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Evesham

Evesham is a market town and parish in the Wychavon district of Worcestershire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is located roughly equidistant between Worcester, Cheltenham and Stratford-upon-Avon. It lies within the Vale of Evesham, an area comprising the flood plain of the River Avon, which has been renowned for market gardening. The town centre, situated within a meander of the river, is subjected regularly to flooding. The 2007 floods were the most severe in recorded history.

The town was founded around an 8th-century abbey, one of the largest in Europe, which was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, with only Abbot Lichfield's Bell Tower remaining. During the 13th century, one of the two main battles of England's Second Barons' War took place near the town, marking the victory of Prince Edward, who later became King Edward I; this was the Battle of Evesham.

Toponymy

Evesham is derived from the Old English homme or ham, and Eof, the name of a swineherd in the service of Egwin, third bishop of Worcester. It was originally named Homme or Haum and recorded as Eveshomme in 709 and Evesham in 1086. The second part of the name (homme or ham) typically only signifies a home or dwelling, but in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire was commonly applied to land on the sides of a river, generally in bends of a river, which were liable to flood.

Abbey
Evesham Abbey, which became possibly the third largest in England, was founded by Saint Egwin, the third Bishop of Worcester, in around 701 AD, following the vision of the Virgin Mary to a local swineherd or shepherd named Eof.

An entry in the Great Domesday Book of 1086 lists Evesham, mentioning "Two free men; Two radmen; Abbey of St Mary of Evesham; Abbey of St Mary of Pershore; Edmund, Abbot of St Mary of Pershore; Walter, Abbot of St Mary of Evesham; Aethelwig, Abbot of St Mary of Evesham; King William as donor; Odo, Bishop of Bayeux; Ranulph; Turstin, Abbot of St Mary of Pershore; Walter Ponther; Westminster, Gilbert Crispin, Abbot of St Peter."

The abbey was redeveloped and extended after the Norman Conquest, employing many tradesmen and significantly contributing to the growth of Evesham. Income for the abbey came from pilgrims to the abbey to celebrate the vision and visitors to the tomb of Simon de Montfort. As a result of Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, Evesham Abbey was dismantled in 1540 and sold as building stone, leaving little but the Lichfield Bell Tower. The abbey remains are a Scheduled Ancient Monument (No. WT253), and parts of the abbey complex, Abbot Reginald's Wall (registered monument) and the ruins of Abbot Chryton's Wall (Grade II), are English Heritage listed buildings. The abbey's coat of arms is used as the crest of Prince Henry's High School. Two surviving buildings with links to the abbey are the Middle Littleton Tythe Barn and the Almonry Museum and Heritage Centre, which is housed in the old almonry of the abbey and also displays artefacts from excavations there.

Battle
Following the Battle of Lewes a year earlier, where Simon de Montfort had gained control of parliament, the Battle of Evesham in August 1265 was the second of two main battles of the Second Barons' War. It marked the victory of Prince Edward, who led the 8,000 strong army of his father Henry III, over the 6,000 men of de Montfort, and the beginning of the end of the rebellion. The battle was a massacre; de Montfort's army were trapped in the horseshoe bend of the river, Although Simon de Montfort and his son were killed, Prince Edward's victory was not decisive towards the King's hold on the country, and the struggle continued until 1267, after which the kingdom returned to a period of unity and progress that was to last until the early 1290s. During the battle the royal army wore the Saint George's Cross as their distinguishing mark. It is believed that the Battle was one of the first times that the cross was used to officially represent England. According to the chronicler William Rishanger, when de Montfort saw the advance of the royal troops, he exclaimed that "They have not learned that for themselves, but were taught it by me."

Town
The medieval town developed within the meander of the River Avon, while Bengeworth developed to the east on the opposite bank of the river. In 1055 a market was granted to the Saxon town by King Edward. In the 11th century Leofric, Earl of Mercia, had a hunting lodge at Bengeworth. Leofric founded Holy Trinity Church with his wife Godifu (Lady Godiva). Godifu, who died in around 1067, is possibly buried at the abbey. During the reign of King Stephen, William de Beauchamp erected an adulterine castle at Bengeworth, whose occupants vied for control of the town and abbey. When Abbot William had the castle destroyed between 1149 and 1159, he consecrated the site as a graveyard to prevent the castle being rebuilt. Evesham was a borough and market town in the hundred of Blackenhurst in county of Worcestershire and after 1837 head of the Evesham Poor Law Union which took responsibility for the administration and funding of the Poor Law, and built a workhouse for that area.

Governance
Evesham Borough Council, which was based at Evesham Town Hall, administered the town until 1974 when Wychavon District Council became the local authority. Evesham is now a town and civil parish governed at the lowest tier of local government by Evesham Town Council, part of the Wychavon District of the County of Worcestershire. Residents in the eight council electoral wards are represented by 24 elected members. The wards, based on streets, are represented by elected councillors: Abbey (1), Avon (2), Bengeworth (5), Fairfield (1), Great Hampton (3), Little Hampton (5), South (5), Twyford (2). The council is chaired by a mayor, and has a Town Clerk who acts as chief officer.

Geography
Evesham is situated on a horseshoe-shaped peninsula almost completely surrounded by water in a meander of the River Avon between Stratford-upon-Avon and Tewkesbury. The modern town encompasses Bengeworth and Greater and Little Hampton, which were originally independent villages on the opposite bank of the river. Evesham is linked to Bengeworth by Workman Bridge and Hampton by Abbey Bridge, or New Bridge the first completely structural concrete bridge in the country. The Cotswold hills stretch from the east to the south-west, while to the west the area is bounded by the Malvern Hills. To the north the land is flat with gentle undulations. The Avon, a tributary of the River Severn, is navigable but mainly used by leisure traffic and there is a marina providing moorings.

The River Avon at Evesham has always been susceptible to heavy flooding which is well documented from the 13th century. In May 1924 floods at Evesham ranked 5th in the annual flood list 1848 to 1935. In May 1998, Evesham was one of the towns worst hit by record flooding along the River Avon. The river rose 19 ft in just a few hours, sinking tethered narrowboats, flooding areas of Bengeworth, and threatening the 19th-century Workman Bridge as static homes from a riverside caravan site broke up and became wedged in its arches. In July 2007 Evesham had its heaviest rainfall for 200 years, reaching more than 320% the average in some areas. In the Severn catchment, it caused some of the heaviest floods recorded, and in Evesham the flooding was the worst in its recorded history.
 * Location grid

Demography
At the 2001 UK census, Evesham had a total population of 22,304. For every 100 females, there were 96.7 males. The average household size was 2.3. Of those aged 16–74 in Evesham, 57.5% had no academic qualifications or one General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), above the figures for all of the Wychavon district (44.2%) and England (45.5%). According to the census, 2.4% were unemployed and 9.4% were economically inactive. 20.1% of the population were under the age of 16 and 7.7% were aged 75 and over; the mean age of the people of the civil parish was 38.2. 69.9% of residents described their health as "good", similar to the average of 69.1% for the wider district.

Economy
Due to its exceptionally fertile soil, market gardening is carried out on a commercial scale in the surrounding area, known as the Vale of Evesham, which is known for its production of fruit and vegetables. A distinctive form of leasehold tenure, known as the Evesham Custom, still regulates market garden tenancies in the area. A decline in the second half of the 20th century resulted in the closing of Evesham's Smithfield Market while the Central Market stopped being used for produce auctions.

Between 1983 and 2008, Evesham was home to computer manufacturer Evesham Micros, later renamed Evesham Technology. It was a significant contributor to the United Kingdom's domestic computer and digital television market. At its peak, the company employed up to 300 people with a chain of 19 retail stores in towns and cities throughout the UK. It went into liquidation in 2008.

Evesham's town centre provides a number of food outlets and some retail along its traditional high street and the Riverside Shopping Centre, though the latter is struggling with only 9 of the 40 units being occupied as of May 2024.

Evesham is home to several out-of-town retail parks that draw shoppers away from the centre; these include Four Pools Lane Retail Park, Evesham Shopping Park, the Sinclair Retail Park, Charity Crescent Retail Park, and The Valley. The Valley (formerly Evesham Country Park), is a large retail and leisure park located out of town with a diversity of stores, restaurants and cafés. The Vale includes the Evesham Vale Light Railway miniature railway.

Roads
In 1728, the London to Worcester road through Evesham was turnpiked, as was the Evesham to Alcester road in 1778, improving communications in the area. Evesham is at the junction of the A46 and A44 trunk roads – the 4 mi £7 million, A46 single-carriageway bypass to the east of the town opened in July 1987 as the A435.

Work began in September 2013 to replace the Abbey Bridge and was completed in March 2014.

Water
The River Avon is a navigable waterway linking the River Severn at Tewkesbury to the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal at Stratford-upon-Avon. The river between the town and Stratford is managed by the Upper Avon Navigation Trust and below by the Lower Avon Navigation Trust, reflecting the administration of the river since the Restoration, when the lower Avon required only modest repairs, but significant investment was required above the town. The ancient Hampton Ferry links the town to Hampton.

Railway
In 1845, an Act of Parliament was passed for the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway to be built; Evesham railway station was subsequently opened between Honeybourne and Pershore. The station is on the Cotswold Line from Oxford to Worcester, Great Malvern and Hereford. There are trains every 45–55 minutes to London Paddington that take approximately 1 hour 45 minutes and trains to Birmingham take around 90 minutes, including a change at Worcester.

Education
Schools in Evesham follow the three-tier education model of first school (ages 5–10), middle school (ages 10–13), and high school (ages 13–18) adopted by Wychavon District Council 1974 and completed by 1977. Twelve first (primary) schools which include state non-denominational schools as well as Church of England Bengeworth Academy and Roman Catholic school feed four middle schools which in turn send their pupils to complete their secondary education at The De Montfort School and Prince Henry's High School which originated as a grammar school established by the monastery and was re-founded by Henry VIII after the Dissolution. The Vale of Evesham School, operated by Worcestershire County Council,  caters for children from the area aged 2 – 19 with special needs, and learning disabilities. Further education is provided by Evesham College, part of the Warwickshire College Group following the merger with South Worcestershire College (previously known as Evesham and Malvern Hills College) which caters mainly for students studying at the NVQ and BTEC level or undertaking practical vocational courses.

The nearest higher education providers are the University of Worcester and the University of Gloucestershire. A University of the Third Age was established in 2003 and in 2010 had 600 members.

Places of worship

It is possible that the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon Minster Church of Evesham Abbey was founded on the site of an even older church. The medieval town had two parish churches, All Saints and St Lawrence built within the abbey precinct. Religious establishments in Evesham include All Saints Church, Evesham Baptist Church, Evesham Evangelical Church, Evesham Methodist Church, St Andrew's C of E Church, St Mary & Saint Egwin's Church, St Peter's Church, Vale Of Evesham Christian Centre, the Unitarian Chapel in Oat Street and a Quaker meeting place.

Culture
Evesham had a distinctive dialect, which locals called "Asum Grammar", or "Asum Grammer". The editor of the local newspaper quoted extracts from a fictitious dictionary of the language. In 1891, a glossary was published of words and phrases in South-East Worcestershire, comprising the district around Evesham and Pershore. This publication itself built on that of an 1882 author identified only as "Mrs Chamberlain". Prior to the 1882 book, little attention had been paid to the dialect of "the old Worcestershire folks", despite it being "interesting and peculiar". A decline in the dialect was already being noted, attributed at that time to standardisation of English schooling, something noted also by later writers on English dialects. The dialect continues to decline, but is stronger in older generations. More recent factors in its decline are attributed to changes in the market gardening scene, where the dialect was to be heard at its fullest, and the impact of television. In the local dialect, "Asum" is a contraction of the town's name. Asum was an ale produced by the now defunct Evesham Brewery. "Eve-shum" is the more common phonetic pronunciation, but "Eve-uh-shum" is not uncommon.

The Henrician Evesham was built in 1979 and is staffed and operated by volunteers and managed by The Prince Henry's Evesham Arts Theatre Trust. It provides a venue for professional and amateur performance. Events hosted include drama, stand-up comedy, brass bands, orchestras, pantomime to ballet. The centre has a raked 312-seat auditorium, full technical facilities and film projection and a 60-seat studio space for smaller productions. The centre's foyer it is an exhibition space for local artists. The centre was managed by the Evesham Arts Association until 2020. The Henrician Evesham is now managed by Prince Henry's Evesham Arts Theatre Trust a registered charity.

The Regal Cinema reopened in December 2009. Its Grade II listed building was designed in 1932 by architect Hurley Robinson. who was responsible for several public buildings in classical and Art Deco styles, including 55 other cinemas. The Regal is the most important surviving example. In 2009 the cinema signed a contract to show all Universal Studios films. It also serves as a community arts centre, offering a programme of music and stand-up comedy. The other public Art Deco building in the town is the former Plough, which replaced an 18th century public house on the Market Place in 1936. Since then it became a bar and grill under a variety of different names and has been recently refurbished.

Medieval Evesham, and the Earl of Evesham, inspired a novel Winning His Spurs by historical fiction author G. A. Henty. A more recent novel by M. C. Beaton entitled Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham, takes place largely in Evesham, and two of the main characters visit the local sights, with descriptions. Local folklore is provided for by the Legend of Evesham surrounding the life of Eof, an 8th-century swineherd credited with the founding of the town, and St Egwin the Bishop of Worcester who founded the abbey and who whose feet had been fettered and the key thrown in the River Avon. According to the legend, the key turned up in Rome inside a fish. On returning to Evesham, Egwin declared that a monastery be built on the spot where the key had been cast in the river. A major landmark is the statue of Eof by the Scottish sculptor John McKenna that was funded by the townsfolk and unveiled in the market place in June 2008.

Paintings
The Almonry Museum has an 1825 oil painting by William Robert Earl (1806–1880) which shows a distant view of the town as seen from Greenhill, site of the battle of Evesham. More local views by George Willis-Pryce are on show in the town hall. Dating from the 1890s, they include the gateway to Market Square, the entrance to the town across Workman's Bridge, and the former Hampton Ferry across the Avon. Elsewhere there is an Avon-side painting by Edward Stott in the style of Bastien-Lepage. This is titled "Feeding the Ducks" and dates from 1884, when Stott shared a cottage in North Littleton with fellow painters Walter Osborne and Nathaniel Hill.

Media
Evesham local news has been served since 1860 by the Evesham Journal, which is now part of the Newsquest (Midlands South) Ltd., a subsidiary of Gannett; it is predominantly a weekly free newspaper that is distributed over four counties. In 2007, the weekly free newspaper Evesham Observer was launched by Midlands-based Observer-Standard series of newspapers, now the family-owned Bullivant Media.

Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC West Midlands and ITV Central. Television signals can be received from either the Sutton Coldfield or Lark Stoke TV transmitters.

BBC Hereford & Worcester broadcasts on 104 FM and 94.7, while commercial radio stations include Free Radio Herefordshire & Worcestershire on 96.7 FM and Greatest Hits Radio Herefordshire & Worcestershire on 107.2 FM.

Sport
The Evesham Leisure Centre comprises two swimming pools, a climbing wall, a 100-station fitness room and a health & beauty salon. Football in Evesham is represented by Evesham United F.C., who play in the Southern Football League Division One South & West. In Rugby Union, there are senior and youth sections at Evesham Rugby Club. There is also a cricket ground. The town also has a pétanque team and a cycling club, Evesham & District Wheelers, which was founded in 1947. The town is home to various watersports, due to its location on the river, including Evesham Rowing Club, Kayaking & Canoeing provided by the Evesham Paddle Monsters club and Evesham Sailing Club. The town has two golf courses: Evesham Golf Club, which is situated outside Fladbury, and Twyford Golf Club, which is situated just outside Lenchwick. Evesham Vale Running Club hold their 10K race event annually.

Amenities
The Evesham Library, managed by Worcestershire Libraries & Learning division of Worcestershire County Council, is located in the town centre and was completely modernised following a closure for refurbishment in January 2011. It offers community services that include an online catalogue, Wi-Fi internet access, public internet terminals and a mobile library.

The Almonry Museum and Heritage Centre is a local museum that was opened in 1957 and is funded by the council. The museum and the Tourist Information Centre are housed together in a 14th-century half timbered building that was the home of the almoner of Evesham Abbey. Exhibits include many items of local interest including an exhibition themed on the battle of Evesham.

Evesham has a 97-bed community hospital in Waterside, outside the town centre, used mainly by the elderly and for convalescence, although consultants from major Worcester NHS hospitals hold clinics there. The hospital maintains a Minor Injuries Unit (open from 9am to 9pm 7 days a week). The town has three health centres, providing general practitioner first care services, and a dental centre. Evesham also has several nursing and retirement homes for the care of senior citizens. The Evesham area is covered by the Midlands Air Ambulance service, which has operated from the site of Strensham motorway services since 1991.

Notable people

 * Alfred John Agg, Australian colonial public servant and commissioner of railways in Victoria, originally from Evesham.
 * John Aldridge, a professional English and international cricketer who also played for Worcestershire, born in Evesham in 1935.
 * Rob Austin, Evesham-born former racing driver who competed in the British Touring Car Championship.
 * Molly Badham was a co-founder of Twycross Zoo. She trained the chimpanzees who appeared on the famous Brooke Bond PG Tips TV ads for tea.  Born in Evesham in 1914.
 * Jim Capaldi, songwriter and founding member of Traffic, was born and raised in Evesham.
 * Muzio Clementi was a celebrated classical composer, pianist, pedagogue, conductor, music publisher, and piano manufacturer. He spent his final years in Evesham, where he died in 1832.
 * Sir Henry Fowler, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Midland Railway and subsequently the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, was born in Evesham, on 29 July 1870.
 * Alex Gregory, schooled in Evesham, later double Olympic gold winning rower, at London 2012, and Rio 2016
 * Luther Grosvenor, guitarist for Mott the Hoople and Spooky Tooth, was born and raised in Evesham.
 * Harry King was a professional footballer who began his career at Evesham Star F.C.
 * Robert Lanchbury is a former English cricketer who played for Gloucestershire and Worcestershire in the early 1970s. Born in Evesham in 1950.
 * Alistair McGowan, impressionist and actor. Born in Evesham on 24 November 1964.
 * Edmund Hort New, an artist who was born and grew up in Evesham.
 * Andy Preece, a part-time professional English footballer and manager. He began his career as a junior with Worcester City and subsequently played for Evesham United. Born in Evesham in 1967.
 * P. J. Proby, American pop singer, lives in Evesham.
 * Edward Righton was an Evesham-born cricketer who played for Worcestershire between 1911 and 1913.
 * Simon de Montfort, leader of the Second Barons' War against the Crown, died at the Battle of Evesham and was buried in Evesham Abbey.
 * C. H. Waddington, biologist born in Evesham in 1905.
 * John Watson (bishop) was born in Evesham around 1491 and was a Bishop of Winchester, and a Chancellor of St Pauls Cathedral, London. Today's Evesham Hotel is a Tudor mansion he built as the family home.
 * John Watson (officer of arms), born at Bengeworth, seventeenth-century Bluemantle Pursuivant at the College of Arms.
 * Guy Whittingham is a retired professional footballer with over 450 appearances for a number of English clubs, born in Evesham in 1964.
 * Maud H. Yardley, novelist, died in Evesham in 1954.

Twin towns
Evesham is twinned with:
 * 🇫🇷 Dreux, France.
 * 🇩🇪 Melsungen, Germany.
 * 🇺🇸 Evesham Township, New Jersey, United States.

title: Evesham


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Talk:Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester

Amaury's Claim - an opinion.
The law at the time gave all of the father's titles and lands to the eldest son, in this case to Amaury. He was well set up in france. Pursuing a rather tenuous claim to an English Earldom (having a claim was a requirement for the earldom, not necessarily a right)would have been a waste of time to him as he could not swear fealty to the kings of both England and France.

Simon would have offered his holdings in France in exchange for the elder sons claim to the English earldom. That would have made sense to Amaury as he was trading something he had no practical use for in return for something tangible.

For Simon, that was the easy bit. The hard work was still to follow. The earldom of Leicester had been given to another english Baron,(I believe it was the earl of Pembroke ?) who had several titles, the earldom of Leicester being a relatively insignificant one to him. Simon had to pursuade him to reliquish the title (probably in return for a large sum of money)leaving the claim vacant, and himself as a genuine contender. He then had to pursuade the king of England that his claim was the strongest and get the king to endow the title and its priveleges upon him. (More money involved)

Simon got what he wanted, he was a land holding earl in the English court. This was a huge achievement for someone who was not an eldest son. But the financial dealings inolved indebted him heavily and this dogged him for the rest of his life. A lot of his problems throughout his life were money related.

This is an educated opinion, it was long ago that I read Simon de Montforts biography but I think this sums it up pretty well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.54.202.242 (talk) 16:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Repitition
I have edited out a repition in the text in the section "War against the king", but (for some reason) was unable to login. If this was done in error, apologies. jim jacobs — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.19.142 (talk) 16:01, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Popular culture
I noticed that citations are needed regarding two works of fiction that the earl appears in. Sharon Kay Penman's 'Falls the Shadow' and Edith Pargetter's 'The Dragon at Noon Day'. What sort of citation is required? I own both books and know that the earl does, in fact, appear in both books. Is a link to Goodreads for each book acceptable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Offeiriad (talk • contribs) 15:35, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Jews in the article
Hi there, anyone else think that this article doesn't adequately represent what Simon de Montfort did the Jews of England? Most every time that Jews are mentioned in this article, it is related solely to debts and usury. I don't think it goes far enough in explaining the violence and havoc he and his supporters wrought on Jewish communities, aside from just burning the archae chests. Entire Jewish communities in cities were wiped out by Montfort and his men, and I think that the Second Barons' War article does a better job talking about his anti-Jewish motivations. I believe the article needs to be edited to reflect this. Zchai72 (talk) 11:43, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi there Zchai72, thanks for raising this. I've authored the content on both pages. If you look at the logs in both pages, you'll see this very unpleasant aspect of de Montfort's war and English history more generally was pretty absent from these pages back in April, and also from the article on Henry III of England. The page here does say:
 * These "cancellations" involved massacres of Jews by his followers to obtain their financial records, for instance in Worcester[19] and London.[4] The Worcester attack and killings were led by de Montfort's son Henry and Robert Earl Ferrers.[20] At London, one of his key followers John fitz John, led the attack and is said to have killed leading Jewish figures Isaac fil Aaron and Cok fil Abraham with his bare hands. He allegedly shared the loot with Montfort. 500 Jews died.[21] … His son Simon led a further attack on Jews in Winchester. Jews in Canterbury,[22] were murdered or driven out in by a force led by Gilbert de Clare[23][24] There was further violence in Lincoln, Cambridge, Wilton[25] and Northampton.
 * Is there more you feel should be added? I would say that there is some contentiousness about the degree to which de Montfort was responsible for the actions of his followers. I've tried to find sources which look at this question, and we can look for some discussion on the point. What I have tried to do, in the absence of clear documentary evidence, is to show that it was his trusted followers and close relations that carried out the attacks, which ought to allow anyone reasonably sensible to come to the obvious conclusion. What muddies the water a bit is that there was a genuine popular grievance about the abuse of Jewish loans by Henry III's court (using them to leverage property off smaller landholders). Of course, the medieval mind probably didn't properly separate the abuse of loans by English courtiers from blaming Jewish people as userers and non-Christians.
 * As a final point, if you look in the sources, there has been a lot of very good recent academic research on the topic of medieval Jewish history in England. This does give us a very good basis for getting the factual content onto Wikipedia. if you want to dig further I would suggest reading Hillaby and Hillaby's Encyclopedia in particular.* Jim Killock (talk) 12:35, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Birthdate 23 May 1208?
A few places online have this date, some with a question mark, others not. Is there any truth to it? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  09:14, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
 * ODNB has just "c. 1208". My guess is this is from some random genealogical "researcher". Ealdgyth (talk) 11:07, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Edit coming up
Flagging that I will give this an edit within the next couple of months to push it to a GA standard with a bit of luck. Jim Killock (talk) 20:51, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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User:Andrewa

, Monday, July 29, 2024 (UTC)

Hi and welcome! I'm Andrew Alder.
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Some of my user space pages here:
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 * User:Andrewa/Primary Topic RfC probably the least silly of them, see User:Andrewa/negative benefit
 * User:Andrewa/A proposal regarding capital letters in article titles and associated pages... If you thought the New York fiasco was tense, hold on to your hats... User talk:Andrewa/A proposal regarding capital letters in article titles is a place to gather ideas and evidence
 * User:Andrewa/Optional diacritics likewise... and of course User talk:Andrewa/Optional diacritics
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title: User:Andrewa


text:
Sybaris

Sybaris (Σύβαρις; Sibari) was an important ancient Greek city situated on the coast of the Gulf of Taranto in modern Calabria, Italy.

The city was founded around 720 BC by Achaean and Troezenian settlers and the Achaeans also went on to found the nearby great city of Kroton 10 years later. Sybaris amassed great wealth thanks to its fertile land and busy port so that it was known as the wealthiest colony of the Greek Archaic world. Its inhabitants became famous among the Greeks for their hedonism, feasts, and excesses, to the extent that "sybarite" and "sybaritic" have become bywords for opulence, luxury, and outrageous pleasure-seeking. Sybaris also ruled over smaller colonies throughout the area, and had an acropolis at Timpone della Motta near Francavilla Marittima about 10 km distant.

The city of Sybaris was destroyed in about 510 BC by its neighbour Kroton and its population driven out, but its colonies in the area continued to exist.

It was replaced by a new colony under Athenian leadership in 444/43 BC which became the city Thurii built partially on top of the older city. Thurii was also destroyed in 193 BC but the Romans built the city of Copia on the same grid as Thurii, and parts of these cities are visible today.

The ruins of Sybaris/Thurii/Copia became forgotten as they were buried by sediment from the Crati river. The ruins were rediscovered and excavated from 1932. Today they can be found southeast of Sibari in the Province of Cosenza, Calabria, Italy.

Geography
The city was situated close to the sea and lay between the Crathis and Sybaris rivers (from which the city derives its name). Most modern research places the city on a coastal ridge near a wetland lagoon. The rivers are now known as the Crati and Coscile. Today the Coscile feeds into the Crati about 5 km from its mouth, which passes just south of the archaeological site of the city. When Sybaris was still populated the Coscile pursued a direct course into the Gulf of Taranto, probably at a short distance to the north.

The city lay on the widest plain in modern Calabria that was renowned for its fertility and the origin of the city's wealth.

The city lay close to sea level and the plain surrounded by the two rivers was subject to periodic flooding so that today Sybaris lies some 6 m below the surface and below groundwater level. A disastrous flood in 2013 filled the excavated site and covered it with silt. Even in 2023 powerful pumps are continuously needed to remove groundwater from the site.

Foundation
Sybaris was founded in 720 BC by Is [sic] of Helice, a city in Achaea in the northern Peloponnese. The Achaeans were accompanied by a number of Troezenians who were eventually expelled by the more numerous Achaeans. The Achaean colonisation was the second great migratory wave from Greece towards the West after that of the Euboeans, concentrating instead on the Ionian coast (Metapontum, Poseidonia, Sibaris, Kroton). The Achaeans were motivated, like others of the Greek colonisation, by the lack of cultivatable land in their mountainous region and by population pressure.

The authenticity of the name of the founder (oekist) is uncertain as Strabo is the only source and it might be a corruption of [Sagar]is or [Sybar]is. Further complicating the issue is the appearance of the letters Wiis on coins of Poseidonia. This has been interpreted as a confirmation of Strabo's account because Poseidonia is thought to be a colony of Sybaris.

Prosperity in the 7th and 6th century BC

Sybaris amassed great wealth and a huge population as a result of its fertile farming land and its policy of admitting aliens to its citizenry. It was the largest Greek city in Italy and may have had 300,000 inhabitants although others give a figure of 100,000. The circumference of the city was fifty stadia (over 6 miles) and the area approximately 500 ha.

Sybaris was also a dominant power in the region and ruled over 4 tribes and 25 cities. Sybaris extended its dominion across the peninsula to the Tyrrhenian Sea, where it is thought to have founded its colonies Poseidonia, Laüs and Scidrus. Poseidonia was founded in approximately 600 BC, In the second half of the 7th century BC the Sybarites took over from the Oenotrians the sanctuary of Athena on the Timpone della Motta as their acropolis, located 15 km to the northwest, where they regularly celebrated large festivals.

Descriptions of the wealth and luxury of Sybaris are plentiful in the ancient literature. Smindyrides was a prominent citizen who is claimed by Herodotus to have surpassed all other men in refined luxury. Diodorus describes him as the wealthiest suitor for the daughter of Cleisthenes of Sicyon. He sailed from Sybaris to Sicyon in a ship of fifty oars manned by his own slaves and surpassed even Cleisthenes himself in luxury. Athenaeus makes the claim that his entourage consisted of a thousand slaves, fishermen, bird-catchers and cooks. However, his information must be false because he claims to cite Herodotus, who does not mention such a number. Claudius Aelianus even alleges that Smyndirides could not sleep on a bed of rose petals because it gave him blisters. Another Sybarite who is known by name is Alcimenes. A Pseudo-Aristotle mentions that it was said he dedicated a very expensive cloak as a votive offering at the temple of Lacinian Hera. Here Athenaeus distorts the information too: he treats the story as genuine rather than hearsay and attributes it to the real Aristotle.

Justin mentions an alliance of Sybaris with the other Achaean colonies Metapontum and Kroton against the Ionian colony Siris. This resulted in the conquest of Siris in the middle of the sixth century BC. In the second half of the sixth century BC Sybaris started minting its first coins, of which the oldest have been dated to approximately 530 BC. These coins employed the Achaean weight standard which was shared with the other Achaean colonies Kroton, Caulonia and Metapontum.

Ancient patent law
One of the first documented intellectual property laws similar to modern patent laws is thought to have been enacted in the 6th century BC in Sybaris, to protect culinary creations of chefs or bakers for a period of 1 year.

Subjugation by Kroton
Diodorus Siculus writes that the oligarchic government of the city was overthrown in 510/509 BC by a popular leader named Telys (Herodotus describes him as a tyrant). He persuaded the Sybarites to exile the 500 richest citizens and confiscate their wealth. The exiled citizens took refuge at the altars of Kroton. Telys demanded the Krotoniates return the exiles under threat of war. The Krotoniates were inclined to surrender the exiles to avoid war, but Pythagoras convinced them to protect the suppliants. As a consequence the Sybarites marched with 300,000 men upon the Krotoniates, whose army led by Milo numbered 100,000. The army sizes given by Diodorus (shared with Strabo) must have been even more exaggerated than the population size. Even though they were greatly outnumbered, the Krotoniates won the battle and took no prisoners, killing most of the Sybarites. After their victory they plundered and razed Sybaris. According to Strabo either two months or nine days elapsed between the battle and the sack. Most likely the Sybarites executed Telys and his supporters during this time.

Walter Burkert questions the veracity of the account given by Diodorus Siculus. It would have been illogical for Telys to banish his opponents first and then to demand their return. He argues that the elements of the story resemble fictional tragedies. The version of Herodotus is more brief and doesn't involve Pythagoras, but does claim that the Krotoniates received help from Dorieus.

Strabo claims that the Krotoniates diverted the course of the river Crathis to submerge Sybaris. The Crati transports coarse sand and pebbles in its channel and if Strabo's claim is true, that material would have been deposited as sediment above the city when the river submerged it. An analysis of core samples taken from the site did not find such river deposits directly above the former city, and the burial of Sybaris more likely resulted from natural processes such as fluvial overbank alluviation.

Continued struggle with Kroton
After its destruction the surviving inhabitants took refuge at their colonies Laüs and Scidrus. It is assumed some also fled to Poseidonia, because in the early fifth century Poseidonia's coins adopted the Achaean weight standard and the bull seen on Sybarite coins. A. J. Graham thinks it was plausible that the number of refugees was large enough for some kind of synoecism to have occurred between the Poseidonians and the Sybarites, possibly in the form of a sympolity. Sybaris was not completely destroyed, as Diodorus and Strabo claimed, but became a dependent "ally" of Kroton. "Alliance" coins show the tripod symbol of Kroton on one side and the bull symbol of Sybaris on the other side. Literary evidence from Aristoxenus attests of Pythagoreans who apparently moved to Sybaris after its subjugation by Kroton.

Diodorus Siculus mentions that Kroton besieged Sybaris again in 476/475 BC. The Sybarites appealed to the tyrant Hiero I of Syracuse for help. Hiero put his brother Polyzelos in command of an army to relieve the Sybarites, expecting that he would be killed by the Krotoniates. Polyzelos suspected this, refused to lead the campaign and took refuge with the tyrant Theron of Acragas. Diodorus makes no further mention of Hiero's plan to relieve Sybaris, indicating that the Sybarites were defeated again. However, according to Timaeus and two scholia Polyzelos was successful in relieving the siege of Sybaris and fled to Acragas later when he was accused of plotting revolution.

Regardless of the results of the siege of 476 BC, it seems the Sybarites had to leave their city at some point between that year and 452/451 BC. Diodorus writes that the Sybarites refounded their city at its former site in 452/451 BC under the leadership of a Thessalian. It is thought that Poseidonia had a major share in this because the coins of the new city have a great resemblance to those of Poseidonia. Possibly a treaty of friendship between Sybaris, its allies and the Serdaioi (an unknown people) dates to this new foundation, because Poseidonia was the guarantor of this treaty. Ultimately the Sybarites were again driven off by the Krotoniates from their new city in 446/445 BC.

Final expulsion in 445 BC
What happened next is again uncertain. According to Diodorus, the Sybarites requested Sparta and Athens to help them reoccupy their city. With the help of Athens and some other cities in the Peloponnese they founded the city of Thurii not far from the site of Sybaris. Soon a conflict arose between the Sybarites and the other colonists of Thurii over the privileges the Sybarites enjoyed. Practically all of the Sybarites were killed by the other colonists, who were more numerous and powerful. Some of the Sybarites managed to flee and founded Sybaris on the Traeis shortly after 444 BC.

The request for help from the Sybarites must have been made after the conclusion of the Thirty Years' Peace in the early spring of 445 BC, for it would not have made sense to ask for help while Sparta and Athens were still at war with each other. While Diodorus identifies only one expedition for the foundation of Thurii, Strabo writes that the Athenian and other Greek colonists first lived in Sybaris and only founded Thurii after the expulsion of the Sybarites. Modern scholarship corroborates Strabo's account and identifies two expeditions. In 446/445 BC Athens sent its expedition to reinforce the existing population of Sybaris. In the summer of 445 BC the collision between the two groups led to the downfall of the Sybarites. In 444/443 BC the Athenians and other new colonists then turned the city into a new foundation called Thurii. The city received a new democratic constitution which made provisions for ten tribes, but which did not include the Sybarites.

Legacy
Unlike Herodotus, Diodorus and earlier ancient Greek writers, later authors from the Roman period denounced the Sybarites. Aelianus, Strabo and especially Athenaeus saw the destruction of Sybaris as divine vengeance upon the Sybarites for their pride, arrogance, and excessive luxury. Athenaeus is the richest source for anecdotes about the Sybarites. According to him they invented the chamber pot and pioneered the concept of intellectual property to ensure that cooks could exclusively profit from their signature dishes for a whole year. They always travelled in chariots, but would still take three days for a journey of one day. The roads to villas in the countryside were roofed over and canals transported wine from vineyards to cellars near the sea. A fragment of the comedian Metagenes he quotes has a Sybarite boasting about literal rivers of food flowing through the city.

Not only does Athenaeus provide a great deal of examples to show the decadence of Sybarites, but he also argues that their excessive luxury and sins led to their doom. According to Athenaeus ambassadors of the Sybarites (one of whom was named Amyris) consulted the oracle of Delphi, who prophesied that war and internal conflict awaited them if they would honour man more than the gods. Later he cites Phylarchus, who would have written that the Sybarites invoked the anger of Hera when they murdered thirty ambassadors from Kroton and left them unburied. He also cites Herakleides as attributing the divine wrath to the murder of supporters of Telys on the altars of the gods. Herakleides supposedly mentioned that the Sybarites attempted to supplant the Olympic Games by attracting the athletes to their own public games with greater prizes. The most direct link between luxury and corruption is evident in Athenaeus' anecdote about the defeat of the Sybarites: to amuse themselves the Sybarite cavalrymen trained their horses to dance to flute music. When the Krotoniate army had their flute players make music the horses of the Sybarites ran over to the Krotoniates along with their riders. Strabo gives the "luxury and insolence" of the Sybarites as the reason for their defeat. Claudius Aelianus attributes the fall of Sybaris to its luxury and the murder of a lutenist at the altar of Hera.

Vanessa Gorman gives no credence to these accounts because grave sins followed by divine retribution were stock elements of fiction at the time. Furthermore, she and Robert Gorman point to Athenaeus as the origin of the embellished accounts rather than the historians he cited. He altered details of the original accounts, disguised his own contributions as those of past historians and invented new information to fit his argument that luxury leads to catastrophe. This concept was called tryphé and was a popular belief in his time, at the turn of the 2nd century AD. Peter Green likewise argues that these accounts are most likely the inventions of moralists. He points out the vast natural wealth of the city was the more likely reason it was attacked by Kroton.

This association of Sybaris with excessive luxury transferred to the English language, in which the words "sybarite" and "sybaritic" have become bywords for opulent luxury and outrageous pleasure seeking. One story, mentioned in Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, alludes to Aelianus' anecdote about Smindyrides. It mentions a Sybarite sleeping on a bed of rose petals, but unable to get to sleep because one of the petals was folded over.

Archaeology
The location of the city which had been buried over time by more than 6 m of alluvial sediment from the Crati river was found only after a massive core drilling project from the early 1960s. It also lies below present groundwater level. It was also found that the later cities of Thurii and Copia were built partially above Sybaris.

Due to these reasons only a few parts of the city have been excavated: the Stombi quarter and minor test pits in the Parco del Cavallo area. On the latter site were found wonderfully decorated architectural elements from an as yet unidentified temple. The large number of finds from so small an area gives an idea of the magnificence of the city.

Other evidence about the city comes indirectly via the discovery of a sanctuary on the Timpone della Motta in nearby Francavilla Marittima where the highland site dominates the Crati river plain below.

title: Sybaris


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Women's association football

Women's association football, more commonly known as women's football or women's soccer, is the team sport of association football played by women. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries, and 187 national teams participate internationally. The same rules, known as the Laws of the Game, are used for both women's and men's football.

After the "first golden age" of women's football occurred in the United Kingdom in the 1920s, with one match attracting over 50,000 spectators, The Football Association instituted a ban from 1921 to 1970 in England that disallowed women's football on the grounds used by its member clubs. In many other nations, female footballers faced similarly hostile treatment and bans by male-dominated organisations.

In the 1970s, international women's football tournaments were extremely popular, and the oldest surviving continental championship was founded, the AFC Women's Asian Cup. However, a woman did not speak at the FIFA Congress until 1986 (Ellen Wille). The FIFA Women's World Cup was first held in China in 1991 and has since become a major television event in many countries.

History
Women may have been playing football for as long as the game has existed. Evidence shows that a similar game (cuju, also known as tsu chu) was played by women during the Han dynasty (25–220 CE), as female figures are depicted in frescoes of the period playing tsu chu. Annual matches being played in Midlothian, Scotland are reported as early as the 1790s. In 1863, football governing bodies introduced standardized rules to prohibit violence on the pitch, making it more socially acceptable for women to play.

The first match of an international character took place in 1881 at Hibernian Park in Edinburgh, part of a tour by Scotland and England teams. The Scottish Football Association recorded a women's match in 1892.

The British Ladies' Football Club was founded by activist Nettie Honeyball in England in 1894. Honeyball and those like her paved the way for women's football. However, the women's game was frowned upon by the British football associations, and continued without their support. It has been suggested that this was motivated by a perceived threat to the "masculinity" of the game.

The Munitionettes' Cup
In August 1917, a tournament was launched for female munition workers' teams in north-east England. Officially titled the "Tyne Wear & Tees Alfred Wood Munition Girls Cup", it was also known as "The Munitionettes' Cup". The first winners of the trophy were Blyth Spartans, who defeated Bolckow Vaughan 5–0 in a replayed final tie at Middlesbrough on 18 May 1918 in front of a crowd of 22,000. The tournament ran for a second year in season 1918–19, the winners being the ladies of Palmer's shipyard in Jarrow, who defeated Christopher Brown's of Hartlepool 1–0 at St James' Park in Newcastle on 22 March 1919.

At the time of the First World War, female employment in heavy industry spurred the growth of the game, much as it had done for men fifty years earlier. A team from England played a team from Ireland on Boxing Day 1917 in front of a crowd of 20,000 spectators. The Irish side of this match was dramatised in the play Rough Girls in 2021. Dick, Kerr Ladies F.C. of Preston, England played in one of the first women's international matches against a French XI team in 1920, and also made up most of the England team against a Scottish Ladies XI in the same year, winning 22–0.

FA ban (1921–1970)
Despite being more popular than some men's football events (one match saw a 53,000 strong crowd), women's football in England was halted in December 1921 when The Football Association outlawed the playing of the game on association members' pitches, the FA stating that "the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged."

Players and football writers have argued that this ban was due to envy of the large crowds that women's matches attracted, and because the FA had no control over the money made from the women's game. Dick, Kerr Ladies player Alice Barlow said, "we could only put it down to jealousy. We were more popular than the men and our bigger gates were for charity".

Despite the ban, some women's teams continued to play. The Northern Rugby Union did not follow the FA ban, so the short-lived English Ladies Football Association (1921–1922) played some of its matches at rugby grounds.

In other countries, women's football was further debilitated by nationwide bans which often resembled the English FA's measures. The German Football Association banned women's football from 1955 until 1970. Women's football was also banned in France from 1941 to 1970. In Brazil, the Vargas regime and the military dictatorship legally prohibited women and girls from playing football from 1941 to 1979.

Tournaments

 * The English Ladies' Football Association Challenge Cup

Following the FA ban on women's teams on 5 December 1921, the English Ladies' Football Association was formed, with 58 affiliated clubs. A silver cup was donated by the first president of the association, Len Bridgett. A total of 23 teams entered the first competition in the spring of 1922. The winners were Stoke Ladies who beat Doncaster and Bentley Ladies 3–1 on 24 June 1922.

 * The Championship of Great Britain and the World

In 1937, the Dick, Kerr Ladies F.C., who had lost to Scotland's Rutherglen Ladies in 1923 but continued to be proclaimed as "world champions", played the Edinburgh City Girls in the "Championship of Great Britain and the World". Dick, Kerr won the competition with a 5–1 scoreline. The 1939 competition was a more organised affair and the Edinburgh City Girls beat Dick, Kerr 5–2 in Edinburgh, following this up with a 7–1 demolition of Glasgow Ladies in Falkirk to take the title.

The "revival" of the women's game
The English Women's FA was formed in 1969 as a result of the increased interest generated by the 1966 World Cup.

The ban in England was maintained by the FA for nearly fifty years, until January 1970. The next year, UEFA recommended that the national associations in each country should manage the women's game. In 2002, Lily Parr of Dick Kerr's Ladies was the first woman to be inducted into the National Football Museum Hall of Fame. She was later honoured with a statue in front of the museum. It was not until 2008 (87 years later), that the FA issued an apology for banning women from the game of football.

Women's World Championships, 1970 and 1971
In 1970, the Torino-based Federation of Independent European Female Football (FIEFF) ran the 1970 Women's World Cup in Italy, supported by the Martini & Rossi strong wine manufacturers, and entirely without the involvement of FIFA. This event was at least partly played by clubs and won by Denmark. A second edition, the 1971 Women's World Cup, was hosted by Mexico the following year. The final, also won by Denmark, was played at Estadio Azteca, the largest stadium in North America at the time, in front of crowds estimated at 110,000 or 112,500 attendees.

Professionalism

During the 1970s, Italy became the first country to have professional women's football players on a part-time basis. Italy was also the first country to import foreign footballers from other European countries, which raised the profile of the league. Players during that era included Susanne Augustesen (Denmark), Rose Reilly and Edna Neillis (Scotland), Anne O'Brien (Ireland) and Concepcion Sánchez Freire (Spain). Sweden was the first to introduce a professional women's domestic league in 1988, the Damallsvenskan.

Asia and Oceania

In 1989, Japan became the first country to have a semi-professional women's football league, the L. League – still in existence today as Division 1 of the Nadeshiko League. In 2020, Japan established the first-ever women's professional league in Asia, the WE League, which started on fall 2021.

In Indonesia, the first recorded "national" women's football event, known as the "Kartini Cup", took place in 1981. The competition was held on an amateur level. Later competitions were also held in an amateur and semi-professional level, including the 1982 appearance of the first women's league, Galanita. The Pertiwi Cup, which drew contestants from throughout all of Indonesia, was first played in 2006. The first professional league was held in 2019 under the name Liga 1 Putri.

In Australia, the W-League, now known as A-League Women, was formed in 2008.

In 2015, the Chinese Women's Super League (CWSL) was launched with an affiliated second division, CWFL. Previously, The Chinese Women's Premier Football League was initiated in 1997 and evolved to the Women's Super League in 2004. From 2011 to 2014, the league was named the Women's National Football League.

The Indian Women's League was launched in 2016. The country has held the top-tier tournament, Indian Women's Football Championship, since 1991.

North America

In 1985, the United States women's national soccer team was formed. Following the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup, the first professional women's soccer league in the United States, the WUSA, was launched and lasted three years. The league was spearheaded by members of the World Cup-winning American team and featured players like Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and Brandi Chastain, as well as top-tier international players like Germany's Birgit Prinz and China's Sun Wen. A second attempt towards a sustainable professional league, the Women's Professional Soccer (WPS), was launched in 2009 and folded in late 2011. The following year, the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) was launched with initial support from the soccer federations of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Since the NWSL's founding, the Thorns' most intense rivalry has been with the Seattle-based Reign. The Thorns' first home match was a 2–1 win over Seattle, qualified for the 2014 playoffs by defeating the Reign in the season's final match week, and didn't win at Seattle's Memorial Stadium until August 2017.

In 2017, Liga MX Femenil was launched in Mexico and broke several attendance records. The league is composed of women's teams of the men's counterpart teams in Liga MX. On 20 March 2024, the league in collaboration with the NWSL, announced a new international competition named Summer Cup. This competition will feature six teams from Liga MX Femenil that will compete against teams from the NWSL. The inaugural edition is schedule to kick-off in July 2024.

21st century

A 2014 FIFA report stated that at the beginning of the 21st century, women's football was growing in both popularity and participation, and more professional leagues were being launched worldwide. From the inaugural FIFA Women's World Cup tournament held in 1991 to the 1,194,221 tickets sold for the 1999 Women's World Cup, visibility and support of women's professional football had increased around the globe.

However, as in some other sports, women's pay and opportunities are lower in comparison with professional male football players. Both national and international women's football have far less television and media coverage than the men's equivalent, but also generally have far lower average attendances. This discrepancy is on-going, while research indicates some viewers are not even able to distinguish between professional women's and men's football.

Olympique Lyonnais main rivalry is with Paris Saint-Germain, with matches between the two teams sometimes referred as the "Classique féminin". Paris is OL's main contender for national titles, as they finished in second place of D1 Féminine seven times. Lyon had never lost the D1 title to PSG until 2021 when PSG finished ahead of Lyon, and won five Coupe de France finals against Paris. In 2017 both teams reached the Champions League final, with Lyon beating Paris after a penalty shoot-out and winning its fourth title in the competition.

While a number of features continue to improve, this is not the case for female coaches. They continue to be under-represented in a number of European women's leagues. However, the popularity and participation in women's football continues to grow.

In 2022, FC Barcelona had the two largest reported attendances for women's football since the 1971 Women's World Cup final between Mexico and Denmark (110,000) at the Azteca Stadium, when they played Real Madrid (91,553) and Wolfsburg (91,648) at Camp Nou for the 2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League.

In April 2024, the 2023–24 A-League Women season set the record for the most attended season of any women's sport in Australian history, with the season recording a total attendance of 284,551 on 15 April 2024,   and finishing with a final total attendance of 312,199.

Women's World Cup

The first known World Cup tournaments for women's teams are the 1970 Women's World Cup in Italy and the 1971 Women's World Cup in Mexico, both of which hold attendance records and were organised by the international women's association FIEFF. Some other major tournaments were the Women's World Invitational Tournament in Taiwan (1978–1987) and the Women's Mundialito in Japan and Italy (1981–1988). FIFA effectively ignored women's football prior to the 1988 FIFA Women's Invitation Tournament in China. FIFA's first officially-recognised women's international match is France–Netherlands (1971), albeit a retroactive recognition decided in 2003.

The first FIFA Women's World Cup was held in China in November 1991 and won by the United States. The runners-up, Norway, became the 1995 champions, beating Germany in that final, in Sweden. The United States won the 1999 final on penalties against China (with a competition-record crowd of over 90,000 in Pasadena). Germany won consecutive world titles in 2003 and 2007, winning finals against Sweden and Brazil respectively. Japan became champions in 2011, the country's first senior football world championship. The United States won the tournament again in 2015 and 2019. Spain won the tournament for the first time in 2023.

Olympics

Since 1996, a Women's Football Tournament has been staged at the Olympic Games. Unlike in the men's Olympic Football tournament (based on teams of mostly under-23 players), the Olympic women's teams do not have restrictions on professionalism or age.

The participation of Great Britain at the 2012 Olympic tournament was a bone of contention because England and other British Home Nations are not eligible to compete as separate entities. Eventually, both the women's and men's Great Britain teams fielded some players from the other home nations, but without their associations' active support.

Although there are women's teams of blind football (5-a-side) and cerebral palsy football (7-a-side), women's football has never been a Paralympic event.

North America
The CONCACAF W Championship is a women's football competition organized by CONCACAF that often serves as the qualifying competition to the Women's World Cup and the Olympics.

The CONCACAF W Gold Cup had its inaugural edition in 2024. It featured 12 national teams (8 from the CONCACAF region, and 4 invited from the CONMEBOL region) and was won by the United States.

Europe

European women's tournaments featuring national teams were held in Italy in 1969 and in 1979 as the European Competition for Women's Football. They were not recognized as "official" by UEFA, which opposed women's football until the 1970s. The UEFA championship began in 1984 under the name European Competition For Representative Women's Teams. Now, it is also commonly referred to as the UEFA Women's Euro.

The 1984 tournament was won by Sweden. Norway won the 1987 edition. Between 1987 and 2013, the UEFA Women's Championship was then dominated by Germany, who won eight titles, including six in a row from 1995 to 2013. The only other teams to win, as of 2022, are Norway in 1993, the Netherlands at home in 2017, and England at home in 2022.

The UEFA Women's Champions League is an international competition that involves the top women's club teams from countries affiliated with the European governing body UEFA.

South America

The Copa América Femenina is the main competition in women's football between national teams that are affiliated with CONMEBOL.

The Copa Libertadores Femenina, formally the CONMEBOL Libertadores Femenina, is the international club competition for women's teams that play in the CONMEBOL region. The competition started in 2009 in response to the increased interest in women's football.

Africa
The Women's Africa Cup of Nations is an international women's football competition held every two years and sanctioned by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). It was first contested in 1991, but was not held biennially until 1998. Nigeria is the most successful nation in the tournament's history with 11 titles.

The CAF Women's Champions League is an international competition that involves the top women's club teams from countries affiliated with the European governing body CAF.

Asia

The AFC Women's Asian Cup is a quadrennial competition in women's football for national teams which belong to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It is the oldest women's international football competition and premier women's football competition in the AFC region for national teams.

The SAFF Women's Championship, also called the South Asian Football Federation Women's Cup, is a competition for women's national football teams governed by the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF). India won the first 5 editions, beating Nepal four times and Bangladesh once in the final. Bangladesh is the current champion having defeated Nepal by 3–1 goals on 19 September 2022 in the final.

Oceania
The OFC Women's Nations Cup is a women's football tournament for national teams who belong to the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC). The competition has served as a qualifying tournament for the FIFA Women's World Cup since 1991.

Women's FA Cup

After the lifting of the FA ban, the Women's Football Association held its first national knockout tournament, the 1970–71 WFA Cup. Southampton Women's F.C. was the inaugural winner and became the Cup-winner eight times. From 1983 to 1994, Doncaster Belles reached ten out of eleven finals, winning six of them. As of 2023, Chelsea are the title holders and Arsenal are the club with a record 14 wins. Despite tournament sponsorship by some companies, entering the cup actually costs clubs more than they get in prize money. In 2015, it was reported that even if Notts County were to win the tournament, the £8,600 winnings would leave them out of pocket. The winners of the Men's FA Cup in the same year received £1.8 million, with teams that did not even reach the first round proper getting more than the women's winners.

Youth tournaments
In 2002, FIFA inaugurated a women's youth championship, officially called the FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship. The first event was hosted by Canada. The final was an all-CONCACAF affair, with the United States defeating the host Canada 1–0 with an extra-time golden goal. The second event was held in Thailand in 2004 and won by Germany. The age limit was raised to 20, starting with the 2006 event held in Russia. Demonstrating the increasing global reach of the women's game, the winners of this event were North Korea. The tournament was renamed the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup since the 2008 edition, which was won by the US in Chile. Japan won the tournament in France in 2018.

In 2008, FIFA instituted an under-17 world championship. The inaugural event, held in New Zealand, was won by North Korea. Spain won this tournament in Uruguay in 2018.

United States

In the United States, the intercollegiate sport began from physical education programs. In the 1970s, women's club teams started to appear on college campuses, but it wasn't until the 1980s that they started to gain recognition and gained a varsity status. Brown University was the first college to grant full varsity level status to their women's soccer team. The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) sponsored the first regional women's soccer tournament at college in the US, which was held at Brown University. The first national level tournament was held at Colorado College, which gained official AIAW sponsorship in 1981. The 1990s saw greater participation mainly due to the Title IX of 23 June 1972, which increased school's budgets and their addition of women's scholarships. Currently, there are over 700 intercollegiate women's soccer teams in the NCAA, NAIA and NJCAA.

The college sports system and Title IX have been criticized for promoting systemic racism and wealth inequality in women's soccer in the US. Female college soccer players are 70% white, with the sport also being "disproportionately white and upper-middle-class". Participating in American youth soccer is substantially more expensive than in basketball or tackle football, and academy soccer clubs are mainly located in suburbs and districts where black players are under-represented. As a result, in the National Women's Soccer League in 2020, the coaches and executives were 98.9% white. Three women's soccer coaches were implicated in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal. NCAA Division I programs in money-losing sports, such as soccer, are extensively subsidized by the only two high-revenue college sports, basketball and American football, in which black players are greatly over-represented, but the players are paid no salaries and are "systematically denied the revenue they are responsible for generating".

Misogynistic comments and decision-making around dress codes
A number of footballers around the globe wear a kit made up of a jersey, shorts, cleats (boots), and knee-length socks worn over shin guards. In 2004, FIFA President Sepp Blatter suggested that women footballers should "wear tighter shorts and low cut shirts... to create a more female aesthetic" and attract more male fans. His comment was criticized as misogynistic by people involved with women's football and media outlets worldwide.

In September 2008, the local amateur FC de Rakt women's team (FC de Rakt DA1) in the Netherlands made international headlines by swapping its old kit for a new one featuring skirts and fitted shirts. This innovation, which had been requested by the team itself for physical comfort was initially vetoed by the Royal Dutch Football Association on the grounds that, according to the laws of the game, shorts must be worn by all players, both male and female; but this decision was reversed when it was revealed that the FC de Rakt team were wearing tennis style short pants under their skirts, and were therefore technically in compliance of the "shorts rule". Denying that the kit change was merely a publicity stunt, club chairman Jan van den Elzen told Reuters:

"The girls asked us if they could make a team and asked specifically to play in skirts. We said we'd try but we didn't expect to get permission for that. We've seen reactions from Belgium and Germany already saying this could be something for them. Many girls would like to play in skirts but didn't think it was possible."

21-year-old team captain Rinske Temming said:

"We think they are far more elegant than the traditional shorts and furthermore they are more comfortable because the shorts are made for men. It's more about being elegant, not sexy. Female football is not so popular at the moment. In the Netherlands there's an image that it's more for men, but we hope that can change."

Women's football in the Middle East and North Africa

Until 2020, only Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Palestine, Turkey, Jordan, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Israel had large-scale women's competitions and national teams, which are still hindered due to discrimination against women in football.

Since 2020, countries that have traditionally been stricter like Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Mauritania, and Sudan have begun to develop women's football in order to raise their international profiles. Sudan women's national football team debuted in 2021, and the Saudi Arabia women's team was noticed internationally, due to Saudi Arabia's Islamic conservatism.

Wearing of hijabs
In June 2011, Iran forfeited an Olympic qualification match in Jordan, after trying to take to the field in hijabs and full body suits. FIFA awarded a default 3–0 win to Jordan, explaining that the Iranian kits were "an infringement of the Laws of the Game". The decision provoked criticism from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while Iranian officials alleged that the actions of the Bahraini match delegate had been politically motivated. In July 2012, FIFA approved the wearing of hijab in future matches.

Labour disputes
Professional women's association football players have disputed several issues specific to the sport, such as disparities in compensation compared to men's teams; insufficient pay to compete with other women's teams; unfair or exclusionary financial terms of federation business agreements involving the team; a lack of minimum standards in facilities and treatment, especially compared to men's teams in the same federation, league, or club; reports of systemic gender-related abuse of players, including sexual abuse being ignored by league or federation officials; and a lack of benefits specific to women, such as maternity leave and child care.

Disputes have been waged between national team players and federations, between club players and their teams and leagues,  between referees of women's football and their governing organizations, and between players and federations or laws that prevented women from playing or professionalizing the sport.

Sexual harassment and abuse
In the early 2020s, sexual harassment and abuse became hot-button issues in women's football. In 2021 and 2022, the NWSL was forced to deal with widespread reports of abuse, with some incidents dating back to the league's formation in 2013. An investigation led to four team managers receiving lifetime bans from NWSL employment, and lesser discipline for several other managers, coaches, and executives. This issue again came to the forefront with the Rubiales affair, stemming from the behavior of Spanish federation president Luis Rubiales at the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup final.

title: Women's association football


text:
Jasper Fforde

Jasper Fforde (born 11 January 1961) is an English novelist whose first novel, The Eyre Affair, was published in 2001. He is known mainly for his Thursday Next novels, but has also published two books in the loosely connected Nursery Crime series, two in the Shades of Grey series and four in The Last Dragonslayer series. Fforde's books abound in literary allusions and wordplay, tightly scripted plots and playfulness with the conventional, traditional genres. They usually contain elements of metafiction, parody, and fantasy.

Early life
Fforde was born in London on 11 January 1961, the son of John Standish Fforde, the 24th Chief Cashier for the Bank of England. He is a grandson of the Polish political activist, Joseph Retinger, and a great-grandson of the journalist E. D. Morel.

Fforde was educated at Dartington Hall School. In his first jobs, he worked as a focus puller in the film industry. He worked on a number of films, including The Trial, Quills, GoldenEye, The Mask of Zorro, and Entrapment.

Novels
Fforde's published books include a series of novels starring the literary detective Thursday Next: The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, First Among Sequels, One of Our Thursdays Is Missing and The Woman Who Died a Lot. The Eyre Affair had received 76 publisher rejections before its eventual acceptance for publication.

Fforde won the Wodehouse prize for comic fiction in 2004 for The Well of Lost Plots. Several streets in the Thames Reach housing development in Swindon have been named after characters in the series.

The Big Over Easy (2005), set in the same alternative universe as the Next novels, reworks his first written novel, which initially failed to find a publisher. Its original title was Who Killed Humpty Dumpty? It was later entitled Nursery Crime, which now refers to the series of books. These describe the investigations of DCI Jack Spratt. The follow-up to The Big Over Easy, The Fourth Bear, was published in July 2006 and focuses on Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Shades of Grey, the first novel in a new series, was published December 2009 in the United States and January 2010 in the United Kingdom. The sequel Red Side Story was published in February 2024 in the United Kingdom and May the same year in the United States.

In November 2010 Fforde produced The Last Dragonslayer, the first novel in a new series. It is a young-adult fantasy novel about a teenage orphan Jennifer Strange which has been adapted for television. Two more books have been published in the series, The Song of the Quarkbeast (2011) and The Eye of Zoltar (2014). The series was originally planned as a trilogy, but a fourth book in the series was announced in 2014, The Great Troll War (2021).

Short stories
In 2009, Fforde published a story in the Welsh edition of Big Issue magazine called "We are all alike" (previously "The Man with no Face").

He also published "The Locked Room Mystery mystery" [sic] in The Guardian newspaper in 2007; this story remains available online. The U.S. version of Well of Lost Plots features a bonus chapter (34b) called "Heavy Weather", a complete story in itself, featuring Thursday Next in her position as Bellman.

Fforde Ffiesta
Originating with the Fforde Ffestival in September 2005, the Fforde Ffiesta (cf. Ford Fiesta) is an bi-annual event built around Fforde's books and held in Thursday Next's home town of Swindon over the May bank holiday weekend. People travel from afar to take part in a wide range of events, including a reenactment of the gameshow Name That Fruit, Hamlet Speed Reading competitions, and interactive performances of Richard III.

title: Jasper Fforde


text:
Lake Mariout

Lake Mariout (بحيرة مريوط ',, also spelled Maryut or Mariut'''), is a brackish lake in northern Egypt near the city of Alexandria. The lake area covered 200 km2 and had a navigable canal at the beginning of the 20th century, but at the beginning of the 21st century, it covers only about 50 km2.

Etymology
The name of Lake Mariout derives from the Hellenized name of Mareotis (Μαρεῶτις) or Marea, by which it was known in the Ptolemaic Period.

Overview
In antiquity, the lake was much larger than it is now, extending further to the south and west and occupying around 700 km2. It had no mouth connecting it to the Mediterranean, being fed with Nile water via a number of canals. By the twelfth century the lake had dwindled to a collection of salt lakes and salt flats and it had dried up by the Late Middle Ages.

At least 250 years ago, the lake was fresh water, and much of it would dry up during the period just before the Nile flooded again. A storm in 1770 breached the sea wall at Abu Qir, creating a seawater lake known as Lake Abu Qir. The salt waters were kept separate from Lake Mariout by the canal that allowed fresh water to travel from the Nile to Alexandria. As part of the Siege of Alexandria, on 13 March 1801, the British cut the canal, allowing a great rush of sea water from Lake Abu Qir into Lake Mariout. Lake Abu Qir ceased to exist, and Lake Mariout became brackish instead of fresh.

When the British opened the lake to the sea in Napoleon's time it caused a salt-water flood that destroyed 150 villages. The cutting of the dykes by the British in 1801 refilled Lake Mariout so that it suddenly regained its ancient area, became filled with salt water instead of the former fresh, and was too shallow for navigation. Alexandria's access to the Nile was lost, necessitating the opening of the Mahmoudiyah Canal from Alexandria to the Nile in 1820.

Lake Mariout is separated from the Mediterranean Sea by the narrow isthmus on which the city of Alexandria was built. The lake shore is home to fisheries and saltworks. As far back as the early 1900s, it was documented that salt was being refined from the western part of the lake.

According to some records, a homonymous nome was located on the shores of this lake.

Abusir
The seaside town of Abusir, known in the Graeco-Roman occupation as Taposiris Magna, lies on the shore of Lake Mariout. Ruins of an ancient temple and an ancient replica of the Lighthouse of Alexandria are to be seen there. As of 2009, it was also suspected to be the burial place of Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony.

Therapeutae
The De Vita Contemplativa, a description of a society of ascetics written in the first century CE, says that the community of cenobitic monastics called the Therapeutae were widely distributed in the ancient world, but that "their country" was "beyond the Maereotic lake". Some interpret the Therapeutae as early Christian monks.

Christian church

There was a bishopric of Mareotes, in the Roman province of Aegyptus Primus, which was a suffragan of the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Patriarchate of Alexandria. It faded like most of those in Roman Egypt, possibly at the advent of Islam. Two bishops are historically documented:
 * Ischiras (mentioned circa 335)
 * Pistos (mentioned in 337)

The diocese was nominally restored in 1933 as the titular bishopric of Mareotes. Although technically a Latin titular bishopric, it has had several Eastern Catholic incumbents, notably those of Egypt's native Coptic Catholic Church sui iuris (Alexandrian Rite).

It has had the following incumbents, so far of the fitting episcopal (lowest) rank:
 * Antonios Aziz Mina (21 December 2002 – 3 January 2006) as Bishop of Curia of the Coptic Catholic Patriarchate of Alexandria (Egypt) ([19 December 2002] 21 December 2002 – 3 January 2006), followed by Eparch (Bishop) of Guizeh of the Copts (Egypt) (3 January 2006 – 23 January 2017)
 * Botros Fahim Awad Hanna (6 September 2006 – 8 April 2013) of the Coptic Catholic Patriarchate of Alexandria as Bishop of Curia of Egypt of the Copts ([31 August 2006] 6 September 2006 – 8 April 2013), followed by Eparch (Bishop) of Minya of the Copts (Egypt) ([25 March 2013] 8 April 2013 – ...)
 * Cesar Essayan, Order of Friars Minor Conventual (O.F.M. Conv.) (2 August 2016 – ...) as Apostolic Vicar of Beirut (Lebanon).

Ancient findings
In 2015 a stele, resembling the Rosetta Stone and dating back some 2200 years, was discovered in the Taposiris Magna Temple site at Lake Mariout. Measuring 41 by, its message commemorates two Ptolemaic pharaohs and Queen Consort Cleopatra I Syra. There are ancient tombs located on the shores of the lake.

Fish species
The fish species Nile perch lives in the lake although its principal habitat is fresh water, and the lake contains some salt. In 1939, a small lake, called the Nozha Hydrodrome was "isolated from Lake Mariout" and this allowed for the Nile perch to flourish there.

In literature

 * W. B. Yeats refers to the lake as the Mareotic Lake in his poem Under Ben Bulben.
 * Lawrence Durrell writes about the lake using its ancient name Lake Mareotis in his tetralogy of novels The Alexandria Quartet, where it is the setting for a duck shoot.
 * Jasper Maskelyne claimed in Magic: Top Secret (1949) to be involved in the construction of a decoy site next to the lake to draw Axis bombers away from attacking Alexandria Harbour during World War Two.

title: Lake Mariout


text:
Talk:Alexandria

Some things to think about
History to present day.

Think the Egyptian Revolution, Suez Crisis (i.e. when did the British leave?) Dunc_Harris|☺ 11:19, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

missing some centuries ...
Surely interested editors can fill in the history from the tidal wave of the fourth century to the seventh century? 104.169.37.99 (talk) 17:31, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

 * The version you are referring to likely has changed, but yes I would agree that there are 2 major gaps in the history section: one between the destructive earthquake of Alexandria and its fall to the Sassanid Empire and one between the construction of the governor's palace and the battle where the Ottomans annexed Egypt. Adrian Velazquez 2003 (talk) 14:48, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

General Ideas for Improving the article
Overall, many strides can be made to significantly improve the citation practices of this article. There are entire sections and subsections without any citations. With regards to the initial summary, the information about Alexander's body being moved to Egypt is unecessary and should be removed. There are also major gaps within the history section that I commented on in a reply, and several subheadings like Christianity which can arguable be moved under the history heading. One thing this article does well is providing a lot of images. Adrian Velazquez 2003 (talk) 14:52, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Analyzation of the inordinate amount of themes and sections
The article attempts to highlight too many aspects of Alexandria and has produced an overflow of information on subjects that only scrape the surface of Alexandria. Various lists within the article can arguably be shortened. The overproduction of train stations and routes makes the article seem like it is produced as a travel site not an informative article on Alexandria. Also, in the section on Education, and specifically within the "schools" subsection, there seems to be biased as the author seems to be ranking the schools based on which language is spoken, not the studies learned within. The subsection below "women" is clearly unfinished and does not do the proper justice to the development of women's studies within Alexandria. Furthermore, the section on Education does not mention the historical importance of education in Alexandria and how it has developed. Overall, the article tends to focus on various lists of entities within Alexandria and fails to explain their significance and contribution to Alexandria's uniquity.Ashg1177 (talk) 00:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)Ashleyg1177Ashg1177 (talk) 00:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

 * I think in general you're right. I would add to that: one of the main problems is that even though the article is very long, there are large stretches of the article which are unsourced or very poorly sourced. When editors actually make the effort to cite reliable sources, they're also more likely to stick to what's important. Instead, some of this content seems like someone just wrote about their own personal experience in the city (e.g. like the discussion about tram fares), which is WP:OR and not what Wikipedia is for. I'm inclined to remove a lot of this unsourced trivia throughout, and maybe clean up some of the other awkward subsections.
 * The other suggestion that comes to mind is that there should eventually be a separate article about ancient Alexandria on its own, which can give proper focus to that rather large topic. History of Alexandria might be a place for some of that material. I also see that has started a draft for Ptolemaic Alexandria, which could also absorb some of that topic. Of course, any other articles must still be carefully sourced, per WP:VERIFIABILITY. R Prazeres (talk) 23:45, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * In addition to AirshipJungleman29's recent removals, I've just removed more redundant or poor-quality sections, cleaned up some things, and added maintenance templates and inline tags for much of the remaining unsourced (but relevant) content.
 * There's one more layout issue I recommend dealing with: the infobox contains too many images, in my opinion, and all the images in the history section suffer from WP:STACKING (images in "Ancient era" section are pushed down to "Islamic era" section, images in "Islamic era" section are pushed down into Geography section, etc). I would recommend picking the images that are the most informative in these areas and removing the rest, which should at least help. R Prazeres (talk) 15:03, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Following up on my earlier comment above: I've reduced the number of images in the infobox from 10 to 6; the most I've seen in high-quality (GA or FA) city articles is 8, and many articles have less. Feel free to revise the selection itself, but please keep it to small number.
 * I've also trimmed some of the less useful images in and around the history section to reduce the stacking problem. Generally speaking, images that illustrate the city itself should be more pertinent here than artistic interpretations of people or events that have their own articles elsewhere. R Prazeres (talk) 05:16, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Humanities 2 1400-present
— Assignment last updated by Issai920 (talk) 22:54, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Alexandria


text:
Peada of Mercia

Peada (died 656), a son of Penda, was briefly King of southern Mercia after his father's death in November 655 and until his own death at the hands of his wife in the spring of the next year.

Life
Around the year 653, Peada was made king of the Middle Angles by his father, Penda. Bede, describing Peada as "an excellent youth, and most worthy of the title and person of a king", wrote that he sought to marry Ealhflæd of Bernicia, the daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria; Oswiu, however, made this conditional upon Peada's baptism and conversion to Christianity, along with the Middle Angles (Peada was, at this time, still a pagan, like his father). Bede says that Peada eagerly accepted conversion:

 * When he heard the preaching of truth, the promise of the heavenly kingdom, and the hope of resurrection and future immortality, he declared that he would willingly become a Christian, even though he should be refused the virgin; being chiefly prevailed on to receive the faith by King Oswy's son Aifrid, who was his relation and friend, and had married his sister Cyneburga, the daughter of King Penda.

Peada was subsequently baptized by Finan of Lindisfarne, and this was followed by a campaign to convert Peada's people:

 * Accordingly he was baptized by Bishop Finan, with all his earls and soldiers, and their servants, that came along with him, at a noted village belonging to the king, called At the Wall. And having received four priests, who for their erudition and good life were deemed proper to instruct and baptize his nation, he returned home with much joy. These priests were Cedd and Adda, and Betti and Diuma; the last of whom was by nation a Scot, the others English. Adda was brother to Utta, [...] a renowned priest, and abbot of the monastery of Gateshead. The aforesaid priests, arriving in the province with the prince, preached the word, and were willingly listened to; and many, as well of the nobility as the common sort, renouncing the abominations of idolatry, were baptized daily.

On 15 November 655, Oswiu defeated and killed Penda at the Battle of the Winwaed, and consequently he came to exercise power in Mercia. According to Bede, Oswiu allowed Peada to rule the southern part of Mercia; southern Mercia consisted of 5,000 families, Bede reports, while northern Mercia was populated by 7,000 families, and the two were divided by the River Trent.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Peada helped found Medeshamstede, the monastery at Peterborough:

 * In his time they came together, [Peada] and Oswy, brother of King Oswald, and declared that they wished to establish a minster in praise of Christ and in honor of St Peter. And they did so, and gave it the name Medeshamstede, because there is a spring there called Medeswael. And then they began the foundations and built upon them, and then entrusted it to a monk who was called Seaxwulf. He was a great friend of God, and all people loved him, and he was very nobly born in the world and powerful. He is now much more powerful with Christ.

However, the Chronicle continues, "Peada ruled no length of time, because he was betrayed by his own queen at Eastertide"; Bede also reports that Peada was "very wickedly killed" through his wife's treachery "during the very time of celebrating Easter" in 656. Bede also gives the name of Peada’s wife: Ealhflæd, the daughter of Oswiu.

title: Peada of Mercia


text:
Talk:List of Portuguese people

Editing links
Note to the dude who changed my edits: next time, when you edit me, try to bring an improvement to the article. Several of your last edits to this article broke the links the the peoples' pages. Now I need to rework it all. Thanks. olivier 00:47 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

Title of page
List of Portuguese what? This sounds like a list of the language. -- Zoe
 * OK, moved to List of Portuguese people. olivier 04:41 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

Saints
What have you been smoking, people? Our Lady of Fatima is not a person (even assuming the apparitions are real, she's definitely not Portuguese), and Isabel of Portugal is actually from Aragon. --Goblin ›talk 04:44, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * Isabel of Portugal is Portuguese by "adoption". The Ogre 17:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Lists?
I support the people who disagree with the existence of this list. If Wikipedia has categories why should people insist on writing lists. Categories are more useful and practical. Paulo Oliveira 08:47, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Then your problem is not only with this list, but also with several others of the same genre... The Ogre 17:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Tom Hanks?
Is this a joke? Because I have never heard of Hanks being referred to or ever having Portuguese roots. I have deleted him from the list.
 * You did well to remove him from the list. Tom Hanks is not Portuguese, even though his maternal grandfather, Clarence Frager, was the son of a Portuguese couple, Manuel Fraga and Maria Inácio. The Ogre 17:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Too extense!
I have a proposal, why don't we select, lets say, some five individuals in each category and link the rest of them to a more extensive list? Because it's just ridiculous the amount of Portuguese explorers. It's too much! On the other hand, Fernando Pessoa is hidden, how can this be possible? Excuse me for my bad English 87.103.84.171 22:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Saint Beatrice da Silva Meneses
Forgot to add Saint Beatrice da Silva. Anonymous User talk:205.188.117.69.
 * Who the hell (pardon the impropriety...) is she? And, if she is Portuguese, don't you mean Saint Beatriz da Silva? The Ogre 17:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

St. Beatrice da Silva Meneses http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=337

Saint Amedeus of Portugal
Add him also. Anonymous User talk:205.188.117.69.
 * Who the hell (again, pardon the impropriety...) is he? And, if he is Portuguese, don't you mean Saint Amadeu of Portugal? The Ogre 17:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

St. Amator http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1312

Saint Uncumber
Add him. Anonymous User talk:205.188.117.69.
 * Who the hell (again, pardon the impropriety, probably sign of the terrible sin of incredulity...) is he? And, if he is Portuguese, what the hell (I'm a repetitive sinner...) is his name in Portuguese? The Ogre 17:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Does not seem she was a real person http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15622a.htm

St. Beatrix da Silva http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1717

St. Teresa of Portugal http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=738

St. Verissimus, Maxima, & Julia http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1952

St. Victor http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1961 At Braga in Portugal, St. Victor, martyr. While still a catechumen, he refused to worship an idol and confessed Christ Jesus with great firmness. After enduring many torments, he was beheaded, thus meriting to be baptized in his own blood. http://www.op.org/DomCentral/life/martyr04.htm

St. Irene (Santa Iria ) http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=3865

St. Peter Rodriguez and Companions http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=5398

Another Portuguese Saint John of God http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_God

Combine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Portuguese_saints

Nelly Furtado
Yes her parents are from Portugal but she born in Canada... i think she's not portuguese, maibe luso-canadian idon't know... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.130.28.107 (talk) 22:30, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

DJ Vibe?
Is serious? Digitalblister (talk) 04:41, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Katy Perry
I removed Katy Perry from this list. Having (remote) Portuguese ancestry does NOT make you a Portuguese person whatsoever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Matthijs J (talk • contribs) 03:19, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Prince Henry the Navigator
Isn't someone missing from the list of navigators? 27.33.121.123 (talk) 05:12, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Criteria
Should there not be some criteria for who gets included in this list? I have started around 100 articles on Portuguese people. Do I add them all to the list? Roundtheworld (talk) 10:09, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:List of Portuguese people


text:
Unguided bomb

An unguided bomb, also known as a free-fall bomb, gravity bomb, dumb bomb, or iron bomb, is an aircraft-dropped bomb (conventional or nuclear) that does not contain a guidance system and hence simply follows a ballistic trajectory. It includes all aircraft bombs in general service until the latter half of World War II, and the vast majority until the late 1980s, which were known simply as "bombs".

Then, with the dramatically increased use of precision-guided munitions, a retronym was needed to separate "smart bombs" from free-fall bombs. "Dumb bomb" was used for a time, but many military circles felt it sounded trite, and eventually "gravity bomb" gained popularity.

Bomb casings for unguided bombs are typically aerodynamic in shape, often with fins at the tail section, which reduce drag and increase stability after release, both of which serve to improve accuracy and consistency of trajectory.

Unguided bombs typically use a contact fuze for detonation upon impact, or some milliseconds after if a penetration effect is required. Alternatives include a fuze with an altimeter to cause an air burst at the desired altitude, and a proximity fuze to cause an air burst at a specific distance from the ground or other target.

Retarded bomb

The retarded bomb uses a mechanical method of creating increased aerodynamic drag, such as a parachute, ballute, or drag-inducing petals. These deploy after the ordnance is released, slowing its fall and abbreviating its forward trajectory, giving the aircraft time to get clear of the blast zone when bombing from low altitudes or with nuclear ordnance. However, these bombs are less accurate than conventional free-fall bombs. Generally the high-drag tail replaces the low-drag so that the same bomb can be configured for either mode of attack during weapons preparation. High-drag bombs can also be dropped in low-drag mode if the pilot selects this option in the aircraft's weapon system, and will function exactly like a low-drag weapon.

title: Unguided bomb