic figures was not changed, since it looks very pretty and balanced. Only added details include real paper pieces on the clip board, and a small added belt bag under the right arm.
Tanner Blackheart 's ears flick as he walks, the cat in his shoulder mewing every now and then as he explores Midian and Apoc, noting some differences in the city here and there.
Amara was on her PDA at the moment, speaking in fluent Japanese with a client. She nodded when appropriate even though the caller on the other end could not see her.
Toriah whistled on his way down the street, groaning at the fact the pub was closed for whatever reason. He liked that bar; not as many fights. When he turned the corner, Toriah noticed two hybrids. The shorter one he paid no serious mind to, but 609 was front and center. He'd wait and see if she noticed him before trying to get closer.
Tanner Blackheart sighs as he glances around, looking over as he spotted two people. His eyes wandered past Toriah and over to Amara as he smiled warmly, though she hadn't yet noticed him.
Amara walked further into the alleyway to avoid noise and eavesdroppers. What she was discussing in a foreign tongue was not for polite company to hear. She had not noticed anyone was nearby since her back was to the street. Her tails flickered about as her business conversation continued.
Tanner Blackheart frowns a bit, ears twitching, "guess she's busy Midi... maybe we should leave her be... I wonder where the kids are hnn? Bet the great grandkids are all grown up by now..."
Toriah started to follow her. He stopped short when it sounded like the other hybrid knew her as well. Someone so young had grandchildren? "Interesting city this is." he mumbled, staying a clear distance from Amara for now.
Tanner Blackheart wanders forward a bit, lifting an eyebrow at the gentleman and smiling just a bit once he spots Amara's form again, ears twitching, "she's always so busy... bet it's probably something to do with Ashagi... that is if she still runs it or at least works for it..." he lets out, nuzzling the kitten a bit. Neither one of them had changed over the year that they'd been gone from Midian... Midia was still a kitten and Tanner... still the same as ever.
Amara finished her phone call and flipped the PDA shut. She took a deep breath to gather her thoughts; that client had asked for an interesting order. It was not difficult for Ashagi...just unusual. Amara turned to leave, only then spotting Dr. Foster behind her. "...fuck...how long have you been there?!" she asked in a panic, backing away from the pale man.
Toriah quickly closed the gap between them as his left hand moved to circle Amara's waist. "A while." He'd be close enough whether she was caught or not to smell her perfume. "No more vanilla? I was becoming rather fond of it, 609. And I noticed your belly's back to normal- how'd the delivery go?" He smirked, annoyingly confident of the answer. He didn't care about her or the others, but the baby he was interested in. "The family doing well?"
Tanner Blackheart 's ears twitched a bit at Amara's words, not sure if they were directed at him, or the man in front of him. Midia mewed softly as Tanner smiled a bit to the other hybrid watching as the man neared his friend. He narrowed his eyes a bit when the other got too close, tense as he moved forward, "Everything ok Amara?"
Amara cursed under her breath when the doctor forced them to be chest against chest. Seeing the monster was one thing but being near him sent Amara into a mental panic. "Let go of me! What do you care about my family you bastard?!" She flailed, struggling to get out of his strong grip. She had to get away from him before she lost her senses again. Before her old self started to take over. Hearing someone in the distance asking if things were alright, she immediately screamed, "Help!"
Toriah used his height and weight to push his former pet against a wall. "Come now. I'll have none of that." he said, cupping her mouth with his free hand while keeping his weight against her. With 609 pinned down, his focus turned to the other hybrid. "I see you two know each other after all. Strong word of advice, don't interrupt this conversation." A sinister grin curved across his lips. She wasn't pregnant anymore which meant he in turn had no reason to hold back. His right hand moved to the holstered handgun by his hip.
Tanner Blackheart hands instantly went up, gripping the hilts of his sword and bringing them out. He didn't even bother to give the man a warning as he moved. He was fast... very fast and it wasn't long before he slashed forward with one sword. He was aiming for the other’s arm, the moment he saw it wander towards his gun. His eyes weren’t the usual innocent meek ones of the neko Amara had once known… they were filled with strength and confidence now… something the former Tanner had lacked in boatloads.
Toriah had no choice but to move away from his prize when the smaller hybrid charged at him. He barely avoided losing his arm, pulling the weapon free. He fired one shot at the male's shoulder before yelling, "Stay right where you are 609!" He'd been interrupted enough times now to know that fighting back was the best plan of action. He was too close to catching his beloved pet to be bothered by some vigilante now. ((might make sense if I posted before Amara did))
Amara Parmelee: ((okay))
Tanner Blackheart: [[I agree XD]]
Amara flinched, watching the fight while frozen in place. She was terrified of moving after that command. Despite her better judgment, the twin tailed hybrid just whimpered a soft, "Yes...Doctor." She was losing this mental fight already. The distance was closed enough that she could recognize the owner of the other voice. "T-Tanner? Or is it Rennat?" She'd never seen the normally timid neko fight like that before. What had he been doing while away?
Tanner Blackheart sidestepped quickly, his shoulder very lightly grazed by the shot but he didn’t seem to really notice the burning sensation as he used his momentum to turn himself right around and back, swinging both swords forward again, aiming to get the man further from Amara. He didn’t speak a word, the kitten on his shoulder growling, baring her fangs at the man with the gun. The teen's three other personalities had all merged with his original personality finally... he was finally whole.
Toriah backed up when the blades came at him. The dodge was not as successful this time since one of the blades managed to cut at his chest. The torn material of his jacker revealed Tanner had pierced skin. "This is troublesome," he noted, firing two more rounds at Tanner's arms in an attempt to disable him when he charged again. At least he had only one thing to worry about; 609 wasn't going anywhere. "Good girl 609." he added. "You stay out of harm's way, understand? I'll be done shortly."
Amara trembled, clawing into the brick wall like she was bound to it. "Y-Yes Doctor..." How frightened she was. Her feet refused to move. Her heart and mind raced. Everything was telling her that the torment of the past was over but her fragile mind refused to hear it. She'd be punished if she disobeyed him, she believed. Terrible consequences would fall upon her if she thought of going against the doctor's words.
Tanner Blackheart smirked a bit when he felt the blades hit. He whipped around again, ears ringing at the two shots, managing to avoid one but the other hit his left arm, pain shooting through his body. He snarled at the man but focused after a moment, the pain seeming to numb, a gift he got from his Rennat personality who could feel no pain what-so-ever… the rest he could handle… a gift from Tearnn who would fight through any pain. He dashed forward once more at this point, the left sword dropped but his right one slashed at the man, shouting finally, “AMARA! Get out of here! Now!”
Toriah yelled out in pain when the right slash struck deep into his upper left arm. Toriah spun backwards, colliding into the other wall. He panted, wincing at the sharp pains in his chest and arm. "Her name is 609 and she's not going anywhere. Isn't that right, my little fox?" Toriah snickered in a maddening tone, raising his good arm with the gun in hand to take careful aim at the smaller hybrid's leg. "She's not going to hear a word you say." he noted, firing two rounds at the man's thighs in hopes of immobilizing him to some degree.
609 nodded slowly, not speaking a word for or against the thought. Amara had lost. Her body remained where it was, eyes glazed over as her mind transferred to the control of her former self. "Correct Dr. Foster. I will stay...where I am." she stated in a soft monotone-like voice.
Tanner Blackheart gasped out, wincing as one of the shots got his thigh as he attempted to dodge. He dropped to the ground and winced, looking to Amara, seeming completely confused, "w... what? Amara..." he murmured, not sure what to do now as he frowned a bit, trying to focus to force the pain away, "Damn it..."
Toriah laughed at the feline hybrid's look of shock. Casually passing Tanner, he'd holster the gun. "I said this from the start. Don't interrupt. She was always mine, always. You poor unowned lot seem so deeply against ownership, but notice how placid her features are now compared to before." He cupped 609's chin just to show her face to Tanner better. "No more trembling. She's relaxed. Now if you will excuse us..." he offered 609 his elbow. "We need to be going. These cuts you gave me are something of an annoyance. Come 609."
609 nods, taking the doctor's arm as they left Tanner injured on the ground. She didn't know him or why he had been fighting the doctor.
BR Diagram 1/108 unfitted, all-steel, welded, 16 ton mineral wagon No.B577004 (later Internal User No.042207), built by Pressed Steel (Linwood) in 1957, Lot 2922 (later TOPS Code ZHV when in departmental use). The standard BR 16 tonner was built in huge numbers by a very large number of manufacturers in a variety of diagrams (with detail differences but main difference was between welded – the vast majority - or riveted bodies): 2,800 Diag. 1/106 built in 1950-51; 206,444 Diag.1/108 in 1950-59; 15,982 Diag. 1/109 (riveted) in 1950-59; 4,400 Diag. 1/111 in 1950-53; 300 Diag. 1/114 (intended to be fitted but most not) 1951; 100 Diag. 1/116 (riveted aluminium body) in 1953; 8,250 Diag. 1/117 (some fitted) in 1954-57 making a grand total of 238,276! Quickly outdated in the 1960’s, all were withdrawn by 1979 except for several thousand transferred to departmental use (some internal use only) and given TOPS Code ZHO (unfitted) or, mostly, ZHV (fitted). As they were often used to carry heavy stone ballast, rectangular holes were cut mid-way up one side of the body to prevent overfilling (as shown). The last was not withdrawn until 1999.
At the Somerset & Dorset Railway Gala, Midsomer Norton, Somerset 4 July 2021.
Ian's on the road again, wearing different shoes again.
Or something.
Yes, have audit will travel is taking me back to the north west and head office (UK) in Warrington.
I wasn't keen to go, as I would be one of those being audited, rather than being the auditor.
So it goes.
Up even earlier than usual, Jools went swimming first thing, while I woke up and packed.
It was to be a bright if cold day, and the promise of actual snow once I reached Manchester, so that was something to look forward to. No?
Jools dropped me off on the prom so I could have a walk, take some snaps before picking up the car.
It was cold.
Not Canada cold, clearly.
Minus three. And too cold to linger to watch the actual sunrise, so made do with snapping the reflected light of the hotels and a ferry coming into the harbour. I walked over Townwall Street, now cold to the bone, hoping the car hire place would be open on time.
It wasn't, but a couple of minutes later, a guy came to open up and let me inside where it was slightly warmer.
My old ruse of getting an automatic thus getting a larger car was ruined this time was I was given a Toyota Yaris. It struggled to get up Jubilee Way without the engine screaming. You'd better behave yourself for the next three days I told it.
Back home for breakfast, load the car and say goodbye to the cats. One last look, and I was off. The car had no sat nav, so had to use the phone.
Before going to the hotel, I was going to visit a former colleague who lives in Warrington, or nearly St Helens as I found out later, so programmed her address in, and off I went, along our street and towards the A2 and the long slog up to Dartford.
I connected my phone to charge, and straight away tunes from my Apple music store started playing. So, apart from the free U2 album it forced on all users, the rest was good if a little Skids and Velvet Underground heavy.
The miles were eaten up, even if I had to turn the music way up to drown the sound of the screaming engine.
Like all trips, I had something extra to sweeten the time away, and in this case it was a church. But not just any church, as you will see.
I watched a short documentary on Monday about Mary Queen of Scots, and remembered that she had been imprisoned and executed at Fotheringhay Castle in what is now Northamptonshire, and if I went over the Dartford Crossing, up the M11 to Cambridge, then were the A14 crossed the Great North Road, ten miles north was Fotheringhay.
So, I pressed on, under the river and into Essex, then along to the bottom of the M11, and north past Stanstead to Cambridge. Traffic wasn't bad, so I made good time, my phone telling me I would reach Fotheringhay at midday.
Turning off the A1, down narrow lanes, then the view to the church opens up, in what is possibly one of the finest vistas in all of England. St Mary and All Saints, 15th century and in its Perpendicular finest, it looks too good to be that old, but is.
Not only is the church mostly as it was, if plain inside, this was the parish church of the House of York, of several Kings including the final, Richard III.
This is real history.
I crossed over the narrow hump-back bridge that spanned the fast flowing, and nearly flooding, River Neane, into the village and parked outside the church. A set of grand gates lead off the main road to the northern porch, lined with fine trees, naked it being winter.
The tower seems over-large for the Nave and Chancel, it stands 116 feet tall, and is a chonker, the rest of the church seems small beside it, but the interior of the church is a large space, high to its vaulted roof.
I take shots, not as many as perhaps I should, but the church doesn't have centuries of memorials, but does have two House of York tombs, or mausoleums.
I had some time, so I thought I would visit any interesting church I might see before getting back on the A14.
That was the plan.
The road took me round Oundle, which had at least two interesting looking churches, but them being what you might call "urban", I passed both and carried on over the rolling hills of Northamptonshire, much hillier than you might have thought.
Just before the A14, I see a large tower, and a lane lead to the village of Titchmarsh.
Titchmarsh is the name of a very famous TV gardener over here in Britain, not sure if this is where he hails from.
The village itself is set along a long high street, lined with half-timbered houses, most thatched, which was very picturesque.
I parked up, screams from the primary school, out for lunch, filled the air. But I had eyes on the church.
Oddly, on the north side, the churchyard is marked by a haha, or half of one.
A ha?
Certainly not a ditch, but there was a grille in the wall to allow water to get out.
Access to the church was over a small bridge, the grand porch in front.
The door opened easily, and I saw first, lots of wall paintings. Not old, perhaps Victorian.
I set to work taking shots, using the compact to snap close ups of the windows.
In truth, not much of great interest, and I was aware from the radio there being talk of snow.
Better get going and head north.
Back outside, my phone tells me I should be in Warrington by four, my friend, Teresa, wouldn't be home until half past, so I could have another break on the way.
The sat nav took me back to the A14, and from there it is just a 60 mile drive to the bottom of the M6 and then the hike two hours north.
At least it was a sunny day, though clouds were building, and was it my imagination, or did it look like snow falling already?
No, it was snow. big, fat, wet flakes at first, not much to worry about, but I pressed on past Coventry to the toll road, I sopped for half an hour there, enough time to have a drink and some crisps, then back outside where darkness was falling, as well as more snow.
The M6 might have had its upgrade complete, but a trip on it is rarely without delays. And for me, an hour delayed just before Warrington due to a crash, so we inched along in near darkness.
Teresa lived the other side of Warrington, so I had to press on further north, then along other main roads, round a bonkers roundabout before entering the town. Roads were lined with two up/two downs, doors leading straight onto the pavement. Cozy and northern.
They have two dog-mountains, I'm not sure of the breed, but think of something like a St Bernard and go bigger. They had just been for a walk, were damp and happy to be inside, laying on the kitchen floor. Taking up all the kitchen floor.
We talked for an hour, then I received a call from a guy I was supposed to be meeting up with: heavy snow was falling, I should get there sooner than later. So, I said my goodbyes and programmed the route to the hotel. Sorry, resort. Golf resort.
16 miles.
Snow was falling heavy, not too bad on main roads back to the motorway, though traffic on that was only going 40, it was fast enough. But the final six miles was long a main road, but it was covered in snow, with more falling.
The the fuel warning light went on.
Ignore that, I just wanted to get to the hotel safe and have dinner. Not end up in a hedge.
The final mile was very scary, snow only an inch deep, but slippery. There was a gatehouse marking the entrance to the golf club, I turned in and parked in the first space I came to.
Phew.
I checked in, and the place is huge, swish, but full of golfers.
But it does a sideline in conferences, training centre and a hotel. It was full.
I checked in, walked to the room, which is huge, and very comfortable, dropped my bags and went to the bar for dinner of beer and burgers. The place was almost empty, I watched cricket live from South Africa while I ate and drank.
Would I be tempted by the cheeseboard?
I would, dear reader, I would.
To my room to watch the football and relax while snow fell outside.
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Another bike ride into the wilds and wolds of Northamptonshire. I set off from Huntingdon railway station, and after a sixteen mile slog into the wind I crossed the county boundary at Clopton, a church I visited three weeks ago. Now, the real bike ride could now begin. Resisting a revisit to the church, I turned off on a very lonely, narrow lane through the woodlands. The Cambs/Northants borderlands are often like this, remote and lonely, wooded and rolling, devoid of houses outside the villages and with only the rare car, horse or other cyclist. It reminds me of parts of France.
After a couple of miles I came to Titchmarsh, and its splendid church, a big church in a pretty stone village. The tower is enormous ('The finest church tower in England outside of Somerset' - FJ Allen) and there is no spire. The churchyard is surrounded by a haha, with a little bridge across the moat. The church was being prepared for a rock concert, with a stage built up under the tower and tables and chairs in the nave. Not a huge amount to see in any case, although I liked the memorial to a servant who saved his master's life by getting in the way of an assassin's knife, only to later drown in the Nene. As you'd expect in this part of the world, good stone capitals in the arcades, with stiffleaves you could cut yourself on as well as dripping fruit.
And then it was on past the IKEA warehouse ('the largest building in the British Isles') into the town of Thrapston.
Simon Knott, July 2017.
www.flickr.com/photos/norfolkodyssey/35483761652/in/photo...
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The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, standing in a prominent position on the higher ground to the North of the village, has been the centre of the Christian community in Titchmarsh for some 800 years.
The name of Tichmarsh (or the modern version Titchmarsh) seems to date from Anglo-Saxon times when a piece of land was granted to one Ticcea and became known as Ticcea’s marsh (Ticceanmersce, Tychemerche, etc).
The earliest records of the church date from 1240. It was from Tichmarsh that Viscount Lovell left his manor to fight with Richard III at Bosworth. Before that he had employed his Somerset mason to build what Pevsner described as “the noblest village tower outside Somerset”, on top of which in 1588 an Armada beacon was lit.
The church is remarkable for its magnificent tower, its long and lofty clerestory, its spacious chancel, and for its light and uncluttered interior. It also houses a collection of unique and interesting wall monuments, fine stained glass windows and a recently restored 1870 TC Lewis organ. (see separate links)
The building that you see today is not the first church to have existed on this site. The remains of a 12th century doorway in the chancel is the only relic of the Norman building, and the subsequent centuries have each made their distinctive architectural contribution. The building assumed its present appearance when, late in the 15th century, the tower, clerestory and porch were added, and the present perpendicular style windows were inserted. In the late 17th and early 18th century the Pickering family contributed a number of important memorials, including one to John Dryden the poet- laureate, who spent his childhood in Titchmarsh. In the 19th century a number of the windows had stained glass inserted, a vestry was added in the northwest corner, and much of the internal woodwork was replaced (including the pews, recently adapted to provide more mobile seating).
The focus of the church, both architecturally and spiritually, is the Altar. This is God’s table, at which the faithful share in the power of Christ’s Risen Life, by feeding on the Sacrament of his Body and Blood under the forms of bread and wine. The reredos of Caen stone and Derby alabaster (1866) depicts the Old Testament scenes of Melchizedek’s offering of bread and wine, and Abraham’s offering of his only son Isaac, illustrating different aspects of the eucharistic theme.
The semi-circular Norman arch to the south side is a visible reminder that Christian worship has been offered on this site for at least some eight centuries.
The two-level sedilia and the piscine are of the 13th century, as is also the arcading which opens into the north chapel (now occupied by the organ). The opening known as a hagioscope or squint, gave additional visual access from the north chapel to the High Altar. The low, pointed 13th century doorway to the north of the Altar probably led to a tomb or chantry adjoining the Chancel on the north side. Much of this work can be attributed to the patronage of the Lovel family, who were Lords of the Manor from about 1268 until 1485.
Piercing the north-west corner of the Chancel wall are the remains of the stairway which originally led to the Rood-loft.
Dimly discernible in the apex of the Chancel arch is a crowned head. Experts suggest that it most closely resembles Edward IV who died in 1483 when Francis 1st (and only) Viscount Lovel was Lord of the Manor. The last years of the reign of Edward IV covered a peaceful period, favourable to the rebuilding of a church. In 1486 Henry VII granted the Manor of Tichmarsh to Sir Charles Somerset when Francis Lord Lovel who had supported Richard III was deprived of his estates at the end of the War of the Roses. This is the Lovell, who as Richard III’s Chamberlain and friend, was lampooned in the contemporary rhyme:
‘The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell our dog
Rule all England under the Hog’.
The walls and windows of the chancel were much embellished in Victorian times. The stained glass in the chancel windows is all by Messrs. Hardman of Birmingham. The east window depicts Christ’s Nativity, Baptism, Crucifixion and Ascension, and several episodes from the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the church is dedicated. The windows on the south side of the chancel depict various incidents from the New Testament, giving particular prominence to St Mary Magdalene and St Peter.
The reredos of Caen stone and Derby alabaster were completed.
The organ, a good example of the work of TC Lewis was installed and first used in 1870. (fully restored in 2016). We learn from the Parish Magazine that prior to the installation of the instrument, music for Devine service had been supplied by a barrel organ, the introduction of which in 1837 replaced the services of the eight singers who had occupied a musicians gallery under the tower, and sang very loud. Singing was also led by string and woodwind instruments until 1861.
According to the parish magazines, the paintings on the chancel walls were by Miss Agnes Saunders, who was sister-in-law to the Rev. F M Stopford, (rector 1861-1912). The fine limed oak chancel screen was the gift of Canon A M Luckock, (rector 1912-1962).
The North Chapel and Transept
This was largely rebuilt in the 14th century, and now houses many mural memorials to the Pickering family
Gilbert Pickering bought the manor of Tichmarsh from Charles Somerset’s grandson in 1553, and for more than two hundred years it remained in the possession of his descendants. When the direct line came to an end, the estates were acquired in 1778 by Thomas Powys, later the first Lord Lilford.
John Pickering married Susannah Dryden of Canons Ashby in 1609, and twenty-one years later, Susannah’s brother Erasmus married John’s cousin Mary Pickering. Of these unions were born two men well known in the highest circles of their day, the notorious Sir Gilbert Pickering (1613-1668) and the famous John Dryden the poet (1631-1700).
Sir Gilbert was a convinced Parliamentarian, and became Lord Chamberlain to Oliver Cromwell. John Dryden’s upbringing in Tichmarsh is mentioned in one of the memorials. This and another were painted by Sir Gilbert’s daughter, Elizabeth, who became the wife of John Creed.
A woman of talent with needle, pen and brush, Elizabeth Creed was responsible also for the wording of the altar tomb and wall angle memorials of the south aisle as well as the Dryden monument which has been moved to the north transept.
The South Aisle
Here we find Mrs Creed lamenting the death of her husband, a boon companion of Samuel Pepys, of their son Christ’s family. By ancient custom the Font stands near the main (west) door of the physical building, as a reminder that it is through Baptism that we enter Christ’s Church.
The West Window
The tracery of the tower window is 15th century, (extensively restored in 2016). In 1904 the west window was filled with stained glass, the gift of Rev’d F M Stopford to mark his 50th year in Holy Orders. It is a powerful representation of Christ’s Second Coming and the Day of Judgement, and approximately balances the episodes of Christ’s first Advent depicted in the east window. The same firm of artists, Messrs Hardman of Birmingham, was employed for the work, and it is interesting to notice how the passage of some forty years makes a considerable difference in style and taste between the tower window and their earlier work.
The Bells
The tower houses a fine ring of eight bells. All were recast and re-hung in 1913 as a memorial to Rev’d F M Stopford who died in office in 1912 having been rector for 51 years, and a chaplain to Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V. Before recasting, the oldest bells dated from 1688, with additions in 1708 and 1781. The ring was completed in1885 by the gift of two bells in memory of Florence Augusta Stopford, the rector’s first wife. At the same time the present church clock, which strikes the hours and quarters, replaced the previous one made by George Eayre in 1745.
At the base of the tower are some interesting photographs of the re-hanging of the bells.
The South Porch
The original porch was a single storey structure, with window openings to east and west. The upper storey was added in1583 and housed the Pickering family pew, complete with fire place! After the death of the last Tichmarsh Pickerings the wall opening was blocked up. It was reopened in 1931, when Canon Luckock (rector 1912-1962) and his wife put in the present glass panel and hung the massive oak south door as a thanksgiving for their silver wedding. The seating around the walls of the porch is a reminder of its earlier function as a place of meeting.
The Exterior
The large and splendid tower is built in four stages, richly decorated with triple bands of quatrefoils in circles on the ground storey and similar bands on the second and third stages. The niches on the west face contain modern stone figures representing Moses and Aaron, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Peter, and the archangels Michael and Gabriel. The parish magazine for 1901 records that the rector’s wife paid for the replacements by breeding and selling black fantail pigeons.
The ‘crown’, ie. parapet and pinnacles above the fourth stage is considered by experts to date from about 1500. The will of one Thomas Gryndall, dated 1474, bequeaths money towards the building of the tower, probably completed except for the ‘crown’ in about 1480.
The prominence and size of the tower made it a significant landmark. In 1585 when the country prepared to resist the threatened invasion from Spain, the Lord Lieutenant, Sir Christopher Hatton of Kirby Hall, gave order for Beacons to be made in places accustomed and that ‘Tychemershe Beacon’ be sett upon Tychemershe church steeple
On the south wall of the tower is a painted sundial, dated 1798, and below it a disused clock face made in 1745. There are three scratch dials on the south side of the church – on the porch and on two of the buttresses.
The churchyard, which contains many good examples of local stonemasons’ work of the 18th and 19th centuries, is remarkable and perhaps unique in being bounded almost entirely by a ha-ha.
Acknowlegements: The Victoria County History of Northamptonshire; Northamptonshire by Niklaus Pevsner; and to various numbers of the Titchmarsh Parish Magazine; Titchmarsh Past and Present by Helen Belgion, published 1979
titchmarsh.info/church-of-st-mary-the-virgin/church-history/
Grand Canyon National Park, located in northwestern Arizona, is the 15th site in the United States to have been named as a national park. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, which is often considered one of the Wonders of the World. The park, which covers 1,217,262 acres (1,901.972 sq mi; 4,926.08 km2) of unincorporated area in Coconino and Mohave counties, received more than six million recreational visitors in 2017, which is the second highest count of all American national parks after Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Grand Canyon was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. The park celebrated its 100th anniversary on February 26, 2019.
The Grand Canyon became well known to Americans in the 1880s after railroads were built and pioneers developed infrastructure and early tourism. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt visited the site and said,
The Grand Canyon fills me with awe. It is beyond comparison—beyond description; absolutely unparalleled through-out the wide world ... Let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is. Do nothing to mar its grandeur, sublimity and loveliness. You cannot improve on it. But you can keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.
Despite Roosevelt's enthusiasm and strong interest in preserving land for public use, the Grand Canyon was not immediately designated as a national park. The first bill to establish Grand Canyon National Park was introduced in 1882 by then-Senator Benjamin Harrison, which would have established Grand Canyon as the third national park in the United States, after Yellowstone and Mackinac. Harrison unsuccessfully reintroduced his bill in 1883 and 1886; after his election to the presidency, he established the Grand Canyon Forest Reserve in 1893. Theodore Roosevelt created the Grand Canyon Game Preserve by proclamation on November 28, 1906, and the Grand Canyon National Monument on January 11, 1908. Further Senate bills to establish the site as a national park were introduced and defeated in 1910 and 1911, before the Grand Canyon National Park Act was finally signed by President Woodrow Wilson on February 26, 1919. The National Park Service, established in 1916, assumed administration of the park.
The creation of the park was an early success of the conservation movement. Its national park status may have helped thwart proposals to dam the Colorado River within its boundaries. (Later, the Glen Canyon Dam would be built upriver.) A second Grand Canyon National Monument to the west was proclaimed in 1932. In 1975, that monument and Marble Canyon National Monument, which was established in 1969 and followed the Colorado River northeast from the Grand Canyon to Lees Ferry, were made part of Grand Canyon National Park. In 1979, UNESCO declared the park a World Heritage Site. The 1987 the National Parks Overflights Act found that "Noise associated with aircraft overflights at the Grand Canyon National Park is causing a significant adverse effect on the natural quiet and experience of the park and current aircraft operations at the Grand Canyon National Park have raised serious concerns regarding public safety, including concerns regarding the safety of park users."
In 2010, Grand Canyon National Park was honored with its own coin under the America the Beautiful Quarters program. On February 26, 2019, the Grand Canyon National Park commemorated 100 years since its designation as a national park.
The Grand Canyon had been part of the National Park Service's Intermountain Region until 2018.[citation needed] Today, the Grand Canyon is a part of Region 8, also known as the Lower Colorado Basin.
The Grand Canyon, including its extensive system of tributary canyons, is valued for its combination of size, depth, and exposed layers of colorful rocks dating back to Precambrian times. The canyon itself was created by the incision of the Colorado River and its tributaries after the Colorado Plateau was uplifted, causing the Colorado River system to develop along its present path.
The primary public areas of the park are the South and North Rims, and adjacent areas of the canyon itself. The rest of the park is extremely rugged and remote, although many places are accessible by pack trail and backcountry roads. The South Rim is more accessible than the North Rim and accounts for 90% of park visitation.
The park headquarters are at Grand Canyon Village, not far from the South Entrance to the park, near one of the most popular viewpoints.
Most visitors to the park come to the South Rim, arriving on Arizona State Route 64. The highway enters the park through the South Entrance, near Tusayan, Arizona, and heads eastward, leaving the park through the East Entrance. Interstate 40 provides access to the area from the south. From the north, U.S. Route 89 connects Utah, Colorado, and the North Rim to the South Rim. Overall, some 30 miles of the South Rim are accessible by road.
The North Rim area of the park is located on the Kaibab Plateau and Walhalla Plateau, directly across the Grand Canyon from the principal visitor areas on the South Rim. The North Rim's principal visitor areas are centered around Bright Angel Point. The North Rim is higher in elevation than the South Rim, at over 8,000 feet (2,400 m) of elevation. Because it is so much higher than the South Rim, it is closed from December 1 through May 15 each year, due to the enhanced snowfall at elevation. Visitor services are closed or limited in scope after October 15. Driving time from the South Rim to the North Rim is about 4.5 hours, over 220 miles (350 km).
There are few roads on the North Rim, but there are some notable vehicle-accessible lookout points, including Point Imperial, Roosevelt Point, and Cape Royal. Mule rides are also available to a variety of places, including several thousand feet down into the canyon.
Many visitors to the North Rim choose to make use of the variety of hiking trails including the Widforss Trail, Uncle Jim's Trail, the Transept Trail, and the North Kaibab Trail. The North Kaibab Trail can be followed all the way down to the Colorado River, connecting across the river to the South Kaibab Trail and the Bright Angel Trail, which continue up to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
The Toroweap Overlook is located in the western part of the park on the North Rim. Access is via unpaved roads off Route 389 west of Fredonia, Arizona. The roads lead through Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument and to the overlook.
A variety of activities at the South Rim cater to park visitors. A driving tour (35 miles (56 km)) along the South Rim is split into two segments. The western drive to Hermit's Point is eight miles (13 km) with several overlooks along the way, including Mohave Point, Hopi Point, and the Powell Memorial. From March to December, access to Hermit's Rest is restricted to the free shuttle provided by the Park Service. The eastern portion to Desert View is 25 miles (40 km), and is open to private vehicles year round.
Walking tours include the Rim Trail, which runs west from the Pipe Creek viewpoint for about eight miles (13 km) of paved road, followed by seven miles (11 km) unpaved to Hermit's Rest. Hikes can begin almost anywhere along this trail, and a shuttle can return hikers to their point of origin. Mather Point, the first view most people reach when entering from the south entrance, is a popular place to begin.
Private canyon flyovers are provided by helicopters and small airplanes out of Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Grand Canyon National Park Airport. Due to a crash in the 1990s, scenic flights are no longer allowed to fly within 1,500 feet (460 m) of the rim within the Grand Canyon National Park. Flights within the canyon are still available outside of park boundaries.
Arizona is a state in the Southwestern region of the United States. Arizona is part of the Four Corners region with Utah to the north, Colorado to the northeast, and New Mexico to the east; its other neighboring states are Nevada to the northwest, California to the west and the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California to the south and southwest. It is the 6th-largest and the 14th-most-populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix.
Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union, achieving statehood on February 14, 1912. Historically part of the territory of Alta California and Nuevo México in New Spain, it became part of independent Mexico in 1821. After being defeated in the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded much of this territory to the United States in 1848, where the area became part of the territory of New Mexico. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase.
Southern Arizona is known for its desert climate, with very hot summers and mild winters. Northern Arizona features forests of pine, Douglas fir, and spruce trees; the Colorado Plateau; mountain ranges (such as the San Francisco Mountains); as well as large, deep canyons, with much more moderate summer temperatures and significant winter snowfalls. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff, Sunrise, and Tucson. In addition to the internationally known Grand Canyon National Park, which is one of the world's seven natural wonders, there are several national forests, national parks, and national monuments.
Arizona's population and economy have grown dramatically since the 1950s because of inward migration, and the state is now a major hub of the Sun Belt. Cities such as Phoenix and Tucson have developed large, sprawling suburban areas. Many large companies, such as PetSmart and Circle K, have headquarters in the state, and Arizona is home to major universities, including the University of Arizona and Arizona State University. The state is known for a history of conservative politicians such as Barry Goldwater and John McCain, though it has become a swing state since the 1990s.
Arizona is home to a diverse population. About one-quarter of the state is made up of Indian reservations that serve as the home of 27 federally recognized Native American tribes, including the Navajo Nation, the largest in the state and the United States, with more than 300,000 citizens. Since the 1980s, the proportion of Hispanics in the state's population has grown significantly owing to migration from Mexico. A substantial portion of the population are followers of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The history of Arizona encompasses the Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Post-Archaic, Spanish, Mexican, and American periods. About 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, Paleo-Indians settled in what is now Arizona. A few thousand years ago, the Ancestral Puebloan, the Hohokam, the Mogollon and the Sinagua cultures inhabited the state. However, all of these civilizations mysteriously disappeared from the region in the 15th and 16th centuries. Today, countless ancient ruins can be found in Arizona. Arizona was part of the state of Sonora, Mexico from 1822, but the settled population was small. In 1848, under the terms of the Mexican Cession the United States took possession of Arizona above the Gila River after the Mexican War, and became part of the Territory of New Mexico. By means of the Gadsden Purchase, the United States secured the northern part of the state of Sonora, which is now Arizona south of the Gila River in 1854.
In 1863, Arizona was split off from the Territory of New Mexico to form the Arizona Territory. The remoteness of the region was eased by the arrival of railroads in 1880. Arizona became a state in 1912 but was primarily rural with an economy based on cattle, cotton, citrus, and copper. Dramatic growth came after 1945, as retirees and young families who appreciated the warm weather and low costs emigrated from the Northeast and Midwest.
In the Mexican–American War, the garrison commander avoided conflict with Lieutenant Colonel Cooke and the Mormon Battalion, withdrawing while the Americans marched through the town on their way to California. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Mexico ceded to the U.S. the northern 70% of modern-day Arizona above the Sonora border along the Gila River. During the California Gold Rush, an upwards of 50,000 people traveled through on the Southern Emigrant Trail pioneered by Cooke, to reach the gold fields in 1849. The Pima Villages often sold fresh food and provided relief to distressed travelers among this throng and to others in subsequent years.
Paleo-Indians settled what is now Arizona around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. According to most archaeologists, the Paleo-Indians initially followed herds of big game—megafauna such as mammoths, mastodons, and bison—into North America. The traveling groups also collected and utilized a wide variety of smaller game animals, fish, and a wide variety of plants. These people were likely characterized by highly mobile bands of approximately 20 or 50 members of an extended family, moving from place to place as resources were depleted and additional supplies needed. Paleoindian groups were efficient hunters and created and carried a variety of tools, some highly specialized, for hunting, butchering and hide processing. These paleolithic people utilized the environment that they lived in near water sources, including rivers, swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, and drew birds and game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. At the latest by 9500 BCE, bands of hunters wandered as far south as Arizona, where they found a desert grassland and hunted mule deer, antelope and other small mammals.
As populations of larger game began to diminish, possibly as a result of intense hunting and rapid environmental changes, Late Paleoindian groups would come to rely more on other facets of their subsistence pattern, including increased hunting of bison, mule deer and antelope. Nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Hunting was especially important in winter and spring months when plant foods were scarce.
The Archaic time frame is defined culturally as a transition from a hunting/gathering lifestyle to one involving agriculture and permanent, if only seasonally occupied, settlements. In the Southwest, the Archaic is generally dated from 8000 years ago to approximately 1800 to 2000 years ago. During this time the people of the southwest developed a variety of subsistence strategies, all using their own specific techniques. The nutritive value of weed and grass seeds was discovered and flat rocks were used to grind flour to produce gruels and breads. This use of grinding slabs in about 7500 BCE marks the beginning of the Archaic tradition. Small bands of people traveled throughout the area, gathering plants such as cactus fruits, mesquite beans, acorns, and pine nuts and annually establishing camps at collection points.
Late in the Archaic Period, corn, probably introduced into the region from central Mexico, was planted near camps with permanent water access. Distinct types of corn have been identified in the more well-watered highlands and the desert areas, which may imply local mutation or successive introduction of differing species. Emerging domesticated crops also included beans and squash.
About 3,500 years ago, climate change led to changing patterns in water sources, leading to a dramatically decreased population. However, family-based groups took shelter in south facing caves and rock overhangs within canyon walls. Occasionally, these people lived in small semisedentary hamlets in open areas. Evidence of significant occupation has been found in the northern part of Arizona.
In the Post-Archaic period, the Ancestral Puebloan, the Hohokam, the Mogollon and Sinagua cultures inhabited what is now Arizona. These cultures built structures made out of stone. Some of the structures that these cultures built are called pueblos. Pueblos are monumental structures that housed dozens to thousands of people. In some Ancestral Puebloan towns and villages, Hohokam towns and villages, Mogollon towns and villages, and Sinagua towns and villages, the pueblo housed the entire town. Surrounding the pueblos were often farms where farmers would plant and harvest crops to feed the community. Sometimes, pueblos and other buildings were built in caves in cliffs.
The Ancestral Puebloans were an ancient Pre-Columbian Native American civilization that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado. The Ancestral Puebloans are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara tradition, who developed from the Picosa culture.
They lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger structures to house clans, grand pueblos, and cliff-sited dwellings for defense. The Ancestral Puebloans possessed a complex network that stretched across the Colorado Plateau linking hundreds of communities and population centers. They held a distinct knowledge of celestial sciences that found form in their architecture. The kiva, a congregational space that was used chiefly for ceremonial purposes, was an integral part of this ancient people's community structure. Some of their most impressive structures were built in what is now Arizona.
Hohokam was a Pre-Columbian culture in the North American Southwest in what is now part of Arizona, United States, and Sonora, Mexico. Hohokam practiced a specific culture, sometimes referred to as Hohokam culture, which has been distinguished by archeologists. People who practiced the culture can be called Hohokam as well, but more often, they are distinguished as Hohokam people to avoid confusion.
Most archaeologists agree that the Hohokam culture existed between c. 300 and c. 1450 CE, but cultural precursors may have been in the area as early as 300 BC. Whether Hohokam culture was unified politically remains under controversy. Hohokam culture may have just given unrelated neighboring communities common ground to help them to work together to survive their harsh desert environment.
The Mogollon culture was an ancient Pre-Columbian culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico and Arizona, Northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and Western Texas. The northern part of this region is Oasisamerica, while the southern span of the Mogollon culture is known as Aridoamerica.
The Mogollon culture was one of the major prehistoric Southwestern cultural divisions of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. The culture flourished from c. 200 CE, to c. 1450 CE or 1540 CE, when the Spanish arrived.
The Sinagua culture was a Pre-Columbian culture that occupied a large area in central Arizona from the Little Colorado River, near Flagstaff, to the Verde River, near Sedona, including the Verde Valley, area around San Francisco Mountain, and significant portions of the Mogollon Rim country, between approximately 500 CE and 1425 CE. Besides ceremonial kivas, their pueblos had large "community rooms" and some featured ballcourts and walled courtyards, similar to those of the Hohokam culture. Since fully developed Sinagua sites emerged in central Arizona around 500 CE, it is believed they migrated from east-central Arizona, possibly emerging from the Mogollon culture.
The history of Arizona as recorded by Europeans began in 1539 with the first documented exploration of the area by Marcos de Niza, early work expanded the following year when Francisco Vásquez de Coronado entered the area as well.
The Spanish established a few missions in southern Arizona in the 1680s by Father Eusebio Francisco Kino along the Santa Cruz River, in what was then the Pimería Alta region of Sonora. The Spanish also established presidios in Tubac and Tucson in 1752 and 1775. The area north of the Gila River was governed by the Province of Las California under the Spanish until 1804, when the Californian portion of Arizona became part of Alta California under the Spanish and Mexican governments.
In 1849, the California Gold Rush led as many as 50,000 miners to travel across the region, leading to a boom in Arizona's population. In 1850, Arizona and New Mexico formed the New Mexico Territory.
In 1853, President Franklin Pierce sent James Gadsden to Mexico City to negotiate with Santa Anna, and the United States bought the remaining southern strip area of Arizona and New Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase. A treaty was signed in Mexico in December 1853, and then, with modifications, approved by the US Senate in June 1854, setting the southern boundary of Arizona and of New Mexico.
Before 1846 the Apache raiders expelled most Mexican ranchers. One result was that large herds of wild cattle roamed southeastern Arizona. By 1850, the herds were gone, killed by Apaches, American sportsmen, contract hunting for the towns of Fronteras and Santa Cruz, and roundups to sell to hungry Mexican War soldiers, and forty-niners en route to California.
During the Civil War, on March 16, 1861, citizens in southern New Mexico Territory around Mesilla (now in New Mexico) and Tucson invited take-over by the Confederacy. They especially wanted restoration of mail service. These secessionists hoped that a Confederate Territory of Arizona (CSA) would take control, but in March 1862, Union troops from California captured the Confederate Territory of Arizona and returned it to the New Mexico Territory.
The Battle of Picacho Pass, April 15, 1862, was a battle of the Civil War fought in the CSA and one of many battles to occur in Arizona during the war among three sides—Apaches, Confederates and Union forces. In 1863, the U.S. split up New Mexico along a north–south line to create the Arizona Territory. The first government officials to arrive established the territory capital in Prescott in 1864. The capital was later moved to Tucson, back to Prescott, and then to its final location in Phoenix in a series of controversial moves as different regions of the territory gained and lost political influence with the growth and development of the territory.
In the late 19th century the Army built a series of forts to encourage the Natives to stay in their territory and to act as a buffer from the settlers. The first was Fort Defiance. It was established on September 18, 1851, by Col. Edwin V. Sumner to create a military presence in Diné bikéyah (Navajo territory). Sumner broke up the fort at Santa Fe for this purpose, creating the first military post in what is now Arizona. He left Major Electus Backus in charge. Small skirmishes were common between raiding Navajo and counter raiding citizens. In April 1860 one thousand Navajo warriors under Manuelito attacked the fort and were beaten off.
The fort was abandoned at the start of the Civil War but was reoccupied in 1863 by Colonel Kit Carson and the 1st New Mexico Infantry. Carson was tasked by Brigadier-General James H. Carleton, Commander of the Federal District of New Mexico, to kill Navajo men, destroy crops, wells, houses and livestock. These tactics forced 9000 Navajos to take the Long Walk to a reservation at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. The Bosque was a complete failure. In 1868 the Navajo signed another treaty and were allowed to go back to part of their former territory. The returning Navajo were restocked with sheep and other livestock. Fort Defiance was the agency for the new Navajo reservation until 1936; today it provides medical services to the region.
Fort Apache was built on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation by soldiers from the 1st Cavalry and 21st Infantry in 1870. Only one small battle took place, in September 1881, with three soldiers wounded. When the reservation Indians were granted U.S. citizenship in 1924, the fort was permanently closed down. Fort Huachuca, east of Tucson, was founded in 1877 as the base for operations against Apaches and raiders from Mexico. From 1913 to 1933 the fort was the base for the "Buffalo Soldiers" of the 10th Cavalry Regiment. During World War II, the fort expanded to 25,000 soldiers, mostly in segregated all-black units. Today the fort remains in operation and houses the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and the U.S. Army Network.
The Pueblos in Arizona were relatively peaceful through the Navajo and Apache Wars. However, in June 1891, the army had to bring in troops to stop Oraibi from preventing a school from being built on their mesa.
After the Civil War, Texans brought large-scale ranching to southern Arizona. They introduced their proven range methods to the new grass country. Texas rustlers also came, and brought lawlessness. Inexperienced ranchers brought poor management, resulting in overstocking, and introduced destructive diseases. Local cattleman organizations were formed to handle these problems. The Territory experienced a cattle boom in 1873–91, as the herds were expanded from 40,000 to 1.5 million head. However, the drought of 1891–93 killed off over half the cattle and produced severe overgrazing. Efforts to restore the rangeland between 1905 and 1934 had limited success, but ranching continued on a smaller scale.
Arizona's last major drought occurred during Dust Bowl years of 1933–34. This time Washington stepped in as the Agricultural Adjustment Administration spent $100 million to buy up the starving cattle. The Taylor Grazing Act placed federal and state agencies in control of livestock numbers on public lands. Most of the land in Arizona is owned by the federal government which leased grazing land to ranchers at low cost. Ranchers invested heavily in blooded stock and equipment. James Wilson states that after 1950, higher fees and restrictions in the name of land conservation caused a sizable reduction in available grazing land. The ranchers had installed three-fifths of the fences, dikes, diversion dams, cattleguards, and other improvements, but the new rules reduced the value of that investment. In the end, Wilson believes, sportsmen and environmentalists maintained a political advantage by denouncing the ranchers as political corrupted land-grabbers who exploited the publicly owned natural resources.
On February 23, 1883, United Verde Copper Company was incorporated under New York law. The small mining camp next to the mine was given a proper name, 'Jerome.' The town was named after the family which had invested a large amount of capital. In 1885 Lewis Williams opened a copper smelter in Bisbee and the copper boom began, as the nation turned to copper wires for electricity. The arrival of railroads in the 1880s made mining even more profitable, and national corporations bought control of the mines and invested in new equipment. Mining operations flourished in numerous boom towns, such as Bisbee, Jerome, Douglas, Ajo and Miami.
Arizona's "wild west" reputation was well deserved. Tombstone was a notorious mining town that flourished longer than most, from 1877 to 1929. Silver was discovered in 1877, and by 1881 the town had a population of over 10,000. Western story tellers and Hollywood film makers made as much money in Tombstone as anyone, thanks to the arrival of Wyatt Earp and his brothers in 1879. They bought shares in the Vizina mine, water rights, and gambling concessions, but Virgil, Morgan and Wyatt were soon appointed as federal and local marshals. They killed three outlaws in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the most famous gunfight of the Old West.
In the aftermath, Virgil Earp was maimed in an ambush and Morgan Earp was assassinated while playing billiards. Walter Noble Burns's novel Tombstone (1927) made Earp famous. Hollywood celebrated Earp's Tombstone days with John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), John Sturges's Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) and Hour of the Gun (1967), Frank Perry's Doc (1971), George Cosmatos's Tombstone (1993), and Lawrence Kasdan's Wyatt Earp (1994). They solidified Earp's modern reputation as the Old West's deadliest gunman.
Jennie Bauters (1862–1905) operated brothels in the Territory from 1896 to 1905. She was an astute businesswoman with an eye for real estate appreciation, and a way with the town fathers of Jerome regarding taxes and restrictive ordinances. She was not always sitting pretty; her brothels were burned in a series of major fires that swept the business district; her girls were often drug addicts. As respectability closed in on her, in 1903 she relocated to the mining camp of Acme. In 1905, she was murdered by a man who had posed as her husband.
By 1869 Americans were reading John Wesley Powell's reports of his explorations of the Colorado River. In 1901, the Santa Fe Railroad reached Grand Canyon's South Rim. With railroad, restaurant and hotel entrepreneur Fred Harvey leading the way, large-scale tourism began that has never abated. The Grand Canyon has become an iconic symbol of the West and the nation as a whole.
The Chinese came to Arizona with the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1880. Tucson was the main railroad center and soon had a Chinatown with laundries for the general population and a rich mix of restaurants, groceries, and services for the residents. Chinese and Mexican merchants and farmers transcended racial differences to form 'guanxi,' which were relations of friendship and trust. Chinese leased land from Mexicans, operated grocery stores, and aided compatriots attempting to enter the United States from Mexico after the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Chinese merchants helped supply General John Pershing's army in its expedition against Pancho Villa. Successful Chinese in Tucson led a viable community based on social integration, friendship, and kinship.
In February 1903, U.S. Senator Hamilton Kean spoke against Arizona's statehood. He said Mormons who fled from Idaho to Mexico would return to the U.S. and mix in the politics of Arizona.
In 1912, Arizona almost entered the Union as part of New Mexico in a Republican plan to keep control of the U.S. Senate. The plan, while accepted by most in New Mexico, was rejected by most Arizonans. Progressives in Arizona favored inclusion in the state constitution of the initiative, referendum, recall, direct election of senators, woman suffrage, and other reforms. Most of these proposals were included in the constitution that was rejected by Congress.
A new constitution was offered with the problematic provisions removed. Congress then voted to approve statehood, and President Taft signed the statehood bill on February 14, 1912. State residents promptly put the provisions back in. Hispanics had little voice or power. Only one of the 53 delegates at the constitutional convention was Hispanic, and he refused to sign. In 1912 women gained suffrage in the state, eight years before the country as a whole.
Arizona's first Congressman was Carl Hayden (1877–1972). He was the son of a Yankee merchant who had moved to Tempe because he needed dry heat for his bad lungs. Carl attended Stanford University and moved up the political ladder as town councilman, county treasurer, and Maricopa County sheriff, where he nabbed Arizona's last train robbers. He also started building a coalition to develop the state's water resources, a lifelong interest. A liberal Democrat his entire career, Hayden was elected to Congress in 1912 and moved to the Senate in 1926.
Reelection followed every six years as he advanced toward the chairmanship of the powerful Appropriations Committee, which he reached in 1955. His only difficult campaign came in 1962, at age 85, when he defeated a young conservative. He retired in 1968 after a record 56 years in Congress. His great achievement was his 41-year battle to enact the Central Arizona Project that would provide water for future growth.
The Great Depression of 1929–39 hit Arizona hard. At first local, state and private relief efforts focused on charity, especially by the Community Chest and Organized Charities programs. Federal money started arriving with the Federal Emergency Relief Committee in 1930. Different agencies promoted aid to the unemployed, tuberculosis patients, transients, and illegal immigrants. The money ran out by 1931 or 1932, and conditions were bad until New Deal relief operations began on a large scale in 1933.
Construction programs were important, especially the Hoover Dam (originally called Boulder Dam), begun by President Herbert Hoover. It is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border with Nevada. It was constructed by the Federal Bureau of Reclamation between 1931 and 1936. It operationalized a schedule of water use set by the Colorado River Compact of 1922 that gave Arizona 19% of the river's water, with 25% to Nevada and the rest to California.
Construction of military bases in Arizona was a national priority because of the state's excellent flying weather and clear skies, large amounts of unoccupied land, good railroads, cheap labor, low taxes, and its proximity to California's aviation industry. Arizona was attractive to both the military and private firms and they stayed after the war.
Fort Huachuca became one of the largest nearly-all-black Army forts, with quarters for 1,300 officers and 24,000 enlisted soldiers. The 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions, composed of African-American troops, trained there.
During the war, Mexican-American community organizations were very active in patriotic efforts to support American troops abroad, and made efforts to support the war effort materially and to provide moral support for the American servicemen fighting the war, especially the Mexican-American servicemen from local communities. Some of the community projects were cooperative ventures in which members of both the Mexican-American and Anglo communities participated. Most efforts made in the Mexican-American community represented localized American home front activities that were separate from the activities of the Anglo community.
Mexican-American women organized to assist their servicemen and the war effort. An underlying goal of the Spanish-American Mothers and Wives Association was the reinforcement of the woman's role in Spanish-Mexican culture. The organization raised thousands of dollars, wrote letters, and joined in numerous celebrations of their culture and their support for Mexican-American servicemen. Membership reached over 300 during the war and eventually ended its existence in 1976.
Heavy government spending during World War II revitalized the Arizona economy, which was still based on copper mining, citrus and cotton crops and cattle ranching, with a growing tourist business.
Military installations peppered the state, such as Davis-Monthan Field in Tucson, the main training center for air force bomber pilots. Two relocation camps opened for Japanese and Japanese Americans brought in from the West Coast.
After World War II the population grew rapidly, increasing sevenfold between 1950 and 2000, from 700,000 to over 5 million. Most of the growth was in the Phoenix area, with Tucson a distant second. Urban growth doomed the state's citrus industry, as the groves were turned into housing developments.
The cost of water made growing cotton less profitable, and Arizona's production steadily declined. Manufacturing employment jumped from 49,000 in 1960 to 183,000 by 1985, with half the workers in well-paid positions. High-tech firms such as Motorola, Hughes Aircraft, Goodyear Aircraft, Honeywell, and IBM had offices in the Phoenix area. By 1959, Hughes Aircraft had built advanced missiles with 5,000 workers in Tucson.
Despite being a small state, Arizona produced several national leaders for both the Republican and Democratic parties. Two Republican Senators were presidential nominees: Barry Goldwater in 1964 and John McCain in 2008; both carried Arizona but lost the national election. Senator Ernest McFarland, a Democrat, was the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate from 1951 to 1952, and Congressman John Rhodes was the Republican Minority Leader in the House from 1973 to 1981. Democrats Bruce Babbitt (Governor 1978–87) and Morris Udall (Congressman 1961–90) were contenders for their party's presidential nominations. In 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court; she served until 2006.
Retirement communities
Warm winters and low cost of living attracted retirees from the so-called snowbelt, who moved permanently to Arizona after 1945, bringing their pensions, Social Security, and savings with them. Real estate entrepreneurs catered to them with new communities with amenities pitched to older people, and with few facilities for children. Typically they were gated communities with controlled access and had pools, recreation centers, and golf courses.
In 1954, two developers bought 320 acres (1.3 km2) of farmland near Phoenix and opened the nation's first planned community dedicated exclusively to retirees at Youngtown. In 1960, developer Del Webb, inspired by the amenities in Florida's trailer parks, added facilities for "active adults" in his new Sun City planned community near Phoenix. In 1962 Ross Cortese opened the first of his gated Leisure Worlds. Other developers copied the popular model, and by 2000 18% of the retirees in the state lived in such "lifestyle" communities.
The issues of the fragile natural environment, compounded by questions of water shortage and distribution, led to numerous debates. The debate crossed traditional lines, so that the leading conservative, Senator Barry Goldwater, was also keenly concerned. For example, Goldwater supported the controversial Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP). He wrote:
I feel very definitely that the [Nixon] administration is absolutely correct in cracking down on companies and corporations and municipalities that continue to pollute the nation's air and water. While I am a great believer in the free competitive enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment. To this end, it is my belief that when pollution is found, it should be halted at the source, even if this requires stringent government action against important segments of our national economy.
Water issues were central. Agriculture consumed 89% of the state's strictly limited water supply while generating only 3% of the state's income. The Groundwater Management Act of 1980, sponsored by Governor Bruce Babbitt, raised the price of water to farmers, while cities had to reach a "safe yield" so that the groundwater usage did not exceed natural replenishment. New housing developments had to prove they had enough water for the next hundred years. Desert foliage suitable for a dry region soon replaced grass.
Cotton acreage declined dramatically, freeing up land for suburban sprawl as well as releasing large amounts of water and ending the need for expensive specialized machinery. Cotton acreage plunged from 120,000 acres in 1997 to only 40,000 acres in 2005, even as the federal treasury gave the state's farmers over $678 million in cotton subsidies. Many farmers collect the subsidies but no longer grow cotton. About 80% of the state's cotton is exported to textile factories in China and (since the passage of NAFTA) to Mexico.
Super Bowl XXX was played in Tempe in 1996 and Super Bowl XLII was held in Glendale in 2008. Super Bowl XLIX was also held in Glendale in 2015.
Illegal immigration continued to be a prime concern within the state, and in April 2010, Arizona SB1070 was passed and signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer. The measure attracted national attention as the most thorough anti-illegal immigration measure in decades within the United States.
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head during a political event in Tucson on January 8, 2011. The shooting resulted in six deaths and several injuries. Giffords survived the attack and became an advocate for gun control.
On June 30, 2013, nineteen members of the Prescott Fire Department were killed fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire. The fatalities were members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a hotshot crew, of whom only one survived as he was working in another location.
Border crisis: by 2019 Arizona was one of the states most affected by the border crisis, with a high number of migrant crossings and detentions.
Herme. Roman, 2nd Century AD, after Greek original of the 5th Century before Christ.
Austria Kunsthistorisches Museum
Federal Museum
Logo KHM
Regulatory authority (ies)/organs to the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture
Founded 17 October 1891
Headquartered Castle Ring (Burgring), Vienna 1, Austria
Management Sabine Haag
www.khm.at website
Main building of the Kunsthistorisches Museum at Maria-Theresa-Square
The Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM abbreviated) is an art museum in Vienna. It is one of the largest and most important museums in the world. It was opened in 1891 and 2012 visited of 1.351.940 million people.
The museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is with its opposite sister building, the Natural History Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum), the most important historicist large buildings of the Ringstrasse time. Together they stand around the Maria Theresa square, on which also the Maria Theresa monument stands. This course spans the former glacis between today's ring road and 2-line, and is forming a historical landmark that also belongs to World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Vienna.
History
Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Gallery
The Museum came from the collections of the Habsburgs, especially from the portrait and armor collections of Ferdinand of Tyrol, the collection of Emperor Rudolf II (most of which, however scattered) and the art collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm into existence. Already In 1833 asked Joseph Arneth, curator (and later director) of the Imperial Coins and Antiquities Cabinet, bringing together all the imperial collections in a single building .
Architectural History
The contract to build the museum in the city had been given in 1858 by Emperor Franz Joseph. Subsequently, many designs were submitted for the ring road zone. Plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Null planned to build two museum buildings in the immediate aftermath of the Imperial Palace on the left and right of the Heroes' Square (Heldenplatz). The architect Ludwig Förster planned museum buildings between the Schwarzenberg Square and the City Park, Martin Ritter von Kink favored buildings at the corner Währingerstraße/ Scots ring (Schottenring), Peter Joseph, the area Bellariastraße, Moritz von Loehr the south side of the opera ring, and Ludwig Zettl the southeast side of the grain market (Getreidemarkt).
From 1867, a competition was announced for the museums, and thereby set their current position - at the request of the Emperor, the museum should not be too close to the Imperial Palace, but arise beyond the ring road. The architect Carl von Hasenauer participated in this competition and was able the at that time in Zürich operating Gottfried Semper to encourage to work together. The two museum buildings should be built here in the sense of the style of the Italian Renaissance. The plans got the benevolence of the imperial family. In April 1869, there was an audience with of Joseph Semper at the Emperor Franz Joseph and an oral contract was concluded, in July 1870 was issued the written order to Semper and Hasenauer.
Crucial for the success of Semper and Hasenauer against the projects of other architects were among others Semper's vision of a large building complex called "Imperial Forum", in which the museums would have been a part of. Not least by the death of Semper in 1879 came the Imperial Forum not as planned for execution, the two museums were built, however.
Construction of the two museums began without ceremony on 27 November 1871 instead. Semper moved to Vienna in the sequence. From the beginning, there were considerable personal differences between him and Hasenauer, who finally in 1877 took over sole construction management. 1874, the scaffolds were placed up to the attic and the first floor completed, built in 1878, the first windows installed in 1879, the Attica and the balustrade from 1880 to 1881 and built the dome and the Tabernacle. The dome is topped with a bronze statue of Pallas Athena by Johannes Benk.
The lighting and air conditioning concept with double glazing of the ceilings made the renunciation of artificial light (especially at that time, as gas light) possible, but this resulted due to seasonal variations depending on daylight to different opening times .
Kuppelhalle
Entrance (by clicking the link at the end of the side you can see all the pictures here indicated!)
Grand staircase
Hall
Empire
The Kunsthistorisches Museum was on 17 October 1891 officially opened by Emperor Franz Joseph I. Since 22 October 1891 , the museum is accessible to the public. Two years earlier, on 3 November 1889, the collection of arms, Arms and Armour today, had their doors open. On 1 January 1890 the library service resumed its operations. The merger and listing of other collections of the Highest Imperial Family from the Upper and Lower Belvedere, the Hofburg Palace and Ambras in Tyrol will need another two years.
189, the farm museum was organized in seven collections with three directorates:
Directorate of coins, medals and antiquities collection
The Egyptian Collection
The Antique Collection
The coins and medals collection
Management of the collection of weapons, art and industrial objects
Weapons collection
Collection of industrial art objects
Directorate of Art Gallery and Restaurieranstalt (Restoration Office)
Collection of watercolors, drawings, sketches, etc.
Restoration Office
Library
Very soon the room the Court Museum (Hofmuseum) for the imperial collections was offering became too narrow. To provide temporary help, an exhibition of ancient artifacts from Ephesus in the Theseus Temple was designed. However, additional space had to be rented in the Lower Belvedere.
1914, after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne, his " Estonian Forensic Collection " passed to the administration of the Court Museum. This collection, which emerged from the art collection of the house of d' Este and world travel collection of Franz Ferdinand, was placed in the New Imperial Palace since 1908. For these stocks, the present collection of old musical instruments and the Museum of Ethnology emerged.
The First World War went by, apart from the oppressive economic situation without loss. The farm museum remained during the five years of war regularly open to the public.
Until 1919 the K.K. Art Historical Court Museum was under the authority of the Oberstkämmereramt (head chamberlain office) and belonged to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. The officials and employees were part of the royal household.
First Republic
The transition from monarchy to republic, in the museum took place in complete tranquility. On 19 November 1918 the two imperial museums on Maria Theresa Square were placed under the state protection of the young Republic of German Austria. Threatening to the stocks of the museum were the claims raised in the following weeks and months of the "successor states" of the monarchy as well as Italy and Belgium on Austrian art collection. In fact, it came on 12th February 1919 to the violent removal of 62 paintings by armed Italian units. This "art theft" left a long time trauma among curators and art historians.
It was not until the Treaty of Saint-Germain of 10 September 1919, providing in Article 195 and 196 the settlement of rights in the cultural field by negotiations. The claims of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Italy again could mostly being averted in this way. Only Hungary, which presented the greatest demands by far, was met by more than ten years of negotiation in 147 cases.
On 3 April 1919 was the expropriation of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine by law and the acquisition of its property, including the "Collections of the Imperial House" , by the Republic. Of 18 June 1920 the then provisional administration of the former imperial museums and collections of Este and the secular and clergy treasury passed to the State Office of Internal Affairs and Education, since 10 November 1920, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Education. A few days later it was renamed the Art History Court Museum in the "Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna State", 1921 "Kunsthistorisches Museum" . Of 1st January 1921 the employees of the museum staff passed to the state of the Republic.
Through the acquisition of the former imperial collections owned by the state, the museum found itself in a complete new situation. In order to meet the changed circumstances in the museum area, designed Hans Tietze in 1919 the "Vienna Museum program". It provided a close cooperation between the individual museums to focus at different houses on main collections. So dominated exchange, sales and equalizing the acquisition policy in the interwar period. Thus resulting until today still valid collection trends. Also pointing the way was the relocation of the weapons collection from 1934 in its present premises in the New Castle, where since 1916 the collection of ancient musical instruments was placed.
With the change of the imperial collections in the ownership of the Republic the reorganization of the internal organization went hand in hand, too. Thus the museum was divided in 1919 into the
Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection (with the Oriental coins)
Collection of Classical Antiquities
Collection of ancient coins
Collection of modern coins and medals
Weapons collection
Collection of sculptures and crafts with the Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments
Picture Gallery
The Museum 1938-1945
Count Philipp Ludwig Wenzel Sinzendorf according to Rigaud. Clarisse 1948 by Baroness de Rothschildt "dedicated" to the memory of Baron Alphonse de Rothschildt; restituted to the Rothschilds in 1999, and in 1999 donated by Bettina Looram Rothschild, the last Austrian heiress.
With the "Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich all Jewish art collections such as the Rothschilds were forcibly "Aryanised". Collections were either "paid" or simply distributed by the Gestapo at the museums. This resulted in a significant increase in stocks. But the KHM was not the only museum that benefited from the linearization. Systematically looted Jewish property was sold to museums, collections or in pawnshops throughout the empire.
After the war, the museum struggled to reimburse the "Aryanised" art to the owners or their heirs. They forced the Rothschild family to leave the most important part of their own collection to the museum and called this "dedications", or "donations". As a reason, was the export law stated, which does not allow owners to perform certain works of art out of the country. Similar methods were used with other former owners. Only on the basis of international diplomatic and media pressure, to a large extent from the United States, the Austrian government decided to make a change in the law (Art Restitution Act of 1998, the so-called Lex Rothschild). The art objects were the Rothschild family refunded only in the 1990s.
The Kunsthistorisches Museum operates on the basis of the federal law on the restitution of art objects from the 4th December 1998 (Federal Law Gazette I, 181 /1998) extensive provenance research. Even before this decree was carried out in-house provenance research at the initiative of the then archive director Herbert Haupt. This was submitted in 1998 by him in collaboration with Lydia Grobl a comprehensive presentation of the facts about the changes in the inventory levels of the Kunsthistorisches Museum during the Nazi era and in the years leading up to the State Treaty of 1955, an important basis for further research provenance.
The two historians Susanne Hehenberger and Monika Löscher are since 1st April 2009 as provenance researchers at the Kunsthistorisches Museum on behalf of the Commission for Provenance Research operating and they deal with the investigation period from 1933 to the recent past.
The museum today
Today the museum is as a federal museum, with 1st January 1999 released to the full legal capacity - it was thus the first of the state museums of Austria, implementing the far-reaching self-financing. It is by far the most visited museum in Austria with 1.3 million visitors (2007).
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is under the name Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Ethnology and the Austrian Theatre Museum with company number 182081t since 11 June 1999 as a research institution under public law of the Federal virtue of the Federal Museums Act, Federal Law Gazette I/115/1998 and the Museum of Procedure of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Ethnology and the Austrian Theatre Museum, 3 January 2001, BGBl II 2/ 2001, in force since 1 January 2001, registered.
In fiscal 2008, the turnover was 37.185 million EUR and total assets amounted to EUR 22.204 million. In 2008 an average of 410 workers were employed.
Management
1919-1923: Gustav Glück as the first chairman of the College of science officials
1924-1933: Hermann Julius Hermann 1924-1925 as the first chairman of the College of the scientific officers in 1925 as first director
1933: Arpad Weixlgärtner first director
1934-1938: Alfred Stix first director
1938-1945: Fritz Dworschak 1938 as acting head, from 1938 as a chief in 1941 as first director
1945-1949: August von Loehr 1945-1948 as executive director of the State Art Collections in 1949 as general director of the historical collections of the Federation
1945-1949: Alfred Stix 1945-1948 as executive director of the State Art Collections in 1949 as general director of art historical collections of the Federation
1949-1950: Hans Demel as administrative director
1950: Karl Wisoko-Meytsky as general director of art and historical collections of the Federation
1951-1952: Fritz Eichler as administrative director
1953-1954: Ernst H. Buschbeck as administrative director
1955-1966: Vincent Oberhammer 1955-1959 as administrative director, from 1959 as first director
1967: Edward Holzmair as managing director
1968-1972: Erwin Auer first director
1973-1981: Friderike Klauner first director
1982-1990: Hermann Fillitz first director
1990: George Kugler as interim first director
1990-2008: Wilfried Seipel as general director
Since 2009: Sabine Haag as general director
Collections
To the Kunsthistorisches Museum are also belonging the collections of the New Castle, the Austrian Theatre Museum in Palais Lobkowitz, the Museum of Ethnology and the Wagenburg (wagon fortress) in an outbuilding of Schönbrunn Palace. A branch office is also Ambras in Innsbruck.
Kunsthistorisches Museum (main building)
Picture Gallery
Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection
Collection of Classical Antiquities
Vienna Chamber of Art
Numismatic Collection
Library
New Castle
Ephesus Museum
Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments
Arms and Armour
Archive
Hofburg
The imperial crown in the Treasury
Imperial Treasury of Vienna
Insignia of the Austrian Hereditary Homage
Insignia of imperial Austria
Insignia of the Holy Roman Empire
Burgundian Inheritance and the Order of the Golden Fleece
Habsburg-Lorraine Household Treasure
Ecclesiastical Treasury
Schönbrunn Palace
Imperial Carriage Museum Vienna
Armory in Ambras Castle
Ambras Castle
Collections of Ambras Castle
Major exhibits
Among the most important exhibits of the Art Gallery rank inter alia:
Jan van Eyck: Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, 1438
Martin Schongauer: Holy Family, 1475-80
Albrecht Dürer : Trinity Altar, 1509-16
Portrait Johann Kleeberger, 1526
Parmigianino: Self Portrait in Convex Mirror, 1523/24
Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Summer 1563
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary 1606/ 07
Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary (1606-1607)
Titian: Nymph and Shepherd to 1570-75
Portrait of Jacopo de Strada, 1567/68
Raffaello Santi: Madonna of the Meadow, 1505 /06
Lorenzo Lotto: Portrait of a young man against white curtain, 1508
Peter Paul Rubens: The altar of St. Ildefonso, 1630-32
The Little Fur, about 1638
Jan Vermeer: The Art of Painting, 1665/66
Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Fight between Carnival and Lent, 1559
Kids, 1560
Tower of Babel, 1563
Christ Carrying the Cross, 1564
Gloomy Day (Early Spring), 1565
Return of the Herd (Autumn), 1565
Hunters in the Snow (Winter) 1565
Bauer and bird thief, 1568
Peasant Wedding, 1568/69
Peasant Dance, 1568/69
Paul's conversion (Conversion of St Paul), 1567
Cabinet of Curiosities:
Saliera from Benvenuto Cellini 1539-1543
Egyptian-Oriental Collection:
Mastaba of Ka Ni Nisut
Collection of Classical Antiquities:
Gemma Augustea
Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós
Gallery: Major exhibits
Giannina Caviezel, Founder, Student Impact, Switzerland, speaking at the Annual Meeting 2017 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 19, 2017
Copyright by World Economic Forum / Walter Duerst
Singapore (Listeni/ˈsɪŋɡəpɔːr/), officially the Republic of Singapore, and often referred to as the Lion City, the Garden City, and the Red Dot, is a global city and sovereign state in Southeast Asia and the world's only island city-state. It lies one degree (137 km) north of the equator, at the southernmost tip of continental Asia and peninsular Malaysia, with Indonesia's Riau Islands to the south. Singapore's territory consists of the diamond-shaped main island and 62 islets. Since independence, extensive land reclamation has increased its total size by 23% (130 km2), and its greening policy has covered the densely populated island with tropical flora, parks and gardens.
The islands were settled from the second century AD by a series of local empires. In 1819, Sir Stamford Raffles founded modern Singapore as a trading post of the East India Company; after the company collapsed, the islands were ceded to Britain and became part of its Straits Settlements in 1826. During World War II, Singapore was occupied by Japan. It gained independence from Britain in 1963, by uniting with other former British territories to form Malaysia, but was expelled two years later over ideological differences. After early years of turbulence, and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation developed rapidly as an Asian Tiger economy, based on external trade and its human capital.
Singapore is a global commerce, finance and transport hub. Its standings include: "easiest place to do business" (World Bank) for ten consecutive years, most "technology-ready" nation (WEF), top International-meetings city (UIA), city with "best investment potential" (BERI), 2nd-most competitive country (WEF), 3rd-largest foreign exchange centre, 3rd-largest financial centre, 3rd-largest oil refining and trading centre and one of the top two busiest container ports since the 1990s. Singapore's best known global brands include Singapore Airlines and Changi Airport, both amongst the most-awarded in their industry; SIA is also rated by Fortune surveys as Asia's "most admired company". For the past decade, it has been the only Asian country with the top AAA sovereign rating from all major credit rating agencies, including S&P, Moody's and Fitch.
Singapore ranks high on its national social policies, leading Asia and 11th globally, on the Human Development Index (UN), notably on key measures of education, healthcare, life expectancy, quality of life, personal safety, housing. Although income inequality is high, 90% of citizens own their homes, and the country has one of the highest per capita incomes, with low taxes. The cosmopolitan nation is home to 5.5 million residents, 38% of whom are permanent residents and other foreign nationals. Singaporeans are mostly bilingual in a mother-tongue language and English as their common language. Its cultural diversity is reflected in its extensive ethnic "hawker" cuisine and major festivals - Chinese, Malay, Indian, Western - which are all national holidays. In 2015, Lonely Planet and The New York Times listed Singapore as their top and 6th best world destination to visit respectively.
The nation's core principles are meritocracy, multiculturalism and secularism. It is noted for its effective, pragmatic and incorrupt governance and civil service, which together with its rapid development policies, is widely cited as the "Singapore model". Gallup polls shows 84% of its residents expressed confidence in the national government, and 85% in its judicial systems - one of the highest ratings recorded. Singapore has significant influence on global affairs relative to its size, leading some analysts to classify it as a middle power. It is ranked as Asia's most influential city and 4th in the world by Forbes.
Singapore is a unitary, multiparty, parliamentary republic, with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government. The People's Action Party has won every election since self-government in 1959. One of the five founding members of the ASEAN, Singapore is also the host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Secretariat, and a member of the East Asia Summit, Non-Aligned Movement, and the Commonwealth of Nations.
ETYMOLOGY
The English name of Singapore is derived from the Malay word, Singapura, which was in turn derived from Sanskrit (Singa is "lion", Pura "city"; Sanskrit: सिंहपुर, IAST: Siṃhápura), hence the customary reference to the nation as the Lion City, and its inclusion in many of the nation's symbols (e.g., its coat of arms, Merlion emblem). However, it is unlikely that lions ever lived on the island; Sang Nila Utama, who founded and named the island Singapura, most likely saw a Malayan tiger. It is also known as Pulau Ujong, as far back as the 3rd century, literally 'island at the end' (of the Malay Peninsula) in Malay.
Since the 1970s, Singapore has also been widely known as the Garden City, owing to its extensive greening policy covering the whole island, a priority of its first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, dubbed the nation's "Chief Gardener". The nation's conservation and greening efforts contributed to Singapore Botanic Gardens being the only tropical garden to be inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The nickname, Red Dot, is a reference to its size on the map, contrasting with its achievements. In 2015, Singapore's Golden Jubilee year, the celebratory "SG50" branding is depicted inside a red dot.
HISTORY
Temasek ('Sea Town' in the Malay language), an outpost of the Sumatran Srivijaya empire, is the earliest written record relating to the area now called Singapore. In the 13th century, the Kingdom of Singapura was established on the island and it became a trading port city. However, there were two major foreign invasions before it was destroyed by the Majapahit in 1398. In 1613, Portuguese raiders burned down the settlement, which by then was nominally part of the Johor Sultanate and the island sank into obscurity for the next two centuries, while the wider maritime region and much trade was under Dutch control.
BRITISH COLONISATION 1819-1942
In 1819, Thomas Stamford Raffles arrived and signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor, on behalf of the British East India Company, to develop the southern part of Singapore as a British trading post. In 1824, the entire island, as well as the Temenggong, became a British possession after a further treaty with the Sultan. In 1826, Singapore became part of the Straits Settlements, under the jurisdiction of British India, becoming the regional capital in 1836.
Prior to Raffles' arrival, there were only about a thousand people living on the island, mostly indigenous Malays along with a handful of Chinese. By 1860, the population had swelled to more than 80,000 and more than half were Chinese. Many immigrants came to work at rubber plantations and, after the 1870s, the island became a global centre for rubber exports.
After the First World War, the British built the large Singapore Naval Base. Lieutenant General Sir William George Shedden Dobbie was appointed General Officer Commanding of the Malaya Command on 8 November 1935, holding the post until 1939;
WORLD WAR II AND JAPANESE OCCUPATION 1942-45
in May 1938, the General Officer Commanding of the Malaya Command warned how Singapore could be conquered by the Japanese via an attack from northern Malaya, but his warnings went unheeded. The Imperial Japanese Army invaded British Malaya, culminating in the Battle of Singapore. When the British surrendered on 15 February 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the defeat "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history". Between 5,000 and 25,000 ethnic Chinese people were killed in the subsequent Sook Ching massacre.
From November 1944 to May 1945, the Allies conducted an intensive bombing of Singapore.
RETURN OF BRITISH 1945-59
After the surrender of Japan was announced in the Jewel Voice Broadcast by the Japanese Emperor on 15 August 1945 there was a breakdown of order and looting and revenge-killing were widespread. The formal Japanese Occupation of Singapore was only ended by Operation Tiderace and the formal surrender on 12 September 1945 at Singapore City Hall when Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of Southeast Asia Command, accepted the capitulation of Japanese forces in Southeast Asia from General Itagaki Seishiro.
A British Military Administration was then formed to govern the island. On 1 April 1946, the Straits Settlements were dissolved and Singapore became a separate Crown Colony with a civil administration headed by a Governor. Much of the infrastructure had been destroyed during the war, including the harbour, electricity, telephone and water supply systems. There was also a shortage of food leading to malnutrition, disease, and rampant crime and violence. High food prices, unemployment, and workers' discontent culminated into a series of strikes in 1947 causing massive stoppages in public transport and other services. In July 1947, separate Executive and Legislative Councils were established and the election of six members of the Legislative Council was scheduled for the following year. By late 1947, the economy began to recover, facilitated by a growing demand for tin and rubber around the world, but it would take several more years before the economy returned to pre-war levels.
The failure of Britain to defend Singapore had destroyed its credibility as an infallible ruler in the eyes of Singaporeans. The decades after the war saw a political awakening amongst the local populace and the rise of anti-colonial and nationalist sentiments, epitomized by the slogan Merdeka, or "independence" in the Malay language.
During the 1950s, Chinese Communists with strong ties to the trade unions and Chinese schools carried out armed uprising against the government, leading to the Malayan Emergency and later, the Communist Insurgency War. The 1954 National Service Riots, Chinese middle schools riots, and Hock Lee bus riots in Singapore were all linked to these events.
David Marshall, pro-independence leader of the Labour Front, won Singapore's first general election in 1955. He led a delegation to London, but Britain rejected his demand for complete self-rule. He resigned and was replaced by Lim Yew Hock, whose policies convinced Britain to grant Singapore full internal self-government for all matters except defence and foreign affairs.
SELF-GOVERNMENT 1959-1963
During the May 1959 elections, the People's Action Party won a landslide victory. Singapore became an internally self-governing state within the Commonwealth, with Lee Kuan Yew as its first Prime Minister. Governor Sir William Allmond Codrington Goode served as the first Yang di-Pertuan Negara (Head of State), and was succeeded by Yusof bin Ishak, who became the first President of Singapore in 1965.
MERGER WITH MALAYSIA 1963-65
As a result of the 1962 Merger Referendum, on 31 August 1963 Singapore joined with the Federation of Malaya, the Crown Colony of Sarawak and the Crown Colony of North Borneo to form the new federation of Malaysia under the terms of the Malaysia Agreement. Singaporean leaders chose to join Malaysia primarily due to concerns over its limited land size, scarcity of water, markets and natural resources. Some Singaporean and Malaysian politicians were also concerned that the communists might form the government on the island, a possibility perceived as an external threat to the Federation of Malaya.However, shortly after the merger, the Singapore state government and the Malaysian central government disagreed on many political and economic issues, and communal strife culminated in the 1964 race riots in Singapore. After many heated ideological conflicts between the two governments, on 9 August 1965, the Malaysian Parliament voted 126 to 0 to expel Singapore from Malaysia with Singaporean delegates not present.
INDEPENDENCE 1965 TO PRESENT
Singapore gained independence as the Republic of Singapore (remaining within the Commonwealth of Nations) on 9 August 1965. Race riots broke out once more in 1969. In 1967, the country co-founded ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and in 1970 it joined the Non-Aligned Movement. Lee Kuan Yew became Prime Minister, leading its Third World economy to First World affluence in a single generation. His emphasis on rapid economic growth, support for business entrepreneurship, limitations on internal democracy, and close relationships with China set the new nation's policies for the next half-century.
In 1990, Goh Chok Tong succeeded Lee as Prime Minister, while the latter continued serving in the Cabinet as Senior Minister until 2004, and then Minister Mentor until May 2011. During Goh's tenure, the country faced the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the 2003 SARS outbreak and terrorist threats posed by Jemaah Islamiyah.
In 2004, Lee Hsien Loong, the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew, became the country's third Prime Minister. Goh Chok Tong remained in Cabinet as the Senior Minister until May 2011, when he was named Emeritus Senior Minister despite his retirement. He steered the nation through the 2008 global financial crisis, resolved the disputed 79-year old Malayan railways land, and introduced integrated resorts. Despite the economy's exceptional growth, PAP suffered its worst election results in 2011, winning 60% of votes, amidst hot-button issues of high influx of foreign workers and cost of living. Lee initiated a major re-structuring of the economy to raise productivity, improved universal healthcare and grants, especially for the pioneer generation of citizens, amongst many new inclusive measures.
On 23 March 2015, its founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, who had 'personified Singapore to the world' for nearly half a century died. In a week of national mourning, 1.7 million residents and guests paid tribute to him at his lying-in-state at Parliament House and at community sites around the island.
Singapore celebrated its Golden jubilee in 2015 – its 50th year of independence, with a year-long series of events branded SG50. The PAP maintained its dominance in Parliament at the September general elections, receiving 69.9% of the popular vote, its second-highest polling result behind the 2001 tally of 75.3%.
GEOGRAPHY
Singapore consists of 63 islands, including the main island, Pulau Ujong. There are two man-made connections to Johor, Malaysia: the Johor–Singapore Causeway in the north and the Tuas Second Link in the west. Jurong Island, Pulau Tekong, Pulau Ubin and Sentosa are the largest of Singapore's smaller islands. The highest natural point is Bukit Timah Hill at 163.63 m. April and May are the hottest months, with the wetter monsoon season from November to January.
From July to October, there is often haze caused by bush fires in neighbouring Indonesia, usually from the island of Sumatra. Although Singapore does not observe daylight saving time (DST), it follows the GMT+8 time zone, one hour ahead of the typical zone for its geographical location.
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Singapore is a parliamentary republic with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government representing constituencies. The country's constitution establishes a representative democracy as the political system. Executive power rests with the Cabinet of Singapore, led by the Prime Minister and, to a much lesser extent, the President. The President is elected through a popular vote, and has veto powers over a specific set of executive decisions, such as the use of the national reserves and the appointment of judges, but otherwise occupies a largely ceremonial post.
The Parliament serves as the legislative branch of the government. Members of Parliament (MPs) consist of elected, non-constituency and nominated members. Elected MPs are voted into the Parliament on a "first-past-the-post" (plurality) basis and represent either single-member or group representation constituencies. The People's Action Party has won control of Parliament with large majorities in every election since self-governance was secured in 1959.
Although the elections are clean, there is no independent electoral authority and the government has strong influence on the media. Freedom House ranks Singapore as "partly free" in its Freedom in the World report, and The Economist ranks Singapore as a "flawed democracy", the second best rank of four, in its "Democracy Index". Despite this, in the 2011 Parliamentary elections, the opposition, led by the Workers' Party, increased its representation to seven elected MPs. In the 2015 elections, PAP scored a landslide victory, winning 83 of 89 seats contested, with 70% of popular votes. Gallup polls reported 84% of residents in Singapore expressed confidence in the government, and 85% in its judicial systems and courts – one of the highest ratings in the world.
Singapore's governance model eschews populist politics, focusing on the nation's long-term interest, and is known to be clean, effective and pragmatic. As a small nation highly dependent on external trade, it is vulnerable to geo-politics and global economics. It places great emphasis on security and stability of the region in its foreign policies, and applies global best practices to ensure the nation's attractiveness as an investment destination and business hub.
The legal system of Singapore is based on English common law, but with substantial local differences. Trial by jury was abolished in 1970 so that judicial decisions would rest entirely in the hands of appointed judges. Singapore has penalties that include judicial corporal punishment in the form of caning, which may be imposed for such offences as rape, rioting, vandalism, and certain immigration offences.There is a mandatory death penalty for murder, as well as for certain aggravated drug-trafficking and firearms offences.
Amnesty International has said that some legal provisions of the Singapore system conflict with the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and that Singapore has "... possibly the highest execution rate in the world relative to its population". The government has disputed Amnesty's claims. In a 2008 survey of international business executives, Singapore received the top ranking with regard to judicial system quality in Asia. Singapore has been consistently rated among the least corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International.
In 2011, the World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index ranked Singapore among the top countries surveyed with regard to "order and security", "absence of corruption", and "effective criminal justice". However, the country received a much lower ranking for "freedom of speech" and "freedom of assembly". All public gatherings of five or more people require police permits, and protests may legally be held only at the Speakers' Corner.
EDUCATION
Education for primary, secondary, and tertiary levels is mostly supported by the state. All institutions, private and public, must be registered with the Ministry of Education. English is the language of instruction in all public schools, and all subjects are taught and examined in English except for the "mother tongue" language paper. While the term "mother tongue" in general refers to the first language internationally, in Singapore's education system, it is used to refer to the second language, as English is the first language. Students who have been abroad for a while, or who struggle with their "Mother Tongue" language, are allowed to take a simpler syllabus or drop the subject.
Education takes place in three stages: primary, secondary, and pre-university education. Only the primary level is compulsory. Students begin with six years of primary school, which is made up of a four-year foundation course and a two-year orientation stage. The curriculum is focused on the development of English, the mother tongue, mathematics, and science. Secondary school lasts from four to five years, and is divided between Special, Express, Normal (Academic), and Normal (Technical) streams in each school, depending on a student's ability level. The basic coursework breakdown is the same as in the primary level, although classes are much more specialised. Pre-university education takes place over two to three years at senior schools, mostly called Junior Colleges.
Some schools have a degree of freedom in their curriculum and are known as autonomous schools. These exist from the secondary education level and up.
National examinations are standardised across all schools, with a test taken after each stage. After the first six years of education, students take the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), which determines their placement at secondary school. At the end of the secondary stage, GCE "O"-Level exams are taken; at the end of the following pre-university stage, the GCE "A"-Level exams are taken. Of all non-student Singaporeans aged 15 and above, 18% have no education qualifications at all while 45% have the PSLE as their highest qualification; 15% have the GCE 'O' Level as their highest qualification and 14% have a degree.
Singaporean students consistently rank at or near the top of international education assessments:
- In 2015, Singapore topped the OECD's global school performance rankings, based on 15-year-old students' average scores in mathematics and science across 76 countries.
- Singaporean students were ranked first in the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, and have been ranked in the top three every year since 1995.
- Singapore fared best in the 2015 International Baccalaureate exams, taken in 107 countries, with more than half of the world's 81 perfect scorers and 98% passing rate.
The country's two main public universities - the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University - are ranked among the top 13 in the world.
HEALTH
Singapore has a generally efficient healthcare system, even though their health expenditures are relatively low for developed countries. The World Health Organisation ranks Singapore's healthcare system as 6th overall in the world in its World Health Report. In general, Singapore has had the lowest infant mortality rate in the world for the past two decades.
Life expectancy in Singapore is 80 for males and 85 for females, placing the country 4th in the world for life expectancy. Almost the whole population has access to improved water and sanitation facilities. There are fewer than 10 annual deaths from HIV per 100,000 people. There is a high level of immunisation. Adult obesity is below 10%
The government's healthcare system is based upon the "3M" framework. This has three components: Medifund, which provides a safety net for those not able to otherwise afford healthcare, Medisave, a compulsory health savings scheme covering about 85% of the population, and Medishield, a government-funded health insurance program. Public hospitals in Singapore have autonomy in their management decisions, and compete for patients. A subsidy scheme exists for those on low income. In 2008, 32% of healthcare was funded by the government. It accounts for approximately 3.5% of Singapore's GDP.
RELIGION
Buddhism is the most widely practised religion in Singapore, with 33% of the resident population declaring themselves adherents at the most recent census. The next-most practised religion is Christianity, followed by Islam, Taoism, and Hinduism. 17% of the population did not have a religious affiliation. The proportion of Christians, Taoists, and non-religious people increased between 2000 and 2010 by about 3% each, whilst the proportion of Buddhists decreased. Other faiths remained largely stable in their share of the population. An analysis by the Pew Research Center found Singapore to be the world's most religiously diverse nation.
There are monasteries and Dharma centres from all three major traditions of Buddhism in Singapore: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Most Buddhists in Singapore are Chinese and are of the Mahayana tradition, with missionaries having come into the country from Taiwan and China for several decades. However, Thailand's Theravada Buddhism has seen growing popularity among the populace (not only the Chinese) during the past decade. Soka Gakkai International, a Japanese Buddhist organisation, is practised by many people in Singapore, but mostly by those of Chinese descent. Tibetan Buddhism has also made slow inroads into the country in recent years.
CULTURE
Singapore has one of the lowest rates of drug use in the world. Culturally, the use of illicit drugs is viewed as highly undesirable by Singaporeans, unlike many European societies. Singaporeans' disapproval towards drug use has resulted in laws that impose the mandatory death sentence for certain serious drug trafficking offences. Singapore also has a low rate of alcohol consumption per capita and low levels of violent crime, and one of the lowest intentional homicide rate globally. The average alcohol consumption rate is only 2 litres annually per adult, one of the lowest in the world.
Foreigners make up 42% of the population, and have a strong influence on Singaporean culture. The Economist Intelligence Unit, in its 2013 "Where-to-be-born Index", ranks Singapore as having the best quality of life in Asia and sixth overall in the world.
LANGUAGES; RELIGIONS AND CULTURES
Singapore is a very diverse and young country. It has many languages, religions, and cultures for a country its size.
When Singapore became independent from the United Kingdom in 1963, most of the newly minted Singaporean citizens were uneducated labourers from Malaysia, China and India. Many of them were transient labourers who were seeking to make some money in Singapore and they had no intention of staying permanently. A sizeable minority of middle-class, local-born people, known as the Peranakans, also existed. With the exception of the Peranakans (descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants) who pledged their loyalties to Singapore, most of the labourers' loyalties lay with their respective homelands of Malaysia, China and India. After independence, the process of crafting a Singaporean identity and culture began.
Former Prime Ministers of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, have stated that Singapore does not fit the traditional description of a nation, calling it a society-in-transition, pointing out the fact that Singaporeans do not all speak the same language, share the same religion, or have the same customs. Even though English is the first language of the nation, according to the government's 2010 census 20% of Singaporeans, or one in five, are illiterate in English. This is a marked improvement from 1990 where 40% of Singaporeans were illiterate in English.
Languages, religions and cultures among Singaporeans are not delineated according to skin colour or ancestry, unlike many other countries. Among Chinese Singaporeans, one in five is Christian, another one in five is atheist, and the rest are mostly Buddhists or Taoists. One-third speak English as their home language, while half speak Mandarin Chinese. The rest speak other Chinese varieties at home. Most Malays in Singapore speak Malay as their home language with some speaking English. Singaporean Indians are much more religious. Only 1% of them are atheists. Six in ten are Hindu, two in ten Muslim, and the rest mostly Christian. Four in ten speak English as their home language, three in ten Tamil, one in ten Malay, and the rest other Indian languages as their home language.
Each Singaporean's behaviours and attitudes would therefore be influenced by, among many other things, his or her home language and his religion. Singaporeans who speak English as their native language tend to lean toward Western culture, while those who speak Chinese as their native language tend to lean toward Chinese culture and Confucianism. Malay speaking Singaporeans tend to lean toward the Malay culture, which itself is closely linked to the Islamic culture.
ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS
At the national level in Singapore, meritocracy, where one is judged based on one's ability, is heavily emphasised.
Racial and religious harmony is regarded by Singaporeans as a crucial part of Singapore's success, and played a part in building a Singaporean identity. Singapore has a reputation as a nanny state. The national flower of Singapore is the hybrid orchid, Vanda 'Miss Joaquim', named in memory of a Singapore-born Armenian woman, who crossbred the flower in her garden at Tanjong Pagar in 1893. Many national symbols such as the Coat of arms of Singapore and the Lion head symbol of Singapore make use of the lion, as Singapore is known as the Lion City. Other monikers by which Singapore is widely known is the Garden City and the Red Dot. Public holidays in Singapore cover major Chinese, Western, Malay and Indian festivals.
Singaporean employees work an average of around 45 hours weekly, relatively long compared to many other nations. Three in four Singaporean employees surveyed stated that they take pride in doing their work well, and that doing so helps their self-confidence.
CUISINE
Dining, along with shopping, is said to be the country's national pastime. The focus on food has led countries like Australia to attract Singaporean tourists with food-based itineraries. The diversity of food is touted as a reason to visit the country, and the variety of food representing different ethnicities is seen by the government as a symbol of its multiculturalism. The "national fruit" of Singapore is the durian.
In popular culture, food items belong to a particular ethnicity, with Chinese, Malay, and Indian food clearly defined. However, the diversity of cuisine has been increased further by the "hybridisation" of different styles (e.g., the Peranakan cuisine, a mix of Chinese and Malay cuisine).
WIKIPEDIA
A documentary film by Tod Lending
PBS Airdate: Season 29 of POV (September 12, 2016)
Caption: Robert Henderson at Lake Forest
Credit: Tod Lending
Photos are for press and private use only. All rights reserved. All uses of the photos must be credited as indicated in the captions. For additional information on rights or for any clearance issues, please contact communications(at)pov.org.
10:10 / 10:12
2 minutes difference. This also shows that what I thought might be features of the moons surface, thrown into relief, must actually just be distortion due to atmospheric effects.
St Mary, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
This is Suffolk's great urban church. Well, that's not strictly true; Lavenham, Southwold and Mildenhall are also great urban churches, but St Mary has the town to go with it, and that makes a difference; the west door here opens directly onto the busy road, as does the one at St James a hundred metres north. Ipswich can only gape in envy.
It was the early spring of 2004. I had come here on the train from Ipswich on one of those glorious January days when the sky is crystal blue and the air full of ice. It had been two months since I had completed my quest of visiting every single Anglican and Catholic church in Suffolk, but St Mary was the last one that remained unphotographed. In a way, it was the real end of it all.
From the train, I gazed out on high Suffolk. The line threaded through spare winter fields. Not far off, the silhouette of Creeting St Mary church brooded on its ancient hill. Beyond, Phipson's mutant spire at Woolpit pierced the haze.
I thought back to starting at Thornham Parva four years before. It didn't seem very long. I got my camera out and fiddled with it, finally working out how to set the autofocus properly. Well, it was about time. I was also playing with my favourite Christmas present, a zen audio jukebox; no bigger than a pack of cards, but with 30Gb of storage on it. I'd already put 300 CDs on it, and there was room for another 1000. Soon, nobody will buy CDs any more, we'll just plug into each others record collections and download them. It is the death of recorded music as we know it. Having seen Lost in Translation for the second time the previous evening, I had the Jesus and Mary Chain on shuffle; gazing out at Suffolk unfolding, recognising distant towers, listen to the girl as she takes on half the world...
I wandered out across Angel Hill and past the former St James, now the Anglican cathedral. But St Mary is very different, and although the hand of the Victorians fell heart-breakingly hard here, this is above all else a great medieval church, one of three built by the wealthiest abbey in England during the 14th century.
St James was another, of course, and there was also St Margaret, now gone; but its charnel house survives in what is now St Mary's rambling graveyard. At one time, the graveyards of all three met to the north of St Mary, but that of St James was shamefully cleared to create a cathedral close after Diocesan status was achieved in the early 20th century.
From the graveyard you will see the Notyngham porch of the mid-15th century. As with much of this church, it was paid for with the new money of the time; like Lavenham, St Mary is a monument to Mammon as much as it is to God. Curiously, it retains features of a hundred years earlier that were presumably part of an earlier porch. At one time, there was a south porch too; but this was removed as part of the 1840s restoration, and still stands as a folly today in nearby Nowton park.
The graveyard may distract you, but you must still return to the busy street to enter this church from the west. You step into an internal box porch familiar from continental Catholic churches, and then into this vast building; in terms of volume, it is one of the biggest parish churches in England. It was almost entirely rebuilt during the course of the 15th century as a result of numerous bequests, giving it a more organic feel than Southwold or Lavenham.
I have to say that I am used to wandering around big churches on my own. But that was not my experience at St Mary. It was a cleaning day, and the church was full of helpers. They were just ordinary Bury people, not medieval historians, but as I wandered about, they were extremely helpful, and all of them seemed to know a lot about their church. This is not my usual experience. They also allowed me to go anywhere I liked, pretty much, including up into the sanctuary and onto the ledges of the great memorials. One of them illuminated the 15th century roof for me. I put more money in the box at the end of it than I have in any English church before. Thank you to all of them.
These are the longest, finest, highest arcades in Suffolk. It is like walking through a forest. I thought of something Simon Schama wrote in Landscape and Memory, when he was still pretentious and before he became a TV star; he argued that the great cathedrals deliberately echoed the great forests. It was humbling to think that St Mary had once been just a tiny corner of the great abbey complex; on the painting at the end of the entry for Bury Abbey, St Mary is dwarfed by the great building beside it.
The Notyngham porch was inaccessible on the day of my visit because of a scaffolding tower, so I shall have to go back and photograph the boss in the roof. Angels surround foliage out of which an old man is peeping. Perhaps he is a green man, or more likely at such a late date it is a rare image of God the Father.
I said before that St Mary was built by trade, and apart from John Notyngham the two most significant 15th century donors were Jankyn Smith and John Baret. Smith lengthened the church eastwards with chancel chapels to south and north and a projecting sanctuary. The altar pieces here are modern and splendid: to the south, a representation of the incarnation above a simple wooden altar, and to the north an embroidered screen in the Sarum tradition.A brass of Smith and his wife can be found in the south chancel chapel, although his chantry was actually a parclosed screened area at the east end of the north aisle.
But it is Baret we remember today. Before Smith built the south chancel chapel, Baret carved out for himself a chantry chapel at the east end of the aisle. In it he put a cadaver memorial which is generally considered the best in England. Far more remarkable than Baret's corpse is England's finest surviving 15th century church ceiling. It sits above the former chantry chapel, and is stunning. The legend Grace me Governe is worked across the ceilure panels with illuminated capitals and tiny stars that have real mirrors at their centres. it was sensitively restored in 1968.
As if this wasn't enough, the nave roof is also the gift of Baret, and Mortlock thought it the finest in England (Cautley goes for Mildenhall). The most easterly brace forms the now repainted canopy of honour to the original rood. Because St Mary is so vast, the roof is a less intimate experience than Mildenhall, but they will illuminate it if you ask nicely, and binoculars will find many of the details. As well as the angels, there are figures representing the heirarchy of the Catholic church, and the wallposts contain Apostles, Saints and Prophets. I found the one which has been identified as my old friend St Walstan.
The historian Clive Paine, in the church guidebook, suggests that an intriguing detail of the roof is the pair of figures to the west. They could possibly be interpreted as Christ in Majesty and Mary Queen of Heaven. However, as the female figure is holding her crown rather than wearing it, it may very well be that it is Margaret of Anjou, who was engaged to marry Henry VI (who in turn may be the figure wearing a crown). If this is so, then it may be that the roof was planned and begun between the betrothal of October 1444 and the enthronement of May 1445. Mortlock suggests that it may have been completed in time for Henry's parliament which was held here in Bury in February 1447. It may be that the religious iconography of the royal couple was intentional; enthusiasm for the Assumption as a Church festival was at its height in the mid-15th century (it is entirely expunged from official Anglican doctrine today) and Paine records that the Abbey poet John Lidgate compared Margaret of Anjou's entry into London with the bodily assumption and coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven.
But St Mary doesn't have just two amazing roofs. There is also the chancel roof, which is ceilured, and although it has been extensively repainted it is largely to its medieval integrity. Angels carry verses of the Te Deum, and there are musical instruments and mythical beasts. It is a delight.
The roodscreen is an elegant one of the early 20th century, and if you pause and look back you will see the great west window, believed to be the largest in any church in England. The mawkish glass in it was given in thanksgiving for the bumper harvest of 1854. Indeed, if you like sentimental 19th century glass then the south aisle at least will be a feast for you. I can take a little, but tend to think that, as with Schubert's lieder, Ibsen's dramas and chicken liver paté, Victorian glass is best served in small portions.
East of the screen, flanking Smith's extension, are two grand memorials, both topped by couples. To the south are the Drurys, familiar from Hawstead, and to the north are the Carewes. Both monuments have been knocked about a bit, losing their canopies in the process. The best faces are the male Carewe and the female Drury.
The most famous person buried here is neither Drury or Carewe, or indeed Baret or Smith. It is Mary Rose Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, who was married off to the King of France in the hope of cementing peace between the two kingdoms (pragmatically, Henry married his other sister off to the King of Scotland). Unfortunately, the French King put a spoke in the wheel by dying shortly after the ceremony, so Mary came back to England and married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. They lived at Westhorpe, and she is remembered in the church there. When she died, she was buried in Bury Abbey, and at the dissolution her tomb was moved here. It appears to have been dismantled in the 18th century, and has been replaced by a rather mundane floor monument; but above it on the wall are an 18th century plaque and a modern plaque like the one at Westhorpe. Rather neatly, the cusping of Smith's blank arcades above ends in Tudor roses.
In the South chancel chapel there is a 19th century window by Clayton & Bell, supposedly paid for by Queen Victoria, which tells the story of Mary Tudor's life. The panels are sombre, although not without interest; I rather liked the final one of Mary's funeral Mass in Bury Abbey. The officiating Abbot would join Mary here in the chancel floor after his death.
Elsewhere, there is much of interest, lots of little details that alone would make a visit to a smaller church worthwhile. The Suffolk Regiment chapel in the north aisle is entirely the work of Ninian Comper, including a rare survival by him, the altar frontal and riddel screen. Although the panels of the font bowl were destroyed by the reformers, the shaft is a nice one with lions flanking men carrying swords. At the west end of the north aisle is the so-called St Walstan chapel, which is now full of the paraphernalia of remembrance, and to the east of this the Victorian restoration reset all the wall monuments, which make a rather impressive piece together. Tucked around the corner is the monument to Peter Gedge, who published Bury's first newspaper and died in 1818: like a worn out Type he is Returned to the Founder, in hopes of being recast in a better and more perfect Mould. Did early 19th century Burians believe in reincarnation, I wonder?
I thanked the nice people, and headed out into the Saturday traffic.
So, that was it. I had now photographed every single Anglican and Catholic Parish church in Suffolk, as well as all the redundant ones. I'd done most of the ruins and even photographed a dozen or so empty fields where churches had once been. St Mary was the 641st. I had taken about 7000 photographs and written over a million words. God knows how many miles I had cycled - thousands. I had visited every village in the county, some of them several times. The website had had more than 80,000 visitors through the front door alone, and had been featured in the national press and on television in Britain, the US and Australia. It had spun off into a six part radio series (with a second series to come this summer, if you are in East Anglia). It had generated about 6000 e-mails from people offering or asking for information.
I wandered back up to Angel Hill, William Reid's breathy voice and those bottom-of-the-liftshaft drums resonating in my head. The hardest walk you will ever take is the walk you take from A to B... It was time to go and do something else.
(c) Simon Knott, March 2004
Another view of the scene just a second after the one uploaded earlier. See how much difference a second makes?
A Beloit Daily News article reporting on the event itself appeared in the Monday, July 3rd edition: Art is alive along river
Four women ascending on a mountain in Manakamana, Nepal. The are carrying heavy packs on their backs and it will take about two hours to reach to their destination. The cable cars are passing by them just above them, some of which are even empty. The cable cars are not affordable for many poor locals.
St Mary and St Walstan, Bawburgh, Norfolk
There are islands off the coast of Norwich. Here we are in typical rural Norfolk, a quiet village set in a rolling landscape of farms and sprawling fields punctuated by woods and copses, the sound of traffic on the busy A11 and A47 not so very far off. And yet, we are very close to Norwich, but floating free from it thanks, perhaps to local authority planning.
Norfolk and Suffolk have their similarities of course. Norfolk is a lot bigger, and emptier, especially towards the west. But the biggest difference between the two counties is their relationship with their county towns. Ipswich, above all else, is Suffolk distilled and amplified, the working and historic county translated into an urban setting. Industrial Ipswich was the fountainhead of the county's agricultural production, the docks an interface between Suffolk and the world. To know brash and breezy Ipswich is to know what Suffolk was and is.
But Norwich is different to Ipswich, and it is different to the rest of Norfolk. As you enter the city you pass hoardings which proudly proclaim, in George Borrow's words, that you are entering Norwich, a Fine City! It is like crossing a forcefield. Norwich is a fine city, and it is also a small city, but as Norwich is so far from any other place of near-equivalent size - Ipswich is 40 miles away, Cambridge nearly 60 - it is completely out of scale to its population. If Norwich were dropped into South or West Yorkshire, or Greater Manchester, it would disappear. Here, it assumes the importance of a Leeds or a Sheffield, cities four times as big.
At times, Norwich can feel like a great European city, living a technicolour life in the soft, pastel setting of its rural hinterland. Its industrial past, in shoes, textiles and chocolate, was not grounded in the local countryside in the same way as the industry of Ipswich. In the 1960s the University of East Anglia came, and Norwich's nightlife is lived by people who have, in fair proportion, not grown up in Norfolk.
To set off from Norwich is to enter a countryside that feels different. It is like leaving a shore for the open sea, a sea with islands. The soft fields of Norfolk wash right up against the edge of the city, insulating villages that would have been absorbed if she had grown any larger. Just a mile or so from the edge is Bawburgh. Every island has a story, and Bawburgh's is the story of St Walstan.
St Walstan was a Prince, the son of Benedict and Blid of the royal house of East Anglia. Blid would herself become a Saint. Walstan was born in Bawburgh, or perhaps at the royal vill of Blythburgh in Suffolk. As a teenager, he followed Christ's instruction to renounce all he possessed and become a disciple. Giving up his claims to succession, he did not delay to reach northern parts, as the Nova Legenda Anglie tells us, and humbled himself to become a farmworker in central Norfolk.
After a series of adventures which revealed his saintly character, one of which involved him being rewarded with a pair of young oxen, he received news in about 1015 from an Angel. He would die and be received into heaven in three days time. With typical East Anglian stoicism, he nodded his head and left his scythe to go and find a Priest to receive the Last Rites. Unfortunately, the Priest had no water, but, magically, a spring welled up where they stood.
This was in Taverham, and when Walstan died the two oxen carried his body on a cart to be buried at Bawburgh. On the way, they stopped to rest in Costessey, where another spring sprang up. At last, they came to Bawburgh. They stopped outside the church, and a third spring appeared, the biggest. And then, the Nova Legenda Anglie tells us, Angells opened the walls in hast, and the two oxen with their burden walked into the church. Walstan's body was placed in the church, becoming a site of pilgrimage for people who sought miracles and healing. Eleven miracles have been handed down to us.
The St Walstan legend is interesting for all sorts of reasons. Compared with the West Country, survivals of local Saints' cults are very rare in East Anglia. This part of Norfolk was strongly recusant during the penal years, and it is likely that local people kept stories of Walstan in their tradition even after the practice of devotion to him became impossible. When the penal years ended, the new Catholic church at Costessey in 1841 was dedicated to Our Lady and St Walstan.
Although there is no evidence that the Saint was part of the original dedication of Bawburgh church, the foundations of which certainly predate the St Walstan legend, it bears the name today, and that is because the relics of St Walstan continued to be important right up to the Reformation. Bequests made to the shrine are recorded in late Medieval wills, and these in turn were noted by 18th century antiquarians who restored dedications to parish churches, not always very accurately, after the long puritan night.
During the late 14th century, when acts of pilgrimage were at their most significant, thousands of people must have made their way every year. On the north side of the church was the chapel that contained his bones. From this, a sunken pathway led down the steep hill to the well on the site of the third spring. Incredibly, this pathway was destroyed as recently as 1999, to be replaced by a sterile driveway that circumnavigates the farm to the north of the church.
The date of the Walstan legend is interesting, right on the eve of the Norman settlement of England. It is almost exactly contemporary with that much more famous legend, the founding of the shrine at Walsingham by Lady Richeldis. Could it be that these cults endured partly as a form of resistance by the Saxons, popular local legends in the face of Norman cultural hegemony? Or was it that the Normans themselves who ensured that these popular pieties continued, nurturing them in the place of surviving neo-pagan practices?
We can never know, but what is certain is that St Walstan's legend recommended him as a Saint of the ordinary people, a worker Saint if you will, which may explain his almost complete disappearance from popular English story after the Reformation.
Two excellent books by local author Carol Twinch have helped popularise this very East Anglian figure. And, interestingly, in the latter half of the 20th century his cult has been explored increasingly by the Anglicans, at a time when devotion to Saints seems to be going out of fashion in that Communion. There are popular pilgrimages here every year still under the auspices of the Anglican Diocese of Norwich. Perhaps it is the simplicity of Walstan's life, and the healing nature of his miracles, that lend themselves particularly to the quiet nature of modern Anglican spirituality.
You approach the church from the village street and your first sight of it is from the south-east, looking down into the churchyard. What a beautiful church it is! It must be among the loveliest of all East Anglia's 160-odd round-towered churches. The idiosyncratic stepped gables, the red roof of the nave and a little flame-like pinnacle on the cap of the tower are memorable, particularly in this dramatic setting on the steeply-pitched side of the ridge. The graveyard falls away dramatically on the northern side, and from there St Mary and St Walstan appears fortress-like.
You step into a wide, simple interior, white walls and bare wood setting into relief sudden flashes of colour. How much of this church was here when Walstan's body was brought here? Probably, none of it. The archway to the tower is 13th century, and the windows suggest that the rest of the building is early 14th century. Quite probably, the whole church was rebuilt as a result of the prosperity brought about by the shrine of St Walstan. On the north side of the nave there is a large archway, a filled-in opening. It is tempting to think this is the wall that the Angells had opened in hast, but it was probably the entrance to the later chapel of St Walstan, since this wall post-dates the St Walstan legend by 300 years.
The remains of the 15th century roodscreen are made up rather dramatically into an early 20th century screen with bubbly cusping and a canopy of honour above, all of it unpainted. It is difficult to know how they resisted painting it, but it suits the simplicity of the building just as it is. And there are plenty of survivals here of Bawburgh's colourful Catholic past. Most interesting of all, the collection of brasses. Bawburgh has two shroud brasses and a chalice brass. The biggest of these is above a memorial inscription to Thomas Tyard who died in 1505. It is 60cm long, and he lies with the shroud partly open, his hands crossed in an act of piety. Beneath it is the inscription plate, but it seems likely to me that the inscription and the shrouded figure do not belong together, given the differences in the quality of the two. As if to confirm this, a surviving brass rivet in the stone above the figure's head suggests the loss of another brass, presumably Tyard's.
The other shroud brass is unidentified, and quite different. It depicts a smaller figure sewn tightly into a shroud, with just the face peeking out. It is so like the figures mounted on the wall at Yoxford in Suffolk that I assume it is a figure adrift from a larger collection, perhaps representing one of the dead children of a larger figure.
Set in between them is a late 17th century brass inscription and shield to a minister of this church, Philip Tenison. It is quite fitting that it should be here, because Tenison was an antiquarian at a time when such things were looked on with grave suspicion, and Carol Twinch notes that he recorded information about the Walstan shrine here that might otherwise have been lost to us. Deprived of his living by the Puritans, he later became an Archdeacon after the Restoration, in which case the date of 1660 here is obviously wrong.
I think that all five of these brasses were reset here from elsewhere in the church by the Victorians. The chalice brass may well be in its original position. It is to the Priest William Rechers, and is right on the eve of the Reformation, 1531, so he would have been one of the last Priests to be commemorated in this fashion. As at Little Walsingham, two hands are shown holding the base of the chalice, elevating it.
In the nave, there are three further pre-Reformation brass inscriptions, at least two of which are on their original matrices, and one of which retains one of the two figures commemorated, Robert Grote, who died in 1500. His wife is missing, as is the Priest Edward Kightling, whose empty matrix shows that he was wearing priestly vestments.
This is a wonderful collection of late medieval brasses, and is extraordinary that so much has survived. Only a couple have been stolen, but it is clear an attempt has been made on the life of the smaller shroud brass. It has been broken in half, and the lower part protrudes upwards. These chancel brasses have also suffered very badly from being covered by carpets, the underlay breaking up and soaking with moisture to scour the brass. On my most recent visit, the churchwarden agreed that to would be better to remove the carpet altogether, and I do hope that this will happen.
But the most vivid memory of the past at Bawburgh is the superb collection of late medieval glass in the nave. Best of all is the wonderful St Barbara, as good as anything else in Norfolk. She stands proudly, holding her church. Across the nave is a lovely fragment of an Annunciation scene. Mary stands in front of a pot of lilies, and a scroll declares Ecce Ancilla Domini Fiat ('Behold the Handmaid of the Lord, Let it be so'). A crowned female head nearby is probably from a Coronation of the Blessed Virgin.
There are floating angels, perhaps censing or collecting the precious blood at the crucifixion, and a king who may be Christ from the same Coronation scene. There is larger, crowned, bearded king, perhaps God the Father, some fragments of St Catherine and perhaps St Gregory, and a lay figure in late medieval dress who might just be a pilgrim to the Shrine of St Walstan. Perhaps most pleasing, because it is so complete, is a set of roundels featuring the words of the Nunc Dimmitis, Simeon's prayer on seeing the infant Christ for the first time. It is rather moving to find them in the same window as the Annunciation, which features words which would be familiar to pilgrims from both the Ave Maria and the Magnificat. It is easy to imagine them sitting telling their beads at a journey's end, contemplating this glass.
At the west end of the church is a small patch of wall painting which defies easy interpretation. It is obviously at least three separate subjects, the most recent being part of an Elizabethan text, below that apparently two figures embracing, the lowest a roundel topped by indecipherable text. It is likely that there is part of a Seven Works of Mercy sequence, which was often placed on the western wall of a smaller church like this.
There is much else besides. The people here were obviously very pleased at the 1660 Restoration, and immediately erected a new set of royal arms to Charles II. You can't help thinking of Philip Tenison, and how it might just be his influence that the people were pleased to see the back of puritanism. One old bench end with an inscription is marooned on the wall, curiously in the shape and location of a holy water stoup (is it covering it?) and there's a nice European roundel in the chancel, which I take to be from a series of Stations of the Cross. Otherwise all is Victorian, or the influence of Victorians. And then you spot the 17th century poorbox fashioned like a newel post, still secured in the east end of the nave. It is from the protestant days of this church, but it is still a reminder of charity, and the offerings of generations of pilgrims that made this one of Norfolk's most significant shrines, and still a beautiful and interesting church today.
Deviating mold on the right throughout; it's supposed to be a factory reject but I'm not sure. The other two are Simply Love Me and Petit Dejeuner.
I don't even know why I spend any energy on this. Maybe I'm just too curious about the entire factory doll concept and why there are so many of them... and whether I should feel bad for buying them.
I mean, the differences above hardly matter.
Can you?
:)
Shot somewhere on the highway from Mehsana (Gujarat) to Jodhpur (Rajasthan). I thought scenes like these existed only in Fevicol ads or in National Geographic photoshoots - till we entered Rajasthan. The highways of Rajasthan are filled with color, vibrance, culture and many many unforgettable photographic moments like this one.
Shot by Namrata, my partner for The Great Driving Challenge.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Tornado ADV had its origins in an RAF Air Staff Requirement 395 (or ASR.395), which called for a long-range interceptor to replace the Lightning F6 and Phantom FGR2. The requirement for a modern interceptor was driven by the threat posed by the large Soviet long-range bomber fleet, in particular the supersonic Tupolev Tu-22M. From the beginning of the Tornado IDS's development in 1968, the possibility of a variant dedicated to air defence had been quietly considered; several American aircraft had been evaluated, but found to be unsuitable. However, the concept proved unattractive to the other European partners on the Tornado project, thus the UK elected to proceed in its development alone. On 4 March 1976, the development of the Tornado ADV was formally approved.
In 1976, British Aerospace was contracted to provide three prototype aircraft. The first prototype was rolled out at Warton on 9 August 1979, before making its maiden flight on 27 October 1979. During the flight testing, the ADV demonstrated noticeably superior supersonic acceleration to the IDS, even while carrying a full weapons loadout.
The Tornado ADV's differences compared to the IDS include a greater sweep angle on the wing gloves, and the deletion of their kruger flaps, deletion of the port cannon, a longer radome for the Foxhunter radar, slightly longer airbrakes and a fuselage stretch of 1.36 m to allow the carriage of four Skyflash semi-active radar homing missiles. The stretch was applied to the Tornado front fuselage being built by the UK, with a plug being added immediately behind the cockpit, which had the unexpected benefit of reducing drag and making space for an additional fuel tank (Tank '0') carrying 200 imperial gallons (909 l; 240 U.S. gal) of fuel. The artificial feel of the flight controls was lighter on the ADV than on the IDS. Various internal avionics, pilot displays, guidance systems and software also differed; including an automatic wing sweep selector not fitted to the strike aircraft.
Production of the Tornado ADV was performed between 1980 and 1993, the last such aircraft being delivered that same year. A total of 165 Tornado ADVs were ordered by Britain, the majority being the Tornado F3. However, the Tornado ADV’s replacement, the aircraft that is known today as the Eurofighter Typhoon, met several delays – primarily of political nature. Even though the first production contract was already signed on 30 January 1998 between Eurofighter GmbH, Eurojet and NETMA for the procurement of a total of 232 for the UK, the development and eventually the delivery of the new aircraft was a protracted affair. It actually took until 9 August 2007, when the UK's Ministry of Defence reported that No. 11 Squadron RAF, which stood up as a Typhoon squadron on 29 March 2007, had received its first two multi-role Typhoons. Until then, the Tornado F.3 had become more and more obsolete, since the type was only suited to a limited kind of missions, and it became obvious that the Tornado ADV would have to be kept in service for several years in order to keep Great Britain’s aerial defence up.
In order to bridge the Typhoon service gap, two update programs had already been launched by the MoD in 2004, which led to the Tornado F.5 and F.6 versions. These were both modified F.3 airframes, catering to different, more specialized roles. The F.5 had a further extended fuselage and modified wings, so that it could operate more effectively in the long range fighter patrol role over the North Sea and the Northern Atlantic. On the other side, the F.6 was tailored to the mainland interceptor role at low and medium altitudes and featured new engines for a better performance in QRA duties. Both fighter variants shared improved avionics and weapons that had already been developed for the Eurofighter Typhoon, or were still under development.
The Tornado F.6’s new engines were a pair of Eurojet EJ200 afterburning turbofans, which offered 30% more dry and 20% more afterburner thrust than the F.3’s original Turbo-Union RB199-34R turbofans. These more modern and fuel-efficient engines allowed prolonged supercruise, and range as well as top speed were improved, too. Furthermore, there was the (theoretical) option to combine the new engine with vectored thrust nozzles, even though this would most probably not take place since the Tornado ADV had never been designed as a true dogfighter, even though it was, for an aircraft of its size, quite an agile aircraft.
However, the integration of the EJ200 into the existing airframe called for major modifications that affected the aircraft’s structure. The tail section had to be modified in order to carry the EJ200’s different afterburner section. Its bigger diameter and longer nozzle precluded the use of the original thrust reverser. This unique feature was retained, though, so that the mechanism had to be modified: the standard deflectors, which used to extend backwards behind the nozzles, now opened inwards into the airflow before the exhaust.
Since the new engines had a considerably higher airflow rate, the air intakes with the respective ducts had to be enlarged and adapted, too. Several layouts were tested, including two dorsal auxiliary air intakes to the original, wedge-shaped orifices, but eventually the whole intake arrangement with horizontal ramps was changed into tall side intakes with vertical splitter plates, reminiscent of the F-4 Phantom. Even though this meant a thorough redesign of the fuselage section under the wing sweep mechanism and a reduction of tank “0”’s volume, the new arrangement improved the aircraft’s aerodynamics further and slightly enlarged the wing area, which resulted in a minor net increase of range.
The F.3’s GEC-Marconi/Ferranti AI.24 Foxhunter radar was retained, but an infrared search and track (IRST) sensor, the Passive Infra-Red Airborne Track Equipment (PIRATE), was mounted in a semispherical housing on the port side of the fuselage in front of the windscreen and linked to the pilot’s helmet-mounted display. By supercooling the sensor, the system was able to detect even small variations in temperature at a long range, and it allowed the detection of both hot exhaust plumes of jet engines and surface heating caused by friction.
PIRATE operated in two IR bands and could be used together with the radar in an air-to-air role, adding visual input to the radar’s readings. Beyond that, PIRATE could also function as an independent infrared search and track system, providing passive target detection and tracking, and the system was also able to provide navigation and landing aid.
In an optional air-to-surface role, PIRATE can also perform target identification and acquisition, up to 200 targets could be simultaneously tracked. Although no definitive ranges had been released, an upper limit of 80 nm has been hinted at; a more typical figure would be 30 to 50 nm.
The Tornado F.3’s Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon was retained and the F.6 was from the start outfitted with the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile, with the outlook to switch as soon as possible to the new, ram jet-driven Meteor AAM with higher speed and range. Meteor had been under development since 1994 and was to be carried by the Eurofighter Typhoon as its primary mid-range weapon. With a range of 100+ km (63 mi, 60 km no-escape zone) and a top speed of more than Mach 4, Meteor, with its throttleable ducted rocket engine, offered a considerably improvement above AMRAAM. However, it took until 2016 that Meteor became fully operational and was rolled out to operational RAF fighter units.
A total of 36 Tornado F.3 airframes with relatively low flying hours were brought to F.6 standard in the course of 2006-8 and gradually replaced older F.3s in RAF fighter units until 2009. The Tornado F.3 itself was retired in March 2011 when No. 111 Squadron RAF, located at RAF Leuchars, was disbanded. Both the F.5 and F.6 will at least keep on serving until the Eurofighter Typhoon is in full service, probably until 2020.
General characteristics:
Crew: 2
Length: 18.68 m (61 ft 3½ in)
Wingspan: 13.91 m (45 ft 7½ in) at 25° wing position
8.60 m (28 ft 2½ in) at 67° wing position
Height: 5.95 m (19 ft 6½ in)
Wing area: 27.55 m² (295.5 sq ft)
Empty weight: 14,750 kg (32,490 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 28,450 kg (62,655 lb)
Powerplant:
2× Eurojet EJ200 afterburning turbofans with 60 kN (13,500 lbf) dry thrust and
90 kN (20,230 lbf) thrust with afterburner each
Performance:
Maximum speed: Mach 2.3 (2,500 km/h, 1,550 mph) at 9,000 m (30,000 ft)
921 mph (800 knots, 1,482 km/h) indicated airspeed limit near sea level
Combat radius: more than 1,990 km (1.100 nmi, 1,236 mi) subsonic,
more than 556 km (300 nmi, 345 mi) supersonic
Ferry range: 4,265 km (2,300 nmi, 2,650 mi) with four external tanks
Endurance: 2 hr combat air patrol at 560-740 km (300-400 nmi, 345-460 mi) from base
Service ceiling: 15,240 m (50,000 ft)
Armament:
1× 27 mm (1.063 in) Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon with 180 RPG under starboard fuselage side
A total of 10 hardpoints (4× semi-recessed under-fuselage, 2× under-fuselage, 4× swivelling
under-wing) holding up to 9000 kg (19,800 lb) of payload; the two inner wing pylons have shoulder
launch rails for 2× Short-Range AAM (SRAAM) each (AIM-9 Sidewinder or AIM-132 ASRAAM)
4× MBDO Meteor or AIM-120 AMRAAM, mounted under the fuselage
The kit and its assembly:
The eight entry for the RAF Centenary Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and after 100 years of RAF what-if models we have now arrived at the present. This modified Tornado ADV was spawned through the discussions surrounding another modeler’s build of a modified F.3 (and examples of other Tornado conversions, e. g. with fixed wings or twin fins), and I spontaneously wondered what a change of the air intakes would do to the aircraft’s overall impression? Most conversions I have seen so far retain this original detail. An idea was born, and a pair of leftover Academy MiG-23 air intakes, complete with splitter plates, were the suitable conversion basis.
The basic kit is the Italeri Tornado ADV, even though in a later Revell re-boxing. It’s IMHO the kit with the best price-performance ration, and it goes together well. The kit was mostly built OOB, with some cosmetic additions. The biggest changes came through the integration of the completely different air intakes. These were finished at first and, using them as templates, openings were cut into the lower fuselage flanks in front of the landing gear well. Since the MiG-23 intakes have a relatively short upper side, styrene sheet fillers had to be added and blended with the rest of the fuselage via PSR. The gap between the wing root gloves and the intakes had to be bridged, too, with 2C putty. Messier affair than it sounds, but it went well.
In order to make the engine change plausible I modified the Tornado exhaust and added a pair of orifices from an F-18 – they look very similar to those on the Eurofighter Typhoon, and their diameter is perfect for this change. This and the different air intakes stretch the Tonka visually, it looks IMHO even more slender than the F.3.
Another issue was the canopy: the 2nd hand kit came without clear parts, but I was lucky to still have a Tornado F.3 canopy in the spares box – but only the windscreen from a Tornado IDS, which does not fit well onto the ADV variant. A 2mm gap at the front end had to be bridged, and the angles on the side as well as the internal space to the HUD does not match too well. But, somehow, I got it into place, even though it looks a bit shaggy.
The IRST in front of the windscreen is a piece of clear styrene sprue (instead of an opaque piece, painted glossy black), placed on a black background. The depth effect is very good!
More changes pertained to the ordnance: the complete weaponry was exchanged. The OOB Sidewinders were replaced with specimen from a Hasegawa F-4 Phantom (these look just better than the AIM-9 that come with the kit), and I originally planned to mount four AIM-120 from the same source under the fuselage – until I found a Revell Eurofighter kit in my stash that came with four Meteor AAMs, a suitable and more modern as well as British alternative!
All in all, just subtle modifications.
Painting and markings:
Well, the RAF was the creative direction, so I stuck to a classic/conservative livery. However, I did not want a 100% copy of the typical “real world” RAF Tornado F.3, so I sought inspiration in earlier low-visibility schemes. Esp. the Phantom and the Lightning carried in their late days a wide variety of grey-in-grey schemes, and one of the most interesting of them (IMHO) was carried by XS 933: like some other Lightnings, the upper surfaces were painted in Dark Sea Grey (instead of the standard Medium Sea Grey), a considerably murkier tone, but XS933 had a mid-height waterline. I found that scheme to be quite plausible for an aircraft that would mostly operate above open water and in heavier weather, so I adapted it to the Tonka. The fact that XS 933 was operated by RAF 5 Squadron, the same unit as my build depicts with its markings, is just a weird coincidence!
An alternative would have been the same colors, but with a low waterline (e.g. like Lightning XR728) – but I rejected this, because the result would have looked IMHO much too similar to the late Tornado GR.4 fighter bombers, or like a Royal Navy aircraft.
Since the upper color would be wrapped around the wings’ leading edges, I used the lower wing leading edge level as reference for the high waterline on the forward fuselage, Behind the wings’ trailing edge I lowered the waterline down to the stabilizers’ level.
All upper surfaces, including the tall fin, were painted with Tamiya XF-54, a relatively light interpretation of RAF Dark Sea Grey (because I did not want a harsh contrast with the lower colors), while the fuselage undersides and flanks were painted in Medium Sea Grey (Humbrol 165). The same tone was also used for the underwing pylons and the “Hindenburger” drop tanks. The undersides of the wings and the stabilizers were painted in Camouflage Grey (formerly known as Barley Grey, Humbrol 167).
Disaster struck when I applied the Tamiya paint, though. I am not certain why (age of the paint, I guess), but the finish developed a kind of “pigment pelt” which turned out to be VERY sensitive to touch. Even the slightest handling would leave dark, shiny spots!
My initial attempt was to hide most of this problem under post-shading (with Humbrol 126, FS 36270), but that turned the Tonka visually into a Tiger Meet participant – the whole thing looked as if it wore low-viz stripes! Aaargh!
In a desperate move (since more and more paint piled up on the upper surfaces, and I did not want to strip the kit off of all paint right now) I applied another thin coat of highly diluted XF-54 on top of the tiger stripe mess, and that toned everything done enough to call it a day. While the finish is not perfect and still quite shaggy (even streaky here and there…), it looks O.K., just like a worn and bleached Dark Sea Grey.
A little more rescue came with the decals. The markings are naturally low-viz variants and the RAF 5 Sq. markings come from an Xtradecal BAC Lightning sheet (so they differ from the markings applied to the real world Tornado F.3s of this unit). The zillion of stencils come from the OOB sheet, but the walking area warnings came from a Model Decal Tornado F.3 sheet (OOB, Revell only provides you a bunch of generic, thin white lines, printed on a single carrier film, and tells you “Good luck”! WTF?). Took a whole afternoon to apply them, but I used as many of them as possible in order to hide the paint finish problems… Some things, like the tactical letter code or the red bar under the fuselage roundel, had to be improvised.
With many troubles involved (the paint job, but furthermore the wing pylons as well as one stabilizer broke off during the building and painting process…), I must say that the modified Tonka turned out better than expected while I was still working on it. In the end, I am happy with it – it’s very subtle, I wonder how many people actually notice the change of air intakes and jet exhausts, and the Meteor AAMs are, while not overtly visible, a nice update, too.
The paint scheme looks basically also good (if you overlook the not-so-good finish due to the problems with the Tamiya paint), and the darker tones suit the Tonka well, as well as the fake RAF 5 Squadron markings.
A participant asks questionsat the Annual Meeting 2017 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 19, 2017
Copyright by World Economic Forum / Walter Duerst
Aerial view of Carlos Gonzalez Torrez, an experienced farmworker, hand picking artichoke, strawberry and Brussels sprouts for many years, but he always wanted to be a farmer on his own; today, with the education and experience from the Agricultural Land Based Training Association (ALBA); who receives assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) Farm Service Agency (FSA); he is a 2015 graduate of their Farmer Education Course (PEPA) and is now in his third of five (possible) incubator years where he rents farm land, currently 4.35 acres of ALBAâs 100 acre facility in Salinas, Ca., on Nov. 14, 2018.
The Agricultural Land Based Training Association (ALBA) is a training program that helps low income farmworkers and others learn how to become farmers. New farmers begin with a series of classroom courses and on-hands training, and graduate to farming their own piece of land on the farm. Eventually these new graduates hope to become successful farmers.
ALBAâs Farmer Education and Enterprise Development (FEED) Program educates and trains new farmer-entrepreneurs to plan, launch, and establish viable organic farm businesses or advance their careers. To accomplish this, ALBA has 100 acres of organic land, an experienced team with diverse expertise, and a hands-on, 5-year farmer development program. FEED is comprised of three main components:
1.The Farmer Education Course (PEPA) is a one year, bilingual, 300-hour curriculum featuring classroom instruction and field-based training, readying participants to launch an organic farm business.
2.The Organic Farm Incubator allows course graduates to launch their farm on ALBAâs land. Starting at ½ acre, farmers gradually scale up to 5 acres over 4 years under ALBAâs supervision before transitioning to fully independent farming.
3.ALBA Organics, aggregates, markets and ships participantsâ products to growing markets around California. Doing so gives farmers access to clients that would otherwise be out of reach and allows them to focus on growing and business management in their initial years.
For more information about PEPA please see www.albafarmers.org/programs/
Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) is the USDAâs focal point for the nationâs farmers and ranchers and other stewards of private agricultural lands and non-industrial private forest lands. FPAC agencies implement programs designed to mitigate the significant risks of farming through crop insurance services, conservation programs and technical assistance, and commodity, lending, and disaster programs. The FPAC team includes, Farm Service Agency (FSA) (www.fsa.usda.gov/), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) (www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/site/national/home/), and Risk Management Agency (RMA) (www.rma.usda.gov/).
Farm Service Agency (FSA) is equitably serving all farmers, ranchers, and agricultural partners through the delivery of effective, efficient agricultural programs for all Americans. FSA is a customer-driven agency with a diverse and multi-talented work force, dedicated to achieving an economically and environmentally sound future for American Agriculture. The vision is to be a market-oriented, economically and environmentally sound American agriculture delivering an abundant, safe, and affordable food and fiber supply while sustaining quality agricultural communities.
Here, FSA works with non-profit organizations such as ALBA to provide program information and outreach to beginning farmers, socially disadvantaged farmers and limited income farmers. ALBA works with a unique farmer base of nontraditional, diverse and beginning farmers.
FSA staff has worked with ALBA for many years in the following ways:
1. Provide classroom training to new ALBA students at the ALBA farm during their regular coursework. FSA provides training on:
a. How to apply for a farm loan and prepare a cash flow statement.
b. How to apply for FSA programs that help with risk management on the farm, such as the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) or other regional crop insurance options.
c. How to apply for Disaster Assistance through FSA in case of an adverse weather event or other emergency.
2. FSA has provided micro loans, operating loans and ownership loans to help ALBA farmers become independent and successful in their operations. FSA has provided Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) and Noninsured Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) payments to these farmers.
3. FSA has provided bookkeeping training courses to ALBA students, on farm tours, and has helped students apply for USDA scholarships to attend agricultural conferences and other trainings.
4. FSA has referred ALBA farmers to NRCS for help with resource management issues.
âThese farmers are the future face of American Agriculture. It is so important for FSA to help them get a strong start in ensuring the success of their operations, said FSA County Executive Director Vivian Soffa. Carlos will need support when he graduates from ALBA and hopefully FSA will be able to assist him with his capital needs when he is farming on his own in this very competitive agriculture market. Familiarity with FSAâs programs at the beginning of a new farmerâs endeavor may be the difference between success and failure.â
For more information please see www.usda.gov.
USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
Many people call themselves atheists, and it is frequently argued by some that atheism is the only rational viewpoint.
However, it is also often said that there is no such thing as a genuine atheist.
This is supported by the Bible which declares: “the fool hath said in his heart there is no God.”
So which view is correct?
If we give just a little thought to this matter, we can see that there is no argument at all as to whether the qualities and properties usually attributable to God actually exist.
This is certain and beyond dispute.
So really the only disagreement is over the source or origin of these attributes.
Furthermore, we can understand that there are only 2 possible, alternative sources of these attributes.
It is self evident that something material can never come out of (absolute) nothing of its own accord (First Law of Thermodynamics & Law of Cause and Effect). (Something cannot create itself, it would need to pre-exist its own creation to do so).
We know that something material exists (i.e. the universe), therefore something must have always existed, something must be eternal and have had no beginning. This eternal something, can only be:
1. A force or power independent of the material, and thus the Creator of the material, OR
2. The material itself.
So an eternal nature must be possessed by,
EITHER:
1. A Supernatural Power.
OR
2. Matter/energy.
Consequently, all the other qualities, powers and potentialities which exist in the universe must have originally derived from ONE OR OTHER of these two proposed 'eternal' sources.
Some of the qualities existing in the material world.
Laws of Nature, Life, Information & means of information storage (DNA etc.), Consciousness, Intelligence, Design, Order, Motion, Love, Choice, Good, Beauty, Emotion, Kindness, Personality, Morality, Awareness, Justice, Wisdom, Hope, Joy, skill, etc.
There is no disagreement that these qualities are present in the universe.
The only dispute is over the source or origin of these qualities.
THEREFORE ....
Is the stuff of the universe (matter/energy) eternal?
Does this 'eternal matter' intrinsically possess all the above qualities, or the inherent potential to produce them of its own volition?
OR
Is there a power greater than, pre-existing and independent of, the material?
A Supernatural Creator of the material, possessor and originator of all the above attributes evident in the material creation?
IT CAN ONLY BE ONE OR THE OTHER
SO THIS IS THE ONLY DISAGREEMENT, AND IT IS AN AGE-OLD DISAGREEMENT.
No atheist would attempt to claim that mankind is the originator of all these qualities.
We are not eternal, we did not create ourselves or the universe, something greater than us essentially exists.
Is that something a Supernatural Creator God?
Or a purely material power which must intrinsically possess all the qualities, powers & potentialities usually attributed to a Supernatural Creator God?
- - A material god? - - A pagan god!
SO THE CHOICE IS CLEAR,- -
WE MUST FACE THE FACTS! - -
ATHEISM (or even agnosticism) IS NOT AN OPTION.
YOU MUST PAY HOMAGE TO A POWER WHICH IS GREATER THAN YOURSELF,
THAT POWER IS EITHER:
A Creator God as described in the Bible,
OR,
The material pagan god or gods' (represented by natural entities, such as: Mother Earth, Mother Nature, the Sun, the Moon, an 'intelligent' Universe, or idols of stone, wood etc.) which you must necessarily imbue with the SAME ATTRIBUTES.
Atheism = the religion of Pagan Naturalism re-invented.
SO NOW CHOOSE YOUR GOD?
Footnote:
An eternally, self-existent universe, or any uncaused, natural entity with no beginning is not possible.
Matter/energy cannot be eternally existent with no beginning.
Why?
Because all natural things are contingent.
Contingency is an inherent property of all natural entities. They have to comply with the law of cause and effect, so they cannot exist independently of causes.
The nearest you could get to eternally, existent matter/energy would be a very, long chain of causes and effects, but a long chain is not eternally existent, it has to have a beginning at some point. At the beginning there would have to be a non-contingent, eternally existent, first cause. A long chain of causes and effects simply pushes a first cause further back in time, it can't eliminate it.
What about an eternally, cyclical universe?
It is obvious that the idea of the universe simply rewinding itself in a never ending cycle, which had no beginning, is unscientific nonsense. As well as the Law of Cause and Effect - the Second Law of Thermodynamics also rules it out
There is no such thing as a free lunch, the idea of a rewinding universe is tantamount to applying the discredited notion of perpetual motion - on a grand scale, to the universe.
Contingent things don't just rewind of their own accord.
Where does the renewed power or renewed energy potential come from?
If you wind up a clock, it doesn't rewind itself after it has stopped.
The universe had a beginning and it will have an end. That is what science tells us, it cannot rewind itself.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us the universe certainly had a beginning and will have an end. The energy potential of the universe is decreasing from an original peak at the beginning of the universe. Even the most fundamentalist atheists seem to accept that. Which is why most of them believe in some sort of beginning event, such as a big bang explosion.
So an eternally existent, god of 'matter/energy' is demonstrably IMPOSSIBLE... that leaves only one POSSIBLE choice of god - the supernatural, creator God, as described in the Bible.
Essential characteristics of the first cause.
Consider this short chain of causes and effects:
A causes B, - B causes C, - C causes D, - D causes E.
'A, B, C & D' are all causes and may all look similar, but they are not, there is an enormous and crucial difference between them.
Causes B, C & D are fundamentally different from cause A.
Why?
Because A is the very first cause and thus had no previous cause. It exists without a cause. It doesn’t rely on anything else for its existence, it is completely independent of causes - while B, C & D would not exist without A. They are entirely dependent on A.
Causes; B, C & D are also effects, whereas A is not an effect, only a cause.
So we can say that the first cause ‘A’ is both self-existent and necessary. It is necessary because the rest of the chain of causes and effects could not exist without it. We also have to say that the subsequent causes and effects B, C, D and E are all contingent. That is; they are not self-existent they all depend entirely on other causes to exist.
We can also say that A is eternally self-existent, i.e. it has always existed, it had no beginning. Why? Because if A came into being at some point, there must have been something other than itself that brought it into being … which would mean A was not the first cause (A could not create A) … the something that brought A into being would be the first cause. In which case, A would be contingent and no different from B, C, D & E.
We can also say that A is adequate to produce all the properties of B, C, D & E.
Why?
Well in the case of E we can see that it relies entirely on D for its existence, E can in no way be superior to D because D had to contain within it everything necessary to produce E. The same applies to D it cannot be superior to C, but furthermore neither E or D can be superior to C, because both rely on C for their existence, and C had to contain everything necessary to produce D & E.
Likewise with B, which is responsible for the existence of C, D & E.
As they all depend on A for their existence and all their properties, abilities and potentials, none can be superior to A whether singly or combined. A had to contain everything necessary to produce B, C, D & E including all their properties, abilities and potentials.
Thus we deduce that; nothing in the universe can be superior in any way to the very first cause of the universe, because the whole universe, and all material things that exist, depend entirely on the abilities and properties of the first cause to produce them.
So to sum up … a first cause must be uncaused, must have always existed and cannot be in any way inferior to all subsequent causes and effects. In other words, the first cause of the universe must be eternally, self-existent and omnipotent (greater than everything that exists). No natural entity can have those attributes, that is why a Supernatural, Creator God MUST exist.
What about polytheism, can there be more than one God or Creator.
It is patently obvious there can only be one supernatural first cause.
The first cause is infinite - and logically, there cannot be more than one infinite entity.
If there were two infinite entities, for example, A and B. The qualities and perfections that are the property of B would be a limitation on the qualities and perfections of A. and vice versa, so neither would be infinite.
If A & B had identical qualities and perfections they would not be two different entities, they would be identical and therefore the same entity, i.e. a single, infinite, first cause. So there can be only one infinite being or entity, only one supernatural, first cause and creator of the universe.
So when atheists keep repeating the claim - that there is no reason to believe the monotheistic, Christian God is any different from the multiple, gods of pagan religions, it simply displays their ignorance and lack of reasoning.
FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE
The Law of Cause and Effect. Dominant Principle of Classical Physics. David L. Bergman and Glen C. Collins
www.thewarfareismental.net/b/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/b...
"The Big Bang's Failed Predictions and Failures to Predict: (Updated Aug 3, 2017.) As documented below, trust in the big bang's predictive ability has been misplaced when compared to the actual astronomical observations that were made, in large part, in hopes of affirming the theory."
Normal Asiad D 9600 on Vasai-Thane and 12 meter asiad BL 0979 on Vasai-Swargate pose together at Vasai.
Notice any differences? Very subtle differences which isn't really noticeable at first. I've only realized these differences recently... In the first movie, the spider emblem on the chest is smaller. It was enlarged in the second movie and remained the same for the third movie. The second movie had somewhat of a thicker black border around the eyes, but in the third movie, the eyes looked similar to that from the first movie. Large spider emblem on the chest remained.
18 Nov 2022 - Farmleigh
Press Release
The Ceann Comhairle, Seán Ó Fearghaíl TD, today (Friday November 18th) presented 16 National Bravery Awards to individuals who risked their own lives to aid others in peril.
Today’s ceremony at Farmleigh House in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, brought recipients together to receive ten Bronze Medals, another five recipients received Silver Medals and one received Gold for Bravery.
The annual honours are awarded by Comhairle na Míre Gaile – the Deeds of Bravery Council – which was founded 75 years ago in 1947 to enable State recognition of exceptional Acts of Bravery. The Council is chaired by the Ceann Comhairle and includes the Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann, the Lord Mayors of Dublin and Cork, the Garda Commissioner, the President of the Association of City & County Councils, and the Chairman of the Irish Red Cross.
The Ceann Comhairle said: “Today, we present awards, to brave recipients from every corner of the country. Letters of commendation have also issued to nine people for deeds and actions which saved lives and protected others from harm.
Through the 75 years of the Bravery awards we have heard of hundreds of lives that have been saved. We cannot know what lives were lived or what generations have grown as a result of these deeds, but we do know that every deed made a difference. Every act of bravery matters to the people who were saved and sometimes, even more so, to those who are left behind after an unsuccessful rescue attempt.
On behalf of the people of Ireland let me thank the brave recipients for their actions, for their selflessness, for their courage and for showing us that we can all make a difference on this island we share and in this world we walk together.”
The recipients are:
John Colfer – Bronze Medal
Garda Kieran Donovan – Bronze Medal
Garda James Keegan – Bronze Medal
Garda Colin Kyne-Delaney – Bronze Medal
Lee Conlon – Bronze Medal
Michael Nallon – Bronze Medal
Micheál Bourke – Bronze Medal
Katie Butler Haughney – Bronze Medal
Garda Brendan Crawford – Bronze Medal
Garda Ciaran Murray – Bronze Medal
Michael Downes – Silver Medal
Liam Halpin – Silver Medal
Miley Doran – Silver Medal
Rosaleen Feeney – Silver Medal
Stephen Ryan – Silver Medal
Kevin Barr – Gold Medal
ENDS