text:
Presolar grains

Presolar grains are interstellar solid matter in the form of tiny solid grains that originated at a time before the Sun was formed. Presolar grains formed within outflowing and cooling gases from earlier presolar stars. The study of presolar grains typically is typically considered part of the field of cosmochemistry and meteoritics.

The stellar nucleosynthesis that took place within each presolar star gives to each granule an isotopic composition unique to that parent star, which differs from the isotopic composition of the Solar System's matter as well as from the galactic average. These isotopic signatures often fingerprint very specific astrophysical nuclear processes that took place within the parent star or formation event and prove their presolar origin.

Terminology
Presolar grains are individual solid grains which condensed around distant stars or as part of novae, and potentially supernovae outflows, which were accreted in the early solar nebula nebula and remain in relatively unaltered chondritic meteorites. As they were accreted before the formation of the Solar System, they must be presolar. Presolar grains also exist in the interstellar medium. Researchers occasionally use the term stardust to refer to presolar grains, particularly in science communication, though the term is sometimes used interchangeably in the scientific literature.

History
In the 1960s, the noble gases neon and xenon were discovered to have unusual isotopic ratios in primitive meteorites; their origin and the type of matter that contained them was a mystery. These discoveries were made by vaporizing a bulk sample of a meteorite within a mass spectrometer, in order to count the relative abundance of the isotopes of the very small amount of noble gases trapped as inclusions. During the 1970s similar experiments discovered more components of trapped xenon isotopes. Competing speculations about the origins of the xenon isotopic components were advanced, all within the existing paradigm that the variations were created by processes within an initially homogeneous solar gas cloud.

A new theoretical framework for interpretation was advanced during the 1970s when Donald D. Clayton rejected the popular belief among meteoriticists that the Solar System began as a uniform hot gas. Instead he predicted that unusual but predictable isotopic compositions would be found within thermally condensed interstellar grains that had condensed during mass loss from stars of differing types. He argued that such grains exist throughout the interstellar medium. Clayton's first papers using that idea in 1975 pictured an interstellar medium populated with supernova grains that are rich in the radiogenic isotopes of Ne and Xe that had defined the extinct radioactivities. Clayton defined several types of presolar grains likely to be discovered: stardust from red giant stars, sunocons (acronym from SUperNOva CONdensates) from supernovae, nebcons from nebular condensation by accretion of cold cloud gaseous atoms and molecules, and novacons from nova condensation. Despite vigorous and continuous active development of this picture, Clayton's suggestions lay unsupported by others for a decade until such grains were discovered within meteorites.

The first unambiguous consequence of the existence of presolar grains within meteorites came from the laboratory of Edward Anders in Chicago, who found using traditional mass spectrometry that the xenon isotopic abundances contained within an acid-insoluble carbonaceous residue that remained after the meteorite bulk had been dissolved in acids matched almost exactly the predictions for isotopic xenon in red giant dust condensate. It then seemed certain that presolar grains were contained within Anders' acid-insoluble residue. Finding the actual presolar grains and documenting them was a much harder challenge that required locating the grains and showing that their isotopes matched those within the red-giant star. There followed a decade of intense experimental searching in the attempt to isolate individual grains of those xenon carriers. But what was really needed to discover presolar grains was a new type of mass spectrometer that could measure the smaller number of atoms in a single grain. Sputtering ion probes were pursued by several laboratories in the attempt to demonstrate such an instrument. But the contemporary ion probes needed to be technologically much better.

In 1987 diamond grains and silicon carbide grains were found to exist abundantly in those same acid-insoluble residues and also to contain large concentrations of noble gases. Significant isotopic anomalies were in turn measured by improvements in secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) within the structural chemical elements of these grains. Improved SIMS experiments showed that the silicon isotopes within each SiC grain did not have solar isotopic ratios but rather those expected in certain red-giant stars. The finding of presolar is therefore dated 1987. To measure the isotopic abundance ratios of the structural elements (e.g. silicon in an SiC grain) in microscopic presolar grains had required two difficult technological and scientific steps: 1) locating micron-sized presolar grains within the meteorite's overwhelming mass; 2) development of SIMS technology to a sufficiently high level to measure isotopic abundance ratios within micron-sized grains. Ernst Zinner became an important leader in SIMS applications to microscopic grains.

In January 2020, analysis of the Murchison meteorite found in Australia in 1969 revealed that 40 grains of presolar silicon carbide formed 5 to 7 billion years ago, older than Earth's 4.6 billion year-old sun, making the grains the oldest solid material ever discovered on Earth.

In meteorites

Presolar grains are the solid matter that was contained in the interstellar gas before the Sun formed. The presolar component can be identified in the laboratory by their abnormal isotopic abundances and consists of refractory minerals which survived the collapse of the solar nebula and the subsequent formation of planetesimals.

To meteorite researchers, the term presolar grains has come to mean presolar grains found in meteorites, of which 99% are stardust. Many other types of cosmic dust have not been detected in meteorites. Presolar grains comprise only about 0.1 percent of the total mass of particulate matter found in meteorites. Such grains are isotopically-distinct material found in the fine-grained matrix of meteorites, such as primitive chondrites. Their isotopic differences from the encasing meteorite require that they predate the Solar System. The crystallinity of those clusters ranges from micrometer-sized silicon carbide crystals (up to 1013 atoms), down to that of nanometer-sized diamond (about 1000 atoms), and unlayered graphene crystals of fewer than 100 atoms. The refractory grains achieved their mineral structures by condensing thermally within the slowly cooling expanding gases of supernovae and of red giant stars.

Characterization
Presolar grains are investigated using scanning or transmission electron microscopes (SEM/TEM), and mass spectrometric methods (noble gas mass spectrometry, resonance ionization mass spectrometry (RIMS), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS, NanoSIMS)). Presolar grains that consist of diamonds are only a few nanometers in size and are, therefore, called nanodiamonds. Because of their small size, nanodiamonds are hard to investigate and, although they are among the first presolar grains discovered, relatively little is known about them. The typical sizes of other presolar grains are in the range of micrometers.

Presolar grains consisting of the following minerals have so far been identified:

 * diamond (C) nanometer-sized grains (~2.6 nm diameter) possibly formed by vapor deposition
 * graphite (C) particles and anions, some with unlayered graphene cores
 * silicon carbide (SiC) submicrometer to micrometer sized grains. Presolar SiC occurs as single-polytype grains or polytype intergrowths.  The atomic structures observed contain the two lowest order polytypes: hexagonal 2H and cubic 3C (with varying degrees of stacking fault disorder) as well as 1-dimensionally disordered SiC grains. In comparison, SiC synthesized in terrestrial laboratories is known to form over a hundred polytypes.
 * titanium carbide (TiC) and other carbides within C and SiC grains
 * silicon nitride (Si3N4)
 * corundum (Al2O3)
 * spinel (MgAl2O4)
 * hibonite ((Ca,Ce)(Al,Ti,Mg)12O19)
 * titanium oxide (TiO2)
 * silicate minerals (olivine and pyroxene)

Information on stellar evolution
The study of presolar grains provides information about nucleosynthesis and stellar evolution. Grains bearing the isotopic signature of "r-process" (rapid neutron capture) and alpha process (alpha capture) types of nucleosynthesis are useful in testing models of supernova explosions.

1% of presolar grains (supernova grains) have very large excesses of calcium-44, a stable isotope of calcium which normally composes only 2% of the calcium abundance. The calcium in some presolar grains is composed primarily of 44Ca, which is presumably the remains of the extinct radionuclide titanium-44, a titanium isotope which is formed in abundance in Type II supernovae such as SN 1987A after rapid capture of four alpha particles by 28Si, after the process of silicon burning normally begins, and prior to the supernova explosion. However, 44Ti has a half-life of only 59 years, and thus it is soon converted entirely to 44Ca. Excesses of the decay products of the longer-lived, but extinct, nuclides calcium-41 (half-life 99,400 years) and aluminium-26 (730,000 years) have also been detected in such grains. The rapid-process isotopic anomalies of these grains include relative excesses of nitrogen-15 and oxygen-18 relative to Solar System abundances, as well as excesses of the neutron-rich stable nuclides 42Ca and 49Ti.

Other presolar grains provide isotopic and physical information on asymptotic giant branch stars (AGB stars), which have manufactured the largest portion of the refractory elements lighter than iron in the galaxy. Because the elements in these particles were made at different times (and places) in the early Milky Way, the set of collected particles further provides insight into galactic evolution prior to the formation of the Solar System.

In addition to providing information on nucleosynthesis of the grain's elements, solid grains provide information on the physico-chemical conditions under which they condensed, and on events subsequent to their formation. For example, consider red giants — which produce much of the carbon in our galaxy. Their atmospheres are cool enough for condensation processes to take place, resulting in the precipitation of solid particles (i.e., multiple atom agglomerations of elements such as carbon) in their atmosphere. This is unlike the atmosphere of the Sun, which is too hot to allow atoms to build up into more complex molecules. These solid fragments of matter are then injected into the interstellar medium by radiation pressure. Hence, particles bearing the signature of stellar nucleosynthesis provide information on (i) condensation processes in red giant atmospheres, (ii) radiation and heating processes in the interstellar medium, and (iii) the types of particles that carried the elements of which we are made, across the galaxy to the Solar System.

title: Presolar grains


text:
Dunadd

Dunadd (Scottish Gaelic Dún Ad, "fort on the [River] Add", Old Irish Dún Att) is a hillfort in Argyll and Bute, Scotland, dating from the Iron Age and early medieval period and is believed to be the capital of the ancient kingdom of Dál Riata. Dal Riata was a Gaelic kingdom spanning the northern Irish coast to Argyll and the Scottish islands in the early centuries AD, possibly after the Romans had abandoned Southern Britain and at the time when the Anglo Saxons were crossing the North Sea to counter incursions over Hadrian's Wall by the Picts and Dalriadan Scots.

Description
Dunadd is a rocky crag that may have been one time an island and now lies inland near the River Add, from which it takes its name, a little north of Lochgilphead (NR 836 936). The surrounding land, now largely reclaimed, was formerly boggy and known as the Mòine Mhòr ("Great Moor") in Gaelic. This no doubt increased the defensive potential of the site. Detailed analysis of sea-level changes in the region argue that the Dun was an island or promontory into historic times, and that receding sea levels left the fortification open to siege and seizure in the 6th to 7th centuries.

History
Originally occupied in the Iron Age, the site later became a seat of the kings of Dál Riata. It is known for its unique stone carvings below the upper enclosure, including a footprint and basin thought to have formed part of Dál Riata's coronation ritual. On the same flat outcrop of rock is an incised boar in Pictish style, and an inscription in the ogham script. The inscription is read as referring to a Finn Manach and is dated to the late 8th century or after.

Dunadd is mentioned twice in early sources. In 683 the Annals of Ulster record: "The siege of Dún At and the siege of Dún Duirn" without further comment on the outcome or participants. In the same chronicle the entry for 736 states: "Aengus son of Fergus, king of the Picts, laid waste the territory of Dál Riata and seized Dún At and burned Creic and bound in chains two sons of Selbach, i.e. Donngal and Feradach."

The site was occupied after 736, at least into the 9th century. It is mentioned twice in later sources, suggesting that it retained some importance. In 1436, it is recorded that "Alan son of John Riabhach MacLachlan of Dunadd" was made seneschal of the lands of Glassary; the chief place of residence of the MacLachlans of Dunadd lay below the fort. In June 1506, commissioners appointed by James IV, including the earl and bishop of Argyll, met at Dunadd to collect rents and resolve feuds.

The site is an Ancient Monument, under the care of Historic Scotland, and is open to the public (open all year; no entrance charge).

Excavations
Because Dunadd is mentioned in early sources, and is readily identifiable, it has been excavated on several occasions (1904–1905, 1929, and 1980) and has one of the most important ensembles of finds from any early medieval site in Scotland. Finds range from the 6th to the 8th centuries AD. These include tools, weapons, quernstones, imported pottery and motif-pieces and moulds for the manufacture of fine metalwork (especially jewellery).

Bruach An Druimein connection
Seven kilometres to the north of Dunadd is the site of Bruach An Druimein. Excavated in the 1960s in advance of gravel quarrying, archaeologists discovered the remains of a Bronze Age cists cemetery, two round houses from the Iron Age, and a number of artefacts from the early medieval period that were contemporary with Dunadd. Two medieval glass beads were found that have similar chemical compositions to those found at Dunadd, leading the archaeologists to believe that the beads came from Dunadd and that the site was associated with, or controlled by Dunadd.

In fiction
In Rosemary Sutcliff's 1965 novel The Mark of the Horse Lord the Dal Riada undergo an internal struggle for control of royal succession, with Dun Monaidh central to the conflict, including a depiction of royal coronation and use of carved footprint. Dunadd is the location for Claire R. McDougall's novel "Veil of Time," in which a modern-day woman is transported back to Dunadd's heyday in the 8th century. All the features of Dunadd, including the footprint, the boar, the well and the tumble down ruins are features of the story, as are the modern farm and cottages. Other ancient sites in the Kilmartin Valley also play a part in the narrative.

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

title: Dunadd


text:
Brunswick–Lüneburg

The Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Herzogtum Braunschweig und Lüneburg), or more properly the Duchy of Brunswick and Lüneburg, was a historical duchy that existed from the late Middle Ages to the Late Modern era within the Holy Roman Empire, until the year of its dissolution. The duchy was located in what is now northwestern Germany. Its name came from the two largest cities in the territory: Brunswick and Lüneburg.

The dukedom emerged in 1235 from the allodial lands of the House of Welf in Saxony and was granted as an imperial fief to Otto the Child, a grandson of Henry the Lion. The duchy was divided several times during the High Middle Ages amongst various lines of the House of Welf, but each ruler was styled "Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg" in addition to his own particular title. By 1692, the territories had consolidated to two: the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg (commonly known as the Electorate of Hanover), and the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

In 1714, the Hanoverian branch of the family succeeded to the thrones of Great Britain and Ireland, which they ruled in personal union with Hanover until 1837. For this reason, many cities and provinces in former British colonies are named after Brunswick or Lüneburg. The Hanoverians never ruled Brunswick while they held the British throne, as the city was part of neighbouring Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. After the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15, the Brunswick-Lüneburg territories became the Kingdom of Hanover and the Duchy of Brunswick.

History
When the Imperial ban was placed on Henry the Lion in 1180, he lost his titles as Duke of Saxony and Duke of Bavaria. He went into exile for several years, but was then allowed to stay on the (allodial) estates inherited from his mother's side until the end of his life.

At the Imperial Diet of 1235 in Mainz, as part of the reconciliation between the Hohenstaufen and Welf families, Henry's grandson, Otto the Child, transferred his estates to Emperor Frederick II and was enfeoffed in return with the newly created Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, which was formed from the estates transferred to the Emperor as well as other large areas of the imperial fisc. After his death in 1252, he was succeeded by his sons, Albert the Tall and John, who ruled the dukedom jointly.

In 1269, the duchy was divided, Albert receiving the southern part of the state around Brunswick and John the northern territories in the area of Lüneburg. The towns of Lüneburg and Brunswick remained in the overall possession of the House of Welf until 1512 and 1671 respectively. In 1571 the Amt of Calvörde became an exclave of the Duchy. The various parts of the duchy were further divided and re-united over the centuries, all of them being ruled by the Welf or Guelph dynasty, who maintained close relations with one another—not infrequently by marrying cousins—a practice far more common than is the case today, even among the peasantry of the Holy Roman Empire, for the contemporary salic inheritance laws encouraged the practice of retaining control of lands and benefits. The seats of power moved in the meantime from Brunswick and Lüneburg to Celle and Wolfenbüttel as the towns asserted their independence.

History of the subordinate principalities
The subsequent history of the dukedom and its subordinate principalities was characterised by numerous divisions and reunifications. The subordinate states that were repeatedly created, and which had the legal status of principalities, were generally named after the residence of their rulers.

The estates of the different dynastic lines could be inherited by a side line when a particular family died out. For example, over the course of the centuries there were the Old, Middle and New Houses (or Lines) of Brunswick, and the Old, Middle and New Houses of Lüneburg. The number of simultaneously reigning dynastic lines varied from two to five.

Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel
In 1269, the Principality of Brunswick was formed following the first division of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In 1432, as a result of increasing tensions with the townsfolk of Brunswick, the Brunswick Line moved their Residence to Wolfenbüttel, into the water castle, which was expanded into a Schloss, whilst the town was developed into a royal seat. The name Wolfenbüttel was given to this principality. From 1546, Wolfenbüttel became the residence of the senior prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Henry, Duke of Brunswick-Dannenberg.

With sole rights to the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, he provided a conditional sub-lease of the Principality of Lüneburg to the princes of Calenberg with the conditions of payment to the Wolfenbüttel heirs (Chief of the House), together with the guarantee that only his descendants would inherit this senior principality of Wolfenbüttel. Not until 1753/1754 was the Residence moved back to Brunswick, into the newly built Brunswick Palace.

Following the Congress of Vienna and territorial adjustments the principality formed the basis of the new Duchy of Brunswick.

Principality of Calenberg (later Electorate of Hanover)
In 1432, the estates gained by the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel between the Deister and Leine split away as the Principality of Calenberg. To the north, this new state bordered on the County of Hoya near Nienburg and extended from there in a narrow, winding strip southwards up the River Leine through Wunstorf and Hanover where it reached the Principality of Wolfenbüttel. In 1495, it was expanded around Göttingen. In 1584, it returned to the Wolfenbüttel Line.

In 1634, as a result of inheritance distributions, it went to the House of Lüneburg, before becoming an independent principality again in 1635, when it was given to George, younger brother of Prince Ernest II of Lüneburg, who chose Hanover as his Residenz. New territory was added in 1665 in the vicinity of Grubenhagen and in 1705 around the Principality of Lüneburg. In 1692, Duke Ernest Augustus from the Calenberg Line, acquired the right to be a prince-elector as the Prince-Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Colloquially, the Electorate was also known as the Electorate of Hanover or as Kurhannover. In 1814, it was succeeded by the Kingdom of Hanover.

Principality of Lüneburg
The Principality of Lüneburg emerged alongside the Principality of Brunswick in 1269 when the inheritance of the Duchy was divided. After the death of Duke George William of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1705, King George I inherited the state of Lüneburg, being both the benefactor of Georges William's 1658 renunciation in favour of his younger brother Ernest Augustus and the husband of the Duke's morganatic daughter, Sophie Dorothea, later known as the "Princess of Ahlden". It was united with the Principality of Calenberg, which had been elevated in 1692 into the Electorate.

Principality of Göttingen
The southernmost principality in the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg stretched from Münden in the south down the River Weser to Holzminden. In the east it ran through Göttingen along the River Leine via Northeim to Einbeck. It emerged in 1345 as the result of a division of the Principality of Brunswick and was united in 1495 with Calenberg.

Principality of Grubenhagen
From 1291 to 1596, Grubenhagen was an independent principality, its first ruler being Henry the Admirable, son of Albert of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. The state lay along the northern part of the Solling hills and the River Leine near Einbeck and north of the Eichsfeld on and in the southwestern Harz. After being split in the course of the years into smaller and smaller principalities, Grubenhagen returned in 1596 to Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and was ceded to the Calenberg line in 1665.

Other branches
Other branches that did not have full sovereignty included the states of Dannenberg, Harburg, Gifhorn, Bevern, Osterode, Herzberg, Salzderhelden, and Einbeck.

While a total of about a dozen subdivisions that existed, some were only dynastic and not recognised as states of the Empire, which at one time had over 1500 such legally recognized entities. In the List of Reichstag participants (1792), the following four subdivisions of Brunswick-Lüneburg had recognized representation:
 * The Principality of Lüneburg.
 * The Principality of Calenberg-Göttingen, merged under Eric I of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in 1495.
 * The Principality of Grubenhagen.
 * The Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

By 1705 only two Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg survived, one ruling Calenberg, Lüneburg and other possessions, and the other ruling Wolfenbüttel.

From Lüneburg to Hanover
One of the dynastic lines was that of the princes of Lüneburg, which, in 1635, acquired Calenberg for George, a junior member of the family who set up residence in the city of Hanover. His son Christian Louis, and his brothers inherited Celle in 1648 and thereafter shared it and Calenberg between themselves; a closely related branch of the family ruled separately in Wolfenbüttel.

The territories of Calenberg and Lüneburg-Celle were made an Electorate by the Emperor Leopold I in 1692 in expectation of the imminent inheritance of Celle by the Duke of Calenberg, though the actual dynastic union of the territories did not occur until 1705 under his son George I Louis, and the Electorate was not officially approved by the Imperial Diet until 1708.

The resulting state was known under many different names: Brunswick-Lüneburg, Calenberg, Calenberg-Celle; its ruler was often known as the "Elector of Hanover". Coincidentally, in 1701, the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg found himself in the line of succession for the British crown, later confirmed in 1707 by the Act of Union, which he subsequently inherited, thereby creating a personal union of the two crowns on 20 October 1714.

After a little over a decade, the matter of the disputed electorate was settled upon the heir, and the new Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (acceded as duke on 23 January 1698), George I Louis, was able to style himself the Elector of Brunswick and Lüneburg from 1708. It was not just happenstance but also religion-driven politics that brought about the circumstance that he was also put into the line of succession for the British crown by the Act of Settlement— which was written to ensure a Protestant succession to the thrones of Scotland and England at a time when anti-Catholic sentiment ran high in much of Northern Europe and much of Great Britain.

In this event, George I succeeded his second cousin Anne, Queen of Great Britain—the last reigning member of the House of Stuart—and subsequently formed a personal union on August 1st, 1714 between the British crown and the duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg (electorate of Hanover), which would last until well after the end of the Napoleonic wars more than a century later—including even through the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and the rise of a new successor kingdom. In that manner, the "Electorate of Hanover" (the core duchy) was enlarged with the addition of other lands and became the Kingdom of Hanover in 1814 at the peace conferences (Congress of Vienna) settling the future shape of Europe in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars.

History of the relationship to the British Crown
The first Hanoverian King of Great Britain, George I of Great Britain, was the reigning Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and was finally made an official and recognized prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire in 1708. His possessions were enlarged in 1706 when the hereditary lands of the Calenberg branch of the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg merged with the lands of the Lüneburg-Celle branch to form the Electorate of Hanover. Subsequently, George I was referred to as Elector of Hanover.

In 1700 and 1701, when the English Parliament had addressed the question of an orderly succession, with a particular religious bias toward a Protestant ruler, from the childless ruling Queen Anne (House of Stuart), it passed the provisions of the Act of Settlement 1701 to Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James I. Sophia predeceased Queen Anne by a few weeks, but her son and heir, George I, succeeded as King of Great Britain when Anne, his second cousin, died in August 1714. Great Britain and Hanover remained united in personal union until the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837.

George I was followed by his son George II and then his great-grandson George III, the latter retaining the position of elector even after the Holy Roman Empire was abolished by its last emperor in 1806. George III contested the validity of the dissolution of the Empire and maintained separate consular offices and staff for the Electorate of Hanover until the Congress of Vienna at the war's end. After the fall of Napoleon, George III regained his lands plus lands from Prussia as King of Hanover, whilst giving up some other smaller scattered territories.

Duchy of Brunswick
The Wolfenbüttel Line retained its independence, except from 1807 to 1813, when it and Hanover were merged into the Napoleonic Kingdom of Westphalia. The Congress of Vienna of 1815 turned it into an independent state under the name Duchy of Brunswick. The Duchy remained independent and joined first the North German Confederation and then the German Empire in 1871.

When the Wolfenbüttel Line became extinct in 1884, the German government withheld the rightful heir, the Crown Prince of Hanover, from taking control, instead installing a regency. Decades later, the families were reconciled by the marriage of the Crown Prince's son to the Emperor's only daughter, and Wilhelm II, German Emperor, allowed his son-in-law to assume rule in 1913 (his father having renounced his own right).

title: Brunswick–Lüneburg


text:
Bristol, Rhode Island

Bristol is a town in Bristol County, Rhode Island, United States, as well as the county seat. The population of Bristol was 22,493 at the 2020 census. It is a deep water seaport named after Bristol, England. Major industries include boat building and related marine industries, manufacturing, and tourism. The Bristol Warren Regional School District manages the unified school system for Bristol and the neighboring town of Warren. Prominent communities include Portuguese-Americans, mostly Azoreans, and Italian-Americans.

Early colonization
Before the Pilgrims arrived in 1620, the Pokanokets occupied much of Southern New England, including Plymouth. They had previously suffered from a series of plagues which killed off large segments of their population, and their leader, the Massasoit Osamequin, befriended the early settlers. King Philip's War was a conflict between the Plymouth settlers and the Pokanokets and allied tribes, and it began in the neighboring area of Swansea, Massachusetts. Metacomet made nearby Mount Hope (a corruption of the Pokanoket word Montaup) his base of operations; he died following an ambush by Captain Benjamin Church on August 12, 1676. "Massasoit's Seat" is a rocky ledge on the mountain which was a lookout site for enemy ships on Mount Hope Bay.

After the war concluded, four Boston merchants – Stephen Burton, Nathaniel Byfield, Nathaniel Oliver, and John Walley – purchased a tract of land known as "Mount Hope Neck and Poppasquash Neck" as part of the Plymouth Colony. Other settlers included John Gorham and Richard Smith. A variant of the Indian name Metacomet is now the name of a main road in Bristol: Metacom Avenue (RI Route 136). Bristol was a town of Massachusetts until the Crown transferred it to the Rhode Island Colony in 1747.

Slave trade and the DeWolf family
The DeWolf family was among the earliest settlers of Bristol. Bristol and Rhode Island became a center of slave trading, from which it derived much of its wealth. James DeWolf, a leading slave trader, later became a United States Senator from Rhode Island. Beginning in 1769 and continuing until 1820 (over a decade after the slave trade was outlawed in the Atlantic), the DeWolf family trafficked people out of West Africa, enslaving them and bringing them to work on DeWolf-owned plantations, or selling them to be auctioned at ports in places such as Havana, Cuba and Charleston, South Carolina. Sugar and molasses from slave plantations in Cuba would be brought to Rhode Island to DeWolf-owned distilleries. By the end of 1820, the DeWolf family had trafficked and enslaved over 10,000 Africans. James DeWolf died as the second wealthiest person in the United States.

Quakers from Rhode Island were involved early in the abolition movement, although abolition was a divisive issue among Quakers, resulting in the creation of new Quaker groups. The DeWolf family, as well as Bristol's and the northern United States' participation in slavery, are featured in the 2008 documentary Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, in the 2008 companion memoir Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History by Thomas Norman DeWolf, and the 2014 historical study James DeWolf and the Rhode Island Slave Trade by Cynthia Mestad Johnson.

American Revolution
During the American Revolutionary War, the British Royal Navy bombarded Bristol twice. On October 7, 1775, a group of ships led by Captain Wallace and HMS Rose (1757) sailed into town and demanded provisions. When refused, Wallace shelled the town, causing much damage. The attack was stopped when Lieutenant Governor William Bradford rowed out to Rose to negotiate a cease-fire, but then a second attack took place on May 25, 1778. This time, 500 British and Hessian troops marched through the main street (now called Hope Street (RI Route 114)) and burnt 30 barracks and houses, taking some prisoners to Newport.

New Goree
Starting in at least in 1805, a community of free Blacks known as "New Goree" existed along the northern portion of Wood Street in the 19th century from Bayview Avenue to Union Street. This community disappeared by 1900. An African Methodist Episcopal church stood at 417 Wood Street, but was razed by 1898; the Bristol Sports Club currently stands on that lot. Two modest homes on Wood Street were identified in 2023 as being New Goree homes. Researchers speculate that the construction of a U.S. Rubber Co. plant on Wood Street in 1864 may have played a role in the neighborhood's demise.

Other history and current day
Until 1854, Bristol was one of the five state capitals of Rhode Island.

Bristol is home to Roger Williams University, named for Rhode Island founder Roger Williams.

The southerly terminus of the East Bay Bike Path is located at Independence Park on Bristol Harbor. The bike path continues north to India Point Park in Providence, R.I., mostly constructed following an abandoned railroad right of way. Some of the best views of Narragansett Bay can be seen along this corridor. The construction of the East Bay Bike Path was highly contested by Bristol residents before construction because of the potential of crime, but it has become a welcome asset to the community and the anticipated crime was non-existent.

The Bristol-based Herreshoff boat company built five consecutive America's Cup Defenders between 1893 and 1920. The Colt Estate, now known as Colt State Park, was home to Samuel P. Colt, nephew of the man famous for the arms company, and founder of the United States Rubber Company, later called Uniroyal and the largest rubber company in the nation. Colt State Park lies on manicured gardens abutting the West Passage of Narragansett Bay, and is popular for its views of the waterfront and sunsets.

Bristol is the site of the National Historic Landmark Joseph Reynolds House built in 1700. The Marquis de Lafayette and his staff used the building as headquarters in 1778 during the Battle of Rhode Island.

Fourth of July parade

Bristol has the oldest continuously celebrated Independence Day festivities in the United States. The first mention of a celebration comes from July 1777, when a British officer noted sounds coming from across Narragansett Bay:

"This being the first anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the Rebel Colonies, they ushered in the morning by firing 13 cannons, one for each colony, we suppose. At sunset, the rebel frigates fired another round of 13 guns, each one after the other. As the evening was very still and fine the echo of the guns down the Bay had a grand effect."

The annual official and historic celebrations (Patriotic Exercises) were established in 1785 by Rev. Henry Wight of the First Congregational Church and veteran of the Revolutionary War, and later by Rev. Wight as the Parade, and continue today, organized by the Bristol Fourth of July Committee. The festivities officially start on June 14, Flag Day, beginning a period of outdoor concerts, soapbox car races and a firefighters' muster at Independence Park. The celebration climaxes on July 4 with the oldest annual parade in the United States, "The Military, Civic and Firemen's Parade", an event that draws over 200,000 people from Rhode Island and around the world. These elaborate celebrations give Bristol its nickname, "America's most patriotic town".

Bristol is represented in the parade with hometown groups like the Bristol Train of Artillery and the Bristol County Fifes and Drums.

Geography
Bristol is situated on 10.1 sqmi of a peninsula (the smaller sub-peninsula on the west is called Poppasquash), with Narragansett Bay on its west and Mount Hope Bay on its east. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 20.6 square miles (53.4 km2), of which, 10.1 square miles (26.2 km2) of it is land and 10.5 square miles (27.2 km2) of it (50.99%) is water. Bristol's harbor is home to over 800 boat moorings in seven mooring fields.

Demographics
As of the 2010 census Bristol had a population of 22,954. The ethnic and racial composition of the population was 94.9% non-Hispanic white, 0.8% Black, 0.1% Native American, 0.9% Asian, 0.4% some other race, 1.4% from two or more races and 2.0% Hispanic or Latino of any race.

As of the census of 2000, there were 22,469 people, 8,314 households, and 5,653 families residing in the town. The population density was 2,222.2 PD/sqmi. There were 8,705 housing units at an average density of 860.9 /sqmi. The ethnic group makeup of the town was 97.14% White, 1.29% Hispanic or Latino (of any race), 0.67% Asian, 0.62% Black, 0.16% Native American, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.33% other ethnic group, and 1.03% from two or more races.

Government
In the Rhode Island Senate, Bristol is split into three senatorial districts, all Democratic:

 * District 10: Walter S. Felag, Jr.
 * District 11: Linda Ujifusa
 * District 32: Pamela Lauria

At the federal level, Bristol is a part of Rhode Island's 1st congressional district and is currently represented by Democrat Gabe Amo. In presidential elections, Bristol is a Democratic stronghold, as no Republican presidential nominee has won the town since prior to the 1988 election.

Points of interest and Registered Historic Places

 * America's Cup Hall of Fame
 * Blithewold Mansion, Gardens and Arboretum
 * Bristol Art Museum
 * Bristol County Courthouse (Rhode Island)
 * Bristol County Jail
 * Bristol Customshouse and Post Office
 * Bristol Ferry Lighthouse
 * Bristol Waterfront Historic District
 * Coggeshall Farm Museum (c. 1790)
 * Colt State Park
 * Juniper Hill Cemetery
 * Herreshoff Marine Museum
 * Linden Place, home of the DeWolfs, Colts
 * Longfield (Charles Dana Gibson house)
 * Mount Hope Bridge
 * Mount Hope Farm
 * Poppasquash Farms Historic District
 * Joseph Reynolds House
 * Roger Williams University
 * Roger Williams University School of Law

Notable people

 * William Thomas "Billy" Andrade, golfer with the PGA Tour; born in Bristol
 * Ethel Barrymore Colt, silent film and stage actress; member of the influential Barrymore family
 * Benjamin Bourne, US congressman and federal judge; born in Bristol
 * William Bradford (1729–1808), physician, lawyer, and President pro tempore of the US Senate; lived and died in Bristol
 * Jonathan Russell Bullock, federal and Rhode Island Supreme Court judge; born in Bristol
 * Ambrose Burnside, railroad executive, US senator, 30th governor of Rhode Island, and Union Army general; lived and died in Bristol
 * Sean Callery, Emmy-winning composer, raised in Bristol
 * Mary Cantwell, journalist, magazine editor, author and member of The New York Times editorial board; grew up in Bristol
 * Mary H. Gray Clarke (born 1835), correspondent
 * Samuel P. Colt, entrepreneur, child labor advocate, and Rhode Island state representative; lived in Bristol
 * Mark Anthony DeWolf (1726–1793) was the fourth child of Charles DeWolf, the only one who returned to America. He became the patriarch of the Bristol branch of the DeWolf family; he was a merchant and slave trader.
 * James DeWolf (1764–1837), son of Mark Anthony DeWolf. He was one of the richest men of his time, making the majority of his fortune in the slave trade.
 * Jonathan DeFelice, president of Saint Anselm College; lived in Bristol
 * Rebecca Donovan, novelist
 * Nancy Dubuc, businesswoman
 * Ramon Guiteras, surgeon and urologist, born and buried in Bristol
 * Nathanael Herreshoff, naval architect and mechanical engineer, designed several undefeated America's Cup winners; born in Bristol
 * Gilbert C. Hoover, USN admiral involved in the nuclear bomb project
 * Edward L. Leahy, US senator and federal judge; born in Bristol
 * Ira Magaziner, senior adviser for policy development to the Clinton administration; Chairman of the Clinton Foundation Policy Board; lives in Bristol
 * Pat McGee, musician (Pat McGee Band)
 * Anthony Quinn, actor (Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, Viva Zapata!, Lust for Life); twice won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (1952, 1956); lived in Bristol. He loved his home so much that he requested, and was given permission by the town, to be buried on his property
 * Norman Rene, theater and film director; born in Bristol
 * John Saffin, merchant and author (A Brief and Candid Answer to Samuel Sewall's The Selling of Joseph, 1700); lived in Bristol
 * Chris Santos, executive chef and owner of the Stanton Social and Beauty & Essex, judge on Chopped (Food Network TV), born in Bristol
 * Benjamin Franklin Tilley (1848–1907), U.S. Navy rear admiral and Naval Acting-Governor of American Samoa; born in Bristol

title: Bristol, Rhode Island


text:
Principality of Calenberg

The Principality of Calenberg was a dynastic division of the Welf Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg established in 1432. Calenberg was ruled by the House of Hanover (from the Principality of Lüneburg) from 1635 onwards; the princes received the ninth electoral dignity of the Holy Roman Empire in 1692. Their territory became the nucleus of the Electorate of Hanover, ruled in personal union with the Kingdom of Great Britain from 1714 onwards. The principality received its name from Calenberg Castle, a residence of the Brunswick dukes.

Territory
When Eric I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg chose the Principality of Calenberg as his part of the inheritance in 1495, he described it as "the land between the River Leine and the Deister". This geographical description, however, was never totally correct. In fact, the principality extended west of the Leine from Schulenburg as far as Neustadt am Rübenberge in the north and thus much further north than the foothills of the Deister. To the south-west the territory stretched as far as Hamelin on the Weser, well beyond the Deister.

The city of Hanover was largely independent of Welf territorial lordship, even though it was not formally a free imperial city. Not until George of Calenberg, who had been a successful general in the Thirty Years War, chose the city as his Residenz in 1636 could Hanover also be viewed as part of the Principality of Calenberg. Calenberg Castle was demolished and slighted between 1692 and 1694.

Because of the link that had existed since 1463 between the principalities of Calenberg and Göttingen, the latter was also sometimes referred to as Calenberg. Today the term Calenberg Land is usually only used for the region between Hanover and the Deister.

Origins and foundation of Calenberg Castle
Originally the territory belonged to the Duchy of Saxony but in 1180, after the imperial ban had been imposed on the Welf prince, Henry the Lion, he lost his ducal lands in Saxony and Bavaria. However, in 1235, Henry's grandson, Otto the Child, was promoted to the rank of prince as a result of the reconciliation between the Houses of Hohenstaufen and Welf and was given the allodial estates of the family claimed by them in the area between Lüneburg and Brunswick as the new and independent Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In the region west of Hanover, the Welfs had but few allodial possessions and so that area was disputed between the House of Welf and the bishops of Hildesheim and Minden. It was largely ruled by comital dynasties, such as the counts of Wölpe in the northwest, the counts of Hallermund in the southwest and the counts of Rhoden in the west and in Hanover.

In 1292 Duke Otto the Strict from the Lüneburg line of the Welfs subjugated the region. Earlier, he had yielded to the Bishop of Hildesheim and accepted the city of Hanover as his fief. However, he shook off his allegiance and founded Calenberg Castle, just 13 km west of Hildesheim, in a countermove in order to further reduce the power of the Bishop of Hildesheim in the Hanover area.

Administratively, this area was initially still called the Vogtei of Lauenrode, after Lauenrode Castle on the outskirts of Hanover, from where, the Welfs ruled the territory. With the extinction of the Lüneburg line of the Welfs, the Lüneburg War of Succession, broke out (1371–88) during which Lauenrode Castle was stormed by the citizens of Hanover and destroyed. The Vogtei was then moved to Calenberg Castle.

Welf inheritance divisions

The Welf dukes did not inherit their land by primogeniture and this resulted in the late Middle Ages in numerous Welf estates and a great fragmentation of Welf territory. In 1400 the Vogtei of Calenberg went to the Wolfenbüttel line of the Welfs. In 1408 and 1409 they were able to purchase the county of Everstein and the lordship of Homburg after the extinction of their reigning families. These were added to the Vogtei of Calenberg. In a further Welf inheritance in 1432 - the ninth according to Gudrun Pischke - the area was divided again by the Welf dukes William the Victorious and Henry the Peaceful who had hitherto ruled jointly in the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. While Henry retained the Wolfenbüttel lands, William was compensated with the newly created Principality of Calenberg. At that time, the lordship given to William had no name. It consisted of the rights formerly owned by the Principality of Lüneburg between the Deister range and the Leine river, as well as the former County of Wölpe, the lordship of Hallermund near Springe and the Homburg and Everstein dominions.

As the Welf princes all carried the ducal title and the territories they ruled were principalities within the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, their dominions were named after the main castle or town. William spent most of his time at Calenberg Castle from where he administered the territory. As a result, it is probable that the name of the Principality of Calenberg emerged during this time.

Unification with Göttingen
Between 1442 and 1463 William succeeded in taking over the rule over the Brunswick Principality of Göttingen. Although unification with Calenberg initially came about purely by chance, it lasted nonetheless. In order to distinguish the two areas which were physically separated by the foothills of the uplands in the Leine valley, Calenberg in the north was usually referred to as Unterwald ("Lower Forest"), whilst the Göttingen region was called the Oberwald ("Upper Forest"). When in 1473 William also inherited the Principality of Wolfenbüttel from his brother Henry who had left no heirs, he ceded sovereignty over Calenberg to his sons William the Younger and Frederick III, known as "the Restless" or "Turbulentus".

After the death of William the Victorious in 1482 both sons shared the regency. In an agreement dated 1 August 1483, however, they split the rights of use (Mutschierung). The younger son, Frederick the Restless, was awarded the rights of use over Calenberg and Göttingen, and his brother William the Younger was awarded the rule over Wolfenbüttel. Nevertheless, in 1484/85 William deposed his brother Frederick and declared him insane. The reasons for his removal are debated; perhaps by his participation in many armed conflicts, Frederick was seen to pose a threat to Welf rule in Calenberg and Göttingen. So William succeeded - albeit only briefly - in re-uniting the entire territory of the principalities of Calenberg, Brunswick-Göttingen and Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. After Frederick's death in 1495, however, William again divided his territories and left the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel to his elder son Henry V.

Under Eric I, Elisabeth and Eric II
The younger son, Eric I received Calenberg and Göttingen and thus founded the Calenberg line of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In the new territory so formed, the name Calenberg was increasingly used for both parts of the state. For the period under Eric I and his son, Eric II, however, the name "Principality of Calenberg-Göttingen" was also used a lot. The principality had separate parliamentary Estates and separate councils for each part. The chancellery for Unterwald was established in Neustadt on Rübenberge and that for Oberwald in Münden. There were also separate residences, lordly castles or manor houses and palaces in each town as well as separate repositories for their records.

Under Eric I, Calenberg Castle was expanded into a strong fortress. Another heavily fortified castle, which he had built, was the Erichsburg near Dassel on which construction began in 1527. In the Hildesheim Diocesan Feud in 1519 he was initially defeated militarily in the Battle of Soltau. Diplomatically, however, he was able to win a ruling from the Emperor Charles V that saw a large part of the Prince-Bishopric of Hildesheim added to his domain.

Eric I was hostile to the emerging Protestant Reformation. His second wife, Elisabeth of Brandenburg, however, whom he married in 1525, switched over to the new doctrine in 1535 and promoted it at the court, which then resided at Münden. After Eric's death in 1540 she took over the government for their underage son, Eric II, and implemented the Reformation in the principality with the state superintendent Antonius Corvinus she had appointed. Eric II, however, converted to Roman Catholicism in 1547 even though he was raised as an Evangelical by his mother. He was not able to reverse the Reformation in the principality however. His power in the principality was already very weak. He spent most of his time as a mercenary leader abroad, and was financially dependent on the towns. In 1553 he had to secure the financial aid of his towns by approving evangelical preaching. From 1574 he had Neustadt am Rübenberge developed as a fortified town and built Landestrost Castle within its walls as a Renaissance chateau, integrated into a bastion fortress based on the Italian model.

In 1582 when the counts of Hoya died out, the larger part of the county went to Calenberg. In 1584 Calenberg also acquired the Diepholz.

Thirty Years' War
After Eric's death in 1584 Calenberg-Göttingen was again ruled by the Wolfenbüttel line of the Welfs. In the Thirty Years' War the brother of Duke Frederick Ulrich, "mad" Christian, brought the war to the state. After Danish troops under King Christian IV, who was then commander of the Lower Saxon Circle, was defeated by the general of the Catholic League, Tilly in the Battle of Lutter, Tilly occupied the whole principality in 1626. Only the cities of Brunswick and Hanover could not be captured.

When Duke Frederick Ulrich died childless in 1634 the Wolfenbüttel line of the Middle House of Brunswick ended with him. In 1635 Duke Augustus the Elder from the Middle House of Lüneburg received the Principality of Calenberg-Göttingen. After his death in 1636 his younger brother George became its ruler. He was successful as a general on the Swedish side and he also succeeded in 1637 in recovering the country and especially the towns for the Welfs. He initially ruled out of occupied Hildesheim, but then moved his residence to Hanover, which he also had built as a fortress. He had the former Franciscan friary, built around 1300, converted into the Leineschloss, which from then on served as a residence for the sovereigns of the principality. After his death in 1641 a separate peace was hastily concluded with the emperor, which had to be paid for by the return of the land acquired during the Hildesheim Diocesan Feud. George's sons, Christian Louis, George William, John Frederick and Ernest Augustus then ruled the Principality of Calenberg-Göttingen in succession.

Elevation to an electorate
In 1665 the Principality of Grubenhagen, whose line had died out in 1596 and over which the lines of Lüneburg and Wolfenbüttel had long fought in the Imperial Chamber Court, was also finally added to the Calenberg dynasty. George's youngest son, Ernest Augustus, who ruled from 1679, carried on the successful policies of his father and his brothers. In 1689 the Calenbergs also inherited Saxe-Lauenburg. Ernest Augustus switched to the side of the emperor and introduced primogeniture, contrary to the direction of his father. In 1692 for his services to the emperor, Ernest Augustus was rewarded after a long struggle with the title of the ninth electorate. Officially he was now the Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg and his government was called the "Electoral Brunswick-Lüneburg Government". In 1705 it was enhanced further by the inheritance of the Principality of Lüneburg, whereby all the estates of the Welfs, apart from the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, became united under the line also known as the House of Hanover from which the British royal throne are descended.

Economic and social history
The Principality of Calenberg was initially a rather insignificant territory and Welf lordship developed here quite late. By the reign of George of Calenberg in 1636, the principality had experienced 140 years of almost continuously poor government that cared little about the state. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the cultural centres lay outside Calenberg in the towns of Brunswick, Hildesheim and Lüneburg. New centres were created at the residences of Wolfenbüttel and Celle. Even the city of Hanover was not governed by the Calenberg princes until 1636. The other towns remained unimportant.

Only after the reign of George of Calenberg and its subsequent elevation to the electorate did the former Principality of Calenberg become the nucleus of what later became the German state of Lower Saxony.

title: Principality of Calenberg


text:
Thorold

Thorold is a city in Ontario, Canada, located on the Niagara Escarpment. It is also the seat of the Regional Municipality of Niagara. The Welland Canal passes through the city, featuring lock 7 and the Twin Flight Locks.

History
The first survey of Thorold, or Township 9 as it was known then, occurred in 1788. The earliest communities in what is now Thorold emerged at Beaverdams, DeCew Falls and St. Johns but, after the opening of the First Welland Canal in 1829, they were superseded by the new canal villages of Thorold, Allanburg and Port Robinson.

In 1846, the community had a population of about 1,000 and there were three churches or chapels and a post office. Various types of tradesmen worked here. Industry included two grist mills, a cement mill, a brewery and three wagon makers. There were seven taverns. Thorold, located on the brow of the Niagara Escarpment, soon became dominant and was incorporated as a village in 1850 and as a town in 1870. When the Regional Municipality of Niagara was formed in 1970, the Town of Thorold expanded to include the former Thorold Township. In 1975, the town became incorporated as the City of Thorold.

Thorold is also the location of the War of 1812 battle site, Beaverdams, where, on June 25, 1813, Colonel Charles Boerstler and his American troops were defeated by the British regulars and Caughnawaga Mohawks.

Geography
The city includes the neighbourhoods of Allanburg, Beaverdams, Confederation Heights, Port Robinson, St. Johns, Rolling Meadows, Thorold South and Turner's Corners.

St. Johns was one of the first areas in the interior of Niagara Peninsula to be settled by Europeans. The first Europeans settled in the area about 1792, when a sawmill was built on St. Johns Creek, a tributary of the Twelve Mile Creek. It was one of only two mills in Niagara at the time. In 1804, St. Johns became home to the first free school in Upper Canada, housed in a single-room, wooden schoolhouse. By the time a post office was established in 1831, the community included a woollen factory, a tannery, a foundry, stores, and a number of mills. Eventually, the hydro power offered by the site became less of a commodity. As industry in surrounding towns grew, St. Johns' affluence declined.

Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Thorold had a population of $23,816$ living in $9,095$ of its $9,856$ total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of $18,801$. With a land area of 83.29 km2, it had a population density of in 2021.

Arts and culture
Thorold is home to several festivals and annual events. Included are:
 * Mountain Top Ceremony - Held at the Lock 7 Viewing Complex, this annual celebration marks the opening of the Welland Canal shipping season with the arrival of the first ship of the year through Lock 3. Usually held in late March.
 * The Canal Bank Shuffle - A three-day annual festival of music and dance in the downtown core. Features blues musicians.
 * The Can-View 4 was a drive-in theatre complex located near Highway 20.
 * The Thorold Reed Band is Canada's oldest, continually running band of any kind. Established in 1851, this community band's main stage is the bandstand at Battle of Beaverdams Park. In addition to their summer concert series, TRB also performs off-season at Knox Presbyterian Church.

Trails
The Welland Canal Parkway Trail is a paved recreational path beginning in St. Catharines at Lake Ontario and ending at Lake Erie in Port Colborne. Three sections of the trail are located within Thorold, which are:
 * Section Four: Glendale Avenue to Beaverdams Road, Thorold
 * Section Five: Beaverdams Road to Allanburg, Thorold
 * Section Six: Allanburg to Port Robinson, Thorold

The trail follows the Welland Canal, and passes next to the Thorold Lock 7 Viewing Complex.

Parks
Officially opened in 2002, the Mel Swart Lake Gibson Conservation Park is a 29-acre waterfront park located on Lake Gibson. There are trails winding through the park as well as a main path along the perimeter. One of the main features of the park is the suspended boardwalk that runs along the shore of the lake. The Mel Swart - Lake Gibson Conservation Park is part of the Niagara Greenbelt.

Short Hills Provincial Park is partially located in the City of Thorold.

DeCew House
On DeCew Road, DeCou House was constructed in the late 18th century as a home for British Captain John B. DeCou. It served as the area's British headquarters during the War of 1812. On June 22, 1813, Laura Secord journeyed from Queenston to DeCew House to warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon of an impending American attack. FitzGibbon and his men were able to capture the American force and help turn the tide of the war. The house was destroyed by fire in 1950 but the site is commemorated by the rebuilt foundation and a plaque.

The Old Fire Hall
At 12 Albert Street West, was constructed next to the Second Welland Canal in 1878. This building once housed Thorold's police force and, to this day, contains a jail with 2 small cells and 1 larger in the basement. For many years, the fire bell tolled for the town's strictly enforced nine o'clock curfew. The Old Firehall was designed by the architect John Latshaw and built for $2,483. It has a combination bell tower and hose tower, yellow and red brickwork, semi-circular wood windows, and a circular wood window in the gable end at the tower. Decorative yellow brick arches frame each window. The bell which hung in its tower remained in use until 1964, when the fire department moved into its new hall on nearby Towpath Street. In 1967 the old bell was installed outside the new firehall. The "Old Hall" was used as the Thorold YMCA for several years thereafter. There are 3 holding cells in the basement. 2 are small and another larger one under the west side of the building.

Chestnut Hall
At 14 Ormond Street North, is a carefully restored 1862 building that was once home to John McDonagh, a lumber merchant and mayor of the Town of Thorold from 1881–1884.

St. Johns School House
On Hollow Road, is a single-room wooden school house located in the west portion of Thorold. Opening in 1804, it was the first free school in Upper Canada. The first teacher at the school was Samuel Birdsall. The enrolment in 1826 was recorded as 29 students. The building was fully restored in 1974.

Maplehurst
At 14 Saint David's Road West, is a Thorold landmark and the former home of Jacob Keefer. The mansion sits on the highest rise in the city offering a commanding view of the community below. Built by Hugh Keefer in 1885, this red stone structure with elaborate gables and dormers has been variously used in the past as a residence, a hospital, and a private nursing home. Maplehurst was recently restored to its original condition and is currently known as the Keefer Mansion, a 10-room inn.

Welland Mills
At 20 Pine Street North, was constructed in 1846 on the bank of the second Welland Canal by Jacob Keefer and, at that time, it contained the largest watermill in Canada. The Keefers were entrepreneurs and are considered one of Thorold's founding families. At its height, the mill was capable of manufacturing 300 barrels (89 tonnes) of flour per day and storing 70,000 bushels (1,900 tonnes) of wheat and 5,000 barrels (440 tonnes) of flour. Today, the Welland Mills building has been restored offering commercial space on the ground floor and residential apartments above.

Beaverdams Methodist Church and Cemetery
On Marlatt's Road, was constructed in 1832. Beaverdams Church is the oldest Methodist Church still standing in Ontario. The first minister to preach in the chapel was Reverend Egerton Ryerson, who is largely responsible for founding the province of Ontario's education system.

Soldiers' Monument
A war memorial monument that commemorates World War I, World War II and the Korean War. Located in Memorial Park, at the corner of Albert and Chapel streets, it was unveiled on Sunday, October 30, 1921 and was erected by the citizens of Thorold to: "Honour the Memory of the Men of Thorold, who gave their lives for the cause of freedom in the great war, and in grateful remembrance of those who shared its dangers."

The Old Public Library
At 1 Ormond Street South, is one of 156 Carnegie libraries to have been funded in Canada. The building, designed by architect A. E. Nicholson, was opened in 1912. The library moved from here to its present home in Chestnut Hall in 1983. The building now serves as office space.

Thorold Blackhawks
The Thorold Blackhawks, founded in 1963, are a Junior 'B' hockey team in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League. The Blackhawks were Golden Horseshoe Junior Hockey League Champions in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005 and Golden Horseshoe Conference Champions in 2008. In 2005, the team went on to capture the Sutherland Cup as the best Junior 'B' team in Ontario. Notable former players include Nathan Horton, Dwayne Roloson, Conor Timmins and Owen Nolan. The Blackhawks home rink is the Thorold Community Arena in downtown Thorold. The team colours are black, white and red.

Transportation
The Thorold Tunnel is an underwater vehicular tunnel, built between 1965 and 1967, which allows Highway 58 to cross the Welland Canal without interrupting shipping. Approximately 24,300 vehicles pass through the tunnel daily.

Niagara Detention Centre
Thorold is home to the Niagara Detention Centre, a 260-person capacity maximum-security prison. It generally serves people on remand, offenders sentenced to short terms (60 days or less), and offenders awaiting transfer to larger federal or provincial facilities. It is located between the neighbourhoods of Thorold South and Allanburg.

Notable people

 * Owen Nolan, professional hockey player
 * Joey Martin (ice hockey), professional hockey player
 * Sean Bentivoglio, professional hockey player
 * Conor Timmins, professional hockey player

title: Thorold


text:
Sharman Douglas

Sharman Douglas (October 5, 1928 – February 3, 1996) was an American socialite known for her friendship with the British royal family, in particular Princess Margaret.

She was the only daughter of chemicals heiress and philanthropist Peggy Zinsser (d. 1992) and politician Lewis W. Douglas (d. 1974), the latter of whom served as an Arizonan congressman, director of the Bureau of the Budget from 1933 until 1934, and U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James's from 1947 until 1950. It was during these three years in England that she developed her friendship with Princess Margaret and the royal family.

At various times in her life, "Charmin' Sharman", as she was known during her father's tenure as ambassador, worked as a talent agent, a movie publicist, and a public-relations agent. In 1966, New York City mayor John Lindsay named her New York's Commissioner of Public Events.

Linked romantically to the Marquess of Blandford and the Marquess of Milford Haven in the 1950s, she also reportedly had a two-year relationship with the United Kingdom's Princess Margaret, according to Margaret: The Secret Princess, an ITV program broadcast in Britain in February 2003.

Sharman Douglas married Andrew MacKenzie Hay, a food importer, in 1968. They divorced in 1977.

Her first cousin Josalee Douglas was the first wife of Count Jean-François de Chambrun, who later married Raine, Countess Spencer, the stepmother of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Sharman Douglas died of bone cancer at New York Hospital in 1996.

title: Sharman Douglas


text:
Kenmu Restoration

The Kenmu Restoration (建武の新政) was a three-year period of Imperial rule in Japanese history between the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period from 1333 to 1336. The Kenmu Restoration was an effort made by Emperor Go-Daigo to overthrow the ruling Kamakura Shogunate (de facto ruled by Hōjō clan) and restore the Imperial House to power in Japan, returning to civilian government after 148 years of de facto military government from Kamakura. Go-Daigo launched the Genkō War in 1331 against the Kamakura Shogunate but was defeated and forced to exile to the Oki Islands. Go-Daigo launched a second uprising, and with the assistance of the defected Kamakura general Ashikaga Takauji and rebel leader Nitta Yoshisada, defeated the Kamakura Shogunate at the siege of Kamakura in 1333. The Imperial House was restored to power but Go-Daigo's policies failed to satisfy his major samurai supporters and most Japanese people. The Kenmu Restoration was ultimately overthrown when Takauji became Shōgun and founded the Ashikaga Shogunate in 1336, beginning the "Northern and Southern Courts" period and the Muromachi period.

The Kenmu Restoration was the last time the Emperor of Japan held significant power until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

Background
The Emperor's role had been usurped by the Minamoto and Hōjō families ever since Minamoto no Yoritomo had obtained from the Emperor the title of shōgun in 1192, ruling thereafter from Kamakura. For various reasons, the Kamakura shogunate decided to allow two contending imperial lines—known as the Southern Court or junior line, and the Northern Court or senior line—to alternate on the throne. The method worked for several successions until a member of the Southern Court ascended to the throne as Emperor Go-Daigo. Go-Daigo wanted to overthrow the shogunate and openly defied Kamakura by naming his own son his heir. In 1331 the shogunate exiled Go-Daigo but loyalist forces, including Kusunoki Masashige, rebelled and came to his support. They were aided by, among others, future shōgun Ashikaga Takauji, a samurai who had turned against Kamakura when dispatched to put down Go-Daigo's rebellion. At roughly the same time, Nitta Yoshisada, another eastern chieftain, attacked the shogunate's capital. The shogunate tried to resist his advance: Yoshisada and shogunate forces fought several times along the Kamakura Kaidō, for example at Kotesashigahara (小手差原), Kumegawa (久米河) (both near today's Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture), and Bubaigawara, in today's Fuchū, ever closer to Kamakura. The city was finally reached, besieged, and taken. Kamakura would remain for one century the political capital of the Kantō region, but its supremacy as political centre was over.

Objectives of the restoration
When Emperor Go-Daigo ascended the throne in 1318, he immediately manifested his intention to rule without interference from the military in Kamakura. Historical documents show that, disregarding evidence to the contrary, he and his advisers believed that a revival of the Imperial House was possible, and that the Kamakura's shogunate was the greatest and most obvious of the obstacles.

Another situation that begged for a solution was the land-ownership problem posed by the manors and their lands (see the article shōen). The great landowners shugo (governors) and jitō (manor's lord), with their political independence and their tax exemptions were impoverishing the government and undermining its authority, and Kitabatake Chikafusa, Go-Daigo's future chief adviser, discussed the situation in his works on succession. Chikafusa admitted that nobody had any intention of abolishing those privileges, so the hope of success on this front was from the beginning clearly very dim. What he planned to replace shugo and jitō with is unclear, but he surely had no intention of sharing power with the samurai class. However serious the land ownership problem, Go-Daigo and his advisers made no serious effort to solve it, partly because it was samurai from the manors in the western provinces that had defeated the shogunate for him. In such a situation, any effort to regulate the manors was bound to cause resentment among key allies.

Failure of Go-Daigo's policies

The Emperor reclaimed the property of some manors his family had previously lost control of, rewarding with them, among others, Buddhist temples like Tō-ji and Daitoku-ji in the hope to obtain their support. He however failed to protect the rights of tenants and workers, whose complaints poured into the monasteries.

He did not understand the importance to him of the warrior class either, because he never properly rewarded his minor samurai supporters, as he could have done using lands from the confiscated Hōjō lands, indulging instead in favoritism. These errors are the key to understanding the events of the next few decades. After rewarding religious institutions, he prepared to redistribute Hōjō lands, and samurai came to him in great numbers to lay their claims. The biggest rewards were given to samurai, among them Nitta Yoshisada, the man who had destroyed the Kamakura shogunate, and Ashikaga Takauji. In so doing, however, he failed to return control of the provinces to civilians. But he made his greatest error when he failed to properly reward minor warriors who had supported him. The tribunals set up to the purpose were inefficient and too inexperienced for the task, and corruption was rife. Samurai anger was made worse by the fact that Go-Daigo, wanting to build a palace for himself but having no funds, levied extra taxes from the samurai class. A wave of enmity towards the nobility started to run through the country, growing stronger with time. The Taiheiki also records that, although Takauji and Yoshisada were richly rewarded, the offices of shugo and jito in more than fifty provinces went to nobles and court bureaucrats, leaving no spoils for the warriors. By the end of 1335 the Emperor and the nobility had lost all support of the warrior class.

Rise of the Ashikaga brothers

Go-Daigo wanted to re-establish his rule in Kamakura and the east of the country without sending a shōgun there, as this was seen as still too dangerous. As a compromise, he sent his six-year-old son Prince Norinaga to Mutsu Province (the eastern part of today's Tōhoku region, stretching from Fukushima Prefecture in the south to Aomori Prefecture in the north) and nominated him Governor-General of the Mutsu and Dewa Provinces. In an obvious reply to this move, Ashikaga Takauji's younger brother Tadayoshi without an order from the Emperor escorted another of his sons, eleven-year-old Nariyoshi (a.k.a. Narinaga) to Kamakura, where he installed him as Governor of the Kōzuke Province with himself as a deputy and de facto ruler. The appointment of a warrior to an important post was intended to show the Emperor that the samurai class was not ready for a purely civilian rule.

Later, a third son of Go-Daigo's, Prince Morinaga, was appointed sei-i taishōgun together with his brother Norinaga, a move that immediately aroused Ashikaga Takauji's hostility. Takauji believed the military class had the right to rule and considered himself not a usurper but, since the Ashikaga descended from a branch of the Minamoto clan, rather a restorer of Minamoto power. When the Hōjō garrison at Rokuhara was destroyed in 1333, he immediately stepped in and installed there his office (bugyōsho). It kept order in the city and in general took over the original's function. Extending its authority to controlling travel along highways, issuing passports and exercising rights previously belonging to the shogunate's deputies (the Rokuhara Tandai), Takauji showed he believed that samurai political power must continue. His setting himself apart as a representative of the military made him an aggregation point for the warriors' discontent. Samurai saw him as the man who could bring back the shogunate's heyday, and therefore his strength was superior to that of any other samurai, Nitta Yoshisada included. His only obstacle to the shogunate was Prince Morinaga.

Prince Morinaga

Prince Morinaga, with his prestige and his devotion to the civilian government cause, was Takauji's natural enemy and could count therefore on the support of his adversaries, among them Nitta Yoshisada, whom Takauji had offended. Tension between the Emperor and the Ashikaga gradually grew, until Takauji had Morinaga arrested on a pretext and first confined him in Kyoto, then transported him to Kamakura, where the Prince was kept prisoner until late August 1335. The situation in Kamakura continued to be tense, with Hōjō supporters staging sporadic revolts here and there. In the course of the same year Hōjō Tokiyuki, son of last regent Takatoki, tried to re-establish the shogunate by force and defeated Tadayoshi in Musashi, in today's Kanagawa Prefecture. Tadayoshi had to flee, so before leaving he ordered the beheading of Prince Morinaga. Kamakura was therefore temporarily in Tokiyuki's hands. Heard the news, Takauji asked the Emperor to make him sei-i tai-shōgun so that he could quell the revolt and help his brother. When his request was denied, Takauji organized his forces and returned to Kamakura without the Emperor's permission, defeating the Hōjō. He then installed himself in Kamakura's Nikaidō neighborhood. When invited to return to Kyoto, he let it be known through his brother Tadayoshi that he felt safer where he was, and started to build himself a mansion in Ōkura, where first Kamakura shōgun Minamoto no Yoritomo's residence had been.

Civil war
Kyoto by then was aware that Takauji had assumed wide powers without imperial permission, for example nominating an Uesugi clan member to the post of Constable of Kōzuke, Nitta Yoshisada's native province. By late 1335 several thousand of the emperor's men were ready to go to Kamakura, while a great army at the command of Kō no Moroyasu was rushing there to help it resist the attack. On November 17, 1335, Tadayoshi issued a message in his brother's name asking all samurai to join the Ashikaga and destroy Nitta Yoshisada. The Court, meanwhile, had done the opposite, ordering samurai from all provinces to join Yoshisada and destroy the two Ashikaga. The war started with most samurai convinced that Takauji was the man they needed to have their grievances redressed, and most peasants were persuaded that they had been better off under the shogunate. The campaign was therefore enormously successful for the Ashikaga, with huge numbers of samurai rushing to join the two brothers. By February 23 of the following year Nitta Yoshisada and the Emperor had lost, and Kyoto itself had fallen. On February 25, 1336, Ashikaga Takauji entered the capital and the Kenmu Restoration ended.

Calendrical peculiarities of the era
The Kenmu era is in the anomalous condition of having two different durations. Because Japanese era names (nengō) change with the Emperor and the Imperial House split in two after 1336, the Kenmu era was counted by the two sides in two different ways. "Kenmu" is the era after the Genkō era, and it is understood to have spanned the years 1334 through 1336 before the beginning of the "Engen" era, as time was reckoned by the Southern Court; and it is concurrently said to have spanned the years 1334 through 1338 before Ryakuō, as time was reckoned by the rival Northern Court. Because the Southern Court, the loser, is nonetheless considered the legitimate one, its time reckoning is the one used by historians.

title: Kenmu Restoration


text:
Mozdev.org

mozdev.org was a website that offered free project hosting, and software development tools to the Mozilla community. Site hosted extensions for Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey and stand-alone Mozilla-based applications. It was free to set up a project there, but all development must have been done using a license approved by the OSI. According to the site, at one point it hosted over 250 active projects. It was shut down in July 2020 and currently redirects to mozilla.org.

title: Mozdev.org


text:
German submarine U-869

German submarine U-869 was a Type IXC/40 U-boat of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during World War II; her keel was laid down 5 April 1943 by Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau AG Weser of Bremen. It was commissioned on 26 January 1944 with Kapitänleutnant Hellmut Neuerburg in command. Neuerburg went down with his boat. The wreck of U-869 was discovered off the coast of New Jersey in 1991.

Design
German Type IXC/40 submarines were slightly larger than the original Type IXCs. U-869 had a displacement of 1144 t when at the surface and 1257 t while submerged. The U-boat had a total length of 76.76 m, a pressure hull length of 58.75 m, a beam of 6.86 m, a height of 9.60 m, and a draught of 4.67 m. The submarine was powered by two MAN M 9 V 40/46 supercharged four-stroke, nine-cylinder diesel engines producing a total of 4400 PS for use while surfaced, two Siemens-Schuckert 2 GU 345/34 double-acting electric motors producing a total of 1000 shp for use while submerged. She had two shafts and two 1.92 m propellers. The boat was capable of operating at depths of up to 230 m.

The submarine had a maximum surface speed of 18.3 kn and a maximum submerged speed of 7.3 kn. When submerged, the boat could operate for 63 nmi at 4 kn; when surfaced, she could travel 13850 nmi at 10 kn. U-869 was fitted with six 53.3 cm torpedo tubes (four fitted at the bow and two at the stern), 22 torpedoes, one 10.5 cm SK C/32 naval gun, 180 rounds, and a 3.7 cm Flak M42 as well as two twin 2 cm C/30 anti-aircraft guns. The boat had a complement of 48.

Service history
U-869 conducted one World War II war patrol without success. It suffered no casualties to her crew until it was lost on 11 February 1945, with all but one of 56 crew members dead. The surviving crew member, Herbert Guschewski, was not on board, as he became ill just before the patrol. Robert Kurson chronicled the story of U-869's finding in the book Shadow Divers (2004).

Engagement near Morocco
On 28 February 1945, the American destroyer escort USS Fowler (DE-222) and the French submarine chaser L'Indiscret conducted a depth charge attack on a submerged contact in the Atlantic, near Rabat, and reported a kill, although little visible evidence was presented to confirm the kill. Based on the information provided, U.S. Naval Intelligence rated the attacks "G—No Damage". U-869 had been previously ordered by Karl Dönitz to move her area of operations from the North American coast to the Gibraltar area. Postwar investigators upgraded the rating from "G—No Damage" to "B—Probably Sunk", leading to an erroneous historical record that U-869 was sunk near Gibraltar. For many years this attack was assumed to have been her end.

Discovery off U.S. coast
In 1991, Bill Nagle, a former wreck diver and the captain of Seeker, learned about a wreck off New Jersey and decided to mount a diving expedition to the site. On 2 September 1991, an unidentified U-boat wreck was discovered 73 meters (240 feet) deep (a hazardous depth for standard scuba diving) off the coast of New Jersey. Nicknamed U-Who, the exact identity of the wreck was a matter of frequent debate, and initially the wreck was thought to be either GS U-550 or GS U-521. The discoverers of U-Who, John Chatterton, Richie Kohler, and Kevin Brennan, continued to dive the wreck for the next several years. (Three divers, Steve Feldman, Chris Rouse and "Chrissy" Rouse, died exploring U-869. ) Eventually, the team recovered a knife inscribed with "Horenburg", a crew member's name. However, they learned at the U-boat archives that U-869 was supposedly sent to Africa, so this piece of evidence was initially disregarded. A few years later, they found part of the UZO torpedo aiming device, and a spare parts box from the motor room engraved with serial and other identifying numbers. On 31 August 1997 they concluded that the boat they found was U-869.

The location of the wreck is approximately 39.54889°N, -73.33222°W.

Cause of sinking
The men who found U-869 believed it was a victim of her own torpedo, which may have become a "circle-runner". Torpedoes manufactured later in the war had acoustical seeking capability. It was theorized that the torpedo was initially fired in a turning pattern and when it missed her target, it picked up the sound of the submarine's propeller. At least two other German U-boats supposedly have been lost due to their own torpedoes: GS U-377 in 1944 and GS U-972 in late 1943. Chatterton and Kohler based their theory largely on a lack of evidence to support other causes for sinking. They claimed there was no reported naval activity in the vicinity, thereby ruling out a sinking by attack. Moreover, the damage to the hull was from the outside and thereby ruled out an internal explosion. This problem also affected the US submarine force at least twice, as seen with USS Tang (SS-306) and USS Tullibee (SS-284).

Gary Gentile, a noted wreck diver, researcher, and author, rejects Chatteron and Kohler's theory. He cites attack logs and eyewitness accounts from the crew of two destroyer escorts suggesting that the U-boat was initially damaged with a hedgehog launched by the USS Howard D. Crow (DE-252) and then subsequently damaged with a depth charge by the accompanying USS Koiner (DE-331).

The United States Coast Guard, in its official evaluation of the evidence, discarded the circle-running torpedo theory and awarded the sinking to the two destroyers. This was confirmed by Marlyn Berkey, who was on a destroyer as part of the Pacific fleet entering New York Harbor after the war's end; the submarine showed up on sonar, Berkey's destroyer depth charged the sub, it sank as evidenced by oil and debris that floated on the surface; the destroyer's crew was allowed to place a broom upside down atop the mainmast coming into New York, which meant "clean sweep". Contributing to their findings are two damage holes in the wreck of U-869, which are more consistent with the attack reports that cited two explosions than with the circle runner theory which would only explain one hole. The official records state that U-869 was destroyed on 11 February 1945 by two U.S. destroyer escorts, Howard D. Crow and Koiner. John Chatterton, one of the divers who discovered U-869 in 1991, states in Wreck Diving Magazine his belief that the two U.S. destroyer escorts attacked the wreck of U-869 after the U-boat had been struck by her own torpedo.

Lone survivor
Only one crew member survived by virtue of not having been aboard. Second Radio Officer Herbert Guschewski came down with pneumonia and pleurisy shortly before the boat's departure. Like the families of the crew, Guschewski did not know what happened to his fellow sailors until 1999. He watched a program which eventually became the PBS NOVA episode "Hitler's Lost Sub" and contacted the producers shortly afterward, who interviewed him and placed a portion of it in the 2000 American broadcast.

title: German submarine U-869