title: Transformer oil

text: Some transformer oil tests can be carried out in the field, using portable test apparatus. Other tests, such as dissolved gas, normally require a sample to be sent to a laboratory. Electronic on-line dissolved gas detectors can be connected to important or distressed transformers to continually monitor gas generation trends.


title: Transformer oil

text: To determine the insulating property of the dielectric oil, an oil sample is taken from the device under test, and its breakdown voltage is measured on-site according to the following test sequence:


title: Stratocracy

text: A stratocracy (from στρατός, "stratos", "army" and κράτος, "kratos", "dominion", "power", also "stratiocracy") is a form of government headed by military chiefs. The branches of government are administered by military forces, the government is legal under the laws of the jurisdiction at issue, and is usually carried out by military workers.


title: Stratocracy

text: The word stratocracy first appeared in 1652 from the political theorist Robert Filmer, being preceded in 1649 by used by Claudius Salmasius in reference to the newly declared Commonwealth of England. John Bouvier and Daniel Gleason describe a stratocracy as one where citizens with mandatory or voluntary military service, or veterans who have been honorably discharged, have the right to elect or govern. The military's administrative, judicial, and/or legislative powers are supported by law, the constitution, and the society. It does not necessarily need to be autocratic or oligarchic by nature in order to preserve its right to rule. The political scientist Samuel Finer distinguished between stratocracy which was rule by the army and military regimes where the army did not rule but enforced the rule of the civil leaders. Peter Lyon wrote that through history stratocracies have been relatively rare, and that in the latter half of the twentieth century there has been a noticeable increase in the number of stratocratic states due to the "rapid collapse of the West European thalassocracies".


title: Stratocracy

text: The closest modern equivalent to a stratocracy, the State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar (Burma), which ruled from 1997 to 2011, arguably differed from most other military dictatorships in that it completely abolished the civilian constitution and legislature. A new constitution that came into effect in 2010 cemented the Tatmadaw's hold on power through mechanisms such as reserving 25% of the seats in the legislature for military personnel. The civilian constitutional government was dissolved again in the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, with power being transferred back to the Tatmadaw through the State Administration Council.


title: Stratocracy

text: The United Kingdom overseas territory, the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia on the island of Cyprus, provides another example of a stratocracy: British Forces Cyprus governs the territory, with Major-General Robert Thomson serving as administrator from 2019. The territory is subject to unique laws different from both those of the United Kingdom and those of Cyprus.


title: Stratocracy

text: The Diarchy of Sparta was a stratocratic kingdom. From a young age, male Spartans were put through the agoge, necessary for full-citizenship, which was a rigorous education and training program to prepare them to be warriors. Aristotle describes the kingship at Sparta as "a kind of unlimited and perpetual generalship" (Pol. iii. 1285a), while Isocrates refers to the Spartans as "subject to an oligarchy at home, to a kingship on campaign" (iii. 24).


title: Stratocracy

text: One of the most distinguished and, perhaps, long-lived examples of a stratocratic state, is Ancient Rome, though the stratocratic system developed over time. Following the disposition of the last Roman king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, Rome became an oligarchic Republic. However, with the gradual expansion of the empire and conflicts with its rival Carthage which eventually led to the Punic wars, the Roman political and military system experienced drastic changes. Following the Marian reforms, de facto political power became concentrated under military leadership, as the loyalty of the legionaries shifted from the Senate to its generals.


title: Stratocracy

text: Through the First Triumvirate this led to, following a series of civil wars, the formation of the Roman Empire, the head of which was acclaimed as "Imperator", previously an honorary title for distinguished military commanders. Following the formation of the Empire, the Roman Army either approved of or acquiesced in the accession of an emperor, with the Praetorian Guard having a decisive role in the succession until Emperor Constantine abolished it. Militarization of the Empire increased over time and emperors were increasingly beholden to their armies and fleets, yet how active emperors were in actually commanding in the field in military campaigns varied from emperor to emperor, even from dynasty to dynasty. The vital political importance of the army persisted up until the destruction of the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire with the fall of Constantinople in 1453.


title: Stratocracy

text: Cossacks were predominantly East Slavic people who became known as members of democratic, semi-military and semi-naval communities, predominantly located in Ukraine and in Southern Russia. They inhabited sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper, Don, Terek, and Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of both Russia and Ukraine. The Zaporozhian Sich was a Cossack semi-autonomous polity and proto-state that existed between the 16th to 18th centuries, and existed as an independent stratocratic state as the Cossack Hetmanate for over a hundred years.


title: Stratocracy

text: The Military Frontier was a borderland of the Habsburg monarchy (which became the Austrian Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire). The military frontier acted as the "cordon sanitaire" against incursions from the Ottoman Empire. Located in the southern part of Hungarian crown land, the frontier was separated from local jurisdiction and was under direct Viennese central military administration from the 1500s to 1872. Unlike the rest of the Catholic dominated territory of the empire, the frontier area had relatively freer religious laws in order to attract settlement into the area.


title: Stratocracy

text: The political scientist Harold Lasswell wrote in 1941 of his concerns that the world was moving towards "a world of 'garrison states with the United States of America being one of the countries moving in that direction. This was supported by the historian Richard Kohn in 1975 commenting on the US's creation of a military state during its early independence, and the political scientist Samuel Fitch in 1985. The historian Eric Hobsbawm has used the existence and power of the military-industrial complex in the US as evidence of it being a stratocratic state. The expansion and prioritisation of the military during the administrations of Reagan and H. W. Bush have also been described as signs of stratocracy in the US. The futurist Paul Saffo and the researcher Robert Marzec have argued that the post 9/11 projection of the United States was trending towards stratocracy.


title: Stratocracy

text: The philosopher and economist Cornelius Castoriadis wrote in his 1980 text, "Facing the War", that Russia had become the primary world military power. To sustain this, in the context of the visible economic inferiority of the Soviet Union in the civilian sector, he proposed that the society may no longer be dominated by the one-party state bureaucracy of the Communist Party but by a "stratocracy" describing it as a separate and dominant military sector with expansionist designs on the world. He further argued that this meant there was no internal class dynamic which could lead to social revolution within Russian society and that change could only occur through foreign intervention. Timothy Luke agreed that under the secretaryship of Mikhail Gorbachev this was the USSR moving towards a stratocratic state.


title: Stratocracy

text: Various countries in post-colonial Africa have been described as stratocracies. The Republic of Egypt under the leadership of Nasser was described by the political theorist P. J. Vatikiotis as a statocratic state. George commented in a 1988 paper that the military dictatorship of Idi Amin in Uganda and the apartheid regime in South Africa should be considered stratocracies. Various previous Nigerian governments have been described as stratocratic in research, including the government under Olusegun Obasanjo, and the Armed Forces Ruling Council lead by Ibrahim Babangida. Under the 1978 constitution of eSwatini Sobhuza II appointed the Swazi army commander as the country's prime minister, and the second-in-command of the army as the head of the civil service board. This fusing of military and civil power continued in subsequent appointments, with many of the appointees viewing their civil roles as secondary to their military positions. Ghana under Jerry Rawlings has also been described as being stratocratic in nature. Karl Marx's term of barracks socialism was retermed by the political scientist Michel Martin in their description of socialist stratocracies in the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, including specifically the People's Republic of Benin. Martin also believes the praetorianism of francophone African republics can be called stratocratic, including the Côte d'Ivoire and the Central African Republic.


title: Stratocracy

text: The French historian François Raguenet wrote in 1691 of the stratocracy of Oliver Cromwell in the Protectorate, and commented that he believed William III of England was seeking to revive the stratocracy in England.


title: Stratocracy

text: The Prussian military writer wrote in hindsight that ever since the reign of the "soldier king", Prussia always remained "not a country with an army, but an army with a country" (a quote often misattributed to Voltaire and Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau). It has been argued the subsequent dominance of the Kingdom of Prussia in the North German Confederation and German Empire and the expansive militarism in their administrations and policies, saw a continuance of the stratocratic Prussian government.


title: Stratocracy

text: British commentators such as Sir Richard Burton described the pre-Tanzimat Ottoman Empire as a stratocratic state.


title: Stratocracy

text: The Warlord Era of China is viewed as period of stratocratic struggles with the researcher Peng Xiuliang pointing to the actions and policies of Wang Shizhen, a general and politician of the Republic of China, as an example of the stratocratic forces within the Chinese government of the time.


title: Stratocracy

text: Occupied Poland in World War I was put under the (general military governments) of Germany and Austria-Hungary. This government was a stratocratic system where the military was responsible for the political administration of Poland.


title: Arab Americans

text: Arab Americans ( or ) are Americans of Arab ancestry. Arab Americans trace ancestry to any of the various waves of immigrants of the countries comprising the Arab World.


title: Arab Americans

text: According to the Arab American Institute (AAI), countries of origin for Arab Americans include Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.


title: Arab Americans

text: According to the 2010 U.S. Census, there are 1,698,570 Arab Americans in the United States. 290,893 persons defined themselves as simply "Arab", and a further 224,241 as "Other Arab". Other groups on the 2010 Census are listed by nation of origin, and some may or may not be Arabs, or regard themselves as Arabs. The largest subgroup is by far the Lebanese Americans, with 501,907, followed by; Egyptian Americans with 190,078, Syrian Americans with 187,331, Iraqi Americans with 105,981, Moroccan Americans with 101,211, Palestinian Americans with 85,186, and Jordanian Americans with 61,664. Approximately 1/4 of all Arab Americans claimed two ancestries.


title: Arab Americans

text: A number of indigenous non-Arab ethnic groups in Western Asia and North Africa that may have lived in regions of Arab countries and are now resident in the United States are "not" always classified as Arabs but some may claim an Arab identity or a dual Arab/non-Arab identity; they include Assyrians, Arameans, Jews (in particular Mizrahi Jews, some Sephardi Jews), Copts, Kurds, Iraqi Turkmens, Mandeans, Circassians, Shabaki, Armenians, Greeks, Italians, Yazidis, Persians, Kawliya/Romani, Syrian Turkmens, Somalis, Djiboutians, Berbers (especially Arab-Berbers), and Nubians.


title: Arab Americans

text: The majority of Arab Americans, around 62%, originate from the region of the Levant, which includes Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan, although overwhelmingly from Lebanon. The remainder are made up of those from Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Iraq, Libya, the GCC and other Arab nations.


title: Arab Americans

text: There are nearly 3.5 million Arab Americans in the United States according to The Arab American Institute. Arab-Americans live in all 50 states and in Washington, D.C., and 94% reside in the metropolitan areas of major cities. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city with the largest percentage of Arab Americans is Dearborn, Michigan, a southwestern suburb of Detroit, at nearly 40%. The Detroit metropolitan area is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans (403,445), followed by the New York City Combined Statistical Area (371,233), Los Angeles (308,295), San Francisco Bay Area (250,000), Chicago (176,208), and the Washington D.C area. (168,208).(Note: This information is reportedly based upon survey findings but is contradicted by information posted on the Arab American Institute website itself, which states that California as a whole only has 272,485, and Michigan as a whole only 191,607. The 2010 American Community Survey information, from the American Factfinder website, gives a figure of about 168,000 for Michigan.)


title: Arab Americans

text: Sorting by American states, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, 48% of the Arab-American population, 576,000, reside in California, Michigan, New York, Florida, and New Jersey, respectively; these 5 states collectively have 31% of the net U.S. population. Five other states - Illinois, Texas, Ohio, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania - report Arab-American populations of more than 40,000 each. Also, the counties which contained the greatest proportions of Arab-Americans were in California, Michigan, New York, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.


title: Arab Americans

text: The cities with 100,000 or more in population with the highest percentages of Arabs are Sterling Heights, Michigan 3.69%; Jersey City, New Jersey 2.81%; Warren, Michigan 2.51%; Allentown, Pennsylvania 2.45%; Burbank, California 2.39% and nearby Glendale, California 2.07%; Livonia, Michigan 1.94%; Arlington, Virginia 1.77%; Paterson, New Jersey 1.77%; and Daly City, California 1.69%. Bayonne, New Jersey, a city of 63,000, reported an Arab-American population of 5.0% in the 2010 US Census.


title: Arab Americans

text: The US Census Bureau calculates the number of Arab Americans based on the number of people who claimed at least one Arab ancestry as one of their two ancestries. The Arab American Institute surveys the number of people of Arab descent in the US, regardless of the number of people who claimed Arab descent in the census.


title: Arab Americans

text: While the majority of the population of the Arab world is Muslim, most Arab Americans,are Christian. Furthermore, the majority of Arab American Christians are Catholic.


title: Arab Americans

text: According to the Arab American Institute based on the Zogby International Survey in 2002, the breakdown of religious affiliation among persons originating from Arab countries is as follows:


title: Arab Americans

text: The percentage of Arab Americans who are Muslim has increased in recent years because most new Arab immigrants tend to be Muslim. In the past 10 years, most Arab immigrants were Muslim as compared to 15 to 30 years when they were mostly Christian. This stands in contrast to the first wave of Arab immigration to the United States between the late 19th and early 20th centuries when almost all immigrants were Christians. Those Palestinians often Eastern Orthodox, otherwise Roman Catholic and a few Episcopalians. A small number are Protestant adherents, either having joined a Protestant denomination after immigrating to the U.S. or being from a family that converted to Protestantism while still living in the Eastern Mediterranean (European and American Protestant missionaries were fairly commonplace in the Levant in the late 19th and early 20th centuries).


title: Arab Americans

text: Arab Christians, especially from Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, continue to immigrate into the U.S. in the 2000s and continue to form new enclaves and communities across the country.


title: Arab Americans

text: The United States is the second largest home of Druze communities outside the Middle East after Venezuela (60,000). According to some estimates there are about 30,000 to 50,000 Druzes in the United States, with the largest concentration in Southern California. Most Druze immigrated to the U.S. from Lebanon and Syria.


title: Arab Americans

text: In 2012, prompted in part by post-9/11 discrimination, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee petitioned the Department of Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency to designate the MENA populations as a minority/disadvantaged community. Following consultations with MENA organizations, the Census Bureau announced in 2014 that it would establish a new MENA ethnic category for populations from Western Asia, North Africa or the Arab world, separate from the White classification that these populations had previously sought in 1909. The expert groups, including some Jewish organizations, felt that the earlier White designation no longer accurately represents MENA identity, so they lobbied for a distinct categorization. However, this was later rejected by the government and in the 2020 census they continued to be labeled under White.


title: Arab Americans

text: As of December 2015, the sampling strata for the new MENA category includes the Census Bureau's working classification of 19 MENA groups, as well as Sudanese, Djiboutian, Somali, Mauritanian, Armenian, Cypriot, Afghan, Iranian, Azerbaijani and Georgian groups.


title: Arab Americans

text: The Arab American Institute and other groups have noted that there was a rise in hate crimes targeting the Arab American community as well as people perceived as Arab/Muslim after the September 11 attacks and the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq.


title: Arab Americans

text: A new Zogby Poll International found that there are 3.5 million Americans who were identified as "Arab-Americans", or Americans of ancestry belonging to one of the 23 UN member countries of the Arab World (these are not necessarily therefore Arabs). Poll finds that, overall, a majority of those identifying as Arab Americans are Lebanese Americans (largely as a result of being the most numerous group).


title: Arab Americans

text: The Paterson, New Jersey-based Arab American Civic Association runs an Arabic language program in the Paterson school district. Paterson, New Jersey has been nicknamed "Little Ramallah" and contains a neighborhood with the same name, with an Arab American population estimated as high as 20,000 in 2015. Neighboring Clifton, New Jersey is following in Paterson's footsteps, with rapidly growing Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian American populations.


title: Arab Americans

text: In a 2007 Zogby poll, 62% of Arab Americans vote Democratic, while only 25% vote Republican. The percentage of Arabs voting Democratic increased sharply during the Iraq War. However, a number of prominent Arab American politicians are Republicans, including former Oregon Governor Victor Atiyeh, former New Hampshire Senator John E. Sununu, and California Congressman Darrell Issa, who was the driving force behind the state's 2003 recall election that removed Democratic Governor Gray Davis from office. The first woman Supreme Court Chief Justice in Florida, Rosemary Barkett, who is of Syrian descent, is known for her dedication to progressive values.


title: Arab Americans

text: Arab Americans gave George W. Bush a majority of their votes in 2000. However, they backed John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012. They also backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.


title: Arab Americans

text: According to a 2000 Zogby poll, 52% of Arab Americans are anti-abortion, 74% support the death penalty, 76% are in favor of stricter gun control, and 86% want to see an independent Palestinian state.


title: Arab Americans

text: In a study, Arab Americans living in Detroit were found to have values more similar to that of the Arab world than those of the general population living in Detroit, on average, being more closely aligned to the strong traditional values and survival values. This was less the case when participants were secular or belonged to second and subsequent generations.


title: Arab Americans

text: There are many U.S. immigrants from the Arab world who are not always classified as Arabs because through much of the Arabized world, Arabs were considered a colonizing force and many ethnic groups maintained their ethnic cultural and religious heritage, often times through syncretism. Among these are Armenian Americans, Assyrian Americans, Kurdish Americans and Jewish Americans of Mizrahi origin and Maronites. Some of these groups, such as Assyrian or Syriac ones, are Semitic language speakers, while the vast majority of the rest are not Semitic language speakers. It is very difficult to estimate the size of these communities. For example, some Armenians immigrated to the U.S. from Lebanon, Syria, or Iraq. Estimates place these communities at least in the tens of thousands. Other smaller communities include Assyrians, Berbers, Turks, Mandeans, Circassians, Shabaki, Mhallami, Georgians, Yazidis, Balochs, Iranians, Azerbaijanis and Kawliya/Roma.


title: Arab Americans

text: Most of these ethnic groups speak their own native languages (usually another Semitic language related to Arabic) and have their own customs, along with the Arabic dialect from the Arab country they originate from.


title: Arab Americans

text: In 2014, Montgomery County, Maryland designated April as Arab American Heritage Month in recognition of the contributions that Arab Americans have made to the nation. The first documentary on Arab Americans premiered on PBS in August 2017, The Arab Americans features the Arab American immigrant story as told through the lens of American History and the stories of prominent Arab Americans such as actor Jamie Farr, Ralph Nader, Senator George Mitchell, White House Reporter Helen Thomas, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Shadid, Danny Thomas actor and Founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, pollster and author John Zogby, Congressman Nick Rahall, racing legend Bobby Rahal. The documentary is produced and directed by Abe Kasbo.


title: Arab Americans

text: The United States Department of State has recognized April as the National Arab American Heritage Month, making it the highest level of federal recognition, yet. Stating in a public announcement on April 1st, 2021 through their official social media channels: "Americans of Arab heritage are very much a part of the fabric of this nation, and Arab Americans have contributed in every field and profession."


title: Arab Americans

text: The recognition of the month of April as the National Arab American Heritage Month by the United States Department of State was mainly influenced by independent advocate efforts across the United States calling for inclusivity. Most notably the petition and social change campaign by Pierre Subeh, who is a Middle-Eastern American business expert, executive producer, and author. He orchestrated a self-funded social awareness campaign with over 250 billboards across the country asking the Federal government to recognize the month of April as the National Arab American Heritage Month and issue an official proclamation. His social change campaign called the recognition to be critical as it celebrates Middle Eastern heritage in combatting post-9/11 anti-Arab sentiments and recognizing the social difficulties that Arab Americans face every day in their communities.


title: Arab Americans

text: While the spectrum of Arab heritage includes 22 countries, their combined heritage is often celebrated in cultural festivals around the United States.


title: Arab Americans

text: The Annual Arab-American & North African Street Festival was founded in 2002 by the Network of Arab-American Professionals of NY (NAAP-NY). Located in downtown Manhattan, on Great Jones Street between Lafayette & Broadway, the Festival attracts an estimated 15,000 people, in addition to over 30 Arab and North African vendors along with an all-day live cultural performance program representing performers from across the Arab world.


title: Arab Americans

text: The New York Arab-American Comedy Festival was founded in 2003 by comedian Dean Obeidallah and comedian Maysoon Zayid. Held annually each fall, the festival showcases the talents of Arab-American actors, comics, playwrights and filmmakers, and challenges as well as inspires fellow Arab-Americans to create outstanding works of comedy. Participants include actors, directors, writers and comedians.


title: Arab Americans

text: Of particular note is ArabFest in Seattle, begun in 1999. The festival includes all 22 of the Arab countries, with a souk marketplace, traditional and modern music, an authentic Arab coffeehouse, an Arabic spelling bee, and a fashion show. Lectures and workshops explore the rich culture and history of the Arab peoples, one of the world's oldest civilizations. Also of new interest is the Arabic rap concert, including the NW group Sons of Hagar, showcasing the political and creative struggle of Arabic youth.


title: Arab Americans

text: In 2008, the first annual Arab American Festival in Arizona was held on 1 and 2 November in Glendale, Arizona. There were more than 40,000 attendees over the two-day event; more than 35 international singers, dancers, and musicians from all over the Arab World performed 20 hours of live entertainment on stage. Activities included folklore shows, an international food court, hookah lounge, kids rides and booth vendors, open to the public, and admission was free.


title: Arab Americans

text: The Annual Arab American Day Festival is a three-day cultural and entertainment event held in Orange County. Activities include book and folk art exhibitions, speeches from community leaders in the county, as well as music and poetry, dancing singing, traditional food, hookah and much more.


title: Arab Americans

text: Since 1996, Milwaukee's Arab World Fest has been part of the summer festival season. It is held on the second weekend of August. This three-day event hosts music, culture, and food celebrating the 22 Arab countries. The festival features live entertainment, belly dancing, hookah rental, camel rides, cooking demonstrations, a children's area and great Arab cuisine. It is a family-friendly festival on Milwaukee's lakefront.


title: Refracting telescope

text: A refracting telescope (also called a refractor) is a type of optical telescope that uses a lens as its objective to form an image (also referred to a dioptric telescope). The refracting telescope design was originally used in spyglasses and astronomical telescopes but is also used for long-focus camera lenses. Although large refracting telescopes were very popular in the second half of the 19th century, for most research purposes, the refracting telescope has been superseded by the reflecting telescope, which allows larger apertures. A refractor's magnification is calculated by dividing the focal length of the objective lens by that of the eyepiece.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Refracting telescopes typically have a lens at the front, then a long tube, then an eyepiece or instrumentation at the rear, where the telescope view comes to focus. Originally, telescopes had an objective of one element, but a century later, two and even three element lenses were made.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Refracting telescope is a technology that has often been applied to other optical devices, such as binoculars and zoom lenses/telephoto lens/long-focus lens.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Refractors were the earliest type of optical telescope. The first record of a refracting telescope appeared in the Netherlands about 1608, when a spectacle maker from Middelburg named Hans Lippershey unsuccessfully tried to patent one. News of the patent spread fast and Galileo Galilei, happening to be in Venice in the month of May 1609, heard of the invention, constructed a version of his own, and applied it to making astronomical discoveries.


title: Refracting telescope

text: All refracting telescopes use the same principles. The combination of an objective lens 1 and some type of eyepiece 2 is used to gather more light than the human eye is able to collect on its own, focus it 5, and present the viewer with a brighter, clearer, and magnified virtual image 6.


title: Refracting telescope

text: The objective in a refracting telescope refracts or bends light. This refraction causes parallel light rays to converge at a focal point; while those not parallel converge upon a focal plane. The telescope converts a bundle of parallel rays to make an angle α, with the optical axis to a second parallel bundle with angle β. The ratio β/α is called the angular magnification. It equals the ratio between the retinal image sizes obtained with and without the telescope.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Refracting telescopes can come in many different configurations to correct for image orientation and types of aberration. Because the image was formed by the bending of light, or refraction, these telescopes are called "refracting telescopes" or "refractors".


title: Refracting telescope

text: The design Galileo Galilei used is commonly called a Galilean telescope. It used a convergent (plano-convex) objective lens and a divergent (plano-concave) eyepiece lens (Galileo, 1610). A Galilean telescope, because the design has no intermediary focus, results in a non-inverted and, with the help of some devices, an upright image.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Galileo's most powerful telescope, with a total length of , magnified objects about 30 times. Because of flaws in its design, such as the shape of the lens and the narrow field of view, the images were blurry and distorted. Despite these flaws, the telescope was still good enough for Galileo to explore the sky. He used it to view craters on the Moon, the four largest moons of Jupiter, and the phases of Venus.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Parallel rays of light from a distant object (y) would be brought to a focus in the focal plane of the objective lens (F′ L1 / y′). The (diverging) eyepiece (L2) lens intercepts these rays and renders them parallel once more. Non-parallel rays of light from the object traveling at an angle α1 to the optical axis travel at a larger angle (α2 > α1) after they passed through the eyepiece. This leads to an increase in the apparent angular size and is responsible for the perceived magnification.


title: Refracting telescope

text: The Keplerian telescope, invented by Johannes Kepler in 1611, is an improvement on Galileo's design. It uses a convex lens as the eyepiece instead of Galileo's concave one. The advantage of this arrangement is that the rays of light emerging from the eyepiece are converging. This allows for a much wider field of view and greater eye relief, but the image for the viewer is inverted. Considerably higher magnifications can be reached with this design, but to overcome aberrations the simple objective lens needs to have a very high f-ratio (Johannes Hevelius built one with a focal length, and even longer tubeless "aerial telescopes" were constructed). The design also allows for use of a micrometer at the focal plane (to determine the angular size and/or distance between objects observed).


title: Refracting telescope

text: Huygens built an aerial telescope for Royal Society of London with a 19 cm (7.5″) single-element lens.


title: Refracting telescope

text: The next major step in the evolution of refracting telescopes was the invention of the achromatic lens, a lens with multiple elements that helped solve problems with chromatic aberration and allowed shorter focal lengths. It was invented in 1733 by an English barrister named Chester Moore Hall, although it was independently invented and patented by John Dollond around 1758. The design overcame the need for very long focal lengths in refracting telescopes by using an objective made of two pieces of glass with different dispersion, 'crown' and 'flint glass', to reduce chromatic and spherical aberration. Each side of each piece is ground and polished, and then the two pieces are assembled together. Achromatic lenses are corrected to bring two wavelengths (typically red and blue) into focus in the same plane.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Dollond achromats were quite popular in the 18th century. A major appeal was they could be made shorter. However, problems with glass making meant that the glass objectives were not made more than about four inches in diameter.


title: Refracting telescope

text: In the late 19th century, the Swiss optician Pierre-Louis Guinand developed a way to make higher quality glass blanks of greater than four inches. He passed this technology to his apprentice Joseph von Fraunhofer, who further developed this technology and also developed the Fraunhofer doublet lens design. The breakthrough in glass making techniques led to the great refractors of the 19th century, that became progressively larger through the decade, eventually reaching over 1 meter by the end of that century before being superseded by silvered-glass reflecting telescopes in astronomy.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Some famous 19th century doublet refractors are the James Lick telescope (91 cm/36 in) and the Greenwich 28 inch refractor (71 cm). An example of an older refractor is the Shuckburgh telescope (dating to the late 1700s). A famous refractor was the "Trophy Telescope", presented at the 1851 Great Exhibition in London. The era of the 'great refractors' in the 19th century saw large achromatic lenses, culminating with the largest achromatic refractor ever built, the Great Paris Exhibition Telescope of 1900.


title: Refracting telescope

text: In the Royal Observatory, Greenwich an 1838 instrument named the Sheepshanks telescope includes an objective by Cauchoix. The Sheepshanks had a wide lens, and was the biggest telescope at Greenwich for about twenty years.


title: Refracting telescope

text: An 1840 report from the Observatory noted of the then-new Sheepshanks telescope with the Cauchoix doublet:In the 1900s a noted optics maker was Zeiss. An example of prime achievements of refractors, over 7 million people have been able to view through the 12-inch Zeiss refractor at Griffith Observatory since its opening in 1935; this is the most people to have viewed through any telescope.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Achromats were popular in astronomy for making star catalogs, and they required less maintenance than metal mirrors. Some famous discoveries using achromats are the planet Neptune and the Moons of Mars.


title: Refracting telescope

text: The long achromats, despite having smaller aperture than the larger reflectors, were often favoured for "prestige" observatories. In the late 18th century, every few years, a larger and longer refractor would debut.


title: Refracting telescope

text: For example, the Nice Observatory debuted with refractor, the largest at the time, but was surpassed within only a couple of years.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Apochromatic refractors have objectives built with special, extra-low dispersion materials. They are designed to bring three wavelengths (typically red, green, and blue) into focus in the same plane. The residual color error (tertiary spectrum) can be down to an order of magnitude less than that of an achromatic lens. Such telescopes contain elements of fluorite or special, extra-low dispersion (ED) glass in the objective and produce a very crisp image that is virtually free of chromatic aberration. Due to the special materials needed in the fabrication, apochromatic refractors are usually more expensive than telescopes of other types with a comparable aperture.


title: Refracting telescope

text: In the 18th century, Dollond, a popular maker of doublet telescopes, also made a triplet, although they were not really as popular as the two element telescopes.


title: Refracting telescope

text: One of the famous triplet objectives is the Cooke triplet, noted for being able to correct the Seidal aberrations. It is recognized as one of the most important objective designs in the field of photography. The Cooke triplet can correct, with only three elements, for one wavelength, spherical aberration, coma, astigmatism, field curvature, and distortion.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Refractors suffer from residual chromatic and spherical aberration. This affects shorter focal ratios more than longer ones. A achromatic refractor is likely to show considerable color fringing (generally a purple halo around bright objects). A 16 has little color fringing.


title: Refracting telescope

text: In very large apertures, there is also a problem of lens sagging, a result of gravity deforming glass. Since a lens can only be held in place by its edge, the center of a large lens sags due to gravity, distorting the images it produces. The largest practical lens size in a refracting telescope is around .


title: Refracting telescope

text: There is a further problem of glass defects, striae or small air bubbles trapped within the glass. In addition, glass is opaque to certain wavelengths, and even visible light is dimmed by reflection and absorption when it crosses the air-glass interfaces and passes through the glass itself. Most of these problems are avoided or diminished in reflecting telescopes, which can be made in far larger apertures and which have all but replaced refractors for astronomical research.


title: Refracting telescope

text: The ISS-WAC on the Voyager 1/2 used a 6 cm (2.36″) lens, launched into space in the late 1970s, an example of the use of refractors in space.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Refracting telescopes were noted for their use in astronomy as well as for terrestrial viewing. Many early discoveries of the Solar System were made with singlet refractors.


title: Refracting telescope

text: The use of refracting telescopic optics are ubiquitous in photography, and are also used in Earth orbit.


title: Refracting telescope

text: One of the more famous applications of the refracting telescope was when Galileo used it to discover the four largest moons of Jupiter in 1609. Furthermore, early refractors were also used several decades later to discover Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, along with three more of Saturn's moons.


title: Refracting telescope

text: In the 19th century, refracting telescopes were used for pioneering work on astrophotography and spectroscopy, and the related instrument, the heliometer, was used to calculate the distance to another star for the first time. Their modest apertures did not lead to as many discoveries and typically so small in aperture that many astronomical objects were simply not observeable until the advent of long-exposure photography, by which time the reputation and quirks of reflecting telescopes were beginning to exceed those of the refractors. Despite this, some discoveries include the Moons of Mars, a fifth Moon of Jupiter, and many double star discoveries including Sirius (the Dog star). Refactors were often used for positional astronomy, besides from the other uses in photography and terrestrial viewing.


title: Refracting telescope

text: The Galilean moons and many other moons of the solar system, were discovered with single-element objectives and aerial telescopes.


title: Refracting telescope

text: The planet Saturn's moon, Titan, was discovered on March 25, 1655, by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens.


title: Refracting telescope

text: In 1861, the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius, was found to have smaller stellar companion using the 18 and half-inch Dearborn refracting telescope.


title: Refracting telescope

text: By the 18th century refractors began to have major competition from reflectors, which could be made quite large and did not normally suffer from the same inherent problem with chromatic aberration. Nevertheless, the astronomical community continued to use doublet refractors of modest aperture in comparison to modern instruments. Noted discoveries include the Moons of Mars and a fifth moon of Jupiter, Amalthea.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Asaph Hall discovered Deimos on 12 August 1877 at about 07:48 UTC and Phobos on 18 August 1877, at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., at about 09:14 GMT (contemporary sources, using the pre-1925 astronomical convention that began the day at noon, give the time of discovery as 11 August 14:40 and 17 August 16:06 Washington mean time respectively).


title: Refracting telescope

text: The telescope used for the discovery was the refractor (telescope with a lens) then located at Foggy Bottom. In 1893 the lens was remounted and put in a new dome, where it remains into the 21st century.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Jupiter's moon Amalthea was discovered on 9 September 1892, by Edward Emerson Barnard using the refractor telescope at Lick Observatory. It was discovered by direct visual observation with the doublet-lens refractor.


title: Refracting telescope

text: In 1904, one of the discoveries made using Great Refractor of Potsdam (a double telescope with two doublets) was of the interstellar medium. The astronomer Professor Hartmann determined from observations of the binary star Mintaka in Orion, that there was the element calcium in the intervening space.


title: Refracting telescope

text: Planet Pluto was discovered by looking at photographs (i.e. 'plates' in astronomy vernacular) in a blink comparator taken with a refracting telescope, an astrograph with a 3 element 13-inch lens.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is an organization in the United States that was founded in 1983 for promoting democracy in other countries by promoting political and economic institutions such as political groups, trade unions, free markets and business groups. NED is funded primarily by an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress. The NED was created by The Democracy Program as a bipartisan, private, non-profit corporation, and in turn acts as a grant-making foundation. In addition to its grants program, the NED also supports and houses the "Journal of Democracy", the World Movement for Democracy, the International Forum for Democratic Studies, the Reagan–Fascell Fellowship Program, the Network of Democracy Research Institutes, and the Center for International Media Assistance.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: In a 1982 speech at the Palace of Westminster, President Ronald Reagan proposed an initiative, before the British Parliament, "to foster the infrastructure of democracy – the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities." This intersected with previously-formulated plans by the American Political Foundation, an NGO supported by some members of the Republican and Democratic parties, together with scholars based at CSIS, to create a government-funded but privately-run democracy promotion foundation to support democratic civil society groups and parties. The idea was strongly championed by the State Department, which argued that a non-governmental foundation would be able to support dissident groups and organizations in the Soviet Bloc, and also foster the emergence of democratic movements in US-allied dictatorships that were becoming unstable and in danger of experiencing leftist or radical revolutions, without provoking a diplomatic backlash against the US government. After some initial uncertainty over the idea from Reagan Administration hard-liners, the U.S. government, through USAID (United States Agency for International Development), contracted The American Political Foundation to study democracy promotion, which became known as "The Democracy Program". The Program recommended the creation of a bipartisan, private, non-profit corporation to be known as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). NED, though non-governmental, would be funded primarily through annual appropriations from the U.S. government and subject to congressional oversight. The functions of the Endowment given in the Democracy Program's Interim Report to Congress were to encourage and facilitate exchanges between democratic institutions through private sectors; promote nongovernmental participation in democratic training programs; strengthening democratic electoral processes abroad in cooperation with indigenous democratic forces; fostering cooperation between American private sector groups and those abroad "dedicated to the cultural values, institutions, and organizations of democratic pluralism", and encouraging democratic development consistent with the interests of both the U.S and the other groups receiving assistance.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: In 1983, the House Foreign Affairs Committee proposed legislation to provide initial funding of $31.3 million for NED as part of the State Department Authorization Act (H.R. 2915), because NED was in its beginning stages of development the appropriation was set at $18 million. Included in the legislation was $13.8 million for the Free Trade Union Institute, an affiliate of the AFL–CIO, $2.5 million for an affiliate of the National Chamber Foundation, and $5 million each for two party institutes, which was later eliminated by a vote of 267–136. The conference report on H.R. 2915 was adopted by the House on November 17, 1983, and the Senate the following day. On November 18, 1983, articles of incorporation were filed in the District of Columbia to establish the National Endowment for Democracy as a nonprofit organization.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: An analysis by political scientist Sarah Bush found that while NED activity in the 1980s focused on direct challenges to autocrats by funding dissidents, opposition parties, and unions, the majority of 21st-century NED funding goes to technical programs that are less likely to challenge the status quo, with the proportion of NED funding for "relatively tame programs" increasing from roughly 20% of NED grants in 1986 to roughly 60% in 2009. Political scientist Lindsey A. O'Rourke writes that, "Today, NED programs run in more than ninety countries. Although the number of US-backed democracy promotion programs have grown, most of today's programs pursue less aggressive objectives than their Cold War counterparts."


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: The NED played a role in supporting the Arab Spring of 2011. For example, the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and individual Yemeni activist Entsar Qadhi received training and finances from the NED. In Egypt, between 2008 and 2012, it also supported Colonel Omar Afifi Soliman, an exiled police officer who opposed both Hosni Mubarak's and Mohamed Morsi's presidencies, as well as secularist activist Esraa Abdel-Fatah's Egyptian Democratic Academy in 2011.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: Since 2004 it has granted US$8,758,300 to Uyghur groups including the World Uyghur Congress, the Uyghur Human Rights Project, the Campaign for Uyghurs and The Uyghur Transitional Justice Database Project. It has also supported Chinese dissidents. For example, between 2005 and 2012 it gave small grants to the China Free Press NGO and in 2019 it gave about $643,000 to civil society programmes in Hong Kong. In response, in 2020 China imposed sanctions on NED president Carl Gershman and Michael Abramowitz, the president of Freedom House.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: NED is a grant-making foundation, distributing funds to private non-governmental organizations for promoting democracy abroad in around 90 countries. Half of NED's funding is allocated annually to four main U.S. organizations: the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS, associated with the AFL–CIO), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE, affiliated with the United States Chamber of Commerce), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI, associated with the Democratic Party), and the International Republican Institute (IRI, formerly known as the National Republican Institute for International Affairs and affiliated with the Republican Party). The other half of NED's funding is awarded annually to hundreds of non-governmental organizations based abroad which apply for support. In 2011, the Democratic and Republican Institutes channeled around $100 million a year through the NED.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: The NED receives an annual appropriation from the U.S. budget (it is included in the chapter of the Department of State budget destined for the U.S. Agency for International Development-USAID) and is subject to congressional oversight even as a non-governmental organization.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: From 1984 to 1990 the NED received $15–18 million of congressional funding annually, and $25–30 million from 1991 to 1993. At the time the funding came via the United States Information Agency. In 1993 the NED nearly lost its congressional funding, after the House of Representatives initially voted to abolish its funding. The funding (of $35 million, a rise from $30 million the year before) was only retained after a vigorous campaign by NED supporters.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: In the financial year to the end of September 2009 NED had an income of $135.5 million, nearly all of which came from U.S Government agencies. In addition to government funding, the NED has received funding from foundations, such as the Smith Richardson Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, and others. The Bradley Foundation supported the "Journal of Democracy" with $1.5 million during 1990–2008.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: In 2018, President Donald Trump proposed to slash the NED's funding and cut its links to the Democratic and Republican Institutes.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: NED's current president is Damon Wilson. His predecessor was Carl Gershman, serving between April 30, 1984 and July 2021. Carl Gershman was a former Senior Counselor to the United States Representative to the United Nations and former executive director of Social Democrats, USA.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: NED's Board of Directors annually gives a Democracy Award to recognize "the courageous and creative work of individuals and organizations that have advanced the cause of human rights and democracy around the world." The trophy is a small-scale replica of the "Goddess of Democracy" that was constructed during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: Notable recipients include: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, former President of Mexico Vicente Fox, and journalist Veton Surroi. Past speakers at the award's ceremony have included U.S. Senator John McCain, Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: In 2006, CIMA was founded as an initiative of the National Endowment for Democracy with encouragement from Congress and a grant from the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. CIMA promotes the work of independent media and journalists abroad, with a focus on the developing world, social media, digital media, and citizen journalism. It issued its first report, "Empowering Independent Media: U.S. Efforts to Foster Free and Independent Media Around the World", in 2008, and subsequently issued other reports, including a report on digital media in conflict-prone societies and a report on mobile phone use in Africa.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: Writing in "Slate" in 2004, Brendan I. Koerner wrote that, "Depending on whom you ask, the NED is either a nonprofit champion of liberty or an ideologically driven meddler in world affairs."


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: NED has been criticized by both the right and the left. Some on the right accuse the NED of having a pro-social democracy agenda, promoted through its labor affiliate; conversely, some on the left accuse the NED of being "a rightwing initiative" oriented toward Reagan's Cold War politics. Within Latin America, critics accuse the NED of manifesting U.S. paternalism or imperialism, conversely, "supporters say that it helps many groups with a social-democratic and liberal orientation across the world," providing training and support for pro-democracy groups that criticize the U.S. In a 2004 article for the "Washington Post", Michael McFaul argues that the NED is not an instrument of U.S. foreign policy. He said he experienced the difference between the actions of US policymakers and the actions of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) while representing the NDI in Moscow during the last days of the Soviet Union: U.S. policymakers supported Mikhail Gorbachev while the NDI worked with Democratic Russia, Gorbachev's opponents. NED has said in public statements that democracy evolves "according to the needs and traditions of diverse political cultures" and does not necessitate an American-style model.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: In 1986, NED's President Carl Gershman said that the NED was created because "It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA. We saw that in the 1960s and that's why it has been discontinued". Throughout the course of a 2010 investigation by ProPublica, Paul Steiger, the then editor in chief of the publication said that "those who spearheaded creation of NED have long acknowledged it was part of an effort to move from covert to overt efforts to foster democracy" and cited as evidence a 1991 interview in which then-NED president Allen Weinstein said, "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." Critics have compared the NED's funding of Nicaraguan groups (pro-U.S. and conservative unions, political parties, student groups, business groups, and women's associations) in the 1980s and 1990s in Nicaragua to the previous CIA effort "to challenge and undermine" a left-wing government in Chile. (Latin Americanist scholar William M. LeoGrande writes that the NED's roughly $2 million funding into Nicaragua between 1984 and 1988 was the "main source of overt assistance to the civic opposition," of which about half went to the anti-Sandinista newspaper "La Prensa".) According to sociologist William Robinson, NED funds during the Reagan years were "ultimately used for five overlapping pseudo-covert activities: leadership training for pro-American elites, promotion of pro-American educational systems and mass media, strengthening the 'institutions of democracy' by funding pro-American organizations in the target state, propaganda, and the development of transnational elite networks." Critiquing these activities, Robinson wrote that "U.S. policymakers claim that they are interested in process (free and fair elections) and not outcome (the results of these elections); in reality, the principal concern is outcome." Political scientist Lindsey A. O'Rourke writes that the Reagan-era NED played a key role in U.S. efforts "to promote democratic transitions in Chile, Haiti, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, the Philippines, Poland, and Suriname," but did so to promote the success of pro-U.S. parties, not just to promote democracy, and did not support communist or socialist opposition parties.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: In the 2020 Thai protests, pro-government groups cited NED support for protester-sympathizing groups to assert that the US government was masterminding the protests. The United States Embassy in Bangkok formally denied allegations of funding or supporting protesters.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: In August 2021, Malaysian human rights activist and Suaram adviser Kua Kia Soong criticized the opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan for accepting funding from the National Endowment of Democracy, which he described as a "CIA soft power front". Citing the US track record of supporting regime change abroad and racial discrimination against Black and Asian Americans, Kua urged Malaysian civil society organizations to stop accepting funding from the NED since it undermined their legitimacy, independence, and effectiveness. Kua's statement came after Daniel Twining, the president of the NED affiliate International Republican Institute, had made remarks in 2018 acknowledging that the NED had financially supported Malaysian opposition parties since 2002. Following the 2018 Malaysian general election Twining had also praised the newly-elected Pakatan Harapan government for freezing Chinese infrastructural investments.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: Russian government officials and state media have frequently regarded the NED as hostile to their country. In 2015, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti blamed NED grants for the Euromaidan mass protests that forced Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from power. In July 2015, the Russian government declared NED to be an "undesirable" NGO, making the endowment the first organization banned under the Russian undesirable organizations law signed two months earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: During the 2014 Hong Kong protests, a Chinese newspaper accused the US of using the NED to fund pro-democracy protesters. Michael Pillsbury, a Hudson Institute foreign policy analyst and former Reagan administration official, stated that the accusation was "not totally false". In 2019, the government of the People's Republic of China sanctioned the NED in response to the passage by the U.S. Congress of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. The Chinese government stated that the NED and CIA worked in tandem to covertly foment the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, and that NED acted as a U.S. intelligence front. NED was one of several U.S.-based NGOs sanctioned by the Chinese government; others included the Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute, and the International Republican Institute. China also already tightly restricted the activities of foreign NGOs in China, particularly since 2016, and the NGOs sanctioned by China typically do not have offices on the mainland; as a result, the sanctions were regarded as mostly symbolic. NED grant recipients in Hong Kong included labor advocacy and human rights groups such as the Solidarity Center and Justice Centre Hong Kong. The Chinese government said that the sanctioned organizations were "anti-China" forces that "incite separatist activities for Hong Kong independence"; a U.S. State Department official said that "false accusations of foreign interference" against U.S.-based NGOs were "intended to distract from the legitimate concerns of Hongkongers." NED has denied it provided aid to protestors in 2019.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: In August 2020, the Chinese government sanctioned NED chairman Carl Gershman, together with the heads of four other U.S.-based democracy and human rights organizations and six U.S. Republican lawmakers for supporting the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests. The unspecified sanctions were a tit-for-tat measure responding to the earlier sanctioning by the U.S. of 11 Hong Kong officials in response to the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law in June 2020.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: In December 2020 China sanctioned the senior director of the NED, John Knaus, saying he "blatantly interferes in Hong Kong affairs and grossly interferes in China's domestic affairs".


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: In May 2022, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused NED of funding separatists to undermine the stability of target countries, instigating color revolutions to subvert state power, and meddling in other countries' politics.


title: National Endowment for Democracy

text: Other governments that have objected to NED activity include Egypt under Hosni Mubarak, India under Narendra Modi, and Venezuela.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: The 2019–20 Real Madrid Club de Fútbol season was the club's 116th season in existence and its 89th consecutive season in the top flight of Spanish football. It covered a period from 1 July 2019 to 7 August 2020.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: This season was the first since 2013–14 without second legendary goalkeeper Keylor Navas, who departed for Paris Saint-Germain.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: On 4 June, Luka Jović signed from Eintracht Frankfurt on a contract until 2025. Three days later Eden Hazard was acquired from Chelsea, while Ferland Mendy was bought from Lyon on a six-year contract on 12 June. On 20 June, Marcos Llorente was sold to Atlético Madrid, and Mateo Kovačić joined Chelsea on 1 July, having spent the previous season there on loan.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: The first match of the season, on 17 August 2019, saw a 3–1 victory for Madrid at Celta Vigo. The goals came from Karim Benzema, Toni Kroos and Lucas Vázquez. A week later, the game against Valladolid ended in a 1–1 draw after Benzema initially gave Real the lead.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: On the first day of the month, Gareth Bale secured one point for Real in a 2–2 draw, after he equalized the game twice at Villarreal. A day later, Keylor Navas left Madrid to join Paris Saint-Germain, with Alphonse Areola replacing him on a one-year loan deal from the Parisians. On 14 September, a brace from Benzema and a goal from Casemiro gave Madrid a 3–0 lead, before Levante was able to cut it to 3–2, which was the final result. In the new Champions League season, Madrid started with a 0–3 loss at Paris on 18 September. Another goal from Benzema lifted Madrid to a 1–0 win at Sevilla on 22 September. Three days later, goals from Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo secured a 2–0 home win over Osasuna, putting Madrid at the top of the table. The Madrid derby on 28 September ended in a goalless draw.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: On the first day of the month, Madrid took on Club Brugge in the Champions League. The game ended in a 2–2 draw, after Sergio Ramos and Casemiro brought Madrid back from a 0–2 deficit. Four days later, Real defeated Granada 4–2 with goals from Benzema, Hazard, Luka Modrić and James Rodríguez. On 19 October, the away game at Mallorca was lost 0–1. The Champions League match at Galatasaray was won 1–0 after a goal from Kroos. On 30 October, the match against CD Leganés was won 5–0 with goals from Rodrygo, Kroos, Sergio Ramos, Benzema and Jović.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: On 2 November, the game against Real Betis ended in a 0–0 draw. The game against Galatasaray in the Champions League was won 6–0 after a hat-trick from Rodrygo, a brace from Benzema and a goal from Ramos. Three days later, the away game at SD Eibar was won 4–0 with a brace from Benzema and goals from Ramos and Valverde. After the international break, Madrid recorded a 3–1 victory over Real Sociedad on 23 November. After falling behind early, goals from Benzema, Valverde and Modrić secured the three points. Three days later, the Champions league match against Paris ended in a 2–2 draw, with a brace from Benzema initially putting Real up 2–0 only for Paris to score two successive goals late in the game. With that draw, Madrid advanced to the knockout stage of the tournament for the 23rd time in a row. On the last day of the month, goals from Ramos and Dani Carvajal got Madrid a 2–1 win at Alavés.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: The game against Espanyol on 7 December ended in a 2–0 win after Raphaël Varane and Benzema scored. Four days later, the last Champions League group stage game at Brugge was won 3–1, with Rodrygo, Vinícius and Modrić scoring the goals. A late goal from Benzema saved Madrid one point in a 1–1 draw at Valencia on 15 December. The season's first "Clásico" against Barcelona on 18 December resulted in a 0–0 stalemate, with Madrid thoroughly outplaying Barça away from home but failing to convert. Four days later, the last game of the year against Athletic Bilbao also ended 0–0.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: The new year started with a 3–0 victory against Getafe on 4 January. The goals were scored by Varane and Modrić plus an own goal. Four days later, Valencia was defeated 3–1 in the semi-final of the 2019–20 Supercopa de España after goals from Kroos, Isco and Modrić. On 12 January, the Supercopa was won 4–1 in a penalty shootout against Atlético Madrid, with the match itself having ended in a 0–0 draw. This marked the eleventh time that Madrid won the trophy. Next, a brace from Casemiro secured three points for Real in a 2–1 victory over Sevilla. Reinier Jesus Carvalho joined Madrid on 20 January 2020. Two days later, in the round of 32 of the 2019–20 Copa del Rey, Madrid defeated Unionistas de Salamanca CF 3–1 with goals from Bale, Brahim Díaz and an own goal to advance to the next round. In the last league game for this month, Madrid beat Valladolid 1–0 at the José Zorrilla Stadium to move to the top of the table and establish a three-point lead over Barcelona. The only goal was scored by Nacho. On 29 January, Real defeated Zaragoza 4–0 to proceed to the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey. The goals were scored by Varane, Vázquez, Vinícius and Benzema.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: The first day of the new month brought another Madrid derby against Atlético. Benzema scored the lone goal of the game to give Real a 1–0 win. Five days later, Madrid lost the Copa del Rey quarter-final match to Sociedad 3–4, with Marcelo, Rodrygo and Nacho scoring the goals in an attempted late comeback. With that result, Madrid's drought in the competition extended to six years. The game against Osasuna on 9 February was won 4–1. Isco, Ramos, Vázquez and Jović scored the goals after Madrid fell behind early. A week later, the game against Celta Vigo ended in a 2–2 draw with a late equalizer, despite Kroos and Ramos giving Real a 2–1 lead. On 22 February, the match against Levante was lost 0–1 due to a late goal. The first leg of the Champions League round of 16 against Manchester City was lost 1–2. Isco scored the lone goal for Madrid.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: On the first day of the month, Real defeated Barcelona 2–0 in the season's second "Clásico". Vinícius and Mariano scored the goals, with Madrid regaining the lead position in the standings. A week later, the away game at Betis was lost 1–2, meaning Madrid again slipped to second. Benzema scored the penalty for Real. On 12 March, after a player from Real Madrid's basketball team tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, all players of basketball and football teams alike were forced into quarantine. This superseded the postponements of several matches. On 23 March, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, the league was suspended indefinitely.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: After a two and a half-month hiatus, it was announced on 31 May that the league would be resumed on 11 June, with all games being played behind closed doors.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: In Madrid's first game back after the break on 14 June, Eibar was defeated 3–1 with goals from Kroos, Ramos and Marcelo. Four days later, the game against Valencia ended in a 3–0 victory, with a brace from Benzema and a goal from Asensio. On 21 June, Madrid was able to defeat Real Sociedad by a 2–1 margin, getting back to the top of the table. The goals were scored by Ramos and Benzema. Another three days later, Mallorca was defeated 2–0 with goals from Vinícius and Ramos. A goal from Casemiro secured another three points for Real, as they defeated Espanyol 1–0 on 28 June.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: On 2 July, Getafe was defeated 1–0 per a Ramos penalty, which gave Madrid a four-point cushion at the top of the table. The exact same scenario secured Real another victory three days later, against Bilbao. On 10 July, Alavés was defeated 2–0, after Benzema and Asensio scored. Two early goals from Mendy and Benzema secured Madrid their ninth win in a row with a 2–1 victory at Granada. After that game, Real had a four-point lead in the standings with two matches to go. After a narrow 2–1 home victory over Villarreal on 16 July, thanks to a brace from Benzema, Madrid mathematically clinched a record-extending 34th league title. Conversely, this was only their third title since the start of Barcelona's in the 2008–09 season. Three days later, the last league game of the season at Leganés was drawn 2–2 with goals from Ramos and Asensio.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: After the league was finished, Madrid went on to play the postponed second leg of the Champions League against Manchester City on 7 August. The match was a practical repeat of the first leg, with Madrid losing 1–2 and being eliminated 2–4 on aggregate. The lone goal came from Benzema who scored an equalizer in the first half. This result meant that Real had been knocked out in the round of 16 for the second season running.


title: 2019–20 Real Madrid CF season

text: Madrid joined the tournament in the round of 32, as they had participated in the 2019–20 Supercopa de España.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: Tik Tik Tik is a 2018 Indian Tamil-language science fiction thriller film written and directed by Shakti Soundar Rajan. The film features Jayam Ravi, Aaron Aziz and Nivetha Pethuraj in the lead roles. The film is inspired from the 1998 Michael Bay film "Armageddon".


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: The film was released on 22 June 2018. and received generally positive reviews from critics and audience, who praised Jayam Ravi's performance, cinematography, background score, soundtrack and VFX, but criticized its logic-defying sequences and writing. It grossed over and was a commercial success at the box office.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: The DSD team, which consist of Mahendran as its head, find that an asteroid will hit earth in seven days. The lives of people in and around Chennai are at stake. The only way to destroy the asteroid would be with a heavy missile, but upon learning about the less time they decide to recover the missile through illegal means. The team goes ahead with this secret mission with only the Prime Minister, Home Minister and Defence Minister knows about the mission. The biggest challenge is to take it to space, which will only be possible by expert thieves. An escape artist Vasu and his friends Venkat and Appu are hired. Joining them are DSD members Swathi and Raguram. After training, they board the spacecraft Dhruva 1. Before launch, Vasu hears a mysterious voice on the voice channel in his communication device. The voice tells him that Ravi, Vasu's son, has been kidnapped. In order to release him, Vasu must do whatever the voice tells him.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: Dhruva 1 has a successful launch en Route to the space station, the voice tells Vasu to cut some wires, which would cause a fuel leak. He feigns unconsciousness before proceeding to cut the wires. When Venkat questions him, Vasu reveals about Ravi's kidnapping. This causes Dhruva 1 to spiral out of control and crash land on the moon. The crew steps out to do repairs to the ship, where they find the wires cut. The ship is repaired, but the ship has little fuel. Vasu suggests that refueling from the space station to that way, so that they would have an excuse to enter the station. They agree to the plan and request permission to refuel from the space station to which the crew on board the space station approve. Dhruva 1 then leaves the moon, bound for the space station. However, images of Vasu cutting the wires are discovered by Lt. Gen. T. Rithika and brought to Mahendran's attention. However, Mahendran does not pursue the matter further.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: Meanwhile, Dhruva 1 successfully docks at the space station, but the crew are arrested by the crew members, under Captain Li Wei. It is revealed that the crew of the station, know the true intentions behind Dhruva 1's mission, and intend to hold them off, so that the asteroid will hit the Bay of Bengal, destroying India, whilst profiting their country, by the major rebuilding projects. While in the space station, Venkat and Appu hack the space station, causing a power outrage, while Vasu obtains Captain Li Wei's fingerprint and iris in order to enter the chamber with the missile. Vasu manages to make the missile disappear without the alarm system triggering. Captain Li Wei realizes, and interrogates them, assaulting the crew physically. Vasu tells that the missile is in Dhruva 1, but when some of the crew follow Vasu, he kills them on the ship, and conveys a message through Swathi that the missile is pointed at the capital of the country owning the missile, and that he will launch the missile at the city if the crew of Dhruva 1 is not released.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: Dhruva 1's crew are released and proceed to the ship, while Vasu goes to the chamber holding the missile, where it is revealed that the missile was there the whole time, and steals the missile and exits the ship through space, but hits a piece of the station, puncturing his spacesuit. This causes the oxygen tank to leak. But, he successfully manages to get the missile to Dhruva 1. The ship departs from the space station, and Vasu is revived. Meanwhile, Dhruva 2 arrives to refuel Dhruva 1. It is now known why the wires had to be cut, in order for Dhruva 2 to be mobilised. While the mysterious voice instructs Vasu to hand over the missile to the crew of Dhruva 2, Rithika hears this from Mahendran's communication device, and goes to his office, where Mahendran kills her, revealing that he is the mysterious voice and that he wants to sell the missile on the black market.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: Meanwhile, Dhruva 1 successfully refuels and heads to the asteroid to fire the missile, where the crew realised that the missile is missing. Meanwhile, Ravi is released. Mahendran shows the images of Vasu sabotaging the ship and tells that Vasu was the cause of this. The crew realizes that India will be destroyed. However, they reveal that the missile is still on board the spacecraft and is ready to be fired. It is revealed, that Vasu had notified Swathi and Raghuram about the mysterious voice, and that he gave a decoy of the missile to Dhruva 2. The systems on the ship were hacked to reflect the asteroid passing a safety line when it had not. The missile is fired, and the asteroid is split into half, avoiding the earth. However, Dhruva 1 is hit by debris and is about to explode. The crew evacuate the ship in time and reach earth. Ravi reveals the truth about Mahendran as he had grabbed a gold chain belonging to him. Days later, Mahendran presents medals to the Dhruva 1 crew, where Vasu reveals that the whole crew knows about Mahendran, who proceeds to kill himself backstage while Vasu, Appu and Venkat walk away.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: After working together in "Miruthan" (2016), Jayam Ravi was again impressed by a storyline narrated by Shakti Soundar Rajan and agreed to work on another film in March 2016. Jhabak Movies agreed to produce the venture. It is the first Indian film in the space genre. The team began pre-production work thereafter, with Jayam Ravi describing it as the biggest film in his career.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: Actress Nivetha Pethuraj joined the film's cast in September 2016. She was selected due to her knowledge of martial arts. She is trained in jujutsu and kickboxing. Aaron Aziz, a Malaysian-based actor who mostly performed in Malaysian and Singaporean drama and films, was selected as the lead villain, marking his entry into Tamil cinema. Jayam Ravi's son, Aarav, plays the role of his son in this film too.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: The team began filming in October 2016 at EVP Film City and Majestic Studio in Chennai. The film is also being shot in Munnar, where the shooting has been halted for a while due to the arrival of forest elephants near the shooting spot. The total duration of VFX scenes is 80 minutes in the film.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: The teaser was released on August 15, 2017. The film was initially scheduled to be released on January 26, 2018, but was postponed and eventually released on June 22, 2018.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: The film's score and songs were composed by D. Imman. The title track was released on December 11, 2017. The song was sung by Yogi B, Yuvan Shankar Raja and Sunitha Sarathy. The full album was released on January 6, 2018. The album has eight songs, four of which are instrumental songs (two theme songs and two karaoke songs). All the songs were written by Madhan Karky. This is Imman's 100th album. "Kurumba" (Father's Love) in the film featured real photographs and videos from Jayam Ravi's personal family collection.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: Behindwoods rated the album 3 of 5 stars and said, "Imman knocks the ball out of the park for a six to reach his century, and the ball is travelling to space!"


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: Tamil Nadu theatrical rights of the film were sold for 10.5 crore. "Tik Tik Tik" grossed 3 crore on its first day and 12 crore in first three days in Tamil Nadu. The film collected over in Tamil Nadu in the second weekend. The film collected at the worldwide box office in 11 days. The film collected in United States, in UK and in Australia. It grossed US$45,724 in USA, MYR 2,23,745 in Malaysia, £10,480 in UK, A$34,493 in Australia, and NZ$3,424 in New Zealand in its opening weekend. The film collected US$68,812 in USA, £19,046 in UK, and A$49,176 in Australia by the end of the second weekend. "Tik Tik Tik" collected £20,888 in UK, and MYR 5,01,436 in Malaysia by the end of the third weekend. The film collected MYR 5,11,504 ( 86.6 lacs) in Malaysia by the end of the fourth weekend.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: "Tik Tik Tik" received positive reviews from the critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 67% with an average score of 4.0/10, based on 5 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "On the whole, Tik Tik Tik could have been much more considering the newness of its genre, but the attempt is certainly a laudable one."


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: Thinkal Menon of "The Times of India" praised the film for the laudable attempt and gave it 3.5 stars out of 5. Sreedhar Pillai of "Firstpost" praised it as a reasonably entertaining film with a novel concept and gave it 3 out of 5 stars. Manoj Kumar R of "The Indian Express" said that the concept is not original and gave it 4 out of 5 stars. Sowmya Rajendran of "The News Minute" praised the film for its impressive VFX scenes. Vikram Venkateswaran of the "Quint" called the film a harmless entertainer and gave it 3 stars. Sudhir Srinivasan of "Cinema Express" admired the efforts of the director in this space genre film and gave it 3 stars.


title: Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

text: Priyanka Sundar of "Hindustan Times" called it a film without logic and gave it 1.5 stars. Gautaman Bhaskaran of News18 stated that the film is an unimpressive story, and gave it 1.5 stars. Kirubhakar Purushothaman of "India Today" called the film a typical underwhelming commercial film set in space, and gave it 1.5 stars. Director Venkat Prabhu and actor Arvind Swami praised the film for the effort. Vishal Menon of "The Hindu" termed the film simplistic in nature. J. Hurtado of Screen Anarchy noted that the film had many similarities to "Armageddon" (1998), one of which included the human mission of saving the Earth from an asteroid.


title: We Summon the Darkness

text: We Summon the Darkness is a 2019 American horror thriller film directed by Marc Meyers and written by Alan Trezza. The film stars Alexandra Daddario, Keean Johnson, Maddie Hasson, Amy Forsyth, Logan Miller, Austin Swift, and Johnny Knoxville.


title: We Summon the Darkness

text: The film premiered at Mammoth Film Festival on February 28, 2019, and was released in digital and on-demand in the United States on April 10, 2020, by Saban Films.


title: We Summon the Darkness

text: In Indiana, July 1988, Alexis Butler and her two friends Val and Bev are driving to a heavy metal show, when a milkshake is thrown from a blue van onto their windshield. Once they arrive at the concert, they find the same blue van, and Val throws a small firecracker into it, causing the three boys inside to climb out. Ivan owns the van and his buddies Kovacs and Mark, who is said to be leaving for Los Angeles soon, are interested in the girls. After the show, Alexis invites the boys to her father's empty mansion. Bev and Mark seem to like each other, yet Bev seems to almost avoid him. As they play a game of Never Have I Ever, the girls drug the boys' drinks and reveal they are going to murder them and make it look like a Satanic cult killing.


title: We Summon the Darkness

text: The Daughters of the Dawn, the church the girls are a part of, has murdered eighteen other people in the same way in order to create fear and send more people to their religion. Alexis is shown to be the most insane and stabs Ivan after he criticizes her religious belief in Christ, and he bleeds to death. Mark and Kovacs briefly escape, hiding in a pantry. Susan, Alexis's soon-to-be ex-stepmother, comes home to retrieve a passport and reveals she has called the police because she saw the strange blue van and the house lights on. Susan then discovers Ivan's body and Alexis stabs her to death.


title: We Summon the Darkness

text: A police officer arrives and becomes suspicious, so Alexis runs from him and back into the house where he chases her. The officer finds the injured Kovacs and Mark who pleads for help, but Val sneaks up on him, takes his gun, and shoots him, killing him. As Alexis and Val fight over the gun, Bev appears, threatening her friends with an electric outboard trolling motor. Val and Alexis tell Bev they are doing the Lord's work, but Bev declares she will let Mark and Kovacs go.


title: We Summon the Darkness

text: Bev tries to help Mark and Kovacs, the latter who is bleeding out and will not last much longer unless he makes it to a hospital. Alexis has the car keys, so Mark goes after her; he obtains the keys, but Alexis attacks him and they fight. Val attacks Bev and tries to kill her, but Bev lights Val on fire (her hair being full of hairspray). Meanwhile, Kovacs sees car lights and struggles outside to find John Henry Butler, Alexis's father and the pastor of the Daughters of the Dawn. John Henry shoots Kovacs, who makes it back into the house where Bev finds him. Just before Kovacs dies, he tells Bev to save Mark.


title: We Summon the Darkness

text: While strangling Alexis, Mark is shot by John Henry, who then berates his daughter, Alexis, for doing a terrible job murdering and covering it up. He tells her that they have to make some sacrifices to get out of the predicament she has caused and attempts to strangle her to death when Bev comes up and knocks him out. A crazed Alexis grapples with Bev but trips on Mark’s outstretched arm and falls out the window. Mark is still alive, and he drives away with Bev, only to find Alexis standing in the road. Off-camera, Bev runs Alexis over.


title: We Summon the Darkness

text: John Henry Butler is still alive and makes himself into a victim, claiming that his daughter, Alexis, was led astray and joined a Satanic cult. Bev and Mark leave town together.


title: We Summon the Darkness

text: "We Summon the Darkness" was released in digital and on-demand on April 10, 2020. It was released on Blu-ray and DVD on June 9, 2020 by Lionsgate Home Entertainment. The film was released on Netflix on August 8, 2020.


title: We Summon the Darkness

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critics consensus reads: ""We Summon the Darkness" makes the most of its rather pedestrian plot with palpable affection for genre formula, an appealing cast, and a sharp sense of humor." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on 14 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: We Summon the Darkness

text: Owen Gleiberman of "Variety" magazine wrote: ""We Summon the Darkness" is a psycho thriller that pulls the bloody rug out from under you, and does it in a shivery sly way."


title: We Summon the Darkness

text: On May 22, 2020, Lakeshore Records released the score soundtrack for the film composed by Timothy Williams.


title: Malory Towers

text: Malory Towers is a series of six novels by English children's author Enid Blyton. The series is based on a girls' boarding school that Blyton's daughter attended, Benenden School, which relocated during World War II to the Hotel Bristol in Newquay, Cornwall. The series follows the protagonist, Darrell Rivers, on her adventures and experiences in boarding school. Darrell Rivers' name was inspired by that of Blyton's second husband, Kenneth Darrell Waters.


title: Malory Towers

text: In 2009, six more books were added to the series by author Pamela Cox. Events in these take place after Darrell has left the school and focus on her younger sister, Felicity Rivers.


title: Malory Towers

text: Darrell Rivers begins her first year at Malory Towers, a castle-like clifftop boarding school in Cornwall. She meets sharp-tongued Alicia, musical genius Irene and timid Mary-Lou. Determined to do well and make friends, Darrell's first term is turbulent. Her temper causes problems and her efforts at playing the fool backfire. Another new girl is Gwendoline Mary Lacey, who turns out to be vain, shallow and prone to occasional spitefulness and bullying. The Malory Towers stories largely centre on the intertwined stories of Darrell and Gwendoline, along with Alicia Johns, Sally Hope and Mary-Lou. The first book ends with Darrell finding a best friend in Sally Hope.


title: Malory Towers

text: The girls move into the Second form at Malory Towers with a new form mistress, Miss Parker, and three new girls. In an eventful term, new tricks are played on the teachers and the girls make the unpleasant discovery that there is a thief in their midst. Among the newcomers, Belinda delights the other girls with her sharply drawn caricature drawings, while Ellen worries about her position in the form and overworks herself. The third new girl is Daphne, who is not all she seems and is involved in a dramatic cliff top rescue on a stormy night.


title: Malory Towers

text: Darrell and her friends are now in the Third Form, alongside more new girls. American girl Zerelda has ambitions be a film star, while Wilhelmina, known to all as Bill, is obsessed with horses. We also meet Mavis, who has a beautiful singing voice, which she foolishly risks when she attends a local talent contest and finds herself stranded at night outside the school in a rainstorm. Darrell has a smaller role in this story, mainly centred around her inclusion in a school lacrosse team.


title: Malory Towers

text: Sibling relationships are a theme of the fourth book, with the arrival at Malory Towers of Darrell's younger sister Felicity, Alicia's younger cousin June, and twins Connie and Ruth Batten. The fourth formers are working hard for the tough School Certificate examination, which quick-brained Alicia finds unexpectedly hard when she succumbs to measles. Darrell is Head Girl of the form, but is forced to resign when her temper gets the better of her once more. A sickly new girl, Clarissa, gives Gwendoline the idea of avoiding the examination by affecting a heart condition, which leads to a bitter confrontation with her appalled father.


title: Malory Towers

text: The Fifth Form is asked to produce the school Christmas entertainment, which they decide should be the pantomime Cinderella. Darrell is the lead writer and Irene composes the music, while lead roles are taken by Alicia, Mary-Lou and Bill. Gwen finds herself much in the company of new girl Maureen who, to her discomfort, shares many of her vain and shallow traits. The Head Girl of the Fifth is the hard and domineering Moira, which creates much friction between the girls before matters are resolved and the show is triumphantly staged. Darrell realises she has a talent for writing and that this may be her future career.


title: Malory Towers

text: In her final year, Darrell is now Head Girl of the school. In a frank exchange with Miss Grayling, they agree that the only real failure in Darrell's year is Gwendoline, and Darrell undertakes to do what she can to try and set Gwen on a more positive path before it is too late. But Gwen is destined to get a huge shock that forces her to re-evaluate her future and bitterly regret some cruel words to her father. New girl Amanda finds herself in danger when she attempts to swim in the sea beyond the safe waters of the school pool, while second former Jo runs away from the school after stealing money from Matron.


title: Malory Towers

text: The second series of six books follows Felicity, Darrell's younger sister, from her third year to her final term. Sally's younger sister, Daffy, eventually joins the school when Felicity and her friends are in the sixth form. The final book of the new series, "Goodbye Malory Towers", sees the return of the original cast, including Darrell, Sally, and Alicia, for a school reunion, and the addition of Gwendoline Mary Lacey to the teaching staff.


title: Malory Towers

text: Enid Blyton's elder daughter Gillian joined Benenden School in the autumn of 1945. The school had relocated from its original site in Kent during World War II to the Hotel Bristol in Newquay, Cornwall.


title: Malory Towers

text: Although Gillian was only at the Cornish location of Benenden School for one term before it moved back to its original location in Kent, several local features are believed to have inspired aspects of the Malory Towers stories. These include the coastal location of the school, the coastal swimming pool at Dancing Ledge in Dorset, and Lulworth Castle, also in Dorset, which is a very close match for the description of Malory Towers in the first book and is approximately 15 miles from Swanage, which Blyton visited annually.


title: Malory Towers

text: Commenters have also remarked on the parallels between Gillian's school life, as recorded in her diaries, and the plots of the Malory Towers books. It is even suggested that the Malory Towers stories were Blyton's way of communicating with her daughter and providing counsel. The similarities include Darrell's temper, interests in an acting career, and obsessions with horses. As with Darrell in the books, Gillian's father was also a surgeon.


title: Malory Towers

text: The incident in the first book that depicts Darrell pushing over Sally has a close parallel to an incident between Gillian and her younger sister Imogen. The entry in her diary reads:


title: Malory Towers

text: 'Imo annoyed me and I got in one of my tempers and knocked her down. She might have hurt herself. Really, I just don’t know what I do when in a temper. I might easily kill her one day.'


title: Malory Towers

text: The plotline in "Third Year" that introduces the character Zerelda Brass, who has aspirations to become an actress, also has a parallel in Gillian's diaries. A memo in the back of her 1946 diary reads:


title: Malory Towers

text: ‘In the letter Mummy wrote she said she thought I would make a good actress and that if I wanted to be an actress she and Daddy would back me up. She said she was glad I was able to analyse my feelings. She said I had the right sympathetic feelings for an actress. She was very nice and I love her.’


title: Malory Towers

text: She saw a big, square looking building of soft grey stone standing high up on a hill. The hill was really a cliff, that fell steeply down to the sea. At each end of the gracious building stood rounded towers. Darrell could glimpse other towers as well, making four in all. North Tower, South, East and West.


title: Malory Towers

text: Each tower acts as a boarding house and provides accommodation for about 60 girls, ten in each year group. There is a Matron in each tower and a House Mistress in overall charge. The towers have four storeys, with kitchen, dining hall and common rooms on the ground floor, dormitories on the first and second floors, and staff rooms and storage are on the top floor.


title: Malory Towers

text: The school forms a square with a courtyard in the middle. The sides of the school are three storeys high. The front of the building, between the east and south towers, has the main entrance, gymnasium, assembly hall, laboratories and art room. The classrooms are between the west and the north towers. Between the north and east towers are the sanitorium and the headmistress's rooms. . The mistress's rooms are between the south and west tower.


title: Malory Towers

text: The school also has a rose garden, stables, tennis courts, sports pitches and an outside, natural swimming pool cut into the coastline.


title: Malory Towers

text: Pamela Cox wrote six sequels of the series in 2009 which focus on the adventures of Felicity Rivers, June Johns and Susan Blake:


title: Malory Towers

text: Blyton wrote two other series about boarding-school life: the "St. Clare's" and the "Naughtiest Girl" series.


title: Malory Towers

text: The German version, published in the 1960s and 1970s underwent substantial changes to catch up with time (e.g. turntables instead of gramophones), to better resemble German grammar schools (playing handball instead of lacrosse). Furthermore, there were changes to character names - for instance, Darrell was re-named Dolly. From 1977 to 1997, twelve sequel books were published, telling Dolly's further life which always stays close to the school: after studying at a partner university, she works as a house mistress, marries one of the teachers, and has a child of her own. The story ends in the 18th book with old Miss Grayling's dignified retirement - and Dolly as her successor.


title: Malory Towers

text: A stage production written and directed by Emma Rice and her company Wise Children has been touring theatres in 2019. It is a co-production with York Theatre Royal, in association with the Bristol Old Vic.


title: Malory Towers

text: In 2019, it was announced that a television adaptation was being produced for British children's channel CBBC, in association with Canada's Family Channel. It was developed by Rachel Flowerday, who had previously worked on the television series "Father Brown", and Sasha Hails. It specifically included a cast with members of BAME communities and actors with facial disfigurements. It premiered on 23 March 2020. Season 1 has 13 half-hour episodes about Darrell's first year at Malory Towers.


title: West Reading, Pennsylvania

text: West Reading is a borough in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 4,212 at the 2010 census. It contains a vibrant main street (Penn Avenue) and the large Reading Hospital and Medical Center. It was also the site of the VF Outlet Village, one of the largest outlet malls in the United States. The VF Outlet Village was located in the buildings of the former Berkshire Knitting Mills, which was in operation from 1908 to 1975. The VF Outlet closed in 2020.


title: West Reading, Pennsylvania

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 4,049 people, 1,666 households, and 862 families residing in the borough. The population density was 7,079.6 people per square mile (2,742.7/km). There were 1,783 housing units at an average density of 3,117.5 per square mile (1,207.8/km). The racial makeup of the borough was 89.33% White, 4.03% African American, 0.22% Native American, 1.53% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 3.41% from other races, and 1.46% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 7.78% of the population.


title: West Reading, Pennsylvania

text: There were 1,666 households, out of which 23.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 36.0% were married couples living together, 11.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 48.2% were non-families. 39.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.11 and the average family size was 2.84.


title: West Reading, Pennsylvania

text: In the borough, the population was spread out, with 18.7% under the age of 18, 8.2% from 18 to 24, 28.8% from 25 to 44, 18.0% from 45 to 64, and 26.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 82.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 78.8 males.


title: West Reading, Pennsylvania

text: The median income for a household in the borough was $38,340, and the median income for a family was $43,472. Males had a median income of $31,592 versus $25,411 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $21,414. About 5.8% of families and 9.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.0% of those under age 18 and 3.6% of those age 65 or over.