text:
Empress Xiaozhuangwen

Bumbutai (Бумбутай; ; 布木布泰; 28 March 1613 – 27 January 1688), of the Khorchin Mongol Borjigit clan, was the consort of Hong Taiji. She was 21 years his junior. She was honoured as Empress Dowager Zhaosheng during the reign of her son, Fulin, the Shunzhi Emperor, and as Grand Empress Dowager Zhaosheng during the reign of her grandson, Xuanye, the Kangxi Emperor.

As empress dowager and grand empress dowager, she had significant influence in the Qing imperial court and was highly respected for her political wisdom and insight. After her death, she was posthumously honoured with the title Empress Xiaozhuangwen, although she never held the rank of empress consort during her lifetime.

Family background

 * Father: Zhaisang (寨桑), held the title of a first rank prince (親王)
 * Paternal grandfather: Manggusi (莽古思), held the title of a first rank prince (親王)
 * Paternal aunt: Empress Xiaoduanwen (1599–1649)
 * Mother: Boli (博禮; d. 1654)
 * Four elder brothers
 * One elder sister
 * Primary consort Minhui (1609–1641)

Wanli era
Bumbutai was born on the eighth day of the intercalary second lunar month in the 41st year of the reign of the Wanli Emperor, which translates to 28 March 1613 in the Gregorian calendar.

Tianming era
In March or April 1625, Bumbutai married Hong Taiji and became one of his multiple wives. Prior to this, the Khorchin Mongols had sent Hong Taiji another woman, Jerjer, the future Empress Xiaoduanwen, on 28 May 1614, to strengthen the relationship between the Qing dynasty and the Khorchin. Bumbutai's elder sister, Harjol, the future primary consort Minhui, would marry Hong Taiji on 6 December 1634.

Chongde era
Bumbutai gave birth on 31 January 1629 to Hong Taiji's fourth daughter, Princess Yongmu of the First Rank, on 2 March 1632 to his fifth daughter, Princess Shuhui of the First Rank, and on 16 December 1633 to his seventh daughter, Princess Shuzhe of the First Rank.

When Hong Taiji conferred titles on his five primary spouses in August 1636, Bumbutai was named "Consort Zhuang" of Yongfu Palace (永福宮).

On 15 March 1638, Consort Zhuang gave birth to Hong Taiji's ninth son, Fulin.

Shunzhi era
Hong Taiji died on 21 September 1643 and was succeeded by Fulin, who was enthroned as the Shunzhi Emperor. Bumbutai, as the mother of the reigning emperor, was honoured with the title "Holy Mother, Empress Dowager" with honorary name "Zhaosheng". Her aunt Jerjer, as the empress consort of the previous emperor, was similarly honored as "Mother Empress, Empress Dowager". Hong Taiji's younger half-brother, Dorgon, was appointed as prince regent to rule on behalf of the Shunzhi Emperor until the emperor reached adulthood. After Dorgon died on 31 December 1650, the Shunzhi Emperor posthumously stripped him of his princely title and had his dead body exhumed and mutilated. It is believed – though not supported by historical evidence – that Empress Dowager Zhaosheng secretly married Dorgon after Hong Taiji's death, since levirate marriage was common among Mongols.

Kangxi era
Empress Dowager Zhaosheng kept a low profile during the reign of her son and had little interference in politics. The Shunzhi Emperor died on 5 February 1661 and was succeeded by his third son Xuanye, who was enthroned as the Kangxi Emperor. As the grandmother of the reigning emperor, she was honored as "Grand Empress Dowager Zhaosheng". Since the emperor was underage at the time, the Four Regents of the Kangxi Emperor, appointed by the Shunzhi Emperor, ruled on his behalf until he reached adulthood. During this time, Grand Empress Dowager Zhaosheng advised her grandson to learn from the regents and took charge of his upbringing after the emperor's mother died.

When the Kangxi Emperor grew up and began his personal rule in 1667, he felt threatened by the strong influence of Oboi, one of the four regents. Two years later, Grand Empress Dowager Zhaosheng assisted her grandson in his plans to get rid of Oboi. Oboi was lured into a trap (forced to sit on a broken chair), placed under arrest, and removed from power. Throughout her life, Bumbutai disliked living in the Forbidden City, despite the luxurious conditions it offered. She also refused to hold any birthday celebrations as she felt that it would be costly.

When Grand Empress Dowager Zhaosheng fell sick in the autumn of 1687, the Kangxi Emperor personally took care of his grandmother. She died on 27 January 1688.

Titles

 * During the reign of the Wanli Emperor (r. 1572–1620):
 * Lady Borjigit (from 28 March 1613)
 * During the reign of Nurhaci (r. 1616–1626):
 * Secondary consort (側福晉; from March/April 1625 )
 * During the reign of Hong Taiji (r. 1626–1643):
 * Consort Zhuang (莊妃; from August 1636 ), fourth rank consort
 * During the reign of the Shunzhi Emperor (r. 1643–1661):
 * Empress Dowager Zhaosheng (昭聖皇太后; from 21 September 1643 )
 * During the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1661–1722):
 * Grand Empress Dowager Zhaosheng (昭聖太皇太后; from 5 February 1661 )
 * Empress Xiaozhuangwen (孝莊文皇后; from October/November 1688 )

Issue

 * As secondary consort:
 * Princess Yongmu of the First Rank (固倫雍穆公主; 31 January 1629 – February/March 1678), personal name Yatu (雅圖), Hong Taiji's fourth daughter
 * Married Birtakhar (弼爾塔哈爾; d. 1667) of the Khorchin Borjigit clan in 1641
 * Princess Shuhui of the First Rank (固倫淑慧公主; 2 March 1632 – 28 February 1700), personal name Atu (阿圖), Hong Taiji's fifth daughter
 * Married Suo'erha (索爾哈) of the Khalkha Borjigit clan in 1643
 * Married Sabdan (色布騰; d. 1667) of the Barin Borjigit clan in 1648
 * Princess Shuzhe of the First Rank (固倫淑哲公主; 16 December 1633 – February/March 1648), Hong Taiji's seventh daughter
 * Married Lamasi (喇瑪思) of the Jarud Borjigit clan in 1645
 * As Consort Zhuang:
 * Fulin (福臨; 15 March 1638 – 5 February 1661), Hong Taiji's ninth son, enthroned on 8 October 1643 as the Shunzhi Emperor

Literature

 * Xiaozhuang Mishi (孝莊秘史), a novel about Bumbutai, written by Yang Haiwei (楊海薇).
 * Shaonian Tianzi (少年天子), a novel about the Shunzhi Emperor, written by Ling Li.
 * The Green Phoenix: A Novel of the Woman Who Re-made Asia, Empress Xiaozhuang, written by Alice Poon.

Television

 * The Rise and Fall of Qing Dynasty, a long-running Hong Kong television series about the history of the Qing dynasty. Bumbutai appears only in the first season, aired in 1987, in which she is portrayed by Nora Miao.
 * Zhuangfei Yishi (莊妃軼事), a 1989 Chinese television series about Bumbutai, starring Bo Han (柏寒).
 * Yidai Huanghou Dayu'er (一代皇后大玉兒), a 1992 Taiwanese television series about Bumbutai, starring Angela Pan.
 * Xinyue Gege (新月格格), a 1995 Chinese romantic television series based on a novel by Chiung Yao. Leanne Liu portrayed Bumbutai.
 * Princess Huai-yu (懷玉公主), a 2000 Taiwanese romantic television series. Leanne Liu portrayed Bumbutai.
 * Kangxi Dynasty, a 2001 Chinese television series about the Kangxi Emperor. Siqin Gaowa portrayed Bumbutai.
 * Shaonian Tianzi (少年天子), a 2002 Chinese television series based on Ling Li's novel, starring Pan Hong as Bumbutai.
 * The Affaire in the Swing Age, a 2003 Chinese television series depicting the events in the transition of the Ming dynasty to the Qing dynasty. Niu Li portrayed Bumbutai, who was known as Consort Zhuang in the series.
 * Xiaozhuang Mishi, a 2003 Chinese television series about Bumbutai, starring Ning Jing.
 * Huang Taizi Mishi, a 2004 Chinese television series about Yinreng. Lü Zhong portrayed Bumbutai.
 * Sheizhu Chenfu (誰主沉浮), a 2005 Chinese television series depicting the events in the transition of the Ming dynasty to the Qing dynasty. Liu Xiaoqing portrayed Bumbutai.
 * Yanhua Sanyue (煙花三月), a 2005 Chinese television series about Nalan Rongruo. Gua Ah-leh portrayed Bumbutai.
 * Shaonian Kangxi (少年康熙), a 2005 Chinese television series about Bumbutai and the young Kangxi Emperor, starring Pan Hong and Deng Chao.
 * Secret History of Kangxi, a 2006 Chinese television series about the Kangxi Emperor. Wu Qianqian portrayed Bumbutai.
 * Da Qing Fengyun, a 2006 Chinese television series based on the romance between Bumbutai and Dorgon. Xu Qing portrayed Xiaozhuang and Zhang Fengyi portrayed Dorgon.
 * The Life and Times of a Sentinel, a 2011 Hong Kong historical fiction television series. Ching Hor-wai portrayed Bumbutai.
 * In Love With Power, a 2012 Chinese television series dramatising the life of Bumbutai during her early years, as consort to Hong Taiji and as mother to the Shunzhi Emperor. She is portrayed by Yuan Shanshan
 * The Legend of Xiao Zhuang, a 2015 Chinese television series that chronicles the life of Bumbutai, and the titular character is portrayed by Jing Tian.
 * Rule the World (TV series) is a 2015 television series which chronicles the tale of Harjol. Bumbutai is portrayed by Cao Mengge.
 * Royal Romance is a 2015 television series where Bumbutai is portrayed by Anita Yuen. Bumbutai is shown to be the biggest roadblock for the love between Shunzhi Emperor and Consort Donggo.
 * Legend of Dragon Pearl, also known as Longzhu; a 2017 Chinese television series where Bumbutai is portrayed by Siqin Gaowa in her later years, as Grand Empress Dowager during the reign of Kangxi Emperor.

Games

 * Europa Universalis IV is a grand strategy video game that has a depiction of Bumbutai as one of its loading screens.

title: Empress Xiaozhuangwen


text:
Social Democratic Party (Japan)

The Social Democratic Party (社会民主党) is a political party in Japan that was established in 1996. Since its reformation and name change in 1996, it has advocated pacifism and defined itself as a social-democratic party. It was previously known as the Japan Socialist Party (日本社会党).

The party was refounded in January 1996 by the majority of legislators of the former Japan Socialist Party, which was largest opposition party in the 1955 System; however, most of the legislators joined the Democratic Party of Japan after that. Five leftist legislators who did not join the SDP formed the New Socialist Party, which lost all its seats in the following elections. The SDP enjoyed a short period of government participation from 1993 to 1994 as part of the Hosokawa Cabinet and later formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democratic Party under 81st Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama of the JSP from 1994 to January 1996. The SDP was part of ruling coalitions between January and November 1996 (First Hashimoto Cabinet) and from 2009 to 2010 (Hatoyama Cabinet).

In the 2019 Japanese House of Councillors election, the party won four representatives in the National Diet, two in the lower house and two in the upper house. In November 2020, the party entered into a merger agreement with the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) with the SDP's members in the Diet now caucusing with the CDP. The party president Mizuho Fukushima held her seat, and the party cleared the minimum two percent voter share to maintain its legal political party status, in the 2022 House of Councillors elections.

Before 2000
In 1995, the former Japan Socialist Party (JSP) was in a deep crisis, as it faced criticisms on entering a coalition with its longtime rival LDP, and core policy changes. Aiming at saving the party, the leadership of JSP decided to dissolve the party and to establish a new social democratic party. In January 1996, such a new party, the Social Democratic Party, was established along with the dissolution of JSP. De jure, JSP changed its name to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) as an interim party for forming a new party, and a movement for transforming the SDP into a new social-democratic and liberal party was unsuccessful. Under Murayama's successor Ryūtarō Hashimoto (LDP), the SDP remained part of the ruling coalition. Long before the disappointing result in the 1996 Japanese general election, the party lost the majority of its members of the House of Representatives, mainly to predecessors of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) that was formed in 1996, but also some to the NFP and other opposition parties. After its electoral defeat in the 1996 general election when it lost another 15 of its remaining 30 seats in the lower house, the SDP left the ruling coalition which it had entered as the second largest force in Japanese politics as a minor party.

2000s–2010s
The SDP won six seats in the 2003 Japanese general election, compared with 18 seats in the previous 2000 Japanese general election. Its motives against the Self-Defense Forces have reverted into abolishing it in the long term, returning into its opposition against the force it had applied in the 1950s. Doi had been the leader since 1996, but she resigned in 2003, taking responsibility for the election losses. Mizuho Fukushima was elected as the new party leader in November 2003. In the 2004 Japanese House of Councillors election, the SDP won only two seats, having five seats in the House of Councillors and six seats in the House of Representatives. In 2006, the party unexpectedly gained the governorship of the Shiga Prefecture. In the 2009 Japanese general election, the DPJ made large gains and the SDP maintained its base of 7 seats in the, becoming a junior partner in a new government coalition; however, disagreements over the issue of the Futenma base led to the sacking of Fukushima from the cabinet on 28 May and the SDP subsequently voted to leave the ruling coalition. As of October 2010, the SDP had six members in the House of Representatives and four members in the House of Councillors. Following the 2012 Japanese general election, the party retained only six seats in the whole of the Diet, two in the House of Representatives and four in the House of Councillors. The count lowered to five seats in 2013. In 2013, the party's headquarters in Nagatacho, where the party's predecessor the JSP had moved in 1964, were demolished. The headquarters moved to a smaller office in Nagatacho.

During the nomination period of the 2016 Japanese House of Councillors election, the party signed an agreement with the Democratic, Communist and People's Life parties to field a jointly-endorsed candidate in each of the 32 districts in which only one seat is contested, thereby uniting in an attempt to take control of the House from the LDP/Komeito coalition. The party had two Councillors up for re-election and fielded a total of 11 candidates in the election, 4 in single and multi-member districts and 7 in the 48-seat national proportional representation block.

In the 2017 Japanese general election, the party managed to hold to its two seats it had prior to the election. Tadatomo Yoshida declined to run for re-election when his term expired in January 2018. Seiji Mataichi was elected unopposed in the ensuing leadership election and took office on 25 February 2018.

Since 2020
On 14 November 2020, the party voted to agree to a merger arrangement with the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), allowing members to leave the SDP and join the latter party. The majority of the party supported the agreement and joined the CDP; however, party leader Fukushima herself was opposed to the merger agreement and remains a member of the Social Democratic Party.

In the 2021 Japanese general election, the party lost one of their two seats.

Policies
Party policies include:
 * Defend Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan and declare cities defenseless so that they will not resist in the event of invasion.
 * Advocate a significant increase in the scope of social welfare such as healthcare, pensions, social security and disability care.
 * Opposition to neoliberalism and neoconservatism.
 * Complete disarmament of Japan in accordance with pacifist principles. The Japanese Self-Defense Force will be replaced with a force dedicated to disaster relief and foreign aid.
 * Cancellation of the United States–Japan military alliance, dismantling of United States bases in Japan and replacing it with a Treaty of Friendship.
 * Opposition to Japan's involvement in supporting the United States in the war against terror through refueling of American warships in the Indian Ocean.
 * Introduction of an environmental carbon tax.
 * Significant increase in the scope of wildlife protection legislation, increasing the number of protected species and setting up of protection zones.
 * Transition from a mass-production/mass-consumption society to a sustainable society in coexistence with nature.
 * Clampdown on harmful chemicals, e.g. restriction on use of agricultural chemicals, ban on asbestos, tackling dioxin and soil pollutants.
 * Increased investment in public transport, encouraging a switch from road to rail and from petrol powered buses to hybrids, electric vehicles and light rail transit.
 * Opposition to nuclear power and proposal of a gradual switch to wind energy as the nation's base energy source.
 * Abolition of the death penalty.
 * Opposition to water privatization.
 * Supports feminist politics.
 * Legalization of same-sex marriage.

House of Representatives

 * Kunio Arakaki (Okinawa-2nd)

House of Councillors
Up for re-election in 2022 Up for re-election in 2025
 * Mizuho Fukushima (National PR)

 * Yuko Otsubaki (National PR)

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

title: Social Democratic Party (Japan)


text:
Yunreng

Yunreng (6 June 1674 – 27 January 1725), born Yinreng, was a Manchu prince of the Qing dynasty. He was the second among the Kangxi Emperor's sons to survive into adulthood and was designated as Crown Prince for two terms between 1675 and 1712 before being deposed. He was posthumously honoured as Prince Limi of the First Rank.

Biography
Yunreng was born of the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan as the seventh son of the Kangxi Emperor, but was the second among the emperor's sons to survive into adulthood. He was given the infant name "Baocheng" (保成), and was renamed "Yinreng" when he became older. His mother was the Kangxi Emperor's first empress, Empress Xiaochengren from the Hešeri clan, who was also a granddaughter of Sonin (one of the four regents in the Kangxi Emperor's early reign). She died not long after giving birth to Yinreng, and was greatly lamented by the Kangxi Emperor.

The Kangxi Emperor personally taught Yinreng to read and he proclaimed Yinreng as his Crown Prince when Yinreng was only a year old. Under the tutelage of several scholar-officials, Yinreng became well-versed in the Chinese and Manchu languages. Between 1696 and 1697, when the Kangxi Emperor was away twice on military campaigns against Galdan Khan of the Zunghar Khanate, Yinreng was appointed as regent to supervise affairs in the imperial capital, Beijing. Despite scandals and accusations of immorality, Yinreng remained in his father's favour and was given the Western Gardens (西花園) of Beijing as his residence.

In 1703, Yinreng's granduncle Songgotu was found guilty of attempting to murder the Kangxi Emperor, along with a series of corruption charges, and was imprisoned and died shortly afterwards. Yinreng gradually fell out of his father's favour as a result. In 1708, during a hunting expedition in Rehe, the Kangxi Emperor accused Yinreng of immorality, sexual impropriety, usurping power, and treason. Yinreng was stripped of his position as Crown Prince and imprisoned. When it was later discovered that the First Prince Yinzhi had employed lamas to cast evil spells on Yinreng, the Kangxi Emperor pardoned Yinreng in 1709 and restored him as Crown Prince. In the following three years, Yinreng's condition deteriorated and the Kangxi Emperor became convinced that Yinreng was insane. Consequently, in 1712, Yinreng was deposed again and placed in perpetual confinement.

In 1722, the Kangxi Emperor died and was succeeded by his fourth son Yinzhen, who became historically known as the Yongzheng Emperor. Yinreng changed his name to Yunreng to avoid naming taboo because the Chinese character for "Yin" (胤) in "Yinreng" is the same as the one in the Yongzheng Emperor's personal name "Yinzhen" (胤禛). Yunreng died three years later in 1725 while still being incarcerated. He was granted the posthumous title of "Prince Limi of the First Rank" (和碩理密親王).

The bitter factionalism between the Kangxi Emperor's sons and the dispute over the succession prompted the Yongzheng Emperor to establish a practice of writing a secret imperial edict on who would succeed to the throne, and sealing the edict in a box behind a tablet in the Palace of Heavenly Purity in the Forbidden City. The edict would only be publicly revealed upon the death of the reigning emperor.

Family

Primary Consort

Titles: Crown Princess (皇太子妃), Primary Consort to the Seventh Prince (七王子嫡福晋), Imperial Princess Consort Limi of the First Rank (和碩亲王福晋)
 * Imperial Princess Consort Limi, of the Gūwalgiya clan (和碩亲王福晋 瓜爾佳氏; d. July/August 1718)
 * Princess of the Third Rank (郡主; 25 September 1697 – 5 May 1735), third daughter
 * Married Alabutan (阿喇布坦) of the Tumed in June/July 1720

Secondary Consort

Titles: Secondary Consort of the Crown Prince (皇太子侧妃), Secondary Consort of the Seventh Prince (七王子侧妃), Secondary Consort to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩亲王侧妃)
 * Secondary Consort, of the Ligiya clan (側福晉 李佳氏)
 * First son (4 February 1692 – 27 December 1701)
 * First daughter (27 May 1693 – June/July 1693)
 * Second daughter (11 March 1694 – March/April 1694)
 * Hongxi, Prince Li of the First Rank (理親王 弘晳; 25 August 1694 – 26 October 1742), second son

Titles: Secondary Consort of the Crown Prince (皇太子侧妃), Secondary Consort of the Seventh Prince (七王子侧妃), Secondary Consort to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩亲王侧妃)
 * Secondary consort, of the Lingiya clan (側福晉 林佳氏)
 * Hongjin, Duke of the Second Rank (輔國公 弘晉; 14 November 1696 – 23 April 1717), third son
 * Princess of the Fourth Rank (縣主; 10 January 1715 – 12 July 1762), ninth daughter
 * Married Cewangduo'erji (策旺多爾濟; d. 1751) of the Aohan in January/February 1730

Titles: Secondary Consort of the Crown Prince (皇太子侧妃), Secondary Consort of the Seventh Prince (七王子侧妃), Secondary Consort to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩亲王侧妃)
 * Secondary consort, of the Tanggiya clan (側福晉 唐佳氏)
 * Fourth son (1 November 1704 – 4 February 1706)
 * Princess Shushen of the Second Rank (和碩淑慎公主; 24 January 1708 – 23 October 1784), sixth daughter
 * Married Janggimboo (觀音保; d. 1735) of the Khorchin Borjigit clan in December 1726 or January 1727
 * Hongyan, Duke Kexi of the Second Rank (輔國恪僖公 弘曣; 5 August 1712 – 19 May 1750), sixth son

Titles: Secondary Consort of the Seventh Prince (七王子侧妃), Secondary Consort to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩亲王侧妃)
 * Secondary consort, of the Cenggiya clan (側福晉 程佳氏)
 * Princess of the Third Rank (郡主; 2 March 1714 – 21 November 1760), eighth daughter
 * Married Pengsukelashi (彭蘇克拉氏) of the Aohan Borjigit clan in January/February 1731
 * Tenth daughter (27 July 1717 – February/March 1720)
 * Hongwei, Prince Like of the Second Rank (理恪郡王 弘㬙; 27 January 1719 – 25 September 1780), tenth son
 * Hongwan, Duke of the Second Rank (輔國公 弘晥; 6 November 1724 – 29 May 1775), 12th son

Titles: Secondary Consort of the Seventh Prince (七王子侧妃), Secondary Consort to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩亲王侧妃)
 * Secondary consort, of the Wanyan clan (側福晉 完颜氏)
 * Hongtiao, Duke of the Second Rank (輔國公 弘晀; 16 June 1714 – 28 August 1774), seventh son
 * Hongbing (弘昞; 8 February 1720 – 4 May 1763), 11th son

Concubine

Titles: Crown Prince's Concubine (皇太子庶妃), Seventh Prince's Concubine (七王子庶福晋), Concubine to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩親王庶福晋)
 * Concubine, of the Fangiya clan (范佳氏)
 * Fourth daughter (16 March 1706)
 * Fifth daughter (4 January 1708 – February/March 1712)

Titles: Crown Prince's Concubine (皇太子庶妃), Seventh Prince's Concubine (七王子庶福晋), Concubine to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩親王庶福晋)
 * Concubine, of the Liu clan (劉氏)
 * Fifth son (16 December 1708)

Titles: Crown Prince's Concubine (皇太子庶妃), Seventh Prince's Concubine (七王子庶福晋), Concubine to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩親王庶福晋)
 * Concubine, of the Liugiya clan (劉佳氏)
 * Seventh daughter (25 November 1711 – November/December 1716)
 * 11th daughter (27 July 1717 – 29 March 1725)

Titles: Seventh Prince's Concubine (七王子庶福晋), Concubine to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩親王庶福晋)
 * Concubine, of the Qian clan (錢氏)
 * Eighth son (1 March 1715 – 4 July 1726)

Titles: Seventh Prince's Concubine (七王子庶福晋), Concubine to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩親王庶福晋)
 * Concubine, of the Qiu clan (邱氏)
 * Hongyao (弘暚; 3 July 1716 – 9 February 1783), ninth son

Titles: Seventh Prince's Concubine (七王子庶福晋), Concubine to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩親王庶福晋)
 * Concubine, of the Qi clan (祁氏)
 * Princess of the Third Rank (郡主; 14 November 1717 – 30 April 1776), 12th daughter
 * Married Kaying'a (喀英阿) of the Kharchin in January/February 1732

Titles: Seventh Prince's Concubine (七王子庶福晋), Concubine to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩親王庶福晋)
 * Concubine, of the Zhu clan (朱氏)
 * 13th daughter (4 February 1718 – May/June 1719)

Titles: Seventh Prince's Concubine (七王子庶福晋), Concubine to Prince Limi of the First Rank (和碩親王庶福晋)
 * Concubine, of the Pei clan (裴氏)
 * 14th daughter (25 April 1722 – August/September 1722)

In fiction and popular culture

 * Portrayed by Xu Min in Yongzheng Dynasty (1999)
 * Portrayed by Zong Fengyan in Palace (2011)
 * Portrayed by Zhang Lei in Scarlet Heart (2011)
 * Portrayed by Lam Chi-chung in The Palace (2013)
 * Portrayed by Power Chan in Gilded Chopsticks (2014)
 * Portrayed by Liao Yan Long in Love In The Imperial Palace (2017)
 * Portrayed by Ni Song Yang in Dreaming Back To Qing Dynasty (2019)

title: Yunreng


text: File:Wingspr.JPG

title: File:Wingspr.JPG


text:
Daniel Maclise

Daniel Maclise (25 January 1806 – 25 April 1870) was an Irish history painter, literary and portrait painter, and illustrator, who worked for most of his life in London, England.

Early life
Maclise was born in Cork, Ireland (then part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland), the son of Alexander McLish (also known as McLeish, McLish, McClisse or McLise), a tanner or shoemaker, but formerly a Scottish Highlander soldier. His education was of the plainest kind, but he was eager for culture, fond of reading, and anxious to become an artist. His father, however, placed him in employment, in 1820, in Newenham's Bank, where he remained for two years, before leaving to study at the Cork School of Art. In 1825 it happened that Sir Walter Scott was travelling in Ireland, and young Maclise, having seen him in a bookseller's shop, made a surreptitious sketch of the great man, which he afterwards lithographed. It became very popular, and led to many commissions for portraits, which he executed, in pencil.

Various influential friends recognised Maclise's genius and promise, and were anxious to furnish him with the means of studying in London; but refusing all financial assistance, he saved the money himself and arrived in the capital on 18 July 1827. There he made a sketch of Charles John Kean, the actor, which, like his portrait of Scott, was lithographed and published, making the artist a considerable sum. He entered the Royal Academy schools in 1828, eventually being awarded the highest prizes open to students.

Career
Maclise exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in 1829. Gradually he began to confine himself more exclusively to subject and historical pictures, varied occasionally by portraits – such as those of Lord Campbell, novelist Letitia Landon, Dickens, and other of his literary friends. In 1833, he exhibited two pictures which greatly increased his reputation, and in 1835 the Chivalric Vow of the Ladies and the Peacock procured his election as associate of the Academy, of which he became full member in 1840. The years that followed were occupied with a long series of figure pictures, deriving their subjects from history and tradition and from the works of Shakespeare, Goldsmith and Le Sage.

He also designed illustrations for several of Dickens's Christmas books and other works. Between the years 1830 and 1836 he contributed to Fraser's Magazine, under the pseudonym of Alfred Croquis, a remarkable series of portraits of the literary and other celebrities of the time – character studies, etched or lithographed in outline, and touched more or less with the emphasis of the caricaturist, which were afterwards published as the Maclise Portrait Gallery (1871). During the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament in London in 1834–1850 by Charles Barry, Maclise was commissioned in 1846 to paint murals in the House of Lords on such subjects as Justice and Chivalry.

In 1858, Maclise commenced one of the two great monumental works of his life, The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher after the Battle of Waterloo, on the walls of Westminster Palace. It was begun in fresco, a process which proved unmanageable. The artist wished to resign the task, but, encouraged by Prince Albert, he studied in Berlin the new method of water-glass painting, and carried out the subject and its companion, The Death of Nelson, in that medium, completing the latter painting in 1864.

Maclise's vast painting of The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife (1854) hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. It portrays the marriage of the main Norman conqueror of Ireland "Strongbow" to the daughter of his Gaelic ally. By the grand staircase of Halifax Town Hall, which was completed in 1863, there is a wall painting by Maclise.

The intense application which he gave to these great historic works, and various circumstances connected with the commission, had a serious effect on the artist's health. He began to shun the company in which he formerly delighted, his old buoyancy of spirits was gone, and when, in 1865, the presidency of the Royal Academy was offered to him he declined the honour. He died of acute pneumonia on 25 April 1870 at his home 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.

His works are distinguished by powerful intellectual and imaginative qualities, but, in the opinion of Monkhouse, a late Victorian critic, somewhat marred by harsh and dull colouring, by metallic hardness of surface and texture, and by frequent touches of the theatrical in the action and attitudes of the figures. His fame rests most securely on his two greatest works at Westminster.

A memoir of Maclise, by his friend William Justin O'Driscoll, was published in 1871.

National Portrait Gallery, 1972
The works of Maclise in portraiture were celebrated in 1972 at an exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery.

Crawford Art Gallery, 2008
The Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, Ireland, Maclise's native city, held a major exhibition of his works, Daniel Maclise: Romancing the Past (28 October 2008 - 14 February 2009), opened by David Puttnam.

Royal Academy, 2015
The preliminary sketch for The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher was displayed at the Royal Academy of Arts from 2 September 2015 to 3 January 2016, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. It had been displayed previously from 23 May until 23 August at the Royal Armouries in Leeds as part of the Waterloo 1815: The Art of Battle exhibition.

title: Daniel Maclise


text:
Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (14 August 1802 – 15 October 1838) was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L.

Landon's writings are emblematic of the transition from Romanticism to Victorian literature. Her first major breakthrough came with The Improvisatrice and thence she developed the metrical romance towards the Victorian ideal of the Victorian monologue, influencing fellow English writers such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson and Christina Rossetti. Her influence can also be found in the United States, where she was very popular. Edgar Allan Poe regarded her genius as self-evident.

In spite of these wide influences, due to the perceived immorality of Landon's lifestyle, her works were largely ignored or misrepresented after her death.

Early life
Letitia Elizabeth Landon was born on 14 August 1802 in Chelsea, London to John Landon and Catherine Jane, née Bishop. A precocious child, Landon learned to read as a toddler; a disabled neighbour would scatter letter tiles on the floor and reward young Letitia for reading, and, according to her father, "she used to bring home many rewards".

At the age of five, Landon began attending Frances Arabella Rowden's school at 22 Hans Place, Knightsbridge. Rowden was an engaging teacher, a poet, and had a particular enthusiasm for the theatre. According to Mary Russell Mitford, "she had a knack of making poetesses of her pupils". Other pupils of Rowden include Caroline Ponsonby, later Lady Caroline Lamb; Emma Roberts, the travel writer; Anna Maria Fielding, who published as Mrs S. C. Hall; and Rosina Doyle Wheeler, who married Edward Bulwer-Lytton and published her many novels as Rosina Bulwer Lytton. At Rowden's school, Landon became fluent in French from an early age.

The Landons moved to the countryside in 1809, so that John Landon could carry out a model farm project. Letitia Landon was educated at home by her older cousin Elizabeth from that point on. Elizabeth found her knowledge and abilities outstripped by those of her pupil: "When I asked Letitia any question relating either to history, geography, grammar – Plutarch's Lives, or to any book we had been reading, I was pretty certain her answers would be perfectly correct; still, not exactly recollecting, and unwilling she should find out just then that I was less learned than herself, I used thus to question her: 'Are you quite certain?' ... I never knew her to be wrong."

When young, Landon was close to her younger brother, Whittington Henry, born 1804. Paying for university education for him, at Worcester College, Oxford, was one of the reasons that brought Landon to publish. She also supported his preferment and later (in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838) dedicated her poetical illustration Captain Cook to him, in recollection of their domestic childhood adventures together. Whittington went on to become a minister and published a book of sermons in 1835. Rather than showing appreciation for his sister's assistance, he spread false rumours about her marriage and death. Landon also had a younger sister, Elizabeth Jane (born 1806), who was a frail child and died in 1819 at the age of 13. Little is known of Elizabeth, but her death likely left a lasting impression on Letitia, and it could be Elizabeth who is referred to in the poem "The Forgotten One" ("I have no early flowers to fling").

Early Career: 1820-1834
An agricultural depression caused the Landon family to move back to London in 1815. There, John Landon met William Jerdan, editor of The Literary Gazette. According to Mrs A. T. Thomson, Jerdan took notice of the young Letitia Landon when he saw her coming down the street, "trundling a hoop with one hand, and holding in the other a book of poems, of which she was catching a glimpse between the agitating course of her evolutions". Jerdan later described her ideas as "original and extraordinary". He encouraged Landon's poetic endeavours, and her first poem was published under the single initial "L" in the Gazette in 1820, when Landon was 18. The following year, with financial support from her grandmother, Landon published a book of poetry, The Fate of Adelaide, under her full name. The book met with little critical notice, but sold well; Landon, however, received no profits, since the publisher shortly went out of business. The same month that The Fate of Adelaide appeared, Landon published two poems under the initials "L.E.L." in the Gazette; these poems, and the initials under which they were published, attracted much discussion and speculation. As contemporary critic Laman Blanchard put it, the initials L.E.L. "speedily became a signature of magical interest and curiosity". Bulwer Lytton wrote that, as a young college student, he and his classmates would

"rush every Saturday afternoon for the Literary Gazette, [with] an impatient anxiety to hasten at once to that corner of the sheet which contained the three magical letters L.E.L. And all of us praised the verse, and all of us guessed at the author. We soon learned it was a female, and our admiration was doubled, and our conjectures tripled."

Landon served as the Gazette's chief reviewer as she continued to write poetry and she soon began to display an interest in art, which she projected into her poetic productions. She began, in innovative fashion, with a series on Medallion Wafers, which were commercially produced highly decorative letter seals. This was closely followed in the Literary Gazette by a Poetical Catalogue of Pictures, which was to be ‘continued occasionally’ and which in fact continued unremarked into 1824, the year her landmark volume, The Improvisatrice; and Other Poems was published. A further group of these poems was published in 1825 in her next volume, The Troubadour, as Poetical Sketches of Modern Pictures. In The Troubadour she included a lament for her late father, who died in 1824, thus forcing her to write to support her family; Some contemporaries saw this profit-motive as detrimental to the quality of Landon's work: a woman was not supposed to be a professional writer. Also, by 1826, Landon's reputation began to suffer as rumours circulated that she had had affairs or secretly borne children. However, her further volumes of poetry continued to be favourably reviewed, these being The Golden Violet with its Tales of Romance and Chivalry and Other Poems (1827) and The Venetian Bracelet, The Lost Pleiad, A History of the Lyre, and Other Poems (1829).

The new trend of annual gift books provided her with new opportunities for continuing her engagement with art through combinations of an engraved artwork and what she came to call ‘a poetical illustration’. In the 1830s she became a highly valued artist in this field, included amongst her work, most of the poetry for Fisher’s Drawing Room Scrap Books from 1832 through to 1839. Sarah Sheppard describes this work thus: 'How did pictures ever seem to speak to her soul! how would she seize on some interesting characteristic in the painting or engraving before her, and inspire it with new life, till that pictured scene spread before you in bright association with some touching history or spirit-stirring poem! L.E.L.'s appreciation of painting, like that of music, was intellectual rather than mechanical,—belonging to the combinations rather than to the details; she loved the poetical effects and suggestive influences of the Arts, although caring not for their mere technicalities.' In the words of Glenn T. Hines, 'What L.E.L.'s readers appreciated in her creations was that "new life" that she brought to her subject. Her imaginative re-castings produced intellectual pleasure for her audience. The wonderful characteristic of L.E.L.'s writings, which her readers recognized, was the author's special creative capacity to bring new meanings to her audience.'

Landon continued to publish poetry, and published her first work of prose in 1831 with her first novel, Romance and Reality. The following year, she produced her only volume of religious poetry, The Easter Gift, again as illustrations to engravings of artwork. Next she was responsible for the whole of Heath's Book of Beauty, 1833, her most self-consciously Byronic volume, which opens with The Enchantress in which she creates a 'Promethean, distinctly Luciferan, model of poetic identity and self-creation'. She returned to the long poem with The Zenana in the Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834 and gave the 1835 Scrap Book a sting in the tale with The Fairy of the Fountains, Landon's version of the Melusine legend displaying 'the aesthetic dilemma of the woman poet who is exiled not once like the male poet, but twice'. 1834 also saw the publication of her second novel, Francesca Carrara, of which one reviewer commented 'A sterner goddess never presided over the destinies of a novel'.

In July that year Landon visited Paris with a friend, Miss Turin, who was unfortunately taken ill, restricting Landon's activities. However, amongst those she met were Heinrich Heine, Prosper Mérimée, Chateaubriand and Madame Tastu.

Engagement John Forster: 1835-1836
In 1835, Landon became engaged to John Forster. Forster became aware of rumours regarding Landon's sexual activity, and asked her to refute them. Landon responded that Forster should "make every inquiry in [his] power", which Forster did; after he pronounced himself satisfied, however, Landon broke off their engagement. To him, she wrote:

"The more I think, the more I feel I ought not – I can not – allow you to unite yourself with one accused of – I can not write it. The mere suspicion is dreadful as death. Were it stated as a fact, that might be disproved. Were it a difficulty of any other kind, I might say, Look back at every action of my life, ask every friend I have. But what answer can I give ...? I feel that to give up all idea of a near and dear connection is as much my duty to myself as to you...."

Privately, Landon stated that she would never marry a man who had mistrusted her. In a letter to Bulwer Lytton, she wrote that "if his future protection is to harass and humiliate me as much as his present – God keep me from it ... I cannot get over the entire want of delicacy to me which could repeat such slander to myself."

A further volume of poetry, The Vow of the Peacock, was published in 1835 and, in 1836, a volume of stories and poetry for children, Traits and Trials of Early Life. The History of a Child from this volume may draw on the surroundings of her childhood but the circumstances of the story are so unlike the known facts of her early life that it can scarcely be considered as autobiographical.

Later Career
During the 1830s, Landon’s poetry became more thoughtful and mature. Some of her best poems appeared in The New Monthly Magazine culminating in the series, Subjects for Pictures, with their elaborate rhyming patterns. These are in a sense a reversal of her earlier poetical illustrations of existing pictures. Also in that magazine is the set, Three Extracts from the Diary of a Week and here, she expresses her aim in opening lines, which, in Sypher’s words 'could stand as a preface to much of her poetry'. A record of the inward world, whose facts Are thoughts—and feelings—fears, and hopes, and dreams. There are some days that might outmeasure years— Days that obliterate the past, and make The future of the colour which they cast. A day may be a destiny; for life Lives in but little—but that little teems With some one chance, the balance of all time: A look—a word—and we are wholly changed. We marvel at ourselves—we would deny That which is working in the hidden soul; But the heart knows and trembles at the truth: On such these records linger.

In 1837, Landon published another novel, Ethel Churchill, and began to explore new forms in which to express her literary talent. One of these was her dramatic tragedy, Castruccio Castracani, which represents a culmination of her development of the metrical romance, both in its form and content. Already, she had experimented with verses for Schloss's Bijou Almanacks, which measured 3/4 by 1/2 inch and were to be read with a magnifier. She also negotiated with Heath for the publication in the future of a series of Female Portraits of characters from literature. Her final endeavour was Lady Anne Granard (or Keeping up Appearances), a lighter novel, but her work on this at Cape Coast was cut short.

Later life
Landon began to "[talk] of marrying any one, and of wishing to get away, from England, and from those who had thus misunderstood her". In October 1836, Landon met George Maclean, governor of the Gold Coast (now Ghana), at a dinner party given by Matthew Forster, and the two began a relationship. Maclean moved to Scotland early the following year, to the surprise and distress of Landon and her friends. After much prodding, Maclean returned to England and he and Landon were married shortly thereafter, on 7 June 1838. The marriage was held privately, and Landon spent the first month of it living with friends. Her schoolfriend Emma Roberts wrote of Maclean:

"No one could better appreciate than L.E.L. the high and sterling qualities of her lover's character, his philanthropic and unceasing endeavours to improve the condition of the natives of Africa; the noble manner in which he interfered to prevent the horrid waste of human life by the barbarian princes in his neighbourhood; and the chivalric energy with which he strove to put an end to the slave-trade. L.E.L. esteemed Mr Maclean the more, in consequence of his not approaching her with the adulation with which her ear had been accustomed, to satiety; she was gratified by the manly nature of his attachment. Possessing, in her estimation, merits of the highest order, the influence which he gained over her promised, in the opinion of those who were best acquainted with the docility of her temper, and her ready acquiescence with the wishes of those she loved, to ensure lasting happiness."In early July, the couple sailed for Cape Coast, where they arrived on 16 August 1838. During the short time she had in Africa, Landon continued her work on The Female Portrait Gallery, covering Walter Scott's principal heroines, and completed the first volume of a new novel, Lady Anne Granard, or Keeping Up Appearances

In his 1883 memoir Retrospect of a Long Life, Samuel Carter Hall writes of Landon's marriage and husband in very negative terms. "Her marriage wrecked her life; but before that fatal mistake was made, slander had been busy with her fair fame" (Retrospect, p. 395). Landon had taken "refuge from [slander] . . . in union with a man utterly incapable of appreciating her or making her happy, and [she] went out with him to his government at the Gold Coast -- to die" (ibid.). Her death was "not even -- tragical as such an ending would have been . . . to wither before the pestilential influences that steam up from that wilderness of swamp and jungle" but rather "to die a violent death -- a fearful one" (ibid.). Here Hall asserts his belief that Landon was murdered by her husband's common-law wife: "unhappy 'L.E.L.' was murdered I have had a doubt. . . . She landed at Cape Coast Castle in July, 1838, and on the 15th of October she was dead . . . from having accidentally taken a dose of prussic acid. But where was she to have procured that poison? . . . .It was not among the contents of the medicine-chest she took out from England" (ibid., pp. 395–396). Rather, claims Hall, after arriving in Africa, "Maclean left her on board while he went to arrange matters on shore. A negro woman was there, with four or five children -- his children; she had to be sent into the interior to make room for her legitimate successor. It is understood the negress was the daughter of a king . . . [and] from the moment 'L.E.L.' landed her life was at the mercy of her rival; that by her hand she was done to death I am all but certain" (ibid., p. 396).

In fact, Maclean's local mistress had left for Accra long before their arrival, as was confirmed by later interviews with her. His going ashore was most likely to ensure that the accommodation arranged for his new wife was in a healthy condition. The date on her prescription for dilute prussic acid was 1836, probably given when she was first diagnosed as having a critical heart condition. Letitia told her husband that her life depended on it.

Most of Hall's accounts are based on the fantastic stories invented by the press following Mrs Maclean's death and have little or no basis in fact.

Death
Two months later, on 15 October 1838, Landon was found dead, a bottle of prussic acid in her hand. This was a prescription labelled 'Acid Hydrocianicum Delatum, Pharm. London 1836. Medium Dose Five Minims, being about one third the strength of that in former use, prepared by Scheele's proof'. There is evidence that she showed symptoms of Stokes–Adams syndrome (for one, Mrs Elwood writes that she was subject to spasms, hysterical affections, and deep and instantaneous fainting fits ) for which the dilute acid was the standard remedy and, as she told her husband it was so necessary for the preservation of her life, it would appear she had been told that her life was in danger. William Cobbald, the surgeon who attended, reported that 'she was insensible with the pupils of both eyes much dilated', an almost certain indication that a seizure had occurred. No autopsy was carried out (there being no qualified pathologist available) but from the eye-witness accounts it has been argued that Landon suffered a fatal convulsion. Hall notes in Retrospect that Maclean refused Hall's attempts to erect a statue in honour of Landon, and that her funeral services were shrouded in secrecy: "on the evening of her death she was buried in the courtyard of Cape Coast Castle. The grave was dug by torchlight amid a pitiless torrent of rain" (Retrospect, pp. 397–398). "Mrs. Hall and I strove to raise money to place a monument there; but objection was made, and the project was abandoned. Lady Blessington directed a slab to be placed at her expense on the wall. That, also, was objected to. But her husband, for very shame, at last permitted it to be done, and a mural table records that in that African courtyard rests all that is mortal of Letitia Elizabeth Maclean. (Retrospect, p. 398)"

This is another example of the disinformation being circulated at the time, see above, and in fact the immediate burial was due to the climate and all the European residents attended with William Topp reading the funeral service. The sudden tropical rainstorm came subsequently during the preparation of the grave. Blanchard states that "It was the immediate wish of Mr. Maclean to place above this grave a suitable memorial, and his desire was expressed in the earliest letter which he sent to England; but we believe that some delay took place in the execution of the order he issued, from the necessity of referring back to the Coast for information as to the intended site of the monument, in order that it might be prepared accordingly. 'A handsome marble tablet' is now, it appears, on its way to Cape Coast, to be erected in the castle." Neither Hall nor Lady Blessington had any part in it, although Lady Blessington was hoping to erect a memorial in Brompton.

Character sketches
Landon's appearance and personality were described by a number of her friends and contemporaries:

Emma Roberts, from her introduction to "The Zenana and other works": L.E.L. could not be, strictly speaking, called handsome; her eyes being the only good feature in a countenance, which was, however, so animated, and lighted up with such intellectual expression, as to be exceedingly attractive. Gay and piquant, her clear complexion, dark hair, and eyes, rendered her, when in health and spirits, a sparkling brunette. The prettiness of L.E.L., though generally acknowledged, was not talked about; and many persons, on their first introduction, were as pleasingly surprised as the Ettrick Shepherd, who, gazing upon her with great admiration, exclaimed "I did na think ye had been sae bonny." Her figure was slight, and beautifully proportioned, with little hands and feet; and these personal advantages, added to her kind and endearing manners, rendered her exceedingly fascinating.

William Jerdan, from his autobiography:

"In truth, she was the most unselfish of human creatures; and it was quite extraordinary to witness her ceaseless consideration for the feelings of others, even in minute trifles, whilst her own mind was probably troubled and oppressed; a sweet disposition, so perfectly amiable, from Nature's fount, and so unalterable in its manifestations throughout her entire life, that every one who enjoyed her society loved her, and servants, companions, intimates, friends, all united in esteem and affection for the gentle and self-sacrificing being who never exhibited a single trait of egotism, presumption, or unkindliness!"

Anna Maria Hall, from The Atlantic Monthly:

"Perhaps the greatest magic she exercised was, that, after the first rush of remembrance of all that wonderful young woman had written had subsided, she rendered you completely oblivious of what she had done by the irresistible charm of what she was. You forgot all about her books, – you only felt the intense delight of life with her; she was penetrating and sympathetic, and entered into your feelings so entirely that you wondered how 'the little witch' could read you so readily and so rightly, – and if, now and then, you were startled, perhaps dismayed, by her wit, it was but the prick of a diamond arrow. Words and thoughts that she flung hither and thither, without design or intent beyond the amusement of the moment, come to me still with a mingled thrill of pleasure and pain that I cannot describe, and that my most friendly readers, not having known her, could not understand."

Anne Elwood, from her Memoirs of Literary Ladies:

"It was her invariable habit to write in her bed-room, – 'a homely-looking, almost uncomfortable room, fronting the street, and barely furnished – with a simple white bed, at the foot of which was a small, old, oblong-shaped sort of dressing-table, quite covered with a common worn writing-desk, heaped with papers, while some strewed the ground, the table being too small for aught besides the desk. A little high-backed cane chair, which gave you any idea but that of comfort, and a few books scattered about, completed the author's paraphernalia.'"

Emma Roberts again:

"She not only read, but thoroughly understood, and entered into the merits of every book that came out; while it is merely necessary to refer to her printed works, to calculate the amount of information which she had gathered from preceding authors. The history and literature of all ages and all countries were familiar to her; nor did she acquire any portion of her knowledge in a superficial manner; the extent of her learning, and the depth of her research, manifesting themselves in publications which do not bear her name; her claim to them being only known to friends, who, like myself, had access to her desk, and with whom she knew the secret might be safely trusted."

Her depth of reading is confirmed by Laman Blanchard in his Life, who states:

"To those who, looking at the quantity of her published prose and poetry, might wonder how she found time for all these private and unproductive exercises of her pen, it may be desirable to explain, not merely that she wrote, but that she read, with remarkable rapidity. Books, indeed, of the highest character, she would dwell upon with 'amorous delay;' but those of ordinary interest, or the nine-day wonders of literature, she would run through in a much shorter space of time than would seem consistent with that thorough understanding of their contents at which she always arrived, or with that accurate observation of the less striking features which she would generally prove to have been bestowed, by reference almost to the very page in which they might be noted. Of some work which she scarcely seemed to have glanced through, she would give an elaborate and succinct account, pointing out the gaps in the plot, or the discrepancies in the characters, and supporting her judgment by all but verbatim quotations."

Other contemporaries also praised Landon's exceptionally high level of intelligence. Fredric Rowton, in The Female Poets of Great Britain, put it thus:

"Of Mrs Maclean's genius there can be but one opinion. It is distinguished by very great intellectual power, a highly sensitive and ardent imagination, an intense fervour of passionate emotion, and almost unequalled eloquence and fluency. Of mere art she displays but little. Her style is irregular and careless, and her painting sketchy and rough but there is genius in every line she has written."

(Like many others, Rowton is deceived by the artistry of Landon's projection of herself as the improvisatrice, L. E. L. As Glennis Stevenson writes, few poets have been as artificial as Landon in her "gushing stream of Song". She cites the usage of repetition, mirroring and the embedding of texts amongst the techniques that account for the characteristic intensity of Landon's poetry.)

Reputation
Among the poets of her own time to recognise and admire Landon were Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who wrote "L.E.L.'s Last Question" in homage; and Christina Rossetti, who published a tribute poem entitled "L.E.L" in her 1866 volume The Prince's Progress and Other Poems.

Landon's reputation, while high in the 19th century, fell during most of the 20th as literary fashions changed: her poetry was perceived as overly simple and sentimental. However, such criticism had already been addressed by Sarah Sheppard in her "Characteristics of the Genius and Writings of L E L" of 1841. Her opening paragraph runs:

"Because they whose decision it is, are subjects of the superficial spirit of the age, which leaves them unacquainted with all of which it appoints them judges. Because, either from a dislike of trouble, or inability to pursue the inquiry, these judges never deviate from their own beaten right line to observe how genius acts and is acted upon,—how it is influenced, and what effects it produces on society. Hence the mistaken opinions concerning literary characters one is often compelled to hear from those who, it is to be feared, know little of what they affirm; and of literary works from those who, it is also to be feared, are not competent to decide on their merits. It is indeed strange with what decision people set their seal of condemnation on volumes beyond whose title-pages they have scarcely looked."

In recent years, scholars and critics have increasingly studied her work, beginning with Germaine Greer in the 1970s. Critics such as Isobel Armstrong argue that the supposed simplicity of poetry such as Landon's is deceptive, and that women poets of the 19th century often employed a method of writing which allows for multiple, concurrent levels of meaning. McMullen argues that Landon, although she wrote about what would sell—romance, sensuality, vicariousness, etc, and plays the role of the imitator, actually uses genealogical subversion underneath her words to canonize herself. In mistranslation and retranslation of already quickly canonized Romantic male poets, Landon establishes herself among and even beyond their accomplishments.

Her ideas and the diversity of her poetry engendered a "Landon School", in England and the United States. As for style, William Howitt comments: "This is one singular peculiarity of the poetry of L. E. L.; and her poetry must be confessed to be peculiar. It is entirely her own. It had one prominent and fixed character, and that character belonged solely to itself. The rhythm, the feeling, the style and phraseology of L. E. L.'s poetry, were such, that you could immediately recognize it, though the writer's name was not mentioned."

A tribute in The Literary Gazette, following Landon's death, ran:

"To express what we feel on her loss is impossible – and private sorrows of so deep a kind are not for public display: her name will descend to the most distant times, as one of the brightest in the annals of English literature; and whether after ages look at the glowing purity and nature of her first poems, or the more sustained thoughtfulness and vigour of her later works, in prose or in verse, they will cherish her memory as that of one of the most beloved of female authors, the pride and glory of our country while she lived, and the undying delight of succeeding generations. Then, as in our day, young hearts will beat responsive to the thrilling touch of her music; her song of love will find a sacred home in many a fair and ingenuous bosom; her numbers, which breathed of the finest humanities, her playfulness of spirit, and her wonderful delineation of character and society – all – all will be admired, but not lamented as now. She is gone; and, oh, what a light of mind is extinguished: what an amount of friendship and of love has gone down into the grave"

In translation

 * Die Sängerin. Frankfurt: M. Brönner, 1830. Translation by Clara Himly, together with The Improvisatrice, in English.
 * Francesca Carrara. Bremen: A. D. Geisler, 1835. Translation by C. W. Geisler.
 * Adele Churchill, oder die zwei Bräute. Leipzig: Kirchner & Schwetschte, 1839. Translation by Fr. L. von Soltau.
 * Ethel Churchill, of De twee bruiden. Middelburg: J.C & W. Altorffer, 1844. (Translator unknown).
 * Les Album des Salons, 1832 onwards, accompagnées de Poésies Descriptives par L.E.L. Fisher.

Family
In 2000, scholar Cynthia Lawford published birth records implying that Landon had in fact borne children in the 1820s from a secret affair with William Jerdan. Details of Letitia's children by Jerdan (Ella, Fred and Laura) and their descendants can be found in Susan Matoff.

title: Letitia Elizabeth Landon


text:
Singtel

Singapore Telecommunications Limited, commonly known as Singtel, is a Singaporean telecommunications conglomerate, the country's principal fixed-line operator and one of the four major mobile network operators operating in the country.

Overview
The company is the largest mobile network operator in Singapore with 4.1 million subscribers and through subsidiaries, has a combined mobile subscriber base of 770 million customers as of 31 March 2022. The company was known as Telecommunications Equipment until 1995. Singtel provides ISP, IPTV (Singtel TV) and mobile phone networks and fixed line telephony services.

Singtel has expanded aggressively outside its home market and owns shares in many regional operators, including full ownership of Australia's second largest telco Optus and 32.15% of Bharti Airtel, the second largest carrier in India.

Singtel controls significant market share in Australia and Singapore, with 82% of the fixed-line market, 47% of the mobile market and 43% of the broadband market in Singapore. Singtel is also the second-largest company by market capitalisation listed on the Singapore Exchange and is majority owned by Temasek Holdings, the investment arm of the Singapore government. Singtel is an active investor in innovation companies through its Singtel Innov8 subsidiary, founded in 2011 with sgd200000000 start up capital.

1800s

 * 1883: Singapore's phone network was operated by the Oriental Telephone and Electric Company (OTEC). The Public Telephone Exchange set up 60 telephone lines connecting local businesses of that era.

1900s

 * 1907: OTEC was replaced by a new Central Telephone Exchange in Hill Street
 * 1955: The Singapore Telephone Board (STB) is incorporated as a statutory board with exclusive rights to operate telephone service within Singapore.
 * 1 April 1974: Merger of STB into Telecommunications Authority of Singapore (TAS, Telecoms or Singapore Telecom). Before 1974, STB was responsible for local services, while TAS provided international services.
 * 1982: Merger of the Postal Department into Singapore Telecom.
 * 1992: Singapore Telecommunications Private Limited (SingTel) is incorporated in March as a separate company. The remainder of Telecoms became Singapore Post Private Limited and a smaller Telecommunications Authority of Singapore (later becoming Infocomm Media Development Authority).
 * 1992: SingTel introduces the call zone service, made defunct in 1997.
 * October 1993: SingTel became a public company (Singapore Telecommunications Limited) via an IPO.
 * 1997 SingTel was compensated $1.5 billion by the Singaporean Government for early termination of its monopoly, based on projected earnings lost between 2000 and 2007 due to its loss of monopoly.

2000s

 * In 2000, SingTel lost its domestic monopoly in Singapore, with the government deregulating the telecommunications industry.
 * 2001: SingTel is awarded a 3G licence in April.
 * In March 2001, Singtel purchased Optus for between $7.4 billion to $8.5 billion
 * 2003: SingTel sells 60% of Singapore Post (SingPost) in May during an IPO in an effort to focus on its core telecommunications services business.
 * 2003: SingTel divested its stakes in Yellow Pages in June, its directory business to CVC Asia Pacific and J.P. Morgan Partners Asia for sgd220000000.
 * 2003: SingTel announced that it has appointed Ericsson as the vendor for its 3G network in Singapore in July.
 * 2005: SingTel launches its commercial 3G services in February.
 * 2007: mio TV was launched commercially on 20 July 2007 and began its services on 21 July 2007.
 * 2007: SingTel Generation mio was launched commercially on 9 January 2007 and began its services on 21 January 2007
 * 2008: SingTel and Apple jointly announced that SingTel will be the first mobile operator to launch the iPhone 3G and its services to Singapore in June.
 * In the month of June, SingTel becomes the title sponsor of the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix in Singapore.
 * On 10 July 2009, SingTel launched the iPhone 3GS commercially in Singapore.

2011–2014

 * In May 2011, SingTel announced that they will be aiming to double the size of its satellite business, with two additional launches by 2013.
 * In November 2011, SingTel launched Singapore's first e-book provider, Skoob, which was available through the web, iOS or Android.
 * 2012: SingTel acquired mobile advertising technology company Amobee in March 2012 for $321 million.
 * 2012: SingTel secured broadcast rights for the 2012 Summer Olympics and provided 15 new ESPN STAR Sports channels free of charge to its mio TV Services.
 * 2012: SingTel was fined $300,000 for breaches of the Service Resiliency Code by the IDA.
 * Since December 2012, SingTel started providing 4G LTE services across Singapore.
 * Since 1 August 2013, mio TV was officially renamed SingTel TV.
 * In 2013 SingTel announced the sale of its entire 30% stake in Warid Telecom (Private) Limited to Warid Telecom Pakistan LLC which took place on 15 March 2013
 * In 2013 SingTel was fined $180,000 for the disruption of its mio TV service where 115,000 subscribers were affected while watching the Premier League games. The problems included screen freezing, blurred images and picture distortion that happened on 13 May 2012 from 10:15 pm. Full service quality was resumed at 12:15 am the next day.
 * In late 2013, SingTel shutdown its Skoob e-book store.
 * In 2014 SingTel was fined $6 million for its Bukit Panjang fire in the previous year. This is the highest fine imposed on a telco in Singapore.
 * In August 2014, SingTel announced it was joining forces with five other global companies, including Google, to build a super-fast undersea data cable linking the U.S. and Japan.
 * In 2014 Bharti Airtel became first telecommunication company to serve 4G internet in India.

2015–2019

 * On 21 January 2015, Singtel launched its new brand identity, the first in 16 years.
 * On 19 March 2015, Singtel dismissed all connections with social media agency, Gushcloud. This is after a Singapore blogger Xiaxue, exposed Gushcloud's brief to its "influencers" to execute a negative campaign on M1 and Starhub, both who are direct competitors. Singtel apologised to both companies for the campaign.
 * On 7 April 2015, Singtel revealed it would be acquiring US cyber security firm Trustwave for $810 million, its largest ever acquisition outside the telecoms sector.
 * On 22 April 2015, the Singtel announced plans to delist from the Australian Securities Exchange due to low trading volumes.
 * In April 2015, Singtel released a new Skype and WhatsApp competitor called Wavee. It allows users to make voice and video calls and send instant messages.
 * In May 2015, Singtel was issued a 'stern warning' by Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) for a negative marketing campaign against its competitors: M1 Limited and Starhub through a marketing agency, Gushcloud. Singtel was required to "ensure appropriate management oversight and control over its marketing and advertising campaigns".
 * On 11 April 2017, it was reported that Synack had raised $21 million from Microsoft Ventures, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Singtel.
 * On 18 January 2019, Singtel was listed in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI) for the first time in recognition of gender equality.

2020–present

 * In March 2020, Singtel announced a US$30 million investment in a new joint venture by Singtel, Thai Telco AIS and South Korea's SK Telecom in a gaming company called Storms.
 * On 1 October 2020, Singtel announced the appointment of Yuen Kuan Moon as group CEO to replace current chief Chua Sock Koong after her retirement in January 2021.
 * On 4 December 2020, it was announced that the Singtel and ride-hailing firm Grab consortium had been awarded a digital banking licence and would start operating in 2022.
 * On 10 June 2022, three employees of Amobee's email marketing division were convicted of federal crimes related to illegally spamming through hijacked IP addresses.

Network and infrastructure
Singtel's international submarine cable network provides connections from Singapore to more than 100 countries. It is a major investor in many of the world's submarine cable systems, such as South-East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe 3 Cable Network, South-East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe 4 Cable Network, APCN 2, China-US, Japan-US, Southern Cross Cable and Unity (cable system). Unity Cable Network was commissioned in March 2010.

In January 2010, Singtel announced it had signed an agreement to join a consortium to build and operate the new SJC (cable system) system (SJC). The construction of the SJC cable system started in April 2011 and became operational in June 2013. The SJC has a length of 8,900 km which could extend up to 9,700 km linking up to seven countries or territories. The SJC is connected with the Unity Cable Network and is designed to deliver the lowest latency connectivity between Asia and the US, specifically from Singapore to Los Angeles.

As of fourth quarter of 2014, Singtel Mobile's 4G outdoor coverage was at 99.41%, ranked first followed by M1's 99.04%, and Starhub's 98.85%.

Singtel signed a partnership with NETSTARS, (a Tokyo-based mobile payment technology company) in March 2019. This will allow travelers to use their home mobile wallets on Singtel's VIA network to pay digitally at stores in Japan.

Key operating companies
The Singtel group of companies includes subsidiaries, associated companies, as well as shareholdings in overseas entities. Its mainstay is in the mobile phone industry, where it has a total subscription base of 638 million as of 31 March 2017:

Mobile

 * Singtel Mobile Singapore Pte Ltd – operation and provision of cellular mobile telecommunications systems and services, resale of fixed line and broadband services
 * Optus Mobile Pty Limited – provision of mobile phone services
 * Virgin Mobile (Australia) Pty Limited – provision of mobile phone services, wholly own subsidiary of Optus

ICT

 * NCS – provision of information technology and consultancy services
 * Alphawest – provision of information technology services
 * Uecomm – provision of data communication services

Digital

 * Amobee – provision of mobile advertising
 * Pixable – provision of mobile photo search and aggregation services
 * DataSpark – provision of big data geolocation analytics
 * Singtel Digital Media Pte Ltd (STDM) – development and management of on-line internet portal
 * Singtel Idea Factory Pte Ltd – engaging in research and development, products and services development and business partnership
 * Singtel Innov8 Pte Ltd – venture capital investment holding

Internet and TV

 * SingNet – provision of internet access and pay television services
 * Optus Broadband Pty Limited – provision of high speed residential internet service
 * Optus Vision Pty Limited – provision of interactive television service
 * Optus Internet Pty Limited – provision of internet services to retail customers
 * Vividwireless Group Limited – provision of wireless broadband services

Associate of the group

 * Singapore Post Limited – operation and provision of postal and logistics services
 * Telescience Singapore Pte Ltd – sale, distribution and installation of telecommunications equipment
 * Viewers Choice Pte Ltd – provision of services relating to motor vehicle rental and retail of general merchandise

Bukit Panjang Exchange fire
On 9 October 2013, a fire broke out at one of Singtel's major Internet exchanges at Bukit Panjang. The fire started at around 2 p.m. Firemen from the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) responded to the emergency call placed at 2.16pm and extinguished the fires in 20 minutes. After SCDF had cleared the building for access at 6pm, Singtel started repairing the damaged cable infrastructure. The repairs was initially assessed to be done by 10 October 2013, 7am with 33 cables of fibre strands requiring repairs. However, the repairs was slower than expected as it was difficult to identify the affected cables as visual indicators such as colour coding on the cables were rendered unusable and 116 other fibre cables required repairs as well. Connectivity to affected customers was progressively restored as the repairs stretched into the evening.

The damage incurred extensive connectivity issues in the North Western areas of Singapore, particularly in Bukit Batok, Bukit Panjang, Bukit Timah, Choa Chu Kang, Kranji, Marsiling, Teck Whye and Woodlands. Singtel reported 100 mobile base stations were affected, disconnecting its mobile service subscribers in the area. It also reported that around 60,000 fixed broadband lines, 46,000 mioTV subscribers, and 30,000 voice lines were also affected. OpenNet also reported that 81 of its fibre cables were damaged, affecting 46,000 fibre connections downstream. Business such as StarHub, M1, DBS, OpenNet and Singapore Pools saw varying levels of disruptions to their services and operations islandwide.

The cables were reconnected on 11 October 2013. However, there were still some subscribers whose connectivity services were still disrupted as of 16 October 2013. StarHub indicated that some of the repaired OpenNet cables, which it relied on to carry its fibre internet services, were not connected properly. Likewise, Singtel reported that several cables required further rectification works. Both offered alternate connectivity solutions to the affected subscribers as a temporary measure while further work took place, with StarHub sending cable modems to its affected subscribers to connect to its then existing coaxial cable network (which could carry Internet services, and was put to an end in June 2019 ), and Singtel sending mobile broadband dongles. Singtel also announced compensation packages to its affected subscribers of its various services.

Singtel had set up a Board Committee of Inquiry (BCOI) to investigate the fire. Additionally, the BCOI would also benchmark current network design and contingency processes against international best practices and standards, and recommend appropriate improvements to prevent future occurrences and strengthen network resilience. Separately, IDA had launched an investigation into the fire as well. Questions were raised in the public on the infrastructure design of the telecommunications network. The fire exposed the fact that Bukit Panjang exchange was a single point of failure as connectivity services of 3 major ISPs were affected due to it, with the affected OpenNet fibre cables affecting a wide area across the nation.

Preliminary findings realised by Singtel on 6 November 2013 indicated that the fire broke out during a maintenance work at one of the lead-in pipes located in the cable chamber. The fire was caused by an employee not following the maintenance procedures as well as the use of an unauthorised blowtorch. Maintenance protocols had since strengthened, limiting maintenance work which required heat to be applied and reinforcing training on safety requirements and operations. The BCOI report, dated 9 December 2013, was released on 17 December 2013. The report covered three main areas: fire prevention in exchanges, network reliability and resiliency, as well as public relations and communications. Singtel's board has accepted the BCOI's findings and would implement its recommendations. In Singtel's 2015 annual report, it was reported that the BCOI was satisfied that all the recommendations of the BCOI had been followed up and adequately addressed.

Singtel was later fined $6 million Singapore dollars for the fire incident, it is the largest fine for a telco company in Singapore history. National fibre broadband network builder OpenNet and CityNet - the trustee manager of a Singtel unit that owns OpenNet - have also been fined $200,000 and $300,000, respectively, for failing to comply with safety procedures and restore services promptly.

Gushcloud marketing scandal
On 14 March 2015, Xiaxue, a Singapore-based blogger, revealed on her blog instructions from Gushcloud to its network of bloggers to post complaints about the mobile services of Singtel's rivalling mobile service providers, StarHub and M1, on social media, in a marketing effort to drive subscriptions of a new mobile service plan targeted at youths by Singtel. Along with her revelation, there were many samples of Gushcloud's bloggers taking up the offer and posting complaints up on social media services. Upon the release of the complaints, both Starhub and M1 called on IDA to investigate the matter.

Initially denying that it had issued the brief, Singtel issued an apology, of which Starhub and M1 had accepted. Singtel also terminated its employee who had worked with Gushcloud on the campaign as the employee did not adhere to Singtel's professional standards and values. At the same time, Singtel ended its relationship with Gushcloud. Vincent Ha, Gushcloud's chief executive, released an apology through the firm on the firm's use of negative messaging and yet criticising Xiaxue's expose for "doing more harm than good to our industry". Xiaxue refuted the statement, saying he was trying to divert blame and calling Gushcloud's actions as "not ethical". Several bloggers involved issued apologies on their platforms as well.

Data breach incident
On 12 February 2020, Singtel was fined $9,000 Singapore dollars for a data breach incident involving the My Singtel mobile app, a smartphone application owned by Singtel. The incident began from Singtel encountering a technical issue during its migration to a new billing system in early 2018, resulting in the personal data of 750 mobile subscribers being exposed. Of these, 39 subscribers' personal data were in fact accessed by other subscribers over a period of about 11 hours.

Assistant manager leaking client data and thieving
Pleo Sherwin Cubos was an assistant manager at Singtel earning around $5000 Singapore dollar income, he borrowed $500 Singapore dollars in January 2020 from an unlicensed moneylender after seeing an advertisement for illegal loans on Facebook ads. Cubos later obtained more loans when he couldn't resolve his debt problems, his debt also continued to increase and he was unable to pay the debt, Cubos begin to receive loan shark harassment.

Cubos' debtor, Alan, later offered Cubos to stop loan shark harassment on him if he could access Singtel's internal data system (CRM) and using the given information to find and sharing the borrower's data with Alan. Alan gave Cubos a list of identity card numbers and phone numbers of his borrower for Cubos to find the client's data in the CRM. Between 20 February 2020 to 25 April 2020, Cubos unauthorized screenshotted 27 client's data on the CRM and sent 6 client's data to Alan.

In March and April 2020, Cubos sold a total of 3 iPads that belong to Singtel for at least $250 Singapore dollars and spent the money on his personal expenses.

Cubos' supervisor later discovered his offences and filed a police report on 2 May 2020. Cubos was then charged and pleaded guilty to one count each of assisting a loan shark and criminal breach of trust charge on 30 December 2020. He was sentenced to imprisonment for 3 months 3 weeks and fined $30,000 Singapore dollars.

Retail consultant selling client data
Kelvin Foo Cheek Ann was a retail consultant at the Singtel outlet in Parkway Parade. Between 2014 and July 2017, he obtained Singtel's client data from Singtel's system without authorization and sold the data to his acquaintance, Lee Cheng Yan, as requested. Lee offered him $20 Singapore dollars for each mobile number checked on the system. All clients whose data sold were later received harassment calls, messages, and strangers appearing at their homes and demanding money.

Foo took a total of $180 Singapore dollars of bribes from Lee. Foo pleaded guilty to 1 charge of corruption, 5 charges of unauthorized access to Singtel's system, and 10 charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Zero-day attack
On 11 February 2021, Singtel issued a statement admitting the company had been attacked by hackers in Zero-day attack which resulted in a data breach. Singtel CEO Yuen Kuan Moon issued a public apology regarding the incident, which was caused by a vulnerability in an Accellion file-sharing system used by Singtel. Accellion issued its first alert of the exploits in December 2020, Singtel then applied a series of patches provided by Accellion to resolve the vulnerability. On 23 January 2021, Accellion stated that a new vulnerability had emerged and patches previously applied in December 2020 are ineffective. Singtel immediately took its system offline since. Singtel's attempt to patch the new vulnerability in the FTA system on 30 January 2021 triggered an anomaly alert, and Accellion later informed that the system might have been breached. Singtel's investigations later confirmed the system was breached and identified 20 January 2021 as the occurrence day.

Amobee executives plead guilty to hijacking IP addresses in order to send illegal spam
On 10 June 2022, three employees of the affiliate marketing platform Amobee pleaded guilty in federal court to hijacking Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to send unsolicited commercial email messages, commonly known as “spam.”

title: Singtel


text:
A30

A30 or A-30 may refer to:

Science

 * A30 matriline, the name given to the most commonly seen orca matriline in British Columbia, Canada
 * HLA-A30, a human serotype
 * A30, ICD10 code for Leprosy and related conditions

Air transportation

 * Aero A.30, a Czech light bomber developed in the late 1920s
 * A-30 Martin Baltimore, an American attack/bomber aircraft
 * A30, the IATA location identifier for Scott Valley Airport

Automobiles

 * Austin A30, a 1951–1956 British compact car
 * Dongfeng Fengshen A30, a 2014–2019 Chinese subcompact sedan
 * JAC Heyue A30, 2012–2019 Chinese subcompact sedan
 * Aeolus A30, a Chinese saloon

Other

 * Cruiser Mk VIII Challenger (A30), a British tank of World War II
 * List of A30 roads

Other uses

 * Samsung Galaxy A30, smartphone released in 2019
 * A30, a code in the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings for the English Opening

title: A30


text:
A40

A40 or A-40 may refer to:

Roads

 * A40 motorway (Canada), a road in Québec
 * A40 motorway (France)
 * A40 motorway (Germany)
 * A40 road (Great Britain), a road connecting London and Fishguard, Wales
 * A40 road (Northern Ireland), a road running from the L/Derry to Raphoe
 * A40 road (Isle of Man), a primary road which connects the A3 with the A1

Other uses

 * A40, a Queen's Pawn Game, Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings code
 * Antonov A-40, a Soviet flying tank design
 * Archambault A40, a French sailboat design
 * Archambault A40RC, a French sailboat design
 * Austin A40, a car from the British Motor Corporation
 * Innocenti A40, variant of the Austin A40 produced by Innocenti
 * Beriev A-40, an aircraft
 * Samsung Galaxy A40, a midrange smartphone by Samsung

title: A40


text:
38M Toldi

The Toldi was a Hungarian light tank of World War II, developed on the basis of the Swedish Landsverk L-60. It was named after the 14th century Hungarian knight Miklós Toldi. The Toldi was made in several different variants including some armed with a 20 mm gun, some armed with a 40 mm gun, some fitted with schürzen plates, and even a prototype tank destroyer variant armed with a 75 mm gun. At least one was even fitted with heavy anti-tank rocket launchers.

Development and production
The Hungarian general staff wanted a modern light tank as soon as possible, after the domestically developed V-4 turned out to be too expensive by 1936 and work on it progressed slower than expected.

Meanwhile, the Swedish AB Landsverk finished its recent development, the Landsverk L-60 in October, and was looking for a customer to cover the costs. After a series of trials in 1937 with the V-4 and the Panzer I, the MÁVAG heavy industries decided to purchase the license of the L-60, with a prototype for further development.

The turret of the vehicle was then modified, making space for the radio and other devices, with a cupola being placed on top (since the L-60 was still unfinished and lacked in many necessary features). The original main armament, the 20 mm Madsen was also replaced initially by a 25 mm Bofors autocannon, and then by the 20 mm Solothurn anti-tank rifle, as it was already in service in the Hungarian army. The hull would then be changed on the front, upper sides, and rear, to riveted plates instead of welded for faster and easier production, with the original Scania-Vabis 1664 engine being replaced by the German Büssing L8V.

At first, 80 vehicles were ordered from MÁVAG, then an order for 110 more vehicles were placed in 1940. In total, 202 units were produced.

Variants

 * 38M Toldi I (A20) - first variant armed with a 20 mm Solothurn anti-tank rifle, 80 made. The very first few Toldis received the older versions of 20mm AT rifles with their sizeable magazines, so a small bump was formed on the turret roof to make it easier to insert the magazines. With the introduction of the new magazines, this became unnecessary and the other Toldis no longer had such "bump". At the beginning of the production (similarly to the Soviet and Italian armored vehicles of the time) there were many errors due to inexperience, so broken welds, armor cracks and casting errors in the track links were common.
 * 42M Toldi II (B20) - 110 made. This version was equipped with more reliable engines manufactured under license by Ganz instead of the imported NAGs. Furthermore, the suspensions have been improved with stronger torsion springs. These vehicles were extremely reliable (compared to the Russian and German tanks of the time) and were able to achieve a service life of 7-8000 kms with one planned factory repair. These vehicles were fitted with a slightly increased turret, which provided better placement of the radio and slightly better comfort. With the help of the large emergency exit hatches, the crew could quickly leave the damaged tanks.
 * 42M Toldi IIA (B40) - modification developed in 1942, armed with the 37/42M 40 mm gun and a larger turret. In 1943, 80 Toldis in the best condition were equipped with the gun and the additional armor plates, increasing the frontal protection to 35mm (280 BHN!).
 * 43M Toldi III (C40) - improved variant with thicker armor, 42M gun, upgraded drivetrain and perforated schürzen plates. According to recollections, 12 were made, but there is no written evidence of this, so it is possible that they were ordered and the production process has started, but never completed because of the bombing raids.
 * 43M Toldi Páncélvadász ('Toldi tank hunter') - Toldi hull with a German 7.5 cm Pak 40 anti-tank gun in an open casemate. Only 1 prototype made since the Germans did not deliver the guns ordered and paid for due to the war situation.
 * Toldi II armed with heavy anti-tank rocket launchers - modified Toldi II with its gun removed and a twin mount for 44M Buzogányvető heavy anti-tank rocket launchers mounted on the rear of its turret. One photograph is known to exist of this variant, so at least 1 made.

Combat
The Toldi tanks first saw action with the Hungarian Army in the 1941 Invasion of Yugoslavia. These tanks were then mostly used against the USSR between 1941 and 1944. Because of their light armour, armament and good communications equipment, they were mostly used for reconnaissance. The design was effective against Soviet light tanks widespread during the early stages of Operation Barbarossa, such as the obsolete T-26 and BT-5. However it was totally inadequate against the Soviet T-34 medium tanks encountered during the later stages of the war on the Eastern Front. From 1940 to the end of 1942, Toldi tanks served in 22-vehicle-strong companies and there were also 7 tanks in the HQ sections.

After 1942, it was clear that the light tanks in service around the world at that time were no longer suitable for offensive operations. However, Toldi tanks were suitable for reconnaissance and flanking tasks. Furthermore, in order to save fuel and spare medium tanks, they were ideal for the basic training tank crews.

In light of this, from 1943 in the "Szabolcs" order of battle, the Toldi companies were disbanded and 5-5 Toldis were placed in the medium tank companies. In addition to training tasks, they performed the scouting and flanking missions for the unit. They were suitable for this thanks to better mobility, outstanding optics and good radios compared to T-60 and T-70 tanks. In addition, 9 Toldi were converted into medical evacuation vehicles. Thus, each medium tank company had 11-17 Turans (due to the lack of vehicles, not every company was replenished as required) and 5 Toldis.In addition, each battalion and regiment HQ had 5 Toldis and 1 Medevac variant. Usually 50-50% were B20s and B40s in these units. The exception to this was the 1st Cavalry Division, which had no Toldis in its Turán companies. Two dozen A20 Toldis were used as command vehicles of the Nimród SPAA squadrons and Zrínyi assault gun companies. The rest were used for training purposes after 1943.

Service history
The Toldi entered Hungarian service in 1940. They were used extensively in the Invasion of Yugoslavia and on the Eastern Front. From 1942, the Toldis were reassigned to reconnaissance, command and ambulance roles.

The Toldis fought throughout the war, but due to the siege of Budapest, the supply of spare parts ceased in late 1944, so the tanks began to suffer losses due to wear and tear too (by this time, all the Toldis and Nimróds had already accumulated more than 5,000 kms!). Although it was ineffective against the T-34 and IS tanks, the Toldi B40 had a chance against almost 40% of the Soviet armoured vehicles in 1944 (T-70, SU-76, BA-64, etc.) and it was able to evade heavier tanks due to its excellent maneuverability and small size.

Several Toldi tanks were captured by the USSR late in the war, two of them were transported to Kubinka for testing and are still preserved there.

A few Toldis were captured by the Romanians after Romania switched sides following the 1944 coup d'état. Their fate is unknown.

Survivors
Two Toldi tanks (one Toldi I and one Toldi IIA) are preserved on display at the Kubinka Tank Museum in Moscow, Russia. It can be seen that on the surviving 38M Toldi I the gun mantlet, guns, lights and rails have been modified or removed, and the right fender is damaged.

title: 38M Toldi


text:
John Forster (biographer)

John Forster (2 April 1812 – 2 February 1876) was a Victorian English biographer and literary critic.

Life
Forster was born at "a little yellow house" in Fenkle Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, second of four children of Unitarian cattle-dealer Robert Forster (died 1836) and Mary (c. 1780-1852), daughter of a Gallowgate dairy farm keeper. Forster's great-grandfather had been "a man of some considerable substance", a landowner at Corsenside in Northumberland; his grandfather Christopher (the third son) inherited nothing, so this branch became butchers and cattle-dealers in Newcastle. Forster's father "married beneath himself" despite his wife being "a gem of a woman"; she was remembered by a nephew as "kind and affectionate", giving her impoverished sister's children cast-off clothing. The Forsters subsequently lived on Low Friar Street and at 5, Green Court, all "in the centre of old Newcastle... a jumble of houses, works and potteries". John Forster was educated in classics and in mathematics at The Royal Grammar School. Forster in 1828 matriculated at the University of Cambridge, but after only a month's residence there he moved to London, where he attended classes at University College London, and entered the Inner Temple.

In London, Forster successfully contributed to The True Sun, The Morning Chronicle and The Examiner, for which he was literary and dramatic critic. An extract of his Lives of the Statesmen of the Commonwealth (1836–1839) was published in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia. Forster subsequently published the entire work separately in 1840, with his Treatise on the Popular Progress in English History, both of which were publicly commended, and as a consequence of which Forster became reputable amongst London literary society. He therein became a friend of Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb, W. S. Landor, Charles Dickens (every work by whom he read in manuscript), and Edward Bulwer-Lytton (whom he monetarily patronised during the latter's childhood ). Forster was engaged to Letitia Landon, but after their relationship was broken off he instead married Eliza, the widow of Henry Colburn.

Forster in 1843 was called to the bar, but he did not ever practise as a lawyer.

Forster in 1855 was appointed secretary to the Lunacy Commission and, from 1861 to 1872, held the office of a Commissioner in Lunacy. His valuable collection of manuscripts, including original copies of Charles Dickens's novels, together with his books and pictures, was bequeathed to the South Kensington Museum.

Works
For some years he edited the Foreign Quarterly Review; in 1846, on the retirement of Charles Dickens, he took over The Daily News; and, from 1847 to 1856 he edited the Examiner. From 1836 onwards, he contributed to the Edinburgh Quarterly Review and to the Foreign Quarterly Review a variety of articles, some of which were republished in two volumes of Biographical and Historical Essays (1858).

In 1848 appeared his admirable Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith (revised 1854). Continuing his researches into English history under the early Stuarts, he published in 1860 the Arrest of the Five Members by Charles I: a Chapter of English History rewritten, and The Debates on the Grand Remonstrance, with an Introductory Essay on English Freedom. These were followed by his Sir John Eliot: a Biography (1864), elaborated from one of his earlier studies for the Lives of Eminent British Statesmen.

In 1868 appeared his Life of Landor. On the death of his friend Alexander Dyce, Forster undertook the publication of his third edition of Shakespeare. For several years he had been collecting materials for a life of Jonathan Swift, but he interrupted his studies in this direction to write his standard Life of Charles Dickens. He had long been intimate with the novelist, and it is by this work that John Forster is now chiefly remembered. The first volume appeared in 1872, and the biography was completed in 1874. It was clearly an important work for the late nineteenth century English novelist George Gissing, who wrote, in his diary in January 1888, that, it was "a book I constantly take up for impulse, when work at a standstill". A decade or so later, Gissing was asked to revise Forster's work, and this was published, by Chapman and Hall, in October 1902.

Towards the close of 1875 the first volume of his Life of Swift was published; and he had made some progress in the preparation of the second at the time of his death.

In fiction
Forster has been fictionalised in several recent neo-Victorian novels which centre on Charles Dickens. This includes The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl (2009), Wanting by Richard Flanagan (2008), Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold (2008, renamed Michael O'Rourke), Drood by Dan Simmons (2009) and the forensic examination of the genesis of Pickwick Papers, Death and Mr Pickwick by Stephen Jarvis (2014) in which Forster is cast as the major villain of the piece. He was portrayed by Justin Edwards in the 2017 film The Man Who Invented Christmas. The film portrays Forster as Dickens' unofficial business manager and engaged to a Miss Charlotte Wigmore, a fictional character. It also implies that Forster was Dickens' inspiration for the Ghost of Christmas Present.

title: John Forster (biographer)