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Fiber bundle

In mathematics, and particularly topology, a fiber bundle (Commonwealth English: fibre bundle) is a space that is a product space, but  may have a different topological structure. Specifically, the similarity between a space $$E$$ and a product space $$B \times F$$ is defined using a continuous surjective map, $$\pi : E \to B,$$ that in small regions of $$E$$ behaves just like a projection from corresponding regions of $$B \times F$$ to $$B.$$ The map $$\pi,$$ called the projection or submersion of the bundle, is regarded as part of the structure of the bundle. The space $$E$$ is known as the total space of the fiber bundle, $$B$$ as the base space, and $$F$$ the fiber.

In the trivial case, $$E$$ is just $$B \times F,$$ and the map $$\pi$$ is just the projection from the product space to the first factor. This is called a trivial bundle. Examples of non-trivial fiber bundles include the Möbius strip and Klein bottle, as well as nontrivial covering spaces. Fiber bundles, such as the tangent bundle of a manifold and other more general vector bundles, play an important role in differential geometry and differential topology, as do principal bundles.

Mappings between total spaces of fiber bundles that "commute" with the projection maps are known as bundle maps, and the class of fiber bundles forms a category with respect to such mappings. A bundle map from the base space itself (with the identity mapping as projection) to $$E$$ is called a section of $$E.$$ Fiber bundles can be specialized in a number of ways, the most common of which is requiring that the transition maps between the local trivial patches lie in a certain topological group, known as the structure group, acting on the fiber $$F$$.

History
In topology, the terms fiber (German: Faser) and fiber space (gefaserter Raum) appeared for the first time in a paper by Herbert Seifert in 1933,  but his definitions are limited to a very special case. The main difference from the present day conception of a fiber space, however, was that for Seifert what is now called the base space (topological space) of a fiber (topological) space E was not part of the structure, but derived from it as a quotient space of E. The first definition of fiber space was given by Hassler Whitney in 1935 under the name sphere space, but in 1940 Whitney changed the name to sphere bundle.

The theory of fibered spaces, of which vector bundles, principal bundles, topological fibrations and fibered manifolds are a special case, is attributed to Seifert, Heinz Hopf, Jacques Feldbau, Whitney, Norman Steenrod, Charles Ehresmann,  Jean-Pierre Serre, and others.

Fiber bundles became their own object of study in the period 1935–1940. The first general definition appeared in the works of Whitney.

Whitney came to the general definition of a fiber bundle from his study of a more particular notion of a sphere bundle, that is a fiber bundle whose fiber is a sphere of arbitrary dimension.

Formal definition
A fiber bundle is a structure $$(E,\, B,\, \pi,\, F),$$ where $$E, B,$$ and $$F$$ are topological spaces and $$\pi : E \to B$$ is a continuous surjection satisfying a local triviality condition outlined below. The space $$B$$ is called the ' of the bundle, $$E$$ the ', and $$F$$ the . The map $$\pi$$ is called the ' (or '). We shall assume in what follows that the base space $$B$$ is connected.

We require that for every $$x \in B$$, there is an open neighborhood $$U \subseteq B$$ of $$x$$ (which will be called a trivializing neighborhood) such that there is a homeomorphism $$\varphi : \pi^{-1}(U) \to U \times F$$ (where $$\pi^{-1}(U)$$ is given the subspace topology, and $$U \times F$$ is the product space) in such a way that $$\pi$$ agrees with the projection onto the first factor. That is, the following diagram should commute:

where $$\operatorname{proj}_1 : U \times F \to U$$ is the natural projection and $$\varphi : \pi^{-1}(U) \to U \times F$$ is a homeomorphism. The set of all $$\left\{\left(U_i,\, \varphi_i\right)\right\}$$ is called a  of the bundle.

Thus for any $$p \in B$$, the preimage $$\pi^{-1}(\{p\})$$ is homeomorphic to $$F$$ (since this is true of $$\operatorname{proj}_1^{-1}(\{p\})$$) and is called the fiber over $$p.$$ Every fiber bundle $$\pi : E \to B$$ is an open map, since projections of products are open maps. Therefore $$B$$ carries the quotient topology determined by the map $$\pi.$$

A fiber bundle $$(E,\, B,\, \pi,\, F)$$ is often denoted that, in analogy with a short exact sequence, indicates which space is the fiber, total space and base space, as well as the map from total to base space.

A  is a fiber bundle in the category of smooth manifolds. That is, $$E, B,$$ and $$F$$ are required to be smooth manifolds and all the functions above are required to be smooth maps.

Trivial bundle
Let $$E = B \times F$$ and let $$\pi : E \to B$$ be the projection onto the first factor. Then $$\pi$$ is a fiber bundle (of $$F$$) over $$B.$$ Here $$E$$ is not just locally a product but globally one. Any such fiber bundle is called a . Any fiber bundle over a contractible CW-complex is trivial.

Möbius strip
Perhaps the simplest example of a nontrivial bundle $$E$$ is the Möbius strip. It has the circle that runs lengthwise along the center of the strip as a base $$B$$ and a line segment for the fiber $$F$$, so the Möbius strip is a bundle of the line segment over the circle. A neighborhood $$U$$ of $$\pi(x) \in B$$ (where $$x \in E$$) is an arc; in the picture, this is the length of one of the squares. The preimage $$\pi^{-1}(U)$$ in the picture is a (somewhat twisted) slice of the strip four squares wide and one long (i.e. all the points that project to $$U$$).

A homeomorphism ($$\varphi$$ in ) exists that maps the preimage of $$U$$ (the trivializing neighborhood) to a slice of a cylinder: curved, but not twisted. This pair locally trivializes the strip. The corresponding trivial bundle $$B\times F$$ would be a cylinder, but the Möbius strip has an overall "twist". This twist is visible only globally; locally the Möbius strip and the cylinder are identical (making a single vertical cut in either gives the same space).

Klein bottle
A similar nontrivial bundle is the Klein bottle, which can be viewed as a "twisted" circle bundle over another circle. The corresponding non-twisted (trivial) bundle is the 2-torus, $$S^1 \times S^1$$.

Covering map
A covering space is a fiber bundle such that the bundle projection is a local homeomorphism. It follows that the fiber is a discrete space.

Vector and principal bundles
A special class of fiber bundles, called vector bundles, are those whose fibers are vector spaces (to qualify as a vector bundle the structure group of the bundle — see below — must be a linear group). Important examples of vector bundles include the tangent bundle and cotangent bundle of a smooth manifold. From any vector bundle, one can construct the frame bundle of bases, which is a principal bundle (see below).

Another special class of fiber bundles, called principal bundles, are bundles on whose fibers a free and transitive action by a group $$G$$ is given, so that each fiber is a principal homogeneous space. The bundle is often specified along with the group by referring to it as a principal $$G$$-bundle. The group $$G$$ is also the structure group of the bundle. Given a representation $$\rho$$ of $$G$$ on a vector space $$V$$, a vector bundle with $$\rho(G) \subseteq \text{Aut}(V)$$ as a structure group may be constructed, known as the associated bundle.

Sphere bundles
A sphere bundle is a fiber bundle whose fiber is an n-sphere. Given a vector bundle $$E$$ with a metric (such as the tangent bundle to a Riemannian manifold) one can construct the associated unit sphere bundle, for which the fiber over a point $$x$$ is the set of all unit vectors in $$E_x$$. When the vector bundle in question is the tangent bundle $$TM$$, the unit sphere bundle is known as the unit tangent bundle.

A sphere bundle is partially characterized by its Euler class, which is a degree $$n + 1$$ cohomology class in the total space of the bundle. In the case $$n = 1$$ the sphere bundle is called a circle bundle and the Euler class is equal to the first Chern class, which characterizes the topology of the bundle completely. For any $$n$$, given the Euler class of a bundle, one can calculate its cohomology using a long exact sequence called the Gysin sequence.

Mapping tori
If $$X$$ is a topological space and $$f : X \to X$$ is a homeomorphism then the mapping torus $$M_f$$ has a natural structure of a fiber bundle over the circle with fiber $$X.$$ Mapping tori of homeomorphisms of surfaces are of particular importance in 3-manifold topology.

Quotient spaces
If $$G$$ is a topological group and $$H$$ is a closed subgroup, then under some circumstances, the quotient space $$G/H$$ together with the quotient map $$\pi : G \to G/H$$ is a fiber bundle, whose fiber is the topological space $$H$$. A necessary and sufficient condition for ($$G,\, G/H,\, \pi,\, H$$) to form a fiber bundle is that the mapping $$\pi$$ admits local cross-sections.

The most general conditions under which the quotient map will admit local cross-sections are not known, although if $$G$$ is a Lie group and $$H$$ a closed subgroup (and thus a Lie subgroup by Cartan's theorem), then the quotient map is a fiber bundle. One example of this is the Hopf fibration, $$S^3 \to S^2$$, which is a fiber bundle over the sphere $$S^2$$ whose total space is $$S^3$$. From the perspective of Lie groups, $$S^3$$ can be identified with the special unitary group $$SU(2)$$. The abelian subgroup of diagonal matrices is isomorphic to the circle group $$U(1)$$, and the quotient $$SU(2)/U(1)$$ is diffeomorphic to the sphere.

More generally, if $$G$$ is any topological group and $$H$$ a closed subgroup that also happens to be a Lie group, then $$G \to G/H$$ is a fiber bundle.

Sections
A  (or cross section) of a fiber bundle $$\pi$$ is a continuous map $$f : B \to E$$ such that $$\pi(f(x)) = x$$ for all x in B. Since bundles do not in general have globally defined sections, one of the purposes of the theory is to account for their existence. The obstruction to the existence of a section can often be measured by a cohomology class, which leads to the theory of characteristic classes in algebraic topology.

The most well-known example is the hairy ball theorem, where the Euler class is the obstruction to the tangent bundle of the 2-sphere having a nowhere vanishing section.

Often one would like to define sections only locally (especially when global sections do not exist). A local section of a fiber bundle is a continuous map $$f : U \to E$$ where U is an open set in B and $$\pi(f(x)) = x$$ for all x in U. If $$(U,\, \varphi)$$ is a local trivialization chart then local sections always exist over U. Such sections are in 1-1 correspondence with continuous maps $$U \to F$$. Sections form a sheaf.

Structure groups and transition functions
Fiber bundles often come with a group of symmetries that describe the matching conditions between overlapping local trivialization charts. Specifically, let G be a topological group that acts continuously on the fiber space F on the left. We lose nothing if we require G to act faithfully on F so that it may be thought of as a group of homeomorphisms of F. A G-atlas for the bundle $$(E, B, \pi, F)$$ is a set of local trivialization charts $$\{(U_k,\, \varphi_k)\}$$ such that for any $$\varphi_i,\varphi_j$$ for the overlapping charts $$(U_i,\, \varphi_i)$$ and $$(U_j,\, \varphi_j)$$ the function $$\varphi_i\varphi_j^{-1} : \left(U_i \cap U_j\right) \times F \to \left(U_i \cap U_j\right) \times F$$ is given by $$\varphi_i\varphi_j^{-1}(x,\, \xi) = \left(x,\, t_{ij}(x)\xi\right)$$ where $$t_{ij} : U_i \cap U_j \to G$$ is a continuous map called a . Two G-atlases are equivalent if their union is also a G-atlas. A G-bundle is a fiber bundle with an equivalence class of G-atlases. The group G is called the  of the bundle; the analogous term in physics is gauge group.

In the smooth category, a G-bundle is a smooth fiber bundle where G is a Lie group and the corresponding action on F is smooth and the transition functions are all smooth maps.

The transition functions $$t_{ij}$$ satisfy the following conditions
 * 1) $$t_{ii}(x) = 1\,$$
 * 2) $$t_{ij}(x) = t_{ji}(x)^{-1}\,$$
 * 3) $$t_{ik}(x) = t_{ij}(x)t_{jk}(x).\,$$

The third condition applies on triple overlaps Ui ∩ Uj ∩ Uk and is called the cocycle condition (see Čech cohomology). The importance of this is that the transition functions determine the fiber bundle (if one assumes the Čech cocycle condition).

A principal G-bundle is a G-bundle where the fiber F is a principal homogeneous space for the left action of G itself (equivalently, one can specify that the action of G on the fiber F is free and transitive, i.e. regular). In this case, it is often a matter of convenience to identify F with G and so obtain a (right) action of G on the principal bundle.

Bundle maps
It is useful to have notions of a mapping between two fiber bundles. Suppose that M and N are base spaces, and $$\pi_E : E \to M$$ and $$\pi_F : F \to N$$ are fiber bundles over M and N, respectively. A ' or ' consists of a pair of continuous functions $$\varphi : E \to F,\quad f : M \to N$$ such that $$\pi_F\circ \varphi = f \circ \pi_E.$$ That is, the following diagram is commutative:

For fiber bundles with structure group G and whose total spaces are (right) G-spaces (such as a principal bundle), bundle morphisms are also required to be G-equivariant on the fibers. This means that $$\varphi : E \to F$$ is also G-morphism from one G-space to another, that is, $$\varphi(xs) = \varphi(x)s$$ for all $$x \in E$$ and $$s \in G.$$

In case the base spaces M and N coincide, then a bundle morphism over M from the fiber bundle $$\pi_E : E \to M$$ to $$\pi_F : F \to M$$ is a map $$\varphi : E \to F$$ such that $$\pi_E = \pi_F \circ \varphi.$$ This means that the bundle map $$\varphi : E \to F$$ covers the identity of M. That is, $$f \equiv \mathrm{id}_{M}$$ and the following diagram commutes:

Assume that both $$\pi_E : E \to M$$ and $$\pi_F : F \to M$$ are defined over the same base space M. A bundle isomorphism is a bundle map $$(\varphi,\, f)$$ between $$\pi_E : E \to M$$ and $$\pi_F : F \to M$$ such that $$f \equiv \mathrm{id}_M$$ and such that $$\varphi$$ is also a homeomorphism.

Differentiable fiber bundles
In the category of differentiable manifolds, fiber bundles arise naturally as submersions of one manifold to another. Not every (differentiable) submersion $$f : M \to N$$ from a differentiable manifold M to another differentiable manifold N gives rise to a differentiable fiber bundle. For one thing, the map must be surjective, and $$(M, N, f)$$ is called a fibered manifold. However, this necessary condition is not quite sufficient, and there are a variety of sufficient conditions in common use.

If M and N are compact and connected, then any submersion $$f : M \to N$$ gives rise to a fiber bundle in the sense that there is a fiber space F diffeomorphic to each of the fibers such that $$(E, B, \pi, F) = (M, N, f, F)$$ is a fiber bundle. (Surjectivity of $$f$$ follows by the assumptions already given in this case.) More generally, the assumption of compactness can be relaxed if the submersion $$f : M \to N$$ is assumed to be a surjective proper map, meaning that $$f^{-1}(K)$$ is compact for every compact subset K of N. Another sufficient condition, due to, is that if $$f : M \to N$$ is a surjective submersion with M and N differentiable manifolds such that the preimage $$f^{-1}\{x\}$$ is compact and connected for all $$x \in N,$$ then $$f$$ admits a compatible fiber bundle structure.

Generalizations

 * The notion of a bundle applies to many more categories in mathematics, at the expense of appropriately modifying the local triviality condition; cf. principal homogeneous space and torsor (algebraic geometry).
 * In topology, a fibration is a mapping $$\pi : E \to B$$ that has certain homotopy-theoretic properties in common with fiber bundles. Specifically, under mild technical assumptions a fiber bundle always has the homotopy lifting property or homotopy covering property (see  for details).  This is the defining property of a fibration.
 * A section of a fiber bundle is a "function whose output range is continuously dependent on the input." This property is formally captured in the notion of dependent type.

title: Fiber bundle


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The Battle of the Somme (film)

The Battle of the Somme (US title, Kitchener's Great Army in the Battle of the Somme), is a 1916 British documentary and propaganda war film, shot by two official cinematographers, Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell. The film depicts the British Expeditionary Force during the preliminaries and early days of the Battle of the Somme (1 July – 18 November 1916). The film premièred in London on 10 August 1916 and was released generally on 21 August. The film shows trench warfare, marching infantry, artillery firing on German positions, British troops waiting to attack on 1 July, the treatment of wounded British and German soldiers, British and German dead and captured German equipment and positions. A scene during which British troops crouch in a ditch then "go over the top" was staged for the camera behind the lines.

The film was a great success, watched by about 20 million people in Britain in the first six weeks of exhibition and distributed in eighteen countries. A second film, covering a later phase of the battle, was released in 1917 as The Battle of the Ancre and the Advance of the Tanks. In 1920, the film was preserved in the film archive of the Imperial War Museum. In 2005, it was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, digitally restored and was released on DVD in 2008. "The Battle of the Somme" is significant as an early example of film propaganda, a historical record of the battle and as a popular source of footage illustrating the First World War.

Content
The Battle of the Somme is a black-and-white silent film in five parts, with sequences divided by intertitles summarising the contents. The first part shows preparations for the battle; there are sequences of troops marching towards the front, French peasants at work in rear areas, the stockpiling of munitions, Major-General Beauvoir De Lisle addresses the 29th Division and some of the preparatory bombardment by 18-pounder, 60-pounder and 4.7-inch guns, 6-inch, 9.2-inch howitzers and 2-inch mortars is shown.

The second part depicts more preparations, troops moving into front line trenches, the intensification of the artillery barrage by 12-inch and 15-inch howitzers, a 9.45-inch heavy mortar and the detonation of the mine under the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt. Part three begins with the attack on the First day on the Somme (1 July 1916), with some re-enactments and shows the recovery of British wounded and German prisoners. The fourth part shows more scenes of British and German wounded the clearing of the battlefield and some of the aftermath. The final part shows scenes of devastation, including the ruins of the village of Mametz, British troops at rest and preparations for the next stage of the advance.

Background
On 2 November 1915, the British Topical Committee for War Films, representing British newsreel producers and supported by the War Office, despatched two cameramen to France. Geoffrey Malins of Gaumont British and Edward Tong of Jury's Imperial Pictures, were to shoot footage for short newsreels. By early June Tong had fallen ill and been sent home but he and Malins had made five series of newsreels, which although well-received, had failed to impress the British cinema trade. John McDowell, of the British & Colonial film company, volunteered to replace Tong and left for France on 23 June 1916. On 24 June, the British and French armies began the preparatory artillery bombardment of German positions for the Battle of the Somme.

Photography
Malins and McDowell shot the film between 26 June and from 7 to 9 July. Malins filmed in the vicinity of Beaumont Hamel, on attachment with the 29th Division (VIII Corps); McDowell worked further south near Fricourt and Mametz with the 7th Division (XV Corps). Before the battle, Malins worked at the north end of the British Somme sector, photographing troops on the march and heavy artillery west of Gommecourt. De Lisle suggested to Malins that he view the bombardment of Beaumont Hamel from Jacob's Ladder, near White City, an abrupt drop down the side of a valley, with about 25 steps cut into the ground, showing up white because of the chalk. Sappers had dug the large mine under Hawthorn Ridge in front of White City. German shells were falling as Malins made his way to Lanwick Street Trench; he had to rise above the parapet to remove sandbags and then set up his camera, which was camouflaged with sackcloth.

Malins returned to film the speech by de Lisle to the 2nd Royal Fusiliers, after which Malins heard of the postponement of the battle for 48 hours. Malins returned to White City to film the bombardment of the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt by trench mortars, during which there were three misfires which destroyed a trench-mortar position nearby. On 1 July, Malins filmed troops of the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers waiting to advance at Beaumont Hamel from a sunken lane in no man's land, which had been occupied by digging a 2 × tunnel overnight. Malins then went back to Jacob's Ladder to film the explosion of the Hawthorn Ridge mine. At 7:19 a.m., Malins began filming and the mine detonation shook the ground as troops of Royal Engineers advanced on either side to occupy the crater.

Later in the day, a shell explosion damaged the camera tripod; Malins repaired it and in the evening filmed roll-calls. Next day Malins shot film at La Boisselle before leaving for London around 9 July. Malins returned to France and from 12 to 19 July filmed sequences of shellfire and of troops advancing from trenches, staged for the camera at a Third Army mortar school near St Pol. McDowell reached the Somme front after Malins and began filming British preparations on 28 or 29 June, to the east of Albert. He covered the opening day of the battle from the vicinity of Carnoy and from the dressing-station at Minden Post. The success of the 7th Division enabled McDowell to film captured German trenches near Fricourt and Mametz.

Editing
On 10 July, Brigadier-General John Charteris reported to the War Office that some 8000 ft of footage had been shot and recommended that sections of film should be released as soon as possible. Footage was first viewed as a negative on 12 July and Charles Urban is thought to have begun work on the film as editor, with the assistance of Malins. Urban later claimed to have proposed that the film be issued as a feature film rather than in short sections. The change in format was agreed with the British Topical Committee for War Films and a 5000 ft cut of the film was ready by 19 July. Much of the footage was censored from the public version as the War Office wanted the film to contain images that would support the war effort and raise morale. A 77-minute version was ready by 31 July and a rough cut was screened at the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) General Headquarters (GHQ) at Montreuil, Pas-de-Calais and at the Fourth Army headquarters. The commander Lieutenant-General Henry Rawlinson said "some of it is very good but it cut out many of the horrors in dead and wounded". The film was shown to the Secretary of State for War, David Lloyd George, on 2 August and members of the cinema trade late on 7 August, the day that the film received final approval for release.

Release
The film comprises five reels and is 77 minutes long. The first screening took place on 10 August 1916 at the Scala Theatre, to an audience of journalists, Foreign Office officials, cinema trade figures and officers of the Imperial General Staff. The screening was preceded by the reading of a letter from Lloyd George, exhorting the audience to "see that this picture, which is in itself an epic of self-sacrifice and gallantry, reaches everyone. Herald the deeds of our brave men to the ends of the earth. This is your duty".

A musical medley with excerpts from classical, folk, contemporary and popular pieces, to be played in cinemas by accompanying musicians, was devised by J. Morton Hutcheson and published in The Bioscope on 17 August 1916. On 21 August, the film began showing simultaneously in thirty-four London cinemas and opened in provincial cities the following week, when the film was shown simultaneously at twenty cinemas in Birmingham, at least twelve cinemas in Glasgow and Edinburgh, six cinemas in Cardiff and three in Leeds. The Royal Family received a private screening at Windsor Castle on 2 September; the film was exhibited in more than eighteen countries.

Britain

The popularity of the film was unprecedented and cinemas played the film for longer runs than usual, often to packed houses, while some arranged additional screenings to meet demand. The film is thought to have achieved attendance figures of twenty million in its first six weeks of release. The film also attracted more middle-class audiences, some of whom had never been to a cinema before. William Jury, as the film's booking director, initially charged exhibitors £40, with the fee decreasing by £5 a week; after two months, a reduced fee of £6 for three nights put the film within the price range of village halls wishing to show the film. By October 1916, the film had been booked by more than two thousand cinemas in Britain, earning over £30,000. British authorities showed the film to the public as a morale-booster and in general it met with a favourable reception. The Times reported on 22 August that

"Crowded audiences ... were interested and thrilled to have the realities of war brought so vividly before them, and if women had sometimes to shut their eyes to escape for a moment from the tragedy of the toll of battle which the film presents, opinion seems to be general that it was wise that the people at home should have this glimpse of what our soldiers are doing and daring and suffering in Picardy."

Some members of the audience considered it immoral to portray scenes of violence; Hensley Henson, the Dean of Durham, protested "against an entertainment which wounds the heart and violates the very sanctity of bereavement". Others complained that such a serious film shared the cinema programme with comedy films. On 28 August, the Yorkshire Evening Post printed the comment, attributed to Lloyd George, "If the exhibition of this Picture all over the world does not end War, God help civilisation". The film was shown to British troops in France from 5 September; Lieutenant-Colonel Rowland Feilding, an officer who saw the film in a muddy field near Morlancourt, described it as "a wonderful and most realistic production" but criticised the film for failing to record the sound of rifles and machine-guns, although there was an artillery accompaniment from guns firing nearby. Feilding suggested that the film could reassure new recruits, by giving them some idea of what to expect in battle; the intertitles were forthright, describing images of injury and death.

International
The film was shown in New Zealand in October 1916. On 12 October, the Wellington Evening Post ran an advertisement for the film, describing it as "the extraordinary films of 'the big push' and "an awe-inspiring, glorious presentation of what our heroes are accomplishing today". In a review published on 16 October, it was written that "these pictures of the Battle of the Somme are a real and valuable contribution to the nation's knowledge and a powerful spur to national effort". The film premièred in Australia on 13 October at Hoyt's Picture Theatre in Melbourne. The Melbourne Argus considered that after the attack sequence, "... you are not in a Melbourne picture theatre, but in the very forefront of the Somme battle" and called the film "this moving reality of battle".

The film and its reception attracted great interest in Germany, which was able to read a report from a neutral reporter in London, filed in the Berliner Tageblatt. British cinema was said to be taking a serious view of the war, helped by the government, which had arranged for the production of "real war films", The Battle of the Somme was "absorbing" and had attracted huge audiences. German troops recovered a letter from a British civilian, who had seen the film on 26 August and written to a soldier in France, describing the issue of a leaflet to each filmgoer that stated that the film was not entertainment but an official film. Having viewed the film, the writer was sure that it would enlighten the audience in a way never before achieved.

Other films
During the second week of August, King George V, the Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and Lloyd George toured the Western Front and were filmed by Malins. The War Office released the film in October as The King Visits His Armies in the Great Advance. Malins made a third film The Battle of the Ancre and the Advance of the Tanks which opened in January 1917. In the same month a German film With our Heroes on the Somme was shown but "lacked the immediacy" of the British film, being re-enactments at training establishments behind the lines, which received a lukewarm reception. A booklet to accompany the film proclaimed that it depicted "the German will in war" and implied that the enemies of Germany were using colonial troops to undermine "German honour". Malins' final feature film The German Retreat and the Battle of Arras was released in June 1917, showing the destruction of Péronne and the first British troops across the Somme, following-up the German withdrawal; the film failed to attract the audiences of 1916.

Preservation
In 1920, the original nitrate negative was passed to the Imperial War Museum for preservation. A nitrate protection archive master was made in 1921 and an acetate safety master in 1931. The nitrate masters were destroyed in the 1970s after the onset of irreversible nitrate decomposition. Excerpts have been taken for television documentaries, including The Great War (1964. BBC), The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (1996, PBS) and The First World War (2003, Channel 4). The film was offered on VHS in 1987, the first title from the Imperial War Museum film archive to be released on video. In 2005, The Battle of the Somme was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register for the preservation of global documentary heritage. The film was described by UNESCO as a "compelling documentary record of one of the key battles of the First World War [and] the first feature-length documentary film record of combat produced anywhere in the world" and had "played a major part in establishing the methodology of documentary and propaganda film."

Recent screenings
On 22 October 2006, after a film restoration project, a refined version of the film was screened at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra performing an original orchestral score by Laura Rossi. The restoration was later nominated for an Archive Restoration or Preservation Project award by the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries. In November 2008, the restored film was released on DVD, to mark the 90th anniversary of the Armistice with Germany in 1918. The DVD included the score by Laura Rossi, an accompanying 1916 musical medley, a commentary by Roger Smither, a film archivist at the Imperial War Museum and interviews with Smither, Rossi, Toby Haggith (film archivist) and Stephen Horne (silent film musician) on the reconstruction of the contemporary medley; film fragments and missing scenes were also included in the DVD.

In 2012, with the support of the Imperial War Museum, there were public screenings of the restored film accompanied by a live orchestra playing the soundtrack of Rossi's music. Somme100 FILM has a target of a hundred performances of the film by amateur and professional orchestras in the centenary year, between July 2016 and July 2017.

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

title: The Battle of the Somme (film)


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St. Olaf College

St. Olaf College is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. It was founded in 1874 by a group of Norwegian-American pastors and farmers led by Pastor Bernt Julius Muus. The college is named after the King and the Patron Saint Olaf II of Norway and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

As of 2024, the college had 3,074 undergraduate students and 313 faculty members. The campus, including its 430 acre natural lands, is 2 mi west of Northfield, Minnesota; Northfield is also the home of its neighbor and friendly rival Carleton College. Between 1995 and 2020, 154 St. Olaf graduates were named Fulbright Scholars and 35 received Goldwater Scholarships.

Seal and motto
The seal of the St. Olaf College displays the Coat of arms of Norway, which includes the axe of St. Olaf.

The motto ''Fram! Fram! Kristmenn, Krossmenn'', written in New Norwegian, is adapted from the Old Norse battle cry of King Olaf. It means "Forward! Forward! Men of Christ, Men of the Cross".

Founding
Many Norwegian immigrants arrived in Rice County, Minnesota, and the surrounding area in the late 19th century. Nearly all were Lutheran Christians, and desired a non-secular post-secondary institution in the Lutheran tradition that offered classes in all subjects in both Norwegian and English. The catalyst for St. Olaf's founding was the Reverend Bernt Julius Muus; he sought out the help of the Revs. N. A. Quammen and H. Thorson. Together they petitioned their parishes and others to raise money to buy a plot of land on which to build the new institution. The three received around $10,000 in pledges, formed a corporation and bought land and four buildings (old Northfield schoolhouses) for the school. Muus came under scrutiny after a divorce case revealed extensive acts of domestic abuse. He fell out of favor with many of his predecessors, but the school did not officially denounce his abuses.

St. Olaf's School opened on January 8, 1875, at its first site under the leadership of its first president, Thorbjorn N. Mohn, a graduate of Luther College. Herman Amberg Preus, president of the Norwegian Synod, laid the foundation stone of the St. Olaf School on July 4, 1877. In 1887 the Manitou Messenger was founded as a campus magazine and has since evolved into the college's student newspaper, now called the Olaf Messenger. 1887 was also the year that the first female St. Olaf graduate, Agnes Mellby, joined the college. Mellby graduated in 1893. She was the first woman to graduate from a Norwegian Lutheran college in the United States. On June 20, 1889, the school's board of trustees renamed the school St. Olaf College.

In 1932, Red Wing Lutheran Seminary was merged into St. Olaf and its Red Wing campus was closed. The Seminary was an independent academic institution from 1879 to 1932.

Financial crisis
In 1893, St. Olaf faced severe economic difficulties. A national economic depression caused enrollment to drop from a high of 147 in 1892 to 129 in 1893. Also in 1893 the Norwegian Synod voted to cut ties with the college, greatly reducing its income. By the August 1893 board meeting, the college was $10,000 in debt. On August 2 the Board of Trustees appointed professor H. T. Ytterboe to travel around the Midwest and collect funds for the college. During this time President Mohn took over Ytterboe's responsibilities managing the college's finances. Over the next six years faculty and staff saw their salaries reduced, and the number of teaching faculty was reduced from eleven to seven. Ytterboe spent six years traveling the Midwest and was highly effective at fundraising, averaging $6,500 per year, mostly in small donations of a dollar or more from farmers and private individuals. By 1897, when the synod reinstated the college, the debt was reduced to less than $4,000. Historians of the college widely regard Ytterboe's and Mohn's efforts as having saved the college from extinction.

Scarlet fever epidemic
Following students' return from Christmas vacation in 1903, an epidemic of scarlet fever broke out on the campus and quickly spread. Twenty-eight out of St. Olaf's approximately three hundred students came down with the highly infectious disease. With no local hospital, the north wing on the third floor of the Men's Dormitory was used as a makeshift hospital and staffed with two nurses who worked tirelessly to contain the spread of the disease.

1918 Spanish flu pandemic
At the beginning of the spread of the Spanish flu to the United States, St. Olaf went into voluntary quarantine in hopes of avoiding the epidemic, allowing students to leave campus only for emergencies once they had obtained a pass. The first cases on St. Olaf's campus occurred on November 11, 1918, and shortly thereafter the college hospital was filled to capacity. Ytterboe Hall was converted into a hospital for the sick once the temporary beds in Hoyme Chapel had filled. St. Olaf officially closed for the year on December 7, due to a rapid rise of influenza cases. Four students died from flu complications.

St. Olaf during the Second World War
At the beginning of World War II, St. Olaf was not directly involved with the conflict, with the extent of wartime activities including Red Cross drives and a “Bundles for Britain” project. But by the fall of 1942, over 400 undergraduates and alumni were serving overseas. The campus was also ordered to house 600 U.S. Naval recruits for flight training, leading to the conversion of Mohn and Ytterboe Halls from women's dormitories to housing for naval servicemen. Students living in Ytterboe and Mohn Halls were required to move to Agnes Mellby Hall to accommodate the naval personnel.

Connections with Norway
King Olav visited the college in 1987 and King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway visited in 2011. Queen Sonja visited the college's campus again in 2022 as part of a tour to celebrate the connections between Norway and Minnesota's Norwegian-American community. She participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Special Collections vault at Rølvaag Memorial Library.

Presidents
St. Olaf has had 12 presidents since its founding:
 * Thorbjorn N. Mohn, 1874–99
 * John N. Kildahl, 1899–1914
 * Lauritz A. Vigness, 1914–18
 * Lars W. Boe, 1918–42
 * Clemens M. Granskou, 1943–63
 * Sidney A. Rand, 1963–80
 * Harlan F. Foss, Ph.D., 1980–85
 * Melvin D. George, Ph.D., 1985–94
 * Mark U. Edwards Jr., Ph.D., 1994–2000
 * Christopher M. Thomforde, D.Min., 2001–06
 * David R. Anderson, Ph.D., 2006-23
 * Susan Rundell Singer, Ph.D., since 2023

Church affiliations

 * 1874–87 Norwegian Synod
 * 1887–90 Anti-Missourian Brotherhood
 * 1890–1917 United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America
 * 1917–60 Evangelical Lutheran Church
 * 1960–87 The American Lutheran Church
 * 1988–present Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Campus
Known as "The Hill", St. Olaf College's picturesque 300 acre campus is home to 17 academic and administrative buildings, 29 student residences and 10 athletic facilities. St. Olaf is a residential college; 96% of St. Olaf students reside in one of the 11 residence halls and 18 academic and special interest group houses. Adjacent to campus are 325 acre of restored wetlands, woodlands, and native tall grass prairie owned and maintained by St. Olaf, and a utility-grade wind turbine that supplies up to one-third of the college's electrical needs.

Two buildings on the campus are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: Old Main, designed by Long and Haglin; and Steensland Library, designed by Omeyer and Thori. In 2011, Travel+Leisure named St. Olaf one of the most beautiful college campuses in the United States.

Edward Sövik, a liturgical architect and St. Olaf professor of art until his death in 2014, designed or assisted in the design of 20 campus buildings.

Center for Art and Dance
The Center for Art and Dance is a collaborative project with offerings from the art, art history, and dance departments. It houses the Flaten Art Museum and studio spaces dedicated to painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, wood sculpture, digital media, photography, and a metal foundry, all named after alumni and educators who contributed to the development of each discipline. The Flaten Art Museum was founded as the Steensland Art Gallery in 1976. In 2002, it was moved to the Center for Art and Dance and renamed to honor Arnold Flaten, a past professor of art, and his family. The museum has a collection of regional, national, and international works and exhibits these as well as faculty and student work.

The building underwent significant remodeling in the early 2000s and was initially dedicated as the Dittmann Complex, honoring Reidar Dittmann. Dittmann was born in Norway in 1922, and spent the better part of his youth working with the Norwegian resistance against the rising Nazi regime until his imprisonment in the Buchenwald concentration camp. After his immigration to the United States, Dittmann joined St. Olaf's faculty as a professor of art and Norwegian in 1947. In 1952 He and Ansgar Sovik co-founded the International Studies program, now known as the Office of International and Off-Campus Studies. After his death in 2010, serious sexual assault allegations from St. Olaf alumni surfaced under the revisions of Title IX Policy concerning Dittmann and other faculty members. The decision to rename the building was made in 2017, following the pattern of campuses around the country questioning the names of buildings dedicated to notable alumni with contentious histories.

Agnes Mellby Hall
Mellby Hall was constructed in 1938 to meet the needs of the growing female student population overflowing from Ladies' Hall, the first female dormitory competed in 1879, and Mohn Hall, completed in 1912. The building is dedicated to 1893 alumna Agnes Theodora Mellby, the first woman to graduate from St. Olaf. Born in Christiania, Norway in 1870, Mellby immigrated with her family to the U.S. in 1871 and settled in New Richland, Minnesota. After finishing her Academy (1891) and College (1893) studies at St. Olaf, she returned as the Dean of Women and an educator that fall, affectionately known as the Preceptress by those she worked with. Mellby taught English, German, geography, U. S. History, civics, and math, firm in her resolve to see to the well-being of St. Olaf's female population regarding education and housing. She held her position from 1893 until 1909, and continued to work with the college after retiring until her death in 1918.

Agnes Kittelsby Hall
In 1956, Agnes Kittelsby Hall was constructed with rooms for 164 women as an adjacent wing to the Gertrude Hilleboe Hall. It was an all-women's dormitory until St. Olaf residence halls became co-ed. The building is named after Agnes Kittelsby, St. Olaf class of 1900. Like many St. Olaf alumnae, Kittelsby taught various subjects at the college after her graduation. In 1914, she moved to China and established American School Kikungshan, a school for the children of American missionaries.

Thorson Hall
Thorson Hall was constructed as a men's dormitory in 1948. It was one of four dormitories constructed in the 1940s and 1950s to address an increase in enrollment after World War II. The building is named after Harald Thorson (1841–1920), an early benefactor of the college. A businessman, Thorson owned farms, sold horses and mules, and established banks. He was instrumental in establishing St. Olaf's School (as it was first named), choosing the initial 30 acre plot of land and authorizing the first payment for it. He later served as a member of the original Board of Trustees. Thorson's will bequeathed most of his estate to St. Olaf under the stipulation that the money be used for the construction of a new building, Thorson Hall.

Curriculum
Before graduating, St. Olaf students complete 15-18 required courses in general education credits, including courses in writing, a foreign language, society, religion, ethics, mathematical reasoning, race, social science, and natural science. Many of the courses are interdisciplinary. St. Olaf offers 41 different majors for the bachelor of arts degree, five for the bachelor of music degree, and 20 areas of concentration, which are pursued independently of majors. Its most popular majors, based on 2021 graduates, were:
 * Biology/Biological Sciences (83)
 * Economics (64)
 * Research and Experimental Psychology (57)
 * Mathematics (34)
 * English Language and Literature (33)
 * Political Science and Government (33)

As of the 2020–21 academic year, the student-to-faculty ratio is 12.2 to 1.

The Paracollege lasted for 31 years, from 1969 to 2000, and was an individualized, interdisciplinary option for obtaining the Bachelor of Arts degree. The Paracollege program emphasized student-centered education through workshops, colloquia, tutorials, seminars, and senior concentrations. It was replaced by the Center for Integrative Studies, which allows students to design individual majors.

Admissions
According to the St. Olaf College Common Dataset for the class of 2024, St. Olaf received 5,229 applications, accepted 2,656 (50.8%), and enrolled 727. The middle 50% range of SAT Composite scores for the class of 2024 was 1160–1370, while the ACT Composite range was 25–32. Of the 37% of enrolled first-year students who submitted high school class rank, 39% were in the top tenth of their high school classes and 69% ranked in the top quarter. The average high school GPA was 3.68.

Rankings
The 2024 annual ranking by U.S. News & World Report rates St. Olaf 51st among 223 "National Liberal Arts Colleges", 29th among 100 "Best Value Schools", and tied at 27th for "Best Undergraduate Teaching" among 75 ranked liberal arts colleges.

Forbes in 2019 rated St. Olaf 116th overall in its America's Top Colleges ranking of 650 military academies, national universities, and liberal arts colleges, and 50th among liberal arts colleges.

Washington Monthly ranked St. Olaf 28th in 2022 among 203 liberal arts colleges in the U.S. based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service.

St. Olaf was ranked 47th for liberal arts colleges on Payscale.com's 2016-17 list of highest-paid graduates.

Student organizations
More than 250 student organizations are registered at St. Olaf, including academic, athletic, awareness, multicultural, political, religious, service (Alpha Phi Omega) and other special interest groups. Club sports include rowing, men's and women's Ultimate Frisbee, men's and women's rugby, men's and women's lacrosse, badminton, cycling, judo, and fencing. KSTO 93.1 FM is the student-operated radio station and the Olaf Messenger (formerly known as the Manitou Messenger) is the student newspaper. The paper changed its name in 2020 in response to concerns of the appropriation of the word "Manitou" from the language of the original inhabitants of the land the college is built on. Other groups include an on-campus organic farm (STOGROW), an improv comedy troupe (Scared Scriptless), and an EMT (emergency medical technician) organization that is the first responder for campus emergencies. St. Olaf students edit and publish several journals each year, including The Reed, the world's only international undergraduate journal for existential philosophy.

Student government
St. Olaf's Student Government Association (SGA) finances many student activities and organizations on campus. It operates through 10 branches, each managed by an elected executive: Diversity Celebrations Committee, Volunteer Network, Music Entertainment Committee, Student Activities Committee, Student Organizations Committee, Board of Regents Student Committee, The Pause, After Dark Committee, and Political Awareness Committee. Besides these committees, students can serve in the Student Senate to vote on issues such as constitutional bylaws changes and dorm capital improvement funds and communicate with college administrators about campus issues. SGA also maintains Oleville.com, a website containing information about student activities.

Ytterboe the Dog
Ytterboe, named after former professor H. T. Ytterboe, was a black dog who became a facet of campus life at St. Olaf in 1942. Fed and cared for by students, the dog became an unofficial mascot. In 1957, Ytterboe the Dog "allegedly" bit the son of a local police officer Peter Morris. In response, Morris sent two officers to St. Olaf's campus to capture the dog. After he evaded capture, police shot Ytterboe on the library hill, in front of students who were studying for finals. In response, St. Olaf and Carleton students protested, gaining local and national coverage. At the protests, an effigy of the officer who shot Ytterboe was hung from a streetlight and burned. The Minnesota highway patrol was called in to control the protest as students continued demonstrating in Northfield. In response to the protests, the chief of police said, "Nobody loves a dog more than I do. We didn't mean to kill him". St. Olaf President Clemens M. Granskou commented, "As far as I could see, this is one of these tempests in a teacup that usually take place once in a while in the springtime on a college campus".

Initially, the Northfield Police sent Ytterboe's body to a local landfill, but students retrieved it. Afterward, Ytterboe's head was sent to Minneapolis to be tested for rabies; it tested negative. His body was buried on a slope of Manitou Heights the day after he was shot as a crowd of 2,000 students and members of the community gathered to pay their respects.

ROTC
Between 50 and 75 students from St. Olaf, accompanied by some Carleton students, occupied the St. Olaf administration building on April 16, 1970, demanding that the school cut ties with the ROTC. Students occupied the building until Friday afternoon, ending their occupation when President Sidney Rand came to an agreement with the leaders of the protest. The school moved forward on votes within the administration and the board of regents in return for the cessation of "obstructive demonstration". The St. Olaf protests coincided with a similar occupation at Macalester College.

Sexual misconduct
In 2016, students protested the school's policies on sexual harassment through a T-shirt campaign. Students donned grey shirts reading "Ask me how my college is protecting my rapist" to draw attention to the school's sexual misconduct policies. Information about the campaign circulated through social media and was soon picked up by local news sources. In response, the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Education Department launched an investigation into the college's policies. Soon after, the school officially announced an overhaul of its Title IX policies.

Racism
In 2017, a series of notes containing threats and racial slurs appeared. In response, students protested for systemic changes within the school on issues like diversity and inclusion, cultural sensitivity, and hate crimes. As of May 1, 2017, there had been 9 reported acts of hate speech during the school year. By occupying campus buildings, blocking entrances to the cafeteria, and boycotting classes, demonstrators pushed the administration to act on a number of demands. While the protests prompted the administration to reevaluate its policies, an investigation revealed that one of the notes was forged. While the forgery undermined the movement for some, others saw it as a rogue action that did not detract from the progress made.

Climate
In 2019, St. Olaf students joined over four million people worldwide who participated in the September 2019 climate strikes, a continuation of the school strike for climate movement inspired by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. On September 20, hundreds of St. Olaf students walked out of class and marched into downtown Northfield, where they joined other Northfield citizens to raise awareness of the growing threat of global climate change. The St. Olaf strike was organized by the college's Climate Justice Collective (CJC), a group dedicated to increasing campus awareness of climate issues and pushing St. Olaf to divest its endowment from fossil fuel companies.

Music program
St. Olaf's music program was founded by F. Melius Christiansen in 1903. Its band, choir and orchestra tour the continental United States annually and have made many international tours, typically occurring triennially. The St. Olaf Band was the first American college musical organization to conduct a concert tour abroad when it traveled to Norway in 1906. It was awarded The American Prize in Band/Wind Ensemble Performance, 2021, in the college/university (smaller program) division.

The St. Olaf Choir was founded in 1907 as the St. John's Lutheran Church Choir in Northfield, a collegiate ensemble. It has toured Europe several times, as well as China, Korea, and Australia, performing before heads of state and producing more than a dozen recordings. The choir performs in the nationally broadcast annual St. Olaf Christmas Festival, along with the St. Olaf Orchestra and four of the college's other choirs.

Other student musical ensembles include The St. Olaf Handbell Choir, Chapel Choir, Cantorei, Manitou Singers, Viking Chorus, Collegiate Chorale, Philharmonia, Norseman Band, and many smaller vocal and instrumental ensembles. There are also student-run music ensembles at St. Olaf: Valhalla Band, Naknefeler Orchestra, and the men's and women's a cappella groups: The Limestones, Agnes, and Krossmen. In addition, the Gospel Choir of St. Olaf is one of few Midwest college gospel choirs. These groups are not a part of the college's music program and operate independently.

Ensembles founded at St. Olaf include the Minnesota Symphonic Winds, the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Copper Street Brass and the a cappella choral groups Cantus, Inpulse, and Magnum Chorum. St. Olaf is also the location of the sacred choral music radio show Sing for Joy.

Athletics
St. Olaf's athletic teams are called the Oles. Their colors are black and gold. The college is a member of the NCAA Division III level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), primarily competing in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) in most sports since the 1974–75 academic year (of which it was also a member from 1920–21 to 1949–50), while its Alpine and Nordic skiing teams compete as Independents. The Oles competed in the Midwest Collegiate Athletic Conference (MCAC, known as the Midwest Conference since 1994–95) from 1952–53 to 1973–74.

St. Olaf competes in 26 intercollegiate varsity sports (13 for men and 13 for women). Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, hockey, skiing (Nordic and Alpine), soccer, swimming & diving, tennis, and track & field (indoor and outdoor); women's sports include basketball, cross country, golf, ice hockey, skiing (Nordic and Alpine), soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis, track & field (indoor and outdoor), and volleyball. Former sports included men's wrestling.

St. Olaf also has many student-coached club and intramural teams that compete within the student body and also inter-college. Notable are the St. Olaf Ultimate teams, The Berzerkers and Durga (team name changed to Vortex in 2015 ), which make an annual trip to a national collegiate tournament (Spring Ultimax) in North Carolina. The women's Ultimate teams have been successful at the national level for many years. In 2011, Durga played at the Division III Nationals tournament in Buffalo, New York, finishing in seventh place. The team also played in the DIII Nationals tournament in 2014. In 2017, Vortex again qualified for the national tournament in Kentucky and placed seventh. In 2018, Vortex won the DIII national championship in Rockford, Illinois. After that success, Vortex placed third at the DIII National tournament in College Station, Texas. The St. Olaf Dance Team supports St. Olaf athletic teams (football, men's/women's soccer and basketball) with halftime performances and competes in intercollegiate events every year. It has performed in the Minnesota Swarm lacrosse team's halftime show and placed third in its division at the 2011 St. Thomas Invitational.

Football

St. Olaf is a traditional athletic rival of its crosstown neighbor Carleton College. The annual American football game between the Knights and the Oles was recently dubbed the "Cereal Bowl" in honor of the Malt-O-Meal production facility in Northfield. The annual winner receives the "Goat Trophy", which was created by Minneapolis dentist Ranthus B. Fouch in 1931.

The rivalry between St. Olaf and Carleton began with a Carleton victory over St. Olaf in 1919. A statue of an eagle in Northfield's Civil War Veterans' Memorial (in Bridge Square) is turned to face the college that wins the annual match between the schools.

These football teams are also significant for having played the only NCAA-sanctioned "Liter Bowl" metric football game in history, which St. Olaf won in 1977.

Cross country
The Great Karhu Shoe Race is an annual rivalry between the cross country teams of Carleton and St. Olaf College. The race was founded in 1972 when Carleton Coach Bill Huyck was in search of a new championship course for the Midwest Conference Meet. St. Olaf coach Bill Thornton agreed to a competition between the runners on each team who were not on the varsity top 7. The varsity athletes were still racing later in the season. The trophy for the 1972 race was a pair of Karhu Shoes worth $10. These shoes have remained the trophy to this day.

Several traditions exist between the St. Olaf and Carleton runners at the race. As the race typically falls near Halloween, many of the runners will often don costumes. The runners for the St. Olaf men use safety pins to attach gummy bears to their shorts, which the Carleton runners attempt to rip off.

Kierkegaard Library
The Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library is a research collection dedicated to the work of the 19th-century Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), housed at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota. Along with the Søren Kierkegaard Research Center at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, it is one of two internationally significant research facilities devoted to the study of Kierkegaard. The collection began as the private library of Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assembled during their complete translation of Kierkegaard's writings into English, the first volume of which received the National Book Award. Subsequent curators of the library were philosophers C. Stephen Evans and, from 1995 to 2022, Gordon D. Marino.

The Hongs donated the collection to St. Olaf College in 1976 with the understanding that it be made available as a center for research and publication. The library's current holdings include over 11,000 volumes, 3,500 periodical articles and a partial replication of Kierkegaard's personal library as well as titles Kierkegaard might have had access to during his lifetime. It hosts visiting researchers throughout the year (including an active summer fellows program) and periodic conferences and research seminars. Activities in the summer include Danish courses and an International Conference every fourth year. Yearlong Kierkegaard Fellowships see scholars living in St. Olaf's Kierkegaard House. The library's director is St. Olaf College philosophy faculty member Anna Louise Strelis Söderquist.

St. Olaf students edit and publish The Reed, an undergraduate journal of existential philosophy, from the library. The Reed began in 1998, and since then has published articles from undergraduates across the globe every year.

Flaten Art Museum
St. Olaf is home to the Flaten Art Museum, in the Center for Art and Dance. The museum holds over 4,000 works on rotating display to the public. The vast majority of the works were received through donations, but a few were purchased. The museum also displays senior studio majors' work at the end of the year to give them experience in having artwork displayed in a professional setting.

Poster collection
In 2015 St. Olaf accepted a collection of 147 rare World War II-era propaganda posters as part of a donation from the estate of Richard N. Tetlie. The posters were created by the Nazi regime and the Vichy French government for display across occupied Europe and were collected by Major Duncan Emrich, historian for General Dwight D. Eisenhower, during the liberation of Europe. The collection provides insight into how the Nazis and their allies attempted to foster racial ideology, encourage distrust of the Allies, and rally support for their cause by manipulating the fear, anxiety, traditions, and political circumstances of the people in the occupied territories. The museum contacted the Midwest Art Conservation Center for a full assessment of the collection in hopes that the posters can be restored. They could then be used in exhibits and as resources to teach about the dangers of propaganda and extremism.

Notable alumni
Notable St. Olaf alumni include civil rights activist James Reeb '50, AIA Gold Award-winning architect Edward Sövik '39, Minnesota Governor Al Quie '50, Oscar-winning screenwriter Barry Morrow '70, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gretchen Morgenson '76, and writers Ole Rolvaag 1905, Siri Hustvedt '77 (winner of the Princess of Asturias Award in Letters), and ornithologist Margaret Sordahl. Game designer Jonathan Tweet studied at the college, as did the first female major league baseball coach, Justine Siegal. Raffi Freedman-Gurspan graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and Norwegian. Andrew Volstead 1881 introduced the National Prohibition Act to Congress in 1919. Cheryl Willman is an American cancer researcher and the executive director of Mayo Clinic Cancer Programs.

Ernest Lawrence, recipient of the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics, studied for a year at St. Olaf.

In popular culture
St. Olaf is mentioned in the works of Minnesota author F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose character Jay Gatsby of The Great Gatsby attended the college briefly and worked as a janitor. The college is also frequently mentioned in Garrison Keillor's radio program A Prairie Home Companion, which broadcast its show from St. Olaf on November 17, 2001, and November 19, 2011.

The fictional Minnesota city of St. Olaf was the hometown of Rose Nylund in the TV show The Golden Girls. In the TV show the fictional city's sister city was St. Gustav, Minnesota, a nod to Gustavus Adolphus College, in nearby St. Peter, Minnesota. Betty White, the actress who played Rose, visited St. Olaf and was given an honorary membership in St. Olaf's chapter of the theater honorary society.

The St. Olaf Choir can be heard performing Mozart's Requiem with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in Nike's "Jordan XXII-Takeover" commercial. The choir is also on the soundtrack of the 1972 film The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid.

In October 2008 the Coen Brothers shot scenes at St. Olaf for their film A Serious Man. After a long search of many campuses, they chose St. Olaf's old Science Center because it had the late 1960s look of the movie. St. Olaf has since built a new science center and remodeled the old facility into Tomson Hall.

title: St. Olaf College


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Happy Fun Ball

The "Happy Fun Ball" is the subject of one of the parody advertisements on Saturday Night Live. Described as a "classic that can sit right up there with Dan Aykroyd's Bass-o-Matic", it originally aired February 16, 1991 on NBC and was brought back for several "Best of" specials. The topic of the sketch is a toy rubber ball, the advertisement for which is accompanied by a long series of bizarre disclaimers and increasingly ominous warnings, including "Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball."

Concept
Written by Jack Handey and voiced by Phil Hartman, the ad featured three "kids" portrayed by Dana Carvey, Jan Hooks, and Mike Myers. The brief commercial declares Happy Fun Ball (produced by Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company, Global Chemical Unlimited), just $14.95, was "the toy sensation sweeping the nation!" However, this positive message about the innocuous-seeming toy was undercut by a lengthier number of bizarre disclaimers and warnings, including "may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds" and "If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, seek shelter and cover head." Ingredients include "an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space"; said ingredients are not to be "touched, inhaled, or looked at" if exposed due to rupture. Viewers were also warned, "Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball." The sketch ends with a slogan for Happy Fun Ball: "Accept no substitutes!"

The parody lampooned advertisers, pharmaceutical companies, toy manufacturers, chemical companies, absurdly long legal disclaimers, alien conspiracies, and mentions the 1991 Gulf War (stating Happy Fun Ball was dropped by U.S. warplanes on Iraq).

Happy Fun Ball was presented as one of the sponsors of the first "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer" sketch (aired November 23, 1991), with the claim Happy Fun Ball was "Still legal in 16 states. It's happy. It's fun. It's Happy Fun Ball."

title: Happy Fun Ball


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Stefan Nemanja

Stefan Nemanja (Serbian Cyrillic: Стефан Немања, ; c. 1113 or 1114 – 20 February 1199) was the Grand Prince (Veliki Župan) of the Serbian Grand Principality (also known as Raška, lat. Rascia) from 1166 to 1196. A member of the Vukanović dynasty, Nemanja founded the Nemanjić dynasty, and is remembered for his contributions to Serbian culture and history, founding what would evolve into the Serbian Empire, as well as the national church. According to the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Nemanja is also among the most remarkable Serbs for his literary contributions and altruistic attributes.

In 1196, after three decades of warfare and negotiations, including the Third Norman invasion of the Balkans (1185–1186) which consolidated Serbia while distinguishing it from both Western and Byzantine spheres of influence, Nemanja abdicated in favour of his middle son Stefan Nemanjić, who later became the first King of Serbia. Nemanja ultimately went to Mount Athos, where he became a monk and took the name of Simeon, joining his youngest son (later known as Saint Sava), who had already become the first archbishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Together with his son Saint Sava, Nemanja restored the Hilandar Monastery at Mount Athos from 1198 to 1199, and issued the "Charter of Hilandar". The monastery thus became the center of Serbian Orthodox monasticism at Athos. Shortly after his death, Serbian Orthodox Church canonized Stefan Nemanja, under the name Saint Simeon the Myroblyte (Свети Симеон Мироточиви).

Early life
Nemanja was born around the year 1113 or 1114 AD in Ribnica, Zeta (in the vicinity of present-day Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro). He was the youngest son of Zavida, a Prince of Zahumlje, who after a conflict with his brothers was sent to Ribnica where he had the title of Lord. Zavida (Beli Uroš) was most probably a son of Uroš I or Vukan. Since western Zeta was under Roman Catholic jurisdiction, Nemanja received a Latin baptism, although much of his later life was spent balancing Western and Eastern forms of Christianity.

Byzantine-Hungarian War
In 1163, Emperor Manuel I Comnenus came to Niš with the army via Serdica (Sofia), where, according to John Kinnamos, he decided "to deal with things concerning Serbia". At that time, Serbia was ruled by the Grand Župan Desa, an ally of Stephen III in the Hungarian dynastic conflicts, and thus an opponent of Manuel. When in 1165 Desa was finally forced to come to Niš before the emperor, his connections with the Hungarian king Stephen III were revealed, Desa called him his master, Manuel I decided to take him to court and punish him. Desa was first detained and kept under guard, and then sent to the court prison in Constantinople.

The land was given by the emperor to the administration of Zavida's sons, who were in the pro-Byzantine party: Tihomir, Stracimir, Miroslav and the youngest Nemanja. Tihomir was the oldest and became the Grand Župan of Serbia. In January 1166, Tihomir was recognized by the brothers who were given to rule other certain parts of Serbia and the Serbian-Byzantine frontier. Stracimir held the areas around West Morava, Miroslav Zahumlje, while Stefan Nemanja was given the areas around Ibar, Toplica (region) and Dubočica (around Leskovac), which probably was historical region of Dendra west of Niš.

The Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus launched a large army against Hungary because he was informed of their dissatisfaction and internal conflicts. The Hungarian prince Béla III had to live in Constantinople, where he was married, and Béla's lands, Dalmatia with southern Hungary (below Velebit), had to come under Constantinople's rule. There is resistance in Hungary, which is why Emperor Manuel embarks on a campaign. The Byzantine army conquered Zemun and Srem in 1165. The Byzantines were accompanied by the obligatory detachments of Serbs. The second Byzantine army under command of John Doukas Komnenos moved west, across Serbia and Bosnia towards the Adriatic coast. Without significant resistance, they took all the cities from Split to Bar, forcing them to recognize Byzantine rule.

The Byzantines also had success in a campaign in Italy where they captured an important seaport on the west coast of the Adriatic, Ancona. Venice, which had previously turned to Byzantium for help during the conquest of Friedrich Barbarossa in northern Italy, changed its attitude towards the Byzantines for fear of losing the Adriatic. It approached Hungary as a natural ally against the Byzantines. At the same time, they began to work among the Serbs, especially in Serbia, in order to rebel against Byzantium.

In 1166, the Hungarians counterattacked to push Byzantium out of the newly conquered areas. However, in response, Emperor Manuel launched three armies against Hungary, one from the Danube, and the other two across the Carpathians, towards the center of Pannonia. While the main Hungarian army was operating towards the Danube, Belgrade and Braničevo, two Byzantine armies went deep into their territory, causing general panic. The Hungarians were forced to seek peace through intermediaries to their detriment in 1167.

As the ideal candidate of Venice and Hungary among the Serbs appeared Nemanja, when his brothers and, above all, Tihomir imprisoned him in a cave near Fortress Ras. Nemanja probably hoped that he would take the place of Desa, as the former representative of the pro-Greek party, while Emperor Manuel brought his eldest brother Tihomir to the throne. Angry because of that, Nemanja changes his policy in favor of Hungary and its allies. Nemanja escaped from the dungeon, it is not known with whose help. Nemanja's son and biographer, Stefan Nemanjić, describing his father's life, says how he escaped with the help of "heavenly forces": "And this again, because of meekness and justice, and wonderful humility, and because of all good customs, with a high arm he brought him out of the rocky cave, and brought him to the throne of his fatherland, and raised him up as the great lord of all the world."

Rise to the throne (1168–1172)
In 1166 or 1167, Nemanja first expanded his territories and conquered Kotor, and then gathered his supporters in Ras and started a conflict against Tihomir, who was looking for support from the Byzantines. Nemanja overthrew Tihomir, provoking Byzantines action in autumn 1168:

"To make trial of Nemanja’s intent, the emperor despatched Theodore Padyates with a military force. The toparch Nemanja was in such a hostile temper that he fell upon the Romans and immediately launched an undeclared war. When he saw the emperor was in pursuit, he showed himself in battle only briefly and then hid in the cover of mountain caves which he sealed with stones. At last, his pride shattered, he prostrated himself at Manuel’s feet. Lying outstretched, ‘mighty in his mightiness’, he pleaded that he not be made to suffer cruelly, and he feared lest he be removed as ruler of the Serbs and political power be transferred to those who were more fit to rule, those whom he had pulled down so that he might seize power."

At that time, William of Tyre, an emissary of Amalric, a Latin King of Jerusalem, arrived at the diplomatic mission in Constantinople. His goal was for Byzantium to join the crusade against Egypt. During his stay in Constantinople, probably under the influence of the Byzantines, William of Tyre left negative classifications about Serbs in his reports.

The following year, Nemanja attacked the Byzantine vassal, Prince of Zeta Radoslav, and on that occasion annexed to his country a part of the then Zeta and the Neretva region. Soon, Manuel I Komnenos came into conflict with the Venetian Republic, and on his order, on March 12, 1171, all Venetian property in Byzantium was confiscated. In response to this, from Venecia was launched Venetian navy with about 120 ships to Byzantine possessions. The Venetian fleet headed east in September of that year, conquering, by the way, Byzantine Trogir and Dubrovnik. Then Nemanja entered into closer ties with the Venetians and began attacks on Byzantine Kotor, simultaneously carrying out raids through the Moravian valley through which the main public road passes between Byzantine Belgrade and Niš. According to Arnold of Lübeck on that road, near fortress Ravno, in March 1172, the Serbs carried out a night attack on the camp of Western knights and pilgrims led by Henry the Lion accompanied by the Byzantines. Arnold of Lubeck also left a very negative opinion in his chronicle about Serbs. Probably under the impression of the night attack, he even called them the "sons of Belial." Meanwhile, in 1171, Saladin was appointed sultan of Egypt, who would become one of the greatest defenders of Islam in history.

The Kingdom of Hungary also wanted to join the fight against Byzantium, and the Holy Roman Empire of Frederick Barbarossa (1152–1190), also supported this alliance. Nemanja expected Hungarian help, but in the meantime, king Stephen III of Hungary died on March 4, 1172. The Hungarian emissaries went to Serdica (Sofia), where Emperor Manuel encamped with the army, preparing for the campaign. The Hungarian throne was won by Manuel's candidate Bela III (1173–1196). In the meantime, during the winter of 1171/72 on the island of Chios, the Venetian army was decimated by an epidemic, so that the Serbs were left alone in the fight against Byzantium. Manuel immediately took advantage of the favorable moment and after receiving the Hungarian emissaries, he headed for the Serbs at the head of the army. Before the oncoming Byzantine army, the grand zoupan Nemanja retreated to the mountains. According to the Byzantine historian John Kinnamos, the Venetians incited Nemanja to revolt.

Byzantine vassal (1172–1182)
This conflict ended with Nemanja's surrender to Emperor Manuel. One day, Nemanja ritually obeyed Manuel I Komnenus in Niš. Barefoot, with his clothes torn to the elbows, a rope around his neck and a sword in his hands, he entered the Byzantine camp and went out to the emperor. Arriving in front of Manuel, he fell on his knees in front of him, handing him his sword, to do with him what he wanted. The Byzantine emperor accepted his humility, agreeing to the renewal of vassal obligations and leaving Nemanja in the position of grand zoupan. The final part of this episode took place in Constantinople, where Nemanja was taken as a slave in Manoel's triumphal procession, while the gathered people ridiculed him. He was even shown a "series of wall paintings that the emperor had commissioned to commemorate his victories over the Serbs; his alleged reaction is recorded in an oration by Eustathius of Thessalonica: 'Seeing these paintings, he agrees with everything and approves of the visual feast. In one respect only does he chide the painter, namely that the latter has not called him a slave (doulos) in all the scenes of the triumph'."

The Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus returned Nemanja to the position of Grand Župan, and he confirmed to his brothers their areas – Stracimir around the West Moravia and Miroslav Zachlumia. Upon his return to Serbia, Nemanja turned to consolidating the central government, and forced Tihomir's son and successor Prvoslav to renounce the ruler's claims in his favor.

In accordance with his vassal duties, Nemanja regularly sent auxiliary detachments to Byzantine military campaigns. Serbian detachments were also part of the Byzantine army that was defeated by the troops of the Sultanate of Rum in the battle of Myriokephalon on September 17, 1176, in the gorges of Asia Minor.

Bogumilism reached its peak in the Byzantine Empire during the 11th and in the first half of the 12th century. At the end of the 12th century, among Serbs and other Balkan Slavs, there was a very widespread 'Slavic' Gnosticism or dualistic teaching called Bogumilism. The main political tendency of Bogomilism was resistance to the Byzantine state and church authorities.

Bogumilism itself was very widespread among the people in Serbia and Bosnia, and its spread among the nobles led to Nemanja's actions against them. He convened a state-church assembly at which a decision was to be made on further measures against them. The Assembly gathered the entire state leadership, composed of nobles and Bishop Euthymius of Ras, as well as a large number of abbots and monks. The assembly was held around 1176, during the time of Nemanja's vassalship and before the death of Emperor Manoel in 1180. The grand zoupan Nemanja gave a speech at the assembly about the harmfulness of the Bogumil heresy. A woman who was married to a heretic spoke as the main witness at the assembly. Her testimony was crucial to end the quarrel at the council and to give the majority the impression that it was a harmful religious teaching. After consultations, especially with the Bishop Euthymius, the grand zopuan brought measures against them. The leader of the Bogumil community in Serbia was caught and brought before the court. The grand zoupan spared the life of their leader, and he was sentenced to corporal punishment, cutting off his tongue so that he would no longer blaspheme and spread harmful teachings. The army was sent to those parts of Serbia where their actions were most pronounced. The primary goal of this action was conversion.

The measures taken against those who refused were the confiscation of property, the punishment of milder punishments, the burning of books, as well as expulsion from the country. For the Bogumil community in Raska, this was certainly persecution and ruthless action. Their confiscated property was distributed to the lepers and the poor.

War with Byzantium (1183–1191)
After the death of Emperor Manoel on September 24, 1180, the Hungarian king Bela III considered that he had no more obligations to Byzantium. The following 1181, he launched an offensive against Byzantium and conquered Srem (Sirmium) the northeastern part of the Adriatic coast (Including Zara) and Zemun. Byzantium was then occupied by internal conflicts, so that there was no military response to the Hungarian conquests. In 1182, Bela III ordered an attack on Byzantine Belgrade and Braničevo. The attack itself was quite clumsily carried out, and both fortresses were defended by experienced military leaders from the time of Emperor Manoel, Alexius Branas and Andronikos Lapardas. Following the death of Manuel I in 1180, his widow, the Latin princess Maria of Antioch, acted as regent to her infant son Alexios II Komnenos. Her regency was notorious for the favoritism shown to Latin merchants and was overthrown in April 1182 by Andronikos I Komnenos, who entered the city in a wave of popular support. Almost immediately, the celebrations spilled over into massacre of Latins.

The usurpation of Andronikos I freed Nemanja from subordination to the Byzantine emperor. Stefan Nemanja, in alliance with the Hungarian king Bela III, launched a great offensive on Byzantium in 1183. Also, the commander of the Byzantine army, Andronicus Lampardis in Niš and Braničevo, renounced obedience to the new central authorities. At the same time, the Hungarian king Bela III conquered Byzantine Belgrade, Niš and Serdica (Sofia). According to the Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates, the Serbs, led by Nemanja, joined this campaign. The following year, Nemanja launched an offensive on the southeastern Adriatic coast and conquered Byzantine Skadar and besieged Dubrovnik (Ragusa).

In 1185, Andronicus I was killed in Constantinople and the new Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelos began peace negotiations with the Hungarian king. The peace treaty provided for Emperor Isaac II to marry Bela's daughter Margaret. The Hungarian army withdrew from the Byzantine central part of the Balkans, leaving Nemanja without support. Fortunately for Nemanja, at the same time, the Normans and the Bulgarians joined the anti-Byzantine alliance.

Nemanja forced Dubrovnik (Ragusa) to replace Byzantium with Norman rule. The Normans of king William II of Sicily, also in 1185, conquered Dyrrachium and Thessalonica, and embarked on an expedition to Constantinople, but they lost discipline due to large-scale looting, so the Byzantines easily defeated them in the battle of Demetritzes near Lower Struma. In October 1185, in the Lower Danube, in northern Bulgaria, an uprising began, led by the brothers Peter and Ivan I Asen, one of the reasons for which was an extraordinary tribute that Emperor Isaac II ordered to be collected for his wedding. Nemanja then coordinated actions with the Asen brothers against Byzantium. In September 1186, Nemanja and his brothers "made peace with the city of Dubrovnik", ruled by William II.

Between two emperors
Meanwhile, Ayyubid sultan Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn captured Jerusalem in 1187. Due to the fall of Jerusalem in the Latin West, there was a great commotion that started the Third Crusade. A large crusader army led by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa marched in 1189 from Buda through Belgrade and Niš to Adrianople and Constantinople. In Niš, in the new capital of Stefan Nemanja, the German emperor and the grand zoupan met at the end of July 1189. At the meeting, Nemanja asked Barbarossa for the Crusaders to promise him lands the Serbians recently conquered in exchange of aiding the Crusaders in war against Byzantium. However, Barbarossa rejected this proposal in a diplomatic manner, wanting to ensure only a safe passage for his army through Byzantium. His main goal, however, remained the liberation of Jerusalem. A month later, negotiations began between the Crusaders and the Byzantines over the passage with great tension. At that time, according to Christian doctrine, there could be only one emperor in the Christian world. Hence the great rivalry and tension between the Eastern Roman Empire (historiographically known as Byzantium) and the Holy Roman Empire. The Crusaders captured Philippopolis and Adrianople and prepared for an attack on Constantinople. Nemanja takes advantage of this situation and launches an offensive towards Byzantine Skopje. Meanwhile, in February 1190, an agreement was reached between the two emperors at Adrianople to allow the Crusader army to cross the Dardanelles. During the uncertain negotiations, Emperor Isaac II replied that the new friendship between the Crusaders and the Serbs was very difficult for him.

In June 1190, Frederick Barbarossa drowned in the river Saleph. At the same time, Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos launched a punitive expedition against the Serbs, and Nemanja was defeated in the battle at South Morava (1191). In fact, Constantinople did not want to subdue the Serbs, but to regain Niš and the main road to Belgrade, as well as to make allies of the rebellious Serbs. The peace treaty in 1193 provided for Stefan Nemanjić, the middle son of the Grand Župan Stefan Nemanja, to marry a Byzantine princess Eudokia Angelina, i.e. niece of the Byzantine emperor.

Return to Byzantium
The concluded peace envisaged that Nemanja would be succeeded by his middle son Stefan, who received the Byzantine title of sebastokrator and the Byzantine princess Eudokia for a wife, and not the firstborn Vukan.

In November 1192, on the way to Venice, from Acre via Byzantine Corfu to the southeastern Adriatic coast on the small island of Lokrum near Dubrovnik (Ragusa), Richard I arrived incognito as an ordinary knight or pilgrim, where he revealed that he is the King of England. Hungarian king Béla invaded Serbia at the beginning of 1193. Emperor Isaac II demanded the withdrawal of his troops, and threatened Béla with war. At the same time, Doge Enrico Dandolo attempted to occupy Hungarian Zara, but failed. In April 1195, the father-in-law of Stefan Nemanjić, Alexius III Angelus (1195–1203), overthrew his brother Emperor Isaac II and took power.

In 1196, at the state assembly near Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Ras, Stefan Nemanja abdicated the throne in favor of his middle son Stefan, who became the grand prince of Serbia. He left his eldest son Vukan in charge of Zeta, Travunija, Hvosno and Toplica. Nemanja became a monk in his old age and was given the name Simeon. Shortly afterwards, he went to Byzantium, to Mount Athos, where his youngest son Sava had been a monk for some time. They received permission from the new Byzantine emperor to rebuild the abandoned monastery of Hilandar.

Death and legacy
Knowing his death was near in his 86th year, Simeon asked to be placed on a mat in front of the icon of the Virgin Hodegetria with a stone for his pillow. He died in front of his son Sava and other monks, on 20 February 1199. He was buried in the grounds of Hilandar monastery. His last words requested that Sava take his remains to Serbia, "when God permits it, after a certain period of time". Sava later wrote the Liturgy of Saint Simeon in Nemanja's honour.

In 1206, Sava decided to bring his father's remains to Serbia, where his brothers Stefan and Vukan were fighting among themselves, thus tearing apart the Serbian lands their father had reunited. Upon arrival of Sava, his brothers made peace and Simeon was re-buried in 1207 in his personal foundation, the Studenica Monastery, where holy oil (myrrh) started to seeped, from his new grave, thus giving Simeon the epithet the Myrrh-streaming. Because of miracles that occurred at his grave, the Serbian Orthodox Church canonised him, and declared his feast-day on 26 February. The cult of St. Simeon helped consolidate Serbian national identity. Centers of his cult are in monasteries of Studenica and Hilandar.

Name and title
Various names have been used to refer to Stefan Nemanja, including Stefan I and the Latin Stephanus Nemania. Sometimes the spelling of his name is anglicised, to become Stephen Nemanya. In the latter part of his life, he became a monk and hence was referred to as Monk Simeon, or Monk Symeon. After his death, he was canonised by the Orthodox Church, and became St. Symeon the Myrrh-streaming. His son and successor, Stefan the First-Crowned, called him "The Gatherer of the Lost Pieces of the Land of his Grandfathers, and also their Rebuilder". His other son Sava, called him "Our Lord and Autocrat, and ruler of the whole Serbian land". In a way, both sons introduced the cult of their father, thus creating the ideal picture of a ruler-saint, without parallel in Byzantium.

Family
Nemanja was married to a Serb noblewoman by the name of Ana. They had three sons and three daughters:

 * Vukan Nemanjić – Prince of Doclea and briefly Grand Prince of Serbia (1202–1204)
 * Stefan Nemanjić – Nemanja's successor, first King of All Serbian lands, 1196–1228
 * Rastko Nemanjić (Saint Sava) (1171–1236) – The first archbishop and saint of the Serbian Orthodox Church
 * Jefimija Nemanjić – married Manuel Komnenos Doukas Regent of Thessaloniki (+1241)
 * A daughter married Bulgarian nobleman Tihomir Asen, mother of Bulgarian emperor Konstantin Tih (r. 1257–1277)
 * Elena-Evgenia, wife of Ivan Asen I

Foundations
Stefan Nemanja founded, restored and reconstructed several monasteries. He also established the Raška architectural school, that spanned from 1170 to 1300.

 * Monastery of Saint Nicholas, in Kuršumlija
 * Monastery of Saint Mother of Christ, between Kosanica and Toplica
 * Monastery Temple of George's Tracts (Đurđevi Stupovi), in 1171 in Ras
 * Monastery Temple of the Immaculate Holy Virgin the Benefactor (Studenica), in 1190 in Ibar
 * Church of Saint Mother of Christ, at the confluence of the Bistrica and the Lim
 * Monastery of Saint Nicholas, in Kaznovići/Končulj on the Ibar
 * Nunnery of Mother of Christ, in Ras

Reconstructions

 * Hilandar monastery on Mount Athos, in 1199
 * Monastery of Saint Archangel Michael, in Skopje
 * Monastery of Saint Pantheleimon, in Niš

Donations

 * Church of Lord, Holy Grave and Christ's Arrisal, in Jerusalem
 * Church of Saint John the Forerunner, in Jerusalem
 * Church of Saint Theodosios, in the Desert of Bethlehem
 * Church Saint Apostole Peter and Paul, in Rome
 * Church of Saint Nicholas, in Bari
 * Monastery/Church of the Virgin of Evergethide, in Constantinople
 * Monastery/Church of Saint Demetrios, in Thessalonika

title: Stefan Nemanja