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Inge Müller

Inge Müller (born Inge Meyer) (13 March 1925 – 1 June 1966) was an East German author and the second wife of East German playwright Heiner Müller.

Life
Inge Müller was born in Berlin in 1925. During World War II, she participated in the Reichsarbeitsdienst in different towns in Styria until she would be sent to Berlin as a Luftwaffe aide. Her parents died in an air strike. They lay buried together under rubble for three days with a dog. This was a traumatic experience which would accompany Inge for the rest of her life.

In the post war era, she was a secretary, Trümmerfrau, a worker, a journalist and a correspondent. Her first marriage to Kurt Loose lasted only a short time but produced a son. Already by 1948, she married Herbert Schwenker who was the leader of the variety theatre Friedrichstadtpalast and later the Circus Busch. She became a member of the SED and lived in Lehnitz, a district of the town of Oranienburg, from 1954 until 1959 where she enjoyed a privileged and unburdened existence.

In autumn of 1953, she became acquainted with Heiner Müller at a function of the Young Authors Working Group (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Junger Autoren). She soon afterwards moved into a shared apartment with him and they were married in 1955. The pair, who now earned their money as freelance writers, worked together on radio drama and theater pieces.

However, Inge Müller's dream of working together with Heiner as equals soon began to fade. She stood in the shadow of Heiner, who considered her more a coworker rather than as an equal partner. She began an affair with Heiner's 16-year-old brother Wolfgang Müller in 1956 which failed and relations with her husband worsened noticeably. The awarding of the Heinrich Mann Prize to the both of them in 1959 did nothing to improve the situation. In addition, the expulsion of Heiner from the authors union of the GDR (Schriftstellerverband der DDR) compounded these problems. Plagued by depressions and psychosomatic troubles she attempted suicide several times. She ultimately died by suicide on 1 June 1966. Only 41 years old, the writer died in her apartment on Kissingenplatz 12 of medication overdose and poisonous gas. The Aufbau Verlag made a futile endeavour to publish a volume with her poetry shortly after her death. Her works quickly passed into oblivion because a suicide did not fit in the literary picture of East German politics and, also, Heiner reclaimed the sole authorship of the collaboration. The first posthumous publication of her works was carried out by Bernd Jentzsch in 1976 in his first series Poesiealbum, first appeared in 1985, 20 years after her death, a book, which made accessible Inge Müller's literary work of broad public nature, with Richard Pietraß' Wenn ich schon sterben muß.

Her final resting place is in Friedhof Pankow III, a cemetery in Berlin.

Works
In her lifetime, Inge Müller published only a little among them the children's books Wölfchen Ungestüm (1955) and Zehn Jungen und ein Fischerdorf (1958), the emancipating and time relevant radio drama Die Weiberbrigade and the collaboration with Wiktor Rosows Auf dem Wege. Many stayed only fragments like the novel Ich Jona. With Heiner Müller, she created the dramas Der Lohndrücker (1956), Die Umsiedlerin (1956), Die Korrektur (1957), Klettwitzer Bericht (1958) and Unterwegs (1963).

She had remained above all a poet. Although nearly 300 lyrical works were created in her lifetime, only a few were published, mostly in the anthology In diesem besseren Land.

Literature
Biographies:
 * Ines Geipel: Dann fiel auf einmal der Himmel um. Henschel Verlag 2002, ISBN 3894874171
 * Review of 'Dann fiel...' http://www.zeit.de/2005/37/L-Inge_M_9fller in German
 * Sonja Hilzinger: Das Leben fängt heute an. Aufbau Verlag Berlin 2005, ISBN 3351025858

Works published:
 * Richard Pietraß (Editor): Wenn ich schon sterben muß. Aufbau Verlag Berlin 1985, ISBN 3351004494
 * Sonja Hilzinger (Editor): Daß ich nicht ersticke am Leisesein. Aufbau Verlag Berlin 2002, ISBN 3351029373

title: Inge Müller


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Balkan Mountains

The Balkan mountain range is located in the eastern part of the Balkans in Southeastern Europe. The range is conventionally taken to begin at the peak of Vrashka Chuka on the border between Bulgaria and Serbia. It then runs for about 560 km, first in a south-easterly direction along the border, then eastward across Bulgaria, forming a natural barrier between the northern and southern halves of the country, before finally reaching the Black Sea at Cape Emine. The mountains reach their highest point with Botev Peak at 2376 m.

In much of the central and eastern sections, the summit forms the watershed between the drainage basins of the Black Sea and the Aegean. A prominent gap in the mountains is formed by the predominantly narrow Iskar Gorge, a few miles north of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. The karst relief determines the large number of caves, including Magura, featuring the most important and extended European post-Palaeolithic cave painting, Ledenika, Saeva dupka, Bacho Kiro, etc. The most notable rock formation are the Belogradchik Rocks in the west.

There are several important protected areas: Central Balkan National Park, Vrachanski Balkan, Bulgarka and Sinite Kamani, as well as a number of nature reserves. The Balkan Mountains are remarkable for their flora and fauna. Edelweiss grows there in the region of Kozyata stena. Some of the most striking landscapes are included in the Central Balkan National Park with steep cliffs, the highest waterfalls in the Balkans and lush vegetation. There are a number of important nature reserves such as Chuprene, Kozyata stena and others. Most of Europe's large mammals inhabit the area including the brown bear, wolf, boar, chamois and deer.

The mountains are the source of the name of the Balkans (sometimes considered as a distinct peninsula or region). In Bulgarian and Serbian the mountains are also known as Стара планина Stara planina (pronounced in Bulgarian as and in Serbian as ), a term whose literal meaning is 'old mountain'.

Etymology

It is believed the name was brought to the region in the 7th century by Bulgars who applied it to the area, as a part of the First Bulgarian Empire. In Bulgarian, the archaic word balkan (балкан) was borrowed from Turkic and means "mountain". It may have ultimately derived from the Persian bālkāneh or bālākhāna, meaning "high, above, or proud house." The name is still preserved in Central Asia with the Balkan Daglary (Balkan Mountains) and the Balkan Province of Turkmenistan.

In Antiquity and the Middle Ages the mountains were known by their Thracian name: the Haemus Mons. Scholars consider that the name Haemus (Αἷμος) is derived from a Thracian word *saimon, 'mountain ridge'. The name of the place where the range meets the Black Sea, Cape Emine, is derived from Aemon. A folk etymology holds that 'Haemus' derives from the Greek word "haima" (αἵμα) meaning 'blood', and is based on Greek mythology. During a fight between Zeus and the monster/titan Typhon, Zeus injured Typhon with thunder; and Typhon's blood fell on the mountains, which were then named for this battle.

Other names used to refer to the mountains in different time periods include Aemon, Haemimons, Hem, Emus, the Slavonic Matorni gori and the Turkish Kocabalkan.

Geography
The Balkan Mountains are, technically, a chain of fold mountains—mountains formed by the compression and breaking of layers of rock. On a geological time scale, they are a rather young and recently formed part of the Alp-Himalayan chain which stretches across most of Eurasia. The Balkan Mountains can be divided into two parts—the main Balkan Chain and the Pre-Balkans (Fore-Balkan) to the north, which extend slightly onto the Danubian Plain. To the south, the mountains border the Sub-Balkan valleys, a row of 11 valleys running from the Bulgarian-Serbian border east to the Black Sea, separating the Balkan Mountains from a chain of other ranges known as Srednogorie (which includes Vitosha and Sredna Gora).

The Balkan Mountains consist of around 30 distinct peaks; within Bulgaria, the range can be divided into three sections:
 * The Western Balkan Mountains extend from Vrashka Chuka, at the border with Serbia, to the Pass of Arabakonak, with a total length of 190 km. The highest peak is Midžor, at 2169 m.
 * The Central Balkan Mountains run from Arabakonak to the Vratnik Pass, with a length of 207 km. Botev Peak, the highest mountain in the Balkan range at 2376 m, is located in this section.
 * The Eastern Balkan Mountains extend from the Vratnik Pass to Cape Emine, with a length of 160 km. The highest peak is Balgarka, at 1181 m. The eastern Balkan Mountains form the lowest part of the range.

Hydrology

In their central and eastern sections, the mountains form a water divide between the rivers flowing to the Danube in the north and those flowing to the Aegean Sea in the south. However, they are crossed by Bulgaria's longest river, the Iskar, which forms the Iskar Gorge. Rivers that take their source from the Balkan Mountains and flow northwards to the Danube include the Timok, Archar, Lom, Tsibritsa, Ogosta, Skat, Vit, Osam, Yantra, and Rusenski Lom. The mountains are also the source of the Kamchiya, which flows directly into the Black Sea. Although not so abundant in mineral waters as other parts of Bulgaria, there are several spas such as Varshets, Shipkovo and Voneshta Voda.

Developments in modern times have completely changed the geography of Serbia, especially when it comes to waterfalls. Still, there are a number of waterfalls to be seen, especially in the western and central parts of the range, such as Raysko Praskalo (the highest waterfall in the Balkans), as well as Borov Kamak, Babsko Praskalo, Etropole Waterfall, Karlovsko Praskalo, and Skaklya, among others. The area of the Stara Planina has always been sparsely populated and inaccessible because of the rugged and forested terrain, but also as a location of the Serbian-Bulgarian border. As armies relinquished the borders, giving control to the border police, civilians were allowed to explore the area. As a result, higher and higher waterfalls have been discovered on the Serbian side of the Stara Planina in the years since, including Čungulj (1996) at 43 m; Pilj (2002) at 64 m; Kopren (2011) at 103.5 m; and Kaluđerski Skokovi (2012) at 232 m.

Passes
The mountains are crossed by 20 passes and two gorges. There are paved roads crossing the Balkan Mountains at the following passes (listed from west to east):
 * Petrohan Pass: Sofia - Montana
 * Iskar Gorge (Iskarski prolom): Sofia - Vratsa (also railroad)
 * Vitinya Pass: Hemus motorway (A2), Sofia - Botevgrad
 * Zlatishki Pass (Zlatishki prohod): Zlatitsa - Etropole (closed)
 * Beklemeto Pass: Troyan - Sopot
 * Shipka Pass: Gabrovo - Kazanlak (also railroad)
 * Pass of the Republic (Prohod na republikata): Veliko Tarnovo - Gurkovo
 * Vratnik Pass: Elena - Sliven
 * Kotel Pass (Kotlenski prohod): Kotel - Petolachka (Pentagram) crossroads
 * Varbitsa Pass (Varbishki prohod): Shumen - Petolachka crossroads
 * Rish Pass (Rishki prohod): Shumen - Karnobat
 * Luda Kamchiya Gorge (Ludokamchiyski prolom): Provadiya - Karnobat (also railroad)
 * Aytos Pass (Aytoski prohod) - Provadiya - Aytos
 * Dyulino Pass (Dyulinski prohod): Varna - Aytos
 * Obzor Pass (Obzorski prohod): Varna - Burgas, future Cherno More motorway (A5)

Peaks

 * Botev Peak 2376 m (named after Hristo Botev)
 * Malkiyat yumruk 2340 m
 * Golyam Kademliya (Triglav) 2276 m
 * Mlechen chal 2255 m
 * Zhaltets 2227 m
 * Paradzhika 2209 m
 * Vezhen Peak 2198 m
 * Midžor 2169 m, the highest peak in Serbia proper and north-western Bulgaria, 12th in the Balkan Mountains.
 * Golyam Kupen 2169 m
 * Levski 2166 m (named after Vasil Levski)
 * Yurushka gramada 2136 m
 * Martinova chuka 2111 m
 * Malak Kupen 2101 m
 * Tetevenska Baba 2071 m
 * Buluvaniya 2043 m
 * Golyam Krastets 2034 m
 * Kostenurkata (The Turtle) 2034 m
 * Oba 2033 m
 * Kartala 2031 m
 * Pascal 2029 m
 * Ravnets 2020 m
 * Kom Peak 2016 m
 * Kositsa 2001 m
 * Replyanska tsarkva 1969 m
 * Golema chuka 1967 m
 * Svishti plaz 1888 m
 * Mara Gidia 1790 m
 * Todorini Kukli 1785 m
 * Haydushki kamak 1721 m
 * Murgash 1687 m
 * Koznitsa 1637 m
 * Chukava (Golema mountain) 1588 m
 * Gorno Yazovo 1573 m
 * Chumerna 1536 m
 * Ispolin 1523 m
 * Ravno buche 1499 m
 * Buzludzha 1441 m
 * Manyakov kamak 1439 m
 * Guvnishte 1413 m
 * Golemi Del 1363 m
 * Vetren Peak 1330 m
 * Shipka (Stoletov, St. Nikola) 1329 m
 * Goten (Sofiiska mountain) 1294 m
 * Petrovski krast 1206 m

History
The Balkan Mountains have had a significant and special place in the history of Bulgaria since its founding in 681. It was a natural fortress of the Bulgarian Empire for centuries and formed an effective barrier to Moesia where most of the medieval capitals were located. The Balkan mountains were the site of numerous battles between the Bulgarian and Byzantine Empires including the Battle of the Rishki Pass (759), Battle of the Varbitsa Pass (811), the Battle of Tryavna (1190) and the Battle of Devina (1279). In the battle of the Varbitsa Pass, Khan Krum decisively defeated an enormous Byzantine army, killing Emperor Nikephoros I. For many centuries, the Byzantines feared these mountains, their armies reportedly retreating upon approaching them.

During the Ottoman rule, many haiduks found refuge in the Balkan Mountains. Close to the highest summit, Botev Peak, is Kalofer, the birthplace of Hristo Botev, a Bulgarian poet and national hero who died in the western Balkan Mountains near Vratsa in 1876 in the struggle against the Ottoman Empire. Also close to Botev is Shipka Pass, the scene of the four battles in the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78, which ended Turkish rule in the Balkans.

Bulgaria

Significant areas of the Balkan mountains are under protection by Bulgarian law, including one national park — Central Balkan National Park; three nature parks — Vrachanski Balkan Nature Park, Bulgarka Nature Park and Sinite Kamani Nature Park, over 20 nature reserves, as well as numerous natural landmarks.

Central Balkan National Park is among the largest and most valuable of the protected areas in Europe. Since 2017, its ancient beech forests have been included in the Primeval Beech Forests UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the third largest protected territory in Bulgaria, spanning an area of 716.69 km2 with total length of 85 km from the west to the east and an average width of 10 km. Within its territory are located the highest summit of the mountain range, Botev Peak (2376 m), as well as the highest waterfall in the Balkans Raysko Praskalo (124.5 m). The rugged and diverse relief determines the presence of numerous gorges, cliffs, water features and caves, including Raychova Dupka, the second-deepest cave discovered in Bulgaria and in the mountain range, reaching depth of -377 m.

The flora of Central Balkan National Park is diverse and consists of 1689 species of vascular plants, 45 species of algae and 238 species of mosses. These include 23 Bulgarian endemic species, such as leafy primrose (Primula frondosa), which is only found within the park's boundaries, Аlchemilla аchtarowii, Alchemilla jumrukczalica, Betonica bulgarica, Centaurea davidovii, as well as another 75 Balkan endemics.

The vertebrate fauna of Central Balkan National Park consists of over 300 species. The number of mammal species is around 60, including animals of high conservation concern, such as the: Balkan chamois (R. rupicapra balcanica), Eurasian brown bear, Eurasian otter, Eurasian wolf, European ground squirrel, European snow vole, European wild boar, European wildcat, Lesser mole-rat, Marbled polecat, Pine marten, Red deer, Red fox, Western roe deer.

The avifauna includes some 220 species, of which 123 are resident/nesting. The park is key for the protection of the eastern imperial eagle, saker falcon, Eurasian eagle-owl, Eurasian pygmy owl, Ural owl, boreal owl, white-backed woodpecker, semicollared flycatcher and the corn crake.

The park's herpetofauna includes 15 reptile and nine amphibian species. It hosts vital populations of common European adder (Vipera berus), European toad, grass snake (Natrix natrix), legless lizard, tessellated water snake, viviparous lizard and the common frog. Due to the park's high altitude, the ichthyofauna consists of six fish species, with brown trout being the dominant one.

Vrachanski Balkan Nature Park is situated in the western section of the mountain range and spans an area of 301.29 km2. Its territory includes some of the most extensive karst areas in Bulgaria with over 600 caves, such as Ledenika, the gorge Vratsata whose 400 m vertical cliffs are the highest in the Balkans, and numerous waterfalls, such as Skaklia (141 m drop but unlike Raysko Praskalo it is seasonal) and Borov Kamak (63 m drop). The flora includes 1082 species of vascular plants and 186 species of mosses. The endemism is lowers when compared to the Central Balkan National Park — 6 Bulgarian and another 36 Balkan endemic species. The vertebrate fauna encompasses 276 species. The recorded mammal species are 58 and include gray wolf, golden jackal, wildcat, marbled polecat, European polecat, European pine marten and 22 bat species. The birds are 181 species, including 124 nesting ones. Typical species are the golden eagle, long-legged buzzard, peregrine falcon, Eurasian eagle-owl, Alpine chough, Alpine swift, Eurasian crag martin, red-rumped swallow, wallcreeper, etc. There are 15 reptile and 11 amphibian species; of them important populations exist of the meadow lizard, European copper skink, Balkan crested newt, as well as the only habitat in Bulgaria of the northern crested newt, which is also its southernmost locality worldwide. There have been successful efforts in the reintroduction of two vulture species that went extinct from the mountain range in the past several decades. In 2021 the first cinereous vulture in Bulgaria in nearly 30 years hatched in Kotel mountains in the eastern section of the mountain range, thus establishing the second breeding colony in the Balkans, after the one in north-eastern Greece. In recent years, several breeding pairs of griffon vulture have established themselves in the Vratsa Balkan to the west, as well as in the eastern sections of the Balkan Mountains. The eastern Balkan Mountains are among the priority areas in the reintroduction programme for the bearded vulture. Since the early XXI century there have been several records of the Eurasian lynx, which has been considered extincts in Bulgaria since the 1940s, in a number of localities along the Balkan Mountains.

Serbia
First group of trees was protected in 1966, followed by the creation of 7 special nature reserves and 3 natural monuments in the 1980s. Nature park Stara Planina was established in 1997 and since 2009 is in its present borders, covering an area of 1143.22 km2. The protected area was expanded in 2020.

The sediments extend from the Paleozoic to the Cenozoic eras. Limestone terrain is known for the short losing streams and tufaceous waterfalls. There are canyons and gorges, like those of the Toplodolska reka and Rosomačka reka rivers. The Rosomača canyon (Rosomački lonci or Slavinjsko grlo), with its 60 m tall, cascade limestone walls, is known for its resemblance of the Colorado's Grand Canyon, but on a much smaller scale. The 500 m long gorge is a remnant of the former cave which eroded in time. Underground waters on the mountain reach the surface in the forms of common springs, well-springs (vrelo) and diffused springs (pištevina). There are some 500 springs with the flow of over 0.1 liter/second. The strongest spring is the intermittent Jelovičko vrelo, known for its fluctuations, characterized by the bubbling and foaming.

Montane ecosystems are diverse and include several plant communities: forests, shrubs, meadows, pastures and peatlands. There are six different vegetation zone in the park. Oak, beech, spruce, subalpine zone of the shrub vegetation of common horsetail, blueberry, subalpine spruce and mugo pine. Other plants include shrub alder, steppe pedunculate oak, but also rare and endangered species like European pasqueflower, yellow pheasant's eye, Kosovo peony, common sundew, Heldreich's maple, martagon lily, pygmy iris and marsh orchid. In total, there are 1,190 plant species, including a locally endemic winged bellflower (Campanula calyciliata) and Pančić's frog grass (Senecio pancicii), which can be found only on the mountain. There are also communities of mountainous sphagnum bogs on the localities of Jabučko Ravnište, Babin Zub and Arbinje. Some 350 herb species are considered medicinal or aromatic. In 2022, several independent surveys from various universities and institutes were conducted, in order to list all of them, to enhance their protection, and to check possibilities for potential plantation production. Vast areas south and southeast from the mountain are already transformed into the aromatic herbs plantations, especially the entire slopes of the nearby mountains being planted with lavender.

In the 1980s, fossils of Thecodontosaurus were discovered on the mountain. It is one of the oldest recorded species of dinosaurs, and the remains are estimated to be some 250 million years old.

Some 190 species of butterflies are recorded. The area is a salmonid region, inhabited by the riverine brown trout. Another 25 species of fish live in the rivers and streams, so as the fire salamander and newts. Over 30 mammalian species are found in the park, including lesser mole-rat, hazel dormouse and the Tertiary relict, European snow vole. Brown bear became extinct in Serbian part, but evidence showing the presence of the bears were found in 2014. The bears have been photographed in 2015, before disappearing again until 2019 when a young brown bear was filmed on camera.

There are 203 species of birds, of which 154 are nesting in the park, 10 are wintering, 30 are passing and 13 are wandering. Important species include golden eagle, Ural owl and hawk. As the park is the most important habitat in Serbia for long-legged buzzard, Eurasian woodcock and an endemic Balkan horned lark, an area of 440 km2 was declared a European Important Bird Area. The griffon vulture disappeared from the region in the late 1940s. In 2017 a program for their reintroduction began within the scope of a wider European program. Among other things, the feeders will be placed along the vultures' migratory route. By 2023, there were regular sightings of griffon vultures, and, thanks to the efforts of Bulgarian and Spanish ornithologists, the cinereous vultures were seen flying over the Serbian side, while the population decline of Egyptian vultures was slowed down. Neither griffon nor cinereous vultures are still nesting on Serbian side. The latter has not been nesting since the 1960s, when they were eradicated through the state operated campaign of poisoning wolves.

Human heritage spans from the prehistoric remains, Classical antiquity including the Roman period and late mediaeval monastic complexes. Some of those older monuments are fragmentary and relocated from their original locations. There are numerous examples of the ethnic edifices characteristic for the architecture of the region in the late 19th and early 20th century (houses, barns, etc.)

Serbian section of the mountain is seen as a location for dozens of micro hydros, mini power plants which caused problem with the environmentalists and local population. Even the Ministry for environmental protection halted some of the projects and litigated with the investors. They also announced the change of the Nature protection law, which will permanently forbid the construction of plants in protected areas. In order to prevent further degradation, the Nature Park Stara Planina was nominated for the UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme and for the world list of geoparks, while over tens of thousands of citizens signed petitions against the micro hydros and numerous protests have been organized by the local population. This prompted similar protests in other parts of Serbia and the association "Defend the rivers of Stara Planina" was founded, which expanded its base of operations outside of the Stara Planina region. The activism resulted in various physical altercation between the local citizens on one, and contractors and their security guards on the other side, amidst the police interventions.

In October 2018, Minister of Environmental Protection Goran Trivan, said that the current law allows for the micro hydros to be built in the protected areas. The government allowed the construction of 800 micro hydros, which has been described as "megalomaniacal" by the ecologists, as they would produce less than 1% of the total electricity. Environmentalists also accused the government of destroying the plant and animal life using the pretext of renewable energy. In September 2019, Pirot city administration announced it is removing from the spatial plan all 43 existing locations for the micro hydros on the protected area of Stara Planina. There are 15 locations remaining in the unprotected sector of the mountain, but city officials announced abolishing of these locations in the future, too.

By the 2020s, Stara Planina became a popular filmmaking locality. With Serbian productions, the foreign movies were also filmed here, including the 2019 Indian action movie Uri: The Surgical Strike. Its director, Aditya Dhar, expressed surprise with "unremarkable similarity between Stara Planina and Kashmir". The 2022 Australian Oscar entry You Won't Be Alone was also filmed on the mountain.

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

title: Balkan Mountains


text:
Coat of arms of Åland

The coat of arms of Åland features a golden red deer on a blue field. This is traditionally surmounted by a comital coronet of the elder Swedish style.

History
First known symbol of the Åland islands is a seal from 1326 depicting Saint Olaf, the patron saint of the islands. The saint is seated on a throne, holding in his hands a globus cruciger and an axe. The medieval seal was later used as an inspiration for the arms of Jomala municipality, granted in 1952.

The arms borne today by the Åland islands were originally granted to the similar-sounding island province of Öland in 1560, displaying a golden red deer on a blue field. In 1569, Åland had been given to the Swedish queen dowager Katarina Stenbock as a fief and was awarded a provincial coat of arms displaying two roe deer on a field strewn with nine roses. The arms of these two similar-sounding Swedish provinces became confused early on, and in the 1880s Öland's arms were recorded as two roe deer with nine roses. Sweden had ceded much of its eastern territory, including the Åland Islands, to Russia in 1809, which became the Grand Duchy of Finland, but the heraldic switch-up was not discovered until the 1940s.

During a heraldic revision in 1944, the Swedish National Heraldry Office (Riksheraldikerämbetet) discovered that a mistake had been committed. Heraldic authorities in Finland were notified of the error but ultimately decided not make any changes and not to adopt the coat of arms originally intended for Åland (with the two roe deer and nine Finnish roses), as they had long since granted Åland the arms which had been usurped from Öland. This decision made it necessary for Swedish heralds to once again alter the coat of arms for Öland, to avoid further confusion. It was then decided in 1944 that the Öland deer should have a red collar and attire to distinguish it from the arms which had been first granted to Öland but now belonged to Åland.

title: Coat of arms of Åland


text:
Midnight Club

Midnight Club is a series of arcade-style racing video games developed by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games. Midnight Club is similar to the Midtown Madness series (previously developed by Angel Studios), with a focus on competitive street racing in open world urban environments. Throughout the series, players race through condensed depictions of New York City, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo, San Diego, Atlanta, and Detroit.

Premise
The Midnight Club series was inspired by the real life Japanese racing group (hashiriya), known as the Mid Night Racing Team, that hosted illegal street runs on the Bayshore Route (known natively as the ) of the Shuto Expressway in the Greater Tokyo Area. Two kanji characters (湾岸, or "wangan") appear in each of the series' logos; the Japanese manga series Wangan Midnight — also inspired by the club — includes the same two characters in its logos. The kanji is removed from the titles in the Japanese versions of Midnight Club: Street Racing and Midnight Club: Los Angeles as to avoid legal conflict with Wangan Midnight rights owners Kodansha.

In each game, the player begins with a relatively unmodified and slow vehicle. Higher-performance vehicles can be won or purchased by the player after competing in races against other club members. The goal is to defeat each of the other opponents (which include "city champion" and "world champion" racers) en route to becoming the new champion of the Midnight Club. Later installments of the series include real vehicle brands with sophisticated customization options for each, and "club" races, which consist of racers using vehicles of the same class.

Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition, developed by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games, is the third game in the Midnight Club series. It is also the first game in the series to feature licensed vehicles and allow players to customize their cars and bikes with performance and visual upgrades. It was released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox on April 11, 2005, and later ported to the PlayStation Portable in June of that same year. The three cities featured are San Diego, Atlanta, and Detroit. The name derived from a partnership between Rockstar and DUB Magazine, which features heavily in the game in the form of DUB-sponsored races and DUB-customized vehicles. The PlayStation Portable port was developed by Rockstar Leeds.

DUB Edition Remix
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix is an updated version of Midnight Club 3. This edition has an extra map of Tokyo updated from Midnight Club 2 which adds new missions to the game. Along with that come several new cars, new races, new battle maps, rims, vinyls, hydraulics, body kits, and music.

Midnight Club: Los Angeles
Midnight Club: Los Angeles is the fourth addition to the Midnight Club lineup. It was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2008 on October 20 for North America and October 24 for Europe. As the name suggests, the game is based in Los Angeles, featuring Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Hollywood Hills, San Fernando Valley, Downtown L.A., and most recently South Central. The designers used real street maps in developing the game. The game features online play and downloadable content. Licensed cars and bikes return, including new models and brands such as Ford and Mazda, which were not seen in Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition.

L.A. Remix
Midnight Club: L.A. Remix is the portable adaption of Midnight Club: Los Angeles for the PlayStation Portable. The port is developed by Rockstar London with Rockstar San Diego. The game features the map of Los Angeles used in Midnight Club II rather than the map used in the console versions of Los Angeles. The game also features the city of Tokyo, using the map from Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix.

Reception
The series has received generally positive views from critics.

Cancellation
In January 2010, Rockstar had stalled plans for a future Midnight Club installment, and the development team was slowly dismantled. Take-Two Interactive re-registered the Midnight Club trademark in 2012. Although Take-Two has acknowledged the series in its quarterly financial reports while CEO Strauss Zelnick mentioned it while discussing newly acquired developer Zynga in a January 2022 conference call, no plans have been made to reboot the franchise as of September 2022.

title: Midnight Club


text:
Li Xiannian

Li Xiannian (pronounced ; 23 June 1909 – 21 June 1992) was a Chinese Communist military and political leader, president of China from 1983 to 1988 under paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and then chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1988 until his death. He was a full member of the Politburo from 1956 to 1987, and of its Standing Committee from 1977 to 1987.

Li worked as an apprentice carpenter in his teenage years to support his family. He joined the Communist Party in December 1927 and became a soldier in the Chinese Red Army. After studying at the Military–Political University and the Central Party School, he became an influential and successful military commander during the Second Sino–Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, distinguishing himself in the Huaihai campaign.

After the PRC was established, he served as Governor and Party Secretary of his native Hubei Province from 1949 to 1954, and then joined the central leadership in Beijing, serving as Minister of Finance (1954–1970) and Vice Premier (1954–1982). He supported Mao Zedong's designated successor, Hua Guofeng, and was named Vice Chairman of the Party (1977–1982).

One of the Eight Elders of the Party, he was considered the most leftist among them, both politically and economically. Li played a key role in blocking privatizations and maintaining state control in many sectors of the economy. He promoted classical Communist political and cultural values through his patronage of theorists such as Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun, and was instrumental in purging the liberals Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. He enthusiastically advocated for military suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

Early career
Born in Hong'an, Hubei, Li came from a poor family and spent his teenage years working at a carpenter's shop. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in December 1927, and served as an army captain and political commissar for the Chinese Red Army during the Long March. He was a military cadre in Zhang Guotao West Route Army.

After arriving in Yan'an, he studied at the Counter-Japanese Military and Political University and at the Central Party School. Here he was under pressure, as other military cadres who served on the West Route Army. He fought in both the Second Sino–Japanese War, where he was sent to the Hubei-Henan Region to lead the guerrilla and establish an Anti-Japanese base area, and the Chinese Civil War, especially in the Central Plains, and played a key role in many Communist victories, most significantly in the Huai–Hai Campaign.

Mao-era China
After the Communists' victory in China, Li was appointed Governor and Party Secretary of his native Hubei Province from 1949 to 1954, and he also served as the commander and political commissar of the province's military garrison. Additionally, he was Vice Chairman of the PRC's Military Commission for South–Central China (overseeing military and public security forces in Guangdong, Hainan, Henan, Hubei and Hunan).

In 1954, Li joined the central leadership in Beijing and became China's Minister of Finance. He was also appointed Vice Premier for the entire period of 1954–1982.

During the Cultural Revolution, Li was a part of the February Countercurrent which criticized the Cultural Revolution for creating social disorder and undermining China's leadership. Despite losing his job as Finance Minister in 1970, he nonetheless enjoyed Zhou Enlai's protection and was the only civilian official to serve without interruption alongside Zhou throughout the 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution decade. In 1976, Li played an instrumental role in destroying the Gang Of Four. After the demise of the Gang, Li was appointed Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and a member of the Central Military Commission.

Post-Mao politician
When Chairman Hua Guofeng rose to leadership after the death of Mao Zedong, Li became Hua's chief economic adviser and one of his main backers, along with Generals Wang Dongxing and Chen Xilian. If Hua had been successful in his efforts to achieve supreme power, Li would have become one of the most powerful officials in China, but Li's political career stalled when Deng Xiaoping eclipsed Hua as China's "Paramount leader". For the rest of his career, Li complained that his own achievements during the brief Hua interregnum were not sufficiently recognized as the basis of the progress experienced in China during the 1980s.

Li was described as an "orthodox" or "Soviet-style" communist and was a firm believer in central planning and sociopolitical conformity, so disliked Deng Xiaoping's more radical economic reform ideas. He had in fact been largely responsible for drafting the short-lived Ten Year Plan of 1978 which attempted to build a Soviet-style economy based around heavy industry and energy production. Li's ideas enjoyed strong support among some sections of the Chinese top leadership; General Yu Qiuli and his "oil clique", for example, fully supported Li.

However, Deng quickly terminated these ideas and instituted his own "go slow" approach that involved gradually allowing the development of light industry and consumer goods. He also went about assigning government posts to younger men who were followers of his ideas. One of these was Premier Zhao Ziyang, whom Li strongly opposed for being too willing to import Western ideas and move away from a planned economy. According to Zhao, Li "hated me because I was implementing Deng Xiaoping's reforms, but since it was difficult for him to openly oppose Deng, he made me the target of his opposition."

Presidency
In 1983, after the passing of a new Constitution, Li was appointed President of China at the age of 74. Although according to the 1982 Constitution the role of President was "largely ceremonial", it recognized Li's status as a respected Party elder and a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, and Li himself went on to forcefully use his still very substantial influence to support leftist policies. In 1984, Li met with U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the latter's visit to China, notably discussing the status of Taiwan with the President. Li visited the United States in July 1985, the first time the head of state of the People's Republic of China made such a visit.

As the decade progressed, Deng Xiaoping, always an opponent of lifetime tenure in office, gradually convinced most of the party elders to retire. Li stepped down as president in 1988 and was succeeded by Yang Shangkun. Li was then named Chairman of the National Committee of the CPPCC. He was a strong supporter of Jiang Zemin's rise to power, and during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Li was one of the hardline Party elders who pushed for a strong response to the demonstrations and supported Premier Li Peng's desire to use military force to suppress the protests. Li continued to serve in government until his death in 1992, one year before his term expire.

Family
Li had four children. His youngest daughter, Li Xiaolin, is the President of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. She is a member of the CPPCC national committee.

Death and later commemoration
Li died on 21 June 1992 at the age of 82, two days shy of his 83rd birthday. His funeral was held on 27 June 1992 and was attended by members of the Politburo Standing Committee. After the service, Li was cremated.

Awards and honors

 * ROM_Ordinul_Steaua_Republicii_Populare_Române_clasa_I_BAR.svg Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic, 1st Class (Romania, 1984)

title: Li Xiannian


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Elinor Wylie

Elinor Morton Wylie (September 7, 1885 – December 16, 1928) was an American poet and novelist popular in the 1920s and 1930s. "She was famous during her life almost as much for her ethereal beauty and personality as for her melodious, sensuous poetry."

Family and childhood
Elinor Wylie was born Elinor Morton Hoyt in Somerville, New Jersey, into a socially prominent family. Her grandfather, Henry M. Hoyt, was a governor of Pennsylvania. Her parents were Henry Martyn Hoyt, Jr., who would be United States Solicitor General from 1903 to 1909; and Anne Morton McMichael (born July 31, 1861, in Pa.). Their other children were:

In 1887, the Hoyt family moved to Rosemont, a suburb of Philadelphia.
 * Henry Martyn Hoyt III (1887–1920), an artist who married Alice Gordon Parker.
 * Constance Hoyt (1889–1923) who married Ferdinand von Stumm-Halberg on March 30, 1910, in Washington, D.C.
 * Morton McMichael Hoyt (1899-1949), three times married and divorced Eugenia Bankhead, known as "Sister" and sister of Tallulah Bankhead
 * Nancy McMichael Hoyt (1902-1949), a romance novelist who wrote Elinor Wylie: The Portrait of an Unknown Woman (1935). She married Edward Davison Curtis; they divorced in 1932.

Because of her father's political aspirations, Elinor spent much of her youth in Washington, DC. She was educated at Miss Baldwin's School (1893–97), Mrs. Flint's School (1897–1901), and finally Holton-Arms School (1901–04). In particular, from age 12 to 20, she lived in Washington again where she made her debut in the midst of the "city's most prominent social élite," being "trained for the life of a debutante and a society wife".

Marriages and scandal
The future Elinor Wylie became notorious, during her lifetime, for her multiple affairs and marriages. On the rebound from an earlier romance she met her first husband, Harvard graduate Philip Simmons Hichborn (1882–1912), the son of a rear-admiral. She eloped with him and they were married on December 13, 1906, when she was 20. She had a son by him, Philip Simmons Hichborn, Jr., born September 22, 1907, in Washington, D.C. However, "Hichborn, a would-be poet, was emotionally unstable", and Elinor found herself in an unhappy marriage.

She also found herself being stalked by Horace Wylie, "a Washington lawyer with a wife and three children", who "was 17 years older than Elinor. He stalked her for years, appearing wherever she was."

Following the death in November 1910 of Elinor's father, and unable to secure a divorce from Hichborn, she left her husband and son, and eloped with Wylie.

"After being ostracized by their families and friends and mistreated in the press, the couple moved to England" where they lived "under the assumed name of Waring; this event caused a scandal in the Washington, D.C., social circles Elinor Wylie had frequented". Philip Simmons Hichborn Sr. died by suicide in 1912.

With Horace Wylie's encouragement, in 1912 Elinor anonymously published Incidental Number, a small book of poems she had written in the previous decade.

Between 1914 and 1916, Elinor tried to have a second child, but "suffered several miscarriages ... as well as a stillbirth and ... a premature child who died after one week."

After Horace Wylie's wife agreed to a divorce, the couple returned to the United States and lived in three different states "under the stress of social ostracism and Elinor's illness." Elinor and Horace Wylie officially married in 1916, after Elinor's first husband had died by suicide and Horace's first wife had divorced him. By then, however, the couple were drawing apart."

Elinor began spending time in literary circles in New York City—"her friends there numbered John Peale Bishop, Edmund Wilson, John Dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis, Carl Van Vechten, and ... William Rose Benét."

Her last marriage (in 1923) was to William Rose Benét (February 2, 1886 – May 4, 1950), who was part of her literary circle and brother of Stephen Vincent Benét. By the time Wylie's third book of poetry, Trivial Breath in 1928 appeared, her marriage with Benét was also in trouble, and they had agreed to live apart. She moved to England and fell in love with the husband of a friend, Henry de Clifford Woodhouse, to whom she wrote a series of 19 sonnets which she published privately in 1928 as Angels and Earthly Creatures (also included in her 1929 book of the same name).

Career
Elinor Wylie's literary friends encouraged her to submit her verse to Poetry magazine. Poetry published four of her poems, including what became "her most widely anthologized poem”, 'Velvet Shoes', in May 1920. With Benét now acting as her informal literary agent, "Wylie left her second husband and moved to New York in 1921". The Dictionary of Literary Biography (DLB) says: "She captivated the literary world with her slender, tawny-haired beauty, personal elegance, acid wit, and technical virtuosity."

In 1921, Wylie's first commercial book of poetry, Nets to Catch the Wind, was published. The book, "which many critics still consider to contain her best poems," was an immediate success. Edna St. Vincent Millay and Louis Untermeyer praised the work. The Poetry Society awarded her its Julia Ellsworth Ford Prize.

In 1923 she published Black Armor, which was "another successful volume of verse". The New York Times enthused: "There is not a misplaced word or cadence in it. There is not an extra syllable."

1923 also saw the publication of Wylie's first novel, Jennifer Lorn, to considerable fanfare. Van Vechten "organized a torchlight parade through Manhattan to celebrate its publication".

According to Carl Van Doren, Wylie had "as sure and strong an intelligence" as he has ever known. Her novels were "flowers with roots reaching down into unguessed deeps of erudition."

She worked as the poetry editor of Vanity Fair magazine between 1923 and 1925. She was an editor of Literary Guild, and a contributing editor of The New Republic, from 1926 through 1928.

Wylie was an "admirer of the British Romantic poets, and particularly of Shelley, to a degree that some critics have seen as abnormal". She wrote a 1926 novel, The Orphan Angel, in which "the great young poet is rescued from drowning off an Italian cape and travels to America, where he encounters the dangers of the frontier."

By the time of Wylie's third book of poetry, Trivial Breath in 1928, her marriage with Benét was also in trouble, and they had agreed to live apart. She moved to England and fell in love with the husband of a friend, Henry de Clifford Woodhouse, to whom she wrote a series of 19 sonnets which she published privately in 1928 as Angels and Earthly Creatures (also included in her 1929 book of the same name).

Elinor Wylie's literary output is impressive, given that her writing career lasted just eight years. In that brief period, she crowded four volumes of poems, four novels, and enough magazine articles to "make up an additional volume."

Death
Wylie suffered from very high blood pressure all her adult life. As a result, she was prone to unbearable migraines and died of a stroke at Benét's New York apartment at the age of 43. At the time, they were both preparing for publication her Angels and Earthly Creatures.

Poetry
Wylie's "highly polished, articulate, and deeply emotional verse shows the influence of the metaphysical poets," such as John Donne, George Herbert, and Andrew Marvell. If her poetry is derivative of anyone, though, that would be "of the British Romantic poets, and particularly of Shelley," whom she admired "to a degree that some critics have seen as abnormal."

In her first book, Nets to Catch the Wind, "Stanzas and lines were quite short, and the effect of her images was of a highly detailed, polished surface. Often, her poems expressed a dissatisfaction with the realities of life on the part of a speaker who aspired to a more gratifying world of art and beauty." Louis Untermeyer wrote that the book "impresses immediately because of its brilliance ... which, at first, seems to sparkle without burning.... It is the brilliance of moon-light corruscating on a plain of ice. But if Mis. Wylie seldom allows her verses to grow agitated, she never permits them to remain dull.... in 'August' the sense of heat is conveyed by tropic luxuriance and contrast; in 'The Eagle and the Mole' she lifts didacticism to a proud level ... never has snow-silence been more unerringly communicated than in 'Velvet Shoes.'" Other notable poems include "Wild Peaches," "A Proud Lady," "Sanctuary," "Winter Sleep," "Madman's Song," "The Church-Bell," and "A Crowded Trolley Car."

In Black Armor (1923), "the intellect has grown more fiery, the mood has grown warmer, and the craftsmanship is more dazzling than ever.... she varies the perfect modulation with rhymes that are delightfully acrid and unique departures which never fail of success ... from the nimble dexterity of a rondo like 'Peregrine' to the introspective poignance of 'Self Portrait,' from the fanciful 'Escape' to the grave mockery of 'Let No Charitable Hope.'"

Trivial Breath (1928) "is the work of a poet in transition. At times the craftsman is uppermost; at times the creative genius."

Wylie's biographer Stanley Olson called the sonnets that begin 1929's Angels and Earthly Creatures "perhaps, her finest achievement.... The love in these lyrics is not a private love, not a variety of confession, but an abstracted one.... The nineteen sonnets are paced with strength, energy and undeniable feeling, sustained as a group by shifting through the complexities and vicissitudes of love." Untermeyer also praised the sonnets, but added: "The other poems share this intensity. 'This Corruptible' is both visionary and philosophic; 'O Virtuous Light' deals with that piercing clarity, the intuition ... The other poems are scarcely less uplifted, finding their summit in 'Hymn to Earth, which is one of her deeper poems and one which is certain to endure."

Fiction
Wylie's four novels "are delicately wrought and filled with ironic fancy".

Cultural references
Bram Stoker dedicated his 1903 novel The Jewel of Seven Stars to Wylie and her sister Constance, whom he had met when they were visiting London.

The title of Tennessee Williams' play, In Masks Outrageous and Austere, is taken from the last stanza of Wylie's poem "Let No Charitable Hope:" "In masks outrageous and austere / The years go by in single file; / But none has merited my fear, / And none has quite escaped my smile."

Poetry

 * [Anonymous], Incidental Numbers. London: private, 1912.
 * Nets to Catch the Wind. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1921.
 * Black Armour. New York: Doran, 1923.
 * Trivial Breath. New York, London: Knopf, 1928.
 * Angels and Earthly Creatures: A Sequence of Sonnets Henley on Thames, UK: Borough Press, 1928. (also known as One Person).
 * Angels and Earthly Creatures. New York, London: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929. (includes Angels and Earthly Creatures: A Sequence of Sonnets).
 * Birthday Sonnet. New York: Random House, 1929.
 * Collected Poems of Elinor Wylie. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932.
 * Last Poems of Elinor Wylie, transcribed by Jane D. Wise, foreword by William Rose Benet, tribute by Edith Olivier. New York: Knopf, 1943. Chicago: Academy, 1982.
 * Selected Works of Elinor Wylie. Evelyn Helmick Hively ed. Kent State U Press, 2005.

Novels

 * Jennifer Lorn: A Sedate Extravaganza. New York: Doran, 1923. London: Richards, 1924.
 * The Venetian Glass Nephew. New York: Doran, 1925. Chicago: Academy, 1984.
 * The Orphan Angel. New York: Knopf, 1926. Also published as Mortal Image. London: Heinemann, 1927.
 * Mr. Hodge & Mr. Hazard. New York. Knopf, 1928. London: Heinemann, 1928. Chicago: Academy, 1984.
 * Collected Prose of Elinor Wylie. New York: Knopf, 1933.

Personal papers

 * Her personal papers reside in the Elinor Wylie Archive, Beinecke Rare Book Room and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT, and in the Berg Collection, New York Public Library.

title: Elinor Wylie


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Fantasy baseball

Fantasy baseball is a game in which the participants serve as owners and general managers of virtual baseball teams. The competitors select their rosters by participating in a draft in which all relevant Major League Baseball (MLB) players are available. Fantasy points are awarded in weekly matchups based on the actual performances of baseball players in real-world competition. The game typically involves MLB, but can also involve other leagues, such as American college baseball, or leagues in other countries, such as the KBO League.

History
Throughout his life, author Jack Kerouac played his own form of fantasy baseball, in which he created completely fictitious teams, players, and statistics. Kerouac's fantasy baseball records included charts, sketches, and notes on each of his created teams.

Early simulations
The history of fantasy baseball games can be traced back to the 19th century. The tabletop game Sebring Parlor Base Ball, introduced in 1866, allowed participants to simulate games by propelling a coin into slots on a wooden board. Later games featured outcomes determined by dice rolls or spinners, and some were endorsed by professional ballplayers. In 1930, Clifford Van Beek designed the board game National Pastime, which contained customized baseball cards of MLB players. After rolling a pair of dice, participants would consult the card of the MLB player "at bat" to determine an outcome, which could range from a single, double, triple, or home run to a strikeout, putout, walk, or error. Players with better statistics in the previous season were more likely to receive favorable outcomes; this allowed National Pastime to become one of the first games to attempt to accurately simulate the performances of real-life MLB players.

A notable example of such games was APBA, which was first released in 1951 and also contained cards of MLB players with in-game outcomes correlated to their stats from past seasons. Participants could compose fantasy teams from the cards and play against each other or attempt to re-create previous seasons using the statistics on the cards. Individual player cards and dice roll simulations were also emulated in the Strat-O-Matic game, which was first released in 1961. Daniel Okrent, who would later be credited with developing modern fantasy baseball, was an avid Strat-O-Matic player, telling Sports Illustrated in 2011 that "if there hadn't been Strat-O-Matic, I still think I would have come up with rotisserie, but unquestionably it helped."

In 1960, sociologist William A. Gamson developed the Baseball Seminar league, in which participants would draft rosters of active MLB players and compare results at the end of the season based on the players' final batting averages, earned run averages, runs batted in, and win totals. Gamson would continue to play the game as a professor at the University of Michigan, where another competitor was Bob Sklar. One of Sklar's students was Daniel Okrent. According to Alan Schwarz's The Numbers Game: Baseball’s Lifelong Fascination with Statistics, Sklar told Okrent about the Baseball Seminar league.

In 1961, another early form of fantasy baseball was coded for the IBM 1620 computer by John Burgeson, then working for IBM. A user would select a team from a limited roster of retired players to play against a team randomly chosen by the computer. The computer would then use random number generation and player statistics to simulate a game's outcome and print a play-by-play description of it. The game was coded for a computer with only 20 KB of computer memory and was entirely self-contained. In the fall of 1961, Rege Cordic, a KDKA (Pittsburgh) radio personality, produced a radio show based on the program.

Rotisserie League Baseball
Modern fantasy baseball was developed and popularized in the 1980s by a group of journalists who created Rotisserie League Baseball in 1980. The league was named after the New York City restaurant La Rotisserie Française, where its founders met for lunch and first played the game. Magazine writer-editor Daniel Okrent is credited with introducing the rotisserie league concept to the group and inventing the scoring system. Players in the Rotisserie League drafted teams of active MLB players and tracked their statistics during the season to compile their scores. Like the Baseball Seminar league, rather than using statistics for seasons whose outcomes were already known to simulate in-game outcomes, team owners would have to make predictions about the statistics that MLB players would accumulate during the upcoming season. The success or failure of a particular fantasy team would therefore depend on the real-life performance of its players rather than the results of a simulation.

Rotisserie baseball, nicknamed roto, proved to be popular despite the difficulties of compiling statistics by hand, which was an early drawback to participation. The traditional statistics used in early rotisserie leagues were often chosen because they were easy to compile from newspaper box scores or weekly information published in USA Today. Okrent credits the idea's rapid spread to the fact that the initial league was created by sports journalists, telling Vanity Fair in 2008 that "most of us in the league were in the media, and we got a lot of press coverage that first season. The second season, there were rotisserie leagues in every Major League press box." According to Okrent, rotisserie baseball afforded sportswriters the opportunity to write about baseball-related material during the 1981 Major League Baseball strike, saying "the writers who were covering baseball had nothing to write about, so they began writing about the teams they had assembled in their own leagues. And that was what popularized it and spread it around very, very widely."

Continued expansion
In 1985, the Grandstand Sports Services launched the first nationally available rotisserie baseball leagues online through Q-Link (later America Online). Between 1985 and 1996, the Grandstand continued to improve on the game and the technology by being the first to offer automated drafting, real-time scoring, real-time trading and transactions, and continuous leagues.

The first national newspaper fantasy baseball competition was Dugout Derby, developed by Robert Barbiere, Lee Marc, and Brad Wendkos. The weekly game was launched in 1990 in a number of newspapers throughout the United States, including the Hartford Courant, the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Tampa Bay Times. Players chose their teams by calling a toll-free phone number and entering four-digit codes for each of their selections. Dugout Derby served as an early version of today's daily fantasy sports by rewarding each week's highest-scoring participants with vacation packages.

The growth of the Internet during the 1990s brought a "broad demographic shift in fantasy sports participation" because it enabled fantasy sports participants to instantaneously download tabulated statistics, rather than having to search for box scores of individual games in newspapers and keep track of cumulative statistics on paper. In 1995, ESPN launched its first entirely Internet-based fantasy baseball game, with other major sports and entertainment companies following suit in the ensuing years. In the early 1990s, estimates of total fantasy sports participation in the United States and Canada ranged from 1 to 3 million; by 2003, the number of players had grown to 15.2 million.

Daily fantasy sports are accelerated versions of the traditional fantasy format in which contests are conducted over shorter periods than a full season, often lasting one week or even a single day. The first major daily fantasy sports company, FanDuel, was founded in 2009 as a spin-off of a Scottish prediction market company. DraftKings, now the other major daily fantasy firm, was founded in 2012. In April 2013, MLB invested an undisclosed amount in DraftKings, making it the first professional sports organization in the United States to invest in daily fantasy sports. In 2015, DraftKings became the official daily fantasy game of MLB, a move that Business Wire called "the most comprehensive league partnership in daily fantasy sports history" at the time.

As of 2017, 59.3 million people played fantasy sports in the United States and Canada, per the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association, and around two out of five fantasy participants played fantasy baseball.

League types
A fantasy baseball league may be organized in a variety of ways. The original rotisserie leagues, as well as their modern counterparts, rank each team in a number of statistical categories at the end of the season. Points are then awarded based on these rankings. For example, in an eight-team league, the team that collectively hits the most home runs might earn eight points, the team that hits the second most might earn seven, and so on. The number of statistics for which the teams are ranked may vary (see Competition variations). Another common format is head-to-head competition, in which each team only competes against one other team in a given week. At the end of the week, the winner of each matchup may be determined in a variety of ways (see Head-to-head variations). In addition to scoring variations, league organization may also differ based on the structure of each team's roster (see Roster variations).

Competition variations
The original Rotisserie League Baseball used the following statistics:
 * team batting average (total hits divided by total at-bats)
 * total home runs
 * total runs batted in
 * total stolen bases
 * total wins
 * total saves
 * team earned run average (ERA) (9 times total earned runs allowed by pitchers divided by total innings pitched)
 * team walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) (total number of hits and walks allowed by pitchers divided by total innings pitched)

These statistics have become the standard for modern rotisserie leagues. A league using these statistics is known as a "4×4" league because it uses four hitting stats and four pitching stats. Some leagues use a "5×5" format, with runs scored and strikeouts added as hitting and pitching stats, respectively. Others are "6×6", which can involve adding new statistics or replacing ones in the original 4x4 or 5x5 format. For example, ESPN fantasy writer Tristan H. Cockcroft has proposed a 6x6 league in which batting average is replaced with on-base percentage (OBP) and slugging percentage (SLG), while innings pitched is added as the sixth pitching stat, among other changes. The rotisserie format can theoretically be expanded to encompass any number of statistics, though online support for such expansive leagues is limited (for example, CBS Sports only offers 4x4 and 5x5 leagues).

Head-to-head variations
There are three major configurations for head-to-head play:
 * Head-to-Head Rotisserie: Also called head-to-head each category, this format assigns wins, losses, and ties based on each team's performance in individual categories. For example, in a 5x5 league, if Team A performs better in six categories, Team A receives six wins and four losses for that week's matchup, while Team B receives four wins and six losses.
 * Head-to-Head One Win: Also called head-to-head most categories, this format assigns wins, losses, and ties based on which team performs better in the most categories. For example, in a 5x5 league, if Team A performs better in six categories, Team A receives the sole win for that week's matchup, while Team B receives the loss. If each team performs better in the same number of categories, then each receives a tie.
 * Head-to-Head Points: In this format, each category is assigned a certain number of points, and the team that performs better in each category receives the points. The team with the most points receives the sole win for the matchup.

In all three configurations, opponents are dictated by a round-robin system. At the end of the season, the team with the best win–loss record may win the league, or playoffs may be held among the top teams in the league.

Major fantasy websites, such as ESPN and Yahoo, hold single-elimination playoffs over three or four weeks towards the end of the MLB regular season. The number of teams that make the playoffs and the existence of a consolation bracket for teams that miss out may vary based on the website used and the customized settings employed by a particular league. For example, Yahoo allows leagues to have four, six, or eight teams make the playoffs.

Roster variations

 * Keeper leagues allow teams to keep a set number of players on their roster from one year to the next and sometimes even assign them contracts for a certain number of years. In the first season of a keeper league, the draft is performed in the same way as any other standard league draft, however, in all subsequent years, the draft only involves players not selected to be kept on their team. Keeper leagues may allow each team to retain as few as one player or as many as every player on the roster except one.
 * In dynasty leagues, each team keeps all players on its roster from one year to the next. Rosters are replenished with drafts of rookies and players who were not on a team the previous year.
 * Salary cap leagues assign each eligible MLB player a salary before each season. The combined salary of each roster may not exceed a predetermined salary cap.

After teams have set their rosters via the draft, owners may add free agents, players who are not currently on any team, to their roster if the roster is not already full. There are a few possibilities by which teams may acquire these players:

 * Under the waiver wire format, which is also commonly used in fantasy football, teams may place claims on free agents until a predetermined deadline, at which time the team with the lowest position in the standings with a claim on a player gains that player. Teams with lower positions in the standings are therefore said to have higher waiver priority. After acquiring a player, a team is moved to the bottom of the priority list.
 * Under the Free Agent Acquisition Budget (FAAB) format, each team has a predetermined budget that may be used to bid on available free agents. If a team uses its entire budget, it will be unable to acquire new free agents until the league budgets are reset, which may occur on a weekly or even daily basis.
 * The First Come, First Served (FCFS) format allows any team to add any free agent at any time with no restrictions.

Draft
Before each season, fantasy baseball leagues hold a draft in which each team drafts MLB players. These players are kept on the roster of the team that drafted them unless they are traded for other players or are dropped, whereby they enter a pool of unowned players that any team may claim. The order of draft picks may be determined randomly or by the league standings from the previous year, in which the team with the worst record picks first, followed by the team with the second-worst record, etc. In some cases, owners retain the same draft position in each round. In contrast, in a traditional "serpentine" or "snake" draft, owners draft players in a "snake" method, in which the owner who picks first in the odd rounds picks last in the even rounds, the owner who picks second in the odd rounds picks second to last in the even rounds, etc. in the interest of fairness.

In an auction draft, each owner has an imaginary budget which must be used to purchase players in an auction format. Owners take turns nominating players for open bid, and the owner who bids the highest on each player receives that player, reducing his or her remaining budget accordingly. One proposed advantage of auction drafts is their ability to offer every owner equal access to every player, whereas in a traditional format, a certain owner's desired player may be selected by another team before the owner's next turn to pick.

Drafts can be conducted in "live" or "auto" formats. Live drafts involve team owners selecting players in real time, while auto drafts are those in which selections are made automatically by computer based on pre-draft rankings set by each owner. Often, owners who are not present at the chosen time of the draft will "auto-draft" while the rest of the league makes their selections live.

Whether live or auto, the vast majority of fantasy drafts take place online, but some leagues hold in-person drafts in which selections are made on computers or physical draft boards.

Regardless of the format in which a draft is held, each team owner may employ a variety of strategies when making his or her selections. In order to select the best possible players, owners must evaluate the talent and forecast the performance of each player for the upcoming season. A variety of resources may be used to this effect, from rankings released by fantasy baseball journalists and websites to algorithms created by professional daily fantasy competitors.

Team rosters
A fantasy baseball roster is conventionally composed of players from each position. Each team is allowed a set number of players on its roster, as well as a specified number of starters at each position that can be used in a head-to-head matchup. Owners may determine which players will start and which will be "benched" on a weekly or even daily basis. Only players who are designated as starters will have their statistics count towards the team owner's totals in the weekly matchup.

Just like in real baseball, players who are usually benched can become starters for various reasons: due to a starting player's injury, poor performance, or if the starter's team is not playing on a particular day. Whether to sit or start a player is also based on strategic considerations, such as the player's past and expected performance and the team he is playing, specifically its starting pitcher. If a league does not have head-to-head matchups, then there may be no distinction between starters and bench players, as a team's end-of-season results are derived from the cumulative statistics of the entire roster.

The precise positions included in online rosters vary widely, along with the number of players allowed at each position and on each team's bench. For example, ESPN's default roster includes one middle infielder, one corner infielder, and one utility player. A default Yahoo roster includes two utility players, neither of which is designated as a middle or a corner infielder. DraftKings, which operates a variety of daily and weekly games, does not have utility slots on its rosters for some games, but does for others.

The following table lists the default roster settings for head-to-head leagues managed by ESPN, Yahoo, and CBS Sports, as well as in DraftKings' MLB Classic weekly competitions. A note next to a position's name indicates its definition.

The injured reserve is used to store players with real-life injuries who are unable to compete for an extended period of time. Fantasy leagues usually only allow players to be placed on injured reserve if they have been placed on the injured list by their MLB team.

Some leagues limit teams to a certain number of free agent transactions or trades per season or per week. Such limitations are commonly used to prevent team owners from artificially inflating their statistics or otherwise achieving an unfair advantage by using an excessive number of players during a matchup. Another common limitation on roster moves is the adoption of a list of "undroppable" players, generally those selected in the first few rounds of the draft or those who are generally deemed too valuable to be allowed to freely change teams without being exchanged for other players.

Demographics
According to the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association (FSGA), of the 59.3 million people who played fantasy sports in the US and Canada in 2017, 43.2 million were American adults. In 2019, 45.9 million American adults participated. The FSGA estimated that 19% of American adults played fantasy sports in 2019, compared to 13% in 2014. Around 39% of fantasy players play fantasy baseball, making it the second most popular fantasy sport behind fantasy football, which is played by about 78% of fantasy participants. A 2019 FSGA survey found that 81% of fantasy sports players were male, 50% were between the ages of 18 and 34 (with an average age of 37.7), 67% were employed full-time, and 47% made more than $75,000 per year. A 2015 analysis found that 89.8% were white and 51.5% were unmarried.

title: Fantasy baseball


text:
Saving Jessica Lynch

Saving Jessica Lynch is a 2003 American television film that aired on NBC and features Canadian actress Laura Regan in the title role. The film begins with the ambush of Jessica Lynch's convoy in the middle of an Iraqi city and follows a version of events that credits an Iraqi citizen, Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, with being responsible for helping to arrange a daring rescue by US special operations forces.

Cast

 * Michael Rooker as Colonel Curry, who helps plan the rescue mission
 * Nicholas Guilak as Mohammed Al-Rehaief
 * Laura Regan as Private First Class Jessica Lynch
 * Brent Sexton as Greg Lynch Sr., Jessica's father
 * Mark Moses as a Lieutenant
 * Benjamin King as 1st Sergeant Robert J. Dowdy
 * Crystle Lightning as PFC Lori Piestewa
 * Susan Pari as Iman Al-Rehaief
 * Denise Lee as Specialist Shoshana Johnson
 * Brent Anderson as Capt. Troy King
 * Amy Jones as Dee Lynch
 * Ethan Rains as Iman Nazemzadeh (Iraqi Deserter)
 * Rafael Tamayo as Specialist Edgar Hernandez
 * Dak Rasheta as Sergeant James Riley (as Dak Rashetta)
 * Reed Frerichs as Pvt. Dale Nace
 * Oliver Tull as Sgt George Buggs
 * Josh Berry as Specialist Edward Anguiano
 * Donny Boaz as Patrick Miller (soldier)

Inaccuracies
Although the film was based on a true story, most of the circumstances of the rescue have been challenged by the media as well as by Lynch herself. Lynch was portrayed as a heroic soldier who fought up to her capture. In reality, at the time of the crash of her vehicle, she was knocked unconscious and woke up at the hospital with serious injuries. Her rescue operation was carried out at an unresisting civilian hospital. In a review of the movie, Hal Erickson wrote, "An inordinate amount of poetic license is taken with the events surrounding Jessica's rescue, with a plethora of ridiculous coincidences and serial-like thrills and chills thrown in to pep up the story."

title: Saving Jessica Lynch