title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Meanwhile, the Nazi influence was no less evident at Potsdamer Platz than anywhere else in Berlin. As well as swastika flags and propaganda everywhere, Nazi-affiliated concerns occupied a great many buildings in the area, especially Columbushaus, where they took over most of the upper floors. As if to emphasise their presence, they used the building to advertise their own weekly publication: a huge neon sign on its roof proclaimed "DIE BRAUNE POST – N.S. SONNTAGSZEITUNG" (The Brown Post – N.S. Sunday Newspaper), the "N.S." standing for "Nationalsozialist" (National Socialist), i.e. Nazi. Probably Potsdamer Platz's most prominent landmark in the mid-1930s, the sign first appears in photographs dated 1935 but was gone again by 1938. On an even darker note, those Nazi concerns included the Gestapo, who set up a secret prison in an upper part of the building, complete with interrogation and torture rooms. Meanwhile, in another part of the building, the Information Office of the Olympic Games Organising Committee was housed. Here much of the planning of the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympic Games took place.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: As was the case in most of central Berlin, almost all of the buildings around Potsdamer Platz were turned to rubble by air raids and heavy artillery bombardment during the last years of World War II. The three most destructive raids (out of 363 that the city suffered), occurred on 23 November 1943, and 3 and 26 February 1945. Things were not helped by the very close proximity of Hitler's Reich Chancellery, just one block away in Voßstraße, and many other Nazi government edifices nearby as well, and so Potsdamer Platz was right in a major target area.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Once the bombing and shelling had largely ceased, the ground invasion began as Soviet forces stormed the centre of Berlin street by street, building by building, aiming to capture the Reich Chancellery and other key symbols of the Nazi government. When the city was divided into sectors by the occupying Allies at the end of the war, the square found itself on the boundary between the American, British and Soviet sectors.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Despite all the devastation, commercial life reappeared in the ruins around Potsdamer Platz within just a few weeks of war's end. The lower floors of a few buildings were patched up enough to allow business of a sort to resume. The U-Bahn and S-Bahn were partially operational again from 2 June 1946, fully from 16 November 1947 (although repairs were not completed until May 1948) and trams by 1952. Part of the Haus Vaterland reopened in 1948 in a much simplified form. The new East German state-owned retail business H.O. ("Handelsorganisation", meaning Trading Organisation), had seized almost all of Wertheim's former assets in the newly created German Democratic Republic but, unable to start up the giant Leipziger Platz store again (it was too badly damaged), it opened a new "Kaufhaus" (department store) on the ground floor of Columbushaus. An office of the "Kasernierte Volkspolizei" (literally "Barracked People's Police") – the military precursor of the "Nationale Volksarmee" (National People's Army), occupied the floor above. Meanwhile, a row of new single-storey shops was erected along Potsdamer Straße. Out on the streets, even the flower-sellers, for whom the area had once been renowned, were doing brisk business again.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The area around Potsdamer Platz had also become a focus for black market trading. Since the American, British and Soviet Occupation Zones converged there, people theoretically only had to walk a few paces across sector boundaries to avoid the respective police officials.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Meanwhile, friction between the Western Allies and Soviets was steadily rising. The Soviets even took to marking out their border by stationing armed soldiers along it at intervals of a few metres, day and night, in all weathers. Since there was not, as yet, a fixed marker, the borders were prone to abuse, which eventually resulted (in August 1948), in white lines in luminous paint appearing across roads and even through ruined buildings to try to deter the Soviets from making unauthorised incursions into the American and British zones. These measures were only partially successful: after further skirmishes in which shots were fired, barbed wire entanglements were stretched across some roads, a foretaste of things to come.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Remembering the effective use of propaganda in the leadup to the second World War, the opposing camps later began berating one another with enormous signs displaying loud political slogans, facing each other across the border zone. That on the western side was erected first, in direct response to the ban on sales of Western newspapers in East Berlin, and comprised an illuminated display board 30 m wide and 1.5 m deep, facing east, supported on three steel lattice towers 25 m high and topped by the words "DIE FREIE BERLINER PRESSE MELDET" (The Free Berlin Press Announces). Important messages were spelt out on the display board using up to 2,000 bulbs. The sign was switched on for the first time on 10 October 1950, watched by a large crowd. On 18 November, the Communist authorities in the east ordered its destruction using a catapult made from a compressed air hose loaded with pebbles and small pieces of metal. However, the order was not executed and the sign lasted until 1974, an eventual victim of its own high maintenance costs.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Not to be outdone, East Berlin had meanwhile erected a sign of its own. This was up and running by 25 November 1950, less than seven weeks after its western counterpart, albeit for a much shorter time period. (It was demolished on 29 January 1953.) Facing towards West Berlin was the proclamation "DER KLUGE BERLINER KAUFT BEI DER H.O." (The Wise Berliner Buys With The HO) Underneath were the words "NÄCHSTE VERKAUFSSTELLEN" (Next Sales Premises), between two arrows pointing left and right, suggesting that large shopping developments were forthcoming in the immediate vicinity, although these never appeared.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: What was not apparent from the western side however, was that East Berlin's construction boasted its own illuminated display board facing east, whose messages comprised the version of the news that the Communist authorities in the east wanted their citizens to believe. In addition, the East Berlin sign was carefully placed so that, when viewed from further away down Leipziger Strasse, its display board obscured the West Berlin sign standing beyond it. Over the next two years, West Berlin would regularly raise or lower its sign to make it more easily visible from the East again – and then East Berlin would raise or lower its own construction to obscure it once more. Furthermore, the East German Government also exploited the huge facade of the nearby Columbushaus as a further propaganda tool.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: More significantly, living and working conditions in East Germany were rapidly worsening under Communist rule. Tensions finally reached breaking point and a Workers’ Uprising took place on 17 June 1953, to be quickly and brutally crushed when Soviet tanks rolled in, and some of the worst violence occurred around Potsdamer Platz, where several people were killed by the Volkspolizei. No one really knows how many people died during the uprising itself, or by the subsequent death sentences. There are 55 known victims, but other estimates state at least 125. West German estimates were much higher: in 1966 the West German Ministry for Inter-German Affairs claimed that 383 people died in the uprising, including 116 "functionaries of the SED regime", with an additional 106 executed under martial law or condemned to death, while 1,838 were injured and 5,100 arrested, 1,200 of these sentenced to a total of six thousand years in penal camps. It was also claimed that 17 or 18 Soviet soldiers were executed for refusing to shoot demonstrating workers, but this remains unconfirmed by post-1990 research. Whatever the casualty figures, for the second time in eight years, the "busiest and most famous square in Europe" had been transformed into a bloody battleground. Columbushaus, with its H.O. store on the ground floor and military police station above, had been a prime target in the insurrection and been burnt out yet again, along with the Haus Vaterland and other premises. This time, they were not rehabilitated.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: As Cold War tensions rose still further during the 1950s, restrictions were placed on travel between the Soviet sector (East Berlin) and the western sectors (West Berlin). For the second time in its history, the Potsdam Gate (or what remained of it), was like a dividing line between two different worlds. Lying on this invisible frontier, Potsdamer Platz was no longer an important destination for Berliners. Similarly, neither East Berlin nor West Berlin regarded their half as a priority area for redevelopment, seeking instead to distance themselves from the traditional heart of the city and develop two new centres for themselves, well away from the troubled border zone. West Berlin inevitably chose the Kurfürstendamm and the area around the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, while East Berlin built up Alexanderplatz and turned Frankfurter Allee (which they renamed Stalinallee in 1949, Karl-Marx-Allee in 1961), into their own showpiece boulevard. Potsdamer Platz, meanwhile, was more or less left to rot, as one by one the ruined buildings were cleared away, neither side having the will to repair or replace them. On the western side things did improve with the development of the Cultural Forum, whose site roughly equates with the former Millionaires' Quarter.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: With the construction of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961, along the intracity frontier, Potsdamer Platz now found itself physically divided in two. What had once been a busy intersection had become totally desolate. With the clearance of most of the remaining bomb-damaged buildings on both sides (on the eastern side, this was done chiefly to give border guards a clear view of would-be escapees and an uninterrupted line of fire), little was left in an area of dozens of hectares. Further demolitions occurred up until 1976 when the Haus Vaterland finally disappeared. After that, only two buildings in the immediate vicinity of Potsdamer Platz still stood – one complete, the other in a half-ruined fragmented form: the Weinhaus Huth's steel skeleton had enabled the building to withstand the pounding of World War II virtually undamaged, and it stood out starkly amid a great levelled wasteland, although now occupied only by groups of squatters. A short distance away stood portions of the former Hotel Esplanade, including the Kaisersaal, used at various times as a much scaled-down hotel, cinema, nightclub and occasional film-set (scenes from Cabaret were shot there). Apart from these, no other buildings remained. Below ground, the U-Bahn section through Potsdamer Platz had closed entirely; although the S-Bahn line itself remained open, it suffered from a quirk of geography in that it briefly passed through East German territory en route from one part of West Berlin to another. Consequently, Potsdamer Platz S-Bahn station became the most infamous of several "Geisterbahnhofe" (ghost stations), through which trains ran without stopping, its previously bustling platforms now decrepit, sealed off from the outside world, and patrolled by armed guards.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: During its 28 years in limbo, Potsdamer Platz exuded a strange fascination towards many people on the western side, especially tourists and also visiting politicians and heads of state. For the benefit of the former, the row of post-war single-storey shops in Potsdamer Straße now sold a wide variety of souvenir goods, many of which were purchased by coach-loads of curious visitors brought specially to this sad location. An observation platform had been erected, primarily for military personnel and police but used increasingly by members of the public, so that they could gaze over the Wall at the wilderness beyond. Meanwhile, among the many V.I.P.s who came to look were U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (22 February 1962), Prime Minister Harold Wilson of the United Kingdom (6 March 1965), H.M. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (27 May 1965), H.R.H. Charles, Prince of Wales (3 November 1972), U.S. President Jimmy Carter (15 July 1978), and U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush (1 February 1983).


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Some scenes of the 1987 Wim Wenders movie "Der Himmel über Berlin" (English title: "Wings of Desire)" were filmed on the old, almost entirely void Potsdamer Platz before the Berlin Wall fell. In one scene an old man named Homer, played by actor Curt Bois, searches in vain for Potsdamer Platz, but finds only rubble, weeds and the graffiti-covered Berlin Wall. The movie thus gives a good impression of the surroundings at the time, which are completely unlike what can be seen today.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: After the initial opening of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, Potsdamer Platz became one of the earliest locations where the Wall was "breached" to create a new border crossing between East and West Berlin. The crossing began operating on 11 November 1989.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The crossing required the dismantling of both the inner and outer walls and the clearance of the "death zone" or "no man's land" between the two. A temporary road, lined with barriers, was created across this zone and checkpoints were set up just inside East German territory. Proper dismantling of the entire wall began on 15 May 1990 and all border checks were abolished on 1 July 1990 as East Germany joined West Germany in a currency union.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: On 21 July 1990, ex-Pink Floyd member Roger Waters staged a gigantic charity concert of his former band's rock extravaganza "The Wall" to commemorate the end of the division between East and West Germany. The concert took place at Potsdamer Platz – specifically an area of the former no man's land just to the north of the Reich Chancellery site, and featured many guest superstars. It was preparations for this concert, rather than historical interest, that brought about the first detailed post-Cold War survey of the area with a view to determining what, if anything, was left of Hitler's bunker and any other underground installations. Although sections of the main Führerbunker were found, partially destroyed or filled in, another bunker complex was found further north that even the East German authorities had apparently missed, plus other cavities beneath land bordering the east side of Ebertstraße, although these turned out to be underground garages belonging to a former SS accommodation block.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: After major refurbishment, the S-Bahn line and station reopened on 1 March 1992, followed by the U-Bahn on 13 November 1993. An additional station on the U-Bahn, called Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Park, was opened immediately north of the Landwehrkanal on 1 October 1998. A new U-Bahn station has also been built at Potsdamer Platz itself, although a decision is still pending on whether to proceed with completion of the line passing through it; in the meantime the station area serves as an impromptu art gallery and exhibition space. A new underground main-line station or "Regionalbahnhof" (Bahnhof Potsdamer Platz) has also been constructed, opened on 26 July 2006. There are also plans to reintroduce trams to Potsdamer Platz. In addition, many bus routes pass through the platz, while for people with their own cars there are some 5,000 parking spaces, 3,500 of which are underground.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The annual Berlin Marathon, which takes place in the last weekend of September, was first held in 1974 but due to the division of the city was confined to West Berlin up till and including 1989. Beginning in 1990 the course was re-routed into part of East Berlin, and in 2001 a further adjustment meant that the course has since run through Potsdamer Platz. Typically the leaders will pass through the platz about ten minutes before they cross the finish line.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Another annual tradition that began in West Berlin (in 1952) and was re-routed into the east via Potsdamer Platz following German reunification is the "Weihnachtszug" (Christmas train). It now does a regular two-hour round trip at weekends in the run-up to Christmas for families with children, starting and finishing at the Potsdamer Platz S-Bahn station. It did not run in 2009 or 2010 due to equipment problems, but is expected to be operational again in 2011.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: After 1990, the square became the focus of attention again, as a large (some 60 hectares), attractive location which had suddenly become available in the centre of a major European city. A lot of more than at Potsdamer Platz had been acquired by Daimler-Benz in 1987 as an expression of faith in Berlin; in 1990, adjacent plots were bought by Sony and the ABB Group. The area was widely seen as one of the hottest, most exciting building sites in Europe, and the subject of much debate amongst architects and planners. If Berlin needed to re-establish itself on the world stage, then Potsdamer Platz was one of the key areas where the city had an opportunity to express itself. More than just a building site, Potsdamer Platz was a "statement of intent". In particular, due to its location straddling the erstwhile border between east and west, it was widely perceived as a "linking element," reconnecting the two-halves of the city in a way that was symbolic as well as physical, helping to heal the historical wounds by providing an exciting new mecca attracting Berliners from both sides of the former divide. Whether fairly or unfairly, a great deal was riding on the project, and expectations were high.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The Berlin Senate (city government) organised a design competition for the redevelopment of Potsdamer Platz and much of the surrounding area. Eventually attracting 17 entrants, a winning design was announced in October 1991, that from the Munich-based architectural firm of Hilmer & Sattler. They had to fight off some stiff competition though, including a last-minute entry by British architect Richard Rogers.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The Berlin Senate then chose to divide the area into four parts, each to be sold to a commercial investor, who then planned new construction according to Hilmer & Sattler's masterplan. During the building phase Potsdamer Platz was the largest building site in Europe. While the resulting development is impressive in its scale and confidence, the quality of its architecture has been praised and criticised in almost equal measure.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The largest of the four parts went to Daimler-Benz, who charged Italian architect Renzo Piano with creating an overall design for their scheme while sticking to the underlying requirements of Hilmer & Sattler's masterplan. A $2 billion development bordering the west side of the former Potsdamer Bahnhof site, some of its 19 individual buildings were then erected by other architects, who submitted their own designs while maintaining Piano's key elements. The primary materials used for the buildings' facades are brick, terra cotta and sandstone, creating hues of beige, soft brown and ocher.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The first spade at the start of the Daimler-Benz development was turned by the Mayor of Berlin, Eberhard Diepgen, on 11 October 1993. During construction, the contractors erected a bright red three-story building called the "Info Box", where computer graphics help convey the scope of one of the most complex building projects ever attempted; it quickly became a highly popular attraction with thousands of visitors each week.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The finished complex was officially opened by the Federal President of Germany, Roman Herzog, on 2 October 1998, in a glittering ceremony featuring large-scale celebrations and musical performances. The 19 buildings include the offices of Daimler-Benz themselves (through their former subsidiary "debis", whose 21-storey main tower rises to 106 metres and is the tallest building in the new Potsdamer Platz development), also offices of British professional services company PricewaterhouseCoopers; "Berliner Volksbank" (Germany's largest cooperative bank) by Arata Isozaki; a five-star hotel designed by Rafael Moneo and managed by Hyatt, with 342 rooms and suites; and the 25-storey, 103-metre-high Potsdamer Platz No. 1, known as the "Kollhoff Tower" by architect Hans Kollhoff.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Potsdamer Platz No. 1 also houses the "Panoramapunkt" viewing platform, located 100 m above ground level, which is accessed by riding Europe's fastest elevator (8.65 metres per second). From the Panoramapunkt one can see such landmarks as the Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, Federal Chancellery, Bellevue Palace, Cathedral, Television Tower, Gendarmes Market, Holocaust Memorial and Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The Kollhoff Tower's facade needed major repairs due to water penetration and frost damage just seven years after completion, and was under scaffolding for many months.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The Daimler complex also contains the former Weinhaus Huth, now restored to its former glory and occupied by a restaurant, café, and an exhibition space for Daimler AG's art collection ("Daimler Contemporary"). Across the complex, various artworks from the collection are installed, including pieces by Keith Haring ("Untitled (The Boxers)"), Mark di Suvero ("Galileo"), Robert Rauschenberg ("The Riding Bikes") and Frank Stella ("Prinz Friedrich Arthur von Homburg"). From 2000 until 2010, "Balloon Flower (Blue)" (1995-2000) by Jeff Koons was located at Marlene Dietrich Platz.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The second largest part went to Sony, who erected their new European headquarters on a triangular site immediately to the north of Daimler-Benz and separated from it by the re-routed Potsdamer Straße. This new Sony Centre, designed by Helmut Jahn, is an eye-catching monolith of glass and steel featuring an enormous tent-like conical roof, its shape reportedly inspired by Mount Fuji in Japan, covering an elliptical central public space up to 102 metres across, and thus differing substantially from Hilmer & Sattler's original plan for the site. Its 26-storey, 103-metre-high "Bahn Tower" is so named because it houses the corporate headquarters of Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway system.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Surviving parts of the former Hotel Esplanade have been incorporated into the north side of the Sony development, including the Kaisersaal which, in a complex and costly operation in March 1996, was moved in one piece (all 1,300 tonnes of it), some 75 metres from its former location, to the spot that it occupies today (it even had to make two right-angled turns during the journey, while maintaining its own orientation). Nearby is a new Café Josty, opened early in 2001, while between the two is "Josty's Bar," which is housed in the Esplanade's former breakfast room. This, like the Kaisersaal, had to be relocated, but here the room was dismantled into some 500 pieces to be reassembled where it stands now.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Topped out on 2 September 1998, the Sony Centre was formally opened on 14 June 2000 (although many of its public attractions had been up and running since 20 January), in another grand ceremony with more music – this time with Sony's Japanese chairman Norio Ohga himself conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. A keen lover of classical music, he had helped to choose the site because of its close proximity to the orchestra's home in the Cultural Forum.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The third part became the Beisheim Center and adjoining buildings, on another triangular site bordered on the east side by Ebertstraße, financed entirely out of his own pocket by the German businessman Otto Beisheim. The office and shopping complex also houses the five-star Ritz Carlton and Marriott hotels.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The fourth part is the Park Kolonnaden, a range of buildings running down the east side of the Potsdamer Bahnhof site, parallelling Daimler-Benz. This complex occupies the site of the former Haus Vaterland, and its principal building, which for a few years was the headquarters of the large German trade union ver.di ("Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft", meaning United Services Union), rises to 45 metres and has a curving glass facade designed to evoke the shape of that erstwhile landmark.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Other developments, more piecemeal in nature, have recreated the octagonal layout of neighbouring Leipziger Platz immediately to the east. One of these is "Kanada Haus", the new embassy of Canada, on the platz's north-west diagonal. Its turf-cutting ceremony was carried out on 18 February 2002 by the Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, and it was officially opened on 29 April 2005.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The whole project was subject to much controversy from the start; not everyone approves of how the district was commercialised and replanned. The decision by the Berlin Senate to divide the land between just four investors – while numerous others had submitted bids – provoked scepticism. The remarkably low price Daimler-Benz paid to secure their plot prompted questions from the Berlin Auditor-General's office and the European Union in Brussels, which resulted in Daimler-Benz being billed an additional sum. There were wrangles over land-usage: although a central feature of the Daimler-Benz development is a top shopping mall – the "Arkaden" (Arcades), this did not form part of the plans until the Berlin Senate belatedly insisted that a shopping mall be included. Despite its undoubted success, this in turn led to what many saw as an "Americanisation" of the area, with even its private security force being kitted out in something resembling New York Police uniforms.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Further wrangles effectively brought work on the north side of Leipziger Platz to a complete stop for several years; even now there are some "fake facades" where completed new buildings should be, while a long-running dispute over who owned the Wertheim department store site (or had claims to the revenue from its sale by the government), left another large gap in the central Berlin cityscape that is only now finally being redeveloped. This development, known as Leipziger Platz 12, is a large complex with facades in three streets (Leipziger Strasse, Wilhelmstrasse and Vossstrasse) as well as Leipziger Platz itself, and when completed will contain 270 stores, 270 apartments, a hotel, a fitness centre and offices. However, this development brought about the demise (after several stays of execution), of the legendary Tresor nightclub and centre for techno music. Founded on 8 March 1991 in the basement strongrooms of the former Wertheim store's bank, these having survived the decades largely undamaged, the club finally closed on 16 April 2005 (it reopened on 24 May 2007 in a renovated power plant on Köpenicker Straße).


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The rebuilt Potsdamer Platz now attracts around 70,000 visitors a day, rising to 100,000 at weekends. It is a particularly popular attraction for visitors: the "Arkaden" shopping mall is in length. There are also four major hotels, and Europe's largest casino (Spielbank Berlin).


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The Theater am Potsdamer Platz is a theatre for musicals seating over 1600 people. It is known as the Berlinale Palast during the Berlin International Film Festival, serving as the venue for the premieres of competition films and several special gala films, as well as the opening and awards ceremonies.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The CinemaxX Potsdamer Platz is a multiplex cinema containing 19 screens and seating up to 3,500 people. It has been the main Berlinale screening cinema since 2000, two years after its opening in 1998.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Whilst on the surface the new Potsdamer Platz appears so far to have lived up to its expectations as a futuristic centre of commerce at the heart of Europe's youngest capital city, there has been much debate as to just how successful it really is. Certainly its long-term success and viability have become much harder to judge since the recent worldwide economic downturn, a situation compounded by the actions of its two principal owner-occupiers. Daimler and Sony caused a major surprise on 2 October 2007 when both announced that they were putting their respective complexes at Potsdamer Platz on the market. Whilst neither intended to move out, both felt it preferable to rent the space from new owners rather than continue to be the owners themselves (and so be responsible for the buildings' upkeep and maintenance). Daimler had recently come through a painful separation from their former American subsidiary Chrysler and needed a quick injection of cash in order to refocus on automotive production. The announcement came on the ninth anniversary of their complex's official opening, a fact not lost on many people. Sony meanwhile, put their decision down to a need to review their global strategy in the face of a fast-changing worldwide economic climate. The implications for Potsdamer Platz were ominous, with suggestions that overall confidence in the project was faltering, and more pessimistic claims that the development had largely failed in its original intentions.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: On 17 December 2007, Daimler announced that they were selling their entire complex of 19 buildings at Potsdamer Platz to SEB Asset Management, a Frankfurt-based subsidiary of the Swedish banking group SEB. On 28 February 2008, Sony made a similar announcement, of impending sale to a consortium led by American investment banking giant (now bank holding company) Morgan Stanley. Both deals were finalised by the end of March 2008. Whilst the amounts involved have not been publicly disclosed, it is believed that neither Daimler nor Sony recouped all of their original investments (what Daimler managed to get was reportedly well short).


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The development is a commercial success at street level. The numbers of shoppers visiting the Arkaden, guests passing through the doors of the many bars, cafes and restaurants, theatres and cinemas, hotels and casino (not to mention passengers thronging the platforms of the stations), all point to a thriving focal point right at the very heart of Berlin. Detractors however, may draw attention to the floors above and point out the high percentage of office and residential space that allegedly still stands empty more than a decade after its completion. Although examples of "over-provision" like this can be found all over Berlin, it is Potsdamer Platz that, rightly or wrongly, has been used to highlight the problem.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: The other major sticking point, which is reportedly causing concern at government level, is that the majority of people going to Potsdamer Platz are visitors to the city, implying that the original vision of the development as a linking element attracting Berliners themselves, and Berliners from both sides of the former divide, has not really materialised. There are criticisms that the development does not sit easily with or connect with its surroundings, and as a result Berliners have had difficulty accepting it as "theirs" (despite the fact that the choice of Hilmer & Sattler's masterplan was partly because it was the only one to address the way the development juxtaposed with the Cultural Forum immediately to the west, although the Cultural Forum has itself faced similar criticisms of its own). Another, more psychological factor that has played a part here is that a long-standing mutual distrust or antipathy felt between former East Berliners and West Berliners ("Ossis" and "Wessis" according to the well-known slang terms), is still very much in evidence in the city and elsewhere in Germany, and bold civil engineering projects and architectural statements are not going to make it go away by themselves. Politicians past and present have been accused of short-sightedness in speculating that they would.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: It was feared that the economic downturn might exacerbate all these problems. On the whole, however, Potsdamer Platz seems to have weathered the storm. Meanwhile, Deutsche Bahn AG were due to relocate to a purpose-built new structure at Berlin's new main train station (Berlin Hauptbahnhof), when the lease on the Sony Center's Bahn Tower expired in 2010. However, in April 2008 Deutsche Bahn announced that they were seeking to extend the lease on the Bahn Tower by another three years. This deal was finalised in late 2009. Since then the lease has been extended to 15 years.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Before World War II, Potsdamer Platz had much streetcar traffic. The last remnants were removed in 1991.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Unlike, for example, Friedrichstrasse station, Potsdamer Platz is not a really important intersection point for the U and S-Bahn system. However, due to its location on the north–south route to the main station, parallel to the aboveground buildings, it was also connected to the regional traffic with a tunnel station. Regional trains of the DB and the ODEG, the S-Bahn (north–south tunnel) and the U2 underground line currently stop at Potsdamer Platz regional train station. Via numerous bus lines, the course can also be reached. In the medium term, a tram connection through the Leipziger Strasse is planned, which can be supplemented or even replaced by the long-planned U3 underground line. In the north–south direction, another S-Bahn line (planning name: S21), in particular for better public transport development of the main station, to be built in the long term.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: Essentially, four major roads, in the east–west direction, Potsdamer Strasse and Leipziger Strasse, and in the north–south direction, Ebertstrasse and Stresemannstrasse, lead traffic to Potsdamer Platz. Smaller streets within the individual quarters provide for the connection of the underground parking garages. In addition, in 2006, a connection between the Uferstraße on the Landwehrkanal and the main tunnel was put into operation, the Tunnel Tiergarten Spreebogen is part of the Bundesstrasse 96.


title: Potsdamer Platz

text: On 2 March 2008, a statue by the Berlin artist Alexander Polzin dedicated to Italian philosopher, priest, cosmologist, and occultist Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), was erected inside one of the entrances to the Potsdamer Platz Regionalbahnhof.


title: Charles Lewis Tiffany

text: Charles Lewis Tiffany (February 15, 1812 – February 18, 1902) was an American businessman and jeweler who founded New York City's Tiffany & Co. in 1837. Known for his jewelry expertise, Tiffany created the country's first retail catalog and introduced the English standard of sterling silver in imported jewelry in 1851.


title: Charles Lewis Tiffany

text: Tiffany was born on February 15, 1812, in Killingly, Connecticut, the son of Chloe (Draper) and Comfort Tiffany. Tiffany was educated at a district school and an academy in Plainfield, Connecticut. Starting at the age of fifteen, he helped manage a small general store founded by his father, the owner of a cotton-manufacturing company. He later worked at the office of his father's mill. The Tiffany family descended from the immigrant Squire Humphrey Tiffany (England, 1630-Swansea, Massachusetts, 1685), who had lived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony since 1660.


title: Charles Lewis Tiffany

text: In 1837, with $1,000 borrowed from his father, Tiffany and a school friend, John B. Young, set up a small stationery and gift shop in New York City. Their first day in business brought only $4.98 in sales, but two years later they were still in business, selling glassware, porcelain, cutlery, clocks, and jewelry. The store expanded in 1841, when the owners changed its name to Tiffany, Young, and Ellis. The store established a reputation for selling only the finest goods and specialized in Bohemian glass and porcelain. It also began manufacturing its own jewelry. In 1848, when political unrest in Europe depreciated the market in precious stones, Tiffany invested heavily in diamonds, which were sold at a great profit a few years later.


title: Charles Lewis Tiffany

text: In 1853, the company was reorganized under the name Tiffany and Company, and opened branches in Paris (1850) and London (1868). The store also relocated uptown to a Fifth Avenue site in that decade. At the beginning of the American Civil War, foreseeing that the jewelry business would suffer, Tiffany turned most of his capital to the manufacture of swords, medals, and other war materials.


title: Charles Lewis Tiffany

text: Tiffany was publicly embarrassed in an 1872 diamond and gemstone hoax perpetrated by Philip Arnold that cost investors more than half a million dollars.


title: Charles Lewis Tiffany

text: In collaboration with Thomas Edison, Tiffany created footlights and other devices for theater lighting. As a result, Broadway shows became more popular.


title: Charles Lewis Tiffany

text: The firm acquired and sold some of the French Crown Jewels in 1887, solidifying its reputation as merchants of high quality.


title: Charles Lewis Tiffany

text: Charles Tiffany died at his home in Manhattan on February 18, 1902, at age ninety. At the time of his death, his company was capitalized at more than $2 million and was acknowledged as the most prominent jewelry company in North America.


title: Charles Lewis Tiffany

text: On November 30, 1841, Tiffany married John B. Young's sister, Harriet Olivia Avery Young (1817–1897), with whom he had six children: Charles Lewis Tiffany Jr. (1842–1847), Annie Olivia Tiffany Mitchell (1844–1937; grandmother of Hiram Bingham IV through her daughter Alfreda Mitchell; she was the first wife of Hiram Bingham III, one of the first explorers to Machu Picchu, Peru), Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933), Louise Harriet Tiffany (1856–1937), Henry Charles Tiffany (1858–1859), and Burnett Young Tiffany (1860–1945).


title: Charles Lewis Tiffany

text: Tiffany was a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and one of the founders of the New York Society of Fine Arts.


title: The Rembrandts

text: The Rembrandts are an American alternative rock duo, formed by Danny Wilde and Phil Solem in 1989. They had previously worked together as members of Great Buildings in 1981. The Rembrandts are best known for the song "I'll Be There for You", which was used as the main theme song for the NBC sitcom "Friends".


title: The Rembrandts

text: Wilde was a member of 1970s cult recording act The Quick, and had released several mildly successful solo albums in the 1980s. Wilde and Solem had been in the power-pop quartet Great Buildings, a band that released one album for CBS in 1981 before dissolving.


title: The Rembrandts

text: After establishing themselves as The Rembrandts in 1989, Solem and Wilde recorded a self-titled album largely in Wilde's home studio. From this album, the group had their first success during 1990 with "Just the Way It Is, Baby", which scored at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. The self-titled album scored number 88 on the Billboard 200.


title: The Rembrandts

text: The next album "Untitled", of 1992, featured the minor successes "Johnny, Have You Seen Her?" and "Chase the Clouds Away". Another track from the album, "Rollin' Down the Hill", was used in the film "Dumb and Dumber".


title: The Rembrandts

text: "I'll Be There for You," the theme for the sitcom "Friends", reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart for several weeks before being released as a single and peaking at No. 17 on the U.S. Billboard chart. The single has been released in other countries, including the UK, where it reached No. 3 in 1995 and No. 5 in 1997. The success of "Friends" has caused a greater awareness of the band, and led to greater sales of their recorded albums. The song was also featured on the "Friends Soundtrack" album. An earlier, previously unreleased version of "I'll Be There for You" with different lyrics was included on their "Unreleased Stuff" album.


title: The Rembrandts

text: In 1997, the duo split, with Solem returning to Minneapolis to concentrate on his band Thrush. In 1998, Wilde released the album "Spin This", credited to "Danny Wilde + The Rembrandts". In 2000, Solem and Wilde reunited, and released the album "Lost Together" as The Rembrandts the following year.


title: The Rembrandts

text: In 2005, the band released an album of re-recorded favorites called "Choice Picks". There are two versions of "Choice Picks", one released through Awarestore.com which features the new track "Chasin' Down a Rainbow". The other version was released on the Fuel 2000 label, with the new track "Don't Give Me Up".


title: The Rembrandts

text: In 2006, Rhino Records released a collection called "Greatest Hits", a 20-song career-spanning retrospective that included material from the lone Great Buildings album, "Apart from the Crowd".


title: The Rembrandts

text: In 2016, the pair reunited and announced that they would release a new album. "Via Satellite" was released in 2019.


title: The Rembrandts

text: Despite achieving success with "I'll Be There For You", the duo has been dismissive of the song. Phil Solem in 1995, said "We don't want to hang our hats on the theme from a TV show...[w]e've been working too long at our craft for that." The same year, the duo tried to apologize for the song on MTV News' "The Year in Rock".


title: The Rembrandts

text: In 2014, Rolling Stone ranked them the 20th best Two-Hit wonder of all time. Insider, placed them on their list of the "Best One-Hit Wonders of All Time".


title: Paracentesis

text: Paracentesis (from Greek κεντάω, "to pierce") is a form of body fluid sampling procedure, generally referring to peritoneocentesis (also called laparocentesis or abdominal paracentesis) in which the peritoneal cavity is punctured by a needle to sample peritoneal fluid.


title: Paracentesis

text: The procedure is used to remove fluid from the peritoneal cavity, particularly if this cannot be achieved with medication. The most common indication is ascites that has developed in people with cirrhosis.


title: Paracentesis

text: The procedure is often performed in a doctor's office or an outpatient clinic. In an expert's hands, it is usually very safe, although there is a small risk of infection, excessive bleeding or perforating a loop of bowel. These last two risks can be minimized greatly with the use of ultrasound guidance.


title: Paracentesis

text: The use of ultrasound has become the standard of care when preparing a patient for paracentesis. Confirmation of an ascitic effusion reduces the risks associated with a dry or blind tap of the abdomen. Anatomic landmarks, such as the midline linea alba (abdomen) approach, were traditionally used as reference points for needle insertion. Phased array or curvilinear ultrasound transducers are typically used in the hospital and outpatient setting to identify ascites in the abdominal cavity. Fluid within the abdominal cavity appears hypoechoic or anechoic (black) on ultrasound. Morisons pouch (hepatorenal recess) is a common starting location in concordance with ultrasound FAST (Focused assessment with sonography for trauma) exam. Fluid collection can occur in a number of different locations and may be difficult to find, especially if the patient only exhibits a small volume of ascites. Measurement of the amount of fluid within the abdominal cavity is not necessary or very successful. Identification of sufficient fluid within the abdominal cavity for fluid analysis or to achieve a therapeutic benefit is all that is required to proceed to paracentesis. Ultrasound guidance of the paracentesis can also be used as an additional safety measure to ensure the needle stays within the ascitic fluid and avoidance of important vessels within the abdominal cavity.


title: Paracentesis

text: The patient is requested to urinate before the procedure; alternately, a Foley catheter is used to empty the bladder. The patient is positioned in the bed with the head elevated at 45–60 degrees to allow fluid to accumulate in lower abdomen. After cleaning the side of the abdomen with an antiseptic solution, the physician numbs a small area of skin and inserts a large-bore needle with a plastic sheath 2 to 5 cm (1 to 2 in) in length to reach the peritoneal (ascitic) fluid. The needle is removed, leaving the plastic sheath to allow drainage of the fluid. The fluid is drained by gravity, a syringe, or by connection to a vacuum bottle. Several litres of fluid may be drained during the procedure; however, if more than two litres are to be drained, it will usually be done over the course of several treatments. After the desired level of drainage is complete, the plastic sheath is removed and the puncture site bandaged. The plastic sheath can be left in place with a flow control valve and protective dressing if further treatments are expected to be necessary.


title: Paracentesis

text: If fluid drainage in cirrhotic ascites is more than 5 litres, patients may receive intravenous serum albumin (25% albumin, 8g/L) to prevent hypotension (low blood pressure). There has been debate as to whether albumin administration confers benefit, but a recent 2016 meta-analysis concluded that it can reduce mortality after large-volume paracentesis significantly. However, for every end-point investigated, while albumin was favorable as compared to other agents (e.g., plasma expanders, vasoconstrictors), these were not statistically significant and the meta-analysis was limited by the quality of the studies — two of which that were in fact unsuitable — included in it.


title: Paracentesis

text: The procedure generally is not painful and does not require sedation. The patient is usually discharged within several hours following post-procedure observation provided that blood pressure is otherwise normal and the patient experiences no dizziness.


title: Paracentesis

text: Paracentesis is known to be a safe procedure when ascitic fluid is readily visible, so complications are typically rare. Possible complications following or during the procedure involve infection, bleeding, the leakage ascitic of fluid, or bowel perforation. Of these, the most concerning in the immediate setting is bleeding within the peritoneal cavity.


title: Paracentesis

text: The z-tracking technique has held particular importance in performing paracentesis. A z-track is a technique that allows for decreased ascitic fluid leak following the paracentesis by displacing the needle tracks with respect to the epidermis and the peritoneum.


title: Paracentesis

text: The color of the ascitic fluid can also be useful in analysis. Blood fluid can indicate trauma or malignancy. A milky appearance of the fluid can indicate lymphoma or malignant peritoneal ascites. Cloudy or turbid fluid can indicate possible infection or inflammation within the peritoneal cavity. Straw or light yellow colored fluid indicates more plasma-like and benign causes of peritoneal ascites.


title: Paracentesis

text: The ascitic white blood cell count can help determine if the ascites is infected. A count of 250 neutrophils per ml or higher is considered diagnostic for spontaneous bacterial peritonitis. Cultures of the fluid can be taken, but the yield is approximately 40% (72-90% if blood culture bottles are used). Empiric antibiotics are typically started when spontaneous bacterial peritonitis is highly suspected. A third-generation cephalosporin is typically started in these cases to cover the most common organisms, E.Coli and Klebsiella, in SBP.


title: Paracentesis

text: Mild hematologic abnormalities do not increase the risk of bleeding. The risk of bleeding may be increased if:


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Joseph's Tomb (, "Qever Yosef"; , "Qabr Yūsuf") is a funerary monument located in Balata village at the eastern entrance to the valley that separates Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, 300 metres northwest of Jacob's Well, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus. It has been venerated throughout the ages by Samaritans, for whom it is the second holiest site; by Jews; by Christians; and by Muslims, some of whom view it as the location of a local sheikh, Yusef al-Dwaik or Dawiqat, who died in the 18th century.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: The site is near Tell Balata, the site of Shakmu in the Late Bronze Age and later biblical Shechem. One biblical tradition identifies the general area of Shechem as the resting-place of the biblical patriarch Joseph and his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh. Multiple locations over the years have been viewed as the legendary burial place of Joseph. Post-biblical records regarding the location of Joseph's Tomb somewhere around this area date from the beginning of the 4th century CE. The present structure, a small rectangular room with a cenotaph, is the result of a 1868 rebuilding action, and does not contain any architectural elements older than that. While some scholars, such as Kenneth Kitchen and James K. Hoffmeier affirm the essential historicity of the biblical account of Joseph, others, such as Donald B. Redford, argue that the story itself has "no basis in fact".


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: There is no archaeological evidence establishing the tomb as Joseph's, and modern scholarship has yet to determine whether or not the present cenotaph is to be identified with the ancient biblical gravesite. The lack of Jewish or Christian sources prior to the 5th century that mention the tomb indicates that prior to the 4th century it was a Samaritan site. Samaritan sources tell of struggles between Samaritans and Christians who wished to remove Joseph's bones.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: At key points in its long history, a site thought to be Joseph's Tomb in this area witnessed intense sectarian conflict. Samaritans and Christians disputing access and title to the site in the early Byzantine period often engaged in violent clashes. After Israel captured the West Bank in 1967, Muslims were prohibited from worship at the shrine and it was gradually turned into a Jewish prayer room. Interreligious friction and conflict from competing Jewish and Muslim claims over the tomb became frequent. Though it fell under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) following the signing of the Oslo Accords, it remained under IDF guard with Muslims prohibited from praying there. At the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, just after being handed over to the PNA, it was looted and razed by rioting Palestinians. Following the reoccupation of Nablus during Israel's Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, Jewish groups returned there intermittently. Between 2009 and 2010 the structure was refurbished, with a new cupola installed, and visits by Jewish worshippers have resumed. The tomb was vandalized by Palestinian rioters in 2015 and again in 2022.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: The Torah provides four details regarding the traditions surrounding Joseph's remains. The account in Genesis relates that, before his death, he had his brothers swear they would carry his bones out of Egypt to Canaan. He is then said to have been embalmed then placed in a coffin in Egypt. In Exodus, we are told that Moses fulfilled the pledge by taking Joseph's bones with him when he left Egypt. In Joshua, Joseph's bones are said to have been brought from Egypt by the Children of Israel and interred in Shechem.The bones of Joseph, which the Children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, were buried in Shechem in a parcel of land Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor, father of Shechem, for a hundred pieces of silver ("qśîṭâ")..


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: The Bible does not identify a specific site in Shechem where his bones were laid to rest. The Genesis Rabba, a Jewish text written c. 400–450 CE, states that a burial site in Shechem is one of three for which the nations of the world cannot ridicule Israel and say "you have stolen them," it having been purchased by Jacob. The rabbis also suggest that Joseph instructed his brothers to bury him in Shechem since it was from there he was taken and sold into slavery. Other Jewish sources have him buried either in Safed, or, according to an aggadic tradition, have him interred at Hebron according to his own wishes. The ambiguity is reflected in Islamic tradition which points to Nablus as being the authentic site, though some early Islamic geographers identified the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron as housing his tomb. The Qur'an itself does not mention details of Joseph's burial. Ali of Herat (1119), Yaqut (1229) and Ibn Battuta (1369) all conserve both the Nablus and Hebron traditions. Later Muslim chroniclers also mention a third site purporting to be the authentic tomb, near Beit Ijza. The Hebron tradition is also reflected in some medieval Christian sources, such as the account by Srewulf (CE 1102) who says that "the bones of Joseph were buried more humbly than the rest, as it were at the extremity of the castle".


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Though the traditional biblical date for the narrative of Joseph's life and death places him in Egypt in the middle of the Twelfth Dynasty, roughly comparable to the Hyksos invasion of Egypt, contemporary scholarship no longer accepts such a remote dating. The figure of Joseph itself is often taken to be a "personification of a tribe", rather than an historic person.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: According to the Bible, Joseph was embalmed and buried in a coffin in Egypt, after having his people swear to carry his bones away. Later midrash identify his first entombment in a royal mausoleum, or as cast into the Nile. Moses is said to have gathered the bones and taken them with him during the Exodus from Egypt, using magic to raise the coffin, a tradition repeated by Josephus, who specifies that they were buried in Canaan at that time. Regarding his burial in Canaan, from Joshua it is evident that the portion Joseph received was an allotment near Shechem, not the town itself.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: The majority of contemporary scholars believe the historicity of the events in the Joseph story cannot be demonstrated. In the wake of scholars like Hermann Gunkel, Hugo Gressmann and Gerhard von Rad, who identified the story of Joseph as primarily a literary composition, it is now widely considered to belong to the genre of romance, or the novella. As a novella it is read as reworking legends and myths, many of them, especially the motifs of his reburial in Canaan, associated with the Egyptian god Osiris, though some compare the burial of his bones at Shechem with the disposal of Dionysus's bones at Delphi. The reworked legends and folklore were probably inserted into the developing textual tradition of the Bible between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE. Most scholars place its composition in a genre that flourished in the Persian period of the Exile.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: For Schenke, the tradition of Joseph's burial at Shechem can only be understood as a secondary, Israelitic historical interpretation woven around a more ancient Canaanite shrine in that area. Wright has indeed argued that "the patriarch Joseph was not an Israelite hero who became Egyptianised, but an Egyptian divinity who was Hebraised."


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Hans-Martin Schenke, starting from an analysis of , in which Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at the town of Sychar, made an extensive analysis of the ancient sources, together with an examination of the site. The curiosity of the Gospel text for scholars lies in the mention of an otherwise unattested town in the field, and the failure of the text to refer to Joseph's Tomb, despite mentioning the field Jacob allotted to Joseph, and Jacob's well. In Schenke's view, from the beginning of the Hellenistic period down to the 1st century CE, when the author of John's gospel was presumably writing, the grave commemorating Joseph stood by Jacob's Well. This grave was shifted, together with the sacred tree and Jacob's field, sometime between that date and the earliest testimony we have in the Bordeaux itinerary in 333 CE, which locates it elsewhere, by Shechem/Tel Balāṭa.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: The Itinerarium Burdigalense (333 CE) notes: "At the foot of the mountain itself, is a place called Sichem. Here is a tomb in which Joseph is laid, in the parcel of ground which Jacob his father gave to him." Eusebius of Caesarea in the 4th-century records in his "Onomasticon": "Suchem, city of Jacob now deserted. The place is pointed out in the suburb of Neapolis. There the tomb of Joseph is pointed out nearby." Jerome, writing of Saint Paula's sojourn in Palestine writes that "turning off the way [from Jacob's well], she saw the tombs of the twelve patriarchs". Jerome himself, together with the Byzantine monk George Syncellus, who had lived many years in Palestine, wrote that all twelve patriarchs, Joseph included, were buried at Sychem.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Both Theodosius I and Theodosius II ordered a search for Joseph's bones, much to the utter dismay of the Samaritan community. An imperial commission was dispatched to retrieve the bones of the Patriarchs around 415, and on failing to obtain them at Hebron, sought to at least secure Joseph's bones from Shechem. No gravestone marked the exact site, possibly because the Samaritans had removed one to avoid Christian interference. The officials had to excavate the general area where graves abound and, on finding an intact marble sepulchre beneath an empty coffin, concluded that it must contain Joseph's bones, and sent the sarcophagus to Byzantium, where it was incorporated into Hagia Sophia.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Jerome reports that apparently the Christians had intended to remove Joseph's bones to their city, but a column of fire rose skyward from the tomb scaring them away. The Samaritans subsequently covered the tomb with earth rendering it inaccessible.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Christian pilgrim and archdeacon Theodosius (518–520) in his "De situ terrae sanctae" mentions that "close to Jacob's Well are the remains of Joseph the Holy". The Madaba Mosaic Map (6th century) designates a site somewhat problematically with the legend – "Joseph's" (τὸ τοῦ Ὶωσήφ) – where the usual adjective 'holy' ("hagios") accompanying mentions of saints and their shrines is lacking.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Crusader and medieval sources generally are, according to Hans-Martin Schenke, highly misleading regarding exactly where the tomb was situated. He concluded that in the Middle Ages, as earlier, various groups (Jews, Samaritans, Christians and Muslims) at different periods identified different things in different places all as Joseph's tomb. Sometimes Balata, with its spring, seems indicated, as in the following two examples, which identify the tomb not as a structure, but as something by a spring and under a tree. It was evidently a site for Muslim pilgrimage at that time.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: There is also near Nâblus the spring of Al Khudr (Elias), and the field of Yûsuf as Sadik (Joseph); further, Joseph is buried at the foot of the tree at this place.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: as did Benjamin of Tudela—who wrote that the Samaritans in Nablus were in possession of it. William of Malmesbury describes it as overlaid with white marble, next to the mausolea of his brothers. Menachem ben Peretz of Hebron (1215) writes that in Shechem he saw the tomb of Joseph son of Jacob with two marble pillars next to it—one at its head and another at its foot—and a low stone wall surrounding it. Ishtori Haparchi (1322) places the tombstone of Joseph 450 meters north of Balāta, while Alexander de Ariosti (1463) and Francesco Suriano (1485) associate it with the church over Jacob's well. Samuel bar Simson (1210), Jacob of Paris (1258), and Johannes Poloner (1422) locate it by Nablus. Gabriel Muffel of Nuremberg discerns a tomb to Joseph in a monument to the west of Nablus, halfway between that city and Sebaste. Mandeville (1322) and Maundrell (1697), among others, also mention its existence, although it is debatable as to whether any of these reports refer to the currently recognised location. Samuel ben Samson (1210) appears to place the tomb at Shiloh. Mandeville (1322) locates it 'nigh beside' Nablus as does Maundrell (1697), but the indications are vague. Maundrell describes his sepulchre as located in a small mosque just by Nablus, which does not fit the present location.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Although the Koran does not mention details of Joseph's burial, Islamic tradition points to Nablus as being the authentic site. However, some early Islamic geographers identified the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron as housing his tomb. While Ali of Herat (1119), Yaqut (1229) and Ibn Battuta (1369) all report the Hebron traditions, they also mention the existence of a tomb of Joseph at Nablus. Later Muslim chroniclers even mention a third site purporting to be the authentic tomb, near Beit Ijza.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: William Cooke Taylor (1838) describes the biblical parcel of ground Jacob gave to Joseph as situated on plain of Mukhna, and identifies the tomb as an oriental "weli" structure at the entrance to the valley of Nablus, to the right near the base of Mt Ebal. The sarcophagus, he suggests, lies underneath or somewhere else in the vicinity of this plain, and comments:


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: The present monument ... is a place of resort, not only for Jews and Christians, but Mohammedans and Samaritans; all of whom concur in the belief that it stands on the vertiable spot where the patriarch was buried.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: In 1839, the Jewish traveller Loewe based his identification of the tomb as near Jacob's Well by a topographical argument. Scripture, he argued, calls the place neither an "emek" (valley) nor a "shephelah" (plain), but a 'portion of field' ("chelkat hasadeh"), and concluded: "in the whole of Palestine there is not such another plot to be found, a dead level, without the least hollow or swelling in a circuit of two hours."


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: In 1839, it was recorded that Jews frequently visited the tomb and that many inscriptions in Hebrew were visible on the walls. The site was "kept very neat and in good repair by the bounty of Jews who visited it".


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: John Wilson (1847) writes that the tomb lies about two or three hundred yards to the north of Jacob's Well, across the valley. He describes it as "a small solid erection in the form of a wagon roof, over what is supposed to be the patriarch's grave, with a small pillar or altar at each of its extremities, sometimes called the tombs of Ephraim and Manasseh, and the middle of an enclosure without a covering. Many visitors names, in the Hebrew and Samaritan characters, are written on the walls of this enclosure." One of the inscriptions is said to intimate the tomb's repair by a Jew from Egypt, Elijah son of Meir, around 1749. Wilson adds that "The Jews of Nablus take upon themselves the duty of keeping the tomb in order. They applied to us for a subscription to aid in making some repairs and we complied with their request". These Hebrew and Samaritan inscriptions were still visible on the white plastered walls as late as 1980, as were small lamps in an internal recess, probably donated by Jews during the 18th and 19th centuries.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Rabbi Joseph Schwarz (1850) who had lived in Palestine for 16 years, identified the village of Abulnita, "about 2 English miles east of Shechem", as the site "where Joseph lies buried". Western travellers to Palestine in the 19th century described their impressions of the site in travelogues. John Ross Browne (1853) writes: "We also visited the reputed site of Joseph's Tomb. A rude stone building covers the pretended sepulcher; but the best authorities deny that there was any evidence that Joseph was buried here." Howard Crosby also visited the site during 1851. He designated it, "the so-called tomb of Joseph", describing it as "a plain white Santon's tomb, or Wely, such as is everywhere seen in Mohammedan countries, excepting that this one is roofless, and consequently lacks the usual white dome. In the interior, a vine grows from a corner, and spreads upon a trellis over the tomb, forming a pleasant bower." Louis Félicien Joseph Caignart de Saulcy and Edouard de Warren (1853) describe it as "a small Mussulman oually ("weli", i.e. chapel) ... said to be the tomb of Joseph", noting it was just to the east of what the Arabs called "Bir-Yakub", Jacob's Well. Hackett noted in 1857 that the tomb is placed diagonally to the walls, instead of parallel, and found "the walls of the interior covered with the names of pilgrims, representing almost every land and language; though the Hebrew character was the most prominent one". Thomson noted in 1883 that "the entire building is fast crumbling to ruin, presenting a most melancholy spectacle". Being exposed to the weather, "it has no pall or votive offering of any kind, nor any marks of respect such as are seen at the sepulchres of the most insignificant Muslim saints." During the late 19th century, sources report the Jewish custom of burning small articles such as gold lace, shawls or handkerchiefs, in the two low pillars at either end of the tomb. This was done in "memory of the patriarch who sleeps beneath".


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Claude R. Conder provides a detailed description of the site in his works "Tent Work in Palestine" (1878), "Survey of Western Palestine" (1881) and "Palestine" (1889).


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: It is located on the road-side from Balata to ‘Askar, at the end of a row of fine fig trees. The open courtyard surrounding the tomb measures about square. The plastered, whitewashed walls, about thick, are in good repair and stand high. Entrance to the courtyard is from the north through the ruin of a little square domed building. There are two Hebrew inscriptions on the south wall. An additional English inscription notes that the structure was entirely rebuilt at the expense of the English consul at Damascus by early 1868.The tomb itself measures long and stands high. It consisted of a long narrow plastered block with an arched roof, having a pointed cross section. The tomb is not in line with the walls of the courtyard, which have a bearing of 202°, nor is it in the middle of the enclosure, being nearest to the west wall. Two short plastered pedestals with shallow cup-shaped hollows at their tops stand at the head and foot of the tomb. The hollows are blackened by fire due to the Jewish custom of burning offerings of shawls, silks or gold lace on the pillar altars. Both Jews and Samaritans burn oil lamps and incense in the pillar cavity.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Conder also questions the fact that the tomb points north to south, inconsistent with Muslim tombs north of Mecca. This fact did not however diminish Muslim veneration of the shrine:


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: The tomb points approximately north and south, thus being at right angles to the direction of Moslem tombs north of Mecca. How the Mohammedans explain this disregard of orientation in so respected a Prophet as "our Lord Joseph", I have never heard; perhaps the rule is held to be only established since the time of Mohammed. The veneration in which the shrine is held by the Moslem peasantry is, at all events, not diminished by this fact.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: In the course of pin-pointing the location of the tomb, the Reverend H.B. Hackett in Sir William Smith's "A dictionary of the Bible" (1863) mentions the existence of two tombs bearing an association to Joseph in Nablus. In addition to the one close to the well, (location of Conder's survey), he describes another exclusively Muslim tomb in the vicinity, about a quarter of a mile up the valley on the slope of Mt. Gerizim. He is not able to conclude which of the tombs is that of the biblical Joseph, but cites Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1856) that at the Muslim tomb "a later Joseph is also commemorated at the sanctuary." Stanley himself writes that the little mosque on Gerizim's north-eastern slopes is known by various names including "Allon Moreh" (Oak of Allon), "Aharon Moreh" (Ark of Moreh) and "Sheykh al-Amad" (شيخ العَمَد "shaykh al-‘amad", "Saint of the Pillar") which he suggests commemorate biblical traditions. Stanley also quotes Buckingham, who mentions that the Samaritans maintain that the alternative tomb belongs to a certain Rabbi Joseph of Nablus. John Mills (1864) writes that claims of the tomb belonging to Rabbi Joseph of Nablus are unfounded, the structure being called by the Samaritans "The Pillar" in commemoration of the pillar set up by Joshua. Mills rather identifies the supposed rabbi's tomb with a mosque named after a Muslim saint, "Sheikh el-Amud" ("Saint of the Pillar"), but further claims that the association is "only a modern invention of the Mohammedans". A book published in 1894, also questions the existence of a tomb to Rabbi Joseph of Nablus, calling it "a Mohammedan legend, imposed upon inquisitive travellers by unscrupulous guides" since "the present Samaritans known of no Joseph's tomb but the generally accepted one".


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: By the 1860s, many Jews and Muslims had come to see the limestone structure as housing the tomb of the biblical Joseph, and it was referred to in Arabic as "Qabr en-Nabi Yūsuf" ("Tomb of the Prophet Joseph"). A decorative cloth photographed in 1917, draped over the tomb itself, asserted this perception. Palestinians are also said to regard the site as the burial place of Yūsuf Dawiqat, an 18th-century Islamic sheikh. It has been claimed that this tradition is an innovation in response to Israeli control of the site since the 1970s.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Before 1967, the tomb was still located in a field in the village of Balata on the outskirts of Nablus. Local residents apparently believed the structure entombed a 19th-century cleric who was reputed to have healed the sick by reciting Koranic verses. Although the building did not function as a mosque, it was used by childless couples who would pray there for children, and young boys would take their first ritual haircut inside. After the capture of Nablus and the rest of the Palestinian territories in the 1967 Six-Day War, Jewish settlers began to frequent the site, and by 1975, Muslims were prohibited from visiting the site. After a settler was stabbed in Nablus in 1983, other settlers demonstrated by taking over Joseph's tomb for three days in a bid to force the government's hand into using an iron fist. In the mid-1980s a yeshiva named "Od Yosef Chai", (Joseph Still Lives), affiliated with some of the more militant Jewish settlements, and headed by Yitzhak Ginsburg, was built at the site beside an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military outpost, apparently on the model of settler success in establishing a presence at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. All Muslims including those living nearby were forcefully denied access. An initial attempt in 1994 to transform the site into a Jewish religious centre failed. Shulamit Aloni, minister for culture and education in the Rabin government, outraged religious activists at the time by asserting, on the basis of archeological evidence, that the site was only 200 years old, and the tomb that of Sheikh Yūsuf (Dawiqat), a Sufi holy man who died in the 18th century. Her views were challenged by who replied that she had been misled by archeologists, and he had experts to back the traditional ascription. In 1997 Torah scrolls were brought in, the prayer niche facing Mecca was covered, and the site was declared a synagogue and yeshiva. Attaching the religious tradition surrounding the story of Joseph to the site, the settlers received protection from the IDF to transform this place of Muslim worship into one of their own. A curfew lasting 24 hours was once imposed by the IDF on Nablus's 120,000 inhabitants to allow a group of settlers and 2 Likud Knesset members to pray at the site. The site, which Jewish worshippers make monthly pilgrimages to, is among the most important to Orthodox Jews.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: On December 12, 1995, in accordance with the Oslo Accords, jurisdiction of Nablus was handed over to the Palestinian National Authority, though Israel retained control of several religious sites, one of which was Joseph's Tomb, thus sanctioning the fraught situation. Settler apprehensions that the area might be returned to Palestinians worked to enhance the status of Joseph's tomb as a centre of pilgrimage. The Interim Agreement stipulated that: "Both sides shall respect and protect the religious rights of Jews, Christians, Muslims and Samaritans concerning the protection and free access to the holy sites as well as freedom of worship and practice." The tomb, resembling a fortified military post with a small functioning yeshiva, became a frequent flash point. On September 24, 1996, after the opening of an exit for the Hasmonean Tunnel under the Ummariya madrasah, which Palestinians interpreted as a signal Benjamin Netanyahu was sending that Israel was to be the sole sovereign of Jerusalem, the PNA called for a general strike and a wave of protests broke out throughout the West Bank. In clashes, 80 people were killed and 253 wounded in the West Bank while six Israeli soldiers were killed at the tomb, and parts of the adjacent yeshiva were ransacked. Jews continued to worship at the site under limited protection of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), often dressed as civilians easily mistaken for settlers.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: The site had been attacked by gun fire, and hundreds of Palestinians stormed the compound. Israeli border control took control over the compound but Palestinian security services requested to take control over the positions and the control was passed to them. in the following hours the mob put cars outside the compound ablaze entered the tomb and removed the Morus tree, the last known image of the Morus tree was taken during 2006.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Over the year and a half between 1999 and 2000, the IDF, seconded by the Shin Bet and the Israeli Border Police, had asked the government to evacuate the tomb. In September 2000, in the wake of Ariel Sharon's controversial visit to the Temple Mount, the Al-Aqsa Intifada broke out, and Nablus turned into conflict zone, in part after its governor's son was shot dead during a clash with Israeli soldiers. The Palestinians targeted the site, reportedly on the grounds that it was better for the shrine to belong to no one than to be appropriated by just one religion, burning the yeshiva to the ground, incinerating its books and painting the dome green, an act which led to retaliation with Jewish vandalism of three mosques in Tiberias and Jaffa. After the death of an Israeli border policeman the head of the IDF's southern command, Brigadier-General Yom-Tov Samia, threatened to resign if the government kept control of the tomb, since retaining control of it was "patently illegal". Prime Minister Ehud Barak eventually complied with the request and the site was handed over to the Palestinian police on October 7, 2000. Israeli newspapers framed the return of the site as a humiliating defeat for the nation. The tomb was pillaged and torched by Palestinian protesters hours after its evacuation. The next morning, the bullet-riddled body of rabbi Hillel Lieberman of Elon Moreh, a cousin of Senator Joseph Lieberman, was found on the outskirts of Nablus, where he had gone to check damage to the tomb. Joseph's Tomb embodied a key Zionist theme: the return from exile to one's homeland, and the Palestinian assault has been interpreted as challenging the credibility of claims to the site. The PA began to repair it the next day. Palestinian spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi claimed that Judaism's connection with the tomb was "fabricated". The mayor of Nablus Ghassan Shakaa was reported as saying Jewish worshippers would not be permitted to pray there until an international organization or third party determines whether the site is holy to Muslims or Jews.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Israeli military officials said the Palestinians intended to build a mosque on the ruins of the site. The statement came after workers repairing the tomb painted the site's dome green, the colour of Islam. A Palestinian Authority spokesman denied the allegations and said that Arafat had ordered the renovations and for the synagogue to be rebuilt. Ghassan Shakaa, the mayor, claimed that city officials simply wanted to return the building to the way it looked before it came into Israeli hands in the 1967 Mideast war. Under intense U.S. and international pressure the dome was repainted white.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: After the events of October 2000, the IDF prohibited Israeli access to the tomb. As a result of Operation Defensive Shield, Nablus was reoccupied by the IDF in April 2002, with severe damage to the historic core of the city, where 64 heritage buildings suffered serious damage or were destroyed. Some Breslov hasidim and others began to take advantage of the new circumstances to visit the site clandestinely under the cover of darkness, evading army and police checkpoints. Eventually Joseph's tomb was once more open to visits. In May 2002, Israeli soldiers mistakenly opened fire on a convoy of settlers taking advantage of an ongoing incursion in Nablus to visit the tomb. Seven settlers were arrested by the army for illegally entering a combat zone. As a result of Operation Defensive Shield, the tomb was retaken by the IDF and shortly afterwards, in response to numerous requests, they renewed guarded tours of the tomb. One day every month at midnight as many as 800 visitors were allowed to pray at the gravesite. These visits were designed to prevent unauthorized and unprotected clandestine visits, mainly by Breslav Hassidim. However, in October, citing security reasons, Israel re-imposed a ban on Jewish pilgrims obtaining special permits and travelling to the tomb.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: In February 2003 it was reported in the "Jerusalem Post" that the grave had been pounded with hammers and that the tree at its entrance had been broken; car parts and trash littered the tomb which had a "huge hole in its dome". Bratslav leader Aaron Klieger notified and lobbied government ministers about the desecration, but the IDF said it had no plans to secure or guard the site, claiming such action would be too costly.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: In February 2007, thirty five Knesset members (MKs) wrote to the army asking them to open Joseph's Tomb to Jewish visitors for prayer. In May 2007, Breslov hasidim visited the site for the first time in two years and later on that year, a group of hasidim found that the gravesite had been cleaned up by the Palestinians. In the past few years the site had suffered from neglect and its appearance had deteriorated, with garbage being dumped and tires being burned there.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: In early 2008, a group of MKs wrote a letter to the Prime Minister asking that the tomb be renovated: "The tombstone is completely shattered, and the holy site is desecrated in an appalling manner, the likes of which we have not seen in Israel or anywhere else in the world." In February, it was reported that Israel would officially ask the Palestinian Authority to carry out repairs at the tomb, but in response, vandals set tires on fire inside the tomb. In December 2008, Jewish workers funded by anonymous donors painted the blackened walls and re-built the shattered stone marker covering the grave.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: As of 2009, monthly visits to the tomb in bullet-proof vehicles under heavy IDF protection are organised by the Yitzhar based organization Shechem Ehad. In late April 2009, a group of Jewish worshipers found the headstone smashed and swastikas painted on the walls, as well as boot prints on the grave itself.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: In August 2010, it was reported that the IDF and the Palestinian Authority reached an agreement on renovating the site. Israel's chief rabbis, Yona Metzger and Shlomo Amar, visited and prayed at the tomb along with 500 other worshippers, the first such visit by a high-ranking Israeli delegation in 10 years.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: On 24 April 2011, Palestinian Authority police officers opened fire on three cars of Israeli worshipers after they finished praying at Joseph's tomb. An Israeli citizen was killed and three others were wounded. The fatality was identified as Ben-Joseph Livnat, 25, the nephew of Culture Minister Limor Livnat. Both the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian Authority ordered investigations into the incident. According to an initial investigation, three cars full of Israelis entered the compound of Joseph's tomb without coordination with the Israeli military or Palestinian security forces and then tried to break through a Palestinian Authority police checkpoint. The IDF investigation concluded that the Palestinian police officers had acted "maliciously" and with the intent to harm the Jewish worshipers. IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz added that they fired "without justification and with no immediate threat to their lives".


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: On 7 July 2014, Palestinians tried to burn down Joseph's tomb while protesting. Palestinian Authority security forces were able to stop the protesters before they were able to burn it down. On December 22, 2014, Jews who were visiting the tomb to light candles for the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah discovered that the site had been vandalized. Lights were broken and electrical wiring had been cut. It was the first time Jews were allowed to visit the tomb in over a month.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: On 16 October 2015, amid a wave of violence between Palestinians and Israelis, hundreds of Palestinians overran the tomb and a group of them set it on fire. Palestinian security forces dispersed them and extinguished the flames and although the tomb itself was not apparently damaged, the women's section was heavily damaged according to the Walla website. Israeli security forces later arrived at the scene. According to a Palestinian official, the Palestinians had attempted to set up barricades in the area to prevent home demolitions by the Israeli Army, but a group of them proceeded to attack the tomb.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said that the tomb is under Palestinian control and yet Palestinians put the place ablaze, showing that "their only goal to harm places which are holy to Jews, which teach our thousands year old connection to that place".


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: At 2 a.m. on the night of 18 October 2015, a group of 30 Jews on instruction from Rabbi Eliezer Berland, went to the tomb without permits, in contravention of a standing IDF order, to clean and paint the compound that was burned three days before. As they were attacked by Palestinians, six of them were bruised by beatings, and one of their vehicles was burnt. They claimed that the Palestinian police, who had detained them, had also beaten them, before they were handed over to the Israeli army, which had been called to extract the others.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: In September 2021, a convoy of buses carrying Jews for Sukkot prayers at the site were attacked by a group of Palestinians. Two Border Police officers were injured during the clash.


title: Joseph's Tomb

text: On 9 April 2022, about 100 Palestinians stormed the Joseph's Tomb, shattering the tombstone and damaging a chandelier and an electrical enclosure. Two Haredi Jews were moderately wounded by gunfire while trying to enter the site the following day.


The 2008 United States presidential election in Ohio took place on November 4, 2008, which was part of the 2008 United States presidential election. Voters chose 20 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


title: 2008 United States presidential election in Ohio

text: Ohio was won by Democratic nominee Barack Obama with a 4.59% margin of victory. Prior to the election, most news organizations considered this state as a major swing state and bellwether. Both major party candidates visited the Buckeye State numerous times and campaigned throughout the state extensively trying to sway moderates and independent voters to their side. The polls in Ohio were fairly even throughout the campaign but Obama had a slight lead as Election Day drew closer. In the end, Obama flipped Ohio into the Democratic column. Obama's 2,940,044 votes is the most received by a Democratic presidential candidate in the state's history. Despite this fact, Obama became the first Democrat ever to win the White House without carrying Pike County, and the first Democrat to win the White House without carrying Lawrence County, since John F. Kennedy in 1960.


text: There were 16 news organizations who made state-by-state predictions of the election. Here are their last predictions before election day:


text: During most of the summer and September, McCain led many state polls and many by 50% of over. Rasmussen had McCain leading with as high as 51% in September. But many voters in the state changed their minds as Obama later gained a steady lead in most polls taken starting in the beginning of October (around the time of the 2008 financial crisis).


text: A major swing state, Obama spent over $28 million to McCain's $24 million. The Republican ticket visited the state 28 times to the Obama ticket's 22 times.


text: Going into Election 2008, both McCain and Obama knew that Ohio was a crucial state. Earlier in the primary season, Ohio had given a major comeback victory to Hillary Clinton. Both candidates campaigned heavily throughout the state in hopes for winning its 20 electoral votes. As no Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio, it was seen in particular as a "must-win" state for McCain. George W. Bush's narrow wins in 2000 (by 3.50% against Al Gore) and 2004 (2.11% against John Kerry) proved critical in Bush's narrow wins nationally.


text: On Election Day 2008, Obama won the Buckeye State's 20 electoral votes by a margin of 4.59%. Obama's win in heavily populated areas such as Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Franklin County (Columbus), Lucas County (Toledo), Montgomery County (Dayton), Summit County (Akron), Stark County (Canton), Mahoning County (Youngstown) and the traditionally Republican Hamilton County (Cincinnati) greatly contributed to his victory in the state.


text: McCain did best in the Republican base in the center and western regions, composed of relatively rural areas combined with Cincinnati and Columbus' heavily Republican suburbs. In addition, McCain won all but four counties in the Appalachian southeast, mirroring the troubles Obama had throughout this region. On the other hand, Obama did best in the Democratic base—Cleveland (where he won almost 70% of the vote), Youngstown and the heavily unionized counties next to Pennsylvania. However, he was unable to significantly improve upon John Kerry's performance in these areas. More surprisingly, the cities of Cincinnati and Columbus gave him strong support. Cincinnati, the only major city that didn't vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt, voted Democratic for the first time since 1964. Columbus, a city shifting to the Democrats, also voted for Obama by a three-to-two margin. In addition, Obama won several northern counties along the shore of Lake Erie that John Kerry had lost in 2004.


text: As polls closed and results were coming in on Election Night, Republican strategist and adviser Karl Rove joined Brit Hume on Fox News offering analysis. Rove was discussing the impact an Ohio loss would have on McCain's chances of winning the election. "If he loses Ohio," Rove stated of McCain, "he goes from 286, which the Republicans carried in 2004, down to 266, and that puts him below the 270 threshold needed to win the White House. So he'd not only need to sweep the rest of these states which were won by the Republicans in 2004, he'd also need to pick up something as well." In an untimely moment, Hume broke in. "Guess what Karl," Hume interrupted, "I've just received word that the state of Ohio has gone for Barack Obama."


text: This marked the first time since 1952 that Ohio voted for a different candidate than neighboring Kentucky, as well as the first time ever that Ohio voted Democratic while Kentucky voted Republican. , this is the last election in which Lake County, Monroe County, Belmont County, Tuscarawas County, and Jefferson County voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate.


text: Although Barack Obama won the state, John McCain carried 10 of the state’s 18 congressional districts, including three districts that simultaneously elected a Democrat. Obama carried 8 districts, including one district held by a Republican.


text: Technically the voters of Ohio cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Ohio is allocated 20 electors because it has 18 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 20 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the majority of votes in the state is awarded all 20 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector.


text: The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 15, 2008, to cast their votes for president and vice president. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols.


text: The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All 20 were pledged to Barack Obama and Joe Biden:


title: Eric Gales

text: Eric Gales (born October 29, 1974), also known as Raw Dawg, is an American blues rock guitarist, originally hailed as a child prodigy. , Gales has recorded nineteen albums for major record labels and has done session and tribute work. He has also contributed vocals on several records by the Memphis rap groups Prophet Posse and Three 6 Mafia under the name Lil E.


title: Eric Gales

text: Gales picked up the guitar at age four. His older siblings, Eugene and Manuel (Little Jimmy King), taught him songs and licks when he was young, in the style of Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, B.B. King and others. In 1985, the young Gales began to play at blues competitions with his brother Eugene backing him on bass. Although Gales plays a right-handed guitar "upside-down" (with the bass E string on the bottom), he is not naturally left-handed; he was taught by his brother, who is left-handed, and never second-guessed the untraditional technique.


title: Eric Gales

text: In late 1990, Eric and Eugene Gales signed with Elektra Records, and together with the drummer Hubert Crawford released "The Eric Gales Band" (1991) and "Picture of a Thousand Faces" (1993). "Guitar World" magazine's Reader's Poll named Eric the "Best New Talent", in 1991. During this time he had two rock radio hits, "Sign of the Storm" (number 9, U.S. Mainstream Rock) and "Paralyzed" (number 31, U.S. Mainstream Rock) and had spots on television programs such as "The Arsenio Hall Show".


title: Eric Gales

text: In 1994, Gales performed with Carlos Santana at Woodstock '94. In 1995, Gales teamed up with both of his brothers to record an album, "Left Hand Brand" (released in 1996), as the Gales Brothers. In 2001 Gales released his album "That's What I Am" on MCA Records.


title: Eric Gales

text: Gales has released the albums "Crystal Vision", "The Psychedelic Underground", "The Story of My Life" and "Layin' Down the Blues" on the Shrapnel Records label. "Relentless" (2010) was followed by "Transformation" (2011) and "Live" (2012).


title: Eric Gales

text: In 2004, he contributed a cover of "May This Be Love" to the album "". In 2008, he and other guitarists participated in the touring tribute to Jimi Hendrix, "Experience Hendrix". The touring group of musicians included Billy Cox, Eric Johnson, Chris Layton, Doyle Bramhall II, Brad Whitford and Mitch Mitchell (it was the last tour that Mitchell played on).


title: Eric Gales

text: In the winter of 2010, Gales returned to the touring circuit in Europe with TM Stevens on bass guitar and Keith LeBlanc on drums. The tour was billed as "VooDoo Chile" and featured works of Jimi Hendrix as well as original material from both Gales and Stevens.


title: Eric Gales

text: In February 2013, Magna Carta Records released the album "Pinnick Gales Pridgen," produced by Mike Varney and featuring Gales on guitar and vocals, Doug Pinnick on bass and vocals, and Thomas Pridgen on drums. The 13-track album featured one cover song, "Sunshine of Your Love", originally by Cream, one short instrumental based on Ludwig van Beethoven's "Für Elise", and the remaining songs written by some combination of Pinnick, Gales, Pridgen and Varney. The follow-up album, "PGP2", was released in July 2014.


title: Eric Gales

text: In 2017, Gales released his fifteenth studio effort, "Middle of the Road", featuring numerous artists, including Gary Clark Jr., Lauryn Hill and others, as well as his own brother and mother. The album became his first to chart on "Billboard"'s Top Blues Album chart, peaking at No. 4, while Gales' following album, "The Bookends", topped the chart at No. 1. On May 9, 2019, he won the Blues Music Award for 'Blues Rock Artist of the Year'. In his acceptance speech, he said he was celebrating three years of sobriety. In May 2020, Gales won his second consecutive Blues Music Award as the 'Blues Rock Artist of the Year'.


title: Eric Gales

text: On October 21, 2021, Gales released the single "I Want My Crown," featuring Joe Bonamassa. The song serves as the lead single from his upcoming album "Crown." Produced by Bonamassa and Josh Smith, the album was released on January 28, 2022. The album highlights Gales' “struggles with substance abuse, his hopes about a new era of sobriety and unbridled creativity, and his personal reflections on racism.” Upon release, it debuted at No. 1 on the "Billboard" Blues Album chart, his second to do so. It also garnered Gales his first Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: The history of George Washington and slavery reflects Washington's changing attitude toward enslavement. The preeminent Founding Father of the United States and a hereditary slaveowner, Washington became increasingly uneasy with it. Slavery was then a longstanding institution dating back over a century in Virginia where he lived; it was also longstanding in other American colonies and in world history. Washington's will provided for the immediate emancipation of one of his slaves, and additionally required his remaining 123 slaves to serve his wife and be freed no later than her death, so they ultimately became free one year after his death.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Black slavery was ingrained in the economic and social fabric of the Colony of Virginia where Washington grew up. A third generation slave-owner, at 11 years of age upon the death of his father in 1743, he inherited his first ten slaves. In adulthood his personal slaveholding grew through inheritance, purchase and the natural increase of children born into slavery. In 1759, he gained control of dower slaves belonging to the Custis estate on his marriage to Martha Dandridge Custis. Washington's early attitudes to slavery reflected the prevailing Virginia planter views of the day and he initially demonstrated no moral qualms about the institution. In 1774, Washington publicly denounced the slave trade on moral grounds in the Fairfax Resolves. After the war, he expressed support for the abolition of slavery by a gradual legislative process, a view he shared widely but always in private, and he remained dependent on enslaved labor.


title: George Washington and slavery

text: Washington had a strong work ethic and demanded the same from both hired workers and from the enslaved people who were forced to work at his command. He provided his enslaved population with basic food, clothing and accommodation comparable to general practice at the time, which was not always adequate, and with medical care. In return, he forced them to work diligently from sunrise to sunset over the six-day working week that was standard at the time. Some three-quarters of his enslaved workers labored in the fields, while the remainder worked at the main residence as domestic servants and artisans. They supplemented their diet by hunting, trapping, and growing vegetables in their free time, and bought extra rations, clothing and housewares with income from the sale of game and produce. They built their own community around marriage and family, though because Washington allocated the enslaved to farms according to the demands of the business generally without regard for their relationships, many husbands lived separately from their wives and children during the work week. Washington used both reward and punishment to manage his enslaved population, but was constantly disappointed when they failed to meet his exacting standards. A significant proportion of the enslaved population at the Mount Vernon estate resisted their enslavement by various means, such as theft to supplement food and clothing and to provide income, feigning illness, and escaping.