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nine pages with tearjerker final www.analogica.it/el-nikkor-t12052-80.html
Киев-5 (Kiev-5) "Black Sabbath" by Arsenal, sn/7200838, rangefinder soviet camera.
Гелиос-94 (Helios 94) - 1.8/50 - by Arsenal, sn/702123, soviet lens.
Kodak ColorPlus 200 expired 09/2013 (135)
1/250 - F5.6 read with Sverdlovsk 4 "the Owl Edvige", incident light, soviet lightmeter.
External rangefinder "Blik" by Lomo.
Tetenal Colortec C41 - 30 °C - tank AP Compact -
Epson V600
Beautiful old Alfa 6C 2500 as seen in the great movie The Godfather. Later in the film this car wil come to a fatal end... :-(
The Alfa Romeo 6C Series was introduced in 1927. 6C refers to the straight-6 cylinder engine. And SS stands for Super Sport.
Most cars were styled by external coachwork companies who bought rolling 6C chassis to built their own designed bodies on it. This car is an exeption, it has a factorybuilt body.
The engine performance increased over the years. The 6C 2500 was presented in 1938.
This 2-door coach was called Freccia d'Oro (Golden Arrow). It was designed by Centro Style Alfa Romeo, Torino. The 6C 2500 Freccia d'Oro was the first new postwar Alfa. A total of 680 bodies were built till 1951.
2443 cc 6 cylinder engine.
Production Alfa Romeo 6C Series in general: 1927-1954.
Production 6C 2500 Series: 1938-1952.
Production 6C 2500 Freccia d'Oro: 1946-1951.
Original old Italian reg. number 12016-PA: Autumn 1946 (Palermo).
Moviestill from The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, USA, 1972.
Location: Sicilia (It.).
Seen on Dutch public television.
Amsterdam, July 29, 2018.
© 2018 Sander Toonen, Amsterdam/Halfweg | All Rights Reserved
Χερουβικόν - 2nd tone (Byzantine Chant)
Chanted by Bulgarian Byzantine Choir
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photo:
Church of St John Aliturgetos, Nesebar, Bulgaria
Свети Йоан Алитургетос (Несебър), България
built in the 14th century
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St_John_Aliturgetos
www.ancient-nessebar.com/html/main_en.php?menu=sights_ali...
Nessebar - UNESCO World Heritage site
Phew, it has been a struggle, but these are the final 5 uploads from St Sepulchre: a glorious church, a church of delights if you will.
Next up, St Dunstan in the West, the photos of which have not come out well, so I will have to return, but so it goes, so it goes.
With the rain falling harder, it was a bit of a route march to Holborn and my next church, the stunning St Sepulchre, which was also open.
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St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, also known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holborn), is an Anglican church in the City of London. It is located on Holborn Viaduct, almost opposite the Old Bailey. In medieval times it stood just outside ("without") the now-demolished old city wall, near the Newgate. It has been a living of St John's College, Oxford, since 1622.
The original Saxon church on the site was dedicated to St Edmund the King and Martyr. During the Crusades in the 12th century the church was renamed St Edmund and the Holy Sepulchre, in reference to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The name eventually became contracted to St Sepulchre.
The church is today the largest parish church in the City. It was completely rebuilt in the 15th century but was gutted by the Great Fire of London in 1666,[1] which left only the outer walls, the tower and the porch standing[2] -. Modified in the 18th century, the church underwent extensive restoration in 1878. It narrowly avoided destruction in the Second World War, although the 18th-century watch-house in its churchyard (erected to deter grave-robbers) was completely destroyed and had to be rebuilt.
The interior of the church is a wide, roomy space with a coffered ceiling[3] installed in 1834. The Vicars' old residence has recently been renovated into a modern living quarter.
During the reign of Mary I in 1555, St Sepulchre's vicar, John Rogers, was burned as a heretic.
St Sepulchre is named in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons as the "bells of Old Bailey". Traditionally, the great bell would be rung to mark the execution of a prisoner at the nearby gallows at Newgate. The clerk of St Sepulchre's was also responsible for ringing a handbell outside the condemned man's cell in Newgate Prison to inform him of his impending execution. This handbell, known as the Execution Bell, now resides in a glass case to the south of the nave.
The church has been the official musicians' church for many years and is associated with many famous musicians. Its north aisle (formerly a chapel dedicated to Stephen Harding) is dedicated as the Musicians' Chapel, with four windows commemorating John Ireland, the singer Dame Nellie Melba, Walter Carroll and the conductor Sir Henry Wood respectively.[4] Wood, who "at the age of fourteen, learned to play the organ" at this church [1] and later became its organist, also has his ashes buried in this church.
The south aisle of the church holds the regimental chapel of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), and its gardens are a memorial garden to that regiment.[5] The west end of the north aisle has various memorials connected with the City of London Rifles (the 6th Battalion London Regiment). The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Sepulchre-without-Newgate
The Early History of St. Sepulchre's—Its Destruction in 1666—The Exterior and Interior—The Early Popularity of the Church—Interments here—Roger Ascham, the Author of the "Schoolmaster"—Captain John Smith, and his Romantic Adventures—Saved by an Indian Girl— St. Sepulchre's Churchyard—Accommodation for a Murderess—The Martyr Rogers—An Odd Circumstance—Good Company for the Dead—A Leap from the Tower—A Warning Bell and a Last Admonition—Nosegays for the Condemned—The Route to the Gallows-tree— The Deeds of the Charitable—The "Saracen's Head"—Description by Dickens—Giltspur Street—Giltspur Street Compter—A Disreputable Condition—Pie Corner—Hosier Lane—A Spurious Relic—The Conduit on Snow Hill—A Ladies' Charity School—Turnagain Lane—Poor Betty!—A Schoolmistress Censured—Skinner Street—Unpropitious Fortune—William Godwin—An Original Married Life.
Many interesting associations—Principally, however, connected with the annals of crime and the execution of the laws of England—belong to the Church of St. Sepulchre, or St. 'Pulchre. This sacred edifice—anciently known as St. Sepulchre's in the Bailey, or by Chamberlain Gate (now Newgate)—stands at the eastern end of the slight acclivity of Snow Hill, and between Smithfield and the Old Bailey. The genuine materials for its early history are scanty enough. It was probably founded about the commencement of the twelfth century, but of the exact date and circumstances of its origin there is no record whatever. Its name is derived from the Holy Sepulchre of our Saviour at Jerusalem, to the memory of which it was first dedicated.
The earliest authentic notice of the church, according to Maitland, is of the year 1178, at which date it was given by Roger, Bishop of Sarum, to the Prior and Canons of St. Bartholomew. These held the right of advowson until the dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII., and from that time until 1610 it remained in the hands of the Crown. James I., however, then granted "the rectory and its appurtenances, with the advowson of the vicarage," to Francis Phillips and others. The next stage in its history is that the rectory was purchased by the parishioners, to be held in fee-farm of the Crown, and the advowson was obtained by the President and Fellows of St. John the Baptist College, at Oxford.
The church was rebuilt about the middle of the fifteenth century, when one of the Popham family, who had been Chancellor of Normandy and Treasurer of the King's Household, with distinguished liberality erected a handsome chapel on the south side of the choir, and the very beautiful porch still remaining at the south-west corner of the building. "His image," Stow says, "fair graven in stone, was fixed over the said porch."
The dreadful fire of 1666 almost destroyed St. Sepulchre's, but the parishioners set energetically to work, and it was "rebuilt and beautified both within and without." The general reparation was under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, and nothing but the walls of the old building, and these not entirely, were suffered to remain. The work was done rapidly, and the whole was completed within four years.
"The tower," says Mr. Godwin, "retained its original aspect, and the body of the church, after its restoration, presented a series of windows between buttresses, with pointed heads filled with tracery, crowned by a string-course and battlements. In this form it remained till the year 1790, when it appears the whole fabric was found to be in a state of great decay, and it was resolved to repair it throughout. Accordingly the walls of the church were cased with Portland stone, and all the windows were taken out and replaced by others with plain semi-circular heads, as now seen—certainly agreeing but badly with the tower and porch of the building, but according with the then prevailing spirit of economy. The battlements, too, were taken down, and a plain stone parapet was substituted, so that at this time (with the exception of the roof, which was wagon-headed, and presented on the outside an unsightly swell, visible above the parapet) the church assumed its present appearance." The ungainly roof was removed, and an entirely new one erected, about 1836.
At each corner of the tower—"one of the most ancient," says the author of "Londinium Redivivum," "in the outline of the circuit of London" —there are spires, and on the spires there are weathercocks. These have been made use of by Howell to point a moral: "Unreasonable people," says he, "are as hard to reconcile as the vanes of St. Sepulchre's tower, which never look all four upon one point of the heavens." Nothing can be said with certainty as to the date of the tower, but it is not without the bounds of probability that it formed part of the original building. The belfry is reached by a small winding staircase in the south-west angle, and a similar staircase in an opposite angle leads to the summit. The spires at the corners, and some of the tower windows, have very recently undergone several alterations, which have added much to the picturesqueness and beauty of the church.
The chief entrance to St. Sepulchre's is by a porch of singular beauty, projecting from the south side of the tower, at the western end of the church. The groining of the ceiling of this porch, it has been pointed out, takes an almost unique form; the ribs are carved in bold relief, and the bosses at the intersections represent angels' heads, shields, roses, &c., in great variety.
Coming now to the interior of the church, we find it divided into three aisles, by two ranges of Tuscan columns. The aisles are of unequal widths, that in the centre being the widest, that to the south the narrowest. Semi-circular arches connect the columns on either side, springing directly from their capitals, without the interposition of an entablature, and support a large dental cornice, extending round the church. The ceiling of the middle aisle is divided into seven compartments, by horizontal bands, the middle compartment being formed into a small dome.
The aisles have groined ceilings, ornamented at the angles with doves, &c., and beneath every division of the groining are small windows, to admit light to the galleries. Over each of the aisles there is a gallery, very clumsily introduced, which dates from the time when the church was built by Wren, and extends the whole length, excepting at the chancel. The front of the gallery, which is of oak, is described by Mr. Godwin as carved into scrolls, branches, &c., in the centre panel, on either side, with the initials "C. R.," enriched with carvings of laurel, which have, however, he says, "but little merit."
At the east end of the church there are three semicircular-headed windows. Beneath the centre one is a large Corinthian altar-piece of oak, displaying columns, entablatures, &c., elaborately carved and gilded.
The length of the church, exclusive of the ambulatory, is said to be 126 feet, the breadth 68 feet, and the height of the tower 140 feet.
A singularly ugly sounding-board, extending over the preacher, used to stand at the back of the pulpit, at the east end of the church. It was in the shape of a large parabolic reflector, about twelve feet in diameter, and was composed of ribs of mahogany.
At the west end of the church there is a large organ, said to be the oldest and one of the finest in London. It was built in 1677, and has been greatly enlarged. Its reed-stops (hautboy, clarinet, &c.) are supposed to be unrivalled. In Newcourt's time the church was taken notice of as "remarkable for possessing an exceedingly fine organ, and the playing is thought so beautiful, that large congregations are attracted, though some of the parishioners object to the mode of performing divine service."
On the north side of the church, Mr. Godwin mentions, is a large apartment known as "St. Stephen's Chapel." This building evidently formed a somewhat important part of the old church, and was probably appropriated to the votaries of the saint whose name it bears.
Between the exterior and the interior of the church there is little harmony. "For example," says Mr. Godwin, "the columns which form the south aisle face, in some instances, the centre of the large windows which occur in the external wall of the church, and in others the centre of the piers, indifferently." This discordance may likely enough have arisen from the fact that when the church was rebuilt, or rather restored, after the Great Fire, the works were done without much attention from Sir Christopher Wren.
St. Sepulchre's appears to have enjoyed considerable popularity from the earliest period of its history, if one is to judge from the various sums left by well-disposed persons for the support of certain fraternities founded in the church—namely, those of St. Katherine, St. Michael, St. Anne, and Our Lady—and by others, for the maintenance of chantry priests to celebrate masses at stated intervals for the good of their souls. One of the fraternities just named—that of St. Katherine— originated, according to Stow, in the devotion of some poor persons in the parish, and was in honour of the conception of the Virgin Mary. They met in the church on the day of the Conception, and there had the mass of the day, and offered to the same, and provided a certain chaplain daily to celebrate divine service, and to set up wax lights before the image belonging to the fraternity, on all festival days.
The most famous of all who have been interred in St. Sepulchre's is Roger Ascham, the author of the "Schoolmaster," and the instructor of Queen Elizabeth in Greek and Latin. This learned old worthy was born in 1515, near Northallerton, in Yorkshire. He was educated at Cambridge University, and in time rose to be the university orator, being notably zealous in promoting what was then a novelty in England—the study of the Greek language. To divert himself after the fatigue of severe study, he used to devote himself to archery. This drew down upon him the censure of the all-work-and-no-play school; and in defence of himself, Ascham, in 1545, published "Toxophilus," a treatise on his favourite sport. This book is even yet well worthy of perusal, for its enthusiasm, and for its curious descriptions of the personal appearance and manners of the principal persons whom the author had seen and conversed with. Henry VIII. rewarded him with a pension of £10 per annum, a considerable sum in those days. In 1548, Ascham, on the death of William Grindall, who had been his pupil, was appointed instructor in the learned languages to Lady Elizabeth, afterwards the good Queen Bess. At the end of two years he had some dispute with, or took a disgust at, Lady Elizabeth's attendants, resigned his situation, and returned to his college. Soon after this he was employed as secretary to the English ambassador at the court of Charles V. of Germany, and remained abroad till the death of Edward VI. During his absence he had been appointed Latin secretary to King Edward. Strangely enough, though Queen Mary and her ministers were Papists, and Ascham a Protestant, he was retained in his office of Latin secretary, his pension was increased to £20, and he was allowed to retain his fellowship and his situation as university orator. In 1554 he married a lady of good family, by whom he had a considerable fortune, and of whom, in writing to a friend, he gives, as might perhaps be expected, an excellent character. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth, in 1558, she not only required his services as Latin secretary, but as her instructor in Greek, and he resided at Court during the remainder of his life. He died in consequence of his endeavours to complete a Latin poem which he intended to present to the queen on the New Year's Day of 1569. He breathed his last two days before 1568 ran out, and was interred, according to his own directions, in the most private manner, in St. Sepulchre's Church, his funeral sermon being preached by Dr. Andrew Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's. He was universally lamented; and even the queen herself not only showed great concern, but was pleased to say that she would rather have lost ten thousand pounds than her tutor Ascham, which, from that somewhat closehanded sovereign, was truly an expression of high regard.
Ascham, like most men, had his little weaknesses. He had too great a propensity to dice and cock-fighting. Bishop Nicholson would try to convince us that this is an unfounded calumny, but, as it is mentioned by Camden, and other contemporary writers, it seems impossible to deny it. He died, from all accounts, in indifferent circumstances. "Whether," says Dr. Johnson, referring to this, "Ascham was poor by his own fault, or the fault of others, cannot now be decided; but it is certain that many have been rich with less merit. His philological learning would have gained him honour in any country; and among us it may justly call for that reverence which all nations owe to those who first rouse them from ignorance, and kindle among them the light of literature." His most valuable work, "The Schoolmaster," was published by his widow. The nature of this celebrated performance may be gathered from the title: "The Schoolmaster; or a plain and perfite way of teaching children to understand, write, and speak the Latin tongue. … And commodious also for all such as have forgot the Latin tongue, and would by themselves, without a schoolmaster, in short time, and with small pains, recover a sufficient habilitie to understand, write, and speak Latin: by Roger Ascham, ann. 1570. At London, printed by John Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate," a printer, by the way, already mentioned by us a few chapters back (see page 208), as having printed several noted works of the sixteenth century.
Dr. Johnson remarks that the instruction recommended in "The Schoolmaster" is perhaps the best ever given for the study of languages.
Here also lies buried Captain John Smith, a conspicuous soldier of fortune, whose romantic adventures and daring exploits have rarely been surpassed. He died on the 21st of June, 1631. This valiant captain was born at Willoughby, in the county of Lincoln, and helped by his doings to enliven the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. He had a share in the wars of Hungary in 1602, and in three single combats overcame three Turks, and cut off their heads. For this, and other equally brave deeds, Sigismund, Duke of Transylvania, gave him his picture set in gold, with a pension of three hundred ducats; and allowed him to bear three Turks' heads proper as his shield of arms. He afterwards went to America, where he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Indians. He escaped from them, however, at last, and resumed his brilliant career by hazarding his life in naval engagements with pirates and Spanish men-of-war. The most important act of his life was the share he had in civilising the natives of New England, and reducing that province to obedience to Great Britain. In connection with his tomb in St. Sepulchre's, he is mentioned by Stow, in his "Survey," as "some time Governor of Virginia and Admiral of New England."
Certainly the most interesting events of his chequered career were his capture by the Indians, and the saving of his life by the Indian girl Pocahontas, a story of adventure that charms as often as it is told. Bancroft, the historian of the United States, relates how, during the early settlement of Virginia, Smith left the infant colony on an exploring expedition, and not only ascended the river Chickahominy, but struck into the interior. His companions disobeyed his instructions, and being surprised by the Indians, were put to death. Smith preserved his own life by calmness and self-possession. Displaying a pocket-compass, he amused the savages by an explanation of its power, and increased their admiration of his superior genius by imparting to them some vague conceptions of the form of the earth, and the nature of the planetary system. To the Indians, who retained him as their prisoner, his captivity was a more strange event than anything of which the traditions of their tribes preserved the memory. He was allowed to send a letter to the fort at Jamestown, and the savage wonder was increased, for he seemed by some magic to endow the paper with the gift of intelligence. It was evident that their captive was a being of a high order, and then the question arose, Was his nature beneficent, or was he to be dreaded as a dangerous enemy? Their minds were bewildered, and the decision of his fate was referred to the chief Powhatan, and before Powhatan Smith was brought. "The fears of the feeble aborigines," says Bancroft, "were about to prevail, and his immediate death, already repeatedly threatened and repeatedly delayed, would have been inevitable, but for the timely intercession of Pocahontas, a girl twelve years old, the daughter of Powhatan, whose confiding fondness Smith had easily won, and who firmly clung to his neck, as his head was bowed down to receive the stroke of the tomahawks. His fearlessness, and her entreaties, persuaded the council to spare the agreeable stranger, who could make hatchets for her father, and rattles and strings of beads for herself, the favourite child. The barbarians, whose decision had long been held in suspense by the mysterious awe which Smith had inspired, now resolved to receive him as a friend, and to make him a partner of their councils. They tempted him to join their bands, and lend assistance in an attack upon the white men at Jamestown; and when his decision of character succeeded in changing the current of their thoughts, they dismissed him with mutual promises of friendship and benevolence. Thus the captivity of Smith did itself become a benefit to the colony; for he had not only observed with care the country between the James and the Potomac, and had gained some knowledge of the language and manners of the natives, but he now established a peaceful intercourse between the English and the tribes of Powhatan."
On the monument erected to Smith in St. Sepulchre's Church, the following quaint lines were formerly inscribed:—
"Here lies one conquered that hath conquered kings,
Subdued large territories, and done things
Which to the world impossible would seem,
But that the truth is held in more esteem.
Shall I report his former service done,
In honour of his God, and Christendom?
How that he did divide, from pagans three,
Their heads and lives, types of his chivalry?—
For which great service, in that climate done,
Brave Sigismundus, King of Hungarion,
Did give him, as a coat of arms, to wear
These conquered heads, got by his sword and spear.
Or shall I tell of his adventures since
Done in Virginia, that large continent?
How that he subdued kings unto his yoke,
And made those heathens flee, as wind doth smoke;
And made their land, being so large a station,
An habitation for our Christian nation,
Where God is glorified, their wants supplied;
Which else for necessaries, must have died.
But what avails his conquests, now he lies
Interred in earth, a prey to worms and flies?
Oh! may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep,
Until the Keeper, that all souls doth keep,
Return to judgment; and that after thence
With angels he may have his recompense."
Sir Robert Peake, the engraver, also found a last resting-place here. He is known as the master of William Faithorne—the famous English engraver of the seventeenth century—and governor of Basing House for the king during the Civil War under Charles I. He died in 1667. Here also was interred the body of Dr. Bell, grandfather of the originator of a well-known system of education.
"The churchyard of St. Sepulchre's," we learn from Maitland, "at one time extended so far into the street on the south side of the church, as to render the passage-way dangerously narrow. In 1760 the churchyard was, in consequence, levelled, and thrown open to the public. But this led to much inconvenience, and it was re-enclosed in 1802."
Sarah Malcolm, the murderess, was buried in the churchyard of St. Sepulchre's in 1733. This coldhearted and keen-eyed monster in human form has had her story told by us already. The parishioners seem, on this occasion, to have had no such scruples as had been exhibited by their predecessors a hundred and fifty years previous at the burial of Awfield, a traitor. We shall see presently that in those more remote days they were desirous of having at least respectable company for their deceased relatives and friends in the churchyard.
"For a long period," says Mr. Godwin (1838), "the church was surrounded by low mean buildings, by which its general appearance was hidden; but these having been cleared away, and the neighbourhood made considerably more open, St. Sepulchre's now forms a somewhat pleasing object, notwithstanding that the tower and a part of the porch are so entirely dissimilar in style to the remainder of the building." And since Godwin's writing the surroundings of the church have been so improved that perhaps few buildings in the metropolis stand more prominently before the public eye.
In the glorious roll of martyrs who have suffered at the stake for their religious principles, a vicar of St. Sepulchre's, the Reverend John Rogers, occupies a conspicuous place. He was the first who was burned in the reign of the Bloody Mary. This eminent person had at one time been chaplain to the English merchants at Antwerp, and while residing in that city had aided Tindal and Coverdale in their great work of translating the Bible. He married a German lady of good position, by whom he had a large family, and was enabled, by means of her relations, to reside in peace and safety in Germany. It appeared to be his duty, however, to return to England, and there publicly profess and advocate his religious convictions, even at the risk of death. He crossed the sea; he took his place in the pulpit at St. Paul's Cross; he preached a fearless and animated sermon, reminding his astonished audience of the pure and wholesome doctrine which had been promulgated from that pulpit in the days of the good King Edward, and solemnly warning them against the pestilent idolatry and superstition of these new times. It was his last sermon. He was apprehended, tried, condemned, and burned at Smithfield. We described, when speaking of Smithfield, the manner in which he met his fate.
Connected with the martyrdom of Rogers an odd circumstance is quoted in the "Churches of London." It is stated that when the bishops had resolved to put to death Joan Bocher, a friend came to Rogers and earnestly entreated his influence that the poor woman's life might be spared, and other means taken to prevent the spread of her heterodox doctrines. Rogers, however, contended that she should be executed; and his friend then begged him to choose some other kind of death, which should be more agreeable to the gentleness and mercy prescribed in the gospel. "No," replied Rogers, "burning alive is not a cruel death, but easy enough." His friend hearing these words, expressive of so little regard for the sufferings of a fellow-creature, answered him with great vehemence, at the same time striking Rogers' hand, "Well, it may perhaps so happen that you yourself shall have your hands full of this mild burning." There is no record of Rogers among the papers belonging to St. Sepulchre's, but this may easily be accounted for by the fact that at the Great Fire of 1666 nearly all the registers and archives were destroyed.
A noteworthy incident in the history of St. Sepulchre's was connected with the execution, in 1585, of Awfield, for "sparcinge abrood certen lewed, sedicious, and traytorous bookes." "When he was executed," says Fleetwood, the Recorder, in a letter to Lord Burleigh, July 7th of that year, "his body was brought unto St. Pulcher's to be buryed, but the parishioners would not suffer a traytor's corpse to be laid in the earth where their parents, wives, children, kindred, masters, and old neighbours did rest; and so his carcass was returned to the burial-ground near Tyburn, and there I leave it."
Another event in the history of the church is a tale of suicide. On the 10th of April, 1600, a man named William Dorrington threw himself from the roof of the tower, leaving there a prayer for forgiveness.
We come now to speak of the connection of St. Sepulchre's with the neighbouring prison of Newgate. Being the nearest church to the prison, that connection naturally was intimate. Its clock served to give the time to the hangman when there was an execution in the Old Bailey, and many a poor wretch's last moments must it have regulated.
On the right-hand side of the altar a board with a list of charitable donations and gifts used to contain the following item:—"1605. Mr. Robert Dowe gave, for ringing the greatest bell in this church on the day the condemned prisoners are executed, and for other services, for ever, concerning such condemned prisoners, for which services the sexton is paid £16s. 8d.—£50.
It was formerly the practice for the clerk or bellman of St. Sepulchre's to go under Newgate, on the night preceding the execution of a criminal, ring his bell, and repeat the following wholesome advice:—
"All you that in the condemned hold do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die;
Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near
That you before the Almighty must appear;
Examine well yourselves, in time repent,
That you may not to eternal flames be sent.
And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord above have mercy on your souls.
Past twelve o'clock!"
This practice is explained by a passage in Munday's edition of Stow, in which it is told that a Mr. John Dowe, citizen and merchant taylor of London, gave £50 to the parish church of St. Sepulchre's, under the following conditions:—After the several sessions of London, on the night before the execution of such as were condemned to death, the clerk of the church was to go in the night-time, and also early in the morning, to the window of the prison in which they were lying. He was there to ring "certain tolls with a hand-bell" appointed for the purpose, and was afterwards, in a most Christian manner, to put them in mind of their present condition and approaching end, and to exhort them to be prepared, as they ought to be, to die. When they were in the cart, and brought before the walls of the church, the clerk was to stand there ready with the same bell, and, after certain tolls, rehearse a prayer, desiring all the people there present to pray for the unfortunate criminals. The beadle, also, of Merchant Taylors' Hall was allowed an "honest stipend" to see that this ceremony was regularly performed.
The affecting admonition—"affectingly good," Pennant calls it—addressed to the prisoners in Newgate, on the night before execution, ran as follows:—
"You prisoners that are within,
Who, for wickedness and sin,
after many mercies shown you, are now appointed to die to-morrow in the forenoon; give ear and understand that, to-morrow morning, the greatest bell of St. Sepulchre's shall toll for you, in form and manner of a passing-bell, as used to be tolled for those that are at the point of death; to the end that all godly people, hearing that bell, and knowing it is for your going to your deaths, may be stirred up heartily to pray to God to bestow his grace and mercy upon you, whilst you live. I beseech you, for Jesus Christ's sake, to keep this night in watching and prayer, to the salvation of your own souls while there is yet time and place for mercy; as knowing to-morrow you must appear before the judgment-seat of your Creator, there to give an account of all things done in this life, and to suffer eternal torments for your sins committed against Him, unless, upon your hearty and unfeigned repentance, you find mercy through the merits, death, and passion of your only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return to Him."
And the following was the admonition to condemned criminals, as they were passing by St. Sepulchre's Church wall to execution:—" All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll.
"You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears; ask mercy of the Lord, for the salvation of your own souls, through the [merits, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return unto Him.
"Lord have mercy upon you;
Christ have mercy upon you.
Lord have mercy upon you;
Christ have mercy upon you."
The charitable Mr. Dowe, who took such interest in the last moments of the occupants of the condemned cell, was buried in the church of St. Botolph, Aldgate.
Another curious custom observed at St. Sepulchre's was the presentation of a nosegay to every criminal on his way to execution at Tyburn. No doubt the practice had its origin in some kindly feeling for the poor unfortunates who were so soon to bid farewell to all the beauties of earth. One of the last who received a nosegay from the steps of St. Sepulchre's was "Sixteen-string Jack," alias John Rann, who was hanged, in 1774, for robbing the Rev. Dr. Bell of his watch and eighteen pence in money, in Gunnersbury Lane, on the road to Brentford. Sixteen-string Jack wore the flowers in his button-hole as he rode dolefully to the gallows. This was witnessed by John Thomas Smith, who thus describes the scene in his admirable anecdotebook, "Nollekens and his Times:"—" I remember well, when I was in my eighth year, Mr. Nollekens calling at my father's house, in Great Portland Street, and taking us to Oxford Street, to see the notorious Jack Rann, commonly called Sixteenstring Jack, go to Tyburn to be hanged. … The criminal was dressed in a pea-green coat, with an immense nosegay in the button-hole, which had been presented to him at St. Sepulchre's steps; and his nankeen small-clothes, we were told, were tied at each knee with sixteen strings. After he had passed, and Mr. Nollekens was leading me home by the hand, I recollect his stooping down to me and observing, in a low tone of voice, 'Tom, now, my little man, if my father-in-law, Mr. Justice Welch, had been high constable, we could have walked by the side of the cart all the way to Tyburn.'"
When criminals were conveyed from Newgate to Tyburn, the cart passed up Giltspur Street, and through Smithfield, to Cow Lane. Skinner Street had not then been built, and the Crooked Lane which turned down by St. Sepulchre's, as well as Ozier Lane, did not afford sufficient width to admit of the cavalcade passing by either of them, with convenience, to Holborn Hill, or "the Heavy Hill," as it used to be called. The procession seems at no time to have had much of the solemn element about it. "The heroes of the day were often," says a popular writer, "on good terms with the mob, and jokes were exchanged between the men who were going to be hanged and the men who deserved to be."
"On St. Paul's Day," says Mr. Timbs (1868), "service is performed in St. Sepulchre's, in accordance with the will of Mr. Paul Jervis, who, in 1717, devised certain land in trust that a sermon should be preached in the church upon every Paul's Day upon the excellence of the liturgy o the Church of England; the preacher to receive 40s. for such sermon. Various sums are also bequeathed to the curate, the clerk, the treasurer, and masters of the parochial schools. To the poor of the parish he bequeathed 20s. a-piece to ten of the poorest householders within that part of the parish of St. Sepulchre commonly called Smithfield quarter, £4 to the treasurer of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and 6s. 8d. yearly to the clerk, who shall attend to receive the same. The residue of the yearly rents and profits is to be distributed unto and amongst such poor people of the parish of St. Sepulchre's, London, who shall attend the service and sermon. At the close of the service the vestry-clerk reads aloud an extract from the will, and then proceeds to the distribution of the money. In the evening the vicar, churchwardens, and common councilmen of the precinct dine together."
In 1749, a Mr. Drinkwater made a praiseworthy bequest. He left the parish of St. Sepulchre £500 to be lent in sums of £25 to industrious young tradesmen. No interest was to be charged, and the money was to be lent for four years.
Next to St. Sepulchre's, on Snow Hill, used to stand the famous old inn of the "Saracen's Head." It was only swept away within the last few years by the ruthless army of City improvers: a view of it in course of demolition was given on page 439. It was one of the oldest of the London inns which bore the "Saracen's Head" for a sign. One of Dick Tarlton's jests makes mention of the "Saracen's Head" without Newgate, and Stow, describing this neighbourhood, speaks particularly of "a fair large inn for receipt of travellers" that "hath to sign the 'Saracen's Head.'" The courtyard had, to the last, many of the characteristics of an old English inn; there were galleries all round leading to the bedrooms, and a spacious gateway through which the dusty mail-coaches used to rumble, the tired passengers creeping forth "thanking their stars in having escaped the highwaymen and the holes and sloughs of the road." Into that courtyard how many have come on their first arrival in London with hearts beating high with hope, some of whom have risen to be aldermen and sit in state as lord mayor, whilst others have gone the way of the idle apprentice and come to a sad end at Tyburn! It was at this inn that Nicholas Nickleby and his uncle waited upon the Yorkshire schoolmaster Squeers, of Dotheboys Hall. Mr. Dickens describes the tavern as it existed in the last days of mail-coaching, when it was a most important place for arrivals and departures in London:—
"Next to the jail, and by consequence near to Smithfield also, and the Compter and the bustle and noise of the City, and just on that particular part of Snow Hill where omnibus horses going eastwards seriously think of falling down on purpose, and where horses in hackney cabriolets going westwards not unfrequently fall by accident, is the coach-yard of the 'Saracen's Head' inn, its portals guarded by two Saracen's heads and shoulders, which it was once the pride and glory of the choice spirits of this metropolis to pull down at night, but which have for some time remained in undisturbed tranquillity, possibly because this species of humour is now confined to St. James's parish, where doorknockers are preferred as being more portable, and bell-wires esteemed as convenient tooth-picks. Whether this be the reason or not, there they are, frowning upon you from each side of the gateway; and the inn itself, garnished with another Saracen's head, frowns upon you from the top of the yard; while from the door of the hind-boot of all the red coaches that are standing therein, there glares a small Saracen's head with a twin expression to the large Saracen's head below, so that the general appearance of the pile is of the Saracenic order."
To explain the use of the Saracen's head as an inn sign various reasons have been given. "When our countrymen," says Selden, "came home from fighting with the Saracens and were beaten by them, they pictured them with huge, big, terrible faces (as you still see the 'Saracen's Head' is), when in truth they were like other men. But this they did to save their own credit." Or the sign may have been adopted by those who had visited the Holy Land either as pilgrims or to fight the Saracens. Others, again, hold that it was first set up in compliment to the mother of Thomas à Becket, who was the daughter of a Saracen. However this may be, it is certain that the use of the sign in former days was very general.
Running past the east end of St. Sepulchre's, from Newgate into West Smithfield, is Giltspur Street, anciently called Knightriders Street. This interesting thoroughfare derives its name from the knights with their gilt spurs having been accustomed to ride this way to the jousts and tournaments which in days of old were held in Smithfield.
In this street was Giltspur Street Compter, a debtors' prison and house of correction appertaining to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. It stood over against St. Sepulchre's Church, and was removed hither from the east side of Wood Street, Cheapside, in 1791. At the time of its removal it was used as a place of imprisonment for debtors, but the yearly increasing demands upon the contracted space caused that department to be given up, and City debtors were sent to Whitecross Street. The architect was Dance, to whom we are also indebted for the grim pile of Newgate. The Compter was a dirty and appropriately convictlooking edifice. It was pulled down in 1855. Mr. Hepworth Dixon gave an interesting account of this City House of Correction, not long before its demolition, in his "London Prisons" (1850). "Entering," he says, "at the door facing St. Sepulchre's, the visitor suddenly finds himself in a low dark passage, leading into the offices of the gaol, and branching off into other passages, darker, closer, more replete with noxious smells, than even those of Newgate. This is the fitting prelude to what follows. The prison, it must be noticed, is divided into two principal divisions, the House of Correction and the Compter. The front in Giltspur Street, and the side nearest to Newgate Street, is called the Compter. In its wards are placed detenues of various kinds—remands, committals from the police-courts, and generally persons waiting for trial, and consequently still unconvicted. The other department, the House of Correction, occupies the back portion of the premises, abutting on Christ's Hospital. Curious it is to consider how thin a wall divides these widely-separate worlds! And sorrowful it is to think what a difference of destiny awaits the children—destiny inexorable, though often unearned in either case—who, on the one side of it or the other, receive an eleemosynary education! The collegian and the criminal! Who shall say how much mere accident— circumstances over which the child has little power —determines to a life of usefulness or mischief? From the yards of Giltspur Street prison almost the only objects visible, outside of the gaol itself, are the towers of Christ's Hospital; the only sounds audible, the shouts of the scholars at their play. The balls of the hospital boys often fall within the yards of the prison. Whether these sights and sounds ever cause the criminal to pause and reflect upon the courses of his life, we will not say, but the stranger visiting the place will be very apt to think for him. …
"In the department of the prison called the House of Correction, minor offenders within the City of London are imprisoned. No transports are sent hither, nor is any person whose sentence is above three years in length." This able writer then goes on to tell of the many crying evils connected with the institution—the want of air, the over-crowded state of the rooms, the absence of proper cellular accommodation, and the vicious intercourse carried on amongst the prisoners. The entire gaol, when he wrote, only contained thirty-six separate sleeping-rooms. Now by the highest prison calculation—and this, be it noted, proceeds on the assumption that three persons can sleep in small, miserable, unventilated cells, which are built for only one, and are too confined for that, being only about one-half the size of the model cell for one at Pentonville—it was only capable of accommodating 203 prisoners, yet by the returns issued at Michaelmas, 1850, it contained 246!
A large section of the prison used to be devoted to female delinquents, but lately it was almost entirely given up to male offenders.
"The House of Correction, and the Compter portion of the establishment," says Mr. Dixon, "are kept quite distinct, but it would be difficult to award the palm of empire in their respective facilities for demoralisation. We think the Compter rather the worse of the two. You are shown into a room, about the size of an apartment in an ordinary dwelling-house, which will be found crowded with from thirty to forty persons, young and old, and in their ordinary costume; the low thief in his filth and rags, and the member of the swell-mob with his bright buttons, flash finery, and false jewels. Here you notice the boy who has just been guilty of his first offence, and committed for trial, learning with a greedy mind a thousand criminal arts, and listening with the precocious instinct of guilty passions to stories and conversations the most depraved and disgusting. You regard him with a mixture of pity and loathing, for he knows that the eyes of his peers are upon him, and he stares at you with a familiar impudence, and exhibits a devil-may-care countenance, such as is only to be met with in the juvenile offender. Here, too, may be seen the young clerk, taken up on suspicion—perhaps innocent—who avoids you with a shy look of pain and uneasiness: what a hell must this prison be to him! How frightful it is to think of a person really untainted with crime, compelled to herd for ten or twenty days with these abandoned wretches!
"On the other, the House of Correction side of the gaol, similar rooms will be found, full of prisoners communicating with each other, laughing and shouting without hindrance. All this is so little in accordance with existing notions of prison discipline, that one is continually fancying these disgraceful scenes cannot be in the capital of England, and in the year of grace 1850. Very few of the prisoners attend school or receive any instruction; neither is any kind of employment afforded them, except oakum-picking, and the still more disgusting labour of the treadmill. When at work, an officer is in attendance to prevent disorderly conduct; but his presence is of no avail as a protection to the less depraved. Conversation still goes on; and every facility is afforded for making acquaintances, and for mutual contamination."
After having long been branded by intelligent inspectors as a disgrace to the metropolis, Giltspur Street Compter was condemned, closed in 1854, and subsequently taken down.
Nearly opposite what used to be the site of the Compter, and adjoining Cock Lane, is the spot called Pie Corner, near which terminated the Great Fire of 1666. The fire commenced at Pudding Lane, it will be remembered, so it was singularly appropriate that it should terminate at Pie Corner. Under the date of 4th September, 1666, Pepys, in his "Diary," records that "W. Hewer this day went to see how his mother did, and comes home late, telling us how he hath been forced to remove her to Islington, her house in Pye Corner being burned; so that the fire is got so far that way." The figure of a fat naked boy stands over a public house at the corner of the lane; it used to have the following warning inscription attached:— "This boy is in memory put up of the late fire of London, occasioned by the sin of gluttony, 1666." According to Stow, Pie Corner derived its name from the sign of a well-frequented hostelry, which anciently stood on the spot. Strype makes honourable mention of Pie Corner, as "noted chiefly for cooks' shops and pigs dressed there during Bartholomew Fair." Our old writers have many references—and not all, by the way, in the best taste—to its cookstalls and dressed pork. Shadwell, for instance, in the Woman Captain (1680) speaks of "meat dressed at Pie Corner by greasy scullions;" and Ben Jonson writes in the Alchemist (1612)—
"I shall put you in mind, sir, at Pie Corner,
Taking your meal of steam in from cooks' stalls."
And in "The Great Boobee" ("Roxburgh Ballads"):
"Next day I through Pie Corner passed;
The roast meat on the stall
Invited me to take a taste;
My money was but small."
But Pie Corner seems to have been noted for more than eatables. A ballad from Tom D'Urfey's "Pills to Purge Melancholy," describing Bartholomew Fair, eleven years before the Fire of London, says:—
"At Pie-Corner end, mark well my good friend,
'Tis a very fine dirty place;
Where there's more arrows and bows. …
Than was handled at Chivy Chase."
We have already given a view of Pie Corner in our chapter on Smithfield, page 361.
Hosier Lane, running from Cow Lane to Smithfield, and almost parallel to Cock Lane, is described by "R. B.," in Strype, as a place not over-well built or inhabited. The houses were all old timber erections. Some of these—those standing at the south corner of the lane—were in the beginning of this century depicted by Mr. J. T. Smith, in his "Ancient Topography of London." He describes them as probably of the reign of James I. The rooms were small, with low, unornamented ceilings; the timber, oak, profusely used; the gables were plain, and the walls lath and plaster. They were taken down in 1809.
In the corner house, in Mr. Smith's time, there was a barber whose name was Catchpole; at least, so it was written over the door. He was rather an odd fellow, and possessed, according to his own account, a famous relic of antiquity. He would gravely show his customers a short-bladed instrument, as the identical dagger with which Walworth killed Wat Tyler.
Hosier Lane, like Pie Corner, used to be a great resort during the time of Bartholomew Fair, "all the houses," it is said in Strype, "generally being made public for tippling."
We return now from our excursion to the north of St. Sepulchre's, and continue our rambles to the west, and before speaking of what is, let us refer to what has been.
Turnagain Lane is not far from this. "Near unto this Seacoal Lane," remarks Stow, "in the turning towards Holborn Conduit, is Turnagain Lane, or rather, as in a record of the 5th of Edward III., Windagain Lane, for that it goeth down west to Fleet Dyke, from whence men must turn again the same way they came, but there it stopped." There used to be a proverb, "He must take him a house in Turnagain Lane."
A conduit formerly stood on Snow Hill, a little below the church. It is described as a building with four equal sides, ornamented with four columns and pediment, surmounted by a pyramid, on which stood a lamb—a rebus on the name of Lamb, from whose conduit in Red Lion Street the water came. There had been a conduit there, however, before Lamb's day, which was towards the close of the sixteenth century.
At No. 37, King Street, Snow Hill, there used to be a ladies' charity school, which was established in 1702, and remained in the parish 145 years. Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale were subscribers to this school, and Johnson drew from it his story of Betty Broom, in "The Idler." The world of domestic service, in Betty's days, seems to have been pretty much as now. Betty was a poor girl, bred in the country at a charity-school, maintained by the contributions of wealthy neighbours. The patronesses visited the school from time to time, to see how the pupils got on, and everything went well, till "at last, the chief of the subscribers having passed a winter in London, came down full of an opinion new and strange to the whole country. She held it little less than criminal to teach poor girls to read and write. They who are born to poverty, she said, are born to ignorance, and will work the harder the less they know. She told her friends that London was in confusion by the insolence of servants; that scarcely a girl could be got for all-work, since education had made such numbers of fine ladies, that nobody would now accept a lower title than that of a waiting-maid, or something that might qualify her to wear laced shoes and long ruffles, and to sit at work in the parlour window. But she was resolved, for her part, to spoil no more girls. Those who were to live by their hands should neither read nor write out of her pocket. The world was bad enough already, and she would have no part in making it worse.
"She was for a long time warmly opposed; but she persevered in her notions, and withdrew her subscription. Few listen, without a desire of conviction, to those who advise them to spare their money. Her example and her arguments gained ground daily; and in less than a year the whole parish was convinced that the nation would be ruined if the children of the poor were taught to read and write." So the school was dissolved, and Betty with the rest was turned adrift into the wide and cold world; and her adventures there any one may read in "The Idler" for himself.
There is an entry in the school minutes of 1763, to the effect that the ladies of the committee censured the schoolmistress for listening to the story of the Cock Lane ghost, and "desired her to keep her belief in the article to herself."
Skinner Street—now one of the names of the past—which ran by the south side of St. Sepulchre's, and formed the connecting link between Newgate Street and Holborn, received its name from Alderman Skinner, through whose exertions, about 1802, it was principally built. The following account of Skinner Street is from the picturesque pen of Mr. William Harvey ("Aleph"), whose long familiarity with the places he describes renders doubly valuable his many contributions to the history of London scenes and people:—"As a building speculation," he says, writing in 1863, "it was a failure. When the buildings were ready for occupation, tall and substantial as they really were, the high rents frightened intending shopkeepers. Tenants were not to be had; and in order to get over the money difficulty, a lottery, sanctioned by Parliament, was commenced. Lotteries were then common tricks of finance, and nobody wondered at the new venture; but even the most desperate fortune-hunters were slow to invest their capital, and the tickets hung sadly on hand. The day for the drawing was postponed several times, and when it came, there was little or no excitement on the subject, and whoever rejoiced in becoming a house-owner on such easy terms, the original projectors and builders were understood to have suffered considerably. The winners found the property in a very unfinished condition. Few of the dwellings were habitable, and as funds were often wanting, a majority of the houses remained empty, and the shops unopened. After two or three years things began to improve; the vast many-storeyed house which then covered the site of Commercial Place was converted into a warehousing depôt; a capital house opposite the 'Saracen's Head' was taken by a hosier of the name of Theobald, who, opening his shop with the determination of selling the best hosiery, and nothing else, was able to convince the citizens that his hose was first-rate, and, desiring only a living profit, succeeded, after thirty years of unwearied industry, in accumulating a large fortune. Theobald was possessed of literary tastes, and at the sale of Sir Walter Scott's manuscripts was a liberal purchaser. He also collected a library of exceedingly choice books, and when aristocratic customers purchased stockings of him, was soon able to interest them in matters of far higher interest…
"The most remarkable shop—but it was on the left-hand side, at a corner house—was that established for the sale of children's books. It boasted an immense extent of window-front, extending from the entrance into Snow Hill, and towards Fleet Market. Many a time have I lingered with loving eyes over those fascinating story-books, so rich in gaily-coloured prints; such careful editions of the marvellous old histories, 'Puss in Boots,' 'Cock Robin,' 'Cinderella,' and the like. Fortunately the front was kept low, so as exactly to suit the capacity of a childish admirer. . . . . But Skinner Street did not prosper much, and never could compete with even the dullest portions of Holborn. I have spoken of some reputable shops; but you know the proverb, 'One swallow will not make a summer,' and it was a declining neighbourhood almost before it could be called new. In 1810 the commercial depôt, which had been erected at a cost of £25,000, and was the chief prize in the lottery, was destroyed by fire, never to be rebuilt—a heavy blow and discouragement to Skinner Street, from which it never rallied. Perhaps the periodical hanging-days exercised an unfavourable influence, collecting, as they frequently did, all the thieves and vagabonds of London. I never sympathised with Pepys or Charles Fox in their passion for public executions, and made it a point to avoid those ghastly sights; but early of a Monday morning, when I had just reached the end of Giltspur Street, a miserable wretch had just been turned off from the platform of the debtors' door, and I was made the unwilling witness of his last struggles. That scene haunted me for months, and I often used to ask myself, 'Who that could help it would live in Skinner Street?' The next unpropitious event in these parts was the unexpected closing of the child's library. What could it mean? Such a well-to-do establishment shut up? Yes, the whole army of shutters looked blankly on the inquirer, and forbade even a single glance at 'Sinbad' or 'Robinson Crusoe.' It would soon be re-opened, we naturally thought; but the shutters never came down again. The whole house was deserted; not even a messenger in bankruptcy, or an ancient Charley, was found to regard the playful double knocks of the neighbouring juveniles. Gradually the glass of all the windows got broken in, a heavy cloud of black dust, solidifying into inches thick, gathered on sills and doors and brickwork, till the whole frontage grew as gloomy as Giant Despair's Castle. Not long after, the adjoining houses shared the same fate, and they remained from year to year without the slightest sign of life—absolute scarecrows, darkening with their uncomfortable shadows the busy streets. Within half a mile, in Stamford Street, Blackfriars, there are (1863) seven houses in a similar predicament— window-glass demolished, doors cracked from top to bottom, spiders' webs hanging from every projecting sill or parapet. What can it mean? The loss in the article of rents alone must be over £1,000 annually. If the real owners are at feud with imaginary owners, surely the property might be rendered valuable, and the proceeds invested. Even the lawyers can derive no profit from such hopeless abandonment. I am told the whole mischief arose out of a Chancery suit. Can it be the famous 'Jarndyce v. Jarndyce' case? And have all the heirs starved each other out? If so, what hinders our lady the Queen from taking possession? Any change would be an improvement, for these dead houses make the streets they cumber as dispiriting and comfortless as graveyards. Busy fancy will sometimes people them, and fill the dreary rooms with strange guests. Do the victims of guilt congregate in these dark dens? Do wretches 'unfriended by the world or the world's law,' seek refuge in these deserted nooks, mourning in the silence of despair over their former lives, and anticipating the future in unappeasable agony? Such things have been—the silence and desolation of these doomed dwellings make them the more suitable for such tenants."
A street is nothing without a mystery, so a mystery let these old tumble-down houses remain, whilst we go on to tell that, in front of No. 58, the sailor Cashman was hung in 1817, as we have already mentioned, for plundering a gunsmith's shop there. William Godwin, the author of "Caleb Williams," kept a bookseller's shop for several years in Skinner Street, at No. 41, and published school-books in the name of Edward Baldwin. On the wall there was a stone carving of Æsop reciting one of his fables to children.
The most noteworthy event of the life of Godwin was his marriage with the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, authoress of a "Vindication of the Rights of Women," whose congenial mind, in politics and morals, he ardently admired. Godwin's account of the way in which they got on together is worth reading:—"Ours," he writes, "was not an idle happiness, a paradise of selfish and transitory pleasures. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to mention, that influenced by ideas I had long entertained, I engaged an apartment about twenty doors from our house, in the Polygon, Somers Town, which I designed for the purpose of my study and literary occupations. Trifles, however, will be interesting to some readers, when they relate to the last period of the life of such a person as Mary. I will add, therefore, that we were both of us of opinion, that it was possible for two persons to be too uniformly in each other's society. Influenced by that opinion, it was my practice to repair to the apartment I have mentioned as soon as I rose, and frequently not to make my appearance in the Polygon till the hour of dinner. We agreed in condemning the notion, prevalent in many situations in life, that a man and his wife cannot visit in mixed society but in company with each other, and we rather sought occasions of deviating from than of complying with this rule. By this means, though, for the most part, we spent the latter half of each day in one another's society, yet we were in no danger of satiety. We seemed to combine, in a considerable degree, the novelty and lively sensation of a visit with the more delicious and heartfelt pleasure of a domestic life."
This philosophic union, to Godwin's inexpressible affliction, did not last more than eighteen months, at the end of which time Mrs. Godwin died, leaving an only daughter, who in the course of time became the second wife of the poet Shelley, and was the author of the wild and extraordinary tale of "Frankenstein."
Looking up to the stars at night, the giant masts of the Maltese Falcon.
Such an incredible integration of technology and design in this carbon fiber masterpiece, the largest and fastest single-hull megayacht in the world. When it sails, the enormous boat tilts like a racing boat, dipping the lower railing into the sea. It is quite dramatic, and everything onboard has to be secured from falling over.
WIRED called it the “the most daring advance in sailing technology in 150 years. The overall look is sleek, metallic, and ultramodern, almost foreboding. When Darth Vader builds his own intergalactic yacht, it will look like this.
The genius — and risk — of the rigging is its use of freestanding masts that rotate to adjust sail trim and tack the boat. There are practically no external ropes or wires, no traditional rigging of any sort to brace the spars or control the nearly 26,000 square feet of sail. The 15 sails deploy at the push of a button, rolling out from inside each hollow mast along recessed tracks on stationary horizontal yardarms. When Dijkstra's drawings first came in, the CEO of Perini Navi, the Italian company that built the ship, muttered, "Whatever that is, it's not going to sail." Each mast is secured to the hull by two huge steel bearings. The three assemblies — mast, bearings, motors, and fittings — each weigh well over 30 tons. To measure the stress on the masts, a fiber-optic network is embedded in the layers of carbon-fiber laminate. These 0.01-inch-diameter cables contain sensors that relay real-time data about the structural health of the masts to a graphic display on the bridge. Seventy-five sealed motors, 60 for unfurling and 15 for furling, are used to manage the sails.”
You can see all that on the video I took. And here are all of my photos here on flickr.
Here's my video of them in action.
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays! Pretty cute cowgirl! Sony A7R Test Photos: ILCE7R A7r Golden Cowgirl Model with Gold 45 Revolver! Carl Zeiss Sony Sonnar T* FE 35mm f/2.8 ZA Lens. finished in Lightroom 5.3 ! Wearing cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and cutoff jeans shorts while modeling 45surf t-shirts and hoodies! Tall, fin, fit, and tan with long, silky long blond hair and pretty blue eyes! A goddess!
Was testing the Sony HVL-F60M External Flash on the Sony A7r. You can see it going off in some of the photos (check the exif if in doubt)--worked great, but it overheated a bit sooner than my Nikon flash on the D800E. But it's all good!
Here's some epic goddess video shot at the same time as stills using my 45surfer method/philosophy:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7gq_gCk0jE
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiOMrZIEzg8
Join Johnny Ranger McCoy's youtube channel for goddess video shot @ the same time as the stills with the Sony A7 !
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7gq_gCk0jE
Beautiful swimsuit bikini model goddess on a beautiful December Malibu afternoon! Shot it yesterday. :) Love, love, love the new Sony A7 R!
Was a fun test shoot. Many, many more to come!
All the best on your Epic Hero's Journey from Johnny Ranger McCoy!
Modeling the black & white 45surf & black & gold "Gold 45 Revolver" Gold'N'Virtue clothes with the main equation to Moving Dimensions Theory on the swimsuits and lingerie: dx4/dt=ic. Yes I have a Ph.D. in physics! :) You can read more about my research and Hero's Journey Physics here:
herosjourneyphysics.wordpress.com/ MDT PROOF#2: Einstein (1912 Man. on Rel.) and Minkowski wrote x4=ict. Ergo dx4/dt=ic--the foundational equation of all time and motion which is on all the shirts, clothes, and swimsuits. Every photon that hits my Nikon D800e's sensor does it by surfing the fourth expanding dimension, which is moving at c relative to the three spatial dimensions, or dx4/dt=ic!
May the Hero's Journey Mythology Goddess inspire you (as they have inspired me!) along your own artistic journey! Love, love, love the 35mm Carl Zeiss Lens on the new Sony A7R! :)
All the Best on Your Epic Hero's Journey from Johnny Ranger McCoy!
Channeling Clint Eastwood & Sergio Leone on an old western set! The cowgirl puts the 45 in 45surf! :)
These photos were shot in Sony RAW ( .ARW ) and finished in the new Lightroom 5.3!
Not sure what this structure is that it needs so much external bracing. It's part of the old industrial area in Mile End, which is good hunting grounds for me.
Scotland became the last place in the UK to see A4’s in steam, albeit in poor external condition.
Pictured in August 1966, simmering on St. Rollox MPD (65B), Glasgow, is Gresley’s 'A4' 4-6-2 no. 60034 "Lord Faringdon”. The A4's were primarily used on 3hr expresses from Aberdeen - Glasgow. She has, as did all the other working examples on my trip around Scotland that year, still have her nameplates attached.
She was withdrawn 14 days later from her home shed of Ferryhill (61B) and cut-up at Hughes Bolckows (North Blyth)
A good and righteous man.
One of the Righteous Among the Nations (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם)
Here is a search for photos on Flickr of Chiune Sugihara:
www.flickr.com/search/?text=chiune%20Sugihara
Here is the site for Yad Vashem:
encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/righteous-among...
________________________________
Here is his bio on Wikipedia:
Chiune Sugihara (杉原 千畝, Sugihara Chiune, 1 January 1900 – 31 July 1986)[1] was a Japanese diplomat who served as vice-consul for the Japanese Empire in Kaunas, Lithuania. During the Second World War, Sugihara helped thousands of Jews flee Europe by issuing transit visas to them so that they could travel through Japanese territory, risking his job and the lives of his family.[2][3] The fleeing Jews were refugees from German-occupied Western Poland and Soviet-occupied Eastern Poland, as well as residents of Lithuania. In 1985, the State of Israel honored Sugihara as one of the Righteous Among the Nations (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם) for his actions. He is the only Japanese national to have been so honored. The year 2020 was "The Year of Chiune Sugihara" in Lithuania. It has been estimated as many as 100,000 people alive today are the descendants of the recipients of Sugihara visas.[4]
Contents
1 Early life and education
2 Manchurian Foreign Office
3 Lithuania
3.1 Jewish refugees
3.1.1 Sugihara's visas
3.1.2 Numbers saved
4 Resignation
5 Later life
6 Honor Restored
7 Family
8 Legacy and honors
9 Biographies
10 Notable people helped by Sugihara
11 See also
12 References
13 Further reading
14 External links
Early life and education
Chiune Sugihara was born on 1 January 1900 (Meiji 33), in Mino, Gifu prefecture, to a middle-class father, Yoshimi Sugihara (杉原好水 Sugihara Yoshimi), and an upper-middle class mother, Yatsu Sugihara (杉原やつ Sugihara Yatsu).[5] When he was born, his father worked at a tax office in Kozuchi-town and his family lived in a borrowed temple, with the Buddhist temple Kyōsen-ji (教泉寺) where he was born nearby. He was the second son among five boys and one girl.[1] His father and family moved into the tax office within the branch of the Nagoya Tax Administration Office one after another. In 1903 (Meiji 36) his family moved to Asahi Village in Niu-gun, Fukui Prefecture. In 1904 (Meiji 37) they moved to Yokkaichi city Mie Prefecture. On 25 October 1905 (Meiji 38), they moved to Nakatsu Town, Ena-gun, Gifu Prefecture. In 1906 (Meiji 39) on 2 April, Chiune entered Nakatsu Town Municipal Elementary School (now Nakatsugawa City Minami Elementary School in Gifu Prefecture). On 31 March 1907 (Meiji 40), he transferred to Kuwana Municipal Kuwana Elementary School in Mie Prefecture (currently Kuwana Municipal Nissin Elementary School). In December of that same year, he transferred to Nagoya Municipal Furuwatari Elementary School (now Nagoya Municipal Heiwa Elementary School). In 1912, he graduated with top honors from Furuwatari Elementary School and entered Aichi prefectural 5th secondary school (now Zuiryo high school), a combined junior and senior high school. His father wanted him to become a physician, but Chiune deliberately failed the entrance exam by writing only his name on the exam papers. Instead, he entered Waseda University in 1918 (Taishō 7) and majored in English language. At that time, he entered Yuai Gakusha, the Christian fraternity that had been founded by Baptist pastor Harry Baxter Benninhof, to improve his English.
In 1919 (Taishō 8), he passed the Foreign Ministry Scholarship exam. From 1920 to 1922 (Taishō 9 to 11), Sugihara served in the Imperial Army as a second lieutenant with the 79th Infantry, stationed in Korea, then part of the Empire of Japan. He resigned his commission in November 1922 and took the Foreign Ministry's language qualifying exams the following year, passing the Russian exam with distinction. The Japanese Foreign Ministry recruited him and assigned him to Harbin, China, where he also studied the Russian and German languages and later became an expert on Russian affairs.
Chiune Sugihara's birth Registry, indicating his birthplace as Kozuchi Town, Mugi District, nowadays known as Mino City in Gifu Prefecture.
Observation Kozuchi-town from Mt. Ogura. Kyosenji Temple where Chiuna Sugihara was born and village section Named "Chiune" which can be seen from the temple.
Kyōsen-ji Temple (教泉寺). This temple was located at the address reported as the birthplace of Sugihara Chiune, and there was a Kōzuchi tax office that Chiune father served in the immediate area.
Chiune Bridge. A bridge over Chiune-cho which was the origin of the name of Chiune.
Bus stop of Chiune-cho where the name of Sugihara Chiune was derived
Manchurian Foreign Office
When Sugihara served in the Manchurian Foreign Office, he took part in the negotiations with the Soviet Union concerning the Northern Manchurian Railroad.
During his time in Harbin, Sugihara married Klaudia Semionovna Apollonova and converted to Christianity (Russian Orthodox Church),[6] using the baptismal name Sergei Pavlovich.[2]
In 1935, Sugihara quit his post as Deputy Foreign Minister in Manchuria in protest over Japanese mistreatment of the local Chinese.[citation needed]
Sugihara and his wife divorced in 1935, before he returned to Japan, where he married Yukiko (1913–2008, née Kikuchi[7]) after the marriage; they had four sons Hiroki, Chiaki, Haruki, Nobuki. As of 2010, Nobuki is the only surviving son and represents the Sugihara family.[8]
Chiune Sugihara also served in the Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as a translator for the Japanese delegation in Helsinki, Finland.[9]
Lithuania
Righteous
Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations medal simplified.svg
The Holocaust
Rescuers of Jews
Righteousness
Seven Laws of Noah
Yad Vashem
Notable individuals
Irena Adamowicz
Gino Bartali
Archbishop Damaskinos
Odoardo Focherini
Francis Foley
Helen of Greece and Denmark
Princess Alice of Battenberg
Marianne Golz
Paul Grüninger
Jane Haining
Feng-Shan Ho
Wilm Hosenfeld
Constantin Karadja
Jan Karski
Derviš Korkut
Valdemar Langlet
Carl Lutz
Aristides de Sousa Mendes
Tadeusz Pankiewicz
Giorgio Perlasca
Nurija Pozderac
Marion Pritchard
Roland de Pury
Ángel Sanz Briz
Oskar Schindler
Anton Schmid
Irena Sendler
Klymentiy Sheptytsky
Ona Šimaitė
Henryk Sławik
Tina Strobos
Chiune Sugihara
Betsie ten Boom
Casper ten Boom
Corrie ten Boom
Johan van Hulst
Raimondo Viale
Raoul Wallenberg
Johan Hendrik Weidner
Rudolf Weigl
Jan Zwartendijk
Leopold Socha
Franciszka Halamajowa
By country
Austrian
Croatian
German
Lithuanian
Norwegian
Polish (List)
Ukrainian
v
t
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In 1939, Sugihara became a vice-consul of the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania. His duties included reporting on Soviet and German troop movements,[1] and to find out if Germany planned an attack on the Soviets and, if so, to report the details of this attack to his superiors in Berlin and Tokyo.[10]
Sugihara had cooperated with Polish intelligence as part of a bigger Japanese–Polish cooperative plan.[11]
Jewish refugees
As the Soviet Union occupied sovereign Lithuania in 1940, many Jewish refugees from Poland (Polish Jews) as well as Lithuanian Jews tried to acquire exit visas. Without the visas, it was dangerous to travel, yet it was impossible to find countries willing to issue them. Hundreds of refugees came to the Japanese consulate in Kaunas, trying to get a visa to Japan. At the time, on the brink of the war, Lithuanian Jews made up one third of Lithuania's urban population and half of the residents of every town.[12] In the period between 16 July and 3 August 1940, the Dutch Honorary Consul Jan Zwartendijk provided over 2,200 Jews with official third destination passes to Curaçao, a Caribbean island and Dutch colony that required no entry visa or to Surinam.
European Jewish refugees began to arrive in Japan in July 1940 and departed by September 1941. An overview during this period is described in the Annual Reports of 1940[13] & 1941[14] by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).
In June 1940, Italy entered into the war and the Mediterranean route was closed. The Committee in Great Germany, forced to seek new outlets for emigration, arranged for the transportation of Jews from Germany across Europe and Asia (via the trans-Siberian railway) to Vladivostok, thence to Japan. From Japan the refugees were to embark for destinations in the Western Hemisphere.
On December 31, 1940, the Soviet Union declared all persons residing in Lithuania as on September 1, 1940, the right to apply for Soviet citizenship. While the great bulk of Polish refugees in Lithuania opted for Soviet citizenship, there was a group of 4,000–5,000 persons for whom the New Order offered little opportunity. These were principally rabbis, yeshiva students, members of the intellectual classes and leaders of various Jewish communal and labor organizations. Most of them immediately applied for exit permits from Lithuania. Although during the early weeks of 1941 exit permits and Japanese transit visas were readily granted, the problem was how to find transportation costs for those people whose very existences were jeopardized if they remained in Lithuania. The JDC in collaboration with a number of other American Jewish groups, contributed toward the funds required for the Trans-Siberian trip to Japan of 1,700 persons.
In July 1940, Jewish refugees in Germany and other countries began arriving in Japan at Tsuruga, Shimonoseki and Kobe.[15] Japanese embassies and consulates except Kaunas issued 3,448 Japanese transit visas from January 1940 to March 1941.[16] Most of them held valid end-visas and immediately departed Japan. From October 1940, Polish refugees from Lithuania began to land on Tsuruga. Their number increased sharply from January 1941 onwards. "By the end of March there were close to 2,000 in the country, mostly in Kobe. More than half of these refugees did not hold valid end-visas and were unable to proceed further than Japan". They were forced to stay for a long time to find the immigration countries.
The number of Jewish refugees who came to Japan, as seen in Table 1, has documents with 4,500,[17] 5,000[18] or 6,000.[19] 552 persons of the second row of the table do not match the number of departing persons edited by Jewcom.[20] Siberian railway had been closed and no evidence supporting this figure is found in JDC annual reports or MOFA documents. For 200 persons described in Note 1 of Table 1, there is a document in Archives of MOFA that the Japanese consulate of Vladivostok transferred about 50 Jewish refugees who had stranded in Vladivostok to Shanghai with Soviet Union cargo on April 26, 1941.[21]
Sugihara's visas
At the time, the Japanese government required that visas be issued only to those who had gone through appropriate immigration procedures and had enough funds. Most of the refugees did not fulfill these criteria. Sugihara dutifully contacted the Japanese Foreign Ministry three times for instructions. Each time, the Ministry responded that anybody granted a visa should have a visa to a third destination to exit Japan, with no exceptions.[1]
From 18 July to 28 August 1940, aware that applicants were in danger if they stayed behind, Sugihara decided to ignore his orders and issued ten-day visas to Jews for transit through Japan. Given his inferior post and the culture of the Japanese Foreign Service bureaucracy, this was an unusual act of disobedience. He spoke to Soviet officials who agreed to let the Jews travel through the country via the Trans-Siberian Railway at five times the standard ticket price.
Sugihara continued to hand-write visas, reportedly spending 18 to 20 hours a day on them, producing a normal month's worth of visas each day, until 4 September, when he had to leave his post before the consulate was closed. By that time, he had granted thousands of visas to Jews, many of whom were heads of households and thus permitted to take their families with them. It is claimed that before he left, he handed the official consulate stamp to a refugee so that more visas could be forged.[22] His son, Nobuki Sugihara, adamantly insisted in an interview with Ann Curry that his father never gave the stamp to anyone.[23] According to witnesses, he was still writing visas while in transit from his hotel and after boarding the train at the Kaunas Railway Station, throwing visas into the crowd of desperate refugees out of the train's window even as the train pulled out.
In final desperation, blank sheets of paper with only the consulate seal and his signature (that could be later written over into a visa) were hurriedly prepared and flung out from the train. As he prepared to depart, he said, "Please forgive me. I cannot write anymore. I wish you the best." When he bowed deeply to the people before him, someone exclaimed, "Sugihara. We'll never forget you. I'll surely see you again!"[9]
Sugihara himself wondered about official reaction to the thousands of visas he issued. Many years later, he recalled, "No one ever said anything about it. I remember thinking that they probably didn't realize how many I actually issued."[24]
Numbers saved
On the number of refugees passing through Japan who held Japanese transit visas for Curaçao issued by Sugihara, the so-called "Sugihara visa", there are two documents stating numbers 2,200[25] and 6,000.[9] 6,000 persons as stated in "Visas for Life" is likely hearsay.
K. Watanabe argued that there could be 6,000 for the reason that use by three family members per visa is reasonable, that there were newspaper articles with 6,000, and that most of the refugees landing on Tsuruga were now admitted to have a Sugihara visa. On September 29, 1983, Fuji Television aired a documentary "One visa that divided the fate - the Japanese who saved 4,500 Jews".
In 1985, when Chiune Sugihara received Righteous among the Nations award, some Japanese newspapers reported that he saved 6,000 persons and others 4,500.[26] The Japan Times, dated January 19, 1985, headlined "Japanese Man honored for saving 6,000 Jews", and reported "Sugihara defied orders from Tokyo and issued transit visas to nearly 6,000 Jews". US newspapers referred to Sugihara as 'a diplomat who defied his government's orders and issued a transit visas for 6,000 Jews.
Table 2 shows the number of refugees who had stayed at Kobe in 1941 based on Archives of MOFA. Refugees classified as "No visa" in table are presumed to have held fakes of Japanese transit visas issued by Sugihara.[27] The Soviets wanted to purge Polish refugees who had been stranded in Soviet territory with Japanese transit visas as soon as possible,[28] and so permitted them to get on the train to Vladivostok with or without a destination visa. The Japanese government was forced to admit the entry of them. On April 8, 1941, of the 1,400 Polish Jews staying at Kobe, "for Curaçao" and "No visa" were about 1,300.
The Polish ambassador in Tokyo, Tadeusz Romer, remembered, "They (Polish refugees) only had fictitious Dutch visas for the island of Curaçao and Japanese transit visas". According to the refugee name list surveyed by Fukui Prefecture,[29] of the 306 persons who landed at Tsuruga Port in October 1940, there were 203 Poles. Their destinations were US 89, Palestine 46, Curaçao 24, and others. It is estimated that about 80% of them were on the Sugihara visa list.[30] The documents of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum[31] and "Refugee and Survivor" do not mention the number of people saved by "Sugihara visa".
More than half of the refugees who entered with invalid visas including "Sugihara visa" obtained valid visas with the help of JDC, HIAS, the Embassy of Poland and Japanese government, and embarked host countries. In August–September 1941, Japanese authorities transferred about 850 refugees[32] stranded in Japan to Shanghai before Japan and the United States began war. According to Emigration Table by Jewcom, the number of Polish refugees leaving Japan was Shanghai 860, US 532, Canada 186, Palestine 186, Australia 81, South Africa 59, and others 207 in total 2,111.
The total number of Jews saved by Sugihara is in dispute, estimating about 6,000; family visas—which allowed several people to travel on one visa—were also issued, which would account for the much higher figure. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has estimated that Chiune Sugihara issued transit visas for about 6,000 Jews and that around 40,000 descendants of the Jewish refugees are alive today because of his actions.[1] Polish intelligence produced some false visas.[33] Sugihara's widow and eldest son estimate that he saved 10,000 Jews from certain death, whereas Boston University professor and author, Hillel Levine, also estimates that he helped "as many as 10,000 people", but that far fewer people ultimately survived.[34] Indeed, some Jews who received Sugihara's visas failed to leave Lithuania in time, were later captured by the Germans who invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, and perished in the Holocaust.
The Diplomatic Record Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has opened to the public two documents concerning Sugihara's file: the first aforementioned document is a 5 February 1941 diplomatic note from Chiune Sugihara to Japan's then Foreign Minister Yōsuke Matsuoka in which Sugihara stated he issued 1,500 out of 2,139 transit visas to Jews and Poles; however, since most of the 2,139 people were not Jewish, this would imply that most of the visas were given to Polish Jews instead. Levine then notes that another document from the same foreign office file "indicates an additional 3,448 visas were issued in Kaunas for a total of 5,580 visas" which were likely given to Jews desperate to flee Lithuania for safety in Japan or Japanese occupied-China.
Many refugees used their visas to travel across the Soviet Union to Vladivostok and then by boat to Kobe, Japan, where there was a Jewish community. Romer, the Polish ambassador in Tokyo, organized help for them. From August 1940 to November 1941, he had managed to get transit visas in Japan, asylum visas to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Burma, immigration certificates to the British Mandate of Palestine, and immigrant visas to the United States and some Latin American countries for more than two thousand Polish-Lithuanian Jewish refugees, who arrived in Kobe, Japan, and the Shanghai Ghetto, China.
The remaining number of Sugihara survivors stayed in Japan until they were deported to Japanese-held Shanghai, where there was already a large Jewish community that had existed as early as the mid-1930s. Some took the route through Korea directly to Shanghai without passing through Japan. A group of thirty people, all possessing a visa of "Jakub Goldberg", were shuttled back and forth on the open sea for several weeks before finally being allowed to pass through Tsuruga.[35] Most of the around 20,000 Jews survived the Holocaust in the Shanghai ghetto until the Japanese surrender in 1945, three to four months following the collapse of the Third Reich itself.
Resignation
External image
image icon Sugihara and his wife in front of a gate in Prague. It reads "No Jews allowed" in German but "Jews allowed" in Czech, because someone scratched out the "no"
Sugihara was reassigned to Königsberg, East Prussia[34][page needed] before serving as a Consul General in Prague, Czechoslovakia, from March 1941 to late 1942 and in the legation in Bucharest, Romania from 1942 to 1944. He was promoted to the rank of third secretary in 1943, and was decorated with the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 5th Class, in 1944. When Soviet troops entered Romania, they imprisoned Sugihara and his family in a POW camp for eighteen months. They were released in 1946 and returned to Japan through the Soviet Union via the Trans-Siberian railroad and Nakhodka port. In 1947, the Japanese foreign office asked him to resign, nominally due to downsizing. Some sources, including his wife Yukiko Sugihara, have said that the Foreign Ministry told Sugihara he was dismissed because of "that incident" in Lithuania.[34][36]
Later life
Sugihara settled in Fujisawa in Kanagawa prefecture with his wife and three sons. To support his family he took a series of menial jobs, at one point selling light bulbs door to door. He suffered a personal tragedy in 1947 when his youngest son, Haruki, died at the age of seven, shortly after their return to Japan.[10] In 1949 they had one more son, Nobuki, who is the last son alive representing the Chiune Sugihara Family, residing in Belgium. Chiune Sugihara later began to work for an export company as general manager of a U.S. Military Post Exchange. Utilizing his command of the Russian language, Sugihara went on to work and live a low-key existence in the Soviet Union for sixteen years, while his family stayed in Japan.
In 1968, Yehoshua (alternatively spelled Jehoshua or Joshua) Nishri, an economic attaché to the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo and one of the Sugihara beneficiaries, finally located and contacted him. Nishri had been a Polish teen in the 1940s. The next year Sugihara visited Israel and was greeted by the Israeli government. Sugihara beneficiaries began to lobby for his recognition by Yad Vashem. In 1984, Yad Vashem recognised him as Righteous Among the Nations (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם, translit. Khasidei Umot ha-Olam).[37] Sugihara was too ill to travel to Israel, so his wife and youngest son Nobuki accepted the honor on his behalf.
In 1985, 45 years after the Soviet invasion of Lithuania, he was asked his reasons for issuing visas to the Jews. Sugihara explained that the refugees were human beings, and that they simply needed help.
You want to know about my motivation, don't you? Well. It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them. Among the refugees were the elderly and women. They were so desperate that they went so far as to kiss my shoes. Yes, I actually witnessed such scenes with my own eyes. Also, I felt at that time, that the Japanese government did not have any uniform opinion in Tokyo. Some Japanese military leaders were just scared because of the pressure from the Nazis; while other officials in the Home Ministry were simply ambivalent. People in Tokyo were not united. I felt it silly to deal with them. So, I made up my mind not to wait for their reply. I knew that somebody would surely complain about me in the future. But, I myself thought this would be the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong in saving many people's lives... The spirit of humanity, philanthropy... neighborly friendship... with this spirit, I ventured to do what I did, confronting this most difficult situation – and because of this reason, I went ahead with redoubled courage.[38]
When asked by Moshe Zupnik why he risked his career to save other people, he said simply: "I do it just because I have pity on the people. They want to get out so I let them have the visas."
Chiune Sugihara died at a hospital in Kamakura, on 31 July 1986. Despite the publicity given him in Israel and other nations, he had remained virtually unknown in his home country. Only when a large Jewish delegation from around the world, including the Israeli ambassador to Japan, attended his funeral, did his neighbors find out what he had done.[36] His subsequent considerable posthumous acclaim contrasts with the obscurity in which he lived following the loss of his diplomatic career.[39]
Honor Restored
His death spotlighed his humanitarian acts during WW2 and created the opportunity to revise his reputation as a diplomat in his own country. In 1991 Muneo Suzuki, Parliamentaly Vice-President of Foreign Affairs, apologized to Chiune's family for the long-time unfair treatments of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Official honor restoration by Japanese Government was made on October 10, 2000, when Foreign Minister Yohei Kono set the award plaque and gave a commendation speech at the ceremony for Sugihara at Diplomatic Archives.
Family
Yukiko Sugihara (1914–2008) – wife. Poet and author of "Visas for 6,000 Lives". Eldest daughter of high school principal in Kagawa Prefecture, granddaughter of Buddhist priest in Iwate Prefecture. Well versed in German. Member of Kanagawa Prefecture Poetry Committee and Selection Committee for Asahi Shimbun's Kadan poetry section. Author of Poetry Anthology: White Nights and other. Died on October 8, 2008
Hiroki Sugihara (1936–2001) – eldest son. Studied in California upon graduating from Shonan High School in Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan. Translated his mother's book Visas for Life into English.
Chiaki Sugihara (1938–2010) – second son. Born in Helsinki. Studied in California.
Haruki Sugihara (1940–1947) – third son. He was born in Kaunas. Died at the age of 7 of leukemia.
Monument of Chiune Sugihara in Waseda University
Nobuki Sugihara (1949–) – fourth son. Attended Hebrew University in Israel in 1968 at the invitation of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Jewish Fund. Represents the Sugihara family as the only surviving son of Chiune. Since his attendance at the award ceremony of the Sugihara Righteous Forest in the outskirt of Jerusalem on behalf of Chiune in 1985, Nobuki has been actively attending Chiune-related events around the world as the family's spokesperson. Nobuki also heads NPO Sugihara, registered in Belgium, in order to promote peace in the Middle East.
Grandchildren: Chiune Sugihara had 9 grandchildren (8 still alive) and 9 great-grandchildren.
Legacy and honors
Port of Humanity Tsuruga Museum in Tsuruga, Fukui, Japan contains a Sugihara Chiune Corner.
Sugihara Street in Vilnius, Lithuania, Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara Street in Jaffa, Israel, and the asteroid 25893 Sugihara are named after him.
In 1992, the town of Yaotsu opened the Park of Humanity, on a hill over looking the town. In 2000, the Sugihara Chiune Memorial Hall was opened to the public. Since its establishment, more than 600,000 visitors, Japanese and foreign, visited and studied about Sugihara and his virtue.
A corner for Sugihara Chiune is set up in the Port of Humanity Tsuruga Museum near Tsuruga Port, the place where many Jewish refugees arrived in Japan, in the city of Tsuruga, Fukui, Japan.[40]
The Sugihara House Museum is in Kaunas, Lithuania.[41] The Conservative synagogue Temple Emeth, in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, US, built a "Sugihara Memorial Garden"[42] and holds an Annual Sugihara Memorial Concert.
When Sugihara's widow Yukiko traveled to Jerusalem in 1998, she was met by tearful survivors who showed her the yellowing visas that her husband had signed. A park in Jerusalem is named after him. Sugihara appeared on a 1998 Israeli postage stamp. The Japanese government honored him on the centennial of his birth in 2000.[1]
In 2001, a sakura park with 200 trees was planted in Vilnius, Lithuania, to mark the 100th anniversary of Sugihara.[43]
In 2002, a memorial statue of Chiune Sugihara by Ramon G. Velazco titled "Chiune Sugihara Memorial, Hero of the Holocaust" was installed in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, US. The life-size bronze statue depicts Sugihara seated on a bench and holding a hand-written visa. Adjacent to the statue is a granite boulder with dedication plaques and a quotation from the Talmud: "He who saves one life, saves the entire world."[44] Its dedication was attended by consuls from Japan, Israel and Lithuania, Los Angeles city officials and Sugihara's son, Chiaki Sugihara.[45] In 2015 the statue sustained vandalism damage to its surface.[44]
In 2007 he was posthumously awarded the Commander's Cross with the Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta,[46] and the Commander's Cross Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland by the President of Poland in 1996.[47] Also, in 1993, he was awarded the Life Saving Cross of Lithuania. He was posthumously awarded the Sakura Award by the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC) in Toronto in November 2014.
In June 2016, a street in Netanya, Israel, was named for Sugihara in the presence of his son Nobuki, as a number of Netanya's current residents are descendants of the Lithuanian Jews who had been given a means of escaping the Third Reich.[48] There is also a street named Rua Cônsul Chiune Sugihara in Londrina, Brazil.
The Lithuanian government declared 2020 "The Year of Chiune Sugihara", promising to erect a monument to him and issue postage stamps in his honor.[49]
Biographies
Levine, Hillel (4 November 1996). In Search of Sugihara: The Elusive Japanese Diplomat Who Risked his Life to Rescue 10,000 Jews From the Holocaust. Free Press. ISBN 978-0684832517.
Yukiko Sugihara, Visas for Life, translated by Hiroki Sugihara, San Francisco, Edu-Comm, 1995.
Yukiko Sugihara, Visas pour 6000 vies, traduit par Karine Chesneau, Ed. Philippe Picquier, 1995.
A Japanese TV station in Japan made a documentary film about Chiune Sugihara. This film was shot in Kaunas, at the place of the former embassy of Japan.
Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness (2000) from PBS shares details of Sugihara and his family and the fascinating relationship between the Jews and the Japanese in the 1930s and 1940s.[50]
On 11 October 2005, Yomiuri TV (Osaka) aired a two-hour-long drama entitled Visas for Life about Sugihara, based on his wife's book.[51]
Chris Tashima and Chris Donahue made a film about Sugihara in 1997, Visas and Virtue, which won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film.[52]
A 2002 children's picture book, Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story, by Ken Mochizuki and illustrated by Dom Lee, is written from the perspective of Sugihara's young sons and in the voice of Hiroki Sugihara (age 5, at the time). The book also includes an afterword written by Hiroki Sugihara.
In 2015, Japanese fictional drama film Persona Non Grata (杉原千畝 スギハラチウネ) was produced, Toshiaki Karasawa played Sugihara.
Notable people helped by Sugihara
Leaders and students of the Mir Yeshiva, Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim (formally of Lubavitch/Lyubavichi, Russia) relocated to Otwock, Poland and elsewhere.
Yaakov Banai, commander of the Lehi movement's combat unit and later an Israeli military commander.
Joseph R. Fiszman, a noted scholar and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Oregon.[53]
Robert Lewin, a Polish art dealer and philanthropist.
Leo Melamed, financier, head of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), and pioneer of financial futures.
John G. Stoessinger, professor of diplomacy at the University of San Diego.
Zerach Warhaftig, an Israeli lawyer and politician, and a signatory of Israel's Declaration of Independence.
George Zames, control theorist
Bernard and Rochelle Zell, parents of business magnate Sam Zell
See also
Individuals and groups assisting Jews during the Holocaust
Aristides de Sousa Mendes
Varian Fry
Tatsuo Osako
Setsuzo Kotsuji
Giorgio Perlasca
John Rabe
Abdol Hossein Sardari
Oskar Schindler
Raoul Wallenberg
Nicholas Winton
Jan Zwartendijk
Persona Non Grata (2015 film)
Handful of Rain
References
^ a b c d e f Tenembaum B. "Sempo "Chiune" Sugihara, Japanese Savior". The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
^ a b Levine, Hillel (4 November 1996). In Search of Sugihara: The Elusive Japanese Diplomat Who Risked his Life to Rescue 10,000 Jews From the Holocaust. Free Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-0684832517.
Mochizuki, Ken; Lee, Dom (1997). Passage to Freedom : The Sugihara Story (1st ed.). New York: Lee & Low Books. Afterword. ISBN 1880000490. OCLC 35565958.
Liphshiz, Cnaan (23 May 2019). "Holocaust hero Chiune Sugihara's son sets record straight on his father's story". Times of Israel. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
The birthplace is recorded as Kouzuchi-town, Mugi district in the family registry of the Sugiharas
Pulvers, Roger (11 July 2015). "Chiune Sugihara: man of conscience". The Japan Times Online. ISSN 0447-5763. Retrieved 4 August 2017.
Masha Leon: ""Remembering Yukiko Sugihara", forward.com
(in French) Anne Frank au Pays du Manga – Diaporama : Le Fils du Juste, Arte, 2012
^ a b c Yukiko Sugihara (1995). Visas for life. Edu-Comm Plus. ISBN 978-0-9649674-0-3.
^ a b Sugihara, Seishiro (2001), Chiune Sugihara and Japan's Foreign Ministry, between Incompetence and Culpability. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
"Polish-Japanese Secret Cooperation During World War II: Sugihara Chiune and Polish Intelligence". Asiatic Society of Japan. March 1995. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
Cassedy, Ellen. "We Are Here: Facing History In Lithuania." Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal 12, no. 2 (2007): 77–85.
JDC, "Aiding Jews Overseas, Report of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Inc. for 1940 and the first 5 months of 1941" pp. 27–28, 39
JDC, "Aiding Jews Overseas, Report of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Inc. for 1941 and the first 5 months of 1942" pp. 15–16, 33.
JACAR.B04013208900, I-0881/0244
JACAR.B04013209400,I-0882/0102
Marthus, Jurgen "Jewish Responses to Persecution vol. III 1941–1942" p. 43
Warhaftig, Zorach (1988). Refugee and Survivor: Rescue Efforts during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem. ISBN 978-965308005-8.
Watanabe, Katsumasa (2000). 真相・杉原ビザ [The truth – Sugihara Visa] (in Japanese), Tokyo: Taisyo Syuppan
Jewcom. "Emigration from Japan, July 1940 – November 1941"
JACAR.B04013209600,0882/0245
Wolpe, David. "The Japanese Man Who Saved 6,000 Jews With His Handwriting."" New York Times. 15 October 2018. 15 October 2018.
Interview with Ann Curry on May 22, 2019 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in NYC
Sakamoto, Pamela Rotner (1998). Japanese diplomats and Jewish refugees: a World War II dilemma. New York: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-275-96199-2.
Guryn, Andrzej. "Tadeusz Romer. Help for polish Jews in Far East
Japan Times and Asahi on 19 January 1985, as 6,000, Nikkei and Mainichi on 17 January 1985, as 4,500
Altman, Ilya. "The issuance of visas to war refugees by Chiune Sugihara as reflected in documents of Russian Archives" (2017)
JACAR.B04013209400,i-0882/0036
JACAR.B04013209100,I0881/0448
Kanno, Kenji. "The Arrival of Jewish Refugees to Wartime Japan as reported in the local newspaper Fukui Shinbun(Part I: 1940)" (PDF). ナマール(in Japanese). Kobe・Yudaya Kenkyukai. No 22 (2018).
ushmm "Polish Jews in Lithuania:Escape to Japan"
JACAR.B04013209700,I-0882/0326
Aleksandra Hądzelek (University of Technology Sydney, Australia) (2016). "The memory of Sugihara and the "visas for life" in Poland" (PDF). rcin.org.pl.
^ a b c Levine, Hillel (1996). In search of Sugihara: the elusive Japanese diplomat who risked his life to rescue 10,000 Jews from the Holocaust. New York: Free Press. ISBN 978-0-684-83251-7.
"The Asiatic Society of Japan". Archived from the original on 6 January 2015. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
^ a b Lee, Dom; Mochizuki, Ken (2003). Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story. New York: Lee & Low Books. ISBN 978-1-58430-157-8.
Hauser, Zvi (28 October 2020). "Persona non grata no more: Chiune Sugihara - analysis".
Levine, Hillel (1996). In search of Sugihara: the elusive Japanese diplomat who risked his life to rescue 10,000 Jews from the Holocaust. New York: Free Press.
Fogel, Joshua A. "The Recent Boom in Shanghai Studies." Journal of the History of Ideas 71, no. 2 (2010): 313–333.
"Port of Humanity Tsuruga Museum". Tmo-tsuruga.com. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
"Sugihara House Museum". Archived from the original on 5 February 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
"Inside Our Walls". Retrieved 3 April 2011.
"Chiune Sugihara sakura park - Vilnius". wikimapia.org. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
^ a b "Statue of Chiune Sugihara (Chiune Sugihara Memorial)". Public Art in Public Places. 3 March 2020. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
Kyodo News International, Inc. "Sugihara statue dedicated in L.A.'s Little Tokyo". The Free Library. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
"2007 Order of Polonia Restituta" (PDF). Retrieved 3 April 2011.
"1996 Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland" (PDF). Retrieved 3 April 2011.
"Israel names street after diplomat Sugihara, who issued 'visas for life' to Jews during WWII". japantimes.co.jp. The Japan Times. 8 June 2016. Retrieved 8 June 2016. A ceremony on a planned street named after the late Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara was held in Netanya, Israel, on Tuesday. Sugihara issued transit visas to thousands of Jews people during World War II, which later came to be known as "visas for life," as they saved many from Nazi persecution. Netanya is known as a place where many Jews arrived after fleeing from the oppression thanks to visas issued by Sugihara. The plan to build the street marks 30 years since Sugihara's death. "It's such an honor. I wish my father was here," said Sugihara's fourth son, Nobuki, 67.
Rankin, Jennifer (4 January 2020). "My father, the quiet hero: how Japan's Schindler saved 6,000 Jews". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 January 2020.
"Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness | PBS". Retrieved 3 April 2011.
"Visas that Saved Lives, The Story of Chiune Sugihara (Holocaust Film Drama)". Archived from the original on 18 December 2010. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
"Visas and Virtue (2001) – IMDb". Retrieved 3 April 2011.
Fiszman, Rachele. "In Memoriam." PS: Political Science and Politics 33, no. 3 (2000): 659–60.
Further reading
Esin Ayirtman - Sugihara (2020) Chiune Sugihara ISBN 978-9464007862
Yukiko Sugihara (1995), Visas for Life, translation by Hiroki Sugihara and Anne Hoshiko Akabori, Edu-Comm Plus Editors, ISBN 978-0964967403
Yutaka Taniuchi (2001), The miraculous visas – Chiune Sugihara and the story of the 6000 Jews, New York: Gefen Books. ISBN 978-4-89798-565-7
Seishiro Sugihara & Norman Hu (2001), Chiune Sugihara and Japan's Foreign Ministry : Between Incompetence and Culpability, University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-7618-1971-4
Ganor, Solly (2003). Light One Candle: A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem. Kodansha America. ISBN 978-1-56836-352-3.
Gold, Alison Leslie (2000). A Special Fate: Chiune Sugihara: Hero Of The Holocaust. New York: Scholastic. ISBN 978-0-439-25968-2.
Kranzler, David (1988). Japanese, Nazis and Jews: The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai, 1938–1945. Ktav Pub Inc. ISBN 978-0-88125-086-2.
Saul, Eric (1995). Visas for Life : The Remarkable Story of Chiune & Yukiko Sugihara and the Rescue of Thousands of Jews. San Francisco: Holocaust Oral History Project. ISBN 978-0-9648999-0-2.
Iwry, Samuel (2004). To Wear the Dust of War: From Bialystok to Shanghai to the Promised Land, an Oral History (Palgrave Studies in Oral History). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6576-9.
Paldiel, Mordecai (2007). Diplomat heroes of the Holocaust. Jersey City, NJ: distrib. by Ktav Publishing House. ISBN 978-0-88125-909-4.
Sakamoto, Pamela Rotner (1998). Japanese diplomats and Jewish refugees: a World War II dilemma. New York: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-275-96199-2.
Staliunas, Darius; Stefan Schreiner; Leonidas Donskis; Alvydas Nikzentaitis (2004). The vanished world of Lithuanian Jews. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ISBN 978-90-420-0850-2.
Steinhouse, Carl L (2004). Righteous and Courageous: How a Japanese Diplomat Saved Thousands of Jews in Lithuania from the Holocaust. Authorhouse. ISBN 978-1-4184-2079-6.
Ten Green Bottles: The True Story of One Family's Journey from War-torn Austria to the Ghettos of Shanghai by Vivian Jeanette Kaplan (St. Martin's Press, 2004) ISBN 0-312-33054-5
J.W.M. Chapman, "Japan in Poland's Secret Neighbourhood War" in Japan Forum No. 2, 1995.
Ewa Pałasz-Rutkowska & Andrzej T. Romer, "Polish-Japanese co-operation during World War II" in Japan Forum No. 7, 1995.
Takesato Watanabe (1999), "The Revisionist Fallacy in The Japanese Media 1 – Case Studies of Denial of Nazi Gas Chambers and NHK's Report on Japanese & Jews Relations" in Social Sciences Review, Doshisha University, No. 59.
Gerhard Krebs, Die Juden und der Ferne Osten at the Wayback Machine (archived 5 November 2005), NOAG 175–176, 2004.
Gerhard Krebs, "The Jewish Problem in Japanese-German Relations 1933–1945" in Bruce Reynolds (ed.), Japan in Fascist Era, New York, 2004.
Jonathan Goldstein, "The Case of Jan Zwartendijk in Lithuania, 1940" in Deffry M. Diefendorf (ed.), New Currents in Holocaust Research, Lessons and Legacies, vol. VI, Northwestern University Press, 2004.
Hideko Mitsui, "Longing for the Other : traitors' cosmopolitanism" in Social Anthropology, Vol 18, Issue 4, November 2010, European Association of Social Anthropologists.
"Lithuania at the beginning of WWII"
George Johnstone, "Japan's Sugihara came to Jews' rescue during WWII" in Investor's Business Daily, 8 December 2011.
William Kaplan, One More Border: The True Story of One Family's Escape from War-Torn Europe, ISBN 0-88899-332-3
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Chiune Sugihara (category)
[1]
Official NPO SUGIHARA
The Chiune Sugihara Memorial Hall in Yaotsu Town
Google honors Chiune Sugihara with Doodle
NPO Chiune Sugihara. Visas For Life Foundation in Japan
Chiune Sugihara Centennial Celebration
Jewish Virtual Library: Chiune and Yukiko Sugihara
Revisiting the Sugihara Story from Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project: "Forget You Not"
Visas for Life Foundation
Immortal Chaplains Foundation Prize for Humanity 2000 (awarded to Sugihara in 2000)
Foreign Ministry says no disciplinary action for "Japan's Schindler"
Foreign Ministry honors Chiune Sugihara by setting his Commemorative Plaque (10 October 2000)
Japanese recognition of countryman
Chiune Sempo Sugihara – Righteous Among the Nations – Yad Vashem
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum – Online Exhibition Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara
Yukiko Sugihara's Farewell on YouTube
Sugihara Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania
Interview Nobuki Sugihara
Chiune Sugihara at Find a Grave
Some background:
With more and more experience through military mecha in Japan during the late Nineties, Schaft Enterprise’s Europe branch started the development of civil Labors for public use. These models included the Type-8FF firefighting Labor, which was originally created for the Japanese market but eventually only sold and operated in the European market, and the Type-10P, a dedicated police duty Labor and a direct competitor to Shinohara Industry’s highly successful AV-98 Ingram.
The Type-10P was based on a completely new chassis and introduced many composite material elements that lightened its structure and even gave it a light armor protection against small caliber rounds. It was designed to be effective in situations like dealing with stolen labor units or rogue labors, but also for more mundane duties like riot control and escorts. Its intimidating size certainly helped psychologically. However, the Type-10P was not designed to take on military labors in close combat, even though it could be outfitted with manual weapon that would offer considerable firepower at distance. Typical police service weapons included a shield and a stun stick (with an optional taser function) as well as a handheld revolver gun, but other equipment was available, too. Precise manipulator fingers (with three fingers and one thumb on each hand) allowed delicate handling.
The pilot sat in a fully enclosed, climatized cabin in the Labor’s breast section, with an excellent field of view and protected from water and gas. In order to ensure proper surveillance under harsh conditions in any weather and at day and night, the Type-10P received a complex sensor suite, including a telescopic camera boom, a close-range Lidar and a directional microphone. Communication with other units was ensured by both radio and laser communication systems.
Further special equipment could be attached to the Type-10P’s back. These easily interchangeable “backpacks” included an extra battery for extended operation, a fuel-powered external generator with one or two powerful searchlights, a pack with loudspeakers, a large, retractable LED matrix display, and two packs with pressurized canisters that were connected with a handheld spray gun each, either carrying CO2 as a fire extinguisher or OC spray for riot control. Even an inflatable lifeboat was available, as well as special weapons like an EMP pulse rifle, which necessitated an external auxiliary battery pack, and a rearward-facing “brown note” infranoise generator.
Officially baptised “Michael”, after the German police’s Christian patron saint, the Type-10P was in 2000 adopted by special units of the German Bundespolizei and by some major police departments on federal state level. Typical German Labor units would operate two or three of these vehicles, primarily as support units for standard units when called upon in an emergency and also to counter Labor crimes and accidents. Their psychological value in riot control duties was highly appreciated, and the Type 10Ps were also frequently sent to official political events for PR purposes.
The Type-10P was also promoted abroad, esp. in Japan, but it was rejected there due to its size and the strong (and established) competition from Shinohara Industry, namely the MPL-97S “Python” and the AV-98 “Ingram”. However, eight Type-10Ps were sold to the Austrian Bundespolizei and an undisclosed small number was bought by a private security service company in Northern America.
Technical Data:
Code name: Type-10P "Michael"
Unit type: police labor
Manufacturer: SEE (Schaft Enterprises Europe)
Operator: German Federal Police (Bundespolizei) and several major German federal state
police departments (Berlin, Northrhine-Westphalia, Bavaria), Austria, USA
Number built: 33
Accommodation: pilot only, in heat- and ABC-insulated cockpit in front torso
Dimensions:
Overall height 9.42 meters
Overall width 5.95 meters
Minimum revolving radius: 6.0 meters
Weight:
Standard 6.55 metric tons
Full 8.1 metric tons
Armor materials:
Light composite armor, effective against fire and small caliber rounds of up to 12.7 mm
Powerplant:
unknown
Maximum weight lifting capacity:
2.50 metric tons
Equipment and design features:
Visual and acoustic sensors, range unknown, with suitable recording and data transfer equipment
Retractable visor cover
Highly articulated manipulator hands
Searchlights
Flashlights and four claxons/loudspeakers on the shoulders
Armaments:
No internal weapons installed;
The Type-10P can operate a wide range of handheld equipment like an extendable baton,
anti-terror shields, and weapons like a 42 mm revolver handgun, a taser or a 90 mm pellet shotgun.
Two hardpoints on the lower arms to attach equipment/weapons, plus a single hardpoint on the
back with the option to carry a wide range of equipment packages.
The kit and its assembly:
Traditions can be nice to keep up, and this build is actually a kind of serial project: in 2015, a group build under the motto "De-/Militarize it" ran at whatifmodellers.com, and I submitted a thorough conversion of a 1:60 "SEE Type-7 Brocken" Labor it from Bandai – a pure military Labor turned into a firefighting mecha.
Now, in early 2021, the “Blue Lights” group build ran, and Patlabor – an anime near-SF universe circling around robot-assisted police work – lent itself for another mecha submission. I had an AV-X0 prototype as well as two Ingram kits in store, but I wanted “something different” and also not a Japanese police Labor, since I had just built a fictional Daihatsu Move police car of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. So, the choice fell on the “Phantom” kit as basis, what called for considerable modifications. The “Phantom” is actually an unmanned robot, but I found its stature quite intimidating and more plausible for a non-Japanese police Labor than e. g. a re-badged AV-X0.
At an early stage I already settled for a German police Labor, and took inspiration in some heavier vehicles that are operated by special units of the Bundespolizei, e.g. armored cars or water throwers. This also defined the Labor’s paint scheme (see below). However, the new police Labor’s design was far from certain, it gradually evolved while building the separate OOB elements. Thankfully, this 3rd generation mecha kit allows such a gradual progress, and step by step the details that had to be changed or scratched became clearer.
This primarily included:
A completely new head section; the Phantom has a kind of fixed "hood" with a relatively small and fixed "face unit" in its front. This would be changed into a free-standing head unit, like the standard Labors. I was lucky to find a leftover head unit from a “Helldiver”, an airborne military Labor from the same model universe – its pilot helmet added a tough look to my build, and I added some sensor booms from an Ingram, too. Some PSR went into the head’s re-design, too, and, in the end, it adds to the “riot control” look of my build.
The completely new head necessitated the complete removal of the original “hood” of the “Phantom” and its fixed, small head, and this gap had to be filled/framed with a scratched collar and a new attachment point for the new head. Later, the OOB “neck” element was integrated into the opening, and scratched hydraulic pistons filled void space.
In the same wake, a cockpit fairing was added to the chest, since this would become a manned vehicle, not a robot. This, as well as the collar, were sculpted with 2C putty.
In order to change the Labor’s hull shape a little more, I added a pair of headlights to the flanks of the breast – these are 1:24 car parts, left over from my recent Daihatsu Move build. The parts were fitted into holes, received a shiny backing with chrome foil (hard to tell through the protective grates, though) and were blended into the hull via PSR.
The pack with retractable boosters in the back as well as the extentable upper body (with the visible innards and the spinning blades hidden there) were omitted. Instead, I implanted a donor piece to the back (a back pack from an 1:144 Yha-Giga mecha from Megaro Zamac), which looks very mechanical (a heat exchanger, maybe?) and natural.
Furthermore, the openings for the “Phantom”’s original optical sensors in the chest were faired over.
New hands were deemed necessary; the OOB hands are much too slender and claw-like, and I was able to use the hands from an 1:24 PA-36HD (from Dorvack).
While raiding the donor banks I also came across suitable new shoulder guards, from an 1:144 “Serpent Custom” (Gundam). They replaced the OOB parts, they are taller and more edgy, which is against the “Phantom”’s rather organic design – but they were too good to be rejected, with consoles that would later carry flashlights (scratched) and louvres that could easily hide (and protect) sirens inside.
However, in order to integrate the new shoulder parts better into an overall look, I decided to modify the knee and elbow guards into a more squarish shape – with the help of styrene sheet and some (more) PSR. This stunt worked surprisingly well.
During this modification I also added hardpoints to the lower arms for equipment. I did not want a gun but rather fancied a riot shield and a baton. The right hand was modified to carry a stun baton, sourced from an Ingram kit, and the transparent shield was scratched from a mouth wash bottle.
Lots of work, but it was necessary to move the build away from its “Phantom” basis.
Painting and markings:
Basically very simple: all-blue. The current ID color of German police vehicles is RAL 5017 (Verkehrsblau/Traffic Blue), and before 2006 it was RAL 6029 (Pfefferminzgrün/Peppermint Green), both combined on standard vehicles with white - normally, these are leased white or, more recently, silver vehicles with foil. For the Labor's time frame around 2000, the classic green would have been appropriate, but I eventually voted for the later blue because it looks IMHO less militaristic.
Further design background: German special police vehicles like water throwers or armored cars rather carry a uniform livery, contrasted with very dark grey around the lower areas, and that's what I adopted for the Michael I police Labor, too, using the “Phantom”’s original livery as benchmark.
In Gunze Sangyo’s Mr. Hobby H15 (Bright Blue) I found a pretty good guesstimate for the characteristic German police blue, and it was contrasted with Revell 06 (Tar Black; RAL 9021). The backpack became medium grey, a similar tone to the silicone covers (which were left unpainted, just treated with a washing with thinned dark grey acrylic artist paint), and this medium grey was also used for some detail contrasts around the hull. This looks rather dry, but it reflects the sobriety of German police items, and the uniform blue is also a good contrast to the Japanese police Labors in white and black in my collection, and the others, too. A few highlights in white and cream are the only distractions.
Even though I did not want to weather the model, I did some dry-brushing/post shading (Humbrol 25, Revell 09, 77 and 75 in some areas) to emphasize the shapes/edges and to make the large areas, esp. on the legs, less uniform.
The markings come from two aftermarket sheets for German police cars: one is a 1:43 scale sheet from IDC Decals, the other a 1:87 scale sheet from TL Modellbau. The provided not only suitably-sized “Polizei” letterings and emblems, the IDC set also came with the characteristic dotted trim lines (reflective material in real life) that decorate many typical German police cars and which help to visually structure the Labor’s lines – even though their application to the bulbous surface of the model was not easy, and I rather used them sparsely.
After some more detail painting (e. g. some fake black panel lines, created with a fine felt tip pen) the model’s sections were sealed with a mix of matt and some semi-gloss acrylic varnish on the blue areas for a sheen finish, while the dark grey areas were painted with pure matt varnish.
The build of the “Michael I” police Labor was quite a challenge – mostly because it was not easy to get away from the model’s “Phantom” basis. But with the completely new head/shoulder section and the slight mods on arms and legs it looks quite unrelated – but still intimidating. The all-blue livery is not spectacular, but true to German standards, and it works surprisingly well and convincingly.
Actually it's the external wall of a rather dingy public toilet block in Portobello, but it's got this very charming mosaic to brighten the place up a bit.
this will be on for about 2 weeks until the swelling goes down and then they will do surgery too fix all the breaks.
A U.S. Army soldier from Hawk Company, 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, Rose Barracks, Germany, takes cover in high grass on Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, while conducting company external evaluations on May 24, 2012. Company evaluations are the next step in accessing the company's troop leading procedures and abilities to perform combined arms maneuvers as the Regiment's prepares for Full Spectrum Training Exercises in fall.
7th US Army Joint Multinational Training Command
Photo by Gertrud Zach
Date Taken:05.24.2012
Location:GRAFENWOEHR, BY, DE
Read more: www.dvidshub.net/image/589553/2nd-cavalry-regiment-extern...
My Limited Edition Elsa 17'' Doll has been fully deboxed, and is posed standing. She is supported by the included doll stand. Her skirt and cape are opened up halfway to show off her legs and shoes. Her hair is draped over her left shoulder to show off her braids and snowflake hair jewelry. My doll is #102 of 2500. The photos in this series were all taken with built in camera flash.
Elsa is wearing her Snow Queen outfit, that is similar in design to the that of the Harrods LE 100 Elsa doll, but is less detailed. The light blue green satin inner dress is essentially the same in both dolls, but the Harrods dolls has a few more round crystals just below the bodice. The front of the bodice is covered in rectangular crystals representing icicles. The skirt has a slit for the legs and has a diminishing density of round clear rhinestones closer to the hemline. The attached oversized cape (or gown overlay) is made of double layered organza, with dark blue embroidery and jewels. It is less full and much less detailed than the Harrods cape. In particular, the icicle and snowflake embroidered patterns with the accompanying jewels are only near the edges of the cape, and there are no jewels in the area between the icicles and the snowflakes. Instead, there is a covering of clear hexagonal glitter. Fortunately, the glitter is glued very securely to the cape is sheds very little. There are also fewer blue jewels in her sheer long sleeves than on the Harrods doll.
Her high heeled blue shoes are same snowflake design as the Harrods, except that the color is a plainer blue, without the iridescence or silver paint making it look metallic. Like the Harrods Elsa, she has fixed angled feet, so she looks elegant in her high heels. Other than that, she has the same articulation as the most current Disney Store 17'' Limited Edition Princess dolls. She has ball jointed neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists and hips. Her knees are external hinge joints. She can free stand with the help of her gown, but only with great difficultly, and is very unstable in that pose, the same as with the Harrods doll. Therefore almost all the photos of her standing have her supported by the included doll stand.
She has light blonde hair that is formed into long braids. There are long curvy bangs that are combed back and heavily gelled to form a sort of crown over her head. There is a solitary curly bang on the left side of her head. She long curving rooted eyelashes, that are not as curvy or well formed as the Harrods Elsa (or the LE 2500 Anna). There are two snowflake jeweled ornaments that are sewn to her braid. The Harrods Elsa has a third snowflake on the side of her head. She has a beautiful angular face with an elfin appearance. She as large blue eyes, small pointy nose, thin deep red lips in a slight closed mouth smile, and rouge on upper cheeks. She has a few freckles on her upper cheeks, in an identical pattern to the Harrods Elsa. Her skin is a very pale purplish pink, that is smooth and dull in appearance. She is slightly paler than the Harrods doll, who has shiny pearly textured skin.
She is a very beautiful doll, with an exotic face and a commanding presence. She has a dramatic outfit that is fit for royalty. She is also very movie accurate, and well worth her price.
Notes on the back of the LE Elsa's box:
From the Movie Disney Frozen
Disney Store proudly presents the worldwide Limited Edition Elsa doll. With its intricate details, this beautifully designed doll magically captures the beauty and spirit of Elsa, from Disney's newest feature film Frozen. Inspired by the movie, Elsa's side-swept braid is adorned with intricate snowflake jewels. Sheer organza sleeves lead to a sweetheart bodice and an elongated sheer dress overlay. Shimmery ice-blue snowflake embroidery and rhinestones embellish her gorgeous gown. Designed and carefully crafted by Disney Store artists, this limited edition doll is a must-have for Disney fans and collectors alike.
Certificate of Authenticity and Display Stand included.
First look at the Limited Edition Anna and Elsa 17'' Dolls, that I purchased from the Disney Store on the release day, November 20, 2013. The dolls are LE 2500, and cost $99.95 each. They will be photographed boxed, during deboxing, and fully deboxed. They will also be posed with other comparable dolls, especially the Harrods LE 100 Anna and Elsa dolls.
Product information from the US Disney Store website:
Elsa Limited Edition Doll - 17'' - Frozen
Released online and in store on November 20, 2013
SOLD OUT online in 12 minutes
$99.95
Item No. 6070040900950P
Ice dream
Elsa will provide chills of excitement with this spectacular limited edition doll. Designed and crafted by Disney Store artists, and inspired by Disney's Frozen, Elsa's side-swept blonde braid cascades over her finely detailed gown.
Magic in the details...
Please Note: Each Guest will be limited to ordering a maximum of one of this item per order.
• Limited Edition of 2500
• Includes Certificate of Authenticity
• Sheer organza sleeves
• Sweetheart bodice detailed with reflective ''icicles''
• Elongated sheer dress overlay
• Gown detailed with shimmery ice-blue snowflake embroidery, and rhinestones
• Braided blonde hair is adorned with intricate snowflake jewels
• Rooted eyelashes
• Fully poseable
• Display stand included
• Comes in elegant window display packaging
• Inspired by Disney's Frozen
The bare necessities
• Ages 6+
• Plastic /polyester
• 17'' H
• Imported
“To be at one with God is to be at peace ... peace is to be found only within, and unless one finds it there he will never find it at all. Peace lies not in the external world. It lies within one's own soul.”
Ralph Waldo Trine
Blessings and Peace to you all , Ms Judi (( hugs))
My Web site: photographybymsjudi.com/
My Blog:: photographybymsjudi.blogspot.com/
Anna have been completely deboxed from the Frozen doll set, and is posing standing up, supported by a Kaiser doll stand (not included).
She has the legs that were introduced with the 2012 Disney Store Classic Princess 12'' dolls. That is, hard plastic legs with ball jointed hips, external hinged knee joints, and ball jointed ankles. Anna on the right has black plastic boots while Elsa has light blue green flat shoes. Since Anna's boots have heels, at 11 1/2'' hight she stands about 1/4'' taller than Elsa, who wears flats.
Anna's skirt and top is satin with a printed floral design. Unfortunately the dark blue skirt is unhemmed, and already has frayed edges. I'm afraid that it will start unraveling if it is handled too roughly. She has a thin pink velvet cape that has nice heart shaped closures in the front. She has a black bodice, with a light green long sleeved blouse that is sewn to the bodice. She has green velvet mittons over her hands. She has a removable gray and pink velvet cap over her head, fastened by a clear plastic band in the back. She has tall black boots with gold decoration in the front, pointy toes, and short brown heel.
Anna has a round face, with light complexion, rusty red orange medium length hair that is braided into two pigtails. Her right pigtail has a white streak. She has large green eyes that are glancing to her right, very densely packed black eyelashes, no eyeshadow, and brown and orange brows that are rather flat. Her nose and cheeks are covered in brown freckles, she has a small pointy nose, and a small mouth with very thin red lips in a slight smirk.
Anna is a beautiful and faithful reproduction of the animated character from Frozen.
Elsa and Anna 11'' Doll Set - Frozen
US Disney Store
$39.95 US
D23 Expo Exclusive
Released and purchased on Sunday, August 11, 2013
First Look
This doll set was introduced at the D23 Expo on August 11, 2013 in limited quantities. I was lucky enough to get a set (only one set was sold per Guest). I am photographing the dolls boxed, during deboxing, and fully deboxed. I have already posted a sneak peek of them fully deboxed, joining my favorite dolls on my Disney Doll Desktop Display.
They are the lead characters in the upcoming Disney animated movie Frozen, based on the The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen. The movie is scheduled to be released on November 27, 2013.
Text of the box notes:
From the movie Disney Frozen
Walt Disney Animation Studios presents the collest comedy-adventure to ever hit the big screen with Frozen. When a prophecy traps a kingdom in eternal winter, Anna, a fearless optimist, must team up with Kristoff, an extreme mountain man, and his reindeer on an epic journey to find Anna's sister, the Snow Queen Elsa, and put an end to her icy spell. Encountering mystical trolls, a hilarious snowman named Olaf, Everest-like extremes, and magic at every turn, Anna and Kristoff battle the elements in a race to save the kingdom from destruction.
A treasure in a flower...
The Shot
Single shot 105mm, f/22, ISO100
taken with Sigma 105 EX DC Macro plus Raynox DCR-250 with external 500W Lamp
Lightroom 2.2
Crop
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Curves (High contrast) for the flower
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Unsharp Mask (20, 100)
B/W conversion
Painted mask to blend B/W layer with color ones
Soft-light layer 50% filled and painted with "Dodge and Burn" technique
Frame and signature
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El complejo de Santo Stefano quizás sea el exemplo de arte religioso más particular de Bolonia, un verdadero santuario de antiguos testigos y cuna de la fe de los padres. Se conoce sobre todo como “las siete iglesias” porque está compuesto por la unión de varios edificios erigidos en épocas diferentes. Los orígenes controvertidos del complejo de debatieron por mucho tiempo . Según la hipótesis más acreditada, fue erigido por Petronio sobre las ruinas de un templo pagano anterior, cerca del cual más tarde se colocaron una reproducción del Santo Sepulcro de Jerusalem y, junto a la capilla con los restos de los protomártires boloñeses Vitale y Agrícola, unos edificios levantados por los Benedictinos entre los siglos X y XIII. En la plaza se sitúan también las iglesias del Crucifijo, de origen lombardo, del Calvario y de los SS. Vitale y Agrícola, así como la iglesia de la Trinidad, restaurada entre los siglos XII y XIII. Además, en su interior se pueden admirar el Patio de Pilato, caracterizado por una vasija de mármol donada por los reyes lombardos Liutprando e Ildeprando, y el Claustro con doble pórtico (siglos X-XIII), una de las más preciosas creaciones del estilo románico emiliano. Por fin, hay que visitar el Museo del complejo, con su rica colección de pinturas, esculturas y otras obras de arte de épocas diferentes.
The power and persistence of Nature is demonstrated anew on man- made, space age technology. At Launch Pad 39B, Flicker Woodpeckers apparently decided to test the suitability of the Space Shuttle Discovery's external tank for a future home. Their "survey" resulted in about 71 holes ranging in size from 1/2 to 4 inches (1.27-10 cm.) in diameter in the tank's thermal protection foam insulation. Managers are assessing the damage and will determine what repairs need to be made. Discovery was slated for a liftoff on June 8 on Mission STS-70.
Image from NASA, originally appeared on this site: science.ksc.nasa.gov/gallery/photos/
Reposted by San Diego Air and Space Museum
Information from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Cod
Cape Cod
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This article is about the area of Massachusetts. For other uses, see Cape Cod (disambiguation).
For other uses, see Cod (disambiguation).
Coordinates: 41°41′20″N 70°17′49″W / 41.68889°N 70.29694°W / 41.68889; -70.29694
Map of Massachusetts, with Cape Cod (Barnstable County) indicated in red
Dunes on Sandy Neck are part of the Cape's barrier beach which helps to prevent erosion
Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is an island and a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States. It is coextensive with Barnstable County. Several small islands right off Cape Cod, including Monomoy Island, Monomoscoy Island, Popponesset Island, and Seconsett Island, are also in Barnstable County, being part of municipalities with land on the Cape. The Cape's small-town character and large beachfront attract heavy tourism during the summer months.
Cape Cod was formed as the terminal moraine of a glacier, resulting in a peninsula in the Atlantic Ocean. In 1914, the Cape Cod Canal was cut through the base or isthmus of the peninsula, forming an island. The Cape Cod Commission refers to the resultant landmass as an island; as does the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in regards to disaster preparedness.[1] It is still identified as a peninsula by geographers, who do not change landform designations based on man-made canal construction.[citation needed]
Unofficially, it is one of the biggest barrier islands in the world, shielding much of the Massachusetts coastline from North Atlantic storm waves. This protection helps to erode the Cape shoreline at the expense of cliffs, while protecting towns from Fairhaven to Marshfield.
Road vehicles from the mainland cross over the Cape Cod Canal via the Sagamore Bridge and the Bourne Bridge. The two bridges are parallel, with the Bourne Bridge located slightly farther southwest. In addition, the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge carries railway freight as well as tourist passenger services.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Geography and political divisions
o 1.1 "Upper" and "Lower"
* 2 Geology
* 3 Climate
* 4 Native population
* 5 History
* 6 Lighthouses of Cape Cod
* 7 Transportation
o 7.1 Bus
o 7.2 Rail
o 7.3 Taxi
* 8 Tourism
* 9 Sport fishing
* 10 Sports
* 11 Education
* 12 Islands off Cape Cod
* 13 See also
* 14 References
o 14.1 Notes
o 14.2 Sources
o 14.3 Further reading
* 15 External links
[edit] Geography and political divisions
Towns of Barnstable County
historical map of 1890
The highest elevation on Cape Cod is 306 feet (93 m), at the top of Pine Hill, in the Bourne portion of the Massachusetts Military Reservation. The lowest point is sea level.
The body of water located between Cape Cod and the mainland, bordered to the north by Massachusetts Bay, is Cape Cod Bay; west of Cape Cod is Buzzards Bay. The Cape Cod Canal, completed in 1916, connects Buzzards Bay to Cape Cod Bay; it shortened the trade route between New York and Boston by 62 miles.[2] To the south of Cape Cod lie Nantucket Sound; Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, both large islands, and the mostly privately owned Elizabeth Islands.
Cape Cod incorporates all of Barnstable County, which comprises 15 towns: Bourne, Sandwich, Falmouth, and Mashpee, Barnstable, Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown. Two of the county's fifteen towns (Bourne and Sandwich) include land on the mainland side of the Cape Cod Canal. The towns of Plymouth and Wareham, in adjacent Plymouth County, are sometimes considered to be part of Cape Cod but are not located on the island.
In the 17th century the designation Cape Cod applied only to the tip of the peninsula, essentially present-day Provincetown. Over the ensuing decades, the name came to mean all the land east of the Manomet and Scussett rivers - essentially the line of the 20th century Cape Cod Canal. Now, the complete towns of Bourne and Sandwich are widely considered to incorporate the full perimeter of Cape Cod, even though small parts of these towns are located on the west side of the canal. The canal divides the largest part of the peninsula from the mainland and the resultant landmass is sometimes referred to as an island.[3][4] Additionally some "Cape Codders" – residents of "The Cape" – refer to all land on the mainland side of the canal as "off-Cape."
For most of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, Cape Cod was considered to consist of three sections:
* The Upper Cape is the part of Cape Cod closest to the mainland, comprising the towns of Bourne, Sandwich, Falmouth, and Mashpee. Falmouth is the home of the famous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and several other research organizations, and is also the most-used ferry connection to Martha's Vineyard. Falmouth is composed of several separate villages, including East Falmouth, Falmouth Village, Hatchville, North Falmouth, Teaticket, Waquoit, West Falmouth, and Woods Hole, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Davisville, Falmouth Heights, Quissett, Sippewissett, and others).[5]
* The Mid-Cape includes the towns of Barnstable, Yarmouth and Dennis. The Mid-Cape area features many beautiful beaches, including warm-water beaches along Nantucket Sound, e.g., Kalmus Beach in Hyannis, which gets its name from one of the inventors of Technicolor, Herbert Kalmus. This popular windsurfing destination was bequeathed to the town of Barnstable by Dr. Kalmus on condition that it not be developed, possibly one of the first instances of open-space preservation in the US. The Mid-Cape is also the commercial and industrial center of the region. There are seven villages in Barnstable, including Barnstable Village, Centerville, Cotuit, Hyannis, Marstons Mills, Osterville, and West Barnstable, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Craigville, Cummaquid, Hyannisport, Santuit, Wianno, and others).[6] There are three villages in Yarmouth: South Yarmouth, West Yarmouth and Yarmouthport. There are five villages in Dennis including, Dennis Village(North Dennis), East Dennis, West Dennis, South Dennis and Dennisport.[7]
* The Lower Cape traditionally included all of the rest of the Cape,or the towns of Harwich, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown. This area includes the Cape Cod National Seashore, a national park comprising much of the outer Cape, including the entire east-facing coast, and is home to some of the most popular beaches in America, such as Coast Guard Beach and Nauset Light Beach in Eastham. Stephen Leatherman, aka "Dr. Beach", named Coast Guard Beach the 5th best beach in America for 2007.[8]
[edit] "Upper" and "Lower"
The terms "Upper" and "Lower" as applied to the Cape have nothing to do with north and south. Instead, they derive from maritime convention at the time when the principal means of transportation involved watercraft, and the prevailing westerly winds meant that a boat with sails traveling northeast in Cape Cod Bay would have the wind at its back and thus be going downwind, while a craft sailing southwest would be going against the wind, or upwind.[9] Similarly, on nearby Martha's Vineyard, "Up Island" still is the western section and "Down Island" is to the east, and in Maine, "Down East" is similarly defined by the winds and currents.
Over time, the reasons for the traditional nomenclature became unfamiliar and their meaning obscure. Late in the 1900s, new arrivals began calling towns from Eastham to Provincetown the "Outer Cape", yet another geographic descriptor which is still in use, as is the "Inner Cape."
[edit] Geology
Cape Cod and Cape Cod Bay from space.[10]
East of America, there stands in the open Atlantic the last fragment of an ancient and vanished land. Worn by the breakers and the rains, and disintegrated by the wind, it still stands bold.
“
”
Henry Beston, The Outermost House
Cape Cod forms a continuous archipelagic region with a thin line of islands stretching toward New York, historically known by naturalists as the Outer Lands. This continuity is due to the fact that the islands and Cape are all terminal glacial moraines laid down some 16,000 to 20,000 years ago.
Most of Cape Cod's geological history involves the advance and retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet in the late Pleistocene geological era and the subsequent changes in sea level. Using radiocarbon dating techniques, researchers have determined that around 23,000 years ago, the ice sheet reached its maximum southward advance over North America, and then started to retreat. Many "kettle ponds" — clear, cold lakes — were formed and remain on Cape Cod as a result of the receding glacier. By about 18,000 years ago, the ice sheet had retreated past Cape Cod. By roughly 15,000 years ago, it had retreated past southern New England. When so much of Earth's water was locked up in massive ice sheets, the sea level was lower. Truro's bayside beaches used to be a petrified forest, before it became a beach.
As the ice began to melt, the sea began to rise. Initially, sea level rose quickly, about 15 meters (50 ft) per 1,000 years, but then the rate declined. On Cape Cod, sea level rose roughly 3 meters (11 ft) per millennium between 6,000 and 2,000 years ago. After that, it continued to rise at about 1 meter (3 ft) per millennium. By 6,000 years ago, the sea level was high enough to start eroding the glacial deposits that the vanished continental ice sheet had left on Cape Cod. The water transported the eroded deposits north and south along the outer Cape's shoreline. Those reworked sediments that moved north went to the tip of Cape Cod.
Provincetown Spit, at the northern end of the Cape, consists largely of marine deposits, transported from farther up the shore. Sediments that moved south created the islands and shoals of Monomoy. So while other parts of the Cape have dwindled from the action of the waves, these parts of the Cape have grown.
Cape Cod National Seashore
This process continues today. Due to their position jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean, the Cape and islands are subject to massive coastal erosion. Geologists say that, due to erosion, the Cape will be completely submerged by the sea in thousands of years.[11] This erosion causes the washout of beaches and the destruction of the barrier islands; for example, the ocean broke through the barrier island at Chatham during Hurricane Bob in 1991, allowing waves and storm surges to hit the coast with no obstruction. Consequently, the sediment and sand from the beaches is being washed away and deposited elsewhere. While this destroys land in some places, it creates land elsewhere, most noticeably in marshes where sediment is deposited by waters running through them.
[edit] Climate
Although Cape Cod's weather[12] is typically more moderate than inland locations, there have been occasions where Cape Cod has dealt with the brunt of extreme weather situations (such as the Blizzard of 1954 and Hurricane of 1938). Because of the influence of the Atlantic Ocean, temperatures are typically a few degrees cooler in the summer and a few degrees warmer in the winter. A common misconception is that the climate is influenced largely by the warm Gulf Stream current, however that current turns eastward off the coast of Virginia and the waters off the Cape are more influenced by the cold Canadian Labrador Current. As a result, the ocean temperature rarely gets above 65 °F (18 °C), except along the shallow west coast of the Upper Cape.
The Cape's climate is also notorious for a delayed spring season, being surrounded by an ocean which is still cold from the winter; however, it is also known for an exceptionally mild fall season (Indian summer), thanks to the ocean remaining warm from the summer. The highest temperature ever recorded on Cape Cod was 104 °F (40 °C) in Provincetown[13], and the lowest temperature ever was −12 °F (−24.4 °C) in Barnstable.[14]
The water surrounding Cape Cod moderates winter temperatures enough to extend the USDA hardiness zone 7a to its northernmost limit in eastern North America.[15] Even though zone 7a (annual low = 0–5 degrees Fahrenheit) signifies no sub-zero temperatures annually, there have been several instances of temperatures reaching a few degrees below zero across the Cape (although it is rare, usually 1–5 times a year, typically depending on locale, sometimes not at all). Consequently, many plant species typically found in more southerly latitudes grow there, including Camellias, Ilex opaca, Magnolia grandiflora and Albizia julibrissin.
Precipitation on Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket is the lowest in the New England region, averaging slightly less than 40 inches (1,000 mm) a year (most parts of New England average 42–46 inches). This is due to storm systems which move across western areas, building up in mountainous regions, and dissipating before reaching the coast where the land has leveled out. The region does not experience a greater number of sunny days however, as the number of cloudy days is the same as inland locales, in addition to increased fog. Snowfall is annual, but a lot less common than the rest of Massachusetts. On average, 30 inches of snow, which is a foot less than Boston, falls in an average winter. Snow is usually light, and comes in squalls on cold days. Storms that bring blizzard conditions and snow emergencies to the mainland, bring devastating ice storms or just heavy rains more frequently than large snow storms.
[hide]Climate data for Cape Cod
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Average high °C (°F) 2.06
(35.7) 2.5
(36.5) 6.22
(43.2) 11.72
(53.1) 16.94
(62.5) 23.5
(74.3) 26.39
(79.5) 26.67
(80.0) 25.06
(77.1) 18.39
(65.1) 12.56
(54.6) 5.44
(41.8) 26.67
(80.0)
Average low °C (°F) -5.33
(22.4) -5
(23.0) -1.33
(29.6) 2.72
(36.9) 8.72
(47.7) 14.61
(58.3) 19.22
(66.6) 20.28
(68.5) 15.56
(60.0) 9.94
(49.9) 3.94
(39.1) -2.22
(28.0) -5.33
(22.4)
Precipitation mm (inches) 98
(3.86) 75.4
(2.97) 95
(3.74) 92.5
(3.64) 83.6
(3.29) 76.7
(3.02) 62.2
(2.45) 65
(2.56) 74.7
(2.94) 84.8
(3.34) 90.7
(3.57) 92.7
(3.65) 990.9
(39.01)
Source: World Meteorological Organisation (United Nations) [16]
[edit] Native population
Cape Cod has been the home of the Wampanoag tribe of Native American people for many centuries. They survived off the sea and were accomplished farmers. They understood the principles of sustainable forest management, and were known to light controlled fires to keep the underbrush in check. They helped the Pilgrims, who arrived in the fall of 1620, survive at their new Plymouth Colony. At the time, the dominant group was the Kakopee, known for their abilities at fishing. They were the first Native Americans to use large casting nets. Early colonial settlers recorded that the Kakopee numbered nearly 7,000.
Shortly after the Pilgrims arrived, the chief of the Kakopee, Mogauhok, attempted to make a treaty limiting colonial settlements. The effort failed after he succumbed to smallpox in 1625. Infectious diseases such as smallpox, measles and influenza caused the deaths of many other Kakopee and Wampanoag. They had no natural immunity to Eurasian diseases by then endemic among the English and other Europeans. Today, the only reminder of the Kakopee is a small public recreation area in Barnstable named for them. A historic marker notes the burial site of Mogauhok near Truro, although the location is conjecture.
While contractors were digging test wells in the eastern Massachusetts Military Reservation area, they discovered an archeological find.[citation needed] Excavation revealed the remains of a Kakopee village in Forestdale, a location in Sandwich. Researchers found a totem with a painted image of Mogauhok, portrayed in his chief's cape and brooch. The totem was discovered on property on Grand Oak Road. It is the first evidence other than colonial accounts of his role as an important Kakopee leader.
The Indians lost their lands through continued purchase and expropriation by the English colonists. The documentary Natives of the Narrowland (1993), narrated by actress Julie Harris, shows the history of the Wampanoag people through Cape Cod archaeological sites.
In 1974, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council was formed to articulate the concerns of those with Native American ancestry. They petitioned the federal government in 1975 and again in 1990 for official recognition of the Mashpee Wampanoag as a tribe. In May 2007, the Wampanoag tribe was finally federally recognized as a tribe.[17]
[edit] History
Cranberry picking in 1906
Cape Cod was a landmark for early explorers. It may have been the "Promontory of Vinland" mentioned by the Norse voyagers (985-1025). Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 approached it from the south. He named Martha's Vineyard Claudia, after the mother of the King of France.[18] The next year the explorer Esteban Gómez called it Cape St. James.
In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold named it Cape Cod, the surviving term and the ninth oldest English place-name in the U.S.[19] Samuel de Champlain charted its sand-silted harbors in 1606 and Henry Hudson landed there in 1609. Captain John Smith noted it on his map of 1614 and at last the Pilgrims entered the "Cape Harbor" and – contrary to the popular myth of Plymouth Rock – made their first landing near present-day Provincetown on November 11, 1620. Nearby, in what is now Eastham, they had their first encounter with Native Americans.
Cape Cod was among the first places settled by the English in North America. Aside from Barnstable (1639), Sandwich (1637) and Yarmouth (1639), the Cape's fifteen towns developed slowly. The final town to be established on the Cape was Bourne in 1884.[20] Provincetown was a group of huts until the 18th century. A channel from Massachusetts Bay to Buzzards Bay is shown on Southack's map of 1717. The present Cape Cod Canal was slowly developed from 1870 to 1914. The Federal government purchased it in 1928.
Thanks to early colonial settlement and intensive land use, by the time Henry Thoreau saw Cape Cod during his four visits over 1849 to 1857[21], its vegetation was depauperate and trees were scarce. As the settlers heated by fires, and it took 10 to 20 cords (40 to 80 m³) of wood to heat a home, they cleared most of Cape Cod of timber early on. They planted familiar crops, but these were unsuited to Cape Cod's thin, glacially derived soils. For instance, much of Eastham was planted to wheat. The settlers practiced burning of woodlands to release nutrients into the soil. Improper and intensive farming led to erosion and the loss of topsoil. Farmers grazed their cattle on the grassy dunes of coastal Massachusetts, only to watch "in horror as the denuded sands `walked' over richer lands, burying cultivated fields and fences." Dunes on the outer Cape became more common and many harbors filled in with eroded soils.[22]
By 1800, most of Cape Cod's firewood had to be transported by boat from Maine. The paucity of vegetation was worsened by the raising of merino sheep that reached its peak in New England around 1840. The early industrial revolution, which occurred through much of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, mostly bypassed Cape Cod due to a lack of significant water power in the area. As a result, and also because of its geographic position, the Cape developed as a large fishing and whaling center. After 1860 and the opening of the American West, farmers abandoned agriculture on the Cape. By 1950 forests had recovered to an extent not seen since the 18th century.
Cape Cod became a summer haven for city dwellers beginning at the end of the 19th century. Improved rail transportation made the towns of the Upper Cape, such as Bourne and Falmouth, accessible to Bostonians. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Northeastern mercantile elite built many large, shingled "cottages" along Buzzards Bay. The relaxed summer environment offered by Cape Cod was highlighted by writers including Joseph C. Lincoln, who published novels and countless short stories about Cape Cod folks in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and the Delineator.
Guglielmo Marconi made the first transatlantic wireless transmission originating in the United States from Cape Cod, at Wellfleet. The beach from which he transmitted has since been called Marconi Beach. In 1914 he opened the maritime wireless station WCC in Chatham. It supported the communications of Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes, Admiral Byrd, and the Hindenburg. Marconi chose Chatham due to its vantage point on the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded on three sides by water. Walter Cronkite narrated a 17-minute documentary in 2005 about the history of the Chatham Station.
Much of the East-facing Atlantic seacoast of Cape Cod consists of wide, sandy beaches. In 1961, a significant portion of this coastline, already slated for housing subdivisions, was made a part of the Cape Cod National Seashore by President John F. Kennedy. It was protected from private development and preserved for public use. Large portions are open to the public, including the Marconi Site in Wellfleet. This is a park encompassing the site of the first two-way transoceanic radio transmission from the United States. (Theodore Roosevelt used Marconi's equipment for this transmission).
The Kennedy Compound in Hyannisport was President Kennedy's summer White House during his presidency. The Kennedy family continues to maintain residences on the compound. Other notable residents of Cape Cod have included actress Julie Harris, US Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, figure skater Todd Eldredge, and novelists Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut. Influential natives included the patriot James Otis, historian and writer Mercy Otis Warren, jurist Lemuel Shaw, and naval officer John Percival.
[edit] Lighthouses of Cape Cod
Race Point Lighthouse in Provincetown (1876)
Lighthouses, from ancient times, have fascinated members of the human race. There is something about a lighted beacon that suggests hope and trust and appeals to the better instincts of mankind.
“
”
Edward Rowe Snow
Due to its dangerous constantly moving shoals, Cape Cod's shores have featured beacons which warn ships of the danger since very early in its history. There are numerous working lighthouses on Cape Cod and the Islands, including Highland Light, Nauset Light, Chatham Light, Race Point Light, and Nobska Light, mostly operated by the U.S. Coast Guard. The exception is Nauset Light, which was decommissioned in 1996 and is now maintained by the Nauset Light Preservation Society under the auspices of Cape Cod National Seashore. These lighthouses are frequently photographed symbols of Cape Cod.
Others include:
Upper Cape: Wings Neck
Mid Cape: Sandy Neck, South Hyannis, Lewis Bay, Bishop and Clerks, Bass River
Lower Cape: Wood End, Long Point, Monomoy, Stage Harbor, Pamet, Mayo Beach, Billingsgate, Three Sisters, Nauset, Highland
[edit] Transportation
Cape Cod is connected to the mainland by a pair of canal-spanning highway bridges from Bourne and Sagamore that were constructed in the 1930s, and a vertical-lift railroad bridge. The limited number of access points to the peninsula can result in large traffic backups during the tourist season.
The entire Cape is roughly bisected lengthwise by U.S. Route 6, locally known as the Mid-Cape Highway and officially as the Grand Army of the Republic Highway.
Commercial air service to Cape Cod operates out of Barnstable Municipal Airport and Provincetown Municipal Airport. Several bus lines service the Cape. There are ferry connections from Boston to Provincetown, as well as from Hyannis and Woods Hole to the islands.
Cape Cod has a public transportation network comprising buses operated by three different companies, a rail line, taxis and paratransit services.
The Bourne Bridge over the Cape Cod Canal, with the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge in the background
[edit] Bus
Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority operates a year-round public bus system comprising three long distance routes and a local bus in Hyannis and Barnstable Village. From mid June until October, additional local routes are added in Falmouth and Provincetown. CCRTA also operates Barnstable County's ADA required paratransit (dial-a-ride) service, under the name "B-Bus."
Long distance bus service is available through Plymouth and Brockton Street Railway, with regular service to Boston and Logan Airport, as well as less frequent service to Provincetown. Peter Pan Bus Lines also runs long distance service to Providence T.F. Green Airport and New York City.
[edit] Rail
Regular passenger rail service through Cape Cod ended in 1959, quite possibly on June 30 of that year. In 1978, the tracks east of South Dennis were abandoned and replaced with the very popular bicycle path, known as the Cape Cod Rail Trail. Another bike path, the Shining Sea Bikeway, was built over tracks between Woods Hole and Falmouth in 1975; construction to extend this path to North Falmouth over 6.3 miles (10.1 km) of inactive rail bed began in April 2008[23] and ended in early 2009. Active freight service remains in the Upper Cape area in Sandwich and in Bourne, largely due to a trash transfer station located at Massachusetts Military Reservation along the Bourne-Falmouth rail line. In 1986, Amtrak ran a seasonal service in the summer from New York City to Hyannis called the Cape Codder. From 1988, Amtrak and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation increased service to a daily frequency.[24] Since its demise in 1996, there have been periodic discussions about reinstating passenger rail service from Boston to reduce car traffic to and from the Cape, with officials in Bourne seeking to re-extend MBTA Commuter Rail service from Middleboro to Buzzards Bay[25], despite a reluctant Beacon Hill legislature.
Cape Cod Central Railroad operates passenger train service on Cape Cod. The service is primarily tourist oriented and includes a dinner train. The scenic route between Downtown Hyannis and the Cape Cod Canal is about 2½ hours round trip. Massachusetts Coastal Railroad is also planning to return passenger railroad services eventually to the Bourne-Falmouth rail line in the future. An August 5, 2009 article on the New England Cable News channel, entitled South Coast rail project a priority for Mass. lawmakers, mentions a $1.4-billion railroad reconstruction plan by Governor Deval Patrick, and could mean rebuilding of old rail lines on the Cape. On November 21, 2009, the town of Falmouth saw its first passenger train in 12 years, a set of dinner train cars from Cape Cod Central. And a trip from the Mass Bay Railroad Enthusiasts on May 15, 2010 revealed a second trip along the Falmouth line.
[edit] Taxi
Taxicabs are plentiful, with several different companies operating out of different parts of the Cape. Except at the airport and some bus terminals with taxi stands, cabs must be booked ahead of time, with most operators preferring two to three hours notice. Cabs cannot be "hailed" anywhere in Barnstable County, this was outlawed in the early nineties after several robbery attempts on drivers.
Most companies utilize a New York City-style taximeter and charge based on distance plus an initial fee of $2 to $3. In Provincetown, cabs charge a flat fare per person anywhere in the town.
[edit] Tourism
Hyannis Harbor on Nantucket Sound
Although Cape Cod has a year-round population of about 230,000, it experiences a tourist season each summer, the beginning and end of which can be roughly approximated as Memorial Day and Labor Day, respectively. Many businesses are specifically targeted to summer visitors, and close during the eight to nine months of the "off season" (although the "on season" has been expanding somewhat in recent years due to Indian Summer, reduced lodging rates, and the number of people visiting the Cape after Labor Day who either have no school-age children, and the elderly, reducing the true "off season" to six or seven months). In the late 20th century, tourists and owners of second homes began visiting the Cape more and more in the spring and fall, softening the definition of the high season and expanding it somewhat (see above). Some particularly well-known Cape products and industries include cranberries, shellfish (particularly oysters and clams) and lobstering.
Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod, also berths several whale watching fleets who patrol the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Most fleets guarantee a whale sighting (mostly humpback whale, fin whale, minke whale, sei whale, and critically endangered, the North Atlantic Right Whale), and one is the only federally certified operation qualified to rescue whales. Provincetown has also long been known as an art colony, attracting writers and artists. The town is home to the Cape's most attended art museum, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Many hotels and resorts are friendly to or cater to gay and lesbian tourists and it is known as a gay mecca in the summer.[26]
Cape Cod is a popular destination for beachgoers from all over. With 559.6 miles (900.6 km) of coastline, beaches, both public and private, are easily accessible. The Cape has upwards of sixty public beaches, many of which offer parking for non-residents for a daily fee (in summer). The Cape Cod National Seashore has 40 miles (64 km) of sandy beach and many walking paths.
Cape Cod is also popular for its outdoor activities like beach walking, biking, boating, fishing, go-karts, golfing, kayaking, miniature golf, and unique shopping. There are 27 public, daily-fee golf courses and 15 private courses on Cape Cod.[27] Bed and breakfasts or vacation houses are often used for lodging.
Each summer the Naukabout Music Festival is held at the Barnstable County Fair Grounds located in East Falmouth,(typically) during the first weekend of August. This Music festival features local, regional and national talent along with food, arts and family friendly activities.
[edit] Sport fishing
Cape Cod is known around the world as a spring-to-fall destination for sport anglers. Among the species most widely pursued are striped bass, bluefish, bluefin tuna, false albacore (little tunny), bonito, tautog, flounder and fluke. The Cape Cod Bay side of the Cape, from Sandwich to Provincetown, has several harbors, saltwater creeks, and shoals that hold bait fish and attract the larger game fish, such as striped bass, bluefish and bluefin tuna.
The outer edge of the Cape, from Provincetown to Falmouth, faces the open Atlantic from Provincetown to Chatham, and then the more protected water of Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds, from Chatham to Falmouth. The bays, harbors and shoals along this coastline also provide a robust habitat for game species, and during the late summer months warm-water species such as mahi-mahi and marlin will also appear on the southern edge of Cape Cod's waters. Nearly every harbor on Cape Cod hosts sport fishing charter boats, which run from May through October.[28]
[edit] Sports
The Cape has nine amateur baseball franchises playing within Barnstable County in the Cape Cod Baseball League. The Wareham Gatemen also play in the Cape Cod Baseball League in nearby Wareham, Massachusetts in Plymouth County. The league originated 1923, although intertown competition traces to 1866. Teams in the league are the Bourne Braves, Brewster Whitecaps, Chatham Anglers (formerly the Chatham Athletics), Cotuit Kettleers, Falmouth Commodores, Harwich Mariners, Hyannis Harbor Hawks (formerly the Hyannis Mets), Orleans Firebirds (formerly the Orleans Cardinals), Wareham Gatemen and the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox. Pro ball scouts frequent the games in the summer, looking for stars of the future.
Cape Cod is also a national hot bed for baseball and hockey. Along with the Cape Cod Baseball League and the new Junior Hockey League team, the Cape Cod Cubs, many high school players are being seriously recruited as well. Barnstable and Harwich have each sent multiple players to Division 1 colleges for baseball, Harwich has also won three State titles in the past 12 years (1996, 2006, 2007). Bourne and Sandwich, known rivals in hockey have won state championships recently. Bourne in 2004, and Sandwich in 2007. Nauset, Barnstable, and Martha's Vineyard are also state hockey powerhouses. Barnstable and Falmouth also hold the title of having one of the longest Thanksgiving football rivalries in the country. The teams have played each other every year on the Thanksgiving since 1895. The Bourne and Barnstable girl's volleyball teams are two of the best teams in the state and Barnstable in the country. With Bourne winning the State title in 2003 and 2007. In the past 15 years, Barnstable has won 12 Division 1 State titles and has won the state title the past two years.
The Cape also is home to the Cape Cod Frenzy, a team in the American Basketball Association.
Soccer on Cape Cod is represented by the Cape Cod Crusaders, playing in the USL Premier Development League (PDL) soccer based in Hyannis. In addition, a summer Cape Cod Adult Soccer League (CCASL) is active in several towns on the Cape.
Cape Cod is also the home of the Cape Cod Cubs, a new junior league hockey team that is based out of Hyannis at the new communtiy center being built of Bearses Way.
The end of each summer is marked with the running of the world famous Falmouth Road Race which is held on the 3rd Saturday in August. It draws about 10,000 runners to the Cape and showcases the finest runners in the world (mainly for the large purse that the race is able to offer). The race is 7.2 miles (11.6 km) long, which is a non-standard distance. The reason for the unusual distance is that the man who thought the race up (Tommy Leonard) was a bartender who wanted a race along the coast from one bar (The Cap'n Kidd in Woods Hole) to another (The Brothers Four in Falmouth Heights). While the bar in Falmouth Heights is no longer there, the race still starts at the front door of the Cap'n Kidd in Woods Hole and now finishes at the beach in Falmouth Heights. Prior to the Falmouth race is an annual 5-mile (8.0 km) race through Brewster called the Brew Run, held early in August.
[edit] Education
Each town usually consists of a few elementary schools, one or two middle schools and one large public high school that services the entire town. Exceptions to this include Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School located in Yarmouth which services both the town of Yarmouth as well as Dennis and Nauset Regional High School located in Eastham which services the town of Brewster, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown (optional). Bourne High School is the public school for students residing in the town of Bourne, which is gathered from villages in Bourne, including Sagamore, Sagamore Beach, and Buzzards Bay. Barnstable High School is the largest high school and is known for its girls' volleyball team which have been state champions a total of 12 times. Barnstable High School also boasts one of the country's best high school drama clubs which were awarded with a contract by Warner Brothers to created a documentary in webisode format based on their production of Wizard of Oz. Sturgis Charter Public School is a public school in Hyannis which was featured in Newsweek's Magazine's "Best High Schools" ranking. It ranked 28th in the country and 1st in the state of Massachusetts in the 2009 edition and ranked 43rd and 55th in the 2008 and 2007 edition, respectively. Sturgis offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in their junior and senior year and is open to students as far as Plymouth. The Cape also contains two vocational high schools. One is the Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich and the other is Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical High School located in Bourne. Lastly, Mashpee High School is home to the Mashpee Chapter of (SMPTE,) the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. This chapter is the first and only high school chapter in the world to be a part of this organization and has received much recognition within the Los Angeles broadcasting industry as a result. The officers of this group who have made history are listed below:
* President: Ryan D. Stanley '11
* Vice-President Kenneth J. Peters '13
* Treasurer Eric N. Bergquist '11
* Secretary Andrew L. Medlar '11
In addition to public schools, Cape Cod has a wide range of private schools. The town of Barnstable has Trinity Christian Academy, Cape Cod Academy, St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School, and Pope John Paul II High School. Bourne offers the Waldorf School of Cape Cod, Orleans offers the Lighthouse Charter School for elementary and middle school students, and Falmouth offers Falmouth Academy. Riverview School is located in East Sandwich and is a special co-ed boarding school which services students as old as 22 who have learning disabilities. Another specialized school is the Penikese Island School located on Penikese Island, part of the Elizabeth Islands off southwestern Cape Cod, which services struggling and troubled teenage boys.
Cape Cod also contains two institutions of higher education. One is the Cape Cod Community College located in West Barnstable, Barnstable. The other is Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, Bourne. Massachusetts Maritime Academy is the oldest continuously operating maritime college in the United States.
[edit] Islands off Cape Cod
Like Cape Cod itself, the islands south of the Cape have evolved from whaling and trading areas to resort destinations, attracting wealthy families, celebrities, and other tourists. The islands include Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, as well as Forbes family-owned Naushon Island, which was purchased by John Murray Forbes with profits from opium dealing in the China trade during the Opium War. Naushon is one of the Elizabeth Islands, many of which are privately owned. One of the publicly accessible Elizabeths is the southernmost island in the chain, Cuttyhunk, with a year-round population of 52 people. Several prominent families have established compounds or estates on the larger islands, making these islands some of the wealthiest resorts in the Northeast, yet they retain much of the early merchant trading and whaling culture.
Riquewhir, , Alsace, France.
Riquewihr en idioma francés, Reichenweier en alsaciano, es una localidad y comuna francesa situada en el departamento de Alto Rin, en la región de Alsacia.
Por su belleza y atractivo turístico es uno de los pueblos distinguidos por la asociación Les plus beaux villages de France.
Esta ciudad fortificada rodeada de viñas es una auténtica joya. En el pueblo de Riquewihr abundan las casas de colores con entramado con fachadas decoradas con viejos rótulos. Algunas casas están adornadas con bonitas ventanas saledizas. Las omnipresentes flores y plantas trepadoras refuerzan el atractivo del pueblo.
Para descubrir el patrimonio arquitectónico único de Riquewihr, lo mejor es pasear y admirar, en el ocio, los innumerables monumentos. Se puede descubrir el ayuntamiento de estilo neo-clásico. El castillo de Württemberg en 1539 ahora alberga el museo de la comunicación. Además del edificio notable, puede supervisar la posición a través de las edades. El antiguo patio de la Abadía de Autrey desde 1510 tiene un innegable encanto con su torreta ascendente desde el sótano hasta el ático y bóveda con ocho costillas apoyo a una terraza. Va a pasar por el Museo del Dolder. Esta entrada de la puerta fortificada de la ciudad tiene un campanario de 25 metros de altura con una cara exterior bélico y la apariencia benévola en el casco urbano. La torre de los ladrones 1550 es la antigua prisión. Se pueden visitar las cámaras de tortura y mazmorras húmedas donde matones estaban cerradas. Por último, paseando por las calles, se pueden admirar las fachadas de las casas de los siglos XVI y XVII incluidos en el inventario de monumentos históricos. Entre ellos, por nombrar algunos sólo por el bien de sus nombres tan evocador, la antigua casa de tonelería, la casa llamó a los ranúnculo y enólogos de casas esperan en silencio.
Riquewihr in French, Reichenweier in Alsatian, is a town and commune in the department of Haut-Rhin in the Alsace region.
For its beauty and tourist attraction is one of the villages distinguished by the association Les plus beaux villages de France.
This fortified town surrounded by vineyards is a real gem. In the village of Riquewihr, houses with colorful, half-timbered facades adorned with old signs abound. Some houses are adorned with pretty bay windows. The ubiquitous flowers and climbing plants reinforce the appeal of the town.
To discover the unique architectural heritage of Riquewihr, the best is to stroll and admire, in leisure, the countless monuments. During your no, you can discover the neo-classical style town hall. The castle of Württemberg in 1539 now houses the Museum of Communication. In addition to the remarkable building, it can monitor the position throughout the ages. The old courtyard of the Abbey of Autrey since 1510 has an undeniable charm with its turret ascending from the basement to the attic and vault with eight ribs supporting a terrace. You will pass by the Dolder Museum. This entrance of the fortified gate of the city has a bell tower of 25 meters of height with an external warlike face and the benevolent appearance in the urban helmet. The tower of the thieves 1550 is the old prison. You can visit the torture chambers and wet dungeons where thugs were closed. Finally, walking through the streets, you can admire the facades of the houses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries included in the inventory of historical monuments. Among them, to name a few just for the sake of their names so evocative, the old coop house, the house called the ranunculus and house winemakers wait in silence.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Malaysian air forces trace their lineage to the Malayan Auxiliary Air Force formations of the Royal Air Force (RAF) formed in 1934. They later transformed into the Straits Settlements Volunteer Air Force (SSVAF) and the Malaya Volunteer Air Force (MVAF) formed in 1940 and dissolved in 1942 during the height of the Japanese advance over Malaya. The latter was re-established in 1950 in time for the Malayan Emergency and contributed very much to the war effort.
On 2 June 1958 the MVAF finally became the Royal Federation of Malaya Air Force (RFMAF), this date is celebrated as RMAF Day yearly. On 25 October 1962, after the end of the Malayan Emergency, the RAF handed over their first airfields in Malaya to the RFMAF, at Simpang Airport; it was opened on 1 June 1941, in Sungai Besi, Kuala Lumpur which was formerly part of Selangor and the national capital city. The first aircraft for the fledgling air force was a Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer named "Lang Rajawali" by the then Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman. Several Malayans serving with the Royal Air Force transferred to the Royal Federation of Malaya Air Force. The role played by RMAF was limited initially to communications and the support of ground operations against Communist insurgents during the Malayan Emergency. RMAF received its first combat aircraft with the delivery of 20 Canadair CL41G Tebuans (an armed version of the Canadair Tutor trainer). RMAF also received Aérospatiale Alouette III helicopters, to be used in the liaison role.
With the formation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963, the name of the air force was changed to "Tentera Udara Diraja Malaysia" or "Royal Malaysian Air Force". New types introduced into service included the Handley Page Herald transport and the De Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou. RMAF received Sikorsky S-61A-4 helicopters in the late 1960s and early 1970s which were used in the transport role. RMAF gained an air defence capability when the Australian Government donated 10 ex-Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) CAC Sabre fighters. These were based at the Butterworth Air Base. After the withdrawal of British military forces from Malaysia and Singapore at the end of 1971, a Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) agreement between Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom was concluded to ensure defence against external aggression. The RAAF maintained two Mirage IIIO squadrons at RAF/RAAF Station Butterworth, Butterworth Air Base as part of its commitment to the FPDA. These squadrons were withdrawn in 1986, although occasional deployments of RAAF aircraft continue.
With the withdrawal of British military forces, RMAF underwent gradual modernization from the 1970s to the 1990s. The Sabre were replaced by 16 Northrop F-5E Tiger-IIs. A reconnaissance capability was acquired with the purchase of two RF-5E Tigereye aircraft. RMAF also purchased 88 ex-US Navy Douglas A-4C Skyhawks, of which 40 of the airframes were converted/refurbished by Grumman Aircraft Engineering at Bethpage into the A-4PTM ('Peculiar To Malaysia'), configuration (A-4Bs updated to A-4M standard). RMAF has traditionally looked to the West for its purchases, primarily to the United States. However, limitations imposed by the US on "new technology" to the region, such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM fire-and-forget air-to-air missile, has made RMAF consider purchases from Russia and other non-traditional sources. The early 1990s saw the arrival of a number of IAI Kfir fighter bombers from Israel and the first BAE Hawk Mk108/208s which replaced the T/A-4PTMs and the ageing F-5Es. These were followed by the MiG-29N/NUB in 1995 in the air superiority role.
Malaysia’s order for the IAI Kfir had been placed in 1989 and a total of twenty-eight aircraft were procured. These machines were among the last newly built aircraft of this type, comparable with the IDF’s late C.7 standard with HOTAS and a partial “glass cockpit”. Deliveries included twenty-four single seaters, optimized for the fighter bomber/strike role, even though the machines could carry light AAMs like the AIM-9 Sidewinder, too, and operate as interceptors. Additionally, four new Kfir TC.7 two-seaters were bought, primarily for conversion training, but these machines had, except for a reduced internal fuel capacity in the fuselage due to the second seat, the same capabilities as the TUDM C.7 single seaters. By 1992 the RMAF Kfir fleet was ready for service and the machines were concentrated at No. 17 Squadron, based at Kuantan Air Base, located at the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Even though they were not officially re-christened, the RMAF Kfirs were frequently referred to as “Anak Singa” among the personnel, meaning “lion cub” in Malaysian language.
In 1996, three TUDM Kfir C.7s were, with the help from IAI and imported hardware, modified into armed photo reconnaissance aircraft, resulting in the CR.7 variant exclusively operated by Malaysia. These machines received an elongated nose section (more than 4’ longer) with space for a rotating long-range oblique camera, similar in shape to the former “Tsniut” conversion of C.2 fighter bombers for the IDF. The guns were replaced with avionics but the C.7s’ Elta EL/M-2021B pulse-Doppler radar was retained, so that these converted machines kept their limited all-weather strike and interception capability. But as dedicated reconnaissance aircraft they were almost exclusively operated unarmed, just carrying up to three drop tanks for extra range and loiter time.
The Kfirs did not serve with the Royal Malaysian Air Force for a long period, though: In 1997, Malaysia received a dozen F/A-18D Hornet two-seaters to provide an all-weather interdiction capability, which the rather simple Kfirs did not offer. They could also use the AGM-84 “Harpoon” ASM, making them better suited for naval strike missions, and initially the Hornets frequently served as pathfinders for the Kfirs on all-weather missions. Despite their limitations, what still made the Kfirs attractive for the RMAF was their relatively low operational cost level and the type’s high speed and rate of climb.
However, in 2003 a contract was signed for 18 Su-30MKMs from Russia for delivery in 2007 to fulfill a requirement for a new multi-role combat aircraft (MRCA). Boeing alternatively offered the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, but the type was declined. These capable machines, which were adapted to Western ordnance like GBU-12 laser-guided glide bombs, eventually replaced the RMAF Kfirs, which were gradually phased out until 2010, mothballed, and put up for sale. The last new Su-30MKM arrived in 2009 August, but the F/A-18Ds remained in service – even though only eight machines were still operational at that time. Apparently, the RMAF’s budget was tightened in the meantime since a new requirement for a further batch of new 18 MRCAs remained unfulfilled. Furthermore, the RMAF has also been looking for an AWACS aircraft, although no firm orders have been placed.
General characteristics
Crew: One
Length (incl. pitot): 16.92 m (55 ft 5¾ in)
Wingspan: 8.22 m (26 ft 11½ in)
Height: 4.61 m (14 ft 11 3/4 in)
Wing area: 34.8 m² (374.6 sq ft)
Empty weight: 7,285 kg (16,060 lb)
Loaded weight: 11,603 kg (25,580 lb) with two 500 L drop tanks, two AAMs
Max. take-off weight: 16,200 kg (35,715 lb)
Powerplant:
1× IAl Bedek-built General Electric J-79-J1E turbojet with a dry thrust of 52.9 kN (11,890 lb st)
and 79.62 kN (17,900 lb st) with afterburner
Performance
Maximum speed: 2,440 km/h (2 Mach, 1,317 knots, 1,516 mph) above 11,000 m (36,000 ft)
Combat radius: 768 km (415 nmi, 477 mi) in ground attack configuration, hi-lo-hi profile,
with seven 500 lb bombs, two AAMs, two 1,300 L drop tanks
Service ceiling: 17,680 m (58,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 233 m/s (45,950 ft/min)
Armament:
No internal guns
9× hardpoints under the wings and fuselage for up to 5,775 kg (12,730 lb) of payload
The kit and its assembly:
This was a spontaneous build for the “Recce & Surveillance” Group Build at whatifmodellers.com in September 2021. I had bought a resin conversion set from AML for a Kfir RC.2 a while ago, without a certain plan. I had originally planned not to use it on a Kfir, though, but when I considered the build of a Malaysian Kfir I remembered the conversion set and decided to use it for this project, giving it a weird twist.
The kit is the Italeri 1:72 Kfir C.2 in a recent Revell re-boxing. It is not a stellar model of this aircraft. While outlines are O.K. and the kit comes with fine recessed surface details, fit is so-so and there are some weak spots, like the fuselage/wing seams, the many intersections under the air intakes that run right through the gun ports, sinkholes on the wings upper surface and a cockpit tub/front landing gear well piece that won’t fit properly. The Hasegawa kit’s fit is better, but the Italeri Kfir is detail-wise not worse – and it’s cheaper.
The model was built OOB with the usual challenges (see above). When the fuselage was completed, the nose was chopped off in front of the windscreen, to be replaced with the parts from the “Tsniut” (however this is properly pronounced, meaning “modesty”) AML set – which is apparently different from those resin parts that come with the manufacturer’s Mirage IIICJ kit, which offers two versions of the long Tsniut nose plus a modified standard radome nose with a vertical Zeiss camera inside that was mounted on some converted IDF Mirages, too, called AFAIK the “Tarmil” nose.
The AML set is a very nice and clean offering – crisply molded, no bubbles, and with delicate parts and details like a new pitot or conduits that run from the former gun ports to the front of the nose – all molded in fine resin. There’s a good instruction sheet and even a decal set (plus painting instructions) for the two real IDF Kfir CR.2 conversions. However, there is also a piece of acetate film supposed to be included, to be used as a clear cover for the relatively large oblique camera fairing that is open to three sides and gives a good view to the rotating camera mount inside - it was missing from my set. But it was easily replaced with a piece of stiff clear film from a blister packaging. The camera opening’s 3D shape was copied with the help of masking tape into 2D, which was used to cut the replacement window out. This tailored piece of sheet was then bent into shape and attached with Humbrol Clearfix. A prothesis, but it does certainly not look worse than the OOB solution.
However, while the AML set itself went together fluidly, grafting it onto the Italeri Kfir was more complicated: the kit’s nose diameter is markedly larger than the camera extension, maybe 1mm. This does not sound much, but it leaves a recognizable step on an otherwise smooth surface – some body sculpting with a Dremel tool and PSR was necessary to even the intersection out.
The rest of the conversion was straightforward – I considered to leave the nose extension away, for a personal Kfir recce variant, but eventually stuck close to the original Tsniut configuration because of the aircraft’s weird look and added realism.
As a recce aircraft, I left the kit’s underwing pylons for the Python AAMs away and just used the ventral pylon and the large OOB drop tank.
Painting and markings:
The bane of modern aircraft type: dull livery options. I wanted a realistic paint scheme for this aircraft, suitable for a tactical mission and for the late Nineties tine frame – but the TUDM offers only very limited options. At first I considered the late A-4PTM scheme (either SEA style or a subdued two-tone green/brown scheme) with low-viz markings, but eventually settled for a simple all-grey scheme, inspired by the TUDM’s F-18Ds that arrived in the model’s time frame, too. These were dedicated all-weather strike aircraft and were initially painted overall FS 36118 (USAF Gunship Grey) with low-viz markings. This is very dull and simple, but I nevertheless adopted it for the recce Kfir because it does not distract from the odd nose, and it suits the tactical recce mission profile well.
The basic paint became Humbrol 125, which is a rather bluish interpretation of the tone, and the retrofitted new nose was set apart with FS 36118 from ModelMaster. The cockpit interior was painted in Medium Gull Grey (Humbrol 140) and landing gear as well as the air intakes were painted in bright white (Revell 301) – they really stand out on the dark and uniform airframe! To reduce the contrast a little I took the Gunship Grey over to the inner intake lips and the shock cones - some Kfirs have these intake areas painted all-white, making them stand out blatantly! The outside of the intake lips was painted black, as well as the small nose radome and the antenna bumps under the cockpit.
The interior color of the camera compartment is uncertain, but I painted it in anthracite (Revell 06), while the rotating camera mount became light grey, so that it would be more visible from the outside.
The model received an overall light ink washing to emphasize the engraved surface details as well as some post-shading and weathering through dry-brushing with various shades of medium grey. The markings/decals were puzzled together from a Begemot MiG-29 sheet (national and tactical markings) and the Kfir’s OOB stencils, which had to be – because they are in Hebrew in the Revell kit – partly replaced with low-viz alternatives from leftover Italeri Kfir sheets. The camera window received frames made with 1mm black decal strips. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.
A relatively simple and quick build. The Italeri Kfir has some weaknesses, but I have built enough of them to know the major pitfalls. The AML Tsniut conversion set blended well onto the airframe, even though the missing camera window called for some scratch work. The result is an interesting Kfir variant, and the subtle paint scheme of the fictional Malaysian operator adds credibility – the dark grey upper color reminds a little of the late Ecuadorean Kfirs, but this TUMD whif is much less colorful, even with the many red markings and stencils, which blend into the grey with little contrast. This is not a spectacular model/whif, but I like the unusual dark livery on the Kfir. And it certainly is not the last whiffy Kfir I will build, there are already ideas for more…
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays! Pretty cute cowgirl! Sony A7R Test Photos: ILCE7R A7r Golden Cowgirl Model with Gold 45 Revolver! Carl Zeiss Sony Sonnar T* FE 35mm f/2.8 ZA Lens. finished in Lightroom 5.3 ! Wearing cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and cutoff jeans shorts while modeling 45surf t-shirts and hoodies! Tall, fin, fit, and tan with long, silky long blond hair and pretty blue eyes! A goddess!
Was testing the Sony HVL-F60M External Flash on the Sony A7r. You can see it going off in some of the photos (check the exif if in doubt)--worked great, but it overheated a bit sooner than my Nikon flash on the D800E. But it's all good!
Here's some epic goddess video shot at the same time as stills using my 45surfer method/philosophy:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7gq_gCk0jE
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiOMrZIEzg8
Join Johnny Ranger McCoy's youtube channel for goddess video shot @ the same time as the stills with the Sony A7 !
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7gq_gCk0jE
Beautiful swimsuit bikini model goddess on a beautiful December Malibu afternoon! Shot it yesterday. :) Love, love, love the new Sony A7 R!
Was a fun test shoot. Many, many more to come!
All the best on your Epic Hero's Journey from Johnny Ranger McCoy!
Modeling the black & white 45surf & black & gold "Gold 45 Revolver" Gold'N'Virtue clothes with the main equation to Moving Dimensions Theory on the swimsuits: dx4/dt=ic. Yes I have a Ph.D. in physics! :) You can read more about my research and Hero's Journey Physics here:
herosjourneyphysics.wordpress.com/ MDT PROOF#2: Einstein (1912 Man. on Rel.) and Minkowski wrote x4=ict. Ergo dx4/dt=ic--the foundational equation of all time and motion which is on all the shirts, clothes, and swimsuits. Every photon that hits my Nikon D800e's sensor does it by surfing the fourth expanding dimension, which is moving at c relative to the three spatial dimensions, or dx4/dt=ic!
May the Hero's Journey Mythology Goddess inspire you (as they have inspired me!) along your own artistic journey! Love, love, love the 35mm Carl Zeiss Lens on the new Sony A7R! :)
All the Best on Your Epic Hero's Journey from Johnny Ranger McCoy!
Channeling Clint Eastwood & Sergio Leone on an old western set! The cowgirl puts the 45 in 45surf! :)
Sherbourne's Victorian Gothic church (All Saints) is a Grade II* Listed building, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, an eminent Victorian architect
photos taken with a Sony A77ii and a Samyang f2.8/10mm lens
G-Biogon-M21mm on M10-D.
External ViewFinders (Old and New):
"A black 21mm-viewfinder would look good on a black camera set," I thought, so I dug through my toolbox for a black finder with some issues (haze and balsam on the outside of bright-flame) and brought it over from Japan...
But here in Bangkok, I found a "like new EVF for an unbelievable price," so I got it as a spare... (This is my third EVF for two M10 series cameras, but I can say for sure that these electronic parts of Leica always break down before the camera body does, and in the case of Leica, not only will they not repair it, but by the time it does break down, production will have ended and we won't be able to get a new one.)
The Castello di Milazzo is a fortified ensemble in Milazzo, Sicily, southern Italy. It is located on the summit a hill commanding the town, and is of uncertain origin, perhaps Arab. It was later enlarged in medieval and modern times, and it is now a National Monument of Italy.The area of the castle is known to have been frequented in ancient times, as shown by recent findings inside the castle's perimeter of coins including those of the Mamertines.The oldest element of the current castle, a quadrangular tower, dates most likely to the Arab period of Sicily. It was later enlarged by the Normans and the Hohenstaufen: Frederick II of Hohenstaufen's architect, Richard of Lentini, worked at the castle.During the Aragonese domination of Sicily walls were added with five rounded bastions (15th century). The larger external towers were built in the early 16th century. The castle lost its importance in the 18th century, and decayed until recent times.OverviewThe "castle" was more precisely a fortified town or citadel, which housed several public and private edifices, such as a cathedral and a Benedictine convent. The entrance is from the Santa Maria bastion, which, together with the so-called Bastione delle Isole, is part of the massive Spanish 16th century walls. A gallery with a barrel vault then leads to an internal courtyard, after which is the Old Duomo (cathedral), built from 1607.
Il monumento più importante della città è il Castello di Federico II: bene nazionale e dell'Unione Europea, si estende su un'area di oltre 7 ettari, costituisce una vera e propria cittadella.Le prime fortificazioni sono databili attorno al Neolitico (4000 a.C.). Più tardi, attorno al VIII-VII secolo a.C., grazie all'intervento dei Greci, che la chiamarono Mylai, l'agglomerato prese forma e s'ingrandì, divenendo un'acropoli e, grazie all'intervento romano-bizantino, un castrum.Nell'843 gli Arabi diedero vita al primo nucleo dell'odierno castello, sulle rovine delle vecchie dominazioni. Successivamente, i Normanni e gli Svevi, aggiunsero altre strutture, gli Aragonesi ne adeguarono l'impianto difensivo, gli Spagnoli lo circondarono di una poderosa cinta muraria. Particolare interessante è un disegno stilizzato il pietra lavica in uno spigolo delle mura medievali. Secondo alcuni esperti è l'occhio del falco Horo, simbolo egiziano di inespugnabilità; secondo altri è uno scarabeo, sui cui occhi il sole punta dritto nel giorno dell'equinozio di primavera. I milazzesi potevano così sapere l'evolversi delle stagioni.
Milazzo is a town and comune in the province of Messina, Sicily, Italy.The city is situated between two bays, one of Milazzo and the east to the west of Patti, in a strategic place in the north-eastern Sicily. Located 43 km from the provincial capital, is part of the metropolitan area of the Strait of Messina, and is the reference point of an area of over 200,000 inhabitants.Originally a Greek city, and from 36 BC recognized as a Roman civitas, Milazzo is now a tourist destination and a great starting point for the Aeolian Islands, the Nebrodi Park, Tindari. There are numerous testimonies, the symbols of the ancient history of the city.Plans are in progress to enter the castle, the fortified town and the ancient village in the sites of UNESCO. The promontory of Capo Milazzo became a marine reserve.
Milazzo è un comune italiano di 32.601 abitanti della provincia di Messina in Sicilia.La città è posta tra due golfi, quello di Milazzo a est e quello di Patti a ovest, in un luogo strategico della Sicilia nord-orientale. Distante 43 km dal capoluogo rientra nell'area metropolitana dello Stretto, è il punto di riferimento di un comprensorio di 204.000 abitanti circa.In origine città greca, e dal 36 a.C. riconosciuta come civis romana, Milazzo è oggi una meta turistica ed un ottimo punto di partenza per le Isole Eolie, il Parco dei Nebrodi, Tindari. Numerose sono infatti le testimonianze, simboli della storia millenaria della città.Sono in corso progetti mirati ad inserire il Castello, la città fortificata e il borgo antico tra i siti UNESCO ed a costituire la Riserva Marina del Promontorio di Capo Milazzo.
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