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User talk:Vulcan mentat

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them;

 * How to edit a page
 * How to write a great article
 * Naming conventions
 * Manual of Style

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Tip: you can sign your name with ~

snoyes 18:11, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

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

title: User talk:Vulcan mentat


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User talk:Fvincent

Feel free to leave a note!
 * fvincent 15:56, Nov 28, 2003 (UTC)

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Thanks for your work on Geographer. I've replied to your question at Wikipedia talk:Most wanted stubs. Angela 19:34, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi Fvincent. In regards to Removed Summit of Americas comment as irrelevant to Politics of Quebec itself, I wouldn't say that the event was completely irrelevant. The protests were supported by the major unions and were some of the province's biggest until the war in Iraq. The media coverage was immense and the result was a much greater understanding of globalisation and the risk of homogenising society à l'américaine which, in many ways, is related to Quebec and Canada's fears of losing their national identity.

It also had a pretty profound effect on Quebec and Canada's mainstream politics: the three main political parties in Quebec now had to pronounce themselves on globalisation; same thing for federal political parties; and it pushed for the creation of the Union des Forces Progressistes. My opinion on the matter, anyway Tremblay 16:48, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * It is true that there was an effect on the political climate of Quebec and Canada but the comment as it was written was irrelevant to the article. Now, on the other hand, if you included what you just wrote in my Talk page, you could make a good argument to keep it. Here's what was written:
 * Quebec City hosted the Summit of the Americas in April 2001, attracting huge anti-globalization protests with activists from everywhere in the Americas.
 * Not the most relevant of information, no? I also think it might be too early to truly be able to understand what kind of changes it will have in the long-term. Any kind of analysis of prognosis might be a little premature.
 * fvincent 14:40, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)

Invitation
I fraternally invite you to add your name, to join the new community Wikipedians/Quebec. Thanks and welcome! Je vous invite fraternellement à ajouter votre nom, à vous joindre à la nouvelle communauté Wikipedians/Quebec. Merci et bienvenue! --Liberlogos 04:30, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks a lot for joining the community. Tell other Wikipedian Quebecers or people related to Quebec that you know about the new community so we can share, help each other and know each other better. See you soon!
 * Merci beaucoup de t'être joint à la communauté. Parle de la nouvelle communauté aux autres Wikipédiens Québécois ou aux personnes avec un lien au Québec que tu connais pour pouvoir mieux se connaître, partager et s'aider. À bientôt!
 * --Liberlogos 14:34, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Quebec Wikipedians notice board
You are hereby cordially invited to join the Quebec Wikipedians notice board.

Vous êtes cordialement invité à collaborer au Quebec Wikipedians notice board. Circeus 19:23, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

What, me worry?
I'm sorry — I was in recent-change page-creation vandalism mode, and I (almost automatically) made your new page into a redirect into Alfred E, Neumann. I should have discussed it with you first. I do think that it shouldn't be a separate article; catch phrases aren't really encyclopædic, and it was all said on the Neumann page — but if you want me to reinstate the page while we discuss it, I shall. Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 17:15, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Allegrocube
Thanks for the article on Allegrocube. I'm interested in the statement about the sculpture's opening and closing according to court verdicts. Do you have a source? - Montréalais 03:04, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Ah, er, short answer: no. I've only heard about this from someone who used to work there. I've looked high and low online but it's hard enough just to find the name of this piece. I did want to source the concept and thought about omitting but I found the idea so interesting that I couldn't write the piece without including it even if it turns out to be false. I'm fairly convinced it's true though I may have mixed up the open/closed states. I'm still looking.:) Sorry it took so long to reply, I'm an intermittent editor. fvincent 03:50, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

User Categorisation
You were listed on the Wikipedians/Quebec page as living in or being associated with Quebec. As part of the User categorisation project, these lists are being replaced with user categories. If you would like to add yourself to the category that is replacing the page, please visit Category:Wikipedians in Quebec for instructions.--Rmky87 00:57, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

 * Done! fvincent 23:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikimedia Canada
Hi there! I'd like to invite you to explore Wikimedia Canada, and create a list of people interested in forming a local chapter for our nation. A local chapter will help promote and improve the organization, within our great nation. We'd also like to encourage everyone to suggest projects for our national chapter to participate in. Hope to see you there! -- user:zanimum

You're invited!
Hello, Fvincent,

You are invited meet with your fellow Wikipedians by attending the Montréal meetup scheduled on Sunday, June 27, 2010; between 1500 - 1700 to be held at the Comité Social Centre Sud (CSCS), located at 1710 Beaudry, in Montréal. You can sign up at the meetup page.

The meetup is happening in concurrence with RoCoCo 2010, a free, bilingual, weekend unconference including many people involved with Wikis both within the Wikipedia/Wikimedia Community and abroad. You do not need to attend the conference to sign up for the Wikimeetup, but you are certainly welcome! Bastique ☎ call me!

(PS: Please share this with those you know who might not be on the delivery list, i.e. Users in Montreal/Quebec) Delivered by SoxBot (talk) 00:44, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:53, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Fvincent


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Southfield

Southfield may refer to:

 * Southfield, Jamaica
 * Southfield, Massachusetts, village within the town of New Marlborough
 * SouthField, Massachusetts (development), planned community near Boston
 * Southfield, Michigan
 * Southfield, Staten Island, New York

title: Southfield


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National Day of Mourning (United States protest)

The  National Day of Mourning is an annual demonstration, held on the fourth Thursday in November, that aims to educate the public about Native Americans in the United States, notably the Wampanoag and other tribes of the Eastern United States; dispel myths surrounding the Thanksgiving story in the United States; and raise awareness toward historical and ongoing struggles facing Native American tribes. The first National Day of Mourning demonstration was held in 1970 after Frank "Wamsutta" James's speaking invitation was rescinded from a Massachusetts Thanksgiving Day celebration commemorating the 350th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower. James instead delivered his speech on Cole's Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts next to a statue of Ousamequin, where he described Native American perspectives on the Thanksgiving celebrations. The gathering became an annual event organized by the United American Indians of New England (UAINE) and coincides with both Thanksgiving Day in the United States and with Unthanksgiving Day, an annual ceremony held on Alcatraz Island in California.

Frank "Wamsutta" James' speech cancelled
In the fall of 1970, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts held a commemorative Thanksgiving celebration on the 350th anniversary of the first landing of the Mayflower. The event's organizers, including Governor Francis Sargent, invited Frank "Wamsutta" James to speak at the event. James was the leader of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head and president of the Federated Eastern Indian League.

The event's organizers requested to review James' speech in advance of the event. Once it had been reviewed, James was informed that he would not be permitted to give the speech as written. An alternate speech, written by the event's public relations team, was provided to him. A representative from the Department of Commerce and Development explained to James that

Initial event
Wamsutta Frank James, Tall Oak Weeden, Gary Parker, Shirley Mills, Rayleen Bey, and several other people organized speakers, recruited attendees on a national scale, and arranged accommodations for out-of-town guests.

The first National Day of Mourning event was held on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1970 on Cole's Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts. James delivered an amended speech beside a statue of Ousamequin, including

The event was attended by close to 500 Native Americans from throughout the United States and has been held annually on the fourth Thursday in November every year since. James' speech was one of the first public criticisms of the Thanksgiving story from Native American groups.

Later protests
The United American Indians of New England (UAINE), founded by James in 1970, continues to organize the annual National Day of Mourning rally at Cole's Hill. The event's objectives include
 * Education around the history of the Wampanoag people
 * Dispelling of the mythology commonly taught as part of the Thanksgiving story
 * Awareness of historical and ongoing struggles of Native American tribes

Controversy 1995–97
At the 1995 event, protestors dumped sand and seaweed on Plymouth Rock as part of the demonstration. In 1997, police attacked peaceful National Day of Mourning marchers, which included the use of pepper spray. Twenty-five marchers were arrested and charged with misdemeanor as well as felony crimes. Plymouth agreed to drop the charges in a 1998 settlement with UAINE.

Modern commemoration
The National Day of Mourning protest is held annually at Cole's Hill and is attended by several hundred participants. Estimates of attendance in 2021 range from 1,000 – 2,000. Frank James' son Roland Moonanum James continued to be involved in the event until his death in December 2020, and Frank's granddaughter Kisha James helps organize it in her role as UAINE youth coordinator. Mahtowin Munro has been co-leader since the 1990s.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the rally was held both in-person and virtually, and over 1600 people tuned in to the livestream and more than 20,000 to the online video.


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Talk:Ancient Greek coinage

Comments
Look, I've put this information up here three times. This time I haven't copied a SINGLE WORD from any other website (including my own). Please don't delete it again. -- I'm really getting tired of having to put this original work up again and again. Please tell me what copyrighted material you think I'm violating! -- Put some info on Modern greek coins--Plato 05:40, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * You are free to write an article on Modern Greek coinage, but not here. Adam 02:58, 19 October 2005 [UTC]

Failure Rate
"This is a fairly crude technique and produces a high failure rate, so the high technical standards achieved by the best Greek coins - perfect centering of the image on the disk, even relief all over the coin, sharpness of edges - is a remarkable testament to Greek perfectionism."

Crude? I hand strike my own replica coins, and I get over 99% success rate using this technique. Sure, they don't turn out like industrially produced modern coinage, but "high failure rate" is a gross exaggeration.

The last comment was unsigned. Please remember to sign comments. I just edited the entire article and I removed this passage because I also believe it to be false. First, there is no high failure rate. Second, very few coins exhibit perfect centering and even relief. Sharp edges are a characteristic of counterfeit coins struck in a collar (not invented until modern times). I think that it is a false statment. That's not to say that the Greeks weren't perfectionists or didn't have high standards - in most cases, they did - but the justification given here is just not true. --75.3.200.22 (talk) 00:39, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Era format
This article currently uses both the BC and BCE format in the page. For consistency's sake we probably should change it to use either all BC/AD or all BCE/CE instead of mixing them. Sak ura Cart elet Talk 15:40, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree. The article is now consistently using BC/AD era designators. Paul August ☎ 20:23, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Ancient Greek coinage


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Frederick William Vanderbilt

Frederick William Vanderbilt (February 2, 1856 – June 29, 1938) was a member of the American Vanderbilt family. He was a director of the New York Central Railroad for 61 years, and also a director of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad and of the Chicago and North Western Railroad.

Early life
Vanderbilt was born on February 2, 1856, in New Dorp, Staten Island. He was the third son of eight children born to William Henry Vanderbilt (1821–1885) and Maria Louisa (née Kissam) Vanderbilt (1821–1896). His siblings were Cornelius Vanderbilt II, who married Alice Claypoole Gwynne; Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt, who married Elliott Fitch Shepard; William Kissam Vanderbilt, who married Alva Erskine Smith and Anne Harriman Sands Rutherfurd; Emily Thorn Vanderbilt, who married William Douglas Sloane and Henry White; Florence Adele Vanderbilt, who married Hamilton McKown Twombly; Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt, who married William Seward Webb; and George Washington Vanderbilt II, who married Edith Stuyvesant Dresser.

He was the grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who first created the Vanderbilt family's wealth. Upon his grandfather's death in 1877, 95% of the $100 million estate was left to his father and his three brothers ($5 million to Cornelius, and $2 million apiece to William, Frederick, and George).

In 1876, Vanderbilt graduated from Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School to which he later donated $500,000 (equivalent to $0 today) in 1902. While at Yale, he joined St. Anthony Hall and paid for a new chapter house and domatory.

Career
After graduating from Yale, he joined his father at the New York Central Railroad, like his brothers, working in one department after another to gain an understanding of the railroad business. After working for many years at the railroad, he devoted his time to travel and yachting.

Vanderbilt was a director of 22 railroads, including New York Central Railroad, the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, and the Chicago and North Western Railroad.

Legacy
Vanderbilt maintained residences in New York City (he lived for a while at 450 Fifth Avenue), Newport ("Rough Point"), Bar Harbor ("Sonogee"), Upper St. Regis Lake in the Adirondacks ("Pine Tree Point"), and a country palace in Hyde Park, New York ("Hyde Park") now preserved by the National Park Service as Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site. He built the nearby Howard Mansion and Carriage House for his nephew Thomas H. Howard in 1896.

Vanderbilt was the owner of 10 East 40th Street in Manhattan, a prominent example of art deco architecture, until his death; he also owned the steam yachts Vedette, Conqueror  and  Warrior. He commissioned a number of campus buildings at Yale University by architect Charles C. Haight that survive to this day, from campus dormitories comprising the present-day Silliman College, to Vanderbilt Hall, Phelps Hall, the Mason, Sloane and Osborn laboratories, and his secret society, St. Anthony Hall.

Personal life
In 1878, Frederick married Louise Holmes Torrance (née Anthony) (1854–1926), the daughter of Charles Lee Anthony and Catherine (née Holmes) Anthony. Louise's father was a successful dry-goods merchant in New York City. Louise had been previously married, in 1868, to Frederick's cousin Alfred Torrance, before their divorce in 1877.

Frederick Vanderbilt died in Hyde Park, New York, on June 29, 1938. He was buried at Vanderbilt Family Cemetery and Mausoleum in New Dorp. His estate was valued at $79,845,478 (equivalent to $0 today) upon his death. He left $5,200,000 to the Sheffield Scientific School, $3,900,000 to Vanderbilt University, $1,300,000 to the Salvation Army, and $650,000 to the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. After his charitable donations, his niece, Mrs. Margaret Louise Van Alen (1876–1969), was the chief heir of his estate, receiving his 5th Avenue home, Hyde Park home, and 25% of the residue of the estate.

title: Frederick William Vanderbilt


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Batroun

Batroun (ٱلْبَتْرُون al-Batrūn; Christian and ), ancient Botrys (Βότρυς), is a coastal city in northern Lebanon and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It is the capital city of Batroun District.

Etymology
Batroun appears in Western Aramaic, and is attested in as bṯrwn (بثرون) in premodern Arabic texts, with the expected lenition of t for an Aramaic term. Elie Mardini suggests the shift of the th to t in Aramaic terms in the Levant is due to the merger of certain fricatives in Levantine Arabic.

History
Batroun is likely the "Batruna" mentioned in the Amarna letters (EA 078, EA 079, EA 081, EA 087, EA 088, EA 090, EA 093, EA 095, EA 124, EA 129), dating to the 14th century B.C. Batroun was mentioned by the ancient geographers Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, Stephanus of Byzantium, and Hierocles. Theophanes the Confessor called the city "Bostrys."

The Phoenicians founded Batroun on the southern side of the promontory called in classical antiquity Theoprosopon and during the Byzantine Empire, Cape Lithoprosopon. Batroun is said to have been founded by Ithobaal I (Ethbaal), king of Tyre (whose daughter Jezabel married Ahab). The city was under Roman rule to Phoenice Province, and later after the region was Christianized became a suffragan of the Patriarch of Antioch.

In 551, Batroun was destroyed by an earthquake, which also caused mudslides and made the Cape Lithoprosopon  crack. Historians believe that Batroun's large natural harbor was formed during the earthquake.

Three Greek Orthodox bishops are known to have come from Batroun: Porphyrius in 451, Elias about 512 and Stephen in 553 (Lequien, II, 827). According to a Greek Notitia episcopatuum, the Greek Orthodox See has existed in Batroun since the tenth century when the city was then called Petrounion. After the Muslim conquests of the region, the name was Arabicized to Batroun.

Batroun was controlled by the Crusaders in 1104, to be known as the Lordship of Botrun as part of the County of Tripoli, until it was conquered by the Mamluk Sultanate in 1289. One of Batroun's archaeological sites is Mseilha Fort, which is constructed on an isolated massive rock with steep sides protruding in the middle of a plain surrounded by mountains.

Under Ottoman rule, Batroun was the centre of a kaza in the mutessariflik of Lebanon and the seat of a Maronite diocese, suffragan to the Maronite Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch. Since 1999, it has been the seat of the Maronite eparchy.

Economy and urban development
Historically, the city of Batroun was settled at the interface between the sea and the national road that connected Beirut to Tripoli.

Lately, the radical shift of the historical functions of the local economic tissue into a leisure service-based economy (nightclubs, bars, restaurants, stores, etc.) has become the unique and only lever of the development of the city. The economic metamorphosis has resulted in the resettlement of housing towards emerging city suburbs (nearby hills: New Batroun, Batroun Hills, Basbina, etc.) consequently to the overvaluation of the real estate market in the city centre. It clearly reveals here the constitution of a business city-centre (dedicated to leisure and business) balanced by the constitution of residential suburbs, where accelerated urban sprawl has led to the destruction of natural lands (pinewood and orange groves) and to the fatal rise in land prices.

Tourism
Batroun is a major tourist destination in North Lebanon. The town boasts historic Maronite and Greek Orthodox churches. The town is also a major beach resort with a vibrant nightlife that includes pubs and nightclubs. Citrus groves surround Batroun, and the town has been famous (from the early 20th century) for its fresh lemonade sold at the cafés and restaurants on its main street. Biking along the Batroun coastline is also a major activity mainly in late summer days. In 2009, the Batroun International Festival was born. It began hosting leading local and international artists. The festival takes place usually in July and/or August of each year in the old harbor area.

Demography
The people of Batroun are mainly Maronite, Melkite, and Greek Orthodox Christians. Batroun is a Roman Catholic (Latin rite) Titular See.

Politics
Elections, municipal and parliamentary, in Batroun have seen increasing interest, namely in the context of local and national struggle for power. The current serving Mayor of Batroun is Marcelino El Harek.

Landmarks

 * The Ancient Sea Wall
 * El-Bahsa beach
 * Makaad El Mir
 * El-Mseilha Fort
 * St. Stephan's Cathedral
 * Historic Souk

title: Batroun


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Maron

Maron, also called Maroun or Maro (, Mārūn; مَارُون; Maron; Μάρων), was a 4th-century Syrian Syriac Christian hermit monk in the Taurus Mountains whose followers, after his death, founded a religious Christian movement that became known as the Maronite Church, in full communion with the Holy See and the Catholic Church. The religious community which grew from this movement are the modern Maronites.

Maron, revered as a highly spiritual ascetic monk with a connection to God through his communion with the natural environment, garnered widespread respect within Christian circles. In addition to his emphasis on ascetic spirituality, he played an important role in advancing Christian missions in the region. One of his disciplines, Abraham of Cyrrhus, emerged as a missionary, successfully disseminating the Maronite variant of Christianity in Lebanon, which took root in the region and persisted ever since.

Saint Maron is often portrayed in a black monastic habit with a hanging stole, accompanied by a long crosier staffed by a globe surmounted with a cross. His feast day in the Maronite Church is February 9.

Life
Maron, born in what is now modern Syria, in the middle of the 4th century, was a priest who later became a hermit, retiring to the Taurus Mountains in the region of Cyrrhus, near Antioch. His holiness and miracles attracted many followers, and drew attention throughout the empire. John Chrysostom wrote to him around AD 405 expressing his great love and respect, and asking Maron to pray for him. Maron and Chrysostom are believed to have studied together in the great Christian learning center at Antioch, which at the time was the third largest city in the Roman Empire.

Maron embraced a life of quiet solitude in the mountains north-west of Aleppo. He was known for his simplicity and his extraordinary desire to discover God's presence in all things.

Maron is considered the Father of the spiritual and monastic movement now called the Maronite Church.

Monastic spirituality
Maron's way was deeply monastic with emphasis on the spiritual and ascetic aspects of living. For Maron, all was connected to God and God was connected to all. He did not separate the physical and spiritual world and actually used the physical world to deepen his faith and spiritual experience with God. He was able to free himself from the physical world by his passion and fervour for prayer and enter into a mystical relationship of love with God.

He lived his life in the open air next to a temple he had transformed to a church. He spent his time in prayer and meditation exposed to the forces of nature such as sun, rain, hail and snow. Theodoret of Cyrrhus wrote that this was a new type of asceticism that soon enjoyed wide acceptance in Syria and Lebanon. His Religious History, written around AD 440, mentions fifteen men and three women who followed this practice, many of them trained or guided by Maron.

Missionary
Saint Maron was a mystic who initiated a new ascetic-spiritual approach that attracted many people in the region encompassing what is now Syria and Lebanon to become his disciples. Accompanying his deeply spiritual and ascetic life, he was a zealous missionary with a passion for spreading the message of Christ by preaching it to all he encountered. He sought not only to heal physical ailments but also had a profound commitment to nurturing and healing the “lost souls” of both non-Christians and Christians of his time.

This missionary work came to fruition when, in the mountains of the region, Saint Maron was able to convert a temple into a Christian church in Kafr Nabu. This marked the beginning of the conversion to Christianity in the region, which would eventually influence and spread to the ancient region of Mount Lebanon. After his death in the year 410 in Kalota, his spirit and teachings continued to thrive through his disciples.

The exact location of his burial is a topic of debate. Some Lebanese sources, such as Giuseppe Simone Assemani and Maronite bishop Yusef al-Dibs, believed he was buried in Arethusa or modern-day al-Rastan along the Orontes River in the region, while others, like Jesuit priest Henri Lammens, have claimed he is buried in Brad village to the north of Aleppo.

The Maronite movement reached Mount Lebanon when Saint Maron’s first disciple, Abraham of Cyrrhus, who was called the Apostle of Lebanon, realized that there were many non-Christians in the ancient region of Mount Lebanon, and he set out to convert them to Christianity by introducing them to the teachings of Saint Maron. William of Tyre, chronicling his arrival in the region of Lebanon during the crusades, writes of the Maronites that they took their name from a certain Maro, whose heresies (described as monothelitism) they followed for “almost five hundred years,” but which they recanted at the time of William’s report. Though William of Tyre’s indictment of “Maro and his followers” as monothelite heretics has resulted in controversy among scholars, in all probability, he was mistakenly referring to a Maro from Edessa instead of the fourth-century St. Maro. Maronite historians argue that they have always remained in full communion with Rome. Saint Maron’s feast day is celebrated on February 9.

Veneration
Saint Maron was known for his gift for healing.

Patronages

 * Maronites and the Maronite Church
 * The town of Volperino in Italy. After being brought to Sassovivo Abbey in Foligno, Saint Maron's relics were kept for a long time in the tiny village of Volperino, before being transferred to Saint Felicianus Cathedral church in Foligno.
 * The Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn
 * The Eparchy of Saint Maron of Canada - Montréal, Canada - Official Website
 * The Eparchy of Saint Maron of Australia.

Notable recognitions
On 23 February 2011, Pope Benedict XVI unveiled a statue of Saint Maron on the outer wall of Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and imparted his Apostolic Blessing. The 15 feet tall statue was commissioned by the Maronite Church to the Spanish sculptor Marco Augusto Dueñas. The saint appears in the sculpture holding a miniature, Maronite style church; the sculpture also features an inscription in Syriac reading: The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon. The statue occupied the last available niche in the outer perimeter of Saint Peter's Basilica.

In June 2012, an impressionist painting of Saint Maron, as well as several icons based on images from the 5th-century Syriac Rabboula manuscript including the Crucifixion, the Marian icon of the "Mother of Light" and the Evangelists, was donated, installed and was solemnly attended by Cardinal Donald Wuerl at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C., and was formally dedicated on September 23, 2012.

title: Maron


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Magnetic ink character recognition

Magnetic ink character recognition code, known in short as MICR code, is a character recognition technology used mainly by the banking industry to streamline the processing and clearance of cheques and other documents. MICR encoding, called the MICR line, is at the bottom of cheques and other vouchers and typically includes the document-type indicator, bank code, bank account number, cheque number, cheque amount (usually added after a cheque is presented for payment), and a control indicator. The format for the bank code and bank account number is country-specific.

The technology allows MICR readers to scan and read the information directly into a data-collection device. Unlike barcode and similar technologies, MICR characters can be read easily by humans. MICR encoded documents can be processed much faster and more accurately than conventional OCR encoded documents.

Pre-Unicode standard representation
The ISO standard ISO 2033:1983, and the corresponding Japanese Industrial Standard JIS X 9010:1984 (originally JIS C 6229–1984), define character encodings for OCR-A, OCR-B and E-13B.

International spread
There are two major MICR fonts in use: E-13B and CMC-7. There is no particular international agreement on which countries use which font. In practice, this does not create particular problems as cheques and other vouchers do not usually flow out of a particular jurisdiction.

The E-13B font has been adopted as an international standard in ISO 1004-1:2013, and is the standard in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, as well as Central America and much of Asia, besides other countries.

The CMC-7 font has been adopted as an international standard in ISO 1004-2:2013, and is widely used in Europe, including France and Italy, Mexico, and South America, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, besides other countries.

Israel is the only country that can use both fonts simultaneously, though the practice makes the system significantly less efficient. This situation is the product of the Israelis adopting CMC-7, while the Palestinians opted for E-13B.

E-13B
E-13B has a 14-character set, comprising the 10 decimal digits, and the following symbols:

 * ⑆ (transit: used to delimit a bank code);
 * ⑈ (on-us: used to delimit a customer account number);
 * ⑇ (amount: used to delimit a transaction amount);
 * ⑉ (dash: used to delimit parts of numbers—e.g., routing numbers or account numbers).

In the check printing and banking industries the E-13B MICR line is also commonly referred to as the TOAD line. This reference comes from the 4 characters: Transit, Onus, Amount, and Dash. Compared to CMC-7, some pairs of E-13B characters (notably 2 and 5) can produce relatively similar results when magnetically scanned; however, as a fallback if magnetic reading fails, E-13B also performs well under optical character recognition.

The E-13B repertoire can be represented in Unicode (see below). Prior to Unicode, it could be encoded according to ISO 2033:1983, which encodes digits in their usual ASCII locations, transit as 0x3A, on us as 0x3C, amount as 0x3B, and dash as 0x3D. For EBCDIC, IBM code page 1001 encodes digits in their usual EBCDIC locations, transit as 0xDB, on us as 0xEB, amount as 0xCB, and dash as 0xFB.

IBM code page 1032 extends code page 1001 by adding alternative encodings for transit at 0x5C, 0x7A and 0xC1, on us at 0x4C, 0x61 and 0xC3, amount at 0x5B, 0x5E and 0xC2 and dash at 0x60, 0x7E and 0xC4, in addition to a zero-width space at 0x5A. These alternative representations were added for interoperability with Siemens and Océ printers.

CMC-7
CMC-7 includes 10 numeric digits, 26 capital letters, and 5 control characters: S I S II  S III  S IV (an unused character), and S V

CMC-7 has a barcode format, with every character having two distinct large gaps in different places, as well as distinct patterns in between, to minimize any chance for character confusion while reading magnetically; however, these bars are too close and narrow to be reliably recognised at a typical scan resolution if falling back to optical scanning. CMC-7 can also produce superficially successful, but incorrect, scans of upside-down MICR lines.

Unicode does not include support for the CMC-7 control symbols. IBM code page 1033 encodes:

 * Digits and capitals in their usual EBCDIC locations
 * S I (internal) as 0x5E, 0x61 or 0xCB;
 * S II (terminator) as 0x4C, 0x5B or 0xEB;
 * S III (amount) as 0x60, 0x7E or 0xFB;
 * S IV as 0x50, 0x7A or 0xDB;
 * S V (routing) as 0x5C, 0x6E or 0xBB.

MICR reader
MICR characters are printed on documents in one of the two MICR fonts, using magnetizable (commonly known as magnetic) ink or toner, usually containing iron oxide. In scanning, the document is passed through a MICR reader, which performs two functions: magnetization of the ink, and detection of the characters. The characters are read by a MICR reader head, a device similar to the playback head of a tape recorder. As each character passes over the head, it produces a unique waveform that can be easily identified by the system.

MICR readers are the primary tool for cheque sorting and are used across the cheque distribution network at multiple stages. For example, a merchant will use a MICR reader to sort cheques by bank and send the sorted cheques to a clearing house for redistribution to those banks. Upon receipt, the banks perform another MICR sort to determine which customer's account is charged and to which branch the cheque should be sent on its way back to the customer. However, many banks no longer offer this last step of returning the cheque to the customer. Instead, cheques are scanned and stored digitally. Sorting of cheques is done as per the geographical coverage of banks in a nation.

Unicode
OCR and MICR characters have been included in the Unicode Standard since at least version 1.1 (June 1993). Since the Unicode Character Database only tracks characters starting with version 1.1, they may also have been present in Unicode 1.0 or 1.0.1.

The Unicode block that includes OCR and MICR characters is called Optical Character Recognition and covers U+2440–U+245F. Of the characters in this block, four are from the MICR E-13B font:
 * (corrected alias )
 * (corrected alias )
 * (corrected alias )
 * (corrected alias )

The names of the latter two characters were inadvertently switched when they were named in ISO/IEC 10646:1993, and they have been assigned accurate names as formal aliases. Per the Unicode Stability Policy, the existing names remain, allowing their use as stable identifiers. Additionally, all four characters have informative (non-formal) aliases in the Unicode charts: "transit", "amount", "on us", and "dash" respectively.

Prior to Unicode, these symbols had been encoded by the ISO-IR-98 encoding defined by ISO 2033:1983, in which they were simply named through. They were encoded immediately following the digits, which were encoded at their ASCII locations. Although ISO 2033 also specifies encoding for OCR-A and OCR-B, its encoding for E-13B is known simply as ISO_2033-1983 by the IANA.

History
Before the mid-1940s, cheques were processed manually using the Sort-A-Matic or Top Tab Key method. The processing and cheque clearing was very time-consuming and was a significant cost in cheque clearance and bank operations. As the number of cheques increased, ways were sought for automating the process. Standards were developed to ensure uniformity in financial institutions. By the mid-1950s, the Stanford Research Institute and General Electric Computer Laboratory had developed the first automated system to process cheques using MICR. The same team also developed the E-13B MICR font. "E" refers to the font being the fifth considered, and "B" to the fact that it was the second version. The "13" refers to the 0.013-inch character grid.

The trial of MICR E-13B font was shown to the American Bankers Association (ABA) in July 1956, which adopted it in 1958 as the MICR standard for negotiable documents in the United States. ABA adopted MICR as its standard because machines could read MICR accurately, and MICR could be printed using existing technology. In addition, MICR remained machine readable, even through overstamping, marking, mutilation and more. The first cheques using MICR were printed by the end of 1959. Although compliance with MICR standards was voluntary in the United States, it had been almost universally adopted in the United States by 1963. In 1963, ANSI adopted the ABA's E-13B font as the American standard for MICR printing, and E-13B was also standardized as ISO 1004:1995.

Other countries set their own standards, though the MICR readers and most other equipment were US manufactured. MICR technology has been adopted in many countries, with some variations. The E-13B font was adopted as the standard in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and many other countries. In Australia, the system is managed by the Australian Payments Network.

The CMC-7 font was developed in France by Groupe Bull in 1957. It was adopted as the MICR standard in Argentina, France, Italy, and some other European countries.

In the 1960s, the MICR fonts became a symbol of modernity or futurism, leading to the creation of lookalike "computer" typefaces that imitated the appearance of the MICR fonts, which unlike real MICR fonts, had a full character set.

MICR E-13B is also used to encode information in other applications, such as sales promotions, coupons, credit cards, airline tickets, insurance premium receipts, deposit tickets, and more. E-13b is the version specifically developed for offset litho printing. There was a subtly different called E-13a. Also, there was a rival system named 'Fred' (Figure Reading Electronic Device) which used figures that looked more conventional.

title: Magnetic ink character recognition


text:
Avro Manchester

The Avro 679 Manchester was a British twin-engine heavy bomber developed and manufactured by the Avro aircraft company in the United Kingdom. While not being built in great numbers, it was the forerunner of the more famed and more successful four-engined Avro Lancaster, which was one of the most capable strategic bombers of the Second World War.

Avro designed the Manchester in conformance with the requirements laid out by the British Air Ministry Specification P.13/36, which sought a capable medium bomber with which to equip the Royal Air Force (RAF) and to replace its inventory of twin-engine bombers, such as the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Handley Page Hampden and Vickers Wellington. Performing its maiden flight on 25 July 1939, the Manchester entered squadron service in November 1940, just over twelve months after the outbreak of the war.

Operated by both RAF and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), the Manchester came to be regarded as a complete operational failure, primarily as a result of its Rolls-Royce Vulture engines, which were underdeveloped and hence underpowered and unreliable, and production was terminated in 1941. However, the Manchester was redesigned into a four-engined heavy bomber, powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine instead, which became known as the Lancaster.

Development
The Manchester has its origins in a design produced by Avro in order to fulfil the British Air Ministry's Specification P.13/36. This was the same specification to which Handley Page had also produced their initial design for what would become the Halifax bomber. Issued in May 1936, Specification P.13/36 called for a twin-engine monoplane "medium bomber" for "worldwide use", which was to be capable of carrying out shallow (30°) dive bombing attacks and carry heavy bombloads (8,000 lb/3,630 kg) or two 18 in (457 mm) torpedoes. Additionally, provisions to conduct catapult assisted takeoffs, which would permit the carriage of the maximum payload, was also a stated requirement, although this provision was removed in July 1938. The envisioned cruising speed of the bomber was to be a minimum of 275 mph at 15,000 feet. The Air Ministry had expectations for an aircraft of similar weight to the B.1/35 specification, but smaller and faster.

Avro had already started work on a corresponding design prior to having received a formal invitation to tender. The company was in competition with Boulton Paul, Bristol, Fairey, Handley Page and Shorts. Vickers also had its Warwick, which had Napier Sabre engines, but eventually chose against tendering it. In early 1937, both the Avro design and the rival Handley Page HP.56 were accepted and prototypes of both ordered; but in mid-1937, the Air Ministry exercised their rights to order the types "off the drawing board". This skipping of the usual process was necessary due to the initiation of a wider expansion of the RAF in expectation of large scale war in Europe. From 1939, it was expected that the P.13/36 would begin replacing the RAF's existing medium bombers, such as the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Handley Page Hampden and Vickers Wellington.

The Avro design used the Rolls-Royce Vulture 24-cylinder X-block engine, which was two Rolls-Royce Peregrine Vee cylinder blocks mounted one on top of the other, the bottom one inverted to give the "X" shape. When developed in 1935, the Vulture engine had promise — it was rated at 1,760 hp (1,310 kW) but it proved woefully unreliable and had to be derated to 1,480–1,500 hp (1,100–1,120 kW). Avro's prototype Manchester L7246, was assembled by their experimental department at Manchester's Ringway Airport and first flew from there on 25 July 1939, with the second aircraft following on 26 May 1940. The Vulture engine was chosen by Avro and not stipulated by the Air Ministry as is sometimes claimed; other engine layouts considered included the use of two Bristol Hercules or Bristol Centaurus radial engines. The Handley Page HP.56, always intended as the backup to the Avro, was redesigned to take four engines on the orders of the Air Ministry in 1937, when the Vulture was already showing problems.

While the Manchester was designed with a twin tail, the first production aircraft, designated the Mk I, had a central fin added and twenty aircraft like this were built. They were succeeded by the Mk IA which reverted to the twin-fin system but used enlarged, taller fin and rudders mounted on a new tailplane, with span increased from 22 ft (6.71 m) to 33 ft (10.06 m). This configuration was carried over to the Lancaster, except for the first prototype, which also used a central fin and was a converted, unfinished Manchester. Avro constructed 177 Manchesters while Metropolitan-Vickers completed 32 aircraft. Plans for Armstrong Whitworth and Fairey Aviation at Ringway (now Manchester Airport) to build the Manchester were abandoned. Fairey's order for 150 Manchesters was replaced by orders for the Halifax.

Design
The Avro Manchester was designed with great consideration for ease of manufacture and repair. The fuselage of the aircraft comprised longitudinal stringers or longerons throughout, over which an external skin of aluminium alloy was flush-riveted for a smooth external surface. The wings were of a two-spar construction, the internal ribs being made of aluminium alloys; fuel was contained with several self-sealing fuel tanks within the wings. The tail shared a similar construction to the wing, featuring a twin fin-and-rudder configuration that provided good vision for the dorsal gunner.

The cockpit housed the pilot and fighting controller's position underneath the canopy, and these two crew members were provided with all-round vision. The navigator was seated aft of the fighting controller and the position included an astrodome for use of a sextant. The bomb aimer's station was housed inside the aircraft's nose, beneath the forward turret and bomb aiming was conducted using optical sights housed in this compartment. For crew comfort on lengthy missions, a rest area was situated just to the rear of the main cabin.

The aircraft's undercarriage was entirely retractable via hydraulic systems, or in an emergency, a backup air system. The doors to the bomb bay were also operated by these systems, an additional safety measure was installed to ensure that the bombs could not be dropped if the doors were shut. The bombs were housed on bomb racks inside the internal bomb bay, and other armaments such as torpedoes could also be fitted. All fuel tankage was located in the wings in order to keep the fuselage free to accommodate more armaments in the bomb bay which covered nearly two-thirds of the underside of the fuselage.

Vulnerable parts of the aircraft were armoured; the pilot had additional armour and bulletproof glass and an armoured bulkhead was to the rear of the navigator's position. The Manchester featured three hydraulically-operated turrets, located in the nose, rear and mid-upper fuselage; the addition of a ventral turret directly behind the bomb bay had been considered and tested on the second prototype, but did not feature on production aircraft. Access to all crew stations was provided by a walkway and crew positions had nearby escape hatches.

The Manchester was powered by a pair of Vulture engines; in service these proved to be extremely unreliable. Aviation author Jon Lake stated of the Vulture: "The engine made the Manchester mainly notable for its unreliability, poor performance, and general inadequacy to the task at hand" and attributed the aircraft's poor service record to the engine troubles.

"I was one of the six original pilots to have flown with the first Manchester squadron. That was a disaster. The aircraft itself, the airframe, had many shortcomings in equipment in the beginning, but as we found out Avro were excellent in doing modifications and re-equipping the aeroplane. The engines never were and never did become reliable. They did not give enough power for the aeroplane, so we ended up with two extremely unreliable 1,750 hp engines having to haul a 50,000-pound aircraft. We should really have had 2,500 hp engines. You felt that if you'd lost one, that was it, you weren't coming home. It didn't matter if you feathered the propeller or not. There was only one way you went and that was down. I have seen an aircraft doing a run up on the ground and have two pistons come right out through the side of the engine. The original bearings were made without any silver as an economy measure, so they weren't hard enough. The bearings would collapse the connecting rod and the piston would fling out through the side of the engine and bang! Your engine just destroyed itself."

Operational history
On 5 August 1940, the first production Avro Manchester, L7276, was delivered to RAF Boscombe Down in advance of service acceptance trials. In November 1940, the Manchester officially entered service with the newly reformed No. 207 Squadron of RAF Bomber Command. The type passed all acceptance tests by 21 December 1940, and 207 Squadron had at least 80 Manchesters on strength by the end of 1940. The Manchester's first operational mission was conducted on 24–25 February 1941 in a raid on the French port of Brest. On 13 March 1941, L7319 became the first Manchester to be shot down by enemy fire.

On 13 April 1941, all Manchesters were temporarily grounded due to a higher than expected number of engine bearing failures; on 16 June 1941, a second grounding of the type was ordered due to more engine troubles. The unserviceability of the Vulture engine forced squadrons to make use of obsolete bombers such as the Hampden in its place. Upon the restart of operations in August 1941, additional failings were encountered; excessive tail flutter, hydraulic failures and faulty propeller feathering controls. Production of the Manchester was halted in November 1941, by which point a total of 202 aircraft had been constructed. A total of eight bomber squadrons were equipped with the type, it also served in two further squadrons and also saw use by RAF Coastal Command.

While modifications were made by Avro to address some of the technical issues experienced, unit strength suffered and Bomber Command was frequently unable to raise significant numbers of aircraft to participate in large bombing missions; on 7 November 1941, all of the RAFs serviceable bombers had been dispatched to bomb Berlin, out of a force of over 400 bombers, only 15 were Manchesters. On 3 March 1942, out of a force of nearly 200 bombers sent against a Renault factory near Paris, 25 were Manchesters; while during the first 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne on 30 May 1942, 35 Manchesters were amongst the 1,047 bombers sent to attack the city. Flying Officer Leslie Manser was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions while piloting Manchester L7301 of 50 Squadron during the Cologne bombing mission.

The Mk III Manchester (serial number BT308) which first flew on 9 January 1941, was essentially the first Lancaster, featuring a longer wing fitted with four Rolls-Royce Merlins in new unitized, power-egg nacelles – originally developed by Rolls-Royce for the Merlin-powered Beaufighter II – although initially retaining the three fins and twin outboard rudders (the central fin had no movable control surface) of the Manchester I. BT308 received the "Lancaster" name immediately after its first flight. The second prototype Lancaster DG595 featured the twin, enlarged fins and rudders of the Manchester IA. Manchester production continued until November of that year but some aircraft that were still in production were instead completed as Lancasters.

The 193 operational Manchesters flew 1,269 sorties with Bomber Command, dropping 1,826 tons (1,657 tonnes) of bombs and lost 78 aircraft in action, flying its last operation against Bremen on 25 June 1942. A further 45 were non-operational losses of which 30 involved engine failure. The Manchester was withdrawn from operations in mid-1942 in favour of more capable aircraft. Its final role in RAF service was as instructional trainers for converting crews to the RAF's new Lancaster bombers; the Manchester and Lancaster shared nearly identical crew positions and fuselages. The type persisted in use for training purposes into 1943 before being completely retired.

Variants

 * Manchester L7246
 * First prototype originally with twin tail. Due to lack of directional stability, it had a third fin added. Became a training airframe in November 1942.

 * Manchester L7247
 * Second prototype first flown 26 May 1940, fitted with armament, became a training airframe in October 1941.

 * Manchester I
 * First production version with 90 ft wing and 28 ft twin tail and additional central fin later added; 20 of this type were built.

 * Manchester IA
 * Main production version with 90 ft wing, twin tail with 33 ft enlarged tailplane. It also had taller fins and rudders.

 * Manchester IB
 * As Manchester IA but with thin-gauge fuselage skin.

 * Manchester IC
 * As Manchester IB but with 2 x 2,520 hp Bristol Centaurus. Installed in one airframe but never flown.

 * Manchester II
 * As Manchester IB but with 95 ft wing.

 * Manchester IIA
 * As Manchester II but with 2 x Bristol Centaurus. None built.

 * Manchester III BT308
 * This version was powered by four Merlin engines with increased wingspan; also, the three fins and rudders of the Manchester I were retained. This variant was the first prototype of the later Avro Lancaster.

Orders and production
In total two prototypes and 200 production aircraft were built before the production lines changed to building the four-engine Lancaster.
 * Two prototypes were ordered against specification P.13/36 and were built by Avro at Ringway.
 * Production contract for 200 Manchesters placed with Avro to be built at Chadderton, contract changed to Lancaster I production after 157 had been built, delivered between August 1940 and November 1941.
 * Production contract for 150 Manchesters placed with Fairey to be built at Ringway, order cancelled.
 * Production contract for 200 Manchesters placed with Metropolitan-Vickers at Trafford Park, contract changed to Lancaster I production after 43 had been built, delivered between March 1941 and March 1942. The first 12 aircraft being built on the Trafford Park production line were destroyed in a German air raid on 23 December 1940, not being completed they are not included in the total aircraft built.
 * Production contract for 150 Manchesters placed with Armstrong-Whitworth, order cancelled.

Operators

 * 🇦🇺 Australia
 * Royal Australian Air Force
 * No. 460 Squadron RAAF (August 1942 - October 1942)

 * 🇨🇦 Canada
 * Royal Canadian Air Force
 * No. 408 Squadron RCAF
 * No. 420 Squadron RCAF

 * Royal Air Force
 * No. 49 Squadron RAF at RAF Scampton (April 1942 – June 1942)
 * No. 50 Squadron RAF at RAF Skellingthorpe (April 1942 – June 1942)
 * No. 61 Squadron RAF at RAF Hemswell (June 1941 – June 1942)
 * No. 83 Squadron RAF at RAF Scampton (December 1941 – June 1942)
 * No. 97 Squadron RAF at RAF Waddington then RAF Coningsby (February 1941 – February 1942)
 * No. 106 Squadron RAF at RAF Coningsby (February 1942 – June 1942)
 * No. 207 Squadron RAF at RAF Waddington then RAF Bottesford (November 1940 – March 1942)
 * No. 25 Operation Training Unit at RAF Finningley
 * No. 44 Conversion Flight
 * No. 1485 Flight RAF
 * No. 1654 Heavy Conversion Unit
 * No. 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit
 * No. 1660 Heavy Conversion Unit
 * No. 1668 Heavy Conversion Unit
 * Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment
 * Torpedo Development Unit at RAF Gosport
 * Torpedo Development Unit at RAF Gosport

title: Avro Manchester


text:
Māra

Māra is the highest-ranking goddess in Latvian mythology, the ancient Dawn-goddess, previously called Austra, and, not at all, although often stated, the same as Zemes māte (Mother Earth, pace).

Names
Alternative names: Māre, Mārīte (diminutive), Mārša, Māršava (Western Latvia).

Description
She is the patroness of all feminine duties (children, cattle), patroness of all the economic activities ("God made the table, Māra made the bread"), even money and markets. Being the alternate side of Dievs, she takes a person's body after their death while Dievs is taking the soul. She is the goddess of the land, which is called Māras zeme ('Māra's land'). She is called 'Mother of Cows' (Govu māte), the same way the Vedic Dawn-goddess is called gávām mātár- 'id'.

In western Latvia, and to a lesser degree in the rest of Latvia, she was strongly associated with Laima, and may have been considered the same deity.

Festivals
The festival Māras was held in her honor every August 15. This is probably a result of Christian influence and identification of Māra with Mary, whose main festival (the Assumption) has fallen on the same date since early times. Opinions are divided over whether Māra is a pre-Christian deity, or originated as a reflection of the Christian Mary created by semi-Christian Livonian peasants.

title: Māra


text:
LVL

LVL may refer to:

 * Laminated veneer lumber
 * LVL (artist), an industrial/electronic artist from New York
 * "LVL", a song by American rapper ASAP Rocky from his 2013 debut album Long. Live. ASAP
 * LVL, ISO 4217 currency code for Latvian lats, the former currency of Latvia

title: LVL


text:
Mara (demon)

Mara, in Buddhism, is a malignant celestial king who tried to stop Prince Siddhartha from achieving Enlightenment by trying to seduce him with his celestial Army and the vision of beautiful women who, in various legends, are often said to be Mara's daughters.

In Buddhist cosmology, Mara is associated with death, rebirth and desire. Nyanaponika Thera has described Mara as "the personification of the forces antagonistic to enlightenment."

Etymology
The word Māra comes from the Sanskrit form of the verbal root mṛ. It takes a present indicative form mṛyate and a causative form mārayati (with strengthening of the root vowel from ṛ to ār). Māra is a verbal noun from the causative root and means 'causing death' or 'killing'. It is related to other words for death from the same root, such as: maraṇa and mṛtyu. The latter is a name for death personified and is sometimes identified with Yama.

The root mṛ is related to the Indo-European verbal root *mer meaning "die, disappear" in the context of "death, murder or destruction". It is "very wide-spread" in Indo-European languages suggesting it to be of great antiquity, according to Mallory and Adams.

Four types of Māra
In traditional Buddhism, four or five metaphorical forms of Māra are given:

 * Kleśa-māra - Māra as the embodiment of all unskillful emotions, such as greed, hate and delusion.
 * Mṛtyu-māra - Māra as death.
 * Skandha-māra - Māra as metaphor for the entirety of conditioned existence.
 * Devaputra-māra - the deva of the sensuous realm, who tried to prevent Gautama Buddha from attaining liberation from the cycle of rebirth on the night of the Buddha's enlightenment.

Character
Early Buddhism acknowledged both a literal and psychological interpretation of Mara.

Mara is described both as an entity having an existence in Kāma-world, just as are shown existing around the Buddha, and also is described in pratītyasamutpāda as, primarily, the guardian of passion and the catalyst for lust, hesitation and fear that obstructs meditation among Buddhists. The Denkōroku refers to him as the "One Who Delights in Destruction", which highlights his nature as a deity among the Parinirmitavaśavarti devas.

"Buddha defying Mara" is a common pose of Buddha sculptures. The Buddha is shown with his left hand in his lap, palm facing upwards and his right hand on his right knee. The fingers of his right hand touch the earth, to call the earth as his witness for defying Mara and achieving enlightenment. This posture is also referred to as the bhūmisparśa "earth-witness" mudra.

Three daughters
In some accounts of the Buddha's enlightenment, it is said that the demon Māra did not send his three daughters to tempt but instead they came willingly after Māra's setback in his endeavor to eliminate the Buddha's quest for enlightenment. Mara's three daughters are identified as (Thirst), Arati (Aversion, Discontentment), and Rāga (Attachment, Desire, Greed, Passion). For example, in the Samyutta Nikaya's Māra-sayutta, Mara's three daughters were undressing in front of the Buddha; but failed to entice him:
 * They had come to him glittering with beauty –
 * Taṇhā, Arati, and Rāga –
 * But the Teacher swept them away right there
 * As the wind, a fallen cotton tuft.

Mara's conversion
The Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp and the Denkoroku both contain a story of Mara's conversion to Buddhism under the auspices of the monk Upagupta.

According to the story, Upagupta journeyed to the kingdom of Mathura and preached the Dharma with great success. This caused Mara's palace to tremble, prompting the deity to use his destructive powers against the Dharma. When Upagupta entered samadhi, Mara approached him and slipped a jade necklace around his neck.

Upagupta reciprocated by transforming the corpses of a man, a dog, and a snake into a garland and gifted it to Mara. When Mara discovered the true nature of the gift, he sought the help of Brahma to remove it. Brahma informed him that because the necklace was bestowed by an advanced disciple of the Buddha, its effects could only be assuaged by taking refuge in Upagupta.

Mara returned to the human world where he prostrated before the monk and repented. At Upagupta's recommendation, he vowed never to do harm to the Dharma and took refuge in the Three Jewels.

In popular culture
Mara appears in Roger Zelazny's 1967 novel Lord of Light as a god of illusion.

Mara has appeared as a recurring Demon in the Megami Tensei franchise, as well as in its spinoffs. Here, Mara takes the appearance of a penis riding a golden chariot. Mara has consistently been one of the most popular demons in the series, even reaching #1 popularity on some demon popularity polls.

In 2020, the singer-songwriter Jack Garratt released a song entitled "Mara". Inspired by the story of Mara's distraction of the Buddha, "Mara" describes Garratt's experience of intrusive thoughts.

title: Mara (demon)


text:
User:Bobspeltbackwards

Hi! I'me Bob Matthews from Birmingham UK. And intend to contribute to articles pertaining to that great city. I contribute occasionally to Wikipedia anonymously and even more occasionally with a username. I have recently remembered my password and so may be here more often.

title: User:Bobspeltbackwards


text:
Jounieh

Jounieh (جونيه, or Juniya, جونية) is a coastal city in Keserwan District, about 16 km north of Beirut, Lebanon. Since 2017, it has been the capital of Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate. Jounieh is known for its seaside resorts and bustling nightlife, as well as its old stone souk, ferry port, paragliding site and gondola lift (le téléphérique), which takes passengers up the mountain to the shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon in Harissa.

Above Jounieh, and on the way to Harissa, a small hill named Bkerké (بكركي, or Bkerki), overlooking the Jounieh bay, is the seat of the Patriarch of the Maronite Catholic Church of Lebanon. Residents of Jounieh and the surrounding towns are overwhelmingly Maronite Catholics. Maameltein is a district of Ghazir village.

History
The medieval Muslim historian al-Idrisi (d. 1165) notes that Jounieh was a sea fortress whose inhabitants were Jacobite Christians. The Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 1226) called it a dependency of Tripoli.

In the sixth part of The Introduction to Jounieh in the Mid Nineteenth Century, Professor Butrus Al-Boustani said: “Jounieh is a place on the Keserwan coast which has warehouses, stores, and a dye house. Ships and boats bring supplies and its grain trade is very popular. Thus a district of the following villages: Sarba, Ghadir, and Harat Sakhr was named for it. Its total population is 2,500. Jounieh itself is not a residential area but mainly a commercial district whose workers come from neighboring towns.”

Ottoman Empire
Jounieh was connected with neighboring areas by roads built for carriages. So it was connected with Bkerké and beyond it during the rule of Dawud Basha, the ruler of Mount Lebanon. It was connected to Ghazir between 1867 and 1868 despite the objection of Ghazir's residents. Another road connected Jounieh to the Beirut Bridge during the rule of Rustum Basha. To the north it was connected by a carriage's road until Batroun during the rule of Wasa Basha (1883–1892). In 1892, Jounieh was connected to Beirut via a railroad that had stations between the two locations, three of which in Jounieh and its environs: Sarba, Jounieh, and Mu’amilitain at the end of the line, which facilitated the transportation of goods and passengers from and to the Governorate of Beirut. In 1876, the number of shops exceeded 300, five silk factories, three rest houses, a mill, three juice factories, an artificial ice factory, a bank known by its owner's name "Bank Baghos", and a group of small sailboat construction sites.

In 1906, according to the Guide to Lebanon by Ibrahim Beik Al-Soud, the population of Jounieh was 2,400, and it had a silk factory owned by the Nasras, a silkworms choker owned by Moussa de Franj, a silk factory owned by the heirs of Rizkallah and Abdul Ahad Khadra which had 190 wheels and produced 10,000 cocoons, 330 domestic animals, and owned 80 carriages. According to the records of the Keserwan Governorate, the town of Ghadir, in 1914, had 433 corporations and its population was 1,263. The town of Sarba had 213 commercial institutions and its population was 1,714. In Harat Sakhr, there were 165 corporations and its population was 808. In Sahil ‘Alma, there were 21 corporations its population reached 187. Jounieh had seen noticeable prosperity after France and the Maronite Patriarchy supported the opening a port for commercial ships which became (with the Al-Nabi Younes Port on the Chouf Coast) the official port of Mount Lebanon.

In 1913 and during the Mandate era, Jounieh suffered economic decline and recession as the French administration moved part of Jounieh’s administrative role to the Capital, Beirut. Also Jounieh came out of the First World War weakened by famine and economic stagnation. So several of its inhabitants were forced to move to the capital or to immigrate, and Jounieh lost most of its expertise. Its social and population development stopped, and its economic development weakened. The 1932 statistics showed 1,286 housed in Jounieh: 371 in Sarba, 434 in Ghadir, 350 houses in Harat Sakhr, and 131 in Sahil ‘Alma. This affected the building industry and records in the town hall showed very limited number of permits given from 1922-1940. The only active sectors in that period were schools, small crafts, and planting of citrus trees, sugar cane, and vegetables. This situation stayed the same until the rule of President Fuad Chehab who outfitted the city with all that it needed to become modern. Jounieh then awakened from its slumber with projects for roads, lighting, modern planning, a stadium, a tourist port, a government house, and infrastructure. President Chehab used a number of experts and engineers headed by the French engineer Ecochard. The talk became of “Monte Carlo of the East” and Jounieh stood out as a bride of the Lebanese coast. In 1959, it started to attract banks, the first which were the Lebanese Commerce Bank and the Lebanese Federal Bank. By 1975 the number of banks reached six and today there are 38 banks in addition to the Lebanese Central Bank which was established in 1879.

Modern history
The area also witnessed an increase in the price of land from an average of seven to nine Lebanese pounds per square meter between 1950 and 1960 to an average of 25 to 35 Lebanese pounds in 1965.

The construction sector developed slowly starting from Sarba to Harat Sakhr, and finally the coast of ‘Alma. The buildings also started expanding around the city as the agricultural sector contracted and became confined to the coasts of Kaslik and some orchards in Ghadir, Harat Sakhr and the coast of ‘Alma. In the beginning of the seventies, Jounieh was transformed to a major and complete tourist center with the tourist network around it and on its edges including: Casino du Liban, the cable cars, the Harisa Church, the caverns in Jeita, restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, and the port.

Lebanese Civil War
With the war of 1975, and the division of Beirut into East and West parts and the escalation of the violence, many people fled to safe areas and were organizing their lives in accordance with the new realities.

From 1980 to 1990, Jounieh witnessed a massive migration as a large number of the Beirut traders moved to its markets. Buildings took over its green spaces, and the tourist complexes took over its shores. So its features changed randomly though it benefited from the use of the tourist port for commerce.

During the Civil War the ferry making the 120 mile journey from Jounieh to Larnaca was the only way to travel in and out of Lebanon for those living in the areas controlled by Christian militias. Over the fourteen years from 1975 an estimated 990,000 Lebanese left the country, up to 40% of the population. During the 1989 fighting between General Aoun and the Lebanese Forces 10,000 civilians from Beirut arrived in Cyprus over a six-week period. On 24 February 1990 the ferry was attacked by an unidentified naval patrol boat. One passenger was killed and seventeen wounded. In 1997 a catamaran was operating between Larnaca and Jounieh. A return ticket for the four-hour journey cost US$100. At the time the average monthly income in Lebanon was US$132.

Post Civil War
On 18 June 1991 six people were killed and 30 wounded after an explosion at a Lebanese Forces ammunition dump.

On 7 May 2005, a car bomb exploded between the Christian Sawt al Mahaba radio station and the Mar Yuhanna Church in Jounieh. The radio station was destroyed and the church suffered major damage. Twenty-two people were wounded.

Today, close to 100,000 people reside in Jounieh. Those who live in its suburbs exceed that number. By the middle of the century, it is predicted that Jounieh will become a suburb of Beirut in a coastal line that forms one city that expands the length of the coastal road at a time when the inhabitants of Lebanon will reach six million plus around the year 2025. The population of Jounieh is majority Maronite.

International relations
Jounieh is twinned with:
 * Monaco
 * 🇫🇷 Gustavia, Saint Barthelemy, France
 * 🇧🇷 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Climate
Jounieh has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa). In winter there is much more rainfall than in summer. The average annual temperature in Jounieh is 20.9 °C. About 873 mm of precipitation falls annually.

Tourism
Paragliding site in Ghosta, three minutes from Harissa. Since 1992, paragliding above Jounieh is considered one of the best outdoor activities in Lebanon.
 * Paragliding

 * Jounieh International Festival

Every summer, Jounieh International Festival hosts national and international icons, like Mika, Jessie J, Imagine Dragons, Jason Derulo and many others.

 * Casino du Liban

Casino du Liban offers gaming and shows and is located in the northern part of Jounieh, it is also the biggest one in the Middle East.

 * Lebanese Heritage Museum

Lebanese Heritage Museum displays items related to the culture and history of Lebanon.

 * Téléphérique

The téléphérique is a gondola lift that operates between Jounieh and Harissa. It offers the passengers beautiful panoramic views of the bay of Jounieh and the coast all the way to Beirut. (See Téléphérique de Jounieh page)

title: Jounieh


text:
User talk:Bobspeltbackwards

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them;

 * How to edit a page
 * How to write a great article
 * Naming conventions
 * Manual of Style

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Tip: you can sign your name with ~

snoyes 18:45, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for the welcome. Bob Matthews 18:53, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hello there I notice you have already been welcomed to the 'pedia, but I will welcome you again anyway. I see you have made edits to railway related articles is it an interest of yours. G-Man 19:11, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

title: User talk:Bobspeltbackwards


text:
New Zealand tramping tracks

In New Zealand, long distance walking or hiking for at least one overnight stay is known as tramping. There are a number of walkways in New Zealand, however most of these are relatively short and can be walked in a day or less. Many are also an easy walk, with well formed footpaths. However, some tracks require an overnight stay either because of the rugged country or the length of the track.

New Zealand has both public and private tramping tracks. Public tracks are managed by the Department of Conservation, Regional Councils or other authorities. They generally cross public land (including National Parks), or private land with negotiated public access. Access is free and in most cases unrestricted, although fees are payable for overnight stays in huts or camping.

Private tracks cross private land, with restricted fee-based access. Itineraries are generally fixed. Fees may cover things such as overnight accommodation, food and pack transportation.

Notable tramping tracks
Some of the tramping tracks have acquired names, with the most popular being called the Great Walks (GW).

North Island

 * The Hillary Trail
 * The Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk, around Lake Waikaremoana in Te Urewera National Park (GW)
 * The Pinnacles Walk/Kauaeranga Kauri Trail on Coromandel Peninsula
 * Northern Crossing of Tararua Range in the Tararua Range
 * Ruapehu Circuit
 * Southern Crossing of Tararua Range in the Tararua Range
 * Tongariro Alpine Crossing
 * Tongariro Northern Circuit (GW)
 * Te Araroa
 * Whanganui Journey (GW)
 * The Cape Brett Lighthouse walk

South Island

 * Abel Tasman Coast Track (GW) and Abel Tasman Inland Track in Abel Tasman National Park
 * Avalanche Peak Track
 * Banks Track (private)
 * Cascade Saddle Track
 * Copland Track
 * Dusky Track
 * George Sound Route
 * Greenstone and Caples Tracks
 * Haast to Paringa Cattle Track
 * Heaphy Track (GW)
 * Hollyford Track
 * Hump Ridge Track
 * Kaikoura Coast Track (private)
 * Kaikoura Wilderness Walk (private)
 * Kepler Track (GW)
 * Milford Track (GW)
 * Mingha-Deception
 * Otago Central Rail Trail
 * Queen Charlotte Track
 * Rees and Dart Tracks
 * Roberts Point Track
 * Routeburn Track (GW)
 * South Coast Track
 * St James Walkway
 * Travers-Sabine Circuit
 * Wangapeka Track
 * Te Araroa

Other islands

 * Rakiura Track (GW), Stewart Island/Rakiura
 * North-West Circuit
 * Southern Circuit

title: New Zealand tramping tracks


text:
Talk:Kabul

Remove watermark
Can someone please remove the watermark from this picture? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabul#/media/File:Kabul-Pano_By_Dani.jpg There is absolutely no place for self-promotion or advertising in an encyclopaedia. The photographer or creator of a picture should be mentioned in the file details, NOT in the picture itself. 1.157.95.133 (talk) 04:20, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Removing watermarks is quite problematic, see c:Commons:Watermarks. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:17, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

population of Kabul
Hi,

Just noticed that the intro says population is 3.5 million, but the info box says 13 million. 104.175.38.208 (talk) 06:42, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Kabul 58.147.138.110 (talk) 15:29, 9 July 2023 (UTC) Send to 0701030861 ok please

Sorry
Sorry for the edit I made. I did not realize what you did.

ItsCheck (talk) 19:14, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Kabul


text:
Mount Lebanon

Mount Lebanon (جَبَل لُبْنَان, jabal lubnān, ;, , , ṭūr lewnōn) is a mountain range in Lebanon. It is about 170 km long and averages above 2500 m in elevation, with its peak at 3088 m. The range provides a typical alpine climate year-round.

Mount Lebanon is well-known for its snow-covered mountains, home to surviving Lebanese cedar forests and diverse high-altitude flora and fauna. The name Lebanon itself originates from the white, snow-covered tops of this mountain range.

Geography
The Mount Lebanon range extends along the entire country for about 170 km, parallel to the Mediterranean coast. The highest peak is Qurnat as Sawda', at 3088 m. The range receives a substantial amount of precipitation, including snow, which averages around 4 m in depth.

Lebanon has historically been defined by the mountains, which provided protection for the local population. In Lebanon, changes in scenery are related less to geographical distances than to altitudes. The mountains were known for their oak and pine forests. The last remaining old growth groves of the famous Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani var. libanii'') are on the high slopes of Mount Lebanon, in the Cedars of God World Heritage Site.

The Phoenicians used the forests of Mount Lebanon to build their ship fleet and to trade with their neighbors. Phoenicians and successor rulers consistently replanted and restocked the range; even as late as the 16th century, its forested area was considerable.

Etymology
The name Mount Lebanon traces back to the Semitic root LBN, meaning "white", likely a reference to the snow-covered mountains.

History

Mount Lebanon is mentioned in the Old Testament 103 times. King Hiram I of Tyre sent engineers with cedar wood which was abundant in Mount Lebanon, to build the Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. Since then, the cedar species known scientifically as Cedrus libani is often associated with Mount Lebanon. The Phoenicians used cedar to build ships in which they sailed the Mediterranean, thus they were the first to establish villages in Mount Lebanon and would live from cutting down cedars and sending them to the coast.

Eusebius records that the Emperor Constantine destroyed a temple of Venus on the summit of Mount Lebanon. After the 5th century AD, Christian monks who were followers of a hermit named Maron, arrived from the Orontes valley in Northern Syria and began preaching their religion to the inhabitants of the northernmost parts of the mountain range. In the late 8th century a group known as the Mardaites (also Jarajima) settled in North Lebanon following the order of the Byzantine Emperor; their mission was to raid Islamic territories in Syria. They merged with the local population, refusing to leave after the emperor struck a deal with the Muslim Caliph of Damascus; thus, they became part of the Maronite society. In 1291 after the fall of Acre, the last crusader outpost in the Levant, remnants of the European settlers who succeeded in escaping capture by the Mamelukes settled in the Northern part of Lebanon and become part of the Maronite society.

Mount Lebanon has been visited and called home by many Muslim ascetics and Sufis since the 7th century, mentioned by many travelers to the region, few of which are known by name such as Shiban al-Muallah and Abbas al-Majnun. In the 10th century, Twelver Shia Muslim communities were likely established in Keserwan and the adjacent area to the north when Shia Islam was in the ascendant in Tripoli and the Islamic world at large. In the 13th century, a significant Shia population dominated Keserwan stretching out as far north as Dinniyeh, where reportedly the Shia feudal lord family, the Hamadas, were entrusted with tax-collection in 1470. Subject to harsh military campaigns and state policies put forth by the Mamluks and Ottomans over the centuries, this Shia population decreased over time and was driven to settle in Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley, becoming a small minority in Mount Lebanon by the 19th century.

In the 9th century, tribes from the "Jabal el Summaq" area north of Aleppo in Syria began settling the southern half of the mountain range. These tribes were known as the Tanoukhiyoun and in the 11th century they converted to the Druze faith and ruled the areas of Mount Lebanon stretching from Metn in the north to Jezzine in the south. This entire area became known as the 'Jabal ad-Duruz'. In the early 17th century, Emir Fakhr-al-Din II was entrusted as the main tax-collector and land-assigner in the Druze part of the mountains known as the Chouf. In an effort to re-populate the Chouf after the 1585 Ottoman expedition, Fakhreddine opened the door to Christians and in particular the Maronite settlement of the Chouf and Metn.

Throughout the 18th century and into the 19th century more and more Maronites settled in the Druze regions of the Mount. The Druze viewed these Maronite settlements as a threat to their power in Mount Lebanon and in a series of clashes in the 1840s and 1860s, a miniature civil war erupted in the area resulting in the massacre of thousands of Christians. The Druze won militarily, but not politically, because European powers (mainly France and Britain) intervened on behalf of the Maronites and divided Mount Lebanon into two areas; Druze and Maronite. Seeing their authority decline in Mount Lebanon, a few Lebanese Druze began migrating to the new Jabal ad-Duruz in southern Syria. In 1861, the "Mount Lebanon" autonomous district was established within the Ottoman system, under an international guarantee.

For centuries, the Maronites of the region have been protected by the noble Khazen family, which was endowed the responsibility by Pope Clement X and King Louis XIV and given Cheikh status in return for guarding the princes Fakhr-al-Din II and Younès al-Maani. The Khazen crest reflects the family's special closeness to Mount Lebanon, with snowy mountains and a cedar tree depicted.

Political term

Mount Lebanon also lent its name to two political designations: a semi-autonomous province in Ottoman Syria that was established in 1861 and the central Governorate of modern Lebanon (see Mount Lebanon Governorate). The Mount Lebanon administrative region emerged in a time of rise of nationalism after the civil war of 1860. France intervened on behalf of the local Christian population and Britain on behalf of the Druze after the 1860 massacres in which 10,000 Christians were killed in clashes with the Druze. In 1861, the "Mount Lebanon" autonomous district was established within the Ottoman system, under an international guarantee. The Maronite Catholics and the Druze founded modern Lebanon in the early eighteenth century, through the ruling and social system known as the "Maronite-Druze dualism" in Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate.

For decades, the Christians pressured the European powers to award them self determination by extending their small Lebanese territory to what they dubbed "Greater Lebanon", referring to a geographic unit comprising Mount Lebanon and its coast, and the Beqaa Valley to its east. After the First World War, France took hold of the formerly Ottoman holdings in the northern Levant, and expanded the borders of Mount Lebanon in 1920 to form Greater Lebanon, which was to be populated by remnants of the Middle Eastern Christian community. The Christians ended up gaining territorially, but the new borders merely ended the demographic dominance of Christians in the newly-created territory of Lebanon.

title: Mount Lebanon


text:
Talk:Belarus

need native spelling and pronunciation in intro
the first line of this article should have native spelling and pronunciation of the country name including any prominent variations.

can anyone hook it up? skakEL 14:43, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

 * There is a footnote for this. Mellk (talk) 15:16, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Grammatical error
Under Government it says the country is "under an dictatorship" don't know why that hasn't been fixed but it seems like it was written by Jeremy Clarkson. American Celebi (talk) 06:02, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅. Nobody noticed until now, I guess. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:20, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

government type
belarus is not dictatorship according to 1 article of constitution of republic of belarus fix it 91.223.70.208 (talk) 17:50, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The many reliable sources cited in the article say otherwise. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:57, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
 * By "many," you mean two, and one of those two is the United States government. Do you see why that might not be very reliable? Pdequation (talk) 19:08, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 20 March 2024
I've found a misspelling in the section "Independence": "janurary" -> "January" AX29 (talk) 18:10, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ Jamedeus (talk) 18:17, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That whole paragraph needed copyediting, let me know if I missed something. Mellk (talk) 18:19, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Lukashenko Era
This section needs some balancing. Today, Belarus is classified at the HDI as a very highly devloped country (see Economy of Belarus). It has one of the lowest gini coefficients in Europe and a relatively good GDP per capita. At this section, and others, the article veers away from WP:NPOV. I will edit after waiting here for other editors' comments. Emmentalist (talk) 09:28, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Please add some offices into country infobox
It would be great if the Chair of the House of Representatives, the Speaker of the Council of the Republic and the Chief Justice were also added. 78.177.160.99 (talk) 21:35, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

 * Are they as key to reader understanding as the existing ones? CMD (talk) 01:38, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Belarus


text:
Baan Corporation

Baan was a vendor of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software that is now owned by Infor Global Solutions. Baan or Baan ERP, was also the name of the ERP product created by this company.

History
The Baan Corporation was created by Jan Baan in 1978 in Barneveld, Netherlands to provide financial and administrative consulting services. With the development of his first software package, Jan Baan and his brother Paul Baan entered what was to become the ERP industry. The Baan company focused on the creation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

Jan Baan developed his first computer program on a Durango F-85 computer in the programming language BASIC. In the early '80s, The Baan Corporation began to develop applications for Unix computers with C and a self-developed Baan-C language, the syntax of which was very similar to the BASIC language.

Baan rose in popularity during the early nineties. Baan software is famous for its Dynamic Enterprise Modeler (DEM), technical architecture, and its 4GL language. Baan 4GL and Tools is still considered to be one of the most efficient and productive database application development platforms. Baan became a real threat to market leader SAP after winning a large Boeing deal in 1994. It went IPO in 1995 and became a public listed company in Amsterdam and US Nasdaq. Several large consulting firms around the world partnered to implement Baan IV for multi-national companies. It acquired several other software companies to enrich its product portfolio, including Antalys, Aurum, Berclain, Coda and Caps Logistics. Sales growth rate was once claimed to reach 91% per year.

However the fall of the Baan Company began in 1998. The management exaggerated company revenue by booking "sales" of software licenses that were actually transferred to a related distributor. The discovery of this revenue manipulation led to a sharp decline of Baan's stock price at the end of 1998.

In June 2000, facing worsening financial difficulties, lawsuits and reporting seven consecutive quarterly losses and bleak prospects, Baan was sold at a price of US$700 million to Invensys, a UK automation, controls, and process solutions group to become a unit of its Software and Services Division. Laurens van der Tang was the president of this unit. With the acquisition of Baan, Invensys's CEO Allen Yurko began to offer "Sensor to Boardroom" solutions to customers.

In June 2003, after Allen Yurko stepped down, Invensys sold its Baan unit to SSA Global Technologies for US$ 135 million. Upon acquiring the Baan software, SSA renamed Baan as SSA ERP Ln. In August 2005, SSA Global released a new version of Baan, named SSA ERP LN 6.1.

In May 2006, SSA was acquired by Infor Global Solutions of Atlanta, a major ERP consolidator in the market.

Product version
Triton 1.0 to 2.2d, 3.0 to last version of Triton is 3.1bx, then the product is renamed to Baan

Baan 4.0 (last version of BaanIV is BaanIVc4 SP30)  & Industry extensions (A&D,...)

Baan 5.0  (last version of BaanV is Baan5.0 c SP26.0)

Baan 5.1, 5.2 (for specific customers only)

SSA ERP 6.1 / Infor ERP LN 6.1 / Infor10 ERP Enterprise / Infor LN

ERP Ln 6.1 FP6, released in December, 2009

ERP Ln 6.1 FP7, released in January, 2011

ERP LN 6.1 10.2.1, released 2012

Infor LN 10.3, released in July, 2013

Infor LN 10.4, released 2015

Infor LN 10.5, released in June, 2016

Infor LN 10.6, released in March, 2018

Infor LN 10.7, released in January, 2020

Infor ERP Ln 6.1 supports Unicode and comes with additional language translations.

Supported platform and database (server)
Server Platform:

Windows Server, Linux, IBM AIX, Oracle Solaris, HP-UX, OS/400 (Obsolete), OS/390 (Obsolete)

Database:

Oracle Database, IBM DB2, MS SQL Server, Informix (Obsolete since December 2015), MySQL (Obsolete since year 2010), Bisam (Obsolete), Btam (Obsolete)

Standard packages
Baan IV Packages:

Common (tc), Finance (tf), Project (tp), Manufacturing (ti), Distribution (td), Process (ps), Transportation (tr), Service (ts), Enterprise Modeler (tg), Constraint Planning (cp), Tools (tt), Utilities (tu), Baan DEM (tg)

ERP Ln 6.1 Packages:

PDM BaanIV (ba), Conversion (bc), Enterprise Modeler (tg), Common, Taxation (tc), People (bp), Financials (tf), Project (tp), Enterprise Planning (cp), Order Management (td), Electronic Commerce (ec), Central Invoicing (ci), Manufacturing (ti), Warehouse Management (wh),Freight Management (fm), Service (ts), Quality Management (qm), Object Data Management (dm), Tools (tt), Tools Addons (tl), Development Utilities (du)

Baan Virtual Machine – bshell
Bshell is the core component of a Baan application server. It is a process on a virtual machine, to run the Baan 4GL language. Bshell was ported to different server platforms which made the Baan program scripts platform independent. For example, a Baan session developed on the Windows platform could be copied to a Linux platform without re-compiling the application code. Bshell is similar to nowaday's Java VM or .Net CLR.

Fraud
In 1998 Baan had a class action lawsuit filed against them for violation of the securities exchange act of 1934 held in the United States District Court of Columbia. Baan "...undertook a scheme and course of conduct intended to inflate Baan's results through various financial manipulations". The movie De uitverkorene was based on the events with the Baan brothers in 1998. The end credits indicate that it is not a documentary but fiction and that the makers did not intend to portray individuals and events accurately; However, the similarity with the Baan debacle is obvious.

title: Baan Corporation