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2016 Tour d'Elegance--On Route: 1937 Brough Superior 3 1/2 Litre Atcherley Dual Purpose Drop Head Coupe
Hello People :)
After all this time I’m back with a new creation . The reason you haven’t seen anything for so long is because I went through a process of rethinking the way I build . I used to mainly recreate models from Star Wars or DC comics , with a sole purpose of making the MOC look as accurate to the original as possible , sacrificing stability , playability and overall good structure most of the time . I was no longer satisfied with that . From now on my goals are to build MOCs that both look good , and also are fun , playable , contain smart play features and generally function well as toys.
The first result of this “new style” is what you see above : my own original Batmobile. While it draws inspiration from a couple of Batmobiles ( mainly Arkham Knight’s and BvS’s) it is my own spin on the classic vehicle , the Predator . It’s packed with action features : a stud shooter turret , a “hook” style spring-loaded shooter, opening trunk with all the gear you’ll need ( batarangs , a new remote batarang made from some old knight helmet feathers , extra ammo and a line launcher ) and the ability to transform between two modes , one ideal for battles and one built for speed. Also, the turret can be swapped out for a winch , which can be attached to the front spring loaded shooter and then shot - you can catch enemies’ vehicles , bring down walls , shoot it towards a roof and then climb , the possibilities are endless. I have also built a display MOC for my Batmobile - which is the first segment of what will eventually become a full Batcave . It has working lights and spins slowly - as a car turntable should.
I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this . Do you like this new style of building ? Do you like the look of the car ? What about the functions ? Do you want to see a full Batcave ? Your comments are very important to me :)
What is an Aboriginal quarry?
Aboriginal quarries are places where Aboriginal people took stone from rocky outcrops to make chipped or ground stone tools for many different purposes.
Not all types of stone were suitable for making tools, so an outcrop of good stone that could be easily quarried was a valuable resource.
Aboriginal people quarried different types of stone, each with its own special value and use. Stone tools were made from greenstone, silcrete, quartz, quartzite, basalt and chert. Pigments were made from quarried ochre, and grinding tools were made from sandstone.
Some quarries are small, consisting of just a single protruding boulder. Other quarries incorporate many outcrops and areas of broken stone that cover thousands of square metres.
What to do if you find an Aboriginal quarry...
do not disturb the place or remove any material
check whether the place has the typical characteristics of an Aboriginal quarry
if it does, record its location and write a brief description of its condition
note whether it is under threat of disturbance
please help to preserve Aboriginal cultural places by reporting their presence to First Peoples - State Relations.
Where are quarries found?
Aboriginal quarries are generally found on slopes where erosion has exposed the stone, for example, the slopes above creeks and rivers, on the sides of old volcanoes and on ridges.
How did Aboriginal people quarry stone?
Aboriginal people used at least two methods of stone quarrying. One method was to strike the surface of the outcrop at an angle with a hammerstone. Manageable pieces of stone broke off with minimum effort. This method scarred the rock face and left scattered broken fragments around the outcrop. The hammerstone was sometimes left at the quarry site.
The other method involved digging around and under outcrops to find buried stone. The purpose was to find manageable chunks of stone that were unweathered. Such digging created pits and trenches.
The early stages of stone tool making often occurred at the quarry. Tool manufacture added to the debris produced by quarrying. Aboriginal people used hammerstones, anvils and grinding stones, which were often left at the quarry because they were heavy. Sometimes, unfinished tools such as ‘axe blanks’ were also left behind.
What else looks like Aboriginal quarrying?
Natural weathering can create outcrops that appear similar to Aboriginal quarries. Uneven fractures and splintering on the outcrop face can resemble flaking scars. Weathering also produces large quantities of angular pieces of stone that look like stone tools. First Peoples - State Relations can provide an expert assessment of your discovery.
Why are Aboriginal quarries important?
Aboriginal quarries tell us a lot about Aboriginal stone tools, such as the types of stone used, how stone was obtained, and how the tools were made.
Aboriginal quarries also provide a rare glimpse into the fabric of past Aboriginal society. Quarried stone was often traded. Stone axes from one of the most important quarries in Victoria, at Mount William near Lancefield, have been found right across south east Australia.
Knowing where stone was quarried, we can learn more about the networks that existed between different groups of Aboriginal people. Most importantly, quarries are an important link for Aboriginal people today with their culture and their past.
Are Aboriginal quarries under threat?
Human activities such as mining, road building, damming, clearing and construction can disturb or destroy Aboriginal quarries. Natural processes such as weathering and erosion can also cause the gradual breakdown of stone outcrops.
First Peoples - State Relations records the location, dimensions and condition of Aboriginal quarries. The aim is to have a permanent record of this important part of the heritage of all Australians.
Management works around Aboriginal quarries, such as stock and erosion control, help preserve the sites for future generations.
Are Aboriginal quarries protected?
All Aboriginal cultural places in Victoria are protected by law. Aboriginal artefacts are also protected.
It is illegal to disturb or destroy an Aboriginal place. Artefacts should not be removed from the site.
Source: First Peoples Relations, Victorian Government: Fact sheet: Aboriginal quarries (www.firstpeoplesrelations.vic.gov.au/fact-sheet-aborigina...)
Originally a Dual Purpose coach with fleet number 2678, this Bristol RELH6g was downgraded and converted to Bus work and had window vents fitted in 1971.
It was withdrawn in 1980.
WFE415 was new in February 1964.
Seen working to Skegness with adverts along the lower panel.
No location for this photo.
Younus AlGohar discusses how the choice each individual made in the Primordial Times determines their purpose of life.
Main points:
Between man and God, either there is a very strong bond or there is nothing. Either you are completely dedicated to God, or you are not. To understand complete dedication to God, one has to have paramount knowledge of spirituality. Spirituality is an essential element of life.
Death is inevitable. What should worry us is whether or not we achieved what we were meant to in this world. We need to know what our purpose is.
The three major monotheistic religions talk about life prior to this world and life hereafter. Death in this world does not mean death of you.
In the Primordial Times, you made a choice between luxuries of the world, luxuries of paradise and God's nearness and love. Your purpose in this world is attain that choice.
If you have all the luxuries of the world but your heart is not content, it means you did not choose the luxuries of the world in the Primordial Times. If you are a dedicated practitioner of a religion but lack inner peace, it means the luxuries of paradise are not your fate.
Lord Ra Riaz's teachings are diagnostic knowledge which will restore the health of your heart. If you try to adopt spirituality, in a few days, you will find out who you are.
Date Taken: May 12, 2023
Basic Details:
Operator: Lungsod Silangan Transport Service & Multi-Purpose Cooperative
Fleet Number: 007
Classification: Air-Conditioned City Operation Bus (Modern PUV Class 2)
Seating Configuration: Side Facing Bench-Type Seats
Seating Capacity: 19 Passengers
Standing Capacity: 10 Passengers (LTFRB Maximum Imposed Limit)
Remarks: Compliant to the Philippine National Standard (PNS) 2126:2017 - ICS 42.040.01: Public Utility Vehicles Class 2 and Class 3 - Dimensions
Body:
Coachbuilder: Hino Motors Philippines, Corp.
Body Model: Hino Modern PUV Cabless Gen. 2 Class 2
Chassis:
Chassis Model: Hino 414I Long Wheelbase
VIN / WMI Code: MJECA44HOM
Layout: Front-Longitudinally-Mounted Engine Rear-Wheel Drive
Suspension: Leaf Springs Suspension
Engine:
Engine Model: Hino N04C-VC
Cylinder Displacement: 4.0 Liters
Cylinder Configuration: Straight-4
Engine Aspiration: Turbo-Intercooler
Max. Power Output: 136 hp @ 2,500 rpm
Peak Torque Output: 390 N.m @ 1,400 rpm
Transmission:
Type: Manual Transmission
Gears: 5-Speed Forward, 1-Speed Reverse
* Some parts of the specifications may be subjected for verification and may be changed without prior notice...
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Our Official Facebook Fan Page: Philippine Bus Enthusiasts Society (PhilBES)
The Space Shuttle program, operated by NASA from 1981 to 2011, was a groundbreaking human spaceflight program that utilized various components, including the Space Shuttle Orbiter, the Space Shuttle External Tank (ET), and the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs). In this response, we will focus on the Space Shuttle External Tank and Booster Rockets, discussing their design, purpose, and key aspects. Please note that the following information is based on the program up until 2000, as specified in your request.
Space Shuttle External Tank (ET):
The Space Shuttle External Tank played a crucial role in the Space Shuttle launch system. It was the largest component of the Space Shuttle stack and provided the primary propellant for the Orbiter's main engines. Here are some key points about the External Tank:
Design and Structure:
The External Tank had a cylindrical shape and consisted of three major components: the forward liquid oxygen (LOX) tank, the aft liquid hydrogen (LH2) tank, and a connecting intertank structure.
The LOX tank, located at the forward end, contained approximately 1.4 million liters (380,000 gallons) of liquid oxygen.
The LH2 tank, positioned at the aft end, held around 1.9 million liters (526,000 gallons) of liquid hydrogen.
The intertank structure connected the LOX and LH2 tanks and housed various components, including avionics, electrical wiring, and feedlines.
The tanks were constructed using lightweight materials, such as aluminum alloys, to reduce the overall weight of the External Tank.
Function:
The primary function of the External Tank was to supply propellant to the Space Shuttle's three main engines.
The LOX and LH2 stored in the External Tank were funneled through feedlines and supplied to the Orbiter's engines at an optimal mix ratio for combustion.
As the propellant was consumed, the tank's structure progressively lightened, reducing its mass and enabling more efficient ascent to orbit.
Unlike the Solid Rocket Boosters, the External Tank was not reusable and was jettisoned after its propellant was depleted.
Thermal Protection:
The External Tank experienced extreme temperature variations during launch and reentry, requiring robust thermal protection measures.
The LOX tank was covered with sprayed-on foam insulation to prevent excessive heat absorption from the environment and maintain the propellant's low temperature.
The LH2 tank, due to its extremely low temperature, did not require extensive insulation but instead relied on a combination of passive and active cooling techniques.
Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs):
The Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters were two large, reusable rocket motors attached to the sides of the External Tank. Here's some information about the SRBs:
Design and Structure:
Each Solid Rocket Booster was approximately 45 meters (149 feet) long and 3.7 meters (12.2 feet) in diameter.
The boosters were composed of several cylindrical segments, including the forward skirt, motor segments, aft skirt, and nozzle.
The motor segments contained solid propellant, which provided the necessary thrust during the Shuttle's initial ascent phase.
The nozzles at the aft end directed the exhaust gases generated by the propellant combustion.
Function:
The Solid Rocket Boosters were responsible for providing the majority of the thrust required for the Space Shuttle to break free from Earth's gravity.
They ignited prior to liftoff and remained active for approximately two minutes, during which they consumed their solid propellant.
The boosters worked in conjunction with the Orbiter's main engines to propel the entire Space Shuttle stack off the launch pad and into space.
Following burnout, the SRBs were jettisoned and subsequently recovered from the ocean, refurbished, and prepared for future missions.
Parachute Recovery:
After separation, the SRBs were equipped with parachutes to facilitate their controlled descent and landing in the ocean.
A combination of drogue chutes and main parachutes slowed the descent and ensured a gentle impact with the water.
Recovery ships positioned in the retrieval area would retrieve the boosters, tow them back to land, and prepare them for refurbishment and reuse.
Reusability and Refurbishment:
The Solid Rocket Boosters were designed to be reusable, offering cost savings for the Space Shuttle program.
After recovery, the boosters underwent an extensive refurbishment process, including disassembly, cleaning, inspection, replacement of worn or damaged components, and propellant reload.
This refurbishment process allowed each SRB to be flown multiple times, reducing overall launch costs.
In summary, the Space Shuttle External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters were integral components of the Space Shuttle system. The External Tank provided the necessary propellants for the Orbiter's main engines, while the Solid Rocket Boosters generated the majority of the thrust during the initial ascent phase. The External Tank was not reusable and was jettisoned after use, while the SRBs were recovered, refurbished, and reused for subsequent missions. These components worked together to propel the Space Shuttle into orbit, advancing human space exploration and scientific endeavors.
The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968, KSC has been NASA's primary launch center of American spaceflight, research, and technology. Launch operations for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs were carried out from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 and managed by KSC. Located on the east coast of Florida, KSC is adjacent to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS). The management of the two entities work very closely together, share resources and operate facilities on each other's property.
Though the first Apollo flights and all Project Mercury and Project Gemini flights took off from the then-Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the launches were managed by KSC and its previous organization, the Launch Operations Directorate. Starting with the fourth Gemini mission, the NASA launch control center in Florida (Mercury Control Center, later the Launch Control Center) began handing off control of the vehicle to the Mission Control Center in Houston, shortly after liftoff; in prior missions it held control throughout the entire mission.
Additionally, the center manages launch of robotic and commercial crew missions and researches food production and in-situ resource utilization for off-Earth exploration. Since 2010, the center has worked to become a multi-user spaceport through industry partnerships, even adding a new launch pad (LC-39C) in 2015.
There are about 700 facilities and buildings grouped throughout the center's 144,000 acres (580 km2). Among the unique facilities at KSC are the 525-foot (160 m) tall Vehicle Assembly Building for stacking NASA's largest rockets, the Launch Control Center, which conducts space launches at KSC, the Operations and Checkout Building, which houses the astronauts dormitories and suit-up area, a Space Station factory, and a 3-mile (4.8 km) long Shuttle Landing Facility. There is also a Visitor Complex on site that is open to the public.
Since 1949, the military had been performing launch operations at what would become Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. In December 1959, the Department of Defense transferred 5,000 personnel and the Missile Firing Laboratory to NASA to become the Launch Operations Directorate under NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
President John F. Kennedy's 1961 goal of a crewed lunar landing by 1970 required an expansion of launch operations. On July 1, 1962, the Launch Operations Directorate was separated from MSFC to become the Launch Operations Center (LOC). Also, Cape Canaveral was inadequate to host the new launch facility design required for the mammoth 363-foot (111 m) tall, 7,500,000-pound-force (33,000 kN) thrust Saturn V rocket, which would be assembled vertically in a large hangar and transported on a mobile platform to one of several launch pads. Therefore, the decision was made to build a new LOC site located adjacent to Cape Canaveral on Merritt Island.
NASA began land acquisition in 1962, buying title to 131 square miles (340 km2) and negotiating with the state of Florida for an additional 87 square miles (230 km2). The major buildings in KSC's Industrial Area were designed by architect Charles Luckman. Construction began in November 1962, and Kennedy visited the site twice in 1962, and again just a week before his assassination on November 22, 1963.
On November 29, 1963, the facility was named by President Lyndon B. Johnson under Executive Order 11129. Johnson's order joined both the civilian LOC and the military Cape Canaveral station ("the facilities of Station No. 1 of the Atlantic Missile Range") under the designation "John F. Kennedy Space Center", spawning some confusion joining the two in the public mind. NASA Administrator James E. Webb clarified this by issuing a directive stating the Kennedy Space Center name applied only to the LOC, while the Air Force issued a general order renaming the military launch site Cape Kennedy Air Force Station.
Located on Merritt Island, Florida, the center is north-northwest of Cape Canaveral on the Atlantic Ocean, midway between Miami and Jacksonville on Florida's Space Coast, due east of Orlando. It is 34 miles (55 km) long and roughly six miles (9.7 km) wide, covering 219 square miles (570 km2). KSC is a major central Florida tourist destination and is approximately one hour's drive from the Orlando area. The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex offers public tours of the center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
From 1967 through 1973, there were 13 Saturn V launches, including the ten remaining Apollo missions after Apollo 7. The first of two uncrewed flights, Apollo 4 (Apollo-Saturn 501) on November 9, 1967, was also the first rocket launch from KSC. The Saturn V's first crewed launch on December 21, 1968, was Apollo 8's lunar orbiting mission. The next two missions tested the Lunar Module: Apollo 9 (Earth orbit) and Apollo 10 (lunar orbit). Apollo 11, launched from Pad A on July 16, 1969, made the first Moon landing on July 20. The Apollo 11 launch included crewmembers Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin, and attracted a record-breaking 650 million television viewers. Apollo 12 followed four months later. From 1970 to 1972, the Apollo program concluded at KSC with the launches of missions 13 through 17.
On May 14, 1973, the last Saturn V launch put the Skylab space station in orbit from Pad 39A. By this time, the Cape Kennedy pads 34 and 37 used for the Saturn IB were decommissioned, so Pad 39B was modified to accommodate the Saturn IB, and used to launch three crewed missions to Skylab that year, as well as the final Apollo spacecraft for the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project in 1975.
As the Space Shuttle was being designed, NASA received proposals for building alternative launch-and-landing sites at locations other than KSC, which demanded study. KSC had important advantages, including its existing facilities; location on the Intracoastal Waterway; and its southern latitude, which gives a velocity advantage to missions launched in easterly near-equatorial orbits. Disadvantages included: its inability to safely launch military missions into polar orbit, since spent boosters would be likely to fall on the Carolinas or Cuba; corrosion from the salt air; and frequent cloudy or stormy weather. Although building a new site at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico was seriously considered, NASA announced its decision in April 1972 to use KSC for the shuttle. Since the Shuttle could not be landed automatically or by remote control, the launch of Columbia on April 12, 1981 for its first orbital mission STS-1, was NASA's first crewed launch of a vehicle that had not been tested in prior uncrewed launches.
In 1976, the VAB's south parking area was the site of Third Century America, a science and technology display commemorating the U.S. Bicentennial. Concurrent with this event, the U.S. flag was painted on the south side of the VAB. During the late 1970s, LC-39 was reconfigured to support the Space Shuttle. Two Orbiter Processing Facilities were built near the VAB as hangars with a third added in the 1980s.
KSC's 2.9-mile (4.7 km) Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) was the orbiters' primary end-of-mission landing site, although the first KSC landing did not take place until the tenth flight, when Challenger completed STS-41-B on February 11, 1984; the primary landing site until then was Edwards Air Force Base in California, subsequently used as a backup landing site. The SLF also provided a return-to-launch-site (RTLS) abort option, which was not utilized. The SLF is among the longest runways in the world.
On October 28, 2009, the Ares I-X launch from Pad 39B was the first uncrewed launch from KSC since the Skylab workshop in 1973.
Beginning in 1958, NASA and military worked side by side on robotic mission launches (previously referred to as unmanned), cooperating as they broke ground in the field. In the early 1960s, NASA had as many as two robotic mission launches a month. The frequent number of flights allowed for quick evolution of the vehicles, as engineers gathered data, learned from anomalies and implemented upgrades. In 1963, with the intent of KSC ELV work focusing on the ground support equipment and facilities, a separate Atlas/Centaur organization was formed under NASA's Lewis Center (now Glenn Research Center (GRC)), taking that responsibility from the Launch Operations Center (aka KSC).
Though almost all robotics missions launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS), KSC "oversaw the final assembly and testing of rockets as they arrived at the Cape." In 1965, KSC's Unmanned Launch Operations directorate became responsible for all NASA uncrewed launch operations, including those at Vandenberg Space Force Base. From the 1950s to 1978, KSC chose the rocket and payload processing facilities for all robotic missions launching in the U.S., overseeing their near launch processing and checkout. In addition to government missions, KSC performed this service for commercial and foreign missions also, though non-U.S. government entities provided reimbursement. NASA also funded Cape Canaveral Space Force Station launch pad maintenance and launch vehicle improvements.
All this changed with the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984, after which NASA only coordinated its own and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ELV launches. Companies were able to "operate their own launch vehicles" and utilize NASA's launch facilities. Payload processing handled by private firms also started to occur outside of KSC. Reagan's 1988 space policy furthered the movement of this work from KSC to commercial companies. That same year, launch complexes on Cape Canaveral Air Force Force Station started transferring from NASA to Air Force Space Command management.
In the 1990s, though KSC was not performing the hands-on ELV work, engineers still maintained an understanding of ELVs and had contracts allowing them insight into the vehicles so they could provide knowledgeable oversight. KSC also worked on ELV research and analysis and the contractors were able to utilize KSC personnel as a resource for technical issues. KSC, with the payload and launch vehicle industries, developed advances in automation of the ELV launch and ground operations to enable competitiveness of U.S. rockets against the global market.
In 1998, the Launch Services Program (LSP) formed at KSC, pulling together programs (and personnel) that already existed at KSC, GRC, Goddard Space Flight Center, and more to manage the launch of NASA and NOAA robotic missions. Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and VAFB are the primary launch sites for LSP missions, though other sites are occasionally used. LSP payloads such as the Mars Science Laboratory have been processed at KSC before being transferred to a launch pad on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
On 16 November 2022, at 06:47:44 UTC the Space Launch System (SLS) was launched from Complex 39B as part of the Artemis 1 mission.
As the International Space Station modules design began in the early 1990s, KSC began to work with other NASA centers and international partners to prepare for processing before launch onboard the Space Shuttles. KSC utilized its hands-on experience processing the 22 Spacelab missions in the Operations and Checkout Building to gather expectations of ISS processing. These experiences were incorporated into the design of the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF), which began construction in 1991. The Space Station Directorate formed in 1996. KSC personnel were embedded at station module factories for insight into their processes.
From 1997 to 2007, KSC planned and performed on the ground integration tests and checkouts of station modules: three Multi-Element Integration Testing (MEIT) sessions and the Integration Systems Test (IST). Numerous issues were found and corrected that would have been difficult to nearly impossible to do on-orbit.
Today KSC continues to process ISS payloads from across the world before launch along with developing its experiments for on orbit. The proposed Lunar Gateway would be manufactured and processed at the Space Station Processing Facility.
The following are current programs and initiatives at Kennedy Space Center:
Commercial Crew Program
Exploration Ground Systems Program
NASA is currently designing the next heavy launch vehicle known as the Space Launch System (SLS) for continuation of human spaceflight.
On December 5, 2014, NASA launched the first uncrewed flight test of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), currently under development to facilitate human exploration of the Moon and Mars.
Launch Services Program
Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa)
Research and Technology
Artemis program
Lunar Gateway
International Space Station Payloads
Camp KSC: educational camps for schoolchildren in spring and summer, with a focus on space, aviation and robotics.
The KSC Industrial Area, where many of the center's support facilities are located, is 5 miles (8 km) south of LC-39. It includes the Headquarters Building, the Operations and Checkout Building and the Central Instrumentation Facility. The astronaut crew quarters are in the O&C; before it was completed, the astronaut crew quarters were located in Hangar S at the Cape Canaveral Missile Test Annex (now Cape Canaveral Space Force Station). Located at KSC was the Merritt Island Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network station (MILA), a key radio communications and spacecraft tracking complex.
Facilities at the Kennedy Space Center are directly related to its mission to launch and recover missions. Facilities are available to prepare and maintain spacecraft and payloads for flight. The Headquarters (HQ) Building houses offices for the Center Director, library, film and photo archives, a print shop and security. When the KSC Library first opened, it was part of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. However, in 1965, the library moved into three separate sections in the newly opened NASA headquarters before eventually becoming a single unit in 1970. The library contains over four million items related to the history and the work at Kennedy. As one of ten NASA center libraries in the country, their collection focuses on engineering, science, and technology. The archives contain planning documents, film reels, and original photographs covering the history of KSC. The library is not open to the public but is available for KSC, Space Force, and Navy employees who work on site. Many of the media items from the collection are digitized and available through NASA's KSC Media Gallery Archived December 6, 2020, at the Wayback Machine or through their more up-to-date Flickr gallery.
A new Headquarters Building was completed in 2019 as part of the Central Campus consolidation. Groundbreaking began in 2014.
The center operated its own 17-mile (27 km) short-line railroad. This operation was discontinued in 2015, with the sale of its final two locomotives. A third had already been donated to a museum. The line was costing $1.3 million annually to maintain.
The Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building (O&C) (previously known as the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building) is a historic site on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places dating back to the 1960s and was used to receive, process, and integrate payloads for the Gemini and Apollo programs, the Skylab program in the 1970s, and for initial segments of the International Space Station through the 1990s. The Apollo and Space Shuttle astronauts would board the astronaut transfer van to launch complex 39 from the O&C building.
The three-story, 457,000-square-foot (42,500 m2) Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) consists of two enormous processing bays, an airlock, operational control rooms, laboratories, logistics areas and office space for support of non-hazardous Space Station and Shuttle payloads to ISO 14644-1 class 5 standards. Opened in 1994, it is the largest factory building in the KSC industrial area.
The Vertical Processing Facility (VPF) features a 71-by-38-foot (22 by 12 m) door where payloads that are processed in the vertical position are brought in and manipulated with two overhead cranes and a hoist capable of lifting up to 35 short tons (32 t).
The Hypergolic Maintenance and Checkout Area (HMCA) comprises three buildings that are isolated from the rest of the industrial area because of the hazardous materials handled there. Hypergolic-fueled modules that made up the Space Shuttle Orbiter's reaction control system, orbital maneuvering system and auxiliary power units were stored and serviced in the HMCF.
The Multi-Payload Processing Facility is a 19,647 square feet (1,825.3 m2) building used for Orion spacecraft and payload processing.
The Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF) contains a 70-by-110-foot (21 by 34 m) service bay, with a 100,000-pound (45,000 kg), 85-foot (26 m) hook height. It also contains a 58-by-80-foot (18 by 24 m) payload airlock. Its temperature is maintained at 70 °F (21 °C).[55]
The Blue Origin rocket manufacturing facility is located immediately south of the KSC visitor complex. Completed in 2019, it serves as the company's factory for the manufacture of New Glenn orbital rockets.
Launch Complex 39 (LC-39) was originally built for the Saturn V, the largest and most powerful operational launch vehicle until the Space Launch System, for the Apollo crewed Moon landing program. Since the end of the Apollo program in 1972, LC-39 has been used to launch every NASA human space flight, including Skylab (1973), the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (1975), and the Space Shuttle program (1981–2011).
Since December 1968, all launch operations have been conducted from launch pads A and B at LC-39. Both pads are on the ocean, 3 miles (4.8 km) east of the VAB. From 1969 to 1972, LC-39 was the "Moonport" for all six Apollo crewed Moon landing missions using the Saturn V, and was used from 1981 to 2011 for all Space Shuttle launches.
Human missions to the Moon required the large three-stage Saturn V rocket, which was 363 feet (111 meters) tall and 33 feet (10 meters) in diameter. At KSC, Launch Complex 39 was built on Merritt Island to accommodate the new rocket. Construction of the $800 million project began in November 1962. LC-39 pads A and B were completed by October 1965 (planned Pads C, D and E were canceled), the VAB was completed in June 1965, and the infrastructure by late 1966.
The complex includes: the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), a 130,000,000 cubic feet (3,700,000 m3) hangar capable of holding four Saturn Vs. The VAB was the largest structure in the world by volume when completed in 1965.
a transporter capable of carrying 5,440 tons along a crawlerway to either of two launch pads;
a 446-foot (136 m) mobile service structure, with three Mobile Launcher Platforms, each containing a fixed launch umbilical tower;
the Launch Control Center; and
a news media facility.
Launch Complex 48 (LC-48) is a multi-user launch site under construction for small launchers and spacecraft. It will be located between Launch Complex 39A and Space Launch Complex 41, with LC-39A to the north and SLC-41 to the south. LC-48 will be constructed as a "clean pad" to support multiple launch systems with differing propellant needs. While initially only planned to have a single pad, the complex is capable of being expanded to two at a later date.
As a part of promoting commercial space industry growth in the area and the overall center as a multi-user spaceport, KSC leases some of its properties. Here are some major examples:
Exploration Park to multiple users (partnership with Space Florida)
Shuttle Landing Facility to Space Florida (who contracts use to private companies)
Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF)-3 to Boeing (for CST-100 Starliner)
Launch Complex 39A, Launch Control Center Firing Room 4 and land for SpaceX's Roberts Road facility (Hanger X) to SpaceX
O&C High Bay to Lockheed Martin (for Orion processing)
Land for FPL's Space Coast Next Generation Solar Energy Center to Florida Power and Light (FPL)
Hypergolic Maintenance Facility (HMF) to United Paradyne Corporation (UPC)
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, operated by Delaware North since 1995, has a variety of exhibits, artifacts, displays and attractions on the history and future of human and robotic spaceflight. Bus tours of KSC originate from here. The complex also includes the separate Apollo/Saturn V Center, north of the VAB and the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, six miles west near Titusville. There were 1.5 million visitors in 2009. It had some 700 employees.
It was announced on May 29, 2015, that the Astronaut Hall of Fame exhibit would be moved from its current location to another location within the Visitor Complex to make room for an upcoming high-tech attraction entitled "Heroes and Legends". The attraction, designed by Orlando-based design firm Falcon's Treehouse, opened November 11, 2016.
In March 2016, the visitor center unveiled the new location of the iconic countdown clock at the complex's entrance; previously, the clock was located with a flagpole at the press site. The clock was originally built and installed in 1969 and listed with the flagpole in the National Register of Historic Places in January 2000. In 2019, NASA celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo program, and the launch of Apollo 10 on May 18. In summer of 2019, Lunar Module 9 (LM-9) was relocated to the Apollo/Saturn V Center as part of an initiative to rededicate the center and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Program.
Historic locations
NASA lists the following Historic Districts at KSC; each district has multiple associated facilities:
Launch Complex 39: Pad A Historic District
Launch Complex 39: Pad B Historic District
Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) Area Historic District
Orbiter Processing Historic District
Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) Disassembly and Refurbishment Complex Historic District
NASA KSC Railroad System Historic District
NASA-owned Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Industrial Area Historic District
There are 24 historic properties outside of these historic districts, including the Space Shuttle Atlantis, Vehicle Assembly Building, Crawlerway, and Operations and Checkout Building.[71] KSC has one National Historic Landmark, 78 National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) listed or eligible sites, and 100 Archaeological Sites.
Further information: John F. Kennedy Space Center MPS
Other facilities
The Rotation, Processing and Surge Facility (RPSF) is responsible for the preparation of solid rocket booster segments for transportation to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). The RPSF was built in 1984 to perform SRB operations that had previously been conducted in high bays 2 and 4 of the VAB at the beginning of the Space Shuttle program. It was used until the Space Shuttle's retirement, and will be used in the future by the Space Launch System[75] (SLS) and OmegA rockets.
INGREDIENTS:
3 1/2 to 3 3/4 cups Gold Medal® Better for Bread™ bread flour or Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 package regular or fast-acting dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
1 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
2 teaspoons dried rosemary or thyme leaves, if desired
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups diced Asiago, Swiss or other firm cheese
Cooking spray for greasing bowl and cookie sheet
DIRECTIONS:
1. In a large bowl, stir 1 1/2 cups of the flour, the sugar and yeast until well mixed. In a 1 1/2-quart saucepan, heat the water over medium heat until very warm and an instant-read thermometer reads 120°F to 130°F. Add the warm water to the flour mixture. Beat with a wire whisk or an electric mixer on low speed 1 minute, stopping frequently to scrape batter from side and bottom of bowl with a rubber spatula. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap; let stand about 1 hour or until bubbly.
2. Stir in the oil, rosemary and salt with a wooden spoon. Stir in enough of the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until dough is soft, leaves side of bowl and is easy to handle. Cover with plastic wrap; let stand 15 minutes.
3. Sprinkle flour lightly on a countertop or large cutting board. Place dough on floured surface. Knead by folding dough toward you, then with the heels of your hands, pushing dough away from you with a short rocking motion. Move dough a quarter turn and repeat. Continue kneading 5 to 10 minutes, sprinkling surface with more flour if dough starts to stick, until dough is smooth and springy. Knead in 1 cup of the cheese. Spray a large bowl with the cooking spray. Place dough in bowl, turning dough to grease all sides. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap; let rise in a warm place 45 to 60 minutes or until dough has doubled in size. Dough is ready if an indentation remains when you press your fingertips about 1/2 inch into the dough.
4. Lightly spray a cookie sheet with the cooking spray. Sprinkle flour lightly on a countertop or large cutting board. Gently push your fist into the dough to deflate it. Place dough on floured surface. Gently shape into football-shaped loaf, about 12 inches long, by stretching sides of dough downward to make a smooth top. Place loaf with smooth side up on the cookie sheet. Coat loaf generously with flour. Cover loosely with plastic wrap; let rise in a warm place 45 to 60 minutes or until dough has almost doubled in size.
5. Move oven racks to lowest and middle positions. Place an 8-inch or 9-inch square pan on the bottom oven rack; add hot water to the pan until about 1/2 inch from the top. Heat the oven to 450°F.
6. Pour a small amount of cool water into a clean spray bottle. Spray the loaf lightly with water; sprinkle with a small amount of flour. With a sharp serrated knife, carefully cut a 1/2-inch-deep slash lengthwise down the center of the loaf. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup cheese into the slash.
7. Bake 10 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 400°F. Bake 20 to 25 minutes longer or until loaf is deep golden and sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from cookie sheet to a cooling rack. Cool 30 minutes before slicing; cut with a serrated knife.
WE DESIGNED this home to be BEYOU FRIENDLY!! Must SEE!!
When you walk into The Hargrove, you are greeted with stunning English Oak wood floors that lead to an open and inviting layout; great for entertaining or a quiet evening with your loved ones. This exquisite modern home boasts 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths that promises to compliment only the best in interior design. Superb interior lighting throughout showcases the true beauty of the home while the Canadian stucco exterior, lighting, and fencing brings it all together.
The Hargrove was thoughtfully designed & features beautiful finishes & meticulous craftsmanship you've come to expect from Purpose! Homes.
Take a tour of The Hargrove inworld at the Purpose! Homes Mainstore!
LM: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/WideWorld%20Objective/203/...
Building Specs:
Dimensions: 74x70
Prims-379
*UNFURNISHED*
Master Bedroom w/private bath & closet
2 Guest Bedrooms with Jack and Jill bath
1 Half Bath
Dining Room
Living Room
Kitchen
Laundry Room
2 Car Garage
The walls and floors are tintable to fit your own color scheme by using 'Select Face' in Edit mode.
Pool Details (not included): marketplace.secondlife.com/p/XP-Animated-3D-Swimming-Pool...
marketplace.secondlife.com/p/XP-Spiral-Waterslide/17392223
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Stagecoach Cumberland Volvo B10M-Jonckheere Modulo step entrance dual purpose bus on Oxford Street in Workington with a X4 Workington to Penrith TransCumbria service. This vehicle was new to Stagecoach Cumberland, as fleet number 797, in October 1998.
Rogers Centre, originally named SkyDome, is a multi-purpose stadium in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada situated just southwest of the CN Tower near the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Opened in 1989 on the former Railway Lands, it is home to the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball (MLB). Previously, the stadium served as home to the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL), played an annual game at the stadium as part of the Bills Toronto Series from 2008 to 2013. While it is primarily a sports venue, it also hosts other large-scale events such as conventions, trade fairs, concerts, travelling carnivals, and monster truck shows.
The stadium was renamed "Rogers Centre" following the purchase of the stadium by Rogers Communications, which also bought the Toronto Blue Jays, in 2005. The venue was noted for being the first stadium to have a fully retractable motorized roof, as well as for the 348-room hotel attached to it, with 70 rooms overlooking the field. It is also the last North American major-league stadium built to accommodate both football and baseball. The stadium served as the site of both the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2015 Pan American Games. During the ceremonies, the site was referred to as the "Pan Am Dome" (officially as the "Pan Am Ceremonies Venue") instead of its official name.
SkyDome, called Rogers Centre since 2005, was designed by architect Rod Robbie and structural engineer Michael Allen and was constructed by the EllisDon Construction company of London, Ontario and the Dominion Bridge Company of Lachine, Quebec. The stadium's construction lasted about two and a half years, from October 1986 to May 1989. The approximate cost of construction was C$570 million ($966 million in 2016 dollars) which was paid for by the federal government, Ontario provincial government, the City of Toronto, and a large consortium of corporations.
The venue was the first major team sports stadium in North America with a functional, fully retractable roof (Montreal's Olympic Stadium also had a retractable roof, but due to operational issues, it was replaced with a permanent roof). The roof is composed of four panels and covers an area of 345,000 square feet (32,100 m2). The two middle panels slide laterally to stack over the north semi-circular panel, and then the south semi-circular panel rotates around the stadium and nests inside the stack. It takes 20 minutes for the roof to open or close.
The Renaissance Toronto Hotel is also located within Rogers Centre, with 70 rooms overlooking the field.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
For some reason I always had a bit of an affinity towards these cars, largely due to the fact that they seemed to be smiling with those light clusters. But much like the Maestro, it had purpose, it was innovative, and it was a car that refused to die!
The Austin Montego first started development life way back in 1977 under project code LC10 (Leyland Cars 10), as an intended replacement for the Morris Marina and the Princess. However, like many of the company's promising projects, such as the Maestro and the Metro, it was shelved for years on account of the fact that British Leyland ran out of money! After a corporate bailout by the British Government, the company chose instead to prolong the development of these cars and instead simply give the existing Marina and Princess a facelift, resulting in the Morris Ital and Austin Ambassador, both cars notable for being unimpressively bland masterpieces.
However, this delay did give British Leyland a chance to tie up with Honda, and in 1980 launched the Triumph Acclaim as both the first Japanese/British hybrid car, but also British Leyland's first consistently reliable product! The result was that both the simultaneously developed Austin Maestro and Montego could take some leaves out of Honda's book and therefore improve the reliability. Styling came from David Bache, who had previously had a hand in penning the Rover P4, the Rover SD1 and the Range Rover, and Roy Axe, who would later go on to style the Rover 800 and the Rolls Royce Silver Seraph. The lengthy development time of the car however clearly showed as the first sketches of the car were done back in 1975. Apparently when Roy Axe, who took over as Director of Design in 1982, saw the first prototype with the original design, he was so horrified that he suggested they scrap the whole thing and start over!
However, their combined design talent truly shows through with the Montego as in essence these are very handsome cars, with a long smooth body, a pleasing frontal alignment and design, and internally very capable and comfortable. Some novel features included were the colour coordinated bumpers that matched the rest of the car, and the wiper spindles hiding under the bonnet when parked.
Although many consider the Maestro just to be a hatchback version of the Montego, there were many features the Montego had that made it an all around better car. These included a new S-Series engine in place of the A-Series engine that dated back to the 1950's, and a more practical and robust dashboard. Variations of the car included the stylish and luxury Vanden Plas, which was styled internally by the world renowned coachbuilder with lavish wood veneer and seating (thankfully not given a chrome nose, that would have been insane!), the sporty MG Montego which featured a higher performance O-Series Turob Engine and a revolutionary synthesised computer voice that announced problems and warnings, and finally the Estate versions which were by far the most popular and received almost unanimous acclaim for their spacious interior.
The Montego was launched on April 25th 1984, being available at first as a 4-door saloon to replace the standard Morris Ital, but the Ital in estate form continued on until August, bringing an end to the 11 year old Morris Marina family. In October the Estate version was launched at the British International Motor Show. Initially things were looking up for the Montego, as mentioned the Estate version was lauded for its practicality, the MG Montego became the fastest MG ever built with 115hp to rocket it up to a top speed of 126mph at a rate of 0-60 in 7.1 seconds, and the Vanden Plas was a modest success for the business executive, as well as finding a home in the company car market.
Promotion for the car also helped to seal the deal with a fantastically choreographed advert where professional stunt driver Russ Swift, pretty much danced around a crowded car park in a Montego, doing reverse 180's in gaps only a few feet wide, and driving the car on two wheels through a gap only a ruler's length apart! Jeremy Clarkson would attempt to do the same thing 14 years later on one of his DVD's in another Montego, again with the help of Russ Swift, which went well the first time, but not so well the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh time. Eventually the Montego was smashed in half by a large truck in a fiery explosion.
Sadly though, the honeymoon like with all good British Leyland cars was short lived, and soon afterwards the various faults and build quality problems became once again apparent. Although many of the features fitted to these cars such as the synthesised voice, the computer engine management and the redesigned dashboard were endearing, the main fault that these cars had were in the electrics, which would frequently go wrong. Some examples I've heard from early Montego owners have included the car failing to start, pressing the indicator switch only to blow the horn, or the synthesised talking lady never, ever, ever shutting up! Because of these problems the cars built up a very quick and poor reputation, added to by the poor construction of the actual car, with the colour coded bumpers being particularly problematic as they'd crack in cold weather.
But British Leyland didn't give up on the Montego, and in the background designers continued to tinker with the idea of further additions and changes to the car. Throughout the period following its introduction, British Leyland began to be broken up by the Thatcher Government, with Jaguar being made independent, the various parts manufacturers such as UNIPART being sold off, Leyland Trucks and Buses being sold to Volvo and DAF, and eventually the whole outfit being reduced to just MG and Rover. The Montego has been credited with being the last car to carry the Austin name, the badge being dropped in 1988 with future cars simply being dubbed the Montego. This coincided with a facelift in 1989 and the re-engineering of the car to be fitted with a Perkins Diesel. In 1989 a new seven-seater estate model was created called the Montego Countryman, built to combat the rising trend of People-Carriers such as the Renault Espace, but still being able to perform as well as a regular car. This, much like the original estate, proved immensely popular, especially in France for some reason, which went on to be one of the Montego's major markets.
In the early 90's the Montego did start getting back some reputation, winning the CAR Magazine's 'Giant Test' (all technical names I'm sure) when competing against the likes of the Citroen BX and the Audi 80. In fact the Rover Montego Turbo became a favourite with the RAF, and was used to whisk Officers across airfields as a personal transport. The Montego may have failed to outdo the Volkswagen Passat, but as for the British mob such as the Ford Sierra and the Vauxhall Cavalier, it was able competition. In fact when I was young in the 90's a lot of kids I'd see dropped off to school would be in then new Montego's because by this point the reliability issues had been ironed out following Rover Group's return to private ownership under British Aerospace.
But by 1992 the car was very much looking its age and was in desperate need of a replacement. In 1993 the Rover 600 was launched which pretty much ended the Montego for mass-production then and there, but special orders for the car continued until 1995. The machines continued to be a favourite among Company Car firms, and a lot of the developments made in the Montego lived on in later Rover cars, primarily the 600 and the 75, which inherited its rear suspension which was often held in high regard. But the curtain did eventually fall for the official Montego production in 1995 as new owners BMW desired nothing more than to be out with the old and in with the new, with facelifts all around including a new Rover 25 to replace the 200, a new Rover 45 to replace the 400, and a new Rover 75 to replace the 800, and the original Range Rover was revamped into the absolutely magnificent Range Rover P38 in 1995. The Maestro too was axed and the Metro followed not long afterwards in 1999, with the classic Mini being killed off in 2000, only to be brought back to life the same year under BMW management after the breakup of Rover that year.
But like the Maestro, the Montego simply wouldn't die, but unlike the Maestro, attempts to revive the car under bootlegged brands weren't as prosperous. In India, the company Sipani Automobiles, notable for attempting to recreate British cars such as the Reliant Kitten but instead consistently turning out garbage, attempted to built a few, but folded soon afterwards. In Trinidad & Tobago, a small firm attempted to sell their own copycat versions of the Montego, which were notable for their exceptional poor quality. But most famously was the attempt to recreate the car in China with the Lubao CA 6410, which yoked the nose of a Montego onto the back of a Maestro using a Maestro platform. Today that car is technically still in production as the Jiefang CA 6440 UA Van, but owes more to the Maestro than the Montego.
Today the Montego is a very rare car to find. Of the 571,000 cars built, only 296 remain, making it Britain's 8th most scrapped car. Contributing to this, areas of the bodywork that were to be covered by plastic trim (such as the front and rear bumpers) were left unpainted and thus unprotected. In addition, pre-1989 models cannot run on unleaded petrol without the cylinder head being converted or needing fuel additives.
However, as mentioned, the Montego estate was a huge hit in France, and chances are you'll find a fair number ambling about the countryside there. Malta too was another popular locale for the Montego, as well as many other British Leyland cars, including Marina's, Allegros and even Princesses!
My opinion on the Montego? Like most British Leyland cars it had prospects and purpose, but lacked the desire to build good, honest cars. It was comfortable, it was handsome, it performed as well as a family saloon car should, it was spacious and very well equipped, and like many British Leyland cars, such as the Princess with its Hydragas suspension, it was innovative. If these cars had been built better and had some of the teething problems ironed out with the electrical systems, then British Leyland could have easily gone on to make the family car of the 1980's. But like all pathfinders in the world of technology, they will suffer the full brunt of the problems they are most likely to experience.
People rarely remember the originals, only the one's that perfected it...
The San Pedro riparian area, containing about 40 miles of the upper San Pedro River, was designated by Congress as a National Conservation Area on November 18, 1988. The primary purpose for the designation is to protect and enhance the desert riparian ecosystem, a rare remnant of what was once an extensive network of similar riparian systems throughout the Southwest.
Many recreational opportunities are available within the NCA. Murray Springs Clovis Site, a significant archaeological site contains an undisturbed stratigraphic record of the past 40,000 years. Excavations were conducted by the University of Arizona from 1966 to 1971. People first arrived in this area 11,000 years ago. They belonged to what we now call the Clovis Culture and were the earliest known people to have inhabited North America. Named after the distinctive and beautifully crafted Clovis spear points they made, they were expert hunters of the large mammals of the last Ice Age. An interpretive trail leads visitors through the site. From Sierra Vista, take State Highway 90 east 6 miles to Monson Road. Turn left, and go about 1.2 miles to the signed turnoff to Murray Springs. The access road is located on the right.
The Spanish Presidio Santa Cruz de Terrenate is the most intact remaining example of a once-extensive network of similar presidios. These fortresses marked the northern extension of New Spain into the New World. Only a stone foundation and a few remaining adobe wall remnants mark the location of an isolated and dangerous military station. From Fairbank on Highway 82, drive approximately 2 miles west on Highway 82, turn right on the Kellar Ranch Road and travel approximately 3 miles to the trailhead. Hike about 2 miles to the ruins and interpretive displays.
The San Pedro House, located 9 miles east of Sierra Vista on State Highway 90, is a popular trailhead for birdwatchers, hikers, and mountain bikers. The Friends of San Pedro operate a bookstore and information center.
Photo by Bob Wick, BLM.
Oh the MGB, the last great British Sports car?
A motor that refused to die even though British Leyland simply couldn't stop messing around with it. The MGB is an example of a car that went from one of the most loved and lovable cars in British motoring, to what many describe as an empty husk broken and bent for legislation purposes. But the MGB would have its way in the end!
The story behind the MGB begins in 1962, when the car was designed to incorporate an innovative, modern style utilizing a monocoque structure instead of the traditional body-on-frame construction used on both the MGA and MG T-types and the MGB's rival, the Triumph TR series. However components such as brakes and suspension were developments of the earlier 1955 MGA with the B-Series engine having its origins in 1947. The lightweight design reduced manufacturing costs while adding to overall vehicle strength. Wind-up windows were standard, and a comfortable driver's compartment offered plenty of legroom. A parcel shelf was fitted behind the seats.
The car was powered by a BMC B-Series engine, producing 95hp and giving the car a 0-60 of 11 seconds, perhaps not the briskest acceleration, but of course this car was more a comfy little cruiser, ambling about the countryside in sedate fashion admiring the views. The MGB was also one of the first cars to feature controlled crumple zones designed to protect the driver and passenger in a 30 mph impact with an immovable barrier (200 ton).
The roadster was the first of the MGB range to be produced. The body was a pure two-seater but a small rear seat was a rare option at one point. By making better use of space the MGB was able to offer more passenger and luggage accommodation than the earlier MGA while 3 inches shorter overall. The suspension was also softer, giving a smoother ride, and the larger engine gave a slightly higher top speed. The four-speed gearbox was an uprated version of the one used in the MGA with an optional (electrically activated) overdrive transmission. Wheel diameter dropped from 15 to 14 inches.
Upon its launch the MGB was given almost unanimous acclaim, largely due to its advanced and innovative design combined with its beautifully and sleek styling. Previous sports cars of the same calibre had always been levied with a reputation for their ropey nature, with a majority of previous models being simply remodelled versions of the MG's and Triumphs that dated back to the end of and in some cases even before World War II. But the MG was different, and if I'm honest, a large part of its appeal is due to its small, low body, and it's poky round headlights that make it look rather cute. It's the kind of car you could give a name, preferably a girl's one. Either way, the MGB sold in hundreds, disappearing off to all corners of the globe, touring the South of France, storming across the deserts of Southern California on Route 66, or dodging its way through the bustling Indian traffic, these things were adored.
However, the only version available was a soft-top roadster, which didn't appeal to everyone, so in 1965 MG took the B to Italy, and the great styling firm known as Pininfarina, and asked them to pop a roof on their windy little sports car. What resulted was a roof fixture that blended its way perfectly into the rest of the body, a smooth greenhouse cabin that was spacious but still maintained the styling that enthusiasts had come to know so well, going on to be dubbed "The poor man's Aston Martin."
Although acceleration of the GT was slightly slower than that of the roadster, due to its increased weight, top speed improved by 5 mph to 105 mph due to better aerodynamics.
However, tweaks were starting to be made to the MGB formula to try and give it a wider ranging market. Intended to replace the Austin Healey Sprite, the MG MGC was launched in 1967 as a reworked version of the classic MGB, but featuring a 2.9L BMC C-Series engine to up the power.
The problem was that the revised design of the car to incorporate the engine was nothing short of lazy. Instead of redesigning the whole car, MG chose to simply create a huge bulbous lump in the bonnet. The heavier engine also required modifications to the suspension which spoiled the handling. As well as that, the engines were quite poorly built, and later tuning by enthusiasts has proven that the car has the ability to run with 30% more power by carrying out simple modifications to head, exhaust and cam release.
However, the MGC did find some love, in the Royal Family of all places, as in 1967, HRH Prince Charles took delivery of an MGC GT (SGY 766F), which he passed down to Prince William 30 years later. At least one car had a happy ending!
But soon problems came roaring over the horizon like the four horsemen of the apocalypse. A whirlwind of legislation, corporate incompetence and plain old lazy design came right out of nowhere and would soon engulf and attempt to destroy the MGB, but not before stripping the poor thing of its dignity and its good name.
The first disaster to befall this plucky little car, British Leyland, which was formed in 1968 by merging all of Britain's major automotive firms including Rover, BMC (Austin/Morris) and Triumph (which was part of the Leyland Group). To save on costs the lavish chrome grille of the earlier models and spoked wheels were the first to go, but the B could survive without them.
Next up, fitting the car with a Rover V8 that had been developed from a series of Buick Pickup Truck engines. Although this could have been a good thing, this wasn't British Leyland's idea, but in fact belong to professional engine tuner Ken Costello, who, although had been commissioned by British Leyland to create a prototype, had already created a series of MGB's with V8's placed under the hood. British Leyland half-inched this idea and started fitting their own V8's, but went about it all wrong. The powerful 180bhp engine used by Costello for his conversions was replaced for production by MG with a more modestly tuned version producing only 137bhp. Although the car's 193lb-ft of torque meant it could reach 0-60 in 7.7 seconds and go on to a reasonable 125mph top speed, it was a thirsty beast, with only 20mpg. A bit of a territorial hazard admittedly, but it's not a good idea to develop such a gas guzzling car when it was about to smack headlong into the Oil Crisis of 1973. Barely anyone went out and bought it, and the money simply disappeared down the nearest drain.
But so far, the car's lovable external dimensions had yet to be compromised, but we haven't got to the legislation yet, one of those many apocalyptic horsemen I was mentioning earlier. Throughout the 1960's the death of James Dean had resulted in a gradual increase in safety legislation on US Highways, and in order to have a market there, cars had to conform. The height of the headlights, the bumpers, the smoke emissions, the recess of the switches, all of these things were scrutinised and had to be taken into account by car builders.
Indeed America can be owed with introducing many safety features and pieces of legislation we take for granted in modern motoring, but the British manufacturers almost seemed to go out of their way to redesign the cars completely and 100% wrong. In 1974 the glistening chrome was replaced by a gigantic bulbous rubber bumper that protruded from the front of the car like someone's bottom lip!
Other signs of their poor design included the removal of leather seats for something much more mundane, the use of dials and switches from other products such as Austin Allegros and Maxis, as well as door handles that came straight from the Morris Marina.
Internally, British Leyland had botched it with their laziness, choosing not to redesign the car like everyone else so that the headlights were at the required height, but instead placing solid blocks under the suspension to raise the lights to the desired level, but at the same time making the car look like it was going permanently downhill as well as making the handling so light it would slide constantly at speed. The engines were tuned down for emission regulations which made them woefully underpowered and thus they, to use a contemporary phrase, 'couldn't pull the skin off a Rice Pudding!'
Numbers dropped, but British Leyland went to that old trick in the book by using product placement to get by, putting one of their new MGB's in the New Avengers to be driven by Joanna Lumley's character Purdey. As far as I recall though, low slung sports cars aren't the best things to drive if you're in a miniskirt, because getting in and out of them can be quite revealing!
But this wasn't enough to save the MGB's deteriorating sales, in America cars would languish in stockyards and storage warehouses for months on end waiting to be sold, but to no avail. For this, the MG division was making losses of up to £400,000 per week, a clear sign that the ailing MGB had to go the way of all good cars, out of production. On October 21st, 1980, the last MGB rolled off the production line after 18 years, no pomp, no circumstance, just quietly slipping away into history.
After this, the MG brand was lost from its own original cars such as the Midget and the MGB that dated back to the 60's, instead being placed on tuned and slightly modified versions of British Leyland's family cars, including the MG Montego, the MG Maestro and, to the everlasting horror of MG purists although I personally don't think it's that bad, the MG Metro. The factory in Abingdon-on-Thames, where the MGB had been built, closed its gates immediately afterwards as part of the company's rationalisation, striking a blow to the economy of the region and the esteem of those who had been proud to build cars with those two simple letters, MG.
But all was not lost for the MGB, as soon afterwards the cars became fashionably retro, especially in the 1980's and 90's, when 60's examples were bought up largely by foreign markets due to their quintessentially British nature and their synonymous relationship with our country and way of life. Japan especially was a hotspot for old MG products, with Midgets and MGB's being shipped out there by the dozen. So popular were these that Rover Group, the descendants of British Leyland, went on to create a limited edition retelling of the MGB in the form of the MG RV8, constructed in 1993 with 2,000 examples built, the first original MG car to be built since the original MGB ended production in 1980.
Here in the UK, the MG craze kicked off with enthusiasts taking scrapyard shells and run down models and turning them into their own little put-together projects. The MGB has now become one of the most popular little retro sports cars of the modern era, and despite all its faults, even the rubber-bumper British Leyland models make some fantastic kit cars if you want good, wholesome sport fun on a budget!
Sad to admit I found this in the front yard landscaping of a double-wide on a back country road in my county.
[Scan of an old photograph]
.. to address the difficulty/confusion of my online postings here and elsewhere. Just the most major works, chronologically ordered with CV and three brief texts also at chronological points.
Working the 2R11 Lichfield Trent Valley to Redditch is London Midland Class 323, 323204, seen making a quick stop at Shenstone.
The Class 323's were among the last British Rail designs to be built prior to privatisation of the railways in 1994. The main purpose of such units was to provide ample motive power for the newly electrified Cross-City line from Redditch to Lichfield. During the 1980's the route had undergone many changes in an attempt to improve this busy but highly underfunded commuter link between the north and south of the city of Birmingham.
Prior to the electrification in the early 1990's, Regional Railways operated services using the ageing Class 116 Derby Lightweight units built in 1957. Services were operated hourly and trains were noted for their unpleasant ride and travelling conditions. By a quirk of fate, in order to win a bi-election in Mid-Staffordshire, the Conservative Government promised electrification of the route, complete with new trains and refurbished stations along the line. The go-ahead was given in 1990, and implementation of the wires was carried out between 1991 and 1993, with Redditch, Alvechurch, Aston and Blake Street stations also being rebuilt.
In addition, Regional Railways turned to Hunslet of Leeds for their new units. At the time Hunslet was something of an odd choice seeing as their primary products were the humble shunting engines of the UK industrial world. However, many ex-Metro Cammell engineers and designers were called in by the newly formed Hunslet Transportation to design the 323's. The plan called for 26 sets of three-car trains with a top speed of 90mph. Initial prototypes and mock-ups were tested extensively between 1990 and 1991, before the production fleet was manufactured.
The units were built at Leeds, and began to enter service on the Cross-City route in 1992, displacing the many heritage units operating this route. These units were an immediate success with commuters, gaining a swift reputation for reliability and excellent travel conditions on what was a hugely successful route refurbishment, changing what was an almost forgotten line into one of the most successful commuter chords in Britain. The units also gained a novelty factor with their passenger base due to their very strange three-phase Traction Motor noises that make them sound like an alien spaceship from a 1950's B-Movie!
The popularity of these units resulted in the construction of an extra 17 units for the Manchester area, these being built up until 1995, and put to work on commuter services out of Manchester Piccadilly to Alderley Edge, Stockport, Manchester Airport, and along the former Woodhead Route as far as Glossop and Hadfield. West Yorkshire PTE were also interested in purchasing a set of 14 units for services on the newly electrified Leeds to Skipton and Bradford Line, but instead purchased a selection of heritage Class 308's from the Great Eastern Mainline which provided stop-gaps until the introduction of the Class 333's in 2000.
Since then the Class 323's have proven highly reliable machines in both Manchester and the West Midlands, comfortable, reliable and endlessly flexible for the services they provide. The units have been refurbished numerous times during their years of operation. Today they continue to operate in the areas they worked originally, but plans are in progress by Northern Rail to send their entire fleet of 17 Class 323's south to Birmingham, replacing them with Class 319's being displaced from Thameslink. This will result in all Class 323's being placed in the hands of London Midland, therefore allowing them to create a much more intensive service for the West Midlands operations, which, aside from their Cross-City roots, include trains to Wolverhampton, Walsall and Birmingham International.
Hong Kong Transport - Trucks
The Hong Kong Truck Culture
The number of Trucks, Vans* and Special Purpose Vehicles (Light, Medium & Heavy) registered + licenced in Hong Kong seems to fluctuate between 120,000 - 125,000 vehicles and presumably new trucks registered are offset by old trucks being retired or sold over the border in China.
*Vans are classified as Light Goods Vehicles and are not shown in this album
In Hong Kong Trucks are classified as GOODS VEHICLES By the Transport Department - see below
☛Light Goods Vehicles - Goods vehicles of permitted gross vehicle weight not exceeding 5.5 tonnes.
☛Medium Goods Vehicles - Goods vehicles of permitted gross vehicle weight exceeding 5.5 tonnes but not exceeding 24 tonnes.
☛Heavy Goods Vehicles - Goods vehicles of permitted gross vehicle weight exceeding 24 tonnes but not exceeding 38 tonnes.
The major truck types you tend to see in urban areas are trucks carrying construction materials or waste, dump trucks, concrete mixers and all sizes of delivery trucks... outside of the urban areas it is container trucks and large trucks carrying construction materials.
The following brands of Trucks can be seen on the streets of Hong Kong and include:-
Beiben ✚ Bell ✚ CAMC ✚ CNHTC ✚ DAF ✚ Dennis ✚ Dong Feng ✚ FAW ✚ Fuso ✚ Foton ✚ Ford ✚ Hino ✚ Howo ✚ Hyundai ✚ Isuzu ✚ Iveco ✚ JAC ✚ Kato ✚ KIA ✚ Liebherr ✚ MAN ✚ Mercedes Benz ✚ Mitsubishi ✚ Nissan ✚ Renault ✚ Scania ✚ Shacman ✚ Sinotruk ✚ Suzuki ✚ Toyota ✚ UD ✚ Volvo ✚ Zoomlion
Hong Kong is a brand conscious place even for trucks (!) hence the popularity of the European brands, Scania and Man are very popular and even the older trucks look the business and they are utterly reliable.
Isuzu is the market leader in terms of sale volume for all types of trucks.
(Source - The Transport Department, Hong Kong Government)
☛.... and if you want to read about my views on Hong Kong, then go to my blog, link below
✚ www.j3consultantshongkong.com/j3c-blog
☛ Photography is simply a hobby for me, I do NOT sell my images and all of my images can be FREELY downloaded from this site in the original upload image size or 5 other sizes, please note that you DO NOT have to ask for permission to download and use any of my images!
The aicraft on the left pulling up hard on the cyclic stick while pushing the joystick forward is a The Westland Scout which was a light helicopter developed by Westland Helicopters. Developed from the Saro P.531, it served as a land-based general purpose military helicopter, sharing a common ancestor and numerous components with the naval-orientated Westland Wasp helicopter. The type's primary operator was the Army Air Corps of the British Army, who operated it in several conflict zones including Northern Ireland and the Falklands War. It was progressively replaced in British service by the Gazelle reconnaissance helicopter, and the larger Westland Lynx battlefield utility helicopter.
The The Aérospatiale Gazelle is the aircraft on the right and is a French five-seat helicopter, commonly used for light transport, scouting and light attack duties. It is powered by a single turbine engine and was the first helicopter to feature a fenestron tail instead of a conventional tail rotor. It was designed by Sud Aviation, later Aérospatiale, and manufactured in France and the United Kingdom through a joint production agreement with Westland Aircraft. Further manufacturing under license was performed by SOKO in Yugoslavia and the Arab British Helicopter Company (ABHCO) in Egypt.
Since being introduced to service in 1973, the Gazelle has been procured and operated by a number of export customers. It has also participated in numerous conflicts around the world, including by Syria during the 1982 Lebanon War, by Rwanda during the Rwandan Civil War in the 1990s, and by numerous participants on both sides of the 1991 Gulf War. In French service, the Gazelle has been supplemented as an attack helicopter by the larger Eurocopter Tiger, but remains in use primarily as a scout helicopter.
This aerial display took place at AAC Middle Wallop which is a British Army base near the Hampshire village of Middle Wallop. The base hosts 2 Regiment Army Air Corps and the Army Aviation Centre. The role of 2 Regiment is training and so AAC Middle Wallop is the base where most Army Air Corps pilots begin their careers. The base was previously under Royal Air Force control and it was then known as RAF Middle Wallop.
A close look at the backround reveals that there are several spectators us the nearby Danebury Hill as a vantage point. Danebury is an Iron Age hill fort about 19 kilometres (12 mi) north-west of Winchester. The site, covering 5 hectares (12 acres), was excavated by Barry Cunliffe in the 1970s. Danebury is considered a type-site for hill forts, and was important in developing the understanding of hill forts, as very few others have been so intensively excavated.
Built in the 6th century BC, the fort was in use for almost 500 years, during a period when the number of hill forts in Wessex greatly increased. Danebury was remodelled several times, making it more complex and resulting in it becoming a "developed" hill fort. It is now protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Local Nature Reserve. The spectators are about 1.5 miles (2.4km) distant.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westland_Scout
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rospatiale_Gazelle
Though some people struggle to find it, we all have a purpose in life.
I learned this early in my tender, youthful years.
Growing up in a large family where I wasn't even sure of everyone's name, I was exposed to various degrees of wisdom, some of which has stuck with me all my years.
For example, there might have been a widespread opinion in our small farm village of 8 kids that I was a difficult child for my parents to raise. I didn't share that opinion but suspected I was in a singular minority.
During one after-supper intellectual discussion around our kitchen table, our mother was trying to instill in her offspring that we each had a unique purpose in life and mentioned several possibilities.
One of my siblings that I won't mention by name, piped up with the thought that their young red-headed sibling's purpose was to serve as a bad example for mothers to use to warn their own children in the community.
I thought of this when I spotted a murder of crows harassing this hawk who looks like he is appealing to me to help him.
Crows seem to exist to make other bird species miserable and can serve as a bad example to bird mothers all over.
(Photographed near Cambridge, MN)
The one purpose of my life has been the establishment of perfect equality of rights for women – civil and political – industrial and educational. We have attained equal chances in nearly all of the colleges and universities – equal chances to work – but not equal pay. We have school suffrage in half the states, taxpayers’ suffrage in a half-dozen states – Municipal suffrage in one state – Kansas – and full suffrage in four – Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho – and hope and work in faith till the end.
In good cheer
Susan B. Anthony
Nov. 7. 1901 – Rochester, N.Y.
On display at the Morgan Library and Museum, in Mahattan.
The Great Patriotic War (Russian: Вели́кая Оте́чественная война́, romanized: Velikaja Otečestvennaja vojna) is a term used in Russia and some other former republics of the Soviet Union to describe the conflict fought during the period from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945 along the many fronts of the Eastern Front of World War II, primarily between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. For some legal purposes, this period may be extended to 11 May 1945 to include the end of the Prague offensive.
History
The term Patriotic War refers to the Russian resistance to the French invasion of Russia under Napoleon I, which became known as the Patriotic War of 1812. In Russian, the term отечественная война originally referred to a war on one's own territory (otechestvo means "the fatherland"), as opposed to a campaign abroad (заграничная война), and later was reinterpreted as a war for the fatherland, i.e. a defensive war for one's homeland. Sometimes the Patriotic War of 1812 was also referred to as the Great Patriotic War (Великая отечественная война); the phrase first appeared in 1844 and became popular on the eve of the centenary of the Patriotic War of 1812.
After 1914, the phrase was applied to World War I. It was the name of a special war-time appendix to the magazine Theater and Life (Театр и жизнь) in Saint Petersburg, and referred to the Eastern Front of World War I, where Russia fought against the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The phrases Second Patriotic War (Вторая отечественная война) and Great World Patriotic War (Великая всемирная отечественная война) were also used during World War I in Russia.
The term Great Patriotic War re-appeared in the official newspaper of the CPSU, Pravda, on 23 June 1941, just a day after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. It was found in the title of "The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet People" (Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voyna Sovetskogo Naroda), a long article by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, a member of Pravda editors' collegium. The phrase was intended to motivate the population to defend the Soviet fatherland and to expel the invader, and a reference to the Patriotic War of 1812 was seen as a great morale booster. During the Soviet period, historians engaged in huge distortions to make history fit with Communist ideology, with Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov and Prince Pyotr Bagration transformed into peasant generals, Alexander I alternatively ignored or vilified, and the war becoming a massive "People's War" fought by the ordinary people of Russia with almost no involvement on the part of the government. The invasion by Germany was called the Great Patriotic War by the Soviet government to evoke comparisons with the victory by Tsar Alexander I over Napoleon's invading army.
The term Отечественная война (Patriotic War or Fatherland War) was officially recognized by establishment of the Order of the Patriotic War on 20 May 1942, awarded for heroic deeds.
The term is not generally used outside the former Soviet Union, and the closest term is the Eastern Front of World War II (1941–1945). Neither term covers the initial phase of World War II in Eastern Europe, during which the USSR, then still in a non-aggression pact with Germany, invaded eastern Poland (1939), the Baltic states (1940), Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (1940) and Finland (1939–1940). The term also does not cover the Soviet–Japanese War (1945) nor the Battles of Khalkhin Gol (1939).
In Russia and some other post-Soviet countries, the term is given great significance; it is accepted as a representation of the most important part of World War II. Until 2014, Uzbekistan was the only nation in the Commonwealth of Independent States that had not recognized the term, referring to it as World War II on the state holiday - the Day of Remembrance and Honour.
On 9 April 2015, the Ukrainian parliament replaced the term Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) (Velyka vitchyzniana viina) in the country's law with the "Second World War (1939–1945)" (Druha svitova viina), as part of a set of decommunization laws. Also in 2015, Ukraine's "Victory Day over Nazism in World War II" was established as a national holiday in accordance with the law of "On Perpetuation of Victory over Nazism in World War II 1939–1945". The new holiday was celebrated on May 9 and replaced the Soviet-Russian Victory Day, which is celebrated on May 9. These laws were adopted by the Ukrainian parliament within the package of laws on decommunization. In 2023 Ukraine abolished the 2015 9 May "Victory Day over Nazism" holiday and replaced it with the new public holiday "Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in World War II 1939 – 1945" which is celebrated on 8 May annually.
Voronezh is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on the Southeastern Railway, which connects western Russia with the Urals and Siberia, the Caucasus and Ukraine, and the M4 highway (Moscow–Voronezh–Rostov-on-Don–Novorossiysk). In recent years the city has experienced rapid population growth, rising in 2021 to 1,057,681, up from 889,680 recorded in the 2010 Census, making it the 14th-most populous city in the country.
History
The first chronicle references to the word "Voronezh" are dated 1177, when the Ryazan prince Yaropolk, having lost the battle, fled "to Voronozh" and there was moving "from town to town". Modern data of archeology and history interpret Voronezh as a geographical region, which included the Voronezh river (tributary of the Don) and a number of settlements. In the lower reaches of the river, a unique Slavic town-planning complex of the 8th – early 11th century was discovered, which covered the territory of the present city of Voronezh and its environs (about 42 km long, about 13 forts and many unfortified villages). By the 12th – 13th centuries, most of the old towns were desolate, but new settlements appeared upstream, closer to Ryazan.
For many years, the hypothesis of the Soviet historian Vladimir Zagorovsky dominated: he produced the toponym "Voronezh" from the hypothetical Slavic personal name Voroneg. This man allegedly gave the name of a small town in the Chernigov Principality (now the village of Voronezh in Ukraine). Later, in the 11th or 12th century, the settlers were able to "transfer" this name to the Don region, where they named the second city Voronezh, and the river got its name from the city. However, now many researchers criticize the hypothesis, since in reality neither the name of Voroneg nor the second city was revealed, and usually the names of Russian cities repeated the names of the rivers, but not vice versa.
The linguistic comparative analysis of the name "Voronezh" was carried out by the Khovansky Foundation in 2009. There is an indication of the place names of many countries in Eurasia, which may partly be not only similar in sound, but also united by common Indo-European languages: Varanasi, Varna, Verona, Brno, etc.
A comprehensive scientific analysis was conducted in 2015–2016 by the historian Pavel Popov. His conclusion: "Voronezh" is a probable Slavic macrotoponym associated with outstanding signs of nature, has a root voron- (from the proto-Slavic vorn) in the meaning of "black, dark" and the suffix -ezh (-azh, -ozh). It was not “transferred” and in the 8th - 9th centuries it marked a vast territory covered with black forests (oak forests) - from the mouth of the Voronezh river to the Voronozhsky annalistic forests in the middle and upper reaches of the river, and in the west to the Don (many forests were cut down). The historian believes that the main "city" of the early town-planning complex could repeat the name of the region – Voronezh. Now the hillfort is located in the administrative part of the modern city, in the Voronezh upland oak forest. This is one of Europe's largest ancient Slavic hillforts, the area of which – more than 9 hectares – 13 times the area of the main settlement in Kyiv before the baptism of Rus.
In it is assumed that the word "Voronezh" means bluing - a technique to increase the corrosion resistance of iron products. This explanation fits well with the proximity to the ancient city of Voronezh of a large iron deposit and the city of Stary Oskol.
Folk etymology claims the name comes from combining the Russian words for raven (ворон) and hedgehog (еж) into Воронеж. According to this explanation two Slavic tribes named after the animals used this combination to name the river which later in turn provided the name for a settlement. There is not believed to be any scientific support for this explanation.
In the 16th century, the Middle Don basin, including the Voronezh river, was gradually conquered by Muscovy from the Nogai Horde (a successor state of the Golden Horde), and the current city of Voronezh was established in 1585 by Feodor I as a fort protecting the Muravsky Trail trade route against the slave raids of the Nogai and Crimean Tatars. The city was named after the river.
17th to 19th centuries
In the 17th century, Voronezh gradually evolved into a sizable town. Weronecz is shown on the Worona river in Resania in Joan Blaeu's map of 1645. Peter the Great built a dockyard in Voronezh where the Azov Flotilla was constructed for the Azov campaigns in 1695 and 1696. This fleet, the first ever built in Russia, included the first Russian ship of the line, Goto Predestinatsia. The Orthodox diocese of Voronezh was instituted in 1682 and its first bishop, Mitrofan of Voronezh, was later proclaimed the town's patron saint.
Owing to the Voronezh Admiralty Wharf, for a short time, Voronezh became the largest city of South Russia and the economic center of a large and fertile region. In 1711, it was made the seat of the Azov Governorate, which eventually morphed into the Voronezh Governorate.
In the 19th century, Voronezh was a center of the Central Black Earth Region. Manufacturing industry (mills, tallow-melting, butter-making, soap, leather, and other works) as well as bread, cattle, suet, and the hair trade developed in the town. A railway connected Voronezh with Moscow in 1868 and Rostov-on-Don in 1871.
20th century
World War II
During World War II, Voronezh was the scene of fierce fighting between Soviet and combined Axis troops. The Germans used it as a staging area for their attack on Stalingrad, and made it a key crossing point on the Don River. In June 1941, two BM-13 (Fighting machine #13 Katyusha) artillery installations were built at the Voronezh excavator factory. In July, the construction of Katyushas was rationalized so that their manufacture became easier and the time of volley repetition was shortened from five minutes to fifteen seconds. More than 300 BM-13 units manufactured in Voronezh were used in a counterattack near Moscow in December 1941. In October 22, 1941, the advance of the German troops prompted the establishment of a defense committee in the city. On November 7, 1941, there was a troop parade, devoted to the anniversary of the October Revolution. Only three such parades were organized that year: in Moscow, Kuybyshev, and Voronezh. In late June 1942, the city was attacked by German and Hungarian forces. In response, Soviet forces formed the Voronezh Front. By July 6, the German army occupied the western river-bank suburbs before being subjected to a fierce Soviet counter-attack. By July 24 the frontline had stabilised along the Voronezh River as the German forces continued southeast into the Great Bend of the Don. The attack on Voronezh represented the first phase of the German Army's 1942 campaign in the Soviet Union, codenamed Case Blue.
Until January 25, 1943, parts of the Second German Army and the Second Hungarian Army occupied the western part of Voronezh. During Operation Little Saturn, the Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh Offensive, and the Voronezhsko-Kastornenskoy Offensive, the Voronezh Front exacted heavy casualties on Axis forces. On January 25, 1943, Voronezh was liberated after ten days of combat. During the war the city was almost completely ruined, with 92% of all buildings destroyed.
Post-war
By 1950, Voronezh had been rebuilt. Most buildings and historical monuments were repaired. It was also the location of a prestigious Suvorov Military School, a boarding school for young boys who were considered to be prospective military officers, many of whom had been orphaned by war.
In 1950–1960, new factories were established: a tire factory, a machine-tool factory, a factory of heavy mechanical pressing, and others. In 1968, Serial production of the Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic plane was established at the Voronezh Aviation factory. In October 1977, the first Soviet domestic wide-body plane, Ilyushin Il-86, was built there.
In 1989, TASS published details of an alleged UFO landing in the city's park and purported encounters with extraterrestrial beings reported by a number of children. A Russian scientist that was cited in initial TASS reports later told the Associated Press that he was misquoted, cautioning, "Don't believe all you hear from TASS," and "We never gave them part of what they published", and a TASS correspondent admitted the possibility that some "make-believe" had been added to the TASS story, saying, "I think there is a certain portion of truth, but it is not excluded that there is also fantasizing".
21st century
From 10 to 17 September 2011, Voronezh celebrated its 425th anniversary. The anniversary of the city was given the status of a federal scale celebration that helped attract large investments from the federal and regional budgets for development.
On December 17, 2012, Voronezh became the fifteenth city in Russia with a population of over one million people.
Today Voronezh is the economic, industrial, cultural, and scientific center of the Central Black Earth Region. As part of the annual tradition in the Russian city of Voronezh, every winter the main city square is thematically drawn around a classic literature. In 2020, the city was decorated using the motifs from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. In the year of 2021, the architects drew inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen as well as the animation classic The Snow Queen from the Soviet Union. The fairy tale replica city will feature the houses of Kai and Gerda, the palace of the snow queen, an ice rink, and illumination.
In June 2023, during the Wagner Group rebellion, forces of the Wagner Group claimed to have taken control of military facilities in the city. Later they were confirmed to have taken the city itself.
Administrative and municipal status
Voronezh is the administrative center of the oblast.[1] Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as Voronezh Urban Okrug—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts.[1] As a municipal division, this administrative unit also has urban okrug status.
City divisions
The city is divided into six administrative districts:
Zheleznodorozhny (183,17 km²)
Tsentralny (63,96 km²)
Kominternovsky (47,41 km²)
Leninsky (18,53 km²)
Sovetsky (156,6 km²)
Levoberezhny (123,89 km²)
Economy
The leading sectors of the urban economy in the 20th century were mechanical engineering, metalworking, the electronics industry and the food industry.
In the city are such companies as:
Tupolev Tu-144
Voronezhselmash (agricultural engineering)
Sozvezdie[36] (headquarter, JSC Concern “Sozvezdie”, in 1958 the world's first created mobile telephony and wireless telephone Altai
Verofarm (pharmaceutics, owner Abbott Laboratories),
Voronezh Mechanical Plant[37] (production of missile and aircraft engines, oil and gas equipment)
Mining Machinery Holding - RUDGORMASH[38] (production of drilling, mineral processing and mining equipment)
VNiiPM Research Institute of Semiconductor Engineering (equipment for plasma-chemical processes, technical-chemical equipment for liquid operations, water treatment equipment)
KBKhA Chemical Automatics Design Bureau with notable products:.
Pirelli Voronezh.
On the territory of the city district government Maslovka Voronezh region with the support of the Investment Fund of Russia, is implementing a project to create an industrial park, "Maslowski", to accommodate more than 100 new businesses, including the transformer factory of Siemens. On September 7, 2011 in Voronezh there opened a Global network operation center of Nokia Siemens Networks, which was the fifth in the world and the first in Russia.
Construction
In 2014, 926,000 square meters of housing was delivered.
Clusters of Voronezh
In clusters of tax incentives and different preferences, the full support of the authorities. A cluster of Oil and Gas Equipment, Radio-electronic cluster, Furniture cluster, IT cluster, Cluster aircraft, Cluster Electromechanics, Transport and logistics cluster, Cluster building materials and technologies.
Geography
Urban layout
Information about the original urban layout of Voronezh is contained in the "Patrol Book" of 1615. At that time, the city fortress was logged and located on the banks of the Voronezh River. In plan, it was an irregular quadrangle with a perimeter of about 238 meter. inside it, due to lack of space, there was no housing or siege yards, and even the cathedral church was supposed to be taken out. However, at this small fortress there was a large garrison - 666 households of service people. These courtyards were reliably protected by the second line of fortifications by a standing prison on taras with 25 towers covered with earth; behind the prison was a moat, and beyond the moat there were stakes. Voronezh was a typical military settlement (ostrog). In the city prison there were only settlements of military men: Streletskaya, Kazachya, Belomestnaya atamanskaya, Zatinnaya and Pushkarskaya. The posad population received the territory between the ostrog and the river, where the Monastyrskaya settlements (at the Assumption Monastery) was formed. Subsequently, the Yamnaya Sloboda was added to them, and on the other side of the fort, on the Chizhovka Mountain, the Chizhovskaya Sloboda of archers and Cossacks appeared. As a result, the Voronezh settlements surrounded the fortress in a ring. The location of the parish churches emphasized this ring-like and even distribution of settlements: the Ilyinsky Church of the Streletskaya Sloboda, the Pyatnitskaya Cossack and Pokrovskaya Belomestnaya were brought out to the passage towers of the prison. The Nikolskaya Church of the Streletskaya Sloboda was located near the marketplace (and, accordingly, the front facade of the fortress), and the paired ensemble of the Rozhdestvenskaya and Georgievskaya churches of the Cossack Sloboda marked the main street of the city, going from the Cossack Gate to the fortress tower.
Climate
Voronezh experiences a humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfb) with long, cold winters and short, warm summers.
Transportation
Air
The city is served by the Voronezh International Airport, which is located north of the city and is home to Polet Airlines. Voronezh is also home to the Pridacha Airport, a part of a major aircraft manufacturing facility VASO (Voronezhskoye Aktsionernoye Samoletostroitelnoye Obshchestvo, Voronezh aircraft production association) where the Tupolev Tu-144 (known in the West as the "Concordski"), was built and the only operational unit is still stored. Voronezh also hosts the Voronezh Malshevo air force base in the southwest of the city, which, according to a Natural Resources Defense Council report, houses nuclear bombers.[citation needed]
Rail
Since 1868, there is a railway connection between Voronezh and Moscow. Rail services form a part of the South Eastern Railway of the Russian Railways. Destinations served direct from Voronezh include Moscow, Kyiv, Kursk, Novorossiysk, Sochi, and Tambov. The main train station is called Voronezh-1 railway station and is located in the center of the city.
Bus
There are three bus stations in Voronezh that connect the city with destinations including Moscow, Belgorod, Lipetsk, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, and Astrakhan.
Education and culture
Aviastroiteley Park
The city has seven theaters, twelve museums, a number of movie theaters, a philharmonic hall, and a circus. It is also a major center of higher education in central Russia. The main educational facilities include:
Voronezh State University
Voronezh State Technical University
Voronezh State University of Architecture and Construction
Voronezh State Pedagogical University
Voronezh State Agricultural University
Voronezh State University of Engineering Technologies
Voronezh State Medical University named after N. N. Burdenko
Voronezh State Academy of Arts
Voronezh State University of Forestry and Technologies named after G.F. Morozov
Voronezh State Institute of Physical Training
Voronezh Institute of Russia's Home Affairs Ministry
Voronezh Institute of High Technologies
Military Educational and Scientific Center of the Air Force «N.E. Zhukovsky and Y.A. Gagarin Air Force Academy» (Voronezh)
Plekhanov Russian University of Economics (Voronezh branch)
Russian State University of Justice
Admiral Makarov State University of Sea and River Fleet (Voronezh branch)
International Institute of Computer Technologies
Voronezh Institute of Economics and Law
and a number of other affiliate and private-funded institutes and universities. There are 2000 schools within the city.
Theaters
Voronezh Chamber Theatre
Koltsov Academic Drama Theater
Voronezh State Opera and Ballet Theatre
Shut Puppet Theater
Festivals
Platonov International Arts Festival
Sports
ClubSportFoundedCurrent LeagueLeague
RankStadium
Fakel VoronezhFootball1947Russian Premier League1stTsentralnyi Profsoyuz Stadion
Energy VoronezhFootball1989Women's Premier League1stRudgormash Stadium
Buran VoronezhIce Hockey1977Higher Hockey League2ndYubileyny Sports Palace
VC VoronezhVolleyball2006Women's Higher Volleyball League A2ndKristall Sports Complex
Religion
Annunciation Orthodox Cathedral in Voronezh
Orthodox Christianity is the predominant religion in Voronezh.[citation needed] There is an Orthodox Jewish community in Voronezh, with a synagogue located on Stankevicha Street.
In 1682, the Voronezh diocese was formed to fight the schismatics. Its first head was Bishop Mitrofan (1623-1703) at the age of 58. Under him, the construction began on the new Annunciation Cathedral to replace the old one. In 1832, Mitrofan was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.
In the 1990s, many Orthodox churches were returned to the diocese. Their restoration was continued. In 2009, instead of the lost one, a new Annunciation Cathedral was built with a monument to St. Mitrofan erected next to it.
Cemeteries
There are ten cemeteries in Voronezh:
Levoberezhnoye Cemetery
Lesnoye Cemetery
Jewish Cemetery
Nikolskoye Cemetery
Pravoberezhnoye Cemetery
Budyonnovskoe Cemetery
Yugo-Zapadnoye Cemetery
Podgorenskоye Cemetery
Kominternovskoe Cemetery
Ternovoye Cemetery is а historical site closed to the public.
Born in Voronezh
18th century
Yevgeny Bolkhovitinov (1767–1837), Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia
Mikhail Pavlov (1792–1840), Russian academic and professor at Moscow University
19th century
1801–1850
Aleksey Koltsov (1809–1842), Russian poet
Ivan Nikitin (1824–1861), Russian poet
Nikolai Ge (1831–1894), Russian realist painter famous for his works on historical and religious motifs
Vasily Sleptsov (1836–1878), Russian writer and social reformer
Nikolay Kashkin (1839–1920), Russian music critic
1851–1900
Valentin Zhukovski (1858–1918), Russian orientalist
Vasily Goncharov (1861–1915), Russian film director and screenwriter, one of the pioneers of the film industry in the Russian Empire
Anastasiya Verbitskaya (1861–1928), Russian novelist, playwright, screenplay writer, publisher and feminist
Mikhail Olminsky (1863–1933), Russian Communist
Serge Voronoff (1866–1951), French surgeon of Russian extraction
Andrei Shingarev (1869–1918), Russian doctor, publicist and politician
Ivan Bunin (1870–1953), the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature
Alexander Ostuzhev (1874–1953), Russian and Soviet drama actor
Valerian Albanov (1881–1919), Russian navigator and polar explorer
Jan Hambourg (1882–1947), Russian violinist, a member of a famous musical family
Volin (1882–1945), anarchist
Boris Hambourg (1885–1954), Russian cellist who made his career in the USA, Canada, England and Europe
Boris Eikhenbaum (1886–1959), Russian and Soviet literary scholar, and historian of Russian literature
Anatoly Durov (1887–1928), Russian animal trainer
Samuil Marshak (1887–1964), Russian and Soviet writer, translator and children's poet
Eduard Shpolsky (1892–1975), Russian and Soviet physicist and educator
George of Syracuse (1893–1981), Eastern Orthodox archbishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
Yevgeny Gabrilovich (1899–1993), Soviet screenwriter
Semyon Krivoshein (1899–1978), Soviet tank commander; Lieutenant General
Andrei Platonov (1899–1951), Soviet Russian writer, playwright and poet
Ivan Pravov (1899–1971), Russian and Soviet film director and screenwriter
William Dameshek (1900–1969), American hematologist
20th century
1901–1930
Ivan Nikolaev (1901–1979), Soviet architect and educator
Galina Shubina (1902–1980), Russian poster and graphics artist
Pavel Cherenkov (1904–1990), Soviet physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1958 with Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm for the discovery of Cherenkov radiation, made in 1934
Yakov Kreizer (1905–1969), Soviet field commander, General of the army and Hero of the Soviet Union
Iosif Rudakovsky (1914–1947), Soviet chess master
Pawel Kassatkin (1915–1987), Russian writer
Alexander Shelepin (1918–1994), Soviet state security officer and party statesman
Grigory Baklanov (1923–2009), Russian writer
Gleb Strizhenov (1923–1985), Soviet actor
Vladimir Zagorovsky (1925–1994), Russian chess grandmaster of correspondence chess and the fourth ICCF World Champion between 1962 and 1965
Konstantin Feoktistov (1926–2009), cosmonaut and engineer
Vitaly Vorotnikov (1926–2012), Soviet statesman
Arkady Davidowitz (1930), writer and aphorist
1931–1950
Grigory Sanakoev (1935), Russian International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster, most famous for being the twelfth ICCF World Champion (1984–1991)
Yuri Zhuravlyov (1935), Russian mathematician
Mykola Koltsov (1936–2011), Soviet footballer and Ukrainian football children and youth trainer
Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov (1936), Russian composer
Iya Savvina (1936–2011), Soviet film actress
Tamara Zamotaylova (1939), Soviet gymnast, who won four Olympic medals at the 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics
Yury Smolyakov (1941), Soviet Olympic fencer
Yevgeny Lapinsky (1942–1999), Soviet Olympic volleyball player
Galina Bukharina (1945), Soviet athlete
Vladimir Patkin (1945), Soviet Olympic volleyball player
Vladimir Proskurin (1945), Soviet Russian football player and coach
Aleksandr Maleyev (1947), Soviet artistic gymnast
Valeri Nenenko (1950), Russian professional football coach and player
1951–1970
Vladimir Rokhlin, Jr. (1952), Russian-American mathematician and professor of computer science and mathematics at the Yale University
Lyubov Burda (1953), Russian artistic gymnast
Mikhail Khryukin (1955), Russian swimmer
Aleksandr Tkachyov (1957), Russian gymnast and two times Olympic Champion
Nikolai Vasilyev (1957), Russian professional football coach and player
Aleksandr Babanov (1958), Russian professional football coach and player
Sergey Koliukh (1960), Russian political figure; 4th Mayor of Voronezh
Yelena Davydova (1961), Soviet gymnast
Aleksandr Borodyuk (1962), Russian football manager and former international player for USSR and Russia
Aleksandr Chayev (1962), Russian swimmer
Elena Fanailova (1962), Russian poet
Alexander Litvinenko (1962–2006), officer of the Russian FSB and political dissident
Yuri Shishkin (1963), Russian professional football coach and player
Yuri Klinskikh (1964–2000), Russian musician, singer, songwriter, arranger, founder rock band Sektor Gaza
Yelena Ruzina (1964), athlete
Igor Bragin (1965), footballer
Gennadi Remezov (1965), Russian professional footballer
Valeri Shmarov (1965), Russian football player and coach
Konstantin Chernyshov (1967), Russian chess grandmaster
Igor Pyvin (1967), Russian professional football coach and player
Vladimir Bobrezhov (1968), Soviet sprint canoer
1971–1980
Oleg Gorobiy (1971), Russian sprint canoer
Anatoli Kanishchev (1971), Russian professional association footballer
Ruslan Mashchenko (1971), Russian hurdler
Aleksandr Ovsyannikov (1974), Russian professional footballer
Dmitri Sautin (1974), Russian diver who has won more medals than any other Olympic diver
Sergey Verlin (1974), Russian sprint canoer
Maxim Narozhnyy (1975–2011), Paralympian athlete
Aleksandr Cherkes (1976), Russian football coach and player
Andrei Durov (1977), Russian professional footballer
Nikolai Kryukov (1978), Russian artistic gymnast
Kirill Gerstein (1979), Jewish American and Russian pianist
Evgeny Ignatov (1979), Russian sprint canoeist
Aleksey Nikolaev (1979), Russian-Uzbekistan footballer
Aleksandr Palchikov (1979), former Russian professional football player
Konstantin Skrylnikov (1979), Russian professional footballer
Aleksandr Varlamov (1979), Russian diver
Angelina Yushkova (1979), Russian gymnast
Maksim Potapov (1980), professional ice hockey player
1981–1990
Alexander Krysanov (1981), Russian professional ice hockey forward
Yulia Nachalova (1981–2019), Soviet and Russian singer, actress and television presenter
Andrei Ryabykh (1982), Russian football player
Maxim Shchyogolev (1982), Russian theatre and film actor
Eduard Vorganov (1982), Russian professional road bicycle racer
Anton Buslov (1983–2014), Russian astrophysicist, blogger, columnist at The New Times magazine and expert on transportation systems
Dmitri Grachyov (1983), Russian footballer
Aleksandr Kokorev (1984), Russian professional football player
Dmitry Kozonchuk (1984), Russian professional road bicycle racer for Team Katusha
Alexander Khatuntsev (1985), Russian professional road bicycle racer
Egor Vyaltsev (1985), Russian professional basketball player
Samvel Aslanyan (1986), Russian handball player
Maksim Chistyakov (1986), Russian football player
Yevgeniy Dorokhin (1986), Russian sprint canoer
Daniil Gridnev (1986), Russian professional footballer
Vladimir Moskalyov (1986), Russian football referee
Elena Danilova (1987), Russian football forward
Sektor Gaza (1987–2000), punk band
Regina Moroz (1987), Russian female volleyball player
Roman Shishkin (1987), Russian footballer
Viktor Stroyev (1987), Russian footballer
Elena Terekhova (1987), Russian international footballer
Natalia Goncharova (1988), Russian diver
Yelena Yudina (1988), Russian skeleton racer
Dmitry Abakumov (1989), Russian professional association football player
Igor Boev (1989), Russian professional racing cyclist
Ivan Dobronravov (1989), Russian actor
Anna Bogomazova (1990), Russian kickboxer, martial artist, professional wrestler and valet
Yuriy Kunakov (1990), Russian diver
Vitaly Melnikov (1990), Russian backstroke swimmer
Kristina Pravdina (1990), Russian female artistic gymnast
Vladislav Ryzhkov (1990), Russian footballer
1991–2000
Danila Poperechny (1994), Russian stand-up comedian, actor, youtuber, podcaster
Darya Stukalova (1994), Russian Paralympic swimmer
Viktoria Komova (1995), Russian Olympic gymnast
Vitali Lystsov (1995), Russian professional footballer
Marina Nekrasova (1995), Russian-born Azerbaijani artistic gymnast
Vladislav Parshikov (1996), Russian football player
Dmitri Skopintsev (1997), Russian footballer
Alexander Eickholtz (1998) American sportsman
Angelina Melnikova (2000), Russian Olympic gymnast
Lived in Voronezh
Aleksey Khovansky (1814–1899), editor
Ivan Kramskoi (1837–1887), Russian painter and art critic
Mitrofan Pyatnitsky (1864–1927), Russian musician
Mikhail Tsvet (1872–1919), Russian botanist
Alexander Kuprin (1880–1960), Russian painter, a member of the Jack of Diamonds group
Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937), Russian writer, went to school in Voronezh
Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938), Russian poet
Nadezhda Mandelstam (1899-1980), Russian writer
Gavriil Troyepolsky (1905–1995), Soviet writer
Nikolay Basov (1922–2001), Soviet physicist and educator
Vasily Peskov (1930–2013), Russian writer, journalist, photographer, traveller and ecologist
Valentina Popova (1972), Russian weightlifter
Igor Samsonov, painter
Tatyana Zrazhevskaya, Russian boxer
I wonder if the purpose of them is TO READ BETWEEN THE LINES? LOL. View On Black
For the jubilee. You don't have to be a 'Royalist' to enjoy the atmosphere and pleasure that you see in so many people!
So the Queen has her Diamond Jubilee this w-e, 60 years... I admire her achievement.
I don't envy her though, I'm happy with my life the way it is...
Yest, it is raining here today, but there's a happy atmosphere, a real part-mood all around!
Have a good one!
M, (*_*)
For more of my other work or if you want to PURCHASE, visit here: www.indigo2photography.co.uk
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The primary purpose of the fort was as part of the French-Canadian trading post system, which stretched from the Atlantic Coast and the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes, and south to the Mississippi River through the Illinois Country. The fort served as a supply depot for traders in the western Great Lakes.
The French had first established a presence in the Straits of Mackinac in 1671 when Father Marquette established the Jesuit St. Ignace Mission at present-day St. Ignace in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In 1683, they augmented the mission with Fort de Buade. In 1701, Sieur de Cadillac moved the French garrison to Fort Detroit and closed the mission.
By 1713, however, the French decided to re-establish a presence along the Straits of Mackinac, and built the wooden Fort Michilimackinac on the northern tip of the lower peninsula. They sent Constant le Marchand de Lignery with a contingent of soldiers and workmen in 1715 to accomplish the job. Over the decades, they made several modifications and expansions to the palisade walls. Chevalier Jacques Testard de Montigny, who was a Lt. and a Knight of the Order of St. Louis, was appointed in 1730 and served for three years as commandant of the fort. He was previously commandant of Fort La Baye (Green Bay, Wisconsin). Many of his relatives settled in Michigan.
The French relinquished the fort, along with their territory in Canada, to the British in 1761 following their defeat in the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War. The British continued to operate the fort as a major trading post, but most residents were French and Métis (Ojibwe-French), who spoke predominately French and worshipped at Sainte Anne Church in a small log structure. Other civilian residents included British fur traders, some of whom resided within the fort in the southeastern row house.
The Ojibwe in the region soon became dissatisfied with British policies, particularly their cancellation of the annual policy of distributing gifts to the Indians. On June 2, 1763, as part of the larger conflict known as Pontiac's War, a group of Ojibwe staged a game of baaga'adowe (a forerunner of modern lacrosse) outside the fort as a ruse to gain entrance. After entering the fort, they killed most of the British inhabitants. They held the fort for a year before the British regained control, promising to offer more and better gifts to the native inhabitants of the area.
The British eventually determined that the wooden fort on the mainland was too vulnerable. In 1781 they built a limestone fort on nearby Mackinac Island. Now known as Fort Mackinac, it was apparently also initially named Fort Michilimackinac. The British then moved related buildings to the island by dismantling them and moving them across the water in the summer and over ice in winter to the island during the next two years. Ste. Anne's Church was also moved. Patrick Sinclair, the lieutenant governor of Michilimackinac, ordered the remains of the original Fort Michilimackinac to be burned after the move.
I have uploaded this for documentary purposes only... this is not a Vertorama! :)
Resembling a pulpit, and named after the reverend Dacre who delivered a sermon here, this overhanging rock is probably the most famous landmark in the 28km long Bainskloof pass, which was completed in September 1853 by Andrew Geddes Bain, using convict labour and primitive tools, such as picks and shovels, sledgehammers, hand held rock drills, steel wedges and gunpowder to hack and blast through almost impossible terrain.
Here’s a photo of me… getting ready to take this photograph.
Nikon D300, Sigma 18-200mm at 44mm, aperture of f8, with a 1/125th second exposure.
Click here to view this one large.
The Queen Elizabeth II Bridge carries the Tyne and Wear Metro between Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead over the River Tyne in North East England. The line is in tunnels on either side of the river and only emerges into open air to cross the bridge.
History
The bridge was developed as part of the Tyne and Wear Metro system, for which it was purpose-built. It was designed by W. A. Fairhurst & Partners, and constructed by Cementation Construction Ltd. and the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company at a cost of £4.9 million. The two sections of the bridge were built simultaneously from each bank and eventually met in the centre in August 1978. It was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 6 November 1981, nine days before regular Metro service began. It is similar to Ballachulish Bridge on the A82 which opened in 1975, which was also built by the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company.
It was one of two major bridges built specifically for the Tyne and Wear Metro, the other being the Byker Viaduct crossing the Ouseburn valley.
Nocturne artwork
In 2006, Nexus, operators of the Metro, commissioned artist Nayan Kulkarni to install a huge artwork on the bridge. The artwork, Nocturne, sees the bridge painted two distinct tones of blue, while at night, 140 Lumiflood 36 LED lighting units create an ever-changing pattern of colours based on photographs submitted by members of the public.
Nocturne was completed and opened on 26 April 2007 and means that all five main bridges across the Tyne between Gateshead and Newcastle have unique lighting schemes. However, as of 2021 the lighting system is not operational, with Nexus citing operational costs.
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.
(further pictures and information you can see if you go to the end of page and by clicking on the link...)
Belvedere
Belvedere Castle. Garden Front of the Lower Belvedere.
Belvedere Palace stands supposedly on the foundations of a Roman camp that had been erected here for strategic reasons. In 1693 Prince Eugene of Savoy acquired field and vineyard grounds between today's Rennweg and today's Gürtel. In 1700 Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt began with the construction of a palace garden (Lower Belvedere), whose in French-style layed out park was equipped with large water basins, an orangery with precious foreign plants and a menagerie. Prince Eugene was a great animal lover, and some animals in his collection could be fed exclusively by himself.
1720 the Prince conceived the plan the summer palace to supplement by a another palace building on the hill of the garden.
The 1721 by Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt begun works had been completed in 1724. The Upper Belvedere served in contrast to the Lower only representative purposes and was never meant to live.
The Prince and his architect managed a perfect symbiosis between architecture and garden. After the death of the Savoy (1736) inherited his niece Victoria of Savoy-Soisson, nee Princess Hildburghausen, all his possessions. From her the Habsburgs beginning of 1752 acquired the Belvedere. From 1755 Empress Maria Theresa moved the Arcierenleibgarde (Royal Company of the Archers) and the Galician Guard in the annex of the Belvedere. Besides, the castle stood almost empty.
Belvedere Castle. Engraving by Salomon Kleiner 1731/40 (left).
Vienna from the Belvedere. Coloured copper engraving by Carl Schütz, 1784 (right).
1770 Belvedere Palace was venue of brilliant festivities:
In castle and park the marriage of Archduchess Maria Antonia (Marie Antoinette) with the Dauphin of France by proxy (per procura) was celebrated. About 2,000 people were invited, more than 1,500 bottles of champagne, which was far from home in Vienna at that time,
were emptied. For hospitality of the guests, there were round tables, which were covered with silver. However, the Court of Vienna had a large part of the silver service to rent of nobles, because the stocks of the silver chamber were not sufficient. Finished was the festival by a magnificent fireworks.
1776, the imperial picture gallery from the Stallburg (home of the famous Lipizzan stallions) was transferred to the Upper Belvedere, the animals of the menagerie came to Schönbrunn. Shortly before the Congress of Vienna in 1814 in the Lower Belvedere the Ambras Collection was exposed. During the war against Napoleon (1805-1809), much of the collection of paintings had to be outsourced. The Corsican claimed 400 masterpieces for himself, but which after his defeat at Waterloo to the Habsburgs have been restituted. The after the French wars completely neglected building has been restored 1850-1866.
Castle Park with Upper Belvedere. Photograph, around 1890.
1819 Emperor Franz II (I) the Institute of Botany, University of Vienna, had given spacious grounds for enlargement of the Botanical Garden at Rennweg. Franz was very interested in botany and in accordance with a Habsburg House bill - every Archduke must learn a civilian job - has been educated for gardener. In an adjoining garden of Schloß Belvedere he had from his private funds laid out a botanical garden ("Flora Austriaca") which was left to the Institute of Botany for use.
During the cholera epidemic of 1831, the Belvedere served as well as Schönbrunn Palace the imperial family as a refuge; supposedly one was there protected from the bad air, which was attributed to the onset of the disease. Both castles lay in the "countryside", the air was much better here than in the densely populated city. During wartime, a hospital was set up in the castle.
As the space for the imperial collections became too small, it was thought to expand the Upper Belvedere by wing buildings. This plan was dropped for aesthetic reasons, however. After the expansion of the city (razing of the bastions and glacis) arose on the ring road the newly created Court Museums; moved there in 1891 the major part of the paintings.
Archduke-Heir to the Throne Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este at folk and children's party in the park of the Belvedere Palace. Photograph, 1905.
To 1893/94 it is likely that Archduke Franz Ferdinand has chosen the Upper Belvedere to his residence in Vienna. Other sources say that it had been assigned to him by the Emperor Franz Joseph as a place to stay in Vienna. The rooms have been restored, adapted for residential purposes and supplemented with neo-Baroque furniture. The heir of the Este collections furnished his residence with numerous works of art. He had envisaged the castle for the accommodation of his collections; in 1893 were numerous boxes from India and Singapore in Belvedere stored. 1894 Emperor Franz Joseph could see the collection: "Yesterday I went to the Belvedere, where Franzi showed me his now quite and very nicely prepared collections. The same are as imposing as interesting by the incredible amount of objects and by the rarity and beauty of them. I believe that this exhibition would be interesting for you", wrote the monarch to his wife, Empress Elisabeth. That same year, Archduke Franz Ferdinand showed his collections his future wife, Sophie Chotková,
"Where I unaware of your fatigue with particular brutality you dragged from box to box" as he apologetically from Budweis wrote to the Countess.
Then the collections moved one the one hand to the Palais Modena in the Beatrixgasse, on the other hand to Konopischt. Only in 1898, Franz Ferdinand was granted by Emperor Franz Joseph to move into the Belvedere as Vienna Residence. More revitalization works were carried out and were also necessary. Technical modernization and preservation of the original building condition had priority - as always with the projects of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. As furnishings served still preserved furnitures from Schloss Hof, which were supplemented by new ones in old style. The private rooms in addition to electric lighting were equipped with central heating.
Belvedere Castle. Staircase in the Upper Belvedere (left).
Marble plastic "Apotheosis of Prince Eugene" by Balthasar Permoser in Gold Cabinet of the Lower Belvedere (right).
If his presence was needed in Vienna, Franz Ferdinand here could lead a normal family life and escape the pressures of court ceremonial, in which the to him in morganatic marriage affiliated wife was exposed to the evils of the courtiers. When the heir to the throne invited guests to the Belvedere, he was sitting opposite his wife as a hostess while she was ranked in the Hofburg always after the latest unmarried Archduchess. About the cozy family life at Belvedere reported Prince von Clary-Aldringens:
"Aunt Sophie invited us ... to snack into a Belvedere, unexpectedly, suddenly appeared the Archduke - we literally froze in our Hab-Acht-position (stand at attention). He greeted us warmly ... [I got to know] the Archduke as a friendly landlord, who was playing and laughing with his Children..."
Between 1899 and 1914 in the Lower Belvedere the military bureau of the heir to the throne was housed. Other well-known Residents - but of outbuildings - were Anton Bruckner, who in 1896 died in the Kustodenwohnung (guardian house), and Richard Strauss, who lived here from 1925 to 1944.
After the assassination of the Archduke and his wife in Sarajevo, the Belvedere should serve as the residence of the new heir to the throne, Archduke Karl and his family. This, however, preferred living in Schönbrunn and especially in the villa Wartholz. In 1917, Charles' brother Archduke Maximilian moved with his family into the Belvedere.
During World War II the castle was badly damaged by bombs, but rebuilt after the war ended immediately. On 15 May 1955 was the Marble Hall venue of the signing of the Austrian State Treaty. Today, the Upper Belvedere houses important art collections.
Excerpts from
Thus lived the Habsburgs - Imperial and Royal Palaces in the
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy
Ingrid Haslinger, Gerhard Trumler
Christian Brandstätter Verlag mbH
The publishing service for museums, businesses and
public bodies
www.brandstaetter - verlag.at
Denomination of the summer residence which Prince Eugene of Savoy himself had erected btw Rennweg and Swiss Garden. The term which refers to the unique view over Vienna dates from the time of Maria Theresa. Prinz Eugen bought in 1697 a plot of land at the Rennweg, which he extended to 1721 in four stages to the current area. Between 1714 and 1716 emerged the Lower Belvedere It is an elongated ground floor building, designed of a 7-axes central projection, two wings and two corner pavilions. The 3-axis central pavilion houses the Marble Hall. The castle the only rarely in Vienna sojourning builder served during the summer months as a pleasure palace.
Only in 1720 commenced construction works for the Upper Belvedere, first drawings for this existed already in 1717. The in it extent and form language compared to the Lower Belvedere especially magnificent Upper Belvedere served primarily as a representative setting for grand receptions and festivities. The architectural history of the example due to the loss of the Eugenianischen Bauarchivs (construction archiv of Prince Eugene) cannot be explored in detail without any gaps. 1723 (according to Rizzi 1721/22) the Upper Belvedere s is considered complete. The architect Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt, who repeatedly worked for Prince Eugen, with the construction of the Belvedere has created his main work. It counts in its multiform architectonic as well as sculptural structure to the most important baroque buildings of the 18th century. The to the ensemble belonging, btw Upper and Lower Belvedere laying garden has been created by the Bavarian horticultural engineer D. Girard and today only in broad terms is original. The designs for the interior of the castle stem from C. le Fort du Plessy.
After the death of the prince the belvedere went into the possession of his sole heiress, Victoria Duchess of Saxe-Hildburghausen. She sold it in 1752 to Maria Theresa. At the behest of Joseph II from 1775 the imperial picture gallery was transferred here, which in 1781 for the first time was open to the public. had. Since 1806 was located in the Lower Belvedere the Ambras Collection. Both collections were in 1890 in the Museum of Art History transferred. In 1894, the palace became residence for the heir to the throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
After the first World War I the Republic of Austria in Belvedere installed the Austrian Gallery. 1945 suffered the Belvedere severe war damage. In 1950, the "Gold Cabinet" in the north-eastern corner pavilion of the Upper Belvedere was destroyed by fire and replaced by a copy. The since 1988 ongoing general renovation should have been completed in 1996.
aeiou - the cultural information system of the bm: bwk
14,000 key words and 2000 pictures from history, geography, politics and business in Austria
Austrian Gallery Belvedere
The in the center of Vienna situated Belvedere palaces with their extensive parks form an impressive baroque Gesamtkunstwerk. The Museum in the Upper and Lower Castle
provides an excellent overview of the Austrian Art from the Middle Ages to the present. the collections of the 19th and 20th Century also include an exquisite inventory of international art. World Famous works by Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Renoir and Monet you can see in the upper
Belvedere, from where you can enjoy a spectacular view to the center of Vienna. In the historic rooms of the Lower Belvedere are shown works of art from the Middle Ages and Baroque.
Austrian Gallery Belvedere
Prinz Eugen -Strasse 27 , A - 1037 Wien
Phone +43 / ( 0) 1 / 79557-0
Fax +43 / (0) 1/79 84 337
Upper Belvedere
Collections of the 19th and 20th century
Prinz Eugen -Strasse 27 , A - 1037 Wien
Lower Belvedere
Baroque Museum, and Museum of Medieval Art
Rennweg 6a, A - 1030 Vienna
Charterhouse, Coventry (also known as St. Anne's Priory, Coventry) is a grade I listed building on London Road, Coventry.
In 1381 Lord William Zouche of Harringworth, a patron of Coventry’s Carthusian monks, bought fourteen acres of land in Coventry from local lord Sir Baldwin Frevill, for the purposes of building a settlement for his newly arrived order.
The land by the River Sherbourne was chosen as the perfect place for the new ‘Charterhouse’, the English name for a Carthusian monastery from a rough translation of the original French word ‘chartreuse’.
Coventry’s Charterhouse gained its first royal patron after Lord Zouche died. A young King Richard II, along with his queen Anne of Bohemia, declared themselves founders and on 6 September 1385, the king came in person to lay the foundation stone of the Carthusians’ new church.
The original monastery, the Priory of St Anne, was built of local sandstone between 1381 and 1410.
The site included a church, a chapter house, the Great Cloister surrounded by 12 individual monks’ cells, and the Prior’s Cell and refectory, now the main building known as the Prior’s House. Near the Prior’s House there was probably also a guest house, bakery, brewery, kiln house and granaries.
Each monk lived in a self-contained cell, a two-storey dwelling within a small walled garden. Remains of these cells, and of the church, have been discovered through archaeological excavation on site.
As a mostly silent order, the Carthusians embody the virtues of solitude and contemplation, and the monks would have spent the majority of their time alone in their cells without speaking. They spent their time worshiping, studying scripture and praying, attending mass at the church three times a day. The monastery was self sufficient, and the monks grew their own fruit, vegetables and herbs and fished in the river. The outer precinct walls contained not only the religious buildings and living quarters, but also an orchard, a mill, and fishponds.
The peaceful life of Coventry’s Carthusians came to an end in the 16th century with the dissolution of the monasteries, when Henry VIII disbanded religious communities, took over their income and seized their assets. The last prior of the Coventry Charterhouse, Prior Bochard, was forced to surrender the site to the crown on 16 January 1539.
The monks were sent away and the buildings were looted for their resources. Valuables were taken, stone and timber were immediately sold on, and 55 tons of lead was melted down and taken away. The church and many of the other buildings were demolished, but the Prior’s House and precinct walls were preserved and became a private house.
After the Dissolution, the Crown directed Henry Over, Sheriff of Coventry, to protect Charterhouse from looters. Despite this, locals helped themselves to anything they could carry.
In 1542, Henry Over bought Charterhouse for himself. The Over family transformed the Prior’s House from a religious building into a home. This work included creating a second floor by inserting a new floor into the two storey monks’ refectory. Unfortunately, this destroyed part of the medieval Crucifixtion painting that had spanned the entire refectory wall.
In the late 1560s Charterhouse was purchased from the Over family by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, childhood friend, rumoured lover and long serving favourite of Elizabeth I. It is believed that the house was used to house some of the Queen’s retinue when she visited Dudley at nearby Kenilworth Castle. It is thought that Dudley is responsible for the addition of the house’s Elizabethan wall paintings, including a black and white scheme with mythical beasts and a ‘fictive’ painting which looks like a tapestry depicting foliage and fruit. It has been suggested that the central, amour clad figure depicts Dudley himself.
The current building incorporates remains from the charterhouse of St Anne. It contains additions from the 15th and 16th centuries, as well as several wall paintings dating to the same era. It ceased operation as a monastery during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Some of the original window tracery still survives. It was used as a private home from 1848 to around 1940 when it was left as a centre for arts and culture.
The Coach House and Medieval Precinct Wall to the Charterhouse form a group of listed buildings. The Charterhouse itself is a grade I listed building, the precinct wall is grade II* listed, the coach house is grade II listed, and the whole site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
A couple of guys in my dorm wanted official school notes sent to them for bogus classes at the school one evening. The purpose of the slips was so they could have sex with another inmate who also resided in the same dorm, actually only a few bunks from me. These two guys knew Big Al my brother from the street, actually both were old speed freak buddies with Al and we were therefore friendly towards each other. Having acquaintances in the joint is extremely potent and some potentially aggressive situations could be defused just by the mere fact a certain inmate had someone watching his back. Al Harington and Bob McKing were their names, they told me the passes would allow them to have some much needed privacy for sexual purposes and suggested, “why don’t you come along, it’s really great!” I took a pass, still hung up in a homophobic way. I wrote them their pass slips nonetheless for each night they requested. I took a good look at their date when they returned after their encounters. I don’t recall his name, he just looked like another guy to me, young, long blonde hair, blue eyes, nice ass. I remember him giving me the eye when he sat down on his bunk, I turned away feigning disgust my own homophobia preventing me from even thinking about sex with anything but a woman or my hand.
Other guys were openly bisexual, the toughest guy on the floor, Cliff he had a sweet kid, Cliff looked like he might chew your head off if you crossed him he lived to lift weights. He slept next door in the middle dorm along with this black dude named of Sonny. Sonny had an Afro and told everyone he was a tranny out on the street. He worked the strip around Yonge and Dundas, he did have a sort of shimmy as he walked about. Sonny never bothered anyone, never pushed his ideas on people and he was left alone. The outwardly gay people were quickly segregated and put into solitary or their assholes would have been ripped out in no time. It was a very masculine experience for the most part, even if many folk were wearing masks, in those days being in the closet was de rigour and few ventured out.
My card playing buddy Mike Cameo, he would often say in his French accent, “Chuck, we are buddies right? Well you should know Chuck, I go both ways, you know, girls and boys.” With this Cameo would flex his ample arms that he effectively enhanced by wearing his prison issue shirt sleeves rolled up past the elbows. He would look you in the eye to check out your reaction, then push his mop of golden hair that reached way down his back off of his forehead and continue to play the game. Cameo was from way up north, somewhere like Kapuskasing, where he got his bisexuality up there mystifies me, but that’s so much like stereotyping the way I had about Rouyn Noranda where I discovered that Toronto was not the centre of the Universe.
Mike and I became good friends, he never made any passes at me and we stayed friends after our sentences were over for a while until he insulted our friend Pee Wee at a house card game Julia and I were having at 2 Mahoney Ave one Sunday evening. I chose sides and I chose Pee Wee as Cameo was just pushing his way into friendships that had existed before the start of time, his youthfulness would have been no match for my longtime friends experience in fights, knives might have flashed, they would have torn the house apart. Mike left the game drove off pretty mad in a cherry red Datsun 280Z never to be heard from again.
He, like many other inmates was a bomb ready to explode. Twenty years later I ran into him at a highway diner on the 115/35 and gave him the dodge. He looked the same, hair hanging down his back like a lion, aggressively engaged in a conversation with another person not unlike himself, I thought perhaps they were club members. I was working a big gig and never mixed work with friends.
Sometime close to the three month date of my little ‘stretch’ the parole board called me in for a meeting to discuss the possibility of early parole being granted to me. A bright looking, intelligent University graduate, not much older than myself asked me a load of sensible questions, I think he had a ‘remorse’ detector hidden in his briefcase. One week later this carrot that had been dangled in front of my face was unceremoniously put to rest in the form of a short note from the Parole Board, ‘parole denied at this time’. For some reason the news hit me like a ton of bricks, you had to hold up though, crying was the natural response but there was no way you would cry, that would be a sign of weakness and loss of control, hold it in, take a deep breath, hold it in, I went back to the dorm, wrote home, gave them the news.
There was a program available at the time for prisoners called the Temporary Absence Program, T.A.P. for short. I applied for the program, filled out a long complicated application form. The purpose of my absence from prison was to attend classes at the University of Windsor which had accepted me in to the second year studies program, again. Copies of my marks were sent to both the school and the T.A.P. committee. Funding was arranged with the Ontario Student Awards Program. Accommodations were to be provided by the Windsor jail from which I was to be released from each morning to attend classes and return to in the evening after classes until the sentence had been served.
Mr. Ewing was both helpful and encouraging in this endeavor. The prison warden called me down to his office and gave me the good news, I had been accepted for the program and they wanted to schedule my transfer to the Windsor facility. Who was I kidding? If anyone was being fooled it was myself. Without a lot of emotion I made the decision to turn down the opportunity. Some of the guys thought I was nuts, crazy not to get out of the O.R., they didn’t know I was fairly comfortable in the joint, my status in the hierarchy was well established, I was after all a millionaire, had lots of new friends, found the system to my liking, I had a routine that suited me.
In truth I was quite anxious about my abilities to remain ‘clean and sober’ if released to a softer setting. I was also anxious about the ‘social’ necessities that would present themselves if I returned to Windsor where I was disgraced as a ‘drug dealer’. Perhaps if I had enrolled at a different school my decision may have differed, in retrospect I should have applied to a different school in a new town. If there was a field of study that I felt devoted to this would also have made a difference, as it was I was just ‘playing the system’, taking advantage of it, not being honest with myself and I had decided that this honesty with myself was important.
A dorm guard took offence to my gambling ways, I suppose an inmate whined about losing their canteen. This particular screw took a run at me, put me in a situation I couldn’t back down from. He asked me do a chore some new kid or an inmate with little status in the dorm was usually assigned to do, carry the laundry or garbage out, there was a pecking order. Screws were for the most part, factory workers who had their grade twelve education, not extremely bright for the most part. At times the term red neck could be used to describe them, hick was often bandied about. I refused to carry out the order and this annoyed the guard who had dark hair piercing eyes and a pencil moustache. To make matters worse I told him to go fuck himself when he repeated his request.
That got him going and he put me on charges which meant you were sent to solitary confinement for a while to cool your jets. I’m quite glad I didn’t take a punch at him as I have my temper and in different circumstances I would have let him have it. In solitary the inmate is brought to his senses quickly. The lack of creature comforts, the likes of books, writing materials, clean clothes, being served cold meals does not take long to affect ones behavior, the hole was not where I wanted to be. The inmate committee sent a representative in to see me and it was necessary for me to apologize to the screw in question after I had been in the hole for three days. This charge was a very minor one in the scope of prison offences and had little bearing on my future, although I did lose a day of my ‘good time’ due to it. The screw and self made a deal to stay out of each others hair.
At this time Big Al my brother Alex was driving by the gaol while on a gig with the Able the Movers crew from our neighbourhood of Mt.Dennis. Somehow he got in to see me, he was half drunk. His visit took place during non visiting hours using the excuse he had to tell me about a family death. I don’t recall which relation had passed, it could have been our Uncle Jim or even my old grandmother. The shame I had prevented me from keeping much contact with the familly relations and those relationships have never healed over to these days. Big Al, he was a case, he put some cash in my property, not much maybe twenty dollars, guess he was feeling guilty for selling my things. I gave him shit for giving my ‘treasures’ away, the wooden statue, the record player, the records, clothes, almost everything.
Another opportunity presented itself. ‘Camp’ was an expression some of the more seasoned veterans of the ‘joint’ would often mention. Actually camp was a small community of prisoners that were wards of the Ontario system who by good behavior lived together at a place called Camp Dufferin which was a little North of Guelph in an area called Mono Mills. I was grinding it out at Guelph, six months at that place wore on you, even with the cushy job at the school, my connections with various outlaws, the paisans I knew from the old St Clair days Pinky and Vinnie, the bikers from the street, many other dealers, the card playing friends, Cameo, McCann.
Cinnors and I were even playing tennis at lunch time, we had private access to the tennis court and would play in mid-afternoon when everyone else was grinding it out. Still I was bored, eventually the warden saw fit to give me the OK to go to camp. It almost never happened as on the day of my transfer the English trained warden called me without any notice down to the administration building. He told me to go and get my locker box which at the time was filled with 154 packs of cigarettes and lots of other goodies. While I was standing at the entrance to his office he walked by and surprised me by lifting the box, fortunately he never asked me to open it or I would have been going to solitary instead of Camp Dufferin. Gambling, though frowned on was a common occurrence.
Camp was like heaven in comparison to the ‘joint’. Cameo and little Ronnie McCann my card playing partners from the dorm were already at Camp Dufferin when I arrived. It must have been in late November as the first snow hadn’t yet fallen. The facility consisted of two modern barracks like dorms with a central area that the guards worked from, a kitchen and a store room. Outside of these prefabricated buildings there were two large barn size storage sheds where the camp vans would be parked along with some sports equipment, as well as the tractor. That tractor was used for hauling inmates on a flat bed trailer into the woods for their shift cutting firewood which the camp sold to other agencies. Each dorm housed about twenty inmates who through their good behavior had earned the right to be there.
On arrival at the camp the warden Mr Adamson, another Anglo Saxon import gave a stern chat to each new inmate, laying down the law about respecting the staff and each other. He pointed out the importance of not running away. There were no locks on the dorm doors, no barbed wire fences surrounding the large hundred acre property. The modern buildings were set in a few hundred yards from the main road. A prisoner with leaving in his mind had only to walk out the doors to freedom. Some did, every now and then, they were quickly found, hitchhiking nearby, or hiding in the forest where after a day of being cold or having the bugs dine on them they came back and were quickly segregated then returned to the O.R in Guelph with an additional six months tacked on to their sentences then a trip to the bad place, maximum security Millbrook.
It truly was wonderful to have a little breathing space. The dorms were modern, each inmate had his own full length locker, a bed and shelving for things as well as a partition between each bunk that provided the necessary privacy if one wanted to do private things. The floors were shiny vinyl tiles and the cleanliness resembled that of a hospital ward without the antiseptic smell. In each dorm there were three long tables where inmates could play cards, chess, checkers, or just chew the fat with the other guys. Between the two dorms there was a community TV room with easy chairs where we could watch TV in the evenings and all day long on weekends if we wished. Harold Ballard had done some prison time around then for embezzling the shareholders at Maple leaf Gardens, I sent him a letter at Maple Leaf Gardens and he quickly responded with a large Leafs calendar to hang in the TV room and a short note.
A fourty seat kitchen served up a much more enjoyable menu than Guelph had done. There were fewer inmates which made this possible. The chef was not a guard but a civilian employee with a big red nose. He was of Dutch decent, he had a good sense of humour his accent brought some relief to the ears. I remember he’d come into the dining area as we were eating enthusiastically and with a genuine grin say, “how’s the food?”
On Wednesday nights folk from the area would come in as volunteers and play euchre with us in the comfortable cafeteria that was more like a restaurant. There were newer round tables to sit at with a reasonable space between them. A shiny stainless steel serving area was spotlessly cleaned at all times. This mingling was part of our transition back into society, the volunteers would bring little cakes and cookies for us to munch on, it was all very formal, in a way, like being at home.
There were AA meetings every Tuesday night for those who thought they needed it, some inmates were obliged to attend as part of their sentence. Every Saturday night we watched a movie on a screen just like we did while in schools. I was the projectionist and McCann was my assistant. The films were B grade a couple of years old, westerns were mostly shown. This was before the advent of Video Rentals. For recreation we played many games, more so when winter set in. We cleared a big area besides the building, the size of a hockey rink, pushed the snow to the sides thereby forming banks and we were given brooms and a 6 inch diameter air filled ball that was easily propelled by hitting it with the broom. Teams consisted of six to a side. All the participants worked up a hell of a sweat chasing the ball around, scoring goals, smashing each other over the head with the brooms, it got quite vicious at times, games would start at 10 AM on Saturdays and Sundays, we’d break for lunch of fries and grilled cheeses and chocolate milk then we’d go out and kill each other some more.
I remember having these bloody warts on my feet, picked them up in Guelph. They are called planters warts. I remember my feet being very sore, nothing the doctors gave me would get rid of them, they were spreading. At camp I wore these cheap black running shoes while playing broom ball, never put socks on, just these cheap runners, within a week the warts were all gone! Where I don’t know I guess they didn’t like the rubber chemicals of the running shoes. Once when I was a young boy, maybe nine or ten, I had a couple of warts on my fingers and my dad gave me two pennies, and said, "those warts will be gone in a week” and they were, it was an Irish folk thing giving a penny on a Sunday to take away a wart.
Cameo, McCan and I worked on the wood cutting crew when we first arrived at the camp within a week of each other. Those two guys were almost my equal at Rummy 500, but I always managed to win. Plenty of other guys still wanted to lose and I took their bets and put them on the payment plan as well. Inmates would get visits and people would slip them dollars which they used to pay me with, this was better than canteen dollars as there was a small black market in this facility as there are in others. Twice weekly visits took place in the meeting room the same one they used for church service and also for AA meetings. It was quite casual, one time Boomer and Herbie dropped in and they left a ‘taste’ which they ‘dropped’ where I specified either in the washroom or on the grounds as I pretty much had the run of the place. By this time Rochdale had closed down and they were sharing a house in the Spadina Road and Eglinton area.
On the wood cutting crew Cameo and I were quickly made the deputies. We were in charge of the crew much like the biker guys Everest and Jingles were at Guelph on the S.W.P. In the forest that adjoined the property we would ride out on the back of a flatbed farm trailer pulled by a guard driving a blue Ford tractor. Another guard trailed behind looking for runaways and stragglers. A Canadian version of a chain gang. Those guards they had it made compared to the work days of the guards back at Guelph. Half of them were retired military guys who already had a nice pension but were to young to retire so they took this gig. They lived in the area which being fifty or sixty miles from T.O. meant house prices were much cheaper. If there was a downside to their gig it had to be the three shifts as we required supervision 24/7. These guards were easier to get close to, a couple of them like this one guy Sinclair you’d probably go have a beer with him at a Tavern. Sinclair used to take a couple of us to the dump on Saturdays in the Camp van and this was a real treat getting out into society, he kept a good eye on us but he never made you feel bad for your crimes. Never talked down to you.
Out in the woods there was a little shack big enough for the dozen or so inmates and guards to warm up in like the old Pearen Park ice rink shack. We used to have a tea at mid morning and mid afternoons in the shack. Cameo and I would manage the shack, start the fire going in the woodstove, get it real toasty, put a big grey steel pot of tea on the stove with sugar and milk that had already been added back in the kitchen and serve up the tea and cookies at break time. The guards they pretty much just kept their mouths quiet, we knew what we had to do. Cameo was an expert at the operation of a chainsaw, four and eight foot logs would be dropped off at the shack. That was the other guards job, along with his crew to cut the felled trees in the forest into manageable lengths. They used the tractor to haul the logs over to Mike and self. Other inmates never got near a chainsaw just Cameo and he taught me how to run one, a skill I still use from time to time.
My job was to split and stack the 16” inch pieces Mike was cutting up. There were no big trees so to speak, most of the wood was a foot in diameter, three whacks with the splitting maul and it was ready to be hauled away. We worked up a good sweat every shift but had plenty of time to horse around. I loved being in the thick forest when it snowed, the evergreens branches getting covered in thick heavy snow which we would pull when the flatbed drove by and cover the other inmates in white, nobody got pissed, it was a pretty mellow atmosphere.
Time was moving along pretty well, Santa Day came and went. The euchre people came and sung some Carols that day, gave us each a little goodie bag with a deck of cards and a chocolate bar inside, the chef served a nice turkey dinner with the trimmings, the guards lightened up a little, let you stay up an hour later, we played sports all day long there wasn’t much time left in the day to get mushy and sentimental about ones circumstances.
Around this time we started to go to the Mansfield Arena to play hockey on Wednesday mornings for an hour and a half. Two teams were picked, one from each dorm. Each side was competitive, for some odd reason I was the best player on the teams, and we all know my skating was never a strongpoint. I guess it was my turn to shine, I could in all honesty skate through the entire team and score at will. This pissed all the players on the other team off and they would chop at my head with their sticks almost beheading me.
One time I checked a rival player, he was a young healthy kid, a good hockey player and he took offence at the clean check, chased me all over the ice wanting to engage me in a fight. I didn't need the hassle from the guards for this and just kept skating around. Both benches poured on the ice it was definitely ‘mob mentality’. Our goalie, Vinnie from St Clair was hanging on to their goalie. Other players had paired off it was a little nutty. Had I dropped the gloves all hell could have broken out. I survived with no detentions or time in the hole, Mr. Adamson the camp commandant who was in the stands later took me aside and complimented me on my good judgment. You have to remember that a lot of these guys didn’t know any other way to solve problems, they’d gone through life fighting. I’d been lucky, had a bit of a taste of civility at catholic schools Our Lady of Victory and St Michaels.
There were inter prison games, the first one was with a team from the Brampton Institution at our arena. That team had a ‘ringer’ like myself and it was a real battle to out skate and out score the other player who was a very slick skater. I played on sheer adrenaline, everyone else pretty well just watched us, I recall it was a close game with no real problems.
The following week we went by bus to Guelph to play the team from the Guelph Reformatory. The game took place around noon at the big Guelph arena where the Junior As played. Each team filed onto the ice. I knew many of the Guelph players from time spent there hanging around with the staff from the phys-ed department which was staffed mostly by dealers. Zorky was on the team as was Bob Levin, big Toronto dealers. In a short time, less than five minutes I had turned my Whirling Dervish act into three quick goals, we were embarrassing the larger, better equipped Home team. I was nuts, insane, I flew from pass to puck, knocked people over, intimidated everyone, scored goals, we were hammering them. Sweat poured from my helmet in the form of steam. Then from nowhere I was blindsided, the Warden of our camp, Mr. Adamson sent word down to the coach to send me to the dressing room for being overly aggressive. The game then ended in a tie, I don’t think I have played a competitive game of hockey since.
An All purpose attack Flagship with seven main guns. The section of the ship behind the hanger is where the crew sleeps and eats. The area in front of the hanger is for mainly storage purposes but some of the lower ranking crew sleep there. The Medical bay is also in the front. Because of all the storage this ship can lay siege to a planet for quite some time without going back for supplies.
Hong Kong Transport - Trucks
The Hong Kong Truck Culture
The number of Trucks, Vans* and Special Purpose Vehicles (Light, Medium & Heavy) registered + licenced in Hong Kong seems to fluctuate between 120,000 - 125,000 vehicles and presumably new trucks registered are offset by old trucks being retired or sold over the border in China.
*Vans are classified as Light Goods Vehicles and are not shown in this album
In Hong Kong Trucks are classified as GOODS VEHICLES By the Transport Department - see below
☛Light Goods Vehicles - Goods vehicles of permitted gross vehicle weight not exceeding 5.5 tonnes.
☛Medium Goods Vehicles - Goods vehicles of permitted gross vehicle weight exceeding 5.5 tonnes but not exceeding 24 tonnes.
☛Heavy Goods Vehicles - Goods vehicles of permitted gross vehicle weight exceeding 24 tonnes but not exceeding 38 tonnes.
The major truck types you tend to see in urban areas are trucks carrying construction materials or waste, dump trucks, concrete mixers and all sizes of delivery trucks... outside of the urban areas it is container trucks and large trucks carrying construction materials.
The following brands of Trucks can be seen on the streets of Hong Kong and include:-
Beiben ✚ Bell ✚ CAMC ✚ CNHTC ✚ DAF ✚ Dennis ✚ Dong Feng ✚ FAW ✚ Fuso ✚ Foton ✚ Ford ✚ Hino ✚ Howo ✚ Hyundai ✚ Isuzu ✚ Iveco ✚ JAC ✚ Kato ✚ KIA ✚ Liebherr ✚ MAN ✚ Mercedes Benz ✚ Mitsubishi ✚ Nissan ✚ Renault ✚ Scania ✚ Shacman ✚ Sinotruk ✚ Suzuki ✚ Toyota ✚ UD ✚ Volvo ✚ Zoomlion
Hong Kong is a brand conscious place even for trucks (!) hence the popularity of the European brands, Scania and Man are very popular and even the older trucks look the business and they are utterly reliable.
Isuzu is the market leader in terms of sale volume for all types of trucks.
(Source - The Transport Department, Hong Kong Government)
☛.... and if you want to read about my views on Hong Kong, then go to my blog, link below
✚ www.j3consultantshongkong.com/j3c-blog
☛ Photography is simply a hobby for me, I do NOT sell my images and all of my images can be FREELY downloaded from this site in the original upload image size or 5 other sizes, please note that you DO NOT have to ask for permission to download and use any of my images!
Actor & Model John Quinlan as US Army Captain Nixon - 'A Sense of Purpose' 2016 Philadelphia Film by Producer & Director Jillian Bullock.
Photo by Sandra Kimball
www.johnjosephquinlan.com/actor-model-john-quinlan-as-us-...
#JohnQuinlan
The Panathenaic Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Athens, Greece. One of the main historic attractions of Athens, it is the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble.
A stadium was built on the site of a simple racecourse by the Athenian statesman Lykourgos (Lycurgus) c. 330 BC, primarily for the Panathenaic Games. It was rebuilt in marble by Herodes Atticus, an Athenian Roman senator, by 144 AD it had a capacity of 50,000 seats. After the rise of Christianity in the 4th century it was largely abandoned. The stadium was excavated in 1869 and hosted the Zappas Olympics in 1870 and 1875. After being refurbished, it hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the first modern Olympics in 1896 and was the venue for 4 of the 9 contested sports. It was used for various purposes in the 20th century and was once again used as an Olympic venue in 2004. It is the finishing point for the annual Athens Classic Marathon. It is also the last venue in Greece from where the Olympic flame handover ceremony to the host nation takes place.
Location
The stadium is built in what was originally a natural ravine between the two hills of Agra and Ardettos, south of the Ilissos river. It is now located in the central Athens district of Pangrati, to the east of the National Gardens and the Zappeion Exhibition Hall, to the west of the Pangrati residential district, and between the twin pine-covered hills of Ardettos and Agra. Until the 1950s, the Ilissos River (which is now covered by (and flowing underneath) Vasileos Konstantinou Avenue) ran in front of the stadium's entrance, with the spring of Kallirrhoe, the sanctuary of Pankrates (a local hero), and the Cynosarges public gymnasium nearby.
History
Originally, since the 6th century BC, a racecourse stood at the site. It hosted the Panathenaic Games (also known as the Great Panathenaea), a religious and athletic festival celebrated every four years in honour of the goddess Athena. The racecourse had no formal seating and the spectators sat on the natural slopes on the side of the ravine.
Stadium of Lykourgos
In the 4th century BC the Athenian statesman Lykourgos (Lycurgus) built an 850-foot (260 m) long stadium of poros stone. Tiers of stone benches were arranged around the track. The track was 669 feet (204 m) long and 110 feet (34 m) wide.[11] In the Lives of the Ten Orators Pseudo-Plutarch writes that a certain Deinas, the owner of the property where the stadium was built was persuaded by Lykourgos to donate the land to the city and Lykourgos leveled a ravine. IG II² 351 (dated 329 BC), records that Eudemus of Plataea gave 1000 yoke of oxen for the construction of the stadium and theater. According to Romano the "reference to the large number of oxen, indicating a vast undertaking, and the use of the word charadra have suggested the kind of building activity that would have been needed to prepare the natural valley between the two hills near the Ilissos." The stadium of Lykourgos is believed to have been completed for the Panathenaic Games of 330/329 BC. Donald Kyle suggests that it is possible that Lykourgos did not build but "renovated or embellished a pre-existing facility to give it monumental stature." According to Richard Ernest Wycherley the stadium probably had stone seating "only for a privileged few."
Reconstruction by Herodes Atticus
Herodes Atticus, an Athenian who rose to the highest echelons of power in Rome, was responsible for numerous structures in Greece. In Athens he is best known for the reconstruction of the Panathenaic Stadium. Tobin suggests that "Herodes built the stadium soon after [his father] Atticus's death, which occurred around A.D. 138. The first Greater Panathenaia following his father's demise was 139/40, and it is probable that at that time Herodes promised the refurbishment of the stadium. According to Philostratus, it was completed four years later, which would have been in 143/4." These dates (139/140-143-144 AD) are now widely cited as construction dates of the stadium of Herodes Atticus. Welch writes that the stadium was completed by 143, in time for Panathenaic festival.
The new stadium was built completely of ashlar masonry in Pentelic marble, using minimal concrete. The stadium was built at a time of resurgence of Greek culture in the mid-2nd century. Although the stadium was a "quintessentially Greek architectural type", it was "Roman in scale" with a massive capacity of 50,000, which is roughly the same as that of the Stadium of Domitian in Rome. Stadia of the Classical and Hellenistic periods were smaller. According to Welch there is a possibility that criminals were executed in the stadium, however, no evidence exists.
A marble throne from the prohedria (front row seating) of the stadium is kept in the British Museum. One side of the throne includes a relief showing an olive tree and a table on which rests set of wreaths and a Panathenaic amphora. The front leg is in the form of an owl. Ten similar thrones have been found around Athens.
Herodes Atticus built it as "an architectural means of self-representation, and it did something analogous. The architecture of the building makes allusions to the Classical past while remaining unmistakably modern. It is Roman in scale, but it self-consciously rejects the distinguishingly Roman features of monumental facade and extensive vaulting." The seats of the cavea were decorated with owls in relief, which symbolize Athena. Katherine Welch wrote in a 1998 article "Greek stadia and Roman spectacles":
Though traditional in building materials and construction technique, the track included modern features that were specifically designed to accommodate Roman entertainments. [...] It may thus be argued that the Panathenaic Stadium of Herodes Atticus, who was both Athens' leading son and a Roman consul, represents a middle ground between two conflicting cultural expectations. Its architectural for was self-consciously old-fashioned, yet in scale and function the building was thoroughly modern. Herodes Atticus built a new Panathenaic Stadium whose architecture reflected the prevailing nostalgia for Classical Greece but whose functions reflected the new realities of Roman power. While the building continued to be used chiefly for athletic competitions, its running track was also a place where during the imperial cult festival wild animals were slaughtered and hardened criminals (gladiators) fought, bled, and died.
Abandonment
After Hellenistic festivals and bloody spectacles were banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I in the late 4th century, the stadium was abandoned and fell into ruin. Gradually, its significance was forgotten and a field of wheat covered the site. During the Latin rule of Athens, Crusader knights held feats of arms at the stadium. A 15th century traveler saw "not only several rows of white marble benches, but also the portico at the entrance of the Stadion, which he calls the North entrance, and the Stoa round the koilon, which he calls the South entrance." The derelict stadium's marbles were incorporated into other buildings. European travelers wrote of "magical rites enacted by young Athenian maidens in the ruined vaulted passage, aimed at finding a good husband."
Modern reconstruction
Excavations and Zappas Olympics
Following Greece's independence, archaeological excavation as early as 1836 uncovered traces of the stadium of Herodes Atticus. Further, more thorough, excavation was conducted by the German-born architect Ernst Ziller in 1869–70. Some marbles of the stadium and four Hermai were found. The Zappas Olympics, an early attempt to revive the ancient Olympic Games, were held at the stadium in 1870 and 1875. They were sponsored by the Greek benefactor Evangelis Zappas. The games had an audience of 30,000 people.
1896 Olympics
The Greek government, through crown prince Constantine, requested the Egypt-based Greek businessman George Averoff, to sponsor the second refurbishment of the stadium prior to the 1896 Olympics. Based on the findings of Ziller, a reconstruction plan was prepared by the architect Anastasios Metaxas in the mid-1890s. Darling writes that "He duplicated the dimensions and design of the second-century structure, arranging the tiers of seats around the U-shaped track." It was rebuilt in Pentelic marble and is "distinguished by its high degree of fidelity to the ancient monument of Herodes." Averoff donated 920,000 drachmas to this project. As a tribute to his generosity, a statue of Averoff was constructed and unveiled on 5 April 1896 outside the stadium. It stands there to this day.
The stadium held the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1896 Olympics. On 6 April (25 March according to the Julian calendar then in use in Greece), the games of the First Olympiad were officially opened; it was Easter Monday for both the Western and Eastern Christian Churches and the anniversary of Greece's independence. The stadium was filled with an estimated 80,000 spectators, including King George I of Greece, his wife Olga, and their sons. Most of the competing athletes were aligned on the infield, grouped by nation. After a speech by the president of the organizing committee, Crown Prince Constantine, his father officially opened the games. The stadium also served as the venue for Athletics, Gymnastics, Weightlifting and Wrestling.
1906 Intercalated Games
The stadium hosted the 1906 Intercalated Games from 22 April to 2 May.
Home of AEK Basketball Club
From the mid- to late 1960s, the stadium was used by AEK Basketball Club. On 4 April 1968, the 1967–68 FIBA European Cup Winners' Cup final was hosted in the stadium where AEK defeated Slavia VŠ Praha in front of around 80,000 seated spectators inside the arena and another 40,000 standing spectators. It is believed that since that game the Panathenaic Stadium holds the world record attendance for any basketball game as of 2021.
Regime of the Colonels
During the Regime of the Colonels (1967–74), large annual events were held at the stadium, particularly the "Festival of the Military Virtues of the Greeks" (in late August-early September) and the "Revolution of 21 April 1967", the date of the coup that brought the right-wing regime to power. In these festivals, the stadium, "with its aura of antiquity stood as a monument to Greek rebirth, national pride, and international interest." The dictators exploited its setting to showcase their supposed popularity and propagate their new, "revolutionary" political culture.
2004 Olympics
The stadium "needed no major refurbishing" prior to the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. During the games the stadium hosted the archery competition (15–21 August) and was the finish of the Marathon for both women (22 August) and men (29 August).
2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games
The opening ceremony of the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games were held here which featured special appearances such as Stevie Wonder, Vanessa Williams and Zhang Ziyi. The games ran from 25 June to 5 July.
Concert venue
On 22 July 1982, Talking Heads played here. Tom Tom Club was the lead-up band. The crowd became out of control and tore down side barriers allowing everyone to get to the front of the stage.
On 23–24 July 1985 the "Rock in Athens" Festival took place featuring singers and bands like Depeche Mode, The Stranglers, Culture Club, The Cure, Talk Talk, Nina Hagen, and The Clash.
On 2 October 1988 the "Live AID – Concert for AIDS" was held in the stadium including artists like Bonnie Tyler, Joan Jett, Jerry Lee Lewis, Run–D.M.C. and Black Uhuru.
On 5 October 2008, the stadium hosted the MTV Greece launch party, with guests R.E.M., Kaiser Chiefs, C：Real and Gabriella Cilmi.
On 16 July 2018, the Scorpions gave the “Once in a Lifetime” concert at the stadium.
Other concerts include those of Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo (27 June 2007) and a dance performance by Joaquín Cortés (14 September 2009).
Other events
The stadium hosted the opening ceremony of the 1997 World Championships in Athletics on a concept by composer Vangelis and along with the performance of soprano Montserrat Caballé.
In more recent years, the stadium has been often used to honour the homecoming of victorious Greek athletes, most notably the Greece national football team after its victory at the UEFA Euro 2004 on 5 July 2004 as well as Greek medalists in recent Olympic Games.
The stadium was the venue for the Dior Cruise 2022 show. The collection drew inspiration from Ancient Greek art and Greek folk culture as well as Christian Dior's Fall 1951 campaign photoshoot on the Acropolis. The show was attended by many A-listers, such as Anya Taylor-Joy, Cara Delevingne, Jisoo and many other global and Greek stars.
Architecture
Katherine Welch described the stadium as a "great marble flight of steps terraced into the contours of a U-shaped ravine — splendid in materials but ostentatiously simple in construction technique."
Influence
The Panathenaic Stadium influenced the stadium architecture in the West in the 20th century. Harvard Stadium in Boston, built in 1903, was modeled after the Panathenaic Stadium. Designated as a National Historic Landmark, it is the first collegiate athletic stadium in the United States. Deutsches Stadion in Nuremberg, designed by Albert Speer, was also modeled on the Panathenaic Stadium. Speer was inspired by the stadium when he visited Athens in 1935. The stadium was designed for some 400,000 spectators and was one of the monumental structures of the Nazi regime. Its construction began in 1937, but was never completed.
Commemorations
The Panathenaic Stadium was selected as the main motif for a high value euro collectors' coin; the €100 Greek The Panathenaic Stadium commemorative coin, minted in 2003 to commemorate the 2004 Olympics. In the obverse of the coin, the stadium is depicted. It is shown on the obverse of all Olympic medals awarded in the 2004 Olympics, and it was also used for the succeeding Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008, in London in 2012, in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and in Tokyo in 2021.
Athens is a major coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, and it is both the capital and the largest city of Greece. With its urban area's population numbering over three million, it is also the eighth largest urban area in the European Union. Athens dominates and is the capital of the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. The city was named after Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom.
Classical Athens was one of the most powerful city-states in ancient Greece. It was a centre for democracy, the arts, education and philosophy, and was highly influential throughout the European continent, particularly in Ancient Rome. For this reason, it is often regarded as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy in its own right independently from the rest of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a huge cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece. In 2023, Athens metropolitan area and its surrounding municipalities (consisting the regional area of Attica) has a population of approximately 3.8 million.
Athens is a Beta-status global city according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and is one of the biggest economic centers in Southeastern Europe. It also has a large financial sector, and its port Piraeus is both the 2nd busiest passenger port in Europe, and the 13th largest container port in the world. The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire urban area, had a population of 643,452 (2021) within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi). The Athens metropolitan area or Greater Athens extends beyond its administrative municipal city limits as well as its urban agglomeration, with a population of 3,638,281 (2021) over an area of 2,928.717 km2 (1,131 sq mi). Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland.
The heritage of the Classical Era is still evident in the city, represented by ancient monuments, and works of art, the most famous of all being the Parthenon, considered a key landmark of early Western culture. The city also retains Roman, Byzantine and a smaller number of Ottoman monuments, while its historical urban core features elements of continuity through its millennia of history. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery. Landmarks of the modern era, dating back to the establishment of Athens as the capital of the independent Greek state in 1834, include the Hellenic Parliament and the Architectural Trilogy of Athens, consisting of the National Library of Greece, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and the Academy of Athens. Athens is also home to several museums and cultural institutions, such as the National Archeological Museum, featuring the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities, the Acropolis Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Benaki Museum, and the Byzantine and Christian Museum. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics, making it one of five cities to have hosted the Summer Olympics on multiple occasions. Athens joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in 2016.
Etymology and names
In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι (Athênai, pronounced [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯] in Classical Attic), which is a plural word. In earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη (Athḗnē). It was possibly rendered in the plural later on, like those of Θῆβαι (Thêbai) and Μυκῆναι (Μukênai). The root of the word is probably not of Greek or Indo-European origin, and is possibly a remnant of the Pre-Greek substrate of Attica. In antiquity, it was debated whether Athens took its name from its patron goddess Athena (Attic Ἀθηνᾶ, Athēnâ, Ionic Ἀθήνη, Athḗnē, and Doric Ἀθάνα, Athā́nā) or Athena took her name from the city. Modern scholars now generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city,[24] because the ending -ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names.
According to the ancient Athenian founding myth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, competed against Poseidon, the God of the Seas, for patronage of the yet-unnamed city; they agreed that whoever gave the Athenians the better gift would become their patron and appointed Cecrops, the king of Athens, as the judge. According to the account given by Pseudo-Apollodorus, Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring welled up. In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's poem Georgics, Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse. In both versions, Athena offered the Athenians the first domesticated olive tree. Cecrops accepted this gift and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. Eight different etymologies, now commonly rejected, have been proposed since the 17th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος (áthos) or ἄνθος (ánthos) meaning "flower", to denote Athens as the "flowering city". Ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- (tháō, thē-, "to suck") to denote Athens as having fertile soil. Athenians were called cicada-wearers (Ancient Greek: Τεττιγοφόροι) because they used to wear pins of golden cicadas. A symbol of being autochthonous (earth-born), because the legendary founder of Athens, Erechtheus was an autochthon or of being musicians, because the cicada is a "musician" insect. In classical literature, the city was sometimes referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindar's ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι (iostéphanoi Athânai), or as τὸ κλεινὸν ἄστυ (tò kleinòn ásty, "the glorious city").
During the medieval period, the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα. Variant names included Setines, Satine, and Astines, all derivations involving false splitting of prepositional phrases. King Alphonse X of Castile gives the pseudo-etymology 'the one without death/ignorance'. In Ottoman Turkish, it was called آتينا Ātīnā, and in modern Turkish, it is Atina.
History
Main article: History of Athens
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Athens.
Historical affiliations
Kingdom of Athens 1556 BC–1068 BC
City-state of Athens 1068 BC–322 BC
Hellenic League 338 BC–322 BC
Kingdom of Macedonia 322 BC–148 BC
Roman Republic 146 BC–27 BC
Roman Empire 27 BC–395 AD
Eastern Roman Empire 395–1205
Duchy of Athens 1205–1458
Ottoman Empire 1458–1822, 1827–1832
Greece 1822–1827, 1832–present
Antiquity
The oldest known human presence in Athens is the Cave of Schist, which has been dated to between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. Athens has been continuously inhabited for at least 5,000 years (3000 BC). By 1400 BC, the settlement had become an important centre of the Mycenaean civilization, and the Acropolis was the site of a major Mycenaean fortress, whose remains can be recognised from sections of the characteristic Cyclopean walls. Unlike other Mycenaean centers, such as Mycenae and Pylos, it is not known whether Athens suffered destruction in about 1200 BC, an event often attributed to a Dorian invasion, and the Athenians always maintained that they were pure Ionians with no Dorian element. However, Athens, like many other Bronze Age settlements, went into economic decline for around 150 years afterwards. Iron Age burials, in the Kerameikos and other locations, are often richly provided for and demonstrate that from 900 BC onwards Athens was one of the leading centres of trade and prosperity in the region.
By the sixth century BC, widespread social unrest led to the reforms of Solon. These would pave the way for the eventual introduction of democracy by Cleisthenes in 508 BC. Athens had by this time become a significant naval power with a large fleet, and helped the rebellion of the Ionian cities against Persian rule. In the ensuing Greco-Persian Wars Athens, together with Sparta, led the coalition of Greek states that would eventually repel the Persians, defeating them decisively at Marathon in 490 BC, and crucially at Salamis in 480 BC. However, this did not prevent Athens from being captured and sacked twice by the Persians within one year, after a heroic but ultimately failed resistance at Thermopylae by Spartans and other Greeks led by King Leonidas, after both Boeotia and Attica fell to the Persians.
The decades that followed became known as the Golden Age of Athenian democracy, during which time Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece, with its cultural achievements laying the foundations for Western civilization. The playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides flourished in Athens during this time, as did the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the physician Hippocrates, and the philosopher Socrates. Guided by Pericles, who promoted the arts and fostered democracy, Athens embarked on an ambitious building program that saw the construction of the Acropolis of Athens (including the Parthenon), as well as empire-building via the Delian League. Originally intended as an association of Greek city-states to continue the fight against the Persians, the league soon turned into a vehicle for Athens's own imperial ambitions. The resulting tensions brought about the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), in which Athens was defeated by its rival Sparta.
By the mid-4th century BC, the northern Greek kingdom of Macedon was becoming dominant in Athenian affairs. In 338 BC the armies of Philip II defeated an alliance of some of the Greek city-states including Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea. Later, under Rome, Athens was given the status of a free city because of its widely admired schools. In the second century AD, The Roman emperor Hadrian, himself an Athenian citizen, ordered the construction of a library, a gymnasium, an aqueduct which is still in use, several temples and sanctuaries, a bridge and financed the completion of the Temple of Olympian Zeus.
In the early 4th century AD, the Eastern Roman Empire began to be governed from Constantinople, and with the construction and expansion of the imperial city, many of Athens's works of art were taken by the emperors to adorn it. The Empire became Christianized, and the use of Latin declined in favour of exclusive use of Greek; in the Roman imperial period, both languages had been used. In the later Roman period, Athens was ruled by the emperors continuing until the 13th century, its citizens identifying themselves as citizens of the Roman Empire ("Rhomaioi"). The conversion of the empire from paganism to Christianity greatly affected Athens, resulting in reduced reverence for the city.[33] Ancient monuments such as the Parthenon, Erechtheion and the Hephaisteion (Theseion) were converted into churches. As the empire became increasingly anti-pagan, Athens became a provincial town and experienced fluctuating fortunes.
The city remained an important center of learning, especially of Neoplatonism—with notable pupils including Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil of Caesarea and emperor Julian (r. 355–363)—and consequently a center of paganism. Christian items do not appear in the archaeological record until the early 5th century. The sack of the city by the Herules in 267 and by the Visigoths under their king Alaric I (r. 395–410) in 396, however, dealt a heavy blow to the city's fabric and fortunes, and Athens was henceforth confined to a small fortified area that embraced a fraction of the ancient city. The emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) banned the teaching of philosophy by pagans in 529, an event whose impact on the city is much debated, but is generally taken to mark the end of the ancient history of Athens. Athens was sacked by the Slavs in 582, but remained in imperial hands thereafter, as highlighted by the visit of the emperor Constans II (r. 641–668) in 662/3 and its inclusion in the Theme of Hellas.
Middle Ages
The city was threatened by Saracen raids in the 8th–9th centuries—in 896, Athens was raided and possibly occupied for a short period, an event which left some archaeological remains and elements of Arabic ornamentation in contemporary buildings—but there is also evidence of a mosque existing in the city at the time. In the great dispute over Byzantine Iconoclasm, Athens is commonly held to have supported the iconophile position, chiefly due to the role played by Empress Irene of Athens in the ending of the first period of Iconoclasm at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. A few years later, another Athenian, Theophano, became empress as the wife of Staurakios (r. 811–812).
Invasion of the empire by the Turks after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, and the ensuing civil wars, largely passed the region by and Athens continued its provincial existence unharmed. When the Byzantine Empire was rescued by the resolute leadership of the three Komnenos emperors Alexios, John and Manuel, Attica and the rest of Greece prospered. Archaeological evidence tells us that the medieval town experienced a period of rapid and sustained growth, starting in the 11th century and continuing until the end of the 12th century.
The Agora (marketplace) had been deserted since late antiquity, began to be built over, and soon the town became an important centre for the production of soaps and dyes. The growth of the town attracted the Venetians, and various other traders who frequented the ports of the Aegean, to Athens. This interest in trade appears to have further increased the economic prosperity of the town.
The 11th and 12th centuries were the Golden Age of Byzantine art in Athens. Almost all of the most important Middle Byzantine churches in and around Athens were built during these two centuries, and this reflects the growth of the town in general. However, this medieval prosperity was not to last. In 1204, the Fourth Crusade conquered Athens and the city was not recovered from the Latins before it was taken by the Ottoman Turks. It did not become Greek in government again until the 19th century.
From 1204 until 1458, Athens was ruled by Latins in three separate periods, following the Crusades. The "Latins", or "Franks", were western Europeans and followers of the Latin Church brought to the Eastern Mediterranean during the Crusades. Along with rest of Byzantine Greece, Athens was part of the series of feudal fiefs, similar to the Crusader states established in Syria and on Cyprus after the First Crusade. This period is known as the Frankokratia.
Ottoman Athens
The first Ottoman attack on Athens, which involved a short-lived occupation of the town, came in 1397, under the Ottoman generals Yaqub Pasha and Timurtash. Finally, in 1458, Athens was captured by the Ottomans under the personal leadership of Sultan Mehmed II. As the Ottoman Sultan rode into the city, he was greatly struck by the beauty of its ancient monuments and issued a firman (imperial edict) forbidding their looting or destruction, on pain of death. The Parthenon was converted into the main mosque of the city.
Under Ottoman rule, Athens was denuded of any importance and its population severely declined, leaving it as a "small country town" (Franz Babinger). From the early 17th century, Athens came under the jurisdiction of the Kizlar Agha, the chief black eunuch of the Sultan's harem. The city had originally been granted by Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603–1617) to Basilica, one of his favourite concubines, who hailed from the city, in response of complaints of maladministration by the local governors. After her death, Athens came under the purview of the Kizlar Agha.
The Turks began a practice of storing gunpowder and explosives in the Parthenon and Propylaea. In 1640, a lightning bolt struck the Propylaea, causing its destruction. In 1687, during the Morean War, the Acropolis was besieged by the Venetians under Francesco Morosini, and the temple of Athena Nike was dismantled by the Ottomans to fortify the Parthenon. A shot fired during the bombardment of the Acropolis caused a powder magazine in the Parthenon to explode (26 September), and the building was severely damaged, giving it largely the appearance it has today. The Venetian occupation of Athens lasted for six months, and both the Venetians and the Ottomans participated in the looting of the Parthenon. One of its western pediments was removed, causing even more damage to the structure. During the Venetian occupation, the two mosques of the city were converted into Catholic and Protestant churches, but on 9 April 1688 the Venetians abandoned Athens again to the Ottomans.
Modern history
In 1822, a Greek insurgency captured the city, but it fell to the Ottomans again in 1826 (though Acropolis held till June 1827). Again the ancient monuments suffered badly. The Ottoman forces remained in possession until March 1833, when they withdrew. At that time, the city (as throughout the Ottoman period) had a small population of an estimated 400 houses, mostly located around the Acropolis in the Plaka.
Following the Greek War of Independence and the establishment of the Greek Kingdom, Athens was chosen to replace Nafplio as the second capital of the newly independent Greek state in 1834, largely because of historical and sentimental reasons. At the time, after the extensive destruction it had suffered during the war of independence, it was reduced to a town of about 4,000 people (less than half its earlier population) in a loose swarm of houses along the foot of the Acropolis. The first King of Greece, Otto of Bavaria, commissioned the architects Stamatios Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert to design a modern city plan fit for the capital of a state.
The first modern city plan consisted of a triangle defined by the Acropolis, the ancient cemetery of Kerameikos and the new palace of the Bavarian king (now housing the Greek Parliament), so as to highlight the continuity between modern and ancient Athens. Neoclassicism, the international style of this epoch, was the architectural style through which Bavarian, French and Greek architects such as Hansen, Klenze, Boulanger or Kaftantzoglou designed the first important public buildings of the new capital. In 1896, Athens hosted the first modern Olympic Games. During the 1920s a number of Greek refugees, expelled from Asia Minor after the Greco-Turkish War and Greek genocide, swelled Athens's population; nevertheless it was most particularly following World War II, and from the 1950s and 1960s, that the population of the city exploded, and Athens experienced a gradual expansion.
In the 1980s, it became evident that smog from factories and an ever-increasing fleet of automobiles, as well as a lack of adequate free space due to congestion, had evolved into the city's most important challenge.[citation needed] A series of anti-pollution measures taken by the city's authorities in the 1990s, combined with a substantial improvement of the city's infrastructure (including the Attiki Odos motorway, the expansion of the Athens Metro, and the new Athens International Airport), considerably alleviated pollution and transformed Athens into a much more functional city. In 2004, Athens hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Geography
Athens sprawls across the central plain of Attica that is often referred to as the Athens Basin or the Attica Basin (Greek: Λεκανοπέδιο Αθηνών/Αττικής). The basin is bounded by four large mountains: Mount Aigaleo to the west, Mount Parnitha to the north, Mount Pentelicus to the northeast and Mount Hymettus to the east. Beyond Mount Aegaleo lies the Thriasian plain, which forms an extension of the central plain to the west. The Saronic Gulf lies to the southwest. Mount Parnitha is the tallest of the four mountains (1,413 m (4,636 ft)), and has been declared a national park. The Athens urban area spreads over 50 kilometres (31 mi) from Agios Stefanos in the north to Varkiza in the south. The city is located in the north temperate zone, 38 degrees north of the equator.
Athens is built around a number of hills. Lycabettus is one of the tallest hills of the city proper and provides a view of the entire Attica Basin. The meteorology of Athens is deemed to be one of the most complex in the world because its mountains cause a temperature inversion phenomenon which, along with the Greek government's difficulties controlling industrial pollution, was responsible for the air pollution problems the city has faced. This issue is not unique to Athens; for instance, Los Angeles and Mexico City also suffer from similar atmospheric inversion problems.
The Cephissus river, the Ilisos and the Eridanos stream are the historical rivers of Athens.
Environment
By the late 1970s, the pollution of Athens had become so destructive that according to the then Greek Minister of Culture, Constantine Trypanis, "...the carved details on the five the caryatids of the Erechtheum had seriously degenerated, while the face of the horseman on the Parthenon's west side was all but obliterated." A series of measures taken by the authorities of the city throughout the 1990s resulted in the improvement of air quality; the appearance of smog (or nefos as the Athenians used to call it) has become less common.
Measures taken by the Greek authorities throughout the 1990s have improved the quality of air over the Attica Basin. Nevertheless, air pollution still remains an issue for Athens, particularly during the hottest summer days. In late June 2007, the Attica region experienced a number of brush fires, including a blaze that burned a significant portion of a large forested national park in Mount Parnitha, considered critical to maintaining a better air quality in Athens all year round. Damage to the park has led to worries over a stalling in the improvement of air quality in the city.
The major waste management efforts undertaken in the last decade (particularly the plant built on the small island of Psytalia) have greatly improved water quality in the Saronic Gulf, and the coastal waters of Athens are now accessible again to swimmers.
Parks and zoos
Parnitha National Park is punctuated by well-marked paths, gorges, springs, torrents and caves dotting the protected area. Hiking and mountain-biking in all four mountains are popular outdoor activities for residents of the city. The National Garden of Athens was completed in 1840 and is a green refuge of 15.5 hectares in the centre of the Greek capital. It is to be found between the Parliament and Zappeion buildings, the latter of which maintains its own garden of seven hectares. Parts of the City Centre have been redeveloped under a masterplan called the Unification of Archeological Sites of Athens, which has also gathered funding from the EU to help enhance the project. The landmark Dionysiou Areopagitou Street has been pedestrianised, forming a scenic route. The route starts from the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Vasilissis Olgas Avenue, continues under the southern slopes of the Acropolis near Plaka, and finishes just beyond the Temple of Hephaestus in Thiseio. The route in its entirety provides visitors with views of the Parthenon and the Agora (the meeting point of ancient Athenians), away from the busy City Centre.
The hills of Athens also provide green space. Lycabettus, Philopappos hill and the area around it, including Pnyx and Ardettos hill, are planted with pines and other trees, with the character of a small forest rather than typical metropolitan parkland. Also to be found is the Pedion tou Areos (Field of Mars) of 27.7 hectares, near the National Archaeological Museum. Athens' largest zoo is the Attica Zoological Park, a 20-hectare (49-acre) private zoo located in the suburb of Spata. The zoo is home to around 2000 animals representing 400 species, and is open 365 days a year. Smaller zoos exist within public gardens or parks, such as the zoo within the National Garden of Athens.
Climate
Athens has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa). According to the meteorological station near the city center which is operated by the National Observatory of Athens, the downtown area has an annual average temperature of 19.2 °C (66.6 °F) while parts of the urban agglomeration may reach up to 19.8 °C (67.6 °F), being affected by the urban heat island effect. Athens receives about 433.1 millimetres (17.05 in) of precipitation per year, largely concentrated during the colder half of the year with the remaining rainfall falling sparsely, mainly during thunderstorms. Fog is rare in the city center, but somewhat more frequent in areas to the east, close to mount Hymettus.
The southern section of the Athens metropolitan area (i.e., Elliniko, Athens Riviera) lies in the transitional zone between Mediterranean (Csa) and hot semi-arid climate (BSh), with its port-city of Piraeus being the most extreme example, receiving just 331.9 millimetres (13.07 in) per year. The areas to the south generally see less extreme temperature variations as their climate is moderated by the Saronic gulf. The northern part of the city (i.e., Kifissia), owing to its higher elevation, features moderately lower temperatures and slightly increased precipitation year-round. The generally dry climate of the Athens basin compared to the precipitation amounts seen in a typical Mediterranean climate is due to the rain shadow effect caused by the Pindus mountain range and the Dirfys and Parnitha mountains, substantially drying the westerly and northerly winds respectively.
Snowfall is not very common, though it occurs almost annually, but it usually does not cause heavy disruption to daily life, in contrast to the northern parts of the city, where blizzards occur on a somewhat more regular basis. The most recent examples include the snowstorms of 16 February 2021 and 24 January 2022, when the entire urban area was blanketed in snow.
Athens may get particularly hot in the summer, owing partly to the strong urban heat island effect characterizing the city. In fact, Athens is considered to be the hottest city in mainland Europe, and is the first city in Europe to appoint a chief heat officer to deal with severe heat waves. Temperatures of 47.5°C have been reported in several locations of the metropolitan area, including within the urban agglomeration. Metropolitan Athens was until 2021 the holder of the World Meteorological Organization record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe with 48.0 °C (118.4 °F) which was recorded in the areas of Elefsina and Tatoi on 10 July 1977.
Administration
Athens became the capital of Greece in 1834, following Nafplion, which was the provisional capital from 1829. The municipality (City) of Athens is also the capital of the Attica region. The term Athens can refer either to the Municipality of Athens, to Greater Athens or urban area, or to the entire Athens Metropolitan Area.
The large City Centre (Greek: Κέντρο της Αθήνας) of the Greek capital falls directly within the Municipality of Athens or Athens Municipality (Greek: Δήμος Αθηναίων)—also City of Athens. Athens Municipality is the largest in population size in Greece. Piraeus also forms a significant city centre on its own within the Athens Urban Area and it is the second largest in population size within it.
Athens Urban Area
The Athens Urban Area (Greek: Πολεοδομικό Συγκρότημα Αθηνών), also known as Urban Area of the Capital (Greek: Πολεοδομικό Συγκρότημα Πρωτεύουσας) or Greater Athens (Greek: Ευρύτερη Αθήνα), today consists of 40 municipalities, 35 of which make up what was referred to as the former Athens Prefecture municipalities, located within 4 regional units (North Athens, West Athens, Central Athens, South Athens); and a further 5 municipalities, which make up the former Piraeus Prefecture municipalities, located within the regional unit of Piraeus as mentioned above.
The Athens Municipality forms the core and center of Greater Athens, which in its turn consists of the Athens Municipality and 40 more municipalities, divided in four regional units (Central, North, South and West Athens), accounting for 2,611,713 people (in 2021) within an area of 361 km2 (139 sq mi). Until 2010, which made up the abolished Athens Prefecture and the municipality of Piraeus, the historic Athenian port, with 4 other municipalities make up the regional unit of Piraeus. The regional units of Central Athens, North Athens, South Athens, West Athens and Piraeus with part of East and West Attica regional units combined make up the continuous Athens Urban Area, also called the "Urban Area of the Capital" or simply "Athens" (the most common use of the term), spanning over 412 km2 (159 sq mi), with a population of 3,059,764 people as of 2021. The Athens Urban Area is considered to form the city of Athens as a whole, despite its administrative divisions, which is the largest in Greece and the 9th most populated urban area in Europe.
Demographics
The Municipality of Athens has an official population of 643,452 people (in 2021). According to the 2021 Population and Housing Census, The four regional units that make up what is referred to as Greater Athens have a combined population of 2,611,713 . They together with the regional unit of Piraeus (Greater Piraeus) make up the dense Athens Urban Area which reaches a total population of 3,059,764 inhabitants (in 2021).
The municipality (Center) of Athens is the most populous in Greece, with a population of 643,452 people (in 2021) and an area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi), forming the core of the Athens Urban Area within the Attica Basin. The incumbent Mayor of Athens is Kostas Bakoyannis of New Democracy. The municipality is divided into seven municipal districts which are mainly used for administrative purposes.
For the Athenians the most popular way of dividing the downtown is through its neighbourhoods such as Pagkrati, Ampelokipoi, Goudi, Exarcheia, Patisia, Ilisia, Petralona, Plaka, Anafiotika, Koukaki, Kolonaki and Kypseli, each with its own distinct history and characteristics.
Safety
Athens ranks in the lowest percentage for the risk on frequency and severity of terrorist attacks according to the EU Global Terrorism Database (EIU 2007–2016 calculations). The city also ranked 35th in Digital Security, 21st on Health Security, 29th on Infrastructure Security and 41st on Personal Security globally in a 2017 The Economist Intelligence Unit report. It also ranks as a very safe city (39th globally out of 162 cities overall) on the ranking of the safest and most dangerous countries. As May 2022 the crime index from Numbeo places Athens at 56.33 (moderate), while its safety index is at 43.68.Crime in Athens According to a Mercer 2019 Quality of Living Survey, Athens ranks 89th on the Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranking.
Economy
Athens is the financial capital of Greece. According to data from 2014, Athens as a metropolitan economic area produced US$130 billion as GDP in PPP, which consists of nearly half of the production for the whole country. Athens was ranked 102nd in that year's list of global economic metropolises, while GDP per capita for the same year was 32,000 US-dollars.
Athens is one of the major economic centres in south-eastern Europe and is considered a regional economic power. The port of Piraeus, where big investments by COSCO have already been delivered during the recent decade, the completion of the new Cargo Centre in Thriasion, the expansion of the Athens Metro and the Athens Tram, as well as the Hellenikon metropolitan park redevelopment in Elliniko and other urban projects, are the economic landmarks of the upcoming years.
Prominent Greek companies such as Hellas Sat, Hellenic Aerospace Industry, Mytilineos Holdings, Titan Cement, Hellenic Petroleum, Papadopoulos E.J., Folli Follie, Jumbo S.A., OPAP, and Cosmote have their headquarters in the metropolitan area of Athens. Multinational companies such as Ericsson, Sony, Siemens, Motorola, Samsung, Microsoft, Teleperformance, Novartis, Mondelez and Coca-Cola also have their regional research and development headquarters in the city.
The banking sector is represented by National Bank of Greece, Alpha Bank, Eurobank, and Piraeus Bank, while the Bank of Greece is also situated in the City Centre. The Athens Stock Exchange was severely hit by the Greek government-debt crisis and the decision of the government to proceed into capital controls during summer 2015. As a whole the economy of Athens and Greece was strongly affected, while data showed a change from long recession to growth of 1.4% from 2017 onwards.
Tourism is also a leading contributor to the economy of the city, as one of Europe's top destinations for city-break tourism, and also the gateway for excursions to both the islands and other parts of the mainland. Greece attracted 26.5 million visitors in 2015, 30.1 million visitors in 2017, and over 33 million in 2018, making Greece one of the most visited countries in Europe and the world, and contributing 18% to the country's GDP. Athens welcomed more than 5 million tourists in 2018, and 1.4 million were "city-breakers"; this was an increase by over a million city-breakers since 2013.
Tourism
Athens has been a destination for travellers since antiquity. Over the past decade, the city's infrastructure and social amenities have improved, in part because of its successful bid to stage the 2004 Olympic Games. The Greek Government, aided by the EU, has funded major infrastructure projects such as the state-of-the-art Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, the expansion of the Athens Metro system, and the new Attiki Odos Motorway
Education
Located on Panepistimiou Street, the old campus of the University of Athens, the National Library, and the Athens Academy form the "Athens Trilogy" built in the mid-19th century. The largest and oldest university in Athens is the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Most of the functions of NKUA have been transferred to a campus in the eastern suburb of Zografou. The National Technical University of Athens is located on Patision Street.
The University of West Attica is the second largest university in Athens. The seat of the university is located in the western area of Athens, where the philosophers of Ancient Athens delivered lectures. All the activities of UNIWA are carried out in the modern infrastructure of the three University Campuses within the metropolitan region of Athens (Egaleo Park, Ancient Olive Groove and Athens), which offer modern teaching and research spaces, entertainment and support facilities for all students. Other universities that lie within Athens are the Athens University of Economics and Business, the Panteion University, the Agricultural University of Athens and the University of Piraeus.
There are overall ten state-supported Institutions of Higher (or Tertiary) education located in the Athens Urban Area, these are by chronological order: Athens School of Fine Arts (1837), National Technical University of Athens (1837), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (1837), Agricultural University of Athens (1920), Athens University of Economics and Business (1920), Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (1927), University of Piraeus (1938), Harokopio University of Athens (1990), School of Pedagogical and Technological Education (2002), University of West Attica (2018). There are also several other private colleges, as they called formally in Greece, as the establishment of private universities is prohibited by the constitution. Many of them are accredited by a foreign state or university such as the American College of Greece and the Athens Campus of the University of Indianapolis.
Culture
The city is a world centre of archaeological research. Alongside national academic institutions, such as the Athens University and the Archaeological Society, it is home to multiple archaeological museums, taking in the National Archaeological Museum, the Cycladic Museum, the Epigraphic Museum, the Byzantine & Christian Museum, as well as museums at the ancient Agora, Acropolis, Kerameikos, and the Kerameikos Archaeological Museum. The city is also the setting for the Demokritos laboratory for Archaeometry, alongside regional and national archaeological authorities forming part of the Greek Department of Culture.
Athens hosts 17 Foreign Archaeological Institutes which promote and facilitate research by scholars from their home countries. As a result, Athens has more than a dozen archaeological libraries and three specialized archaeological laboratories, and is the venue of several hundred specialized lectures, conferences and seminars, as well as dozens of archaeological exhibitions each year. At any given time, hundreds of international scholars and researchers in all disciplines of archaeology are to be found in the city.
Athens' most important museums include:
the National Archaeological Museum, the largest archaeological museum in the country, and one of the most important internationally, as it contains a vast collection of antiquities. Its artefacts cover a period of more than 5,000 years, from late Neolithic Age to Roman Greece;
the Benaki Museum with its several branches for each of its collections including ancient, Byzantine, Ottoman-era, Chinese art and beyond;
the Byzantine and Christian Museum, one of the most important museums of Byzantine art;
the National Art Gallery, the nation's eponymous leading gallery, which reopened in 2021 after renovation;
the National Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in 2000 in a former brewery building;
the Numismatic Museum, housing a major collection of ancient and modern coins;
the Museum of Cycladic Art, home to an extensive collection of Cycladic art, including its famous figurines of white marble;
the New Acropolis Museum, opened in 2009, and replacing the old museum on the Acropolis. The new museum has proved considerably popular; almost one million people visited during the summer period June–October 2009 alone. A number of smaller and privately owned museums focused on Greek culture and arts are also to be found.
the Kerameikos Archaeological Museum, a museum which displays artifacts from the burial site of Kerameikos. Much of the pottery and other artifacts relate to Athenian attitudes towards death and the afterlife, throughout many ages.
the Jewish Museum of Greece, a museum which describes the history and culture of the Greek Jewish community.
Architecture
Athens incorporates architectural styles ranging from Greco-Roman and Neoclassical to Modern. They are often to be found in the same areas, as Athens is not marked by a uniformity of architectural style. A visitor will quickly notice the absence of tall buildings: Athens has very strict height restriction laws in order to ensure the Acropolis Hill is visible throughout the city. Despite the variety in styles, there is evidence of continuity in elements of the architectural environment throughout the city's history.
For the greatest part of the 19th century Neoclassicism dominated Athens, as well as some deviations from it such as Eclecticism, especially in the early 20th century. Thus, the Old Royal Palace was the first important public building to be built, between 1836 and 1843. Later in the mid and late 19th century, Theophil Freiherr von Hansen and Ernst Ziller took part in the construction of many neoclassical buildings such as the Athens Academy and the Zappeion Hall. Ziller also designed many private mansions in the centre of Athens which gradually became public, usually through donations, such as Schliemann's Iliou Melathron.
Beginning in the 1920s, modern architecture including Bauhaus and Art Deco began to exert an influence on almost all Greek architects, and buildings both public and private were constructed in accordance with these styles. Localities with a great number of such buildings include Kolonaki, and some areas of the centre of the city; neighbourhoods developed in this period include Kypseli.
In the 1950s and 1960s during the extension and development of Athens, other modern movements such as the International style played an important role. The centre of Athens was largely rebuilt, leading to the demolition of a number of neoclassical buildings. The architects of this era employed materials such as glass, marble and aluminium, and many blended modern and classical elements. After World War II, internationally known architects to have designed and built in the city included Walter Gropius, with his design for the US Embassy, and, among others, Eero Saarinen, in his postwar design for the east terminal of the Ellinikon Airport.
Urban sculpture
Across the city numerous statues or busts are to be found. Apart from the neoclassicals by Leonidas Drosis at the Academy of Athens (Plato, Socrates, Apollo and Athena), others in notable categories include the statue of Theseus by Georgios Fytalis at Thiseion; depictions of philhellenes such as Lord Byron, George Canning, and William Gladstone; the equestrian statue of Theodoros Kolokotronis by Lazaros Sochos in front of the Old Parliament; statues of Ioannis Kapodistrias, Rigas Feraios and Adamantios Korais at the University; of Evangelos Zappas and Konstantinos Zappas at the Zappeion; Ioannis Varvakis at the National Garden; the" Woodbreaker" by Dimitrios Filippotis; the equestrian statue of Alexandros Papagos in the Papagou district; and various busts of fighters of Greek independence at the Pedion tou Areos. A significant landmark is also the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Syntagma.
Entertainment and performing arts
Athens is home to 148 theatrical stages, more than any other city in the world, including the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus, home to the Athens Festival, which runs from May to October each year. In addition to a large number of multiplexes, Athens plays host to open air garden cinemas. The city also supports music venues, including the Athens Concert Hall (Megaro Moussikis), which attracts world class artists. The Athens Planetarium, located in Andrea Syngrou Avenue, in Palaio Faliro is one of the largest and best equipped digital planetaria in the world. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, inaugurated in 2016, will house the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera. In 2018 Athens was designated as the World Book Capital by UNESCO.
Restaurants, tavernas and bars can be found in the entertainment hubs in Plaka and the Trigono areas of the historic centre, the inner suburbs of Gazi and Psyrri are especially busy with nightclubs and bars, while Kolonaki, Exarchia, Metaxourgeio, Koukaki and Pangrati offer more of a cafe and restaurant scene. The coastal suburbs of Microlimano, Alimos and Glyfada include many tavernas, beach bars and busy summer clubs.
The most successful songs during the period 1870–1930 were the Athenian serenades (Αθηναϊκές καντάδες), based on the Heptanesean kantádhes (καντάδες 'serenades'; sing.: καντάδα) and the songs performed on stage (επιθεωρησιακά τραγούδια 'theatrical revue songs') in revues, musical comedies, operettas and nocturnes that were dominating Athens' theatre scene.
In 1922, following the war, genocide and later population exchange suffered by the Greek population of Asia Minor, many ethnic Greeks fled to Athens. They settled in poor neighbourhoods and brought with them Rebetiko music, making it also popular in Greece, and which later became the base for the Laïko music. Other forms of song popular today in Greece are elafrolaika, entechno, dimotika, and skyladika. Greece's most notable, and internationally famous, composers of Greek song, mainly of the entechno form, are Manos Hadjidakis and Mikis Theodorakis. Both composers have achieved fame abroad for their composition of film scores.
The renowned American-born Greek soprano Maria Callas spent her teenage years in Athens, where she settled in 1937. Her professional opera career started in 1940 in Athens, with the Greek National Opera. In 2018, the city's municipal Olympia Theatre was renamed to "Olympia City Music Theatre 'Maria Callas'" and in 2023, the Municipality inaugurated the Maria Callas Museum, housing it in a neoclassical building on 44 Mitropoleos street.
Sports
The Panathenaic Stadium of Athens (Kallimarmaron) dates back to the fourth century BC and has hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
Agia Sophia Stadium
Athens has a long tradition in sports and sporting events, serving as home to the most important clubs in Greek sport and housing a large number of sports facilities. The city has also been host to sports events of international importance.
Athens has hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice, in 1896 and 2004. The 2004 Summer Olympics required the development of the Athens Olympic Stadium, which has since gained a reputation as one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world, and one of its most interesting modern monuments. The biggest stadium in the country, it hosted two finals of the UEFA Champions League, in 1994 and 2007. Athens' other major stadiums are the Karaiskakis Stadium located in Piraeus, a sports and entertainment complex, host of the 1971 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Final, and Agia Sophia Stadium located in Nea Filadelfeia.
Athens has hosted the EuroLeague final three times, the first in 1985 and second in 1993, both at the Peace and Friendship Stadium, most known as SEF, a large indoor arena, and the third time in 2007 at the Olympic Indoor Hall. Events in other sports such as athletics, volleyball, water polo etc., have been hosted in the capital's venues.
Athens is home to three European multi-sport clubs: Panathinaikos, originated in Athens city centre, Olympiacos, originated in the suburb of Piraeus and AEK Athens, originated in the suburb of Nea Filadelfeia. In football, Panathinaikos made it to the 1971 European Cup Final, Olympiacos have dominated domestic competitions, while AEK Athens is the other member of the big three. These clubs also have basketball teams; Panathinaikos and Olympiacos are among the top powers in European basketball, having won the Euroleague six times and three respectively, whilst AEK Athens was the first Greek team to win a European trophy in any team sport.
Other notable clubs within Athens are Athinaikos, Panionios, Atromitos, Apollon, Panellinios, Egaleo F.C., Ethnikos Piraeus, Maroussi BC and Peristeri B.C. Athenian clubs have also had domestic and international success in other sports.
The Athens area encompasses a variety of terrain, notably hills and mountains rising around the city, and the capital is the only major city in Europe to be bisected by a mountain range. Four mountain ranges extend into city boundaries and thousands of kilometres of trails criss-cross the city and neighbouring areas, providing exercise and wilderness access on foot and bike.
Beyond Athens and across the prefecture of Attica, outdoor activities include skiing, rock climbing, hang gliding and windsurfing. Numerous outdoor clubs serve these sports, including the Athens Chapter of the Sierra Club, which leads over 4,000 outings annually in the area.
Athens was awarded the 2004 Summer Olympics on 5 September 1997 in Lausanne, Switzerland, after having lost a previous bid to host the 1996 Summer Olympics, to Atlanta, United States. It was to be the second time Athens would host the games, following the inaugural event of 1896. After an unsuccessful bid in 1990, the 1997 bid was radically improved, including an appeal to Greece's Olympic history. In the last round of voting, Athens defeated Rome with 66 votes to 41. Prior to this round, the cities of Buenos Aires, Stockholm and Cape Town had been eliminated from competition, having received fewer votes. Although the heavy cost was criticized, estimated at $1.5 billion, Athens was transformed into a more functional city that enjoys modern technology both in transportation and in modern urban development. The games welcomed over 10,000 athletes from all 202 countries.