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Slang (album)

Slang is the sixth studio album by English rock band Def Leppard, released on 14 May 1996. The album marked a musical departure from their signature sound; it was produced by the band with Pete Woodroffe and was their first album since 1980 without involvement by Robert John "Mutt" Lange. Slang is the first album with new material to feature new guitarist Vivian Campbell (Campbell had previously played on the B-side collection Retro Active in 1993 and on the new song on Vault a year earlier). It charted at #14 on the Billboard 200 and #5 on the UK Albums Chart. It is also the only Def Leppard album that does not feature their recognisable font logo on the album cover, though all its singles still bore the classic logo.

Overview
Between the releases of Retro Active and Slang, Def Leppard endured hardships including guitarist Phil Collen's divorce from actress Jacqueline Collen, bassist Rick Savage's battle with Bell's palsy and the death of his father, and the arrests of both drummer Rick Allen and lead singer Joe Elliott for spousal abuse and assault, respectively. Though the band says Adrenalize was recorded during a bleaker time, the absence of Mutt Lange (for the first time on a Def Leppard album since 1980) made it possible for the band to show what they were really feeling. Said Elliott, "There was a period with Mutt where if you came out with anything slightly negative, it was 'Fuck it!' and it was gone!" Collen continued: "We've all got personal things that have happened during the recording of Slang, and we've just ploughed on and some of it has come out on the record."

Doing without Lange's services, the band changed another habit by recording together, in a townhouse in Marbella, Spain. Slang would feature less production in favour of a more organic sound, catalysed by Allen's reversion to a semi-acoustic drum kit. "We'd got so sick of recording the old way. We didn't want to do it any more.  We wanted the music to be more personalised and let the character of the individuals to come out," explained Savage.

"We knew we couldn't make a typical Def Leppard album in the mid-1990s," said Vivian Campbell. "Grunge was very much happening and our stuff was anathema at the time… Personally, I think we could have bolstered the songs with a little more of that Def Lep fairy dust… but instead we went, 'No, let's keep it raw: no backing vocals; let's not do that part because it's too melodic; let's be more monotone… At least it gave us the chance to grow up a little. We live in a state of arrested development in this band, singing songs like 'Let's Get Rocked'. So we did get to write some grown-up lyrics. And we were going through a lot of shit at that time: Sav's dad died on the eve of the first recording day; both Joe and Phil were going through divorces… So it gave us an opportunity to write lyrics that reflected the reality of our lives."

Songs such as "Turn to Dust" introduced sarangi and other instrumentation atypical for the band. The lyrical content featured a darker and more introspective turn for the most part, with lighter fare restricted to the Prince-influenced "Slang".

Slang was the first Leppard album to fail to achieve platinum sales in the US. Elsewhere, it performed better: it placed four singles on the UK charts, and went platinum in Canada. On the supporting tour the band performed for the first time in Southeast Asia, South Africa and South America. Only the album's title track has been played live after the Slang World Tour of 1996 to 1997 with it being performed regularly in the early 2000's and occasionally after, mostly recently during their 2023 performance at The Leadmill in Sheffield.

A limited edition release included a six-track bonus disc, "Acoustic in Singapore", recorded live in October 1995.

Deluxe edition
On 22 November 2011, Collen revealed in an interview with the Birmingham Express And Star newspaper that the band would plan to reissue Slang with extra tracks. He stated the band "...did have a lot of songs when we recorded, different versions, songs that never quite got finished." On 26 December 2011, Campbell gave an update on the reissue while speaking on his Facebook page in response to fan questions about Christmas songs. "We did once record a song called "Heavy Metal Christmas" during the Slang sessions - tongues very firmly in cheeks! It was actually a proper (and rather good!) song but was lacking lyrics - hence the goof-off title. It'll likely see the light of day when we re-release Slang soon. Some unheard stuff, too, as far as I know."

On 18 January 2012, Campbell mentioned on his Facebook that "Ownership of Slang masters (and all out-takes) revert to us later this year, so there's a good chance that we'll re-release with bonus material."

Elliott confirmed on his 25 August 2012 Planet Rock radio show that "...in a few months time we are re-releasing Slang as a double vinyl, a double CD with loads and loads of different mixes, bonus tracks and all sorts of stuff." This was followed by Elliott playing the band's 1999 Euphoria b-side 'Burnout' (first released on the "Goodbye" CD single) at the end of the show and revealing it had been recorded during the 1995/1996 Slang sessions. The singer described it as "...a little teaser", implying that the song may be included on the re-issue.

On 21 January 2014, it was announced on Def Leppard's Twitter page that Slang will be reissued on 11 February 2014. The album included 19 additional tracks, made up of various early versions of songs on the original, as well as previously unreleased material.

As of 2023, Slang remains the only album in Def Leppard's discography to not receive a re-release on vinyl outside of its inclusion in the "Volume 2" boxset in 2019, even after other albums from the 1990s such as Adrenalize, Retro Active and Euphoria were reissued in the preceding year.

Reception
Slang received mixed reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic rated the album three out of five, writing that the band's change in their approach with Slang was "apparent and welcome -- Def Leppard hasn't sounded so immediate since Pyromania." He further adds that the band "expand their musical vocabulary slightly, working elements of R&B and funk into the rhythms." Erlewine concludes that "Slang would have been even better if they had come up with a set of hooks that sounded as alive as their performance, but the album is a much-needed return to form for the group."

Conversely, Sputnik Music was more critical of the album, rating it two and a half out of five. They criticized Slang's seeming lack of direction and how "the veteran Sheffield outfit (alongside new co-producer Pete Woodroffe) decide to throw absolutely everything at the wall to see what sticks." They further added that "in progressing outside of their comfort zone, their limitations have become a little too apparent." Sputnik Music was, however, more positive towards "All I Want is Everything", "Work It Out", "Breath a Sigh" and "Deliver Me", deeming them to be "a solid and workmanlike mid-album quartet of tracks which make the album passable." They concluded that Slang "may be a passable release (if only just), but it leaves Def Leppard’s future very much up in the air." "The whole thing is potty," David Quantick wrote in Q, "but in a supple and melodic way – even the ballads lack the usual Def Leppard sense of having been written for lead-lined hippos to sing. Slang is the sound of a band doing something fast and interesting, at the exact point in their lives when most bands are taking up golf and inhaling the contents of aquariums in country manors." Q later included the album among its 'best of 1996', describing it as "the work of a huge band, aware that the straight-ahead rock they once plied so enthusiastically is dead and who have embraced the new breed with élan."

Def Leppard

 * Rick Allen – drums, percussion
 * Vivian Campbell – electric & acoustic guitars, dulcimer, vocals
 * Phil Collen – electric & acoustic guitars, mandolin, vocals
 * Joe Elliott – lead vocals (additional guitar & bass on "Pearl of Euphoria")
 * Rick Savage – bass, acoustic guitars, synth bass, vocals

Additional musicians

 * Gloria Flores – Spanish voice on "Slang"
 * Ram Narayan – intro sarangi sample on "Turn to Dust"
 * Craig Pruess – string and percussion arranging and conducting on "Turn to Dust"
 * Av Singh – dohl on "Turn to Dust"
 * Shyam Vatish – outro sarangi sample on "Turn to Dust"
 * Pete Woodroffe – piano on "Blood Runs Cold", keyboard strings on "Where Does Love Go When It Dies"
 * Gavyn Wright – string leader on "Turn to Dust"

Production

 * Pete Woodroffe – producer, engineer, mixing
 * Def Leppard – producer
 * Ger McDonnell – engineer, programming on "Truth?"
 * Matt Pakucko – mixing assistant
 * Bob Ludwig – mastering
 * Brad Buxer, Bobby Brooks – programming on "Slang" and "Breathe a Sigh"
 * Hugh Drumm – programming on "Truth?"
 * Jeff Murray – art direction
 * Jager di Paola – design
 * Cynthia Levine, Jeff Rooney – photography

title: Slang (album)


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Buchanan County

Buchanan County is the name of three current counties in the United States of America, each named for American statesman James Buchanan during his lifetime:

 * Buchanan County, Iowa
 * Buchanan County, Missouri
 * Buchanan County, Virginia

It is also the name of one disestablished county, also named for him, Buchanan County, Minnesota.

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

title: Buchanan County


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Buchanan

Buchanan may refer to:

People

 * Buchanan (surname)

Africa

 * Buchanan, Liberia, a large coastal town

Antarctica

 * Buchanan Point, Laurie Island

Australia

 * Buchanan, New South Wales
 * Buchanan, Northern Territory, a locality
 * Buchanan, South Australia, a locality

Canada

 * Buchanan, Saskatchewan
 * Rural Municipality of Buchanan No. 304, Saskatchewan

Puerto Rico

 * Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico, a US Army installation

United Kingdom

 * Buchanan, Stirling, Scotland

United States

 * Buchanan, Tuolumne County, California, unincorporated community
 * Fort Buchanan, Kansas, a former town and pioneer fort
 * Buchanan, Georgia, city
 * Buchanan, Indiana, unincorporated community
 * Buchanan, Iowa, unincorporated community
 * Buchanan, Michigan, city
 * Buchanan, New York, village
 * Buchanan, North Dakota, city
 * Buchanan, Oregon, unincorporated community
 * Buchanan, Tennessee
 * Buchanan, Texas, former community
 * Buchanan, Virginia, town
 * Buchanan, Wisconsin, town
 * Buchanan Township, Michigan
 * Fort Buchanan, Arizona, former US Army base

Music

 * Buchanan (band), an Australian alternative rock band

Other uses

 * Clan Buchanan
 * Buchanan (car), an Australian carmaker
 * Buchanan (horse), an American Thoroughbred racehorse, the winner of the 1884 Kentucky Derby
 * Buchanan High School (Clovis, California), a high school in Clovis, California, USA
 * Buchanan High School, North Lanarkshire, a high school in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, Scotland
 * Buchanan's, a brand of Scotch whisky
 * Buchanan v. Warley, a 1917 United States Supreme Court case.

title: Buchanan


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Musikverein

The Wiener Musikverein ( or ; ), commonly shortened to Musikverein, is a concert hall in Vienna, Austria, which is located in the Innere Stadt district. The building opened in 1870 and is the home of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra.

The acoustics of the building's 'Great Hall' (Großer Saal) have earned it recognition alongside other prominent concert halls, such as the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Symphony Hall in Boston. With the exception of Boston's Symphony Hall, none of these halls was built in the modern era with the application of architectural acoustics, and all share a long, tall and narrow shoebox shape.

Building
The Musikverein's main entrance is situated on Musikvereinsplatz, between Karlsplatz and Bösendorferstraße. The building is located behind the Hotel Imperial that fronts on Kärntner Ring, which is part of the Vienna Ring Road (Ringstraße). It was erected as the new concert hall run by the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna, on a piece of land provided by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in 1863.

The plans were designed by Danish architect Theophil Hansen in the Neoclassical style of an ancient Greek temple, including a concert hall and a smaller chamber music hall. The building was inaugurated on 6 January 1870. A major donor was Nikolaus Dumba, an industrialist and liberal politician of Aromanian Greek - Albanian (Voskopoja) descent, whose name was given by the Austrian government to a small street (Dumbastraße) near the Musikverein.

The Golden Hall
The Great Hall (Großer Musikvereinssaal), also called the Golden Hall (Goldener Saal), is about 49 m long, 19 m wide, and 18 m high. It has 1,744 seats and standing room for 300. The Scandal Concert of 1913 was given there, and it is the venue for the annual Vienna New Year's Concert.

The Great Hall's lively acoustics are primarily based on Hansen's intuition, as he could not rely on any studies on architectural acoustics. The room's rectangular shape and proportions, its boxes and sculptures allow early and numerous sound reflections.

The Great Hall originally included a historic pipe organ built by Friedrich Ladegast. Its first organ recital was held by Anton Bruckner in 1872. The present-day instrument was originally installed in 1907 by the Austrian firm of Rieger Orgelbau, highly esteemed by musicians such as Franz Schmidt or Marcel Dupré, and rebuilt in 2011.

In 2001, a renovation program began. Several new rehearsal halls were installed in the basement.

Halls
The names of the six halls refer to gold, Johannes Brahms, glass, metal, stone and wood respectively.

title: Musikverein


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Dongas road protest group

The Dongas Tribe was a collection of road protesters and travellers in England, noted for their occupation of Twyford Down outside Winchester, Hampshire. The name Dongas comes from the Matabele word for "gully", given by Winchester locals to the deep drovers' tracks on Twyford Down.

John Vidal, writing in The Guardian in 2012, said of The Dongas that "the 15-20 urban youths who camped out to try to defend Twyford Down in 1992 are recognised to have fired up British environmental protest and kickstarted a major shift in green attitudes in both government and the public."

History

The Twyford Down protest was a protest against the M3 motorway extension which destroyed some rich ecological sites, one of the very few habitats of the Chalkhill Blue butterfly and six species of rare orchid, and ancient monuments there (SSSI and Scheduled Ancient Monument). The Conservative government was planning to construct a new roadway through the area.

Following "Yellow Wednesday", when hordes of police and security guards invaded the camp to bulldoze the area, the Dongas Tribe left Twyford Down for Bramdean Common. Earth First!, who had been heavily involved in the setting up and support of the camp and actions, continued the protests and restarted a camp in Plague Pits Valley. They constituted about twenty people. Of them, seven were sent to prison in 1993 for breaking an injunction. In one incident, around fifty protesters chained themselves to a bridge, leading to the arrest of some. At least one protester (Paul Kingsnorth) subsequently sued the police and received a $5000 settlement.

Some of the 'original Dongas' (as they became called) of the mid-1990s were musicians who made a living by busking, sometimes using traditional music from Brittany.

The first child born in the Dongas tribe, to Rosie Lambert, was named May Brigit "Donga" Lambert and was born on 1 May 1994.

In late 2012, original members of the Dongas, as well as hundreds of others, returned to the hillside on the protest's 20th anniversary. They expressed warnings about the government's more than forty new road plans.

Influence
The Dongas road protests inspired a major change in green attitudes among both the public and the government, radicalizing a generation of British youth. Among them, Paul Kingsnorth of The Dark Mountain Project credits his arrest at Twyford Down as his impetus for engaging in further protests.

title: Dongas road protest group


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Mario Cuomo

Mario Matthew Cuomo (, ; June 15, 1932 – January 1, 2015) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 52nd governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, Cuomo previously served as the lieutenant governor of New York from 1979 to 1982 and the secretary of State of New York from 1975 to 1978. He was the father of former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and NewsNation anchor Christopher Cuomo.

Cuomo was known for his liberal views and public speeches, particularly his keynote speech address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in which he sharply criticized the policies of the Reagan administration, saying, "Mr. President, you ought to know that this nation is more a Tale of Two Cities than it is just a shining 'city on a hill.'" He was widely considered a potential front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president in both 1988 and 1992, though he declined to seek the nomination in both instances. His legacy as a reluctant standard-bearer for the Democrats in presidential elections led to his being dubbed "Hamlet on the Hudson".

Cuomo was defeated for a fourth term as governor by George Pataki in the Republican Revolution of 1994. He subsequently retired from politics and joined the New York City law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

Early life and education
Cuomo was born in the Briarwood section of the New York City borough of Queens to a family of Italian origin. His grandfather Donato came to the US in 1896. Mario Cuomo's father, Andrea Cuomo, was born in New York City in 1901 but in 1904, aged two or three, was taken back to a mountain village outside Salerno, Campania, returning to the USA on his US passport more than two decades later. Andrea Cuomo was from Nocera Superiore, Campania, and his mother—Immacolata Giordano—was from Tramonti, Campania. The family ran Kessler's Grocery Store in South Jamaica, Queens. Cuomo attended New York City P.S. 50 and St. John's Preparatory School.

Cuomo was a baseball player and while attending St. John's University in 1952, he signed as an outfielder with the Pittsburgh Pirates for a $2,000 bonus, which he used to help purchase his wife Matilda's engagement ring. Cuomo played for the Brunswick Pirates of the Class D Georgia–Florida League where his teammates included future major leaguer Fred Green; Cuomo attained a .244 batting average and played center field until he was struck in the back of the head by a pitch. Batting helmets were not yet required equipment, and Cuomo's injury was severe enough that he was hospitalized for six days.

After his recovery, Cuomo gave up baseball and returned to St. John's University, earning his bachelor's degree summa cum laude in 1953. Deciding on a legal career, Cuomo attended St. John's University School of Law and graduated tied for first in his class in 1956. Cuomo clerked for Judge Adrian P. Burke of the New York Court of Appeals. Despite having been a top student, the ethnic prejudice of the time led to his rejection by more than 50 law firms before he was hired by a small but established office in Brooklyn.

During his tenure at the law firm of Comer, Weisbrod, Froeb and Charles, Cuomo represented Fred Trump. Cuomo eventually became a partner at the firm, but stepped down in 1974 to become New York Secretary of State. In 1989, he settled a longstanding lawsuit against his former firm regarding $4 million in legal fees. In addition to practicing law, Cuomo worked as an adjunct professor at St. John's University School of Law.

Early political career
Cuomo first became widely known in New York City in the late 1960s when he represented "The Corona Fighting 69", a group of 69 home-owners from the Queens neighborhood of Corona, who were threatened with displacement by the city's plan to build a new high school. He later represented another Queens residents group, the Kew Gardens–Forest Hills Committee on Urban Scale, who opposed Samuel J. LeFrak's housing proposal adjacent to Willow Lake in Queens. In 1972, Cuomo became known beyond New York City when Mayor John Lindsay appointed him to conduct an inquiry and mediate a dispute over low-income public housing slated for the upper-middle-class neighborhood of Forest Hills. Cuomo described his experience in that dispute in the book Forest Hills Diary, and the story was retold by sociologist Richard Sennett in The Fall of Public Man.

New York Secretary of State
In 1974, he ran for Lieutenant Governor of New York on a ticket headed by gubernatorial candidate Howard J. Samuels, and both won the nomination of the Democratic State Committee at the party convention. But their entire ticket, including the nominees for attorney general and U.S. Senator was defeated in the Democratic primary election: Samuels by Rep. Hugh Carey of Brooklyn, and Cuomo by State Senator Mary Anne Krupsak.

Governor-elect Carey chose to bring Cuomo into his new administration, naming him in December as his choice for Secretary of State of New York. Cuomo was followed as Secretary of State by Basil Paterson.

New York City mayoral election
Two years later, Cuomo ran for Mayor of New York City at Carey's urging. Incumbent Mayor Abraham Beame was very unpopular and Cuomo was one of five major challengers to Beame in the Democratic primary. In a close and highly fractured election, U.S. Representative Ed Koch finished first with 19.81% of the vote and Cuomo came second with 18.74%. As no candidate cleared 40% of the vote, Koch and Cuomo advanced to a runoff. Koch emerged victorious with 54.94% of the vote to Cuomo's 45.06%. Cuomo had received the nomination of the Liberal Party several months previously and was urged to drop out of the race but he contested the general election against Koch and token Republican opposition.

During the mayoral campaign, placards appeared saying: "Vote for Cuomo, not the homo" in reference to rumors about Koch's sexuality. Cuomo denied responsibility for this but Koch never forgave him "as he made clear with a pointedly disparaging reference to Mr. Cuomo in a recorded interview with The New York Times that was not to be made public until Mr. Koch's death". Cuomo ran on his opposition to the death penalty, which backfired among New Yorkers as crime was very high. Cuomo then went negative with ads that likened Koch to unpopular former mayor John Lindsay. Meanwhile, Koch backers accused Cuomo of antisemitism and pelted Cuomo campaign cars with eggs. Cuomo was also defeated by Koch in the general election, taking 40.97% to Koch's 49.99%. The race is discussed in Jonathan Mahler's book Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning.

New York lieutenant governor
In 1978, incumbent Lieutenant Governor Krupsak declined to seek re-election. She withdrew from the ticket and unsuccessfully challenged Carey in the gubernatorial primary, accusing him of incompetence. Cuomo won the primary for lieutenant governor and was elected alongside Carey in the general election.

Elections

In 1982, Carey declined to run for re-election and Cuomo declared his candidacy. He once again faced Ed Koch in the Democratic primary. This time, Koch's support for the death penalty backfired and he alienated many voters from outside New York City when, in an interview with Playboy magazine, he described the lifestyle of both suburbia and upstate New York as "sterile" and lamented the thought of having to live in "the small town" of Albany as governor, saying it was "a city without a good Chinese restaurant". Cuomo won the primary by ten points and faced Republican nominee businessman Lewis Lehrman in the general election. With the recession aiding Democratic candidates, Cuomo beat Lehrman 50.91% to 47.48%.

Cuomo actively campaigned for Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election, and was named on Mondale's list of vice presidential candidates. Geraldine Ferraro was ultimately nominated as his running mate, but Cuomo was chosen to give the keynote speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. He vigorously attacked Ronald Reagan's record and policies in his Tale of Two Cities speech that brought him to national attention, most memorably saying: "There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don't see, in the places that you don't visit, in your shining city." He was immediately considered one of the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination for president in 1988 and 1992.

Cuomo was re-elected in 1986 against Republican nominee Andrew P. O'Rourke by 64.3% to 31.77%. He ruled out the possibility of running in the 1988 presidential election, announcing on February 19, 1987, that he would not run, and then going on to publicly decline draft movements in the wake of Gary Hart's withdrawal following the Donna Rice affair.

In the 1990 gubernatorial election, Cuomo was re-elected with 53.17% of the vote to Republican Pierre Andrew Rinfret's 21.35% and Conservative Herbert London's 20.40%.

When Cuomo was asked if he was planning to run for president in 1992, he said, "I have no plans and no plans to make plans," but he refused to rule it out. In October 1991, news broke that he was interested in running and was taking advice from consultant Bob Shrum. At the same time, he began working on a budget with the New York State Legislature, and promised not to make any announcements about a presidential run until he had reached an agreement with the Republican-controlled State Senate and the Democratic-controlled State Assembly. Two polls taken in November of the New Hampshire Democratic primary showed him leading the field by at least twenty points, and a poll in December showed him trailing President George H. W. Bush 48% to 43%, having been behind by twenty-eight points two months earlier.

The filing deadline for the New Hampshire primary was on December 20, 1991, and candidates were required to submit a ballot application in person. Cuomo was not able to negotiate a budget agreement with Republicans in the Legislature and on deadline day, time ran out. In a scene later fictionalized in Joe Klein's Primary Colors, he kept an airplane idling on the tarmac as he pondered abandoning the budget talks in order to fly to New Hampshire and enter the race. Democratic party leaders asked him to run and he prepared two statements, one in case he ran and one in case he did not. He tried to come to a final agreement over the budget, but as he could not, he made an announcement at 3:30 p.m. that day:

"It is my responsibility as governor to deal with this extraordinarily severe problem. Were it not, I would travel to New Hampshire today and file my name as a candidate in this presidential primary. That was my hope and I prepared for it. But it seemed to me that I cannot turn my attention to New Hampshire while this threat hangs over the head of the New Yorkers I have sworn to put first."

Cuomo's supporters launched a draft movement and encouraged people to write in his name in the Democratic primary, which was held on February 18, 1992. Cuomo did not discourage it, which many saw as implicit endorsement of the campaign. Cuomo went on to receive 6,577 votes in the primary, 3.92% of the total cast and subsequently asked the draft committee to close down, saying, "I am flattered by their support and impressed by their commitment, but I am also convinced that in fairness to themselves they ought now to end their effort." The group closed down, but Cuomo refused to rule out joining the primaries later in the year, stating, "I have said more than once that the nomination should go to someone willing and able to campaign for it. I am willing, but because New York's budget has not been settled I am not able to campaign for it." Ultimately, Cuomo did not enter the race and Bill Clinton went on to win the Democratic nomination and the general election. Because of Cuomo's refusal to run for national office, despite his popularity, he was referred to as the "Hamlet on the Hudson".

After Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination for president in 1992, Cuomo was a candidate for vice president but he refused to be considered and did not make Clinton's final shortlist. He was also spoken of as a candidate for nomination to the United States Supreme Court, but when President Clinton was considering nominees during his first term to replace the retiring Byron White, Cuomo stated he was not interested in the office. George Stephanopoulos wrote in 1999 that Clinton came within 15 minutes of nominating Cuomo before the latter pre-emptively rejected the post.

In 1994, Cuomo ran for a fourth term. In this election, Republicans attacked him for the weak economic recovery within the state since the early 1990s recession and the resulting high unemployment as well as his opposition to the death penalty by highlighting the case of Arthur Shawcross, a multiple murderer convicted of manslaughter who was paroled by the state in 1987 and while on release became a serial killer. Republicans were able to associate Shawcross with Cuomo much like William Horton with Michael Dukakis six years earlier. Cuomo was defeated by George Pataki in the 1994 Republican landslide, taking 45.4% of the vote to Pataki's 48.8%. Cuomo lost mainly because his support outside of New York City all but vanished; he only carried one county outside the Five Boroughs, Albany County, while also failing to sweep the Five Boroughs unlike his previous three successful runs, losing Staten Island.

Cuomo and fellow Democrat Ann Richards, the Governor of Texas who had been defeated in her re-election campaign by George W. Bush, appeared in a series of humorous Super Bowl XXIX television advertisements for the snack food Doritos shortly afterwards, in which they discussed the "sweeping changes" occurring. The changes they were discussing turned out to be the new Doritos packaging.

Accomplishments

In Cuomo's first term as Governor of New York State, he produced a balanced budget and earned the highest credit rating over the long term for the State in one decade. His philosophy in leading the State was one of "progressive pragmatism". Cuomo and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives (Democrats had over a 3:2 margin in House) was successful in stopping U.S. President Ronald Reagan's administration from eliminating "federal income tax deductibility of state, local and property taxes".

During his second term as governor, Cuomo successfully pushed for the enactment of sweeping fiscal reforms for the State. Comprehensive reform measures were also enacted in governmental ethics for New York State under Cuomo's leadership. Cuomo extended New York State's economic reach in business globally, contributing to both strengthening and developing it.

Cuomo is also known for beginning the "Decade of the Child" initiative, an effort that included multiple health care and educational strategies to better the lives of children in New York State. Further, in 1988, the "Rebuild NY" Transportation Bond Act was an initiative under Cuomo that was a continuance of efforts to rebuild bridges and roads throughout the State. Cuomo increased assistance to local law enforcement agencies in order to help reduce or eliminate crime; and prison expansion in the State was continued which he is said to have regretted. Under Cuomo, New York State was also the first in the nation to enact seat belt laws.

Cuomo established the Office of the MTA Inspector General (OIG) in 1983, as an independent watchdog for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The OIG provides oversight and monitors the activities of the MTA.

Governor Mario and his wife Matilda Cuomo presided over the First New York State Family Support Conference in 1988. His statewide initiatives in developing over 1,000 family support programs are today termed "individual and family support" nationwide and are cited by the National Council on Disability. He was the first governor to support an ecological approach to families which was represented by community integration and community development as the goal of deinstitutionalization.

Healthcare was also an area that Cuomo improved as governor, implementing initiatives that succeeded in reducing costs of prescription medications. This endeavor assisted senior citizens in making the medications more affordable. Under Cuomo's leadership, a public health plan that tackled the AIDS epidemic was the most intense in the nation.

Overseeing programs for environmental preservation and conservation, Cuomo implemented aggressive initiatives in these areas. Under Cuomo's leadership, New York State was the first in the United States to integrate both environmental protection and energy conservation goals.

Cuomo's progressivism was also evident in his appointments of judges to the New York Court of Appeals. Cuomo appointed all of the judges to the State Appeals Court, including the first two female judges, as well as both the first African-American and Hispanic judges.

Cuomo eliminated the New York State Regents Scholarship given to all students who ranked high on a statewide special examination.

Planned assassination
Maurizio Avola, a former Sicilian Mafioso believed to have killed about 80 people, including journalists, lawyers, politicians and mobsters, before becoming a pentito, or informer, and serving life in prison, told The Guardian in 2016 that the Sicilian Mafia had planned to assassinate Governor Cuomo on a visit to Italy in November 1992. The plan was for about a dozen gunmen armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and explosives to ambush Cuomo. Avola's godfather, Aldo Ercolano, considered that Cuomo would be an "excellent target". Avola stated, "The aim was to target politicians or members of institutions in order to send out a clear message... Killing a prominent American was a warning to law enforcement agencies that had allowed several prominent mafia informants to live in the US under assumed identities." This was several months after the mafia had already assassinated antimafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. The attack was to be carried out in the main square of Messina, Sicily during the day. However, after Cuomo arrived in Rome on November 19 with security consisting of many bodyguards and a bulletproof car, the attack was called off.

Cuomo's son Chris later denied the occurrence of said assassination attempt while guest starring on an episode of The Adam Friedland Show.

Political views
Cuomo was notable for his liberal political views, particularly his steadfast opposition to the death penalty, an opinion that was unpopular in New York during the high-crime era of the 1980s and early 1990s. While governor, he vetoed several bills that would have re-established capital punishment in New York State. The death penalty was reinstated by Pataki the year after he defeated Cuomo in the 1994 election, although it was never put into effect and the statute was declared unconstitutional by the New York Court of Appeals in 2004.

Cuomo, a Roman Catholic, was personally opposed to abortion, but he was pro-choice on the issue, believing that the State does not have the right to ban the procedure. In a speech at the University of Notre Dame on September 13, 1984, he used the statements of the American Catholic hierarchy to make an argument: "What is ideally desirable isn't always feasible, ... there can be different political approaches to abortion besides unyielding adherence to an absolute prohibition." For this position, Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor considered excommunicating him.

Cuomo was also outspoken on what he perceived to be the unfair stereotyping of Italian Americans as mobsters by the media, including denying the existence of the Mafia, and urging the media to stop using the word "mafia". Joseph Pistone, an FBI agent widely known for his undercover operation as Donnie Brasco, wrote disparagingly of Cuomo in his book, Unfinished Business.

Cuomo opposed the move of the National Football League's New York Giants and New York Jets to the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey, choosing instead to attend the home games of the Buffalo Bills while serving as governor, referring to the Bills as "New York State's only team".

Legal work and board memberships
From 1995 until his death, Cuomo worked as counsel at the New York law firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher. In 1996, Cuomo joined the board of Medallion Financial Corp., a lender to purchasers of taxi medallions in leading cities across the U.S. He was named to the board through his personal and business relationship with Andrew M. Murstein, president of Medallion. Cuomo also sat on the advisory council of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

Authorship
Cuomo's first book, Forest Hills Diary: The Crisis of Low-income Housing, became an influential text in the fields of political science and housing policy, and it helped make his name with the public outside New York.

In 1996, Cuomo wrote Reason to Believe. He also wrote a narrative essay titled "Achieving the American Dream" about his parents' struggles in coming to America and how they prospered. Cuomo was the author of Why Lincoln Matters, published in 2004, and he co-edited Lincoln on Democracy, an anthology of Abraham Lincoln's speeches.

Cuomo also wrote and delivered numerous speeches and remarks.

Selected works

 * Cuomo, M. (2012). Greatest speeches of the 20th century: Keynote address for the Democratic Convention.  Various artists. (MP3).
 * Cuomo, M. (2011). Inspirational Speeches, Volume 3: Mario Cuomo – 1984. Orange Leisure.  (MP3).
 * Williams, F.J., & Pederson, W.D. (Eds)., with Cuomo, M. (Contributor) and 14 other contributors (2009). Lincoln lessons: Reflections on America's greatest leader.  Southern Illinois University Press.
 * Grodin, E.D., Cuomo, M., & Ventura, M. (2008). C is for ciao: An Italy alphabet.  Sleeping Bear Press.
 * Bennett, T., Sullivan, R., Cuomo, M., & Albom, M. (2007). Tony Bennett in the studio: A life of art & music.  Sterling.
 * Heffner, R.D., Jaffe, M., & Cuomo, M.M. (2004). As they saw it: A half-century of conversations from the open mind.  Carrol & Graf
 * Forsythe, D.W., & Cuomo, M. (2004). Memos to the governor: An introduction to state budgeting, 2nd edition.  Georgetown University Press.
 * Cuomo, M., & Holzer, H. (Eds.) (2004). Lincoln on democracy.  Fordham University Press.
 * Cuomo, M.M. (2004). Why Lincoln matters: Today more than ever.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
 * Cuomo, M. (1999). The Blue Spruce.  Sleeping Bear Press.
 * Hoobler, D., Hoobler, T., & Cuomo, M.M. (1998). The Italian American family album.  USA: Oxford University Press.
 * Cuomo, M. (1996). Reason to believe: A keen assessment of who we are and an inspiring vision of what we could be.  Touchstone.
 * Cuomo, M.M. (1993). More than words: The speeches of Mario Cuomo.  St. Martin's Press.
 * Thomas, C., Cuomo, M., & Jorling (1992). New York State: A land of forests, people and trees, partners in time.  New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
 * Cuomo, M. (1984). Diaries of Mario M. Cuomo: The campaign for governor.  Random House.
 * Cuomo, M. (1975). Forest Hills Diary: The Crisis of Low-income Housing. Vantage

Honors and awards
At its 1983 commencement ceremonies, Barnard College awarded Cuomo its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction. Also in 1983, Yeshiva University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

In 2017, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation officially naming the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement the "Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge". This has been met with significant opposition. A petition and several pieces of proposed legislation have sought to restore the bridge's name to that of its predecessor.

Family and personal life
Cuomo was married for 60 years to Matilda (née Raffa), from 1954 until his death in 2015. She is a graduate of St. John's University's Teachers College. They had five children, Margaret, Andrew, Maria, Madeline, and Christopher. In 2017, Matilda was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Cuomo's older son Andrew married Kerry Kennedy, a daughter of Robert F. and Ethel Skakel Kennedy, on June 9, 1990. They had three daughters, twins Cara Ethel and Mariah Matilda Cuomo, born on January 11, 1995; and Michaela Andrea Cuomo, born on August 26, 1997. The couple divorced in 2005. Andrew served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. In his first attempt to succeed his father, he ran as Democratic candidate for New York governor in 2002, but withdrew before the primary. He withdrew after criticizing Republican incumbent George Pataki's leadership following the terrorist attacks on the city on September 11 the previous year. In November 2006, Andrew was elected New York State Attorney General; and on November 2, 2010, he was elected Governor of New York, inaugurated on January 1, 2011, and was re-elected two more times, serving until he resigned in August 2021 due to sexual harassment allegations.

Cuomo's younger son Chris was a journalist on the ABC Network news magazine Primetime. He anchored news segments and served as co-host on Good Morning America, before moving to CNN in 2013, where he co-hosted the morning news magazine New Day. He anchored his own prime time show Cuomo Prime Time until he was suspended and ultimately fired in 2021 for assisting his brother Andrew in navigating a sexual harassment scandal which had previously led to Andrew's resignation as Governor of New York and after two accusations of sexual harassment against Chris were made. He was picked as one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 1997.

Cuomo's daughter Maria is married to Kenneth Cole, the New York fashion designer. She is Chair of the Board of HELP USA, a charitable foundation that is also associated with the organization her mother founded, Mentoring USA.

His daughter Margaret is "a board certified radiologist, teaching professional, and national advocate for the prevention of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes". She is the author of A World Without Cancer: The Making of a New World and the Real Promise of Prevention (2013), and she serves on the board of directors of the nonprofit organization, LessCancer. She has been featured on such TV shows as Good Morning America, Good Day New York, Morning Joe, and Inside Edition. In 2011, she was awarded the Commendation of the Order of the Star by the president and prime minister of Italy.

Cuomo remained a baseball fan after his athletic career ended, reportedly limiting his television watching to baseball games and C-SPAN. He was an avid player of fantasy baseball, always with an Italian-American player on his team, regardless of how many Italian-American players were available or how well they were doing. In 1994, he was featured several times on the Ken Burns PBS series Baseball, where he shared memories of his life in baseball before he entered politics.

Cuomo was the first guest on the long-running CNN talk show Larry King Live that began in 1985 and ended in 2010.

Neal Conan described the man as both the most intelligent and wittiest politician he has ever interviewed.

Illness and death
On November 30, 2014, it was announced that Cuomo had been hospitalized for a heart condition; he was described as being "in good spirits".

On January 1, 2015, Andrew Cuomo was sworn in for his second term as governor. The elder Cuomo was not well enough to attend the inaugural ceremony, though his son remarked, "He is in the heart and mind of every person who is here. He is here and his inspiration and his legacy and his experience is what has brought the state to this point." Mario Cuomo died from heart failure at his home in Manhattan at 5:15 p.m. EST that afternoon, at the age of 82.

Cuomo's wake was held on January 5, 2015, and his funeral was held at Saint Ignatius Loyola Church in Manhattan on January 6. He is interred at St. John Cemetery, in Middle Village, Queens.

Reactions
Various elected officials praised Cuomo following his death. President Barack Obama stated: "An Italian Catholic kid from Queens, born to immigrant parents, Mario paired his faith in God and faith in America to live a life of public service – and we are all better for it. He rose to be chief executive of the state he loved, a determined champion of progressive values, and an unflinching voice for tolerance, inclusiveness, fairness, dignity, and opportunity.  His own story taught him that as Americans, we are bound together as one people, and our country's success rests on the success of all of us, not just a fortunate few."

Vice President Joe Biden described Cuomo as "a forceful voice for civil rights, for equal rights, for economic opportunity and justice. He had the courage to stand by his convictions, even when it was unpopular." Former Governor of New York George Pataki called Cuomo "a proud son of immigrants and a compassionate leader who possessed a soaring intellect". Former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani stated: "Mario was a giant political influence of his generation. His ability to make riveting political speeches was only exceeded by his ability to logically argue and defend his position."

Legacy

Cuomo and Ed Koch are remembered as two New York politicians who dominated during the late 1970s and 1980s, as well for his public speaking ability.

The rebuilt Tappan Zee Bridge was renamed the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge in his honor. However, this would be controversial as the old bridge was named after Malcolm Wilson.

His legacy also ran in his family, with the election of his son Andrew Cuomo in 2010. Andrew Cuomo would serve as governor for ten years, from 2011 until his resignation in 2021.

title: Mario Cuomo


text:
Bramdean Common

Bramdean Common is situated in Bramdean, Hampshire, England. Bramdean Common is one of the many commons that served local parishioners and provided collectively owned lands which could be worked or used without the need to pay rent.

The Church in the Wood
The so called Church in the Wood was built by the Reverend Alfred Caesar Bishop in 1883 for the farm workers of Bramdean Common. The church later became used by Romany families, who camped on the Common, and practised charcoal burning on the land. It is built of corrugated iron and took five weeks to construct. The church is still in good condition and is used occasionally for religious ceremonies. An arrangement of Shepherds Crowns by the gate of the church also shows the date of construction.

It was here in 1993 that the Dongas road protest group moved after being driven from Twyford Down by bulldozers.

title: Bramdean Common


text:
Twyford Down

Twyford Down is an area of chalk downland lying directly to the southeast of Winchester, Hampshire, England next to St. Catherine's Hill and close to the South Downs National Park. It has been settled since pre-Roman times, and has housed a fort and a chapel, as well as being a 17th and 18th century coaching route.

In 1991, the down was the site of a major road protest against a section of the M3 motorway from London to the south coast of England. There had been plans since the 1970s to replace the 1930s Winchester bypass which was regularly congested due to design features that had become out of date. This was problematic owing to the lack of available land between Winchester College and St. Catherine's Hill. After several public inquiries, particularly with using the water meadows near the college, a route was chosen that took the motorway over the down in a cutting. Although protests against the M3 had been ongoing since the early 1970s, the protest-action on top of the down, described in 1994 as the most controversial British motorway project ever to start construction, attracted a wider range of classes of people than had previously been the case, and included physical violence from onsite security officers.

The motorway was completed as planned and provides a link of continuous motorway between Greater London and the South Coast ports. Nevertheless, the protests attracted interest from the national media, and drew attention to this form of campaigning. Subsequent road schemes took greater account of the environment or were cancelled. Several protesters at Twyford Down subsequently formed campaign groups, or joined existing ones such as the Campaign for Better Transport.

History
Twyford Down sits to the southeast of Winchester and the northeast of Twyford, and is part of the Winchester-East Meon Anticline. The down's 142 m summit, known as Deacon Hill, is towards the north-eastern edge of the area which is renowned for its dramatic rolling scenery and ecologically rich grassland. Its history can be traced back to pre-Roman times. Along it run a series of trackways known as "dongas", which resulted from farmers herding animals to surrounding markets. St Catherine's Hill, in the centre of the down has been identified as a human settlement more than 3,000 years ago and pre-dates the foundation of Winchester. In the 3rd century, a fort was constructed on the hill, while in the 12th, a Norman chapel was constructed on the site. During the Middle Ages, paths along the down formed part of the Pilgrim's Trail from Winchester to Normandy via Portsmouth. This is commemorated by the modern Pilgrims' Trail which crosses the down.

In 1675, John Ogilby noted that the main coaching route from London to Southampton ran over the top of the down, going directly from Alresford to Twyford, avoiding Winchester. This remained the main coaching route until about 1800, when an alternative route via Winchester (now mostly the A31 and former A33) was formed. During this time, and up to the 19th century, the area was sometimes known as Morestead Down after the nearby village of Morestead.

Hockley Golf Club was established as a private members' club on the down in 1914.

Background
Outline strategic planning for the route of what was to be later known as the M3 motorway had begun in the late 1930s. The route was to link London to Basingstoke, in order to reduce the pressure on the A30. Detailed planning for the first phase of construction, a 40 mi section, between Sunbury on Thames and Popham, began in 1962-3. The 26 mi section, between Lightwater and Popham, where the A30 and the A303 separated, opened in June 1971; this was followed by the Sunbury to Lightwater section which opened in July 1974. The second phase was to extend the motorway 10 mi southwards between Popham and Winchester, ending at Compton. Planning began with the first public inquiry which was held in 1971, to set the line of the motorway, and this second section was opened in 1985. The third and final phase was to extend the motorway from Winchester to Southampton and the M27 motorway, and the northern part of this section was to impact on Winchester's bypass.

Winchester had been a traffic bottleneck for many years as several major routes passed through the historic city centre, including the A31, A33 and A34, as well as smaller routes like the A272. In the 1930s, a by-pass was planned to the east of the city, passing immediately west of St. Catherine's Hill, opening to traffic on 1 February 1940. Construction of this had been controversial as it affected the Itchen Valley and offered only a partial solution to congestion, with some people calling instead for a by-pass to the north and west of Winchester.

As a 1930s road construction project, the bypass was built to then-contemporary standards, including at-grade crossings at Bar End and at Hockley. As time progressed, the bypass became more and more of a bottleneck as roads around it were improved to higher standards, particularly after the opening of the A33 Chandler's Ford Bypass in 1968 and the A34 King's Worthy Link the following year, which meant all long distance traffic, as opposed to merely that from London to Southampton, was using the bypass. Morgan Morgan-Giles described the bypass as "utterly inadequate and dangerous, as everybody who lives in or near Winchester will agree. The accident figures are appalling. Therefore, a new motorway somewhere to relieve the traffic is urgently needed." The crossing at Bar End was grade separated in 1973, but the junction at Hockley remained a key point of congestion.

Public inquiries
At this point, the option of going over or through Twyford Down had not been considered, and the alignment of the proposed six-lane M3 motorway (three lines in each direction) was to run through the Itchen valley roughly west of the existing four-lane bypass. This would also require the realignment of the Itchen Navigation into the water meadows. However, there would be further screening of the motorway and pedestrian access to St. Catherine's Hill from the city. These proposals had gone through two public inquiries in 1971 and 1976, respectively. The first in 1971, the line order inquiry, had considered the proposed route of the motorway; and in 1973 the government approved this route. The second inquiry, in 1976, was to consider both the stopping up of side roads and the compulsory purchase orders for the land needed to build the motorway. The latter inquiry in particular had drawn significant objection from protesters, including masters from Winchester College. Morgan-Giles argued in Parliament to support the scheme, pointing out that Winchester and the Down had been cut off since construction of the old bypass anyway, and growth of Southampton Docks meant that improved links from London and the Midlands would become increasingly essential. This scheme was eventually rejected due to intensifying local pollution and disturbance.

In 1981, Kenneth Clarke, then the Parliamentary Secretary for Transport, stated that, since the route of the M3 was then fixed as far as Bar End, to the north of St. Catherine's Hill, that its route from there to Compton would undergo a fresh study, specifically stating that the Winchester Bypass should continue to be operational during construction of any new road, and that environmental matters were a key concern. By February 1983, consulting engineers Mott, Hay and Anderson had submitted a recommendation to complete the M3 through Twyford Down. Following the completion of the motorway to Bar End in the summer of 1985, the junction at Hockley was the only set of traffic lights between London and Southampton.

The Ministry of Transport (MoT) had problems purchasing the land required to complete the route past Winchester. The land required, east of the city on Twyford Down, was owned by Winchester College, which refused to sell the land to the government because part was a water meadow. The desired route, however, had been chosen to avoid St. Catherine's Hill, and pass to the south. Proposals were made for a tunnel through Twyford Down, but the estimated cost for this was £75 million more than the estimated cost for a cutting, and the government dismissed the plans. The final route chosen ran to the south of St. Catherine's Hill, taking 1.91 ha (approximately 4.5%) of the Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), and went to a public inquiry in 1985, where the then Planning Officer of Winchester City Council described the route as "bold" and an "imaginative solution"  In February 1992, the M3 was improved between Southampton and Compton, and soon afterwards work began on clearing the route across the down. Part of the contract stipulated that the old bypass would be removed and restored to nature, restoring direct access to St. Catherine's Hill.

Protests

Protests against the completion of the M3 had been ongoing since 1973, with the formation of the M3 Joint Action Group by David Pare. The group gathered together a petition of 19,000, of which 11,227 were Winchester residents. The group was also active in distributing leaflets to the local community.

In March 1992, two travellers pitched a camp on the down, and discovered from local ramblers about the Bar End to Compton contract, meaning the land they were sitting on would soon be excavated. In response, noting that public inquiries had failed to stop construction, they decided to gather support. Environmental organisations attempted to take Department for Transport to the High Court, stating that the road was against the government's own environmental protection laws. The European Commission dropped its objections that August. David Croker, who had become head of the protest group Twyford Down Association, said they "had come to depend on the European Commission so we're very disappointed."

The principal arguments of the protesters were their concern about making wildlife species, such as the Chalkhill Blue butterfly, extinct, putting a highly visible scar on the landscape, and that they believed the new motorway would not adequately resolve traffic problems.

Protesters demonstrated their opposition to the road's construction by blocking the path of construction equipment. They were met by security officers from Group 4. In December 1992, in view of a film crew from The Observer, a protester was manhandled by five officers. Another protester, according to a report by local MP John Denham, was strangled by officers and left unconscious on top of the Down for 30 minutes. Maggie Lambert, then a mature photography student, took numerous photographs of the protest, and challenged an injunction which suggested she had been involved with direct action. While Lord Justice Mann admitted there was no evidence to suggest she had done anything more than take photographs, the injunction was upheld. Protester Rebecca Lush of the Donga Tribe, who had stayed on the down from September to the night of eviction, later claimed "It was a horrific experience and very violent. We were dragged through thorns and we were being kicked and punched and someone pulled out a clump of my hair." In March 1993, Kenneth Carlisle, then Minister for Roads and Traffic, refused to order an inquiry into any wrongdoing or excessive force by security officers, stating it was a matter for the police.

The protest attracted different classes of people, the many of whom were peaceful. According to Denham, a popular phrase amongst those protesting was "I never thought that I would find myself doing something like this." Stephen Ward, who had been involved in the original 1970s protest, decided in early 1993 that excessive force was being used against protesters, and started keeping a log of events. He used this log when defending other protesters in court. He visited those who had been imprisoned and helped establish a legal precedent of the right for protesters and demonstrators to have a witness while being questioned.

Several artists, such as Jill Bray (b.1936) marked their protest by creating work based on the Twyford Down landscape.

Outcome
In 1995, the motorway section through Twyford Down was opened, making the M3 a continuous motorway. The old A33 Winchester Bypass between Bar End and Compton was then closed and removed. The new cutting caused the loss of 1.91 ha of SSSI land. To redress this, the old route of the A33 was planted with 7.2 ha of species-rich grassland under the supervision and monitoring of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology. Replacing the bypass also reduced traffic volumes from the village of Twyford and removed the road that separated St. Catherine's Hill from the city. When interviewed for The Independent, local residents said the latter had transformed the place, one adding "St. Catherine's Hill used to be cut off from Winchester by the A33. Now there's open, peaceful countryside. It's wonderful."

Soon after the construction of the Twyford Down cutting, the pace of road construction in the United Kingdom slowed. In 1994, a government committee concluded that building more roads would only encourage more traffic, and that the way to ease congestion and pollution was to take measures to control car use rather than accommodate more. When Labour came to power in 1997, many road schemes were cancelled.

In 2000, campaigners mounted legal action to preserve an area of grassland created on the route of the old A33 Winchester bypass in mitigation of the land lost to the motorway which was threatened by a Park and Ride site. The legal action failed and the campaigners claimed that they had been betrayed for a second time. Land was provided elsewhere in mitigation.

In 2004, Winchester Cathedral received £86,000 from the Highways Agency in compensation for increased traffic noise from the M3. The Rev. Michael Till explained that "the noise comes beaming straight across The Close. It does change life having a perpetual background noise". Also in that year, veterans of a Twyford Down protest threatened a new campaign of direct action in response to 200 new road-building proposals in the government's recently unveiled ten-year transport plan. Rebecca Lush went on to found Road Block in 2005, which became part of the Campaign for Better Transport in 2007. Veteran road protester Chris Gillham believes that his efforts in protesting against Twyford Down, where he took an active role in confronting security officers and crawling under razor wire, helped later road schemes, such as the Hindhead Tunnel to be planned with greater consideration about the environment. In 2012, several of the original protesters returned to the down to hold a 20th anniversary celebration of the protest.

Twyford Down became part of the western extremity of the South Downs National Park in 2011, having previously been designated as part of the East Hampshire AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty).

Cultural references
The acid jazz band Galliano released a 1994 single "Twyford Down" in response to the M3 road building.

title: Twyford Down


text:
Black Madonna

The term Black Madonna or Black Virgin tends to refer to statues or paintings in Western Christendom of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, where both figures are depicted with dark skin. Examples of the Black Madonna can be found both in Catholic and Orthodox countries.

The paintings are usually icons, which are Byzantine in origin or style, some of which were produced in 13th or 14th-century Italy. Other examples from the Middle East, Caucasus or Africa, mainly Egypt and Ethiopia, are even older. Statues are often made of wood but are occasionally made of stone, painted, and up to 75 cm tall. They fall into two main groups: free-standing upright figures or seated figures on a throne. About 400–500 Black Madonnas have been recorded in Europe, with the number related to how they are classified. There are at least 180 Vierges Noires in Southern France alone. There are hundreds of copies made since the medieval era. Some are displayed in museums, but most are in churches or shrines and are venerated by believers. Some are associated with miracles and attract substantial numbers of pilgrims.

Black Madonnas come in different forms. Speculations behind the basis of the dark hue of each individual icon or statue vary greatly and some have been controversial. Explanations range from Madonnas made from dark wood, or Madonnas that have turned darker over time, due to factors such as aging or candle smoke, to a study by Jungian scholar Ean Begg into the potential pagan origins of the cult of the black Madonna and child. Another suggestion is that dark-skinned representations of pre-Christian deities were re-envisioned as the Madonna and child.

Studies and research
Research into the Black Madonna phenomenon is limited. Begg links the refrain from the Song of Solomon, ‘I am black, and I am beautiful’ to the Queen of Sheba. Recently, however, interest in this subject has gathered more momentum.

Important early studies of dark-skinned holy images in France were by Camille Flammarion (1888), Marie Durand-Lefebvre (1937), Emile Saillens (1945), and Jacques Huynen (1972).

The first notable study in English of the origin and meaning of the Black Madonnas appears to have been presented by Leonard Moss at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on December 28, 1952. Moss divided the images into three categories: (1) dark brown or black Madonnas with physiognomy and skin pigmentation matching that of the indigenous population; (2) various art forms that have turned black as a result of certain physical factors such as deterioration of lead-based pigments, accumulated smoke from the use of votive candles, and accumulation of grime over the ages, and (3) miracle-worker Madonnas, the focus of the study, Black Madonnas found in areas of a Roman legion and, therefore, not a reflection of the current population's skin colour.

In the cathedral at Chartres, there were two Black Madonnas: Notre Dame de Pilar, a 1508 dark walnut copy of a 13th-century silver Madonna, standing atop a high pillar, surrounded by candles; and Notre Dame de Sous-Terre, a replica of an original destroyed during the French Revolution. Restoration work on the cathedral resulted in the painting in 2014 of Notre Dame de Pilar, to reflect an earlier 19th-century painted style. The statue is no longer a "Black Madonna" and the restoration was severely criticized for wiping away the past.

Some scholars have chosen to explore the significance of the dark-skinned complexion to pilgrims and worshippers rather than focusing on whether this depiction was intentional. By virtue of their unusual presence, the Black Madonnas have sometimes acted to make their shrines revered pilgrimage sites. Monique Scheer attributes the importance of the dark-skinned depiction to its connection with authenticity. The reason for this connection is the perceived age of the figures.

Africa

 * Algeria, Algiers: "Our Lady of Africa"
 * Côte d’Ivoire, Yamoussoukro: Madonna and child inside Basilica of Our Lady of Peace.
 * Senegal, Popenguine: "Notre-Dame de la Délivrance"
 * South Africa, Soweto: "The Black Madonna"

Japan

 * Tsuruoka city, Yamagata prefecture: Tsuruoka Tenshudô Catholic Church features a black Madonna statue given by France during Meiji period

The Philippines

 * Antipolo, Rizal: Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje de Antipolo (Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage of Antipolo)
 * Ermita, City of Manila: Nuestra Señora de Guía (Our Lady of Guidance)
 * Santa Ana, City of Manila: Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados (Our Lady of the Abandoned)
 * Parañaque: Nuestra Señora del Buen Suceso (Our Lady of the Good Event)
 * Lapu-Lapu City: Nuestra Señora de Regla (Our Lady of the Rule)
 * Naga, Camarines Sur: Nuestra Señora de Peñafrancia (Our Lady of Peñafrancia)
 * Piat, Cagayan: Nuestra Señora de la Visitación de Piat (Our Lady of Piat)
 * Joroan, Tiwi, Albay: Nuestra Señora de la Salvación (Our Lady of Salvation)

India

 * Dhori Mata
 * Korvi Mata, Dediapada, Gujarat

Turkey

 * Trabzon: Sümela Monastery

Austria

 * Lavanttal, Carinthia, Austria: St. Andrä im Lavanttal „Schwarze Madonna von Loreto" Basilica Maria Loreto

Belgium

 * Brugge, "Our Lady of Regla"
 * Brussels: "De Zwerte Lieve Vrouwe", St. Catherine Church
 * Halle (Flemish Brabant) : Sint-Martinusbasiliek
 * Liège: La Vierge Noire d'Outremeuse,
 * Lier: Onze Lieve Vrouw ter Gratiën
 * Scherpenheuvel-Zichem: Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel
 * Tournai: Our Lady of Flanders in Tournai Cathedral
 * Verviers: "Black Virgin of the Recollects", Notre-Dame des Récollets Church,
 * Walcourt: (Notre-Dame de Walcourt)

Croatia

 * Marija Bistrica: Our Lady of Bistrica, Queen of Croatia

Czech Republic
TROJA CHATEAU chapel- original "Montserrat Madonna" from Old Town Byzantine building (pg.100 of Martin Krummholz ISBN 978-80-7010-131-5)
 * Brno: Assumption of Virgin Mary Minor Basilica, St Thomas's Abbey, Brno
 * Prague: The Madonna of Breznice; The Black Madonna in The Church of Our Lady Under the Chain (Kostel Panny Marie pod řetězem) The Black Madonna on the House of the Black Madonna.

France

 * Aix-en-Provence, (Bouches-du-Rhône): Notre-Dame des Graces, Cathédrale Saint-Sauveur d'Aix
 * Arconsat: (Notre-Dame des Champs)
 * Aurillac, (Cantal): Notre-Dame des Neiges
 * Beaune: Our Lady of Beaune
 * Besançon: Our Lady de Gray
 * Besse-et-Saint-Anastaise, (Puy-de-Dôme): Saint-André Church, Notre-Dame de Vassivière
 * Bourg-en-Bresse, (Ain): 13th century
 * Chartres, (Eure-et-Loir): crypt of the Cathedral of Chartres, Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre
 * Clermont-Ferrand, (Puy-de-Dôme)
 * Cusset: the Black Virgin of Cusset
 * Dijon, (Côte-d'Or): Church of Notre-Dame of Dijon
 * Douvres-la-Délivrande, Basilique Notre-Dame de la Délivrande, "Notre-Dame de la Délivrande"
 * Dunkerque, (Nord) : Chapelle des Dunes
 * Guingamp, (Côtes-d'Armor): Basilica of Notre Dame de Bon Secours.
 * La Chapelle-Geneste, (Haute-Loire: Notre Dame de La Chapelle Geneste
 * Laon, (Aisne): Notre-Dame Cathedral, statue of 1848
 * Le Havre,(Seine-Maritime): statue near the Graville Abbey (Abbaye de Graville)
 * Le Puy-en-Velay: In 1254 when passing through on his return from the Holy Land Saint Louis IX of France gave the cathedral an ebony image of the Blessed Virgin clothed in gold brocade (Notre-Dame du Puy). It was destroyed during the Revolution, but replaced at the Restoration with a copy that continues to be venerated.
 * Liesse-Notre-Dame, (Aisne): Notre-Dame de Liesse, statue destroyed in 1793, copy of 1857
 * Marseille, (Bouches-du-Rhône): Notre-Dame-de-Confession, Abbey of St. Victor; Notre-Dame d'Huveaune, Saint-Giniez Church
 * Mauriac, Cantal: Notre Dame des Miracles
 * Mende, (Lozère) : Cathedral (Basilique-cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Privat de Mende)
 * Menton, (Alpes-Maritimes): St. Michel Church
 * Meymac, (Corrèze): Meymac Abbey
 * Molompize: Notre-Dame de Vauclair
 * Mont-Saint-Michel: Notre-Dame du Mont-Tombe
 * Myans, (Savoie): Sanctuaire Notre-Dame de Myans
 * Paris, (Neuilly-sur-Seine): Notre-Dame de Bonne Délivrance, in the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Thomas of Villanova
 * Quimper, (Finistère): Eglise de Guéodet, nommée encore Notre-Dame-de-la-Cité
 * Riom, (Puy-de-Dôme): Notre-Dame du Marthuret
 * Rocamadour, (Lot): Our Lady of Rocamadour
 * Sainte Marie (Réunion) :
 * Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (Camarque) Avignon: Annual Roma pilgrimage and festival celebrating Sara, the patron saint of the Roma
 * Soissons (Aisne): statue of the 12th century
 * Tarascon, (Bouches-du-Rhône): Notre-Dame du Château
 * Thuret, (Puy-de-Dôme)
 * Toulouse: The basilica Notre-Dame de la Daurade in Toulouse, France had housed the shrine of a Black Madonna. The original icon was stolen in the fifteenth century, and its first replacement was burned by Revolutionaries in 1799 on the Place du Capitole. The icon presented today is an 1807 copy of the fifteenth century Madonna. Blackened by the hosts of candles, the second Madonna was known from the sixteenth century as Our Lady La Noire
 * Tournemire, Château d'Anjony, Our Lady of Anjony
 * Vaison-la-Romaine, (Vaucluse): statue on a hill
 * Vichy, (Allier): Saint-Blaise Church

Germany

 * Altötting (Bavaria): Gnadenkapelle (Chapel of the Miraculous Image)
 * Beilstein (Rhineland-Palatinate): Karmeliterkirche St. Joseph
 * Bielefeld (North Rhine-Westphalia)
 * Düsseldorf-Benrath (North Rhine-Westphalia): Pfarrkirche St. Cäcilia
 * Hirschberg an der Bergstraße (Baden-Württemberg): Wallfahrtskirche St. Johannes Baptist
 * Schloss Hohenstein, Upper Franconia (Bavaria)
 * Köln (Nord Rhein Westfalen): St. Maria in der Kupfergasse
 * Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim (Rhineland-Palatinate): Schloss- und Wallfahrtskirche Mariä Himmelfahrt (Ludwigshafen)
 * Mainau (Baden-Württemberg): Schlosskirche St. Marien
 * Munich (Bavaria): Theatine Church; St. Boniface's Abbey
 * Rastatt (Baden-Württemberg): Einsiedelner Kapelle
 * Regensburg (Bavaria): Regensburg Cathedral
 * Remagen (Rhineland-Palatinate): Kapelle Schwarze Madonna
 * Spabrücken (Rhineland-Palatinate)
 * Stetten ob Lontal, Niederstotzingen (Baden-Württemberg)
 * Windhausen in Boppard-Herschwiesen (Rhineland-Palatinate)
 * Wipperfürth (North Rhine-Westphalia): St. Johannes, Kreuzberg
 * Wuppertal-Beyenburg (North Rhine-Westphalia)

Greece

 * Hidden church of the Black Madonna, Vamos, Crete

Hungary

 * Cathedral Basilica of Eger: Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception

Ireland

 * Dublin (Leinster): Our Lady of Dublin in Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church

Italy

 * Biella (Piedmont): Black Virgin of Oropa, sanctuary of Oropa
 * Canneto Valley near Settefrati (Lazio): Madonna di Canneto
 * Casale Monferrato (Piedmont): Our Lady of Crea. In the hillside Sanctuary at Crea (Santuario di Crea), a cedar-wood figure, said to be one of three Black Virgins brought to Italy from the Holy Land c. 345 by St. Eusebius.
 * Castelmonte, Prepotto (Friuli-Venezia Giulia)
 * Gubbio, Italy: The Niger-Regin square, discovered carved in the cave of Sibilla Eugubina on Mount Ingino, is considered to be a word square form of the "Black Queen". Seemingly of Neo-Templar origin, it is dated between 1600–1800 CE, was discovered in 2003, and destroyed by vandalism in 2012.
 * Loreto (Marche): Basilica della Santa Casa
 * Naples (Campania): Santuario-Basilica SS Carmine Maggiore
 * Pescasseroli (Abruzzo): Madonna di Monte Tranquillo
 * Positano (Campania): Located in the church of Santa Maria Assunta, the story of how it got there—sailors shouting "Posa, posa!" ("Put it down, put it down!")—gave the town its name.
 * San Severo (Apulia): "La Madonna del Soccorso" (The Madonna of Succor), St. Severinus Abbot and Saint Severus Bishop Faeto. Statue in gold garments, object of a major three-day festival that attracts over 350,000 people to this small town.
 * Seminara (Calabria): Maria Santissima dei poveri
 * Tindari (Sicily): Our Lady of Tindari
 * Torre Annunziata (Campania): Madonna della Neve
 * Venice (Veneto): Madonna della Salute, Santa Maria della Salute
 * Viggiano (Basilicata): Santuario Madonna del Sacro Monte

Kosovo

 * Vitina-Letnica, Kosovo: Church of the Black Madonna, where Mother Teresa is believed to have heard her calling.

Lithuania

 * Aušros vartai: Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn
 * Our Lady of Šiluva: Our Lady of the Pine Woods

Luxembourg

 * Esch-sur-Sûre
 * Luxembourg: Luxembourg-Grund
 * Luxembourg: St. John's Church

Macedonia

 * Kališta, Monastery: Madonna icon in the Nativity of Our Most Holy Mother of God church
 * Ohrid, Church: Madonna with the child

Malta

 * Ħamrun: Our Lady of Atoċja, a medieval painting brought to Malta by a merchant in the year 1630, depicting a statue found in Atocha, a parish in Madrid, Spain, and widely known as Il-Madonna tas-Samra. (This can mean 'tanned Madonna', 'brown Madonna', or 'Madonna of Samaria'.)

Poland

 * Częstochowa: Our Lady of Czestochowa
 * In the United States, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania houses a reproduction of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa. A second shrine to Our Lady of Częstochowa is located near Eureka, Missouri.
 * In Israel there are two reproductions of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa: One in St. Peter's Church in Tel Aviv, and another in the Abbey of the Dormition in Jerusalem.
 * Głogówek: Our Lady of Loretto

Portugal

 * Nazaré (Oeste Subregion): Sanctuary of Our Lady of Nazaré; see: the legend of Nazaré

Romania

 * Ghighiu, Prahova: Maica Domnului Siriaca – Manastirea Ghighiu
 * Cacica: Madona Neagra – Biserica Cacica
 * Bucuresti: Madona Neagra – Biserica Dichiu

Russia

 * Kostroma (Kostroma Oblast): Theotokos of St. Theodore also known as Our Lady of St. Theodore (Федоровская Богоматерь), in Theophany Monastery
 * Our Lady of Wladimir, from the 12th century
 * Black Virgin of Taganrog, Taganrog Old Cemetery

Serbia

 * Apatin (Vojvodina): Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church

Slovenia

 * Koprivna, Črna na Koroškem: St. Anne's Church, Koprivna – the altar of Black Madonna

Spain

 * Andújar (Province of Jaén): Nuestra Señora de la Cabeza (Our Lady of Cabeza), named after the mountain, Cerro de la Cabeza or Cerro de Cabezo.
 * Chipiona (Province of Cádiz): la Virgen de Regla or Nuestra Señora de Regla (Our Lady of Regla or the Virgin of Regla), considered by some as the custodian of the Rule of Saint Augustine
 * Coria (Province of Cáceres): Virgen de Argeme (Our Lady of Argeme)
 * El Puerto de Santa María (Province of Cádiz): Virgen de los Milagros (The Virgin of the Miracles)
 * Guadalupe (Province of Cáceres): Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe, Extremadura)
 * Jerez de la Frontera (Province of Cádiz): Nuestra Señora de la Merced (Our Lady Of Mercy)
 * Madrid (Community of Madrid): Nuestra Señora de Atocha (Our Lady of Atocha)
 * Lluc, Majorca (Balearic Islands): Mare de Déu de Lluc (Our Lady of Lluc), Lluc Monastery
 * Monistrol de Montserrat (Catalonia): Mare de Déu de Montserrat (Virgin of Montserrat) or "La Moreneta" in the Benedictine abbey of Santa Maria de Montserrat
 * Ponferrada (Province of León): Virgen de la Encina (Our Lady of the Holm Oak)
 * Salamanca (Province of Salamanca): Virgen de la Peña de Francia (The Virgin of France's Rock, named after the local mountain called Peña de Francia)
 * Santiago de Compostela (Galicia): A replica of "La Moreneta"
 * Rianxo (Galicia): Virgen de Guadalupe
 * Tenerife (Canary Islands): Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria (Virgin of Candelaria), or "La Morenita"
 * Toledo (Province of Toledo): Virgen Morena (Dark Virgin), statue of La Esclavitud de Nuestra Señora del Sagrario in the Cathedral of Toledo (Catedral Primada de Santa María) (The Enslavement of Our Lady of the Tabernacle)
 * Torreciudad (Huesca): Our Lady of Torreciudad

Sweden

 * Lund Cathedral Attached to a marble pillar in the crypt: Black madonna with child
 * Skee Kyrka, Skee, Bohuslän former Norwegian province. Black madonna with beheaded child

Switzerland

 * Einsiedeln (Canton of Schwyz): Our Lady of the Hermits
 * In the United States, a reproduction of Our Lady of the Hermits was gifted to the St. Meinrad Archabbey located in St. Meinrad, Indiana
 * Sonogno, Valle Verzasca (Canton of Ticino): Santa Maria Loretana
 * Uetikon upon Lake (Canton of Zürich): Catholic Church Saint Francis of Assisi
 * Metzerlen-Mariastein (Canton of Solothurn): Mariastein Abbey
 * Ascona (Canton of Ticino): Black Chapel
 * Lugano (Canton of Ticino): Chiesa di Santa Maria di Loreto

Ukraine

 * Tsarytsya Karpat (Hoshiv Monastery): The Queen of the Carpathian Land

United Kingdom

 * St. Mary Willesden (Our Lady of Willesden): The original Shrine of Our Lady of Willesden.
 * Our Lady of Częstochowa (Church of Our Lady of Czestochowa, Nottingham)

Costa Rica

 * Cartago, Cartago Province: Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles (Our Lady of the Angels Basilica)

Cuba

 * Regla, Havana Province: Nuestra Señora de Regla (Spanish for Our Lady of Regla)

Mexico

 * Tepeyac, Mexico City: Our Lady of Guadalupe

Trinidad and Tobago

 * Siparia: La Divina Pastora
 * Gran Couva: Our Lady of Montserrat

United States

 * Pacific, MO: Black Madonna Shrine and Grottos
 * Doylestown, PA: National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa
 * Jersey City, NJ: Our Lady of Czestochowa
 * New York City, NY: Cathedral of St. John the Divine
 * New York City, NY: Church of St. Ignatius Loyola
 * Detroit, MI: Shrine of the Black Madonna Church
 * Chicago, IL: Monastery of the Holy Cross
 * Westport, CT: Church of the Assumption

Canada

 * Windsor, Ontario -Black Madonna chapel located at Italian banquet hall Ciociaro club.

Brazil

 * Aparecida, São Paulo: Our Lady of Aparecida or Our Lady Appeared (Nossa Senhora Aparecida or Nossa Senhora da Conceição Aparecida) in the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida

Chile

 * Andacollo, Elqui Province: La Virgen Morena (Spanish for The Brunette Virgin)

title: Black Madonna