title: Fahrenheit 11/9

text: Owen Gleiberman, reviewing for "Variety", said Moore explored more issues than criticizing Trump, writing: "[Moore] makes the point that Donald Trump has always committed corruptions and outrages in plain sight. It's not that we don't see them; it's that he has a gift for getting people not to mind them" and that ""Fahrenheit 11/9" would be better if it didn't romanticize the new wave of progressive action (which, incidentally, I believe in) as if it were the second coming. Yet the movie, in its way, summons something ominous and powerful. It's not a screed – it's a warning. It says, quite wisely: Take action now, or you may no longer have the opportunity to do so." "The Hollywood Reporter"s Deborah Young found that the documentary had "a pretty unfocused target" with going beyond Trump and said, "The multiple targets and multiple threads which weave in and out of "Fahrenheit 11/9" make it feel jumpy at times and less focused than Moore's docs ... Nonetheless, there is much food for thought in the film, shot with the director's characteristic passion, flair, wicked sense of humor and willingness to push the envelope." In "The Intercept" Glenn Greenwald wrote, "what he’s trying is of unparalleled importance: not to take the cheap route of exclusively denouncing Trump but to take the more complicated, challenging, and productive route of understanding who and what created the climate in which Trump could thrive."


title: Fahrenheit 11/9

text: In "The Wall Street Journal" John Anderson wrote: "Almost the entire movie is lifted from other sources, and then edited in a way that makes his enemies (do they know they’re his enemies?) look as foolish as possible. ... Mr. Moore can’t help himself, he uses footage of Adolf Hitler lip-syncing a Trump speech. Much has been made of Mr. Trump’s questionable maturity. He has a kindred spirit in Michael Moore."


title: Fahrenheit 11/9

text: David Walsh of World Socialist Web Site wrote: "The 'hope' now Moore expresses near the conclusion of the work that we might 'get rid of the whole rotten system that gave us Donald Trump' is empty and meaningless, in so far as he continues to support one of the "principal" props of that 'rotten system,' the Democratic Party. Whatever occasional insights and striking imagery it might offer, "Fahrenheit 11/9" is false and dishonest at its core."


title: Zersetzung

text: Zersetzung (, German for "decomposition" and "disruption") was a psychological warfare technique used by the Ministry for State Security ("Stasi") to repress political opponents in East Germany during the 1970s and 1980s. "Zersetzung" served to combat alleged and actual dissidents through covert means, using secret methods of abusive control and psychological manipulation to prevent anti-government activities. People were commonly targeted on a pre-emptive and preventative basis, to limit or stop politically incorrect activities that they may have gone on to perform, and not on the basis of crimes they had actually committed. "Zersetzung" methods were designed to break down, undermine, and paralyze people behind "a facade of social normality" in a form of "silent repression".


title: Zersetzung

text: Erich Honecker's succession to Walter Ulbricht as First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in May 1971 saw an evolution of "operational procedures" ("Operative Vorgänge") conducted by "Stasi" away from the overt terror of the Ulbricht era towards what came to be known as "Zersetzung" (""Anwendung von Maßnahmen der Zersetzung""), which was formalized by "Directive No. 1/76 on the Development and Revision of Operational Procedures" in January 1976. The "Stasi" used operational psychology and its extensive network of between 170,000 and over 500,000 informal collaborators ("inoffizielle Mitarbeiter") to launch personalized psychological attacks against targets to damage their mental health and lower chances of a "hostile action" against the state. Among the collaborators were youths as young as 14 years of age.


title: Zersetzung

text: The use of "Zersetzung" is well documented due to "Stasi" files published after the Berlin wall fell, with several thousands or up to 10,000 individuals estimated to have become victims, 5,000 of whom sustained irreversible damage. Special pensions for restitution have been created for "Zersetzung" victims.


title: Zersetzung

text: The Ministry for State Security (German: "Ministerium für Staatssicherheit", MfS), commonly known as the "Stasi", was the main security service of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany or GDR), and defined "Zersetzung" in its 1985 dictionary of political operatives as


title: Zersetzung

text: The term "Zersetzung" is generally translated into English as "decomposition", although it can be variously translated as "decay", "corrosion", "undermining", "biodegradation", or "dissolution". The term was first used in a prosecutorial context in Nazi Germany, namely as part of the term "Wehrkraftzersetzung" (or "Zersetzung der Wehrkraft"). In Western parlance, Zersetzung can be described as the active application of "psychological destabilisation" procedures by the State apparatus.


title: Zersetzung

text: The German Democratic Republic (GDR) was established in October 1949 as a socialist state from the Soviet Zone of Occupation, and ruled by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). During its first decade of the GDR's existence, the SED under General Secretary Walter Ulbricht consolidated their rule by overtly combating political opposition, which it subdued primarily through the penal code by accusing them of incitement to war or of calls of boycott and processing them through the regular criminal judiciary. In 1961, to counteract the GDR's practice of isolationism following the construction of the Berlin Wall, the judicial terror was gradually abandoned. At the end of the 1960s, the GDR's desire for international recognition and rapprochement with the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) led to a commitment to adhere to the U.N. Charter.


title: Zersetzung

text: On 3 May 1971, with the blessing of the USSR's leadership, Erich Honecker became First Secretary of the SED, replacing Ulbricht for an ostensible reason of poor health. Honecker sought to burnish the GDR's international reputation while fighting internal opposition by intensification of the "Stasi"'s efforts to punish dissident behaviors without using the penal code. The GDR signed the Basic Treaty, 1972 with West Germany to respect human rights, or at least announce its intention to do so, and the Helsinki accords in 1975. Consequently, the SED regime decided to reduce the number of political prisoners, which was compensated for by practising dissident repression without imprisonment or court judgements.


title: Zersetzung

text: British journalist Luke Harding, who had experienced treatment on the part of Russia's FSB in Vladimir Putin's Russia that was similar to "Zersetzung", writes in his book:


title: Zersetzung

text: The Stasi used "Zersetzung" essentially as a means of psychological oppression and persecution. Findings of operational psychology were formulated into method at the Stasi's College of Law ("Juristische Hochschule der Staatssicherheit", or "JHS"), and applied to political opponents in an effort to undermine their self-confidence and self-esteem. Operations were designed to intimidate and destabilise them by subjecting them to repeated disappointment, and to socially alienate them by interfering with and disrupting their relationships with others as in social undermining. The aim was to induce personal crises in victims, leaving them too unnerved and psychologically distressed to have the time and energy for anti-government activism. The Stasi intentionally concealed their role as mastermind of the operations. Author Jürgen Fuchs was a victim of "Zersetzung" and wrote about his experience, describing the Stasi's actions as "psychosocial crime", and "an assault on the human soul".


title: Zersetzung

text: Although its techniques had been established effectively by the late 1950s, "Zersetzung" was not rigorously defined until the mid-1970s, and only then began to be carried out in a systematic manner in the 1970s and 1980s. It is difficult to determine how many people were targeted, since the sources have been deliberately and considerably redacted; it is known, however, that tactics varied in scope, and that a number of different departments implemented them. Overall there was a ratio of four or five authorised "Zersetzung" operators for each targeted group, and three for each individual. Some sources indicate that around 5,000 people were "persistently victimised" by "Zersetzung". At the College of Legal Studies, the number of dissertations submitted on the subject of "Zersetzung" was in double figures. It also had a comprehensive 50-page "Zersetzung" teaching manual, which included numerous examples of its practice.


title: Zersetzung

text: Almost all Stasi departments were involved in "Zersetzung" operations, although first and foremost amongst these was the headquarters of the Stasi's directorate XX ("Hauptabteilung XX") in Berlin, and its divisional offices in regional and municipal government. The function of the headquarters and "Abteilung XX"s was to maintain surveillance of religious communities; cultural and media establishments; alternative political parties; the GDR's many political establishment-affiliated mass social organisations; sport; and education and health services - effectively covering all aspects of civic life. The Stasi made use of the means available to them within, and as a circumstance of, the GDR's closed social system. An established, politically motivated collaborative network ("politisch-operatives Zusammenwirken", or "POZW") provided them with extensive opportunities for interference in such situations as the sanctioning of professionals and students, expulsion from associations and sports clubs, and occasional arrests by the "Volkspolizei" (the GDR's quasi-military national police). Refusal of permits for travel to socialist states, or denial of entry at Czechoslovak and Polish border crossings where no visa requirement existed, were also arranged. The various collaborators ("Partnern des operativen Zusammenwirkens") included branches of regional government, university and professional management, housing administrative bodies, the "Sparkasse" public savings bank, and in some cases head physicians. The Stasi's "Linie III" ("Observation"), "Abteilung 2"6 (Telephone and room surveillance), and "M" (Postal communications) departments provided essential background information for the designing of "Zersetzung" techniques, with "Abteilung 32" procuring the required technology.


title: Zersetzung

text: The Stasi collaborated with the secret services of other Eastern Bloc countries to implement "Zersetzung". One such example was the Polish secret services co-operating against branches of the Jehovah's Witnesses organisation in the early 1960s, which would come to be known as ""innere Zersetzung"" (internal subversion).


title: Zersetzung

text: The Stasi applied "Zersetzung" before, during, after, or instead of incarcerating the targeted individual. The implementation of "Zersetzung"euphemistically called "Operativer Vorgang" ("operational procedure")generally did not aim to gather evidence against the target in order to initiate criminal proceedings. Rather, the Stasi considered "Zersetzung" as a separate measure to be used when official judiciary procedures were undesirable for political reasons, such as the international image of the GDR. However, in certain cases, the Stasi did attempt to entrap individuals, as for example in the case of Wolf Biermann: The Stasi set him up with minors, hoping that they could then pursue criminal charges. The crimes targeted for such entrapment were non-political, such as drug possession, trafficking, theft, financial fraud, and rape.


title: Zersetzung

text: Beginning with intelligence obtained by espionage, the Stasi established "sociograms" and "psychograms" which it applied for the psychological forms of "Zersetzung". They exploited personal traits, such as homosexuality, as well as supposed character weaknesses of the targeted individualfor example a professional failure, negligence of parental duties, pornographic interests, divorce, alcoholism, dependence on medications, criminal tendencies, passion for a collection or a game, or contacts with circles of the extreme rightor even the veil of shame from the rumors poured out upon one's circle of acquaintances. From the point of view of the Stasi, the measures were the most fruitful when they were applied in connection with a personality; all "schematism" had to be avoided.


title: Zersetzung

text: Tactics and methods employed under "Zersetzung" generally involved the disruption of the victim's private or family life. This often included psychological attacks, in a form of gaslighting. Other practices included property damage, sabotage of cars, purposely incorrect medical treatment, smear campaigns including sending falsified compromising photos or documents to the victim's family, denunciation, provocation, psychological warfare, psychological subversion, wiretapping, and bugging.


title: Zersetzung

text: It has been investigated, but not definitely established, that the Stasi used X-ray devices in a directed and weaponised manner to cause long-term health problems in its opponents. That said, Rudolf Bahro, Gerulf Pannach, and Jürgen Fuchs, three important dissidents who had been imprisoned at the same time, died of cancer within an interval of two years. A study by the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR ("Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik" or "BStU") has meanwhile rejected on the basis of extant documents such as fraudulent use of X-rays, and only mentions isolated and unintentional cases of the harmful use of sources of radiation, for example to mark documents.


title: Zersetzung

text: In the name of the target, the Stasi made little announcements, ordered products, and made emergency calls, to terrorize them. To threaten or intimidate or cause psychoses the Stasi assured itself of access to the target's living quarters and left visible traces of its presence, by adding, removing, and modifying objects such as the socks in one's drawer, or by altering the time that an alarm clock was set to go off.


title: Zersetzung

text: The Stasi manipulated relations of friendship, love, marriage, and family by anonymous letters, telegrams and telephone calls as well as compromising photos, often altered. In this manner, parents and children were supposed to systematically become strangers to one another. To provoke conflicts and extramarital relations the Stasi put in place targeted seductions by Romeo agents.


title: Zersetzung

text: For the "Zersetzung" of groups, it infiltrated them with unofficial collaborators, sometimes minors. The work of opposition groups was hindered by permanent counter-propositions and discord on the part of unofficial collaborators when making decisions. To sow mistrust within the group, the Stasi made believe that certain members were unofficial collaborators; moreover by spreading rumors and manipulated photos, the Stasi feigned indiscretions with unofficial collaborators, or placed members of targeted groups in administrative posts to make others believe that this was a reward for the activity of an unofficial collaborator. They even aroused suspicions regarding certain members of the group by assigning privileges, such as housing or a personal car. Moreover, the imprisonment of only certain members of the group gave birth to suspicions.


title: Zersetzung

text: The Stasi used "Zersetzung" tactics both on individuals and groups. There was no particular homogeneous target group, as opposition in the GDR came from a number of different sources. Tactical plans were thus separately adapted to each perceived threat. The Stasi nevertheless defined several main target groups:


title: Zersetzung

text: The Stasi also occasionally used "Zersetzung" on non-political organisations regarded as undesirable, such as the Watchtower Society.


title: Zersetzung

text: Prominent individuals targeted by "Zersetzung" operations included Jürgen Fuchs, Gerulf Pannach, Rudolf Bahro, Robert Havemann, Rainer Eppelmann, Reiner Kunze, husband and wife Gerd and Ulrike Poppe, and Wolfgang Templin.


title: Zersetzung

text: Once aware of his own status as a target, GDR opponent Wolfgang Templin tried, with some success, to bring details of the Stasi's "Zersetzung" activities to the attention of western journalists. In 1977 "Der Spiegel" published a five-part article series, ""Du sollst zerbrechen!"" ("You're going to crack!"), by the exiled Jürgen Fuchs, in which he describes the Stasi's "operational psychology". The Stasi tried to discredit Fuchs and the contents of similar articles, publishing in turn claims that he had a paranoid view of its function, and intending that "Der Spiegel" and other media would assume he was suffering from a persecution complex. This, however, was refuted by the official Stasi documents examined after "Die Wende" (the political power shift in the GDR in 1989–90).


title: Zersetzung

text: Because the scale and nature of "Zersetzung" were unknown both to the general population of the GDR and to people abroad, revelations of the Stasi's malicious tactics were met with some degree of disbelief by those affected. Many still nowadays express incomprehension at how the Stasi's collaborators could have participated in such inhuman actions.


title: Zersetzung

text: Since "Zersetzung" as a whole, even after 1990, was not deemed to be illegal because of the principle of "nulla poena sine lege" (no penalty without law), actions against involvement in either its planning or implementation were not enforceable by the courts. Because this specific legal definition of "Zersetzung" as a crime didn't exist, only individual instances of its tactics could be reported. Acts which even according to GDR law were offences (such as the violation of "Briefgeheimnis", the secrecy of correspondence) needed to have been reported to the GDR authorities soon after having been committed in order not to be subject to a statute of limitations clause. Many of the victims experienced the additional complication that the Stasi was not identifiable as the originator in cases of personal injury and misadventure. Official documents in which "Zersetzung" methods were recorded often had no validity in court, and the Stasi had many files detailing its actual implementation destroyed.


title: Zersetzung

text: Unless they had been detained for at least 180 days, survivors of "Zersetzung" operations, in accordance with §17a of a 1990 rehabilitation act (the "Strafrechtlichen Rehabilitierungsgesetzes", or "StrRehaG"), are not eligible for financial compensation. Cases of provable, systematically effected targeting by the Stasi, and resulting in employment-related losses and/or health damage, can be pursued under a law covering settlement of torts ("Unrechtsbereinigungsgesetz", or "2. SED-UnBerG") as claims either for occupational rehabilitation or rehabilitation under administrative law. These overturn certain administrative provisions of GDR institutions and affirm their unconstitutionality. This is a condition for the social equalisation payments specified in the "Bundesversorgungsgesetz" (the war victims relief act of 1950). Equalisation payments of pension damages and for loss of earnings can also be applied for in cases where victimisation continued for at least three years, and where claimants can prove need. The above examples of seeking justice have, however, been hindered by various difficulties victims have experienced, both in providing proof of the Stasi's encroachment into the areas of health, personal assets, education and employment, and in receiving official acknowledgement that the Stasi was responsible for personal damages (including psychological injury) as a direct result of "Zersetzung" operations.


title: Zersetzung

text: Under Vladimir Putin, Russia's security and intelligence agencies have been reported to have employed similar techniques against foreign diplomats and journalists in Russia and other ex-USSR states.


title: Zersetzung

text: In 2016, Zersetzung-like harassment was reported by the American press as carried out by Russia's secret services against U.S. diplomats posted in Moscow as well as in unspecified "several other European capitals"; the U.S. government's efforts to raise the issue with the Kremlin were said to have brought no positive reaction. The Russian Embassy's reply was cited by "The Washington Post" as implicitly admitting and defending the harassment as a response to what Russia called U.S. provocations and mistreatment of Russian diplomats in the United States. The Russian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson in turn accused the FBI and CIA of provocations and "psychological pressure" vis-à-vis the Russian diplomats.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: Assetto Corsa Competizione (Italian for "race setup", "competition") is a sports car racing simulator developed by Italian video game developer Kunos Simulazioni. The game focuses on GT3 and cars and is an officially licensed simulation of the 2018 and 2019 Blancpain GT Series season Sprint and Endurance Cups and the Total 24 Hours of Spa, and is set to serve as a platform for esports.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: Kunos Simulazioni announced the game on 21 February 2018 with a planned Steam Early Access release in summer 2018. On 27 July 2018, a 12 September 2018 early access release date and a roadmap with monthly updates until a full release in Q1 2019 was revealed at the Total 24 Hours of Spa 2018 SRO press conference. It was released out of early access on 29 May 2019. On 11 March 2020 publisher 505 Games and Kunos Simulazioni announced ports for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One which were released on 23 June 2020. Versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S were announced at Gamescom 2021 and were released on 24 February 2022.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: "Assetto Corsa Competizione" is a racing simulator in which players can drive race cars against AI offline or against other players online. It includes offline career, custom championship, custom races and special events gameplay modes as well as online multiplayer, with session types consisting of Free Practice, Hot Lap, Superpole, Hot Stint, Quick Race (one race up to one hour), Sprint Race Weekend (with up to two practice, two qualifying sessions and two races up to one hour in length) and Endurance Race Weekend (with up to two practice, four qualifying sessions and a top-ten superpole, as well as one or two races each one to twenty-four hours in length). Races can be saved and resumed mid-session in offline modes. Offline grids are automatically selected depending on the series and season selected by the player. Alternatively races can be made into single-make sessions, allowing creation of series such as Porsche Carrera Cup, Lamborghini Super Trofeo or Audi R8 LMS Cup. Car selection in multiplayer is free unless determined through server settings.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: Development of "Assetto Corsa Competizione" moved from an in-house developed graphics engine used in the studio's previous title "Assetto Corsa" to Unreal Engine 4 to ensure graphics engine support for night races and realistic weather conditions. With the new engine, an evolution of the tire and aerodynamic physics models used in the previous title, motion capture animations, modern audio solutions and the detailed focus on a single series and class of cars the developer aims to reach a higher standard of driving realism and immersion for the new title. All ten circuits of the 2018 Blancpain GT Series season are said to be reproduced with laser scan technology.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: At Nvidia’s Gamescom 2018 keynote "Assetto Corsa Competizione" was announced to be among the first titles to support Nvidia RTX real-time ray tracing and Nvidia Ansel RTX on GeForce 20 series GPUs.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: On 12 March 2020 it was revealed that D3T Ltd have been working with Kunos Simulazioni and 505 Games to bring Assetto Corsa Competizione to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: Version 1.1 on 23 October 2019 added new-for-2019 cars and circuits such as the Audi R8 LMS EVO, Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO, AMR V8 Vantage GT3, Honda NSX GT3 EVO, Porsche 911 GT3 R (991 II), Circuit Zandvoort and 2019 versions of Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and Silverstone Circuit as part of the "2019 Blancpain GT Series" season, as well as the McLaren 720S GT3 as part of the "2019 McLaren Shadow Project" Esports competition as a free update to the game.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: Versions 1.3.10 on 15 April 2020 and 1.3.12 on 24 April 2020 added liveries in preparation for 2020 season Esports races held in place of cancelled or postponed real-life events.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: Version 1.8 released on 24 November 2021 - Highlights include: DLSS Support, BMW M4 GT3, 2021 liveries, open class support and significant physics and tyre model improvements. Full change log:


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: The "Intercontinental GT Pack" downloadable content (DLC) was released on 4 February 2020, adding car liveries as well as the circuits Bathurst, Laguna Seca, Kyalami and Suzuka of the 2019 Intercontinental GT Challenge to the game.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: A "GT4 Pack" DLC planned for release in summer 2020 for PC and fall of 2020 for consoles as well as a "British GT Pack" DLC planned for a winter release have been announced on 11 March 2020.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: The Challengers Pack adds 5 new cars to the game including: Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II ( to be driven by Valentino Rossi in 2022 ), the BMW M2 CS, Ferrari 488 GT3 Challenge Evo, Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO 2 and Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. Released 23 March 2022.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: The American Track Pack was released on 30 June 2022 featuring 3 iconic circuits from the USA, namely Circuit of the Americas, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Watkins Glen.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: As part of a hot-lap competition hosted at the Thrustmaster booth "Assetto Corsa Competizione" was playable for the first time at E3 2018. During the 2018 Total 24 Hours of Spa weekend a hot-lap competition was hosted in the Pirelli paddock area and included a winners celebration on the circuit podium just when the real race on the circuit concluded, representing the first esports project undertaken by SRO.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: On 27 March 2019 SRO announced the new "SRO E-Sport GT Series" in collaboration with Kunos Simulazioni featuring five rounds and Am, Silver and Pro driver classes for the 2019 season. The first round of the 2019 "SRO E-Sport GT Series" championship was staged at Autodromo Nazionale Monza during the 2019 Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup race weekend. The winners were once again crowned on the real podium after the class podiums of the real race.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: "Assetto Corsa Competizione" featured as one of four racing titles in the 2019 "McLaren Shadow Project" Esports competition, with a qualifier held from 27 October to 7 November and a grand final on 14 December held at the McLaren Technology Centre.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: On 20 March 2020, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and cancelled or postponed motorsport events, SRO Motorsports Group in partnership with Kunos Simulazioni and Ak Informatica announced a "SRO E-Sports GT Series" Charity Challenge event for 29 March 2020 featuring Autodromo Nazionale di Monza in "Assetto Corsa Competizione" as well as 90 professional and sim driver entrants, with donations benefiting the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: On 6 April 2020 SRO America announced an eight-round, thirty-two car entry "GT Rivals Esports Invitational", with participating drivers from GT World Challenge America, Pirelli GT4 America, TC America and GT Sports Club America.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: On 10 April 2020 SRO Motorsports Group, Kunos Simulazioni and Ak Informatica announced the "2020 SRO E-Sport Championship" spanning five rounds, with 49 professional drivers announced to take part.


title: Assetto Corsa Competizione

text: According to review aggregator Metacritic, the PC and PlayStation 5 versions received "generally favorable reviews", while the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One versions received "generally mixed reviews".


title: Putrajaya line

text: The MRT Putrajaya Line is the second Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line in Klang Valley, Malaysia, and the third fully automated and driverless rail system in region. The line stretches from to Putrajaya and runs through densely populated areas such as Sri Damansara, Kepong, Batu, Jalan Ipoh, Sentul, Kampung Baru, Jalan Tun Razak, KLCC, Tun Razak Exchange, Kuchai Lama, Seri Kembangan and Cyberjaya.


title: Putrajaya line

text: Phase 1 operations of the line between and commenced on 16 June 2022. Phase 2 which will cover the remaining line is expected to be operational in January 2023.


title: Putrajaya line

text: The line was developed and is owned by MRT Corp but operated as part of the Rapid KL network by Rapid Rail. It also forms part of the Klang Valley Integrated Transit System.


title: Putrajaya line

text: The newly built length of the line 52.2 km in length but includes 5.5 km of the MRT Kajang Line which was transferred to the MRT Putrajaya Line. The line includes a 13.5 km underground section. A total of 37 stations, 11 of them underground, will be built.


title: Putrajaya line

text: The MRT starts in where it took over the section from here to Sungai Buloh from the MRT Kajang Line. From Sungai Buloh, the line parallels with the KTM Komuter line to Kepong Sentral/Sri Damansara Timur. However, there are a few stations the MRT line between the two which is not served by the KTM.


title: Putrajaya line

text: The MRT then continues towards the towns of Kepong and Jinjang. As of the first phase, the Putrajaya line currently ends at Kampung Batu. At Jalan Ipoh, the line starts going underground while Jalan Ipoh itself being the only station on the network to be half-sunken/sub-surface. The line carries under the Ipoh Road to Titiwangsa which will interchange with the LRT Ampang/Sri Petaling Line and KL Monorail. The MRT will pass under the Kuala Lumpur Hospital and interchange with the LRT Kelana Jaya line at Ampang Park. At KLCC, Persiaran KLCC serves as another station at the KLCC area. The line continues to Tun Razak Exhange, interchanging with the Kajang line. The Putrajaya Line reunites with the Ampang/Sri Petaling line at Chan Sow Lin station.


title: Putrajaya line

text: After the cancelled Bandar Malaysia stations, the MRT Putrajaya line resurfaces at Kuchai. Once again, the line meets with the LRT Sri Petaling line at Sungai Besi station, then continuing to serve Serdang. Following this, the line parallels the ERL KLIA Transit until Putrajaya, but the Putrajaya line has station in between. The University of Putra Malaysia is served by the UPM MRT station. It continues to serve small suburbs and towns along the way such as Taman Equine and 16 Sierra. Before the MRT meets the ERL, the line has two stations in Cyberjaya. Finally, the MRT line meets the ERL at Putrajaya Sentral, terminating at this station. The station may be integrated with the proposed Putrajaya Monorail in the future. Putrajaya Sentral will also be the southernmost station under the Rapid KL rail network.


title: Putrajaya line

text: The proposed design for the elevated stations is based on the “Serambi” concept. This concept is focused on the inspiring interaction and communication at a foyer or entrance space of a house such as the entrance space at a traditional “rumah kampung” or “rumah panjang”. The design opted is a simple and timeless design, which is derived from various design concepts, including that of the Japanese “Zen” concept. Other aspects include open space, natural lighting and ventilation, and natural visual effects via play of lighting and shadows.


title: Putrajaya line

text: Compared to the Kajang Line's elevated station design, the columns have been pushed to the sides of the station, giving the stations an open and airy feel.


title: Putrajaya line

text: Each of the underground stations will carry its own individual theme, similar to that of the Kajang Line stations. The proposed designs range from preserving the rustic, reflecting tidal rhythm, promoting well-being, vibrancy, pulse of life, discovering culture, molding forms, inspired by nature to streamlined flow.


title: Putrajaya line

text: 28 (23 elevated + 1 half-sunken + 4 underground) out of 35 stations (excluding the ones on the MRT Kajang Line) are expected to have feeder bus services.


title: Putrajaya line

text: Kwasa Damansara station, along with the adjoining Sungai Buloh and Kampung Selamat stations were previously built as part of the MRT Kajang Line. These three stations are currently annexed by the Putrajaya Line, thus making Kwasa Damansara the interchange station between the two MRT lines.


title: Putrajaya line

text: The rolling stock will be provided by HAP Consortium which consists of Hyundai Rotem, Apex Communications and POSCO Engineering. The trains are assumed to be driverless with a capacity of 1,200 passengers in a 4-car trainsets formation.


title: Putrajaya line

text: The 4-car trainsets will be maintained at 2 purpose-built facilities, Sungai Buloh and Serdang depots, located nearby Kwasa Damansara and the proposed Taman Universiti stations respectively.


title: Putrajaya line

text: The train consists of four cars, with car 1 facing towards Kwasa Damansara and car 4 facing towards Putrajaya Sentral.


title: Kyle Guy

text: Kyle Joseph Guy (born August 11, 1997) is an American professional basketball player for the Joventut Badalona of the Liga ACB. He played college basketball for the Virginia Cavaliers as a shooting guard for three years and was named the NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player during his junior season before declaring for the draft. In high school, he was Indiana Mr. Basketball and a McDonald's All-American.


title: Kyle Guy

text: Guy attended Lawrence Central High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was a varsity letter-winner all four years at Lawrence Central. On January 18, 2016, Guy was named a McDonald's All-American. After averaging 23.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.7 assists during his senior season, Guy was selected as Indiana's Mr. Basketball. On October 20, 2014, Guy committed to playing college basketball at Virginia, selecting the Cavaliers over offers from schools such as California, Xavier, and Indiana.


title: Kyle Guy

text: On November 22, 2016, in his fourth career college game, Kyle Guy led all players with 20 points and five three-pointers against Grambling State. As a freshman, he averaged 7.5 points per game and shot 49.5 percent from the three-point line.


title: Kyle Guy

text: Guy scored a career-high 29 points in a 76–67 win against VCU on November 17, 2017. He had 22 points, including five three-pointers, in a 76–67 victory over Syracuse on January 10, 2018. In the 2018 ACC tournament, Guy led Virginia to a conference tournament championship, where he averaged 16.7 points per game earning him tournament MVP honors.


title: Kyle Guy

text: Prior to the 2018–19 season, Guy was named to the pre-season watchlists for the Jerry West Award, John R. Wooden Award, and for the Naismith College Player of the Year.


title: Kyle Guy

text: Guy set a new career-high with 30 points against Marshall on December 31, 2018. He recorded his first collegiate double-double with 25 points and 10 rebounds on March 30, 2019, against Purdue in the 2019 NCAA tournament, helping the Cavaliers advance to the program's first Final Four since 1984 in the process. On April 6, 2019, in Virginia's Final Four matchup against Auburn, Guy hit three consecutive free throws with 0.6 seconds left after being fouled on a corner 3 to help the Cavaliers reach their first-ever national championship game. Guy scored 24 points in Virginia's 85–77 overtime win in the championship game, and was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.


title: Kyle Guy

text: Kyle Guy was drafted in the 2019 NBA draft by the New York Knicks before being traded to Sacramento. The Kings signed him to a two-way contract on July 7, 2019, to split time between the NBA Kings and their NBA G League affiliate, the Stockton Kings. He scored 42 points for Stockton in a win over the Iowa Wolves on December 1. Guy made his NBA debut on January 10, 2020, against the Milwaukee Bucks. On January 18, Guy scored 37 points and hit seven three-pointers for Stockton in a 147–117 loss to the Oklahoma City Blue.


title: Kyle Guy

text: On February 21, 2021, Guy scored 9 points in 9 minutes off the bench for the Sacramento Kings against the Milwaukee Bucks, on 4-for-5 shooting.


title: Kyle Guy

text: In August 2021, Guy joined the Golden State Warriors for the 2021 NBA Summer League roster. He debuted with 15 points in 17 minutes off the bench while 4-for-10 from the field, as well as 3-for-7 from three-point range against the Orlando Magic. On September 27, 2021, he signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers, but was waived on October 16. On October 23, he signed with the Cleveland Charge as an affiliate player.


title: Kyle Guy

text: On December 30, 2021, Guy signed a 10-day contract with the Miami Heat via the hardship exemption. On January 10, he signed a second 10-day contract. In his first game after signing the 10-day contract, Guy scored 17 points and hit four three-pointers. On January 17, 2022, Guy signed a two-way contract with the Heat. On March 24, he was waived by the Heat.


title: Kyle Guy

text: Guy's parents are Katy and Tim Fitzgerald (mother and stepfather) and Joe and Amy Guy (father and stepmother). He has five siblings: three brothers and two sisters. Guy's great-grandfather was the commissioner for the Indiana High School Athletic Association and was inducted into the Indiana High School Hall of Fame for basketball and football.


title: Ken Davitian

text: Kenneth Davitian (; born June 19, 1953) is an American character actor, best known for his role as Borat's producer Azamat Bagatov in the 2006 comedy film "Borat".


title: Ken Davitian

text: Davitian was born Kenneth Davitian in Los Angeles on June 19, 1953 to an Armenian American family in Montebello, California. His maternal grandparents were survivors of the Armenian genocide. His father, a Red Army soldier during World War II, was captured by Wehrmacht forces. He was placed at an "Armenische Legion" camp in Stuttgart. After the end of the war, he immigrated to the United States through the efforts of George Mardikian. Davitian worked in his father's waste management company. He graduated from Garfield High School in East Los Angeles & Whittier College.


title: Ken Davitian

text: His teenage idol was Burt Reynolds, who greatly influenced his choice of becoming an actor. Davitian would go on to perform in the film "Pocket Listing", which also featured Reynolds.


title: Ken Davitian

text: Davitian founded a restaurant in 2003 called The Dip, which was located in Los Angeles. His son Robert used to run his baseball-themed hot dog restaurant The Infield in Sherman Oaks, which boasted a hot dog, conceived by Charlie Sheen, called the "Charlie Sheen Dog with Tiger Blood".


title: 1919 World Series

text: The 1919 World Series was the championship series in Major League Baseball for the 1919 season. The 16th edition of the World Series, it matched the American League champion Chicago White Sox against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds. Although most World Series have been of the best-of-seven format, the 1919 World Series was a best-of-nine series (along with , , and ). Major League Baseball decided to try the best-of-nine format partly to increase popularity of the sport and partly to generate more revenue.


title: 1919 World Series

text: The events of the series are often associated with the Black Sox Scandal, when several members of the Chicago franchise conspired with gamblers, allegedly led by Arnold Rothstein, to throw the World Series games. The 1919 World Series was the last World Series to take place without a Commissioner of Baseball in place. In 1920, the various franchise owners installed Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first "Commissioner of Baseball."


title: 1919 World Series

text: In August 1921, despite being acquitted from criminal charges, eight players from the White Sox were banned from organized baseball for either fixing the series or having knowledge about the fix.


title: 1919 World Series

text: In 1917, the Sox won the World Series and, managed by William "Kid" Gleason, the 1919 Chicago White Sox had the best record in the American League. Team owner Charlie Comiskey had succeeded in building one of the most powerful teams in baseball. Most of the same players had defeated the New York Giants in the 1917 World Series, four games to two. They had fallen to sixth place in the American League in 1918, largely as a result of losing their best player, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and a few of his teammates as well, to World War I service. Comiskey fired manager Pants Rowland after the season, replacing him with Kid Gleason, who had played over 20 years in the majors but had never managed before. The 88–52 White Sox won the American League pennant again in 1919, by games over the Cleveland Indians (world champions the following year).


title: 1919 World Series

text: Jackson was the unquestioned star of the team. The left fielder hit .351 that season, fourth in the league and in the AL's top five in slugging percentage, RBI, total bases and base hits. He was not the only star in a lineup with hardly a weak spot, as former A's superstar leadoff hitter Eddie Collins, one of the greatest second basemen of all time, was still going strong in his early thirties, hitting .319 with a .400 on-base percentage. Right fielder Nemo Leibold hit .302 with 81 runs scored. First baseman Chick Gandil hit .290, third baseman Buck Weaver .296, and center fielder Oscar "Hap" Felsch hit .275 and tied Jackson for the team lead in home runs with only 7 (as the dead-ball era was coming to a close). Even typical "good field, no hit" catcher Ray Schalk hit .282 that year, and shortstop Swede Risberg was not an automatic out with the .256 average and 38 RBI. Manager Gleason's bench contained two impressive hitters, outfielder Shano Collins and infielder Fred McMullin, both veterans of the 1917 world championship.


title: 1919 World Series

text: The 1919 pennant-winning pitching staff was led by a pair of aces and a very promising rookie. Knuckleballer Eddie Cicotte had become one of the AL's best pitchers after turning 30 and discovering the "shine ball;" he had won 28 games for the 1917 champions, and after an off-year in 1918 had come back with a hefty 29–7, leading the league in wins and second in earned run average to Washington's veteran "Big Train" Walter Johnson. Next came Claude "Lefty" Williams, at 23–11 and 2.64. Twenty-six-year-old rookie Dickie Kerr started only 17 games, but turned in a solid 13–7 and 2.88. Fourth in the rotation was Urban "Red" Faber, who had beaten the Giants three times in the 1917 World Series but had an off-year in 1919 at 11–9 and 3.83 in 20 starts. He was ill and unable to pitch in the Series, limiting Gleason to three top-of-the-line starters for what could be nine games.


title: 1919 World Series

text: However, all was not well in the White Sox camp. Tension between many of the players and owner Comiskey was quite high, given his penny-pinching ways memorialized in two urban legends: (1) that he told Gleason to shut down Cicotte in the last days of the regular season to prevent him from winning 30 games, a milestone which would have earned him a sizeable $10,000 bonus; (2) that many derided the White Sox as the Black Sox because Comiskey wouldn't pay to have their uniforms laundered regularly, and they became blacker and blacker due to accumulated sweat, grime, and dirt.


title: 1919 World Series

text: In contrast to the White Sox, the 1919 Cincinnati Reds were upstarts. They had finished no higher than third since 1900, and then only twice, before winning the NL pennant handily in 1919. Under new manager Pat Moran, best known as the leader of another bunch of unlikely newcomers to the World Series, the 1915 Philadelphia Phillies, the Reds finished nine games in front of the runner-up New York Giants at 96–44 and at least 20 games ahead of the other six, with the second highest NL won-lost percentage since 1910 at .686.


title: 1919 World Series

text: Their greatest star was center fielder Edd Roush, who led the league in hitting at .321 and, like the White Sox's Jackson, was in the top five of their respective leagues in most important hitting categories. Third baseman Heinie Groh was the other great hitter on the team at .310 with a .392 on-base percentage and 79 runs scored. Slick-fielding first baseman Jake Daubert, a two-time National League batting champion with Brooklyn earlier in the decade, also scored 79 runs and hit .276, while catcher Ivey Wingo hit .273. The rest of the team was unheralded, including second baseman Morrie Rath, a .264 hitter with no power but a good on-base percentage, and shortstop Larry Kopf, a .270 singles hitter. The corner outfielders were decidedly weaker hitters, with former Phillies star left fielder Sherry Magee's .215 in 56 games and right fielder Earle "Greasy" Neale's .242 with little power. This would prompt Moran to start rookie Pat Duncan in left field in the World Series.


title: 1919 World Series

text: The Reds' pitching was universally solid, however. The team's big three included Hod Eller (20–9, 2.39), Dutch Ruether (19–6, 1.82) and Slim Sallee (21–7, 2.06), all among the league leaders in various categories. They were backed by three other pitchers who were almost as successful: Jimmy Ring at only 10–9 but 2.26, Ray Fisher at 14–5 and 2.17 with five shutouts, and Cuban Dolf Luque at 10–3 and 2.63, former and future Giant who would win the last game of the 1933 World Series in long relief for New York. It was a deep and talented staff, a definite advantage in a Series whose format had just been changed from best of seven to best of nine.


title: 1919 World Series

text: The conspirators got an unexpected assist when a flu-stricken Faber was left off the World Series roster. Indeed, years later catcher Schalk said that had Faber been healthy, there never would have been a fix (since he almost certainly would have gotten starts that went to Cicotte or Williams). Despite their many wins on the field, the White Sox were an unhappy team. Many observers believe that it was Comiskey's stinginess that was largely to blame for the Black Sox scandal, despite the fact that the 1919 White Sox payroll was third highest in the American League, behind only Boston and New York.


title: 1919 World Series

text: Stories of the "Black Sox" scandal have usually included Comiskey in its gallery of subsidiary villains, focusing in particular on his intentions regarding a clause in Cicotte's contract that would have paid Cicotte an additional $10,000 bonus for winning 30 games. According to Eliot Asinof's account of the events, "Eight Men Out", Cicotte was "rested" for the season's final two weeks after reaching his 29th win presumably to deny him the bonus, but the truth may be more complex. Cicotte won his 29th game on September 19, had an ineffective start on September 24 and was pulled after a few innings in a tuneup on the season's final day, September 28 (three days before the Series opener). In addition, Cicotte reportedly agreed to the fix the same day he won his 29th game before he could have known of any efforts to deny him a chance to win his 30th. The story was probably true with regard to the 1917 season, however, when Cicotte won 28 games and hurled the White Sox to the world championship.


title: 1919 World Series

text: Although rumors were swirling among the gamblers (according to Tom Meany in his chapter on the 1919 Reds in "Baseball's Greatest Teams," "Cincinnati money was pouring in" even though the White Sox were regarded as the overwhelming favorite) and some of the press, most fans and observers were taking the Series at face value. On October 2, the day of Game 2, the "Philadelphia Bulletin" published a poem which would quickly prove to be ironic:


title: 1919 World Series

text: The first game began at 3 pm at Cincinnati's Redland Field, with 30,511 fans in the stands and ticket scalpers outside the park raking in at least $50 per ticket. Chicago failed to score in the top of the first. In the bottom of the inning, Cicotte (who was paid his $10,000 the night before the series began) took the mound and hit the leadoff hitter, Morrie Rath, in the back with his second pitch, a prearranged signal to Arnold Rothstein that the fix was on. Even so, the game remained close for a while, due in part to some excellent defense from the conspirators, seeking to deflect suspicion from themselves. In the fourth, however, Cicotte "went haywire" (again according to Meany, "op. cit."), allowing a number of hits in succession climaxed by a two-out triple to the opposing pitcher, as the Reds scored five times to break a 1–1 tie. Cicotte was relieved at that point, but the damage was done and the Reds went on to add three more runs in later innings and win 9–1.


title: 1919 World Series

text: Sportswriters thought that a bad throw by Cicotte to Risberg in the fourth inning, which prevented a possible double play, was suspicious. By that evening, there already were signs that things were going wrong. Only Cicotte, who had shrewdly demanded his $10,000 in advance, had been paid. "Sleepy" Bill Burns and Maharg met with Abe Attell, the former world boxing champ and Rothstein's intermediary, but he withheld the next installment ($20,000) nonetheless to bet on the next game. The next morning Gandil met Attell and again demanded money, but again to no avail.


title: 1919 World Series

text: Although they had not received their money, the players were still willing to go through with the fix. "Lefty" Williams, the starting pitcher in Game 2, was not going to be as obvious as Cicotte. After a shaky start, he pitched well until the fourth inning, when he walked three and gave up as many runs. After that he became virtually unhittable again, giving up only one more run; but lack of clutch hitting, with Gandil a particularly guilty party, led to a 4–2 White Sox loss. Attell was still in no mood to pay up afterwards, but Burns managed to get hold of $10,000 and gave it to Gandil, who distributed it among the conspirators. The teams headed northwest to Comiskey Park in Chicago for Game 3 the next day, with no days off for travel in this Series.


title: 1919 World Series

text: Rookie pitcher Dickey Kerr, the Game 3 starter for the Sox, was not in on the fix. The original plan was for the conspirators, who disliked Kerr, to lose this game, but by now dissent among the players meant that the plan was in disarray. Burns still had faith and gathered the last of his resources to bet on Cincinnati. It was a decision that would leave him broke, as Chicago scored early—with Gandil himself driving in two runs—and Kerr was masterful, holding the Reds to three hits in a 3–0 complete game shutout.


title: 1919 World Series

text: Cicotte took the mound again for Game 4, and was determined not to look as bad as he had in Game 1. For the first four innings, he and Reds pitcher Jimmy Ring matched zeroes. With one out in the fifth, Cicotte fielded a slow roller by Pat Duncan but threw wildly to first for a two-base error. The next man up, Larry Kopf, singled to left; Cicotte cut off the throw from Jackson and fumbled the ball, allowing Duncan to score. The home crowd was stunned by the veteran pitcher's obvious mistake. Cicotte then surrendered a double to Greasy Neale which scored Kopf to make it 2–0; this was enough of a lead for Ring, who hurled a three-hit shutout of his own, matching Kerr's in Game 3. The Reds led the Series 3–1.


title: 1919 World Series

text: After the game "Sport" Sullivan came through with $20,000 for the players, which Gandil split equally among Risberg, Felsch, and Williams, who was due to start Game 5 the next day.


title: 1919 World Series

text: Game 5 was postponed by rain for a day. Both starters, Williams and Cincinnati's Hod Eller, pitched excellently at first, with neither allowing a runner past first until the top of the sixth, when Eller himself hit a blooper that fell between Felsch and Jackson. Felsch's throw was offline, sending Eller all the way to third. Leadoff hitter Morrie Rath then singled over the drawn-in infield, scoring Eller. Heinie Groh walked before Edd Roush's double—the result of more doubtful defense from Felsch—brought home two more runs, with Roush scoring shortly thereafter. Eller pitched well enough (he struck out nine batters, including a then-World Series record six in a row, since tied by Moe Drabowsky in the 1966 World Series opener) for the four runs to stand up, and the Reds were only one game away from their first world championship.


title: 1919 World Series

text: The Series reverted to Cincinnati for Game 6. Dickey Kerr, starting for the White Sox, was less dominant than in Game 3. Aided by three White Sox errors, the Reds jumped out to a 4–0 lead before Chicago fought back, tying the game at 4-4 in the sixth, which remained the score into extra innings. In the top of the tenth, Gandil drove in Weaver to make it 5–4, and Kerr closed it out to record his — and Chicago's — second win.


title: 1919 World Series

text: Despite the rumors already circulating about Cicotte's erratic performances in Games 1 and 4, White Sox manager Kid Gleason showed faith in his ace for Game 7. This time, the knuckleballer did not let him down. Chicago scored early and, for once, it was Cincinnati that committed errors. The Reds threatened only briefly in the sixth before losing 4–1, and suddenly the Series was relatively close again. This marked the only time in World Series history that the winner of Game 7 did not ultimately go on to win the series.


title: 1919 World Series

text: This did not go unnoticed by Sullivan and Rothstein, who were suddenly worried. Before the Series started, the Sox had been strong favorites and few doubted they could win two games in a row—presuming that they were "trying" to win. Rothstein had been too smart to bet on individual games, but had $270,000 riding on Cincinnati to win the Series. The night before Game 8, Williams—the scheduled starter—was supposedly visited by an associate of Sullivan's known as Harry F who left no doubt that if he failed to blow the game in the first inning, he and his wife would be in serious danger.


title: 1919 World Series

text: Whatever Williams had been told made its impression. In the first, throwing nothing but mediocre fastballs, he gave up four straight one-out hits for three runs before Gleason relieved him with "Big" Bill James, who allowed one of Williams' baserunners to score. James continued ineffective and, although the Sox rallied in the eighth, the Reds came away with a 10–5 victory for a five-games-to-three Series win. Jackson hit the only homer of the Series in the third inning after the Reds had built a 5–0 lead. Immediately after the Series ended, rumors were rife from coast to coast that the games had been thrown. Journalist Hugh Fullerton of the "Chicago Herald and Examiner", disgusted by the display of ineptitude with which the White Sox had "thrown" the series, wrote that no World Series should ever be played again.


title: 1919 World Series

text: Jackson led all players with his .375 average. Some believed that most of his offensive potency came in games that were not fixed and/or when the game seemed out of reach. He hit the Series' lone home run in the eighth and final game, a solo shot in the third inning, by which time the Reds were already ahead 5–0. His five hits with runners in scoring position came in: Game 6, sixth inning with Kerr pitching; Game 7, first and third innings; Game 8, two in the four-run eighth.


title: Wat Pho

text: Wat Pho (, ), also spelled Wat Po, is a Buddhist temple complex in the Phra Nakhon District, Bangkok, Thailand. It is on Rattanakosin Island, directly south of the Grand Palace. Known also as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, its official name is Wat Phra Chetuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Rajwaramahawihan (; ). The more commonly known name, Wat Pho, is a contraction of its older name, "Wat Photaram" (; ).


title: Wat Pho

text: The temple is first on the list of six temples in Thailand classed as the highest grade of the first-class royal temples. It is associated with King Rama I who rebuilt the temple complex on an earlier temple site. It became his main temple and is where some of his ashes are enshrined. The temple was later expanded and extensively renovated by Rama III. The temple complex houses the largest collection of Buddha images in Thailand, including a 46 m long reclining Buddha. The temple is considered the earliest centre for public education in Thailand, and the marble illustrations and inscriptions placed in the temple for public instructions has been recognised by UNESCO in its Memory of the World Programme. It houses a school of Thai medicine, and is also known as the birthplace of traditional Thai massage which is still taught and practiced at the temple.


title: Wat Pho

text: Wat Pho is one of Bangkok's oldest temples. It existed before Bangkok was established as the capital by King Rama I. It was originally named Wat Photaram or Podharam, from which the name Wat Pho is derived. The name refers to the monastery of the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, India where Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment. The date of the construction of the old temple and its founder are unknown, but it is thought to have been built or expanded during the reign of King Phetracha (1688–1703). The southern section of Wat Pho used to be occupied by part of a French Star fort that was demolished by King Phetracha after the 1688 Siege of Bangkok.


title: Wat Pho

text: After the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767 to the Burmese, King Taksin moved the capital to Thonburi where he located his palace beside Wat Arun on the opposite side of the Chao Phraya River from Wat Pho. The proximity of Wat Pho to this royal palace elevated it to the status of a "wat luang" ('royal monastery').


title: Wat Pho

text: In 1782, King Rama I moved the capital from Thonburi across the river to Bangkok and built the Grand Palace adjacent to Wat Pho. In 1788, he ordered the construction and renovation at the old temple site of Wat Pho, which had by then become dilapidated. The site, which was marshy and uneven, was drained and filled in before construction began. During its construction, Rama I also initiated a project to remove Buddha images from abandoned temples in Ayutthaya, Sukhothai, as well other sites in Thailand, and many of these retrieved Buddha images were kept at Wat Pho. These include the remnants of an enormous Buddha image from Ayuthaya's Wat Phra Si Sanphet destroyed by the Burmese in 1767, and these were incorporated into a "chedi" in the complex. The rebuilding took over seven years to complete. In 1801, twelve years after work began, the new temple complex was renamed "Phra Chetuphon Vimolmangklavas" in reference to the vihara of Jetavana, and it became the main temple for Rama I.


title: Wat Pho

text: The complex underwent significant changes over the next 260 years, particularly during the reign of Rama III (1824-1851). In 1832, King Rama III began renovating and enlarging the temple complex, a process that took 16 years and seven months to complete. The ground of the temple complex was expanded to 56 rai (22 acres), and most of the structures now present in Wat Pho were either built or rebuilt during this period, including the Chapel of the Reclining Buddha. He also turned the temple complex into a public center of learning by decorating the walls of the buildings with diagrams and inscriptions on various subjects. The inscriptions were written by about 50 people from the court of Rama III and learned monks led by Supreme Patriarch Prince Paramanuchitchinorot (1790-1853), the abbot of Wat Pho, a Buddhist scholar, historian and poet. On 21 February 2008, these marble illustrations and inscriptions was registered in the Memory of the World Programme launched by UNESCO to promote, preserve and propagate the wisdom of the world heritage. Wat Pho is regarded as Thailand’s first university and a center for traditional Thai massage. It served as a medical teaching center in the mid-19th century before the advent of modern medicine, and the temple remains a center for traditional medicine today where a private school for Thai medicine founded in 1957 still operates.


title: Wat Pho

text: The name of the complex was changed again to Wat Phra Chetuphon Vimolmangklararm during the reign of King Rama IV. Apart from the construction of a fourth great chedi and minor modifications by Rama IV, there had been no significant changes to Wat Pho since. Repair work, however, is a continuing process, often funded by devotees of the temple. The temple was restored again in 1982 before the Bangkok Bicentennial Celebration.


title: Wat Pho

text: Wat Pho is one of the largest and oldest wats in Bangkok covering an area of 50 "rai" or 80,000 square metres. It is home to more than one thousand Buddha images, as well as one of the largest single Buddha images at in length. The Wat Pho complex consists of two walled compounds bisected by Chetuphon Road running in the east–west direction. The larger northern walled compound, the "phutthawat", is open to visitors and contains the finest buildings dedicated to the Buddha, including the "bot" with its four directional "viharn", and the temple housing the reclining Buddha. The southern compound, the "sankhawat", contains the residential quarters of the monks and a school. The perimeter wall of the main temple complex has sixteen gates, two of which serve as entrances for the public (one on Chetuphon Road, the other near the northwest corner).


title: Wat Pho

text: The temple grounds contain four great "chedis", 91 small "chedis", two belfries, a "bot" (central shrine), a number of "viharas" (halls) and various buildings such as pavilions, as well as gardens and a small temple museum. Architecturally the "chedis" and buildings in the complex are different in style and sizes. A number of large Chinese statues, some of which depict Europeans, are also found in the complex guarding the gates of the perimeter walls as well as other gates in the compound. These stone statues were originally imported as ballast on ships trading with China.


title: Wat Pho

text: Wat Pho was also intended to serve as a place of education for the general public. To this end a pictorial encyclopedia was engraved on granite slabs covering eight subject areas: history, medicine, health, custom, literature, proverbs, lexicography, and the Buddhist religion. These plaques, inscribed with texts and illustrations on medicine, Thai traditional massage, and other subjects, are placed around the temple, for example, within the Sala Rai or satellite open pavilions. Dotted around the complex are 24 small rock gardens ("khao mor") illustrating rock formations of Thailand, and one, called the Contorting Hermit Hill, contains some statues showing methods of massage and yoga positions. There are also drawings of constellations on the wall of the library, inscriptions on local administration, as well as paintings of folk tales and animal husbandry.


title: Wat Pho

text: Phra Ubosot (Phra Uposatha) or "bot" is the ordination hall, the main hall used for performing Buddhist rituals, and the most sacred building of the complex. It was constructed by King Rama I in the Ayuthaya-style, and later enlarged and reconstructed in the Rattanakosin-style by Rama III. The "bot" was dedicated in 1791, before the rebuilding of Wat Pho was completed. This building is raised on a marble platform, and the "ubosot" lies in the center of courtyard enclosed by a double cloister (Phra Rabiang).


title: Wat Pho

text: Inside the "ubosot" is a gold and crystal three-tiered pedestal topped with a gilded Buddha made of a gold-copper alloy, and over the statue is a nine-tiered umbrella representing the authority of Thailand. The Buddha image, known as Phra Buddha Theva Patimakorn and thought to be from the Ayutthaya period, was moved here by Rama I from "Wat Sala Si Na" (now called "Wat Khuhasawan") in Thonburi. Rama IV later placed some ashes of Rama I under the pedestal of the Buddha image so that the public may pay homage to both Rama I and the Buddha at the same time. There are also ten images of Buddha's disciples in the hall: Moggalana is to the left of Buddha and Sariputta to the right, with eight Arahants below.


title: Wat Pho

text: The exterior balustrade surrounding the main hall has around 150 depictions in stone of the epic, "Ramakien", the ultimate message of which is transcendence from secular to spiritual dimensions. The stone panels were recovered from a temple in Ayuthaya. The "ubosot" is enclosed by a low wall called "kamphaeng kaew", which is punctuated by gateways guarded by mythological lions, as well as eight structures that house "bai sema", stone markers that delineate the sacred space of the "bot".


title: Wat Pho

text: The Phra Rabiang is intersected by four viharns. The viharn in the east contains an eight metre tall standing Buddha, the Buddha Lokanatha, originally from Ayutthaya. In its antechamber is Buddha Maravichai, sitting under a bodhi tree, originally from Sawankhalok of the late-Sukhothai period. The one on the west has a seated Buddha sheltered by a naga, the Buddha Chinnasri, while the Buddha on the south, the Buddha Chinnaraja, has five disciples seated in front listening to his first sermon. Both Buddhas in the south and west viharns were brought from Sukhothai by Rama I. The Buddha in the north viharn, called Buddha Palilai, was cast in the reign of Rama I. The viharn on the west contains a small museum.


title: Wat Pho

text: This is a group of four large stupas, each 42 metres high. These four "chedis" are dedicated to the first four Chakri kings. The first, in green mosaic tiles, was constructed by Rama I to house the remnants of the great Buddha from Ayuthaya, which was scorched to remove its gold covering by the Burmese. Two more were built by Rama III, one in white tiles to hold the ashes of his father Rama II, another in yellow for himself. A fourth in blue was built by Rama IV who then enclosed the four "chedis" leaving no space for more to be built.


title: Wat Pho

text: The "viharn" or "wihan" contains the reclining Buddha and was constructed in the reign of Rama III emulating the Ayutthaya style. The interior is decorated with panels of mural.


title: Wat Pho

text: Adjacent to this building is a small raised garden (Missakawan Park) with a Chinese-style pavilion; the centre piece of the garden is a bodhi tree which was propagated from the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi tree in Sri Lanka that is believed to have originally came from a tree in India where Buddha sat while awaiting enlightenment.


title: Wat Pho

text: Phra Mondop or the "ho trai" is the Scripture Hall containing a small library of Buddhist scriptures. The building is not generally open to the public as the scriptures, which are inscribed on palm leaves, need to be kept in a controlled environment for preservation. The library was built by King Rama III. Guarding its entrance are figures called "Yak Wat Pho" ('Wat Pho's Giants') placed in niches beside the gates. Around Phra Mondop are three pavilions with mural paintings of the beginning of Ramayana.


title: Wat Pho

text: The wat and the reclining Buddha ("Phra Buddhasaiyas", ) were built by Rama III in 1832. The image of the reclining Buddha represents the entry of Buddha into Nirvana and the end of all reincarnations. The posture of the image is referred to as "sihasaiyas", the posture of a sleeping or reclining lion. The figure is 15 m high and 46 m long, and it is one of the largest Buddha statues in Thailand.


title: Wat Pho

text: The figure has a brick core, which was modelled and shaped with plaster, then gilded. The right arm of the Buddha supports the head with tight curls, which rests on two box-pillows encrusted with glass mosaics.


title: Wat Pho

text: The soles of the feet of the Buddha are 3 m high and 4.5 m long, and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. They are each divided into 108 arranged panels, displaying the auspicious symbols by which Buddha can be identified, such as flowers, dancers, white elephants, tigers, and altar accessories. At the center of each foot is a circle representing a "chakra" or 'energy point'. There are 108 bronze bowls in the corridor representing the 108 auspicious characters of Buddha. Visitors may drop coins in these bowls as it is believed to bring good fortune, and it also helps the monks to maintain the "wat".


title: Wat Pho

text: Although the reclining Buddha is not a pilgrimage destination, it remains an object of popular piety. An annual celebration for the reclining Buddha is held around the time of the Siamese Songkran or New Year in April, which also helps raise funds for the upkeep of Wat Pho.


title: Wat Pho

text: The temple is considered the first public university of Thailand, teaching students in the fields of religion, science, and literature through murals and sculptures. A school for traditional medicine and massage was established at the temple in 1955, and now offers four courses in Thai medicine: Thai pharmacy, Thai medical practice, Thai midwifery, and Thai massage. This, the Wat Pho Thai Traditional Medical and Massage School, is the first school of Thai medicine approved by the Thai Ministry of Education, and one of the earliest massage schools. It remains the national headquarters and the center of education of traditional Thai medicine and massage to this day. Courses on Thai massage are held in Wat Pho, and these may last a few weeks to a year. Two pavilions at the eastern edge of the Wat Pho compound are used as classrooms for practising Thai traditional massage and herbal massage, and visitors can received massage treatment here for a fee. The Thai massage or Nuad Thai taught at Wat Pho has been included in UNESCO's list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, and Wat Pho has trained more than 200,000 massage therapists who practice in 145 countries.


title: Wat Pho

text: There are many medical inscriptions and illustrations placed in various buildings around the temple complex, some of which serve as instructions for Thai massage therapists, particularly those in the north medical pavilion. The were inscribed by scholars during the reign of King Rama III. Among these are 60 inscribed plaques, 30 each for the front and back of human body, showing pressure points used in traditional Thai massage. These therapeutic points and energy pathways, known as "sen", with explanations given on the walls next to the plaques.


title: Norse funeral

text: Norse funerals, or the burial customs of Viking Age North Germanic Norsemen (early medieval Scandinavians), are known both from archaeology and from historical accounts such as the Icelandic sagas and Old Norse poetry.


title: Norse funeral

text: Throughout Scandinavia, there are many remaining tumuli in honour of Viking kings and chieftains, in addition to runestones and other memorials. Some of the most notable of them are at the Borre mound cemetery, in Norway, at Birka in Sweden and Lindholm Høje, and Jelling in Denmark.


title: Norse funeral

text: A prominent tradition is that of the ship burial, where the deceased was laid in a boat, or a stone ship, and given grave offerings in accordance with his earthly status and profession, sometimes including sacrificed slaves. Afterwards, piles of stone and soil were usually laid on top of the remains in order to create a tumulus. Additional practices included sacrifice or cremation, but the most common was to bury the departed with goods that denoted their social status.


title: Norse funeral

text: It was common to leave gifts with the deceased. Both men and women received grave goods, even if the corpse was to be burnt on a pyre. A Norseman could also be buried with a loved one or house thrall, or cremated together on a funeral pyre. The amount and the value of the goods depended on which social group the dead person came from. It was important to bury the dead in the right way so that he could join the afterlife with the same social standing that he had had in life, and to avoid becoming a homeless soul that wandered eternally. The grave goods had to be subjected to the same treatment as the body, if they were to accompany the dead person to the afterlife. If a person were immolated, then the grave goods had to be burnt as well, and if the deceased was to be interred, the objects were interred together with him.


title: Norse funeral

text: The usual grave for a thrall was probably not much more than a hole in the ground. He was probably buried in such a way as to ensure both that he did not return to haunt his masters and that he could be of use to his masters after they died. Slaves were sometimes sacrificed to be useful in the next life. A free man was usually given weapons and equipment for riding. An artisan, such as a blacksmith, could receive his entire set of tools. Women were provided with their jewelry and often with tools for female and household activities. The most sumptuous Viking funeral discovered so far is the Oseberg Ship burial, which was for a woman (probably a queen or a priestess) who lived in the 9th century. These grave goods not only symbolized status, but also represented key moments or successes within the individuals life. Specific quantities of weapons like arrows could signify the extent of one's military prowess.


title: Norse funeral

text: Some researchers have also proposed that grave goods served a practical social function within viking society. In the absence of rigid inheritance customs, or developed financial markets, the burial of grave goods may have served to mitigate potential intrafamilial inheritance conflicts. This has been offered to explain the predominance of illiquid assets in viking burials, as well the regional variation in grave contents.


title: Norse funeral

text: The scope of grave goods varied throughout the viking diaspora, signifying the adaptability of viking funeral practices as they were influenced by these new cultures. While some factors such as animal themed ornamentation amongst jewelry and relics remained universal throughout the viking diaspora, some objects varied because of differing cultural influences, a common example being the integration of Christian iconography such as crosses in jewelry.


title: Norse funeral

text: A Viking funeral could be a considerable expense, but the barrow and the grave goods were not considered to have been wasted. In addition to being a homage to the deceased, the barrow remained as a monument to the social position of the descendants. Especially powerful Norse clans could demonstrate their position through monumental grave fields. The Borre mound cemetery in Vestfold is for instance connected to the Yngling dynasty, and it had large tumuli that contained stone ships.


title: Norse funeral

text: Jelling, in Denmark, is the largest royal memorial from the Viking Age and it was made by Harald Bluetooth in memory of his parents Gorm and Tyra, and in honour of himself. It was only one of the two large tumuli that contained a chamber tomb, but both barrows, the church and the two Jelling stones testify to how important it was to mark death ritually during the pagan era and the earliest Christian times.


title: Norse funeral

text: On three locations in Scandinavia, there are large grave fields that were used by an entire community: Birka in Mälaren, Hedeby at Schleswig and Lindholm Høje at Ålborg. The graves at Lindholm Høje show a large variation in both shape and size. There are stone ships and there is a mix of graves that are triangular, quadrangular and circular. Such grave fields have been used during many generations and belong to village like settlements.


title: Norse funeral

text: The ritualistic practices of the viking diaspora were incredibly pliable as they adapted in response to temporal, cultural, and religious influences. While traces of pagan funeral practices remained a common thread, many of these practices shifted over time throughout these various regions, especially once Christianity began to rapidly influence the viking population. Recent discoveries at a burial site in Carlisle in the United Kingdom demonstrates a hybrid burial between pagan and Christian traditions, demonstrating the shift in ritual practice as the vikings began to slowly assimilate to these new regions.


title: Norse funeral

text: Death has always been a critical moment for those bereaved, and consequently death is surrounded by taboo-like rules. Family life has to be reorganized and in order to master such transitions, people use rites. The ceremonies are transitional rites that are intended to give the deceased peace in his or her new situation at the same time as they provide strength for the bereaved to carry on with their lives.


title: Norse funeral

text: Despite the warlike customs of the Vikings, there was an element of fear surrounding death and what belonged to it. Norse folklore includes spirits of the dead and undead creatures such as revenants and draugr. A supposed sighting of the deceased as one of these creatures was frightful and ominous, usually interpreted as a sign that additional family members would die. The sagas tell of drastic precautions being taken after a revenant had appeared. The dead person had to die anew; a stake could be put through the corpse, or its head might be cut off in order to stop the deceased from finding its way back to the living.


title: Norse funeral

text: Other rituals involved the preparation of the corpse. Snorri Sturluson in the "Prose Edda" references a funeral rite involving the cutting of fingernails lest unpared nails from the dead be available for the completion of the construction of Naglfar, the ship used to transport the army of jötnar at Ragnarök.


title: Norse funeral

text: Some rituals demonstrated heavy theatrics, glorifying the sacrifices as actors in the greater narrative of the funeral. The funeral ritual could be drawn out for days, in order to accommodate the time needed to complete the grave. These practices could include prolonged episodes of feasting and drinking, music, songs and chants, visionary experiences, human and animal sacrifice. Eyewitness accounts even credit women as having key roles in these ritualistic practices, serving as almost the director of the funeral. These performance styled funeral rituals tended to occur within similar places in order to create a spatial association of ritualistic practice to the land for the community. Places like lakes, clearings, or even around large trees could serve as the central location of these rituals. Ultimately, funeral practices were not just a singular act of burying one person. The scope of these practices tended to exceed the burying of just one individual.


title: Norse funeral

text: The ship burial is a viking funeral practice traditionally reserved for individuals of high honor. The practice includes the burying of the individual within a ship, using the ship to contain the departed and their grave goods. These grave goods featured decorative ornamentation that far exceeded the extravagance of traditional burials. Additionally, animal remains such as oxen or horses tended to be buried within the ship. Ship burials can also include the dead being buried in the ground and then on top of the grave, stones are placed in the shape of a ship or a runestone placed on the grave with a ship or scene with a ship carved into the stone.


title: Norse funeral

text: The ships tended to be ships of pleasure rather than ships utilized for travel or attack. Some ships were potentially chartered for the sake of a ship burial, especially considered they were designed without some necessary features like seats.


title: Norse funeral

text: The tenth-century Arab Muslim writer Ahmad ibn Fadlan produced a description of a funeral near the Volga River of a chieftain whom he identified as belonging to people he called "Rūsiyyah". Scholars generally interpret these people as Scandinavian Rus' on the Volga trade route from the Baltic to the Black Seas, although other theories have been suggested. They may also have absorbed influences from other cultures, especially if they had been settled for several generations.


title: Norse funeral

text: Scholars agree that some elements of the funeral correspond to features of funerals distinctive to the Norse diaspora, particularly that it is a ship burial. However some features are not paralleled in Scandinavia at all, such as the use of basil, which is unlikely to have been available in Scandinavia, while some features are paralleled in Scandinavia, but are also paralleled more widely among the Turkic-speaking peoples among whom the events described by Ibn Fadlān took place, so they do not necessarily reflect Scandinavian culture. Thus Ibn Fadlān's account is reminiscent of a detail in the Old Norse "Völsa þáttr", where two pagan Norwegian men lift the lady of the household over a door frame to help her try to recover a sacred horse penis that has been thrown to her dog, but other parallels exist among Turkic peoples.


title: Norse funeral

text: Thus some recent scholarship has sought to maximize the case that Ibn Fadlān informs us about practice in tenth-century Scandinavia, while other work has tended to minimize it.


title: Norse funeral

text: Ibn Fadlan reports also what he observed for burials for those not of high status or wealth. He says that when a poor person dies, he is cremated in a small boat built by his fellows. When a slave dies, the dogs and carrion fowl devour the body. When a robber or thief dies, his body is hung on a tree and left there until the wind and rain dismember it.


title: Norse funeral

text: He then gives a detailed account of the burial he witnessed of a great man. In such a case, Ibn Fadlān says that a third of his wealth is inherited by his family, a third pays for the funeral clothes, and a third pays for "nabīdh" (an alcoholic drink) to be drunk at the cremation.


title: Norse funeral

text: The dead chieftain was put in a temporary grave with "nābidh", fruit, and a drum, which was covered for ten days until they had sewn new clothes for him. Ibn Fadlān says that the dead man's family ask his slave girls and young slave boys for a volunteer to die with him; "usually, it is the slave girls who offer to die". A woman volunteered and was continually accompanied by two slave girls, daughters of the Angel of Death, being given a great amount of intoxicating drinks while she sang happily. When the time had arrived for cremation, they pulled his boat ashore from the river and put it on a platform of wood.


title: Norse funeral

text: They made a richly furnished bed for the dead chieftain on the ship. Thereafter, an old woman referred to as the "Angel of Death" put cushions on the bed. Then they disinterred the chieftain and dressed him in the new clothes. The chieftain was sat on his bed with "nābidh", fruit, basil, bread, meat, and onions about him.


title: Norse funeral

text: Then they cut a dog in two and threw the halves into the boat, and placed the man's weapons beside him. They had two horses run themselves sweaty, cut them to pieces, and threw the meat into the ship. Finally, they killed two cows, a hen and a cock, and did the same with them.


title: Norse funeral

text: Meanwhile, the slave girl went from one tent to the other and had sexual intercourse with the master of each. Every man told her: "Tell your master that I have done this purely out of love for you." In the afternoon, they moved the slave girl to something that looked like a door frame, where she was lifted on the palms of the men three times. Every time, the girl told them what she saw. The first time, she saw her father and mother, the second time, she saw all her deceased relatives, and the third time she saw her master in Paradise. There, it was green and beautiful and together with him, she saw men and young people. She saw that her master beckoned for her. Then she was brought a chicken which she decapitated, and which was then thrown on the boat.


title: Norse funeral

text: Thereafter, the slave girl was taken away to the ship. She removed her bracelets and gave them to the old woman. Thereafter she removed her anklets and gave them to the old woman's two daughters. Then they took her aboard the ship, but they did not allow her to enter the tent where the dead chieftain lay. The girl received several vessels of intoxicating drinks and she sang, before the old woman urged her to enter the tent. "I saw that the girl did not know what she was doing", notes Ibn Fadlān.


title: Norse funeral

text: Then the girl was pulled into the tent by the old woman and the men started to beat on their shields with sticks so her screams could not be heard. Six men entered the tent to have intercourse with the girl, after which they laid her onto her master's bed beside him. Two men grabbed her hands, and two men her wrists. The angel of death looped a rope around her neck and while two men pulled the rope, the old woman stabbed the girl between her ribs with a knife.


title: Norse funeral

text: Thereafter, the closest male relative of the dead chieftain walked backwards, naked, covering his anus with one hand and a piece of burning wood with the other, and set the ship aflame, after which other people added wood to the fire. An informant explained to Ibn Fadlān that the fire expedites the dead man's arrival in Paradise, by contrast with Islamic practices of inhumation.


title: Norse funeral

text: Afterwards, a round barrow was built over the ashes, and in the centre of the mound they erected a post of birch wood, where they carved the names of the dead chieftain and his king. Then they departed.


title: Norse funeral

text: The sexual rites with the slave girl have been imagined to symbolize her role as a vessel for the transmission of life force to the deceased chieftain. While the scholarly consensus assumes that the slave girl would have felt happy and privileged about having sex with many people before being killed, recent work has suggested that we should instead see this as an account of rape and "brutal strangulation".


title: Norse funeral

text: It has been suggested that, by using intoxicating drinks, the mourners thought to put the slave girl in an ecstatic trance that made her psychic, and that through the symbolic action with the door frame, she would then see into the realm of the dead.


title: Norse funeral

text: Thralls could be sacrificed during a funeral so they could serve their master in the next world. "Sigurðarkviða hin skamma" contains several stanzas in which the Valkyrie Brynhildr gives instructions for the number of slaves to be sacrificed for the funeral of the hero Sigurd, and how their bodies were to be arranged on the pyre, as in the following stanza:


title: Norse funeral

text: It was common to burn the corpse and the grave offerings on a pyre. Only some incinerated fragments of metal and of animal and human bones would remain. The pyre was constructed to make the pillar of smoke as massive as possible, in order to elevate the deceased to the afterlife. The symbolism is described in the "Ynglinga saga":


title: Norse funeral

text: On the seventh day after the person had died, people celebrated the "sjaund" (the word both for the funeral ale and the feast, since it involved a ritual drinking). The funeral ale was a way of socially demarcating the case of death. It was only after drinking the funeral ale that the heirs could rightfully claim their inheritance. If the deceased were a widow or the master of the homestead, the rightful heir could assume the high seat and thereby mark the shift in authority.


title: Norse funeral

text: Several of the large runestones in Scandinavia notify of an inheritance, such as the Hillersjö stone, which explains how a lady came to inherit the property of not only her children but also her grandchildren and the Högby Runestone, which tells that a girl was the sole heir after the death of all her uncles. They are important proprietary documents from a time when legal decisions were not yet put to paper. One interpretation of the Tune Runestone from Østfold suggests that the long runic inscription deals with the funeral ale in honor of the master of a household and that it declares three daughters to be the rightful heirs. It is dated to the 5th century and is, consequently, the oldest legal document from Scandinavia that addresses a female's right to inheritance.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: James Prescott Joule (; 24 December 1818 11 October 1889) was an English physicist, mathematician and brewer, born in Salford, Lancashire. Joule studied the nature of heat, and discovered its relationship to mechanical work (see energy). This led to the law of conservation of energy, which in turn led to the development of the first law of thermodynamics. The SI derived unit of energy, the joule, is named after him.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: He worked with Lord Kelvin to develop an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale, which came to be called the Kelvin scale. Joule also made observations of magnetostriction, and he found the relationship between the current through a resistor and the heat dissipated, which is also called Joule's first law. His experiments about energy transformations were first published in 1843.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: James Joule was born in 1818, the son of Benjamin Joule (1784–1858), a wealthy brewer, and his wife, Alice Prescott, on New Bailey Street in Salford. Joule was tutored as a young man by the famous scientist John Dalton and was strongly influenced by chemist William Henry and Manchester engineers Peter Ewart and Eaton Hodgkinson. He was fascinated by electricity, and he and his brother experimented by giving electric shocks to each other and to the family's servants.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: As an adult, Joule managed the brewery. Science was merely a serious hobby. Sometime around 1840, he started to investigate the feasibility of replacing the brewery's steam engines with the newly invented electric motor. His first scientific papers on the subject were contributed to William Sturgeon's "Annals of Electricity". Joule was a member of the London Electrical Society, established by Sturgeon and others.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: Motivated in part by a businessman's desire to quantify the economics of the choice, and in part by his scientific inquisitiveness, he set out to determine which prime mover was more efficient. He discovered Joule's first law in 1841, that "the heat which is evolved by the proper action of any voltaic current is proportional to the square of the intensity of that current, multiplied by the resistance to conduction which it experiences". He went on to realize that burning a pound of coal in a steam engine was more economical than a costly pound of zinc consumed in an electric battery. Joule captured the output of the alternative methods in terms of a common standard, the ability to raise a mass weighing one pound to a height of one foot, the "foot-pound".


title: James Prescott Joule

text: However, Joule's interest diverted from the narrow financial question to that of how much work could be extracted from a given source, leading him to speculate about the convertibility of energy. In 1843 he published results of experiments showing that the heating effect he had quantified in 1841 was due to generation of heat in the conductor and not its transfer from another part of the equipment. This was a direct challenge to the caloric theory which held that heat could neither be created or destroyed. Caloric theory had dominated thinking in the science of heat since introduced by Antoine Lavoisier in 1783. Lavoisier's prestige and the practical success of Sadi Carnot's caloric theory of the heat engine since 1824 ensured that the young Joule, working outside either academia or the engineering profession, had a difficult road ahead. Supporters of the caloric theory readily pointed to the symmetry of the Peltier–Seebeck effect to claim that heat and current were convertible in an, at least approximately, reversible process.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: Further experiments and measurements with his electric motor led Joule to estimate the "mechanical equivalent of heat" as 4.1868 joules per calorie of work to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one Kelvin. He announced his results at a meeting of the chemical section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Cork in August 1843 and was met by silence.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: Joule was undaunted and started to seek a purely mechanical demonstration of the conversion of work into heat. By forcing water through a perforated cylinder, he could measure the slight viscous heating of the fluid. He obtained a mechanical equivalent of . The fact that the values obtained both by electrical and purely mechanical means were in agreement to at least one order of magnitude was, to Joule, compelling evidence of the reality of the convertibility of work into heat.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: Joule now tried a third route. He measured the heat generated against the work done in compressing a gas. He obtained a mechanical equivalent of . In many ways, this experiment offered the easiest target for Joule's critics but Joule disposed of the anticipated objections by clever experimentation. Joule read his paper to the Royal Society on 20 June 1844, but his paper was rejected for publication by the Royal Society and he had to be content with publishing in the "Philosophical Magazine" in 1845. In the paper he was forthright in his rejection of the caloric reasoning of Carnot and Émile Clapeyron, a rejection partly theologically driven:


title: James Prescott Joule

text: Joule here adopts the language of "vis viva" (energy), possibly because Hodgkinson had read a review of Ewart's "On the measure of moving force" to the Literary and Philosophical Society in April 1844.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: In June 1845, Joule read his paper "On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat" to the British Association meeting in Cambridge. In this work, he reported his best-known experiment, involving the use of a falling weight, in which gravity does the mechanical work, to spin a paddle wheel in an insulated barrel of water which increased the temperature. He now estimated a mechanical equivalent of . He wrote a letter to the Philosophical Magazine, published in September 1845 describing his experiment.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: Much of the initial resistance to Joule's work stemmed from its dependence upon extremely precise measurements. He claimed to be able to measure temperatures to within of a degree Fahrenheit (3 mK). Such precision was certainly uncommon in contemporary experimental physics but his doubters may have neglected his experience in the art of brewing and his access to its practical technologies. He was also ably supported by scientific instrument-maker John Benjamin Dancer. Joule's experiments complemented the theoretical work of Rudolf Clausius, who is considered by some to be the coinventor of the energy concept.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: Joule was proposing a kinetic theory of heat (he believed it to be a form of rotational, rather than translational, kinetic energy), and this required a conceptual leap: if heat was a form of molecular motion, why didn't the motion of the molecules gradually die out? Joule's ideas required one to believe that the collisions of molecules were perfectly elastic. Importantly, the very existence of atoms and molecules was not widely accepted for another 50 years.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: Although it may be hard today to understand the allure of the caloric theory, at the time it seemed to have some clear advantages. Carnot's successful theory of heat engines had also been based on the caloric assumption, and only later was it proved by Lord Kelvin that Carnot's mathematics were equally valid without assuming a caloric fluid.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: However, in Germany, Hermann Helmholtz became aware both of Joule's work and the similar 1842 work of Julius Robert von Mayer. Though both men had been neglected since their respective publications, Helmholtz's definitive 1847 declaration of the conservation of energy credited them both.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: Also in 1847, another of Joule's presentations at the British Association in Oxford was attended by George Gabriel Stokes, Michael Faraday, and the precocious and maverick William Thomson, later to become Lord Kelvin, who had just been appointed professor of natural philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Stokes was "inclined to be a Joulite" and Faraday was "much struck with it" though he harboured doubts. Thomson was intrigued but sceptical.


title: James Prescott Joule

text: Unanticipated, Thomson and Joule met later that year in Chamonix. Joule married Amelia Grimes on 18 August and the couple went on honeymoon. Marital enthusiasm notwithstanding, Joule and Thomson arranged to attempt an experiment a few days later to measure the temperature difference between the top and bottom of the Cascade de Sallanches waterfall, though this subsequently proved impractical.