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Color variant of outfit that debuted at AOF Convention. Thursday night dessert reception, Fashion Fast Track Convention.
Dear Dear Dear Friends,
These Band-Aids or bandages were clean and transferred to my large print bible for display only in the photo. After each chemo treatment the nurse would clean and flush my port and then place a cotton ball on it with one of these colorful bandages to hold the cotton in place. After four months and eight full treatments my oncologist tells me they believe they got all the cancer out again. The doctor is going to watch a couple things that the chemo may have messed up in the next few months, but other than that he thinks my immune system will be backup to normal in a couple of weeks. Good news is always welcome. I want to give a heartfelt thank you to everyone for their kind thoughts and prayers. To me these mere bandages represent Faith, Hope, with Great Blessings, which I held onto throughout this ordeal, and of what I have received from Jehovah God and his son and reigning King Jesus Christ. It was fourteen years ago when they first found my cancer, and at the time they used me as a guinea pig in what they called a clinical trial of a brand new drug at the time, and with great blessings it worked on me. I was able to spoil my grandchildren for fourteen years before the severe pains came back this past year. Now after they further perfected the original drug I originally took and added a second chemotherapy to the mix, I have taken the treatments for the last four months again, along with many other oral medications. I want to wholeheartedly thank everyone for their patience with me during this stressful time in my life since the treatments cause so much weakness and nausea. The chemotherapy is like a poison they run through your body, and believe me, it has a strange effect on you. After losing three of my own first cousins in the past fourteen years of this same cancer, I feel really blessed to get another good report from my oncologist. In this old world, it is just one battle at a time. I hope you are all doing well and Thank you all again, as right now I seem to be doing just fine. Love you all.
Take care everyone,
Robert Counselman
Five pokes later...
grateful to live in a country where we have easy access to childhood immunizations. I wish it were the same everywhere.
Want to Strengthen Your Immune System? Scientific Studies Say Do More Yoga. yogaposesfortwo.com/want-to-strengthen-your-immune-system...
Nowadays we have weak immune system in the body. It is very difficult to fight that virus called "technology addiction".
With this virus, we should blame oursleves or those technology giant companies?
Have a great evening!
Fuji X-H1
Fuji XF 60mm F2.4
ACROS B&W with yellow filter
Drinking Rosehips, because is a wellknown immunity booster and contains vitamin C. It is easy to drink as warm tea. Those who are more demanding soak the berries in cold water. It is important that the berries are not green. More like some shade of red.
Wyeth Nutrition’s illuma brand helps to enhance infants’ absorption of key nutrients and supports their immune function.
Listen: See the Light by Ghost
2019, May 6, 3:13 PM.
I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
In brief it's a non-inherited, non-transmittable disease where my auto-immune system attacks the protective covering of my nerves.
Currently there is no cure.
All this did was piss me off because I still have so much to do and it's gonna be a bit tougher.
Am on new meds now. So far so good, we shall see how it goes.
The real heroes of the story are my family and close friends who are doing what they can to help me through this.
Staring down the barrel of my mortality has provided additional clarity.
I will NOT be a servant of it.
I will NOT be a slave to it.
Copyright © 2019 Vic Bonilla All Rights Reserved.
Do not reproduce this image without expressed permission from the photographer.
The Arado Ar 234 B Blitz (Lightning) was the world's first operational jet bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. Two Junkers Jumo 004 B turbojets powered this clean, graceful design. Speed made the Blitz virtually immune to attacks from piston-engined Allied fighters. The jet's maximum velocity topped 735 kph (456 mph). Although overshadowed by the more famous Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter, the relatively few Ar 234s that reached Luftwaffe units before the end of the German surrender provided excellent (if ultimately futile) service, particularly as reconnaissance aircraft.
Development of the Ar 234 began in 1940. The German Aviation Ministry issued an order to Dr. Walter Blume, technical director of the state-owned Arado concern, to design and build a reconnaissance aircraft propelled by the turbojet engines then under development by BMW and Junkers. Rüdiger Kosin led the design team. Largely free from Air Ministry interference, Kosin created a high-wing monoplane with two turbojet engines mounted in nacelles under the wings. The rear fuselage contained two downward-looking recon-
naissance cameras. To reduce weight and free space for larger fuselage fuel tanks, the initial prototype series dispensed with a conventional landing gear in favor of retractable skids mounted beneath the fuselage and nacelles. The airplane would taxi and takeoff atop a wheeled trolley that the pilot jettisoned as the jet left the runway. Ground crews recovered the trolley and refurbished it for the next flight.
Engine problems repeatedly slowed flight testing the first Ar 234. BMW and Junkers both experienced trouble building jet engines in quantities sufficient for both the Me 262 and
Ar 234 programs. Although Arado completed the Ar 234 V1 airframe in late 1942, the Messerschmitt aircraft took priority and claimed the trickle of flight-ready engines that Junkers managed to turn out. Consequently, the Ar 234 V1 did not fly until July 30, 1943.
Before it flew, the Air Ministry directed Arado to redesign the landing gear and give the jet a bombing capability. Kosin and his team enlarged the fuselage slightly to accommodate a conventional tricycle landing gear and added a semi-recessed bomb bay under the fuselage. To allow the pilot to act as a bombardier, Kosin mounted a Lotfe 7K bombsight in the fuselage floor ahead of the control column, which the pilot swung out of his way to use the sight. A Patin PDS autopilot guided the aircraft during the bombing run. The pilot-bombardier used another periscope sight during shallow-angle, glide bombing.
The first prototype for the revised design, designated Ar 234 V9, flew on March 12, 1944. The bomber version, designated Ar 234 B-0, became the first subtype built in quantity. The Air Ministry ordered 200 Ar 234 Bs and Arado built them at a new Luftwaffe airfield factory at Alt Lönnewitz in Saxony. The factory finished and delivered all 200 airplanes by the end of December 1944 but managed to roll out another 20 by war's end. The initial order had called for two versions of the Ar 234 B: the B-1 reconnaissance aircraft and the B-2 bomber but Arado built only the B-2 version. The company converted B-2 airframes into reconnaissance aircraft.
Plans called for more advanced versions of the Arado jet, including the Ar 234 C powered by four BMW 003 A-1 engines and fitted with a pressurized cockpit. Subvariants of the "C" model included the C-3 multi-role aircraft and the C-3N two-seat nightfighter. However, only 14 Ar 234 Cs left the Arado factory before Soviet forces overran the area. The four-engine Ar 234 was, however, the fastest jet aircraft of World War II. Prototypes for the more advanced Ar 234 D reconnaissance aircraft and bomber with provision for a second crewman were under construction but not completed at war's end.
A Luftwaffe pilot flew the first Ar 234 combat mission on August 2, 1944, when Erich Sommer piloted the V5 prototype on a reconnaissance sortie over the Allied beachhead in Normandy. He encountered no opposition. During his two-hour flight, Sommer gathered more useful intelligence than the Luftwaffe obtained during the previous two months. Virtually immune to interception, the Ar 234 continued to provide the German High Command with valuable reconnaissance until nearly the end of the war. The intelligence gathered, however, allowed German military planners to do little more than delay inevitable defeat.
Only one Luftwaffe unit, KG 76 (Kampfgeschwader or Bomber Wing 76), was equipped with Ar 234 bombers before Germany's surrender. As the production of the Ar 234 B-2 increased in tempo during fall 1944, the unit received its first aircraft and began training at Burg bei Magdeburg. The unit flew its first operations during December 1944 in support of the Ardennes Offensive. Typical missions consisted of pinprick attacks conducted by less than 20 aircraft, each carrying a single 500 kg (1,100 lb.) bomb. The unit participated in the desperate attacks against the Allied bridgehead over the Rhine at Remagen during mid-March 1945, but failed to drop the Ludendorff railway bridge and suffered a number of losses to anti-aircraft fire. The deteriorating war situation, coupled with shortages of fuel and spare parts, prevented KG 76 from flying more than a handful of sorties from late March to the end of the war. The unit conducted its last missions against Soviet forces encircling Berlin during the final days of April. During the first week of May the unit's few surviving aircraft were either dispersed to airfields still in German hands or destroyed to prevent their capture.
The National Air and Space Museum's Blitz, an Arado Ar 234 B-2 bomber carrying Werk Nummer (manufacturer's serial number) 140312, was one of nine Ar 234s surrendered to British forces at Sola airfield near Stavanger, Norway. It is the sole surviving example of an Ar 234. The aircraft had been on strength with 9./KG 76 (Ninth Squadron/ bomber Wing 76) during the final weeks of the war, having served earlier with the unit's eighth squadron. It and three other Ar 234s were collected by the famous "Watson's Whizzers" group of the USAAF (United States Army Air Forces) for shipment to the United States. After flying from Sola to Cherbourg, France on June 24, 1945, the four Ar 234s joined thirty-four other advanced German aircraft aboard the British aircraft carrier HMS Reaper for shipment to the United States. The Reaper departed from Cherbourg on July 20, arriving at Newark, New Jersey eight days later. U. S. Army Air Forces personnel reassembled and flew two Ar 234s, including 140312, to Freeman Field, Indiana, for testing and evaluation. The USAAF assigned the foreign equipment number FE-1010 to this Ar 234 for inventory and tracking purposes.
After receiving new engines and replacement radio and oxygen equipment, FE-1010 was flown to Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, in July 1946 and transferred to the Accelerated Service Test Maintenance Section (ASTMS) of the Flight Test Division. After flight-testing was completed on October 16, 1946, the aircraft remained at Wright field until 1947, when it was moved to Orchard Place Airport, Park Ridge, Illinois. On May 1, 1949, the USAF (United States Air Force after 1947) transferred the Ar 234 and other aircraft at Park Ridge to the Smithsonian Institution. During the early 1950s, the airplanes were finally moved to a new Smithsonian storage facility at Suitland, Maryland to await restoration.
Restoration of the NASM Ar 234 began during 1984 and was completed in February 1989. Because all of the original German paint was stripped off the airframe before the aircraft's transfer to the Smithsonian, restoration specialists applied markings of a typical aircraft of 8./KG 76, the first bomber unit to fly the Blitz. The museum displayed the aircraft during 1993 in the main museum building downtown as part of an exhibit titled "Wonder Weapon? The Arado Ar 234." It is now shown at the museum's new Udvar-Hazy-Center near Dulles.
Credit Line
My rendition of the classic Immunity Syndrome episode using my 1/350 Enterprise model combined with actual shot of an aoemba
The American green tree frog (Dryophytes cinereus or Hyla cinerea) is a common arboreal species of New World tree frog belonging to the family Hylidae. This nocturnal insectivore is moderately sized and has a bright green to reddish-brown coloration. Commonly found in the central and southeastern United States, the frog lives in open canopy forests and permanent waters with abundant vegetation. When defending territory, the frog either emits aggressive call signals or grapples with intruders. To avoid predation, the frog hides in its aquatic habitat.
Females are larger than males. Pairs breed through amplexus. Males emit low frequency advertisement calls to attract females. During mating competition, males will eavesdrop on neighboring rivals and either adjust their signal timing or remain silent to intercept call signals and mate with approaching females. Androgens energize males to vocalize.
Description
The American green tree frog is moderately sized. It has long legs, a streamlined and slender build, and smooth skin. The American green tree frog ranges from 3.2 to 6.4 centimetres (1+1⁄4 to 2+1⁄2 in) in length. Their dorsum can range in color from the more common bright green to reddish-brown. Such a range in coloration may result in the frog being mistaken for other species. Some evidence suggests that green tree frogs can exhibit a color change in response to their background and/or temperature.
The dorsum is peppered with small golden spots, and the frogs have a white to cream coloration on their ventral side. American green tree frogs also contain white prominent lateral stripes.
They are normally ectothermic and heterothermic.
The American green tree frog weighs on average 3.76g with a range between 2.15g and 5.11g. Female frogs are usually larger than males. Larger males tend to have an upper hand in attracting females than smaller males either through increased physical strength in duels or more pronounced call signals during mating competition.
Distribution and habitat
The American green tree frog is found in the central and southeastern United States with a geographic range from the Eastern Shore of Maryland to southeast Florida with populations as far west as central Texas and as far north as Delaware and southern New Jersey. The American green tree frog is considered monotypic, but clinal variation has beven observed from Florida north along the Atlantic coastal plain. This may be attributed to the result of strong selection and/or drift.
American green tree frogs prefer to live in open canopy forests and permanent waters filled with plentiful vegetation. The species is found in natural and settled environments. The species commonly resides in cypress ponds, water lily prairies, and marshes. They are often found perched on twigs, low branches, and grasses.
Conservation
A growing number of American green tree frogs have experienced severe habitat loss primarily due to urbanization and destructive wildfires that can destroy forest canopy cover. Since most amphibians have narrow habitat tolerances and migration constraints, American green tree frogs urgently need alternative shelters for survival as forest canopies recover. In a study from Central Texas, scientists have tried to combat wildfire habitat loss by creating artificial shelters using PVC pipes.Wetlands that the American green tree frogs occupy for breeding have had an increase in salinity and an increase in pesticide concentration in recent years due to urbanization. This has proven to have a negative effect on sperm mobility and has reduced reproductive success
Population structure, speciation, and phylogeny
One study finds that there are at least 31 tree frog species of the genus Hyla (or Dryophytes) in North America, Central America, and Eurasia. Examples include both the H. gratiosa and H. walkeri. While many tree frogs reside in the New World, a notable number of frogs inhabit the Eurasia continent and display unique biogeographic patterns based on an analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences.
Home range and territoriality
American green tree frogs will defend their mate calling sites against foreign rivals and invaders using aggressive interactions. Such behaviors include a combination of aggressive call signals and wrestling from males.
Diet
American green tree frogs are insectivores, primarily consuming flies, mosquitoes, grasshoppers, cockroaches, spiders, beetles, and other small insects such as crickets and ants. One study suggested frogs select prey not by their size, but according to their activity levels, with the most active prey being the most frequently eaten. The same study showed "nearly 90% of Hyla cinerea prey were actively pursued", with the other 10% being "insects walking or close enough to be snatched up by the frog's tongue". Another study showed that it is not uncommon for American green tree frogs to ingest plant material.
Behavior
Because the species is small and easily frightened, they often does not do well with frequent handling. Some specimens do seem to tolerate it occasionally, so handling frequency should be determined on an individual basis. The American green tree frog tends to be nocturnal, so they will be most active once the lights are off. Males call most of the year, especially after being misted in their tank.
Breeding
Pair breeding
Most American green tree frog females breed once per year, but some have multiple clutches in a single mating season. In a Florida population, "advertisement calls of males were documented between March and September and pairs in amplexus were observed between April and August". The average number of eggs in a single clutch was observed to be about 400 for this specific population. Eggs take between 4 and 14 days to hatch, with an average of five days. According to the Animal Diversity Web at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, "Female size was positively correlated with clutch size, but after the initial clutch, the number of eggs nearly always decreased".
Tadpoles are green with a yellow or white stripe extending from each nostril to the eye and may have mottled tail fins. American green tree frogs show only the parental investment of mating and egg-laying.
Breeding is known to be strongly influenced by day length, temperature, and precipitation. While the influence of these factors with respect to breeding is not well understood, it is well documented, as the frogs generally breed following rainfall and males call more frequently as temperature and day length increase. Some evidence demonstrates that the length of the breeding season is correlated with latitude; seasonal length decreases as latitude increases due to temperature limitations.
Mating calls
To attract mates, the male American green tree frog uses a distinctive advertisement call which is noticeably different from its release or warning calls.[citation needed] This is important for reproductive isolation in areas where different species share breeding areas. Once a mate has been attracted, the pair begins amplexus in which the male frog grasps onto the female to initiate fertilization. The species is polygynous, with the male generally seeking to mate with as many females as it can attract. Eggs are attached to substrates such as emergent vegetation, and unlike other frog species, these egg masses are typically laid in permanent bodies of water rather than vernal pools.
When male frogs aggregate, choruses will form and establish a cacophony of numerous unique advertisement calls. Consequently, male individuals experience intraspecific mating competition and often encounter immense pressure to produce unique call signals that are both attractive and audible to the limited number of available females. Such challenges are further complicated by the rapid fluctuation of males within a chorus, the potential risk of increased exposure to predators, and sexual selection of specific call signals through female choice.
These factors give rise to a social plasticity in the calling behavior of the American green tree frog. In order to maintain competition, male individuals will either modify their signal features, such as the temporal and spectral properties of calls or their signal timing, to reduce signal interference with other neighboring males. Temporal and spectral properties include call duration and call frequency. Changes in signal timing include initiation of advertisement calls during different times of the night. It has been found that male green tree frogs will more often alter their signal timing to attract females due to physiological constraints in the frog's call production mechanism and female choice against increased call duration and period in favor of precise call timing. Modifying signal behavior towards every frog within a chorus is extremely costly and inefficient. However, forcing male individuals to engage in selective attention of advertisement calls from only a few of their closest rivals.
Satellite males
Some male American green tree frogs will not emit or alter their advertisement calls and instead choose to remain silent. Labeled as 'satellites', these frogs will wait to intercept the signals of nearby calling males and mate with approaching sexually active females through amplexus. Such sexual parasitism and call avoidance occur mainly to conserve the frog's energy and avoid predation during mate competition.
Androgens are used for energy during call signal production. As a satellite male green tree frog engages in non-calling mating behavior, androgen quantities are found to decrease to lower levels compared to calling behavior, suggesting a causal relationship between sex hormones and mate calling tactics.
In order to help decide whether to engage in satellite non-calling behavior, male green tree frogs will eavesdrop on other nearby male competitors and adjust their mating responses based on the qualities of their call signals. If given with the choice, females prefer large males with advertisement calls of lower frequencies. Other notable features include the latency to call and male focal size. When eavesdropping male competitors with low call frequencies, large male green tree frogs are found to reduce their latency to call and raise call rates. Small males in contrast will only reduce their latency to call in response to competitors with average call frequencies.
Interspecific competition
American green tree frogs are also able to undergo interspecific mating competition. In southern Florida, the Cuban tree frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis) is an invasive species that has a similar call to the American green tree frog with respect to timing and pitch. A study found that their calls compete acoustically with each other due to their similarity which limits communication space. In order to compete with the Cuban tree frog, American green tree frogs modified their calls to be shorter, louder, and more frequent so that potential mates would have a better chance of detecting the call.
Threats
As a tadpole, the American green tree frog is easily predated by sunfish, bass, and dragonflies, including both aeshnidae and libellulidae odonate naiads. The species is especially vulnerable to predation when living in temporary ponds compared to permanent waters. To combat predation, green tree frog tadpoles may increase hiding behavior while in water to avoid capture.
The American green tree frog is also prone to a few parasites, including nematodes, protozoans, and trematodes.
Contrary to most amphibians, the American green tree frog is not easily susceptible to the Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) pathogen and the disease chytridiomycosis. Reasons explaining why are relatively unknown, but one study hypothesizes that variances in climate, frog immunity, and frog habitat are potential factors.
Physiology
Androgens
Androgens, such as dihydrotestosterone and testosterone, are the primary energy resource for American green tree frogs when engaging in acoustic signal calling. When a male frog engages in vocalization either for aggression or mate attraction, androgen energy stores are used and become depleted. Interestingly, glucocorticoids, such as corticosterones, also appear to change during calling behavior. According to the Energetics-Hormone Vocalization model, glucocorticoid levels in males will rise as androgen levels decrease following vocalization. When observing hormonal levels in both calling and satellite non-calling males, reduced androgen levels and elevated glucocorticoid levels are found among satellite non-calling males compared to calling males. These observations suggest a possible mechanism dictating vocalization and the alternation between calling and non-calling behavior in the green tree frog. Further study is required however on the relationship between glucocorticoids and male vocalization to consider causality.
The causality of vocalization by androgens is also limited by the American green tree frog's social environment. According to one study, androgens themselves were not sufficient to initiate call signals in male frogs when in the presence of social stimuli such as other frog choruses. This suggests that androgens on their own may provide males with enough motivation to call, but they may also require additional social context to produce various call signals during situations such as mating.
As pets
American green tree frogs are popular pets because of their small size, appearance, and the undemanding conditions needed to take care of them. Unlike many amphibians, they do not require artificial heating unless household temperatures drop below 21 °C (70 °F). They need a large (at least ten-gallon) terrarium and do best with a substrate that will hold some humidity, such as commercial shredded bark or coconut husk bedding, or untreated topsoil on the floor of the terrarium. Tree frogs are arboreal, so the height of the tank is more important than the length. A variety of things for climbing, such as plants or branches, should be in the habitat. A shallow water dish should be included. Captive frogs should not be handled more than necessary; when necessary, clean gloves should be worn.
As state symbols and bioindicators
The American green tree frog became the state amphibian of Louisiana in 1997 and of Georgia in 2005.
American green tree frogs can also be used as bioindicators for aquatic contamination. Synthetic compounds such as polychlorinated biphenyls are found in many pesticides and pollute the green tree frog's aquatic habitats. Because the frog's skin is thin and permeable, synthetic compounds absorb easily upon contact, making the species a viable variable to measure contamination
This old sanatorium was built by St. Jorgen Foundation in Bergen. It should serve as a tuberculosis hospital for the West Coast. Most patients came from the Bergen region, but there were patients from all over the country. The sanatorium was in operation until mid 1950's.
The reason for building the sanatorium here was said to be it's dry climate, pine forest and the thin mountain air. It was a recipe believed in the old days to cure people with tuberculosis. On this location they found a whole "package" - it was located on a hill and in a climate that one at the time considered "immune zone" against the disease.
In the year 1900, the plans for the sanataorium were ready. The three story hospital would have 96 beds and modern spa and operating room. An extension was built in 1924 and the capacity increased to 120 beds, and by 1950 it had reached 150 beds.
The construction plan in 1900 included also a separate laundry, stable and icehouse - and not least an electrically driven cable car from the steamship pier at the fjord and up to "rock shelf". There would also be built a 6 km stretch of road with 13 bends up the hill.
The cable car and the power plant to the sanatorium are located in side buildings next to the sanatorium. Calculations showed that the large hospital facility would cost 456,000 norwegian kroner (approx. $76000 - an enormous sum in those days. Most of the money was acquired in Bergen: Bergen city guaranteed for 200,000 kroner, and wealthy citizens for 175,000 kroner. The final amount turned out to be 777,000 thousand kroner when the plant was inaugurated on 2 in November 1902.
At the opening party there were greeting telegrams from both the Swedish-Norwegian King and Queen, Parliament President Carl Werner and shipowner and later Prime Minister Johan Ludwig Mowinckel. Some years later, there was also built senior housing, two family dwellings for the stoker and the gardener, and "sister house" for nurses. there were also a separate chapel with mortuary.
The first treatment they had to offer - before the vaccine against the disease came after World War II - was partly operations - partly different cures. One of the cures they used here was making sure the patients got enough air daily. Meaning they would lay outside in their beds in both in summer and winter, well-packaged in bags of reindeer skins. They were placed under a huge canopy along the entire south wall and this canopy prevented rain and snow from entering their air spaces. Around the hospital they built a large park with roads where patients who were strong enough could exercise.
Another cure they used was known as 'Blowing of the lungs'. This took place inside the 'operation lodge'.
The technique comprised much of the so-called "blowing". When tuberculosis attacked the lungs, it would eat the tissue, consume it so that it formed large cavities in the lung tissue. It was essential to close these cavities. This was done by puncturing the lung where the cavities had formed so that sick lung would collapse and the wounds would be healed exactly where the cavities formed.
Patients here was almost fat on the heavy diet and the hospital had its own pig barn where they made sure that the pigs had an extra thick blubber layer before they were slaughtered. And it was also quite common for relatives to send food and treats in abundant quantities
Every July a rich man in Bergen would send a cargo of oranges to patients and staff.
The distance down to the village, the risk of getting infected abd the fact that most patients were visitors, not locals - turned this place into a rather secrete and closed society. The sanatorium even had its own post office and therefore the people here would establish a separate social life. The whole complex was built in 1902 so that women and men were strictly separated. There were two bed suites, operation and cure rooms and separate dining rooms for each of the sexes. This separation of the sexes was kept strict up to a major rebuild that was done in 1937.
Although there were strict gender segregation indoors, it was allowed for girls and boys to come together on the romantic paths in the park, as well as in the decorated assembly hall when it was organized parties, cinema, concerts or theater.
Most of the patients here was young people, and those who were fit enough, would take part part in simple sports activities and games in the park outdoors. It was founded to concerts, and patients set up plays every New Year's Eve and may 17. (Norways independence day) After a rich shipowner and other rich people in Bergen gave the sanatorium a film apparatus in 1937, they had cinema once a week.
The sanatorium is now shut down. In the fight against tuberculosis there was a breakthrough - it happened just after 2 World War II. Then came effective vaccines against the disease, and a large part of the Norwegian population were vaccinated against tuberculosis in a few years. Thus has the foundation for the operation of the sanatorium gone. But others took over the buildings and between 1950 and 1990 it was used as a psychiatric hospital. After that, it was used as a reception center for refugees from the Balkan war. In 1994 the doors were closed and the sanatorium has been left abandoned since.
Exif
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Sigma 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.5-5.6
Aperture: f/7,1
Exposure Time: 1/40
Focal Length: 12mm
ISO: 200
Please do not add your own images in your comments as they will be deleted!
We interrupt our regularly scheduled holiday photographs for some BREAKING NEWS...
I'm not sure what to think of this whole Assange affair. Tough one really.
ISS043E070945 (03/31/2015) --- ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, Expedition 43 flight engineer aboard the International Space Station, is seen working on a science experiment that includes photographic documentation of Cellular Responses to Single and Combined Space Flight Conditions. Some effects of the space environment level appear to act at the cellular level and it is important to understand the underlying mechanisms of these effects. This science project uses invertebrate hemocytes to focus on two aspects of cellular function which may have medical importance. The synergy between the effects of the space radiation environment and microgravity on cellular function is the goal of this experiment along with studying the impairment of immune functions under spaceflight conditions.
Police bicycles on a truck outside the D.C. Federal courthouse as Trump arrives for the appeals hearing on Presidential immunity
My first baking experience , Pineapple bread , tastes like semi sweet cake , Martin’s Photographs , a Lonely Good Friday exercise , because i cannot be to close to Family and friends , physical distancing , because of my compromised immune system , good time learning new skills and having fun doing so , Ajax , Ontario , Canada , April 10. 2020
Exercise
IPhone XR
Pineapple bread
My first baking experience
Martin’s photographs
Lonely Good Friday
Physical distancing
Friends
New baking skills
Bread
Baking
Close to family and friends
Compromised immune system
C.L.L.
You all have a good and safe Easter weekend
Having fun doing so
Ajax
Ontario
Canada
April 10 2020
April 2020
Good time learning new skills and having fun doing so !
Not to close to family and friends
Information from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Cod
Cape Cod
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
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.
The lymphatic system is part of the immune system where cleansing of blood, and the detoxification of our bodies takes place. A huge network of lymphatic vessels recycles blood plasma by removing fluid from the tissues, filtering it, and carrying it back into the bloodstream.
These are foods to add into your diet to boost the lymphatic system:
* Garlic
Garlic boosts immune function and combats harmful microbes. It improves circulation and aids in the cleansing of toxins. It boosts the function of your lymphatic system and contains antibacterial qualities.
* Citrus
Citrus fruits aid hydration, carry powerful antioxidants and enzymes, and help cleanse and protect the lymphatic system.
Ant Theme: Research by Dr. Jonathan Klassen
Research in the Klassen lab tries to understand how symbioses (“organisms living together”) function as a unit, despite being made up of different individuals that have different ecologies and evolutionary interests. This research is important because of how widespread such symbioses are in nature, e.g., between humans and their gut microbes, or plants and microbes surrounding their roots in the rhizosphere. However, the complexity of such systems makes them difficult to study. Instead, we study a fungus-growing ant, Trachymyrmex septentrionalis, as a model system where we can understand the precise function of each symbiont and how it interacts with the others. T. septentrionalis is the northernmost fungus growing ant, and is abundant in pine flat forests throughout the Eastern USA, ranging as far north as Long Island, New York. In this symbiosis, T. septentrionalis ants collect plant material and insect feces, which they feed to a specific “cultivar” fungus that they farm in underground gardens. Once the fungus has digested this food, it forms nutrient-rich swellings that the ants feed upon. The ants also protect their cultivar fungus from disease using antibiotic-producing Pseudonocardia bacteria that reside on the ants’ proplueral plates (i.e., “chest”). The ants therefore both farm the cultivar fungus as their food source and protect it by “crop spraying” antibiotics produced by their symbiotic Pseudonocardia bacteria.
In this collaboration, we used macrophotography to visualize the various members of our symbiosis and the interactions between them. We took images of each life cycle stage of the ant, and observed how their bodies developed as they moved first from larvae, to pupae, and finally to fully developed adult workers and the male reproductive caste. We also imaged the underside of a worker adult, which showed how the Pseudonocardia bacteria form an ordered array of white microcolonies covering the ant’s propleural plate. These colonies likely relate to an array of glands on the ant’s body that as thought to feed each colony of bacteria. Finally we also imaged the cultivar fungus to investigate how its structure related to its relationship with the ants. Interestingly, our images revealed patches of necrotic cultivar tissue, perhaps indicating the presence of a melanin-based immune system in this fungus. This has never been observed before, and whether it is caused by the ant or some other factor remains unknown. Together, these macrophotographic images allowed us to view our ants and their symbionts in unprecedented detail, and demonstrates the intimacy of the interactions that occur between them.
EXHIBIT ON DISPLAY NOW AT UCONN'S NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
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Images in this gallery were captured by:
Mark Smith M.S. Geoscientist mark@macroscopicsolutions.com
Annette Evans Ph.D. Student at the University of Connecticut annette@macroscopicsolutions.com
Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are web-like structures that immune cells called neutrophils use to ensnare and kill microbes such as bacteria or fungi. NETs are shown as DNA (blue) forming a complex with the granule protein neutrophil elastase (red). Normally, NETs are released in response to invading pathogens, but have also been associated with autoimmune diseases. For this image, NETS were induced by levamisole, a drug that can trigger autoimmunity.
Credit: NIAMS Systemic Autoimmunity Branch, Mariana J. Kaplan, M.D., Chief.
Galbanum (Ferula gummosa) has an earthy aroma. It was used in ancient temple ritual incense anointing associated with springtime. Galbanum supports the immune, digestive, respiratory, circulatory, and other body systems. Sponsor ID 1069994
4 Ways to Holistically Harmonise and Boost the Immune System yogaposesfortwo.com/4-ways-to-holistically-harmonise-and-...
This human T cell (blue) is under attack by HIV (yellow), the virus that causes AIDS. The virus specifically targets T cells, which play a critical role in the body's immune response against invaders like bacteria and viruses.
Credit: Seth Pincus, Elizabeth Fischer and Austin Athman, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/NIH
Life Magnified: www.nigms.nih.gov/education/life-magnified/Pages/11B_hiv....
The Fountain of Putti is a monumental work in Carrara marble , located at the entrance to Piazza dei Miracoli and Via Santa Maria in Pisa .
It was built between 1746 and 1765 by Giuseppe Vaccà , who took care of the base, and by Giovanni Antonio Cybei , author of the marble group of putti holding the coats of arms of Pisa and the Opera del Duomo, based on a design by the painter Giovanni Battista Tempesti
The presence of a first fountain in the Piazza del Duomo, although simple and devoid of ornaments, has been attested since 1659. However, it was thanks to the Operaio dell'Opera Francesco Quarantotti , appointed in 1729, that the current structure was built , strategically moved a few meters compared to the position of the previous fountain and placed "on the corner of the paved road that goes to the church" , that is, in front of the exit of via Santa Maria into Piazza del Duomo. For the new monument, an aesthetic solution was chosen that could better harmonize with the classic appearance of the monuments in the square .
The first phase of construction of the fountain was entrusted to the Carrara sculptor Giuseppe Vaccà, who had participated together with his father Giovan Battista and his cousin in the furnishing of the Cathedral , a phase which ended in 1746 with the construction of a base decorated with cherubs and acanthus leaves. The pillar of the source was built in Avenza di Massa in the Vaccà workshop in just under a year, and despite the construction difficulties caused by the soft ground (which it was necessary to consolidate by driving 33 pine poles deep) , in September by 1746 the fountain could now be said to be completed . Its creation, as reported in the Memoria del Duomo by Filippo D'Angelo, was defined as "not magnifying but beautiful and gallant" .
In 1763 Anton Francesco Maria Quarantotti, who had succeeded his father in the service of the Opera del Duomo, agreed with Vaccà to complete the structure of the fountain with a sculptural group to be positioned above the marble base. Vaccà in all likelihood in this case only played the role of entrepreneur : the construction was in fact entrusted to Giovanni Antonio Cybei , who worked starting from a preparatory drawing by the painter Giovanni Battista Tempesti . From 1763, the work kept Cybei busy for about two years ; the sculptural group was transported to the city by sea and up the Arno a few days before Christmas 1765
Shortly after the completion of the work, the first critical assessments also emerged, which were directed in particular against the sculptural group of the three putti. The oldest written testimony of these negative judgments dates back to Filippo D'Angelo , who, in his Memoirs of the Cathedral and events of the city of Pisa in 1767 , defined the author as "a terrible statuary" .
In 1848, the Pisan sculptor Girolamo Marconi was the first to propose replacing the sculptural group with a statue of the city's patron saint, San Ranieri , also replacing the base with another, more sober one, bearing the city coat of arms [9] . However, probably due to lack of funds, the proposal was not followed up .
With the foundation in Pisa of the Association for the embellishments of the Piazza del Duomo (1862), born in the period of national unification, the hypothesis of replacing the group of three putti, judged to be of little value, with the statue of Buscheto , architect of the Cathedral . However, not even this time did the intent to restore a more austere appearance to the square lead to concrete results.
The opportunity for a new attempt to remove the group presented itself with the appointment of Archbishop Pietro Maffi in 1905. Maffi, who was an astronomer and had been appointed president of the Vatican Observatory in 1904 , proposed replacing the putti with a monument to Galileo Galilei . To reduce costs, he also suggested removing only the sculptural group, using the fountain below. The project, however, was harshly criticized when it was made public in 1906; on this occasion, for the first time, some defenders of the Fontana dei Putti intervened as a historical and symbolic element of the square. The determination of Maffi, who in the meantime had become cardinal, led him to a second attempt in 1922, when the Genoese sculptor Antonio Bozzano was entrusted with the task of creating a sketch for the work . Once again, however, the project was not successful: the survival of the Fontana dei Putti was probably guaranteed by the failure of Maffi to be elected to the papal throne in the Council of 1922 , which instead led to the election of Achille Ratti with the name of Pope Pius XI. This event marked the end of a century of replacement projects and allowed the three cherubs to maintain their role among the prominent monuments in the square.
The history of the attribution of the sculptural group of the three putti has been the subject of complex developments.
Despite the relevant testimony of Girolamo Tiraboschi , who already in 1786, in his biography dedicated to Cybei, mentioned among the artist's works the three putti in the Piazza del Duomo of Pisa , over time the name of the author of group was lost.
In 1873 Tiraboschi's words were also reported by the Marquis Giovanni Campori in his Biographical Memoirs of sculptors, architects, painters, etc. natives of the Province of Massa in 1873 , but despite this testimony for a long time the role of Cybei was ignored and the sculptures were attributed to Giuseppe Vaccà. The attribution to Vaccà also remained in the Pisa Guide by Bellini Pietri and in a 1931 essay by Giorgio Castelfranco entitled The Fountain of G. Vaccà in Piazza del Duomo in Pisa.
Subsequently, in 1990, Paolo Roberto Ciardi seemed to resolve the issue by publishing the contract stipulated in 1763 between the Worker Quarantotti and Giuseppe Vaccà, which recognized the latter as the author of the three putti. However, towards the end of the nineties, the discovery of an autograph by Cybei, in which the sculptor explicitly declared that he had created the group for the fountain, allowed the paternity of the work to be returned to him
The base created by Giuseppe Vaccà appears as a parallelepiped positioned vertically, characterized on two sides by acanthus leaves, which create a bulge in the lower part of the plinth, while, on the opposite sides, two volutes resting on a base support the basin for the 'waterfall.
In the areas of the squares of the fountain's pedestal the artist is inspired by the architectural formulas of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, proposing an architecture animated by two different themes: on two sides, a geometric ornamentation; on the other two, mythological figures in high relief. The artist also uses different techniques for the two pairs of panels: high relief for the figurative images and low relief for the more ornamental decoration .
In the squares of the parallelepiped, the artist creates a dialogue between art and nature , representing an acanthus leaf that invades the lower part of the base, a symbol widely used in architectural decorative resolutions. The artist here clearly refers to classical models [19] , loading them with allusive values: the acanthus leaf, a constant presence on capitals, ceiling and wall decorations, returns here to symbolize freshness and refreshment, themes that are well suited to the nature and function of the monument.
The considerable volume of acanthus leaves also has its own structural utility . It distributes the weight thrusts at the base of the parallelepiped towards the ground in a more uniform and less incidental way, avoiding the formation of cracks and ensuring better cohesion between the different parts. To confirm this, we observe the presence of two overturned shelves under the two basins, which also serve to balance the downward forces.
In the other two areas of the panels, however, the work is loaded with allegorical-symbolic values through one of the most traditional figures of mythological language: the Triton who fights with the sea monster. The extremely popular theme, however, seems to refer in particular to a preparatory drawing by Marco da Faenza for the grotesques of the Triton in combat, preserved at the superintendence for artistic and historical heritage of Florence .
The young Tritons, represented in a mirrored manner in the mirrors of the base, have the aim of enhancing the wonder of the sea. One, by blowing the conch, seems to attract the attention of the other intent on fighting, immortalized in the gesture of throwing a stone at the monster subjected to him, in a playful and carefree atmosphere. The volumes of the figures burst into space, projecting to the maximum, with a powerful modeling that goes beyond the limits of high relief.
The sculptural group created between 1763 and 1765 by Antonio Cybei is located above the base and depicts three colossal putti, also in white Carrara marble , holding the coats of arms of Pisa and the Opera del Duomo .
In his reworking of the work, Cybei did not modify the poses of the three putti compared to the original sketch proposed by Tempesti, but inverted the central putto counterclockwise, creating a composition capable of further highlighting the dynamism of the figures.
The spiral arrangement of the figures had the aim of lightening the base and, at the same time, creating the optical illusion of an ascending movement, as if the direction given to the movement was not directed downwards, but was going towards the sky . The different compositional arrangement between Tempesti's sketch and Cybei's work highlights a different intent. In Tempesti's sketch, which is arranged clockwise, the shield seems to move downwards, as if it descended directly from the sky into the arms of the children . On the contrary, in the layout given by Cybei the figures are positioned counterclockwise, with the statues appearing to raise the shield upwards, in a gesture "of thanksgiving and consecration of the Pisan people to God".
In this sense, the execution of Tempesti's modeling still has a baroque character, in which the composition rotates around a central axis, and the distribution of weights moves in a spiral that converges downwards. On the contrary, the change made by Cybei, with the anti-clockwise movement of the figures, seems to mark, according to Mario Noferi, the transition from baroque to rococo . In fact, the revision, which proposed an ascending dynamism in the form of a spiral, seems to lighten the weight of the compositions that characterizes baroque works while maintaining the basic principles of representation intact, in line with one of the main objectives of the Rococo. In summary, the reworking of Cybei made the work more modern compared to Tempesti's sketch, which still reflected the influence of the Roman school .
Another notable characteristic of the Putti group is certainly the plastic treatment of the volumes, capable of expressing the sensation of the softness of the flesh. The skilful use of chiaroscuro also contributes to this rendering, which gives the sculpture an almost pictorial character, to the point of pushing Mario Noferi to believe that "the sculptor, with intention, wanted to leave traces of the original design idea taken from the drawing of a painter". Evidence of these plastic abilities would also be, according to the scholar, the careful reproduction of an atmospheric phenomenon: the disheveled hair of the children, in fact, seems to be agitated by the wind, a re-enactment of a natural phenomenon that contributes to the overall movement of the work
From a symbolic point of view, the presence of water refers to the concept of purification, historically also referring to the dawn of Christianity, when fountains were placed in the atrium of Christian basilicas to introduce the sacred space. In the same way it would then be possible, according to Mario Noferi, to consider the monumental fountain as a spiritual entrance to the square, at the convergence of all the city streets that lead to the Cathedral.
Furthermore, according to the scholar, the iconic buildings of the square symbolize the essential phases of human life in relation to faith: birth represented by the baptistery, life symbolized by the cathedral and death evoked by the cemetery. Similarly, the three lively children who adorn the top of the Fountain represent a specific phase of human existence, recalling the short period of childhood characterized by energy and recklessness in games
The introduction of postal cards is believed to have contributed to the revaluation of the fountain in the 19th century . Initially, in fact, the classic view of the square included only the Baptistery, the Cathedral and the famous Leaning Tower. However, as time passed, the fountain was included in other images taken from different angles, acquiring a significant role among other major monuments and arousing the interest of both postcard buyers and the recipients themselves .
This process gradually led the fountain to establish itself in the collective imagination as an essential element of the urban panorama of the Piazza dei Miracoli. However, it is with the advent of mobile devices and new technologies that the fountain has taken on an even more relevant role. Today, thanks to the ease with which it is possible to take photographs and videos, the fountain is included in many images of the square, deliberately chosen to offer added value to the image itself and enhance the other monuments present.
Furthermore, a notable aspect is that from the perspective located at the intersection between Piazza dei Miracoli and Via Santa Maria, it is possible to appreciate in a single glance all three faces of the children who, with their different contortions, support the coat of arms of the city of Pisa .
Ultimately, the fountain on the Piazza dei Miracoli has undergone a process of revaluation over the years, becoming a fundamental element of the urban landscape. Thanks to social media, its presence is increasingly constantly documented, while the peculiar detail of the cherubs holding up the coat of arms of Pisa contributes to increasing the curiosity and attention of visitors
The Fountain of Putti also appears in the theme song of the fourth animated season of " Lupine III - The Italian Adventure ", a derivative of the manga by the Japanese cartoonist Monkey Punch and broadcast in 2015 .
The series, made up of twenty-six episodes, is entirely set in Italy and the opening theme features several important Italian tourist places (such as Rome, the canals of Venice, San Marino, Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence). Among these, a significant shot is reserved for the Leaning Tower of Pisa, with the Fountain of the Putti placed right in the foreground.
Pisa is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the city contains more than twenty other historic churches, several medieval palaces, and bridges across the Arno. Much of the city's architecture was financed from its history as one of the Italian maritime republics.
The city is also home to the University of Pisa, which has a history going back to the 12th century, the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, founded by Napoleon in 1810, and its offshoot, the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies.
History
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Pisa.
Ancient times
The most believed hypothesis is that the origin of the name Pisa comes from Etruscan and means 'mouth', as Pisa is at the mouth of the Arno river.
Although throughout history there have been several uncertainties about the origin of the city of Pisa, excavations made in the 1980s and 1990s found numerous archaeological remains, including the fifth century BC tomb of an Etruscan prince, proving the Etruscan origin of the city, and its role as a maritime city, showing that it also maintained trade relations with other Mediterranean civilizations.
Ancient Roman authors referred to Pisa as an old city. Virgil, in his Aeneid, states that Pisa was already a great center by the times described; and gives the epithet of Alphēae to the city because it was said to have been founded by colonists from Pisa in Elis, near which the Alpheius river flowed. The Virgilian commentator Servius wrote that the Teuti founded the town 13 centuries before the start of the common era.
The maritime role of Pisa should have been already prominent if the ancient authorities ascribed to it the invention of the naval ram. Pisa took advantage of being the only port along the western coast between Genoa (then a small village) and Ostia. Pisa served as a base for Roman naval expeditions against Ligurians and Gauls. In 180 BC, it became a Roman colony under Roman law, as Portus Pisanus. In 89 BC, Portus Pisanus became a municipium. Emperor Augustus fortified the colony into an important port and changed the name to Colonia Iulia obsequens.
Pisa supposedly was founded on the shore, but due to the alluvial sediments from the Arno and the Serchio, whose mouth lies about 11 km (7 mi) north of the Arno's, the shore moved west. Strabo states that the city was 4.0 km (2.5 mi) away from the coast. Currently, it is located 9.7 km (6 mi) from the coast. However, it was a maritime city, with ships sailing up the Arno. In the 90s AD, a baths complex was built in the city.
Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
During the last years of the Western Roman Empire, Pisa did not decline as much as the other cities of Italy, probably due to the complexity of its river system and its consequent ease of defence. In the seventh century, Pisa helped Pope Gregory I by supplying numerous ships in his military expedition against the Byzantines of Ravenna: Pisa was the sole Byzantine centre of Tuscia to fall peacefully in Lombard hands, through assimilation with the neighbouring region where their trading interests were prevalent. Pisa began in this way its rise to the role of main port of the Upper Tyrrhenian Sea and became the main trading centre between Tuscany and Corsica, Sardinia, and the southern coasts of France and Spain.
After Charlemagne had defeated the Lombards under the command of Desiderius in 774, Pisa went through a crisis, but soon recovered. Politically, it became part of the duchy of Lucca. In 860, Pisa was captured by vikings led by Björn Ironside. In 930, Pisa became the county centre (status it maintained until the arrival of Otto I) within the mark of Tuscia. Lucca was the capital but Pisa was the most important city, as in the middle of tenth century Liutprand of Cremona, bishop of Cremona, called Pisa Tusciae provinciae caput ("capital of the province of Tuscia"), and a century later, the marquis of Tuscia was commonly referred to as "marquis of Pisa". In 1003, Pisa was the protagonist of the first communal war in Italy, against Lucca. From the naval point of view, since the ninth century, the emergence of the Saracen pirates urged the city to expand its fleet; in the following years, this fleet gave the town an opportunity for more expansion. In 828, Pisan ships assaulted the coast of North Africa. In 871, they took part in the defence of Salerno from the Saracens. In 970, they gave also strong support to Otto I's expedition, defeating a Byzantine fleet in front of Calabrese coasts.
11th century
The power of Pisa as a maritime nation began to grow and reached its apex in the 11th century, when it acquired traditional fame as one of the four main historical maritime republics of Italy (Repubbliche Marinare).
At that time, the city was a very important commercial centre and controlled a significant Mediterranean merchant fleet and navy. It expanded its powers in 1005 through the sack of Reggio Calabria in the south of Italy. Pisa was in continuous conflict with some 'Saracens' - a medieval term to refer to Arab Muslims - who had their bases in Corsica, for control of the Mediterranean. In 1017, Sardinian Giudicati were militarily supported by Pisa, in alliance with Genoa, to defeat the Saracen King Mugahid, who had settled a logistic base in the north of Sardinia the year before. This victory gave Pisa supremacy in the Tyrrhenian Sea. When the Pisans subsequently ousted the Genoese from Sardinia, a new conflict and rivalry was born between these major marine republics. Between 1030 and 1035, Pisa went on to defeat several rival towns in Sicily and conquer Carthage in North Africa. In 1051–1052, the admiral Jacopo Ciurini conquered Corsica, provoking more resentment from the Genoese. In 1063, Admiral Giovanni Orlandi, coming to the aid of the Norman Roger I, took Palermo from the Saracen pirates. The gold treasure taken from the Saracens in Palermo allowed the Pisans to start the building of their cathedral and the other monuments which constitute the famous Piazza del Duomo.
In 1060, Pisa had to engage in their first battle with Genoa. The Pisan victory helped to consolidate its position in the Mediterranean. Pope Gregory VII recognised in 1077 the new "Laws and customs of the sea" instituted by the Pisans, and emperor Henry IV granted them the right to name their own consuls, advised by a council of elders. This was simply a confirmation of the present situation, because in those years, the marquis had already been excluded from power. In 1092, Pope Urban II awarded Pisa the supremacy over Corsica and Sardinia, and at the same time raising the town to the rank of archbishopric.
Pisa sacked the Tunisian city of Mahdia in 1088. Four years later, Pisan and Genoese ships helped Alfonso VI of Castilla to push El Cid out of Valencia. A Pisan fleet of 120 ships also took part in the First Crusade, and the Pisans were instrumental in the taking of Jerusalem in 1099. On their way to the Holy Land, the ships did not miss the occasion to sack some Byzantine islands; the Pisan crusaders were led by their archbishop Daibert, the future patriarch of Jerusalem. Pisa and the other Repubbliche Marinare took advantage of the crusade to establish trading posts and colonies in the Eastern coastal cities of the Levant. In particular, the Pisans founded colonies in Antiochia, Acre, Jaffa, Tripoli, Tyre, Latakia, and Accone. They also had other possessions in Jerusalem and Caesarea, plus smaller colonies (with lesser autonomy) in Cairo, Alexandria, and of course Constantinople, where the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus granted them special mooring and trading rights. In all these cities, the Pisans were granted privileges and immunity from taxation, but had to contribute to the defence in case of attack. In the 12th century, the Pisan quarter in the eastern part of Constantinople had grown to 1,000 people. For some years of that century, Pisa was the most prominent commercial and military ally of the Byzantine Empire, overcoming Venice itself.
12th century
In 1113, Pisa and Pope Paschal II set up, together with the count of Barcelona and other contingents from Provence and Italy (Genoese excluded), a war to free the Balearic Islands from the Moors; the queen and the king of Majorca were brought in chains to Tuscany. Though the Almoravides soon reconquered the island, the booty taken helped the Pisans in their magnificent programme of buildings, especially the cathedral, and Pisa gained a role of pre-eminence in the Western Mediterranean.
In the following years, the powerful Pisan fleet, led by archbishop Pietro Moriconi, drove away the Saracens after ferocious battles. Though short-lived, this Pisan success in Spain increased the rivalry with Genoa. Pisa's trade with Languedoc, Provence (Noli, Savona, Fréjus, and Montpellier) were an obstacle to Genoese interests in cities such as Hyères, Fos, Antibes, and Marseille.
The war began in 1119 when the Genoese attacked several galleys on their way home to the motherland, and lasted until 1133. The two cities fought each other on land and at sea, but hostilities were limited to raids and pirate-like assaults.
In June 1135, Bernard of Clairvaux took a leading part in the Council of Pisa, asserting the claims of Pope Innocent II against those of Pope Anacletus II, who had been elected pope in 1130 with Norman support, but was not recognised outside Rome. Innocent II resolved the conflict with Genoa, establishing Pisan and Genoese spheres of influence. Pisa could then, unhindered by Genoa, participate in the conflict of Innocent II against king Roger II of Sicily. Amalfi, one of the maritime republics (though already declining under Norman rule), was conquered on August 6, 1136; the Pisans destroyed the ships in the port, assaulted the castles in the surrounding areas, and drove back an army sent by Roger from Aversa. This victory brought Pisa to the peak of its power and to a standing equal to Venice. Two years later, its soldiers sacked Salerno.
New city walls, erected in 1156 by Consul Cocco Griffi
In the following years, Pisa was one of the staunchest supporters of the Ghibelline party. This was much appreciated by Frederick I. He issued in 1162 and 1165 two important documents, with these grants: Apart from the jurisdiction over the Pisan countryside, the Pisans were granted freedom of trade in the whole empire, the coast from Civitavecchia to Portovenere, a half of Palermo, Messina, Salerno and Naples, the whole of Gaeta, Mazara, and Trapani, and a street with houses for its merchants in every city of the Kingdom of Sicily. Some of these grants were later confirmed by Henry VI, Otto IV, and Frederick II. They marked the apex of Pisa's power, but also spurred the resentment of other cities such as Lucca, Massa, Volterra, and Florence, thwarting their aim to expand towards the sea. The clash with Lucca also concerned the possession of the castle of Montignoso and mainly the control of the Via Francigena, the main trade route between Rome and France. Last, but not least, such a sudden and large increase of power by Pisa could only lead to another war with Genoa.
Genoa had acquired a dominant position in the markets of southern France. The war began in 1165 on the Rhône, when an attack on a convoy, directed to some Pisan trade centres on the river, by the Genoese and their ally, the count of Toulouse, failed. Pisa, though, was allied to Provence. The war continued until 1175 without significant victories. Another point of attrition was Sicily, where both the cities had privileges granted by Henry VI. In 1192, Pisa managed to conquer Messina. This episode was followed by a series of battles culminating in the Genoese conquest of Syracuse in 1204. Later, the trading posts in Sicily were lost when the new Pope Innocent III, though removing the excommunication cast over Pisa by his predecessor Celestine III, allied himself with the Guelph League of Tuscany, led by Florence. Soon, he stipulated[clarification needed] a pact with Genoa, too, further weakening the Pisan presence in southern Italy.
To counter the Genoese predominance in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, Pisa strengthened its relationship with its traditional Spanish and French bases (Marseille, Narbonne, Barcelona, etc.) and tried to defy the Venetian rule of the Adriatic Sea. In 1180, the two cities agreed to a nonaggression treaty in the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic, but the death of Emperor Manuel Comnenus in Constantinople changed the situation. Soon, attacks on Venetian convoys were made. Pisa signed trade and political pacts with Ancona, Pula, Zara, Split, and Brindisi; in 1195, a Pisan fleet reached Pola to defend its independence from Venice, but the Serenissima soon reconquered the rebel sea town.
One year later, the two cities signed a peace treaty, which resulted in favourable conditions for Pisa, but in 1199, the Pisans violated it by blockading the port of Brindisi in Apulia. In the following naval battle, they were defeated by the Venetians. The war that followed ended in 1206 with a treaty in which Pisa gave up all its hopes to expand in the Adriatic, though it maintained the trading posts it had established in the area. From that point on, the two cities were united against the rising power of Genoa and sometimes collaborated to increase the trading benefits in Constantinople.
13th century
In 1209 in Lerici, two councils for a final resolution of the rivalry with Genoa were held. A 20-year peace treaty was signed, but when in 1220, the emperor Frederick II confirmed his supremacy over the Tyrrhenian coast from Civitavecchia to Portovenere, the Genoese and Tuscan resentment against Pisa grew again. In the following years, Pisa clashed with Lucca in Garfagnana and was defeated by the Florentines at Castel del Bosco. The strong Ghibelline position of Pisa brought this town diametrically against the Pope, who was in a dispute with the Holy Roman Empire, and indeed the pope tried to deprive Pisa of its dominions in northern Sardinia.
In 1238, Pope Gregory IX formed an alliance between Genoa and Venice against the empire, and consequently against Pisa, too. One year later, he excommunicated Frederick II and called for an anti-Empire council to be held in Rome in 1241. On May 3, 1241, a combined fleet of Pisan and Sicilian ships, led by the emperor's son Enzo, attacked a Genoese convoy carrying prelates from northern Italy and France, next to the isle of Giglio (Battle of Giglio), in front of Tuscany; the Genoese lost 25 ships, while about a thousand sailors, two cardinals, and one bishop were taken prisoner. After this major victory, the council in Rome failed, but Pisa was excommunicated. This extreme measure was only removed in 1257. Anyway, the Tuscan city tried to take advantage of the favourable situation to conquer the Corsican city of Aleria and even lay siege to Genoa itself in 1243.
The Ligurian republic of Genoa, however, recovered fast from this blow and won back Lerici, conquered by the Pisans some years earlier, in 1256.
The great expansion in the Mediterranean and the prominence of the merchant class urged a modification in the city's institutes. The system with consuls was abandoned, and in 1230, the new city rulers named a capitano del popolo ("people's chieftain") as civil and military leader. Despite these reforms, the conquered lands and the city itself were harassed by the rivalry between the two families of Della Gherardesca and Visconti. In 1237 the archbishop and the Emperor Frederick II intervened to reconcile the two rivals, but the strains continued. In 1254, the people rebelled and imposed 12 Anziani del Popolo ("People's Elders") as their political representatives in the commune. They also supplemented the legislative councils, formed of noblemen, with new People's Councils, composed by the main guilds and by the chiefs of the People's Companies. These had the power to ratify the laws of the Major General Council and the Senate.
Decline
The decline is said to have begun on August 6, 1284, when the numerically superior fleet of Pisa, under the command of Albertino Morosini, was defeated by the brilliant tactics of the Genoese fleet, under the command of Benedetto Zaccaria and Oberto Doria, in the dramatic naval Battle of Meloria. This defeat ended the maritime power of Pisa and the town never fully recovered; in 1290, the Genoese destroyed forever the Porto Pisano (Pisa's port), and covered the land with salt. The region around Pisa did not permit the city to recover from the loss of thousands of sailors from the Meloria, while Liguria guaranteed enough sailors to Genoa. Goods, however, continued to be traded, albeit in reduced quantity, but the end came when the Arno started to change course, preventing the galleys from reaching the city's port up the river. The nearby area also likely became infested with malaria. The true end came in 1324, when Sardinia was entirely lost to the Aragonese.
Always Ghibelline, Pisa tried to build up its power in the course of the 14th century, and even managed to defeat Florence in the Battle of Montecatini (1315), under the command of Uguccione della Faggiuola. Eventually, however, after a long siege, Pisa was occupied by Florentines in 1405.[9] Florentines corrupted the capitano del popolo ("people's chieftain"), Giovanni Gambacorta, who at night opened the city gate of San Marco. Pisa was never conquered by an army. In 1409, Pisa was the seat of a council trying to set the question of the Great Schism. In the 15th century, access to the sea became more difficult, as the port was silting up and was cut off from the sea. When in 1494, Charles VIII of France invaded the Italian states to claim the Kingdom of Naples, Pisa reclaimed its independence as the Second Pisan Republic.
The new freedom did not last long; 15 years of battles and sieges by the Florentine troops led by Antonio da Filicaja, Averardo Salviati and Niccolò Capponi were made, but they failed to conquer the city. Vitellozzo Vitelli with his brother Paolo were the only ones who actually managed to break the strong defences of Pisa and make a breach in the Stampace bastion in the southern west part of the walls, but he did not enter the city. For that, they were suspected of treachery and Paolo was put to death. However, the resources of Pisa were getting low, and at the end, the city was sold to the Visconti family from Milan and eventually to Florence again. Livorno took over the role of the main port of Tuscany. Pisa acquired a mainly cultural role spurred by the presence of the University of Pisa, created in 1343, and later reinforced by the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (1810) and Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies (1987).
Pisa was the birthplace of the important early physicist Galileo Galilei. It is still the seat of an archbishopric. Besides its educational institutions, it has become a light industrial centre and a railway hub. It suffered repeated destruction during World War II.
Since the early 1950s, the US Army has maintained Camp Darby just outside Pisa, which is used by many US military personnel as a base for vacations in the area.
Geography
Climate
Pisa has a borderline humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfa) and Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa). The city is characterized by cool to mild winters and hot summers. This transitional climate allows Pisa to have summers with moderate rainfall. Rainfall peaks in autumn. Snow is rare. The highest officially recorded temperature was 39.5 °C (103.1 °F) on 22 August 2011 and the lowest was −13.8 °C (7.2 °F) on 12 January 1985.
Culture
Gioco del Ponte
In Pisa there was a festival and game fr:Gioco del Ponte (Game of the Bridge) which was celebrated (in some form) in Pisa from perhaps the 1200s down to 1807. From the end of the 1400s the game took the form of a mock battle fought upon Pisa's central bridge (Ponte di Mezzo). The participants wore quilted armor and the only offensive weapon allowed was the targone, a shield-shaped, stout board with precisely specified dimensions. Hitting below the belt was not allowed. Two opposing teams started at opposite ends of the bridge. The object of the two opposing teams was to penetrate, drive back, and disperse the opponents' ranks and to thereby drive them backwards off the bridge. The struggle was limited to forty-five minutes. Victory or defeat was immensely important to the team players and their partisans, but sometimes the game was fought to a draw and both sides celebrated.
In 1677 the battle was witnessed by Dutch travelling artist Cornelis de Bruijn. He wrote:
"While I stayed in Livorno, I went to Pisa to witness the bridge fight there. The fighters arrived fully armored, wearing helmets, each carrying their banner, which was planted at both ends of the bridge, which is quite wide and long. The battle is fought with certain wooden implements made for this purpose, which they wear over their arms and are attached to them, with which they pummel each other so intensely that I saw several of them carried away with bloody and crushed heads. Victory consists of capturing the bridge, in the same way as the fistfights in Venice between the it:Castellani and the Nicolotti."
In 1927 the tradition was revived by college students as an elaborate costume parade. In 1935 Vittorio Emanuele III with the royal family witnessed the first revival of a modern version of the game, which has been pursued in the 20th and 21st centuries with some interruptions and varying degrees of enthusiasm by Pisans and their civic institutions.
Festivals and cultural events
Capodanno pisano (folklore, March 25)
Gioco del Ponte (folklore)
Luminara di San Ranieri (folklore, June 16)
Maritime republics regata (folklore)
Premio Nazionale Letterario Pisa
Pisa Book Festival
Metarock (rock music festival)
Internet Festival San Ranieri regata (folklore)
Turn Off Festival (house music festival)
Nessiáh (Jewish cultural Festival, November)
Main sights
The Leaning Tower of Pisa.
While the bell tower of the cathedral, known as "the leaning Tower of Pisa", is the most famous image of the city, it is one of many works of art and architecture in the city's Piazza del Duomo, also known, since the 20th century, as Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles), to the north of the old town center. The Piazza del Duomo also houses the Duomo (the Cathedral), the Baptistry and the Campo Santo (the monumental cemetery). The medieval complex includes the above-mentioned four sacred buildings, the hospital and few palaces. All the complex is kept by the Opera (fabrica ecclesiae) della Primaziale Pisana, an old non profit foundation that has operated since the building of the Cathedral in 1063 to maintain the sacred buildings. The area is framed by medieval walls kept by the municipal administration.
Other sights include:
Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri, church sited on Piazza dei Cavalieri, and also designed by Vasari. It had originally a single nave; two more were added in the 17th century. It houses a bust by Donatello, and paintings by Vasari, Jacopo Ligozzi, Alessandro Fei, and Pontormo. It also contains spoils from the many naval battles between the Cavalieri (Knights of St. Stephan) and the Turks between the 16th and 18th centuries, including the Turkish battle pennant hoisted from Ali Pacha's flagship at the 1571 Battle of Lepanto.
St. Sixtus. This small church, consecrated in 1133, is also close to the Piazza dei Cavalieri. It was used as a seat of the most important notarial deeds of the town, also hosting the Council of Elders. It is today one of the best preserved early Romanesque buildings in town.
St. Francis. The church of San Francesco may have been designed by Giovanni di Simone, built after 1276. In 1343 new chapels were added and the church was elevated. It has a single nave and a notable belfry, as well as a 15th-century cloister. It houses works by Jacopo da Empoli, Taddeo Gaddi and Santi di Tito. In the Gherardesca Chapel are buried Ugolino della Gherardesca and his sons.
San Frediano. This church, built by 1061, has a basilica interior with three aisles, with a crucifix from the 12th century. Paintings from the 16th century were added during a restoration, including works by Ventura Salimbeni, Domenico Passignano, Aurelio Lomi, and Rutilio Manetti.
San Nicola. This medieval church built by 1097, was enlarged between 1297 and 1313 by the Augustinians, perhaps by the design of Giovanni Pisano. The octagonal belfry is from the second half of the 13th century. The paintings include the Madonna with Child by Francesco Traini (14th century) and St. Nicholas Saving Pisa from the Plague (15th century). Noteworthy are also the wood sculptures by Giovanni and Nino Pisano, and the Annunciation by Francesco di Valdambrino.
Santa Maria della Spina. A small white marble church alongside the Arno, is attributed to Lupo di Francesco (1230), is another excellent Gothic building.
San Paolo a Ripa d'Arno. The church was founded around 952 and enlarged in the mid-12th century along lines similar to those of the cathedral. It is annexed to the Romanesque Chapel of St. Agatha, with an unusual pyramidal cusp or peak.
San Pietro in Vinculis. Known as San Pierino, it is an 11th-century church with a crypt and a cosmatesque mosaic on the floor of the main nave.
Borgo Stretto. This medieval borgo or neighborhood contains strolling arcades and the Lungarno, the avenues along the river Arno. It includes the Gothic-Romanesque church of San Michele in Borgo (990). There are at least two other leaning towers in the city, one at the southern end of central Via Santa Maria, the other halfway through the Piagge riverside promenade.
Medici Palace. The palace was once a possession of the Appiano family, who ruled Pisa in 1392–1398. In 1400 the Medici acquired it, and Lorenzo de' Medici sojourned here.
Orto botanico di Pisa. The botanical garden of the University of Pisa is Europe's oldest university botanical garden.
Palazzo Reale. The ("Royal Palace"), once belonged to the Caetani patrician family. Here Galileo Galilei showed to Grand Duke of Tuscany the planets he had discovered with his telescope. The edifice was erected in 1559 by Baccio Bandinelli for Cosimo I de Medici, and was later enlarged including other palaces. The palace is now a museum.
Palazzo Gambacorti. This palace is a 14th-century Gothic building, and now houses the offices of the municipality. The interior shows frescoes boasting Pisa's sea victories.
Palazzo Agostini. The palace is a Gothic building also known as Palazzo dell'Ussero, with its 15th-century façade and remains of the ancient city walls dating back to before 1155. The name of the building comes from the coffee rooms of Caffè dell'Ussero, historic meeting place founded on September 1, 1775.
Mural Tuttomondo. A modern mural, the last public work by Keith Haring, on the rear wall of the convent of the Church of Sant'Antonio, painted in June 1989.
Museums
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo: exhibiting among others the original sculptures of Nicola Pisano and Giovanni Pisano, the Islamic Pisa Griffin, and the treasures of the cathedral.
Museo delle Sinopie: showing the sinopias from the camposanto, the monumental cemetery. These are red ocher underdrawings for frescoes, made with reddish, greenish or brownish earth colour with water.
Museo Nazionale di San Matteo: exhibiting sculptures and paintings from the 12th to 15th centuries, among them the masterworks of Giovanni and Andrea Pisano, the Master of San Martino, Simone Martini, Nino Pisano and Masaccio.
Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Reale: exhibiting the belongings of the families that lived in the palace: paintings, statues, armors, etc.
Museo Nazionale degli Strumenti per il Calcolo: exhibiting a collection of instruments used in science, between a pneumatic machine of Van Musschenbroek and a compass which probably belonged to Galileo Galilei.
Museo di storia naturale dell'Università di Pisa (Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa), located in the Certosa di Calci, outside the city. It houses one of the largest cetacean skeletons collection in Europe.
Palazzo Blu: temporary exhibitions and cultural activities center, located in the Lungarno, in the heart of the old town, the palace is easy recognizable because it is the only blue building.
Cantiere delle Navi di Pisa - The Pisa's Ancient Ships Archaeological Area: A museum of 10,650 square meters – 3,500 archaeological excavation, 1,700 laboratories and one restoration center – that visitors can visit with a guided tour.[19] The Museum opened in June 2019 and has been located inside to the 16th-century Medicean Arsenals in Lungarno Ranieri Simonelli, restored under the supervision of the Tuscany Soprintendenza. It hosts a remarkable collection of ceramics and amphoras dated back from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century BC, and also 32 ships dated back from the second century BCE and the seventh century BC. Four of them are integrally preserved and the best one is the so-called Barca C, also named Alkedo (written in the ancient Greek characters). The first boat was accidentally discovered in 1998 near the Pisa San Rossore railway station and the archeological excavations were completed 20 years later.
Churches
St. Francis' Church
San Francesco
San Frediano
San Giorgio ai Tedeschi
San Michele in Borgo
San Nicola
San Paolo a Ripa d'Arno
San Paolo all'Orto
San Piero a Grado
San Pietro in Vinculis
San Sisto
San Tommaso delle Convertite
San Zeno
Santa Caterina
Santa Cristina
Santa Maria della Spina
Santo Sepolcro
Palaces, towers and villas
Palazzo della Carovana or dei Cavalieri.
Pisa by Oldypak lp photo
Pisa
Palazzo del Collegio Puteano
Palazzo della Carovana
Palazzo delle Vedove
Torre dei Gualandi
Villa di Corliano
Leaning Tower of Pisa
Sports
Football is the main sport in Pisa; the local team, A.C. Pisa, currently plays in the Serie B (the second highest football division in Italy), and has had a top flight history throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, featuring several world-class players such as Diego Simeone, Christian Vieri and Dunga during this time. The club play at the Arena Garibaldi – Stadio Romeo Anconetani, opened in 1919 and with a capacity of 25,000.
Notable people
For people born in Pisa, see People from the Province of Pisa; among notable non-natives long resident in the city:
Giuliano Amato (born 1938), politician, former Premier and Minister of Interior Affairs
Alessandro d'Ancona (1835–1914), critic and writer.
Silvano Arieti (1914–1981), psychiatrist
Gaetano Bardini (1926–2017), tenor
Andrea Bocelli (born 1958), tenor and multi-instrumentalist.
Giosuè Carducci (1835–1907), poet and 1906 Nobel Prize in Literature winner.
Massimo Carmassi (born 1943), architect
Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (1920–2016), politician, former President of the Republic of Italy
Maria Luisa Cicci (1760–1794), poet
Giovanni Carlo Maria Clari (1677–1754), a musical composer and maestro di cappella at Pistoia.
Alessio Corti (born 1965), mathematician
Rustichello da Pisa (born 13th century), writer
Giovanni Battista Donati (1826–1873), an Italian astronomer.
Leonardo Fibonacci (1170–1250), mathematician.
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), physicist.
Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944), philosopher and politician
Orazio Gentileschi (1563–1639), painter.
Count Ugolino della Gherardesca (1214–1289), noble (see also Dante Alighieri).
Giovanni Gronchi (1887–1978), politician, former President of the Republic of Italy
Giacomo Leopardi [1798–1837), poet and philosopher.
Enrico Letta (born 1966), politician, former Prime Minister of Italy
Marco Malvaldi (born 1974), mystery novelist
Leonardo Ortolani (born 1967), comic writer
Antonio Pacinotti (1841–1912), physicist, inventor of the dynamo
Andrea Pisano (1290–1348), a sculptor and architect.
Afro Poli (1902–1988), an operatic baritone
Bruno Pontecorvo (1913–1993), nuclear physicist
Gillo Pontecorvo (1919–2006), filmmaker
Ippolito Rosellini (1800–1843), an Egyptologist.
Paolo Savi (1798–1871), geologist and ornithologist.
Antonio Tabucchi (1943–2012), writer and academic
Sport
Jason Acuña (born 1973), Stunt performer
Sergio Bertoni (1915–1995), footballer
Giorgio Chiellini (born 1984), footballer
Camila Giorgi (born 1991), tennis player
I just completed a project with Craig Ward for the new Jon Hopkins album "Immunity" www.dominorecordco.us/usa/news/06-03-13/jon-hopkins-annou.... I created all of the stills for the time lapse teaser video and album cover, all 10,000 of them!!
Σημε-ιολογικόν Επίκαιρον (ΙΙ)
Η Ανο(η)σία της Αγέλης,
ο Ιός
(Ύβρις τε και Νέμεσις)
ο Υιός του Aνθρώπου
(μεσσίας και φαντασιακός λυτρωτής)
και η Πανδημία ως Δήμιος ...
> H Γενοκτονική Νομοτέλεια του Υπερπληθυσμού
===========================================================
IN ENGLISH
The image and the text above contain two COVID19-pandemic related wordplays of Homophonic Greek words. See below the full rendering in English of the Greek texts as well as the translation of the relative key-words.
===========================================================
Timely Semantics in the
Times of Globalization,
with Corona Virus
as Omen.
(the) Present (is) Dark
(the) Future (to be) Worse.
(viral) Infection
and Arrogance
without Healing.
Virus
and Nonsense,
of the Herd
with No Immunity.
Nonsense
and Instinct,
as (the) Rights
(to act) at Random (without logic)
Debacle
of Logic and Measure,
(the) Supreme Hubris ...
hence,
the Nemesis,
the Pandemic,
the Bane ....
===========================================================
Timely Semantics (II)
Divine Passions
(ref to Holly Week)
The Nonsense of the Herd
the Virus
(as Nemesis)
(as messiah and imaginary savior)
and the Pandemic as Executioner ...
===========================================================
Key Words
Ιός = Virus
Ιολογικόν = Viral
'Iωση = Viral Infection
Οίηση = Arrogance
Παγκοσμιοποίηση = Globalization
Υιός = Son
Κορωνοϊός = Corona Virus
Oιωνός = Omen
Ανοσία = Immunity
Ανοησία = Nonsense
Λόγος = Logic (in archaic Greek)
Μέτρον = Measure or Limit (in archaic Greek)
Ύβρις = Hubris
Νέμεσις = Nemesis
Πανδημία = Pandemic
Δήμιος = Executioner
In speaking with the nice guard outside today, he says Amgen is a laid-back place to work and the noise levels are typical for a warehouse. It is a large shipping warehouse for cancer treatment drugs. They recently expanded.
12000 Plantside Dr, Louisville, KY 40299
********
From Wikipedia - a little history:
The company has made at least five major corporate acquisitions.
Timeline
1980. William Bowes from Cetus Corporation recruits Winston Salser from UCLA to start Amgen with a scientific advisory board consisting of Normam Davidson, Leroy Hood, Arnold Berk, John Carbon, Robert Schimke, Arno Motulsky, Marvin H. Caruthers, and Dave Gibson.[7]
1989. Amgen received approval for the first recombinant human erythropoetin product, Epogen, for the treatment of anemia associated with chronic kidney failure. Epogen (also marketed by Johnson and Johnson under the tradename Procrit) would later be approved for anemia due to cancer chemotherapy, anemia due to treatment with certain HIV drugs, and for the reduction of the need for transfusions associated with surgery.[8]
1991. In February 1991, Amgen received FDA approval for Neupogen for the prevention of infections in patients whose immune systems are suppressed due to cancer chemotherapy.[9] A 2002 meta-analysis found that Neupogen treatment reduced the risk of febrile neutropenia by 38%, reduced the risk of documented infection by 49%, and reduced the risk of infection-related mortality by 40%.[10]
1998. In November 1998, Immunex, a future acquisition of Amgen, received approval for Enbrel (etanercept), the first rheumatoid arthritis drug targeting tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha).[8] A 2006 assessment by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence of the United Kingdom concluded that etanercept and related rheumatoid arthritis drugs later introduced by competitors "are effective treatments compared with placebo for RA patients who are not well controlled by conventional DMARDs, improving control of symptoms, improving physical function, and slowing radiographic changes in joints."[11] A more recent study demonstrated that compared to traditional disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, treatment with etanercept improved survival, reduced cardiovascular events and reduced the incidence of hematological cancers.[12]
2010. On June 6, 2010 Amgen received FDA approval for Prolia, a protein drug for the treatment of post-menopausal osteoporosis.[13] In clinical trials, Prolia reduced the rate of vertebral fractures by 61% and the risk of hip fractures by 40%.[14]
2010 In November 2010 the FDA approved Xgeva for the prevention of complications of bone metastases in patients with solid tumors.[15] The clinical trials primarily enrolled patients with breast or prostate cancer.
2012. Illegal marketing practices. The Los Angeles Times reported on December 18, 2012, that AMGEN pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $150 million in criminal penalty and $612 million to resolve 11 related whistleblower complaints. Federal prosecutors accused the company of pursuing profits while putting patients at risk.[16] Larry Husten, a contributor at Forbes.com elaborates on AMGEN's illegal marketing practices in this case, namely that the "government accused Amgen of marketing Aranesp for indications not approved by the FDA and other illegal marketing practices".[17] One of the drugs mentioned in the lawsuit had sales of $492 million in the third quarter of 2012, down 17% from the same quarter the previous year due to "reimbursement problems and label changes".[18]
2012. Amgen paid $762 million after pleading guilty to criminal charges of improper promotion and sale of misbranded drugs.[19]
2013. Lawmakers inserted text into the fiscal cliff bill that will allow the drugmaker to sell a class of drugs that includes Sensipar without government controls for an additional two years. The New York Times estimated that the paragraph in the fiscal cliff bill will cost taxpayers an estimated $500 million[20] but other assessments concluded that the change would protect seniors in rural areas and reduce overall Medicare spending.[21][22]
2015. In September the company announced it would acquire Dezima Pharma for more than $1.55 billion.[23] The same day the company announced a collaboration with Xencor on 6 early stage immuno-oncology and inflammation programmes. As part of the deal Amgen will pay $45 million upfront, with the deal being worth up to another $1.7 billion.[24][25]
2016. In September, the company announced it would purchase the rights to Boehringer Ingelheims Phase I bispecific T-cell engager compound (BI 836909, now AMG 420) for use in the treatment of multiple myeloma.[26]
*******************
From the Wall Street Journal 5/29/21: A pathbreaking pill for lung cancer from Amgen Inc. was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, adding a new potential blockbuster to the biotech giant’s aging stable of drugs.
The drug, called Lumakras, was approved Friday to treat a portion of lung cancer patients with a particular genetic mutation who have already tried other therapies.
The mutation, known as KRAS, is among the most common found in cancers, but researchers struggled for so many years to find a medicine that can treat it that the mutation came to be considered “undruggable.”
Amgen Wins Approval for Pathbreaking Lung Cancer Drug (By Joseph Walker
Updated May 28, 2021 3:42 pm ET): www.wsj.com/articles/amgen-wins-approval-for-pathbreaking...
***********
It is ironic that stem-cell treatment is used in other Nations successfully in combating cancer, yet not in the USA.
Co-draw with Chenling :)
"The greatest miracle of love is the cure of coquetry."
– François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims (1665–1678), No. 359.
"I have read a great deal now on the neurological side and much on the anthropological side and on the philosophical side and we have had all these discussions and all the time I have the feeling that something may break. I mean that some little light at the end of the tunnel may be sensed or some flash of insight may come. I of course know very well that there is no guarantee it will come, but I have already got myself into this state of expectancy that something will come to my imagination which has some germ of truth about it in this most difficult field."
– John Carew Eccles (1977) 'The Self and Its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism', with Karl Popper, p. 467.
Chassis No 11306.
Official designation:- Heavy Tank KV-1 Model 1941
The KV series of tanks were named after Klement Voroshilov, the Soviet Defence Commissar and politician. They were heavily armoured and were immune to the 37mm or 75mm guns on the German Panzer III or IV and were only vulnerable to 88mm weapons.
Over 5,200 of all variants were built, with 4,468 being KV-1.
This is a Model 1941 KV-1 with cast turret, which had the German designation KV-1B. It was built at the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, known as ‘Tankograd’ after production of the ‘KV’ series moved there from the Leningrad Kirov Plant.
It was one of two which (according to contemporary sources) had a lot of extra care lavished on them and were then supplied to the West by the USSR as samples, one to Britain, one to the USA. This exhibit is the British sample and after evaluation at the British Army’s School of Tank Technology it was donated to the Tank Museum. It was put on the museum books in 1952. It has been painted to represent a Red Army tank, whitewashed for winter conditions and bearing the patriotic slogan ‘From the women of Leningrad to the Front’.
On display at The Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset, UK.
26th July 2016.
The following info is from the excellent Tank Museum website:-
“The invading Germans received a major shock when they encountered the KV1 heavy tank in June 1941. They found that it was impervious to fire from their 37mm PaK 36 anti-tank guns and their 37mm and 75mm/L24 tank cannon. The only German gun that could destroy the KV-1 was the 88mm anti-aircraft gun.
The KV-1 was designed to support the infantry rather than fight other tanks; a role left to faster medium tanks. Heavy armour would make it immune to fire from contemporary ant-tank guns. It was decided to put the KV heavy tank into production in December 1939, alongside the T34-76 medium tank. The new tank was fitted with the same gun as the T34-76, the L11 76.2mm tank gun and the same engine, the Trashutin V-2 diesel. The KV-1 was continually developed between 1940 and 1943:
- The KV-1 Model 1939. First 50 production tanks, fitted with the L-11 76.2mm gun, 30.5 calibres long
- The KV-1 Model 1940. The L-11 gun was replaced by the more powerful F-32 76.2mm gun, 39 calibres long
- KV-1 Model 1941. Up-gunned with the 76.2mm ZIS-5 gun, 40.5 calibres long
- KV-1 Model 1941 Late Production. Featured either a welded turret or a cast turret, both with thicker armour
- KV-1 s ekranami or KV-1E. Armour upgraded by the addition of applique plates
- KV-1 Model 1942. Armour thickness increased to counter the long 75mm gun fitted to the Panzer IV F2 and the 75mm PaK 40 anti-tank gun. The hull side plates were 90mm thick and the cast turret had sides 120mm thick
- KV-1S. A version that was 3.5 tonnes lighter fitted with a new turret. Improved automotive performance
- KV-2. A version of the KV-1 fitted with a 152mm howitzer; designed to attack fortifications
- KV-3 (Obiekt 220). A version with 90mm thick hull and turret armour. The weight by increased by 3.5 tonnes, decreasing automotive performance and reliability
- Obiekt 222. Fitted with thick armour and designed to mount a 107mm gun; abandoned after the start of the German invasion
- KV-4 (Obiekt 224) and KV-5 (Obiekt 225). Unbuilt projects to produce super heavy tanks fitted with a 107mm gun weighing up to 150 tonnes
- KV-6 and KV-7 Assault Guns. Prototype assault guns. The KV-6 was fitted with two 45mm guns arranged on either side of a 76.2mm gun while the KV-7 had two 76.2mm guns side by side; abandoned as impracticable
- KV-8. A flame-throwing tank; in order to make space for the flame-thrower in the turret the 76.2mm gun was replaced by a smaller 45mm gun. Introduced in 1942
- KV-9 Self-propelled Howitzer. A KV-1 fitted with a turret-mounted version of the M-30 122mm towed howitzer, abandoned as unsuitable for tank vs. tank fighting
- KV-12 Assault Gun. A project fitted with a 203mm howitzer, abandoned late in 1942
- KV-13. A new design, 11.5 tonnes lighter than the KV-1S, intended as a ‘universal’ tank; outclassed by the German Tiger and Panther and scrapped
- KV-85. A stop gap design to upgrade firepower by mounting an 85mm gun. 130 were built before it was superseded by the IS series of heavy tanks in October 1943
- KV-122. A single experimental tank created by mounting the 122mm D-25T gun in the turret of a KV-85; overtaken by the IS series of heavy tanks
- SU-152 Self-propelled Gun/Howitzer. Originally called the KV-14, it mounted a 152mm ML gun-howitzer on the chassis of the KV1-S. 704 were built before it was replaced by a similar vehicle built on the IS-2 chassis
The standard German medium tank in 1941, the Panzer IV Ausf F1, had frontal armour 50mm thick that was easily penetrated by the KV-1. When the Germans increased the frontal armour to 80mm the KV-1 was provided with a higher velocity APC round capable of penetrating 92mm of steel armour. Although the Germans thought that many aspects of the KV-1 were crude they considered it an effective fighting vehicle.
Total production of the KV-1 and its’ variants amounted to 4,468 tanks. Production started in Leningrad in 1940. When Leningrad was threatened with capture in 1941 the production line was transferred eastwards to Chelyabinsk, (‘Tankograd’).
The Tank Museum’s KV-1 was presented to the British Army’s School of Tank Technology by the Soviet Union in 1943. After evaluation by the British Army it was donated to the Tank Museum.”
Creation History
Blade (birth name: Eric Cross Brooks; legal name: Frank Blade) is a fictional character and antihero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Marv Wolfman and penciller Gene Colan, his first appearance was in the comic book The Tomb of Dracula #10 (July 1973) as a supporting character, but he later went on to star in his own storylines. Devoting his life to ridding the world of all vampires, Blade utilizes his unique physiology to become the perfect vampire hunter. While originally depicted as a human immune to vampire bites, Blade was retroactively established to be a dhampir following his adaptation as such in Spider-Man: The Animated Series and the Blade film series. He is the father of Brielle "Bri" Brooks (Bloodline).
The character has been substantially adapted from the comics into various forms of media, including films, television series, video games, and his own animated series. Blade was portrayed by Wesley Snipes in the films Blade, Blade II, Blade: Trinity, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Deadpool & Wolverine, and by Sticky Fingaz in the television series Blade: The Series. Mahershala Ali has been cast as the character in the MCU media franchise, debuting with an uncredited vocal cameo in the film Eternals (2021) ahead of the character's upcoming standalone film (2025).
Publication History
Blade was introduced as a supporting character in Marvel Comics' The Tomb of Dracula #10 (July 1973), written by Marv Wolfman and penciled by Gene Colan.
The artist recalled in 2003, "Marv told me Blade was a black man, and we talked about how he should dress, and how he should look – very heroic looking. That was my input. [...] The bandolier of blades – that was Marv's idea. But, I dressed him up. I put the leather jacket on him and so on".
Colan based the character's features on "a composite of black actors" including NFL football star-turned-actor Jim Brown. He initially sported 1970s-style Afro hair and wielded teak-bladed knives. Blade appeared in issues #10–21, with frequent appearances until #61 in 1977.
Wolfman spoke on the character's inception during an interview:
"When I was at DC I was working with a partner and we were working on the Teen Titans, a different version of it than I later did and came up with a Black superhero and we wrote it, and it was drawn and everything and for one reason or another the story was never published, there were all sorts of explanation but I was never there, all I know is the story was never published, and one of the promises I made to myself was that the next character is created, would be a Black character like the character for Teen Titans, because I didn't think Black characters were represented at all in comics to any great degree.
I felt coming from New York City, going to a school, and everybody who attends that high school is pretty much everybody who lives within a few blocks of you, because that's the way it works, I went to school in Manhattan, called High school of Art and Design, and it took people of all of New York, you saw people of all kinds there, so it didn't sound strange to me, to use a Black character, and I just never understood why they didn't, so [when] I came up with Blade it came to me literally in a second.
I'm not joking, I had just gotten the Dracula assignment, and I wasn't thinking about anything, suddenly, the character came full blown, I knew exactly who he was and what he looked like, and I knew everything about him."
Wolfman recalled in 2009,
"I knew if I let him, Blade would eclipse the other characters so I pulled him back and let original supporting characters Rachel, Frank and Quincy shine. I also wasn't happy with my Blade dialogue, so I pulled him out of the book for a while — I think almost a year — and when I brought him back I played him a bit straighter. The early Blade dialogue was cliche 'Marvel Black' dialogue. Later on, I tried to make him more real. But it took growing up as a writer."
Outside The Tomb of Dracula, he fought the scientifically-created vampire Morbius the Living Vampire in the latter's series in Adventure into Fear #24 (Oct. 1974), in a story written by Steve Gerber and penciled by P. Craig Russell.
Blade's first solo story came in Marvel's black-and-white horror-comics magazine Vampire Tales #8 (Dec. 1974), in an 11-page story by Wolfman and penciller-inker Tony DeZuniga. This feature continued in issue #9 (Feb. 1975), with Wolfman and Chris Claremont co-scripting.
This story was concluded in a 56-page solo story in the black-and-white showcase magazine Marvel Preview #3 (Sept. 1975), written by Claremont, with two chapters each drawn by DeZuniga and by Rico Rival (this story was announced for Vampire Tales #12, but was published here after that magazine was cancelled). A six-page backup story by Wolfman and Colan followed in Marvel Preview #8 (Fall 1976).
Blade next came into prominence in the 1990s, beginning with Ghost Rider #28 (Aug. 1992), in the Midnight Sons imprint that included issues of Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins, Ghost Rider, Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance, Midnight Sons Unlimited, Morbius, and Nightstalkers.
Blade co-starred in the 18-issue series Nightstalkers, and appeared with that team in a story in the anthology issue Midnight Sons Unlimited #1 (April 1993). He appeared in two solo stories, in Midnight Sons Unlimited #2 and 7 (July 1993 and Oct. 1994).
Following the cancellation of Nightstalkers, Blade debuted in his first color-comics series, Blade the Vampire Hunter #1–10 (July 1994 – April 1995), written by Ian Edginton (with the last two issues by Terry Kavanagh) and penciled by Doug Wheatley.
Blade next appeared in a 12-page inventory story in issue #1 (Feb. 1997) of the short-lived black-and-white anthology series Marvel: Shadows and Light. He then starred again in two solo one-shots: Blade: Crescent City Blues #1 (March 1998), by writer Christopher Golden and penciller and co-creator Colan; and Blade: Sins of the Father #1 (Oct. 1998), by writer Marc Andreyko and penciller Bart Sears.
Marvel next announced a six-issue miniseries, Blade (storyline: "Blade: Blood Allies") by the writer Don McGregor and penciller Brian Hagen, but only issues #1–3 (Nov. 1998–Jan. 1999) were published. Marvel published a different six-issue miniseries later that year, Blade: Vampire Hunter (storyline: "Chaos (A)"; Dec. 1999 – May 2000), written and, except the last two issues, penciled by Bart Sears.
The next ongoing series, Blade vol. 2 by writer Christopher Hinz and artist Steve Pugh, ran six issues, published by Marvel MAX in 2002. Blade vol. 3 by the writer Marc Guggenheim and penciller-inker Howard Chaykin, ran 12 issues (Sept. 2006–Aug. 2007). The final two pages of the last issue were drawn by co-creator Colan.
Blade also starred in two promotional comic books: Blade #1⁄2 (1999) by writer-artist Sears and inker Bill Sienkiewicz, bundled with issues of Wizard: The Comic Magazine #2000; and Blade: Nightstalking (2005), a 22-page story by writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray and penciller Amanda Conner, based on New Line Cinema's Blade films, and bundled with the Blade: Trinity Deluxe Edition DVD. Additionally, the second Blade movie was adapted as the Marvel comic Blade 2: Bloodhunt — The Official Comic Adaptation (April 2002) by writers Steve Gerber and David S. Goyer and penciller-inker Alberto Ponticelli.
Blade joined the cast of Captain Britain and MI: 13 beginning with issue #5 (Nov. 2008).
In 2015, it was announced that Tim Seeley and Logan Faerber would be launching a new Blade series, starting in October 2015, as part of Marvel's post-Secret Wars relaunch, focusing on his and daughter Fallon Grey.
However, this title has since been abandoned, in favor of Bloodline: Daughter of Blade, following his and Safron Caulder's daughter Brielle "Bri".
Character History
Origin
The man called Blade was born in a Soho Brothel, in Great Britain. Blade himself has revealed that the exact date of his birth was October 24, 1929 (also known as Black Thursday), as it was the day the stock market crash began. Blade said he is 72 years old, but his vampire powers make him look much younger. Blade's mother, Tara Brooks, a prostitute at Madame Vanity's Brothel, experienced severe labor complications, and a doctor was summoned.
The "doctor's" name was Deacon Frost, in reality a bloodthirsty vampire. Frost feasted on Blade's mother during Blade's birth, killing her, and accidentally passing along certain enzymes in his own blood to the infant. This process turned Blade into a Dhampir: one who has been touched, but not converted, by a vampire.
This resulted in Blade's superhuman abilities, such as immunity to being turned, the ability to "smell" supernatural creatures, and a significantly prolonged lifespan. This also caused Blade's sensitivity to bright light. Frost was driven off by Blade's mother's coworkers before he could kill the infant as well. They raised him until he was nine years old. Though Blade lacked superhuman physical prowess, he trained himself to become an Olympic-level athlete and formidable hand-to-hand combatant. Most notably, he became an expert with edged weapons, especially knives and daggers.
Walking home from school, Blade saw an older man being attacked by three bandits. Blade fought off the hoodlums, who turned out to be vampires, and rescued the old man. He learned that the old man was Jamal Afari, a jazz trumpeter and vampire hunter. Afari moved into Madame Vanity's brothel and trained the young Blade in both music and combat. Blade was soon able to defeat many of the weak, younger vampires that he and Afari found in abundance. However, Blade's victories made him cocky.
Bloodshadows
Blade soon joined a street gang, 'the Bloodshadows,' headed by a much older and more-powerful vampire than any Blade had met before: Lamia. Blade barely defeated Lamia, and, in doing so, lost his girlfriend Glory. This loss caused Blade to accept his destiny as an enemy of the undead and to swear to it forever. Afari later fell prey to an attack of the vampire Dracula, the first occurrence in an ongoing battle between him and Blade. Blade slew the vampire Afari and followed Dracula back to Europe.
Blade tracked Dracula throughout Europe and Asia Minor, then into the far east, staking him many times, but never entirely destroying him. In China, Blade joined Ogun Strong's vampire hunters, including Azu, Orji, and Musenda. Together, they staked Dracula again.
Once more, Dracula survived, teaching Blade a purposed lesson by killing all of his new-found friends except Musenda (who eventually retired from vampire hunting). However, Orji created a lasting impression on Blade with his use of wooden daggers to combat vampires. Sometime after Orji's death, Blade mastered the use of daggers and adopted the use of wooden ones as his preferred method of fighting vampires. Consumed by grief, Blade resumed his quest alone. It was decades before he again allowed himself to endanger another human.
The Dracula Hunters
When hunting down Dracula in Paris, Blade met up with a group of vampire hunters being led by Quincy Harker. They aligned with each other on various occasions, but Blade does not officially join the team. He became friends with a few of the team members, among them Frank Drake and Taj Nital. After tracking down Dracula in London, he fought him, Morbius, and his minions.
Back in America, Blade once again finds himself joining Harker's team, but with another ally: Dracula. Here they fight a more ruthless villain, Doctor Sun. After the battle, Dracula fled, with Blade hot on his tracks. He then encountered Hannibal King, a private investigator who was turned into a vampire by Deacon Frost.
Blade and Hannibal first team-up to defeat a Blade-doppelganger, but when the doppelganger absorbed the real Blade, Hannibal called for Hellstorm to exorcise Blade out of the fake one. Eventually, Blade and Hannibal killed Deacon.
Nightstalkers
Some years later, Blade and his old friends Hannibal, Frank Drake, and Doctor Strange formed Borderline Investigations Inc., an investigative agency that battles supernatural beings. They battle Dracula and the Darkholders, but briefly disbanded when King left, and Blade was put in a mental hospital after a fight with a resurrected Dracula. Doctor Strange then reassembled the Borderline Investigations Inc., renaming it 'the Nightstalkers'.
When the demon Lilith tricked them to kill Ghost Rider (Danny Ketch) and Johnny Blaze, they all team up to defeat Lilith and Lilin. They also fought Hydra. In the story arc "Midnight Massacre," Blade becomes 'Switchblade' by a page of the Darkhold before returning to normal. Blade's final battle with the team of Nightstalkers was against an entity known as Varnae, an ancient vampire who had also recruited Blade's friend Taj Nital. The climactic battle ended with the death of Taj Nital, and the seeming death of Frank Drake, which later turns out not to be true - Frank is in a coma. Blade quietly disbands the team after these events.
Blade Alone Again
After the disbanding of the Nightstalkers, Blade sees it upon himself to resume his war against the vampire threat. He finds himself once again fighting against a resurrected Deacon Frost and Dracula, but with the help of Hannibal King, Frost was killed yet again.
New Powers
Blade was not seen again for some time after his battle with Dracula and Frost. However, some months later, Blade was spotted battling Morbius, who at the time was being controlled by another vampire. Blade followed Morbius after their first battle to New York City, where Blade teamed-up with Spider-Man. When Morbius bit Blade, his vampire anatomy reacted to Morbius' natural vampirism, and granted him all the strengths of a vampire and eliminated his sensitivity to sunlight, which gave him the title "Daywalker" by his enemies. Blade also had a run-in with SHIELD, who were retrieving his blood to create vampire operatives. With the help of other vampire hunters, they were able to stop them. He then joined with other vampire hunters all over the world to prevent Dracula from becoming supremely powerful.
New Missions
After this, Blade tracked down a resurrected Dracula to New York City. He proceeded to beat both Dracula and a Vampire Spider-Man. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Howling Commandos arrived on the scene hours later to confiscate the body. Blade, however, sensed something wrong with the S.H.I.E.L.D. troops. He infiltrated their Helicarrier to find that it had a massive vampire infestation. He proceeded to destroy the Helicarrier.
Weeks later, In Madison Square Garden, Blade was attacked by four Doombots, who were tasked with bringing Blade to Latveria for a meeting with Dr. Doom. Blade defeated the Doombots, however, and the battle gave him the motivation to make the trip of his own accord. Blade was informed that he was destined to save his mother from a vampire infested jail facility. Though not entirely willing, Dr. Doom didn't take no for an answer and teleported Blade years into the past. Along with saving Dr. Doom's mother, he kept his own father, Lucas Cross, from rotting away, which would fulfill the first part of a prophecy his father had set in motion back in the present. In return, Dr. Doom gave Blade a formula that could cure an individual of their blood lust for vampires. Blade accepted the gift but didn't use it.
Civil War
Blade then became one of America’s most notorious, after the police mistook his series of vampire killings as homicides, attempting to jail him. While on the run, Blade ran into a Level 9 demon by the name of Animus. Blade defeated the beast and continued his run from the law. He proceeded to Long Beach, California, where he ran into a long-time rival – Morbius. The two did battle before Morbius, who was revealed to be a registered superhuman, called in S.H.I.E.L.D. to capture Blade. Blade took out several agents before being taken down.
In the office of Maria Hill, it was revealed that Blade was part of a contingency plan to bring down Wolverine, seeing as the tacticians felt Blade was their best shot at taking him down. Though dismayed, a newly registered Blade went after Wolverine. After a drawn-out fight where the two were on the verge of killing each other, Blade realized Wolverine had saved his life years ago and that he owed his very existence to him. Blade called off the fight and stormed into Maria’s office, claiming that if S.H.I.E.L.D. went after Wolverine, they would have him to deal with.
Several weeks later, Blade is captured by none other than Lucas Cross, as father and son meet for the first time. Blade, chained to a wall, is instructed by his father to feed upon a young girl. Unbeknownst to Blade, this would fulfill the second part of the prophecy. Blade passes on the offer and chews off his own hand to escape confinement, before fighting through the entire facility and escaping with the little girl.
Against his Father
Blade then travels to London, where he encounters possibly one of his greatest enemies – the priest Draconis. It is revealed that Draconis has been training for years to kill Blade, which is exactly what he does. The newly handicapped Blade is no match for his mysterious new foe and is staked through the heart. Blade wakes up in the morgue to find a mystical amulet he had taken from a vampire thug earlier had saved him from death. Infuriated, he calls upon the help of Hannibal King. With Hannibal at his back, Blade takes on Draconis once more. To defeat Draconis, Blade feeds upon him to remove his enhanced abilities, before killing him. To his father's joy, Blade accidentally fulfilled the second part of the prophecy by feeding upon virgin blood.
Blade uses his S.H.I.E.L.D. resources to order himself a new hand: a gun hand, which he tests out on none other than England's Union Jack. After the two resolve their differences, Blade makes his way back to New York, where everything started. He interrogates both Lucas Cross and Spider-Man to discover that his long time mentor, Jamal Afari, was alive and kicking, on Dracula's side. He goes home and is abducted again by his father, who seeks to complete the third and final part of the prophecy.
Blade, Hannibal King, and Lucas Cross travel to Dracula's Castle (now a tourist attraction). They attempt to complete a prophecy Lucas believes will give all vampires their souls back. All it would require is Blade to shatter his newly acquired amulet and drop a piece of the stake he used to kill Dracula to the salted ground. Blade declines, and a furious Hannibal King attacks him.
Blade makes short work of Hannibal King and his father's henchmen. However, Dracula arrives on the scene with Jamal Afari to help Lucas complete the prophecy. Dracula shatters the amulet and then attacks Blade; Jamal Afari breaks Dracula's control and attacks him, but is kicked to the ground. Enraged Blade charges at Dracula, yet knocks into his father, who accidentally drops the vial containing the stake fragment that killed Dracula. It shatters on the ground. However, they feel no different, save for a revived Hannibal King.
They all realize Dracula had been manipulating Lucas Cross the entire time, not into giving vampires their souls back, but into resurrecting every single vampire that had ever died. Blade and Hannibal part ways, leaving a broken Lucas Cross, but not before Blade gives Hannibal the serum Dr. Doom had made to cure a vampire of his or her blood lust.
Vanguard
Blade is then recruited to lead a secret government team of superheroes known as Vanguard. The team if comprised of, Micromax, Retcon, Dominic Fortune, and Yelena Belova. The original leader is murdered and they’re tasked with finding the murderer, it is revealed that Stacy Dolan, the detective assigned the murder case, was in fact their leader murderer. However, she had been mind-controlled by an individual named Yoosef. After he manipulates The Thing into attacking their team, Blade shoots him in the head, and has the team wipe The Things memories and teleport him away.
Surprisingly, their original leader, Colonel America, the most powerful telekinetic on the planet, shows himself and it is revealed that not only was he never dead, the government wanted the team disbanded, seeing as Micromax had been captured and tortured by Al Qaeda on a mission and they now knew more about Vanguard than the president. – in other words killed. Thinking quickly, the team gives Colonel America the illusion that he killed them and port away. They then go into hiding. Unfortunately, Blade is captured and tortured, the rest were safe as Blade used a back-up story to explain why he was the only one who survived.
MI:13 and Captain Britain
After this Blade made his way to England to serve in another secret organization – MI 13. Following the Skrull invasion of Britain, Blade joined MI:13 to aid with the resurgence of evil forces, resulting from the Skrulls defeat. Blade fails to ingratiate himself, however, when he attempts to kill fellow team member, and part-vampire, Spitfire. His actions were tempered by the Hell-Lord, Plokta, in action at the moment, and his surprise at finding out about her Vampire nature. Coaching her on the extent of her new abilities he helped her to regenerate from the damage he had caused, before moving on. Blade was able to use his senses to track Plokta, using one of his special weapons, a paper katana made from Holy Texts, to harm the beast. Until he and the rest of the team were capture in the Dream Corridor, by their turn-coat teammate.
While in the Dream Corridor, Blade and his team-mates were forced to confront visions, and more of the Plokta's useless drones, though when Peter forced the Ebony Blade to free them they were able to once more confront the Hell Lord. Realizing that Blade's weapon was the only one that could hurt him, surprising considering Excalibur and the Ebony Blade were present, he used his hell fire to destroy it. Blade and his teammates were able to figure out how to defeat him, with Captain Britain dealing the finishing blow.
Blade was kept on the team at the insistence of Spitfire, much to Peter's and his own surprise. Once they returned to base, he confided in Lady J about his unease with working someplace he originally set out to assault. She allayed his fears and also kisses him, making clear her intentions at starting something with him.
Next, came repercussions of his father's mistake. Dracula - along with Captain Fate, Lilith, and the new Baron Blood - launched an attack on an unsuspecting England in an attempt to transform the country into a haven for the world's vampires. Dracula's initial strike involved an attempt at taking out MI:13's heroes early, when this failed the agents rallied at base where they assessed the threat and realized Spitfire was missing.
Blade never failed to remain calm despite rising tension between him and Union Jack. MI:13 used the captured Plokta to ensnare Dracula into the Dream Corridor where they watched Dracula's entire plan pan-out. They saw as each of them fell before the enormity of Dracula's army, and with Spitfire in command of his ground forces, Dracula took over England. In this dream Blade was the only survivor in England; after one of Lilith's blasts sent him flying from the battlefield he fled to the north.
However, Dracula realized the situation and broke free from the Dream Corridor, just as his plans began to fell apart. He lost control over Spitfire, and MI:13 began to tackle Dracula's forces directly. Captain Fate fell against The Black Knight, Lilith against Captain Britain, Dracula against Excalibur, and Baron Blood against Blade. Britain is saved and we see a glimpse of Blade and Spitfire exchanging a kiss as MI:13's victory is celebrated.
Following this victory, MI:13 is invited to, where else but, NYC to be honored for their decimation of Dracula's forces. However, unbeknownst to Captain America, who is honoring them, Blade and Spitfire are on a secret mission. This mission consists of tracking down a vampire believed to be selling secrets to the Mys-tech Corporation, old enemies of the UK heroes. Again, we see Blade teaching Spitfire the extent of her abilities, and the two work great together. Ultimately, Spitfire defeats the vampire and we hear her tell Blade she loves him, although Blade doesn't hear.
Sometime during Blade's MI:13 membership, he, alongside a plethora of Marvel's magical characters, was possessed by Nightmare in an attempt at taking over the world. Blade, fighting alongside his MI:13 comrades, both Ghost Riders, a newly resurrected Dracula, and more, launched an assault on both Dr. Doom and Dr. Voodoo, who both managed to hold the assault back for days. Blade was seen among the many bodies strewn across the landscape after being defeated by Voodoo and Doom.
Curse of the Mutants
During the events of Curse of the Mutants, Blade would go on to investigate vampire slayer killings, independent of MI:13. He traveled the globe with ex-lover Claudia Bell before finally discovering that Dracula's throne had been usurped by his son Xarus. He lead an army of slayers to Xarus' base of operations and blew it up during the day time, expecting the vampires would turn to dust. However, to his surprise, the vampires walked out of the base into broad daylight, undaunted. His team was massacred but Blade obtained a vital bit of information, that Xarus would be launching an attack on Utopia, home of the X-Men.
Blade escaped Xarus and traveled to San Francisco where he met up with Colossus and Wolverine to help them catch a vampire. He delivered the fact that Xarus was now in power and helped the X-Men battle back the invasion. To his dismay, Cyclops resurrected Dracula in the hopes that the former Lord of Vampires would aid their defense. Dracula did indeed kill his upstart son and agreed not to press the vampiric invasion on Utopia.
This was not good enough for Blade though, he attacked Dracula. Before Blade could land a sword on the Drac, he was blasted out of the air by none other than Cyclops who didn't want to reignite tensions with the vampires. Blade returned to Utopia in order to try and get Wolverine to stake Jubilee, who had been turned in the invasion, yet when Wolverine contested him, Blade stormed off the island, saying they would have to listen to him eventually.
⚡ Happy 🎯 Heroclix 💫 Friday! 👽
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A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.
Secret Identity: Eric Cross Brooks
Publisher: Marvel
First appearance: The Tomb of Dracula #10 (July 1973)
Created by: Marv Wolfman (writer)
Gene Colan (artist)