The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah. A remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, it is the largest of many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. It is public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and is known for land speed records at the Bonneville Speedway. Access to the Flats is open to the public.

 

The Flats are about 12 miles (19 km) long and 5 miles (8 km) wide, with a crust almost 5 ft (1.5m) thick at the center and less than one inch (2.5 cm) towards the edges. It is estimated to hold 147 million tons of salt, approximately 90% of which is common table salt.

 

Geologist Grove Karl Gilbert named the area after Benjamin Bonneville, a U.S. Army officer who explored the Intermountain West in the 1830s. In 1907, Bill Rishel and two local businessmen tested the suitability of the salt for driving by taking a Pierce-Arrow onto its surface.

 

A railway line across the Flats was completed in 1910, marking the first permanent crossing. The first land speed record was set there in 1914 by Teddy Tetzlaff.

 

Entertainment filmed at the Flats include portions of Walking with Dinosaurs Special - The Ballad of Big Al, Knight Rider, Warlock, Independence Day (1996) and its sequel, SLC Punk, Cremaster 2 from Cremaster Cycle, The Brown Bunny, The World's Fastest Indian, Gerry, The Tree of Life, Top Gear and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Furthermore, the Pontiac Bonneville (former flagship sedan of the Pontiac motor division), the Triumph Bonneville motorcycle, and the Bonneville International media company are all named for the Flats.

 

The Bonneville Salt Flats hosts the annual US Flight Archery Championships. The goal of flight archery is to shoot arrows from bows at the greatest distance possible without regard to hitting a target, and so the vast flat plane of the flats serves as an ideal location to measure the linear distance traveled by arrows without geographic interference. Both the 1977 (archer Don Brown) and 1982 (archer Alan Webster) world records were set there; while the current world record, achieved in 1987 (archer Don Brown), was set at the salt flats near Smith Creek, Nevada.

 

The thickness of salt crust is a critical factor in racing use of the salt flats. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has undertaken multiple studies on the topic; while a 2007 study determined that there was little change in the crust's thickness from 1988 to 2003, more recent studies have shown a reduction in thickness, especially in the northwest area where racing occurs. The flats' overall area has contracted significantly over the past several decades. The cause or causes of this remain unclear, but many believe adjacent evaporative potash mining is the primary factor.

 

Collaboration between racing organizations, the potash mine, and the BLM led to a pilot program begun in 1998 to release excess brine onto the salt flats during winter. Plans to increase the volume of brine returned to the salt flats are hoped to halt loss of crust thickness, or possibly restore it where it has become too thin to sustain human use.

 

Motorcar racing has taken place at the salt flats since 1914. Racing takes place at part of the Bonneville Salt Flats known as the Bonneville Speedway. There are five major land speed events that take place at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Bonneville "Speed Week" takes place mid-August followed by "World of Speed" in September and the "World Finals" take place early October.

 

These three events welcome cars, trucks, and motorcycles. The "Bub Motorcycle Speed Trials" are for motorcycles only. World records are contested at the Mike Cook ShootOut in September. The Southern California Timing Association and the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association organizes and plans the multi-vehicle events, but all event promoters contribute to prepping and maintaining the salt. "Speed Week" events in August were canceled in 2015 and 2022, due to the poor condition of the salt in certain parts of the flats. The salt flats had been swamped by heavy rains earlier in the year, as usual, but this year the rains also triggered mudslides from surrounding mountains onto a section of the flats used for the land-speed racing courses.

 

Bonneville Speedway (also known as the Bonneville Salt Flats Race Track) is an area of the Bonneville Salt Flats northeast of Wendover, Utah, that is marked out for motor sports. It is particularly noted as the venue for numerous land speed records. The Bonneville Salt Flats Race Track is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

 

The salt flats were first used for motor sports in 1912, but did not become truly popular until the 1930s when Ab Jenkins and Sir Malcolm Campbell competed to set land speed records.

 

A reduction of available racing surface and salt thickness has led to the cancellation of events at Bonneville, such as Speed Week in 2014 and 2015. Available racing surface is much reduced with just 2.5 miles (4.0 km) available instead of the 9-mile (14 km) courses traditionally used for Speed Week.

 

Historically, the speedway was marked out by the Utah Department of Transportation at the start of each summer. Originally, two tracks were prepared; a 10-mile (16 km) long straightaway for speed trials and an oval or circular track for distance runs, which was typically between 10 and 12 miles (16 and 19 km) long depending on the condition of the salt surface.

 

Since at least the 1990s, track preparations have been the responsibility of the event organizers. Days or weeks in advance, the track preparers identify an area best suited for their track layouts and begin grading the tracks. Surveyors are brought in to survey the timing trap distances. A day before racing begins, the track markers are added.

 

Originally, the straightaway was marked with a broad black line down its center. This was eventually changed to lines down either side, as the center line wore out too quickly. As the costs for painting the lines has gone up, organizations have switched to flags and cones as track markers. The last event to use black lines was Speed Week, August 2009.

 

The number of tracks and the timed sections for each track are set according to what is most beneficial for each event. Large public meets such as Speed Week run as many as four tracks with several timed miles, usually starting with the second mile and running to the fifth mile. Smaller meets that typically only run world record attempts will utilize a single track, with one timed mile and one timed kilometer in the middle of the track. Additional marks and cones indicate the end of the track and the position of timing equipment.

 

The annual Speed Week was cancelled in both 2014 and 2015, as were many land-speed racing events, due to deteriorating track conditions. Heavy rains caused a layer of mud from surrounding mountains to flow onto the flats, covering approximately 6 mi (9.7 km) of the track. Although another section of the flats would normally be used, nearby salt mining operations had reduced the size of the alternative track.

 

The depth of the salt crust at Bonneville has also been decreasing, possibly leaching into a saltwater aquifer. Measured at as much at 3 ft (0.91 m) in the 1940s and 50s, it has been reduced to just 2 in (0.051 m) in 2015.

 

Though recent studies have been made (since 1960), the causes of this deterioration are not clear, although the evidence points toward both local climatic changes and salt mining. Some strategies were devised to revert the decreasing salt surface, such as pumping back salt, though this had no effect.

 

In August, the Southern California Timing Association and Bonneville Nationals Inc. organize Speed Week, the largest meet of the year, which attracts several hundred drivers who compete to set highest speed in a range of categories. Bonneville Speed Week has been taking place since 1949.

 

In late August, the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials are held.

 

In September each year is the World of Speed, (similar to Speed Week) organized by the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association. The USFRA also meet on the first Wednesday of each month throughout the summer.

 

In October, the Southern California Timing Association puts on World Finals, a scaled-down version of Speed Week. This event tends to have cooler weather and often drier salt that Speed Week the prior month. There are less spectators and it tends to draw serious racers, as this event is the last chance to break a land speed record and be in the SCTA record book for that year.

 

Each year, there are usually a few private meets that are not publicized scattered among the larger public meets.

 

Several motor-paced racing speed records have been attempted at Bonneville.

 

In 1985, American cyclist John Howard set a then world record of 244 km/h (152 mph).

 

On 15 October 1995, Dutch cyclist Fred Rompelberg achieved 268.831 km/h (167.044 mph), using a special bicycle behind a dragster with a large shield.

 

In 2016, Denise Mueller-Korenek claimed a women's bicycle land speed record at 147 mph (237 km/h). She was coached by Howard. It is not clear which authority was supervising the record attempt.

 

In 2018, Mueller-Korenek broke her own women's record and the men's record at a speed of 183.9 miles per hour (296.0 km/h).

 

In popular culture

In the 2003 film The Brown Bunny, Bud Clay races his motorcycle at the speedway.

In the 2005 film The World's Fastest Indian, Burt Munro and his highly modified Indian Scout motorcycle sets a world record.

In the 2015 series finale episode of Mad Men, Donald Draper drives a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS muscle car in the races at Bonneville Speedway.

 

Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.

 

Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.

 

People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.

 

Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 12th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.

 

The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.

 

Archaeological evidence dates the earliest habitation of humans in Utah to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Paleolithic people lived near the Great Basin's swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds, and small game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the mega-fauna died, this population was replaced by the Desert Archaic people, who sheltered in caves near the Great Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of cattails and other salt tolerant plants such as pickleweed, burro weed and sedge. Red meat appears to have been more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost unoccupied for 1,000 years.

 

The Fremont culture, named from sites near the Fremont River in Utah, lived in what is now north and western Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from approximately 600 to 1300 AD. These people lived in areas close to water sources that had been previously occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some relationship with them. However, their use of new technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont technologies include:

 

use of the bow and arrow while hunting,

building pithouse shelters,

growing maize and probably beans and squash,

building above ground granaries of adobe or stone,

creating and decorating low-fired pottery ware,

producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as petroglyphs and pictographs.

 

The ancient Puebloan culture, also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the Southwest United States, including the San Juan River region of Utah. Archaeologists debate when this distinct culture emerged, but cultural development seems to date from about the common era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people was around the 1200 CE. Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings. They were excellent craftsmen, producing turquoise jewelry and fine pottery. The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also built structures, some known as kivas, apparently designed solely for cultural and religious rituals.

 

These two later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to have established trading relationships. They also shared enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the cultures may have common roots in the early American Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct throughout most of their existence. These two well established cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about 1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.

 

In about 1200, Shoshonean speaking peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have originated in southern California and moved into the desert environment due to population pressure along the coast. They were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle utilizing roots and seeds, including the pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah country. The Shoshone in the north and northeast, the Gosiutes in the northwest, the Utes in the central and eastern parts of the region and the Southern Paiutes in the southwest. Initially, there seems to have been very little conflict between these groups.

 

In the early 16th century, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southeast also saw a new people, the Díne or Navajo, part of a greater group of plains Athabaskan speakers moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo, this language group contained people that were later known as Apaches, including the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.

 

Athabaskans were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the 17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to the people in the Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah and western Colorado.

 

At the time of European expansion, beginning with Spanish explorers traveling from Mexico, five distinct native peoples occupied territory within the Utah area: the Northern Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Navajo.

 

The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cíbola.

 

A group led by two Spanish Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. All of what is now Utah was claimed by the Spanish Empire from the 1500s to 1821 as part of New Spain (later as the province Alta California); and subsequently claimed by Mexico from 1821 to 1848. However, Spain and Mexico had little permanent presence in, or control of, the region.

 

Fur trappers (also known as mountain men) including Jim Bridger, explored some regions of Utah in the early 19th century. The city of Provo was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah is named for a brigade leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. In 1846, a year before the arrival of members from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, the ill-fated Donner Party crossed through the Salt Lake valley late in the season, deciding not to stay the winter there but to continue forward to California, and beyond.

 

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormon pioneers, first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, the U.S. had already captured the Mexican territories of Alta California and New Mexico in the Mexican–American War and planned to keep them, but those territories, including the future state of Utah, officially became United States territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10, 1848.

 

Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found no permanent settlement of Indians. Other areas along the Wasatch Range were occupied at the time of settlement by the Northwestern Shoshone and adjacent areas by other bands of Shoshone such as the Gosiute. The Northwestern Shoshone lived in the valleys on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake and in adjacent mountain valleys. Some years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley Mormons, who went on to colonize many other areas of what is now Utah, were petitioned by Indians for recompense for land taken. The response of Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, was that the land belonged to "our Father in Heaven and we expect to plow and plant it." A 1945 Supreme Court decision found that the land had been treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone had been recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States.

 

Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons had to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems, laid out farms, built houses, churches, and schools. Access to water was crucially important. Almost immediately, Brigham Young set out to identify and claim additional community sites. While it was difficult to find large areas in the Great Basin where water sources were dependable and growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.

 

Shortly after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the community of Bountiful was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands purchased from trapper Miles Goodyear in present-day Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and Provo were founded. Also that year, at the invitation of Ute chief Wakara, settlers moved into the Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of Manti. Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in Fort Lemhi, Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada and Elk Mountain in east-central Utah.

 

The experiences of returning members of the Mormon Battalion were also important in establishing new communities. On their journey west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through southern Nevada and the eastern segments of southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, a senior Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for settlement sites, minerals, and other resources. His report encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in Iron County, near present-day Cedar City. These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.

 

Prior to establishment of the Oregon and California trails and Mormon settlement, Indians native to the Salt Lake Valley and adjacent areas lived by hunting buffalo and other game, but also gathered grass seed from the bountiful grass of the area as well as roots such as those of the Indian Camas. By the time of settlement, indeed before 1840, the buffalo were gone from the valley, but hunting by settlers and grazing of cattle severely impacted the Indians in the area, and as settlement expanded into nearby river valleys and oases, indigenous tribes experienced increasing difficulty in gathering sufficient food. Brigham Young's counsel was to feed the hungry tribes, and that was done, but it was often not enough. These tensions formed the background to the Bear River massacre committed by California Militia stationed in Salt Lake City during the Civil War. The site of the massacre is just inside Preston, Idaho, but was generally thought to be within Utah at the time.

 

Statehood was petitioned for in 1849-50 using the name Deseret. The proposed State of Deseret would have been quite large, encompassing all of what is now Utah, and portions of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young as a symbol of industry and was derived from a reference in the Book of Mormon. The petition was rejected by Congress and Utah did not become a state until 1896, following the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1895.

 

In 1850, the Utah Territory was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore (named after President Fillmore) was designated the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital.

 

The first group of pioneers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with this first group in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. Slavery didn't become officially recognized until 1852, when the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners were passed. Slavery was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.

 

Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the federal government intensified after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' practice of polygamy became known. The polygamous practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854, would be one of the major reasons Utah was denied statehood until almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.

 

After news of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS Church were quickly viewed by some as un-American and rebellious. In 1857, after news of a possible rebellion spread, President James Buchanan sent troops on the Utah expedition to quell the growing unrest and to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor with Alfred Cumming. The expedition was also known as the Utah War.

 

As fear of invasion grew, Mormon settlers had convinced some Paiute Indians to aid in a Mormon-led attack on 120 immigrants from Arkansas under the guise of Indian aggression. The murder of these settlers became known as the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Mormon leadership had adopted a defensive posture that led to a ban on the selling of grain to outsiders in preparation for an impending war. This chafed pioneers traveling through the region, who were unable to purchase badly needed supplies. A disagreement between some of the Arkansas pioneers and the Mormons in Cedar City led to the secret planning of the massacre by a few Mormon leaders in the area. Some scholars debate the involvement of Brigham Young. Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the massacre site.

 

Express riders had brought the news 1,000 miles from the Missouri River settlements to Salt Lake City within about two weeks of the army's beginning to march west. Fearing the worst as 2,500 troops (roughly 1/3rd of the army then) led by General Albert Sidney Johnston started west, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City and neighboring communities to prepare their homes for burning and evacuate southward to Utah Valley and southern Utah. Young also sent out a few units of the Nauvoo Legion (numbering roughly 8,000–10,000), to delay the army's advance. The majority he sent into the mountains to prepare defenses or south to prepare for a scorched earth retreat. Although some army wagon supply trains were captured and burned and herds of army horses and cattle run off no serious fighting occurred. Starting late and short on supplies, the United States Army camped during the bitter winter of 1857–58 near a burned out Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Through the negotiations between emissary Thomas L. Kane, Young, Cumming and Johnston, control of Utah territory was peacefully transferred to Cumming, who entered an eerily vacant Salt Lake City in the spring of 1858. By agreement with Young, Johnston established the army at Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.

 

Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, between Carson City, Nevada and Omaha, Nebraska completed in October 1861. Brigham Young, who had helped expedite construction, was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials. Soon after the telegraph line was completed, the Deseret Telegraph Company built the Deseret line connecting the settlements in the territory with Salt Lake City and, by extension, the rest of the United States.

 

Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory (and their fort auctioned off), leaving the territorial government in federal hands without army backing until General Patrick E. Connor arrived with the 3rd Regiment of California Volunteers in 1862. While in Utah, Connor and his troops soon became discontent with this assignment wanting to head to Virginia where the "real" fighting and glory was occurring. Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his bored and often idle soldiers to go out and explore for mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County, and some miners began to come to the territory. Conner also solved the Shoshone Indian problem in Cache Valley Utah by luring the Shoshone into a midwinter confrontation on January 29, 1863. The armed conflict quickly turned into a rout, discipline among the soldiers broke down, and the Battle of Bear River is today usually referred to by historians as the Bear River Massacre. Between 200 and 400 Shoshone men, women and children were killed, as were 27 soldiers, with over 50 more soldiers wounded or suffering from frostbite.

 

Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and Utah local militia.

 

On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.

 

Main article: Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century

During the 1870s and 1880s, federal laws were passed and federal marshals assigned to enforce the laws against polygamy. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church leadership dropped its approval of polygamy citing divine revelation. When Utah applied for statehood again in 1895, it was accepted. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.

 

The Mormon issue made the situation for women the topic of nationwide controversy. In 1870 the Utah Territory, controlled by Mormons, gave women the right to vote. However, in 1887, Congress disenfranchised Utah women with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. In 1867–96, eastern activists promoted women's suffrage in Utah as an experiment, and as a way to eliminate polygamy. They were Presbyterians and other Protestants convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian cult that grossly mistreated women. The Mormons promoted woman suffrage to counter the negative image of downtrodden Mormon women. With the 1890 Manifesto clearing the way for statehood, in 1895 Utah adopted a constitution restoring the right of women's suffrage. Congress admitted Utah as a state with that constitution in 1896.

 

Though less numerous than other intermountain states at the time, several lynching murders for alleged misdeeds occurred in Utah territory at the hand of vigilantes. Those documented include the following, with their ethnicity or national origin noted in parentheses if it was provided in the source:

 

William Torrington in Carson City (then a part of Utah territory), 1859

Thomas Coleman (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1866

3 unidentified men at Wahsatch, winter of 1868

A Black man in Uintah, 1869

Charles A. Benson in Logan, 1873

Ah Sing (Chinese man) in Corinne, 1874

Thomas Forrest in St. George, 1880

William Harvey (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1883

John Murphy in Park City, 1883

George Segal (Japanese man) in Ogden, 1884

Joseph Fisher in Eureka, 1886

Robert Marshall (Black man) in Castle Gate, 1925

Other lynchings in Utah territory include multiple instances of mass murder of Native American children, women, and men by White settlers including the Battle Creek massacre (1849), Provo River Massacre (1850), Nephi massacre (1853), and Circleville Massacre (1866).

 

Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah began to become known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley are instantly recognizable to most national residents. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.

 

Beginning in 1939, with the establishment of Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. This also spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.

 

During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s, growth was phenomenal in the suburbs. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time, and West Valley City is the state's 2nd most populous city. Today, many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas.

 

In 2012, the State of Utah passed the Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act in an attempt to gain control over a substantial portion of federal land in the state from the federal government, based on language in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894. The State does not intend to use force or assert control by limiting access in an attempt to control the disputed lands, but does intend to use a multi-step process of education, negotiation, legislation, and if necessary, litigation as part of its multi-year effort to gain state or private control over the lands after 2014.

 

Utah families, like most Americans everywhere, did their utmost to assist in the war effort. Tires, meat, butter, sugar, fats, oils, coffee, shoes, boots, gasoline, canned fruits, vegetables, and soups were rationed on a national basis. The school day was shortened and bus routes were reduced to limit the number of resources used stateside and increase what could be sent to soldiers.

 

Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and the steel plant was put into progress. In April 1944, Geneva shipped its first order, which consisted of over 600 tons of steel plate. Geneva Steel also brought thousands of job opportunities to Utah. The positions were hard to fill as many of Utah's men were overseas fighting. Women began working, filling 25 percent of the jobs.

 

As a result of Utah's and Geneva Steels contribution during the war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden.

 

One of the sectors of the beachhead of Normandy Landings was codenamed Utah Beach, and the amphibious landings at the beach were undertaken by United States Army troops.

 

It is estimated that 1,450 soldiers from Utah were killed in the war.

Managed to keep the colour this time.

4000 images extracted from a 2.30 Video

shot with the Celestron Nexstar 4se & unmodded Canon 550D

Shot in Movie Crop Mode

Bad light pollution. No Filters, No Barlows

extracted with zoombrowser

stacked in Registax

pimped up in photoshop

 

The Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, is located on New Bridge Street West. The gallery was designed in the Baroque style with Art Nouveau elements by architects Cackett & Burns Dick and is now a Grade II listed building. It was opened in 1904 and is now managed by Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums and sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. In front of the gallery is the Blue Carpet. The building, which was financed by a gift from a local wine merchant, Alexander Laing, is Grade II listed.

 

The gallery collection contains paintings, watercolours and decorative historical objects, including Newcastle silver. In the early 1880s, Newcastle was a major glass producer in the world and enamelled glasses by William Beilby are on view along with ceramics (including Maling pottery), and diverse contemporary works by emerging UK artists. It has a programme of regularly rotating exhibitions and has free entry.

 

The gallery's collection of paintings includes John Martin's dramatic The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as works by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edward Burne-Jones (Laus Veneris), Isabella and the Pot of Basil from 1868 by William Holman Hunt, and Ben Nicholson. Local paintings include pictures by Ralph Hedley. There is also a collection of 18th- and 19th-century watercolours and drawings, including work by J. M. W. Turner and John Sell Cotman.[

 

Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle is a cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is located on the River Tyne's northern bank, opposite Gateshead to the south. It is the most populous settlement in the Tyneside conurbation and North East England.

 

Newcastle developed around a Roman settlement called Pons Aelius, the settlement became known as Monkchester before taking on the name of a castle built in 1080 by William the Conqueror's eldest son, Robert Curthose. It was one of the world's largest ship building and repair centres during the industrial revolution. Newcastle was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it separated and formed a county of itself. In 1974, Newcastle became part of Tyne and Wear. Since 2018, the city council has been part of the North of Tyne Combined Authority.

 

The history of Newcastle upon Tyne dates back almost 2,000 years, during which it has been controlled by the Romans, the Angles and the Norsemen amongst others. Newcastle upon Tyne was originally known by its Roman name Pons Aelius. The name "Newcastle" has been used since the Norman conquest of England. Due to its prime location on the River Tyne, the town developed greatly during the Middle Ages and it was to play a major role in the Industrial Revolution, being granted city status in 1882. Today, the city is a major retail, commercial and cultural centre.

 

Roman settlement

The history of Newcastle dates from AD 122, when the Romans built the first bridge to cross the River Tyne at that point. The bridge was called Pons Aelius or 'Bridge of Aelius', Aelius being the family name of Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was responsible for the Roman wall built across northern England along the Tyne–Solway gap. Hadrian's Wall ran through present-day Newcastle, with stretches of wall and turrets visible along the West Road, and at a temple in Benwell. Traces of a milecastle were found on Westgate Road, midway between Clayton Street and Grainger Street, and it is likely that the course of the wall corresponded to present-day Westgate Road. The course of the wall can be traced eastwards to the Segedunum Roman fort at Wallsend, with the fort of Arbeia down-river at the mouth of the Tyne, on the south bank in what is now South Shields. The Tyne was then a wider, shallower river at this point and it is thought that the bridge was probably about 700 feet (210 m) long, made of wood and supported on stone piers. It is probable that it was sited near the current Swing Bridge, due to the fact that Roman artefacts were found there during the building of the latter bridge. Hadrian himself probably visited the site in 122. A shrine was set up on the completed bridge in 123 by the 6th Legion, with two altars to Neptune and Oceanus respectively. The two altars were subsequently found in the river and are on display in the Great North Museum in Newcastle.

 

The Romans built a stone-walled fort in 150 to protect the river crossing which was at the foot of the Tyne Gorge, and this took the name of the bridge so that the whole settlement was known as Pons Aelius. The fort was situated on a rocky outcrop overlooking the new bridge, on the site of the present Castle Keep. Pons Aelius is last mentioned in 400, in a Roman document listing all of the Roman military outposts. It is likely that nestling in the shadow of the fort would have been a small vicus, or village. Unfortunately, no buildings have been detected; only a few pieces of flagging. It is clear that there was a Roman cemetery near Clavering Place, behind the Central station, as a number of Roman coffins and sarcophagi have been unearthed there.

 

Despite the presence of the bridge, the settlement of Pons Aelius was not particularly important among the northern Roman settlements. The most important stations were those on the highway of Dere Street running from Eboracum (York) through Corstopitum (Corbridge) and to the lands north of the Wall. Corstopitum, being a major arsenal and supply centre, was much larger and more populous than Pons Aelius.

 

Anglo-Saxon development

The Angles arrived in the North-East of England in about 500 and may have landed on the Tyne. There is no evidence of an Anglo-Saxon settlement on or near the site of Pons Aelius during the Anglo-Saxon age. The bridge probably survived and there may well have been a small village at the northern end, but no evidence survives. At that time the region was dominated by two kingdoms, Bernicia, north of the Tees and ruled from Bamburgh, and Deira, south of the Tees and ruled from York. Bernicia and Deira combined to form the kingdom of Northanhymbra (Northumbria) early in the 7th century. There were three local kings who held the title of Bretwalda – 'Lord of Britain', Edwin of Deira (627–632), Oswald of Bernicia (633–641) and Oswy of Northumbria (641–658). The 7th century became known as the 'Golden Age of Northumbria', when the area was a beacon of culture and learning in Europe. The greatness of this period was based on its generally Christian culture and resulted in the Lindisfarne Gospels amongst other treasures. The Tyne valley was dotted with monasteries, with those at Monkwearmouth, Hexham and Jarrow being the most famous. Bede, who was based at Jarrow, wrote of a royal estate, known as Ad Murum, 'at the Wall', 12 miles (19 km) from the sea. It is thought that this estate may have been in what is now Newcastle. At some unknown time, the site of Newcastle came to be known as Monkchester. The reason for this title is unknown, as we are unaware of any specific monasteries at the site, and Bede made no reference to it. In 875 Halfdan Ragnarsson, the Danish Viking conqueror of York, led an army that attacked and pillaged various monasteries in the area, and it is thought that Monkchester was also pillaged at this time. Little more was heard of it until the coming of the Normans.

 

Norman period

After the arrival of William the Conqueror in England in 1066, the whole of England was quickly subjected to Norman rule. However, in Northumbria there was great resistance to the Normans, and in 1069 the newly appointed Norman Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Comines and 700 of his men were killed by the local population at Durham. The Northumbrians then marched on York, but William was able to suppress the uprising. That same year, a second uprising occurred when a Danish fleet landed in the Humber. The Northumbrians again attacked York and destroyed the garrison there. William was again able to suppress the uprising, but this time he took revenge. He laid waste to the whole of the Midlands and the land from York to the Tees. In 1080, William Walcher, the Norman bishop of Durham and his followers were brutally murdered at Gateshead. This time Odo, bishop of Bayeux, William's half brother, devastated the land between the Tees and the Tweed. This was known as the 'Harrying of the North'. This devastation is reflected in the Domesday Book. The destruction had such an effect that the North remained poor and backward at least until Tudor times and perhaps until the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle suffered in this respect with the rest of the North.

 

In 1080 William sent his eldest son, Robert Curthose, north to defend the kingdom against the Scots. After his campaign, he moved to Monkchester and began the building of a 'New Castle'. This was of the "motte-and-bailey" type of construction, a wooden tower on top of an earthen mound (motte), surrounded by a moat and wooden stockade (bailey). It was this castle that gave Newcastle its name. In 1095 the Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Mowbray, rose up against the king, William Rufus, and Rufus sent an army north to recapture the castle. From then on the castle became crown property and was an important base from which the king could control the northern barons. The Northumbrian earldom was abolished and a Sheriff of Northumberland was appointed to administer the region. In 1091 the parish church of St Nicholas was consecrated on the site of the present Anglican cathedral, close by the bailey of the new castle. The church is believed to have been a wooden building on stone footings.

 

Not a trace of the tower or mound of the motte and bailey castle remains now. Henry II replaced it with a rectangular stone keep, which was built between 1172 and 1177 at a cost of £1,444. A stone bailey, in the form of a triangle, replaced the previous wooden one. The great outer gateway to the castle, called 'the Black Gate', was built later, between 1247 and 1250, in the reign of Henry III. There were at that time no town walls and when attacked by the Scots, the townspeople had to crowd into the bailey for safety. It is probable that the new castle acted as a magnet for local merchants because of the safety it provided. This in turn would help to expand trade in the town. At this time wool, skins and lead were being exported, whilst alum, pepper and ginger were being imported from France and Flanders.

 

Middle Ages

Throughout the Middle Ages, Newcastle was England's northern fortress, the centre for assembled armies. The Border war against Scotland lasted intermittently for several centuries – possibly the longest border war ever waged. During the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, David 1st of Scotland and his son were granted Cumbria and Northumberland respectively, so that for a period from 1139 to 1157, Newcastle was effectively in Scottish hands. It is believed that during this period, King David may have built the church of St Andrew and the Benedictine nunnery in Newcastle. However, King Stephen's successor, Henry II was strong enough to take back the Earldom of Northumbria from Malcolm IV.

 

The Scots king William the Lion was imprisoned in Newcastle, in 1174, after being captured at the Battle of Alnwick. Edward I brought the Stone of Scone and William Wallace south through the town and Newcastle was successfully defended against the Scots three times during the 14th century.

 

Around 1200, stone-faced, clay-filled jetties were starting to project into the river, an indication that trade was increasing in Newcastle. As the Roman roads continued to deteriorate, sea travel was gaining in importance. By 1275 Newcastle was the sixth largest wool exporting port in England. The principal exports at this time were wool, timber, coal, millstones, dairy produce, fish, salt and hides. Much of the developing trade was with the Baltic countries and Germany. Most of the Newcastle merchants were situated near the river, below the Castle. The earliest known charter was dated 1175 in the reign of Henry II, giving the townspeople some control over their town. In 1216 King John granted Newcastle a mayor[8] and also allowed the formation of guilds (known as Mysteries). These were cartels formed within different trades, which restricted trade to guild members. There were initially twelve guilds. Coal was being exported from Newcastle by 1250, and by 1350 the burgesses received a royal licence to export coal. This licence to export coal was jealously guarded by the Newcastle burgesses, and they tried to prevent any one else on the Tyne from exporting coal except through Newcastle. The burgesses similarly tried to prevent fish from being sold anywhere else on the Tyne except Newcastle. This led to conflicts with Gateshead and South Shields.

 

In 1265, the town was granted permission to impose a 'Wall Tax' or Murage, to pay for the construction of a fortified wall to enclose the town and protect it from Scottish invaders. The town walls were not completed until early in the 14th century. They were two miles (3 km) long, 9 feet (2.7 m) thick and 25 feet (7.6 m) high. They had six main gates, as well as some smaller gates, and had 17 towers. The land within the walls was divided almost equally by the Lort Burn, which flowed southwards and joined the Tyne to the east of the Castle. The town began to expand north of the Castle and west of the Lort Burn with various markets being set up within the walls.

 

In 1400 Henry IV granted a new charter, creating a County corporate which separated the town, but not the Castle, from the county of Northumberland and recognised it as a "county of itself" with a right to have a sheriff of its own. The burgesses were now allowed to choose six aldermen who, with the mayor would be justices of the peace. The mayor and sheriff were allowed to hold borough courts in the Guildhall.

 

Religious houses

During the Middle Ages a number of religious houses were established within the walls: the first of these was the Benedictine nunnery of St Bartholomew founded in 1086 near the present-day Nun Street. Both David I of Scotland and Henry I of England were benefactors of the religious house. Nothing of the nunnery remains now.

 

The friary of Blackfriars, Newcastle (Dominican) was established in 1239. These were also known as the Preaching Friars or Shod Friars, because they wore sandals, as opposed to other orders. The friary was situated in the present-day Friars Street. In 1280 the order was granted royal permission to make a postern in the town walls to communicate with their gardens outside the walls. On 19 June 1334, Edward Balliol, claimant to be King of Scotland, did homage to King Edward III, on behalf of the kingdom of Scotland, in the church of the friary. Much of the original buildings of the friary still exist, mainly because, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries the friary of Blackfriars was rented out by the corporation to nine of the local trade guilds.

 

The friary of Whitefriars (Carmelite) was established in 1262. The order was originally housed on the Wall Knoll in Pandon, but in 1307 it took over the buildings of another order, which went out of existence, the Friars of the Sac. The land, which had originally been given by Robert the Bruce, was situated in the present-day Hanover Square, behind the Central station. Nothing of the friary remains now.

 

The friary of Austinfriars (Augustinian) was established in 1290. The friary was on the site where the Holy Jesus Hospital was built in 1682. The friary was traditionally the lodging place of English kings whenever they visited or passed through Newcastle. In 1503 Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England, stayed two days at the friary on her way to join her new husband James IV of Scotland.

 

The friary of Greyfriars (Franciscans) was established in 1274. The friary was in the present-day area between Pilgrim Street, Grey Street, Market Street and High Chare. Nothing of the original buildings remains.

 

The friary of the Order of the Holy Trinity, also known as the Trinitarians, was established in 1360. The order devoted a third of its income to buying back captives of the Saracens, during the Crusades. Their house was on the Wall Knoll, in Pandon, to the east of the city, but within the walls. Wall Knoll had previously been occupied by the White Friars until they moved to new premises in 1307.

 

All of the above religious houses were closed in about 1540, when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries.

 

An important street running through Newcastle at the time was Pilgrim Street, running northwards inside the walls and leading to the Pilgrim Gate on the north wall. The street still exists today as arguably Newcastle's main shopping street.

 

Tudor period

The Scottish border wars continued for much of the 16th century, so that during that time, Newcastle was often threatened with invasion by the Scots, but also remained important as a border stronghold against them.

 

During the Reformation begun by Henry VIII in 1536, the five Newcastle friaries and the single nunnery were dissolved and the land was sold to the Corporation and to rich merchants. At this time there were fewer than 60 inmates of the religious houses in Newcastle. The convent of Blackfriars was leased to nine craft guilds to be used as their headquarters. This probably explains why it is the only one of the religious houses whose building survives to the present day. The priories at Tynemouth and Durham were also dissolved, thus ending the long-running rivalry between Newcastle and the church for control of trade on the Tyne. A little later, the property of the nunnery of St Bartholomew and of Grey Friars were bought by Robert Anderson, who had the buildings demolished to build his grand Newe House (also known as Anderson Place).

 

With the gradual decline of the Scottish border wars the town walls were allowed to decline as well as the castle. By 1547, about 10,000 people were living in Newcastle. At the beginning of the 16th century exports of wool from Newcastle were more than twice the value of exports of coal, but during the century coal exports continued to increase.

 

Under Edward VI, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, sponsored an act allowing Newcastle to annexe Gateshead as its suburb. The main reason for this was to allow the Newcastle Hostmen, who controlled the export of Tyne coal, to get their hands on the Gateshead coal mines, previously controlled by the Bishop of Durham. However, when Mary I came to power, Dudley met his downfall and the decision was reversed. The Reformation allowed private access to coal mines previously owned by Tynemouth and Durham priories and as a result coal exports increase dramatically, from 15,000 tons in 1500 to 35,000 tons in 1565, and to 400,000 tons in 1625.

 

The plague visited Newcastle four times during the 16th century, in 1579 when 2,000 people died, in 1589 when 1700 died, in 1595 and finally in 1597.

 

In 1600 Elizabeth I granted Newcastle a charter for an exclusive body of electors, the right to elect the mayor and burgesses. The charter also gave the Hostmen exclusive rights to load coal at any point on the Tyne. The Hostmen developed as an exclusive group within the Merchant Adventurers who had been incorporated by a charter in 1547.

 

Stuart period

In 1636 there was a serious outbreak of bubonic plague in Newcastle. There had been several previous outbreaks of the disease over the years, but this was the most serious. It is thought to have arrived from the Netherlands via ships that were trading between the Tyne and that country. It first appeared in the lower part of the town near the docks but gradually spread to all parts of the town. As the disease gained hold the authorities took measures to control it by boarding up any properties that contained infected persons, meaning that whole families were locked up together with the infected family members. Other infected persons were put in huts outside the town walls and left to die. Plague pits were dug next to the town's four churches and outside the town walls to receive the bodies in mass burials. Over the course of the outbreak 5,631 deaths were recorded out of an estimated population of 12,000, a death rate of 47%.

 

In 1637 Charles I tried to raise money by doubling the 'voluntary' tax on coal in return for allowing the Newcastle Hostmen to regulate production and fix prices. This caused outrage amongst the London importers and the East Anglian shippers. Both groups decided to boycott Tyne coal and as a result forced Charles to reverse his decision in 1638.

 

In 1640 during the Second Bishops' War, the Scots successfully invaded Newcastle. The occupying army demanded £850 per day from the Corporation to billet the Scottish troops. Trade from the Tyne ground to a halt during the occupation. The Scots left in 1641 after receiving a Parliamentary pardon and a £4,000,000 loan from the town.

 

In 1642 the English Civil War began. King Charles realised the value of the Tyne coal trade and therefore garrisoned Newcastle. A Royalist was appointed as governor. At that time, Newcastle and King's Lynn were the only important seaports to support the crown. In 1644 Parliament blockaded the Tyne to prevent the king from receiving revenue from the Tyne coal trade. Coal exports fell from 450,000 to 3,000 tons and London suffered a hard winter without fuel. Parliament encouraged the coal trade from the Wear to try to replace that lost from Newcastle but that was not enough to make up for the lost Tyneside tonnage.

 

In 1644 the Scots crossed the border. Newcastle strengthened its defences in preparation. The Scottish army, with 40,000 troops, besieged Newcastle for three months until the garrison of 1,500 surrendered. During the siege, the Scots bombarded the walls with their artillery, situated in Gateshead and Castle Leazes. The Scottish commander threatened to destroy the steeple of St Nicholas's Church by gunfire if the mayor, Sir John Marley, did not surrender the town. The mayor responded by placing Scottish prisoners that they had captured in the steeple, so saving it from destruction. The town walls were finally breached by a combination of artillery and sapping. In gratitude for this defence, Charles gave Newcastle the motto 'Fortiter Defendit Triumphans' to be added to its coat of arms. The Scottish army occupied Northumberland and Durham for two years. The coal taxes had to pay for the Scottish occupation. In 1645 Charles surrendered to the Scots and was imprisoned in Newcastle for nine months. After the Civil War the coal trade on the Tyne soon picked up and exceeded its pre-war levels.

 

A new Guildhall was completed on the Sandhill next to the river in 1655, replacing an earlier facility damaged by fire in 1639, and became the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council. In 1681 the Hospital of the Holy Jesus was built partly on the site of the Austin Friars. The Guildhall and Holy Jesus Hospital still exist.

 

Charles II tried to impose a charter on Newcastle to give the king the right to appoint the mayor, sheriff, recorder and town clerk. Charles died before the charter came into effect. In 1685, James II tried to replace Corporation members with named Catholics. However, James' mandate was suspended in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution welcoming William of Orange. In 1689, after the fall of James II, the people of Newcastle tore down his bronze equestrian statue in Sandhill and tossed it into the Tyne. The bronze was later used to make bells for All Saints Church.

 

In 1689 the Lort Burn was covered over. At this time it was an open sewer. The channel followed by the Lort Burn became the present day Dean Street. At that time, the centre of Newcastle was still the Sandhill area, with many merchants living along the Close or on the Side. The path of the main road through Newcastle ran from the single Tyne bridge, through Sandhill to the Side, a narrow street which climbed steeply on the north-east side of the castle hill until it reached the higher ground alongside St Nicholas' Church. As Newcastle developed, the Side became lined with buildings with projecting upper stories, so that the main street through Newcastle was a narrow, congested, steep thoroughfare.

 

In 1701 the Keelmen's Hospital was built in the Sandgate area of the city, using funds provided by the keelmen. The building still stands today.

 

Eighteenth century

In the 18th century, Newcastle was the country's largest print centre after London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the Literary and Philosophical Society of 1793, with its erudite debates and large stock of books in several languages predated the London Library by half a century.

 

In 1715, during the Jacobite rising in favour of the Old Pretender, an army of Jacobite supporters marched on Newcastle. Many of the Northumbrian gentry joined the rebels. The citizens prepared for its arrival by arresting Jacobite supporters and accepting 700 extra recruits into the local militia. The gates of the city were closed against the rebels. This proved enough to delay an attack until reinforcements arrived forcing the rebel army to move across to the west coast. The rebels finally surrendered at Preston.

 

In 1745, during a second Jacobite rising in favour of the Young Pretender, a Scottish army crossed the border led by Bonnie Prince Charlie. Once again Newcastle prepared by arresting Jacobite supporters and inducting 800 volunteers into the local militia. The town walls were strengthened, most of the gates were blocked up and some 200 cannon were deployed. 20,000 regulars were billeted on the Town Moor. These preparations were enough to force the rebel army to travel south via the west coast. They were eventually defeated at Culloden in 1746.

 

Newcastle's actions during the 1715 rising in resisting the rebels and declaring for George I, in contrast to the rest of the region, is the most likely source of the nickname 'Geordie', applied to people from Tyneside, or more accurately Newcastle. Another theory, however, is that the name 'Geordie' came from the inventor of the Geordie lamp, George Stephenson. It was a type of safety lamp used in mining, but was not invented until 1815. Apparently the term 'German Geordie' was in common use during the 18th century.

 

The city's first hospital, Newcastle Infirmary opened in 1753; it was funded by public subscription. A lying-in hospital was established in Newcastle in 1760. The city's first public hospital for mentally ill patients, Wardens Close Lunatic Hospital was opened in October 1767.

 

In 1771 a flood swept away much of the bridge at Newcastle. The bridge had been built in 1250 and repaired after a flood in 1339. The bridge supported various houses and three towers and an old chapel. A blue stone was placed in the middle of the bridge to mark the boundary between Newcastle and the Palatinate of Durham. A temporary wooden bridge had to be built, and this remained in use until 1781, when a new stone bridge was completed. The new bridge consisted of nine arches. In 1801, because of the pressure of traffic, the bridge had to be widened.

 

A permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Fenham Barracks in 1806. The facilities at the Castle for holding assizes, which had been condemned for their inconvenience and unhealthiness, were replaced when the Moot Hall opened in August 1812.

 

Victorian period

Present-day Newcastle owes much of its architecture to the work of the builder Richard Grainger, aided by architects John Dobson, Thomas Oliver, John and Benjamin Green and others. In 1834 Grainger won a competition to produce a new plan for central Newcastle. He put this plan into effect using the above architects as well as architects employed in his own office. Grainger and Oliver had already built Leazes Terrace, Leazes Crescent and Leazes Place between 1829 and 1834. Grainger and Dobson had also built the Royal Arcade at the foot of Pilgrim Street between 1830 and 1832. The most ambitious project covered 12 acres 12 acres (49,000 m2) in central Newcastle, on the site of Newe House (also called Anderson Place). Grainger built three new thoroughfares, Grey Street, Grainger Street and Clayton Street with many connecting streets, as well as the Central Exchange and the Grainger Market. John Wardle and George Walker, working in Grainger's office, designed Clayton Street, Grainger Street and most of Grey Street. Dobson designed the Grainger Market and much of the east side of Grey Street. John and Benjamin Green designed the Theatre Royal at the top of Grey Street, where Grainger placed the column of Grey's Monument as a focus for the whole scheme. Grey Street is considered to be one of the finest streets in the country, with its elegant curve. Unfortunately most of old Eldon Square was demolished in the 1960s in the name of progress. The Royal Arcade met a similar fate.

 

In 1849 a new bridge was built across the river at Newcastle. This was the High Level Bridge, designed by Robert Stephenson, and slightly up river from the existing bridge. The bridge was designed to carry road and rail traffic across the Tyne Gorge on two decks with rail traffic on the upper deck and road traffic on the lower. The new bridge meant that traffic could pass through Newcastle without having to negotiate the steep, narrow Side, as had been necessary for centuries. The bridge was opened by Queen Victoria, who one year later opened the new Central Station, designed by John Dobson. Trains were now able to cross the river, directly into the centre of Newcastle and carry on up to Scotland. The Army Riding School was also completed in 1849.

 

In 1854 a large fire started on the Gateshead quayside and an explosion caused it to spread across the river to the Newcastle quayside. A huge conflagration amongst the narrow alleys, or 'chares', destroyed the homes of 800 families as well as many business premises. The narrow alleys that had been destroyed were replaced by streets containing blocks of modern offices.

 

In 1863 the Town Hall in St Nicholas Square replaced the Guildhall as the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council.

 

In 1876 the low level bridge was replaced by a new bridge known as the Swing Bridge, so called because the bridge was able to swing horizontally on a central axis and allow ships to pass on either side. This meant that for the first time sizeable ships could pass up-river beyond Newcastle. The bridge was built and paid for by William Armstrong, a local arms manufacturer, who needed to have warships access his Elswick arms factory to fit armaments to them. The Swing Bridge's rotating mechanism is adapted from the cannon mounts developed in Armstrong's arms works. In 1882 the Elswick works began to build ships as well as to arm them. The Barrack Road drill hall was completed in 1890.

 

Industrialisation

In the 19th century, shipbuilding and heavy engineering were central to the city's prosperity; and the city was a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle's development as a major city owed most to its central role in the production and export of coal. The phrase "taking coals to Newcastle" was first recorded in 1538; it proverbially denotes bringing a particular commodity to a place that has more than enough of it already.

 

Innovation in Newcastle and surrounding areas included the following:

 

George Stephenson developed a miner's safety lamp at the same time that Humphry Davy developed a rival design. The lamp made possible the opening up of ever deeper mines to provide the coal that powered the industrial revolution.

George and his son Robert Stephenson were hugely influential figures in the development of the early railways. George developed Blücher, a locomotive working at Killingworth colliery in 1814, whilst Robert was instrumental in the design of Rocket, a revolutionary design that was the forerunner of modern locomotives. Both men were involved in planning and building railway lines, all over this country and abroad.

 

Joseph Swan demonstrated a working electric light bulb about a year before Thomas Edison did the same in the USA. This led to a dispute as to who had actually invented the light bulb. Eventually the two rivals agreed to form a mutual company between them, the Edison and Swan Electric Light Company, known as Ediswan.

 

Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine, for marine use and for power generation. He used Turbinia, a small, turbine-powered ship, to demonstrate the speed that a steam turbine could generate. Turbinia literally ran rings around the British Fleet at a review at Spithead in 1897.

 

William Armstrong invented a hydraulic crane that was installed in dockyards up and down the country. He then began to design light, accurate field guns for the British army. These were a vast improvement on the existing guns that were then in use.

 

The following major industries developed in Newcastle or its surrounding area:

 

Glassmaking

A small glass industry existed in Newcastle from the mid-15th century. In 1615 restrictions were put on the use of wood for manufacturing glass. It was found that glass could be manufactured using the local coal, and so a glassmaking industry grew up on Tyneside. Huguenot glassmakers came over from France as refugees from persecution and set up glasshouses in the Skinnerburn area of Newcastle. Eventually, glass production moved to the Ouseburn area of Newcastle. In 1684 the Dagnia family, Sephardic Jewish emigrants from Altare, arrived in Newcastle from Stourbridge and established glasshouses along the Close, to manufacture high quality flint glass. The glass manufacturers used sand ballast from the boats arriving in the river as the main raw material. The glassware was then exported in collier brigs. The period from 1730 to 1785 was the highpoint of Newcastle glass manufacture, when the local glassmakers produced the 'Newcastle Light Baluster'. The glassmaking industry still exists in the west end of the city with local Artist and Glassmaker Jane Charles carrying on over four hundred years of hot glass blowing in Newcastle upon Tyne.

 

Locomotive manufacture

In 1823 George Stephenson and his son Robert established the world's first locomotive factory near Forth Street in Newcastle. Here they built locomotives for the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, as well as many others. It was here that the famous locomotive Rocket was designed and manufactured in preparation for the Rainhill Trials. Apart from building locomotives for the British market, the Newcastle works also produced locomotives for Europe and America. The Forth Street works continued to build locomotives until 1960.

 

Shipbuilding

In 1296 a wooden, 135 ft (41 m) long galley was constructed at the mouth of the Lort Burn in Newcastle, as part of a twenty-ship order from the king. The ship cost £205, and is the earliest record of shipbuilding in Newcastle. However the rise of the Tyne as a shipbuilding area was due to the need for collier brigs for the coal export trade. These wooden sailing ships were usually built locally, establishing local expertise in building ships. As ships changed from wood to steel, and from sail to steam, the local shipbuilding industry changed to build the new ships. Although shipbuilding was carried out up and down both sides of the river, the two main areas for building ships in Newcastle were Elswick, to the west, and Walker, to the east. By 1800 Tyneside was the third largest producer of ships in Britain. Unfortunately, after the Second World War, lack of modernisation and competition from abroad gradually caused the local industry to decline and die.

 

Armaments

In 1847 William Armstrong established a huge factory in Elswick, west of Newcastle. This was initially used to produce hydraulic cranes but subsequently began also to produce guns for both the army and the navy. After the Swing Bridge was built in 1876 allowing ships to pass up river, warships could have their armaments fitted alongside the Elswick works. Armstrong's company took over its industrial rival, Joseph Whitworth of Manchester in 1897.

 

Steam turbines

Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine and, in 1889, founded his own company C. A. Parsons and Company in Heaton, Newcastle to make steam turbines. Shortly after this, he realised that steam turbines could be used to propel ships and, in 1897, he founded a second company, Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in Wallsend. It is there that he designed and manufactured Turbinia. Parsons turbines were initially used in warships but soon came to be used in merchant and passenger vessels, including the liner Mauretania which held the blue riband for the Atlantic crossing until 1929. Parsons' company in Heaton began to make turbo-generators for power stations and supplied power stations all over the world. The Heaton works, reduced in size, remains as part of the Siemens AG industrial giant.

 

Pottery

In 1762 the Maling pottery was founded in Sunderland by French Huguenots, but transferred to Newcastle in 1817. A factory was built in the Ouseburn area of the city. The factory was rebuilt twice, finally occupying a 14-acre (57,000 m2) site that was claimed to be the biggest pottery in the world and which had its own railway station. The pottery pioneered use of machines in making potteries as opposed to hand production. In the 1890s the company went up-market and employed in-house designers. The period up to the Second World War was the most profitable with a constant stream of new designs being introduced. However, after the war, production gradually declined and the company closed in 1963.

 

Expansion of the city

Newcastle was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835: the reformed municipal borough included the parishes of Byker, Elswick, Heaton, Jesmond, Newcastle All Saints, Newcastle St Andrew, Newcastle St John, Newcastle St Nicholas, and Westgate. The urban districts of Benwell and Fenham and Walker were added in 1904. In 1935, Newcastle gained Kenton and parts of the parishes of West Brunton, East Denton, Fawdon, Longbenton. The most recent expansion in Newcastle's boundaries took place under the Local Government Act 1972 on 1 April 1974, when Newcastle became a metropolitan borough, also including the urban districts of Gosforth and Newburn, and the parishes of Brunswick, Dinnington, Hazlerigg, North Gosforth and Woolsington from the Castle Ward Rural District, and the village of Westerhope.

 

Meanwhile Northumberland County Council was formed under the Local Government Act 1888 and benefited from a dedicated meeting place when County Hall was completed in the Castle Garth area of Newcastle in 1910. Following the Local Government Act 1972 County Hall relocated to Morpeth in April 1981.

 

Twentieth century

In 1925 work began on a new high-level road bridge to span the Tyne Gorge between Newcastle and Gateshead. The capacity of the existing High-Level Bridge and Swing Bridge were being strained to the limit, and an additional bridge had been discussed for a long time. The contract was awarded to the Dorman Long Company and the bridge was finally opened by King George V in 1928. The road deck was 84 feet (26 m) above the river and was supported by a 531 feet (162 m) steel arch. The new Tyne Bridge quickly became a symbol for Newcastle and Tyneside, and remains so today.

 

During the Second World War, Newcastle was largely spared the horrors inflicted upon other British cities bombed during the Blitz. Although the armaments factories and shipyards along the River Tyne were targeted by the Luftwaffe, they largely escaped unscathed. Manors goods yard and railway terminal, to the east of the city centre, and the suburbs of Jesmond and Heaton suffered bombing during 1941. There were 141 deaths and 587 injuries, a relatively small figure compared to the casualties in other industrial centres of Britain.

 

In 1963 the city gained its own university, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, by act of parliament. A School of Medicine and Surgery had been established in Newcastle in 1834. This eventually developed into a college of medicine attached to Durham University. A college of physical science was also founded and became Armstrong College in 1904. In 1934 the two colleges merged to become King's College, Durham. This remained as part of Durham University until the new university was created in 1963. In 1992 the city gained its second university when Newcastle Polytechnic was granted university status as Northumbria University.

 

Newcastle City Council moved to the new Newcastle Civic Centre in 1968.

 

As heavy industries declined in the second half of the 20th century, large sections of the city centre were demolished along with many areas of slum housing. The leading political figure in the city during the 1960s was T. Dan Smith who oversaw a massive building programme of highrise housing estates and authorised the demolition of a quarter of the Georgian Grainger Town to make way for Eldon Square Shopping Centre. Smith's control in Newcastle collapsed when it was exposed that he had used public contracts to advantage himself and his business associates and for a time Newcastle became a byword for civic corruption as depicted in the films Get Carter and Stormy Monday and in the television series Our Friends in the North. However, much of the historic Grainger Town area survived and was, for the most part, fully restored in the late 1990s. Northumberland Street, initially the A1, was gradually closed to traffic from the 1970s and completely pedestrianised by 1998.

 

In 1978 a new rapid transport system, the Metro, was built, linking the Tyneside area. The system opened in August 1980. A new bridge was built to carry the Metro across the river between Gateshead and Newcastle. This was the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, commonly known as the Metro Bridge. Eventually the Metro system was extended to reach Newcastle Airport in 1991, and in 2002 the Metro system was extended to the nearby city of Sunderland.

 

As the 20th century progressed, trade on the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides gradually declined, until by the 1980s both sides of the river were looking rather derelict. Shipping company offices had closed along with offices of firms related to shipping. There were also derelict warehouses lining the riverbank. Local government produced a master plan to re-develop the Newcastle quayside and this was begun in the 1990s. New offices, restaurants, bars and residential accommodation were built and the area has changed in the space of a few years into a vibrant area, partially returning the focus of Newcastle to the riverside, where it was in medieval times.

 

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge, a foot and cycle bridge, 26 feet (7.9 m) wide and 413 feet (126 m) long, was completed in 2001. The road deck is in the form of a curve and is supported by a steel arch. To allow ships to pass, the whole structure, both arch and road-deck, rotates on huge bearings at either end so that the road deck is lifted. The bridge can be said to open and shut like a human eye. It is an important addition to the re-developed quayside area, providing a vital link between the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides.

 

Recent developments

Today the city is a vibrant centre for office and retail employment, but just a short distance away there are impoverished inner-city housing estates, in areas originally built to provide affordable housing for employees of the shipyards and other heavy industries that lined the River Tyne. In the 2010s Newcastle City Council began implementing plans to regenerate these depressed areas, such as those along the Ouseburn Valley.

Manage to get this dragonfly as he stay still just for a few seconds.

Managed to snap the Sloth bear shaking out some tasty treats.

Managed to do some leather photos at the end of the day

managed to find one that stayed still long enough for me to get a shot

Managed to catch him on full zoom, not too sharp, but I was thrilled to see a thrush, so rare these days.

The Tower of Pisa (popularly known as the leaning tower and, in Pisa, the Campanile or the Tower ) is the bell tower of the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta , in the famous Piazza del Duomo ( a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987 ) of which it is the most famous monument due to its characteristic slope, symbol of Pisa and among the iconic symbols of Italy. It is a free-standing bell tower 57 meters high (58.36 meters considering the foundation plan) built over two centuries, between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. With a mass of 14,453 tons, the curved line predominates, with turns of blind arches and six floors of loggias. The slope is due to a subsidence of the underlying ground which occurred already in the early stages of construction.

 

The inclination of the building measures 3.97° with respect to the vertical axis. The tower is managed by the Opera della Primaziale Pisana , the body that manages all the monuments in the Piazza del Duomo in Pisa. It has been proposed as one of the seven wonders of the modern world .

 

Work began on 9 August 1173 . The foundations were left fallow for an entire year. Some studies attribute the authorship of the project to the Pisan architect Diotisalvi , who was building the baptistery in the same period . Construction was stopped during the beginning of the third ring.

 

There are in fact many similarities between the two buildings, starting from the type of foundations. Others instead suggest Gherardi , while according to Vasari the work was started by Bonanno Pisano . Vasari's thesis was considered valid especially after the discovery of a tombstone with the name of Bonanno near the bell tower, walled up in the atrium of the building; furthermore, in the 19th century, an epigraphic fragment of pink material was also found nearby, probably a cast on which a metal plate was cast, which is placed on the jamb of the entrance door of the building. On this fragment we read, reversed: "Pisan citizen named Bonanno". This cast was most likely related to the Porta Regia of the Cathedral, destroyed during the fire of 1595 .

 

The first phase of the work was interrupted halfway through the third floor, due to the subsidence of the land on which the base of the bell tower stands. The softness of the soil, consisting of normally consolidated soft clay , is the cause of the slope of the tower and, although to a lesser extent, of all the buildings in the square.

 

Work resumed in 1275 under the guidance of Giovanni di Simone and Giovanni Pisano , adding another three floors to the previous construction. In an attempt to straighten the tower, the three added floors tend to curve in the opposite direction to the slope. The bell tower was completed in the middle of the following century, adding the belfry .

 

Since its construction the overhang has substantially increased, but over the centuries there have also been long periods of stability or even reduction in the slope. During the nineteenth century the bell tower underwent important restorations, which led, for example, to the insulation of the tower's base. The works, carried out under the direction of Alessandro Gherardesca , contributed to definitively debunking the theory, supported by some scholars of the time, according to which the bell tower was thought to have been leaning since its origin.

 

In fact, soil tests carried out during the restoration brought to light the presence of a significant quantity of underground water which made the ground soft. To deal with this problem, large quantities were sucked up from the underground with the aid of pumps, but this favored the phenomenon of subsidence and the consequent increase in the slope of the tower. In the last decades of the 20th century the inclination had undergone a decisive increase, so much so that the danger of collapse had become real. In 1993 the displacement from the top of the axis to the base was estimated to be approximately 4.47 meters, or approximately 4.5 degrees .

 

During the consolidation works, which began in 1990 and ended at the end of 2001 , the slope of the bell tower was reduced by encircling some floors, temporary application of steel tie rods and lead counterweights (up to 900 tons) and under-excavation, bringing it back to the one that, presumably, must have been 200 years old. Furthermore, the foundation has been consolidated to allow the tower to be safely maintained for at least another three centuries, thus allowing access to visitors. Starting in 2004, the restoration of all the external stone surfaces and the restoration and layout of the internal rooms began. Some of these interventions were carried out thanks to funds from the Lotto game , according to what is regulated by law no. 662/1996

 

Since March 2008 the tower has reached the definitive level of consolidation in terms of inclination, settling again at 3.97°, a value that should remain unchanged for at least another 300 years. The success of the operation is linked to the name of Michele Jamiolkowski , professor of the Polytechnic of Turin and president of the International Committee for the Protection of the Tower of Pisa from 1990 to 2003, to that of Carlo Viggiani , professor of the Department of Geotechnical Engineering of the University of the Studies of Naples Federico II and president of the International Committee for the conservation of monuments and historical sites and that of the engineer John Boscawen Burland , professor of the Department of Civil Engineering of the Imperial College of London .

 

After twenty years, the restoration work on the stone surfaces, both on the exterior and interior, was completed on 22 April 2011 .

 

The structure of the bell tower incorporates two rooms: one at the base of the tower, known as the Fish Room, due to a bas-relief depicting a fish; this room has no ceiling, being in fact the cable of the tower. The other one is the belfry, on the seventh ring. Delimited by the walls of the upper walkway, it is also open to the sky and in the centre, through an opening, it is possible to see the ground floor of the tower. There are also three flights of stairs: one uninterrupted from the base to the sixth ring, where you exit outside; one, a smaller spiral that leads from the sixth ring to the seventh; finally an even smaller one, still spiral, which leads from the seventh ring to the top.

 

Bells

Assunta - is the largest bell in the concert and emits the note B2, its weight amounts to 2600 kg. about; it was cast in 1654 by Giovanni Pietro Orlandi;

Crucifix - of note C#3 and weighing 1850 kg. approximately, originally cast in 1572 by Vincenzo Possenti, recast in 1818 by Gualandi da Prato;

San Ranieri - of note D#3 and weight 1150 kg. approximately, cast in 1735 by Pier Francesco Berti of Lucca;

Dal Pozzo - of note Sol3, cast in 1606 and damaged by the bombings of the last world war, displayed in a museum and replaced in 2004 by a copy made by the Marinelli foundry in Agnone weighing 490 kg. about;

Pasquereccia - of note G#3 and weighing approximately 1014 kg., cast in 1262 by Lotteringio di Bartolomeo (Locterineus de Pisis);

Terza - of note is #3 and weighs approximately 330 kg., made by Lorraine or Alsatian foundrymen in 1473;

Vespruccio - the minor, of note E4 and weighing 120 kg. approximately, made in the 14th century and recast in 1501.

The bells ring before masses in the cathedral and at midday via a system of electric clappers.

 

In ancient times each bell was used for a moment of the liturgical day. For example, the Pasquereccia rang for Easter, the Terce at the third hour of the day (nine in the morning), the Vespruccio bell at the time of vespers (six in the afternoon).

 

There is news of a bell stolen from the church of San Michele a Guamo , near Lucca, then recast to form a "new concert" .

The bell of San Ranieri was originally called "Giustizia" and was located in the palace of the same name. He used to play for the deaths of traitors and, it is supposed, he also played for the death of Count Ugolino . It was brought to the bell tower in the 15th century to replace the original Pasquareccia and later recast in 1606.

 

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

Managed to catch some rays last night, despite the poor visibility and moonlight, although I missed the early action due to cloud cover during the evening. This geomagnetic storm was the result of a coronal hole high speed stream, reaching G2 levels for a time during the early hours. Coronal holes will likely become stronger and more numerous during the declining phase of the solar cycle.

Managed to get out onto Surprise View today...amazing how invigorating a swift walk & few clicks of the camera bring me back to life again.

Just the greens of the lights captured this time as I missed the reds. However, I threw in some car tail-lights to compensate.

Managed to dodge rain showers today, and even saw the sun for a while, this lovely Darter was sitting pretty for a while!

remember the series of the night stalls i uploaded days earlier well here is a photo of the fellow assigned by the council to oversee and manage security at the stalls

Derwent Walk Country Park and Derwenthaugh Park

The Derwent Walk Country Park is an amazing place owned and managed by Gateshead Council.

It is about the size of 146 football pitches and contains woodlands, meadows, wetlands and riverside all linked by a series of waymarked walks.

 

The Country Park runs from Swalwell to Rowlands Gill through the River Derwent Valley and is made up of several countryside sites joined together including The Derwent Walk and Derwenthaugh Park.

 

The Derwent Walk follows the route of the former Derwent Valley Railway which once carried iron ore and passengers between Consett and the River Tyne.

 

Derwenthaugh Park is the reclaimed site of the former Derwenthaugh Coke Works which was reclaimed for people and wildlife over 21 years ago.

 

The Coast to Coast Cycle Path (C2C) National Cycle Network No 14 runs through the Country Park.

 

There are 2 visitor centres with cafes, 2 bird hides, public toilets, 7 car parks and lots of opportunities for people to get out and about including for those with access disabilities, walkers, runners, cyclists and horse riders.

 

Wildlife

The ancient woodlands of the Derwent Valley hold a wide variety of wildlife - carpets of springtime wood anemones and celandines, many birds including green and great spotted woodpecker, nuthatch and sparrowhawk plus the occasional glimpse of animals such as fox, badger and roe deer. The flowers found in the hay meadows support butterflies like the common blue and meadow brown. The Derwent Walk is home to blackcap and whitethroat, heard singing in summer, and bullfinches and flocks of siskins seen feeding in the winter. The River Derwent supports a wide range of wildlife including kingfisher, dipper and otter.

 

Bird hides

There are bird hides at the following locations:

 

Thornley Wood

Overlooks a bird feeding station. Car parking at the Thornley Woodlands Centre.

 

Far Pasture Ponds and Shibdon Pond

Overlook wetland areas. Far Pasture - car park beside the hide.

 

All hides are kept locked and keys are available for purchase from the Thornley Woodlands Centre and the Development and Enterprise Helpdesk at Gateshead Civic Centre. The hides are wheelchair accessible.

 

Northern Kites Project

Between 2004 and 2006 ninety four red kites were released into the lower Derwent Valley as part of the Northern Kites Project. Kites began to breed in the north east in 2006 after an absence of 170 years. The Northern Kites Project was managed by English Nature and the RSPB in partnership with Gateshead Council, the National Trust, Northumbrian Water and the Forestry Commission with additional funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the SITA Environmental Trust.

 

History of the Derwent Walk

Derwent Valley Railway

The Derwent Valley Railway was opened in 1867 by the North Eastern Railway Company.

 

The construction of the railway was a major engineering feat including the construction of a deep 800m long cutting near Rowlands Gill and 4 viaducts

 

Nine Arches Viaduct

The Nine Arches Viaduct is 150m long, and was built because the Earl of Strathmore would not allow the railway to pass through the Gibside Estate.

 

At its peak in 1914 the railway was carrying over half a million passengers a year with a regular goods traffic of timber, bricks and coal to the staiths at Derwenthaugh and iron ore on the return trip to Consett.

 

As road traffic became more efficient and suffered competition for passengers from buses, the service declined and finally closed in 1962

 

The railway is commemorated in the Geordie folk song about an ill-fated train journey from Rowlands Gill, Wor Nanny's a Mazer.

 

Winlaton Mill Ironworks

The Country Park at Winlaton Mill was part of a large complex thought to have been one of the earliest 'factories' in Europe. Winlaton Mill Ironworks were built by Sir Ambrose Crowley in the 1690s.

 

Crowley's Ironworks is considered by some as being able to make a claim of being the birthplace of the industrial revolution as it was several years ahead of Abraham Darby's Ironworks at Coalbrookdale at Shropshire.

 

The goods produced by Crowley played a role in the development of the British empire as the Royal Navy had a need for iron goods including ship nails.

 

At its height the Crowley works employed up to 1,000 people. Crowley provided housing for his workers and the village had its own set of 'laws', an early form of social security, a health service, a school and widow's pensions - all over 200 years before such things were available nationally.

 

Winlaton Mill Ironworks was designated as a national Scheduled Ancient Monument in 2004

 

Very little of the Ironworks can be seen today but in 2019 conservation was carried out on part of a visible structure - Crowley Dam. The Dam which can be viewed from adjoining paths, was designed by John Smeaton - the 'Father of Civil Engineering'. The Dam controlled the level of water used by the ironwork's watermills and can be seen in the paintings by JMW Turner of the Derwent Valley in 1817.

 

The Butterfly Bridge

The originally Butterfly Bridge was built in 1842 by local stone mason John English. Lang Jack as he was known, also worked on the original Scotswood Bridge.

 

The stone bridge was replaced by a steel and timber decked bridge in 1950 but this was destroyed by the floods of 2008.

 

Near to the Bridge are the remains of the house of Flour Miller George Eavan's. This was the last remaining property at the village established by Crowley.

 

Hollinside Manor

Hollinside Manor is a 13th century manor house situated east of the Nine Arches Viaduct. It was the home of the Harding family for 200 hundred years during which time the manor became known as the 'Giants Castle' since the residents were very tall. The estate passed on to George Bowes of Gibside in 1730 for the sum of £10,000. Hollinside Manor is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

 

Clockburn Lonnen

Difficult to imaging now but this path now a bridleway was once the main highway from the north to Durham. It crossed the Tyne at Newburn then passed to Winlaton via Blaydon Burn and from there to Winlaton Mill.

 

Cromwell's army of 16,000 men passed this way on their way to the Battle of Dunbar on 15 July 1650.

 

Gateshead is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. The town shares the Millennium Bridge, Tyne Bridge and multiple other bridges with Newcastle upon Tyne.

 

Historically part of County Durham, under the Local Government Act 1888 the town was made a county borough, meaning it was administered independently of the county council.

 

In the 2011 Census, the town had a population of 120,046 while the wider borough had 200,214.

 

History

Gateshead is first mentioned in Latin translation in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People as ad caput caprae ("at the goat's head"). This interpretation is consistent with the later English attestations of the name, among them Gatesheued (c. 1190), literally "goat's head" but in the context of a place-name meaning 'headland or hill frequented by (wild) goats'. Although other derivations have been mooted, it is this that is given by the standard authorities.

 

A Brittonic predecessor, named with the element *gabro-, 'goat' (c.f. Welsh gafr), may underlie the name. Gateshead might have been the Roman-British fort of Gabrosentum.

 

Early

There has been a settlement on the Gateshead side of the River Tyne, around the old river crossing where the Swing Bridge now stands, since Roman times.

 

The first recorded mention of Gateshead is in the writings of the Venerable Bede who referred to an Abbot of Gateshead called Utta in 623. In 1068 William the Conqueror defeated the forces of Edgar the Ætheling and Malcolm king of Scotland (Shakespeare's Malcolm) on Gateshead Fell (now Low Fell and Sheriff Hill).

 

During medieval times Gateshead was under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Durham. At this time the area was largely forest with some agricultural land. The forest was the subject of Gateshead's first charter, granted in the 12th century by Hugh du Puiset, Bishop of Durham. An alternative spelling may be "Gatishevede", as seen in a legal record, dated 1430.

 

Industrial revolution

Throughout the Industrial Revolution the population of Gateshead expanded rapidly; between 1801 and 1901 the increase was over 100,000. This expansion resulted in the spread southwards of the town.

 

In 1854, a catastrophic explosion on the quayside destroyed most of Gateshead's medieval heritage, and caused widespread damage on the Newcastle side of the river.

 

Sir Joseph Swan lived at Underhill, Low Fell, Gateshead from 1869 to 1883, where his experiments led to the invention of the electric light bulb. The house was the first in the world to be wired for domestic electric light.

 

In the 1889 one of the largest employers (Hawks, Crawshay and Company) closed down and unemployment has since been a burden. Up to the Second World War there were repeated newspaper reports of the unemployed sending deputations to the council to provide work. The depression years of the 1920s and 1930s created even more joblessness and the Team Valley Trading Estate was built in the mid-1930s to alleviate the situation.

 

Regeneration

In the late noughties, Gateshead Council started to regenerate the town, with the long-term aim of making Gateshead a city. The most extensive transformation occurred in the Quayside, with almost all the structures there being constructed or refurbished in this time.

 

In the early 2010s, regeneration refocused on the town centre. The £150 million Trinity Square development opened in May 2013, it incorporates student accommodation, a cinema, health centre and shops. It was nominated for the Carbuncle Cup in September 2014. The cup was however awarded to another development which involved Tesco, Woolwich Central.

 

Governance

In 1835, Gateshead was established as a municipal borough and in 1889 it was made a county borough, independent from Durham County Council.

 

In 1870, the Old Town Hall was built, designed by John Johnstone who also designed the previously built Newcastle Town Hall. The ornamental clock in front of the old town hall was presented to Gateshead in 1892 by the mayor, Walter de Lancey Willson, on the occasion of him being elected for a third time. He was also one of the founders of Walter Willson's, a chain of grocers in the North East and Cumbria. The old town hall also served as a magistrate's court and one of Gateshead's police stations.

 

Current

In 1974, following the Local Government Act 1972, the County Borough of Gateshead was merged with the urban districts of Felling, Whickham, Blaydon and Ryton and part of the rural district of Chester-le-Street to create the much larger Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead.

 

Geography

The town of Gateshead is in the North East of England in the ceremonial county of Tyne and Wear, and within the historic boundaries of County Durham. It is located on the southern bank of the River Tyne at a latitude of 54.57° N and a longitude of 1.35° W. Gateshead experiences a temperate climate which is considerably warmer than some other locations at similar latitudes as a result of the warming influence of the Gulf Stream (via the North Atlantic drift). It is located in the rain shadow of the North Pennines and is therefore in one of the driest regions of the United Kingdom.

 

One of the most distinguishing features of Gateshead is its topography. The land rises 230 feet from Gateshead Quays to the town centre and continues rising to a height of 525 feet at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Sheriff Hill. This is in contrast to the flat and low lying Team Valley located on the western edges of town. The high elevations allow for impressive views over the Tyne valley into Newcastle and across Tyneside to Sunderland and the North Sea from lookouts in Windmill Hills and Windy Nook respectively.

 

The Office for National Statistics defines the town as an urban sub-division. The latest (2011) ONS urban sub-division of Gateshead contains the historical County Borough together with areas that the town has absorbed, including Dunston, Felling, Heworth, Pelaw and Bill Quay.

 

Given the proximity of Gateshead to Newcastle, just south of the River Tyne from the city centre, it is sometimes incorrectly referred to as being a part of Newcastle. Gateshead Council and Newcastle City Council teamed up in 2000 to create a unified marketing brand name, NewcastleGateshead, to better promote the whole of the Tyneside conurbation.

 

Economy

Gateshead is home to the MetroCentre, the largest shopping mall in the UK until 2008; and the Team Valley Trading Estate, once the largest and still one of the larger purpose-built commercial estates in the UK.

 

Arts

The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art has been established in a converted flour mill. The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, previously The Sage, a Norman Foster-designed venue for music and the performing arts opened on 17 December 2004. Gateshead also hosted the Gateshead Garden Festival in 1990, rejuvenating 200 acres (0.81 km2) of derelict land (now mostly replaced with housing). The Angel of the North, a famous sculpture in nearby Lamesley, is visible from the A1 to the south of Gateshead, as well as from the East Coast Main Line. Other public art include works by Richard Deacon, Colin Rose, Sally Matthews, Andy Goldsworthy, Gordon Young and Michael Winstone.

 

Traditional and former

The earliest recorded coal mining in the Gateshead area is dated to 1344. As trade on the Tyne prospered there were several attempts by the burghers of Newcastle to annex Gateshead. In 1576 a small group of Newcastle merchants acquired the 'Grand Lease' of the manors of Gateshead and Whickham. In the hundred years from 1574 coal shipments from Newcastle increased elevenfold while the population of Gateshead doubled to approximately 5,500. However, the lease and the abundant coal supplies ended in 1680. The pits were shallow as problems of ventilation and flooding defeated attempts to mine coal from the deeper seams.

 

'William Cotesworth (1668-1726) was a prominent merchant based in Gateshead, where he was a leader in coal and international trade. Cotesworth began as the son of a yeoman and apprentice to a tallow - candler. He ended as an esquire, having been mayor, Justice of the Peace and sheriff of Northumberland. He collected tallow from all over England and sold it across the globe. He imported dyes from the Indies, as well as flax, wine, and grain. He sold tea, sugar, chocolate, and tobacco. He operated the largest coal mines in the area, and was a leading salt producer. As the government's principal agent in the North country, he was in contact with leading ministers.

 

William Hawks originally a blacksmith, started business in Gateshead in 1747, working with the iron brought to the Tyne as ballast by the Tyne colliers. Hawks and Co. eventually became one of the biggest iron businesses in the North, producing anchors, chains and so on to meet a growing demand. There was keen contemporary rivalry between 'Hawks' Blacks' and 'Crowley's Crew'. The famous 'Hawks' men' including Ned White, went on to be celebrated in Geordie song and story.

 

In 1831 a locomotive works was established by the Newcastle and Darlington Railway, later part of the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway. In 1854 the works moved to the Greenesfield site and became the manufacturing headquarters of North Eastern Railway. In 1909, locomotive construction was moved to Darlington and the rest of the works were closed in 1932.

 

Robert Stirling Newall took out a patent on the manufacture of wire ropes in 1840 and in partnership with Messrs. Liddell and Gordon, set up his headquarters at Gateshead. A worldwide industry of wire-drawing resulted. The submarine telegraph cable received its definitive form through Newall's initiative, involving the use of gutta-percha surrounded by strong wires. The first successful Dover–Calais cable on 25 September 1851, was made in Newall's works. In 1853, he invented the brake-drum and cone for laying cable in deep seas. Half of the first Atlantic cable was manufactured in Gateshead. Newall was interested in astronomy, and his giant 25-inch (640 mm) telescope was set up in the garden at Ferndene, his Gateshead residence, in 1871.

 

Architecture

JB Priestley, writing of Gateshead in his 1934 travelogue English Journey, said that "no true civilisation could have produced such a town", adding that it appeared to have been designed "by an enemy of the human race".

 

Victorian

William Wailes the celebrated stained-glass maker, lived at South Dene from 1853 to 1860. In 1860, he designed Saltwell Towers as a fairy-tale palace for himself. It is an imposing Victorian mansion in its own park with a romantic skyline of turrets and battlements. It was originally furnished sumptuously by Gerrard Robinson. Some of the panelling installed by Robinson was later moved to the Shipley Art gallery. Wailes sold Saltwell Towers to the corporation in 1876 for use as a public park, provided he could use the house for the rest of his life. For many years the structure was essentially an empty shell but following a restoration programme it was reopened to the public in 2004.

 

Post millennium

The council sponsored the development of a Gateshead Quays cultural quarter. The development includes the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, erected in 2001, which won the prestigious Stirling Prize for Architecture in 2002.

 

Former brutalism

The brutalist Trinity Centre Car Park, which was designed by Owen Luder, dominated the town centre for many years until its demolition in 2010. A product of attempts to regenerate the area in the 1960s, the car park gained an iconic status due to its appearance in the 1971 film Get Carter, starring Michael Caine. An unsuccessful campaign to have the structure listed was backed by Sylvester Stallone, who played the main role in the 2000 remake of the film. The car park was scheduled for demolition in 2009, but this was delayed as a result of a disagreement between Tesco, who re-developed the site, and Gateshead Council. The council had not been given firm assurances that Tesco would build the previously envisioned town centre development which was to include a Tesco mega-store as well as shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, offices and student accommodation. The council effectively used the car park as a bargaining tool to ensure that the company adhered to the original proposals and blocked its demolition until they submitted a suitable planning application. Demolition finally took place in July–August 2010.

 

The Derwent Tower, another well known example of brutalist architecture, was also designed by Owen Luder and stood in the neighbourhood of Dunston. Like the Trinity Car Park it also failed in its bid to become a listed building and was demolished in 2012. Also located in this area are the Grade II listed Dunston Staithes which were built in 1890. Following the award of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of almost £420,000 restoration of the structure is expected to begin in April 2014.

 

Sport

Gateshead International Stadium regularly holds international athletics meetings over the summer months, and is home of the Gateshead Harriers athletics club. It is also host to rugby league fixtures, and the home ground of Gateshead Football Club. Gateshead Thunder Rugby League Football Club played at Gateshead International Stadium until its purchase by Newcastle Rugby Limited and the subsequent rebranding as Newcastle Thunder. Both clubs have had their problems: Gateshead A.F.C. were controversially voted out of the Football League in 1960 in favour of Peterborough United, whilst Gateshead Thunder lost their place in Super League as a result of a takeover (officially termed a merger) by Hull F.C. Both Gateshead clubs continue to ply their trade at lower levels in their respective sports, thanks mainly to the efforts of their supporters. The Gateshead Senators American Football team also use the International Stadium, as well as this it was used in the 2006 Northern Conference champions in the British American Football League.

 

Gateshead Leisure Centre is home to the Gateshead Phoenix Basketball Team. The team currently plays in EBL League Division 4. Home games are usually on a Sunday afternoon during the season, which runs from September to March. The team was formed in 2013 and ended their initial season well placed to progress after defeating local rivals Newcastle Eagles II and promotion chasing Kingston Panthers.

 

In Low Fell there is a cricket club and a rugby club adjacent to each other on Eastwood Gardens. These are Gateshead Fell Cricket Club and Gateshead Rugby Club. Gateshead Rugby Club was formed in 1998 following the merger of Gateshead Fell Rugby Club and North Durham Rugby Club.

 

Transport

Gateshead is served by the following rail transport stations with some being operated by National Rail and some being Tyne & Wear Metro stations: Dunston, Felling, Gateshead Interchange, Gateshead Stadium, Heworth Interchange, MetroCentre and Pelaw.

 

Tyne & Wear Metro stations at Gateshead Interchange and Gateshead Stadium provide direct light-rail access to Newcastle Central, Newcastle Airport , Sunderland, Tynemouth and South Shields Interchange.

 

National Rail services are provided by Northern at Dunston and MetroCentre stations. The East Coast Main Line, which runs from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh Waverley, cuts directly through the town on its way between Newcastle Central and Chester-le-Street stations. There are presently no stations on this line within Gateshead, as Low Fell, Bensham and Gateshead West stations were closed in 1952, 1954 and 1965 respectively.

 

Road

Several major road links pass through Gateshead, including the A1 which links London to Edinburgh and the A184 which connects the town to Sunderland.

 

Gateshead Interchange is the busiest bus station in Tyne & Wear and was used by 3.9 million bus passengers in 2008.

 

Cycle routes

Various bicycle trails traverse the town; most notably is the recreational Keelmans Way (National Cycle Route 14), which is located on the south bank of the Tyne and takes riders along the entire Gateshead foreshore. Other prominent routes include the East Gateshead Cycleway, which connects to Felling, the West Gateshead Cycleway, which links the town centre to Dunston and the MetroCentre, and routes along both the old and new Durham roads, which take cyclists to Birtley, Wrekenton and the Angel of the North.

 

Religion

Christianity has been present in the town since at least the 7th century, when Bede mentioned a monastery in Gateshead. A church in the town was burned down in 1080 with the Bishop of Durham inside.[citation needed] St Mary's Church was built near to the site of that building, and was the only church in the town until the 1820s. Undoubtedly the oldest building on the Quayside, St Mary's has now re-opened to the public as the town's first heritage centre.

 

Many of the Anglican churches in the town date from the 19th century, when the population of the town grew dramatically and expanded into new areas. The town presently has a number of notable and large churches of many denominations.

 

Judaism

The Bensham district is home to a community of hundreds of Jewish families and used to be known as "Little Jerusalem". Within the community is the Gateshead Yeshiva, founded in 1929, and other Jewish educational institutions with international enrolments. These include two seminaries: Beis Medrash L'Morot and Beis Chaya Rochel seminary, colloquially known together as Gateshead "old" and "new" seminaries.

 

Many yeshivot and kollels also are active. Yeshivat Beer Hatorah, Sunderland Yeshiva, Nesivos Hatorah, Nezer Hatorah and Yeshiva Ketana make up some of the list.

 

Islam

Islam is practised by a large community of people in Gateshead and there are 2 mosques located in the Bensham area (in Ely Street and Villa Place).

 

Twinning

Gateshead is twinned with the town of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen in France, and the city of Komatsu in Japan.

 

Notable people

Eliezer Adler – founder of Jewish Community

Marcus Bentley – narrator of Big Brother

Catherine Booth – wife of William Booth, known as the Mother of The Salvation Army

William Booth – founder of the Salvation Army

Mary Bowes – the Unhappy Countess, author and celebrity

Ian Branfoot – footballer and manager (Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton)

Andy Carroll – footballer (Newcastle United, Liverpool and West Ham United)

Frank Clark – footballer and manager (Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest)

David Clelland – Labour politician and MP

Derek Conway – former Conservative politician and MP

Joseph Cowen – Radical politician

Steve Cram – athlete (middle-distance runner)

Emily Davies – educational reformer and feminist, founder of Girton College, Cambridge

Daniel Defoe – writer and government agent

Ruth Dodds – politician, writer and co-founder of the Little Theatre

Jonathan Edwards – athlete (triple jumper) and television presenter

Sammy Johnson – actor (Spender)

George Elliot – industrialist and MP

Paul Gascoigne – footballer (Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, Lazio, Rangers and Middlesbrough)

Alex Glasgow – singer/songwriter

Avrohom Gurwicz – rabbi, Dean of Gateshead Yeshiva

Leib Gurwicz – rabbi, Dean of Gateshead Yeshiva

Jill Halfpenny – actress (Coronation Street and EastEnders)

Chelsea Halfpenny – actress (Emmerdale)

David Hodgson – footballer and manager (Middlesbrough, Liverpool and Sunderland)

Sharon Hodgson – Labour politician and MP

Norman Hunter – footballer (Leeds United and member of 1966 World Cup-winning England squad)

Don Hutchison – footballer (Liverpool, West Ham United, Everton and Sunderland)

Brian Johnson – AC/DC frontman

Tommy Johnson – footballer (Aston Villa and Celtic)

Riley Jones - actor

Howard Kendall – footballer and manager (Preston North End and Everton)

J. Thomas Looney – Shakespeare scholar

Gary Madine – footballer (Sheffield Wednesday)

Justin McDonald – actor (Distant Shores)

Lawrie McMenemy – football manager (Southampton and Northern Ireland) and pundit

Thomas Mein – professional cyclist (Canyon DHB p/b Soreen)

Robert Stirling Newall – industrialist

Bezalel Rakow – communal rabbi

John William Rayner – flying ace and war hero

James Renforth – oarsman

Mariam Rezaei – musician and artist

Sir Tom Shakespeare - baronet, sociologist and disability rights campaigner

William Shield – Master of the King's Musick

Christina Stead – Australian novelist

John Steel – drummer (The Animals)

Henry Spencer Stephenson – chaplain to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II

Steve Stone – footballer (Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa and Portsmouth)

Chris Swailes – footballer (Ipswich Town)

Sir Joseph Swan – inventor of the incandescent light bulb

Nicholas Trainor – cricketer (Gloucestershire)

Chris Waddle – footballer (Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur and Sheffield Wednesday)

William Wailes – stained glass maker

Taylor Wane – adult entertainer

Robert Spence Watson – public benefactor

Sylvia Waugh – author of The Mennyms series for children

Chris Wilkie – guitarist (Dubstar)

John Wilson - orchestral conductor

Peter Wilson – footballer (Gateshead, captain of Australia)

Thomas Wilson – poet/school founder

Robert Wood – Australian politician

Managed to get a bit closer to one of the Svalbard reindeer which are a paler colour and shorter in the leg. With no natural predators other than man and polar bears they tend to be solitary animals of in small groups; not in large herds like on the mainland.

Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva arrives at the Convention Centre where she participates in a roundtable discussion on the subject of “Building a Resilient and Inclusive Future; Supporting Africa’s Climate Agenda” in the Convention Centre, Kigali.

 

IMF Photo/Kim Haughton

25 January 2023

Kigali, Rwanda

 

by husseindeiry ift.tt/1lcZnls

Managed it to get my hands on two Genereation Girl Gear Tori Fashion Packs for a pretty decent price! As far as I know they weren't sold in my country back then, but I absolutely LOVED the GG Dolls back in the 90's (and I still do ;-)), so the fashions were a must have ;-)

I'm (REALLY!!!) tempted to debox them and put them on my dolls, but I'm not sure what to do, since these sets are so hard to find :-/

Managed to catch up with a few Waxwing's this morning. Just a few berries left on the Rowan trees in Fakenham. Big influx of Waxwings this winter from Scandinavia. They must have got the message that we have a huge crop of berries this year or perhaps the weather up there is just too bad to stay there. wish my neck could bend like that

I managed to pick up a bunch of 43186 Bruni the Salamander sets on sale recently so I put together a squad.

 

Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack Stats: 2Ra+d8 (backpack howitzers) 2Y (spinner sensor) 2W.

Johanna and I saw this bike and both noticed that it was a very special compostion by Mother Nature. How was it that the ocean was able to prop her up so imperfectly like this? Lodged between rocks, brought in by the surf. On our way to the apparently disappeared Wreck of the Dominator, she left us this ruin as consolation.

 

-Rancho Palos Verdes, Los Angeles

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Managed to complete this sketch during wet weather on holiday but now I have another holiday sketch to put together, along with September. It's all go, but at least it has kept me painting this year instead of saying I don't have time! Interesting how uncolourful this one is, I had not noticed until I photographed it. It needs some red.

Managed to get into such a bus time slot, that I caught a shot of an LT on 91 (1), and more… Very similar to my 68 LT shot as it turns out.

Managed to get up to Skye for a couple of days and was fortunate to get some good weather. This is a shot taken on the first morning looking over to the Cuillin from Elgol. Many of the shots I will be posting over the next while will be seascapes taken with my new Lee Little Stopper.

St Lucia Estuary Boat Cruise

 

Hippopotamus

 

Flusspferd

 

iSimangaliso Wetland Park (previously known as the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park) is situated on the east coast of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, about 275 kilometres north of Durban. It is South Africa's third-largest protected area, spanning 280 km of coastline, from the Mozambican border in the north to Mapelane south of the Lake St. Lucia estuary, and made up of around 3,280 km2 of natural ecosystems, managed by the iSimangaliso Authority. The park includes:

 

Lake St. Lucia

St. Lucia Game Reserve

False Bay Park

Kosi Bay

Lake Etrza Nature Reserve

Lake Sibhayi

St. Lucia Marine Reserve

St. Lucia Marine Sanctuary

Sodwana Bay National Park

Mapelane Nature Reserve

Maputaland Marine Reserve

Cape Vidal

Ozabeni

Mfabeni

Tewate Wilderness Area

Mkuze Game Reserve

 

The park was previously known as the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park, but was renamed effective 1 November 2007. The word isimangaliso means "a miracle" or "something wondrous" in Zulu. The name came as a result of Shaka's subject having been sent to the land of the Tsonga. When he came back he described the beauty that he saw as a miracle.

 

The park is dueto be integrated into a transfrontier park, the Ponta do Ouro-Kosi Bay Transfrontier Conservation Area, straddling South Africa, Mozambique, and Eswatini. This is in turn planned to become a part of the greater Greater Lubombo Transfrontier Conservation Area.

 

Until 1895, the bay had been a home of the Tsonga people and their Tsonga fish kraal. This is the original and the natural home of the Tsonga people and they have lived here for more than 1000 years. Records from early Portuguese sailors rightfully point out this area to be occupied by the Tsonga people and further down south. The area was also known as Tembeland or Thongaland but the name fell into disuse around the early 1900s. The area was ruled by a Tsonga branch of the Vahlanganu (Tembe). The Swiss Missionary, Reverend Henri Alexandra Junod (Known as HA Junod), conducted a scientific and ethnographic study of the Tsonga people during the early 1890s and produced a detailed map, showing the occupation of the bay by the Tsonga Tembe people. The Swiss Missionary, Rev Junod, illustrated in his detailed map that the area was known as Tembeland and that the Tembe capital city was located in the St Lucia bay. Rev Junod's map showed that by 1906, the Tsonga people occupied the land from St Lucia up until Valdezia in the Spelenkon district of the Transvaal province, known today as Limpopo Province. St Lucia bay and Maputo bay are one land and they belong to the Tsonga people, Tsonga villages were built from St Lucia bay until Maputo and they were not separated by any natural division. Around St Lucia, the ruling chief was the Tembe Royal Family, while around Maputo, the ruling class was the Maputo royal family, who are all of the Vahlanganu branch of the Tsonga people. In and around Maputo and St Lucia bay (Tembeland), the language spoken is Ronga, which according to the Swiss Missionary, Rev HA Junod, is not an independent language but a dialect of Xitsonga. According to Rev Junod, Ronga language is so similar to Xitsonga that it cannot be regarded an independent language but is a dialect of a major language known today as Xitsonga.

 

The Tsonga people were forcefully removed from the park when Britain colonised the area in 1895 and turned the place into a wildlife reserve and established the holiday town of St Lucia. Because of colonisation, the southern part of the park was handed over to the Zulu nation, while the northern part was given to the Tsonga people. Before colonisation, the Tsonga controlled the entire St Lucia bay. Despite colonisation and annexation of land, the Tsonga people still live in the northern part of the park, at Kosi Bay. The Tembe Elephant Park, run by Chief Israel Tembe, is a living history that testify to the rich Tsonga history of this wetland park. Chief Israel Tembe is the custodian of this ancient Tsonga land that was taken away during colonisation. The Tembe kingdom, one of the most powerful kingdoms in Southern Africa before colonisation, was a ruling class for more than eight centuries.

 

St. Lucia was first named in 1554 Rio dos Medos do Ouro (alternatively Rio dos Médãos do Ouro — River of the Gold Dunes) by the survivors of the Portuguese ship Saint Benedict. At this stage, only the Tugela River mouth was known as St. Lucia. Later, in 1575, the Tugela River was named Tugela. On 13 December 1575, the day of the feast of Saint Lucy, Manuel Peresterello renamed the mouth area to Santa Lucia.

 

In 1822, St. Lucia was proclaimed by the British as a township.

In 1895, St. Lucia Game Reserve, 30 km north of the town was proclaimed.

In 1971, St. Lucia Lake and the turtle beaches and coral reefs of Maputaland have been listed by the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Convention).

In December 1999, the park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site at an unveiling ceremony, where Nelson Mandela was the guest of honour.

 

The park was proclaimed a world heritage site because of the rich biodiversity, unique ecosystems and natural beauty occurring in a relatively small area. The reason for the huge diversity in fauna and flora is the great variety of different ecosystems on the park, ranging from coral reefs and sandy beaches to subtropical dune forests, savannas, and wetlands. Animals occurring on the park include elephant, African leopard, black and southern white rhino, buffalo, and in the ocean, whales, dolphins, and marine turtles including the leatherback and loggerhead turtle.

 

The park is also home to 1,200 Nile crocodiles and 800 hippopotami.

 

In December 2013, after 44 years of absence, African lions were reintroduced to iSimangaliso.

 

There are large outcroppings of underwater reefs which are home to brightly coloured fish and corals. Some of the most spectacular coral diversity in the world is located in Sodwana Bay. The reefs are inhabited by colour-changing octopuses and squid ready to ambush unsuspecting prey. Occasionally gigantic whale sharks can be seen gliding through the water, mouth agape to scoop up tiny plankton.

 

Twenty-four species of bivalve molluscs are recorded in St. Lucia Lake, which constitutes a considerable portion of the park.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

The common hippopotamus (/ˌhɪpəˈpɒtəməs/ HIP-ə-POT-ə-məs; Hippopotamus amphibius), or hippo, is a large, mostly herbivorous, semiaquatic mammal and ungulate native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis or Hexaprotodon liberiensis). The name comes from the ancient Greek for "river horse" (ἱπποπόταμος). After the elephant and rhinoceros, the common hippopotamus is the third-largest type of land mammal and the heaviest extant artiodactyl. Despite their physical resemblance to pigs and other terrestrial even-toed ungulates, the closest living relatives of the Hippopotamidae are cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises, etc.) from which they diverged about 55 million years ago.

 

Common hippos are recognisable by their barrel-shaped torsos, wide-opening mouths revealing large canine tusks, nearly hairless bodies, columnar legs and large size; adults average 1,500 kg (3,310 lb) and 1,300 kg (2,870 lb) for males and females respectively. Despite its stocky shape and short legs, it is capable of running 30 km/h (19 mph) over short distances.

 

The common hippopotamus inhabits rivers, lakes and mangrove swamps, where territorial bulls preside over a stretch of river and groups of five to thirty females and young. During the day, they remain cool by staying in the water or mud; reproduction and childbirth both occur in water. They emerge at dusk to graze on grasses. While hippopotamuses rest near each other in the water, grazing is a solitary activity and hippos are not territorial on land. The hippopotamus is among the most dangerous animals in the world as it is highly aggressive and unpredictable. They are threatened by habitat loss and poaching for their meat and ivory canine teeth.

 

The Latin word "hippopotamus" is derived from the ancient Greek ἱπποπόταμος, hippopotamos, from ἵππος, hippos, "horse", and ποταμός, potamos, "river", meaning "horse of the river". In English, the plural is "hippopotamuses", but "hippopotami" is also used; "hippos" can be used as a short plural. Hippopotamuses are gregarious, living in groups of up to thirty animals. A group is called a pod, herd, dale, or bloat.

 

Hippopotami are among the largest living land mammals, being only smaller than elephants and some rhinoceroses. Amongst the extant African megafauna, behind the two African elephant species, they average smaller than the white rhinoceros but are larger by body mass than the black rhinoceros and the giraffe. Mean adult weight is around 1,500 kg (3,310 lb) and 1,300 kg (2,870 lb) for males and females respectively, very large males can reach 2,000 kg (4,410 lb) and exceptional males weighing 2,660 kg (5,860 lb) and 3,200 kg (7,050 lb) have been reported. Male hippos appear to continue growing throughout their lives while females reach maximum weight at around age 25.

 

Hippopotami have barrel-shaped bodies with short legs and long muzzles. Their skeletal structures are graviportal; adapted to carrying their enormous weight, and their specific gravity allows them to sink and move along the bottom of a river. Hippopotamuses have small legs (relative to other megafauna) because the water in which they live reduces the weight burden. Though they are bulky animals, hippopotamuses can gallop at 30 km/h (19 mph) on land but normally trot. They are incapable of jumping but do climb up steep banks. Despite being semiaquatic and having webbed feet, an adult hippo is not a particularly good swimmer nor can it float. It is rarely found in deep water; when it is, the animal moves by porpoise-like leaps from the bottom. The eyes, ears, and nostrils of hippos are placed high on the roof of their skulls. This allows these organs to remain above the surface while the rest of the body submerges. The testes of the males descend only partially and a scrotum is not present. In addition, the penis retracts into the body when not erect. The genitals of the female are unusual in that the vagina is ridged and two large diverticula protrude from the vulval vestibule. The function of these is unknown.

 

The hippo's jaw is powered by a large masseter and a well-developed digastric; the latter loops up behind the former to the hyoid. The jaw hinge is located far back enough to allow the animal to open its mouth at almost 180°. A moderate folding of the orbicularis oris muscle allows the hippo to achieve such a gape without tearing any tissue. The bite force of an adult female has been measured as 8,100 newtons (1,800 lbf). Hippopotamus teeth sharpen themselves as they grind together. The lower canines and lower incisors are enlarged, especially in males, and grow continuously. The incisors can reach 40 cm (1 ft 4 in), while the canines reach up to 50 cm (1 ft 8 in). The canines and incisors are used for combat and play no role in feeding. Hippos rely on their broad horny lips to grasp and pull grasses which are then ground by the molars. The hippo is considered to be a pseudoruminant; it has a complex three-chambered stomach but does not "chew cud".

 

Unlike most other semiaquatic animals, the hippopotamus has very little hair. The skin is 6 cm (2 in) thick, providing it great protection against conspecifics and predators. By contrast, its subcutaneous fat layer is thin. The animals' upper parts are purplish-grey to blue-black, while the under parts and areas around the eyes and ears can be brownish-pink. Their skin secretes a natural sunscreen substance which is red-coloured. The secretion is sometimes referred to as "blood sweat", but is neither blood nor sweat. This secretion is initially colourless and turns red-orange within minutes, eventually becoming brown. Two distinct pigments have been identified in the secretions, one red (hipposudoric acid) and one orange (norhipposudoric acid). The two pigments are highly acidic compounds. They inhibit the growth of disease-causing bacteria, and their light absorption peaks in the ultraviolet range, creating a sunscreen effect. All hippos, even those with different diets, secrete the pigments, so it does not appear that food is the source of the pigments. Instead, the animals may synthesise the pigments from precursors such as the amino acid tyrosine. Nevertheless, this natural sunscreen cannot prevent the animal's skin from cracking if it stays out of water too long.

 

A hippo's lifespan is typically 40–50 years. Donna the Hippo was the oldest living hippo in captivity. She lived at the Mesker Park Zoo in Evansville, Indiana in the US until her death in 2012 at the age of 61.

 

Different from all other large land mammals, hippos are of semiaquatic habits, spending the day in lakes and rivers. They can be found in both savannah and forest areas. Proper habitat requires enough water to submerge in and grass nearby. Larger densities of the animals inhabit quiet waters with mostly firm, smooth sloping beaches. Males may be found in very small numbers in rapid waters in rocky gorges. Hippo mostly live in freshwater habitats, however populations in West Africa mostly inhabit estuarine waters and may even be found at sea. With the exception of eating, most of hippopotamuses' lives occurs in the water. Hippos leave the water at dusk and travel inland, sometimes up to 10 km (6 mi), to graze on short grasses, their main source of food. They spend four to five hours grazing and can consume 68 kg (150 lb) of grass each night.

 

Like almost any herbivore, they consume other plants if presented with them, but their diet in nature consists almost entirely of grass, with only minimal consumption of aquatic plants. Hippos are born with sterile intestines, and require bacteria obtained from their mothers' feces to digest vegetation. Hippos have (albeit rarely) been filmed eating carrion, usually close to the water. There are other reports of meat-eating, and even cannibalism and predation. The stomach anatomy of a hippo is not suited to carnivory, and meat-eating is likely caused by aberrant behaviour or nutritional stress.

 

Hippo defecation creates allochthonous deposits of organic matter along the river beds. These deposits have an unclear ecological function. A 2015 study concluded that hippo dung provides nutrients from terrestrial material for fish and aquatic invertebrates, while a 2018 study found that their dung can be toxic to aquatic life in large quantities, due to absorption of dissolved oxygen in water bodies. Because of their size and their habit of taking the same paths to feed, hippos can have a significant impact on the land across which they walk, both by keeping the land clear of vegetation and depressing the ground. Over prolonged periods, hippos can divert the paths of swamps and channels.

A hippopotamus walking on the grass land in Serengeti National Park in the morning

 

Adult hippos move at speeds up to 8 km/h (5 mph) in water; typically resurfacing to breathe every three to five minutes. The young have to breathe every two to three minutes. The process of surfacing and breathing is subconscious: a hippo sleeping underwater will rise and breathe without waking up. A hippo closes its nostrils when it submerges into the water. As with fish and turtles on a coral reef, hippos occasionally visit cleaning stations and signal, by opening their mouths wide, their readiness for being cleaned of parasites by certain species of fishes. This is an example of mutualism, in which the hippo benefits from the cleaning while the fish receive food.

 

Hippopotamus coexist with a variety of formidable predators. Nile crocodiles, lions and spotted hyenas are known to prey on young hippos. However, due to their aggression and size, adult hippopotamus are not usually preyed upon by other animals. Cases where large lion prides have successfully preyed on adult hippopotamus have been reported; however, this predation is generally rare. Lions occasionally prey on adults at Gorongosa National Park and calves are taken at Virunga. Crocodiles are frequent targets of hippo aggression, probably because they often inhabit the same riparian habitats; crocodiles may be either aggressively displaced or killed by hippopotamuses. In turn, beyond cases of killing the seldom unguarded hippo calf, very large Nile crocodiles have been verified to occasionally prey on "half-grown" hippopotamuses and anecdotally perhaps adult female hippos. Aggregations of crocodiles have also been seen to dispatch still-living bull hippopotamuses that have been previously injured in mating battles with other bulls.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Der iSimangaliso Wetland Park (bis Oktober 2007 Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park, danach iSimangaliso Wetland Park) ist ein Nationalpark an der Ostküste der südafrikanischen Provinz KwaZulu-Natal. Der Eingang zum Park befindet sich nahe der Kleinstadt St. Lucia.

 

Der Nationalpark umfasst die Feucht- und Küstengebiete von Mapelane im Süden bis hinauf zur Sodwana-Bucht im Norden und besteht aus vielen kleinen Schutzgebieten mit subtropischer bis tropischer Vegetation. Im Norden liegen die Mkuze-Sümpfe, während sich im Westen trockene Dornensavannen befinden.

 

Im Zentrum des Parks befindet sich der St.-Lucia-See, nach dem der Park benannt wurde. Mit einer Länge von 40 Kilometern und einer Breite von bis zu 21 Kilometern beträgt seine Fläche rund 300 km²; damit ist er der größte See Südafrikas. In dem 200 Kilometer langen Küstenstreifen finden sich die zweithöchsten bewaldeten Sanddünen der Welt.

 

In den Feuchtgebieten leben die größten Krokodil- und Flusspferdbestände Südafrikas. In den Savannen im Westen leben Meerkatzen, Nashörner, Büffel und Leoparden. Zwischen den Seen und Sümpfen brüten Reiher, Pelikane und Störche. Der Park verfügt über die höchste Dichte an Amphibien, darunter viele geschützte Arten. Außerdem kann man auf der Meeresseite Buckelwale sehen.

 

In der Nähe des Nationalparks befindet sich der Ort St. Lucia, in dem es Übernachtungs-, Freizeit- und Einkaufsmöglichkeiten gibt. St. Lucia ist zudem Ausgangspunkt für Walbeobachtungen und Fahrten auf dem St.-Lucia-See zu den Flusspferden.

 

Der iSimangaliso Wetland Park wurde 1999 in die Liste des Weltnaturerbes der UNESCO aufgenommen.

 

2004 wurde die Mündung des Feuchtgebietes durch eine Sanddüne gesperrt, um eine Ölpest nach der Havarie des Frachters Jolly Rubino abzuwehren. Seitdem ist der Wasserspiegel erheblich unter Meeresniveau gesunken, so dass die Maßnahme noch nicht rückgängig gemacht werden konnte.

 

Bis 2007 hieß der Nationalpark Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park. Seit November 2007 wird er iSimangaliso Wetland Park genannt. isimangaliso bedeutet „Wunder“ und verweist auf ein Zulu-Sprichwort über Ujeqe, einem Hofbeamten des Zulu-König Shaka: Ubone isimanga esabonwa uJeqe kwelama Thonga. – „Wenn Du Wunder gesehen hast, dann hast Du dasselbe gesehen wie Ujeqe in Thonga.“ Thonga oder Tongaland ist ein historischer Name für die Region Maputaland, zu der der Park gehört.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Das Flusspferd (Hippopotamus amphibius), auch Nilpferd, Großflusspferd oder Hippopotamus genannt, ist ein großes, pflanzenfressendes Säugetier. Es lebt in Gewässernähe im mittleren und südlichen Afrika. Zusammen mit dem Breitmaulnashorn zählt es zu den schwersten landbewohnenden Säugetieren nach den Elefanten. Mit einem Gesamtbestand von rund 125.000 bis 150.000 Tieren und einem erwarteten weiteren Rückgang der Population ist die Art gefährdet.

 

Zusammen mit dem Zwergflusspferd und zahlreichen ausgestorbenen Arten bildet das Flusspferd die Familie der Flusspferde (Hippopotamidae). Obwohl sie „-pferde“ genannt werden, sind Flusspferde mit den Pferden nicht näher verwandt. Traditionell werden sie in die Ordnung der Paarhufer gestellt. Nach derzeitiger Lehrmeinung sind indessen die Wale die nächsten Verwandten der Flusspferde, die zusammen mit den paraphyletischen Paarhufern das Taxon der Cetartiodactyla bilden.

 

Die Bezeichnung Flusspferd ist eine Lehnübersetzung des griechischen Wortes ἱπποπόταμος hippopótamos (gebildet aus hippos „Pferd“ und potamos „Fluss“). Hippopotamus, der wissenschaftliche Name der Gattung, ist die latinisierte Form des griechischen Wortes. Der Namensbestandteil amphibius bezieht sich auf die amphibische Lebensweise im Wasser und an Land. Hiob Ludolf erklärte den griechischen Namen des Tieres mit der Ähnlichkeit des aus dem Wasser ragenden Kopfes mit einem Pferdekopf.

 

Der Name Nilpferd rührt daher, dass in der Literatur zunächst Flusspferde am Nil beschrieben wurden.

 

Flusspferde sind schwere Tiere mit einem fassförmigen Körper, einem wuchtigen Kopf und kurzen Gliedmaßen. Die kräftigen Beine enden in jeweils vier nach vorne ragenden Zehen, die mit Schwimmhäuten verbunden sind.

 

Flusspferde erreichen eine Kopf-Rumpf-Länge von 2,9 bis 5,1 Metern, wozu noch ein 40 bis 56 Zentimeter langer Schwanz kommt. Die Schulterhöhe beträgt 150 bis 165 Zentimeter. Das Gewicht schwankt zwischen 1000 und 4500 Kilogramm. Männchen sind generell größer und schwerer als Weibchen.

 

Die Haut der Tiere ist so spärlich mit kurzen, feinen Haaren bedeckt, dass sie nackt erscheint. Die Haut ist bräunlich, annähernd kupferfarben gefärbt, an der Oberseite ist sie dunkler und am Bauch purpurn. Auch im Gesicht, speziell um die Augen, Ohren und an den Wangen, können purpurne oder rosafarbene Flecken vorhanden sein.

 

Der Kopf des Flusspferds ist groß und wuchtig. Die Schnauze ist vorne sehr breit, was durch die Eckzahnfächer bedingt ist. Auf Höhe der Prämolaren ist sie stark eingeschnürt. Die Nasenöffnungen liegen erhöht und sind verschließbar. Auch die leicht hervorstehenden Augen und die bis zu 10 Zentimeter langen Ohren sitzen hoch am Kopf, so dass nur sie aus dem Wasser herausragen, wenn das Tier unter der Wasseroberfläche schwimmt.

 

Pro Kieferhälfte haben die Flusspferde zwei oder drei Schneidezähne, einen Eckzahn, vier Prämolaren und drei Molaren. Die Schneide- und Eckzähne wachsen das ganze Leben lang. Die Schneidezähne sind rundlich, glatt und weit voneinander entfernt. Die oberen Schneidezähne sind eher klein und nach unten gerichtet, die unteren sind länger (vor allem das innere Paar) und weisen nach vorne. Die Eckzähne sind hauerartig entwickelt, die unteren sind größer und können eine Gesamtlänge von 70 Zentimetern erreichen (von denen 30 Zentimeter aus dem Zahnfleisch ragen). Die Prämolaren haben in der Regel einen Höcker, die Molaren weisen zwei Paar Höcker auf, nur der hinterste drei. Flusspferde können ihre Kiefer bis zu ca. 150° aufklappen.

 

Lebensraum der Flusspferde sind Gebiete mit tieferen Seen und langsam fließenden Flüssen, die idealerweise mit Schilfgürteln umgeben sind. Zum Weiden benötigt es Grasgebiete in der näheren Umgebung der Gewässer. In Regenwäldern kommt es außer bei großen Flüssen in der Regel nicht vor.

 

Flusspferde verbringen praktisch den ganzen Tag schlafend oder ruhend, dazu halten sie sich im Wasser oder in Gewässernähe auf. Dabei tauchen sie oft bis auf die Augen, Ohren und Nasenlöcher unter. Obwohl Flusspferde gut an ein Leben im Wasser angepasst sind, sind sie schlechte Schwimmer. Meistens laufen sie auf dem Grund eines Gewässers entlang oder lassen sich vom Wasser tragen; ihre Fortbewegungsart wird manchmal als „Schwimmlaufen“ umschrieben. Wenn sie untertauchen, können sie ihre schlitzförmigen Nasenlöcher und Ohren verschließen. Tauchgänge sind in der Regel nicht länger als drei bis fünf Minuten, sie können aber länger unter Wasser bleiben, möglicherweise bis zu 30 Minuten. Im Schlaf erfolgt das Auftauchen ebenso automatisch wie das Luftholen.

 

Vorwiegend in der Nacht verlassen sie das schützende Wasser, um sich auf Nahrungssuche zu begeben. Dabei können sie sich mehrere Kilometer vom Wasser entfernen, um Grasflächen zu erreichen. Um zu ihren Weideflächen zu gelangen, bilden die Gruppen regelrechte Trampelpfade („Hippo Trails“). Trotz ihres behäbigen Äußeren können Flusspferde im Bedarfsfall schnell laufen, Schätzungen belaufen sich auf bis zu 50 Kilometer pro Stunde. Diese Geschwindigkeit halten sie aber nur wenige hundert Meter durch.

 

An Land muss ihre Haut feucht bleiben, sie wird rissig, wenn sie zu lange der Luft ausgesetzt ist. Spezielle Hautdrüsen sondern eine Flüssigkeit ab, die die Tiere vor der Austrocknung schützt. Diese zunächst farblose Flüssigkeit verfärbt sich innerhalb von ein paar Minuten rötlich und später bräunlich. Bestandteil dieser Flüssigkeit sind zwei saure Pigmente, hipposudoric acid und norhipposudoric acid genannt. Diese wirken sowohl als Sonnenschutz, indem sie UV-Strahlen absorbieren, als auch antibiotisch gegen verschiedene Krankheitserreger. Das rötliche Schimmern hat früher zu der Vermutung geführt, Flusspferde würden Blut schwitzen.

 

(Wikipedia)

Managed to finish work early on Wednesday so managed to get out and enjoy the lovely sunshine. Of course, this being England the weathers gone back to being cold! Can't win!

Would you, could you, face down on a log? Would you, could you, face down like a frog? Over a bog, without getting sog, we have a dog, what's a cog, there was no fog, ride a hog.

 

Oh whatever. Managed to not fall in, but I did get muddy feet.

 

Happy face down Tuesday y'all!

Managed to finish the decals off today but was low daylight when took the pics so appologies for the "grainy-ness" of them. I may try to take some more to replace these in better light, but not sure when I'll get chance.

Hopefully these are good enough to give the general impression of the model, though they really dont do it justice.

Happy enough to call it finished now, just need to paint...er, brass chrome the whistle ;)

Wanted to try a "fez" for the pressure dome, but managed to somehow lose the only one I had, so this'll do for now.

Looks lovely running, will try and get some video of it in action at some point, but spare time is very limited at the mo due to work.

Managed to find a few of these despite the cold weather, Rare and beautiful little creatures

Managed to catch this at the golden hour with the sun out!

Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, First Vice President of Spain and IMFC Chair Nadia Calvino, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Mathias Cormann, President of the World Bank Group David Malpass, President for the 2021 COP26 conference Alok Sharma, and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Simon Stiell participate in the Getting to Net Zero with IFIs and Multilateral Partnerships Seminar during the 2022 Annual Meetings at the International Monetary Fund.

 

IMF Photo/Alison Shelley

12 October 2022

Washington, DC, United States

Photo ref: AS221012168.cr3

Managed to take this sneaky pic of a beer-bellied girl near the beach :)

Leptinotarsa juncta - a bunch of false potato beetle larvae gathering under a single leaf . . . who knows what devious plots are being bumped around inside those huge brain butts, I for one feared for my very life when I came across this insect MENSA gathering . . . it made me cringe almost uncontrollably ! Lucky I was professional enough to manage this capture for everyone, enjoy!

Managed to hunt down a full set of vol. 5 of this SW vehicle collection. As this collection has the most ones I like :) X-Wing and the Millennium Falcon is my favorite so I decided to add some detailing and weathering myself. I'm just starting to learn this stuff so I hope the result is not too bad...

 

When I realized this is the Red Leader and not the Red Five that Luke piloted, I thought about customizing it to be a Red Five, but then I found the toy is too small and fragile it'd be very difficult to add the stripes and in fact Red Five has a few other places that are different, it'd be too much work so I had to give up... :P

Managed to capture the split second when lightning struck the ocean. No video recording involved :)

I managed to pull off this unique paint job when attempting to paint it gold but the spraypaint was running low & this is the result. I love the effect.

 

I may have many mocs already given the Metallix treatment via Folkart Metallic hand paint and Testors spraypaint. Krylon too. And now having tried Tamiya. My mocs look better then new with a fresh new coat of premium quality paint. Sprays on thin and smooth with an excellent crystal shine for an Ultimate Upgrade.

 

Lets have some crossover fun, lets say a normally infected/rusted kanohi is a low level hollow or slightly higher depending on the wearer and the master that created them and the corrupted kanohi is Espada rank.

 

the one responsible for contaminating a sacred kanohi was Miserex himself. his own Toa & species of Kraata that strongly resemble its master, taking on the physical form of a dragon. stronger, faster, smarter and more deadly than Makuta's breed of kraata

Once upon a time (also known as last summer), my photography buddy Andie moved to Florida. We still manage to get together, one visiting the other and doing a shoot or two. Unfortunately we only got to shoot for one evening but we managed to have some great and fun times. Our friend Eric was able to come over and join in the fun. These are our night shots, more to come soon.

 

facebook / formspring / tumblr

Managed a few more shots before it started to melt!

Have to admit purely opportunistic and a reason to travel with the camera readily accessible. Came around the corner on Brightside Lane to see 66138 leaving EMR Attercliffe. Managed to park and get camera out to catch the new bridge being tested with a departing scrap train.

Designer unknown (佚名)

1960, April

Managing

Guan (菅)

Call nr.: BG D82/297 (IISH collection)

 

More? See: chineseposters.net

I've never managed to take a usable shot of an ant before,until now! I've always been fascinated by these little creatures. I marvel at how well their society is structured (It is better organized than ours I feel!)

  

Ants

 

Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the Cretaceous period, about 140 million years ago, and diversified after the rise of flowering plants.

 

More than 12,500 of an estimated total of 22,000 species have been classified.

 

They are easily identified by their elbowed antennae and the distinctive node-like structure that forms their slender waists.

 

Ants form colonies that range in size from a few dozen predatory individuals living in small natural cavities to highly organised colonies that may occupy large territories and consist of millions of individuals.

 

Larger colonies consist of various castes of sterile, wingless females, most of which are workers (ergates), as well as soldiers (dinergates) and other specialised groups.

 

Nearly all ant colonies also have some fertile males called "drones" (aner) and one or more fertile females called "queens" (gynes).

 

The colonies are described as superorganisms because the ants appear to operate as a unified entity, collectively working together to support the colony.

 

Ants have colonized almost every landmass on Earth. The only places lacking indigenous ants are Antarctica and a few remote or inhospitable islands. Ants thrive in most ecosystems and may form 15–25% of the terrestrial animal biomass.[11] Their success in so many environments has been attributed to their social organization and their ability to modify habitats, tap resources, and defend themselves. Their long co-evolution with other species has led to mimetic, commensal, parasitic, and mutualistic relationships.

 

Ant societies have a division of labor, communication between individuals, and an ability to solve complex problems.

 

These parallels with human societies have long been an inspiration and subject of study. Many human cultures make use of ants in cuisine, medication, and rituals. Some species are valued in their role as biological pest control agents.

 

Their ability to exploit resources may bring ants into conflict with humans, however, as they can damage crops and invade buildings.

 

Some species, such as the red imported fire ant (Solenopsis Invicta), are regarded as invasive species, establishing themselves in areas where they have been introduced accidentally.

 

Link -

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant

Managed to somewhat stupidly forget my camera battery, so this phone shot will have to suffice.

 

Bristol VR stands at Seaton Tramway bus stop working the 'Mendip Mule' sightseeing tour of East Devon/West Dorset.

Managed to capture him in one of his more peaceful moods

his mate had an injured foot and he was very protective toward her.

We photographed a similar insect in Greece last year. Thanks to this one captured in India and help from Facebook I have finally managed an ID.

Being typically bad at managing social media, I have finally gathered the energy to post about these MOCs days after the setup… but here they are, my final MOCs before becoming a LEGO Designer! 😊

 

The big idea of the showcase is that each of the model shows a part of who I am. “Imagine!”, being the biggest of all, represents my passion for LEGO, which is a pretty big part of me. I always had the idea if the day ever comes that I get to display something at the Masterpiece Gallery, I will create a piece that celebrates the imagination of LEGO bricks, an ultimate love letter to my hobby… and what captures the essence of LEGO better than the LEGO House itself? So, the idea came to me: What would LEGO House look like if it’s reinterpreted into a sculpture?

 

Looking at the model from afar, you can immediately see the four iconic colours of the zones at LEGO House, and then in the middle there are two figures, representing the History Collection below and the Masterpiece Gallery on top. More importantly, they also echo my journey – as well as, I believe, many others’ – as a LEGO fan: it all started from me sitting on the floor playing with the bricks, falling in love with the system, and eventually grow up to become an AFOL and continue to create more and more crazy models with the bricks.

 

As you look closer, there are also a lot of easter eggs related to the House. For example, there are the rocket, submarine, hot air balloon and sea monster from the rooftop playground. There are also a microscale version of every single LEGO House exclusives released, representing perhaps the most important place of the house for many visitors: the shop!

 

Each of the 3 MOCs also has their own unique set of challenges. For “Imagine!”, it was about the composition, as well as capturing dynamic and organic objects in LEGO bricks, like the smoke and fire, clouds and waves, and the twisty beanstalk. I also had fun tackling the structural issue for the tall rocket flame, and balancing the yellow castle on the beanstalk, but none of that had nearly prepared me well enough for what the second MOC brought to the table…

 

P.S. Fun fact: I was first invited to display in 2020, but due to COVID everything was delayed… Despite getting over a year of time to prepare due to the delay, I went with the usual route of being a deadline fighter and rushed through everything in my last month in Hong Kong. I am pretty proud to say that I managed to pull off this ambitious project in just 10 days. Time pressure makes miracles! 😊

 

Full Album: www.flickr.com/photos/legocityson/albums/72157719956599360