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Independent animation

The term independent animation refers to animated shorts, web series, and feature films produced outside a major national animation industry.

Criteria
A good portion of the work is viewed in animation festivals and private screen rooms along with schools that produce animation through instruction. The significance of independent animation is as important as studio fare. "Independent" initially implied amateurs and unknowns. However, following the implosion of the entertainment industry and mass layoffs of animators, "indie" now almost exclusively refers to industry veterans with connections producing content on their own time.

United States
In America, working independent animators included Mary Ellen Bute, John Whitney, Harry Everett Smith and Oskar Fischinger alongside earlier efforts of what would later become UPA.

In 1959, The Academy Awards witnessed the first independent animated film to win an Oscar with John Hubley's Moonbird which was also produced by wife and collaborator Faith Hubley using limited animation to tell their own personal stories.

Jordan Belson, Robert Breer and Stan Vanderbeek made groundbreaking experimental animation during this time.

Avant-garde animator Carmen D'Avino's Oscar-nominated Pianissimo (1963) was distributed by none other than Amos Vogel's legendary Cinema 16.

Other independent animators during this time included Charles Braverman, Gene Deitch, Fred Mogubgub, Fred Wolf and Will Vinton. The latter two would go on to win Academy Awards for Best Animated Short Film along with the works of the Hubleys and Ernest Pintoff starting in the late 1950s-early 1960s.

In the late 1960s, animator Ralph Bakshi and producer Steve Krantz founded Bakshi Productions, establishing the studio as an alternative to mainstream animation by producing animation his own way and accelerating the advancement of female and minority animators. He also paid his employees a higher salary than any other studio at that time. In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-Cola and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica. However, Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation he was producing, and wanted to produce something personal. Bakshi soon developed Heavy Traffic, a tale of inner-city street life. However, Krantz told Bakshi that studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience. While browsing the East Side Book Store on St. Mark's Place, Bakshi came across a copy of R. Crumb's Fritz the Cat. Impressed by Crumb's sharp satire, Bakshi purchased the book and suggested to Krantz that it would work as a film.

Fritz the Cat (1972) was the first animated film to receive an X rating from the MPAA, and the highest grossing independent animated film of all time. Bakshi then simultaneously directed a number of animated films, starting with Heavy Traffic a year later. Ralph Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney to have two financially successful films released back-to-back.

Alongside Bakshi came other independent animated features of the 70s and 80s (some made by former Disney animators) such as John David Wilson's Shinbone Alley (1971), Don Bluth's The Secret of NIMH (1982), Vinton's The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985) and Jerry Rees's cult classic The Brave Little Toaster (1987).

Notable award-winning films also from the 70s and 80s included Dale Case and Bob Mitchell's The Further Adventures of Uncle Sam (1970), Ted Petok's The Crunch Bird (1971), Frank Mouris's Frank Film (1973) and Jimmy Picker's Sundae in New York (1983).

Animation historians John Canemaker and Michael Sporn also made independent animation in New York, both earning Oscar nods for their work (only Canemaker won in 2005).

Other animators like Candy Kugel, Jeff Scher, Joanna Priestley, Kathy Rose, Suzan Pitt, Robert Swarthe, Vince Collins, Barrie Nelson, Eli Noyes, Sky David (aka Dennis Pies), Steve Segal, Mike Jittlov, Paul Fierlinger, Adam Beckett, Lillian Schwartz, Larry Cuba and George Griffin also made experimental and personal animation during the mid- to late 1970s through the early- to mid-1980s.

In the 1970s, independent animator Sally Cruikshank (known for the 1975 cult short Quasi at the Quackadero alongside animated segments for Sesame Street ) continued to explore independent and D.I.Y. distribution options, but were still largely met with rejection even though her work is now considered ground breaking.

Collections of independent films have been gathered for theatrical viewing, and video release, under such titles as the International Tournee of Animation (which existed between about 1965 and ended in the late 1990s), Spike and Mike's Classic Festival of Animation (1977 to 1990) and Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation since 1990. Contemporary independent animators, including Steven Subotnick, Bill Plympton, Don Hertzfeldt, Nina Paley and PES have also made work outside of the studio system.

Later independent animation
The rise of the Internet in the 1990s and 2000s saw an exponential increase in the production of independent animation which included personal independent works by Timothy Hittle, Janie Geiser, John R. Dilworth, Lewis Klahr and John Schnall. Personal computer power increased to the point where it was possible for a single person to produce an animated cartoon on a home computer, using software such as Flash, and distribute these short films over the World Wide Web. Independently produced Internet cartoons flourished as the popularity of the Web grew, and a number of strange, often hilarious short cartoons were produced for the Web.

In the late 1990s, an independent animated short film called The Spirit of Christmas was produced for under $2,000 by two artists, Matt Stone and Trey Parker. This film was widely distributed on the Internet as a pirated cartoon, and its phenomenal popularity gave rise to the popular television animated series South Park. Limited 1990s bandwidth made streaming difficult, if not impossible. While some animators like Spümcø's John K. opted to use Flash, it still required a plug-in making it unviewable in many early web browsers. Other early online animators like M. Wartella opted to use the Animated GIF to overcome these limitations and create early web-based animation viewable through all browsers.

Independent animation in the 2000s included animated features such as Paley's Sita Sings the Blues, the CGI-animated features Hoodwinked! and Barnyard and Indiewood director Wes Anderson's first foray into animation territory: his 2009 stop motion adaptation of Roland Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox.

By the mid-to-late 2000s YouTube and the Internet and like-minded online video distribution, in addition to independent broadcasting sites that followed, proved to be a dominant form of independently distributed, broadcast, edited, and produced animation TV shows, anime, feature films, music videos, retro animation, commercials, trailers, original online animation content, and web exclusives (which would otherwise not stand a chance of seeing airtime on more normal and expensive forms of mainstream broadcasting on most television networks, which still continue to function on a more traditional distribution matrix). Annoying Orange, which started off as a series of viral quasi-CGI animated comedy shorts on YouTube, quickly gained a cult following and an excess of 100 million views online. It is an example of an animated web series to transition between Internet and television distribution successfully, as an animated series on Cartoon Network.

Recent independent animations released on YouTube include the adult animated web series Helluva Boss, and pilots for Hazbin Hotel, Long Gone Gulch, Murder Drones and Lackadaisy. While Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel are made by independent animator Vivienne Medrano, Long Gone Gulch was written and produced by Tara Billinger and Zach Bellissimo, who had worked on animations for Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and Disney+. At the same time, the all-ages web series, Sherwood, also released all 12 episodes on YouTube Originals, made freely available in April 2020.

Alternative comics artist turned animator Dash Shaw's Cryptozoo enjoyed critical success at the Sundance Film Festival to the point of winning the NEXT Innovator Award while it was also nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards a year afterwards.

Oscar-nominated animator Andrew Chesworth formerly worked at Disney (being animator on Wreck It Ralph, Frozen, Get a Horse!, Big Hero 6, Feast, Zootopia and Moana)  and Netflix (on the 2019 Annie Award for Best Animated Feature winner Klaus) while working independently on his passion projects including his 2023 Oscar-qualifying  The Brave Locomotive, a love letter to the Andrews Sisters and 1940s animation. First conceived in 2008, he released online in 2015 the opening sequence that was in progress before shelving it after being hired by Disney in 2011.

Other notable animated indie efforts of the 2020s include Marcel the Shell with Shoes On,   Ninety-Five Senses, War Is Over! and My Year of Dicks.

Representations
LGBT representation in independent animation has increased over the years, as many series have featured LGBTQ characters. Lizzy the Lezzy, which premiered on Myspace in 2006, included LGBTQ+ characters like Lizzy, a lesbian. Plum, a bisexual character, first appeared in the animated series, Bravest Warriors, a show which aired on Cartoon Hangover's YouTube channel from 2012 to 2018, as confirmed by her crushes and by writer Kate Leth. The show was made by Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward and featuring Ian Jones-Quartey, who voiced the character, Wallow, while he directed his own show, OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes which featured multiple LGBTQ+ characters. Although Plum had a crush on Chris, kissing him multiple times during the show, she is also madly in love with her doppelganger as shown in the comics.

The Rooster Teeth animated web series, RWBY, which began in 2013, features lesbian characters,  and a trans woman named May Marigold, voiced by Kdin Jenzen. Nomad of Nowhere, another RoosterTeeth show, released in 2018, featured a lesbian protagonist named Skout, who had a crush on Captain Toth, her superior. In addition, Hazbin Hotel, by Vivienne Medrano, centers around a bisexual princess of Hell named Charlie, with a girlfriend named Vaggie, with the series also featuring an asexual character named Alastor, and a gay pornstar named Angel Dust. Medrano's other series, Helluva Boss, featured various bisexual characters, such as a demon named Moxxie, and a pansexual demon named Blitzo.

My Pride: The Series, which premiered in February 2020 on YouTube, follows a "queer, disabled lioness" named Nothing who is trying to heal the world. Yssa Badiola of Recorded by Arizal hosted a RTX panel, on September 21, 2020, and stated that there would be LGBTQ characters if a full season was ordered. Nico Colaleo's animated web series, Too Loud, the first season which ran from July to August 2017, and the second season which aired from September to November 2019, includes an LGBTQ character. In the episode "Slumber Party Sneak-In," Desiree plots with her sister, Sara, to dress up as a girl in order to go to a slumber party. The rest of the girls find this out, then console her, accepting, and deciding they like her no matter whether she is a trans girl named Desiree or as a closeted boy. In September 2019, Colaleo later described the episode as important, described it as his favorite episode of the show's second season, and a "pro-transgender episode."

Angakusajaujuq: The Shaman's Apprentice (2020), featuring Canadian Inuit characters, won Best Independent Short Film at the Festival Stop Montreal.

African American animator/filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira is known for the 1984 satirical animated short Hair Piece: A Film for Nappyhead People, which was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2018. Another example of independent African-American animation is Bruce W. Smith's 2019 Academy Award-winning short film Hair Love.

The 2016 autobiographical stop-motion short Deer Flower, made by Los Angeles-based filmmaker Kangmin Kim, mines his childhood in South Korea for themes.

Italy
Independent Italian animators include Ursula Ferrara (who used techniques similar to animation pioneers like Emile Cohl on her 1986 film Lucidi Folli), Alberto D'Amico, Saul Saguatti (known for his 1995 series Short Splatter Collection) and Bruno Bozzetto, known for the 1976 feature Allegro Non Troppo and the 1990 Academy Award-nominated Grasshoppers.

Germany
One of the earliest feature-length animated films was The Adventures of Prince Achmed, made in 1926 by Lotte Reiniger, a German artist who made silhouette animation using intricate cut-out figures and back-lighting.

The United Kingdom
The BFI funded around thirty pieces of experimental animation between the mid-fifties to mid-nineties (notable examples: The Quay Brothers). Another major contributor to independent animation in Britain was Channel 4, which gained an international reputation as one of the most adventurous broadcasters of animation featuring works from Joanna Quinn (Girls' Night Out), Alison de Vere (Mr. Pascal) Paul Barry (The Sandman), Mark Baker (The Village), Barry Purves (Next) and former National Film Board of Canada animator Paul Driessen (3 Misses).

Another British animated milestone, the 1978 adaptation of Watership Down by American filmmaker Martin Rosen, was also made independently as well.

France
Examples of French independent efforts include René Laloux's Cannes-winning Fantastic Planet (1973) and	Marjane Satrapi's own 2007 adaptation of her graphic novel Persepolis.

Japan
Kōji Yamamura, Masaaki Yuasa, Yoji Kuri and Kihachiro Kawamoto have been prominently acclaimed Japanese independent animators known for their artistic qualities.

China
Animation director Liu Jian is known for his independently-produced features Piercing I (2010) and Art College 1994 (2023).

South Korea
Independent cel animation made in South Korea during the 1980s-90s included Lee Yong-bae's award-winning tale of Sleeping Buddha Wa-Bull (1994) and powerfully political efforts from Choe Jeong-hyeon.

Brazil
In 2016, Alê Abreu's Boy and the World (released in 2013) won the first Annie Award for Best Animated Feature – Independent at the 43rd Annie Awards. Two years later, Tito and the Birds would be nominated in the same category.

Chile
Pato Escala's 2014 debut short film, Bear Story, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short. As a result, many animators such as Fernanda Frick (Here's the Plan), who worked on Bear Story, and Hugo Covarrubias (the Oscar-nominated Bestia) made their own animated shorts in Chile.

Czechia
Michaela Pavlátová is known for making independent efforts such as the 2021 feature My Sunny Maad,  which was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film.

Other legendary Czech independent animators include Jiri Trnka and Jan Svankmajer.

Estonia
Estonian animator Priit Pärn is known for his crude drawings, dark humor and satirical absurdist tone on such films as Breakfast on the Grass (1988) and 1895 (1995; the latter spoofing cinema's impact on perceptions of history, identity and nationality filled with cinematic references, cultural stereotypes and inside jokes).

Denmark
Jonas Poher Rasmussen's 2021 animated documentary Flee was nominated for three Oscars: Best Documentary Feature, Best International Feature Film (the second Non-English-language animated film after Ari Folman's 2008 Israeli war documentary Waltz with Bashir ) and Best Animated Feature (becoming the first animated film ever to be nominated in all three of those categories).

Australia
Bill Kroyer's 1992 feature debut Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, featuring the voice of comedian Robin Williams as Batty, was also made independently (under his own studio Kroyer Films, which also made the 1988 Academy Award-nominated Technological Threat) as an Australian-American co-production later to be distributed by 20th Century Fox.

Independent animation entirely from down under includes the works of Felix Colgrave and acclaimed stop motion animator Adam Elliot, known for the Oscar winner Harvie Krumpet (2003) and his feature film Mary and Max (2009).

Canada
Outside of NFB, independent animation entirely from Canada also includes Marv Newland, who is best known for his 1969 cult animated short Bambi Meets Godzilla, Danny Antonucci, known for his 1987 short Lupo the Butcher, and the collage works of Winston Hacking.

Israel
Independent animated efforts from Israel include the aforementioned Waltz with Bashir and Tal Kantor's 2023 Oscar-nominated short Letter to a Pig.

Notable animated independent films from other countries

 * Metegol (Argentina)
 * The Secret of Kells (Ireland)
 * Robot Dreams (Spain)
 * We Can't Live Without Cosmos (Russia)
 * Surogat (Yugoslovia)
 * The Peasants (Poland)
 * Harpya (Belgium)

title: Independent animation


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Highland Football League

The Scottish Highland Football League (SHFL, commonly known as the Highland League) is a senior football league based in the north of Scotland. The league sits at level 5 on the Scottish football league system, acting as a feeder to the Scottish Professional Football League.

Founded in 1893, it is currently composed of 18 member clubs in a single division. Geographically, the league covers the Scottish Highlands as well as Moray, Aberdeenshire, the cities of Aberdeen and Dundee, Angus and parts of northern Perthshire.

Since 2014–15, it has featured in the senior pyramid system. The winners take part in an end-of-season promotion play-off with the Lowland Football League champions, with the winners then competing against the bottom club in Scottish League Two for a place in the SPFL. Promotion and relegation also exists between the three Highlands-based regional leagues at level 6 (Midlands League, North Caledonian League, and North Region Junior Football League).

The league's current sponsorship deal is with the Breedon Group.

Format
Each team in the league plays each other twice during a season – once at home, once away, for a total of 34 matches. The standard league scoring system of 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw is applied, with ties in the league table broken by goal difference. The champions are presented with the League trophy and a flag, either immediately after the match which secures the victory, or at the next match at which it is practical to do so.

With the introduction of the new pyramid structure in Scottish football, a new schedule was introduced in the 2014–15 season, in order to ensure that all matches affecting the title are completed in time for the promotion playoffs beginning in April. As the region is prone to severe weather in winter, postponements have sometimes caused the conclusion of the season to be delayed (e.g. in 2013, a prolonged spell of bad weather meant the final matches were not played until 25 May). Various proposals which would have reduced the number of matches a team would play (either by instituting a two-phase season like that used in the Scottish Premiership, or by dividing the League into two smaller divisions), were considered but did not find favour with League members. Instead, clubs now play both a Saturday and a Wednesday fixture most weeks from August through October, taking advantage of milder weather at the start of the season. The new schedule builds in a four-week buffer near the end of the season during which no matches are initially scheduled, allowing any backlog of postponed matches to be cleared before the final fixtures.

Scottish Cup
All clubs are full members of the Scottish Football Association, so qualify automatically for the following season's first round of the Scottish Cup. The league champions and the runner-up team receive a bye into the cup's second round. Since 2014 the champions have taken part in the Scottish Challenge Cup; this was extended to the top four clubs from 2016. In 2016 the champions also gained a place in the Scottish League Cup.

Formation
The Highland Football League was formed on 4 August 1893, at the Inverness Workman's Club by employees of the Highland Railway Company who had their Company Headquarters, Locomotive and Carriage & Wagon Workshops (Loch Gorm Works), based in the Highland capital and where they employed circa 700 staff. The original league consisted of seven teams: Inverness Thistle, Caledonian, Clachnacuddin, Forres Mechanics, Inverness Union, Inverness Citadel and Cameron Highlanders. Dingwall Victoria United (later renamed Ross County) were an eighth original member, but resigned membership in November 1893. The inaugural champions were Inverness Thistle. Of the original teams, two are still playing in the league today (Clachnacuddin and Forres Mechanics) while Caledonian and Thistle merged to become current Scottish League club Inverness Caledonian Thistle.

Departures and expansions
The league has been somewhat weakened by the departure of many former members who have subsequently joined the SFL. In 1994, Caledonian, Inverness Thistle and Ross County left. Until then the HFL had operated with 18 clubs; this was reduced by the departure of the three mentioned clubs, but Wick Academy from the North Caledonian Football League were elected, to create a league of 16 clubs. This was the state of affairs till 2000 when Elgin City and Peterhead were elected into the SFL. In 2002 Inverurie Loco Works were elected into the HFL to give it a membership of 15 clubs. Inverurie Locos are another Highland League football club with its origins in the Scottish railways, having been formed by employees of the Great North of Scotland Railway who had their Locomotive and Carriage and Wagon Workshops in Inverurie, hence the football club's name.

In 2008, North Region Junior League sides Formartine United and Turriff United both submitted bids to join the Highland League, following in the footsteps of past Junior League side Inverurie Locos. Banks O' Dee and Strathspey Thistle also applied. On 25 February 2009, Formartine United, Strathspey Thistle and Turriff United were accepted into the league for the following season, with Banks O' Dee being the unsuccessful club.

Pyramid
Until the reorganisation of Scottish football during the 2012–13 season, the league was historically one of the senior leagues in Scottish football, along with the Scottish Premier League and Scottish Football League, as well as the East of Scotland and South of Scotland Leagues.

Since the 2014–15 season, the league champions have had the chance to qualify for promotion to the Scottish League Two via a play-off with the winners of the Lowland Football League, the winners then playing off against the bottom team in League Two. Although the introduction of a route into the Scottish Professional Football League was broadly welcomed, it also provoked some concern about the potential financial burden on smaller clubs who may need to significantly upgrade their grounds to meet the required standards. The logistics of travel to away games in a league dominated by central belt teams is also a concern, particularly for geographically remote clubs such as Wick Academy and Brora Rangers.

At the end of the 2018–19 season, Cove Rangers became the first Highland League club to gain promotion to the SPFL via the pyramid play-off, after beating Berwick Rangers 7–0 on aggregate in the League Two play-off final. Two years later, Brechin City became the first SPFL club to be relegated into the Highland League after losing 3–1 on aggregate to Kelty Hearts in the League Two play-off final.

At the end of the 2020–21 season the threat of relegation was introduced to the league, as the North Caledonian League, a newly formed Midlands League, and North Superleague were all brought into the pyramid as feeder leagues. At the end of the following season, Fort William became the first victim of the drop as they failed to play their games against North Superleague side Banks O' Dee in the playoff final, giving the Aberdeen side a bye into the Highland League as Fort William fell into the North Caledonian League.

Former members

 * Elected to the Scottish Football League
 * Elgin City, 2000;
 * Caledonian*, 1994;
 * Inverness Thistle*, 1994;
 * Peterhead, 2000;
 * Ross County, 1994;

* Caledonian and Inverness Thistle combined to form Inverness Caledonian Thistle upon joining the Scottish Football League in 1994. ICT now play in the.

Relegated to the North Caledonian League/Midlands League/North Region League
 * Promoted to the Scottish Professional Football League
 * Cove Rangers, 2019;

 * Fort William, 2022; (North Caledonian League)

 * Defunct/merged

 * Elgin Caledonian
 * Inverness Celtic
 * Inverness Citadel
 * Inverness Union

 * Military sides (generally temporarily based in the area)

 * (2nd) Highland Light Infantry
 * 93rd Highlanders
 * Black Watch
 * Cameron Highlanders
 * Highland Garrison Training Battalion
 * K.O.S.B.
 * RAF Kinloss
 * Seaforth Highlanders

Other competitions
The main competitions are:
 * Highland League Cup
 * SHFL U18 League
 * SHFL U16 League

The North of Scotland FA Clubs compete in the:
 * North of Scotland Cup
 * North of Scotland FA U20 League

The Aberdeenshire FA clubs compete in the:
 * Aberdeenshire Cup
 * Aberdeenshire Shield
 * Aberdeenshire & District League

List of HFL championship winners

 *  * Team promoted to Scottish League Two

Source:Scottish Football Historical Archive – Highland League Final Tables

Performance by club
Clubs currently playing in the league are shown in bold. Clubs no longer active are shown in italics.

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

title: Highland Football League


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User talk:Florin~enwiki

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Feodosia

Feodosia (Феодосія, Теодосія, Feodosiia, Teodosiia; Феодосия, Feodosiya ), also called in English Theodosia (from Θεοδοσία), is a city on the Crimean coast of the Black Sea. Feodosia serves as the administrative center of Feodosia Municipality, one of the regions into which Crimea is divided. During much of its history, the city was a significant settlement known as Caffa (Cafà) or Kaffa (Old Crimean Tatar/Ottoman Turkish: ; Crimean Tatar/Kefe). According to the 2014 census, its population was 69,145.

Theodosia (Greek colony)

The city was founded as Theodosia (Θεοδοσία) by Greek colonists from Miletos in the 6th century BC. Noted for its rich agricultural lands, on which its trade depended, the city was destroyed by the Huns in the 4th century AD.

Theodosia remained a minor village for much of the next nine hundred years. It was at times part of the sphere of influence of the Khazars (excavations have revealed Khazar artifacts dating back to the 9th century) and of the Byzantine Empire.

Like the rest of Crimea, this place (village) fell under the domination of the Kipchaks and was conquered by the Mongols in the 1230s.

A settlement named Kaphâs (alternate romanized spelling Cafâs, ) existed surrounding Theodosia prior to the penetration of Genoese into the Black Sea. The archaeological evidence indicates that during the Middle Ages the population about Theodosia never decreased to zero; several medieval churches are found in the area dating from the times of Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages. However, the population had become completely agrarian. A small local Greek population must have existed in situ and in the neighboring settlements. Likely, from the 9th century there were Cumans and Goths living alongside the Greeks, and by 1270s, perhaps some Tatars and Armenians as well.

Kaffa (Genoese colony)
In the late 13th century, traders from the Republic of Genoa arrived and purchased the city from the ruling Golden Horde.

They established a flourishing trading settlement called Kaffa (also recorded as Caffa), which virtually monopolized trade in the Black Sea region and served as a major port and administrative center for the Genoese settlements around the Sea. The city thrived despite the tenuous politics of the region and Genoa's series of wars with the Mongol successor states.

It came to house one of Europe's biggest slave markets of the Black Sea slave trade, and served as a terminus for the Silk Road. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia also adds that the city of Caffa was established during the times when the area was ruled by the Khan of the Golden Horde Mengu-Timur.

Ibn Battuta visited the city, noting it was a "great city along the sea coast inhabited by Christians, most of them Genoese." He further stated, "We went down to its port, where we saw a wonderful harbor with about two hundred vessels in it, both ships of war and trading vessels, small and large, for it is one of the world's celebrated ports."

In early 1318, Pope John XXII established a Latin Church diocese of Kaffa, as a suffragan of Genoa. The papal bull of appointment of the first bishop attributed to him a vast territory: "a villa de Varna in Bulgaria usque Sarey inclusive in longitudinem et a mari Pontico usque ad terram Ruthenorum in latitudinem" ("from the city of Varna in Bulgaria to Sarey inclusive in longitude, and from the Black Sea to the land of the Ruthenians in latitude"). The first bishop was Fra' Gerolamo, who had already been consecrated seven years before as a missionary bishop ad partes Tartarorum. The diocese ended as a residential bishopric with the capture of the city by the Ottomans in 1475. Accordingly, Kaffa is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see. The new diocese effectively broke up the diocese of Khanbaliq, which functioned as one diocese for all Mongol territory from the Balkans to China.

It is believed that the devastating pandemic of the Black Death entered Europe for the first time via Kaffa in 1347. After a protracted siege during which the Mongol army under Janibeg was reportedly withering from the disease, they catapulted the infected corpses over the city walls, infecting the inhabitants, in one of the first cases of biological warfare. Fleeing inhabitants may have carried the disease back to Italy, causing its spread across Europe. However, the plague appears to have spread in a stepwise fashion, taking over a year to reach Europe from Crimea. Also, there were a number of Crimean ports under Mongol control, so it is unlikely that Kaffa was the only source of plague-infested ships heading to Europe. Additionally, there were overland caravan routes from the East that would have been carrying the disease into Europe as well.

Kaffa eventually recovered. The thriving, culturally diverse city and its thronged slave market have been described by the Spanish traveler Pedro Tafur, who was there in the 1430s. The port was also visited by German traveler Johann Schiltberger in the 15th century. In 1462, Caffa placed itself under the protection of King Casimir IV of Poland. However, Poland did not offer significant help due to reinforcements sent being massacred in Bar fortress (modern day Ukraine) by Duke Czartoryski after a quarrel with locals.

Kefe (Ottoman)
Following the fall of Constantinople, Amasra, and lastly Trebizond, the position of Caffa had become untenable and attracted the attention of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. He was at no loss for a pretext to extinguish this last Genoese colony on the Black Sea. In 1473, the tudun (or governor) of the Crimean Khanate died and a fight developed over the appointment of his successor. The Genoese involved themselves in the dispute, and the Tatar notables who favored the losing candidate finally asked Mehmed to settle the dispute.

Mehmed dispatched a fleet under the Ottoman commander Gedik Ahmet Pasha, which left Constantinople 19 May 1475. It anchored before the walls of the city on 1 June, started the bombardment the next day, and on 6 June the inhabitants capitulated. Over the next few days the Ottomans proceeded to extract the wealth of the inhabitants, and abduct 1,500 youths for service in the Sultan's palace. On 8 July, the final blow was struck when all inhabitants of Latin origin were ordered to relocate to Istanbul, where they founded a quarter (Kefeli Mahalle) which was named after the town they had been forced to leave.

Renamed Kefe, Caffa became one of the most important Turkish ports on the Black Sea. It was a major center of the Crimean slave trade until the late 18th-century, referred to by the Lithuanian Mikhalon Litvin as: "not a town, but an abyss into which our blood is pouring". In 1616, Zaporozhian Cossacks under the leadership of Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny destroyed the Turkish fleet and captured Caffa. Having conquered the city, the Cossacks released the men, women and children who were slaves.

Feodosia (Russian Empire)
Ottoman control ceased when the expanding Russian Empire took over Crimea between 1774 and 1783. It was renamed Feodosia (Russian Ѳеодосія; reformed spelling Феодосия), after the traditional Russian reading of its ancient Greek name. In 1900, Zibold constructed the first air well (dew condenser) on mount Tepe-Oba near Feodosia.

WWII and Holocaust
The city was occupied by the forces of Nazi Germany during World War II, sustaining significant damage in the process. The Jewish population numbering 3,248 before the German occupation was murdered by SD-Einsatzgruppe D between November 16 and December 15, 1941. A witness interviewed by the Soviet Extraordinary Commission in 1944 and quoted on the website of the French organization Yahad-In Unum described how the Jews were rounded-up in the city: "[A]ll the Jews were gathered. The Germans told them they would be displaced somewhere in Ukraine. On December 4, 1941, in the morning, all the Jews, including my father, my mother and my sister were taken to an anti-tank trench where they were executed by German shooters. 1,500-1,700 people were shot that day." A monument commemorating the Holocaust victims is situated at the crossroads of Kerchensky and Symferopolsky highways. On Passover eve, 7 April 2012, unknown persons desecrated the monument for the sixth time in what was allegedly an anti-Semitic act.

All native Tatar inhabitants were arrested by Soviet forces as several thousand Tatars had fought side-by-side with the Nazis against Soviet forces and had participated in the Jewish genocide. Following Stalin's orders, all Tatars were sent to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian republics of the USSR.

Russian occupation
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian warship Novocherkassk, a landing ship likely used to transport drones, was hit in the early morning hours of 26 December 2023 in the harbour of Feodosia. There was a large fire and explosion. Russia reported that two missiles that were fired from Sukhoi Su-24 jets were shot down.

Climate
The climate is warm and dry and could be described as humid subtropical, but not as Mediterranean, because the drying summer trend is not pronounced enough.

Modern Feodosia

Modern Feodosia is a resort city with a population of about 69,000 people. It has beaches, mineral springs, and mud baths, sanatoria, and rest homes. Apart from tourism, its economy rests on agriculture and fisheries. Local industries include fishing, brewing and canning. As with much of the Crimea, most of its population is ethnically Russian; the Ukrainian language is infrequently used. In June 2006, Feodosia made the news with the 2006 anti-NATO protests.

While most beaches in the Crimea are made of pebbles, in the Feodosia area there is a unique Golden Beach (Zolotoy Plyazh) made of small seashells which stretches for some 15 km.

The city is sparsely populated during the winter months and most cafes and restaurants are closed. Business and tourism increase in mid-June and peak during July and August. As in the other resort towns of the Crimea, the tourists come mostly from the Commonwealth of Independent States countries of the former Soviet Union.

Feodosia was the city where the seascape painter Ivan Aivazovsky lived and worked all his life, and where general Pyotr Kotlyarevsky and the writer Alexander Grin spent their declining years. Popular tourist locations include the Aivazovsky National Art Gallery and the Genoese fortress.

Economy and industry

 * More PO (Primorsk)
 * Sudokompozit - ship design R&D naval hardware
 * Kasatka TsNII Gp NPO Uran (Gagra Pitsunda) - ship design R&D naval hardware

 * Gidropribor FeOMMZ, torpedo manufacturing and ship yard (Ordzhonikidze)
 * NPO Uran TsNII Gp "Kasatka" (Lab N°5 NII400) torpedoes (Gagra Pitsunda)

 * Russia Black Sea Fleet Navy Ship repair Yards
 * FOMZ Opto Mechanical Plant FKOZ
 * Feodosia Economic Industrial Zone FPZ (west)
 * Feodosia FMZ Engineering/Machine-building Plant
 * Feodosia FPZ (Priborostroeni Priladobudivni) Instrument-making Plant

Twin towns—sister cities

 * 🇦🇲 Armavir, Armenia
 * 🇷🇺 Azov, Russia
 * 🇷🇺 Kronstadt, Russia
 * 🇷🇺 Stavropol, Russia
 * 🇵🇱 Kołobrzeg, Poland
 * and others

People from Feodosia

 * Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900), Russian painter
 * Roman Kapitonenko (born 1981), Ukrainian boxer
 * Wolff Kostakowsky (1879-1944), American klezmer violinist
 * Andrzej Liczik (born 1977), Ukrainian-Polish boxer

In popular culture
The late-medieval city of Caffa is the location of a section of the novel Caprice and Rondo by the Scottish novelist Dorothy Dunnett.

An early 14th-century bishop of Caffa appears in Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose, making several sharp replies in a long, tempestuous debate within a group of monks and clerics; he is portrayed as aggressive and somewhat narrow-minded.

title: Feodosia


text:
Fort Erie, Ontario

Fort Erie is a town in the Niagara Region of Ontario, Canada. The town is located at the south eastern corner of the region, on the Niagara River, directly across the Canada–United States border from Buffalo, New York, and is the site of Old Fort Erie which played a prominent role in the War of 1812.

Fort Erie is one of Niagara's fastest growing communities, and has experienced a high level of residential and commercial development in the past few years. Garrison Road (Niagara Regional Road 3) is the town's commercial corridor, stretching east to west through Fort Erie.

Fort Erie is also home to other commercial core areas (Bridgeburg, Ridgeway, Stevensville and Crystal Beach) as a result of the 1970 amalgamation of Bertie Township and the village of Crystal Beach with Fort Erie.

Crystal Beach Park occupied waterfront land at Crystal Beach, Ontario, from 1888 until the park's closure in 1989. The beach is part of Fort Erie.

History

During the American Revolution Fort Erie was used as a supply depot for British troops. After the war the territory of what is now the Town of Fort Erie was settled by soldiers demobilised from Butler's Rangers, and the area was named Bertie Township in 1784.

The original fort, built in 1764, was located on the Niagara River's edge below the present fort. It served as a supply depot and a port for ships transporting merchandise, troops and passengers via Lake Erie to the Upper Great Lakes. The fort was damaged by winter storms and in 1803, plans were made for a new fort on the higher ground behind the original. It was larger and made of flintstone but was not quite finished at the start of the War of 1812.

During the war, the Americans attacked Fort Erie twice in 1812, captured and abandoned it in 1813, and then recaptured it in 1814. The Americans held it for a time, breaking a prolonged British siege. Later they destroyed Fort Erie and returned to Buffalo in the winter of 1814.

The Fort Erie area became a major terminus for slaves using the Underground Railroad (between 1840 and 1860); many had crossed into Canada from Buffalo, New York. Bertie Hall (which was used for a time in the 20th century as a Doll House Museum) may have been a stopping point on the Underground Railroad. The area of Ridgemount was one of the three main areas in Fort Erie settled by African-Americans, earning it the name "Little Africa". Along with Little Africa, the other two areas of settlement were Bertie Hill and Snake Hill (Erie Beach).

In 1866, during the Fenian raids, between 1,000 and 1,500 Fenians crossed the Niagara River, occupied the town and demanded food and horses. The only payment they were able to offer was Fenian bonds; these were not acceptable to the citizens. The Fenians then cut the telegraph wires and tore up some railway tracks. Afterwards, they marched to Chippewa and the next day to Ridgeway where they fought the Battle of Ridgeway, a series of skirmishes with the Canadian militia. The Fenians then returned to Fort Erie and fought the Battle of Fort Erie, defeating the Canadian militia. Fearing British reinforcements, they then decided to retreat to the U.S.

In 1869 the population was 1,000 and Fort Erie was served by the Grand Trunk and the Erie & Niagara railways. The Grand Trunk Railway built the International Railway Bridge in 1873, bringing about a new town, originally named Victoria and subsequently renamed to Bridgeburg, north of the original settlement of Fort Erie. By 1876, Ridgeway had an estimated population of 800, the village of Fort Erie has an estimated population of 1,200, and Victoria boasted three railway stations. By 1887, Stevensville had an estimated population of "nearly 600", Victoria of "nearly 700", Ridgeway of "about 600", and Fort Erie of "about 4,000".

In 1888, the amusement park at Crystal Beach opened. From 1910, the steamship SS Canadiana (and until 1929, the steamship SS Americana) brought patrons from Buffalo until 1956. The park continued to operate until it closed in 1989. A gated community was built in this area. In 1904, a group of speculators bought land at Erie Beach, planning to build an amusement park and other amenities, and sell lots around the park to vacationers from Buffalo. Erie Beach featured a hotel, a casino, a race track, regular ferry service from Buffalo and train service from the ferry dock in Fort Erie, and what was billed as the world's largest outdoor swimming pool. Erie Beach and Crystal Beach were in competition to provide bigger thrills to patrons, until Erie Beach went bankrupt during the Depression and closed down on Labour Day weekend, 1930.

The Niagara Movement meeting was held at the Erie Beach Hotel in 1905. The movement later led to the founding of the NAACP.

The Point Abino Light Tower was built by the Canadian government in 1918. The lighthouse has been automated in 1989. Since its decommissioning in 1995, the Point Abino Lighthouse was designated as a National Historic Site. The lighthouse is now owned by the Town of Fort Erie and is available for weekend tours in the summer.

On August 7, 1927, the Peace Bridge was opened between Fort Erie and Buffalo.

On January 1, 1932, Bridgeburg and Fort Erie amalgamated into a single town.

The ruins of Fort Erie remained until they were rebuilt through a depression era "work program" project, as a tourist attraction. Work started in 1937, and the fort was opened to the public in 1939.

In 1970, the provincial government consolidated the various villages in what had been Bertie Township, including the then town of Fort Erie, into the present Town of Fort Erie.

Geography
Fort Erie is generally flat, but there are low sand hills, varying in height from 2 to 15 m, along the shore of Lake Erie, and a limestone ridge extends from Point Abino to near Miller's Creek, giving Ridgeway its name. The soil is shallow, with a clay subsoil.

The town's beaches on Lake Erie, most notably Erie Beach, Crystal Beach and Bay Beach are considered the best in the area and draw many weekend visitors from the Toronto and Buffalo, New York areas. While summers are enjoyable, winters can occasionally be fierce, with many snowstorms, whiteouts and winds coming off Lake Erie.

Communities
In addition to the primary urban core of Fort Erie, the town also contains the neighbourhoods of Black Creek, Bridgeburg/NorthEnd/Victoria, Crescent Park, Crystal Beach, Kraft, Point Abino, Ridgeway, Snyder, and Stevensville. Smaller and historical neighbourhoods include Amigari Downs, Bay Beach, Buffalo Heights, Douglastown, Edgewood Park, Erie Beach, Garrison Village, Mulgrave, Oakhill Forest, Ridgemount, Ridgewood, Rose Hill Estates, Thunder Bay, Walden, Wavecrest and Waverly Beach.

Fort Erie Secondary School and Ridgeway-Crystal Beach High School were two public high schools serving Fort Erie and area communities until September 2017. The two former schools were closed and merged into Greater Fort Erie Secondary School, located on Garrison Road.

Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Fort Erie had a population of $32,901$ living in $14,081$ of its $15,875$ total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of $30,710$. With a land area of 166.24 km2, it had a population density of in 2021.

The median household income in 2015 for Fort Erie was $60,800, which was below the Ontario provincial average of $74,287.

Attractions

 * Fort Erie Race Track
 * Old Fort Erie
 * Point Abino Lighthouse
 * Safari Niagara

Hiking
Fort Erie is the eastern terminus of the Friendship Trail, and the southern terminus of the Niagara River Recreation Pathway. Both trails are part of the Trans-Canada Trail system.

Parks
Mather Arch Park, located just to the south of the Peace Bridge, is on land donated by American citizen Alonzo C. Mather in tribute to the peace and friendship between Canada and the United States. The park contains Mather Arch, which was built largely due to donations by Mather, originally dedicated by the Niagara Parks Commission in 1939, and restored in 2000 as a millennium project. There is also a memorial statue to those from Fort Erie who died in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War.

Highways
Fort Erie has been the Niagara terminus of the Queen Elizabeth Way since 1937. Road traffic continues to Buffalo, New York across the Peace Bridge, which was built in 1927.

Fort Erie was the eastern terminus of King's Highway 3A from 1927 to 1929, and Ontario Highway 3 from 1929 until 1998, when the portion of Highway 3 within Fort Erie was downloaded to the Regional Municipality of Niagara and redesignated as Niagara Regional Road 3. Within Fort Erie, Highway 3 is named Garrison Road, and is the major east–west connection through the town. Dominion Road was designated as King's Highway 3C from 1934 until 1970, when it was downloaded to the newly formed Regional Municipality of Niagara and redesignated as Niagara Regional Road 1.

Fort Erie is the southern terminus of the Niagara Parkway, which extends from Fort Erie to Fort George.

Public transit
Public transit was provided by Fort Erie Transit, which operated buses in town and connected to other Niagara municipalities.

Niagara Region Transit operates a service from Niagara Falls into Fort Erie, connecting with the Fort Erie Leisureplex on Garrison Road.

Intercity transit
Private intercity coach services are primarily operated by Coach Canada/Megabus, with service to St. Catharines and Toronto. The terminus is located at Robo Mart, 21 Princess Street at Waterloo Street.

The International Railway Bridge was built in 1873, and connects Fort Erie to Buffalo, New York across the Niagara River.

There is currently no passenger rail service to Fort Erie. The nearest passenger rail stations are in Buffalo, New York and Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Waterways
Fort Erie is at the outlet of Lake Erie into the Niagara River. The lake and river serve as a playground for numerous personal yachts, sailboats, power boats and watercraft. There is a marina at the site of a former shipyard at Miller's Creek on the Niagara River, and a boat launch ramp in Crystal Beach.

Prior to the completion of the two bridges, passengers and freight were carried across the river by ferry.

From 1829, when the Welland Canal first opened, to 1833, when the cut was completed to Port Colborne, ship traffic between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario would transit the upper Niagara River.

Utilities
In order to reduce large-scale ice blockage in the Niagara River, with resultant flooding, ice damage to docks and other waterfront structures, and blockage of the water intakes for the hydro-electric power plants at Niagara Falls, the New York Power Authority and Ontario Power Generation have jointly operated the Lake Erie-Niagara River Ice Boom since 1964. The boom is installed on December 16, or when the water temperature reaches 4 C, whichever happens first. The boom is opened on April 1 unless there is more than 650 km2 of ice remaining in Eastern Lake Erie. When in place, the boom stretches 2,680 m from the outer breakwall at Buffalo Harbor almost to the Canadian shore near the ruins of the pier at Erie Beach in Fort Erie. Originally, the boom was made of wooden timbers, but these have been replaced by steel pontoons.

Notable people

 * Randy Burridge, played over 700 games in the National Hockey League and was an All-Star in 1992
 * Derek Clendening, Canadian writer
 * Ernest Alexander Cruikshank, Brigadier General and historian
 * Billy Dea, professional hockey player
 * Michael Fonfara, keyboard player
 * Paul Gardner, professional hockey player
 * Paul Hellyer, engineer and politician
 * Tim Hudak, politician, leader of the PC party in Ontario
 * Douglas Kirkland, photographer
 * James L. Kraft, entrepreneur and inventor
 * Dan "DJ Shub" General, musician
 * Shane Lindstrom (professionally known as Murda Beatz), record producer
 * Matty Matheson, chef and internet personality
 * Pierre Pilote, professional hockey player
 * David Anthony Pizzuto, actor
 * Brian Reid, historian

title: Fort Erie, Ontario


text:
Fraxinus excelsior

Fraxinus excelsior, known as the ash, or European ash or common ash to distinguish it from other types of ash, is a flowering plant species in the olive family Oleaceae. It is native throughout mainland Europe east to the Caucasus and Alborz mountains, and Great Britain and Ireland, the latter determining its western boundary. The northernmost location is in the Trondheimsfjord region of Norway. The species is widely cultivated and reportedly naturalised in New Zealand and in scattered locales in the United States and Canada.

Description
It is a large deciduous tree growing to 12 – (exceptionally to 43 m) tall with a trunk up to 2 m (exceptionally to 3.5 m) diameter, with a tall, narrow crown. The bark is smooth and pale grey on young trees, becoming thick and vertically fissured on old trees. The shoots are stout, greenish-grey, with jet-black buds (which distinguish it from most other ash species, which have grey or brown buds). The leaves are opposite, 20 – long, pinnately compound, with 7–13 leaflets with coarsely serrated margins, elliptic to narrowly elliptic, 3 – long and 0.8 – broad and sessile on the leaf rachis. There are no stipules. These features distinguish ash from mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia) in which the leaves are alternate with paired stipules. The leaves are often among the last to open in spring, and the first to fall in autumn if an early frost strikes; they often fall dull green or develop a bright yellow autumn colour. The flowers are borne in short panicles, open before the leaves, and have no perianth. The female flowers are somewhat longer than the male flowers, dark purple, without petals, and are wind-pollinated. Both male and female flowers can occur on the same tree, but it is more common to find all male and all female trees. A tree that is all male one year can produce female flowers the next, and similarly a female tree can become male. The fruit is a samara 2.5 - 4.5 cm long and 5 – broad, often hanging in bunches through the winter; they are often called 'ash keys'. If the fruit is gathered and planted when it is still green and not fully ripe, it will germinate straight away, however once the fruit is brown and fully ripe, it will not germinate until 18 months after sowing (i.e. not until two winters have passed).

European ash rarely exceeds 250 years of age. However, there are numerous specimens estimated between 200 and 250 years old and there are a few over 250. The largest is in Clapton Court, England and is 9 m in girth. There are several examples over 4.5 m in Derbyshire alone.

Distribution
Fraxinus excelsior is native to Europe from northern Spain to Russia, and from southern Fennoscandia to northern Greece. It is also considered native in southwestern Asia from northern Turkey east to the Caucasus and Alborz mountains. The northernmost location is in the Trondheimsfjord region of Norway. The species is widely cultivated and reportedly naturalized in New Zealand and in scattered locales in the United States and Canada including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Ontario, Ohio, Kentucky and British Columbia.

It is native throughout Britain and Ireland, particularly on limestone, as in northern Scotland, where the most northerly native ashwood in Britain occurs on limestone at Rassal Ashwood. It is widely planted elsewhere.

Ecology
Ash occurs on a wide range of soil types, but is particularly associated with basic soils on calcareous substrates. The most northerly ashwood in Britain is on limestone at Rassal, Wester Ross, latitude 57.4278 N. Ash prefers moister soil types and is commonly limited by temperature and so not found at the higher colder altitudes in much of Europe, though in Iran, it may reach 2000 m asl. As a young seedling, it is shade tolerant, but older trees are light-demanding. It is an early-succession species and may well outcompete beech and oak, which are later-succession species.

F. excelsior mycorrhizae are of the internal arbuscular mycorrhizal type, in which the fungus grows within the tissues of the root and forms branched, tree-like structures within the cells of the root cortex. Unlike other Fraxinus species, F. excelsior does not form ectomycorrhizae.

The Biological Records Centre of the UK records 111 species of insects and mites using ash as a food plant, of which 29 are specific to ash. A further six are specific to ash and its Oleaceae relative wild privet (Ligustrum vulgare). A number of Lepidoptera species use the species as a food source. One example of an ash-specific feeding moth is the centre-barred sallow (Atethmia centrago). The larvae burrow into the buds when newly hatched and later feed on the flowers and leaves. A common moth which causes the browning of ash leaves, as well as garden privet and lilac, is Gracillaria syringella. The usually gregarious larvae form an epidermal gallery (i.e. feed within the leaf) which leads to a brown blotch with black frass. Later, two successive cones are formed by folding the tip of a leaf downwards.

In Britain, 14 galls have been recorded on ash. The British Plant Gall Society defines a gall as "... an abnormal growth produced by a plant under the influence of another organism".

Ash dieback
Ash dieback is caused by the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus which was previously known as Chalara fraxinea. Research into the genetics of the resistance of ash (Fraxinus excelsior) has shown that resistance does occur in European populations, but at least for the samples tested, it is neither common nor strong. Due to the importance of F. excelsior as a host, Jönsson and Thor 2012 find that rare/threatened lichens face an unusually high (0.38) coextinction risk probability vis-a-vis the host tree in the wooded meadows of Gotland, Sweden.

Genome
The genome of Fraxinus excelsior is being sequenced by two groups of scientists in the United Kingdom. A group at Queen Mary University of London led by Richard Buggs are sequencing the self-pollinated offspring of a tree from Worcestershire, held by the Earth Trust. A group at the John Innes Centre and The Genome Analysis Centre led by Allan Downie are sequencing "Tree 35" from Denmark, discovered by Erik Kjær, which has survived 8 years of ash dieback.

Uses

The resilience and rapid growth made it an important resource for smallholders and farmers. It was probably the most versatile wood in the countryside with wide-ranging uses. Until World War II, the trees were often coppiced on a 10-year cycle to provide a sustainable source of timber for fuel and poles for building and woodworking. The colour of the wood ranges from creamy white to light brown, and the heart wood may be a darker olive-brown. Ash timber is hard, tough and very hard-wearing, with a coarse, open grain and a density of 710 kg/m3. It lacks oak's natural resistance to decay, and is not as suitable for posts buried in the ground. Because of its high flexibility, shock resistance, and resistance to splitting, ash wood is the traditional material for bows, tool handles, especially for hammers and axes, tennis rackets, and snooker cue sticks, and it was extensively used in the construction of early aircraft. Ash was commonly used green for making chair frames which would be seated with another timber or with woven rush (e.g. those made by Philip Clissett, see also The English Regional Chair ). The parts were turned on a pole lathe or shaped with a drawknife. The practice essentially died out in the early 20th century, but has seen a revival in recent years.

Ash is an important constituent of wood pasture, a European management system in which open woodland provided shelter and forage for grazing animals. Ash was coppiced and pollarded, often in hedgerows, and evidence in the form of some huge boles with multiple trunks emerging at head height can still be seen in parts of Britain. The Glen Lyon ash is a notable example of a pollarded ash which at about 400–500 years of age achieved a girth of 6 m. In Northumberland, crab and lobster pots (traps) sometimes known as 'creeves' by local people are still made from ash sticks. Because of its elasticity European ash wood was commonly used for walking sticks. Poles were cut from a coppice and the ends heated in steam. The wood could then be bent in a curved vise to form the handle of the walking stick. The light colour and attractive grain of ash wood make it popular in modern furniture such as chairs, dining tables, doors, and other architectural features and wood flooring.

Ash is the only wood used for the manufacture of hurleys, referred to as hurls in parts of Leinster and known as a camán in Irish, the timber sticks used in the game of hurling in Ireland. Hurleys are manufactured from the butt log (bottom 1.5-m of the stem) and from trees ideally of a diameter at breast height around 25–30 cm. Only fast-grown, straight, and knot-free ash can be used for this purpose. Due to the lack of available ash in Ireland, over 75% of the timber needed to produce the 350,000 hurleys required for the game annually must be imported, mostly from Eastern European countries. The importance of ash timber to the game of hurling is reflected in the fact that the game is referred to all over Ireland as "The Clash of the Ash".

Ash is valuable as firewood because it burns well even when 'green' (freshly cut). Ash bark and leaves are used in modern herbal medicine for its astringent and laxative properties.

Mythology
In the 13th-century Edda and other writing relating to Norse mythology, the vast ash tree Yggdrasil ("the steed (gallows) of Odin"), watered by three magical springs, serves as axis mundi, sustaining the nine worlds of the cosmos in its roots and branches.

Folklore
On the Isle of Bute in Scotland, lovers reportedly used to eat leaves of an ash tree known as the "Dreamin' Tree" that grew near the church of St Blane, and the pleasant dreams they then experienced revealed their actual spouses and intended fates.

Cultivars
Its many cultivars include;

 * Fraxinus excelsior 'Aurea', the traditional, slow-growing golden ash ─ not to be confused with 'Jaspidea'
 * Fraxinus excelsior 'Aurea Pendula' (weeping golden ash)
 * Fraxinus excelsior 'Autumn Blaze'
 * Fraxinus excelsior 'Autumn Purple'
 * Fraxinus excelsior 'Crispa'
 * Fraxinus excelsior 'Diversifolia' (one-leaved ash)
 * Fraxinus excelsior 'Erosa'
 * Fraxinus excelsior 'Jaspidea' a modern, vigorous golden ash
 * Fraxinus excelsior 'Monophylla'
 * Fraxinus excelsior 'Nana'
 * Fraxinus excelsior 'Pendula' (weeping ash), one of the best-known cultivars, widely planted during the Victorian era, grows vigorously forming an attractive small to medium-sized tree with mounds of weeping branches
 * Fraxinus excelsior 'Skyline'

title: Fraxinus excelsior


text:
Grimsby, Ontario

Grimsby is a town on Lake Ontario in the Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada. Grimsby is at the eastern end of the Hamilton Census Metropolitan Area. It is named after the English fishing town of Grimsby in north-east Lincolnshire. The majority of residents reside in the area bounded by Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment, home to a section of the Bruce Trail.

Grimsby has experienced significant growth over the past two decades due to its position between Hamilton and St. Catharines. Growth is limited by the natural boundaries of Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment. Some residents feel development is detrimental to the town as orchards close to the town centre are used for residential development; however, most of the orchards in Grimsby were replaced by houses between the 1950s and 1980s, and very few orchards remain.

According to a late 2019 report, the town has 33 small parks, 17 larger and "many more green spaces, sport fields, parkettes, trails, and facilities". Some notable attractions in Grimsby are the Grimsby Museum, the Grimsby Public Library, the Grimsby Public Art Gallery, the West Niagara YMCA, the Danish Church, and the hockey arena (Peach King Centre), home of the Grimsby Peach Kings.

History

A group of United Empire Loyalists from Great Britain settled on the land (originally named Township Number 6 and then 'The Forty'), and founded Grimsby in 1790. Robert Nelles, a politician and later lieutenant-colonel in the War of 1812, was one of the town's founders. His home on Main Street West was used for many planning sessions during the war. In 1816, the settlement became known as Grimsby, the name of the surrounding township, in memory of the seaport town of Grimsby in North East Lincolnshire, England.

The Village of Grimsby was officially incorporated in 1876 and became a town in 1922. The community has gone through many changes, from being a small rural village to a centre for the manufacture of farm machinery, hospital furniture, furnaces and other metal products; and later the hub of the Niagara Peninsula's fruit-growing industry. Grimsby also had a successful fishing industry which lasted until the 1960s. The Town of Grimsby and the Township of North Grimsby were amalgamated in 1970 with the formation of the Regional Municipality of Niagara. With a number of wineries and distilleries, Grimsby now serves as the starting point for touring the Niagara wine region. Canada's first Chautauqua-like organization (a Methodist camp) was established in 1859 in Grimsby Park on land donated by J.B. Bowslaugh; colourful cottages were later built, and some visitors spent entire summers in the area. Two hotels and a temple were also built. Over 50,000 visited in 1884, but by 1900, interest had declined. By 1909, the Grimsby Park Company was bankrupt, and the property was sold for use as an amusement park. The temple and hotels were destroyed in the 1920s. In 1910, the amusement park's first owner, Harry Wylie, added carousels, a motion picture theater, and a roller coaster. Canada Steamship Lines bought out the business in 1916, but the park declined through the 1920s, mainly due to multiple fires that consumed many of the wooden buildings. The operation had ceased by 1950, and the land was sold to developers who built cottages. Many of the colourful cottages were destroyed by fire or demolished over the years. As of 2019, Grimsby Pier, where ferries and steamships had once docked, was in a state of disrepair; the mayor said he hoped that it could be restored.

In 2011, Grimsby was struck by an F0 Tornado.

Grimsby is also the birthplace of a Hollywood director, Del Lord. He rose to acclaim as the director of most of the Three Stooges short vaudeville comedies. Later, under Columbia Pictures, he also directed nearly 200 feature films.

Local government

Grimsby Town Council is composed of a mayor and eight councillors who serve for a term of four years. The mayor is elected at large, and the councillors are elected by ward. The town is divided into four wards, with two councillors elected in each ward. It is the role of the council to represent the public and to consider the well-being and interests of the municipality; to develop and evaluate policies and programs; to determine which services the municipality provides; to ensure administrative practices and procedures are in place to implement the decisions of council; and to maintain the financial integrity of the municipality. The council generally meets on the first and third Mondays of each month. All meetings are open to the public and are also televised live on the local Government-access television (GATV) cable TV channel.

The current council (2018-2022 term) was sworn in on December 3, 2018, with the following members:

 * Mayor
 * Jeff A. Jordan

 * Town council members Ward 1
 * Councillor Reg Freake
 * Councillor Delight Davoli

 * Town council members Ward 2
 * Councillor Don Howe
 * Councillor Lianne Vardy

 * Town council members Ward 3
 * Councillor Veronica Charrois
 * Councillor Jennifer Korstanje

 * Town council members Ward 4
 * Councillor Nick DiFlavio
 * Councillor Jacob Baradziej

Source:

The Regional Municipality of Niagara is an upper-tier municipality that encompasses all municipalities in Niagara Region. On Niagara Regional Council, Grimsby is represented by the mayor and by an elected regional councillor, currently Michelle Seaborn.

Standing committees
Council has appointed four standing committees as follows:
 * Administration and Finance Committee (four councillors and mayor) - Main functions are current and capital budget preparation and administration; personnel policies and compensation plans; financial matters; general administrative matters; public relations; fire matters; cemetery administration; school crossing guards; canine control. The administration, treasury and fire departments report to the council through this committee, as well as the library, art gallery and museum for budget purposes.
 * Planning and Development Committee (four councillors, three citizen appointees and mayor) - Main functions are land use planning, economic development and promotion and building inspection. The planning and building departments report to the council through this committee.
 * Public Works Committee (four councillors and mayor) - Main functions are storm drainage, sidewalks, roads, street lighting, water distribution, sanitary sewers, solid waste management, cemetery maintenance, parking and traffic control. The public works department reports to the council through this committee.
 * Recreation Services Committee (four councillors, three citizen appointees and mayor) - Main functions are parks, community and recreation services and programming. The recreation, facilities and culture department reports to the council through this committee, as well as the art gallery, library and museum.

Transportation
Bisecting the town is the Queen Elizabeth Way, one of the 400-series highways. It has three interchanges in the town, with Casablanca Boulevard in the west, a central interchange for three roads (Christie Street, Ontario Street, and Maple Avenue), and Bartlett Avenue in the east.

The Grimsby station, on the south side of the railway tracks west of Ontario Street and south of Queen Elizabeth Way, is served by the Maple Leaf train jointly operated by Via Rail and Amtrak. A GO Transit train station is planned for operation on the Lakeshore West line, was expected to open in 2021 as part of the Lakeshore West Line, and was halted as of late 2018. Of three sites for the Grimsby GO Station evaluated by Metrolinx, the Crown agency that operates GO Transit, the preferred site for the proposed station is west of and adjacent to Casablanca Boulevard.

In August 2020, Niagara Region Transit launched a two-year pilot to provide on-demand local and regional transit service for Grimsby and other nearby communities.

Grimsby Regional Airport, a private aerodrome for small aircraft, is located about 6 kms south-west of the town centre.

Secondary schools

 * West Niagara Secondary School (operated by DSBN)
 * Blessed Trinity Catholic Secondary School (operated by NCDSB)

Primary schools

 * Central French Immersion Public School
 * Grand Ave. Public School
 * Lakeview Public School
 * Nelles Public School
 * Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School
 * Park Public School
 * Smith Public School
 * St. Joseph Catholic School

Grimsby Public Library
The first library in Grimsby was opened in 1871 in the home of Grimsby councillor Sam Mabey, housing a collection of 1,000 books. Following a recommendation of the town council, the village struck a committee to approach the Andrew Carnegie Foundation to request new funds to build a new library. The foundation allocated $8,000 to build the new library building. In 1975, the library was expanded to include a new building, which inaugurated a Grimsby Public Art Gallery in the basement of the library. A few years later, the Klosso Eloul sculpture 'Double is One' was installed on the grounds. In 2004, a new building was constructed adjacent to the original structure to house both the library and art gallery. The original structure itself contains the Grimsby Archives.

Grimsby Beach
Grimsby beach is home to "Gingerbread Houses" that are painted by owners in bright colours and flourishes for an eye-catching addition to the area.

Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Grimsby had a population of $28,883$ living in $11,395$ of its $11,626$ total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of $27,314$. With a land area of 68.71 km2, it had a population density of in 2021.

Climate
Grimsby's climate varies throughout the year; 12 °C – 15 °C in the spring, 21 °C – 33 °C in the summer, and 10 °C – 17 °C in the fall. Temperatures in the winter months are around 4 °C to −16 °C, with about 190 cm of snow per year.

title: Grimsby, Ontario


text:
Philosophy of psychology

Philosophy of psychology is concerned with the history and foundations of psychology. It deals with both epistemological and ontological issues and shares interests with other fields, including philosophy of mind and theoretical psychology. Philosophical and theoretical psychology are intimately tied and are therefore sometimes used interchangeably or used together. However, philosophy of psychology relies more on debates general to philosophy and on philosophical methods, whereas theoretical psychology draws on multiple areas.

Epistemology
Some of the issues studied by the philosophy of psychology are epistemological concerns about the methodology of psychological investigation. For example:
 * What constitutes a psychological explanation?
 * What is the most appropriate methodology for psychology: mentalism, behaviorism, or a compromise?
 * Are self-reports a reliable data-gathering method?
 * What conclusions can be drawn from null hypothesis tests?
 * Can first-person experiences (emotions, desires, beliefs, etc.) be measured objectively?

Ontology
Philosophers of psychology also concern themselves with ontological issues, like:

 * Can psychology be theoretically reduced to neuroscience?
 * What are psychological phenomena?
 * What is the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity in psychology?

Relations to other fields
Philosophy of psychology also closely monitors contemporary work conducted in cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence, for example questioning whether psychological phenomena can be explained using the methods of neuroscience, evolutionary theory, and computational modeling, respectively. Although these are all closely related fields, some concerns still arise about the appropriateness of importing their methods into psychology. Some such concerns are whether psychology, as the study of individuals as information processing systems (see Donald Broadbent), is autonomous from what happens in the brain (even if psychologists largely agree that the brain in some sense causes behavior (see supervenience)); whether the mind is "hard-wired" enough for evolutionary investigations to be fruitful; and whether computational models can do anything more than offer possible implementations of cognitive theories that tell us nothing about the mind (Fodor & Pylyshyn 1988).

Related to the philosophy of psychology are philosophical and epistemological inquiries about clinical psychiatry and psychopathology. Philosophy of psychiatry is mainly concerned with the role of values in psychiatry: derived from philosophical value theory and phenomenology, values-based practice is aimed at improving and humanizing clinical decision-making in the highly complex environment of mental health care. Philosophy of psychopathology is mainly involved in the epistemological reflection about the implicit philosophical foundations of psychiatric classification and evidence-based psychiatry. Its aims is to unveil the constructive activity underlying the description of mental phenomena.

Main areas
Different schools and systems of psychology represent approaches to psychological problems, which are often based on different philosophies of consciousness.

Functional psychology Functionalism treats the psyche as derived from the activity of external stimuli, deprived of its essential autonomy, denying free will, which influenced behaviourism later on; one of the founders of functionalism was James, also close to pragmatism, where human action is put before questions and doubts about the nature of the world and man himself. Psychoanalysis Freud`s doctrine, called Metapsychology, was to give the human self greater freedom from instinctive and irrational desires in a dialogue with a psychologist through analysis of the unconscious. Later the psychoanalytic movement split, part of it treating psychoanalysis as a practice of working with archetypes (analytical psychology), part criticising the social limitations of the unconscious (Freudo-Marxism), and later Lacan`s structural psychoanalysis, which interpreted the unconscious as a language. Phenomenological psychology Edmund Husserl rejected the physicalism of most of the psychological teachings of his time and began to understand consciousness as the only reality accessible to reliable cognition. His disciple Heidegger added to this the assertion of the fundamental finitude of man and the threat of a loss of authenticity in the technical world, and thus laid the foundation for existential psychology. Structuralism The recognised creator of psychology as a science, W. Wundt described the primordial structures of the psyche that determine perception and behaviour, but faced the problem of the impossibility of direct access to these structures and the vagueness of their description. Half a century later his ideas, combined with Sossur`s semiotics, strongly influenced the general humanities of structuralism and the post-structuralism and post-modernism that emerged from it, where structures were treated as linguistic invariants.

title: Philosophy of psychology


text:
Battle of Mortimer's Cross

The Battle of Mortimer's Cross was fought on 2 February 1461 near Kingsland, Herefordshire (between Leominster and Leintwardine, by the River Lugg), not far from the Welsh border. It was a major battle of the Wars of the Roses. The opposing forces were an army led by Jasper Tudor and his father, Owen Tudor, and other nobles loyal to King Henry VI of the House of Lancaster, his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and their seven-year-old son, Edward, Prince of Wales, on one side, and the army of Edward, Earl of March. Some sources say it was fought on 3 February, and the exact location has been the subject of some speculation.

Background
In 1460, with King Henry VI a prisoner, Richard, Duke of York (father of Edward, Earl of March) attempted to depose Henry and become king himself. His closest supporters dissuaded him from this step, but he secured an Act of Accord by which he and his descendants would inherit the throne on Henry's death, thus disinheriting Henry's young son Edward, Prince of Wales. Inspired by Henry's queen, Margaret of Anjou, York's enemies and rivals began gathering armies in Wales and Northern England. York sent Edward of March, his 18-year-old eldest son, to gather support in the Welsh Marches while he himself led an army to the north. On 30 December, York led his men into a trap at the Battle of Wakefield where he was killed.

With York's death, his titles and claim to the throne descended to Edward of March, now 4th duke of York. He sought to prevent Lancastrian forces from Wales, led by Owen Tudor and his son Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, from joining the main body of the Lancastrian army. The elder Tudor had been second husband to Catherine of Valois, widow of Henry V; their sons (Jasper and Edmund Tudor), as Henry VI's half-brothers, had been made earls, and the family was a major power in South Wales. His army included Welshmen, drawn especially from the Tudor lands in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, along with French and Breton mercenaries and Irish troops led by James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond. Edward, based at Wigmore Castle had gathered his army from the English border counties and from Wales. Among his leading supporters present were Lord Audley, Lord Grey of Wilton, Sir William Herbert of Raglan, Sir Walter Devereux and Humphrey Stafford. After spending Christmas in Gloucester, he began to prepare to return to London. However, Jasper Tudor's army was approaching and he changed his plan; to block Tudor from joining the main Lancastrian force which was approaching London, Edward moved north with an army of approximately five thousand men to Mortimer's Cross.

Parhelion
As dawn broke, the meteorological phenomenon known as parhelion occurred: three suns were seen to be rising. The appearance of this sun dog so soon before the battle seems to have frightened his troops, but Edward of York appears to have convinced them that it represented the Holy Trinity and that therefore God was on their side. He later took it as his emblem, the "Sun in splendour". The event was dramatised by William Shakespeare in King Henry VI, Part 3 (see below) and in Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendour.

Battle
One of York's advisers, Sir Richard Croft, a local lord from Croft Castle, recommended positioning archers at the crossroads (Roman Road and Ogilby Road) in order to halt the Lancastrian advance. Pembroke's army was about a thousand men smaller than York's and, being untried in battle at that point, may not have originally planned to fight but by midday it was clear that they would have to in order to cross the Lugg. The Lancastrians commenced the attack—Butler's 'battle' (division) led the first assault forcing Edward's right wing to retreat across the road, where this flank dissolved. Pembroke faced Edward's centre division and was held off but, most decisively, Owen Tudor attempted an encirclement of the Yorkist left wing; his ‘battle’ was defeated and a rout commenced. Pembroke's centre then also broke and the battle was won. Owen Tudor's men were now in full flight: some of them were followed as far as Hereford, approximately 17 mi, and where Owen was himself captured and beheaded.

Aftermath
The battle having intruded on York's plans to march to the midlands, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, with the captive King Henry in his train, was meanwhile forced to move to block Margaret's army's route to London on his own. He took up position north of St Albans astride the main road from the north (the ancient Roman road known as Watling Street). Although he lost the battle that followed, and Margaret of Anjou and her army could now march unopposed on to London, they did not do so. The Lancastrian army's reputation for pillage caused the Londoners to bar the gates. This in turn caused Margaret to hesitate, as did the news of the Yorkist victory at Mortimer's Cross. The Lancastrians fell back through Dunstable, losing many Scots and Borderers who deserted and returned home with the plunder they had already gathered. Edward of March and Warwick entered London on 2 March, and Edward was quickly proclaimed King Edward IV of England. Within a few weeks he had confirmed his hold on the throne with a decisive victory at the Battle of Towton.

Alignment controversy
Conventional sketch maps of Mortimer's Cross show the armies facing each other across the valley with the River Lugg at the rear of Edward's Yorkist army. This almost east/west alignment is partly based on the supposed approach routes of both armies. It has been pointed out that this would mean that Yorkist Edward had the river at his back, an obstacle which would invite disaster if the Yorkists were either pushed back or routed. His fleeing men would be cut down from behind while trying to wade the shallows. Edward was known to be militarily astute (or at least well advised) and he is likely to have been well aware of this risk. Writing for Hobilar, the Journal of the Lance and Longbow Society Andy Lamkowski suggests that a second battlefield alignment is quite plausible; that Edward drew up across the valley with the River Lugg on his left (with the Yorkists facing almost south) and the Lancastrians drew up facing almost north with the river on their right. The narrowness of the valley close to the bridge would probably mean that the two armies each drew up in a column of three divisions—if they fought close to the river crossing—but the ground widens significantly towards the present Battle Acre Cottage and Drybridge House. At that point a traditional 'three units' battle line is possible. Author Andrew Boardman also suggests that an alternative interpretation is possible saying: "It may be safe to assume that the battle was fought somewhere in the vicinity, possibly with the river securing the flanks of both armies and the hills the other". Andrew Boardman also quotes William Gregory (Gregory's Chronicle) saying that Edward: "Met his enemies on a fair plain near to Mortimer's Cross, not far from Hereford East". The usual placing of the battle in the valley beside the bridge is not 'a fair plain' but the area around Battle Acre Cottage or Drybridge House—to the south-south-east—meets that description. Andy Lamkowski also makes the point that if the Lancastrian force approached from the south rather than the west then a north/south alignment is more likely, Edward would be deploying across the valley width to prevent them moving north and would have the advantage of anchoring his flanks on the slopes of the narrowing valley and/or the River Lugg itself.

In Shakespeare
Shakespeare described this parhelion phenomenon and its portentous symbolism in Act Two Scene One of Henry VI, Part 3:

 * Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;
 * Not separated with the racking clouds,
 * But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.
 * See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,
 * As if they vow'd some league inviolable:
 * Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.
 * In this the heaven figures some event.

Shakespeare omits mention of the battle.

title: Battle of Mortimer's Cross