text:
1994 Northridge earthquake

The 1994 Northridge earthquake affected the Los Angeles area of California on January 17, 1994, at 04:30:55 PST. The epicenter of the moment 6.7  blind thrust earthquake was beneath the San Fernando Valley. Lasting approximately 8 seconds and achieving the largest peak ground acceleration of over 1.7 g, it was the largest earthquake in the area since 1971. Shaking was felt as far away as San Diego, Turlock, Las Vegas, Richfield, Phoenix, and Ensenada. Fifty-seven people died and more than 9,000 were injured. In addition, property damage was estimated to be $13–50 billion, making it among the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.

Geology
The epicenter region of the earthquake was located in the San Fernando Valley, about 30 km northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) placed the hypocenter's geographical coordinates at 34.213°N, -118.537°W and at a depth of 11.31 miles. Measuring 6.7, it was the largest earthquake recorded in the Los Angeles area since the 1971 San Fernando earthquake ( 6.7). However, unlike the Northridge earthquake, San Fernando shock occurred on a north–northeast dipping thrust fault beneath the San Gabriel Mountains. Motion during the Northridge event occurred along a south–southwest dipping blind thrust fault beneath the valley. The rupture propagated upward and northwestward along the fault plane for eight seconds at speeds of ~3 km per second. The fault planes that produced both earthquakes run parallel to each other. Several other faults experienced minor rupture during the main shock and other ruptures occurred during large aftershocks, or triggered events. The previously undiscovered fault that ruptured in 1994 was subsequently named the Northridge Blind Thrust Fault or Pico Thrust Fault.

Thrust faulting in the northern Los Angeles basin occur in response to north–south crustal shortening. The fault responsible for the earthquake represented a component of a larger system of faults within the 160 km "Big Bend" stepover of the San Andreas Fault. Crustal compression occurs along this bend of the San Andreas Fault. The Transverse Range and Los Angeles basin hosts east–west striking thrust faults and folds that accommodate over 10 mm of the compressive motion annually. This zone comprises north and south dipping faults that run subparallel to each other. Most of these faults are buried structures and only a handful reaches the surface.

Aftershocks
Seismic observatories recorded 3,000 aftershocks greater than magnitude 1.5 in the three weeks following the mainshock. By comparing previous aftershock sequences in California against a decay rate equation, the Northridge aftershock activity was highly energetic but decayed marginally quicker than average. The strongest aftershock, measuring 5.9, was recorded one minute after the mainshock. These aftershocks were distributed in three zones; the first zone illuminated a fault structure dipping 35° to 45° at a depth range of 8-19 km. Another aftershock zone at shallower depth suggested diffuse tectonic behavior of an anticline above. The third aftershock cluster was in the Santa Susana Mountains after a 5.6 aftershock 11 hours after the mainshock. That event and its aftershock were distributed along a 10 km strike and vertically within the crust, likely associated with faults that did not rupture during the mainshock.

Ground effects
The earthquake caused uplift across 5,000 km2 including the San Fernando Valley. Global Positioning System observations indicate the maximum uplift was 70 cm. Direct observations at Oat Mountain suggest the Santa Susana Mountains were thrusted up 40 cm. Across the northern valley area, uplift was as much as 20-40 cm. The city of Northridge was raised 20 cm. The surface above the zone of greatest fault displacement was compressed into an "asymmetric dome-shaped uplift". There was also 22 cm of horizontal deformation which was the largest of its kind measured after the mainshock.

The USGS recorded over 11,000 landslides within 10,000 km2; most were recorded throughout a 1,000 km2 area that comprised the Santa Susana Mountains and ridges north of the Santa Clara River Valley. On average, these documented landslides were under 1,000 m3, although a significant number of them were larger than 100,000 m3. Rotational block slides were thought to be in the tens or hundreds, including a handful measuring over 100,000 m3. The largest block slide measured 8 e6m3. A majority of them occurred in the weak Tertiary to Pleistocene sediments and were previous landslides that became reactivated.

Strong ground motion
A seismometer at a Cedar Hills Nursery in Tarzana observed the greatest horizontal peak ground acceleration (pga) at 1.82 g, 7 km south of the epicenter. The recording was one of the largest observed during an earthquake at the time, yet buildings in the immediate vicinity only sustained broken windows and cracked walls and driveways. It garnered international scientific interest who visited the ranch in the aftermath to install additional instruments to record the aftershocks. The USGS Strong Motion Instrumentation Program ruled out technical malfunction and ground amplification effects, stating that the abnormally high pga recorded by a rock-bolted seismometer was authentic. The same site also recorded an unusually high pga (0.65 g) during a 1987 earthquake, though no abnormal readings were found during earthquakes in 1991 and 1992. USGS seismologist Rufus Catchings suggested the intense shaking was localised and most of the city was unharmed. A possible contributing factor for the effect is the local soil condition and topography. The maximum vertical pga recorded at the same station was 1.18 g.

Several sites in the valley also recorded pga exceeding 1.0 g. There were over 200 recordings of pga exceeding 0.01 g, and the horizontal component pga was larger than average for a reverse-mechanism event. A possible explanation for the high pga is due to the large seismic moment release within a small fault rupture. A peak ground velocity (pgv) of 148 cm per second was measured at a station in Granada Hills. At the Sylmar county hospital, 15 km north–northeast of the epicenter, the pgv in the horizontal component was 130 cm per second. South of the hospital, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Rinaldi Receiving Station recorded a pgv exceeding 170 cm per second.

Damage and fatalities
Damage occurred up to 85 mi away although it was concentrated in the west San Fernando Valley, and the cities and neighborhoods of Santa Monica, Hollywood, Simi Valley, and Santa Clarita. The Historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood was red-tagged and closed as was the Capital Theater in Glendale due to structural damage. The exact number of fatalities is unknown, with sources estimating the number to be 60 or "over 60", to 72, where most estimates fall around 60. The "official" death toll was placed at 57; 33 people died immediately or within a few days from injuries sustained, and many died from indirect causes, such as stress-induced cardiac events. Some counts factor in related events such as a man's suicide possibly inspired by the loss of his business in the disaster. More than 8,700 were injured including 1,600 who required hospitalization. Actress Iris Adrian died in September 1994 from complications of a broken hip she suffered in the earthquake.

Sixteen people were killed as a result of the collapse of the Northridge Meadows apartment complex. The Northridge Fashion Center and California State University, Northridge also sustained very heavy damage – most notably the collapse of parking structures. The earthquake also gained worldwide attention because of damage to the vast freeway network, which serves millions of commuters every day. The most notable was to the Santa Monica Freeway, Interstate 10, known as the busiest freeway in the United States, congesting nearby surface roads for three months while the freeway was repaired. Farther north, the Newhall Pass interchange of Interstate 5 (the Golden State Freeway) and State Route 14 (the Antelope Valley Freeway) collapsed as it had 23 years earlier in the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, even though it had been rebuilt with minor improvements to the structural components. LAPD motorcycle officer Clarence Wayne Dean died because of the collapse of the Newhall Pass interchange, falling 40 feet from the damaged connector from southbound 14 to southbound I-5. He likely did not realize until too late in the early morning darkness that the elevated roadway had collapsed. The rebuilt interchange was renamed in his honor a year later.

Additional damage occurred about 50 mi southeast in the city of Anaheim, located in Orange County, as the scoreboard at Anaheim Stadium collapsed onto several hundred seats. Most casualties and damage occurred in multi-story wood-frame buildings (such as the three-story Northridge Meadows apartment building). In particular, buildings with an unstable first floor (such as those with parking areas on the bottom) performed poorly. Numerous fires were also caused by broken gas lines from houses shifting off their foundations or unsecured water heaters tumbling. Slope side homes supported on one side by a concrete foundation and stilts on the other were also prone to collapse such as in Sherman Oaks where nine stilt homes crashed down a slope, killing four. In the San Fernando Valley, several underground gas and water lines were severed, resulting in some streets experiencing simultaneous fires and floods. Damage to the system resulted in water pressure dropping to zero in some areas; this predictably affected success in fighting subsequent fires. Five days later, it was estimated that between 40,000 and 60,000 customers were still without public water service.

Valley fever outbreak
An unusual effect of the Northridge earthquake was an outbreak of coccidioidomycosis (Valley fever) in Ventura County. This respiratory disease is caused by inhaling airborne spores of the fungus. The 203 cases reported, of which three resulted in fatalities, constituted roughly 10 times the normal rate in the initial eight weeks. This was the first report of such an outbreak following an earthquake, and it is believed that the spores were carried in large clouds of dust created by seismically triggered landslides. Most of the cases occurred immediately downwind of the landslides.

Hospitals
Eleven hospitals suffered structural damage and were damaged or rendered unusable. Not only were they unable to serve their local neighborhoods, but they also had to transfer out their inpatient populations, which further increased the burden on nearby hospitals that were still operational. As a result, the state legislature passed a law requiring all hospitals in California to ensure that their acute care units and emergency rooms would be in earthquake-resistant buildings by January 1, 2005. Most were unable to meet this deadline and only managed to achieve compliance in 2008 or 2009.

Television, movie, and music productions
The production of movies and TV shows was disrupted. At the time of the quake, before dawn on Monday morning, the Warner Bros. film Murder in the First (with Christian Slater, Kevin Bacon, and Gary Oldman) was being filmed only 4 mi from the epicenter. Production came to a halt. The main courtroom set was in shambles. The building containing the set was later "red tagged" as unsafe due to the damage it sustained. The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Profit and Loss" was being filmed at the time, and actors Armin Shimerman and Edward Wiley left the Paramount Pictures lot in full Ferengi and Cardassian makeup, respectively. The season five episode of Seinfeld entitled "The Pie" was due to begin shooting on January 17 before stage sets were damaged. Also, ABC's General Hospital set at ABC Television Center suffered partial structural collapse and water damage.

An earthquake scene was written in the screenplay of Wes Craven film New Nightmare and the earthquake occurred in the middle of its production timeline. Subsequently, the production company, Warner Bros., incorporated real-life footage of the earthquake aftermath into the final cut.

Some archives of film and entertainment programming were also affected. For example, the original 35 mm master films for the 1960s sitcom My Living Doll were destroyed.

Transportation

Portions of a number of major roads and freeways, including Interstate 10 over La Cienega Boulevard, and the interchanges of Interstate 5 with California State Route 14, 118, and Interstate 210, were closed because of structural failure or collapse. James E. Roberts was chief bridge engineer with Caltrans and was placed in charge of the seismic retrofit program for Caltrans until his death in 2006.

Rail service was briefly interrupted, with full Amtrak and expanded Metrolink service resuming in stages in the days after the quake. Interruptions to road transport caused Metrolink to experiment with service to Camarillo in February and Oxnard in April, which continues today as the Ventura County Line, and extended the Antelope Valley Line almost ten years ahead of schedule. Six new stations opened in six weeks. Metrolink leased equipment from Amtrak, San Francisco's Caltrain, and Toronto, Canada's GO Transit to handle the sudden onslaught of passengers. Amtrak ceased service in the Pasadena Subdivision following structural damage to a rail bridge in Arcadia and redirected all rail traffic through Riverside and Fullerton. All MTA bus lines operated service with detours and delays on the day of the quake. Los Angeles International Airport and other airports in the area were also shut down as a 2-hour precaution, including Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport (now Hollywood Burbank Airport) and Van Nuys Airport, which is near the epicenter, where the control tower suffered from radar failure and panel collapse. The airport was reopened in stages after the quake.

California State University, Northridge
California State University, Northridge, was the closest university to the epicenter. Many campus buildings were heavily damaged and a parking structure collapsed. Many classes were moved to temporary structures. Much of the campus infrastructure were damaged and there were multiple fires and explosions throughout the campus. The earthquake damaged several buildings and destroyed all communications, including telephone lines, and caused computer systems to shut down. Two CSUN students at the Northridge Meadows Complex along with 14 other residents.

Campus damage
All 58 buildings on campus sustained significant damage, resulting in a $406 million recovery effort. The Oviatt Library experienced both interior and exterior damage, but the overall frame of the central part of the building remained stable, allowing student use to continue. In the Science Complex, Building #1 and #2 suffered fire damage while the bridges connecting buildings #3 and #4 were closed and named unstable. The University Tower apartments, Fine Arts Building and the South Library were damaged beyond repair and demolished. Photographs of the recently-constructed Parking Structure C which collapsed became synonymus with the earthquake's effects on the university.

Classes and enrollment
The damage delayed the start of the 1994 Spring semester by two weeks. The campus mobilised 335 makeshift structures for its useage. Some 25 classes were held at Pierce College, LA City College and UCLA, while others were outdoors or in trailer buildings. The campus was unable to use any of its classrooms because of the damage the buildings sustained. CSUN President Dr. Blenda Wilson assured the rental of temporary structures to be placed in available spaces throughout the campus. An estimated $350 million (equivalent to $ million today) was used to supply the number of trailers and domes which housed classes and administration offices. Enrollment dropped by approximately 1,000 students, leaving some homeless as dormitories were closed due to damage that rendered them unsafe and which required repair.

External resources
The seismic event led to millions of dollars worth of damage resulting in a sharp drop in student enrollment. CSUN received financial assistance for its efforts in reestablishing the damaged buildings with monetary gifts from the McCarthy Foundation, the Common Wealth Fund, and the Union Bank Foundation. In addition, the campus received a $23,000 check (equivalent to $ today) from the Los Angeles Times Valley Edition for the journalism department. CSUN also received assistance from government agencies FEMA and OES to support the recovery effort and serve the needs of the local community. UCLA's Westwood campus opened their doors and allowed CSUN students to use their libraries while providing shuttle buses to and from the university.

Entertainment and sports
Universal Studios Hollywood shut down the Earthquake attraction, based on the 1974 motion picture blockbuster, Earthquake. It was closed for the second time since the Loma Prieta earthquake. Angel Stadium of Anaheim (then known as Anaheim Stadium) suffered some damage when the scoreboard fell into the seats, forcing a Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group off-road race at the ballpark to be postponed from that upcoming weekend to February 12.

Other buildings
Numerous Los Angeles museums, including the Art Deco Building in Hollywood, were closed, as were numerous city shopping malls. Gazzarri's nightclub suffered irreparable damage and had to be torn down. The city of Santa Monica suffered significant damage. Many multifamily apartment buildings in Santa Monica were yellow-tagged and red-tagged. An especially hard hit area was between Santa Monica Canyon and Saint John's Hospital, a linear corridor that suffered a significant amount of property damage. The City of Santa Monica provided assistance to landlords dealing with repairs so tenants could return home as soon as possible. In Valencia, the California Institute of the Arts experienced heavy damage, with classes relocated to a nearby Lockheed test facility for the remainder of 1994. The Los Angeles Unified School District closed local schools throughout the area, which reopened one week later. UCLA and other local universities were also shut down. The University of Southern California suffered some structural damage to several older campus buildings, but classes were conducted as scheduled. Pierce College suffered $2 million in damages, the most affected of the nine Los Angeles community colleges.

Lifestyle disruptions in the weeks following
In the weeks following the quake, many San Fernando Valley residents had either lost their homes entirely or experienced structural damage too severe to continue living in them without making repairs. Although the vast majority of homes in the area, with the exception of a few particular neighborhoods, were relatively unaffected; many feared an aftershock to rival or exceed the severity of the first one. While a notable aftershock never came, many residents opted to stay in shelters or live with friends and family outside the area for a short time following.

While many businesses remained closed in the days following the quake, some infrastructure was not able to be rebuilt for months, even years later. The daily commute for many drivers in the weeks following was significantly lengthened, notably for those traveling between Santa Clarita and Los Angeles, and commuters on I-10 traveling to and from the Westside. Additionally, many businesses were forced to relocate or use temporary facilities in order to accommodate structural damage to their original locations or the difficulty accessing them. Some people even made temporary relocations closer to their jobs while their homes or neighborhoods were being rebuilt.

State legislative response
The Northridge earthquake led to a number of legislative changes. Due to the large amount lost by insurance companies, most insurance companies either stopped offering or severely restricted earthquake insurance in California. In response, the California Legislature created the California Earthquake Authority (CEA), which is a publicly managed but privately funded organization that offers minimal coverage. A substantial effort was also made to reinforce freeway bridges against seismic shaking, and a law requiring water heaters to be properly strapped was passed in 1995.

Engineering analysis
The analysis of the effect of Northridge earthquake on behavior of structures has been investigated by many researchers. For example, the behavior of underground walls has been evaluated for the Northridge earthquake using numerical methods. The comparison of the seismic behavior of underground braced walls with ACI 318 design method reveals that bending moment and shear force of the walls under Northridge earthquake loads were observed to reach 2.8 and 2.7 times as large as the respective allowable limits. Therefore, caution should be taken in seismic design of diaphragm walls using ACI 318 code requirements.

In popular culture

 * The Northridge Earthquake was the subject of the 1995 film Epicenter U., a first-hand account of healing from the natural disaster, directed by Alexis Krasilovsky.      The Earthquake Haggadah (1995) was a video excerpt from Epicenter U. narrated by Wanda Coleman. Distributed in 3/4" and VHS by the Poetry Film Workshop circa 1998. Re-released as part of the DVD Some Women Writers Kill Themselves in 2008.
 * The Northridge earthquake was used as a plot device in the 2004 film A Cinderella Story. The film is a modern retelling of the Cinderella classic starring Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray. In it, Duff's character, Sam Montgomery, lives in the San Fernando Valley with her father, stepmother, and two stepsisters. Her father, Hal, perishes in the quake trying to save her stepmother, setting the story in motion.
 * A song about the earthquake, set to the tune of "Happy Farmer", was featured in the Animaniacs episode "A Quake, A Quake!".
 * The title of the song play I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky by John Adams and June Jordan was a quote from an earthquake survivor. The story's premise also takes places after an earthquake.

title: 1994 Northridge earthquake


text:
Boundary

Boundary or Boundaries may refer to:

 * Border, in political geography

Entertainment

 * Boundaries (2016 film), a 2016 Canadian film
 * Boundaries (2018 film), a 2018 American-Canadian road trip film
 * Boundary (cricket), the edge of the playing field, or a scoring shot where the ball is hit to or beyond that point
 * Boundary (sports), the sidelines of a field

Mathematics and physics

 * Boundary (topology), the closure minus the interior of a subset of a topological space; an edge in the topology of manifolds, as in the case of a 'manifold with boundary'
 * Boundary (graph theory), the vertices of edges between a subgraph and the rest of a graph
 * Boundary (chain complex), its abstractization in chain complexes
 * Boundary value problem, a differential equation together with a set of additional restraints called the boundary conditions
 * Boundary (thermodynamics), the edge of a thermodynamic system across which heat, mass, or work can flow

Psychology and sociology

 * Personal boundaries, a life skill for protecting against having personal values compromised or violated
 * Boundaries of the mind, the degree of separateness between fantasy and reality
 * Professional boundaries, relationship between any professional and their client
 * Symbolic boundaries, a theory of how people form social groups proposed by cultural sociologists
 * Boundary-work, sociology of divisions between fields of knowledge

Places

 * Boundary, Derbyshire, a hamlet and former civil parish in South Derbyshire and Leicestershire, England
 * Boundary, Staffordshire, a village in Staffordshire, England
 * Boundary Ranges, also known as the Boundary Range, a mountain range in British Columbia, Canada and Alaska, United States
 * Boundary County, ID, the northernmost county in Idaho
 * Boundary Country, a region of southern British Columbia, Canada
 * Kootenay Boundary Regional District, a regional district in British Columbia
 * West Kootenay-Boundary, a provincial electoral district in British Columbia
 * Okanagan-Boundary, a former provincial electoral district in British Columbia
 * Boundary-Similkameen, a former provincial electoral district in British Columbia
 * Boundary Falls, British Columbia, also known as Boundary, a former railway town in the Boundary Country of British Columbia
 * Boundary Waters, a region on the boundary between Ontario and Minnesota
 * Stikine, British Columbia, called Boundary from 1930 to 1964, a former customs post on the Stikine River at the Alaska–British Columbia border
 * Boundary City, Indiana, a community in the United States

Other uses

 * MV Boundary, a number of ships with this name
 * Boundaries in landscape history, the divide between areas of differing land used
 * Boundary (real estate), the legal boundary between units of real property
 * Boundary (company), an American application performance management company
 * Boundary critique, a concept about the meaning and validity of propositions
 * Boundary turbulence, a break in expectation of how private information is held within a group of knowledge owners
 * Boundary Ale, a beer made by Moosehead Breweries
 * Geological boundary, a boundary between different geological units
 * Boundary, software for secure remote access to systems based on trusted identity developed by HashiCorp

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

title: Boundary


text:
Francis Garnier

Marie Joseph François Garnier (Ngạc Nhi; 25 July 1839 – 21 December 1873) was a French officer, inspector of Indigenous Affairs of Cochinchina and explorer. He eventually became mission leader of the Mekong Exploration Commission in 19th century Southeast Asia.

Early career
Francis Garnier was born on 25 July 1839 in Saint-Étienne, as the second son of Louis-Alexandre Garnier and Anne Marie Félicité Garnier. In 1855, at 16, he joined the Ecole Navale, much to the dismay of his family who disapproved a military career, deeming it as being dangerous.

In early 1860, 20 years old Garnier, then serving as an aspirant on the Duperré during the Second Opium War, jumped into a stormy sea at night to save the life of a cavalry lieutenant who had fallen overboard. For this act of bravery, Garnier was immediately promoted to ensign and got attached to the staff of Admiral Charner.

Under Admiral Charner he fought in the Cochinchina Campaign and notably took part in the storming of the Kỳ Hòa lines.

After some time spent in France, Garnier returned to the East, and in 1862, he was appointed inspector of native affairs in Cochinchina, and entrusted with the administration of Cholon, a suburb of Saigon.

Exploration of the Mekong and Yangtze rivers
It was at his suggestion that the marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat determined to send a mission to explore the valley of the Mekong River, but as Garnier was not considered old enough to be put in command, the chief authority was entrusted to Captain Ernest Doudard de Lagrée. In the course of the expedition – to quote the words of Sir Roderick Murchison addressed to the youthful traveller when, in 1870, he was presented with the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London – "from Kratié in Cambodia to Shanghai 5392 miles were traversed, and of these, 3625 miles, chiefly of country unknown to European geography, were surveyed with care, and the positions fixed by astronomical observations, nearly the whole of the observations being taken by Garnier himself". A year earlier he received an award to be shared with David Livingstone at the 1869 Geographical Congress in Antwerp.

Volunteering to lead a detachment to Dali, the capital of Sultan Suleiman, the sovereign of the Muslim rebels in Yunnan, Garnier successfully carried out the more-than-adventurous enterprise. When shortly afterwards Lagrée died, Garnier naturally assumed the command of the expedition, and he conducted it in safety to the Yangtze River, and thus to the Chinese coast. On his return to France, he was received with enthusiasm. The preparation of his narrative was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War

Franco-Prussian War
During the siege of Paris, Garnier served as principal staff officer to the admiral in command of the eighth sector. His experiences during the siege were published anonymously in the feuilleton of Le Temps, and appeared separately as Le Siège de Paris, journal d'un officier de marine (1871). One day, while he was carrying a wagon full of ammunitions to the Fort of Vanves alongside 40 fellow fighters, the convoy came under a brutal rain of Prussian shells. All of the surviving men ran away forsaking their mission, except for Garnier and a man of the National Guard who held on and brought the wagon to destination, just the two of them. Returning to Cochinchina, he found the political circumstances of the country unfavourable to further exploration, so accordingly, he went to China, and in 1873 followed the upper course of the Yangtze River to the waterfalls.

Intervention in Tonkin
In late summer 1873, a dispute between French trader Jean Dupuis and the Vietnamese authorities had created a diplomatic crisis in Hanoi. On the demand of the Vietnamese imperial court, Garnier was sent by Admiral Dupré to resolve the dispute and to expel Dupuis and his mercenaries from the Tonkin. Garnier's expeditionary force consisted in 180 men and two gunboats. Garnier departed from Saigon with half of the expeditionary force on 11 October 1873 and reached Hanoi on 5 November. As Garnier and his men arrived in the city, neither General Nguyễn Tri Phương, nor any of his mandarins came to meet them. Dupuis, however, warmly welcomed the French. After meeting with Dupuis, Garnier attempted to negotiate with the local authorities, but since the mandarins refused to negotiate, he began considering military action. On 12 November, the remainder of the expeditionary force arrived, and Garnier decided to capture the city despite having received no orders to do so. On 20 November at dawn, Garnier and his 180 men stormed the citadel of Hanoi, which was defended by 7,000 soldiers. Completely dumbfounded by the French attack, the defenders performed poorly, and when General Nguyễn Tri Phương was severely injured, their morale completely collapsed. As French troops entered through the southern gates, most of the defenders ran away through the northern gate. In less than an hour, the French had captured the citadel. The only French casualty was one of Dupuis's Chinese mercenaries, who had accidentally been killed by French sailors. Vietnamese casualties however were heavy, as they had lost 80 killed, 300 wounded and 2,000 captured. Nguyễn Tri Phương was badly injured and died of his wounds on 20 December. Emboldened by this crushing victory, Garnier and his men soon launched an unsanctioned military campaign that resulted in the conquest of the entire Red River Delta within two weeks. One of his subordinates, 24-year-old ensign Balny d'Avricourt, conquered the citadels of Phu Ly and Hai Duong with only 30 men. On 5 December, 21-year-old aspirant Hautefeuille captured the citadel of Ninh Binh with six sailors and a Vietnamese interpreter after taking the governor hostage. On 11 December, Garnier himself conquered the citadel of Nam Dinh, and the expeditionary force received its first casualties as five sailors were wounded. With the fall of Nam Dinh on 11 December, the French force was in control of the entire Red River Delta.

Death in battle near Hanoi
Completely overwhelmed by the lightning French conquest, the Vietnamese authorities had sought the help of Liu Yongfu and his Black Flag Army, a group of Chinese outlaws, composed largely of veterans of the Taiping Rebellion, who had settled in Northern Vietnam. On 21 December 1873 Liu Yongfu and around 600 Black Flags (pavillons noirs, drapeaux noirs), marching beneath an enormous black banner, approached the west gate of Hanoi. A large Vietnamese army followed in their wake. Garnier began shelling the Black Flags with a field piece mounted above the gate, and when they began to fall back he led a party of 18 French marines and sailors out of the city to pursue them, hoping to inflict some decisive blow. The counter-attack failed. Garnier, leading three men uphill in a bayonet attack on a party of Black Flags, was stabbed and hacked to death by several Black Flag soldiers after stumbling in a watercourse. The youthful enseigne de vaisseau Adrien Balny d'Avricourt led an equally small column out of the citadel to support Garnier, but was also killed at the head of his men. Three French sailors were also killed in these sorties, and the others fled back to the citadel after their officers fell. Colonel Thomazi, the historian of French Indochina, gave the following detailed description of Garnier's last moments: At midday on 21 December he was in conference with the ambassadors when an interpreter ran up, announcing that bands of Black Flags were attacking the town by the western gate. He immediately hurried to the spot, but some of his men had got there before him, and their fire had sufficed to force the bandits to retreat behind the bamboo hedges. A 40-millimetre gun arrived at this moment. Garnier rallied a dozen men, three of whom dragged this small cannon, and left the town at a run to pursue the enemy. As the gun could not move quickly enough across the fields, he left it behind with its gunners. He then divided the nine men who remained with him into three groups. The first two groups moved off to the left and the right, to rejoin one another further on, while he marched in the middle, followed only by two men. One and a half kilometres from the town he found himself in front of a dyke, and slipped and fell while trying to cross it. Some Black Flags hidden behind the dyke ran out, while others opened fire. At this moment the two men who were accompanying Garnier were 100 metres behind him. One of them was killed by a bullet and the other wounded. Garnier cried, 'To me, brave boys, and we'll give them a thrashing!' He then fired the six rounds from his revolver in an attempt to rescue himself, but the bandits surrounded him, pierced him with thrusts of sabres and lances, cut off his head, odiously mutilated his corpse, and ran away. The two other groups, rushing up to the sound of the shooting, were only able to recover his bloodied corpse and bring it back to Hanoi. Despite having killed the leader of the French force, the Black Flags and Vietnamese retreated without having retaken Hanoi. Though the death of Garnier was a severe blow to the expeditionary force, his men nevertheless remained in control of the entire region. However, the conquest had not been allowed by the French authorities, and another lieutenant named Paul-Louis-Félix Philastre had been sent to terminate the campaign as soon as the news of Garnier's attack on Hanoi reached Saigon. Philastre arrived a few days after Garnier's death and immediately ordered the evacuation of the conquered cities in early 1874. The heads of Garnier, Balny d'Avricourt and the other three French sailors killed in the 21 December attack were returned to the French on 6 January. On 15 March 1874, the Treaty of Saigon was then signed between France and Vietnam. In exchange for France having given back the conquered cities, Vietnam formally recognized French sovereignty over Cochinchina, opened the Red River to French trade and allowed the establishment of small French garrisons in Hanoi and Haiphong.

Achievement
Garnier's chief fame rests on the fact that he both conceived the idea of exploring the Mekong and carried out the larger portion of the work. During the French colonial period he was also honoured for his feats of arms in Tonkin, which paved the way for the eventual French conquest of Tonkin in the 1880s.

Commemoration
In 1883, nine years after Francis Garnier's death, the French naval officer Henri Rivière was also killed by the Black Flags in Tonkin, in remarkably similar circumstances.

Garnier and Rivière were honoured during the French colonial period as the two pre-eminent French martyrs of the conquest of Tonkin. In 1884, during the Sino-French War, two gunboats of the Tonkin Flotilla were named after the two men.

During the siege of Tuyên Quang (November 1884–March 1885), Liu Yung-fu's Black Flags, who formed part of the besieging Chinese army, taunted the men of the French garrison by chanting the names of their two most famous victims: 'Garnier! Rivière! Garnier! Rivière!'

In 1911, the town Beni Haoua in French Algeria was renamed 'Francis Garnier', and retained this name until the independence in 1962.

In 1943, French Indochina issued a postage stamp commemorating Garnier.
 * A warship was named after him during World War II but was scuttled after a fight with the Japanese, near the Cambodian town of Kratié.
 * In 1973 a new ship, FRENCH SHIP Francis Garnier, was built. It still is in service and was ordered to assist the humanitarian efforts following the 2010 Haiti earthquake as part of Opération Séisme Haiti 2010. She left Martinique carrying 60 Army personnel, land vehicles and excavators; and various relief shipments.

title: Francis Garnier


text:
User:Mav/images/Yosemite National Park

Photos of Yosemite National Park

title: User:Mav/images/Yosemite National Park


text:
Finite geometry

A finite geometry is any geometric system that has only a finite number of points. The familiar Euclidean geometry is not finite, because a Euclidean line contains infinitely many points. A geometry based on the graphics displayed on a computer screen, where the pixels are considered to be the points, would be a finite geometry. While there are many systems that could be called finite geometries, attention is mostly paid to the finite projective and affine spaces because of their regularity and simplicity. Other significant types of finite geometry are finite Möbius or inversive planes and Laguerre planes, which are examples of a general type called Benz planes, and their higher-dimensional analogs such as higher finite inversive geometries.

Finite geometries may be constructed via linear algebra, starting from vector spaces over a finite field; the affine and projective planes so constructed are called Galois geometries. Finite geometries can also be defined purely axiomatically. Most common finite geometries are Galois geometries, since any finite projective space of dimension three or greater is isomorphic to a projective space over a finite field (that is, the projectivization of a vector space over a finite field). However, dimension two has affine and projective planes that are not isomorphic to Galois geometries, namely the non-Desarguesian planes. Similar results hold for other kinds of finite geometries.

Finite planes

The following remarks apply only to finite planes. There are two main kinds of finite plane geometry: affine and projective. In an affine plane, the normal sense of parallel lines applies. In a projective plane, by contrast, any two lines intersect at a unique point, so parallel lines do not exist. Both finite affine plane geometry and finite projective plane geometry may be described by fairly simple axioms.

Finite affine planes
An affine plane geometry is a nonempty set X (whose elements are called "points"), along with a nonempty collection L of subsets of X (whose elements are called "lines"), such that: The last axiom ensures that the geometry is not trivial (either empty or too simple to be of interest, such as a single line with an arbitrary number of points on it), while the first two specify the nature of the geometry.
 * 1) For every two distinct points, there is exactly one line that contains both points.
 * 2) Playfair's axiom: Given a line $$\ell$$ and a point $$p$$ not on $$\ell$$, there exists exactly one line $$\ell'$$ containing $$p$$ such that $$\ell \cap \ell' = \varnothing.$$
 * 3) There exists a set of four points, no three of which belong to the same line.

The simplest affine plane contains only four points; it is called the affine plane of order 2. (The order of an affine plane is the number of points on any line, see below.) Since no three are collinear, any pair of points determines a unique line, and so this plane contains six lines. It corresponds to a tetrahedron where non-intersecting edges are considered "parallel", or a square where not only opposite sides, but also diagonals are considered "parallel".

The affine plane of order 3 is known as the Hesse configuration.

More generally, a finite affine plane of order n has n2 points and n2 + n lines; each line contains n points, and each point is on n + 1 lines.

Finite projective planes
A projective plane geometry is a nonempty set X (whose elements are called "points"), along with a nonempty collection L of subsets of X (whose elements are called "lines"), such that: An examination of the first two axioms shows that they are nearly identical, except that the roles of points and lines have been interchanged. This suggests the principle of duality for projective plane geometries, meaning that any true statement valid in all these geometries remains true if we exchange points for lines and lines for points. The smallest geometry satisfying all three axioms contains seven points. In this simplest of the projective planes, there are also seven lines; each point is on three lines, and each line contains three points.
 * 1) For every two distinct points, there is exactly one line that contains both points.
 * 2) The intersection of any two distinct lines contains exactly one point.
 * 3) There exists a set of four points, no three of which belong to the same line.

This particular projective plane is sometimes called the Fano plane. If any of the lines is removed from the plane, along with the points on that line, the resulting geometry is the affine plane of order 2. The Fano plane is called the projective plane of order 2 because it is unique (up to isomorphism). In general, the projective plane of order n has n2 + n + 1 points and the same number of lines; each line contains n + 1 points, and each point is on n + 1 lines.

A permutation of the Fano plane's seven points that carries collinear points (points on the same line) to collinear points is called a collineation of the plane. The full collineation group is of order 168 and is isomorphic to the group PSL(2,7) ≈ PSL(3,2), which in this special case is also isomorphic to the general linear group GL(3,2) ≈ PGL(3,2).

Order of planes
A finite plane of order n is one such that each line has n points (for an affine plane), or such that each line has n + 1 points (for a projective plane). One major open question in finite geometry is:
 * Is the order of a finite plane always a prime power?

This is conjectured to be true.

Affine and projective planes of order n exist whenever n is a prime power (a prime number raised to a positive integer exponent), by using affine and projective planes over the finite field with n = pk elements. Planes not derived from finite fields also exist (e.g. for $$n=9$$), but all known examples have order a prime power.

The best general result to date is the Bruck–Ryser theorem of 1949, which states:
 * If n is a positive integer of the form 4k + 1 or 4k + 2 and n is not equal to the sum of two integer squares, then n does not occur as the order of a finite plane.

The smallest integer that is not a prime power and not covered by the Bruck–Ryser theorem is 10; 10 is of the form 4k + 2, but it is equal to the sum of squares 12 + 32. The non-existence of a finite plane of order 10 was proven in a computer-assisted proof that finished in 1989 – see for details.

The next smallest number to consider is 12, for which neither a positive nor a negative result has been proved.

History
Individual examples can be found in the work of Thomas Penyngton Kirkman (1847) and the systematic development of finite projective geometry given by von Staudt (1856).

The first axiomatic treatment of finite projective geometry was developed by the Italian mathematician Gino Fano. In his work on proving the independence of the set of axioms for projective n-space that he developed, he considered a finite three dimensional space with 15 points, 35 lines and 15 planes (see diagram), in which each line had only three points on it.

In 1906 Oswald Veblen and W. H. Bussey described projective geometry using homogeneous coordinates with entries from the Galois field GF(q). When n + 1 coordinates are used, the n-dimensional finite geometry is denoted PG(n, q). It arises in synthetic geometry and has an associated transformation group.

Finite spaces of 3 or more dimensions
For some important differences between finite plane geometry and the geometry of higher-dimensional finite spaces, see axiomatic projective space. For a discussion of higher-dimensional finite spaces in general, see, for instance, the works of J.W.P. Hirschfeld. The study of these higher-dimensional spaces (n ≥ 3) has many important applications in advanced mathematical theories.

Axiomatic definition
A projective space S can be defined axiomatically as a set P (the set of points), together with a set L of subsets of P (the set of lines), satisfying these axioms :
 * Each two distinct points p and q are in exactly one line.
 * Veblen's axiom: If a, b, c, d are distinct points and the lines through ab and cd meet, then so do the lines through ac and bd.
 * Any line has at least 3 points on it.

The last axiom eliminates reducible cases that can be written as a disjoint union of projective spaces together with 2-point lines joining any two points in distinct projective spaces. More abstractly, it can be defined as an incidence structure (P, L, I) consisting of a set P of points, a set L of lines, and an incidence relation I stating which points lie on which lines.

Obtaining a finite projective space requires one more axiom:
 * The set of points P is a finite set.

In any finite projective space, each line contains the same number of points and the order of the space is defined as one less than this common number.

A subspace of the projective space is a subset X, such that any line containing two points of X is a subset of X (that is, completely contained in X). The full space and the empty space are always subspaces.

The geometric dimension of the space is said to be n if that is the largest number for which there is a strictly ascending chain of subspaces of this form:

 * $$ \varnothing = X_{-1} \subset X_{0}\subset \cdots \subset X_{n} = P .$$

Algebraic construction
A standard algebraic construction of systems satisfies these axioms. For a division ring D construct an (n + 1)-dimensional vector space over D (vector space dimension is the number of elements in a basis). Let P be the 1-dimensional (single generator) subspaces and L the 2-dimensional (two independent generators) subspaces (closed under vector addition) of this vector space. Incidence is containment. If D is finite then it must be a finite field GF(q), since by Wedderburn's little theorem all finite division rings are fields. In this case, this construction produces a finite projective space. Furthermore, if the geometric dimension of a projective space is at least three then there is a division ring from which the space can be constructed in this manner. Consequently, all finite projective spaces of geometric dimension at least three are defined over finite fields. A finite projective space defined over such a finite field has q + 1 points on a line, so the two concepts of order coincide. Such a finite projective space is denoted by PG(n, q), where PG stands for projective geometry, n is the geometric dimension of the geometry and q is the size (order) of the finite field used to construct the geometry.

In general, the number of k-dimensional subspaces of PG(n, q) is given by the product:

{{n+1} \choose {k+1}}_q = \prod_{i=0}^k \frac{q^{n+1-i}-1}{q^{i+1}-1}, $$ which is a Gaussian binomial coefficient, a q analogue of a binomial coefficient.

Classification of finite projective spaces by geometric dimension

 * Dimension 0 (no lines): The space is a single point and is so degenerate that it is usually ignored.
 * Dimension 1 (exactly one line): All points lie on the unique line, called a projective line.
 * Dimension 2: There are at least 2 lines, and any two lines meet.  A projective space for n = 2 is a projective plane.  These are much harder to classify, as not all of them are isomorphic with a PG(d, q).  The Desarguesian planes (those that are isomorphic with a PG(2, q)) satisfy Desargues's theorem and are projective planes over finite fields, but there are many non-Desarguesian planes.
 * Dimension at least 3: Two non-intersecting lines exist.  The Veblen–Young theorem states in the finite case that every projective space of geometric dimension n ≥ 3 is isomorphic with a PG(n, q), the n-dimensional projective space over some finite field GF(q).

The smallest projective three-space

The smallest 3-dimensional projective space is over the field GF(2) and is denoted by PG(3,2). It has 15 points, 35 lines, and 15 planes. Each plane contains 7 points and 7 lines. Each line contains 3 points. As geometries, these planes are isomorphic to the Fano plane.

Every point is contained in 7 lines. Every pair of distinct points are contained in exactly one line and every pair of distinct planes intersects in exactly one line.

In 1892, Gino Fano was the first to consider such a finite geometry.

Kirkman's schoolgirl problem
PG(3,2) arises as the background for a solution of Kirkman's schoolgirl problem, which states: "Fifteen schoolgirls walk each day in five groups of three. Arrange the girls’ walk for a week so that in that time, each pair of girls walks together in a group just once." There are 35 different combinations for the girls to walk together. There are also 7 days of the week, and 3 girls in each group. Two of the seven non-isomorphic solutions to this problem can be stated in terms of structures in the Fano 3-space, PG(3,2), known as packings. A spread of a projective space is a partition of its points into disjoint lines, and a packing is a partition of the lines into disjoint spreads. In PG(3,2), a spread would be a partition of the 15 points into 5 disjoint lines (with 3 points on each line), thus corresponding to the arrangement of schoolgirls on a particular day. A packing of PG(3,2) consists of seven disjoint spreads and so corresponds to a full week of arrangements.

title: Finite geometry


text:
Julian Solís

Julian Solís (born 7 January 1957) is a former boxer from Puerto Rico. He was born in the San Juan area of Río Piedras, but because of the closeness of his birthplace to Caguas, he often trained at the Bairoa Gym in Caguas. His training base, however, was the Caimito Gym.

A former Lineal and WBA Bantamweight champion, Solis is the only world champion in a family that produced two other world-class boxers: brother Enrique was outpointed by WBA Featherweight champion Eusebio Pedroza in 1978, and brother Rafael was knocked out in five rounds by WBC Super featherweight champion Héctor Camacho in 1983.

Professional boxing career
Solis began his professional boxing career in 1975, outpointing Ray Negron in four on 11 November. He won his first five fights in Puerto Rico, and then had his first international fight in December 1975, when he beat Juan Gómez in St. Maarten by a knockout in round two. On 12 February 1978, he met fringe contender Nivio Nolasco, outpointing him over ten rounds, and travelled to the Dominican Republic, where on 15 March he outpointed Leopoldo Frias also in ten rounds. With a record of 12-0 and 5 knockouts, he returned to the Dominican Republic, where he challenged Julio Soto Solano on 16 October for the "Latin American Bantamweight title", winning the regional belt by outpointing Solano over 12 rounds.

World bantamweight championship
In 1979, he won four fights, including one over Julio C. Saba knocked out in eight rounds in Buenos Aires. Solis continued on his travels in 1980. He retained the Latin American title with a 12th-round knockout of future world title challenger Edgar Roman in Venezuela, won a fight in South Africa, and challenged the Lineal and WBA Bantamweight champion Jorge Lujan in Miami on 29 August, winning on points.

For his first defense, Solis returned to Miami, but he lost the belt and his undefeated record to Jeff Chandler on November 14 when he was knocked out in the fourteenth round. After beginning 1981 with a win, he met Chandler again on 25 July, at Atlantic City, New Jersey. This time Chandler did the job in half the time, knocking out Solis in the seventh round. His next fight, with Kiko Bejines (later to die in a boxing related accident) in Los Angeles, also resulted in a seventh-round knockout defeat.

Solis started 1982 by winning two fights in San Juan and another one in Chile. By 1983, he was a popular performer in televised fights, often held in small Puerto Rican cities. He won four fights in Puerto Rico that year, and drew in Panama with the Number One ranked super bantamweight, Bernardo Checa. In 1984, he won three fights, including a ten-round decision over future world champion Kenny Mitchell on the 8 December undercard of the Azumah Nelson - Wilfredo Gómez WBC Featherweight championship bout in San Juan. In 1985, Solis fought only once, outpointing David Campo. He began 1986 by losing on points to Mike Ayala over ten rounds on 2 March in San Antonio. Solis and his handlers felt he had been robbed of a victory by the judges in this fight, feeling that Solis had done enough to win. They filed a complaint with the Texas state athletic commission, but in vain, as the officials reviewed a tape of the fight and decided the result should stand.

Solis fought on from this point, but he only won six of his last fifteen bouts before retiring in 1992. True to his globe-trotting style, only two of those bouts were in Puerto Rico, and he visited Italy, South Korea, South Africa once again, Miami and various American states. Among the boxers he faced during the last part of his career were future world Bantamweight champion Maurizio Stecca, former world Bantamweight champion Calvin Grove, Seung-Hoon Lee and Pedro Decima.

Solis retired with a record of 41 wins, 13 losses and 1 draw, with 22 knockouts. He remains active as a public figure in Puerto Rico, participating in charity exhibitions here and there.

Later life
In 2010, Solís was injured in a shooting incident.

title: Julian Solís


text:
Black Orchid (character)

Black Orchid is the name of four superheroines published by DC Comics. The original version of the character first appeared in Adventure Comics #428 (cover-dated July 1973).

The character has undergone numerous changes in her biography and powers over the years. Initially, her identity was a mystery, and her primary power was mastery of disguise, often impersonating background female characters. Various speculations about her origins were presented, but ultimately refuted.

In 1988, writer Neil Gaiman introduced an origin story for Black Orchid, giving her the name Susan Linden-Thorne and the background of a human-plant hybrid, connected to other DC Universe plant-human hybrids like Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy. After Linden was murdered by her abusive husband, her DNA was used to create plant-human hybrids, one of which took up her mantle after Linden's death.

The character was relaunched again in 1993 as Flora Black, with the ability to manipulate pheromones and control minds, making her a femme fatale. This series saw Flora's demise and a younger version, Suzy, taking up the mantle of Black Orchid.

In the 2011 reboot of DC's continuity, The New 52, a new version of the character named Alba Garcia was introduced. Alba is a former army private whose arms were amputated, and she transforms into a purple Swamp Thing-like creature. Her powers seem to involve the ability to shape-shift and manipulate elemental forces.

Throughout all the different versions, the powers of the Black Orchid character have varied but generally include super strength, flight, durability, and the power of disguise or shape-shifting.

Development
When designing Black Orchid, artist Tony DeZuñiga took inspiration from Cymbidium canaliculatum, a plant with dark purple petals, and Black Condor. He stated that "[he] read the character description and [recalled that] in the ’40s there was this character called the Black Condor, but [since] that was a male superhero, [he] took some ideas and revised [it] to a female form."

Susan Linden-Thorne
Although she has a number of superpowers (including flight, super-strength, and invulnerability to bullets) her main ability is a mastery of disguise. She often spends an entire investigation impersonating a seemingly insignificant female background character, with the other characters only discovering her involvement at the end of the story upon finding the woman she impersonated and an abandoned disguise with her calling card, a black orchid.

After appearing in Adventure Comics #'s 428–430, a backup feature starring the character ran in The Phantom Stranger #31–32, 35–36, and 38–41 (1974–1976). Black Orchid subsequently appeared sporadically, including occasional cameos in the Crisis on Infinite Earths 12-issue limited series, Blue Devil Annual #1, Deadshot #1, and Invasion! #2. She had a slightly larger role in Suicide Squad as a member of the team in issues #4, 7, 11–12, and 22 (1987–1988). She also had an appearance in the non-continuity children's comic book Super Friends #31.

While Adventure Comics #428 proclaimed on its cover that it was an "origin issue", almost no background on the character was given, not even her name. Until Neil Gaiman described her origin, the character was known for her lack of an origin. Instead, writers teased the audience with several possible origins, all refuted. In Adventure Comics #429, Barry DeMorte hypothesizes that either yoga master Lucinda "Cindy" Harper or anti-gravity specialist Daphne Wingate is Black Orchid, and he kidnaps both. When Black Orchid comes to the rescue, he learns otherwise. In The Phantom Stranger #38, writer Michael Fleisher posited racecar driver Ronnie Kuhn as a possible secret identity for Black Orchid. In the next issue, Kuhn is revealed to be simply an admirer of Black Orchid, who is soon seduced into "The Black Orchid Legion" (molecular chemist Karen Jensen, astrophysicist Stefanie Tower, Olympic gymnast and acrobat Barbie Henderson, criminologist Janet Grant, and psychologist and martial artist Lisa Patrick), a group of criminals who developed suits that would mimic Black Orchid's powers, because of her father's status as president of the World Bank, claiming that they are helping her to protect it from Communists. They bind her to the safe door, which they have set with explosives. Black Orchid rescues her, and when the police arrest the Legion, one mistakes Kuhn for Black Orchid, claiming to "know how it is with you super-heroes". Although Super Friends was never considered canon, writer E. Nelson Bridwell made it fit, anyway. His story had Lisa Patrick purchase a large chunk of kryptonite on the black market, convinced that Black Orchid is a Kryptonian. Patrick tries to lure her to the meteorite display at the Gotham City Museum of Natural History, attracting the Justice League. Black Orchid places a force field around the kryptonite to protect Superman, but the force field seemingly harms her instead, further convincing Patrick that she is Kryptonian, not noting the lack of effect on Superman. Superman takes the kryptonite into space, and Black Orchid follows him to take it as a brief hand-off so that the fragments will not kill him. When she survives the explosion, Superman inquires where she is from and how she acquired her powers. She answers, "Earth".

In Blue Devil Annual #1, the usually reliable Madame Xanadu and Phantom Stranger provide competing origins for Black Orchid. Xanadu identifies her as Madeleine Moorcock, and her origin is a parody of Daredevil, while the Stranger identifies her as Paula Porter, whose origin parodies Spider-Man.

Her appearances as an auxiliary member of the Suicide Squad are generally limited to brief rescues or bits of spying. Perhaps the most revealing issue is #19, in which she does not actually appear, but a black orchid is found as evidence that she has been tapping into Task Force X's mainframe computer, which arouses suspicion, as she is there as support rather than as a rehabilitated criminal. Her disappearance was eventually noted by the Squad.

In 1988, the character was relaunched in the three-issue miniseries Black Orchid, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean. The miniseries fleshed out the character considerably, providing an origin story which explained how and why she became known as Black Orchid. It also gave the character a civilian name in her origin sequence, Susan Linden-Thorne. Instead of being a normal super-powered human (or metahuman in the DC Universe), her background was changed to be that of a human-plant hybrid with ties to the Green. In this way she became related with other such human-plant hybrids as the Swamp Thing, Floronic Man, and Poison Ivy. After the miniseries concluded, DC Comics intended to put Black Orchid in Suicide Squad as a comic relief character, but replaced her with Ivy after Gaiman's objections. Gaiman had also wanted to write a sequel to that series called Black Orchard, an "ecological Invasion of the Body Snatchers", but it never materialized because he didn't want to make it without Dave McKean or at least an artist he liked as much.

Susan Linden had been killed by an abusive husband named Carl Thorne, whom she met while a croupier in Monaco. She had been a teenage crush of botanist Philip Sylvain, who later became a colleague to Poison Ivy, Swamp Thing, and Linda Holland. When Thorne became abusive, she retreated to Sylvain, who cared for her until Thorne succeeded in killing her. Sylvain used Linden's DNA as the source for plant/human hybrids, and kept an entire greenhouse full of them. While working with the Suicide Squad, Flo Crowley caught Black Orchid, or rather her calling card, after she accessed Task Force X's mainframes. She had been attempting to infiltrate Lexcorp, but her ruse was discovered. She had been masquerading as a secretary, but her wig and mask were removed to reveal her in her classic costume. She was bound to a chair inside a burning building. Black Orchid undid her bindings but died of smoke inhalation before she could escape. Her unrecognizable corpse was determined to be plant material by the fire department. Linden's consciousness was again killed by Thorne, this time a plant that merely thought that she was Linden. Thorne destroyed the greenhouse and killed Sylvain, leaving only two surviving hybrids. Thorne pursued the survivors to Brazil. A squad, sent by Lex Luthor to capture the hybrids, kills Thorne in self-defense. The survivors, enamored by Black Orchid, bury Thorne and leave.

Flora Black
The surviving Black Orchids, both having the consciousness and limited memories of Linden, become as mother and daughter, one being significantly smaller and younger than the other, and although the younger is initially more aware of Linden's memories, these swiftly degenerate. The elder goes under the alias of Flora Black to meet with Sherilyn Sommers, her closest friend.

An ongoing Black Orchid series, published under the newly created Vertigo imprint, featuring the new Black Orchid, ran for 22 issues from 1993 to 1995. Written by Dick Foreman, it saw the second version of the character use pheromone manipulation as mind control to become a femme fatale, breaking and marrying millionaire Elliot Weems to claim his fortune and company business as her own. She then became the series' major villain in the closing story arc, before perishing in the final issue. Her companion, a child version of Black Orchid heretofore nicknamed "Suzy", had matured over the course of the series, taking up the mantle of the Black Orchid as a young adult. Suzy features prominently in The Black Orchid Annual #1, part 2 of Vertigo's Children's Crusade crossover. The Annual was published between issues #4 and #5 of the ongoing series.

Suzy
The grown-up Suzy is identical to her "sister" and carries on the tradition in both the DC Universe and related Vertigo titles. She has appeared in four event titles: 1999's Totems one-shot, 2001's Justice Leagues limited series, 2005's Day of Vengeance limited series, and 2006's Infinite Crisis limited series. She is at present an ally of the Shadowpact and the Birds of Prey.

An unidentified Black Orchid appears in Trinity as a member of an alternate universe Justice League.

Alba Garcia
A new Black Orchid resembling the original (with a slightly modernized costume) appears in The New 52, the 2011 reboot of DC's continuity. In this new timeline, she is assigned to the Justice League Dark by Steve Trevor and is an agent of ARGUS. Her name has been revealed to be Alba Garcia, formerly an army private whose arms had been amputated. She transforms into a monstrous purple Swamp Thing-like creature during her time in a magical alternate dimension where each member of the Justice League Dark suffers differently due to the effects of the new environment. The transformation possibly suggests that she is linked to an elemental force analogous to "the Green", considering Swamp Thing's physical form manifests due to his connection to the Green.

Powers and abilities
The first Black Orchid had superhuman physical abilities, flight, and was a master of disguise. The second and third Black Orchids had super strength, flight, and could absorb nutrients from the air. The second version could also generate seductive pheromones and was seen to change her eye pigmentation, commenting that skin, hair, and eye color were easy for adjust (presumably linking back to her predecessors' disguise ability).

The New 52 version of the character seemingly possesses all of these abilities, as well as the power to change shape at will, providing a modern explanation for the elaborate disguises of the original. Her manipulation of the Red and the Green allow her to change form and stretch her body to extreme lengths.

Other versions

 * An alternate universe version of Black Orchid appears in JLA: The Nail as a prisoner of Cadmus Labs.
 * An alternate universe version of Black Orchid appears in Flashpoint: Secret Seven. This version is a member of the eponymous group who was killed years prior.

Television

 * An unidentified Black Orchid makes a non-speaking appearance in the teaser for the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "The Mask of Matches Malone!". This version possesses botanokinesis.
 * Black Orchid was intended to appear in Constantine before the series was cancelled.

Film

 * Black Orchid appears in the DC Animated Movie Universe (DCAMU) film Justice League Dark, voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessey. This version is a manifestation of the House of Mystery's magic with a desire to experience human nature.
 * Black Orchid makes a minor appearance in the DCAMU film Justice League Dark: Apokolips War.

Video games
Black Orchid appears as a character summon in Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure.

Miscellaneous

 * An unidentified Black Orchid makes non-speaking cameo appearances in DC Super Hero Girls as a student of Super Hero High.
 * The Susan Linden-Thorne incarnation of Black Orchid, via an altered version of the cover of her debut appearance in Adventure Comics #428, appears as an Easter egg in Fallout: New Vegas.

title: Black Orchid (character)


text:
White-cheeked pintail

The white-cheeked pintail (Anas bahamensis), also known as the Bahama pintail or summer duck, is a species of dabbling duck that is spottily distributed throughout South America and the Caribbean. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae under its current scientific name.

Taxonomy
The white-cheeked pintail was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the current binomial name Anas bahamensis. Linnaeus based his account on the "Ilathera duck" that had been described and illustrated by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in the first volume of his book The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands that was published between 1729 and 1732.

Three subspecies are recognised:

 * A. b. bahamensis Linnaeus, 1758 – West Indies and north South America
 * A. b. rubrirostris Vieillot, 1816 – south Ecuador and south Brazil to north Argentina and north Chile
 * A. b. galapagensis (Ridgway, 1890) – Galápagos Islands

Description
Like many southern ducks, the sexes are similar. It is mainly brown with white cheeks and a red-based grey bill (young birds lack the pink). It cannot be confused with any other duck in its range.

Distribution and habitat
It is found in the Caribbean, South America, and the Galápagos Islands. It occurs on waters with some salinity, such as brackish lakes, estuaries and mangrove swamps.

Behaviour
The white-cheeked pintail feeds on aquatic plants (such as Ruppia), grass seeds, algae and small creatures (such as insects and small aquatic invertebrates)  obtained by dabbling. The nest is on the ground under vegetation and near water.

Aviculture
It is popular in wildfowl collections, and escapees are frequently seen in a semi-wild condition in Europe. A leucistic (whitish) variant is known in aviculture as the silver Bahama pintail.

title: White-cheeked pintail