title: Fur trade

text: Before the European colonization of the Americas, Russia was a major supplier of fur pelts to Western Europe and parts of Asia. Its trade developed in the Early Middle Ages ( 500–1000 AD/CE ), first through exchanges at posts around the Baltic and Black seas. The main trading market destination was the German city of Leipzig. Kievan Rus', the first Russian State, was the first supplier of the Russian Fur Trade.


title: Fur trade

text: Originally, Russia exported raw furs, consisting in most cases of the pelts of martens, beavers, wolves, foxes, squirrels and hares. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, Russians began to settle in Siberia, a region rich in many mammal fur species, such as Arctic fox, lynx, sable, sea otter and stoat (ermine). In a search for the prized sea otter pelts, first used in China, and later for the northern fur seal, the Russian Empire expanded into North America, notably Alaska. From the 17th through the second half of the 19th century, Russia was the world's largest supplier of fur. The fur trade played a vital role in the development of Siberia, the Russian Far East and the Russian colonization of the Americas. As recognition of the importance of the trade to the Siberian economy, the sable is a regional symbol of the Ural Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Siberian Novosibirsk, Tyumen and Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia.


title: Fur trade

text: European contact with North America, with its vast forests and wildlife, particularly the beaver, led to the continent becoming a major supplier in the 17th century of fur pelts for the fur felt hat and fur trimming and garment trades of Europe. Fur was relied on to make warm clothing, a critical consideration prior to the organization of coal distribution for heating. Portugal and Spain played major roles in fur trading after the 15th century with their business in fur hats.


title: Fur trade

text: From as early as the 10th century, merchants and boyars of Novgorod had exploited the fur resources "beyond the portage", a watershed at the White Lake that represents the door to the entire northwestern part of Eurasia. They began by establishing trading posts along the Volga and Vychegda river networks and requiring the Komi people to give them furs as tribute. Novgorod, the chief fur-trade center prospered as the easternmost trading post of the Hanseatic League. Novgorodians expanded farther east and north, coming into contact with the Pechora people of the Pechora River valley and the Yugra people residing near the Urals. Both of these native tribes offered more resistance than the Komi, killing many Russian tribute-collectors throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries. As Muscovy gained more power in the 15th century and proceeded in the "gathering of the Russian lands", the Muscovite state began to rival the Novgorodians in the North. During the 15th century Moscow began subjugating many native tribes. One strategy involved exploiting antagonisms between tribes, notably the Komi and Yugra, by recruiting men of one tribe to fight in an army against the other tribe. Campaigns against native tribes in Siberia remained insignificant until they began on a much larger scale in 1483 and 1499.


title: Fur trade

text: Besides the Novgorodians and the indigenes, Muscovites also had to contend with the various Muslim Tatar khanates to the east of Muscovy. In 1552 Ivan IV, the Tsar of All the Russias, took a significant step towards securing Russian hegemony in Siberia when he sent a large army to attack the Kazan Tartars and ended up obtaining the territory from the Volga to the Ural Mountains. At this point the phrase "ruler of Obdor, Konda, and all Siberian lands" became part of the title of the Tsar in Moscow. Even so, problems ensued after 1558 when Ivan IV sent (ca 1533–1577) to colonize land on the Kama and to subjugate and enserf the Komi living there. The Stroganov family soon came into conflict (1573) with the Khan of Sibir whose land they encroached on. Ivan told the Stroganovs to hire Cossack mercenaries to protect the new settlement from the Tatars. From ca 1581 the band of Cossacks led by Yermak Timofeyevich fought many battles that eventually culminated in a Tartar victory (1584) and the temporary end to Russian occupation in the area. In 1584 Ivan's son Fyodor sent military governors (voivodas) and soldiers to reclaim Yermak conquests and officially to annex the land held by the Khanate of Sibir. Similar skirmishes with Tartars took place across Siberia as Russian expansion continued.


title: Fur trade

text: Russian conquerors treated the natives of Siberia as easily exploited enemies who were inferior to them. As they penetrated deeper into Siberia, traders built outposts or winter lodges called "" where they lived and collected fur tribute from native tribes. By 1620 Russia dominated the land from the Urals eastward to the Yenisey valley and to the Altai Mountains in the south, comprising about 1.25 million square miles of land. Furs would become Russia's largest source of wealth during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Keeping up with the advances of Western Europe required significant capital and Russia did not have sources of gold and silver, but it did have furs, which became known as "soft gold" and provided Russia with hard currency. The Russian government received income from the fur trade through two taxes, the "yasak" (or iasak) tax on natives and the 10% "Sovereign Tithing Tax" imposed on both the catch and sale of fur pelts. Fur was in great demand in Western Europe, especially sable and marten, since European forest resources had been over-hunted and furs had become extremely scarce. Fur trading allowed Russia to purchase from Europe goods that it lacked, like lead, tin, precious metals, textiles, firearms, and sulphur. Russia also traded furs with Ottoman Turkey and other countries in the Middle East in exchange for silk, textiles, spices, and dried fruit. The high prices that sable, black fox, and marten furs could generate in international markets spurred a "fur fever" in which many Russians moved to Siberia as independent trappers. From 1585 to 1680, tens of thousands of sable and other valuable pelts were obtained in Siberia each year.


title: Fur trade

text: The primary way for the Muscovite state to obtain furs was by exacting a fur tribute from the Siberian natives, called a "yasak". "Yasak" was usually a fixed number of sable pelts which every male tribe member who was at least fifteen years old had to supply to Russian officials. Officials enforced "yasak" through coercion and by taking hostages, usually the tribe chiefs or members of the chief's family. At first, Russians were content to trade with the natives, exchanging goods like pots, axes, and beads for the prized sables that the natives did not value, but greater demand for furs led to violence and force becoming the primary means of obtaining the furs. The largest problem with the "yasak" system was that Russian governors were prone to corruption because they received no salary. They resorted to illegal means of getting furs for themselves, including bribing customs officials to allow them to personally collect "yasak", extorting natives by exacting "yasak" multiple times over, or requiring tribute from independent trappers.


title: Fur trade

text: Russian fur trappers, called "promyshlenniki", hunted in one of two types of bands of 10–15 men, called . The first was an independent band of blood relatives or unrelated people who contributed an equal share of the hunting-expedition expenses; the second was a band of hired hunters who participated in expeditions fully funded by the trading companies which employed them. Members of an independent "vataga" cooperated and shared all necessary work associated with fur trapping, including making and setting traps, building forts and camps, stockpiling firewood and grain, and fishing. All fur pelts went into a common pool that the band divided equally among themselves after Russian officials exacted the tithing tax. On the other hand, a trading company provided hired fur-trappers with the money needed for transportation, food, and supplies, and once the hunt was finished, the employer received two-thirds of the pelts and the remaining ones were sold and the proceeds divided evenly among the hired laborers. During the summer, "promyshlenniki" would set up a summer camp to stockpile grain and fish, and many engaged in agricultural work for extra money. During late summer or early fall the "vatagi" left their hunting grounds, surveyed the area, and set up a winter camp. Each member of the group set at least 10 traps and the "vatagi" divided into smaller groups of 2 to 3 men who cooperated to maintain certain traps. "Promyshlenniki" checked traps daily, resetting them or replacing bait whenever necessary. The "promyshlenniki" employed both passive and active hunting-strategies. The passive approach involved setting traps, while the active approach involved the use of hunting-dogs and of bows-and-arrows. Occasionally, hunters also followed sable tracks to their burrows, around which they placed nets, and waited for the sable to emerge.


title: Fur trade

text: The hunting season began around the time of the first snow in October or November and continued until early spring. Hunting expeditions lasted two to three years on average but occasionally longer. Because of the long hunting season and the fact that passage back to Russia was difficult and costly, beginning around the 1650s–1660s many "promyshlenniki" chose to stay and settle in Siberia. From 1620 to 1680 a total of 15,983 trappers operated in Siberia.


title: Fur trade

text: The North American fur trade began as early as the 1500s between Europeans and First Nations (see: Early French Fur Trading) and was a central part of the early history of contact between Europeans and the native peoples of what is now the United States and Canada. In 1578 there were 350 European fishing vessels at Newfoundland. Sailors began to trade metal implements (particularly knives) for the natives' well-worn pelts. The first pelts in demand were beaver and sea otter, as well as occasionally deer, bear, ermine and skunk.


title: Fur trade

text: Fur robes were blankets of sewn-together, native-tanned, beaver pelts. The pelts were called "castor gras" in French and "coat beaver" in English, and were soon recognized by the newly developed felt-hat making industry as particularly useful for felting. Some historians, seeking to explain the term "castor gras", have assumed that coat beaver was rich in human oils from having been worn so long (much of the top-hair was worn away through usage, exposing the valuable under-wool), and that this is what made it attractive to the hatters. This seems unlikely, since grease interferes with the felting of wool, rather than enhancing it. By the 1580s, beaver "wool" was the major starting material of the French felt-hatters. Hat makers began to use it in England soon after, particularly after Huguenot refugees brought their skills and tastes with them from France.


title: Fur trade

text: Captain Chauvin made the first organized attempt to control the fur trade in New France. In 1599 he acquired a monopoly from Henry IV and tried to establish a colony near the mouth of the Saguenay River at Tadoussac. French explorers, like Samuel de Champlain, voyageurs, and Coureur des bois, such as Étienne Brûlé, Radisson, La Salle, and Le Sueur, while seeking routes through the continent, established relationships with Amerindians and continued to expand the trade of fur pelts for items considered 'common' by the Europeans. Mammal winter pelts were prized for warmth, particularly animal pelts for beaver wool felt hats, which were an expensive status symbol in Europe. The demand for beaver wool felt hats was such that the beaver in Europe and European Russia had largely disappeared through exploitation.


title: Fur trade

text: In 1613 Dallas Carite and Adriaen Block headed expeditions to establish fur trade relationships with the Mohawk and Mohican. By 1614 the Dutch were sending vessels to secure large economic returns from fur trading. The fur trade of New Netherland, through the port of New Amsterdam, depended largely on the trading depot at Fort Orange (now Albany) on the upper Hudson River. Much of the fur is believed to have originated in Canada, smuggled south by entrepreneurs who wished to avoid the colony's government-imposed monopoly there.


title: Fur trade

text: England was slower to enter the American fur trade than France and the Dutch Republic, but as soon as English colonies were established, development companies learned that furs provided the best way for the colonists to remit value back to the mother country. Furs were being dispatched from Virginia soon after 1610, and the Plymouth Colony was sending substantial amounts of beaver to its London agents through the 1620s and 1630s. London merchants tried to take over France's fur trade in the St Lawrence River valley. Taking advantage of one of England's wars with France, Sir David Kirke captured Quebec in 1629 and brought the year's produce of furs back to London. Other English merchants also traded for furs around the Saint Lawrence River region in the 1630s, but these were officially discouraged. Such efforts ceased as France strengthened its presence in Canada.


title: Fur trade

text: Much of the fur trade in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries was dominated by the Canadian fur shipping network that developed in New France under the fur monopoly held first by the Company of One Hundred Associates, then followed in 1664 by the French West India Company, steadily expanding fur trapping and shipping across a network of frontier forts further west that eventually went all the way to modern day Winnipeg in Western Canada by the mid 1700s, coming into direct contact and opposition with the English fur trappers stationed out of York Factory at Hudson Bay. Meanwhile, the New England fur trade expanded as well, not only inland, but northward along the coast into the Bay of Fundy region. London's access to high-quality furs was greatly increased with the takeover of New Amsterdam, whereupon the fur trade of that colony (now called New York) fell into English hands with the 1667 Treaty of Breda.


title: Fur trade

text: In 1668 the English fur trade entered a new phase. Two French citizens, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers, had traded with great success west of Lake Superior in 1659–60, but upon their return to Canada, most of their furs were seized by the authorities. Their trading voyage had convinced them that the best fur country was far to the north and west, and could best be reached by ships sailing into Hudson Bay. Their treatment in Canada suggested that they would not find support from France for their scheme. The pair went to New England, where they found local financial support for at least two attempts to reach Hudson Bay, both unsuccessful. Their ideas had reached the ears of English authorities, however, and in 1665 Radisson and Groseilliers were persuaded to go to London. After some setbacks, a number of English investors were found to back another attempt for Hudson Bay.


title: Fur trade

text: Two ships were sent out in 1668. One, with Radisson aboard, had to turn back, but the other, the "Nonsuch," with Groseilliers, did penetrate the bay. There she was able to trade with the indigenes, collecting a fine cargo of beaver skins before the expedition returned to London in October 1669. The delighted investors sought a royal charter, which they obtained the next year. This charter established the Hudson's Bay Company and granted it a monopoly to trade into all the rivers that emptied into Hudson Bay. From 1670 onwards, the Hudson's Bay Company sent two or three trading ships into the bay every year. They brought back furs (mainly beaver) and sold them, sometimes by private treaty but usually by public auction. The beaver was bought mainly for the English hat-making trade, while the fine furs went to the Netherlands and Germany.


title: Fur trade

text: Meanwhile, in the Southern colonies, a deerskin trade was established around 1670, based at the export hub of Charleston, South Carolina. Word spread among Native hunters that the Europeans would exchange pelts for the European-manufactured goods that were highly desired in native communities. Carolinan traders stocked axe heads, knives, awls, fish hooks, cloth of various type and color, woolen blankets, linen shirts, kettles, jewelry, glass beads, muskets, ammunition and powder to exchange on a 'per pelt' basis.


title: Fur trade

text: Colonial trading posts in the southern colonies also introduced many types of alcohol (especially brandy and rum) for trade. European traders flocked to the North American continent and made huge profits from the exchange. A metal axe head, for example, was exchanged for one beaver pelt (also called a 'beaver blanket'). The same pelt could fetch enough to buy dozens of axe heads in England, making the fur trade extremely profitable for the Europeans. The Natives used the iron axe heads to replace stone axe heads which they had made by hand in a labor-intensive process, so they derived substantial benefits from the trade as well. The colonists began to see the ill effects of alcohol on Natives, and the chiefs objected to its sale and trade. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 prohibited sale by European settlers of alcohol to the Indians in Canada, following the British takeover of the territory after it defeated France in the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War in North America).


title: Fur trade

text: Following the British take over of Canada from France, the control of the fur trade in North America became consolidated under the British government for a time, until the United States was created and became a major source for furs being shipped to Europe as well in the Nineteenth Century, along with the largely unsettled territory of Russian America, which became a significant source of furs also during that period. The fur trade began to significantly decline starting in the 1830s, following changing attitudes and fashions in Europe and America which no longer centered around certain articles of clothing as much such as beaver skin hats, which had fueled the growing demand for furs, driving the creation and expansion of the fur trade in the 17th and 18th centuries, although new trends as well as occasional revivals of prior fashions would cause the fur trade to ebb and flow right up to the present.


title: Fur trade

text: Often, the political benefits of the fur trade became more important than the economic aspects. Trade was a way to forge alliances and maintain good relations between different cultures. The fur traders were men with capital and social standing. Often younger men were single when they went to North America to enter the fur trade; they made marriages or cohabited with high-ranking Indian women of similar status in their own cultures. Fur trappers and other workers usually had relationships with lower-ranking women. Many of their mixed-race descendants developed their own culture, now called "Métis" in Canada, based then on fur trapping and other activities on the frontier.


title: Fur trade

text: In some cases both Native American and European-American cultures excluded the mixed-race descendants. If the Native Americans were a tribe with a patrilineal kinship system, they considered children born to a white father to be white, in a type of hypodescent classification, although the Native mother and tribe might care for them. The Europeans tended to classify children of Native women as Native, regardless of the father, similar to the hypodescent of their classification of the children of slaves. The Métis in the Canadian Red River region were so numerous that they developed a creole language and culture. Since the late 20th century, the Métis have been recognized in Canada as a First Nations ethnic group. The interracial relationships resulted in a two-tier mixed-race class, in which descendants of fur traders and chiefs achieved prominence in some Canadian social, political, and economic circles. Lower-class descendants formed the majority of the separate Métis culture based on hunting, trapping and farming.


title: Fur trade

text: Because of the wealth at stake, different European-American governments competed with various native societies for control of the fur trade. Native Americans sometimes based decisions of which side to support in times of war in relation to which people had provided them with the best trade goods in an honest manner. Because trade was so politically important, the Europeans tried to regulate it in hopes (often futile) of preventing abuse. Unscrupulous traders sometimes cheated natives by plying them with alcohol during the transaction, which subsequently aroused resentment and often resulted in violence.


title: Fur trade

text: In 1834 John Jacob Astor, who had created the huge monopoly of the American Fur Company, withdrew from the fur trade. He could see the decline in fur animals and realized the market was changing, as beaver hats went out of style. Expanding European settlement displaced native communities from the best hunting grounds. European demand for furs subsided as fashion trends shifted. The Native Americans' lifestyles were altered by the trade. To continue obtaining European goods on which they had become dependent and to pay off their debts, they often resorted to selling land to the European settlers. Their resentment of the forced sales contributed to future wars.


title: Fur trade

text: After the United States became independent, it regulated trading with Native Americans by the Indian Intercourse Act, first passed on July 22, 1790. The Bureau of Indian Affairs issued licenses to trade in the Indian Territory. In 1834 this was defined as most of the United States west of the Mississippi River, where mountain men and traders from Mexico freely operated.


title: Fur trade

text: Early exploration parties were often fur-trading expeditions, many of which marked the first recorded instances of Europeans' reaching particular regions of North America. For example, Abraham Wood sent fur-trading parties on exploring expeditions into the southern Appalachian Mountains, discovering the New River in the process. Simon Fraser was a fur trader who explored much of the Fraser River in British Columbia.


title: Fur trade

text: Economic historians and anthropologists have studied the fur trade's important role in early North American economies, but they have been unable to agree on a theoretical framework to describe native economic patterns.


title: Fur trade

text: John C. Phillips and J.W. Smurr tied the fur trade to an imperial struggle for power, positing that the fur trade served both as an incentive for expanding and as a method for maintaining dominance. Dismissing the experience of individuals, the authors searched for connections on a global stage that revealed its "high political and economic importance." E.E. Rich brought the economic purview down a level, focusing on the role of trading companies and their men as the ones who "opened up" much of Canada's territories, instead of on the role of the nation-state in opening up the continent.


title: Fur trade

text: Rich's other work gets to the heart of the formalist/substantivist debate that dominated the field or, as some came to believe, muddied it. Historians such as Harold Innis had long taken the formalist position, especially in Canadian history, believing that neoclassical economic principles affect non-Western societies just as they do Western ones. Starting in the 1950s, however, substantivists such as Karl Polanyi challenged these ideas, arguing instead that primitive societies could engage in alternatives to traditional Western market trade; namely, gift trade and administered trade. Rich picked up these arguments in an influential article in which he contended that Indians had "a persistent reluctance to accept European notions or the basic values of the European approach" and that "English economic rules did not apply to the Indian trade." Indians were savvy traders, but they had a fundamentally different conception of property, which confounded their European trade partners. Abraham Rotstein subsequently fit these arguments explicitly into Polanyi's theoretical framework, claiming that "administered trade was in operation at the Bay and market trade in London."


title: Fur trade

text: Arthur J. Ray permanently changed the direction of economic studies of the fur trade with two influential works that presented a modified formalist position in between the extremes of Innis and Rotstein. "This trading system," Ray explained, "is impossible to label neatly as ‘gift trade', or ‘administered trade', or ‘market trade', since it embodies elements of all these forms." Indians engaged in trade for a variety of reasons. Reducing them to simple economic or cultural dichotomies, as the formalists and substantivists had done, was a fruitless simplification that obscured more than it revealed. Moreover, Ray used trade accounts and account books in the Hudson's Bay Company's archives for masterful qualitative analyses and pushed the boundaries of the field's methodology. Following Ray's position, Bruce M. White also helped to create a more nuanced picture of the complex ways in which native populations fit new economic relationships into existing cultural patterns.


title: Fur trade

text: Richard White, while admitting that the formalist/substantivist debate was "old, and now tired," attempted to reinvigorate the substantivist position. Echoing Ray's moderate position that cautioned against easy simplifications, White advanced a simple argument against formalism: "Life was not a business, and such simplifications only distort the past." White argued instead that the fur trade occupied part of a "middle ground" in which Europeans and Indians sought to accommodate their cultural differences. In the case of the fur trade, this meant that the French were forced to learn from the political and cultural meanings with which Indians imbued the fur trade. Cooperation, not domination, prevailed.


title: Fur trade

text: According to the Fur Institute of Canada, there are about 60,000 active trappers in Canada (based on trapping licenses), of whom about 25,000 are indigenous peoples. The fur farming industry is present in many parts of Canada. The largest producer of mink and foxes is Nova Scotia which in 2012 generated revenues of nearly $150 million and accounted for one quarter of all agricultural production in the Province.


title: Fur trade

text: The maritime fur trade was a ship-based fur trade system that focused on acquiring furs of sea otters and other animals from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and natives of Alaska. The furs were mostly traded in China for tea, silks, porcelain, and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the United States. The maritime fur trade was pioneered by the Russians, working east from Kamchatka along the Aleutian Islands to the southern coast of Alaska. British and Americans entered during the 1780s, focusing on what is now the coast of British Columbia. The trade boomed around the turn of the 19th century. A long period of decline began in the 1810s. As the sea otter population was depleted, the maritime fur trade diversified and was transformed, tapping new markets and commodities while continuing to focus on the Northwest Coast and China. It lasted until the middle to late 19th century. Russians controlled most of the coast of what is now Alaska during the entire era. The coast south of Alaska saw fierce competition between, and among, British and American trading vessels. The British were the first to operate in the southern sector, but were unable to compete against the Americans who dominated from the 1790s to the 1830s. The British Hudson's Bay Company entered the coast trade in the 1820s with the intention of driving the Americans away. This was accomplished by about 1840. In its late period the maritime fur trade was largely conducted by the British Hudson's Bay Company and the Russian-American Company.


title: Fur trade

text: The term "maritime fur trade" was coined by historians to distinguish the coastal, ship-based fur trade from the continental, land-based fur trade of, for example, the North West Company and the American Fur Company. Historically, the maritime fur trade was not known by that name, rather it was usually called the "North West Coast trade" or "North West Trade". The term "North West" was rarely spelled as the single word "Northwest", as is common today.


title: Fur trade

text: The maritime fur trade brought the Pacific Northwest coast into a vast, new international trade network, centered on the north Pacific Ocean, global in scope, and based on capitalism but not, for the most part, on colonialism. A triangular trade network emerged linking the Pacific Northwest coast, China, the Hawaiian Islands (only recently discovered by the Western world), Europe, and the United States (especially New England). The trade had a major effect on the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest coast, especially the Aleut, Tlingit, Haida, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Chinook peoples. There was a rapid increase of wealth among the Northwest Coast natives, along with increased warfare, potlatching, slaving, depopulation due to epidemic disease, and enhanced importance of totems and traditional nobility crests. The indigenous culture was not however overwhelmed, it rather flourished, while simultaneously undergoing rapid change. The use of Chinook Jargon arose during the maritime fur trading era and remains a distinctive aspect of Pacific Northwest culture. Native Hawaiian society was similarly affected by the sudden influx of Western wealth and technology, as well as epidemic diseases. The trade's effect on China and Europe was minimal. For New England, the maritime fur trade and the significant profits it made helped revitalize the region, contributing to the transformation of New England from an agrarian to an industrial society. The wealth generated by the maritime fur trade was invested in industrial development, especially textile manufacturing. The New England textile industry in turn had a large effect on slavery in the United States, increasing the demand for cotton and helping make possible the rapid expansion of the cotton plantation system across the Deep South.


title: Fur trade

text: The most profitable furs were those of sea otters, especially the northern sea otter, "Enhydra lutris kenyoni", which inhabited the coastal waters between the Columbia River to the south and Cook Inlet to the north. The fur of the Californian southern sea otter, "E. l. nereis", was less highly prized and thus less profitable. After the northern sea otter was hunted to local extinction, maritime fur traders shifted to California until the southern sea otter was likewise nearly extinct. The British and American maritime fur traders took their furs to the Chinese port of Guangzhou (Canton), where they worked within the established Canton System. Furs from Russian America were mostly sold to China via the Mongolian trading town of Kyakhta, which had been opened to Russian trade by the 1727 Treaty of Kyakhta.


title: Fur trade

text: The papers from the North American Fur Trade conferences, which are held approximately every five years, not only provide a wealth of articles on disparate aspects of the fur trade, but also can be taken together as a historiographical overview since 1965. They are listed chronologically below. The third conference, held in 1978, is of particular note; the ninth conference, which was held in St. Louis in 2006, has not yet published its papers.


title: Bacurau

text: Bacurau () is a 2019 Weird Western film written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles. It stars Sônia Braga, Udo Kier, Bárbara Colen, Thomas Aquino, Silvero Pereira, and Karine Teles. The film, a co-production between Brazil and France, revolves around Bacurau, a fictional small town in the Brazilian sertão that is beset by strange happenings following the death of its matriarch, Carmelita (Lia de Itamaracá), at the age of 94. The film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, and won the Jury Prize.


title: Bacurau

text: In the near future, the people of Bacurau, an impoverished, rural settlement in the fictional municipality of Serra Verde, in western Pernambuco, gather for the funeral of Carmelita, an elderly woman seen as the matriarch of the community. Her granddaughter Teresa (Bárbara Colen), now a young woman, returns to town after many years for the occasion, as well as to deliver some medicine to the town. In the following days, the village experiences a sequence of strange events, including the town inexplicably disappearing from online maps and satellite images, loss of mobile phone signal, sightings of a UFO-shaped drone and an unnamed couple from South Region, Brazil passing through town on motorcycles.


title: Bacurau

text: There is an ongoing dispute over water rights from the local river, with water being dammed upstream in a corruption scheme which the wealthy mayor of Serra Verde, Tony Junior (Thardelly Lima), is the major driving force behind. He visits Bacurau in an attempt to gain its residents' sympathy and secure their votes for an upcoming election with old food and run down books and no water, but the townspeople all hide and avoid him. A tanker truck of water finally arrives for the town, but it has been riddled with bullets.


title: Bacurau

text: When horses stampede through town, two local men are sent to investigate the nearby farm from where they presumably escaped and find the family that owned it murdered. As they attempt to leave the property, they are executed by the couple on the motorbikes. This couple rendezvous with a group of mostly American foreigners led by Michael (Udo Kier). The couple is chastised for killing the two men, as killing two people will deprive the foreigners of two chances to score "points." After receiving unheard instructions through earpieces, the foreigners execute the motorbike couple and argue over who did the killing and is entitled to the points.


title: Bacurau

text: The foreigners begin hunting the townspeople, and Pacote (Thomás Aquino), Teresa's former lover, seeks out Lunga (Silvero Pereira), a revolutionary protecting and being sheltered by the townspeople. Pacote convinces Lunga to join his efforts in fighting back against the foreigners. As the townspeople arm themselves, the foreigners kill a nine-year-old boy and cut off electricity to the town.


title: Bacurau

text: The following morning, as the foreigners go hunting, they are gradually overpowered and killed by the locals, with the exception of Michael, who ends up captured. Tony Junior shows up to collect the foreigners in a luxury minibus. When he sees that the townsfolk have won, he denies knowing the foreigners until the captured Michael yells at him for help. The mayor is sent away to die in the desert, half-naked and tied up to a donkey, while Michael is buried alive in an underground cell while shouting that "this is only the beginning".


title: Bacurau

text: "Bacurau" was filmed in the village of Barra in the municipality of Parelhas and in the rural area of the municipality of Acari, at the Sertão do Seridó region, in Rio Grande do Norte. The film crew visited over 20 cities in the Northeast countryside to find the right filming location.


title: Bacurau

text: Cinematographers Pedro Sotero and Kleber Mendonça worked on the film alongside the production designer, Juliano Dornelles. They have worked on other films together as well including "Neighboring Sounds" (2012) and "Aquarius" (2016).


title: Bacurau

text: The cinematographer used a Panavision Anamorphic C-series lenses along with a 4:3 digital sensor for the compact and a reliable ARRI Alexa Mini. This stylistic choice came at an expense however, with the specific lenses not being sold in Brazil, the crew had to import them from both the United States and France. The end result, in the opinion of the directors, helped "create this tension between a very Brazilian film and a certain distortion that you associate with classic American films. I think we were very lucky to make the film exactly the way we wanted it to make." The crew shot 12-hour days for 8 weeks.


title: Bacurau

text: A self-proclaimed cinephile, Kleber Mendonça Filho, stated in an interview that the cinematographers for the film drew inspiration from several sources, including both 1970's American western style films and Italian westerns from the 1960's.


title: Bacurau

text: "Bacurau" departed from several cinematographic norms during its production. Among these include the use of zooms and diopters which struck many cinephiles as somewhat of a call back to older filming techniques. Another stylistic departure from what many consider to be standard in the filming industry was the lack of a steady camera on set, with the directors opting to use tracks instead: "I have nothing against it; it's an interesting tool. But for this film, we wanted to move the camera using only tracks. By the end of the shoot, the gaffer said we had laid down 1,300 meters of tracks for this film, in eight and a half weeks' shoot."


title: Bacurau

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, "Bacurau" holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "Formally thrilling and narratively daring, "Bacurau" draws on modern Brazilian sociopolitical concerns to deliver a hard-hitting, genre-blurring drama." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "Universal acclaim".


title: Bacurau

text: Barry Hertz of "The Globe and Mail" gave "Bacurau" a favorable review, saying it was a "fiery anti-colonialism polemic with so much on its mind that you’ll likely come out of it feeling as dazed as the titular village’s people," while Monica Castillo of RogerEbert.com praised its "twists and turns." Additionally, "Bacurau" received the 'critic's pick' of "The New York TImes" in March 2020, and was described as "engimatic, exhilarating, and otherworldly". David Friend of "The Canadian Press" highlighted Udo Kier's performance saying it was "one of his best villainous roles."


title: Bacurau

text: It was released by Vitrine Filmes in Brazil and SBS Distribution in France. Its North American release was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting the distributor Kino-Lorber to seek alternate means. It created a "virtual cinema" distribution model in which it partnered with some 150 independent theaters in North America. The first run of the film streams in an exclusive limited release window through the theaters' websites. Kino-Lorber shares the revenues with the theaters.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Rico Rene Granados Blanco (born March 17, 1973) is a Filipino singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actor, endorser and entrepreneur. He began his career as one of the founding members, and served as the chief songwriter, vocalist, guitarist, and keyboardist of the Filipino rock band Rivermaya from 1994 until 2007, and has been a solo artist since 2008.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Blanco's songs and performances gained success and critical acclaim, earning himself a reputation of being one of the well received local music icons in the Philippines.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Rico Blanco was born at Manila Doctors Hospital in Ermita, Manila on March 17, 1973, to Rene Aldeguer Blanco of Iloilo City and Purita Crisostomo Granados of Leyte, Leyte. Blanco grew up in San Pedro, Laguna. Blanco graduated grade school at O. B. Montessori Center, high school at the Benedictine Abbey (now called San Beda College Alabang) and college at the Ateneo de Manila University with a degree of AB Management Economics where he was once a classmate of Kris Aquino. Rico was an A-student and was accelerated twice in grade school. He was once a Sangguniang Kabataan chairman.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Rico was one of the founding members of the Filipino rock band Rivermaya, in varying roles as vocalist, keyboardist, guitarist, and main songwriter from 1994 to 2007.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Rico Blanco is also a stage, film, and television actor. He starred in ABS-CBN's Imortal alongside John Lloyd Cruz and Angel Locsin, and May Isang Pangarap alongside Carmina Villaroel and Vina Morales. He also starred alongside Noel Cabangon and Joey Ayala in the Music Museum and 1970s Bistro production of Jesus Christ Superstar and also starred alongside Epy Quizon and Christopher de Leon in the independent film Nasaan si Francis?. He also directed several music videos, won an award for his work as advertising musical arranger. Blanco also dabbles in painting and photography.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Among the albums Blanco produced are Slapshock's "Project 11–41", Sugarfree's "Sa Wakas", The Dawn's "Salamat (Millennium edition single)", Teeth's "I Was a Teenage Tree" and Rivermaya's "Free" album which won him an NU Rock award for "Producer of the year". Blanco also used to host "MYX Live". He also composed and arranged scores for many commercials & other various corporate functions around the Philippines.


title: Rico Blanco

text: In May 2007, Blanco announced his departure from Rivermaya. His last performance with Rivermaya was on May 4, 2007, at the Metro Bar (wherein two other high-profile Filipino bands opened the show, Pupil and Sandwich; two spin-off bands of the legendary pop-rock group Eraserheads). It was coincidental that Rico's first gig as singer for Rivermaya was also held at the Metro Bar (formerly known as ""Kampo""). Furthermore, first ever Rivermaya gig (where Blanco was keyboardist) was in Las Piñas in 1993 where the band was the opening act for Eraserheads.


title: Rico Blanco

text: In 2007, he launched a clothing line for a clothing brand in the Philippines, "Human". Blanco also wrote and produced an electronic dance music song titled ""Control"" for the album of Nancy Castiglione. In the same year, Rico Blanco was also cast as the voice actor of Ryusuke Minami, lead guitarist of the fictional band, Beck, in the Filipino dubbed edition of the anime series .


title: Rico Blanco

text: On June 12, 2008, Warner Music Philippines, launched Rico Blanco's first single ""Yugto"" which marked his entry in the Filipino music industry as a solo artist. Critics and music fans immediately hail it as a "neo-epic". The song won a host of awards, among them 4 major Awit awards including Song of the Year. His first album titled "Your Universe" was released on August 8, 2008. The 10-track CD is a unique fusion of diverse sounds, among them the ethno-rock ""Yugto"", the heart-tugging title track ""Your Universe"", the rockabilly/punk feel of ""Ayuz"", the sweet, Pinoy-folk ""Para Hindi Ka Mawala"", and the sing-along anthem ""Antukin"". Also notable is his return to his roots as a keyboard player as evidenced by the infusion of synthesizer and electronic elements throughout the album. Incidentally, Warner Music Philippines are known for disbanding bands and turning their respective lead vocalists into solo artists.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Rico's live band was usually composed of Robert de la Cruz (of Queso and Skychurch) on drums and Ricci Gurango (formerly of Hungry Young Poets and Mojofly) on bass, while Rico plays guitars and keyboards. Many other session musicians join him on stage from time to time.


title: Rico Blanco

text: In November 2008, Blanco won the "Vocalist of the Year" award in the NU Rock Awards. In December 2008, he was heralded RX93.1 "OPM Solo Artist of the Year". He also opened for Myx Mo 2008 and performed ""Yugto"". Aside from his band, The Mandaluyong Children's Choir, Manila Symphony Orchestra, Kulintangan musicians (headed by Malou Matute), and various Percussionists (headed by Iggy de Dios), all performed with him. The opening set was touted to be the biggest in the event's history.


title: Rico Blanco

text: In February 2009, he won as "Best New Artist" in the MYX Music Awards 2009. Then, Blanco was picked by Unilever Philippines to re-write and sing a version of the regional campaign song of Close Up toothpaste, released a single entitled ""Come Closer"".


title: Rico Blanco

text: In December 2009, Blanco launched his new music video for the single ""Ayuz"", it features his dance tribute to Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, with Cristine Reyes as special guest.


title: Rico Blanco

text: In May 2010, Blanco was announced to be on the cast of ABS-CBN's supernatural-political thriller TV series Imortal which stars John Lloyd Cruz and Angel Locsin, Blanco also sang the song ""Kahit Walang Sabihin"" for the said TV series. This was followed by the launch of Rico Blanco's very own company, Balcony Entertainment, in cooperation with Warner Music Philippines.


title: Rico Blanco

text: The same year, Rico Blanco launched his first album "Your Universe" in other Asian countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong. The Asian release featured a new single ""Neon Lights"", the song quickly gained the number 1 spot in Hong Kong charts beating other artists such as Justin Bieber, Avril Lavigne, Wonder Girls and Mika.


title: Rico Blanco

text: In June 10, 2010, Rico Blanco Collaborated with PLDT-SME with the title "Bossing Ako" with Arnel Pineda. and was launched in NBC Tent at the Fort, Taguig City to serves as an anthem for entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs.


title: Rico Blanco

text: In the same year, Blanco co-wrote the song ""Chemistry"" with Solenn Heussaff for the latter's self-titled debut album.


title: Rico Blanco

text: In 2012, Blanco released a new single, "Amats", available for digital download via iTunes. The single was taken from his second studio album "Galactik Fiestamatik" released on July 10, 2012.


title: Rico Blanco

text: On October 6, 2015, Rico Blanco signs with Universal Records. and will release his album in a November release and fellow musicians Roll Martinez, Buddy Zabala & Raimund Marasigan will help Rico work on his new album.


title: Rico Blanco

text: On November 11, 2015, Rico released a Lyric Video on his new carry single "Videoke Queen". On November 27, 2015, Blanco released his third album "Dating Gawi".


title: Rico Blanco

text: On January 9, 2016, he re-united with his former Rivermaya co-members, Perf de Castro, Nathan Azarcon and Mark Escueta for a "secret mini semi-reunion", following de Castro's gig at 19 East, Taguig City.


title: Rico Blanco

text: On July 3, 2019 Rico collaborated with IV of Spades with the song "Nagbabalik" and a Music Video was released in July 15, 2019


title: Rico Blanco

text: In May 1, 2020. Rico released his new song "This Too Shall Pass". As a message to bring comfort to those who needing light and love amid the Covid 19 pandemic. And a music video was released on May 17, 2020


title: Rico Blanco

text: On August 25, 2020 Rico released "Happy Feeling". And a Music Video was released on December 11, 2020


title: Rico Blanco

text: On May 27, 2021, Imperial Blue Whisky release a commercial with Rico Blanco singing the song "Alaala" as a tribute to summer's past.


title: Rico Blanco

text: On June 15, 2021. He posted a music video of the song "Alaala"(which was shot 6 years ago) on his YouTube channel.


title: Rico Blanco

text: On August 23, 2021. Rico Blanco will be producing the late Jamir Garcia posthumously solo debut album. And release the single "Paraiso" on September 5, 2021


title: Rico Blanco

text: In September 14, 2021, Rico released his newest single, a new cover version of "Pinoy Ako" entitled "Pinoy Tayo" for "", the 10th season of the Philippine reality show "Pinoy Big Brother". And a music Video was released in February 7, 2022


title: Rico Blanco

text: Blanco was a founding Sangguniang Kabataan chairman in his hometown of San Pedro, Laguna long before he started his music career.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Aside from his songwriter credits in his solo album and in Rivermaya, Blanco also arranged and wrote music for various cause oriented projects such as the United Nations Millennium Development Goals theme ""Tayo Tayo Rin"", The Philippine Department of Tourism theme ""Biyahe Tayo"", both of which were performed by veteran Filipino musicians, such as Freddie Aguilar, the APO Hiking Society, Lea Salonga, and Sharon Cuneta. He also co-wrote ""Posible"", which has been used as a theme song for the 2005 Southeast Asian Games.


title: Rico Blanco

text: During his hiatus from music in 2007, Blanco spent his time with philanthropic work. In late 2007 he came out of retirement to sing for the Sumilao farmers who walked 1,700 km from Bukidnon to reach Department of Agrarian Reform in Metro Manila.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Rico sang together with Imago vocalist Aia de Leon, and Sandwich frontman Raimund Marasigan, on ""Ako ang Simula"", the theme song for a campaign which calls on Filipinos, especially the youth, to actively participate in the 2010 elections.


title: Rico Blanco

text: When super typhoons ravaged the Philippines in September 2009, Rico responded quickly by writing and recording and releasing ""Bangon"", to raise awareness and ultimately, funds to help the victims of the typhoons. Rico gave away the song as a free download to give hope to the victims, salute the heroes and inspire people to continue helping. Blanco also said that he is waiving all royalties due to him for the mobile downloads of the song, which he will instead give to affected families.


title: Rico Blanco

text: In March 2011, Sesame Street Philippines went into partnership with Blanco to launch the new education campaign called Sesame Street ""Kid Ako"". The campaign will launch in schools which will use Sesame Street books and videos to help encourage learning among kids at an early age. Blanco is also set to make two songs for the campaign.


title: Rico Blanco

text: When typhoon Haiyan devastated his mother's home province, Blanco decided to spend the New Year holidays in a still-reeling and electricity-less Leyte and perform in as many evacuation centers as possible to comfort the survivors and help educate them about the importance of hygiene in preventing the spread of post-calamity diseases. A few weeks prior, just after the typhoon struck, Blanco nearly cancelled his appearance at the Sundown Music Festival in Singapore, but decided to forge on and dedicated his performance and talent fees to the people of Leyte.


title: Rico Blanco

text: In 2014, he released a single "Ito ang Ating Sandali" which become The ABS-CBN Sports+Action’s station ID.


title: Rico Blanco

text: He currently serves as the president of the Filipino Society of Composers Authors and Publishers (FILSCAP). A non-profit, non-government, collective management organization that champions intellectual property rights.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Blanco is currently in a relationship with actress and singer-songwriter Maris Racal since March 24, 2019.


title: Rico Blanco

text: At a young age, Rico listened heavily to his uncle's records which included The Beatles, jazz and 1970s rock. He moved on to appreciate late 1970s to 1980s punk rock, post punk, synth pop and new wave artists (mostly from the U.K.) such as XTC, The Cure, The Smiths, U2, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, OMD, Tears for Fears, Ultravox, New Order, Madness, Terry Hall, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Midnight Oil (Aus), among others. He also listened to Filipino artists such as Deans December, Violent Playground, Identity Crisis, Urban Bandits, Joey Ayala, among others. The music he listened to while growing up is largely credited for his musical style.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Throughout his career, Rico Blanco has partnered with some of the biggest brands in the Philippines for their advertising campaigns.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Blanco was a partner in "Capone's" Makati, and "Alphonse Bistro/Vault" in Pasig. He is currently a partner in "Time in Manila" in Makati and "The Brewery at the Palace" in Taguig.


title: Rico Blanco

text: In 2010, Rico Blanco established "Loudbox", an audio production/post studio mainly catering to the Advertising industry. His business partners are Manuel Legarda of Wolfgang, Sach Castillo, Allan Feliciano, and Edsel Tolentino.


title: Rico Blanco

text: Also on the same year, following his endorsement in "Human" clothing brand, Rico launched his own brand named "Koboi", located at San Juan City, Metro Manila.


title: Rico Blanco

text: In 2014, Rico Blanco was introduced as the newest brand ambassador of Giordano Philippines. also on the same year he teams up with Valde Pastilles and released a song "Time For You" which used as the song on TV commercial.


title: Steve Reevis

text: Steve Reevis (August 14, 1962 – December 7, 2017) was a Native American actor and member of the Blackfeet Tribe known for his roles in the films "Fargo", "Last of the Dogmen", and "Dances with Wolves".


title: Steve Reevis

text: Steve Reevis was born on August 14, 1962 in Browning, Montana, to father Lloyd "Curley" and mother Lila Reevis. The fourth oldest of six children, he had two brothers and three sisters. Reevis grew up on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northwestern Montana.


title: Steve Reevis

text: Reevis attended and graduated from Flandreau Indian School in Flandreau, South Dakota. Following high school graduation, he attended Haskell Indian Junior College in Lawrence, Kansas, where he received an associate of arts degree.


title: Steve Reevis

text: Reevis' first movie appearance was with his brother, Tim Reevis, as a stunt rider in the 1987 film "War Party". Reevis' first acting role was in 1988 in the Universal Studios film "Twins", starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. Following Twins, he was cast in a nonspeaking role as a Sioux Warrior in the 1990 Kevin Costner film, "Dances with Wolves". Reevis was next cast as Chato, an Apache scout, in "" with fellow-Native actor Wes Studi. In 1995, Reevis played Yellow Wolf in "Last of the Dogmen" alongside Tom Berenger and Barbara Hershey.


title: Steve Reevis

text: He was cast in the critically acclaimed 1996 film, "Fargo" as well as the made-for-television movie, "Crazy Horse". Reevis was honored with awards for his roles in both movies by First Americans in the Arts (FAITA) in 1996. In 2004, Reevis was once again honored by FAITA for his work on the ABC series "Line of Fire".


title: Steve Reevis

text: Reevis appeared in Columbia’s 2003 film "The Missing", in the 2005 remake of "The Longest Yard", and in TNT's 2005 miniseries "Into the West". Reevis also appeared on Fox's drama series "Bones".


title: Steve Reevis

text: In 1991, Reevis married his wife, Macile, a member of the Choctaw tribe, an artist, and a clothing designer. Together, they lived in Morongo Valley, California and the Missoula, Montana area and had three children together. Reevis died on December 7, 2017, of undisclosed causes in Missoula, at the age of 55. At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife, their children, and three grandchildren.


title: Perthshire

text: Perthshire (locally: ; ), officially the County of Perth, is a historic county and registration county in central Scotland. Geographically it extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, Rannoch Moor and Ben Lui in the west, and Aberfoyle in the south; it borders the counties of Inverness-shire and Aberdeenshire to the north, Angus to the east, Fife, Kinross-shire, Clackmannanshire, Stirlingshire and Dunbartonshire to the south and Argyllshire to the west. It was a local government county from 1890 to 1930.


title: Perthshire

text: Perthshire is known as the "big county", or "the Shire", due to its roundness and status as the fourth largest historic county in Scotland. It has a wide variety of landscapes, from the rich agricultural straths in the east, to the high mountains of the southern Highlands.


title: Perthshire

text: Perthshire was an administrative county between 1890 and 1975, governed by a county council. Initially, Perthshire County Council was based in the south wing of Perth Sheriff Court. However, from 1930 onwards, a joint local government council was formed with the small neighbouring county of Kinross-shire, linking the two. Perth County Council was subsequently based at the County Offices in York Place, Perth.


title: Perthshire

text: In 1975, the administrative county was superseded by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and split between the Central and Tayside Regions:


title: Perthshire

text: The two-tier system introduced in 1975 was superseded by a system of unitary authorities in 1996. The districts of Tayside and Central Scotland all became unitary authorities, with Longforgan being transferred from Dundee to Perth and Kinross. The majority of historic Perthshire lies in Perth and Kinross. The exceptions are the southwestern part that is now in the Stirling council area and a few parishes that are now in Clackmannanshire. Perth and Kinross also contains some areas that were not historically in Perthshire, such as Kinross-shire. The lieutenancy areas in the same area are mostly coterminous with the council areas. Perthshire still exists as a registration county.


title: Perthshire

text: Prior to the 1890s Perthshire's boundaries were irregular: the parishes of Culross and Tulliallan formed an exclave some miles away from the rest of the county, on the boundaries of Clackmannanshire and Fife; while the northern part of the parish of Logie formed an enclave of Stirlingshire within the county.


title: Perthshire

text: Following the recommendations of the council boundary commission appointed under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, Culross and Tulliallan were transferred to Fife, and the entire parish of Logie was included in Stirlingshire.


title: Perthshire

text: The coat of arms of the County of Perth appears to have been granted for use on the colours and standards of the volunteer and militia units of the county raised at the end of the eighteenth century. The Earl of Kinnoull, a native of Perthshire, and commanding officer of the Perthshire Gentlemen and Yeomanry Cavalry, was also Lord Lyon King of Arms at the time, and he presented the arms to the county in 1800. The grant document was discovered in the Lyon Office in 1890, and forwarded to the newly formed Perth County Council.


title: Perthshire

text: The shield is very similar to the Scottish royal arms, reflecting that Perthshire was the home county of the House of Dunkeld and contains the former royal capital, Scone. Further royal references are made on the canton, which shows Scone Palace surmounted by the Crown of Scotland. The crest is a Highland soldier, reflecting that the famous Black Watch were formed in the county. The supporters are an eagle and a warhorse, the former from the arms of the city of Perth.


title: Perthshire

text: By the 1890s the county contained the following burghs, which were largely outside the county council's jurisdiction:


title: Perthshire

text: The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 divided burghs into two classes from 1930: large burghs, which were to gain extra powers from the county council, and small burghs which lost many of their responsibilities.


title: Perthshire

text: Of the twelve burghs in Perthshire, only Perth was made a large burgh. There were ten small burghs: Blairgowrie and Rattray being united into a single burgh. In 1947 Pitlochry was created a small burgh.


title: Perthshire

text: In 1894 parish councils were established for the civil parishes, replacing the previous parochial boards.


title: Perthshire

text: Following the boundary changes caused by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, the county contained the following civil parishes:


title: Perthshire

text: In 1930 the "landward" area of the Local Government councils (the part outside of burgh boundaries) was divided into five districts, replacing the parish councils established in 1894:


title: Perthshire

text: The county forms part of the Highland geographic area; it consists of predominantly mountainous and hilly land within the Grampian Mountains, interspersed with numerous lochs and glens. The highest point is Ben Lawers at 1,214 m (3,983 ft), making it the 4th highest peak in Scotland. Most towns are fairly small, with the larger ones being clustered in the flatter south-east of the county. In the far south along the borders with Clackmannanshhire and Kinross-shire lie the Ochil Hills, and in the south-east part of the Sidlaw Hills lie within the county, continuing on into Angus. Perthshire borders the Firth of Tay in the south-east, which provides access to the North Sea; along the north shore lies the Carse of Gowrie, an extremely flat area of land given over to agriculture. Within the Forth can be found the small island of Mugdrum.


title: Perthshire

text: The Highland Main Line railway line connects Perth to Inverness, and in the far west the West Highland Line criss-crosses the Perthshire-Argyllshire boundary. Other lines in the south-east link Perth to the towns of Fife and Stirlingshire.


title: Perthshire

text: Following the Act of Union, Perthshire returned members to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1708.


title: Perthshire

text: In 1918 there was a further redistribution. Perthshire was combined with Kinross-shire to form a parliamentary county, divided into two constituencies:


title: Perthshire

text: These boundaries continued in use until 1983, when new constituencies were formed based on the Local Government regions and districts created in 1975.


title: Piasecki H-21

text: The Piasecki H-21 Workhorse/Shawnee is an American helicopter, the fourth of a line of tandem rotor helicopters designed and built by Piasecki Helicopter (later Boeing Vertol). Commonly called "the flying banana", it was a multi-mission helicopter, using wheels, skis and floats.


title: Piasecki H-21

text: The H-21 was originally developed by Piasecki as an Arctic rescue helicopter. The H-21 had cold-weather features permitting operation at temperatures as low as and could be routinely maintained in severe cold weather environments.


title: Piasecki H-21

text: Piasecki Helicopter designed and successfully sold to the United States Navy a series of tandem rotor helicopters, starting with the HRP-1 of 1944. The HRP-1 was nicknamed the "flying banana" because of the upward angle of the aft fuselage, which ensured that the large rotors could not strike the fuselage in any flight attitude. The name was later applied to other Piasecki helicopters of similar design, including the H-21.


title: Piasecki H-21

text: In 1949, Piasecki proposed the YH-21 "Workhorse" to the United States Air Force (USAF), which was an improved, all-metal derivative of the HRP-1. Using two tandem, fully articulated three-bladed counter-rotating rotors, the H-21 was powered by one nine-cylinder Curtis-Wright R-1820-103 Cyclone supercharged air-cooled radial engine.


title: Piasecki H-21

text: After the first flight of the YH-21 on 11 April 1952, the USAF ordered 32 H-21A SAR models and 163 of the more powerful H-21B assault transport variant. The H-21B was equipped with an uprated version of the Wright 103 engine, developing 1,425 shaft horsepower (1,063 kW) and featured rotor blades extended by 6 inches (152 mm). With its improved capabilities, the H-21B could carry 22 fully equipped infantrymen or 12 stretchers, plus space for two medical attendants, as a medevac helicopter. With its Arctic winter capabilities, the H-21A and H-21B were put into service by the USAF and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) to maintain and service Distant Early Warning Line (DEW)) radar installations stretching from the Aleutian Islands and Alaska across the Canadian Arctic to Greenland and Iceland.


title: Piasecki H-21

text: In 1952, some H-21As were evaluated by USMC helicopter squadron HMX-1 for air assault. In 1957, an H-21B was loaned to the United States Marine Corps (USMC) to evaluate the helicopter as an airborne tug to tow disabled landing ships and amphibious landing vehicles to the beach. During the evaluation, the H-21B towed an LST at and a simulated tracked amphibious vehicle from the water to the beach. The uprated 1425 hp Wright engine used in the H-21B was also used in subsequent variants sold to both the U.S. Army (as the H-21C "Shawnee") and the military forces of several other nations. In 1962, the H-21 was renamed the CH-21 in U.S. Army service.


title: Piasecki H-21

text: In 1959 Vertol Aircraft, the new name for Piasecki Helicopters, came up with a concept for heavy lift over short distances where between two and six H-21Bs would be linked by beams to lift heavy loads. It was considered to be unsafe, because if one helicopter had mechanical problems during the lift it could unbalance the structure and cause all helicopters to crash.


title: Piasecki H-21

text: In 1956, seeking a way to use helicopters for ground-attack in the Algerian War, the French Air Force and French Army Aviation ("Aviation Légère de l'Armée de Terre") experimented with arming the Sikorsky S-55, then being superseded in service by the more capable Piasecki H-21 and Sikorsky H-34 helicopters. Some French Air Force and Army aviation H-21C helicopters were subsequently armed with fixed, forward-firing rockets and machine guns. A few even had racks for bombs but tests found that the H-21C lacked the maneuverability and performance needed for ground-attack. The H-21C was far more successful as a troop transport, and most H-21Cs in service were eventually fitted with flexible door-mounted guns such as the .50 cal. (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine gun or the (ex-German) MG 151/20 20 mm aircraft autocannon, for defensive use when landing assault forces under fire.


title: Piasecki H-21

text: Though the H-21 had been removed from ground-attack, official U.S. Army evaluations at the time indicated that the type was actually more likely to survive hits by ground fire than was the Sikorsky CH-34; this was assumed to be a consequence of the location and construction of the CH-34's fuel tanks. By the close of the Algerian War, troop-carrying H-21C helicopters were being used in concert with H-34 ground-attack helicopters in large counterinsurgency operations.


title: Piasecki H-21

text: The H-21C saw extensive service with the U.S. Army, primarily for use in transporting troops and supplies. On 24 August 1954, with the assistance of inflight refueling provided by a U.S. Army U-1A Otter, a H-21C known as "Amblin' Annie" became the first helicopter to cross the United States non-stop. Experiments were made by the Army in arming the H-21C as a gunship; some Shawnees were armed with flex guns under the nose, while others were fitted with door guns. One experimental version was tested with a Boeing B-29 Superfortress .50 cal. remote turret mounted beneath the nose. The H-21C (later designated CH-21C) was first deployed to Vietnam in December 1961 with the Army's 8th and 57th Transportation Companies, in support of Army of the Republic of Vietnam troops. In Army service, the CH-21C Shawnee could be armed with 7.62 mm (.308 in) or 12.7 mm (.50 in) flexible door guns. Relatively slow, the CH-21's unprotected control cables and fuel lines proved vulnerable to the North Vietnamese Army and Vietcong ground forces, which were increasingly well supplied with automatic small arms and heavy (12.7 mm) anti-aircraft machine guns. The H-21, which was designed for cold weather operations, performed poorly in the hot weather of Vietnam. Despite being capable of carrying 20 passengers, it could lift only nine when operating in Vietnam. Pilots reported that engines that were rated for 600 hours of flying time were lasting only 200 hours or less in Vietnam. The shooting down of a CH-21 Shawnee near the Laotian-Vietnamese border with the death of four aviators in July 1962 were some of the U.S. Army's earliest casualties in the Vietnam War. Despite these events, the Shawnee continued in service as the U.S. Army's helicopter workhorse in Vietnam until 1964 when it was replaced with the Bell UH-1 Huey. In 1965, the Boeing CH-47 Chinook was deployed to Vietnam and later that year, most CH-21 helicopters were withdrawn from active inventory in the U.S. Army and Air Force.


title: Viineet Kumar

text: Vineet Kumar Singh (born 28 August 1978) is an Indian actor and writer known for his strong portrayal of an aspiring boxer Shravan Kumar Singh in Mukkabaaz (2018). A M.D. in Ayurveda from Government Medical College and Hospital, Nagpur, Vineet began his acting career at the age of 21 with the movie "Pitaah" (2002). After few series of performances in his early career including the 2010 film "City of Gold", he got noticed for his role in films like "Bombay Talkies" and "Gangs of Wasseypur". His role in "Ugly" and the portrayal of the character Milan Shukla in the film "Daas Dev" won him appreciation. He made his debut as lead actor in the 2018 Anurag Kashyap film "Mukkabaaz" for which he won two awards.


title: Viineet Kumar

text: Vineet Singh was born in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh on 28 August 1978 in a Rajput family. He was interested in sports and played Basketball on a National level. His father is a mathematician. Though Vineet wanted to join the National School of Drama, he could not pursue the same due to parental pressure and social norms. He is CPMT qualified and topper from his Medical College. He is a licensed medical practitioner, having attained his Bachelor of Ayurveda, Medicine and Surgery degree from R. A. Podar Ayurved Medical College and MD (Doctor of Medicine) in Ayurveda from Government Medical College and Hospital, Nagpur.


title: Viineet Kumar

text: Vineet Singh came to Mumbai to participate in Superstars Talent Hunt. After winning the competition, actor-director Mahesh Manjrekar, who was one of the judges gave him a role in the Sanjay Dutt starrer "Pitaah". The film was received poorly and Singh faced trouble getting further roles. He then worked as an associate / assistant director for Mahesh Manjrekar in films like "Viruddh" (2005) and "Deh". In 2007, Singh left direction to focus solely on acting. After doing a few Bhojpuri serials and insignificant roles in films like "Gori Tere Pyaar Mein" and "Isaaq", he got his break in the Hindi-Marathi bilingual "City of Gold" (2010). It was after film, he was cast by director Anurag Kashyap for the role of Danish Khan in "Gangs of Wasseypur". He then acted in "Ugly" and "Bombay Talkies" (2013). His role in "Ugly" got him his first Screen nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also appeared in Birla Sunlife and 7up Nimbooz commercials. Vineet was seen opposite Raima Sen in the 2016 Film "Bollywood Diaries", directed by K.D. Satyam. In the 2018 film "Mukkabaaz", the actor played the role of a boxer. Kumar trained hard for two years to prepare himself as the protagonist of this Anurag Kashyap film. Kumar also won huge appreciation for his role of Milan Shukla in the film "Daas Dev", directed by Sudhir Mishra. Kumar has appeared in Akshay Kumar-starrer "Gold" (2018). In 2018, Singh was signed as the main lead with Prithvi Hatte in "Aadhaar" directed by Suman Ghosh and produced by Manish Mundra's Drishyam Films which deals with the government's controversial Aadhaar program.


title: Viineet Kumar

text: In 2019, Vineet Singh had a supporting role in "Saand Ki Aankh". His upcoming projects include the biopic "Gunjan Saxena" co-starring Janhvi Kapoor, scheduled to release in March 2020. and a Hindi remake of the Tamil film "Thiruttu Payale 2", in which he will be seen opposite Urvashi Rautela.


title: Viineet Kumar

text: In the Critics Choice Film Awards 2019, Vineet Singh received the Best Actor (male) award for his role in "Mukkabaaz". He was nominated for Best Actor (Critics) award in the 64th Filmfare Awards for the film "Mukkabaaz".


title: Claudia Gerini

text: Born in Rome, Gerini won the National Competition of Miss Teenager in 1985. She got her first part in a film, "La ballata di Eva", at 14. She subsequently played in "Ciao mà", "Roba da ricchi" and "Night Club", by Sergio Corbucci, and many others. At 19 she worked for the popular TV show "Non è la Rai", a sort of academy with one hundred girls singing, dancing and gaming.


title: Claudia Gerini

text: Gerini's first major role was in "Il padre e il figlio", directed by Pasquale Pozzessere. She later moved to Paris to learn French for several months, travelling a lot between Italy and France without leaving off University. At 22 she returned to Italy and got a role as protagonist in "Angelo e Beatrice", a theatrical work by Francesco Apolloni (writer and director) presented on the stage at the Theater Coliseum in Rome, where director and actor Carlo Verdone noticed her. The encounter with Verdone produced "Viaggi di nozze" and "I'm Crazy About Iris Blond", both Christmas box-office successes.


title: Claudia Gerini

text: Gerini later collaborated with Leonardo Pieraccioni, Massimo Ceccherini, Antonio Rezza and Antonello De Leo, and moved both to Los Angeles, U.S. and Madrid, Spain to improve her English and Spanish, respectively. In Spain she starred in "Desafinado" by M. G. Pereira and "La playa de Los Galagos" by M. Camus. Other roles include "Francesca e Nunziata", directed by Lina Wertmüller, "Al cuore si comanda", "Non ti muovere", "La sconosciuta" and the recent "Nero bifamiliare", directed by her then-partner, singer-songwriter Federico Zampaglione (Tiromancino).


title: Volterra

text: Volterra (; Latin: "Volaterrae") is a walled mountaintop town in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its history dates from before the 8th century BC and it has substantial structures from the Etruscan, Roman, and Medieval periods.


title: Volterra

text: Volterra, known to the ancient Etruscans as "Velathri" or "Vlathri" and to the Romans as "Volaterrae", is a town and "comune" in the Tuscany region of Italy. The town was a Bronze Age settlement of the Proto-Villanovan culture, and an important Etruscan center ("Velàthre", "Velathri" or "Felathri" in Etruscan, "Volaterrae" in Latin language), one of the "twelve cities" of the Etruscan League.


title: Volterra

text: The site is believed to have been continuously inhabited as a city since at least the end of the 8th century BC. It became a municipium allied to Rome at the end of the 3rd century BC. The city was a bishop's residence in the 5th century, and its episcopal power was affirmed during the 12th century.


title: Volterra

text: With the decline of the episcopate and the discovery of local alum deposits, Volterra became a place of interest of the Republic of Florence, whose forces conquered Volterra. Florentine rule was not always popular, and opposition occasionally broke into rebellion. These rebellions were put down by Florence.


title: Volterra

text: When the Republic of Florence fell in 1530, Volterra came under the control of the Medici family and later followed the history of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.


title: Volterra

text: Volterra has a station on the , called "Volterra Saline – Pomarance" due to its position, in the "frazione" of Saline di Volterra.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: Enrico Dandolo (anglicised as Henry Dandolo and Latinized as Henricus Dandulus; c. 1107 – May/June 1205) was the Doge of Venice from 1192 until his death. He is remembered for his avowed piety, longevity, and shrewdness, and is known for his role in the Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople. Dandolo died in 1205 in Constantinople and was buried at the Hagia Sophia.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: Born in Venice 1107, Enrico Dandolo was a member of the socially and politically prominent Dandolo family. He was the son of the powerful jurist and member of the ducal court, Vitale Dandolo, and had two brothers: Andrea and Giovanni. His uncle, also named Enrico Dandolo, was patriarch of Grado.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: Not much information exists on the younger Enrico before his father's death in 1174. This is because Vitale lived into his nineties and his sons were not emancipated until he died. Though Enrico was himself an elderly man at around 67, he was still under filial subjection. This was a type of partial emancipation in which he could conduct business, but because he worked for the family, most, if not all, documents used Vitale's name rather than Enrico's.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: Dandolo's first important political roles took place during the crisis years of 1171 and 1172, which were a tumultuous period between the Byzantine and Venetian empires. After Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus restored Pisans and Genoans, both enemies of the Venetians, to their quarters in Constantinople as part of his plan to reclaim Italy, an angry Venetian mob attacked the recently reinstated Genoese quarter. This attack caused Commenus in March 1171 to order the seizure of goods and imprisonment of thousands of Venetians living in the empire. Popular Venetian anger with the attack forced Doge Vitale II Michiel to gather a retaliatory expedition, which included Dandolo. This expedition fell apart when its participants were struck by plague in 1172, and upon his return Michiel was killed by a mob of Venetians, angry with his defeat.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: The succeeding doge, Sebastiano Ziani, sought to form alliances with enemies of the Byzantine empire so that it would feel pressured into coming to terms with Venice. He sent out multiple expeditions to Constantinople and King William II's court in Sicily, several of which Dandolo was a part, although he never met with William. Despite Dandolo's failure to meet with William II, his constant participation in these envoys shows his value and importance within the ducal court, qualities which no doubt contributed to his election as doge in 1192.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: Dandolo also made trips to Constantinople in 1183 and 1184. The first voyage, on which he embarked with his brother, Giovanni, was the first in which he acted as a ducal legate. On this trip, he most likely engaged in negotiations for reparations of the city's Venetian quarter with the new Byzantine emperor Andronicus I. He also invested and restored land to Venetian monasteries, a deed which earned him the position of legal advocate for the monastery of San Cipriano di Murano.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: In 1184, Dandolo, serving again as a ducal legate along with Pietro Ziani and Domenico Sanudo, returned to Constantinople to negotiate the restoration of the Venetian quarter with Andronicus. In this meeting, the emperor at last agreed to release the imprisoned Venetians, restore their quarter, and pay for reparations.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: On 1 June 1192, after Orio Mastropiero abdicated the throne, Dandolo became the new doge. He was the second doge to be chosen by a council of forty electors. Already aged and blind, but deeply ambitious, he displayed tremendous energy and mental capacity. His remarkable deeds over the next eleven years have led some to hypothesize that he actually may have been in his mid seventies when he became Venice's leader. None of the earlier chronicles and contemporary witnesses give his exact age, only mentioning that he was very old. The commonly given birth year of c. 1107 is based on the account of Marino Sanuto the Younger (1466 – 1536) three centuries later, who stated that Dandolo was eighty-five when he assumed the throne. Though not the first doge to take the "promissione ducale," Dandolo's is the earliest that is available to historians.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: One of Dandolo's first decrees as doge was to evict all foreigners who had lived in Venice for fewer than two years on 16 August 1192. Landlords were obligated to evict any of these foreigners from their premises. Citizens who violated the decree had to pay fifty lire, and foreigners’ goods were confiscated. Additionally, Venetians were not allowed to lend money to foreigners—excepting those from the areas of Umana or Ragusa—for a period that exceeded fifteen days. The reason why this decree was implemented is unknown, but it seems to correlate to a recent increase of foreigners into Venice, since it did not affect foreigners who had been living in the city for more than two years.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: In 1193, Dandolo commanded an attack on the nearby city of Zara, which for years had troubled Venice and threatened its control over the Dalmatian Coast. Until 1180, Zara had been under Venetian control, until they staged a successful rebellion in which they became the sole city on this coast that was against Venetian interests. Dandolo seemed to have always supported Venice's reinstating power over the city, since he had contributed money to doge Orio Mastropiero's 1187 military attempt to regain control there. Dandolo's 1193 attack on Zara was only somewhat successful. He managed to regain control over the islands of Pago, Ossero, and Arbe, which had been lost in an 1190 attempt led by Mastropiero, though not Zara.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: In 1194, Dandolo enacted important reforms to the Venetian currency system. Before these reforms, Venice's principal coin was the silver penny, which weighed less than a gram and was about one-quarter fine. Due to the debasement of the silver penny in 1180 and the constant fluctuation in value of Jerusalem and Byzantine coins, Dandolo instated three denominations of this silver penny, the "bianco" (half-penny), the "quartarolo" (quarter-penny), and the silver "grosso". The "bianco" had a silver content of about five percent, and was decorated with a cross on one side and St. Mark on the other. The "quartarolo" had almost no precious metal content, which made it the first European token coin since ancient Rome. The "grosso" was the first nearly pure silver–and high denomination–coin minted in western Europe in over five centuries. It was decorated with an image of Dandolo and St. Mark on one side, and of Jesus Christ enthroned on the other side, which imitated a design typically seen on Byzantine "aspron trachy" coins. The "grosso" eventually became the dominant coin of Mediterranean commerce.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: In 1202, six French envoys of the Fourth Crusade arrived in Venice in hopes of acquiring a fleet and supplies. Dandolo arranged meetings for them with the ducal court, in which the council calculated the expenses necessary for this voyage, which would be the largest project in Venetian history. The terms were laid out as such: for up to a year, Venice would provide transportation and most provisions for the army. Four silver marks would be paid for each knight and horse, and two would be paid for each other member. Finally, many Venetians would also join the Crusade and promised to supply fifty fully armed galleys as long as the French promised to split the spoils with them. With the enthusiastic support of the population, Venice's participation in the Crusade was confirmed. Dandolo himself swore on holy relics to uphold every part of the agreement.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: However, Venice soon faced a financial problem. The six original Crusaders had borrowed money as a down payment for the fleet, but failed to pay it back. When more Crusaders began to arrive that June, the urgency for this money increased as many Venetians, whose business relied on this reimbursement, were being driven closer to financial ruin. When the due date for payment arrived, Dandolo ordered the Crusaders, who were staying on the nearby Lido, to collectively pay 85,000 marks. Even when everyone, including many poor Crusaders, contributed all they could afford, they still owed 34,000 marks. Instead of ejecting them, Dandolo decided to lend this amount from the Venetian state, provided that it was paid back in the form of the spoils of the Crusade. In addition, Dandolo proposed that the Crusaders agree to spend the winter in Zara. This was due to the threat of Zaran pirates to Venetian commerce as well as the Venetian's interest in regaining control over the area. Additionally, staking an interest in Zara helped convince the Great Council to consent to Dandolo's plan.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: The Crusade fleet left Venice during the first week of October 1202, following an emotional and rousing ceremony in San Marco di Venezia where Dandolo "took the cross" –committed himself to crusading–and promised to "go live or die" with the Crusaders in exchange for his people's support, and his sons' taking his place during his absence. The Crusaders arrived in Zara in November, the sheer size of their fleet intimidating the Zarans into near surrender. Dandolo gave the Zarans an ultimatum: either they leave the city right away or they would be killed. Confusion ensued, as Pope Innocent forbade the Crusade from settling this dispute unrelated to their original religious agenda, especially since the land was controlled by King Emeric of Hungary, who had himself participated in a crusade. Finally, Innocent threatened excommunication to anyone who antagonized the Zarans. The Crusaders attacked the city anyway, and it at last fell on 24 November 1202. All of the Venetian members of the Crusade were thus excommunicated (the French Crusaders had sent an envoy to the pope to ask for forgiveness), but Dandolo kept this a secret from them since he knew they would abandon the Crusade if they found out.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: Shortly afterwards, Alexius Angelus, son of the deposed Byzantine emperor Isaac II, arrived in Zara, looking for help to overthrow his uncle, Alexius III, after he violently seized the throne from Isaac. Dandolo agreed to the Crusade leaders' plan to place Alexius Angelus on the throne of the Byzantine Empire in return for his support and funds to help the Crusade. The Crusaders thus took another detour to Constantinople, where the conquest and sack of Constantinople took place on 12 April 1204. During the looting, Dandolo had many items of value sent back to Venice, including the four Horses of St. Mark that decorate the Venetian cathedral to this day.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: When Constantinople fell, Dandolo understood that he needed to quickly restore stability to the empire to avoid disorder that could threaten Venice. One necessary task was to find an emperor for the new Latin empire. Dandolo was offered the position, but he refused, and Baldwin of Flanders instead took the throne. Dandolo did accept, however, the title of despot.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: The "Partitio Romaniae" also resulted from this conquest, and it awarded Venice three-eighths of the Byzantine Empire in accordance with an agreement drafted by the Crusaders before the fall of the empire. This included a part of Constantinople near the harbor, a portion of the shoreline of the Sea of Marmara, and the city of Adrianople, among other former Byzantine possessions. Dandolo was also awarded the title "lord of three-eighths of the Roman Empire", although these acquisitions only lasted until the collapse of the Latin empire in 1261.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: Dandolo died in May or June 1205 and was buried in the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. In the 19th century an Italian restoration team placed a cenotaph marker near the probable location, which is still visible today. The marker is frequently mistaken by tourists as being a medieval marker of the actual tomb of the doge. The real tomb was destroyed by the Ottomans after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and subsequent conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: It is not known for certain when and how Dandolo became blind. According to the Chronicle of Novgorod he had been blinded by the Byzantines during the 1171-1172 expedition to Byzantium. Supposedly, Emperor Manuel Comnenus "ordered his eyes to be blinded with glass; and his eyes were uninjured, but he saw nothing". According to Thomas F. Madden's study, Dandolo had cortical blindness as a result of a severe blow to the back of the head received sometime between 1174 and 1176. Documents show Dandolo's signature being fully legible in 1174 but sprawling across the paper in 1176, suggesting that his sight deteriorated over time.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: Dandolo's blindness appears to have been total. Geoffrey de Villehardouin, whom Dandolo accompanied on the Fourth Crusade, wrote that "although his eyes appeared normal, he could not see a hand in front of his face, having lost his sight after a head wound". This piece of primary evidence seems to support Madden's theory that Dandolo's blindness was cortical, since his eyes appeared to be unharmed.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: Dandolo's son, Ranieri, served as vice-doge during Dandolo's absence and was later killed in the war against Genoa for the control of Crete. It is unclear if he had other children besides Ranieri as the existence of none can be confirmed by contemporary evidence. Ranieri's daughter Anna Dandolo married Serbian Grand Prince, subsequently King, Stefan Nemanjić (r. 1196–1228) in 1217, making Enrico an ancestor to much of the later Nemanjić dynasty.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: During his dogeship, Dandolo was married to a woman named Contessa, to whom he delegated authority over his commercial and private affairs along with his brother, Andrea, and assumed friend Filippo Falier of the San Tomà parish, before he departed on a political trip to Constantinople with his brother, Giovanni, in 1183. Contessa's identity is debated, and it is often thought that she may have been a member of the Minotto clan though the veracity of this claim is inconclusive.


title: Enrico Dandolo

text: Enrico Dandolo and his role in the conquest of Constantinople were referenced by Lord Byron in his poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage":


title: Electrophysiology

text: Electrophysiology (from Greek , "ēlektron", "amber" [see the etymology of "electron"]; , "physis", "nature, origin"; and , "-logia") is the branch of physiology that studies the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues. It involves measurements of voltage changes or electric current or manipulations on a wide variety of scales from single ion channel proteins to whole organs like the heart. In neuroscience, it includes measurements of the electrical activity of neurons, and, in particular, action potential activity. Recordings of large-scale electric signals from the nervous system, such as electroencephalography, may also be referred to as electrophysiological recordings. They are useful for electrodiagnosis and monitoring.


title: Electrophysiology

text: Electrophysiology is the branch of physiology that pertains broadly to the flow of ions (ion current) in biological tissues and, in particular, to the electrical recording techniques that enable the measurement of this flow. Classical electrophysiology techniques involve placing electrodes into various preparations of biological tissue. The principal types of electrodes are:


title: Electrophysiology

text: Neuronal electrophysiology is the study of electrical properties of biological cells and tissues within the nervous system. With neuronal electrophysiology doctors and specialists can determine how neuronal disorders happen, by looking at the individual's brain activity. Activity such as which portions of the brain light up during any situations encountered.


title: Electrophysiology

text: If an electrode is small enough (micrometers) in diameter, then the electrophysiologist may choose to insert the tip into a single cell. Such a configuration allows direct observation and intracellular recording of the intracellular electrical activity of a single cell. However, this invasive setup reduces the life of the cell and causes a leak of substances across the cell membrane. Intracellular activity may also be observed using a specially formed (hollow) glass pipette containing an electrolyte. In this technique, the microscopic pipette tip is pressed against the cell membrane, to which it tightly adheres by an interaction between glass and lipids of the cell membrane. The electrolyte within the pipette may be brought into fluid continuity with the cytoplasm by delivering a pulse of negative pressure to the pipette in order to rupture the small patch of membrane encircled by the pipette rim (whole-cell recording). Alternatively, ionic continuity may be established by "perforating" the patch by allowing exogenous pore-forming agent within the electrolyte to insert themselves into the membrane patch (perforated patch recording). Finally, the patch may be left intact (patch recording).


title: Electrophysiology

text: The electrophysiologist may choose not to insert the tip into a single cell. Instead, the electrode tip may be left in continuity with the extracellular space. If the tip is small enough, such a configuration may allow indirect observation and recording of action potentials from a single cell, termed single-unit recording. Depending on the preparation and precise placement, an extracellular configuration may pick up the activity of several nearby cells simultaneously, termed multi-unit recording.


title: Electrophysiology

text: As electrode size increases, the resolving power decreases. Larger electrodes are sensitive only to the net activity of many cells, termed local field potentials. Still larger electrodes, such as uninsulated needles and surface electrodes used by clinical and surgical neurophysiologists, are sensitive only to certain types of synchronous activity within populations of cells numbering in the millions.


title: Electrophysiology

text: Electrophysiological recording in general is sometimes called electrography (from "electro-" + "-graphy", "electrical recording"), with the record thus produced being an electrogram. However, the word "electrography" has other senses (including electrophotography), and the specific types of electrophysiological recording are usually called by specific names, constructed on the pattern of "electro-" + [body part combining form] + "-graphy" (abbreviation ExG). Relatedly, the word "electrogram" (not being needed for those other senses) often carries the specific meaning of intracardiac electrogram, which is like an electrocardiogram but with some invasive leads (inside the heart) rather than only noninvasive leads (on the skin). Electrophysiological recording for clinical diagnostic purposes is included within the category of electrodiagnostic testing. The various "ExG" modes are as follows:


title: Electrophysiology

text: Optical electrophysiological techniques were created by scientists and engineers to overcome one of the main limitations of classical techniques. Classical techniques allow observation of electrical activity at approximately a single point within a volume of tissue. Classical techniques singularize a distributed phenomenon. Interest in the spatial distribution of bioelectric activity prompted development of molecules capable of emitting light in response to their electrical or chemical environment. Examples are voltage sensitive dyes and fluorescing proteins.


title: Electrophysiology

text: After introducing one or more such compounds into tissue via perfusion, injection or gene expression, the 1 or 2-dimensional distribution of electrical activity may be observed and recorded.


title: Electrophysiology

text: Intracellular recording involves measuring voltage and/or current across the membrane of a cell. To make an intracellular recording, the tip of a fine (sharp) microelectrode must be inserted inside the cell, so that the membrane potential can be measured. Typically, the resting membrane potential of a healthy cell will be -60 to -80 mV, and during an action potential the membrane potential might reach +40 mV.


title: Electrophysiology

text: In 1963, Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Fielding Huxley won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their contribution to understanding the mechanisms underlying the generation of action potentials in neurons. Their experiments involved intracellular recordings from the giant axon of Atlantic squid ("Loligo pealei"), and were among the first applications of the "voltage clamp" technique.


title: Electrophysiology

text: Today, most microelectrodes used for intracellular recording are glass micropipettes, with a tip diameter of < 1 micrometre, and a resistance of several megohms. The micropipettes are filled with a solution that has a similar ionic composition to the intracellular fluid of the cell. A chlorided silver wire inserted into the pipet connects the electrolyte electrically to the amplifier and signal processing circuit. The voltage measured by the electrode is compared to the voltage of a reference electrode, usually a silver chloride-coated silver wire in contact with the extracellular fluid around the cell. In general, the smaller the electrode tip, the higher its electrical resistance, so an electrode is a compromise between size (small enough to penetrate a single cell with minimum damage to the cell) and resistance (low enough so that small neuronal signals can be discerned from thermal noise in the electrode tip).


title: Electrophysiology

text: The voltage clamp technique allows an experimenter to "clamp" the cell potential at a chosen value. This makes it possible to measure how much "ionic current" crosses a cell's membrane at any given voltage. This is important because many of the ion channels in the membrane of a neuron are voltage-gated ion channels, which open only when the membrane voltage is within a certain range. Voltage clamp measurements of current are made possible by the near-simultaneous digital subtraction of transient capacitive currents that pass as the recording electrode and cell membrane are charged to alter the cell's potential.


title: Electrophysiology

text: The current clamp technique records the membrane potential by injecting current into a cell through the recording electrode. Unlike in the voltage clamp mode, where the membrane potential is held at a level determined by the experimenter, in "current clamp" mode the membrane potential is free to vary, and the amplifier records whatever voltage the cell generates on its own or as a result of stimulation. This technique is used to study how a cell responds when electric current enters a cell; this is important for instance for understanding how neurons respond to neurotransmitters that act by opening membrane ion channels.