title: Oseberg Ship

text: The skeletons of two women were found in the grave with the ship. One, probably aged around 80, suffered badly from arthritis. The older woman also had Morgagni's syndrome, which would have given her a masculine appearance and beard. The second was initially believed to be aged 25–30, but analysis of tooth-root translucency suggests she was older (aged 50–55). It is not clear which one was the more important in life or whether one was sacrificed to accompany the other in death. The younger woman had a broken collarbone, initially thought to be evidence that she was a human sacrifice, but closer examination showed that the bone had been healing for several weeks. The opulence of the burial rite and the grave-goods suggests that this was a burial of very high status. One woman wore a very fine red wool dress with a lozenge twill pattern (a luxury commodity) and a fine white linen veil in a gauze weave, while the other wore a plainer blue wool dress with a wool veil, possibly showing some stratification in their social status. Neither woman wore anything entirely made of silk, although small silk strips were appliqued onto a tunic worn under the red dress.


title: Oseberg Ship

text: Dendrochronological analysis of timbers in the grave chamber dates the burial to the autumn of 834. Although the high-ranking woman's identity is unknown, it has been suggested that she is Queen Åsa of the Yngling clan, mother of Halfdan the Black and grandmother of Harald Fairhair. Recent tests of the women's remains suggest that they lived in Agder in Norway, as had Queen Åsa. This theory has been challenged, however, and some think that she may have been a shaman. There were also the skeletal remains of 14 horses, an ox, and three dogs found on the ship.


title: Oseberg Ship

text: According to Per Holck of the University of Oslo, the younger woman's mitochondrial haplogroup was discovered to be U7. Her direct maternal ancestors came to Norway from the Pontic littoral, probably Iran. Three subsequent studies failed to confirm these results, however, and it is likely that the bone samples contain little (if any) original DNA or have been contaminated through handling.


title: Oseberg Ship

text: Examinations of fragments of the skeletons have provided more insight into their lives. The younger woman's teeth showed signs that she used a metal toothpick, a rare 9th century luxury. Both women had a diet composed mainly of meat, another luxury when most Vikings ate fish. However, there was not enough DNA to tell if they were related. The women were found together in one bed.


title: Oseberg Ship

text: The grave had been disturbed in antiquity, and objects made of precious metals were absent. Nevertheless, a great number of everyday items and artifacts were found during the 1904–1905 excavations. These included four elaborately decorated sleighs, a richly carved four-wheel wooden cart, bed-posts, and wooden chests, as well as the so-called "Buddha bucket" ("Buddha-bøtte"), a brass and cloisonné enamel ornament of a bucket (pail) handle in the shape of a figure sitting with crossed legs. The bucket is made from yew wood, held together with brass strips, and the handle is attached to two anthropomorphic figures compared to depictions of the Buddha in the lotus posture, although any connection is most uncertain. More relevant is the connection between the patterned enamel torso and similar human figures in the Gospel books of the Insular art of the British Isles, such as the Book of Durrow. More mundane items such as agricultural and household tools were also found. A series of textiles included woolen garments, imported silks, and narrow tapestries. The Oseberg burial is one of the few sources of Viking age textiles, and the wooden cart is the only complete Viking age cart found so far. A bedpost shows one of the few period examples of the use of what has been dubbed the valknut symbol.


title: Oseberg Ship

text: The conservation of the wooden artifacts is an ongoing problem. On May 3, 2011, thirteen years after debate began over the disposition of the ship, Norwegian Minister of Education Kristin Halvorsen stated that the ship will not be moved from Bygdøy.


title: Khamani Griffin

text: Khamani Griffin (born August 1, 1998) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Bobby James in "All Of Us", as well as Tolee in the Nickelodeon animated television series "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan". He starred as Ben Hinton in "Daddy Day Care" (2003), and also appeared in "Grey's Anatomy," "ER," and "My Name Is Earl." He has been nominated for three Young Artist Awards, for "Daddy Day Care" and "All of Us".


title: Khamani Griffin

text: He also made an appearance in Lil' Kim's music video for her song Download. Khamani had a main role on the popular game show, "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?", until its series finale on September 18, 2009.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but also in Greece itself following independence in 1832. It revived many aspects of the forms and styles of ancient Greek architecture, in particular the Greek temple, with varying degrees of thoroughness and consistency. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture, which had for long mainly drawn from Roman architecture. The term was first used by Charles Robert Cockerell in a lecture he gave as Professor of Architecture to the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1842.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: With a newfound access to Greece and Turkey, or initially to the books produced by the few who had visited the sites, archaeologist-architects of the period studied the Doric and Ionic orders. Despite its universality, rooted in ancient Greece, in each country that adopted it, the Greek Revival idiom was considered an expression of local nationalism and civic virtue, and freedom from the lax detail and frivolity that was thought to characterize the architecture of France and Italy, two countries where the style never really took hold (though ironically these were the homes of some of the leading eighteenth-century theorists who had prompted the shift towards the more restrained style represented by the Greek Revival). This was especially the case in Britain, Germany and the United States, where the idiom was regarded as being free from ecclesiastical and aristocratic associations, and appealed to emerging liberal political agenda.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: The taste for all things Greek in furniture and interior design, sometimes called Neo-Grec, was at its peak by the beginning of the 19th century, when the designs of Thomas Hope had influenced a number of decorative styles known variously as Neoclassical, Empire, Russian Empire, and Regency architecture in Britain. Greek Revival architecture took a different course in a number of countries, lasting until the 1860s and the Civil War in the United States (1860s) and even later in Scotland.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Despite the unbounded prestige of ancient Greece among the educated elite of Europe, most of the people had minimal direct knowledge of that civilization before the middle of the 18th century. The monuments of Greek antiquity were known chiefly from Pausanias and other literary sources. Visiting Ottoman Greece was difficult and dangerous business prior to the period of stagnation beginning with the Great Turkish War. Few Grand Tourists called on Athens during the first half of the 18th century, and none made any significant study of the architectural ruins.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: It was not until the expedition to Greece funded by the Society of Dilettanti of 1751 by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett that serious archaeological inquiry began in earnest. Stuart and Revett's findings, published in 1762 (first volume) as "The Antiquities of Athens", along with Julien-David Le Roy's "" (1758) were the first accurate surveys of ancient Greek architecture.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Meanwhile, the rediscovery of the three relatively easily accessible Greek temples at Paestum in southern Italy created huge interest throughout Europe, and prints by Piranesi and others were widely circulated. The Napoleonic Wars denied access to France and Italy to traditional Grand Tourists, especially from Britain. Aided by close diplomatic relations between Britain and the Porte, British travellers, artists and architects went to Greece and Turkey in ever larger numbers to study ancient Greek monuments and excavate or collect antiquities. The Greek War of Independence ended in 1832; Lord Byron's participation and death during this had brought it additional prominence.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Following the travels to Greece of Nicholas Revett, a Suffolk gentleman architect, and the better remembered James Stuart in the early 1750s, intellectual curiosity quickly led to a desire among the elite to emulate the style. Stuart was commissioned after his return from Greece by George Lyttelton to produce the first Greek building in England, the garden temple at Hagley Hall (1758–59). A number of British architects in the second half of the century took up the expressive challenge of the Doric from their aristocratic patrons, including Benjamin Henry Latrobe (notably at Hammerwood Park and Ashdown House) and Sir John Soane, but it remained the private enthusiasm of connoisseurs up to the first decade of the 19th century.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: An early example of Greek Doric architecture (in the facade), married with a more Palladian interior, is the Revett-designed rural church of Ayot St Lawrence in Hertfordshire, commissioned in 1775 by Lord Lionel Lyde of the eponymous manor. The Doric columns of this church, with their "pie-crust crimped" details, are taken from drawings that Revett made of the Temple of Apollo on the Cycladic island of Delos, in the collection of books that he (and Stuart in some cases) produced, largely funded by special subscription by the Society of Dilettanti. See more in Terry Friedman's book "The Georgian Parish Church", Spire Books, 2004.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Seen in its wider social context, Greek Revival architecture sounded a new note of sobriety and restraint in public buildings in Britain around 1800 as an assertion of nationalism attendant on the Act of Union, the Napoleonic Wars, and the clamour for political reform. William Wilkins's winning design for the public competition for Downing College, Cambridge announced the Greek style was to become a dominant idiom in architecture, especially for public buildings of this sort. Wilkins and Robert Smirke went on to build some of the most important buildings of the era, including the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (1808–1809), the General Post Office (1824–1829) and the British Museum (1823–1848), the Wilkins Building of University College London (1826–1830), and the National Gallery (1832–1838).


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: In London, twenty three Greek Revival Commissioners' churches were built between 1817 and 1829, the most notable being St.Pancras church by William and Henry William Inwood. In Scotland the style was avidly adopted by William Henry Playfair, Thomas Hamilton and Charles Robert Cockerell, who severally and jointly contributed to the massive expansion of Edinburgh's New Town, including the Calton Hill development and the Moray Estate. Such was the popularity of the Doric in Edinburgh that the city now enjoys a striking visual uniformity, and as such is sometimes whimsically referred to as "the Athens of the North".


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Within Regency architecture the style already competed with Gothic Revival and the continuation of the less stringent Palladian and Neoclassical styles of Georgian architecture, the other two remaining more common for houses, both in towns and English country houses. If it is tempting to see the Greek Revival as the expression of Regency authoritarianism, then the changing conditions of life in Britain made Doric the loser of the Battle of the Styles, dramatically symbolized by the selection of Charles Barry's Gothic design for the Palace of Westminster in 1836. Nevertheless, Greek continued to be in favour in Scotland well into the 1870s in the singular figure of Alexander Thomson, known as "Greek Thomson".


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: In Germany, Greek Revival architecture is predominantly found in two centres, Berlin and Munich. In both locales, Doric was the court style rather than a popular movement and was heavily patronised by Frederick William II of Prussia and Ludwig I of Bavaria as the expression of their desires for their respective seats to become the capital of Germany. The earliest Greek building was the Brandenburg Gate (1788–91) by Carl Gotthard Langhans, who modelled it on the Propylaea. Ten years after the death of Frederick the Great, the initiated a competition for a monument to the king that would promote "morality and patriotism."


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Friedrich Gilly's unexecuted design for a temple raised above the Leipziger Platz caught the tenor of high idealism that the Germans sought in Greek architecture and was enormously influential on Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Leo von Klenze. Schinkel was in a position to stamp his mark on Berlin after the catastrophe of the French occupation ended in 1813; his work on what is now the Altes Museum, Konzerthaus Berlin, and the Neue Wache transformed that city. Similarly, in Munich von Klenze's Glyptothek and Walhalla memorial were the fulfilment of Gilly's vision of an orderly and moral German world. The purity and seriousness of the style was intended as an assertion of German national values and partly intended as a deliberate riposte to France, where it never really caught on.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: By comparison, Greek Revival architecture in France was never popular with either the state or the public. What little there is started with Charles de Wailly's crypt in the church of St Leu-St Gilles (1773–80), and Claude Nicolas Ledoux's Barriere des Bonshommes (1785–89). First-hand evidence of Greek architecture was of very little importance to the French, due to the influence of Marc-Antoine Laugier's doctrines that sought to discern the principles of the Greeks instead of their mere practices. It would take until Labrouste's Neo-Grec of the Second Empire for Greek Revival architecture to flower briefly in France.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: The style was especially attractive in Russia, if only because they shared the Eastern Orthodox faith with the Greeks. The historic centre of Saint Petersburg was rebuilt by Alexander I of Russia, with many buildings giving the Greek Revival a Russian debut. The Saint Petersburg Bourse on Vasilievsky Island has a temple front with 44 Doric columns. Quarenghi's design for the Manege "mimics a 5th-century BC Athenian temple with a portico of eight Doric columns bearing a pediment and bas reliefs".


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Leo von Klenze's expansion of the palace that is now the Hermitage Museum is another example of the style.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Following the Greek War of Independence, Romantic Nationalist ideology encouraged the use of historically Greek architectural styles in place of Ottoman or pan-European ones. Classical architecture was used for secular public buildings, while Byzantine architecture was preferred for churches.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Examples of Greek Revival architecture in Greece include the Old Royal Palace (now the home of the Parliament of Greece), the Academy and University of Athens, the Zappeion, and the National Library of Greece. The most prominent architects in this style were northern Europeans such as Christian and Theophil Hansen and Ernst Ziller and German-trained Greeks such as Stamatios Kleanthis and Panagis Kalkos.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: During the late period of the Ottoman Empire, Greek Revival Architecture had its examples in the empire. The prominent examples are Istanbul Archaeology Museums (1891)


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: The style was generally popular in northern Europe, and not in the south (except for Greece itself), at least during the main period. Examples can be found in Poland, Lithuania, and Finland, where the assembly of Greek buildings in Helsinki city centre is particularly notable. At the cultural edges of Europe, in the Swedish region of western Finland, Greek Revival motifs might be grafted on a purely Baroque design, as in the design for Oravais Church by Jacob Rijf, 1792. A Greek Doric order, rendered in the anomalous form of pilasters, contrasts with the hipped roof and boldly scaled cupola and lantern, of wholly traditional Baroque inspiration.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: In Austria, one of the best examples of this style is the Parliament Building designed by Theophil Hansen.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: While some eighteenth-century Americans had feared Greek democracy ("mobocracy"), the appeal of ancient Greece rose in the 19th century along with the growing acceptance of democracy. This made Greek architecture suddenly more attractive in both the North and South, for differing ideological purposes: for the North, Greek architecture symbolized the freedom of the Greeks; in the South it symbolized the cultural glories enabled by a slave society. Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of the first volume of "The Antiquities of Athens". He never practiced in the style, but he played an important role introducing Greek Revival architecture to the United States.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: In 1803, Jefferson appointed Benjamin Henry Latrobe as surveyor of public building, and Latrobe designed a number of important public buildings in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, including work on the United States Capitol and the Bank of Pennsylvania.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Latrobe claimed, "I am a bigoted Greek in the condemnation of the Roman architecture", but he did not rigidly impose Greek forms. "Our religion," he said, "requires a church wholly different from the temple, our legislative assemblies and our courts of justice, buildings of entirely different principles from their basilicas; and our amusements could not possibly be performed in their theatres or amphitheatres." His circle of junior colleagues became an informal school of Greek revivalists, and his influence shaped the next generation of American architects.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Greek revival architecture in the United States also included attention to interior decoration. The role of American women was critical for introducing a wholistic style of Greek-inspired design to American interiors. Innovations such as the Greek-inspired "sofa" and the "klismos chair" allowed both American women and men to pose as Greeks in their homes, and also in the numerous portraits of the period that show them lounging in Greek-inspired furniture.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: The second phase in American Greek Revival saw the pupils of Latrobe create a monumental national style under the patronage of banker and philhellene Nicholas Biddle, including such works as the Second Bank of the United States by William Strickland (1824), Biddle's home "Andalusia" by Thomas U. Walter (1835–1836), and Girard College, also by Walter (1833–1847). New York saw the construction (1833) of the row of Greek temples at Sailors' Snug Harbor on Staten Island. These had varied functions within a home for retired sailors.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: From 1820 to 1850, the Greek Revival style dominated the United States, such as the Benjamin F. Clough House in Waltham, Massachusetts. It could also be found as far west as Springfield, Illinois. Examples of vernacular Greek Revival continued to be built even farther west, such as in Charles City, Iowa.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: This style was very popular in the south of the US, where the Palladian colonnade was already popular in façades, and many mansions and houses were built for the merchants and rich plantation owners; Millford Plantation is regarded as one of the finest Greek Revival residential examples in the country.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Other notable American architects to use Greek Revival designs included Latrobe's student Robert Mills, who designed the Monumental Church and the Washington Monument, as well as George Hadfield and Gabriel Manigault.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: At the same time, the popular appetite for the Greek was sustained by architectural pattern books, the most important of which was Asher Benjamin's "The Practical House Carpenter" (1830). This guide helped create the proliferation of Greek homes seen especially in northern New York State and in Connecticut's former Western Reserve in northeastern Ohio.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: In Canada, Montreal architect John Ostell designed a number of prominent Greek Revival buildings, including the first building on the McGill University campus and Montreal's original Custom House, now part of the Pointe-à-Callière Museum. The Toronto Street Post Office, completed in 1853, is another Canadian example.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: The discovery that the Greeks had painted their temples influenced the later development of the style. The archaeological dig at Aegina and Bassae in 1811–1812 by Cockerell, Otto Magnus von Stackelberg, and Karl Haller von Hallerstein had disinterred painted fragments of masonry daubed with impermanent colours. This revelation was a direct contradiction of Winckelmann's notion of the Greek temple as timeless, fixed, and pure in its whiteness.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: In 1823, Samuel Angell discovered the coloured metopes of Temple C at Selinunte, Sicily and published them in 1826. The French architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff witnessed the exhibition of Angell's find and endeavoured to excavate Temple B at Selinus. His imaginative reconstructions of this temple were exhibited in Rome and Paris in 1824 and he went on to publish these as ' (1830) and later in ' (1851). The controversy was to inspire von Klenze's "Aegina" room at the Munich Glyptothek of 1830, the first of his many speculative reconstructions of Greek colour.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Hittorff lectured in Paris in 1829–1830 that Greek temples had originally been painted ochre yellow, with the moulding and sculptural details in red, blue, green and gold. While this may or may not have been the case with older wooden or plain stone temples, it was definitely not the case with the more luxurious marble temples, where colour was used sparingly to accentuate architectural highlights.


title: Greek Revival architecture

text: Similarly, Henri Labrouste proposed a reconstruction of the temples at Paestum to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1829, decked out in startling colour, inverting the accepted chronology of the three Doric temples, thereby implying that the development of the Greek orders did not increase in formal complexity over time, i.e., the evolution from Doric to Corinthian was not inexorable. Both events were to cause a minor scandal. The emerging understanding that Greek art was subject to changing forces of environment and culture was a direct assault on the architectural rationalism of the day.


title: Either/Or (album)

text: Either/Or is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. "Either/Or" was recorded in several locations, mostly in Portland, Oregon – while Smith was still a member of Heatmiser – and was produced by Smith, Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf. "Either/Or" was released on February 25, 1997, on the Kill Rock Stars record label, following Heatmiser's dissolution. Book-ended by its two singles, "Speed Trials" and "Ballad of Big Nothing", "Either/Or" did not chart in the US, but was acclaimed by critics.


title: Either/Or (album)

text: Director Gus Van Sant was highly impressed with the album, incorporating three of its songs; "Between the Bars", "Angeles" and "Say Yes" along with a new song, "Miss Misery", into the "Good Will Hunting" soundtrack. "Miss Misery" was nominated for Best Original Song at the 1998 Academy Awards, and was performed at the televised ceremony in an abridged version by Smith, backed by the house orchestra, briefly propelling him into the international spotlight. In 2020, the album was ranked at 216 on "Rolling Stone"'s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.


title: Either/Or (album)

text: "Either/Or" was recorded at several locations: Joanna Bolme's house; Smith's own house; Undercover, Inc.; Laundry Rules Recording; and the Heatmiser House – all in Portland, Oregon – as well as The Shop in Arcata, California. The album was produced by Smith, Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf.


title: Either/Or (album)

text: Smith wrote and recorded a song entitled "Either/Or" during the sessions for this album, but it was not included on the final release; however, the song was later included on "New Moon", a posthumous compilation of previously unreleased material by Smith.


title: Either/Or (album)

text: The album's title derives from the Søren Kierkegaard book of the same name, in which "either/or" refers to the contrast between aesthetic/subjective experience and ethical/objective being. This existential title is reflective of Smith's interest in philosophy, which he studied at Hampshire College in Massachusetts.


title: Either/Or (album)

text: The lyrics contain many references to Portland such as the neighborhood of Alameda, Division Street and the Portland Rose Festival.


title: Either/Or (album)

text: The album's style has been described as "a bridge between the lo-fi darkness of "Roman Candle" and "Elliott Smith" and the studio sheen of "XO" and "Figure 8"."


title: Either/Or (album)

text: "Either/Or" was released on February 25, 1997. It did not chart in the US. The album's second and final single, "Ballad of Big Nothing", was released on June 29, 1998.


title: Either/Or (album)

text: Smith would briefly be cast into the international spotlight early the following year when he performed his song, the 1997 standalone single "Miss Misery", at the 1998 Academy Awards ceremony, following the song's appearance in the major motion picture "Good Will Hunting" and its subsequent Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. Following this appearance, Smith was signed to major label DreamWorks and started work on his fourth studio album, "XO".


title: Either/Or (album)

text: As of March 2017, "Either/Or" is Elliott Smith's best selling release (it still has never charted) and has sold 429,000 copies in United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.


title: Either/Or (album)

text: "Either/Or" was critically acclaimed. Stephen Thompson of "The A.V. Club" wrote that the album "marks something of a thematic transition" for Smith, noting "brightness and a pop feel" on "Either/Or" in contrast to the "stark, guy-with-acoustic-guitar confessionals about drug abuse and darkness" on "Elliott Smith". It was voted the 20th best album of 1997 in "The Village Voice"s annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. The poll's supervisor, Robert Christgau, was less enthusiastic about the album, finding Smith "tuneful if depressive" and believing that, "he could too be popular—he just doesn't want to be, that's all".


title: Either/Or (album)

text: In its retrospective review, "Tiny Mix Tapes" opined: "Simply put, the songs on "Either/Or" are Elliott Smith's best". "Trouser Press" called it "even more fully realized" than "Elliott Smith".


title: Either/Or (album)

text: The album inspired Gus Van Sant to invite Smith to contribute to the soundtrack of the film "Good Will Hunting". Three "Either/Or" tracks were incorporated into the soundtrack, as well as a new song, "Miss Misery." Smith was briefly pushed to the forefront of popular culture after performing "Miss Misery" from "Good Will Hunting" at the 1998 Academy Awards ceremony. Van Sant later also used "Angeles" in his 2007 film "Paranoid Park." The song was again featured in the 2020 series "Normal People".


title: Either/Or (album)

text: Online magazine "Pitchfork" ranked "Either/Or" 59th in its list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1990s. "Spin" ranked "Either/Or" at number 48 on its list of the best albums from 1987 to 2012. "Blender" ranked it thirty-sixth in its "100 Greatest Indie Rock Albums Ever" list. In 2013, "NME" placed "Either/Or" at number 149 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. "Consequence of Sound" ranked the album No. 97 on their list of best albums ever. "Rolling Stone" ranked the album at 216 on the 2020 re-release of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. "Pitchfork" ranked the album #23 on its best albums of the decade list (2022).


title: Sekhar (choreographer)

text: Sekhar (born 7 November 1980) is an Indian dance choreographer who predominantly works in Telugu cinema.


title: Sekhar (choreographer)

text: Sekhar was born on 7 November 1980 in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. He studied in Vijayawada until intermediate, and moved to Hyderabad in 1996. He met fight master Sambasiva Rao though his uncle, who liked his dance and advised him to pursue a career in films. He got his membership card as a background dancer in 1996. He was a student of choreographer Rakesh. He worked as a background dancer for six years and an assistant for eight years before becoming a movie choreographer.


title: Cut-up technique

text: The cut-up technique (or "découpé" in French) is an aleatory literary technique in which a written text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text. The concept can be traced to the Dadaists of the 1920s, but it was developed and popularized in the 1950s and early 1960s, especially by writer William S. Burroughs. It has since been used in a wide variety of contexts.


title: Cut-up technique

text: William Burroughs cited T. S. Eliot's 1922 poem, "The Waste Land", and John Dos Passos' "U.S.A." trilogy, which incorporated newspaper clippings, as early examples of the cut ups he popularized.


title: Cut-up technique

text: Gysin introduced Burroughs to the technique at the Beat Hotel. The pair later applied the technique to printed media and audio recordings in an effort to decode the material's implicit content, hypothesizing that such a technique could be used to discover the true meaning of a given text. Burroughs also suggested cut-ups may be effective as a form of divination saying, "When you cut into the present the future leaks out." Burroughs also further developed the "fold-in" technique. In 1977, Burroughs and Gysin published "The Third Mind", a collection of cut-up writings and essays on the form. Jeff Nuttall's publication "My Own Mag" was another important outlet for the then-radical technique.


title: Cut-up technique

text: In an interview, Alan Burns noted that for "Europe After The Rain" (1965) and subsequent novels he used a version of cut-ups: "I did not actually use scissors, but I folded pages, read across columns, and so on, discovering for myself many of the techniques Burroughs and Gysin describe".


title: Cut-up technique

text: A precedent of the technique occurred during a Dadaist rally in the 1920s in which Tristan Tzara offered to create a poem on the spot by pulling words at random from a hat. Collage, which was popularized roughly contemporaneously with the Surrealist movement, sometimes incorporated texts such as newspapers or brochures. Prior to this event, the technique had been published in an issue of 391 in the poem by Tzara, "dada manifesto on feeble love and bitter love" under the sub-title, "TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM".


title: Cut-up technique

text: In the 1950s, painter and writer Brion Gysin more fully developed the cut-up method after accidentally rediscovering it. He had placed layers of newspapers as a mat to protect a tabletop from being scratched while he cut papers with a razor blade. Upon cutting through the newspapers, Gysin noticed that the sliced layers offered interesting juxtapositions of text and image. He began deliberately cutting newspaper articles into sections, which he randomly rearranged. The book "Minutes to Go" resulted from his initial cut-up experiment: unedited and unchanged cut-ups which emerged as coherent and meaningful prose. South African poet Sinclair Beiles also used this technique and co-authored "Minutes To Go".


title: Cut-up technique

text: In 1969, poets Howard W. Bergerson and J. A. Lindon developed a cut-up technique known as vocabularyclept poetry, in which a poem is formed by taking all the words of an existing poem and rearranging them, often preserving the metre and stanza lengths.


title: Cut-up technique

text: A drama scripted for five voices by performance poet Hedwig Gorski in 1977 originated the idea of creating poetry only for performance instead of for print publication. The "neo-verse drama" titled "Booby, Mama!" written for "guerilla theater" performances in public places used a combination of newspaper cut-ups that were edited and choreographed for a troupe of non-professional street actors.


title: Cut-up technique

text: Kathy Acker, a literary and intermedia artist, sampled external sources and reconfigured them into the creation of shifting versions of her own constructed identity. In her late 1970s novel "Blood and Guts in High School", Acker explored literary cut-up and appropriation as an integral part of her method.


title: Cut-up technique

text: Antony Balch and Burroughs created a collaboration film, "The Cut-Ups" that opened in London in 1967. This was part of an abandoned project called "Guerrilla Conditions" meant as a documentary on Burroughs and filmed throughout 1961–1965. Inspired by Burroughs' and Gysin's technique of cutting up text and rearranging it in random order, Balch had an editor cut his footage for the documentary into little pieces and impose no control over its reassembly. The film opened at Oxford Street's Cinephone cinema and had a disturbing reaction. Many audience members claimed the film made them ill, others demanded their money back, while some just stumbled out of the cinema ranting "it's disgusting". Other cut-up films include "Ghost at n°9 (Paris)" (1963–72), a posthumously released short film compiled from reels found at Balch's office after his death, and "William Buys a Parrott" (1982), "Bill and Tony" (1972), "Towers Open Fire" (1963) and "The Junky's Christmas" (1966).


title: Cut-up technique

text: From the early 1970s, David Bowie used cut-ups to create some of his lyrics. In 1995 he worked with Ty Roberts to develop a program called "Verbasizer" for his Apple PowerBook that could automatically rearrange multiple sentences written into it. Thom Yorke applied a similar method in Radiohead's "Kid A" (2000) album, writing single lines, putting them into a hat, and drawing them out at random while the band rehearsed the songs. Perhaps indicative of Thom Yorke's influences, instructions for "How to make a Dada poem" appeared on Radiohead's website at this time.


title: Cut-up technique

text: Stephen Mallinder of Cabaret Voltaire reported to "Inpress" magazine's Andrez Bergen that "I do think the manipulation of sound in our early days – the physical act of cutting up tapes, creating tape loops and all that – has a strong reference to Burroughs and Gysin." Another industrial music pioneer, Al Jourgensen of Ministry, named Burroughs and his cut-up technique as the most important influence on how he approached the use of samples.


title: Dip pen

text: A dip pen or nib pen or pen nib usually consists of a metal nib with capillary channels like those of fountain pen nibs, mounted in a handle or holder, often made of wood. Other materials can be used for the holder, including bone, metal and plastic; some pens are made entirely of glass.


title: Dip pen

text: Generally, dip pens have no ink reservoir, so the user must recharge the ink from an ink bowl or bottle to continue drawing or writing. There are simple, tiny tubular reservoirs that illustrators sometimes clip onto dip pens, which allow drawing for several minutes without recharging the nib. Recharging can be done by dipping into an inkwell, but it is also possible to charge the pen with an eyedropper, a syringe, or a brush, which gives more control over the amount of ink applied. Thus, "dip pens" are not necessarily dipped; many illustrators call them "nib pens".


title: Dip pen

text: Dip pens emerged in the early 19th century, when they replaced quill pens and, in some parts of the world, reed pens. Dip pens were generally used before the development of fountain pens in the later 19th century, and are now mainly used in illustration, calligraphy, and comics.


title: Dip pen

text: The dip pen has certain advantages over a fountain pen. It can use waterproof, pigmented, iron gall ink, particle-and-binder-based inks, such as India ink, drawing ink, and acrylic inks with virtual impunity while fountain pens must use water based inks (except in a few special cases), should be thoroughly and regularly cleaned to prevent clogging when used with pigmented or waterproof inks and can corrode when used with iron gall ink. Dip pen nibs may also corrode when used with iron gall ink but it is not as likely nor as problematic as the nib of a dip pen is often cleaned after each use, and is easily replaced if irreparably damaged. Dip pens are also more sensitive to variations of pressure and speed, producing a line that naturally varies in thickness.


title: Dip pen

text: There is a wide range of exchangeable nibs for dip pens, so different types of lines and effects can be created. The nibs and handles are far cheaper than most fountain pens, and allow color changes much more easily.


title: Dip pen

text: The earliest known split-nib metal dip pen is a surviving copper-alloy pen found in Roman Britain (AD 43 to 410). Several other surviving all-metal and removable-nib pens from the Middle Ages and Renaissance have been found, suggesting they were used alongside quill pens.


title: Dip pen

text: The steel pen is first attested in Daniel Defoe's book "A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain – 1724–26". In Letter VII Defoe wrote: "the plaster of the ceilings and walls in some rooms is so fine, so firm, so entire, that they break it off in large flakes, and it will bear writing on it with a pencil or steel pen." In Newhall Street, John Mitchell pioneered mass production of steel pens in 1822; prior to that the quill pen had been the most common form of writing instrument. His brother William Mitchell later set up his own pen making business in St Paul's square. The Mitchell family is credited as being the first manufacturers to use machines to cut pen nibs, which greatly sped up the process.


title: Dip pen

text: The Jewellery Quarter and surrounding area of Birmingham, England was home to many of the first dip pen manufacturers, which some companies establishing there to produce pens. Some of those companies were Joseph Gillott's (established in 1827), Sir Josiah Mason (1827), Hink Wells & Co. (1836), Baker and Finnemore (1850), C. Brandauer & Co. (1850), D. Leonardt & Co. (1856).


title: Dip pen

text: Baker and Finnemore operated in James Street, near St Paul's Square. C Brandauer & Co Ltd., founded as Ash & Petit, traded at 70 Navigation Street. Joseph Gillott & Sons Ltd. made pen nibs in Bread Street, now Cornwall Street. Hinks Wells & Co. traded in Buckingham Street, Geo W Hughes traded in St Paul's Square, D. Leonardt & Co./Leonardt & Catwinkle traded in George Street and Charlotte Street, and M Myers & Son. were based at 8 Newhall Street. By 1830 John and William Mitchell, Joseph Gillott and Josiah Mason were the major manufacturers in Birmingham.


title: Dip pen

text: In Germany the industrial production of dip pens started in 1842 at the factory of Heintze & Blanckertz in Berlin.


title: Dip pen

text: By the 1850s, Birmingham was a world centre for steel pen and steel nib manufacture. More than half the steel nib pens manufactured in the world were made in Birmingham. Thousands of skilled craftsmen and women were employed in the industry. Many new manufacturing techniques were perfected in Birmingham, enabling the city's factories to mass produce their pens cheaply and efficiently. These were sold worldwide to many who previously could not afford to write, which encouraged the development of education and literacy. By 1860 there were about 100 companies making steel nibs in Birmingham, but 12 large firms dominated the trade. In 1870 Mason, Sommerville, Wiley, and Perry, merged to form Perry & Co. Ltd. which later became one of the largest manufacturers in the world, with near 2,000 employees.


title: Dip pen

text: Richard Esterbrook manufactured quill pens in Cornwall. In the 19th century, he saw a gap in the American market for steel nib pens. Esterbrook approached five craftsmen who worked for John Mitchell in Navigation Street with a view to setting up business in Camden, New Jersey, US. Esterbrook founded his company in 1858, and it grew to become one of the largest steel pen manufacturers in the world. In 1971 it went out of business.


title: Dip pen

text: The oblique dip pen was designed for writing the pointed pen styles of the mid 19th to the early 20th century such as Spencerian Script, although oblique pen holders can be used for earlier styles of pointed penmanship such as the copperplate scripts of the 18th and 19th centuries. As the name suggests, the nib holder holds the nib at an oblique angle of around 55° pointing to the right hand side of the penman. This feature helps greatly in achieving the steep angle required for writing certain scripts, but more importantly, it prevents the right hand nib tine from dragging on the paper as can be experienced when using a straight nib holder with a straight nib for this purpose.


title: Dip pen

text: The decreasing production of dip pens and the subsequent demise of the industry in Birmingham is often blamed on the invention of the ballpoint pen in 1938 by the Hungarian Laszlo Biro.


title: Dip pen

text: One improved version of the dip pen, known as the original "ballpoint", was the addition of a curved point (instead of a sharp point) which allows the user to have slightly more control on upward and sideways strokes. This feature, however, produces a thicker line rather than the razor-sharp line produced by a sharp point.


title: Dip pen

text: The following is a list of some of the most prominent dip pen manufacturers (in past and present times):


title: Dip pen

text: Dip pens continued in use in schools into the 1950s and 1960s, mainly on grounds of cost, since fountain pens were expensive to buy. Even when ballpoint pens became cheaply available, some schools banned their use, perhaps because writing with a dip pen had to be done with greater care. School desks were made with a socket for a small ceramic inkwell which had to be refilled on a daily basis, a task often delegated to one of the pupils.


title: Dip pen

text: Dip pens are rarely used now for regular writing, most commonly having been replaced by fountain pens, rollerball pens, or ballpoint pens. However, dip pens are still appreciated by artists, as they can make great differences between thick and thin lines, and generally write more smoothly than other types of pens. Dip pens are also preferred by calligraphers for fine writing. Dip pens are still in use for nib paintings, mostly round tip ones with a slit in the centre.


title: Dip pen

text: Although most of the factories ceased manufacturing dip pens, some companies are still active, such as Speedball, Brause (currently owned by French company Exacompta Clairefontaine), William Mitchell and Joseph Gillott's.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: Lieutenant-Commander Lionel Kenneth Phillip Crabb, (28 January 1909 – presumed dead 19 April 1956), known as Buster Crabb, was a Royal Navy frogman and diver who vanished during a reconnaissance mission for MI6 around a Soviet cruiser berthed at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1956.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: Lionel Crabb was born in 1909 to Hugh Alexander Crabb and Beatrice (née Goodall) of Streatham, south-west London. They were a poor family; Hugh Crabb was a commercial traveller for a firm of photographic merchants. In his youth Crabb held many jobs but after two years training for a career at sea in the school ship HMS "Conway" he joined the merchant navy and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve before the Second World War.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: At the outbreak of the Second World War, Crabb was first an army gunner. Then, in 1941, he joined the Royal Navy. The next year he was sent to Gibraltar where he worked in a mine and bomb disposal unit to remove the Italian limpet mines that enemy divers had attached to the hulls of Allied ships. Initially, Crabb's job was to disarm mines that British divers removed, but eventually he decided to learn to dive.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: He was one of a group of underwater clearance divers who checked for limpet mines in Gibraltar harbour during the period of Italian frogman and manned torpedo attacks by the Decima Flottiglia MAS. They dived with oxygen rebreathers, Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus, which until then had not been used much if at all for swimming down from the surface. At first they swam by breaststroke without swimfins.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: On 8 December 1942, during one such attack, two of the Italian frogmen, Lieutenant Visintini and Petty Officer Magro, died, probably killed by small explosive charges thrown from harbour-defence patrol boats, a tactic said to have been introduced by Crabb. Their bodies were recovered, and their swimfins and Scuba sets were taken and from then on used by Sydney Knowles and Crabb.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: Crabb was awarded the George Medal for his efforts and was promoted to lieutenant commander. In 1943 he became Principal Diving Officer for Northern Italy, and was assigned to clear mines in the ports of Livorno and Venice; he was later created an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for these services. He was also an investigating diver in the suspicious death of General Sikorski of the Polish Army, whose B-24 Liberator aircraft crashed near Gibraltar in 1943.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: By this time, he had gained the nickname "Buster", after the American actor and swimmer Buster Crabbe. After the war, Crabb was stationed in Palestine and led an underwater explosives disposal team that removed mines placed by Jewish divers from the Palyam, the maritime force of the Palmach elite Jewish fighting force during the years of Mandatory Palestine. After 1947, he was demobilised from the military.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: Crabb moved to a civilian job and used his diving skills to explore the wreck of a Spanish galleon from the 1588 Armada, off Tobermory on the Isle of Mull. He then located a suitable site for a discharge pipe for the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston. He later returned to work for the Royal Navy. He twice dived to investigate sunken Royal Navy submarines — in January 1950 and in 1951 — to find out whether there were any survivors. Both efforts proved fruitless. In 1952, Crabb married Margaret Elaine Player, the daughter of Henry Charles Brackenbury Williamson and the former wife of Ernest Albert Player. The couple separated in 1953 and divorced about two years later.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: In 1955, Crabb took frogman Sydney Knowles with him to investigate the hull of a Soviet "Sverdlov"-class cruiser to evaluate its superior manoeuvrability. According to Knowles, they found a circular opening at the ship's bow and inside it a large propeller that could be directed to give thrust to the bow. That same year, in March, Crabb was made to retire due to his age, but a year later he was recruited by MI6. By that time, Crabb's heavy drinking and smoking had taken its toll on his health, and he was not the diver that he had been in World War II.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: MI6 recruited Crabb in 1956 to investigate the Soviet cruiser "Ordzhonikidze" that had taken head of state Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin on a diplomatic mission to Britain. According to Peter Wright in his book "Spycatcher" (1987), Crabb was sent to investigate "Ordzhonikidze"s propeller, a new design that Naval Intelligence wanted to examine. On 19 April 1956, Crabb dived into Portsmouth Harbour and his MI6 controller never saw him again. Years later, a Russian who had been on board "Ordzhonikidze" claimed that the Soviets were expecting him that night (after being tipped off about the British operation by a mole) and that he dived into the dark and dirty waters beneath the "Ordzhonikidze", hunted down Crabb, and slit his air hose and his throat with a knife. Crabb's companion in the Sally Port Hotel took all his belongings and even the page of the hotel register on which they had written their names. Ten days later British newspapers published stories about Crabb's disappearance in an underwater mission.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: MI6 tried to cover up this espionage mission. On 29 April, under instructions from Rear Admiral John Inglis, the Director of Naval Intelligence, the Admiralty announced that Crabb had vanished when he had taken part in trials of secret underwater apparatus in Stokes Bay on the Solent. The Soviets answered by releasing a statement stating that the crew of "Ordzhonikidze" had seen a frogman near the cruiser on 19 April.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: It was reported by Radio Moscow that the Kremlin had sent an official note to the United Kingdom concerning what "Pravda" described as “shameful espionage”. The Foreign Office reportedly replied: “Commander Crabb carried out frogman tests, and, as is assumed, lost his life during these tests. His presence in the vicinity of the destroyers occurred without any permission whatever, and Her Majesty’s Government express their regret at the incident.”


title: Lionel Crabb

text: British newspapers speculated that the Soviets had captured Crabb and taken him to the Soviet Union. The British Prime Minister Anthony Eden disapproved of the fact that MI6 had operated without his consent in the UK (the preserve of the Security Service, "MI5"). It is mistakenly claimed that Eden forced director-general John Sinclair to resign following the incident. He had determined to replace Sinclair with MI5 director-general Dick White before the incident. The Prime Minister told the House of Commons it was not in the public interest to disclose the circumstances in which Crabb was presumed to have met his end.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: A little less than 14 months after Crabb's disappearance, on 9 June 1957, a body in a diving suit was brought to the surface in their net by two fishermen off Pilsey Island in Chichester Harbour. The body was brought to shore in a landing craft operated by members of RAF Marine Craft Unit No. 1107.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: It was missing its head and both hands, which made it impossible to identify (using then-available technology). According to British diving expert Rob Hoole, the body had the same height as Crabb, the same body-hair colour, and was dressed in the same clothes, Pirelli two-piece diving suit and Admiralty Pattern swim fins that Crabb was wearing when he embarked on his final mission. Hoole wrote that given the length of time that Crabb's body had been in the water, there was "nothing sinister" about the missing head and hands. Crabb's ex-wife was not sure enough to identify the body, nor was Crabb's girlfriend, Pat Rose. Sydney Knowles was requested to identify the body shortly after its discovery. He described the body as being clad in a faded green rubber frogman suit of a type issued to Royal Navy divers, and the remains of a white sweater. The suit had been cut open from the neck to the groin and along both legs, revealing very dark pubic hair. Knowles examined the body closely, looking for a Y-shaped scar behind the left knee and a prominent scar on the left thigh. He failed to find any scars on the body and stated that it was not Crabb.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: A pathologist, Dr. D. P. King, examined the body and stated in a short report for the inquest that a careful examination of the body failed to reveal any scars or marks of identification.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: The inquest was opened on 11 June 1957 by Bridgman, who had received the pathologist's report that there was no way of establishing identity. As neither Knowles nor Crabb's ex-wife nor a Lieutenant McLanahan, a Royal Navy torpedo officer from HMS "Vernon", had been able to identify the body, Bridgman adjourned the inquest until 26 June to allow time for identification.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: The inquest was resumed on 26 June. The pathologist, King, gave evidence that he had returned to the mortuary and re-examined the body on 14 June. He reported that he had found a scar in the shape of an inverted Y on the left side of the left knee, and a scar on the left thigh, about the size of a sixpenny coin. King stated that the scar had been photographed whilst he was present.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: As information was declassified under the 50-year rule, new facts on Crabb's disappearance came to light. On 27 October 2006, the National Archives released papers relating to the fatal "Ordzhonikidze" mission. Sydney Knowles, a former diving partner of Crabb's, stated in a televised interview on "Inside Out – South" on 19 January 2007 that Crabb did not dive alone on his fatal last mission: "He told me they'd given him a buddy diver." Furthermore, papers released under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that there were other divers investigating "Ordzhonikidze" while the ship was in Portsmouth Harbour. On 9 November 2007, "The Independent" reported how the government had covered up the death of 'Buster' Crabb.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: The cruiser "Ordzhonikidze" was transferred by the Soviet government to Indonesia in 1962, where it operated as KRI "Irian". The ship operated in the conflict against the Netherlands over West Papua, and was later used as a floating detention centre for suspected communists during the Indonesian killings of 1965–1966. The cruiser was scrapped in 1971.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: In a 1968 retrospective on the affair "Time" reported that a skull thought by some to be Crabb’s was found in early March 1967 on a beach near Portsmouth.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: After he was released from prison, the spy Harry Houghton wrote a book called "Operation Portland" in which he claimed that, in July 1956, his Russian handler, a man he knew as Roman, had told him how Crabb had died. Houghton said that, shortly before the Soviet visit, he had been meeting Roman in a pub in Puncknowle, Dorset, and happened to see a friend who worked at the Underwater Detection Establishment with her boyfriend, who was a diver. The boyfriend was annoyed that he had been training for something special, which had just been called off. Shortly after hearing that, Roman had cut short the meeting.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: According to Houghton's account, after assessing that divers might be planning some activity relating to "Ordzhonikidze", the Soviet Navy arranged for six underwater sentries to watch the bottom of the ship, which had been fitted with wire jack-stays on either side to help them hold on. When Crabb arrived, a struggle ensued in which Crabb's air supply was turned off and he passed out. He was then hauled on board and taken to the sick bay, having passed out a second time, where he was given medical treatment.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: When Crabb had recovered sufficiently, the Soviets began to interrogate him. He was making a confession when he collapsed and did not recover. Aware that they might be accused of causing his death, the Soviets decided to fix his body lightly to the bottom of the ship so that it came loose once the ship was under way. However, the body tangled in something underwater, which meant it was not discovered for fourteen months. Houghton advanced the theory that Crabb's mission was to plant a small limpet mine on "Ordzhonikidze", the purpose of which was to detect whether the Soviet Navy was using the latest sonar technology. If it was, the mine would detonate and the ship would slow down; if not, the mine would eventually detach and fall to the bottom of the sea.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: In a 1990 interview, Joseph Zwerkin, a former member of Soviet Naval intelligence, who had moved to Israel after the breakup of the Soviet Union, claimed that the Soviets had noticed Crabb in the water and that a Soviet sniper had shot him.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: On 16 November 2007, the BBC and the "Daily Mirror" reported that Eduard Koltsov, a Soviet frogman, claimed to have caught Crabb placing a mine on the hull of "Ordzhonikidze" and cut his throat. In an interview for a Russian documentary film, Koltsov showed the dagger he claimed to have used, as well as an Order of the Red Star medal that he said had been awarded for the deed. A Russian journalist from the military newspaper "Krasnaya Zvezda" considered Koltsov's story improbable. In particular, the archive documents did not confirm that Koltsov, a bus driver in Rostov-on-Don for 30 years, had been awarded the Order of the Red Star or was a Soviet Navy frogman.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: Official British government documents regarding Crabb's disappearance are not scheduled to be released until 2057.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: Certain Members of Parliament and Michael Hall became concerned about Crabb's ultimate fate and in 1961, Commander J.S. Kerans of HMS Amethyst fame, (and later in 1964 Marcus Lipton) submitted proposals to re-open the case but were rebuffed. Various people speculated that Crabb had been killed by some secret Soviet underwater weapon; that he had been captured and imprisoned in Lefortovo prison with prisoner number 147, that he had been brainwashed to work for the Soviet Union to train their frogman teams; that he had defected and become a commander in the Soviet Navy under the assumed name of Leonid Krabov; that he was in the Soviet Special Task Underwater Operational Command in the Black Sea Fleet; or that MI6 had asked him to defect so he could become a double agent.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: Tim Binding wrote a fictionalised account of Crabb's life, "Man Overboard" which was published by Picador in 2005. Binding stated that, following the book's publication, he was contacted by Sydney Knowles. Binding alleged that he then met Knowles in Spain and was told that Crabb was known by MI5 to have intentions of defecting to the USSR. This would have been embarrassing for the UK — Crabb being an acknowledged war hero. Knowles has suggested that MI5 set up the mission to the "Ordzhonikidze" specifically to murder Crabb, and supplied Crabb with a new diving partner who was under orders to kill him. Binding stated Knowles alleged that he was ordered by MI5 to identify the body found as Crabb, when he knew it was definitely not Crabb. Knowles went along with the deception. Knowles has also alleged that his life was threatened in Torremolinos in 1989, at a time when Knowles was in discussions with a biographer. About the claims that Crabb was planning to defect to the Soviet Union, Reg Vallintine of the Historical Diving Society was quoted as saying: "Diving historians find it very hard to believe that this man, who prided himself on being a patriot, would have seriously considered defecting. Crabb was very fond of being a hero, and it is hard to imagine him jeopardising that status." It is not clear just why MI6 would recruit a man who was known to be planning to defect to the Soviet Union to spy against the Soviet Union or why Crabb would agree to such a mission if he really had decided that he wanted to live in the Soviet Union.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: The British diving expert Rob Hoole wrote in 2007 that Crabb had probably died of oxygen poisoning or perhaps carbon dioxide poisoning, and that Crabb's age and poor health caused by his heavy drinking and smoking had made him unsuitable for the mission that he had been assigned. In support of the death by misadventure theory, Hoole noted that before disappearing on his second attempt to dive "Ordzhonikidze", Crabb had during his first attempt experienced equipment failure, which suggested that Crabb's equipment was not up to standard. Crabb's MI6 officer John Nicholas Rede Elliott always took the view that Crabb had suffered equipment failure and/or his health had given way, and that his reputation had been unfairly dragged through the mud.


title: Lionel Crabb

text: In a war documentary series titled "Secrets of War", episode titled "The Cold War. Khrushchev's Regime", a 1996 interview with former head of the KGB Vladimir Semichastny (who was the first secretary of Komsomol at the time of Crabb's disappearance) reported, Crabb's decapitated body was found floating in the harbour two months after his disappearance. In the interview, Semichastny states that the "Crabb Affair" was handled elegantly.


title: Clinical vampirism

text: Clinical vampirism, more commonly known as Renfield's syndrome, is an obsession with drinking blood. The earliest presentation of clinical vampirism in psychiatric literature was a psychoanalytic interpretation of two cases, contributed by Richard L. Vanden Bergh and John. F. Kelley. As the authors point out, over 50,000 people addicted to drinking blood have appeared in the psychiatric literature from 1892 to 2010. This was documented in the work of Austrian forensic psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. Many medical publications concerning clinical vampirism can be found in the literature of forensic psychiatry, with the behavior being reported as an aspect of extraordinary violent crimes.


title: Clinical vampirism

text: Richard Noll created the term "Renfield's syndrome" with the intent to parody what he viewed as 1980's psychobabble, before the joke was taken seriously in popular culture. The original term "clinical vampirism" was seen as a suitable subject for satire due to its doubtful utility, and has effectively been completely replaced.


title: Clinical vampirism

text: The syndrome is named after R. M. Renfield, Dracula's human zoophagous follower in the 1897 novel by Bram Stoker. In a web interview with psychology professor Katherine Ramsland, Noll explained how he invented the term and its purported diagnostic criteria as a whimsical parody of 1980's psychiatry and "new DSM-speak." In a public lecture hosted by Penn State University's Institute for the Arts and Humanities on 7 October 2013, Noll traced the 20 year trajectory of his unintentionally created "monster" from the moment of its creation to the cultural popularity of "Renfield's syndrome" today. However, some writers have pointed out that it does serve as a useful demonstration of how creating unfounded names for psychological illnesses can have negative consequences.


title: Clinical vampirism

text: The prior diagnosis of "clinical vampirism" was somewhat different from "Renfield's syndrome." "Clinical vampirism" usually connotated an erotic obsession with blood; "Renfield's syndrome" more resembles an eating disorder involving the consumption of blood and/or living animals. Neither "clinical vampirism" nor "Renfield's syndrome" have ever been listed as a valid diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).


title: Clinical vampirism

text: According to the case history reports in the older psychiatric literature, the condition starts with a key event in childhood that causes the experience of a blood injury or the ingestion of blood to be exciting. After puberty, the excitement is experienced as sexual arousal. Throughout adolescence and adulthood, blood, its presence, and its consumption can also stimulate a sense of power and control. Noll speculated that his "Renfield's syndrome" began with autovampirism and then progressed to the consumption of the blood of other creatures.


title: Clinical vampirism

text: Very few cases of the syndrome have been described. Published reports that have been proposed as examples of "clinical vampirism" or "Renfield's syndrome" describe the case using official psychiatric diagnostic categories listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).


title: Clinical vampirism

text: "Clinical vampirism" has been referred to as "Renfield's syndrome" in academic literature since it was adopted in popular culture. The 20 year evolution of a 3-page book section that spread through mass media and then into pages of a peer-reviewed scholarly journal should serve as a cautionary tale about the purported validity of other, similar syndromes.


title: Clinical vampirism

text: Philosopher of science Ian Hacking refers to this process as "making up people" and critiques medical and psychiatric elites for the untoward effects of their "dynamic nominalism" on individual lives. Such arbitrary categories create new natural "kinds" of people (e.g., perverts, multiple personalities and so on) that serve larger political, cultural and moral purposes and change with historical contingencies.


title: Clinical vampirism

text: In an NBC pre-Halloween special hosted by actor Peter Graves entitled "The Unexplained: Witches, Werewolves and Vampires" that aired on 23 October 1994, pages from Noll's book were shown on camera as Canadian psychologist Leonard George summarized Renfield's syndrome.


title: Clinical vampirism

text: In addition to references to "Renfield's syndrome" in psychiatric literature and mass media, it has also appeared popular literature.


title: Clinical vampirism

text: Very few cases of the syndrome have been described, and the published reports that do exist describe clinical vampirism as behaviors that are subsumed under more conventional psychiatric diagnostic categories such as schizophrenia or paraphilia. A case of vampirism in Turkey reported in 2012 was discussed as a behavior of a patient diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. While not referencing the literature on Renfield's syndrome, two Irish psychiatrists surveyed the psychiatric literature on vampirism as evidence of a changing discourse in psychiatry from the narrative of case studies to the depersonalized discourse of checklist diagnostic criteria.


title: Clinical vampirism

text: A number of murderers have performed seemingly vampiric rituals upon their victims. Serial killers Peter Kürten and Richard Trenton Chase were both called "vampires" in the tabloids after they were discovered drinking the blood of the people they murdered. Similarly, in 1932, an unsolved murder case in Stockholm, Sweden was nicknamed the "Vampire murder", due to the circumstances of the victim's death. Clinical vampirism in the context of criminal acts of violence, as well as "consensual" vampirism as a social ritual, have been extensively documented in the many works of Katharine Ramsland. Others have commented upon the psychiatric implications of "vampire cults" among adolescents.


title: Tataki

text: Two methods of preparing fish or meat in Japanese cuisine are called or . In Japanese, means "pounded" or "hit into pieces".


title: Tataki

text: In the first method, the meat or fish is seared very briefly over a hot flame or in a pan, and can be briefly marinated in vinegar, sliced thin, and seasoned with ginger (which is ground or pounded into a paste, hence the name). Food so prepared can also be served like sashimi with soy sauce and garnishes.


title: Tataki

text: The method originated in Tosa Province, now part of Kōchi Prefecture, where it was applied to bonito (). Lore has it that it was developed by Sakamoto Ryōma, a 19th-century rebel samurai, who picked up the European technique of grilling meat from the foreigners resident in Nagasaki.


title: Tataki

text: In the second method, it is the food that is "hit into pieces". Fish such as tuna or horse mackerel are chopped and mixed with garnishes such as garlic, ginger, green onions or leaves. Soy sauce may be poured over the chopped mixture before consumption.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal and is located in eastern India on the east bank of the River Bhagirathi-Hooghly (Ganga). The city was a colonial city developed by the East India Company and then by the British Empire. Kolkata was the capital of the British Indian empire until 1911, when the capital was relocated to Delhi. Kolkata grew rapidly in the 19th century to become the second most important city of the British Indian Empire. This was accompanied by the development of a culture that fused Indian philosophies with Victorian tradition.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Kolkata is also noted for its revolutionary history, ranging from the Indian to the leftist Naxalite and trade-union movements. Labelled the "Cultural Capital of India", "The City of Processions", "The City of Palaces", and the "City of Joy", Kolkata has also been home to prominent statesman and yogis. Problems related to rapid urbanization started to plague Kolkata from the 1930s and the city remains an example of the urbanization challenges of the developing nations.


title: History of Kolkata

text: From the 14th to 16th centuries, Kolkata was under the rule of the Bengal Sultanate. It was conquered by the Mughal Empire and incorporated into the Bengal Subah in 1576 following the Mughal invasion of Bengal.


title: History of Kolkata

text: There is a long chain of events behind the arrival of the East India Company in Bengal, specifically Job Charnock in Sutanuti in 1690. These incidents are documented in numerous records of the East India Company and by several authors [Bruce 1810 (Vol I and II), Marshman Vol I, Unknown 1829; see references below]. These documents tell the story of how the English were severely beaten and wiped out from Bengal several times by the forces of the Mughal Emperor and how each time they came back to Bengal to continue their trade.


title: History of Kolkata

text: The agents of the East India Company first visited the provinces of Bengal and Bihar for trade during the period of Ibrahim Khan (ca 1617–1624), the Subahdar (Governor) of Bengal at the time of Mughal Emperor Jahangir. The first factory was established in Surat in 1620 and later in Agra, and agents were further sent from these places to the eastern provinces to examine the possibility of opening factories there. However the transportation costs and logistics were unfavorable and the plan was abandoned. In January 1644, the daughter of the Emperor was severely burnt and a doctor named Gabriel Boughton, formerly the surgeon of the East Indiaman "Hopewell", was sent from Surat for her treatment.


title: History of Kolkata

text: He was able to successfully treat her burns and in reward the Emperor allowed the company to establish factory at Pipili, Odisha, and for the first time English ships arrived at an eastern port. During 1638, Shah Jahan appointed his son Shah Shuja as the Subahdar of Bengal and Boughton visited the capital at Rajmahal where his services were again used to treat one of the ladies in the palace, and in return, the company was allowed to establish factories in Balasore, Odisha and Hooghly, Bengal in addition to Pipili, Odisha.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Shaista Khan was appointed as the governor of Bengal in around 1664 by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb and was relieved upon his request in around 1682. While he was returning to Delhi, Englishmen sent with him a request to the Emperor to obtain a special firman to do business forever in Bengal; the Emperor was pleased to provide them the Firman and the occasion was celebrated with a 300 gun salute at Hooghly. The investment in Bengal soared, the Bengal residency was separated from Madras and Mr. Hedges was appointed as the chief officer to oversee trade in Bengal. His residence in Hooghly was secured with soldiers obtained from Madras. This is the first time English soldiers came on the soil of Bengal. However, the Firman was vague in many aspects and soon disputes started to grow between the English and the governor.


title: History of Kolkata

text: During this time a local disturbance occurred when the zamindar in Bihar attacked the governor of Bihar. Mr. Peacock, the chief of the factory in Patna, was imprisoned by the governor with the assumption that he was involved in the dispute. At the same time their saltpetre trade was disrupted by another rival English company. To protect their trade in Bengal, the original East India Company requested to build a fort in the mouth of Hooghly or on its banks. This request was immediately turned down by Shaista Khan and a 3.5% tax was imposed in addition to the already existing tax of 3,000 rupees, notwithstanding the Firman obtained earlier. Another incident with the Faujdar of Cossimbazar resulted in altercations between the Governor of Bengal and the company causing their ships to leave Bengal without obtaining cargo.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Enraged with this situation and determined to establish their authority, the company requested King James II in 1685 to permit the use of force against the Emperor's army to settle the matter. Admiral Nicholson was sent with ships to attack the port at Chittagong, fortify it, make an alliance with the King of Arakan who was against the Mughals, establish a mint and collect revenue, thus making Chittagong a fort city for the Company in the eastern part. Then he was ordered to proceed to Dhaka. It was assumed that the governor would abandon the city and then a peace treaty would be offered which would guarantee free trade and other economic benefits for the Company and he would give up the territory of Dhaka and Chittagong. Job Charnock was then at Madras and was directed to join the expedition with 400 soldiers from the Madras division.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Unfortunately the plan went awry; some of the ships, due to the change in current and wind, arrived at Hooghly instead of Chittagong and anchored off the factory in Hooghly after being joined by their Madras troops. The presence of a large number of war ships alarmed Shaista Khan and he immediately offered a truce. However the peace was broken again when some Company troops misbehaved with Shaista Khan's troops in Hooghly on 28 October 1686 for which the former were severely beaten by the latter. At the same time the admiral opened fire and burnt down 500 houses; property losses were about thirty lacs of rupees. However a truce was again obtained between Mr. Charnock and the local Foujidar, and the English were allowed to put saltpetre on board their ships. However, Shaista Khan upon hearing this ordered the closing and confiscation of all their factories and properties in Bengal and sent a large force to drive out the English from Hooghly.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Upon hearing the news of Shaista Khan's plan, Mr. Charnock determined that it was no longer safe to remain in Hooghly and decided to move downstream to Sutanuti, a small hamlet on the banks of the river Hooghly on 20 December 1686. At this time their ships in Bengal required extensive repairs and the remainder of their fleet were considered in danger. In this situation they considered that they would be extremely fortunate if they could hold their current position instead of their desires on Chittagong and for this matter they decided to ask forgiveness from the Emperor and requested to reinstate the previously obtained Firman.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Peace treaty was again offered by the governor at the end of December 1686 but it was mainly to buy out time for attack and by February 1687 a large troop of Shaista Khan's army arrived at Hooghly to drive the Company out of Bengal. Charnock decided it was not safe to remain in Sutanuti and moved to the island village at Hijli. There he remained with his soldiers in an utterly inhospitable place full of mosquitoes, snakes and tigers. The Governor's troops did not bother them there since they knew the Company would not be able to survive long there. In fact, within three months about half of Charnock's soldiers died and the remaining half were ready to be hospitalized.


title: History of Kolkata

text: With his back to the wall, Charnock was desperately willing to negotiate with Shaista Khan to get out of this mess. Luck favored him because of an unexpected event. At the time when Nicholson was ordered to proceed to Chittagong, Sir John Child was ordered to withdraw the company's establishment from Bombay, commence hostilities on the western coast, blockade Mughal harbors and attack their ships anywhere to be found. Emperor Aurangzeb wanted to reconcile with the Company to ensure uninterrupted voyage of pilgrims to Mecca and asked his governors to make terms with them.


title: History of Kolkata

text: As a result, a peace treaty was signed between Shaista Khan and Charnock on 16 August 1687. Shaista Khan allowed them to remain in Bengal, however to be limited only to Uluberia, a small town on the bank of river Hooghly south of Sutanuti, where they were allowed to make a port and do business from there, but their war ships were strictly not allowed to enter Hooghly. Charnock arrived at Uluberia, started making a dock there, however soon started to dislike the place and wanted to return to Sutanuti. At this time the governor asked them to return and settle at Hooghly, ordered them not to build any structure at Sutanuti and asked Charnock to pay a large sum of money for compensation. While not in a position to fight against the Governor's troops, two Company agents were sent to Dhaka to plead to the governor to allow them to return to Sutanuti and build a fort there.


title: History of Kolkata

text: At the same time, when the news of failure of Nicholson reached England, it was decided that until a fort was built on the bank of the river, the English would never be able to do business with ease and would always be on the mercy of the forces of the governor. For this, Captain Heath was sent to Bengal with 160 soldiers either to fight and win against the forces of the governor or to bring back all the properties of the company to Madras and abandon the trade in Bengal. Captain Heath arrived in October 1688 in Bengal, took all of company persons on board, set sail to Balasore on 8 November 1688. He reached Balasore on 29 November, pounded and destroyed the town including their own factory and released some English prisoners from the Governor's prison.


title: History of Kolkata

text: They left Balasore on 13 December for Chittagong, reached there on 17 December, found the Governor's fortification too strong to destroy and decided to wait until his demands are answered by the governor. However, instead of waiting for Governor's answer, Captain Heath set sail to Arakan, arrived there on 31 January 1689 and offered treaty to the king that English will fight against the Mughals at Dhaka and the king would provide them settlements in his dominion. When a fortnight passed without any answer from the king, Captain Heath, frustrated and dejected, returned to Madras on 4 March 1689. This was a total failure of English objectives in Bengal during the early period of 1689 which caused them abandoning Bengal as their trading location in eastern region.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Emperor Aurangzeb, enraged with the situation that the Company fortified Madras, occupied territory around it, captured Mughal ships, went into alliance with his enemy Sambhaji, he ordered his commanders everywhere in India to exterminate Company from the country and seize their properties anywhere to be found. Warehouses in Visakhapatnam were destroyed and many English men were captured and put to death. Shaista Khan went after them in Dhaka, captured them and put them behind bars.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Shaista Khan retired from his duty as governor in ca 1689 and Ibrahim Khan was appointed as the new governor of Bengal by Emperor Aurangzeb. By this time Aurangzeb was camping at Visapur and was much aware of the fact that he was losing revenues from the Company trade and the Company ships could cause him much trouble by stopping the pilgrimage to Mecca since they controlled the sea-route. At the same time, the Company were desperate to open negotiations with the Emperor after they left Bengal and Mr. Child was sent to him. He decided to accept the offer and ordered the Governor of Bengal to allow Company to return there.


title: History of Kolkata

text: As a result, Ibrahim Khan invited Mr. Charnock back to Bengal; but Mr. Charnock refused to come back until a specific Firman with terms and conditions clearly specified was issued by the Emperor so that they would not be subjected to further humiliations. Ibrahim Khan again sent letter to Mr. Charnock explaining that he had requested for the special Firman from the Emperor and it would take a few months before it arrived, and in the meantime Mr. Charnock was welcome to settle in Bengal and the governor would pay him 80,000 rupees for the goods that have been destroyed by Shaista Khan's regime.


title: History of Kolkata

text: With this friendly invitation, Mr. Job Charnock with 30 soldiers returned to Sutanuti on 24 August 1690 and hoisted the Company standard on the banks of river Hooghly, thus beginning a new era of Company involvement in Bengal. In the next year, Ibrahim Khan sent the order from the Emperor to Mr. Charnock which allowed unrestricted trade without paying any other taxes except the usual 3,000 rupees.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Mr. Charnock died in January 1692. While the English were always looking for fortification of their factories in Bengal, Ibrahim Khan never allowed them to do so. In 1695 the town of Hooghly was seized by Sobha Singh along with an unknown Afghan Rahim Khan, and the English at Sutanuti requested from the governor to use their own armed protection for their factories when their factories were surrounded by the enemy.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Ibrahim Khan allowed them to protect their own factories, but did not allow any fortification explicitly. However, in the absence of specific orders the permission to defend their property was taken as a permit to build fortress and construction began immediately overnight with all available manpower. The fort was built on the bank of river Hooghly at Sutanuti with mortar brought from Madras, completed in ca 1701 and was called Fort William after King William III of England. This was the old Fort William and construction for a new one (the present one) started after Siraj Ud-Daulah attacked Fort William in 1756.


title: History of Kolkata

text: In 1690, Job Charnok, an agent of the East India Company chose this place for a British trade settlement. The site was carefully selected, being protected by the Hooghly River on the west, a creek to the north, and by salt lakes about two and a half miles to the east. There were three large villages along the east bank of the river Ganges, named, Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikata. These three villages were bought by the British from the local land lords. The Mughal emperor granted East India Company freedom of trade in return for a yearly payment of 3,000 rupees.


title: History of Kolkata

text: The rent-roll of [[Akbar]], the 16th century [[Mughal Empire|Mughal]] emperor, and the work of a Bengali poet, [[Bipradas Pipilai]], of the late 15th century, both make mention of the area's early name's being "Kolikata", from which Kolkata/Calcutta derive.


title: History of Kolkata

text: There is much discussion about the origin of the city's name. The most accepted view is that it comes from the Hindu goddess [[Kali]] and the original name was "KaliKshetra", "the place of Kali".


title: History of Kolkata

text: The area where the city is now located was originally inhabited by the people of three villages: "[[Kalikata]]", "[[Sutanuti]]" and "[[Gobindapur, India|Gobindapur]]". However, the boundaries of the three villages gradually became less distinct, and before the [[battle of Plassey]], the city could be divided into four different sub-areas: European Kolkata (Dihi Kolkata); a residential village with some sacred spots (Gobindapur); a traditional Indian market (Bazar Kalikata or Burrabazar); and a riverine mart concentrating on cloth trade (Sutanati). After the battle of Plassey in 1757, the Company started rebuilding the city.


title: History of Kolkata

text: The [[Calcutta High Court]] ruled in 2003 that [[Job Charnock]], the Englishman generally believed to be the founder of the Calcutta, is not the founder of the city and that hence Kolkata has no birthday. According to the Court, the city has its genesis in the [[Maurya Empire|Maurya]] and [[Gupta Empire|Gupta]] period and it was an established trading post long before the Slave Dynasty of the [[Delhi Sultanate]], the [[Mughal Empire|Mughals]], the [[Portugal|Portuguese]], the [[France|French]] or the [[East India Company]] established a modern township there.


title: History of Kolkata

text: The [[East India Company]] chose the place for a trade settlement. In 1690, the Company bought three villages (Sutanuti, Kalikata and Gobindapur) from a local landlord family of [[Sabarna Roy Choudhury]]. The next year, the company began developing the city as a [[Presidency City]]. In 1727, on the order of [[George I of Great Britain|King George I]], a civil court was set up in the city. The Calcutta Municipal corporation (now renamed [[Kolkata Municipal Corporation]]) was formed and the city had its first [[mayor]].


title: History of Kolkata

text: The three villages (Sutanuti, Gobindapur & Kalikata), particularly in "Kalikata", where Calcutta is located, came into the possession of the [[British East India Company]] in 1690 and some scholars like to date its beginnings as a major city from the construction of [[Fort William, India|Fort William]] by the [[United Kingdom|British]] in 1698, though this is debated (see the court ruling in "Name and origins" above). From 1772 to 1911, Calcutta was the capital of British India. From 1912 to India's Independence in 1947, it was the capital of all of [[Bengal]]. After Independence, Calcutta remained the capital of the Indian state of [[West Bengal]].


title: History of Kolkata

text: When the [[Seven Years' War]] broke out, owing to their constant rivalry with the [[French East India Company|French]], and the fall of [[Madras]] to the forces of [[Joseph François Dupleix|Dupleix]], early in 1756 the British authorities in Calcutta began repairs to the fortifications of old [[Fort William, India|Fort William]], which were extremely decayed. This irritated the new [[Nawab of Bengal]], [[Siraj Ud Daulah]], who viewed it as a threat to his sovereignty. Enraged still further when the British granted asylum to one Krishnaballav, who had embezzled money from the "dewani" of [[Dhaka]], Siraj ud-Daula first attacked and captured [[Cossimbazar]] (taking as hostage [[William Watts (East India Company official)|William Watts]] and [[Begum Johnson]]), and then Calcutta, which fell after a short siege on 20 June 1756, during which the governor and many other officials escaped down the [[Hooghly River]], leaving the remainder of the garrison and the [[Anglo-Indian|Eurasian]] population of Calcutta to their fate.


title: History of Kolkata

text: This is now known as the [[Siege of Calcutta]]. It is said that 123 Britons later died in the [[Black Hole of Calcutta]] after his victory, but recent evidence calls into question the numbers involved, and suggests that the Nawab himself was probably unaware of what transpired. He renamed Calcutta Alinagar after the previous Nawab, and his maternal grandfather, [[Alivardi Khan]]. Having installed Manikchand as the ruler of Alinagar, Siraj returned to [[Murshidabad]]. Soon (on 2 January 1757) Watson and [[Robert Clive]] retook Calcutta with a force of company [[sepoys]] and the assistance of the [[Royal Navy]]. Hearing the news, Siraj ud-Daula moved to attack Calcutta, but fearing an attack from [[Ahmad Shah Abdali]], after a few days of war he signed the [[Treaty of Alinagar]] with the East India Company, giving them permission to build the fort.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Although Siraj ud-Daula conceded temporary defeat in the Pact of Alinagar, he once again began scheming with the French against the British. Meanwhile, the [[Third Carnatic War]] was starting in the south. Also at this time, nobles such as [[Jagat Seth]], [[Mir Jafar]], Rai Durlav, Omichand and Rajballav were plotting against Siraj ud-Daula (a principal reason being the Nawab's arrogance, well attested to in contemporary sources) and they invited Clive to take part in their plans.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Clive seized on this plan to get rid of two enemies at once. Citing non-existent reasons, he attacked [[Murshidabad]], having previously reached an agreement with Mir Jafar to install him on the "musnud" of Bengal. On the fateful day of 23 June 1757, 23 miles away from Murshidabad in the mango groves of [[Palashi]], the armies met at the [[Battle of Plassey]]. The British army consisted of 800 European soldiers and 2,200 Indian soldiers, while the Nawab's army was made up of 18,000 cavalry and 50,000 infantry. At the start of this seemingly impossible battle, generals Rai Durlav and Iar Latif held their armies together, but in an act of treachery [[Mir Jafar]] led his troops away from the battlefield, and the remaining army led by Mirmadan and Mohanlal was defeated.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Siraj ud-Daula escaped but was later caught and killed by Miran, the son of Mir Jafar. Mir Jafar was made the new Nawab, and the British had effectively seized control of Bengal. In 1765, after defeating the next Nawab, [[Mir Qasim]], the [[Nawab of Oudh]] and the [[Mughal Empire|Mughal Emperor]] at the [[Battle of Buxar]], there was no one to stand in the way of the British and their dominance in North India. Thus, British imperialism began in India with the conquest of Bengal, a game in which a main pawn was the great city of Calcutta.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Calcutta also had an indirect but important influence on the battles of the [[Carnatic Wars]]. When Madras fell to Dupleix, the British were still able to direct the war from another of their strongholds, Calcutta. They also used the wealth of Bengal to defeat the French. As Dr. [[R. C. Majumdar]] stated in "An Advanced History of India", "The Battle of Plassey may be truly said to have decided the fate of the French in India."


title: History of Kolkata

text: [[St. John's Church, Kolkata|St. John's Church]], originally a cathedral, was among the first public buildings erected by the [[East India Company]] after Kolkata became the effective capital of [[Company rule in India]]. It is located at the North-Western corner of [[Raj Bhavan, Kolkata|Raj Bhavan]], and served as the [[Diocese of Calcutta (Church of North India)|Anglican Cathedral of Calcutta]] till 1847, when the see was transferred to [[St. Paul's Cathedral, Kolkata|St. Paul's Cathedral]]. Construction of the building, modelled on [[St Martin-in-the-Fields]] of London, started in 1784, with Rs 30,000 raised through a public lottery, and was completed in 1787. It is the third oldest church in the city, next to the Armenian and the [[Old Mission Church]].


title: History of Kolkata

text: One of the most notorious incidents of the latter part of the century was the trial and execution of [[Maharaja Nandakumar|Nanda Kumar]], who had been the governor of [[Hugging-Coinsurance|Hugging]] in 1756. In 1764 he had been appointed collector of [[Burdwan]] in place of [[Warren Hastings]], which resulted in a long-standing enmity between the two men. In 1775, when Hastings was [[Governor-General]], Nanda Kumar brought accusations of corruption against him, accusing him of accepting bribes and other abuses of power. These were taken up with enthusiasm by Hastings' rivals on the Governor General's Council, led by [[Philip Francis (English politician)|Philip Francis]]. Whilst this matter was still awaiting investigation Nanda Kumar was indicted for forgery of a deed, condemned and executed. There was a strong suspicion that the charges had been invented by Hastings, and that he had put pressure on the judges to pass sentence of death. At this date it was far from clear whether or not English law applied in Calcutta, and it was extremely rare for the death penalty to be applied for forgery even in England. Furthermore, Nanda Kumar was a [[Brahman]], and his hanging caused widespread dismay and outrage in Calcutta.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Warren Hastings and Sir [[Elijah Impey]], the Chief Justice, were both impeached, and were accused by [[Edmund Burke]] and afterwards by [[Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay|Thomas Babington Macaulay]] of committing a judicial murder. Five years after this incident, in 1780, relations between Warren Hastings and Philip Francis deteriorated to such an extent that the two fought a duel in the grounds of Belvedere (now the National Library) on the road to the suburb of [[Alipore]]. Francis was severely wounded, but Hastings escaped unscathed.


title: History of Kolkata

text: After the territorial conquest of Bengal in 1757, the [[British East India Company]] pursued a monopoly on production and export of opium from India. The company bought opium from local traders and later directly from farmers, and sold it at auction in Calcutta. From there much of it was smuggled to [[Guangzhou|Canton]] in [[China]] by foreign traders, eventually leading to the [[First Opium War]] (18391842).


title: History of Kolkata

text: In 1772, Calcutta became the capital of [[British India]], a decision made by [[Governor General]] [[Warren Hastings]]. On 29 January 1780, "[[Hickey's Bengal Gazette]]" or "the Calcutta General Advertiser" became the first newspaper to be printed in India, and is an invaluable chronicle of the social life of Anglo-Indian society in Calcutta. Contemporary memoirs such as those of [[William Hickey (memoirist)|William Hickey]] record the consumption of enormous meals, washed down by copious quantities of claret, port, madeira and other wines, followed by the smoking of [[Hookah]]s. After the death of his English wife Charlotte (who is buried in [[South Park Street Cemetery|Park Street Cemetery]]), Hickey married a Bengali girl called Jemdanee, who died in childbirth in 1796, prompting him to write in his journal that "Thus did I lose as gentle and affectionately attached a girl as ever man was blessed with".


title: History of Kolkata

text: Such unions between Europeans, English, French and Portuguese, and local women, both Hindu and Muslim, were common throughout the 18th century in Calcutta, and are the origin of the city's substantial Anglo-Indian (or Eurasian) community today; by the early 19th century, however, increasing racial intolerance made marriages of this kind much rarer.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Calcutta's intellectual life received a great boost in 1784 with the foundation of the [[Asiatic Society of Bengal]] by [[William Jones (philologist)|Sir William Jones]], with the encouragement of [[Warren Hastings]], himself no mean Oriental scholar. Jones worked closely with the "[[pandit]]s" of the [[Kalighat|Kalighat Temple]], together with the local "[[ulema]]", in translating and producing new editions of rare and forgotten texts. His study of [[Sanskrit]] with [[Pandit Ramlochan]] at [[Nadia district|Nadiya]] led him to posit the existence of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] family of languages. Many distinguished scholars, English and Bengali, such as [[Henry Thomas Colebrooke]], [[James Prinsep]] and [[Pandit Radhakanta Sarman]] would grace the society's meetings and publications over the following century, vastly enriching knowledge of India's culture and past.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Calcutta saw the establishment of several different Western-style higher education institutions this period, including [[The Sanskrit College and University|Sanskrit College]] (1824), [[Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata|Calcutta Medical College]] (1835), [[University of Calcutta]] (1857), [[Surendranath College]] (1885) and the [[Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science]] (1887), India's first research institute.


title: History of Kolkata

text: In the time of [[British India]], Calcutta was "the second city of the [[British Empire]]" (after [[London]]) and was aptly renamed "City of Palaces" and the Great Eastern Hotel was regarded as the "Jewel of the East".


title: History of Kolkata

text: Calcutta at that time was famous for its "[[Babu (title)|Baboo]] culture", a mixture of English [[liberalism]], European decadence, [[Mughal era|Mughal]] conservatism, and [[Hindu revivalism|indigenous revivalism]], inculcating aspects of socio-moral and political change. This culture was fostered in its wake by the [[Zamindar]]i system, the [[Dāyabhāga]] system, the Hindu joint family system, the [[Mitākṣarā]] system, the Muslim [[Zenana]] system, the Protestant spirit of free capitalist enterprise, the Mughal-inspired feudal system, and the [[Nautch]].


title: History of Kolkata

text: This also fostered the [[Bengal Renaissance]], an awakening of modern liberal thinking in 19th century Bengal, and which gradually percolated to the rest of India.


title: History of Kolkata

text: In 1750, Calcutta had a population of 120,000. The centre of company control over the whole of Bengal from 1757, Calcutta underwent rapid industrial growth from the 1850s, especially in the textile sector, despite the poverty of the surrounding region. Trade with other nations also grew. For example, the first U.S. merchant ship arrived in Kolkata in 1787. In fact, the U.S Consulate in Calcutta is the U.S. Department of State's second-oldest consulate and dates from 19 November 1792.


title: History of Kolkata

text: Despite being almost totally destroyed by a cyclone, in which 60,000 died, on 5 October 1864, Calcutta grew, mostly in an unplanned way, in the next 150 years from 117,000 to 1,098,000 inhabitants (including suburbs), and now has a metropolitan population of approximately 14.6 million.