title: Under Milk Wood

text: The first publication of "Under Milk Wood", a shortened version of the first half of the play, appeared in Botteghe Oscure in April 1952. Two years later, in February 1954, both The Observer newspaper and Mademoiselle magazine published abridged versions. The first publications of the complete play were also in 1954: J. M. Dent in London in March and New Directions in America in April.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: An Acting Edition of the play was published by Dent in 1958. The Definitive Edition, with one Voice, came out in 1995, edited by Walford Davies and Ralph Maud. A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook for free use went online in November 2006, produced by Colin Choat.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: The first translation was published in November 1954 by Drei Brücken Verlag in Germany, as "Unter dem Milchwald", translated by Erich Fried. A few months later, in January 1955, the play appeared in the French journal "Les Lettres Nouvelles" as "Le Bois de Lait", translated by Roger Giroux, with two further instalments in February and March.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: Over the next three years, "Under Milk Wood" was published in Dutch, Polish, Danish, Estonian, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Japanese and Italian. It's estimated that it has now been translated into over thirty languages, including Welsh with a translation by T. James Jones, (Jim Parc Nest), published in 1968 as "Dan Y Wenallt".


title: Under Milk Wood

text: The original manuscript of the play was lost by Thomas in a London pub, a few weeks before his death in 1953. The alleged gift of the manuscript, to BBC producer Douglas Cleverdon, formed the subject of litigation in "Thomas v Times Book Co" (1966), which is a leading case on the meaning of gift in English property law.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: The play had its first reading on stage on 14 May 1953, in New York City, at The Poetry Center at the 92nd Street Y. Thomas himself read the parts of the First Voice and the Reverend Eli Jenkins. Almost as an afterthought, the performance was recorded on a single-microphone tape recording (the microphone was laid at front center on the stage floor) and later issued by the Caedmon company. It is the only known recorded performance of "Under Milk Wood" with Thomas as a part of the cast. A studio recording, planned for 1954, was precluded by Thomas's death in November 1953.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: The BBC first broadcast "Under Milk Wood," a new "'Play for Voices", on the Third Programme on 25 January 1954 (two months after Thomas's death), although several sections were omitted. The play was recorded with a distinguished, all-Welsh cast including Richard Burton as "First Voice", with production by Douglas Cleverdon. A repeat was broadcast two days later. Daniel Jones, the Welsh composer who was a lifelong friend of Thomas's (and his literary trustee), wrote the music; this was recorded separately, on 15 and 16 January, at Laugharne School. The play won the Prix Italia award for radio drama that year.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: The following year, 1955, saw the first British stage production, on 13 August, at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, the first production at the Edinburgh Festival on 21 August and, on 20 September 1957, the first London West End stage production (at the New Theatre).


title: Under Milk Wood

text: The first attempt to bring the play to the screen occurred in May 1957 when the BBC broadcast a televised version narrated by Donald Houston. In 1963, the original radio producer, Douglas Cleverdon, revisited the project and recorded the complete play, which was broadcast on the Third Programme on 11 October 1963.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 1971, "Under Milk Wood" was performed at Brynmawr Comprehensive School. The production was entirely the work of pupils at the school—from set design, to lighting and direction. With very few exceptions, every character was acted by a different player to allow as many pupils as possible to take part. Scheduled for only one performance; it ran for a week.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: The 1972 film adaptation, with Burton reprising his role, also featured Elizabeth Taylor, Peter O'Toole, Glynis Johns, Vivien Merchant and other well-known actors, including Ryan Davies as the "Second Voice". It was filmed on location in Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, and at Lee International Film Studios, London.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 1988, George Martin produced an album version, featuring more of the dialogue sung, with music by Martin and Elton John, among others; Antony Hopkins played the part of "First Voice". This was subsequently produced as a one-off stage performance (as "An Evening with Dylan Thomas") for The Prince's Trust in the presence of HRH Prince Charles, to commemorate the opening in December 1992 of the new AIR Studios at Lyndhurst Hall. It was again produced by Martin and directed by Hopkins, who once again played 'First Voice'. Other roles were played by Harry Secombe, Freddie Jones, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Siân Phillips, Jonathan Pryce, Alan Bennett and, especially for the occasion, singer Tom Jones. The performance was recorded for television (directed by Declan Lowney) but has never been shown.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 1992, Brightspark Productions released a 50-minute animation version, using an earlier BBC soundtrack with Burton as narrator. This was commissioned by S4C (a Welsh-language public service broadcaster). Music was composed specially by Trevor Herbert and performed by Treorchy Male Voice Choir and the Welsh Brass Consort. Producer Robert Lyons. Director, Les Orton. It was made by Siriol Productions in association with Onward Productions and BBC Pebble Mill. This was released on DVD in October 2008. DVD ref: 5 037899 005798.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In February 1994, Guy Masterson premiered a one-man physical version of the unabridged text at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, playing all 69 characters. This production returned for the subsequent Edinburgh International Fringe Festival and sold out its entire run. It has since played over 2000 times globally.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 1997, Australian pianist and composer Tony Gould's adaptation of "Under Milk Wood" (written for narrator and chamber orchestra) was first performed by actor John Stanton and the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In November 2003, as part of their commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Thomas's death, the BBC broadcast a new production of the play, imaginatively combining new actors with the original 1954 recording of Burton playing "First Voice". (Broadcast 15 November 2003, BBC Radio 4; repeated 24 December 2004.) Digital noise reduction technology allowed Burton's part to be incorporated unobtrusively into the new recording, which was intended to represent Welsh voices more realistically than the original.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 2006, Austrian composer Akos Banlaky composed an opera with the libretto based on the German translation by Erich Fried ("Unter dem Milchwald", performed at Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck, Austria).


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 2008, French composer composed an opera, "Au Bois lacté", based on his own translation and adaptation of "Under Milk Wood". It was created at the Opéra-Théâtre in Metz, France, with staging by Antoine Juliens. The work is for 12 singers, large mixed choir, children choir, accordion, dancer and electronics sounds.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 2008, a ballet version of "Under Milk Wood" by Independent Ballet Wales toured the UK. It was choreographed by Darius James with music by British composer Thomas Hewitt Jones. A suite including music from the ballet was recorded by Court Lane Music in 2009.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 2009 and 2010 a translation in Dutch by the Belgian writer Hugo Claus was performed on stage by Jan Decleir and Koen De Sutter on a theatre tour in Belgium and the Netherlands (e.g. the Zeeland Late-Summer Festival, the Vooruit in Ghent, etc.).


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 2010, a one-woman production of the text was performed at the Sidetrack Theatre in Sydney, Australia, presented by Bambina Borracha Productions and directed by Vanessa Hughes. Actress Zoe Norton Lodge performed all 64 characters in the play.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In July 2011, Progress Youth Theatre (Reading, Berkshire, UK) performed a stage adaptation of the radio script. All visual aspects, such as stage directions, costume, set and lighting design were therefore devised entirely by the youth theatre. The voice parts were shared equally among seven actors, with other actors playing multiple "named" parts (with the exception of Captain Cat, who remained on stage throughout the production).


title: Under Milk Wood

text: The BBC Formula 1 introduction to the 2011 Singapore Grand Prix featured extracts of the audio for their opening VT.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 2012, the Sydney Theatre Company staged a production starring Jack Thompson as First Voice and Sandy Gore as Second Voice, with a cast including Bruce Spence, Paula Arundell, Drew Forsythe, Alan John, Drew Livingston and Helen Thomson. The production was staged in the Drama Theatre of the Sydney Opera House.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 2012, Gould's 1997 adaptation of "Under Milk Wood" (written for narrator and chamber orchestra) was again performed by actor John Stanton as part of the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School's inaugural performance at the Melbourne Recital Centre. Gould played piano and worked with the students as a musical mentor.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: Guy Masterson of Theatre Tours International has produced and performed a solo version of the play over 2000 times since its world premiere in 1994. It has been performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1994, 1996, 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2010; in Adelaide, Australia, in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2012; and in London's West End Arts Theatre.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 2014, Pip Broughton directed an adaptation of the play for the BBC, starring Michael Sheen, Tom Jones, and Jonathan Pryce.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In October 2014, the BBC launched an interactive ebook entitled "Dylan Thomas: The Road To Milk Wood", written by Jon Tregenna and Robin Moore. It deals with the journey from Swansea via the BBC to New York City and beyond.


title: Under Milk Wood

text: In 2021, as part of its post-COVID-19 programme, the National Theatre produced an adaptation of "Under Milk Wood" with Michael Sheen reprising his role as First Voice. This new adaptation included additional material from actress Dame Siân Phillips, who also starred in the production. The adaptation tells the story of First Voice trying to connect with his father, played by Karl Johnson, who has dementia by inventing stories of characters from the village his father lived in as a boy.


title: 2022 Tennessee gubernatorial election

text: The 2022 Tennessee gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 2022, to elect the Governor of Tennessee. Incumbent Republican Governor Bill Lee won re-election for a second term with almost 65% of the vote. Lee flipped reliably Democratic Haywood County, home to Brownsville. Haywood County has not voted Republican on a presidential level since 1972. Jason Martin was the Democratic nominee.


title: 2022 Tennessee gubernatorial election

text: The winner of the 2022 gubernatorial election, Bill Lee, is scheduled to be sworn in on January 21, 2023. The Tennessee gubernatorial primary election took place on August 4, 2022.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (or "in the temple") is an early episode in the life of Jesus Christ, describing his presentation at the Temple in Jerusalem, that is celebrated by many churches 40 days after Christmas on Candlemas, or the "Feast of the Presentation of Jesus". The episode is described in chapter 2 of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament. Within the account, "Luke's narration of the Presentation in the Temple combines the purification rite with the Jewish ceremony of the redemption of the firstborn ()."


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Presentation of Jesus at the temple is celebrated as one of the twelve Great Feasts, and is sometimes called "Hypapante" (, "meeting" in Greek).


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The Orthodox Churches which use the Julian Calendar celebrate it on 15 February, and the Armenian Church on 14 February.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In Western Christianity, the "Feast of the Presentation of the Lord" is also known by its earlier name as the "Feast of the Purification of the Virgin" or the "Meeting of the Lord". In some liturgical calendars, Vespers (or Compline) on the Feast of the Presentation marks the end of the Epiphany season, also (since the 2018 lectionary) in the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD). In the Church of England, the mother church of the Anglican Communion, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple is a Principal Feast celebrated either on 2 February or on the Sunday between 28 January and 3 February. In the Roman Catholic Church, especially since the time of Pope Gelasius I (492-496) who in the fifth century contributed to its expansion, the Feast of the Presentation is celebrated on 2 February.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, and the Lutheran Church, the episode was also reflected in the once-prevalent custom of churching of women forty days after the birth of a child. The Feast of the Presesentation of the Lord is in the Roman Rite also attached to the World Day of Consecrated Life.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The event is described in the Gospel of Luke (). According to the gospel, Mary and Joseph took the Infant Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem forty days (inclusive) after His birth to complete Mary's ritual purification after childbirth, and to perform the redemption of the firstborn son, in obedience to the Torah (, , etc.). Luke explicitly says that Joseph and Mary take the option provided for poor people (those who could not afford a lamb; ), sacrificing "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons." indicates that this event should take place forty days after birth for a male child, hence the Presentation is celebrated forty days after Christmas.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Upon bringing Jesus into the temple, they encountered Simeon. The Gospel records that Simeon had been promised that "he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ" (). Simeon then uttered the prayer that would become known as the "Nunc Dimittis", or Canticle of Simeon, which prophesied the redemption of the world by Jesus:


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel". ().


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Simeon then prophesied to Mary: "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed. ().


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The elderly prophetess Anna was also in the Temple, and offered prayers and praise to God for Jesus, and spoke to everyone there of His importance to redemption in Jerusalem ().


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Cornelius a Lapide comments on Mary and Joseph sacrificing a pair of turtledoves: "...because they were poor; for the rich were obliged to give in addition to this a lamb for a holocaust. Although the three kings had offered to Christ a great quantity of gold, still the Blessed Virgin, zealously affected towards poverty, accepted but little of it, that she might show her contempt of all earthly things. The couple offered two turtledoves or two pigeons (Luke 2:24) presumably because they could not afford a lamb.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In addition to being known as the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, other traditional names include Candlemas, the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, and the Meeting of the Lord.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The date of Candlemas is established by the date set for the Nativity of Jesus, for it comes forty days afterwards. Under Mosaic law as found in the Torah, a mother who had given birth to a boy was considered unclean for seven days; moreover she was to remain for three and thirty days "in the blood of her purification." Candlemas therefore corresponds to the day on which Mary, according to Jewish law, should have attended a ceremony of ritual purification (). The Gospel of Luke 2:22–39 relates that Mary was purified according to the religious law, followed by Jesus' presentation in the Jerusalem temple, and this explains the formal names given to the festival, as well as its falling 40 days after the Nativity.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In the Roman Catholic Church, it is known as the "Presentation of the Lord" in the liturgical books first issued by Paul VI, and as the "Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary" in earlier editions. In the Eastern Orthodox Church and Greek Catholic Churches (Eastern Catholic Churches which use the Byzantine rite), it is known as the "Feast of the Presentation of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ in the Temple" or as "The Meeting of Our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ".


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In the churches of the Anglican Communion, it is known by various names, including "The Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in The Temple (Candlemas)" (Episcopal Church), "The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary" (Anglican Church of Canada), "The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas)" (Church of England), and "The Presentation of Christ in the Temple" (Anglican Church of Australia).


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: It is known as the Presentation of Our Lord in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod observes 2 February as The Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord. In some Protestant churches, the feast is known as the Naming of Jesus (though historically he would have been named on the eighth day after the Nativity, when he was circumcised).


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: "Candlemas" is a northern European name for the feast because of the procession with lighted candles at the mass on this day, reflecting Simeon's proclamation of "a light for revelation to the Gentiles", which, in turn, echoes Isaiah 49:6 in the second of the "servant of the Lord" oracles.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Traditionally, Candlemas had been the last feast day in the Christian year that was dated by reference to Christmas. It is another "epiphany" type feast as Jesus is revealed as the messiah by the canticle of Simeon and the prophetess Anna. It also fits into this theme, as the earliest manifestation of Jesus inside the house of his heavenly Father. Subsequent moveable feasts are calculated with reference to Easter.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Traditionally, the Western term "Candlemas" (or Candle Mass) referred to the practice whereby a priest on 2 February blessed beeswax candles for use throughout the year, some of which were distributed to the faithful for use in the home. In Poland the feast is called "Święto Matki Bożej Gromnicznej" (Feast of Our Lady of Thunder candles). This name refers to the candles that are blessed on this day, called gromnice, since these candles are lit during (thunder) storms and placed in windows to ward off storms.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: This feast has been referred to as the Feast of Presentation of the Lord within the Roman Catholic Church since the liturgical revisions of the Second Vatican Council, with references to candles and the purification of Mary de-emphasised in favor of the Prophecy of Simeon the Righteous. Pope John Paul II connected the feast day with the renewal of religious vows. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In the Liturgy of the Hours, the Marian antiphon "Alma Redemptoris Mater" is used from Advent through 2 February, after which "Ave Regina Caelorum" is used through Good Friday.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In the Byzantine tradition practiced by the Eastern Orthodox, the Meeting of the Lord is unique among the Great Feasts in that it combines elements of both a Great Feast of the Lord and a Great Feast of the Theotokos (Mother of God). It has a forefeast of one day, and an afterfeast of seven days. However, if the feast falls during Cheesefare Week or Great Lent, the afterfeast is either shortened or eliminated altogether.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The holiday is celebrated with an all-night vigil on the eve of the feast, and a celebration of the Divine Liturgy the next morning, at which beeswax candles are blessed. This blessing traditionally takes place after the Little Hours and before the beginning of the Divine Liturgy (though in some places it is done after). The priest reads four prayers, and then a fifth one during which all present bow their heads before God. He then censes the candles and blesses them with holy water. The candles are then distributed to the people and the Liturgy begins.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: It is because of the biblical events recounted in the second chapter of Luke that the Churching of Women came to be practiced in both Eastern and Western Christianity. The usage has mostly died out in the West, except among Western Rite Orthodoxy, very occasionally still among Anglicans, and Traditionalist Catholics, but the ritual is still practiced in the Orthodox Church. In addition, babies, both boys and girls are taken to the Church on the fortieth day after their birth in remembrance of the Theotokos and Joseph taking the infant Jesus to the Temple.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In the Eastern and Western liturgical calendars the Presentation of the Lord falls on 2 February, forty days (inclusive) after Christmas. In the Church of England it may be celebrated on this day, or on the Sunday between 28 January and 3 February. This feast never falls in Lent; the earliest that Ash Wednesday can fall is 4 February, for the case of Easter on 22 March in a non-leap year. However, in the Tridentine rite, it can fall in the pre-Lenten season if Easter is early enough, and "Alleluia" has to be omitted from this feast's liturgy when that happens.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Candlemas is (since 1774) always celebrated on a Sunday, at earliest on 2 February and at latest on 8 February, except if this Sunday happens to be the last Sunday before Lent, i.e. Shrove Sunday or Quinquagesima (, ), in which case Candlemas is celebrated one week earlier.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Feast, called "The Coming of the Son of God into the Temple" ("Tiarn'ndaraj", from "Tyarn-", "the Lord", and "-undarach" "going forward"), is celebrated on 14 February. The Armenians do not celebrate the Nativity on 25 December, but on 6 January, and thus their date of the feast is 40 days after that: 14 February. The night before the feast, Armenians traditionally light candles during an evening church service, carrying the flame out into the darkness (symbolically bringing light into the void) and either take it home to light lamps or light a bonfire in the church courtyard.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The Feast of the Presentation is among the most ancient feasts of the Church. Celebration of the feast dates from the fourth century in Jerusalem. There are sermons on the Feast by the bishops Methodius of Patara († 312), Cyril of Jerusalem († 360), Gregory the Theologian († 389), Amphilochius of Iconium († 394), Gregory of Nyssa († 400), and John Chrysostom († 407).


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The earliest reference to specific liturgical rites surrounding the feast are by the intrepid Egeria, during her pilgrimage to the Holy Land (381–384). She reported that 14 February was a day solemnly kept in Jerusalem with a procession to Constantine I's Basilica of the Resurrection, with a homily preached on (which makes the occasion perfectly clear), and a Divine Liturgy. This so-called ("Pilgrimage Itinerary") of Egeria does not, however, offer a specific name for the Feast. The date of 14 February indicates that in Jerusalem at that time, Christ's birth was celebrated on 6 January, Epiphany. Egeria writes for her beloved fellow nuns at home:


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: XXVI. "The fortieth day after the Epiphany is undoubtedly celebrated here with the very highest honor, for on that day there is a procession, in which all take part, in the Anastasis, and all things are done in their order with the greatest joy, just as at Easter. All the priests, and after them the bishop, preach, always taking for their subject that part of the Gospel where Joseph and Mary brought the Lord into the Temple on the fortieth day, and Symeon and Anna the prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, saw him, treating of the words which they spake when they saw the Lord, and of that offering which his parents made. And when everything that is customary has been done in order, the sacrament is celebrated, and the dismissal takes place."


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: About AD 450 in Jerusalem, people began the custom of holding lighted candles during the Divine Liturgy of this feast day. Originally, the feast was a minor celebration. But then in 541, a terrible plague broke out in Constantinople, killing thousands. The Emperor Justinian I, in consultation with the Patriarch of Constantinople, ordered a period of fasting and prayer throughout the entire Empire. And, on the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord, arranged great processions throughout the towns and villages and a solemn prayer service ("Litia") to ask for deliverance from evils, and the plague ceased. In thanksgiving, in 542 the feast was elevated to a more solemn celebration and established throughout the Eastern Empire by the Emperor.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In Rome, the feast appears in the "Gelasian Sacramentary", a manuscript collection of the seventh and eighth centuries associated with Pope Gelasius I. There it carries for the first time the new title of the feast of Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Late in time though it may be, Candlemas is still the most ancient of all the festivals in honor of the Virgin Mary. The date of the feast in Rome was 2 February because the Roman date for Christ's nativity had been 25 December since at least the early fourth century.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Though modern laymen picture Candlemas as an important feast throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, in fact it spread slowly in the West; it is not found in the "Lectionary" of Silos (650) nor in the "Calendar" (731–741) of Sainte-Geneviève of Paris.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The tenth-century Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester, has a formula used for blessing the candles. Candlemas did become important enough to find its way into the secular calendar. It was the traditional day to remove the cattle from the hay meadows, and from the field that was to be ploughed and sown that spring. References to it are common in later medieval and early Modern literature; Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" is recorded as having its first performance on Candlemas Day 1602. It remains one of the Scottish quarter days, at which debts are paid and law courts are in session.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The Feast of the Presentation depends on the date for Christmas: As per the passage from the Gospel of Luke () describing the event in the life of Jesus, the celebration of the Presentation of the Lord follows 40 days after. The blessing of candles on this day recalls Simeon's reference to the infant Jesus as the "light for revelation to the Gentiles" ().


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Modern Pagans believe that Candlemas is a Christianization of the Gaelic festival of Imbolc, which was celebrated in pre-Christian Europe (and especially the Celtic Nations) at about the same time of year. Imbolc is called "St. Brigid's Day" or "Brigid" in Ireland. Both the goddess Brigid and the Christian Saint Brigid—who was the Abbess of Kildare—are associated with sacred flames, holy wells and springs, healing, and smithcraft. Brigid is a virgin, yet also the patron of midwives. However, a connection with Roman (rather than Celtic or Germanic) polytheism is more plausible, since the feast was celebrated before any serious attempt to expand Christianity into non-Roman countries.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In Irish homes, there were many rituals revolving around welcoming Brigid into the home. Some of Brigid's rituals and legends later became attached to Saint Brigid, who was seen by Celtic Christians as the midwife of Christ and "Mary of the Gael". In Ireland and Scotland she is the "foster mother of Jesus." The exact date of the Imbolc festival may have varied from place to place based on local tradition and regional climate. Imbolc is celebrated by modern Pagans on the eve of 2 February, at the astronomical midpoint, or on the full moon closest to the first spring thaw.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Frederick Holweck, writing in the "Catholic Encyclopædia" says definite in its rejection of this argument: "The feast was certainly not introduced by Pope Gelasius to suppress the excesses of the Lupercalia," (referencing J.P. Migne, "Missale Gothicum", 691) The "1911 Encyclopædia Britannica" agrees: the association with Gelasius "has led some to suppose that it was ordained by Pope Gelasius I in 492 as a counter-attraction to the pagan Lupercalia; but for this there is no warrant." Since the two festivals are both concerned with the ritual purification of women, not all historians are convinced that the connection is purely coincidental. Gelasius certainly did write a treatise against Lupercalia, and this still exists.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Pope Innocent XII believed Candlemas was created as an alternative to Roman Paganism, as stated in a sermon on the subject:


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Why do we in this feast carry candles? Because the Gentiles dedicated the month of February to the infernal gods, and as at the beginning of it Pluto stole Proserpine, and her mother Ceres sought her in the night with lighted candles, so they, at the beginning of the month, walked about the city with lighted candles. Because the holy fathers could not extirpate the custom, they ordained that Christians should carry about candles in honor of the Blessed Virgin; and thus what was done before in the honor of Ceres is now done in honor of the Blessed Virgin.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: There is no contemporary evidence to support the popular notions that Gelasius abolished the Lupercalia, or that he, or any other prelate, replaced it with the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In Armenia, celebrations at the Presentation have been influenced by pre-Christian customs, such as: the spreading of ashes by farmers in their fields each year to ensure a better harvest, keeping ashes on the roof of a house to keep evil spirits away, and the belief that newlywed women needed to jump over fire to purify themselves before getting pregnant. Young men will also leap over a bonfire.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The tradition of lighting a candle in each window is not the origin of the name "Candlemas", which instead refers to a blessing of candles.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: On the day following Candlemas, the feast of St. Blaise is celebrated. It is connected to the rite of Blessing of the Throats, which is, for to be available to reach more people, also often transferred after the Mass of the Presentation of the Lord or even bestowed on both feasts. By coincidence, the Blessing of the Throats is bestowed with crossed candles.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The event forms a usual component of extensive cycles of the "Life of Christ" and also of the "Life of the Virgin". Often either the Presentation of Jesus or the visually similar "Circumcision of Jesus" was shown, but by the late Middle Ages the two were sometimes combined. Early images concentrated on the moment of meeting with Simeon.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In the West, beginning in the 8th or 9th century, a different depiction at an altar emerged, where Simeon eventually by the Late Middle Ages came to be shown wearing the elaborate vestments attributed to the Jewish High Priest, and conducting a liturgical ceremony surrounded by the family and Anna. In the West, Simeon is more often already holding the infant, or the moment of handover is shown; in Eastern images the Virgin is more likely still to hold Jesus. In the Eastern Churches this event is called the "Hypapante".


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Simeon's comment that "you yourself a sword will pierce" gave rise to a subset iconography of the Sorrowful Mother.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Many motets and anthems have been composed to celebrate this feast and are performed as part of the liturgy, among them an anthem by 16th century German composer Johannes Eccard (1553–1611), "Maria wallt zum Heiligtum", often translated in English as "When Mary to the Temple went".


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The Lutheran church of the Baroque observed the feast as "Mariae Reinigung" (Purification of Mary). Johann Sebastian Bach composed several cantatas to be performed in the church service of the day, related to Simeon's canticle "Nunc dimittis" as part of the prescribed readings.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: As the poem by Robert Herrick records, the eve of Candlemas was the day on which Christmas decorations of greenery were removed from people's homes; for traces of berries, holly and so forth will bring death among the congregation before another year is out.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In Scotland, until a change in the law in 1991 (see Scottish term days), and in much of northern England until the 18th century, Candlemas was one of the traditional quarter days when quarterly rents were due for payment, as well as the day or term for various other business transactions, including the hiring of servants.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In the United Kingdom, good weather at Candlemas is taken to indicate severe winter weather later: ""If Candlemas Day is clear and bright, / winter will have another bite. / If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain, / winter is gone and will not come again."" It is also alleged to be the date that bears emerge from hibernation to inspect the weather as well as wolves, who if they choose to return to their lairs on this day is interpreted as meaning severe weather will continue for another forty days at least. The same is true in Italy, where it is called .


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: The Carmina Gadelica, a seminal collection of Scottish folklore, refers to a serpent coming out of the mound on "Latha Fheill Bride", as the Scots call Candlemas. This rhyme is still used in the West Highlands and Hebrides.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In the United States, Candlemas coincides with Groundhog Day, the earliest American reference to which can be found at the Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center at Franklin and Marshall College. The reference implies that Groundhog Day may have come from a German-American Candlemas tradition:


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In Southern and Central Mexico, and Guatemala City, Candlemas () is celebrated with tamales. Tradition indicates that on 5 January, the night before Three Kings Day (the Epiphany), whoever gets one or more of the few plastic or metal dolls (originally coins) buried within the Rosca de Reyes must pay for the tamales and throw a party on Candlemas. In certain regions of Mexico, this is the day in which the baby Jesus of each household is taken up from the nativity scene and dressed up in various colorful, whimsical outfits.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: In Luxembourg, "Liichtmëss" sees children carrying lighted sticks visiting neighbors and singing a traditional song in exchange for sweets.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: Sailors are often reluctant to set sail on Candlemas Day, believing that any voyage begun then will end in disaster—given the frequency of severe storms in February, this is not entirely without sense.


title: Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

text: According to over eight centuries of tradition, the swaddling clothes that baby Jesus wore during the presentation at the Temple are kept in Dubrovnik Cathedral, Croatia.


title: The Falcon and the Snowman

text: The Falcon and the Snowman is a 1985 American spy drama film directed by John Schlesinger. The screenplay by Steven Zaillian is based on the 1979 book "The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship and Espionage" by Robert Lindsey, and tells the true story of two young American men, Christopher Boyce (Timothy Hutton) and Andrew Daulton Lee (Sean Penn), who sold US security secrets to the Soviet Union. The film features the song "This Is Not America," written and performed by David Bowie and the Pat Metheny Group.


title: The Falcon and the Snowman

text: Christopher Boyce, an expert in the sport of falconry and the son of a former FBI special agent, gets a job at a civilian defense contractor working in the so-called "Black Vault," a secure communication facility through which flows information on some of the most classified U.S. operations in the world. Boyce becomes disillusioned with the U.S. government through his new position, especially after reading a misrouted communiqué dealing with the CIA's plan to depose the Prime Minister of Australia. Frustrated by this duplicity, Boyce decides to repay his government by passing classified secrets to the Soviets.


title: The Falcon and the Snowman

text: Andrew Daulton Lee is a drug addict and minor cocaine smuggler, nicknamed "The Snowman," who has frustrated and alienated his family. Lee agrees to contact and deal with the KGB's agents in Mexico on Boyce's behalf, motivated not by idealism but by what he perceives as an opportunity to make money with plans to settle in Costa Rica, a nation that at that time had no extradition treaty with the United States.


title: The Falcon and the Snowman

text: As the pair become increasingly involved with espionage, Lee's ambition to create a major espionage business coupled with his excessive drug use begins to strain the two from each other. Alex, their Soviet handler, becomes increasingly reluctant to deal through Lee as the middleman because of Lee's periods of irrationality. Above all, Boyce wants to end the espionage act so that he can resume a normal life with his girlfriend Lana and attend college. Boyce meets with Lee's KGB handler to explain the situation. Meanwhile, Lee is desperate to regain the Soviets' regard after realizing that the KGB no longer needs him as a courier. Lee is observed tossing a note over the fence at the Soviet embassy in Mexico City and is arrested by Mexican police and a U.S. Foreign Service officer accompanies him to the police station.


title: The Falcon and the Snowman

text: When the police search his pockets and find film from a Minox camera Boyce used to photograph documents along with a postcard used by the Soviets to show Lee the location of a drop zone, they produce pictures of the same location that was on the postcard, showing officers surrounding a dead man on the street. The Foreign Service officer explains that the Mexican police are trying to implicate him with the murder of a policeman. The police then drag Lee away and interrogate him.


title: The Falcon and the Snowman

text: Hours later, Lee reveals that he is a Soviet spy. Told by the Mexican police that he will be deported, Lee is offered a choice of where to be sent. Lee suggests Costa Rica, but the choice is merely between the Soviet Union and the United States. Lee reluctantly agrees to go back to America and is arrested as he walks across the border.


title: The Falcon and the Snowman

text: Knowing that he too will soon be captured, Boyce releases his pet falcon, Fawkes, and then sits down to wait. Moments later, U.S. Marshals and FBI agents surround and capture him. As the film ends, Lee and Boyce are seen being escorted to prison.


title: The Falcon and the Snowman

text: "The Falcon and The Snowman" received generally positive notices upon release in 1985 and currently has an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes from 22 critics.


title: The Falcon and the Snowman

text: Film critic Roger Ebert gave it a perfect four-star rating, citing one of the many strengths as that "it succeeds, in an admirably matter-of-fact way, in showing us exactly how these two young men got in way over their heads. This is a movie about spies, but it is not a thriller in any routine sense of the word. It's just the meticulously observant record of how naiveté, inexperience, misplaced idealism and greed led to one of the most peculiar cases of treason in American history."


title: The Falcon and the Snowman

text: Film critic Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" also gave the film four stars and hailed Hutton and Penn's work in the film, writing that "it's tough to spot Penn in this new role" and calling Penn's performance rare because it "neither patronizes nor celebrates drug use; instead, it's absolutely lifelike, and for a film based on a true story, there is no greater compliment." Siskel also noted that the two lead characters formed an odd couple that made "a terrific formula for a movie, creating at least three stories: The plight of each man, their joint effort to accomplish their goal and the changing dynamic of their relationship as the story progresses. As if that weren't enough, 'The Falcon and the Snowman' also turns into a 'how-to' movie with a fine sense of detail for the worlds of espionage and drugs."


title: The Falcon and the Snowman

text: On April 27, 1986, a broadcast of "The Falcon and The Snowman" by HBO was interrupted for four and a half minutes by a pirate broadcast featuring a message protesting the network's introduction of signal scrambling and higher charges for satellite dish owners. The incident made national headlines; the hijacker, electrical engineer John R. MacDougall, was eventually arrested and fined $5,000.


title: Banana pepper

text: The banana pepper (also known as the yellow wax pepper or banana chili) is a medium-sized member of the chili pepper family that has a mild, tangy taste. While typically bright yellow, it is possible for them to change to green, red, or orange as they ripen. It is often pickled, stuffed or used as a raw ingredient in foods. It is a cultivar of the species "Capsicum annuum". Its flavor is not very hot (0–500 Scoville units) and, as is the case with most peppers, its heat depends on the maturity of the pepper, with the ripest being sweeter than younger ones.


title: Banana pepper

text: A mature fruit will be about 2–3 inches (5–8 cm) in length and have a curved shape and yellowish color similar to a banana, giving rise to the fruit's common name. Friggitelli (pepperoncini) are often erroneously referred to as banana peppers. The hot varieties of banana pepper are called Hungarian wax peppers.


title: Banana pepper

text: The plant requires full sun, like other "Capsicum annuum" varieties, and should be treated the same as most other plants in the pepper family. Plants can be grown from seed and cuttings. A mature plant will reach 1 to 2 feet tall and can be grown in many climates, but prefers warmer climates. Cultivars include Early Sweet Banana, Hungarian Yellow Wax, Long Sweet Yellow, Sweet Banana, and Sweet Hungarian.


title: Banana pepper

text: Raw banana peppers contain 92% water, 5% carbohydrates, and negligible fat and protein (table). They are rich sources of vitamin C, containing 100% of the Daily Value (DV) in a 100 gram reference amount (table). Vitamin B6 is present in substantial content of 28% DV, with no other micronutrients in appreciable amounts (table).


title: Materiel

text: Materiel (; ) refers to supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commercial supply chain context.


title: Materiel

text: In a military context, the term "materiel" refers either to the specific needs (excluding manpower) of a force to complete a specific mission, or the general sense of the needs (excluding manpower) of a functioning army.


title: Materiel

text: An important category of materiel is commonly referred to as ordnance, especially concerning mounted guns (artillery) and the shells it consumes. Along with fuel, and munitions in general, the steady supply of ordnance is an ongoing logistic challenge in active combat zones.


title: Materiel

text: Materiel management consists of continuing actions relating to planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, controlling, and evaluating the application of resources to ensure the effective and economical support of military forces. It includes provisioning, cataloging, requirements determination, acquisition, distribution, maintenance, and disposal. The terms "materiel management", "materiel control", "inventory control", "inventory management", and "supply management" are synonymous.


title: Materiel

text: Military materiel is often shipped to and used in severe climates without controlled warehouses or fixed material handling equipment. Packaging and labeling often need to meet stringent technical specifications to help ensure proper delivery and final use. Some military procurement allows for commercial packaging rather than the more stringent military grades.


title: Materiel

text: Materiel in the commercial distribution context refers to the products of the business, as distinct from those involved in operating the business itself.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: Yuriy Anatoliyovych Boyko (, ; born 9 October 1958) is a Ukrainian politician who served as one of the Vice Prime Ministers of Ukraine between 2012 and 2014, as well as the Minister of Energy from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2010 to 2012. Other than during stint as Vice Prime Minister, he has continuously served as a Member of the Verkhovna Rada since 2007. Boyko ran for President in the March 2019 election, winning many districts in the southeast of the country but ultimately coming fourth and narrowly missing qualification for the second round.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: Designated a Hero of Ukraine in 2004, Boyko is considered to be one of the primary proponents of closer relations with Russia in Ukrainian politics. Boyko was a leading figure of the now-banned Opposition Platform — For Life, which he led to second place in the July 2019 parliamentary election, and currently heads its successor, the Platform for Life and Peace. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which he opposed, he reversed some of his pro-Russian stances, now supporting Ukraine's proposed accession to the European Union and backing President Volodymyr Zelensky's Servant of the People party in Parliament. Prior to his political career, he was an expert on oil and gas policy.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: Yuriy Boyko was born on 9 October 1958, in Horlivka, Donetsk Oblast. In 1981 Boyko graduated from the D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia (chemical engineering), and in 2001 he graduated from Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University (engineering and economics).


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: From 1981 to 1999, Boyko started as a master at an industrial site and rose to the title of Director General of the chemical plant Zarya in Rubezhnoye. Following that, from 1999 to 2001, he was Director General of JSC Lisichansknefteorgsintez (Lysychansk refinery), and from August 2001 to February 2002 Boyko served as chairman of the management board of JSC Ukrtatnafta (Kremenchug refinery).


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: In February 2002 Boyko was appointed the chairman of NAC Naftogaz-Ukraine, and led the company until March 2005.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: Boyko served as First Deputy Minister of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine from July 2003 to March 2005 in the cabinet of then-Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych. In late July 2004, he was also appointed in the coordination committee for RosUkrEnergo.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: In the summer of 2005 President Viktor Yushchenko blocked the arrest of Boyko on suspicion of abuse of office while heading Naftogaz. This arrest had been ordered by Security Service of Ukraine Chairman Oleksandr Turchynov.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: During Ukrainian parliamentary elections in 2006, held the year after Boyko was elected the chairman of the Republican Party of Ukraine (RPU), the RPU joined the electoral alliance "Ne Tak!", yet they did not succeed to reach the 3% election threshold required by law to enter parliament.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: On 4 August 2006, he was appointed by Yanukovych as Minister of Fuel and Energy. Holding office for over a year, on 18 December 2007, he was dismissed due to the upcoming parliamentary elections, which he successfully contested as member of the Party of Regions.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: On 11 March 2010 Boyko was again appointed the Minister of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov. On 9 December 2010, due to the optimisation of the system of central executive power in Ukraine (a.k.a. reorganisation of ministries), Yanukovych, who was now President of Ukraine, dismissed Boyko on a technicality and re-appointed him as Minister of Energy and Coal Industry.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: On 24 December 2012, Boyko was promoted to the position of a Vice Prime Minister, responsible for ecology, natural resources, energy, coal industry and industrial policy. On 23 May 2013, the space sector was added to his functions.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: On 29 March 2014, a Party of Regions convention decided to support Boyko's political opponent Mykhailo Dobkin as a candidate for the presidential election, and on 7 April 2014, the party's political council expelled Boyko amidst infighting. Boyko launched a last-minute presidential campaign himself to oppose Dodkin, receiving less than a percentage point of the electorate.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election he was again re-elected into parliament; this time heading the electoral list of Opposition Bloc.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: On 9 November 2018, Boyko and the party For life signed an agreement for cooperation in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election and the parliamentary election of the same year called Opposition Platform-For life.<ref name="pravda2018/11/17/7198528H"> The association of Boyko-Rabinovich was determined with the presidential candidate, Ukrayinska Pravda (17 November 2018)</ref> The same day Opposition Bloc leading members Vadym Novynskyi and Borys Kolesnikov claimed the agreement was a "personal initiative" of Boyko and that Opposition Bloc had not taken any decisions on cooperation with For life. On 17 November 2018 Opposition Platform-For life nominated Boyko as its candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. Boyko was excluded from the Opposition Bloc faction (the reason given was) "because they betrayed their voters" interests on 20 November 2018. Boyko's official nomination by Opposition Platform-For life was announced on 17 November. Because Opposition Platform-For life was not yet registered as a party in January 2019 it could not nominate him as a presidential candidate. Hence on 17 January 2019 Boyko submitted documents to the Central Election Commission of Ukraine for registration as a self-nominated candidate. In the election Boyko took fourth place with 11.67% of the total vote, just over 4% behind incumbent Petro Poroshenko, who therefore instead of Boyko progressed to the second round along with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In the parliamentary election a few months later, Boyko led his Opposition Platform — For Life party to second place with 13.05% of the vote, becoming the main opposition party.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: His party was banned by the government following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine for its pro-Russian stances, despite it having opposed the invasion itself.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: Data shortly before the parliamentary elections in June 2019 suggested that Boyko was the second-ranked pick to be Prime Minister of Ukraine behind eventual appointee Oleksiy Honcharuk.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: Through an offshore scheme in 2005, Boyko funded a K-street lobbyist through which he would meet with top members of the United States Republican Party and other conservatives in the United States.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: According to newspaper "Dzerkalo Tyzhnia" ("The Weekly Mirror"), in 2011 Boyko was cited confirming the purchase of a modern offshore drilling platform from Singapore. "Dzerkalo Tyzhnia" conducted an investigation into the tender surrounding the offshore platform, in which Highway Investment Processing LLC, a supposed offshore shell from Wales, UK, was the winner. The article stated that the Ukrainian state company Chornomornaftogaz, engaged in offshore oil and gas production in Azov and the Black Sea, paid over $400M for a drilling rig that costs $248M. Using Google Street View, journalists cited that Highway Investment Processing LLC appeared to be situated in an equipment store on the outskirts of Cardiff, Wales, and the LLC was further cited in the media as going through liquidation; however, the authorities suspended the liquidation process due to an investigation. Official records with the United Kingdom's Companies House indicated the company was incorporated on 12 December 2008 and was currently listed as active. Throughout the whole affair, Boyko denied fraud allegations surrounding the purchase, citing additional equipment and movement costs and a "report from Halliburton" confirming the price of $400M. After Boyko labeled the "Dzerkalo Tyzhnia" journalists as "liars," the newspaper in turn filed a lawsuit against Boyko; the case is currently in appeals. The affair also sparked a scandal in Norway where Seadrill was accused of insufficient due diligence and KYC on its shell customer Highway Investment Processing LLC.


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: During a televised debate on 14 November 2016, Boyko punched politician Oleh Lyashko in the face after being called a "Kremlin agent."


title: Yuriy Boyko

text: He is married, together with his wife Vera he is raising 6 children. Boyko plays ice hockey, football, likes waterskiing and windsurfing.


title: M-LOK

text: M-LOK, for Modular Lock, is a free licensed firearm rail interface system developed and patented by Magpul Industries.


title: M-LOK

text: M-LOK allows for direct accessory attachment onto the "negative space" (hollow slot) mounting points, and is a competing standard to VLTOR's open sourced KeyMod system for replacing the ubiquitous Picatinny rail in some applications. Compared to the Picatinny rail system, both M-LOK and KeyMod enable the user to have a slimmer, lighter, smoother and more fenestrated handguard/fore-end with accessories mounted only where needed, whereas a Picatinny handguard typically will have rail slots for its whole length, resulting in a heavier and bulkier handguard with sharp edges and poorer barrel ventilation.


title: M-LOK

text: The M-LOK system can be seen as an evolution of the Magpul Original Equipment (MOE) system, but the two are not fully compatible. Though newer M-LOK accessories can be used on older MOE slot handguards if an adaptor plate is used, there is no adaptor available for using older MOE accessories on the newer M-LOK handguards.


title: M-LOK

text: A prototype of the MOE slot was revealed by Magpul in late 2007 together with their Masada Concept Rifle (which would later be known as the Adaptive Combat Rifle). The MOE slot system was released by Magpul in 2008 as a feature on their MOE handguards, and at the same time compatible accessories such as Picatinny rail sections, direct MOE mounted light mounts, grips, bipod studs, etc. were released.


title: M-LOK

text: The MOE slot standard was never officially released, and a drawback to the system was that the rear side of the panel had to be accessed in order to mount accessories, limiting its application. The MOE slot system uses a weld nut which has to be placed manually on the inside of the handguard before mounting, making the slot system unsuited for applications such as free-floating handguards. Also, depending on the accessory item, the spacing increments between the MOE slots were not small or uniform enough to adjust the desired placement of accessories.


title: M-LOK

text: Acknowledging shortcomings of the MOE systems, Magpul drafted M-LOK as a new and improved mounting standard which was released in 2014 replacing the existing MOE slot. The M-LOK rail specification included metric dimensions instead of imperial, and utilizes a T-slot nut capable of only 90-degree rotation, reinforced by thread-locking fluid, making it suited for applications on free-floating handguards. It was designed to work with both metal and polymer parts.


title: M-LOK

text: In 2016, Colt Canada developed and released the Modular Rail Rifle (MRR) that uses a monolithic upper receiver with the M-LOK attachment system. In 2017, several companies produce M-LOK handguards as well as accessories like Picatinny rail strips, vertical foregrips, bipods, sling adaptors, and flashlight mounts.


title: M-LOK

text: In 2017, a summary report of testing conducted by NSWC-Crane for USSOCOM indicated that, while comparable in endurance and rough handling testing, M-LOK greatly outperformed Keymod in repeatability, drop testing and failure load testing.


title: M-LOK

text: While M-LOK is free licensed, it is not open source, and thus manufacturers must acquire a license from Magpul before making products using the M-LOK standard. Magpul claims this gives them more control in assuring that all M-LOK products are made to specifications ensuring compatibility. Program participation is open to any interested manufacturer.


title: M-LOK

text: The slot dimensions (used on handguards, etc.) are available on the web. The slots provide metric length intervals, and accessories can be mounted either within a slot or bridging between slots, making it possible to adjust the position of accessories in smaller intervals than the length of the slot. The slots on an M-Lok handguard are approximately long and wide and space from each other. The radius of the corners is approximately .


title: M-LOK

text: The quarter-turn T-slot nuts have different torque specifications depending on the handguard material:


title: M-LOK

text: Attachment screws made by many U.S. manufacturers are often either #8-32 TPI or 10-24 TPI UNC threads, which respectively have major thread diameters of 0.1640 inches and 0.1900 inches (4.166-0.794 mm and 4.826-1.058 mm expressed in metric designation). Many M-LOK screws on the international market instead use either M4 or M5 metric threads to reduce cost.


title: M-LOK

text: The tool required for mounting, in addition to the thread size, also depends the screw head type. Hex keys are used extensively in the firearms industry, but metric and imperial hex keys as a general rule are not compatible. It is possible to damage the tool and screw by selecting a tool that is too small for the fastener, which can be done by using an imperial tool on a metric fastener, or the converse. An exception to this is 4 mm hex keys, which are almost the exact same size as . In many industries, this makes hex keys preferred for consumer products because end users can successfully use an imperial key on a metric fastener, and vice versa.


title: M-LOK

text: While screw and slot dimensions are available on the web, the T-slot nut dimensions are currently under review by the US State Department to determine whether it should be regulated by ITAR, and until it is clarified drawings are only available to US citizens.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: Asteroids is a space-themed multidirectional shooter arcade game designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg released in November 1979 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a single spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy the asteroids and saucers, while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucers' counter-fire. The game becomes harder as the number of asteroids increases.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: "Asteroids" was conceived during a meeting between Logg and Rains, who decided to use hardware developed by Howard Delman previously used for "Lunar Lander". Asteroids was based on an unfinished game titled "Cosmos"; its physics model, control scheme, and gameplay elements were derived from "Spacewar!", "Computer Space", and "Space Invaders" and refined through trial and error. The game is rendered on a vector display in a two-dimensional view that wraps around both screen axes.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: "Asteroids" was one of the first major hits of the golden age of arcade games; the game sold over 70,000 arcade cabinets and proved both popular with players and influential with developers. In the 1980s it was ported to Atari's home systems, and the Atari VCS version sold over three million copies. The game was widely imitated, and it directly influenced "Defender", "Gravitar", and many other video games.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: The objective of "Asteroids" is to destroy asteroids and saucers. The player controls a triangular ship that can rotate left and right, fire shots straight forward, and thrust forward. Once the ship begins moving in a direction, it will continue in that direction for a time without player intervention unless the player applies thrust in a different direction. The ship eventually comes to a stop when not thrusting. The player can also send the ship into hyperspace, causing it to disappear and reappear in a random location on the screen, at the risk of self-destructing or appearing on top of an asteroid.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: Each level starts with a few large asteroids drifting in various directions on the screen. Objects wrap around screen edges – for instance, an asteroid that drifts off the top edge of the screen reappears at the bottom and continues moving in the same direction. As the player shoots asteroids, they break into smaller asteroids that move faster and are more difficult to hit. Smaller asteroids are also worth more points. Two flying saucers appear periodically on the screen; the "big saucer" shoots randomly and poorly, while the "small saucer" fires frequently at the ship. After reaching a score of 40,000, only the small saucer appears. As the player's score increases, the angle range of the shots from the small saucer diminishes until the saucer fires extremely accurately. Once the screen has been cleared of all asteroids and flying saucers, a new set of large asteroids appears, thus starting the next level. The game gets harder as the number of asteroids increases until after the score reaches a range between 40,000 and 60,000. The player starts with 3–5 lives upon game start and gains an extra life per 10,000 points. Play continues to the last ship lost, which ends the game. The machine "turns over" at 99,990 points, which is the maximum high score that can be achieved.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: In the original game design, saucers were supposed to begin shooting as soon as they appeared, but this was changed. Additionally, saucers can only aim at the player's ship on-screen; they are not capable of aiming across a screen boundary. These behaviors allow a "lurking" strategy, in which the player stays near the edge of the screen opposite the saucer. By keeping just one or two rocks in play, a player can shoot across the boundary and destroy saucers to accumulate points indefinitely with little risk of being destroyed. Arcade operators began to complain about losing revenue due to this exploit. In response, Atari issued a patched EPROM and, due to the impact of this exploit, Atari (and other companies) changed their development and testing policies to try to prevent future games from having such exploits.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: "Asteroids" was conceived by Lyle Rains and programmed by Ed Logg with collaborations from other Atari staff. Logg was impressed with the Atari Video Computer System (later called the Atari 2600), and he joined Atari's coin-op division to work on "Dirt Bike", which was never released due to an unsuccessful field test. Paul Mancuso joined the development team as "Asteroids" technician and engineer Howard Delman contributed to the hardware. During a meeting in April 1979, Rains discussed "Planet Grab", a multiplayer arcade game later renamed to "Cosmos". Logg did not know the name of the game, thinking "Computer Space" as "the inspiration for the two-dimensional approach". Rains conceived of "Asteroids" as a mixture of "Computer Space" and "Space Invaders", combining the two-dimensional approach of "Computer Space" with "Space Invaders" addictive gameplay of "completion" and "eliminate all threats". The unfinished game featured a giant, indestructible asteroid, so Rains asked Logg: "Well, why don’t we have a game where you shoot the rocks and blow them up?" In response, Logg described a similar concept where the player selectively shoots at rocks that break into smaller pieces. Both agreed on the concept.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: "Asteroids" was implemented on hardware developed by Delman and is a vector game, in which the graphics are composed of lines drawn on a vector monitor. Rains initially wanted the game done in raster graphics, but Logg, experienced in vector graphics, suggested an XY monitor because the high image quality would permit precise aiming. The hardware is chiefly a MOS 6502 executing the game program, and QuadraScan, a high-resolution vector graphics processor developed by Atari and referred to as an "XY display system" and the "Digital Vector Generator (DVG)".


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: The original design concepts for QuadraScan came out of Cyan Engineering, Atari's off-campus research lab in Grass Valley, California, in 1978. Cyan gave it to Delman, who finished the design and first used it for "Lunar Lander". Logg received Delman's modified board with five buttons, 13 sound effects, and additional RAM, and he used it to develop "Asteroids". The size of the board was 4 by 4 inches, and it was "linked up" to a monitor.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: Logg modeled the player's ship, the five-button control scheme, and the game physics after "Spacewar!", which he had played as a student at the University of California, Berkeley, but made several changes to improve playability. The ship was programmed into the hardware and rendered by the monitor, and it was configured to move with thrust and inertia. The hyperspace button was not placed near Logg's right thumb, which he was dissatisfied with, as he had a problem "tak[ing] his hand off the thrust button". Drawings of asteroids in various shapes were incorporated into the game. Logg copied the idea of a high score table with initials from Exidy's "Star Fire".


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: The two saucers were formulated to be different from each other. A steadily decreasing timer shortens intervals between saucer attacks to keep the player from not shooting asteroids and saucers. A "heartbeat" soundtrack quickens as the game progresses. The game does not have a sound chip. Delman created a hardware circuit for 13 sound effects by hand which was wired onto the board.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: A prototype of "Asteroids" was well received by several Atari staff and engineers, who "wander[ed] between labs, passing comment and stopping to play as they went". Logg was often asked when he would be leaving by employees eager to play the prototype, so he created a second prototype for staff to play. Atari tested the game in arcades in Sacramento, California, and also observed players during focus group sessions at Atari. Players used to "Spacewar!" struggled to maintain grip on the thrust button and requested a joystick; players accustomed to "Space Invaders" noted they get no break in the game. Logg and other engineers observed proceedings and documented comments in four pages.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: "Asteroids" slows down as the player gains 50–100 lives, because there is no limit to the number of lives displayed. The player can "lose" the game after more than 250 lives are collected.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: "Asteroids" was released for the Atari VCS (later renamed the Atari 2600) and Atari 8-bit family in 1981, then the Atari 7800 in 1986. A port for the Atari 5200, identical to the Atari 8-bit computer version, was in development in 1982, but was not published. The Atari 7800 version was a launch title and includes cooperative play; the asteroids have colorful textures and the "heartbeat" sound effect remains intact.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: Programmers Brad Stewart and Bob Smith were unable to fit the Atari VCS port into a 4 KB cartridge. It became the first game for the console to use bank switching, a technique that increases ROM size from 4 KB to 8 KB.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: "Asteroids" was immediately successful upon release. It displaced "Space Invaders" by popularity in the United States and became Atari's best selling arcade game of all time, with over 70,000 units sold. Atari earned an estimated $150 million in sales from the game, and arcade operators earned a further $500 million from coin drops. Atari had been in the process of manufacturing another vector game, "Lunar Lander", but demand for "Asteroids" was so high "that several hundred "Asteroids" games were shipped in "Lunar Lander" cabinets". "Asteroids" was so popular that some video arcade operators had to install large boxes to hold the number of coins spent by players. It replaced "Space Invaders" at the top of the US "RePlay" amusement arcade charts in April 1980, though "Space Invaders" remained the top game at street locations. "Asteroids" went on to become the highest-grossing arcade video game of 1980 in the United States, dethroning "Space Invaders". It shipped 70,000 arcade units worldwide in 1980, including over 60,000 sold in the United States that year, and grossed about worldwide ( adjusted for inflation) by 1980. The game remained at the top of the US "RePlay" charts through March 1981. However, the game did not perform as well overseas in Europe and Asia. It sold 30,000 arcade units overseas, for a total of 100,000 arcade units sold worldwide. Atari manufactured 76,312 units from its US and Ireland plants, including 21,394 "Asteroids Deluxe" units. It was a commercial failure in Japan when it released there in 1980, partly due to its complex controls and partly due to the Japanese market beginning to lose interest in space shoot 'em ups at the time.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: "Asteroids" received positive reviews from video game critics and has been regarded as Logg's magnum opus. Richard A. Edwards reviewed the 1981 "Asteroids" home cartridge in "The Space Gamer" No. 46. Edwards commented that "this home cartridge is a virtual duplicate of the ever-popular Atari arcade game. [...] If blasting asteroids is the thing you want to do then this is the game, but at this price I can't wholeheartedly recommend it". "Video Games Player" magazine reviewed the Atari VCS version, rating the graphics and sound a B, while giving the game an overall B+ rating. "Electronic Fun with Computers & Games" magazine gave the Atari VCS version an A rating.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: William Cassidy, writing for GameSpy's "Classic Gaming", noticed its innovations, including being one of the first video games to track initials and allow players to enter their initials for appearing in the top 10 high scores, and commented, "the vector graphics fit the futuristic outer space theme very well". In 1995, Flux magazine ranked the arcade version 11th on their "Top 100 Video Games." In 1996, "Next Generation" listed it as number 39 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", particularly lauding the control dynamics which require "the constant juggling of speed, positioning, and direction". In 1999, "Next Generation" listed "Asteroids" as number 29 on their "Top 50 Games of All Time", commenting that ""Asteroid" was a classic the day it was released, and it has never lost any of its appeal". "Asteroids" was ranked fourth on "Retro Gamer"s list of "Top 25 Arcade Games"; the "Retro Gamer" staff cited its simplicity and the lack of a proper ending as allowances of revisiting the game. In 2012, "Asteroids" was listed on "Time" All-Time 100 greatest video games list. "Entertainment Weekly" named "Asteroids" one of the top ten games for the Atari 2600 in 2013. It was added to the Museum of Modern Art's collection of video games. In 2021, "The Guardian" listed "Asteroids" as the second greatest video game of the 1970s, just below "Galaxian" (1979). By contrast, in March 1983 the Atari 8-bit port of "Asteroids" won sixth place in "Softline"s Dog of the Year awards "for badness in computer games", Atari division, based on reader submissions.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: Usage of the names of "Saturday Night Live" characters "Mr. Bill" and "Sluggo" to refer to the saucers in an "Esquire" article about the game led to Logg receiving a cease and desist letter from a lawyer with the "Mr. Bill Trademark".


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: Released in 1981, "Asteroids Deluxe" was the first sequel to "Asteroids". Dave Shepperd edited the code and made enhancements to the game without Logg's involvement. The onscreen objects are tinted blue, and hyperspace is replaced by a shield that depletes when used. The asteroids rotate, and new "killer satellite" enemies break into smaller ships that home in on the player's position. The arcade machine's monitor displays vector graphics overlaying a holographic backdrop. The game is more difficult than the original and enables saucers to shoot across the screen boundary, eliminating the lurking strategy for high scores in the original.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: "Space Duel", released in arcades in 1982, replaces the rocks with colorful geometric shapes and adds cooperative two-player gameplay.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: 1987's "Blasteroids" includes "power-ups, ship morphing, branching levels, bosses, and the ability to dock your ships in multiplayer for added firepower". "Blasteroids" uses raster graphics instead of vectors.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: The game is half of the Atari Lynx pairing "Super Asteroids & Missile Command", and included in the 1993 "Microsoft Arcade" compilation.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: Activision published an enhanced version of "Asteroids" for the PlayStation (1998), Nintendo 64 (1999), Microsoft Windows (1998), Game Boy Color (1999), and Macintosh (2000). The Atari Flashback series of dedicated video game consoles have included both the 2600 and the arcade versions of "Asteroids".


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: Published by Crave Entertainment on December 14, 1999, "Asteroids Hyper 64" made the ship and asteroids 3D and added new weapons and a multiplayer mode.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: A technical demo of "Asteroids" was developed by iThink for the Atari Jaguar but was never released. Unofficially referred to as "Asteroids 2000", it was demonstrated at E-JagFest 2000.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: In 2001, Infogrames released "Atari Anniversary Edition" for the Dreamcast, PlayStation, and Microsoft Windows. Developed by Digital Eclipse, it includes emulated versions of "Asteroids" and other games. The arcade and Atari 2600 versions of "Asteroids" were included in "Atari Anthology" for both Xbox and PlayStation 2.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: Released on November 28, 2007, the Xbox Live Arcade port of "Asteroids" has revamped HD graphics along with an added intense "throttle monkey" mode. The arcade and 2600 versions were made available through Microsofts "Game Room" service in 2010. Glu Mobile released an enhanced mobile phone port.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: Both the Atari 2600 and Atari 7800 versions of the game was included on Atari Collection 1 and 2 in 2020 for the Evercade.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: Quality Software's "Asteroids in Space" (1980) was one of the best selling games for the Apple II and voted one of the most popular software titles of 1978-80 by "Softalk" magazine.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: In December 1981, "Byte" reviewed eight "Asteroids" clones for home computers. Three clones for the Apple II were reviewed together in the 1982 "Creative Computing Software Buyers Guide": "The Asteroid Field", "Asteron", and "Apple-Oids". In the last of these, the asteroids are in the shape of apples. Two independent clones, "Asteroid" for the Apple II and "Fasteroids" for TRS-80, were renamed to "Planetoids" and sold by Adventure International. Others clones include Acornsoft's "Meteors", "Moons of Jupiter" for the VIC-20, "MineStorm" for the Vectrex, and Quicksilva's "Meteor Storm" for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum which uses speech synthesis. A poorly implemented "Asteroids" clone for the VIC-20, published by Bug-Byte, motivated Jeff Minter to found Llamasoft.


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: The Mattel Intellivision game "Meteor!" was cancelled to avoid a lawsuit for being too similar to "Asteroids" and was reworked as "Astrosmash". The game borrows elements from "Asteroids" and "Space Invaders".


title: Asteroids (video game)

text: On February 6, 1982, Leo Daniels of Carolina Beach, North Carolina, set a world record score of 40,101,910 points. On November 13 of the same year, 15-year-old Scott Safran of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, set a new record at 41,336,440 points. In 1998, to congratulate Safran on his accomplishment, the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard searched for him for four years until 2002, when it was discovered that he had died in an accident in 1989. In a ceremony in Philadelphia on April 27, 2002, Walter Day of Twin Galaxies presented an award to the surviving members of Safran's family, commemorating his achievement. On April 5, 2010, John McAllister broke Safran's record with a high score of 41,838,740 in a 58-hour Internet livestream.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: José Antonio Primo de Rivera y Sáenz de Heredia, 1st Duke of Primo de Rivera, 3rd Marquess of Estella (24 April 1903 – 20 November 1936), often referred to simply as José Antonio, was a Spanish politician who founded the falangist Falange Española ("Spanish Phalanx"), later Falange Española de las JONS.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: The eldest son of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, who governed Spain as dictator from 1923 to 1930, Primo de Rivera worked as a lawyer before entering politics, an enterprise he initially engaged in vowing to defend his deceased father's memory. He founded Falange Española in October 1933, shortly before the 1933 general election, in which he was elected member of the Republican Cortes, running as a candidate. He assumed the role of messianic leader and charged himself with the task of saving Spain in founding a Fascist party, but he encountered difficulties widening his support base during his whole political life.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: In 1936, he endorsed the Spanish nationalist military coup against the republic that led to a civil war that he later tried to stop. Imprisoned before the start of the war, he was accused of conspiracy and military rebellion against the government of the Second Spanish Republic and was sentenced to death and executed during the first months of the war.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: In life, he held the nobiliary title of 3rd Marquess of Estella, Grandee of Spain. In 1948, he was posthumously bestowed the title of Duke of Primo de Rivera, which was subsequently passed to his brother Miguel. The image of José Antonio was revered during the war by the Nationalist faction, and after the establishment of Francoist Spain, he was regarded as a martyr, his figure being a tool of the Francoist propaganda apparatus. The inscription of "José Antonio ¡Presente!" could be found in many churches all across Spain.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: José Antonio Primo de Rivera was born on Calle de Génova (Madrid) on April 24, 1903, the eldest son of the military officer Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja (who would later govern Spain as dictator from 1923 to 1930) and Casilda Sáenz de Heredia y Suárez de Argudín. From his father he inherited the title of Marquess of Estella. He never married.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: His mother died when he was five years old, and he was subsequently raised by his father's sister. He was privately taught at home, and learned English and French. When at university, he did not attend lectures until the second year of his undergraduate studies. He spent his summer holidays at the country estate of an uncle, where he practiced horse riding and hunting.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: Primo de Rivera went on to study law at the University of Madrid between 1917 and 1923. He helped to organize the student union there, "Federación Universitaria Escolar", which opposed the higher-education policies of his father. He took undergraduate and graduate courses simultaneously and he obtained both his Bachelor and Doctor degrees in the same year, 1923.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: After graduating, he chose the "One-Year Volunteer" option to do his military service while his father was dictator. He served with the Ninth Dragoons of St. James cavalry regiment, stationed at Barcelona. He was court-martialed for punching a superior officer, Brigadier General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: Queipo de Llano had written a defamatory letter against an uncle of José Antonio and against the Dictator himself. José Antonio, ready to defend the honour of his family abused by the Republican general, went to the café where the latter used to socialize, and after asking whether he was the author of the writing, and after receiving the general's affirmative reply, delivered a spectacular punch that made the general roll on the floor, sparking a free-for-all between the companions of José Antonio and the companions of the general.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: Primo de Rivera became a registered lawyer in 1925, and opened an office on a side street of Madrid very near the confluence of three principal avenues.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: A relatively successful lawyer not involved nor expected to be involved in politics before 1930, the impetuous José Antonio Primo de Rivera decided to do so after the death of his father in his Parisian self-exile in 1930; this was for him the best way to defend the memory of his father, whose work at government had often been derided.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: On October 29, 1933, Primo de Rivera launched the Falange Española ("Spanish Phalanx"), a nationalist party, inspired in part with some ideas, such as the necessity of authority, hierarchical order of society, and grassroots populism, that were being expounded in Italy in the Fascist movement. The foundational convention was held in the Teatro de la Comedia of Madrid. He was the keynote speaker and his first address was a criticism of liberal democracy.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: Since the liberal state was a servant of [Rousseau] it became not just the trustee of a nation's destiny but also the spectator of electoral contests. What alone mattered to the liberal state was that a certain number of gentlemen be sitting at the polling station, that the voting start at eight o'clock and end at four, that the ballot boxes not get smashed—when being smashed is the noblest aspiration of all ballot boxes—and then to respect the outcome of the voting, as if the outcome was a matter of complete indifference to it. In other words liberal governments did not even believe in their mission, that theirs was a respectable duty, but rather they believed that anyone who disagreed with them and decided to attack the state, whether with good or ill intentions, had the same right as they did to defend it.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: And in closing, that if what we want must in some circumstance be attained through the use of violence, that we demur not before the prospect of violence. For who has said, when they say, "Every available means except violence," that the supreme hierarchy of moral values resides in kindness? Who has said that when our feelings are insulted, rather than react like men, we are called upon to reply amiably? Dialogue as a first step of communication is well and good. But there is no option left except fists and guns when someone offends the precepts of justice or the fatherland.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: Stanley Payne argues that Rivera's view that violence was acceptable if done for a just cause was paralleled by that of the Spanish Left, who held similar views on the use of violence; unlike the Italian fascists, the Falange never developed a sophisticated theory for their doctrine of violence. Payne argues that because his father had ruled as a dictator with relatively minimal violence during the quieter 1920s, Rivera naively assumed he could impose a new authoritarian system with relatively limited violence, but he would eventually find himself caught in a spiral of killing that he could not control. When he founded the Falange, Antonio was more reluctant to use violence than other leading members of the party; he did not seem to expect violence from the political Left to be directed against the party. However, after Juan Cuéllar's death, he seemed to overcome his reluctance and thus intermittent killings on both sides would continue.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: In a poetic sweep we will raise this fervent devotion to Spain; we will make sacrifices, we will renounce the easy life and we will triumph, triumph that—you know this well—we shall not obtain in the upcoming elections. In these elections vote the lesser evil. But your Spain will not be born out of them, nor does our frame for action reside there. That is a murky atmosphere, spent, like a tavern's after a night of dissipation. Our station is not there. I am a candidate, yes, but I take part in these elections without faith or respect. And I say this now, when so doing may rest me every vote. I couldn't care less. We are not going to squabble with the establishment over the unsavory left-overs of a soiled banquet. Our station is outside though we may provisionally pass by the other one. Our place is out in the clear air, beneath a moonlit sky, cradling a rifle, and the stars overhead. Let the others party on. We outside in tense vigil; earnest and self-confident we divine the sunrise in the joy of our hearts.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: He was a candidate in the general election of November 19 for the umbrella organization "Unión Agraria y Ciudadana," part of the broad conservative coalition Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (CEDA). He was elected to the Parliament as a representative of Cádiz.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: In his first parliamentary intervention he answered Gil-Robles—the founder of CEDA—who had just spoken out against all totalitarian forms of government for arrogating to themselves the attributes of God and crushing the personality of the individual:


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: We believe that the state does not have to justify its behaviour at every turn, just as no individual or social class does, in so far as it holds to a guiding principle all the time. All the while the state is made out to be God by Rousseau's idea that the state, or the will of those it represents, is always right. What makes the state like God is the belief that the will of the state, embodied by absolute monarchs in the past and now by the popular vote, is always right. The monarch may have erred; the popular vote may err because neither truth nor goodness derives from an act or assertion of the will. Goodness and truth are perennial tributaries of reason, and to ascertain whether one is in the right it is not enough to ask the king—whose dictate seemed always just to his supporters—nor enough to canvass the people—whose decision is always right according to the disciples of Rousseau. What must be done rather is to verify whether our actions and our thoughts are in agreement at every step with a permanent aspiration.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: On February 11, 1934, Falange merged with Ramiro Ledesma's Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista to create the Falange Española de las JONS under José Antonio's leadership. The antisemitic positions within FE de las JONS were mainly led by Onésimo Redondo, with Ledesma and Primo de Rivera largely indifferent to the issue; however Falangists attacked the Jewish-owned SEPU department stores in the spring of 1935; In the view of Gonzalo Álvarez Chillida, both José Antonio and Ledesma probably thought that such antisemitic raids could enhance mobilization within the purportedly threatened small-business sector. He shared with other rightists the belief that violence was legitimate against a Republic that he perceived as influenced by communists, Jews and Freemasons.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: The upper-class José Antonio abandoned the tie and suit and took on the new blue-shirt Falange uniform (despite later mocking JAP militants because of this, the Falangists were originally dressed in suit and tie); the uniform, adopted in October 1935, was deliberately chosen as a reference to Italian Fascism.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: In 1935 Primo de Rivera collaborated in editing the lyrics of the Falangist anthem, "Cara al Sol" (Face to the Sun).


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: The honour and task of Falange must be gauged by those who carry the burden of leadership on their shoulders. Do not forget that one of the rules of our code of ethics is to have faith in the leaders. Your leaders are always right.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: In the general election of February 16, 1936, Falange won only 0.7% of the vote; but the wave of instability which greeted the victory of the Popular Front—a left-wing coalition of anarchists, communists, socialists, liberal republicans like the radicals, and others—caused an influx of new members, and the minuscule party grew to more than 40,000 members by July.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: On March 14, 1936, he was arrested in Madrid and charged with illegal possession of firearms (at that time, Spain was awash in privately held weapons on the part of all political factions). Nine weeks later he was transferred to the prison in Alicante. In both Madrid and in Alicante, he was able to maintain intermittent secret contact with the Falange leadership and, several times, with General Emilio Mola. On October 3 he was charged with conspiracy against the Republic and military insurrection, both capital offences, even though he had been imprisoned long before the insurrection of July 18. Primo de Rivera conducted his own defence. On November 18 he was found guilty by a people's tribunal and sentenced to death by firing squad. The three career judges who participated in the trial, along with the popular tribunal, asked for the death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment but this was rejected by the majority of government ministers (the two ministers from "Izquierda Republicana" voted against the death sentence). The sentence was carried out on November 20 by local authorities in Alicante.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: It is said by some that the Republic offered the Nationalists a prisoner exchange involving Primo de Rivera and a son of the Republic's head of government Francisco Largo Caballero and that Franco turned down the offer. Others contend that it was the Republican government who rejected the deal of the Nationalists and that General Franco approved several failed commando raids on the Alicante prison to try to rescue José Antonio. Either way the death of the founder of Falange rid the general of a formidable rival. Perhaps tellingly, it was well known that the two men disliked each other. After one of the two meetings they had, Franco dismissed José Antonio as "a playboy pinturero" (a foppish playboy).


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: Elizabeth Bibesco's last novel, "The Romantic", published in 1940, starts with a dedication to José Antonio Primo de Rivera, whom she had known during her stay in Madrid where her husband, Prince Antoine Bibesco, who was a diplomat from Romania in Spain between 1927 to 1931: “To José Antonio Primo de Rivera. I promised you a book before it was begun. It is yours now that it is finished –Those we love die for us only when we die–”.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: Falange joined the military uprising against the Republic. The initially marginal party gained ascendancy over the course of the war, partly as a result of its prominent role in the brutal repression that took place behind Nationalist lines. Nevertheless, the party lost autonomy, and in 1937 was made wholly subservient to the will of General Franco when he had Primo de Rivera's temporary replacement, Manuel Hedilla Larrey, thrown in jail, tried and sentenced to death (although his sentence was commuted). Franco decreed the merging of the Falange Española de las JONS with the Carlist traditionalists through the Unification Decree, and became the national chief of the new party, FET y de las JONS.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: The reign of Francisco Franco nurtured a convenient cult of personality around the dead figure of Primo de Rivera whom Falangists dubbed "El Ausente" (The Missing One). This name was created during the period after de Rivera's execution but before this was officially confirmed to the Nationalist public at large by its leadership on 18 July 1938. While the Falangist leadership knew the truth, they chose to keep it a secret for fear of the impact it would have on morale, though rumours of his death would continue to circulate for the period. Thus until this date many Falangists had lived in hope that de Rivera would still return (commonly saying "when José Antonio comes back") and began referring to him as "The Absent One", a reference to the Falange's tradition of calling "present!" when the names of the fallen were read out. The founder of Falange was anointed a martyr of the "crusade against Marxism." Notwithstanding the apparent veneration by the Francoist State, it remains true that the Missing One's demise had removed a dangerous opponent: Primo de Rivera had been Marquess, a doctor of civil law, a political thinker; Franco owned no comparable pedigree, no comparable education and no personal ideology.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: At the end of the war in 1939, the mortal remains of Primo de Rivera were carried on the shoulders of Falangist relay teams from Alicante to Madrid (a 300-kilometre journey) and provisionally interred at El Escorial. The church had contained the pantheon of Spanish monarchs but Primo de Rivera was buried directly in front of the altar. In 1959, they were exhumed and re-interred in the gargantuan basilica of the Valley of the Fallen, located in the Guadarrama mountain range, not far from El Escorial.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: The postwar cult of personality had two ubiquitous icons. The first, a funereal slab placed on the external wall of many churches and cathedrals which bore the crowning inscription, "Caídos por Dios y por España" ("Fallen for God and for Spain"), followed by a list of local Nationalists killed during the war; Primo de Rivera's name headed every list. The second was the rallying cry, ""José Antonio—¡Presente!"," a figurative reply to an imaginary roll call invoking his ghostly attendance or immanence.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: With the arrival of democratic rule, the legacy of Primo de Rivera and the cult of personality created by the Spanish state started to wane circumspectly. In 1981, the Madrid City Council moved to reinstate the original name of its grand avenue, the Gran Vía, which Franco had renamed "Avenida José Antonio Primo de Rivera" in 1939. However, as late as March 2005, the Guadalajara City Council removed a memorial to the founder of Falange under cover of darkness.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: He espoused an elitist understanding of politics, influenced by the ideas of Ortega y Gasset. His political thought fascistised as he progressively radicalised in an anti-conservative direction.


title: José Antonio Primo de Rivera

text: Primo de Rivera put much faith on corporatism, one of the few early Falangist tenets framed in positive terms, adopted from Italian Fascism.