mesuline

Rock Lee cosplay

2009-03-27T01:40:00.000-07:00

very intersting rock lee cosplay

2007-12-06T07:22:00.001-08:00

A Darwin Award is a tongue-in-cheek honor named after evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin. "Awards" have been given for people who "remove themselves from the Gene pool" i.e. lose the ability to reproduce as early as 1863. It is for people who kill, or in rare cases, sterilize themselves accidentally by attempting to do stupid feats. As described in the Darwin Award books: The Awards honour people who ensure the long-term survival of the human race by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion. While an attempt is made to disallow urban legends from the awards, some older winners have been 'grandfathered' to keep their awards.

Requirements
Examples of Darwin award winners include
Northcutt's Darwin Awards site gives "Honorable Mentions" to people who manage to survive their misadventures with their reproductive capacity intact. One notable example is Lawnchair Larry, who attached helium filled weather balloons to a lawn chair and floated far above Long Beach, California, in July 1982.

juggling active hand grenades (Croatia, 2001), Examples
Each year, one award is selected as being much more "honourable" than the rest, and it is crowned as the "Darwin Award of the Year" or "[year] Darwin Award Winner".

Special Winners

2000: Darwin Awards: Evolution in Action, ISBN 0-525-94572-5 & ISBN 0-452-28344-2
2001: Darwin Awards II: Unnatural Selection, ISBN 0-525-94623-3 & ISBN 0-452-28401-5
2003: Darwin Awards III: Survival of the Fittest, ISBN 0-525-94773-6 & ISBN 0-452-28572-0
2006: Darwin Awards IV: Intelligent Design, ISBN 0-525-94960-7 Movie

List of inventors killed by their own inventions
Ig Nobel Prize
McCandless Phenomenon
Everett Ruess

2007-12-05T08:32:00.001-08:00

The Artes Mechanicae (mechanical arts) are a medieval concept juxtaposed to the seven Artes liberales. Already Johannes Scotus Eriugena (9th century) divides them somewhat arbitrarily into seven parts,
vestiaria (tailoring, weaving), agricultura (agriculture), architectura (architecture, masonry), militia and venatoria (warfare and hunting, "martial arts"), mercatura (trade, commerce), coquinaria (cooking), metallaria (blacksmithing, metallurgy)
Hugh of St Victor includes navigation, medicine and theatrical arts instead of commerce, agriculture and cooking.
The classification of the Artes Mechanicae as applied geometry was introduced to Western Europe by Dominicus Gundissalinus under the influence of his readings in Arabic scholarship.

2007-12-04T11:25:00.001-08:00

Ketley is a suburb of the new town of Telford in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England. East Ketley is currently being re-developed as part of the Telford Millennium Community, part of the Millennium Communities Programme. It will consist of around 750 new homes and some live/work units, a new primary school, some small offices and retail and leisure services.
The site is currently home to a terrace of Victorian houses amid old mineshafts, colliery spoil, a golf course (which was later used as a driving range) and playing fields. Most of the site has been left fallow for many years and some areas have become locally important habitats for wildlife. Ketley was formally the home of Ketley Iron works. William Reynolds (the ironmaster of said works in the late 18th century) undertook to construct three tub boat canals. The Wombridge Canal, the Ketley Canal and the Shropshire Canal.

2007-12-03T08:43:00.001-08:00

Details
On 5 and 9 July 1941 he ordered the machine gunning of survivors of attacks by HMS Torbay.

Further information
His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Imperial War Museum (London, England).

2007-12-02T07:46:00.001-08:00

Homewood is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 19,543 at the 2000 census.

Geography
As of the census of 2000, there were 19,543 people, 7,552 households, and 5,256 families residing in the village. The population density was 1,451.1/km² (3,755.5/mi²). There were 7,827 housing units at an average density of 581.2/km² (1,504.1/mi²). The racial makeup of the village was 78.14% White, 17.51% African American, 0.10% Native American, 1.57% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 1.06% from other races, and 100% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.05% of the population.
There were 7,552 households out of which 35.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.7% were married couples living together, 11.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.4% were non-families. 27.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.55 and the average family size was 3.14.
In the village the population was spread out with 27.1% under the age of 18, 5.4% from 18 to 24, 26.8% from 25 to 44, 24.3% from 45 to 64, and 16.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 85.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 80.3 males.
The median income for a household in the village was $57,213, and the median income for a family was $70,941. Males had a median income of $50,689 versus $35,978 for females. The per capita income for the village was $26,074. About 3.2% of families and 4.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 4.1% of those under age 18 and 6.5% of those age 65 or over.

Demographics
Homewood is in Illinois' 2nd congressional district.

Government
The village of Homewood is located in the south suburbs of Chicago. Although some of the southern suburbs have fallen victim to urban poverty and blight, due to gentrification in Chicago, Homewood and its neighboring community of Flossmoor have withstood these pressures and remain communities for the middle class and moderately wealthy, due to the strength and excellence of their educational systems.
Homewood sits on the edge of Lake Chicago, which was formed by a retreating glacier long before Lake Michigan. Of one the main east-west roads through the town, Ridge Road, got its name because it runs along what used to be the ridge of the lake. The area is rich in limestone deposits, and neighbors Thornton Quarry. In its beginning, the area featured excellent topsoil making it an appealing place for farmers to settle.
James and Sally Hart were the first confirmed settlers in the area in 1834. They were New Englanders, as were the families that immediately followed them; the Butterfields, the Campbells, the Clarks, and the Hoods. In 1839, German and Dutch families began to move into the area as well. The town began to use the name of Hartford.
The first store in Homewood was Hasting's General Store; Dr. William Doepp was its first doctor. Attracted by the country life after his Chicago practice was burned down, he moved to the area in 1851. His practice extended from Crown Point, Indiana to New Lenox, Illinois, and he was required to keep two teams of horses in order to make all his calls.
In 1853, the Illinois Central Railroad (IC) established a station in Hartford, calling it Thornton Station, as most of the passengers came from nearby Thornton. This began a serious period of confusion, as mail for the two separate towns was regularly mixed up. In 1869, settlers petitioned the post office to be renamed as Homewood, after the woods that the residents lived among.
The 1870s brought a new era to Homewood, ushered in by trains and by the crowded conditions of the city. Country clubs such as the Homewood Country Club (later changed to Flossmoor Country Club), Dixmoor, Ravisloe, Idlewild and Calumet brought in trains just for golfers. The IC established the Calumet station specifically for their convenience. Wealthy families impressed by the area, and ease of getting to the city, established residences in the area, as permanent or summer homes.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was determined that the small two-room schoolhouse that had been built in the 1880s was inadequate. The Standard school was built in 1904 on Dixie Highway and Hickory for a cost of fourteen thousand dollars. It had four classrooms, two cloakrooms, a tiny office, attic and basement storage. It provided the community with a variety of entertainments in the form of spelling bees, box socials, school entertainment, and a play festival. As many of the children were expected to become farmers, garden and corn clubs were established. Nearby land was turned into gardening plots, but a dry season kept the project from being successful. However, one student, Elizabeth Szanyi made a total of fifty-nine dollars from her produce patch.
Enrollment for the schools continued to grow, and in 1914 the school was forced to convert the cloakrooms into classrooms. In 1918, a nearby residence, the Zimmer house, was rented to house primary grades. In 1923, construction on Central school began. The new school had three more classrooms, an assembly hall, a teacher's room, and a room for health services. By 1928, there were enough students in the district to make a kindergarten class feasible, and extensive additions were made to the school. These renovations included eight new classrooms and a gymnasium-auditorium.
In the 1920s, Homewood became an important railroad depot, and many IC workers and their families moved to the area. Automobiles became a common sight on the streets of downtown. As traffic in the area continued to increase, village officials decided to install the town's first manually operated traffic signal at the corner of Ridge Road and Dixie Highway. This period marks the change from Homewood as a farming community to Homewood as a suburb, as families began to use stores and businesses to supply their needs. The population of town increased from seven hundred and thirteen (730) to fifteen hundred and ninety-three (1593). Thirteen housing developments were recorded in Homewood from 1905 to 1930.
With the crash of the stock market in 1929, life in Homewood changed dramatically. People who worked in factories in Harvey and Chicago Heights lost their jobs, and many almost lost their homes. The Homewood State Bank was closed in the spring of 1932. Optimistic residents who had invested money in the bank until the day before it closed lost everything they had. The flood of trains to and from the city trickled down to three or four trains daily. Those people trying to make an income by bootlegging were raided, and shut down. Transients were common, and the police officers gave them a place to stay at night, a cup of coffee and a donut before they left in the morning. In 1932 alone, the jail housed twelve hundred and twenty-four people (1224). The schools, which had already been operating in the red, scraped through by cutting programs and by the determined efforts of the PTA, which opened a thrift shop as a fundraiser. The village was reduced to issuing scrip notes to its employees that could not be honored by local business; however, a rental of a large parcel of land by the Illinois Jockey Association ended this problem.
As the factories slowly began to reopen, the city began to tear down old buildings and replace them with new businesses. The most important of these was the Homewood Theater. At its "typical Hollywood opening" it was said, "bright lights will flood the sky, bands will blare, and the theatre will be officially presented to Mayor Fred Borgwordt of the town of Homewood." The opening picture was "Double or Nothing" with Bing Crosby and Martha Raye. The theater seemed to symbolize the return of hope to the city, and remained an important landmark for many years. In 1983, Richard Haas painted a mural on the backs of several buildings in the business district, matching their fronts to their backs. Most famous among these was on the back of the Homewood Theater, depicting it with three young women waiting to view It's a Wonderful Life. It was demolished in 1992, despite the comparison made by a local student of "throwing away the Mona Lisa just because the frame is broken."

Early history (pre-1945)
World War II brought a time of great change to the area, although life in the village during the war was about the same as life anywhere. The number of Homewood men who entered the service is unknown, but the village maintains a complete list of the men who died and the circumstances of their death. After the war, the veterans returned home to a rapidly growing Homewood. The desire of young couples to own a home of their own provided for a phenomenal growth and development of suburbs everywhere. To reflect these changes, the school board expanded the schools once again. In 1948, ground was broken for the new Ridge school, which was located immediately west of the Central school. It was immediately followed by the construction of Willow school, in 1953. In 1958, a junior high school was built and named after the area's first settler James Hart.
At the same time as the grade school expansion, a group of residents in Homewood and the neighboring community of Flossmoor worked to bring about a long time dream of having a local high school, instead of sending students to Thornton, Bloom, Rich or Bremen Township High Schools. Homewood-Flossmoor High School opened its doors in 1959. Almost immediately afterward, in 1962 and 1966, large additions were made to the school. The student body grew so large that students were taught on half-day schedules until a second building to house them could be built in 1974.
The businesses of the area boomed, with the building of Westgate shopping center, Ridge-Mar shopping center, Northgate shopping center, Cherry Creek, Washington Square Plaza, Southgate Shopping Center and the West Homewood Commons. Washington Square Plaza was torn down in the nineties. A recent boom in business along Halsted Street (Illinois Route 1) has provided Homewood-area residents with a large number of chain stores. The downtown area has also been on the rise, with new stores moving in, and the recent announcement of the Chestnut Square development along Harwood Avenue at Chestnut Road, behind the village hall.
In 1981, the first Homewood Fine Art Fair was held in the center of the Village, on Ridge Road. Founder Barbara D. Smith (Homewood's first female Chamber of Commerce President) spent two years learning the recruiting, organizational and judging processes from a variety of experts, and ushered it through its first five years. The official portrait artist of Princess Grace of Monaco -- Mohamed Drisi -- observed the fair's progress for the first two years, after which he volunteered to bolster the status of the institution. The HFAF continues to be held each June in Marie Irwin Park, and is considered a backbone of the south suburban art scene. Not without controversy, Ms. Smith has expressed her concern at deviating from the original vision of "fine art only", and has been critical of what she terms downgrading to arts and crafts from juried fine art. Still, a testament to this new tradition is underscored by the fact that some of the original juried artists she procured continue to exhibit.
In 1993, Homewood celebrated its centennial. Summer saw scores of festivals, parades, and a play celebrating the history of Homewood.

Recent history (1945- )
Children in grades K-8 attend schools under the jurisdiction of Homewood public school district 153. School District 153 has four schools: Winston Churchill Elementary, Willow Elementary, Millenium School, and James Hart Junior High School. Children in grades K-2 attend Willow, then move on to Churchill for grades 3 and 4, then move on to Millenium for grades 5 and 6, and finish up grades 7 and 8 at James Hart.
The majority of students in the area then go on to attend the local public high school, Homewood-Flossmoor High School. Homewood-Flossmoor High School is its own school district, school district 233. H-F is a twenty-time winner of the U.S. Department of Education's Blue Ribbon Award for excellence.
The most common destination for students after high school is the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. About 10 percent of H-F's graduating class goes there every year.

2007-12-01T10:06:00.001-08:00

Attrition · Guerilla · Maneuver Siege · Total war · Trench
Economic · Grand · Operational
Formations · Ranks · Units
Equipment · Materiel · Supply line
Military history is composed of the events in the history of humanity that fall within the category of conflict. This may range from a melee between two tribes to conflicts between proper militaries to a world war affecting the majority of the human population. Military historians record (in writing or otherwise) the events of military history.
Military activity has been a constant process over thousands of years. However, there is little agreement about when it began (Otterbein 2004). Some believe it has always been with us; others stress the lack of clear evidence for it in our prehistoric past, and the fact that many peaceful, non-military societies have and still do exist (See Otterbein, Fry and Kelly in bibliography below).
The essential tactics, strategy, and goals of military operations have been unchanging throughout the past 5,000 years of our 90,000-year human history. As an example one notable maneuver is the double envelopment, considered to be the consummate military maneuver, executed by Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, over 2,200 years ago. This maneuver was also later effectively used by Khalid ibn al-Walid at the Battle of Walaja in 633 AD, and was earlier described by the Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu, who wrote at roughly the same time as the founding of Rome. By the study of history, the military seeks to not repeat past mistakes, and improve upon its current performance by instilling an ability in commanders to perceive historical parallels during battle, so as to capitalize on the lessons learned. The main areas military history includes are the history of wars, battles, and combats, history of the military art, and history of each specific military service.
There are a number of ways to categorize warfare. One categorization is conventional versus unconventional, where conventional warfare involves well-identified, armed forces fighting one another in a relatively open and straightforward way without weapons of mass destruction. "Unconventional" refers to other types of war which can involve raiding, guerrilla, insurgency, and terrorist tactics or alternatively can include nuclear, chemical, or biological warfare.
All of these categories usually fall into one of two broader categories: High intensity and low intensity warfare. High intensity warfare is between two superpowers or large countries fighting for political reasons. Low intensity warfare involves counterinsurgency, guerilla warfare and specialized types of troops fighting revolutionaries.

Periods

For more details on this topic, see Prehistoric warfare. Prehistoric warfare

For more details on this topic, see Ancient warfare. Ancient warfare

For more details on this topic, see Medieval warfare. Gunpowder warfare

For more details on this topic, see Industrial warfare. Industrial warfare

For more details on this topic, see Modern warfare. Modern warfare
New weapons development can dramatically alter the face of war.
In prehistoric times, fighting occurred by usage of clubs and spears, as early as 35,000 BC.
World War II gave rise to even more technology. The worth of the aircraft carrier was proved in the battles between the United States and Japan like the Battle of Midway. Radar was independently invented by the Allies and Axis powers. It used radio waves to detect nearby objects. Molotov cocktails were invented by the Finns in 1939, during the Winter War. The atomic bomb was developed by the Manhattan Project and launched at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, ultimately ending World War II.
During the Cold War, even though fighting did not actually occur, the superpowers- the United States and Russia- engaged in a race to develop and increase the level of technology available for military purposes. In the space race, both nations attempted to launch human beings into space to the moon. Other technological advances centered around intelligence (like the spy satellite) and missiles (ballistic missiles, cruise missiles). Nuclear submarine, invented in 1955. This meant submarines no longer had to surface as often, and could run more quietly. They evolved into becoming underwater missile platforms. Cruise missiles were invented in Nazi Germany during World War II in the form of the V-1.

Slinger
Hoplite
Auxiliaries
Hastati
Principes
Triarii
Velites
Artillery
Cataphract
Condottieri
Fyrd
Janissary
Knight (see also: Chivalry)
Crossbow
Pikeman
Samurai
Sipahi
Drebbel's submarine (1620)
Turtle (1775)
Brandtaucher (1850)
Plongeur (1863)
Ictineu II (1864)
Submarino Peral (1888)
Gymnote (1888)
USS Holland (1897)
Type XXI Elektroboote (1943)
USS Albacore (AGSS-569) (1953)
USS Nautilus (SSN-571) (1954)
Zulu-class SSB (1955)
USS Narwhal (1967)
Alfa-class SSN (1977)
Type 212 submarine (1998) Technological evolution
Gaining an accurate assessment of past military encounters may prove difficult because of bias, even in ancient times, and systematic propaganda in more modern times. Descriptions of battles by leaders may be unreliable due to the inclination to minimize mention of failures and exaggerate when boasting of successes. Further, military secrets may prevent some salient facts from being reported at all; scholars still do not know the nature of Greek fire, for instance. Despite these limitations, wars are some of the most studied and detailed periods of human history.
Homer, in the Iliad, described the Trojan War. However, the historicity of the Iliad is doubtful, as many historians believe that the Iliad is essentially legendary. Others believe that it is partly historical.
Herodotus (484 BC - 425 BC) wrote the The Histories. He is, along with Thucydides, often known as the "father of history".
Xenophon (430 BC - 355 BC) is most known for Anabasis, in which he records the expedition of Cyrus the Younger into Turkey. It was one of the first books centered around the analysis of a leader.
Julius Caesar (100 BC - 44 BC) authored several military books, such as Commentarii de Bello Gallico and Commentarii de Bello Civili, in which he comments upon his campaigns.
Some other more recent prominent military historians include:

Hans Delbrück (1848-1929)
Charles Oman (1860-1946)
Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)
Martin van Creveld (1946)
John Keegan (1934)
William Ledyard Rodgers (d. 1944)
Lynn Montross (d. 1961)
Cornelius Ryan
R. Ernest & Trevor N. Dupuy (a.k.a. Dupuy & Dupuy)
John Terraine (1921-2003)
George F.G. Stanley (1907-2002)
Victor Davis Hanson Historiography

Colonialism
Historical reenactment
Manuel de Landa's War in the Age of Intelligent Machines (1991)
Military science
Imperialism
Prisoner of war
Prisoner-of-war camp
Battledress
Militaria
War
Wargaming
Weapon See also
Only recognised by Turkey.

By region

Fry, Douglas P., 2005, The Human Potential for Peace: An Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions about War and Violence, Oxford University Press.
Kelly, Raymond C., 2000, Warless Societies and the Origin of War, University of Michigan Press.
Otterbein, Keith, 2004, How War Began. Texas A&M University Press. Other

2007-11-30T07:46:00.001-08:00

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of New Zealand
The Realm of New Zealand is the territory in which the Queen in right of New Zealand is head of state. The Realm comprises the Cook Islands, New Zealand, Niue, Tokelau and New Zealand's Ross Dependency in Antarctica. The term "Realm of New Zealand" is described in the Letters Patent constituting the office of Governor-General of New Zealand of 1983 in article I.

Constitution
Executive
Sovereign

Queen Elizabeth II
Governor-General
- Hon. Anand Satyanand
  Executive Council
  - Cabinet
    - Prime Minister
      - Rt Hon. Helen Clark
        Legislative
        Parliament
        
        House of Representatives
        
        Speaker of the House
        Official Opposition
        
        Leader of the Opposition
        Elections
        
        Electoral system
        Electorates
        Referendums
        Judicial
        Supreme Court
        
        Chief Justice
        Court of Appeal
        High Court
        Regional authorities
        Territorial authorities
        Unitary authority
        Politicians
        Political parties
        Political topics
        Māori politics
        Foreign relations Governor-General
        The Realm itself is a collection of former British colonies and protectorates. New Zealand was a British colony formed in 1840 and became a dominion in 1907. The Cook Islands and Niue were former British protectorates which were transferred to New Zealand administration in the early twentieth century. The Ross Dependency was put under New Zealand administration in 1923, and Tokelau was transferred to New Zealand from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony in 1925.
        
        Sovereignty within the Realm
        Both the Cook Islands and Niue are said to be self-governing in free association with New Zealand. The New Zealand Parliament is not empowered to unilaterally pass legislation in respect of these countries. In foreign affairs and defence issues New Zealand acts on behalf of these countries but only with their advice and consent.
        As the Governor-General is resident in New Zealand, the Cook Islands Constitution provides for the distinct position of Queen's Representative. This individual is not subordinate to the Governor-General and acts as the local representative of the Queen in right of New Zealand. As of 2005 Sir Frederick Goodwin is the Queen's Representative to the Cook Islands.
        According to the Niue's Constitution of 1974, the Governor-General of New Zealand acts as the Queen's representative.
        In the Cook Islands and Niue the New Zealand High Commissioner is the diplomatic representative from New Zealand. As of 2005, John Bryan is the New Zealand High Commissioner to the Cook Islands and Anton Ojala is the New Zealand High Commissioner to Niue.
        Despite their close relationship to New Zealand, both the Cook Islands and Niue maintain some diplomatic relations in their own name. Both countries maintain High Commissions in New Zealand and have New Zealand High Commissioners resident in their capitals. In Commonwealth practice, High Commissioners represent their governments, not the Head of State.
        
        New Zealand
        Tokelau has a lesser degree of de jure independence than the Cook Islands and Niue have, and is presently moving toward free association status. New Zealand's representative in Tokelau is the Administrator of Tokelau and has the power to overturn rules passed by the general fono.
        
        Tokelau
        New Zealand's claim to the Ross Dependency is held in abeyance, per the Antarctic Treaty System. The Governor-General of New Zealand, however, is also the Governor of the Ross Dependency. MFAT Speech of 23-Apr-02, Antarctic Conference The Ross Dependency claim includes McMurdo Station, operated by the United States.
        
        Ross Dependency
        
        Future of the Realm
        
        Dominion of New Zealand
        Commonwealth Realm

2007-11-29T09:18:00.001-08:00

Married to the Mob is a 1988 comedy film. It was directed by Jonathan Demme and starred Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine, Dean Stockwell and Mercedes Ruehl.
A FBI agent, Mike Downey, (played by Modine) is trying to infiltrate a mafia family. He sees a chance when Angela de Marco (played by Pfeiffer) tries to leave the criminal lifestyle after her gangster husband, Frank de Marco (Alec Baldwin), is murdered.
The story is complicated by the mafia boss, Tony "The Tiger" Russo (played by Stockwell), who is romantically pursuing Angela but was also the person who killed her husband Frank over a dalliance with his mistress. The plot is further complicated by the mobster's jealous wife, Connie Russo, (played by Mercedes Ruehl) and her suspicions about her husband. Further complication evolves with Mike Downey's romantic interest in the Angela character. Later an attempted assassination against Tony takes places at a "Burger World" drive-through.
Downey eventually goes out with Angela, though Tony eventually finds out about the FBI sting (and Downey's cover). Oliver Platt plays one of the agents tailing Tony.

2007-11-28T08:35:00.001-08:00

George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 11 December 1936 until his death. He was the last Emperor of India (until 1947) and the last King of Ireland (until 1949).
As the second son of King George V, he was not expected to inherit the throne and spent his early life in the shadow of his elder brother, Edward. He served in the Royal Navy during World War I, and after the war took on the usual round of public engagements. He married Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923, and they had two daughters, Elizabeth (who succeeded him as Queen Elizabeth II) and Margaret.
At the death of their father in 1936, his brother ascended the throne as Edward VIII. However, less than a year later Edward expressed his desire to marry the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. For political and religious reasons, the British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, informed Edward that he could not marry Mrs. Simpson and remain king. So, Edward abdicated to marry. By reason of this abdication, unique in 2000 years of British history, George VI ascended the throne as the third monarch of the House of Windsor.
Within 24 hours of his accession the Irish parliament (the Oireachtas) passed the External Relations Act, which essentially removed the power of the monarch in Ireland. Further events greatly altered the position of the monarchy during his reign: three years after his accession, his realms, except Ireland, were at war with Nazi Germany. In the next two years, war with Italy and the Empire of Japan followed. A major consequence of World War II was the decline of the British Empire, with the United States and the Soviet Union rising as pre-eminent world powers. With the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, and the foundation of the Republic of Ireland in 1949, King George's reign saw the acceleration of the break-up of the British Empire and its transition into the Commonwealth of Nations.

Birth and family
As a great-grandson of Queen Victoria, Albert was styled His Highness Prince Albert of York from birth. In 1898, Queen Victoria issued Letters Patent that granted the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales the style Royal Highness. So, at age two, Albert became His Royal Highness Prince Albert of York.
He often suffered from ill health and was described as "easily frightened and somewhat prone to tears".
Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901, and the Prince of Wales succeeded her as King Edward VII. The Duke of York became the new Prince of Wales. Prince Edward was then second in line for the throne, and Prince Albert was third.

Early life
From 1909, Albert attended the Royal Naval College, Osborne as a naval cadet. He came bottom of the class in the final examination, but despite this he progressed to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth in 1911.

Military career and education
In a time when royals were expected to marry fellow royals, it was unusual that Albert had a great deal of freedom in choosing a prospective wife. In 1920 he met Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the youngest daughter of Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck. He became determined to marry her.

Marriage
On 20 January 1936, King George V died and Prince Edward ascended the throne as Edward VIII. As Edward had no children, Albert was the heir presumptive to the throne until his unmarried brother had any legitimate children, or died. George V had had severe reservations about Edward, saying, "I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne."

Reluctant king
Albert assumed the style and title King George VI to emphasise continuity with his father and restore confidence in the monarchy.
In 1945, in an echo of Chamberlain's appearance, the King invited Churchill to appear with him on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for the VE Day celebrations.

Empire to Commonwealth
The stress of the war had taken its toll on the King's health, In 2002, the remains of his wife Queen Elizabeth and the ashes of his daughter, Princess Margaret, were interred in the King George VI Memorial Chapel in St George's Chapel alongside him.

Illness and death
There are a number of geographical features, roads, and institutions named after George VI. These include King George Hospital in London; the King George VI Highway, including the King George Station, in the Metro Vancouver district of British Columbia; George VI Sound in Antarctica; and the King George VI Chase, a horse race in the United Kingdom.

Legacy

Titles, styles and honours
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
and, occasionally, outside of the United Kingdom, and with regard to India (until the King ceased to use the imperial title upon India's independence)
Isle of Man:
Islands of Guernsey & Jersey:

1895–1898: His Highness Prince Albert of York
1898–1901: His Royal Highness Prince Albert of York
1901: His Royal Highness Prince Albert of Cornwall and York
1901–1910: His Royal Highness Prince Albert of Wales
1910–1920: His Royal Highness The Prince Albert
1920–1936: His Royal Highness The Duke of York

in Scotland: May 1929: His Grace The Lord High Commissioner
1936–1952: His Majesty The King
1936–1947: His Imperial Majesty The King–Emperor
1936–1952: Lord of Mann
1936–1952: Duke of Normandy Titles
From his brother's ascension to the throne, on 20 January 1936, until his own accession, on 11 December 1936, Prince Albert held the style His Royal Highness, The Prince Albert, Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killarney.
His full style as king was, from 11 December 1936, George the Sixth, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India. Following 1948 the style Emperor of India was dropped, and the King was styled George the Sixth, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith.

Styles

Main article: List of the honours and appointments of George VI of the United Kingdom Honours

Notes and sources

Bradford, Sarah (1989). King George VI. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0297796674.
Howarth, Patrick (1987). George VI. Hutchinson. ISBN 0091710006.
Matthew, H. C. G. (2004), "George VI (1895–1952)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press)
Sinclair, David (1988). Two Georges: the Making of the Modern Monarchy. Hodder and Staughton. ISBN 0340332409.
Wheeler-Bennett, Sir John (1958). King George VI: His Life and Reign. New York: Macmillan.

2007-11-27T09:19:00.001-08:00

Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, originally classified in the First Folio as a comedy. This is one of the playwright's three problem plays, so-called because they cannot be easily classified by modern editors.

Sources
Measure for Measure was written in 1603 or 1604. The play was first published in 1623 in the First Folio.

Date and text
The earliest recorded performance of Measure for Measure took place on "St. Steven's night", December 26, 1604. During the Restoration, Measure was one of many Shakespearean plays adapted to the tastes of a new audience. Sir William Davenant inserted Benedick and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing into his adaptation, called The Law Against Lovers. Samuel Pepys saw the hybrid play on 18 February 1662; he describes it in his Diary as "a good play, and well performed"—he was especially impressed by the singing and dancing of the young actress who played Viola, Beatrice's sister (Davenant's creation). Davenant rehabilitated Angelo, who is now only testing Isabella's chastity; the play ends with a triple marriage. This, among the earliest and clumsiest of Restoration adaptations, appears not to have succeeded on stage.
Charles Gildon returned to Shakespeare's text in a 1695 production at Lincoln's Inn Fields; he removed Beatrice and Benedick, but he also removed all of the low-comic characters. Moreover, by making both Angelo and Mariana, and Claudio and Juliet, secretly married, he eliminates almost all of the illicit sexuality that is so central to Shakespeare's play. Gildon also offers a partly facetious epilogue, spoken by Shakespeare's ghost, who complains of the constant revisions of his work. Like Davenant's, Gildon's version did not gain currency and was not revived.
John Rich presented a version closer to Shakespeare's original in 1720.
Notable recent productions of Measure for Measure are Peter Brook's 1950 staging at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre with John Gielgud as Angelo, Charles Laughton as Angelo at the Old Vic Theatre in 1933, and a 1976 New York Shakespeare Festival production featuring Meryl Streep as Isabella and John Cazale as Angelo. The play has only been produced on Broadway once, in a 1973 production that featured David Ogden Stiers as Vincentio and Kevin Kline in the small role of Friar Peter.

Performance
The Duke The central figure is the Duke, who spends most of his time dressed as a friar, Lodovic, in order to observe what is happening in his absence. He is seemingly unfailingly virtuous, good, and kind-hearted. He has tended to rule a little softly, which is why he has enlisted Angelo's help. In the First Folio, The Duke is listed in the Dramatis Personae as "Vincentio," but this name appears nowhere else in the play.
Isabella, a novice nun, is a virtuous and chaste young woman who faces a difficult decision when her brother is sentenced to death for fornication. Isabella does not approve of her brother's actions, but she pleads for his life out of loyalty, sisterly devotion, and a belief that the punishment is too harsh for the crime. Ultimately she would rather her brother die and go to heaven, than she herself live a life of hell: "more than our brother is our chastity".
Claudio is Isabella's brother, a young man sentenced to death for impregnating an unmarried woman. He was engaged to her by a common-law agreement, but they had sexual intercourse before the legal marriage took place. According to the play, by the letter of the law this was punishable by death, but the more recent sentence had been to force two 'fornicators' to marry.
Angelo is the villain of the play, a man who rules strictly and without mercy. He has his own weaknesses, however, and he is loathsome more for his hypocrisy than for anything else. He presents Isabella with a difficult proposition, to sleep with him in exchange for her brother's life, but then does not hold up his end of the bargain when he believes she has held hers.
Escalus is a wise lord who advises Angelo to be more merciful. He is loyal to the Duke and seeks to carry out his orders justly, but cannot go against Angelo's will. As his name suggests (Scales) he takes a balanced decision to everything, which in turn makes him one of the most wise characters in the play.
Lucio, described by Shakespeare as a "fantastic," is a flamboyant bachelor who provides much of the play's comedy. He is a friend of Claudio, and tries to help him. He is a bawd himself, but would rather die than marry the 'whore' who is pregnant with his child.
Mariana was intended to marry Angelo, but he called the wedding off when she lost her dowry in a shipwreck that killed her brother.
Mistress Overdone runs a brothel in Vienna.
Pompey is a clown who works for Mistress Overdone.
The Provost runs the prison, and is responsible for carrying out all of Angelo's orders.
Elbow is a dim-witted constable who arrests people for misconduct, particularly of the sexual variety. He provides some comic relief through his frequent use of malapropisms in his speech.
Barnardine is a long-term prisoner in the jail, sentenced to be executed. The Duke originally considers him hopeless and therefore dispensable but later changes his mind.
Juliet is Claudio's lover, pregnant with his child.

2007-11-26T09:38:00.001-08:00

The St. Elizabeth's flood of 1421 was a flooding of an area in what is now the Netherlands. It takes its name from the feast day of Saint Elisabeth of Hungary which was formerly November 19.
During the night of November 18 to November 19, 1421 a heavy storm near the North Sea coast caused the dikes to break in a number of places and the lower lying polder land was flooded. A number of villages were swallowed by the flood and were lost, causing either 2,000 or 10,000 casualties. The dike breaks and floods caused widespread devastation in Zeeland and Holland. This flood separated the cities of Geertruidenberg and Dordrecht which had previously fought against each other during the Hook and Cod (civil) wars.
Most of the area remained flooded for several decades. Reclaimed parts are the Island of Dordrecht, the Hoeksche Waard island, and north-western North Brabant (around Geertruidenberg). Most of the Biesbosch area has been flooded since.
The cause of the flood was not a spring tide like in the great flood of 1953 (see North Sea flood of 1953), but water from the storm in the North Sea surged up the rivers causing the dikes to overflow and break through.

See also

Kinderdijk
St. Elizabeth's flood (1404)
Floods in the Netherlands
list of disasters

2007-11-25T10:05:00.001-08:00

Penal labour or penal servitude is a form of unfree labour. The term may refer to two different notions: labour as a form of punishment and labour as a form of occupation of convicts.

Punitive labour
Convict or prison labour (also called hard labour) is another classic form of unfree labour used in both past and present as an additional form of punishment beyond imprisonment alone.
Convicts subjected to forced labour have often been regarded with lack of sympathy, because of the social stigma attached to people regarded as "common criminals" and a general perception that it must be deserved through the severity of the crime. In some countries and historical periods, however, prison labour has been forced upon people who have been: victims of prejudice, convicted of political crimes, convicted of "victimless crimes", or people who committed theft or related offences because they lacked any other means of subsistence — categories of people for whom compassion is typically called for.
In the UK in the 19th century, for instance, hard labour became a standard feature of penal servitude as penal transportation was phased out. Although it was prescribed for severe crimes (e.g. rape, attempted murder, malicious wounding, per the 1861 Offences against the Persons Act) it was also widely applied in cases of minor crime such as petty theft and vagrancy, as well as victimless behaviour deemed harmful to the fabric of society. Notable recipients of forced labour under British law include Oscar Wilde (after his conviction for gross indecency) and John William Gott (a terminally ill trouser salesman convicted of blasphemy).
The British penal colonies in Australia between 1788 and 1868 are probably the best examples of convict labour, as described above: during that period, Australia received thousands of transported convict labourers, many of whom had received harsh sentences for minor misdemeanours in Britain or Ireland.
Sometimes authorities turn prison labour into an industry, as on a prison farm. In such cases, the pursuit of income from their productive labour may even overtake the preoccupation with punishment and/or reeducation as such of the prisoners, who are then at risk of being exploited as slave-like cheap labour (profit may be minor after expenses, e.g. on security).
The British Penal Servitude Act of 1853 substituted penal servitude for transportation. Sentences of penal servitude were served in convict prisons and were controlled by the Home Office and the Prison Commissioners. After sentencing, convicts would be classified according to the seriousness of the offence of which they were convicted and their criminal record. First time offenders would be classified in the Star class; persons not suitable for the Star class, but without serious convictions would be classified in the intermediate class; and habitual offenders would be classified in the Recidivist class. Care was taken to ensure that convicts in one class did not mix with convicts in another.

Non-punitive prison labour

Galley slave
Convict lease
Chain gang

2007-11-24T07:17:00.001-08:00

The William Howard School is a co-educational comprehensive secondary school on Longtown Road (A6071) in Brampton, Cumbria, England for pupils aged 11-18.

Tanzanian Link
The school is named after Lord William Howard (1563–1640), who was the third son to Thomas Duke of Norfolk. He married Elizabeth, the daughter and co-heiress of William Lord Dacres, from whom the Carlisle branch of the Howard Family is descended.
The school used to be known as the Irthing Valley Secondary Modern School. It merged with another school in Brampton called the White House Grammar School situated on Main Street, in 1980 when comprehensive education replaced the selective education system. The newsreader Anna Ford was a head girl of White House Grammar School in 1961.

2007-11-23T08:55:00.001-08:00

Biography
During his lifetime, he donated $100 million, mostly to the University of Rochester and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (under the alias "Mr. Smith"). The Rochester Institute of Technology has a building dedicated to Mr. Eastman, in recognition of his support and substantial donations. He endowed the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester.
MIT has a plaque of Eastman (the rubbing of which is traditionally considered by students to bring good luck) in recognition of his donation. Eastman also made substantial gifts to the Tuskegee Institute and the Hampton Institute. Upon his death, his entire estate went to the University of Rochester, where his name can be found on the Eastman Quadrangle of the River Campus. His former home at 900 East Avenue in Rochester, New York was opened as the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in 1949. On the 100th anniversary of his birth in 1954, Eastman was honored with a postage stamp from the United States Post Office.
Eastman had a very fine business sense. He focused his company to making film when competition heated in the camera industry. By providing quality and affortable film to every camera manufacturer, Kodak managed to turn all competition into more business.

See also

2007-11-22T08:11:00.001-08:00

2007-11-20T07:52:00.001-08:00

The Great Famine of 1315–1322 was the first of a series of large-scale crises that struck Europe early in the 14th century, causing millions of deaths over an extended number of years and marking a clear end to an earlier period of growth and prosperity during the 11th through 13th centuries. Starting with bad weather in the spring of 1315, universal crop failures lasted through 1316 until the summer of 1317; Europe did not fully recover until 1322. It was a period marked by extreme levels of criminal activity, disease and mass death, infanticide, and cannibalism. It had consequences for Church, State, European society and future calamities to follow in the 14th century.

Background
In the spring of 1315, unusually heavy rain began in much of Europe. Throughout the spring and summer, it continued to rain and the temperature remained cool. Under these conditions grain could not ripen. Grain was brought indoors in urns and pots. The straw and hay for the animals could not be cured and there was no fodder for the livestock. The price of food began to rise. Food prices in England doubled between spring and midsummer. Salt, the only way to cure and preserve meat, was difficult to obtain because it could not be evaporated in the wet weather; it went from 30 shillings to 40 shillings. In Lorraine, wheat prices increased by 320 percent and peasants could no longer afford bread. Stores of grain for long-term emergencies were limited to the lords and nobles. Because of the general increased population pressures, even lower-than-average harvests meant some people would go hungry; there was little margin for failure. People began to harvest wild edible roots, plants, grasses, nuts, and bark in the forests.
There are a number of documented incidents that show the extent of the famine. Edward II, King of England, stopped at Saint Alba's on August 10, 1315 and no bread could be found for him or his entourage; it was a rare occasion in which the King of England, the most prosperous nation in Europe, was unable to eat. The French, under Louis X, tried to invade Flanders, but being in the low country of the Netherlands, the fields were soaked and the army became so bogged down they were forced to retreat, burning their provisions where they left them, unable to carry them out.
In the spring of 1316, it continued to rain on a European population deprived of energy and reserve to sustain itself. All segments of society from nobles to peasants were affected, most of all the peasants, who represented 95% of the population and who had no safety nets. To provide some measure of relief, the future was mortgaged by slaughtering the draft animals; eating the seed grain; abandoning children to fend for themselves (see "Hansel and Gretel"); and, among old people, voluntarily refusing food in hopes of the younger generation surviving. The chroniclers of the time wrote of many incidents of cannibalism.
The height of the famine was reached in 1317 as the wet weather hung on. Finally, in the summer the weather returned to its normal patterns. By now, however, people were so weakened by diseases such as pneumonia, bronchitis, tuberculosis, and other sicknesses, and much of the seed stock had been eaten, that it was not until 1325 that the food supply returned to relatively normal conditions and the population began to increase again. Historians debate the toll but it is estimated that between 10%–25% of the population of many cities and towns died. While the Black Death (1338–1375) would kill more, for many the Great Famine was worse. While the plague swept through an area in a matter of months, the Great Famine lingered for years, drawing out the suffering of those who would slowly starve to death, face cannibalism, child-murder and rampant crime.

Great Famine
The famine is called the Great Famine not only because of the number of people who died, or the vast geographic area that was affected, or the length of time it lasted, but also because of the lasting consequences.
The first consequence was for the Church. No amount of prayer seemed effective against the causes of the famine. In a society where the final recourse to all problems had been religion, no amount of prayer was helping and the famine undermined the institutional authority of the Catholic Church. This helped lay the foundations for later movements that were deemed heretical by the Church because they opposed the Papacy.
Second was the increase in criminal activity. Medieval Europe in the 13th century had already been a violent culture where rape and murder were demonstrably more common than in modern times. With the famine even those who were not normally inclined to criminal activity would resort to any means to feed themselves or their family. After the famine, Europe took on a tougher and more violent edge; it had become an even less amicable place than during the 12th and 13th centuries. The effects of this could be seen across all segments of society, perhaps the most striking in the way warfare was conducted in the 14th century during the bloody 100 Years War, versus the 12th and 13th centuries when nobles were more likely to die by accident in tournament games than on the field of battle.
Third was the failure of the Medieval governments to deal with the crisis.
Fourthly, the Great Famine marked a clear end to an unprecedented period of population growth that had started around 1050; although some believe this had been slowing down for a few decades already, there is no doubt the Great Famine was a clear end of high population growth.
Finally, the Great Famine would have consequences for future events in the 14th century such as the Black Death when an already weakened population would be struck again.

Consequences
The evidence for cannibalism during the Great Famine is ambiguous and controversial for historians. There are reports from Livonia and Estonia, as well as Ireland and most other parts of Europe. Many historians have discounted it as being improbable that, in a time when the Renaissance was just starting and Dante was creating one of the greatest works of literature in history, people in Europe were eating one another. However, perhaps it says more about modern values, which attribute cannibalism to "the other", than about the realities of one's ancestors doing whatever it took to survive.

2007-11-19T08:05:00.000-08:00

Big Dig is the unofficial name of the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), a megaproject that rerouted the Central Artery (Interstate 93), the chief controlled-access highway through the heart of Boston, Massachusetts, into a 3.5 mile (5.6km) tunnel under the city. The project also included the construction of the Ted Williams Tunnel (extending Interstate 90 to Logan International Airport), the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge over the Charles River, and the Rose Kennedy Greenway in the space vacated by the previous I-93 elevated roadway. Initially, the plan was also to include a rail connection between Boston's two major train terminals.
The final ramp opened 13 January 2006. The project's overall completion is at 99%.
The Big Dig has been the most expensive highway project in the U.S.

Historical background
The project was conceived in the 1970s by the Boston Transportation Planning Review to replace the rusting elevated six-lane Central Artery. The expressway separated downtown from the waterfront, and was increasingly choked with bumper-to-bumper traffic. Business leaders were more concerned about access to Logan Airport, and pushed instead for a third harbor tunnel. In their second terms as governor and secretary of transportation, respectively, Michael Dukakis and Fred Salvucci, came up with the strategy of tying the two projects together—thereby combining the project that the business community supported with the project that they and the City of Boston supported..

Early planning
In addition to these political and financial difficulties, the project faced several environmental and engineering obstacles.
The downtown area through which the tunnels were to be dug was largely landfill, and included existing subway lines as well as innumerable pipes and utility lines that would have to be replaced or moved. Tunnel workers encountered many unexpected geological and archaeological barriers, ranging from glacial debris to foundations of buried houses and a number of sunken ships lying within the reclaimed land.
The project received approval from state environmental agencies in 1991, after satisfying concerns including release of toxins by the excavation and the possibility of disrupting the homes of millions of rats, causing them to roam the streets of Boston in search of new housing. By the time the federal environmental clearances were delivered in 1994, the process had taken some seven years, during which time inflation greatly increased the project's original cost estimates.
Reworking such a busy corridor without seriously restricting traffic flow required a number of state-of-the-art construction techniques. Because the old elevated highway (which remained in operation throughout the construction process) rested on pylons located throughout the designated dig area, engineers first utilized slurry wall techniques to create 120 ft.-deep concrete walls upon which the highway could rest. These concrete walls also stabilized the sides of the site, preventing cave-ins during the excavation process.
The multilane interstates also had to pass under South Station's 7 tracks which carried over 40,000 commuters and 400 trains per day. In order to avoid multiple relocations of the train lines while the tunnelling advanced, as had been initially planned, a specially designed jack was constructed in order to support the ground and tracks to allow the excavation to take place below. Ground freezing was also implemented in order to help stabilise the surrounding ground as the tunnel was excavated. This was the largest tunnelling project undertaken beneath railway lines anywhere in the world. The ground freezing enabled safer, more efficient excavation, and also assisted in environmental issues, as less contaminated fill needed to be exported than if a traditional cut and cover method had been applied.
Other challenges included an existing subway tunnel crossing the path of the underground highway. In order to build slurry walls past this tunnel, it was necessary to dig beneath the tunnel and build an underground concrete bridge to support the tunnel's weight.

Obstacles
The Central Artery/Tunnel Project was managed by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority with design and construction supervised by a joint venture of Bechtel Corporation and Parsons Brinckerhoff. Due to the enormous size of the project—too large for any company to undertake alone—the design and construction of the Big Dig were broken up into dozens of smaller subprojects with well-defined interfaces between contractors. Major heavy-construction contractors on the project included Jay Cashman, Modern Continental, Obayashi Corporation, Perini Corporation, Peter Kiewit Sons' Incorporated, J.F. White, and the Slattery division of Skanska USA. (Of those, Modern Continental was awarded the greatest gross value of contracts, joint ventures included.)
The nature of the Charles River crossing had been a source of major controversy throughout the design phase of the project. Many environmental advocates preferred a river crossing entirely in tunnels, but this, along with 27 other plans, was rejected as too costly. Finally, with a deadline looming to begin construction on a separate project that would connect the Tobin Bridge to the Charles River crossing, Salvucci overrode the objections and chose a variant of the plan known as "Scheme Z". This plan was considered to be reasonably cost-effective, but had the drawback of requiring highway ramps stacked up as high as 100 feet (30 m) immediately adjacent to the Charles River. The city of Cambridge objected to the visual impact of the chosen Charles River crossing design. It sued to revoke the project's environmental certificate and forced the project to redesign the river crossing again. Meanwhile, construction continued on the Tobin Bridge approach. By the time all parties agreed on the I-93 design, construction of the Tobin connector (today known as the "City Square Tunnel" for a Charlestown area it bypasses) was far along, significantly adding to the cost of constructing the U.S. Route 1 interchange and retrofitting the tunnel.
Boston blue clay and other soils extracted from the path of the tunnel were used to cap many local landfills, fill in the Granite Rail Quarry in Quincy, and restore the surface of Spectacle Island in the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.
The Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, designed by Swiss designer Christian Menn, is the terminus of the project, connecting the underground highway with I-93 and US 1. The distinctive cable-stayed bridge is supported by two forked towers connected to the span by cables and girders.
The Leverett Circle Connector, a companion bridge to the Zakim, began carrying traffic from I-93 to Storrow Drive in 1999. The project had been under consideration for years, but was opposed by the wealthy residents of the Beacon Hill neighborhood. However, it finally was accepted because it would funnel traffic bound for Storrow Drive and downtown Boston away from the mainline roadway. The Connector ultimately used a pair of ramps that had been constructed for Interstate 695, enabling the mainline I-93 to carry more traffic that would have used I-695 under the original Master Plan.
When construction began, the project cost, including the Charles River crossing, was estimated at $5.8 billion. Eventual cost overruns were so high that the chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, James Kerasiotes, was fired in 2000. His replacement had to commit to an $8.55 billion cap on federal contributions. Total expenses eventually passed $15 billion.

Construction phase
On January 17, 2003, the opening ceremony was held for the I-90 Connector Tunnel, extending the Massachusetts Turnpike (Interstate 90) east into the Ted Williams Tunnel, and onwards to Logan Airport. (The Williams tunnel had been completed and in limited use for commercial traffic and high-occupancy vehicles since late 1995.) The westbound lanes opened on the afternoon of January 18 and the eastbound lanes on January 19.
The next phase, moving the elevated Interstate 93 underground, was completed in two stages: northbound lanes opened in March 2003 and southbound lanes (in a temporary configuration) on December 20, 2003. A tunnel underneath Leverett Circle connecting eastbound Storrow Drive to I-93 North and the Tobin Bridge opened December 19, 2004, easing congestion at the circle. All southbound lanes of I-93 opened to traffic on March 5, 2005, including the left lane of the Zakim Bridge, and all of the refurbished Dewey Square Tunnel.
By the end of December 2004, 95% of the Big Dig was completed. Major construction remained on the surface, including construction of final ramp configurations in the North End and in the South Bay interchange, and reconstruction of the surface streets. Many impact-mitigation projects (transit, pedestrian, bicycle, and parks) also remain, but some are in danger of cancellation due to cost overruns on the rest of the project.
The final ramp downtown—exit 20B from I-93 south to Albany Street—opened January 13, 2006.
In 2006, the two Interstate 93 tunnels were dedicated as the Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Tunnel, after the former Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts who pushed to have the Big Dig funded by the federal government.

Final phases

"Thousands of leaks"
Massachusetts State Police searched the offices of Aggregate Industries, the largest concrete supplier for the underground portions of the project, in June 2005. They seized evidence of faked records that hid the poor quality of concrete delivered for the highway project. In May 2006, six executives of the company, including its general manager, were arrested and charged with crimes related to fraud. Immediately after the arrests, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney announced he would return $3,900 in political contributions from employees of Aggregate Industries.

Fatal ceiling collapse

2007-11-18T08:11:00.001-08:00

Michaelhouse is the name of one of the former colleges of the University of Cambridge, that existed between 1323 and 1546, when it was merged with King's Hall to form Trinity College. Michaelhouse was the second residential college to be founded, after Peterhouse (1284). Though King's Hall was established earlier in 1317, it did not acquire actual premises until its refoundation by Edward III in 1336.

Reformation and Dissolution
The parish church of St Michael probably dates back to the foundation of the city of Cambridge itself, though no written records survive prior to a valuation of the living in 1217 (see William E. Lunt ed., The Valuation of Norwich, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926, 218). Substantially rebuilt by Hervey de Stanton in the decorated style, the Church was designed to serve both the parish and the college. The chancel is three bays long, a bay larger than the nave; both chancel and nave have side aisles. In 1324, de Stanton had suggested to the bishop of Ely that the master and fellows, who were all members of the clergy, could provide daily worship for the parish, since they already used the church as their chapel. Consequently, on 18 March 1324/5, the first Master of Michaelhouse, Walter de Buxton was inducted as vicar of St Michael's Church (Trinity Archives MS 25). Until the completion of a chapel for neighbouring Gonville Hall in 1396, both Michaelhouse and Gonville shared in the use of the church.
Michaelhouse clergy contiunued to serve the parish until the dissolution of the College in 1546. Until the completion of Trinity College chapel under Mary Tudor in 1565, the scholars of Trinity continued to use St Michael's Church as its chapel. Indeed, when Trinity College was remodelled between 1708-18, the Tudor scholars' seats were transferred to St Michael's Church where they remain today. As successor of Hervey de Stanton's foundation, Trinity College continues to hold the patronage of the living of St Michael's and, during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, fellows in Holy Orders at Trinity College ministered as clergy (so-called 'chaplains') in St Michael's Church. The present minister retains this title.
From the middle of the seventeenth century until the middle of the nineteenth century, the church was used as a venue of the episcopal and archidiaconal visitations for the Diocese of Ely. Similarly, Diocesan confirmation services would be held at St Michael's rather than in Ely Cathedral. On 11 November 1849, as the congregation was gathering for Sunday worship, the heating system caused the church roof to catch fire, resulting in the careful rebuilding of the roof by George Gilbert Scott the following year. Twenty years later, from 1870-2, George Gilbert Scott Junior designed a fine new East Window and matching altarpiece for the chancel, while the ceiling and walls were painted by F.R. Leach.
Ultimately, the parish was too small to be sustainable. Indeed, from as early as 1550, when it was suggested that it should be united with the parish of All Saints in the Jewry, St Michael's parish was threatened with fusion with neighbouring parishes. It was finally united with that Great St Mary's in 1908. Substantially refurbished in 2001-2002, the church now bears the College's name and serves as a weekday church, community centre, art gallery and a café. The chapel adjacent to de Stanton's grave is named in his memory and now, as then, forms the focal point for daily devotions at the church he built.

This article derives some information from an edition of 'Trinity College - An Historical Sketch' by GM Trevelyan, along with information from various individuals associated with the College and the University and Andreas Loewe's 'Michaelhouse: City Church, Cambridge College'.

2007-11-17T08:20:00.001-08:00

There are a number of models regarding the ways in which religions come into being and develop. Broadly speaking, these models fall into three categories:
The models are not mutually exclusive. Multiple models may be seen to apply simultaneously, or different models may be seen as applying to different religions.

Models which see religions as social constructions;
Models which see religions as progressing toward higher, objective truth;
Models which see a particular religion as absolutely true; Religions as social construction
This model holds that religion is the byproduct of the cognitive modules in the human brain that arose in our evolutionary past to deal with problems of survival and reproduction. Initial concepts of supernatural agents may arise in the tendency of humans to "over detect" the presence of other humans or predators (momentarily mistaking a vine for a snake). For instance, a man might report that he felt something sneaking up on him, but it vanished when he looked around.

Religion as a Byproduct of Evolutionary Psychology
In this model, held by individuals such as Karl Marx and Bertrand Russell, religion is seen as a tool concocted by the powerful to pacify and oppress the powerless. As Bertrand Russell wrote, "Religion in any shape or form is regarded as pernicious and deliberate falsehood, spread and encouraged by rulers and clerics in their own interests, since it is easier to control over the ignorant." In this model, the development of religion is seen as analogous to the growth of a cancer: and the most "developed" religion would be no religion at all. However, there is some question regarding the meaning of Karl Marx's image due to opium in his time being the only widely available pain killer (which, incidently, he had used). Thus, religion would be likened to a powerful pain killer, an idea that religious people would tend to support but that some of Marx's adepts may have misunderstood.

"Theory of religion" model
In the dogma selection model, religion is a set of beliefs which allow humans to encode useful survival tips and social structures. For example, early populations may not have understood microbes (germs), but thinking of illness as being caused by invisible demons that can hop on nearby people and possess them also supplies a mental model that reminds one to stay away from people that are coughing. The demon is an abstraction or approximation of germs and their infectious nature.
Dogma that increases the survival of a group will spread using a kind of Darwinian selection process (see Natural Selection; meme). The most useful dogmas spread because they keep the population that espouses them alive to bear more children. Over time good ideas may "mutate" as new generations or tribal branches alter them and the best variations spread using the selection process described above. Of course sometimes religious doctrine goes awry and ends up in large numbers of deaths, but it is the net benefits that count in the end.

Dogma selection model
In contrast to the above models, the following models see religion as "progressively true." Proponents of these models state that their models differentiate between major world religions and the cults and false religions which develop in the above ways. Within these models, and in contrast to cults, religions reflect an essential Truth to one degree or another. The development of religion is therefore the course of religions aligning themselves more completely with the Truth, as the benefits of the teachings of each religion take effect within the development of humanity across time and place, as well as dealing with drifts of the religions from their founding principles or standing in need of elaborating the same essential truth in a new specific way - but all in relation to the same mysterious God, that is that this progression is divinely based or directed, rather than simply the occurrence of good people in history.
1) Within these models, religions are developed by prophets and teachers who bring genuine insight to religious thought. This contrasts with the "useful lie" model above, which sees religious thought as merely random changes which spread according to their usefulness.
2) Within these models, prophets such as Jesus and Muhammad are seen as outsiders leading a divine rebellion against the dominant and corrupt power structures to rescue humanity from destruction. Religion is therefore "grass-roots" in origin, rather than "imposed by the powerful." This contrasts strongly with the Opiate of the Masses model which sees religion as originating with the rich and powerful as a means of controlling the powerless.
3) Within these models, prophets are seen as having genuine insight and wisdom. This contrasts with the "Theory of Religion" model, which ascribes religious birth and development to some psychological or moral pathology in religious leaders and believers.

Religions as progressively true
To a lesser degree of "progression in religion" is true within most of the religions - Judaism accepts a series of Prophets, progressively leading the Jews, from Abraham down through Moses down to Malachi: see the Nevi'im. Christianity accepts the same and adds Jesus. Islam accepts those of Judaism and Christianity and adds Muhammad. Hinduism identifies a series of Avatars, to use their own terminology, from Brahma through to Krishna. Buddhism identifies a separate series of earlier Buddhas. Zoroastrians also delineate earlier Saviors, or Saoshyants, who came progressively leading the people forward. There are other examples. However this is a minor recognition because the figures referred to are accepted within the religion, or are partial because their references to other religions are not systematic

Minor Progression
In the Bahá'í view, religion develops through a series of divine interventions from God, in the form of a Manifestation of God. Bahá'ís believe that God has sent a number of messengers in different times and cultures to bring divine revelation to humanity. Each of these messengers taught the truth of God, but later messengers provided more information to humanity, because humanity was ready to receive the more subtle teachings. Bahá'ís believe in Adam, the Jewish prophets, Jesus, and Muhammad, among others, as messengers of God. Bahá'í teachings also extend that progression indefinitely into the future. A particularized form of this is often present in other religions. The Abrahamic religions have a certain heritage and disputed progression among them (clearly if Judaism accepted Christianity as the right progression then it wouldn't stay Judaism as we know it for example - the same is true for most of the religions we have today.) The Dharmic religions similarly have a certain heritage and disputed progression. While often categorized as an Abrahamic religion, the Bahá'í faith claims to be a member of the progression of both Dharmic and Abrahamic categories and that other possible divine teachers may have appeared directly among other cultural traditions as among the Native Americans and Australian aboriginal peoples. For all culturally based categories of religions, Bahá'ís believe Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of Bahá'í Faith, has brought the latest revelation from God.
In summarizing this view, Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith stated:
"The fundamental principle enunciated by Bahá'u'lláh, the followers of His Faith firmly believe, is that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is a continuous and progressive process, that all the great religions of the world are divine in origin, that their basic principles are in complete harmony, that their aims and purposes are one and the same, that their teachings are but facets of one truth, that their functions are complementary, that they differ only in the nonessential aspects of their doctrines, and that their missions represent successive stages in the spiritual evolution of human society." (Shoghi Effendi in The Promised Day Is Come, preface) [1]
See Progressive Revelation for more information

Bahá'í prophecy model
In A Study of History, Arnold J. Toynbee argues that as civilizations decay, they experience a "schism in the soul," as the creative and spiritual impulse dies. In this environment of spiritual nadir, a few prophets (such as Abraham, Moses, the Prophets, and Christ) are given to extraordinary spiritual insight, born of the spiritual decay in the dying civilization. He describes such prophets as "surveyors of the course of secular civilization who report breaks in the road and breakdowns in the traffic, and plot a new spiritual course which will avoid those pitfalls."
Thus, he argues, the "high points" in secular history coincide with the "low points" in spiritual history, and vice versa. He notes that the call of Abraham followed the defiance of God by the self-confident builders of the Tower of Babel; that the mission of Moses was to rescue God's chosen people from the fleshpots of Egypt; that the prophets of Israel and Judah were inspired to preach repentance from the spiritual backslidings into which Israel lapsed in its 'land flowing with milk and honey' which Yahweh had provided for them; and that the Ministry of Christ, whose passion reflected the anguish of the Hellenic Time of Troubles, was the intervention of God Himself for the purpose of extending to the whole of Mankind the covenant he had made with Israel.
While these new spiritual insights allow for the birth of a new religion and ultimately a new civilization, they are ultimately impermanent. This is due to their tendency to deteriorate after being institutionalized, as men of God degenerate into successful businessmen or men of politics. He describes the worst corruption of all, however, as "idolizing the terrestrial institution in which the Church Militant on Earth is imperfectly though unavoidably embodied. A church is in danger of lapsing into this idolatry insofar as she lapses into believing herself to be, not merely a depository of truth, but the sole depository of the whole truth in a complete and definite revelation."
Of the possibility that a new religion may arise in Western civilization to finally establish a permanent kingdom of heaven, he concludes that it is unlikely or impossible. "The manifest reason is exhibited by the nature of Society and the nature of Man. For Society is nothing but the common ground between the fields of action of personalities, and human personality has an innate capacity for evil as well as for good. The establishment of such a single Church Militant as we have imagined would not purge Man of Original Sin. This World is a province of the Kingdom of God, but it is a rebellious province, and, in the nature of things, it will always remain so."

A Study of History model
In the following models, religions are seen as absolutely and unchangingly True. They contrast with both the first group of models (which held religion to be false), and the second group (which held religion to develop over time).

Religions as absolutely true
Traditional Judaism teaches that God relates to humanity through a series of covenants, which are initiated by him, and in which God promises to perform certain acts on the condition that humans "keep their side of the bargain." Jews believe that they are bound by the Mosaic law, which includes the Ten Commandments and additional teachings, especially those found in Leviticus and the later Sanhedrin. All non-Jews are under the Noahide Laws, established by God after the global flood which wiped out antediluvian civilization. Those who fulfill their part of the covenant are granted the afterlife.

Jewish model
Many religions which claim an exclusive revelation from God assert that theirs is the "One True Religion," and all others are false, because they do not originate from the same source. Exclusivism can be seen in many religions, particularly in certain branches of Christianity and Islam. In such a model, the development of "True Religion" is inexorably tied to a single prophet and/or holy book, and all other religions are described as "non-religion," in that they originate either from human ignorance, or from the evil influence of deceivers, false prophets, or even Satan. However, Judaism is alone in its belief that both the written and oral Torah, the basis of Judaism, was in fact received by the whole Jewish nation, not a single prophet, on mount Sinai by God himself.

Exclusivist models
Many religions have been deeply influenced by charismatic leaders, such as Jesus, Martin Luther, Saint Francis of Assisi, John Calvin, Joseph Smith, etc. These leaders are either the central teacher and founder of the religion (e.g. Muhammad, Jesus, or Gautama) or reformers or prominent persons. Failed or violent new religions were also founded by charismatic leaders, such as Jim Jones.
There is some similarity to the role played by charismatic figures in politics. See list of charismatic leaders.

See also

2007-11-16T10:46:00.001-08:00

The special theory of relativity was proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein in his article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". Some three centuries earlier, Galileo's principle of relativity had stated that all uniform motion was relative, and that there was no absolute and well-defined state of rest; a person on the deck of a ship may be at rest in his opinion, but someone observing from the shore would say that he was moving. Einstein's theory generalized Galilean relativity from only mechanics to all laws of physics including electrodynamics. To stress this point, Einstein not only widened the postulate of relativity, but added the second postulate - that all observers will always measure the speed of light to be the same no matter what their state of uniform linear motion is.
This theory has a variety of surprising consequences that seem to violate common sense, but all have been experimentally verified. Special relativity overthrows Newtonian notions of absolute space and time by stating that distance and time depend on the observer, and that time and space are perceived differently, depending on the observer. It yields the equivalence of matter and energy, as expressed in the mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc², where c is the speed of light in a vacuum. Special relativity agrees with Newtonian mechanics in their common realm of applicability, in experiments in which all velocities are small compared to the speed of light.
The theory was called "special" because it applies the principle of relativity only to inertial frames. Einstein developed general relativity to apply the principle generally, that is, to any frame, and that theory includes the effects of gravity. Special relativity does not account for gravity, but it can deal with accelerations.
Although special relativity makes some quantities relative, such as time, that we would have imagined to be absolute based on everyday experience, it also makes absolute some others that we would have thought were relative. In particular, it states that the speed of light is the same for all observers, even if they are in motion relative to one another. Special relativity reveals that c is not just the velocity of a certain phenomenon - light - but rather a fundamental feature of the way space and time are tied together. In particular, special relativity states that it is impossible for any material object to accelerate to light speed.
For history and motivation, see the article: history of special relativity

Postulates
The principle of relativity, which states that there is no stationary reference frame, dates back to Galileo, and was incorporated into Newtonian Physics. However, in the late 19 century, the existence of electromagnetic waves led some physicists to suggest that the universe was filled with a substance known as "aether", which would act as the medium through which these waves, or vibrations traveled. The aether was thought to constitute an absolute reference frame against which speeds could be measured. In other words, the aether was the only fixed or motionless thing in the universe. Aether supposedly had some wonderful properties: it was sufficiently elastic that it could support electromagnetic waves, and those waves could interact with matter, yet it offered no resistance to bodies passing through it. The results of various experiments, including the Michelson-Morley experiment, indicated that the Earth was always 'stationary' relative to the aether — something that was difficult to explain, since the Earth is in orbit around the Sun. Einstein's elegant solution was to discard the notion of an aether and an absolute state of rest. Special relativity is formulated so as to not assume that any particular frame of reference is special; rather, in relativity, any reference frame moving with uniform motion will observe the same laws of physics. In particular, the speed of light in a vacuum is always measured to be c, even when measured by multiple systems that are moving at different (but constant) velocities.

Lack of an absolute reference frame
Main article: Consequences of special relativity
Einstein has said that all of the consequences of special relativity can be derived from examination of the Lorentz transformations.
These transformations, and hence special relativity, lead to different physical predictions than Newtonian mechanics when relative velocities become comparable to the speed of light. The speed of light is so much larger than anything humans encounter that some of the effects predicted by relativity are initially counter-intuitive:

Time dilation — the time lapse between two events is not invariant from one observer to another, but is dependent on the relative speeds of the observers' reference frames (e.g., the twin paradox which concerns a twin who flies off in a spaceship traveling near the speed of light and returns to discover that his twin has aged much more).
Relativity of simultaneity — two events happening in two different locations that occur simultaneously to one observer, may occur at different times to another observer (lack of absolute simultaneity).
Lorentz contraction — the dimensions (e.g., length) of an object as measured by one observer may be smaller than the results of measurements of the same object made by another observer (e.g., the ladder paradox involves a long ladder traveling near the speed of light and being contained within a smaller garage).
Composition of velocities — velocities (and speeds) do not simply 'add', for example if a rocket is moving at ⅔ the speed of light relative to an observer, and the rocket fires a missile at ⅔ of the speed of light relative to the rocket, the missile does not exceed the speed of light relative to the observer. (In this example, the observer would see the missile travel with a speed of 12/13 the speed of light.)
Inertia and momentum — as an object's velocity approaches the speed of light from an observer's point of view, its mass appears to increase thereby making it more and more difficult to accelerate it from within the observer's frame of reference.
Equivalence of mass and energy, E = mc² — The energy content of an object at rest with mass m equals

m c

. Conservation of energy implies that in any reaction a decrease of the sum of the masses of particles must be accompanied by an increase in kinetic energies of the particles after the reaction. Similarly, the mass of an object can be increased by taking in kinetic energies. Consequences
Full article: Lorentz transformations
Relativity theory depends on "reference frames". A reference frame is an observational perspective in space at rest, or in uniform motion, from which a position can be measured along 3 spatial axes. In addition, a reference frame has the ability to determine measurements of the time of events using a 'clock' (any reference device with uniform periodicity).
An event is an occurrence that can be assigned a single unique time and location in space relative to a reference frame: it is a "point" in space-time. Since the speed of light is constant in relativity in each and every reference frame, pulses of light can be used to unambiguously measure distances and refer back the times that events occurred to the clock, even though light takes time to reach the clock after the event has transpired.
For example, the explosion of a firecracker may be considered to be an "event". We can completely specify an event by its four space-time coordinates: The time of occurrence and its 3-dimensional spatial location define a reference point. Let's call this reference frame S.
In relativity theory we often want to calculate the position of a point from a different reference point.
Suppose we have a second reference frame S', whose spatial axes and clock exactly coincide with that of S at time zero, but it is moving at a constant velocity with respect to S along the -axis.
Since there is no absolute reference frame in relativity theory, a concept of 'moving' doesn't strictly exist, as everything is always moving with respect to some other reference frame. Instead, any two frames that move at the same speed in the same direction are said to be comoving. Therefore S and S' are not comoving.
Let's define the event to have space-time coordinates in system S and in S'. Then the Lorentz transformation specifies that these coordinates are related in the following way:

where is called the Lorentz factor and is the speed of light in a vacuum.
The and coordinates are unaffected, but the and axes are mixed up by the transformation. In a way this transformation can be understood as a hyperbolic rotation.
A quantity invariant under Lorentz transformations is known as a Lorentz scalar.

Reference frames, coordinates and the Lorentz transformation

Main article: Relativity of simultaneity Simultaneity
Writing the Lorentz Transformation and its inverse in terms of coordinate differences we get

and

Suppose we have a clock at rest in the unprimed system S. Two consecutive ticks of this clock are then characterized by $Δ x = 0$ . If we want to know the relation between the times between these ticks as measured in both systems, we can use the first equation and find:
for events satisfying
This shows that the time

Δ t'

between the two ticks as seen in the 'moving' frame S' is larger than the time

Δ t

between these ticks as measured in the rest frame of the clock. This phenomenon is called time dilation.
Similarly, suppose we have a measuring rod at rest in the unprimed system. In this system, the length of this rod is written as

Δ x

. If we want to find the length of this rod as measured in the 'moving' system S', we must make sure to measure the distances

x'

to the end points of the rod simultaneously in the primed frame S'. In other words, the measurement is characterized by $Δ t' = 0$ , which we can combine with the fourth equation to find the relation between the lengths

Δ x

and

Δ x'

:
for events satisfying
This shows that the length

Δ x'

of the rod as measured in the 'moving' frame S' is shorter than the length

Δ x

in its own rest frame. This phenomenon is called length contraction or Lorentz contraction.
These effects are not merely appearances; they are explicitly related to our way of measuring time intervals between events which occur at the same place in a given coordinate system (called "co-local" events). These time intervals will be different in another coordinate system moving with respect to the first, unless the events are also simultaneous. Similarly, these effects also relate to our measured distances between separated but simultaneous events in a given coordinate system of choice. If these events are not co-local, but are separated by distance (space), they will not occur at the same spacial distance from each other when seen from another moving coordinate system.
See also the twin paradox.

Time dilation and length contraction
In diagram 2 the interval AB is 'time-like'; i.e., there is a frame of reference in which event A and event B occur at the same location in space, separated only by occurring at different times. If A precedes B in that frame, then A precedes B in all frames. It is hypothetically possible for matter (or information) to travel from A to B, so there can be a causal relationship (with A the cause and B the effect).
The interval AC in the diagram is 'space-like'; i.e., there is a frame of reference in which event A and event C occur simultaneously, separated only in space. However there are also frames in which A precedes C (as shown) and frames in which C precedes A. If it was possible for a cause-and-effect relationship to exist between events A and C, then paradoxes of causality would result. For example, if A was the cause, and C the effect, then there would be frames of reference in which the effect preceded the cause. Although this in itself won't give rise to a paradox, one can show that faster than light signals can be sent back into one's own past. A causal paradox can then be constructed by sending the signal if and only if no signal was received previously.
Therefore, one of the consequences of special relativity is that (assuming causality is to be preserved), no information or material object can travel faster than light. On the other hand, the logical situation is not as clear in the case of general relativity, so it is an open question whether or not there is some fundamental principle that preserves causality (and therefore prevents motion faster than light) in general relativity.
Even without considerations of causality, there are other strong reasons why faster-than-light travel is forbidden by special relativity. For example, if a constant force is applied to an object for a limitless amount of time, then integrating F=dp/dt gives a momentum that grows without bound, but this is simply because

p = m γ v

approaches infinity as v approaches c. To an observer who is not accelerating, it appears as though the object's inertia is increasing, so as to produce a smaller acceleration in response to the same force. This behavior is in fact observed in particle accelerators.
See also the Tachyonic Antitelephone.

Causality and prohibition of motion faster than light

Main article: Velocity-addition formula Composition of velocities

Main article: Mass in special relativity Mass, momentum, and energy
Introductory physics courses and some older textbooks on special relativity sometimes define a relativistic mass which increases as the velocity of a body increases. According to the geometric interpretation of special relativity, this is often deprecated and the term 'mass' is reserved to mean invariant mass and is thus independent of the inertial frame, i.e., invariant.
Using the relativistic mass definition, the mass of an object may vary depending on the observer's inertial frame in the same way that other properties such as its length may do so. Defining such a quantity may sometimes be useful in that doing so simplifies a calculation by restricting it to a specific frame. For example, consider a body with an invariant mass m moving at some velocity relative to an observer's reference system. That observer defines the relativistic mass of that body as:

"Relativistic mass" should not be confused with the "longitudinal" and "transverse mass" definitions that were used around 1900 and that were based on an inconsistent application of the laws of Newton: those used f=ma for a variable mass, while relativistic mass corresponds to Newton's dynamic mass in which p=Mv and f=dp/dt.
Note also that the body does not actually become more massive in its proper frame, since the relativistic mass is only different for an observer in a different frame. The only mass that is frame independent is the invariant mass. When using the relativistic mass, the applicable reference frame should be specified if it isn't already obvious or implied. It also goes almost without saying that the increase in relativistic mass does not come from an increased number of atoms in the object. Instead, the relativistic mass of each atom and subatomic particle has increased.
Physics textbooks sometimes use the relativistic mass as it allows the students to utilize their knowledge of Newtonian physics to gain some intuitive grasp of relativity in their frame of choice (usually their own!). "Relativistic mass" is also consistent with the concepts "time dilation" and "length contraction".

Relativistic mass
The classical definition of ordinary force f is given by Newton's Second Law in its original form:

and this is valid in relativity.
Many modern textbooks rewrite Newton's Second Law as

This form is not valid in relativity or in other situations where the relativistic mass M is varying.
This formula can be replaced in the relativistic case by

As seen from the equation, ordinary force and acceleration vectors are not necessarily parallel in relativity.
However the four-vector expression relating four-force to invariant mass m and four-acceleration restores the same equation form

Force

Main article: Minkowski space The geometry of space-time
Here, we see how to write the equations of special relativity in a manifestly Lorentz covariant form. The position of an event in spacetime is given by a contravariant four vector whose components are:

That is,

x = z

. Superscripts are contravariant indices in this section rather than exponents except when they indicate a square. Subscripts are covariant indices which also range from zero to three as with the spacetime gradient of a field φ:

Physics in spacetime
Having recognised the four-dimensional nature of spacetime, we are driven to employ the Minkowski metric, η, given in components (valid in any inertial reference frame) as:
-c^2 & 0 & 0 & 0
0 & 1 & 0 & 0
0 & 0 & 1 & 0
0 & 0 & 0 & 1
end{pmatrix}" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/a/5/6/a56bbc8865c96d757222af4927f7c91a.png" />
Its reciprocal is:
-1/c^2 & 0 & 0 & 0
0 & 1 & 0 & 0
0 & 0 & 1 & 0
0 & 0 & 0 & 1
end{pmatrix}" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/a/e/e/aee78a5d8bc51896cb05ba464cfce283.png" />
Then we recognize that co-ordinate transformations between inertial reference frames are given by the Lorentz transformation tensor Λ. For the special case of motion along the x-axis, we have:
gamma & -betagamma/c & 0 & 0
-betagamma c & gamma & 0 & 0
0 & 0 & 1 & 0
0 & 0 & 0 & 1
end{pmatrix}" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/2/e/b/2eb20e96de68a1847b4c14c7f8308596.png" />
which is simply the matrix of a boost (like a rotation) between the x and t coordinates. Where μ' indicates the row and ν indicates the column. Also, β and γ are defined as:

More generally, a transformation from one inertial frame (ignoring translations for simplicity) to another must satisfy:

where there is an implied summation of and from 0 to 3 on the right-hand side in accordance with the Einstein summation convention. The Poincaré group is the most general group of transformations which preserves the Minkowski metric and this is the physical symmetry underlying special relativity.
All proper physical quantities are given by tensors. So to transform from one frame to another, we use the well known tensor transformation law
}_{left[j_1',j_2',...j_q'right]} =
Lambda^{i_1'}{}_{i_1}Lambda^{i_2'}{}_{i_2}...Lambda^{i_p'}{}_{i_p}
Lambda_{j_1'}{}^{j_1}Lambda_{j_2'}{}^{j_2}...Lambda_{j_q'}{}^{j_q}
T^{left[i_1,i_2,...i_pright]}_{left[j_1,j_2,...j_qright]}" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/8/5/9/85952e7f57d85491bacca39c7eb50a98.png" /]
Where is the reciprocal matrix of .
To see how this is useful, we transform the position of an event from an unprimed co-ordinate system S to a primed system S', we calculate
begin{pmatrix}
t' x' y' z'
end{pmatrix} = x^{mu'}=Lambda^{mu'}{}_nu x^nu=
begin{pmatrix}
gamma & -betagamma/c & 0 & 0
-betagamma c & gamma & 0 & 0
0 & 0 & 1 & 0
0 & 0 & 0 & 1
end{pmatrix}
begin{pmatrix}
t x y z
end{pmatrix} =
begin{pmatrix}
gamma t- gammabeta x/c
gamma x - beta gamma ct y z
end{pmatrix}
" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/c/8/0/c8016c400d6810228d972b8fd919d77b.png" />
which is the Lorentz transformation given above. All tensors transform by the same rule.
The squared length of the differential of the position four-vector constructed using

is an invariant. Being invariant means that it takes the same value in all inertial frames, because it is a scalar (0 rank tensor), and so no Λ appears in its trivial transformation. Notice that when the line element is negative that is the differential of proper time, while when is positive, is differential of the proper distance.
The primary value of expressing the equations of physics in a tensor form is that they are then manifestly invariant under the Poincaré group, so that we do not have to do a special and tedious calculation to check that fact. Also in constructing such equations we often find that equations previously thought to be unrelated are, in fact, closely connected being part of the same tensor equation.

Metric and transformations of coordinates
Recognising other physical quantities as tensors also simplifies their transformation laws. First note that the velocity four-vector U also has an invariant form:

So all velocity four-vectors have a magnitude of c. This is an expression of the fact that there is no such thing as being at coordinate rest in relativity: at the least, you are always moving forward through time. The acceleration 4-vector is given by . Given this, differentiating the above equation by τ produces

So in relativity, the acceleration four-vector and the velocity 4-vector are orthogonal.

Velocity and acceleration in 4D
The momentum and energy combine into a covariant 4-vector:
-E p_x p_y p_zend{pmatrix}." src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/f/8/8/f88887b3fe8954b67947533903105c6e.png" />
where m is the invariant mass.
The invariant magnitude of the momentum 4-vector is:

We can work out what this invariant is by first arguing that, since it is a scalar, it doesn't matter which reference frame we calculate it, and then by transforming to a frame where the total momentum is zero.

We see that the rest energy is an independent invariant. A rest energy can be calculated even for particles and systems in motion, by translating to a frame in which momentum is zero.
The rest energy is related to the mass according to the celebrated equation discussed above:

Note that the mass of systems measured in their center of momentum frame (where total momentum is zero) is given by the total energy of the system in this frame. It may not be equal to the sum of individual system masses measured in other frames.

Momentum in 4D
To use Newton's third law of motion, both forces must be defined as the rate of change of momentum with respect to the same time coordinate. That is, it requires the 3D force defined above. Unfortunately, there is no tensor in 4D which contains the components of the 3D force vector among its components.
If a particle is not traveling at c, one can transform the 3D force from the particle's co-moving reference frame into the observer's reference frame. This yields a 4-vector called the four-force. It is the rate of change of the above energy momentum four-vector with respect to proper time. The covariant version of the four-force is:

where is the proper time.
In the rest frame of the object, the time component of the four force is zero unless the "invariant mass" of the object is changing in which case it is the negative of that rate of change times c. In general, though, the components of the four force are not equal to the components of the three-force, because the three force is defined by the rate of change of momentum with respect to coordinate time, i.e. while the four force is defined by the rate of change of momentum with respect to proper time, i.e. .
In a continuous medium, the 3D density of force combines with the density of power to form a covariant 4-vector. The spatial part is the result of dividing the force on a small cell (in 3-space) by the volume of that cell. The time component is the negative of the power transferred to that cell divided by the volume of the cell. This will be used below in the section on electromagnetism.

Force in 4D
Theoretical investigation in classical electromagnetism led to the discovery of wave propagation. Equations generalizing the electromagnetic effects found that finite propagation-speed of the E and B fields required certain behaviors on charged particles. The general study of moving charges forms the Liénard–Wiechert potential, which is a step towards special relativity.
The Lorentz transformation of the electric field of a moving charge into a non-moving observer's reference frame results in the appearance of a mathematical term commonly called the magnetic field. Conversely, the magnetic field generated by a moving charge disappears and becomes a purely electrostatic field in a comoving frame of reference. Maxwell's equations are thus simply an empirical fit to special relativistic effects in a classical model of the Universe. As electric and magnetic fields are reference frame dependent and thus intertwined, one speaks of electromagnetic fields. Special relativity provides the transformation rules for how an electromagnetic field in one inertial frame appears in another inertial frame.

Relativity and unifying electromagnetism

Main article: Formulation of Maxwell's equations in special relativity Electromagnetism in 4D

Main article: Status of special relativity Status

Textbooks

On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, A. Einstein, Annalen der Physik, 17:891, June 30, 1905 (in English translation)
Wolf, Peter and Gerard, Petit. "Satellite test of Special Relativity using the Global Positioning System", Physics Review A 56 (6), 4405-4409 (1997).
Will, Clifford M. "Clock synchronization and isotropy of the one-way speed of light", Physics Review D 45, 403-411 (1992).
Rizzi G. et al, "Synchronization Gauges and the Principles of Special Relativity", Found. Phys. 34 (2005) 1835-1887
Alvager et al., "Test of the Second Postulate of Special Relativity in the GeV region", Physics Letters 12, 260 (1964).
Olivier Darrigol (2004) "The Mystery of the Poincaré-Einstein Connection", Isis 95 (4), 614 - 626. Journal articles
People: Arthur Eddington | Albert Einstein | Hendrik Lorentz | Hermann Minkowski | Bernhard Riemann | Henri Poincaré | Alexander MacFarlane | Harry Bateman | Robert S. Shankland | Walter Ritz
Relativity: Theory of relativity | principle of relativity | general relativity | frame of reference | inertial frame of reference | Lorentz transformations | Bondi k-calculus | Einstein synchronisation | Rietdijk-Putnam Argument
Physics: Newtonian Mechanics | spacetime | speed of light | simultaneity | physical cosmology | Doppler effect | relativistic Euler equations | Aether drag hypothesis | Lorentz ether theory | Moving magnet and conductor problem
Maths: Minkowski space | four-vector | world line | light cone | Lorentz group | Poincaré group | geometry | tensors | split-complex number
Philosophy: actualism | conventionalism | formalism

See also

Original Works

Wikibooks: Special Relativity
Einstein Light An award-winning, non-technical introduction (film clips and demonstrations) supported by dozens of pages of further explanations and animations, at levels with or without mathematics.
Einstein Online Introduction to relativity theory, from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics.

2007-11-15T09:05:00.000-08:00

Kåre Valebrokk (born 17th December 1940) is a Norwegian journalist. He has been chief editor and administrative director of TV 2 since 11th October, 1999, and will retire in the spring of 2007. Columnist at Aftenposten.
He was previously the influential chief editor of the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (1985-1999).

2007-11-14T08:25:00.001-08:00

The Mauna Loa Solar Observatory (MLSO) is a collection of solar imaging instruments located on the island of Hawaii, USA at an elevation of 11,000 feet.

General Information
The MLSO is operated by the High Altitude Observatory, which is a division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The observatory is tasked with monitoring the solar atmosphere and recording data on plasmic and energetic emissions from the chromosphere and corona. Studies of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are conducted at MLSO.

2007-11-13T08:02:00.000-08:00

The Norwegian national football team, controlled by the Norwegian Football Association, is the national football team of Norway. It has participated three times in the World Cup; in 1938, 1994 and 1998. It plays its home games in Ullevaal Stadium, which seats 25,572 spectators. The Norwegian national team continues to be the only team that has played Brazil and never lost to them.

History
Football came to Norway from Great Britain in the 1880s, and quickly became popular both in terms of active players and as a spectator sport. Norway's first football club, Christiania Footballclub was founded in 1885. The oldest club still in existence is Odd Grenland, formed in 1894. In the following years, several more clubs were formed, and in 1902, Norges Fotballforbund (NFF), the Norwegian Football Association, was formed. Later that year, the inaugural Norwegian Football Cup was held. However, it wasn't until 1908, at the invitation of the Swedish FA, that a national team was put together.

Early history
Norway's first-ever international game was played on July 12, 1908 in Gothenburg, Sweden. This was also Sweden's first-ever international match. Oslo club Mercantile, the reigning cup champions, formed the backbone of the Norwegian side with nine of the eleven players in Norway's lineup.
The match started off great for the Norwegians. Within the first minute, Minotti Bøhn scored the first goal of the game. It went downhill from there. Bøhn did add a second goal, and Hans Endrerud also put his name on the scoresheet. Nevertheless, when the referee blew the final whistle, Sweden had won by a score of 11-3.
It would take two years until the next time a Norwegian national side was put together. Once again, the Swedes were the opposition, and this time it was the Norwegians who held the home-field advantage. It was, however, the Swedes who won the match. This time, the final score was 4-0. Norway also went home with two straight defeats when they participated in the Stockholm Olympics of 1912. The opponents were Denmark and Austria.
Overall, the period between 1908 and 1917 is a sorry chapter in the Norwegian national team's history. In those nine years, Norway failed to win a single game. Rock bottom was reached on October 7, 1917 when Norway were routed 12-0 against Denmark. To this date, this is Norway's heaviest ever defeat.

1910s
A new national team coach was hired in 1918. His name was Birger Möller, and he was Swedish. Möller is said to have been an excellent motivator, and spent a lot of time practicing team play and technical skills – and good results followed. On June 16, 1918, after 27 straight games without a win, Norway avenged the embarrassing defeat in Copenhagen the year before by winning 3-1 against Denmark in Oslo. A few months later, Norway defeated Sweden by a score of 5-1 in Gothenburg, which was Norway's first-ever away victory.
Norway's biggest star in the 1920s was unquestionably Einar "Jeja" Gundersen, who scored a total of 26 international goals between 1917 and 1928. Other stars at the time were team captain Gunnar Andersen (Lyn), Per Skou (Lyn and Odd) and Asbjørn Halvorsen (Sarpsborg). These players formed the core of the side that participated in the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, where Norway got their greatest win to that date.
In the opening match of the Olympic tournament, Norway faced pre-tournament favorites England. It may have been an amateur side, but England was nevertheless the home of football, and the team was expected to ease past Norway. It is said that Gunnar Andersen was the first to show that the English players were not supermen, by dribbling past several players. His confidence passed on to the other Norwegian players, and when the smoke cleared, Norway had won 3-1 courtesy of two goals by "Jeja" Gundersen and one goal by Einar Wilhelms.
In the next round, Norway faced Czechoslovakia, but there was to be no repeat of the sensational win against England. The Czechoslovakians won the game 4-0.
Norway claimed a few more scalps in the following years, including a 2-0 win against France in Paris in 1923, as well as a few more wins against arch-rivals Sweden. However, in the latter half of the 1920s, the golden era was over. Between 1924 and 1928, Norway won only four matches – all of them against Finland.
The bad spell began to end near the turn of the decade, largely thanks to new star players like goalkeeper Henry "Tippen" Johansen and striker Jørgen Juve, who is Norway's all-time leading scorer on international level with 33 goals. On June 23, 1929, Juve scored twice as Norway defeated Denmark by a score of 5-2 in Copenhagen. It was Norway's first-ever away win against Denmark.

1920s
In 1933, Viking's brilliant inside-forward Reidar Kvammen made his international debut. Two years later, Lyn's wing wizard Arne Brustad made his debut. Furthermore, in 1934, former national team hero Asbjørn Halvorsen returned home after 12 years in Germany. These events mark the start of what is known as Norwegian football's "Bronze Age".
When Halvorsen returned from Germany, he was hired as general secretary of the NFF, and thus also became chairman of the national team's selection committee. At the time, team selection was handled by the selection committee, while the coach's sole responsibility was training the players the selection committee had picked. However, Halvorsen also named himself team coach, and thus became Norway's first "modern" national team manager.
Norway had gotten several good results leading up to the Berlin Olympics, including wins against Austria and Hungary. Even so, few people believed Norway would stand a chance in the Olympic tournament, especially since they were scheduled to face the host nation in the second round (if they could get past Turkey in the opener). The match against Turkey went easier than expected, as Norway won 4-0. The next match was against the Germans, who had demolished Luxembourg 9-0 in their opener. It is said that the Norwegians were so sure of defeat that they had booked return tickets to Norway two days after the Germany game. If this is true, the travel arrangements would have had to be altered.
In front of a capacity crowd that included Hitler and Goebbels, Norway got a fully-deserved 2-0 win against the hosts. Both goals were scored by Magnar Isaksen, and the win meant that Germany were knocked out and Norway advanced to the semi-finals, where they faced Italy. The match against Italy was a closely-contested one, but the Italians eventually won the game 2-1 after extra time. Arne Brustad scored the Norwegian goal. Next up was the third-place match against Poland, where Brustad scored a hat-trick and guided Norway to a 3-2 victory. Norway had won the bronze medals, and Brustad was hailed as one of the best players of the tournament.
Two years later, Norway took part in their first-ever World Cup. Norway had qualified after defeating the Republic of Ireland by an aggregate score of 6-5. Reidar Kvammen was the big hero, having scored twice in both matches. The 1938 World Cup was a straight knockout tournament, and in the opening round, Norway were drawn against defending world champions Italy.
The match, which was played in Marseille, was very tight and exciting. Italy took an early lead, but Norway equalised seven minuted before the final whistle, when Brustad ran past the entire Italian defence and slotted the ball past the keeper. A few minutes later, everyone believed that Brustad had added his second, but this goal was disallowed because of a highly disputed offside call. So, just like in the Olympic tournament two years earlier, the game went to extra time – and once again, the Italians came out on top thanks to a goal by Silvio Piola. And just like in the 1936 Olympics, Italy went on to win the entire tournament. There was a small consolation for Brustad later that year, when he was picked in the "Rest of Europe XI" that played against England at Wembley.
On October 22, 1939, Norway lost 4-1 against Denmark in Copenhagen. This would turn out to become Norway's last international match for nearly six years.

1930s
When Norway was invaded by Germany in 1940, practically all organized football ceased operations. Asbjørn Halvorsen was among the figureheads of the sports boycott, and was arrested and sent to a concentration camp. Many other sports figures, including Reidar Kvammen, were also put in concentration camps. Although many players tried to keep fit, and a few illegal matches were organized, the six-year hiatus set Norwegian football back by several years – which became painstakingly evident in the first post-war game against Sweden in Stockholm on October 21, 1945.
Many of the old heroes were in the side that faced Sweden that day. Brustad, Øivind Holmsen and Alf "Kaka" Martinsen had played for the "Bronze Team", while Kristian Henriksen, Knut Brynildsen and Rolf Johannessen had played in the 1938 World Cup. However, six years is a long time in football, and the Swedes, who had not been involved in the war, had a great side in the making, and won the game by a score of 10-0. When Sweden scored their ninth goal, team joker Kristian Henriksen reportedly told his teammates, "OK lads, lets go for a draw". The Bronze Age was over.
Eventually, new players were added to the team towards the end of the 1940s. Two of the biggest names were striker Gunnar Thoresen and defender Thorbjørn Svenssen, who was nicknamed "Klippen" ("The Rock"). Also, Bronze Team hero Reidar Kvammen still had some skills remaining in his feet and became the first Norwegian to reach 50 caps in 1948. Although the team was nowhere near the levels of the pre-war side, they did notch up a few big wins. In 1946, Finland were routed by a score of 12-0, and two years later, Norway won 11-0 against the United States in a match where Odd Wang Sørensen scored five goals – which to this day is the team record for most goals scored by one player in a single game.
In 1949, an 18-year-old inside-forward from Ørn Horten named Per Bredesen made his international debut. He scored in his debut and received rave reviews. Norway had uncovered a new star, and as Norway entered the 1950s, people believed Norway had a new great side in the making. Unfortunately, young Bredesen's national team career was short-lived. In 1952, Bredesen was signed a professional contract with Italian giants Lazio – and according to the NFF's self-imposed amateur rules, he was banished from the national team. In an age where most countries in western Europe had introduced professional football, the old amateur ideals of the 19th century were still the rule in Norway.

1940s
Victories were few and far between for the Norwegian national side in the 1950s, and the few games Norway actually did manage to win were usually against fellow minnows Finland and Iceland. Norway did manage a sensational 2-1 win against Hungary in a 1957 World Cup qualifier, but other than that, there were few highlights. In the return game against the Hungarians, Norway were beaten 5-0.
Thorbjørn Svenssen remained a mainstay in Norway's central defence throughout the decade, and when he finally bowed down in 1962, he had played an amazing 104 full internationals. At the time, he was only the second footballer in history to reach a century of caps (the first was England captain Billy Wright. Another national team star at the time was striker Harald Hennum. His 25 international goals is a post-war record.
Nobody knows what Norway might have achieved if Per Bredesen had been available, but the amateur rules were still in force, even though they were somewhat relaxed in 1960 to allow another Italian exile, Ragnar Larsen, who had recently returned home, to once again play for his country.
In 1959, Norway finished the year with four straight defeats and 22 conceded goals. Even Iceland proved too strong this year, winning 1-0 in Reykjavík.

1950s
Following the dismal end to the last year, Austrian Willi Kment was hired as new national team coach in 1960. Another newcomer was a 17-year-old winger from Brann who was named Roald Jensen, but became known only by his nickname "Kniksen". The slightly-built teenager was a wizard with the ball, and suddenly, Norway had a new star – and new-found optimism. Another talented youngster, attacking midfielder Olav Nilsen made his debut a couple of years later. Nilsen would be a mainstay in the side throughout the decade. "Kniksen" on the other hand, went abroad just like Per Bredesen before him, and thus became disqualified from further national team play.
There was little improvement to be found in the results column, but once in a while, Norway pulled off a shock result. They won against Sweden and Holland in 1962, and defeated Scotland by a score of 4-3 in 1963. However, this fine win was followed by a 9-0 defeat against Poland, just to confirm that despite the occasional victory, Norway were still among the bottom-feeders of European football.
In the 1966 World Cup qualifiers, Norway emerged as serious contenders for qualification for the first time in three decades. Though the home-based amateur only rule was retained, Norway boasted a promising side including Finn Seemann, Harald Berg, Olav Nilsen and Egil Olsen. All told, they finished runners up behind France with 7 points (3 wins, 1 draw and 2 defeats) with two narrow defeats to France proving costly.
One of Norway's most shocking results in the 1960s was the victory against Yugoslavia in a 1965 World Cup qualifier. The Yugoslavs had finished second in the European Championship a few years earlier, and was rated as one of the continent's top sides – but they had to travel home from Ullevaal with a 3-0 defeat in their bags thanks to goals from Finn Seemann, Odd Iversen and the new star player from northern Norway, Harald "Dutte" Berg. Norway also played well against France in this qualifying campaign, but both matches ended with narrow defeats. This was nevertheless the closest Norway had come to reaching a major tournament since the glory days of the 1930s.
Norway once again faced France in the qualifying tournament for the 1970 World Cup. The home match ended with a rather predictable 3-1 defeat, but in the return leg in Strasbourg, Norway pulled off another shock result and won the game 1-0. Odd Iversen scored the only goal of the game.
Among the other notable facts, it might be mentioned that Fredrikstad defender Roar Johansen played 54 consecutive internationals between 1960 and 1967. Not even Thorbjørn Svenssen managed a streak like that. Another piece of trivia was that goalkeeper Kjell Kaspersen scored on a penalty in the 7-0 friendly win against Thailand in 1965. This makes Kaspersen the only goalkeeper to have scored for the Norwegian national side.

1960s
In 1969, the self-imposed amateur rule was finally abolished, and foreign-based professionals like "Kniksen" and Finn Seemann could once again play with the flag on their chest. It also meant that domestic stars like Odd Iversen and Harald Berg could move abroad without jeopardizing their national team eligibility.
However, the rule change did not improve the results. If anything, the national team's results in the early 1970s got even worse. During the Euro 72 qualifying campaign, Norway picked up only one point in six games, and in a 1972 World Cup qualifier against Holland, Norway lost 9-0. The next year, they suffered a perhaps even more humiliating result by losing against Luxembourg.
There were, however, a few bright spots. A new star emerged in the form of Tom Lund, who made his international debut in 1971. A playmaker in the Johan Cruyff mold, "Tommy" was without question a great player. Many consider him to be the Norway's finest player ever, but even he couldn't carry the team on his own, and Norway continued to finish last in their World Cup and European Championship qualifying groups.
In the late 1970s, however, there were signs of improvement. Guided by Tom Lund and new head coach Tor Røste Fossen, Norway defeated both Sweden and Switzerland in the qualifying campaign for the 1978 World Cup. The win against Sweden was somewhat marred by Svein Grøndalen's vicious tackle that left Swedish star player Ralf Edström, but when Norway played their last World Cup qualifier away against Switzerland, they still had a theoretical chance of reaching the finals. However, the game ended with a 1-0 defeat, and Norway once again had to stay home.
In addition to the "A" team, Norway also fielded an Olympic side in the late 1970s. To play for the Olympic side, you had to be an amateur, and not played any World Cup qualifiers. The Olympic side was, in other words, a "B" side, but their matches are nonetheless regarded as full internationals by the NFF (but not recognized by FIFA). The Olympic team got quite good results, and in 1979, they qualified for the Moscow Games after beating Finland and West Germany's amateur side in the qualifiers. Arne Larsen Økland became the hero with the winning goal against the Germans. Incidentally, Økland became a professional in the Bundesliga shortly afterwards.
The Olympic side never got the chance to play in the Olympics, because Norway boycotted the games along with the United States and most of the Western European countries as a protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

1970s
The 1980s got off to a promising start for Norway with a victory against Bulgaria. The good run continued with a 6-1 win against Finland (a game where Pål Jacobsen scored four goals) and victory against Switzerland in a World Cup qualifier. Even a 4-0 loss against England at Wembley did not kill the optimism, because after all, England were one of the best teams in the world – at least in the eyes of the Norwegian public.
Narrow defeats against Hungary and Romania in the spring of 1981 ensured that Norway once again failed to reach the World Cup finals, but they still had pride to play for when England entered Ullevaal on September 9, 1981. Norway's previous five encounters against England's full-time pros had all ended with heavy defeats and a combined goal difference of 2-24. Few people believed that trend was about to end that day. The most optimistic pundits hoped for a narrow defeat. In this game, Norway had Tom Lund and the new star Hallvar Thoresen back in the side. Both had missed the match at Wembley the year before.
The match started badly for Norway. England got off to an early lead through Bryan Robson, but Norway clawed their way back into the game, and midway through the first half, Norway got an equaliser from a Tom Lund cross. The goal was awarded to Roger Albertsen, but television replays have later shown that Albertsen did in fact not touch the ball, and Lund's cross went straight into the net. When Hallvar Thoresen added a second shortly before half time, the shock was in the making. Despite a heavy English pressure in the second half, Norway held on, and had achieved (in the eyes of the Norwegian media) their greatest result ever. It was after this game that radio commentator Bjørge Lillelien gave his famous "Your boys took a hell of a beating" routine.
Led by Tom Lund, Norway had a fairly good team in the early 1980s. In 1982, Norway beat Yugoslavia 3-1 in a Euro 84 qualifier with goals by Lund, Økland and current national team boss Åge Hareide. At the halfway mark, Norway looked to have a good chance of reaching the European Championship. However, Tom Lund retired at the end of the 1982 season, and without their playmaker, Norway was once again a mediocrity and gained only one point in the remaining Euro qualifiers, and once again finished last in the group.
The Olympic team was also put back together, this time to qualify for the Los Angeles Olympics. Norway only finished third in the group, behind Poland and the GDR – but when the Eastern Bloc later decided to boycott the 1984 Olympics, Norway were handed the vacant spot. In the finals, Norway gave a pretty good performance. The opening game against Chile finished goalless, and the second game against France finished with a narrow defeat, which meant that the 2-0 victory in the final game against Qatar was to no avail. Norway were knocked out in the group stage. On the bright side, the Olympic team included several players who would become mainstays in the "A" team in the following years, such as Per Egil Ahlsen, Terje Kojedal, Tom Sundby and last but not least goalkeeper Erik Thorstvedt.
The team got a few more scalps in the mid-1980s. In 1985, Norway won 2-1 away against defending world champions Italy, and the next spring, future world champions Argentina were defeated 1-0 at Ullevaal. However, both these matches were friendlies, and in the games that really mattered, Norway were still also-rans. A few weeks after the win against Italy, Norway lost 5-1 at home to Denmark in a World Cup qualifier. In short, Norway in the 1980s was a team that could beat anyone on a given day, but they could also lose against anyone on a given day – and there were a lot more bad days than good days.

1980s
In October 1990, national team coach Ingvar Stadheim resigned after a bad start to the Euro 92 qualifying campaign. His replacement was U21 coach Egil "Drillo" Olsen, and this coaching change would signal the start of Norway's best period in modern times. Olsen's style of play may not always have been pretty to watch, and got a lot of criticism both at home and abroad, but the style got results.
In terms of individual players, Norway in the early 1990s was probably not the best team in their history. Only defender Rune Bratseth and goalkeeper Erik Thorstvedt were regarded as true stars on the international level. These two formed the backbone of a side that otherwise included youngsters like Øyvind Leonhardsen, Stig Inge Bjørnebye, Lars Bohinen and Erik Mykland.
The first indication that Norway had a great team in the making came in the Euro qualifier against Italy on June 5, 1991, where goals from Bohinen and Tore André Dahlum led the side to a 2-1 win. Earlier that night, the Norwegian U21 side had defeated the Italian youngsters 6-0. Norway failed to reach the European Championship finals, but they remained in contention until the very last game, and finished a respectable third behind Soviet Union and Italy.
Towards the end of the Euro qualifiers, Olsen recalled former youth prodigy Kjetil Rekdal, who had been out of the national team for more than two years after a failed spell in the Bundesliga. As the midfield anchorman, Rekdal would become one of the team's most important players throughout the 1990s.
In the qualifying tournament for the 1994 World Cup, Norway were drawn in the same group as England, Holland and Poland. Getting to the World Cup from this group was impossible, according to the pundits – but Olsen had other ideas. The qualifying campaign got off to a great start with a 10-0 win against minnows San Marino. This match was followed by a surprising win against Holland, and when Norway managed a draw in the away game against England through Kjetil Rekdal's 35-yard screamer, the Norwegian public were starting to believe that the national team might actually reach the finals.
The road to the World Cup continued in 1993, when Norway won 3-1 against Turkey, followed by a great 2-0 win against England and a somewhat fortunate goalless draw against Holland in Rotterdam. The World Cup tickets were secured on October 13, when Norway defeated Poland by 3-0 in Poznań after goals by Jostein Flo, Jan Åge Fjørtoft and Ronny Johnsen. Norway had reached the World Cup finals for the first time since 1938. In October 1993, Norway had managed the amazing feat of being ranked the second best team in the world (behind Brazil) on the FIFA World Rankings.
The finals were somewhat of a disappointment for the Norwegian team. The tournament got off to a fine start with a win against Mexico in a match that won't go down in history as a classic. Substitute Kjetil Rekdal scored a late winner. This match was followed by a 0-1, 11-10 men defeat against Italy, and after two games, all four teams in the group had collected three points. This meant that Norway would progress to the next round with a win against the Republic of Ireland. They would also progress with a draw if the match between Italy and Mexico got a winner. The match against Ireland ended in a disappointing goalless draw – and since the Italy v Mexico game also ended with a draw, Norway were knocked out by the slimmest of margins.
Next up was the Euro 96 qualifiers. Norway looked like qualifying through most of the campaign, but stumbled in the last two games against the Czech Republic and Holland, and were knocked out. At this point, Bratseth and Thorstvedt had both retired and been replaced with Henning Berg and Frode Grodås respectively. Two other new faces in the qualifying campaign for the 1998 World Cup were young strikers Tore André Flo and Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Solskjær scored twice in the 5-0 win against Azerbaijan, and was later signed by Manchester United F.C.. Flo got his breakthrough on the international stage when he scored twice in the 4-2 friendly win against Brazil at Ullevaal. Norway clinched the World Cup spot with a 4-0 win against Finland two rounds before the end of the qualifying campaign.
Just like 60 years earlier, Norway had reached a World Cup played in France. History would repeat itself in more ways. Just like in the last World Cup, Norway were unimpressive in the opening matches. The first two matches against Morocco and Scotland ended with draws, which meant that Norway faced the difficult task of beating Brazil if they were to advance to the second round.
"June 23 1998" and Marseille will always be remembered as the date and venue of one of Norway's greatest victories. Brazil did have most of the attacking play, and when Bebeto gave the Brazilians the lead after 78 minutes, it looked like Norway were heading for another early exit. However, a few minutes, Tore André Flo got an equalizer, and when Flo was obstructed in the area two minutes before the final whistle, Norway got a penalty. Kjetil Rekdal fired the penalty into the back of the net. Norway had come from behind to win against Brazil, and advanced to the second round – once again in Marseille, and once again against Italy.
The match against the Italians was a disappointing performance from the Norwegians. Italy got an early lead through Christian Vieri, and Norway rarely threatened the solid Italian defence – and just like in 1938, Norway were knocked out of the World Cup by Italy. After the tournament, Egil Olsen stepped down as national team coach and was replaced by his assistant Nils Johan Semb.

1990s
Semb's style of play was roughly the same as his predecessor's, although new players like Steffen Iversen, John Carew and John Arne Riise were added. After a slow start to the Euro 2000 qualifying campaign, Norway won their last seven games and reached the European Championship finals for the first time in their history. The finals started well, but ended with disappointment. In the opener, Norway got a deserved win against Spain through Steffen Iversen's goal. In the second match, Norway played poorly and lost 1-0 against Yugoslavia, but Norway would still qualify for the second round if they could win their last group match against Slovenia. A draw would also be good enough if the match between Spain and Yugoslavia ended with a draw or a Yugoslavia win.
In what must be described as an awful match, the game between Norway and Slovenia ended goalless. In the other match, Yugoslavia had a 3-2 lead after 90 minutes, which would be enough for Norway to advance. However, when Spain scored twice in stoppage time to win the game, Norway were knocked out. After the tournament, Semb had to suffer a lot of criticism for his tactics.
A slow start to the 2002 World Cup qualifiers did not stop the criticism. After five games, Norway had gained only two points, and after a decade of glory, it became clear that Norway would not reach the finals in Korea and Japan. Norway did finish the qualifying campaign with three straight wins, but it was too little, too late.
Despite the ever-increasing criticism, Semb remained in charge for the Euro 2004 qualifiers, where Norway eventually finished second behind Denmark, and faced a two-leg playoff against Spain. In the away leg, Norway got a respectable 2-1 defeat, which provided some cautious optimism before the return leg at Ullevaal. However, the return leg was a nightmare for the Norwegians. Spain dominated the game completely and won 3-0. After this match, Semb resigned.
Norway's next national coach became former national team hero Åge Hareide, who was hired in January 2004, having coached Rosenborg B.K. to the domestic league title the previous season. The team, which was dubbed "New Norway", won their first six games, although it must be said that many of these games were against second-rate opposition. In the 2006 World Cup qualifying campaign, results have been varying – ranging from an impressive 3-0 win against Slovenia to a disappointing home defeat against Scotland. Norway eventually finished second behind Italy, and played the Czech Republic in a playoff to reach the finals. In the first playoff match the Czech Republic won 1-0 in Oslo. Norway lost the match in Prague November 16 2005 0-1, thus failing to make it to the 2006 World Cup.
On the 16 August, Norway faced Brazil in a friendly match at Ullevaal Stadium. The game ended 1-1 and Norway remained unbeaten by the Brazilians. A successful start to to the Euro 2008 qualifiers followed, breaking a run of eight games without victory, as Norway won 4-1 in Hungary, their largest away win in a qualifier since October 2001, before beating Moldova 2-0 at home to top the group after two games. However on 7 October Norway were beaten away 1-0 by Greece, making their group closer again, and with a 1-2 loss to Bosnia and Herzegovina and a 2-2 tie with Turkey in the two first qualifying matches in 2007, Norway lost important points. The team improved with two home ground 4-0 wins in a row, against Malta and Hungary in early June, and is now on fourth place in its group, five points behind first place Greece and with the same number of points as second and third places Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey.

2000s

1930 - Did not enter
1934 - Did not enter
1938 - Round 1
1950 - Did not enter
1954 to 1990 - Did not qualify
1994 - Round 1
1998 - Round 2
2002 - Did not qualify
2006 - Did not qualify World Cup record

1960 to 1996 - Did not qualify
2000 - Round 1
2004 - Did not qualify European Championship record

Team records

Most capped players

Top goalscorers

Willibald Hahn 1953-1955
Ron Lewin 1956-1957
Edmund Majowsky 1958
Ragnar Nikolai Larsen 1958
Kristian Henriksen 1959
Wilhelm Kment 1960-1962
Ragnar Nikolai Larsen 1962-1966
Wilhelm Kment 1967-1969
Øivind Johannessen 1970-1971
George Curtis 1972-1974
Kjell Schou-Andreassen and Nils Arne Eggen 1975-1977
Tor Røste Fossen 1978-1987
Tord Grip 1987-1988
Ingvar Stadheim 1988-1990
Egil "Drillo" Olsen 1990-1998
Nils Johan Semb 1998-2003
Åge Hareide 2003-present Norway managers

Current players
The following players were called up for the matches against Malta and Hungary in June 2007. The list also includes players that were called up, but withdrew from the squad.

Current squad
The following players have been called up since January 30, 2007.

2007-11-12T08:23:00.001-08:00

Ido (pronounced /idɔ/) is a constructed language created with the goal of becoming a universal second language for speakers of different linguistic backgrounds as a language easier to learn than ethnic languages. This intended usage parallels the current use of English as a lingua franca, and of French, Latin, and Greek in earlier eras. Unlike English, which is a natural and frequently irregular language, Ido was specifically designed for grammatical, orthographic, and lexicographical regularity, and to favor no one who might otherwise be advantaged in a situation due to native fluency in a widespread language. In this sense, Ido is classified as a consciously created International Auxiliary Language (conIAL). Of the most widely used conIALs, the first one is Esperanto, Ido's predecessor; it is disputable whether the second place in usage goes to Ido or Interlingua.
Ido was developed in the early 1900s, and retains a sizable following today, primarily in Europe. It is largely based on Esperanto, created by L. L. Zamenhof. Ido first appeared in 1907 as a result of a desire to reform perceived flaws in Esperanto that some of its supporters believed to be a hindrance in its propagation as an easy-to-learn second language. Many other reform projects appeared after Ido: examples such as Occidental and Novial appeared afterwards but have since faded into obscurity. At present, Ido along with Esperanto and Interlingua are the only auxiliary languages with a large body of literature and a relatively large speaker base. The name of the language likely traces its origin to the Ido pronunciation of "I.D." (from "International Delegation", see below) or the word esperantido, "descendant (of Esperanto)". Or, as with the case of "Esperanto", it could simply be adopted from the pseudonym its designer (Louis Couturat) used in presenting the language to the Delegation Committee. In IDO, it is simply an abbreviation of Idiomo Di Omni (language for all).
Ido uses the 26 Latin letters used in the English alphabet with no diacritics. While still being completely morphologically regular, Ido resembles the Romance languages in appearance and is sometimes mistaken for Italian or Spanish at first glance. Ido is largely intelligible to those who have studied Esperanto, though there are certain differences in word formation, grammar and grammatical-function words that make it more than a simple reform project. Ido is a stand-alone language.
After its inception, Ido gained support (estimates generally range around 20%) from some in the Esperanto community at the time, but following the sudden death in 1914 of one of its most influential proponents, Louis Couturat, it declined in popularity. There were two reasons for this: first, the emergence of further schisms arising from competing reform projects; and second, a general lack of awareness of Ido as a candidate for an international language. These obstacles weakened the movement and it was not until the rise of the Internet that it began to regain its former momentum.

History

Main article: Esperanto and Ido compared Comparison with Esperanto
Ido has the same typical five-vowel system (a, e, i, o, u have their IPA values) as Esperanto, and most of the same consonants, omitting two consonant phonemes used by Esperanto, IPA /x/ and /ʤ/. (The distinctions between /x/ : /h/ and between /ʤ/ : /ʒ/ carry a very low functional load in Esperanto, and so were deemed to be unnecessary in Ido.) Without those two consonant phonemes, the consonants in the language are as follows:
The accent rule in Ido is regular, but slightly more complex than that of Esperanto: all polysyllables are stressed on the penultimate (second from last) syllable except for verb infinitives, which are stressed on the ultimate syllable—skolo, kafeo and lernas for "school", "coffee" and "learn", but irar, savar and drinkar for "to go", "to know" and "to drink". If an i or u precedes another vowel, the pair is considered part of the same syllable when applying the accent rule—thus radio, familio and manuo for "radio", "family" and "hand".

Phonology
Each word in the Ido vocabulary is built from a root word. A word consists of a root and a grammatical ending. Other words can be formed from that word by removing the grammatical ending and adding a new one, or by inserting certain affixes between the root and the grammatical ending. As with Esperanto, Ido is grammatically invariable; there are no exceptions in Ido, unlike in natural languages.
Some of the grammatical endings are defined as follows:
These are the same as in Esperanto except for -i, -ir, -ar, -or and -ez. Esperanto marks noun plurals by an agglutinative ending -j (so plural nouns end in -oj), uses -i for verb infinitives (Esperanto infinitives are tenseless), and uses -u for the imperative. Verbs in Ido do not conjugate depending on person, number or gender; the -as, -is, and -os endings suffice whether the subject is I, you, he, she, they, or anything else.

Grammar
Ido word order is generally the same as English (subject verb object), so the sentence Me havas la blua libro is the same as the English "I have the blue book", both in meaning and word order. There are a few differences, however:
Negation occurs in Ido by simply affixing ne to the front of a verb: Me ne havas libro means, "I do not have a book". This as well does not vary, and thus the "I do not", "He does not", "They do not" before a verb are simply Me ne, Il ne, and Li ne. In the same way, past tense and future tense negatives are formed by ne in front of the conjugated verb. "I will not go" and "I did not go" become Me ne iros and Me ne iris respectively.
Yes/no questions are formed by the particle ka in front of the question. "I have a book" (me havas libro) becomes Ka me havas libro? (do I have a book?). Ka can also be placed in front of a noun without a verb to make a simple question, corresponding to the English "is it?" Ka Mark? can mean, "Are you Mark?", "Is it Mark?", "Do you mean Mark?" depending on the context.

Adjectives can be written either before the noun as in English, or after the noun as in French. Thus, Me havas la libro blua is also permissible.
Ido has the optional -n accusative ending that is used when the object of the sentence is not clear, or it may be used to alter word order when desired. La blua libron me havas is another acceptable way of saying the same thing. Syntax
The pronouns of Ido were revised to make them more acoustically distinct than those of Esperanto, which all end in i. Especially the singular and plural first-person pronouns mi and ni may be difficult to distinguish in a noisy environment, so Ido has me and ni instead. Ido also distinguishes between intimate (tu) and formal (vu) second-person singular pronouns as well as plural second-person pronouns (vi) not marked for intimacy. Furthermore, Ido has a pan-gender third-person pronoun lu (it can mean "he", "she", or "it", depending on the context) in addition to its masculine (il), feminine (el), and neuter (ol) third-person pronouns.
¹ ci, while technically the familiar form of the word "you" in Esperanto, is almost never used. Results on Google have shown that while tu is only slightly less common than vu in Ido, ci is used less than half of one percent of the amount vi is in Esperanto. Esperanto's inventor himself did not include the pronoun in the first book on Esperanto and only later reluctantly; later he recommended against using ci on the grounds that different cultures have conflicting traditions regarding the use of the familiar and formal forms of "you", and that a universal language should avoid the problem by simply using the formal form in all situations. Unlike some other languages that use a formal second person pronoun, vi is not capitalized.
² tiu, though not a pronoun, is usually used in this circumstance, because many people have a hard time applying "it" to humans.
It should be noted that ol, like English it and Esperanto ĝi, is not limited to inanimate objects, but can be used "for entities whose sex is indeterminate: babies, children, humans, youths, elders, people, individuals, horses, cows, cats, etc."
Lu is often mistakenly labeled an epicene pronoun, that is, one that refers to both masculine and feminine beings, but in fact, lu is more properly a "pan-gender" pronoun, as it is also used for referring to inanimate objects. From Kompleta Gramatiko Detaloza di la Linguo Internaciona Ido by Beaufront:
Lu (like li) is used for all three genders. That lu does duty for the three genders at will in the singular is not in itself any more astonishing than seeing li serve the three genders at will in the plural ... By a decision (1558) the Idist Academy rejected every restriction concerning the use of lu. One may thus use that pronoun in exactly the same way for a thing and a person of obvious sex as for animals of unknown sex and a person that has a genderless name, like baby, child, human, etc., these being as truly masculine as feminine.
The motives for this decision were given in "Mondo", XI, 68: Lu for the singular is exactly the same as li for the plural. Logic, symmetry and ease demand this. Consequently, just as li may be used for people, animals, and things whenever nothing obliges one to express the gender, so lu may be used for people, animals, and things under the same condition. The proposed distinction would be a bothersome subtlety...

Pronouns
Vocabulary in Ido is based on words intended to give the greatest facility to the most speakers. Early on, the first 5000+ roots were analyzed compared to the vocabulary of English, French, Spanish, German, Russian and Italian, and the following result was found: Adoption of a word is done through consensus, after which the word will be made official by the union. Care must also be taken to avoid homonyms if possible, and usually a new word undergoes some discussion before being adopted. Foreign words that have a restricted sense and are not likely to be used in everyday life (such as the word intifada to refer to the conflict between Israel and Palestine) are left untouched, and often written in italics.

2024 roots (38%) belong to 6 languages
942 roots (17%) belong to 5 languages
1111 roots (21%) belong to 4 languages
585 roots (11%) belong to 3 languages
454 roots (8%) belong to 2 languages
255 roots (5%) belong to 1 language

Total 5371 100%
French 4880: 91%
Italian 4454: 83%
Spanish 4237: 79%
English 4219: 79%
German 3302: 61%
Russian 2821: 52%
The diminutive suffix -et-. Domo (house) becomes dometo (cottage), and libro (book) becomes libreto (novelette or short story).
The pejorative suffix -ach-. Domo becomes domacho (hovel), and libro becomes libracho (a shoddy piece of work, pulp fiction, etc.)
The prefix retro-, which implies a reversal. Irar (to go) becomes retroirar (to go back, backward) and venar (to come) becomes retrovenar (to return). Vocabulary
As with all constructed languages, gauging the number of speakers of Ido is an extremely difficult task. Usenet postings by the prominent Esperantist Don Harlow have estimated the population at being somewhere in the thousands, but no accurate numbers exist. Moreover, given the often political IAL environment in which those that speak a language are not merely language users but adherents to its system and linguistic philosophy as well, there are two categories of those that know the language, Ido speakers and Ido supporters. Ido resembles Esperanto to a large extent, and many Esperantists have learned Ido out of curiosity while still not using it, preferring to support the more well-known Esperanto movement instead. On one Esperanto bulletin board was written the following:
Mi provis Idon antaŭ Esperanto, kaj alvenis konklude: la diferoj estas efike trivialaj, komparite al pli gravaj koncernaĵoj (kiujn mi ne detalos ĉi tie). Pro tio mi elektis subteni Esperanton, kaj ne subteni Idon, kvankam eble mi lernos Idon por hobio. Tamen via id-vortoj estas bone komprenebla al mi, kaj mi uzus Idon, se ne ekzistis tre pli subtenita lingvo.
I tried Ido before Esperanto, and came to conclude that the differences are in fact trivial, compared to larger concerns (that I will not go into detail about here). For that [the larger speaker community and volume of material] I chose to support Esperanto and not to support Ido, though maybe I will learn Ido as a hobby. However, your writing in Ido [responding to an Ido speaker] is comprehensible to me, and I would use Ido if there did not exist a much more supported language.
It is possible to find discussions of this nature on the Internet in English, Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua and other IALs, each understanding the other with little problem.
A small sample of 24 Idists on the Yahoo! group Idolisto during late 2005 showed that 57% had begun their studies of the language during the past three years, 32% from the mid-1990s to 2002, and 8% had known the language from before.

Ido-speaking community

La Princeto (The Little Prince)
Translation of tune by Russian bard Alexandr Sukhanov from verses by Russian poet Yunna Morits. (listen)
Me nule savas la Angla, la Franca, la Greka,
Mea vid-cirklo do restas sat mikra e streta -
En mea vid-cirklo trovesas nur flori, arbori,
Nur tero e maro, aero, fairo, amoro.
Me nule savas la Dana e la Portugala,
Mea vid-cirklo restas sat infantala -
Nur joyi rapide pasant', bruligiva aflikto,
Nur esperi, e timi noktal' es en mea vid-cirklo.
Me savas nek la Sanskrito e nek la Latina,
Mea vid-cirklo es ancien-mod' quale tino
Nur morto e nasko homala, nur grani ed astri
Aden mea vid-cirklo penetras e standas sat mastre.
Mea savo artala esas fakultativa.
Mea vid-cirklo restas presk' primitiva -
En olu es nia afero intima, interna
Por ke kun homaro la Tero flugadez eterne.
Mea vid-cirklon restriktas nur timi, esperi,
En olu trovesas nur amo, nur maro e tero.
Aden mea vid-cirklo penetras e standas sat mastre
Nur morto e nasko homala, nur grani ed astri.

Mea vido-cirklo (horizonto)
Ido has a number of publications that can be subscribed to or downloaded for free in most cases. Kuriero Internaciona is a magazine produced in France every few months with a range of topics. Adavane! is a magazine produced by the Spanish Ido Society every two months that has a range of topics, as well as a few dozen pages of work translated from other languages. Progreso is the official organ of the Ido movement and has been around since the inception of the movement in 1908. Other sites can be found with various stories, fables or proverbs along with a few books of the Bible translated into Ido on a smaller scale. The site publikaji has a few podcasts in Ido along with various songs and other recorded material.
The online encyclopedia Wikipedia includes an Ido-language edition (known in Ido as Wikipedio); as of December, it has over 14,000 articles.

Literature and publications

2007: Paris, France (Information)
2006: Berlin, Germany, approx. 25 participants from 10 countries (Raporto)
2005: Toulouse, France, 13 participants from 4 countries (Raporto)
2004: Kiev, Ukraine, 17 participants from 9 countries (Raporto)
2003: Grossbothen, Germany, Participants from 6 countries (Raporto)
2002: Kraków, Poland, 14 participants from 6 countries (Raporto)
2001: Nürnberg, Germany, 14 participants from 5 countries (Raporto)
1998: Białobrzegi, Poland, 15 participants from 6 countries
1997: Bakkum (mun. Castricum), Netherlands, 19 participants from 7 countries
1995: Elsnigk, Germany
1991: Ostend, Belgium, 21 participants
1980: Namur, Belgium, 35 participants
1960: Zürich, Switzerland, ca. 50 participants Overview and answers to common questions

Langmaker.com about Ido
Otto Jespersen's history of Ido
Another history of Ido
Emile Boirac's "Report to the World Esperanto Congress, 1908" about his experiences as part of the Delegation's Committee
Léopold Leau's "The Truth About the Delegation in 1907", a rebuttal of criticisms made about the events of the Delegation, based on his own experiences as a member of the Delegation
"How to Build a Language", the section about Ido, and "Ido: The Beginning" by Don Harlow
Ido-Pagino da Ailanto - Discussion about Ido, links to websites, organizations, mailing lists, courses, dictionaries, grammars, etc.
Blueprints for Babel: Ido - Commentary and grammatical summary of Ido, with glossary and links

2007-11-11T09:15:00.001-08:00

Kaikoura is a town on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It is located on State Highway 1 180 km north of Christchurch.
According to the 2001 census, the permanent resident population is 2,104, a 5% decrease since the 1996 census.

Geography

2007-11-10T09:59:00.001-08:00

In Beowulf, Scyld Scefing is a Danish king, progenitor of the legendary Danish royal lineage known as the Scyldings. He is the counterpart of the Skioldus or Skjöldr of Danish and Icelandic sources.
In the opening lines of Beowulf, Scyld is called Scyld Scefing, which might mean Scyld descendant of Scef, Scyld son of Scef, or Scyld of the Sheaf. The Beowulf poet does not explain. In any case the story of a child in a boat, which elsewhere applies to Scef applies to Scyld in Beowulf. After relating in general terms the glories of Scyld's reign, the poet describes Scyld's funeral, how his body was laid in a ship surrounded by treasures, the poet explains:
No less these loaded the lordly gifts, thanes' huge treasure, than those had done who in former time forth had sent him sole on the seas, a suckling child.
No other source relates anything similar about Scyld or Skjöldr, so it cannot be known whether this is a case of similar stories being told about two different heroes or whether originally separate figures have been confused with one another.
Axel Olrik in 1910 suggested a parallel "barley-figure" in Finnish Pekko, in turn connected by Fulk (1989) with Eddaic Bergelmir.

2007-11-09T08:45:00.001-08:00

Career
Boggs was known for his superstitions as much as his hitting. He ate chicken before every game (Jim Rice once called Boggs "chicken man"), woke up at the same time every day, took exactly 150 ground balls in practice, took batting practice at 5:17 and ran sprints at 7:17. His route to and from his position in the field beat a path to the home dugout. He drew the Hebrew word "Chai", meaning "life", in the batter's box before each at-bat, though he is not Jewish. Most people don't know that his favorite count was 3 balls and 2 strikes.

Superstitions
The section could be improved by integrating relevant items into the main text and removing inappropriate items.

Wade Boggs once guest starred on Cheers (sixth season, "The Bar Wars") as himself. He also made a famous guest appearance in an episode of The Simpsons, (Homer at the Bat) in which he was punched out by Barney Gumble after arguing over who was the best Prime Minister in England's history (Boggs favored William Pitt the Elder, while Barney backed Lord Palmerston). Boggs was also portrayed in an episode of Futurama as a head in a sports museum. When Hank Aaron XXIV drinks out of Wade Boggs's jar he says, "Wade Boggs, goes down smooth!"
Boggs also recorded a few innings pitched at the Major League level. His main pitch was a mean knuckleball, which he allegedly used 16 times (along with one fastball) in one shutout inning of pitching for the Yankees against the Anaheim Angels in a 1997 game.
Boggs played in the longest game in professional baseball history as a member of the Pawtucket Red Sox in 1981 along with Cal Ripken Jr..
In 1999, he ranked number 95 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was a nominee for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
An urban legend states that Boggs once drank 64 beers on a cross-country flight from Boston to Los Angeles, a feat which he denies.[1]
Boggs hit the first home run in Devil Rays history off Justin Thompson of the Detroit Tigers.
Boggs lost his mother in a car accident in Tampa while he was with the Red Sox. Shortly after her death, Boggs and his father bought a fish camp in Hawthorne, Florida on Lake Lochloosa they called FinWay which his father ran until shortly before he died.
Although not known primarily as a power hitter, Boggs is the career leader in home runs for a player born in Nebraska.
The team he played the least amount of time for (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) is the only team where his number is retired.
Boggs would induct "Mr Perfect" Curt Hennig into the WWE Hall of Fame on March 31, 2007. He had previously appeared in vignettes with Hennig that aired on WWE programming when he was first introduced, and was close friends with Hennig until his death. Bibliography

Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame
DHL Hometown Heroes
List of major league players with 2,000 hits
List of Major League Baseball players with 400 doubles
List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 runs
List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 RBI
3000 hit club
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball runs scored champions

2007-11-08T07:51:00.001-08:00

Lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. Along with assimilation, it is one of the primary sources of the historical change of languages.
Lenition means 'softening' or 'weakening' (from Latin lenis, the root of 'lenient'), and it refers to the change of a consonant considered 'strong' into one considered 'weak' (fortis → lenis). Common examples include voicing or sonorization, as in [f] → [v]; affrication or spirantization (turning into an affricate or a fricative), as in [t] → [ts] or [s]; debuccalization (loss of place), as in [s] → [h]; degemination, as in [k:] → [k]; deglottalization, such as [k'] → [k], etc. Ultimately, consonants may be lost completely. Lenition, then, can be seen as a movement on the sonority scale from less sonorous to more sonorous.

Some examples
In Celtic, the phenomenon of intervocalic lenition extended across word boundaries. This explains the rise of grammaticalised initial consonant mutation in modern Celtic languages through the loss of endings. A Scottish Gaelic example would be the lack of lenition in am fear /əm fɛr/ ('the man') and lenition in a' bhean /ə vɛn/ ('the woman'). The following examples show the development of a phrase consisting of a definite article plus a masculine noun (taking the ending -os) compared with a feminine noun taking the ending -a. The historic development of lenition in these two cases can be reconstructed as follows:
Old Celtic *(s)indos wiros → OIr. ind fer → in fer → an fear → am fear
Old Celtic *(s)inda bena → OIr. ind ḃen → in ḃen → an bhean → a' bhean
Lenition in Scots Gaelic affects almost all consonants (except /ɫ̪/ which has lost its lenited counterpart). The normal orthography shows this by inserting an h (except with l n r):

In the Celtic languages
In the modern Celtic languages of the British Isles, lenition of the 'opening' type is usually denoted by adding an h to the lenited letter. In Welsh, for example, c, p and t change into ch, ph, th as a result of the so-called 'aspirate mutation' (carreg 'stone' → ei charreg 'her stone'). In late Gaelic calligraphy and in traditional Irish typography, opening lenition (simply called 'lenition' in Irish grammar) was indicated by a dot above the affected consonant. However, since few typesetters had the requisite slug, their convention has been to suffix the letter h to the consonant, to signify that it is lenited. For example, a mháthair (as above) is a Latin alphabet rendering of a ṁáṫair.
Sonorization-type lenition is represented by a simple letter switch in the Brythonic languages, for instance carreg 'stone' → y garreg 'the stone' in Welsh. In Irish orthography, it is shown by writing the 'weak' consonant alongside the (silent) 'strong' one: peann 'pen' → bpeann, ceann 'head' → gceann (sonorization is traditionally called 'eclipsis' in Irish grammar).
For more details, see Welsh morphology and Irish initial mutations.

Consonant gradation

Main article: Fortition

2007-11-07T07:26:00.001-08:00

Guillem Balague (Born Barcelona, Spain) is Sky Sports Spanish football expert and a respected journalist. He is a regular pundit on Sky Sports' show Revista de la Liga and has also written for some of Britain's top newspapers as well as several popular Spanish newspapers.

Journalism
Guillem hails from Barcelona, however he supports the local city team RCD Espanyol, a choice he made after seeing his side beat their local rivals FC Barcelona 5-1 in 1983. However, rumours have surfaced that he does hold a large affection for FC Barcelona.
Guillem speaks fluent English which he learnt while at university in Liverpool.
He is a close friend of Liverpool F.C. coach Rafael Benitez,

2007-11-06T08:40:00.001-08:00

In the United Kingdom (UK), each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one or more members to a parliament or assembly.
Within the United Kingdom there are now five bodies with members elected by constituencies and one that was abolished:
Electoral areas called constituencies are also used in elections to the European Parliament. (See European Parliament constituencies.)
In local government elections, electoral areas are called wards or electoral divisions.

The House of Commons (see United Kingdom Parliament constituencies)
The Northern Ireland Parliament (see List of Northern Ireland Parliament constituencies)
The Scottish Parliament (see Scottish Parliament constituencies and regions)
The Northern Ireland Assembly (see Northern Ireland Assembly constituencies)
The National Assembly for Wales (see National Assembly for Wales constituencies and regions)
The London Assembly (see London Assembly constituencies) County constituencies and borough constituencies
As of the 2005 United Kingdom general election, the House of Commons has 646 constituencies covering the whole of the United Kingdom. Each constituency elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.
The House of Commons is one of the two legislative bodies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the other being the House of Lords.

House of Commons constituencies

List of Parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom
Former United Kingdom Parliament constituencies
Constituencies in the next United Kingdom general election
University constituency See also
There are fourteen London Assembly constituencies covering the Greater London area, and each constituency elects one member of the assembly by the first past the post system of election. Also, eleven additional members are elected from Greater London as a whole to produce a form or degree of mixed member proportional representation.
Constituency names and boundaries remain now as they were for the first general election of the assembly, in 2000.
The assembly is part of the Greater London Authority and general elections of the assembly are held at the same time as election of the Mayor of London.

London Assembly constituencies

Northern Ireland Assembly constituencies
Scottish Parliament constituencies are sometimes called Holyrood constituencies, to distinguish them from Westminster (House of Commons) constituencies. The Scottish Parliament Building is in the Holyrood area of Edinburgh, while the main meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is the Palace of Westminster, in the City of Westminster.
There are 73 Holyrood constituencies covering Scotland, and each elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the first past the post system of election. Also, the constituencies are grouped into eight electoral regions, and each of these regions elects seven additional members, to produce a form or degree of mixed member proportional representation.
The existing constituencies were created, effectively, for the first general election of the Scottish Parliament, in 1999. When created, all but two had the names and boundaries of Westminster constituencies. The two exceptions were the Orkney Holyrood constituency, covering the Orkney Islands council area, and the Shetland Holyrood constituency, covering the Shetland Islands council area. For Westminster elections, these council areas were covered (and still area covered) by the Orkney and Shetland Westminster constituency.
In 1999, under the Scotland Act 1998, which enabled the creation of a new set of Westminster constituencies without change to Holyrood constituencies. The new Westminster boundaries became effective for the United Kingdom general election, 2005.

2007-11-05T07:56:00.001-08:00

Current codes

Temporary codes

Comparison of IOC, FIFA, and ISO 3166 country codes

2007-11-04T09:43:00.001-08:00

Melrose Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 23,171 at the 2000 census. Melrose Park had long been home to a large Italian-American population, although Mexican Americans now form the majority of the population. It also is the home of Kiddieland Amusement Park, Maywood Park Racetrack and Stern Pinball, Inc.. Stern Pinball is the world's last manufacturer of coin-operated pinball machines.
There is a railroad station in Melrose Park with daily service to Chicago.

Geography
As of the census of 2000, there were 23,171 people, 7,631 households, and 5,448 families residing in the village. The population density was 2,110.0/km² (5,465.7/mi²). There were 7,905 housing units at an average density of 719.8/km² (1,864.7/mi²). The racial makeup of the village was 71.53% White, 2.92% African American, 0.49% Native American, 1.99% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 20.08% from other races, and 2.97% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 53.88% of the population.
There were 7,631 households out of which 37.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.8% were married couples living together, 12.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.6% were non-families. 24.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.03 and the average family size was 3.61.
In the village the population was spread out with 27.4% under the age of 18, 11.6% from 18 to 24, 32.6% from 25 to 44, 17.5% from 45 to 64, and 10.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 100.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.3 males.
The median income for a household in the village was $40,689, and the median income for a family was $46,963. Males had a median income of $31,353 versus $24,961 for females. The per capita income for the village was $16,206. About 8.7% of families and 10.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 11.0% of those under age 18 and 10.6% of those age 65 or over.

2007-11-03T09:06:00.000-07:00

Stockbridge Village is the name of a residential area in Knowsley, near Liverpool, England. The area adopted its current name during the 1990s following the regeneration of the Cantril Farm housing estate, which was originally laid out during the 1960s but deteriorated rapidly due to crime and unemployment.

2007-11-02T09:21:00.001-07:00

The Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album has been awarded since 1983. From 2001 to 2003 the award recipients included the producers and engineers as well as the artists. Until 1992 the award was known as Best Traditional Blues Performance and was twice awarded to individual tracks rather than albums.
Years reflect the year in which the Grammy Awards were handed out, for music released in the previous year.

1990s

Grammy Awards of 1999

Otis Rush for Any Place I'm Going
Grammy Awards of 1998
- John Lee Hooker for Don't Look Back
  Grammy Awards of 1997
  - James Cotton for Deep in the Blues
    Grammy Awards of 1996
    - John Lee Hooker for Chill Out
      Grammy Awards of 1995
      - Eric Clapton for From the Cradle
        Grammy Awards of 1994
        
        B. B. King for Blues Summit
        Grammy Awards of 1993
        
        Dr. John for Goin' Back to New Orleans
        Grammy Awards of 1992
        
        B. B. King for Live at the Apollo
        Grammy Awards of 1991
        
        B. B. King for Live at San Quentin
        Grammy Awards of 1990
        
        Bonnie Raitt & John Lee Hooker for "I'm In the Mood"

2007-11-01T08:57:00.001-07:00

Albuquerque (pronounced [ˈæl.bə.kɚ.kiː], Spanish: [al.βu.ˈkeɾ.ke]; Portuguese[1]: [aɫbu'kɛɾk(ɨ)]; known as Bee'eldííldahsinil in Navajo) is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 448,607 as of the 2000 U.S. census. As of the 2006 census estimate, the city's population was 504,949, with a metropolitan population of 816,811 as of July 1, 2006. In 2006, Albuquerque ranked as the 33rd-largest city and 61st-largest metropolitan area in the U.S. The Albuquerque MSA population includes the city of Rio Rancho, one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, a hub for many master-planned communities which are expected to draw future businesses and residents to the area.
Albuquerque is home to the University of New Mexico (UNM) and Kirtland Air Force Base as well as Sandia National Laboratories and Petroglyph National Monument. The Sandia Mountains run along the eastern side of Albuquerque and the Rio Grande flows through the city north to south.

History
The city was founded in 1706 as the Spanish colonial outpost of Alburquerque; present-day Albuquerque retains much of the Spanish cultural and historical heritage.
Alburquerque was a farming community and strategically located military outpost along the Camino Real. The town of Alburquerque was built in the traditional Spanish village pattern: a central plaza surrounded by government buildings, homes, and a church. This central plaza area has been preserved and is open to the public as a museum, cultural area, and center of commerce. It is referred to as "Old Town Albuquerque" or simply "Old Town." "Old Town" was sometimes referred to as "La Plasita".
The village was named by the provincial governor Don Francisco Cuervo y Valdes in honour of Don Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, Duke of Alburquerque, viceroy of New Spain from 1653 to 1660. The first "r" in "Alburquerque" was dropped at some point in the 19th century, supposedly by an Anglo-American railroad station-master unable to correctly pronounce the city's name. Some New Mexicans still prefer the spelling Alburquerque; see for example the book by that name by Rudolfo Anaya. In the 1990s, the Central Avenue Trolley Buses were emblazoned with the name Alburquerque (with two "r"s) in honor of the city's historic name.
During the Civil War Albuquerque was occupied in February 1862 by Confederate troops under General Henry Hopkins Sibley, who soon afterwards advanced with his main body into northern New Mexico. During his retreat from Union troops into Texas he made a stand on April 8, 1862 at Albuquerque. A day-long engagement at long range led to few casualties against a detachment of Union soldiers commanded by Colonel Edward R. S. Canby.
When the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad arrived in 1880, it bypassed the Plaza, locating the passenger depot and railyards about 2 miles (3 km) east in what quickly became known as New Albuquerque or New Town. Old Town remained a separate community until the 1920s when it was absorbed by the City of Albuquerque, which had been incorporated in 1891. Albuquerque High School, the city's first public high school, was established in 1879.

Early settlers
New Albuquerque quickly became a tidy southwestern town which by 1900 boasted a population of 8,000 inhabitants and all the modern amenities including an electric street railway connecting Old Town, New Town, and the recently established UNM campus on the East Mesa. In 1902 the famous Alvarado Hotel was built adjacent to the new passenger depot and remained a symbol of the city until it was torn down in 1970 to make room for a parking lot. In 2002, the Alvarado Transportation Center was built on the site in a manner resembling the old landmark. The large metro station functions as the downtown headquarters for the city's transit department, and serves as an intermodal hub for local buses, Greyhound buses, Amtrak passenger trains, and the Rail Runner commuter rail line.
New Mexico's dry climate brought many tuberculosis patients to the city in search of a cure during the early 1900s, and several sanitaria sprang up on the West Mesa to serve them. Presbyterian Hospital and St. Joseph Hospital, two of the largest hospitals in the Southwest, had their beginnings during this period. Influential New Deal-era governor Clyde Tingley and famed southwestern architect John Gaw Meem were among those brought to the Land of Enchantment by tuberculosis.

Early 20th century
The first travelers on Route 66 appeared in Albuquerque in 1926, and before long dozens of motels, restaurants, and gift shops had sprung up along the roadside to serve them. Route 66 originally ran through the city on a north-south alignment along Fourth Street, but in 1937 it was realigned along Central Avenue, a more direct east-west route. The intersection of Fourth and Central downtown was the principal crossroads of the city for decades. The majority of the surviving structures from the Route 66 era are on Central, though there are also some on Fourth. Signs between Bernalillo and Los Lunas along the old route now have brown, historical highway markers denoting it as Pre-1937 Route 66.
The establishment of Kirtland Air Force Base in 1939, Sandia Base in the early 1940s, and Sandia National Laboratories in 1949, would make Albuquerque a key player of the Atomic Age. Meanwhile, the city continued to expand outward onto the West Mesa, reaching a population of 200,000 by 1960.
Albuquerque's downtown entered the same phase and development (decline, "urban renewal" with continued decline, and gentrification) as nearly every city across the United States. As Albuquerque spread outward, the downtown area fell into a decline. Many historic buildings were razed in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for new plazas, high-rises, and parking lots as part of the city's urban renewal phase. Only recently has downtown come to regain much of its urban character, mainly through the construction of many new loft apartment buildings and the renovation of historic structures like the KiMo Theater, in the gentrification phase.

Decades of growth
During the 21st century, the Albuquerque population has continued to grow rapidly. The population of the city proper is estimated at 504,949 in 2006, up from 448,607 in the 2000 census, and is projected to reach 553,000 in 2010. The metropolitan area population is estimated at 799,260 in 2006, up from 712,738 in the 2000 census, and is projected to reach 883,295 in 2010, and surpass 1 million by 2020.
During 2005 and 2006, the city celebrated its tricentennial with a diverse program of cultural events.

New millennium
According to the United States Census Bureau, Albuquerque has a total area of 181.3 square miles (469.6 km²). 180.6 square miles (467.8 km²) of it is land and 0.6 square miles (1.6 km²) of it (0.35%) is water. The metro area has over 1,000 square miles developed.
Albuquerque lies within the northern, upper edges of the Chihuahuan Desert ecoregion, based on long-term patterns of climate, associations of plants and wildlife, and landforms, including drainage patterns. Located in central New Mexico, the city also has noticeable influences from the adjacent Colorado Plateau Semi-Desert, Arizona-New Mexico Mountains, and Southwest Plateaus and Plains Steppe ecoregions, depending on where one is located. Its main geographic connection lies with southern New Mexico, while culturally, Albuquerque is a crossroads of most of New Mexico.
Albuquerque has one of the highest elevations of any major city in the United States, though the effects of this are greatly tempered by its southwesterly continental position. The elevation of the city ranges from 4,900 feet (1,490 m) above sea level near the Rio Grande (in the Valley) to over 6,400 feet (1,950 m) in the foothill areas of the Northeast Heights. At the airport, the elevation is 5,352 feet (1,631 m) above sea level.
The Rio Grande is classified, like the Nile, as an 'exotic' river because it flows through a desert. The New Mexico portion of the Rio Grande lies within the Rio Grande Rift Valley, bordered by a system of faults, including those that lifted up the adjacent Sandia and Manzano Mountains, while lowering the area where the life-sustaining Rio Grande now flows.
Albuquerque is located at 35°6′39″N, 106°36′36″W (35.110703, -106.609991).

Geography
Albuquerque's climate is usually sunny and dry, with low relative humidity. Brilliant sunshine defines the region, averaging more than 300 days a year; periods of variably mid and high-level cloudiness temper the sun at other times. Extended cloudiness is rare. The city has four distinct seasons, but the heat and cold are mild compared to the extremes that occur more commonly in other parts of the country.
Winters are rather brief but definite; daytime highs range from the mid 40s to upper 50s Fahrenheit, while the overnight lows drop into the low 20s to near 30 by sunrise; nights are often colder in the valley and uppermost foothills by several degrees. The occasional snowfall, associated with low pressure areas, fronts and troughs, often melts by the mid-afternoon; over half of the scant winter moisture occurs in the form of light rain showers, usually brief in duration. In the much higher and colder Sandia Mountains, moisture falls as snow; many years have enough snow to create decent skiing conditions at the local ski area.
Springtime starts off windy and cool, sometimes unsettled with some rain and even light snow, though spring is usually the driest part of the year in Albuquerque. March and April tend to see many days with the wind blowing at 20 to 30 mph, and afternoon gusts can produce periods of blowing sand and dust. In May, the winds tend to subside, as temperatures start to feel like summer.
Summer daytime highs range from the upper 80s to the upper 90's, while dropping into the low 60s to low 70s overnight; the valley and uppermost foothills are often several degrees cooler than that. The heat is quite tolerable because of low humidity, except during the late summer during increased humidity from surges in the monsoonal pattern; at that time, daytime highs drop slightly but the extra moisture in the air can cause nighttime temperatures to increase.
Fall sees mild days and cool nights with less rain, though the weather can be more unsettled closer to winter.
The city was one of several in the region experiencing a severe winter storm leaving between 10 and 26 inches of snow in just over 24 hours on December 30, 2006.
Albuquerque's climate is classified as arid (BWk or BWh, depending on the particular scheme of the Köppen climate classification system one uses), meaning average annual precipitation is less than half of evaporation, and the mean temperature of the coldest month is above freezing (32F). Only the wettest areas of the Sandia foothills are barely semi-arid, where precipitation is more than half of, but still less than, evaporation; such areas are localized and usually lie above 6000 feet in elevation and often in arroyo drainages, signified by a slightly denser, taller growth of evergreen oak - juniper - pinon chaparral and rarely, woodland, often mixed with taller desert grasses. These elevated foothill areas still border arid areas, best described as desert grassland or desert shrub, on their west sides.
Traveling to the west, north and east of Albuquerque, one quickly rises in elevation and leaves the sheltering effect of the valley to enter a noticeably cooler and slightly wetter environment. One such area is still considered part of metro Albuquerque, commonly called the "East Mountain" area; it is covered in savannas or woodlands of low juniper and pinon trees, reminiscent of the lower parts of the southern Rocky Mountains, which do not actually contact Albuquerque proper.
Those mountains and highlands beyond the city create a "rain shadow" effect, due to the drying of descending air movements; the city usually receives very little rain or snow, averaging 8-9 inches (216 mm) of precipitation per year. Valley and west mesa areas, farther from the mountains are drier, averaging 6-8 inches of annual precipitation; the Sandia foothills tend to lift any available moisture, enhancing precipitation to about 10-17 inches annually. Most precipitation occurs during the summer monsoon season (also called a chubasco in Mexico), typically starting in early July and ending in mid-September.

Climate
The Sandia Mountains are the predominant geographic feature visible in Albuquerque. "Sandía" is Spanish for "watermelon", and is popularly believed to be a reference to the brilliant coloration of the mountains at sunset: bright pink (melon meat) and green (melon rind). The pink is due to large exposures of granodiorite cliffs, and the green is due to large swaths of conifer forests. However, Robert Julyan notes in The Place Names of New Mexico, "the most likely explanation is the one believed by the Sandia Indians: the Spaniards, when they encountered the Pueblo in 1540, called it Sandia, because they thought the squash growing there were watermelons, and the name Sandia soon was transferred to the mountains east of the pueblo."
The Sandia foothills, on the west side of the mountains, have soils derived from that same rock material with varying sizes of decomposed granite, mixed with areas of clay and caliche (a calcereous clay common in the arid southwestern USA), along with some exposed granite bedrock.
Below the foothills, the area usually called the "Heights" consists of a mix of clay and caliche soils, overlain by a layer of decomposed granite, resulting from long-term outwash of that material from the adjacent mountains. This bajada is quite noticeable when driving into the Duke City from the north or south, due to its fairly uniform slope from the mountains' edge downhill to the valley. Sand hills are scattered along the I-25 corridor and directly above the Rio Grande valley, forming the lower end of the Heights.
The Rio Grande valley, due to long-term shifting of the actual river channel, contains layers and areas of soils varying between caliche, clay, loam, and even some sand. It is the only part of Albuquerque where the water table often lies close to the surface, sometimes less than 10 feet.
The last significant area of Albuquerque geologically is the "West Mesa": this is the elevated land west of the Rio Grande, including the sandy terrace immediately west and above the river, and the rather sharply defined volcanic escarpment above and west of most of the developed city. The west mesa commonly has soils often referred to as "blow sand", along with occasional clay and caliche and even basalt, nearing the escarpment.

Geology
Albuquerque has expanded greatly in area since the mid 1940s. During those years of expansion, the planning of the newer areas has considered that people don't walk, they drive. The pre-1940s parts of Albuquerque are quite different in style and scale from the post 1940s areas. These older areas include the North Valley, the South Valley, various neighborhoods near downtown, and Corrales. The newer areas generally feature 4 to 6 lane roads in a 1 mile (1.61 km) grid. Each 1 square mile (2.59 km²) is divided into four 160-acre neighborhoods by smaller roads set 0.5 miles (0.8 km) between major roads. When driving along major roads in the newer sections of Albuquerque, one sees strip malls, signs, and cinderblock walls. The upside of this planning style is that neighborhoods are shielded from the worst of the noise and lights on the major roads. The downside is that it is virtually impossible to go anywhere from home without driving.
Albuquerque is geographically divided into four quadrants which are officially part of the mailing address. They are NE (northeast), NW (northwest), SE (southeast), and SW (southwest). The north-south dividing line is Central Avenue (the path that Route 66 took through the city) and the east-west dividing line is the BNSF Railway tracks. Although this is technically the division of the city, in casual conversation Albuquerqueans sometimes use the perpendicular interstates I-25 and I-40 to divide the city into quadrants.

Cityscape
This quadrant has been experiencing a housing expansion since the late 1950s. It abuts the base of the Sandia Mountains and contains portions of the Sandia Heights neighborhoods, which are situated in or near the foothills and are significantly higher, in elevation and price range, than the rest of the city. Running from Central Ave. and the railroad tracks to the Sandia Peak Aerial Tram, this is the largest quadrant both geographically and by population. The University of New Mexico, the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, the Uptown area which includes both Coronado and Winrock malls, Journal Center (with over 2 million square feet (180,000 m²) of office space), Balloon Fiesta Park, and Albuquerque Academy are all located in this quadrant. Some of the most affluent regions of the city are located here, including Las Lomas-Roma, Netherwood Park, Academy Hills, Tanoan West & East, High Desert, Glenwood Hills, Sandia Heights, North Albuquerque Acres, and Tierra Monte. (Sandia Heights, Tierra Monte, and some of North Albuquerque Acres are outside the city limits proper.) A few houses in the farthest reach of this quadrant lie in the Cibola National Forest, just over the line into Sandoval County.

Northwest Quadrant
Eclipse Aviation, Kirtland Air Force Base, Sandia National Laboratories, the University of New Mexico, the Central New Mexico Community College main campus, the Albuquerque International Sunport, University Stadium, Isotopes Park, and University Arena ("The Pit") are located in the Southeast (SE) quadrant.
The Nob Hill and East Downtown (EDo) neighborhoods lie along Central Avenue, the border between the Southeast and Northeast quadrants. The expensive residential developments of Four Hills, Willow Wood, and Ridgecrest are also located in this quadrant. In sharp contrast to these upscale developments, however, some of the most poverty-stricken neighborhoods in the city are also located in Southeast Albuquerque. During the past twenty years, the SE area, mainly around Gibson Blvd. and Central Ave., has become the highest crime area in the city. However, recent developments in the neighborhood such as the Cesar Chavez Community Center, Veterans Memorial, and the renovated Talin Market have shown that this area is in the beginning stages of reestablishing itself as one of many cultural centers in the city.

Southeast Quadrant
Traditionally consisting of agricultural and rural areas, the Southwest quadrant is often referred to as the "South Valley". Although the city limits of Albuquerque do not include all of the area, the South Valley is considered to extend all the way to the Isleta Indian Reservation. This includes the old communities of Atrisco, Los Padillas, 68.187.230.129 01:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)Kinney, Mountainview, and Pajarito. The south end of downtown Albuquerque and the Bosque ("woodlands" cottonwood forest), the historic Barelas neighborhood, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the Rio Grande Zoo (which is part of the City's Albuquerque Biological Park system), and Tingley Beach are also located here.
The southwest area is currently undergoing rapid and controversial development, including large retail stores and quickly-built subdivisions.

Southwest Quadrant

Main article: Politics of Albuquerque Government and politics
Albuquerque lies at the center of the New Mexico Technology Corridor, a band of high-tech private companies and government institutions along the Rio Grande. Larger institutions whose employees contribute to the population are numerous and include Sandia National Laboratories, Kirtland Air Force Base, and the attendant contracting companies which bring highly educated workers to a somewhat isolated region. Intel operates a large semiconductor factory or "fab" just outside the city boundaries of neighboring Rio Rancho, New Mexico, in Sandoval County, New Mexico, with its attendant large-capital investment.
The solar energy and architectural-design innovator Steve Baer located his company, Zomeworks, here in the late 1960s.
In March 2007 Tesla Motors announced that an electric car assembly plant will be going up on Albuquerque's Westside.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory cooperate in an enterprise that began with the Manhattan Project.

Economy
Recently, government leaders and many citizens in the city have actively pursued urban projects taken on by cities many times larger. A huge push has resulted in the somewhat successful revitalization of downtown, creating restaurants, offices, and residential lofts. The strip of Central Avenue between First and Eighth streets has become a hub of urban life, with a big-city feel. Alvarado provides convenient access to other parts of the city via ABQ RIDE the city bus system. The mayor wants to tackle a rapid transit project to ease some of the city's traffic woes. A street car is being considered and would initially extend up the Central Avenue corridor from the westside, through downtown, past UNM and the Nob Hill district, and into the Uptown Area [2].
A few citizens and city councilors fear Albuquerque may be "growing too quickly." They want to avoid increasing crime and traffic, worsening air quality, stressing water supplies, and encroaching on the natural environment. For instance, 1995's controversial construction of the Montaño Bridge crossing at the Rio Grande resulted in the bridge only being striped for two lanes. After a grace period, the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce passed a board position in 2003 supporting the opening of two additional lanes; these lanes were eventually opened in March 2006, despite the outcry of local residents. However, a significant majority of Albuquerque residents supported the opening of the four lanes, as well as the initial construction of the bridge in 1995.[3].
The passage of the West Side Strategic Plan provides rules concerning building permits for the extreme western fringes of the city. [4]. This act encourages in-filling developments and discourages the movement of wealthy residents to outlying suburban areas. Urban sprawl is limited by the Pueblo of Sandia to the north, the Pueblo of Isleta and Kirtland Air Force Base to the south, the Sandia Mountains to the east and Petroglyph National Monument to the west. These limitations facilitate reuse of land within the existing city limits and have forced more efficient use of available land around the edges as well.
Because of cheaper land and lower taxes, much of the growth in the metropolitan area is taking place outside of the City of Albuquerque itself. In Rio Rancho to the northwest, the communities east of the mountains, and the incorporated parts of Valencia County population growth rates approach twice that of the city. The primary cities in Valencia County are Los Lunas and Belen, both of which are home to growing industrial complexes and new residential subdivisions. The Mid Region Council of Governments (MRCOG), which includes constituents from throughout the Albuquerque area, was formed to insure that these governments along the middle Rio Grande would be able to meet the needs of their rapidly rising populations. MRCOG's cornerstone project is the New Mexico Rail Runner Express.

Urban trends and issues
10 Tallest Buildings in Albuquerque
Due to the nature of the soil in the Rio Grande Valley, the skyline is lower than might be expected in a city of commensurate size elsewhere.

Architecture

Culture
Tricklock Company is Albuquerque's only international touring theatre company. Every January, Tricklock hosts the Revolutions International Theatre Festival, which brings in performers from around the world.
The American Shakespeare Project is a local Shakespearean community theater company which is devoted to staging productions of Shakespeare's plays (and sometimes those of his contemporaries) with heavy emphasis on the textual authority of the First Folio.
The National Institute of Flamenco is located in downtown Albuquerque. It supports the Conservatory of Flamenco Arts and Yjastros, the national Flamenco repertory company.
Popejoy Hall, New Mexico's grandest multi-use theater, hosts a series of touring Broadway shows and national and international performers, The New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and performances by the UNM Department of Music and the Albuquerque Youth Symphony.
The hall is located on the campus of the University of New Mexico.

Arts and theatre
Albuquerque contains many variety of museums, shops and other points of interest. Some of these include the Albuquerque Biological Park and Old Town Albuquerque
The city hosts the annual New Mexico State Fair for 17 days in September at Expo New Mexico, formerly the New Mexico State Fairgrounds.
Albuquerque also has the largest hot air balloon gathering in the world. It is called the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta and it is held during early October. It was started in 1972 with 13 balloons. It progressed and in 2000 there were a record 1000 balloons that attended and lifted off in a mass ascension. Since 2000 the officials keep it to no more than 700 registered balloons for safety, and it is the most photographed event in the world.
The city is also home to the annual Gathering of Nations Pow-Wow, an international event featuring over 3,000 indigenous Native American dancers and singers representing more than 500 tribes from Canada and the United States. Dancers and singers participate socially and competitively at the event, held in April.
The Sandia Mountains to the East offer interesting and varied rock climbing. Climbs from one to 10 pitches can be found at all ability levels.
Further information: List of points of interest in Albuquerque, List of historic landmarks in Albuquerque

Tourism and recreation

Sports
Albuquerque is a media hub for much of New Mexico. The city is served by two major newspapers, the Albuquerque Journal and the Albuquerque Tribune
Albuquerque is also home to several radio and television stations that serve the metropolitan area.
Further information: List of newspapers in Albuquerque, List of television stations in Albuquerque, and List of radio stations in Albuquerque
See also: List of famous people from Albuquerque

Media
As of the census of 2000, there were 448,607 people, 183,236 households, and 112,690 families residing in the city. The population density was 958.9/km² (2,483.4/mi²). There were 198,465 housing units at an average density of 424.2/km² (1,098.7/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 71.59% White, 3.09% Black or African American, 3.89% Native American, 2.24% Asian, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 14.78% from other races, and 4.31% Multiracial (from two or more races). 39.92% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There were 183,236 households out of which 30.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.6% were married couples living together, 12.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 38.5% were non-families. 30.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.40 and the average family size was 3.02.
In the city the population was spread out with 24.5% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 30.9% from 25 to 44, 21.9% from 45 to 64, and 12.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 94.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.8 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $38,272, and the median income for a family was $46,979. Males had a median income of $34,208 versus $26,397 for females. The per capita income for the city was $20,884. About 10.0% of families and 13.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 17.4% of those under age 18 and 8.5% of those age 65 or over.

Demographics
The city is home to University of New Mexico, one of the two large state universities in New Mexico. UNM includes a School of Medicine which was ranked in the top 15 primary care-oriented medical schools in the country. Albuquerque is also home to the National American University, Trinity Southwest University, and the University of St. Francis College of Nursing and Allied Health Department of Physician Assistant Studies. The Central New Mexico Community College serves most of the area, as do several technical schools including ITT Technical Institute and the University of Phoenix. Furthermore, The Art Center Design College offers bachelor's degrees in Graphic and Interior Design, animation, illustration, Photography as well as several other disciplines. Albuquerque Public Schools, one of the largest school districts in the nation, provides educational services to over 87,000 children across the city.
Further information: List of Middle Schools in Albuquerque, List of High schools in Albuquerque, List of colleges and universities in Albuquerque

Educational institutions

Transportation

Interstate 25 - Pan American Freeway
Interstate 40 - Coronado Freeway Highways
ABQ RIDE is the local transit agency in Albuquerque. ABQ RIDE operates a variety of city bus routes including the Rapid Ride BRT route.

Mass transit
The city has recently incorporated a commuter rail line that serves the region. The New Mexico Rail Runner Express system began operation in July 2006 on existing BNSF Railway. Stops are open serving Sandoval County, Bernalillo, Los Ranchos de Albuquerque and the North Valley, downtown Albuquerque, Albuquerque's airport and the South Valley, Los Lunas, and Belen. Stops will be added later in 2007 to serve Sandia Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo. A major expansion to Santa Fe is in the planning stages.
Amtrak's Southwest Chief, which travels between Chicago and Los Angeles, also serves the Albuquerque area.

Rail
Albuquerque is served by two airports, the largest of which is Albuquerque International Sunport. It is located 3 miles (5 km) southeast of the central business district (CBD) of Albuquerque.
Double Eagle II Airport is the second-largest airport. It is primarily used as an Air ambulance, corporate flight, military flight, training flight, charter flight, and private flight facility.

Airports

Dallas, Texas: 645 mi (1,038 km) east-southeast.
Denver, Colorado: 445 mi (716 km) north-northeast.
Phoenix, Arizona: 465 mi (748 km) west-southwest.
Salt Lake City, Utah: 620 mi (998 km) northwest.
Tucson, Arizona: 505 mi (813 km) southwest. Distances
The MIND (Mental Illness and Neuroscience Discovery) Institute is a non-profit organization, national in scope, with headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The organization's mission is to explore the mind and brain in order to enhance the lives of men, women and children with mental illness. To that end, The MIND Institute scientists advance and apply neuroimaging technologies to bridge emerging frontiers of basic neurosciences and their clinical applications. The Institute draws on national expertise to define and validate its scientific direction by partnering with The University of New Mexico, Harvard University, University of Minnesota, University of Iowa and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Sister cities
The Partridge Family had a song called Point Me In the Direction of Albuquerque that was played in one of the episodes of the show.

The Simpsons episode Hungry Hungry Homer features Homer Simpson attempting to stop the Springfield Isotopes baseball team relocating to Albuquerque. This episode led to the Albuquerque AAA baseball team to be named the Albuquerque Isotopes.
In Bugs Bunny shorts where Bugs is travelling underground and does not end up where he thought he was going, while consulting a map, he would often say, "I knew I should've taken a left turn at Albuquerque."
"Weird Al" Yankovic wrote a song for his Running with Scissors album called Albuquerque.
The Hit Disney Channel Original Movies High School Musical and High School Musical 2 are both set in Albuquerque. The teenagers attend the fictious East High School. Neither of the films were shot in Albuquerque.

2007-10-31T08:48:00.001-07:00

French and Francophone literature
French literature By category French language Medieval 16th century - 17th century 18th century - 19th century 20th century - Contemporary
Francophone literature Literature of Quebec Postcolonial literature Literature of Haiti Chronological list
Writers - Novelists Playwrights - Poets Essayists Short Story Writers
Novel - Poetry - Plays Science Fiction - Comics Fantastique - Detective Fiction Naturalism - Symbolism Surrealism - Existentialism Nouveau Roman Theater of the Absurd
Literary theory - Critics Literary Prizes
Molière - Racine - Balzac Stendhal - Flaubert Emile Zola - Marcel Proust Samuel Beckett - Albert Camus This article is a general introduction to French literature. For detailed information on French literature in specific historic periods, see the separate historical articles in the template to the right.
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak other traditional non-French languages. Literature written in French by citizens of other nations such as Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco, etc. is referred to as Francophone literature.

French literature
Besides literature written in the French language, the literary culture of France may include literature written in other languages of France. In the medieval period many of the competing standard languages in various territories that later came to make up the territory of modern France each produced literary traditions, such as Anglo-Norman literature and Provençal literature.
Literature in the regional languages continued through to the 18th century, although increasing eclipsed by the rise of the French language and influenced by the prevailing French literary model. Conscious language revival movements in the 19th century, such as Félibrige in Provence, coupled with wider literacy and regional presses, enabled a new flowering of literary production in the Norman language and others.
Frédéric Mistral, a poet in Occitan (1830-1914), was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1904.
Breton literature since the 1920s has been lively, despite the falling number of speakers. In 1925, Roparz Hemon founded the periodical Gwalarn which for 19 years tried to raise the language to the level of other great "international" languages by creating original works covering all genres and by proposing Breton translations of internationally recognized foreign works. In 1946, Al Liamm took up the role of Gwalam. Other reviews came into existence and gave Breton a fairly large body of literature for a minority language. Among writers in Breton are Yann-Ber Kalloc'h, Anjela Duval and Per-Jakez Hélias.
Picard literature maintains a level of literary output, especially in theatrical writing. Walloon literature is bolstered by the more significant literary production in the language in Belgium.
Catalan literature and literature in the Basque language also benefit from the existence of a readership outside the borders of France.

Literatures of other languages of France
The following French or French language authors have won a Nobel Prize in Literature:

1901 - Sully Prudhomme (The first Nobel Prize in literature)
1904 - Frédéric Mistral (wrote in Occitan)
1911 - Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgian)
1915 - Romain Rolland
1921 - Anatole France
1927 - Henri Bergson
1937 - Roger Martin du Gard
1947 - André Gide
1952 - François Mauriac
1957 - Albert Camus
1960 - Saint-John Perse
1964 - Jean-Paul Sartre (declined the prize)
1969 - Samuel Beckett (Irish, wrote in English and French)
1985 - Claude Simon
2000 - Gao Xingjian (writes in Chinese) French Nobel Prize in Literature winners

Selected list of French literary classics

Middle Ages

anonymous - La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland)
Chrétien de Troyes - Yvain ou le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain, the Knight of the Lion), Lancelot, ou le Chevalier à la charrette (Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart)
various - Tristan et Iseult (Tristan and Iseult)
anonymous - Lancelot-Graal (Lancelot-Grail), also known as the prose Lancelot or the Vulgate Cycle
Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung - Roman de la Rose ("Romance of the Rose")
16th century
- François Rabelais - Pantagruel, Gargantua
  17th century
  - Madame de Lafayette - La Princesse de Clèves
    18th century
    - Voltaire - Candide
      Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse
      Denis Diderot - Jacques le fataliste (Jacques the Fatalist)
      19th century
      - Stendhal - Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black), La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma)
        Honoré de Balzac - La Comédie humaine ("The Human Comedy", a novel cycle which includes Père Goriot and Eugénie Grandet)
        Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary, Salammbô, L'Éducation sentimentale (Sentimental Education)
        Edmond and Jules de Goncourt - Germinie Lacerteux
        Guy de Maupassant - Bel Ami, La Parure (The Necklace), other short stories
        Émile Zola - Les Rougon-Macquart (a novel cycle which includes L'Assommoir, Nana and Germinal)
        20th century
        
        André Gide - Les Faux-monnayeurs (The Counterfeiters), The Immoralist
        Marcel Proust - À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time)
        André Breton - Nadja
        Louis-Ferdinand Céline - Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night)
        Colette - Gigi
        Jean Genet - Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs
        Albert Camus - L'Étranger (The Stranger)
        Michel Butor - La Modification
        Marguerite Yourcenar - Mémoires d'Hadrien
        Alain Robbe-Grillet - Dans le labyrinthe
        Georges Perec - La vie mode d'emploi
        Robert Pinget - Passacaille Fiction
        
        François Villon - Les Testaments
        Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay and other poets of "La Pléiade" - poems
        La Fontaine - The Fables
        Victor Hugo - Les Contemplations
        Alphonse de Lamartine - Méditations poétiques
        Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs du mal
        Paul Verlaine - Jadis et naguère
        Arthur Rimbaud - Une Saison en Enfer
        Stéphane Mallarmé - Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard ("A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance")
        Guillaume Apollinaire - Alcools
        Francis Ponge
        Raymond Queneau Poetry
        
        Pierre Corneille - Le Cid
        Molière - Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, Dom Juan
        Jean Racine - Phèdre, Andromaque
        Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
        Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
        Edmond Rostand - Cyrano de Bergerac
        Jean Giraudoux - The Trojan War Will Not Take Place
        Jean Anouilh - Becket, Antigone
        Jean-Paul Sartre - No Exit
        Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot, Endgame
        Eugène Ionesco - The Bald Soprano, Rhinoceros
        Jean Genet - The Maids, The Blacks Theater
        
        Michel de Montaigne - The Essays
        Blaise Pascal - Les Pensées
        François de La Rochefoucauld - The Maxims
        Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, The Social Contract
        François-René de Chateaubriand - Genius of Christianity
        Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America
        Adolphe Thiers - History of the French Revolution, History of the Consulate and Empire
        Jules Michelet - Histoire de France, La Sorcière
        Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus
        Jean-Paul Sartre - Existentialism is a Humanism, Being and Nothingness Non-fiction
        
        Roland Barthes
        Paul Bénichou
        Jacques Derrida
        Julia Kristeva
        Jacques Lacan
        Jean-François Lyotard