title: Doddie Weir

text: He occasionally made appearances in his distinctive tartan suits on television, including work as a pundit for the BBC as part of the half-time analysis during Scotland matches and commentating at the Melrose Sevens.


title: Doddie Weir

text: In June 2017, Weir announced that he had been diagnosed with motor neuron disease (MND), the announcement coinciding with global MND Awareness Day. He had been told by a specialist in December that he had MND with a prediction that he would be unable to walk within a year. In August 2017, he spoke about plans to set up a foundation named "My Name'5 Doddie" in order to "raise funds for research into a cure for MND and to provide grants to people living with the condition". In November, accompanied by his wife and three sons, he walked the match ball on to the pitch at Murrayfield for the Autumn international test match between Scotland and the All Blacks. At the outset Weir viewed himself as lucky to have been able to be involved with campaigning and fundraising while still raising his family.


title: Doddie Weir

text: "My Name's Doddie: The Autobiography" was published on 25 October 2018 through Black & White Publishing. On 31 October 2018, Weir appeared on BBC One's "The One Show", where he stated that his charity had now raised over £1 million. By March 2019, the foundation had committed to distribute more than £2 million from funds raised. A fellow rugby international and BBC broadcaster John Beattie followed Doddie over a couple of years. The result was a 60-minute BBC TV documentary "Doddie Weir: One More Try" that first aired on BBC Scotland On 6 December 2019.


title: Doddie Weir

text: In January 2020 Weir confirmed his own participation in a clinical trial aimed at finding drugs that could slow, stop or reverse the progression of MND. He encouraged people with a diagnosis of MND to enrol in the MND-Smart programme which would trial new drugs, existing drugs and a placebo. In October 2021 a further publication, "Doddie's Diary," contained descriptions of how his condition was worsening. By June 2022 his foundation, My Name'5 Doddie, had raised £8 million for MND research.


title: Doddie Weir

text: On 13 November 2022, for the match against the All Blacks, the Scotland shirts incorporated the My Name'5 Doddie tartan. Weir, now in a wheelchair, and his family participated in the delivery of the matchday ball as he had when the All Blacks last visited Murrayfield in 2017.


title: Doddie Weir

text: On the evening of 26 November 2022, his family announced that he had died of motor neuron disease, aged 52. A memorial service will be held at Melrose Parish Church on 19 December, with audio from the service to be relayed to Melrose RFC's ground The Greenyards.


title: Doddie Weir

text: Weir designed his tartan in 2018 in collaboration with Berwickshire-based clothes firm ScotlandShop, in a bid to raise cash for the My Name'5 Doddie Foundation. The tartan features colours from the teams he played for: black and yellow of Melrose, blue and white of Scotland, and black of the former and white of the latter are also intended as a reference to his seven years with Newcastle Falcons. It is officially registered on the Scottish Register of Tartans, reference: 12047.


title: Doddie Weir

text: Weir was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to rugby, to motor neurone disease research and to the community in the Scottish Borders. He collected the award from Queen Elizabeth II at an investiture at Holyrood Palace in July 2019.


title: Doddie Weir

text: Named in his honour, the Doddie Weir Cup is a perpetual rugby union trophy for matches played between Scotland and Wales. The inaugural competition was played in Cardiff in November 2018, with competitive encounters most likely to be played in the Six Nations.


title: Doddie Weir

text: In November 2018, he was presented by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh with the Edinburgh Award in recognition of the contribution he has made to the city, to sport and to motor neurone disease (MND) awareness and research – the twelfth recipient of this award. At the World Rugby Awards, he received the Award for Character. That same month, Glasgow Caledonian University conferred him with an Honorary Degree in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the sporting community and his commitment to fundraising for the common good.


title: Doddie Weir

text: In December 2019, Weir was announced as the recipient of the Helen Rollason Award, which is presented every year during the annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year show. The award was presented to him by Princess Anne.


title: Doddie Weir

text: In July 2020, he was inducted into the Scottish Rugby hall of fame. That year, the National Galleries of Scotland announced that a portrait of Weir by artist Gerard M. Burns had been loaned to the Scottish collection.


title: Doddie Weir

text: In November 2021, Melrose Rugby announced Weir as being appointed to the honorary position of joint President of the club.


title: Federated Malay States

text: The Federated Malay States (FMS, , Jawi: ) was a federation of four protected states in the Malay Peninsula—Selangor, Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang—established by the British government in 1896, which lasted until 1946, when they, together with two of the former Straits Settlements (Malacca and Penang) and the Unfederated Malay States, formed the Malayan Union. Two years later, the Union became the Federation of Malaya, which achieved independence in 1957, and finally Malaysia in 1963 with the inclusion of North Borneo (present-day Sabah), Sarawak and Singapore.


title: Federated Malay States

text: Real power in the FMS and its constituent states rested with the four local British Residents and the Resident-General, the discretionary powers of the local sultans being essentially reduced to matters "touching Malay Religion and Customs".


title: Federated Malay States

text: The federation, along with the other Malay states and British possessions of the peninsula, was overrun and occupied by the Japanese during World War II. After the liberation of Malaya following the Japanese surrender, the federation was not restored, but the federal form of government was retained as the principal model for consolidating the separate States as an independent Federation of Malaya and the Federation's later evolution into Malaysia.


title: Federated Malay States

text: On 20 January 1874, Sir Andrew Clarke, governor of the Straits Settlements, concluded with the Sultan of Perak the treaty of Pangkor whereby the Sultan agreed to "receive and provide a suitable residence for a British Officer to be called Resident, who shall be accredited to his court, and whose advice must be asked and acted upon on all questions other than those touching Malay Religion and Customs". The residency system was extended the same year to the states of Selangor and Negri Sembilan, and in 1888 to Pahang.


title: Federated Malay States

text: To promote greater administrative efficiency, these four states were brought together in 1895-1896 to form the Federated Malay States. This structure was highly centralized, real power resting in the hands of the agents of the British Government, at first called the Resident-General, and later the Chief Secretary.


title: Federated Malay States

text: The British established the Federal Council in 1898 to administer the Federation. It was headed by the High Commissioner (The Governor of the Straits Settlement), assisted by the Resident-General, the Sultans, the four state Residents and four nominated unofficial members. This structure remained until the Japanese invaded Malaya on 8 December 1941.


title: Federated Malay States

text: Although the Resident-General was the real administrator of the federation, each of the four constituent states of the federation retained their respective hereditary rulers (sultans). At the formation of the Federated Malay States, the reigning sultans were:


title: Federated Malay States

text: In 1897 the first Durbar was convened in the royal town of Kuala Kangsar, Perak as the platform for discussions for the four Rulers. This formed the basis for the Conference of Rulers that was created later on under Article 38 of the Malaysian Constitution on 27 August 1957.


title: Federated Malay States

text: The Federated Malay States had a flag of its own until its dissolution in 1946. The flag consisted of four different-coloured stripes, from top to bottom: white, red, yellow and black. Different combinations of these colours represent the four states that formed the FMS — red, black and yellow are for Negeri Sembilan; black and white for Pahang; black, white and yellow for Perak; and red and yellow for Selangor. The same design concept is used in Malaysian national emblem. In the middle is an oblong circle with a Malayan tiger in it.


title: Federated Malay States

text: The National History Museum located near the Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia has a replica of the federation's flag.


title: Federated Malay States

text: The coat of arms of the Federated Malay States featured a shield guarded by two tigers. On the top of the shield is the crown (known as "Eastern Crown" in English heraldry), symbolising the federation of monarchies under the protection of the United Kingdom. A banner with the phrase "Dipelihara Allah" (Under God's (Allah) Protection) written in Jawi is located underneath the shield.


title: Federated Malay States

text: The combinations of the four colours of the shield represents the colours of the flags of the states of the FMS in the same way the stripes of the FMS flag do.


title: Federated Malay States

text: This design forms the basis of the Federation of Malaya's national emblem along with the guardian tigers and a quartered shield of the same, symbolic four colours mentioned above.


title: Federated Malay States

text: In addition to a state flag, the Federated Malay States also had a naval jack or ensign for use on government ships. The ensign, with the four colours of the FMS, was flown by HMS "Malaya", commanded by Captain Boyle under the 5th Battle Squadron of the British Grand Fleet) during the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea. This was the largest and the only full-scale clash of battleships during World War I.


title: Federated Malay States

text: From 1896 to 1936, real power lay in the hands of the Resident-General, later known as Chief Secretary of the Federation.


title: Federated Malay States

text: under the authority of the High Commissioners, which are always the Governors of the Straits Settlements


title: Federated Malay States

text: In the Federated Malay States, the individual State were still ruled by the Sultan but was now advised by the State Council for the purpose of administrating the State. The State Council was made up of the Resident (or in certain cases by the Secretary to the Resident), native chiefs, and representative(s) of the Chinese community nominated by the Sultan. The council discussed matters of interest for each respective state such as legislative and administrative issues as well as revision of all sentence of capital punishment. The Resident and his staff (mostly consist of European and Malay) carried on with the administrative work.


title: Federated Malay States

text: For the purpose of efficient administration, all the states of the federation were further divided into districts (Malay: "Daerah"). Each district was administered by a District Office (Malay: "Pejabat Daerah") headed by a District Officer (Malay: "Pegawai Daerah").


title: Federated Malay States

text: The first Supreme Court was established in 1906 and headed by the Judicial Commissioner, in whom supreme judicial authority was vested. The title of Judicial Commissioner was changed to Chief Judge in 1925.


title: Federated Malay States

text: From the earlier period of the federation the currency in used was the Straits dollar issued by the Board of Commissioners of Currency. As the currency depreciated over time, it was pegged at two shillings four sterling pence in 1906. In 1939, the British government introduced a new currency, Malayan dollar ("ringgit" in Malay) for used in Malaya and Brunei replacing the Straits dollar at par value. It had the smallest denominations of 1 cent to a highest of 1000 Malayan dollar and retained the exchange rate as was from the Straits dollar.


title: Federated Malay States

text: The Federated Malay States main economic activity was mostly focused on agriculture and mining with emphasis on rubber and tin. FMS and Malaya as a whole was the main supplier of these two commodities for the British industrial need. Rubber estates or plantations were established in all four states and tin was mined primarily in the Klang valley in Selangor and the Kinta Valley in Perak. This labour-intensive economic activities prompted the British to bring in immigrant workers from southern India to work at the plantations and workers from southern China to mine the tin.


title: Federated Malay States

text: The economic condition in the period can be viewed as self-sustainable, as the income of the federation was more than what was expended in terms of maintaining the administration and economic activities. In the later period, many resources were poured into the development of the city of Kuala Lumpur, as the capital of the federation. This period also saw rapid growth in terms of communications infrastructure such as interstate roads, the expansion of the Federated Malay States Railways' narrow gauge railway line between the Padang Besar and Singapore, and Port Swettenham (present-day Port Klang). Public schools and academic institutions were also opened along with an improvement in public health. An area in the city was also gazetted as a settlement for the Malay called Kampung Baru. Public buildings were also constructed such as the Kuala Lumpur railway station, the Government Offices of the FMS and Masjid Jamek.


title: Federated Malay States

text: The revenue of Selangor in 1875 amounted to only $115,656; in 1905 it had increased to $8,857,793. Of this latter sum $3,195,318 was derived from duty on tin exported, $1,972,628 from finance, federal receipts, and $340,360 from land revenue. The trade balance was chiefly derived from the revenue farms, which included the right to collect import duty on opium and spirits. The expenditure for 1905 amounted to $7,186,146, of which sum $3,717,238 was on account of federal charges and $1,850,711 for public works. The value of the imports in 1905 was $24,643,619 and that of the exports was $26,683,316, making a total of $51,326,935 equivalent to £5,988,000. Tin is the principal export. The amount exported in 1905 was 17,254 tons. The total area of alienated mining land at the end of 1905 amounted to .


title: Federated Malay States

text: The revenue of Perak in 1874 amounted to $226,333. That for 1905 amounted to $12,242,897. Of this latter sum $4,876,400 was derived from duty on exported tin, $2,489,300 from railway receipts, $505,300 from land revenue and $142,800 from postal and telegraphic revenue. The remainder is mainly derived from the revenue farms, which are leased for a short term of years, conveying to the lessee the right to collect import duties upon opium, wine and spirits, to keep pawnbroking shops, and to keep public licensed gambling-houses for the use of non-Malay only. The expenditure for 1905 amounted to $10,141,980. Of this sum $4,236,000 was expended upon railway upkeep and construction and $2,176,100 upon public works. The value of the imports into Perak during 1905 was over $20,000,000, and that of the exports exceeded $40,000,000, making a total of over $60,000,000, equivalent to about seven million sterling. The output of tin from Perak ranged between 18,960 tons, valued at $23,099,506 in 1899, and 26,600 tons, valued at $35,500,000, in 1905. The fluctuating character of the output was due to the uncertainty of the labour supply. The mining population was recruited exclusively from the districts of southern China, and during certain years an increased demand for labourers in China itself, in French Indo-China, in the Dutch colonies, and in South Africa temporarily and adversely affected immigration to the Straits of Malacca. The output had, moreover, been affected from time to time by the price of tin, which was $32.20 per pikul in 1896, rose to $42.96 in 1898, to $74.15 in 1900, and averaged $80.60 in 1905. Exclusive of tin, the principal exports were $108,000 worth of Para rubber, $181,000 of copra, $54,000 of hides, $48,000 of patchouli, and considerable quantities of timber, rattans and other jungle produce.


title: Federated Malay States

text: The revenue of the Negri Sembilan amounted to only $223,435 in 1888. In 1898 it had increased to $701,334, in 1900 to $1,251,366, and in 1905 to $2,335,534. The revenue for 1905 was derived mainly as follows: – customs $1,268,602, land revenue $145,475, land sales $21,407, while the revenue farms contributed $584,459. The expenditure in 1905 amounted to $2,214,093, of which $1,125,355 was expended upon public works. The trade returns for 1905, which are not, however, complete, showed an aggregate value of about $13,000,000. The value of the tin exported during 1905 exceeded $6,900,000, and the value of the agricultural produce, of which gambier represented $211,000 and damar $80,000, amounted to $407,990.


title: Federated Malay States

text: The revenue of Pahang in 1899 amounted to only $62,077; in 1900 to $419,150. In 1905 it was $528,368. The expenditure in 1905 amounted to $1,208,176. Of this sum $736,886 was expended on public works. Pahang is still a source of expense to the federation, its progress having been retarded by the disturbances which lasted from December 1891 until 1895, with short intervals of peace, but the revenue was steadily increasing, and the ultimate financial success of the state is considered to be secure. Pahang owed something over $3,966,500 to Selangor and $1,175,000 to Perak, which had financed it for some years out of surplus revenue. The value of the imports in 1905 was $1,344,346, that of the exports was $3,838,928, thus making a total trade value of $5,183,274. The most valuable export is tin, the value of which in 1905 amounted to $2,820,745. The value of the gutta exported exceeded $140,000, that of dried and salted fish amounted to nearly $70,000, and that of timber to $325,000.


title: Federated Malay States

text: With the threat of Germany, the British Navy was in a drive for expansion. As a contribution, the Government and people of the Federated Malay States agreed to finance the commissioning of HMS "Malaya"; this was a motion proposed in the Federal Council by the Sultan of Perak in 1913 and supported by the Sultan of Selangor. The battleship which cost $25,000,000 (approximately £2,945,709) was one of five of the "Queen Elizabeth" class, displacing 31,000 tons, mounting fifteen-inch guns and capable of . The most modern ships of their day, they formed the 5th Battle Squadron and fought as such at Jutland in 1916. HMS "Malaya" was also refurbished and was in service throughout World War II.


title: Federated Malay States

text: After the Japanese landed in Malaya on 8 December 1941, the Japanese forces began their invasion of the Malay Peninsula. Japanese forces began their invasion of the FMS by crossing the Thailand–FMS border at Kroh. Ipoh, the state capital of Perak, fell on 26 December 1941. Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the Federated Malay States and the State of Selangor, was captured on 11 January 1942. Seremban, the state capital of Negeri Sembilan, was captured two days later. Kuantan, in the eastern component state of Pahang, fell on 30 December 1941, meanwhile the capital, Kuala Lipis was taken by the Japanese on 7 January 1942. With the conclusion of the Battle of Gemas on 15 January 1942, the entire FMS was now in Japanese hands.


title: Federated Malay States

text: All of Malaya including Singapore remained under Japanese occupation until the surrender of the Japanese home islands.


title: Federated Malay States

text: After the war the federation was dissolved formally on 1 April 1946, and was incorporated into the Malayan Union thereafter. This in turn was succeeded by the Federation of Malaya in 1948, which gained independence in 1957, and finally the establishment of Malaysia in 1963.


title: Federated Malay States

text: While the four states issued their own postage stamps as before, there were additional issues for the Federated States as a whole.


title: Federated Malay States

text: The Federated Malay States were within the flight path of American aviator Amelia Earhart on the Thailand–Singapore leg of her final and fatal attempt to cross the globe in 1937. She was given permission to enter FMS airspace with provision to land at Taiping Airport on 7 June 1937.


title: Second United Front

text: The Second United Front () was the alliance between the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to resist the Japanese invasion of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which suspended the Chinese Civil War from 1937 to 1945.


title: Second United Front

text: In 1927 the Chinese Communists retaliated against Kuomintang following a betrayal of its members in Shanghai by National Revolutionary Army commander Chiang Kai-shek, which marked the end of the KMT's four-year alliance with the Soviet Union and its cooperation with the CCP during the Northern Expedition (aka First United Front) to defeat warlords and unify China.


title: Second United Front

text: In 1931 the Japanese launched its invasion and subsequent occupation of Manchuria. Chiang Kai-shek, who "de facto" led the central government of China, decided that China must avoid all-out war with Japan due to domestic turmoil and inadequate preparation. Therefore, he "pursued a strategy of appeasing Japan while struggling for real national unity and over time sufficient strength to confront the Imperial army. This appeasement policy lasted for another six years". Even though his campaigns against the Communists resulted in their retreat and a 90% reduction in their fighting strength, he was unable to eliminate their forces entirely, and his policy of "internal pacification before external resistance" (:) was very unpopular with the Chinese populace, which caused widespread resentment and demonstration against the ruling KMT leadership and its regional warlord allies.


title: Second United Front

text: In 1936, Chiang Kai-shek assigned "The Young Marshal" Zhang Xueliang, leader of Northeastern Army, the duty of suppressing the Red Army of the CCP. Battles with the Red Army resulted in great casualties for Zhang's forces, but Chiang Kai-shek did not provide any support to his troops.


title: Second United Front

text: On 12 December 1936, a deeply disgruntled Zhang Xueliang kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in Xi'an to force an end to the conflict between KMT and CCP. To secure the release of Chiang, the KMT was forced to agree to a temporary end to the Chinese Civil War and the forming of a united front between the CCP and KMT against Japan on 24 December 1936. However, by the time Chiang arrived in Xi'an on 4 December 1936, negotiations for a united front had been in the works for two years.


title: Second United Front

text: The China Democratic League, an umbrella organization for three political parties and three political pressure groups, also agreed to take part in the united front formed by KMT and the CCP.


title: Second United Front

text: As a result of the truce between KMT and CCP, the Red Army was reorganized into the New Fourth Army and the 8th Route Army, which were placed under the command of the National Revolutionary Army. The CCP agreed to accept the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, and began to receive some financial support from the central government run by KMT. In agreement with KMT Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region and Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region were created. They were controlled by the CCP.


title: Second United Front

text: After the commencement of full-scale war between China and Japan, the Communists forces fought in alliance with the KMT forces during the Battle of Taiyuan, and the high point of their cooperation came in 1938 during the Battle of Wuhan.


title: Second United Front

text: However, the Communists submission to the chain of command of the National Revolutionary Army was in name only. The Communists acted independently and hardly ever engaged the Japanese in conventional battles. The level of actual coordination between the CCP and KMT during the Second Sino-Japanese War was minimal.


title: Second United Front

text: In the midst of the Second United Front, the Communists and the Kuomintang were still vying for territorial advantage in "Free China" (i.e. those areas not occupied by the Japanese or ruled by puppet governments). The uneasy alliance began to break down by late 1938 as a result of the Communists' efforts to aggressively expand their military strength through absorbing Chinese guerrilla forces behind enemy lines. For Chinese militia who refused to switch their allegiance, the CCP would call them "collaborators" and then attack to eliminate their forces. For example, the Red Army led by He Long attacked and wiped out a brigade of Chinese militia led by Zhang Yin-wu in Hebei in June, 1939.


title: Second United Front

text: In December 1940, Chiang Kai-shek demanded that the CCP's New Fourth Army evacuate Anhui and Jiangsu Provinces. Despite the intense pressure, the New Fourth Army commanders committed insubordination by marching in an unauthorized direction and also missed the deadline to evacuate. Added to this were the attacks by the Communist Party on the Kuomintang Forces in Hebei in August 1939 and in Jiangsu in October 1940, so they were ambushed and defeated by Nationalist troops in January 1941. This clash, which would be known as the New Fourth Army Incident, weakened but didn't end the CCP position in Central China and effectively ended any substantive co-operation between the Nationalists and the Communists and both sides concentrated on jockeying for position in the inevitable Civil War. It also ended the Second United Front formed earlier to fight the Japanese.


title: Second United Front

text: Afterwards, within the Japanese occupied provinces and behind enemy lines the KMT and CCP forces carried on warfare with each other, with the Communists eventually destroying or absorbing the KMT partisan forces or driving them into the puppet forces of the Japanese. The communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong also began to focus most of their energy on building up their sphere of influence wherever opportunities were presented, mainly through rural mass organizations, administrative, land and tax reform measures favoring poor peasants; while the KMT allocated many divisions of its regular army to carry out military blockade of the CCP areas in an attempt to neutralize the spread of Communist influence until the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War.


title: Second United Front

text: After the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong attempted to engage in peace talks. This effort failed and by 1946 the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party were engaged in all-out civil war. The Communists were able to obtain seized Japanese Army weapons in the Northeast – with Soviet acquiesce – and took the opportunity to engage the already weakened KMT. In October 1949, Mao established the People's Republic of China, while Chiang retreated to the island of Taiwan.


title: Poison (Alice Cooper song)

text: "Poison" is a song by American musician Alice Cooper. Written by Cooper, producer Desmond Child and guitarist John McCurry, the song was released as a single in July 1989 from Cooper's eighteenth album, "Trash". It became one of Cooper's biggest hit singles in the United States, peaking at number seven on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The power ballad performed even better in the UK by peaking at number two on the UK Singles Chart. "Poison" remains one of Alice Cooper's best known songs. It is ranked by "Billboard" as the "91st top song of 1989", while Ultimate Classic Rock ranked it as the "7th best Alice Cooper song", commenting "Poison sounds like a typical '80s pop-metal number at times, but Cooper’s intensity brings it to a whole other level." The song's main riff was written by guitarist John McCurry, who two years earlier had used it for the John Waite track "Encircled".


title: Poison (Alice Cooper song)

text: There are two versions of the video to the song, one of which shows Alice Cooper being chained to a bizarre mechanism and singing while a ghostly woman looms over him. The original video had to be censored for showings during the day, due to shots of a topless model. Rana Kennedy plays the roles of both women in the video but the topless scene were shot with a body double. This is notably visible in the video. The studios in which the video was filmed in spring of 1989 have since been torn down and are now a parking lot in Los Angeles. The video is still often played on MTV Classic's "Metal Mayhem".


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Ladislaus the Posthumous was Duke of Austria and King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia. He was the posthumous son of Albert of Habsburg with Elizabeth of Luxembourg. Albert had bequeathed all his realms to his future son on his deathbed, but only the estates of Austria accepted his last will. Fearing an Ottoman invasion, the majority of the Hungarian lords and prelates offered the crown to Vladislaus III of Poland. The Hussite noblemen and towns of Bohemia did not acknowledge the hereditary right of Albert's descendants to the throne, but also did not elect a new king.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: After Ladislaus's birth, his mother seized the Holy Crown of Hungary and had Ladislausknown as Ladislaus V in Hungarycrowned king in Székesfehérvár on 15 May 1440. However, the Diet of Hungary declared Ladislaus's coronation invalid and elected Vladislaus king. A civil war broke out which lasted for years. Elizabeth appointed her late husband's distant cousin, Albert VI to her child's guardian. However, as a representative of the interests of the Austrian and Hungarian estates, he could not defend himself against his rival,


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Frederick III, King of the Romans, who in turn took over his role as guardian of Ladislaus. Albert had to renounce his guardianship and in return received the mighty Hungarian border castle Forchtenstein, including a principality in the Hungarian-Styrian-Carinthian area. Ladislaus lived at Frederick's court (mainly in Wiener Neustadt), where Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II) wrote a treatise on his upbringing.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: After his mother died in late 1442, Ladislaus' interests were represented by a Czech condottiere, John Jiskra of Brandýs, in Hungary, and by the Czech Catholic lord, Ulrich II of Rosenberg, in Bohemia. Ladislaus' rival in Hungary, Vladislaus, fell in the Battle of Varna in November 1444. The next year, the Diet of Hungary offered to acknowledge Ladislaus as king if Frederick III renounced his guardianship. After Frederick III rejected the offer, the Diet of Hungary elected John Hunyadi regent in 1446. In Bohemia, the head of the moderate Hussites (or Utraquists), George of Poděbrady, took control of Prague in 1448. The Estates of Austria forced Frederick III to resign the guardianship and hand over Ladislaus to them in September 1452. Royal administration was formally restored in Hungary after Hunyadi resigned the regency in early 1453, but he continued to control most royal castles and revenues.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Ulrich II, Count of Celje (his mother's cousin) became Ladislaus' main advisor, but an Austrian baron, Ulrich Eytzinger, forced Ladislaus to expel Celje from his court. Although Ladislaus was crowned king of Bohemia on 28 October 1453, Poděbrady remained in full control of the government. During the following years, Eytzinger, Hunyadi and Poděbrady closely cooperated to mutually secure their positions. Ladislaus was reconciled with Ulrich II in early 1455. With the support of the leading Hungarian barons, Ladislaus persuaded Hunyadi to withdraw his troops from most royal castles and renounce the administration of part of the royal revenues.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: After the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II decided to invade Hungary, Ladislaus and Ulrich II left the kingdom. The sultan laid siege to Belgrade. Hunyadi relieved the fortress on 22 July 1456, but he died two weeks later. Ladislaus and Ulrich II returned to Hungary and tried to force Hunyadi's son, also named Ladislaus, to renounce all royal castles and revenues, but Ladislaus Hunyadi murdered Ulrich II on 9 November, forcing Ladislaus to grant an amnesty to him. However, most Hungarian barons were hostile towards Ladislaus Hunyadi. With their support, Ladislaus captured him and his brother, Matthias. After Ladislaus Hunyadi was executed in March 1457, his relatives stirred up a rebellion against Ladislaus, forcing him to flee from Hungary. Ladislaus died unexpectedly in Prague. He was the last male member of the Albertinian Line of the House of Habsburg.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Ladislaus was the posthumous son of Albert of Habsburg and Elizabeth of Luxembourg. Albert was the hereditary duke of Austria, while Elizabeth was the only child of Emperor Sigismund, who was also king of Bohemia and Hungary. Sigismund had mortgaged the Duchy of Luxembourg to his niece, Elizabeth of Goerlitz. He wanted to secure his realms for both his daughter and her husband, but the Estates of Bohemia and Hungary did not acknowledge the couple's hereditary right to rule. After Sigismund died in December 1437, Albert was elected the sole king of Hungary. In Bohemia, Albert was unanimously elected king only after he defeated Casimirthe younger brother of Vladislaus III of Polandwho was supported by a group of Hussite lords and burghers.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Albert was planning to launch a military expedition against the Ottoman Turks, who had been making plundering raids in the southern regions of Hungary, but fell seriously ill during the preparations. The dying king, who knew that his wife was pregnant, willed Austria, Bohemia and Hungary to his posthumous child if his wife gave birth to a son. He also put the potential heir under the guardianship of his widow and his cousin, Frederick of Habsburg. Albert died on 27 October 1439.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Fearing a new Ottoman invasion of Hungary, the majority of the Hungarian lords and prelates refused to accept the deceased king's last will. They offered the crown to Vladislaus III of Poland and wanted to persuade the pregnant queen dowager to marry the new king. In Bohemia, the assembly of the Estates passed decrees in January 1440 to avoid having a new civil war break out between the Hussites and the Catholics before a new king was elected. The Estates of Moravia passed a similar decree.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Although the 31-year-old Elizabeth seemingly agreed to marry Vladislaus, who was only 16, she made preparations for the coronation of her son after her physicians predicted that she would have a son. She ordered her chambermaid, Helene Kottanner, to steal the Holy Crown of Hungary from the castle of Visegrád. Before long, Helene Kottanner and her accomplice seized the crown. They handed it to the queen on the very day she went into labour, which was considered a miracle by both the queen and her courtiers. Elizabeth gave birth to Ladislaus in Komárom (now Komárno in Slovakia) on 21 February 1440, almost four months after his father's death. He was named for King St Ladislaus. Dénes Szécsi, Archbishop of Esztergom, baptised him.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: The Estates of the Duchy of Austria acknowledged Ladislaus' right to rule and made Frederick of Habsburg, who had been elected King of the Romans, regent in accordance with the last will of Ladislaus' father. In Bohemia, only the Catholic lords, who were under the leadership of Ulrich II of Rosenberg, were willing to accept Ladislaus' hereditary right to rule. Soon after the birth of her son, Queen Elizabeth sent envoys to Poland to persuade the delegates of the Hungarian Estates to break off their negotiations with Vladislaus III of Poland. However, the Hungarian lords refused and elected Vladislaus king on 8 March 1440. Before his election, Vladislaus had pledged that he would marry Queen Elizabeth and protect her infant son's interests in Austria and Bohemia.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: The queen refused to give her consent to the project and decided to have her son crowned king before Vladislaus came to Hungary. She hastily took Ladislaus from Komárom to Székesfehérvár, which was the traditional place of the royal coronations in Hungary. After a young lord, Nicholas Újlaki, symbolically knighted the infant Ladislaus, Archbishop Dénes Szécsi anointed and crowned him king on 15 May. During the lengthy ceremonies, his mother's cousin, Ulrich II, Count of Celje, held the crown over the head of Ladislaus who burst into tears while the coronation oath was being read out on his behalf. Six days later Vladislaus III entered Buda. Queen Elizabeth fled first to Győr, and from there to Sopron, taking the infant king with her.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: The most powerful lordsincluding Ladislaus Garai, Đurađ Branković, Frederick II and Ulrich II of Celje and most towns remained faithful to the child-king, but most noblemen preferred Vladislaus' rule in the hope that he would be able to lead the defence of the kingdom against the Ottomans. A civil war broke out between the partisans of the two kings which would last for years. The Diet declared Ladislaus' coronation invalid on 29 June 1440, stating that "the crowning of kings is always dependent on the will of the kingdom's inhabitants, in whose consent both the effectiveness and the force of the crown reside". On 17 July, Archbishop Dénes Szécsi crowned Vladislaus king with a crown taken from the tomb of King Saint Stephen, the first king of Hungary.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: In need of financial resources to continue the war against Vladislaus, Queen Elizabeth signed a treaty with Frederick III, King of the Romans, in Wiener Neustadt on 22 November. She not only mortgaged Sopron to Frederick III, but also appointed him as her son's guardian and gave the Holy Crown of Hungary to him. Thereafter Ladislaus lived in Frederick III's court, mainly in Wiener Neustatdt.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Queen Elizabeth hired a Czech condottiere, John Jiskra of Brandýs, who took control of Kassa (now Košice in Slovakia) and a dozen other towns in Upper Hungary during the next months. However, Vladislaus' two military commanders, Nicholas Újlaki and John Hunyadi, defeated the united army of the child Ladislaus's supporters from the central and southern parts of Hungary in the Battle of Bátaszék in early 1441. During the next months, Vladislaus and his commanders took control of the western and eastern territories of Hungary, but Jiskra and Queen Elizabeth's other supporters continued to control Upper Hungary, along with Esztergom, Győr, Pressburg (now Bratislava in Slovakia) and other important towns. Negotiations began and Queen Elizabeth and Vladislaus signed a peace treaty in Győr on 13 December 1442. The queen recognized Vladislaus as king, but preserved her son's claim to the throne. Three or four days later the queen suddenly died and Ladislaus became an orphan before his third birthday.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: After the death of Ladislaus' mother, his claim to rule in Hungary and Bohemia was primarily protected by Jan Jiskra and Ulrich of Rosenberg, respectively. Most parts of Hungary remained under the rule of Ladislaus's rival, Vladislaus. In Bohemia, the moderate Hussite lord, Hynce Ptáček of Pirkstein, administered the eastern territories, and the towns dominated by the radical Taborites were united in a league. The Hussite Ctibor Tovačovský of Cimburk, who had assumed the title governor after Albert's death, continued to administer Moravia, closely cooperating with the towns and the Catholic Bishop of Olomouc. Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, whom Elizabeth of Goerlitz made her heir, invaded Luxemburg on her behalf in 1443. Frederick III authorized the Estates of Luxemburg to pay homage to Philip the Good, but he also stipulated that Ladislaus could buy back the duchy after Elizabeth of Goerlitz's death. During Ladislaus's lifetime, the Luxembourgeoise Estates did not recognize Philip the Good as their legitimate sovereign.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Ladislaus' rival, Vladislaus, died fighting against the Ottomans in the Battle of Varna on 10 November 1444. At the Diet of next year, the Hungarian Estates agreed that they would acknowledge the child Ladislaus as king if Vladislaus, whose fate was still uncertain, did not come back to Hungary before 1 June 1445. However, they stipulated that they would elect a new king if the child king's guardian, Frederick III, did not release both the king and the Holy Crown of Hungary. The Estates also elected seven "Captains in Chief"John Hunyadi, Nicholas Újlaki, George Rozgonyi, Emeric Bebek, Michael Ország, Pancrace Szentmiklósi, and Jan Jiskrato administer the kingdom. Frederick III stormed into Hungary, and captured a dozen fortresses along the western frontiers of Hungary, including Kőszeg, by the end of July. The Counts of Celje, who were related to Ladislaus through his mother, invaded Slavonia and took control of the province before the end of the year. As Frederick III refused to release Ladislaus, the Diet of Hungary elected John Hunyadi regent for the period of Ladislaus' minority on 6 June 1446. John Hunyadi, who adopted the title governor, ruled most part of Hungary, but could not expand his authority over the regions under the rule of Frederick III, Jan Jiskra and the Counts of Celje. The envoys of the Hungarian Estates and Frederick III signed a truce on 1 June 1446, which confirmed Frederick III's guardianship over Ladislaus.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: In Bohemia, George of Poděbrady took up the leadership of the moderate Hussite lords after the death of Hynce Ptáček. He captured Prague on 3 September 1448 and imprisoned Meinhard of Neuhaus who had started negotiations of the moderate Hussites' union with the Catholic Church. Early the next year, Ulrich of Rosenberg and other Catholic lords entered into a formal league against Poděbrady.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Ladislaus had a good education in Frederick III's court. A Latin grammar was completed especially for him. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (the future Pope Pius II) summarized his advice on education in a letter that he addressed to the ten-year-old Ladislaus in 1450. Piccolomini suggested that Ladislaus should read both classical authors (including Archimedes, Cicero, Livy and Vergil) and the Bible. He also emphasized the importance of physical training, stating that "both mind and must be developed side by side".


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: John Hunyadi signed a peace treaty with Frederick III on 22 October 1450. They agreed that Ladislaus would remain under Frederick III's guardianship until his eighteenth birthday, and during Ladislaus' minority Hunyadi would administer Hungary. Their agreement stirred up discontent among the Austrian Estates, because the age of majority was twelve or sixteen, according to local customs. The Austrian lords tried to prevent Ladislaus from accompanying his guardian to Italy in late 1451. However, Frederick took Ladislaus with him to Rome where Frederick was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. After their return from Italy, Emperor Frederick again refused to renounce the guardianship of Ladislaus, provoking the Austrian Estates to rise up in open rebellion in early 1452. The representatives of the Austrian and Hungarian Estates, and the Bohemian Catholic lords, signed a treaty in Vienna on 5 March against Emperor Frederick, but he refused to hand over Ladislaus to them. On the other hand, the emperor assisted George of Poděbrady in gaining the newly established office of governor in Bohemia in April. The rebellious Austrian lords laid siege to Wiener Neustadt, forcing Emperor Frederick III to hand over Ladislaus to Ulrich of Celje on 4 September.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Count Ulrich von Cilli accompanied Ladislaus to Vienna but only after "washing the Styrian filth off him" to symbolize the liberation of Ladislaus from the "Styrian" Frederick III's influence. Ladislaus Garai and Nicholas Újlaki visited Ladislaus in Vienna in October, and John Hunyadi also joined them before the end of the year. Hunyadi resigned from the governorship early the next year. Ladislaus made Hunyadi "captain general of the kingdom", authorizing him to retain all royal castles that were in his possession at the time of his resignation, and to continue administering royal revenues. Hunyadi was only to pay 24,000 gold florins to the sovereign in each year. During a debate between the representatives of the Austrian and Hungarian Estates about his future seat, Ladislaus declared that he was Hungarian and wanted to live in Hungary, according to Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: On 29 January 1453 in Pressburg, the Diet of Hungary acknowledged Ladislaus' position as the lawful king without a formal election or a new coronation. He declared an amnesty for those who had supported Vladislaus against him. Although all grants that Queen Elizabeth and King Vladislaus had made were annulled, Ladislaus issued new charters of grant for the grantees to confirm their proprietary rights. The greater chancellery and the secret chancellery (two important offices of central administration, which had not functioned for a decade) were restored under the direction of Archbishop Dénes Szécsi and John Vitéz, Bishop of Várad (now Oradea in Romania). The central courts of justice (the Court of Royal Special Presence and the Court of Personal Presence) also started functioning again.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Ladislaus returned to Vienna shortly after the Diet was closed. During the next months, Ulrich of Celje was Ladislaus' most influential advisor. Celje signed a treaty with George of Poděbrady on 16 April and persuaded Ladislaus to confirm Poděbrady's position as governor in Bohemia. Ulrich of Celje also signed a treaty with Archbishop Dénes Szécsi, Ladislaus Garai, Nicholas Újlaki, and other Hungarian lords on 13 September, who promised to support him against his opponents. Their league was implicitly formed against John Hunyadi and Ulrich Eytzinger, the head of the Estates in Austria, who had for long been hostile towards Ulrich of Celje. Fifteen days later, Ulrich Eytzinger persuaded Ladislaus to expel Ulrich of Celje from his court at an assembly of the Estates of Austria.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Ladislaus was crowned king of Bohemia in Prague on 28 October 1453, which put an end to the long interregnum. Ulrich Eytzinger, John Hunyadi, and George Poděbrady, who all were present at Ladislaus' coronation, signed a treaty. Ladislaus stayed in Prague during the next twelve months. George Poděbrady hindered him from consulting with his Austrian and Hungarian advisors, and even the royal seal was taken from Ladislaus. At the next Diet of Hungary, Bishop John Vitéz submitted a proposal on the king's behalf to the Estates, demanding the centralization of the administration of royal revenues, but the Diet refused the proposal, which would have limited John Hunyadi's authority. According to the document prepared by the bishop on this occasion, Ladislaus' cash revenues amounted to 216,000 florins. Historian János M. Bak writes that that amount would have only covered about 85% of the expenses of a military expedition against the Ottoman Turks, who had captured Constantinople and planned to invade Hungary.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Ladislaus left Prague in late November 1454. He visited Silesia and Moravia where the local Estates paid homage to him. After Ladislaus arrived in Moravia, Ctibor Tovačovský himself appointed Czech Catholic noblemen as royal officials, ensuring their loyalty towards him. Ladislaus returned to Vienna on 16 February 1455. Taking advantage of Ulrich Eytzinger's growing unpopularity among the Austrian noblemen, Ulrich of Celje persuaded Ladislaus to restore him in his court. On 20 February, Ulrich triumphally returned to Vienna and vigorously reasserted his role as the young king's main advisor for Austrian affairs. Ladislaus visited Buda and persuaded Hunyadi to resign a part of the royal revenues and withdraw his garrisons from Buda, Diósgyőr and other royal castles. Ulrich of Celje also renewed his alliance with Ladislaus Garai and Nicholas Újlaki on 7 April.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: The newly elected Pope Callixtus III declared a crusade against the Ottoman Turks, who had occupied the greater part of Serbia. News of Sultan Mehmed II's preparations for invasion reached Hungary in autumn 1455. Ladislaus came to Hungary in February 1456. He held a Diet in March that proclaimed general mobilization and consented to an extraordinary tax to cover the expenditures of the defense of the country. In April, Ladislaus borrowed 8,000 florins from Hunyadi, because the king had to pay off half of his former debt to Ulrich of Celje. Before the sultan's army reached the southern border of Hungary, Ladislaus left Hungary and returned to Vienna.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Sultan Mehmed II laid siege to Belgrade in early July 1456. With the assistance of thousands of commoners whom John of Capistrano, a Franciscan friar, had stirred up to join the crusade against the Ottomans, John Hunyadi prevented the besiegers from completing the blockade and relieved Belgrade on 22 July. Two weeks later, Hunyadi died of an epidemic that broke out in Belgrade.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Ladislaus returned to Hungary in September. Ulrich of Celje accompanied him at the head of an army of German crusaders who had assembled near Vienna. Ladislaus made Ulrich of Celje "captain general". They also decided to reclaim all royal castles and revenues that Hunyadi had held from his son, Ladislaus Hunyadi. The young Hunyadi seemingly yielded to the king at their meeting in Futak (now Futog in Serbia) and invited Ladislaus and Ulrich of Celje to Belgrade, but after the king and the Count of Celje entered the fortress, Hunyadi's soldiers attacked and murdered the count on 9 November. The royal army soon disbanded, and the king found himself captive. He accompanied Hunyadi to Temesvár (now Timișoara in Romania), which was an important center of the Hunyadi domains. Hunyadi only allowed the king to leave Temesvár after Ladislaus made him captain general and pledged that he would not take revenge for Ulrich of Celje's murder.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: From Temesvár, Ladislaus went to Buda. He soon realized that the majority of the Hungarian barons were hostile towards Ladislaus Hunyadi. Upon the advice of Ladislaus Garai, the king convinced Ladislaus Hunyadi, who had also arrived in the capital, to persuade his younger brother, the fourteen-year-old Matthias, to join him in Buda. As soon as Matthias arrived on 14 March 1457, Ladislaus had the two Hunyadis imprisoned. Sitting in the royal council, the barons of the realm condemned the Hunyadi brothers to death for high treason, and Ladislaus Hunyadi was beheaded on 16 March. The Hunyadi brothers' mother, Elizabeth Szilágyi, and her brother, Michael Szilágyi, rebelled against the king, which caused a civil war between the lords loyal to the king and the supporters of the Hunyadi family. Ladislaus appointed John Jiskra to be the commander of the royal army and left Hungary for Vienna, dragging the captive Matthias Hunyadi with him in early June.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: From Vienna, Ladislaus went to Prague where he unexpectedly died on 23 November 1457. Although his contemporaries suspected that the young king was poisoned, the examination of his skeleton suggests that he fell victim either to bubonic plague or to leukemia. He was buried in the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.


title: Ladislaus the Posthumous

text: Ladislaus never married. After his arrival in Prague in autumn 1457, he asked for the hand of Magdalena, daughter of Charles VII of France. Charles VII accepted that proposal but Ladislaus had died by the time the marriage contract was signed by his envoys in Paris. With Ladislaus's death, the "Albertinian Line" of the House of Habsburg became extinct. Emperor Frederick III and his brother, Albert VI, jointly succeeded him in Austria. In Hungary, Matthias Hunyadi was elected king two months after Ladislaus' death. George of Poděbrady was elected king of Bohemia on 3 March 1458.


title: Annus mirabilis

text: Annus mirabilis (pl. anni mirabiles) is a Latin phrase that means "marvelous year", "wonderful year", "miraculous year", or "amazing year". This term has been used to refer to several years during which events of major importance are remembered, notably Isaac Newton's discoveries in 1666.


title: Annus mirabilis

text: Eight years after the start of the Hundred Years' War large-scale fighting had died down. Edward III of England decided to renew the war more vigorously in 1345. He despatched a small force to Gascony in south-west France under Henry, Earl of Derby and personally led the main English army to northern France. Edward delayed the disembarkation of his army and his fleet was scattered by a storm, rendering this offensive ineffective. Derby was spectacularly successful, winning victories at Bergerac and Auberoche. The following spring a large French army, led by the heir to the French throne, John, Duke of Normandy, counter-attacked Derby's forces.


title: Annus mirabilis

text: Edward responded by landing an army of 10,000 men in northern Normandy. The English devastated much of Normandy and stormed and sacked Caen, slaughtering the population. They cut a swath along the left bank of the Seine to within of Paris. The English army then turned north and inflicted a heavy defeat on a French army led by their king, Philip VI, at the Battle of Crécy on 26 August 1346. They promptly exploited this by laying siege to Calais. The period from Derby's victory outside Bergerac in late August 1345 to the start of the siege of Calais on 4 September 1346 became known as Edward III's .


title: Annus mirabilis

text: The Catholic Monarchs (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) built in 1492 the most powerful monarchy in the Western World by the conquest of Granada, the final step of the Reconquista, on January 2, and, though this wonder began to manifest only upon the return of Columbus the next year, the discovery of the Americas on October 12. 1492 is also the year of construction of the first grammar of a modern language: "Gramática de la lengua castellana"; the author, Antonio de Nebrija (a prominent counselor of the Monarchs) said in it, comparing Spanish with Latin: "siempre la lengua fue compañera del imperio" ("language was always the companion of empire").


title: Annus mirabilis

text: A series of Spanish military victories on a global strategic scale obtained in 1625 during the Thirty Years' War, in important military theaters in Europe and America. These military victories were as follows: Siege of Breda, Relief of Genoa, Recapture of Bahia, Battle of San Juan and Defense of Cádiz. Those military actions were immortalized in a series of paintings in the Hall of Realms of the Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid. Thus, the “reputational” policy promoted by the Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, favourite of Philip IV of Spain, was apparently confirmed by the initial success, and it was in reference to this "annus mirabilis" for Spanish arms that Olivares delivered probably his most famous pronouncement: "God is Spanish and fights for Spain."


title: Annus mirabilis

text: The military successes of James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose in Scotland in the War of the Three Kingdoms during 1644–1645 are sometimes called "annus mirabilis".


title: Annus mirabilis

text: In 1666, Isaac Newton, aged 23, made revolutionary inventions and discoveries in calculus, motion, optics and gravitation. It was in this year that Newton was alleged to have observed an apple falling from a tree, and in which he in any case hit upon the law of universal gravitation (Newton's apple). He was afforded the time to work on his theories due to the closure of Cambridge University by an outbreak of plague.


title: Annus mirabilis

text: In 1706, the Grand Alliance arrayed against Louis XIV of France won resounding victories (the Battle of Ramillies and Siege of Turin) which, after the previous year's failures, has been termed by James Falkner a "Year of Miracles."


title: Annus mirabilis

text: A series of victories by the British military in 1759 in North America, Europe, India, and in various naval engagements, is occasionally referred to as William Pitt's annus mirabilis, and was the decisive year of the Seven Years' War.


title: Annus mirabilis

text: It was in this year that Albert Einstein, aged 26, published important discoveries concerning the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, the special theory of relativity, and the famous E = mc equation. His four articles, collectively known as his "Annus Mirabilis" papers, were published in "Annalen der Physik" in 1905.


title: Moldovan Ground Forces

text: The Moldovan Ground Forces, known officially as Land Forces Command is the land armed-forces branch of the National Army of the Moldovan Armed Forces. The Moldovan Ground Forces date back to the dissolution of the Soviet Union between 1991 and 1992. the Moldovan Ground Forces consists of around 4,000 personnel.


title: Moldovan Ground Forces

text: At the beginning of 1994, the Moldovan army (under the Ministry of Defense) consisted of 9,800 men organized into three motorized infantry brigades, one artillery brigade, and one reconnaissance/assault battalion. Its equipment consisted of fifty-six ballistic missile defenses; seventy-seven armored personnel carriers and sixty-seven "look-alikes;" eighteen 122 mm and fifty-three 152 mm towed artillery units; nine 120 mm combined guns/mortars; seventy AT-4 Spigot, nineteen AT-5 Spandrel, and twenty-seven AT-6 Spiral anti-tank guided weapons; a 73 mm SPG-9 recoilless launcher, forty-five MT-12 100 mm anti-tank guns; and thirty ZU-23 23 mm and twelve S-60 57 mm air defense guns. Moldova has received some arms from former Soviet stocks maintained on the territory of the republic as well as undetermined quantities of arms from Romania, particularly at the height of the fighting with Transnistria.


title: Moldovan Ground Forces

text: By 2006–2007, the Army had been reduced to a strength of 5,710, including three motor rifle brigades, one artillery brigade, and independent SF and engineer battalions, plus an independent guard unit. Equipment included 44 BMD-1 AIFV, and 266 APCs, including 91 TAB-71s, as well as 227 artillery pieces. The modern Land Forces Command was established on 25 December 2008. In 2010, the Army had been further reduced to 5,148 (3,176 professional soldiers and 1,981 conscripts) plus 2,379 paramilitary forces. The reserve force consists of 66,000 troops. Equipment included 44 BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, 164 APCs (100 wheeled, including 89 Romanian TAB-71s, and 64 tracked, BTRs and MT-LBs), 148 artillery pieces (69 towed, 9 2S9 self-propelled guns, and 11 "Urugan" multiple rocket launchers); 117 Anti-tank missiles (Soviet-built AT-4s, AT-5s, and AT-6s), 138+ recoilless guns, 36 towed antitank guns and 37 towed anti-aircraft guns (23mm and 57mm).


title: Cuomo family

text: The Cuomo family ( , ) is an American political family. It includes Mario Cuomo and Matilda Cuomo (née Raffa) and their five children: Margaret, Andrew, Maria, Madeline, and Christopher. Mario Cuomo and his son Andrew Cuomo both have served as governor of New York.


title: Cuomo family

text: Mario Cuomo's parents, Andrea and Immacolata Cuomo, both immigrated to the United States from Tramonti, Italy; Andrea in 1926 and Immacolata in 1927. Matilda Raffa Cuomo's parents both immigrated to the United States from Sicily; Carmelo "Charles" Raffa arrived in New York in 1927, and Mary (née Gitto) Raffa in 1928.


title: Nagin (1976 film)

text: Nagin ( "Female Serpent") is a 1976 Hindi-language horror film, produced and directed by Rajkumar Kohli, under the Shankar Movies banner. It stars Reena Roy in the titular role alongside an ensemble cast, including Sunil Dutt, Feroz Khan, Sanjay Khan, Rekha, Mumtaz, Vinod Mehra, Yogeeta Bali, Kabir Bedi, Anil Dhawan, and Jeetendra; its music was composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal. Despite being a fantasy type film, it was a blockbuster at the box office and the highest-grossing film of 1976. Following the success of the film, Reena Roy attained star status.


title: Nagin (1976 film)

text: It was inspired by François Truffaut's 1968 French film "The Bride Wore Black", which was based on Cornell Woolrich's 1940 novel of the same name. The film was later remade in Tamil as "Neeya?" (1979), with Sripriya playing Nagin.


title: Nagin (1976 film)

text: Prof. Vijay researches snakes. According to a myth, he believes that after a certain age, they take human form. He plans a trip to a forest, along with his friends Raj, Rajesh, Uday, Kiran, and Suraj. Ultimately, Vijay uncovers the mystery, finding the besotted shapeshifting serpents Nag (male) and Nagin (female). However, his friends heckle him, so Vijay aims to prove himself. On the day of the full moon, when the snakes consummate, the group ventures into the forest. Unfortunately, at that point, Kiran shoots Nag. This worries Vijay, because in such cases, the female immediately pledges vengeance. Infuriated, Nagin identifies the killers, whose images have been captured in the dying Nag's eyes, and begins her murder spree. First, she eliminates Kiran, which makes the remaining group members panic and retreat. Next, Nagin targets Rajesh, killing him by transfiguring into his girlfriend Rita. After that dreadful situation, Vijay contacts a powerful snake charmer, who provides hindrance with omnipotent lockets. However, the enraged Nagin taunts the charmer that he cannot save them. Thus, she detaches Raj's locket by creating a brawl with a goon and slays him. Suraj withdraws his locket to protect his darling daughter, Anu, and he breathes his last, leaving Anu's responsibility to Vijay. In tandem, Raj is also slaughtered by Nagin, who has taken the form of the beautiful Rajkumari. At last, Vijay, the sole survivor, is attacked by Nagin when she dies, falling from the terrace. The movie ends with Nagin reuniting with Nag in Heaven.


title: Nagin (1976 film)

text: "Tere Sang Pyar Main Nahin Todna" was reused in "Nagin"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Tamil remake, "Neeya", and was featured in the soundtrack of the 2004 film "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: Before the Flood is a 2016 documentary film about climate change directed by Fisher Stevens. The film was produced as a collaboration between Stevens, Leonardo DiCaprio, James Packer, Brett Ratner, Trevor Davidoski, and Jennifer Davisson Killoran. Martin Scorsese is an executive producer.


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: The film covers effects of climate change in various regions of the world, and discusses climate change denial. Numerous public figures are interviewed in the documentary. To offset the carbon emissions of the production, the filmmakers paid a voluntary carbon tax. The soundtrack features compositions by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Mogwai and Gustavo Santaolalla.


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2016, and was released theatrically on October 21, before airing on the National Geographic Channel on October 30. As part of National Geographic's commitment to covering climate change, the documentary was made widely available and free of charge on various platforms. It received generally positive critical reviews.


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: The film shows DiCaprio visiting various regions of the globe exploring the impact of global warming. As a narrator, DiCaprio comments these encounters as well as archive footages. DiCaprio repeatedly references a 15th-century triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, "The Garden of Earthly Delights", which, he explains, hung above his crib as an infant, and which he uses as an analogy of the present course of the world toward potential ruin as depicted on its final panel. The film also documents, in part, the production of DiCaprio's 2015 film "The Revenant".


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: DiCaprio's comments and inquiries focus extensively on climate change denial, mostly among corporate lobbyists and politicians of the United States.


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: They interview with British-born astronaut Piers Sellers, a NASA scientist who flew on three space missions, discusses his desire to publicize the perils of global warming in the short time he expected he had remaining to live, as he had stage IV pancreatic cancer as he was being filmed. He died on December 23, 2016.


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: Along with DiCaprio, the documentary's subjects include Piers Sellers, Barack Obama, Pope Francis, Sunita Narain, Anote Tong, John Kerry, Elon Musk, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Johan Rockström, Greg Mankiw, Gidon Eshel, Farwiza Farhan, Ian Singleton, Lindsey Allen, Jeremy Jackson, Thomas Remengesau Jr., Alvin Lin, Ma Jun, Michael E. Mann, Philip Levine, Jason E. Box, Dr. Enric Sala, Michael Brune, and Ban Ki-Moon.


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: Subjects for the DVD's extra or deleted scenes include: Mark Z. Jacobson, Steven Chu, Andrew Baker, Ben Kirtman, and Sala. Topics include education, politics, coral, hurricanes, and urgency.


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: The film was made available freely on the internet between October 30 and November 6, 2016, the run up to US Election Day, having aired on the National Geographic Channel in 171countries and on some countries' national television channels. The film is subtitled in 45languages, making it accessible for non-English audiences. The film had been watched more than 2million times on the day following its release. As of November 2022, it is available for streaming on Disney+.


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: The film takes a closer look into the possibility of a carbon tax benefiting the American nation. In addition, they state that, "the carbon emissions from "Before the Flood" were offset through a voluntary carbon tax."


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: The film received mostly positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 75% approval rating, based on 32 reviews with an average score of 7.00/10. On Metacritic, it has a score of 63 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "Generally favorable reviews."


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: "Before the Flood" was described as "surprisingly moving" in "W" and as "a heartfelt, decent, educational documentary about the most important issue of our time" by "The Guardian".


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: "Variety" praised the fact that "given the sincerity of its message, its ability to assemble such a watchable and comprehensive account gives it an undeniable urgency," stating that "where the film succeeds the most is by focusing on the ground-level victims of climate change, whether the polar bears of the Arctic, or the inhabitants of island nations like Kiribati."


title: Before the Flood (film)

text: The film's soundtrack was written and performed by Mogwai, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Gustavo Santaolalla.


title: Program counter

text: The program counter (PC), commonly called the instruction pointer (IP) in Intel x86 and Itanium microprocessors, and sometimes called the instruction address register (IAR), the instruction counter, or just part of the instruction sequencer, is a processor register that indicates where a computer is in its program sequence.


title: Program counter

text: Usually, the PC is incremented after fetching an instruction, and holds the memory address of ("points to") the next instruction that would be executed.


title: Program counter

text: Processors usually fetch instructions sequentially from memory, but "control transfer" instructions change the sequence by placing a new value in the PC. These include branches (sometimes called jumps), subroutine calls, and returns. A transfer that is conditional on the truth of some assertion lets the computer follow a different sequence under different conditions.


title: Program counter

text: A branch provides that the next instruction is fetched from elsewhere in memory. A subroutine call not only branches but saves the preceding contents of the PC somewhere. A return retrieves the saved contents of the PC and places it back in the PC, resuming sequential execution with the instruction following the subroutine call.


title: Program counter

text: In a simple central processing unit (CPU), the PC is a digital counter (which is the origin of the term "program counter") that may be one of several hardware registers. The instruction cycle begins with a "fetch", in which the CPU places the value of the PC on the address bus to send it to the memory. The memory responds by sending the contents of that memory location on the data bus. (This is the stored-program computer model, in which a single memory space contains both executable instructions and ordinary data.) Following the fetch, the CPU proceeds to "execution", taking some action based on the memory contents that it obtained. At some point in this cycle, the PC will be modified so that the next instruction executed is a different one (typically, incremented so that the next instruction is the one starting at the memory address immediately following the last memory location of the current instruction).


title: Program counter

text: Like other processor registers, the PC may be a bank of binary latches, each one representing one bit of the value of the PC. The number of bits (the width of the PC) relates to the processor architecture. For instance, a “32-bit” CPU may use 32 bits to be able to address 2 units of memory. On some processors, the width of program counter instead depends on the addressable memory; for example, some AVR controllers have a PC which wraps around after 12 bits.


title: Program counter

text: If the PC is a binary counter, it may increment when a pulse is applied to its COUNT UP input, or the CPU may compute some other value and load it into the PC by a pulse to its LOAD input.


title: Program counter

text: To identify the current instruction, the PC may be combined with other registers that identify a segment or page. This approach permits a PC with fewer bits by assuming that most memory units of interest are within the current vicinity.


title: Program counter

text: Use of a PC that normally increments assumes that what a computer does is execute a usually linear sequence of instructions. Such a PC is central to the von Neumann architecture. Thus programmers write a sequential control flow even for algorithms that do not have to be sequential. The resulting “von Neumann bottleneck” led to research into parallel computing, including non-von Neumann or dataflow models that did not use a PC; for example, rather than specifying sequential steps, the high-level programmer might specify desired function and the low-level programmer might specify this using combinatory logic.


title: Program counter

text: Modern high-level programming languages still follow the sequential-execution model and, indeed, a common way of identifying programming errors is with a “procedure execution” in which the programmer's finger identifies the point of execution as a PC would. The high-level language is essentially the machine language of a virtual machine, too complex to be built as hardware but instead emulated or interpreted by software.


title: Program counter

text: Vendors use different characters to symbolize the program counter in assembly language programs. While the usage of a "$" character is prevalent in Intel, Zilog, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, NEC, Siemens and AMD processor documentation, Motorola, Rockwell Semiconductor, Microchip Technology and Hitachi instead use a "*" character, whereas SGS-Thomson Microelectronics uses "PC".


title: Black Talon

text: Black Talon is a brand of hollow-point pistol and rifle ammunition introduced in 1991 by Winchester, primarily intended for law enforcement and personal defense use. Black Talon rounds were known for the unique construction of the bullet and its sharp petal shape after expansion following impact with tissue or other wet media. Black Talon ammunition was produced in the following calibers: 9mm Luger, 10mm Auto, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, .300 Winchester Magnum, .308 Winchester, .338 Winchester Magnum, and .30-06 Springfield.


title: Black Talon

text: Black Talon was controversial, and Winchester discontinued sales to the general public in 1993 and ceased manufacture in 2000.


title: Black Talon

text: The Black Talon handgun bullet (from the resemblance of the opened segments to the talons or claws of a bird of prey) is a jacketed hollow-point bullet with perforations designed to expose sharp edges upon expansion. The bullet included a Lubalox coating, a proprietary oxide process. Though widely misreported to be Teflon, molybdenum disulfide, or wax, the ammo has an unusual black appearance compared to other copper-jacketed or lead bullets. The black appearance was due to the oxidized copper jacket. This Lubalox coating was to protect the barrel rifling, and did not give the bullet armor-piercing capabilities. This coating is still widely used on many of Winchester's rifle bullets today.


title: Black Talon

text: The bullet was designed in 1991 under the supervision of Alan Corzine, who at that time was VP of research and development for Winchester. The round quickly developed a reputation as a very effective expanding bullet. The alleged armor-piercing (AP) notion is urban legend, and was a result of media hyperbole (perhaps confusing "Talon" with the "Teflon" that coated KTW AP bullets)—rather than test or field data from actual shootings considering the short time it was on the market. Col Leonard J. Supenski of the Baltimore County police department said "It has the stopping power that police officers need and it is less likely to ricochet or go through the bad guy," something that could be said of any reliably expanding hollow-point. Despite its unique design, the Black Talon was found to be comparable in performance to conventional hollow-points.


title: Black Talon

text: The first shooting which brought critical media attention to Black Talon was by Gian Luigi Ferri, who used Black Talon and other ammunition to shoot 15 people at a San Francisco law office in 1993; nine of whom died (the 101 California Street shootings). Physician Boyd Stevens, the San Francisco Medical Examiner who performed the autopsies, later reported at the 1994 International Wound Ballistics Association's conference in Sacramento that the wound trauma caused by Black Talons was unremarkable and that all victims died due to penetration of a vital structure.


title: Black Talon

text: The rifle version did not share the handgun bullet's barbed petal design and was basically a solid copper hollow-point with a hollowed out rear shank containing a lead core in a steel liner to prevent jacket rupture thus maintaining necessary penetration in tough game. This ammunition line was renamed Fail Safe.


title: Black Talon

text: Critics alleged the ammunition caused unnecessary physical damage. Some medical personnel were concerned that the sharp barb-like tips could potentially cause tears in the surgical gloves and hands of the medical workers, exposing them to greater risk of infection, however there are no documented reports of this actually happening.


title: Black Talon

text: Colin Ferguson used Black Talon ammunition for his Ruger P89 9×19mm pistol during a 1993 shooting incident. In 1996 a lawsuit was subsequently filed by one of the victim's family members (McCarthy v. Sturm, Ruger and Co., Inc., 916 F.Supp. 366 (S.D.N.Y., 1996)) claiming that Olin Corp. should be liable for the shooting spree based on the design, manufacture, marketing, and sale of Black Talon ammunition. The claims against Olin were dismissed because it was held that the plaintiff could not prevail because there were no defects in manufacturing, design, or in warnings – the bullets "functioned exactly as designed".


title: Black Talon

text: In 1993 Winchester removed the ammunition from public sale, but at no time was Black Talon ammunition uniformly prohibited by US law.


title: Black Talon

text: Winchester discontinued the Black Talon line completely in 2000. The “Ranger SXT” ammunition sold later by Winchester is very similar to the Black Talon though without the black Lubalox coating on the bullet. On internet forums, gun enthusiasts frequently joke that that SXT stands for "Same eXact Thing", though the official branding is “Supreme eXpansion Technology”. However, there are differences in the anatomy of the bullets which become apparent when carefully examined side by side. The hollow point cavity dimensions and angles of the meplat were altered to enhance reliability of expansion, though the basic "reverse taper" design pioneered by the Black Talon was retained. This "reverse taper" refers to the bullet's jacket being thicker at the tip than toward the base, enhancing rigidity which allows the sharp petals to remain largely perpendicular to the wound path, unlike traditional designs where the expanding jacket petals would peel back almost completely behind the expanded lead mushroom. This difference is obvious after firing into ballistic gelatin.


title: Black Talon

text: In 2007 Winchester updated their Ranger SXT line and renamed it "Ranger T-Series". Besides further dimensional changes to the hollow point for reliable expansion, the distinctive perpendicular petals were made longer yet more rounded at the tips to retain stiffness.


title: Black Talon

text: In 2009, Winchester-Olin released a new hollow point bullet in its Supreme Elite line of handgun ammunition called the Bonded PDX1. It is similar to the Ranger SXT series and the older Black Talon design in its structure, and is available in several calibers and loadings. The most obvious difference from the SXT is that the bonded design, meant to maintain structural integrity through difficult intermediate barriers like auto-glass, largely prevents the sharp petals from peeling away from the lead core and fully protruding into the wound track. The .40 S&W PDX1 cartridge is available for purchase by civilian shooters and was the primary service ammunition of the FBI until 2017 when they switched to the Hornady Critical Duty line.


title: Black Talon

text: In March 2014, "The Guardian" newspaper reported that South African paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius had shot to death his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day the previous year with four Black Talons fired from a 9mm pistol. Describing the round, South African police ballistics expert Captain Christian Mangena explained:


title: Black Talon

text: It hits the target, it opens up, it creates six talons, and these talons are sharp. It cuts through the organs of a human being.


title: Black Talon

text: Following the United States Army's selection of the SIG Sauer P320-derived M17 pistol in the Modular Handgun System competition, the Army announced two new 9mm rounds would be adopted alongside the gun, the M1152 Ball, an 115 grain full metal jacket round "for use against enemy personnel, for training, and for force protection", and the M1153 Special Purpose, a 147 grain jacketed hollow point round "for use in situations where limited over-penetration of targets is necessary to reduce collateral damage." Many in the firearms community noted the latter hollow point round is conspicuously similar to the Ranger T/ Black Talon, in response Winchester largely avoided the question, saying that despite obvious similarities the round was designed to "maximize performance based on the government specification set out in the request for proposal." Both the round and the firearm have subsequently been adopted by all branches of the United States Armed Forces, except for the Coast Guard.


title: Black Talon

text: A fictionalized version of the Black Talon bullet called the "Black Death" is utilized by Hank Schrader to kill Marco Salamanca in the "Breaking Bad" episode "One Minute".


title: Black Talon

text: The Black Talon bullet is referenced in The Mountain Goats album "Bleed Out", in the track "First Blood".


title: Britain's Best Sitcom

text: Britain's Best Sitcom was a BBC media campaign in which television viewers were asked to decide the best British situation comedy. Viewers could vote via telephone, SMS, or BBC Online. This first round of voting was conducted in 2003, after which the BBC published a list of the top 100 selections. From this list, they produced a 12-episode television series broadcast by BBC Two from January through to March 2004.


title: Britain's Best Sitcom

text: The series was a retrospective that examined the history and qualities of the contending programmes. In the first episode, Jonathan Ross summarised the progress of the poll and presented video clips from the 50 sitcoms that received the most votes. Each of the next ten weekly episodes, one hour in length, focused on one sitcom. In each episode, a different celebrity presenter advocated a particular sitcom, delivering 20 reasons why it deserved viewers' votes. The sitcom's writers and actors, as well as celebrity viewers, also shared their own perspectives and memories. In the 90-minute series finale, transmitted live, Jonathan Ross announced the top sitcom to be "Only Fools and Horses," with "Blackadder" in second place and "The Vicar of Dibley" in third place.


title: Britain's Best Sitcom

text: Notably all finalists were BBC productions, with ITV and Channel 4 sitcoms not appearing ("Father Ted", the highest-ranked non-BBC sitcom, was at number 11).


title: Susan Diol

text: Susan Vanita Diol (born May 25, 1962) is an American television actress who has played supporting roles in over forty series, including "Quantum Leap", "One Life to Live", "", "", "NCIS", and "".


title: Susan Diol

text: Diol acted in children's theatre productions in Illinois before beginning her on-screen career. In 1990, Diol appeared in two episodes of the TV series "Night Court", playing Dan Fielding's (John Larroquette) sister Donna. On November 21, 1991, she appeared in "Seinfeld" episode no. 26, "The Nose Job", as Audrey (the one who needed the nose job). On November 7, 1995, Diol appeared in an episode of the TV series "Wings", playing a call girl whom Joe and Brian inadvertently choose as a rebound date for lovelorn Antonio.


title: Susan Diol

text: Diol has played several roles of interest to fans of science fiction television. She played Carmen Davila in the "" episode “Silicon Avatar”. She also appeared on "" as Doctor Danara Pel in the episodes “” and “”. In "Quantum Leap", she played Al Calavicci's first wife, Beth, in two episodes, one of which was the series finale. She reprises the role of Beth in the 2022 revival series.


title: Susan Diol

text: Diol graduated from Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio. She has married four times: to Jerry Rapp (1991–1993), Shaun Cassidy (1995–2003), Andy Cadiff (2003–2010), and William Newkirk (until 2016). During her marriage to Cassidy, Diol had a child named Juliet Jones Diol-Cassidy (born 1998).


title: Antique

text: An antique (; 'old', 'ancient') is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely to describe any object that is old. An antique is usually an item that is collected or desirable because of its age, beauty, rarity, condition, utility, personal emotional connection, and/or other unique features. It is an object that represents a previous era or time period in human history. Vintage and collectible are used to describe items that are old, but do not meet the 100-year criterion.


title: Antique

text: Antiques are usually objects of the decorative arts that show some degree of craftsmanship, collectability, or an attention to design, such as a desk or an early automobile. They are bought at antiques shops, estate sales, auction houses, online auctions, and other venues, or estate inherited. Antiques dealers often belong to national trade associations, many of which belong to CINOA, a confederation of art and antique associations across 21 countries that represents 5,000 dealers.


title: Antique

text: The common definition of "antique" is a collectible object such as a piece of furniture or work of art that has an enhanced value because of its considerable age, but it varies depending on the item, its source, the year of its creation etc. The customary definition of antique requires that an item should be at least 100 years old and in original condition. (Motor vehicles are an exception to this rule, with some definitions requiring an automobile to be as little as 25 years old to qualify as an antique.)


title: Antique

text: In the United States, the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act defined antiques as, "...works of art (except rugs and carpets made after the year 1700), collections in illustration of the progress of the arts, works in bronze, marble, terra cotta, parian, pottery, or porcelain, artistic antiquities and objects of ornamental character or educational value which shall have been produced prior to the year 1830." 1830 was the approximate beginning of mass production in the United States. These definitions were intended to allow people of that time to distinguish between genuine antique pieces, vintage items, and collectible objects.


title: Antique

text: In 1979, the British art critic Edward Lucie-Smith wrote that "Antique-dealers ... sometimes insist that nothing is antique which was made after 1830, although the barrier has been broken down in recent years by the enthusiasm of collectors for Art Nouveau and Art Deco.


title: Antique

text: The alternative term, "antiquities", commonly refers to the remains of ancient art and everyday items from antiquity, which themselves are often archaeological artifacts. An "antiquarian" is a person who collects and studies antiquities or things of the past.


title: Antique

text: Traditionally, Chinese antiques are marked by a red seal, known as a 'chop', placed there by an owner. Experts can identify previous owners of an antique by reading the chops. The pre-revolution Chinese government tried to assist collectors of Chinese antiques by requiring their Department of Antiquities to provide a governmental chop on the bottom of a Chinese antique. This chop is visible as a piece of red sealing wax that bears the government chop to verify the date of the antique. The government of the People's Republic of China has its own definitions of what it considers "antique”. As of the Cultural Revolution and China's opening trade to other countries, the government has tried to protect the definition of a Chinese antique.


title: Antique

text: "Antiquing" is the act of shopping, identifying, negotiating, or bargaining for antiques. People buy items for personal use, gifts, or profit. Sources for antiquing include garage sales and yard sales, estate sales, resort towns, antique districts, collectives, and international auction houses.


title: Antique

text: Note that "antiquing" also means the craft of making an object appear antique through distressing or using the antique-looking paint applications. Often, individuals get confused between these handmade distressed vintage or modern items and true antiques. Would-be antique collectors who are unaware of the differences may find themselves paying a high amount of money for something that would have little value if re-sold.


title: Antique

text: Antique furniture is a popular area of antiques because furniture has obvious practical uses as well as collector value. Many collectors use antique furniture pieces in their homes, and care for them with the hope that the value of these items will remain same or appreciate. This is in contrast to buying new furniture, which typically depreciates from the moment of purchase.


title: Antique

text: Antique furniture includes dining tables, chairs, bureaus, chests etc. The most common woods are mahogany, oak, pine, walnut, and rosewood. Chinese antique furniture is often made with elm, a wood common to many regions in Asia. Each wood has a distinctive grain and color. Many modern pieces of furniture use laminate or wood veneer to achieve the same effect. There are a number of different styles of antique furniture depending on when and where it was made. Some examples of stylistic periods are: Arts & Crafts, Georgian, Regency, and Victorian.


title: Antique

text: An important part of some antique furniture is its hardware fittings, the style of which varies from one period to another. For example, Victorian era hardware is different from other period hardware and is perceived to be aesthetically defined; this is the reason for its popularity.


title: Long-Range Engagement Weapon

text: The Long-Range Engagement Weapon (LREW) is a US Air Force concept for a next-generation beyond visual range air-to-air missile. Concept images shows a large, two-stage missile launched from an internal weapons bay of an F-22. There have been some reports that the LREW is too big to fit in the F-22 or F-35 internal weapons bay and is suited for the F-15EX or B-21. It is currently being developed by Raytheon. This program is separate from the AIM-260 JATM being developed by Lockheed Martin.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: Sarasota County is a county located in Southwest Florida. At the 2020 US census, the population was 434,006. Its county seat is Sarasota and its largest city is North Port. Sarasota County is part of the North Port–Sarasota–Bradenton, FL metropolitan statistical area.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: The area that is now known as Sarasota County has been inhabited by humans for some 10,000 years. Evidence of human remains as well as a burned out log at the Warm Mineral Springs, in North Port, were discovered that date to the early Archaic period.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: Although the name was associated with the area from the beginning of European contacts, the origin of the name "Sarasota" is unknown. Some believe a fanciful story created for a popular early twentieth-century pageant held in Sarasota, that it was named after the daughter of famous explorer Hernando de Soto's daughter Sara.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: Following exploration, the area was occupied by fishing camps, called ranchos. In 1842, the Armed Occupation Act was passed, which deeded land to settlers who were willing to cultivate land in Florida. The act brought settlers to Sarasota but also led to the Second Seminole War. During the war, the area was occupied by the U.S. army and Fort Armistead was built.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: Sarasota County was created in 1921 from the southern part of Manatee County. After acquisition by the United States as a territory, the area now included in Sarasota county had been part of St. Johns County (1821), Alachua County (1824), Hillsborough County (1834), and Manatee County (1855) as new counties were created from older counties to accommodate population growth and settlement in new areas.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (23.4%) is water.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: Sarasota County is one of only 20 Florida counties with its own charter, adopted in 1971. Sarasota County is governed by a five-member county commission. Each commissioner serves a four-year term and resides in and represents a single district.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: Like most of Southwest Florida, Sarasota County is considered a stronghold for the Republican Party and was one of the first parts of Florida to turn Republican. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win it was Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, although Barack Obama lost it by just 211 votes in 2008. Republicans have historically dominated the county commission and other countywide elected positions. However, the city of Sarasota has an all-Democrat city commission, Democrat Michele Rayner represents a portion of the county in the Florida House of Representatives, and there are two countywide elected Democrats.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: The Sarasota County Fire Department (SCFD) provides fire services to the City of Sarasota and all unincorporated areas of the county with the exception of areas covered by the Nokomis and Englewood fire districts. Additionally, SCFD provides EMS service to the City of Sarasota, all unincorporated areas of the county (including areas covered by the Nokomis and Englewood fire districts) plus the city of Venice.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office (SSO) is the county's primary law enforcement agency. It is responsible for patrolling the unincorporated areas of the county along with operating the county's jail and providing courtroom security. SSO also operates the county's primary 911 center. The cities of Sarasota, North Port, and Venice along with the Town of Longboat Key each have their own police departments. The Florida Highway Patrol is responsible for patrolling FDOT maintained roads in the county (Florida State Highway System) and investigating motor vehicle accidents that occur in unincorporated areas.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: Three specialist law enforcement agencies have jurisdiction in the county: the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport Police Department, the New College/USF Sarasota-Manatee Campus Police Department and the Seminole Gulf Railway (SGLR) Police Department. Each agency has jurisdiction in neighboring Manatee County as well; each agency's properties extend into that county.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: As of the 2020 United States census, there were 434,006 people, 189,228 households, and 117,532 families residing in the county. 3.5% of that population was under the age of 5 years old, 14.0% was under 18 years old, and 37.4% was 65 years or older. 52.4% was female.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: The median household income was $64,644 with a per capita income of $44,402. 8.7% of population below the poverty threshold. The median value of owner-occupied housing-units between 2016-2020 was $269,300 and the median gross rent was $1,342.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: There were 41,215 veterans living in the county. 12.2% of the population were Foreign born persons. 93.2% of the population that was 25 years or older were High school graduates and 36.4% of those 25 years or older had a Bachelor's degree or higher.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: , the religious affiliations of the people of Sarasota County, according to Pew Research Center were:


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: Sarasota County is home to Ed Smith Stadium, where the Baltimore Orioles currently have spring training. The Orioles also have minor league facilities at Twin Lakes Park. In January 2017, the Braves announced a formal agreement to move their Spring Training home to North Port. CoolToday Park opened on March 24, 2019.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: Sarasota County is also home to Nathan Benderson Park. The facility has played host to the 2017 World Rowing Championships and subsequent World Rowing events in 2018 and 2019. It has also been the host of the 2016 Olympic Time Trials - Rowing and will host the delayed 2020 Olympic rowing time trials. NBP has also been the site of multiple NCAA national rowing championship regattas, the USRowing Youth National Championships, and other rowing regattas and dragon boat festivals since 2011. The park will host the 2021 U.S. Dragon Boat Federation National Championships and the 2022 International Dragon Boat Federation Club Crew World Championships, after holding the 2014 International Breast Cancer Paddlers Commission world regatta.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: Nathan Benderson Park is also the site of Olympic qualifying events in triathlon and paratriathlon, with several ITU Triathlon World Cup and Americas Triathlon Cup events over the years. Numerous community running and walking events, music and food festivals and other community events are held in the park, including the annual NBP Fireworks On The Lake, held every July 3, and NBP Trick Or Treat On The Lake, held the last week of October.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: Sarasota County residents may obtain library cards for free and valid library cards may be used to check out materials at all ten Sarasota County libraries. Manatee and Charlotte County residents, as well as library users from any of the Tampa Bay Library Consortium libraries may register as reciprocal borrowers and check out materials in Sarasota County. Non-resident cards are available for purchase and offer the same privileges as resident cards.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: The library system provides a variety of services which include adult, teen and children's materials. Computers for public use are available at all nine Sarasota County Libraries and free wireless access in the libraries is provided by the Sarasota County Government. The library system has licensing to the Cloud Library, OverDrive, Inc. and Freegal Music. Ask a Librarian, the on-line Florida librarian reference system is available through the Sarasota County Public Library System.


title: Sarasota County, Florida

text: Sarasota County residents have access to the Pinellas Talking Book Library as well as a Books-by-Mail service. The Selby Public Library has been a selective depository in the Federal Depository Library Program and receives almost 50% of the government publications distributed through the program. Additionally, the Sarasota County Library System is an organization member of the Florida Library Association.