title: Vithoba

text: There are three versions of the Pundalik legend, two of which are attested as textual variants of the Skanda Purana (1.34–67). According to the first, the ascetic Pundarika (Pundalik) is described as a devotee of god Vishnu and dedicated to the service of his parents. The god Gopala-Krishna, a form of Vishnu, comes from Govardhana as a cowherd, accompanied by his grazing cows, to meet Pundarika. Krishna is described as in "digambar" form, wearing "makara-kundala", the "srivatsa" mark (described above), a head-dress of peacock feathers, resting his hands on his waist and keeping his cow-stick between his thighs. Pundarika asks Krishna to remain in this form on the banks of the river Bhima. He believes that Krishna's presence will make the site a "tirtha" and a "kshetra". The location is identified with modern-day Pandharpur, which is situated on the banks of the Bhima. The description of Krishna resembles the characteristics of the Pandharpur image of Vithoba.


title: Vithoba

text: The second version of the legend depicts Vithoba appearing before Pundalik as the five-year-old Bala Krishna (infant Krishna). This version is found in manuscripts of both Puranas, Prahlada Maharaj, and the poet-saints, notably Tukaram. The remaining version of the Pundalik legend appears in Sridhara and as a variant in the Padma Purana. Pundalik, a Brahmin madly in love with his wife, neglected his aged parents as a result. Later, on meeting sage Kukkuta, Pundalik underwent a transformation and devoted his life to the service of his aged parents. Meanwhile, Radha, the milkmaid-lover of Krishna, came to Dwarka, the kingdom of Krishna, and sat on his lap. Radha did not honour Rukmini, the chief queen of Krishna, nor did Krishna hold Radha accountable for the offence. Offended, Rukmini left Krishna and went to the forest of Dandivana near Pandharpur. Saddened by Rukmini's departure, Krishna searched for his queen and finally found her resting in Dandivana, near Pundalik's house. After some coaxing, Rukmini was pacified. Then Krishna visited Pundalik and found him serving his parents. Pundalik threw a brick outside for Krishna to rest on. Krishna stood on the brick and waited for Pundalik. After completing his services, Pundalik asked that his Lord, in Vithoba form, remain on the brick with Rukmini, in Rakhumai form, and bless His devotees forever.


title: Vithoba

text: Other legends describe Vithoba coming to the rescue of his devotees in the form of a commoner, an outcast Mahar "untouchable" or a Brahmin beggar. Mahipati, in his work "Pandurangastrotra", narrates how Vithoba helped female saints like Janabai in their daily chores, such as sweeping the house and pounding the rice. He narrates how Vithoba came to the aid of Sena the barber. The king of Bidar had ordered Sena to be arrested for not coming to the palace despite royal orders. As Sena was engrossed in his prayers to Vithoba, Vithoba went to the palace in the form of Sena to serve the king, and Sena was saved. Another tale deals with a saint, Damaji, the keeper of the royal grain store, who distributed grain to the people in famine. Vithoba came as an outcaste with a bag of gold to pay for the grain. Yet another story narrates how Vithoba resurrected the child of Gora Kumbhar (potter), who had been trampled into the clay by Gora while singing the name of Vithoba.


title: Phil Bronstein

text: Phil Bronstein (born October 4, 1950) is an American journalist and editor. He serves as executive chair of the board for the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, California. He is best known for his work as a war correspondent and investigative journalist. In 1986, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the fall of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Later, he held leadership positions with the "San Francisco Examiner", "San Francisco Chronicle", and Hearst Newspapers Corporation.


title: Phil Bronstein

text: Bronstein was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 4, 1950. He is the father of Roan Joseph Bronstein.


title: Phil Bronstein

text: As a child, Bronstein's family moved frequently. Much of his youth was spent in Montreal, Canada. Eventually, he settled in California. Bronstein attended but did not graduate from the University of California, Davis. While at Davis, he got his first taste of journalism. He wrote movie reviews for the school paper.


title: Phil Bronstein

text: He went on to report from conflict areas around the world as a foreign correspondent for eight years, such as Peru, the Middle East, El Salvador and the Philippines.


title: Phil Bronstein

text: In 1991, Bronstein was promoted to the executive editor position at the "Examiner". He held that position until 2000. When an alligator escaped into a city lake in 1996, Bronstein arrived in scuba gear to assist with the capture, but police turned him away.


title: Phil Bronstein

text: Hearst Corporation, the parent company of the "Examiner", bought the "San Francisco Chronicle" in 2000. The "Chronicle" was the other major daily paper for the San Francisco Bay Area. Hearst already owned the "Examiner" and chose to merge the two newsrooms. Bronstein became senior vice president and executive editor of the "Chronicle" in November 2000. Bronstein was editor after the merger, which occurred at the same time as a general decline in the newspaper industry, making the job even more difficult. Bronstein made staffing changes, created new features, and attempted to bring the "Chronicle" into the Internet age, all while preserving the Bay Area cultural viewpoint. In the first two years after the merger, staff was reduced from 520 to 485 and there was less content within the daily paper.


title: Phil Bronstein

text: In January 2008, Hearst Corporation announced Bronstein as editor-at-large for both the "Chronicle" and Hearst Newspapers. In his new role, Bronstein wrote a weekly column for the "Chronicle". He also wrote blog entries for SFGate.com. At the "Chronicle", he was replaced as editor by "Arizona Republic" editor Ward Bushee.


title: Phil Bronstein

text: Bronstein left Hearst Newspapers and the "Chronicle" in March 2012. He had been named chairman of the board for the Center for Investigative Reporting in 2011. Upon leaving the "Chronicle", his role at the Center expanded.


title: Phil Bronstein

text: Bronstein married actress Sharon Stone on February 14, 1998. They were unable to conceive children as Stone suffered from an autoimmune disease, resulting in three miscarriages. They adopted a baby son, Roan Joseph Bronstein in 2000. The couple separated in 2003. They completed their divorce on January 29, 2004. At first, Stone and Bronstein shared joint custody of their adopted son, Roan. In 2008, a judge gave Bronstein full custody of their son.


title: Phil Bronstein

text: In 2001, Bronstein was attacked by a Komodo dragon at the Los Angeles Zoo. He was on a private tour, and a keeper had invited him into the enclosure. Bronstein was bitten on his bare foot, as the keeper had told him to take off his white shoes and socks, which the keeper stated could excite the Komodo dragon as they were the same color as the white rats the zoo fed the dragon. Although he escaped, Bronstein needed to have several tendons in his foot reattached surgically.


title: Phil Bronstein

text: In 2006, Bronstein married Christine Borders, the daughter of Borders Book Store co-founder Louis Borders. She is the founder of "A Band of Wives," a social network for women. The couple have two children.


title: Phil Bronstein

text: In 1986, Bronstein was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos, long-standing dictator of the Philippines. Bronstein's work in the Philippines also earned him awards from the Associated Press, the Overseas Press Club, the World Affairs Council, and the Media Alliance.


title: Control Z

text: Control Z is a Mexican teen drama streaming television series created by Carlos Quintanilla Sakar, Adriana Pelusi and Miguel García Moreno and developed by Lemon Studios for Netflix, that premiered on Netflix on 22 May 2020. The show stars Ana Valeria Becerril, Michael Ronda, Yankel Stevan and Zión Moreno. Shortly after its release, the series was renewed for a second season on 29 May 2020. Season 2 was released on 4 August 2021 and later that month, the series was renewed for a third and final season, which was released on 6 July 2022.


title: Control Z

text: During an assembly at Colegio Nacional (National School), a hacker exposes a student as transgender, outing and causing her panic and humiliation. The next day, the hacker reveals more students' secrets which causes numerous teens to turn on one another. Sofía Herrera, an introverted teenager, tries to uncover who this hacker is before the dirt on her becomes public.


title: Calcitriol

text: Calcitriol is the active form of vitamin D, normally made in the kidney. It is also known as 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol. It is a hormone which binds to and activates the vitamin D receptor in the nucleus of the cell, which then increases the expression of many genes. Calcitriol increases blood calcium (Ca) mainly by increasing the uptake of calcium from the intestines.


title: Calcitriol

text: It can be given as a medication for the treatment of low blood calcium and hyperparathyroidism due to kidney disease, low blood calcium due to hypoparathyroidism, osteoporosis, osteomalacia, and familial hypophosphatemia, and can be taken by mouth or by injection into a vein. Excessive amounts or intake can result in weakness, headache, nausea, constipation, urinary tract infections, and abdominal pain. Serious side effects may include high blood calcium and anaphylaxis. Regular blood tests are recommended after the medication is started and when the dose is changed.


title: Calcitriol

text: Calcitriol was identified as the active form of vitamin D in 1971 and the drug was approved for medical use in the United States in 1978. It is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the 277th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 1million prescriptions. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.


title: Calcitriol

text: Calcitriol has been used in an ointment for the treatment of psoriasis, although the vitamin D analogue calcipotriol (calcipotriene) is more commonly used. Calcitriol has also been given by mouth for the treatment of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. Research on the noncalcemic actions of calcitriol and other VDR-ligand analogs and their possible therapeutic applications has been reviewed.


title: Calcitriol

text: The main adverse drug reaction associated with calcitriol therapy is hypercalcemia – early symptoms include: nausea, vomiting, constipation, anorexia, apathy, headache, thirst, pruritus, sweating, and/or polyuria. Compared to other vitamin D compounds in clinical use (cholecalciferol, ergocalciferol), calcitriol has a higher risk of inducing hypercalcemia. However, such episodes may be shorter and easier to treat due to its relatively short half-life.


title: Calcitriol

text: High calcitriol levels may also be seen in human disease states in patients not on supplementation. In someone with hypercalcaemia and high calcitriol levels, low intact parathyroid hormone levels are usually present.


title: Calcitriol

text: The major conditions with hypercalcaemia due to elevated calcitriol levels are lymphoma, tuberculosis and sarcoidosis where excess production occurs due to ectopic 25(OH)D-1-hydroxylase (CYP27B1) expressed in macrophages.


title: Calcitriol

text: Some plants contain glycosides of 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol. Consumption of these glycosides by grazing animals leads to vitamin D toxicity, resulting in calcinosis, the deposition of excessive calcium in soft tissues. Three rangeland plants, "Cestrum diurnum", "Solanum malacoxylon", and "Trisetum flavescens" are known to contain these glycosides. Of these, only "C. diurnum" is found in the U.S., mainly in Florida.


title: Calcitriol

text: Calcitriol acts in concert with parathyroid hormone (PTH) in all three of these roles. For instance, PTH also indirectly stimulates osteoclasts. However, the main effect of PTH is to increase the rate at which the kidneys excrete inorganic phosphate (P), the counterion of . The resulting decrease in serum phosphate causes hydroxyapatite (Ca(PO)OH) to dissolve out of bone, thus increasing serum calcium. PTH also stimulates the production of calcitriol (see below).


title: Calcitriol

text: Many of the effects of calcitriol are mediated by its interaction with the calcitriol receptor, also called the vitamin D receptor or VDR. For instance, the unbound inactive form of the calcitriol receptor in intestinal epithelial cells resides in the cytoplasm. When calcitriol binds to the receptor, the ligand-receptor complex translocates to the cell nucleus, where it acts as a transcription factor promoting the expression of a gene encoding a calcium binding protein. The levels of the calcium binding protein increase enabling the cells to actively transport more calcium () from the intestine across the intestinal mucosa into the blood. Alternative, "non-genomic" pathways may be mediated through either PDIA3 or VDR.


title: Calcitriol

text: The maintenance of electroneutrality requires that the transport of ions catalyzed by the intestinal epithelial cells be accompanied by counterions, primarily inorganic phosphate. Thus calcitriol also stimulates the intestinal absorption of phosphate.


title: Calcitriol

text: The observation that calcitriol stimulates the release of calcium from bone seems contradictory, given that sufficient levels of serum calcitriol generally prevent overall loss of calcium from bone. It is believed that the increased levels of serum calcium resulting from calcitriol-stimulated intestinal uptake causes bone to take up more calcium than it loses by hormonal stimulation of osteoclasts. Only when there are conditions, such as dietary calcium deficiency or defects in intestinal transport, which result in a reduction of serum calcium does an overall loss of calcium from bone occur.


title: Calcitriol

text: Calcitriol also inhibits the release of calcitonin, a hormone which reduces blood calcium primarily by inhibiting calcium release from bone.


title: Calcitriol

text: Calcitriol is produced in the cells of the proximal tubule of the nephron in the kidneys by the action of 25-hydroxyvitamin D 1-alpha-hydroxylase, a mitochondrial oxygenase and an enzyme which catalyzes the hydroxylation of 25-hydroxycholecalciferol (calcifediol) in the 1-alpha position.


title: Calcitriol

text: The activity of this enzyme is stimulated by PTH. This is an important control point in Ca homeostasis. Additional effects on the production of calcitriol include an increase by prolactin, a hormone which stimulates lactogenesis (the formation of milk in mammary glands), a process which requires large amounts of calcium. Activity is also decreased by high levels of serum phosphate and by an increase in the production of the hormone FGF23 by osteocyte cells in bone.


title: Calcitriol

text: Calcitriol is also produced outside the kidney in small amounts by many other tissues including placenta and activated macrophages.


title: Calcitriol

text: When the drug alfacalcidol is used, 25-hydroxylation in the liver produces calcitriol as the active metabolite. This will produce greater effects than other vitamin D precursors in patients with kidney disease who have loss of the renal 1-alpha-hydroxylase.


title: Calcitriol

text: The halflife of calcitriol in the body is measured in hours, unlike its precursor calcifediol, whose halflife is measured in weeks. Calcitriol is inactivated by further hydroxylation to form 1,24,25-trihydroxyvitamin D, calcitroic acid. This occurs through the action of the CYP24A1 24-hydroxylase. Calcitroic acid is more soluble in water and is excreted in bile and urine.


title: Calcitriol

text: It was first identified in 1971 by Michael F. Holick working in the laboratory of Hector DeLuca, and also by Tony Norman and colleagues.


title: Calcitriol

text: Calcitriol refers specifically to 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol. Because cholecalciferol already has one hydroxyl group, only two (1,25) are further specified in this nomenclature, but in fact there are three (1,3,25-triol), as indicated by the name "calcitriol". The 1-hydroxy group is in the alpha position, and this may be specified in the name, for instance in the abbreviation 1α,25-(OH)D.


title: Calcitriol

text: Calcitriol is, strictly, the 1-hydroxylation product of calcifediol (25-OH vitamin D), derived from cholecalciferol (vitamin D), rather than the product of hydroxylations of ergocalciferol (vitamin D). 1α,25-Dihydroxyergocalciferol (ercalcitriol) should be used for the vitamin D product. However, the terminology of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, or 1,25(OH)D, is often used to refer to both types of active forms of vitamin D. Indeed, both bind to the vitamin D receptor and produce biological effects. In clinical use, the differences are unlikely to have major importance.


title: Calcitriol

text: Calcitriol is marketed as a pharmaceutical for medical use under various trade names including Rocaltrol (Roche), Calcijex (Abbott), Decostriol (Mibe, Jesalis), Vectical (Galderma), and Rolsical (Sun Pharma).


title: Fulda

text: Fulda () (historically in English called Fuld) is a town in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district ("Kreis"). In 1990, the town hosted the 30th Hessentag state festival.


title: Fulda

text: In 744 Saint Sturm, a disciple of Saint Boniface, founded the Benedictine monastery of Fulda as one of Boniface's outposts in the reorganization of the church in Germany. It later served as a base from which missionaries could accompany Charlemagne's armies in their political and military campaigns to fully conquer and convert pagan Saxony.


title: Fulda

text: The initial grant for the abbey was signed by Carloman, Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia (in office 741–47), the son of Charles Martel. The support of the Mayors of the Palace, and later of the early Pippinid and Carolingian rulers, was important to Boniface's success. Fulda also received support from many of the leading families of the Carolingian world. Sturm, whose tenure as abbot lasted from 747 until 779, was most likely related to the Agilolfing dukes of Bavaria.


title: Fulda

text: Fulda also received large and constant donations from the Etichonids, a leading family in Alsace, and from the Conradines, predecessors of the Salian Holy Roman Emperors. Under Sturm, the donations Fulda received from these and other important families helped in the establishment of daughter-houses near Fulda.


title: Fulda

text: After his martyrdom by the Frisians, the relics of Saint Boniface were brought back to Fulda. Because of the stature this afforded the monastery, the donations increased, and Fulda could establish daughter-houses further away, for example in Hamelin. Meanwhile, Saint Lullus, successor of Boniface as archbishop of Mainz, tried to absorb the abbey into his archbishopric, but failed. This was one reason he founded Hersfeld Abbeyto limit the attempts of the enlargement of Fulda.


title: Fulda

text: Between 790 and 819 the community rebuilt the main monastery church to more fittingly house the relics. They based their new basilica on the original 4th-century (since demolished) Old St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, using the transept and crypt plan of that great pilgrimage church to frame their own saint as the "Apostle to the Germans".


title: Fulda

text: The crypt of the original abbey church still holds those relics, but the church itself has been subsumed into a Baroque renovation. A small, 9th-century chapel remains standing within walking distance of the church, as do the foundations of a later women's abbey. Rabanus Maurus served as abbot at Fulda from 822 to 842. Fulda Abbey owned such works as the "Res Gestae" by the fourth-century Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus and the Codex Fuldensis, as well as works by Cicero, Servius, Bede and Sulpicius Severus.


title: Fulda

text: Prince-abbot Balthasar von Dernbach adopted a policy of counter-reformation. In 1571 he called in the Jesuits to found a school and college. He insisted the members of the chapter should return to a monastic form of life. Whereas his predecessors had tolerated Protestantism, resulting in most of the citizenry of Fulda and a large portion of the principality's countryside professing Lutheranism, Balthasar ordered his subjects either to return to the Catholic faith or leave his territories. He also ordered the Fulda witch trials, in which hundreds of people, mostly women, were burnt alive on charges of witchcraft.


title: Fulda

text: The foundation of the abbey of Fulda and its territory originated with an Imperial grant, and the sovereign principality therefore was subject only to the German emperor. Fulda became a bishopric in 1752 and the prince-abbots were given the additional title of prince-bishop. The prince-abbots (and later prince-bishops) ruled Fulda and the surrounding region until the bishopric was forcibly dissolved by Napoleon I in 1802.


title: Fulda

text: The city went through a baroque building campaign in the 18th century, resulting in the current "Baroque City" status. This included a remodeling of Fulda Cathedral (1704–12) and of the "Stadtschloss" (Fulda Castle-Palace, 1707–12) by Johann Dientzenhofer. The city parish church, St. Blasius, was built between 1771 and 1785. In 1764 a porcelain factory was started in Fulda under Prince-Bishop, Prince-Abbot Heinrich von Bibra, but shortly after his death it was closed down in 1789 by his successor, Prince-Bishop, Prince-Abbot Adalbert von Harstall.


title: Fulda

text: The city was given to Prince William Frederick of Orange-Nassau (the later King William I of the Netherlands) in 1803 (as part of the short-lived Principality of Nassau-Orange-Fulda), was annexed to the Grand Duchy of Berg in 1806, and in 1809 to the Principality of Frankfurt. After the Congress of Vienna of 1814–15, most of the territory went to the Electorate of Hesse, which Prussia annexed in 1866.


title: Fulda

text: Fulda lends its name to the Fulda Gap, a traditional east–west invasion route used by Napoleon I and others. During the Cold War, it was presumed to be an invasion route for any conventional war between NATO and Soviet forces. Downs Barracks in Fulda was the headquarters of the American 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment, later replaced by the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. The cavalry had as many as 3,000 soldiers from the end of World War II until 1993. Not all those soldiers were in Fulda proper, but scattered over observation posts and in the cities of Bad Kissingen and Bad Hersfeld. The strategic importance of this region, along the border between East and West Germany, led to a large United States and Soviet military presence.


title: Fulda

text: Fulda has traditionally been a conservative Catholic city, with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fulda being based in the city cathedral. During the time of German Empire and Weimar Republic, the city was a stronghold for Centre Party. After the end of World War II, in addition to all mayors, Fulda's constituency seats have been safe seats for CDU in both the Landtag of Hesse (District X 1946-1950, District 14 1950-1983, Fulda I since 1983) and Bundestag (Fulda electoral district). CDU has never received less than 42.4 percent of the vote in communal elections since 1946.


title: Fulda

text: Oberbürgermeister (Lord mayor) Department I (head and personnel administration, finance, committee work, culture, business development, city marketing, investments)


title: Fulda

text: Fulda station is a transport hub and interchange point between local and long-distance traffic of the German railway network, and is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category2 station. It is on the Hanover–Würzburg high-speed railway; the North–South line ("Nord-Süd-Strecke"), comprising the Bebra–Fulda line north of Fulda, and the Kinzig Valley Railway and Fulda–Main Railway to the south; the Vogelsberg Railway, which connects to the hills of the Vogelsberg in the west; and the Fulda–Gersfeld Railway (Rhön Railway) to Gersfeld in the Rhön Mountains to the east.


title: Fulda

text: Fulda is on the Bundesautobahn 7 (BAB 7). Bundesautobahn 66 starts at the interchange with the BAB 7, heading south towards Frankfurt. Fulda is also on the Bundesstraße 27.


title: Natural history

text: Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is called a naturalist or natural historian.


title: Natural history

text: Natural history encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it. It involves the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. So while it dates from studies in the ancient Greco-Roman world and the mediaeval Arabic world, through to European Renaissance naturalists working in near isolation, today's natural history is a cross-discipline umbrella of many specialty sciences; e.g., geobiology has a strong multidisciplinary nature.


title: Natural history

text: The meaning of the English term "natural history" (a calque of the Latin "historia naturalis") has narrowed progressively with time, while, by contrast, the meaning of the related term "nature" has widened (see also History below).


title: Natural history

text: In antiquity, "natural history" covered essentially anything connected with nature, or used materials drawn from nature, such as Pliny the Elder's encyclopedia of this title, published , which covers astronomy, geography, humans and their technology, medicine, and superstition, as well as animals and plants.


title: Natural history

text: Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two main divisions: the humanities (primarily what is now known as classics) and divinity, with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. The study of nature revived in the Renaissance, and quickly became a third branch of academic knowledge, itself divided into descriptive natural history and natural philosophy, the analytical study of nature. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry, while natural history included the biological and geological sciences. The two were strongly associated. During the heyday of the gentleman scientists, many people contributed to both fields, and early papers in both were commonly read at professional science society meetings such as the Royal Society and the French Academy of Sciences—both founded during the 17th century.


title: Natural history

text: Natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus' aspiration to improve the economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits.


title: Natural history

text: Modern definitions of natural history come from a variety of fields and sources, and many of the modern definitions emphasize a particular aspect of the field, creating a plurality of definitions with a number of common themes among them. For example, while natural history is most often defined as a type of observation and a subject of study, it can also be defined as a body of knowledge, and as a craft or a practice, in which the emphasis is placed more on the observer than on the observed.


title: Natural history

text: Definitions from biologists often focus on the scientific study of individual organisms in their environment, as seen in this definition by Marston Bates: "Natural history is the study of animals and Plants—of organisms. ... I like to think, then, of natural history as the study of life at the level of the individual—of what plants and animals do, how they react to each other and their environment, how they are organized into larger groupings like populations and communities" and this more recent definition by D.S. Wilcove and T. Eisner: "The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior, and their relationships with other species".


title: Natural history

text: This focus on organisms in their environment is also echoed by H.W. Greene and J.B. Losos: "Natural history focuses on where organisms are and what they do in their environment, including interactions with other organisms. It encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do".


title: Natural history

text: Some definitions go further, focusing on direct observation of organisms in their environments, both past and present, such as this one by G.A. Bartholomew: "A student of natural history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants and animals directly. Because organisms are functionally inseparable from the environment in which they live and because their structure and function cannot be adequately interpreted without knowing some of their evolutionary history, the study of natural history embraces the study of fossils as well as physiographic and other aspects of the physical environment".


title: Natural history

text: A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a descriptive component, as seen in a recent definition by H.W. Greene: "Descriptive ecology and ethology". Several authors have argued for a more expansive view of natural history, including S. Herman, who defines the field as "the scientific study of plants and animals in their natural environments. It is concerned with levels of organization from the individual organism to the ecosystem, and stresses identification, life history, distribution, abundance, and inter-relationships.


title: Natural history

text: It often and appropriately includes an esthetic component", and T. Fleischner, who defines the field even more broadly, as "A practice of intentional, focused attentiveness and receptivity to the more-than-human world, guided by honesty and accuracy". These definitions explicitly include the arts in the field of natural history, and are aligned with the broad definition outlined by B. Lopez, who defines the field as the "Patient interrogation of a landscape" while referring to the natural history knowledge of the Eskimo (Inuit).


title: Natural history

text: A slightly different framework for natural history, covering a similar range of themes, is also implied in the scope of work encompassed by many leading natural history museums, which often include elements of anthropology, geology, paleontology, and astronomy along with botany and zoology, or include both cultural and natural components of the world.


title: Natural history

text: The plurality of definitions for this field has been recognized as both a weakness and a strength, and a range of definitions has recently been offered by practitioners in a recent collection of views on natural history.


title: Natural history

text: Natural history begins with Aristotle and other ancient philosophers who analyzed the diversity of the natural world. Natural history was understood by Pliny the Elder to cover anything that could be found in the world, including living things, geology, astronomy, technology, art, and humanity.


title: Natural history

text: "De Materia Medica" was written between 50 and 70 AD by Pedanius Dioscorides, a Roman physician of Greek origin. It was widely read for more than 1,500 years until supplanted in the Renaissance, making it one of the longest-lasting of all natural history books.


title: Natural history

text: From the ancient Greeks until the work of Carl Linnaeus and other 18th-century naturalists, a major concept of natural history was the "scala naturae" or Great Chain of Being, an arrangement of minerals, vegetables, more primitive forms of animals, and more complex life forms on a linear scale of supposedly increasing perfection, culminating in our species.


title: Natural history

text: Natural history was basically static through the Middle Ages in Europe—although in the Arabic and Oriental world, it proceeded at a much brisker pace. From the 13th century, the work of Aristotle was adapted rather rigidly into Christian philosophy, particularly by Thomas Aquinas, forming the basis for natural theology. During the Renaissance, scholars (herbalists and humanists, particularly) returned to direct observation of plants and animals for natural history, and many began to accumulate large collections of exotic specimens and unusual monsters. Leonhart Fuchs was one of the three founding fathers of botany, along with Otto Brunfels and Hieronymus Bock. Other important contributors to the field were Valerius Cordus, Konrad Gesner ("Historiae animalium"), Frederik Ruysch, and Gaspard Bauhin. The rapid increase in the number of known organisms prompted many attempts at classifying and organizing species into taxonomic groups, culminating in the system of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus.


title: Natural history

text: The British historian of Chinese science Joseph Needham calls Li Shizhen "the 'uncrowned king' of Chinese naturalists", and his Bencao gangmu "undoubtedly the greatest scientific achievement of the Ming". His works translated to many languages direct or influence many scholars and researchers.


title: Natural history

text: A significant contribution to English natural history was made by parson-naturalists such as Gilbert White, William Kirby, John George Wood, and John Ray, who wrote about plants, animals, and other aspects of nature. Many of these men wrote about nature to make the natural theology argument for the existence or goodness of God. Since early modern times, however, a great number of women made contributions to natural history, particularly in the field of botany, be it as authors, collectors, or illustrators.


title: Natural history

text: In modern Europe, professional disciplines such as botany, geology, mycology, palaeontology, physiology, and zoology were formed. "Natural history", formerly the main subject taught by college science professors, was increasingly scorned by scientists of a more specialized manner and relegated to an "amateur" activity, rather than a part of science proper. In Victorian Scotland, the study of natural history was believed to contribute to good mental health. Particularly in Britain and the United States, this grew into specialist hobbies such as the study of birds, butterflies, seashells (malacology/conchology), beetles, and wildflowers; meanwhile, scientists tried to define a unified discipline of biology (though with only partial success, at least until the modern evolutionary synthesis). Still, the traditions of natural history continue to play a part in the study of biology, especially ecology (the study of natural systems involving living organisms and the inorganic components of the Earth's biosphere that support them), ethology (the scientific study of animal behavior), and evolutionary biology (the study of the relationships between life forms over very long periods of time), and re-emerges today as integrative organismal biology.


title: Natural history

text: Amateur collectors and natural history entrepreneurs played an important role in building the world's large natural history collections, such as the Natural History Museum, London, and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.


title: Natural history

text: Three of the greatest English naturalists of the 19th century, Henry Walter Bates, Charles Darwin, and Alfred Russel Wallace—who knew each other—each made natural history travels that took years, collected thousands of specimens, many of them new to science, and by their writings both advanced knowledge of "remote" parts of the world—the Amazon basin, the Galápagos Islands, and the Malay archipelago, among others—and in so doing helped to transform biology from a descriptive to a theory-based science.


title: Natural history

text: The understanding of "Nature" as "an organism and not as a mechanism" can be traced to the writings of Alexander von Humboldt (Prussia, 1769–1859). Humboldt's copious writings and research were seminal influences for Charles Darwin, Simón Bolívar, Henry David Thoreau, Ernst Haeckel, and John Muir.


title: Natural history

text: Natural history museums, which evolved from cabinets of curiosities, played an important role in the emergence of professional biological disciplines and research programs. Particularly in the 19th century, scientists began to use their natural history collections as teaching tools for advanced students and the basis for their own morphological research.


title: Natural history

text: The term "natural history" alone, or sometimes together with archaeology, forms the name of many national, regional, and local natural history societies that maintain records for animals (including birds (ornithology), insects (entomology) and mammals (mammalogy)), fungi (mycology), plants (botany), and other organisms. They may also have geological and microscopical sections.


title: Natural history

text: Examples of these societies in Britain include the Natural History Society of Northumbria founded in 1829, London Natural History Society (1858), Birmingham Natural History Society (1859), British Entomological and Natural History Society founded in 1872, Glasgow Natural History Society, Manchester Microscopical and Natural History Society established in 1880, Whitby Naturalists' Club founded in 1913, Scarborough Field Naturalists' Society and the Sorby Natural History Society, Sheffield, founded in 1918. The growth of natural history societies was also spurred due to the growth of British colonies in tropical regions with numerous new species to be discovered. Many civil servants took an interest in their new surroundings, sending specimens back to museums in the Britain. (See also: Indian natural history)


title: Natural history

text: Societies in other countries include the American Society of Naturalists and Polish Copernicus Society of Naturalists.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: Palma de Mallorca Airport (, ; ; also known as Son Sant Joan Airport or "Aeroport de Son Sant Joan") is an international airport located east of Palma, Mallorca, Spain, adjacent to the village of Can Pastilla. In 2020, the airport handled 6.1 million passengers (after 29.7 million in 2019, in pre-COVID-19 conditions), making it the third busiest airport in Spain, after Madrid–Barajas and Barcelona-El Prat. The airport is the main base for the Spanish carrier Air Europa and also a focus airport for Eurowings, EasyJet, Jet2.com, Ryanair and Vueling. The airport shares runways with the nearby Son Sant Joan Air Force Base, operated by the Spanish Air and Space Force.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: The interest of the Spanish Government in developing airmail during the first decades of the 20th century, led to a study of the possibility of establishing an air mail line to the Balearic Islands. Finally, in 1921, the company Aeromarítima Mallorquina established the postal line Barcelona - Palma, which used seaplanes in the port of Palma de Mallorca. Before the creation of this airline, trials were complete in two flat fields: Son Sant Joan and Son Bonet, both of which were later chosen for the construction of aerodromes.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: In 1934, the company Aero-Taxi de Mallorca was created with the intention of starting tourist flights to the island, establishing a flight school in Son Sant Joan. A year later, another one was founded in Son Bonet.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: In May 1935 the company LAPE, Líneas Aéreas Postales Españolas (Spanish Postal Airlines), a predecessor of Iberia; was founded. A month later, in August, the first regular air route between Madrid and Palma, stopping at Valencia, was created using the Son Sant Joan aerodrome. A year later, this line was replaced by a new one connecting Palma and Barcelona. Three years later, Lufthansa and Iberia established new lines in Son Bonet, while Son Sant Joan was beginning to be used by the military. Through the years, Son Bonet became the main civilian airport in the island, while the creation of Son Sant Joan Air Force Base limited further civilian enterprises at the aerodrome.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: In 1954, the runway was enlarged and paved to enable the operation of F-86 Sabre fighters, which also meant the diversion of the Palma - Llucmajor road. During those years, the first paved taxiways and aprons were built, while Son Bonet received the first big groups of European tourists through the airlines BEA, Air France and Aviaco.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: The increase in traffic, and the inability to enlarge Son Bonet, led the authors of the 1958 National Airport Plan to propose building a large civilian airport near the Son Sant Joan airbase. The National Airport Council approved this plan the following year and commercial traffic was transferred from Son Bonet to Son Sant Joan. This was the birth of what today is known as the Palma de Mallorca Airport. During that year, a terminal and a civilian apron were built south of the military facilities, along with a VHF communication center. Also, a VOR was installed in the island.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: Just two weeks later, expansion of the airport was declared urgent by the government, and on summer 1961 the works of extension of the runway and taxiway were started. At the end of the year, more plans were made, including a power plant, a communications centre and fire and rescue facilities.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: After reaching 1 million passengers for the first time in 1962, in 1965, a new terminal was constructed, and air navigation services were completed at the end of the following year. Also in 1965 Air Spain (1965 - 1975) began operating from the airport and a smaller terminal (today's Terminal B) was planned. Passenger numbers increased rapidly, reaching 2 million in 1965. Construction of a second runway, parallel to the existing one, was begun in 1970. Two years later, terminal B went into service, and the second runway (06L/24R) opened in 1974.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: In 1980, the airport carried 7 million passengers. However, this increased to nearly 10 million in 1986. This led to the construction of yet another new terminal building, the current central terminal building. This building is now the airport's primary entrance and exit and houses the airport's checkin and baggage claim areas. Construction started in mid-1993 and it was designed by the Majorcan architect Pere Nicolau Bover. During the construction in 1995, passenger numbers exceeded 15 million. The new terminal finally opened in 1997.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: Following a decline in passenger numbers at the airport following the September 11 attacks in 2001, passenger numbers rose steadily between 2002 and 2007 when traffic peaked at 23.2 million passengers. From 2007 onward there was a decline in passenger numbers, with 21.1 million using the airport in 2010. Today, Palma de Mallorca airport carries over 29.7 million passengers per year to their destinations, with 178,253 aircraft movements, mostly to mainland Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: In November 2015, Air Berlin (1978 - 2017) announced that it would shut down its hub operations at the airport which it had maintained for over ten years. All seven domestic connection routes to the mainland, such as flights to Valencia, Bilbao and Sevilla, as well as the route to Faro in Portugal ceased during spring 2016.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: During the Summer months the dual-runway airport handles as many movements as London–Gatwick. On the busiest day of the week it handles as many as 1,100 movements, almost as many as London–Heathrow, the busiest airport in Europe. According to the operational data provided by AENA, the airport can handle 66 movements per hour, or almost 1,600 movements over a 24-hour operational period.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: Palma de Mallorca Airport occupies an area of . Due to rapid growth of passenger numbers, additional infrastructure was added to the two terminals A (1965) and B (1972). This main terminal was designed by local architect Pere Nicolau Bover and was officially opened on 12 April 1997. The airport now consists of four modules: Module A (the former Terminal A Building), Module B (the former Terminal B Building), Module C and Module D (the last two were completely new sets of buildings and gates that opened along with the new central terminal and check in area in 1997). The airport can handle 25 million passengers per year, with a capacity to dispatch 12,000 passengers per hour.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: The former "Terminal A" Building is located in the north of the airport and has blue signs. It has 28 gates of which 8 have airbridges. This is the only Module that has double airbridges attached to gates. The Pier is mainly used by flights to non-Schengen destinations including the UK and Ireland. This part of the terminal building used to be closed during winter months and is only used in the summer. For winter 2018/2019 it will remain open.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: The former "Terminal B" Building is the smallest module, located in the north east and has green signs. It has eight gates located on the ground floor, of which none have airbridges. It is used by regional aircraft of Air Nostrum, mainly operating flights to Ibiza Airport, Menorca Airport, Valencia Airport, Lleida Airport, Asturias Airport and Santiago de Compostela Airport.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: The largest of the Modules located in the east and has purple signs. It has 33 gates of which 9 have airbridges. It is used mainly by Eurowings and Condor along with EasyJet and Norwegian Air Shuttle flights to Schengen destinations. The southern area of the Module was worked on and reopened in May 2010. The refurbishment and expansion is so that the Module can handle more flights, and to improve ways to get into the pier as it is the longest walk from security control. There will also be a further eight gates with airbridges, but there will still be 33 in total.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: This is located in the south and has orange signs. It has 19 gates of which 10 have airbridges. All odd numbered gates are gates with a bus transfer. During the closure of the southern area of Module C, it was used mainly for flights to Europe.


title: Palma de Mallorca Airport

text: Previously Spanair (1986–2012) had its head office in the Spanair Building on the airport property. Both Futura International Airways and Iberworld had large operational offices on the premises of the airport but these are no longer in use.


title: Yann LeCun

text: Yann André LeCun ( , ; originally spelled Le Cun; born 8 July 1960) is a French computer scientist working primarily in the fields of machine learning, computer vision, mobile robotics and computational neuroscience. He is the Silver Professor of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University and Vice-President, Chief AI Scientist at Meta.


title: Yann LeCun

text: He is well known for his work on optical character recognition and computer vision using convolutional neural networks (CNN), and is a founding father of convolutional nets. He is also one of the main creators of the DjVu image compression technology (together with Léon Bottou and Patrick Haffner). He co-developed the Lush programming language with Léon Bottou.


title: Yann LeCun

text: LeCun received the 2018 Turing Award (often referred to as "Nobel Prize of Computing"), together with Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, for their work on deep learning.


title: Yann LeCun

text: Yann LeCun was born at Soisy-sous-Montmorency in the suburbs of Paris in 1960. His name was originally spelled "Le Cun" from the old Breton form "Le Cunff" – meaning literally "nice guy" – and was from the region of Guingamp in northern Brittany. "Yann" is the Breton form for "John". He received a Diplôme d'Ingénieur from the ESIEE Paris in 1983 and a PhD in Computer Science from Université Pierre et Marie Curie (today Sorbonne University) in 1987 during which he proposed an early form of the back-propagation learning algorithm for neural networks.


title: Yann LeCun

text: In 1988, he joined the Adaptive Systems Research Department at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey, United States, headed by Lawrence D. Jackel, where he developed a number of new machine learning methods, such as a biologically inspired model of image recognition called convolutional neural networks, the "Optimal Brain Damage" regularisation methods, and the Graph Transformer Networks method (similar to conditional random field), which he applied to handwriting recognition and OCR. The bank check recognition system that he helped develop was widely deployed by NCR and other companies, reading over 10% of all the checks in the US in the late 1990s and early 2000s.


title: Yann LeCun

text: In 1996, he joined AT&T Labs-Research as head of the Image Processing Research Department, which was part of Lawrence Rabiner's Speech and Image Processing Research Lab, and worked primarily on the DjVu image compression technology, used by many websites, notably the Internet Archive, to distribute scanned documents. His collaborators at AT&T include Léon Bottou and Vladimir Vapnik.


title: Yann LeCun

text: After a brief tenure as a Fellow of the NEC Research Institute (now NEC-Labs America) in Princeton, NJ, he joined New York University (NYU) in 2003, where he is Silver Professor of Computer Science Neural Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the Center for Neural Science. He is also a professor at the Tandon School of Engineering. At NYU, he has worked primarily on Energy-Based Models for supervised and unsupervised learning, feature learning for object recognition in Computer Vision, and mobile robotics.


title: Yann LeCun

text: In 2012, he became the founding director of the NYU Center for Data Science. On 9 December 2013, LeCun became the first director of Meta AI Research in New York City, and stepped down from the NYU-CDS directorship in early 2014.


title: Yann LeCun

text: In 2013, he and Yoshua Bengio co-founded the International Conference on Learning Representations, which adopted a post-publication open review process he previously advocated on his website. He was the chair and organiser of the "Learning Workshop" held every year between 1986 and 2012 in Snowbird, Utah. He is a member of the Science Advisory Board of the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA. He is the Co-Director of the Learning in Machines and Brain research program (formerly Neural Computation & Adaptive Perception) of CIFAR.


title: Yann LeCun

text: In 2016, he was the visiting professor of computer science on the "Chaire Annuelle Informatique et Sciences Numériques" at Collège de France in Paris. His "leçon inaugurale" (inaugural lecture) was an important event in 2016 Paris intellectual life.


title: Yann LeCun

text: LeCun is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and the French Académie des Sciences.


title: Yann LeCun

text: He has received honorary doctorates from IPN in Mexico City in 2016, from EPFL in 2018 and from Université Côte d'Azur in 2021


title: Yann LeCun

text: He received the IEEE Neural Network Pioneer Award in 2014 and the PAMI Distinguished Researcher Award. in 2015.


title: Yann LeCun

text: In 2022 he received the Princess of Asturias Award in the category "Scientific Research", along with Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton and Demis Hassabis.


title: Yann LeCun

text: In 2017, LeCun declined an invitation to lecture at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia because he believed he would be considered a terrorist in the country in view of his atheism.


title: T. Rajendar

text: Thesingu Rajendar (born 9 May 1955), also known as Vijaya T. Rajendar or T. R., is an Indian actor, filmmaker, musician, cinematographer and distributor who works primarily in Tamil film industry. He is also a politician in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Rajendar is known for being able to speak in rhyming sentences spontaneously.


title: T. Rajendar

text: T. Rajendar is married to former actress Usha Rajendar. They have two sons, Silambarasan and Kuralarasan, and one daughter, Ilakiya. His wife has served as the producer for some of his films, such as "Kadhal Azhivathillai" (2002).


title: T. Rajendar

text: Rajendar started off in the Kollywood industry making successful films which included him as an actor, playback singer, dancer and scriptwriter. He gained popularity through his one-of-a-kind style of acting. He normally serves as, but not limited to director, actor, songwriter, art director, production manager and playback singer. During the 1980s, all his movies were blockbusters, running for years and the songs were also well appreciated. He is known for introducing new faces in his movies, and many of the actresses who debuted in his movies have been successful in South Cinema, including Amala, Nalini, Jyothi, Jeevitha and Mumtaj.


title: T. Rajendar

text: After some years, Rajendar's films started to decline in popularity because his films became too predictable, tending to follow the same storyline and oratory style of repetitious dialogues with little if any meaning. For example, his films always contain a sentimental scene involving the hero's younger sister in distress, coupled with the same rhyming rhetoric and gestures.


title: T. Rajendar

text: Rajendar recently started his own web TV channel called 'Kural TV' (Voice TV). Originally he wanted to start a 24-hour TV channel but could not, due to problems arising while securing a license. The channel, apart from broadcasting his movies and speeches, tends to echo sentiments towards the plight of Tamils (especially women) in Sri Lanka.


title: T. Rajendar

text: Rajendar had started talking with "common" people through Skype and discussing latest politics in the recent years. Rajendar also distributes films under his home banner "Simbu cine arts". His latest film distribution, as of mid-2011 is his son Silambarasan's film "Vaanam", which will be distributed in the Chennai and Madurai region.


title: T. Rajendar

text: Since early 2008, Rajendar has been slowly working on the production of a film titled "Oru Thalai Kadhal", a tale based on a village singer, in which he stars in the lead role. In 2011, he released a first look poster for the film and revealed that three heroines from Mumbai would star alongside him. He provided an update in 2014, that the film was still under production and that it was sixty-five percent complete. He has also revealed that he was working on a script to launch his second son, Kuralarasan, as a lead actor.


title: T. Rajendar

text: Rajendar founded the Thayaga Marumalarchi Kazhagam party in 1991 after he had been expelled from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party. In 1996, after Vaiko's departure from the DMK and the formation of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Rajendar's TMK merged with the DMK. Rajendar left the DMK again in 2004, to form the All India Latchiya Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. Before expulsion, he was the propaganda secretary of DMK and was elected from Park Town constituency in the 1996 Assembly polls. He further supported the AIADMK in the 2006 Assembly elections. After those 2006 elections, the DMK came back to power and he was made vice-chairman of the Small Savings Scheme. He subsequently quit the post.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: The Third Anglo-Afghan War began on 6 May 1919 when the Emirate of Afghanistan invaded British India and ended with an armistice on 8 August 1919. The Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919 resulted in the Afghans gaining control of foreign affairs from Britain and the British recognizing the Durand Line as the border between Afghanistan and British India. According to British author Michael Barthorp, it was a strategic victory for the British because the Durand Line was reaffirmed as the border between Afghanistan and the British Raj, and the Afghans agreed not to foment trouble on the British side. However, Afghans who were on the British side of the border did cause concerns due to revolts.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: The root cause of the Third Anglo-Afghan War took hold long before fighting commenced. For the British in India, Afghanistan was seen as a threat. The British worried about Russian intentions, concerned that an invasion of India could be launched by Tsarist forces through Afghanistan. This period became known as the Great Game. In an effort to negate this threat, the British made numerous attempts at imposing their will upon Kabul, and over the course of the 19th century fought two wars: the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842) and the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880).


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: The end of the Second Afghan War in 1880, marked the beginning of almost 40 years of good relations between Britain and Afghanistan, under the leadership of Abdur Rahman Khan and Habibullah Khan, during which time the British attempted to manage Afghan foreign policy through the payment of a large subsidy. While the country ostensibly remained independent, under the Treaty of Gandamak (1879) it accepted that in external matters it would "...have no windows looking on the outside world, except towards India".


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: In 1901, the death of Emir Abdur Rahman Khan led indirectly to the war that began 18 years later. His successor, Habibullah, was a pragmatic leader who sided with Britain or Russia depending on Afghan interests. Despite considerable resentment over not being consulted on the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 (Convention of St. Petersburg), Afghanistan remained neutral during the First World War (1914–1918), resisting considerable pressure from the Ottoman Empire, which entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers; the Ottoman Sultan (as titular leader of Islam) called for a holy war against the Allies.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Despite remaining neutral in the conflict, Habibullah did in fact accept a Turkish-German mission in Kabul and military assistance from the Central Powers as he attempted to play both sides of the conflict for the best deal. Through continual prevarication, he resisted numerous requests for assistance from the Central Powers, but failed to keep in check troublesome tribal leaders, intent on undermining British rule in India, as Turkish agents attempted to foment trouble along the frontier. The departure of a large part of the British Indian Army to fight overseas and news of British defeats at the hands of the Turks aided Turkish agents in efforts at sedition, and in 1915 there was unrest amongst the Mohmands and then the Mahsuds. Notwithstanding these outbreaks, the frontier generally remained settled at a time when Britain could ill afford trouble.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: A Turko-German mission left Kabul in 1916. By that time, however, it had successfully convinced Habibullah that Afghanistan was an independent nation and that it should be beholden to no one. With the end of the First World War, Habibullah sought to obtain rewards from the British government for his assistance during the war. Looking for British recognition of Afghanistan's independence in foreign affairs, he demanded a seat at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. This request was denied by the Viceroy, Frederic Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford, on the grounds that attendance at the conference was confined to the belligerents. Further negotiations were scheduled, but before they could begin Habibullah was assassinated on 19 February 1919.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: This resulted in a power struggle as Habibullah's brother Nasrullah Khan proclaimed himself as Habibullah's successor, while in Kabul Amanullah, Habibullah's third son, had also proclaimed himself Amir. The Afghan army suspected Amanullah's complicity in the death of his father. Needing a way of cementing his power, upon seizing the throne in April 1919, Amanullah posed as a supporter of democratic ideals, promising governmental reforms. He stated that there should be no forced labour, tyranny, or oppression, and that Afghanistan should be free and independent and no longer bound by the Treaty of Gandamak.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Amanullah had his uncle Nasrullah arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment for Habibullah's murder. Nasrullah had been the leader of a more conservative element in Afghanistan, and his treatment rendered Amanullah's position as Amir somewhat tenuous. By April 1919, Amanullah realised that if he could not find a way to placate the conservatives, he would be unlikely to maintain his hold on power. Looking for a diversion from the internal strife in the Afghan court and sensing advantage in the rising civil unrest in India following the Amritsar massacre, Amanullah decided to invade British India.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: In 1919, the Afghan regular army was not a very formidable force, and was only able to muster some 50,000 men. These men were organised into 21 cavalry regiments and 75 infantry battalions, with about 280 modern artillery pieces, organised into 70 batteries, in support. In addition to this, however, in a boost to the army's strength, the Afghan command could call upon the loyalty of up to 80,000 frontier tribesmen and an indeterminate number of deserters from local militia units under British command. In reality, the Afghan regular army was not ready for war. As in past years, the upper levels of the officer corps were riddled with political intrigue. In his book on the campaign, Lieutenant-General George Molesworth gave the following evaluation of the Amir's army:


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Afghan regular units...were ill-trained, ill-paid, and probably under strength. The cavalry was little better than indifferent infantry mounted on equally indifferent ponies. Rifles varied between modern German, Turkish and British types, to obsolete Martinis and Snyders. Few infantry units had bayonets. Artillery was ponydrawn, or pack, and included modern 10 cm Krupp howitzers, 75 mm Krupp mountain guns and ancient 7 pounder weapons. There were a few, very old, four-barrel Gardiner machine guns. Ammunition was in short supply and distribution must have been very difficult. For the artillery much black powder was used, both as a propellent and bursting charge for shells. The Kabul arsenal workshops were elementary and mainly staffed by Sikh artificers with much ingenuity but little real skill. There was no organised transport and arrangements for supply were rudimentary.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: In support of the regulars, the Afghan command expected to call out the tribes, which could gather up to 20,000 or 30,000 Afridi fighters in the Khyber region alone. In stark contrast to the regulars, the tribal lashkars were probably the best troops that the Afghans had, being of excellent fighting quality, well armed, mainly with weapons that they had made themselves or stolen from the garrisons and with plenty of ammunition.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: In meeting this threat, the British could call on a much larger force. In May 1919, the British and British Indian Army, not including frontier militia, totalled eight divisions, as well as five independent brigades of infantry and three of cavalry. However, of this force, the entire North-West Frontier Province had three infantry divisions and two cavalry brigades, although there was also GHQ India's central reserve of one infantry division and one cavalry brigade. From this, they formed a striking force of two infantry divisions and two cavalry brigades for offensive operations on the Kyber front with the possibility of using it also in the Tochi and Kurram areas. One infantry division and a so-called "mounted" brigade were also detailed for operations on the Baluchistan–Zhob front. There were also three frontier brigades as well as a number of frontier militia and irregular corps.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Artillery was also in short supply, and the three frontier divisions each had a British field artillery brigade of the Royal Field Artillery with two batteries of 18-pounders and one battery of 4.5-inch howitzers, and an Indian mountain brigade with two batteries of 2.75-inch mountain guns. There were also two batteries of tractor-drawn 6-inch howitzers and two British mountain batteries of the Royal Garrison Artillery, which were reinforced with 3.7-inch mountain howitzers. However, most batteries had only four guns. Finally, there were also 15 pounder guns of the Frontier Garrison Artillery.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Machine guns, at least on the Khyber front, were old .303 Maxims. The British gained a command and control advantage with their use of motor transport and wireless communications, while armored cars and RAF detachments increased their firepower and reach, the latter being demonstrated to the Afghans by a bombing raid on Kabul itself. They could also direct the fire of the 60-pounders. The RAF squadrons involved were No. 31 Squadron and No. 114 Squadron.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: The main problem for the British was discontent among their soldiers. The troops in India were no longer as uncritical as they had been when considering what they were being asked to do. Like other units of the British Army, many of the troops considered the war over and looked forward to being demobilised. The Indian Army had been heavily committed to the First World War and had suffered a large number of casualties. Many of its units still had not returned from overseas, and those that had had begun the process of demobilisation. As such, many regiments had lost almost all of their most experienced men. Likewise, the British Army in India had been gutted. Prior to 1914 there had been 61 British regiments serving in India. However, of these, all but ten (two cavalry and eight infantry) had been withdrawn in order to fight in Europe or the Middle East. In their place, units of the Territorial Force (TF), part-time soldiers usually only intended for home defence but who had volunteered for overseas service, had been sent in order to release regular units for the fighting in France. After four years of mundane garrison duty, away from their families and disaffected, most of these men were really only interested in demobilisation and returning to Britain to get on with their lives. They were in no way prepared for a hard-fought campaign on the Indian frontier.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: The conflict began on 3 May 1919 when Afghan troops crossed the frontier at the western end of the Khyber Pass and captured the town of Bagh. Bagh was strategically important to the British and Indians as it provided water to Landi Kotal, which was at the time garrisoned by just two companies of troops from the British Indian Army. Although initially considered a minor border infraction, this attack was actually part of the wider invasion plan. For whatever reason the attack had been launched ahead of schedule, however, for Amanullah had intended initially to time it to coincide with an uprising that was being planned in Peshawar for 8 May. This served to alert the British Chief Commissioner of the North West Frontier, Sir George Roos-Keppel, who had become aware of the plan and as a result he was able to successfully convince the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, of the need to respond to the occupation of Bagh before it led to further unrest in Peshawar.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: In response to this the British Indian government declared war upon Afghanistan on 6 May and ordered a general mobilisation of the British and Indian forces. It was decided next that the two companies of Sikhs and Gurkhas that had been sent to Landi Kotal needed to be reinforced, however, the mobilisation process had only just begun and at that stage there was only one battalion available for this, so on 7 May the 2nd Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry were brought up clandestinely through the Khyber Pass aboard a convoy of 37 lorries.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Meanwhile, a cordon was thrown around Peshawar and demands were made for the population to hand over the uprising's ringleaders. Amid threats that the city's water supply would be cut, the inhabitants complied and by dawn on 8 May the situation in the city was under control and the threat of an uprising abated.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: By this stage more reinforcements were available and the garrison at Landi Kotal grew to brigade-size, with the arrival of the rest of the 1st Infantry Brigade under Brigadier G.D. Crocker. On 9 May the British and Indian troops launched an attack on the Afghans that had seized Bagh the previous week. The attack, however, failed when the brigade commander decided to split his forces and detach almost half his force to protect his flank and as a result was unable to achieve the necessary concentration of force to capture all of his objectives. Coinciding with this, three BE2c aircraft from the Royal Air Force carried out a bombing raid on Dacca in Afghanistan, attacking a group of hostile tribesmen.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Following this the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Brigades of the 1st Infantry Division were dispatched from Nowshera and Abbottabad, concentrating at Jamrud and Kacha Garhi. At the same time, the 6th Brigade from the 2nd Infantry Division moved up to Peshawar from Rawalpindi to help quell the unrest there. Two days later, on 11 May, a second attack was made on Bagh by the 1st and 2nd Infantry Brigades, under Major General Fowler, and this time it proved successful. Supported with 22 machine guns and 18 artillery pieces, the attack was preceded by a thirty-minute preparation bombardment before being carried by the 2nd Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment and two battalions from the 11th Gurkhas, who charged into the Afghan positions with bayonets fixed and drove them into the Lower Khyber, where they were subjected to further indirect fire from mountain guns that had been set up in ambush. As the Afghans were forced back over the border, the RAF followed them across and carried out a number of bombing runs. The rout was total and tribesman that might have otherwise have been expected to counterattack in support of the Afghans decided against doing so, instead turning their efforts to looting the battlefield and gathering the arms and ammunition that the retreating Afghans had left behind. Casualties during the battle, later known as the Second Battle of Bagh, amounted to 100 Afghans killed and 300 wounded, while the British and Indian forces lost eight killed and 31 wounded.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Although Amanullah continued to profess that he had no untoward intentions, Roos-Keppel decided that it was prudent to continue the advance and ordered the army to pursue the Afghans across the border. On 13 May British and Indian troops seized control of the western Khyber without opposition and occupied Dacca, however, the British camp was poorly sited for defence and as a consequence they came under an intense long-range artillery barrage from Afghan artillery before Amanullah launched an infantry assault on them. This assault was defeated and the British launched a counter-attack the following day, however, they were unable to consolidate their position, and as a result it was not until 17 May that the area was secured and the Afghans withdrew.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Meanwhile, the previous day, British and Indian forces had launched an attack on 'Stonehenge Ridge', where an Afghan force of about 3,000 men had established themselves with a number of artillery pieces and machine guns. Under cover of a preliminary bombardment to soften up the Afghan defences, men from the 11th Sikhs had launched the initial assault, however, they were forced to stop their attack when they ran out of ammunition at 08.00 hours, and although a resupply was effected at 10.30 hours, it was not until 14.00 hours that the attack was able to be recommenced. By this time the troops were exposed to the heat of the day; nevertheless, after another barrage was called down, the Sikhs attacked the Afghan line despite the heat and the attack was carried to the top of the ridge. Upon reaching the escarpment they found that the Afghans had left the battlefield, leaving most of their equipment, artillery and a number of standards. During the assault the British and Indian forces lost 22 killed and 157 wounded, while Afghan losses were estimated at around 200 killed and 400 wounded.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: At this time, however, trouble struck in the British rear along their line of communications through the Khyber where the Khyber Rifles began to become disaffected by the situation and began to desert en masse. As a result, it was decided to disarm and disband the regiment in an effort to stop the spread of similar sentiment to other regiments. Following this Lord Chelmsford decided that the situation could be resolved by continuing the advance further into Afghanistan and gave the order for the brigade in Dacca to march towards Jalalabad, but this order was unable to be carried out as fighting broke out further to the south and in the eastern Khyber.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: As part of the attack on the Khyber, secondary attacks had been planned on Quetta and Kurram, and in the north in Chitral state and in the south in Baluchistan and the Zhob Valley. On 23 May the British posts around the Kurram Valley had to be abandoned. The following day Handley Page bombers attacked Kabul; however, it did little to stem the tide, and the supply situation in Landi Kotal grew worse.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: On 27 May the British commander in Quetta decided to attack the Afghan fortress at Spin Baldak, capturing it (the last time the British Army used an escalade) and, in the process, seized the initiative in the south; however, the situation in the centre of the war zone, around Kurram, remained desperate for the British. The Afghan forces in this area were under the command of General Nadir Khan and he possessed a force of some 14 battalions. Against this, the British at Thal, under Brigadier General Alexander Eustace, possessed only four battalions. To make matters worse, the only troops protecting the upper Tochi Valley were the disaffected North Waziristan Militia. Concerned that they would rise up against him if left to their own devices, Eustace gave the order to abandon the militia outposts, but in doing so, precipitated the desertion of many of the militiamen. This disaffection spread and the South Waziristan Militia in Wana turned on their officers and any men who had remained loyal and attacked them. The survivors, under Major Russell, the commandant, were forced to fight their way out to a column of the North Zhob Militia which had been sent out to relieve them.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Seeing that the situation was deteriorating for the British and seeing an opportunity, Nadir Khan decided to attack Thal. As the Frontier Constabulary had abandoned their posts, on the night of 28/29 May the Afghans were able to occupy a tower from the fort and from there they were able to set fire to a number of food dumps. This made the situation in the fort dire, as the supply situation had already been low. Other factors also stacked up against the British. Eustace's force was outnumbered and outgunned. He possessed no regular British infantry and his four battalions were inexperienced Indian units, consisting mainly of young recruits. After repelling an infantry assault on 29 May, the following day the garrison was subjected to a heavy bombardment from Afghan guns. As a result of this, the British decided to bring the 16th Infantry Division, consisting of the 45th and 46th Infantry Brigades, up to Peshawar from Lahore, for the purpose of advancing on Jalalabad and have it move up to Kurram. While part of the division was detached to defend Kohat, the 45th Infantry Brigade under Brigadier General Reginald Dyer—who had been at the centre of the Amritsar massacre—set out to relieve Eustace's force at Thal. Dyer's force consisted of only one British battalion, the 1st/25th London Regiment, as well as Dogras, Punjabis and Gurkhas, and short of rations and possessing no transport, they were forced to march through intense heat to effect the relief.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Despite the conditions, however, the British and Indian troops under Dyer's command rose to the occasion and covered the last in under 12 hours and on 1 June they ran into a blocking force of tribesman that barred both the northern and southern approaches to Thal. Dyer attacked both ends with his artillery, while sending his infantry against the southern approach. Unable to withstand the attack, the tribesmen withdrew and as a result the way through to Eustace's garrison was cleared. During the siege, the British suffered 94 casualties, of which eight were killed, four died of wounds and 82 were wounded.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: The next day, 2 June, at dawn Dyer's brigade launched an attack on the Afghan regulars that were positioned away to the west of Thal and as this attack went in Nadir Khan sent out an envoy to deliver a message to the brigade commander. The message told Dyer that Amir Amanullah had ordered Nadir Khan to cease hostilities and Nadir Khan asked Dyer to acknowledge that he would honour the request for an armistice that Amanullah had sent to the British Indian government on 31 May. Unaware that this request had been made, and uncertain as to whether the message and request for a cease fire was a ruse on Nadir Khan's part, Dyer decided that he would not take any chances and sent the reply: "My guns will give an immediate reply, but your letter will be forwarded to the Divisional Commander".


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: After this Dyer continued his attack and as Nadir Khan's force withdrew from the area, Dyer followed them up with cavalry and armoured cars from the 37th Lancers, while the RAF, using machine guns and iron bombs, attacked and dispersed about 400 tribesmen that were in the area and which posed a threat of counterattack.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: On 3 June, the Afghan camp at Yusef Khel was seized by two platoons from the 1st/25th London and two troops from the 37th Lancers supported by a section of guns from the 89th Battery, and shortly afterwards the armistice was signed. With this a cease fire came into effect, however, some fighting continued, particularly in Chitral and in North Baluchistan, and it was not until 8 August 1919 that the settlement was finally concluded when the Treaty of Rawalpindi was signed.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Although limited in numbers and quality, airpower proved to be one of the greatest assets that the British possessed during this conflict. Not only did it allow them to extend their reach beyond the border and bomb Kabul, but it also enabled them to harass the retreating enemy and to break up tribesmen as they attempted to form larger groups prior to launching an attack. The ability of the British to project airpower, even small scale raids, had considerable psychological effects. For example, the single-plane raid on the palace which took place on 24 May 1919, although effecting little actual damage, nevertheless greatly impacted the morale of Afghan citizens and contributed to bringing King Amanullah to request an armistice.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Indeed, as a result of the war and the lessons that were learned about the potential of airpower in the region, following the war, the Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Hugh Trenchard, proposed controlling the frontier by air power alone. This plan had proved highly successful in Mesopotamia, Aden and the Transjordan, however, due to the uniqueness of the North-West Frontier and also due to inter-service politics the plan was not accepted until later. In 1937, it was eventually decided that should another war break out with Afghanistan, or in the event of a major tribal uprising, the RAF would take the offensive, while the ground forces would act defensively. During the course of the conflict, British aircraft losses included at least one plane crashed and two shot down.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: King Amanullah objected to the British about the air raids on Kabul, citing British condemnation of the German Zeppelin attacks on London. In his letter to the British government he said, "It is a matter of great regret that the throwing of bombs by Zeppelins on London was denounced as a most savage act and the bombardment of places of worship and sacred spots was considered a most abominable operation, while now we see with our own eyes that such operations were a habit which is prevalent amongst all civilized people of the West."


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Casualties during the conflict amounted to approximately 1,000 Afghans killed in action, while the British and Indian forces lost 236 killed in action. In addition, 615 were wounded, 566 died from cholera, and 334 died as a result of other diseases and accidents. Regardless of casualties, the outcome of the Third Anglo-Afghan War remains contentious. Ostensibly, the result of the conflict was a British tactical victory. This is by virtue of the fact that the British repulsed the Afghan invasion and drove them from Indian territory, while Afghan cities were subjected to attack by Royal Air Force bombers. Nevertheless, the Afghans were ultimately able to secure their strategic political goals in the aftermath of the conflict. Thus the extent of the British tactical victory was limited, and the Afghans also made strategic gains.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: The circumstances behind the war were complicated as was the final settlement. In going to war in 1919 against British India, Amir Amanullah's war aims were complicated. Even up against a depleted British Indian Army, a tactical victory was unlikely; however, the war served the dual purpose of deflecting domestic criticism and also offering the opportunity for strategic political gains. As a result of the peace treaty that was negotiated, the British ceased payment of the Afghan subsidy, and thus ended their claim to direct Afghan foreign policy, which had been the "quid pro quo" of the Emir accepting the subsidy. The British had traditionally wanted Afghanistan as a buffer state between India and the Russian Empire. In 1919, the Russian Civil War was raging and any threat from Russia to India at the time was potential rather than real. Moreover, the British were by far the largest supporters of the White movement in the Russian Civil War with the British contributing more arms to the Whites than all other nations combined. It was assumed in London that if the Whites won the Civil War, a new era in Anglo-Russian relations might possibly open as the victorious Whites might be grateful for British support, rendering the need for a buffer state in Central Asia irrelevant. The British also stopped arms sales from India to Afghanistan. But, as British influence declined, the Afghans were able to gain control of their own foreign affairs and in the aftermath emerged as a fully independent state. The British also made some political gains, most notably the reaffirmation of the Durand Line – which had long been a contentious issue between the two nations – as a border separating Afghanistan from the North-West Frontier, and the undertaking that the Afghans made to stop interference on the British side of the line.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Although the fighting concluded in August 1919, its effects continued to be felt in the region for some time afterwards. The nationalism and disruption that it had sparked stirred up more unrest in the years to come, particularly in Waziristan. The tribesmen, always ready to exploit governmental weakness, whether real or perceived, banded together in the common cause of disorder and unrest. They had become well-armed as a result of the conflict, whence they benefitted greatly from the weapons and ammunition that the Afghans had left behind and from an influx of manpower in large numbers of deserters from the militia that had joined their ranks. With these additions they launched a campaign of resistance against British authority on the North-West Frontier that was to last until the end of the Raj.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: British and Indian infantry units that participated in the conflict received the battle honour "Afghanistan 1919". No other battle honours for individual engagements were issued. Additionally, unlike the first two Anglo-Afghan wars where individual campaign ribbons were issued for separate engagements, no campaign medal was struck for this conflict. Instead, participation in this conflict was recognised by a clasp to the India General Service Medal (1908–1935).


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: The award of the battle honour was made in four separate Army and Governor General's orders. The earliest, Army Order 97/24, granted the honour to 14 British units. Governor General's Order 193/26 made awards to Indian Army Corps. Governor General's Order 1409/26 made awards to Indian States Forces and finally a further Governor General's Order in 1927 made awards to a further three Gurkha regiments.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: The Army Order was unusual in that a mistake was made in awarding the Afghanistan 1919 battle honour to The Hampshire Regiment and the 21st Lancers. This was subsequently rectified and the award to these two units was withdrawn.


title: Third Anglo-Afghan War

text: Many of these units did not exist at the time of the war but were formed as part of the reorganisation of the Indian Army in 1922; however, the decision was made to award the battle honour to the successor units of those involved in the war. The honour was not awarded to regiments that had been disbanded, e.g. 11th Gurkha Rifles, and not all units that took part in the war were awarded the battle honour, e.g. 1/5th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment.


title: Investigative journalism

text: Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Practitioners sometimes use the terms "watchdog reporting" or "accountability reporting."


title: Investigative journalism

text: Most investigative journalism has traditionally been conducted by newspapers, wire services, and freelance journalists. With the decline in income through advertising, many traditional news services have struggled to fund investigative journalism, due to it being very time-consuming and expensive. Journalistic investigations are increasingly carried out by news organizations working together, even internationally (as in the case of the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers), or by organizations such as ProPublica, which have not operated previously as news publishers and which rely on the support of the public and benefactors to fund their work.


title: Investigative journalism

text: The growth of media conglomerates in the U.S. since the 1980s has been accompanied by massive cuts in the budgets for investigative journalism. A 2002 study concluded "that investigative journalism has all but disappeared from the nation's commercial airwaves".


title: Investigative journalism

text: University of Missouri journalism professor Steve Weinberg defined investigative journalism as: "Reporting, through one's own initiative and work product, matters of importance to readers, viewers, or listeners." In many cases, the subjects of the reporting wish the matters under scrutiny to remain undisclosed. There are currently university departments for teaching investigative journalism. Conferences are conducted presenting peer-reviewed research into investigative journalism.


title: Investigative journalism

text: British media theorist Hugo de Burgh (2000) states that: "An investigative journalist is a man or woman whose profession is to discover the truth and to identify lapses from it in whatever media may be available. The act of doing this generally is called investigative journalism and is distinct from apparently similar work done by police, lawyers, auditors, and regulatory bodies in that it is not limited as to target, not legally founded and closely connected to publicity."


title: Investigative journalism

text: American journalism textbooks point out that muckraking standards promoted by "McClure's Magazine" around 1902, "Have become integral to the character of modern investigative journalism." Furthermore, the successes of the early muckrakers continued to inspire journalists.


title: Investigative journalism

text: An investigative reporter may make use of one or more of these tools, among others, on a single story:


title: Pyroraptor

text: Pyroraptor (meaning "fire thief") is an extinct genus of paravian dinosaur, probably a dromaeosaurid or unenlagiid (considering that unenlagiids are a separate family), from the Late Cretaceous Ibero-Armorican island, of what is now southern France and northern Spain. It lived during the late Campanian and early Maastrichtian stages, approximately 70.6 million years ago. It is known from a single partial specimen that was found in Provence in 1992, after a forest fire. The animal was named Pyroraptor olympius by Allain and Taquet in 2000.


title: Pyroraptor

text: The first remains of "Pyroraptor olympius", or P. olympius, were discovered in southeastern France, at the La Boucharde locality of the Arc Basin in Provence. It was described and named by French paleontologists Ronan Allain and Philippe Taquet in 2000, the type species and so far the only species is "Pyroraptor olympius". The genus name is Greek for "Fire thief", due to its remains being discovered after a forest fire that occurred in 1992. The species name is derived from Mont Olympe, a mountain in Provence at the foot of which the animal's remains were unearthed.


title: Pyroraptor

text: The holotype specimen, MNHN BO001, consists of the second toe claw of the left foot. The assigned paratypes include the equivalent claw of the right foot; the left second metatarsal; another, more complete second toe claw; a right ulna (long forearm bone); and two teeth. Additional material from the Vitória Formation and the Tremp Group, both in Spain, was referred to "Pyroraptor", including five pedal digits, one manual digit, a piece of a metacarpal, a right radius, a dorsal vertebra, and a tail vertebra.


title: Pyroraptor

text: Some teeth from the Iberian peninsula of North Eastern Spain have been compared to those referred to "Pyroraptor", suggesting that "Pyroraptor" may have also inhabited Spain; however, a 2022 reevaluation of these teeth states that they cannot be confidently assigned to "Pyroraptor" and may belong to a whole different variety of European dromaeosaurids.


title: Pyroraptor

text: Finds of dromaeosaurid dinosaur remains are rare in Europe and typically provide little taxonomic information. The first dromaeosaurid fossils found in France were those of "Variraptor mechinorum", described by Jean Le Lœuff and Eric Buffetaut. Allain and Taquet considered "Variraptor mechinorum" to be a nomen dubium on the basis that fossil material of the species was collected from localities different from that of the holotype, and that the material did not have enough diagnostic traits to warrant the naming of a new species. However, one of the authors that named "Variraptor", Jean Le Lœuff, points out in a conversation that the same reasons given for considering "Variraptor mechinorum" to be a nomen dubium would apply to "Pyroraptor olympius" as well, since "Pyroraptor"'s remains present the exact same problems.


title: Pyroraptor

text: In a 2009 description of new dromaeosaurid remains assigned to "Variraptor mechinorum", Phornphen Chanthasit and Eric Buffetaut addressed the claims of Allain & Taquet by mentioning that the original description of "Variraptor mechinorum" very clearly distinguished the holotype from any referred material and argue that some of the material very clearly belongs to the same individual while also elucidating that the situation with "Pyroraptor" is quite similar. However, due to the disarticulated nature of "Pyroraptor" remains, it's unknown if they belong to the same individual. This suspicion is affirmed by a 2012 study that states the known "Pyroraptor" material to belong to at least two different individuals.


title: Pyroraptor

text: The other criticism of Allain and Taquet, that there are not enough diagnostic features to support the validity of "Variraptor", is also addressed by the description of new and overlapping "Variraptor" remains from the same locality as the holotype "Variraptor" specimen, some of which are stated to undeniably belong to the holotype individual, thus adding new diagnostic traits and establishing the validity of "Variraptor mechinorum". The authors also bring light to the fact that Allain and Taquet did not provide enough diagnosable traits to establish the holotype of "Pyroraptor" as a valid species, noting that most features stated for diagnosis are not unique to "Pyroraptor" but are simply widespread traits of dromaeosaurs. A 2012 study also agrees that "Pyroraptor's" "unique" traits are widespread features of dromaeosauridae while also ruling out some of the other "unique traits" as results of preservation deformation.


title: Pyroraptor

text: Since the two existed at the same time and place, the possibility of a synonymy between "Pyroraptor" and "Variraptor" is raised but it is concluded that due to the current lack of overlap in material, this possible synonymy cannot yet be tested and more remains are needed.


title: Pyroraptor

text: "Pyroraptor olympius" was a dromaeosaurid, a small, bird-like predatory theropod that possessed enlarged curved claws on the second toe of each foot for predation; these claws were 6.5 centimeters (2.5 in) long for Pyroraptor. As in other dromaeosaurids, these claws might have been used as weapons or as climbing aids. Its two known teeth are flattened and curved backwards, with their rear margins having finer serrations than at the front.


title: Pyroraptor

text: As a dromaeosaurid, "Pyroraptor" likely had well-developed forelimbs with curved claws, and probably balanced the body with a long, thin tail. "Pyroraptor" was also covered in feathers, as many of its relatives, like "Microraptor" and "Sinornithosaurus", also had plumage.


title: Pyroraptor

text: Although "Pyroraptor olympius" has been shown to be a dromaeosaurid, in its initial description it was noted that due to the paucity of remains, not enough diagnostic features can be gathered to create a good comparison with other dromaeosaurids. This concern has been echoed by others, most notably in a 2012 phylogeny of paravia where "Pyroraptor" was found to wildly fluctuate in its position within Dromaeosauridae. Due to its status as a "wildcard taxa", "Pyroraptor" is known to create issues in phylogenies which are only fixed when it is pruned from the analysis. Hence, this taxon has rarely been used since in phylogenies, which causes difficulty in pinning its precise classification.


title: Pyroraptor

text: "Pyroraptor" was included in a 2014 phylogeny of "Microraptor", as with most trees including "Pyroraptor", this caused a polytomy as seen in the cladogram below. This polytomy was also repeated in a phylogeny of "Archaeopteryx" from the same year.


title: Pyroraptor

text: In the 2019 description of "Hesperornithoides", a phylogeny tree found "Pyroraptor" to be an unenlagiine. The study noted that this is biostratigraphically and geographically consistent with Cretaceous Europe showing a trend of hosting typically Gondwanan species.


title: Pyroraptor

text: This is also consistent with some previous studies, such as a 2005 study where it was suggested that some laurasian dromaeoaurids like "Pyroraptor" could be considered part of Gondwanan lineages, but scant material from European forms prevented this idea from being tested at the time. A 2012 phylogeny study noted that despite being an unstable taxa, "Pyroraptor" never fell within any of the laurasian dromaeosaur groups. The 2022 description of "Vectiraptor greeni" noted that the foot morphology of "Pyroraptor olympius" had more similarities with unenlagiines than with eudromaeosaurs, lending support to the idea that European raptors were closely related to Southern forms from Africa and South America. Another subsequent 2022 study that describes a newly discovered dromaeosaurid sickle claw from the same geologic formation as "Pyroraptor", compared the sickle claws with those of "Pyroraptor" and other dromaeosaurids, and more similarities between "Pyroraptor" and other unenlagiines were found, this time in the anatomy of the claws.


title: Pyroraptor

text: Two separate studies from 2011 regarding unenlagiines, where the teeth of "Pyroraptor" were compared to those of South American Unenlagiines found that although not significantly, some similarities in cross section were noticeable. But Unenlagiine teeth do not have any serrations on their edges and are usually fluted, a trait that is in direct contradiction with what is seen in "Pyroraptor" teeth which are serrated, as is typical of dromaeosaurs, the 2021 description of "Ypupiara lopai" rules out "Pyroraptor" as being an unenlagiid due to this dissimilarity. However, a 2022 study points out that if "Pyroraptor" is an unenlagiid, then this would mean that not all unenlagiids would have fluted, unserrated teeth.


title: Pyroraptor

text: During the initial description of "Pyroraptor olympius", the suggested model of dromaeosaurid evolution proposed that the dromaeosaurs originated from North America or Euro-America, and then dispersed into Asia. On the basis of newly discovered Early Cretaceous material from China, this dispersal model has since lost support, so Allain and Taquet postulated that perhaps European dromaeosaurids such as "Pyroraptor olympius" were the remnants of Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous fauna that evolved separately during the late Cretaceous isolation of Southern Europe.