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The Ghost and the Darkness

The Ghost and the Darkness is a 1996 American historical adventure film directed by Stephen Hopkins and starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas. The screenplay, written by William Goldman, is a fictionalized account of the Tsavo man-eaters, a pair of male lions that terrorized workers in and around Tsavo, Kenya during the building of the Uganda-Mombasa Railway in East Africa in 1898.

The film received mixed reviews and grossed $75 million against a production budget of $55 million. It won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing for supervising sound editor Bruce Stambler.

Plot
In 1898, Robert Beaumont, the primary financier of a railway project in Tsavo, Kenya, seeks out the expertise of Lt. Colonel John Henry Patterson, an Anglo-Irish military engineer, to get the project on schedule. Patterson travels from England to Tsavo, promising his wife, Helena, that he will complete the bridge and be back in London for the birth of their child. Shortly after his arrival, he meets British supervisor Angus Starling, Kenyan foreman Samuel, and Doctor David Hawthorne. Hawthorne informs Patterson of a recent lion attack that has affected the undertaking.

That same night, Patterson ends the life of an approaching lion with a single gunshot, earning the respect of the laborers and allowing them to resume their activities safely. Only a few weeks after, however, Mahina, the construction foreman, is dragged from his tent. At sunrise, his mutilated body is recovered, and Patterson tries another night-time hunt, seeking to catch the lion that ate Mahina. In the morning, he is informed by Starling that the corpse of a second worker has been found at the opposing end of the camp from his position.

Patterson, heeding the advice of Samuel, employs the workers in building thorn fences around the tents in order to prevent any lions from entering. Several days later, in broad daylight, a lion assails the camp, killing another worker. As Patterson, Starling, and Samuel corner the lion while it is feasting on the body, another lion leaps upon them from the roof of a building, slicing Starling across the throat and injuring Patterson on the left arm. Patterson recovers and attempts to shoot them, but both lions escape. Samuel states that there has never been a pair of man-eaters before; they have always been solitary hunters.

The workers, led by a man named Abdullah, begin to turn on Patterson and, consequently, progress on the bridge comes to a halt. Patterson requests soldiers from England as protection, but he is denied. During a brief visit to the site, Beaumont threatens Patterson that, should his commission not be concluded on time, he will tarnish his reputation. He also announces that he will be contacting the famed hunter Charles Remington to help Patterson in eliminating the threat due to his past failures.

A short time later, Remington reaches Tsavo with the company of skilled Maasai warriors, who dub the lions "the Ghost" and "the Darkness" because of their notorious methods. Remington's initial attempt to trap one lion in a thicket fails when Patterson's borrowed gun misfires. The warriors decide to leave, daunted by the beast, but Remington elects to stay behind. He constructs a new hospital tent for sick and injured workers and tempts the lions to the abandoned building with animal parts and blood. The man-eaters seemingly fall for the trap, but Remington and Patterson shoot at them, and they retreat to the new hospital, slaughtering many patients and Hawthorne.

Abdullah and the workers depart, leaving Patterson, Remington, and Samuel alone. The former two locate the animals' lair and discover the bones of dozens of victims, leading Remington to the realization that the lions are acting as they have been merely for sport. Back at camp that evening, Patterson mounts a hunting stand in a clearing and lures one of the predators to his position using a baboon as bait. The plan goes awry after Patterson falls from the stand, but Remington manages to slay the feline before it can leap on Patterson. He, Patterson, and Samuel spend the remainder of the night drinking and celebrating, but the next morning, Patterson awakes to find that the remaining lion has devoured Remington as he and Samuel slept.

The two men cremate Remington's remains and burn the tall grass surrounding the camp, driving the surviving lion toward the trap that they have set there. It ambushes them on the partially constructed bridge and, after a lengthy chase, Patterson finally dispatches it with a double-rifle Samuel has thrown to him from a nearby tree. Abdullah and the workers return, and the bridge is completed on time. Patterson reunites with his wife and meets their son for the first time.

Cast

 * Michael Douglas as Charles Remington
 * Val Kilmer as Colonel John Henry Patterson
 * John Kani as Samuel
 * Brian McCardie as Angus Starling
 * Bernard Hill as David Hawthorne
 * Tom Wilkinson as Sir Robert Beaumont
 * Emily Mortimer as Helena Patterson
 * Henry Cele as Mahina
 * Om Puri as Abdullah

Production
The film is based upon The Man-Eaters of Tsavo by Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson, the man who actually killed both real lions.

Screenplay
William Goldman first heard about the story when travelling in Africa in 1984, and thought it would make a good script. In 1989 he pitched the story to Paramount as a cross between Lawrence of Arabia and Jaws, and they commissioned him to write a screenplay which he delivered in 1990.

"My particular feeling is that they were evil," said Goldman of the lions. "I believe that for nine months, evil popped out of the ground at Tsavo."

The script fictionalizes Patterson's account, introducing an American big game hunter called Charles Remington. The character was based on Anglo-Indian big game hunter Charles H. Ryall, superintendent of the Railway Police. In original drafts the character was called Redbeard, and Goldman says his purpose in the story was to create an imposing character who could be killed by the lions and make Patterson seem more brave; Goldman says his ideal casting for the role would have been Burt Lancaster.

According to Goldman, Kevin Costner expressed interest in playing Patterson, but Paramount wanted to use Tom Cruise who ultimately declined. Work on the film slowed until Michael Douglas moved his producing unit with partner Steven Reuther, Constellation Films, to Paramount. Douglas read the script and loved it, calling it "an incredible thriller about events that actually took place." Douglas decided to produce and Stephen Hopkins was hired to direct.

Val Kilmer, who had just made Batman Forever and was a frequent visitor to Africa, then expressed enthusiasm for the script, which enabled the project to be financed.

The part of Remington was originally offered to Sean Connery and Anthony Hopkins but both declined; the producers were considering asking Gérard Depardieu when Douglas decided to play the role himself. Stephen Hopkins later said he was unhappy about this.

In early drafts of the script, Remington was originally going to be an enigmatic figure but when Douglas chose to play him, the character's role was expanded and was given a history. In Goldman's book Which Lie Did I Tell?, the screenwriter argues that Douglas' decision ruined the mystery of the character, making him a "wimp" and a "loser".

Locations
The film was shot mainly on location at Songimvelo Game Reserve in South Africa, rather than Kenya, due to tax laws. Many Maasai characters in the film were actually portrayed by South African actors, although the Maasai depicted during the hunt were portrayed by real Maasai warriors who were hired for the movie.

Filming
While the real man-eaters were, like all lions from the Tsavo region, a more aggressive, maneless variety, those used for filming were actually the least aggressive available, for both safety and aesthetic reasons. Paramount's cinematic lions were two male African lions with manes. They were mostly performed by Caesar and Bongo of Clarington, Ontario, Canada's Bowmanville Zoo. Caesar and Bongo were also featured in George of the Jungle. This cinematic production featured three other male African lions: two from France and one from the United States.

Director Stephen Hopkins later said of the shoot: "We had snake bites, scorpion bites, tick bite fever, people getting hit by lightning, floods, torrential rains and lightning storms, hippos chasing people through the water, cars getting swept into the water, and several deaths of crew members, including two drownings.... Val came to the set under the worst conditions imaginable. He was completely exhausted from doing The Island of Dr. Moreau; he was dealing with the unfavorable publicity from that set; he was going through a divorce; he barely had time to get his teeth into this role before we started; and he is in nearly every scene in this movie. But I worked him six or seven days a week for four months under really adverse conditions, and he really came through. He had a passion for this film."

Box office
During its opening weekend, The Ghost and the Darkness grossed $10.3 million. The film ultimately grossed over $38.6 million domestically, and $75 million worldwide.

Critical response
The film won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing (Bruce Stambler) at the 69th Academy Awards. However, Val Kilmer was nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor. Reviews were mixed, with Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 50% rating based on 52 reviews. The site's consensus states: "The Ghost and the Darkness hits its target as a suspenseful adventure, but it falls into a trap of its own making whenever it reaches for supernatural profundity." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 46 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Roger Ebert said the film was so awful it "lacked the usual charm of being so bad it's funny" adding it was "an African adventure that makes the Tarzan movies look subtle and realistic". Ebert would put the film on his list of the worst movies of 1996. Conversely, David R. Ellis listed this film at #8 on his "Top 10 Animal Horror Movies" countdown, a list he made to promote the release of Shark Night 3D.

Hopkins said in a 1998 interview that the film "was a mess... I haven't been able to watch it."

Home media
The Ghost and the Darkness was released by Paramount Home Video on DVD on December 1, 1998.

On May 10, 2022, Shout! Factory issued The Ghost and the Darkness on Blu-Ray in a new 4K scan.

Historical accuracy
Although Patterson claimed the lions were responsible for up to 135 deaths, a peer-reviewed paper on man-eating lions and the circumstances surrounding this notorious event states that about 28–31 killings can be verified (Kerbis Peterhans & Gnoske, 2001).

Patterson's 1907 book itself states that "between them (the lions) no less than 28 Indian coolies, in addition to scores of unfortunate African natives of whom no official record was kept" were killed. This lesser number was confirmed in the definitive paper on man-eating behavior and the Tsavo lions by Kerbis Peterhans and Gnoske (2001) and soon thereafter in Dr. Bruce Patterson's definitive book The Lions of Tsavo: Exploring the Legacy of Africa's Notorious Man-Eaters published by McGraw-Hill in 2004. Kerbis Peterhans & Gnoske showed that the greater toll attributed to the lions resulted from a pamphlet written by Col. Patterson in 1925, stating "these two ferocious brutes killed and devoured, under the most appalling circumstances, 135 Indian and African artisans and laborers employed in the construction of the Uganda Railway."

The location where the bridge was built is now called Man-Eater's Camp. It is in Tsavo East National Park, Kenya, about 125 km east of Mount Kilimanjaro and 260 km southeast of Nairobi, at -2.99356°N, 38.46146°W.

title: The Ghost and the Darkness


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Fisherian runaway

Fisherian runaway or runaway selection is a sexual selection mechanism proposed by the mathematical biologist Ronald Fisher in the early 20th century, to account for the evolution of ostentatious male ornamentation by persistent, directional female choice. An example is the colourful and elaborate peacock plumage compared to the relatively subdued peahen plumage; the costly ornaments, notably the bird's extremely long tail, appear to be incompatible with natural selection. Fisherian runaway can be postulated to include sexually dimorphic phenotypic traits such as behavior expressed by a particular sex.

Extreme and (seemingly) maladaptive sexual dimorphism represented a paradox for evolutionary biologists from Charles Darwin's time up to the modern synthesis. Darwin attempted to resolve the paradox by assuming heredity for both the preference and the ornament, and supposed an "aesthetic sense" in higher animals, leading to powerful selection of both characteristics in subsequent generations. Fisher developed the theory further by assuming genetic correlation between the preference and the ornament, that initially the ornament signalled greater potential fitness (the likelihood of leaving more descendants), so preference for the ornament had a selective advantage. Subsequently, if strong enough, female preference for exaggerated ornamentation in mate selection could be enough to undermine natural selection even when the ornament has become non-adaptive. Over subsequent generations this could lead to runaway selection by positive feedback, and the speed with which the trait and the preference increase could (until counter-selection interferes) increase exponentially.

Modern descriptions of the same mechanism using quantitative genetic and population genetic models were mainly established by Russell Lande and Mark Kirkpatrick in the 1980s, and are now more commonly referred to as the sexy son hypothesis.

From Charles Darwin to Ronald Fisher
Charles Darwin published a book on sexual selection in 1871 called The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, which garnered interest upon its release but by the 1880s the ideas had been deemed too controversial and were largely neglected. Alfred Russel Wallace disagreed with Darwin, particularly after Darwin's death, that sexual selection was a real phenomenon.

Ronald Fisher was one of the few other biologists to engage with the question. When Wallace stated that animals show no sexual preference in his 1915 paper, The evolution of sexual preference, Fisher publicly disagreed:

Fisher, in the foundational 1930 book, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, first outlined a model by which runaway inter-sexual selection could lead to sexually dimorphic male ornamentation based upon female choice and a preference for "attractive" but otherwise non-adaptive traits in male mates. He suggested that selection for traits that increase fitness may be quite common:

A strong female choice for the expression alone, as opposed to the function, of a male ornament can oppose and undermine the forces of natural selection and result in the runaway sexual selection that leads to the further exaggeration of the ornament (as well as the preference) until the costs (incurred by natural selection) of the expression become greater than the benefit (bestowed by sexual selection).

Peacocks and sexual dimorphism

The plumage dimorphism of the peacock and peahen of the species within the genus Pavo is a prime example of the ornamentation paradox that has long puzzled evolutionary biologists; Darwin wrote in 1860:"The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!"The peacock's colourful and elaborate tail requires a great deal of energy to grow and maintain. It also reduces the bird's agility, and may increase the animal's visibility to predators. The tail appears to lower the overall fitness of the individuals who possess it. Yet, it has evolved, indicating that peacocks who have longer and more colourfully elaborate tails have some advantage over peacocks who do not. Fisherian runaway posits that the evolution of the peacock tail is made possible if peahens have a preference to mate with peacocks that possess a longer and more colourful tail. Peahens that select males with these tails in turn have male offspring that are more likely to have long and colourful tails and thus are more likely to be sexually successful themselves. Equally importantly, the female offspring of these peahens are more likely to have a preference for peacocks with longer and more colourful tails. However, though the relative fitness of males with large tails is higher than those without, the absolute fitness levels of all the members of the population (both male and female) is less than it would be if none of the peahens (or only a small number) had a preference for a longer or more colourful tail.

Initiation
Fisher outlined two fundamental conditions that must be fulfilled for the Fisherian runaway mechanism to lead to the evolution of extreme ornamentation:

 * 1) Sexual preference in at least one of the sexes
 * 2) A corresponding reproductive advantage to the preference.

Fisher argued in his 1915 paper, "The evolution of sexual preference", that the type of female preference necessary for Fisherian runaway could be initiated without any understanding or appreciation for beauty. Fisher suggested that any visible features that indicate fitness, that are not themselves adaptive, that draw attention, and that vary in their appearance amongst the population of males so that the females can easily compare them, would be enough to initiate Fisherian runaway. This suggestion is compatible with his theory, and indicates that the choice of feature is essentially arbitrary, and could be different in different populations. Such arbitrariness is borne out by mathematical modelling, and by observation of isolated populations of sandgrouse, where the males can differ markedly from those in other populations.

Genetic basis
Fisherian runaway assumes that sexual preference in females and ornamentation in males are both genetically variable (heritable).

Female choice
Fisher argued that the selection for exaggerated male ornamentation is driven by the coupled exaggeration of female sexual preference for the ornament.

Positive feedback
Over time a positive feedback mechanism, one that involves a loop in which an increase in a quantity causes a further increase in the same quantity, will see more exaggerated sons and choosier daughters being produced with each successive generation; resulting in the runaway selection for the further exaggeration of both the ornament and the preference (until the costs for producing the ornament outweigh the reproductive benefit of possessing it).

Alternative hypotheses
Several alternative hypotheses use the same genetic runaway (or positive feedback) mechanism but differ in the mechanisms of the initiation. Indicator hypotheses suggest that females choose desirably ornamented males because the cost of producing the desirable ornaments is indicative of good genes by way of the individual's vigour; for instance, the handicap principle proposes that females distinguish the best males by the measurable cost of certain visible features which have no other purpose, by analogy with a handicap race, in which the best horses carry the largest weights.

The sensory exploitation hypothesis proposes that sexual preferences for exaggerated traits are the result of sensory biases, such as that for supernormal stimuli.

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

title: Fisherian runaway


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Interactive proof

Interactive proof can refer to:

 * The abstract concept of an Interactive proof system
 * Interactive theorem proving software

title: Interactive proof


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Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud

Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud is a 1996 PBS American Masters documentary drama film on the inventor, visionary, and thinker R. Buckminster Fuller produced and directed by Academy Award nominees Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon.

Summary
Fuller, who died in 1983, is considered by some to be one of the 20th century's most noteworthy, controversial, and creative thinkers. The film looks at his unconventional life, his innovations, and his radical view of the contemporary world. Best known as the inventor of the Geodesic Dome, Fuller had many other inventions, such as an air-streamed three-wheeled car and many other ideas of how to "benefit mankind."

The film includes interviews with Philip Johnson, Merce Cunningham, John Cage and Arthur Penn. It is narrated by Morley Safer, with Spalding Gray as the voice of Buckminster Fuller.

Production
The filmmakers were the first journalists to have open access to the vast collections of Fuller's personal papers. As Fuller was widely documented, the film includes extensive archival footage of Fuller from many sources.

Accolades
The film premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 1996 and was nominated for an Emmy for Best Cultural/Historical Documentary the same year.

title: Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud


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title: User talk:62.171.198.38


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Santa Cruz County

Santa Cruz County is the name of two counties in the United States:

 * Santa Cruz County, Arizona
 * Santa Cruz County, California

title: Santa Cruz County


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Quark (disambiguation)

A quark is an elementary particle.

Quark may also refer to:

 * "Quark", a nonce word in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, and the origin of the particle name

Computing

 * Quark (company), a software manufacturer
 * Quark (kernel), a microkernel used in the MorphOS operating system
 * QuArK or Quake Army Knife, a game editor
 * Quark (hash function), a cryptographic hash function
 * Intel Quark, a line of CPUs designed for small size and low power consumption
 * Quarks, X resources representing strings using integers
 * BlackBerry Quark, a line of smartphones

Music

 * Quark Records, a former name of Emanem Records
 * Quark, a 1980 album by Japanese jazz fusion artist Jun Fukamachi
 * "Quark" (song), a 1994 song by German rock band Die Ärzte
 * "Quark", a 1995 song by BT from Ima

Fictional characters

 * Quark (Star Trek), in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
 * Captain Qwark, a character in Ratchet & Clank video games
 * Quark, in Valhalla
 * Quark, a Marvel Comics character often associated with Longshot
 * Quark, a type of robot from Doctor Who TV series
 * Quark, a white dragon from Lunar: The Silver Star and its remakes
 * Quark, the family dog in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
 * Quark, in Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

Other entertainment uses

 * Quark/, four books of original short stories and poetry published in 1970 and 1971
 * Quark (magazine), a 1970s popular science and puzzle magazine
 * Quark (TV series), a short-lived 1977/1978 science fiction sitcom
 * Quark!, the pre-launch proposed name for Science Channel
 * Quarks (TV series), a German science journalism program

Other uses

 * Quark (technical festival), an annual technical festival
 * Quark (dairy product), a type of fresh dairy product similar to cottage cheese
 * Peugeot Quark, a concept car

title: Quark (disambiguation)


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Otto Wichterle

Otto Wichterle (27 October 1913 – 18 August 1998) was a Czech chemist, best known for his invention of modern soft contact lenses.

Wichterle is the author or co-author of approximately 180 patents and over 200 publications. The studies and independent books covered various aspects of organic, inorganic and macromolecular chemistry, polymer science, and biomedical materials. He held a higher number of patents for organic synthesis, polymerization, fibres, the synthesis and shaping of biomedical materials, production methods and measuring devices related to biomedical products. This was typical of his attitude to scientific research, which, he considered, ought to serve society and its requirements by any means possible, without distinction as to "pure" and "applied" science.

Schooling and chemistry background
Wichterle's father Karel ,was co-owner of a successful farm-machine factory and small car plant but Otto chose science for his career. After finishing high school (today's Wolker Grammar School) in Prostějov, Wichterle began to study at the Chemical and Technological Faculty of the Czech Technical University (now the independent University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague) but he was also interested in medicine. He graduated in 1936, and stayed at the university. In 1939, he submitted his second doctorate thesis on chemistry, but the Protectorate regime blocked any further activity at the university. However, Wichterle was able to join the research institute at Baťa's works in Zlín and continue his scientific work.

At Baťa's institute Wichterle led the technical preparation of plastics, namely polyamide and caprolactam. In 1941, Wichterle's team invented the procedure to throw and spool polyamide thread ,thus making the first Czechoslovak synthetic fiber under the name silon (the invention came independently of the original American nylon procedure in 1938). Wichterle was imprisoned by the Gestapo in 1942 but was released after a few months.

After World War II, Wichterle returned to the university, specializing in organic chemistry, and was active in teaching general and inorganic chemistry. He wrote an inorganic chemistry textbook, the concept of which was ahead of its time, and also wrote a German and Czech organic chemistry textbook. In 1949 he expanded his second doctorate with the technology of plastics and devoted himself fully to the establishment of a new department of plastics technology.

Prototype development
In 1952, he was made dean of the newly established Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague. From that time on, Wichterle devoted himself to studying the synthesis of cross-linking hydrophilous gels, with the aim of finding a material suitable for use in permanent contact with living tissues. Wichterle accepted the help of one of his colleagues, Drahoslav Lím, and together they succeeded in preparing a cross-linking gel which absorbed up to 40% water, exhibited suitable mechanical properties and was transparent. This new material was the Poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (pHEMA), that they patented in 1953. Wichterle thought pHEMA might be a suitable material for contact lenses and gained his first patent for soft contact lenses. In 1954 this material was first used as an orbital implant. In 1957 Wichterle produced around 100 soft lenses from closed polystyrene molds but the edges split and tore as the lenses were removed. In addition, they required hand finishing. He was determined to find a better way. Unfortunately, Wichterle and other prominent teachers had to leave the Institute of Chemical Technology after a political purge staged by its Communist leadership in 1958. Research into contact eye lenses at the Institute of Chemical Technology came to an end. The International Symposium on Macromolecular Chemistry held in Prague in 1957 convinced the state leadership of the need to establish a centre for research into synthetic polymers. The Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (CSAS) came into being in 1958, with Professor Wichterle appointed its director. Since the institute's building was under construction at that time, Professor Wichterle conducted the decisive experiments to transform hydrogels into a suitable contact lens shape at his home.

Early models
By late 1961 Wichterle succeeded in producing the first four hydrogel contact lenses on a home-made apparatus built using a children's building kit (Merkur), a bicycle dynamo belonging to one of his sons, and a bell transformer. Wichterle also made all the moulds and glass tubing needed to dose them with monomer. On Christmas afternoon, with the help of his wife Linda Wichterlová, using the machine on his kitchen table, Wichterle finally succeeded. He tried the lenses in his own eyes and although they were the wrong power they were comfortable. Thus, he invented a new way of manufacturing the lenses using a centrifugal casting procedure. A few days later, he completed his patent application and produced over 100 lenses by spin casting. He built several new prototype machines using Merkur toys, with increasing numbers of spindles which required the stronger motor taken from his gramophone. With these rudimentary devices, in the first four months of 1962, Wichterle and Linda made 5,500 lenses. The early experimental lenses were called Geltakt and the later production lenses Spofalens after the state enterprise SPOFA which manufactured them.

Patent
In 1965 National Patent Development Corporation (NPDC) bought the American rights to produce the lenses and then sublicensed the rights to Bausch & Lomb which started to manufacture them in the USA. In 1977 the patents were challenged, mainly by Continuous Curve Contact Lenses and in May 1977 the CSAS sold these patents to avoid any liability if the court case failed. However, Wichterle and NPDC won the court case in 1983.

Later recognition and Czechoslovakia reform
Wichterle came to be well-known beyond the frontiers of his country not only through his achievements but also because of his activities in international organizations, chief among which was the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). He took part in the preparations for its Prague symposia in 1957 and 1965, which were much applauded by participants; he had a hand in the inauguration of its fifth, macromolecular, division, of which he was to become the first president, and he gained further credit by combining within it what were for normal administrative purposes the separate fields of pure and applied chemistry.

In 1970, Wichterle was expelled again from his position in the institute, this time for signing "The Two Thousand Words"—a manifesto asking for the continuation of the democratization process begun in 1968 during the Prague Spring. Punishment by the regime included removing him from his executive positions and making his research more and more difficult mainly by cutting off contacts from abroad and limiting his teaching opportunities. Full recognition did not come until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. In 1990, he was made president of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences till the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and was the honorary president of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic after that.

Honors and achievements
Wichterle was a member of a number of foreign academies of science, he received many awards and honorary doctorates from several universities.
 * In 1991 Otto Wichterle was awarded honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois at Chicago and from the Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, NY.
 * The asteroid number 3899 was named after Wichterle in 1993.
 * A prestigious secondary school in Ostrava (in the district of Poruba) in the Czech Republic was named after him on 1 September 2006.
 * On 27 October 2021, Google celebrated Wichterle's 108th birth anniversary with a doodle on its homepage.

Publications

 * Allgemeine organische Chemie, Berlin : Akademie-Verlag, 1955, 2nd ext. ed. 1959

title: Otto Wichterle


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Sharp-tailed grouse

The sharp-tailed grouse (Tympanuchus phasianellus), also known as the sharptail or fire grouse, is a medium-sized prairie grouse. One of three species in the genus Tympanuchus, the sharp-tailed grouse is found throughout Alaska, much of Northern and Western Canada, and parts of the Western and Midwestern United States. The sharp-tailed grouse is the provincial bird of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.

Taxonomy
In 1750 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the sharp-tailed grouse in the third volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds. He used the English name "The Long-tailed Grous from Hudson's-Bay". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a preserved specimen that had been brought to London from Hudson Bay by James Isham. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the sharp-tailed grouse with other grouse in the genus Tetrao. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Tetrao phasianellus and cited Edwards' work. The sharp-tailed grouse is now placed in the genus Tympanuchus that was introduced in 1841 by the German zoologist Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger for the greater prairie chicken. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek tumpanon meaning "kettle-drum" with ēkheō meaning "to sound". The specific epithet phasianellus is a diminutive of the Latin phasianus meaning "pheasant".

The greater prairie chicken, lesser prairie chicken, and sharp-tailed grouse make up the genus Tympanuchus, a genus of grouse found only in North America. Six extant and one extinct subspecies of sharp-tailed grouse are recognised:
 * T. p. phasianellus: the nominate race or northern sharp-tailed grouse is found in Manitoba, northern Ontario, and central Quebec. It is partly migratory.
 * T. p. kennicotti: the northwestern sharp-tailed grouse is resident from the Mackenzie River to the Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories, Canada.
 * T. p. caurus: the Alaskan sharp-tailed grouse inhabits north-central Alaska eastwards to the southern Yukon, northern British Columbia, and northern Alberta.
 * T. p. columbianus: the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse can be found in isolated pockets of native sagebrush and bunchgrass plains of Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and British Columbia.
 * T. p. campestris: the prairie sharp-tailed grouse lives in Saskatchewan, southeastern Manitoba, southwestern Ontario, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to northern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin. This subspecies coexists with the plains race around the northern Red River Valley and prefers low seral stages of recently converted forests to shrubland.
 * T. p. jamesi: the plains sharp-tailed grouse makes its home in the northern Great Plains in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, eastern Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and northeastern Wyoming. This race lives in the mixed-grass prairie, preferring a mosaic of native grasslands, cropland, and brushy/woody riparian draws, creeks, and rivers for a winter food source above the snow cover as buds and berries.
 * †T. p. hueyi: the New Mexico sharp-tailed grouse is extinct.

Description
Adults have a relatively short tail with the two central (deck) feathers being square-tipped and somewhat longer than their lighter, outer tail feathers giving the bird its distinctive name. The plumage is mottled dark and light browns against a white background, they are lighter on the underparts with a white belly uniformly covered in faint V-shaped markings. These markings distinguish sharp-tailed grouse from lesser and greater prairie chickens which are heavily barred on their underparts. Adult males have a yellow comb over their eyes and a violet display patch on their neck. This display patch is another distinguishing characteristic from prairie chickens as male prairie chickens have yellow or orange colored air sacs. The female is smaller than the male and can be distinguished by the regular horizontal markings across the deck feathers as opposed to the irregular markings on the males deck feathers which run parallel to the feather shaft. Females also tend to have less obvious combs.

Measurements:

 * Length: 15.0-19.0 in (38.1-48.3 cm)
 * Weight: 21.0-31.0 oz (596-880 g)
 * Wingspan: 24.4-25.6 in (62-65 cm)

Distribution
Sharp-tailed grouse historically occupied eight Canadian provinces and 21 U.S. states pre-European settlement. They ranged from as far north as Alaska, south to California and New Mexico, and east to Quebec, Canada. Following European settlement the sharp-tailed grouse has been extirpated from California, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Nevada, and New Mexico.

Feeding
These birds forage on the ground in summer, in trees in winter. They eat seeds, buds, berries, forbs, and leaves, also insects, especially grasshoppers, in summer. Specific species of grasshopper the sharp-tailed grouse is known to feed on are Melanoplus dawsoni and Pseudochorthippus curtipennis.

Breeding
The sharp-tailed grouse is a lekking bird species. These birds display in open areas known as leks with other males, anywhere from a single male to upwards of 20 will occupy one lek (averaging 8-12). A lek is an assembly area where animals carry on display and courtship behavior. During the spring, male sharp-tailed grouse attend these leks from March through July with peak attendance in late April, early May. These dates do fluctuate from year to year based on the weather. Johnsgard (2002) observed weather delayed lekking of up to two weeks by sharp-tailed grouse in North Dakota. The males display on the lek by stamping their feet rapidly, about 20 times per second, and rattle their tail feathers while turning in circles or dancing forward. Purple neck sacs are inflated and deflated during display. The males use "cooing" calls also to attract and compete for females. The females select the most dominant one or two males in the center of the lek, copulate, and then leave to nest and raise the young in solitary from the male. Occasionally a low-ranking male may act like a female, approach the dominant male and fight him.

Habitat selection
The sharp-tailed grouse is found throughout different prairie ecosystems in North America. They inhabit ecosystems from the pine savannahs of the eastern upper Midwest to the short grass, mid grass, and shrub steppe prairies of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain West. Selection of specific habitat characteristics and vegetation communities is variable among the different subspecies of sharp-tailed grouse. Selection of these specific habitats depends on the quality of habitat available to grouse. The major habitats used by sharp-tailed grouse, recorded in the literature, are savannah style prairie with grasses dominant and shrub patches mixed throughout, with minimal patches of trees. In fact, Hammerstrom (1963) states the taller the woody vegetation, the less of it there should be in the habitat. The savannah style habitat is mostly preferred during the summer and brood rearing months through autumn. This general habitat is used during all four seasons for different features. Habitat selection and usage vary by season with; lekking, nesting, brood rearing, and winter habitat selected and utilized differently.

Lekking habitat
The lek, or dancing ground is, usually made up of short, relatively flat native vegetation. Other habitat types utilized for leks are cultivated lands, recent burns, mowed sites, grazed hill tops, and wet meadows. Manske and Barker (1987) reported sun sedge (Carex inops), needle and thread grass (Hesperostipa comata), and blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) on lekking grounds in the Sheyenne National Grassland in North Dakota. The males also select for upland or midland habitat type on the tops of ridges or hills. Leks surrounded by high residual vegetation were observed by Kirsch et al. (1973). They noticed lek distribution was influenced by the amount of tall residual vegetation adjacent to the lek. Lek sites eventually became abandoned if vegetation structure was allowed to get too high. The invasion of woody vegetation and trees into lekking arenas also caused displaying males to abandon leks. Moyles (1981) observed an inverse relationship of lek attendance by males with an increase in quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) within 0.8 km of arenas in the Alberta parklands. Berger and Baydack (1992) also observed a similar trend in aspen encroachment where 50% (7 of 14) of leks were abandoned when aspen coverage increased to over 56 percent of the total area within 1 km of the lek. Males select hilltops, ridges, or any place with a good field of view for leks. So they can see the surrounding displaying males, approaching females to the dancing ground, and predators.

Nesting habitat
Nesting cover is one of the most important habitat types needed by sharp-tailed grouse hens. Nesting habitat varies widely among the different subspecies of sharp-tailed grouse. Hamerstrom Jr. (1939) found the majority of prairie sharp-tailed grouse (T. p. campestris) nests occupied dense brush and woods at marsh edges. Gieson and Connelly (1993) reported that Columbian sharp-tailed grouse (T. p. columbianus) selected for dense shrub stands with taller, denser shrubs located at the nest site. Plains sharp-tailed grouse (T. p. jamesii) selected nest sites with dense residual vegetation and a shrubby component. However, nest sites are usually characterized by dense tall residual vegetation (last year’s growth) with the presence of woody vegetation either at the nest site or nearby. Goddard et al. (2009) state that the use of shrub dominated habitats has not been documented by many other researchers. Goddard et al. (2009) found that sharp-tailed grouse hens in Alberta, Canada selected more for shrub steppe habitats in their first nest attempts because of increased concealment provided by the shrubs than the residual grass earlier in the breeding season. Roersma (2001) also found that grouse in southern Alberta selected taller, woody vegetation compared to all other habitats assessed, and grouse used this area in greater proportions to available woody habitat. These findings contradict Prose et al. (2002), who states that residual vegetation is critical to sharp-tailed grouse nest success due to the early seasonal nesting nature of the grouse.

Brood habitat
Sharp-tailed grouse are a precocial species, meaning that they hatch with their eyes open, are self-reliant, and do not require the mother to feed them. Shortly after hatching, the chicks and mother leave the nest site in search of cover and food. Brood rearing habitats of sharp-tailed grouse have many characteristics including: shrubby vegetation for concealment, short vegetation nearby for feeding, and high amounts of forbs present. This could explain why sharp-tailed grouse nest in or close to shrub communities. The shrub component in brooding habitat provides good canopy protection from direct sunlight and avian predators. Hamerstrom (1963) and Goddard et al. (2009) both observed the greatest number of sharp-tailed grouse broods present in open, rather than wooded landscapes. Both hypothesized this use of open landscape was due to an abundance of insects for the chicks and green herbaceous cover for the hen to feed on. Habitat usage by sharp-tailed grouse broods is a function of time of day, available habitat, and weather. Brood habitats are made up of many complex habitat types. Broods may utilize shrubby areas or oak grassland savannah type habitats. Broods utilize these types of habitats for cover, while remaining close to prime foraging habitats in the form of shorter vegetation with a mixture of native vegetation.

Winter habitat
Winter habitat usage by sharp-tailed grouse seems to shift toward denser cover for thermal insulation. Hammerstrom and Hammerstrom (1951) noticed that grouse use thicker edge type habitat more than the open ground during the winter in Michigan and Wisconsin. Hammerstrom and Hammerstrom (1951) also noted that birds, when found in open habitat, were no more than a few hundred meters from thicker cover. These birds were usually utilizing grain fields. Swenson (1985) observed the same trend in Montana. Hamerstrom and Hammerstrom (1951) declared that use of forested habitat by sharp-tailed grouse vary by location, noting that sharp-tailed grouse in more semi-arid and arid areas utilize brush less frequently in winter. However, Hammerstrom and Hammerstrom (1951) did report that sharp-tailed grouse in Washington and California were observed using edge type habitats more frequently during winter months. Manske and Barker (1987) noticed a similar trend in winter habitat usage in North Dakota, noting that sharp-tailed grouse in small flocks joined together to form larger packs in severe weather. These packs move from open prairie, to shelterbelts, and adjacent croplands with standing corn and sunflowers. Habitat usage in winter varies greatly as a function of snow depth (Swenson 1985). As snow depth increases, habitat selection shifts from cropland and prairie to shelterbelts and woody vegetation. One habitat change seen by Hamerstrom and Hamerstrom (1951), was grouse would select large snow banks to burrow into, to keep warm during cold nights. The use of burrows was also noted by Gratson (1988).

Habitat fragmentation
Habitat fragmentation has been one of factors driving the decline of all subspecies of sharp-tailed grouse across its entire range throughout North America. The type of habitat fragmentation varies from ecological succession, as shrub/grassland areas transition into forested areas. Fire suppression, tree plantings, limiting logging practices, and an increase of invasive woody species have also led to habitat fragmentation. The largest contributor to habitat fragmentation has been the agriculture industry.

The Homestead Act 1862 opened up great expanses of virgin prairie in the west to early settlers. By 1905 about 41 million hectares of the west had been homesteaded. Much of this land was in semi-arid rangelands with sub-marginal precipitation to support crop production. The plowing of this land represented a permanent change in the nature of the land. Another contributor to habitat fragmentation for grouse is unmonitored and excessive cattle grazing. Cattle can be an important tool to manage habitat structure for sharp-tailed grouse when managed properly (Evens 1968). The habitat of sharp-tailed grouse was severely affected by early settlers before cattle grazers understood the impact to the environment from overgrazing.

A secondary effect of early agriculture during the years of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression in the late 1920s and early 1930s was when homesteaders abandoned the unproductive land. The United States government bought up much of this land through the Land Utilization Program, with management eventually controlled by the United States Forest service and the Bureau of Land Management. During the drought years of the 1930s, these agencies re-vegetated some of these areas with non-native highly competitive vegetation such as smooth brome (Bromus inermis) and crested wheatgrass (Agropyron cristatum). These plants served their purpose by re-vegetating and protecting the soil. But these invaders became great competitors and directly affected native vegetation. In some instances crested wheatgrass and smooth brome have forced out native vegetation, creating monoculture habitats. Monoculture habitats are not favored by sharp-tailed grouse, as they prefer sites with high heterogeneity. Hamerstrom (1939) was quoted as saying "More important than the individual cover plants is the fact that most of the nests of all species were in cover mixtures rather than pure stands."

Habitat assessment
Research conducted before 1950 on sharp-tailed grouse habitat assessment was done visually. Hamerstrom (1939) reported sparse vegetation was seldom selected for nesting due to lack of adequate cover. Habitat generalizations were formed based on the number of individuals found at a given local. These assumptions were if more birds were present at one location and less at another, then the first must be the better habitat. Hamerstrom (1963) observed 119 of 207 (57%) grouse broods frequenting savannah style habitat. He concluded that the savannah style habitat was the habitat needed for best management. As the research on habitat for grouse species matured, so did the techniques used for assessment. Cover boards and Robel poles were developed to measure visual obstruction (VO) and create habitat indices. Cover boards were developed as early as 1938 by Wight (1938) to study white-tailed deer habitat. Wight’s (1938) cover board was 6 feet in height, marked and numbered every foot. Visible marks were counted to measure obstruction by plants. Kobriger (1965) developed a 4×4-foot board marked at 3-inch intervals with alternating white and black squares. He placed a camera in the center of the breeding ground at a height of 3 feet. He then placed the cover board 30 feet away taking photographs of the cover board. After compiling all the photographs, they were analyzed with a hand lens to assess the number of squares visible. This number gave him a vegetation index of cover classes. This method has been modified by Limb et al. (2007). Instead of taking photographs 30 feet away like Kobriger (1965), Limb et al. (2007) took photographs of vegetation back-dropped by a 1×1-meter cover board at a height of 1 meter, 4 meters away. These digital photographs were uploaded to Adobe Acrobat and digitized to the 1×1-meter backdrop. Robel et al. (1970) developed a pole to determine height based on correlated vegetation weight. The pole was duly named the Robel pole. Robel et al. (1970) found that VO measurements taken at a height of 1 m and a distance of 4 m from the pole gave a reliable index of the amount of vegetation production at a location. Hamerstrom et al. (1957) were quoted as saying "Height and density of grass were clearly more important to the prairie chickens than species composition" as reported by Robel et al. (1970). This was also believed to be true for the sharp-tailed grouse. These key aspects can now be assessed using the Robel pole, Nudds cover board, and Limb et al. digital photography method effectively and efficiently.

Management
It is apparent that the effects of habitat fragmentation across all habitat types selected by sharp-tailed grouse are impacting this species. The management of sharp-tailed grouse habitat has changed over the years from observational (making sure current habitat is maintained) to a more hands on approach. The management of lekking habitat and winter habitat are not as clearly defined in the literature as nesting and brood rearing habitat assessment and management. The development of the Robel pole and cover boards has become a key tool in habitat assessment providing land managers a means to inventory and study habitat preferences based on vegetation structure and density. The Robel pole has become the more favored of the two methods in recent years for habitat assessment. The United States Forest Service (USFS) uses visual obstruction readings (VOR) to set stocking densities for cattle based on the current years standing residual vegetation. This method is currently conducted on the USFS Little Missouri Grasslands, Cheyenne National Grasslands, Cedar River National Grassland, and Grand River National Grassland, all found in the Dakota Prairie National Grasslands in North and South Dakota.

The Robel pole is a non-destructive method for inventorying vegetative biomass. This method was used to create a habitat suitability index based on vegetation visual obstruction (VO), ranging from 0-30.5 cm with a suitability index rating of 0-1.0. Studies of nesting habitat by Prose et al. (2002) in the Nebraska Sandhills found that nesting sharp-tailed grouse selected nest sites with visual obstruction readings (VOR) of more than 4 cm. Similarly, Clawson and Rottella (1998) observed that 58% of nests (432 of 741) in Southwestern Montana were located in sites with an average VOR of 24 cm. The other nests in this study were located in sites with VOR’s of 11–18 cm. Reece et al. (2001) observed that sites with a VO of less than 5 cm near possible nesting locations indicated a decline in quality nesting habitat as average VO declined. The use of the Robel pole to assess habitat for sharp-tailed grouse has given managers a target height of vegetation structure to have at the end of the grazing season. This allows managers to set the appropriate stocking rate to best attain a desired vegetation height. As a rule of thumb, the average VOR reading for suitable grouse nesting habitat is 3.5in (8.89 cm). Lekking habitat can be managed by burning, mowing, clear cutting, and grazing across the entire range of the sharp-tailed grouse subspecies. Ammann (1957) found that leks that contained woody vegetation did not exceed 30% of the total lek area. Similarly, Moyles (1989) found a negative correlation with increased in aspen trees (Populus tremuloides) on lekking sites and the number of displaying males present. Trees may provide perches for avian predators but further work needs to be done on the effects of woody plant encroachment.

Status and conservation
These birds are increasing in numbers and are listed as least concern.

title: Sharp-tailed grouse


text:
Saguache

The place name "Saguache" found in the Southern Rocky Mountains of North America is pronounced. This name derives from the Ute language noun "sawup" meaning "sand dunes". The Spanish language version of this name found in the San Luis Closed Basin is usually spelled "Saguache", while the English language version found north of the basin is usually spelled "Sawatch".

United States

 * Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Colorado, United States
 * Saguache, Colorado, United States
 * Saguache County, Colorado, United States
 * Saguache Creek, Colorado, United States
 * Saguache Peak, Colorado, United States
 * Sawatch Mountains, Colorado, United States
 * Sawatch Range, Colorado, United States
 * Sawatch Uplift, Colorado, United States

title: Saguache


text:
Königsaue

The town of Königsaue in the district Aschersleben-Staßfurt, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany was destroyed in the course of opencast lignite mining in 1964. The inhabitants were resettled to the town of Neu-Königsaue, ca. 1 km north of the former location.

Palaeolithic site
Königsaue is also a middle palaeolithic find spot. It dates to about 80.000 BP, the Eemian (Ipswichian) interglacial. The site most probably was a seasonal hunting camp at the shore of lake Aschersleben that was completely drained at the beginning of the 18th century by an order of Friedrich II. It was discovered in 1963 by Dieter Mania during rescue excavations in the course of lignite mining (opencast mine Königsaue 1, 1918 – 1977) in a depth of 17 m.

Stratigraphy
Three settlement layers can be distinguished, separated by limnic sediments. The first layer (A) is dated to the beginning of the interstadial. The vegetation is still turning to boreal, an open steppe type habitat, the pollen assemblage dominated by grasses. Layer C coincides with the climatic optimum. Tree pollen rise to 70%, birch and pine dominate.

Finds
Ca. 6000 flints have been excavated, including a few bifacially worked knives (Keilmesser) and small pointed hand axes of Micoquien type (Faustkeilblätter). The bifacial tools are most common in layer A, while prepared cores are typical for layer B. Numerous unretouched blades and small debitage point to intense local tool production. The site may have been used as a base camp. In layer C bifacial tools again predominate. Layers A and C belong to the Micoquien, B to the Mousterian. Animal bones show that Mammoth, woolly haired rhino, horses, red deer and reindeer were hunted. Some pieces of worked wood have been preserved as well.

Pitch
The most famous finds from Königsaue are two pieces of birch-pitch (layers A and B), one of which shows the partial finger-print of a Neanderthal. It shows the impression of a piece of wood as well and was thus used for hafting a composite tool. It is the oldest evidence for the use of chemical processes (dry destillation) up to now (=2004). The pieces are black, of a longish shape and show traces of kneading. Chemical analysis (gas-chromatography) confirm the identification as birch-pitch (presence of betulin).

The bigger piece shows impressions of a retouched stone artefact and of a split piece of wood, most probably a wooden haft of a bifacial tool. There are weak traces of finger-prints, but the whorl-pattern could not be identified.

title: Königsaue


text:
Herbert Danby

Herbert Danby (20 January 1889 – 29 March 1953) was an Anglican priest and writer who played a central role in the change of attitudes toward Judaism in the first half of the twentieth century.

Education
Danby was educated at Church Middle Class School, Leeds and Keble College, Oxford. He was a Holroyd Musical Scholar, and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists in 1907. He retained a lifelong passionate interest in music, and also in golf.

Danby had a distinguished career at Oxford, winning the Junior Septuagint Prize, the Pusey and Ellerton Scholarship, the Houghton Syriac Prize and a Senior Kennicott Scholarship. He achieved a first class degree in Oriental Languages, and was awarded an MA in 1914. His studies continued after he started work, and he was made a Doctor of Divinity in 1923, partly for his translation Tractate Sanhedrin, Mishna and Tosefta, published in 1919.

Early career
Danby became a Deacon in 1913, and worked as Curate of the Parish of Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire. Ordained as a priest in 1914, he became Subwarden of St Deiniol's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, 1914-9.

Jerusalem
In 1919, Danby moved to Jerusalem to become Librarian of St. George's Cathedral. He was Residentiary Canon there, 1921–36. From 1923, he was Dean of the Palestine Board of Higher Studies and The Times Correspondent for Palestine and Transjordan. From 1928, he was Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Jerusalem.

He was editor of the Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society from 1920, and President of that Society in 1934. He engaged in the study of Jewish literature, and published his English translation of the Mishnah in 1933, the first ever complete translation of the Mishnah into English. He also translated a remarkable work by Joseph Klausner entitled Jesus of Nazareth.

Oxford
In 1936, he returned to Oxford as Regius Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church. He was Grinfield Lecturer on the Septuagint, 1939–43, Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Monmouth, 1939–41 and Treasurer of Christ Church Cathedral from 1943.

He assisted in the Yale Translation of the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides.

His contributions to the decline of antisemitism in intellectual circles in the twentieth century was very significant. He was at work revising his translation of Maimonides' Book of Cleanness when he finally succumbed to his fatal illness. Among his close friends were Professor Godfrey Rolles Driver of Oxford University and Rabbi Dr. Isidore Epstein of Jews' College, London.

Publications

 * The Jew and Christianity, 1927
 * The Sixty-three Tractates of the Mishnah, translated with Introduction, etc., published in December,1933 (ISBN 0-19-815402-X)
 * English and Modern Hebrew Dictionary, 1939
 * The Book of Offerings, Moses Maimonides, Julian Obermann, in December 1950; ISBN 0-300-00398-6
 * The Book of Cleanness, Moses Maimonides, Julian Obermann, was published in December 1954, ISBN 0-300-00397-8

Translations from the Hebrew

 * Joseph Klausner's Jesus of Nazareth, 1925
 * History of Modern Hebrew Literature, 1932
 * H. N. Bialik's, And it Came to Pass, Biblical Legends, 1938.

title: Herbert Danby


text:
User:Aelish

Savannah, Georgia

Not an expert at much of anything other than wordsmithing and nit-picking over grammar.

title: User:Aelish


text:
User talk:David Newton/Bird Dispute

< User:David Newton/Bird Dispute

 * The following is a part of the Bird/Brain affair. Please see User talk:Bird/Brain and stuff for more details. Check the page history if it appears to have been blanked or tampered with.
 * Unattributed portions of text on this page are likely left by User:Bird, or an alternate login/anonymous user controlled by the same.
 * This is getting very hard to follow. I'm trying to reorganize this. Fennec 04:45, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sannse's Summary
(previously mistakenly attributed to David Newton)

I think like most of us I don't really understand the roots of this dispute. But a couple of points seem at least possible:
 * "Bird" is an account set up to test the review process of Wikipedia.
 * Some of Bird contributions may be inaccurate or plagiarism and designed to test whether this would be noticed by the Wikipedia community.
 * Bird was angered by discussion of image placement rather than what he/she saw as the important issues of accuracy review.
 * Bird wishes to remove all his/her contributions.
 * That claim is contravened by the record of Bird's activities in reverting articles. A careful review might reveal Bird's level of self-doubt roughly correlated with the rising level of accusations that the users earlier well-intended and high quality work product was in fact an effort to sabotage a community.
 * In order to facilitate this, Bird is claiming all his contributions are inaccurate or plagiarism (and in some cases is claiming other's work as part of this).
 * Bird is reverting in a damaging and indiscriminate way (blanking pages etc.)

A reply (by Bird?)
''' I'm not sure exactly who wrote this, but I'm fairly sure it was Bird. -- Fennec 04:45, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC) '''

By the time one finishes reading this list, it is easy to forget David Newton introduced the allegations by stating that he did not know what is going on and that he was only speculating.

Since this is a time sensitive statement, a passive voice cannot accurately describe the process. User bird has been active and innactive and there have been times when a user logged in as Bird was as combative as were those who boasted on their user pages about their roles in combat but no damage has been to the database, to the software or to the servers. Whoever wrote the articles signed Bird might currently be contributing to pages and intervening and resolving disputes elsewhere at wikipedia, about which User:David Newton would know nothing.

Those bullet points make it much easier to grasp the plausibility of what you claim, but it appears you have configured the page so as to put your conjecture ahead of any statements that summarize what the user said about the users motivation. It is not difficult to read the user's replies and trace a change of conscience about the level of accuracy in the stories. The user repeatedly attributed the lack of confidence in accuracy to specific incidents of disinterest by editors that claimed to be interested in the topic.

That is the historic summary of the users own account of their motivation in this matter, available in the collection of texts in this campaign to react to user Bird's effort to do exactly what is being proposed as the outcome of this matter - that the articles be reverted to the elementary and grossly flawed tomes the encylopedia offered before Bird offered to service the community.

The user habit makes it obvious the user apparently contributed in good faith articles intended to advance human understanding of the human organism. There is no basis to imply any other motive, regardless salient proffers of malicious motives.

If this user is the professional writer it appears to be from the scope, detail and accuracy of the material, questions about the provinence of its own work product would be routine. To publically pose those topics is to call the question that these articles have been developed with little expressed concern for accuracy or content beyond placement of some bawdy images the user appears to have been experimenting with.

The user appears to have placed those who found compliance so important in a tactical quandry, by refusing to validate content. Others can either speculate about motivation or attempt to discover motivation. It appears the former option was chosen.

It appears there has been little effort to explore the user's interest in validation of content, but a large interest in assuring the user's compliance with the will of others. I found no record of anyone asking what the user meant when the user testified to doubts about the originality of the content. There was no discussion of how much material is original, no asking for sources, the user was at once trusted to contribute profound articles on the funciton of the human brain, and privately scorned by an editor who stated he beleived the user habit to reveal a mania. (the accusing editor exhibits a similar usage pattern).

The tactical quandry forces those who attempted to control the users actions to repudiate content they once appreciated, offending not only anatomy articles, but profound revisions of articles in which Wikipedia had displayed an abusive naivitee toward minority communities. Neither does Wikipedia know the provinence of these articles, either before or after the editor in question began making edits. Wikipedia knows little about the provinence of any of its content, except for the faith it maintains with its members, and one apparently profound contributor demonstrated when the user felt other editors were acting in bad faith.

There is no evidence that the outcome was preplanned, and it is probably a reason to question the intervenor that the solution offered is bases on speculation that contravenes the offended user's statement about why the user lost confidence in material earlier submitted, and in the provinence of material in the encyclopedia in general.

 * This site states at the very top of the page that anyone including you can edit an article now and repeatedly states that user names are not required, and I assert that invitation when I contribute this review unsigned.

Sannse's plan
It seems to me that the best solution for Wikipedia is to agree to the removal of all Birds work. There is a risk that inaccuracies are there, and with the technical nature of the work it will be difficult to separate out the accurate facts. Yes, we would be loosing a lot of potentially good stuff, but I think it's worth that to resolve the problem. After all, with Wikipedia's amazing growth rate one person's contributions can soon be replaced!

The main argument against this as far as I can see is that it would be setting a bad precedent. We don't want every disgruntled ex-user insisting on us removing all their contributions. And, after all, by submitting his edits Bird agreed to them being licensed under GFDL.

 * We revert these to the last version before Bird and replace any contributions by other Wikipedians.
 * Where an article has only been worked on by Bird we replace it with a short stub, verifying any information in that stub.
 * We blank and list for deletion any "Bird only" articles that we cannot verify.
 * In all articles we replace any information that we have personally verified, noting this on talk or in the edit comment.
 * While this process is progressing, we protect any articles that are being reverted in a damaging way by Bird - protection can be removed to allow controlled reversion and replacing verified information.

There is a list of the articles concerned at User:Sannse/List of Bird articles

Comments? --sannse (talk) 12:18, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

David Newton's suggestion
That sounds relatively reasonable. However, I would be disinclined to replace content that can be verified with stubs unless we have to. I agree with removing content that cannot be verified, but to remove content that can be verified would indeed set a dangerous precedent. I also think that if we are to remove the content, then it should be done through the normal Wikipedia channels, ie votes for deletion. That was the thing that most annoyed me about Bird's attitude: the refusal to follow Wikipedia norms. As for protecting articles, I've done a lot of that already, but I might not have covered everything. David Newton 14:17, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes, I should have said "Where an article has only been worked on by Bird we replace it with a short stub or verified article, checking all information before including it." (perhaps you can word this better)

 * I also agree deletions should go through VfD, we need to be sure people know of the history though - or it will seem that we are asking for deletion of what appear to be perfectly resonable articles. -- sannse (talk) 15:08, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * I agree with this and made similar suggestions on my talk page. Note that it will take a long time, as whatever one thinks of Bird, s/he is a hard worker and has contributed thousands of edits over the last few weeks. Note that there is no guarantee that this will resolve the issue (from the point of view of Bird/Raptor/Socal etc.) He/She/They will probably continue in the same way. Washington irving 16:03, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

there is no way it will resolve the issue. When you start revertin edits that to write an encyclopedia that says a pueblo is a mud hut, you will start an edit war with people bird never dreamed existed. "You're other option is to treat bird with respect and hope bird regains some respect for you. Because all the time you are reverting, any new user name can be bird or somebody that learned similar tactics. Bird could have other identities, and could begin a pogrom of repudiation that could start a landslide. Better to admit you offended another writer, spend a few days back from the scene and see what happens. It should be more than apparent the user has all the capacity to play any way it chooses and you probably would rather have this camel pissing inside the tent than outside, if you know that old metaphor.

That is essenetially a threat intended to affect the politics of personal destruction and it is absolutely reasonable to think the user would find ways to challenge the offense.

An Alternate Discussion
Hey. I was unaware of this spiffy little page/discussion archive that you have set up until I noticed a link on the Pump (under something about User:Bad faith, whom I had just begun to consider connecting with this affair). As a result, I independently moved the content to User talk:Bird/Brain and stuff, and distributed general notices regarding the affair pointing to that page, to those who have been involved. I have since updated that page to direct users here, and I'm thinking of making it into a redirect instead- I'd welcome thoughts on this plan. And in the event that Bird blanks it again, here's a quick link to my comments and summary from the page history. -- Fennec 14:48, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * A redirect would solve the duplication, might be a good idea. This is quite a confusing set of events! The redirect could be in the other direction if that's preferred by all -- sannse (talk) 15:08, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Users involved in this dispute
The background to this dispute is quite difficult to trace as it spans several pages in the main, talk, user and user_talk namespaces. To get the full picture you need to refer to the contributions and edit histories for the following users:

 * User:SoCal
 * User:Bird
 * User:Washington irving
 * User:Lexor
 * User:Fennec
 * User:David Newton
 * User:Raptor
 * User:Bad Faith
 * User:Accuracy dispute
 * ...your name here...

Note that in many cases the current versions of talk pages etc. have been edited. It is necessary to refer to the histories to get the whole picture. I wonder if this dispute has its roots in earlier disputes. User:Bird first signed up on 22 February. His first contribution to the disputed Brain page took place the following day. User:SoCal first signed up on 11 Feb. User:Washington irving signed up 1 Feb. Washington irving 16:58, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Chatter from the village pump
I am finding it hard to deal with the unreasonable personal attacks from this user or users (see my talk page and those of the pages to which I have contributed). Do I have any support. What should I do, because I feel like quitting? Washington irving 07:35, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Why do you think they're the same person? Oh, and a quick look says thatBad faith appears to be living up to the username. Check user contributions.  Isomorphic 08:02, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * It appears Bad Faith is throwing down more truth than Isomorphic cares to tolerate.Bad faith

 * I am not sure that they are all the same user. For more information, check out the talk pages/histories of the following pages:

And see below... Washington irving 08:16, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * User_talk:Washington_irving
 * Brain
 * Human brain
 * List of regions in the human brain
 * User_talk:Bird
 * News_management
 * Attribution (journalism)

Personal attacks by Bad faith removed by Angela.

 * NOT. Legitimate participation censored by Angela from England, who rarely contributes anything of substance and only shows up to interject herself when there is conflict and she has an opportunity to take sides. Angela should recuse herself from this conversation, or at least restrict her activities to contributing her bizarre comments and "STOP CENSORING OTHER PEOPLE" The British Empire is OVER, honey.

 * Bird and SoCal look to me like the same person. The others I do not know. Pfortuny 08:32, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Please see User:David Newton/Bird Dispute and the talk page User talk:David Newton/Bird Dispute for talk on the problem and suggested solution -- sannse (talk) 12:28, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * the comments USER:Angela deleted were exactly germaine to this discussion. Washington irving is the sole editor and author of pages that are plainly point of view and have no basis in scholarly research. The pages were laced with links to another left-leaning site which in turn is networked to direct-mail fundraising efforts of Democrat organizations.

 * While Irving was busy creating those political pages, at least one of which is buried in comments about bias and lack of foundation, he overlooked for several months patently erronious information on a brain page he claimed to be watching. When someone showed up to correct the errors, Irving still stood back. He later explained that he thought bird was insane and was afraid to collaborate in an open editorial process with bird, who was writing several profound articles that still don't rise to Bird's high expectations for accuracy, despite Birds earilier best efforts.

 * Yet, admittedly beleiving insensitive interaction might seem abrasive to another user, Irving chose not to go to battle over something substantive, like whether the cerebellum is part of the archipallium, an issue bird was tediously trying to sort out, but rather, Washington Irving felt he was better qualified to wake up and make a snap judgement about image placement with images Bird had been studying and experimenting with for several hours. Washington Irving's position, like that of slanderer David Newton, is that Bird is insane and that they have no obligation to consider Birds concerns. Would that bother bird? Has lack of consideration ever stopped Bird from delivering a message? I doubt it.

 * So now Irving and Newton are down here campaigning against a contributor and Newton has the pages locked in a status in which at least Irving knows there are gross errors. I wonder if there is a reason some people might want Wikipedia readers to remain ignorant of science but be interested in political writing? Bird

Bird's reply to the proposed solution
Yeh, I've looked at David's proposed solution, and it would never work. It assumes dismissing that a human was motivated to sign valuable contributions with a name he is now trying to discredit will stop the user from advancing their concern.

The alternate solution would be to unlock the pages, quit tampering with the user's account, allow the user to remove what portion of the the contribution the user has no confidence in, including images.

A way to avoid recurrances would be to leave the user alone unless the challenger can phrase a credible question about the provinence of the content of articles, and about how the material is arranged and presented.

It appears the episode arose when bird began selectively pruning earlier contributions. Other editors complained at their inability to control Birds action, but at that time, bird was selectively pruning birds own work, and responding with honest answers when others demanded an explanation.

The so called damage has been primarily the manner in which user identities related to bird have edited user talk pages. These have been responses to accusations and actions by members who have no interest in the matter accept to chase so called vandals. User bird is as likely to confront this sort of behaviro using that user name as any other.

Deleting the articles in ignorance only compounds the ignorance about which bird so loudly complained. Open the account, stop meddling with the user and let the user decide what of the user's work should be there if nobody else can offer a valid reason it should be there or it should go. Any other behavior is a personal attack against the user and an affront to the faith presented in the claim that anyone can edit an article.

(comments below added by two non-loged in users (64.81.204.135, later editied by 195.137.69.149) . Replaced by sannse on restoring the above deleted discussion -- sannse (talk) 18:17, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC))

Middle class liberal racists are more dangerous than any night riding Klan mob ever dreamed of being. No non-violent tactic is off limits when confronting liberal racists, who have the political savy to implement what Klansman could never do with a rope.

If you racists are so determined to restrain this writer and speak on thier behalf, you should probably start by deleting navaho nation pueblo and native american. When the articles are reverted to their original racist form from to reflect native americans as something from the past that is not relevant today, that describe native american music strictly in white anthropologists terms, and that say pueblos are mud huts, then the Red Youth Faction can see the true color of racists that are behind this project. Yes, let your hateful heart delete tribal sovereignty.

Either respect other writers and give them some space to realize human emotions, or expect to be confronted in kind with tragic parody of your own know-it-all, our-kind-should-rule-the-world behavior.

(comments by 200.32.83.74 restored by sannse (talk) 19:17, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC))

Episode identified as symptomatic of racism at Wikipedia
A mob of Wikiracists is threatening to delete parts of Native American, Pueblo and Navajo Nation out of revenge against a contributor who refused to play their way by promising complete confidence in several detailed neuroanatomy articles.

Liberal racists are more dangerous than any night riding Klansman because Liberal racists have the political savy to enforce their paternalistic will. These racists are unable to recognize their oppressive behavior because they do not appreciate personal boundaries that give an individual, not a peer group, sole authority over an individuals opinions.

If they intend to begin deleting articles on cultural conflicts, they should start with tribal sovereignty. That would be to delete the only document available in the publc domain that accurately describes the legal status of Native Americans. The other articles would be reduced to racist, naive and misleading tomes that existed before a very concerned author came along and corrected the articles. After that, you could go on a witch hunt in an effort to identify the hundreds of other articles this author created under different user names and ISPs.

Anyone who cares to mediate or resolve this dispute would need to recognize both parties beleive the other opened the door to disregard of personal boundaries, though the wikimob probably claims it was their group boundaries that were violated by not consenting to ad hoc group demands.

 * I don't know if I'm talking to Bird or not here. But I wanted to make another attempt at communicating.  I made the above suggestions because I hoped it would be a win-win situation.  Bird's contributions would be removed as s/he appears to want, but in a way that kept others in the Wikipedia community happy.  I would be very happy to modify the suggestion to relate only to Brain and related articles if that is any help.  We certainly need accurate and informative articles on Native American etc. and I'm not advocating deleting any articles that Bird is happy with.  Maybe I can make another suggestion: if Bird would be willing to communicate with me privately perhaps I could act as mediator here.  I said before that I felt mediation wouldn't help, but perhaps I was too hasty and mistaken in that.  The e-mail link on my user page is valid.  If Bird prefers not to use e-mail we could set up a page for discussions separate from all the current conversations.  Or we could use the mediation bulletin board.  I would genuinely like to help here and to try and find solutions that everyone can feel happy with.  -- sannse (talk) 19:17, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)~

title: User talk:David Newton/Bird Dispute


text:
Kerry Jones

Kerry Lyn Jones (born 19 April 1956) is the current executive director of the Constitution Education Fund Australia (CEFA).

Following a Bachelor of Music in 1977 and a Diploma of Education in 1978, Jones taught music in Sydney high schools. In 1985 she was appointed by the NSW Education Department as Performing Arts Consultant (K-12) for the Riverina Region. Her work included teacher training and syllabus implementation, bi-centenary and other special music projects such as regional bands and choirs, and special arts projects including working with indigenous Australians on the far west border of NSW. She later completed a Master of Educational Administration.

From 1990 to 1993, Jones was chief executive officer of the National Association of Nursing Homes and Private Hospitals.

In 1994 Jones was appointed executive director of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy following The Hon. Tony Abbott stepping down from the post, due to being elected to the Federal Parliament. In 1998 she was elected as a member of the Australian Constitutional Convention 1998. As leader of ACM, she defended the Australian Constitution, saying "no republic model will ever offer the protection and safeguards that work so well in our current Constitution". She said her task was to "assess each republican model against the Constitution that has served us so well". She told the convention:

I [became] a constitutional monarchist—not out of my love of English blood, for my blood is actually Irish; not out of birth in the Protestant establishment, for I am actually a Catholic; not out of enthusiasm for all things royal, for I have little interest in such trivia. I had become a constitutional monarchist because I was persuaded, as was Michael Kirby, that the system of government bequeathed to us by our founders is superior to any republican models proposed.

In 1999 she was appointed by the Federal Government to chair the “No Case Committee” for the 1999 Australian republic referendum, ultimately leading the “No Case” to a successful result. By leading the campaign against a Republic, Jones became a public figure and was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2000.

In 2001 Jones was appointed executive director of the Constitution Education Fund Australia (CEFA). Devoted to nonpartisan Civics, Citizenship and Values Education Programs, Projects and Awards the CEFA charity empowers young Australians to become knowledgeable, responsible and engaged participants in the Australian community. Kerry sees her community work with CEFA as vital for the future of an informed and vibrant Australian democracy. Kerry now devotes her full-time work to this community cause and sees her primary life work as an educationalist.

Jones is the publisher and editor of Aboriginal Arts in Transition (1989), The No Case Papers (1999), The Australian Constitutional Monarchy (1994), The ACM Handbook (1996) and The People's Protest (2000).

title: Kerry Jones


text:
Talk:Epping Forest

Map
Google Maps names the location pointed at as Great Monk Woods. It does not show where Epping Forest is. Could someone who knows add a diagram to show where the Forest is and its extent. QuentinUK (talk) 04:59, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I've had a rather crude stab at it - the first time I've tried this sort of thing, so I won't be offended if anyone can do better. Also, I was unsure how to include it in the infobox; if anyone can assist, I'll be very grateful.

 * BTW QuentinUK, Great Monk Wood is at the very heart of Epping Forest, so it's as good a place as anywhere to use as a location. As you can see, the Forest is a long straggly affair, almost continuous apart from the northern-most section above Epping. Perhaps we could do with a section detailing the various constituent areas of the Forest - maybe when there's a rainy day. Alansplodge (talk) 18:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Cattle Grazing and BSE
I have removed the "citation needed" tag from the sentance which states that cattle grazing by commoners ended in 1996 due to the BSE crisis. A consultation document produced by the City Corporation confirms this but does not explain why. My understanding is that cattle were turned out in the Forest for beef production. New BSE regulations meant that cattle had to be slaughtered before a certain age and they would fatten too slowly by forest grazing to meet this deadline. The search for a reference continues. Alansplodge (talk) 20:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge Image
The current image is take from the front of the house, in a pose that makes the historical nature of the building hard to discern (the beams having been painted over, and the setting not visible). Can I suggest use of this image, which is free for use (if attributed) and gives a much more accurate impression of the significance of the building. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1524048 (I have little experience with editing wikipedia, and am worried I'll do something wrong if I try and put this image up myself) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.86.158.102 (talk) 13:40, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree and the photo is on Commons at so I have added it. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:10, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Size confusion
I apologise if this is an error, but it seems to me that it is unclear as to whether Epping forest is 1728 hectares (in infobox) or 2400 as shown at the top of the article. 1728 hectares are SSSI, but it is quite confusing as it displays on google snippets as area of 1728. Is there a way to make it clearer? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anish Mariathasan (talk • contribs) 19:21, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

 * The first source describes the forest as "about 2400 hectares" with a further comment that describes the SSSI designation applying to "two thirds". On that basis, I'd think it would be supportable to change the infobox to match the lead.  — jmcgnh  (talk) (contribs)  20:31, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I have amended infobox; feel free to change it if it doesn't fit the bill. Alansplodge (talk) 13:32, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed - good change. Heptanitrocubane (talk) 20:32, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

title: Talk:Epping Forest


text:
File:LibertarianzLogo.png

Summary
The uploader believes that the image qualifies as "fair use" for Libertarianz:
 * Wikipedia can't create its own version of this image - the whole point of having the image is to show what Libertarianz uses as its logo, and so the creation of our own image defeats the purpose. The image is not an image of what we want - it is what we want.
 * The image is widely distributed by Libertarianz itself, and is already available for free from many sources. Libertarianz loses nothing by having the logo displayed in Wikipedia. Wikipedia's use of the image does not in any way detract from the image's worth or value to Libertarianz.

title: File:LibertarianzLogo.png


text:
Wicksteed Park

Wicksteed Park is a Grade II listed park in Kettering, Northamptonshire, England, which includes an amusement park within its grounds. The park is located in the south-east of Kettering, on the western edge of Barton Seagrave village. The park is owned by the Wicksteed Charitable Trust, with the amusement park being run by its trading subsidiary company Wicksteed Park Ltd (replaced by Wicksteed Trading Ltd after going into administration in 2020).

Foundation
The park was founded by Charles Wicksteed, a wealthy industrialist who owned the engineering works of Charles Wicksteed & Co. Ltd in Kettering. In 1913 he purchased the meadowland, which was part of the Barton Seagrave Hall estate, with the intention of building a model village for his workers, to be called the Barton Seagrave Garden Suburb Estate. The Wicksteed Village Trust was set up to run the enterprise. After World War I, when local authorities were building public housing, Wicksteed decided instead to create a park with leisure facilities for local people, with refreshments and attractions, for which a modest charge was made, funding the provision of a free playground and sporting facilities.

The first playground equipment, manufactured by Wicksteed's company, had been installed in 1917 and an artificial lake fed by the Ise Brook was constructed in 1921, with the park officially opened that year. By 1926 the park had a pavilion and theatre building, a rose garden, a water chute, bandstand, and fountain. The water chute was designed by Charles Wicksteed and a few years later was given a new roof. Barton Seagrave Hall was purchased by Charles Wicksteed in 1928. In 1931 a railway track was built around the edge of the lake. Charles Wicksteed died in 1931 and the Wicksteed Village Trust continued his work, adding features and facilities to the park.

Development
The park continued to develop during the 1930s with the addition of a golf course, toy shop and aviary. A tunnel was added to the railway. The park attracted a record 40,000 visitors on August bank holiday Monday in 1935. During World War II the park remained partially open, with American troops billeted in the pavilion. Improvement continued in the 1950s, with the opening of a cinema, a miniature car track, a pets corner and an ice cream factory. In 1969 a new office and administration block was built. The 1970s saw the addition of a nature trail, a skateboarding rink and a ferris wheel. In April 1980 the park played host to the It's a Knockout television show and also added the iconic double pirate ship. Attendance had fallen during the 1970s but had recovered to an annual 750,000 visitors by 1982. Two roller coasters, nautic jets, a cup and saucer ride and a pedal cycle monorail were added during the 1990s.

Twenty-first century

A mascot for the park, Wicky Bear, was acquired in 2000. The park hosts the local weekly parkrun and an annual fireworks display. During the display in November 2005, eleven people were injured in an accident when a firework shot into the crowd.

In 2012 the park received over £1 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund towards the cost of restoration of the lake. Northamptonshire County Council and Kettering Borough Council also helped fund the work, which was completed in 2014. Barton Seagrave Hall was sold in 2012 to help fund the park.

In 2013 the BBC Children in Need event for BBC East was held here and had one of the choirs shown on the nation wide Children in Need Choir

On the Great Celebrity Bake Off for SU2C (Stand Up 2 Cancer), comedian James Acaster made a baked replica of Wicksteed Park for his Showstopper challenge.

In 2016 the water chute at Wicksteed Park was given Grade II listed building status. At the end of the 2016 season, Wicksteed Park made the decision to close the double pirate ship due to high maintenance costs. The ride was sold to a businessman from Bulgaria.

Wicksteed Park was awarded a further £1.78 million by the National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2018 for a project to preserve the park's history.

In March 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic forced the closure of the attractions in the park, and in June 2020 Wicksteed Park Ltd announced that it had gone into administration. An appeal to save the amusement park raised £130,000 in donations from the public and £247,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. A new company, Wicksteed Trading Ltd, was set up and bought most of the park's assets. The outdoor space was reopened in July 2020, with attractions and rides starting to open in the spring of 2021. An official reopening was scheduled for May 2021.

Wicksteed Park Railway
The narrow gauge Wicksteed Park railway is one of the features of the park. Over 15 million people have taken to its rails since it first opened in 1931. It was the last feature of the park to be added during the lifetime of the park's founder Charles Wicksteed and is supported by the Friends of the Wicksteed Park Railway.

title: Wicksteed Park