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Helaman

The Book of Mormon mentions three men named Helaman. The first was the son of King Benjamin, king of the united Nephite-Zarahemla kingdom who lived in the 2nd century BC. Besides his genealogy, information about the first Helaman is limited. His brother, Mosiah, became heir to the throne.

The second was a Nephite prophet and military leader who lived around the 1st century BC. He was the grandson of Alma and the oldest son of Alma (the younger), and was entrusted with maintaining a record of their people, the Nephites, as found in the Book of Alma. In LDS theology, he led into battle an army of two thousand young male warriors, which he referred to as his two thousand sons (two thousand stripling warriors). Most of the parts of the narrative involving Helaman come from the latter half of the Book of Alma.

The third Helaman was the son of the above mentioned Helaman. He was a chief judge over the Nephites and was also responsible for maintaining a record of this people. The account that Helaman kept was recorded on the same records as his father. This record, however, was first given by Helaman (the father) to his brother Shiblon, who then handed the record down to his nephew, Helaman. The writings of this second Helaman are contained within the Book of Helaman.

Etymology
Brigham Young University proposes several etymologies for the name Helaman, including "Hammer of God".

Early life
Helaman was the eldest son of Alma the Younger, another Nephite prophet. The exact time and place of his birth are unknown. The house of his father, Alma, was in Zarahemla, the Nephite capital land, and Helaman may also have lived in Zarahemla.

The Book of Mormon first mentions Helaman in Alma 31:7, and little is known of his life prior to this brief allusion. In this verse Helaman's father, Alma, and two younger brothers, Shiblon and Corianton, embark on a missionary journey to the Zoramites, but Helaman does not accompany them. This journey occurred towards the end of the 17th year of the "reign of the judges", which probably corresponds to about 75 BC.

Later life
After their missionary labors among the Zoramites, Alma, his sons, and the rest of their company returned to Zarahemla. At this time Alma gathered his sons together to give each of them a charge. In his charge to Helaman, Alma recounts his own conversion, exhorts Helaman to righteousness, and confers stewardship of the sacred records and other artifacts (including the "interpreters", or Urim and Thummim). to Helaman. These sacred records were passed down from generation to generation throughout the history of the Nephites, with each generation adding the story of their own time. It was these records which Mormon and Moroni drew from and abridged when compiling the Book of Mormon. Helaman accepted the records and continued the record-keeping tradition. The section of the Book of Alma beginning at chapter 45 states that it is, "The account of the people of Nephi, and their wars and dissensions, in the days of Helaman, according to the record of Helaman, which he kept in his days." This section may possibly continue as far as chapter 62, wherein Helaman dies.

Following Alma's words to his sons, he and his sons (including, presumably, Helaman) went among the people for a time, preaching the word of God. Shortly afterward, in the 19th year of the reign of the judges (c. 73 BC), Alma approached Helaman for an important conversation. In what some consider a good model for child-parent interviews, Alma questioned Helaman, praised him for his beliefs, and blessed him. Alma also dictated to him a prophecy of the destruction of the Nephites, which Alma commanded him to record but not to make known until it was fulfilled. Not long after his charge to Helaman, Alma departed and was never heard of again.

After this, Helaman and his brethren went among the people declaring the word of God and appointing "priests and teachers throughout all the land, over all the churches." Dissension arose, allegedly due to the people's pride and riches, and the people thus would not heed the words of Helaman and his brethren.

For the next several years, Helaman worked as a high priest in the Church, though not necessarily as the high priest over the Church. Helaman's work suffered major set-backs during Amalickiah's rise, but then prospered in the years following Amalickiah's departure from the Nephites to the Lamanites.

Ministering to the Anti-Nephi-Lehies
Helaman next appears in Alma 53, in the 26th year of the reign of the judges (c. 66 BC), trying to persuade the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, also known as Ammonites, not to take up arms. Years earlier, upon their conversion to the gospel of Christ, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies had made an oath to God that they "never would use weapons again for the shedding of man's blood." The Nephites and the Lamanites were embroiled in war, and the Anti-Nephi-Lehies wished to join the conflict and fight alongside the Nephites. However, to do so would mean breaking the oath which they had made. Helaman "feared lest by so doing they should lose their souls." Overpowered by the persuasions of Helaman, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies resigned themselves to being spectators in the conflict.

However, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies had many sons who, unlike their fathers, had never entered into a covenant not to take up weapons of war. These sons also wished to fight for the Nephites and have Helaman as their leader. With no oath restricting them and the Nephites in desperate circumstances, they were permitted to do so. There is no indication prior to this in the text that Helaman had any military training whatsoever, and indeed he may not have. Certainly, the sons of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies had no fighting experience. Regardless, the interesting turn of events made Helaman have the Anti-Nephi-Lehies marching at the head of an army of two thousand soldiers. LDS leader Richard J. Maynes cited the entire episode in a General Conference as containing good examples of covenant-keeping behavior.

Commander of the Stripling Warriors
Helaman's army of two thousand young men is often referred to as the two thousand stripling warriors, or the sons of Helaman. Theirs is one of the most well-known stories from the Book of Mormon.

In brief, Helaman and his band marched in the 26th year of the reign of the judges (c. 66 BC) to the western part of the land of the Nephites and there joined the existing Nephite forces. There they played a pivotal role in some crucial Nephite victories. As a result of those victories, the Nephites regained possession of all of the western cities which had been taken by the Lamanites. Although two of their battles were very bloody, the army of Helaman did not incur a single fatality. Helaman attributed this to divine preservation.

Helaman wrote an epistle to the captain of the Nephite armies, Moroni, informing him of their success and expressing confusion that the government did not send more troops and support to the western front. Moroni received the epistle in the 30th year of the reign of the judges (c. 62 BC). The next year the Nephites successfully drove the Lamanites back into the land southward and thus the war ended at last.

Last years
After the war ended in the 31st year of the reign of the judges (c. 61 BC), Helaman first briefly "returned to the place of his inheritance". He then went forth with his brethren, preaching the word of God and establishing the Church. About four years later, in the 35th year of the reign of the judges (c. 57 BC), Helaman died. At the time of his death, Helaman had not yet formally conferred stewardship of the sacred records and artifacts to his son, Helaman, as would have been traditional. Instead Shiblon "took possession of those sacred things" following Helaman's death.

title: Helaman


text:
Russian cruiser Varyag (1899)

Construction and design
In 1897, the Russian Admiralty, as part of a program to reinforce the Imperial Russian Navy's Far East Fleet, published specifications for a fast protected cruiser, capable of commerce raiding. The ships were required to be armed with 152 mm (6-inch) quick-firing guns, and to have a speed of 23-24 kn. Russian shipyards were already busy, and the Imperial Admiralty placed an order with the American shipyard William Cramp & Sons of Philadelphia on 11 April 1898 to build a single cruiser, Varyag against this specification. Single ships were also ordered from the German shipyards Germaniawerft (RUSSIAN CRUISER Askold) and AG Vulcan (RUSSIAN CRUISER Bogatyr) against these specifications. Varyag was laid down in October 1898, was launched on 31 October 1899 and commissioned into the Imperial Russian Navy on 2 January 1901 O.S. (14 January 1901 N.S.), under the command of Captain Vladimir Behr.

Varyag was 129.56 m long overall and 127.90 m between perpendiculars, with a beam of 15.85 m and a draught of 5.94 m at normal displacement. Design displacement was 6500 LT with full load displacement about 7020 LT. Thirty Niclausse water-tube boilers fed steam to two sets of four-cylinder vertical triple expansion steam engines rated at 21000 ihp which drove two 3-bladed propellers. As a protected cruiser, the main protection consisted of an arched armoured deck which protected the ship's engines and magazines. The deck was 38 mm thick in the central horizontal portion, and 76.2 mm thick in the sloping sections towards the ship's sides. The ship's conning tower was protected by 6 in, with 1+1/2 in protecting the ammunition hoists and 3 in for the bow and stern torpedo tubes. The ship's main armament was twelve Obukhoff 152 mm (6-inch) L/45 guns, with two guns side by side on the ship's forecastle, two side-by-side on the quarterdeck, and the remaining eight on sponsons on the ship's upper deck. These guns could fire a 50 kg shell to a range of 9800 m, and at a rate of 6 rounds per minute. 2388 rounds of 152 mm ammunition were carried. Twelve 75 mm (2.95 in) L/50 QF guns defended the ship against torpedo boats, and could fire a 6 kg shell to a range of 7000 m at a rate of 10 rounds per minute. Close-in defence was provided by four Hotchkiss 47 mm revolving cannon on fighting tops, with four more on the upper deck, backed up by two 37 mm guns and two machine guns. Two Baranowski 64 mm landing guns were also carried for on-shore use by the ship's marines. Six 381 mm (15 inch) torpedo tubes were carried, two on each broadside and one in the bow and stern.

During her construction, an assistant physician, Leo Alexandroff, left the ship's advance party on 20 April 1899, and applied for U.S. citizenship. He was arrested for desertion. His case reached the United States Supreme Court, which ruled in Tucker v. Alexandroff that the ship, though not accepted for service in the Imperial Russian Navy, was a warship under the terms of the 1832 treaty between Russia and the United States; thus Alexandroff would be returned to Russian authorities.

First Russian service
At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, under the command of Captain Vsevolod Rudnev, Varyag was stationed at Chemulpo Bay with the aging gunboat RUSSIAN GUNBOAT Korietz. On 8 February, a large Japanese force under Admiral Uriu blockaded the Russian in the harbor. As Chemulpo was in neutral Korean waters, Admiral Uriu gave the Russian ships a written ultimatum to sail by 12:00 noon or be attacked in the harbor itself. Captain Rudnev attempted to fight his way out, but after sustaining heavy casualties (31 men dead, 191 injured out of 570) and outgunned, both ships returned to harbor by 1:00 p.m., the crew decided to scuttle both ships. The crew was saved by transferring them to the British cruiser HMS Talbot (1895), the FRENCH CRUISER Pascal, and the ITALIAN CRUISER Elba; the captain of the US gunboat USS Vicksburg (PG-11) declined doing so as a violation of U.S. neutrality.

In 1907, Vsevolod Rudnev (by that time dismissed from Russian naval service in the rank of rear admiral) was decorated with the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun for his heroism in that battle; although he accepted the order, he never wore it in public.

Japanese cruiser Soya
After the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese raised the badly damaged wreck from Chemulpo harbor, repaired it, and commissioned it into the Imperial Japanese Navy as the cruiser Soya on 9 July 1907. Its new name was taken from the northernmost cape of Hokkaidō, Soya Misaki.

After being placed into Japanese service as a cruiser, Soya was used primarily for training duties. From 14 March 1909 to 7 August 1909, it made a long distance navigational and officer cadet training cruise to Hawaii and North America. It repeated this training cruise every year until 1913.

Return to Russia
During World War I, Russia and Japan were allies and several ships were transferred by the Japanese to the Russians. Along with RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Peresvet and RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Poltava, she was repurchased by the Imperial Russian Navy at Vladivostok on 5 April 1916 and renamed Varyag. In June, she departed for Murmansk via the Indian Ocean, arriving in November 1916. She was sent to Liverpool in Great Britain for an overhaul by Cammell Laird in February 1917, and was due to re-enter service with the Arctic Ocean Flotilla of the Imperial Russian Navy. However, following the Russian October Revolution on 7 November 1917, crewmen who had remained onboard hoisted the red flag and refused to set sail. On 8 December 1917 she was seized by a detachment of British soldiers. Assigned to the Royal Navy in February 1918, she ran aground while under tow off of Ireland, but was refloated and used as a hulk until 1919. She was then sold to a German firm in 1920 for scrap, but on 5 February 1920 ran aground on rocks near the Scottish village of Lendalfoot (55.18417°N, -4.94167°W) in the Firth of Clyde, while being towed to Germany. She was scrapped in place from 1923 to 1925.

Legacy
The stoicism of Varyag's crew at Chemulpo has inspired the Austrian poet Rudolf Greinz to write a poem dedicated to Varyag. The Russian translation of this poem was put to music by A.S. Turischev. The result was the 1904 song that remains popular today:

(German original)

Auf Deck, Kameraden, all' auf Deck!

Heraus zur letzten Parade!

Der stolze Warjag ergibt sich nicht,

Wir brauchen keine Gnade!

(Russian poetic translation)

Наверх вы, товарищи, все по местам!

Последний парад наступает.

Врагу не сдается наш гордый “Варяг”,

Пощады никто не желает.

(translation)

Get up, you comrades, everyone to his place,

The final parade is at hand.

Our proud "Varyag" will not surrender to the enemy,

No one wants mercy.

Rudolf Greinz

On 30 July 2006 (Russian Navy Day), a memorial plaque to the cruiser was unveiled at Lendalfoot in a ceremony attended by senior Russian politicians and navy personnel, veterans and local dignitaries.

On 8 September 2007 a monument in the form of a large bronze cross was unveiled as an addition to the Lendalfoot memorial, in a ceremony attended by former Nato Secretary General George Robertson, British and Russian navy officers and diplomats. The "Cruiser Varyag" Charity Foundation had organised a competition in Russia for the design of the monument.

In 2010, as a gesture marking the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and Russia, the flag of Varyag was restored. The Japanese Navy recovered the flag when the ship was salvaged; and the Incheon Metropolitan Museum acquired them after Japan's defeat at the end of World War II. The return of the flag takes the form of a two-year renewable loan because of the Korean law protecting cultural assets.

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

title: Russian cruiser Varyag (1899)


text:
Berlin Air Safety Center

The Berlin Air Safety Centre (BASC) was established by the Allied Control Council's Coordinating Committee on 12 December 1945. It was located in the former Kammergericht Building, on Kleistpark, Berlin. Operations began in February 1946 under quadripartite flight rules Paragraph 4. Paragraph 4 of the rules begins: "The Berlin Air Safety Centre has been established in the Allied Control Authority Building with the object of ensuring safety of flights for all aircraft in the Berlin area. BASC regulates all flying in the Berlin control zone and also in the corridors extending from Berlin to the boundaries of adjacent control zones."

The BASC was one of two four-power organizations to continue functioning following the onset of the Cold War, the other being Spandau Prison, which ceased operations following the death of Rudolf Hess on 17 August 1987. The BASC continued to ensure safety of flight, for 24 hours a day, with the three western powers being represented by a chief controller, along with a deputy and general duty controller; all were Air Force officers. The Soviets, in attempt to mitigate being out numbered, had both a controller and interpreter on duty until its closing on 31 December 1990, following the lapse of Allied responsibilities in Berlin.

The BASC coordinated air traffic in and out of Berlin and was responsible for air safety in the three corridors established in 1946 as well as in the Berlin control zone, the airspace within a 20 mi radius of a pillar located in the cellar of the Allied Control Authority building. Each of the three corridors were 20 mi wide and linked Berlin with the Western Zones of Occupation of Germany (later West Germany).

The three corridors were usually open, without restriction, only to the Four Power nations: United Kingdom, United States, France and USSR – other nations wishing to use the corridors had first to request and obtain permission from the BASC. Requests to use the southern corridor were handled by the US desk, the centre corridor by the French desk, and the northern corridor by the UK desk. The requests were then handed to the USSR desk for coordination, with Soviet air defense authorities, and in turn would be stamped in one of three ways: permission granted, safety of flight guaranteed; permission granted, safety of flight not guaranteed; or permission denied.

Coordinating closely with the Berlin Air Route Traffic Control Centre (BARTCC) facilities at Tempelhof Air Base, BASC personnel were responsible for logging protests of infringements upon Allied air corridors, and fielded the political ramifications of Eastern Bloc defectors escaping into West Berlin by aircraft. Tensions reached an understandable high during the Berlin Airlift in 1948–49, during which many fights broke out among controllers, though the success of the campaign was in large part due to the coordination carried out within the BASC.

title: Berlin Air Safety Center


text:
Silver Samurai

Silver Samurai is the name of two different supervillains appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, both acquaintances of Wolverine.

The character has appeared in several X-Men-related animated series and video games before making its live-action debut in the 2013 film The Wolverine.

Kenuichio Harada
Kenuichio Harada is the original Silver Samurai. The character first appeared in Daredevil #111 (July 1974), and was created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Bob Brown. A Japanese mutant who uses his powers to charge his katana and wears a samurai-style armor made of a silvery metal, he is the illegitimate son of Lord Shingen, the half-brother of Mariko Yashida, a cousin of Sunfire and Sunpyre, and a nemesis of Wolverine. While he spent most of his existence as a villain, he eventually reformed into a more heroic figure.

Shin Harada
Shingen "Shin" Harada, otherwise known as the second Silver Samurai, is Kenuichio Harada's son who is named after Lord Shingen. He had been committing larceny with Amiko Kobayashi. Shin later worked with Mystique to track down newly awakened mutants to join a cause. He was later recruited by Kade Killgore to be a teacher at the Hellfire Club's Hellfire Academy where he worked as a designer. Silver Samurai later appeared as a member of Mystique's fourth incarnation of the Brotherhood of Mutants. During Magneto's fight with the Brotherhood of Mutants on Madripoor, Magneto controlled Silver Samurai into wounding Mystique.

As part of the "All-New, All-Different Marvel", Shingen Harada represented the Yashida Corporation when he attended a meeting at the Universal Bank with Tiberius Stone of Alchemax, Wilson Fisk of Fisk Industries, Sebastian Shaw of Shaw Industries, Darren Cross of Cross Technological Enterprises, Zeke Stane of Stane International, Frr'dox of Shi'ar Solutions Consolidated, and Wilhelmina Kensington of Kilgore Arms where they discussed with Dario Agger about Roxxon Energy Corporation's plans to exploit the Ten Realms of Asgard. When the true motive of the meeting was revealed, Harada attacked Dario and they almost fought, interrupted by the arrival of Exterminatrix of the Midas Foundation, resulting in Dario getting knocked out when declaring herself a new member of their assembly. He then went to an underwater station in the Southern Ocean, where he attacked the employees until encountering Thor who defeated him by smacking him repeatedly with Mjolnir. He then escaped and joined Exterminatrix in an aerial battle against soldiers attempting to rescue Dario. They later entered Roxxon Corporation HQ, where they encountered the B.E.R.S.E.R.K.E.R.S., a group of Hulk-like superhumans. While the Mindless Ones fought the B.E.R.S.E.R.K.E.R.S., Silver Samurai and Exterminatrix went to Dario's vault, attempting to take the money until Agent Solomon arrived, forcing Exterminatrix to fight the woman while Silver Samurai opened the vault. When the vault was opened, Dario transformed into Minotaur and knocked out Silver Samurai. Then, the floating island the building was located on fell down due to the activation of the Agger Imperative. While S.H.I.E.L.D. evacuated the building, Thor destroyed the island. The villains were later arrested and taken into custody.

Silver Samurai approached Old Man Logan wanting to ally in stopping the Hand's Regenix operation. He agreed in exchange that Mariko doesn't get killed and that Touku and Asami's child is taken care of. When Logan and Silver Samurai attack the Hand's Regenix operations, Silver Samurai fought Gorgon while Logan fought the Hand Ninjas to confront Mariko. After Gorgon got away, Silver Samurai injected nanites into Mariko to break the Hand's control. Afterwards, Logan and Mariko sent Silver Samurai to destroy the Regenix shipments in Madripoor.

Reception

 * In 2020, CBR.com ranked Silver Samurai 1st in their "Marvel Comics: Ranking Every Member Of Big Hero 6 From Weakest To Most Powerful" list.

Television

 * The Kenuichio Harada incarnation of Silver Samurai appears in the X-Men: The Animated Series episode "The Lotus and the Steel", voiced by Denis Akiyama.
 * Silver Samurai makes non-speaking cameo appearances in the X-Men '97 multi-part episode "Tolerance Is Extinction".
 * The Kenuichio Harada incarnation of Silver Samurai appears in the Wolverine and the X-Men episode "Code of Conduct", voiced by Keone Young.
 * The Kenuichio Harada incarnation of Silver Samurai appears in Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers, voiced by Takanori Nishikawa in Japanese and Andrew Kishino in English.
 * The Kenuichio Harada incarnation of Silver Samurai appears in Marvel's Hit-Monkey, voiced by Noshir Dalal.

Film
Variations of the Silver Samurai appears in The Wolverine (2013). The first is the Yashida clan's traditional samurai attire which is donned by Shingen Yashida (portrayed by Hiroyuki Sanada). The second is a giant powered exoskeleton made of adamantium operated by former soldier/billionaire Ichirō Yashida (portrayed by Haruhiko Yamanouchi as an old man and Ken Yamamura as a young man).

Video games

 * The Kenuichio Harada incarnation of Silver Samurai appears as a playable character in X-Men: Children of the Atom, voiced by Yasushi Ikeda.
 * The Kenuichio Harada incarnation of Silver Samurai appears as a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, voiced again by Yasushi Ikeda.
 * The Kenuichio Harada incarnation of Silver Samurai appears as a boss in X-Men: The Official Game, voiced by Keone Young.
 * The Kenuichio Harada incarnation of Silver Samurai appears as an unlockable playable character in Lego Marvel Super Heroes, voiced by Andrew Kishino.

title: Silver Samurai


text:
User talk:Cleisthenes82

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title: User talk:Cleisthenes82


text:
Little London

Little London may refer to the following places:

United Kingdom

 * Little London, Brill, Buckinghamshire
 * Little London, Oakley, Bucks
 * Little London, East Sussex
 * Little London, Gloucestershire
 * Little London, Andover, Hampshire
 * Little London, Tadley, Hampshire
 * Little London, Spalding, Lincolnshire
 * Little London, Stallingborough, Lincolnshire
 * Little London, Corpusty, Norfolk
 * Little London, Northwold, Norfolk
 * Little London, Powys, Wales: a hamlet in Llandinam community
 * Little London, Shropshire
 * Little London, Somerset, a part of Oakhill
 * Little London, Suffolk
 * Little London, Albury, Surrey
 * Little London, Wendover, Buckinghamshire
 * Little London, Leeds, West Yorkshire
 * Little London, West Yorkshire, split between Rawdon, Leeds, and Idle and Thackley, Bradford

Other countries

 * Little London, Jamaica
 * Londrina ("Londoner" or "Little London"), Paraná, Brazil, named for British entrepreneurs who initiated the settlement
 * Mali London ("Little London"), a settlement in Pančevo, Serbia
 * Londynek (pl. Little London), district in Bydgoszcz, Poland around Pomorska Street, Bydgoszcz

As a nickname

 * Gothenburg, Sweden
 * Colorado Springs, Colorado
 * Balaklava, Sevastopol, Crimea
 * Hingham, Norfolk, England
 * Quetta, Pakistan

title: Little London


text:
Brill railway station

Brill railway station was the terminus of a small railway line in Buckinghamshire, England, known as the Brill Tramway. Built and owned by the 3rd Duke of Buckingham, it was later operated by London's Metropolitan Railway, and in 1933 briefly became one of the two north-western termini of the London Underground, despite being 45 mi and over two hours' travelling time from the City of London.

Approximately 3/4 mi north of Brill, the station was opened in March 1872 as the result of lobbying from local residents and businesses. As the line was cheaply built and ungraded and the locomotives were of poor quality, services were very slow, initially taking 1 hour 45 minutes to traverse the 6 mi from Brill to the junction station with main line services at Quainton Road. Although serving a lightly populated area and little-used by passengers, the station was a significant point for freight traffic, particularly as a carrier of milk from the dairy farms of Buckinghamshire to Aylesbury and London. A brickworks was also attached to the station, but it proved unable to compete with nearby rivals and closed within a few years of opening.

During the 1890s, plans were made to extend the tramway to Oxford, but the scheme was abandoned. Instead, the operation of the line was taken over by the Metropolitan Railway in 1899, and the line became one of the railway's two north-western termini. It was upgraded and better-quality locomotives were introduced making the journey time three times faster.

In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway came under public control and became the Metropolitan line of London Transport. The management of London Transport aimed to reduce goods services, and it was felt that there was little chance of the more distant parts of the former Metropolitan Railway ever becoming viable passenger routes. The line was closed on 30 November 1935, and all buildings and infrastructure at Brill associated with the line were sold at auction. Most of the infrastructure was subsequently demolished, though three station cottages survive.

Wotton Tramway
On 23 September 1868 the small Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway (A&BR) opened, linking the Great Western Railway's station at Aylesbury to the London and North Western Railway's Oxford to Bletchley line at Verney Junction. On 1 September 1894, London's Metropolitan Railway (MR) reached Aylesbury, and shortly afterwards connected to the A&BR line, with local MR services running to Verney Junction from 1 April 1894. Through trains from the MR's London terminus at Baker Street began on 1 January 1897.

Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, had long had an interest in railways, and had served as chairman of the London and North Western Railway from 1852 until 1861. In the early 1870s he decided to build a light railway to transport freight from his estates in Buckinghamshire to the A&BR's line at Quainton Road. The first stage of the route, known as the Wotton Tramway, was a 4 mi line from Quainton Road via Wotton to a coal siding at Kingswood, and opened on 1 April 1871. Intended for use by horse trams, the line was built with longitudinal sleepers, to avoid horses tripping.

Extension to Brill
Lobbying from the nearby town of Brill for the introduction of passenger services on the line led to an extension from Wotton to a new terminus at the foot of Brill Hill, north of the hilltop town of Brill itself, in March 1872. Two mixed trains each day ran in each direction. With the extension to Brill opened the line was renamed the Brill Tramway. The Duke bought two Aveling and Porter locomotives built to a modified traction engine design, each with a top speed of 8 mph, although a speed limit of 5 mph was enforced.

The Duke died in 1889. In 1894, the trustees of his estate set up the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad Company (O&ATC) with the intention of extending the line from Brill to Oxford, but the extension beyond Brill was never built. The MR leased the Brill Tramway from 1 December 1899, although the line continued to be owned by the O&ATC.

Services and facilities
Brill was a small town of 1,400 people when the line opened, and owing to the town's hilltop setting the station was 3/4 mi from Brill itself. Brill railway station was small, with a single low platform. At its opening there was one station building, which served as the freight depot, passenger terminal, and ticket office. Next to it was a siding that led to a cattle pen. Two cottages for station staff were built near the station in 1871. A third cottage across the road from the station was built in 1885, possibly to serve as an office. After the 1899 transfer of services to the Metropolitan Railway, the MR introduced a single Brown Marshalls passenger carriage on the line; at this time, a small wooden hut was added to the station to serve as a ticket office and waiting room and a short section of platform was raised to conventional height to allow access to the higher doors on the new carriage.

Passenger services
From 1872 to 1894 the station was served by two passenger trains per day, and from 1895 to 1899 the number was increased to three per day. Following the 1899 transfer of services to the Metropolitan Railway, the station was served by four trains per day until its closure in 1935. Limited by poor-quality locomotives and ungraded, cheaply laid track which followed the contours of the hills, and with five intermediate stops to pick up and set down goods, passengers and livestock, trains ran very slowly; in 1887 trains needed 1 hour 45 minutes to travel the six miles from Brill to the junction station at Quainton Road. Improvements to the line carried out at the time of the transfer to the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad, and the use of the MR's better-quality rolling stock, reduced the journey time from Brill to Quainton Road to between 32 and 36 minutes.

Serving a lightly populated area, and with trains travelling only marginally quicker than walking pace, Brill station saw relatively little use by passengers; in 1932, the last year of private operation, Brill station (and the nearby halt at Wood Siding) saw only 3,272 passenger journeys and raised only £191 (about £0 in 2024) in passenger receipts.

Goods facilities
Although little-used by passengers, Brill station was valuable as a relatively rapid link between the dairy farms of Buckinghamshire and the markets of Aylesbury and London; around 30 carts per day would deliver milk to Brill station for the first train each morning. There was also a small amount of coal traffic to the station; Brill coal dealer George Green received three coal wagons per month. In addition, a storehouse at the station held beer supplied by the breweries of Brackley and Aylesbury. Bricks and tiles from the brick and tile factories of Brill were used in the construction of Waddesdon Manor, near the eastern end of the Brill Tramway, between 1874 and 1889.

In 1885 the Duke of Buckingham opened a modern brickworks near Brill station, with a dedicated siding, and in 1895 his heir William Temple-Gore-Langton, 4th Earl Temple of Stowe, expanded the brickworks, which became the Brill Brick & Tile Works, using the Brill Tramway to deliver bricks to the main line at Quainton Road. With the connection to Oxford and the upgrading of the rail line abandoned, Brill Brick & Tile Works was unable to compete with the nearby brickworks at Calvert, and soon closed. The building was taken over by the Fenemore workshop, making hay loaders, before being converted into a timber yard in the 1920s.

Closure
On 1 July 1933 the Metropolitan Railway, along with London's other underground railways except for the small Waterloo & City Railway, was taken into public ownership as part of the newly formed London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB). Thus, despite it being 45 mi and over two hours' travel from the City of London, Brill station became a terminus of the London Underground network. Frank Pick, managing director of the Underground Group from 1928 and the Chief Executive of the LPTB, aimed to move the network away from freight services, and saw the lines beyond Aylesbury via Quainton Road to Brill and Verney Junction as having little future as financially viable passenger routes, concluding that over £2,000 (about £0 in 2024) would be saved by closing the Brill Tramway. As a consequence, the LPTB decided to withdraw all passenger services beyond Aylesbury. The Brill Tramway was closed on 1 December 1935; the last services ran on 30 November.

Upon the withdrawal of London Transport services the lease expired, and the railway and stations reverted to the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad Company. With no funds and no rolling stock of its own, the O&ATC was unable to operate the line, and on 2 April 1936 the entire infrastructure of the line was sold at auction. The former goods shed at Brill sold for £7 10s (about £0 in 2024), and a railway-owned house attached to Brill station fetched £350 (about £0 in 2024). All buildings in Brill associated with the railway station have been demolished, with the exception of the station cottages, one of which is now called "Sleepers". The station site is now largely open fields, and the site of the brickworks is a light industrial park known as the "Tramway Business Park".

title: Brill railway station


text:
Talk:Orisha

Untitled
Try again. Voodun gods are called Loa not Orisha.

It says loa further down. Secretlondon 18:59, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)

AA Template
I understand, this article is not solely African American by any means, but any objections to adding Template:African American topics sidebar under See Also?

— < T A L K JNDRLINE T A L K >

My main objection is again this is an African tradition, and is practiced worldwide. The African-American Template includes a menu with link exclusively to African-American topics. If I were a practitioner linking to this site from Ethiopia, or France or Cuba, what would the relevance of a link to Jim Crow laws in the North American south be to my desire to get more info. on the Orisha tradition? Would not a link to the history of Nigerian, or the Partitioning of African or other African related topic be more appropriate? How about the slave trade of Africans to Europe? If the slave trade in the USA is relevant, why not contemporary instances of the slave trade in other parts of the world? I suspect you mean well, but this comes across as the typical North American narrow view of global matters and a general disregard of the rest of the planet. This is the WORLD-wide-web, not the USA-wide-web. (PS, for the record one of my parents is African-American and the other one is African)

Phenomonology and Orisha
What does this religion have to do with tsetse, which is endemic to West Africa? If I were in West Africa, I would pray not to get a bad bite. What is the phenomonological basis of this religion if not protection from insect bite? As tsetse inhabit wooded areas, it is an obvious question one would have after viewing the photo of the Osun Shrine in Osogbo Nigeria near river. Since this is an article about religion, this dynamic of life in West Africa should not be neglected. The article should be a lot deeper in tone and content, commensurate with its subject. --McDogm 02:24, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Huh? and where is the inclusion of the plague in the history of christianity? or is Buddhism just a way to deal with hunger? To take a look at a photo of a place you have never been and based on that to presume you can dismiss and entire ancient tradition to a disease prevention strategy is amazing.

One million only?
Considering the Yoruba population of Nigeria alone is at least 25 million, and the majority of it practices this religion, how do you come up with 'there could be more than 1 million'??
 * Wikipedia's other article on the Yoruba people states that only 10% practise the tradition (2.5 million).Domsta333 (talk) 12:36, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Of course it is not just 25 million, but SCORES OF MILLIONS throughout West Africa. Understand that, like the numerous dialects and language groups found in many of these arrapian cultures and tribes and ehnics, they curiously retain a common thread in their religious legends and oraratories. The mere fact that there are variations in the names of these gods, though the overall legends stories remain consistant proves that the Orisha (by any other name,) is prevalent throughout Africa, even in those place where Islam is supposedly dominant. --24.46.103.28 (talk) 19:24, 10 May 2011 (UTC)Veryverser

itutu merge
hi, i support the merge, and I made the page, so i dont think anyone else will mind. go for it somebody Spencerk 04:29, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I do not. Itutu, or Ori tutu are about good/cool character, which is part of the practice of orisha, but not Orisha. It would be like merging and article on confession with and article on catholicism.

God/Goddess?
I don't believe that Orishas are actually deities. If anything, they are more like saints. Remove calling them gods/goddesses of stuff? AncientNova 04:46, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

 * No, they are African deities, although they are sometimes identified with saints in syncretic worship. Guettarda 13:55, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Please note that the typographical treatment of words like "Orisha" is unconventional on this page, and should be corrected. A good example is the above comment. Notice that "dieties" "saints" "gods/godesses" are all in lower case, as they should be. Orisha is a category of things in the Yoruba religious culture; i.e., the word orisha is not a proper noun. It is up to the writer to decide if the word should be in italics or not (as a foreign word, or deemed already incorporated to English), but there is no justification whatever for the caps. AtomAnt 12:13, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Since "orisha" is not the correct spelling in any language besides English, I think it should pretty clearly be considered already incorporated, and therefore not italicized. Cruxador (talk) 07:32, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

From a practitioner POV
I am an initiated Priest of Oshun. Please understand that this tradition is practiced all over the world, and everywhere it is done somewhat differently. With that said:

1) This is not Voodun, Loas are different from Orisha.

2) No Orisha are not "saints" although a few historical figures have been merged with particular Orisha, like Obakoso and Shango. Orishas can be said to be manifestations of Olodumare, which would still put them in the “God” level.

3) Ifa readings are not the only form of divination, there is also Merindilogun, throwing coco and 4-cowreis. None of these forms of divination are used to "predict the future" they are to give guidance.  To claim that they are meant to predict the future trivializes them and this tradition.

4) The statement of "1 million may practice" is unfounded and clearly inaccurate. A more accurate number is more than 100 million, but the real number is probably closer to 500 million.

5) This is not an African-American tradition it is a Nigerian tradition, and these two things are not the same.

6) Why the need to claim monotheism? is it to legitimize this tradition in a christian monotheistic context? this tradition is older than christianity, so no justification are required, at least not in my mind.

 * Would that make the Orisha religion Panentheistic moreso than simply monotheist or even emanationist?Domsta333 (talk) 12:36, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Orisha - spirit or religion?
It does not appear clearly from the article that Orisha is a religion (religion like Haiti Vodun for exmpl). First sentence is that it's a spirit (which is understandable) second sentence is that orisha expresses in differente religions like Santeria, Candomblé ...etc. Well what is it then? just a spirit or religion as well? Could someone make this more clear by adding into second sentence smth like "It is also a religion" or "Orisha is also a name for African religin" - stating clearly that it's a religion (if it's correct). As the sentece now goes "This religion has found its way ...and expressed in (other religion)..." - this somehow contradicts the first sentence, which states that orisha is just a spirit.Mustvalge (talk) 15:43, 8 March 2014 (UTC) As i'm from Estonia and we do not have any Orisha followers here (based on population data), this seems unclear that how come that the Orisha is a deity and religion at the same time. This seems two different things. Could someone please explain how this can be. Or is it just because of my european way of thinking. Mustvalge (talk) 16:25, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Umm....
Orishas are from yoruba, and ARE called orishas. Can sombody fix this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Book Jumper (talk • contribs) 20:39, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * What? Omo Obatalá  (talk) 03:29, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Not a spirit or a religion
Orishas are dieties, and there are several of them. Trust me, it's not the way you think.Book Jumper (talk) 20:43, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Orishas, as with all other Afro-American and Sub-Saharan African variations (e.g., Loas, Mpungos, etc.), are spirits. Omo Obatalá  (talk) 03:28, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The difference between spirit, deity, and saint is only a matter of words. All are incorrect compared to just saying "orisha", but all get kind of close to the right idea and can therefore be helpful for explaining. Cruxador (talk) 07:34, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Orisha


text: User talk:163.153.108.11

title: User talk:163.153.108.11


text:
Darts

Darts or dart-throwing is a competitive sport in which two or more players bare-handedly throw small sharp-pointed projectiles known as darts at a round target known as a dartboard.

Points can be scored by hitting specific marked areas of the board, though unlike in sports such as archery, these areas are distributed all across the board and do not follow a principle of points increasing toward the board's bullseye. Though a number of similar games using various boards and rules exist, the term "darts" usually now refers to a standardised game involving a specific board design and set of rules.

Darts is both a professional shooting sport and a traditional pub game. Darts is commonly played in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, and recreationally enjoyed around the world.

History
In 1908 darts was declared to be a game of skill and was thus allowed to be played in pubs. This came about after the landlord of the Adelphi Inn in Leeds was prosecuted for allowing darts to be played in his pub. As darts was considered a game of chance at the time, it was not allowed on licensed premises. The landlord was supported in his case by the best darts player in the region, William 'Bigfoot' Anakin. A dartboard was hung in the court and Anakin proved that darts was not a game of chance by hitting three double 20s in a row.

Dartboard

The original target in the game is likely to have been a section of a tree trunk, its circular shape and concentric rings giving rise to the standard dartboard pattern in use today. An older name for a dartboard is "butt"; the word comes from the French word but, meaning "target" or "goal".

The standard numbered point system is attributed to Lancashire carpenter Brian Gamlin, who devised it in 1896 to penalise inaccuracy, though this is disputed. Many configurations have been used, varying by time and location. In particular, the Yorkshire and Manchester Log End boards differ from the standard board in that they have no triple, only double and bullseye. The Manchester board is smaller than the standard, with a playing area of only 25 cm across, with double and bull areas measuring just 4 mm. The London Fives board is another variation, with only 12 equal segments, with the doubles and triples being a quarter of an inch (6.35 mm) wide.

Mathematically, removing the rotational symmetry by placing the "20" at the top, there are 19 factorial, or 121,645,100,408,832,000 possible dartboards. Many different layouts would penalise a player more than the current setup; however, the current setup actually does the job rather efficiently. There have been several mathematical papers published that consider the "optimal" dartboard.

Before World War I, pubs in the United Kingdom had dartboards made from solid blocks of wood, usually elm. But darts pocked the surface of elm such that it was common for a hole to develop around the treble twenty. The other problem was that elm wood needed periodic soaking to keep the wood soft.

In 1935, chemist Ted Leggatt and pub owner Frank Dabbs began using the century plant, a type of agave, to make dartboards. Small bundles of sisal fibres of the same length were bundled together. The bundles were then compressed into a disk and bound with a metal ring. This new dartboard was an instant success. It was more durable and required little maintenance. Furthermore, darts did little or no damage to the board; they simply parted the packed fibres when they entered the board.

Darts
The earliest darts were stubs of arrows or crossbow bolts. The first purpose-made darts were manufactured from solid wood, wrapped with a strip of lead for weight and fitted with flights made from split turkey feathers. These darts were mainly produced in France and became known as French darts. Metal barrels were patented in 1906, but wood continued to be used into the 1950s.

The first metal barrels were made from brass which was relatively cheap and easy to work. The wooden shafts, threaded to fit the tapped barrel, were either fletched as before or designed to take a paper flight. This type of dart continued to be used into the 1970s. With the widespread use of plastic, the shaft and flight came to be manufactured separately, although one-piece moulded plastic shaft and flight darts were also available.

Dartboard
According to the Darts Regulation Authority, a regulation board is 451 mm in diameter and is divided into 20 radial sections. Each section is separated with metal wire or a thin band of sheet metal.

Quality dartboards are still made of sisal fibres from Eastern Africa, Brazil, and China; less expensive boards are sometimes made of cork or coiled paper.

Darts
Modern darts are made up of four components: the points, the barrels, the shafts and the flights.

The points come in two common lengths, 32 and 41 mm and are sometimes knurled or coated to improve players' grip. Others are designed to retract slightly on impact to lessen the chance of the dart bouncing out.

The barrels come in a variety of weights and are usually constructed from brass, nickel-silver, or a tungsten alloy. Brass is cheap but light and therefore brass barrels tend to be very bulky. Tungsten, on the other hand, is twice as dense as brass; thus a tungsten barrel of equivalent weight could be thirty percent smaller in diameter than a brass one. Pure tungsten is very brittle, however, so an alloy is commonly used, with between 80 and 95 percent tungsten and the remainder usually nickel, iron, or copper. Nickel-silver darts offer a compromise between density and cost. Barrels come in three basic shapes: cylindrical, ton, or torpedo.

 * Cylindrical barrels are the same diameter along their entire length and so tend to be long and thin. Their slenderness makes them better for grouping, but because they are long, the centre of gravity is further back.
 * Ton-shaped barrels are thin at either end and bulge in the middle. This makes them fatter than a cylindrical barrel of equivalent weight but the centre of gravity is further forward and so theoretically easier to throw.
 * Torpedo-shaped barrels are widest at the pointed end and taper towards the rear. This shape keeps the bulk of the weight as far forward as possible but, like the ton, gives it a larger diameter than the cylinder.

The shafts are manufactured in various lengths, and some are designed to be cut to length. Shafts are generally made from plastics, nylon polymers, or metals such as aluminium and titanium; and can be rigid or flexible. Longer shafts provide greater stability and allow a reduction in flight size which in turn can lead to closer grouping; but, they also shift the weight towards the rear causing the dart to tilt backwards during flight, requiring a harder, faster throw.

The flight stabilizes the dart by producing drag, thus preventing the rear of the dart from overtaking the point. Modern flights are generally made from plastic, nylon, or foil and are available in a range of shapes and sizes. The three most common shapes in order of size are the standard, the kite, and the smaller pear shape. The less surface area, the less stability but larger flights hamper close grouping. Some manufacturers have sought to solve this by making a flight long and thin but this, in turn, creates other problems such as changing the dart's centre of gravity. Generally speaking, a heavier dart will require a larger flight.

The choice of barrel, shaft, and flight will depend a great deal on the individual player's throwing style. For competitive purposes, a dart cannot weigh more than 50 g including the shaft and flight and cannot exceed a total length of 300 mm.

Playing dimensions

The World Darts Federation uses the following standards for play:

 * Height: the dartboard is hung so that the centre of the bull's eye is 1.73 m from the floor. This is considered eye-level for a 1.83 m tall person.
 * Distance: the oche (line behind which the thrower must stand) should be 2.37 m from the face of the board. If the face projects outward from the wall, owing to the thickness of the board and/or a cabinet in which it is mounted, the oche must be moved back appropriately to maintain the required distance.

The regulations came about owing to the United Kingdom and the rest of the world playing at different lengths, with 2.37 m being the compromise length.

Scoring
The standard dartboard is divided into 20 numbered sections, scoring from 1 to 20 points, by wires running from the small central circle to the outer circular wire. Circular wires within the outer wire subdivide each section into single, double and treble areas. The dartboard featured on The Indoor League television show of the 1970s did not feature a treble section, and according to host Fred Trueman during the first episode, this is the traditional Yorkshire board.

Various games are played using the standard dartboard. However, in the official game, any dart landing inside the outer wire scores as follows:
 * Hitting one of the large portions of each of the numbered sections, traditionally alternately coloured black and white, scores the point value of that section.
 * Hitting the thin inner portions of these sections, roughly halfway between the outer wire and the central circle coloured red or green, scores triple the point value of that section.
 * Hitting the thin outer portions of these sections, again coloured red or green, scores double the point value of that section. The double-20 is often referred to as double-top, reflecting the 20's position on the dartboard.
 * The central circle is divided into a green outer ring worth 25 points (known as "outer", "outer bull", or "single bull") and a red or black inner circle (usually known as "bull", "inner bull" or "double bull"), worth 50 points. The term "bullseye" can mean either the whole central part of the board or just the inner red/black section. The term "bull's ring" usually means just the green outer ring. The inner bull counts as a double when doubling in or out.
 * Hitting outside the outer wire scores nothing.
 * A dart only scores if its point is embedded in or is touching the playing surface. This rule applies to any dart that lands in such a way as to be partially or totally supported by others that have already hit the board.
 * When a standard board is used, any dart whose point does not remain in contact with the playing surface until being collected by the player does not score. This includes darts that bounce off the board for any reason, that fall off on their own, or that are dislodged by the impact of later throws. However, when an electronic board is used, fallen/dislodged darts do score as long as their impacts have registered on the board first.

The highest score possible with three darts is 180, commonly known as a "ton 80" (100 points is called a ton), obtained when all three darts land in the triple 20. In the televised game, the referee frequently announces a score of 180 in exuberant style.

Finishing and check outs
Once a player reaches a low enough score, they are considered to be "on a finish", meaning they can win the game with their remaining darts. In professional matches, the match referee will usually tell the player which score they require once on a finish. As the winning dart in a game must be a double or bullseye, the highest possible finish with three darts is 170 (T20, T20, inner bull). Finishes are also known as "check outs". Regular players become familiar with the combinations needed to check out a particular number. For instance, a player on 138 could hit T20, T18, D12. Most numbers can be checked out with more than one combination (for 138, a player could also hit T19, T19, D12).

Good arithmetic is helpful, as in the event of missing a target number players need to quickly recalculate their new score and which number they now need to hit. For instance, if a player on 93 (T19, D18) hits single-19 with their first dart, they can still finish, but will now need to check out 74 (T14, D16). Checkout charts detailing which numbers are required for each particular finish are widely used.

The Quadro board
In the 1990s, a board with a "quad" ring between the triple ring and the bullseye appeared, which gave quadruple points, meaning a 240 maximum (three quad-20s), a 210 maximum checkout (Q20-Q20-Bull) and a seven-dart finish (five quad-20s, triple-17, bullseye) were possible. One make of this board was the Harrows Quadro 240.

The board was used during the short-lived WDC UK Matchplay. Although no seven dart finish was ever scored on the board, John Lowe did come close to a 9 dart finish in the 1993 PDC UK Matchplay. He scored 200 (T20-T20-Q20), then 160 (20-T20-Q20), and got his final T20 and T15, only to miss D18 on his final throw. Several players did score a 240 maximum during the event and Phil Taylor hit a 188 checkout (Q20-Q20-D14). The tournament was discontinued in 1996 and the board has not been used in a professional event since.

Skill level and aiming
Assuming standard scoring, the optimal area to aim for on the dartboard to maximize the player's score varies significantly based on the player's skill. The skilled player should aim for the centre of the T20, and as the player's skill decreases, their aim moves slightly up and to the left of the T20. At σ= 16.4mm the best place to aim jumps to the T19. As the player's skill decreases further, the best place to aim curls into the centre of the board, stopping a bit lower than and to the left of the bullseye at σ= 100mm.

Games
Many games can be played on a dartboard, but the term "darts" generally refers to a game in which one player at a time throws three darts per turn. The throwing player must stand so that no portion of their feet extends past the leading edge of the oche, but may stand on any other portion and/or lean forward over it if desired.

A game of darts is generally contested between two players, who take turns. The most common objective is to reduce a fixed score, commonly 301 or 501, to zero ("checking out") with the final dart landing in either the bullseye or a double segment to win. Not all three darts need to be thrown on the final turn; the game can be finished on any of the three darts. When two teams play, the starting score is sometimes increased to 701 or even 1001; the rules remain the same.

A throw that reduces a player's score below zero, to exactly one, or to zero but not ending with a double or bullseye is known as "going bust". The player's score is reset to its value at the start of that turn, and any remaining throws in the turn are forfeited.

In some variants, a player who busts has their score reset to its value before the individual dart that caused the bust. This rule (referred to as a "Northern Bust" in London) is considered by some players to be a purer version of the game. Under the standard rules above, a player left with a difficult finish (e.g. 5 and one dart remaining) might deliberately bust in order to revert to an earlier score that would allow an easier finish. Under Northern Bust rules, though, doing so would leave them on 5.

A darts match is played over a fixed number of games, known as legs. A match may be divided into sets, with each set being contested as over a fixed number of legs.

Although playing straight down from 501 is standard in darts, sometimes a double must be hit to begin scoring, known as "doubling in", with all darts thrown before hitting a double not being counted. The PDC's World Grand Prix uses this format.

The minimum number of thrown darts required to complete a leg of 501 is nine. The most common nine-dart finish consists of two 180 maximums followed by a 141 checkout (T20-T19-D12), but there are many other possible ways of achieving the feat. Three 167s (T20-T19-Bull) is considered a pure or perfect nine-dart finish by some players.

Other games and variants
There are several regional variations on the standard rules and scoring systems.

American darts
American darts is a regional U.S. variant of the game (most U.S. dart players play the traditional games described above). This style of dartboard is most often found in eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and parts of New York state.

Beer darts
Beer darts is a drinking game that involves throwing darts at opponents' beer cans. The resulting drinking actions depend on how and where the beer can was hit with the dart.

Belgian darts
The original name of this sport was called Vogelpik. Vogelpik is the early version of the modern game of Belgian darts. Belgian darts has remained a very popular game in the Belgian community since the 18th century. It is not only relaxing but also helps to develop coordination skills, precision and self-control. Each player has a set of four darts. Four thrown darts equals a turn. Five turns by each player constitutes a game. The dart board score starting from the outside ring are: 5 - 10 - 15 - 20 - 25 - bullseye 50.

Cricket
Cricket is a widely played darts game involving a race to control and score on numbers between 20 and 15 and the bullseye, by hitting each of these targets for three marks to open or own it for scoring. A hit on the target counts as one mark, while hits in the doubles ring of the target count as two marks in one throw, and on the triples ring as three. Once opened in this manner, until the opponent closes that number with three marks on it of their own, each additional hit by the owner/opener scores points equal to the number of the target (which may also be doubled and tripled, e.g. a triple-20 is worth 60 points). The outer bullseye counts as 25 points and the inner as 50.

Dartball
Dartball is a darts game based on the sport of baseball. It is played on a diamond-shaped board and has similar scoring to baseball.

Dart golf
Dart golf is a darts game based on the sport of golf and is regulated by the World Dolf Federation (WDFF). It is played on both special golf dartboards and traditional dartboards. Scoring is similar to golf.

Fives
This is a regional variant still played in some parts of the East End of London. The board has fewer, larger segments, all numbered either 5, 10, 15 or 20. Players play down from 505 rather than 501, and stand the farthest 2.7 m away from the board of any mainstream variation.

Halve it
"Halve it" is a darts game popular in the United Kingdom and parts of North America where competitors try to hit previously agreed targets on a standard dart board. Failure to do so within a single throw (3 darts) results in the player losing half their accumulated score. Any number of players can take part and the game can vary in length depending on the number of targets selected. The game can be tailored to the skill level of the players by selecting easy or difficult targets.

Killer
"Killer" is a 'knock-out' game for two or more players (at its best at 4–6 players). Initially, each player throws a dart at the board with their non-dominant hand to obtain their 'number'. No two players can have the same number. Once everyone has a number, each player takes it in turn to get their number five times with their three darts (doubles count twice, and triples three times). Once a person has reached 5, they become a 'killer'. This means they can aim for other peoples numbers, taking a point off for each time they hit (doubles ×2, triples ×3). If a person gets to zero they are out. A killer can aim for anyone's numbers, even another killer's. Players cannot get more than 5 points. The winner is 'the last man standing'.

Another version of "Killer" is a "knock-out" game for three or more players (the more the better). To start, everyone has a pre-determined number of lives, (usually 5) and a randomly chosen player throws a single dart at the board to set a target (i.e. single 18) and does not play until that target is hit. The next player up has 3 darts to try and hit the target (single 18), if they fail, they lose a life and the following player tries. Once a player succeeds at hitting the target, they then become the target setter and throw a dart to set a new target. The initial target setter swaps places with the new target setter. The games carry on until every players' lives have been used, the last man standing is the target setter whose target was not hit. For less experienced players, doubles and trebles as part of the same number can be counted, i.e. a target of treble 20 can still be counted as a success if the double or single 20 is hit and vice versa.

Lawn darts
Lawn darts (also called yard darts and garden darts) is an outdoor game, with gameplay and objective similar to horseshoes, in that the darts are thrown to land in a circle target on the ground. The darts are similar to the ancient Roman thrown weapon plumbata. For a brand named Jarts, the darts weighed about 1/4 pound, were 12 inches long, and had a pointed tip, the better to stick into the ground. On December 19, 1988, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission introduced an outright ban on metal-tipped lawn darts in the US after publicity of thousands of injuries and several deaths.

Round the Clock
Round the Clock (also called Around the World, 20 to 1, and Jumpers) is a game involving any number of players where the objective is to hit each section sequentially from 1 to 20 starting after a starting double.

Shanghai
Shanghai is played with at least two players. The standard version is played in seven rounds. In round one players throw their darts aiming for the 1 section, round 2, the 2 sections, and so on until round 7. Standard scoring is used, and doubles and triples are counted. Only hits on the wedge for that round are counted. The winner is the person who has the most points at the end of seven rounds (1–7); or who scores a Shanghai, which wins instantly, a Shanghai being throws that hit a triple, a double and single (in any order) of the number that is in play.

Shanghai can also be played for 20 rounds to use all numbers. A Fairer Start for Shanghai: To prevent players from becoming too practised at shooting for the 1, the number sequence can begin at the number of the dart that lost the throw for the bullseye to determine the starting thrower. For example; Thrower A shoots for the bullseye and hits the 17. Thrower B shoots for the bullseye and hits it. Thrower B then begins the game, starting on the number 17, then 18, 19, 20, 1, 2, 3, etc. through 16 (if no player hits Shanghai). Shanghai is one of the disciplines in the British Pentathlon tournament.

Rugby
The game is played across a pitch consisting of the top and bottom three segments (ideally on a Wide 5's dartboard). Players can move only one square at a time, including those diagonally, the central square (ring & bull) representing midfield, as well as those of the triple area (representing the opponent's defensive wall or the 22 m line) so as to finally attain a square of the opponent's double section (the try-scoring area), its central square representing the opponent's goal, i.e. for points scored between the posts ; during the game players seek to regather possession by hitting the last square occupied by their opponent.

- the player ( via a single throw ) looks to send the ball deep into the opponent's half... whom then tries to gather it by hitting the very same square - is conceded by a player having hit a neighbouring square and adjacent to the pitch ; alternatively by a player inside his own 22 m having hit a square adjacent to the pitch and up to two rows * forward ( *regardless of the central square and treble zones ) - is won by hitting the inner portion of the lateral segment of the board (i.e. 11 or 6 left or right, according to which side the ball went out ) – the player without the throw-in required to attain the treble section     players aim in turn, one dart at a time - is conceded after a knock-on (i.e. having hit a square located directly two rows forward – usually after missing a treble square) - is won by hitting the central zone (ring or bull) – the player without the put-in required to attain the bullseye     players aim in turn, one dart at a time - is achieved by a player located behind any of the two treble zones (representing the defensive wall) ... by aiming for the central square of the board ; if they fail they lose possession, if they manage they move two squares forward (if they hit the bullseye they also achieve a breakaway and earn three extra shots) - is obtained after having grounded the opponent so as preventing them from releasing the ball (i.e. either by attaining a square of a treble zone on which the opponent was located or by attaining the bullseye if they were located in midfield) - is achieved ( via a single throw ) either by hitting the opposing goal square (if located in the opponent's half), by hand play or – to obtain a line-out – by aiming for a square adjacent to the pitch and up to two rows forward - is achieved (whilst located in the opponent's half) by saying drop (to signal one's intention) and ( via a single throw ) aiming for the opponent's goal square - is scored by finally attaining a square located inside the opponent's double section - is achieved ( via a single throw ) by hitting the opponent's goal square Any dart landing other than on a neighbouring square or one relevant to the above cases is a void dart.
 * Kick-off
 * Line-out
 * Scrum
 * Bomb
 * Penalty
 * Drop-goal
 * Try
 * Conversion

Finnish darts
is a casual variety played in Finland, consisting of a simple ringed monochrome board, labeled 1 to 10 towards the centre. Players set the board at a height of 1.5 m (5 ft) and a distance of 5 m (15 ft), earn the landed ring's value and go for at least 250 points.

Professional organisations
Of the two professional steel-tip organisations, the British Darts Organisation (BDO), founded in 1973, was the older. Its tournaments were often shown on the BBC in the UK. The BDO was a member of the World Darts Federation (WDF) (founded 1976), along with organisations in some 60 other countries worldwide. The BDO originally organised a number of the more prestigious British tournaments with a few notable exceptions such as the News of the World Championship and the national events run under the auspices of the National Darts Association of Great Britain. However, many sponsors were lost and British TV coverage became much reduced by the early 1990s.

In 1992, a group of darts players broke off from the BDO and, in pursuit of higher prize money, formed the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). The PDC organises their tournaments as well as their world championship.

In soft-tip, the World Soft Darts Association serves as a governing body of the sport, with events that feature players that play also steel-tip in PDC events and other players that compete exclusively in soft-tip events.

Amateur league organisations
The American Darts Organization (ADO) promulgates rules and standards for amateur league darts and sanctions tournaments in the United States. The ADO began operation January 1, 1976, with 30 charter member clubs and a membership of 7,500 players. In 2014, the ADO had a membership that averaged 250 clubs yearly representing roughly 50,000 members.

Professional play
Since the end of the News of the World Darts Championship and other past major tournaments, the BDO and PDC both organised a televised World Professional Championship, however, since the financial collapse of the BDO, their edition of the world championship has not been held since 2020. The PDC championship is held annually over the Christmas/New Year period, as was the BDO event, with the PDC version finishing slightly earlier than the BDO tournament did. The BDO World Championship had been running since 1978; the PDC World Championship started in 1994.

The PDC's major tournaments are the World Championship, Premier League, UK Open, World Matchplay, World Grand Prix, European Championship, Players Championship Finals, World Cup of Darts, Masters and the Grand Slam of Darts. All of these are broadcast live on Sky Sports and ITV television in the UK. They also hold PDC Pro Tour events and smaller category events around the UK.

The WDF World Cup for national teams and a singles tournament has been played biennially since 1977. The WDF also organise the Europe Cup. The PDC has their world cup competition, the PDC World Cup of Darts.

For soft-tip darts, WSDA and DARTSLIVE run "THE WORLD", an international tour which serves as the Soft Darts World Championship, with the final tournament referred to as the Grand Final, with the circuit first taking place in 2011. Stages take place mostly in East Asia, with some rounds held in the United States and Europe. Matches during WSDA events are played with both 701 and Cricket during a set, usually with the same number of games of each, giving both players throws during both formats, and the final round determined by player choice.

Two Dutch independently organised major tournaments, the International Darts League and the World Darts Trophy introduced a mix of BDO and PDC players in 2006 and 2007. Both organisations allocated rankings to the tournaments, but these two events are now discontinued.

World Champions
Multiple-Time World Champions
 * 16 Phil Taylor The Power (2 BDO, 14 PDC)
 * 10 Trina Gulliver The Golden Girl
 * 5 Eric Bristow The Crafty Cockney
 * 5 Raymond van Barneveld Barney (4 BDO, 1 PDC)
 * 4 Lisa Ashton The Lancashire Rose
 * 3 Martin Adams Wolfie
 * 3 Anastasia Dobromyslova From Russia With Love
 * 3 Glen Durrant Duzza
 * 3 John Lowe Old Stoneface
 * 3 John Part Darth Maple (1 BDO, 2 PDC)
 * 3 Michael van Gerwen Mighty Mike
 * 2 Gary Anderson The Flying Scotsman
 * 2 Beau Greaves Beau 'n' Arrow
 * 2 Ted Hankey The Count
 * 2 Adrian Lewis Jackpot
 * 2 Dennis Priestley The Menace (1 BDO, 1 PDC)
 * 2 Mikuru Suzuki Miracle
 * 2 Scott Waites Scotty 2 Hotty
 * 2 Jocky Wilson Jocky
 * 2 Peter Wright Snakebite

One-Time World Champions
 * Bob Anderson The Limestone Cowboy
 * Steve Beaton The Bronzed Adonis
 * Stacy Bromberg The Wish Granter
 * Stephen Bunting The Bullet
 * Richie Burnett The Prince of Wales
 * Rob Cross Voltage
 * Tony David The Deadly Boomerang
 * Keith Deller The Fella
 * Andy Fordham The Viking
 * Francis Hoenselaar The Crown
 * Luke Humphries Cool Hand
 * Christian Kist The Lipstick
 * Jelle Klaasen The Cobra
 * Scott Mitchell Scotty Dog
 * Gerwyn Price The Iceman
 * Leighton Rees Marathon Man
 * Michael Smith Bully Boy
 * Les Wallace McDanger
 * John Walton John Boy
 * Wayne Warren Yank
 * Mark Webster The Spider

World rankings
The WDF, BDO and PDC each maintain their own rankings lists. These lists are commonly used to determine seedings for various tournaments. The WDF rankings are based on the preceding 12 months performances, the BDO resets all ranking points to zero after the seedings for their world championship have been determined, and the PDC Order of Merit is based on prize money earned over two years.

title: Darts


text:
Ærø

Ærø is one of the Danish Baltic Sea islands, and part of the Southern Denmark Region.

Since 1 January 2006 the whole of Ærø has constituted a single municipality, known as Ærø Kommune. Before that date, there were two municipalities on the island: Ærøskøbing Kommune in the west and Marstal Kommune in the east. This merger was part of a reform of the public sector with the laws being effective as of 26 June 2005. This merger was allowed to happen one year before the other municipalities merged as there had already been an island-wide referendum with a majority of voters for the merger.

In a 2010 survey, readers of the Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad voted Ærø as Denmark's third most wonderful island, behind only Fur and Læsø.

Geography

 * Population (in 2020): 5,956 (island of Ærø only);5,964 (municipality).
 * Area: 88 km2 (island); 91 km2 (municipality)
 * Length of coastline: 167 km

Ærø measures roughly 20 km from northwest to southeast and varies in width from around 4 to 8 km. There are three small towns on the island in 2020: the largest is Marstal with a population of 2,111. Ærøskøbing has 942 inhabitants and Søby 438. Fourteen villages and a number of farms complete the island's pattern of settlement.

Ærøskøbing, with its narrow lanes and picturesque 18th-century houses was historically Ærø's chief town, and remains the primary port for ferry connections. Marstal, also known as the "skipper village", from its being the home of so many sailors and captains, is the island's largest town today and is its principal commercial and shopping centre.

The countryside is for the most part gently undulating, and there is a several-kilometre-long stretch of 33-metre-high cliffs at Voderup Klint on the west coast. With its generally low traffic density, Ærø is a popular destination for hikers and cyclists. The island's beaches also attract anglers and artists. As one of the islands making up the South Funen Archipelago, Ærø is favoured by particularly fine weather. It enjoys a higher number of sunshine hours than the average for the rest of Denmark, and the year-round temperature is also a few degrees above the national average.

At Olde Mølle, at one of Ærø's highest points and near the centre of the island, the sculptor Erik Brandt has created a "peace bench", conceived with the intention of providing people with an opportunity to survey the island and its surrounding sea, whilst pondering on the theme of world peace.

History

Archaeological excavations provide evidence of settlements going back to before 8000 BC. There are some burial mounds on the island, as well as an old Ting place. Relics of antiquity are found all over the island. Burial mounds, passage graves, and dolmens bear witness of human activity through more than 10,000 years.

As for its more recent history, the period of the duchies is of special interest. During this period — from the 14th century to the year 1864 – Ærø was united and separated, alternately, into a number of enclaves. Ærø was outside the tariff wall of the Kingdom, leading to flourishing smuggling which was a way of living for many of Ærø's inhabitants.

In 1629 the main town of Ærøskøbing burnt down in a great fire. There was no other disaster of comparable scale. In 1750 the island, previously split into exclaves of numerous duchies, was united as single administrative district.

Until 1864, Ærø was part of the Danish Duchy of Schleswig – the area of Schleswig/Southern Jutland is now divided between Denmark (Northern Schleswig) and Germany (Southern Schleswig). King Christian IV's cousin, also named Christian, was the Duke of Ærø from 1622 to 1633, and lived with his concubine Cathrine Griebels at Gråsten Manor House.

When the Duke died, a banner was found at Gråsten composed of nine pieces of cloth and in three colours – body colour, sea green, and golden yellow. This banner has provided the inspiration for the flag of Ærø which is seen today all over the island. When Duke Christian died, Ærø was distributed among four of his brothers, and this offers one explanation of why two towns developed in the island, Ærøskøbing and later on Marstal, and why each came to be in their own "country".

Gråsten Manor House was abolished in 1766 and the buildings were demolished. The name of Gråsten is still alive today in the farmhouse that stands almost on the same spot as the ducal manor. Gråsten of today offers bed and breakfast accommodation.

In 1750, Ærø was united, and has not since been separated. This is marked by the memorial stone at Olde Mølle (English = Ancient mill). At the union, the old Code of Jutland from 1241 was applied and even today some of those rules are still valid.

In recent history, the preservation of the area's local heritage has been paramount among residents. This passion for Ærø was demonstrated in 2000 when the Marstal Maritime School was ordered to close. More than 2,000 islanders (a third of the island) traveled to Copenhagen to protest the closing of the historic school. Ultimately, the government allowed the Maritime School to remain open.

Renewable Energy & Technology

Ærø is endeavouring to become self-sufficient in energy, its initiatives in renewable energy technologies gaining international recognition for the island as one of the world's leaders in this field. Already in 2002, three modern wind turbines had been erected with turbines whose wingtips reach 100 m above the ground. making the island around 40% self-sufficient in renewable energy. As of January 2013, the area of the island's large solar power plant was expanded from 18,365 m2 to 33,300 m2 as a result of an extension under the Sunstone 4 project.

Ærø's three district heating systems of solar collectors have won international acclaim. With the recent expansion, the system in Marstal is now the world's largest solar collector system for heating.

From August 2019, the island has been served by the E-FERRY Ellen, an innovative low weight ferry for cars and passengers, powered by green electricity stored by on-board batteries. Built by Søby Værft, the ferry's design is well beyond state-of-the-art in terms of charging power and operating distance. It was partly funded by a €17 million grant through the EU's Horizon 2020 scheme.

Transport
Ærø is the only island among the larger Danish Baltic Sea islands that is not connected with a bridge, and road traffic is generally low. There are car ferry lines on four routes.

Ferries from Fynshav (on Als) and Faaborg on Funen arrive at Søby near Ærø's northwestern tip. Twin ferries M/F Ærøskøbing and M/F Marstal operate on the route from Svendborg arriving at Ærøskøbing. The route between Marstal and Rudkøbing on Langeland was stopped for several years after January 2013 but since 2019 is once again operable using the M/F ÆrøXpressen.

Ærø also lies within a popular sailboat area, the South Funen Archipelago. Near Marstal lies the small Ærø Airport with grass runways.

Notable residents

 * Anders Arrebo (1587 in Ærøskøbing – 1637) a Danish poet and Lutheran bishop in the Diocese of Nidaros
 * Albert Heinrich Riise (1810 in Ærøskøbing – 1882) a Danish pharmacist, merchant, and manufacturer of rum on Saint Thomas in the Danish West Indies
 * Claus Lauritz Clausen (1820 in Borgnæs – 1892) Lutheran clergyman, organizer of United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America and missionary to America
 * Carl Rasmussen (1841 in Ærøskøbing – 1893) a Danish painter of marine art and scenes of Greenland.
 * Povla Frijsh (1881 in Ærø - 1960) a Danish classical soprano and voice teacher
 * Hermann Møller Boye (1913 in Rolpested – 1944) a member of the Danish resistance executed by the German occupying power.
 * Erik Kromann (born 1946 in Marstal) a Danish author, museum director, and a local politician.
 * Carsten Jensen (born 1952 in Marstal) a Danish author and political columnist

Cultural references

 * In his 2006 novel We, The Drowned – an epic tale spanning four generations, nearly one hundred years, and two world wars – Carsten Jensen describes the maritime history of Marstal, his native town, where the men were expected to go to sea and the women to be left behind.

title: Ærø