title: Palladian architecture

text: The Baroque style proved highly popular in continental Europe, but was often viewed with suspicion in England, where it was considered "theatrical, exuberant and Catholic." It was superseded in Britain in the first quarter of the 18th century when four books highlighted the simplicity and purity of classical architecture. These were:


title: Palladian architecture

text: The most favoured among patrons was the four-volume "Vitruvius Britannicus" by Campbell, The series contains architectural prints of British buildings inspired by the great architects from Vitruvius to Palladio; at first mainly those of Inigo Jones, but the later works contained drawings and plans by Campbell and other 18th-century architects. These four books greatly contributed to Palladian architecture becoming established in 18th-century Britain. Campbell and Kent became the most fashionable and sought-after architects of the era. Campbell had placed his 1715 designs for the colossal Wanstead House near to the front of "Vitruvius Britannicus", immediately following the engravings of buildings by Jones and Webb, "as an exemplar of what new architecture should be". On the strength of the book, Campbell was chosen as the architect for Henry Hoare I's Stourhead house. Hoare's brother-in-law, William Benson, had designed Wilbury House, the earliest 18th-century Palladian house in Wiltshire, which Campbell had also illustrated in "Vitruvius Britannicus".


title: Palladian architecture

text: At the forefront of the new school of design was the "architect earl", Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, according to Dan Cruikshank the "man responsible for this curious elevation of Palladianism to the rank of a quasi-religion". In 1729 he and Kent designed Chiswick House. This house was a reinterpretation of Palladio's Villa Capra, but purified of 16th century elements and ornament. This severe lack of ornamentation was to be a feature of English Palladianism.


title: Palladian architecture

text: In 1734 Kent and Burlington designed Holkham Hall in Norfolk. James Stevens Curl considers it "the most splendid Palladian house in England". The main block of the house followed Palladio's dictates quite closely, but his low, often detached, wings of farm buildings were elevated in significance. Kent attached them to the design, banished the farm animals, and elevated the wings to almost the same importance as the house itself. It was the development of the flanking wings that was to cause English Palladianism to evolve from being a pastiche of Palladio's original work. Wings were frequently adorned with porticos and pediments, often resembling, as at the much later Kedleston Hall, small country houses in their own right.


title: Palladian architecture

text: Architectural styles evolve and change to suit the requirements of each individual client. When in 1746 the Duke of Bedford decided to rebuild Woburn Abbey, he chose the fashionable Palladian style, and selected the architect Henry Flitcroft, a protégé of Burlington. Flitcroft's designs, while Palladian in nature, had to comply with the Duke's determination that the plan and footprint of the earlier house, originally a Cistercian monastery, be retained. The central block is small, has only three bays, while the temple-like portico is merely suggested, and is closed. Two great flanking wings containing a vast suite of state rooms replace the walls or colonnades which should have connected to the farm buildings; the farm buildings terminating the structure are elevated in height to match the central block and given Palladian windows, to ensure they are seen as of Palladian design. This development of the style was to be repeated in many houses and town halls in Britain over one hundred years. Often the terminating blocks would have blind porticos and pilasters themselves, competing for attention with, or complementing the central block. This was all very far removed from the designs of Palladio two hundred years earlier. Falling from favour during the Victorian era, the approach was revived by Sir Aston Webb for his refacing of Buckingham Palace in 1913.


title: Palladian architecture

text: The villa tradition continued throughout the late 18th century, particularly in the suburbs around London. Sir William Chambers built many examples, such as Parkstead House. But the grander English Palladian houses were no longer the small but exquisite weekend retreats that their Italian counterparts were intended as. They had become "power houses", in Sir John Summerson's words, the symbolic centres of the triumph and dominance of the Whig Oligarchy who ruled Britain unchallenged for some fifty years after the death of Queen Anne. Summerson thought Kent's Horse Guards on Whitehall epitomised "the establishment of Palladianism as the official style of Great Britain". As the style peaked, thoughts of mathematical proportion were swept away. Rather than square houses with supporting wings, these buildings had the length of the façade as their major consideration: long houses often only one room deep were deliberately deceitful in giving a false impression of size.


title: Palladian architecture

text: During the Palladian revival period in Ireland, even modest mansions were cast in a neo-Palladian mould. Irish Palladian architecture subtly differs from the England style. While adhering as in other countries to the basic ideals of Palladio, it is often truer to them. In Ireland, Palladianism became political; both the original and the present Irish parliaments in Dublin occupy Palladian buildings.


title: Palladian architecture

text: The Irish architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce (1699–1733) became a leading advocate. He was a cousin of Sir John Vanbrugh, and originally one of his pupils. He rejected the Baroque style, and spent three years studying architecture in France and Italy before returning to Ireland. His most important Palladian work is the former Irish Houses of Parliament in Dublin. Christine Casey, in her 2005 volume "Dublin", in the Pevsner Buildings of Ireland series, considers the building, "arguably the most accomplished public set-piece of the Palladian style in [Britain]". Pearce was a prolific architect who went on to design the southern façade of Drumcondra House in 1725 and Summerhill House in 1731, which was completed after his death by Richard Cassels. Pearce also oversaw the building of Castletown House near Dublin, designed by the Italian architect Alessandro Galilei (1691–1737). It is perhaps the only Palladian house in Ireland built with Palladio's mathematical ratios, and one of a number of Irish mansions which inspired the design of the White House in Washington.


title: Palladian architecture

text: Other examples include Russborough, designed by Richard Cassels, who also designed the Palladian Rotunda Hospital in Dublin and Florence Court in County Fermanagh. Irish Palladian country houses often feature robust Rococo plasterwork – an Irish specialty which is frequently executed by the Lafranchini brothers and far more flamboyant than the interiors of their contemporaries in England. In the 20th century, during and following the Irish War of Independence and the subsequent civil war, very large numbers of Irish country houses, including some fine Palladian examples such as Woodstock House, were abandoned to ruin or destroyed.


title: Palladian architecture

text: Palladio's influence in North America is evident almost from its first architect-designed buildings. The Irish philosopher George Berkeley, who may be America's first recorded Palladian, bought a large farmhouse in Middletown, Rhode Island, in the late 1720s, and added a Palladian doorcase derived from Kent's "Designs of Inigo Jones" (1727), which he may have brought with him from London. Palladio's work was included in the library of a thousand volumes amassed for Yale College. Peter Harrison’s 1749 designs for the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island, borrow directly from Palladio's "I quattro libri dell'architettura", while his plan for the Newport Brick Market, conceived a decade later, is also Palladian.


title: Palladian architecture

text: Two colonial period houses that can be definitively attributed to designs from "I quattro libri dell'architettura" are the Hammond-Harwood House (1774) in Annapolis, Maryland, and Thomas Jefferson's first Monticello (1770). Hammond-Harwood was designed by the architect William Buckland in 1773–1774 for the wealthy farmer Matthias Hammond of Anne Arundel County, Maryland. The design source is the Villa Pisani, and that for the first Monticello, the Villa Cornaro at Piombino Dese. Both are taken from Book II, Chapter XIV of "I quattro libri dell'architettura". Jefferson later made substantial alterations to Monticello, known as the second Monticello (1802–1809), making the Hammond-Harwood House the only remaining house in North America modelled directly on a Palladian design.


title: Palladian architecture

text: Jefferson referred to "I quattro libri dell'architettura" as his bible. Although a politician, his passion was architecture, and he developed an intense appreciation of Palladio's architectural concepts; his designs for the James Barbour Barboursville estate, the Virginia State Capitol, and the University of Virginia campus were all based on illustrations from Palladio's book. Realising the political significance of ancient Roman architecture to the fledgling American Republic, Jefferson designed his civic buildings, such as the Rotunda, in the Palladian style, echoing in his buildings for the new republic examples from the old.


title: Palladian architecture

text: In Virginia and Carolina, the Palladian style is found in numerous plantation houses, such as Stratford Hall, Westover Plantation and Drayton Hall. Westover's north and south entrances, made of imported English Portland stone, were patterned after a plate in William Salmon's "Palladio Londinensis" (1734). The distinctive feature of Drayton Hall, its two-storey portico, was derived from Palladio, as was Mount Airy, in Richmond County, Virginia, built in 1758–1762. A particular feature of American Palladianism was the re-emergence of the great portico which, as in Italy, fulfilled the need of protection from the sun; the portico in various forms and size became a dominant feature of American colonial architecture. In the north European countries the portico had become a mere symbol, often closed, or merely hinted at in the design by pilasters, and sometimes in very late examples of English Palladianism adapted to become a porte-cochère; in America, the Palladian portico regained its full glory.


title: Palladian architecture

text: The White House in Washington was inspired by Irish Palladianism. Its architect James Hoban, who built the executive mansion between 1792 and 1800, was born in Callan, County Kilkenny, in 1762, the son of tenant farmers on the estate of Desart Court, a Palladian House designed by Pearce. He studied architecture in Dublin, where Leinster House (built ) was one of the finest Palladian buildings of the time. Both Cassel's Leinster House and James Wyatt's Castle Coole have been cited as Hoban's inspirations for the White House but the more neoclassical design of that building, particularly of the South façade which closely resembles Wyatt's 1790 design for Castle Coole, suggests that Coole is perhaps the more direct progenitor. The architectural historian Gervase Jackson-Stops describes Castle Coole as "a culmination of the Palladian traditions, yet strictly neoclassical in its chaste ornament and noble austerity", while Alistair Rowan, in his 1979 volume, "North West Ulster", of the Buildings of Ireland series, suggests that, at Coole, Wyatt designed a building, "more massy, more masculine and more totally liberated from Palladian practice than anything he had done before."


title: Palladian architecture

text: Because of its later development, Palladian architecture in Canada is rarer. In her 1984 study, "Palladian Style in Canadian Architecture", Nathalie Clerk notes its particular impact on public architecture, as opposed to the private houses in the United States. One example of historical note is the Nova Scotia Legislature building, completed in 1819. Another example is Government House in St. John's, Newfoundland.


title: Palladian architecture

text: The rise of neo-Palladianism in England contributed to its adoption in Prussia. Count Francesco Algarotti wrote to Lord Burlington to inform him that he was recommending to Frederick the Great the adoption in his own country of the architectural style Burlington had introduced in England. By 1741, Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff had already begun construction of the Berlin Opera House on the Unter den Linden, based on Campbell's Wanstead House.


title: Palladian architecture

text: Palladianism was particularly adopted in areas under British colonial rule. Examples can be seen in the Indian subcontinent; the Raj Bhavan, Kolkata (formerly Government House) was modelled on Kedleston Hall, while the architectural historian Pilar Maria Guerrieri identifies its influences in Lutyens' Delhi. In South Africa, Federico Freschi notes the "Tuscan colonnades and Palladian windows" of Herbert Baker’s Union Buildings.


title: Palladian architecture

text: By the 1770s, British architects such as Robert Adam and William Chambers were in high demand, but were now drawing on a wide variety of classical sources, including from ancient Greece, so much so that their forms of architecture became defined as neoclassical rather than Palladian. In Europe, the Palladian revival ended by the close of the 18th century. In the 19th century, proponents of the Gothic Revival such as Augustus Pugin, remembering the origins of Palladianism in ancient temples, considered it pagan, and unsuited to Anglican and Anglo-Catholic worship. In North America, Palladianism lingered a little longer; Thomas Jefferson's floor plans and elevations owe a great deal to Palladio's "I quattro libri dell'architettura."


title: Palladian architecture

text: The term "Palladian" is often misused in modern discourse and tends to be used to describe buildings with any classical pretensions. There was a revival of a more serious Palladian approach in the 20th century when Colin Rowe, an influential architectural theorist, published his essay, "The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa", (1947), in which he drew links between the compositional "rules" in Palladio's villas and Le Corbusier's villas at Poissy and Garches. Suzanne Walters' article "The Two Faces of Modernism" suggests a continuing influence of Palladio's ideas on architects of the 20th century. In the 21st century Palladio's name regularly appears among the world's most influential architects. In England, Raymond Erith (1904–1973) drew on Palladian inspirations, and was followed in this by his pupil, subsequently partner, Quinlan Terry. Their work, and that of others, led the architectural historian John Martin Robinson to suggest that "the "Quattro Libri" continues as the fountainhead of at least one strand in the English country house tradition."


title: Nicol Williamson

text: Thomas Nicol Williamson (14 September 1936 – 16 December 2011) was a Scottish actor, once described by playwright John Osborne as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando". He was also described by Samuel Beckett as "touched by genius" and viewed by many critics as "the Hamlet of his generation" during the late 1960s.


title: Nicol Williamson

text: Thomas Nicol Williamson was born on 14 September 1936 (he would later claim 1938 in "Who's Who") in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, the son of Hugh Williamson, operator of an aluminium manufacturing plant and former hairdresser's assistant, and Mary Brown Hill, née Storrie. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Birmingham, England. Williamson was sent back to Hamilton to live with his grandparents during World War II due to Birmingham's susceptibility to bombing, but returned when the war ended, and was educated at the Central Grammar School for Boys, Birmingham. He left school at 16 to begin work in his father's factory and later attended the Birmingham School of Speech & Drama. He recalled his time there as "a disaster" and claimed "it was nothing more than a finishing school for the daughters of local businessmen".


title: Nicol Williamson

text: After his national service as a gunner in the Airborne Division, Williamson made his professional debut with the Dundee Repertory Theatre in 1960 and the following year appeared with the Arts Theatre in Cambridge. In 1962 he made his London debut as Flute in Tony Richardson's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Royal Court Theatre. His first major success came in 1964 with John Osborne's "Inadmissible Evidence", for which he was nominated for a Tony Award when it transferred to Broadway the following year. In spring 1981, he and original director Anthony Page revived the play for a six-week engagement at the Roundabout Theatre (23rd Street) in New York, fifteen years after the original Broadway run.


title: Nicol Williamson

text: The same year, he appeared as Vladimir in Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" at the Royal Court. He starred in the film version in 1968. Williamson's "Hamlet" for Tony Richardson at the Roundhouse caused a sensation; it was later transferred to New York and made into a film, with a cast including Anthony Hopkins and Marianne Faithfull. Faithfull later stated in her autobiography "Faithfull" that she and Williamson had an affair while filming "Hamlet".


title: Nicol Williamson

text: His most celebrated film role was as Merlin the magician in the King Arthur epic "Excalibur" in 1981. Director John Boorman cast him opposite Helen Mirren as Morgana over the protests of both actors; the two had previously appeared together on stage in "Macbeth", with disastrous results, and they disliked each other intensely. It was Boorman's hope that the very real animosity that they had towards each other would generate more tension between them on screen. Williamson gained recognition from a much wider fanbase for his performance as Merlin. A review of "Excalibur" in "The Times" in 1981 states: "The actors are led by Williamson's witty, perceptive Merlin, missed every time he's off the screen." According to Mirren, she and Williamson, free from the problems with "Macbeth", "wound up becoming very good friends" during "Excalibur".


title: Nicol Williamson

text: Some of his other notable cinematic performances include as a troubled Irish soldier in the 1968 Jack Gold film "The Bofors Gun"; in 1975 as an intelligence officer in apartheid South Africa in "The Wilby Conspiracy" (starring Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine); as Sherlock Holmes in the 1976 Herbert Ross film "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution"; and as Little John in the 1976 Richard Lester film "Robin and Marian". Additionally, he portrayed an MI6 bureaucrat in "The Human Factor" (1979) (adapted from a novel by Graham Greene); an alcoholic attorney in "I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can" (1982); a colonel in the Cincinnati Gestapo in the Neil Simon comedy "The Cheap Detective"; Lord Louis Mountbatten in "Lord Mountbatten - The Last Viceroy" (1985); the dual roles of Dr. Worley/The Nome King in "Return To Oz" (1985); Father Morning in "The Exorcist III" (1990); Badger in the 1996 movie adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows"; and as Cogliostro in the 1997 movie adaptation of Todd McFarlane's comic book "Spawn".


title: Nicol Williamson

text: Williamson made a major contribution to the documentary "John Osborne and the Gift of Friendship", recalling episodes from his long professional relationship with Osborne. Recorded excerpts of his award-winning stage performance in "Inadmissible Evidence" also feature in the video.


title: Nicol Williamson

text: Williamson was known for throwing onset tantrums and onstage antics. During the Philadelphia tryout of "Inadmissible Evidence", a play in which he delivered a performance that would win him a Tony Award nomination in 1965, he punched the equally mercurial producer David Merrick. In 1968, he apologised to the audience for his performance one night while playing Hamlet and then walked off the stage, announcing he was retiring. In the early 1970s, Williamson left "The Dick Cavett Show" prior to a scheduled appearance, leaving the host and guest Nora Ephron to fill the remaining time. In 1976, he slapped actor Jim Litten during the curtain call for the Broadway musical "Rex". In 1991, he hit co-star Evan Handler on the backside with a sword during a Broadway performance of "I Hate Hamlet".


title: Nicol Williamson

text: Following a late-night chat show appearance in which he showcased his singing talents, Williamson released an album of songs in 1971 on the CBS label (S 64045). The album contained songs such as "Didn't We", "It's Impossible" and "Help Me Make It Through the Night".


title: Nicol Williamson

text: In 1974, Williamson recorded an abridged reading of "The Hobbit" for Argo Records, authorisation for the abridgement having been provided by J.R.R. Tolkien's publisher. The recording was produced by Harley Usill. According to his official website, Williamson re-edited the original script himself, removing many occurrences of "he said", "she said", and so on, as he felt that an over-reliance on descriptive narrative would not give the desired effect; he performed each character in a distinctive voice.


title: Nicol Williamson

text: In 1971, Williamson married actress Jill Townsend, who had played his daughter in the Broadway production of "Inadmissible Evidence". They had a son, Luke, but divorced in 1977.


title: Nicol Williamson

text: Despite concerns over his health in the 1970s, Williamson admitted drinking heavily and claimed to smoke 80 cigarettes a day. In an episode of "The David Frost Show" in the 1960s, during a discussion about death, which also involved poet John Betjeman, Williamson revealed that he was very much afraid of dying, saying that "I think of death constantly, throughout the day" and that "I don't think there is anything after this, except complete oblivion."


title: Nicol Williamson

text: Williamson died on 16 December 2011, aged 75, two years after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer. In accord with Williamson's wish the news of his death was released a month later, as he did not want a fuss made over his death.


title: Nicol Williamson

text: Nicol Williamson was nominated for three BAFTA Awards, a Saturn Award, two Tony Awards, and won the Silver Shell for the Best Actor from the San Sebastián International Film Festival in 1969 for his performance in "Laughter in the Dark".


title: Shipwreck

text: A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately three million shipwrecks worldwide (an estimate rapidly endorsed by UNESCO and other organizations).


title: Shipwreck

text: When a ship's crew has died or abandoned the ship, and the ship has remained adrift but unsunk, they are instead referred to as ghost ships.


title: Shipwreck

text: Historic wrecks are attractive to maritime archaeologists because they preserve historical information: for example, studying the wreck of revealed information about seafaring, warfare, and life in the 16th century. Military wrecks, caused by a skirmish at sea, are studied to find details about the historic event; they reveal much about the battle that occurred. Discoveries of treasure ships, often from the period of European colonisation, which sank in remote locations leaving few living witnesses, such as , do occur as well.


title: Shipwreck

text: Some contemporary wrecks, such as the oil tanker "Prestige" or , are of interest primarily because of their potential harm to the environment. Other contemporary wrecks are scuttled in order to spur reef growth, such as and "Ocean Freeze". Many contemporary and historic wrecks, such as , are of interest to recreational divers that dive to shipwrecks because they are interesting to explore, provide large habitats for many types of marine life, and have an interesting history.


title: Shipwreck

text: Well known shipwrecks include the catastrophic "Titanic", , , , , , or . There are also thousands of wrecks that were not lost at sea but have been abandoned or sunk. These abandoned, or derelict ships are typically smaller craft, such as fishing vessels. They may pose a hazard to navigation and may be removed by port authorities.


title: Shipwreck

text: Poor design, improperly stowed cargo, navigation and other human errors leading to collisions (with another ship, the shoreline, an iceberg, etc.), bad weather, fire, and other causes can lead to accidental sinking. Intentional reasons for sinking a ship include: intending to form an artificial reef; destruction due to warfare, piracy, mutiny or sabotage; using the vessel for target practice; or removing a menace to navigation. A ship can be also used as breakwater structure.


title: Shipwreck

text: The above - especially the stratification (silt/sand sediments piled up on the shipwrecks) and the damages caused by marine creatures - is better described as "stratification and contamination" of shipwrecks. The stratification not only creates another challenge for marine archaeology, but also a challenge to determine its primary state, i.e. the state that it was in when it sank.


title: Shipwreck

text: Stratification includes several different types of sand and silt, as well as tumulus and encrustations. These "sediments" are tightly linked to the type of currents, depth, and the type of water (salinity, pH, etc.), which implies any chemical reactions that would affect potential cargo (such as wine, olive oil, spices, etc.).


title: Shipwreck

text: Besides this geological phenomenon, wrecks also face the damage of marine creatures that create a home out of them, primarily octopuses and crustaceans. These creatures affect the primary state because they move, or break, any parts of the shipwreck that are in their way, thereby affecting the original condition of amphorae, for example, or any other hollow places. Finally, in addition to the slight or severe destruction marine animals can create, there are also "external" contaminants, such as the artifacts on and around the wreck at Pickles Reef and the over-lapping wrecks at the Molasses Reef Wreck, or contemporary pollution in bodies of water, that severely affect shipwrecks by changing the chemical structures, or further damaging what is left of a specific ship.


title: Shipwreck

text: Despite these challenges, if the information retrieved does not appear to be sufficient, or a poor preservation is achieved, authors like J.A. Parker claim that it is the historical value of the shipwreck that counts as well as any slight piece of information or evidence that is acquired.


title: Shipwreck

text: Exposed wooden components decay quickly. Often the only wooden parts of ships that remain after a century are those that were buried in silt or sand soon after the sinking. An example of this is "Mary Rose".


title: Shipwreck

text: Steel and iron, depending on their thickness, may retain the ship's structure for decades. As corrosion takes place, sometimes helped by tides and weather, the structure collapses. Thick ferrous objects such as cannons, steam boilers or the pressure vessel of a submarine often survive well underwater in spite of corrosion.


title: Shipwreck

text: Propellers, condensers, hinges and port holes were often made from non-ferrous metals such as brass and phosphor bronze, which do not corrode easily.


title: Shipwreck

text: Shipwrecks in some freshwater lakes, such as the Great Lakes of North America, have remained intact with little degradation. In some sea areas, most notably in Gulf of Bothnia and Gulf of Finland, salinity is very low, and centuries-old wrecks have been preserved in reasonable condition. However, bacteria found in fresh water cause the wood on ships to rot more quickly than in seawater unless it is deprived of oxygen. Two shipwrecks, and , have been at the bottom of Lake Ontario since they sunk during a violent storm on August 8, 1813, during the War of 1812. They are in "remarkably good" condition.


title: Shipwreck

text: An important factor in the condition of the wreck is the level of destruction at the time of the loss or shortly afterwards due to the nature of the loss, salvage or later demolition.


title: Shipwreck

text: After the loss, the vessel's owners may attempt to salvage valuable parts of the ship and its cargo. This operation can cause further damage.


title: Shipwreck

text: Shipwrecks in shallow water near busy shipping lanes are often demolished or removed to reduce the danger to other vessels. On charts, some wreck symbols have a line under the symbol with a depth mark, which indicates the water depth above the wreck.


title: Shipwreck

text: On the seabed, wrecks are slowly broken up by the forces of wave action caused by the weather and currents caused by tides. Also more highly oxygenated water, which promotes corrosion, reduces the strength of ferrous structural materials of the ship. Deeper wrecks are likely to be protected by less exposure to water movement and by lower levels of oxygen in water.


title: Shipwreck

text: Extreme cold (such as in a glacial-fed lake, Arctic waters, the Great Lakes, etc.) slows the degradation of organic ship materials. Decay, corrosion and marine encrustation are inhibited or largely absent in cold waters.


title: Shipwreck

text: Many modern shipwrecks contribute to marine pollution, mainly as sources of significant oil spills. A 2005 survey of shipwrecks since 1890 found that over 8,500 of the submerged wrecks may still contain oil. Oil spills can have devastating effects on marine and coastal environments as well as fisheries. In addition to being toxic to marine life, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), found in crude oil, are very difficult to clean up, and last for years in the sediment and marine environment.


title: Shipwreck

text: Shipwreck pollution may also originate with a ship's cargo or munitions, such as unexploded ordnance or chemical weapons canisters. German trawler V 1302 "John Mahn", sunk in the North Sea in 1942, has multiple unexploded depth charges on board which render the wreck hazardous. Samples taken from the wreck and nearby sediment show the presence of heavy metals like nickel and copper, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, arsenic and explosive compounds into surrounding waters, which have changed the local microbial ecology.


title: Shipwreck

text: Iron and steel wrecks are subject to corrosion, which is most rapid in shallow sea water where the salinity induces galvanic corrosion, oxygen content is high and water movement replenishes the oxygen rapidly. In deeper water and in still water the corrosion rates can be greatly reduced. Corrosion rates of iron and steel are also reduced when concretions, solid layers of rust, or layers of marine organisms separate the metal from the ambient water, and encourage the development of a layer of relatively stable black oxide in the hypoxic layers.


title: Shipwreck

text: Ships that sink upright onto a sand bottom tend to settle into the sand to a similar level to that at which they would normally float at the surface. The thinner materials of the upper works tend to break up first, followed by the decks and deck beams, and the hull sides unsupported by bulkheads. The bow and stern may remain relatively intact for longer as they are usually more heavily constructed. Heavy machinery like boilers, engines, pumps, winches, propellers, propeller shafts, steering gear, anchors and other heavy fittings also last longer and can provide support to the remaining hull, or cause it to collapse more rapidly. Vessels that come to rest upside down on a yielding seabed can be relatively stable, although the upper decks usually collapse under the load and machinery and fittings fall. Wrecks that rest on their side tend to deteriorate quickly, as the loads are not what they were designed to support, and poorly supported hull sides give way fairly soon and the wreckage collapses. Wrecks supported by a rocky seabed tend to collapse over and around the rocks relatively rapidly. Submarines tend to last longer as they are built much more strongly to withstand the working loads of external pressure, and may last for centuries.


title: Shipwreck

text: Often, attempts are made to salvage shipwrecks, particularly those recently wrecked, to recover the whole or part of the ship, its cargo, or its equipment. An example was the salvage of the scuttled German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in the 1920s and 1930s. The unauthorized salvage of wrecks is called wrecking.


title: Shipwreck

text: Shipwreck law determines important legal questions regarding wrecks, perhaps the most important question being the question of ownership. Legally wrecks are divided into "wreccum maris" (material washed ashore after a shipwreck) and "adventurae maris" (material still at sea), which are treated differently by some, but not all, legal systems.


title: Shipwreck

text: Wrecks are often considered separately from their cargo. For example, in the British case of "Lusitania" [1986] QB 384 it was accepted that the remains of the vessel itself were owned by the insurance underwriters who had paid out on the vessel as a total loss by virtue of the law of subrogation (who subsequently sold their rights), but that the property aboard the wreck still belonged to its original owners or their heirs.


title: Shipwreck

text: Military wrecks, however, remain under the jurisdictionand hence protectionof the government that lost the ship, or that government's successor. Hence, a German U-boat from World War II still technically belongs to the German government, although Nazi Germany (the government at the time) is long-defunct. Many military wrecks are also protected by virtue of being war graves.


title: Shipwreck

text: However, many legal systems allow the rights of salvors to override the rights of the original owners of a wreck or its cargo. As a general rule, non-historic civilian shipwrecks are considered fair game for salvage. Under international maritime law, for shipwrecks of a certain age, the original owner may have lost all claim to the cargo. Anyone who finds the wreck can then file a salvage claim on it and place a lien on the vessel, and subsequently mount a salvage operation (see Finders, keepers). The State of North Carolina questionably claims "all photographs, video recordings, or other documentary materials of a derelict vessel or shipwreck or its contents, relics, artifacts, or historic materials in the custody of any agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions" to be its property.


title: Shipwreck

text: Some countries assert claims to all wrecks within their territorial waters, irrespective of the interest of the original owner or the salvor.


title: Shipwreck

text: Some legal systems regard a wreck and its cargo to be abandoned if no attempt is made to salvage them within a certain period of time. English law has usually resisted this notion (encouraged by an extremely large maritime insurance industry, which asserts claims in respect of shipwrecks which it has paid claims on), but it has been accepted to a greater or lesser degree in an Australian case and in a Norwegian case.


title: Shipwreck

text: The American courts have been inconsistent between states and at Federal level. Under Danish law, all shipwrecks over 150 years old belong to the state if no owner can be found. In Spain, wrecks vest in the state if not salvaged within 3 years. In Finland, all property on board shipwrecks over 100 years old vests in the state.


title: Shipwreck

text: The British Protection of Wrecks Act, enacted to protect historic wrecks, controls access to wrecks such as Cattewater Wreck which can only be visited or investigated under licence. The British Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 also restricts access to wrecks which are sensitive as war graves. The Protection of Military Remains Act in some cases creates a blanket ban on all diving; for other wrecks divers may visit provided they do not touch, interfere with or penetrate the wreck. In the United States, shipwrecks in state waters are regulated by the Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987. This act is much more lenient in allowing more open access to the shipwrecks.


title: Shipwreck

text: Following the beaching of , as a result of severe damage incurred during European storm Kyrill, there was confusion in the press and by the authorities about whether people could be prevented from helping themselves to the flotsam which was washed up on the beaches at Branscombe. Many people took advantage of the confusion and helped themselves to the cargo. This included many BMW motorbikes and empty wine casks as well as bags of disposable nappies (diapers). The legal position under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 is that any such finds and recovery must be reported within 28 days to the Receiver of Wreck. Failure to do so is an offence under the Merchant Shipping Act and can result in a criminal record for theft by finding. After several days, the police and Receiver of Wreck, in conjunction with the landowner and the contracted salvors, established a cordon to prevent access to the beach. A similar situation occurred after the wreck of in 1997.


title: Shipwreck

text: Historic wrecks (often but not always defined as being more than 50 years of age) are often protected from pillaging and looting through national laws protecting cultural heritage. Internationally they may be protected by a State ratifying the Unesco Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. In this case pillaging is not allowed. One such example is which is undergoing archaeological recovery by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources near Beaufort Inlet, NC.


title: Shipwreck

text: An important international convention aiming at the protection of underwater cultural heritage (including shipwrecks) is the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.


title: Shipwreck

text: The 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage represents the international community's response to the increasing looting and destruction of underwater cultural heritage. It forms part of a group of UNESCO standard setting instruments regarding the domain of cultural heritage, encompassing seven conventions adopted by UNESCO Member States, which constitute a coherent and complementary body guaranteeing a complete protection of all forms of cultural heritage.


title: Shipwreck

text: The UNESCO 2001 Convention is an international treaty aimed exclusively at the protection of underwater cultural heritage and the facilitation of international cooperation in this regard. It does not change sovereignty rights of States or regulate the ownership of wrecks or submerged ruins.


title: Shipwreck

text: In 2011, the most valuable cargo of a sunken shipwreck was identified near the western edge of the Celtic Sea. This World War II era sinking of led to a treasure almost deep.


title: Shipwreck

text: A U.S. federal court and a panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit have upheld the Spanish claim to the contents of the ship ; Spain took control of the treasure in February 2012. A very small number of coins and effects recovered from the ship were deposited in Gibraltar, because they showed clear signs coherent with an internal explosion on the ship and thus confirmed Spanish claims to the wreck being that of the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes. They were not returned to Spain until 2013, when a court finally ordered Odyssey Marine to return the missing pieces.


title: Shipwreck

text: Archaeologist Valerios Stais discovered one of the most notable instruments of time keeping and prediction of celestial events off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera on May 17, 1902. The device, known as the Antikythera Mechanism, is perhaps the earliest example of what would be known as today as an analog computer, and the technology it encompasses predates any other recorded description by hundreds or thousands of years.


title: Edinho (footballer, born 1970)

text: Edson Cholbi do Nascimento (born 27 August 1970), commonly known as Edinho, is a Brazilian football coach and former player who played as a goalkeeper. He is the current manager of Londrina.


title: Edinho (footballer, born 1970)

text: Edinho played for four clubs, Santos, Portuguesa Santista, São Caetano and Ponte Preta before retiring from professional football in 1999, at the age of 29.


title: Edinho (footballer, born 1970)

text: His greatest achievement was playing in the Santos side that finished runner-up in the Série A in 1995.


title: Edinho (footballer, born 1970)

text: Edinho was hired as Santos' goalkeeping coach on February 9, 2007. Until 2015, he was the team's assistant coach.


title: Edinho (footballer, born 1970)

text: On 13 April 2015, Edinho was announced as manager of Mogi Mirim, but was dismissed on 31 May. He was named in charge of Água Santa on 31 May 2016, but resigned on 19 September.


title: Edinho (footballer, born 1970)

text: On 14 October 2016, Edinho took over his father's hometown club Tricordiano for the ensuing campaign, but was relieved from his duties the following 8 February, after only two official matches.


title: Edinho (footballer, born 1970)

text: On 1 November 2019, Edinho returned to Santos as a development coordinator. In October of the following year, he was named manager of the under-23s.


title: Edinho (footballer, born 1970)

text: Edinho is the son of football legend Pelé with his first wife Rosemeri Cholbi Nascimento, who is of Brazilian-Argentinian background. Pelé's second son and Edson's brother Joshua was also a footballer; a forward, he too played for Santos' youth setup.


title: Edinho (footballer, born 1970)

text: In 2005, he was arrested for money laundering and drug trafficking. He appealed the sentence and was allowed to remain free during his appeal. In 2014, he was given a 33-year sentence for the charges but adamantly denies any involvement. A court reduced the sentence to 12 years and 10 months, but Edinho must serve his sentence in jail.


title: Edinho (footballer, born 1970)

text: In 2017, Edinho started to serve his sentence in prison, but was given the semi-open regime in the following year. In September 2019, he was given the open regime.


title: Sensory overload

text: Sensory overload occurs when one or more of the body's senses experiences over-stimulation from the environment. There are many environmental elements that affect an individual. Examples of these elements are urbanization, crowding, noise, mass media, and technology.


title: Sensory overload

text: There are a wide variety of symptoms that have been found to be associated with sensory overload. These symptoms can occur in both children and adults. Some of these symptoms are:


title: Sensory overload

text: There are many different ways to treat sensory overload. One is to reduce this tension is to participate in occupational therapy; however, there are many ways for people with symptoms to reduce it themselves. Being able to identify one's own triggers of sensory overload can help reduce, eliminate, or avoid them. Most often the quickest way to ease sensory overload symptoms is to remove oneself from the situation. Deep pressure against the skin combined with proprioceptive input that stimulates the receptors in the joints and ligaments often calms the nervous system. Reducing sensory input such as eliminating distressing sounds and lowering the lights can help. Calming, focusing on music works for some. If a quick break does not relieve the problem, an extended rest is advised. People with sensory processing issues may benefit from a sensory diet of activities and accommodations designed to prevent sensory overload and retrain the brain to process sensory input more typically. It is important in situations of sensory overload to calm oneself and return to a normal level.


title: Sensory overload

text: There are three different methods to address sensory overload: avoidance, setting limits, and meditation. The process of avoidance involves creating a more quiet and orderly environment. This includes keeping the noise to a minimum and reducing the sense of clutter. To prevent sensory overload, it is important to rest before big events and focus one's attention and energy on one thing at a time. Setting limits involves restricting the amount of time spent on various activities and selecting settings to carefully avoid crowds and noise. One may also limit interactions with specific people to help prevent sensory overload.


title: Sensory overload

text: It can be difficult to distinguish and understand information when experiencing sensory overload. Even such meaningless stimuli such as white noise or flickering lights may induce sensory overload. Sensory overload is common among consumers as many corporations compete with each other especially when advertising. Advertisers will use the best colours, words, sounds, textures, designs and much more to get the attention of a customer. This can influence the consumer, as they will be drawn to a product that is more attention grabbing. However, policy makers and advertisers must be aware that too much information or attention-grabbing products can cause sensory overload.


title: Sensory overload

text: Implications of public policy in regards to information overload have two main assumptions. The assumptions the policymakers have are, first, to assume that consumers have a great deal of processing capacity and a great deal of time to process information. Secondly, consumers can always absorb the information without serious concern about how much information has been presented. As researchers have pointed out, policymakers should better understand the difference between the process and availability of information. This will help decrease the possibility of information overload. In some cases, the time to process such information in a commercial can be 6 out of 30 seconds. This can lead consumers confused and overloaded with such fast-paced information thrown at them. To understand how consumers process information three factors must be analyzed. Factors such as the amount of information given, the source of corrective information and the way in which it is all presented to the consumer. Different types of media have different processing demands. An optimal outcome for policy makers to influence advertisers to try is to present information through a TV commercial stating simple facts about a product and then encourage the audience to check out their website for more details. Therefore, their quick processing time of a commercial was not overloaded with information thus saving the consumer from sensory overload.


title: Sensory overload

text: Consumers today are forced to learn to cope with overloading and an abundance of information, through the radio, billboards, television, newspapers and much more. Information is everywhere and being thrown at consumers from every angle and direction. Therefore, Naresh K. Malhotra, author of the paper "Information and Sensory Overload", presents the following guidelines. First, consumers must try to limit the intake of external information and sensory inputs to avoid sensory overload. This can be done by tuning out irrelevant information presented by the media and marketers to get the attention of the consumer. Second, record important information externally rather than mentally. Information can be easily forgotten mentally once the individual becomes overloaded by their sense. Thus it is recommended for a consumer to write down important information rather than store it mentally. Third, when examining a product, do not overload their senses by examining more than five products at a time. This will lead to confusion and frustration. Fourth, process information where there is less irrelevant information around. This will eliminate external information and sensory distractions such as white noise and other information presented in an environment. Finally, it is important to make consuming a pleasant and relaxed experience. This will help diminish the stress, overwhelming feeling, and experience of sensory overload.


title: Sensory overload

text: Not many studies have been done on sensory overload, but one example of a sensory overload study was reported by Lipowski (1975) as part of his research review on the topic that discussed the work done by Japanese researchers at Tohoku University. The Tohoku researchers exposed their subjects to intense visual and auditory stimuli presented randomly in a condition of confinement ranging in duration from three to five hours. Subjects showed heightened and sustained arousal as well as mood changes such as aggression, anxiety, and sadness. These results have helped open the door to further research on sensory overload.


title: Sensory overload

text: Sociologist Georg Simmel contributed to the description of sensory overload in his 1903 essay "The Metropolis and Mental Life". Simmel describes an urban landscape of constant sensory stimuli against which the city-dweller must create a barrier in order to remain sane. For Simmel, the sensory overload of modern urban life depletes the body's reservoirs of energy, leading, among other things, to a jaded or blasé [blasiert] mentality and a calculating, instrumentalizing approach to others. Simmel's approach can be compared to Freud's writings on shell shock as well as Walter Benjamin's analysis of "shock" and urban life in his 1939 essay "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire".


title: Signature

text: A signature (; from , "to sign") is a handwritten (and often stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent. The writer of a signature is a signatory or signer. Similar to a handwritten signature, a signature work describes the work as readily identifying its creator. A signature may be confused with an autograph, which is chiefly an artistic signature. This can lead to confusion when people have both an autograph and signature and as such some people in the public eye keep their signatures private whilst fully publishing their autograph.


title: Signature

text: The traditional function of a signature is to permanently affix to a document a person's uniquely personal, undeniable self-identification as physical evidence of that person's personal witness and certification of the content of all, or a specified part, of the document. For example, the role of a signature in many consumer contracts is not solely to provide evidence of the identity of the contracting party, but also to provide evidence of deliberation and informed consent. In many countries, signatures may be witnessed and recorded in the presence of a notary public to carry additional legal force. In some jurisdictions, an illiterate signatory can make a "mark" (often an "X" but occasionally a personalized symbol) on legal documents, so long as the document is countersigned by a literate witness. In some countries, illiterate people place a thumbprint on legal documents in lieu of a written signature.


title: Signature

text: In the United States, signatures encompass marks and actions of all sorts that are indicative of identity and intent. The legal rule is that unless a statute specifically prescribes a particular method of making a signature it may be made in any number of ways. These include by a mechanical or rubber stamp facsimile. A signature may be made by the purported signatory; alternatively someone else duly authorized by the signatory, acting in the signer's presence and at the signatory's direction, may make the signature.


title: Signature

text: Many individuals have much more fanciful signatures than their normal cursive writing, including elaborate ascenders, descenders and exotic flourishes, much as one would find in calligraphic writing. As an example, the final "k" in John Hancock's famous signature on the US Declaration of Independence loops back to underline his name. This kind of flourish is also known as a "paraph", a French term meaning flourish, initial or signature. The paraph is used in graphology analyses.


title: Signature

text: Several cultures whose languages use writing systems other than alphabets do not share the Western notion of signatures per se: the "signing" of one's name results in a written product no different from the result of "writing" one's name in the standard way. For these languages, to write or to sign involves the same written characters. Also see Calligraphy.


title: Signature

text: Special signature machines, called autopens, are capable of automatically reproducing an individual's signature. These are typically used by people required to sign a lot of printed matter, such as celebrities, heads of state or CEOs. More recently, Members of Congress in the United States have begun having their signature made into a TrueType font file. This allows staff members in the Congressman's office to easily reproduce it on correspondence, legislation, and official documents. In the East Asian languages of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, people traditionally use stamp-like objects known as "name-seals" with the name carved in "tensho" script ("seal script") in lieu of a handwritten signature.


title: Signature

text: A wet signature is a person's name written in their own hand with ink. Some government agencies require that professional persons or official reviewers sign originals and all copies of originals to authenticate that they personally viewed the content. In the United States this is prevalent with architectural and construction plans. Its intent is to prevent mistakes or fraud but the practice is not known to be effective.


title: Signature

text: Handwriting experts say "it is extremely difficult for anyone to be able to figure out if a signature or other very limited writing sample has been forged."


title: Signature

text: High volume review of signatures, to decide if a signature is true or forged, occurs when election offices decide whether to accept absentee ballots arriving from voters,


title: Signature

text: The highest error rates in signature verification are found with lay people, higher than for computers, which in turn make more errors than experts.


title: Signature

text: There have been concerns that signature reviews improperly reject ballots from young and minority voters at higher rates than others, with no or limited ability of voters to appeal the rejection.


title: Signature

text: A fifth of adults in the United Kingdom say they sign so rarely they have no consistent signature, including 21% of people 18-24 and 16% of people over age 55. 55% of UK adults rarely sign anything.


title: Signature

text: Researchers have published error rates for computerized signature verification. They compare different systems on a common database of true and false signatures. The best system falsely rejects 10% of true signatures, while it accepts 10% of forgeries. Another system has error rates on both of 14%, and the third-best has error rates of 17%. It is possible to be less stringent and reject fewer true signatures, at the cost of also rejecting fewer forgeries. Computer algorithms:look for a certain number of points of similarity between the compared signatures ... a wide range of algorithms and standards, each particular to that machine's manufacturer, are used to verify signatures. In addition, counties have discretion in managing the settings and implementing manufacturers' guidelines ... there are no statewide standards for automatic signature verification ... most counties do not have a publicly available, written explanation of the signature verification criteria and processes they use.


title: Signature

text: In an experiment, experts rejected 5% of true signatures and 71% of forgeries. They were doubtful about another 57% of true signatures and 27% of forgeries. If computer verification is adjusted to reflect what experts are sure about, it will wrongly reject 5% of true signatures and wrongly accept 29% of forgeries. If computers were adjusted more strictly, rejecting all signatures which experts have doubts about, the computers would set aside 62% of true signatures, and still wrongly accept 2% of forgeries. Lay people made more mistakes and were doubtful less often, though the study does not report whether their mistakes were to accept more forgeries or reject more true signatures.


title: Signature

text: Voters with short names are at a disadvantage, since experts make more mistakes on signatures with fewer "turning points and intersections." Participants in this study had 10 true signatures to compare to, which is more than most postal ballot verifications have. A more recent study for the US Department of Justice confirms the probabilistic nature of signature verification, though it does not provide numbers.


title: Signature

text: In e-mail and newsgroup usage, another type of signature exists which is independent of one's language. Users can set one or more lines of custom text known as a signature block to be automatically appended to their messages. This text usually includes a name, contact information, and sometimes quotations and ASCII art. A shortened form of a signature block, only including one's name, often with some distinguishing prefix, can be used to simply indicate the end of a post or response. Some web sites also allow graphics to be used. Note, however, that this type of signature is not related to electronic signatures or digital signatures, which are more technical in nature and not directly understandable by humans.


title: Signature

text: The signature on a painting or other work of art has always been an important item in the assessment of art. Fake signatures are sometimes added to enhance the value of a painting, or are added to a fake painting to support its authenticity. A notorious case was the signature of Johannes Vermeer on the fake "Supper at Emmaus" made by the art-forger Han van Meegeren. However, the fact that painters' signatures often vary over time (particularly in the modern and contemporary periods) might complicate the issue. The signatures of some painters take on an artistic form that may be of less value in determining forgeries.


title: Signature

text: If a painting is abstract or ambiguous, the signature can be the only clue to determine which side is the top.


title: Signature

text: Under British law, the appearance of signatures (not the names themselves) may be protected under copyright law.


title: Signature

text: Under United States copyright law, "titles, names [I c...]; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring" are not eligible for copyright; however, the appearance of signatures (not the names themselves) may be protected under copyright law.


title: Signature

text: Uniform Commercial Code §1-201(37) of the United States generally defines signed as "using any symbol executed or adopted with present intention to adopt or accept a writing." The Uniform Commercial Code §3-401(b) for negotiable instruments states "A signature may be made (i) manually or by means of a device or machine, and (ii) by the use of any name, including a trade or assumed name, or by a word, mark, or symbol executed or adopted by a person with present intention to authenticate a writing."


title: The Voice of Ukraine

text: Holos Krainy (in Ukrainian Голос країни; meaning The Voice of the Country) is a Ukrainian reality talent show that premiered on the 1+1 network on 22 May 2011. Holos Krainy is part of the international syndication "The Voice" based on the reality singing competition launched in the Netherlands as "The Voice of Holland", created by Dutch television producer John de Mol. It was the second international adaptation of the programme, after the "American version".


title: The Voice of Ukraine

text: The Voice is a reality television series that features four coaches looking for a talented new artist, who could become a global superstar. The show's concept is indicated by its title: the coaches do not judge the artists by their looks, personalities, stage presence, or dance routines—only their vocal ability. It is this aspect that differentiates The Voice from other reality television series such as The X Factor, and Ukraine's Got Talent. The competitors are split into four teams, which are mentored by the coaches who in turn choose songs for their artists to perform. There is no specific age range and anyone can audition; if a coach likes what they hear, a button press allows their chair to spin around and face the performer, signifying that they would like to mentor them. If more than one does so, then the artist selects a coach. However, if no coach turns around then the artist is sent home.


title: The Voice of Ukraine

text: There are five different stages: producers' auditions, Blind auditions, Battle phase, Knockout stage, and live shows.


title: The Voice of Ukraine

text: After preliminary casting, which is directed by the show's music producer, the selected contestants advance to the next round - the "Blind Auditions". As part of the "blind auditions", four mentors select participants for their team without seeing them, sitting with their backs to the stage and hearing only their voices. If an artist's vocal impresses one of the coaches, while the music is playing, he turns his chair towards the stage. If one coach turns to the vocalist, then the participant automatically becomes part of his/her team, if there are several, the participant chooses which team to join.


title: The Voice of Ukraine

text: As a result of this stage, 14 participants are recruited in each of the teams (56 participants in total). Starting with season 7, each coach recruits 16 participants to his/her team. In season 8, the rules change: a participant who has not deployed a single chair immediately leaves the stage, but in the ninth, this is canceled. In season 9, a "block" is introduced: a coach has the right to "block" one of the other coaches once in the entire duration of the blind auditions, that is, to prevent one coach from getting an artist into his/her team. Starting from season 11, the block button was removed.


title: The Voice of Ukraine

text: The coach divides 14 members of his team into 7 duets, which will fight for further participation in the show. He provides each duet with a composition for performance, which will be performed in a special "vocal ring". After the duo's performance, each coach listens to the opinions of other mentors and chooses the winner of the battle. The loser is eliminated from the show. Starting from season 3, coaches have the opportunity to "steal" one participant from another team who lost a battle, saving him from being kicked out of the show.


title: The Voice of Ukraine

text: From season 7, a new rule is added - the steal room. This was first adopted in the seventh season of The Voice of Holland. If the mentor "stole" one of the participants, then he goes to a special room, in which he sits on a chair corresponding to the mentor who "stole" him. If then the same mentor saves another participant, then the one currently seated gives him a seat on the chair and is eventually eliminated. At the end of this stage, each of the teams, starting from season 3, remains 8 participants - seven point winners and one rescued participant from the other team (32 participants in total). In seasons 1 and 2, 7 participants remained in the teams. From season 7, 9 members remain.


title: The Voice of Ukraine

text: In season 3, a new stage appeared - "Super Battles" ("Knockouts"). The participants who remained after the vocal battles are distributed by the mentor into pairs (4 pairs from each team). At this stage, the participants themselves choose the compositions with which they will fight for participation in live broadcasts. Also, in each pair, the participants perform separately, in turn. In each knockout, the mentor determines the winner - the artist who will perform live - and the loser - the participant who will leave the show.


title: The Voice of Ukraine

text: Starting from season 6, the trainer does not divide the participants into pairs, but “chairs” are introduced. After the participant's performance, the mentor either offers to give the artist a chair or immediately sends him home. Only half - the best 16 - go to the next stage. Starting from season 10, each mentor has the opportunity to "steal" one member from the other team, whom the mentor sent to the "spare lava". The top 20 go to the next stage. In season 11, one eliminated artist from each team will be saved by public voting.


title: The Voice of Ukraine

text: On live broadcasts, the participants perform solo. The further participation of artists in the project is decided by viewers by SMS voting. The participant with the largest number of audience votes in each team automatically goes to the next round, and the coach selects one of the remaining 3 or 4 participants in the project. In the Semi-final of the project, the participants who will go further are determined by the sum of points from the audience (as a percentage of votes per team) and a mentor (who distributes 100% between their wards). Each team in the Superfinal is represented by one participant. The final voting takes place in three rounds, in each of which one participant is eliminated. Votes are canceled after each round. The participant who takes first place in the final vote becomes the winner of the show.


title: The Voice of Ukraine

text: The winner receives a contract with the record company Universal Music. Since the seventh season, the rules have changed. Now the winner of the show gets an apartment in Kyiv.


title: Althea Gibson

text: Althea Neale Gibson (August 25, 1927September 28, 2003) was an American tennis player and professional golfer, and one of the first Black athletes to cross the color line of international tennis. In 1956, she became the first African American to win a Grand Slam title (the French Championships). The following year she won both Wimbledon and the US Nationals (precursor of the US Open), then won both again in 1958 and was voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in both years. In all, she won 11 Grand Slam tournaments: five singles titles, five doubles titles, and one mixed doubles title. Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. "She is one of the greatest players who ever lived", said Bob Ryland, a tennis contemporary and former coach of Venus and Serena Williams. "Martina [Navratilova] couldn't touch her. I think she'd beat the Williams sisters." In the early 1960s she also became the first Black player to compete on the Women's Professional Golf Tour.


title: Althea Gibson

text: At a time when racism and prejudice were widespread in sports and in society, Gibson was often compared to Jackie Robinson. "Her road to success was a challenging one", said Billie Jean King, "but I never saw her back down." "To anyone, she was an inspiration, because of what she was able to do at a time when it was enormously difficult to play tennis at all if you were Black", said former New York City Mayor David Dinkins. "I am honored to have followed in such great footsteps", wrote Venus Williams. "Her accomplishments set the stage for my success, and through players like myself and Serena and many others to come, her legacy will live on."


title: Althea Gibson

text: Gibson was born on August 25, 1927, in the town of Silver, in Clarendon County, South Carolina, to Daniel and Annie Bell Gibson, who worked as sharecroppers on a cotton farm. The Great Depression hit rural southern farmers sooner than much of the rest of the country, so in 1930 the family moved to Harlem, as part of the Great Migration, where Althea's three sisters and brother were born. Their apartment was located on a stretch of 143rd Street (between Lenox Avenue and Seventh Avenue) that had been designated a Police Athletic League play area; during daylight hours it was barricaded so that neighborhood children could play organized sports. Gibson quickly became proficient in paddle tennis, and by 1939, at the age of 12, she was the New York City women's paddle tennis champion. Gibson quit school at the age of 13 and, using the boxing skills taught to her by her father, engaged in a life of what she would later refer to as "street fighting", girls basketball, and watching movies. Fearful of her father's violent behavior, after dropping out of school, she spent some time living in a Catholic protective shelter for abused children.


title: Althea Gibson

text: In 1940 a group of Gibson's neighbors took up a collection to finance a junior membership and lessons at the Cosmopolitan Tennis Club in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem. At first, Gibson didn't like tennis, a sport she thought was for weak people. As she explained, "I kept wanting to fight the other player every time I started to lose a match." In 1941 she entered—and won—her first tournament, the American Tennis Association (ATA) New York State Championship. She won the ATA national championship in the girls' division in 1944 and 1945, and after losing in the women's final in 1946, won her first of ten straight national ATA women's titles in 1947. "I knew that I was an unusual, talented girl, through the grace of God," she wrote. "I didn't need to prove that to myself. I only wanted to prove it to my opponents."


title: Althea Gibson

text: Gibson's ATA success drew the attention of Walter Johnson, a Lynchburg, Virginia, physician who was active in the African American tennis community. Under Johnson's patronage—he would later mentor Arthur Ashe as well—Gibson gained access to more advanced instruction and more important competitions, and later, to the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA, later known as the USTA). In 1946 she moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, under the sponsorship of another physician and tennis activist, Hubert A. Eaton and enrolled at the racially segregated Williston Industrial High School. In 1949 she became the first Black woman, and the second Black athlete (after Reginald Weir), to play in the USTA's National Indoor Championships, where she reached the quarter-finals. Later that year she entered Florida A&M University (FAMU) on a full athletic scholarship and was a member of the Beta Alpha chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.


title: Althea Gibson

text: Despite her growing reputation as an elite-level player, Gibson was effectively barred from entering the premier American tournament, the United States National Championships (now the US Open) at Forest Hills. While USTA rules officially prohibited racial or ethnic discrimination, players qualified for the Nationals by accumulating points at sanctioned tournaments, most of which were held at white-only clubs. In 1950, in response to intense lobbying by ATA officials and retired champion Alice Marble—who published a scathing open letter in the magazine "American Lawn Tennis"—Gibson became the first Black player to receive an invitation to the Nationals, where she made her Forest Hills debut a few days after her 23rd birthday. Although she lost narrowly in the second round in a rain-delayed, three-set match to Louise Brough, the reigning Wimbledon champion and former US National winner, her participation received extensive national and international coverage. "No Negro player, man or woman, has ever set foot on one of these courts", wrote journalist Lester Rodney at the time. "In many ways, it is even a tougher personal Jim Crow-busting assignment than was Jackie Robinson's when he first stepped out of the Brooklyn Dodgers dugout."


title: Althea Gibson

text: In 1951 Gibson won her first international title, the Caribbean Championships in Jamaica, and later that year became one of the first Black competitors at Wimbledon, where she was defeated in the third round by Beverly Baker. In 1952 she was ranked seventh nationally by the USTA. In the spring of 1953 she graduated from Florida A&M and took a job teaching physical education at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. During her two years at Lincoln she became romantically involved with an Army officer whom she never named publicly, and considered enlisting in the Women's Army Corps, but decided against it when the State Department sent her on a goodwill tour of Asia in 1955 to play exhibition matches with Ham Richardson, Bob Perry, and Karol Fageros. Many Asians in the countries they visited—Burma, Ceylon, India, Pakistan, and Thailand—"felt an affinity to Althea as a woman of color and were delighted to see her as part of an official US delegation. With the United States grappling over the question of race, they turned to Althea for answers, or at least to get a firsthand perspective." Gibson, for her part, strengthened her confidence immeasurably during the six-week tour. When it was over, she remained abroad, winning 16 of 18 tournaments in Europe and Asia against many of the world's best players.


title: Althea Gibson

text: In 1956, Gibson became the first African-American athlete to win a Grand Slam tournament, the French Championships singles event. She also won the doubles title, partnered with Briton Angela Buxton. Later in the season she won the Wimbledon doubles championship (again with Buxton), the Italian Championships in Rome, the Indian Championships in New Delhi and the Asian championship in Ceylon. She also reached the quarter-finals in singles at Wimbledon and the finals at the US Nationals, losing both to Shirley Fry.


title: Althea Gibson

text: The 1957 season was, in her own words, "Althea Gibson's year". In July Gibson was seeded first at Wimbledon—considered at the time the "world championship of tennis"—and defeated Darlene Hard in the finals for the singles title. She was the first Black champion in the tournament's 80-year history, and the first champion to receive the trophy personally from Queen Elizabeth II. "Shaking hands with the Queen of England", she said, "was a long way from being forced to sit in the colored section of the bus." She won the doubles championship as well, for the second year. Upon her return home Gibson became only the second Black American, after Jesse Owens, to be honored with a ticker tape parade in New York City, and Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. presented her with the Bronze Medallion, the city's highest civilian award. A month later she defeated Louise Brough in straight sets to win her first US National Championship. "Winning Wimbledon was wonderful", she wrote, "and it meant a lot to me. But there is nothing quite like winning the championship of your own country." In all she reached the finals of eight Grand Slam events in 1957, winning the Wimbledon and US National singles titles, the Wimbledon and Australian doubles championships, and the US mixed doubles crown, and finishing second in Australian singles, US doubles, and Wimbledon mixed doubles. At season's end she broke yet another barrier as the first Black player on the US Wightman Cup team, which defeated Great Britain 6–1. With Gibson winning her last 55 matches of the season, plus her first 2 matches in 1958, she won 57 matches in a row.


title: Althea Gibson

text: In 1958, Gibson successfully defended her Wimbledon and US National singles titles, and won her third straight Wimbledon doubles championship, with a third different partner. She was the number-one-ranked woman in the world and in the United States in both 1957 and 1958, and was named Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in both years, garnering over 80% of the votes in 1958. She also became the first Black woman to appear on the covers of "Sports Illustrated" and "Time".


title: Althea Gibson

text: In late 1958, having won 56 national and international singles and doubles titles, Gibson retired from amateur tennis. Prior to the Open Era there was no prize money at major tournaments, and direct endorsement deals were prohibited. Players were limited to meager expense allowances, strictly regulated by the USTA. "The truth, to put it bluntly, is that my finances were in heartbreaking shape", she wrote. "Being the Queen of Tennis is all well and good, but you can't eat a crown. Nor can you send the Internal Revenue Service a throne clipped to their tax forms. The landlord and grocer and tax collector are funny that way: they like cold cash ... I reign over an empty bank account, and I'm not going to fill it by playing amateur tennis." Professional tours for women were still 15 years away, so her opportunities were largely limited to promotional events. In 1959 she signed to play a series of exhibition matches against Fageros before Harlem Globetrotter basketball games. When the tour ended she won the singles and doubles titles at the Pepsi Cola World Pro Tennis Championships in Cleveland, but received only $500 in prize money.


title: Althea Gibson

text: During this period, Gibson also pursued her long-held aspirations in the entertainment industry. A talented vocalist and saxophonist—and runner-up in the Apollo Theater's amateur talent contest in 1943—she made her professional singing debut at W. C. Handy's 84th-birthday tribute at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1957. An executive from Dot Records was impressed with her performance, and signed her to record an album of popular standards. "Althea Gibson Sings" was released in 1959, and Gibson performed two of its songs on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in May and July of that year, but sales were disappointing. She appeared as a celebrity guest on the TV panel show "What's My Line?" and was cast as an enslaved woman in the John Ford motion picture "The Horse Soldiers" (1959), which was notable for her refusal to speak in the stereotypic "Negro" dialect mandated by the script. She also worked as a sports commentator, appeared in print and television advertisements for various products, and increased her involvement in social issues and community activities. In 1960 her first memoir, "I Always Wanted to Be Somebody", written with sportswriter Ed Fitzgerald, was published.


title: Althea Gibson

text: Her professional tennis career, however, was going nowhere. "When I looked around me, I saw that white tennis players, some of whom I had thrashed on the court, were picking up offers and invitations", she wrote. "Suddenly it dawned on me that my triumphs had not destroyed the racial barriers once and for all, as I had—perhaps naively—hoped. Or if I did destroy them, they had been erected behind me again." She also noted that she repeatedly applied for membership in the All-England Club, based on her status as a Wimbledon champion, but was never accepted. (Her doubles partner, Angela Buxton, who was Jewish, was also repeatedly denied membership.)


title: Althea Gibson

text: In 1964, at the age of 37, Gibson became the first African-American woman to join the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour. Racial discrimination continued to be a problem: Many hotels still excluded people of color, and country club officials throughout the south—and some in the north—routinely refused to allow her to compete. When she did compete, she was often forced to dress for tournaments in her car because she was banned from the clubhouse. Although she was one of the LPGA's top 50 money winners for five years, and won a car at a Dinah Shore tournament, her lifetime golf earnings never exceeded $25,000.


title: Althea Gibson

text: While she broke course records during individual rounds in several tournaments, Gibson's highest ranking was 27th in 1966, and her best tournament finish was a tie for second after a three-way playoff at the 1970 Len Immke Buick Open. She retired from professional golf at the end of the 1978 season. "Althea might have been a real player of consequence had she started when she was young", said Judy Rankin. "She came along during a difficult time in golf, gained the support of a lot of people, and quietly made a difference."


title: Althea Gibson

text: In 1976 Gibson made it to the finals of the ABC television program "Superstars", finishing first in basketball shooting and bowling, and runner-up in softball throwing. With the advent of the Open Era she began entering major tennis tournaments again; but by then, in her forties, she was unable to compete effectively against younger players. She also attempted a golf comeback, in 1987 at age 60, with the goal of becoming the oldest active tour player, but was unable to regain her tour card. In a second memoir, "So Much to Live For", she articulated her disappointments, including unfulfilled aspirations, the paucity of endorsements and other professional opportunities, and the many obstacles of all sorts that were thrown in her path over the years.


title: Althea Gibson

text: In 1972 she began running Pepsi Cola's national mobile tennis project, which brought portable nets and other equipment to underprivileged areas in major cities. She ran multiple other clinics and tennis outreach programs over the next three decades, and coached numerous rising competitors, including Leslie Allen and Zina Garrison. "She pushed me as if I were a pro, not a junior", wrote Garrison in her 2001 memoir. "I owe the opportunity I received to her."


title: Althea Gibson

text: In the early 1970s, Gibson began directing women's sports and recreation for the Essex County Parks Commission in New Jersey. In 1976 she was appointed New Jersey's athletic commissioner, the first woman in the country to hold such a role, but resigned after one year due to lack of autonomy, budgetary oversight, and adequate funding. "I don't wish to be a figurehead", she said. In 1977 she challenged incumbent Essex County State Senator Frank J. Dodd in the Democratic primary for his seat. She came in second behind Dodd, but ahead of Assemblyman Eldridge Hawkins. Gibson went on to manage the Department of Recreation in East Orange, New Jersey. She also served on the State Athletic Control Board and became supervisor of the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.


title: Althea Gibson

text: She married her best friend Rosemary Darben's brother William in 1965. His income helped supplement the proceeds she received through various sponsorship deals. The marriage ended in 1976. In 1983 she married tennis coach Sydney Llewellyn. That marriage also ended in divorce. She had no children.


title: Althea Gibson

text: In the late 1980s Gibson suffered two cerebral hemorrhages, followed by a stroke in 1992. Ongoing medical expenses left her in dire financial circumstances. She reached out to multiple tennis organizations requesting help, but none responded. Former doubles partner Angela Buxton made Gibson's plight known to the tennis community, and raised nearly $1 million in donations from around the world.


title: Althea Gibson

text: Gibson survived a heart attack in 2003, but died on September 28 that year from complications following respiratory and bladder infections. Her body was interred in the Rosedale Cemetery, Orange, New Jersey, near her first husband Will Darben.


title: Althea Gibson

text: It would be 15 years before another non-White woman—Evonne Goolagong, in 1971—won a Grand Slam championship; and 43 years before another African American woman, Serena Williams, won her first of six US Opens in 1999, not long after faxing a letter and list of questions to Gibson. Serena's sister Venus then won back-to-back titles at Wimbledon and the US Open in 2000 and 2001, repeating Gibson's accomplishment of 1957 and 1958.


title: Althea Gibson

text: A decade after Gibson's last triumph at the US Nationals, Arthur Ashe became the first African American man to win a Grand Slam singles title, at the 1968 US Open. Billie Jean King said, "If it hadn't been for [Althea], it wouldn't have been so easy for Arthur, or the ones who followed."


title: Althea Gibson

text: In 1980 Gibson became one of the first six inductees into the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame, placing her on par with such pioneers as Amelia Earhart, Wilma Rudolph, Gertrude Ederle, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, and Patty Berg. Other inductions included the National Lawn Tennis Hall of Fame, the International Tennis Hall of Fame, the Florida Sports Hall of Fame, the Black Athletes Hall of Fame, the Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey, the New Jersey Hall of Fame, the International Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame, and the National Women's Hall of Fame. She received a Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.


title: Althea Gibson

text: In 1991 Gibson became the first woman to receive the Theodore Roosevelt Award, the highest honor from the National Collegiate Athletic Association; she was cited for "symbolizing the best qualities of competitive excellence and good sportsmanship, and for her significant contributions to expanding opportunities for women and minorities through sports." "Sports Illustrated for Women" named her to its list of the "100 Greatest Female Athletes".


title: Althea Gibson

text: In a 1977 historical analysis of women in sports, "The New York Times" columnist William C. Rhoden wrote, Althea Gibson and Wilma Rudolph are, without question, the most significant athletic forces among Black women in sports history. While Rudolph's accomplishments brought more "visibility" to women as athletes ... Althea's accomplishments were more "revolutionary" because of the psychosocial impact on Black America. Even to those Blacks who hadn't the slightest idea of where or what Wimbledon was, her victory, like Jackie Robinson's in baseball and Jack Johnson's in boxing, proved again that Blacks, when given an opportunity, could compete at any level in American society.


title: Althea Gibson

text: On opening night of the 2007 US Open, the 50th anniversary of her first victory at its predecessor, the US National Championships, Gibson was inducted into the US Open Court of Champions. "It was the quiet dignity with which Althea carried herself during the turbulent days of the 1950s that was truly remarkable," said USTA president Alan Schwartz, at the ceremony:[Her] legacy ... lives on, not only in the stadiums of professional tournaments, but also in schools and parks throughout the nation. Every time a Black child or a Hispanic child or an Islamic child picks up a tennis racket for the first time, Althea touches another life. When she began playing, less than five percent of tennis newcomers were minorities. Today, some 30 percent are minorities, two-thirds of whom are African American. This is her legacy.


title: Althea Gibson

text: Gibson's five Wimbledon trophies are displayed at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. The Althea Gibson Cup seniors tournament is held annually in Croatia, under the auspices of the International Tennis Federation (ITF). The Althea Gibson Foundation identifies and supports gifted golf and tennis players who live in urban environments. In 2005 Gibson's friend Bill Cosby endowed the Althea Gibson Scholarship at her alma mater, Florida A&M University.


title: Althea Gibson

text: In September 2009, Wilmington, North Carolina, named its new community tennis court facility the Althea Gibson Tennis Complex at Empie Park. Other tennis facilities named in her honor include those at Manning High School (near her birthplace in Silver, South Carolina), the Family Circle Tennis Center in Charleston, South Carolina, Florida A&M University, and Branch Brook Park in Newark, New Jersey. In 2012 a bronze statue, created by sculptor Thomas Jay Warren, was dedicated to her memory in Branch Brook Park. In August 2013, the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp honoring Gibson, the 36th in its Black Heritage series. A documentary titled "Althea", produced for the American Masters Series on PBS, premiered in September 2015.


title: Althea Gibson

text: In November 2017, the Council of Paris inaugurated the "Gymnase Althea Gibson", a public multisport gymnasium in the 12th arrondissement of Paris.


title: Althea Gibson

text: In 2018, the USTA unanimously voted to erect a statue honoring Gibson at Flushing Meadows, site of the US Open. The statue, created by sculptor Eric Goulder and unveiled in 2019, is only the second Flushing Meadows monument erected in honor of a champion. "Althea reoriented the world and changed our perceptions of what is possible," said Goulder. "We are still struggling. But she broke the ground."


title: Althea Gibson

text: "I hope that I have accomplished just one thing", she said, in her 1958 retirement speech, "that I have been a credit to tennis, and to my country." "By all measures," reads the inscription on her Newark statue, "Althea Gibson certainly attained that goal."


title: Althea Gibson

text: Big Boy Films has acquired the life rights to Althea Gibson's life as well as Althea's memoir I Always Wanted To Be Somebody, the only authorized biography Born To Win by Francis Clayton Gray and Yannick Rice and has an exclusive partnership with The Gibson Estate to produce a feature film about Althea's life. The film is currently in development with EGOT winner Whoopi Goldberg, Sam Feuer, Reuben Cannon and Meyer Shwarzstein of Brainstorm Media is producing a script currently written by Academy Award winner Geoffrey S. Fletcher.


title: Flak jacket

text: A flak jacket or flak vest is a form of body armor. A flak jacket is designed to provide protection from case fragments ("frag") from high explosive weaponry, such as anti-aircraft artillery ("flak" is a German contraction for , "aircraft-defense gun"), grenades fragments, some types of pellets used in shotguns, and other lower-velocity projectiles. It is not designed to protect against bullets fired from most small arms such as rifles or handguns. However, certain flak jackets are able to sustain certain gunshots, depending on the armor, the projectile, the angle at which the shot was fired (an oblique angle for example), and the range from which the shot was fired.


title: Flak jacket

text: The term "flak jacket" is often colloquially applied to newer body armor featuring protection against small arms projectiles, but the original usage predated the existence of modern and more resistant bulletproof vests and the two are not interchangeable in performance.


title: Flak jacket

text: Anecdotes describing garments designed to protect the wearer from penetrating weapons can be found far back into recorded history. Two types of protective garment from the American Civil War in the 1860s had a basic design similar to the flak jacket or ballistic armor of modern times in that solid plates were used as the main ballistic protection. The "Soldiers' Bullet Proof Vest" was manufactured by the G. & D. Cook & Company of New Haven, Connecticut. It consisted of two pieces of steel inserted into the pockets of a regular black military vest. Versions for infantry weighed 3 ½ pounds while a version for cavalry and artillery weighed 7 pounds. They sold for $5–7. A more medieval-looking type of armor was made by the Atwater Armor Company, also of New Haven. It consisted of four large plates of steel held on the body by broad metal hooks over the shoulders and a belt around the waist. The Atwater vest was heavier than the Cook models and cost about twice as much.


title: Flak jacket

text: During World War I, a number of British and American officers recognized that many casualties could be avoided if effective armor were available. Isolated efforts at developing armor were made, and soldiers could make individual purchases or efforts, but there was no armor issued to the troops. As it is today, issues of weight, cost, availability of materials and/or environmental stability complicated the issue of developing armor that would also be effective. For example, soft armor made of silk was tried on a small scale based on Japanese designs, but this material did not last well under harsh environmental conditions.


title: Flak jacket

text: The first usage of the term "flak jacket" refers to the armor originally developed by the Wilkinson Sword company during World War II to help protect Royal Air Force (RAF) aircrew from the flying debris and shell fragments thrown by German anti-aircraft guns' high-explosive shells (flak itself is an abbreviation for the German word "Fliegerabwehrkanone" ("aircraft-defense gun")). The idea for the flak jacket came from Col. Malcolm C. Grow, Surgeon of the US Eighth Air Force in Britain. He thought that many wounds he was treating could have been prevented by some kind of light armor. In 1943 he was awarded the Legion of Merit for developing the flak vest.


title: Flak jacket

text: Unfortunately, flak jackets proved to be too bulky for wear within the confines of the RAF's standard bomber aircraft, the Avro Lancaster. The Royal Air Force subsequently offered the jackets to the United States Army Air Forces, which adopted them as a Defense Standard. The UK subsequently supplied the USAAF with 9,600 flak jackets under reverse lend-lease.


title: Flak jacket

text: During World War II, flak jackets and steel helmets were worn by US Navy personnel on aircraft carriers during battle, since the ships and especially their flight decks offered little protection for their crew. The jackets were supposed to protect against shell fragments and heat.


title: Flak jacket

text: Col. Grow’s request to the Wilkinson Sword company was to develop a vest that could stop a .45 caliber round fired at close range. Although flak jackets offered some protection against small caliber bullets and shell fragments, ultimately they proved to be less effective than hoped. Flak jackets are now generally considered to be inferior to modern ballistic vests.


title: Flak jacket

text: It was claimed that the M-1951 flak jacket could stop a 90 grain 7.62×25mm Tokarev pistol round at the muzzle of the gun. However, even the Vietnam era revised flak jacket was not capable to stop high power pistol rounds, even less an AK-47 rifle bullet (7.62×39mm). Nevertheless, it did a good job of stopping shell blasts, flying debris, grenade fragments, ricochets, mild power pistol rounds and sometimes stray rifle bullets fired from a very long distance.


title: Flak jacket

text: Although they were not tested to be compliant with the NIJ standards, the Army's M1952a & M69 ballistic nylon Flak Jackets performed slightly better than NIJ level 1 body armor.


title: Flak jacket

text: It was not until 1970 that the U.S. National Institute of Justice, which now publishes test and performance standards for body armor, began a deliberate program to develop body armor for law enforcement personnel that would be effective against specific threats that were common causes of officer injury and death. At the time that included .38 Special and .22 Long Rifle bullets, in particular, and also bullets from 9mm, .45, and .32 caliber firearms.


title: Flak jacket

text: The first flak jackets consisted of manganese steel plates sewn into a waistcoat made of ballistic nylon (a material engineered by the DuPont company); therefore, flak jackets functioned as an evolved form of plate armor or brigandine. The first flak jacket weighed 22 pounds.


title: Flak jacket

text: During the Korean and Vietnam wars, the flak jacket was changed and the manganese steel plates were replaced by other materials. The U.S. Army's vests (Body Armor, Fragmentation Protective, Vest M69) weighed under eight pounds and were made of 12 layers of ballistic nylon. The vests used by the U.S. Marines (Vest, Armored M-1955) weighed more than ten pounds and were a combination of ballistic nylon layers and fiberglass plates known as Doron. Doron was made of fiberglass fibers placed in an ethyl cellulose resin under high pressure. It was named after then-Colonel Georges F. Doriot, then director of the Military Planning Division, Office of the Quartermaster General.


title: Flak jacket

text: The generation of armor developed in the 1970s through the National Institute of Justice incorporated layers of soft armor in the form of DuPont’s Kevlar fabric, which has since become synonymous with ballistic protection and a general term used for several similar (aramid-based) materials.


title: Maggot Brain

text: Maggot Brain is the third studio album by the American funk rock band Funkadelic, released by Westbound Records in July 1971. It was produced by band leader George Clinton and recorded at United Sound Systems in Detroit during late 1970 and early 1971. It was the final album recorded by the original Funkadelic lineup; after its release, original members Tawl Ross (guitar), Billy Nelson (bass), and Tiki Fulwood (drums) left the band for various reasons.


title: Maggot Brain

text: The album charted in the R&B Top 20. Today, it is perhaps best known for its 10-minute title track, performed by guitarist Eddie Hazel. "Pitchfork" named it the 17th best album of the 1970s. In 2020, "Rolling Stone" ranked "Maggot Brain" the 136th greatest album of all time in its updated list.


title: Maggot Brain

text: The album opens with a spoken word monologue by band leader George Clinton, which refers to "the maggots in the mind of the universe". According to legend, the 10-minute title track was recorded in one take when Clinton, under the influence of LSD, told guitarist Eddie Hazel to play as if he had been told his mother was dead: Clinton instructed him "to picture that day, what he would feel, how he would make sense of his life, how he would take a measure of everything that was inside him and let it out through his guitar". Though several other musicians performed on the track, Clinton largely faded them out of the final mix so that the focus would be on Hazel's guitar. Hazel utilized fuzz and wah effects, inspired by his idol Jimi Hendrix; Clinton subsequently added delay and other effects in mixdown, saying "I Echoplexed it back on itself three or four times. That gave the whole thing an eerie feel, both in the playing and in the sound effects." Critics have described the solo as "lengthy, mind-melting" and "an emotional apocalypse of sound."