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Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod

The Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod is a music festival which takes place every year during the second week of July in Llangollen, North Wales. It is one of several large annual Eisteddfodau in Wales. Singers and dancers from around the world are invited to take part in over 20 competitions followed each evening by concerts on the main stage. Over five thousand singers, dancers and instrumentalists from around 50 countries perform to audiences of more than 50,000 over the 6 days of the event.

Famous performers at Llangollen have included Luciano Pavarotti (who first competed in Llangollen in 1955 with his father and a choir from their home town Modena, and for whom the Eisteddfod's principal trophy – the Choir of the World Pavarotti Trophy – is named ), Red Army Ensemble, Julian Lloyd Webber and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The final Sunday Evening Gala Concert has featured Katherine Jenkins, Bryn Terfel, Kiri Te Kanawa, James Galway and Montserrat Caballe.

Origins
The origins of the International Eisteddfod go back to 1943 when Harold Tudor, an officer of the British Council, arranged a visit for members of governments-in-exile to the Welsh National Eisteddfod in Bangor. The excursion was well received especially by the noted writer and poet Juraj Slavik, the Minister for the Interior in the Czechoslovakia Government in Exile. Following the visit he wrote to Tudor praising the value of music as a way of healing the effects of War. The following year an international concert was held as part of the Llandybie National Eisteddfod.

Towards the end of 1945 Tudor proposed that an international choral festival be added to the 1947 Welsh National Eisteddfod, however the Council of the National Eisteddfod felt that as all their effort were involved in rebuilding their own organisation they could not take on such a scheme. Tudor modified his proposal into an independent music festival and found support for this idea from W. S. Gwynn Williams, Welsh composer and music publisher and George Northing, a teacher from Ysgol Dinas Brân and chairman of Llangollen town council. Gwynn Williams and Northing both pressed for the Eisteddfod to be in their home town of Llangollen.

The public gave support to this idea at two public meetings in May 1946 but concerns were also raised about who would come, where the event would be held and how the event would be financed. The British Council offered to help find choirs from Europe and to give financial support; however, the town decided to raise the money through a public subscription and quickly gathered over £1100. George Northing was made director of the executive board; Gwynn Williams became music director; Harold Tudor was Director of Publicity and W. Clayton Russon, a local businessman and High Sheriff of Merionethshire became President.

Plans to hold the event on the school field of Dinas Bran County School progressed throughout 1946-47. Accommodation for the overseas competitors would be in houses in the town and surrounding area and domestic participants would be given beds in church and school halls. As rationing was still in place ration coupons had to be found for all the visitors and the Minister of Food was eventually persuaded to supply these.

When in June 1947 it was time for competitors to travel to Llangollen a railway strike had started in France and there were serious doubt as to whether any overseas competitors would be able to arrive. Considerable relief was felt by the organisers when the first coach of competitors arrived bringing the ladies' choir Grupo Musical Feminino from Porto. They were the eventual winners of the Ladies Competition whilst the Men's competition was won by the Hungarian workers' choir, who had completed their journey to Wales by hitch-hiking when their train had been cancelled at Basel because of the French strike.

The Esperanto Society played a significant part in the first year when it was felt that there could be a shortage of participants. Reto Rossetti, a well-known figure and author in the Esperanto movement, was asked to help and through publicity in Esperanto magazines and to the surprise of the organisers, several groups contacted the Eisteddfod committee. Two troupes of Spanish dancers, on a tour of Britain sponsored by the British Council and the Esperanto Society, arrived and despite there not being a dance competition in the first year, performed to delighted audiences. Folk dance competitions have featured in every subsequent Llangollen Eisteddfod.The eisteddfod was brought to close by what has now become the traditional Sunday concert featuring Sir John Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra. The 1947 International Eisteddfod was hailed as an unqualified success with praise for the organisers, the founders, and all the competitors. There was even a surplus of £1,432 to be used for the next year's event.

A major test mission to promote reconciliation occurred in 1949, just four years after the end of the war, when a choir from Lübeck came to compete at the Eisteddfod. There had been Austrian and Italian choirs, but they hardly counted; neither did Spaniards. As the choir tell it in a letter now in the Clwyd archive in Ruthin, there was a tearful welcome with tea and sandwiches when the choir arrived at the Llangollen station from the eisteddfod helpers and the townspeople. Later, the festival's compère Mr Hywel Roberts introduced the choir with the words: "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our friends from Germany." The town organised a concert to help the choir raise funds, and (in 2015) members of the choir still correspond with Llangollen friends.

The Welsh motto of the International Eisteddfod, "Byd gwyn fydd byd a gano. Gwaraidd fydd ei gerddi fo," was composed by the poet T. Gwynn Jones and appears on the Eisteddfod trophies. It is usually translated as, "Blessed is a world that sings, Gentle are its songs."

Recent years
The 2007 Eisteddfod included performances by José Carreras, Joan Baez, and Hayley Westenra. In 2008, there were performances by Elaine Paige, All Angels, and Alfie Boe; in 2009, performances by Barbara Dickson, Sir Willard White, Blake, and Natasha Marsh, with a James Bond 007 spectacular, featuring the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, as the Sunday finale; 2010 saw performances by Katherine Jenkins and Nigel Kennedy. In 2011 there were concerts featuring Lulu, Russell Watson, Faryl Smith, Ruthie Henshaw and McFly.

In 2012 the Eisteddfod played host to Lesley Garrett, Alison Balsom, Nicola Benedettii and Sian Edwards in a celebration concert for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. There were also appearances by Alfie Boe, Steffan Morris, and Valentina Nafornta, and a performance of Karl Jenkins's new work "The Peacemakers" by a specially formed massed choir accompanied by the Llangollen International Eisteddfod Orchestra. The week was rounded off by the Grand Finale Concert, featuring Fflur Wyn, Wynne Evans, Mark Llewelyn Evans, John Owen-Jones and Richard Balcombe.

In recent years the Sunday evening concert has been given over to more "popular" music. Starting with McFly in 2011, subsequent concerts have included UB40, Status Quo (band), and Manic Street Preachers.

Parade
A parade is usually held on the Tuesday of the Eisteddfod week, in which both the locals and visitors, take part dancing, singing, and playing musical instruments, whilst marching the streets of Llangollen. However, in 2016 the parade was moved to the Friday to enable more competitors to take part.


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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is an American government-funded international media organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analyses to Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East, where it states that "the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed." RFE/RL is a private 501(c)(3) corporation and is supervised by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, an independent government agency overseeing all international broadcasting services that receive American government support. Jeremy Bransten is the organization's acting editor-in-chief.

Presented in 27 languages to 23 countries, RFE/RL has been headquartered in the Czech city of Prague since 1995 and has 21 local bureaus with over 500 core staff and 1,300 stringers and freelancers in countries throughout their broadcast region. Additionally, there are 680 employees at the organization's headquarters and corporate office in Washington, D.C.

During the Cold War, RFE was primarily aimed at broadcasting to Soviet satellite states, including the Baltic states, and RL targeted the Soviet Union itself. RFE was founded by the National Committee for a Free Europe as an anti-communist propaganda source in 1949, while RL was founded two years later. They received funds covertly from the CIA until 1972. The two organizations merged in 1976. Communist governments frequently sent agents to infiltrate RFE's headquarters, and the Soviet Union's KGB regularly jammed the organization's radio signals. Between 1949 and 1995, RFE/RL was headquartered at Englischer Garten in the German city of Munich. Another broadcast site was operated at the Portuguese village of Glória do Ribatejo from 1951 to 1996. Since the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the organization's European operations have been reduced.

Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe was created and grew in its early years through the efforts of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), an anti-communist CIA front organization that was formed by Allen Dulles in New York City in 1949. RFE/RL received funds covertly from the CIA until 1972. During RFE's earliest years of existence, the CIA and U.S. Department of State issued broad policy directives, and a system evolved where broadcast policy was determined through negotiation between them and RFE staff.

Radio Free Europe received widespread public support from Eisenhower's "Crusade for Freedom" campaign. In 1950, over 16 million Americans signed Eisenhower's "Freedom Scrolls" on a publicity trip to more than 20 U.S. cities and contributed $1,317,000 to the expansion of RFE.

Writer Sig Mickelson said that the NCFE's mission was to support refugees and provide them with a useful outlet for their opinions and creativity while increasing exposure to the modern world. The NCFE divided its program into three parts: exile relations, radio, and American contacts.

The United States funded a long list of projects to counter the "Communist appeal" among intellectuals in Europe and the developing world. RFE was developed out of a belief that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means. American policymakers such as George Kennan and John Foster Dulles acknowledged that the Cold War was essentially a war of ideas. The implementation of surrogate radio stations was a key part of the greater psychological war effort.

RFE was modeled after Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) a U.S. government-sponsored radio service initially intended for Germans living in the American sector of Berlin. According to Arch Puddington, a former bureau manager for RFE/RL, it was also widely listened to by East Germans. Staffed almost entirely by Germans with minimal U.S. supervision, the station provided free media to German listeners.

In January 1950, the NCFE obtained a transmitter base at Lampertheim, West Germany, and on July 4 of the same year RFE completed its first broadcast aimed at Czechoslovakia. In late 1950, RFE began to assemble a full-fledged foreign broadcast staff, becoming more than a "mouthpiece for exiles". Teams of journalists were hired for each language service, and an elaborate system of intelligence gathering provided up-to-date broadcast material. Most of this material came from a network of well-connected émigrés and interviews with travelers and defectors. RFE did not use paid agents inside the Iron Curtain and based its bureaus in regions popular with exiles. RFE also extensively monitored Communist bloc publications and radio services, creating a body of information that would later serve as a resource for organizations across the world.

In addition to its regular broadcasts, RFE spread broadcasts through a series of operations that distributed leaflets via meteorological balloons; one such operation, Prospero, sent messages to Czechoslovakia. From October 1951 to November 1956, the skies of Central Europe were filled with more than 350,000 balloons carrying over 300 million leaflets, posters, books, and other printed matter. The nature of the leaflets varied, and according to Arch Puddington included messages of support and encouragement "to citizens suffering under communist oppression", "satirical criticisms of communist regimes and leaders", information about dissident movements and human rights campaigns, and messages expressing the solidarity of the American people with the residents of Eastern European nations. Puddington stated that "the project served as a publicity tool to solidify RFE's reputation as an unbiased broadcaster".

Radio Liberty
Whereas Radio Free Europe broadcast to Soviet satellite countries, Radio Liberty broadcast to the Soviet Union. Radio Liberty was formed by American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (Amcomlib) in 1951. Originally named Radio Liberation, the station was renamed in 1959 after a policy statement emphasizing "liberalization" rather than "liberation".

Radio Liberty began broadcasting from Lampertheim on March 1, 1953, gaining a substantial audience when it covered the death of Joseph Stalin four days later. In order to better serve a greater geographic area, RFE supplemented its shortwave transmissions from Lampertheim with broadcasts from a transmitter base at Glória, Portugal in 1951. It also had a base at Oberwiesenfeld Airport on the outskirts of Munich, employing several former Nazi agents who had been involved in the Ostministerium under Gerhard von Mende during World War II. In 1955, Radio Liberty began broadcasting programs to Russia's eastern provinces from shortwave transmitters located on Taiwan. In 1959, Radio Liberty commenced broadcasts from a base at Platja de Pals, Spain.

Radio Liberty expanded its audience by broadcasting programs in languages other than Russian. By March 1954, Radio Liberty was broadcasting six to seven hours daily in eleven languages. By December 1954, Radio Liberty was broadcasting in 17 languages including Ukrainian, Belarusian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen, Uzbek, Tatar, Bashkir, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, and other languages of the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Radio Free Europe
According to certain European politicians such as Petr Nečas, RFE played a significant role in the collapse of communism and the development of democracy in Eastern Europe. Unlike government-censored programs, RFE publicized anti-Soviet protests and nationalist movements. Its audience increased substantially following the failed Berlin riots of 1953 and the highly publicized defection of Józef Światło. Arch Puddington argues that its Hungarian service's coverage of Poland's Poznań riots in 1956 served as an inspiration for the Hungarian revolution that year.

Hungary
During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, RFE broadcasts encouraged rebels to fight and suggested that Western support was imminent. These RFE broadcasts violated Eisenhower's policy, which had determined that the United States would not provide military support for the Revolution. According to Arch Puddington, a former bureau manager for RFL/RL, a number of changes were implemented at RFE in the wake of this scandal, including the establishment of the Broadcast Analysis Division to ensure that broadcasts were accurate and professional while maintaining the journalists' autonomy.

Romania
RFE was seen as a serious threat by Romanian president Nicolae Ceaușescu. From the mid-1970s to his overthrow and execution in December 1989, Ceaușescu waged a vengeful war against the RFE/RL under the program "Ether". Ether operations included physical attacks on Romanian journalists working for RFE/RL, including the controversial circumstances surrounding the deaths of three directors of RFE/RL's Romanian Service.

1981 RFE/RL Munich bombing
On February 21, 1981, RFE/RL's headquarters in Munich was struck by a massive bomb, causing $2 million in damage. Several employees were injured, but there were no fatalities. Stasi files opened after 1989 indicated that the bombing was carried out by a group under the direction of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (known as "Carlos the Jackal"), and paid for by Nicolae Ceaușescu, president of Romania.

But, according to the former head of the KGB Counterintelligence Department K, general Oleg Kalugin, the bombing operation was planned over two years by Department K, with the active involvement of a KGB mole inside the radio station, Oleg Tumanov. This revelation directly implicates KGB colonel Oleg Nechiporenko, who recruited Tumanov in the early 1960s and was his Moscow curator. Nechiporenko has never denied his involvement. In an interview with Radio Liberty in 2003, he justified the bombing on the grounds that RFE/RL was an American propaganda tool against the Soviet Union. Tumanov was exfiltrated back to the USSR in 1986. Nechiporenko contacts with Carlos in the 1970s were confirmed by Nechiporenko himself in an article published by Segodnya in 2000 and by an article in Izvestia in 2001.

Chernobyl disaster
For the first two days following the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, the official Eastern Bloc media did not report any news about the disaster, nor any full account for another four months. According to the Hoover Institute, the people of the Soviet Union "became frustrated with inconsistent and contradictory reports", and 36% of them turned to Western radio to provide accurate and pertinent information. Listenership at RFE/RL "shot up dramatically" as a "great many hours" of broadcast time were devoted to the dissemination of life-saving news and information following the disaster. Broadcast topics included "precautions for exposure to radioactive fallout" and reporting on the plight of the Estonians who were tasked with providing the clean-up operations in Ukraine.

Poland and Czechoslovakia
Communist governments also sent agents to infiltrate RFE's headquarters. Although some remained on staff for extended periods of time, government authorities discouraged their agents from interfering with broadcast activity, fearing that this could arouse suspicions and detract from their original purpose of gathering information on the radio station's activities. From 1965 to 1971, an agent of the SB (Służba Bezpieczeństwa, Communist Poland's security service) successfully infiltrated the station with an operative, Captain Andrzej Czechowicz. According to former Voice of America Polish service director Ted Lipien: "'Czechowicz is perhaps the most well known communist-era Polish spy who was still an active agent while working at RFE in the late 1960s. Technically, he was not a journalist. As a historian by training, he worked in the RFE's media analysis service in Munich. After more than five years, Czechowicz returned to Poland in 1971 and participated in programs aimed at embarrassing Radio Free Europe and the United States government.'"

According to Richard Cummings, former Security Chief of Radio Free Europe, other espionage incidents included a failed attempt by a Czechoslovak Intelligence Service (StB) agent in 1959 to poison the salt shakers in the organization's cafeteria.

In late 1960, an upheaval in the Czechoslovak service led to a number of dramatic changes in the organization's structure. RFE's New York headquarters could no longer effectively manage their Munich subsidiary. As a result major management responsibilities were transferred to Munich, making RFE a European-based organization.

According to Puddington, Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa and Russian reformer Grigory Yavlinsky would later recall secretly listening to the broadcasts despite the heavy jamming.

Jamming
The Soviet government turned its efforts towards blocking reception of Western programs. To limit access to foreign broadcasts, the Central Committee decreed that factories should remove all components allowing short-wave reception from USSR-made radio receivers. However, consumers easily learned that the necessary spare parts were available on the black market, and electronics engineers opposing the idea would gladly convert radios back to being able to receive short-wave transmissions.

The most extensive form of reception obstruction was radio jamming. This was controlled by the KGB, which in turn reported to the Central Committee. Jamming was an expensive and arduous procedure, and its efficacy is still debated. In 1958, the Central Committee mentioned that the sum spent on jamming was greater than the sum spent on domestic and international broadcasting combined. The Central Committee has admitted that circumventing jamming was both possible and practised in the Soviet Union. Due to limited resources, authorities prioritized jamming based on the location, language, time, and theme of Western transmissions. Highly political programs in Russian, broadcast at prime time to urban centers, were perceived as the most dangerous. Seen as less politically threatening, Western music such as jazz was often transmitted unjammed.

During and after the Cuban Missile Crisis in late 1962, jamming was intensified. The Cuban Missile Crisis, however, was followed by a five-year period when the jamming of most foreign broadcasters ceased, only to intensify again with the Prague Spring in 1968. It ceased again in 1973, when Henry Kissinger became the U.S. Secretary of State. The end to jamming came abruptly on 21 November 1988 when Soviet and Eastern European jamming of virtually all foreign broadcasts, including RFE/RL services, ceased at 21:00 CET.

United States
During the Cold War, RFE was often criticized in the United States as not being sufficiently anti-communist. Although its non-governmental status spared it from full scale McCarthyist investigations, several RFE journalists, including the director of the Czech service, Ferdinand Peroutka, were accused of being soft on Communism. Fulton Lewis, a U.S. radio commentator and fervent anti-communist, was one of RFE's sharpest critics throughout the 1950s. His critical broadcasts inspired other journalists to investigate the inner workings of the organization, including its connection to the CIA. When its CIA ties were exposed in the 1960s, direct funding responsibility shifted to Congress.

Funding
RFE/RL received funds from the CIA until 1972. The CIA's relationship with the radio stations began to break down in 1967, when Ramparts magazine published an exposé claiming that the CIA was channeling funds to civilian organizations. Further investigation into the CIA's funding activities revealed its connection to both RFE and RL, sparking significant media outrage.

In 1971, the radio stations came under public spotlight once more when U.S. Senator Clifford Case introduced Senate Bill 18, which would have removed funding for RFE and RL from the CIA's budget, appropriated $30 million to pay for fiscal year 1972 activities, and required the State Department to temporarily oversee the radio stations.

In May 1972, President Richard Nixon appointed a special commission to deliberate RFE/RL's future. The commission proposed that funding come directly from the United States Congress and that a new organization, the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB) would simultaneously link the stations and the federal government, and serve as an editorial buffer between them.

According to Arch Puddington, a former bureau manager for RFL/RL, though both radio stations initially received most of their funding from the CIA, RFE maintained a strong sense of autonomy; Puddington says that under Cord Meyer, the CIA officer in charge of overseeing broadcast services from 1954 to 1971, the CIA took a position of minimal government interference in radio affairs and programming.

In 1974, they came under the control of an organization called the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB). The BIB was designed to receive appropriations from Congress, give them to radio managements, and oversee the appropriation of funds. In 1976, the two radio stations merged to form Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and added the three Baltic language services to their repertoire.

1980s: Glasnost and the Iron Curtain's fall
Funding for RFE/RL increased during the Reagan administration. President Ronald Reagan, a fervent anticommunist, urged the stations to be more critical of the communist regimes. This presented a challenge to RFE/RL's broadcast strategy, which had been very cautious since the controversy over its alleged role in the Hungarian Revolution.

During the Mikhail Gorbachev era in the Soviet Union under Glasnost, RFE/RL benefited significantly from the Soviet Union's new openness. Gorbachev stopped the practice of jamming the broadcasts. In addition, dissident politicians and officials could be freely interviewed by RFE/RL for the first time without fearing persecution or imprisonment. By 1990, Radio Liberty had become the most listened-to Western radio station broadcasting to the Soviet Union.

Its coverage of the 1991 August coup enriched sparse domestic coverage of the event and drew in a wide audience. The broadcasts allowed Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to stay in touch with the Russian people during this turbulent period. Boris Yeltsin later expressed his gratitude through a presidential decree allowing Radio Liberty to open a permanent bureau in Moscow.

Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution
Following the November 17 demonstrations in 1989 and brutal crackdown by Czechoslovak riot police,, a porter at a dormitory in Prague, reported that a student, Martin Šmíd, had been killed during the clashes. The Charter 77 activist Petr Uhl believed this account and passed it along to major news organizations, who broadcast it. After Reuters and the Voice of America (VOA) reported the story, RFE/RL decided to run it too. However, the report later turned out to be false. The story is credited by many sources with inspiring Czechoslovak citizens to join the subsequent (larger) demonstrations which eventually brought down the communist government.

After 1991
In 1995, RFE/RL moved its headquarters from Munich to Prague, to the building of the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly. It had been vacant since the 1992 dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The Clinton Administration reduced funding significantly and placed the service under the United States Information Agency's oversight.

RFE/RL ended broadcasts to Hungary in 1993 and stopped broadcasts to Poland in 1997. On January 31, 1994, RFE/RL launched broadcasts to the former Yugoslavia in Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian languages. In the late 1990s RFE/RL launched broadcast to Kosovo in Albanian and to North Macedonia in Macedonian. Broadcast to the Czech Republic proceeded for three more years under the agreement with Czech Radio. In 2004 RFE/RL stopped broadcasting to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Romania.

RFE/RL Chief Jeffrey Gedmin said in 2008 that the agency's mission is to serve as a surrogate free press in countries where such press is banned by the government or not fully established. It maintains 20 local bureaus. Governments that are subjected to critical reporting often attempt to obstruct the station's activities through a range of tactics, including extensive jamming, shutting down local re-broadcasting affiliates, or finding legal excuses to close down offices.

RFE/RL says that its journalists and freelancers often risk their lives to broadcast information, and their safety has always been a major issue. Reporters have frequently been threatened and persecuted. RFE/RL also faces a number of central security concerns, including cyberterrorist attacks and general terrorist threats. After the September 11 attacks, American and Czech authorities agreed to move RFE/RL's Prague headquarters away from the city center in order to make it less vulnerable to terrorist attack. On February 19, 2009, RFE/RL began broadcasting from its new headquarters east of the city center.

Beyond Europe
RFE/RL says that it continues to struggle with authoritarian regimes for permission to broadcast freely within their countries. On January 1, 2009, Azerbaijan imposed a ban on all foreign media in the country, including RFE/RL. Kyrgyzstan suspended broadcasts of Radio Azattyk, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz language service, because it had asked that the government be able to pre-approve its programming. Other states such as Belarus, Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan prohibit re-broadcasting to local stations, making programming difficult for average listeners to access.

In 1998, RFE/RL began broadcasting to Iraq. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein ordered Iraqi Intelligence Service, to "violently disrupt the Iraqi broadcasting of Radio Free Europe". IIS planned to attack the headquarters with an RPG-7 from a window across the street. Czech Security Information Service (BIS) foiled the plot.

In 2008, Afghan president Hamid Karzai urged his government to provide assistance to a rape victim after listening to her story on Radio Azadi, RFE/RL's Afghan service. According to REF/RL in 2009, Radio Azadi was the most popular radio station in Afghanistan, and Afghan listeners mailed hundreds of hand-written letters to the station each month.

In September 2009, RFE/RL announced that it would begin new Pashto-language broadcasting to the Afghanistan–Pakistan border region.

The following month RFE/RL introduced a daily, one-hour Russian-language broadcast, broadcasting to the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The program, called Ekho Kavkaza (Echo of the Caucasus), focused on local and international news and current affairs, organized in coordination with RFE/RL's Georgian Service.

On January 15, 2010, RFE/RL began broadcasting to the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan in Pashto. The service, known as Radio Mashaal ("Torch"), was created in an attempt to counter the growing number of local Islamic extremist radio stations broadcasting in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Radio Mashaal says that it broadcasts local and international news with in-depth reports on terrorism, politics, women's issues, and health care (with an emphasis on preventive medicine). The station broadcasts roundtable discussions and interviews with tribal leaders and local policymakers, in addition to regular call-in programs.

2010s
On October 14, 2014, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and the Voice of America (VOA) launched a new Russian-language TV news program, Current Time, "to provide audiences in countries bordering Russia with a balanced alternative to the disinformation produced by Russian media outlets that is driving instability in the region". Over the next two years, Current Time – led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA – expanded to become a 24/7 digital and TV stream for Russian-speaking audiences worldwide.

Around 2017, Voice of America and RFE/RL launched Polygraph.info, and the Russian-language factograph.info, as fact-checking sites. On July 19, 2018, RFE/RL announced it will be returning its news services to Bulgaria and Romania by the end of 2018 amid growing concern about a reversal in democratic gains and attacks on the rule of law and the judiciary in the two countries. The Romanian news service re-launched on January 14, 2019, and the Bulgarian service re-launched on January 21, 2019. On 8 September 2020 the Hungarian service was also relaunched.

In a response to the United States Department of Justice requesting RT to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Russia's Justice Ministry also requested RFE/RL and Voice of America to register as foreign agents under the law ФЗ N 121-ФЗ / 20.07.2012 in December 2017.

2020s
In the aftermath of Belarusian presidential elections of 2020, Radio Liberty and independent media resources experienced significant pressure from the government and law enforcement. Journalists’ accreditations were cancelled by the authorities on October 2, 2020. On July 16, 2021, the office in Minsk and homes of the journalists were raided by the police.

In Russia, the government designated radio's website as a "foreign agent" on May 14, 2021. RL's bank accounts were frozen. By that time, Roskomnadzor, the Russian mass media regulator, had initiated 520 cases against the broadcaster, with total fines for the RL's refusal to mark its content with the "foreign agent" label estimated at $2.4m. On May 19, 2021, RL filed a legal case at the European Court of Human Rights, accusing the Russian government of violating freedom of expression and freedom of the media.

In March 2023, criminal case was opened against Moscow resident Yury Kokhovets, a participant in the RFE/RL's street poll. He faced up to 10 years in prison under Russia's 2022 war censorship laws.

In 2022, Radio Free Europe was awarded an Online Journalism Award for the coverage of Russia's War on Ukraine.

In 2023, a court in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, has accepted a request from the Culture Ministry to ban the operations of RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service.

In September 2023, RFE/RL's Azerbaijani service, Radio Azadliq, was revealed to have a leadership with links to Azerbaijan’s ruling authorities, which censored content critical of the Azerbaijani government and instead published content that promoted the government's agendas.

In February 2024, RFE was listed as an 'undesirable organization' by Russia, effectively making it illegal in the country.

49 Minutes of Jazz
The program was a musical review by Dmitri Savitski from 1989 to 2004. The theme song of the program was "So Tired" by Bobby Timmons. The program was cancelled on April 10, 2004 due to "the change of Liberty's format".

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

title: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty


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Matthew Webb

Captain Matthew Webb (19 January 1848 – 24 July 1883) was an English seaman, swimmer and stuntman. He is the first recorded person to swim the English Channel for sport without the use of artificial aids. In 1875, Webb swam from Dover to Calais in less than 22 hours. This made him a celebrity, and he performed many stunts in public. He died trying to swim the Niagara Gorge below Niagara Falls, a feat declared impossible.

Early life
Webb was born on 18 or 19 January 1848 in High Street, Dawley (now part of Telford), in Shropshire, one of eight sons of fourteen children of the surgeon Dr. Matthew Webb. In 1849, while Mathew Webb was only 14 months old, Dr. Matthew Webb and his wife Sarah Cartwright Webb moved with the family to Madeley High Street, and then by 1856 to Eastfield House, Coalbrookdale. The Webb family's which was situated just one field from the River Severn, which was where he Webb developed his strong swimming abilities. After Webb's death, Dawley Heritage determined the original Webb house to be between 57 to 63 High Street.

The Webb family were Anglicans, so Webb was familiar with the stories of the bible. One story that Webb remembered well into adult life was Daniel in the lions' den.

Webb's first memory involved the water. After finishing his day at the local school he would go with a group of friends to play in the Severn, and by the time he was seven, he could already swim. This was uncommon for the time, as swimming was not generally considered a pleasurable activity, but rather an activity prescribed by doctors as a treatment for a wide range of ailments. By eight years old, Webb was already a strong swimmer, so when his younger brother Charles was drowning in the Severn, he and his older brother Thomas were able to save him.

Even at school, Webb was fearless and enjoyed pulling off dangerous stunts in front of his friends.

Webb enjoyed painting pictures of animals, and reading stories of the sea. He was particularly influenced by the book "Old Jack" by W. H. G. Kingston, which was one of his inspirations to become a seaman.

Career as a seaman
In 1860, at the age of twelve, it was decided by he and his parents that Webb should leave school and join the Merchant Service.

He joined the training ship HMS Conway as an apprentice for Rathbone Brothers of Liverpool. In just his first few days on the ship, he felt homesick and hated the harsh living conditions, saying "I was hardly afloat before I wished myself back again to my comfortable home".

On the Conway, Webb was taught both traditional school classes (English, mathematics, history etc.), and specialized classes in nautical skills (map reading, astronomy, sailing etc.). His routine was regulated by the program and generally consisted of waking up at six, eating breakfast at eight, participating in traditional school classes during the morning, lunch at midday followed by half an hour of play time, nautical skills classes in the afternoon, and then dinner at five followed by more play time and some school prep until prayers at eight thirty, and then bed at nine. The routine on the weekend and during the half day on Wednesday was more varied, as the students were allowed off the ship to visit friends and/or participate in various fun activities.

Webb became popular on the Conway, and was given the nickname "Chummy Webb". He could also defend himself in a fight, later saying that "many of the boys were highly respectable", but also "some were highly the opposite". He excelled in swimming, rescuing a fellow crew member from overboard, and impressed fellow crew mates by his ability to stay in the water for very long periods of time. He even competed with a dog from Newfoundland for who could swim the longest in the rough sea. After an hour, Webb was still swimming but the dog was exhausted and was rescued from the water.

After two years as a student on the Conway, he enlisted himself for a further three years apprenticeship on their eastern cargo ships, where he traded with East India and China, and completed training to become a second mate. During this time, Webb gained a reputation for being fearless and was admired by his comrades.

In the summer of 1863, while at home, Webb rescued his 12-year-old brother Thomas from drowning in the Severn near Ironbridge.

From 1866 (when his legal agreements tying him to the Rathbone Brothers expired) to 1875, Webb worked on seven different ships, the last of which was named the Emerald, where he started work in January 1975 and served as captain for six months.

On 22 April 1873, whilst serving as second mate on the Cunard Line ship Russia, travelling from New York to Liverpool, Webb attempted to rescue a man overboard by diving into the sea in the mid-Atlantic. Webb jumped into the cold water while the boat was travelling at a speed of 14 and a half knots, and ended up remaining in the water for about an hour and a half. Upon being rescued, "the poor brute was nearly drowned".

The man was never found, but in 1974, Webb's daring attempted rescue won him an award of £100 and the first Stanhope Medal, and made him a hero of the British press.

English Channel swimming record
In 1873, during his sailing career, Webb had read an account of the failed attempt by J. B. Johnson to swim the English Channel, and became inspired to try.

Channel training
Webb trained first at Lambeth Baths, then in the River Thames, the English Channel and Hollingworth Lake.

In 1874, Webb was looking for financial backers for his channel attempt and long swims in general. He first approached Robert Patrick Watson, the owner of the Swimming, Rowing and Athletic Record, asking for help in finding a backer for his channel swim. Watson eventually introduced him to Fred Beckwith, who was a coach at Lambeth Baths in south London.

During September 1874, Watson and Beckwith organised a secret trial of Webb, where they watched him swim breaststroke down the Thames from Westminster Bridge to Regent's Canal Dock. After watching for an hour and twenty minutes, they "grew tired of watching his slow, methodical but perfect breaststroke and magnificent sweep of his ponderous legs", and so concluded Webb's trial.

Beckwith tried to make money from Webb, issuing a statement in the Sporting Life, challenging anyone to swim further than his "unknown amateur" down the Thames, and then trying to place a bet on Webb's successfully swimming across the Channel. However, it was by then too late in the summer of 1874 for a Channel crossing to be completed that year, as the weather was becoming too harsh.

In June 1875, Webb left his job as captain of the Emerald, in order to focus on his swimming feats. It was also during this month that future American rival Paul Boyton swam across the channel in 24 hours wearing an inflatable suit.

A month after leaving his job on the Emerald, on the 3 July, Beckwith organised a spectacle by showing Webb setting a record by completing a 20 mile swim between Blackwall and Gravesend along the River Thames in 43-44 hours. This record stood until 25 July 1899 when it was beaten by Montague Holbein. Unfortunately for Beckwith, the poor public interest on the rainy day meant that he lost money. As a result, Webb took another manager, Arthur Payne. Payne was the sporting editor of The Standard.

In August 1875, Webb announced to the public that he would attempt to swim across the English Channel with the statement from Payne:"'I am authorised by Captain Webb to announce his full determination to attempt the feat of swimming across the Channel... Beyond a paltry bet of £20 to £1 he has nothing to gain by success. Surely, under the circumstances, there are some lovers of sport who would gladly, in sporting language, 'put him on so much to nothing'. Should he by chance succeed, which is extremely improbable, it would be cruel that one who would undoubtedly have performed the greatest athletic feat on record should be a loser by the event.'"

Channel swim
On 12 August 1875, Webb made his first cross-Channel swimming attempt, but after seven hours he had been driven over nine miles off course and was forced to abandon the swim despite being over halfway there.

On 21 August, J.B. Johnson also attempted the swim, but only swam for an hour before exiting the water due to the cold and his tiredness.

Undeterred by his and Johnson's previous attempts, on the 24 August at 12:56 pm, Webb began a second swim by diving in from the Admiralty Pier at Dover in his red silk swim costume. At the time of his swim, Webb weighed 14 stone and 8 pounds, his chest size was 40 and a half inches and he was 5 foot 8 inches tall.

He was backed by a lugger boat called "Ann", and two smaller rowing boats. Among the crew was Arthur Payne, an artist from the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, Webb's brother-in-law George Ward and three other journalists. Smeared in porpoise oil for insulation, he set off into the ebb tide which carried him for the first three quarters of a mile out from shore.

During the morning of August 25, the Sporting Life published a column with the title "Captain Webb's Channel Trip", which reported on the favourable weather conditions and changing tides which had so far carried Webb westward, eastward and then westward again.

Webb swam breaststroke at a stroke rate of about twenty-two strokes per minute, and ate cod-liver oil, beef tea, brandy, coffee, and ale. By 17:30, on August 24, Dover could no longer be seen. At 20:35, Webb was stung by his first jellyfish, which was painful but did not stop him after he had a shot of brandy. By 23:00, the captain believed the party was about twelve and a half miles from Dover, and nine miles from Calais. During the swim, a mailboat named "The Maid of Kent" passed Webb, with the passengers singing the tune Rule, Britannia!. Webb later recalled this moment in his diary:"'Never shall I forget when the men in the mailboat struck up the tune of Rule Britannia, which they sang, or rather shouted, in a hoarse roar. I felt a gulping sensation in my throat as the old tune, which I had heard in all parts of the world, once more struck my ears under circumstances so extra-ordinary. I felt now I should do it, and I did it.'"Despite stings from jellyfish and strong currents off Cap Gris Nez which prevented him from reaching the shore for five hours, finally, after approximately 21 hours and 40 minutes, at 10:41 am on August 25, he landed near Calais—the first successful cross-channel swim without artificial aid. His zig-zag course across the Channel was about 39 miles (66 km) long. Upon completing the swim, Webb slept in Paris Hotel.

Reception
Upon completion of the crossing, Beckwith's Sporting Life published the headline "Captain Webb's Great Swimming Feat", which in the lede referenced the paper's previous articles on Webb when Beckwith was his manager, but lifted the main section of the article from Payne's report in The Standard. Contained in The Standard, was Payne's eyewitness account of the crossing, including observations of the weather conditions, Webb's stroke, the water conditions and the marine life.

Surgeons such as Sir William Fergusson regarded Webb's feat as "almost unrivalled as an instance of human prowess and endurance", and note that his body must have been good at vasoconstriction to prevent heat loss.

Upon taking the train to Wellington, Somerset, he was warmly received by a large crowd and a band from the 7th Shropshire Rifles. The crowd removed the horses from the front of his carriage, and drew it by hand to Ironbridge where they were met by another band of the 6th Shropshire Rifle Corps and were welcomed by the Mayor of Wenlock. Webb spent the night in Ironbridge, and was met again in the morning by a group from Dawley. They invited him to "receive the homage of the town of his birth", and then escorted him to Dawley and down the High Street, where the people of the town warmly welcomed him. Webb received many gifts, and the London Stock Exchange set up a testimonial fund, which raised £2424 for Webb and his family. Of this money, Webb gave £500 to his father, and invested the £1782 in the hopes that this would provide him lifelong income. Webb then moved to 21 Tavistock Crescent, Kensington, London.

It was suggested that Webb be knighted in parliament, with Mr R. H. Home MP being Webb's strongest advocate, as he had himself swam across the Menai Strait. However, Webb was never knighted.

Swimming career
After his record swim, Webb basked in national and international adulation, and followed a career as a professional swimmer. To make money, he licensed his name for merchandising such as commemorative pottery and matches, lectured, won prize money for winning events, patented various inventions, and was sponsored to complete other swimming related stunts.

In his lectures, Webb spoke against the common Victorian practice of forcefully dunking children in the water, saying "fear of water on his part can never be removed by force or so-called heroic treatment", and proposed the alternative methodology of letting the child experiment themselves in shallow water.

Despite all his income streams, Webb did not make much money and was exceedingly generous. He also found it hard to cope with his newfound fame, and, by 1879, had also fallen into financial trouble. To raise funds, Webb toured England competing in long endurance events and completed swimming stunts, including multiple six day races, swimming between twelve and fourteen hours per day.

Webb won the "Swimming Championship of England" in May 1879 at Lambeth Baths against other swimming champions from around England. To win, he swam 74 miles over 6 days, by swimming for roughly 14 hours per day.

Unfortunately for Webb, his exhibition swims were drawing less attention as time went on, and so in 1880 he brought his feats to America for the first time. In September of that year, Webb escalated his achievement to win the "Swimming Championship of the World" against American Paul Boyton at Nantasket Beach, however he was accused of cheating and was not awarded the prize money. Overall, Webb was still unsuccessful in America, and lost money on the trip.

Back in England in 1880, Webb floated for seventy four hours in the waters of Scarborough Aquarium, and for sixty hours in the Royal Aquarium in Westminster. He returned again to America in 1883, when he beat his own record by floating for one hundred and twenty eight and a half hours (minus a ninety four minute break) in Boston Horticultural Hall. However, his financial situation still did not improve.

He wrote a book called The Art of Swimming.

In 1882, Webb announced that he would attempt to swim through the base of Niagara Falls, a body of water notorious for its rapids and whirlpools.

Webb's last competitive swim was in March 1883, where he raced to swim twenty miles at Lambeth Baths. Webb was forced to quit the race when he was spitting blood as a result of his diagnosed tuberculosis. By this point, Webb had lost so much weight that he was fourty two pounds lighter than when he swam the channel. Consequently, his doctor ordered that he should he should completely quit swimming.

However, driven by his worsening financial situation and desire for fame, Webb did not take the doctors advice. Four months later, he attempted to swim across the Niagara Rapids.

Death in Niagara Rapids
In June 1883, Webb and his family traveled to America, with Webb maintaining the intention to swim in the Niagara Gorge through the Whirlpool Rapids on the Niagara River below Niagara Falls, a feat many observers considered suicidal. Webb trained for several days at Nantucket beach, then travelled to Niagara Falls. He then made an impromptu plan and called a press conference to explain it. Money was promised to Webb by the railway companies which charged visitors to come and watch the attempt, which Webb thought would be around $10000. Webb had originally planned the swim for 21 July, but special arrangements from the railway companies caused him to delay the start until July 24. At 16:25, Webb jumped off the side of a ferryboat into the rapids.

Many people considered this swim suicidal, and some even argued that this was Webb's intention. Webb's close friend Robert Watson tried to dissuade him, and later said:"'As we stood face to face I compared the fine, handsome sailor, who first spoke to me about swimming at Falcon Court, with the broken-spirited and terribly altered appearance of the man who courted death in the whirlpool rapids of Niagara... let it be taken for granted that his object was not suicide, but money and imperishable fame.'"Despite this, Webb did not tell his wife Madeline that he would be attempting the stunt, but said "If I die they will do something for my wife" shortly before the swim.

Before exiting the ferry, the operator tried to dissuade him one final time, but Webb only waved, smiled and said "goodbye boy", before exiting the boat.

Everything went smoothly for the first part of the swim, but upon being lifted by a large wave, Webb shouted and lifted his arm, before being pulled underwater by the currents for a distance of about 40 meters. He reappeared briefly, but at 16:35, he was sucked into the whirlpool and was never seen alive again.

Four days later, Webb and the two Indians bodies were found. Webb's body had a cut on the forehead, which caused people to assume he was knocked out on a submerged rock, and then died from drowning. However, the autopsy revealed he was paralyzed from the water pressure.

Webb was temporarily interred in Oakwood Cemetery, Niagara Falls, New York, and then reburied once again in Oakwood Cemetery. Above the grave was a dark granite Gothic Monument inscribed "Captain Matthew Webb. Born Jan. 19, 1848. Died July 24, 1883".

Personal life
On 27 April 1880, Webb and Madeline Kate Chaddock were married at St Andrew's Church, West Kensington, and they had two children, Matthew and Helen. Matthew went on to fight in France in World War I, with the South African Forces, but was killed in 1917 at the Ypres Salient. After his death, his wife remarried and moved to South Africa.

Legacy
Webb significantly increased the popularity of swimming during his lifetime, and shortly after his death, several periodical swimming championships were started, and the Sporting Life attributed much more paper space to swimming.

The pig on the wall postcard
Some time after Webb's death, in 1909, a postcard was produced which depicted a pig on a wall watching Webb's procession go by. It was produced by the Baldwin Bros., a photography firm in Dawley, around the same time that the Captain Webb Memorial in Dawley was unveiled.

Memorials
On 23rd October 1909, funded by public subscriptions, Webb's elder brother Thomas unveiled a memorial at the bottom of Dawley High Street. It took the funding committee just seventeen weeks to fund, build and unveil the memorial. On it reads the short inscription: "Nothing great is easy." The memorial was taken away for repair after a lorry collided with it in February 2009. The landmark memorial was returned after full restoration and was hoisted back onto its plinth in High Street in October 2009.

On 8 June 1910, a second memorial was unveiled for him in Dover. Another memorial plaque with his portrait was also unveiled in the parish church at Coalbrookdale.

Places
Two roads in the town (Captain Webb Drive and Webb Crescent) and the Captain Webb Primary School in Dawley are named after the swimmer.

Webb House of the Haberdashers' Adams Grammar School in Newport, Shropshire, is named after Webb.

Book
A book about Webb's life was written in 1986 entitled "Nothing Great Is Easy" by author David Elderwick. It has the tagline "The Story of Captain Matthew Webb, The First Man To Swim The English Channel".

International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame
In 1965, Webb was added to the International Swimming Hall of Fame, for being the first swimmer to cross the English Channel.

Descendants
Matthew Webb's Great Nephew, Edward Webb of Nottingham became the first man to solo para-glide across the English Channel on 12 September 1992. This was 117 years after his Great Uncle crossed the Channel. Edward was just 20 years old at the time but the feat helped to raise £2.5 million pounds in fundraising for the Christian Rescue Services Young Children in Need charity. Captain Webb no longer has any living descendants, as his great great granddaughter did not have any children.

Cultural references

His death inspired a poem by William McGonagall in 1883. John Betjeman's poem "A Shropshire Lad" (1940) also commemorates the death of Webb, portraying his ghost swimming back along the canal to Dawley. It was set to music by Jim Parker and was recorded by folk singer John Kirkpatrick.

Webb's picture on boxes of Bryant and May matches is said to have inspired the physical appearance of the Inspector Clouseau character portrayed originally in the Pink Panther films by Peter Sellers.

An episode of Peabody's Improbable History (a segment of Rocky and Bullwinkle) misidentified him in dialogue and the episode's title as "Captain Clift". It was a sly reference to Peabody's voice being patterned after actor Clifton Webb. The character in the episode did, however, resemble Matthew Webb. The joke name also facilitated Peabody's closing pun about the "White Clifts of Dover".

A 2007 Channel 4 documentary named Swimming: A Brief History suggests that Webb's swim was hugely inspirational. Both his Channel crossing and Niagara Falls downfall are discussed and Webb is described as revered for his 'sporting achievements'. The programme also features an artist's illustration of the 1875 channel swim and describes him consuming "beef tea, beer and brandy" during the event.

In 2009 Jim Howick portrayed Webb during a humorous retelling of his death in Episode 4, Series 1 of the CBBC show Horrible Histories.

Production began in 2014 for a full-length film adaptation about Webb's Channel attempt, initially under the working title The Greatest Englishman. It was directed by Justin Hardy, written by Jemma Kennedy, and starring Warren Brown. Released in 2015 under the title Captain Webb, the movie was nominated for a British Film Award the following year, but box office success was limited.

title: Matthew Webb


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Thomas of Celano

Thomas of Celano (Tommaso da Celano; c. 1185 – c. 1265  ) was an Italian friar of the Franciscans (Order of Friars Minor) as well as a poet and the author of three hagiographies about Francis of Assisi.

Life
Thomas was born sometime between 1185 and 1190, into the noble family of the Conti dei Marsi at Celano in the Province of the Abruzzi. He received a sound liberal arts education, possibly at the Benedictine monastery of Saint John the Baptist near Celano. His familiarity with monastic tradition suggests that he may have studied at Monte Cassino, Rome or Bologna.

He joined the Franciscan order probably in 1215. In 1221, he was present at the Pentecost Chapter at the Portiuncula, and then accompanied Caesar of Speyer on his mission to Germany. The following year he became custos of the convents at Mayence, Worms, Speyer, and Cologne, and soon after, Caesar of Speyer, on his return to Italy, made him his vicar in the government of the German province. Before September 1223, Thomas returned to Italy, and lived there in close contact with Francis.

Works

 * Vita Prima: Soon after the canonization of Francis in 1228, Pope Gregory IX commissioned Thomas to write the Vita Beati Francisci ("The Life of Blessed Francis"; often called the "First Life"), a work on the saint's early life.

 * Vita Secunda: A supplement, the Memoriale Desiderio Animae de Gestis et Verbis Sanctissimi Patris Nostri Francisci ("The Memorial of the Desire of a Soul Concerning the Deeds and Words of Our Most Holy Father Francis" often just called the "Second Life") was commissioned by Crescentius of Jessi, the Minister General of the Franciscan Order sometime between 1244 and 1247, and reflects changing official perspectives on Francis in the decades after his death.

 * The third is a treatise on the saint's miracles, written sometime between around 1254 and 1257 at the bidding of Blessed John of Parma, who succeeded Crescentius as Minister General.

Thomas's authorship of the three works on Francis of Assisi is well-established. Many researchers of the early history of the Franciscan order believe that Brother Leo, and Rufinus of Assisi, associates of Francis, were the source of the material for the Vita Secunda.

Thomas also wrote Fregit victor virtualis and Sanctitatis nova signa in honor of Francis. Life of St. Clare of Assisi, on the early life of Saint Clare of Assisi, and the hymn "Dies Irae" are also traditionally attributed to him, but the authorship of both works is in fact uncertain.

Death and burial
In 1260 he settled down to his last post, as spiritual director to a convent of Clarisses in Tagliacozzo, where he died some time between 1260 and 1270.

He was at first buried in the church of S. Giovanni Val dei Varri, attached to his monastery, but his body is now reburied in the church of S. Francesco at Tagliacozzo.

Beatification process
The process for beatification was initiated in Avezzano; the Congregation for the Causes of Saints declared the process valid and allowed for the opening of the so-called "Roman Phase" on 27 November 1991. The initiation of the process prior to this date granted him the title Servant of God.

Books

 * The Eloquence of Sanctity: Rhetoric in Thomas of Celano's 'Vita Prima Sancti Francisci', by John Bequette, Franciscan Institute Publications, 2003. ISBN 978-0-8199-1006-6
 * Saint Francis of Assisi, by Thomas of Celano and translated by Placid Hermann, Franciscan Institute Publications, 1988. ISBN 978-0-8199-0554-3

title: Thomas of Celano


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The Sims Online

The Sims Online was a 2002 massively multiplayer online game (MMO) developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts (EA) for Microsoft Windows. The game was a subscription-based online multiplayer version of the 2000 Maxis game The Sims, in which players could interact with others on virtual user-made lots, buy and customise properties, and make in-game money by taking on jobs. The Sims Online was the project of Maxis founder and Sims creator Will Wright, who sought to create an open-ended online game based on social interaction, with ambitions for the game to be a platform for emergent gameplay and the creation of virtual societies and politics. In line with these ambitions and the prior commercial success of The Sims, The Sims Online received considerable pre-release coverage, with expectations that it would be successful and break new ground for online multiplayer games.

Released following a two-month public beta, The Sims Online was met with mixed reviews from critics. Reviewers generally praised the game's social features, but found the game to lack the depth and appeal of The Sims, with many describing it as similar to a chat room. The overemphasis of jobs and money-making in the game was particularly critiqued due to the limited, repetitive and time-consuming nature of these activities in overall gameplay. The game similarly fared poorly commercially, underperforming press, industry and publisher expectations for the success of the game. The game also courted controversy, with its open-ended approach to social interaction leading to organised player harassment and simulated cybersex. The player count of The Sims Online peaked at slightly over 100,000 players in 2003, a modest number compared to other popular multiplayer games of the time. In March 2007, EA announced that the product would be re-branded as EA-Land, introducing several major enhancements to the game. Within several weeks, EA announced the game would shut down, and closed the servers on August 1, 2008. The Sims Online has retrospectively been viewed as a failed experiment, with its failure attributed to its limited features, repetitive gameplay and subscription fee. A free third-party reimplementation of The Sims Online, titled FreeSO, was launched in 2017.

Gameplay
Similar to The Sims, The Sims Online is an open-ended game that allows players to create and control virtual people, named Sims, with other player and non-player characters, in a virtual neighborhood where they can make money to buy objects and build homes and venues to live in and to interact with other Sims.

Sim and neighborhood setup
Players setup the game by selecting a city and creating a sim. Cities represent persistent servers with different players; each player may have one sim per city with a total of three sims. Creating a sim is similar to The Sims, with control over name, gender, and appearance. Once the sim is created, a player enters the city view of the selected city, divided into neighborhoods which feature a grid of properties. Players can use a search, browser and map filters to locate existing properties, including by attributes including their popularity and category. As in The Sims, players are required to manage their sim's needs whilst on a lot by keeping their eight individual motive levels high, which include hunger, comfort, hygiene, bladder, energy, fun, social, and room. The Sims Online features a similar skill progression system to The Sims, with some modifications. Skills improve players' ability to generate an income using skill objects. Skill progression is accelerated by the number of people progressing the same skill at the same time in a lot. Skills also degrade over time based on the total number of skill points earned.

Social interaction
The Sims Online integrates social features that allow players to interact with others. Players can search, bookmark, and locate other players in their neighborhood by name in the city view. This view also provides a top 100 list of the most successful sims and properties in the neighborhood by various categories. The relationships between players are visually depicted in a friendship web, which depicts the player's network of friends, enemies and acquaintances. These statuses are manually set by players.

Relationships are indirectly measured by a relationship score that increases and decreases along with the daily and lifetime interactions a player has with another. Players have also several modes of social interaction inside and outside of properties. Messages can be sent through the user interface to specific players, which turns into a real-time chat if both players are online. If both players are on the same property, they can interact using an open text chat creating speech bubbles to nearby players. Players can also select animated gestures and interactions, with more earned by progressing skills above a certain level or having a higher relationship score. Some gestures and interactions are mutual and require both players to accept before proceeding. Players can manage unwanted behaviour by ignoring the player, removing their text in chat, or banning them from the lot if owned by the player.

Making money and managing property

Simoleans are the main commodity in The Sims Online, used to purchase lots and objects and design buildings. There are several other sources of income for players. Passive sources of income include a daily 'visitor bonus' based on the number of minutes that visitors spend in the lot, and an 'achievement bonus' for being on the game's top ranking lists. Players with properties also can set several items that allow others to pay them an income, including tip jars, fees for vending machines and pay-to-enter doors. The primary source of income for players is using job objects, some job objects produce items of value accumulated at a rate based on the player's skill level and number of other players simultaneously producing items which can be traded or sold for a profit. These objects are based upon a single skill requirement. Other job objects require multiple players to participate, and feature minigames with a payout based on the efficiency of the players, including games to navigate mazes, guess the correct letters in a code, and create a pizza with the largest variation in ingredients. These objects often have multiple skill requirements at different levels, requiring players to find others with compatible skills.

Players purchase and manage properties in a different manner to The Sims. Players select a vacant lot located in a neighborhood, with property values affected by the location and size. Players that own a property can invite roommates to inhabit them. Roommates have the ability to add or remove their own objects and manage visitors, but can't manage the inhabitants or the size of the property. The owner's user interface provides additional pages that allow them to manage inhabitants, such as lists of admitted and banned users. Property pages in the game's city view provide key information of a property, including its residents and property type.

Development and release
The Sims Online was conceived by Maxis lead designer and creator of The Sims, Will Wright, who envisioned future games would be online as the "norm rather than the exception", and proposed the concept of an online Sims game to Maxis in 2000. Delivering a keynote speech at the 2001 Game Developers Conference, Wright revealed initial concepts and screenshots for The Sims Online, outlining an aim for the game to imitate and represent real-life social networks as "an interactive exploration of the emerging social web" and based upon the "social topography" created and explored by players. Wright also attributed conversations with author Neal Stephenson and his 1992 novel Snow Crash as inspiration for the game, with its notion of a metaverse also emerging as a comparison point for publishers and reviewers. To reinforce the idea of an open-ended virtual environment, Wright conceived the game would be "thematically empty" upon release, with its settings and social dynamics to be created by players with minimal guidance from the game.

To realise Wright's concept, the development team aimed to create an online game with The Sims engine that encouraged interaction between players, and provide a broader business and economic simulation built from this premise. Initially pitched as a smaller matchmaking client where players could visit each other's houses, suggestions by EA and Maxis to focus the game on a subscription model led to development of a larger online game. The team, which initially had little to no experience creating massively multiplayer online games, encountered challenges and delays in creating and scaling tools and processes from a game originally intended as a single-player experience. Ultima Online developer Gordon Walton joined Maxis to provide experience on designing online games. The team also featured a larger representation of women for the time reflecting the majority female audience of The Sims franchise, commended by the ELSPA as a "success story" for the female games industry workforce. The undisclosed development budget for The Sims Online was estimated by industry insiders to be $25 million. EA announced the release of a public beta in October 2002.

Prior to release, The Sims Online received significant pre-release coverage and high expectations as a potential commercial and cultural phenomenon, following the showcase of the game at E3 in May 2002. Featured as a cover article on Newsweek, the game was hailed as a "step forward for online games" and an emerging "forum for social interaction". Lev Grossman of Time described the upcoming title as a "daring collective social experiment" to simulate a "vast virtual society" and "sandbox where we can play out our fantasies and confront our fears about what America might become". Some noted the novelty of an MMO that did not feature a fantasy theme in contrast to popular MMO games of the time, including EverQuest and Ultima Online, with speculation that its general appeal could "bring multiplayer online gaming to the masses". Others expressed caution about the game's high expectations, with Chris Morris of CNN noting the commercial risk due to the poor performance of previous EA online games Motor City Online and Majestic, and the "looming question of whether casual gamers will be willing to pay a monthly fee". The Sims Online was launched on 17 December 2002 to coincide with the Christmas period. The release was accompanied by a kitsch-themed launch party organized by EA and held in New York at the Altman Building.

Controversy
The Sims Online was subject to controversy due to the behaviors of some of its user base, prompting commentary on whether these behaviours consisted of virtual crime. Many critics noted the unexpected adult behavior of the game at release, with critics observing the game had a "sleazy" and "off-color" tone due to the risqué theme of the franchise, and commonly encountered flirting, sex, and users operating virtual brothels offering sex in exchange for simoleons. This had not been entirely unexpected; Wright had previously stated the developers were "counting on" players to create "bordellos and whatever else they can imagine" with the game's open-ended tools. Players also discovered that the relationship system could be abused by threatening to label the reputation of others as untrustworthy, with cases spanning from targeted harassment to widespread, co-ordinated efforts by a Mafia of players who would extort victims and properties.

Public attention was further brought to these issues by Peter Ludlow, a University of Michigan philosophy professor, who operated an online blog titled The Alphaville Herald that frequently canvassed the activities of the inhabitants on the server of the same name. Under the pseudonym Urizenus, Ludlow observed, wrote about, and interviewed users engaging in practices including scams, sadomasochism, prostitution, and organised crime. Of particular concern was a reported griefer, Evangeline, who claimed to be a seventeen-year-old male who operated a brothel offering virtual sex services in the game. Ludlow, among other academics, noted the ethical grey area of these activities, although the potential of "real money" being exchanged for simoleons opened up issues around the "exploitation" of users. Ludlow's account on The Sims Online was banned by EA on the basis that he had included a link to his website in his player profile, raising mainstream commentary on the merits of Ludlow's reporting, the potential harms of virtual crime, and the adequacy of moderation in the game.

Post-release content and EA-Land
Following release, the development team used surveys, feedback and demographic studies on the player base to plan a growth strategy for the game, aiming to provide more specific goals and activities, enhance the social aspects of the game, and integrating more features from The Sims into the game. Initial features added by the development team included clothing racks to customise outfits, a player trading feature, non-player characters that provide services, and pets from The Sims Unleashed; however, the introduction of the clothing rack also introduced an exploit into the game that allowed players to generate large amounts of money. Despite being fixed, the exploit led to hyperinflation and permanently impacted the game's virtual economy.

In February 2008, EA announced that The Sims Online would be relaunched as a free-to-play reworked version titled EA-Land. The launch was the product of ongoing development from a small development team led by EA studio head Luc Barthelet from 2007 under the initial name TSO-E, designed as a single, merged city. As part of this process, several features were introduced into the game, including the introduction of the ability for players to upload custom content into the game, and the integration of web and social media features, including Facebook apps and user-created widgets. The relaunch announcement was met with an unenthusiastic reception; Jim Rossignol of Rock Paper Shotgun described the relaunch as "horribly rebranded" and "buzzwordery", and Eurogamer didn't "understand any of it".

Closure
On 29 April 2008, weeks after the relaunch of the game, EA announced the EA-Land service would be shut down from 1 August. The announcement was met with disappointment from users, with Barthelet noting the difficult and "particularly complex" reasons for ending the service weeks after relaunch. EA-Land shut down at 4:35am PST on 1 August 2008. To commemorate the closure, EA developers held a 'See You Soon' party where players congregated until the shutdown of the game. The final moments of the game at this party were recorded by Henry Lowood's research team as part of Archiving Virtual Worlds and Preserving Virtual Worlds, two Congress-funded projects to investigate and develop measures to archive software content.

Sales
The Sims Online was a commercial disappointment, peaking in sixth place in United States PC sales charts in December 2002. At launch, the game sold 105,000 units, a quarter of its production shipment. By early 2003, the game was reported as having between 80,000 and 85,000 subscribers at launch, 40,000 of whom remained on a free trial. Citing an "error on expectations" for sales, EA immediately dropped the retail price of the game from $49.99 to $29.99. The subscription base, which remained under 100,000 for most of 2003, underperformed industry expectations, and fell short of EA goals of reaching 200,000 by March and 400,000 subscribers by the end of the year. Analyst Bruce Woodcock estimated active player subscriptions for The Sims Online peaked near 105,000 in 2003, sharply declining in the years after.

Reviews
The Sims Online received "mixed to average" review scores according to review aggregator Metacritic. Reviewers generally praised the social networking features of the game, with several comparing it to the functionality of a chat room. Describing the game as a "chat room come to life', Michael Lafferty of GameZone considered the interactive social gameplay to be a highlight of The Sims Online due to the diversity of the player base. A. A. White of Game Revolution commended the "realized" and "excellent" integration of in-game instant messaging and email. Jessica Theon of Computer Games praised the game's design and social features in encouraging player co-operation, although she found the map and search function making it difficult to navigate to find others. Game Informer enjoyed the communal aspect of the game, but wished there were more gameplay options than "mindless genial interaction". Scott Steinberg of PC Zone highlighted the game's "unique approach to massive online play" and focus of the game mechanics to "bring people together", but found the lack of a chat log made it difficult to monitor and continue conversations. Several critics also discussed the negative aspects of player interaction. Steve Butts of IGN noted the gameplay was open to "confusion" and "abuse", observing easy ways to exploit the property manager system. Dana Jongewaard of Computer Gaming World found players were generally unwilling to interact in gameplay and were primarily focused on making money. In contrast, Jessica Theon of Computer Games found players to be "incredibly friendly and helpful".

Many critics questioned the merits of the game's changes compared to The Sims. Steve Butts of IGN noted the gameplay lacked "challenge and conflict" due to the individual focus of gameplay and less scripted nature of other players. T. J. Deci of Allgame considered the social mechanics to detract from the appeal of The Sims, citing the lack of player customisation to differentiate players. Dana Jongewaard of Computer Gaming World noted the design of The Sims Online omitted large aspects of the original game, including its events, careers, and special characters. A. A. White of Game Revolution noted the game's greater emphasis on collective activities was effective, but reduced the uniqueness of individual sims, their interests and personality traits. Scott Steinberg of PC Zone lamented the absence of the "little details" from The Sims, such as disasters.

The game's business simulation mechanics were also critiqued. Steve Butts of IGN noted that the lack of a "player-run market of commodities and items" limited the incentive of focusing on the money-making aspects of the game. GameSpot similarly cited the functionality of the economy as a problem for the game, finding skill building and money making activities to be limited and repetitive. A. A. White of Game Revolution found the money-making activities generic, "non-interactive", and limited in progression, leading to an "intense emphasis on drudgery" and the proliferation of "sweatshop" lots on the game to facilitate money-making. Carla Harker of GameSpy similarly described them as a "boring", "time-consuming", and "repetitive chore". Describing money as the "downfall of the game", Scott Steinberg of PC Zone noted the job objects dominate player participation and interaction, stating "the emphasis on cash and beauty leaves the game unbalanced, offering little reward to the player who wants to pursue a different path".

Retrospective reception
Initial post-release reception of The Sims Online evaluated the game as falling far below the cultural, commercial and critical impact of The Sims, with some labelling the game as a failure. Early assessments from analysts suggested the game's disappointing performance arose from a late December release too close to Christmas, poor reviews, and a limited time from announcement to release to generate support for a subscription service. Computer Gaming World assessed that whilst the game was meant to be a "breakthrough" game, "players stayed away in droves". Several authors categorized The Sims Online as part of a trend of failed launches of massively multiplayer online games in the early millennium.

Many writers attempted to assess the reasons for the underperformance of The Sims Online. Henry Jenkins and Kurt Squire of Computer Games cited the game's difficulties in attracting a "diverse player base" and "role-playing and storytelling community" due to the medium of a massively multiplayer online game being "expensive" and "time-intensive" for players to maintain. Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer wrote that the mixture of pre-broadband performance issues and lack of infrastructure failed to "support the infinitely malleable persistent virtual world The Sims required". Describing the game as an "imperfect" transition of The Sims, Steen et al. attributed the underperformance of the game to the "disassociation" between the idea of the player as an avatar and the dissatisfying social and economic gameplay mechanics that dominated the online experience, creating a "chilling effect" on natural social interaction. Dan Morris of PC Gamer stated the game needed a "well-defined narrative, not just a sandbox". Graham Smith of Rock Paper Shotgun described the game as a "mess", citing the vulnerability of its player-driven economy to bugs and the unscrupulous nature of players. Leah Williams of Kotaku noted the game was a "bold experiment" with a sound concept, but "faded quickly" due to the newness of the internet, the lack of players and available features, and constant development changes. Describing the game as a "letdown", video game historian Phil Salvador assessed that whilst the concept "should have worked", the game's economic features were "a constant grind" with "non-existent" entertainment venues, but noted that "its communal work interactions anticipated the sort of social games that are popular today".

Legacy
Developers of The Sims Online retrospectively shared views that the game was a disappointment. Will Wright believes that the game's lack of success was due to the online subscription model not fitting with The Sims' core audience. He has observed that Online was "a very different game", and that many of the constraints of the game came from the limitations of creating a multiplayer online game. Executive producer Gordon Walton stated that the game was not shipped with the complete features envisioned by the development team due to time constraints, writing "not having a fully functioning economy and more fun activities ... made the game less appealing than we wanted". Although later added in EA-Land, The Sims developer Don Hopkins considered the initial lack of support for player-created content was also a major factor in the game's failure. Associate producer Jessica Lewis speculated the game's higher price and subscription fee at launch deterred some consumers, who could purchase expansion packs for The Sims for cheaper. The Sims 2, a single-player title and sequel to The Sims, was developed by Maxis and published by EA in 2004. Sims 2 producer Tim LeTourneau assessed that The Sims Online was "ahead of its time" even though it "never resonated as strongly as the regular Sims game did".

The Sims Online frequently arose in discussions about online integration in future Sims titles, with journalists noting the failure of the game suggested the unpopularity of the concept. The Sims Online was also noted to foreshadow later business practices by EA to increase online integration and monetization of the Sims franchise. In 2011, EA published the online game The Sims Social on Facebook, which featured similar social networking features on the platform. Following negative feedback to the online integration of the 2013 title SimCity, EA announced The Sims 4 would be "an offline, client-based game". In discussing the future direction of the Sims franchise in 2020, EA CEO Andrew Wilson noted The Sims Online had been influential in the studio's approach to considering how "social interactions and competitive elements" could be integrated into the gameplay experience for future Sims titles.

FreeSO
FreeSO, a free fan-made recreation of The Sims Online created by developer Rhys Simpson in C# and MonoGame, was launched in open beta on 6 January 2017. The game is a non-commercial, legal re-implementation of The Sims Online, acting as a client to read the game's original source code, and has been approved by EA. Simpson had developed the game from July 2016, seeking to "recapture the feeling" of The Sims Online. Initially featuring a shared area named Sunrise Creator that accommodated 200 users, demand for the beta was so high that the servers crashed under a load of 1,000 accounts.

title: The Sims Online


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Lockheed Model 9 Orion

The Lockheed Model 9 Orion is a single-engined passenger aircraft built in 1931 for commercial airlines. It was faster than any American military aircraft of that time. Designed by Richard A. von Hake, it was the last wood aircraft produced by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation.

Design
The Orion was the last design using many identical elements from the Lockheed designs preceding it. It primarily used all the elements of the Altair, but included a forward top cockpit similar to the Vega, plus the NACA cowling introduced in the Air Express. Lockheed used the same basic fuselage mold and wing for all these wooden designs (the Explorer wing was unique), hence the close similarities between them. The Orion featured an enclosed cabin with seating for six passengers. The Orion received its Approved Type Certificate on 6 May 1931.

Gerard F. Vultee was Lockheed's chief engineer in 1928 through 1931 and was involved in the designs of all the Lockheed variants of that time and specifically designed Charles Lindbergh's Sirius.

Operational history
Although designed with the passenger market in mind, its speed made it a natural for air races. The first Bendix race of 1931 had a showing of two Orions, three Altairs and one Vega in a race that had only nine aircraft competing. On 11 July 1935, Laura H. Ingalls flew a Lockheed Orion, powered by a Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine, from Floyd Bennett Field to Burbank, California, establishing an East-West record for women. Two months later she flew it back to set a West-East record.

The first Orion entered service with Bowen Air Lines at Fort Worth, Texas, in May 1931. Northwest Airways, later renamed to Northwest Airlines, operated the plane from 1933 to 1935. American Airways, itself also renamed to American Airlines in 1934, operated several 9D Orions. Many safe miles were flown in airline service and the headlines won by a few expert speed pilots proved the advanced design and reliability of the Orion. Those that went into airline use as a passenger transport had their lifespan limited, however. In 1934, the Civil Aeronautics Authority issued a ruling prohibiting further use of single-engined passenger aircraft from operating on all major networks. It also became mandatory to have a copilot and therefore a two-seat cockpit arrangement on all such flights. The requirements of the ruling brought an end to the "Orion" as a passenger-carrying airlines airplane. They were then used for cargo or mail carrying or sold for private use and charter. Because the aircraft had a complicated wood construction and needed to be sent back to Lockheed in Burbank California to be repaired, they were often disposed of after any type of significant accident. At least 12 of the used "Orions" were purchased for service in the Spanish Civil War and destroyed in use.

In 1935, a single Model 9 Orion was modified by Lockheed as a news camera plane for the Detroit News. To work in the role, a pod was built into the front leading edge of the right wing about eight feet out from the fuselage. This pod had a glass dome on the front and mounted a camera. To aim the camera the pilot was provided with a primitive grid similar to a gunsight on his windshield.

The Orion Explorer was a modified 9E. It had a damaged wing replaced with the wing of the Explorer 7 after a crash, and was fitted with a 600 hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp S3H1 engine. Fixed landing gear and later floats were also fitted. It was used by Wiley Post and Will Rogers for a round-the-world flight attempt, but both men died when the aircraft crashed in Alaska on 15 August 1935.

Variants

 * Orion 9: 14 built, 410 hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp A or 420 hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp C
 * Orion 9A Special: one aircraft with 450 hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp SC engine
 * Orion 9B: two aircraft supplied to Swissair, 575 hp Wright R-1820-E engine
 * Orion 9C: redesignated Altair DL-2A
 * Orion 9D: 13 built
 * Orion 9E: three aircraft with 450 hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp SC-1 engine
 * Orion 9F: one executive aircraft with a 645 hp Wright R-1820-F2 engine
 * Orion 9F-1: one executive aircraft with a 650 hp Wright R-1820-F2 engine
 * UC-85: one Orion 9D to USAAF in June 1942
 * Orion-Explorer: modified Orion 9E, 600 hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp S3H1 engine

Surviving aircraft

In all, Lockheed built a total of 35 Orions costing US$25000 each new (equivalent to US$ in ). It is not known if any survived past the 1940s except the one that survives to the present day. This lone remaining Orion was originally built as an experimental Altair with a metal fuselage. This Altair (built in 1931) was damaged in a belly landing accident in Columbus, Ohio, in 1933. It was returned to Lockheed where it was converted in 1934 to an Orion 9C configuration by the original designer of the Orion, Richard A. von Hake, and others who worked for free during a slow period when the Lockheed factory was going into bankruptcy.

It was sold to Shell Aviation Corp., painted yellow-orange and red and named "Shellightning." It was used by Shell's aviation manager, James H. Doolittle, on cross-county and exhibition flights. Jimmy Doolittle made hundreds of trips in this Lockheed, and the aircraft was very much in evidence at air shows, airport dedications, and business meetings across the territories of all three Shell companies in the United States.

In 1936, "Shellightning" was again involved in an accident, in St. Louis, and was stored there. Two years later, Paul Mantz caught the racing bug in addition to his aeronautical movie work. He bought the damaged "Shellightning" and had it rebuilt at Parks Air College in St. Louis, Missouri with a more powerful Wright Cyclone engine and some streamlining to add to its speed. It was repainted red with white trim and Mantz flew the plane in the Bendix Races in 1938 and 1939, coming in third both times. In 1943, he sold the plane and it went through a series of owners until Mantz bought it back in 1955. He retained ownership until selling it to TallMantz Aviation, Inc. in 1962.

In 1964, the plane was sitting out in the open on the flightline at Orange County Airport, now John Wayne Airport, in blue-and-white American Airways trim. Some time in the 1960s it was purchased by Swiss Air and rebuilt to flying status by the famous "Fokker" restoration team and is on display at the Swiss Transport Museum in Lucerne, Switzerland in the livery of the original Swiss Air Orion.

Operators

 * Lineas Aereas Occidentales
 * Lineas Aereas Occidentales

 * 🇨🇭 Switzerland
 * Swissair

 * 🇪🇸 Spain
 * Spanish Republican Air Force from LAPE, two from Swissair in 1935/1936.

 * Alaska Star Airlines
 * American Airways
 * Air Express
 * Bowen Air Lines
 * Detroit News
 * Hal Roach Studios
 * Northwest Airways
 * Paul Mantz
 * Transcontinental and Western Air/TWA
 * United States Army Air Forces
 * Shell Oil
 * Varney Speed Lines
 * Wyoming Air Service
 * Wyoming Air Service

title: Lockheed Model 9 Orion