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Horten Ho 229

The Horten H.IX, RLM designation Ho 229 (or Gotha Go 229 for extensive re-design work done by Gotha to prepare the aircraft for mass production) was a German prototype fighter/bomber designed by Reimar and Walter Horten to be built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik. Developed at a late stage of the Second World War, it was one of the first flying wing aircraft to be powered by jet engines.

The Ho 229 was designed in response to a call made in 1943 by Hermann Göring, the head of the Luftwaffe, for light bombers capable of meeting the "3×1000" requirement; namely, to carry 1000 kg of bombs a distance of 1000 km with a speed of 1000 km/h. Only jet propulsion could achieve the required speed, but such engines were very fuel-hungry, necessitating considerable effort across the rest of the design to meet the range requirement. The flying wing configuration was favoured by the Horten brothers due to its high aerodynamic efficiency, as demonstrated by their Horten H.IV glider. In order to minimise drag, the Ho 229 was not fitted with extraneous flight control surfaces. Its ceiling was 15000 m. The Ho 229 was the only design that came close to the requirements, and the Horten brothers quickly received an order for three prototypes after the project gained Göring's approval.

Due to the Horten brothers' lack of suitable production facilities, Ho 229 manufacturing was contracted out to Gothaer Waggonfabrik; however, the company allegedly undermined the project by seeking the favour of Luftwaffe officials for its own flying wing design. On 1 March 1944 the first prototype H.IX V1, an unpowered glider, made its maiden flight, followed by the H.IX V2, powered by Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet engines in December 1944. However, on 18 February 1945 the V2 was destroyed in a crash, killing its test pilot. Despite as many as 100 production aircraft being on order, none were completed. The nearly complete H.IX V3 prototype was captured by the American military and shipped to the United States under Operation Paperclip. It was evaluated by both British and American researchers before entering long term storage. The H.IX V3 is on static display in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Design and development

During the early 1930s the Horten brothers had become interested in the flying wing configuration as a method of improving the performance of gliders. At that time the German government was actively funding glider clubs as a response to the production of aircraft suitable for military roles being forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles. The flying wing layout theoretically offered the lowest possible weight, and without the added drag of the fuselage. Their first aircraft of this configuration was the Horten H.IV.

In 1943 Hermann Göring issued a request for design proposals for a bomber capable of carrying a 1000 kg load over 1000 km at 1000 km/h which was known as the "3×1000 project". German bombers could reach Allied targets across Great Britain, but were suffering devastating losses from Allied fighters. At the time, no conventional means for aircraft designers to meet these goals seemed viable because while the new Junkers Jumo 004B turbojets provided the speed, excessive fuel consumption limited range. The Horten brothers concluded that a low-drag flying wing design could meet the goals, as by reducing drag, cruise power could be reduced so the range requirement could then be met. They put forward their private project, the H.IX, as the basis for the bomber.

While removing the vertical stabilizer reduced drag, it caused yaw control problems. In traditional aircraft, a vertical stabilizer works passively to ensure that sideslip is minimized by producing a force perpendicular to itself when any sideslip occurs. The lack of a vertical stabilizer meant that flying without any active yaw control would lead to an uncontrolled sideslip, and potentially flat spins. This was resolved with split ailerons, which increase drag on one side. While designs without vertical stabilizers require more active control by the pilot or a future flight control systems and lead to bank angle restrictions, they do reduce aerodynamic drag slightly.

The Government Air Ministry (Reichsluftfahrtministerium) quickly approved Horten's proposal, but ordered the addition of two 30 mm cannons, as they felt the aircraft might also be useful as a fighter due to it being significantly faster than existing Allied aircraft. German officials assigned the designation Ho 229 to the aircraft. Göring was reportedly impressed with the design and personally intervened to ensure that three prototypes were ordered at a cost of 500,000 Reichsmarks. The Air Ministry issued an order for 100 production aircraft, but this was later reduced to 20. Furthermore, as the Horten brothers lacked production facilities, it was decided that the manufacturing would be done by an established company, Gothaer Waggonfabrik. This arrangement was complicated by Gothaer's alleged efforts to persuade the authorities to favour its own projects, which included flying wings, over the Ho 229.

Observing the Ho 229's design and development difficulties, Russell Lee, the chair of the Aeronautics Department at the National Air and Space Museum, speculated that an important motivation for the Horten brothers was to prevent them and their workers from being assigned dangerous roles by the German military. Looking beyond the Ho 229, the Horten brothers produced numerous flying wing designs, such as the Horten H.VII fighter-trainer and the Horten H.XVIII Amerikabomber. According to the aviation historian Jean-Denis G.G. LePage, other German wartime projects were inspired by the Horten brother's work.

The H.IX was of mixed construction and while the center section was made from welded steel tubing up to 160 mm in diameter, while the outer box wing spars were pine.

The outer wings were skinned with thin plywood panels that were glued together with a sawdust mixture and covered with fireproof paint. The wing had a single main spar, penetrated by the jet engine inlets, and a secondary spar used for mounting the elevons. It was designed with a 7g load factor and a 1.8× safety rating giving the aircraft a 12.6g ultimate load rating. The wing's chord/thickness ratio ranged from 15% at the root to 8% at the wingtips. There was little available interior space, making the addition of additional equipment or crew members difficult or impossible.

The aircraft was fitted with retractable tricycle landing gear, with the nose gear on the first two prototypes from a Heinkel He 177's tailwheel system, with the third prototype using an He 177A main gear wheel rim and tire on a newly designed nose gear leg. A drogue parachute slowed the aircraft upon landing. The pilot sat on a primitive ejection seat and a special pressure suit was developed by Dräger. While originally designed for the BMW 003 turbojet engine, this engine was not ready, and the Junkers Jumo 004 engine was substituted. Flight control was achieved via a combination of elevons and spoilers. This control system included both long-span (inboard) and short-span (outboard) spoilers, with the smaller outboard spoilers activated first; it reportedly provided a smoother control of yaw than would have been by a single-spoiler system.

Testing and evaluation

The first prototype H.IX V1, an unpowered glider with fixed tricycle landing gear, was first flown on 1 March 1944. Flight results were favorable, but there was an accident when the pilot attempted to land without first retracting a test instrument. Following the transference of design responsibility from the Horten brothers to Gothaer Waggonfabrik, the company's design team implemented several changes, including adding a simple ejection seat, substantially redesigned the undercarriage to enable a higher gross weight, changes to the engine intakes, and they added ducting to air-cool the jet engine's outer casing to prevent damage to adjacent wood.

The H.IX V1 was followed in December 1944 by the Junkers Jumo 004-powered second prototype H.IX V2. The BMW 003 engine was preferred but was not availabl. Göring believed in the design and ordered a production series of 40 aircraft from Gothaer Waggonfabrik with the RLM designation Ho 229, even though it had not yet taken to the air under jet power. On 2 February 1945, the first flight of the H.IX V2 was conducted at Oranienburg. The Horten brothers were unable to witness this flight as they were occupied with producing the design for a new turbojet-powered strategic bomber in response to the Amerikabomber competition. All of the subsequent test flights and development were conducted by Gothaer Waggonfabrik. The test pilot was Leutnant Erwin Ziller. Two further test flights were performed on 2 February 1945 and on 18 February 1945.

Two weeks later, on 18 February 1945, disaster struck during the third test flight. After about 45 minutes in the air, at an altitude of around 800 m, one of the engines caught fire and stopped. Ziller was seen to put the aircraft into a dive and pull up several times in an attempt to restart the engine. Ziller made a series of four complete turns at 20° angle of bank. He did not use his radio or eject, and may already have been unconscious from the fumes from the burning engine. It crashed just outside the airfield boundary and Ziller later died from his injuries while the aircraft was destroyed.

Despite this, the project continued. On 12 March 1945, nearly a week after the U.S. Army had launched Operation Lumberjack to cross the Rhine River, the Ho 229 was included in the Jäger-Notprogramm (Emergency Fighter Program) for the accelerated production of inexpensive "wonder weapons". The prototype workshop was moved to the Gothaer Waggonfabrik (Gotha) in Friedrichroda, western Thuringia. The same month, work was started on the third prototype, the Ho 229 V3.

The V3 was larger than previous prototypes, the shape being modified in various areas, and it was meant to be a template for the pre-production series Ho 229 A-0 day fighters, of which 20 had been ordered. The V3 was to be powered by two Jumo 004C engines, each with 10% greater thrust than the earlier Jumo 004B engine used for the Me 262A and Ar 234B, and had two MK 108 30 mm cannons in the wing roots. Work had also started on the two-seat V4 and night-fighter V5 prototypes, the V6 armament test prototype, and the V7 two-seat trainer.

In April 1945, George Patton’s Third Army found four Horten prototypes, the Ho 229s and a Horten glider. Of three Ho 229s, the V3 was nearest to completion, and was shipped to the United States for evaluation. The Ho 229 spent a brief time at RAE Farnborough in the UK and during this time installing British jet engines was considered, but the mountings were incompatible with the larger diameter British turbojets. It is uncertain if the aircraft's original Junkers engines were ever run, although the American evaluation team at one point intended to fly it.

Surviving aircraft
The only surviving Ho 229 airframe, the V3—and the only surviving Second World War-era German jet prototype still in existence—is on display in the main hall of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) alongside other WWII-era German aircraft. It is displayed partially restored, the wings of the aircraft displayed separately from the center section.

Prior to being placed on display in 2017, it was stored at the NASM's Paul E. Garber Restoration Facility in Suitland, Maryland, U.S. In December 2011, the National Air and Space Museum moved the Ho 229 into the active restoration area of the Garber Restoration Facility, where it was reviewed for full restoration and display.

The central section of the V3 prototype was moved to the NASM's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in late 2012 to commence a detailed examination of it before starting any serious conservation/restoration efforts and was cleared for the move to the Udvar-Hazy facility's restoration shops by summer 2014. Following work performed within the Udvar-Hazy facility's Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar, it was put on display.

Radar absorbent material

In 1983, after hearing details of the US stealth system, Reimar Horten advanced a claim that he had intended to add charcoal dust to the wood glue to absorb electromagnetic waves (radar), to shield the aircraft from the British early-warning ground-based radar system known as Chain Home. This charcoal glue treatment was supposedly planned for the unbuilt production aircraft however, the V3 prototype did not make use of charcoal, and no documentation has been found supporting the claim.

Northrop Grumman engineers conducted electromagnetic tests on the V3's multilayer wood nose cone in 2008. They tested across a frequency range of 12 to 117 THz, with a 10 micron wavelength. The cone was 19 mm thick and made from thin sheets of veneer. The team observed that the "Ho 229 leading edge has the same characteristics as the plywood [of the control sample] except that the frequencies have a slightly shorter bandwidth," which they go on to conclude was likely due to oxidization of the wood. The team, who assumed the presence of carbon black from visual inspection alone, concluded that the "similarity of the two tests indicates that the design using the carbon black type material produced a poor absorber." The Smithsonian Institution then performed a study of the materials used on the prototype, and determined that there is "no evidence of carbon black or charcoal", refuting the hypothesis.

Radar cross section and shape

A jet-powered flying wing such as the Horten Ho 229 might have a smaller radar cross-section (RCS) than conventional contemporary twin-engine aircraft because the wings are blended into the fuselage and there are no large propeller disks or vertical and horizontal tail surfaces to provide a typical identifiable radar signature, however the front and rear faces of the exposed jet engines do provide a similar degree of reflectivity to propellers.

In early 2008, Northrop Grumman paired television documentary producer Michael Jorgensen and the National Geographic Channel to make a documentary to determine whether the Ho 229 was the first "stealth" aircraft. Northrop Grumman built a full-size non-flying reproduction of the V3, primarily made of wood, unlike the original aircraft, which had an extensive steel space-frame to which the wooden skin was bolted. After an expenditure of about US$250,000 and 2,500 man-hours, Northrop's Ho 229 reproduction was tested at the company's Radar Cross Section test range at Tejon, California, US where it was placed on a 15 m pole and exposed to electromagnetic energy sources from various angles from 100 m, using three HF/VHF frequencies in the 20–50 MHz range.

Radar simulations showed a hypothetical Ho 229, with the radar characteristics of the mockup, which had neither metal frame nor the highly reflective engines, approaching the English coast from France flying at 885 km/h at 15 – above the water would still have been visible to an old and by then already retired model of the Chain Home radar at a distance of 80% that of a Bf 109.

Variants

 * H.IX V1
 * First prototype, an unpowered glider, one built and flown (three-view drawing below).

 * H.IX V2
 * First powered prototype, one built and flown with twin Junkers Jumo 004B engines.

Gotha developments:
 * Ho 229 V3
 * Revised air intakes, engines moved forward to correct longitudinal imbalance. Its nearly completed airframe was captured in production, with two Junkers Jumo 004B jet engines installed in the airframe.

 * Ho 229 V4
 * Planned two-seat all-weather fighter, in construction at Friedrichroda, but not much more than the center-section's tubular framework completed.

 * Ho 229 V5
 * Planned two-seat all-weather fighter, in construction at Friedrichroda, but not much more than the center-section's tubular framework completed.

 * Ho 229 V6
 * Projected definitive single-seat fighter version with different cannon, one captured in production at Ilmenau by US troops.

Horten developments:
 * H.IXb (also designated V6 and V7 by the Hortens)
 * Projected two-seat trainer or night-fighter; not built.

 * Ho 229 A-0
 * Projected expedited production version based on Ho 229 V6; not built.

title: Horten Ho 229


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Merrimack River

The Merrimack River (or Merrimac River, an occasional earlier spelling ) is a 117 mi river in the northeastern United States. It rises at the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers in Franklin, New Hampshire, flows southward into Massachusetts, and then flows northeast until it empties into the Gulf of Maine at Newburyport. From Pawtucket Falls in Lowell, Massachusetts, onward, the Massachusetts–New Hampshire border is roughly calculated as the line three miles north of the river.

The Merrimack is an important regional focus in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The central-southern part of New Hampshire and most of northeast Massachusetts is known as the Merrimack Valley.

Several U.S. naval ships have been named USS Merrimack and USS Merrimac in honor of this river. The river is also known for the early American literary classic A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers by Henry David Thoreau.

Etymology and spelling

The etymology of the name of the Merrimack River—from which all subsequent uses derive, such as the name of the Civil War ironclad—remains uncertain.

There is some evidence that it is Native American. In 1604 the natives of later New England told Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts, who was leading a colony of French language speakers to Acadia (later Nova Scotia), of a beautiful river to the south. The French promptly pronounced its native name as Merremack. In 1605 Samuel de Champlain followed this lead, found the river and renamed it Riviere du Gas.

The French and their name did not remain on the Merrimack. The natives dwelling along the river at the time of European exploration included the Agawam and Naumkeag on the lower reaches, the Pawtucket at Lowell, Massachusetts, the Nashua, Souhegan and Namoskeag around Manchester, New Hampshire, the Pennacook northward from Bow, New Hampshire, and the Winnepisseogee at the source, Lake Winnipesaukee.

According to Joseph B. Walker, relying on Chandler Eastman Potter's The History of Manchester (1856), Merremack contains the elements merruh ("strong") and auke ("place"—a recognizable locative ending), and means "the place of strong current,- a term not inappropriate, when we consider ... the river's rapids ...." Potter was an authority on Native American affairs in colonial New England. By contrast, in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Henry David Thoreau implies that "its name signifies the Sturgeon River."

Walker goes on to cite spellings of "Merimacke", "Merimack" and "Merrimacke" in "the colonial records of Massachusetts", as well as the "Merrimake" and "Merrymake" of a 1721 land grant at Penacook, New Hampshire. William Wood's New England's Prospect of 1634 calls the river the "Merrimacke" and locates it eight miles beyond Agowamme (Ipswich, Massachusetts). It hosts, he says, "Sturgeon, Sammon and Basse, and divers other kinds of fish."

Merrimac, Massachusetts, settled in 1638 and originally part of Amesbury, Massachusetts, was called West Amesbury until 1876, at which time it adopted its current name and spelling. Merrimack, New Hampshire, was incorporated in 1746, spelling its name "Marrymac" in the record of its first town meeting. It was referred to as "Merrimac" into the early 19th century: in the 1810 decennial census, it was spelled "Merrimac", but in the 1820 census and afterward, "Merrimack".

In 1914, US Congressman John Jacob Rogers (MA) petitioned that the official spelling be "Merrimack".

History
Prior to glaciation, the Merrimack continued its southward course far beyond the present day New Hampshire-Massachusetts border to enter the Gulf of Maine near Boston. Upon the glacier's retreat, debris deposited north of Boston filled the lower Merrimack Valley, redirecting the river into its current northeast bend at Lowell. The Neville archaeological site is located along the river's banks in New Hampshire.

On the Merrimack River's banks are a number of cities built to take advantage of water power in the 19th century, when textile mills dominated the New England economy: Concord, Manchester, and Nashua in New Hampshire, and Lowell, Lawrence, and Haverhill in Massachusetts. At the mouth of the river is the small city of Newburyport. Prior to the construction of the Middlesex Canal, Newburyport was an important shipbuilding city, in a location to receive New Hampshire timber that had been floated downriver.

Geography
The Merrimack River watershed covers 5010 sqmi in southern New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts. It is the fourth largest river basin in New England.

The river begins in the city of Franklin, New Hampshire, at the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers. From there, the river flows south through Concord, Manchester, and Nashua, entering Massachusetts at the town of Tyngsborough, where it turns northeast and winds past or through Chelmsford, Lowell, Dracut, Tewksbury, Andover, Methuen, Lawrence, North Andover, Haverhill, Groveland, West Newbury, Merrimac, and Amesbury, to its mouth at the Gulf of Maine between the city of Newburyport and the town of Salisbury.

Major sub-basins
In addition to the Merrimack River mainstem, there are dozens of sub-basins in New Hampshire and Massachusetts making up the watershed. The U.S. Geological Survey categorizes them into six fourth-level sub-basins using hydrological codes with the prefix 0107.

 * New Hampshire
 * Pemigewasset River (HUC 01070001)
 * Winnipesaukee River (HUC 01070002)
 * Contoocook River (HUC 01070003)

 * New Hampshire and Massachusetts
 * Nashua River (HUC 01070004)
 * Merrimack River (HUC 01070006; smaller tributaries)

 * Massachusetts
 * Sudbury/Assabet/Concord rivers (sometimes referred to simply as the Concord Sub-basin or the "SuAsCo" sub-basin) (HUC 01070005)

Other major rivers
The following are some of the other significant rivers found within the six major sub-basins in the watershed, listed moving downstream along the Merrimack:

 * Soucook River
 * Suncook River
 * Piscataquog River (not to be confused with the Piscataqua River, part of the Piscataqua-Salmon Falls watershed)
 * Cohas Brook
 * Souhegan River
 * Salmon Brook
 * Stony Brook
 * Beaver Brook
 * Spicket River
 * Shawsheen River
 * Little River
 * Powwow River

History of pollution
Since 1951, the Merrimack River has seen many alterations and pollutants. It was dammed and canalled, as well as used as a dumping spot for industrial waste. The Merrimack was essential for textile mill complexes, which used the river for discharge from their factories. Citizens recall that the river had unusual colors, smells, and vegetation as a result of the pollution from textile mills and other human-related waste. In the 1960s, the Merrimack River was one of the ten most polluted waterways in the United States due to years of unmediated dumping of raw sewage, paper and textile mill discharge, and tannery sludge. Phthalates, a group of chemicals used in the manufacture of plastics and detrimental to human bodily systems, were identified in high concentrations within the river in 1973. A 1976 study of the chemical dynamics of the Merrimack River found that at that time, the biggest pollution source was road salt. Although the river underwent significant restoration efforts from the 1970s onwards, a 1997 study found that the river continued to suffer from the long-term effects of pollution. The study identified that the river had elevated bacteria counts, low dissolved oxygen, and high nutrient levels. A few years later, a 2002 statewide water assessment stated that elevated counts of E. coli and fecal coliform contributed to the river's largest cause of water quality violations. By the 2000s, the largest pollution concern was combined sewer overflow. Wildlife has been impacted through the contamination of shellfishing beds as well as habitat contamination, and aquatic life has been affected due to excess lead, zinc, and other metals in the river. In addition, human recreational activities such as swimming and boating have been restricted in certain areas of the river due to high contamination levels.

Restoration efforts
The Federal Clean Water Act of 1972 led to significant improvement for the Merrimack River. The law required sewage to be treated before being discharged into waterways. Federal funding allowed officials to create the river's infrastructure, specifically funding for wastewater treatment plants (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 2006). Following these changes in the river's infrastructure, there was a noticeable change in wildlife and aquatic life. Birds, fish, and other animals returned to inhabit the river, with citizens noting specifically seeing much more American shad, striped bass, trout, and Atlantic salmon. The involvement of local volunteers in monitoring and maintaining the river has provided effective restoration efforts over the years.

Current concerns
The Merrimack River remains one of the most endangered rivers in the United States, as named by the American Rivers nonprofit in 2016. Current concerns include stormwater runoff, urban stormwater, high levels of bacteria, combined sewage runoff, phosphorus creating harmful algal blooms, reduced oxygen levels, illicit sewage discharges, and litter. Combined sewer overflows (CSO) are the largest contributors to waste discharge into the Merrimack River. Currently, there are six sanitary sewer systems from which untreated sewage flows directly into the Merrimack River due to infrastructure issues within the sewage system. Recent research has identified mercury contamination as a significant threat to fish and aquatic life in the Merrimack River. This research analyzes how biological mercury hotspots and watershed transport of mercury might contribute to the exposure of aquatic life to chemical pollution within the Merrimack River. Additionally, the use of road salt in the winter has remained a major pollutant since the 1970s, and chloride contamination in the Merrimack River continues to impact aquatic life.

United States politicians from New Hampshire and Massachusetts are calling for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reassess a permit allowing landfill water to be dumped into the Merrimack River. Politicians are also seeking increased federal funding to update water infrastructure for the Merrimack River, as the river's current sewer infrastructure has resulted in the dumping of over 100,000 gallons of untreated water into the river.

Navigation
The Merrimack is listed as one of the Navigable Waters of the United States, subject to Section 10, Rivers and Harbors Act Jurisdiction.

May 2006 flooding
While the Merrimack River is prone to minor flooding, on May 15, 2006, rainfall raised the river more than 8 ft above flood stage, forcing evacuations, damaging property, and breaking the main sewage pipeline in the city of Haverhill, Massachusetts, dumping 35E6 gal of raw sewage waste into the river per day. Reports of total rainfall vary, but most areas appear to have received around a foot of rain with some areas receiving as much as 17 in.

According to The Boston Globe, around 1,500 people evacuated their homes to escape the flood.

This flood also prompted the Massachusetts city of Lowell to install a modern (albeit temporary) flood control gate comprising square steel beams at the site of the historic Francis Gate, a 19th and 20th-century wooden flood gate. When lowered, the Francis gate seals the city's canal system off from its source on the Merrimack. The Great Gate, as it is also called, was built in 1850 under the direction of James B. Francis. Considered unnecessary when it was first constructed, "Francis' Folly" first saved the city in 1852 and subsequently in 1936.

Other flooding events
The most significant flood in the recorded history of the Merrimack was in March 1936, when a double flood of rain and melting snow and ice swelled the Merrimack at Lowell to 68.4 ft, 10 ft higher than the 2006 flood. Part of the Jack Kerouac book Doctor Sax is set during this event.

In addition to the 1936 flood, the 1852 flood, and the Mother's Day Flood of 2006, the New England Hurricane of 1938 and floods in October 1996 and April 2007 round out the river's most serious flood events, measured at Lowell. The Francis Gate had been left in place after being dropped in 1936, so it prevented flooding in 1938 as well. In 2007, the steel beam system was again assembled in place.

In media
The song "Merrimack River" and its instrumental reprise are featured on the 2009 album Amanda Leigh by Nashua, New Hampshire, native Mandy Moore.

Anya Seton's historical novel Avalon includes a section depicting the fictional Pre-Columbian arrival of 9th century Irish and English travelers at the Merrimack River and their interactions with local Native Americans.

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

title: Merrimack River


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Amin Maalouf

Amin Maalouf (أمين معلوف ; born 25 February 1949) is a Lebanese-born French author who has lived in France since 1976. Although his native language is Arabic, he writes in French, and his works have been translated into over 40 languages.

Of his several works of nonfiction, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes is probably the best known. He received the Prix Goncourt in 1993 for his novel The Rock of Tanios, as well as the 2010 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He is a member of the Académie française and was elected its Perpetual Secretary on 28 September 2023.

Background
Maalouf was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and grew up in the Badaro cosmopolitan neighbourhood, the second of four children. His parents had different cultural backgrounds. His father was a Greek of the Melkite Catholic community of the village of Machrah, near Baskinta in Ain el Qabou. His mother, Odette Ghossein, is Lebanese from the Metn Village of Ain el Kabou, and of Turkish descent. She was born in Egypt and lived there for many years before coming back to Lebanon; she lived in France until her passing in 2021 at the age of 100 years.

Maalouf's mother was a staunch Maronite Catholic who insisted on sending him to Collège Notre Dame de Jamhour, a French Jesuit school. He studied sociology at the Francophone Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut.

He is the uncle of trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf.

Career
Maalouf worked as the director of An-Nahar, a Beirut-based daily newspaper, until the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, when he moved to Paris, which became his permanent home. Maalouf's first book, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (1983), examines the period based on contemporaneous Arabic sources.

Along with his nonfiction work, he has written four texts for musical compositions and numerous novels.

His book Un fauteuil sur la Seine briefly recounts the lives of those who preceded him in seat #29 as a member of the Académie française.

Awards
Maalouf has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), the American University of Beirut (Lebanon), the Rovira i Virgili University (Spain), the University of Évora (Portugal), and the University of Ottawa (Canada).

In 1993, Maalouf was awarded the Prix Goncourt for his novel The Rock of Tanios (French: Le rocher de Tanios), set in 19th-century Lebanon. In 2004, the original, French edition of his Origins: A Memoir (Origines, 2004) won the Prix Méditerranée.

In 2010 he received the Spanish Prince of Asturias Award for Literature for his work, an intense mix of suggestive language, historic affairs in a Mediterranean mosaic of languages, cultures and religions and stories of tolerance and reconciliation. He was elected a member of the Académie française on 23 June 2011 to fill seat 29, left vacant by the death of anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. Maalouf is the first person of Lebanese heritage to receive that honour.

In 2016, he won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for "Cultural Personality of the Year", the premier category with a prize of 1 million dirhams (approx. US$272,000). In the same year, the University of Venice Ca' Foscari awarded him the Bauer-Incroci di civiltà prize for fostering cultural dialogue between civilizations.

In 2020, he was awarded the National Order of Merit by the French government. He was given the honour by President Emmanuel Macron.

In 2021, Maalouf was elected a Royal Society of Literature International Writer.

Fiction
Maalouf's novels are marked by his experiences of civil war and migration. Their characters are itinerant voyagers between lands, languages, and religions and he prefers to write about "our past".

Librettos
All Maalouf's librettos have been written for the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.
 * 2000. L'Amour de loin ('Love from Afar'), opera
 * 2003. Adriana Mater, opera
 * 2006. La Passion de Simone, oratorio
 * 2010. Émilie, monodrama

title: Amin Maalouf


text:
Vennesla

Vennesla is a municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Sørlandet. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Vennesla. Other villages in Vennesla include Grovane, Hægeland, Homstean, Mushom, Øvre Eikeland, Øvrebø, Røyknes, and Skarpengland. Vennesla lies about 17 km north of the city of Kristiansand in the Otra river valley.

The 384 km2 municipality is the 242nd largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Vennesla is the 79th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 15,294. The municipality's population density is 42.2 PD/km2 and its population has increased by 11.2% over the previous 10-year period.

General information
The parish of Vennesla was established as a municipality in 1864 when it was separated from the larger municipality of Øvrebø. Initially, Vennesla had 1,103 residents. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, Vennesla (population: 7,321) was merged with most of the neighboring municipality of Øvrebø (population: 925) and with all of another neighboring municipality, Hægeland (population: 849) which created a new, much larger municipality of Vennesla. On 1 January 1978, a small area of Vennesla (population: 10) was transferred to neighboring Songdalen municipality. Then again on 1 January 1984, the unpopulated Hauglandsvatnet area was transferred from Vennesla to Songdalen municipality. On 1 January 1990, the unpopulated Røssebrekka area, just east of the village of Vennesla was transferred from Kristiansand municipality to Vennesla.

Name
The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old Vennesla farm (Vendilslá) since the first Vennesla Church was built there. The first element is vendil which comes from the word which means "small twig". This may have been an old name for an arm of Venneslafjorden. The last element is which means "swamp" or "shallow water".

Coat of arms
The coat of arms was adopted on 15 May 1971. The blazon is "Gules, three barrulets wavy in bend sinister with six tree trunks with branches issuant in chief and two cogwheels in sinister base Or". This means the arms have a red field (background) and the charge is three wavy lines diagonally crossing the arms with six trees above the lines and two cogwheels below. The charge has a tincture of Or which means it is commonly colored yellow, but if it is made out of metal, then gold is used. The three wavy lines symbolises the river Otra, which runs through the municipality. The six trees symbolize the importance of forestry to the local economy. The cogwheels symbolize the local industry. There is a three-pointed mural crown on top of the arms which represent the three municipalities that were merged in 1964 to form the present municipality: Vennesla, Øvrebø, and Hægeland. The arms were designed by Alv Erikstad. The municipal flag has the same design as the coat of arms.

Churches
The Church of Norway has three parishes (sokn) within the municipality of Vennesla. It is part of the Otredal deanery in the Diocese of Agder og Telemark.

Government
Vennesla Municipality is responsible for primary education (through 10th grade), outpatient health services, senior citizen services, welfare and other social services, zoning, economic development, and municipal roads and utilities. The municipality is governed by a municipal council of directly elected representatives. The mayor is indirectly elected by a vote of the municipal council. The municipality is under the jurisdiction of the Agder District Court and the Agder Court of Appeal.

Municipal council
The municipal council (Kommunestyre) of Vennesla is made up of 27 representatives that are elected to four year terms. The tables below show the current and historical composition of the council by political party.

Mayors
The mayors (ordfører) of Vennesla:

 * 1864–1866: Nils Robstad
 * 1867–1868: Even S. Drivenes
 * 1869–1876: T.A. Vennesland
 * 1877–1880: Nils Robstad (V)
 * 1881–1884: Endre Moseid (V)
 * 1885–1890: Nils Robstad (V)
 * 1891–1898: Endre Moseid (MV)
 * 1899–1902: Salve N. Robstad (V)
 * 1903–1905: Endre Moseid (V)
 * 1906–1908: Olaf Vennesland 	(V)
 * 1909–1911: Askild Røskeland (V)
 * 1912–1914: Olaf Vennesland (V)
 * 1915–1920: A.T. Askedal (Ap)
 * 1921–1923: Gabriel Moseid (Bp)
 * 1924–1929: Anders S. Robstad (Ap)
 * 1930–1941: Jørgen A. Robstad (Ap)
 * 1945-1945: Jørgen A. Robstad (Ap)
 * 1946–1954: Ole Jørgensen (Ap)
 * 1954–1957: Sverre Vennesland (Ap)
 * 1958–1959: Otto Heiseldal (Ap)
 * 1960–1973: Engly Lie (Ap)
 * 1974–1975: Tore Robstad (Ap)
 * 1976–1983: Ragnar Krogstad (KrF)
 * 1984–1989: Tore Robstad (Ap)
 * 1990–1999: John Edvard Olsen (KrF)
 * 1999–2017: Torhild Bransdal (KrF)
 * 2017–2023: Nils Olav Larsen (KrF)
 * 2023–present: Eivind Drivenes (Sp)

Geography
Vennesla municipality is situated in Agder county, Norway, about 17 km north of the city of Kristiansand. The neighboring municipalities are Evje og Hornnes (to the north), Birkenes and Iveland (to the east), and Kristiansand (to the south and west), and Lindesnes (to the west).

The river Otra runs through the municipality from north to south. Both of the lakes Kilefjorden and Venneslafjorden are located along the river. The river Songdalselva runs through the western part of the municipality.

Economy
Vennesla (mostly the village of Vennesla) has a small industrial base, primarily with Hunsfos Fabrikker AS, a paper mill, as the cornerstone of the community. During recent decades, however, the number of employees has drastically declined from around 1,200 in the 1970s, to 200 in 2005 and 120 in 2007. In 2010 there was only 135 employees at the paper mill. In 2011, Hunsfos Fabrikker AS celebrated 125 years as a paper mill but later the same year finally ceased production and was declared bankrupt.

During Q4 2022, "one hundred plus" workers at Huntonit, a cornerstone of the community, were scheduled for a temporary Layoff (from work); that's a large part of the company's work force; there is no fixed schedule for returning to work.

Media
The newspaper Vennesla Tidende has been published in Vennesla since 1989.

Vikeland Hovedgård
Vikeland Hovedgård is a manor house located along the Otra River in the village of Vennesla. Vigeland Manor was completed in 1847. The building was constructed of wood in both Empire and Swiss style. It was built as part of Vigeland Brug, then one of the largest sawmills in the area. Vigeland Manor was built by Caspar Wild who bought the farm and adjacent sawmill in 1833. In 1894, the farm was sold to John Clarke Hawkshaw whose family retained the manor until around 1960. The current annex was built around 1900. During the 1980s, there was restoration with the main building subsequently used as lodging, corporate, and meeting facilities.

The manor house has been said to be haunted by a ghost known as "the Blue Lady" (den Blå Dama). Mari was a farm worker who fell in love with the owner's son. They were not allowed to marry, so it is said Mari committed suicide in the "blue room", hence the title "the Blue Lady".

Vennesla Church
Vennesla Church (Vennesla Kirke) serves Vennesla parish in Otredal deanery (Otredal prosti). The church was completed in 1829 and consecrated the following year. The church was built of stone and brick, while the west tower with side buildings are wooden. The church replaced a church from the first half of the 1600s. The tower was made higher in 1886, and the interior was restored in 1925.

Vindbjart Football Club
The football club of Vennesla is Vindbjart FK, founded in 1896. Vindbjart is currently playing in the Norwegian Second Division and the stadium is Moseidmoen gress in the village of Vennesla.

Notable people

 * Gabriel Moseid (1882 in Vennesla – 1961), a politician who was Mayor of Vennesla in 1922
 * Ole Jørgensen (1897–1966), a politician and Mayor of Vennesla during the 1940s & 1950s
 * Sigurd Aalefjær (1917–1991), an engineer and director of hydropower plants who grew up in Vennesla
 * Engly Lie (1919 in Vennesla – 2001), a carpenter and politician who was Mayor of Vennesla in 1959
 * Børre Knudsen (1937 in Vennesla – 2014), a Lutheran priest and anti-abortion activist
 * Kristen Gislefoss (born 1954 in Vennesla), a meteorologist, prime time weather presenter for NRK
 * Kjetil Nordhus (born 1975 in Vennesla), a singer, composer, and music producer
 * Jorun Stiansen (born 1984), a pop singer and artist who grew up in Vennesla
 * Maria Arredondo (born 1985 in Vennesla), a pop singer

Twin towns – sister cities
Vennesla is twinned with:
 * 🇸🇪 Katrineholm, Sweden
 * Odder, Denmark
 * 🇫🇮 Salo, Finland

title: Vennesla


text:
Talk:Merrimack River

Use of term by Thoreau
Confusingly, the Thoreau article mentions "A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers" (not Merrimack).

What is correct?

S. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.168.172.214 (talk) 14:23, 30 January 2003 (UTC)

 * The spelling has changed over time, as spelling tends to do. Merrimack is modern, Merrimac was more common in Thoreau's day.  The questions is whether to update the spelling in the title of the book, so as not to confuse readers with a peripheral issue, or to explain the difference. I guess the latter.

 * David — Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidWBrooks (talk • contribs) 14:38, 30 January 2003 (UTC)

 * People are already confused -there are thousands of sites listed on Google with each spelling. It appears that the correct spelling for this river is Merrimack while the one in Missouri is Meramec but the USGS name server is down at the moment. --rmhermen — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmhermen (talk • contribs) 14:55, 30 January 2003 (UTC)

What does Old Celtic language mean?
What does "old Celtic language" mean? Is this some sort of proto-Celtic language that has only been posited, or does it mean old Welsh, old Scots, old Gaelic, what? 172.175.127.8 06:05, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * "Old Celtic language" refers to old Scots, I believe. As for the spelling of the Merrimack River, the difference should be explained better. There is no difference between the Merrimac and Merrimack Rivers; they are one and the same. The town of Merrimac, Massachusetts is named after the river, as is the town of Merrimack, New Hampshire, near to where its source is located. Much of the confusion probably arises from the fact that Merrimack, New Hampshire is much larger and more industrial, and is also closer to the river's source. Thus, people began to adopt the name "Merrimack," even if the original spelling was "Merrimac."

 * Old maps and literature list the river as the "Merrimac River." Currently, highway signs and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts refer to it as the "Merrimack River." Both spellings are accepted and appropriate. I would tend to lean towards the original spelling, however.

 * -AaronS — Preceding unsigned comment added by AaronS (talk • contribs) 06:24, 23 December 2004 (UTC)

Tweaked spelling explanations
I've tweaked the different-spelling explanation yet again, hopefully to remove confusion (note that I returned Thoreau's book title to its original spelling; hopefully the note near the beginning will remove confusion). I also put in the Indian naming etymology, as referenced by the Merrimack River Watershed Authority, and removed that Celtic reference, since I know of no historical connection between old Celtic terminology and New English river naming (unless you're one of those America's Stonehenge true believers!) - DavidWBrooks 13:39, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * I fixed the wording of the explanation of the alternate spelling. It should be noted that "Merrimac River" or "Merrimac Valley" are still used today by some people and businesses, so it is not something that is only reserved to centuries ago.

 * As for the Celtic reference, it comes from a Graham Maasterton novel, where the author refers to an abyss as a "merrimack." Interestingly enough, there is a Parisian black metal band named Merrimack, which took the name for this reason.

 * -AaronS (Dec 23 @ 9:03 PM EST)

 * Does he connect the word to the river? It may just be a coincidence. - User:DavidWBrooks, 01:03, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

GA Passed
Congratulations! Your article is a great start on this waterway. As you think about improving it, please add a few more inline references to support the facts. Also, check out Ohio River, Mississippi River and others for ideas on expanding the article. --CTS Wyneken (talk) 21:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

a Good Article Review has been initiated
This article has been brought up for delisting at Good Article Review because it does not meet the following criteria at WP:WIAGA: As someone born in Nashua and raised in Hudson NH, I wish this article was better. I may improve it myself in the future, but I must admit, this is well below GA level. --Jayron32| talk | contribs 06:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Criteria 2: Insufficient referencing. This article makes many claims, which are not linked directly to the source of those claims via inline citations.  There are very few references at ALL.
 * Criteria 3: Insufficiently broad. Many aspects of the Merrimack River are missing, such as history as an industrial center, ecology, tributaries.  It needs some expanding before it achieves this aspect of GA.

GA Delisted
A strong consensus of editors has proposed that this article be delisted from the Good Article list, as it does not meet the good article criteria at this time. For an archived discussion that arrived at this decision, see: Good article review/Archive 17. If this article CAN be brought up to standard, please feel free to renominate it in the future. Good luck and happy editing! --Jayron32| talk | contribs 18:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Hoaky etymology
I'm sorry, I know this is going to get some people excited. I'm moving this out prior to replacing it with one that cites sources:
 * "The name Merrimack is believed to have been adopted by early European settlers from Merruasquamack, a name meaning "swift water place" that given by Native American tribes for the portion of the river between Manchester, New Hampshire and Lowell, Massachusetts. A number of tribes occupied the watershed and gave the river several different names.

 * The original Euro-American spelling of the river's name was Merrimac, but the river is now named Merrimack. Both variants were used in early days and can continue to be seen in the present day in the names of two New England towns."

The problem is, I can't find out who on earth believes what is affirmed to be believed. I did a search on that weird name and all I can find on it is a series of copied web sites, which all use the same name and all use the same words with minor variations. This is a copyright violation of some sort on their part. Here it is uncited. Frankly it looks like original research by some eager beaver anxious to add his interpretation of a possible Indian name to the pile. Since Algonquian is imperfectly known and that name is imperfectly known it is not possible to say with certainty what it means or what its original form was in English phonetic spelling. If there is an author of that name or if anyone knows the author of that name theory let him speak up. Otherwise I must take it as original research slipped in there casually without references. As for the Euro-American, what kind of hoaky term is that? It is part of the copyright violation. And those assertions of the original spelling totally contradict the sources I can find. And as for the modern names reflecting the ancient usages, well, no evidence. Pure guess work. I'll be replacing this with new paragraphs today.Dave 12:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

 * FYI - those "copied" pages are wikipedia scrapes, which are perfectly fine because of the open-source license. But they do cause a problem, as you have found: Online searches are sometimes swamped by wikipedia copies, so that incorrect information in an article begins to look legitimate because it is repeated. - DavidWBrooks 13:56, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

'06 Flood
Considering the flood of '07 and especially those of '36, '38, and 1852, don't we spend too much time on this one event that just happened to be a big deal to us at the time? I think we need to say a lot less about this one flood, and a little more about historic flooding and what has been done to the river to control it. Thoughts and/or volunteers? Thanks, CSZero (talk) 17:31, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup/Expansion
There were conversations on the Merrimack Valley (Massachusetts) and Merrimack Valley (New Hampshire) articles about merging the two. Since they are recognized regions of their respective states, I figured the merge was incorrect, but what may be correct is to put the common history here - hence, tagging the History section for expansion. There is a lot more that can be said about the history of the river and life along it. Entire books have been written about the precontact/contact period alone. As for the cleanup tag, the part that needs to be cleaned up is the flooding section. As I mentioned above, the section is way too focused on one particular flood event. I think the tags were therefore warranted. Are you contesting any of this? CSZero (talk) 23:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

 * No, I was requesting detail. Those tags mean nothing without detail (such as you have just given) about what the editor thinks needs to be "expanded" or "cleaned up" (especially the last one, which is is so vague as to be meaningless).
 * I'm a little confused about the flooding comments - the section head says "May 2006 Flooding" so what's the problem with it being "way too focused on one particular flood event"? Do you mean it should be generalized to talking about all floods that have occurred, or something else? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 00:35, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I think given the fact that there were far more significant floods in the 1930s, and other moderate floods over the last 150 years, that singling out "2006 flooding" because it happened to be a flood that happened while Wikipedia was being worked on makes it come across as overly-significant - reminds me of a debate on the big fire in Lawrence a year or so ago.  So yes, I'd say the section should be generalized. CSZero (talk) 01:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't have much to add, except that I agree, the most recent floodings pale in comparison to previous decades, they are just much more vivid in our memories and shouldn't be given undue prominence. EraserGirl (talk) 02:24, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: Make Merrimack Valley a disambiguation page
Please look at the Merrimack Valley article. This article does not seem well named. In Massachusetts we use this specific term in one way, in New Hampshire we use it another way, and people familiar with geography and topography use it another way! Given the variety of ways in which this term is used, perhaps Merrimack Valley shouldn't be a regular article, but rather should be a disambiguation page.

Please see the discussion at Talk:Merrimack_Valley. RK (talk) 17:49, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Caption of photo
I've never used a talk page before, but there is something in this article which i must address. There is a photo, "View from River Street in Haverhill, Massachusetts." This photo was taken near where the Friend's Landing gay club used to be, which is across from Central Plaza, which is on Water Street, NOT River Street. I have changed this a few times in the last year or so, and it keeps changing back to River Street. Please note this picture is of Water Street.

Thank you, Haverhill Resident. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.74.8.247 (talk) 14:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Drainage area of Merrimack River and tributaries?
Can someone please add this data? It seems to exist for many articles about river systems. Cbmccarthy (talk) 11:36, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

 * The total watershed area was already in the article. I have merged in the Merrimack River Watershed article, which lists the major subwatersheds but does not provide their areas. (Not sure if you were asking for subwatershed areas as well.) --Ken Gallager (talk) 13:45, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Photos
I moved a just-placed aerial photo of the mouth of the river into the Infobox, since it is informative of the size and development of the Merrimack, and moved down a pretty but uninformative shot of the river in Lowell. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 12:17, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Merrimack River


text:
Souhegan River

The Souhegan River is a tributary of the Merrimack River in the northeastern United States. It is 33.8 mi long, with a drainage area of 171 sqmi, and flows north and east through southern New Hampshire to the Merrimack River. The river begins in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, at the junction of the river's South Branch and West Branch. Flowing northeast, it passes through the center of Greenville and descends through a narrow valley to Wilton, where it turns east. The river valley broadens below Wilton, and the river passes through the center of Milford, crosses the southern portion of Amherst, and enters the town of Merrimack. Shortly upstream of the town center, the river passes over Wildcat Falls, then crosses under the Everett Turnpike and U.S. Route 3 to reach the Merrimack River.

The river is used for water supplies, a small amount of hydropower, and recreation. There are 28 threatened or endangered species sharing the watershed with 35,000 people. It is part of the New Hampshire Rivers Management Protection Program.

It was one of two rivers studied by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services to reach data and recommendations about allowable "instream flow".

Etymology
The name "Souhegan" comes from the language of the Native American Algonquins, meaning "waiting and watching place". Tribal fishermen set weirs across the rapids, and then waited and watched for fish, including salmon, alewives, sturgeon, and eels.

Souhegan High School, which serves the towns of Amherst and Mont Vernon, is named after the river.

The name of Skowhegan, Maine, comes from the same term.

title: Souhegan River


text:
Wardell Gray

Wardell Gray (February 13, 1921 – May 25, 1955) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist who straddled the swing and bebop periods.

Early years
The youngest of four children, Gray was born in Oklahoma City. He spent his early childhood years in Oklahoma before he and his family moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1929.

In early 1935, Gray began attending Northeastern High School, then transferred to Cass Technical High School, noted for having Donald Byrd, Lucky Thompson, and Al McKibbon as alumni. He left in 1936, before graduating. Advised by his brother-in-law Junior Warren, Gray as a teenager started learning the clarinet. However, after hearing Lester Young on record with Count Basie, he was inspired to switch to the tenor saxophone.

Gray's first musical job was in Isaac Goodwin's small band, a part-time band that played local dances. When auditioning for another job, he was heard by Dorothy Patton, a young pianist who was forming a band in the Fraternal Club in Flint, Michigan, and she hired him. After a happy year there, he moved to Jimmy Raschel's band (Raschel had recorded a few sides earlier in the 1930s but did not do so again), and then to the Benny Carew band in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Around this time, he met Jeanne Goings; they had a daughter, Anita, born in January 1941.

With the Earl Hines Orchestra
Near the Congo Club was the Three Sixes. A young dancer, Jeri Walker, knew Earl Hines, and when the Hines band came through Detroit in late 1943, she persuaded Hines to hire Gray on alto saxophone since there was no tenor saxophone job at the time. This was a break for the 21-year-old, as the Earl Hines Orchestra was not only nationally known but had nurtured the careers of emerging bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Although most of them had left when Gray joined, playing with the Hines band was a stimulating experience. He married Jeri Walker in Chicago in September 1945.

Arrival on the West Coast
He left Hines late in 1946, settling in Los Angeles, California; soon after arriving, he recorded the first session under his name. This was a quartet session for Eddie Laguna's Sunset label, and on it Wardell was supported by Dodo Marmarosa on piano. The date produced "Easy Swing" and "The Man I Love".

In Los Angeles, Wardell worked with Benny Carter, blues singer Ivory Joe Hunter, and the small group that supported singer Billy Eckstine on a tour of the West Coast. But the real focus in Los Angeles was in clubs along Central Avenue, which were still thriving after the boom years brought about by the huge injection of wartime defence spending. Here Wardell played in after-hours sessions in clubs such as Jack's Basket Room, the Down Beat, Lovejoy's, and the Club Alabama. His early success in these sessions led Ross Russell to include him in a studio session he was organizing for his Dial label.

In the Central Avenue clubs Wardell held tenor battles with Dexter Gordon. Gordon recalled, "There'd be a lot of cats on the stand, but by the end of the session, it would wind up with Wardell and myself...His playing was very fluid, very clean.... He had a lot of drive and a profusion of ideas". Their fame began to spread, and Ross Russell managed to get them to simulate one of their battles on "The Chase", which became Wardell's first nationally known recording and has been called "one of the most exciting musical contests in the history of jazz".

The success of "The Chase" was the break Wardell needed, and he became increasingly prominent in public sessions in and around Los Angeles, including a series of jam sessions organized by the disc jockey Gene Norman. There were concerts at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, the Shrine Auditorium, and other venues.

Benny Goodman and Count Basie
Outside from time spent with a small band led by Al Killian, Wardell was still working mainly in one-off sessions during 1947. However, at a concert around the turn of that year featuring Benny Goodman, Goodman hired him for a small group that he was setting up as part of his flirtation with bebop. Goodman had been critical of bop playing but, speaking of Wardell to Metronome, he said that "if he's bop, that's great. He's wonderful!"

Goodman's new group included the young Swedish clarinettist Stan Hasselgard and, initially, Teddy Wilson, and it opened at Frank Palumbo's Click Club in Philadelphia in May 1948.

The group was not a financial success and Goodman eventually broke it up, but by now Wardell was established on the East Coast as an up-and-coming musician. For a while in late 1948/early 1949 he worked with the Count Basie Orchestra, while also managing to record with Tadd Dameron and in quartet and quintet sessions with Al Haig. The quartet session included "Twisted", which was used as the basis for a best-selling vocalese version by Annie Ross.

Wardell left Basie in 1949 to return to Benny Goodman. However, life in the Goodman band became increasingly uncongenial for him. In addition, his marriage to Jeri was breaking up. Goodman was not an easy employer at the best of times, and this, combined with the constant traveling, made Wardell increasingly unhappy. The result of this were recordings of the band, both studio sessions, and live airshots, featured work by Wardell that is below his own best standards.

On leaving Goodman, Wardell rejoined Count Basie. Basie had bowed to economic pressures and broken up his big band, forming a septet which included Clark Terry and Buddy DeFranco. Wardell was part of the Basie septet during 1950–51. The only drawback to working with Basie (who had by now enlarged his group again to big band size) was the constant traveling, and Wardell eventually decided to leave so that he could enjoy more home life. The decision was entirely understandable, though the Basie rhythm section was ideally suited to Wardell's brand of swing and, from a musical point of view, enthusiasts for his playing may regret his decision. And an unexpected side-effect was that, because work in the LA area was short (for black musicians, anyway) Wardell still had to travel frequently in search of jobs. Nevertheless, life at home was good, and one of the few interviews that he ever gave (to the British Melody Maker) showed that he was very happy.

In 1950, Gray played a live concert at the San Francisco Veteran's Memorial Hall as a guest with Gerald Wilson's band. Remarkably captured in high fidelity stereo (the only such example in his discography), this recording was released for the first time in 2006. Gray can be heard in fine form during featured solo spots with small combo backup on "Nice Work if You Can Get It" and "Indiana" and also with Wilson's big band on the blues "Hollywood Freeway" where Gray trades exciting choruses with Zoot Sims and Stan Getz.

Decline
At around this time, his recording sessions started becoming fewer—though a live session with Dexter Gordon, recreating the excitements of Central Avenue, and a studio session with Art Farmer and Hampton Hawes, have fine examples of Gray's playing.

However, there are increasing signs of a lack of engagement around 1951/52, notably in a further live session with Dexter Gordon from February 1952, and it seems that he may have been becoming disillusioned with the music business. That he was still capable of playing superbly is shown by his work on a live jam session at The Haig, but such sessions were by now very sparse, and more typical work from this period was recorded on a session with Teddy Charles.

Around this time, Gray became involved with drugs; friends reported that this was taking its toll. His playing was now less fluent, and a studio session in January 1955, which was to be his last, shows strong but (by his own standards) rather unsubtle playing.

Disappearance and death
Gray was still working regularly despite his drug problems, and when Benny Carter was engaged in May 1955 to provide the band at the opening of the Moulin Rouge Hotel, he called on Gray. Gray attended rehearsals but was absent when the club opened on May 25. The next day he was found on a stretch of desert on the outskirts of Las Vegas dead with a broken neck. At the age of 34, he died of a heroin overdose.

Although various sources still describe the circumstances of Gray's death as mysterious, the closing note of a solography on the tribute website wardellgray.org states that " 'The circumstances are now clear (ref. Han Schulte interviewing Teddy Edwards in the late 80s): Teddy was on the spot, May 1955 in Las Vegas, when WG died in his hotel room after an overdose. His friends, working with the group of Benny Carter in LA, wanted no police trouble, so they put his body in a car and brought it to the desert. By unloading, the body fell on the ground and his neck was broken. That's it.' "

In popular culture
James Ellroy's novel The Cold Six Thousand contains a reference to Gray's disappearance and death: according to this, he was murdered by (fictional) racist conspirator Wayne Tedrow, Sr. for having an affair with his wife, Janice.

Bill Moody's book Death of a Tenor Man tells the story of a contemporary investigation of Wardell's death by fictional detective/pianist Evan Horne.

Jack Kerouac explicitly references Wardell in his novel On the Road: "They ate voraciously as Neal, sandwich in hand, stood bowed and jumping before the big phonograph listening to a wild bop record I just bought called 'The Hunt', with Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray blowing their tops before a screaming audience that gave the record fantastic frenzied volume."

As leader

 * Tenor Sax Favorites (Prestige, 1951)
 * The Chase and the Steeplechase (Decca, 1952)
 * Los Angeles All Stars (Prestige, 1953)
 * Memorial Vol. 1 (Prestige, 1955)
 * Memorial Vol. 2 (Prestige, 1955)
 * Way Out Wardell (Modern, 1956)
 * Live in Hollywood (Xanadu, 1977)

As sideman
With Louis Bellson
 * Just Jazz All-Stars (Capitol, 1952)
 * Skin Deep (Norgran, 1953)

With Frank Morgan
 * Frank Morgan (Gene Norman Presents, 1955)

title: Wardell Gray


text:
European Capital of Culture

A European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union (EU) for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong pan-European dimension. Being a European Capital of Culture can be an opportunity for a city to generate considerable cultural, social, and economic benefits, and it can help foster urban regeneration, change the city's image, and raise its visibility and profile on an international scale. Multiple cities can be a European Capital of Culture simultaneously.

In 1985, Melina Mercouri, Greece's Minister of Culture, and her French counterpart Jack Lang came up with the idea of designating an annual City of Culture to bring Europeans closer together by highlighting the richness and diversity of European cultures and raising awareness of their common history and values.

The Commission of the European Union manages the title, and each year the Council of Ministers of the European Union formally designates European Capitals of Culture: more than 40 cities have been designated so far. The current European Capitals of Culture for 2024 are Tartu in Estonia, Bad Ischl in Austria and Bodø in Norway.

Selection process
An international panel of cultural experts is in charge of assessing the proposals of cities for the title according to criteria specified by the European Union.

For two of the capitals each year, eligibility is open to cities in EU member states only. From 2021 and every three years thereafter, a third capital will be chosen from cities in countries that are candidates or potential candidates for membership, or in countries that are part of the European Economic Area (EEA) – an example of the latter being Stavanger, Norway, which was a European Capital of Culture in 2008.

A 2004 study conducted for the Commission, known as the "Palmer report", demonstrated that the choice of European Capital of Culture served as a catalyst for cultural development and the transformation of the city. Consequently, the beneficial socio-economic development and impact for the chosen city are now also considered in determining the chosen cities.

Bids from five United Kingdom cities to be the 2023 Capital of Culture were disqualified in November 2017, because the UK was planning to leave the EU before 2023.

History
The European Capital of Culture programme was initially called the European City of Culture and was conceived in 1983, by Melina Mercouri, then serving as minister of culture in Greece. Mercouri believed that at the time, culture was not given the same attention as politics and economics and a project for promoting European cultures within the member states should be pursued. The European City of Culture programme was launched in the summer of 1985 with Athens being the first title-holder. In 1999, the European City of Culture program was renamed to European Capital of Culture.

List of European Capitals of Culture

1 The European Capital of Culture was due to be in the UK in 2023. However, due to its decision to leave the European Union, UK cities would no longer be eligible to hold the title after 2019. The European Commission's Scotland office confirmed that this would be the case on 23 November 2017, only one week before the UK was due to announce which city would be put forward. The candidate cities were Dundee, Leeds, Milton Keynes, Nottingham and a joint bid from Northern Irish cities of Belfast and Derry and the town of Strabane.

2 A new framework makes it possible for cities in candidate countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine), potential candidates for EU membership (Kosovo) or EFTA member states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland) to hold the title every third year as of 2021. This will be selected through an open competition, meaning that cities from various countries may compete with each other.

title: European Capital of Culture