title: Operation Crusader

text: Overnight, Rommel once again split his forces. 21st Panzer took up a defensive position alongside the "Afrika Division" between Sidi Rezegh and Tobruk, and 15th Panzer moved west to Gasr el Arid to prepare for a battle of manoeuvre, which General Ludwig Crüwell believed would favour the "Afrika Korps". That presented a clear opportunity for a breakthrough to Tobruk with the whole of 7th Armoured Division concentrated and facing only the weakened 21st Panzer. However, XXX Corps Commander Norrie, aware that 7th Armoured division was down to 200 tanks, decided on caution.


title: Operation Crusader

text: In the early afternoon, Rommel instead attacked Sidi Rezegh with 21st Panzer and captured the airfield. Fighting was desperate and gallant. For his actions during both days of fighting, Brigadier Jock Campbell, who commanded 7th Support Group, was awarded the Victoria Cross. However, 21st Panzer, despite being considerably weaker in armour, proved superior in its combined arms tactics and pushed 7th Armoured Division back with a further 50 tanks lost (mainly from 22nd Brigade).


title: Operation Crusader

text: The fighting at Sidi Rezegh continued until 22 November, with the South African Division's 5th Brigade had become engaged to the south of the airfield. An attempt to recapture it failed, and the Axis counteroffensive began to gain momentum. 7th Armoured Brigade withdrew; all but four of their 150 tanks had become out of commission or destroyed. In four days, the Eighth Army had lost 530 tanks; Axis losses had been about 100.


title: Operation Crusader

text: The most memorable action during the North African Campaign of the 3rd Field Regiment (Transvaal Horse Artillery) was during the Battle of Sidi Rezegh, on 23 November 1941. The South Africans were surrounded on all sides by German armour and artillery and were subjected to a continuous barrage. They tried to take cover in shallow slit trenches. In many places, the South African soldiers could dig only to around deep because of the solid limestone under their positions. The Transvaal Horse Artillery engaged German tanks from the 15th and the 21st Panzer Divisions, the gunners firing over open sights as they were overrun. That continued until many of the officers had died, and the gunners had run out of ammunition.


title: Operation Crusader

text: Many of the gun crews were captured. As darkness fell, those who could do so escaped back to Allied lines under the cover of darkness. The gunners of the 3rd Field Regiment managed to save five of their 24 guns from the battlefield and later recovered seven other guns. After the Battle of Sidi Rezegh, Acting Lieutenant General Sir Charles Willoughby Moke Norrie stated that the South African "sacrifice resulted in the turning point of the battle, giving the Allies the upper hand in North Africa at that time".


title: Operation Crusader

text: On the XIII Corps front on 22 November, the 5th New Zealand Brigade advanced north-east to capture Fort Capuzzo on the main Sollum–Bardia road. The Brigade attacked Bir Ghirba, south of Fort Capuzzo and the headquarters of the "Savona" Division but was repulsed.


title: Operation Crusader

text: To the south, the 7th Indian Brigade captured Sidi Omar and most of the Libyan Omar strongpoints, which were the two westernmost strong points of the Axis border defences. Losses in its supporting tank units caused a delay in attacks on the other strong points until replacements had arrived. One of the New Zealand military unit's historians described the fighting days as the 7th Indian Brigade's most difficult, with the men of the 4/16th Punjab Battalion having "fought all morning to overcome resistance" and the German 12th Oasis Company having "formed the backbone of the defence of the whole position".


title: Operation Crusader

text: On 23 November, the 5th New Zealand Brigade continued its advance south-east, down the main road from Fort Capuzzo towards Sollum, and cut off of the Axis positions from Sidi Omar to Sollum and Halfaya from Bardia and its supply route. The 6th New Zealand Brigade Group on the left flank at Bir el Hariga, had been ordered north-west along the Trigh Capuzzo (Capuzzo–El Adem) to reinforce 7th Armoured Division at Sidi Rezegh.


title: Operation Crusader

text: The brigade arrived at Bir el Chleta, some east of Sidi Rezegh, at first light on 23 November. It stumbled on the "Afrika Korps" headquarters and captured most of its staff (Crüwell was absent). No supplies reached either panzer division that day. Later that day, the 4th New Zealand Brigade Group was sent north of the 6th New Zealand Brigade to apply pressure on Tobruk, and the 5th New Zealand Brigade covered Bardia and the Sollum–Halfaya positions.


title: Operation Crusader

text: On 23 November, in what was known by the Germans as ("Sunday of the Dead"), Rommel gathered his two panzer divisions in an attack with the "Ariete" Armoured Division to cut off and to destroy the rest of XXX Corps. In the pocket were the remains of 7th Armoured Division, 5th South African Infantry Brigade and elements of the recently arrived 6th NZ Brigade. By the end of the day, the 5th South African Brigade had been destroyed. What remained of the defending force broke out of the pocket and headed south towards Bir el Gubi. in Rome agreed to put the XX Mobile Corps, including the "Ariete" Armoured Division and the "Trieste" Motorised Division, under Rommel's command.


title: Operation Crusader

text: By 23 November, "Ariete", "Trieste" and "Savona" had knocked out about 200 British tanks, and a similar number of vehicles were disabled or destroyed. From 19 to 23 November, around British 350 tanks were destroyed and 150 severely damaged. Axis losses were considerable, with the down to 40 operational tanks.


title: Operation Crusader

text: On 24 November, Rommel ordered the and Ariete division to push east. He hoped to relieve the Siege of Bardia and the frontier garrisons, and to pose enough of a threat to the British rear echelon to complete the defeat of Operation Crusader. They headed for Sidi Omar, causing chaos, scattering the mainly rear echelon support units in their path and splitting XXX Corps and almost cutting off XIII Corps.


title: Operation Crusader

text: On 25 November, the 15th Panzer Division set off north-east for Sidi Azeiz, found the area empty and was constantly attacked by the Desert Air Force. South of the border, the 5th Panzer Regiment of the 21st Panzer Division attacked the 7th Indian Brigade at Sidi Omar but were repulsed by the 1st Field Regt RA, which fired over open sights at a range of . A second attack left the 5th Panzer Regiment with few operational tanks. The rest of 21st Panzer Division had headed north-east, south of the border, to Halfaya.


title: Operation Crusader

text: By the evening of 25 November, the 15th Panzer Division was west of Sidi Azeiz (where the 5th NZ Brigade headquarters was based) and down to 53 tanks practically the entire remaining tank strength of the . The Axis column had only a tenuous link to its supply dumps on the coast between Bardia and Tobruk, and supply convoys had to find a way past the 4th and 6th NZ Brigade Groups. On 26 November, the 15th Panzer Division, bypassed Sidi Azeiz, headed for Bardia for supplies and arrived around mid-day. The remains of the 21st Panzer Division attacked north-west of Halfaya towards Capuzzo and Bardia. , approaching Bir Ghirba ( north-east of Sidi Omar) from the west, was ordered towards Fort Capuzzo to clear any opposition and link with the 21st Panzer Division. They were to be supported by the depleted 115th Infantry Regiment of the 15th Panzer Division, which was to advance with some artillery south-east from Bardia toward Fort Capuzzo.


title: Operation Crusader

text: The two battalions of the 5th NZ Brigade, between Fort Capuzzo and Sollum Barracks, were engaged by the converging elements of the 15th and the 21st Panzer divisions at dusk on 26 November. During the night, the 115th Infantry Regiment got to within of Capuzzo but was disengaged to switch its attack towards Upper Sollum, where it met 21st Panzer, coming from the south. In the early hours of 27 November, Rommel met with the commanders of the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions at Bardia.


title: Operation Crusader

text: The had to return to the Tobruk front, where the 70th Infantry Division and the New Zealand Division had gained the initiative. On 25 November, in the "Trento" Division sector, the 2nd Battalion Queens Royal Regiment attacked the strongpoint but was repulsed. The garrison of , down to half their strength and exhausted and low on ammunition, food and water, surrendered on the evening of 25 November after it had defeated a British attack the previous night.


title: Operation Crusader

text: While contained the British tank attacks in the Bologna sector, a battalion of from counterattacked the British breakout from Tobruk. Afterwards Fritz Bayerlein wrote:


title: Operation Crusader

text: Rommel ordered the 21st Panzer Division back to Tobruk, and the 15th Panzer Division was to attack forces that were thought to besiege the border positions between Fort Capuzzo and Sidi Omar. The 15th Panzer Division first had to capture Sidi Azeiz to provide space for the ambitious manoeuvre. Neumann-Silkow felt the plan to have little chance of success and resolved to advance to Sidi Azeiz, where he believed there was a British supply dump, before he headed to Tobruk.


title: Operation Crusader

text: Defending the 5th Brigade Headquarters at Sidi Azeiz were a company of the 22nd New Zealand Infantry Battalion and the armoured cars of the New Zealand divisional cavalry, with some field artillery, anti-tank, anti-aircraft and machine gun units. The New Zealanders were overrun early on 27 November, Rommel congratulated Brigadier James Hargest on the determined New Zealand defence and 700 prisoners were taken although the armoured cars escaped.


title: Operation Crusader

text: The 21st Panzer Division ran into the 5th NZ Brigade 22nd battalion at Bir el Menastir while it was heading west to Tobruk from Bardia. After an exchange lasting most of the day, it was forced to detour south via Sidi Azeiz, which delayed its return to Tobruk by a day. By early afternoon, the Eighth Army Headquarters had known by radio intercepts that both divisions of the were heading west to Tobruk, with the Ariete Division on their left. The audacious manoeuvre by "Afrika Korps" had failed but come within of the main supply base of the Eighth Army.


title: Operation Crusader

text: The dash of the "Afrika Korps" to the south removed a severe threat to the left flank of the New Zealand Division, which had remained ignorant of the danger because news of the losses of the 7th Armoured Division had not reached XIII Corps and German tank losses had been wildly overestimated.


title: Operation Crusader

text: The New Zealand Division engaged elements of the , and Divisions, advanced westward and retook the Sidi Rezegh airfield and the overlooking positions to the north that led to Tobruk. The 70th Infantry Division resumed its attack on 26 November, and the next day, elements linked with the advancing New Zealanders of the 4th NZ Brigade at Ed Duda on the Tobruk by-pass. The 6th NZ Brigade cleared the Sidi Rezegh escarpment in a mutually-costly engagement.


title: Operation Crusader

text: At mid-day on 27 November, the 15th Panzer Division reached Bir el Chleta and met the 22nd Armoured Brigade, which had been reorganised as a composite regiment with fewer than 50 tanks. By the afternoon, the 22nd Armoured Brigade was holding on and the 4th Armoured Brigade, with 70 tanks, had arrived on the left flank of the 15th Panzer Division, had dashed over north-east and was harassing its rear echelons. The 15th Panzer Division was also suffering many losses from bombing. As night fell, the British tanks disengaged to replenish but inexplicably moved south to do so, which left the route west open for the 15th Panzer Division. Once again, the New Zealand Division, engaged in heavy fighting on the south-eastern end of the tenuous corridor into Tobruk, would be under threat from the "Afrika Korps".


title: Operation Crusader

text: By 27 November, the situation of the Eighth Army had improved since XXX Corps had reorganised after the chaos of the breakthrough, and the New Zealand Division had linked up with the Tobruk garrison. Auchinleck had spent three days during the breakthrough with Cunningham, who had wanted to halt the offensive and withdraw.


title: Operation Crusader

text: However, Auchinleck handed Cunningham written orders on 25 November that included the sentence "...There is only one order, "Attack and Pursue"" On his return to Cairo on 26 November, after conferring with his superiors, Auchinleck relieved Cunningham and promoted his deputy chief of staff, Major-General Neil Ritchie, to acting lieutenant-general.


title: Operation Crusader

text: From 26 to 27 November, in a determined attack, the 70th Infantry Division killed or captured the Italian defenders of several concrete pillboxes before they reached Ed Duda. On 27 November, the 6th New Zealand Brigade fought a fierce battle with a battalion of the 9th Bersaglieri Regiment, which had dug themselves around the Prophet's Tomb and used their machine guns to great effect. 6th NZ Brigade managed to link up with the 32nd Tank Brigade at Ed Duda. The 6th and 32nd Brigades secured a small bridgehead on the Tobruk Front, which lasted five days.


title: Operation Crusader

text: By 28 November, "Bologna" had regrouped largely in the Bu Amud and Belhamed areas, and the division had stretched out along from the "Via Balbia" to the Bypass Road and fought in several places. The Reuters correspondent with the Tobruk garrison wrote on 28 November:


title: Operation Crusader

text: On the night of 27/28 November, Rommel had discussed plans for the next day with Crüwell and indicated that Rommel's priority was to cut the Tobruk Corridor and to destroy the enemy forces fighting there. Crüwell wanted to eliminate the threat of the 7th Armoured Division tanks to the south, which he felt needed attention first. 15th Panzer spent most of 28 November once more engaged with 4th and 22nd Armoured and dealt with supply problems. Despite being outnumbered 2–1 in tanks and at times being immobile because of lack of fuel, 15th Panzer pushed the British tank force southward and moved westward.


title: Operation Crusader

text: Fierce fighting continued on 28 November around the Tobruk Corridor, with the battle ebbing and flowing. It had not been possible to create a firm communications link between 70th and 2nd New Zealand Divisions, which made co-ordination between the two somewhat difficult. When two Italian motorised battalions of "Bersaglieri", with supporting tanks, anti-tank guns and artillery, moved toward Sidi Rezegh, they overran a New Zealand field hospital. The Bersaglieri captured 1,000 patients and 700 medical staff. They also freed some 200 Germans who were held captive in the enclosure on the grounds of the hospital. The "New Zealand Official History" mentions the capture of 1,000 patients and implies that they were captured by Germans:


title: Operation Crusader

text: At 6 p.m., the Australian 2/13th Battalion moved to reinforce Ed Duda, where some platoons suffered severe casualties from the intense shelling.


title: Operation Crusader

text: On the night of 28 November Rommel rejected Crüwell's plan for a direct advance towards Tobruk since Rommel had had no success with head-on attacks on Tobruk during the months of the siege. He decided on a circling movement to attack Ed Duda from the south-west, to carry on through to cut off the enemy forces outside the Tobruk perimeter and to destroy them.


title: Operation Crusader

text: On the morning of 29 November, 15th Panzer set off west, travelling south of Sidi Rezegh. The remnants of 21st Panzer were supposed to be moving up on their right to form a pincer, but were in disarray when von Ravenstein failed to return from a reconnaissance that morning (he had been captured). In the afternoon, to the east of Sidi Rezegh, on the much-contested Point 175, elements of "Ariete" overran 21st NZ Battalion. The New Zealanders were caught wrong-footed since they had mistaken the attackers for reinforcements from the 1st South African Brigade, which had been due to arrive from the south-west to reinforce XIII Corps.


title: Operation Crusader

text: Lieutenant-Colonel Howard Kippenberger, who later rose to command the New Zealand 2nd Division noted:


title: Operation Crusader

text: Meanwhile, the leading elements of 15th Panzer had reached Ed Duda, but they made little progress before nightfall against determined defences. However, a counterattack by 4th Royal Tank Regiment supported by Australian infantry recaptured the lost positions, and the German units fell back to form a new position.


title: Operation Crusader

text: On 29 November, the two British Armoured Brigades were strangely passive. 1st SA Brigade was tied to the armoured brigades and unable to move in open ground without them because of the threat from the panzer divisions. On the evening of 29 November, 1st SA Brigade was placed under command of 2nd New Zealand Division and ordered to advance north to recapture Point 175. Meanwhile, radio intercepts had given the Eighth Army to believe that 21st Panzer and Ariete were in trouble, and Ritchie had ordered 7th Armoured Division to "stick to them like hell".


title: Operation Crusader

text: Eight Matilda tanks provided the preliminary bombardment for a counterattack by two companies of the 2/13th Australian Infantry Battalion on the night of 29/30 November. In a bayonet charge against German positions, the 2/13th had two killed and five wounded and took 167 prisoners.


title: Operation Crusader

text: After the resistance at Ed Duda, Rommel decided to withdraw 15th Panzer to Bir Bu Creimisa, to the south, and to relaunch his attack northeast from there on 30 November. He aimed between Sidi Rezegh and Belhamed and to leave Ed Duda outside his encircling pocket. By mid-afternoon, 6th New Zealand Brigade had been heavily pressed on the western end of the Sidi Rezegh position. The weakened 24th Battalion was overrun as were two companies of 26th Battalion, but on the eastern flank of the position, 25th Battalion repelled an attack from "Ariete" moving from Point 175.


title: Operation Crusader

text: At 06:15 on 1 December, 15th Panzer renewed their attack towards Belhamed, supported by a massive artillery effort, and once again, 2nd New Zealand Division came under intense pressure. During the morning, 7th Armoured Division was ordered to advance to provide direct assistance; 4th Armoured Brigade arrived at Belhamed and may have had the opportunity for a decisive intervention since they outnumbered the 40 or so 15th Panzer Division tanks attacking the position. However, they believed their orders to be to cover the withdrawal of the remains of 6th NZ Brigade, which precluded an offensive operation.


title: Operation Crusader

text: The remains of 2nd NZ Division were now concentrated near Zaafran, 5 mi east of Belhamed and slightly further north-east of Sidi Rezegh. During the morning of 1 December, Freyberg, commanding 2nd NZ, saw a signal from the Eighth Army indicating that 1st SA Brigade would be under the command of 7th Armoured Division. He inferred that Army Headquarters had lost hope of holding the Tobruk corridor. He signalled in mid-morning that without the South Africans, his position would be untenable and so he was planning a withdrawal. Freyberg ordered 2nd NZ to be ready to move east at 1730. 15th Panzer, which had been resupplying, renewed its attack at 1630 and "Trieste" cut the tenuous link established with Tobruk. 2nd NZ became involved in a desperate fighting withdrawal from its western positions. Showing admirable discipline, they formed up by 1330, and having paused an hour for the tanks and artillery to join them from the west, set off at 1845. They reached the XXX Corps lines with little further interruption. In the early hours, the 3,500 men and 700 vehicles that had emerged headed back to Egypt.


title: Operation Crusader

text: Once again, Rommel became concerned with the cut-off units in the border strongpoints. On 2 December, believing that he had won the battle at Tobruk, he sent the Geissler Advance Guard and the Knabe Advanced Guard battalion groups to open the routes to Bardia and to Capuzzo and then Sollum. On 3 December, the "Geissler" Advance Guard were heavily defeated by elements of 5th NZ Brigade on the Bardia road near Menastir. To the south the Knabe force at the same time fared slightly better on the main track to Capuzzo (Trigh Capuzzo), coming up against 'Goldforce' (based on the Central India Horse reconnaissance regiment) and retiring after an artillery exchange.


title: Operation Crusader

text: Rommel insisted once again on trying to relieve the frontier forts. Since "Afrika Korps" tanks were undergoing overhaul, he ordered the rest of 15th Panzer and the Italian Mobile Corps eastwards on 4 December, which caused considerable alarm at the Eighth Army headquarters. However, Rommel soon realised he could not deal with the situation at Tobruk if he sent a strong force east, and the "Ariete" went no further than Gasr el Arid.


title: Operation Crusader

text: On 4 December, Rommel launched a renewed attack on Ed Duda that was repulsed by 70th Division's 14th Infantry Brigade. When it was clear that the attack would fail, Rommel resolved to withdraw from the eastern perimeter of Tobruk to allow him to concentrate his strength against the growing threat of XXX Corps to the south.


title: Operation Crusader

text: After the withdrawal of 2nd NZ Division, Ritchie had reorganised his rear echelon units to release the 5th and 11th Indian Infantry Brigades of the 4th Indian Infantry Division and the 22nd Guards Brigade. By 3 December, the 11th Indian Infantry Brigade was in action against a strongpoint near Bir el Gubi, about south of Ed Duda. The I and II battalions, 136th "Giovani Fascisti" Regiment in the hilltop position repulsed several attacks by British armour and Indian infantry units in the first week of December:


title: Operation Crusader

text: The Eighth Army infantry were left vulnerable because Norrie had been ordered to send the 4th Armoured Brigade east due to the threat to Bardia and Sollum. On 4 December, the "Pavia" and "Trento" Divisions counter-attacked the 70th Infantry Division to contain them within the Tobruk perimeter and reportedly recaptured the Plonk and Doc strongpoints. On 5 December, the 11th Indian Infantry Brigade continued its attritional attack against Point 174. As dusk approached, the and the "Ariete" Armoured Division intervened to relieve the Young Fascist garrison at Point 174 and attacked the 11th Indian Infantry Brigade. Crüwell was unaware that 4th Armoured Brigade, with 126 tanks, was over away and withdrew to the west. The 11th Indian Brigade had to be withdrawn to be refitted and replaced by the 22nd Guards Brigade.


title: Operation Crusader

text: Crüwell could have attacked on 6 December, as the 4th Armoured Brigade made no move to close up to the 22nd Guards Brigade but his hesitation prevented him from striking a conclusive blow before dark. By 7 December, the 4th Armoured Brigade had closed up and the opportunity had been lost. Neumann-Silkow, the commander of the 15th Panzer Division, was mortally wounded late on 6 December.


title: Operation Crusader

text: On 7 December, the 4th Armoured Brigade engaged the 15th Panzer Division, disabling 11 more tanks. Rommel had been told on 5 December by the Italian that supply could not improve until the end of the month with the start of the airborne supply from Sicily. Realising that success was now unlikely at Bir el Gubi, he decided to narrow his front and to shorten his lines of communication by abandoning the Tobruk front and withdrawing to the positions at Gazala, to his rear. They had been prepared by Italian rear echelon units and had been occupied by 8 December. He placed the Italian X Corps at the coastal end of the line and the Italian XXI Corps inland. The weakened Italian Mobile Corps anchored the southern end of the line at Alem Hamza while the "Afrika Korps" were placed behind the southern flank ready to counter-attack.


title: Operation Crusader

text: On 6 December, Rommel ordered his divisions to retreat westwards and left "Savona" to hold out as long as possible in the Sollum, Halfaya and Bardia area; they held out for six more weeks. That night, the 70th Division captured the German-held "Walter" and "Freddie" strong points without any resistance. A "Pavia" battalion, dug in on Point 157, inflicted heavy casualties on the 2nd Durham Light Infantry, before it was overcome after midnight. Although the 90th Light Division pulled out of the Tobruk sector on 4 December, "Bologna" held out until the night of 8/9 December, when trucks were finally assigned to give them some support. In a final action on the part of the 70th Division, the Polish Carpathian Brigade attacked elements of "Brescia", followed the Axis retreat and captured the White Knoll position. That finally relieved the Tobruk defenders after a 19-day battle.


title: Operation Crusader

text: Better to co-ordinate his infantry and armour, Ritchie transferred the 7th Armoured Division to XIII Corps and directed the XXX Corps HQ to take the 2nd South African Division under command to conduct a siege of the border fortresses. He also sent forward to XIII Corps the 4th Indian Infantry Division and the 5th NZ Infantry Brigade. The Eighth Army launched its attack on the Gazala line on 13 December and the 5th NZ Brigade attacked along an front from the coast. The 5th Indian Infantry Brigade made a flanking attack at Alem Hamza. Although "Trieste" held Alem Hamza, the 1st Battalion, The Buffs from the 5th Indian Infantry Division took Point 204, some miles west of Alem Hamza. They were thus left in a salient and the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade to their left was ordered to send northwards the 4th battalion 11th Sikh Regiment, supported by guns from the 25th Field Regiment RA and twelve Valentine tanks from the 8th Royal Tank Regiment, to ease their position. The force found itself confronted by the "Afrika Korps", fielding 39 tanks and 300 lorries of infantry and guns. Once again, the 7th Armoured Division was not in place to intervene and it was left to the force's artillery and supporting tanks to face the threat. They took heavy casualties but managed to knock out 15 German tanks and repulse the counter-attack.


title: Operation Crusader

text: Godwin-Austen ordered Gott to get the British armour to a position from where it could engage the "Afrika Korps" since he was unaware that Gott and his senior commanders were no longer confident they could defeat the enemy directly, despite their superiority in numbers. Due to the Germans' superior tactics and anti-tank artillery, British commanders preferred making a wide detour to attack their soft-skinned elements and lines of supply, to immobilise them. On 14 December, the Polish Independent Brigade was brought forward to join the New Zealanders and prepare a new attack for the early hours of 15 December. The attack went in at 03:00, taking the defenders by surprise. Both brigades made good progress but narrowly failed to breach the line.


title: Operation Crusader

text: On 14 December, to the south, there was little activity from the "Afrika Korps" and the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade was limited to patrolling through a shortage of ammunition as supply problems multiplied. At Alem Hamza, the 5th Indian Infantry Brigade attacked again but made no progress against determined resistance and at Point 204 the 5th Indian Brigade's battalion of Royal East Kent Regiment ("The Buffs"), supported by ten I tanks, an armoured car squadron of the Central India Horse, a company of Bombay Sappers and Miners, the artillery of 31st Field Regiment RA and elements of the 73rd Anti-Tank Regiment and some anti-aircraft guns, were attacked by ten or twelve tanks, the remnants of "Ariete", which they beat off.


title: Operation Crusader

text: On 15 December, "Brescia" and "Pavia", with "Trento" in close support, repelled a strong Polish–New Zealand attack, freeing the 15th Panzer Division, which had returned to the Gazala Line, to be used elsewhere.


title: Operation Crusader

text: Rommel considered Point 204 a key position and many of the neighbouring armoured and infantry units were committed to attack it on 15 December. In fierce and determined fighting, the attacking force, "Ariete", the 15th Panzer Division, with 8th Bersaglieri Regiment and 115th Lorried Infantry Regiment, overran the Buffs and its supporting elements during the afternoon. The Buffs lost over 1,000 men killed or captured with only 71 men and a battery of field artillery escaping. It was too late in the day for the attacking force to collect itself and to advance further to intervene at Alem Hamza. The attackers also had suffered heavily in the engagement and the German commander was heard on a radio intercept to report the inability of his force to exploit his success because of the losses sustained. By 15 December, "Afrika Korps" were down to eight operational tanks and "Ariete" about thirty. Rommel, who had greater respect for the 7th Armoured Division than either Crüwell (or apparently even Gott), became very concerned about a perceived flanking move to the south by the British armour. Despite the vehement objections of the Italian generals and Crüwell, Rommel ordered an evacuation of the Gazala line on the night of the 15/16 December.


title: Operation Crusader

text: By the afternoon of 15 December, the 4th Armoured Brigade, having looped round to the south, was at Bir Halegh el Eleba, some north-west of Alem Hamza and was ideally placed both to strike at the rear of the "Afrika Korps" and to advance north to cut the main lines communication of "Panzer Group Afrika" along the coast, as Godwin-Austen urged. Early on 16 December, only a small detachment was sent north, which caused serious confusion among "Panzer Group Afrika's" rear echelon but was not decisive and the rest of the brigade headed south to meet its petrol supplies. In the afternoon, the 15th Panzer Division, moving west, passed by the rear of the 4th Armoured Brigade and blocked any return move to the north. The mere presence of the British armour had prompted Rommel to withdraw from Gazala but the opportunity for the British to gain a big victory had been missed.


title: Operation Crusader

text: Over the following ten days, Rommel's forces withdrew to a line between Ajedabia and El Haseia, maintained his lines of communication, and avoided being cut off and surrounded, unlike the Italians the previous year. As his lines of supply shortened and supplies to El Agheila improved, he rebuilt his tank force and so the Eighth Army lines of supply became more and more stretched. On 27 December, Rommel was able in a three-day tank battle at El Haseia to inflict heavy damage on the 22nd Armoured Brigade, which forced the leading echelons of the Eighth Army to withdraw. That allowed the Axis forces to fall back to a tactically more-desirable defensive line at El Agheila in the first two weeks of January without having to deal with pressure from the enemy.


title: Operation Crusader

text: Auchinleck's determination and Ritchie's aggression had removed the Axis threat to Egypt and the Suez Canal for now. However, the Axis strongholds on the Libya–Egypt border remained, despite Rommel's recommendation for an evacuation by sea and to block the coast road and tie down Allied troops. In early December, the Allies decided that clearing the Axis frontier positions was essential to facilitate their supply lines and maintain the momentum of their advance. On 16 December, the 2nd South African Division commenced an attack on Bardia, garrisoned by 2,200 German and 6,600 Italian troops, and on 2 January 1942, the port fell. Sollum fell to the South Africans on 12 January after a small but fiercely-fought engagement. They surrounded the fortified Halfaya Pass position (which included the escarpment, the plateau above it and the surrounding ravines) and cut it off from the sea. The Halfaya garrison of 4,200 Italians of the 55th Infantry Division "Savona" and 2,100 Germans was already desperately short of food and water. The defences allowed the garrison to hold out against heavy artillery and aerial bombardment with relatively few casualties, but hunger and thirst forced a capitulation on 17 January. Rommel reported of General Fedele de Giorgis: "Superb leadership was shown by the Italian General de Giorgis, who commanded this German-Italian force in its two months' struggle".


title: Operation Crusader

text: On 21 January, Rommel launched a surprise counterattack from El Agheila. Although the action had originally been a "reconnaissance in force", since Rommel found the Eighth Army forward elements to be dispersed and tired, he took advantage, in his typical manner, of the situation and drove the Eighth Army back to Gazala where they took up defensive positions along Rommel's old line. A stalemate set in as both sides regrouped, rebuilt and reorganised. It may have proved a limited success, but Operation Crusader showed that the Axis could be beaten and was a fine illustration of the dynamic back-and-forth fighting that characterised the North African campaign. Geoffrey Cox wrote that Sidi Rezegh was the "forgotten battle" of the Desert War. Crusader was "won by a hair’s breadth" by the Eighth Army but "had we lost it, we would have had to fight the battle of Alamein six months or a year earlier, without the decisive weapon of the Sherman tank".


title: Aegina

text: Aegina (; , "Aígina" ; ) is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of the hero Aeacus, who was born on the island and became its king.


title: Aegina

text: The municipality of Aegina consists of the island of Aegina and a few offshore islets. It is part of the Islands regional unit, Attica region. The municipality is subdivided into the following five communities (population in 2011 in parentheses ):


title: Aegina

text: The regional capital is the town of Aegina, situated at the northwestern end of the island. Due to its proximity to Athens, it is a popular vacation place during the summer months, with quite a few Athenians owning second houses on the island.


title: Aegina

text: The province of Aegina () was one of the provinces of the Attica Prefecture and was created in 1833 as part of Attica and Boeotia Prefecture. Its territory corresponded with that of the current municipalities Aegina and Agkistri. It was abolished in 2006.


title: Aegina

text: <mapframe latitude="37.7235" longitude="23.4819" zoom="10" width="200" height="131" align="left" />Aegina is roughly triangular in shape, approximately from east to west and from north to south, with an area of .


title: Aegina

text: An extinct volcano constitutes two-thirds of Aegina. The northern and western sides consist of stony but fertile plains, which are well cultivated and produce luxuriant crops of grain, with some cotton, vines, almonds, olives and figs, but the most characteristic crop of Aegina today (2000s) is pistachio. Economically, the sponge fisheries are of notable importance. The southern volcanic part of the island is rugged and mountainous, and largely barren. Its highest rise is the conical Mount Oros (531 m) in the south, and the Panhellenian ridge stretches northward with narrow fertile valleys on either side.


title: Aegina

text: The beaches are also a popular tourist attraction. Hydrofoil ferries from Piraeus take only forty minutes to reach Aegina; the regular ferry takes about an hour, with ticket prices for adults within the 4–15 euro range. There are regular bus services from Aegina town to destinations throughout the island such as Agia Marina. Portes is a fishing village on the east coast.


title: Aegina

text: Aegina has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification: BSh). It is one of the driest places in Greece.


title: Aegina

text: Aegina, according to Herodotus, was a colony of Epidaurus, to which state it was originally subject. Its placement between Attica and the Peloponnesus made it a site of trade even earlier, and its earliest inhabitants allegedly came from Asia Minor. Minoan ceramics have been found in contexts of . The famous Aegina Treasure, now in the British Museum is estimated to date between 1700 and 1500 BC. The discovery on the island of a number of gold ornaments belonging to the last period of Mycenaean art suggests that Mycenaean culture existed in Aegina for some generations after the Dorian conquest of Argos and Lacedaemon. It is probable that the island was not Doricised before the 9th century BC.


title: Aegina

text: One of the earliest historical facts is its membership in the Amphictyony or League of Calauria, attested around the 8th century BC. This ostensibly religious league included—besides Aegina—Athens, the Minyan (Boeotian) Orchomenos, Troezen, Hermione, Nauplia, and Prasiae. It was probably an organisation of city-states that were still Mycenaean, for the purpose of suppressing piracy in the Aegean that began as a result of the decay of the naval supremacy of the Mycenaean princes.


title: Aegina

text: Aegina seems to have belonged to the Eretrian league during the Lelantine War; this, perhaps, may explain the war with Samos, a major member of the rival Chalcidian league during the reign of King Amphicrates (Herod. iii. 59), i.e. not later than the earlier half of the 7th century BC.


title: Aegina

text: Its early history reveals that the maritime importance of the island dates back to pre-Dorian times. It is usually stated on the authority of Ephorus, that Pheidon of Argos established a mint in Aegina, the first city-state to issue coins in Europe, the Aeginetic stater. One stamped stater (having the mark of some authority in the form of a picture or words) can be seen in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris. It is an electrum stater of a turtle, an animal sacred to Aphrodite, struck at Aegina that dates from 700 BC. Therefore, it is thought that the Aeginetes, within 30 or 40 years of the invention of coinage in Asia Minor by the Ionian Greeks or the Lydians (c. 630 BC), might have been the ones to introduce coinage to the Western world. The fact that the Aeginetic standard of weights and measures (developed during the mid-7th century) was one of the two standards in general use in the Greek world (the other being the Euboic-Attic) is sufficient evidence of the early commercial importance of the island. The Aeginetic weight standard of about 12.2 grams was widely adopted in the Greek world during the 7th century BC. The Aeginetic stater was divided into two drachmae of 6.1 grams of silver. Staters depicting a sea-turtle were struck up to the end of the 5th century BC. During the First Peloponnesian War, by 456 BC, it was replaced by the land tortoise.


title: Aegina

text: During the naval expansion of Aegina during the Archaic Period, Kydonia was an ideal maritime stop for Aegina's fleet on its way to other Mediterranean ports controlled by the emerging sea-power Aegina. During the next century Aegina was one of the three principal states trading at the emporium of Naucratis in Egypt, and it was the only Greek state near Europe that had a share in this factory. At the beginning of the 5th century BC it seems to have been an entrepôt of the Pontic grain trade, which, at a later date, became an Athenian monopoly.


title: Aegina

text: Unlike the other commercial states of the 7th and 6th centuries BC, such as Corinth, Chalcis, Eretria and Miletus, Aegina did not found any colonies. The settlements to which Strabo refers (viii. 376) cannot be regarded as any real exceptions to this statement.


title: Aegina

text: The known history of Aegina is almost exclusively a history of its relations with the neighbouring state of Athens, which began to compete with the thalassocracy (sea power) of Aegina about the beginning of the 6th century BC. Solon passed laws limiting Aeginetan commerce in Attica. The legendary history of these relations, as recorded by Herodotus (v. 79–89; vi. 49–51, 73, 85–94), involves critical problems of some difficulty and interest. He traces the hostility of the two states back to a dispute about the images of the goddesses Damia and Auxesia, which the Aeginetes had carried off from Epidauros, their parent state.


title: Aegina

text: The Epidaurians had been accustomed to make annual offerings to the Athenian deities Athena and Erechtheus in payment for the Athenian olive-wood of which the statues were made. Upon the refusal of the Aeginetes to continue these offerings, the Athenians endeavoured to carry away the images. Their design was frustrated miraculously – according to the Aeginetan version, the statues fell upon their knees – and only a single survivor returned to Athens. There he became victim to the fury of his comrades' widows who pierced him with their peplos brooch-pins. No date is assigned by Herodotus for this "old feud"; recent writers, such as J. B. Bury and R. W. Macan, suggest the period between Solon and Peisistratus, . It is possible that the whole episode is mythical. A critical analysis of the narrative seems to reveal little else than a series of aetiological traditions (explanatory of cults and customs), such as of the kneeling posture of the images of Damia and Auxesia, of the use of native ware instead of Athenian in their worship, and of the change in women's dress at Athens from the Dorian peplos to the Ionian style chiton.


title: Aegina

text: The account which Herodotus gives of the hostilities between the two states during the early years of the 5th century BC is to the following effect. The Thebans, after the defeat by Athens about 507 BC, appealed to Aegina for assistance. The Aeginetans at first contented themselves with sending the images of the Aeacidae, the tutelary heroes of their island. Subsequently, however, they contracted an alliance, and ravaged the seaboard of Attica. The Athenians were preparing to make reprisals, in spite of the advice of the Delphic oracle that they should desist from attacking Aegina for thirty years, and content themselves meanwhile with dedicating a precinct to Aeacus, when their projects were interrupted by the Spartan intrigues for the restoration of Hippias.


title: Aegina

text: In 491 BC Aegina was one of the states which gave the symbols of submission ("earth and water") to Achaemenid Persia. Athens at once appealed to Sparta to punish this act of medism, and Cleomenes I, one of the Spartan kings, crossed over to the island, to arrest those who were responsible for it. His attempt was at first unsuccessful; but, after the deposition of Demaratus, he visited the island a second time, accompanied by his new colleague Leotychides, seized ten of the leading citizens and deposited them at Athens as hostages.


title: Aegina

text: After the death of Cleomenes and the refusal of the Athenians to restore the hostages to Leotychides, the Aeginetes retaliated by seizing a number of Athenians at a festival at Sunium. Thereupon the Athenians concerted a plot with Nicodromus, the leader of the democratic party in the island, for the betrayal of Aegina. He was to seize the old city, and they were to come to his aid on the same day with seventy vessels. The plot failed owing to the late arrival of the Athenian force, when Nicodromus had already fled the island. An engagement followed in which the Aeginetes were defeated. Subsequently, however, they succeeded in winning a victory over the Athenian fleet.


title: Aegina

text: All the incidents subsequent to the appeal of Athens to Sparta are referred expressly by Herodotus to the interval between the sending of the heralds in 491 BC and the invasion of Datis and Artaphernes in 490 BC (cf. Herod. vi. 49 with 94).


title: Aegina

text: As the final victory of Athens over Aegina was in 458 BC, the thirty years of the oracle would carry us back to the year 488 BC as the date of the dedication of the precinct and the beginning of hostilities. This inference is supported by the date of the building of the 200 triremes "for the war against Aegina" on the advice of Themistocles, which is given in the "Constitution of Athens" as 483–482 BC. It is probable, therefore, that Herodotus is in error both in tracing back the beginning of hostilities to an alliance between Thebes and Aegina () and in claiming the episode of Nicodromus occurred prior to the battle of Marathon.


title: Aegina

text: Overtures were unquestionably made by Thebes for an alliance with Aegina , but they came to nothing. The refusal of Aegina was in the diplomatic guise of "sending the Aeacidae." The real occasion of the beginning of the war was the refusal of Athens to restore the hostages some twenty years later. There was but one war, and it lasted from 488 to 481 BC. That Athens had the worst of it in this war is certain. Herodotus had no Athenian victories to record after the initial success, and the fact that Themistocles was able to carry his proposal to devote the surplus funds of the state to the building of so large a fleet seems to imply that the Athenians were themselves convinced that a supreme effort was necessary.


title: Aegina

text: It may be noted, in confirmation of this opinion, that the naval supremacy of Aegina is assigned by the ancient writers on chronology to precisely this period, i.e. the years 490–480 BC.


title: Aegina

text: In the repulse of Xerxes I it is possible that the Aeginetes played a larger part than is conceded to them by Herodotus. The Athenian tradition, which he follows in the main, would naturally seek to obscure their services. It was to Aegina rather than Athens that the prize of valour at Salamis was awarded, and the destruction of the Persian fleet appears to have been as much the work of the Aeginetan contingent as of the Athenian (Herod. viii. 91). There are other indications, too, of the importance of the Aeginetan fleet in the Greek scheme of defence. In view of these considerations it becomes difficult to credit the number of the vessels that is assigned to them by Herodotus (30 as against 180 Athenian vessels, cf. Greek History, sect. Authorities). During the next twenty years the Philo-Laconian policy of Cimon secured Aegina, as a member of the Spartan league, from attack. The change in Athenian foreign policy, which was consequent upon the ostracism of Cimon in 461 BC, resulted in what is sometimes called the First Peloponnesian War, during which most of the fighting was experienced by Corinth and Aegina. The latter state was forced to surrender to Athens after a siege, and to accept the position of a subject-ally (). The tribute was fixed at 30 talents.


title: Aegina

text: By the terms of the Thirty Years' Peace (445 BC) Athens promised to restore to Aegina her autonomy, but the clause remained ineffective. During the first winter of the Peloponnesian War (431 BC) Athens expelled the Aeginetans and established a cleruchy in their island. The exiles were settled by Sparta in Thyreatis, on the frontiers of Laconia and Argolis. Even in their new home they were not safe from Athenian rancour. A force commanded by Nicias landed in 424 BC, and killed most of them. At the end of the Peloponnesian War Lysander restored the scattered remnants of the old inhabitants to the island, which was used by the Spartans as a base for operations against Athens during the Corinthian War.


title: Aegina

text: It is probable that the power of Aegina had steadily declined during the twenty years after Salamis, and that it had declined absolutely, as well as relatively to that of Athens. Commerce was the source of Aegina's greatness, and her trade, which seems to have been principally with the Levant, must have suffered seriously from the war with Persia. Aegina's medism in 491 is to be explained by its commercial relations with the Persian Empire. It was forced into patriotism in spite of itself, and the glory won by the Battle of Salamis was paid for by the loss of its trade and the decay of its marine. The loss of the state's power is explained by the conditions of the island, which was based on slave labour; Aristotle's estimated the population of slaves were as much as 470,000.


title: Aegina

text: Aegina with the rest of Greece became dominated successively by the Macedonians (322–229 BC), the Achaeans (229–211 BC), Aetolians (211–210  BC), Attalus of Pergamum (210–133 BC) and the Romans (after 133 BC). A sign at the Archaeological Museum of Aegina is reported to say that a Jewish community was established in Aegina "at the end of the second and during the 3rd century AD" by Jews fleeing the barbarian invasions of the time in Greece. However, the first phases of those invasions began in the 4th century. The Romaniote jewish community erected an elaborate synagogue in rectangle form with an apse on the eastern wall with a magnificent mosaic decorated with geometric motifs, still preserved in the courtyard of the Archaeological Museum of Aegina. The synagogue dates from the 4th century AD and was in use until the 7th century AD. Local Christian tradition has it that a Christian community was established there in the 1st century, having as its bishop Crispus, the ruler of the Corinthian synagogue, who became a Christian, and was baptised by Paul the Apostle. There are written records of participation by later bishops of Aegina, Gabriel and Thomas, in the Councils of Constantinople in 869 and 879. The see was at first a suffragan of the metropolitan see of Corinth, but was later given the rank of archdiocese. No longer a residential bishopric, Aegina is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.


title: Aegina

text: Aegina belonged to the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire after the division of the Roman Empire in 395. It remained Eastern Roman during the period of crisis of the 7th–8th centuries, when most of the Balkans and the Greek mainland were overrun by Slavic invasions. Indeed, according to the "Chronicle of Monemvasia", the island served as a refuge for the Corinthians fleeing these incursions. The island flourished during the early 9th century, as evidenced by church construction activity, but suffered greatly from Arab raids originating from Crete. Various hagiographies record a large-scale raid , that resulted in the flight of much of the population to the Greek mainland. During that time, some of the population sought refuge in the island's hinterland, establishing the settlement of Palaia Chora.


title: Aegina

text: According to the 12th-century bishop of Athens, Michael Choniates, by his time the island had become a base for pirates. This is corroborated by Benedict of Peterborough's graphic account of Greece, as it was in 1191; he states that many of the islands were uninhabited for fear of pirates and that Aegina, along with Salamis and Makronisos, were their strongholds.


title: Aegina

text: After the dissolution and partition of the Byzantine Empire by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Aegina was accorded to the Republic of Venice. In the event, it became controlled by the Duchy of Athens. The Catalan Company seized control of Athens, and with it Aegina, in 1317, and in 1425 the island became controlled by the Venetians, when Alioto Caopena, at that time ruler of Aegina, placed himself by treaty under the Republic's protection to escape the danger of a Turkish raid. The island must then have been fruitful, for one of the conditions by which Venice accorded him protection was that he should supply grain to Venetian colonies. He agreed to surrender the island to Venice if his family became extinct. Antonio II Acciaioli opposed the treaty for one of his adopted daughters had married the future lord of Aegina, Antonello Caopena.


title: Aegina

text: In 1451, Aegina became Venetian. The islanders welcomed Venetian rule; the claims of Antonello's uncle Arnà, who had lands in Argolis, were satisfied by a pension. A Venetian governor ("rettore") was appointed, who was dependent on the authorities of Nauplia. After Arnà's death, his son Alioto renewed his claim to the island but was told that the republic was resolved to keep it. He and his family were pensioned and one of them aided in the defence of Aegina against the Turks in 1537, was captured with his family, and died in a Turkish dungeon.


title: Aegina

text: In 1463 the Turco-Venetian war began, which was destined to cost the Venetians Negroponte (Euboea), the island of Lemnos, most of the Cyclades islands, Scudra and their colonies in the Morea. Peace was concluded in 1479. Venice still retained Aegina, Lepanto (Naupactus), Nauplia, Monemvasia, Modon, Navarino, Coron, and the islands Crete, Mykonos and Tinos. Aegina remained subject to Nauplia.


title: Aegina

text: Aegina obtained money for its defences by reluctantly sacrificing its cherished relic, the head of St. George, which had been carried there from Livadia by the Catalans. In 1462, the Venetian Senate ordered the relic to be removed to St. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice and on 12 November, it was transported from Aegina by Vettore Cappello, the famous Venetian commander. In return, the Senate gave the Aeginetes 100 ducats apiece towards fortifying the island.


title: Aegina

text: In 1519, the government was reformed. The system of having two rectors was found to result in frequent quarrels and the republic thenceforth sent out a single official styled Bailie and Captain, assisted by two councillors, who performed the duties of camerlengo by turns. The Bailie's authority extended over the rector of Aegina, whereas Kastri (opposite the island Hydra) was granted to two families, the Palaiologoi and the Alberti.


title: Aegina

text: Society at Nauplia was divided into three classes: nobles, citizens and plebeians, and it was customary for nobles alone to possess the much-coveted local offices, such as the judge of the inferior court and inspector of weights and measures. The populace now demanded its share and the home government ordered that at least one of the three inspectors should be a non-noble.


title: Aegina

text: Aegina had always been exposed to the raids of corsairs and had oppressive governors during these last 30 years of Venetian rule. Venetian nobles were not willing to go to this island. In 1533, three rectors of Aegina were punished for their acts of injustice and there is a graphic account of the reception given by the Aeginetans to the captain of Nauplia, who came to command an enquiry into the administration of these delinquents (vid. inscription over the entrance of St. George the Catholic in Paliachora). The rectors had spurned their ancient right to elect an islander to keep one key of the money-chest. They had also threatened to leave the island en masse with the commissioner, unless the captain avenged their wrongs. To spare the economy of the community, it was ordered that appeals from the governor's decision should be made on Crete, instead of in Venice. The republic was to pay a bakshish to the Turkish governor of the Morea and to the voivode who was stationed at the frontier of Thermisi (opposite Hydra). The fortifications too, were allowed to become decrepit and were inadequately guarded.


title: Aegina

text: After the end of the Duchy of Athens and the principality of Achaia, the only Latin possessions left on the mainland of Greece were the papal city of Monemvasia, the fortress of Vonitsa, the Messenian stations Coron and Modon, Lepanto, Pteleon, Navarino, and the castles of Argos and Nauplia, to which the island of Aegina was subordinate.


title: Aegina

text: In 1502–03, the new peace treaty left Venice with nothing but Cephalonia, Monemvasia and Nauplia, with their appurtenances in the Morea. And against the sack of Megara, it had to endure the temporary capture of the castle of Aegina by Kemal Reis and the abduction of 2000 inhabitants. This treaty was renewed in 1513 and 1521. All supplies of grain from Nauplia and Monemvasia had to be imported from Turkish possessions, while corsairs rendered dangerous all traffic by sea.


title: Aegina

text: In 1537, sultan Suleiman declared war upon Venice and his admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa devastated much of the Ionian Islands, and in October invaded the island of Aegina. On the fourth day Palaiochora was captured, but the Latin church of St George was spared. Hayreddin Barbarossa had the adult male population massacred and took away 6,000 surviving women and children as slaves. Then Barbarossa sailed to Naxos, whence he carried off an immense booty, compelling the Duke of Naxos to purchase his further independence by paying a tribute of 5000 ducats.


title: Aegina

text: With the peace of 1540, Venice ceded Nauplia and Monemvasia. For nearly 150 years afterwards, Venice ruled no part of the mainland of Greece except Parga and Butrinto (subordinate politically to the Ionian Islands), but it still retained its insular dominions Cyprus, Crete, Tenos and six Ionian islands.


title: Aegina

text: In 1684, the beginning of the Morean War between Venice and the Ottoman Empire resulted in the temporary reconquest of a large part of the country by the Republic. In 1687 the Venetian army arrived in Piraeus and captured Attica. The number of the Athenians at that time exceeded 6,000, the Albanians from the villages of Attica excluded, whilst in 1674 the population of Aegina did not seem to exceed 3,000 inhabitants, two thirds of which were women. The Aeginetans had been reduced to poverty to pay their taxes. The most significant plague epidemic began in Attica during 1688, an occasion that caused the massive migration of Athenians toward the south; most of them settled in Aegina. In 1693 Morosini resumed command, but his only acts were to refortify the castle of Aegina, which he had demolished during the Cretan war in 1655, the cost of upkeep being paid as long as the war lasted by the Athenians, and to place it and Salamis under Malipiero as Governor. This caused the Athenians to send him a request for the renewal of Venetian protection and an offer of an annual tribute. He died in 1694 and Zeno was appointed at his place.


title: Aegina

text: In 1699, thanks to English mediation, the war ended with the peace of Karlowitz by which Venice retained possession of the 7 Ionian islands as well as Butrinto and Parga, the Morea, Spinalonga and Suda, Tenos, Santa Maura and Aegina and ceased to pay a tribute for Zante, but which restored Lepanto to the Ottoman sultan. Cerigo and Aegina were united administratively since the peace with Morea, which not only paid all the expenses of administration but furnished a substantial balance for the naval defence of Venice, in which it was directly interested.


title: Aegina

text: During the early part of the Ottoman–Venetian War of 1714–1718 the Ottoman Fleet commanded by Canum Hoca captured Aegina. Ottomans rule in Aegina and the Morea was resumed and confirmed by the Treaty of Passarowitz, and they retained control of the island with the exception of a brief Russian occupation Orlov Revolt (early 1770s), until the beginning of the Greek War of Independence in 1821.


title: Aegina

text: During the Greek War of Independence, Aegina became an administrative centre for the Greek revolutionary authorities. Ioannis Kapodistrias was briefly established here.


title: Aegina

text: In 1896, the physician Nikolaos Peroglou introduced the systematic cultivation of pistachios, which soon became popular among the inhabitants of the island. By 1950, pistachio cultivation had significantly displaced the rest of the agricultural activity due to its high profitability but also due to the phylloxera that threatened the vineyards that time. As a result, in the early 60s, the first pistachio peeling factory was established in the Plakakia area by Grigorios Konidaris. The quality of ""Fistiki Aeginis"" (Aegina Pistachios), a name that was established as a product of Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) in 1996, is considered internationally excellent and superior to several foreign varieties, due to the special climatic conditions of the island (drought) as well as soil's volcanic characteristics. Pistachios have made Aegina famous all over the world. Today, half of the pistachio growers are members of the Agricultural Cooperative of Aegina's Pistachio Producers. It is estimated that pistachio cultivation covers 29,000 acres of the island while the total production reaches 2,700 tons per year. In recent years, in mid-September, the Pistachio Festival has been organized every year under the name ""Fistiki Fest"".


title: Aegina

text: In Greek mythology, Aegina was a daughter of the river god Asopus and the nymph Metope. She bore at least two children: Menoetius by Actor, and Aeacus by the god Zeus. When Zeus abducted Aegina, he took her to Oenone, an island close to Attica. Here, Aegina gave birth to Aeacus, who would later become king of Oenone; thenceforth, the island's name was Aegina.


title: Aegina

text: Aegina was the gathering place of Myrmidons; in Aegina they gathered and trained. Zeus needed an elite army and at first thought that Aegina, which at the time did not have any villagers, was a good place. So he changed some ants (, Myrmigia) into warriors who had six hands and wore black armour. Later, the Myrmidons, commanded by Achilles, were known as the most fearsome fighting unit in Greece.


title: Here's Lucy

text: Here's Lucy is an American sitcom starring Lucille Ball. The series co-starred her long-time comedy partner Gale Gordon and her real-life children Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. It was broadcast on CBS from 1968 to 1974. It was Ball's third network sitcom, following "I Love Lucy" (1951–57) and "The Lucy Show" (1962–68).


title: Here's Lucy

text: Though "The Lucy Show" was still popular during the 1967–68 season, finishing in the top five of the ratings (at #2), Ball opted to end that series at the end of that season, as there were enough episodes for syndicated reruns, and as Ball had sold Desilu Productions (which owned and produced "The Lucy Show") to Gulf & Western. Ball, who had stated that she did not wish to continue to star in a show that she no longer owned, also made it known that she did not wish to continue to star in a show unless her two children agreed to co-star, and thus an entirely new show was written for this purpose. Doris Singleton, who played Carolyn Appleby on "I Love Lucy", has said she was originally going to be a series regular on the show as Harry Carter's secretary, but the idea was dropped when Lucy brought her children on board with the show. "Here's Lucy" was produced by Ball's newly created production company, Lucille Ball Productions. Desilu's successor Paramount Television co-produced the first season, but sold its stake in the show to Ball afterwards.


title: Here's Lucy

text: Unlike most sitcoms of the era, "Here's Lucy" was filmed before a live audience; standard practice at the time was to film an episode on a closed set and add a laugh track during post-production. However, a laugh track was still used to fill any gaps in audience reactions or missed punchlines. The live format was requested by Ball herself, as she believed that she performed better in the presence of an audience.


title: Here's Lucy

text: The program's premise changed from "The Lucy Show". Unlike Ball's character on the previous program — Lucy Carmichael, who originally lived in New York and later moved to California — in her third sitcom, Ball's character of Lucy Hinkley Carter was already living in Los Angeles, and once again bore a name containing "ar" in tribute to her ex-husband Desi Arnaz. In this new incarnation, Lucy was a widow with two children named Kim and Craig, played by her real life children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. (who, in real life, was part of the teen pop band Dino, Desi & Billy). She was employed at "Carter's Unique Employment Agency" by her bachelor brother-in-law Harry, played by Gale Gordon in a role similar to his Mr. Mooney role from "The Lucy Show". Mary Jane Croft, who had been a regular featured player on the last three seasons of "The Lucy Show", also became a semi-regular on the new series. Character actress Vanda Barra, who had played small parts on "The Lucy Show", was also added to this sitcom and gradually was upgraded. Towards the end of the run of "Here's Lucy", Barra became part of the ensemble cast. Ball's longtime costar Vivian Vance also made six guest appearances as Vivian Jones through the series' run.


title: Here's Lucy

text: The series was created by Milt Josefsberg and Bob O'Brien in 1968. They wanted to comically present the "generation gap" struggle between a working mother and her two increasingly independent teenagers. They wanted change this time around and to escape the shows for which Lucy had previously been so well known. They touched upon current events (civil rights, rock music, the sexual revolution and changing gender/sexual mores).


title: Here's Lucy

text: The writers interviewed Lucie and Desi Jr. to allow a more realistic approach to how teenagers acted. In addition, they were given free rein to choose the names for their respective characters.


title: Here's Lucy

text: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor guest-starred in the 1970 third season opener, in a storyline involving their famous diamond, which becomes stuck on Lucy's finger. Ball and Burton reportedly did not get along, as he found Ball's rigid perfectionism grating; he subsequently wrote about her in extremely unflattering terms in his memoir. (The episode reunited Ball with longtime cowriters Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll, Jr. for the first time since both writers had left "The Lucy Show" in 1964.) Another noteworthy episode was "Lucy Visits Jack Benny." In addition to Benny, Jackie Gleason made a surprise cameo reprising his role of bus driver Ralph Kramden.


title: Here's Lucy

text: During its run, "Here's Lucy" featured a number of famous guest stars, many of whom were Ball's real-life friends, often playing themselves, including Vivian Vance, Ann-Margret, Milton Berle, Carol Burnett, George Burns, Ruth Buzzi, Johnny Carson, Liberace, Petula Clark, John Davidson, Eva Gabor, Helen Hayes, Dean Martin, Eve McVeagh, Vincent Price, Tony Randall, Buddy Rich, Joan Rivers, Ginger Rogers, Dinah Shore, Danny Thomas, Lawrence Welk, Flip Wilson, Shelley Winters, Donny Osmond and Patty Andrews.


title: Here's Lucy

text: Ball appeared as herself in an episode in which Lucy Carter enters a Lucille Ball look-alike contest. This episode, designed to cross-promote Ball's then current film "Mame", enabled Ball to appear on screen with herself.


title: Here's Lucy

text: At the end of the third season, Desi Arnaz, Jr. decided to leave the series to pursue a movie acting career. His character of Craig returned in the fifth-season episode "Lucy and Joe Namath', but after that he never again appeared on the show although Craig was referred to from time to time. With Desi Jr.'s absence, Lucie Arnaz's character of Kim became more a prominent part of the program as well as a strong comedic foil for both Ball and Gordon.


title: Here's Lucy

text: During the fourth season, the producers proposed a spin-off of the show for Kim, titled "The Lucie Arnaz Show". The show would have Kim and her friend Sue (Susan Tolsky) live in their own apartment in a building run by Lucy's brother, Herb Hinkley (Alan Oppenheimer), who is very over protective of Kim.


title: Here's Lucy

text: The show was a back-door pilot, airing as the season four finale. The pilot was anticipated to be picked up as a weekly series.


title: Here's Lucy

text: The week before this installment aired, Vivian Vance made her annual (and final) appearance on "Here's Lucy" in the episode "With Viv as a Friend, Who Needs an Enemy?" Vance had moved back to California by this time and Ball was so thrilled to work with her again that she asked Vance to rejoin her as her comrade on "Here's Lucy" the following season if her daughter's pilot sold to CBS. However, Arnaz's show was not well received and was not included in the 1972–73 fall lineup. In addition, shortly after finishing the episode with Ball, Vance was diagnosed with breast cancer and then suffered a slight stroke. Lucie Arnaz remained with "Here's Lucy" until the show ended in the spring of 1974.


title: Here's Lucy

text: The pilot, "Kim Finally Cuts You-Know-Whose Apron Strings", was written by "Lucy" veteran writers Madelyn Davis & Bob Carroll, Jr.


title: Here's Lucy

text: Lucie Arnaz eventually did star in her own self-named show The Lucie Arnaz Show in 1985 but that was unrelated to the premise of proposed Here's Lucy spin-off.


title: Here's Lucy

text: In 1972, Ball suffered a leg fracture in a skiing accident and as a result, spent much of the 1972–1973 season in a full-leg cast. (This was written into the show, with the Lucy Carter character also breaking her leg.) The "slapstick" was toned down for the remainder of the series, given Ball's decreased ability to perform physical comedy as a result of her injury. According to Geoffrey Mark Fidelman, author of "The Lucy Book", this was the point where the "Lucy" character was "finally allowed to age."


title: Here's Lucy

text: Ball's reduced capacity for physical comedy gave the other members of the cast, such as Lucie Arnaz and featured players Mary Jane Croft and Vanda Barra, a chance to shine. It also gave Gale Gordon's character of Harry a chance to be more sympathetic and affectionate toward Lucy, which had been completely missing since Gordon first joined the cast of "The Lucy Show" nine years earlier. From this point forward, Lucy and Harry would interact more as friendly in-laws rather than as antagonistic co-workers.


title: Here's Lucy

text: Despite the fact that Ball was in a wheelchair for much of the 1972–73 season, physical comedy was never completely eliminated, and during the recovery, there were small gags that Ball could safely perform with little to no general injury or harm to her leg. Physical comedy returned to some extent after Ball<nowiki>'</nowiki>s leg became more fully returned to its prior state, and the physical comedy aspect, while never totally the same on this show, did make a gradual comeback.


title: Here's Lucy

text: In the spring of 1973, "Here's Lucy" had fallen to #15 in the ratings ─ the first time that a series starring Lucille Ball had fallen out of the top ten. Ball then decided that her fifth season would be her last. A final episode was filmed with Gale Gordon without a studio audience. In that installment, Harry's business was sold and he and Lucy reminisced together (using flashbacks) about their various adventures together. At the end of the episode, they both leave the office. Lucy then leaves a sign that says "closed temporarily", then she looks at the camera and winks. At the last minute, CBS president Fred Silverman convinced Ball to change her mind and return for a sixth season.


title: Here's Lucy

text: "Here's Lucy" ceased production at the end of its sixth season in 1974, thus ending nearly twenty-three years of Ball appearing regularly on television. It was widely reported at the time that it was Ball's decision not to continue. Both of Ball's real-life children who co-starred on the series had limited their involvement with the show. Lucie Arnaz chose to leave the series after being cast in the national tour of "Seesaw". Without her children, and with enough episodes in the can for reruns, Ball met with Gordon and CBS, and mutually chose to end the series, despite the fact the series placed at a respectable 29th in the Nielsen ratings. The network was also in the process of reinventing its image, having already replaced much of their "old guard" television product with more contemporary fare such as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "All in the Family", "The Bob Newhart Show", and "M*A*S*H". Except for "Gunsmoke", which would remain for one more season, Ball was the last performer from TV's classic age who still had a weekly series at the beginning of 1974. Between 1974 and 1978, still under contract, Ball would star in seven television specials for CBS.


title: Here's Lucy

text: "Here's Lucy" was not initially offered in syndication when the series ended in 1974 because both "I Love Lucy", which was being distributed by Viacom at the time, and "The Lucy Show", which was being distributed by Paramount, were still popular in reruns and it was felt that introducing another "Lucy" series might undermine the success the other two shows were enjoying. This would also have put Ball in the position of competing against her former series and former production company for ratings, since she no longer had control of either "I Love Lucy" or "The Lucy Show" after selling Desilu Productions to Paramount’s parent company Gulf + Western.


title: Here's Lucy

text: CBS retained the rights to run the show in daytime. CBS Daytime reran the series weekday mornings from May 2 to November 4, 1977, in the same time-slot that they had previously rerun "The Lucy Show" from 1968 to 1972, and before that (1959–67) had at various times rerun "I Love Lucy". Finally, in the fall of 1981, "Here's Lucy" was put into broadcast syndication first by Telepictures, and in turn the rights were later transferred to Warner Bros. Television Distribution (which acquired Telepictures' successor, Lorimar-Telepictures). "Here's Lucy" was not successful in syndication and was withdrawn in 1985.


title: Here's Lucy

text: Largely forgotten in the late 1980s and early 1990s and rarely carried by the cable networks, reruns of the series were returned to air by Pax TV in 1998. Cozi TV began airing the show on August 11, 2014. The show's current distributor is Paul Brownstein Productions.


title: Here's Lucy

text: The program was shown in Britain by the BBC fairly soon after it was made, in the Saturday tea-time (mid-afternoon) slot, but it has not been shown often since.


title: Here's Lucy

text: It was seen in Australia on the GO! channel from 31 May 2010 until November 2010. For many years prior to that on Australian television, the show was distributed by Pacific Telecasters Pty. Ltd before being later transferred to Warner Bros. Television. It was a perennial favourite seen on the Nine Network from 1968 to 1988 and in 1992 on ABC Television. Prior to GO!, the show screened on Ovation.


title: Here's Lucy

text: As of 2018, the show is available on Amazon Prime Video in Canada. As of 2019, it is also available on Hulu in the United States, and Tubitv.com.


title: Here's Lucy

text: On August 17, 2004, Shout! Factory and Sony Music Entertainment released "Here's Lucy: Best Loved Episodes from the Hit Television Series". The four-disc set features 24 original episodes from the series presented uncut and digitally remastered from original color negatives for superior quality, as well as several bonus features.


title: Here's Lucy

text: On March 25, 2014, MPI Home Video—under license from the copyright holders, "Desilu, Too", and Lucille Ball Productions, Inc.—released "Here's Lucy: The Complete Series" on DVD in Region 1.


title: Here's Lucy

text: In September 2018, Time-Life released a DVD, "Lucy: The Ultimate Collection", that contains 14 episodes of "Here's Lucy", and which also collected 32 episodes of "I Love Lucy", as well as 24 episodes of "The Lucy Show", and 4 episodes of the short-lived ABC-TV series "Life with Lucy" (which had at the time never before been released to home media), plus a wide variety of bonus features.


title: Aadhavan

text: Aadhavan () is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language action comedy film directed by K. S. Ravikumar and written by Ramesh Khanna. The film stars Suriya and Nayantara, with Vadivelu, Murali, B. Saroja Devi, Rahul Dev, Sayaji Shinde, Anand Babu in supporting cast. The music was composed by Harris Jayaraj.


title: Aadhavan

text: The film released on 17 October 2009 to mixed reviews but became a hit at the box office. It was dubbed in Hindi as "Dildaar – The Arya" in 2011 and in Telugu as "Ghatikudu". The core plot of the movie was loosely based on the 1990 Malayalam movie "His Highness Abdullah". The film was remade in Bengali as "Shikari".


title: Aadhavan

text: In the United States, an unknown client is shown speaking to a mafia group to eradicate a fake godman. The mafia group arranges the hit through a middleman who is in Kolkata, as the fake godman will be arriving there. The Middleman then gives the contract to Ibrahim Rowther. The fake godman is then killed by an unknown who is revealed to be Ibrahim Rowther's adopted son, Aadhavan. Aadhavan is a skilled hitman working with Ibrahim Rowther and adopted older brother Tharani. Aadhavan then gets several contracts in various parts of the world as a result of eradicating the fake godman. As a result, the trio gets richer. In Mumbai, Aadhavan meets Dr. Abdul Kulkarni, who hires to him kill a prominent Judge named Subramaniam, since he is handling the inquiry and verdict on Abdul's child kidnapping and organ trafficking cases in Kolkata. Aadhavan attempts to snipe Subramaniam, but fails at the first attempt seemingly. After that, Dr. Abdul Kulkarni insults him for his failure to kill Subramaniam. Aadhavan then becomes furious and vows to kill Subramaniam within ten days. He threatens Subramaniam's servant Kuppan aka Bannerjee to help him get into the house as Murugan, Bannerjee's brother in law, by abducting the actual Murugan and have him held in his ship.


title: Aadhavan

text: Slowly, Aadhavan begins to win over the members of Subramaniam's household – his mother, her beautiful granddaughter, Thara and his other relatives. Thara is attracted to Murugan's (Aadhavan) intelligence and simple-innocent nature. Aadhavan tries to assassinate Subramaniam at home in the middle of the night and also plants a bomb in Subramaniam's van, but both attempts fail. Meanwhile, Subramaniam's entire family is on a trip to Darjeeling, and Thara asks Aadhavan to hide a guitar belonging to Ilaiyaman, her madcap musician cousin. Aadhavan uses this opportunity, plants a mobile bomb in the guitar and places it in one of the cars, which explodes at the wrong time, thereby failing to kill Subramaniam yet again. Meanwhile, a security officer, who is the chief of the security team protecting Subramaniam at Subramaniam's house keeps informing Dr. Abdul Kulkarni of Aadhavan's entry into the house and all his signs of progress and failed attempts. Thara is now suspicious about Aadhavan, but when she questions him in secret, he informs her that he is really Subramaniam's long lost runaway son Madhavan. Thara soon informs all the members of the household about Madhavan's return, and they are overjoyed, with Thara and Aadhavan falling in love.


title: Aadhavan

text: However, they hide it from Subramaniam and Ilaiyaman, because of the former's hatred towards Madhavan. Aadhavan, however, tells Bannerjee that he lied to Thara about being Madhavan to distract her suspicions and that he really is not him at all. However, on Thara's birthday, a flashback reveals that Aadhavan is indeed Madhavan. Years ago, a ten-year-old Madhavan unknowingly carries a gift with a hidden bomb for his cousin Thara's birthday. His friend's mother plants the bomb in the toy to avenge Subramaniam for her gangster husband's jail sentence. Though Thara survives, her mother, Anu opens the box and is killed along with her husband in the explosion. Subramaniam blames Madhavan for his sister, Anu's death and for his friendship with a gangster's son and thrashes him. In anger and fear of going to a juvenile prison, Madhavan steals a gun from the cops and accidentally shoots his father, Subramaniam and runs away from home. He kills his friend's mother as she is responsible for his aunt, Anu's death. He saves Ibrahim Rowther, then a local goon from death, is in turn adopted as his son, and rechristened him as 'Aadhavan'.


title: Aadhavan

text: Tharani tried to kill Subramanium, is stopped by Madhavan and reveals his true identity that he is the son of Subramanium. Ibrahim Rowther challenges that he will kill them within two days. Dr. Abdul Kulkarni is fed up with the repeated failed attempts of Madhavan. So, he makes another plan, threatens Ibrahim and his gang to surrender to the police, and make a confession about Madhavan and his plans. When the Assistant Commissioner of police confronts Madhavan and is about to have him hauled off, Madhavan gets Subramaniam's laptop containing the verdict and inquiry reports, takes him and Thara as hostages and drives away. Not before stealing the Assistant Commissioner of police's gun, using to injure him, the guards, when they intervene on him, but even killing the security chief. In the meanwhile, the police commissioner arrives, arrests the Assistant Commissioner of police, as it is revealed to be another informer for Dr. Abdul Kulkarni and makes a confession that the police actually had caught Madhavan after his very first attempt to kill Subramaniam had failed. When questioned by the commissioner, Madhavan said that he backed off and misfired on purpose at the last moment, after he found that he was going to kill his own father, Subramaniam. The police then ask him to go back to the house to protect Subramaniam over a 24/7 hiatus time every day, for which he agrees.


title: Aadhavan

text: The Commissioner uses Madhavan to nab individuals linked to various criminal & terrorist organizations. This information is relayed to Subramaniam by the commissioner, who is tearfully grateful to his son, Madhavan. Meanwhile, Dr. Abdul Kulkarni attacks the vehicle in which the trio are travelling, and a fight ensues where Madhavan saves Subramaniam and Thara, and Dr. Abdul Kulkarni is killed. The Minister & the middleman that was involved in the contract killings get arrested. Madhavan serves a short term in prison for his previous wrongdoings, but is subsequently released from the prison for his contribution to saving Subramaniam. Madhavan and Thara are now married, live in the household with the huge family. Once yet again, Bannerjee brings two assistants are also his brother-in-laws to help him and asks approval from Subramainam, who then consulted in Madhavan, to check them out, with the whole family being suspicious of them being secretly hitmen. Upon inquiring on them, he approves of them with the whole family accepting them.


title: Aadhavan

text: Additionally, the director (K. S. Ravikumar) and the producer (Udhayanidhi Stalin) make guest appearances as servants at the end of the film.


title: Aadhavan

text: The song "Eno Eno Panithuli" was shot at Iceland, making "Aadhavan" the first South Indian film to be shot there. Shooting also took place at the Chettinad Palace, MRC Nagar, Chennai.


title: Aadhavan

text: The soundtrack features 6 tracks composed by Harris Jayaraj. The soundtrack was released on 19 August by S. Shankar. The album received positive reviews from critics, with praise being dedicated to the songs "Hasili Fisile" and "Vaarayo Vaarayo". Malathy Sundaram from Behindwoods said, "There is a lot of technical finesse to this album. What surprises us here is the banality of the lyrics! One would have expected better lyrics from all these songwriters! Harris Jayaraj has consciously used various instruments to add appeal to this album." Pavithra Srinivasan from Rediff said "Harris Jeyaraj is one of those composers who is not capable of turning out bad stuff even on a bad day, this album stands out from a mile away." Due to the album's critical and commercial success, Harris Jayaraj received the Vijay Award for Best Music Director and was also nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director.


title: Aadhavan

text: Behindwoods gave a 2.85 out of 5 and gave a verdict "Carefree commercial – Conditions apply". Sify.com gave a positive review stating, "Ranging through a wide field of comedy laced with action, Aadhavan is good fun while it lasts. It's a roller-coaster ride of pure unadulterated masala".Rediff rated the movie with 2.85 out of 5 stars and ended the review with "Aadhavan is uncomplicated, clean, fun, and doesn't expect you to take it seriously." Nowrunning.com also rated it as 2.85 on 5 and Aravindan D I specially said "Aadhavan could have been good entertainment, but is marred by inconsistent script." while Indiaglitz gave the verdict "above average" and stated, "Aadhavan is a movie that would bring joy to mass action lovers and front-benchers.". Malathi Rangarajan from The Hindu wrote "Post-interval, you have to wait quite a while for some concrete action from Aadhavan, the Infallible!"


title: Aadhavan

text: The film grossed ₹4.76 cr from Chennai box office in its 8 weeks. The film grossed good numbers in Malaysia as well as UK. Overseas, the film grossed about $1,541,485, approximately.


title: Aadhavan

text: The film was a hit at the box office. The film was dubbed into Telugu as "Ghatikudu". It was also dubbed into Hindi as "Dildaar: The Arya".


title: Aadhavan

text: The movie was remade in Bengali as "Shikari" starring Bangladeshi superstar Shakib Khan. "Shikari" is a 2016 Bangladesh-India joint venture action thriller drama film directed by Joydeep Mukherjee and Zakir Hossain Simanto.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: Magic: The Gathering Arena or MTG Arena is a free-to-play digital collectible card game developed and published by Wizards of the Coast (WotC). The game is a digital adaption based on the "" (MTG) card game, allowing players to gain cards through booster packs, in-game achievements or microtransaction purchases, and build their own decks to challenge other players. The game was released in a beta state in November 2017, and was fully released for Microsoft Windows users in September 2019, and a macOS version on June 25, 2020. Mobile device versions were released in March 2021.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: "MTG Arena" follows the same rules as the physical card game, in which players use decks of cards that include land cards that generate five separate colors of mana, and play cards that consume that mana to summon creatures, cast offensive and defensive spells, and/or activate effects and abilities. Players battle other players using a selected deck, with the goal of reducing the opponent's life-total to zero before their opponent can do the same to them.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: "MTG Arena" supports both Deck play and play. In Constructed play, players create decks of cards from their library. The game gives new players a library of base cards and pre-made decks from those cards, but as players win matches or complete daily quests, they can earn new booster packs that add cards to their library, and allow players to then customize their decks and improve them. Unlike most physical packs of Magic cards and those used in Limited events which usually contain 15-16 playable cards, purchased packs in MTG Arena contain 8 cards (1 rare, 2 uncommon, and 5 common). In Booster Draft, the most common form of Limited play, players compete with several other players by sequentially selecting and obtaining cards from packs provided by the game. Those cards are then used to create a Limited deck used for the event. An additional Limited format called Sealed allows players to open a set number of special booster packs and build a deck only with cards from those packs. In both varieties of Limited, players attempt to win as many matches as they can with that deck. In best-of-one, the event ends once the player has either won 7 or lost 3 matches. In best-of-three, the event ends after the player completes three matches, regardless of their outcome. In most Limited events, the player keeps all the cards drafted and adds them to their library, and there are generally prizes based on wins that may give booster packs or in-game currency as a reward.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: "MTG Arena" supports best-of-three and best-of-one matches for both Limited and Constructed. In best-of-one games, players' opening hands are not random; rather, the client generates multiple hands and selects one based on certain properties of the player's deck. Hand-smoothing exists to reduce the variance inherent to the game, which is exacerbated by the best-of-one format. The exact algorithm is not known to the public.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: "Arena" follows the popular freemium paradigm, allowing users to play for free with optional micro-transactions. Players can use real-world currency to buy gems or in-game currency, which in turn can be spent on booster packs or to enter draft or constructed events. Gems are also given as rewards for winning draft mode. In addition to regular cards from the set, a player may also receive "Wildcards" of any rarity in a booster pack or as a reward. The player may swap these Wildcards for any card of the same rarity. "Magic: The Gathering" allows decks with up to four copies of the same card, so once a player earns a fifth copy of a common or uncommon card through booster packs, this instead is used to add to a Vault meter, based on its rarity. When the Vault meter is filled, the player can open it to gain Wildcards. Fifth copies of rares or mythic rares are instead turned directly into gems. The game does not include a feature to trade cards with other players as the developers state this would affect their ability to offer in-game rewards at the level they want while effectively calibrating the economy to make it easy and efficient to get cards through game-play.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: As with the physical edition, new expansions are introduced into "MTG Arena" as other sets are retired. When the game was first released, the bulk of the game's modes required players to build "standard" decks that use cards from the current active expansions. However, support for "historic" decks that use any card available in the game has increased since its initial release, and is now (2020) an active part of the game with multiple releases of Historic and Modern sets and anthologies throughout a year. As of May 2020, Historic modes contribute to progression of daily wins and quests and WotC has committed to permanently support the "historic" format going forward. Ranked play with these Historic decks will be tracked separately from those in the Standard play, and players are now able to purchase packs of or craft both standard and historic cards.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: With the addition of the Core 2021 set in July 2020, "Arena" was also updated to include support for the new "Jumpstart" booster mode, themed 20-card packs designed to allow a player to quickly get into the game.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: Because of its digital format, "Arena" has also run limited events and game modes where it has brought back previously-banned cards from physical play, but with rebalanced abilities or costs to address the prior reasoning for their ban. A new Jumpstart collection, Historic Horizons, to be released in August 2021, will include 31 cards that have no physical equivalent with rules and abilities that only function in the digital space, including cards with complex rules that cannot fit within the printed card frame. Vice president of design Aaron Forsythe and game director Jay Parker said they were using this release to test the waters with a card set targeting the players of "Magic" that played exclusively in the digital space, keeping to relatively tame mechanics to see how players reacted to this.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: "Arena" is designed to be a more modern method of playing "Magic: The Gathering" with other players while using a computer when compared to "". A key goal of its development was to allow "Arena" to remain current with physical releases of new expansions to the physical game, with the goal of having the digital version of the expansion available the same day that they are available in retail. For example, the "Dominaria" expansion was released simultaneously as a retail product and within "Arena" on April 27, 2018, and "Core 19" was available in "Arena" on the same day as the set's paper release date of July 13, 2018. Since 2020, new sets have released in "MTG:Arena" and "MTG:Online" one day before the date of the set's prerelease, which is typically the Thursday before a set releases for paper tabletop magic. "Arena" follows "Magic the Gathering's" , where cards from the last few major expansions are used to construct decks for Standard constructed play and are then rotated out of Standard on a set schedule. After cards are rotated out of Standard, players are able to construct decks with rotated cards for play in various "Historic" modes.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: The core part of the development of "Arena" was its game rules engine (GRE). The goal of this engine was to make a system that could handle current and future rulesets for "Magic" to support their plan to remain concurrent with the physical releases. The GRE provided means to implement per-card level rules and effects, allowing it to be expandable. The GRE also helped towards speeding up play in the game. Compared to other digital card games like "Hearthstone" where an opponent cannot interact during a player's turn, "Magic: The Gathering" allows opponents to react throughout a player's turn. In previous iterations of "Magic" games that allowed this, including both "Online" and "", these systems were found to slow down the game while waiting for an opponent to react or opt to not react. Instead, in "Arena", the developers were able to use the per-card support to determine when reactions to a played card needed to be allowed, using observations from "Magic" tournament play. This helped to speed up the game for both players while still allowing for complete card reactions to be played out.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: "Arena" was not anticipated to replace "Magic: The Gathering Online"; which will continue to support the whole of "Magic" card history, while "Arena" only includes cards in the current Standard sets from its initial release and any expansions going forward. "Arena" was first tested in a closed beta. An initial stress-test beta to selected users started on November 3, 2017, with those selected limited to non-disclosure agreements for testing purposes, while others could apply to gain access to later stages of the closed beta. The first large scale closed beta started in December 2017. Its open beta started on September 27, 2018, with its full launch occurring in 2019. "Arena" includes a battle pass feature, known in-game as the "Mastery Pass". While "Arena" will continue to be available directly from Wizards of the Coast, it was also released on the Epic Games Store in early 2020, and a macOS client was introduced in June 2020.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: In July 2019, Joe Deaux, for "Bloomberg," reported that "nearly 3 million active users will be playing Arena by the end of this year, KeyBanc estimates, and that could swell to nearly 11 million by 2021 according to its bull case scenario—especially if it expands from PCs to mobile. Those estimates are of active users, and registered users could be higher by the millions. According to Hasbro, as of July, 2019 a billion games had already been played online". Of Hasbro's franchise brands, only "Magic" and "Monopoly" logged revenue gains in 2019. Brett Andress, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets, predicted "Magic: The Gathering Arena" could add as much as 98 cents a share in incremental earnings to results by 2021 (which was at least a 20% boost).


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: "Arena" had its full release for Windows users on September 26, 2019, aligned with the release of the tabletop card game expansion, "Throne of Eldraine". The macOS client released on June 25, 2020. An early access version for certain Android devices was released on January 28, 2021, while full versions for all Android devices and iOS devices were released on March 24, 2021. These versions support cross-save progression with the desktop clients.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: In December 2018, Wizards of the Coast announced at The Game Awards 2018 that an esports pool would be created for the game for 2019. The $10 million prize pool will be equally divided between the traditional tabletop game and the new digital version Arena.


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: In 2019, Wizards of the Coast unveiled a new esports program which started with a special "Mythic Invitational" event and a $1 million prize pool at PAX East, in Boston, on the weekend of March 28–31. The event was held in as series of three double-elimination brackets using a new "MTG" format described as ""Duo Standard"" requiring two complete decks with no sideboarding. The event was won by Andrea "Mengu09" Mengucci claiming the top prize of $250,000. On February 16, 2020 Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa won the 2019 Magic World Championship. The format for the top 8 of this tournament was standard and the matches were played on Magic Arena.""


title: Magic: The Gathering Arena

text: On June 18, 2021, WotC had announced that the prize pool for the Magic World Championship XXVII (October 8–10) will have a new total of $250,000 which is 750k lower than the previous year of $1 million.


title: Illumina, Inc.

text: Illumina, Inc. is an American biotechnology company, headquartered in San Diego, California. Incorporated on April 1, 1998, Illumina develops, manufactures, and markets integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and biological function. The company provides a line of products and services that serves the sequencing, genotyping and gene expression, and proteomics markets.


title: Illumina, Inc.

text: Illumina's technology had purportedly reduced the cost of sequencing a human genome to by 2014. Its customers include genomic research centers, pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, clinical research organizations, and biotechnology companies.


title: Illumina, Inc.

text: Illumina was founded in April 1998 by David Walt, Larry Bock, John Stuelpnagel, Anthony Czarnik, and Mark Chee. While working with CW Group, a venture-capital firm, Bock and Stuelpnagel uncovered what would become Illumina's BeadArray technology at Tufts University and negotiated an exclusive license to that technology. In 1999, Illumina acquired Spyder Instruments (founded by Michal Lebl, Richard Houghten, and Jutta Eichler) for their technology of high-throughput synthesis. Illumina completed its initial public offering in July 2000.