Shortly after the senators capture on Coruscant, Justice was swift and firm with rumors of him. Sympathizing with the rebels to be true.

The historical evidence paints Austria-Hungary in a bad light as the executions of this period are reconsidered. Historians estimate that the Austrians executed between eleven to thirty thousand civilians in the early months of the Great War. The Austirans were suspicious of civilians in Galicia, Poland, occupied Russia and the Balkans. The photographic evidence shows many executions of civilians. No one seems to have an accurate number of deaths by military or judicial proceedings by the Austrians in the Great War.

Hey guys. Sorry about not posting in a while, I've been playing a lot of bf4 recently. If you play on xbox 360 add me btw: jkc88 Tell me your gamertag so I know who you are though. Thought I would post a quick pic to showcase some new things and to prove that I'm still alive.

 

Be expecting some things related to bf4. I have a figure almost done and have just started on a build. :) So look out for those.

A CLOSER LOOK AT CORVUS CORONE

  

LEGEND AND MYTHOLOGY

  

Crows appear in the Bible where Noah uses one to search for dry land and to check on the recession of the flood. Crows supposedly saved the prophet, Elijah, from famine and are an Inuit deity. Legend has it that England and its monarchy will end when there are no more crows in the Tower of London. And some believe that the crows went to the Tower attracted by the regular corpses following executions with written accounts of their presence at the executions of Anne Boleyn and Jane Gray.

  

In Welsh mythology, unfortunately Crows are seen as symbolic of evilness and black magic thanks to many references to witches transforming into crows or ravens and escaping. Indian legend tells of Kakabhusandi, a crow who sits on the branches of a wish-fulfilling tree called Kalpataru and a crow in Ramayana where Lord Rama blessed the crow with the power to foresee future events and communicate with the souls.

  

In Native American first nation legend the crow is sometimes considered to be something of a trickster, though they are also viewed positively by some tribes as messengers between this world and the next where they carry messages from the living to those deceased, and even carry healing medicines between both worlds. There is a belief that crows can foresee the future. The Klamath tribe in Oregon believe that when we die, we fly up to heaven as a crow. The Crow can also signify wisdom to some tribes who believe crows had the power to talk and were therefore considered to be one of the wisest of birds. Tribes with Crow Clans include the Chippewa (whose Crow Clan and its totem are called Aandeg), the Hopi (whose Crow Clan is called Angwusngyam or Ungwish-wungwa), the Menominee, the Caddo, the Tlingit, and the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico.

  

The crow features in the Nanissáanah (Ghost dance), popularized by Jerome Crow Dog, a Brulé Lakota sub-chief and warrior born at Horse Stealing Creek in Montana Territory in 1833, the crow symbolizing wisdom and the past, when the crow had became a guide and acted as a pathfinder during hunting. The Ghost dance movement was originally created in 1870 by Wodziwob, or Gray Hair, a prophet and medicine man of the Paiute tribe in an area that became known as Nevada. Ghost dancers wore crow and eagle feathers in their clothes and hair, and the fact that the Crow could talk placed it as one of the sages of the animal kingdom.

  

The five day dances seeking trance,prophecy and exhortations would eventually play a major part in the pathway towards the white man's broken treaties, the infamous battle at Wounded knee and the surrender of Matȟó Wanáȟtaka (Kicking Bear), after officials began to fear the ghost dancers and rituals which seemed to occur prior to battle.

  

Historically the Vikings are the group who made so many references to the crow, and Ragnarr Loðbrók and his sons used this species in his banner as well as appearances in many flags and coats of arms. Also, it had some kind of association with Odin, one of their main deities. Norse legend tells us that Odin is accompanied by two crows. Hugin, who symbolizes thought, and Munin, who represents a memory. These two crows were sent out each dawn to fly the entire world, returning at breakfast where they informed the Lord of the Nordic gods of everything that went on in their kingdoms. Odin was also referred to as Rafnagud (raven-god). The raven appears in almost every skaldic poem describing warfare.Coins dating back to 940's minted by Olaf Cuaran depict the Viking war standard, the Raven and Viking war banners (Gonfalon) depicted the bird also.

  

In Scandinavian legends, crows are a representative of the Goddess of Death, known as Valkyrie (from old Norse 'Valkyrja'), one of the group of maidens who served the Norse deity Odin, visiting battlefields and sending him the souls of the slain worthy of a place in Valhalla. Odin ( also called Wodan, Woden, or Wotan), preferred that heroes be killed in battle and that the most valiant of souls be taken to Valhöll, the hall of slain warriors. It is the crow that provides the Valkyries with important information on who should go. In Hindu ceremonies that are associated to ancestors, the crow has an important place in Vedic rituals. They are seen as messengers of death in Indian culture too.

  

In Germanic legend, Crows are seen as psychonomes, meaning the act of guiding spirits to their final destination, and that the feathers of a crow could cure a victim who had been cursed. And yet, a lone black crow could symbolize impending death, whilst a group symbolizes a lucky omen! Vikings also saw good omens in the crow and would leave offerings of meat as a token.

  

The crow also has sacred and prophetic meaning within the Celtic civilization, where it stood for flesh ripped off due to combat and Morrighan, the warrior goddess, often appears in Celtic mythology as a raven or crow, or else is found to be in the company of the birds. Crow is sacred to Lugdnum, the Celtic god of creation who gave his name to the city of Lug

  

In Greek mythology according to Appolodorus, Apollo is supposedly responsible for the black feathers of the crow, turning them forever black from their pristine white original plumage as a punishment after they brought news that Κορωνις (Coronis) a princess of the Thessalian kingdom of Phlegyantis, Apollo's pregnant lover had left him to marry a mortal, Ischys. In one legend, Apollo burned the crows feathers and then burned Coronis to death, in another Coronis herself was turned into a black crow, and another that she was slain by the arrows of Αρτεμις (Artemis - twin to Apollo). Koronis was later set amongst the stars as the constellation Corvus ("the Crow"). Her name means "Curved One" from the Greek word korônis or "Crow" from the word korônê.

  

A similar Muslim legend allegedly tells of Muhammad, founder of Islam and the last prophet sent by God to Earth, who's secret location was given away by a white crow to his seekers, as he hid in caves. The crow shouted 'Ghar Ghar' (Cave, cave) and thus as punishment, Muhammad turned the crow black and cursed it for eternity to utter only one phrase, 'Ghar, ghar). Native Indian legend where the once rainbow coloured crows became forever black after shedding their colourful plumage over the other animals of the world.

  

In China the Crow is represented in art as a three legged bird on a solar disk, being a creature that helps the sun in its journey. In Japan there are myths of Crow Tengu who were priests who became vain, and turned into this spirit to serve as messengers until they learn the lesson of humility as well as a great Crow who takes part in Shinto creation stories.

  

In animal spirit guides there are general perceptions of what sightings of numbers of crows actually mean:

  

1 Crow Meaning: To carry a message from your near one who died recently.

 

2 Crows Meaning: Two crows sitting near your home signifies some good news is on your way.

 

3 Crows Meaning: An upcoming wedding in your family.

 

4 Crows Meaning: Symbolizes wealth and prosperity.

 

5 Crows Meaning: Diseases or pain.

 

6 Crows Meaning: A theft in your house!

 

7 Crows Meaning: Denotes travel or moving from your house.

 

8 Crows Meaning: Sorrowful events

  

Crows are generally seen as the symbolism when alive for doom bringing, misfortune and bad omens, and yet a dead crow symbolises potentially bringing good news and positive change to those who see it. This wonderful bird certainly gets a mixed bag of contradictory mythology and legend over the centuries and in modern days is often seen as a bit of a nuisance, attacking and killing the babies of other birds such as Starlings, Pigeons and House Sparrows as well as plucking the eyes out of lambs in the field, being loud and noisy and violently attacking poor victims in a 'crow court'....

  

There is even a classic horror film called 'THE CROW' released in 1994 by Miramax Films, directed by Alex Proyas and starring Brandon Lee in his final film appearance as Eric Draven, who is revived by a Crow tapping on his gravestone a year after he and his fiancée are murdered in Detroit by a street gang. The crow becomes his guide as he sets out to avenge the murders. The only son of martial arts expert Bruce Lee, Brandon lee suffered fatal injuries on the set of the film when the crew failed to remove the primer from a cartridge that hit Lee in the abdomen with the same force as a normal bullet. Lee died that day, March 31st 1993 aged 28.

  

The symbolism of the Crow resurrecting the dead star and accompanying him on his quest for revenge was powerful, and in some part based on the history of the carrion crow itself and the original film grossed more than $94 Million dollars with three subsequent sequels following.

  

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK

  

So let's move away from legend, mythology and stories passed down from our parents and grandparents and look at these amazing birds in isolation.

  

Carrion crow are passerines in the family Corvidae a group of Oscine passerine birds including Crows, Ravens, Rooks, Jackdaws, Jays, Magpies, Treepies, Choughs and Nutcrackers. Technically they are classed as Corvids, and the largest of passerine birds. Carrion crows are medium to large in size with rictal bristles and a single moult per year (most passerines moult twice). Carrion crow was one of the many species originally described by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (Carl Von Linne after his ennoblement) in his 1758 and 1759 editions of 'SYSTEMA NATURAE', and it still bears its original name of Corvus corone, derived from the Latin of Corvus, meaning Raven and the Greek κορώνη (korōnē), meaning crow.

  

Carrion crow are of the Animalia kingdom Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Corvidae Genus: Corvus and Species: Corvus corone

  

Corvus corone can reach 45-47cm in length with a 93-104cm wingspan and weigh between 370-650g. They are protected under The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in the United Kingdom with a Green UK conservation status which means they are of least concern with more than 1,000,000 territories. Breeding occurs in April with fledging of the chicks taking around twenty nine days following an incubation period of around twenty days with 3 to 4 eggs being the average norm.

  

They are abundant in the UK apart from Northwest Scotland and Ireland where the Hooded crow (Corvus cornix) was considered the same species until 2002. They have a lifespan of around four years, whilst Crow species can live to the age of Twenty years old, and the oldest known American crow in the wild was almost Thirty years old. The oldest documented captive crow died at age Fifty nine. They are smaller and have a shorter lifespan than the Raven, which again is used as a symbol in history to live life to the full and not waste a moment!

  

They are often mistaken for the Rook (Corvus frugilegus), a similar bird, though in the UK, the Rook is actually technically smaller than the Carrion crow averaging 44-46cm in length, 81-99cm wingspan and weighing up to 340g. Rooks have white beaks compared to the black beaks of Carrion crow, a more steeply raked ratio from head to beak, and longer straighter beaks as well as a different plumage pattern. There are documented cases in the UK of singular and grouped Rooks attacking and killing Carrion crows in their territory. Rooks nest in colonies unlike Carrion crows. Carrion crows have only a few natural enemies including powerful raptors such as the northern goshawk, the peregrine falcon, the Eurasian eagle-owl and the golden eagle which will all readily hunt them.

  

Regarded as one of the most intelligent birds, indeed creatures on the planet, studies suggest that Corvids cognitive abilities can rival that of primates such as chimpanzees and gorillas and even provide clues to understanding human intelligence. Crows have relatively large brains for their body size, compared to other animals. Their encephalization quotient (EQ) a ratio of brain to body size, adjusted for size because there isn’t a linear relationship is 4.1. That is remarkably close to chimps at 4.2 whilst humans are 8.1. Corvids also have a very high neuronal density, the number of neurons per gram of brain, factoring in the number of cortical neurons, neuron packing density, interneuronal distance and axonal conduction velocity shows that Corvids score high on this measure as well, with humans scoring the highest.

  

A corvid's pallium is packed with more neurons than a great ape's. Corvids have demonstrated the ability to use a combination of mental tools such as imagination, and anticipation of future events. They can craft tools from twigs and branches to hook grubs from deep recesses, they can solve puzzles and intricate methods of gaining access to food set by humans., and have even bent pieces of wire into hooks to obtain food. They have been proven to have a higher cognitive ability level than seven year old humans. Communications wise, their repertoire of wraw-wraw's is not fully understood, but the intensity, rhythm, and duration of caws seems to form the basis of a possible language. They also remember the faces of humans who have hindered or hurt them and pass that information on to their offspring.

  

Aesop's fable of 'The Crow and the Pitcher, tells of a thirsty crow which drops stones into a water pitcher to raise the water level and enable it to take a drink. Scientists have conducted tests to see whether crows really are this intelligent. They placed floating treats in a deep tube and observed the crows indeed dropping dense objects carefully selected into the water until the treat floated within reach. They had the intelligence to pick up, weigh and discount objects that would float in the water, they also did not select ones that were too large for the container.

  

Pet crows develop a unique call for their owners, in effect actually naming them. They also know to sunbathe for a dose of vitamin D, regularly settling on wooden garden fences, opening their mouths and wings and raising their heads to the sun. In groups they warn of danger and communicate vocally. They store a cache of food for later if in abundance and are clever enough to move it if they feel it has been discovered. They leave markers for their cache. They have even learned to place walnuts and similar hard food items under car tyres at traffic lights as a means of cracking them!

  

Crows regularly gather around a dead fellow corvid, almost like a funeral, and it is thought they somehow learn from each death. They can even remember human faces for decades.Crows group together to attack larger predators and even steal their food, and they have different dialects in different areas, with the ability to mimic the dialect of the alpha males when they enter their territory!

  

They have a twenty year life span, the oldest on record reaching the age of Fifty nine. Crows can leave gifts for those who feed them such as buttons or bright shiny objects as a thank you, and they even kiss and make up after an argument, having mated for life.

  

In mythology they are associated with good and bad luck, being the bringers of omens and even witchcraft and are generally reviled for their attacks on baby birds and small mammals. They have an attack method of to stunning smaller birds before consuming them, tearing violently at smaller, less aggressive birds, which is simply down to the fact that they are so highly intelligent, and also the top of the food chain. Their diet includes over a thousand different items: Dead animals (as their name suggests), invertebrates, grain, as well as stealing eggs and chicks from other birds' nests, worms, insects, fruit, seeds, kitchen scraps.

  

They are highly adaptable when food sources grow scarce. I absolutely love them, they are magnificent, bold, beautiful and incredibly interesting to watch and though at times it is hard to witness attacks made by them, I cannot help but adore them for so many other and more important reasons.

  

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAIR IN MY GARDEN

  

Crows have been in the area for a while, but rarely had strayed into my garden, leaving the Magpies to own the territory. Things changed towards the end of May when a beautiful female Carrion crow appeared and began to take some of the food that I put down for the other birds. Within a few days she began to appear regularly, on occasions stocking up on food, whilst other times placing pieces in the birdbath to soften them. She would stand on the birdbath and eat and drink and come back over the course of the day to eat the softened food.

  

Shortly afterwards she brought along her mate, a tall and handsome fella, much larger than her who was also very vocal if he felt she was getting a little too close to me. By now I had moved from a seated position from the patio as an observer, to laying on a mat just five feet from the birdbath with my Nikon so that I could photograph the pair as they landed, scavenged and fed. She was now confident enough to let me be very close, and she even tolerated and recognized the clicking of the camera. At first I used silent mode to reduce the noise but this only allowed two shooting frame rates of single frame or continuous low frame which meant I was missing shots. I reverted back to normal continuous high frames and she soon got used to the whirring of the mechanisms as the mirror slapped back and forth.

  

The big fella would bark orders at her from the safety of the fence or the rear of the garden, whilst she rarely made a sound. That was until one day when in the sweltering heat she kept opening her beak and sunning on the grass, panting slightly in the heat. I placed the circular water sprayer nearby and had it rotating so that the birdbath and grass was bathed in gentle water droplets and she soon came back, landed and seemed to really like the cooling effect on offer. She then climbed onto the birdbath and opened her wings slightly and made some gentle purring, cooing noises....

  

I swear she was expressing happiness, joy....

  

On another blisteringly hot day when the sprayer was on, she came down, walked towards it and opened her wings up running into the water spray. Not once, but many times.

  

A further revelation into the unseen sides to these beautiful birds came with the male and female on the rear garden fence. They sat together, locked beaks like a kiss and then the male took his time gently preening her head feathers and the back of her neck as she made tiny happy sounds. They stayed together like that for several minutes, showing a gentle, softer side to their nature and demonstrating the deep bond between them. Into July and the pair started to bring their three youngsters to my garden, the nippers learning to use the birdbath for bathing and dipping food, the parents attentive as ever. Two of the youngsters headed off once large enough and strong enough.

  

I was privileged to be in close attendance as the last juvenile was brought down by the pair, taught to take food and then on a night in July, to soar and fly with it's mother in the evening sky as the light faded. She would swoop and twirl, and at regular intervals just touch the juvenile in flight with her wing tip feathers, as if to reassure it that she was close in attendance. What an amazing experience to view. A few days later, the juvenile, though now gaining independence and more than capable of tackling food scraps in the garden, was still on occasions demand feeding from it's mother who was now teaching him to take chicken breast, hotdogs or digestive biscuits and bury them in the garden beds for later delectation.

  

The juvenile also liked to gather up peanuts and bury them in the grass. On one occasion I witnessed a pair of rambunctious Pica Pica (Magpies), chasing the young crow on rooftops, leaping at him no matter how hard he tried to get away. He defended himself well and survived the attacks, much to my relief.

  

Into August and the last youngster remained with the adults, though now was very independent even though he still spent time with his parents on rooftops, and shared food gathering duties with his mum.Hotdog sausages were their favourite choice, followed by fish fingers and digestive biscuits which the adult male would gather up three at a time.

  

Corvus Corone.... magnificently misunderstood by some!

  

Paul Williams June 4th 2021

  

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 40.074+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

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©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Fifty seven metres at 11:01am on a beautiful summer morning on Thursday 3rd June 2021, off Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.

  

Here we see a large adult Female Carrion crow (Corvus corone), a passerine bird of the family Corvidae and the genus Raven (Higher classification: Corvus), which is native to western Europe and eastern Asia. It can grow to twenty inches in length with a wingspan of up to thirty nine inches.

  

Nikon D850 Focal length: 280mm Shutter speed: 1/1600s Aperture: f/7.1 iso400 Hand held with Tamron VC Vibration control set to ON (Position 1) 14 Bit uncompressed RAW NEF file size L (8256 x 5504 pixels) FX (36 x 24) Focus mode: AF-C AF-Area mode: 3D-tracking AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual exposure mode Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Auto1 (4540k) Colour space: RGB Picture control: Neutral (Sharpening +2)

  

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 95mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

  

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LATITUDE: N 51d 28m 28.43s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 8m 10.47s

ALTITUDE: 57.00m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF FILE: 90.8MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 43.10MB

    

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PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

  

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

Execution Rocks Light

The Bronx, NY

February 6, 2016

Germans and Austrians pose around men that have been hung.The guard in the background is Austrian so I suspect these are more executions by the Austrians.The reverse appears to reference the French, but I doubt this photo was taken in France.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjHZeZkoXiM

 

sugerido por Arrano:

www.goear.com/listen/e18a485/Pido-Castigo-quilapayun

 

Lazaretto Island, (Greek: Λαζαρέτο, also Lazareto, formerly known as Agios Dimitrios) is located two nautical miles northeast of Corfu. It gets its name from the lazaretto located there.

During Venetian rule in the early 16th century a monastery was built on the islet and a leprosarium was established there later that century, after which the island was named.

In 1798, during the French occupation, it was occupied by the Russo-Turkish fleet which ran it as a military hospital. During the British occupation, in 1814, the leprosarium was again opened after renovations. After Corfu was united with Greece in 1864 the leprosarium was occasionally used.

During World War II, the Axis Occupation of Greece established a concentration camp there for the prisoners of the Greek National Resistance movement. There remains today the two-storied building that served as the Headquarters of the Italian army, a small church, and the wall against which those condemned to death were shot.

During the Greek Civil War, 1946-1949, it became a concentration camp for political prisoners, a large number of whom were executed, 112 executions have been confirmed.

The 112 people executed in Lazaretto belonged to the left resistance and were in prison in Corfu during the Greek Civil War. There were prisoners of conscience and fighters for national independence and democracy. Among the 112 people executed in Lazaretto were leaders, members and supporters of the communist movement. Another reason for their execution was their refusal to renounce the communist ideology and action.

They were put in jail, as dozens of other resistance leaders who were persecuted by the Greek fascist monarchist state. The state led the country in the Civil War with the full support of the British and Americans. The prisoners were condemned by the Emergency Millitary Courts and executed under the anti-communist legislation of the fascist monarchist state of that time.

   

Pelham Bay Park, The Bronx, NY

October 22, 2016

Death of Marshall Ney, by Jean-Léon Gérôme

More Historical Media and Info

04 Mar 2004, Petit-Goave, Haiti --- A Haitian, suspected of being a multiple assassin for President Jean Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas party, is stoned in Petit-Goave, some 50 kilometers south of Port-au-Prince, three days after the departure of Aristide. The man was arrested by armed citizens of Petit-Goave who proceeded to stone him and then burn him alive. --- Image by � Daniel Aguilar/Reuters/Corbis

Apologies in getting these photos up so late in the day...

 

An Entergy crew (the local power company) was seen working at the power poles along the south side of the Hernando Millennium Kroger just after noon on Monday, September 26, 2016: the planned day for the Kroger's demolition to start. Not sure if this was a planned delay, or somebody just suddenly thought it might not be a bad idea to remove live wires from the building before starting to demolish it :P

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Kroger, 2001 built, Commerce St. at Mt. Pleasant Rd., Hernando, MS

storefront design by architect benjamin brown

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qPz_ikz7pY

Detail van het beeld ‘Fusillade – De gevallen hoornblazer’ van Gerrit Bolhuis. Ter nagedachtenis aan dertig mannen die hier op 12 maart 1945 op deze plek zijn gefusilleerd door de Duitse bezetter. Vele andere mensen, waaronder ook kinderen, werden door Duitse soldaten gedwongen de fusillade te aanschouwen, het hoofd afwenden werd bestraft.

 

De gezichtsuitdrukking vind ik bijzonder treffend: van een man die sterft terwijl het hoorngeschal van de bevrijding in aantocht is, hoewel de bevrijding van Amsterdam nog bijna twee lange maanden op zich liet wachten.

 

nos.nl/75jaarbevrijding/bericht/2326789-zoektocht-naar-co...

 

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Detail of the sculpture ‘Execution – The fallen hornblower’ by Gerrit Bolhuis. In remembrance of thirty men who were executed by a firing squad of the German occupier on 12 March 1945 at this location. Many other people, including children, were forced by German soldiers to witness the execution. Turning the head away was punished.

 

The expression of the face I find very poignant: that of a man who is dying while the horn scalding of the liberation is underway, although it would take nearly two long months before Amsterdam was liberated.

 

nos.nl/75jaarbevrijding/bericht/2326789-zoektocht-naar-co...

 

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Dank voor het bekijken, commentaren, favorieten en kritiek.

Geen verder gebruik zonder mijn uitdrukkelijke toestemming. ·

Thanks for watching, comments, favourites and critique.

No further use without my explicit consent.

His execution was an hour away. Not much time to think through his mistakes, but Cazzmir managed. . . .

 

For more photos and the full story, go here: www.mocpages.com/moc.php/411467

Just a scene to use the parts from my last Bricklink order. I hope you enjoy. Decals from Roaglaan. C & C appreciated.

wrhstol.com/2F3GLiF

Windsor (/ˈwɪnzər/) is a town and unparished area in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England. It is widely known as the site of Windsor Castle, one of the official residences of the British Royal Family.

 

The town is situated 23 miles (37 km) west of Charing Cross, London. It is immediately south of the River Thames, which forms its boundary with Eton. The village of Old Windsor, just over 2 miles (3 km) to the south, predates what is now called Windsor by around 300 years; in the past Windsor was formally referred to as New Windsor to distinguish the two.

 

The early history of the site is unknown, although it was almost certainly settled some years before 1070 when William the Conquerorhad a timber motte and bailey castle constructed.[2] The focus of royal interest at that time was not the castle, however, but a small riverside settlement about 3 miles (5 km) downstream, possibly established from the 7th century.

 

Windsor, or Windlesora as it was called in the 11th century, is first mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The name originates from old English Windles-ore, or 'winch by the riverside'. The settlement had used an earlier name, but this is unknown. From about the 8th century, high status people started to visit the site occasionally, and possibly this included royalty. From the 11th century the site's link with king Edward the Confessor is documented, but again, information about his use of the place is scant. After the Conquest of 1066 royal use of the site increased, probably because it offered good access to woodlands and opportunities for hunting – a sport which also practised military skills. By the late 12th century, and the relocation of the royal household to an enlarged castle in 1110, the site was renamed Old Windsor.

 

Windsor Castle is noted in the Domesday Bookunder the entry for Clewer, the neighbouring manor to Windsor. Although this might seem strange, it occurred because plans for the castle had changed since 1070, and more land had been acquired in Clewer on which to site a castle town. This plan was not actioned until the early 12th century. By 1110, meetings of the Great Council, which had previously taken place at Windlesora, were noted as taking place at the Castle – referred to as New Windsor, probably to indicate that it was a two ward castle/borough complex, similar to other early castle designs, such as Denbigh. Henry I – according to one chronicle – had rebuilt it, and this followed the Norman kings' actions at other royal sites, such as Westminster, where larger and more magnificent accommodation was thought necessary for the new dynasty. King Henry married his second wife at Windsor Castle in 1121, after the White Ship disaster. The settlement at Old Windsor largely transferred to New Windsor during the 12th century, although substantial planning and setting out of the new town (including the parish church, marketplace, bridge, hermitage and leper hospital) did not take place until c. 1170, under Henry II, following the civil war of Stephen's reign. At about the same time, the present upper ward of the castle was rebuilt in stone. Windsor Bridge is the earliest bridge on the Thames between Staines and Reading, built at a time when bridge building was rare; it was first documented in 1191, but had probably been built, according to the Pipe rolls, in 1173. It played an important part in the national road system, linking London with Reading and Winchester, but also, by diverting traffic into the new town, it underpinned the success of its fledgling economy.

 

The town of New Windsor, as an ancient demesne of the Crown, was a privileged settlement from the start, apparently having the rights of a 'free borough', for which other towns had to pay substantial fees to the king. It had a merchant guild (known by the 14th century as the Fraternity or brotherhood of the Holy Trinity) from the early 13th century and, under royal patronage, was made the chief town of the county in 1277, as part of its grant of royal borough status by Edward I's charter. Somewhat unusually, this charter gave no new rights or privileges to Windsor but probably codified the rights which it had enjoyed for many years. Windsor's position as chief town of Berkshire was short-lived, however, as people found it difficult to reach. Wallingford took over this position in the early 14th century. As a self-governing town Windsor enjoyed a number of freedoms unavailable to other towns, including the right to hold its own borough court, the right of membership (or 'freedom') and some financial independence. The town accounts of the 16th century survive in part, although most of the once substantial borough archive dating back to the 12th century was destroyed, probably in the late 17th century.

 

The early history of the site is unknown, although it was almost certainly settled some years before 1070 when William the Conquerorhad a timber motte and bailey castle constructed.[2] The focus of royal interest at that time was not the castle, however, but a small riverside settlement about 3 miles (5 km) downstream, possibly established from the 7th century.

 

Windsor, or Windlesora as it was called in the 11th century, is first mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The name originates from old English Windles-ore, or 'winch by the riverside'. The settlement had used an earlier name, but this is unknown. From about the 8th century, high status people started to visit the site occasionally, and possibly this included royalty. From the 11th century the site's link with king Edward the Confessor is documented, but again, information about his use of the place is scant. After the Conquest of 1066 royal use of the site increased, probably because it offered good access to woodlands and opportunities for hunting – a sport which also practised military skills. By the late 12th century, and the relocation of the royal household to an enlarged castle in 1110, the site was renamed Old Windsor.

 

Windsor Castle is noted in the Domesday Bookunder the entry for Clewer, the neighbouring manor to Windsor. Although this might seem strange, it occurred because plans for the castle had changed since 1070, and more land had been acquired in Clewer on which to site a castle town. This plan was not actioned until the early 12th century. By 1110, meetings of the Great Council, which had previously taken place at Windlesora, were noted as taking place at the Castle – referred to as New Windsor, probably to indicate that it was a two ward castle/borough complex, similar to other early castle designs, such as Denbigh. Henry I – according to one chronicle – had rebuilt it, and this followed the Norman kings' actions at other royal sites, such as Westminster, where larger and more magnificent accommodation was thought necessary for the new dynasty. King Henry married his second wife at Windsor Castle in 1121, after the White Ship disaster. The settlement at Old Windsor largely transferred to New Windsor during the 12th century, although substantial planning and setting out of the new town (including the parish church, marketplace, bridge, hermitage and leper hospital) did not take place until c. 1170, under Henry II, following the civil war of Stephen's reign. At about the same time, the present upper ward of the castle was rebuilt in stone. Windsor Bridge is the earliest bridge on the Thames between Staines and Reading, built at a time when bridge building was rare; it was first documented in 1191, but had probably been built, according to the Pipe rolls, in 1173. It played an important part in the national road system, linking London with Reading and Winchester, but also, by diverting traffic into the new town, it underpinned the success of its fledgling economy.

 

The town of New Windsor, as an ancient demesne of the Crown, was a privileged settlement from the start, apparently having the rights of a 'free borough', for which other towns had to pay substantial fees to the king. It had a merchant guild (known by the 14th century as the Fraternity or brotherhood of the Holy Trinity) from the early 13th century and, under royal patronage, was made the chief town of the county in 1277, as part of its grant of royal borough status by Edward I's charter. Somewhat unusually, this charter gave no new rights or privileges to Windsor but probably codified the rights which it had enjoyed for many years. Windsor's position as chief town of Berkshire was short-lived, however, as people found it difficult to reach. Wallingford took over this position in the early 14th century. As a self-governing town Windsor enjoyed a number of freedoms unavailable to other towns, including the right to hold its own borough court, the right of membership (or 'freedom') and some financial independence. The town accounts of the 16th century survive in part, although most of the once substantial borough archive dating back to the 12th century was destroyed, probably in the late 17th century.

  

The Last Supper by Franz de Cleyn in the West Gallery of Windsor parish church of St John The Baptist.[3]

New Windsor was a nationally significant town in the Middle Ages, certainly one of the fifty wealthiest towns in the country by 1332. Its prosperity came from its close association with the royal household. The repeated investment in the castle brought London merchants (goldsmiths, vintners, spicers and mercers) to the town in the late 13th century and provided much employment for townsmen. The development of the castle under Edward III, between 1350–68, was the largest secular building project in England of the Middle Ages, and many Windsor people worked on this project, again bringing great wealth to the town. Although the Black Death in 1348 had reduced some towns' populations by up to 50%, in Windsor the building projects of Edward III brought money to the town, and possibly its population doubled: this was a 'boom' time for the local economy. People came to the town from every part of the country, and from continental Europe. The poet Geoffrey Chaucerheld the honorific post of 'Clerk of the Works' at Windsor Castle in 1391.

 

The development of the castle continued in the late 15th century with the rebuilding of St George's Chapel. With this Windsor became a major pilgrimage destination, particularly for Londoners. Pilgrims came to touch the royal shrine of the murdered Henry VI, the fragment of the True Cross and other important relics. Visits to the chapel were probably combined with a visit to the important nearby Marian shrine and college at Eton, founded by Henry VI in 1440, and dedicated to the Assumption; which is now better known as Eton College. Pilgrims came with substantial sums to spend. From perhaps two or three named inns in the late 15th century, some 30 can be identified a century later. The town again grew in wealth. For London pilgrims, Windsor was probably – but briefly – of greater importance than Canterbury and the shrine of the City's patron Saint Thomas Becket. With the closures of the Reformation, however, Windsor's pilgrim traffic died out. Henry VIII was buried in St George's Chapel in 1547, next to Jane Seymour, the mother of his only legitimate son, Edward (Edward VI). Henry, the founder of the Church of England, may have wanted to benefit from the stream of Catholic pilgrims coming to the town. His will gives that impression.

 

The town began to stagnate about ten years after the Reformation. The castle was considered old-fashioned and shrines to the dead were thought to be superstitious. The early modern period formed a stark contrast to the medieval history of the town. Most accounts of Windsor in the 16th and 17th centuries talk of its poverty, badly made streets and poor housing. Shakespeare's play The Merry Wives of Windsor is set in Windsor and contains many references to parts of the town and the surrounding countryside. Shakespeare must have walked the town's streets, near the castle and river, much as people still do. The play may have been written in the Garter Inn, opposite the Castle, but this was destroyed by fire in the late 17th century. The long-standing – and famous – courtesan of king Charles II, Nell Gwyn, was given a house on St Albans Street: Burford House (now part of the Royal Mews). Her residence in this house, as far as it is possible to tell, was brief. Only one of her letters addressed from Burford House survives: it was probably intended as a legacy for her illegitimate son, the Earl of Burford, later the Duke of St Albans.

 

Windsor was garrisoned by Colonel Venn during the English Civil War. Later it became the home of the New Model Army when Venn had left the castle in 1645. Despite its royal dependence, like many commercial centres, Windsor was a Parliamentarian town. Charles Iwas buried without ceremony in St George's Chapel after his execution at Whitehall in 1649. The present Guildhall, built in 1680–91, replaced an earlier market house that had been built on the same site around 1580, as well as the old guildhall, which faced the castle and had been built around 1350. The contraction in the number of old public buildings speaks of a town 'clearing the decks', ready for a renewed period of prosperity with Charles II's return to the Castle. But his successors did not use the place, and as the town was short of money, the planned new civic buildings did not appear. The town continued in poverty until the mid 19th century.

 

In 1652 the largest house in Windsor Great Park was built on land which Oliver Cromwell had appropriated from the Crown. Now known as Cumberland Lodge after the Duke of Cumberland's residence there in the mid 18th century, the house was variously known as Byfield House, New Lodge, Ranger's Lodge, Windsor Lodge and Great Lodge.

 

In 1778, there was a resumption of the royal presence, with George III at the Queen's Lodge and, from 1804, at the castle. This started a period of new development in Windsor, with the building of two army barracks. However the associated large numbers of soldiers led to a major prostitution problem by 1830, in a town where the number of streets had little changed since 1530. In the 18th c. the town traded with London selling the Windsor Chair which was actually made in Buckinghamshire.

 

A number of fine houses were built in this period, including Hadleigh House on Sheet Street, which was built in 1793 by the then Mayor of Windsor, William Thomas. In 1811 it was the home of John O'Reilly, the apothecary-surgeon to George III.

 

Windsor Castle was the westernmost sighting-point for the Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790), which measured the precise distance between the Royal Greenwich Observatory and the Paris Observatory by trigonometry. Windsor was used because of its relative proximity to the base-line of the survey at Hounslow Heath.

 

The substantial redevelopment of the castle in the subsequent decade and Queen Victoria's residence from 1840, as well as the coming of two railways in 1849, signalled the most dramatic changes in the town's history. These events catapulted the town from a sleepy medieval has-been to the centre of empire – many European crowned heads of state came to Windsor to visit the Queen throughout the rest of the 19th century. Unfortunately, excessive redevelopment and 'refurbishment' of Windsor's medieval fabric at this time resulted in widespread destruction of the old town, including the demolition of the old parish church of St John the Baptist in 1820. The original had been built around 1135.

 

Most of the current town's streets date from the mid to late 19th century.[5] However the main street, Peascod Street (pronunciation: /ˈpɛskɒd/) is very ancient, predating the castle by many years, and probably of Saxon origin. It formed part of the 10th-century parish structure in east Berkshire[citation needed] and is first referred to as Peascroftstret in c. 1170. The 1000-year-old royal Castle, although the largest and longest-occupied in Europe, is a recent development in comparison. "New Windsor" was officially renamed "Windsor" in 1974.

 

is accessible from Junction 6 of the M4 and from Slough via a 3 mile long dual carriageway. Bus services in the town are mostly provided by First Berkshire & The Thames Valley, although a park-and-rideservice and one local route are operated by Courtney Coaches.

 

Windsor has two railway stations. Windsor & Eton Central railway station has a shuttle service to Slough. Windsor & Eton Riverside station provides a service to London Waterloo. Both stations were time in the 19th century, as the two train companies which owned the lines both wanted to carry Queen Victoria to Windsor, with the first line opened gaining the privilege.[8] From 1883 to 1885, the London Underground's District line's westbound service ran as far as Windsor.

 

Windsor has frequent bus services to/from London Heathrow Airport, Victoria Coach Station in central London and Legoland Windsor Resort.

  

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor,_Berkshire

  

4K - Tetrachromatic Vivid Weathers ENB - Ghost ZIP by Slothability

Execution of P Zrinyi, F Nadasdy and F Frangepan (detail)

Unknown Master,1671, Hungarian National Museum

Two photos shot and blended by Hilleboe, aka #Iconoclast00

there was a cluster of very bushy bay trees growing through these rocks, totally blocking the view of the oaks beyond -- so they got lopped. the remaining stumps almost look like rocks themselves!

What she does best!

Let the games begin...

 

View large on Black

 

In fact, I "hate" those classical landmarks (too crowded)...but I couldn't miss this special one. A couple of weeks ago, my son david learned about the Romans in school and he knew a lot more about the Colosseum than me or my wife did. So it was quite a big deal for him.

 

The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium, Italian Anfiteatro Flavio or Colosseo), is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. It is considered one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and Roman engineering.

 

Occupying a site just east of the Roman Forum, its construction started in 72 AD under the emperor Vespasian and was completed in 80 AD under Titus, with further modifications being made during Domitian's reign (81–96). The name "Amphitheatrum Flavium" derives from both Vespasian's and Titus's family name (Flavius, from the gens Flavia).

 

Capable of seating 50,000 spectators, the Colosseum was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles such as mock sea battles, animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Classical mythology. The building ceased to be used for entertainment in the early medieval era. It was later reused for such purposes as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry, and a Christian shrine.

 

Although in the 21st century it stays partially ruined because of damage caused by devastating earthquakes and stone-robbers, the Colosseum is an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome. It is one of Rome's most popular tourist attractions and still has close connections with the Roman Catholic Church, as each Good Friday the Pope leads a torchlit "Way of the Cross" procession that starts in the area around the Colosseum.

 

The Colosseum is also depicted on the Italian version of the five-cent euro coin.

 

The Colosseum's original Latin name was Amphitheatrum Flavium, often anglicized as Flavian Amphitheater. The building was constructed by emperors of the Flavian dynasty, hence its original name, after the reign of Emperor Nero. This name is still used in modern English, but generally the structure is better known as the Colosseum. In antiquity, Romans may have referred to the Colosseum by the unofficial name Amphitheatrum Caesareum; this name could have been strictly poetic as it was not exclusive to the Colosseum; Vespasian and Titus, builders of the Colosseum, also constructed an amphitheater of the same name in Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli).

 

The name Colosseum has long been believed to be derived from a colossal statue of Nero nearby (the statue of Nero was named after the Colossus of Rhodes). This statue was later remodeled by Nero's successors into the likeness of Helios (Sol) or Apollo, the sun god, by adding the appropriate solar crown. Nero's head was also replaced several times with the heads of succeeding emperors. Despite its pagan links, the statue remained standing well into the medieval era and was credited with magical powers. It came to be seen as an iconic symbol of the permanence of Rome.

 

In the 8th century, a famous epigram attributed to the Venerable Bede celebrated the symbolic significance of the statue in a prophecy that is variously quoted: Quamdiu stat Colisæus, stat et Roma; quando cadet colisæus, cadet et Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus ("as long as the Colossus stands, so shall Rome; when the Colossus falls, Rome shall fall; when Rome falls, so falls the world"). This is often mistranslated to refer to the Colosseum rather than the Colossus (as in, for instance, Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage). However, at the time that the Pseudo-Bede wrote, the masculine noun coliseus was applied to the statue rather than to what was still known as the Flavian amphitheatre.

 

The Colossus did eventually fall, possibly being pulled down to reuse its bronze. By the year 1000 the name "Colosseum" had been coined to refer to the amphitheatre. The statue itself was largely forgotten and only its base survives, situated between the Colosseum and the nearby Temple of Venus and Roma.

 

The name further evolved to Coliseum during the Middle Ages. In Italy, the amphitheatre is still known as il Colosseo, and other Romance languages have come to use similar forms such as le Colisée (French), el Coliseo (Spanish) and o Coliseu (Portuguese).

 

Canon EOS 60D

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM

Aperture: f/8

Exposure time: 1/125 second

Focal length: 13 mm

ISO Speed 100

Processed with PS CS5 and Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro 2

Yale Football

Defensive Game Plan

Yale-Army Game

September 2014

  

Patarei Prison

Grim and dark place in the past

Tourist attraction nowadays

Execution could have been a lot better if I'd planned this but I took it on a whim.

During WWII Poland, brave young women from the Home Army pretended to be courtisanes, to get to German's officer homes and execute them.

The condemned faces his executioners.

Assassin's creed origins

Ingame Photomode

Bayek finishing of one of the feared "gaulish warriors".

I approached this one like a drawing

台南武廟 - 寶塔雲裡青龍 / 亢龍有悔自持不傲慢 - 沛然正氣經天直可養

The Force Temple of the Official Ceremony Tainan - The pagoda clouds and green dragon / The height of the Dragon Heart usual self-sustaining not arrogant - Temperament of integrity through the sky can be cultivated

El Templo de la Fuerza de la Ceremonia Oficial Tainan - Las nubes pagoda y el dragón verde / La altura del Corazón del Dragón usual autosuficiente no arrogante - Temperamento de integridad a través del cielo puede ser cultivada

台南の関帝廟 - 宝塔の雲の中で蒼竜 / 亢と竜は悔いて自制する傲慢ではないだあります - 沛然の正しい気風の経天はずっと養うことができます

The Force Tempel der offiziellen Zeremonie Tainan - Die Pagode Wolken und grünen Drachen / Die Höhe des Dragon Heart üblichen autark nicht arrogant - Temperament der Integrität durch den Himmel angebaut werden können

Le Temple vigueur de la cérémonie officielle Tainan - Les nuages ​​pagode et le dragon vert / La hauteur du coeur de dragon autonome d'habitude pas arrogant - Tempérament de l'intégrité dans le ciel peut être cultivé

 

Tainan Taiwan / Tainan Taiwán / 台灣台南

 

管樂小集 2012/11/25 德陽艦演出 Deyang ship performance

{ Nord Cold Harbour / 北寒港 / 非常の女性 }

 

{View large size on fluidr / 觀看大圖}

 

{My Blog / 管樂小集精彩演出-觸動你的心}

{My Blog / Great Music The splendid performance touches your heart}

{My Blog / 管楽小集すばらしい公演-はあなたの心を心を打ちます}

{Mi blog / La gran música el funcionamiento espléndido toca su corazón}

{Mein Blog / Große Musik die herrliche Leistung berührt Ihr Herz}

{Mon blog / La grande musique l'exécution splendide touche votre coeur}

  

家住安南鹽溪邊

The family lives in nearby the Annan salt river

 

隔壁就是聽雨軒

The next door listens to the rain porch

 

一旦落日照大員

Once setting sun according to Taiwan

 

左岸青龍飛九天

The left bank white dragon flying in the sky

  

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a museum chronicling the Cambodian genocide. Located in Phnom Penh, the site is a former secondary school which was used as Security Prison 21 (S-21; Khmer: មន្ទីរស-២១) by the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 until its fall in 1979. From 1976 to 1979, an estimated 20,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng and it was one of between 150 and 196 torture and execution centers established by the Khmer Rouge. On 26 July 2010, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia convicted the prison's chief, Kang Kek Iew, for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. He died on 2 September 2020 while serving a life sentence.

 

To accommodate the victims of purges that were important enough for the attention of the Khmer Rouge, a new detention center was planned in the building that was formerly known as Tuol Svay Prey High School, named after a royal ancestor of King Norodom Sihanouk, the five buildings of the complex were converted in March or April 1976 into a prison and an interrogation center. Before, other buildings in town were used already as prison S-21. The Khmer Rouge renamed the complex "Security Prison 21" (S-21) and construction began to adapt the prison for the inmates: the buildings were enclosed in electrified barbed wire, the classrooms converted into tiny prison and torture chambers, and all windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent escapes and suicides.

 

From 1976 to 1979, an estimated 20,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng (the real number is unknown). At any one time, the prison held between 1,000 and 1,500 prisoners. They were repeatedly tortured and coerced into naming family members and close associates, who were in turn arrested, tortured and killed. In the early months of S-21's existence, most of the victims were from the previous Lon Nol regime and included soldiers, government officials, as well as academics, doctors, teachers, students, factory workers, monks, engineers, etc. Later, the party leadership's paranoia turned on its own ranks and purges throughout the country saw thousands of party activists and their families brought to Tuol Sleng and murdered. Those arrested included some of the highest ranking politicians such as Khoy Thoun, Vorn Vet and Hu Nim. Although the official reason for their arrest was "espionage", these men may have been viewed by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot as potential leaders of a coup against him. Prisoners' families were sometimes brought en masse to be interrogated and later executed at the Choeung Ek extermination center.

 

In 1979, the prison was uncovered by the invading Vietnamese army. At some point between 1979 and 1980 the prison was reopened by the government of the People's Republic of Kampuchea as a historical museum memorializing the actions of the Khmer Rouge regime.

 

Upon arrival at the prison, prisoners were photographed and required to give detailed autobiographies, beginning with their childhood and ending with their arrest. After that, they were forced to strip to their underwear, and their possessions were confiscated. The prisoners were then taken to their cells. Those taken to the smaller cells were shackled to the walls or the concrete floor. Those who were held in the large mass cells were collectively shackled to long pieces of iron bar. The shackles were fixed to alternating bars; the prisoners slept with their heads in opposite directions. They slept on the floor without mats, mosquito nets, or blankets. They were forbidden to talk to each other.

 

The day began in the prison at 4:30 a.m. when prisoners were ordered to strip for inspection. The guards checked to see if the shackles were loose or if the prisoners had hidden objects they could use to commit suicide. Over the years, several prisoners managed to kill themselves, so the guards were very careful in checking the shackles and cells. The prisoners received four small spoonfuls of rice porridge and a watery soup of leaves twice a day. Drinking water without asking the guards for permission resulted in serious beatings. The inmates were hosed down every four days.

 

The prison had very strict regulations, and severe beatings were inflicted upon any prisoner who disobeyed. Almost every action had to be approved by one of the prison's guards. The prisoners were sometimes forced to eat human feces and drink human urine. The unhygienic living conditions in the prison caused skin diseases, lice, rashes, ringworm and other ailments. The prison's medical staff were untrained and offered treatment only to sustain prisoners' lives after they had been injured during interrogation. When prisoners were taken from one place to another for interrogation, they were blindfolded. Guards and prisoners were not allowed to converse. Moreover, within the prison, people who were in different groups were not allowed to have contact with one another.[5]

 

Most prisoners at S-21 were held there for two to three months. However, several high-ranking Khmer Rouge cadres were held longer. Within two or three days after they were brought to S-21, all prisoners were taken for interrogation. The torture system at Tuol Sleng was designed to make prisoners confess to whatever crimes they were charged with by their captors. Prisoners were routinely beaten and tortured with electric shocks, searing hot metal instruments and hanging, as well as through the use of various other devices. Some prisoners were cut with knives or suffocated with plastic bags. Other methods for generating confessions included pulling out fingernails while pouring alcohol on the wounds, holding prisoners' heads under water, and the use of the waterboarding technique. Women were sometimes raped by the interrogators, even though sexual abuse was against Democratic Kampuchea (DK) policy. The perpetrators who were found out were executed. Although many prisoners died from this kind of abuse, killing them outright was discouraged, since the Khmer Rouge needed their confessions. The "Medical Unit" at Tuol Sleng, however, did kill at least 100 prisoners by bleeding them to death. It is proven that medical experiments were performed on certain prisoners. There is clear evidence that patients in Cambodia were sliced open and had organs removed with no anesthetic. The camp's director, Kang Kek Iew, has acknowledged that "live prisoners were used for surgical study and training. Draining blood was also done."

 

In their confessions, the prisoners were asked to describe their personal background. If they were party members, they had to say when they joined the revolution and describe their work assignments in DK. Then the prisoners would relate their supposed treasonous activities in chronological order. The third section of the confession text described prisoners' thwarted conspiracies and supposed treasonous conversations. At the end, the confessions would list a string of traitors who were the prisoners' friends, colleagues, or acquaintances. Some lists contained over a hundred names. People whose names were in the confession list were often called in for interrogation.

 

Typical confessions ran into thousands of words in which the prisoner would interweave true events in their lives with imaginary accounts of their espionage activities for the CIA, the KGB, or Vietnam. Physical torture was combined with sleep deprivation and deliberate neglect of the prisoners. The torture implements are on display in the museum. It is believed that the vast majority of prisoners were innocent of the charges against them and that the torture produced false confessions.

 

For the first year of S-21's existence, corpses were buried near the prison. However, by the end of 1976, cadres ran out of burial spaces, the prisoner and family members were taken to the Boeung Choeung Ek ("Crow's Feet Pond") extermination centre, fifteen kilometers from Phnom Penh. There, they were killed by a group of teenagers led by a Comrade Teng, being battered to death with iron bars, pickaxes, machetes and many other makeshift weapons owing to the scarcity and cost of ammunition. After the prisoners were executed, the soldiers who had accompanied them from S-21 buried them in graves that held as few as 6 and as many as 100 bodies.

 

Almost all non-Cambodians had left the country by early May 1975, following an overland evacuation of the French Embassy in trucks. The few who remained were seen as a security risk. Though most of the foreign victims were either Vietnamese or Thai, a number of Western prisoners, many picked up at sea by Khmer Rouge patrol boats, also passed through S-21 between April 1976 and December 1978. No foreign prisoners survived captivity in S-21.

 

Even though the vast majority of the victims were Cambodian, some were foreigners, including 488 Vietnamese, 31 Thai, four French, two Americans, two Australians, one Laotian, one Arab, one Briton, one Canadian, one New Zealander, and one Indonesian. Khmers of Indian and Pakistani descent were also victims.

 

Two Franco-Vietnamese brothers named Rovin and Harad Bernard were detained in April 1976 after they were transferred from Siem Reap, where they had worked tending cattle. Another Frenchman named Andre Gaston Courtigne, a 30-year-old clerk and typist at the French embassy, was arrested the same month along with his Khmer wife in Siem Reap.

 

It is possible that a handful of French nationals who went missing after the 1975 evacuation of Phnom Penh also passed through S-21. Two Americans were captured under similar circumstances. James Clark and Lance McNamara in April 1978 were sailing when their boat drifted off course and sailed into Cambodian waters. They were arrested by Khmer patrol boats, taken ashore, where they were blindfolded, placed on trucks, and taken to the then-deserted Phnom Penh.

 

Twenty-six-year-old John D. Dewhirst, a British tourist, was one of the youngest foreigners to die in the prison. He was sailing with his New Zealand companion, Kerry Hamill, and their Canadian friend Stuart Glass when their boat drifted into Cambodian territory and was intercepted by Khmer patrol boats on August 13, 1978. Glass was killed during the arrest, while Dewhirst and Hamill were captured, blindfolded, and taken to shore. Both were executed after having been tortured for several months at Tuol Sleng. Witnesses reported that a foreigner was burned alive; initially, it was suggested that this might have been John Dewhirst, but a survivor would later identify Kerry Hamill as the victim of this particular act of brutality. Robert Hamill, his brother and a champion Atlantic rower, would years later make a documentary, Brother Number One, about his brother's incarceration.

 

One of the last foreign prisoners to die was twenty-nine-year-old American Michael S. Deeds, who was captured with his friend Christopher E. DeLance on November 24, 1978, while sailing from Singapore to Hawaii. His confession was signed a week before the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia and ousted the Khmer Rouge. In 1989, Deeds' brother, Karl Deeds, traveled to Cambodia in attempts to find his brother's remains, but was unsuccessful. On September 3, 2012, DeLance's photograph was identified among the caches of inmate portraits.

 

As of 1999, there were a total of 79 foreign victims on record, but former Tuol Sleng Khmer Rouge photographer Nim Im claims that the records are not complete. On top of that, there is also an eyewitness account of a Filipino, a Cuban and a Swiss who passed through the prison, though no official records of either are shown.

 

Out of an estimated 20,000 people imprisoned at Tuol Sleng, there were only twelve known survivors: seven adults and five children. One child died shortly after the liberation.[5] As of mid-September 2011, only three of the adults and four children are thought to still be alive: Chum Mey, Bou Meng, and Chim Meth. All three said they were kept alive because they had skills their captors judged to be useful. Bou Meng, whose wife was killed in the prison, is an artist. Chum Mey was kept alive because of his skills in repairing machinery. Chim Meth was held in S-21 for 2 weeks and transferred to the nearby Prey Sar prison. She may have been spared because she was from Stoeung district in Kampong Thom where Comrade Duch was born. She intentionally distinguished herself by emphasising her provincial accent during her interrogations. Vann Nath, who was spared because of his ability to paint, died on September 5, 2011. Norng Chan Phal, one of the surviving children, published his story in 2018.

 

The Documentation Center of Cambodia has recently estimated that, in fact, at least 179 prisoners were freed from S-21 between 1975 and 1979 and approximately 23 prisoners (including 5 children, two of them siblings Norng Chanphal and Norng Chanly) survived when the prison was liberated in January 1979. One child died shortly thereafter. Of the 179 prisoners who were released, most disappeared and only a few are known to have survived after 1979. It was found that at least 60 persons (out of the DC Cam list) who are listed as having survived were first released but later rearrested and executed.

 

The prison had a staff of 1,720 people throughout the whole period. Of those, approximately 300 were office staff, internal workforce and interrogators. The other 1,400 were general workers, including people who grew food for the prison. Several of these workers were children taken from the prisoner families. The chief of the prison was Khang Khek Ieu (also known as Comrade Duch), a former mathematics teacher who worked closely with Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. Other leading figures of S-21 were Kim Vat aka Ho (deputy chief of S-21), Peng (chief of guards), Mam Nai aka Chan (chief of the Interrogation Unit), and Tang Sin Hean aka Pon (interrogator). Pon was the person who interrogated important people such as Keo Meas, Nay Sarann, Ho Nim, Tiv Ol, and Phok Chhay.

 

The documentation unit was responsible for transcribing tape recorded confessions, typing the handwritten notes from prisoners' confessions, preparing summaries of confessions, and maintaining files. In the photography sub-unit, workers took mug shots of prisoners when they arrived, pictures of prisoners who had died while in detention, and pictures of important prisoners after they were executed. Thousands of photographs have survived, but thousands are still missing.

 

The defense unit was the largest unit in S-21. The guards in this unit were mostly teenagers. Many guards found the unit's strict rules hard to obey. Guards were not allowed to talk to prisoners, to learn their names, or to beat them. They were also forbidden to observe or eavesdrop on interrogations, and they were expected to obey 30 regulations, which barred them from such things as taking naps, sitting down or leaning against a wall while on duty. They had to walk, guard, and examine everything carefully. Guards who made serious mistakes were arrested, interrogated, jailed and put to death. Most of the people employed at S-21 were terrified of making mistakes and feared being tortured and killed.

 

The interrogation unit was split into three separate groups: Krom Noyobai or the political unit, Krom Kdao or the hot unit and Krom Angkiem, or the chewing unit. The hot unit (sometimes called the cruel unit) was allowed to use torture. In contrast, the cold unit (sometimes called the gentle unit) was prohibited from using torture to obtain confessions. If they could not make prisoners confess, they would transfer them to the hot unit. The chewing unit dealt with tough and important cases. Those who worked as interrogators were literate and usually in their 20s.

 

Some of the staff who worked in Tuol Sleng also ended up as prisoners. They confessed to being lazy in preparing documents, to having damaged machines and various equipment, and to having beaten prisoners to death without permission when assisting with interrogations.

 

When prisoners were first brought to Tuol Sleng, they were made aware of ten rules that they were to follow during their incarceration. What follows is what is posted today at the Tuol Sleng Museum; the imperfect grammar is a result of faulty translation from the original Khmer:

 

You must answer accordingly to my question. Don't turn them away.

Don't try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.

Don't be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.

You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.

Don't tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.

While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.

Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.

Don't make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.

If you don't follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.

If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

During testimony at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal on April 27, 2009, Duch claimed the 10 security regulations were a fabrication of the Vietnamese officials that first set up the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

 

In 1979, Hồ Văn Tây, a Vietnamese combat photographer, was the first journalist to document Tuol Sleng to the world. Hồ and his colleagues followed the stench of rotting corpses to the gates of Tuol Sleng. The photos of Hồ documenting what he saw when he entered the site are exhibited in Tuol Sleng today.

 

The Khmer Rouge required that the prison staff make a detailed dossier for each prisoner. Included in the documentation was a photograph. Since the original negatives and photographs were separated from the dossiers in the 1979–1980 period, most of the photographs remain anonymous to this day.

 

The buildings at Tuol Sleng are preserved, with some rooms still appearing just as they were when the Khmer Rouge were driven out in 1979. The regime kept extensive records, including thousands of photographs. Several rooms of the museum are now lined, floor to ceiling, with black and white photographs of some of the estimated 20,000 prisoners who passed through the prison.

 

The site has four main buildings, known as Building A, B, C, and D. Building A holds the large cells in which the bodies of the last victims were discovered. Building B holds galleries of photographs. Building C holds the rooms subdivided into small cells for prisoners. Building D holds other memorabilia including instruments of torture.

 

Other rooms contain only a rusting iron bedframe, beneath a black and white photograph showing the room as it was found by the Vietnamese. In each photograph, the mutilated body of a prisoner is chained to the bed, killed by his fleeing captors only hours before the prison was captured. Other rooms preserve leg-irons and instruments of torture. They are accompanied by paintings by former inmate Vann Nath showing people being tortured, which were added by the post-Khmer Rouge regime installed by the Vietnamese in 1979.

 

The museum is open to the public from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. On weekdays, visitors have the opportunity of viewing a 'survivor testimony' from 2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Along with the Choeung Ek Memorial (the Killing Fields), the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is included as a point of interest for those visiting Cambodia. Tuol Sleng also remains an important educational site as well as memorial for Cambodians. Since 2010, the ECCC brings Cambodians on a 'study tour' consisting of the Tuol Sleng, followed by the Choeung Ek, and finishing at the ECCC complex. The tour drew approximately 27,000 visitors in 2010.

 

S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine is a 2003 film by Rithy Panh, a Cambodian-born, French-trained filmmaker who lost his family when he was 11. The film features two Tuol Sleng survivors, Vann Nath and Chum Mey, confronting their former Khmer Rouge captors, including guards, interrogators, a doctor and a photographer. The focus of the film is the difference between the feelings of the survivors, who want to understand what happened at Tuol Sleng to warn future generations, and the former jailers, who cannot escape the horror of the genocide they helped create.

 

A number of images from Tuol Sleng are featured in the 1992 Ron Fricke film Baraka.

 

The Killing Fields are a number of sites in Cambodia where collectively more than 1,000,000 people were killed and buried by the Communist Party of Kampuchea during Khmer Rouge rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War (1970–1975). The mass killings were part of the broad, state-sponsored Cambodian genocide.

 

Analysis of 20,000 mass grave sites by the DC-Cam Mapping Program and Yale University indicates at least 1,386,734 victims of execution. Estimates of the total deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including death from disease and starvation, range from 1.7 to 2.5 million out of a 1975 population of roughly 8 million. In 1979, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime, ending the genocide.

 

The Cambodian journalist Dith Pran coined the term "killing fields" after his escape from the regime.

 

The Khmer Rouge regime arrested and eventually executed almost everyone suspected of connections with the former government or with foreign governments, as well as professionals and intellectuals. Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Thai, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Cham, Cambodian Christians, and Buddhist monks were the demographic targets of persecution. As a result, Pol Pot has been described as "a genocidal tyrant". Martin Shaw described the Cambodian genocide as "the purest genocide of the Cold War era".

 

Ben Kiernan estimates that about 1.7 million people were killed. Researcher Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia suggests that the death toll was between 2 and 2.5 million, with a "most likely" figure of 2.2 million. After five years of researching some 20,000 grave sites, he concludes that "these mass graves contain the remains of 1,386,734 victims of execution". A United Nations investigation reported 2–3 million dead, while UNICEF estimated 3 million had been killed. Demographic analysis by Patrick Heuveline suggests that between 1.17 and 3.42 million Cambodians were killed, while Marek Sliwinski suggests that 1.8 million is a conservative figure. Even the Khmer Rouge acknowledged that 2 million had been killed—though they attributed those deaths to a subsequent Vietnamese invasion. By late 1979, UN and Red Cross officials were warning that another 2.25 million Cambodians faced death by starvation due to "the near destruction of Cambodian society under the regime of ousted Prime Minister Pol Pot", who were saved by international aid after the Vietnamese invasion.

 

Process

The judicial process of the Khmer Rouge regime, for minor or political crimes, began with a warning from the Angkar, the government of Cambodia under the regime. People receiving more than two warnings were sent for "re-education," which meant near-certain death. People were often encouraged to confess to Angkar their "pre-revolutionary lifestyles and crimes" (which usually included some kind of free-market activity; having had contact with a foreign source, such as a U.S. missionary, international relief or government agency; or contact with any foreigner or with the outside world at all), being told that Angkar would forgive them and "wipe the slate clean." They were then taken away to a place such as Tuol Sleng or Choeung Ek for torture and/or execution.[citation needed]

 

The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, the executions were often carried out using poison or improvised weapons such as sharpened bamboo sticks, hammers, machetes and axes. Inside the Buddhist Memorial Stupa at Choeung Ek, there is evidence of bayonets, knives, wooden clubs, hoes for farming and curved scythes being used to kill victims, with images of skulls, damaged by these implements, as evidence. In some cases the children and infants of adult victims were killed by having their heads bashed against the trunks of Chankiri trees, and then were thrown into the pits alongside their parents. The rationale was "to stop them growing up and taking revenge for their parents' deaths."[citation needed]

 

Prosecution for crimes against humanity

In 1997 the Cambodian government asked for the UN's assistance in setting up a genocide tribunal. It took nine years to agree to the shape and structure of the court—a hybrid of Cambodian and international laws—before the judges were sworn in, in 2006. The investigating judges were presented with the names of five possible suspects by the prosecution on 18 July 2007. On 19 September 2007 Nuon Chea, second in command of the Khmer Rouge and its most senior surviving member, was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. He faced Cambodian and foreign judges at the special genocide tribunal and was convicted on 7 August 2014 and received a life sentence. On 26 July 2010 Kang Kek Iew (aka Comrade Duch), director of the S-21 prison camp, was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment. His sentence was reduced to 19 years, as he had already spent 11 years in prison. On 2 February 2012, his sentence was extended to life imprisonment by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. He died on 2 September 2020.

 

Legacy

The best known monument of the Killing Fields is at the village of Choeung Ek. Today, it is the site of a Buddhist memorial to the victims, and Tuol Sleng has a museum commemorating the genocide. The memorial park at Choeung Ek has been built around the mass graves of many thousands of victims, most of whom were executed after interrogation at the S-21 Prison in Phnom Penh. The majority of those buried at Choeung Ek were Khmer Rouge killed during the purges within the regime. Many dozens of mass graves are visible above ground, many which have not been excavated yet. Commonly, bones and clothing surface after heavy rainfalls due to the large number of bodies still buried in shallow mass graves. It is not uncommon to run across the bones or teeth of the victims scattered on the surface as one tours the memorial park. If these are found, visitors are asked to notify a memorial park officer or guide.

 

A survivor of the genocide, Dara Duong, founded The Killing Fields Museum in Seattle, US.

 

The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by then Chief of State Norodom Sihanouk to describe his country's heterogeneous, communist-led dissidents, with whom he allied after his 1970 overthrow.

 

The Khmer Rouge army was slowly built up in the jungles of eastern Cambodia during the late 1960s, supported by the North Vietnamese army, the Viet Cong, the Pathet Lao, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Although it originally fought against Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge changed its position and supported Sihanouk following the CCP's advice after he was overthrown in a 1970 coup by Lon Nol who established the pro-American Khmer Republic. Despite a massive American bombing campaign (Operation Freedom Deal) against them, the Khmer Rouge won the Cambodian Civil War when they captured the Cambodian capital and overthrew the Khmer Republic in 1975. Following their victory, the Khmer Rouge, who were led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, and Khieu Samphan, immediately set about forcibly evacuating the country's major cities. In 1976, they renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea.

 

The Khmer Rouge regime was highly autocratic, totalitarian, and repressive. Many deaths resulted from the regime's social engineering policies and the "Moha Lout Plaoh", an imitation of China's Great Leap Forward which had caused the Great Chinese Famine. The Khmer Rouge's attempts at agricultural reform through collectivization similarly led to widespread famine, while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency, including the supply of medicine, led to the death of many thousands from treatable diseases such as malaria.

 

The Khmer Rouge regime murdered hundreds of thousands of their perceived political opponents, and its racist emphasis on national purity resulted in the genocide of Cambodian minorities. Summary executions and torture were carried out by its cadres against perceived subversive elements, or during genocidal purges of its own ranks between 1975 and 1978. Ultimately, the Cambodian genocide which took place under the Khmer Rouge regime led to the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people, around 25% of Cambodia's population.

 

In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge were largely supported and funded by the Chinese Communist Party, receiving approval from Mao Zedong; it is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which was provided to the Khmer Rouge came from China. The regime was removed from power in 1979 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and quickly destroyed most of its forces. The Khmer Rouge then fled to Thailand, whose government saw them as a buffer force against the Communist Vietnamese. The Khmer Rouge continued to fight against the Vietnamese and the government of the new People's Republic of Kampuchea until the end of the war in 1989. The Cambodian governments-in-exile (including the Khmer Rouge) held onto Cambodia's United Nations seat (with considerable international support) until 1993, when the monarchy was restored and the name of the Cambodian state was changed to the Kingdom of Cambodia. A year later, thousands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrendered themselves in a government amnesty.

 

In 1996, a new political party called the Democratic National Union Movement was formed by Ieng Sary, who was granted amnesty for his role as the deputy leader of the Khmer Rouge. The organisation was largely dissolved by the mid-1990s and finally surrendered completely in 1999. In 2014, two Khmer Rouge leaders, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, were jailed for life by a United Nations-backed court which found them guilty of crimes against humanity for their roles in the Khmer Rouge's genocidal campaign.

 

The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Communist Party of Kampuchea general secretary Pol Pot. It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population in 1975 (c. 7.8 million).

 

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had long been supported by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its chairman, Mao Zedong; it is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which the Khmer Rouge received came from China, including at least US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid in 1975 alone. After it seized power in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge wanted to turn the country into an agrarian socialist republic, founded on the policies of ultra-Maoism and influenced by the Cultural Revolution. Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge officials met with Mao in Beijing in June 1975, receiving approval and advice, while high-ranking CCP officials such as Politburo Standing Committee member Zhang Chunqiao later visited Cambodia to offer help. To fulfill its goals, the Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and forced Cambodians to relocate to labor camps in the countryside, where mass executions, forced labor, physical abuse, malnutrition, and disease were rampant. In 1976, the Khmer Rouge renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea.

 

The massacres ended when the Vietnamese military invaded in 1978 and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime. By January 1979, 1.5 to 2 million people had died due to the Khmer Rouge's policies, including 200,000–300,000 Chinese Cambodians, 90,000–500,000 Cambodian Cham (who are mostly Muslim), and 20,000 Vietnamese Cambodians. 20,000 people passed through the Security Prison 21, one of the 196 prisons the Khmer Rouge operated, and only seven adults survived. The prisoners were taken to the Killing Fields, where they were executed (often with pickaxes, to save bullets) and buried in mass graves. Abduction and indoctrination of children was widespread, and many were persuaded or forced to commit atrocities. As of 2009, the Documentation Center of Cambodia has mapped 23,745 mass graves containing approximately 1.3 million suspected victims of execution. Direct execution is believed to account for up to 60% of the genocide's death toll, with other victims succumbing to starvation, exhaustion, or disease.

 

The genocide triggered a second outflow of refugees, many of whom escaped to neighboring Thailand and, to a lesser extent, Vietnam. In 2003, by agreement between the Cambodian government and the United Nations, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (Khmer Rouge Tribunal) were established to try the members of the Khmer Rouge leadership responsible for the Cambodian genocide. Trials began in 2009. On 26 July 2010, the Trial Chamber convicted Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The Supreme Court Chamber increased his sentence to life imprisonment. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were tried and convicted in 2014 of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. On 28 March 2019, the Trial Chamber found Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan guilty of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and genocide of the Vietnamese ethnic, national and racial group. The Chamber additionally convicted Nuon Chea of genocide of the Cham ethnic and religious group under the doctrine of superior responsibility. Both Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were sentenced to terms of life imprisonment.

IMG_1678adj

 

Unité d'Habitation, Nantes-Rezé, France - Le Corbusier 1950-1955

We are not dealing here with an experimental government building, but with a commission direct from the future occupants of the building, who form the society "The Family House" in Nantes. The members are labourers and foremen, the majority of whom are employed at the port. The cost is strictly controlled by the law of "Habitations à Bon Marché". Economy must be strictly observed. The Unité d'Habitation Nantes-Rezé benefits from the experience gained at Marseilles. It is similar in principle but differs in the mode of execution and has certain innovations, Four columns and not two now support the width of the raised concrete raft on which the block stands. There is perhaps a loss of plasticity and elegance; but this does not imply any degradation. The communal services half way up the building have unfortunately had to be done away with, as the economy of the budget, or of the law, intervened to modify the conception. The value of the Unité d'Habitation lies in its services; here they are independent at the foot of the building, in a town centre. The building contains a school at the top level, but there is no multi purpose area on the roof.

The building of the Unité Nantes-Rezé contains 294 units, but is smaller than the Unite Marseille, measures 105,70 meters long, 19.03 m wide and 51.80 m tall. It has 6 interior streets handing out access to the apartments. Due to the modifications made to reduce costs, projected the two types of apartment, one of two levels and another single. The grid used for the units in the Unité de Marseille was 4.19 m, but in Nantes the grid was modified to reach 3.66 m. Columns were used from the first level to the last, with the walls of the units in between. This means that the structural system is different from the Unité Marseille, where the units have its own structure, while in Nantes, the general structure includes the walls between the apartments. The precast walls of the balconies were attached to the structure to reduce costs. This was used in all elements as leading to higher work.

 

@ Tate Modern, London

Hrair Sarkissian’s Execution Squares 2008 comprises a series of photographs depicting the sites of public executions in Syria, the artist’s country of birth. The images were taken in three different cities – Damascus, Aleppo and Lattakia – in places where public executions have taken place, for civil rather than political crimes. Sarkissian took these photographs early in the morning when the streets were quiet, around the time when executions are carried out. The subject of an execution will usually be brought to the square at 4.30 a.m., but their body is routinely left there in full view of passers-by until around 9.00 a.m. Sarkissian’s first personal experience of an execution was as a child when he passed one of these squares on his journey to school and saw three bodies hanging in the street.

 

Reichsbrücke

Coordinates: 48 ° 13 '42 " N, 16 ° 24' 36" E | |

(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

Empire Bridge, seen from the north bank of

Use motor vehicles in the basement underground,

Cyclists, pedestrians

Road train Lassallestraße - Wagramerstraße (B8 )

Location Vienna, between Leopoldstadt (2nd District)

and Danube City (22 nd District)

Prestressed concrete bridge construction, double deck bridge

Total length 865 meters

Width 26.10 meters

Release 8 November 1980

Altitude 157 m above sea level. A.

Card reichsbrücke.png

Location of the Empire Bridge in Vienna

The Empire Bridge is one of Vienna's most famous bridges. It crosses the Danube, the Danube Island and the New Danube and connects the second District of Vienna, Leopoldstadt, with the 22nd District, Danube city. The building extends from Mexico place at Handelskai (2nd district) in a northeasterly direction to the Danube City and the Vienna International Centre (District 22).

The current kingdom bridge (Reichsbrücke) was opened in 1980, it is the third crossing of the Danube in the same axis, which bears the name kingdom bridge. The first Empire Bridge (also: Crown Prince Rudolf bridge when Project: National Highway Bridge), an iron bridge on current five pillars existed from 1876 until 1937. The second Empire Bridge, a chain bridge with two 30-meter high pylons on two river piers, was opened in 1937, it was next to St. Stephen's Cathedral and the Giant Ferris one of the landmarks of the city of Vienna. After the Second World War it was the only intact Danube river crossing downstream of Linz in Austria and became the busiest stretch of road in Austria. On Sunday, the first August 1976 the bridge collapsed in the early morning hours on full width of the Danube into the water. In the accident, which was not foreseeable by the then state of the art, one person was killed. The meaning and emotional charge, which had received the bridge by its colorful past in the Viennese population, increased further by the collapse.

Prehistory

The Danube before regulation (centric is the location of the Reichsbrücke marked)

Some years after the devastating flood of 1830 was considering Emperor Ferdinand I to regulate the Danube and at the same time to build several bridges over the resulting stream bed. The plan was, among other things, a chain bridge approximately at the site of today's Empire bridge, whose construction costs were estimated at two to three million florins. However, these plans came as well as future intentions, build stable bridges over the unregulated Danube, before the Vienna Danube regulation not for execution, the projects went not beyond the planning stage. All bridges over the Danube, whether for road or since 1838 for the Northern Railway, then had rather provisional character. Jochbrücken Those were trestle bridges made ​​of wood, which were regularly swept away by floods or Eisstößen (bumps of ice chunks) and then re-built.

On 12 September 1868 eventually ordered Emperor Franz Joseph I, the nephew and successor of Ferdinand, the regulation of the Danube. At the same time, eventually, should be built "stable bridges". One of them should represent a direct extension of the hunter line (Jägerzeile) (today: Prater Road and the Schwimmschulstraße (now Lassallestraße). With the choice of this location a central urban axis should be continued, which ranged from the Gloriette in Schonbrunn over St. Stephen's Cathedral and the Prater Stern to the Danube. On the other side of the Danube, the bridge should join to the Vienna, Kagraner and Leopold Auer Reichsstrasse (since 1910 Wagramerstraße), which became a major transit route in the northeastern areas of the monarchy. The name of the bridge was accordingly to "Empire Road bridge" set.

First Reichsbrücke - 1876-1937

Crown Prince Rudolf bridge

Since 6 November 1919 : Reichsbrücke

Crown Prince Rudolf bridge since 6 November 1919: Reichsbrücke

Official name of Crown Prince Rudolf Bridge (1876-1919), since then Reichsbrücke

Use vehicles, trams (from 26 June 1898 on the current bridge single track) and pedestrian

crossing of Handelskai, Danube and floodplain

Construction iron lattice structures (river bridge), 341.20 meters

Total length 1019.75 meter (incl. bridge over Handelskai and floodplain)

Width 11.40 meters

Release 21 August 1876

Closure 11 October 1937

Toll 32 cruisers and 64 Heller per vehicle (up to 1904)

The by Franz Joseph commissioned bridge, which the main part of the 2nd district after the regulation of the Danube with the on the left bank lying part of the city Kaisermuehlen, the now Old Danube and the to 1890/1892 independent community of Kagran connected, was navigable from August 1876 to October, 1937. It has been renamed several times: During the construction period it had the preliminary name of Empire Road bridge, after its opening, it was Crown Prince Rudolf bridge. The term "Empire Bridge" but soon won through in general usage, as was said, for example, the stop of the Donauuferbahn (Railway) at the bridge officially Kommunalbad-Reichsbrücke. After the fall of the monarchy on 6 November 1919 it was officially renamed Empire bridge.

With a total length of nearly 1,020 feet, it was at that time the longest bridge connection over the Danube. It was 11.40 meters wide, the road took 7.60 meters and 3.80 meters, the two sidewalks. The original plan had provided a total width of eight fathoms (15.20 meters), the Parliament decided shortly before the start of the construction to reduce the width because of cost reasons.

The bridge consisted of three parts. The so-called Hubertusdamm, protected the March field against flood, and the flood area created in the Danube regulation (inundation) on the north, the left bank of the river was spanned by a stone, 432 meters long inundation bridge, which consisted of 16 sheets of 23 and 39 m width. Handelskai on the southern right bank of the river spanned the so-called Kaibrücke of stone with a length of 90.4 meters and four arches, each 18.96 m width. The actual current bridge was 341.20 meters long and consisted of four individual iron grating structures that rested on five 3.80 meter thick pillars, three of which were in the water. The distance of each pillar was 79.90 meters.

Construction

The current bridge seen from the north, from the left bank (St Stephen's Cathedral in the background); recording before the summer of 1898, there's no tram track

Construction began in August, 1872. Although at that time the stream bed of the Danube had already been largely completed, but not yet flooded. The Empire bridge was then, as the northern railway bridge Stadlauer Bridge and the Emperor Franz Joseph Bridge (later Floridsdorfer bridge), built in dry construction.

The building was designed by the Road and Hydraulic Engineering Department of Imperial Ministry of Interior, whose boss, Undersecretary Mathias Waniek Ritter von Domyslow, was entrusted with the construction management. Total construction cost of 3.7 million guilders. The metal construction had a total weight of 2,193 tons and was manufactured by Schneider & Co in Burgundy of Belgian welding iron.

The two piers on the banks were about five feet below the river bed, which is about eleven meters founded under the riverbed on so-called "blue Viennese Tegel" (a stiff to semi-solid floor similar to the clay which as sedimentary rock is typical for the Vienna basin). The pillars of the two foreland bridges (Kaibrücke and inundation bridge ) were established in shallow coarse gravel.

Of the four Danube bridges built at that time only the kingdom bridge (Reichsbrücke) was not opened to traffic when the new bed of the Danube on 14 April 1875 was flooded. Until 16 months later, on 21 August 1876, the birthday of the Crown Prince Rudolf, opened the Imperial Governor of Lower Austria , Baron Conrad of Sigmund Eybesfeld, representing the emperor, the bridge and gave her in honor of Crown Prince - contrary to the original plan - the name "Crown Prince Rudolf bridge". The opening ceremony was attended by a delegation from Japan, Minister of War Feldzeugmeister Graf Maximilian von Artur Bylandt-Rheidt and mayor of Vienna Cajetan Felder. The governor read a royal resolution, in which Franz Joseph announced the full imperial satisfaction with Oberbauleiter Waniek and several Engineers and Building Officers were awarded the Imperial Knights Cross. As highlight of the celebration the keystone of the last pillar of the ramp was set - under it were built into a cassette several documents, photos of the bridge, coins and medals.

Bridge operation

The Kaibrücke over the Handelskai on the south, the right bank of the Danube, recording c.1907

The bridge ramp and the four brick arches over the Handels on the south, the right bank of the Danube, it ( right) the bridge over the stream, recording from 1876

After the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889, the bridge was popularly called "suicide bridge ". It was in the first years of its operation still not a very popular crossing of the Danube. Industry and trade settled slowly to the other side of the Danube. There were also no significant trade routes from north to March Field. Via the Old Danube, which it would have to be crossed, leading to around 1900 only a rickety wooden bridge.

In the first 28 years of its operation, the crossing of the Empire Bridge was charged. 32 cruisers and 64 Heller had to be paid per vehicle, which has been regularly criticized by newspapers in Vienna. Only after the villages north of the Old Danube in the year 1904/1905 than 21st district were incorporated, the crossing was provided free of charge and increased the popularity of the bridge. From 26 June 1898, the bridge was frequented by the tram. The occasion was the 50-year Jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph. The route went (over the current bridge (Strombrücke) just single track ) for the moment to shooting range (Schießstätte) at Arbeiterstrandbadstraße and was on 22 December 1898 extended until Kagraner place. Operator was the Vienna-Kagraner train (WKB), which initially used for six railcars acquired from Hamburg. In 1904, the traffic operation of Vienna-Street Railways WKB.

The end of the bridge

1910 were counted in Vienna over two million inhabitants. On the left, northern bank of the Danube, more and more settlements and commercial enterprises emerged. This increased both the importance and the traffic on the Empire Bridge. Neither the load nor the total roadway width of less than eight meters were sufficient for this additional burden. 1930 damage was discovered at the bridge, which would have necessitated the refurbishment in the near future. In recent years, their stock weight restrictions has been to protect the bridge. Vienna's city government first planned a conversion of the old kingdom bridge. In 1933, under the federal government of Dollfuss a new building was disposed.

During the three years of construction work had the old bridge remain usable - ie the existing 340 meters long by 4,900-ton Strombrücke was there moved by 26 meters downstream in September 1934, and connected with the banks. The move operation lasted only six hours, the traffic interruption to the reusability lasted three days. The suspended bridge was then three years in operation. Immediately after the opening of its successor bridge it was dismantled.

Second Empire Bridge - 1937-1976

Second Reichsbrücke

The second Empire Bridge, circa 1975

Official name Reichsbrücke, from 11 April 1946 to 18 July 1956 the Red Army Bridge

Use private transport (2 lanes next to the tracks, 2 on the tracks), tram (2 tracks in the middle position), pedestrians (sidewalks 2)

Construction through the air: "Spurious" self-anchored chain bridge with reversed horizontal thrust); broadening of the inundation bridge used since 1876

Total length 1225 meters

Width 26.90 meters (including sidewalks)

Longest span 241.2 meters in the central opening, 60.05 and 61.05 meters in the side openings

Construction September 1934

Release 10 October 1937

Closure 1 August 1976 (collapse)

The second realm bridge had a total length of 1255 meters. The current bridge had a length of 373 meters and a maximum span length of 241.2 meters, the construction of the third largest chain bridge in Europe. It had two pylons made ​​of steel with a height of 30 meters above road top, standing on two piers and with the bridge superstructure burd two steel chains carrying.

The bridge was staged as a symbol of the wealth and size of Vienna. So it was yet in the late 1930s next to St. Stephen's Cathedral and the Giant Ferris emblem for the third city of Vienna declared and served as an internationally used symbol on all promotional literature and invitations to the Vienna Exhibition in 1938.

Competition

First, the Commerce Department announced a precompetitive, although that could win the architects Emil Hoppe and Otto Schonthal, the result of which, however, did not correspond with the Ministry and the City of Vienna. The final competition for the construction of the Empire Bridge was finally announced in Spring 1933 and awarded in November. As architectural advisor to the eight-member jury acted the architect Clemens Holzmeister. The jurors selected from 64 submitted, one of which even provided for a tunnel under the river Danube. The winning project was a chain bridge by architects Siegfried Theiss and Hans Jaksch. This design provided only two pillars standing in the water. Three quarters of the full width of the river should be free spans. The bridge would connect directly to the still-to-use, only to be widened inundation bridge of the first Empire bridge over floodplain and Hubertusdamm.

Construction

Construction began on 26 February 1934, two weeks after the civil war-like battles in February. The cost of 24 million shillings were imposed to one third of the city of Vienna, two-thirds came from the federal budget. There were only Austrian companies involved in the construction. The two pillars were erected in caisson construction.

Soon the first difficulties appeared. The ground, especially in the Danube River, on which the bridge piers and anchor blocks for the chains should be founded, proved to be less viable than the planners had anticipated. It was originally planned to have to shoulder a large part of the weight of the Strombrücke, primarily of the area lying between the pillars middle part of the bridge, of two chains that run on both sides of the two pylons and should be anchored right in the river on heavy, solid anchor blocks of concrete. However, it was feared that this abutment on the Danube soft soil by the large tensile forces of 78.5 million N (8,000 t) per chain would start sliding and could not be adequately anchored in the Danube ground.

Professor Paul Fillunger of the Technical University of Vienna became the largest public critic of the building. He was of the opinion that not only the foundation of the anchor blocks, but also the pillars of the Danube in the soft ground was irresponsible because the bridge would not have the necessary stability. Contrasting opinion was his colleague of professors, soil mechanics Karl von Terzaghi. In his view, the nature of the Danube soil was suitable for the pier foundation. The disagreement was part of a personal feud, which was publicly held. Together with his wife Fillunger took in 1937 due to a disciplinary procedure that ran against him at the Technical University of Vienna his life. The construction of the bridge was rescheduled after the proposals Terzaghis: the chains were not fastened to anchor blocks on the Danube ground, but directly to the two main girders of the steel supporting structure, ie on the bridge itself anchored.

In June 1936, the building was overshadowed by a shipwreck: the people steamer "Vienna" DDSG was driven to a pillar. The ship broke up and sank immediately. Six people were killed.

The final link in the chain was composed of 98 members on 16 November 1936 inserted. Thereafter the lowering of the support stand began to displace the chain in tension. The production of the concrete deck slab of the bridge deck and the installation of sidewalks followed in the spring of 1937, in the summer, the bridge was painted dark green.

From 1 to 3 October 1937 the stress test of the building took place in the stretched chains and the pylons were slightly rotated. Were then driven as a load test 84 trucks and 28 loaded with stones streetcars on the bridge and left to stand there for a few hours. All measurements were running satisfactorily, so that on 4 October the first tram of line number 16 was able to drive over the kingdom bridge. A day later, the bridge was unofficially released for streetcar traffic. To traffic it remained locked up to its opening.

Austro-Fascist propaganda

A labor-and cost-intensive project such as the construction of the bridge was fully in line with the spirit of the Austro-fascist regime: the end of 1933, unemployment stood at 38.5 percent. The construction of the second Empire bridge can therefore be seen as a job creation project, similar to the construction of the Grossglockner High Alpine Road or the Vienna High Road.

On 10 October 1937, the Empire Bridge was officially opened. The corporate state government held a solemn state ceremony with President Wilhelm Miklas, Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, the Vienna Vice Mayor Fritz Lahr and Trade Minister Taucher who called the new Reich bridge as a "symbol of creating life force of the new Austria". Present were alongside architects, project managers and designers also a delegation of the opus "New Life" of the Fatherland Front, all workers involved in the construction of the construction companies and 10,000 school children. Soldiers of the armed forces lined the shore.

The Viennese city researcher Peter Payer writes about the pompous production:

"Conspicuously, propagated the carefully staged celebration the new model of society of the Austro-fascist government: the ending of the class struggle and overcoming social barriers through meaningful work and cooperation of all professional groups. [ ...] The completion of the bridge was portrayed as unprecedented cultural achievement, as a joint work of all involved". - Peter Payer.

The event was broadcast live on the radio, the newspapers reported widely about it. At the event, postcards, envelopes, and a commemorative stamp was issued and even a "Reichsbrücke song "composed, in which was said:

"A thousand hammers, wheels, files,

thousand hands had to rush

the great work that was!

Salvation of the work that connects,

Hail to the work, healing our land!"

- Empire Bridge Song

The Empire Bridge in the Second World War

During the Second World War the German army used two support pillars of reinforced concrete under the Empire Bridge into the Danube, so that the building would not completely fall into the water when it was hit, but could be repaired. In addition, at each of the two pylons were erected platforms for anti-aircraft guns.

In early April, 1945, in the last days of the war, Soviet armies were moving from the south and west heading to the city center. The fleeing units of the SS blew up in their retreat to the north gradually almost all Vienna Danube bridges.

For the Nordwestbahnbrücke, the Floridsdorfer bridge and the Nordbahnbrücke the "defenders" of Vienna had by Hitler's headquarters on the 8th April 1945 sought the permission for demolition, the Stadlauer Ostbahnbrücke was also blown up without explicit permission. With the Reichsbrücke, however, Hitler had personally for days the blasting ruled out, still yet at 11 April 1945, just on 13 April afternoon allowed, at a time when the southern bridgehead was already occupied by the Red Army, was the northern bridgehead without coverage in their field of fire and the German troops who had retreated to the left bank of the Danube, north west withdrew, for not beeing closed in by the Red Army. There was therefore no chance to blow. The Red Army occupied the evening of the 13th April also the northern bridgehead.

On 11 April, at the height of the battle of Vienna, the Russian troops with armored boats already had been advanced on the Danube to the Reichsbrücke (officially called by the Russians "Object 56") and had obscured the area. They went on the right bank of the Danube, about 500 meters northwest of the bridge, on land and moved slowly to the building.

Decades later, it was unclear why exactly the Empire bridge was not blown up. The Red Army, the Austrian resistance movement O5 as well as members of the armed forces later claimed they just would have prevented the explosion. One version said that, at the Battle of 11 April some soldiers of the Red Army should have gotten to the beachhead, where they destroyed the explosive lines. Another version was that Red Army soldiers were led by a knowledgeable local Vienna sewer worker sneaked through the sewer system of Vienna to the bridge to prevent the demolition. Clarity created in 2012 the analysis of historical sources with the résumé. Ultimately, it was Hitler himself which had prevented demolition of the bridge until the last moment. The Reichsbrücke was now the only intact bridge crossing over the Danube between Linz and the state border. She was thus given a status symbol, it was a sign of the resilience of Austria.

The city council renamed the Empire Bridge on the anniversary of the liberation of Vienna on 11 April 1946 in honor of the liberators "Bridge of the Red Army Bridge". Was also on this occasion by the city government to the left of the bridge driveway in the 2nd district an obelisk (reddish colored lightweight concrete on wood construction) erected with the Soviet Star on the top of which was in German and Russian to read:

"THE HERO WILL

LANDING GUARD SQUAD

AND SAILORS

IN GRATITUDE

THE EXEMPT

VIENNA "

- Obelisk, then plaque on the bridge

The obelisk was removed after 1955. The inscription was then attached on a bronze plaque that was mounted directly to the bridge. The bridge was at 18 July 1956 re-named Reichsbrücke.

Reichsbrücke in the postwar period

To the rebuilding of Floridsdorfer bridge 1946 the Reichsbrücke was the only way to reach Vienna coming from the northeast on the road. Although it was not blown up, it still suffered numerous losses, primarily by shellfire. In 1946, took place the first rehabilitation of war damage of the bridge, ​​from May 1947 work on a larger scale was made. Thereby five hanging rods have been mended and repaired the vault of the inundation bridge. The smoke control ceiling above the Donauuferbahn has been replaced. At seven chain links had to be renewed a total of 26 blades. For this temporary piers were used on barges, which again ate on the river bed. The work was finished in 1952. On the Reichsbrücke originally was wooden heel patch installed, this was 1958-1960 replaced by granite stone pavement, which resulted in an additional load of 4688 kN for each pylon bearing. The enormous, newly ascended individual traffic led more often hinder the tram traffic on the bridge, therefore the tracks in the sixties by blocking lines have been declared not approved for individual traffic of the roadway. Now, congestion of vehicular traffic was the result.

Empire bridge collapse in 1976

The southern, right after the collapse of the banks, recording August 1976

Bridge debris on the north, left bank, recording August 1976

On Sunday, the first August 1976 Reichsbrücke 4:53 to 4:55 clock crashed to almost full length of the main bridge into the water. The first radio announcement was made at 5:00 clock. An eyewitness described the collapse as". The whole bridge has suddenly lifted a foot and then dropped loud crashing on the entire length".

On the Kaibrücke as well as on the Überschwemmungsbrücke (inundation bridge) the carrier collapsed in several places, but both bridges were standing. The Strombrücke itself broke into three parts, the middle part falling into the water as a whole and and the two outer parts obliquely hanging into the water. The south-facing pylon fell downstream and damaged heavily the stern of a passenger ship, the north side pylon collapsed in the other direction on the flood plain.

At the time of the collapse, five people were in four vehicles on the bridge: a bus driver in an urban articulated, two employees of the ÖAMTC in a roadside assistance vehicle, the driver of a Volkswagen Beetle, which had requested the breakdown service because of a defective tire following an accident as well as the driver of a minibus, who was employed as a driver at the ORF. The bus driver crashed his vehicle into the Danube and was rescued unharmed within hours. The ÖAMTC employees and the VW drivers were on that part of the Kaibrücke, which indeed broke and fell, but not completely destroyed, so that they could save themselves by foot. The ORF driver was trapped in his pickup truck and found his dead the day after the collapse.

Within an hour was a quarter of all vehicles of the in Vienna available Fire Brigade on the site of the collapse, it was the alarm given stage IV. Also, police, ambulance and army were represented by large contingents. The on the bridge located water pipes that supplied drinking water to the north of Vienna, put the Handelskai under water. Explosions were also feared because the gas lines running across the bridge were broken. There was on the scene for days strict non-smoking. First, many people were north of the Danube without gas, electricity, water and telephone. Already on the second August was, however, restored the supply.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsbr%C3%BCcke

Charles Paul Renouard , born in Cour-Cheverny ( Loir-et-Cher ) on November 5 , 1845and died in Paris onJanuary 2 , 1924, is a French painter , engraver and illustrator .

 

Born in Cour-Cheverny onNovember 5, 1845, the sixth child of a modest clog-maker, Paul Renouard left his native region in 1859 to earn a living in Paris . He became a building painter and had the opportunity to come and work on the premises of the École des beaux-arts . He occasionally shows a talent for drawing that he has had since childhood. He was noticed and in 1868 he was admitted to the Beaux-Arts where he entered the studio of Isidore Pils . A beloved pupil of the latter, he helped him in the execution of the interior decorations of the Opéra Garnier and, in 1875, Pils having fallen ill, Paul Renouard painted the ceilings of the grand staircase from the cartoons of his master.

 

He painted dancers, portraits of many of the personalities of his century: Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau , Sarah Bernhardt and Victorien Sardou , Ambroise Thomas , Alexandre Dumas fils , Émile Bergerat , Ravachol , Michel-Eugène Chevreul , Louis Ménard , Joseph Meissonnier , Camille Saint-Saëns , General Boulanger , and all the members of the Institute and the Chamber of Deputies , then Lawrence Alma-Tadema , John Everett Millais, Marshal Katie Booth , Frederic Leighton , Luke Fildes , the nine sketches of Henry Irving as Mephistopheles .

 

Paul Renouard is above all a prolific illustrator working in black and white for the major illustrated newspapers. Regular contributor to L'Illustration , Paris illustré , Revue illustrée , The Graphic , he was famous for his series on English life, the Opéra Garnier and events such as the Universal Exhibition of 1900 , the ' Dreyfus affair , the trial of Émile Zola , the Thérèse Humbert and Steinheil affairs , the coronation celebrations of Edward VII , the funeral of Queen Victoria , the celebrations and tournament of 75th anniversary of the Independence of Belgium and the Universal Exhibition of 1905 in Liège , the Franco-Russian celebrations in Compiègne in 1901, the First World War .

 

In London , where he lived almost as much as in Paris and elsewhere, he illustrated Parliament , Drury Lane , the Salvation Army , the prisons, the docklands , the opium dens of the East End , the Lyceum Theatre , the Courts of Justice , the barracks of horse-guards, the world of sports, the music-halls, the Royal Academy for The Graphic . In his Pocket Sketches in London , he humorously depicts the types of English daily life, clubmen buried in large leather armchairs, visitors to museums, policeman and copyists of theNational Gallery , the railway station staff, the walkers in Hyde Park , the sleepers in Kensington Gardens , the coachmen, the omnibus conductors, the small world of the schools of the East, the class of babies… He attends the Jubilee of the Queen , prize distributions by the Dean of Westminster Abbey , the reassembly of Big Ben , the Royal Tournaments , dance classes by Katie Lanner , sessions of the Berners Street Anarchist Circle. Then it's Ireland, a series of pages with dark accents: children carrying peat to pay for school, a meeting, an eviction, police approaches...

 

In Rome during Holy Week , in Washington during Congress , he captured overseas political life vividly in a collection of portraits and scenes as expressive as they were witty: the Appropriations Committee, the Ways and Means Committee , the left, the right, the representatives of the press in Parliament, the stenographer, the portraits of Mark Carlisle , President of the Chamber of Deputies, of John James Ingalls (in) , President of the Senate…

 

"More than a painter of modern life, he was the superiorly informed journalist, the intelligent and clairvoyant reporter, who with a lively and rapid gaze from which nothing seems to have to escape, immediately perceives what must be seen and retained from picturesque and tragic; for Paul Renouard knew how to rise up to the story on occasion and faithfully noted with a firm, prompt and bold pencil, with a power of truth which surely localizes the scene and the environment, energetically outlined the characters, accusing with decision and precision characters and types in individuals 1 . »

 

He left his mark on his era and touched his contemporaries such as Vincent van Gogh who, through his correspondence with his brother Theo , showed great admiration for his work and his talent.

 

Member of the National Society of Fine Arts and the Society of French Artists , Paul Renouard obtained a gold medal at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1889 and 1900 . He was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1893.

 

He was a professor at the National School of Decorative Arts in Paris in 1903.

 

He died in Paris onJanuary 2, 1924and rests in the small cemetery of Chambon-sur-Cisse .

 

His works are kept in Paris at the Louvre Museum and the Paris Museum of Modern Art (series on English life), at the Opera Library-Museum (series on dance and the Opera), at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo , at the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels , at the Museum of Fine Arts in Tours , Limoges and Blois .

 

Hayashi Tadamasa was one of Paul Renouard's patrons, and his collection of nearly 200 engravings and drawings was, on the collector's death, donated by his heirs to the Imperial Household Museum in Tokyo (now the National Museum of Tokyo ).

 

Blois is a commune and the capital city of Loir-et-Cher department, in Centre-Val de Loire, France, on the banks of the lower Loire river between Orléans and Tours.

 

With 45,898 inhabitants by 2019, Blois is the most populated city of the department, and the 4th of the region.

 

Historically, the city was the capital of the county of Blois, created on 832 until its integration into the Royal domain in 1498, when Count Louis II of Orléans became King Louis XII of France. During the Renaissance, Blois was the official residence of the King of France.

 

Since 2013, excavations have been conducted by French National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP in French) in Vienne where they found evidence of "one or several camps of late Prehistory hunter-gatherers, who were also fishermen since fishing traps were found there.. They were ancestors of the famous Neolithic farmer-herders, who were present in current France around 6,000 BCE [i.e.: 8,000 years ago]."

 

Ancient times

A major urban development begun in 1959 uncovered the remains of a late Gallic settlement and an urban centre from the Gallo-Roman period. At that time, the town was located on the road linking Chartres to Bourges. In the network of cities of the Carnutes people, Blois was a secondary settlement. Excavations carried out on the right bank between 2001 and 2016 and on the left bank in 2013-2014 revealed the presence of a largely developed town on the right bank and an occupation on the left bank during the Gallic and Gallo-Roman periods. The Loire river has undoubtedly always been a major axis route, although no traces of a port have been uncovered. However, there are remains of former bridges linking the two banks.

 

Middle Ages

Though of ancient origin, Blois is first distinctly mentioned by Gregory of Tours in the 6th century, and the city gained some notability in the 9th century, when it became the seat of a powerful countship known as Blesum castrum.

 

Main article: County of Blois

Blois was first organised around a county, which was recreated in 956 by Count Theobald I of Blois, also known as The Trickster. His descendants, known as "Thibaldians", remained as Counts up until the county was incorporated into the royal domain in 1397. The House of Blois also succeeded in raising some of its members or descendants to the highest levels of the European nobility, notably by acceding to the thrones of France, England, Navarre, Spain and Portugal.

 

Main article: Counts of Blois

In 1171, Blois was the site of a blood libel against its Jewish community that led to 31 Jews (by some accounts 40) being burned to death. Their martyrdom also contributed to a prominent and durable school of poetry inspired by Christian persecution. In the Middle Ages, Blois was the seat of the County of Champagne it passed to the French crown in 1314, forming the province of Champagne. In 1196, Count Louis I of Blois granted privileges to the townsmen; a commune, which survived throughout the Middle Ages, probably dated from this time. The counts of the Châtillon dynastic line resided at Blois more often than their predecessors, and the oldest parts of the château (from the 13th century) were built by them. By 1397, Count Guy II of Blois-Châtillon offered the county to his cousin, Duke Louis I of Orléans, son of King Charles VI. In 1429, Joan of Arc made Blois her base of operations for the relief of Orléans. She rode the 35 miles on 29 April from Blois to relieve Orléans. In 1440, after his captivity in England, Duke Charles of Orléans (son of Duke Louis I) took up residence in the Château of Blois, where in 1462 his son was born, Duke Louis II of Orléans who would afterwards be known as Louis XII.

 

Renaissance era

By 1498, King Charles VIII died with no heirs in the Château of Amboise. As a result, Duke Louis II ran 22 miles between the Château and Blois, and was crowned as King Louis XII of France. He then married Charles VIII's widow, Queen Anne of Brittany, in 1499. The birth of their daughter, Claude of France, started the union of Brittany with France. Louis XII, as the last hereditary Count of Blois, naturally established his royal Court in the city. The Treaty of Blois, which temporarily halted the Italian Wars, was signed there in 1504–1505. During his reign, the city experienced a massive redevelopment, with some architectural elements inspired from the Italian Renaissance, as seen in the medieval castle immediately turned into a château, and the construction of many hôtels particuliers for the nobility throughout the entire kingdom. One of which, Hôtel d'Alluye, was built as a copy of an Italian palace for Florimond Robertet, who was an important French minister under King Charles VIII, King Louis XII and King Francis I.

 

On 1 January 1515, Louis XII died. His throne would be passed to Francis I, the husband to his daughter, Claude of France. In 1519, King Francis I ordered the construction of the Château of Chambord (10 miles away from Blois), but its construction lasted for one year before he died in 1547. In the meantime, he gradually expressed his will to move to Fontainebleau, near Paris, and started to abandon Bloisian. Much of the royal furniture was moved from Blois to Fontainebleau by 1539.

 

The French Wars of Religion was a significantly destructive conflict among the French people. The city's inhabitants included many Calvinists, and in 1562 and 1567 it was the scene of struggles between them and the supporters of the Catholic Church. On 4 July 1562, Blois and Beaugency, conquered by Protestants just before, were looted by Catholics led by Maréchal de St. André. On 7 February 1568, Protestants under Captain Boucard's command, looted and invaded the town, eventually killing many Catholics. Grey friars were also killed and thrown in the well of their own convent. In addition, all the churches were ransacked. In 1576 and 1588, King Henry III convoked the Estates General to Blois where he attained refuge after an uprising called the Day of the Barricades. In response, Duke Henry I of Guise was assassinated on 23 December 1588 for his involvement in the uprising. The following day, his brother, Cardinal Louis II of Guise, who was also archbishop of Reims, suffered the same fate. Their deaths were shortly followed by that of the Queen-Mother, Catherine de' Medici.

 

In the 16th century, the French Royal court often made Blois their leisure resort.

 

Modern era

After the departure of the Royal Court towards Paris, Blois lost the status of Royal residence, along with the luxury and economic activity that came with it. King Henry IV displaced the Royal library to Fontainebleau, which would later be the National Library of France (Bibliothèque nationale de France).

 

In 1606, Philippe de Béthune gave his ownership of Vienne-lez-Blois village, on the left bank of the Loire river, to Blois, making it a part of the city afterwards known as Blois-Vienne. From 1617 to 1619 Marie de' Medici, wife of King Henri IV, exiled from the court by his son, King Louis XIII, lived in the château. By 1622, the Counter-Reformation got establishment in Blois, founded a Society of Jesus and financed the construction of the St. Louis Chapel, which is today St. Vincent Church.

 

Then in 1634, Louis XIII exiled his brother, Gaston, Duke of Orléans and Count of Blois, who became attached to the city. The Duke in 1657, found a hospital in Blois-Vienne, now named Résidence Gaston d'Orléans, and financed the reconstruction of the Hôtel-Dieu. He remained in Blois until his death, in 1660.

 

Under Louis XIV's reign, Blois became un independent bishopric. David Nicolas de Bertier, first bishop of Blois from 1697, chose as seated cathedral St. Solenne Church, that had been destroyed by a storm and was under reconstruction, before being completed 3 years later in 1700, thanks to the intervention of Colbert's wife, who herself came from Blois. The new edifice became Blois Cathedral and got dedicated to St. Louis.

 

A wide episcopal palace is built by King Louis XIV's official architect, Jacques Gabriel, right next to the newly built cathedral, on a site overlooking the Loire Valley. Landscaping of terraced gardens began in 1703 and lasted nearly 50 years. The so-called Bishopric Gardens were first open to the public in 1791 by Henri Grégoire (known as the Abbot Grégoire), the first constitutional bishop after the French Revolution.

 

During the night between 6 and 7 February 1716, the medieval bridge collapsed. Construction of a new one is ordered during the following year. Jacques-Gabriel Bridge was inaugurated in 1724. All the levies were consolidated, and the river channel of La Bouillie in the prolongation of La Creusille Harbor was closed and dried out.

 

When Duke Gaston of Orléans died, the château ended up stripped by King Louis XIV, completely abandoned, to the point that King Louis XVI once considered to demolish it by 1788. The edifice was saved when the Royal-Comtois Regiment established their base within it.

 

In 1790, Orléanais province was dismantled, and the First Republic created the Loir-et-Cher department, with Blois as the local capital.

 

By 1814, Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma and wife of Napoleon I, found refuge in Blois.

 

Contemporary era

Another wind blew in Blois in the 19th century. First, the railroad came in 1846 with the inauguration of the Paris–Tours railway, whose Blois Station is a stop. The competition against river transportation gradually forced La Creusille Harbor to reinvent its activity. In parallel, the city got more industrialised from 1848 thanks to a successful chocolate brand created by Bloisian, Victor-Auguste Poulain.

 

Like Paris, Blois urban organisation was redesigned during 1850 and 1870 by Mayor Eugène Riffault, who was friends with Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann. Thus, he had bound through a boulevard holding his name the modern upper town (where the cathedral, Hôtel of Préfecture, and Halle aux Grains are located), and the medieval lower town. He also paved the way to the construction of the boulevard Daniel Depuis, in the West of Blois. Between 1862 and 1865, the Denis-Papin staircase are built under La Morandière's supervision, in the axis of Jacques-Gabriel Bridge and Blois-Vienne's Wilson Avenue.

 

In the meantime, the lower town faced three of the most significant flooding of the Loire river: in 1846, 1856 (the worst), and 1866. The downtown districts of St. Jean and Blois-Vienne were under water, as well as La Bouillie spillway.

 

On 13 December 1871, the Prussian army took control of Blois during the Franco-Prussian War. The city was taken back by Lieutenant Georges de Villebois-Mareuil, General Joseph Pourcet, and General Bertrand de Chabron. Since then, a memorial stands on Wilson Avenue in Vienne.

 

In 1939, Blois Basilica construction was completed. That same year, between 29 January and 8 February, more than 3,100 Spanish refugees came to the Loir-et-Cher department, fleeing the Spanish Civil War and Dictator Francisco Franco. In June 1940, the German bombings destroyed a large part of the downtown, and the French destroyed the 10th arch of Jacques-Gabriel Bridge to prevent further advance for their enemies. The German army bombed the former Town Hall on 16 June, thus killing Mayor Émile Laurens in the process, and took over the city 2 days later, on 18 June, the exact same day of Charles de Gaulle's Appeal for Internal Resistance.

 

Between June and August 1944, US-English-allied bombings destroyed other infrastructures, like the railroad bridge between Blois and Romorantin. In total during WWII, 230 people were killed, and 1,522 buildings were entirely or partially destroyed. On 16 August 1944, the German troops ran to Blois-Vienne to get refuge there and destroyed the three central arches of the bridge. On 1 September, they surrendered. The bridge was rebuilt and reopened in December 1948.

 

In 1959, Mayor Marcel Bühler received President Charles de Gaulle and launched the construction of the ZUP, at the North of the city, on the same scheme of so-called banlieues of Paris or any other French city.

 

Landmarks and tourism

Since 1986, Blois is part of the French Towns of Art and History program, which promotes the cultural and historical estate.

 

Château of Blois

The Château of Blois, a Renaissance multi-style château once occupied by King Louis XII, is located in the centre of the city, and an 18th-century stone bridge spans the Loire. It was also the residence of many Counts of Blois, who were amongst the most closest vassals to the King of France between the 9th and the 14th century. Many gardens are located around the château, like:

 

House of Magic

Right in front of the château, La Maison de la Magie Robert-Houdin (i.e.: Robert-Houdin House of Magic) is a museum dedicated to illusionism. This is the only public museum in Europe which incorporates in one place collections of magic and a site for permanent performing arts, and directly reflects the personality of Robert-Houdin.

 

Louis-XII Place and Fountains

Opened after bombings in 1944, the place stands right below the château, closest to the Loire river, and is actually located at the center of Blois downtown. There are local shops and restaurants, and a 16th-century fountain stands below the Sycamores planted in the place. Known as Louis XII Fountain (Fontaine Louis XII), this is one of the greatest and oldest water inlets throughout the city, but far from being the only one. Among the other founts, there are:

 

St. Martin Fountain (Fontaine Saint-Martin), below the staircase between the château and Louis XII Place;

 

St. Nicholas Fountain (Fontaine Saint-Nicolas), within the St. Nicholas Church;

 

Elected Representatives' Fountain (Fontaine des Élus), in rue Foulerie;

 

Ave Maria Fountain (Fontaine Ave Maria), in place Ave Maria;

 

Town hall Fountain (Fontaine de l'Hôtel de Ville), below the

Denis Papin staircase (where was the former Town Hall before WWII);

 

St. Jack Fountain (Fontaine Saint-Jacques), in rue Denis Papin;

 

Corbigny Fountain (Fontaine de Corbigny), in Victor Hugo Square ;

 

Simple Fountain (Fontaine des Simples), in the Lily Garden, in remembrance of a monumental Versailles-style fountain lost after WWII bombings.

 

Comics Museum

Blois is also the location of so-called Maison de la BD, a museum devoted to the art of comic books. Since the 1980s, this museum hosts an annual comic festival in late November called BD Boum, described as "the leading free comic book festival in France".

 

Former Hôtel-Dieu

Already by 924, monks from the St. Lomer community were given some acres below the medieval castle, but outside the city walls, on the bank of the Loire river. In the 13th century, a proper church was built, then fortified because of the Hundred Years' War. St. Lomer Abbey was completely destroyed during the French Wars of Religion. The edifice was rebuilt until the early 18th century. When the French Revolution broke out by 1789, the church was turnt into a Hôtel-Dieu, namely a charity hospital for the have-nots, because Revolutionners destroyed many clergy- and royal-related monuments. After that, new buildings were added to the original St. Lomer Abbey, which became St. Nicholas Church, and the additional edifices remained dedicated to the Hôtel-Dieu of the city. Nonetheless, this part was gradually abandoned and taken back by some public services. A reconversion project is currently under study.

 

Former Poulain Chocolate Factory

In the late 19th century, Bloisian industrialist and chocolatier Victor-Auguste Poulain established his brand's factory next to Blois station. The premises moved in the 1980s. Nowadays, those are housings and host the National Institute and School of Applied Sciences (INSA).

 

Denis-Papin Staircase

As Blois is built on a pair of steep hills, winding and steep pathways run through the city, culminating in long staircases at various points. The most iconic of them is the monumental Denis-Papin staircase which overlooks the town, provides a panoramic view by overlooking the downtown and the Loire Valley, and regularly enlivens urban space with original decorations. The fountain next to the staircase is a reminder of the location of the first Town Hall, destroyed after bombings on 16 June 1940.

 

Town Hall and Bishopric Gardens

Blois achieved independence from the Diocese of Chartres in 1697, and the cathedral was completed by 1700. As a result, the first bishops engineered wide gardens on several levels, next to the premises. Since the destruction of the former Blois town hall during World War II, local authorities requisitioned the bishop's apartments to establish there the new town hall. Now organised as an urban park, the gardens offer a panoramic view on the downtown, the Loire river, and Blois-Vienne. A statue of Joan of Arc, given to the city by American patron J. Sanford Saltus, stands in the middle of the park. Bishopric gardens are open to public all the year, and a remarkable rose garden can be visited from 15 May and 30 September, each year.

 

Hôtels Particuliers and Timber Framing Houses

Since Count Louis II of Orléans became King Louis XII of France in 1498, the city started to host many noblepersons from all the Kingdom. All would build their own mansion as close from the château as they could. King Louis XII also imported Renaissance style from Italy due to his successful military campaigns there. Among these so-called hôtels particuliers, there are:

 

the Hôtel d'Alluye;

the Hôtel d'Amboise;

the Hôtel de Belot;

the Hôtel de la Capitainerie (a.k.a. Hôtel de Bretagne);

the Hôtel de la Chancellerie (i.e.: Chancellery Hotel);

the Hôtel Denis-Dupont;

the Hôtel d'Épernon;

the Hôtel de Guise;

the Hôtel de Jassaud;

the Hôtel de Lavallière, built for Louise de Lavallière;

the Hôtel de Rochefort;

the Hôtel Sardini;

the Hôtel Viart;

the Hôtel de Villebresme, in which Denis Papin lived;

the Château de la Vicomté (i.e.: Château of Viscounty), in the hamlet of Les Grouëts.

 

Blois-Vienne and the Loire river

Please note all the above edifices have been listed as Blois-Vienne (or merely Vienne) is the name given to the southern part of the city, on the left bank of the Loire river. Independent from the city until 1606, there are many traces of the river's past. The main link between both banks is the Jacques-Gabriel Bridge, built in the early 18th century. From the levees circling the surroundings to other abandoned bridges, Vienne has also conserved a harbour, named La Creusille, which is now an urban park right on La Loire à Vélo bike route. Beyond the levees, La Bouillie Park is getting rehabilitated, and actually is a spillway in the event of floodings. Further to the south of the city, the Forêt de Russy is a reminder of the thick woods that once covered the area.

 

Religious Buildings

The city also is provided with many religious edifices, including:

Blois Cathedral, dedicated to both Kings Louis IX and Louis XII, built between 1564 and 1700.

St. Vincent Blois Church, dedicated to Saint Vincent de Paul, built between 1625 and 1660.

St. Nicholas Blois Church, dedicated to bishop Saint Nicholas of Myra, built in the 12th century.

Blois-Vienne Church, dedicated to Saint Saturnin of Toulouse, built between c. 1500 and 1528.

The Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Trinité, dedicated to Our Lady of the Holy Trinity, built between 1932 and 1939.

 

Historical and political figures

Ivomadus (5th century), Breton chieftain who would have conquered Blois and established there an independent Kingdom until Clovis I's conquest.

Count William of Orléans (died 834), first count of Blois.

Count Theobald I (913–975), viscount who declared himself Count when Duke Hugh the Great died in 956.

Thubois (c. 1044–1090)[citation needed]

Lady Adela of Normandy (c. 1067 – 1137), daughter of William the Conqueror, married to Stephen II, Count of Blois.

King Stephen of England (c. 1096 – 1154), second son of Count Stephen II and Lady Adela, he became King of England from 1135 to 1154.

Lady Adela of Champagne (c. 1140 – 1206), daughter of Count Theobald IV of Blois, she married King Louis VII and gave to him future King Philip II.

Duke Charles of Blois (1319–1364), notable stakeholder during the Hundred Years' War.

King Louis XII (1462–1515), Count of Blois from 1465 to 1498, then King of France up to 1515.

Queen Anne of Brittany (1477–1514), last Queen of Brittany, she remarried King Louis XII in 1499, then moved to Blois until her death.

King Francis I (1494–1547), King of France born in Cognac, but he lived in Blois since his marriage in 1506 with Louis XII and Anne's daughter.

Queen Catherine de' Medici (1519–1589), Queen consort of France, who died in the Château of Blois.

Queen Marie de' Medici (1575–1642) was exiled to the Château of Blois by her son, King Louis XIII.

Duke Henry I of Guise (1550–1588), assassinated on 23 December 1588 in the château.

Duke Gaston of Orléans (1494 in Fontainebleau – 1547), uncle of King Louis XVI, he got establishment in the château, and died there.

Jean Morin (1591–1659), theologian and biblical scholar of Protestant parents

Michel V Bégon (1638–1710), officier de plume of the French Navy.

Marie Anne de Bourbon (1666–1739), also known as Mademoiselle de Blois, daughter of King Louis XIV.

Michel VI Bégon de la Picardière, (1669–1747). Commissioner in the French Navy; intendant of New France and Le Havre.

Thomas de Mahy, Marquis de Favras (1744–1790), royalist

Jean-Marie Pardessus (1772–1853).

Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1773–1828).

Eugène Riffault (1803–1888).

Joséphine Marchais (1842–1874).

Émile Laurens (1884–1940).

Georges Litalien (1896–1952), deputee of the Loir-et-Cher department.

Henri de La Vaissière (1901–1944).

Pierre Sudreau (1919–2012).

Jack Lang (1939–).

Bernard Boucault. Préfet de Police in Paris (from 2012 to 2015).

 

Artists

Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585), poet from Vendôme but he met his muse Cassandre in the Château of Blois in 1549.

Jacob Bunel (1568–1614), Bloisian painter who studied in the Royal School of Fontainebleau.

Antoine Boësset (1587–1643), composer of secular music, and superintendent of music at the Ancien Régime French court.

Jean Monier (1600–1656), painter close to Queen Marie de' Medici.

Étienne Baudet (1638–1711), engraver born in Vineuil.

Pierre Monier (1641–1703), painter and son of Jean Monier.

Jacques Gabriel (1667–1742), Parisian architect who designed the Jacques-Gabriel Bridge in Blois.

Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin (1805–1871), watchmaker, magician and illusionist, widely recognized as the father of the modern style of conjuring.

Ulysse Besnard (1826–1899), painter, then ceramist.

Daniel Dupuis (1849–1899), painter, sculptor and medal artist.

Jules Contant (1852–1920), painter born in Blois-Vienne, son of a politician.

Émile Gaucher (1858–1909), sculptor.

Alfred Jean Halou (1875–1939), sculptor from Blois, who designed the Franco-Prussian War memorial in Blois.

Étienne Gaudet (1891–1963), engraver and painter from Nevers but who lived and died in Blois.

Bernard Lorjou (1908–1986), painter.

Claudine Doury (born 1959), photographer.

Jean-Louis Agobet (born 1968), composer.

Christian Jui (born 1973), poet.

Niro (born 1987), rapper born in Orléans but he grew up and currently lives in Blois.

Hildegarde Fesneau (born 1995), violinist.

 

Artisans

During the 16th and 17th centuries, Blois was the hometown of many artisans in the watchmaking and goldsmithing industries. Among them:

Julien Coudray, who was one of the first watchmakers in Blois according to Tardy, worked for Kings Louis XII and Francis I. There is a street in Blois that holds his name.

the Cuper family : the Louvre museum, Paris, possesses two watches made by Michel Cuper, and two other ones by P. Cuper. A street also holds their name in the city.

the Bellanger family : Martin with a first wife got 2 sons born between 1594 and 1597 (among them, one was called Isaac), then at least 3 other ones with a Suzanne, named Pierre (born in 1603), Jean (married in 1641 and dead in 1678), and Théophile.

Guillaume Couldroit, from whom the British Museum, London, has a table clock.

Jacques de la Garde, from whom the British Museum has a striking clock, and from whom a table clock can be found in the National Museum of the Renaissance in Écouen, France.

Charles Perras, from whom 2 watches can be found in the British Museum, as well as in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

the Duduict brothers.

Blaise Foucher, Duiduict's disciple, from whom the British Museum possesses one watchcase.

the Vautier family, among whom the British Museum has several Louis' watchcases.

the Gribelin family, among whom Simon was watchmaker and engraver for the King, and his son Abraham (1589–1671) succeeded to him. Nowadays, the Louvre Museum has a watch made by Abraham.

the Girard family, among whom Marc came from the Netherlands and established in Blois, his son Théodore and grandson Marc II were both watchmakers.

Christophe Morlière (born in Orléans in 1604 – 1643), who moved to Blois. By 1632, he was ordered a watch for Lady Marguerite of Lorraine when she married Gaston, Duke of Orléans and Count of Blois.

Pierre Brisson.

Paul Viet, from whom the British Museum got a painted watchcase.

Jean Bonbruict, from whom the British Museum has a silver coach watch.

Nicolas Lemaindre, who was watchmaker and valet for Queen Catherine de' Medici. The British Museum also possesses one of his works, as well as the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Pierre Landré, from whom a watch is visible in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City.

the Chartier family, among whom Pierre had a son registered as T. Chartier in the Louvre where a cylindrical table clock is exposed.

François Laurier.

Londonian watchmaker Henry Massy was son of Nicolas Massy, born in Blois.

Robert Vauquer, who has now 2 watches in the Louvre and 1 in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.

 

Intellectuals

Peter of Blois (c. 1130 – c. 1211), theologian, poet and diplomat born in Blois.

Paul Reneaulme (c. 1560 – c. 1624), doctor and botanist born in the city.

Florimond de Beaune (1601–1652), jurist and mathematician born in Blois.

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (1643–1687), first explorer of Louisiana, born in Rouen, then teacher at the Royal College of Blois.

Denis Papin (1647–1713), physicist, mathematician and inventor from Blois.

Angel Baffard (1655–1726), genealogist specialist of Bloisian.

Jean Marie Pardessus (1772–1853), lawyer.

Augustin Thierry (1795–1856), historian born in the city.

Amédée Thierry (1797–1873), historian like his elder brother, and journalist.

Félix Duban (1798–1870), Parisian architect who restored the Château of Blois.

Louis de La Saussaye (1801–1878), numismatist and historian from Blois.

Jules de La Morandière (1813–1905), architect, and Duban's disciple.

Victor-Auguste Poulain (1825–1918), chocolatier who created the Chocolat Poulain brand in 1848.

Albert Poulain (1851–1937), chocolatier and industrialist, son of the precedent.

Tiburce Colonna-Ceccaldi (1832–1892), diplomat and archaeologist born in Blois.

Édouard Blau (1836–1906), dramatist and opera librettist from Blois.

Arthur Trouëssart (1839–1929), architect, historian, and genealogist specialized in Bloisian history.

Adrien Thibault (1844–1918), ceramist born in La Chaussée-Saint-Victor, then historian of Bloisian.

René Guénon (also Sheikh 'Abd al-Wahid Yahya; 1886 – 1951), author, philosopher, social critic, the founder of the Traditionalist School.

Philippe Ariès (1914–1984), medievalist and historian.

Albert Ronsin (1928–2007), 20th-century French scholar, historian, librarian, and curator.

Françoise Xenakis (1930–2018), novelist and journalist.

Maxime Schwartz (born 1940), molecular biologist who has been a research director at the CNRS, and Director General of the Pasteur Institute.

Henri Tézenas du Montcel (1943–1994), economist

Pierre Rosanvallon (born 1948), historian and sociologist.

Christophe Lebreton (1950-1996), Trappist monk and one of the Tibhirine monks.

Luc Foisneau (born in 1963), philosopher and director of research at CNRS.

 

Sportspersons

Marcel Lehoux (1888–1936), racing driver

Philippe Gondet (1942–2018), footballer.

Nicolas Vogondy (born 1977), cyclist.

Sonia Bompastor (born 1980), female footballer.

Aly Cissokho (born 1987), footballer of Senegalese descent.

Bernard Onanga Itoua (born 1988), footballer.

Alexis Khazzaka (born 1994), Lebanese footballer.

Corentin Jean (born 1995), footballer.

Alpha Kaba (born 1996), basketball player