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Samnites

The Samnites (Safineis) were an ancient Italic people who lived in Samnium, which is located in modern inland Abruzzo, Molise, and Campania in south-central Italy. An Oscan-speaking people, who originated as an offshoot of the Sabines, they formed a confederation consisting of four tribes: the Hirpini, Caudini, Caraceni, and Pentri. Ancient Greek historians considered the Umbri as the ancestors of the Samnites. Their migration was in a southward direction, according to the rite of ver sacrum.

Although allied together against the Gauls in 354 BC, they later became enemies of the Romans and fought them in a series of three wars. Despite an overwhelming victory at the Battle of the Caudine Forks (321 BC), the Samnites were subjugated in 290 BC. Although severely weakened, the Samnites would still side against the Romans, first in the Pyrrhic War and then with Hannibal in the Second Punic War. They also fought in the Social War and later in Sulla's civil war as allies of the Roman consuls Papirius Carbo and Gaius Marius against Sulla, who defeated them and their leader Pontius Telesinus at the Battle of the Colline Gate (82 BC). Afterward, they were assimilated by the Romans and ceased to exist as a distinct people.

The Samnites had an economy focused upon livestock and agriculture. Samnite agriculture was highly advanced for its time, and they practiced transhumance. Aside from relying on agriculture, the Samnites exported goods such as ceramics, bronze, iron, olives, wool, pottery, and terracottas. Their trade networks extended across Campania, Latium, Apulia, and Magna Graecia.

Samnite society was stratified into cantons. Each city was a vicus. Many vici were grouped into a pagus, and many pagi were grouped into a touto. There were four Samnite touto, one for each of the Samnite tribes. Aside from this system of government, a few Samnite cities had political entities similar to a senate. It was rare, although possible, for the Samnites to unify under a coalition; normally the tribes and cities functioned independently from one another.

Samnite religion worshipped both spirits called numina and gods and goddesses. The Samnites honored their gods by sacrificing live animals and using votive offerings. Superstition was prominent in the Samnite religion. It was believed that magical chants could influence reality, that magical amulets could protect people, and that augurs could see the future. Samnite priests would manage religious festivals and they could bind people to oaths. Sanctuaries were a major part of the Samnite religion. These might have been used to benefit from trade networks, may have marked the border between territories, and may have been intertwined with government. Samnite sanctuaries may have also been used to reinforce group identity.

Etymology
The Indo-European root Saβeno or Sabh evolved into the word Safen, which later became Safin. The word Safin may have been the first word used to describe the Samnite people and the Samnite Kingdom. Etymologically, this name is generally recognized to be a form of the name of the Sabines, who were Umbrians. From Safinim, Sabinus, Sabellus and Samnis, an Indo-European root can be extracted, *sabh-, which becomes Sab- in Latino-Faliscan and Saf- in Osco-Umbrian: Sabini and *Safineis. Some archaeologists believe Safin refers to all the people of the Italian peninsula, others say just the people of Molise. It could also be an adjective used to describe a group of people. It appears on graves near Abruzzo from the 5th century, as well as Oscan inscriptions and slabs in Penna Sant'Andrea. The last known usage of the word is on a coin from the Social War.

Safin would go through a series of changes culminating in Safinim, the Oscan word for Samnium, meaning "cult place of the Safin people." This became the word for the Samnite people, Safineis. as well as other words in Greek such as Saini, Saineis, Samnītēs, Sabellī, and Saunìtai. These terms likely originated in the 5th century BC and derive from saunion, the Greek word for javelin.

At some point in prehistory, a population speaking a common language extended over both Samnium and Umbria. Salmon conjectures that it was common Italic and puts forward a date of 600 BC, after which the common language began to separate into dialects. This date does not necessarily correspond to any historical or archaeological evidence; developing a synthetic view of the ethnology of proto-historic Italy is an incomplete and ongoing task.

Linguist Julius Pokorny carries the etymology somewhat further back. Conjecturing that the -a- was altered from an -o- during some prehistoric residence in Illyria, he derives the names from an o-grade extension *swo-bho- of an extended e-grade *swe-bho- of the possessive adjective, *s(e)we-, of the reflexive pronoun, *se-, "oneself" (the source of English self). The result is a set of Indo-European tribal names (if not the endonym of the Indo-Europeans): Germanic Suebi and Semnones, Suiones; Celtic Senones; Slavic Serbs and Sorbs; Italic Sabelli, Sabini, etc., as well as a large number of kinship terms.

Origins and early history
The Greek geographer Strabo wrote that the Samnite civilization originated from a group of Sabine exiles. According to this account, during either a famine, or as part of an attempt to end a war with the Umbrians, the Sabines vowed to hold a Ver Sacrum. As part of this ritual, all things produced that year were sacrificed, including babies. Once these babies had reached adulthood they were exiled, and then guided by a bull to their new homeland. Upon reaching this land they sacrificed this bull to Mars. Other Samnite tribes claimed to have been guided by different animals. The Hirpini claimed they were guided by a wolf, and the Picentes claimed to have been guided by a woodpecker. Alternatively, the Samnites may have been connected to Sparta. This legend is possibly apocryphal. It might have been created by the Greeks for an alliance with the Samnites, or to include the Italic peoples within their worldview, and possibly to highlight similarities between the Samnites and Spartans. Archaeological evidence shows that Samnite civilization likely developed from a preexisting Italian culture.

After the Etruscans abandoned Campania in the 5th century, the Samnites conquered the region. Cities like Pompeii and Herculaneum were conquered. It is unclear what Samnite cities took part in the campaign, or why. They could have wanted its fertile soil, or to alleviate overpopulation. This theory relies on the Samnites having a poor agricultural industry, which is contradicted by other evidence. Alternatively, the Samnites could have wanted access to the Volturno River and other resources. Once Greek hegemony in Italy waned, the Samnites invaded and conquered much of their former land. They conquered cities like Cumae, only failing to take Naples. In the ensuing centuries, they would wage more war against the Campanians, Volscians, Epirot Greeks, and other Latin communities.

Samnite Wars
The Samnites and Romans first came into contact after the Roman conquest of the Volscians. In 354 BC, they agreed to set their border at the Liris River. Livy, a Roman historian who serves as a source on the Samnite Wars, states that when the Samnites attacked the Campanians, the latter civilization formed an alliance with the Romans. Igniting war between them and the Samnites in 343 BC. This account of the war's cause is not universally accepted by modern historians. Livy may be writing propaganda or trying to compare this war to other conflicts. After three Samnite defeats and a Roman invasion, the Samnites agreed to sign a peace treaty.

There are two accounts of the cause of the Second Samnite War. Possibly, Rome declared war due to a Samnite alliance with the Vestini and wars against Fregellae and Paleopolis. Additionally, the Romans wished to use the economic prosperity of the city of Venafrum for their own benefit. Conflict may have also emerged because the Samnites desired to solidify their hold over crucial economic positions. After the Roman defeat at the Battle of the Caudine Forks both sides agreed to an armistice. Fighting resumed in 326 BC. The war ended after a Roman campaign into Apulia and Samnium. Following the end of the war, the Romans annexed Bovianum and Fregellae, and forced the Samnites out of Apulia.

In 298 BC, the Third Samnite War broke out due to tension over the Lucanians, who had asked Rome for protection. On another front, treaties between the Romans and Picentes caused conflict with the Etruscans. This war came to end after the Samnite defeat at the Battle of Aquilonia. Afterwards, Samnium was conquered and the Samnites were assimilated into Roman society.

Later history
The Samnites were one of the Italian peoples that allied with King Pyrrhus of Epirus during the Pyrrhic War. After Pyrrhus left for Sicily, the Romans invaded Samnium and were crushed at the Battle of the Cranita Hills, but after the defeat of Pyrrhus, the Samnites could not resist on their own and surrendered to Rome. Some of them joined and aided Hannibal during the Second Punic War, but most stayed loyal to Rome. After the Romans refused to grant the Samnites citizenship, they, along with other Italic peoples, rebelled against the Romans. This war, known as the Social War, lasted almost four years and resulted in a Roman victory. After this bloody conflict, Samnites and other Italic tribes were granted citizenship to avoid the possibility of another war.

The Samnites supported the faction of Marius and Carbo in the civil war against Sulla. The Samnites and their allies were led by Pontius Telesinus and a Lucanian named Marcus Lamponius. They gathered an army of 40,000 men and fought a battle against Sulla at the Colline Gates. After their defeat in the battle, and subsequently the war, Pontius was executed.

As a consequence of Sulla's victory and his establishment as dictator of Rome he ordered the punishment of those who had opposed him. Samnites, who were some of the most prominent supporters of the Marians, were punished so severely that it was recorded, "some of their cities have now dwindled into villages, some indeed being entirely deserted." The Samnites did not play any prominent role in history after this, and they were Latinized and assimilated into the Roman world. Several of their gentes would go on to achieve high distinction, including the Cassii, the Herennii, and the Vibii.

Economy
Most of Samnium consisted of rugged and mountainous terrain lacking in natural resources. This resulted in a mixed economy focused on using the small amounts of fertile land to practice highly developed forms of subsistence agriculture, mixed farming, animal husbandry, sheep farming, pastoralism, and smallholdings. The prosperity of the Samnite agricultural industry likely resulted in conflicts between them and other civilizations, and possibly one of the causes of the Samnite Wars.

The prominence of pastoralism and livestock in the Samnite economy was also a consequence of their homeland's terrain. Horses, poultry, cattle, goats, pigs, and sheep were all common and important kinds of livestock. These animals were valued because they could serve as a tradeable good, and as a source of food. Transhumance, or the seasonal movement of livestock from summer to winter pastures, was an important aspect of the Samnite economy. Annual short distance transhumance formed the basis of the aristocracy's wealth. Long distance transhumance was practiced between Apulia and Samnium.

During the fifth and fourth centuries BC, an increasing population combined with trade links to other Italians contributed to further agricultural and urban development. This change was most drastic in Larinum. The city began as a major grain producer with a mill and a threshing floor, and later developed into the hub for all economic activity in the Biferno Valley. The Samnites exported goods such as cereals, cabbages, olives, olive oil, wine, bronze, iron, textiles, legumes, and vines. They also imported materials such as bronze bowls and bucchero from places like Campania, Etruria, Latium, Apulia, and Magna Graecia. These trade networks resulted in the adoption of products and ideas from other cultures such as the Sabines, Latins, and Etruscans.

Samnite currency developed in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC, likely as a consequence of interaction with the Greeks, and war, which created a need for mercenaries. Their bronze or silver currency might have been produced in Naples, and then "ordered" from the city's workshops. Alternatively, Samnite cities might have supplied the materials necessary for making currency. Or coins could have been imported from cities that Samnite mercenaries worked for. Such as Taranto. Currency at this time generally depicted places like Allifae, Nola, Philistia, or peoples such as the Campani. These images are associated with the development of the Samnite political structure. Coins may have not been used by individuals, but instead by government institutions to finance administrative tasks. Following this early period of high currency production, the Samnites began to mint less money. Wool and leather were likely harvested by the Samnites in significant quantities, as evidenced by the numerous loom weights found throughout Samnium. Most loom weights used incised lines, dots, oval stamps, gem impressions, or imprints from metal signet rings to create patterns. Common patterns included pyramids, stars, or dotted or incised cross motifs. Motifs could have been shaped like leaves, flowers, pomegranates, or mythological figures. One loom weight from the town of Locri is decorated with a gem impression of a satyr playing the lyre. Numerous pieces of Samnite pottery with Greek words incised into them have been found. These Greek words may have served a variety of possibilities, such as instructing the weaver how to order the threads in the textile patterns, or they could also have marked the piece's quality. The Greek inscriptions may also have stated the weight of either the loom weight or the cloth, and possibly the cloth's dimensions.

The Samnites also produced amphorae, terracottas, and impasto pottery with black gloss. Protective coating, also called varnish, was used to cover pottery and amphorae. Most amphorae came from Rhodes, and pottery was commonly purchased from Greece. Pottery was also rarely imported from North Africa or areas by the Adriatic. After the urbanization of Samnite society, the production of Hellenistic or Italian pottery dramatically increased. Ceramics, pottery, and amphorae often used patterns. The majority of these patterns were trademarks or signatures from the craftsmen. On other occasions, they depicted places such as the island of Rhodes, or named government officials., such as the Meddíss Túvtíks. One example of a pottery stamp is:

"Detfri (slave) of Herennis Sattis signed in planta pedis."

Government
Throughout the Iron Age Samnium was ruled by chieftains and aristocrats who used funerary displays to flaunt their wealth. During the early third and fourth centuries, the Samnite political system developed into an organization focused on rural settlements led by magistrates. The Samnite settlements, or vici, were at the bottom of the Samnite social hierarchy. They were grouped into cantons called pagi, which were run by an elected official known as a meddiss. The pagi were organized into toutos, which were the Samnite tribes. Each touto was led by an annually elected official with supreme executive and judicial powers called the meddíss túvtiks.

Political entities similar to councils, assemblies, or senates such as the kombennio possibly existed. The Kombennio was a democratic organization in Pompeii responsible for electing officials, as well as making laws and enforcing them. Senates were located at the capitals of the Samnite tribes, such as Bovianum, the Pentrian capital. It is unclear if these forms of government existed before the Roman conquest. Despite these democratic institutions, Samnite society was still dominated by a small group of aristocratic families such as the Papii, Statii, Egnatii, and Staii. Each Samnite tribe functioned independently from the others. However, a union similar to the Latin League would occasionally form between the tribes. Such an alliance would be primarily militaristic, with a commander and chief enforcing all laws enacted by the alliance. In order for the alliance to pass legislation, leading men of each tribe would have to unanimously agree before a bill could become a law. Such an alliance was rare, and even if some tribes unified others might refuse to unite with the other tribes. The Frentani was another Italic tribe that might have been included in this alliance, however, their importance to the union might be exaggerated. The relevance of the Samnite tribes in this organization might also be exaggerated; cities could have had more political power.

This system of government maintained itself after the Roman conquest of Samnium albeit with some reductions in power. The touto and pagus began to function as miniature Republics, while the vicus remained unchanged. The only interference from the Romans would be that the Municipum held authority over all previous institutions and could override them, while the prefectures had little authority over the Samnites.

Military
Roman historians believed that Samnite society was highly militaristic. They feared Samnite cavalry and infantry, and nicknamed them Belliger Samnis, which translates to "Warrior Samnites". It is unclear if this portrayal is accurate as most Roman historical accounts of the Samnites were written after this civilization had disappeared. Much of this work could also be propaganda. In the early periods of Samnite history, the military consisted of trained warriors led by local leaders. Access to the military (and military equipment) was dependent on one's wealth and status, while poorer and lower status individuals were relegated to work such as agriculture. Samnite soldiers would have been trained in the triangular forum in Pompeii from an early age as part of a group known as the Vereiia. The Vereiia evolved into a community service group after the Roman conquest. During the Samnite Wars, the army evolved to resemble the armies of Ancient Greek city states. This new system used phalanxes, hoplites, maniples, and cohorts made of 400 men, creating an army flexible enough to fight in mountainous terrain. Low class soldiers began to be conscripted into the army, increasing its size to several thousand soldiers, although these recruits were less skilled and poorly trained.

Livy mentions a legio linteata ("linen legion"); this unit used flamboyant equipment to differentiate itself from other Samnite warriors. According to Livy, this legion took an oath to never flee battle inside a linen structure. Scholars believe that this description was designed to highlight the differences between the "civilized" Romans, and the barbaric enemies of Rome. Livy also could have been attempting to try and convey Samnite historical and religious power through a single unit. Due to corroborating archaeological evidence, other scholars state that it would be "rash" to completely dismiss this entire story.

Armor
Samnite soldiers wore a small single disc breastplate. This breastplate, called the kardiophylax consisted of straps that passed around the shoulders, chest, and back, and attached around points. Although the triple-disc cuirass offered more protection, this armor continued to be used as a status symbol. There were three types of triple-disc cuirasses. The first used bronze to fill the space between the three identical discs. Small rings were attached to this bronze, and side straps were used to hold the armor together. Shoulder straps were also fastened to these small rings. The second type utilized an edge to outline the discs, while the third used plates to depict the heads of religious figures such as Athena or demons. All three types were constructed by placing a disc below and between two upper discs forming a triangular shape.

Broad belts made of leather, gold, or bronze were common pieces of armor, and significant to Samnite culture. They were likely dedicated to protecting the abdomen. Samnite belts were made by heating up tin alloys at 800 degrees Celsius. Afterward, work would be performed on the belt at a temperature ranging from 600 to 800 degrees Celsius. Hammers and abrasives were used to grind the strips, giving them the appearance of silver. When making the belts, a thermal treatment was used in repeated cycles to increase the durability of the material.

Samnite helmets were based on Greek military equipment—they used cheek guards, crests, and plumes. Crests were usually made by fastening horse tails to a metal piece that hung at the back of the helmet. Rivets could also be used to pin crests to the helmet's peak. Another type of crest was thin and bushy with long free-flowing ends. Feathers and horns were a common feature of Samnite crests and plumes. Soldiers would don their greaves by resting their leg on a rock whilst using their hands to test the fit of the equipment. This piece of equipment reached down to the ankle and was likely custom-made to fit the owner. There are few depictions of Samnite soldiers wearing graves, implying that they were rarely used outside of rituals and "mock-fights."

Weaponry
Projectiles such as spears and javelins were commonly used by the Samnites. Spearheads were made from two bronze or iron parts. The upper part was the spearhead proper, and a lower part, which used a tube to hold up the end of a wooden shaft. To fasten the shaft to the spearhead, nails were driven through a hole in the shaft. Tubes were used to fit the spear into a bronze chape, which would protect the wooden shaft. Projectile weaponry was so essential to Samnite tactics that if a soldier ran out of projectiles, they would throw rocks off the ground.

Alongside spears, soldiers would use swords or even hand-to-hand combat. Depictions on pottery, and figurines such as the Capestrano Warrior showcase Samnite soldiers using a kind of Bronze Age sword called an antenna sword. Another kind of sword associated with the Samnite civilization is the short sword. Short swords were carried using a long strap fastened to either the warrior's body or the sword's hilt. Samnite art depicts soldiers receiving swords in ritual ceremonies, and warriors eager to receive swords, implying that short swords were highly valued in Samnite society. Maces were rarer than spears or javelins, yet still common. They had heavy and undecorated iron heads attached to a handle hoisted with a hole or a socket. Axes were rarely used; they may have primarily been symbols of power.

There is little archaeological record of the Samnite shield, as most of the remaining shields have had much of their components destroyed. Samnite art commonly depicts Samnite soldiers using a round shield called an aspis. To carry the shield, two straps were used. One strap was leather, decorated with patterns, and ran vertically over the middle of the shield. Another strap – used to provide a firm grip – ran vertically near the shield's edge. Alongside aspides, the Samnites possibly used bronze oval shields with pointed ends and incised decorations. It is possible that the Samnites used scuta. It is also possible that the Samnite scutum influenced the Roman shield; however, evidence for this is unclear. Samnite art depicts their soldiers carrying scuta; however, it is either as trophies taken from the enemy or an attempt to mimic ancient Greek art. Livy states that the Samnite shield was broad near the shoulder and chest, but thinner closer to the feet. Archaeological evidence does not substantiate this idea. Livy possibly mistook the equipment of a Samnite gladiator for that of a Samnite soldier.

Religion
Superstition dominated Samnite culture. They believed magic could influence reality and practiced augury. Vaguely defined spirits called numina were also prominent in Samnite mythology. It was essential to establish proper relations with these spirits, which evolved into the Samnite gods and goddesses. Few of these Samnite deities are known. It is known that gods such as Vulcan, Diana, and Mefitis were all worshipped, with Mars being the most prominent in the Samnite religion. To honor their gods, votive offerings and animals would be sacrificed. In a practice known as the Ver Sacrum, all things produced in a particular year would be exiled or offered to the gods. The description of these practices may have been fabricated by Livy for propaganda purposes.

Samnite gravesites often contained goods. For example, wealthy individuals had graves with statues or steles. These goods indicated the wealth and status of the individual in life. Burials required that certain practices be observed in order to bury the dead adequately. Burial was likely a sign of social status as it was rare to be buried, despite the Samnite belief in an afterlife.

Sanctuaries were important to the Samnite religion. They served a variety of purposes: they siphoned money off transhumance routes, marked borders, served as centers for communication and places of worship, and played a role in government. Over time, sanctuaries become much less prominent in Samnite culture, and were all abandoned soon afterwards.

Gender roles
There were two major roles for Samnite women: domestic and ceremonial. Women would weave, which likely played an important role in the economy. They also likely exercised a small amount of political power through the symposium, which was a kind of ancient Greek or Etruscan banquet. Other responsibilities included teaching young girls how to dance, childrearing, and possibly managing the household. Relationships between Samnite wives and husbands are unclear. Libation scenes might suggest that a wife was supposed to be dutiful and loyal to her husband. Women may have been expected to be disciplined—in Horace's Odes he complains about women lacking these traits. He possibly based his expectations of women on Samnite customs. Another possibility is that women were capable of acquiring large amounts of wealth. However, they might have only been capable of displaying their partner's wealth. Artwork and pottery depicting Samnite women showcase them involved in rituals or nearby altars with votive offerings. These rituals usually involve women honoring their husbands through offerings of wine, or possibly praying for their husbands before they leave to fight.

The geographer Strabo states that the Samnites would take ten virgin women and ten young men, who were considered to be the best representation of their sex, and marry them. Following this, the second-best women would be given to the second-best males. This would continue until all 20 people had been assigned to one another. It is possible that the "best" men and women were chosen based on athletic capabilities. If any of the individuals involved dishonored themselves, they would be displaced and forcibly separated from their partners.

Samnite society may have enforced a distinction between men, who were supposed to be warriors, and women, who were supposed to be "bejeweled". Ancient historians describe the Samnites as a warlike people; however much of this is possibly propaganda. Campanian pottery often depicts Samnite warriors and cavalrymen fighting, while Apulian pottery tends to depict them in a wider variety of circumstances. Pottery from those same cultures also depicts armed men involved with other activities such as burying the dead or marriage. Differences between male and female graves also support this theory. Men were buried with weapons and armor, while women were buried with domestic goods such as spindles or jewelry. Young adult women were typically buried with coils, pendants, beads, clothing, spindles, and fibulae similar to those worn by boys, possibly meaning that femininity was tied to youth in Samnite culture. Men wore much smaller and less elaborate fibulae, possibly indicating that the male identity was tied to maturity. The skeletons of men and women also show differences in trauma. Male skeletons found near Pontecagnano Faiano have a cranial trauma rate of 12.9%, while only 8% of female skeletons showed cranial trauma. Another community at Alfedena has male Samnite skeletons with similar rates of cranial injury. This indicates that Samnite men may have been expected to serve as warriors and fight, while women were not. However, a large number of graves are not buried with their respective gender's items. Samnite men have been buried with goods typically associated with women, and a few Samnite women have been buried with goods associated with men. Only 3% of men in Campo Consolino were buried with their respective gender's goods, while one in five women were buried with weaponry. Men have also been found buried with domestic goods. This could be explained if these goods were not indicative of the person's responsibilities in life, but instead were offerings to the dead. The rarity of certain burial goods could indicate that they were exclusive to high-status individuals. For example, jewelry could be explained as an indication of wealth or femininity. Differences in jewelry between the graves of adolescent and young adult women could be a form of preventative healthcare; it may have been done to protect them in childbirth.

Analysis of skeletons has shown that both genders have fractures, lesions, and injuries, although men have these injuries much more commonly. This difference could be explained by greater amounts of male skeletons than female skeletons. Other skeletons showcase similarities between the lives of men and women. For example, both have healthy teeth, implying that they had healthy diets with low amounts of carbohydrates. The art depicts groups of both men and women honoring both dead men and women, indicating that Samnite men and women could be honored in similar ways after death. Each gender may have had different, but equally important roles. Another possibility is that the Samnites had two categories for gender, one being adult males, and the other, everyone else.

The Samnites possibly practiced ritualized prostitution. Young women of all social standings would engage in sexual activities as a rite of passage. It is possible this practice would transform from a ritual into a profession.

Art
The first art style used by the Samnites in Pompeii developed when Greek painters traveled to Italy to paint for local aristocrats. It borrows elements from Greek, Etruscan, and other Italic art. For example, hierarchy of scale, clothing demonstrating status, captions, episodic narratives, and depictions of history were all borrowed from other cultures.

Samnite art featured polychrome murals and paintings. The murals usually used black or red cement pavements outlined with designs that ran across tesserae. There were two different styles of tesserae: worm-like, or miculatum, and woven-style, or oppus tessellatum,. Miculatum consisted of inserting marble and terracotta trays into a mosaic floor. The oppus tessellatum style used tesserae to create an appearance resembling weaving. Samnite art was usually colorful, and it often depicted myths, warriors, or Greek subjects. Murals found in Pompeii were designed to create an idyllic sense.

Aside from the murals, other works of Samnite art have survived to the modern day. On the walls of a sanctuary at Pietrabbondate there is an unidentifiable relief that is possibly an atlas. Another possible work of Samnite or Roman origin in Isernia depicts two helmeted warriors. One example of Samnite figurative art may be the Warrior of Capestrano. The statue was, however, found in Vestini territory and depicts a Picentine warrior.

Clothing
Most Samnite clothes were loose, pinned, draped, folded, and not stitched or sewn. Clothing held symbolic and ritual purposes in Samnite society. For example, clothing indicated social status, and chitons were often used in ceremonies. The most valuable kind of clothing was a fastened bronze or leather girdle covered in bronze.

Men wore rings, amulets with snake heads, and collars. Collars were usually pierced with holes from which they suspended amulets and pendants and engraved with incised decorations. Collars would be given to the man in boyhood, and never removed. Bearskins were also common clothing.

Female clothing was similar to Greek apparel. Women wore long sleeveless peplum, caps, hats similar to a pileus, chitons, decorated belts, and chatelaine. The chatelaine had a central section consisting of mail and metal spirals made from perforated discs of metal. An essential part of Samnite women's clothing was garments long enough to touch the ground. These were worn alongside colored capes that were fastened beneath the chin and held together with a brooch. Samnite capes covered the whole upper body, the arms, and the legs, although necklaces and amulets remained visible, as the neckline of the cape did not touch the shoulders. Women also wore another kind of cape similar to a jacket. This jacket had sleeves, was fastened at the front, used a low-cut neckline, and fit the body tightly, covering much of it with folding. The frontal part of the jacket hung just below the waist, which is also nearby where it was kept. Samnite skirts were heavily influenced by Greek clothing. They covered with a himation that usually also covered the hips as well as drapery. Women wore headdresses made from a folded piece of cloth. One depiction of this kind of headdress shows it as a long veil that was folded and ran across the head. Another piece of art shows a Samnite woman wearing a hairnet beneath a cylindrical headdress with white and red stripes running across it. Some kinds of clothing were gender neutral. Red, white, or black belts covered in motifs that were usually made by using hooks to fasten cloth or leather into holes were worn by both genders. It was common in ancient Samnium for both men and women to wear no footwear. Despite this, numerous shoe styles still existed. Some shoes were low, some reached to the ankles, and others had a small hole at their tip. Another kind used an accentuated upper edge and reached higher than the ankles. Styles of footwear did not vary greatly between gender, except for styles of boot. Female boots were usually ankle-high, while male boots reached higher. To secure the lacing of the shoe, white buttons and pointed, curved, or short lines that ran across horizontal laces could be used. Samnite sandals had white soles that used a strap to attach the soles to the foot. One kind of sandal left the foot uncovered, while the other covered it up. Socks may have existed in ancient Samnium. If they did not, an alternative could have existed, such as a sort of soft fabric used as a replacement for socks.

Italic pottery and Samnite tomb paintings depict Samnite warriors wearing tunics. These were usually made from one piece of cloth and decorated with black or white motifs that were almost always placed on the sleeves, though rarely on the lower part of the tunic. Common motifs included stripes or dots. Tunics were held together at the midriff by broad leather belts.

Livy describes Samnite soldiers wearing two kinds of clothing. One was referred to as versicolor, meaning the clothing used contrasting colors. These clothes might have been designed to give a chameleon-like appearance Livy may have intended to invoke ideas of Aeneas, who once allied with a warrior named Astyr, who had multi-colored weapons and armor. It also may have been designed to showcase the worthiness of the Samnites as opponents of Rome. These are not the only possibilities—Livy may have wanted to reference Plato's Republic, which compares Republics to a multi-colored garment. Also, multi-colored clothing may have symbolized wealth. The other group of Samnites wore silver clothing and carried weapons.

Recreation
Drinking and eating were very important to the life of the Samnites. It served as a way to entertain, and to establish social networks, and to negotiate politics or labor. Whilst eating, the host would distribute food and drink to the guests. It was rare for wine to be given to adult men, although it was consumed by other demographics. Banquets used large containers or mixing vessels, serving vessels, and small pieces for individuals' consumption. Large containers were often amphorae or kraters. Serving vessels were usually dippers, or jugs. The smaller vessels were usually cups, beakers, kylikes, and kantharoi. It was common to import these goods, for example, bucchero was commonly imported from Etruria.

Gladiatorial games may have originated in Samnium. Roman and Greek authors such as Livy, Strabo, Horace, Athenaeus, and Silius Italicus mention that the Campanian aristocrats would host gladiator games during their banquets. It is possible that the Samnite gladiator originated from these Oscan and Samnite games. However, evidence for this is inconclusive. Other scholars believe that gladiatorial games originated from Etruria, the Celts, or the city of Mantineia. The word lanista may imply a connection between gladiatorial games and the Etruscans. Although the earliest gladiators were called Samnites, the word lanista may have no connection to the Etruscans. Art from Campania depicts Samnites in gladiatorial games. One piece of art depicts a dead gladiator with a spear stuck in the head. This indicates that the Samnites likely were not averse to brutality. Art also showcases large gladiatorial games alongside chariot racing and banquets, implying that Samnite gladiatorial games were grandiose and for entertainment. Alternatively, these games may have been conducted at funerals. Games are usually depicted taking place near funerals, and pomegranates are depicted in the background, which was symbols of the afterlife. The warriors in these funerary games are depicted wearing colorful armor.

Chariot racing and hunting with projectile weaponry were recreational activates practiced by Samnite men. In Pompeii, ancient baths were built during the time the Samnites ruled the city.

Cities and engineering
From the Bronze to the Iron Age, the number of Samnite settlements drastically increased. Most of these settlements were small, with most people living in hamlets and working for a living. These small settlements organized around larger settlements, such as Saepinum and Caiatia. Samnite cities were generally not as large as those in the rest of Italy. They were largely disorganized, and generally lacked urban centers. Roads called tratturi were used to connect the summer pastures to those of winter. Alongside these roads, Samnite cities had buildings such as temples, dining complexes, houses, and sanctuaries. Their cities had no buildings similar to a forum or an Agora, except for the city of Pompeii, which had a small forum with irregular architecture and tabernae.

Samnite cities began to develop walls and other defensive fortifications during the Samnite Wars. Walls were usually rough and crude, and located by the crest of a hill with no other defenses nearby. This indicated that they were built to allow the defending army to retreat and regroup, rather than protect the city. City gates were heavily fortified on the left side, but not on the right. This was done to force soldiers to attack the city on the side they were not holding their shield on.

Hillforts built with polygonal walling may have been either a common defensive fortification or a form of settlement that represented a transitional phase between a more rural society and a more urban one. It is unclear if these hillforts were permanent defenses as they may have only been inhabited temporarily. Scholars have proposed other possible purposes for the Samnite hillforts. They may have played a role in government. Forts may have also been used to pass along signals by fire.

Samnite architecture in Pompeii or Herculaneum often resembled that of Greek architecture. For example, palaestras, colonnades, stoai, and columns were all borrowed from the Greeks. Other techniques were borrowed from the Etruscans. Such as breaking up orthostates with narrow blocks. The Samnite palaestra in Pompeii is made from a rectangular courtyard surrounded by porticos and Doric columns made of tufa. A peristyle courtyard lies to the west of the palaestra. This building was similar to Greek palaestra, and was likely either a gymnasium, religious site, or a campus. Houses were built on foundations topped with smaller blocks laid in courses. In order to elevate the foundation, dados and orthostats were inserted into the fauces. Blocks of stone also needed to be put alongside the base of the wall. Walls were usually made of rubble. The rubble could have been carved to make it resemble carved blocks of stone, rather than rubble. Alongside this practice, layers of plaster were spread over it. Plaster was also used to make frescoes. This was done by applying pigment to the plaster whilst it was damp. Another construction material called stucco was often painted, creating the appearance of a house covered in marble. Atriums were a common feature of Samnite houses. They used impulviums, loggia, and cellae. Façades made of tuff, tabernae, peristyles, dentil cornices supported by cubic capitals, which are the upper part of a column, used figurines and were all located outside of the houses. Roofs with downspouts made of stone and tiles.

Small, personal, and makeshift farms or houses were common buildings. One farmhouse found near Campobasso consists of a square module, which was likely a stable house, and a series of rooms with hearths centered around a courthouse. The house has a small mortar line basin, a dolia, and other container vessels. Indicating that these materials were used for the process and storage of produce. Another farmstead was built in 200 BC using limestone blocks held together by yellow mortar. An archaeological site known as "ACQ 11000" had a terrace covered in thick clay, a walled space with a paved floor, and a stone wall.

Leaders of the Samnites

 * Gaius Pontius ca. 320s BC.
 * Gellius Egnatius ca. 296 BC.
 * Herenius Pontius, a Samnite philosopher.
 * Brutulus Papius, a Samnite aristocrat mentioned by Livy.
 * N. Papius Mr. f, Meddix Tuticus in 190 BC.
 * Statius Gellius, general during the Samnite Wars.
 * Staius Minatius, general during the Samnite Wars.
 * N. Papius Maras Metellus, Meddix Tuticus in 100 BC.
 * Numerius Statius, Meddix Tuticus in 130 BC.
 * Gaius Statius Clarus, Meddix Tuticus around 90 BC.
 * Olus Egnatius, Meddix Tuticus in the 2nd century BC.
 * Titus Staius, Meddix Tuticus in the 2nd century BC.
 * Gnaeus Staius Marahis Stafidinus, Meddix Tuticus in the 2nd century BC.
 * Ovius Staius, Samnite in the 2nd century BC. May have built a statue to Hercules in the sanctuary by Campochiaro.
 * Gaius Statius Clarus, Samnite who constructed the podium in the temple of Pietrabbondante.
 * Stenis Staius Metellus, Meddix Tuticus 130 BC. Possibly built the sanctuary in Campochiaro.
 * Maras Staius Bacius, builder of the Pietrabbondante sanctuary.
 * Pacius Staius Lucius, builder of the Pietrabbondante sanctuary.
 * Papius N. f, Meddix Tuticus in 160 BC.
 * C. Papius Met. f, Meddix Tuticus in 130 BC.
 * N. Papius Mr.f. Mt. n, Meddix Tuticus in 100 BC.
 * L. Staius Ov. f. Met. n, Meddix Tuticus in Bovianum in 130 BC.
 * Minatius Staius Stati f, Meddix Tuticus of Bovianum and Pietrabbondante in 120 BC.
 * L. Staius Mr. f, Meddix Tuticus in 120 BC.
 * Staius Sn. f, Meddix Tuticus in 100 BC.
 * Pseudo-Corbulo Musei Capitolini MC561.jpg Papius, builder of the temple in the Schiavi d'Abruzzo sanctuary.

Social War leaders

 * Gaius Papius Mutilus, served as Meddix Tuticus.
 * Pontius Telesinus, died 82 BC
 * Marius Egnatius, Social War general

Romans of Samnite origin

 * Gaius Cassius Longinus – assassin of Julius Caesar
 * Pontius Pilate – the 5th praefectus Iudaeae of the Roman province of Judaea from AD 26–36. He was responsible for ordering the crucifixion of Jesus.
 * Caecilius Statius – Roman comic poet that was possibly of Samnite origin.

Catholic Popes

 * Pope Felix IV- Catholic Pope from July 12, 526 to September 22, 530.

title: Samnites


text:
Talk:World AIDS Day

Theme
the theme for world AIDs day is shown here as 54321. a quick check here indicates it is the same as 2003, Stigma & discrimination. lets not be silly people. that same page also appears to show there is some complications with the AIDs day theme, at least in 2005. unless i get beaten too it i will fix when i am more sober. - fruitybix 1/12/05 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fruity bix (talk • contribs) 04:35, 1 December 2005

Red Ribbon
Why is the Red Ribbon a redirection to a Dragonballs article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.196.211.8 (talk) 14:15, 1 December 2005
 * It's been fixed. 207.237.61.26 (talk) 05:46, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Condom on the Obelisk of Buenos Aires
Last year the government of Buenos Aires placed a giant "condom" on the Obelisco, for awareness, on AIDS Day. I've added the picture to Condom, since it's not simply a weird sight but an example of the cultural impact of the device; I'm not sure if it's appropriate here, so I'm asking for your opinions. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 03:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Great picture, and definitely relevant. I added it. SomethingFamiliar 21:20, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Origin of World AIDS Day
While World AIDS Day became a UN sponsored event in 1988, it was actually started in 1986 by Metropolitan Community Church's Rev. David Farrell as a colaborative initiative between MCC and other faith communities. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.220.67.218 (talk) 12:23, 17 June 2006

 * reference?207.237.61.26 (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

 * I think this claim is iffy: The only sources I can find on Google which verify this claim all come from the same article on the main MCC Web site (which is maintained by Rev. Farrell, who claims to have created World AIDS Day -- not an unbiased source). Many churches and other groups were holding AIDS vigils and events prior to 1986, and it is not clear even from the MCC Web site that today's WAC-sponsored World AIDS Day had its origins in the MCC's actions, nor that Dr. Jonathan Mann got the idea for a World AIDS Day from the MCC's actions, nor even that the MCC called its actions "World AIDS Day." Meanwhile, there are many, many sources which cite Dr. Mann and the 1988 meeting of health ministers and subsequent WHO action. - Tim1965 (talk) 00:00, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

actually the U.N world aids day was declared in response to thousands of churches who had joined with MCC's Days of rememberance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Psstache (talk • contribs) 17:43, December 1, 2008

 * That would be terrific, if we had more to go on than Dr. Perry's word and your word. - Tim1965 (talk) 00:47, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

 * I've just spoken with Jim Birkitt, Director of Communications for MCC, and he is going to provide the references and sources needed for at least some note about their involvement. He was surprised that there was not more about the MMC's participation in WAD's origins online.  I am trusting that a copy of a press release or newspaper article that was written prior to 1988 documenting their initial idea and implementation of a World AIDS Day will do for at least some mention.  He may also have some contacts at the UN and WHO who may be able to back up MMC's ascertation on their official WAD website. 207.237.61.26 (talk) 05:45, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Also note: while I agree that MMC would not be wholy unbiased without a reliable, factual piece of proof as required by WikiStandards, let's not eliminate the POV that all of the references citing WHO and UN as the founder of WAD originally source from WHO and UN themselves...and they have much greater PR and advertising resources. Let's all try to write a balanced and fair article with reliable resources.  207.237.61.26 (talk) 05:45, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm reading that

http://www.hivedmonton.com/events/world-aids-day-aids-awareness-week

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:08, 29 September 2016 (UTC).

Reason for 1 December
I've removed the remark that this commemorates the "first diagnosis" in 1981. That statement had no reference, and I've been unable to find anything important on 1 Dec 1981. The syndrome was identified by at least 5 June, 1981 by CDC. Was it officially declared a new disease on 1 Dec, perhaps?--LachlanA 01:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Removal of copyrighted material
The following material had been added on 1 December 2008 to the History section:
 * In 1985, frustrated with a lack of broad community response in San Diego to the AIDS pandemic, Rev. David Farrell (then senior pastor of MCC San Diego, CA and today MCC Web Manager) set aside a weekend to focus attention on the AIDS crisis. Under Rev. Farrell's leadership, the San Diego MCC congregation sponsored a 50-hour prayer vigil, conducted workshops, and invited participation by a broad spectrum of faith communities, social workers, medical specialists, funding organizations and community groups. The event was so successful that the following year -- in 1986 -- Metropolitan Community Churches asked Rev. Farrell to lead an international campaign to help other MCC churches sponsor AIDS Day weekend observances. Organizational kits were prepared and posters were printed and in 1986, MCC churches around the world hosted World AIDS Day events, services, workshops, and vigils. These simple but powerful observances struck a responsive cord in communities around the world. When the results were in, more than 5000 churches and temples from a broad spectrum of faith communities had joined hands with 300 MCC congregations to sponsor World AIDS Day events in 1986.

Unfortunately, this material was copied (much of it word-for-word) from the Metropolitan Community Church Web site. Wikipedia's copyright rules note: "If some, but not all, of the content of a page appears to be a copyright infringement, then the infringing content should be removed, and a note to that effect should be made on the discussion page, along with the original source, if known. If the copyright holder's permission is later obtained, the text may be restored." This has been done. - Tim1965 (talk) 23:56, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

 * actually the part I posted was taken from an open letter from the founder of MCC and is not copyrighted and is free for distribution I would encourage it be placed back on the page Thank you rev. Joseph P. Shore Goss Clergy in residence MCC N. Hollywood

 * Unfortunately, the page in question does not say the material is in the public domain. When it comes to the law and Wikipedia's guidelines, one's word (sadly) is not enough. - Tim1965 (talk) 00:46, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

 * nor is ones opinion I placed my copy of the letter word for word with reference as is asked now put it back! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Psstache (talk • contribs) 17:51, December 1, 2008

 * I'm sorry but even though you have a printed copy of a document doesn't mean you can reproduced large portions of the text verbatim online, whether it is a letter, a book, or material from a church's website. Demanding that people stop removing text you feel you have the rights to doesn't make it legal for us to do so. Now back to the I've tried to find alternate sources for where the idea for World AIDS day came from prior to the UN declaration in 1988. Do you have any sources other than the church's website which state that they were a major force behind world AIDS day? -Optigan13 (talk) 04:17, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this will assist. As noted in the discussion above:

 * I've just spoken with Jim Birkitt, Director of Communications for MCC, and he is going to provide the references and sources needed for at least some note about their involvement. He was surprised that there was not more about the MMC's participation in WAD's origins online.  I am trusting that a copy of a press release or newspaper article that was written prior to 1988 documenting their initial idea and implementation of a World AIDS Day will do for at least some mention.  He may also have some contacts at the UN and WHO who may be able to back up MMC's ascertation on their official WAD website. 207.237.61.26 (talk) 00:29, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

 * Also note: while I agree that MMC would not be wholy unbiased without a reliable, factual piece of proof as required by WikiStandards, let's not eliminate the POV that all of the references citing WHO and UN as the founder of WAD originally source from WHO and UN themselves...and they have much greater PR and advertising resources. Let's all try to write a balanced and fair article with reliable resources.  207.237.61.26 (talk) 00:29, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

what day is world aids day?
the article only states that it started on december 1, but worldaidsday.org states that it is on the 12th, at least in the uk this year. its been december 1 since i remember, and the vandals seem to agree. does the uk have a different world aids day than the rest of the world?  never mind. i shouldnt edit at this hour of the morning. badmachine (talk) 08:14, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Article Protection
There is a history of excessive vandalism for the past two years, only to have the article be Protected after being vandalized. The vandalism usually begins mid November.

I'm still kind of a noob here about some things, and have reached out to some editors who have protected the page in the past... But perhaps we could pro-actively Protect or Semi-Protect the page now through Dec 2? Please advise. 38.109.88.194 (talk) 07:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

 * Definitely gotta use some sort of protection. Also, be sure to get tested before you start editing. Be safe! Grundle2600 (talk) 03:51, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

refimprove? really?
22 external links and 18 in-line references, I think the refimprove banner is highly unnecessary. Any comments? 38.109.88.194 (talk) 23:33, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, it's been a week without comment. I'm removing it.  38.109.88.194 (talk) 02:03, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

COI Disclaimer
I just added a link to publicly available digitized posters advertising World AIDS Day from the UCLA Library's Digital Collections. It's a valuable demonstration of the ways in which World AIDS Day has been represented visually around the world, but I'm mentioning it here because I'm a librarian at UCLA. I want to make sure that it's generally agreed by page editors that this doesn't represent a conflict of interest, and is an appropriate External Link for this page. MetaClaudia (talk) 18:37, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100208112951/http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/GlobalReport/2008/2008_Global_report.asp to http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/GlobalReport/2008/2008_Global_report.asp
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160304103134/http://www.healthpastoral.org/text.php?cid=267&sec=4&docid=21&lang=en to http://www.healthpastoral.org/text.php?cid=267&sec=4&docid=21&lang=en
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150701093011/http://www.worldaidscampaign.org/world-aids-day/world-aids-day-2011/ to http://www.worldaidscampaign.org/world-aids-day/world-aids-day-2011/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090325222544/http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/Resources/FeatureStories/archive/2008/WAD_2008_Statements.asp to http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/Resources/FeatureStories/archive/2008/WAD_2008_Statements.asp
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AIDS Awareness Month
I removed this section as it did not cite any sources. I tried to add them on my own but I got conflicting info. For example, in the US it appears to be both October and December and I didn't see any search results for other countries. It would be good if someone can unravel this puzzle. Thanks. — howcheng  {chat} 17:26, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia Cloud page for this year's observance
I wanted to share our current events page collaboration on Wikispore, a part of Wikimedia Cloud Services, covering World AIDS Day events globally this year. We could include this for the current year, and update it annually, because this is more detail than would go in the perennial Wikipedia article.--Pharos (talk) 05:07, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:World AIDS Day


text:
HALO Trust

The HALO Trust (Hazardous Area Life-support Organization) is a humanitarian non-government organisation which primarily works to clear landmines and other explosive devices left behind by conflicts. With over 10,000 staff worldwide, HALO has operations in 28 countries. Its largest operation is in Afghanistan, where the organization continues to operate under the Taliban regime that took power in August 2021.

HALO's global headquarters are located in Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway, United Kingdom. HALO has offices in Salisbury, UK, Washington, D.C., and The Hague, Netherlands.

History
The organisation was founded in 1988 by Guy Willoughby, former junior officer in the Coldstream Guards and Colin Campbell Mitchell, a British member of Parliament, former colonel in the British Army, and his wife Sue Mitchell. Willoughby won the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award in 2009. HALO's first programme began operations in Afghanistan, clearing landmines left by the departing Soviet military. The next major programme to open, in 1991, was in Cambodia. HALO attracted global coverage in January 1997 when Diana Princess of Wales visited a minefield being cleared by HALO employees in Huambo, Angola.

Leadership
In February 2015, James Cowan was appointed HALO's chief executive officer. Cowan was a British Army major-general who commanded the 3rd (United Kingdom) Division during a 33-year army career.

Cowan replaced Guy Willoughby who resigned from his role as chief executive of the trust on 11 August 2014.

Support and financing
HALO's income in 2021-22 was £93.5 million up from £25.63 million in 2015-16. It receives support from the US, UK and other governments around the world including Finland, Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland and New Zealand. In April 2017, the UK announced it would provide £100 million in funding for global landmine programmes for the next three years. In 2021 the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office announced plans to cut funding for landmine clearance from £100 million to £25 million.

Achievements
The HALO Trust has destroyed over 1.5 million landmines, over 11 million pieces of large calibre ordnance and over 200,000 cluster munitions. Around 10,800 minefields have been cleared and 87316 acre have been made safe from landmines, with another 361956 acre made safe from unexploded and abandoned ordnance.

Awards
In 2012, HALO was named the Overall Winner in the Charity Awards by Civil Society Media.

Angola
For more than 40 years, the population of Angola has been severely impacted by landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW), and is believed to still be one of the most mined countries in the world. Between 1962 and 1972, it is believed that there were a total of 2,571 landmine incidents in Angola. Estimates for the total number of ERW casualties in Angola vary hugely, from 23,000 to 80,000.

HALO has worked in Angola since 1994. Considerable progress is being made; even so, HALO estimates that there is still in the region of 10 years' work to rid Angola of all landmines.

To tackle the threat from anti-tank mines on roads, HALO developed the Road Threat Reduction (RTR) system. RTR is a two part process: first, systematic sweeps are made with a large detector to find metal-cased AT mines; this is followed by heavy detonation trailers designed to detonate any minimum metal mine still capable of operating. HALO also fields Weapons & Ammunition Disposal teams working in support of the Angolan Army, Navy, Air Force and Police to manage the considerable stocks of weapons and ammunition that were amassed during the Angolan Civil War.

By 2015 HALO had cleared more than 780 minefields (21500 hectare of land) and destroyed more than 90,000 landmines and 160,000 items of unexploded ordnance. The majority of munitions destroyed is made up of aircraft bombs but also includes guided missiles and cluster bomb sub-munitions. More than a decade after the end of the war, accidents continue to occur and communities continue to be impacted by the threat of mines.

Mozambique
The Government of Mozambique announced that the country was free of all known landmines in September 2015.

In September 2015, when Mozambique declared itself free of all known landmines, HALO announced that it had cleared 171,000 of the country's landmines and employed 1,600 Mozambican men and women over the course of 22 years.

Somalia

Somaliland is an unrecognised de facto independent state located in northwest Somalia in the Horn of Africa.

Minelaying occurred during the 1964 Ethiopian–Somali Border War and 1977-78 Ogaden War with Ethiopia, when minefields were laid predominantly along the Ethiopian border. This border and important access routes were heavily mined.

Soviet Legacy minefields
In 2009, a national survey of minefields remaining in Georgia found a total of 15 contaminated sites. Of these 15, ten are identified as having a direct humanitarian impact. The clearance of minefields surrounding former Soviet military installations in Georgia is often complicated by significant quantities of waste and rubble. HALO have mechanical mineclearance techniques to clear such sites using adapted civil engineering plant such as armoured excavators and front-loading shovels.

Cluster munitions and other UXO
The American NGO CNFA partnered with HALO to target the delivery of agricultural assistance to the farmers of Shida Kartli; this resulted in the region's largest ever apple and wheat harvests.

HALO completed work in this region in December 2009 having cleared 3,402 ha of land across 22 communities. 1,706 cluster munitions and 2,031 other items of ordnance were located and destroyed.

Nagorno Karabakh

Since 2000 HALO has provided the only large-scale mine clearance capacity in Nagorno Karabakh and over the last 10 years HALO has cleared over 236 square kilometres of contaminated land and returned it to previously impacted communities. By mid-2010, HALO had found and destroyed in Nagorno Karabakh over 10,000 landmines, 10,000 cluster munitions and 45,000 other explosive items.

In July 2011 Azerbaijani government blacklisted and banned the organization from Azerbaijan in protest for its mine clearing operation in disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. Mine removal equipment that was headed to Afghanistan was impounded and sent to Georgia.

Representative of the leader of Nagorno-Karabakh on special assignments Boris Avagyan claimed that HALO Trust handed over minefield maps to Turkish special services, which, according to him, helped Azerbaijan’s successful military operations during the second Karabakh war in the fall of 2020. Ayvagyan claimed that under the pretext of studying dangerous areas, this organization carried out reconnaissance work throughout the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Opposition MP Naira Zohrabyan supported these claims. The spokesperson for the de facto president of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh said that Ayvagyan's accusations do not represent the opinion of the government and that he was acting unilaterally. HALO Trust said the accusation was "an absolute lie".

Chechnya
In 1997, HALO began working in Chechnya, training Chechens to remove landmines placed in the 1994–1996 war between Chechnya and Russia. It was forced to stop after a second war broke out and four deminers were killed by rocket artillery. Russia accused HALO of providing rebels with military training, but HALO representatives denied the charge, stating that they only provided their standard training in demining.

Jesus' baptism site
In May 2016 HALO announced that it had secured approval from the Israeli and Palestinian authorities as well as eight religious denominations to clear landmines from the site of the Baptism of Christ at Qasr al-Yahud (West Bank) / Al-Maghtas (Jordan).

Cambodia
Over 63,500 landmine and ERW casualties have been recorded in Cambodia since 1979, with over 25,000 amputees Cambodia has the highest ratio per capita in the world. Despite a considerable reduction in casualty numbers over recent years, down from 875 in 2005 to 269 in 2008, Cambodia's mine and ERW problem still represents a major impediment to the social and economic development of the country. However, given more than 18 years of humanitarian demining, the landmine threat is now largely concentrated in just 21 north-west border districts.

IN 2010 HALO Cambodia had over 1,150 national staff working in the provinces of Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Otdar Meanchey and Pailin. Recruiting, training and then deploying female and male deminers from the mine affected districts means that the landmine contaminated communities remain an integral component in the clearance process. Living and working in these communities, deminers are methodically ridding Cambodia of the landmine menace.

Between 1991 and May 2010, HALO Cambodia cleared over 6,115 ha of landmine contaminated land whilst destroying over 229,000 landmines, 139,200 items of large calibre ammunition and 1.28 million bullets.

Alongside clearance work HALO's survey teams have continued to systematically clarify the nature and magnitude of landmine contamination in Cambodia. The current focus of HALO's survey teams is the Baseline Survey of Cambodia, a Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA) led process to quantify the true nature of the remaining mine threat in Cambodia.

Laos
One of the results of the Vietnam War (1964 to 1973) is the magnitude of the UXO problem remaining in Laos. During the conflict, the country was subject to heavy aerial bombardment, resulting in the world's largest contamination from unexploded submunitions. The US estimates that it dropped over 2 million tons of bombs, including 270 million cluster munitions (known locally as "bombies"), during this period. During the same period, an unknown number of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines were laid along the country's borders and around military bases and airfields.

While the number of mine and UXO related accidents continue to decrease from over 200 per year in the 1990s to about 50 in 2018, over 25% of all villages in Laos still remain contaminated, primarily with UXO.

HALO's survey, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) and UXO clearance program is focused on the four most contaminated districts in Savannakhet Province. As of 2017, its staff numbered 303 (45% women), forming 10 clearance teams and 14 survey teams. For 2018 it had permission to expand the efforts to 14 districts for a total of 538 villages.

Afghanistan
On 9 June 2021, a HALO Trust De-Mining Team was reportedly attacked in Afghanistan, with 10 team members killed and more than a dozen wounded. The Afghanistan government blamed the Taliban for the attack. The militant group denied any responsibility. HALO Trust stated that the Taliban actually came to their aid and scared off the assailants. ISIL-K claimed credit for the attack.

Sri Lanka
HALO has been working in Sri Lanka since 2002, with 1,045 demining staff currently in the provinces of Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Mulaittivu. HALO teams conduct manual and mechanical mine clearance alongside survey and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD). In December 2015 The HALO Trust announced that it had cleared 200,000 landmines in Sri Lanka.

Kosovo
Mine laying, predominantly by the army of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia but also by the Kosovo Liberation Army, took place primarily in 1999. In addition to the many items of UXO resulting from the conflict, the NATO bombing campaign in 1999 left unexploded cluster munitions in many locations across Kosovo.

HALO maintained demining and battle area clearance operations between 2004 and 2006 and conducted a country-wide Community Liaison Survey in 2006 and 2007. This survey identified 126 areas still in need of clearance, above and beyond the 46 areas recorded in the national database. HALO commenced a third phase of clearance operations in May 2008.

In total since 1999, HALO has cleared over 38 ha of mine contaminated land and 1,263 ha of cluster munition contaminated land. In the process, HALO has destroyed 4,330 mines and 5,377 cluster submunitions and other explosive items.

Cluster munitions have an impact upon infrastructure projects and HALO has found and destroyed cluster munitions to clear the way for road widening projects. Occasionally clearance cannot keep up with development and at least one cluster munition was uncovered by road construction teams in 2010.

The World Bank's Kosovo Poverty Assessment 2007 classifies 45 percent of Kosovo's population as "poor", living on less than €1.42 per day, with a further 18 percent considered to be vulnerable to poverty. 15% of the population is extremely poor, which is defined as "individuals who have difficulty meeting their basic nutritional needs".

HALO currently has three teams and a total of 65 demining staff accredited and deployed clearing minefields and cluster munition strikes.

Ukraine
Since 2016 HALO is involved in clearing landmines laid during the Russo-Ukrainian War. Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, HALO continues to conduct clearance operations across Ukraine, employing over 600 Ukrainian staff.

Colombia
The Colombian military have now completed clearance of 31 of the minefields they laid but an estimated 10,000 suspected NSAG minefields remain. These have largely been the reason why Colombia now has similar landmine casualties to Afghanistan.

In 2013, Colombia had between 4.9 and 5.5 million internally displaced people (IDPs), the world's largest number. These populations are now experiencing high casualty and accident rates as they return to their areas of former residence.

The Colombian government formally invited HALO Trust in June 2009 to implement a large-scale civilian clearance program which is currently in the survey and assessment stages.

HALO is the first civilian organisation to have a formal agreement and registration with the Colombian government and is currently surveying prioritised mined areas in preparation for humanitarian clearance operations.

title: HALO Trust


text:
Rand McNally

Rand McNally is an American technology and publishing company that provides mapping, software and hardware for consumer electronics, commercial transportation and education markets. The company is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, with a distribution center in Richmond, Kentucky.

Early history
In 1856, William H. Rand opened a printing shop in Chicago and two years later hired a newly arrived Irish immigrant, Andrew McNally, to work in his shop. The shop did big business with the forerunner of the Chicago Tribune, and in 1859 Rand and McNally were hired to run the Tribune's entire printing operation. In 1868, the two men, along with Rand's nephew George Amos Poole, established Rand McNally & Co. and bought the Tribune's printing business. The company initially focused on printing tickets and timetables for Chicago's booming railroad industry, and the following year supplemented that business by publishing complete railroad guides. In 1870, the company expanded into printing business directories and an illustrated newspaper, the People's Weekly. According to company lore, during the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, Rand McNally quickly had two of the company's printing machines buried in a sandy beach of Lake Michigan, and the company was up and running again only a few days later.

The first Rand McNally map, created using a new cost-saving wax engraving method, appeared in the December 1872 edition of its Railroad Guide. Rand McNally became an incorporated business in 1873; with Rand as its president, McNally as vice president, and George Poole as treasurer. The Business Atlas, containing maps and data pertinent to business planning, was first published in 1876. The atlas is still updated today, now titled the Commercial Atlas & Marketing Guide. The Trade Book department was established in 1877, publishing such titles as The Locust Plague in the United States. Rand McNally began publishing educational maps in 1880 with its first line of maps, globes, and geography textbooks, soon followed by a world atlas. The company began publishing general literature in 1884 with its first title, The Secret of Success, and the Textbook department was established in 1894 with The Rand McNally Primary School Geography. Also in 1894, the company opened an office in New York City headed by Caleb S. Hammond, who later started his own map company, C. S. Hammond & Co.

Rand McNally published its first road map, the New Automobile Road Map of New York City & Vicinity, in 1904. In 1910, the company acquired the line of Photo-Auto Guides from G.S. Chapin, which provided photographs of routes and intersections with directions. Andrew McNally II (son of Frederick McNally) personally took photos on his honeymoon for the Chicago-to-Milwaukee edition. The company continued to expand its book publishing business, with best-selling children's books such as The Real Mother Goose in 1916 and Kon-Tiki in 1950.

Rand McNally was the first major map publisher to embrace a system of numbered highways. One of its cartographers, John Brink, invented a system that was first published in 1917 on a map of Peoria, Illinois. In addition to creating maps with numbered roads, Rand McNally also erected many of the actual roadside highway signs. This system was subsequently adopted by state and federal highway authorities. The oil industry quickly developed an interest in road maps, enticing Americans to explore and consume more gasoline. In 1920, Rand McNally began publishing road maps for the Gulf Oil Company, to be freely distributed at its service stations. By 1930, Rand McNally had two major road map competitors, General Drafting and Gousha, the latter of which was founded by a former Rand McNally sales representative. The Rand McNally Auto Chum, later to become the ubiquitous Rand McNally Road Atlas, debuted in 1924. The first full-color edition was published in 1960 and in 1993, it became fully digitized.

Later history
The Goode's School Atlas, named for its first editor, Dr. J. Paul Goode, was published in 1923. It became a standard text for high school and college geography curricula. Later retitled Goode's World Atlas, it is now in its 22nd edition. The first Rand McNally Travel Store was opened in New York City in 1937. In the 1990s it became a chain with 29 locations, but by 2005 all were closed as a cost-saving measure. While Rand McNally is mainly known for its maps, in 1955 it published a book on random numbers. A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates by RAND Corporation. This book was a product of RAND's pioneering work in computing, as well a testament to the patience and persistence of researchers in the early days of RAND. The book was republished in 2001. This RAND edition reflects the original layout with the addition of a new foreword. Random numbers have been used in the computer industry, NASA, probability tables,in the gaming industry and also used in algorithms for encryption. In statistics, a normal distribution or Gaussian distribution is a type of continuous probability distribution for a real-valued random variable. Gaussian elimination method is used to solve a system of linear equations. In the 1950s this was the work of many mathematicians that put this book together. A sequel, A Million And One Random Digits was published in 2022.

Random number books have been rendered obsolete for most purposes by the ready availability of random number generators running on electronic computers. However they still have niche uses, particularly in the performance of experimental music pieces that call for them, such as Vision (1959) and Poem (1960) by La Monte Young.

Rand McNally moved its headquarters from Chicago to suburban Skokie, Illinois in 1952. The company opened its Versailles, Kentucky, book publishing plant in 1962 with 300000 sqft and 23 employees. In 1994, the plant was the first to implement a new Kodak computer-to-plate printing system. When the plant was sold in 1997, it was over 1000000 sqft and employed 1,255 people.

In 1961, because the company was not satisfied with the ability of existing map projections to create intuitive depictions of the entire world, it commissioned Dr. Arthur H. Robinson to develop what became known as the Robinson projection, which became very popular and was used extensively for constructing maps of the entire world. Rand McNally began creating maps digitally in 1982.

In 1980, Rand McNally sold its educational publishing operations to Houghton Mifflin.

In 1989, Rand McNally donated its extensive collection of maps to the Newberry Library. Now in possession of Gousha's archives as well, Rand McNally donated that map archive to the Newberry in late 2002.

With a string of acquisitions and growth throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Rand McNally employed over 4,000 people in four business groups. The company had been majority-owned by the McNally family since 1899, but by 1997 the family had decided to divest its interest.

In late September 2018, Rand McNally moved its headquarters back to Chicago, after more than 60 years in suburban Skokie, Illinois. West Bryn Mawr Avenue was chosen as the location for the site.

Ownership

Rand McNally has always been a privately held company, with stock held by very few parties and very thinly traded. When Rand retired in 1899, he sold his shares in the company to McNally and the other company officers. The McNally family was the majority owner for nearly 100 years, from 1899 until 1997, at which time the family decided to divest its majority stake. The company was sold piecemeal; in January 1997, the company announced it was selling its Book Services Group, which employed 1,700 people in Versailles, Kentucky, and Taunton, Massachusetts, to World Color Press for $155 million. In February 1997, the DocuSystems Group, which printed airline tickets and luggage tags at its Nashville facility, was sold to Code Hennessy & Simmons, a Chicago-based private equity firm. In April 1997, the Media Services Group, which employed 350 people with offices in Nashville, Tennessee; Fremont, California; Shannon, Ireland; and the Asia-Pacific region, was sold to McQueen Ltd., a Scottish software company.

The sole remaining group, publishing, represented the core mapmaking business of the company. In November 1997, the McNally family completed its divestiture by selling its majority ownership to AEA Investors for a reported $500 million. Much of the purchase price was leveraged, meaning the company took on significant debt hedging on future earnings. AEA intended to capitalize on Rand McNally's brand recognition by bringing digital mapping to the masses and attracting public investors during the dot-com boom. However, the company fell behind the technology curve of upstarts such as MapQuest and fell further into debt. AEA's stake in the company was acquired by Leonard Green & Partners through a prepackaged Chapter 11 restructuring deal on January 15, 2003. In December 2007, Patriarch Partners, which had previously been a minority owner, bought shares owned by Leonard Green and other minority owners to become the sole owner of Rand McNally. In 2020, Teleo Capital purchased Rand McNally as sole owner.

Facilities

Rand McNally had been headquartered in the Chicagoland area since its inception. Its 1899 headquarters on West Adams Street was the world's first all-steel-framed skyscraper.

By the 1950s, its Chicago area workforce had grown to over 1,000 employees and larger facilities were needed. In 1952, it opened a new 283008 sqft building in suburban Skokie, bringing corporate offices, printing, and distribution operations under one roof. Over the ensuing decades, however, printing and distribution operations relocated, eventually resulting in the underutilization of the aging Skokie building. It was sold in February 2008 to Ida Crown Jewish Academy for $11 million, and the approximately 200 current employees relocated in January 2009 to an office building near Skokie's Old Orchard Mall. As of April 26, 2024 Rand McNally no longer has a physical address in the Chicagoland area after a round of layoffs following a merger with Safety Direct.

The Irvine, California, facilities from the acquisition of Thomas Bros. Maps in 1997 closed in 2010.

Rand McNally sold its Canadian subsidiary, located in Markham, Ontario, on June 30, 2008 to the newly formed Canadian Cartographics Corporation.

Presidents and CEOs
William Rand founded his print shop in 1856 and Rand, McNally & Co. was formally established in 1868. The company was incorporated in 1873 with Rand as the first president and McNally vice-president. When Rand retired in 1899, Andrew McNally assumed the role of president until his death in 1904. Andrew's son, Frederick McNally, became president upon his father's death, just as the age of the automobile was beginning. When Frederick McNally died in 1907, his sister's husband, Harry Beach Clow, became president. Andrew McNally II took over in 1933. He and his heirs, Andrew McNally III and IV, successively served as president until 1993.

 * 1) 1873–1899: William Rand
 * 2) 1899–1904: Andrew McNally
 * 3) 1904–1907: Frederick McNally (Andrew's son)
 * 4) 1907–1933: Harry Beach Clow (Andrew's son-in-law)
 * 5) 1933–1948: Andrew McNally II (Andrew's grandson)
 * 6) 1948–1974: Andrew McNally III (Andrew's great-grandson)
 * 7) 1974–1993: Andrew McNally IV (Andrew's great-great-grandson)
 * 8) 1993–1997: John S. Bakalar (former Rand McNally CFO)
 * 9) 1997–1999: Henry J. Feinberg (former head of Rand McNally Publishing Group)
 * 10) 1999–2000: Richard J. Davis (former executive at RR Donnelley and GeoSystems, forerunners of MapQuest)
 * 11) 2000–2001: Norman E. Wells, Jr. (former Rand McNally COO)
 * 12) 2001–2003: Michael Hehir (former head of McGraw-Hill Ventures)
 * 13) 2003–2008: Robert S. Apatoff (former head of Allstate marketing)
 * 14) 2008–2009: Andrzej Wrobel (Patriarch Partners IT Platform Managing Director)
 * 15) 2009–Nov 2013: Dave Muscatel
 * 16) Dec 2013–Nov 2020: Stephen Fletcher
 * 17) Nov 2020–Present: Joseph Roark, TELEO Capital Operating Partner, Chairman, Interim CEO through June 2021
 * 18) June 2021 – Jan 2023 Aaron Dannenbring

Acquisitions
Rand McNally has made many acquisitions over the years to consolidate the crowded map publishing industry or to extend its capabilities in new markets.

 * 1980 – Transportation Data Management (TDM) – Makers of transportation mileage and routing software that continues to be used for Rand's commercial trucking products.
 * 1984 – Denoyer-Geppert –  Assets of the school map and globe publisher were assimilated into Rand's education product line.
 * 1988 – Champion Map – Rand continued to use its facilities in Daytona Beach, Florida, until 2001. All Champion Map products had disappeared, but in 2007 Rand began using the brand on street maps for selected small markets.
 * 1992 – Nicholstone Holdings – Subsidiary companies (Nicholstone Software Services, Nicholstone Looseleaf, and Nicholstone Bindery) were folded into Rand's Book Services Group, extending its printing and binding businesses and adding capabilities for manufacturing, packaging, and distributing computer software and documentation.
 * 1993 – Allmaps Canada – Became a wholly owned subsidiary company, Rand McNally Canada, and was subsequently sold to Canadian Cartographics Corporation in 2008. Under contract from Rand McNally, CCC will continue to create Canadian products under the Rand McNally name and distribute U.S. products to the Canadian market.
 * 1996 – Gousha – One of Rand McNally's longtime rivals, its 82 employees unexpectedly found their Comfort, Texas, building locked on the morning of April 18 with a note taped to the door stating that the company had been purchased by Rand McNally and all their jobs had been eliminated. Gousha's entire product line was discontinued.
 * 1998 – Thomas Bros. Maps – The prominent Southern California mapmaker best known for its ubiquitous Thomas Guide. Rand McNally continues to brand its street guide products as "The Thomas Guide" in western U.S. markets.
 * 1999 – King of the Road – Regional map publisher and distributor based in the Pacific Northwest, which had a previous partnership with Thomas Bros. King of the Road titles are no longer available.
 * 2004 – Perly's – Maker of street maps for Toronto, Ontario and the surrounding areas; sold as part of Rand McNally Canada in 2008.
 * 2022 - Fleetsu - Fleet management and vehicle insights start-up.

title: Rand McNally


text:
Bancroft Prize

The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas.

It was established in 1948, with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, in his memory and that of his brother, diplomat and attorney, Edgar Addison Bancroft.

The Bancroft Prize has been generally considered to be among the most prestigious awards in the field of American history writing. It comes with a $10,000 stipend (raised from $4,000 beginning in 2004). Seventeen winners had their work supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and 16 winners were also recipients of the Pulitzer Prize for History.

The prize was affected by the post-award controversy involving the scholarship of Michael A. Bellesiles, who received the prize for his work in 2000. Following independent investigations, Columbia University rescinded the prize for the first and only time.

title: Bancroft Prize


text:
Nostrum

Nostrum may refer to:

 * Nostrum remedium, a Latin term for trademarked patent medicine.
 * Air Nostrum, a regional airline based in Spain.
 * Exultavit cor nostrum, a 13th Century papal bull.
 * Mare Nostrum, a Latin nickname for the Mediterranean sea.
 * Pascha Nostrum, an Easter hymn.
 * Nostrum Oil & Gas, an oil and gas exploration and production company.

title: Nostrum


text:
Talk:Hussites

Protestant?
While the Hussites are often described as proto-Protestant by people looking for their own fore-runners, isn't that a little off the mark for Utraquists? Anti-clericalism is different from Protestantism, after all.

-Ben

Well, even for Hussites it's a bit weird to speak of Protestantism, as the term was not known before 1529. I think 'proto-Protestant' would be ok, but not 'Protestant'. Renke

 * Why don't call them 'Protestants'? The others were beeing created before 1529, soI think it's not the best reason. Well, at least I think. And the basic ideas of separation were similar (independence from Rome, etc.). For example, Czech Brethren are Protestants too. And they are straight descendants of Hussits - those, who had won the battle of Lipany and lived in Bohemia during reign of Jiri (George) of Podebrady, whose reign was religiously tolerant.

 * Btw, in Czech Republic, Hussits are ordinary called Protestants.--Jan Indráček 14:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

85.132.214.90 (talk) 23:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC) Protestants are originaly from thinks of Martin Luther and he made his thinks independed on Jan Hus (we can say that they never meet eaych others person or book) They have a lot of same thinks but thinks of Jan Hus are older but also more specific. I think that followers of Jan Hus (don't call them Hussite nice sounds but incorrect) you can call protestants if you look on main thinks but in every other thing they are different - different century, there are just few little groups of Hus followers in present... Tenks and sorry for bad English
 * The crux of the language problem here, I think, is the fact that Czech may, more or less, use "protestant" to apply simply to an adherent of a reformed (not just Reformed, if you see what I mean?) church - so it's pretty much an umbrella term in present day Czech language. So if you hear of "protestant churches" in the Czech media (and I'm purposefully writing it lower-case), it's basically everyone who's not Catholic or Orthodox, no matter whether their theology is Lutheran, Calvinist, or something else yet. (Part of the reason for this may in fact lie in the fact that the ECCB, the largest non-Catholic church in the country, is a mixture of several traditions, combining the Lutheran, the Calvinist, as well as the Czech Utraquist & Unitas Fratrum side of reformation - purposefully, because of the history of Czech reformed churches. Lower case r again intended.)
 * But as far as I know, the word "Protestant" isn't used that way in English. So people protesting (heh) its usage here aren't as wrong as they may seem to be to Czechs; while the Czechs protesting that it's okay to use aren't as wrong as they may seem to English-speakers...
 * However, with all respect to my fellow Czechs, as an English-speaking Czech, I think that since this is an English article, it should bow to English usage. Much like we would want a Czech article to use proper Czech. (If it continues to be a problem, and if some handy source can be found, maybe it could be further solved with a short explanation of the Czech usage - unfortunately, all I can offer is the empirical experience of a Czech English-speaking lower-case protestant.)
 * (Also, I have no source for this, either, but I've heard or read that Luther was very well aware of Hus, and part of the reason he eventually decided to break away from the Catholic church completely was precisely because of what had happened with Hus and the Hussites/Utraquists.)176.74.128.54 (talk) 19:00, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

 * With Luther's own words: "We are all husites".--Posp68 (talk) 15:40, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

POV check: Joan of Arc's threat.
Why is Joan of Arc's threat set off both by the word "quote" and by quotation marks? While one of the two is clearly necessary here, using both gives the article bias in favor of the Hussites against Joan. The word quote should be eliminated, and just the quotation marks used. Does anyone agree? Roy Al Blue 04:43, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Changed. See if you think the new version works. Liblamb 20:03, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Separation into two articles
This article should be separated into two parts: one about medieval Hussites, second about Czechoslovakian Church/Hussite Church (since 1921). The current mix makes the artisle looking pretty lousy. Pavel Vozenilek 20:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Insufficient Context
After the intro the article goes right to the arrest of Hus. Shouldn't we find out who Hus was and what he taught before we discuss the effects of his arrest?Armandtanzarian 20:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Disappearance
Well, I think it schould be changed a bit. Forexample, Confessio Bohemica was never signedby a king, he only promised to read it, buthe died before he did anything - I also think he didn't want to do it. Czuech nobles hoped so, because when he was young, he "played" with Protestant religions abit, but as a member of Habsburg dynasty he had to be a Catolic. Confessio Bohemica was about religious tolerance and freedom for all - from nobles to the poorest people. It was a bit different from Augspurg peace ("Cuius regio, eius religio")

The second thing is about White Mountain - I think it's important to write there that Protestants (Hussits, Czech Brethren, call them as you want in this case and the others, Lutherans, for example) were forced to either convert to catolicism or leave the country.--Jan Indráček 14:31, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Theology
The article currently only covers the historical chronology of the Hussite movement, but does not touch on Hussite doctrine. Does anyone have any information on this topic to add, as I'm rather curious? siafu 20:19, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

 * And here we are in 2024 and this still is the case. I have no idea after reading this article what Hussitism was for/against, the theology, etc. Shedsunefertum17 (talk) 09:49, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Call "Hussite"
For most of people it is little difference but for Czechs it should be ask of their honour. Name of "Hussite" was given them by Crusader forces and leaders and it was a very bad call. The corect name was "Man of Goblet" (don't know better translation. In Czech it is Kališníci from world kalich = goblet so check dictionary if you want) because there was symbol of Goblet in their standard also there were a circle symbolizing wafer (in article called as "bread" cz. - hostie) that symbols are coming from The Four Articles of Prague that you can read about in this Article. It would be pleasure for me if somebody find better translate of that regular call Kališníci and if somebody can correct and add to article. Thanks and sorry for bad English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.132.214.90 (talk) 23:29, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposed work group
There is currently discussion regarding the creation of a work group specifically to deal with articles dealing with the Hussites, among others, here. Any parties interested in working in such a group are welcome to indicate their interest there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 16:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Jan Hus vs. John Huss
Should the article use the "true" spelling of "Jan Hus", or should the anglicized version be used? Right now the article uses both, which is awkward. Rbmj (talk) 17:21, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Hussites


text:
Arcana

Arcana may refer to:

Games

 * Arcana (video game), a 1992 card-themed role-playing game
 * Arcanacon, an Australian role-playing game convention
 * Arcana Studio, a comic book company
 * Major Arcana, the trumps of Tarot cards
 * Minor Arcana, the numbered pip Tarot cards
 * Knowledge (Arcana), a skill in the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons

Music

 * Arcana (American band), an American jazz band
 * Arcana (Swedish band), a Swedish dark wave band
 * Arcana (record label), a French classical record label
 * Arcana (album), a 2001 album by Edenbridge
 * Arcana (Varèse), a classical composition by Edgard Varèse

Other uses

 * Arcana, Indiana, an unincorporated town in the United States
 * Arcana (convention), a Minnesota dark fantasy/horror convention
 * Arcana (film), a 1972 Italian horror-drama film
 * Arcana (manga), a 2000 manga series by Yua Kotegawa
 * Arcana, a collection of poems by A. W. Yrjänä

title: Arcana


text:
Bet.e & Stef

Bet.e & Stef was a Canadian bossa nova and jazz group from Montreal, Quebec, consisting of vocalist and percussionist Elizabeth Provencher (Bet.e) and vocalist and guitarist Stéphane Carreau (Stef). They are best known for their 2002 album Day by Day, which sold 200,000 copies, and were nominated as Juno Award for New Group of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2003.

History
Bet.e & Stef came together in the mid-1990s. Stef is a Montreal native who spent two years playing in Paris before returning to Montreal to study music. Bet.e, who is from Trois-Rivières, had studied modern dance before becoming a singer. The two performed for the first time when they were asked to sing at a wedding; they then became active in the Montreal club scene. The duo released two independent demo cassettes before releasing their debut album, Jazz/Bossa Nova, in 1997. They toured to support the album as an opening act for Holly Cole, and the album was eventually certified gold for sales of 50,000 copies.

In 2001, after Bet.e & Stef were discovered by Toshiba-EMI Music Japan, that label released a version of "Jazz/Bossa Nova" called "Wish You Well", which sold well in Japan. They then signed to Verve Records and followed up with Day by Day in 2002; Day by Day also attained gold certification in Canada. In 2003, the duo stopped performing and recording together, and worked on separate projects for about ten years.

In 2013 Bet.e & Stef reformed, and released the album Remix Deluxe, which contained new versions of some of their previously released material, and once again began performing in Montréal. In 2014 they performed at the Montréal en lumière festival, and released It's All Right, a double album which was a mixture of remixes, previously released tracks and new material.

In 2015, Bet.e & Stef released the album, Seeds, with eight new compositions. That year they also performed at the Montreal International Jazz Festival.

In 2017, Provencher joined a trio called Eliza Eleven. Carreau has launched a solo career and works in film and television.

Discography

 * Jazz/Bossa Nova (1997), Independent
 * Wish You Well (2001), EAU/EMI Records
 * Day by Day (2002), Verve/Universal
 * Remix Deluxe (2013), Verve/Universal
 * It's All Right (2014), Compost Records
 * Seeds (2015), Verve/Universal

title: Bet.e & Stef