title: Battletoads (2020 video game)

text: In a preview of the game, "IGN" wrote that the game lacked the difficult platforming for which the original was known, though the game itself remained difficult. "GamesRadar" praised Dlala's progress on the game at a mid-2019 demo. Two months after its release, Rare reported that the game had reached over a million unique players.


title: Battletoads (2020 video game)

text: "Battletoads" received mixed reviews. Aggregating review website Metacritic gave the PC version 66/100 and the Xbox One version 72/100. Chris Scullion of "Pure Xbox" gave the game 8 out of 10, praising the animation, dialogue, soundtrack and wide variety in difficulty, but was more critical of repetitive levels, limited moveset and puzzle sections. Joe Juba of "Game Informer" rated the game 5/10 and described it as "a shallow swamp", criticizing the game for its "aggressively unfunny" writing, poor story and "average" combat as well as stating the game felt unfinished, though being appreciative of its controls and lack of technical issues.


title: Northern Inuit Dog

text: The Northern Inuit Dog, along with its offshoot breed lines the Tamaskan dog, the British Timber dog and the Utonagan, is a breed of dog developed from a 1980s breeding project in the United Kingdom with the objective of producing a dog breed that resembles wolves.


title: Northern Inuit Dog

text: Northern Inuit Dogs descend from dogs of unknown breed ancestry imported from North America in the 1980s that were crossed with Alaskan Malamutes, German Shepherds, Siberian Huskies and possibly Samoyeds; the intention of the breeding project was to create a dog of wolf-like appearance that could be kept as a companion dog and that could also be trained for other tasks.


title: Northern Inuit Dog

text: The Northern Inuit Dog breeding project subsequently split into a number of breed lines, including the Tamaskan dog, the British Timber dog and the Utonagan.


title: Northern Inuit Dog

text: Northern Inuit dogs were used in the filming of the television series "Game of Thrones" to portray dire wolves.


title: Northern Inuit Dog

text: A Tamaskan has been the live mascot for the NC State Wolfpack since 2010, appearing on the sidelines of football games, bowl games, and other football and men’s basketball events.


title: The Walters

text: The Walters are an American indie pop band formed in 2014, from Chicago, Illinois, composed of lead vocalist Luke Olson, lead guitarist Walter Kosner, rhythm guitarist/vocalist MJ Tirabassi, bassist Danny Wells, and drummer Charlie Ekhaus. They have released three EPs and had their first national tour in 2017.


title: The Walters

text: The Walters formed in Chicago, Illinois in 2014 after the band's guitarist and namesake Walter Kosner moved from Connecticut to Chicago to attend DePaul University. After dropping out of the school, Kosner recruited the rest of the band members who eventually would form The Walters. That same year, the band released their first recorded effort, "Songs for Dads". The release saw the band charting on Spotify's "United States Viral Top 50" which caught the attention of Canvasback Records. As part of the label's ongoing monthly singles series, Canvasclub, The Walters released two songs, entitled "Hunk Beach" and "I Want to Be Good".


title: The Walters

text: In 2015, the band also recorded and independently released their second EP, "Young Men". This was followed in 2017 by the single "She's Gonna Leave You". In 2017, the band began their first national tour and also performed at the Lollapalooza music festival. On September 23, the band announced via their Facebook page that they "currently had no future plans to release new music as The Walters".


title: The Walters

text: Following the band's breakup, lead vocalist Luke Olson started a solo career under the moniker "L. Martin", while the remaining members formed a new band called Corduroy. In an April 2021 interview, Olson stated that "the band broke up with [him]" and that it was "a pretty tough pill to swallow." Olson later attributed the breakup to the band being burnt out and overwhelmed by their success at a young age, while rhythm guitarist MJ Tirabassi attributed the breakup to being unrecognized by the music industry.


title: The Walters

text: In late 2021, their song "I Love You So" from the EP "Songs for Dads" went viral on TikTok, leading to the song earning nearly 4 million on-demand streams in the United States in the first week of November. On November 3, 2021, the band announced their reunion alongside a three-show tour running through December and subsequently signed with Warner Records. In an interview with "Variety", Olson said that the band had been "flirting with the idea of reuniting" and that the success of "I Love You So" led to them officially reuniting. The sleeper hit went on to chart throughout 2021 and 2022 in 4 countries and other global charts, with the band also performing the song on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on January 28, 2022.


title: The Walters

text: On April 14, 2022, the band released a new single, "Million Little Problems", their first original output since 2017. The single was accompanied by the announcement of their upcoming EP, "Try Again", which was released May 6.


title: Space frame

text: In architecture and structural engineering, a space frame or space structure (3D truss) is a rigid, lightweight, truss-like structure constructed from interlocking struts in a geometric pattern. Space frames can be used to span large areas with few interior supports. Like the truss, a space frame is strong because of the inherent rigidity of the triangle; flexing loads (bending moments) are transmitted as tension and compression loads along the length of each strut.


title: Space frame

text: Alexander Graham Bell from 1898 to 1908 developed space frames based on tetrahedral geometry. Bell's interest was primarily in using them to make rigid frames for nautical and aeronautical engineering, with the tetrahedral truss being one of his inventions. Max Mengeringhausen developed the space grid system called MERO (acronym of "MEngeringhausen ROhrbauweise") in 1943 in Germany, thus initiating the use of space trusses in architecture. The commonly used method, still in use has individual tubular members connected at node joints (ball shaped) and variations such as the space deck system, octet truss system and cubic system. Stéphane de Chateau in France invented the Tridirectional SDC system (1957), Unibat system (1959), Pyramitec (1960). A method of tree supports was developed to replace the individual columns. Buckminster Fuller patented the octet truss () in 1961 while focusing on architectural structures.


title: Space frame

text: Space frames are typically designed using a rigidity matrix. The special characteristic of the stiffness matrix in an architectural space frame is the independence of the angular factors. If the joints are sufficiently rigid, the angular deflections can be neglected, simplifying the calculations.


title: Space frame

text: The simplest form of space frame is a horizontal slab of interlocking square pyramids and tetrahedra built from Aluminium or tubular steel struts. In many ways this looks like the horizontal jib of a tower crane repeated many times to make it wider. A stronger form is composed of interlocking tetrahedra in which all the struts have unit length. More technically this is referred to as an isotropic vector matrix or in a single unit width an octet truss. More complex variations change the lengths of the struts to curve the overall structure or may incorporate other geometrical shapes.


title: Space frame

text: Space frames are a common feature in modern building construction; they are often found in large roof spans in modernist commercial and industrial buildings.


title: Space frame

text: Large portable stages and lighting gantries are also frequently built from space frames and octet trusses.


title: Space frame

text: The CAC CA-6 Wackett and Yeoman YA-1 Cropmaster 250R aircraft were built using roughly the same welded steel tube fuselage frame.


title: Space frame

text: Space frames are sometimes used in the chassis designs of automobiles and motorcycles. In both a space frame and a tube-frame chassis, the suspension, engine, and body panels are attached to a skeletal frame of tubes, and the body panels have little or no structural function. By contrast, in a unibody or monocoque design, the body serves as part of the structure.


title: Space frame

text: Tube-frame chassis pre-date space frame chassis and are a development of the earlier ladder chassis. The advantage of using tubes rather than the previous open channel sections is that they resist torsional forces better. Some tube chassis were little more than a ladder chassis made with two large diameter tubes, or even a single tube as a backbone chassis. Although many tubular chassis developed additional tubes and were even described as "space frames", their design was rarely correctly stressed as a space frame and they behaved mechanically as a tube ladder chassis, with additional brackets to support the attached components, suspension, engine etc. The distinction of the true space frame is that all the forces in each strut are either tensile or compression, never bending. Although these additional tubes did carry some extra load, they were rarely diagonalised into a rigid space frame.


title: Space frame

text: An earlier contender for the first true space frame chassis is the one off Chamberlain 8 race "special" built by brothers Bob and Bill Chamberlain in Melbourne, Australia in 1929. Others attribute vehicles produced in the 1930s by designers such as Buckminster Fuller and William Bushnell Stout (the Dymaxion and the Stout Scarab) who understood the theory of the true space frame from either architecture or aircraft design.


title: Space frame

text: A post WW2 attempt to build a racing car space frame was the Cisitalia D46 of 1946. This used two small diameter tubes along each side, but they were spaced apart by vertical smaller tubes, and so were not diagonalised in any plane. A year later, Porsche designed their Type 360 for Cisitalia. As this included diagonal tubes, it can be considered a true space frame and arguable the first mid-rear engined design.


title: Space frame

text: The Maserati Tipo 61 of 1959 (Birdcage) is often thought of as the first but in 1949 Robert Eberan von Eberhorst designed the Jowett Jupiter exhibited at that year's London Motor Show; the Jowett went on to take a class win at the 1950 Le Mans 24hr. Later, TVR, the small British car manufacturers developed the concept and produced an alloy-bodied two seater on a multi tubular chassis, which appeared in 1949.


title: Space frame

text: Colin Chapman of Lotus introduced his first 'production' car, the Mark VI, in 1952. This was influenced by the Jaguar C-Type chassis, another with four tubes of two different diameters, separated by narrower tubes. Chapman reduced the main tube diameter for the lighter Lotus, but did not reduce the minor tubes any further, possibly because he considered that this would appear flimsy to buyers. Although widely described as a space frame, Lotus did not build a true space frame chassis until the Mark VIII, with the influence of other designers, with experience from the aircraft industry.


title: Space frame

text: A large number of kit cars, possibly the majority made in the UK, use space frame construction, because manufacture in small quantity requires only simple and inexpensive jigs, and it is relatively easy for an amateur designer to achieve good stiffness with a space frame. Generally the space frames are MIG welded, although the more expensive kits often use TIG welding, a slower and more highly skilled process. Many of these resemble the Lotus Seven in general outline and mechanical layout, however others are close replicas of the AC Cobra or Italian supercars, but some are original designs resembling no other vehicle. Often, considerable effort has been made by the designers to produce true space frames, with all points of significant load braced in 3 dimensions, resulting in strength and stiffness comparable to, or better than, typical production cars. Others are tube frames but not true space frames because they use relatively large diameter tubes, often curved, which are carrying bending loads, but due to the large diameter remain adequately rigid. However some inferior designs are not true space frames, because the tubes are carrying considerable bending loads. This will result in considerable flexing due to dynamic loads, and ultimately fatigue fracture, a failure mechanism which is rare in a correctly designed true space frame. The reduced stiffness will also impair the handling.


title: Space frame

text: A drawback of the space frame chassis is that it encloses much of the working volume of the car and can make access for both the driver and to the engine difficult. Some space frames have been designed with removable sections, joined by bolted pin joints. Such a structure had already been used around the engine of the Lotus Mark III. Although somewhat inconvenient, an advantage of the space frame is that the same lack of bending forces in the tubes that allow it to be modelled as a pin-jointed structure also means that such a removable section need not reduce the strength of the assembled frame.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: The Suicide of Rachel Foster is a 2020 adventure video game developed by One-O-One Games and published by Daedalic Entertainment. The story follows Nicole Wilson in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, during December 1993 on a visit to her family's Timberline Hotel. Having left ten years prior with her mother following the revelation that her father Leonard was having an affair with the teenaged Rachel Foster, Nicole plans on quickly inspecting the Timberline and selling it. Forced to stay there due to a heavy snowstorm, her only contact with the outside world is a Federal Emergency Management Agency agent named Irving. With his help, Nicole decides to investigate the affair between Leonard and Rachel, as well as her mysterious suicide.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: "The Suicide of Rachel Foster" took around two years to develop. The studio aimed to create a horror game that emphasized suspense and fear instead of traditional horror monsters. The game's narrative and gameplay were developed simultaneously to ensure that one would complement the other. The game was created as a walking simulator to allow real-life topics to be explored, given the genre's emphasis on narrative. The Overlook Hotel from "The Shining" (1980) as well as various real-life hotels were used as inspiration for the Timberline's architecture. The developers sought professional advice for the game's depiction of topics such as child sexual abuse and suicide, to portray them with sensitivity.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: The game was released in February 2020 for Windows, and in September 2020 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It received mixed reviews from critics. Its setting and sound design were praised for creating the appropriate atmosphere, with Nicole and Irving's relationship and voice actors also being commended; some gameplay aspects were criticized. Conversely, the game's plot and mystery received a more mixed reception, and critics were polarized by the depictions of child sexual abuse and suicide, the depiction of Leonard and Rachel's relationship, and the game's ending. "The Suicide of Rachel Foster" was nominated for various awards, winning Game of the Year at the 2021 DStars. The game was ported to the Nintendo Switch in October 2021.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: In December 1993, Nicole Wilson reads a letter from her dead mother Claire. Nicole's father, Leonard McGrath, was the owner of the Timberline Hotel, a mountain hotel in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, situated in the Helena National Forest. In 1983, Leonard had an affair with Nicole's 16-year-old classmate Rachel Foster. Once their relationship was discovered, Rachel seemingly killed herself nine weeks into her pregnancy, and Claire left town with Nicole. In the letter, Claire instructs Nicole to inspect the hotel and sell it.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: Arriving at the Timberline, Nicole gets a call from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) agent Irving Crawford, who states he will assist Nicole during her stay. He warns her against leaving due to an ongoing heavy snowstorm, and despite Nicole's attempts to do so, she is unable to leave, angering her. Irving appears aware of the history involving Leonard and Rachel, although Nicole would prefer not to discuss it. As Nicole's lawyer Mr. Jenkins cannot come due to the snowstorm, Irving instructs her to inspect the Timberline's second floor.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: After questioning his knowledge about her family and the hotel, Irving reveals that he was often sent by FEMA to provide supplies to the Timberline. A phone rings—even though the hotel's phone lines are down—and Nicole answers. Its voice warns her to not sell the hotel, as Rachel "is still there". The following day, while looking for the hotel's generator, Nicole finds a recently opened lipstick and tells Irving about her theory that Rachel might still be alive, collecting various clues.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: Two days later, Irving shows Nicole a tape taken by ghost hunters after Rachel's death. Entering the room where the tape was recorded, she finds it barricaded. After unlocking it, Nicole finds a microphone allowing her to hear faint sounds. In the tape, one of the hunters hears a woman's voice with the microphone and they all flee upon noticing a strange light, with the door shutting behind them.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: During Christmas Eve, Nicole wakes up inside a church, which connects to the Timberline through an underground passage. Revisiting the church, she remembers a rhyme Leonard taught her to find a secret storeroom inside the passage. There, she finds a room modeled after Rachel's bedroom and the key to her music box, believing someone—possibly Rachel—was living there. Opening the music box, Nicole remembers the events of December 27, 1983, when Rachel supposedly killed herself; Nicole was playing at a hockey game, which her mother had driven her to.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: A day later, Nicole investigates a storeroom filled with mannequins, three of which depict a pregnant woman being killed by someone holding a hockey stick, which Nicole realizes belongs to her. Calling Irving, he acts suspiciously and tells her to continue her search. Going to the second floor, Nicole finds a previously locked door leading to the west wing open. There she finds Irving's room, including the equipment he used to talk to her. Irving reveals he was behind the hotel's strange occurrences and used Nicole to uncover what had happened to Rachel. Irving is Rachel's younger brother and in his restrictive household, only his sister brought him joy. Rachel suffered from dyslexia, with Irving wishing to protect her, while Leonard was the sole person who "saw her".


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: Going to the attic, Nicole finds a recording Leonard left for her, asking her to find out what happened to Rachel, and the keys to her mother's car. Opening its truck, she finds a blood-stained coat, and while washing it, uncovers a repressed memory of the night Rachel died. Claire murdered Rachel with Nicole's hockey stick, drove Nicole to her game, and while she was playing, framed Rachel's suicide. Having learned the truth, Irving thanks Rachel and goes out into the cold to die, before the signal is lost, with Nicole begging him to not leave her alone. Later, Nicole is inside her car, planning to take her life via carbon monoxide poisoning. Receiving a call from her lawyer and informing him she will not sell the hotel, she starts the engine and hallucinates talking to her parents. If Nicole turns the engine off, she promises her parents to bring the Timberline back to its feet.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: "The Suicide of Rachel Foster" is a mystery–thriller adventure game played from a first-person perspective. Players take control of Nicole as she explores the Timberline Hotel. Nicole's only means of communication is a radiotelephone she can use to talk to Irving. Players can choose from a dialogue tree how they reply during conversations with him.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: "The Suicide of Rachel Foster" was revealed during Gamescom 2018. The game was developed by the Italian studio One-O-One Games using Unreal Engine 4 and published by Daedalic Entertainment. The game was directed by Daniele Azara and its music was composed by Federico Landini. According to art director Graziano Pimpolari, the game took around two years to finish production. The crew and voice actors worked remotely on the game. The Windows version of the game was released on February 19, 2020. The console versions were initially set to release the same year on August 26, but they were postponed and released on September 9. The game was made available on the Nintendo Switch on October 31, 2021.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: Lead programmer Lorenzo Bellincampi stated that the game was not a horror game and described it as being geared toward "nostalgia and mystery rather than fear or terror". The studio intended to create a psychological horror game evoking "unease and fear" without having to resort to traditional monsters or tropes. The horror was intended to be internal, with players being scared by their own expectations and imagination. From the beginning of the game's development, the studio wanted the narrative and gameplay to complement one another, rather than finishing the story first and then choosing an appropriate gameplay style. The game was made a walking simulator due to the genre's high emphasis on narrative, allowing for the exploration of real-life topics. The game has over 100,000 words of dialogue.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: According to Graziano Pimpolari, it was fundamental that the game's environment felt real. Montana was chosen both because it allowed the developers to place the Timberline Hotel in an isolated area, and the region's religious and legal background. The hotel was designed to cause fear and feelings of isolation in the player, being set in an enclosed space to increase the claustrophobia. The Timberline Hotel was designed to look authentic for its time. The team implemented architectural and proportional studies to create the hotel, so players could identify with it and be interested in exploring it. The team researched various real-life hotels to create the hotel's floor plan. The hotel's design drew heavily from the Overlook Hotel, featured in Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" (1980).


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: Azara stated the developers were challenged with portraying and discussing topics such as child sexual abuse, grief, and suicide without becoming overly morbid and depressing. To achieve this, they sought advice from partners and professionals. Regarding Rachel and Leonard's ephebophilic relationship, One-O-One stated they were interested in exploring the moral implications of such a situation. Since Rachel and Leonard never properly appear in the story, the developers stated that having their relationship explored through Nicole and how she was affected by the tragedies surrounding it was "central to the horror experience".


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: Rachel and Leonard's relationship was presented from various perspectives to encourage players to think critically about such a relationship and the repercussions it can have. The team wanted players to reflect on the game's topics after playing it, especially as they believed discussions of these topics can lead to healing. Leonard and Irving seemingly condone his relationship with Rachel, with the developers including this ideology to showcase how people's emotions can blind them and cause them to justify immoral acts.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: One-O-One stated that the "controversial decision" to have Nicole potentially die by suicide at the end, and putting her fate in the player's hands, was something they felt was in line with the game's themes and viewed as an "intriguing game mechanic". According to Azara, the game's ending caused many cast members to cry.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: According to review aggregator Metacritic, all versions of "The Suicide of Rachel Foster" received "mixed or average reviews".


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: The game's setting—the Timberline Hotel—was complimented, as did the sound design for helping create an appropriate atmosphere. Jens Bremicker of "ProSieben Games" complimented the hotel's design, as did Jerome Joffard of "Jeuxvideo.com". Rachel Watts of "PC Gamer" called the environment "engaging" and capable of creating tension, while "Eurogamer"s Edwin Evans-Thirlwell described the hotel as "creepy" and its design "predatory". Peter Morics of "Screen Rant" commended the hotel's atmosphere, while praising the game's sound design for keeping the players "on [their] toes". Bremicker praised the sound design for creating an appropriate atmosphere, with Péter Nagy of "IGN Hungary" also commending it for creating a sense of loneliness.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: Despite the Timberline's positive reception, there was criticism of the lack of engagement with the setting and its puzzles. Joffard critiqued the linearity of the game's plot, as it did not allow for a proper exploration of the entire hotel. Alice Bell of "Rock Paper Shotgun", while appreciating the hotel's design, denounced its scope and the fact that the puzzle items were rarely required to be used, making them redundant. Bremicker criticized the lack of puzzles in the game, while Evans-Thirlwell found the few existing puzzles overly simplistic.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: The game's plot and ending received mixed responses from critics, with many finding the ending inconsistent with the rest of the game. "The Washington Post"s Christopher Byrd described the game's overall mystery as "obvious" and lacking in scares. Joffard denounced the narrative for not being engaging enough, causing the player to become a spectator. as well as the game's ending and twists, finding them inconsistent with the rest of the game's story. Bell said the game's ending caused the story to "go 'off the rails'", while Nagy found its twists to be ineffective. Though Evans-Thirlwell enjoyed the game's first half, its second half and ending were criticized and described as "melodramatic". Watts stated that while the game initially showed promise—appearing as a ghost story—it eventually became a "melodramatic soap opera". Though Bremicker was critical of the plot for taking too long to truly begin, the ending and its twists were praised. Morics praised the game's plot and described it as "thrilling". While he found the ending "emotionally satisfying", its "logical concerns" were also acknowledged.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: The characters Nicole and Irving were commended, as were their relationship and voice acting. Evans-Thirlwell praised both characters, as well as their voice actors' performances, while Bell complimented the voice actors for making the characters interesting. While Nagy found Nicole and Irving to be unoriginal, he applauded their consistent personalities and voice acting, as well as the depiction of their relationship. Watts enjoyed their relationship, likening it to Henry and Delilah from "Firewatch" (2016), while Morics commended the dialogue between them. Bremicker called Nicole as a strong protagonist, showcased through the game's writing of her conversations with Irving, and the layout of her room. Joffard applauded the voice actors for bringing the characters to life, although they criticized scenes in which Irving calls Nicole without being prompted by the player.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: The game's depiction of ephebophilia and suicide, especially the relationship between Leonard and Rachel, was polarizing. Bell criticized the portrayal of Leonard and Rachel's relationship, as did Watts who stated the game portrayal of the relationship in a romantic light, further finding fault with Rachel's lack of agency in the story. Watts criticized the lack of sensitivity afforded to ephebophilia and suicide, finding the game to sensationalize them instead. Similarly, "NME"s Vikki Blake did not believe the developers succeeded in causing the game's audience to consider the game's topics, denouncing the portrayal of Leonard and Rachel's relationship since it makes the players sympathize with them. Evans-Thirlwell argued that the portrayal of the game's controversial topics does not create a further understanding of them. While he noted the game does not condemn Leonard's relationship with Rachel, he acknowledged that how the characters reflect on the relationship is not indicative of the developers' opinion.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: The game's handling of suicide, especially regarding Nicole's suicide attempt at the end, was also polarizing. Blake disliked the game's ending and the decision to potentially have Nicole commit suicide, arguing that it contrasted her earlier characterization, and criticized it for making players complicit in someone's suicide attempt.


title: The Suicide of Rachel Foster

text: "The Suicide of Rachel Foster" was nominated for the Best Italian Game at the Italian Video Game Awards in 2020, and at the TGM Awards 2020 in the categories Dynamic Adventure and Tell Me a Story. At the 2021 DStars, the game won Game of the Year.


title: Ben Batt

text: Ben Batt (born 7 February 1986) is an English actor, best known for his role as the villainous Joe Pritchard in Channel 4's comedy drama "Shameless". He has also appeared in "Scott & Bailey" as DC Kevin Lumb, Alf Rutter in "The Village" and in "Sirens" as Craig Scruton, the fireman. He starred as Ted Burgess in the BBC production of "The Go-Between" broadcast on 20 September 2015. In the 2011 film "Weekender" set within the late 1980s rave culture he played the main antagonist John Anderson.


title: Ben Batt

text: He has also had many smaller roles, such as in "" as an Enlistment Office MP and in "The Promise" as Private Derek Toogood. Other minor parts include roles in "Accused", "Salvage", "Wire in the Blood", "Lewis", "Casualty", "The Edge of Love", "" and "Death in Paradise". In season 3 of Jamestown (2019), Batt played Willmus Crabtree, a mysterious trader from England with his motives and intentions unknown.


title: Ben Batt

text: In 2016 he starred as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams at the Royal Exchange, Manchester which was directed by Sarah Frankcom.


title: Ben Batt

text: Batt was born in Wigan, to parents Alan and Holly, the only boy in a family of three, with an older sister, Sarah, and a younger sister, Holly. He played for Orrell and Lancashire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby teams as a child. He attended Shevington High School. After sustaining an injury he began acting and enrolled at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He left when he was offered a small role in the film "The Edge of Love" in 2008.


title: Ben Batt

text: His partner is "Shameless" co-star, Rebecca Atkinson, who played Karen Maguire. They met on the set in 2008 and shared numerous storylines together. In 2016, Atkinson gave birth to their son, Jack.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: West Coast Choppers (WCC) is a brand that began selling screen-printed T-shirts and stickers with the company's Iron cross/Maltese cross logo while founder and "master marketer" Jesse James was finishing high school, packaging the accoutrements of the chopper lifestyle long before any actual West Coast Choppers customs had been ordered or sold. Even after the company did begin building custom choppers, 60% of revenue still came from sales of WCC-branded marketing tie-ins such as clothing, beverages and tools. Yearly sales of approximately 12–15 motorcycles at prices of around US$150,000 each actually lost money for the company, but attracted positive attention. Publicizing the names of celebrity clients, including Shaquille O'Neal, Kid Rock, Keanu Reeves, Ty Law of the Denver Broncos, wrestling star Bill Goldberg, actor Tyson Beckford, and NFL running back Jamal Anderson, was a central feature of the WCC marketing strategy. The other key to this strategy was the star power of Jesse James, presented mainly through television on the Discovery Channel in the "Motorcycle Mania" series and the 2002–2006 series Monster Garage.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: The Long Beach, California headquarters of West Coast Choppers shut down in 2010, but later reopened in 2013 with a new headquarters in Austin, Texas.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: Founded in the early 1990s West Coast Choppers gained notice with the 2001 shows "Motorcycle Mania" I and II, on the Discovery Channel. In 2004 James starred with Kid Rock in "Motorcycle Mania III". With the release of these shows interest in Jesse James and the West Coast Choppers allowed the firm to expand knowledge of its brand and to expand its following. Jesse James also narrated a 2006 Discovery show called "History of the Chopper", where he makes his own motorcycle to commemorate the 1960s.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: In 2004, the company's merchandise, along with the No Fear brand, was banned from the Simi Valley Unified School District in California for using the German Iron Cross, in reaction to violence between black and white students. Jesse James and a spokesman for No Fear have said the cross is based on the Maltese cross and does not represent white power or Nazism. James said the cross is used by many fire departments, for example. A skateboarding store employee pointed out that West Coast Choppers sells a T-shirt which combines both the cross symbol and a WWII German-style helmet, representing "things he'd rather not be associated with." A similar ban in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2003 drew protests from students.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: In 2005 West Coast Choppers agreed to pay $35,000 to settle a claim by the Business Software Alliance that unlicensed copyrighted software was used in the design of the company's motorcycles.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: In 2007 Jesse James was fined over a quarter-million dollars because West Coast Choppers sold more than 50 motorcycles from 1998 to 2005 that failed to comply with the air pollution limits of the California Air Resources Board (CARB). James explained that he was unaware of rule changes that required small-volume manufactures to comply with regulations. James said the CARB refused his offer to recall and modify the uncompliant choppers. Since 2005 West Coast Choppers has built emissions-compliant choppers. James said the fines were excessive and intended to make an example of him due to his company's fame and his celebrity marriage to actress Sandra Bullock, but CARB spokesmen stated their enforcement efforts were aimed at the entire custom industry, and further that they were aware of no offer by West Coast Choppers to recall the motorcycles in question.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: In 2008 West Coast Choppers worked with the City of Long Beach to design steel artwork that will be placed in concrete planters between two city streets. West Coast Choppers also designed the "Long Beach 2030 Plan Van," a mobile classroom that will be used to promote the city's long range planning projects. The City of Long Beach renamed part of a street as "West Coast Choppers Place" in 2009 to honor the company.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: In 2009 West Coast Choppers stopped selling motorcycle customizing parts, offering only complete bikes, or clothing and other non-bike merchandise. Jesse James was reported to be trying to exercise more personal control over production, and to "battle knockoffs and establish a measure of quality control."


title: West Coast Choppers

text: In October 2010, West Coast Choppers closed the shop in Long Beach. James' other Long Beach business, Cisco Burgers, remained, but no other details of the closing were announced, and it was not clear whether James would continue operations from his new home in Texas. Cisco Burgers has since also closed shop. The website westcoastchoppers.com redirected to www.westcoastchoppers-australasia.com, which sells merchandise with the West Coast Choppers brand and logo, operated by Rev Head Apparel under a license agreement with Jesse James. However, Jesse James, decided to open the company back up in 2013.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: In 2019, it launched the KIMI by West Coast Choppers range of merchandise, in partnership with Kimi Raikkonen, 2007 F1 World Champion.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: The star personality of the company's founder and president Jesse James is a key asset in the marketing of the West Coast Choppers image. "Monster Garage" producer Thom Beers describes him as, "the perfect Gen-X antihero. He doesn't want to be worshiped ... he really believes in what he does, and he has a great sense of style." "Advertising Age" Editor-in-Chief Scott Donaton says James is a, "relatable bad boy with blue-collar appeal" adding that West Coast Choppers, "has made a lot out of this bad boy image, has made a lot out of this connection to the name Jesse James and this sort of Wild West romance," which will remain profitable for years to come so long as it is "authentic." James is compared with entrepreneurs like Martha Stewart and Coco Chanel for his ability to turn an image into multiple lines of profitable fashions.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: The celebrity clients who order WCC bikes are a main avenue of promotion. The motorcycle made for Shaquille O'Neal cost US$150,000 and was customized for the athlete's weight and inseam, and enormous hands, resulting in a dramatic long bike with footpegs made for size 24 feet. The result was, "priceless publicity".


title: West Coast Choppers

text: James sometimes displays a little unveiled contempt for his customers, as when he explained to "Popular Mechanics" how they conceived their US$3,000 kit for a chopper frame by saying, "We geared this towards the do-it-yourself mother—." Or when he joked with the "Los Angeles Times" at the high prices of his branded clothing, saying, "Wife beaters for $200 bucks, I'm like—sucker. I could get three for 10 bucks" at a swap meet.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: This image is used mainly to sell clothing, the top moneymaker for the company. Sales in Europe are ten times the US, according to James. At one time, there were five clothing lines, including two sold by West Coast Choppers, two at Wal-Mart, as well as high-end lines available in more expensive department stores, such as T-shirts for "$100 a pop in Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, and Fred Segal". Koral Industries of Vernon, California is responsible for the design and manufacture of WCC clothing, as well as supplying the sales force to place the products in stores. Clothing items include hoodies, tank tops, T-shirts and jackets. There is also a line of Jesse James/WCC-branded bib overalls and other workwear.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: Besides clothing, and the small scale production of choppers made to order, tie-ins with other companies were a major part of West Coast Choppers. One such tie-in was a 2004 contest to win a motorcycle, with entries contained in bottles of chocolate Yoo-hoo, which helped to promote the launch of a new flavor, Dyna-Mocha, which is Yoo-hoo and coffee. West Coast Choppers also signed a multi-year agreement with Huffy in which West Coast Choppers will design Huffy choppers, to be sold at Wal-Mart. The objective was to duplicate success of Pacific Cycles' Schwinn Sting-Ray model designed by rival Orange County Choppers (OCC). While the OCC and WCC branded bikes had some success, the kids' bikes' sales at Wal-Mart and K-Mart was a fraction of bikes branded with children's characters such as Barbie, Disney Princess, Dora the Explorer, Power Rangers and Spider-Man.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: Other brand tie-ins are a plasma arc cutter and other welding torches made by ESAB, designed by and named after Jesse James. Airstream trailers had a deal as well, which included a WCC motorcycle with a sidecar made with a polished aluminum body to simulate the appearance of the iconic camper trailers. Besides Yoo-hoo, another beverage company, Coors Brewing Company, added West Coast Choppers logos and pictures of bikes to their product in a mutually beneficial brand tie-in.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: West Coast Choppers motorcycles are described as and minimalist. WCC bikes have been called more stripped down when contrasted with decades-long established chopper builders like Arlen Ness, that is, a bike with, "not much there but engine, what the law requires, and something to hold onto." In spite of this characterization, a WCC trademark is the use of 9×19mm and .44 Magnum shell casings as purely non-functional decorations, adorning the fuel or oil filler caps or top of the motorcycle's handlebar risers, or elsewhere. The presence of this 20th-century gun ammunition is intended to evoke Jesse James' distant ancestor, old west outlaw and gunfighter Jesse James. A strong metaphorical tie between the chopper-riding biker and old west outlaws is a mainstay of biker culture, established by "the biker world's Norman Rockwell," painter David Mann. The biker's cross logo, a version of the Iron Cross or the Maltese Cross, is also typical of a WCC bike, though that symbol is nearly ubiquitous in Kustom Kulture regardless.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: The old school label of WCC bike designs fits loosely as well, especially in recent years as WCC has moved away from the traditional Harley-Davidson chopper, seen by James as too mainstream, and stretched the style in search of originality. Specific influences include Lambretta scooters, Honda 305 Scramblers, and Schwinn Black Phantom bicycles.


title: West Coast Choppers

text: Logo and insignia designs used by West Coast Choppers have been farmed to professional design firm Akins Parker Creative, who carefully researched the colors and motifs dear to "old school bikers," such as Vietnam war squadron patches. This is crafted to reproduce for mass consumption the "odd, imperfect shapes" of old hand-painted bike art in order to gratify the customer's "keen sense of authenticity."


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: Manduca quinquemaculata, the five-spotted hawkmoth, is a brown and gray hawk moth of the family Sphingidae. The caterpillar, often referred to as the tomato hornworm, can be a major pest in gardens; they get their name from a dark projection on their posterior end and their use of tomatoes as host plants. Tomato hornworms are closely related to (and sometimes confused with) the tobacco hornworm "Manduca sexta". This confusion arises because caterpillars of both species have similar morphologies and feed on the foliage of various plants from the family Solanaceae, so either species can be found on tobacco or tomato leaves. Because of this, the plant on which the caterpillar is found does not indicate its species.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: "M. quinquemaculata" is found across North America and Australia. The tobacco hornworm, a close relative of the tomato hornworm, tends to dominate the south while tomato hornworms are more prevalent in the northern United States.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: Tomato hornworms are known to eat various plants from the family Solanaceae, commonly feeding on tomato, eggplant, pepper, tobacco, moonflowers and potato. Females prefer to oviposit on young leaves near the stem of host plants, and early instar caterpillars can often be found here during the day. In the evening or early morning when sunlight is less direct, the caterpillars will feed on more distal leaves.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: Adults feed on nectar from flowering plants including "Datura meteloides," "Oenothera caespitosa," and "Mirabilis multiflora." Most of the food plants they target have large, fragrant white flowers.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: Hawkmoths, including "M. quinquemaculata," are the primary pollinators of "D. meteloides." The length of the moth’s proboscis (around 10 cm), which is an elongated, tubular mouthpart used for sucking and feeding, is well-suited for retrieving nectar from the flowers. Aside from being a host plant for "M. quinquemaculata, D. meteloides" has also been used by humans for its psychoactive effects. "D. meteloides" contains tropane alkaloids, which are present throughout the plant including in the flowers. These alkaloids have an intoxicating effects on the moth, which displays erratic flight patterns as well as uncoordinated, and often unsuccessful, landing attempts after consuming the nectar. Despite the impairment the nectar causes, the moths have been observed returning to the flowers and consuming more nectar. It has been hypothesized that the “spiked” nectar offers the moths reward beyond just nutrients.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: Both "Mirabilis multiflora" and "Oenothera caespitosa" are also dependent on hawkmoths for pollination. "M. quinquemaculata" has been found to feed from "Oenothera caespitosa" first and only later to visit "Mirabilis multiflora," indicating a preference for the former.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: Females lay eggs singly on the surface of host plant leaves in late spring. Larvae hatch after approximately one week. The female decides where to lay eggs based on an assessment of the risk of predation her offspring will face. On the tobacco plant "Nicotiana attenuata", young leaves close to a plant's stem are more protected from predators and larvae that grow there gain more mass than larvae grown elsewhere on the plant; females prefer to oviposit, or lay their eggs, on these leaves. Eggs are large and range in color from pale green to off-white.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: "M. quinquemaculata" larvae are large green caterpillars reaching a length of up to 10 cm (3.9 inches) when fully grown. The caterpillars have a dark, pointed projection on their rear end that earns them the name "hornworm". Although the tomato hornworm, "M. quinquemaculata," can be confused with the tobacco hornworm, "M. sexta," the larvae of these species can be distinguished by their lateral markings: tomato hornworms have eight V-shaped white markings with no borders and dark blue or black horns, while tobacco hornworms have seven white diagonal lines with a black border and red horns.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: Caterpillars hatch in late spring to early summer. They develop through five instars to reach maturity. In warmer climates where the first generation emerges earlier in the year, two generations of caterpillars can coexist in a single summer. Once fully grown, caterpillars fall from their host plants to pupate.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: Caterpillars pupate in early fall, which means they enter a stage of their life cycle where they become a pupa and undergo transformation into a moth. After pupation, "M. quinquemaculata" overwinter in the soil near their host plants, with adults emerging the following summer.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: Adults are large, with a wingspan of up to . The wings of the moth are brown and gray with large mottled front wings and smaller hindwings with light and dark zig-zag patterned bands. The abdomens are brown and white with a row of five yellow spots down each side, giving them the name "five-spotted hawkmoth." The moths of "M. quinquemaculata" and "M. sexta" can be distinguished by the number of spots on their abdomens.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: Shortly after adults emerge from the soil, they mate and females lay their eggs on host plants, renewing the life cycle.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: "M. quinquemaculata" and "M. sexta" are both large hawkmoths of the genus "Manduca." The two species have similar appearances in both larvae and adults and share common food sources, including tobacco. Past research, observing that the two species are similar, referred to the two as sister species. However, a recent phylogenetic analysis from Kawahara et al. (2013) found that the two species, though closely related, are not sister species. The authors tracked the ancestral origin of both species to Central America, where the two species diverged from one another.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: Because the larvae are pests of crop plants such as tomatoes and tobacco, biological control agents and traps have been used to control their populations. Gardeners whose tomato plants are predated by the tomato hornworm pick the caterpillars off of their plants.The use of a UV blacklight at night helps to find them, as they glow bright green. (see photo below). Some gardeners plant marigolds, which repel the species, near their tomato plants to reduce predation. Among other examples, the larvae can also be eaten by most common bird species.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: The parasitoid wasp "Trichogramma" attacks "M. quinquemaculata" eggs. The larvae of the wasp develop in the egg, preventing the development of the caterpillar larvae. "Trichogramma" is a natural enemy of "M. quinquemaculata" and has also been used as a biological control agent by humans.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: A second parasitoid wasp, "Cotesia congregata" of the family Braconidae, also kills "M. quinquemaculata". Adult females lay their eggs inside the skin of the hornworm caterpillar. After hatching, the wasp larvae use the organs and tissues of the caterpillar as food sources before burrowing out of the skin and pupating on the back and sides of the caterpillar. Once the wasps have emerged from their cocoons, the weakened caterpillar dies. Like the parasitoid wasp mentioned above, these wasps have also been suggested as a means of biological control of the tomato hornworm.


title: Manduca quinquemaculata

text: Adult "M. quinquemaculata" are most active in flight after dark. Early studies found that the moths are attracted to blacklight, which is used as a lure in some traps. Although the traps can be used for research and the moths can be released after capture, traps like these have been suggested as a means of population control. However, one study found that the reduction in population was not strong enough to significantly impact population size.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS or Mount Sinai), formerly the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is a private medical school in New York City. It is the academic teaching arm of the Mount Sinai Health System, which manages eight hospital campuses in the New York metropolitan area, including Mount Sinai Hospital and the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: Mount Sinai is ranked #11 among American medical schools by the 2023 "U.S. News & World Report". In 2021, it was ranked 15th <ref name = "https://icahn.mssm.edu/about/facts"></ref> in the country for biomedical research and leads the country in research funding from the National Institutes of Health for neuroscience (#2) and genetics (#2). It attracted over $400 million in total NIH funding in 2021. Mount Sinai's faculty includes 23 elected members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine<ref name="https://icahn.mssm.edu/education/pioneering/people/faculty-elected-national-academy-medicine-sciences"></ref> and 40 members of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.<ref name="https://the-asci.org/controllers/asci/AsciSearchController.php?action=form"> </ref>


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: In 2018, the MD program matriculated 140 students from 6,156 applicants. The median undergraduate GPA of matriculants is 3.84, and the median Medical College Admission Test score is in the 95th percentile. The Medical Scientist Training Program is currently training over 90 MD/PhD students. As one of the most selective medical schools in the U.S., Mount Sinai received 8,276 applications for approximately 140 MD and MD/PhD positions for the 2021–2022 academic year.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: The first official proposal to establish of a medical school at Mount Sinai was made to the hospital's trustees in January 1958. The school's philosophy was defined by Hans Popper, Horace Hodes, Alexander Gutman, Paul Klemperer, George Baehr, Gustave L. Levy, and Alfred Stern, among others. Milton Steinbach was the school's first president.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: Classes at Mount Sinai School of Medicine began in 1968, and the school soon became known as one of the leading medical schools in the U.S., as the hospital gained recognition for its laboratories, advances in patient care and the discovery of diseases. The City University of New York granted Mount Sinai's degrees.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: In 1999, Mount Sinai changed university affiliations from City University to New York University but did not merge its operations with the New York University School of Medicine. This affiliation change took place as part of the merger in 1998 of Mount Sinai and NYU medical centers to create the Mount Sinai–NYU Medical Center and Health System. In 2003, the partnership between the two dissolved.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: In 2007, Mount Sinai Medical Center's boards of trustees approved the termination of the academic affiliation between Mount Sinai and NYU. In 2010, Mount Sinai was accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and became an independent degree-granting institution.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: On November 14, 2012, it was announced that Mount Sinai School of Medicine would be renamed Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, following a US$200 million gift from New York businessman and philanthropist Carl Icahn.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: In 2015, Mount Sinai announced partnerships with The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as well as National Jewish Health, the nation's leading institutes for pediatric and pulmonary care respectively, leading to the creation of the Mount Sinai Children’s Heart Center and the Mount Sinai – National Jewish Health Respiratory Institute.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: In March 2020, Elmhurst Hospital Center, the public hospital that serves as a major training site for Mount Sinai students and residents, was the epicenter of New York City's initial COVID-19 surge, with Mount Sinai house staff and faculty serving as the city's first frontline workers treating patients infected with coronavirus. Mount Sinai has since established itself at the forefront of research to understand and treat COVID-19, being named a lead site in a $470 million study to examine the long-term effects of COVID-19.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: In April 2019, the Icahn School was named in a lawsuit filed against Mount Sinai Health System and several employees of the Icahn School's Arnhold Institute for Global Health. The suit was filed by eight current and former employees for "age and sex discrimination as well as improper reporting to funding agencies, misallocation of funds, failing to obtain Institutional Review Board approval prior to conducting research in violation of Mount Sinai and federal guidelines, and failing properly to adhere to the guidelines of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA." The school denies the claims. More than 150 students at the Icahn School and more than 400 Icahn and Mount Sinai Health System faculty have signed letters, addressed to the Board of Trustees, calling on the system to investigate these allegations.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: Mount Sinai's medical curriculum is based on the standard program of medical education in the United States: the first two years of study are confined to the medical sciences, the latter to the study of clinical sciences. The first and second years are strictly pass/fail; the third and fourth years feature clinical rotations at Mount Sinai Hospital (Manhattan) and Elmhurst Hospital Center, a major level 1 trauma center and safety-net hospital known for being situated in the "most ethnically diverse community in the world," serving an area of one million people with recent immigrants encompassing 112 different countries. Other clerkship and residency training sites include the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens, James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, Mount Sinai West, Mount Sinai Morningside, and Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: Mount Sinai's four-pronged missions (quality education, patient care, research, and community service) follow the "commitment of serving science," and the majority of students take part in some aspect of community service. This participation includes The East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership, which was developed by the students of Mount Sinai to create a health partnership with the East Harlem community, providing quality health care, regardless of ability to pay, to uninsured residents of East Harlem.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: Since 1989, Mount Sinai has featured a unique early-admissions program, The Humanities and Medicine Program, which guaranteed students admitted to the program a place in the medical school. These students, known colloquially as "HuMeds," applied during the fall of their sophomore year in college or university and did not take the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). HuMeds made up about 25% of each year's ISMMS medical class. In 2013, the Humanities and Medicine program was expanded into the FlexMed program. Students admitted to the ISMMS via FlexMed can pursue any major and are required to take additional coursework in ethics, statistics, and health policy in lieu of or in addition to several of the traditional pre-med requirements. The school plans to recruit half of each incoming class through the FlexMed program.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: Individual educational programs are accredited through the appropriate bodies, including but not limited to LCME, CEPH, ACCME and ACGME.


title: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

text: The "Annals of Global Health" was founded at Mount Sinai in 1934, then known as the "Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine". Levy Library Press publishes "The Journal of Scientific Innovation in Medicine".


title: Grambling State Tigers football

text: The Grambling State Tigers are the college football team representing the Grambling State University. The Tigers play in NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) as a member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference.


title: Grambling State Tigers football

text: The prominence of Grambling football is longstanding. The Tigers, under Hall of Fame coach Eddie Robinson, who guided them to 408 victories in 55 seasons from 1941 to 1942 and 1945 to 1997, were built as a small-school powerhouse with more than 200 players who played professional football.


title: Grambling State Tigers football

text: On September 24, 1976, Grambling State and Morgan State became the first collegiate football teams from the United States to play a game in the continent of Asia. GSU defeated Morgan State 42–16 in Tokyo, Japan. In fall 1977, the GSU Tigers were invited back to Tokyo where they defeated Temple University 35–32 in the inaugural Mirage Bowl game.


title: Grambling State Tigers football

text: Among its accomplishments include: 15 Black college football national championships (tied for second most in HBCU history) and 26 Conference Championships (1 Midwest Conference & 25 SWAC). The Tigers have won the most SWAC Championships to date.


title: Blinding Edge Pictures

text: Blinding Edge Pictures is an American film production company, founded on August 2, 1998 by M. Night Shyamalan, which is known for producing films written and directed by Shyamalan like "Unbreakable", "Signs", "The Village", "The Happening", "After Earth", "The Visit", "Split", "Glass" and "Old". In 2015, the company released its first television series, "Wayward Pines".


title: Latin alpha

text: Latin alpha (majuscule: Ɑ, minuscule: ɑ) or script a is a letter of the Latin alphabet based on one lowercase form of a, or on the Greek lowercase alpha (α).


title: Latin alpha

text: Although is normally just an allograph of , there are instances in which the two letters must be carefully distinguished:


title: Latin alpha

text: In Cameroon languages, must look like the classical lowercase Greek alpha to better differentiate it from the letter a in script form.


title: Latin alpha

text: In Unicode, "Latin alpha" () and "Latin script a" () are considered to be the same character, which has an uppercase and a lowercase form and is referred to as "Latin letter alpha".


title: Mosquito Aviation XE

text: By 2015 Mosquito Aviation was out of business and the design was being produced by Innovator Technologies of Rockyview, Alberta, Canada. By 2019 the design was being produced by Composite FX of Trenton, Florida.


title: Mosquito Aviation XE

text: The XE is a development of the Mosquito Air, with a cockpit fairing and a more sophisticated exhaust system, plus a rotor diameter increased by to support the higher gross weight. The aircraft was designed to comply with the US "Experimental – Amateur-built" and European microlight aircraft rules. It features a single main rotor and tail rotor, a single-seat enclosed cockpit with a windshield, skid landing gear and a two-cylinder, air-cooled, two stroke MZ 202 engine.


title: Mosquito Aviation XE

text: The aircraft fuselage is made from composites and metal tubing. Its two-bladed rotor has a diameter of and a chord of . The aircraft has a typical empty weight of and a gross weight of , giving a useful load of . With full fuel of the payload for the pilot and baggage is .


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: In the Late Middle Ages, the Kingdom of Hungary, a country in Central Europe, experienced a period of interregnum in the early 14th century. Royal power was restored under Charles I (1308–1342), a scion of the Capetian House of Anjou. Gold and silver mines opened in his reign produced about one third of the world's total production up until the 1490s. The kingdom reached the peak of its power under Louis the Great (1342–1382) who led military campaigns against Lithuania, southern Italy and other faraway territories.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: The expansion of the Ottoman Empire reached the kingdom under Sigismund of Luxemburg (1387–1437). In the next decades, a talented military commander, John Hunyadi, directed the fight against the Ottomans. His victory at Nándorfehérvár (present-day Belgrade, Serbia) in 1456 stabilized the southern frontiers for more than half a century. The first king of Hungary without dynastic ancestry was Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490), who led several successful military campaigns and also became the King of Bohemia and the Duke of Austria. With his patronage Hungary became the first country which adopted the Renaissance from Italy.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: The Kingdom of Hungary came into being when Stephen I, grand prince of the Hungarians, was crowned king in 1000 or 1001. He reinforced central authority and forced his subjects to accept Christianity. Although written sources emphasize the role played by German and Italian knights and clerics in the process, a significant part of the Hungarian vocabulary for agriculture, religion and state was taken from Slavic languages. Civil wars, pagan uprisings and the Holy Roman Emperors' unsuccessful attempts to expand their authority over Hungary jeopardized the new monarchy. Its position stabilized under Ladislaus I (1077–1095) and Coloman (1095–1116). Following the succession crisis in Croatia as a result of their campaign the Kingdom of Croatia entered a personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary in 1102. Both them were regarded as a successor by hereditary rights Coloman was crowned in Biograd in 1102 and the title now claimed by Coloman was "King of Hungary, Dalmatia, and Croatia".


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Rich in uncultivated lands and in silver, gold, and salt deposits, the kingdom became a preferred target of the continuous immigration of mainly German, Italian and French colonists. The colonists were mostly peasants who settled in villages, but also large number of townsfolk arrived as craftsmen and merchants. Their arrival contributed to the development of Esztergom, Székesfehérvár and many other cities and large number of villages in various parts of the Kingdom. Situated at the crossroads of international trade routes, Hungary was affected by several cultural trends. Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance buildings, and literary works written in Latin prove the predominantly Roman Catholic character of the culture of the Kingdom, but Orthodox, and even non-Christian ethnic minority communities also existed. Latin was the language of legislation, administration and judiciary, but "linguistic pluralism" (János M. Bak) contributed to the survival of a number of tongues, including a great variety of Slavic dialects.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: The predominance of royal estates initially ensured the sovereign's preeminent position, but the alienation of royal lands gave rise to the emergence of a self-conscious group of lesser landholders. They forced Andrew II to issue his Golden Bull of 1222, "one of first examples of constitutional limits being placed on the powers of a European monarch" (Francis Fukuyama). The kingdom received a major blow from the Mongol invasion of 1241–1242. Thereafter Cuman and Jassic groups were settled in the central lowlands and colonists arrived from Moravia, Poland and other nearby countries.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Andrew III died on January 14, 1301. His death created an opportunity for about a dozen lords, or "oligarchs", who had by that time achieved "de facto" independence of the monarch to strengthen their autonomy. They acquired all royal castles in a number of counties where everybody was obliged either to accept their supremacy or to leave. For instance, Matthew III Csák ruled over fourteen counties in the lands now forming Slovakia, Ladislaus Kán administered Transylvania, and Ugrin Csák controlled large territories between the rivers Száva and Dráva. In Croatia the situation for the crown became even more dire, as viceroy Paul Šubić and the Babonić family achieved de facto independence, with Paul Šubić even minting his own coin and being called by contemporary Croatian historians as the "uncrowned king of the Croats".


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: At the news of Andrew III's death, viceroy Šubić invited Charles of Anjou, the late Charles Martel's son, to claim the throne, who hurried to Esztergom where he was crowned king. However, most secular lords opposed his rule and proposed the throne to King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia's namesake son. The young Wenceslaus could not strengthen his position and renounced in favor of Otto III, Duke of Bavaria in 1305. The latter was forced to leave the kingdom in 1307 by Ladislaus Kán. A papal legate persuaded all the lords to accept Charles of Anjou's rule in 1310, but most territories remained out of royal control.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Assisted by the prelates and a growing number of lesser nobles, Charles I launched a series of expeditions against the great lords. Taking advantage of the lack of unity among them, he defeated them one by one. He won his first victory in the battle of Rozgony (present-day Rozhanovce, Slovakia) in 1312. However, the most powerful lord, Matthew Csák preserved his autonomy up until his death in 1321, while the Babonić and Šubić families were only subjugated in 1323.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Charles I introduced a centralized power structure in the 1320s. Stating that "his words has the force of law", he never again convoked the Diet. Even his most faithful partisans depended on revenues from their temporary honours, because the king rarely made land grants. This practice ensured the loyalty of the Drugeths, Lackfis, Szécsényis and other families who emerged in his reign.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: The king even afforded to grant privileges which contradicted customary law. For instance, he occasionally authorized daughters of noblemen to inherit their fathers' estates, although local customs required that a deceased nobleman's inherited lands were to be transferred to his agnates in lack of a son. Nevertheless, Roman law never replaced customary which gave rise to the appearance of lay officials who possessed "a good command of Latin and a fair knowledge of common law" (Pál Engel).


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Charles I reformed the system of royal revenues and monopolies. For instance, he imposed the "thirtieth" (a tax on goods transferred through the kingdom's frontiers), and authorized landholders to retain one third of the income from mines opened in their estates. The new mines produced around of gold and of silver annually, which made up more than 30 percent of the world's production up until the Spanish conquest of the Americas in the 1490s. However, most profits from the mines were transferred to Italian and South German merchants, because the value of imported fine textiles and other goods always exceeded the price of cattle and wine exported from the kingdom.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Charles I also ordered the minting of stable golden coins modelled on the "florin" of Florence. His ban on trading with uncoined gold produced shortage in the European market which lasted until his death in 1342. Thereafter his widow, Elisabeth of Poland transported enormous quantities of gold to Italy in order to promote the claim of their younger son, Andrew to the Kingdom of Naples. Andrew who was Queen Joanna I of Naples's consort was assassinated in 1345. His brother, Louis I of Hungary accused the queen of his murder and led two campaigns against her in 1347 and 1350. Although he twice conquered her kingdom, she regained it on both occasions.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: The first campaign against Naples was abandoned because of the arrival of the "Black Death". In Hungary, fewer locals fell victim to the epidemic than in Western Europe, because the kingdom was still an underpopulated territory with well nourished inhabitants. Indeed, colonization also continued in the 14th century. The new settlers mainly came from Moravia, Poland and other neighboring countries. They were customarily exempted of taxation for 16 years, which is reflected by the "lehota" ("lightening") placenames in present-day Slovakia.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Earlier distinctions between freemen, serfs and "udvornici" disappeared in the 14th century, because all peasants had acquired the right to free movement by the 1350s. Most of them cultivated well defined parcels with a hereditary right to use it for a rent in cash and in-kind "gifts" due to the landowner. The legal position of "true noblemen" was also standardized when the idea of "one and the same liberty" was enacted in 1351. For instance, all noblemen received the right to "adjudicate all offences committed" by the peasants living in their estates (Martyn Rady).


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Most towns were still dominated by German merchants, but more and more Croat, Hungarian and Slovak peasants arrived from the nearby villages to settle in the towns in the 14th century. Louis I's "Privilegium pro Slavis" ("Privilege for the Slavs") from 1381 was the first indication of official bilingualism in a town. It ensured that the Slovaks in Zsolna (present-day Žilina, Slovakia) would enjoy the same privileges as the town's German burghers.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Louis I who was heir presumptive to Casimir III of Poland assisted the Poles several times against Lithuania and the Golden Horde. The foundation of Moldavia, a Romanian principality east of the Carpathians is also connected to these campaigns. Along the southern frontiers, Louis I compelled the Venetians to withdraw from Dalmatia in 1358 and forced a number of local rulers (including Tvrtko I of Bosnia, and Lazar of Serbia) to accept his suzerainty. However, his vassals often rebelled against him in the 1360s. Bogdan, a Romanian "voivode" even achieved the independence of Moldavia. Louis I's suzerainty over Moldavia was only restored when he was elected king of Poland in 1370.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: His control over Wallachia, the other Romanian principality always remained doubtful. Vladislav I of Wallachia even allied with the emerging Ottoman Empire in 1375. Therefore, Louis I was the first Hungarian monarch who had to fight against the Ottomans.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Religious fanaticism is one of the featuring element of Louis I's reign. He attempted, without success, to convert many of his Orthodox subjects to Catholicism by force. He expelled the Jews around 1360, but allowed them to return in 1367.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: New royal castles were erected, for instance, in Visegrád, Diósgyőr, and Zólyom (present-day Zvolen, Slovakia) under the Angevin kings. Patricians' houses unearthed at Sopron and other towns, frescoes and sculptures found at many places (including Esztergom and Nagyvárad) point at a flourishing Gothic architecture and art. Codices decorated with miniatures (among them the "Illuminated Chronicle") attest to the high level of book illumination. William of Bergzabern, Bishop of Pécs founded a university at his see in 1367, but it was closed shortly after his death in 1375.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Louis I was succeeded in 1382 by his daughter, Mary. However, most noblemen opposed the idea of being ruled by a female monarch. Taking advantage of the situation, a male member of the dynasty, Charles III of Naples claimed the throne for himself. He arrived in the kingdom in September 1385. Although the Diet forced the queen to abdicate and elected Charles of Naples king, the queen's partisans murdered him in February 1386. Paul Horvat, Bishop of Zagreb initiated a new rebellion and declared his infant son, Ladislaus of Naples king. They captured the queen in July 1386, but her supporters proposed the crown to her husband, Sigismund of Luxemburg. Queen Mary was soon liberated, but she never again intervened in the government.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Sigismund distributed more than 50 percent of the royal estates to his supporters. Furthermore, large territories in Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia remained controlled by Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić and Ladislaus of Naples's other supporters. When Queen Mary died childless in 1395, her sister, Queen Jadwiga of Poland claimed the throne for herself, but Sigismund's partisans defeated her troops.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: In the meantime, Stefan Lazarević of Serbia accepted the Ottoman sultan's suzerainty, thus the Ottoman Empire's expansion reached the southern frontiers of Hungary in 1390. Sigismund decided to organize a crusade against the Ottomans. A great army consisting mainly of French knights assembled, but the crusaders were routed in the battle of Nicopolis in 1396.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: The Diet of Temesvár (present-day Timișoara, Romania) of 1397 obliged all landholders to finance the equipment of soldiers for defensive purposes. Thereafter, all landholders provided one archer for each twenty peasant households on their estates. In the same year, Sigismund abolished former immunities of the jurisdiction of county authorities which accelerated the development of county assemblies into important institutions of local autonomy.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Sigismund's open bias towards Stibor of Stiboricz, Hermann of Cilli and his (mostly foreign) favorites gave rise to a number of plots. Led by John Kanizsai, archbishop of Esztergom, the native barons even imprisoned him in 1401. For six months, the barons administered the realm in the name of the Holy Crown, "the impersonal sovereign of the kingdom" (Miklós Molnár), but finally restored Sigismund's rule. A group of barons offered the crown to Ladislaus of Naples in 1412, but Sigismund again gained the upper hand. Since Pope Boniface IX supported his opponent, Sigismund prohibited both the proclamation of papal documents without a previous royal consent and the appointment of prelates by the Holy See.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: The major towns always remained faithful to Sigismund. He exempted many of them from internal custom duties and even invited their representatives to the Diet in 1405. However, the Diet was not convoked for three decades. The king spent more and more time abroad especially after his election King of the Romans in 1410. The kingdom was governed by his most faithful partisans who were united in a formal league, the Order of the Dragon.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: This knightly order was established on the occasion of the royal troop's victory over Hrvoje Hrvatinić in 1408. Thereafter most Dalmatian towns seceded from Ladislaus of Naples, but he soon sold his claims to the Republic of Venice. In the following decade, the republic forced the settlements on the Dalmatian coasts one by one to accept her suzerainty.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: On the southern borders, Sigismund attempted to create a buffer zone against the Ottomans. For this purpose, he granted large estates to Stefan Lazarević of Serbia, Mircea I of Wallachia and other neighboring rulers. Furthermore, fourteen new fortresses were erected on the Danube frontier under the auspices of the Italian Pipo of Ozora. The first Gypsy groups were also admitted in the kingdom because of their information on the Ottoman Empire's military and their skills in manufacturing weapons.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: The Ottomans occupied Golubac Fortress in 1427 and started to regularly plunder the neighboring lands. The Ottoman raids forced many locals to depart for better protected regions. Their place was occupied by South Slavic refugees (mainly Serbs). Many of them were organized into mobile military units known as "hussars".


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: The northern regions of the kingdom (present-day Slovakia) were pillaged in almost every year by Czech Hussites from 1428. However, Hussite ideas spread in the southern counties, mainly among the burghers of the Szerémség. Hussite preachers were also the first to translate the Bible to Hungarian. However, all Hussites were either executed or expelled from the Szerémség in the late 1430s.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Sigismund erected a splendid royal palace (later destroyed by the Ottomans) at Buda. Actually, the town became the kingdom's capital in his reign. The wealthiest landholders also constructed new residences or rebuilt their old fortresses in order to improve comfort. For instance, Pipo of Ozora who employed the painter Masolino da Panicale and one of Brunelleschi's students introduced Renaissance architecture and arts.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: The kingdom's defense and Sigismund's active foreign policy demanded new sources of income. For instance, the king imposed "extraordinary" taxes on the prelates and mortgaged 13 Saxon towns in the Szepesség to Poland in 1412. He regularly debased coinage which resulted in a major rebellion of Hungarian and Romanian peasants in Transylvania in 1437. It was suppressed by the joint forces of the Hungarian noblemen, Székelys and Transylvanian Saxons who concluded an agreement against the rebels.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Sigismund, who had no sons, died in late 1437. The Estates elected his son-in-law, Albert V of Austria, king. Albert promised not to make any decisions without consulting the prelates and the lords. He died of dysentery during an unsuccessful military operation against the Ottomans in 1439.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Although Albert's widow, Elizabeth of Luxembourg, gave birth to a posthumous son, Ladislaus V, most noblemen preferred a monarch capable to fight. They offered the crown to Władysław III of Poland. Both Ladislaus and Władysław were crowned which caused a civil war. John Hunyadi, a talented military leader who supported Władysław, rose to prominence during these fights.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Władysław appointed Hunyadi (together with his close friend, Nicholas Újlaki) to command the southern defenses in 1441. Hunyadi made several raids against the Ottomans. During his "long campaign" of 1443-1444, the Hungarian forces penetrated as far as Sofia within the Ottoman Empire. The Holy See organized a new crusade, but the Ottomans annihilated the Christian forces at the Battle of Varna in 1444, during which Władysław was killed.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Following Władysław's death, the Diet of 1445 acknowledged the infant Ladislaus V as rightful monarch. He lived in the court of his relative, Frederick III. Therefore, the Estates appointed seven "captains", one of them being Hunyadi, to govern the kingdom. The Diet of 1446 elected Hunyadi sole regent, but it was also stipulated that he should convoke the Diet annually. At the Diets, all official documents were issued and even speeches could be made in Latin. However, the German-speaking delegates from Pressburg (present-day Bratislava, Slovakia) reported already in 1446 that they could not understand the debates because the noblemen spoke in Hungarian.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Large territories remained independent of the central government in Hunyadi's regency. For instance, Frederick III held several towns along the western borders, and a Czech mercenary, John Jiskra of Brandýs, administered many fortresses in the northern regions. Even so, Hunyadi was planning to fight against the Ottomans in their own territories. However, his new campaign ended with the Christian forces' defeat at Kosovo in 1448.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Ladislaus V's Austrian and Bohemian subjects forced Emperor Frederick III to hand their young monarch over to his new guardian, Ulrich II, Count of Celje in 1452. Hunyadi also resigned from the regency, but he continued to administer a significant part of royal revenues and many royal fortresses. According to a contemporary proposal for the reform of royal revenues, more than 50 percent thereof (around 120,000 florins) derived from the royal monopoly on salt and a direct tax payable by the peasantry.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: The Fall of Constantinople in 1453 demonstrated the beginning of a new phase of Ottoman expansion under Sultan Mehmed II. In two years, he occupied Serbia and decided to take Belgrade (), the key fort at Hungary's southern frontier. The defence was organized by John Hunyadi, who was assisted by the Franciscan preacher, John of Capistrano. They mobilized 25-30,000 commoners, cut the Ottomans' supply lines and forced them to withdraw on July 22, 1456. Hunyadi died in an epidemic in two weeks.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Ulrich of Celje ordered Hunyadi's elder son, Ladislaus, to hand over all royal castles held by his father. Ladislaus Hunyadi pretended to accept the command, but his retinue murdered Ulrich in Belgrade. He was arrested in March 1457, along with his younger brother Matthias, and subsequently executed. However, the execution stirred up the lesser nobility to revolt. Ladislaus V fled to Prague, where he died before the end of the year.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: A Diet was convoked and the assembled noblemen elected Matthias Hunyadi king in 1458. The young monarch in short time removed the powerful Ladislaus Garay from the office of palatine and his uncle, Michael Szilágyi, of the regency. Led by Garay, his opponents offered the crown to Frederick III, but Matthias defeated them and concluded a peace treaty with the emperor in 1464. In the meantime, the zone of buffer states along the kingdom's southern frontiers collapsed with the occupation of Serbia and Bosnia by the Ottomans. As an immediate consequence, a great number of Serbian refugees settled in the kingdom.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: King Matthias introduced far-reaching fiscal and military reforms. First of all, peasants were in each year obliged to pay a lump-sum "extraordinary tax", often without the consent of the Diet. Traditional taxes were renamed in order to abolish earlier exemptions (for instance, the "thirtieth" was collected under the name "duty of the Crown" from 1467). Contemporary estimations suggest that his total yearly income was about 650,000 golden florins. More than 60 percent of his revenues (about 400,000 florins) derived from the "extraordinary tax", but salt monopoly and coinage still yielded significant income (60-80,000 florins).


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Increased royal revenues enabled Matthias to set up and maintain a standing army. Consisting of mainly Czech, German and Hungarian mercenaries, his "Black Army" was one of the first professional military forces in Europe. Matthias strengthened the network of fortresses along the southern frontier, but he did not pursue his father's offensive anti-Ottoman policy. Instead, he launched attacks on Bohemia, Poland, and Austria, arguing that he was trying to forge an alliance strong enough to expel the Ottomans from Europe.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Although his war against the "heretic" king of Bohemia, George of Poděbrady, was supported by the Holy See, this reorientation of the kingdom's foreign policy was unpopular. Led by John Vitéz, archbishop of Esztergom, many of Matthias's former supporters rebelled against him in 1471. They offered the throne to Casimir, son of Casimir IV of Poland, but Matthias overcame them without difficulties. His war against Bohemia ended with the Peace of Olomouc of 1478 which confirmed his hold of Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia. In the next decade, Matthias waged a war against Emperor Frederick III which enabled him to occupy Styria and Lower Austria (including Vienna).


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Matthias rarely convoked a Diet and governed by royal decrees after 1471. He preferred to employ lesser nobles and even commoners instead of aristocrats in state administration. His "Decretum Maius" of 1486 strengthened the authority of county magistrates by abolishing the palatine's right to convoke judicial assemblies in the counties and by annulling earlier immunities. King "Matthias the Just" travelling in disguise throughout his realm in order to suppress corruption became a hero of popular folk tales for some years after his death.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Matthias's court was "unquestionably among the most brilliant in Europe" (Miklós Molnár). His library, the "Bibliotheca Corviniana" with its 2,000 manuscripts, was the second greatest in size among contemporary book-collections. Matthias was the first monarch north of the Alps to introduce Italian Renaissance style in his realms. Inspired by his second wife, Beatrice of Naples, he had the royal palaces at Buda and Visegrád rebuilt under the auspices of Italian architects and artists after 1479.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Matthias' reforms did not survive the turbulent decades that followed his death in 1490. An oligarchy of quarrelsome magnates gained control of Hungary. Not wanting another heavy-handed king, they procured the accession of Vladislaus II, the king of Bohemia and son of Casimir IV of Poland, precisely because of his notorious weakness: he was known as King Dobže, or Dobzse (meaning "all right"), from his habit of accepting, without question, every petition and document laid before him.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Vladislaus II donated most of the royal estates, régales and royalties to the nobility. By this method, the king tried to stabilize his new reign and preserve his popularity amongst the magnates. After the naïve fiscal and land policy of the royal court, the central power began to experience severe financial difficulties, largely due to the enlargement of feudal lands at his expense. The noble estate of the parliament succeeded in reducing the tax burden by 70-80 percent, at the expense of the country's ability to defend itself.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Vladislaus II also abolished the taxes that had supported Matthias' mercenary army. As a result, the king's army dispersed just as the Turks were threatening Hungary. The magnates also dismantled Mathias' administration and antagonized the lesser nobles. In 1492 the Diet limited the serfs' freedom of movement and expanded their obligations while a large portion of peasants became prosperous because of cattle-export to the West. Rural discontent boiled over in 1514 when well-armed peasants preparing for a crusade against Turks rose up under György Dózsa, a borderguard captain, and attacked estates across Hungary. United by a common threat, the magnates and lesser nobles eventually crushed the rebels. Dózsa and other rebel leaders were brutally executed.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Shocked by the peasant revolt, the Diet of 1514 passed laws that condemned the serfs to eternal bondage and increased their work obligations. Corporal punishment became widespread, and one noble even branded his serfs like livestock. The legal scholar István Werbőczy included the new laws in his "Tripartitum "of 1514, which made up the espirit of Hungary's legal corpus until the revolution of 1848. However, the "Tripartitum "was never used as a code. The "Tripartitum "gave Hungary's king and nobles, or magnates, equal shares of power: the nobles recognized the king as superior, but in turn the nobles had the power to elect the king. The" Tripartitum "also freed the nobles from taxation, obligated them to serve in the military only in a defensive war, and made them immune from arbitrary arrest.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: When Vladislaus II died in 1516, his ten-year-old son Louis II became king, but a royal council appointed by the Diet ruled the country. Hungary was in a state of near anarchy under the magnates' rule. The king's finances were a shambles; he borrowed to meet his household expenses despite the fact that they totaled about one-third of the national income. The country's defenses sagged as border guards went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, and initiatives to increase taxes to reinforce defenses were stifled. In 1521 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent recognized Hungary's weakness and seized Belgrade in preparation for an attack on Hungary.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: Following the fall of Belgrade, Louis II and his wife, Mary of Habsburg, tried to manage an anti-magnate putsch, but were not successful. In August 1526, the Ottomans under Suleiman appeared in southern Hungary, and he marched nearly 100,000 Turkish-Islamic troops into Hungary's heartland. The Hungarian army, numbering around 26,000, met the Turks at Mohács. Though the Hungarian troops were well-equipped and well-trained, they lacked a good military leader, while reinforcements from Croatia and Transylvania did not arrive in time. They were utterly defeated, with up to 20,000 killed on the field, while Louis himself died when he fell from his horse into a bog.


title: Kingdom of Hungary (1301–1526)

text: After Louis's death, the rival factions of Hungarian nobles simultaneously elected two kings, John Zápolya and Ferdinand of Habsburg. Each claimed sovereignty over the entire country but lacked sufficient forces to eliminate his rival. Zápolya, a Hungarian who was military governor of Transylvania, was recognized by Sultan Suleiman and was supported mostly by lesser nobles opposed to new foreign kings. Zápolya's realm also became an Ottoman vassal in 1529 when he swore fealty to Suleiman. Ferdinand drew support from magnates in western Hungary who hoped he could convince his brother, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, to expel the Turks. In 1538 George Martinuzzi, Zápolya's adviser, arranged an agreement between the rivals, known as the Treaty of Nagyvárad, that would have made Ferdinand sole monarch upon the death of the then-childless Zápolya. The agreement failed when, just before his death in 1540, Zápolya married and fathered a son, John Sigismund Zápolya. Violence erupted, and the Turks seized the opportunity, conquering the city of Buda and then partitioning the country in 1541.


title: Salta

text: Salta () is the capital and largest city in the Argentine province of the same name. With a population of 618,375 according to the 2010 census, it is also the 7th most-populous city in Argentina. The city serves as the cultural and economic center of the Valle de Lerma Metropolitan Area (Spanish: "Área Metropolitana del Valle de Lerma", AMVL), which is home to over 50.9% of the population of Salta Province and also includes the municipalities of La Caldera, Vaqueros, Campo Quijano, Rosario de Lerma, Cerrillos, La Merced and San Lorenzo. Salta is the seat of the Capital Department, the most populous department in the province.


title: Salta

text: Salta was founded on April 16, 1582 by the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma, who intended the settlement to be an outpost between Lima, Peru and Buenos Aires. The origin of the name "Salta" is a matter of conjecture, with several theories being advanced to explain it.


title: Salta

text: During the war of independence, the city became a commercial and military strategic point between Perú and the Argentine cities. Between 1816 and 1821, the city was led by local military leader General Martín Miguel de Güemes, who under the command of General José de San Martín, defended the city and surrounding area from Spanish forces coming from further north.


title: Salta

text: Salta emerged from the War of Independence politically in disarray and financially bankrupt, a condition that lingered throughout much of the 19th century. However, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the arrival of Italian, Spanish and Arab immigrants, particularly Syrians and Lebanese, revived trade and agriculture all over the area while further enhancing the city's multicultural flavor.


title: Salta

text: Salta has a subtropical highland climate ("Cwb", according to the Köppen climate classification), and it is characterized by pleasant weather year-round. Located in the subtropical north, but at an altitude of 1,200 metres, Salta enjoys 4 distinct seasons: summers are warm with frequent thunderstorms, with daytime highs around and pleasant, refreshing nights around . Fall brings dry weather, pleasant days at around and mild nights at around . By winter, the dryness is extreme, with very few rain episodes. Nights are cool at on average, but daytime heating allows for high temperatures of . Snow is rare and frost is quite common, with temperatures reaching down to during the coldest nights. Spring brings sunny weather with warm days and mild nights: days range from with nights between . Salta's winters are rather warm for its elevation and far inland position for a location being just outside the tropics.


title: Salta

text: Of the over of rain that Salta receives yearly, over 80% falls between December and March, when thunderstorms occur almost daily. During the rest of the year, blue skies dominate the region. Seemingly incessant summer thunderstorms greatly rejuvenate the surrounding mountainous landscape, making the various hills and mountainsides within the vicinity of the city green and lush once again. Salta receives 1863 hours of bright sunshine each year or about 5.1 hours per day. The highest recorded temperature was on November 28, 1972 while the lowest recorded temperature was on August 5, 1966.


title: Salta

text: The city centre features a number of buildings dating back to the 18th and 19th and early 20th centuries. Clockwise around the Ninth of July Square are the neoclassical Cathedral Shrine, the French style Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cabildo (in former times, the city's town hall, nowadays a historical museum) and the neoclassical Museum of High Mountain Archaeology, which houses artifacts from the Inca civilization, including the mummies of three Inca children. The Plaza is almost completely surrounded by a gallery.


title: Salta

text: Within walking distance of the 9th July Square are the Saint Francis Church and the city's three pedestrian streets: "Alberdi", "Florida" and "Caseros". The three blocks in Balcarce street closest to the train station are now the centre of night life in Salta, with restaurants, pubs and cafés on both sidewalks and concerts every night.


title: Salta

text: Rising in the east is San Bernardo Hill. Its summit, from which visitors can get a view of the city and the entire valley, can be reached by car, cable car or stairway.


title: Salta

text: Salta is probably the most Spanish city in Argentina by physical appearance: so much so that tourists visiting from Spain often find a strong resemblance between Salta and Andalucian cities. The local culture, however, is a blend of Spanish and gaucho (mestizo, criollo, both indigenous and non-indigenous) traditions, lending the city a distinctive identity, somewhat different from the more European-like metropolises to the south.


title: Salta

text: The city boasts three theatres, several museums (one of which exhibits the perfectly preserved bodies of c.500 year old Inca children sacrificed in the Andes to Inca gods), and a busy calendar of art exhibitions, shows, music festivals, and other cultural events.