title: Anti-Serb sentiment

text: As of late December 2019, the newly proclaimed religion law or officially "Law on Freedom of Religion or Belief and the Legal Status of Religious Communities", which "de jure" transfers the ownership of church buildings and estates from the Serbian Orthodox Church to the Montenegrin state, sparked a series of peaceful nationwide protests which continued to February 2020. The Freedom House described the adoption of the law, which is widely seen to target the Serbian Orthodox Church, as "questionable decision". Eighteen opposition MPs, mostly Serbs, were arrested prior to the voting, under the charge for violently disrupting the vote. Some church officials were attacked by the police and a number of journalists, opposition activists and protesting citizens were arrested. President Milo Đukanović called the protesting citizens "a lunatic movement".


title: Anti-Serb sentiment

text: Among derogatory terms for Serbs are "Vlachs" (Власи / "Vlasi") which was used mainly in Hrvatsko Zagorje during rebellion in the early 20th century. and "Chetniks" (четници / "četnici") used by Croats and Bosniaks; "Shkije" by Albanians; while "Čefurji" is used in Slovenia for immigrants from other former Yugoslav republics. In Montenegro, a widely used derogatory term for Serbs is "Posrbice" (посрбице), and it denotes "Montenegrins who identify as Serbs".


title: Anti-Serb sentiment

text: The slogan "Srbe na vrbe!" (Србе на врбе), meaning "Hang Serbs from the willow trees!" () originates from a poem by the Slovene politician Marko Natlačen published in 1914, at the beginning of the Austro-Hungarian war against Serbia. It was popularized before World War II by Mile Budak, the chief architect of Ustaše ideology against Serbs. During World War II there were mass hangings of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia as part of the Ustaše persecution of the Serbs.


title: Anti-Serb sentiment

text: In present-day Croatian nationalists and people who oppose the return of Serb refugees often use the slogan. Graffiti with the phrase is common, and was noted in the press when it was found painted on a church in 2004, 2006, and on another church in 2008. In 2010, a banner displaying the slogan appeared in the midst of tourist season at the entrance to Split, a major tourist hub in Croatia, during a Davis Cup tennis match between the two countries. It was removed by the police within hours, and the banner's creator was later apprehended and charged with a felony. A Serbian Orthodox church in Geelong, Australia, was spray-painted with the slogan, along with other neo-Nazi symbols, in 2016.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) is a species in the order Lepidoptera and one of the species of the fall armyworm moths distinguished by their larval life stage. The term "armyworm" can refer to several species, often describing the large-scale invasive behavior of the species' larval stage. It is regarded as a pest and can damage and destroy a wide variety of crops, which causes large economic damage. Its scientific name derives from "frugiperda," which is Latin for "lost fruit", named because of the species' ability to destroy crops. Because of its propensity for destruction, the fall armyworm's habits and possibilities for crop protection have been studied in depth. It is also a notable case for studying sympatric speciation, as it appears to be diverging into two species currently. Another remarkable trait of the larva is that they consistently practice cannibalism, despite its fitness costs.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The fall armyworm is active at a different time of year from the true armyworm, another species in the order Lepidoptera and family Noctuidae, but of the genus "Mythimna". Outbreaks of the true armyworm usually occur during the early part of the summer; the fall armyworm does most damage in the late summer in the southern part of the United States, and early fall in the northern regions.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The adult moths are wing tip to wing tip, with a brown or gray forewing, and a white hindwing. There is slight sexual dimorphism, with males having more patterns and a distinct white spot on each of their forewings. The first larval instar is light colored with a larger dark head. As they develop through instars, they become browner with white lengthwise lines. They also develop dark spots with spines.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The fall armyworm is widely distributed in eastern and central North America and in South America. It cannot overwinter in below freezing temperatures, so it only survives the winter in the most southern regions of the United States, namely Texas and Florida. Because of this, the fall armyworm is a more prominent pest in southeastern states. However, seasonally it will spread across the eastern United States and up to southern Canada, inhabiting areas with suitable food supplies.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The potential global distribution of "S. frugiperda" has been modelled using CLIMEX. The modelled global potential distribution reflects the marked seasonal range dynamics experienced in North America, with much of the potential range in Europe, South Africa, China and Australia consisting of habitat that is only climatically suitable during the warmer months.. A more recent physiologically-based population dynamics model was developed for assessing the potential distribution of "S. frugiperda" in Europe. The model showed that the Mediterranean coastal areas of Southern Europe might be particularly suitable for the establishment of the species.


title: Fall armyworm

text: "S. frugiperda" was first found on the African continent in 2013 in Sao Tome, then spread through Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and was found in Ghana in February 2017. (Also see below §Africa.) In December 2020 "S. frugiperda" was first found in Syria in Daraa on the Jordanian border and is believed to have arrived from there without human assistance, having just been found in that country also.


title: Fall armyworm

text: It was first reported in Africa in 2016, where it is causing significant damage to maize crops and has great potential for further spread and economic damage. It has since spread to 28 countries in Africa. In December 2018, it began to spread widely in India. In January 2019, a heavy infestation of fall armyworm was recorded in corn plantations in Sri Lanka.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The pest was first detected in China in the southwest province of Yunnan in January 2019 (or June 2019). Through 2019, the pest infested a total of 26 provinces. The armyworm is expected in 2020 to hit China's Northeast wheat belt. A report issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs rates the situation as "very grave". Also in June 2019 it was detected in Southeast Asia.


title: Fall armyworm

text: In January 2020 "S. frugiperda" was detected on the Torres Strait Islands, in February in North Queensland, and then continued into the rest of Queensland, and the Northern Territory, Western Australia, and then in September was found in New South Wales between Moree and Boggabilla (and later in Narrabri, Wee Waa, Dubbo, Breeza, and Maitland). "S. frugiperda" is expected to severely impact Queensland's wool industry because it feeds on all major grazing plants. It was observed in traps baited with a male pheromone lure, firstly on Darnley Island and Saibai islands in the Torres Strait, and subsequently on the mainland near Croydon. Within a week it was officially declared ineradicable. In April 2020, it was detected in Papua New Guinea, spreading across the Torres Strait.


title: Fall armyworm

text: "S. frugiperda" was first detected in Bangladesh in late 2018. it has reached 37 districts. As a result of the introduction of "S. frugiperda" and Lumpy Skin Disease within a few months of each other, the FAO, the World Food Programme, Bangladesh Government officials, and others agreed to begin improving Bangladesh's agricultural emergency response capabilities. The use of two biopesticides - Spodoptera frugiperda nuclear polyhedrosis virus/SfNPV (the SNPV/single nuclear polyhedrosis virus specific to "S. frugiperda") and "Habrobracon hebetor" - is recommended.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The armyworm's diet consists mainly of grasses and grain crops such as corn, but the species has been noted to consume over 80 different plants (50 non-economic and 30 economic plants). Armyworms earned their common name by eating all plant matter they encounter in their wide dispersals, like a large army. A few sweet corn varieties have partial, but not complete, resistance to armyworms. The resistance comes from a unique 33-kD proteinase that the corn produces when it is being fed on by fall armyworms or other larvae. This protein was found to significantly decrease fall armyworm larva growth.


title: Fall armyworm

text: When possible, larvae will cannibalize the larvae of smaller instars. A 1999 study showed that cannibalism only benefits the caterpillar when other food is scarce. Despite this, the caterpillars will cannibalize others whenever they can, even though it was found to decrease their own fitness in many cases. One known reason why cannibalism is detrimental to the fall armyworm is because of disease transmission to the cannibal. In nature, the negative effects of cannibalism may be balanced by the fact that cannibalism removes competitors, thereby making more resources accessible and indirectly increasing fall armyworms' fitness.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The fall armyworm's life cycle is completed within 30 days during summer, and 60 days during the spring and autumn seasons; during the winter, these caterpillars' life cycle lasts about 80 to 90 days. The number of generations a moth will have in a year varies based on climate, but in her life span a female will typically lay about 1,500 eggs. Because larvae cannot enter into diapause they cannot survive cold temperatures.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The armyworm's egg is dome-shaped, and measures around in diameter and in height. Females prefer to lay eggs on the underside of leaves, but in high populations they will lay them just about anywhere. In warm weather, the eggs will hatch into larvae within a few days.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The larvae go through six different instars, each varying slightly in physical appearance and pattern. The larva process lasts from 14 to 30 days, again depending on temperatures. The mature caterpillar is about in length. This is the most destructive life stage as the larvae have biting mouth parts. The larvae have a distinctive inverted Y suture on the forehead.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The larvae then pupate underground for 7 to 37 days in a cocoon they form of soil and silk. Duration and survival of the pupal stage depend on the temperature of the environment.


title: Fall armyworm

text: Once emerged, the adults live for about 10 days, and sometimes up to 21 days, with the female laying most of her eggs early in life. Adults are nocturnal and fare best during warm and humid nights.


title: Fall armyworm

text: Adults are capable of flying long distances, so even though they are unable to overwinter north of the southern region of the United States, the moths can migrate as far north as southern Canada in warm months. Their migration rate is remarkably fast, estimated at per generation. Some scientists speculate that this fast migration is aided by the movement of air in weather fronts.


title: Fall armyworm

text: Allatotropin and allatotropin+allatostatin C - neuropeptides - extracted from "Manduca sexta" were both found to suppress feeding in all life stages, increase larval mortality, and reduce adult lifespan, by Oeh et al 2000.


title: Fall armyworm

text: Fall armyworm caterpillars are directly preyed upon by many invertebrates and vertebrates. Common predators include birds, rodents, beetles, earwigs, and other insects. It has been shown that direct predation can cause significant losses to caterpillar populations. The larva's main defense against enemies is their ability to reach large numbers and migrate before seasonal conditions are suitable for predators.


title: Fall armyworm

text: Fly and wasp parasitoids target the fall armyworm, most commonly "Archytas marmoratus", "Cotesia marginiventris", and "Chelonus texanus". The armyworm is also vulnerable to additional parasitoids, varying with location. In 2018, egg parasitoid wasps of the genera "Telenomus" and "Trichogramma" were discovered to attack army worm eggs in East Africa.


title: Fall armyworm

text: "Cotesia icipe" is another African braconid wasp suitable for the biological control of this lepidoptera.


title: Fall armyworm

text: Fifty-three different parasite species have been discovered in fall armyworm larvae, spanning ten different families. Often larvae can survive through much of their crop consumption despite outbreaks of disease, because of the larva's fast life cycle. Despite this, parasites of the fall armyworm are being studied extensively as a means of fighting armyworm attacks on crops. One suggested approach would be to introduce parasites from South America to North American fall armyworms, and vice versa.


title: Fall armyworm

text: In February 2021, it was reported that an Australian agronomist Georgia Rodger had found at a property near Beaudesert (southern Queensland) the tropical fungus "Nomuraea rileyi" which was known to be effective in killing and consuming fall armyworms. Samples of this were sent to Maree Crawford, the insect pathologist at the Queensland Department of Agriculture for further analysis. Australian entomologists have said the finding is reassuring and that laboratory tests have been promising. This is substantiated by various studies including a 2018 journal article which looked into the effectiveness of "N. rileyi" had on infestations of armyworms in Indian maize crops. The study concluded "N. rileyi" could potentially be a cost-effective tool in combating the pest, compatible with eco-friendly management practices, although further studies were required. Farmers in Australia have struggled to control the pest which has been destroying crops, prompting concerns about potential food shortages which could cause an increase in food prices for consumers. The "N. rileyi" research has given them hope that this can be avoided.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The fall armyworm may be presently undergoing a divergence into two separate species. These two strains have major genetic differences that are connected to the plants they feed on, even though both still exist in the same area (sympatric speciation). These two strains can be loosely categorized into a rice strain and a corn strain. This separation is occurring because of differences in habitat (preferred host plant), and differences in reproductive behavior. The reproductive differences can be divided into two categories: difference in the timing of mating at night, and difference in female sex pheromones.


title: Fall armyworm

text: A female attracts males by perching atop the host plant feeding area and releasing a sex pheromone as the signal that she wishes to mate. The pheromone has been studied and found to contain the components Z7-12 and Z9-14. Each female only mates once per night; this creates a physical conflict between the multiple males that will fly towards a ready female. There is an order to which the females call and mate: virgin females do first, females who have mated once next, and females who have already mated multiple times call and mate last during the night.


title: Fall armyworm

text: "S. frugiperda" cells (Sf9 and Sf21 cell lines) are commonly used in biomedical research for the purpose of recombinant protein expression using insect-specific viruses called baculoviruses.


title: Fall armyworm

text: Because of their food preferences, fall armyworm larvae can wreak havoc on a wide range of crops. The first historical account of the fall armyworm's destruction was in 1797 in Georgia. Destruction can happen almost over night, because the first stages of a caterpillar's life require very little food, and the later stages require about 50 times more. Because of this rapid change in food consumption, the presence of larvae will not be noticed until they have destroyed almost everything in as little as a night. Some examples of targeted crops include cotton, tobacco, sweet corn, rice, peanuts, and even fruits such as apples, oranges, and many more. The list of possible food sources for the worms is extensive, so crop damage is wide-ranging. It is estimated that almost 40 percent of those species that armyworms target are economically important. Because the larvae eat so much of the plant, they are very detrimental to crop survival and yield. In corn, larvae will even burrow into the corn ear to eat the kernels.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that "S. frugiperda" will reduce maize/corn yields by /annum if not successfully controlled. The fall armyworm have proved to be a pest in many regions, and methods of control continue to be developed.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The fall armyworm was identified in Africa in 2016. In early 2017, armyworms infested large swathes of corn crops across southern Africa, devastating the livelihoods of many farmers. It is thought they arrived as an invasive species from the Americas as eggs in imported produce. This is causing immense concern among agricultural experts, due to the potentially huge amount of damage this invasive species will do to African food crops if allowed to spread. Many African countries have agreed to take urgent actions against armyworms.


title: Fall armyworm

text: After being first reported in India in May 2018 in Tamil Nadu, then the Sri Lankan Ministry of Agriculture issued a warning notice to farmers in the northwestern and north central provinces about possible fall armyworm invasion. At the time of warning, crop destruction had already been reported from the Ampara, Anuradhapura, and Polonnaruwa areas. The larvae are known among the local people as "Sena dalambuwa" (armyworm caterpillar). Not only corn, but also sugarcane plantations were attacked by the caterpillars in Anuradhapura, Ampara, and Monaragala districts.


title: Fall armyworm

text: In December 2018, heavy infestations in corn cultivation were identified. The spread of the moth leads to attack corn all around the country within weeks. On 6 January 2019, caterpillars spread to the Monaragala district and devastated corn crops. At the end of January 2019, the armyworm was present in all districts of Sri Lanka except Nuwara Eliya and Jaffna.


title: Fall armyworm

text: On 29 December 2018, armyworms were recorded from paddy cultivations in the Sinhapura area of Polonnaruwa. In January 2019, caterpillars were also recorded from paddy cultivations of the Nochchiyagama area in the Anuradhapura district.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The Sri Lankan Department of Agriculture recommended 12 pesticides under three categories, to be used alternately every seven days. Organic farming expert, Thilak Kandegama said that the threat can be overcome by sprinkling rice husk ashes as a repellent. Agricultural Ministry also decided to use drone technology for the spraying of insecticides to control the spreading of caterpillars.


title: Fall armyworm

text: Because of the fall armyworms' great destructive power, farmers must go to great lengths to deter the larvae. Insecticide is a widely used form of protection; in southern regions, farmers may have to apply insecticide to corn every day. Agricultural drones have been used to apply pesticides, used in China, Vietnam, Zambia and other regions.


title: Fall armyworm

text: The CABI-led programme, Plantwise and partners have several recommendations for managing fall armyworm, these include: planting early, avoiding staggered planting, and inter-cropping with crops that are not susceptible to fall armyworm, such as cassava or yam. They also recommend conserving shelters and flowering plants on the edges for beneficial insects such as ground beetles and parasitoids.


title: Fall armyworm

text: Inter-cropping with the "push-pull" technique with crops such as "Desmodium" and Napier grass can be used to control fall armyworm.


title: Fall armyworm

text: For some crops, including wheat, sorghum, millet and rice, it is recommend by Plantwise partners to plant short maturing and varieties that are less preferred by "S. frugiperda".


title: Fall armyworm

text: Another strategy is to plant crops earlier to avoid the increase in armyworm numbers as the summer progresses.


title: Fall armyworm

text: In South Africa, farmers are using pheromone lures with a combination of Dichlorvos blocks to trap and eliminate male armyworms, with the intention of disrupting mating cycles.


title: Fall armyworm

text: CIMMYT and its partners are using forward genetics to breed for better "S. frugiperda" resistance in maize. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are the most effective method for associating "S. f." resistance to the responsible genomic region, especially used in maize/corn but also wheat, sorghum, millet, rice, and legumes. The first uses of conventional breeding in the first decade of the 1900s were reported by Gernet 1917 and Hinds 1914, improving resistance in maize/corn, sorghum, millet, "Cynodon dactylon", and "Arachis hypogaea".


title: Fall armyworm

text: In Australia, a caterpillar-specific virus packaged as Fawligen biopesticide was approved under emergency regulations in 2020 to help control the armyworm, and the parasitoid wasp "Trichogramma pretiosum" is also used.


title: Autassassinophilia

text: Autassassinophilia is a paraphilia in which a person is sexually aroused by the risk of being killed. The fetish may overlap with some other fetishes that risk one's life, such as those involving drowning or choking. This does not necessarily mean the person must actually be in a life-threatening situation, for many are aroused from dreams and fantasies of such.


title: Autassassinophilia

text: The term was introduced by John Money who also defined erotophonophilia as the "reciprocal condition" in which one is aroused by "stage-managing and carrying out the murder of an unsuspecting sexual partner". Money classified both these paraphilias as "of the sacrificial/expiatory type".


title: Autassassinophilia

text: These concepts, especially their imperfect reciprocity, were criticized by Lisa Downing, who wrote that:


title: Autassassinophilia

text: The autassassinophiliac, for Money, is more interested in his orgasm than in his death, resulting in a compulsion to stage manage the "possibility" rather than the "actuality" of his end at the hands of another person. The erotophonophiliac, on the other hand, is driven by the actualization of the other's death and – crucially – this other must be unaware of the would-be killer's intentions. These definitions, then, effectively preclude reciprocity and are constructed here in such a way as to prevent the possibility of consent. The sexologist, it seems, is incapable of imagining mutuality in this context. ... The imagined pact is used here as an incentive to the would-be libertarian to support the suppression of paraphilia and the conversion of a death-related desire to a life-giving form.


title: Joachim Kroll

text: Joachim Georg Kroll (17 April 1933 – 1 July 1991) was a German serial killer, child molester, necrophile and cannibal who murdered a minimum of 8 women and young girls in the Ruhr metropolitan region from 1955 until his arrest on 3 July 1976. He was convicted of eight murders and one attempted murder, but confessed to a total of 14. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on 8 April 1982.


title: Joachim Kroll

text: Born the son of a miner in Hindenburg (Zabrze), Upper Silesia, Kroll was the sixth of nine children. After the end of World War II, during which his father was a prisoner of war, Kroll's family moved to North Rhine-Westphalia.


title: Joachim Kroll

text: He began killing in 1955, after his mother died. Around 1960, Kroll went to Duisburg and found work as a toilet attendant for Mannesmann. Afterwards he worked for Thyssen Industries and moved to Friesenstrasse 24, Laar, a district of Duisburg. At that time he resumed killing people.


title: Joachim Kroll

text: Kroll was very particular about where he killed, only killing in the same place on a few occasions years apart. This, and the fact that there were a number of other killers operating in the area at the time, helped him to evade capture. Kroll would surprise his victims and strangle them quickly. Afterward he would strip the body and have intercourse with it, often masturbating over it again. He would then mutilate and cut off pieces to be eaten later. Upon returning home, he would have intercourse again with a rubber sex doll he had for this purpose.


title: Joachim Kroll

text: On 3 July 1976, Kroll was arrested for kidnapping and killing a four-year-old girl named Marion Ketter. As police went from home to home, a neighbor approached a policeman and told him that the waste-pipe in his apartment building had blocked up, and when he had asked his neighbor, Kroll, whether he knew what had been blocking the pipe, Kroll had simply replied, "guts". Upon this report, the police went up to Kroll's apartment and found the body of Marion Ketter cut up: some parts were in the refrigerator, a small hand was cooking in a pan of boiling water and the entrails were found stuck in the waste-pipe. Kroll was immediately arrested.


title: Joachim Kroll

text: He admitted killing Marion Ketter and gave details of 13 other murders and one attempted murder over the previous two decades.


title: Joachim Kroll

text: Kroll said that he often sliced portions of flesh from his victims to cook and eat them, claiming that he did this to save on his grocery bills. In custody, he believed that he was going to get a simple operation to cure him of his homicidal urges and would then be released from prison. Instead he was charged with eight murders and one attempted murder. In April 1982, after a 151-day trial, he was convicted on all counts and was given a life sentence.


title: Richard Dadd

text: Richard Dadd (1 August 1817 – 7 January 1886) was an English painter of the Victorian era, noted for his depictions of fairies and other supernatural subjects, Orientalist scenes, and enigmatic genre scenes, rendered with obsessively minuscule detail. Most of the works for which he is best known were created while he was a patient in Bethlem and Broadmoor hospitals.


title: Richard Dadd

text: Richard Dadd was born at Chatham, Kent, England, on 1 August 1817, the son of chemist Robert Dadd (1788/9–1843) and Mary Ann (1790–1824), daughter of shipwright Richard Martin. He was educated at King's School, Rochester where his aptitude for drawing was evident at an early age, leading to his admission to the Royal Academy of Arts at the age of 20. He was awarded the medal for life drawing in 1840. With William Powell Frith, Augustus Egg, Henry O'Neil and others, he founded The Clique, of which he was generally considered the leading talent. He was also trained at William Dadson's Academy of Art.


title: Richard Dadd

text: Among his best-known early works are the illustrations he produced for "The Book of British Ballads" (1842), and a frontispiece he designed for "The Kentish Coronal" (1840).


title: Richard Dadd

text: In July 1842, Sir Thomas Phillips, the former mayor of Newport, chose Dadd to accompany him as his draughtsman on an expedition through Europe to Greece, Turkey, Southern Syria and finally Egypt. In November of that year they spent a gruelling two weeks in Southern Syria, passing from Jerusalem to Jordan and returning across the Engaddi wilderness. Toward the end of December, while travelling up the Nile by boat, Dadd underwent a dramatic personality change, becoming delusional, increasingly violent, and believing himself to be under the influence of the Egyptian god Osiris. His condition was initially thought to be sunstroke.


title: Richard Dadd

text: On his return in the spring of 1843, he was diagnosed to be of unsound mind and was taken by his family to recuperate in the rural village of Cobham, Kent. In August of that year, having become convinced that his father was the Devil in disguise, Dadd killed him with a knife and fled to France. En route to Paris, Dadd attempted to kill a fellow passenger with a razor but was overpowered and arrested by police. Dadd confessed to killing his father and was returned to England, where he was committed to the criminal department of Bethlem psychiatric hospital (also known as Bedlam). Here and subsequently at the newly created Broadmoor Hospital, Dadd was cared for in an enlightened manner by Doctors William Wood, William Orange and Sir W. Charles Hood.


title: Richard Dadd

text: Dadd probably had paranoid schizophrenia. Two of his siblings had the condition, while a third had "a private attendant" for unknown reasons.


title: Richard Dadd

text: In hospital, Dadd was encouraged to continue painting, and in 1852 he created a remarkable portrait of one of his doctors, Alexander Morison, which now hangs in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Dadd painted many of his masterpieces in Bethlem and Broadmoor, including "The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke", which he worked on between 1855 and 1864. Dadd was pictured at work on his "Contradiction: Oberon and Titania" by the London society photographer Henry Hering. Also dating from the 1850s are the 33 watercolour drawings titled "Sketches to Illustrate the Passions", which include "Grief or Sorrow", "Love", and "Jealousy", as well as "Agony-Raving Madness" and "Murder". Like most of his works, these are executed on a small scale and feature protagonists whose eyes are fixed in a peculiar, unfocused stare. Dadd also produced many shipping scenes and landscapes during his hospitalization, such as the ethereal 1861 watercolour "Port Stragglin". These are executed with a miniaturist's eye for detail which belie the fact that they are products of imagination and memory.


title: Richard Dadd

text: After 20 years at Bethlem, Dadd was moved to Broadmoor Hospital, a high security facility outside London. There he remained, painting constantly and receiving infrequent visitors until 7 January 1886, when he died "from an extensive disease of the lungs". A number of his works remain on display at Broadmoor.


title: Richard Dadd

text: Freddie Mercury was inspired to write the song 'The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke' based on Dadd's painting, which he had seen at the Tate Gallery. In 2013 Neil Gaiman wrote an essay about the painting for Intelligent Life (now called 1843 magazine).


title: Richard Dadd

text: Angela Carter wrote "Come unto these Yellow Sands", a radio-play based on Dadd's life, first broadcast in 1979.


title: Richard Dadd

text: Canadian author R.J. Anderson acknowledges Dadd as the basis of her fictional painter Alfred Wrenfield, who figures prominently in her young adult fantasy novel "Knife" (2009)".


title: Richard Dadd

text: In 1987 a long-lost watercolour by Dadd, "The Artist's Halt in the Desert", was discovered by Peter Nahum on the BBC TV programme "Antiques Roadshow". Made while the artist was incarcerated, it is based on sketches made during his tour of the Middle East, and shows his party encamped by the Dead Sea, with Dadd at the far right. It was later sold for £100,000 to the British Museum.


title: Richard Dadd

text: Loreena McKennitt features Dadd's 1862 painting "Bacchanalian Scene" on the cover of her 1987 Christmas CD To Drive the Cold Winter Away


title: Richard Dadd

text: Terry Pratchett included "The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke" in his 2003 Discworld novel "The Wee Free Men". Tiffany, the protagonist, finds it in a book of fairy-tales and later escapes from a dream set within the picture. In the author's note, Pratchett describes the painting and gives a brief but sympathetic summary of Dadd's personal history and struggle with mental illness.


title: Richard Dadd

text: Elizabeth McGregor wrote "The Green Girl In The Green Glass Mirror," a 2005 novel which features the work of Dadd, including a fictional painting of an unknown Dadd.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Persistence of vision traditionally refers to the optical illusion that occurs when visual perception of an object does not cease for some time after the rays of light proceeding from it have ceased to enter the eye.


title: Persistence of vision

text: The illusion has also been described as "retinal persistence", "persistence of impressions", simply "persistence" and other variations. A very commonly given example of the phenomenon is the apparent fiery trail of a glowing coal or burning stick while it is whirled around in the dark.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Many explanations of the illusion actually seem to describe either positive afterimages or motion blur.


title: Persistence of vision

text: "Persistence of vision" can also be understood to mean the same as "flicker fusion," the effect that vision seems to persist continuously when the light that enters the eyes is interrupted with short and regular intervals. When the frequency is too high for the visual system to discern differences between moments, light and dark impressions fuse together into a continuous impression of the scene with intermediate brightness.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Since its introduction, the term "persistence of vision" has been believed to be the explanation for motion perception in optical toys like the phenakistiscope and the zoetrope, and later in cinema. However, this theory has been disputed even before cinematography's breakthrough in 1895. If "persistence of vision" is explained as "flicker fusion", it can be regarded as the reason why the dark intervals don't interrupt the continuous impression of a depicted scene. The illusion of motion as a result of fast intermittent presentations of sequential images is a stroboscopic effect, as detailed by inventor Simon Stampfer.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Early descriptions of the illusion often attributed the effect purely to the physiology of the eye, particularly of the retina. Nerves and parts of the brain later became accepted as important factors.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Some natural phenomena and the principles of some optical toys have been attributed to the persistence of vision effect. Patrick d'Arcy recognised the effect in "the luminous ring that we see by turning a torch quickly, the fire wheels in the fireworks, the flattened spindle shape we see in a vibrating cord, the continuous circle we see in a cogwheel that turns with speed". Basically everything that resembles motion blur seen in fast moving objects could be regarded as "persistence of vision".


title: Persistence of vision

text: The apparent line of light behind a fast moving luminous object is known as the "sparkler's trail effect", since it is commonly known from the use of sparklers.


title: Persistence of vision

text: The effect has occasionally been applied in the arts by writing or drawing with a light source recorded by a camera with a long exposure time.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Colors on spinning tops or rotating wheels mix together if the motion is too fast to register the details. A colored dot then appears as a circle and one line can make the whole surface appear in one uniform hue.


title: Persistence of vision

text: The Newton disc optically mixes wedges of Isaac Newton's primary colors into one (off-)white surface when it spins fast.


title: Persistence of vision

text: In April 1825 the first "Thaumatrope" was published by W. Phillips (in anonymous association with John Ayrton Paris). The fact that the pictures on either side of the twirling disc seem to blend together into one image has often been used to illustrate the concept of persistence of vision.


title: Persistence of vision

text: In April 1858 John Gorham patented his "Kaleidoscopic colour-top". This is a top on which two small discs are placed, usually one with colors and a black one with cut-out patterns. When the discs spin and the top disc is retarded into regular jerky motions the toy exhibits "beautiful forms which are similar to those of the kaleidoscope" with multiplied colours. Gorham described how the colours appear mixed on the spinning top "from the duration of successive impressions on the retina". Gorham founded the principle on "the well-known experiment of whirling a stick, ignited at one end" (a.k.a. the sparkler's trail effect).


title: Persistence of vision

text: A pencil or another rigid straight line can appear as bending and becoming rubbery when it is wiggled fast enough between fingers, or otherwise undergoing rigid motion.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Persistence of vision has been discarded as sole cause of the illusion. It is thought that the eye movements of the observer fail to track the motions of features of the object.


title: Persistence of vision

text: The term "persistence of vision display" or "POV display" has been used for LED display devices that compose images by displaying one spatial portion at a time in rapid succession, (for example, one column of pixels every few milliseconds). A two-dimensional POV display is often accomplished by means of rapidly moving a single row of LEDs along a linear or circular path. The effect is that the image is perceived as a whole by the viewer as long as the entire path is completed during the visual persistence time of the human eye. A further effect is often to give the illusion of the image floating in mid-air. A three-dimensional POV display is often constructed using a 2D grid of LEDs which is swept or rotated through a volume. POV display devices can be used in combination with long camera exposures to produce light writing.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Phenomena related to flicker fusion and motion blur have been described since antiquity. Film historians have often confused flicker fusion with afterimages that arise after staring at an object, while mostly ignoring the importance of the stroboscopic effect in their explanations of motion perception in film.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Aristotle (384–322 BC) noted that the image of the sun remained in his vision after he stopped looking at it.


title: Persistence of vision

text: The discovery of persistence of vision is sometimes attributed to the Roman poet Lucretius (c. 15 October 99 BC – c. 55 BC), although he only mentions something similar in connection with images seen in a dream.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Around 165 AD Ptolemy described in his book "Optics" a rotating potter's wheel with different colors on it. He noted how the different colors of sectors mixed together into one color and how dots appeared as circles when the wheel was spinning very fast. When lines are drawn across the axis of the disc they make the whole surface appear to be of a uniform color. "The visual impression that is created in the first revolution is invariably followed by repeated instances that subsequently produce an identical impression. This also happens in the case of shooting stars, whose light seems distended on account of their speed of motion, all according to the amount of


title: Persistence of vision

text: perceptible distance it passes along with the sensible impression that arises in the visual faculty."


title: Persistence of vision

text: Porphyry (circa 243–305) in his commentary on Ptolemy's "Harmonics" describes how the senses are not stable but confused and inaccurate. Certain intervals between repeated impressions are not detected. A white or black spot on a spinning cone (or top) appears as a circle of that color and a line on the top makes the whole surface appear in that color. "Because of the swiftness of the movement we receive the impression of the line on every part of the cone as the line moves."


title: Persistence of vision

text: In the 11th century Ibn al-Haytham, who was familiar with Ptolemy's writings, described how colored lines on a spinning top could not be discerned as different colors but appeared as one new color composed of all of the colors of the lines. He deducted that sight needs some time to discern a color. al-Haytam also noted that the top appeared motionless when spun extremely quickly "for none of its points remains fixed in the same spot for any perceptible time".


title: Persistence of vision

text: Leonardo da Vinci wrote in a notebook: "Every body that moves rapidly seems to colour its path with the impression of its hue. The truth of this proposition is seen from experience; thus when the lightning moves among dark clouds the speed of its sinuous flight makes its whole course resemble a luminous snake. So in like manner if you wave a lighted brand its whole course will seem a ring of flame. This is because the organ of perception acts more rapidly than the judgment."


title: Persistence of vision

text: In his 1704 book "Opticks", Isaac Newton (1642–1726/27) described a machine with prisms, a lens and a large moving comb with teeth causing alternating colors to be projected successively. If this was done quickly enough, the alternating colours could no longer be perceived separately but were seen as white. Newton compared its principle to the sparkler's trail effect: a gyrating burning coal could appear as a circle of fire because "the sensation of the coal in the several places of that circle remains impress'd on the sensorium, until the coal return again to the same place."


title: Persistence of vision

text: In 1768 Patrick d'Arcy (1725-1779) reported how he had measured a duration of 0.13 seconds for one full rotation of a burning coal while it was seen as a full circle of light. He registered multiple rotations with a purpose-built machine in his garden and with the collaboration of an observer who had superior eyesight (D'Arcy's own eyesight had been damaged in an accident). D'Arcy suspected that the duration may differ between different observers, light intensities of spinning objects, colours and viewing distances. He planned further experiments to determine such possible differences, but no results seem to have been published.


title: Persistence of vision

text: In 1821 the "Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and The Arts" published a "letter to the editor" with the title "Account of an Optical Deception." It was dated Dec. 1, 1820 and attributed to "J.M.", possibly publisher/editor John Murray himself. The author noted that the spokes of a rotating wheel seen through fence slats appeared with peculiar curvatures (see picture). The letter concluded: "The general principles on which this deception is based will immediately occur to your mathematical readers, but a perfect demonstration will probably prove less easy than it appears on first sight". Four years later Peter Mark Roget offered an explanation when reading at the Royal Society on December 9, 1824. He added: "It is also to be noticed that, however rapidly the wheel revolves, each individual spoke, during the moment it is viewed, appears to be at rest." Roget claimed that the illusion is due to the fact "that an impression made by a pencil of rays on the retina, if sufficiently vivid, will remain for a certain time after the cause has ceased." He also provided mathematical details about the appearing curvatures.


title: Persistence of vision

text: As a university student Joseph Plateau noticed in some of his early experiments that when looking from a small distance at two concentric cogwheels which turned fast in opposite directions, it produced the optical illusion of a motionless wheel. He later read Peter Mark Roget's 1824 article and decided to investigate the phenomenon further. He published his findings in "Correspondance Mathématique et Physique" in 1828 and 1830. In 1829 Plateau presented his then unnamed anorthoscope in his doctoral thesis "Sur quelques propriétés des impressions produites par la lumière sur l'organe de la vue". The anorthoscope was a disc with an anamorphic picture that could be viewed as a clear immobile image when the disc was rotated and seen through the four radial slits of a counter-rotating disc. The discs could also be translucent and lit from behind through the slits of the counter-rotating disc.


title: Persistence of vision

text: On 10 December 1830, scientist Michael Faraday wrote a paper for the "Journal of the Royal Institution of Great Britain", entitled "On a Peculiar Class of Optical Deceptions". Two instances of rotating wheels that appeared to stand still had been pointed out to him and he had read about the somewhat similar palisade illusion in Roget's article. Faraday started experimenting with rotations of toothed cardboard wheels. Several effects had already been described by Plateau, but Faraday also simplified the experiment by looking at a mirror through the spaces between the teeth in the circumference of the cardboard disc. On 21 January 1831, Faraday presented the paper at the Royal Institution, with some new experiments. He had cut concentric series of apertures nearer to the center of a disc (representing smaller cogwheels) with small differences in the amount of "cogs" per "wheel". When looking at the mirror through the holes of one of the wheels in the rotating disc, that wheel seemed to stand still while the others would appear to move with different velocities or opposite direction.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Plateau was inspired by Faraday's additional experiments and continued the research. In July 1832 Plateau sent a letter to Faraday and added an experimental circle with apparently abstract figures that produced a "completely immobile image of a little, perfectly regular horse" when rotated in front of a mirror. After several attempts and many difficulties Plateau managed to animate the figures between the slits in a disc when he constructed the first effective model of the phénakisticope in November or December 1832 . Plateau published his then unnamed invention in a January 20, 1833 letter to "Correspondance Mathématique et Physique".


title: Persistence of vision

text: Simon Stampfer claimed to have independently and almost simultaneously invented his very similar "Stroboscopischen Scheiben oder optischen Zauberscheiben" (stroboscopic discs or optical magic discs) soon after he read about Faraday's findings in December 1832.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Stampfer also mentioned several possible variations of his stroboscopic invention, including a cylinder (similar to the later zoetrope) as well as a long, looped strip of paper or canvas stretched around two parallel rollers (somewhat similar to film) and a theater-like frame (much like the later praxinoscope). In January 1834, William George Horner also suggested a cylindrical variation of Plateau's phénakisticope, but he did not manage to publish a working version. William Ensign Lincoln invented the definitive zoetrope with exchangeable animation strips in 1865 and had it published by Milton Bradley and Co. in December 1866.


title: Persistence of vision

text: In his 1833 patent and his explanatory pamphlet for his stroboscopic discs, Simon Stampfer emphasized the importance of the interruptions of the beams of light reflected by the drawings, while a mechanism would transport the images past the eyes at an appropriate speed. The pictures had to be constructed according to certain laws of physics and mathematics, including the systematic division of a movement into separate moments. He described the idea of persistence of vision only as the effect that made the interruptions go unnoticed.


title: Persistence of vision

text: The idea that the motion effects in so-called "optical toys", like the phénakisticope and the zoetrope, may be caused by images lingering on the retina was questioned in an 1868 article by William Benjamin Carpenter. He suggested that the illusion was "rather a "mental" than a "retinal" phenomenon".


title: Persistence of vision

text: Early theories of persistence of vision were centered on the retina, while later theories preferred or added ideas about cognitive (brain centered) elements of motion perception. Many psychological concepts of the basic principle of animation suggested that the blanks in between the images were filled in by the mind.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Max Wertheimer proved in 1912 that test subjects did not see anything in between the two different positions in which a figure was projected by a tachistocope at the speed that was ideal for the illusion that it was only one figure moving from one position to the next. He used the Greek letter φ (phi) to designate illusions of motion. At higher speeds, when test subjects believed to see both positions more or less simultaneously, a moving objectless phenomenon was seen between and around the projected figures. Wertheimer supposed this "pure phi phenomenon" was a more direct sensory experience of motion. The ideal animation illusion of motion across the interval between the figures was later called "beta movement".


title: Persistence of vision

text: A visual form of memory known as iconic memory has been described as the cause of persistence of vision. Some scientists nowadays consider the entire theory of iconic memory a myth.


title: Persistence of vision

text: When contrasting the theory of persistence of vision with that of phi phenomena, an understanding emerges that the eye "is not a camera" and does not see in frames per second. In other words, vision is not as simple as light registering on a medium since the brain has to make sense of the visual data the eye provides and construct a coherent picture of reality.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Although psychologists and physiologists have rejected the relevance of the theory of retinal persistence film viewership, film academics and theorists generally have not, and it persists in citations in many classic and modern film-theory texts.


title: Persistence of vision

text: Joseph and Barbara Anderson argue that the phi phenomena privileges a more constructionist approach to the cinema (David Bordwell, Noël Carroll, Kirstin Thompson) whereas the persistence of vision privileges a realist approach (André Bazin, Christian Metz, Jean-Louis Baudry).


title: Gaiseric

text: Gaiseric ( – 25 January 477), also known as Geiseric or Genseric (; reconstructed Vandalic: ) was King of the Vandals and Alans (428–477), ruling a kingdom he established, and was one of the key players in the difficulties faced by the Western Roman Empire during the 5th century. Through his nearly 50 years of rule, he raised a relatively insignificant Germanic tribe to the status of a major Mediterranean power. His most famous exploit, however, was the capture and plundering of Rome in June 455. He also defeated two major efforts by the Romans to overthrow him, the first one by the emperor Majorian in 460 or 461, and another by Basiliscus at the Battle of Cape Bon in 468. After his death in Carthage, Gaiseric was succeeded by his son Huneric.


title: Gaiseric

text: Gaiseric was an illegitimate son of King Godigisel and a slave woman. After his father's death in a battle against the Franks during the Crossing of the Rhine, Gaiseric became the second most powerful man among the Vandals, after the new king, his half-brother Gunderic—long before his more formal accession to the kingship. Jordanes described Gaiseric in the following manner:


title: Gaiseric

text: Gaiseric...was a man of moderate height and lame in consequence of a fall from his horse. He was a man of deep thought and few words, holding luxury in disdain, furious in his anger, greedy for gain, shrewd in winning over the barbarians and skilled in sowing the seeds of dissension to arouse enmity.


title: Gaiseric

text: After Gunderic's death in 428, Gaiseric became king of the Vandals, continuing the hostilities begun by his brother. To this end, he sought ways of increasing the power and wealth of his people, who then resided in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica in southern Hispania. The Vandals had suffered greatly from attacks from the more numerous Visigothic federates, and not long after taking power, Gaiseric decided to leave Hispania to this rival Germanic tribe. In fact, he seems to have started building a Vandal fleet even before he became king. In 429 Gaiseric was attacked by a large force of Suebi under the command of Heremigarius who had managed to take Lusitania. This Suebic army was defeated near Mérida and its leader drowned in the Guadiana River while trying to flee.


title: Gaiseric

text: Succeeding his brother Gunderic at a time when the Vandals were settled in Baetica, Roman Hispania (modern Andalusia, Spain), Gaiseric successfully defended himself against a Suebian attack and transported most of his people—possibly as many as 80,000 persons—to Northern Africa in 428/429. Some scholars claim that this figure represents an exaggeration and the number was probably closer to 20,000. Whatever the true numbers, there are indications that the Vandals under Gaiseric may have been invited by the Roman governor Bonifacius, who wished to use the military strength of the Vandals in his struggle against the imperial government under the Roman general, Aetius.


title: Gaiseric

text: Crossing at the Straits of Gibraltar, Gaiseric led not only his Vandal brethren and army, but was likely accompanied by a contingent of Alans and Goths. Once there, he won many battles over the weak and divided Roman defenders and quickly overran the territory now comprising modern Morocco and northern Algeria. His Vandal army laid siege to the city of Hippo Regius (where Augustine had recently been bishop and who died during the siege), taking it after 14 months of bitter fighting. Gaiseric and his forces then began subduing the interior of Numidia. A peace between Gaiseric and the Roman Emperor Valentinian III was concluded in 435, and in return for recognizing Gaiseric as king of the lands he had conquered, the Vandals would desist from further attacks on Carthage, pay a tribute to the Empire, and Gaiseric's son Huneric was sent—as a hostage—to Rome. Gaiseric's treaty with the Romans also included Vandal retention of Mauretania and part of Numidia as "foederati" (allies under special treaty) of Rome.


title: Gaiseric

text: In a surprise move on 19 October 439, Gaiseric captured Carthage, striking a devastating blow at imperial power, taking advantage of the fact that Aetius remained preoccupied with affairs in Gaul. Classical scholar Stewart Oost observed, "Thus he undoubtedly achieved what had been his purpose since he first crossed to Africa." Historian Chris Wickham argues that Gaiseric's conquest of Carthage presaged Rome's later collapse. The Romans were caught unaware, and Gaiseric captured a large part of the western Roman navy docked in the port of Carthage. The Catholic bishop of the city, Quodvultdeus, was exiled to Naples, since Gaiseric demanded that all his close advisors follow the Arian form of Christianity. The subsequent sermons of Quodvultdeus paint a "dark picture of the Vandal plunderers."


title: Gaiseric

text: Despite the blow to the imperial coffers caused by Gaiseric's seizure of African revenue and the corresponding grain supply, the Vandal king had no intention of depriving Italy of Africa's grain, but instead wished to sell it to the emperor for profit. Meanwhile, his new status was that of "Proconsularis" and as such, Gaiseric made Carthage his new residence. Inheriting an already economically efficient and effective state, the tax revenues from his new lands enabled the Vandal conqueror to construct a large fleet that challenged imperial control over the Mediterranean. Gaiseric presided over a mixture of Vandals, Alans, Goths and Romans in Africa, relying on an ad-hoc administration under auspices of the imperial government to legitimize his rule. Latin literary culture even flourished in Carthage.


title: Gaiseric

text: Gaiseric besieged Panormus (Palermo, Sicily) in 440 AD but was repulsed. Hunnic invasions into the lower Danube forced Constantinople to withdraw forces from Sicily to the benefit of Gaiseric. In a 442 treaty with Rome, the Vandals were recognized as the independent rulers of Byzacena and part of Numidia. In 455, Gaiseric seized the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Corsica, and Malta, and his fleet soon came to control much of the western Mediterranean. During 455, the Roman emperor Valentinian III was murdered on orders of Petronius Maximus, who usurped the throne. Petronius Maximus also married Valentinian's widow, Licinia Eudoxia, and likewise wedded the imperial couple's daughter Eudocia to his own son; the latter had formerly been promised to Gaiseric's son, Huneric, which contributed a possible "casus belli" that was exploited by the Vandal king. Gaiseric was of the opinion that these acts voided his 442 peace treaty with Valentinian, and on 31 May, he and his men landed on Italian soil.


title: Gaiseric

text: Responding to the actions of Petronius Maximus, Gaiseric moved a large seaborne force from Carthage to Italy and sacked the city in a more thorough manner than even Alaric's Goths had carried out in 410. Historian Michael Kulikowski notes that unlike Alaric, who besieged Rome as an itinerant barbarian general in "desperate straits," Gaiseric was the king of a flourishing polity and was therefore able to systematically conduct the sack. More than just systematically attack Rome, Gaiseric's invasion was a devastating blow to the empire itself, so much so that historian Michael Grant claims, "Gaiseric contributed more to the collapse of the western Roman Empire than any other single man."


title: Gaiseric

text: Before Gaiseric marched upon Rome, Pope Leo I implored him not to destroy the ancient city or murder its inhabitants. Gaiseric agreed and the gates of Rome were thrown open to him and his men. Once inside the city, the invaders plundered it thoroughly, to the extent that Procopius noted how the Vandals had even stripped the gold from the ceiling of the Jupiter Capitolinus temple—but more significant was the capture of important figures and dignitaries in the city, whose return remained a bargaining point between the Vandals and the Empire for many years to come. Routine Vandal raids along the coast of Italy and the Mediterranean characterized the situation during the first years after Gaiseric's successful seizure of Rome.


title: Gaiseric

text: Petronius Maximus, who was foremost among those vying for power in the wake of Valentinian III's murder, fled rather than fight the Vandal warlord. Although history remembers the Vandal sack of Rome as extremely brutal—making the word vandalism a term for any wantonly destructive act—in actuality, the Vandals did not wreak great destruction in the city; they did, however, take gold, silver and many other things of value. Gaiseric also took with him Empress Eudoxia and her daughters, Eudocia, and Placidia, as well as riches from the city. Across Italy, the shock of the Vandal sack of Rome and the ongoing presence of the Vandals paralyzed the imperial government. Eudocia married Gaiseric's son Huneric after arriving in Carthage. That union produced Hilderic—Gaiseric's grandson—who later played a critical role in Emperor Justinian's sixth-century conquests of north Africa.


title: Gaiseric

text: Sometime in 460, the Emperor Majorian began collecting an invasion fleet for an assault against the Vandals. Once Gaiseric received word of this initiative, he preempted the attack by sending vessels from Carthage to "Carthago Nova", where the Vandal ships burned the imperial boats at their moorings, again proving himself "more than a match for the imperial establishments of both West and East." Then in early 462, Gaiseric sent the empress Eudoxia with her daughters Eudocia and Placidia—captured during the sack of Rome—back to Constantinople from Carthage in an act of reconciliation with the Empire, likely intending to preserve the marriage of his son Huneric to Eudocia.


title: Gaiseric

text: While rhetorical writing from the period still distinguished between "barbarian" and Romans and the imperial state attempted to exercise control over the empire and its peripheries, the elite population in the lands controlled by the likes of the Germanic chieftains Theodoric and Gaiseric, preferred the certainties of their leadership over "the vagaries and ineptitude of the would-be imperial government in Italy."


title: Gaiseric

text: In 468, Gaiseric's kingdom was the target of the last concerted effort by the two-halves of the Roman Empire. They wished to subdue the Vandals and end their pirate raids, so Emperor Leo sent an armada from Constantinople led by Basiliscus. Gaiseric sent a fleet of 500 Vandal ships against the Romans, losing 340 ships in the first engagement, but succeeded in destroying 600 Roman ships in the second battle, during which fireships were employed by Gaiseric to devastating effect. This catastrophic defeat of the Roman fleet by Gaiseric's forces was claimed to have cost the imperial coffers upwards of 64,000 pounds of gold and 700,000 pounds of silver. The Romans abandoned the campaign and Gaiseric remained master of the western Mediterranean until his death, ruling from the Strait of Gibraltar all the way to Tripolitania.


title: Gaiseric

text: Following up the Byzantine defeat, the Vandals tried to invade the Peloponnese but were driven back by the Maniots at Kenipolis with heavy losses. In retaliation, the Vandals took 500 hostages at Zakynthos, hacked them to pieces, and threw the body parts overboard on the way to Carthage.


title: Gaiseric

text: In 474, Gaiseric made peace with the Eastern Roman Empire through a treaty negotiated by the Constantinopolitan Senator, Severus, who was acting under Zeno's authority. After enjoying just a few short years of peace, Gaiseric died at Carthage in 477, succeeded by his son Huneric, who did not have his father's enviable reputation and Vandal authority began to diminish. Nonetheless, the peace established by Zeno between Vandal-controlled Carthage and Constantinople lasted until 530, when Justinian's conquests broke it.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: Joseph Berlinger (born October 30, 1961) is an American documentary filmmaker and producer. Particularly focused on true crime documentaries, Berlinger's films and docu-series draw attention to social justice issues in the US and abroad in such films as "Brother's Keeper", "", "Crude", "" and "Intent To Destroy: Death, Denial and Depiction".


title: Joe Berlinger

text: A 2017 "HuffPost" article said ""Brother's Keeper" (1992) and the "Paradise Lost" trilogy (1996–2011) helped pioneer the style of documentary filmmaking [seen] in Netflix's recent true crime sensation, "Making a Murderer"—a combination of artful cinematography, a stirring musical soundtrack, and a dramatic narrative structure as compelling as any scripted film."


title: Joe Berlinger

text: Berlinger spearheaded and directed two 2019 projects centered on the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy: the Netflix docu-series "", and the drama film "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile", starring Zac Efron.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: Berlinger was born to a Jewish family in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He graduated from Colgate University in 1983 with a B.A. in German Language.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: After graduating from Colgate University, Berlinger took a position working at an advertising agency in Frankfurt, Germany. He soon transitioned into the world of film, working as an apprentice to the iconic documentarians Albert and David Maysles. Joe met his future directing partner, Bruce Sinofsky, while they were both employed by the Maysles. Together they would make their directing debut with the 1992 film "Brother's Keeper."


title: Joe Berlinger

text: Working as a directing duo, Berlinger and Sinofsky created the landmark documentary "Brother's Keeper" (1992), which tells the story of Delbert Ward, an uneducated elderly man in Munnsville, New York, who was charged with second-degree murder following the death of his brother William. Film critic Roger Ebert called it "an extraordinary documentary about what happened next, as a town banded together to stop what folks saw as a miscarriage of justice."


title: Joe Berlinger

text: The pair went on to direct the Paradise Lost Trilogy--"" (1996), "" (2000), and "" (2011), which earned the pair an Academy Award nomination. The trilogy, shot over two decades, focused on the West Memphis Three, a group of teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of the brutal murder of three children. The trilogy raised doubts about the legitimacy of the teenagers' convictions and spurred a movement to release them from prison, where one of the men was awaiting a death sentence. In 2011, the West Memphis Three were released from their respective death and life sentences after filing an Alford Plea with the Federal Court of Arkansas.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: "" (2004), called "one of the most revelatory rock portraits ever made" follows the popular heavy metal band Metallica. Berlinger and Sinofsky capture the group at a crossroads, as bassist Jason Newsted quits the band and frontman James Hetfield abruptly leaves to enter a rehabilitation facility due to alcohol abuse. The film was critically acclaimed for capturing Metallica, a global phenomenon, at a moment of true vulnerability.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: Sinofsky died on February 21, 2015 at the age of 58, from diabetes-related complications. The band Metallica paid tribute to him as a "courageous man with deep empathy and wisdom who wasn't afraid to dig deep to tell the story." Berlinger wrote that Sinofsky's "humanity is on every frame of the films that he leaves behind."


title: Joe Berlinger

text: Berlinger's film "Crude" (2009) focused on the lawsuit by Ecuadorean plaintiffs against Chevron Corporation, for its alleged responsibility for continuing sites of pollution in that country. "Under African Skies" (2012), follows Paul Simon as he returns to South Africa for a reunion concert, celebrating the 25th anniversary of his landmark album "Graceland" which featured many iconic South African Musicians. In 2014 "", a documentary about the infamous Boston mob boss Whitey Bulger was released. Berlinger traces Whitey's trail of terror as well as the FBI's role in both enabling him and taking him down.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: Berlinger captured Tony Robbins' exclusive and notoriously private "Date With Destiny" seminar in his 2016 film "Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru". Berlinger chronicles the six-day seminar and the personal evolutions and breakthroughs of participants, Robbins and even Berlinger himself.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: In 2017 Berlinger released "Intent to Destroy: Death, Denial & Depiction", an examination of the Armenian genocide through both seated interviews with experts and behind-the-scenes footage of Terry George's historical drama "The Promise" (2016).


title: Joe Berlinger

text: In 2019, Berlinger re-entered the world of narrative film and directed "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile", his second feature. The film chronicles the life of serial killer Ted Bundy and his longtime girlfriend Elizabeth Kendall. Starring Zac Efron, Lily Collins, Jim Parsons, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Haley Joel Osment and Angela Sarafyan, the film screened at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in January.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: , Joe Berlinger has directed 15 documentary series for television, including "Oprah's Master Class" (2011–2012)", Iconoclasts" (2005–2012), "The System With Joe Berlinger" (2014), "Killing Richard Glossip" (2017), "Gone: The Forgotten Women of Ohio" (2017), and "Cold Blooded: The Clutter Family Murders" (2017). Berlinger has three television projects slated for release in 2018: "Unspeakable Crime: The Burning of Jessica Chambers" (NBC/Oxygen), "Wrong Man" (STARZ), and a special fifth episode of "Killing Richard Glossip" (Discovery ID)"."


title: Joe Berlinger

text: In collaboration with journalist Greg Milner, Berlinger wrote the book "" (2004), about his early career, accomplishments and challenges forging his path in the world of film. The book is centered around the filming of "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster".


title: Joe Berlinger

text: Berlinger serves on the board of Proclaim Justice, a nonprofit dedicated to providing resources and building awareness around wrongful convictions. He also serves on the board of Rehabilitation Through the Arts, The Bedford Playhouse and the International Documentary Association.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: Chevron Corporation subpoenaed the outtakes from Berlinger's 2009 film "Crude". Berlinger fought the request, citing reporters' privilege, but in 2010 a federal judge ordered Berlinger to turn over more than 600 hours of footage created during the film's production. Berlinger appealed, but in 2011 the US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court ruling against Berlinger, though with a slight reduction in the total hours of footage required.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: After spending $1.3 million on legal fees on the case, Berlinger expressed concerns about being able to make documentaries about legal cases in the future.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: Berlinger is best known for the film series "Paradise Lost", which documents the murder trial and the subsequent legal battles of three Arkansas teenagers, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., convicted of murder. The court convicted the youths (known as the West Memphis Three) of murdering three eight-year-old boys as part of a "ritual killing," although no physical evidence linked the three young men to the crime. "Paradise Lost" documents the 20-year ordeal of these three young men from arrest to conviction, through years of unsuccessful legal efforts, to a plea bargain that resulted in their release in the summer of 2012.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: The film series brought mainstream attention to the case, and many celebrities took up the cause of getting these young men out of prison and getting Damien Echols off death row. The mainstream attention, brought on by the documentary series, allowed for a well-financed legal team to investigate every lead in the case. These subsequent investigations showed the incompetence of the West Memphis police, who had never dealt with this type of crime, and that the police let other suspects disappear from the community; for example, a man covered in blood used a restroom in a restaurant within walking distance of the murder scene shortly after the time of the murders. In addition to the failure to apprehend the suspect, the police lost the blood samples, even though this strange man left blood all over the bathroom. This mistake meant that the experts could never determine if this strange man was covered in the victims' blood.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: Ultimately, the defense team hired DNA experts to test genetic material after fighting the prosecution for years to get access to it, and these tests again proved that no physical evidence linked the West Memphis Three to the murders; rather, a hair from one boy's stepfather was found tied into one of the shoelaces used to hogtie the victims.


title: Joe Berlinger

text: After a 2010 decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court regarding newly produced DNA evidence, attorneys for the West Memphis Three negotiated with prosecutors an Alford plea allowing them to assert their innocence while acknowledging enough evidence to convict them; the result, on August 19, 2011, was acceptance of the pleas by Judge David Laser, and his reduction of sentence of the three to time served, and their release with 10-year suspended sentences (after 18 years, 78 days in prison).


title: Boneworks

text: Boneworks (stylized as BONEWORKS) is a 2019 first person shooter VR game developed and published by Stress Level Zero. The game is designed to be entirely physics-based, with the player having a full virtual body that responds not just to the player's real-world input but also to obstructions in the game world.


title: Boneworks

text: In "Boneworks," players take the role of Arthur Ford, a rogue cybersecurity director who escapes into an unfinished simulated universe, battling through surreal architecture and mysterious scenes with a variety of experimental physics-based weaponry.


title: Boneworks

text: "Boneworks" utilises physics simulation on almost every aspect of the game. All objects in the world can be interacted with by the player, taking into account the object's size, weight and material. Small objects like cups or hammers can be easily picked up one-handed while larger objects like crates or barrels take more effort to be moved. Stationary objects, like railings or mesh fences can be climbed instead of picked up.


title: Boneworks

text: In almost all VR titles, the player moves through the world via teleportation, and is represented by two noncorporeal hands which respond to the motion controllers. "Boneworks" instead utilizes a fully simulated body, which uses inverse kinematics based on the location of the player's head and hands.


title: Boneworks

text: This virtual body can be affected by the world around it, and may often be obstructed by objects in the virtual world. Analog sticks on the motion controllers moves the player similar to a non-VR game, with sprinting, jumping and crouching all performed either on controllers or in real life.


title: Boneworks

text: In combat, the player is free to use any method to fight back. This includes fists, guns, or any object which can be moved, like bricks or chairs. Enemies are also be damaged realistically; for example, they can be punched, tripped, headbutted, and have complex injuries such as a broken leg inhibiting their walking. Heavier objects, and objects with more momentum, deal more damage but require more effort to move.


title: Boneworks

text: Level design is non-linear, with "very little to no actual game logic", allowing players to reach the end of the level through whatever means possible. Players are encouraged to progress through or replay the game as creatively as possible, taking advantage of the physical nature in any way they see fit. Examples include stacking boxes to climb over a wall instead of finding the key to the door. The game encourages creative ways of completing puzzles, including "cheating" or solving them in an unintended way, similar to how such a puzzle might be solved in a real-life scenario.


title: Boneworks

text: A variety of hidden easter eggs and rewards are found all throughout the main campaign, including 'modules' that unlock additional content. These rewards are hidden in 'Boneboxes', which often require extensive exploration or difficult platforming to reach.


title: Boneworks

text: In addition to the main campaign, two gamemodes allow for post-story content. The Sandbox game-mode allows the player to experiment with any item or entity in the game that they have unlocked (done by collecting their respective tokens in the campaign). Meanwhile, the Arena mode offers extra challenges to players, such as timed battles, weapon swaps and survival.


title: Boneworks

text: "Boneworks" is set in Stress Level Zero's shared alternate universe, which incorporates other titles like "Duck Season" and "Bonelab."


title: Boneworks

text: In the 1990s, the global conglomerate Monogon Industries discovers a strange dimension known as the Voidway, which exists outside of space and time. This dimension contains a strange quantum particle (known as void particles) which can exist in multiple places at once. Using void particles, Monogon is able to create the BONEWORKS engine, which uses artificial intelligence and void particles to create infinite instances of virtual space, accessible via VR headsets.


title: Boneworks

text: Monogon uses the BONEWORKS engine to begin work on MythOS City, an infinite cityscape simulation designed as an endless source of virtual living space. By 1997, it is nearing completion. The player takes the role of Arthur Ford, the cybersecurity director for the MythOS project. Ford theorizes that the BONEWORKS engine could function as a entry point to the Voidway, which would allow for immortality by severing the connection between mind and body, leaving him to exist outside of space and time forever.


title: Boneworks

text: The game begins with a real-world cutscene showing an armed Arthur Ford retreating into a panic room and entering MythOS City with a virtual reality headset. In MythOS, Arthur Ford releases a virus which causes the leakage of void particles into MythOS City. This initiates a lockdown, booting everyone from the simulation and freezing the System Clock. Ford remains in the simulation and is shortly contacted by a fellow employee, Hayes, who requests that he reboot the System Clock to fix the leak, unaware that Ford is the cause of the problem.


title: Boneworks

text: Ford takes a shortcut through the unfinished Museum of Technical Demonstration, which acts as a tutorial for the game. He then passes through the greyboxed streets of MythOS City. He discovers that the nullbodies, non-sentient AI workers, have become aware and violent, attacking him on sight. To combat this, MythOS releases antivirus agents known as the Cleanup Crew, who automatically target Ford as well as the rogue nullbodies.


title: Boneworks

text: After fleeing the City, Ford ends up in the runoff sewers, where he discovers zombified versions of himself. These undead Fords are hostile and attempt to stop him from progressing to the System Clock. However, Ford is able to fight them off. He is later contacted by a BONEWORKS developer, Alora, who has realized his true goal of entering the Voidway. She commends him on his initiative, admitting to plotting something similar herself, and requests that he leave the gateway open for others to enter as well.


title: Boneworks

text: Ford manages to leave the sewers and takes a train system to the heart of MythOS City - the Time Tower, a massive building which hosts the System Clock. Fighting off the full strength of Monogon's virtual forces, as well as his alternate zombie selves, Ford makes it to the System Clock, where he discovers a cult of sentient nullbodies who worship the System Clock. Killing them, Ford is able to destroy the Clock and enters the Voidway as MythOS dissipates into white light.


title: Boneworks

text: Ford finds himself in the Voidway, where a strange Void entity watches him and beckons him through a white door from "Duck Season". Upon opening the door, Ford is suddenly pulled out of the Voidway and into a different BONEWORKS simulation.


title: Boneworks

text: He awakens in an unfinished, medieval-themed simulation called FantasyLand, where he meets many non-zombified variants of himself from alternate timelines, who were also successful in resetting the Clock and who were also pulled into FantasyLand, where they have remained trapped. These Fords have adopted FantasyLand as their home, and have constructed a massive castle out of various assets left behind by the developers. Here, Ford encounters King Ford, who challenges him for the throne. Our Ford is victorious and becomes the new King. With the help of all Fords, our Ford is able to escape FantasyLand and breach into the Voidway once again, after being warned by Hayes that Monogon has located Ford's body in the real world.


title: Boneworks

text: In the Voidway, Ford travels a vast distance to a massive building labelled 'Chamber 02'. Upon entering it, he finds himself in the cutscene room where all previous game cutscenes have taken place. Here, he is treated to one last real-world cutscene. Ford's panic room is broken into by Monogon security agents, who secure the space and remove Ford's headset. A business executive (whose face is obscured by static) arrives and pulls out a gun, executing Ford while he is still unconscious. However, since Ford still exists in the Voidway, his goal was successful, having disconnected his mind and body. Ford watches the credits as various void entities approach and watch him.


title: Boneworks

text: Stress Level Zero, the developers behind "Boneworks," had previously created two virtual reality titles - "Hover Junkers" and "Duck Season," both of which utilised the classic floating hands design. After the release of "Duck Season," Brandon Laatsch (lead developer and co-founder) wanted to create a 'more mainstream' game with the goal of pushing the medium of virtual reality forward, while also appealing to mainstream gamers. They decided on a first-person shooter due to its mainstream appeal.


title: Boneworks

text: "Half-Life 2," a FPS created by Valve in 2004, was a source of inspiration due to its physics-based interaction. Laatsch felt that since then, input had barely changed, with almost all games either utilising a game controller or keyboard and mouse. SLZ decided that virtual reality was the most promising choice to further game innovation, due to its immersive nature.


title: Boneworks

text: The concept for "Boneworks" began in 2017, with Laatsch working on the concept of a physics-based virtual body. By 2018, Stress Level Zero was actively developing the title in Unity. The content outline was not finished until a full year of development had passed, during which time the physics and mechanics were fleshed out. According to developer Alex Knoll, the core premise of "Boneworks" remained strong while the setting, story and progression was fluctuating. Originally, the game was a gritty shooter set in an automated mining facility in the throes of robot revolution, titled "Hall of the Machine King." This was eventually deemed too large a concept, and the company decided to start off with a smaller game to build up to "Machine King." This title, known as "DeadFM," was worked on for a few years until it too was too large. Stress Level Zero decided to adapt it into a more simple game designed to introduce players to fully physics-based VR locomotion, which became "Boneworks."


title: Boneworks

text: A major challenge was designing a long game in VR, since motion sickness and fatigue is common in VR players. “We had to figure out what a longer form VR gameplay session looks like. Eventually playing just gets way too tiring for long sessions." In the end, they resolved to split the game into chapters, each of which can be completed in an average play session (around an hour). Due to a lack of game design and research around virtual reality, Stress Level Zero drew from other fields. Knoll stated that sports science, anatomy, physical therapy and classical mechanics were sources for design and mechanics.


title: Boneworks

text: The soundtrack, titled "Bonetones," was created by Michael Wyckoff, who utilized physical synthesizers to produce "audible physicality with crunch and growl, difficult to replicate through a traditional computer workflow".


title: Boneworks

text: "Boneworks" was shown in a tech demo in 2018, and the game reached a playable, completable state in October 2019, and was released on Steam on December 10, 2019. During development, the YouTube channels BrandonJLA and Node released several devlogs describing and displaying the mechanics.


title: Boneworks

text: Following the release of "Boneworks," Stress Level Zero put out an announcement on Steam. Thanking players for their support, the studio promised to commit to long-term updates for the game. Post-Launch was made in 12 days, and was primarily designed according to player feedback, removing dozens of bugs and glitches. Laatsch added that sandboxes, weapons, physics tools, collectibles, and vehicles were all coming in future updates.


title: Boneworks

text: The untitled 1.3 update was a response to player feedback. Laatsch stated in a video update that the goal of 1.3 was to address those who were unhappy or unable to play "Boneworks," while not ignoring those who had a positive experience. To address the former, the team added stations to save progress - previously, leaving the game partway through a level would force the player to restart from the level's beginning. For the latter, a new gamemode (known as Arena) was added, with a new map specifically for the gamemode.


title: Boneworks

text: 1.4 introduced three new sandbox maps, two of which were previously revealed. These were the RedactedChamber, which was one of the first levels developed for "Boneworks," and Tuscany, which was previously an Oculus exclusive map. In addition, the Handgun Range was released, which features the Tactical Trial game mode. Updates were also made to general physics, as well as a new pistol. 1.4 was released on April 9, 2020.


title: Boneworks

text: The 1.5 update, titled Zombie Warehouse, was headed by Cameron Bowen. It added a second Arena map, the titular Zombie Warehouse. Players utilise the unique Boardgun to fight zombies and create structures. The enemy AI was updated and modified for this update, allowing enemies to climb walls and slide down railings. Gamemodes include survival, waves, and the Cure (retrieving batteries to power a cure-all device.)


title: Boneworks

text: The Boardgun is a developer weapon that can spawn a board between two points. Designed by Kevin, a programmer, over the course of a weekend just before the launch of the base game, it was coupled with Cameron's concept of zombie survival. Laatsch required technical advancement in order to make the update, so the updated enemy AI was created.


title: Boneworks

text: 1.6 was a crossover event with Stress Level Zero's first game, "Hover Junkers." It adds a massive sandbox level designed to fly the hovercraft prominently featured in "Hover Junkers," as well as several new items from the game. Stress Level Zero stated that the merging of properties was a design exercise for the studio, aiming to add different game styles, both aesthetically and mechanically, to identify whether "Boneworks"' physics-based sandbox style was viable across different genres.


title: Boneworks

text: "Boneworks" has been compared to "Half-Life" in its aesthetics and puzzles. The game was praised for having created an "incredible engine for a captivating VR adventure", and has been called "one of the best VR gun-adventure games on the market".


title: Boneworks

text: Rock Paper Shotgun described it as "an innovative adventure that pushes VR in all sorts of directions, but still suffers from a number of VR-specific issues."


title: Boneworks

text: Physics manipulation in "Boneworks" has been described as entering the "uncanny valley". The game has been criticized for its bugs, where the player's limbs can become stuck in game objects, as well as the content not being paced well and a lack of a coherent plot. It has been described as a "VR physics playground", and as being "conceived as a combat showcase first and a story-driven epic second – the "Narbacular Drop" to Valve's "Portal."".


title: Boneworks

text: On the day of release, "Boneworks" reached the top best-sellers ranking and player count lists across Steam. It currently has over 28,000 positive user reviews on Steam and a 78% five-star rating on the Oculus Store.


title: Boneworks

text: On April 20, 2022, Stress Level Zero revealed a trailer for "Bonelab" at the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase livestream. Previously known by its codename Project 4, "Bonelab" is made in the 1Marrow Interaction Engine, an in-house physics engine. It is "built on its predecessor, pairing a brand new story with two years of innovation and interaction engine progress."


title: Boneworks

text: A major difference in "Bonelab" is official mod support. Instead of a main character, players will be able to canonically play as any character they want, with physical difference between larger, heavier avatars and smaller, quicker ones. "Bonelab" also features a body remapping system, allowing players to shape their virtual body to match their real one in all proportions. Custom items and maps are also included, able to be created with a Unity SDK


title: Boneworks

text: "Bonelab" was released on September 29, 2022. The title is available on PCVR and the Meta Quest 2, although the Meta Quest 2 version features less graphic fidelity due to the standalone nature of the headset.


title: Mágico González

text: Jorge Alberto González Barillas (born 13 March 1958), popularly known as "El Mágico" (The Magical One), is a Salvadoran former footballer who played mainly as a forward.


title: Mágico González

text: At the club level, he played mainly for FAS and Spain's Cádiz in a 24-year senior career. Dogged by his self-admitted and often-reported lack of discipline, he was often hailed as the greatest and most skilled footballer ever produced by El Salvador, and as one of the greatest players from the CONCACAF region.


title: Mágico González

text: González represented the El Salvador national team for more than two decades, taking part in the 1982 World Cup and the 1998 Gold Cup.


title: Mágico González

text: Born in San Salvador, González began his professional career in 1975, representing ANTEL and Independiente F.C. over two seasons before moving to C.D. FAS in the Salvadoran Primera División.


title: Mágico González

text: While playing in El Salvador, González became known as "Mago" but later, upon transferring to Spain, his nickname was slightly changed to "Mágico".


title: Mágico González

text: Both Atlético Madrid and Cádiz CF became interested in acquiring González in 1982 but, despite the "Colchoneros"' higher profile, he signed with the Andalusians. His first game in Spain came in a friendly against "La Barca de la Florida", while his Segunda División debut was on 5 September 1982 in a 1–1 home draw against Real Murcia, scoring in the process. He became a fan favorite thanks to his dazzling moves and goals, but was also notorious for his love of the nightlife and his sleeping habits were also brought into question, whilst his on-field abilities endeared him to the Cádiz fans enough that they overlooked his minor indiscretions; he finished his first season with 33 games and 14 goals as the team promoted to La Liga.


title: Mágico González

text: In 1983 and 1984, Cádiz traveled to the United States. González was the principal attraction the first year, but in the following the side was joined by FC Barcelona and its superstar Diego Maradona, who later claimed that the Salvadoran was "“without a doubt amongst the greatest ten players I have ever seen play, in all my life”". His debut in the top division came on 11 September 1983 in a 1–3 home loss against the same opponent, Murcia, and they were immediately relegated.


title: Mágico González

text: Despite this, Paris Saint-Germain F.C. of France showed interest in signing him as well as Italian teams Atalanta BC, ACF Fiorentina and U.C. Sampdoria, but González chose to stay in Cádiz. His stay was somewhat short-lived, however, as he was transferred to Real Valladolid in the 1985 January transfer window due to problems with manager Benito Joanet. He did not get along at Valladolid, where his personal life was tightly controlled and, after playing in just nine games, he returned to Cádiz exactly one year later; as a precaution against his partying, his contract was reputed to have contained a clause stipulating he was to be paid US$700 per game played and none for the ones he missed.


title: Mágico González

text: After several coaching changes, González was finally able to shine again for Cádiz under Víctor Espárrago, still competing in a further four top-tier campaigns. In all, he scored 58 goals in 194 league games for the club until his departure on 6 June 1991, aged 33.


title: Mágico González

text: González returned to El Salvador and FAS after Atalanta again failed to sign him. He stayed with the former until 1999 when he retired to begin coaching as an assistant in Houston, Texas. After a short stint in the US, he returned to his homeland.


title: Mágico González

text: In 2001, Cádiz honored González with a testimonial match, with the proceeds going to the victims of a recent earthquake in El Salvador. In 2003, the Salvadoran National Assembly gave González the government's highest honor, the "Hijo Meritísimo", and renamed the national stadium the "Flor Blanca" after him. On 28 August 2004, another testimonial was played in his honor, this time in El Salvador at the Mágico González Stadium, between America XI, a group of international stars, and a team made up of ex-FAS players; he played a half with either side and scored a total of three goals.


title: Mágico González

text: Many critics and journalists say that if González had been Argentinian or Brazilian, he would have ranked amongst the best in the world, alongside Maradona and Pelé. He received the first of his 62 caps for El Salvador on 1 December 1976, in a FIFA World Cup qualification match against Costa Rica. He was also instrumental in leading the nation to the 1982 FIFA World Cup – the second time in history – where he appeared in all three group-stage matches, including the 10–1 loss to Hungary.


title: Mágico González

text: González represented his country in 31 World Cup qualifiers, and scored 21 goals in full internationals.


title: Mágico González

text: A slender and highly creative forward, with superb ball control, technical ability and dribbling skills, González was also known for his quick feet and use of tricks and feints (including the flip flap, the Cruyff Turn, and the step over), as well as his accuracy with the ball and speed in possession – however, his talent was often overshadowed by his questionable behaviour off the pitch. He was widely considered to be the greatest Salvadoran footballer of all time, as well as one of the best-ever Latin American footballers in the history of the game. In 2000, he was named his nation's Player of the Century in IFFHS' Player of the Century Elections.


title: Mágico González

text: A versatile forward, González was capable of playing both as a winger or as a second striker, but was also deployed as a centre-forward, as a playmaker in the number 10 role or even as a midfielder on occasion, and often wore the number 11 shirt. His playing style served as an inspiration for Maradona, who was a staunch admirer of the Salvadoran, describing him as one of the ten best players he had ever seen and even stating that "[w]e, in training, always tried to imitate him [González], but we couldn't."


title: Mágico González

text: González was born to a family of modest means in the Luz neighborhood of San Salvador, one of seven brothers and a single sister. His older brother, Mauricio González "Pachín", was a footballer who became well known at the local level.


title: Mágico González

text: Mágico married Ana María Ruano, daughter of another Salvadoran football legend, Alfredo Ruano. His son, Rodrigo, also played in the country's top division, for C.D. Atlético Marte.


title: Chinese Red Army

text: The Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army or Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, commonly known as the Chinese Red Army or simply the Red Army, was the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party from 1928 to 1937. It was formed when Communist elements of the National Revolutionary Army splintered and mutinied in the Nanchang Uprising. The Red Army was reincorporated into the National Revolutionary Army as part of the Second United Front with the Kuomintang to fight against the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937–1945. In the later stages of the Chinese Civil War they splintered off once again and renamed the People's Liberation Army.


title: Chinese Red Army

text: In the summer of 1926, the CCP took over the two divisions of the Chinese Nationalist Party forces and led a military mutiny. Nationalist forces General He Long commanded the 20th Corps to join them. They had a total of 20,000 soldiers and planned to occupy Guangzhou. However, they were defeated before they reached Guangzhou with only a few thousand men surviving the battle. Zhu De led a column of survivors to Hunan Province to fight in the Autumn Harvest Uprising where they were defeated again. After the failed uprisings, Mao Zedong took over command of the 1,000 survivors and established a revolutionary base area in the Jinggang Mountains. The two armies joined forces in the following year. In the winter of 1927, the CCP planned to conquer Guangzhou; however, the uprising failed and thousands of insurgents were killed by the Nationalist forces of General Li Jishen.


title: Chinese Red Army

text: Between 1928 and 1929, the CCP launched multiple uprisings. Although most of them failed, several small-scale units were created, such as Mao Zedong and Zhu De's Fourth Army, which totaled about 6,000 men in the summer of 1928 and fought in Jiangxi Province. Also in the summer of 1928, Peng Dehuai, the Nationalist forces Regimental Commander, led a military mutiny. A Nanchang Uprising survivor, He Long, also created an army in his hometown, with former government soldiers as the main fighting force.


title: Chinese Red Army

text: In early 1930, more red armies were created and the number of red soldiers grew rapidly. By the summer of 1930, the Chinese Red Army had grown to more than 100,000 soldiers and had several base areas, such as in southern and northern Jiangxi Province, western Hubei Province, and eastern Hunan Province, among others. Peng Dehuai's Fifth Army attacked and occupied Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province. After the attack, Jiangxi Province became the largest base area of the Chinese Red Army. In the autumn of 1930, Deng Xiaoping's Seventh Army left its base area in Guangxi Province.


title: Chinese Red Army

text: In 1931, the Chinese Red Army defeated the Nationalist forces three times with a large-scale attack, causing the Nationalist forces to lose nearly 100,000 soldiers. Several smaller red armies came together and formed a group army. In the summer of 1931, General Zhang Guotao arrived at the Fourth Red Army's base area and took over the army. Most of the Fourth Red Army's senior officers were killed by him, including Xu Jishen, Zhou Weijiong, and Xiaofang. Similar movements also occurred in western Hubei Province; in the spring of 1931, Xia Xi took over He Long's army and killed most of his senior officers including Duan Dechang.