title: Donington Park

text: Wheatcroft has also invested heavily to restore the circuit infrastructure to its former glories. The infield which was excavated during the late 2000s has been completely restored and raised even higher in some areas, while pit and paddock facilities have also been improved. Outside the circuit boundaries, an all terrain course has been constructed, as well as improvements to hospitality buildings and conferencing suites.


title: Donington Park

text: In January 2017, the circuit business was taken over by MotorSport Vision, with the Donington Park Estate on a 21-year lease, until 2038. The purchase was cleared by the Competition and Markets Authority in August 2017, with work commencing almost immediately on venue improvements.


title: Donington Park

text: Additions over the winter period of 2017-18 included a full resurface of paddock areas and access roads, the addition of the Garage 39 Restaurant, cafe and bar, and a large new grandstand at Hollywood corner. Several old toilet blocks were also demolished to make way for more modern units. while detail changes were carried out around the venue. The circuit office was also relocated to a newer building within the paddock.


title: Donington Park

text: For 2019, work was completed on a new main entrance area near the existing paddock entrance, that better separates pedestrians from vehicle traffic.


title: Donington Park

text: In April 2021 MSV announced it had purchased the freehold of the Donington Hall Estate comprising Donington Hall itself, former office building Hastings House and the Lansdowne workshops building. The estate is set in 28 acres of grounds next to the Donington Park race circuit. MSV plans to develop the Grade II* listed Hall into a 40-bedroom hotel, scheduled to open in 2023. Hastings House will become the Donington Hall Motorhouse, a stabling facility for supercars, classic road and racing cars and motorcycles, whilst the Lansdowne workshops, will be available to let for high-end motor engineering businesses which support the preparation and maintenance of vehicles kept at the Donington Hall Motorhouse and used on the race circuit.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington Park has long been home to many prestigious motorsport events including BTCC, British F3, British Superbike Championship, WorldSBK, Superleague Formula, Truck Racing.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington Park was the host of the 1993 European Grand Prix on 11 April 1993, which was affected by rain. The race was notable for the dominance of Ayrton Senna where he won the race by over 1 minute from Damon Hill, having advanced from fifth to first in the opening lap.


title: Donington Park

text: This race was described by AtlasF1 as the 'Drive of the Decade'. There is a memorial to Senna in the grounds of the racetrack, outside the Donington Collections.


title: Donington Park

text: On 4 July 2008, Bernie Ecclestone announced that Donington Park would hold the British Grand Prix from onwards in a 17-year deal, having been hosted exclusively by Silverstone since 1987. On 10 July 2008, the proposal was that the track would have a major upgrade designed by Hermann Tilke, to include an entirely new pit complex along Starkey's Straight and increasing the circuit length to , by the addition of a new infield loop, to get it up to the standards required for modern day Formula One racing.


title: Donington Park

text: The proposal was that race would be the first to be accessed only by public transportation, as cars will not be allowed to enter the facility. This was in part was an answer to the lack of road access, which even when 30,000 bikers exit major motorcycle events resulted in long tailbacks. The proposal was that a shuttle-bus service would run from the close by East Midlands Parkway station, on the Midland Main Line from London to Sheffield.


title: Donington Park

text: In light of the financial crisis and Donington's potential inability to raise finance, on 20 June 2009, Bernie Ecclestone stated that there would be a British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 2010 if Donington was not ready to host it. This was a change from his previous "Donington or nothing" standpoint and he cited changes in the structure of the BRDC meaning there was a better way of negotiating with them over future commercial rights. Furthermore, during an interview with the BBC about the Formula One Teams Association threatening to break away and form their own series, FIA president Max Mosley said it was "highly likely" the 2010 British Grand Prix would return to Silverstone.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington was given an extended two-week deadline to prove it had the funds to host the 2010 British Grand Prix, however, on 22 October 2009, fundraising attempts fell through. Ecclestone later confirmed that Donington would not be hosting the British Grand Prix.


title: Donington Park

text: On 18 November 2009, less than one month after it was confirmed that the Donington had lost the right to host the British Grand Prix, circuit owner Donington Ventures Leisure Limited was placed into administration. Although Ecclestone gave the option of reviving the deal for new owners, in December 2009 Silverstone won the contract for the next 17 years.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington Park has also been the home of Grand Prix motorcycle racing. After the Isle of Man TT Races lost World Championship status, from the 1977 UK inaugural race, GP racing was held at Silverstone until 1986. For the next 23 years, Donington held the race up until 2009, but in light of the proposed Donington Formula 1 deal, Grand Prix organisers Dorna Sports agreed a five-year deal with Silverstone from 2010. Following the failed 2010 Formula 1 bid, in less than a year Donington had lost both competitions for the foreseeable future.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington Park was proposed to host the British Grand Prix as an alternative venue chosen for 2015, since the Circuit of Wales, having won the Dorna contract from 2015, was a failed proposal. However, in February 2015, it was announced that Donington had called off the deal, and that 2015 Grands Prix would likely remain at Silverstone.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington Park has been a mainstay of the BTCC calendar, since the series was created in 1987 (as a development from the previous British Saloon Car Championship). In 1999 Donington was the location of one of the standout events from the BTCC's Super Touring era. Matt Neal caused a sensation by winning a race in his Nissan Primera, the first 'Independent' to do so in the modern era. This won him a £250,000 prize from BTCC series promoter Alan Gow.


title: Donington Park

text: After five years at Brands Hatch, the WTCC moved to Donington Park in 2011. The event attracted thousands of people on race day, where the two races were both won by Yvan Muller for Chevrolet. The weekend also had two races for the Auto GP series as well as the Maserati Trofeo. The 2012 WTCC season did not include a UK-based round of the competition.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington hosted rounds of the German DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters) series in 2002 and 2003. Former F1 driver Jean Alesi secured a clean sweep of wins across both years for AMG Mercedes.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington is the venue for two rallies, with one of the events being a round of the MSN Circuit Rally Championship. These events do not take place exclusively on the circuit, including sections on the looser sections surrounding the track itself.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington was one of the venues for the 2001 European Le Mans Series season. It was a series for Le Mans Prototypes (LMP) and Grand Touring (GT) race cars run by IMSA. The ill-fated series began in March 2001 and ended in October that year after only 7 races. The Donington winner was Audi Sport Team Joest with drivers Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington was also a venue for races in the FIA GT Championship from 1997 to 1999 and then 2002 to 2004.


title: Donington Park

text: The unofficial all-time track record set during a race weekend is 1:10.458, set by Alain Prost in a Williams FW15C, during second (final) qualifying for the 1993 European Grand Prix. The official fastest race lap records at the Donington Park Circuit are listed as:


title: Donington Park

text: Beside motorsports, many other events are held at Donington. The 1975 BMF Rally was held in the grounds with period reports of 10,000 motorcycle riders attending.


title: Donington Park

text: Other events included music festivals such as the Download Festival, and the Donington Grand Prix Museum exhibition until it closed down in November 2018. The Donington Park Sunday Market used to be held in the grounds of the park for nearly 40 years before being closed down in September 2016, the owners citing changing shopping habits contributing to fewer traders and customers.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington Park has a long history of holding rock festivals having played host to the Monsters of Rock festival from 1980 to the mid 90s, when groups such as AC/DC, Metallica, and Iron Maiden performed there. With a few years off the park then played host to Stereophonics' "A Day At The Races" event and the Rock and Blues Festival in 2001, and the Ozzfest in 2002.


title: Donington Park

text: In 2003, the Download Festival (owned and operated by Live Nation) began annually at the venue and continues to an increased three-day event with five stages, though as of 2008 the event is now held outside of the track boundary.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington Park was the venue for the biggest rave to ever take place in the United Kingdom, when music promotor Fantazia held their 'One Step Beyond' event there in 1992. 25,000 tickets were sold, but police estimated that 3000 people had entered without tickets.


title: Donington Park

text: The Donington Grand Prix Exhibition first opened to the public in March 1973. Five halls, with over 130 exhibits, illustrated the history of motor sport from the turn of the 20th century. Cars included examples driven by such famous names as Nuvolari, Mansell, Prost, Moss, Senna, Fangio, Clark and Stewart. The Donington Grand Prix Exhibition housed a collection of McLaren and Vanwalls racing cars. Notable exhibits included the 1936 twin engined Alfa Romeo Bimotore which had a top speed of , Jim Clark's World Championship winning Lotus 25, the 'howling' flat 12 Ferrari 312B, and Stirling Moss's Lotus, in which he defeated the Ferrari works team in the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix. The Collection also featured the World's largest collection of Driver's Helmets. There were several different type of simulators that allowed users to experience the thrills of racing at speed.


title: Donington Park

text: After closing briefly in 2009 following the death of Tom Wheatcroft and Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd. entering administration, the exhibition reopened on 6 January 2010 along with the cafe and race control offices. With dwindling visitor numbers, and not being part of the core MSV business plan, the museum closed permanently on 5 November 2018.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington Park lies south west of Nottingham, south east of Derby and is situated in Leicestershire. It is a matter of a few yards/metres east of the border with Derbyshire and indeed has a Derby postcode and telephone code. The western end of the runway at East Midlands Airport is just 400 yards from the eastern end of the racing track. It is also fairly close to the M1.


title: Donington Park

text: East Midlands Parkway railway station and Derby Midland Station are close by and the owners have expressed their desire for spectators to use these stations and coaches to the circuit. The owners are also in support of any future light rail transport to East Midlands Airport itself.


title: Donington Park

text: Donington Hall was, for a time, the HQ of the airline British Midland International (later known as BMI).


title: Donington Park

text: Donington Park has been simulated and can be driven in several racing simulations, such as "Spirit of Speed 1937" (the 1937 version of the track is featured, as the name suggests). Another 1937 layout features in the popular "rFactor" simulation. This version is far more accurate than that of the "Spirit of Speed" version. The track also features in "Sports Car GT", "Le Mans 24 Hours", "ToCA Touring Car Championship", "ToCA 2 Touring Cars", "ToCA Race Driver", "ToCA Race Driver 2", "TOCA Race Driver 3", "Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano", "GTR", "GTR2", "GT Legends", "F1 Challenge '99-'02" (with a mod), "Grand Prix 4" (1993 configuration, unofficial add-on track), "MotoGP 3", "Redline", "rFactor", "SBK-07", "", "", "iRacing", "Assetto Corsa" (as a mod), "Assetto Corsa Competizione" (in British GT pack DLC), "Automobilista 2", and "Project CARS". Donington Park also appears as a venue in the game "".


title: Thermal resistance

text: Thermal resistance is a heat property and a measurement of a temperature difference by which an object or material resists a heat flow. Thermal resistance is the reciprocal of thermal conductance.


title: Thermal resistance

text: Absolute thermal resistance is the temperature difference across a structure when a unit of heat energy flows through it in unit time. It is the reciprocal of thermal conductance. The SI unit of absolute thermal resistance is kelvins per watt (K/W) or the equivalent degrees Celsius per watt (°C/W) – the two are the same since the intervals are equal: Δ"T" = 1 K = 1 °C.


title: Thermal resistance

text: The thermal resistance of materials is of great interest to electronic engineers because most electrical components generate heat and need to be cooled. Electronic components malfunction or fail if they overheat, and some parts routinely need measures taken in the design stage to prevent this.


title: Thermal resistance

text: Electrical engineers are familiar with Ohm's law and so often use it as an analogy when doing calculations involving thermal resistance. Mechanical and structural engineers are more familiar with Hooke's law and so often use it as an analogy when doing calculations involving thermal resistance.


title: Thermal resistance

text: The heat flow can be modelled by analogy to an electrical circuit where heat flow is represented by current, temperatures are represented by voltages, heat sources are represented by constant current sources, absolute thermal resistances are represented by resistors and thermal capacitances by capacitors.


title: Thermal resistance

text: From Fourier's Law for heat conduction, the following equation can be derived, and is valid as long as all of the parameters (x and k) are constant throughout the sample.


title: Thermal resistance

text: In terms of the temperature gradient across the sample and heat flux through the sample, the relationship is:


title: Thermal resistance

text: A 2008 review paper written by Philips researcher Clemens J. M. Lasance notes that: "Although there is an analogy between heat flow by conduction (Fourier's law) and the flow of an electric current (Ohm’s law), the corresponding physical properties of thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity conspire to make the behavior of heat flow quite unlike the flow of electricity in normal situations. [...] Unfortunately, although the electrical and thermal differential equations are analogous, it is erroneous to conclude that there is any practical analogy between electrical and thermal resistance. This is because a material that is considered an insulator in electrical terms is about 20 orders of magnitude less conductive than a material that is considered a conductor, while, in thermal terms, the difference between an "insulator" and a "conductor" is only about three orders of magnitude. The entire range of thermal conductivity is then equivalent to the difference in electrical conductivity of high-doped and low-doped silicon."


title: Thermal resistance

text: The junction-to-air thermal resistance can vary greatly depending on the ambient conditions. (A more sophisticated way of expressing the same fact is saying that junction-to-ambient thermal resistance is not Boundary-Condition Independent (BCI).) JEDEC has a standard (number JESD51-2) for measuring the junction-to-air thermal resistance of electronics packages under natural convection and another standard (number JESD51-6) for measurement under forced convection.


title: Thermal resistance

text: A JEDEC standard for measuring the junction-to-board thermal resistance (relevant for surface-mount technology) has been published as JESD51-8.


title: Thermal resistance

text: A JEDEC standard for measuring the junction-to-case thermal resistance (JESD51-14) is relatively newcomer, having been published in late 2010; it concerns only packages having a single heat flow and an exposed cooling surface.


title: Thermal resistance

text: Similarly to electrical circuits, the total thermal resistance for steady state conditions can be calculated as follows.


title: Thermal resistance

text: It is often suitable to assume one-dimensional conditions, although the heat flow is multidimensional. Now, two different circuits may be used for this case. For case (a) (shown in picture), we presume isothermal surfaces for those normal to the x- direction, whereas for case (b) we presume adiabatic surfaces parallel to the x- direction. We may obtain different results for the total resistance formula_18 and the actual corresponding values of the heat transfer are bracketed by formula_19. When the multidimensional effects becomes more significant, these differences are increased with increasing formula_20.


title: Thermal resistance

text: Spherical and cylindrical systems may be treated as one-dimensional, due to the temperature gradients in the radial direction. The standard method can be used for analyzing radial systems under steady state conditions, starting with the appropriate form of the heat equation, or the alternative method, starting with the appropriate form of Fourier's law. For a hollow cylinder in steady state conditions with no heat generation, the appropriate form of heat equation is


title: Thermal resistance

text: Where formula_22 is treated as a variable. Considering the appropriate form of Fourier's law, the physical significance of treating formula_22 as a variable becomes evident when the rate at which energy is conducted across a cylindrical surface, this is represented as


title: Thermal resistance

text: Where formula_25 is the area that is normal to the direction of where the heat transfer occurs. Equation 1 implies that the quantity formula_26 is not dependent of the radius formula_27, it follows from equation 5 that the heat transfer rate, formula_28 is a constant in the radial direction.


title: Thermal resistance

text: In order to determine the temperature distribution in the cylinder, equation 4 can be solved applying the appropriate boundary conditions. With the assumption that formula_29 is constant


title: Thermal resistance

text: Assuming that the temperature distribution, equation 7, is used with Fourier's law in equation 5, the heat transfer rate can be expressed in the following form


title: Thermal resistance

text: 10. K Einalipour, S. Sadeghzadeh", F. Molaei. “Interfacial thermal resistance engineering for polyaniline (C3N)-graphene heterostructure”," "The Journal of Physical Chemistry," 2020. DOI:


title: Thermal resistance

text: There is a large amount of literature on this topic. In general, works using the term "thermal resistance" are more engineering-oriented, whereas works using the term thermal conductivity are more [pure-]physics-oriented. The following books are representative, but may be easily substituted.


title: Service star

text: A service star is a miniature bronze or silver five-pointed star inch (4.8 mm) in diameter that is authorized to be worn by members of the eight uniformed services of the United States on medals and ribbons to denote an additional award or service period. The service star may also be referred to as a campaign star or battle star depending on which award the star is authorized for and the manner in which the device is used for the award.


title: Service star

text: Service stars, campaign stars, and battle stars are worn with one point of the star pointing up on the suspension ribbon of a medal or service ribbon. A silver star is worn instead of five bronze stars. A service star is sometimes mistaken for a Bronze Star (Bronze Star Medal) or Silver Star (Silver Star Medal). The service star is also similar to the gold and silver -inch stars that may be authorized to be worn on specific individual decorations of certain services to denote additional decorations.


title: Service star

text: For the National Defense Service Medal, the addition of bronze service stars to denote participation in four of the designated wartime conflicts would be shown as (the time span from the end of the Korean War era in 1954 to the beginning of the Global War on Terrorism era in 2001 is 47 years, so it is highly improbable that any individual qualified for all four National Defense Service Medals in each of four eras):


title: Service star

text: Service stars are authorized for certain unit awards (The service ribbon itself indicates the first award, with a bronze service star being added to indicate the second and subsequent awards. If ever applicable, a silver service star is worn instead of five bronze stars.) such as the:


title: Service star

text: Campaign stars are authorized for these United States campaign medals (bronze and silver campaign stars are worn to denote participation in a designated campaign or campaign phase or period):


title: Service star

text: For each designated campaign participated in, one star is worn on the ribbon. For example, when a member is authorized to wear the Iraq Campaign Medal, the potential addition of bronze and silver service stars for the seven designated Iraq Campaign phases would be:


title: Service star

text: For many of these awards, service stars are earned by participation in "campaign phases" and all eligible periods for the award fall within those defined phases. In these cases, the campaign medal cannot be earned alone, and is always to be worn with at least one campaign star.


title: Service star

text: Since February 26, 2004, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal (GWOT-SM) are authorized to be awarded with bronze and silver battle stars for personnel who were engaged in specific battles in combat under circumstances involving grave danger of death or serious bodily injury from enemy action. However, though authorized for wear, no battle stars have been approved for wear. Only a combatant commander can initiate a request for a battle star, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the approving authority, which since January 2016 has been eliminated by the Department of Defense for the GWOT-SM.


title: Service star

text: Only one award of the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and one award of the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal may be authorized for any individual. No service stars were authorized for the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary or Service Medal until February 9, 2015, when the Department of Defense authorized service stars for the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal retroactive to September 11, 2001.


title: Service star

text: Service stars (were sometimes referred to as campaign stars or battle stars) were also authorized for the World War I Victory Medal, American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, European–African–Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, and Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal. The specific manner of wear and symbolism of the stars varied from medal to medal. For example, an American Campaign Medal with a bronze service star indicated the service member had participated in an antisubmarine campaign. On other medals, bronze service stars were used on the medal's service ribbon for those recipients of medals in possession of authorized campaign clasps for those medals.


title: Service star

text: Historically, during World War II and the Korean War, commendations called "battle stars" were issued to United States Navy warships for meritorious participation in battle, or for having suffered damage during battle conditions. As an example, the USS "Enterprise" (CV-6) received 20 battle stars for her combat service in World War II, more than any other U.S. vessel during World War II. Similarly, during the Vietnam War and afterwards, the Battle Effectiveness Award ("Battle E") took the place of receiving "battle stars" for superior battle efficiency in place of combat operations.


title: Northeast Conference

text: The Northeast Conference (NEC) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools are members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Teams in the NEC compete in Division I for all sports; football competes in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). Participating schools are located principally in the Northeastern United States, from which the conference derives its name.


title: Northeast Conference

text: The conference was named the ECAC Metro Conference when it was established in 1981. The original eleven member schools were Fairleigh Dickinson University, the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University (whose athletic program has now merged with that of LIU's Post campus into a single athletic program), Loyola College in Maryland (left in 1989), Marist College (left in 1997), Robert Morris University (left in 2020), St. Francis College (NY), Saint Francis College (PA), Siena College (left in 1984), Towson State University (left in 1982), the University of Baltimore (left in 1983) and Wagner College.


title: Northeast Conference

text: The conference's name was changed to its present form on August 1, 1988. Other names considered were Big North, Great North, North Shore, Northern, Northeastern, Eastern and Eastern Private Intercollegiate.


title: Northeast Conference

text: The Northeast Conference has admitted new members nine times since 1981. The expansions and additions from the original charter members were in 1985 (Monmouth University, which left in 2013), 1989 (Mount St. Mary's University, which left in 2022), 1992 (Rider University, which left in 1997), 1997 (Central Connecticut State University), 1998 (Quinnipiac University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County which respectively left in 2013 and 2003), 1999 (Sacred Heart University), 2008 (Bryant University, which also left in 2022), 2019 (Merrimack College), and 2022 (Stonehill College). The Northeast Conference's full membership was largest at 12 in 2008 with the addition of Bryant University. It then dropped to 10 in 2013 with the departure of Monmouth and Quinnipiac for the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), returned to 11 with the 2019 addition of Merrimack, and again dropped to 10 in 2020 with the departure of Robert Morris for the Horizon League. It most recently dropped to 9 in 2022 with the departure of Bryant and Mount St. Mary's, respectively for the America East Conference and the MAAC, plus the addition of Stonehill.


title: Northeast Conference

text: Additional changes were announced in 2018 and took effect with the 2019–20 school year. First, on September 10, the NEC announced it would add Merrimack. Then, on October 3, Long Island University announced that it would combine its two existing athletic programs—NEC member LIU Brooklyn and the Division II program at LIU Post—into a single Division I program under the LIU name. The new LIU program, nicknamed Sharks, maintains LIU Brooklyn's previous memberships in Division I and the NEC. Another recent change took place on July 1, 2020, when charter member Robert Morris left to join the Horizon League. The next changes in membership were on July 1, 2022, with Bryant leaving for the America East Conference, Mount St. Mary's leaving for the MAAC, and Stonehill arriving from NCAA Division II.


title: Northeast Conference

text: The Northeast Conference has a total of 9 full members in 24 championship sports: baseball, men's and women's basketball, women's bowling, men's and women's cross country, women's field hockey, football, men's and women's golf, men's and women's indoor track & field, women's lacrosse, men's and women's outdoor track & field, men's and women's soccer, softball, men's and women's swimming, men's and women's tennis, and men's and women's volleyball.


title: Northeast Conference

text: Men's lacrosse became the league's 23rd sport for the 2011 season. The number of sports dropped to 22 after the 2012–13 school year, when the conference dropped field hockey. The departure of Monmouth and Quinnipiac to become all-sports members of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) in July 2013 gave the MAAC four full members that sponsored the sport; the other two were NEC single-sport affiliates Rider and Siena. The MAAC then decided to add field hockey as a sponsored sport for the 2013 season, and all of the NEC's remaining field hockey programs eventually joined the MAAC except for Saint Francis (PA), which joined the Atlantic 10 Conference. The NEC reinstated field hockey as a sponsored sport for the 2019 season with seven members—full members Bryant, LIU, Merrimack, Sacred Heart, and Wagner, plus associate members Fairfield and Rider. A more recent addition to the NEC's sports roster was men's swimming & diving, added for 2020–21 with full members Bryant, LIU, Mount St. Mary's, St. Francis Brooklyn, and Wagner plus incoming associate member Howard.


title: Northeast Conference

text: In 2022–23, the NEC added one sport and dropped another. On September 30, 2021, the NEC announced that it would begin sponsoring men's volleyball in 2022–23 with six members. Before the end of the 2021–22 school year, the NEC announced that two Division II schools from the Buffalo, New York area, Daemen and D'Youville, would also become part of the new men's volleyball league. In a May 9, 2022 Twitter post, NEC commissioner Noreen Morris indicated that the NEC would shut down its men's lacrosse league after the then-ongoing 2022 season. The NEC had already lost two full members that sponsored the sport, and would eventually lose its two affiliate members in that sport when the Atlantic 10 Conference announced it would launch a men's lacrosse league in the 2023 season. Three of the remaining four NEC men's lacrosse programs became affiliate members of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. The other program, Merrimack, was in talks with several lacrosse-sponsoring conferences for affiliate membership, and eventually joined the America East in time for the 2023 season.


title: Northeast Conference

text: In July 2022, the Northeast Conference announced a partnership with the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference in which MEAC schools sponsoring baseball and men's and women's golf would become affiliate members in their respective sports beginning in the 2022-23 season. That September, the NEC announced that MEAC member Delaware State, which had just joined NEC baseball and women's golf, would add women's lacrosse and women's soccer to its NEC membership in 2023–24.


title: Northeast Conference

text: Currently, a total of 12 affiliate members compete in football, women's golf, women's lacrosse, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's swimming, women's bowling, and men's volleyball.


title: Northeast Conference

text: The Northeast Conference currently sponsors championship competition in 11 men's and 13 women's NCAA sanctioned sports. Seven schools are associate members in five of those sports.


title: Northeast Conference

text: The most recent changes to the NEC sports lineup came in 2022 with the addition of men's volleyball and the elimination of men's lacrosse.


title: Northeast Conference

text: Before the 2013 departure of Monmouth and Quinnipiac, the NEC had 6 rivalry matchups in the conference; which is most prevalent during NEC's men's and women's basketball "Rivalry Week." The concept of playing back-to-back games against a local rival the same week is the only one of its kind among the nation's 31 NCAA Division I conferences. The pre-2013 NEC rivalries are as follows (with the current NEC team listed first in the matchups that are now non-conference):


title: Northeast Conference

text: The NEC Commissioner's Cup was instituted during the 1986-87 season with Long Island winning the inaugural award. Cup points are awarded in each NEC sponsored sport. For men's and women's basketball, men's and women's soccer, women's volleyball, football, women's bowling, softball, men's and women's lacrosse, and baseball, the final regular season standings are used to determine Cup points. Starting with the 2012-13 season, the Conference began awarding three bonus points to the NEC Tournament champion in those sports. In all other sports, points are awarded based on the finish at NEC Championship events.


title: Scott Shriner

text: Scott Gardner Shriner (born July 11, 1965) is an American musician best known as a member of the rock band Weezer, with whom he has recorded twelve studio albums. Joining the band in 2001, Shriner is the band's longest serving bass guitarist.


title: Scott Shriner

text: Prior to his musical career, Shriner was a member of the Marine Corps. At the age of twenty-five, he moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue a career in music, attending the Musicians Institute. Shriner subsequently performed with multiple independent acts, and toured as a member of Vanilla Ice's backing band, in support of the rapper's nu metal album "Hard to Swallow".


title: Scott Shriner

text: In 2001, Shriner joined Weezer on a provisional basis, following the sudden departure of bass guitarist Mikey Welsh, who had left the band due to personal reasons. Upon becoming Welsh's full-time replacement, Shriner made his recording debut on the band's fourth studio album, "Maladroit" (2002). During the band's tour in support of its fifth studio album, "Make Believe" (2005), Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo would at times relinquish his role as lead vocalist to allow Shriner, and his bandmates, Brian Bell and Patrick Wilson, to sing lead vocals on specific songs. This increased vocal responsibility carried over to the band's 2008 self-titled release (aka the "Red Album"), where Shriner co-wrote and sang lead vocals on "Cold Dark World" and performed lead vocals on "King".


title: Scott Shriner

text: Shriner also performed in his bandmate Patrick Wilson's side-project The Special Goodness for some time.


title: Scott Shriner

text: Shriner was born in Toledo, Ohio. He took up bass in high school. After being discharged from the Marine Corps, he found his high school bass teacher Mark Kieswetter, with whom he studied until moving to Los Angeles in 1989. While in Toledo, Shriner and his best friend Rob Weaver started a band called The Seventh Wave with former Newles members Bob Schramm and Bill Whitman. Shriner went on to play with several Toledo bands, namely The Movers, The Fever, The Theresa Harris Band, and Loved by Millions. He then finished his Toledo music experience with Tim Gahagen, Matt Donahue and Brad Coffin in a band called "The Great Barbeque Gods".


title: Scott Shriner

text: Shriner moved to Los Angeles, California at the age of 25 to attend Musicians Institute and went on to play in several bands including Broken, Bomber, Black Elvis, Mystery Train, Electric Love Hogs, Crown and, most notably, Vanilla Ice's backing band, in support of the rapper's nu metal album "Hard to Swallow".


title: Scott Shriner

text: In the summer of 2001, Shriner joined Weezer on a provisional basis. Following the departure of their second bassist, Mikey Welsh (who left the band due to personal problems), Shriner was made their full-time bassist. In his first show with Weezer, the 2001 KROQ-FM Inland Invasion, he was attacked by a man later found out to be a friend of his, yet continued to play on as security guards pried the guy off his back.


title: Scott Shriner

text: Initially it was made clear to Shriner that he was not going to be a member of the band and was just filling in until Welsh returned. It was only during the photo shoot for the "Maladroit" album artwork that Shriner realized that he was officially a member of Weezer, having previously only been told to show up for gigs and recording. Shriner is now Weezer's third bassist, and the longest-running bassist in Weezer history; he has appeared on twelve of Weezer's fifteen studio albums.


title: Scott Shriner

text: On Weezer's third self-titled album, he co-wrote and sang lead vocals on "Cold Dark World," sang lead vocals on "King" (a deluxe edition track), and sang most of the lead vocals for the band's covers of "The Weight" by The Band and "Oddfellows Local 151" by R.E.M.


title: Scott Shriner

text: In 2005, he sang lead vocals on Weezer songs "In the Garage," "Dope Nose," and "Fall Together." In 2008, during the band's Hootenanny Tour, he sang lead vocals on a cover of "Creep" by Radiohead. On the band's 2008 Troublemaker Tour, he sang "Perfect Situation" and "My Name is Jonas," which he sings in a three-way lead vocal second, with Patrick Wilson and Rivers Cuomo singing lead vocals first and last respectively. He also played on the band's EP "The Lion and the Witch" and numerous b-sides and demos that can be found on the internet. He has also played shows with Patrick Wilson's band The Special Goodness.


title: Scott Shriner

text: On April 11, 2018, several days prior to the Cars' performance at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction on April 14, Shriner announced that he would perform with the band. Shriner had previously worked with Cars leader Ric Ocasek when the latter produced the 2014 Weezer album "Everything Will Be Alright in the End".


title: Scott Shriner

text: In 2020, Shriner voiced himself in "The Simpsons" episode "The Hateful Eight-Year-Olds", along with the rest of Weezer.


title: Scott Shriner

text: Shriner's primary bass guitars are his 1960 and 1962 Fender Precision Bass guitars, and an Electrical Guitar Company Custom Bass; he can also be seen playing Lakland and Warwick Thumb, and more recently, a Rickenbacker bass. His rig setup consists of an early 70's Ampeg SVT Head and Mesa Boogie 8x10 and 4x12 cabinets. For distortion, Scott uses an Electro-Harmonix bass big muff pi. Scott also uses Shure in-ear monitors.


title: Scott Shriner

text: On November 9, 2005, Shriner married Jillian Lauren, author and former member of the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei, in Hawaii. The couple have two adopted children. They have two dogs, Peanut and Calvin, both of whom appeared in a PETA video encouraging people to adopt from shelters.


title: Scott Shriner

text: He guest-starred with the band The Scrantones at the 2007 The Office convention. During this performance, the band played Radiohead's "Creep" with The Office's Craig Robinson on vocals.


title: Scott Shriner

text: In June 2009, Scott guest-starred with E.J. Wells in a music video of Wells' "There's Something In The Graveyard," which is the first music video ever filmed in the historic Virginia City Cemetery, in Virginia City, Nevada.


title: Scott Shriner

text: He is a fan of Elvis Costello, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath. During the Q&A aboard The Weezer Cruise 2012, Scott admitted that Elton John was a big influence during his childhood.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: Dame Ellen Patricia MacArthur (born 8 July 1976) is a retired English sailor, from Whatstandwell near Matlock in Derbyshire, now based in Cowes, Isle of Wight.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: MacArthur is a successful solo long-distance yachtswoman. On 7 February 2005, she broke the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe, a feat which gained her international renown. Francis Joyon, the Frenchman who had held the record before MacArthur, was able to recover the record again in early 2008.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: Following her retirement from professional sailing on 2 September 2010, MacArthur announced the launch of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity that works with business and education to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: MacArthur was born in Derbyshire where she lived with her parents, who were both teachers, and two brothers Fergus, still in Whatstandwell, and Lewis, who now lives in Pennsylvania. She acquired her early interest in sailing, firstly by her desire to emulate her idol at the time, Sophie Burke, and secondly by reading Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons series" of books. She has since become the Patron of the Nancy Blackett Trust which owns and operates Ransome's yacht, "Nancy Blackett".


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: Her first ever experience of sailing was on a boat owned by her auntie, Thea MacArthur on the east coast of England. She saved her school dinner money for three years to buy her first boat which shows her devotion. The boat she purchased was an eight-foot dinghy, which, at the time of purchase, she named "Threp'ny Bit" even though decimalisation had taken place before she was born. She sellotaped a real 'threepenny bit' coin onto the bow.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: MacArthur attended Wirksworth County Infants and Junior Schools and the Anthony Gell School and also worked at a sailing school in Hull. When she was 17, MacArthur bought a Corribee and named it "Iduna"; she described the first moment she saw it as "love at first sight". In 1995 she sailed "Iduna" single-handed on a circumnavigation of Great Britain.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: In 1997, she finished 17th in the Mini Transat solo transatlantic race after fitting out her 21 ft (6.4 m) Classe Mini yacht "Le Poisson" herself while living in a French boatyard.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: She was named 1998 British Telecom/Royal Yachting Association "Yachtsman of The Year" in the UK and "Sailing's Young Hope" in France.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: MacArthur first came to general prominence in 2001 when she finished second in the Vendée Globe solo round-the-world sailing race in her Owen Clarke/Rob Humphreys designed "Kingfisher" (named after her sponsors, Kingfisher plc), and subsequently MacArthur was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to sport. At 24, she was the youngest competitor to complete the voyage.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: In 2003, she captained a round-the-world record attempt for a crewed yacht in Kingfisher 2 (a catamaran formerly owned by Bruno Peyron and known as "Orange"), but was thwarted by a broken mast in the Southern Ocean.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: A trimaran named "B&Q/Castorama" (after two companies in the Kingfisher group) unveiled in January 2004, was specially designed by Nigel Irens and Benoit Cabaret for her to break solo records. The 75-foot (23 m) trimaran was built in Australia, with many of the components specifically arranged to take into account MacArthur's 5-foot 2 inch (1.57 m) height.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: Using the yacht, her first significant record attempt in 2004 to break the west–east transatlantic crossing time failed by around one and a quarter hours, after over seven days of sailing.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: She began her attempt to break the solo record for sailing non-stop around the world on 28 November 2004. During her circumnavigation, she set records for the fastest solo voyage to the equator, past the Cape of Good Hope, past Cape Horn and back to the equator again. She crossed the finishing line near the French coast at Ushant at 22:29 UTC on 7 February 2005 beating the previous record set by French sailor Francis Joyon by 1 day, 8 hours, 35 minutes, 49 seconds. Her time of 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes 33 seconds is world record for the covered. This is an average speed of .


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: On 8 February 2005, following her return to England, it was announced that she was to be made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in recognition of her achievement. It is believed that she is the youngest ever recipient of this honour. Coming immediately after the event being recognised, rather than appearing in due course in the New Year's or Birthday Honours lists, this recognition was reminiscent of accolades previously bestowed upon Francis Drake and Francis Chichester when reaching home shores after their respective circumnavigations in 1580 and 1967. MacArthur was also granted the rank of Honorary Lieutenant Commander, Royal Naval Reserve on the same day.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: In recognition of her achievement she was appointed a Knight (Chevalier) of the French Legion of Honour by President Nicolas Sarkozy in March 2008. She is a fluent French speaker.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: In 2007 MacArthur headed up BT Team Ellen, a three-person sailing team which includes Australian Nick Moloney and Frenchman Sébastien Josse.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: In October 2009 MacArthur announced her intention to retire from competitive racing to concentrate on the subject of resource and energy use in the global economy.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: In June 2000, MacArthur sailed the monohull "Kingfisher" from Plymouth, UK to Newport, Rhode Island, USA in 14 days, 23 hours, 11 minutes. This is the current record for a single-handed woman monohull east-to-west passage, and also the record for a single-handed woman in any vessel.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: MacArthur's second place in the 2000–2001 edition of the Vendée Globe, with a time of 94 days, 4 hours and 25 minutes, was the world record for a single-handed, non-stop, monohull circumnavigation by a woman. The record stood for 20 years until Clarisse Crémer beat it in 2020-2021 edition of the Vendée Globe.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: In June 2004, MacArthur sailed her trimaran "B&Q/Castorama" from Ambrose Light, Lower New York Bay, USA to Lizard Point, Cornwall, UK in 7 days, 3 hours, 50 minutes. This set a new world record for a transatlantic crossing by women, beating the previous crewed record as well as the singlehanded version.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: In 2005, MacArthur beat Francis Joyon's existing world record for a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation. MacArthur in the trimaran "B&Q/Castorama" sailed at an average speed of 15.9 knots. Her time of 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes 33 seconds beat Joyon's then world record time by 1 day, 8 hours, 35 minutes and 49 seconds. She had no more than 20 minutes' sleep at a time during the voyage, having to be on constant lookout day and night. On 23 November 2007 Joyon set off in "IDEC 2" in an attempt to beat MacArthur's current world record for a single handed circumnavigation. He achieved his goal in 57 days, 13 hours 34 minutes and 6 seconds. Despite Joyon's reclamation of the record, Robin Knox-Johnston still described MacArthur's time as an "amazing achievement".


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: In 2009 McArthur appeared on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. Her chosen book was "The SAS Survival Handbook" by John "Lofty" Wiseman and her luxury item was a fluffy worm mascot.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: MacArthur was also the last record holder on Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car on the BBC's "Top Gear" television driving programme until the eighth series, when the car and rules were changed, and previous records were removed. The competition was a timed lap of a racetrack in a Suzuki Liana. She completed the lap in 1 minute 46.7 seconds, beating Jimmy Carr by 0.2 seconds. MacArthur won "Top Gear"'s Fastest Driver of the Year award in 2005.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: In 2002, MacArthur released her first autobiography entitled "Taking on the World". Later she wrote "Race Against Time", published in 2005, a day-by-day account of her record journey around the world. In September 2010, she published a second autobiography entitled "Full Circle".


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: In 2003, MacArthur set up the Ellen MacArthur Trust (now the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust), a registered charity, to 8 to 24 year olds sailing to help them regain their confidence whilst recovering from cancer, leukaemia and other serious illnesses.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: In 2008 MacArthur joined other sports celebrities to raise £4 million for the Rainbows children's hospice. The aim is to give terminally ill young people their own customised sleeping unit to enable children in separate age groups to have their families stay with them.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) is a UK registered charity which promotes the circular economy. It does this by developing and promoting the concept of a circular economy, working with business, policy makers and academics.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: Founded on 23 June 2009, the foundation was publicly launched on 2 September 2010 by MacArthur at the Science Museum. The charity was inspired by MacArthur's sailing experiences.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: On 17 May 2017, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Prince of Wales' International Sustainability Unit launched a US$2 million prize fund for innovations which work towards the management of waste plastics.


title: Ellen MacArthur

text: The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is a founding member and partner of the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE), which was launched out of the World Economic Forum.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Alex Caceres (born June 20, 1988) is an American mixed martial artist who competes in the featherweight division of the UFC. A professional MMA competitor since 2008, Caceres mostly competed in his regional circuit, before signing with the Ultimate Fighting Championships to appear on "". As of December 19, 2022, he is #15 in the UFC featherweight rankings.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres comes from Miami, Florida where he trains at Young Tigers Foundation. Caceres claims to be "inventive and creative" during the fights, often smiling during competition. Caceres also never went the distance in any of his fights prior to joining the "TUF" cast. Caceres' nickname, "Bruce Leeroy" stems from the character in the film "The Last Dragon".


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres initially fought in an underground backyard street fighting organization in Miami. Caceres mostly appeared in promotions based in Florida. Amongst these was an appearance for the King of the Cage promotion at "King of the Cage: Hurricane" in February 2009. His opponent in that fight was Eric Kovarik, who was coming off multiple consecutive losses. In under two minutes, Caceres submitted his opponent with a rear naked choke.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres then won his next fight against Joel Garcia in May 2009 via submission (triangle choke) early in the first round before going on a two-fight losing streak. These two losses were both by armbar, taking his record to 4-2 at that time.


title: Alex Caceres

text: In his final fight before joining "The Ultimate Fighter", Caceres defeated Jahmal McLennan via TKO midway through the third round to snap his losing streak.


title: Alex Caceres

text: In the debut episode, Caceres faced Paul Barrow, who was 3-0 going into the show. Caceres, who smiled almost the entire fight, would go to defeat Barrow via submission (rear naked choke) in the first round.


title: Alex Caceres

text: In the second episode, Caceres was picked as GSP's fourth pick (eighth overall). Caceres competed in his preliminary round fight during this episode against Jeff Lentz. Prior to the fight, Lentz's cardio was called into question due to his smoking and drinking. However, Lentz went on to arguably win the first round of the fight against Caceres. Midway through the second round, Caceres locked in a triangle choke, forcing the tapout and advancing him into the quarter-finals.


title: Alex Caceres

text: In episode 8, Team GSP had to pick which team members would fight each other (considering they had 5 members in the quarter-finals). St. Pierre asked each member to pick the fighter they would prefer to fight. Both Caceres and Michael Johnson picked each other and they were scheduled to fight. Johnson defeated Caceres via unanimous decision (20-18, 20-18, 20-18) after two rounds in episode 10.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres made his official debut in March 2011 against Mackens Semerzier at UFC Fight Night: Nogueira vs. Davis. He lost the fight via submission in the first round.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres was expected to face Leonard Garcia August 14, 2011 at . However, Garcia was forced out of the bout with an injury and replaced by promotional newcomer Jimy Hettes. Caceres was submitted with a rear naked choke at 3:12 of round 2.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres then dropped to the bantamweight division and faced former WEC Bantamweight champion Cole Escovedo on November 12, 2011 at UFC on Fox 1. Caceres won via unanimous decision in a bout where he showed a vastly improved striking and ground game.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres faced Edwin Figueroa on February 4, 2012 at UFC 143 but lost the fight in a split decision. Caceres was docked two points by referee Herb Dean for 2 groin strikes.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres next faced Damacio Page on July 11, 2012 at . He won the fight via submission in the second round. The finish also earned him the "Submission of the Night" honors.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres was expected to face promotional newcomer Kang Kyung-ho on November 10, 2012 at UFC on Fuel TV 6. However, Kang was forced out of the bout with an injury and was replaced by promotional newcomer Motonobu Tezuka. Caceres defeated the UFC newcomer by split decision.


title: Alex Caceres

text: The fight with Kang was rescheduled for March 3, 2013 at UFC on Fuel TV 8. Caceres won the back-and-forth fight via split decision. On March 20, 2013, it was announced that Caceres had failed his post fight drug test, testing positive for marijuana. Caceres was subsequently suspended for six months, retroactive to March 3, 2013 and his win over Kang was changed to a No Contest.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres next faced Roland Delorme on September 21, 2013 at UFC 165. He displayed good striking skills and takedown defense, winning the fight via split decision.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres was expected to face Mitch Gagnon on December 7, 2013 at UFC Fight Night 33. However, the bout was scrapped during the week leading up to the event due to an alleged visa issue for Gagnon, restricting his entry to Australia.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres faced Sergio Pettis on January 25, 2014 at UFC on Fox 10. He won the back-and-forth fight by rear-naked choke submission at 4:49 of the third round. The win also earned Caceres his first "Fight of the Night" and second "Submission of the Night" bonus awards.


title: Alex Caceres

text: For his tenth fight with the promotion, Caceres faced Urijah Faber at UFC 175 on July 5, 2014. He lost the fight via a rear-naked choke submission in the third round.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres faced promotional newcomer Masanori Kanehara on September 20, 2014 at UFC Fight Night 52. He lost the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Cacares faced Francisco Rivera on June 6, 2015 at UFC Fight Night 68. He lost the fight via knockout in the first round, marking the first time he has ever been knocked out in his career.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres faced Masio Fullen in a featherweight bout on January 30, 2016 at UFC on Fox 18. He won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres faced Yair Rodríguez in the main event on August 6, 2016 at UFC Fight Night 92. He lost the fight by split decision. The fight was named "Fight of the Night" and both fighters were awarded a $50,000 bonus.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres would next face Jason Knight on January 28, 2017 at UFC on Fox 23. He lost by submission in the second round.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres faced promotional newcomer Rolando Dy on June 17, 2017 at . Caceres came in strong in round one, knocking Dy off his feet. A brief timeout was called by the referee in round two to check Dy's eye and the fight continued. However, the referee halted the fight at the end of round two due to a doctor's recommendation regarding Dy's eye injury. Dy was noticeably upset by the decision of the referee and Caceres was awarded the win by TKO.


title: Alex Caceres

text: The bout with Wang Guan was rescheduled and eventually took place on November 25, 2017 at Caceres lost the back-and-forth fight via split decision.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres was scheduled to face Artem Lobov on April 7, 2018 at UFC 223, but the fight was cancelled due to Lobov's involvement with the Team McGregor bus melee.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres faced Martin Bravo on July 6, 2018 at . He won the fight via split decision. This win earned him the Fight of the Night award.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres faced promotional newcomer Kron Gracie on February 17, 2019 at . He lost the fight via submission due to a rear-naked choke in the first round.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres faced Steven Peterson on July 20, 2019 at UFC on ESPN 4. He won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres was scheduled to face Giga Chikadze on August 29, 2020 at UFC Fight Night 175. However, Chikadze withdrew from the bout due to tested positive for COVID-19 and he was briefly replaced by promotional newcomer Kevin Croom. Subsequently on the following day, Croom was removed and replaced by Austin Springer. At the weigh-ins, Springer weighed in at 151 pounds, five pounds over the featherweight non-title fight limit. The bout proceeded at catchweight and Springer was fined 30% of his purse which went to Caceres. Caceres won the fight by submission in the first round.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres faced Seung Woo Choi on October 23, 2021 at UFC Fight Night 196. After surviving an early knockdown and illegal knee, Caceres went on to win the fight via rear-naked choke submission in round two. This win earned him "Performance of the Night" award.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres faced Sodiq Yusuff on March 12, 2022 at UFC Fight Night 203. Caceres lost the bout via unanimous decision.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres faced Julian Erosa on December 17, 2022, at UFC Fight Night 216. He won the fight via technical knockout in round one. This win earned him the Performance of the Night award.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Growing up the son of a drug dealer, Caceres grew up in a less affluent neighbourhood having a tough upbringing. When his father went to prison, he was molested by a rival drug dealer of his father's. These turmoils led his family to move to a more affluent suburb. He is Cuban and Dominican.


title: Alex Caceres

text: Caceres was influenced by the documentary "Forks Over Knives". He has cut out dairy and processed meat from his diet but is not a vegan. He has an interest in spirituality.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: The declaration of Purna Swaraj was made because the youth of India and many leaders of INC were not satisfied with the Dominion Status. The word Purna Swaraj was derived , or Declaration of the Independence of India, it was promulgated by the Indian National Congress on 26 January 1930, resolving the Congress and Indian nationalists to fight for "Purna Swaraj", or "complete self-rule" independent of the British Empire


title: Purna Swaraj

text: The flag of India was hoisted by Jawaharlal Nehru on 31 December 1929 on the banks of Ravi river, in Lahore. The Congress asked the people of India to observe 26 January as Independence Day (see Legacy). The flag of India was hoisted publicly across India by Congress volunteers, Nehru, nationalists, and the public.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: Dadabhai Naoroji in his presidential address at the 1886 National Congress in Calcutta advocated for Swaraj as the sole aim of the nationalist movement, but along the lines of Canada and Australia, which was colonial self-government under the British crown. In 1907, Sri Aurobindo, as editor of the newspaper Bande Mataram, began writing that the new generation of nationalists would not accept anything less than Purna Swaraj, full independence, as it exists in the United Kingdom. Through his writings and speeches, along with Bal Gangadhar Tilak he popularised this idea, making it a core part of the nationalist discourse.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: Before 1930, Indian political parties had openly embraced the goal of political independence from the United Kingdom. The All India Home Rule League had been advocating "Home Rule" for India: dominion status within the British Empire, as granted to Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa. The All India Muslim League favoured dominion status as well, and opposed calls for outright Indian independence. The Indian Liberal Party, by far the most pro-British party, explicitly opposed India's independence and even dominion status if it weakened India's links with the British Empire. The Indian National Congress, the largest Indian political party of the time, was at the head of the national debate. Congress leader and famous poet Hasrat Mohani was the first activist to demand complete independence (Poorna Swaraj) from the British in 1930 from an All-India Congress Forum. Maghfoor Ahmad Ajazi supported the 'Poorna Swaraj' motion demanded by Hasrat Mohani. Veteran Congress leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Sri Aurobindo and Bipin Chandra Pal had also advocated explicit Indian independence from the Empire.It is said that the first independence day was celebrated on 1930, by Sitaram Seksaria in his book.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: Following the 1919 Amritsar Massacre, there was considerable public outrage against British rule. Europeans, (civilians and officials) were targets and victims of violence across India. In 1920, Gandhi and the Congress committed themselves to "Swaraj", described as political and spiritual independence. At the time, Gandhi described this as the basic demand of all Indians; he specifically said that the question of whether India would remain within the Empire or leave it completely would be answered by the behaviour and response of the British. Between 1920 and 1922, Mahatma Gandhi led the Non-Cooperation movement: nationwide civil disobedience to oppose the Rowlatt Acts and the exclusion of Indians from the government, and the denial of political and civil freedoms.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: In 1927, the British government further outraged people across India by appointing a seven-man, all-European committee led by Sir John Simon, called the Simon Commission to deliberate on constitutional and political reforms for India. Indian political parties were neither consulted nor asked to involve themselves in the process. Upon arrival in India, Chairman Sir John Simon and other commission members were met with angry public demonstrations, which followed them everywhere. The death of a prominent Indian leader, Lala Lajpat Rai, from severe beatings by British police officials further outraged the Indian public.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: The Congress appointed an all-Indian commission to propose constitutional reforms for India. Members of other Indian political parties joined the commission led by Congress President Motilal Nehru. The Nehru Report demanded that India be granted self-government under the dominion status within the Empire. While most other Indian political parties supported the Nehru commission's work, it was opposed by the Indian Liberal Party and the All India Muslim League. The British ignored the commission, its report and refused to introduce political reform.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: The Nehru Report was also controversial within Congress. Younger nationalist leaders like Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru demanded that Congress resolve to make a complete and explicit break from all ties with the British. Jawaharlal Nehru had been influenced by the idea of Bhagat Singh ("total independence"), which Singh had introduced a resolution demanding in 1927, which was rejected because of Gandhi's opposition. Now Bose and Nehru opposed dominion status, which would retain the Monarch of the United Kingdom as the constitutional head of state of India (although in the separate capacity as King of India), and preserve political powers for the British Parliament in Indian constitutional affairs. They were supported in their stand by a large number of rank-and-file Congressmen.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: In December 1929, Congress session was held in Lahore and Mahatma Gandhi proposed a resolution that called for the British to grant dominion status to India within two years. After some time Gandhi brokered a further compromise by reducing the time given from two years to one. Jawaharlal Nehru voted for the new resolution, while Subhash Bose told his supporters that he would not oppose the resolution, and abstained from voting himself. The All India Congress Committee voted 118 to 45 in its favour (the 45 votes came from supporters of a complete break from the British). However, when Bose introduced an amendment during the open session of Congress that sought a complete break with the British, Gandhi admonished the move:


title: Purna Swaraj

text: You may take the name of independence on your lips but all your muttering will be an empty formula if there is no honour behind it. If you are not prepared to stand by your words, where will independence be?


title: Purna Swaraj

text: On 31 October 1929, the Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin announced that the government would meet with Indian representatives in London for a Round Table Conference. To facilitate Indian participation, Irwin met with Mahatma Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and out-going Congress President Motilal Nehru to discuss the meeting. Gandhi asked Irwin if the conference would proceed on the basis of dominion status and Irwin said he could not assure that, resulting in the end of the meeting.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: As a result of the denial of reforms and political rights, and the persistent ignorance of Indian political parties, the Indian National Congress grew increasingly cohesive – unified in the desire to out the British from India completely. A very large number of Congress volunteers and delegates, members of other political parties and an especially large public gathering attended the session convened in Lahore. Despite the bitterly cold weather, Pattabhi Sitaramayya records that:


title: Purna Swaraj

text: The heat of passion and excitement, the resentment at the failure of negotiation, the flushing of faces on hearing the war drums – oh, it was all in marked contrast to the weather.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: Jawaharlal Nehru was elected President and veteran leaders like Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel returned to the Congress Working Committee. They approved a declaration of independence, which stated:


title: Purna Swaraj

text: The British government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually... Therefore...India must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj or complete independence.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: At midnight on New Year's Eve, President Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the tricolour flag of India upon the banks of the Ravi in Lahore, which later became part of Pakistan. A pledge of independence was read out, which included a readiness to withhold taxes. The massive gathering of public attending the ceremony were asked if they agreed with it, and the vast majority of people were witnessed to raise their hands in approval. One hundred seventy-two Indian members of central and provincial legislatures resigned in support of the resolution and in accordance with Indian public sentiment.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: The Declaration of Independence was officially promulgated on 26 January 1930. Gandhi and other Indian leaders would immediately begin the planning of a massive national non-violence would encourage the common people not to attack Britishers even if they attacked them. Subsequently, the "Salt Satyagraha" was initiated by Mahatma Gandhi on 12 March 1930 and what followed gave impetus to the Indian independence movement and sparked off the nationwide Non-Cooperation Movement.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: The resolution was a short 750-word document; it does not have a legal/constitutional structure – instead, it reads more like a manifesto. The document called for severing ties with the British and claimed 'Purna Swaraj' or completes independence. It indicted British rule and succinctly articulated the resulting economic, political and cultural injustice inflicted on Indians. The document spoke on behalf of Indians and made its intention of launching the civil disobedience movement clear.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: There is some dispute as to who drafted the text of the declaration. Gandhi directly claimed authorship in 1940, while other sources either cite Nehru as a major editor or attribute it to Nehru outright.


title: Purna Swaraj

text: The Congress regularly observed 26 January as the Independence Day of India – commemorating those who campaigned for Indian independence. In 1947, the British agreed to transfer power and political finesse to India, and 15 August became the official Independence Day. However, the new Constitution of India, as drafted and approved by the Constituent Assembly, was mandated to take effect on 26 January 1950, to commemorate the 1930 declaration. On that day in 1950, India became a republic. 26 January is now celebrated as Republic Day of India every year.


title: Broad Peak

text: Broad Peak () is a mountain in the Karakoram on the border of Pakistan and China, the twelfth-highest mountain in the world at above sea level. It was first ascended in June 1957 by Fritz Wintersteller, Marcus Schmuck, Kurt Diemberger, and Hermann Buhl of an Austrian expedition.


title: Broad Peak

text: Broad Peak is part of the Gasherbrum massif in Baltistan on the border of Pakistan and China. It is located in the Karakoram mountain range about from K2. It has a summit over long and, thus, a "broad peak".


title: Broad Peak

text: The mountain has five summits: Broad Peak (8051 m), Rocky Summit (8028 m), Broad Peak Central (8011 m), Broad Peak North (7490 m), and Kharut Kangri (6942 m).


title: Broad Peak

text: The literal translation of "Broad Peak" to "Falchan Kangri" is not used among the Balti people. The English name was introduced in 1892 by the British explorer Martin Conway, in reference to the similarly named Breithorn in the Alps.


title: Broad Peak

text: The first ascent of Broad Peak was made between June 8 and 9, 1957 by Fritz Wintersteller, Marcus Schmuck, Kurt Diemberger, and Hermann Buhl of an Austrian expedition led by Marcus Schmuck. A first attempt by the team was made on May 29 where Fritz Wintersteller and Kurt Diemberger reached the forepeak (8,030 m). This was also accomplished without the aid of supplemental oxygen, high altitude porters or base camp support.


title: Broad Peak

text: In July 2007 an Austrian mountaineering team climbed Broad Peak and retrieved the corpse of Markus Kronthaler, who had died on the mountain one year before, from over 8,000 metres.


title: Broad Peak

text: In 2008 French mountaineer Élisabeth Revol made solo ascents of Broad Peak, Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II within 16 days and without the aid of supplemental oxygen.


title: Broad Peak

text: In the winter and summer of 2009 there were no summits. There was one winter expedition by a Polish-Canadian team. In the summer there was one fatality, Cristina Castagna.


title: Broad Peak

text: In summer 2012, five members of "Koroška 8000", a Slovenian team led by Gregor Lačen, summitted the mountain without supplementary oxygen or high-altitude porters. They established a route in deep snow from Camp 4 to the summit, used by seven additional climbers from other expeditions. All summitted on July 31, 2012.


title: Broad Peak

text: On March 5, 2013 Maciej Berbeka, Adam Bielecki, Tomasz Kowalski and Artur Małek made the first winter ascent. Broad Peak was the twelfth Eight-thousander summited in wintertime and the tenth Eight-thousander first summitted in winter by Polish climbers.


title: Broad Peak

text: During the descent, Maciej Berbeka and Tomasz Kowalski did not reach Camp 4 (at 7400 m) and were pronounced missing. On March 7, the head of the expedition Krzysztof Wielicki, said there are "no chances at all" of finding alive 58-year-old Maciej Berbeka and 27-year-old Tomasz Kowalski.


title: Broad Peak

text: In July 2013, a group of five Iranian climbers attempted to ascend through a new route from the southwestern face. Three of them — Aidin Bozorgi, Pouya Keivan, and Mojtaba Jarahi — ascended successfully but during descent all three of them were lost and declared dead.


title: Broad Peak

text: On July 23, 2016, Frenchman Antoine Girard's paraglider flight over Broad Peak was the first time a paraglider had flown above an 8,000-metre summit.


title: Broad Peak

text: On July 14, 2019, 17-year-old Shehroze Kashif from Pakistan became the youngest ever to summit this peak.


title: Car body style

text: There are many types of car body styles. They vary depending on intended use, market position, location, and the era they were made in.


title: The Age of Reason

text: The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is a work by English and American political activist Thomas Paine, arguing for the philosophical position of deism. It follows in the tradition of 18th-century British deism, and challenges institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible. It was published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807.


title: The Age of Reason

text: It was a best-seller in the United States, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. British audiences, fearing increased political radicalism as a result of the French Revolution, received it with more hostility. "The Age of Reason" presents common deistic arguments; for example, it highlights what Paine saw as corruption of the Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature, rather than a divinely-inspired text. In "The Age of Reason", he promotes natural religion and argues for the existence of a creator god.


title: The Age of Reason

text: Most of Paine's arguments had long been available to the educated elite, but by presenting them in an engaging and irreverent style, he made deism appealing and accessible to the masses. Originally distributed as unbound pamphlets, the book was also cheap, putting it within the reach of a large number of buyers. Fearing the spread of what it viewed as potentially-revolutionary ideas, the British government prosecuted printers and booksellers who tried to publish and distribute it. Nevertheless, Paine's work inspired and guided many free thinkers.


title: The Age of Reason

text: Paine's book followed in the tradition of early 18th-century British deism. Those deists, while maintaining individual positions, still shared several sets of assumptions and arguments that Paine articulated in "The Age of Reason". The most important position that united the early deists was their call for "free rational inquiry" into all subjects, especially religion. Saying that early Christianity was founded on freedom of conscience, they demanded religious toleration and an end to religious persecution. They also demanded that debate rest on reason and rationality. Deists embraced a Newtonian worldview and believed that all things in the universe, even God, must obey the laws of nature. Without a concept of natural law, the deists argued, explanations of the workings of nature would descend into irrationality. This belief in natural law drove their skepticism of miracles. Because miracles had to be observed to be validated, deists rejected the accounts laid out in the Bible of God's miracles and argued that such evidence was neither sufficient nor necessary to prove the existence of God. Along these lines, deistic writings insisted that God, as the first cause or prime mover, had created and designed the universe with natural laws as part of his plan. They held that God does not repeatedly alter his plan by suspending natural laws to intervene (miraculously) in human affairs. Deists also rejected the claim that there was only one revealed religious truth or "one true faith". Religion had to be "simple, apparent, ordinary, and universal" if it was to be the logical product of a benevolent God. They, therefore, distinguished between "revealed religions", which they rejected, such as Christianity, and "natural religion", a set of universal beliefs derived from the natural world that demonstrated God's existence (and so they were not atheists).


title: The Age of Reason

text: While some deists accepted revelation, most argued that revelation's restriction to small groups or even a single person limited its explanatory power. Moreover, many found the Christian revelations in particular to be contradictory and irreconcilable. According to those writers, revelation could reinforce the evidence for God's existence already apparent in the natural world but more often led to superstition among the masses. Most deists argued that priests had deliberately corrupted Christianity for their own gain by promoting the acceptance of miracles, unnecessary rituals, and illogical and dangerous doctrines (accusations typically referred to as "priestcraft"). The worst of the doctrines was original sin. By convincing people that they required a priest's help to overcome their innate sinfulness, deists argued, religious leaders had enslaved the human population. Deists therefore typically viewed themselves as intellectual liberators.


title: The Age of Reason

text: By the time Part I of "The Age of Reason" was published in 1794, many British and French citizens had become disillusioned by the French Revolution. The Reign of Terror had begun, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had been tried and executed and Britain was at war with France. The few British radicals who still supported the French revolution and its ideals were viewed with deep suspicion by their countrymen. "The Age of Reason" belongs to the later, more radical, stage of the British political reform movement, which openly embraced republicanism and sometimes atheism and was exemplified by such texts as William Godwin's "Enquiry Concerning Political Justice" (1793). (However, Paine and other deists were not atheists.) By the middle of the decade, the moderate voices had disappeared: Richard Price, the Dissenting minister whose sermon on political liberty had prompted Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" (1790), had died in 1791, and Joseph Priestley had been forced to flee to America after a Church–and–King mob burned down his home and church.


title: The Age of Reason

text: The conservative government, headed by William Pitt, responded to the increasing radicalization by prosecuting several reformers for seditious libel and treason in the famous 1794 Treason Trials. Following the trials and an attack on George III, conservatives were successful in passing the Seditious Meetings Act and the Treasonable Practices Act (also known as the "Two Acts" or the "gagging acts"). The 1795 Acts prohibited freedom of assembly for groups such as the radical London Corresponding Society (LCS) and encouraged indictments against radicals for "libelous and seditious" statements. Afraid of prosecution and disenchanted with the French Revolution, many reformers drifted away from the cause. The LCS, which had previously unified religious Dissenters and political reformers, fractured when Francis Place and other leaders helped Paine publish "The Age of Reason". The society's more religious members withdrew in protest, and the LCS lost around a fifth of its membership.


title: The Age of Reason

text: In December 1792, Paine's "Rights of Man, part II", was declared seditious in Britain, and he was forced to flee to France to avoid arrest. Dismayed by the French revolution's turn toward secularism and atheism, he composed Part I of "The Age of Reason" in 1792 and 1793:


title: The Age of Reason

text: Although Paine wrote "The Age of Reason" for the French, he dedicated it to his "Fellow Citizens of the United States of America", alluding to his bond with the American revolutionaries.


title: The Age of Reason

text: According to Paine scholars Edward Davidson and William Scheick, he probably wrote the first draft of Part I in late 1793, but Paine biographer David Hawke argues for a date of early 1793. It is also unclear whether or not a French edition of Part I was published in 1793. François Lanthenas, who translated "The Age of Reason" into French in 1794, wrote that it was first published in France in 1793, but no book fitting his description has been positively identified. Barlow published the first English edition of "The Age of Reason, Part I" in 1794 in London, selling it for a mere three pence.


title: The Age of Reason

text: Meanwhile, Paine, considered too moderate by the powerful Jacobin Club of French revolutionaries, was imprisoned for ten months in France. He escaped the guillotine only by accident: the sign marking him out for execution was improperly placed on his cell door. When James Monroe, at that time the new American Minister to France, secured his release in 1794, Paine immediately began work on Part II of "The Age of Reason" despite his poor health. Part II was first published in a pirated edition by H.D. Symonds in London in October 1795. In 1796, Daniel Isaac Eaton published Parts I and II, and sold them at a cost of one shilling and six pence. (Eaton was later forced to flee to America after being convicted of seditious libel for publishing other radical works.) Paine himself financed the shipping of 15,000 copies of his work to America. Later, Francis Place and Thomas Williams collaborated on an edition, which sold about 2,000 copies. Williams also produced his own edition, but the British government indicted him and confiscated the pamphlets.


title: The Age of Reason

text: In the late 1790s, Paine fled from France to the United States, where he wrote Part III of "The Age of Reason": "An Examination of the Passages in the New Testament, Quoted from the Old and Called Prophecies Concerning Jesus Christ". Fearing unpleasant and even violent reprisals, Thomas Jefferson convinced him not to publish it in 1802. Five years later, Paine decided to publish despite the backlash he knew would ensue.


title: The Age of Reason

text: Following Williams's sentence of one year's hard labor for publishing "The Age of Reason" in 1797, no editions were sold openly in Britain until 1818, when Richard Carlile included it in an edition of Paine's complete works. Carlile charged one shilling and sixpence for the work, and the first run of 1,000 copies sold out in a month. He immediately published a second edition of 3,000 copies. Like Williams, he was prosecuted for seditious libel and blasphemous libel. The prosecutions surrounding the printing of "The Age of Reason" in Britain continued for 30 years after its initial release and encompassed numerous publishers as well as over a hundred booksellers.


title: The Age of Reason

text: "The Age of Reason" is divided into three sections. In Part I, Paine outlines his major arguments and personal creed. In Parts II and III he analyzes specific portions of the Bible to demonstrate that it is not the revealed word of God.


title: The Age of Reason

text: Paine's creed encapsulates many of the major themes of the rest of his text: a firm belief in a creator-God; a skepticism regarding most supernatural claims (miracles are specifically mentioned later in the text); a conviction that virtues should be derived from a consideration for others rather than oneself; an animus against corrupt religious institutions; and an emphasis on the individual's right of conscience.


title: The Age of Reason

text: Paine begins "The Age of Reason" by attacking revelation. Revelation, he maintains, can be verified only by the individual receivers of the message and so is weak evidence for God's existence. Paine rejects prophecies and miracles: "it is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it." He also points out that the Christian revelations appear to have altered over time to adjust for changing political circumstances. Urging his readers to employ reason rather, than to rely on revelation, Paine argues that the only reliable, unchanging, and universal evidence of God's existence is the natural world. "The Bible of the Deist," he contends, should not be a human invention, such as the Bible, but rather a divine invention—it should be "creation".


title: The Age of Reason

text: Paine takes that argument even further by maintaining that the same rules of logic and standards of evidence that govern the analysis of secular texts should be applied to the Bible. In Part II of "The Age of Reason", he does just that by pointing out numerous contradictions in the Bible. For example, Paine notes, "The most extraordinary of all the things called miracles, related in the New Testament, is that of the devil flying away with Jesus Christ, and carrying him to the top of a high mountain, and to the top of the highest pinnacle of the temple, and showing him and promising to him all the kingdoms of the World. How happened it that he did not discover America, or is it only with kingdoms that his sooty highness has any interest? "


title: The Age of Reason

text: After establishing that he would refrain from using extra-Biblical sources to inform his criticism, but would instead apply the Bible's own words against itself, Paine questions the sacredness of the Bible and analyzes it as one would any other book. For example, in his analysis of the Book of Proverbs he argues that its sayings are "inferior in keenness to the proverbs of the Spaniards, and not more wise and economical than those of the American Franklin." Describing the Bible as "fabulous mythology," Paine questions whether or not it was revealed to its writers and doubts that the original writers can ever be known (for example, he dismisses the idea that Moses wrote the Pentateuch or that the Gospel's authors are known).


title: The Age of Reason

text: Using methods that would not become common in Biblical scholarship until the 19th century, Paine tested the Bible for internal consistency, questioned its historical accuracy, and concluded that it was not divinely inspired. Paine also argues that the Old Testament must be false because it depicts a tyrannical God. The "history of wickedness" pervading the Old Testament convinced Paine that it was simply another set of human-authored myths. He deplores people's credulity: "Brought up in habits of superstition," he wrote, "people in general know not how much wickedness there is in this pretended word of God." Citing Numbers 31:13–47 as an example, in which Moses orders the slaughter of thousands of boys and women and sanctions the rape of thousands of girls at God's behest, Paine calls the Bible a "book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy; for what can be greater blasphemy than to ascribe the wickedness of man to the orders of the Almighty!"


title: The Age of Reason

text: Paine also attacks religious institutions, indicting priests for their lust for power and wealth and the Church's opposition to scientific investigation. He presents the history of Christianity as one of corruption and oppression. Paine criticizes the tyrannical actions of the Church as he had those of governments in the "Rights of Man" and "Common Sense", stating that "the Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient Mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue." That kind of attack distinguishes Paine's book from other deistic works, which were less interested in challenging social and political hierarchies. He argues that the Church and the state are a single corrupt institution that does not act in the best interests of the people and so both must be radically altered:


title: The Age of Reason

text: As Jon Mee, a scholar of British radicalism, writes: "Paine believed ... a revolution in religion was the natural corollary, even prerequisite, of a fully successful political revolution." Paine lays out a vision of, in Davidson and Scheick's words, "an age of intellectual freedom, when reason would triumph over superstition, when the natural liberties of humanity would supplant priestcraft and kingship, which were both secondary effects of politically managed foolish legends and religious superstitions." It is this vision that scholars have called Paine's "secular millennialism" and it appears in all of his works. He ends the "Rights of Man", for example, with the statement: "From what we now see, nothing of reform in the political world ought to be held improbable. It is an age of revolutions, in which everything may be looked for." Paine "transformed the millennial Protestant vision of the rule of Christ on earth into a secular image of utopia," emphasizing the possibilities of "progress" and "human perfectibility" that could be achieved by humankind, without God's aid.


title: The Age of Reason

text: Although Paine liked to say that he read very little, his writings belied that statement; "The Age of Reason" has intellectual roots in the traditions of David Hume, Spinoza, and Voltaire. Since Hume had already made many of the same "moral attacks upon Christianity" that Paine popularized in "The Age of Reason", scholars have concluded that Paine probably read Hume's works on religion or had at least heard about them through the Joseph Johnson circle. Paine would have been particularly drawn to Hume's description of religion as "a positive source of harm to society" that "led men to be factious, ambitious and intolerant." More of an influence on Paine than Hume was Spinoza's "Tractatus Theologico-politicus" (1678). Paine would have been exposed to Spinoza's ideas through the works of other 18th-century deists, most notably Conyers Middleton.


title: The Age of Reason

text: Though these larger philosophical traditions are clear influences on "The Age of Reason", Paine owes the greatest intellectual debt to the English deists of the early 18th century, such as Peter Annet. John Toland had argued for the use of reason in interpreting scripture, Matthew Tindal had argued against revelation, Middleton had described the Bible as mythology and questioned the existence of miracles, Thomas Morgan had disputed the claims of the Old Testament, Thomas Woolston had questioned the believability of miracles and Thomas Chubb had maintained that Christianity lacked morality. All of those arguments appear in "The Age of Reason" albeit less coherently.


title: The Age of Reason

text: The most distinctive feature of "The Age of Reason", like all of Paine's works, is its linguistic style. Historian Eric Foner argues that Paine's works "forged a new political language" designed to bring politics to the people by using a "clear, simple and straightforward" style. Paine outlined "a new vision—a utopian image of an egalitarian republican society" and his language reflected these ideals. He originated such phrases as "the rights of man," "the age of reason," "the age of revolution," and "the times that try men's souls." Foner also maintains that with "The Age of Reason" Paine "gave deism a new, aggressive, explicitly anti-Christian tone".


title: The Age of Reason

text: He did so by employing "vulgar" (that is, "low" or "popular") language, an irreverent tone, and even religious rhetoric. In a letter to Elihu Palmer, one of his most loyal followers in America, Paine describes part of his rhetorical philosophy:


title: The Age of Reason

text: Paine's rhetoric had broad appeal; his "pithy" lines were "able to bridge working-class and middle-class cultures" and become common quotations.


title: The Age of Reason

text: Part of what makes Paine's style so memorable is his effective use of repetition and rhetorical questions in addition to the profusion of "anecdote, irony, parody, satire, feigned confusion, folk matter, concrete vocabulary, and .. appeals to common sense". Paine's conversational style draws the reader into the text. His use of "we" conveys an "illusion that he and the readers share the activity of constructing an argument." By thus emphasizing the presence of the reader and leaving images and arguments half-formed, Paine encourages his readers to complete them independently.


title: The Age of Reason

text: The most distinctive element of Paine's style in "The Age of Reason" is its "vulgarity". In the 18th century, "vulgarity" was associated with the middling and lower classes and not with obscenity and so when Paine celebrates his "vulgar" style and his critics attack it, the dispute is over class accessibility, not profanity. For example, Paine describes the Fall this way:


title: The Age of Reason

text: The irreverent tone that Paine, combined with the vulgar style, set his work apart from its predecessors. It took "deism out of the hands of the aristocracy and intellectuals and [brought] it to the people".


title: The Age of Reason

text: Paine's rhetorical appeal to "the people" attracted almost as much criticism as his ridicule of the Bible. Bishop Richard Watson, forced to address the new audience in his influential response to Paine, "An Apology for the Bible", wrote: "I shall, designedly, write this and the following letters in a popular manner; hoping that thereby they may stand a chance of being perused by that class of readers, for whom your work seems to be particularly calculated, and who are the most likely to be injured by it." However, it was not only the style that concerned Watson and others but also the cheapness of Paine's book. At one sedition trial in the early 1790s, the Attorney–General tried to prohibit Thomas Cooper from publishing his response to Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" and argued that "although there was no exception to be taken to his pamphlet when in the hands of the upper classes, yet the government would not allow it to appear at a price which would insure its circulation among the people."


title: The Age of Reason

text: Paine's style is not only "vulgar" but also irreverent. For example, he wrote that once one dismisses the false idea of Moses being the author of Genesis, "The story of Eve and the serpent, and of Noah and his ark, drops to a level with the Arabian tales, without the merit of being entertaining." Although many early English deists had relied on ridicule to attack the Bible and Christianity, theirs was a refined wit rather than the broad humor that Paine employed. It was the early Deists of the middling ranks, not the educated elite, who initiated the kind of ridicule Paine would make famous.


title: The Age of Reason

text: It was Paine's "ridiculing" tone that most angered Churchmen. As John Redwood, a scholar of deism, puts it: "the age of reason could perhaps more eloquently and adequately be called the age of ridicule, for it was ridicule, not reason, that endangered the Church." Significantly, Watson's "Apology" directly chastises Paine for his mocking tone:


title: The Age of Reason

text: Paine's Quaker upbringing predisposed him to deistic thinking at the same time that it positioned him firmly within the tradition of religious Dissent. Paine acknowledged that he was indebted to his Quaker background for his skepticism, but the Quakers' esteem for plain speaking, a value expressed both explicitly and implicitly in "The Age of Reason", influenced his writing even more. As the historian E. P. Thompson has put it, Paine "ridiculed the authority of the Bible with arguments which the collier or country girl could understand." His description of the story of the virgin birth of Jesus demystifies biblical language and is "an account of a young woman engaged to be married, and while under this engagement she is, to speak plain language, debauched by a ghost." Quaker conversion narratives also influenced the style of "The Age of Reason". Davidson and Scheick argue that its "introductory statement of purpose, a fervid sense of inward inspiration, a declared expression of conscience, and an evangelical intention to instruct others" resemble the personal confessions of American Quakers.


title: The Age of Reason

text: Paine takes advantage of several religious rhetorics beyond those associated with Quakerism in "The Age of Reason", most importantly by millennial language that appealed to his lower-class readers. Claiming that true religious language is universal, Paine uses elements of the Christian rhetorical tradition to undermine the hierarchies perpetuated by religion itself. The sermonic quality of Paine's writing is one of its most recognizable traits. Sacvan Bercovitch, a scholar of the sermon, argues that Paine's writing often resembles that of the jeremiad or "political sermon." He contends that Paine draws on the Puritan tradition in which "theology was wedded to politics and politics to the progress of the kingdom of God". One reason that Paine may have been drawn to this style is because he may have briefly been a Methodist preacher, but that suspicion cannot be verified.


title: The Age of Reason

text: "The Age of Reason" provoked a hostile reaction from most readers and critics, although the intensity of that hostility varied by locality. There were four major factors for this animosity: Paine denied that the Bible was a sacred, inspired text; he argued that Christianity was a human invention; his ability to command a large readership frightened those in power; and his irreverent and satirical style of writing about Christianity and the Bible offended many believers.